I analyzed and classified all the Isis massacres in Western Europe between 2015 and 2020, identifying three categories of attacks.
To the first category belong the attacks organized by the central command of the Islamic State. In the second category, instead, fall the attacks of the “autonomous cells”, i.e. groups of friends or relatives (cells) who kill in the name of Isis, but without contact with the organization (autonomous). To the third category, finally, belong the attacks of lone wolves, which I have further divided into trained lone wolves and untrained lone wolves. This classification places the attacks in decreasing order of lethality. With very few exceptions, the first type attacks are more devastating than the second type attacks, which are more lethal than the third type attacks. The least lethal attacks of all are those of untrained lone wolves. I presented this research in my book “L’Isis non è morto” (Rizzoli).
Influenced by the theory of élites and, more specifically, by Robert Michels’ studies on the power of organization, the fundamental variable of my classification is “organization”. The more organized the terrorists are, the more devastating they are. From a paradigmatic point of view, the attack against the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001 and the one in Mumbai on November 26-28, 2008 represent the maximum level of organization and, therefore, the maximum level of lethality. Whereas the attack of Mohammed Game, the clumsy lone wolf who blew up only his hand (Milan, October 12, 2009), represents the minimum level of organization and, therefore, the minimum level of lethality.
In the period examined, I have calculated that the first type of attacks were 2, i.e. the Bataclan massacre of 13 November 2015 and that of 22 March 2016 in Brussels; the attacks that can be clearly considered second type were 3 (the distinction is not always easy); the third type of attacks were 18, of which only two were carried out by trained lone wolves. This means that, after the massacre in Brussels, almost all the attacks were carried out by untrained lone wolves.
This data calls for a question: why was Isis unable to replicate a massacre as complex as that of Bataclan? Why its organization in European cities, instead of improving, has declined until it vanished? An answer is urgent, since public opinion was convinced that the Isis attacks would become more lethal as time went by. There seem to be three main causes.
The first is that the anti-terrorist forces are well organized and ensure a high level of repression of jihadist activities, despite the mistakes. The second is that a foreign fighter is not necessarily also a terrorist and, in fact, very rarely the former are willing to blow themselves up in the cities where they grew up. In short, a great growth in the number of foreign fighters does not imply, by necessity, a proportional growth in the number of terrorists. Put more simply, an Italian citizen who enlists in the jihadist militia to fight in Syria against Bassar al Assad is not necessarily willing to blow himself up in the subways of Italian cities, as demonstrated by the case of the Genoese Giuliano Del Nevo.
We now come to the third cause: the level of loyalty of European Muslims to free societies. The data I highlighted on the massacres can be interpreted in two opposite ways. According to the “negative thesis”, as I propose to call it, the growth of jihadist attacks and foreign fighters is proof that Western Muslims are not integrated into European society and therefore must be viewed with suspicion. According to the “positive thesis”, of which I am the promoter, the opposite is true: Isis offered European Muslims the opportunity to vent their alleged hatred towards the society in which they live, but Muslims did not want to follow the example of the Bataclan bombers. In my approach, a terrorist organization can be conceived as a political party, which addresses a potential electorate, to which it offers a recipe to solve its problems. In the case of Isis, the potential electorate is Muslims, while the recipe is to blow yourselves up in the crowd: “Dear European Muslims – say the leaders of Isis – you are discriminated against and must blow yourselves up to solve the problem”.
Whether the negative or the positive thesis prevails is of the utmost importance for the future of free societies. If the first thesis prevails, the coexistence between different religions will become more and more problematic and conflictual, since the suspicion towards Muslims will have, among its many consequences, the continuous triggering of the self-fulfilling prophecy, masterfully described by Robert Merton, in his “Theory and Social Structure”. If, instead, the second thesis becomes the dominant narrative, free societies will find it easier to organize multi-ethnic coexistence. In summary, the defense of free societies does not depend only on the outcome of the clash between the Isis militants and the police forces, but also on the outcome of the clash between two opposing public narratives. As Luciano Pellicani explained, in his book “Revolutionary Apocalypse”, the ideas of intellectuals almost never have an immediate impact on the organization of social life. However, in the long-run, they can make a difference. It is, therefore, important in the fight against Isis that the principles of the secular nature of the State are not used to create an imaginary dividing line between Muslims and non-Muslims. From a historical point of view, it should be remembered that the secularity of the State in Europe was created to oppose Christianity and not Islam. A similar discourse applies to Italy, of course, whose secularity of the State was affirmed with a war, culminating with the breach of Porta Pia, to prevent the values of Christianity from shaping all aspects of public life. Clark McCauley and Sophia Moskalenko have significantly entitled their book on radicalization “Friction: How Radicalization Happens to Them and Us”. Exactly, we pay attention to the radicalization of others and our own.
*Member of the Scientific Committee of the Eurispes’s Permanent Observatory on International Themes
