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| Algerian hostage crisis does not mean we are back to dark days of extremism | Algerian hostage crisis does not mean we are back to dark days of extremism |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Since the beginning of the Algerian hostage crisis, David Cameron has repeatedly emphasised the seriousness of the threat such incidents pose. Al-Qaida in the Maghreb and other northern African groups, he has said, pose a "large and existential threat" that is "global [and] … will require a global response … that will last decades". It needs to be "top of the international agenda", he said on Sunday. | |
| Cameron came relatively late to the conflict against Islamic extremism, arriving in Downing Street in 2010, and thus perhaps can be forgiven a lack of perspective. His rhetoric is almost identical to that of British and US leaders in the first years after the 9/11 attacks, a time of great fear and deep ignorance when the threat from Islamic militancy, if often exaggerated, was nonetheless serious. Then there were bombs or other attacks, mass-casualty and otherwise, in Europe, the Maghreb and the Middle East, south Asia and the Far East. | Cameron came relatively late to the conflict against Islamic extremism, arriving in Downing Street in 2010, and thus perhaps can be forgiven a lack of perspective. His rhetoric is almost identical to that of British and US leaders in the first years after the 9/11 attacks, a time of great fear and deep ignorance when the threat from Islamic militancy, if often exaggerated, was nonetheless serious. Then there were bombs or other attacks, mass-casualty and otherwise, in Europe, the Maghreb and the Middle East, south Asia and the Far East. |
| Scores of young Britons were making their way to reconstituted al-Qaida training camps along the Afghan-Pakistan border. Osama bin Laden, opinion polls showed, was at the height of his popularity. | Scores of young Britons were making their way to reconstituted al-Qaida training camps along the Afghan-Pakistan border. Osama bin Laden, opinion polls showed, was at the height of his popularity. |
| In contrast, last year, British intelligence analysts, despite exhaustive efforts, could find no credible threat from Islamic militants to the biggest sporting event held in the UK for decades, the Olympic Games. | In contrast, last year, British intelligence analysts, despite exhaustive efforts, could find no credible threat from Islamic militants to the biggest sporting event held in the UK for decades, the Olympic Games. |
| "If you had told me back in 2005 that we would be where we are today, I'd have thought you were deluded," one said at the time, when discussing the threat posed to London. The US could find no threat during the autumn's presidential campaign either. The Arab spring has certainly opened new opportunities for violence in new areas, reinforcing the obvious point that a phenomenon that has roots in social, political, cultural and religious factors going back decades, if not centuries, in the Islamic world and, crucially, in the Islamic world's relationship with the west, will be with us for a long time to come. But, spectacular as the hostage crisis has been, it does not mean we have returned to the dark days of before. It is because militant attacks have been so infrequent – or at least distant – that this recent episode has had such an impact. Bin Laden is dead, al-Qaida's ability to cause harm greatly reduced, and the local dynamics that now characterise the impossibly fragmented world of contemporary extremism make militant groups resilient but render complex 9/11-type attacks almost impossible to organise. Extremism remains a threat, and an evolving one, but the danger is not "existential". | "If you had told me back in 2005 that we would be where we are today, I'd have thought you were deluded," one said at the time, when discussing the threat posed to London. The US could find no threat during the autumn's presidential campaign either. The Arab spring has certainly opened new opportunities for violence in new areas, reinforcing the obvious point that a phenomenon that has roots in social, political, cultural and religious factors going back decades, if not centuries, in the Islamic world and, crucially, in the Islamic world's relationship with the west, will be with us for a long time to come. But, spectacular as the hostage crisis has been, it does not mean we have returned to the dark days of before. It is because militant attacks have been so infrequent – or at least distant – that this recent episode has had such an impact. Bin Laden is dead, al-Qaida's ability to cause harm greatly reduced, and the local dynamics that now characterise the impossibly fragmented world of contemporary extremism make militant groups resilient but render complex 9/11-type attacks almost impossible to organise. Extremism remains a threat, and an evolving one, but the danger is not "existential". |
| One reason the tide turned against al-Qaida and its offshoots was that local populations did. Polls in Iraq, Jordan, Turkey, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere showed how, when violence came to their streets, local communities no longer viewed the extremists as legitimate mujahideen waging a "global war" ongoing for more than 1,300 years but as thugs, criminals and fanatics pursuing interests that had nothing in common with their own. | One reason the tide turned against al-Qaida and its offshoots was that local populations did. Polls in Iraq, Jordan, Turkey, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere showed how, when violence came to their streets, local communities no longer viewed the extremists as legitimate mujahideen waging a "global war" ongoing for more than 1,300 years but as thugs, criminals and fanatics pursuing interests that had nothing in common with their own. |
| Cameron did avoid talking of a "war" but, as his own intelligence services and foreign affairs specialists have long advised, the "single narrative" of a cosmic planetary "existential" clash is, for theological as well as psychological reasons, one of the best recruiting tools the militants have. Such rhetoric therefore risks being counterproductive. | Cameron did avoid talking of a "war" but, as his own intelligence services and foreign affairs specialists have long advised, the "single narrative" of a cosmic planetary "existential" clash is, for theological as well as psychological reasons, one of the best recruiting tools the militants have. Such rhetoric therefore risks being counterproductive. |
| There is another problem with framing the threat as "global". From General David Petraeus reformulating counter-insurgency tactics for the US army to MI5 putting spooks in police stations, the grand realisation of the middle of the last decade for those combating extremism was "think local, not global". This meant dumping identification of militants through profiling in favour of painstaking tracking of networks; questioning the vision of al-Qaida as global terrorist masterminds and unpicking the granular details of every extremist group from Morocco to Malaysia; it meant tailoring tactics to ground conditions and the customs of local communities; it meant degrading the credibility of the enemy by minimising the danger they posed. | There is another problem with framing the threat as "global". From General David Petraeus reformulating counter-insurgency tactics for the US army to MI5 putting spooks in police stations, the grand realisation of the middle of the last decade for those combating extremism was "think local, not global". This meant dumping identification of militants through profiling in favour of painstaking tracking of networks; questioning the vision of al-Qaida as global terrorist masterminds and unpicking the granular details of every extremist group from Morocco to Malaysia; it meant tailoring tactics to ground conditions and the customs of local communities; it meant degrading the credibility of the enemy by minimising the danger they posed. |
| The new challenge this decade may be an unforeseen one: the hard-learned lessons of last decade being neglected, if not deliberately unlearned. | The new challenge this decade may be an unforeseen one: the hard-learned lessons of last decade being neglected, if not deliberately unlearned. |