Never underestimate the extent to which democracy has become perhaps the founding basis of our strong common faith in the West and across so many parts of the world. When our politicians are wayward, make bad decisions, are dysfunctional, it is never democracy itself that is considered to fail, it is always those priests who are considered to be failing democracy.
And so, however many people end up having lost their lives in Belgium, for each and every one there will be some hundreds of thousands of other Belgians, and millions elsewhere, who love their democracy and the freedoms it brings all the more today, and they will love them far more than most of those in the Arab world give a damn for the particular reading of Islam that generates the terrorist acts. For democracy is increasing in the world, albeit in the usual two steps forwards one step back way of such things, but make no mistake the end game of defeating the jihadis and democracy setting seed as part of the cultural mix of the Arab world will happen, and the grievance of bad governance that fuels Daesh and their ilk today will be choked off at the root, because when it is set well, the people of the middle east will grow to love their democracy as much as we do ours.
It will be slow and painful, but Southern and much of Eastern Europe were liberated from within in many of our lifetimes and the long game, the cold war and the multiplicity of approaches we adopted to those problems over the last decades are the closest we have to a model of how to face down the dictators and extremist resistances of the Middle East over the coming ones. There will be western interventions and bombs involved at times, no doubt, but no single external intervention, no single external campaign will go anywhere near sorting this out, and our patience, our vigilance for opportunities where democratic seeds can be nurtured or weeds choked off at source and our resolve in democracy will be more important to winning this battle than even the best conceived military interventions.
And we must never, ever mistake this for a battle against the Arab world, ultimately any battle has always got to be FOR the Arab world and the futures of the hundreds of millions of ordinary people who live there. It is by fighting that battle FOR the Arab world that they, and we, will ultimately succeed.
Isn't it the case that any individual nation within the existing EU28 can grant any of it's influx of North African/Middle Eastern migrants/asylum seekers/refugees EU citizenship under it's national passport?
Once that passport is granted, so is the right of free entry to the UK.
That is Remain.
Under Leave, that loophole is closed.
People can gauge which they feel is safer on balance for the UK.
If one nation does adopt the 'give-em-all-passports' line - as the Greeks threatened, then it surely flows that a Common Asylum and Immigration Policy will be up for urgent discussion?
I think Mr Meeks is being a bit unfair in part. I remember as a student thinking it was odd that the Tories ran the Save the Pound campaign in 2001 when Labour seemed to have neutered the issue with a promise of a referendum. But let's not forget that joining the Euro was a serious possibility and backed by the then Prime Minister. I also think it is fair to say that were we now a part of the Eurozone it would not be considered an insignificant issue.
Ken Clarke was the alternative candidate to Iain Duncan Smith in the autumn of 2001 at a time when a move by Blair to lead Britain into the euro via a referendum seemed immenient.
By the end of 2003 that threat had largely passed (partly due to the Government's preoccupation with Iraq) but the election of a pro-euro leader, leading to all three mainstream political party leaders being passionately pro euro in a pre-UKIP era, would have either fully split the Conservative Party, or perhaps led to history being different and a referendum being called and the U.K. entering the euro, or perhaps both.
Whatever else he did, IDS provided opposition to this, held the party together and laid the groundwork for the Tories caring about social justice and welfare reform.
New details of the Paris attacks carried out last November reveal that it was the consistent use of prepaid burner phones, not encryption, that helped keep the terrorists off the radar of the intelligence services.
As an article in The New York Times reports: "the three teams in Paris were comparatively disciplined. They used only new phones that they would then discard, including several activated minutes before the attacks, or phones seized from their victims."
The article goes on to give more details of how some phones were used only very briefly in the hours leading up to the attacks. For example: "Security camera footage showed Bilal Hadfi, the youngest of the assailants, as he paced outside the stadium, talking on a cellphone. The phone was activated less than an hour before he detonated his vest." The information come from a 55-page report compiled by the French antiterrorism police for France’s Interior Ministry.
Outside the Bataclan theatre venue, the investigators found a Samsung phone in a dustbin: "It had a Belgian SIM card that had been in use only since the day before the attack. The phone had called just one other number—belonging to an unidentified user in Belgium."
As police pieced together the movements of the attackers, they found yet more burner phones: "Everywhere they went, the attackers left behind their throwaway phones, including in Bobigny, at a villa rented in the name of Ibrahim Abdeslam. When the brigade charged with sweeping the location arrived, it found two unused cellphones still inside their boxes." At another location used by one of the terrorists, the police found dozens of unused burner phones "still in their wrappers."
Law enforcement agencies need to find a way to spot high levels of use of 'burner' phones, if they can get hold of one that has been thrown away they may get fingerprints.
The fact is that Western Europe's policy is failing, and failing badly. Every few months, innocent people are being slaughtered on the streets of its cities. Its becoming commonplace.
Whether its the EU or Britain, the policy of people who lead us is wrong, it has been wrong for decades, and must be replaced.
Mr. Nabavi, I'd suggest going back to 1970 might not be helpful as that'll include Irish stuff and perhaps also Eta [two Ts?]. Both those have calmed down significantly and were about political/territorial issues rather than a more general religious lunacy.
The Brussels Bombing has just handed another few hundred thousand votes to Leave...
Yep, of course. Because if we left the EU it would mean that there would be no terrorist attacks here.
You don't really understand this politics thing, do you?
Of course it's all the fault of the EU, rather than Islamic extremists or immigration from the third world, or Western involvement in the middle east?
Only a Euro-obsessive would conclude that swing voters will even associate this with the EU, any more than the attacks in Paris, Madrid, London or elsewhere.
[snip] AFAIK nobody has blamed the EU for the Brussels bombings. But there will undoubtedly be people watching the news that associate terrorism on the continent with a desire to protect our borders. Now you may argue they shouldn't, but they will.
Perhaps so, but then some others may conclude that working with our continental colleagues will help improve security both here and there.
I suspect it will have a greater impact on race relations than on the European debate.
The fact is that Western Europe's policy is failing, and failing badly. Every few months, innocent people are being slaughtered on the streets of its cities. Its becoming commonplace.
Whether its the EU or Britain, the policy of people who lead us is wrong, it has been wrong for decades, and must be replaced.
Mr. Nabavi, I'd suggest going back to 1970 might not be helpful as that'll include Irish stuff and perhaps also Eta [two Ts?]. Both those have calmed down significantly and were about political/territorial issues rather than a more general religious lunacy.
