The European Union lost €180 billion (USD $210 billion) in GDP due to terrorism between 2004 and 2016, like reported by zerohedge.com. The United Kingdom (€43.7 billion) and France (€43 billion) suffered the highest losses, followed by Spain (€40.8 billion) and Germany (€19.2 billion), according to a Rand Corporation study.

“Beyond those who have been directly physically affected by terrorist attacks, the extensive coverage of terrorist attacks through multiple media and social media channels has substantially increased the amount of people and companies that could be psychologically affected. This subsequently affects their economic behaviour”.

New statistics have also come from the Britain’s anti-terrorism office. 441 peoplehave been arrested in the UK for terrorism in the last year alone, and 4,182 since the attacks of September 11, 2001. The threat of terrorism is exhausting Europe.

According to the Spanish “black book” of terrorism, 658 Europeans have been murdered in terror attacks on European soil, while 1,029 Europeans have been killed by them abroad. Half of the French army has been deployed within the French Republic to protect the civilian targets, such as schools, monuments, and religious sites.

Europe’s armies are exhausted from patrolling the streets, to the point that NATO planners now fear that, over time, European armies “may get better at guarding railway stations and airports than fighting wars”. An officer who recently returned from Afghanistan for guard duty in Belgium said: “We are standing around like flowers pots, just waiting to be smashed”. Germany also sent troops into the streets for the first time since the Second World War.

One has to ask: Is Europe really serious about its war on terror? The French magazine Causeur just called it “the Batman Syndrome“:

“How can we respect a society that is too cowardly to fight those who threaten its citizens, and that demonstrates its weakness by systematically seeking appeasement at the price of the most unreasonable accommodations? It is the ‘Batman syndrome’: the hero refuses to kill, he systematically saves his enemy who escapes and kills new victims until the hero catches up with him, and so on.“

France is now close to freeing at least 50 terrorists from prison. The UK is also due to free 80 Islamic fundamentalists from prison. According to a new French report, nearly 10% of the 512 prisoners incarcerated for terrorism are likely to be released by the end of 2018. Their release may well pose a major threat. Khamzat Azimov, a terrorist who stabbed a man to death and injured four other people with a knife in central Paris, was known to counter-terrorism forces. Belgium released from prison a terrorist who had gone on a “bloody rampage” in the city of Liege two days before he killed two policewomen and a passerby.

Unless it gets serious about arresting not only the terrorists but also their deadly ideology, Europe will not see the end of the jihadist siege. A few days after the attacks in Liege, France thwarted another jihadist plot “with either explosives or ricin, this very powerful poison”. After that, there was another terror attempt to strike the French gay community.

“France is the priority target of the terrorism unleashed in Europe by conquering Islam” wrote Ivan Rioufol in Le Figaro.

“Since 2015, 247 people have been killed in France in attacks by Islamists. The ‘knife intifada’ is no longer reserved just for Israel. In Magnanville, a couple of policemen, Jean-Baptiste Salvaing and Jessica Schneider, were stabbed in front of their three-year-old child. Father Jacques Hamel was slaughtered in his church. In Marseille, Laura and Maurane had their throats slashed. These crimes will continue so long as the Republic leaves the enemy in peace”.

The level of threat in France remains alarmingly high. “9,157 people were subjected to at least one surveillance measure by the intelligence services in 2017 in the name of the prevention of terrorism”, an official French report recently revealed. In 2017, 20 major terror attacks in France were foiled.

Regarding the West’s current “war on terror,” American historian Victor Davis Hanson wrote:

“The result is the present age of serial Punic conflict, perhaps intolerable to the psyche, but in amoral terms tolerable as long as casualties are kept to a minimum and defeat is redefined as acceptable strategic wisdom. In the past, such periods of enervating war have gone on for a century and more. Ultimately, they too end — and with consequences.”

In the end, there might be still a region called “Europe”, but it may no longer enfold European culture.

A new era has begun in Turkey. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has cemented his power for the next five years, at least. The new system allows the president to appoint cabinet ministers directly, gives him the power to issue decrees and appoint members of the judiciary, like reported by dw.com.

Erdogan was able to get an outright majority to win the presidency even though votes for his Justice and Development Party (AKP) dropped to 42.5 percent from 49.5 percent in the previous parliamentary election in 2015.

Big win for Erdogan

Yes, this is a big win for Erdogan. But it is a big win in a very polarized country. AKP voters are celebrating while the other half of the nation is deeply disappointed because they are aware that this is the end of democracy as they know it.

The opposition made a strong comeback, but it wasn’t enough. Despite the complaints about vote manipulation, the AKP was quick to declare victory and will stick to it at all costs. It’s a moment of deja-vu that reminds us of the 2017 referendum, in which the “yes” vote won by a slight majority, paving the way to constitutional change. The June 24 election was the last chance to reverse that decision. This was Turkey’s last shot at democracy. Those citizens who voted for the opposition parties and what it stands for will have to find a way to adjust to the new system.

The world is watching

The world has been watching for a long time now. And it will continue to do so, since Turkey isn’t an ally that could easily be abandoned. In the meantime Turkey’s relations with the West, mainly with Europe, will be more challenging than before, probably more so for Erdogan’s European counterparts than for the president himself since he now has the justification he needed to legally exercise his expanded power. He has been practicing during the state-of-emergency that has been ongoing since the failed 2016 coup.

