Death came with a smile on his face. The killer, black-shirted, with
black hair and beard, strolled up Boujaffar beach just like any other
tourist out for a day in the sun. Witnesses said he carried a rolled-up parasol.
Inside was a fully loaded Kalashnikov.
His first victims were bathers, half-naked and vulnerable in their swimming costumes. Then he moved towards the poolside sun-loungers, shooting as he went.
Once inside the hotel, apparently unopposed by security personnel, he pursued terrified holidaymakers and staff into corridors and lavatories from which, for some, there was no escape. As he fired indiscriminately, survivors said the killer laughed.
For all we know, he was still laughing when he, too, was finally gunned down.
Such cruelty defies reason. There is, on a fundamental human level, no explanation, no justification and no rationale that can help us begin to understand what was going through his mind.
His victims were defenceless. They were old and young. They were children playing on a beach. They were innocents. But all that was irrelevant to him.
Fellow human beings were murdered without warning or compunction.
They came from many countries – Britain, Germany, Tunisia and elsewhere. They were European and Arab, Christian and Muslim.
Above all, they were civilians. They were not soldiers in a war.
Yet, in the killer’s mind, they somehow constituted the enemy. For him, evidently, they deserved to die. Looked at more dispassionately, the reasons why such warped beliefs have apparently poisoned the hearts and twisted the minds of so many young men and women across the Muslim world are less obscured.
Foremost among many causes is the deepening schism between Sunni and Shia Muslims, which lies at the heart of internal conflicts from Iraq to Yemen to Pakistan.
The increasingly infectious intolerance of Sunni hardliners for any perceived deviation from their strict, often erroneous, interpretations of Islam and the Qur’an justifies, in their sick mentality, the killing of all “non-believers”, be they Copts, Alawites, Yazidis, Jews, Turkomen – or Europeans of almost any religious persuasion.
Hence the description on jihadi websites of the Tunisian hotel complex as a “den of vice”. The same absurd label was applied to Tunis’s Bardo Museum, viciously attacked in March.
This civil war, or fitna, within Islam is stoked by myriad grievances and injustices.
They include the chronic, long-term under-development of most Arab countries, which has seen them fall behind other parts of the world in terms of economy, education, healthcare and employment for their ever more numerous and frustrated young people.
The corrupt, authoritarian and undemocratic nature of many regimes in the Muslim world is a powerful driver towards radicalisation and revolt.
Multi-party, pluralist and secular Tunisia, home of the largely thwarted 2011 Arab spring, is a notable exception, which is doubtless why it has been repeatedly targeted.
Then there is the long, sorry history of western intervention in the Middle East, including, most recently, the hapless, disastrous destabilisation of Iraq.
Atop this heap of undirected Middle Eastern misery, fear, anger and religious bigotry – a breeding ground for intolerance and inculcation – stand the ghouls and gangsters of the Islamic State terrorist organisation, the extremists’ extremist mafia of choice.
Isis quickly claimed gloating responsibility for Friday’s carnage in Sousse.
It also ordered the almost simultaneous suicide bomb attack on a Shia mosque in Kuwait that killed 27 people. Based on what we know, it also inspired, if not commanded, the failed attempt to blow up a US-owned factory in France, in which a man was beheaded.
Whether these attacks were co-ordinated hardly matters. The common factor is Isis, which has urged adherents to turn Ramadan into “a month of calamities for non-believers”. Isis is calling for more lone-wolf attacks and more volunteers for martyrdom.
It wants the citizens of countries whose governments support the US-led air campaign against its bases in Syria and Iraq to pay an especially heavy price.
In short, Isis has openly declared itself at war with Britain, its allies and partners, even while these countries and their peoples mostly seem reluctant fully to contemplate, accept or understand the implications. For Isis, the dead in Sousse were combatants, not civilians.
For Isis, the aim is more and bigger atrocities. If Isis can manage it, this summer will be Europe’s summer of fear.
What is to be done? In the first instance, the negative ramifications of the Sousse attack must be understood and, if possible, mitigated.
These likely effects include potential reprisal attacks against Muslim communities, as attempted in the US and France in the past, not least after January’s Charlie Hebdo killings in Paris. When the full extent of the British casualty list becomes clear, possibly the biggest death toll in a single incident since the 7/7 London bombings, there will be much anger as well as grief.
In the meantime, Tunisia’s people and their fragile democracy deserve our consideration. Tourism accounts for 15% of GDP and employs 470,000 people. This vital industry faces collapse. It is in the west’s interest to do all it can to prevent Tunisia following Libya into chronic instability, prompting another surge of migrants across the Mediterranean.
Britain and the west have yet to create a joined-up approach to dealing with Isis and its imitators and emulators. Talk of tightened security does not cut it. An international menace requires an international response.
Visiting the victims, Tunisia’s president, Beji Caid Essebsi, called for a less piecemeal approach. “No country is safe from terrorism. We need a global strategy of all democratic countries,” he said. He is right.
According to the latest US State Department survey, terrorism is booming. The number of terrorist attacks worldwide increased by 39% from 2013 to 2014. While 17,891 people died in 2013, the figure jumped to 32,727 last year. The strength and number of terrorist groups is rising fast. Isis is estimated to command between 20,000 and 31,500 fighters, despite coalition attrition.
No one country can defeat this threat.
Whether the question is how to crush Isis militarily in Syria and Iraq and quash its attempts to spread the conflict to Europe, or how to better assist, develop, educate and befriend the Muslim world, a more concerted, more effective international approach is urgently required. After Sousse, alarm bells are ringing.