Mr. Nabavi, I'd suggest going back to 1970 might not be helpful as that'll include Irish stuff and perhaps also Eta [two Ts?]. Both those have calmed down significantly and were about political/territorial issues rather than a more general religious lunacy.
Today's politicians inherited a centuries of Irish misrule. Islamic terrorism is a problem they have created themselves. And it is a problem they are only making worse.
Never underestimate the extent to which democracy has become perhaps the founding basis of our strong common faith in the West and across so many parts of the world. When our politicians are wayward, make bad decisions, are dysfunctional, it is never democracy itself that is considered to fail, it is always those priests who are considered to be failing democracy.
And so, however many people end up having lost their lives in Belgium, for each and every one there will be some hundreds of thousands of other Belgians, and millions elsewhere, who love their democracy and the freedoms it brings all the more today, and they will love them far more than most of those in the Arab world give a damn for the particular reading of Islam that generates the terrorist acts. For democracy is increasing in the world, albeit in the usual two steps forwards one step back way of such things, but make no mistake the end game of defeating the jihadis and democracy setting seed as part of the cultural mix of the Arab world will happen, and the grievance of bad governance that fuels Daesh and their ilk today will be choked off at the root, because when it is set well, the people of the middle east will grow to love their democracy as much as we do ours.
...
And we must never, ever mistake this for a battle against the Arab world, ultimately any battle has always got to be FOR the Arab world and the futures of the hundreds of millions of ordinary people who live there. It is by fighting that battle FOR the Arab world that they, and we, will ultimately succeed.
The level of underlying support for terrorism and the aims of terrorists in Arab nations is higher than people want to acknowledge in the west. It is also true that the level of support for terrorists and their aims is higher among Muslims in western nations than we are willing to acknowledge. Until these two simple facts are taken into account there is no way to address the issue of extremism and the best thing to do is pull up the drawbridge to Muslim immigration and start very intensive education and anti-extremism programmes in Europe to push out extremist ideology from the Muslims who are already here.
If leave advocates use these attacks as a reason to vote to leave, then that will be heard loud and clear across Europe. For this reason and for many others I doubt they will.
What the attacks do argue for is a British withdrawal from NATO. And yes they do. If Belgium has got a crap foreign policy based on alliance with the US, that is no reason for Britain to. Russia and China have also been subjected to terrorist attacks, and that is no reason for Britain to be allied militarily to those countries. Britain's defence policy should first and foremost be about the defence of the British homeland.
Yes it is very telling that the attacks were at the American Airlines desk. Clearly motivated by US foreign policy in the Middle East which we so slavishly and catastrophically follow.
That's what they want us to think.
Personally, I reckon if it wasn't that, they'd find some other excuse
Doesn't make it untrue. If the enemy sends you a message, listen to it.
But don't mistake the message.
They hate us and want to destroy us. It's nothing to do with whether or not we intervene in Syria, Iraq, or Libya
Do you think the IRA and ETA pose the same threats to our freedoms as islamic terrorism? I don't.
Different threats in many ways, of course. But a bomb is a bomb, irrespective of what perverse motive the murderers have.
The point I was making is that it's not the case that Europe has suffered a hugely increased spate of terrorist attacks in recent years. The last couple of decades have been safer than many previous periods, thank goodness. We should neither tend towards panic nor complacency, just keep putting in place sensible security and other measures to mitigate the threats. We won't always be successful, alas.
Never underestimate the extent to which democracy has become perhaps the founding basis of our strong common faith in the West and across so many parts of the world. When our politicians are wayward, make bad decisions, are dysfunctional, it is never democracy itself that is considered to fail, it is always those priests who are considered to be failing democracy.
And so, however many people end up having lost their lives in Belgium, for each and every one there will be some hundreds of thousands of other Belgians, and millions elsewhere, who love their democracy and the freedoms it brings all the more today, and they will love them far more than most of those in the Arab world give a damn for the particular reading of Islam that generates the terrorist acts. For democracy is increasing in the world, albeit in the usual two steps forwards one step back way of such things, but make no mistake the end game of defeating the jihadis and democracy setting seed as part of the cultural mix of the Arab world will happen, and the grievance of bad governance that fuels Daesh and their ilk today will be choked off at the root, because when it is set well, the people of the middle east will grow to love their democracy as much as we do ours.
...
And we must never, ever mistake this for a battle against the Arab world, ultimately any battle has always got to be FOR the Arab world and the futures of the hundreds of millions of ordinary people who live there. It is by fighting that battle FOR the Arab world that they, and we, will ultimately succeed.
The level of underlying support for terrorism and the aims of terrorists in Arab nations is higher than people want to acknowledge in the west. It is also true that the level of support for terrorists and their aims is higher among Muslims in western nations than we are willing to acknowledge. Until these two simple facts are taken into account there is no way to address the issue of extremism and the best thing to do is pull up the drawbridge to Muslim immigration and start very intensive education and anti-extremism programmes in Europe to push out extremist ideology from the Muslims who are already here.
Do you think the IRA and ETA pose the same threats to our freedoms as islamic terrorism? I don't.
Different threats in many ways, of course. But a bomb is a bomb, irrespective of what perverse motive the murderers have.
The point I was making is that it's not the case that Europe has suffered a hugely increased spate of terrorist attacks in recent years. The last couple of decades have been safer than many previous periods, thank goodness. We should neither tend towards panic nor complacency, just keep putting in place sensible security and other measures to mitigate the threats. We won't always be successful, alas.
But Islamist terror attacks score far more highly on the "terror" factor, despite the lower casualties, as the killings are brutal, totally indiscriminate, horrific, a glorification of death, and for no sane political objective with no way to reason with them.
Do you think the IRA and ETA pose the same threats to our freedoms as islamic terrorism? I don't.
Different threats in many ways, of course. But a bomb is a bomb, irrespective of what perverse motive the murderers have.
The point I was making is that it's not the case that Europe has suffered a hugely increased spate of terrorist attacks in recent years. The last couple of decades have been safer than many previous periods, thank goodness. We should neither tend towards panic nor complacency, just keep putting in place sensible security and other measures to mitigate the threats. We won't always be successful, alas.
Well you wouldn;t compare the IRA with Nazi Germany, would you? that is what we are facing here. The Islamists aren;t fighting for the emancipation of small bits of territory, their template is the Yazidis. Genocide, murder, rape, enslavement. They would turn all of Europe into a vast Yazidi camp if they could. That is their aim.
Current European policy is to grow the communities that spawn this terror.
