If anyone thinks Britain would have enjoyed greater immunity from Islamist terror had it not sent forces to Iraq, they should reconsider the matter after reading a report that appeared in the International Herald Tribune on the Wednesday before Christmas (hat-tip: Dean Godson in yesterday’s Times).
Entitled ‘French counterterror forces on high alert', it reports French anti-terror chief Jean-Louis Brugiere to have revealed recently that, between June 2005 and September 2006, no fewer than 76 arrests have been made there in connection with three foiled attacks, one to bomb the Paris metro and another that targeted Orly airport.
France played no part in the overthrow of the Saddam regime. Indeed, it was vociferously opposed to the venture. Yet its stance on that issue seems to have brought it not one iota of greater security.
Algerian Islamists there have been planning and carrying out operations against it since the 1990s when France backed a military coup in Algeria that prevented an Islamist party winning power there. Calling themselves the ‘Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat’, this group is reported to have just teamed up with Al Qaeda.
The collective memory of Islamists for grievances would, therefore, appear to run very deep. So, even had Britain kept out of the fray since September 11th 2001, its earlier actions not to their liking could well have earned it a place on their hit-list. , Al Qaeda’s second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, hinted as much in his most recent speech, also broadcast on the Wednesday before Christmas, in which he said: ‘The animosity of Britain towards Islam stretches over centuries. Isn’t it the one who used to occupy most Islamic lands?’.
As Dean Godson makes clear in his Times piece, Britain’s chattering classes need to stop deluding themselves that, by withdrawing from Iraq, the country will spare itself from further attack. Like the USA, it is in a mortal fight with Islamism from which only one of the two sets of protagonists will eventually be able to emerge. Sadly, it currently seem, Britain must have to suffer another blow like the one it did on 7 July 2005 before its chattering classes wake up to the fact it is in a fight to the death.