By Harleen Gambhir with Claire Coyne and ISW’s
Counterterrorism Team
ISIS is using its foreign fighters and safe haven in Iraq and
Syria to execute a terror campaign within Europe. ISIS’s March 22 Brussels
attacks support a larger strategy to punish, destabilize, and polarize the
West. ISIS will likely continue to attempt attacks in France and Belgium in
2016, using its large Francophone foreign fighter population and local
supporters. ISIS’s support networks in southern Europe may enable ISIS’s
operatives to launch operations in other parts of the continent, including
Austria, Germany, Spain, and Italy. ISIS may also increasingly target
Westerners in Turkey in order to punish members of the anti-ISIS coalition and
undermine the Turkish economy, as part of its stated objective to seize
Constantinople. Current efforts to address these threats through law
enforcement, surgical strikes on ISIS’s leadership, and linear attrition of
ISIS’s terrain and resources are necessary but not sufficient to destroy the
ISIS threat to Europe. The anti-ISIS coalition must deprive ISIS of its primary
source of strength, its territorial control as a caliphate in Iraq, Syria, and now
Libya.
ISIS’s
suicide bombings in Brussels demonstrate that the jihadist threat to Europe is outpacing
domestic and international law enforcement efforts. ISIS is successfully using
its safe haven in Iraq and Syria to train
as many as 600 foreign fighters for external attacks. ISIS’s fighters benefit from
extensive support networks across the European continent. The logistical
requirements for facilitating European foreign fighter travel into Iraq and
Syria can also export those fighters from ISIS’s safe havens back to Europe. Reports
following the November 2015 Paris attacks and the recent Brussels attacks
indicate European governments have incomplete, fragmented
intelligence on the identity and communications of ISIS’s members in
Europe. ISIS likely retains attack cells and logistical networks within Europe
that will enable it to launch additional spectacular attacks, with support from
the organization’s leadership within Iraq and Syria.
ISW
last published its ISIS’s
Campaign in Europe map on December 2015. The graphic below updates that
visualization to depict all attacks inspired or coordinated by ISIS in Europe
from January 2014 to present. This group includes attempted and successful
attacks in the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany,
Spain, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Turkey. The graphic also marks locations where
ISIS-linked individuals have been arrested in that timeframe. Locations with more than two arrest events
are depicted with opaque circles with varying sizes depending on the number of
events. Events that occurred at an unspecified location within a
country are marked on that country’s capitol. The graphic also highlights where
ISIS has directed public threats or recruitment calls. Individuals inspired by
and responsive to ISIS are active across Europe, particularly in France,
Belgium, Germany, and the United Kingdom. ISIS-linked attacks and arrests in
Europe are distinct from ISIS’s activity in Turkey, which reflects spillover
from ISIS's campaigns in Iraq and Syria as well as ISIS's campaign to attack
the West.
ISIS’s
Objectives in Europe
The
Brussels attacks are recent successes in ISIS’s long-standing strategy to
punish, destabilize, and polarize the West. The Brussels attacks are
recent successes in ISIS’s long-standing strategy to punish, destabilize, and
polarize the West. ISIS’s leadership
has encouraged supporters outside of Iraq and Syria to launch lone
wolf attacks since September 2014. It has facilitated more sophisticated
attacks by deploying foreign fighters to Europe since at least January 2015,
when Belgian
counterterrorism forces raided an ISIS attack cell in Molenbeek, Brussels.
ISIS seeks to punish those attacking it in Iraq and Syria, as reflected in its
post-Brussels statements criticizing “Crusader
Belgium” and framing the attacks as a response to “aggression against the
Islamic State.”
ISIS
also aims to destabilize Europe more broadly through spectacular attacks. ISIS
seeks to exacerbate tensions between European states, raise defensive
requirements within those states, cause an environment of fear, and inflict additional
economic damage on Europe. An official ISIS media outlet affirmed each of these
operational objectives
in a publication released January 2016. The graphic claimed the November 2015
Paris attacks “[weakened] European cohesion” and caused “demands to repeal the
Schengen Agreement.” It also argued that the Paris attacks caused tension
between France and Belgium over intelligence failures. It celebrated how the
attacks created a “general state of unease” and predicted that decreased
tourism revenues and increased security requirements would cost Europe “tens of
billions of dollars.” ISIS’s directed and inspired attacks set conditions for
the organization’s desired apocalyptic war by draining resources and
exacerbating internal conflict in the West.
European
unity is already threatened by financial pressures, debates over refugee
policy, and Russian-funded
far-right parties. ISIS’s successful attacks in Paris strengthened the position
of European anti-immigrant parties, shown by support
for France’s National Front (FN) party in first-round regional elections in
December 2015 and the victories
of Germany’s Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) party in state elections in
March 2016. The Brussels attacks may strengthen organizations calling for
Britain’s exit
from the European Union, as indicated by U.K. Independence Party defense
spokesman Mike Hookem’s March 23 claim that the attacks proved “Schengen free
movement and lax border controls are a threat to our security.”