But Islamist terror attacks score far more highly on the "terror" factor, despite the lower casualties, as the killings are brutal, totally indiscriminate, horrific, a glorification of death, and for no sane political objective with no way to reason with them.
Well you wouldn;t compare the IRA with Nazi Germany, would you? that is what we are facing here. The Islamists aren;t fighting for the emancipation of small bits of territory, their template is the Yazidis. Genocide, murder, rape, enslavement. They would turn all of Europe into a vast Yazidi camp if they could. That is their aim.
Current European policy is to grow the communities that spawn this terror.
If that's their aim, then they are going to be disappointed.
Do you think the IRA and ETA pose the same threats to our freedoms as islamic terrorism? I don't.
Different threats in many ways, of course. But a bomb is a bomb, irrespective of what perverse motive the murderers have.
The point I was making is that it's not the case that Europe has suffered a hugely increased spate of terrorist attacks in recent years. The last couple of decades have been safer than many previous periods, thank goodness. We should neither tend towards panic nor complacency, just keep putting in place sensible security and other measures to mitigate the threats. We won't always be successful, alas.
But Islamist terror attacks score far more highly on the "terror" factor, despite the lower casualties, as the killings are brutal, totally indiscriminate, horrific, a glorification of death, and for no sane political objective with no way to reason with them.
To conflate the Islamist threat with the IRA or ETA is a very grave mistake in my book. I suspect RN knows this.
The fact is that Western Europe's policy is failing, and failing badly. Every few months, innocent people are being slaughtered on the streets of its cities. Its becoming commonplace.
Whether its the EU or Britain, the policy of people who lead us is wrong, it has been wrong for decades, and must be replaced.
Do you think the IRA and ETA pose the same threats to our freedoms as islamic terrorism? I don't.
I don't think Islamic terrorists pose a threat to our freedoms unless we let them. They are the latest wave of terrorists to hit Europe. It was not only the IRA and ETA, there was the Red Brigades, Bader Meinhof, right wing groups and so on. They killed as many if not more as are killed today. A big difference was that it did not happen in the age of the internet and the 24 hour news cycle, so it often carried less direct impact.
Mr. Nabavi, I'd suggest going back to 1970 might not be helpful as that'll include Irish stuff and perhaps also Eta [two Ts?]. Both those have calmed down significantly and were about political/territorial issues rather than a more general religious lunacy.
... Islamic terrorism is a problem they have created themselves. ...
The religious nutcases who follow their barbaric cause created it, not our, nor European politicians.
The fact is that Western Europe's policy is failing, and failing badly. Every few months, innocent people are being slaughtered on the streets of its cities. Its becoming commonplace.
Whether its the EU or Britain, the policy of people who lead us is wrong, it has been wrong for decades, and must be replaced.
Do you think the IRA and ETA pose the same threats to our freedoms as islamic terrorism? I don't.
I don't think Islamic terrorists pose a threat to our freedoms unless we let them. They are the latest wave of terrorists to hit Europe. It was not only the IRA and ETA, there was the Red Brigades, Bader Meinhof, right wing groups and so on. They killed as many if not more as are killed today. A big difference was that it did not happen in the age of the internet and the 24 hour news cycle, so it often carried less direct impact.
The big difference is the aims those groups were fighting for, versus the aims of ISIS. Do you really think they are comparable? Because I really don't.
Well you wouldn;t compare the IRA with Nazi Germany, would you? that is what we are facing here. The Islamists aren;t fighting for the emancipation of small bits of territory, their template is the Yazidis. Genocide, murder, rape, enslavement. They would turn all of Europe into a vast Yazidi camp if they could. That is their aim.
Current European policy is to grow the communities that spawn this terror.
If that's their aim, then they are going to be disappointed.
Of course, but the number of casualties is going to be much higher than necessary because of poor immigration and integration policies pursued in Europe.
The fact is that Western Europe's policy is failing, and failing badly. Every few months, innocent people are being slaughtered on the streets of its cities. Its becoming commonplace.
Whether its the EU or Britain, the policy of people who lead us is wrong, it has been wrong for decades, and must be replaced.
Do you think the IRA and ETA pose the same threats to our freedoms as islamic terrorism? I don't.
I don't think Islamic terrorists pose a threat to our freedoms unless we let them. They are the latest wave of terrorists to hit Europe. It was not only the IRA and ETA, there was the Red Brigades, Bader Meinhof, right wing groups and so on. They killed as many if not more as are killed today. A big difference was that it did not happen in the age of the internet and the 24 hour news cycle, so it often carried less direct impact.
True but there is a difference. Whilst it is true that native Europeans have been responsible for some attacks, the culture that spawns this is rooted in other parts of the world over which we have little control. The scale of this terrorism is obviously much greater than others that we've seen since 1945, it's just a question of the extent to which we in the west are targets.
Mr. Nabavi, I'd suggest going back to 1970 might not be helpful as that'll include Irish stuff and perhaps also Eta [two Ts?]. Both those have calmed down significantly and were about political/territorial issues rather than a more general religious lunacy.
... Islamic terrorism is a problem they have created themselves. ...
The religious nutcases who follow their barbaric cause created it, not our, nor European politicians.
Yes but they imported and nurtured the communities that cause it here. They still do. And they are importing legions more.
The fact is that Western Europe's policy is failing, and failing badly. Every few months, innocent people are being slaughtered on the streets of its cities. Its becoming commonplace.
Whether its the EU or Britain, the policy of people who lead us is wrong, it has been wrong for decades, and must be replaced.
Do you think the IRA and ETA pose the same threats to our freedoms as islamic terrorism? I don't.
I don't think Islamic terrorists pose a threat to our freedoms unless we let them. They are the latest wave of terrorists to hit Europe. It was not only the IRA and ETA, there was the Red Brigades, Bader Meinhof, right wing groups and so on. They killed as many if not more as are killed today. A big difference was that it did not happen in the age of the internet and the 24 hour news cycle, so it often carried less direct impact.
The big difference is the aims those groups were fighting for, versus the aims of ISIS. Do you really think they are comparable? Because I really don't.
What they are fighting for is neither here nor there to me. They will not succeed if we do not let them. Killing someone to achieve a political aim is wicked, full stop. I don't consider it any less wicked to kill in the name of some kind of illusory Marxist paradise than to do it in the name of a medieval Caliphate.
The fact is that Western Europe's policy is failing, and failing badly. Every few months, innocent people are being slaughtered on the streets of its cities. Its becoming commonplace.
Whether its the EU or Britain, the policy of people who lead us is wrong, it has been wrong for decades, and must be replaced.
