Berlin, Germany – 20.12.2016Crime scene of the chrismas market truck attack in Berlin-Charlottenburg. On the evening of the 19th of december a truck drives into the Christmas market on the Breitscheidplatz in Berlin. Twelve people died and 48 are injured. ***action_23650317Action Press/LaPresseOnly Italy
In the past months, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the “Caliph” of the Islamic State, has constantly urged to commit attacks in Europe, by any means, also explicitly mentioning the use of cars or trucks into the crowd. In the heart of Berlin, just as had happened in Nice on July 14, a truck has invested the crowd at a Christmas market, causing 12 dead and fifty injured, some of whom are in serious conditions. For Germany it’s the first massive terrorist attack with a large number of deaths and injuries.
Almost simultaneously Mevlut Mert Altintas, 22, a policeman, killed Russian Ambassador in Turkey at a public event. Before shooting, he sang the anthem of Al Nusra Front, the Syrian offshoot of Al Qaeda. According to Melih Gegchek, the mayor of Ankara, Altintas may have been linked to the alleged coup network of Fethullah Gulen, in exile in Pennsylvania, accused of being the instigator of the failed coup of July 15. The young officer was not, however, among the thousands of people purged by the Turkish police. For the past two years and a half Altintas had been on duty in the riot police department in Ankara, mostly working during street demonstrations, as confirmed by the Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu.
It is global war in radical Islam. The Sunni terrorist groups, such as ISIS, Al-Qaeda and Al Nusra, are determined to eliminate the Shiite and Christian infidels. Islamic terrorism stems from Sunni Salafi movement, and – through Al Qaeda and nowadays the Islamic State – it is aimed at fighting against the religious, political and cultural oppositions all over the world. Shiite Muslims in the Middle East and West African Sufis are by far the major victims of jihadist organizations, but an important target is also the Western people for its democratic culture and its corporate capitalism, the power that makes the strongest competition to Al Baghdadi.
The attack on Europe, however, aims at disrupting its unity and at leading to the Governments populist parties that share the same goal of destroying European centralism to acquire personal power in individual areas of the Union. The globalized world and the persistence of the economic crisis are doing the rest. Nationalism, extremism and segregation can find fertile ground in the current conditions, but they make the European people more fragmented, weak, and at the mercy of those who besiege our continent. Without even realizing it, we are playing the game of the strategists of the Islamic State and of Al-Qaida, the Middle East dictators. Unfortunately, without a single policy, a common army and intelligence and a unique foreign policy, we will not be able to cope with a future that is uncertain and dramatic.
The strategy of terror is undermining that Europe which was to be the bulwark of civil rights. Some European leaders such as Angela Merkel do not bend and confirm reception policies even in difficult times as today, the day after the attack. Let’s not forget, however, that recent Brexit was the first great achievement of the mediatic and operative strategy in Europe by Islamic terrorism. To pursue this road will destroy everything we’re used to and that made us forget the unspeakable tragedies of World War II.
On our doorstep, instead, Syria is experiencing a new holocaust, which can involve us all. In this disastrous Civil War, the strategic balances are gradually changing while the causes that led to the rise of ISIS are still the same. To cite some examples: the aftermath of the US wars in the Middle East, the Sunni and Shiite integration, the influence of the Arab powers and of Russia, the role of Iran, that of Israel, the economic interests of the seven energy sisters. Terrorists want to create a West that is constantly under attack, scared and militarized, and we Europeans still do not realize that the humus that has given rise to all this continues to be alive and flourishing.
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