The Paper Weekly: Terrorist threats at the Paris Olympics; Italy’s refugee outsourcing plan
2024-08-11
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ISIS-K Goes Global and the Paris Olympics
The 2024 Paris Olympics is in full swing in the midsummer, but terrorist attacks have become an invisible and deadly killer outside the stadium. Before the opening of this Olympics, the French authorities have raised the security alert level to the highest level and officially launched the Seine River Anti-Terrorism Protection Zone (SILT) on July 18 local time. In the past few weeks, France has uncovered several terrorist attack plots against the Olympics. Among them, an 18-year-old Chechen man planned to attack the Olympic football match held in Saint-Etienne, France. The man was allegedly in contact with members of the extremist organization ISIS. He claimed that he "wanted to attack the audience and the security forces, and then martyred himself." This is the latest example of the recent surge in ISIS-related terrorist activities. In April, a 16-year-old boy from Haute-Savoie, France, was arrested on suspicion of researching and making explosives and becoming an ISIS "martyr". The suspect's target of attack may be the Olympics. Just nine hours before the opening of the Olympics, an arson incident occurred on the French railway, which is also considered to be a very likely organized and premeditated terrorist act.
On July 26, 2024, just hours before the opening of the Olympic Games, unidentified people carried out arson attacks on several facilities of the French high-speed train network. Franck Dubourdieu, head of the French high-speed train company, spoke to reporters.
Reports on the Paris Olympics quickly reminded people of the serious terrorist attack that occurred at the Crocus City Concert Hall in the suburbs of Moscow, Russia on March 22 this year. The attack killed more than 140 people and injured 382 people. ISIS immediately claimed responsibility for the incident. The death toll caused by this terrorist attack is basically the same as a series of terrorist attacks carried out by ISIS in Paris on November 13, 2015. After the Moscow terrorist attack, a website associated with ISIS released a picture with the words: "After Moscow, who is next?" and listed four European cities - London, Madrid, Paris, and Rome. French terrorism expert Gilles Kepel once told The Economist: "If you can handle Moscow, you can handle Paris."
Its branch ISIS-K has become the most dangerous and eye-catching part of ISIS's global branches. Although it is not the only source of the increasing global terrorist threat, it is one of the most worrying threats. In addition to the Moscow terrorist attack, ISIS-K has successfully carried out many terrorist activities this year. For example, at the beginning of this year, the organization carried out a bombing in Iran, killing more than 100 people.
On the eve of the opening of the Paris Olympics, the threat posed by ISIS-K to global security has attracted much attention. According to a report by CNN on July 25, British security sources believe that in the past 18 months, the so-called "directed terror threat" has become the focus of attention, among which ISIS-K has attracted the most attention. The article entitled "ISIS-K's online recruitment threatens Western security before the opening of the Olympics" pointed out that European security officials are increasingly worried about the growing power and influence of ISIS and ISIS-K in the West. The latest data from Europol shows that since 2022, "the number of attacks and planned attacks has more than quadrupled." On July 25, the U.S. "Newsweek" published a report titled "ISIS Threat Wins Big at Paris Olympics". In the article, Tom O'Connor, senior writer at "Foreign Policy" and deputy editor of "National Security and Foreign Policy", believes that "ISIS-K is trying to regain the fear it caused in the heart of continental Europe about a decade ago, when ISIS was rampant." Claude Moniquet, leader of the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center and former intelligence officer of the French Directorate-General for External Security, also said that ISIS-K is the most dangerous branch of the ISIS network. "Our observations and intelligence sources indicate that the threat has returned to a level comparable to that before the 2015 attacks." In a Reuters report on July 23, the French Interior Minister said that French security departments have been investigating immigrant communities from former Soviet republics to protect the Olympics from attacks by the ISIS-K radical organization.
As ISIS-K's terrorist forces become increasingly rampant, the trend of younger participants in terrorist attacks is particularly worrying. According to research by Peter Neumann, professor of security studies at King's College London, nearly two-thirds of ISIS-related suspects arrested in Europe in the past nine months were teenagers: 38 of the 58 suspects in 27 ISIS-related attacks or foiled terrorist plots since October last year were between the ages of 13 and 19. This shows that the recruitment of young radicals to carry out terrorist activities is increasing significantly. "Organizations like ISIS-K specifically target teenagers. They may be useless, they may mess up, they may change their minds, but at least they are less suspicious. Who would think a 13-year-old is a terrorist?" Neumann analyzed that ISIS-K mainly recruits teenagers through social media platforms such as TikTok, and it "fishes on the Internet." Therefore, young people's access to the cyberspace and online media of extremist organizations has become a major problem at the moment. Neumann also pointed out that ISIS-K "is by far the most ambitious and aggressive part of ISIS."