If the European Union decided to formally suspend the accession process with Turkey, this means it will be ignoring the other half of the country that is striving for democracy. If they don’t suspend it, then the bloc will have to find a way to deal with a country that is constantly violating the values that the EU is built on. The silence from world leaders following the preliminary election results suggest that caution will be practiced while dealing with Turkey.

Opposition silenced

Following the opposition’s defeat, voters are frustrated that it has been so quiet. Erdogan’s main rival, Muharrem Ince of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), is due to make an official statement on Monday. Considering the news coming out about manipulation of votes both during and before the election, the voter frustration is understandable.

While the opposition worries about what to say to the public on June 25, Erdogan must roll up his sleeves and dive into improving the economy. Winning an election is one thing, but ending Turkey’s economic woes will require more effort and is a big challenge, despite all the powers the new president has.

Late last week a US drone killed Maulana Fazlullah, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban—known as the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)—in Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province. This is a serious body blow to the TTP, which had already been significantly weakened by several counter-insurgency and counterterrorism operations in recent years, like reported by aspistrategist.org.au.

Fazlullah, who was 44 years old, was a particularly nasty individual. He took over as the TPP’s leader after another US drone strike killed his predecessor, Hakimullah Mehsud, in November 2013. Fazlullah sought the imposition of Sharia law throughout Pakistan. He led the insurgency in the Swat valley in 2007–2009 during which music and barber shops were banned and girls were discouraged from going to school. It took some 35,000 troops to dislodge him and his fighters from that area.

But Fazlullah will be especially remembered for two notoriously vicious terrorist acts. First he ordered the assassination in 2012 of 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai because of her advocacy of education for girls. She was badly injured in the terrorist attack but recovered, and was eventually awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014.

Second, Fazlullah ordered what was undoubtedly one of the most brutal terrorist attacks in the history of Pakistan: the slaughter of over 130 children at a school in Peshawar. That assault on the school where many military officers send their children marked a decisive turning point in Pakistan’s fight against the Taliban and its supporters.

Following the school massacre, then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif abandoned all attempts to negotiate with the TTP. The government implemented its counterterrorism National Action Plan, reimposed the death penalty and launched Operation Sword of the Prophet in North Waziristan in 2015.

Importantly, the military made clear that it would no longer differentiate between a ‘good’ Taliban (one that only killed Western forces in Afghanistan, but not Pakistani forces) and a ‘bad’ Taliban (one that killed Westerners and Pakistanis alike). The new approach seems to have paid off. The number of terrorist incidents in Pakistan has significantly declined in the last two years.

Needless to say, few people, if any, will miss Fazlullah. Among Taliban leaders and fighters, Fazlullah enjoyed little respect largely because he wasn’t a Mehsud, one of the dominant tribes in Waziristan. Following the death of Hakimullah Mehsud, there were many anti-American demonstrations condemning his assassination. I suspect the same won’t happen this time. On the contrary, his elimination will be welcomed by many. Chief among them will be the military, which stated that Fazlullah’s death ‘gives relief to scores of Pakistani families who fell victims [sic] to TTP terror’.

But most importantly, Fazlullah’s departure provides a major opportunity to improve relations between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the US. Pakistan has complained for several years that Afghanistan didn’t do enough to hunt down Fazlullah and others hiding in the eastern part of the country.

Military operations in Pakistan’s tribal areas had reduced the Taliban’s safe operational space and had forced Fazlullah to flee across the border. From there, however, he continued to launch attacks into Pakistan. With his removal, cross-border operations will probably diminish, eliminating a major obstacle in bilateral relations.

We can also expect relations between Pakistan and the US to improve—albeit from a very low point. America’s removal of Pakistan’s most wanted terrorist will go some way towards rebuilding US–Pakistan bilateral relations that have been particularly poor since President Donald Trump announced his South Asia policy last August and accused Islamabad of harbouring terrorists. It’s unlikely that the Trump administration will reverse its decision to suspend $2 billion in military aid to Pakistan. Even so, a sense that Washington and Islamabad are pulling in the same direction could begin to build much-needed trust between the two capitals.

As for Fazlullah’s replacement, it’s difficult to see how a leader will take control either quickly or smoothly. The TTP is highly factionalised, divided along tribal and operational lines and with conflicting economic interests. Its weakened state, as well as the uncertainty about its future direction, may prompt fighters to defect to the Islamic State affiliate in Khorasan province. That wouldn’t be good news for the long-term stability of Pakistan.

In the meantime, the country will hold federal and provincial elections late next month. The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, which governed until recently handing over to a caretaker administration until the election, will want to take credit for Fazlullah’s elimination. Former Prime Minister Sharif can legitimately claim responsibility for the significant decrease in terrorist attacks under his watch, albeit with a lot of support from the military.

Sharif’s achievement should help his party return to power, most likely with a reduced majority. Such an outcome would be a positive development for Pakistan. An electoral victory for former test cricketer, Imran Khan, who’s highly critical of US policy in the region, would be bad for US–Pakistan relations and would almost certainly set back any prospect for peace in Afghanistan.

