Here’s a nagging worry for officials in the US, Europe and the wider West: Is post-Gaza and post-Moscow also pre-Olympics? I’m talking about the threat of terrorism, of course, and whether recent events will move it from the lower half of our anxiety pile back to the very top, especially in anticipation of soft targets such as the upcoming summer games in Paris.
The anxiety loop runs as follows. The sadistic attack by Hamas against Israel on Oct. 7 was so “successful” from a jihadist’s point of view, it might re-energize other terrorist groups. And the death and suffering in the Gaza Strip caused by the massive Israeli retaliation are now radicalizing a new generation of Muslims, some of whom may enlist in whatever form terrorist jihadism takes.
The recent and deadly assault on a concert hall in Moscow by ISIS-K, a branch of the Islamic State, opened yet another front in the global jihadist threat. Some American top brass believe that the US “remains target No. 1” for this group, which thrived after the botched American withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 and seeks to form a caliphate across Khorasan, a region spanning the “stans” of central Asia.
Read the rest of the story at Bloomberg, here.
