Targets

Ever since the 9/11 attacks violent jihadists have displayed an almost stubborn inability to select targets that suit their purposes. Was the Charlie Hebdo massacre a sign that those days are coming to an end?
Time and again suicide bombers have sold their lives more cheaply than they intended. As too many Pakistani policemen have found, it has not been unusual for suicide bombers to detonate their devices at checkpoints, long before they reach their chosen target.
Many of the bombers have lived most of their lives in poor villages and remote seminaries and have little understanding of the world. Looked at from the point of view of a handler, they are not very promising material. Who can forget the audiotapes of one of the militants in Mumbai dawdling in the very midst of his murderous mission as he paused to marvel at the idea that a hotel suite could have a kitchen in it?
The violent jihadists’ targeting strategy has also been held back by an inability to define a single enemy. Various strands of militant Islamism are fighting at the local, regional and global levels. The confusion undermines the strength of their campaign.
For some violent jihadists the most important fight is the one against Shias. Many of the suicide bombers deployed in Pakistan and elsewhere since 9/11 have been used to murder Shias.
Others have a more regional vision. Whilst Islamic State has enthusiastically endorsed the murder of people it considers religiously deviant, it also has greater ambitions. The rulers in Baghdad and Damascus have been the first to feel the impact of the group’s decision to focus its ire on authoritarian Middle East governments.
Islamic State’s tactic of fighting the near enemy clearly distinguishes it from Al-Qaeda. Bin Laden’s most significant innovation was to attack the far enemy or the ‘head of the snake’ – the United States. Tactically it gave violent jihad the confidence not only to dream but also to believe it had become a serious global player.
But 9/11 also marked the start of international violent jihadism’s obsession with high-profile targets to match the twin towers. Their strategists’ fixation on airliners, underground transport systems and iconic buildings has required complex operations that have often failed
And then came Charlie Hebdo. By choosing a lightly guarded soft target that embodied the central western value of free speech, the Kouachi bothers made a deep penetrating attack that hit so hard it led to four million people taking to the streets.
At one level the sheer scale of that protest might be seen as a defeat for militant Islamism. After all how could violent jihadists not look on with some awe at the solidarity they are up against? It is more likely, however, that fellow militants around the world will have looked on with pride and even envy as they watched TV images of the millions on the streets. After all, if the violent jihadists’ struggle is in part a bid for power, then here was evidence of them been taken very seriously indeed.
At the same time the sight of so many people on the streets of France was reassuring for many westerners. When pushed far enough, it turned out, a common commitment to the values of free speech and tolerance was firmly in place.
While the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik and a few voices on the fringes of cyberspace believe western civilisation is about to collapse in ruins, most westerners have never doubted that the strength and quality of their values, coupled with their economic might, mean that violent jihadists will never be able to progress beyond occasional spectacular attacks.
Needless to say violent jihadists don’t see it like that. Inevitably, they interpret their recent string of victories in Iraq and Syria as God-given and the start of something bigger.
One foreign fighter in Syria predicted that Islamic State would in time fly its flag over Buckingham Palace. Such fantasies are not restricted to the violent fringes. I will never forget some 15 years ago being told by a serving Pakistani colonel who had spent time in Bonn that it would only be a few years before Germany was a Muslim-majority country.
The remark revealed such a monumental misreading of German society, where five percent of residents are Muslim, it was difficult to know where to start a reply.
It is perhaps a little reassuring that probably neither the Kouachi brothers nor their handlers realised the significance of selecting the Charlie Hebdo office as a target. The choice was apparently made by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and was probably motivated more by anger at the cartoonists’ drawings rather than an understanding of the importance of satire and free speech in the French psyche.
The situation is reminiscent of the Madrid train bombings which, partly because they were timed shortly before an election, secured Spain’s withdrawal from Iraq. The lack of subsequent attacks with similarly astute timing suggests that this too was probably more a case of luck than judgement.
The Charlie Hebdo attack was part of a trend towards softer targets. But from the jihadists’ point of view the impact it made was probably unintended. For the most part the militants’ failure to understand the west means that their attacks will continue to make less impact than they otherwise might.
The writer is a freelance British journalist, one of the hosts of BBC’s Newshour and the author of the new political thriller, Target Britain. Email: bennettjones@hotmail.com
Twitter: @OwenBennettJone