The Horror of the Expected

"There is every reason to expect that IS, IS-inspired terrorists or another religiously inspired terrorist group will undertake a terrorist attack somewhere in Europe again, but particularly in France, intended to cause mass casualties among the civilian population."
"Without reliable intelligence on the intentions, activities and contacts and travels of known terrorists it is nearly impossible to exactly predict when and where the next terrorist attack will take place, and what form it will take."
"The attacks will be primarily directed at soft targets, because of the impact it generates. Both the November Paris attacks and the October 2015 bombing of a Russian airliner suggest a shift in ISIL strategy toward going global."
Europol agency

Europol has launched a new European Counter Terrorism Centre in The Hague, Netherlands. "The current threat demands a strong and ambitious response from the EU", announced Europol director Rob Wainwright of the new unit which will employ forty to fifty counterterrorism experts to work in intelligence-sharing, to track foreign fighters, and their sources of illegal financing and firearms.

It will also be tasked with aiding EU countries in their own counterterrorism activities and investigations.

A news conference in Amsterdam revealed that over 5,000 European Union nationals are now known to have been radicalized, shifting themselves from Europe and all that the West values and struggles to maintain, to the new caliphate with its jihadi forces determined to overturn those values which it challenges the West to preserve, against the blunt force power of Islamist Sharia law scheduled to arrive on the heels of a triumphant tide of popular Islamist political ideals.

There is, after all, a large and receptive audience awaiting its arrival. Not those who are eager and willing to be recruited into the active jihadi ranks to mete out punishment deserving to those who deny the power and the glory and the elevation of Islam worldwide, but those members of the Muslim umma who have already migrated to pave the wave of reception for the inevitable.

The danger of extremist violence is characterized by Europol as "the most significant in over ten years". Many of the recruits who have fought alongside other Muslim extremists in Iraq and Syria, pointed out Mr. Wainwright, have returned "home" to Europe, and obviously present as a clear and present danger to public safety. Not very comforting, in the extreme.

But in the proverbial instance of closing the barn door once the livestock has escaped, it should be recalled that Europe is well infiltrated with millions of Muslims.

These millions may wish to live in peace with their immediate neighbours, but Islam is exclusive unto itself, and Muslims tend not to integrate themselves in a generalized atmosphere of togetherness; for one thing their mullahs and imams most often remind them of their apartness and encourage distancing themselves from the social contract of the receiving countries.

Their values and their laws do not mesh neatly with those of Islam.

Quite a few independent analysts conjecture that with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant losing ground in Iraq and Syria -- little thanks to those nations' incapable military  prowess and courage, and owing entirely to the entry of foreign forces [and the valorous responses of Kurdish militias] assembling a response to both the Syrian regime and the multifarious rebel factions as well as Islamist groups -- they have looked outward for victories, calling upon assistance from abroad.

ISIL commanders have responded, like those in the Sinai for whom no central command is required to inspire them to launch their own well-timed and -planned exercises in inspiring fear and loathing in the minds of their targets. An increasingly globalized Islamic State with its tentacles spread from Libya to Afghanistan, Gaza to Africa, Europe to North America is able to call upon active sympathizers to commit to their own audacious targeting of the kufar.