Radicalising wave crosses the Atlantic

Radicalising wave crosses the Atlantic
By Stephen Fidler
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: July 5 2007 03:00 | Last updated: July 5 2007 03:00


There is little doubt from the rhetoric of al-Qaeda's leadership that the US remains its number one target. But the greatest risk of being killed by a terrorist is elsewhere.

The wave of radicalisation of young Muslims triggered by September 11 2001 and its aftermath has washed up on the other side of the Atlantic, leaving the countries of Europe as the western societies most at risk.

Within Europe, the UK appears to face the gravest threat. For the fourth successive year, British police and security services have been overwhelmed by the number and scale of the plots they have encountered. Peter Clarke, Britain's top anti-terrorism policeman, overspent his £100m budget last year by £21m.

In 2004, for the first time, the security services began to hear British groups talking of suicide attacks, and the discovery of two big plots turned the focusaway from north African groups and towards home-grown terrorists. Suicide bombers scored their first success on London's transport system the following year.

Polls show at least 100,000 people support terrorist attacks in the UK. Officials concede that they face a greater problem than any other country in Europe.

They describe a highly organised process of radicalisation among some British Muslims. Radicalisation is taking place in prisons, universities, mosques and perhaps even, as the failed attacks of the past week suggest, in hospitals.

The scale of the threat is amplified, officials say, by the ability of the radicals to travel to Pakistan.

Some 400,000 journeys are made there every year from Britain. The Pakistani government may be right in saying the problem is British - because most home-grown terrorists appear to be radicalising in the UK. But training in Pakistan may give lethality to their ambitions. Without bomb-making expertise gained in Pakistan by Mohammed Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, the gang's suicide packs might never have exploded in London on July 7 2005.

The picture in continental Europe is different. There, say specialists, the threat comes less from the links with Pakistan and more from north Africa.

Anxieties about the seriousness of this threat have grown since last September 11, when Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's number two, announced the formation of al-Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb. Into this new group would be subsumed Algeria's Salafist Group for Call and Combat, known by its French initials, GSPC.

According to Baltasar Garzón, aSpanish judge and terrorism expert, the announcement suggests an attempt by al-Qaeda to regionalise struggles largely conducted previously by groups operating within national boundaries.

"I believe the biggest jihadist threat to continental Europe - not least for Spain - is al-Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb [AQIM]," he said in May. "It's clear that investigations in various European countries show the most active groups - practically the only ones active in this field - are those with connections to the Maghreb."

He said the threat to Spain became clearer on December 20 2006 when Mr Zawahiri described the Spanish enclaves in Morocco of Ceuta and Melilla "as territory occupied by the crusaders that should be reclaimed by Islam".

According to the US-based Jamestown Institute, a group calling itself Ansar al-Islam in the MuslimDesert said on June 28 it would work alongside AQIM to "regain the lands of Andalusia", referring to the parts of the Iberian peninsula that were conquered by Muslims in the eighth century.

It was the second statement from the previously unknown group. Although there is no indication it was more than propaganda, it will reinforce concerns in Spain that it is among the chief targets in Europe for al-Qaeda. Those fears are echoed in France andItaly.

Jean-Louis Bruguière, a French judge, said last month Iraq was now playing the role that Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya all have done in the past: as a training ground for jihadists.

"We are up against a new generation. These are Islamists from Europe and the Maghreb . . sent to Iraq to fight but also to train and commit attacks in Europe."