Muqtada al-Sadr’s nationalist agenda undermines Iran’s unchallenged influence in Iraq. To create strategic spheres of influence across the Middle East, Iran has supported a militarized form of sectarian nationalism, like reported by carnegie-mec.org. Such nationalism is part of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s vision of “exporting the revolution.” Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthi militias, and the Syrian regime are all part of this anti-Western, anti-Israeli “axis of resistance,” and even if Sunni groups such as Hamas are also a part of it, they are an exception to the rule that confirms the sectarianism underlying Iran’s regional alliances.

In contrast, Sadr has adopted a nationalist approach focused on strengthening Iraq’s independence and sovereignty. That means that Iran’s model of sectarian nationalism will be challenged by Sadr’s Iraqi nationalism. Sadr is working on ending Iranian and U.S. influence in Iraq. His nationalistic project is not likely to be accepted by Iran. To maintain its influence in Iraq for at least the next four years, Tehran will respond with threats. Currently, Iran’s influence is secured through its strong ties with local militias trained and funded by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, such as the Hezbollah Movement in Iraq and Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, as well as through the Fatah Alliance and the State of Law Coalition, which together won over 70 seats in Iraq’s May elections.

Muqtada al-Sadr is not anti-Iranian, he is better described as an Iraqi nationalist. Therefore, measuring the impact of his politics on Iran’s influence depends on how the Iranians perceive Iraqi nationalism and whether they are willing to tolerate a more independent, Iraq-centric approach by Shi‘a actors.

There are two main dynamics that shaped Sadr’s attitude toward Iranian influence in the last few years. First, Iran’s support for groups that dissented from his movement, such as ‘Asaib Ahl al-Haq and Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba. Recently, some of these groups have grown militarily, financially, and politically, sometime posing a threat to Sadr’s influence in his strongholds.

Second, given his support base, mostly formed of underprivileged Shi‘a of southern origin, Sadr embraced an anti-establishment discourse that appealed to his base. He adopted an active oppositional role and a reformist agenda that targeted some of the Shi‘a Islamist parties and figures close to the Iranians, especially former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki. Sadr’s current alliance with the leftist and liberal groups that prioritized an Iraq-centric agenda and demanded major reforms is a continuation of this path.

While Iran may not be interested in actively opposing Sadr’s internal agenda, it will continue watching his political choices to see whether these could significantly reduce the influence of its allies and serve the interests of rivals such as the United States and Saudi Arabia. It may prefer to contain Sadr within an arrangement that neither excludes him nor gives him a controlling role. Interestingly, this is an objective shared with the U.S. As for Sadr, he was careful to clarify that his objective is not to confront Iran but to assert Iraq’s independence. It is not going to be a zero-sum-game. There is room to accommodate the interests of both sides.

However much Muqtada al-Sadr might like to, the answer is no. Apart from the fact that he is not targeting Iran in particular, but has any type of external interference in Iraqi affairs in his sights, Sadr lacks the political strength, for now, to counter Iran’s infiltration of Iraq’s security institutions. Whatever governing coalition emerges following recent elections, and assuming Sadr’s bloc will be part of it, Sadr’s power will be diluted by his governing partners.

While there is a broader desire among Iraq’s ruling elites to curb Iranian influence, the state remains weak and therefore vulnerable to penetration. The response to external interference is not to fight it, but to rebuild Iraqi governing institutions. Nor does Iran feel threatened by Sadr, or by an Iraqi government in which he plays a role. Tehran knows it can use its local allies to keep him leashed. Iran’s greatest enemy in Iraq is its own overconfidence.

There is no doubt that Muqtada al-Sadr’s narrow victory in Iraq’s May 12 legislative elections poses a serious challenge to Iranian influence in the country, but also one that remains manageable for Tehran. Building on his immense personal popularity and his credentials as heir to a prestigious Arab nationalist and Iraqi nationalist clerical dynasty, Sadr has increasingly upped his populist rhetoric against Iran. His followers immediately celebrated their victory by chanting, “Iran out, out! Baghdad remains free.” Since then his aides have echoed the widespread resentment against Iranian interference, stressing the unchecked flow of Iranian imports, to the detriment of whatever is left of local Iraqi production. They have also accused Iran of a Machiavellian plan to destroy Iraq’s youth by inundating the neighboring southern governorates with drugs. Add to these accusations the still unresolved issues of water, oilfields, and border settlements between Iraq and Iran and the balance of Iraqi politics could possibly tilt in favor of Tehran’s enemies, including the United States and its Gulf allies.

However, Iran also knows the Sadrist movement intimately, having militarily and ideologically trained most of its commanders since 2003. The Iranians have in the past kept the movement under control through a ruthless policy of divide and rule, with some of the most prominent Sadrists defecting to become the new leaders of the pro-Iran Popular Mobilization Forces. The lack of discipline within the Sadrist movement, in particular the absence of credible middle-ranking cadres, and the poor performance of its parliamentary bloc in the past only make Iran’s task of containing the Sadrists easier. And if Muqtada al-Sadr resorts to his favored tactic, namely street politics and militia threats, Iran could unleash its own proxies against him. After all, they are organic heirs, albeit illegitimate ones, of Muqtada’s late father, Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr, who was murdered by Saddam Hussein’s regime in 1999.