Do you think the IRA and ETA pose the same threats to our freedoms as islamic terrorism? I don't.
I don't think Islamic terrorists pose a threat to our freedoms unless we let them. They are the latest wave of terrorists to hit Europe. It was not only the IRA and ETA, there was the Red Brigades, Bader Meinhof, right wing groups and so on. They killed as many if not more as are killed today. A big difference was that it did not happen in the age of the internet and the 24 hour news cycle, so it often carried less direct impact.
The big difference is the aims those groups were fighting for, versus the aims of ISIS. Do you really think they are comparable? Because I really don't.
Of course, but the number of casualties is going to be much higher than necessary because of poor immigration and integration policies pursued in Europe.
The fact is that Western Europe's policy is failing, and failing badly. Every few months, innocent people are being slaughtered on the streets of its cities. Its becoming commonplace.
Whether its the EU or Britain, the policy of people who lead us is wrong, it has been wrong for decades, and must be replaced.
I'm not sure that's an entirely valid comparison. The IRA, for example, was engaged in a limited war for classic Clausewitzian objectives. They were playing a bloody and deadly game but it was still a game, with rules of a sort and a form of winning.
The jihadists have no limit on their actions beyond logistics and capacity. Look at this list, ordered by death toll:
The cases where the death toll has risen above 100 are dominated by jihadism. That's not the case in Europe: only two of the ten terrorist-related death tolls of more than 100 were jihadist related (five were in Russia, due to Chechen separatists), but that might be down to better intelligence and/or fewer opportunities.
I have little doubt that if the Islamist terrorists were capable of inflicting a thousand deaths, or ten thousand, at one time, they would. We have moved from an era of many incidents with relatively low casualty numbers to one of few instances with high numbers.
Do you think the IRA and ETA pose the same threats to our freedoms as islamic terrorism? I don't.
Different threats in many ways, of course. But a bomb is a bomb, irrespective of what perverse motive the murderers have.
The point I was making is that it's not the case that Europe has suffered a hugely increased spate of terrorist attacks in recent years. The last couple of decades have been safer than many previous periods, thank goodness. We should neither tend towards panic nor complacency, just keep putting in place sensible security and other measures to mitigate the threats. We won't always be successful, alas.
But Islamist terror attacks score far more highly on the "terror" factor, despite the lower casualties, as the killings are brutal, totally indiscriminate, horrific, a glorification of death, and for no sane political objective with no way to reason with them.
To conflate the Islamist threat with the IRA or ETA is a very grave mistake in my book. I suspect RN knows this.
So how is this less wicked and a threat to our freedoms than what happened today?
The fact is that Western Europe's policy is failing, and failing badly. Every few months, innocent people are being slaughtered on the streets of its cities. Its becoming commonplace.
Whether its the EU or Britain, the policy of people who lead us is wrong, it has been wrong for decades, and must be replaced.
Of course the other reasonably obvious point is that "Western Europe" excludes other western nations that we have an affinity with, how far you'd want to widen the net to maintain relevancy is an open question - but Australia (Bali ?) and the big one, the USA (9-11) might also perhaps be included when we're debating the relative toll of Islamic terrorism on the western world compared to IRA/ETA/others.
The fact is that Western Europe's policy is failing, and failing badly. Every few months, innocent people are being slaughtered on the streets of its cities. Its becoming commonplace.
Whether its the EU or Britain, the policy of people who lead us is wrong, it has been wrong for decades, and must be replaced.
I'm not sure that's an entirely valid comparison. The IRA, for example, was engaged in a limited war for classic Clausewitzian objectives. They were playing a bloody and deadly game but it was still a game, with rules of a sort and a form of winning.
The jihadists have no limit on their actions beyond logistics and capacity. Look at this list, ordered by death toll:
The cases where the death toll has risen above 100 are dominated by jihadism. That's not the case in Europe: only two of the ten terrorist-related death tolls of more than 100 were jihadist related (five were in Russia, due to Chechen separatists), but that might be down to better intelligence and/or fewer opportunities.
I have little doubt that if the Islamist terrorists were capable of inflicting a thousand deaths, or ten thousand, at one time, they would. We have moved from an era of many incidents with relatively low casualty numbers to one of few instances with high numbers.
Might be mishearing, but BBC are saying gunshots were fired in the terminal. I wonder if the shots were from security services?
If so, I wonder what Corbyn would say about the security services firing in such circumstances?
(It could equally be the terrorists firing, although that did not happen in the London or Glasgow attacks).
This is silly and does come across as playing partisan politics off the back of something [retty tragic. It was clear that Corbyn wasn't saying that the police shouldn't shoot people where it was justified on clear public safety grounds, but opposing a "shoot-to-kill" policy which is widely understood as referring to shooting terror suspects without making reasonable attempts to arrest them before deploying lethal force.
It was dreadful politics on Corbyn's part to even go there in that context, but those piling in knew exactly what he meant and merely saw an opportunity to damage him. Fair enough, it's their job, but would come across as pretty callous and opportunistic to play that game when another attack is going on.
I have little doubt that if the Islamist terrorists were capable of inflicting a thousand deaths, or ten thousand, at one time, they would. We have moved from an era of many incidents with relatively low casualty numbers to one of few instances with high numbers.
Oh, absolutely, I'm not underestimating the threat at all - on the contrary, I seem to recall being much lambasted here for arguing that the intelligence services need appropriate powers to address these threats. We also need to destroy the ISIS quasi-state, which acts as a recruiting and logistical centre for a large proportion of the threats. That will clearly take some considerable time; at the moment, the West with Russian help seems to be containing ISIS but no more than that.
But, at the same time, let's not get into a moral panic.
I have little doubt that if the Islamist terrorists were capable of inflicting a thousand deaths, or ten thousand, at one time, they would. We have moved from an era of many incidents with relatively low casualty numbers to one of few instances with high numbers.
Oh, absolutely, I'm not underestimating the threat at all - on the contrary, I seem to recall being much lambasted here for arguing that the intelligence services need appropriate powers to address these threats. We also need to destroy the ISIS quasi-state, which acts as a recruiting and logistical centre for a large proportion of the threats. That will clearly take some considerable time; at the moment, the West with Russian help seems to be containing ISIS but no more than that.
But, at the same time, let's not get into a moral panic.
I hope we can all agree that our security services do an excellent job.
Do you think the IRA and ETA pose the same threats to our freedoms as islamic terrorism? I don't.
