France has declared war on Al Qaeda organizations in North and West Africa, as these were a direct threat to its interests, especially those in countries of the West African coast. France's last attack was launched to suppress the Anssar Al Din movement that was in control of North Mali. It managed to defeat the insurgents and stop their advance southward. Following several militant Islamist attacks in Paris, many factions of Al Qaeda in North and West Africa declared they would strike back at France. This announcement followed what they called selective operations executed against French forces and interests. The most important of them was the one in Niger and Ain Manas in Algeria. The last of these involved the kidnapping and beheading of a French citizen by a group that had declared allegiance to the so-called ISIS. Ansar Al Din, Al Qaeda in Morocco, Al Tawheed Wal Jihad, Ansar Al Sharia, Al Mowakoon Bel Demaa and Bokoharam figure among the most important organizations attacking France. They have all been involved in the recent attack on the weekly magazine, Charlie Hebdo, as well as the hostage taking that followed. Account of Terrorism in France: France has been subjected to ten terrorist acts over the last 40 years. They began in 1978 when a group of Palestinian attackers opened fire at Orly airport in Paris, shooting at passengers preparing to board a flight to Tel Aviv. Toulouse Attacks 2012 There were more armed attacks later in 2012. Mohamed Merah was the principal accused. In one of them, Eman Ben Zayten (Toulouse) Adil Shenouf and Mohamed Lackwad (Mantauban), Mariyam Monseigno (eight years), Gabriel and Arigh Steadler (4 and 5 years) and their father Jonathan were killed on March 19 in a Jewish school in Toulouse. Merah was shot dead by the police on March 22 in his apartment. Port Royal 1996 In September 1996 an attack targeted the metro line at Port Royal station south of Paris, killing four and wounding 91. This operation was carried out using a gas canister. Saint Michel 1995 On July 25, 1995, a bomb exploded at Saint Michel train station in the heart of Paris. Eight people were killed and 119 wounded. This attack was attributed to Algerians. It was the most violent of nine attacks that resulted in eight people being killed and more than 200 wounded that summer. Bomb at Ryan Street On September 17, 1986 a bomb outside the Tati department store in Paris killed seven people and wounded around 55. It was the worst of 15 such attacks, three of which were foiled. They were carried out by a pro-Iranian group named Fuad Aly Saleh in 1985-86. They killed a total of 13 people and wounded 303. Marseille explosions December 31, 1983: Two people died and 34 were wounded when a bomb exploded at the main railway station in Marseille, southern France. A few minutes earlier, another bomb on a high-speed train travelling between Paris and Marseille exploded, killing three people. Both attacks were claimed by an organization calling itself "The Armed Struggle Organization." Orly Airport July 15, 1983: A bomb exploded at the Turkish Airlines counter at Orly airport, killing eight and wounding 54. Three Armenian nationals were convicted of the attack in March 1985, and sentenced to ten and 15 years in prison. Jewish Quarter of Paris On August 9, 1982, five people opened fire and threw grenades in an attack on the Goldenberg restaurant in the Jewish quarter of Paris on Lousier Street. Six people died and 22 were wounded. The crime has never been solved. The Abou Nedal Group, however, was suspected. Toulouse-Paris Train On March 29, a train travelling between Toulouse and Paris, on which the Paris mayor, Jacques Chirac, was scheduled to travel, was attacked. This resulted in five killed, and 77 wounded. Copernic Street On October 3, 1980, a bomb concealed in a motorcycle exploded outside a Paris synagogue on Copernic Street, killing four people and wounding 20. Orly Airport On May 20, 1978 Palestinian militants opened fire at Orly airport south of Paris, targeting passengers for a flight to Tel Aviv. Eight people died, including three attackers, two police officers and three passengers. Another three passengers were wounded. "The Lone Wolves": Dormant Terrorism in Europe The Lone Wolves is a term given to Jihadi organizations. The term is disturbing for European countries. It is given to extremist cells that are no longer under the control of their organizations. The danger they pose is that a cell may constitute a single person or a small group. They plan terrorist acts using tools ranging from the most basic to explosives. They are usually recruited through Salafi schools in Europe or from among Jihadists who have formed cluster cells in countries in which they had earlier sought asylum. They have also been recruited