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THE ROVING
EYE
Fighting the uncivil
fight
By Pepe Escobar
"This message is the final warning
to European states. We want to give you a
one-month deadline to bring your soldiers out from
the land of Mesopotamia."
- Abu
Hafs al-Masri Brigades, July 16
BRUSSELS - The European Union will be
waiting, breathlessly, for this deadline set by
the al-Qaeda-connected Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades
- which has claimed responsibility for the
Istanbul, Madrid and London bombings. After August
15, "It will be a bloody war in the service of
God", or the dreaded possibility of more attacks
against "the crusaders who are still present in
Iraq - Denmark, the Netherlands, Britain, Italy
and ... other countries". The Brigades seem bent
on avenging "blood that has been shed in the land
of Islam - in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine".
EU counterterrorism analysts are not
taking the threat lightly - even if its
authenticity is not yet proven. This "message"
means that Salafi-jihadis are officially
proclaiming that the attacks on London on July 7
were blowback caused by Iraq - a connection also
established by two-thirds of Britons answering a
Guardian/ICM poll and by a report conducted by the
Royal Institute of International Affairs. Prime
Minister Tony Blair's government - toeing the Bush
administration line - denies everything.
EU officials and European
parliamentarians, not to mention Europe-wide
public opinion, are starting to confront a very
serious question: how to fight jihad inside the EU
without infringing on civil liberties. A
curtailment of civil liberties is exactly what
Salafi-jihadis would want. One measure is to
toughen anti-terrorist laws, something that
Britain is about to do. Another, immensely more
complicated task, is to coordinate policy among
the 25 EU member states.
As EU diplomats
have assured this correspondent, Europe by no
means is going to vote the adoption of a US-style
Patriot Act. Nor is anybody contemplating an EU
Guantanamo. Germany's Constitutional Court, for
instance, has just nullified the law transposing
to Germany the European-wide arrest warrant - a
decision, the court says, taken to protect German
citizens. The European Commission was quick to
point out that this decision does not affect the
European-wide arrest warrant itself. But the
affair left a scent of malaise - especially
because Germany is one of the key Salafi-jihadi
bases in Europe. Human-rights watchers, on the
other hand, salute the fact that German judges
preferred to pay more attention to civil rights
than to mere repression.
Everyone for
himself
After an extraordinary meeting
last week in Brussels of all interior and justice
ministers in the EU, the fact is that each
member-state is still fighting terrorism a la
carte - apart from some common measures like
stricter control of cellphone calls.
France, for instance, via its populist
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, is now back to
rigid control of its borders - scrapping at least
temporarily the EU's Schengen accords which allow
free circulation of people. The Danish populists
love the idea too, as well as the semi-fascist
Northern League in Italy, which is in favor of
totally closing Italy's borders.
Another
Sarkozy initiative - extreme vigilance over
radical imams - has also delighted the interior
minister in Bavaria, Gunther Beckstein, who is now
calling for video cameras inside and outside
mosques. Debate is raging in Germany over the
installation of video cameras in the metro -
something quite common in London and Paris. Just
as in Britain, the government of Chancellor
Gerhard Schroeder will create an anti-terrorist
file. Angela Merkel - the East German-born
Christian Democrat who may grab Schroeder's job in
the next elections - wants to go one step further
and use the army to prevent terrorist attacks.
The next two targets supposedly on
al-Qaeda's list are Italy and Denmark. Nothing has
been decided in Italy yet - although the Northern
League is making a lot of noise calling for a
Patriot Act. Spain, already stricken in Madrid,
has announced more police and military
surveillance of "strategic" targets.
Much
more than in the US, in the EU the balance to be
struck between anti-terrorism policies and respect
for individual rights is an extremely touchy
affair. Germany, Austria and Finland, for
instance, refuse that phone logs be kept for more
than three months: most in the EU want the period
extended to one year.
Great Britain holds
the EU presidency until the end of 2005. For all
the acrimony caused by Blair during the recent
budget discussions - where Britain stuck to
getting its rebate when even the poorest eastern
Europeans were settling for a deal - one thing is
certain: the British are keen on recommending to
the EU a much tougher approach to fighting
terrorism inside Europe.
As for the
Salafi-jihadis, the only thing that matters is who
remains inside Iraq.
(Copyright 2005 Asia
Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
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