First, know thy enemy

Paris

How to fight back

The battle against Islamic State must be waged on every front

Nov 21st 2015 | From the print edition

THE assault on Paris by Islamic State (IS) on November 13th was an attack on life’s innocent pleasures. The terrorists shot anyone who strayed into their gunsights—ordinary mecs out for a gig, sharing a drink, or watching a football friendly. It could have been any big city. It could have been you.

The deadly grasp of IS now reaches far from its base in Syria and Iraq. A day before Paris, suicide-bombers killed 43 people in Lebanon. Last month, 224 died when a bomb destroyed a Russian aircraft over Egypt. IS has spread death across the Middle East and north Africa. This week it pledged to kill Crusaders in Washington and beyond.

Paris was scarred by jihadist violence only ten months ago. It became a city whose world-class intelligence service was on high alert—and still IS got through to maim and kill (see article). Plainly and tragically, the world needs to build stronger defences. The question is how?

First, know thy enemy

IS bases its terrorism on a vicious calculation. It believes that successful attacks will inspire the would-be Muslim radicals that it is trying to recruit. But it also wants to provoke a backlash in order to convince those same radicals that the world despises them and their religion. In February IS propaganda described a “greyzone” in which some Muslims’ loyalty is divided between radical Islam and a country where they do not feel that they completely belong. IS wants terrorism to drive Muslims out of this greyzone and into the black-robed embrace of the Caliphate.

The response must be just as calculating. Leading the mourning this week, François Hollande, France’s president, vowed to destroy IS. That is a worthy aim, but a partial one, because other jihadist groups with equally murderous intent will thrive in the violent crevices of the Middle East. The struggle will be long. Countries therefore need policies that they can sustain even as the Middle East remains turbulent and, inevitably, the terrorists sometimes get through.

Remember that the West has two things to defend: the lives of its citizens, and the liberal values of tolerance and the rule of law that underpin its society. Where these are in conflict, it should choose policies that minimise the damage to values in order to make large gains in protection. Sadly, in the scramble for security, that principle often seems to be the first thing to go.

The starting-point for a safer world is at home, with the right legal powers. Jihadists are often radicalised online, in small groups. They communicate electronically. When they travel, they leave a trail. The intelligence services need controlled access to these data. Terrorists thrive on secrecy, yet the security services may abuse their powers. The solution is a legal framework subject to political and judicial scrutiny.

The law can be flexible—but only up to a point. After Mr Hollande declared a state of emergency, which he will seek to extend to three months using a vote in parliament, the police were able to stage raids across France without the need for a warrant. Some raids led to arrests and one, on November 18th in the suburbs of Paris, to shootings and to another plot being thwarted. Short-lived emergency powers are justified, because of the heightened risk of such follow-up attacks. But the French parliament needs to be careful. If warrantless searches later become routine, abuses will surely follow.

Resources count, too. This week Britain announced a 15% increase in the size of its security services, and a doubling of spending on cyber-defence. Mr Hollande has promised to recruit more police officers and judges. Yet some other states seem out of their depth. Several of the jihadists who attacked Paris came from Molenbeek, a suburb of Brussels with a large Muslim population that it struggles to integrate. Proportionately, more people have gone to join IS in Syria from Belgium than from any other country in Europe. The Belgian security services are a weak link.

That matters because the Schengen agreement abolished border controls between 26 European countries. Schengen has symbolic and economic value, but it also drags intelligence down towards the level of the weakest. Once a semi-automatic weapon crosses into a Schengen country from the Balkans, there is little to stop it reaching the hands of jihadists in France. A terrorist can put together a suicide-vest undetected in Brussels and travel unimpeded to Paris to detonate it.

The Schengen countries need to adapt to a more dangerous world. First, they need a stronger outer frontier. The French want to create an enhanced European border force, financed and staffed by all of Schengen’s members. This is a good idea, but an overdue one.

Second, within the borderless zone, Schengen’s members need to take down the barriers to policing. The EU’s database for migrants does not synch with the one at Europol, the law-enforcement agency. The European Parliament, worried about privacy, has been blocking a plan to give police access to passengers’ names on flights. Countries can do spot checks at the border, but not systematic ones. In Europe more broadly, requests for other countries’ records on, say, ballistics and criminals’ DNA, can be clumsy and time-consuming. To change such things would enhance security, but entails no infringement of fundamental rights. Do it.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 526