“The Olympics were meant to mark the end of the war, but now Europe is embroiled in the biggest armed conflict since World War II,” Vox magazine reporter Joshua Keating wrote in his July 26 report, “Arson Attacks Highlight Security and Terror Threats Facing Paris Olympics.” That includes the war in Ukraine, Israel’s war in Gaza, and the impact of a surge in anti-Semitism around the world.
As Keating points out, major sporting events, with their huge audiences and global media attention, are always tempting targets. The Olympics have historically been the target of political violence, most notably the killing of 11 Israeli team members by Palestinian militants at the 1972 Munich Olympics and the bombing by a right-wing anti-abortion extremist at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Al-Qaeda also allegedly planned to attack the 2000 Sydney Olympics, but ultimately failed, and in 2015 a terrorist tried to enter the Stade de France during a Franco-German football match, with 80,000 people, including the French president, watching.
ISIS-K is also increasing its threat of terrorist attacks against major sporting events. In addition to the Paris Olympics, the largest global sporting event, ISIS-K has also set the 2024 UEFA Champions League, the European Championship and the Cricket World Cup in the United States as targets for attack in official information released this year. Before the opening of the European Championship in June, a man who had failed to apply for a job related to the event was arrested at Cologne Airport in Germany on charges of sending money to ISIS-K.
The Paris Olympics has undoubtedly magnified the global threat of ISIS-K and attracted more concentrated attention. On August 1, Foreign Affairs magazine published a commentary article titled "ISIS-K Goes Global: The World Is Not Ready to Deal with the New International Terrorist Threat". The authors Colin Clarke and Lucas Webber analyzed the development history and recent changes of the terrorist organization.
The development of ISIS-K can be divided into four main stages. When ISIS-K emerged in 2015, the group was mainly focused on growing its own ranks. Like other ISIS affiliates, ISIS-K pursues a highly sectarian agenda. The group has incorporated anti-Shia rhetoric into its propaganda and frequently attacks the Hazaras, a minority Shia group in Afghanistan. Between 2015 and 2018, the Afghan military, U.S. and NATO forces, and the Pakistani army were all conducting counterterrorism operations against ISIS-K, and the Afghan Taliban also fought the group in certain parts of the country. During this period, ISIS was driven out of the small pieces of territory it once controlled and suffered significant personnel losses, especially in its leadership. But even during this low period, the group continued to launch deadly attacks in Afghanistan, many of which took place in the capital, Kabul. Between 2018 and 2021, ISIS-K's attacks gradually decreased due to the success of U.S., Afghan, and allied military operations, but this trend was affected by the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in 2021. After the US withdrawal, the Taliban became the only entity fighting ISIS on the ground. According to relevant research, ISIS-K's attacks dropped significantly between September 2022 and June 2023, with an average of 4 attacks per month in Afghanistan, down from 23 per month in the first year of Taliban rule.
On November 25, 2020, local time, in Moscow, the capital of Russia, the Russian Federal Security Service stated that it had prevented multiple terrorist attacks in the Moscow region and destroyed a "grassroots" organization of the extremist organization "ISIS".
Overall, ISIS-K's recent changes are mainly reflected in the adjustment of recruitment, attack strategy and propaganda strategy. The organization has overcome the pressure on personnel by giving priority to recruiting experienced Pakistani militants and secondly recruiting personnel throughout Central Asia. In terms of strategy, ISIS-K has launched fewer attacks in Afghanistan than in the past, and many of its recent planned attacks are aimed at increasing lethality and focusing on high-profile targets abroad.
In addition to expanding its recruitment scope and recruiting more young people, ISIS-K has also adjusted its propaganda strategy to expand the global influence of its terrorist activities.
In April this year, Newsweek published an article titled "ISIS is planning to attack the West again. Are we ready?" It clearly pointed out that although ISIS-K does not control as much territory as the group did at its peak a decade ago, it has established a complex communication network that can reach new audiences in an increasing number of languages.
