Yearender: Good international coordination a must to combat terrorism

The world has been overshadowed by terrorist threats as never before this year as various terror groups and their loyalists made headlines everywhere, especially in Paris and across the Atlantic in France's strong anti-terror ally, the United States.

The number of victims in the Paris attacks is the biggest of terror activity in the modern history of France and the second-largest in Europe after the Madrid attacks. Its perpetrator, the Islamic State (IS), said in a statement that it was just the beginning.

Shortly after the Paris carnage took 130 lives, 14 people were killed in a shooting rampage in San Bernardino, California by a couple, who later proved to have long been radicalized.

The world's governments and parliaments scrambled to make decisions despite being overcome by shock and anger, and many feared further blood-shed of their peoples as experts pointed to "qualitative changes" in the terrorists' strategy.

The traditional top centers of the IS are Syria and Iraq, and its second center is in Libya, said Diaa Rashwan, head of Cairo-based Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.

It had not been in the interests of the IS to focus on enemies far away since it is seeking territorial advancement with the purpose of founding a state, as its name suggests, said Rashwan.

However, the Paris attacks represent a qualitative change in the IS strategy, Rashwan pointed out.

ROOT CAUSES OF TERRORISM

For her part, Shahira Amin, an independent Egyptian journalist, said that the sense of injustice is a root cause of terrorism anywhere.

"With respect to the creation of Daesh in particular it is the invasion of countries, whether the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan or the Iraq invasion when the Iraqi army was dismantled," she said, referring to the IS.

She pointed out that many have joined Daesh due to the internal situation in some countries, whether economic, social or religious, where youth can't find jobs and have no hope for the future.

"Addressing terrorism needs a concerted global effort," she stressed.

Sarah Eltantawi, professor of Comparative Religion and Islamic Studies at Evergreen State College in the United States, also mentioned widespread economic and political frustration as creating a hotbed for terrorism.

"A religious revivalism of the last forty years has filled the vacuum which other ideologies such as nationalism or socialism have been able to fill," she said.

The fact that Islam itself has been adopted by ultra-conservatives is one of the most intense challenges to promoting and rehabilitating what used to be a mainstream, gentle Islam, said Eltantawi.

Rashwan also mentioned the "humiliating way the Iraqi army was ruined" as one of the complex reasons for the IS presence.

According to the expert, the Western disregard of volunteers coming from their countries to be recruited by the IS is also part of the reasons for the IS rampancy.

NEW TREND IN TERROR ATTACKS

The increasing use of Western elements who joined terrorist groups in the Middle East and took part in attacks there and then returned with major tasks in their home countries have been observed as a new trend in the orchestration of often lethal attacks.

"They are IS elements but in the West," Rashwan said. This can be clearly seen from the accuracy of the IS statement after the Paris attacks that declared that eight members carried them out and revealed the exact sites that were targeted and other details.

Meanwhile, zealous preparation and flawless execution have made the attacks hard to detect and prevent.

As shown in the Paris attacks, the number of elements who carried out the operations is not less than 30, which reflects a thorough preparation and execution.

The attacks also reveal great efforts on part of the terrorists to flaunt their power and challenge the authorities as they were targeting the place where the French president was.

Such changes in tactics, which have resulted in more effective implementations of planned attacks, are having a major influence on public mentalities.

In its latest poll, Gallup said that the percentage of Americans who believe it is "very" or "somewhat likely" that acts of terrorism would take place in the country in the next several weeks increased sharply, rising from 45 percent in June to 67 percent.

In a rare Oval Office address to the nation, U.S. President Barack Obama on Dec. 6 called the San Bernardino shootings a new phase of terrorism.

TERRORISM NOT INVINCIBLE

Talaat Musallam, a former Egyptian army general and security expert, believed that international cooperation is currently very weak, especially with the increase in terrorist networks, not only in the Arab countries and the Middle East, but also in the Western countries.

"There are no obvious international policies for combating terrorism," Musallam said.

He called for the establishment of an international anti-terrorism center that will be tasked with collecting information and drafting regulations on how to defeat terrorism legally, in addition to focusing on solving some economic problems like poverty and unemployment.

Richard Tutah, a Kenyan homeland security expert, suggested measures to constitute an alliance equivalent to the UN and EU whose main purpose is to deal with terrorism. The alliance could provide a platform for sharing intelligence information among countries.

An Egyptian political expert has said the effects of terrorism could be minimized in public life through a number of global measures, including achieving international justice.

"We need a comprehensive approach to deal with terrorism as the current international measures are mere reactions to violent acts committed by terrorist groups," Gehad Auda, a political science professor at British University in Cairo, told Xinhua.

"France is targeted (by terrorism), on the one hand, because of its domestic policy viewed as anti-Muslim and, on the other hand, for its foreign policy seen as imperialist, interventionist in Muslim countries," said Mathieu Guidere, senior expert of the European program of prevention of radicalization (PPREV-EU).

"The war against Daesh will not end only by the bombing and the intervention of coalition forces on the ground. The military forces must work with the forces of the countries concerned," he said.

The solution is adopting a domestic policy that is less Islamophobic and stops military interventions in Muslim countries, he added. Enditem

Xinhua reporters in Cairo, Nairobi and Paris contributed to the story.

Editor's note:

Xinhua is wiring a series of international news yearenders through the end of December on major events and developments in the past year that bear global significance.

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