In a recent series of interviews to promote his new book, Anatomy of Terror, former FBI special agent and current counterterrorism expert Ali Soufan insists that the Islamic State remains potent and dangerous, like reported by intelnews.org.

Speaking last week to the British newspaper The Guardian, Soufan warned that, even though the Islamic State was unable to hang on to its self-described caliphate in the Middle East, the group has ample opportunities to regroup. In the days of al-Qaeda, “we only had one vacuum, in Afghanistan”, from where Osama bin Laden’s organization operated from and spread its message, said Soufan. “Now we have so many vacuums —Syria, Yemen, Libya, northern Nigeria, Tunisia, the Philippines— and it’s expanding. That’s very dangerous”, he warned.

Soufan, a well-read analyst and complex thinker, who today presides over The Soufan Group and oversees the Soufan Foundation, is right to warn against the notion that the Islamic State is on its way out. The group’s meteoric rise marked a watershed moment in the modern history of militant Sunni Islam. Even if it is militarily annihilated —a prospect that is far from certain— its physical absence will in no way erase its impact and influence among its millions of supporters and sympathizers. In fact, experts warn that the group is —like al-Qaeda before it— proving to be resilient and able to withstand intense military pressure from its enemies. Currently, all signs show that the Islamic State is actively reorganizing under the command of its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The prolonged absence of the Iraqi-born al-Baghdadi has prompted wild speculation about this supposed demise or severe incapacitation. There are even some who claim that he was killed by an Islamic State faction in an internal coup.

But most intelligence agencies agree that al-Baghdadi —and his core lieutenants— remain very much alive and well. Three weeks ago, The Washington Post cited anonymously a “senior United States counterterrorism official” who confirmed that, by all indications, al-Baghdadi was alive and was coordinating the group’s activities in its last strongholds in eastern Syria. This is supported by communications intercepts, detainee interrogations and statements by informants, said The Post. It is important to note that Al-Baghdadi continues to have alongside him some of the militant group’s most hardened commanders, most of whom were trained in intelligence and military tactics during the reign of Saddam Hussein. Under their guidance, retreating Islamic State forces are leaving behind cell-based formations of underground fighters in areas that are liberated by the fragile US-led coalition.

There also appears to be some coordination between these Syrian-based cells and Islamic State supporters abroad. It is worth noting that in 2018 alone, as it has been suffering successive military defeats in Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State has successfully carried out terrorist attacks in Syria, Iraq, France, Russia, Belgium, Niger, Mali, Indonesia, Burkina Faso, and Afghanistan. These attacks could be part of the group’s long-term strategy, which may include intensifying high-casualty attacks against civilians around the world as a form of retaliation and propaganda. In a meeting in Berlin, Germany, last month, the heads of Europe’s intelligence agencies warned that the Islamic State would continue to attack European targets for the foreseeable future. Andrew Parker, the head of Britain’s Security Service (MI5) stressed that this agency had thwarted no fewer than 12 terrorist plots on British soil —most of them linked to the Islamic State— in the past year.

More importantly, the leadership of the Islamic State is now actively laying out the group’s long-term strategy. Its central parameter appears to be based on a carefully crafted ideological framework that will allow the group to survive the loss its territorial stronghold it the Middle East. Experts tell The Post that al-Baghdadi appears to be mediating between various Sunni militant factions in an effort to solve longstanding doctrinal disputes between them. The overall goal is to unite them under the Islamic State’s ideological umbrella, but not necessarily under a single strong leader. In fact, having learned from the experience of al-Qaeda, whose brand suffered irreparably after Osama bin Laden’s demise, the Islamic State “has chosen to de-emphasize” the importance of al-Baghdadi or any other individual group leader, says The Post. That is why al-Baghdadi has remained largely silent for years, and is unlikely to re-emerge, regardless of what happens to the organization in the near future.

Among all the network babble and contradicting reports surrounding the cancellation of the Israel-Argentina football match, it’s important to carefully analyze what we’re actually facing. While the cancellation on its own is unfortunate, unlike what the following day’s headlines conveyed, Israel did not suffer a catastrophic blow, like reported by jpost.com.

On the other hand, we can’t ignore the possibility that this was a clear example of Diplomatic Terrorism, assuming the cancellation was indeed the result of violent pressure from Palestinians bodies orchestrated by the BDS movement.

Diplomatic Terrorism is a unique activity against the state or its representatives, taking place on the international arena aimed at delegitimizing Israel’s standing among the family of nations. Diplomatic Terrorism can have effect on many fields, such as media, culture, sport, civil society etc. It succeeds by planting chaos, fright, insecurity and especially the notion that Israel is being defeated on the global podium.  I saw it first hand while representing Israel at the UN.

Classic terrorism has one immediate goal – taking lives. Just a few days ago Israel’s security forces apprehended an underground cell that planned to assassinate senior Israeli officials, including the Prime Minister and the mayor of Jerusalem. Keeping that in mind, its long-term goal is to destabilize the people’s sense of security, plant fear and lead political changes in violent means. This is what the Palestinian terror organizations have been doing for dozens of years.