ISIS has recently been eager to promote its intentions to attack sporting events hosted by France and other European countries through official and unofficial publications that have been widely circulated in Internet jihadist circles in multiple languages. For example, the official ISIS-K media Voice of Khurasan magazine published an image in May depicting a militant standing in a stadium with a warning: "Where do you want to go? Score the last goal!" The name of the German city where the event was held also appeared. The unofficial Al-Adiyat Media Foundation published an image in June that directly targeted the Paris Olympics: a drone carrying an object labeled "gift" flew towards the Eiffel Tower, with the words "The Olympics for lone wolves have begun by the will of Allah." A few days later, the pro-ISIS media published another image in a very different style, in which a militant stood in front of the burning Eiffel Tower and warned: "We will retaliate by the will of Allah."
This type of propaganda and the actions it seeks to achieve become a worrying pattern of terrorist activity. Lucas Webber, senior advisor at Valens Global and co-founder of the Militant Wire research network, told Newsweek, "We've seen this trend before. They set up the information space, then start criticizing, threatening, and identifying targets. In the end, it seems that every time they end up attacking in the way they said they would." Perhaps incredibly, Webber found that ISIS-K has produced propaganda in more languages than any other group. In his view, ISIS-K's strategy of expanding its media apparatus to more languages allows it to "reach a wider range of target audiences and recruit fighters and raise funds from them."
In addition to its increasingly inflammatory and contagious propaganda, ISIS-K is also trying to attract people and funds through cutting-edge online technologies. For example, it recently issued a call for donations to the organization through the cryptocurrency Monero in its official magazine. This untraceable blockchain platform, combined with a savvy marketing strategy, has enabled ISIS-K to attract "fighters" and funds from all over the world in a way that was only technically feasible until recently.
In short, ISIS-K, which has shown its tenacity, is now promoting its propaganda to audiences more globally and threatening to launch more lethal attacks in more distant places. In the view of Clark and Weber, a global counter-terrorism solution is needed to deal with this global terrorist activity problem. It is particularly critical that since ISIS-K's organization complements each other in the physical network and the virtual network, effective counter-terrorism must simultaneously disintegrate these two networks. Among them, the attack on the virtual network depends on the cooperation between governments and social media and other technology companies. The two authors also pointed out that "ISIS-K and other terrorist organizations have taken advantage of the rift between major powers." From the cooperation of multiple governments to fight terrorism after the 9/11 incident to the current stage of great power competition, the common commitment to intelligence sharing seems to have become a thing of the past. On the issue of countering ISIS-K terrorism, the importance of strengthening global cooperation is beyond doubt, but this vision is facing multiple challenges such as the current intensified competition among major powers and the strengthening of geopolitical divisions.
Italy's plan to outsource refugee transit
According to multiple foreign media reports, after entering August, the refugee transit station that Italy plans to open in Albania will be put into use. As the country with the largest number of refugees in the European Union, Italy plans to open two refugee camps in Albania as the first step in the "refugee outsourcing" plan for the entire European Union. The first refugee camp will be put into use in Shengjin, a port in northern Albania, and will accommodate thousands of refugees trying to reach Italy via the Mediterranean. Italian Prime Minister Meroni said that the first batch of refugees to settle in the Italy-Albania refugee transit camp will be as many as 1,000 people. In addition, the infrastructure of these two refugee camps in Albania will be fully invested and built by Italy.
On July 29, 2024, local time, at Shengjin Port, Albania, the shelter for receiving illegal immigrants arriving in Italy is still under construction. It was originally scheduled to be put into use on August 1.
For refugees sent to the transit station, they will be allowed to apply for asylum in Italy; if the application is rejected, they will be sent back to the country where they are considered safe to return. Italian Ambassador to Albania Bucci explained that the two refugee transit camps will be managed and operated in full accordance with the current laws of Italy and the European Union, and said that this is actually an offshore refugee affairs center established by Italy in Albania, an "enclave" oriented towards solving refugee problems. The "refugee outsourcing" cooperation plan between Albania and Italy was officially finalized in November last year. At that time, Italian Prime Minister Meloni and Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama jointly signed a cooperation agreement, which clarified that the refugee outsourcing cooperation plan between the two countries will last for five years. During the election period, one of Meloni's major policy propositions was to crack down on refugees. Undoubtedly, the Albanian refugee transit station plan will be a major manifestation of her fulfillment of her political views. Associated Press reporters visited the two refugee camps in Shengjin and Gjader when the refugee transit plan was implemented and was about to be put into use, but were not allowed to enter the facilities to shoot. But in the latter, the media's reporters observed that construction plans are being carried out in full swing and are very likely to boost local economic growth.
