Terrorism

On Monday, Tony Blair addressed a military think tank in London and stated that the West should continue to intervene in countries under threat from Islamist extremism. According to the former PM, who led Britain as it joined the American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, an isolationist policy would serve no purpose because:  Islamism, both the ideology and the violence, is a first-order security threat and, unchecked, it will come to us even if centred far from us… Its defeat will come ultimately through confronting both the violence and the ideology, by a combination of hard and soft power. His declaration was along the lines of the one he made in

At least 60 people are feared dead from two explosions near Kabul Airport, in what appears to be a sophisticated bombing campaign and suicide attack carried out by Islamic State. Two explosions took place around Abbey Gate near Kabul airport – where US and UK forces have been stationed – with the second blast near or at the Baron Hotel. Twelve US servicemen were killed in the attack. Videos being shared online show piles of bodies on the streets of Kabul – it is likely that casualty figures will rise.  In the past week, thousands of Afghans have been gathering at the airport every day in a desperate attempt to flee the country. Many have worked with the United States, UK

The Taliban retaking Kabul has been inevitable for almost the entirety of the 20 year war, and certainly since Barack Obama announced the US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2011. And yet the manner in which Kabul has fallen, with images of despair and the Taliban’s unopposed march to the presidential palace, heralds a global tectonic shift. For Islamist militia, regardless of their orientation, it signifies jihad’s biggest win of the decade. Jihadist outfits from Africa to the Middle East and South Asia, including groups that have been facing off against the Taliban in Afghanistan, will bask in the ‘triumph of Islam’. The Taliban’s win will also be widely interpreted as

There should be more ‘religious literacy’. So says the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Religion in the Media, chaired by Yasmin Qureshi MP. Amen to that. Religious ignorance is now virtually universal, so errors appear in news stories every day. But the APPG report seems less concerned with facts, more with attitudes. It wants news to concentrate more on ‘lived experience’, less on doctrine and ritual; it asserts that ‘religious literacy also incorporates respect for religion and belief as a valid source of guidance and knowledge to the majority of the world’s inhabitants’. The report’s remedies include ‘a formalised, coordinated approach to the education of journalists’, making ‘religious literacy training’ compulsory.

A political storm has swept France in recent days. It follows the publication of an open letter by twenty retired generals to Emmanuel Macron. In their declaration, originally published on an obscure website and then reproduced in conservative magazine, Valeurs Actuelles, the officers warned that Islamist terrorism was pushing France towards civil war. The reaction among the political class was predictable. Marine Le Pen invited the signatories (1,000 in total) to join her National Rally party, while the government condemned the letter as ‘irresponsible’. It promised action if any serving soldiers or gendarmes have put their name to to it. Some on the left want a criminal investigation launched, accusing

Eight law enforcement officials, including three policemen and five members of a local anti-jihadist force, were killed in a jihadist attack in Burkina Faso on Tuesday. Jihadist raids on two military bases in Somalia, using suicide car bombers, killed 23 on Saturday. On Friday, South Africa decided to deploy its troops in bordering Mozambique, days after Islamist militants took over the town of Palma, killing dozens of locals and forcing thousands to flee. The past week is only a sample of the jihadist peril currently engulfing Africa. These terror attacks reaffirm the growing strength of the world’s deadliest jihadist groups, including al-Shabaab, Isis, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram and their affiliates. The