Some 150 attacks since 2001 in Europe, forty years of expansion of a deadly ideology and democracies that have made mistakes whose effect has been to increase the danger: to understand the phenomenon of Islamist terrorism, it was necessary to three hours of decryption.
With Djihad sur l’Europe, Magali Serre and Hugo Micheron reconstruct in three episodes a story that began in 1979 with the Russian intervention in Afghanistan. Their collection of leading archives and testimonies illustrates the geostrategic upheaval that a revolutionary and totalitarian ideology has brought about.
For all those who are unfamiliar with the disastrous sequence and wondered, after each attack in Paris, London, Madrid or Brussels, about the springs of Islamist terrorism, this series will serve as an educational work.
The first part embraces the period 1979-2001. In 1989, the Soviet army withdrew from Kabul and, a few months later, Westerners were celebrating: the Berlin Wall had fallen and they did not see the other side of the scenario – the term “jihadism” did not appear. not yet in their dictionaries…
A merciless struggle
However, in Peshawar, Pakistan, Osama Bin Laden paid $10,000 each month to the service bureau that recruits “Afghan Arabs” to defend their brothers. A mujahideen army was formed, armed by the United States of Ronald Reagan in the logic of the cold war. The FBI has little interest in Islamist fundraising: it sees it as a saving for the American taxpayer!
In 1992, in Bosnia, the massive crimes committed by the Serb forces overshadowed those of Islamist groups who play football with the heads of decapitated Serbs, as shown by images never seen so far. The Dayton agreements will lead to their departure from the country, but, almost everywhere, the networks are now structured and intend to internationalize the fight.
In the United Kingdom, “Londonistan”, in which Scotland Yard sees “a bunch of jokes”, is the focus of a mobilization that will reinforce the outbreak of the war in Iraq by George W. Bush, in 2003. Already galvanized by the attacks of September 11, 2001, young people will engage in a merciless struggle. “Without any real religious training, but determined to seek death,” said Jean-François Ricard, prosecutor in charge of the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office.
Police and secret services are suspected of exaggerating the terrorist threat in order to justify foreign policy imperatives. After discovering that 9/11 was fomented in Hamburg (Germany), Europe will report 191 dead in Madrid in 2004, 52 in London in 2005, and the series will not stop.
Barack Obama announced Bin Laden’s death in 2011, but his refusal to directly involve his country in Syria contributed to the establishment of the Islamic State, which recruited 6,000 European fighters, remotely controlled attacks in Paris, Brussels and elsewhere, and will also inspire “lone wolves”.
What future for jihadist ideology? How to counter it? How to reintegrate its imprisoned actors? How can we better support Muslims who advocate a generous reading of the Quran? These questions conclude the series but remain unanswered.
