By: Mohamed Mahmoud Mortada
For the terrorist organization “ISIS”, the holidays represent a favorable opportunity to launch attacks on the camps. These operations, even if they are by individual wolves, can cause great human losses, as was the case in previous years when the organization adopted two attacks, one in the German capital Berlin, and the other in Istanbul, Turkey.
Recently, American media outlets reported that ISIS threatened to launch attacks on New York City during New Year’s celebrations.
One of the elements of the organization appeared convincingly in online publications in the middle of last month, carrying a blood-stained knife, while a background of a group of photos related to the Christmas attack in Berlin from 2016 appears in his background, and he says: New Year’s Day is “the date of revenge” . A short time later, a picture of the city square, destroyed by fire, reads: “Soon .. God willing, the infidels will witness the same thing that they fear 1-1-2019.”
In any case, the defeats suffered by ISIS since 2016 have been a decisive and significant factor, not only in the decline in polarization operations, but also in the relatively active return of the competing “Al Qaeda” organization. If the defeat of the “caliphate” was a major setback to the overall “jihadist” project of the takfiris, and not only to “ISIS”. The concerns expressed by Al Qaeda towards declaring the creative were polarizing reasons, and they are related at the same time to a basic view that considered that rushing to declare the caliphate without empowerment could lead to a state of great frustration among these groups if the “caliphate” fell by a final blow. .
Whatever the case, the emergence of features of “ISIS” setbacks led the organization to search for “compensatory” alternatives whose features appeared in the activation of “managing external operations” and which worked to establish networks in Europe in preparation for the continuation of operations in the post-succession period.
These external “threats” were not hidden and unexpected, and this can be seen through several American and European studies that talked about cells under the supervision of an “ISIS” intelligence network for Europe called “security” affiliated with the Department of External Operations and responsible for managing sleeper cells in Europe.
What is striking, however, is the ISIS attempt to develop its external operations by not restricting it to targeting only people. Rather, ISIS has developed a bank regulation whose goals also include natural targets of an economic nature, such as setting fires in forests and agricultural crops, and blowing up fuel stations, as part of economic depletion. .
But the most dangerous of all these new tactics is the call to use airship as weapons. The danger of this invitation is evident in the fact that most of the publications and directives that are published are not guaranteed to verify that they are actually issued by the terrorist organization, especially with the size of the penetration of its ranks, in addition to the ease of building a media platform claiming to speak its name. With such a possibility, the call to use airships, while somewhat analogous to the method used in occupied Palestine (kites) against the Israeli occupation, raises question marks and justified doubts that Israeli intelligence may be behind these publications in order to liken ISIS to resist Palestinian. We have seen Israeli attempts to make such comparisons when the first run-over occurred in Europe.
In any case, with the approaching of Christmas, Europe prevails in a state of alert and unannounced, in several capitals.
In Spain, some newspapers reported warnings of “real threats” from “credible sources” about a possible attack against Spanish interests.
In France, the specter of previous operations is still present in the minds of the French people, especially the attacks of the thirteenth of November of the year 2015, where Paris lived a bloody day, during which “ISIS” launched several simultaneous attacks in six vital places, most notably the stadium “ De France Football Club and the Pataclan Theater, killing a hundred and thirty people.
Not to forget the “Sharif elders” attack on the twelfth of December 2018, which fired in the center of Strasbourg, as well as the attacks of Charlie Hebdo.
This Christmas, and fears of possible attacks, come at a time when the issue of extremists returning from Syria is a point of intense debate. Whether the returnees from Syria participated in possible operations in Europe, or did not participate, the matter, which is accepted, is that if ISIS succeeds in carrying out some operations, it will undoubtedly be more bloody and brutal than its predecessors, not only because they acquired more From experience, but because it is for them a case of revenge for the destruction of their alleged caliphate, and the killing of their leader, in addition to that the new leader of the organization will consider it an occasion to prove his worth in addressing this responsibility.
Between the internal motives of the terrorist organization, and perhaps external motives related to the employment of these attacks, ISIS appears to be on a date to celebrate “Chrismas” in its own way.
