Libya and the New Axis of Terror: Reshaping the Security Theater in MENA and Europe

摘要

The exponential expansion of Islamist groups in both numbers and geographic scope to Libya and Syria between 2011 and 2017, and the subsequent refugee crisis it sparked, has led to a rapidly deteriorating human security theatre in the Middle East, North Africa, and the European Union. To illustrate the renaissance of violent Islamist movements in radicalizing and recruiting youth, during September 2011 al-Qaeda's army consisted of around 400 fighters. By 2017, the Islamic State's (ISIS) army alone had approximately 40,000 fighters, of whom roughly 6,000 came from Western Europe. The Islamic State itself, which was defeated in Mosul only after an unprecedented collaboration by otherwise antagonistic powers, was an emblem of Islamist achievement as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi established quasi-state strongholds in the most strategic countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)-hitherto a jihadist pipe dream. As Peter Neumann pointed out in his Radicalized: New Jihadists and Threat to the West: The "Islamic empire" that al Baghdadi proclaimed in a Friday sermon at the al-Nuri Mosque in the Iraqi city of Mosul surpassed every previous jihadist achievement. It stretched for more than 500 miles, sat at the heart of the Islamic world, was within striking distance of Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem, the holiest cities of Islam-and on top of all that-it wiped away the hated Sykes-Picot border, which millions of Arabs consider a symbol of colonial division and oppression. Al-Baghdadi had overshadowed his internal rival, al-Julani, his previous group, al-Qaeda, the great Osama bin Laden and even his role model Zarqawi, all in a single stroke.