Different threats in many ways, of course. But a bomb is a bomb, irrespective of what perverse motive the murderers have.
The point I was making is that it's not the case that Europe has suffered a hugely increased spate of terrorist attacks in recent years. The last couple of decades have been safer than many previous periods, thank goodness. We should neither tend towards panic nor complacency, just keep putting in place sensible security and other measures to mitigate the threats. We won't always be successful, alas.
But Islamist terror attacks score far more highly on the "terror" factor, despite the lower casualties, as the killings are brutal, totally indiscriminate, horrific, a glorification of death, and for no sane political objective with no way to reason with them.
To conflate the Islamist threat with the IRA or ETA is a very grave mistake in my book. I suspect RN knows this.
So how is this less wicked and a threat to our freedoms than what happened today?
The key difference between Islamist inspired attacks and (eg) the IRA, is that the former believe that any non-muslim is an animal to be culled, and therefore killing as many as possible is part of the plan. The IRA would kill to use shock tactics to achieve their political goal, the death of innocent victims being 'justified' in that context.
The fact is that Western Europe's policy is failing, and failing badly. Every few months, innocent people are being slaughtered on the streets of its cities. Its becoming commonplace.
Whether its the EU or Britain, the policy of people who lead us is wrong, it has been wrong for decades, and must be replaced.
Do you think the IRA and ETA pose the same threats to our freedoms as islamic terrorism? I don't.
I don't think Islamic terrorists pose a threat to our freedoms unless we let them. They are the latest wave of terrorists to hit Europe. It was not only the IRA and ETA, there was the Red Brigades, Bader Meinhof, right wing groups and so on. They killed as many if not more as are killed today. A big difference was that it did not happen in the age of the internet and the 24 hour news cycle, so it often carried less direct impact.
The big difference is the aims those groups were fighting for, versus the aims of ISIS. Do you really think they are comparable? Because I really don't.
70 posts since you said you were going to give this thread a miss because you didn't like Alastaire's header. A perfect parable for the point he was making
Of course, but the number of casualties is going to be much higher than necessary because of poor immigration and integration policies pursued in Europe.
That's also true.
This is where a lot of the anger comes from though, with the IRA and ETA or other "homegown" terrorist groups the cause of the terrorism was something under our control and we had the ability to reduce it, see the Good Friday Agreement.
With Islamic terror, the authorities aren't cracking down on extremist preachers, we had to fight for 6 years to deport one and our policies are too geared towards "cultural sensitivity" rather than integrationism. It is a mess and it gives rise to the likes of Le Pen and Wilders.
Do you think the IRA and ETA pose the same threats to our freedoms as islamic terrorism? I don't.
Different threats in many ways, of course. But a bomb is a bomb, irrespective of what perverse motive the murderers have.
The point I was making is that it's not the case that Europe has suffered a hugely increased spate of terrorist attacks in recent years. The last couple of decades have been safer than many previous periods, thank goodness. We should neither tend towards panic nor complacency, just keep putting in place sensible security and other measures to mitigate the threats. We won't always be successful, alas.
But Islamist terror attacks score far more highly on the "terror" factor, despite the lower casualties, as the killings are brutal, totally indiscriminate, horrific, a glorification of death, and for no sane political objective with no way to reason with them.
To conflate the Islamist threat with the IRA or ETA is a very grave mistake in my book. I suspect RN knows this.
So how is this less wicked and a threat to our freedoms than what happened today?
The key difference between Islamist inspired attacks and (eg) the IRA, is that the former believe that any non-muslim is an animal to be culled, and therefore killing as many as possible is part of the plan. The IRA would kill to use shock tactics to achieve their political goal, the death of innocent victims being 'justified' in that context.
These are two very different situations.
Yes, the IRA now seem strangely modern in comparison to what we're dealing with now.
... And so, however many people end up having lost their lives in Belgium, for each and every one there will be some hundreds of thousands of other Belgians, and millions elsewhere, who love their democracy and the freedoms it brings all the more today, and they will love them far more than most of those in the Arab world give a damn for the particular reading of Islam that generates the terrorist acts. For democracy is increasing in the world, albeit in the usual two steps forwards one step back way of such things, but make no mistake the end game of defeating the jihadis and democracy setting seed as part of the cultural mix of the Arab world will happen, and the grievance of bad governance that fuels Daesh and their ilk today will be choked off at the root, because when it is set well, the people of the middle east will grow to love their democracy as much as we do ours. ....
The level of underlying support for terrorism and the aims of terrorists in Arab nations is higher than people want to acknowledge in the west. It is also true that the level of support for terrorists and their aims is higher among Muslims in western nations than we are willing to acknowledge. Until these two simple facts are taken into account there is no way to address the issue of extremism and the best thing to do is pull up the drawbridge to Muslim immigration and start very intensive education and anti-extremism programmes in Europe to push out extremist ideology from the Muslims who are already here.
And yet. Don't you get the sense that many potential Islamist attacks within the UK are now foiled thanks to vigilance and reporting of suspicions within the Muslim community. In that respect, we are a long way ahead of where NI was in the 'whatever you say, say nothing' days.
Remember when hooliganism was attributed to a 'tiny minority'. It wasn't a tiny minority but by no means was it a majority. I'd consider the Middle East to be somewhat like that, and by the time you get to UK Muslims we are getting a lot closer towards 'tiny minority'. So, I don't see a contradiction between acknowledging your point on scale and my wording above.
As for pulling up the drawbridge, that's not an approach I would support, but I'd rather leave such debate to a quieter point where it can be framed in betting odds on very bad things happening in the UK and of the knock-on effects. I feel a civil debate can be had by considering our differences as a question of the different ways we view the risks, the possibilities for mitigating those risks and the further risks stemming from the mitigations, and assuming good intent of one another.
Do you think the IRA and ETA pose the same threats to our freedoms as islamic terrorism? I don't.
Different threats in many ways, of course. But a bomb is a bomb, irrespective of what perverse motive the murderers have.
The point I was making is that it's not the case that Europe has suffered a hugely increased spate of terrorist attacks in recent years. The last couple of decades have been safer than many previous periods, thank goodness. We should neither tend towards panic nor complacency, just keep putting in place sensible security and other measures to mitigate the threats. We won't always be successful, alas.
But Islamist terror attacks score far more highly on the "terror" factor, despite the lower casualties, as the killings are brutal, totally indiscriminate, horrific, a glorification of death, and for no sane political objective with no way to reason with them.
To conflate the Islamist threat with the IRA or ETA is a very grave mistake in my book. I suspect RN knows this.