His first victims were bathers, half-naked and vulnerable in their swimming costumes. Then he moved towards the poolside sun-loungers, shooting as he went.
Once inside the hotel, apparently unopposed by security personnel, he pursued terrified holidaymakers and staff into corridors and lavatories from which, for some, there was no escape. As he fired indiscriminately, survivors said the killer laughed.
For all we know, he was still laughing when he, too, was finally gunned down.
Such cruelty defies reason. There is, on a fundamental human level, no explanation, no justification and no rationale that can help us begin to understand what was going through his mind.
His victims were defenceless. They were old and young. They were children playing on a beach. They were innocents. But all that was irrelevant to him.
Fellow human beings were murdered without warning or compunction.
They came from many countries – Britain, Germany, Tunisia and elsewhere. They were European and Arab, Christian and Muslim.
Above all, they were civilians. They were not soldiers in a war.
Yet, in the killer’s mind, they somehow constituted the enemy. For him, evidently, they deserved to die. Looked at more dispassionately, the reasons why such warped beliefs have apparently poisoned the hearts and twisted the minds of so many young men and women across the Muslim world are less obscured.
Foremost among many causes is the deepening schism between Sunni and Shia Muslims, which lies at the heart of internal conflicts from Iraq to Yemen to Pakistan.
The increasingly infectious intolerance of Sunni hardliners for any perceived deviation from their strict, often erroneous, interpretations of Islam and the Qur’an justifies, in their sick mentality, the killing of all “non-believers”, be they Copts, Alawites, Yazidis, Jews, Turkomen – or Europeans of almost any religious persuasion.
Hence the description on jihadi websites of the Tunisian hotel complex as a “den of vice”. The same absurd label was applied to Tunis’s Bardo Museum, viciously attacked in March.
This civil war, or fitna, within Islam is stoked by myriad grievances and injustices.
They include the chronic, long-term under-development of most Arab countries, which has seen them fall behind other parts of the world in terms of economy, education, healthcare and employment for their ever more numerous and frustrated young people.
The corrupt, authoritarian and undemocratic nature of many regimes in the Muslim world is a powerful driver towards radicalisation and revolt.
Multi-party, pluralist and secular Tunisia, home of the largely thwarted 2011 Arab spring, is a notable exception, which is doubtless why it has been repeatedly targeted.
Then there is the long, sorry history of western intervention in the Middle East, including, most recently, the hapless, disastrous destabilisation of Iraq.
Atop this heap of undirected Middle Eastern misery, fear, anger and religious bigotry – a breeding ground for intolerance and inculcation – stand the ghouls and gangsters of the Islamic State terrorist organisation, the extremists’ extremist mafia of choice.
Isis quickly claimed gloating responsibility for Friday’s carnage in Sousse.
It also ordered the almost simultaneous suicide bomb attack on a Shia mosque in Kuwait that killed 27 people. Based on what we know, it also inspired, if not commanded, the failed attempt to blow up a US-owned factory in France, in which a man was beheaded.
Whether these attacks were co-ordinated hardly matters. The common factor is Isis, which has urged adherents to turn Ramadan into “a month of calamities for non-believers”. Isis is calling for more lone-wolf attacks and more volunteers for martyrdom.
It wants the citizens of countries whose governments support the US-led air campaign against its bases in Syria and Iraq to pay an especially heavy price.
In short, Isis has openly declared itself at war with Britain, its allies and partners, even while these countries and their peoples mostly seem reluctant fully to contemplate, accept or understand the implications. For Isis, the dead in Sousse were combatants, not civilians.
For Isis, the aim is more and bigger atrocities. If Isis can manage it, this summer will be Europe’s summer of fear.
What is to be done? In the first instance, the negative ramifications of the Sousse attack must be understood and, if possible, mitigated.
These likely effects include potential reprisal attacks against Muslim communities, as attempted in the US and France in the past, not least after January’s Charlie Hebdo killings in Paris. When the full extent of the British casualty list becomes clear, possibly the biggest death toll in a single incident since the 7/7 London bombings, there will be much anger as well as grief.
In the meantime, Tunisia’s people and their fragile democracy deserve our consideration. Tourism accounts for 15% of GDP and employs 470,000 people. This vital industry faces collapse. It is in the west’s interest to do all it can to prevent Tunisia following Libya into chronic instability, prompting another surge of migrants across the Mediterranean.
Britain and the west have yet to create a joined-up approach to dealing with Isis and its imitators and emulators. Talk of tightened security does not cut it. An international menace requires an international response.
Visiting the victims, Tunisia’s president, Beji Caid Essebsi, called for a less piecemeal approach. “No country is safe from terrorism. We need a global strategy of all democratic countries,” he said. He is right.
According to the latest US State Department survey, terrorism is booming. The number of terrorist attacks worldwide increased by 39% from 2013 to 2014. While 17,891 people died in 2013, the figure jumped to 32,727 last year. The strength and number of terrorist groups is rising fast. Isis is estimated to command between 20,000 and 31,500 fighters, despite coalition attrition.
No one country can defeat this threat.
Whether the question is how to crush Isis militarily in Syria and Iraq and quash its attempts to spread the conflict to Europe, or how to better assist, develop, educate and befriend the Muslim world, a more concerted, more effective international approach is urgently required. After Sousse, alarm bells are ringing.
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