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Expect copycat blasts - experts
13/07/2005 16:50 - (SA)
London - Anger against the suffering of Muslims in Iraq and other conflict zones spurred Britain's first apparent suicide bombings, and copycat attacks across western Europe are likely, experts said on Wednesday.
An expected backlash against the Muslim community - after it emerged that four Britons of Pakistani origin probably carried out last Thursday's attacks - would further increase the likelihood of isolated, young extremists turning to deadly violence to express their beliefs, they warned.
"It is the hatred of what they are seeing outside in the world like ... the atrocities committed by Israel in Palestine, thousands of Muslims killed in Chechnya and what is happening in Iraq," Ahmed Versi, editor of Muslim News, told BBC radio.
While most Muslims use the tools of democracy - such as taking part in elections - to voice their grievances, he said a minority resort to bloodshed. Radical veterans
Magnus Ranstorp, director of the centre for the study of terrorism and political violence at St Andrew's University in Scotland, blamed radical veterans of wars from Bosnia and Chechnya to Kashmir and Afghanistan.
He accused them of recruiting impressionable
individuals - particularly the young and unemployed - in the Western world to join their crusade.
"It is a huge European-wide problem," Ranstorp told AFP, noting that snowballing xenophobia, racism and vengefulness would make matters worse.
"There are hundreds of individuals who could become willing, and certainly it increases the chances if there is a polarisation in society."
The police have yet to officially confirm media reports that the four London bombs on subway trains and a bus that left at least 52 people dead - in Britain's worst terrorist atrocity - were the work of a suicide team. Inspiration
This, however, is the widely accepted theory and experts feel that it may inspire similar strikes.
"An attack like this may serve as an inspiration because there are those who are sympathetic or hailing this as a great success," Ranstorp said.
"They may even learn lessons from this operationally of how to refine their methods to have even more effect."
Louis Caprioli, a former anti-terrorism official in France's domestic intelligence agency, DST, noted that extremist networks uncovered in France "will ask themselves, why blow ourselves up in Iraq? We might as well do it in Paris, Lyon, Milan or Rome".
He predicted that the London attacks "will have a copycat effect."
Ranstorp said future attacks could be co-ordinated over a wider area.
"What we may see in the future is follow-on attacks that take place somewhere like in London and then there will be shortly thereafter other attacks in other countries or even within the same country," the expert said.
He listed Italy, Spain, France, The Netherlands, Belgium, Britain and Denmark as being on the front line. Maximum impact
The expert also noted that public transport - targeted in London as well as last year's train bombings in Madrid - was a particular focus for the attackers as it ensured maximum impact and also hurt a country's economy.
While the seeds of extremism have been sown, Ranstorp said the European Union could work to help lower the risk of another London-style horror.
The priority is to find the recruiters, who are notoriously difficult to track down, he said.
In addition, Ranstorp said politicians and the police must step up efforts to reduce xenophobia, which only serves to isolate communities and fuel the hatred that turns middle-class citizens into suicide bombers.
- AFP
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