Activating
the Sleepers: Islamic State Adopts a New Strategy in Europe
By Christoph Reuter in Beirut
March 29, 2016 – 03:14 PM
Last
week's attacks in Brussels show that Islamic State has built up a
sophisticated network of terrorists that goes well beyond al-Qaida's
capabilities. It is now able to strike using sleepers who have not
yet been identified by security officials.
They chose the
perfect moment. Just as Europe was letting out a sigh of relief,
having captured one of the Paris terrorists after months of pursuit,
the bombers detonated their explosives. The signal sent by the arrest
was that Islamic State (IS) is defeatable. But the Brussels attack
tells us that isn't the case. Just when you think you've beaten us,
we'll strike you right in the heart.
Investigators and
intelligence agencies both agree that preparations for the attacks in
Brussels must have begun long ago. The Belgian bombs thus heralded a
new approach for Islamic State in Europe -- one that does not bode
well for those trying to prevent acts of terrorism -- because the
threat is no longer limited to individuals known to the police or
already on wanted lists, but also comes from those in the shadows in
the second or third rank. Even jihadists who have not yet been
identified by officials are now capable of striking.
This approach
reflects the one used in IS' main battle grounds of Syria and Iraq.
For some time there, unsuspected aggressors, who have been discreetly
trained, have infiltrated targeted circles and built up long-term
sleeper cells. Or men from regions neighboring a target are recruited
to wait and attack at the right moment.
Surprisingly
Farsighted
This is a modus
operandi that has been employed by terrorists against prominent and
often well-defended opponents multiple times -- it's how Abu Khalid
al Suri, the Syrian emissary for al-Qaida boss Aiman al-Zawahiri, was
betrayed by one of his own employees and killed in early 2014 by IS
despite all possible protective measures being taken at his top
secret hideout.
A rebel commander
who had fled after Islamic State had taken over Raqqa was abducted by
his own driver in Turkey, who was working under the orders of IS. And
the founder of the secret activist network Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered
Silently was massacred in his apartment in the Turkish city of
Sanliurfa by an IS agent who had infiltrated the opponents months
before, posing as a supporter.
The people behind
this terror are proving to be surprisingly farsighted, patient
planners and not rash actors -- and this applies in both Europe and
Syria. This is the new and long underestimated side of IS.
The length Islamic
State goes to in order to install sleeper cells is illustrated by a
lesser-known case -- one in which IS attempted to infiltrate
opposition forces.
Jamil Mahmoud, a
young Kurdish man from Afrin who worked as a furniture painter in
Beirut, was selected to be inserted into the ranks of the People's
Protection Units (YPG) in the northern Syrian district where he had
come from. Once his recruiters were confident enough that he would
act in their interests, Mahmoud was smuggled through the harbor in
Tripoli into Turkey, without ever having to show his passport.
From the sea, he was
driven inland for four hours, the Kurd later told SPIEGEL. "Until
we got to a large, isolated farmhouse. There were around 25 men
there, Arabs and Turks. We were trained in the use of Kalashnikovs
and Glock pistols."
They never left
their camp. But the area of Gaziantep came up often in conversation.
After two months, he was assigned to join the YPG militia in Afrin (a
group close to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK) and told to
await further orders. "They said simply they would always be
nearby and that they would get in contact when it was time to take
action." Mahmoud was driven to the border, whereupon he traveled
to Afrin and joined the militia, as ordered. After a few months,
however, he handed himself in to to the Kurdish authorities -- before
the order to strike came through.
Sleeper Cells in
Europe
IS' behavior is in
many ways more like that of a secret service than of animated
fanatics. Al-Qaida committed its attacks as its raison d'etre, the
result being that there were no subsequent attacks far outside their
usual theaters of war following their acts of violence on New York
and Washington in 2001, on Casablanca, Madrid, Amman and elsewhere.
Al-Qaida had acted, not reacted. But IS appears capable of doing so.
Testimony from
deserters suggests the terror organization began establishing sleeper
cells in multiple European countries early on, in Turkey in
particular. According to the former IS fighters, they are made up of
men who aren't on any watch lists. This enables IS to elude the
vulnerability suffered by many based in Europe -- namely that they
are known terrorists. The biographies of many terrorists are very
similar: an early period of radicalization precedes a period of
preparation just before an attack. By this point, however, many are
already known to the authorities as dangerous and are subsequently
often placed under surveillance. This included the Belgians who, in
January 2015 wanted to attack police stations in Brussels immediately
after the Charlie Hebdo massacre. Apartments, telephones and cars
were bugged -- the authorities always had a clear picture of what was
going on.
Attacks could
repeatedly be thwarted mostly because the aggressors had left behind
traces. Just after the July 2005 attacks on London, a British
investigator warned that investigations placed too little emphasis on
terrorists acting below the security services' radar. At that time,
most of the attention had been focused on "homegrown
terrorists," young men who radicalized themselves without even
coming into contact with the al-Qaida leadership or prominent hate
preachers. This category applied to each of the four men who blew
themselves up in London.
Terrorism has become
more professional since then. IS' masterminds now build up sleeper
cell networks from an early stage in order to attack without
hindrance at any chosen moment. That they are doing so in Syria is
well documented. And that they are doing the same in Europe is very
probable.
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