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(CNN)In the past week I have seen flowers and candles carpeting a street in Munich, …
'One ISIS attack every 84 hours' spurs dread and anger in Europe
Story highlights
- The attacks have diminished civic trust in EU leaders, many cite mass migration as cause
- Hollande, Merkel face growing hostility following mass migration
(CNN)In the past week I have seen flowers and candles carpeting a street in Munich, the tranquility of a small Bavarian town shattered by a suicide bomb and a small church in suburban France sealed off after its octogenarian priest had his throat cut.
Before these horrific events, there was a knife-wielding teenager on a German train. And before that, much deadlier attacks in Nice, Brussels and last November, in Paris.
This year has seen an accelerating pattern of attacks linked to ISIS in Europe and beyond -- from Turkey to Bangladesh, the United States
to Indonesia. According to the group IntelCenter, which tracks acts of
terrorism, there has been a significant attack directed or inspired by
ISIS every 84 hours since June 8 in cities outside the war zones in
Iraq, Syria, Sinai in Egypt and Libya. CNN's own tracking of attacks supports that conclusion.
More
than half of those attacks have been beyond big cities in places "not
traditionally under threat of terrorist attacks," says IntelCenter. This
rash of random, low-tech but deadly attacks has fueled public unease in
Europe and eroded faith in governments to tackle the threat of
terrorism or discern who might turn to violence.
It
has also diminished trust in justice systems accused of leaving too
many dangerous people at large. Despite twice trying to go to Syria, Adel Kermiche
-- one of the 19-year-old attackers who killed the priest in France --
was released from custody and allowed out of his home for four hours a
day. Despite repeated efforts to deport him, the Ansbach bomber -- Daleel Mohammad -- was still in Germany.
In
my week-long journey across Northern Europe, that public unease was
never far from the surface. Callers to German radio stations said they
were apprehensive of visiting a mall. A shaken teacher who knew one of
the attackers in France told CNN: "I never thought for a day in my life
that a young person would commit a terrorist act here in
Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray."
In
Ansbach, a picturesque town in Bavaria, stunned locals drifted past the
scene of the suicide bombing at a café, where abandoned drinks and
playing cards bore silent witness to the moment of terror the night
before.
These attacks have also
prompted fundamental social questions. Respect for openness, liberal
democracy and due process are being eaten away by a toxic mixture of
extremism and psychosis.
Fear breeds civic distrust
Intelligence
analysts Flashpoint Partners say there is "more coordination between
potential lone actors or small unofficial cells with jihadi media -- a
way to guarantee that their message is disseminated and to prove their
allegiance to ISIS without necessarily joining its ranks."
The consistent public message from ISIS over the past year or so has been: "Don't come to Syria; kill the unbelievers at home."
These
attacks, and the expectation of more, have fed not only the mood of
growing anxiety. They have become part of a combustible political
debate. I witnessed this in its rawest form at the site of the Munich
killings. A young relative of one of the Turkish victims called out
"Allahu Akhbar" in prayer, which was met by a torrent of abuse from some
right-wingers present, provoking the Turks to yell "Your sisters will
be next." Police moved in swiftly to keep the two groups apart.
In
a poll after the attack in Nice, more than two-thirds of the French
people questioned said they did not trust the government to combat
terrorism effectively, a sharp increase over the previous year. Prime Minister Manuel Valls was booed by some of the crowd when he attended a memorial service for the victims.
French resort town reels from terror attack 01:36
"The
government will have to answer the question: how flagged individuals,
including one under judiciary control for attempting to wage jihad in
Syria, were let free to commit such attacks?" asked former French
President Nicolas Sarkozy, widely thought to be eying another bid for
the top job next year.
France has
deployed 4,000 troops in Paris; another 6,000 beyond. Bavarian Premier
Horst Seehofer has called for similar measures in Germany.
But it seems even 100,000 troops could not guard against these random attacks.
The
answer, to Sarkozy and others on the right, is internment without trial
for anyone suspected of jihadist sympathies. It would be a dramatic
departure from the cherished tradition of due process, but according to
recent polls conducted for Le Figaro, such a move has the support of at
least three-quarters of French citizens.
Is EU migration really linked to escalating terror?
Many Germans no longer want migrants in their country 02:19
The
outbreak of terror attacks in Northern Europe has also translated into
growing hostility toward migration. German Interior Minister Thomas de
Maziere pointed out that none of the recent attacks in Germany had been
carried out by refugees who arrived last year. Nor was the attack in
France. But that has not changed a perception among some that the tide
of mass migration will end badly. The far-right Alternative fuer
Deutschland party is polling at some 20% in Chancellor Angela Merkel's
home state of Mecklenburg ahead of state elections in September.
Merkel
has again insisted that "we can manage" the influx and integrate
refugees into German society. A year ago her decision not to send
would-be migrants back to their first point of entry into Europe led
tens of thousands -- from Syria, Iraq and elsewhere -- to head for
Germany. The slogan "Refugees Welcome" was on banners at city halls and
football matches across Germany. It was a remarkable display of
generosity toward those fleeing violence and persecution.
But the welcome has worn thin. Merkel is on the defensive.
She -- like French President François Hollande -- must face the voters
next year if she wants another term. Some within her own coalition now
cry "We told you so" -- among them Bavarian Premier Seehofer.
Merkel
has promised more decisive action to deport those whose requests fail
and better detection of those becoming radicalized.
But
the scale of the problem is enormous. According to German government
statistics from March, about 400,000 asylum applications were still
being processed. But half of those whose requests had been rejected --
nearly 170,000 people -- were still in Germany, among them Daleel
Mohammad.
And sociologist Armin
Nassehi, who examines migration issues at Ludwig Maximilian University
in Munich, says many young male migrants are more vulnerable than most
to manipulation or emotional instability.
"The
central problem is that refugees have much more complicated life
situations. They are people with traumatic experiences on the one hand
and not knowing what will happen them to the future on the other," he
told CNN.
Hard choices ahead
The
core of the issue is this: how much is Europe prepared to compromise
its way of life -- the freedoms and rights taken for granted for
generations -- to do battle with random terrorism? How many public
places become fortresses? How many events are canceled (as the French
interior minister has recommended) if adequate security cannot be
guaranteed? How much must be spent on the militarization of policing?
And how many powers of arrest and detention should a government possess
without reference to the courts? The state of emergency in France
declared last November is set to run another three months at least.
As
she visited the site of a makeshift memorial outside city hall in
Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray on Wednesday, 23-year-old Meggy Simane paused
for thought.
"It's a problem for
everyone," she said, "the gay community amongst us, the Jewish
communities, all walks of life. We are all different with our own
cultures but at the same time we are all the same."
A 19-year old who lived just a few streets away from Meggy thought very differently.
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