lately by way of the internet. The majority of those recruited lives in Europe and may have suffered racial discrimination or other kinds of maltreatment. This applies also to second generation European nationalities holders. These European Lone Wolves, according to studies, are people who suffer from depression, boredom or persecution. The term was brought to life by Al Qaeda at the beginning of the millennium. It was enlarged upon through the magazine, "Inspire," issued by Al Qaeda since 2010. The first article of the magazine, by Anwar Al Awlaky, the magazine's founder, was entitled, "The Lone Wolves, How Can You Make a Bomb in Your Mother's Kitchen?" The brigades of Lone Wolves are groups of non-organized individuals. They do not follow a leader or a group, but rather depend on themselves. Most probably they get their ideas via virtual digital space. Europe acted as an incubator for their growth and has helped the spread of the takfiri phenomenon. It has, in fact, embraced many Jihadi characters who have fled their countries, and given them asylum. In that way it has encouraged their doctrines, as they exploited freedom and international organizations urging for greater democracy. Lately the terrorist organization ISIS broadcast videos featuring their militants, speaking different languages and tearing up their passports. More importantly the militants were urging those comrades and friends, whom they thought were close to their ideology, to organize small groups, or even to work individually and target security and government facilities in European countries. They issued the call under the slogan: "If you cannot travel to Syria or Iraq, then relocate the war to your own home." This is exactly what one British woman said. Social, psychological and political motives vary amongst the Lone Wolves, depending on whether they are directly of Arab origin, or of European origin. The reason is that most Arabs travelling to European countries, such as France and Britain, receive animosity and persecution from some of these fundamentalists because they are Muslims. According to the British newspaper Daily Mail, a referendum in 2013 as to what would make British society happier, revealed that 69 per cent of British people said that society would be much happier if it were rid of Muslims. Such phenomena inspire feelings of alienation and isolation in the expatriate Muslim Arab. He then searches for a sense of belonging and does not find it except in religion. The current state of unemployment and illegal immigration reinforces feelings of alienation. The majority of European Lone Wolves, aged between 17 and 28 and suffering from depression and boredom may have a desire for self-realization by facing challenges. British newspaper The Guardian published a review in 2014 addressing the reasons behind European Jihadists travelling to Syria and Iraq while others seriously think of organizing anti-government groups. Several methods are used to recruit these youngsters; the most prominent is through the internet. ISIS posts close to 40 thousand tweets, according to a study by a British center specializing in the surveillance of Jihadi movements. These tweets are addressed to European youth. The media halo that the so-called ISIS organization has created helped in polarizing hundreds of European youngsters thus facilitating their recruitment so that they could be later used to recruit others. Among the factors that helped shape Lone Wolves, were the acts of religious scholars and schools. Despite the fact that mosques do not appoint extremist imams, the mosques are, nevertheless, considered to be harboring extremists and Jihadists. They serve as places where they can meet, be introduced to each other and spread their ideas. In Britain the Finsbury Park Mosque sets an example for Islamist extremism; it was used at the end of the nineties to polarize Jihadists for Afghanistan. The leaders at that time were the two terrorists Abou Hamza and Abou Katata. The Grimhøj Mosque in Aarhus, Denmark, publicly announced its support of ISIS on September 2, 2014. Of late, prison cells have also acted as incubators for Jihadist ideologies. In mixing jihadists with European criminals they also helped convert these criminals to Takfiri Jihadist thinking with a loathing for society. On October 24, 2014 British Daily Telegraph's defense analyst Con Coughlin said that the greatest challenge facing the security systems of the West is the attempt to stop militant Lone Wolves from committing acts of terrorism. European and American fears escalated due to the encouragement given to Islamist extremists to perform isolated acts rather than group acts with a specific plan, like the attack on the world trade center in New York on September 11, 2001 or the July 7, 