However, the refugee outsourcing plan has also attracted a lot of criticism, especially from Italy's left-wing parties. In an interview with the BBC, left-wing MP Riccardo Maggi first mentioned that the cost of the two projects is too expensive, estimated to exceed 650 million euros, but the number of refugees that can be "referred" is relatively limited compared to the investment. In Maggi's view, this Albanian enclave in the name of solving the refugee problem is actually no different from a colony, where Italian laws and regulations may not be effectively implemented, and whether the Italian authorities responsible for accepting refugees from the Mediterranean can effectively distinguish and screen the identities of refugees and properly decide who can stay in Italy and who will be transferred to Albania is also questionable.
Italian Ambassador to Albania Fabrizio Bucci talks to reporters at a refugee camp under construction in Gjader, Albania, August 1, 2024.
In response to Maggi's questioning, Butch's response was quite tough. He said that refugees who choose to come to Italy should consider the risk of being "diverted" and "outsourced". Butch also said that Europe and Italy have been trying to redistribute refugees throughout the EU, but have not been successful. Therefore, this refugee outsourcing plan should be regarded as a new path that can be tried, an "experiment"; once the experimental results are in line with expectations, it may be a reference and replication for other EU countries. In fact, 15 EU member states led by Denmark recently wrote an open letter to the European Commission to support the refugee outsourcing policy. The new British Prime Minister Starmer also praised the refugee outsourcing agreement after meeting with the prime ministers of Italy and Albania, although his Labour Party once severely criticized another refugee transit plan promoted by the previous Conservative authorities to transfer refugees received by the UK to Rwanda. There are also rumors that the British Conservative authorities once contacted Albania before reaching an agreement with the Rwandan government. Although this rumor was denied by Prime Minister Rama, all signs indicate that Albania seems happy to take on new business of refugee redistribution and outsourced transit for the EU.
Italy and Albania have always maintained a very friendly relationship, both historically and at present. Today, Italy is one of Albania's most important import and export trading partners; during the COVID-19 pandemic, Albania also sent dozens of medical staff to assist its allies at the most difficult time for Italy to fight the epidemic. Therefore, it is not surprising that the refugee outsourcing plan was able to reach an agreement between the Italian Meloni authorities and the Albanian government, who are eager to further solve the refugee problem. According to Reuters, citing Italian officials, the implementation of the refugee outsourcing plan will help alleviate the problems caused by the surge in the number of refugees in Italy; Meloni even bluntly stated that the existence of the outsourced transit station will be a "deterrent" for those refugees who want to enter Italy - Albania is not a member of the European Union, it is not rich, and it is even quite far from northern Europe where living conditions are better. For Albania, helping Meloni implement a new refugee policy is also a necessary link in consolidating the good relations between the two countries, especially since the country is trying to join the European Union and needs Italy's support. It is also very important to continue to "share the worries" for Europe on the refugee issue in the near future. In addition, as mentioned above, Italy and Albania have a good interactive relationship, and ordinary Albanian people regard the establishment of the Italian refugee camp enclave as a way to thank Italy: after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, during the regime change in Albania, Italy also took in a considerable number of Albanian refugees.
But in fact, this plan has been questioned and criticized by the outside world since the two countries reached an agreement. Both Al Jazeera and Human Rights Watch have denounced Italy's outsourced refugee transit station plan. The former said that this move is a manifestation of the racist and fascist stance of the Meloni administration; and even though European Commission President von der Leyen has repeatedly affirmed the refugee resettlement agreement between Italy and Albania, Al Jazeera believes that since most of the refugees transferred landed in Italy from the Mediterranean, and many were rescued by coastal and border officials or armed forces of various countries during their dangerous escape, whether the refugee transfer policy stipulated in the agreement violates the provisions of international law on maritime rescue is still open to discussion. In the view of Human Rights Watch, setting up an outsourced refugee transit station is a completely costly and cruel "farce". Considering that the Italian authorities are not clear about the regulations and specific measures for who will be sent to Albania, perhaps a considerable number of refugees will still choose to flock to Italy, and it is also questionable whether the country can easily cope with the work of receiving refugees locally and referring them to Albania. In other words, Meloni's tough "deterrent" function may not necessarily be effective.
Li Siyang, Zhuang Muyang
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