Fears growing Islamic State successfully weaponizing refugees
Sunday, December 25, 2016
By Jeff Seldin
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other government members visit the site of the attack in Berlin, Germany, Dec. 20, 2016, the day after a truck ran into a crowded Christmas market and killed several people.
WASHINGTON — Western security officials are increasingly
worried that the Islamic State terror group may be a step ahead of their
renewed efforts to stop terrorist infiltration of their countries.
Fears once centered on IS using migrant and refugee flows to sneak
in highly trained operatives bent on carrying out attacks. Now they have
expanded to include an equally dangerous possibility.
A growing number of officials now warn that the terror group may
be looking to essentially weaponize refugees and other vulnerable immigrant
populations after they have successfully crossed Western borders and passed
through what look to be ever-tougher vetting processes.
“We have to be ready,” said Fabrice Leggeri, executive director of
Frontex, the European border and coast guard agency, speaking prior to the
deadly attack in Berlin.
“Some people might get radicalized or manipulated or used or
utilized by terrorist groups after they enter the EU,” he said. “This is
something where I don't have clear indications.”
A Europol report published in November, "Changes in Modus
Operandi of Islamic State (IS) revisited" — is even more explicit.
“A real and imminent danger is the possibility of elements of the
[Sunni Muslim] Syrian refugee diaspora becoming vulnerable to radicalization
once in Europe and being specifically targeted by Islamic extremist
recruiters,” the report stated. “It is believed that a number of jihadists are
traveling through Europe for this purpose.”
Christmas market attack
Just how many terrorist operatives have been sent to Europe to
recruit among the growing number of migrants and refugees is unclear. Europol
cited German reports that, as of April 2016, there were approximately 300 cases
in which jihadists tried recruiting refugees trying to enter Europe.
But there is also a sense that IS, also known as ISIS, is likely
not as focused on the numbers as it is on exploiting what it sees as a potent
opportunity.
“ISIS just wants to give itself options,” said Robin Simcox, a
terrorism and national security analyst with the Heritage Foundation.
“It chimes perfectly with what ISIS would want to do,” he added.
“It enables them to extend their foreign operations.”
Adding to the level of concern is the case this past week of
Tunisian Anis Amri, who carried out a deadly attack on a Berlin Christmas
market.
By most accounts, there were few signs Amri had radical leanings
when as a 19-year-old, he arrived in Europe, on the Italian island of
Lampedusa.
Even when he left Italy for Germany years later, to seek political
asylum, authorities say his behavior was more akin to that of a criminal than
of a terrorist.
Yet on Monday, the now 24-year-old Amri used a truck to plow
through the crowded market, killing 12 people and injuring 56 others. Before
the attack he made a video in which he pledged his allegiance to the Islamic
State terror group and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
A car sits inside a police line as authorities respond to an attack at Ohio State University, Nov. 28, 2016, in Columbus, Ohio. A man plowed his car into a group of pedestrians and began stabbing people before he was shot to death by a police officer.
Ohio State University
attack
U.S. officials are also concerned, pointing to an attack on
American soil barely a month earlier — the November 28 car attack at Ohio State
University carried out by Abdul Razak Ali Artan, a Somali-born refugee with
legal, permanent resident status.
“I do think he did radicalize in the United States,” the chairman
of the House Homeland Security Committee, Representative Mike McCaul, said at
the time, voicing concern it was a vulnerability that could be exploited again.
“They can come in and be what they call 'clean' and radicalize
after they're in the United States,” he said. “That's where the [U.S.]
counter-radicalization program needs to be more robust.”
Yet improving security measures to prevent refugees from being targeted
for radicalization is likely to be challenging, especially since terrorist
recruiters often work without the need for face-to-face interaction.
“As long as the Islamic State, as long as [al-Qaida] have an
external operations capability, have access to the internet, we have to be
concerned,” said U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson during a forum in
Washington late last month. “I think there is little doubt we need to build
these bridges to communities in which [IS] is trying to recruit.”
Not just refugees
Despite concerns and political rhetoric about the vulnerability of
refugees in Europe and the U.S. to radicalization, there is also skepticism
about the degree to which IS or other terror groups are specifically targeting
those communities.
“When it comes to refugees being radicalized after they come to a
host country, this is quite low in number, actually," according to Mubin
Shaikh, a terrorism expert who has previously worked with the Canadian Security
Intelligence Service.
According to the George Washington University's Program on
Extremism, 112 people have been charged with IS-related crimes in the U.S.
since March 2014. The vast majority of them were U.S. citizens or permanent
residents.
“Much of ISIS's argument is, of course, that Muslims — immigrants,
converts, everyone — will never be included and accepted in the West because of
the very fact that they are Muslim," said Program on Extremism fellow
Amarnath Amarasingam.
“This message, it could perhaps be argued, but gently, may indeed
resonate more in some countries and with some communities,” he added. “But is
ISIS specifically targeting immigrants? Not really.”
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