So how is this less wicked and a threat to our freedoms than what happened today?
The key difference between Islamist inspired attacks and (eg) the IRA, is that the former believe that any non-muslim is an animal to be culled, and therefore killing as many as possible is part of the plan. The IRA would kill to use shock tactics to achieve their political goal, the death of innocent victims being 'justified' in that context.
These are two very different situations.
Sure - but that does not make them a greater threat to our freedom. That still lies in our hands and depends on decision we make.
Belgian state broadcaster RTBF is reporting that a Kalashnikov rifle has been found in Brussels airport departure hall.
Antalya airport (Turkey) had security controls on entering the terminal when I went there a couple of years back. It might be something we need to bring in here perhaps.
Belgian state broadcaster RTBF is reporting that a Kalashnikov rifle has been found in Brussels airport departure hall.
Antalya airport (Turkey) had security controls on entering the terminal when I went there a couple of years back. It might be something we need to bring in here perhaps.
Then they'll explode the bomb in the queue to enter the terminal.
Police are carrying out house searches in Brussels, RTBF reports. Suspects believed to be linked to the attacks are being sought, the broadcaster said.
Hopefully they check the wardrobes this time...and they only have a few hours before its dark.
And yet. Don't you get the sense that many potential Islamist attacks within the UK are now foiled thanks to vigilance and reporting of suspicions within the Muslim community. In that respect, we are a long way ahead of where NI was in the 'whatever you say, say nothing' days.
Remember when hooliganism was attributed to a 'tiny minority'. It wasn't a tiny minority but by no means was it a majority. I'd consider the Middle East to be somewhat like that, and by the time you get to UK Muslims we are getting a lot closer towards 'tiny minority'. So, I don't see a contradiction between acknowledging your point on scale and my wording above.
As for pulling up the drawbridge, that's not an approach I would support, but I'd rather leave such debate to a quieter point where it can be framed in betting odds on very bad things happening in the UK and of the knock-on effects. I feel a civil debate can be had by considering our differences as a question of the different ways we view the risks, the possibilities for mitigating those risks and the further risks stemming from the mitigations, and assuming good intent of one another.
I think you are wrong about UK and European Muslims. This is a place where we have to look at the evidence, and the evidence is that there are many, many Muslims, a very large minority IMO, that support the aims of terrorists.
Western liberal society can never be compatible with Islam:
Agree - 20% Disagree - 72%
Organisations which publish images of the Prophet Mohammed deserve to be attacked:
Agree - 11% Disagree - 85%
It is deeply offensive to me personally when images of the Prophet Mohammed are published:
Agree - 78% Disagree - 20%
Acts of violence against against those who publish images of the Prophet Mohammed can never be justified:
Agree - 68% Disagree - 24%
I have some sympathy for the motives behind the attacks on Charlie Hebdo in Paris:
Agree - 27% Disagree - 62%
I understand the motives of those who launch attacks in the name of Islam because the religion has been insulted:
Agree - 32% Disagree - 64%
I wasn't surprised that the Paris attacks happened:
Agree - 32% Disagree - 63%
Other research by PEW has backed these general findings as well. There are between 20-25% of UK Muslims who support terrorist attacks or the aims of terrorists.
Police are carrying out house searches in Brussels, RTBF reports. Suspects believed to be linked to the attacks are being sought, the broadcaster said.
Hopefully they check the wardrobes this time...and they only have a few hours before its dark.
Belgian state broadcaster RTBF is reporting that a Kalashnikov rifle has been found in Brussels airport departure hall.
Antalya airport (Turkey) had security controls on entering the terminal when I went there a couple of years back. It might be something we need to bring in here perhaps.
Cairo had similar checks when I went there about 6 years ago
Do you think the IRA and ETA pose the same threats to our freedoms as islamic terrorism? I don't.
Different threats in many ways, of course. But a bomb is a bomb, irrespective of what perverse motive the murderers have.
The point I was making is that it's not the case that Europe has suffered a hugely increased spate of terrorist attacks in recent years. The last couple of decades have been safer than many previous periods, thank goodness. We should neither tend towards panic nor complacency, just keep putting in place sensible security and other measures to mitigate the threats. We won't always be successful, alas.
But Islamist terror attacks score far more highly on the "terror" factor, despite the lower casualties, as the killings are brutal, totally indiscriminate, horrific, a glorification of death, and for no sane political objective with no way to reason with them.
To conflate the Islamist threat with the IRA or ETA is a very grave mistake in my book. I suspect RN knows this.
So how is this less wicked and a threat to our freedoms than what happened today?
The key difference between Islamist inspired attacks and (eg) the IRA, is that the former believe that any non-muslim is an animal to be culled, and therefore killing as many as possible is part of the plan. The IRA would kill to use shock tactics to achieve their political goal, the death of innocent victims being 'justified' in that context.
These are two very different situations.
"The key difference between Islamist inspired attacks and (eg) the IRA, is that the former believe that any non-muslim is an animal to be culled"
AIUI that's not technically the case. Non-Muslims can live in IS-controlled areas as second- or third-class citizens. For instance, they have to pay the Jizra and have other restrictions on freedoms (over and above the restrictions of Islamic law). Obviously people do not wish to live under those restrictions, and rightly so.
As is the case with multiple terrorist attacks, especially international ones, what we are seeing is a terror component of a political struggle. It will be used to apply force to external parties, and to gain favourable publicity within IS and supporters.
It's interesting to wonder what the people training and possibly controlling these cells want as political aims. For us to withdraw, or attack them further? In the case of militant Islam, the latter would not surprise me.
That'd be comical, if it weren't deadly serious. How'd they catch him? Or did he escape, and they caught him a few days later?
Have you not seen the clip of him being "caught"....he casually walked out the front door straight past the security services and they initially don't react at all....and end up shooting him in the leg when he has got 30+ yards away.
The Brussels Bombing has just handed another few hundred thousand votes to Leave...
Yep, of course. Because if we left the EU it would mean that there would be no terrorist attacks here.
You don't really understand this politics thing, do you?
Of course it's all the fault of the EU, rather than Islamic extremists or immigration from the third world, or Western involvement in the middle east?
Only a Euro-obsessive would conclude that swing voters will even associate this with the EU, any more than the attacks in Paris, Madrid, London or elsewhere.
[snip] AFAIK nobody has blamed the EU for the Brussels bombings. But there will undoubtedly be people watching the news that associate terrorism on the continent with a desire to protect our borders. Now you may argue they shouldn't, but they will.
