By
Caitlin Forrest and Dina Shahrokhi
ISIS is pursuing its campaign to punish, polarize, and destabilize
the West by inspiring and enabling terrorist attacks in Europe. ISIS
likely inspired the terrorist attack in Nice, France on July 15, when a suspect
drove his car into a group of civilians celebrating Bastille Day. The attack
killed at least 84 and wounded over 200 civilians. ISIS spokesman Abu Mohammed
al-Adnani encouraged terrorist attacks on Europe and the U.S. in a speech on
May 21. The group uses its online propaganda and messaging to inspire
individuals to conduct attacks in its name abroad in order to advance its global objective of destabilizing and
provoking an eventual apocalyptic war with the West. Adnani’s
speech also inspired a pro-ISIS militant to kill two French police officers in
a stabbing in Magnanville outside Paris, France on June 13. The assailant
posted a video claiming that the attack was a direct response to Adnani’s call.
ISIS also used its foreign fighter networks to conduct a complex attack against
the Ataturk airport in Istanbul, Turkey on June 28, displaying the continued
maturation of ISIS attack nodes across Europe. ISIS may take advantage of a
likely security reshuffle and intensify spectacular attacks in Turkey after a
failed coup by military officials on July 15. Attacks in Europe are not a “desperate”
reaction to losses in Iraq and Syria as Secretary of State John Kerry
suggested, but rather a continuation of its global objectives in spite of them.
ISIS is likely inspiring terrorist attacks to prompt a backlash against Muslim
communities and fuel radicalization and recruitment in Europe. ISIS also seeks
to break European unity by raising security requirements, exacerbating tensions
between states, and damaging the economy through spectacular attacks. The
successful Brexit campaign that capitalized on the panic of security threats
advances ISIS’s objective to divide and destabilize the EU, and threats by
other EU nations to follow suit may empower ISIS. The anti-ISIS coalition must
take simultaneous action to eliminate the group’s safe havens in the Muslim
world, neutralize its European attack networks, and counter its online
messaging in order to destroy the ISIS threat to the Europe.
