euro|topics - Europe faced with terrorist threat

04/07/2009

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Main focus of Friday, April 13, 2007

Europe faced with terrorist threat

The terrorist bombings perpetrated this week in Morocco and Algeria have revived fears of terrorist attacks in Europe and instigated renewed debate in several countries on how to prevent them.

Libération - France

The editorialist Gérard Dupuy considers that "for France, the 'al-qaedisation' of Algerian Islamist terrorism cannot reinforce the diffuse threat that is already threatening it. It has already been subjected to certain collateral exactions of Algerian terrorism and it is still considered a potential target by Al-Qaeda. There is no magic solution. The humble police prevention that has so far given positive results should be held in place. ... If the terrorist bombings in Algeria have any effect on the French election campaign, it will only be very mechanical, playing into the hands of the likes of Sarkozy and Le Pen who have used fear as one of their favourite topics. This is why reactions have been tempered, everybody being aware of the fallibility of the safety net. To exaggerate the threat would be to act as terrorists want us to, without doing anything at all to stop them." (13/04/2007)

ABC - Spain

"Spain is a very vulnerable country today", writes the analyst Rafael Bardaji, an expert in international relations. "It is very vulnerable for two reasons: Firstly, because it remains in the line of fire of international jihadism, and secondly because the government hasn't prepared itself enough to face up to this permanent threat and has not educated the population in order to resist it. On the contrary, in the eyes of our enemies, we are weaker than ever at the moment. Al-Qaeda is not an inoffensive organisation that is contented to instil fear by brandishing ominous names. It has demonstrated on several occasions that it intends to act and that, when it can it does so without showing the least compassion. ... Spain is vulnerable and it will become more so every day under this government. It is this weakness that most spurs the terrorists. Mr Rodriguez Zapatero has forced us down on our knees in the face of terror." (13/04/2007)

Süddeutsche Zeitung - Germany

Thomas Hauschild, an ethnologist from Tübingen who conducts research at the Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin, interprets the terrorist attacks in Algiers as the fruit of a new collaboration between Al-Qaeda and the Algerian terrorist network GIA. In his opinion, the West has "overlooked the expansion of the fighting zone to the European Mediterranean region". "In the initial phase Al-Qaeda relied entirely on the naked language of terror. There were no announcements or explanations. Today they inform us in detailed communiqués about the meaning and purpose of their attacks. The Al-Qaeda network has developed into an alternative public sphere in which people are constantly forming an opinion about the West and trying to communicate with it. A year ago, a German-language website started to broadcast the long-winded addresses of mass murderers, and there was no attempt to stop this. And yet there is no public debate about these addresses and provocations in the West." Hauschild ends with an appeal to the European public, both Christian and Muslim: "Only a self-aware new 'we' made up of the immigrant and the native population, Christians, Muslims and true 'infidels', can find the right answers to the questions Al-Queda is asking us." (13/04/2007)