Perhaps so, but then some others may conclude that working with our continental colleagues will help improve security both here and there.
I suspect it will have a greater impact on race relations than on the European debate.
Bizarre. Terrorists bomb Brussels and you talk of race relations.
Its supposed to be Leave that are incoherent, you are clearly floundering.
Look, tonight on the news there will be images of Brussels juxtaposed with those from Calais, not everybody gives politics deep analysis.
That'd be comical, if it weren't deadly serious. How'd they catch him? Or did he escape, and they caught him a few days later?
The ISIS fugitive was said to have been traced to a house in Brussels neighbourhood of Molenbeek two days after the atrocity which claimed the lives of 130 people.
But Belgian cops didn't move in because they can't perform raids between 9pm and 5am, it was reported.
By the time they raided the house, the suspect had escaped.
Now reports have claimed Abdeslam managed to evade the cops by being smuggled out of the house he was hiding in concealed inside a piece of furniture.
Mr. Urquhart, just ridiculous (I had heard they couldn't raid at night. Which is pathetic).
However, before we get too smug, let's not forget Rotherham and other such gangs where the police did sod all and political sensitivity betrayed thousands of girls and boys.
Belgian state broadcaster RTBF is reporting that a Kalashnikov rifle has been found in Brussels airport departure hall.
Arriving in departures?
I've always said that the logical next step for terrorists to make flying even more inconvenient is to blow themselves up before security.
It's not a new tactic the PLO attacked El-Al check in at two airports back in the 1980s after beefed up security due to previous attacks had effectively defeated their attempts at bombing, hijacking, and air-side attacks. And the El-Al staff fired back!
I went through security when entering Istanbul Airport.
FWIW until recently they used to do ID checks and cursory searches before you could get into Narita Airport, although the adversary there was local farmers and allied left-wing activists who were objecting to the actual airport (and had occasionally managed to get in and smash up control towers etc) so it plausibly did something useful other than just shifting the target to outside the checkpoint.
It's interesting to wonder what the people training and possibly controlling these cells want as political aims. For us to withdraw, or attack them further? In the case of militant Islam, the latter would not surprise me.
They want the world polarise into Crusaders and Muslims. For it to be impossible for a Muslim to live in Crusader lands. They want dominion over all Muslims.
Then they want to bring about the apocalypse on the east coast of the Mediterranean.
Which is worrying as their is a politically powerful American Christian sect that also want to bring about the apocalypse on the east coast of the Mediterranean. Indeed a large chuck of the political support for Israel from American comes in the form of people who require Israel to exist so that the Rapture can happen.
"It's interesting to wonder what the people training and possibly controlling these cells want as political aims."
It's not difficult. They want the Umma to be the whole world, and for them to be living under Sharia as defined by IS. This includes the black flag flying over Downing Street.
In the short term, they want to spread terror and despondency, discourage attacks on themselves in Iraq and Syria, and to strut on the world stage to encourage recruitment.
Remedy ... destroy them in Iraq and Syria, show them as being weak and ineffectual, and discourage recruitment.
Comments
BREAKING SNP have ditched support for a 50p top rate of tax for the richest which they announced as policy less than a year ago.
Sarah Smith BBC
All Scottish taxpayers earning over £43,000 will end up paying £323 more income tax than people in rest of UK under SNP plans
And so, however many people end up having lost their lives in Belgium, for each and every one there will be some hundreds of thousands of other Belgians, and millions elsewhere, who love their democracy and the freedoms it brings all the more today, and they will love them far more than most of those in the Arab world give a damn for the particular reading of Islam that generates the terrorist acts. For democracy is increasing in the world, albeit in the usual two steps forwards one step back way of such things, but make no mistake the end game of defeating the jihadis and democracy setting seed as part of the cultural mix of the Arab world will happen, and the grievance of bad governance that fuels Daesh and their ilk today will be choked off at the root, because when it is set well, the people of the middle east will grow to love their democracy as much as we do ours.
It will be slow and painful, but Southern and much of Eastern Europe were liberated from within in many of our lifetimes and the long game, the cold war and the multiplicity of approaches we adopted to those problems over the last decades are the closest we have to a model of how to face down the dictators and extremist resistances of the Middle East over the coming ones. There will be western interventions and bombs involved at times, no doubt, but no single external intervention, no single external campaign will go anywhere near sorting this out, and our patience, our vigilance for opportunities where democratic seeds can be nurtured or weeds choked off at source and our resolve in democracy will be more important to winning this battle than even the best conceived military interventions.
And we must never, ever mistake this for a battle against the Arab world, ultimately any battle has always got to be FOR the Arab world and the futures of the hundreds of millions of ordinary people who live there. It is by fighting that battle FOR the Arab world that they, and we, will ultimately succeed.
After all, without boarder controls muslim terrorists can travel as freely as tourists can between countries.
Once that passport is granted, so is the right of free entry to the UK.
That is Remain.
Under Leave, that loophole is closed.
People can gauge which they feel is safer on balance for the UK.
If one nation does adopt the 'give-em-all-passports' line - as the Greeks threatened, then it surely flows that a Common Asylum and Immigration Policy will be up for urgent discussion?
By the end of 2003 that threat had largely passed (partly due to the Government's preoccupation with Iraq) but the election of a pro-euro leader, leading to all three mainstream political party leaders being passionately pro euro in a pre-UKIP era, would have either fully split the Conservative Party, or perhaps led to history being different and a referendum being called and the U.K. entering the euro, or perhaps both.
Whatever else he did, IDS provided opposition to this, held the party together and laid the groundwork for the Tories caring about social justice and welfare reform.
I don't regret my vote for him one bit.
George Osborne would, in your view, be...
Up to the job of Prime Minister: 8%
Not up to the job of Prime Minister: 73%
(via YouGov)
By the way I don't wish to sound crude at a time like this, sympathies and all.
I suspect it will have a greater impact on race relations than on the European debate.
The mere fact that we exist annoys them.
The point I was making is that it's not the case that Europe has suffered a hugely increased spate of terrorist attacks in recent years. The last couple of decades have been safer than many previous periods, thank goodness. We should neither tend towards panic nor complacency, just keep putting in place sensible security and other measures to mitigate the threats. We won't always be successful, alas.
That's the most depressing thing.
Current European policy is to grow the communities that spawn this terror.