Next to the classic violent terrorism, the Palestinians and their supporters around the world have developed a second wing, more sophisticated – the Diplomatic Terrorism. This wing relies on pinpoint, so called legitimate, operations that try to create a change in the political, public and civil attitude towards Israel, and operates on the global scene. It’s not about a legitimate political debate– it’s about undermining Israel’s legitimacy.

In recent years, the Palestinians have made this kind of terrorism the focal point of their battle with Israel, since they realize that they will not reach their goal using violent means and they can use the advantages presented to them by the globalization, while using Israel’s own soft spots of developed senses of self-criticism and self-deprecation.

In order to combat this threat Israel must use Diplomatic Counter-Terrorism. I have been waging this war in recent years under various capacities. These operations are mostly pre-emptive and take place on multiple arenas. The campaign starts long before the attack is even planned, as we try by a series of actions, to weaken the motivation and ability to carry out a Diplomatic Terrorism attack.

However, even if such an attack happens, it’s not the end of the road and there are effective reactive steps that can be taken. Unfortunately, Israel has not been practicing this method of operation, let alone in its response to the cancellation of the match.

So what should we do? Relatively the same way if it was a classic attack, using three main stages.

The first stage is to isolate the arena and limit collateral damage. Just as security forces will not let civilians into the scene of a terror attack, the Israeli government should do the same to tone down and find a focal point to deal with the situation. The cacophony of voices stirring the pot – from the production company, through the ministries of culture & sports and tourism, the football association and dozens of self-declared experts only enhances the damage. They all have good intentions, but in reality, each one of them just makes things worse and intensifies the effect of the diplomatic attack.

The second stage is the investigation, which should take place behind closed doors, yet while keeping an open and honest dialogue. We must ask who was in charge of the diplomatic battle that took place in the background and did not raise a flag. If they had no knowledge of it, how could that be? We should also ask where the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was. The leading diplomatic body in Israel, with hundreds of people at its disposal in relevant command posts around the world – professional diplomats who know the key people in their respective countries. We should be brutally honest and ask – if the MFA wasn’t in the loop – why? If it was in the loop – how did it fail to warn and thwart? From my experience, I can say that when the MFA focuses on a diplomatic counter-terrorism effort – it can get the job done. Clearly, this wasn’t the case here.

The third and most important stage is learning. The football match is just one of many events that Israel is scheduled to host in the coming year, and a drop in the ocean of vast international potential that we have. The main questions we should ask today is how can we prevent this from happening again tomorrow and how can we prevent the next Diplomatic Terrorism attacks. We should be active on traditional and new media and on the ground, where we should think of pro-active actions such as pro-Israel demonstrations on strategic points and by harnessing Israel’s positive talents and supporters both in Israel and abroad.

Self-blame and self-hate will not help. Slandering and threatening Messi are irrelevant. Right now Israel must take the initiative, get its act together and start thinking practically and operationally.

More than three years after an extensive bombing campaign across the country began, in March 2018, the war in Yemen was designated by the Secretary General of the United Nations as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, like reported by soufangroup.com.

This acknowledgment might finally bring this ‘forgotten war,’ and the devastating plight of the Yemeni people, into the forefront for the international community., though it is also as likely that the world will continue to look the other way, with episodic pangs of publicity and muted outrage but no meaningful pressure on the belligerents and their supporters to resolve the conflict peacefully. Since the Arab Spring, the conflict plaguing Yemen, which sits between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden and shares borders with Saudi Arabia and Oman, has steadily worsened. If nothing is done, Yemen’s humanitarian disaster and internal security crisis are likely to create a security crisis for the region as well. Concerns range from the radicalization of the population to a flow of refugees out of Yemen to neighboring countries, on a scale similar to Syria.

The conflict is consistent in two glaring ways: the suffering of the Yemeni civilians, and the refusal by all sides and their supporters to reassess what they are trying to do and what they are actually doing. Civilian casualties have resulted from direct conflict, the use of starvation as a tactic of war, and the spread of disease due to a lack of medical infrastructure. In response to the November 2017 missile the Houthis launched at Riyadh, the Saudis announced an increase in the stringency of their coalition’s blockade. They dramatically increased their stronghold on ports, essentially starving a country in which 90 percent of food is imported, and 22 million citizens rely on humanitarian assistance for survival. Saudi’s blockade has effectively worsened the already catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Yemen.

Despite the undeniable loss of life and the wrecking of an already weak economy and infrastructure, there is no sign of any reconsideration about the conduct of the war. In fact, it appears all sides are again doubling down on their failing plans. On June 4, the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. is considering a request by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to directly support its military campaign to seize the crucial port of Hudaydah. This would be a significant deepening of the already deep U.S. involvement in the catastrophic conflict.

The key regional players in the war in Yemen, each bringing both grievances and goals to the fight, are Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Saudi coalition, which includes the UAE, wants to reestablish President Abdrabu Mansour Hadi—or another ally—as ruler. The coalition, with substantial U.S. support, is engaged in a proxy battle against Iran and its agent, Hizbollah, both of which provide arms and advice to the Houthi rebel force that attempted to topple the regime of President Hadi in January 2015. Saudi Arabia views the war in Yemen as having potentially large consequences for the regional balance of power, with not only a Sunni-Shi’a conflict at play, but also against the backdrop of a burgeoning Sunni-Sunni power struggle among various Gulf nations. Also of concern is the potential for conflict spillover into neighboring countries in Africa.