2005 attack in London. The global spread of the term, ‘Lone Wolves,' has been attributed to Anwar Al Awlaky, founder of Al Qaeda magazine Inspire. The magazine is still being published despite Al Awlaky's death on September 30, 2011. Al Awlaky's name was linked to a series of attacks, from the September 2001 attack to the shooting incident at the Fort Hood American military base in November 2009, and lastly the failed attempt to bomb an American plane on its flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas day 2009. Al Awlaky's name was once on the list of invitees to the Whitehouse after the September incident as a member of the Muslim community, at the time of George Bush Jr. Things changed later after Al Awlaky's name was mentioned in connection with some other names that had played roles in the September attack in New York. The American prosecution of Al Awlaky started in December 2007 after he fled to Yemen. His speeches spread on the internet, advocating a culture of violence that contributed to recruitment of more young people to the armed groups. Who executed the Charlie Hebdo attack? Up to the moment of writing this no organization has claimed any involvement in the crime. There are suspicions Al Khorasan Brigade in Syria supported it. The brigade has specialized in training Western immigrants and sending them back as people capable of bearing arms in Europe. American and European sources have revealed that Said Kouachi, one of the attackers on the French Charlie Hebdo magazine, had visited Yemen in 2011 and attended training in an Al Qaida camp. American government agencies said that Said and his brother Sherif were on their database terrorist list. British intelligence has announced that an extremist Islamist group in Syria has plotted to launch a great many attacks in the West. It has also said that the source of these threats is through extremists loyal to Al Qaeda, which also poses a threat. The head of Britain's MI6 intelligence agency also announced on Thursday that an extremist Islamist group located in Syria was plotting to launch numerous attacks in the West. Andrew Parker head of MI5 in London spoke about the aggressive attacks that militants returning from Syria have carried out. They are members of the Khorasan organisation, which is a militant Al Qaeda group. He also declared that the leader of Al Qaeda, Ayman Al Zawahry, had designated the Kuwaiti, Mohsen Al Fadly, to gather experienced Jihadi leaders together to fight Americans. They made use of them in "Ard Al Jihad" in Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya and Bosnia by forming a special Jihadi brigade capable of advanced military operations. All these actions would be distanced from the partnership destroying Jihad in Syria. Mohsen Al Fadaly was also the personal guard and escort of Usama Bin Laden. He was killed in an American airstrike in the countryside at Adleb. The majority of these Jihadists were foreigners and therefore untraceable by American intelligence. It would also be very easy to dispense with them when the need arose, by revealing their true nationalities. Fadaly, also the envoy of Bin Laden, had a primary mission in Syria. It was to secure Khorasani Jihadists and protect them. A lot of use was made of their experience to support "Al Nosra" front that is linked patriotically and organizationally to Al Qaeda to accomplish the declared goals of the organization. It was also revealed that the majority of these veteran Jihadists got to know each other at guest houses called, "Dar Al Deyafa". These houses were widespread in Pakistani Peshawer, and formed a secure rear base for Arab Jihadists specifically, prior to the war of the Afghan Jihadi factions, who were supported by the West against the Soviet Union, before its collapse. The Jihadis kept in touch and they could quickly be mobilized into a fighting unit which could be considered an "elite Jihadi reserve force", similar to the regular army's elite reserve units. Sources have also said that these groups worked in a cluster cell pattern, and followed firm security procedures which made it very difficult to obtain information if any member was caught. One of these procedures was banning members from getting acquainted, or having any communication with each other, except through the leaders of their cells, or whoever was selected to replace the leader should the latter go missing for any reason. According to a number of sources the members of the "Khorasan" group entered Syria through Iran, the majority of them fleeing the security authorities of their countries where they were wanted. They also had to pass through Iraq before they could settle in the areas controlled by Jihadi groups in the east and north of Syria where Al Nosra front is in control.
