Vienna killings are part of new wave of lethal Islamist attacks across Europe
Deadly attacks across the centre of Vienna on Monday night have raised fears that a major offensive by Islamist terrorists, who are loosely tied to IS (Daesh) and al Qaeda, is now under way across Europe.
Four have died in Vienna: an elderly man and woman, a young passerby and a waitress. Several are critically injured, among them a policeman who tried to disarm an attacker, who was then shot dead. Another suspected attacker has been arrested in Linz.
This is the fifth attack by suspected Islamists extremists in three weeks.
On October 16, Samuel Paty, the 47 history teacher was murdered in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, North West Paris. Paty was beheaded by a young Chechen for showing cartoons of the Mohammed in a class on civics and freedom of speech.
On October 22, a Tunisian refugee attacked worshippers and staff at one of the main basilicas in Nice. Three died, and again another gruesome detail was the attempt to decapitate an old woman. The perpetrator was shot dead. Altogether 16 people were taken in for questioning. Within days there was a fatal shooting by an alleged Islamist terrorist in Avignon, and a security guard was attacked at the French consulate in Jeddah.
The incidents seem diverse, with perpetrators from different cultures and nations. Yet the back stories of the perpetrators of the murders in the Conflans, Nice and Vienna, such as they known, do suggest a pattern – and a common preparation and modus operandi.
The murder of Samuel Paty appears specifically related to the row about the publication of cartoons of Mohammed in the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, and the subsequent murder of 12 of its staff. The killer of Paty was Abdulhakh Anzanov,18, a Chechen born in Moscow claiming refugee status in France. He lived in Evreux, some 100 kilometers from where he carried out his attack.
The gunman shot by police in Vienna has been identified by Austrian media as Kujtim F, a dual national of North Macedonia and Austria, who was released last December from a 22 month sentence for attempting to cross into Syria to join IS forces.
In Nice, the attacker was Brahim Aouissaoui, 21, a migrant who travelled by raft from Tunisia to the island of Lampedusa, thence to the port of Bari, a main processing centre for illegal entrants. In September, he crossed into France from Ventimiglia on a Red Cross identity card. He spoke no French, though clearly had some form of support group in Nice.
All three were marginals. They weren’t exactly unknowns, and had been on the radar of the authorities. They were a Tunisian drifter, an ethnic Albanian wannabee jihadi, and a Chechen teenager. They were ideal recruits for extremist suicide missions because they were entirely dispensable.
None of them was a lone wolf, a pretty good misnomer in the journalism of extremist activity, anyway. All three needed some sort of support, to provide weapons and ammunition, to drive and prepare them to attack. They had some kind of network at their back.
What turns a drifter into a killer is hard to spot. The question bedevils investigations of suicide bombings and murder across time and continents – from the hijackers of 9/11 led by Mohamad Attah, to serial self-immolating acts of nihilistic and psychopathic destruction across Asia, America, Europe and Africa to this day.
On Bastille Day, July 14th, Mohamed Lahouaiej – Boulel, 31, drove a Renault truck at speed into the crowd watching the fireworks display on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, killing 84 and wounding many more. A Tunisian, he was at first alleged to have no form and no associates as a jihadi extremist. But soon the authorities had discovered he had planned and reconnoitered the attack for at least three months, and there was a discreet cell helping with maps, logistics and weapons. On August 1st six were arrested, and the following December three more were charged with weapons offences; they were the armourers for the cause in the region.
ISIS, or Daesh, despite declaring a state, caliphate, and political regime from Mosul in 2014, had always favoured a cell structure. Autonomous cell operations, where one group operates independently and in ignorance of others, are especially hard to crack. This appears to have taken place in France and Austria over the past few weeks.
All three known killers come from disaffected and violent groups. The Chechen element has been essential to much of the military success of IS-Daesh, especially in Iraq and Syria from 2014 to 2018. North Macedonian Albanians have been the marginals of the marginals, and again have a reputation for vendetta and violence, rather as the Calabrian ‘ndrangheta clans are famed as the most ruthless killers in Italian Mafia cultures.
Behind the armourers, drivers and fixers are the influencers. This is the elusive link in investigating these crimes. There is currently a wave of jihad calls to arms across the web – including social media and the Dark Web – according to Frank Gardner of the BBC, a particularly assiduous observer of Jihadi cyber traffic.
One of those arrested in the roundup for the killing of Samuel Pety was Abdelhakim Sefrioui, 59, a Moroccan Islamist preacher with a strong public following in France. He seems to have influence Brahim C, 48, whose daughter was in Paty’s school class and knew his teaching matter and methods.
President Macron has spoken of the need to defend French values, particularly the principles of “Laïcité” : secularism, embraced in liberty equality and fraternity of the French Revolution and tolerance. He said Islamism must turn its back on its extremists. In turn, President Erdogan of Turkey has denounced Macron as “demented.”
Where does the new pattern of nihilistic attack go next ? The problem with such patterns is they generally become understandable with hindsight. For the present, the next move is likely to be confined to the sociopathic imaginings of some lonely and rejected soul and his or her influencer.
For sure, this requires greater cooperation and intelligence between allies. Britain has already moved its security alert system to severe. Last year 21 major plots were uncovered in the EU, including Britain. Fourteen were foiled, and three collapsed.
ISIS-Daesh has an enduring living – and killing – legacy. Across continents and tribes their agents are still finding recruits to believe that the way to paradise is by killing fellow humans, and yourself.