Terrorist attacks have increased in Europe during the last two years. The attackers have announced their allegiance to Isis. But the question is: Do they become terrorists after being inspired by radical ideology of Isis or are they already criminals and they find their ways by Isis?
According to media reports, police declarations and the attackers’ families, most of terrorist attackers were criminals as well as drug users and later on became radicals in prisons.
The two brothers Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui who committed suicide bombings in the coordinated attacks in Belgium on March 22nd, 2016, had done many crimes before: One brother was involved in an attempted robbery at a currency exchange office and he had stayed in prison ten years before his suicide attack. The younger brother was jailed for bank robbery, kidnapping, carjacking and possession of kalashnikov rifles.
Mohamed Salmene Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, who carried out the 14th of July 2016 attack in Nice, had committed five criminal offenses and armed violence. According to his father he suffered from depression and was also addicted of alcohol and drugs. Just few months before the attack he started visiting a mosque. French investigators found images that linked to radical Islamism on his computer.
Anis Amri, who did the terrorist attack on 19 December 2016 in a Chrismas market in Berlin, had fled from Tunisia to escape imprisonment for stealing a truck. He had been sentenced in absentia to five years in prison with violence. Before that he had been arrested several times for possession and use of drugs. According to his family, he was addicted to drink alcohol and drugs. He had arrived for the first time in Italy in 2011 and there he was sentenced to be four years in prison because of violent riot that he made in a reception center for refugees on the Island of Lampedusa and he had been radicalized in Italian jails later on.
Khalid Masood, who attacked people with a car pedestrians on the pavement along the south of Westminster bridge and stabbed a police officer on 22 March 2017, had been sentenced to two years in prisons for committing knife attacks and six months later for possession of an offensive weapon. According to his family he was drugs and heavy cocaine user since the age of 18 years. Many media reports published that he converted to Islam and he became radical in prison.
How could criminals be attracted by Isis?
The social media are a vast worldwide tool used by Isis to get more supporters. It produces high quality films and videos which are translated to many languages. These videos often contain strong men who are fighting, are considered to be attractive to these people who have a great desire for killing or they are full of despire and frustration of their home countries. Also they provide enough reasons to be aggressive in the community they live in, by showing videos of innocent people who are suffering in the Middle East or war countries, just to stir their feelings and push them joining Isis to establish the “Umma” dream. In fact these islamic radicalists kill Muslims in the middle East and Africa by bombing and suicide operations especially in Iraq and we have seen recently this great dilemma in Musel, one of the city in Iraq.
Maeghin Alarid, the writer of the book “Recruitment and Radicalization: The Role of social Media and New Technology”, mentions in her book that many people who are radicalized online are not devout Muslims. Quite the contrary; some do not consider themselves very religious at all. She adds also “One brief moment of intense emotion evoked in them while they watch a Youtube video of innocent victims in Africa or the Middle East can be all it takes to spark their interest”.
Recently and after the Westminster attack in London, we have seen Amber Rudd, the home secretary in UK, criticizing tech firms of not doing enough to stop terrorists spreading propaganda and the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, has also accused firms over their failure to remove extremist matrials. On the other hand, the main problem is islamic radicalist mentalty which means not accepting the others and being aggressive with people who are different and this mentalty could be at homes, worship places, everywhere and it could be resolved by spreading tolerance to culture and accepting others.
Die sechs größten Irrtümer über die perfekte Beziehung
Laila, thank you for this article.
The last part, I think, is worth to deliberate on. Because someone being a more or less criminal or drug addicted leads not necessarily to terrify other people in the name of whom so ever. It only lowers one’s inhibitions to kill. There must be a spiritual impetus, an idea behind all that terror.
I agree with you when you mention a certain Islamic fundamentalist mentality, which doesn’t accept any other view of the world than his special sense of Islam, and aggressively defends that against people who believe differently or not at all. You say this radical mentality you find at “homes, at worship places, everywhere”. Yes, we have to admit this is often part of our traditional religious education. And it works as long as we live encapsulated in our tradition, protected from other views of the world. But now times change, cultures come closer together, and different “truths” touch each other. We have to tolerate each other. And when we are open-minded, we should learn from each other, what are the arguments one’s faith is relying on. Fighting can’t replace any argument; you can’t kill any argument only people.
So, let us argue or even dispute about what your truth is and what mine, what is outdated and has to be replaced and what copes with the reality best. My first question is: “Why a woman as a woman is not as respected as a man in so many Muslim societies?”
A German friend
Hello Mr. Goebel,
Thanks a lot for your comment. I appreciate your writing. well I meant from my article not that the criminality or drugs addiction lead terrify other people and but I meant that these people who have criminal files are more attracted by Isis than other radicals to achieve terrorist attack. On the other hand there are radicals who could have intolerant mentality, but it does not mean for sure that they have this ability or acceptance to make terrorist attack although they do not respect others who are different and as you said we have still in some countries traditional religious education and this lead for sure some people who come recently to modern countries, to have a kind contradiction between their own traditional education they use to at their homes and the civilized society in which they live now.
for your question about the respecting of the women in so many Muslim societies, I think it is difficult to discuss the rights of the women in the absence of the human right in these countries. These countries have strong sexism in the whole society, nobody has the right to say his opinion freely with the lack of freedom, there is no individual rights or respect for humanity, with bad education systems and corruption, maybe all these reasons leads to have a traditional religious education .