Asa Bennett
Back in 2015, 32% told YouGov George Osborne was "up to the job of being Prime Minister". Now it's just 8% https://t.co/lNscvWJ5VI
Dear me
George Osborne's 8% "up to the job of PM" is even worse than Ed Miliband - who had 18% in 2014 https://t.co/zi20oI4vu4
#Moody's say immediate economic impact of #Brexit "small" negative. No increases in unemployment or interest rates. https://t.co/kTjmh4Lfn7
On Topic.
Alistair Meeks and David Cameron seem to have made the same error: they haven't noticed that Euroscepticism has gone mainstream.
The jihadists have no limit on their actions beyond logistics and capacity. Look at this list, ordered by death toll:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_battles_and_other_violent_events_by_death_toll#Terrorist_attacks
The cases where the death toll has risen above 100 are dominated by jihadism. That's not the case in Europe: only two of the ten terrorist-related death tolls of more than 100 were jihadist related (five were in Russia, due to Chechen separatists), but that might be down to better intelligence and/or fewer opportunities.
I have little doubt that if the Islamist terrorists were capable of inflicting a thousand deaths, or ten thousand, at one time, they would. We have moved from an era of many incidents with relatively low casualty numbers to one of few instances with high numbers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna_massacre
Or this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brighton_hotel_bombing
All we can do is remove them by whatever means necessary. It's a completely different mindset to previous terrorist risks.
Going down in a blaze of intentional glory is beyond normal behaviour.
But, at the same time, let's not get into a moral panic.
I said no sane objective.
Wanting to terrorise the world into forcibly converting into a sharia form of Islamic government, or die, can in no way be considered sane.
Although, interestingly, euromaniacs (like you) are happy to throw the insanity card at perfectly reasonable Brexiteers.
What a funny world we live in.
This shouldn't come as much of a surprise. Constituency electoral registers are worse the younger the population. https://t.co/xchTa9oPDn
The key difference between Islamist inspired attacks and (eg) the IRA, is that the former believe that any non-muslim is an animal to be culled, and therefore killing as many as possible is part of the plan. The IRA would kill to use shock tactics to achieve their political goal, the death of innocent victims being 'justified' in that context.
These are two very different situations.
With Islamic terror, the authorities aren't cracking down on extremist preachers, we had to fight for 6 years to deport one and our policies are too geared towards "cultural sensitivity" rather than integrationism. It is a mess and it gives rise to the likes of Le Pen and Wilders.
Iran Air 655 conspicuous by it's absence ^^;;
Remember when hooliganism was attributed to a 'tiny minority'. It wasn't a tiny minority but by no means was it a majority. I'd consider the Middle East to be somewhat like that, and by the time you get to UK Muslims we are getting a lot closer towards 'tiny minority'. So, I don't see a contradiction between acknowledging your point on scale and my wording above.
As for pulling up the drawbridge, that's not an approach I would support, but I'd rather leave such debate to a quieter point where it can be framed in betting odds on very bad things happening in the UK and of the knock-on effects. I feel a civil debate can be had by considering our differences as a question of the different ways we view the risks, the possibilities for mitigating those risks and the further risks stemming from the mitigations, and assuming good intent of one another.
https://twitter.com/GerryAdamsSF/status/712222979984326656
https://twitter.com/GerryHassan/status/712247329106108416
Edit: & list/regional vote.
@YouGov Welsh Assembly regional vote poll: Lab down 6% from 2011 LAB 31% (=) CON 22% (=) PC 22% (+3) UKIP 14% (-4) LDEM 5% (+1) GRN 4% (+1)
It's a big security hole.
Hopefully they check the wardrobes this time...and they only have a few hours before its dark.
http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/BBC-Today-Programme_British-Muslims-Poll_FINAL-Tables_Feb2015.pdf
Western liberal society can never be compatible with Islam:
Agree - 20%
Disagree - 72%
Organisations which publish images of the Prophet Mohammed deserve to be attacked:
Agree - 11%
Disagree - 85%
It is deeply offensive to me personally when images of the Prophet Mohammed are published:
Agree - 78%
Disagree - 20%
Acts of violence against against those who publish images of the Prophet Mohammed can never be justified:
Agree - 68%
Disagree - 24%
I have some sympathy for the motives behind the attacks on Charlie Hebdo in Paris:
Agree - 27%
Disagree - 62%
I understand the motives of those who launch attacks in the name of Islam because the religion has been insulted:
Agree - 32%
Disagree - 64%
I wasn't surprised that the Paris attacks happened:
Agree - 32%
Disagree - 63%
Other research by PEW has backed these general findings as well. There are between 20-25% of UK Muslims who support terrorist attacks or the aims of terrorists.
This has become the new normal.
AIUI that's not technically the case. Non-Muslims can live in IS-controlled areas as second- or third-class citizens. For instance, they have to pay the Jizra and have other restrictions on freedoms (over and above the restrictions of Islamic law). Obviously people do not wish to live under those restrictions, and rightly so.
As is the case with multiple terrorist attacks, especially international ones, what we are seeing is a terror component of a political struggle. It will be used to apply force to external parties, and to gain favourable publicity within IS and supporters.
It's interesting to wonder what the people training and possibly controlling these cells want as political aims. For us to withdraw, or attack them further? In the case of militant Islam, the latter would not surprise me.
That'd be comical, if it weren't deadly serious. How'd they catch him? Or did he escape, and they caught him a few days later?
Frank Gardner's comments astonished me.
Update 34 now confirmed dead.
Its supposed to be Leave that are incoherent, you are clearly floundering.
Look, tonight on the news there will be images of Brussels juxtaposed with those from Calais, not everybody gives politics deep analysis.
It's a joke country led by a PM who looks like he's escaped from a TinTin cartoon strip...
However, before we get too smug, let's not forget Rotherham and other such gangs where the police did sod all and political sensitivity betrayed thousands of girls and boys.
Then they want to bring about the apocalypse on the east coast of the Mediterranean.
Which is worrying as their is a politically powerful American Christian sect that also want to bring about the apocalypse on the east coast of the Mediterranean. Indeed a large chuck of the political support for Israel from American comes in the form of people who require Israel to exist so that the Rapture can happen.
"It's interesting to wonder what the people training and possibly controlling these cells want as political aims."
It's not difficult. They want the Umma to be the whole world, and for them to be living under Sharia as defined by IS. This includes the black flag flying over Downing Street.
In the short term, they want to spread terror and despondency, discourage attacks on themselves in Iraq and Syria, and to strut on the world stage to encourage recruitment.
Remedy ... destroy them in Iraq and Syria, show them as being weak and ineffectual, and discourage recruitment.