Al-Qaeda threats to France: “There is no reason to panic”

An Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) publication threatened to strike a “ministry” and a “Swedish embassy” in Paris. In an issue of the magazine Sada al-Malahim, reports Le Figaro, a hooded man armed with a rifle poses in front of crying French police officers. A clear threat, which Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said he “takes seriously”, in an interview given Wednesday to Ouest-France, as France begins a sequence of high security risks with the Rugby World Cup, the Pope’s visit or the Olympic Games.

But, for the specialist in jihadist movements, researcher at the Soufan Center and journalist at France 24 Wassim Nasr, this is not the time for panic. If the threat of attack is “latent” in France, the context has nothing to do with that of 2015. He delivered his analysis to Le Point.

Le Point: Should these threats be taken seriously?

Wassim Nasr: I think we have to keep reason. It is not because a magazine, which has not been distributed for twelve years, calls for an attack against a ministry in Paris that this will materialize tomorrow. This magazine was also focused on Yemen. The threats to Sweden and France only appear on page 14, out of 17. They could not not mention the corans burned in Sweden, not say that “Sweden is going the way of other European countries in the war against Islam”, including France. It’s ultimately very classic, very generic in message, a sort of union minimum.

Having said that, yes, of course the threat exists, but neither more nor less than before the publication of this magazine. It is present, it is latent, and it must be taken seriously, but there is no reason to be more panicked at this time. You don’t have to blow everything out of proportion; There are threats all the time and embryonic plans for attacks are foiled on average once a month.

What are AQPA’s current capabilities for action?

We must take what is said seriously, but that does not mean that they have a team ready to take action. If the Kouachi brothers were commissioned by Aqpa in January 2015 for the attack against Charlie, the preparations had lasted almost three years. The context is not the same: the figure of Aqpa who inspired the attacks in the West, the American-Yemeni Anwar al-Awlaki, was killed by an American drone strike in 2011. They no longer have any the same power in Yemen, the configuration has nothing to do with it… They lack the experienced human resources to send teams like that of November 13 or that of the Kouachi brothers. They do not lack material means, they have weapons and money – and this type of attack does not cost much – but they lack seasoned European fighters ready to die. The essential commodity for this type of enterprise is the human factor, Western men ready to take action. And they don’t have any actionable ones on hand right now.

The only places where this type of profile exists at the moment – ??and here we are talking about the Islamic State – are the prisons held by the Kurds in Syria. If, tomorrow, there is a change in the political balance in this very unstable area and these veterans, who have both the know-how, the radicalism and the motivation, find themselves released into the wild, then, yes , they could pose a threat. In my opinion, this is where the real danger lies.

But, for now, both IS and Al Qaeda lack European fighters. That a team would be formed in Afghanistan, even in the Sahel and Lake Chad, where Al Qaeda and ISIS have territorial holds, I don’t believe it: it is very difficult to project teams from these areas to France. And, if this is the intention of IS, JNIM, the subsidiary of Al-Qaeda in the Sahel, has repeatedly announced that the conflict with France does not concern French national territory.

This is not at all the same context as Syria in 2015, where men could pass through Turkey. Because, even if French sympathizers of Al-Qaeda remain free, but “under cover”, in the Idlib region, crossing Turkey and Europe is not an easy task. And we must not forget either that November 13, ultimately, was an exception: it is the only example of a projected European team seasoned and ready to die.

Is the threat in France therefore more endogenous at the moment?

Most of the attacks foiled by France currently are the work of young people who have not experienced war: they are endogenous threats. We must not neglect this threat, but it has nothing to do with what we experienced in 2015. Once again, I am not saying that it is impossible for an attack to occur, the threat is latent and exists, we have to live with it, but this magazine adds nothing.

Certainly, the sequence which opens in France with the visit of the Pope, the Rugby World Cup, the Olympic Games will be tense in security terms, but the French authorities know this and are anticipating what they can, even if it is not possible to anticipate everything.