The siege of the cafe in Sydney and the taking of hostages by a man believed to have Islamist sympathies raised initial fears of the expansion of the violent activities of groups such as Islamic State (IS) from their heartland in the Middle East to the towns and cities of the West.
While the man subsequently identified by Australian police as responsible for the attack appears a somewhat unlikely member of IS, these fears remain undiminished. Since the group’s emergence into global consciousness this year, the perception of the apparently unstoppable expansion of IS has grown.
IS first came to attention in December last year when it seized control of Fallujah and Ramadi, two major cities in the Anbar province of Iraq.
Nearly all of Anbar’s population is Sunni Muslim in a country the government of which has been dominated by representatives of its Shia majority since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
IS has its origins in the group that became commonly known as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) which in turn was a direct response to the US invasion.
AQI had its stronghold in Anbar but by 2008 had alienated many because of its extreme violence. The resulting backlash and the US-supported “surge” largely eliminated the influence of AQI.
However, under the leadership of Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi, the group, now reorganised as the Islamic State of Iraq, entered the conflict in neighbouring Syria, where it established a presence in several Syrian governorates.
In April the group became the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Finally, having extended its control over a substantial area straddling Syria and Iraq, the group declared a global Islamic caliphate and renamed itself Islamic State.
The notion of caliphate recalls a form of Islamic religio-political institution historically associated with figures who saw themselves as successors to the prophet Muhammad in leadership of the world’s Muslims.
The threat posed by IS to stability in the Middle East led in turn to the renewed involvement of the US, along with some European and regional states, to combat its expansion. One consequence of this came in June when one of the group’s leaders explicitly called for attacks on the US and on the home soil of its allies.
Barbarity
IS undoubtedly possesses attraction for some Muslims within and outside the region even as its barbarity repels increasing numbers of people.
It is clear, not least from the recent Arab uprisings, many if not most people in the Middle East do not trust their governments or ruling elites. Nor is there much faith in the West to vindicate the interests of Muslims.
IS emphasises the double standards of the international community and of the western powers, and represents itself as a viable and “Islamic” alternative to the established order in the Middle East.
However, while IS has attracted the support of thousands of Muslims of European origin, the great majority of foreigners fighting with IS and other jihadist groups in the region come from Muslim-majority countries and the biggest threat posed by IS is to other Muslims.
A United Nations report has estimated IS killed at least 9,000 civilians and wounded more than 17,000 in the first eight months of the year alone.
Horrific as the killings of western hostages held by IS undoubtedly are, and worrying as the threat of attacks in the West may be, the threat from IS to its fellow Muslims is vastly greater. IS is predominantly focused on Syria and Iraq, and on the battle against Alawite and Shia enemies, as they perceive the ruling elites in each of those countries to be.
Curtailment of civil liberties The threat posed by fighters returning to Europe from conflict in the region is real. But there are dangers attached to overstating that threat. Curtailment of civil liberties is one.
Speaking in the Australian parliament last month (and not in the British houses of parliament), British prime minister David Cameron announced proposals to introduce special exclusion orders that would ban Britons “suspected” of fighting in Syria from entering the UK for two years unless they agreed to strict controls.
Under the same proposals, if a senior police officer suspected an individual intended to engage in terrorism-related activities abroad their passports would be seized for up to 30 days.
All of this raises the question of how western societies protect themselves from a threat by undermining the core values on which they are founded.
A second danger is that of increasing support for counterproductive responses to IS. There is evidence that the more people hear of terror threats in the media the more likely they are to support the use of force to deal with those threats.
But dragging the US and its allies into an unwinnable conflict in the Middle East would suit those who seek to establish their distorted version of an Islamic “caliphate” in the region.
The harder work is that of addressing the root causes both of jihadi violence and of support for jihadists in western societies, which no violent response to threat can accomplish. Vincent Durac lectures in Middle East politics in University College Dublin