While the crisis in Yemen must end based strictly on humanitarian need, it is also important to consider the effects on global security of an unchecked humanitarian disaster. When famine and hopelessness truly set in, Yemen’s humanitarian crisis will converge with its security crisis. At that point, even if outside influencers end their roles in the conflict, Yemen will have become a nexus of strife and deprivation, likely to devolve into a decades-long global threat.

The military campaign against the Islamic State has all but ended its control of territory in Syria and Iraq. Yet rather than disintegrate, ISIS will likely retreat into the dark Web and encrypted apps like Telegram, where its propaganda, brand and influence can remain potent. In fact, this may be part of a deliberate long-term strategy designed by the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, like reported by nypost.com.

In seeking to establish a digital rather than a physical caliphate, ISIS will increasingly resemble Revolution Muslim, a New York City-based radical Islamist network active in 2007-11 and connected to jihadist plotting on four continents.

One of us, under the Muslim kunya of Younus Abdullah Muhammad, was a founder and leader of Revolution Muslim before pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy, communicating threats and Internet stalking and serving 3 ½ years in a federal prison. The other was director of intelligence analysis for the NYPD at the time and played a central role in investigations that led to Younus Abdullah Muhammad’s (a k a Jesse Morton’s) arrest.

Revolution Muslim-related plots and arrests ranged from Jihad Jane, to the stabbing of a British lawmaker, to a plot to bomb the London Stock Exchange. In the United States, terrorist activities included the targeting of the Chabad-Lubav­itch headquarters in Brooklyn, death threats against the creators of “South Park” and a subway bomb plot in New York City.

Having worked directly against each other, we know from opposite perspectives the danger, challenges and methods most effective in countering the threat posed by a virtual terrorist network.

As we write in an in-depth report to be released this week by the New America Foundation, Revolution Muslim pioneered an online propaganda effort, utilized the new medium of social media for radicalization and recruitment and established the template for English-language jihadi magazines (which ISIS still uses today).

Revolution Muslim also innovated “crowd-sourced” attacks, provided a platform for “virtual operational entrepreneurs” and was a radicalization hub for Americans who then sought to join overseas terror networks.

Thwarting Revolution Muslim required the use of NYPD undercover officers, informants, civilian intelligence analysts and online, digital undercover officers.
Eventually, after a series of operations, some in partnership with federal and international law-enforcement and intelligence agencies, the Revolution Muslim network was crushed, and Morton was arrested in Morocco in 2011.

Yet Revolution Muslim’s template lived on, as seen in the 2015 San Bernardino and 2017 Orlando attacks, and the more recent set of New York City terrorist attacks in Chelsea, the West Side Highway and a suicide bomber in a pedestrian tunnel to the Port Authority.

There will always be individuals in the West who are vulnerable to the siren song of jihadist groups that leverage the intersection of personal vulnerabilities, a binary vision of the West vs. Islam and the heroic ideal of the “just and holy warrior.”

Social-media platforms enabled these groups to reach their target audience. Facebook, Google, Twitter and others must work more quickly to take down extremist content whose only purpose is to radicalize other users.

And US authorities not maximizing the use of former extremists besides the short-term role of extracting “intel” on former associates, despite the fact that “formers” with street cred have unique standing to dissuade aspiring jihadists from going down this dead-end road.

In a similar vein, transitioning former terrorists back into society is far from easy, but it’ll be increasingly important for us to get right. Close to 70 individuals incarcerated for cases related to homegrown terrorism will be released between 2018 and 2024 in the United States. Establishing some type of support system for “formers” is crucial to preventing recidivism.

Morton knows this firsthand. After cooperating with law enforcement, becoming de-radicalized and receiving a position as a resident terror expert at a respected university in August 2016, he relapsed into pre-radicalized drug use and criminality that December. He’s now in treatment and once again working to fight extremism and jihadi radicalization through a nonprofit he co-founded.

Finally, if Western law-enforcement and intelligence agencies are to effectively penetrate the network of a digital ISIS to detect and disrupt plots, they’ll need trained digital undercover officers who can navigate the dark Web and private communication channels of WhatsApp and Telegram.

This will require the sustained development and devotion of additional human resources by national and local law-enforcement and intelligence organizations, as well as networked coordination with overseas partners.

Ramadan will end on June 15th. The world cup starts on June 14; the first match to be played between Russia and Saudi Arabia, target countries of ISIS, like reported by 112.international

Pro-ISIS sympathizers continue to threaten the next football world championships, which will be held in Russia (June 14 – July 15). To date, the official ISIS has never mentioned in its public posts about the world cup in Russia, although the multinational nature of the event makes it a symbolic and unanimously acceptable target for terrorists.

Threats and greater involvement of sympathizers are not surprising at all; just think of the Rio Olympics in 2016. Two years ago, pro-ISIS propaganda was spread on social media to attract the sympathizers, and for the first time, it was translated into Portuguese. The same strategy adopted for other Olympic events such as Sochi and Beijing. For about three weeks, threats to world championships have been translated into Russian.

