The recent terrorist attack in the Austrian capital, Vienna, has shown that terrorist organizations are still a problem. These organizations plan to trigger conflicts between the Islamic world and the West. They are always pushing for this.
The criminal attack gave very serious indications that the extremist and terrorist threat is still real. In recent months, counterterrorism efforts have waned against the backdrop of a coronavirus outbreak and global concern about the human and economic losses it has caused in almost every country. Especially in European countries, the epidemic is raging more than in other parts of the world.
Targeting Austria reflects a criminal attempt to widen the ambit of conflict between Islam and the West. Austria, precisely, has not been a battleground in this sense. It has not been embroiled in any incidents or problems linked to controversial positions towards Islam and Muslims. Nor is it a weak link when it comes to security, for terrorism to pick it for target.
So, the choice was likely made according to a carefully prepared plan to set afoot at the right time. The attacks on the Austrian metropolis were carried out simultaneously by several terrorist elements. This denies any connection with the crisis caused by the offensive cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), for the simple reason that such crimes need sufficient time for planning, target setting, information gathering, and selection and training of elements.
All of this is to say that there is an organization behind these attacks. That’s hardly surprising. Daesh and its ilk have the manpower and ideological hotbeds that have allowed them to brainwash young Muslims in these countries and to inflame the conflict in Syria with hundreds, if not thousands, of terrorist fighters.
Reading the events, it could be that terrorism was the big winner in the division of the major powers over how to resolve the Syrian and Libyan crises, and in the lack of vigilance over the geopolitical expansion of regional hegemonic forces in the Middle East, namely Iran’s mullahs and Turkey’s sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Counter-terrorism efforts in Syria have considerably dented. What’s more, everyone remains silent about Turkey’s open cooperation on the ground with extremist and terrorist groups in Syria and Turkey’s sending convoys of terrorists to fight alongside the Libyan entente government with financial backing from Qatar.
The world remained silent on the redeployment of the remains of Daesh after its collapse in Iraq and Syria. Terrorist movements don’t disappear as easily as some people imagine; they are just going underground. Their activity turns into a source of money for their leaders. Some regional parties also try to keep alive and use these organizations to achieve their goals in troubled and unstable zones.
As a result of this silence, whether deliberate or not, these groups are catching their breath after temporarily resorting to underhand work. They activated their sleeper cells in Europe, took advantage of the crisis of the unconscionable caricatures and jumped into the front line to commit their crimes under the pretext of defending Islam and Muslims.
Admittedly, mistakes have been and continue to be made in the fight against terrorism, extremism and hatred that these organizations have managed to spread in many European countries in recent decades, both online and within mosques and associations.
The poor dissemination and consolidation of a culture of coexistence, moderation, acceptance of others and integration into Western societies must also be acknowledged. We should not have made the mistake of welcoming and protecting extremist and terrorist organizations and elements in several Western capitals in the name of preserving freedom of expression and protecting them from prosecution and the lack of democracy in their countries.
Sadly, extremist and terrorist networks have found success in infiltrating Muslim communities in the West. They have taken advantage of the atmosphere of tolerance and freedoms to spread hate speech and have worked to isolate new generations of Muslims from the values of their communities and breed feelings of alienation, to the point where many have become walking time bombs that these organizations can set off at any time.
The bottom line is that the fight against terrorism is a common fight between Muslim and Western countries. Pushing the two sides to confront each other is a prime goal for extremists and terrorists. It is wise and rational for both sides to cooperate and join forces to take up this battle instead of engaging in conflicts that will only serve extremists on both sides.
Combating terrorism and extremism must go forward. The world should not be misled by calls for a clash of civilizations and religious clashes that terrorists and extremists fan. The crimes in Austria and France are a wake-up call to the need for coordinated and cooperative efforts to offset tensions and resume global efforts to eradicate extremism and terrorism at their roots.