ISIS’s
attacks and resultant European disunity will undermine efforts to address the
regional refugee crisis, as demonstrated by Poland’s decision on March 23 to renege
on a plan to settle 7,000 refugees from Syria and Eritrea. The crisis will
likely intensify over the next year.
Refugee inflow on the Mediterranean from January to March 2016 increased
more than sevenfold
as compared to the same period in 2015. Russia may also be encouraging
migration to Europe to exacerbate this problem, according to NATO Supreme
Commander General Philip Breedlove and Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves.
Increasing pressure on European security and cohesion will open opportunities
for both Russia and ISIS to expand influence.
ISIS
particularly aims to destabilize Europe through polarization, which it calls “destroying
the grayzone.” ISIS hopes attacks in its name will provoke state and social
backlash against Europe’s Muslim communities, encouraging radicalization and
jihadist recruitment. Such reactions have already surfaced from the Brussels
attacks, as Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders called to “de-Islamize the
West” and as American presidential candidates suggested patrolling
Muslim neighborhoods and banning
Muslims from entering the U.S. ISIS will likely exploit these actions in order
to claim it is the defender of Muslims in a broader cultural war.
ISIS
is best positioned to launch attacks within France and Belgium due to in part
to its large Francophone foreign fighter population. An estimated 1700 French
citizens and 470 Belgian citizens are fighting in Syria, with the latter
representing the largest
per capita amount of any Western nation. ISIS’s Francophone fighters
reportedly formed cohesive
fighting units with Syria, likely forming the basis of attack cells deployed
back to Europe. These operatives recruit and gain logistical support from their
home networks in France and Belgium.
Emerging
trends in 2016
Authorities
have thwarted several attack plots linked to or inspired by ISIS in France and
Belgium since December 2015, reflecting an enduring jihadist support base within
those countries. The ISIS network responsible for the Paris and Brussels
attacks demonstrated resiliency and adaptiveness over past months through the ability
of Paris attacker Salah Abdeslam to go undetected and the progression
to the group’s first large explosive attack in Brussels on March 22. ISIS
likely maintains attack cells within France and Belgium and will continue to
attempt spectacular attacks on soft targets in those countries over coming
months in order to replicate the success of its previous attacks. European
authorities may locate and detain some of this network through intelligence
gained from Salah Abdeslam, but ISIS will likely balance this loss with new
European recruits.
ISIS
also retains pre-existing recruitment networks in Spain, Italy and the Balkans,
as demonstrated by arrest patterns in 2016. This group will likely continue to
provide financial and logistical support to individuals seeking to join ISIS in
Syria, Iraq, and Libya. ISIS’s recruitment networks in Spain may increasingly
orient towards Libya, where ISIS’s affiliate controls terrain and operates
training camps. This affiliate could attempt to strike Europe, possibly
exploiting migrant flow to Europe to do so. ISIS’s networks in Italy and the
Balkans could aid this effort, as those countries host major migrant entry
points. German
and Austrian
authorities arrested alleged ISIS operatives in refugee shelters since December
2015, confirming that ISIS members are intentionally using refugee transit to
enter Europe. ISIS likely does so in order to strengthen xenophobic
organizations and rhetoric in Europe, thereby fueling anti-Muslim sentiment and
encouraging cultural polarization.
ISIS
shifted its attack campaign in Turkey in 2016, possibly in order to discourage
Turkish efforts to curb ISIS’s foreign fighter flows. ISIS already faces
potential disruption of its primary supply route to Turkey due to U.S.-backed
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Kurdish PYD gains in northern Syria. ISIS
may intend to incite broader conflict within Turkey in order to forestall this
development. ISIS has increasingly struck foreign, tourism-related targets in
Turkey, a shift from its attacks against political and military targets from
July to December 2015. An alleged ISIS operative launched a suicide
attack near Istanbul’s Blue Mosque on January 12, killing twelve German and
one Peruvian tourists. An ISIS-linked individual launched another suicide
attack on a popular shopping
area of Istanbul on March 19, killing one Iranian and three Israeli citizens.
Strengthening
European law enforcement and intelligence capabilities will only address one
element of the ISIS threat to Europe. Programs to counter ISIS’s message, its
finances, and other capabilities will assist, but will not suffice. ISIS’s safe haven within Iraq, Syria, and now
Libya will continue to provide the logistical infrastructure necessary to
train, resource, and direct attack cells in Europe. The anti-ISIS coalition
must deprive ISIS of its territorial control as a caliphate, which is its
primary source
of strength, in order to destroy the ISIS threat to Europe.