It should be noted that the ISIS message has the authority to trigger “detachments” for performing planned and large-scale attacks. The pro-ISIS messages (for which the organization takes responsibility for some strategic reasons) are aimed at the soldiers of the caliphate, those who have only been inspired without ever having had direct contact with the central nucleus of the organization.

In 2014 al-Qaeda suggested looking for specific occasions such as electoral campaigns, charity parties, sporting events, and concerts to carry out attacks. For many times, ISIS has referred in its public posts to the world cup in Russia as a target to be hit. Football fields have already been successfully attacked by the Islamic State before.

What’s the purpose of attacking the stadiums?

Terrorism aims to undermine the classical patterns, modifying and shaping the usual status quo, known by the society. From a cultural point of view, the stadiums represent the temples of sports par excellence. The jihadists regard the stadium as a church for the role it plays in the life of kafir (ISIS followers believe they are observing Islam in its most effective form). The sport fascinates people, distracts them from the tragedy of their lives, makes them experience antipodal feelings. Sport is fun, it is a family fun time. So the facility that hosts the sports game becomes a battle theater.

The stadium strategy (currently located in Europe) has already proved to be meaningful and fits into a tactic that aims at dispersing forces maximizing fear among the masses. The stadiums host tens of thousands of people: some facilities are able to contain 90 thousand fans. Obviously, they are suitable not for all the attacks. Unlike the subway, attacking a stadium with gas would not make sense because it provides an optimal condition for air circulation. The stadium has a determining factor in itself: it hosts a crowd that could become chaotic in a very short time. For example, if one of the Paris bombers had blown a bomb close to a gate full of fans, the consequences would have been far more tragic. The crowd waiting on the stadium (in front of the whole world), would have turned into a disruptive and chaotic force in case of explosions. And considering the tightened control that would theoretically prevent undermining the foundations of a stadium, deflagrating a bomb in front of a crowded entrance still remains the best tactical option. Finally, the stadium has a special feature, unique in its kind: live television. The social networks allow to reach millions of people, but this range is not comparable to a live broadcast of a football match, perhaps second to an American football game.

Possible dates and coincidences

A useful time window could be between May 28th and June 4th

With the beginning of Ramadan, the Muslim world celebrates the Annunciation of the Koran by the archangel Gabriel to the prophet Muhammad. Ramadan, the ninth month of the year according to the Islamic calendar, the period in Islam is dedicated to fasting for the first revelation of the Koran to prophet Muhammad. The annual observance is regarded as one of the five pillars of Islam and obliges Muslims to abstain from sinful behavior and fight (if it is not self-defense, of course). According to Islamic Scripture, spiritual rewards of fasting multiply during Ramadan while previous sins are forgiven. The true practicing Muslims, scattered all over the world, celebrate the holy month in peace and deep self-contemplation. Ramadan will end on June 15, 2018, with the beginning of the celebration of Eid al-Fitr, one of the most important holidays of the Islamic religion, proclaiming the end of fasting.

As it previously happened, the official message of the Islamic State is expected to be close to the last ten days of Ramadan, before the Night of Destiny. A useful time window could be between May 28th and June 4th. Not surprisingly, the attacks in Medina, Dhaka, and Baghdad in 2016 occurred in the last ten days of Ramadan.

According to the Holy Scriptures on the Night of Destiny or Laylat al-Qadr, for the first time, the Prophet Muhammad received the divine message in its entirety. It is called so because Allah decrees the destiny of creation for the coming year. In reality, it is unknown what day it was, but it is usually referred to as one of the odd nights of the last decade of Ramadan. Last year Islamic State spokesman Abu al-Hassan al-Muhajir (who is not that prepared and charismatic as his predecessor) published on his Telegram an audio message of incitement to carry out attacks during “the holy month of jihad” in Europe, Russia, the United States, Australia, and Iran (ISIS considers Shiite Muslims as apostates). The message was released June 12, twelve days after the end of Ramadan. The physical elimination of the main figures of the movement does not interrupt the digital strategic depth. According to Islamic traditions, in the Night of Destiny sins will be forgiven. In ISIS reinterpretation of Islamic theology, the murder in the last ten days of Ramadan is considered a devotional act.

Ramadan will end on June 15 with the beginning of the celebrations for Eid al-Fitr. The inaugural ceremony of the 21st edition of the World Cup will be held on June 14th in, 80 thousand spectators would attend the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. The first match to be played between Russia and Saudi Arabia, target countries of ISIS. In addition to the work done by Russian intelligence, the twelve stadiums that will host the World Cup will certainly be defended by several redundant defensive perimeters and by an aerial screening against drones.

How the terrorists turned Ramadan into a month of the war

A seasonal violence pattern

Prophet Muhammad obtained the first Muslim victory in history during Battle of Badr, during Ramadan in 624. Against all odds, that victory ensured the survival of the newborn community of believers. During the Ramadan of 630, Muhammad also conquered Mecca. The jihadists exploit these historical references by manipulating them for political ends. Abdullah Azzam, the father of modern jihad, stated that “neglecting jihad is like abandoning fasting and praying, and only with jihad can the Muslim reach the highest ranks, the believer sees life on earth as a prison and aspires to reach Allah.” The reinterpretation of Islamic theology by Isis dates back to 2014, during the first sermons of Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, spokesman of the group and of the self-proclaimed caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The jihadist language should not be understood as literal, but interpreted and set in a precise context with a clear strategic objective. In his first public appearance in a mosque in the Iraqi city of Mosul, al-Baghdadi laid the foundations of the radical new Islamist mentality by supporting the lawfulness and obligatory nature of jihad in Ramadan. Al Baghdadi’s speech decontextualized the classical prescriptions of the Koran to guarantee a religious support to homicides and martyrdom missions.

“The virtuous acts (murders) during Ramadan will be worth a thousand times more than any other period of the year. This is the month when the prophet ordered the armies to fight against God’s enemies. And God loves those who kill their enemies in his name.”

A simple passage that effectively elevated jihad during Ramadan to Muslims. The murder of the unbelievers, which is always of divine inspiration, during the Ramadan acquired a further value because it would multiply the spiritual rewards. The Holy Islamic Scripture has been so overwhelmed by messages invoking “to gain maximum benefit during Ramadan”. In the ISIS vision, the murder during Ramadan is not considered a violation of Holy Scripture, but an obligation in relation to the new modern revision of Islamic theology. Because it is earthly actions that guarantee divine rewards, murder during Ramadan makes full sense. This is the theological basis for the attacks during Ramadan, from al-Adnani defined as “the month of conquest”. If the West does not understand how Isis elaborates and decontextualizes Islamic theology, it will never be able to fight it effectively.

The first message from ISIS for Ramadan 2014

When preparing for Ramadan in 2014, ISIS began to use the word “ribat” in various reports and published in Rumia journal. Gradually introduced in the texts, it was later associated with Ramadan because of the constant interrelation of both concepts in the language. This concept implied not just usual propaganda with reference to the Islamic Middle Ages, as was erroneously assumed. The term “ribat” refers to a border post on the borders of the Islamic world, that is, a permanent structure capable of simultaneously fulfilling two goals – spiritual and military. Phrases such as “commit ribat” in the modern interpretation of jihad through classical Islamic texts began to be constantly repeated in texts and messages of the terrorists.

Since the legitimacy of ISIS among his followers is based on the return of Islamic doctrines, the inscription of Ramadan in the context of the divine struggle against the enemies of Allah was a completely meaningful step. In this case, the concept of the enemy is rewritten, and it is placed outside the grouping. The enemy has any rights, and therefore, all the thrill and remorse for brutal acts against subjects devoid of human features are destroyed.

The rhetoric of terrorist organizations often uses language and images to portray enemies, giving them vivid negative characteristics on different levels (affective, cultural, intellectual). With the constant emphasis on the enemy’s inhuman characteristics, any possibility of peaceful negotiations is killed.

The attack in Liege, Belgium on Tuesday is being treated as an act of terrorism and rightly so. It began when the suspect, now identified as Belgian Benjamin Herman, assaulted two female police officers from behind, stabbing them multiple times and, after seizing their weapons, killing them both in cold blood. Such is terrorist bravery, like reported by thehill.com.

He went on to shoot and kill a bystander, a student about to complete his preparation to become a teacher, before fleeing into a school where he took hostages. In the ensuing exchange of fire, he wounded several police officers, one critically, before meeting his death.

According to Belgian authorities, Herman shouted out “Allahu akbar” during his spree, identifying his violence as a form of Islamist terrorism.

Herman’s prior criminal record included robbery, violent assault and drug trafficking. He was serving a long prison sentence but, as strange as it may sound, he had been granted a two-day release as part of a program to facilitate his coming re-entry into society.

He had been granted that release even though security forces knew that Herman had been in contact with extremist elements in prison. A prisoner release program may well serve a legitimate purpose in some cases of genuine rehabilitation, but in retrospect it was foolhardy to extend that privilege to a hardened criminal and violent offender with radical ties.

Herman’s case is reminiscent of the tragic events in Berlin on Dec. 20, 2016, when Anis Amri drove a stolen truck into a Christmas market, killing 12 and wounding dozens.

Both assailants intentionally selected targets that symbolize the world they oppose: police officers as representatives of the Belgian state and the German holiday market as a sign of Christianity.

In addition, both attackers had previously attracted the attention of security forces due to their radical ties. Both were known to pose potential danger, but no one prevented them from carrying out their crimes.

When it became known that German security forces had already targeted Amri but had not apprehended him, public outrage followed, contributing to the changing political mood in Germany. A similar discussion is emerging now in Belgium: How could Herman have been let free, given the threat he clearly posed?

The events in Liege and Berlin both show European security forces aware of dangers but unwilling to act to protect the public sufficiently. The former vice prime minister of Belgium, Louis Michel, has characterized the state as “impotent” and lacking in the legal means to anticipate these events.

In the balancing act between the rights of criminals and public safety, Europe still tilts toward the former. Too bad for the victims.

European security forces sometimes face the criticism that they are inefficient and fail to share information across national borders, allowing terrorists to move freely and evade capture. The need for Europe-wide policing of violent extremists is evident.

In Liege however, as in Berlin, the matter is different. The authorities had the information but callously chose not to act on it. There will not be safety in Europe’s streets until terrorism prevention becomes a priority for the political class, and that will only happen as public anger grows stronger. Terrorism in the streets puts populists in power.