Tuesday

19th Mar 2024

Opinion

How Europe's terrorists take advantage of the pandemic

  • Swedish police during a terror attack in Stockholm, 2017 (Photo: Reuters/Daniel Dikson)

The Covid-19 pandemic leaves no one unaffected, including terrorists.

European terrorist networks are torn between protecting their own members against the virus and using the pandemic to further their goals. This causes immediate and long-term effects on terrorism in Europe.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Get the EU news that really matters

Instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

Like many state and other non-state actors, terrorist groups manipulate the global pandemic in their radical narratives. They do so to unify their followers, attract new sympathisers, and further their objectives.

Daesh sees in the coronavirus "a torment sent by Allah to his enemies". China would be particularly hard-hit as punishment for its treatment of Uighur Muslims, and it is no coincidence that Iran's holy Shiite city Qom is one of the new epicentres of the outbreak.

Far-right terrorists also blame their enemies hoping to radicalise others and promote their goals. They see the pandemic as a result of a biological weapon deployed by China, aimed at destroying Western powers, or blame migrants for causing its spread.

Terrorist groups also use the pandemic to gain visibility. Daesh, for instance, has been exploiting hashtags related to the coronavirus to redirect users to their radical propaganda. European extremist groups also capitalise on current fear and chaos to incite followers to commit attacks.

Neo-nazi groups encourage supporters to stir panic during the coronavirus outbreak and anarchist groups have called on members to commit attacks, as police forces would be overburdened with corona-related tasks.

The coronavirus pandemic has already caused high numbers of deaths, massive economic disruption, and had a huge impact on the daily lives of millions of people. In short, everything terrorists would want to achieve with their attacks.

No surprise thus that the global pandemic serves as inspiration and influences the modus operandi of terrorists, both in terms of tactics and target selection.

Terrorist networks have encouraged followers to weaponise their own illness by trying to infect others. The pandemic might also serve as inspiration for their long-term strategies, leading to a potential rise of attempts to commit biological attacks.

Similar attacks occur fortunately very rarely; the most significant bio-terror attacks to date are a salmonellosis outbreak in Oregon, committed by the Rajneesh sect in the mid-80s, and the more than two dozen anthrax or ricin-laced letters in the early 2000s.

Terrorists have also found inspiration in the global pandemic with regards to their target selection, in particular critical health infrastructures.

Recently, the FBI killed a far-right terrorist, who had accelerated his attack plan and changed the target to a hospital treating Covid-19 patients.

For terrorists, the current crisis also serves as an ideal case study to learn about the threats and effects of atypical warfare methods and could thus inspire them to adopt innovative attacks, such as disruptions in the food supply or medicine and other health supplies.

'Apocalyptic-ism' plays an important role in many terrorist narratives.

Violent extremists thus will most likely play out the apocalyptic narrative of the pandemic to spur their supporters to action.

Jihadist groups have seen in the coronavirus pandemic a sign that the world is approaching the Day of Judgement. In the past, a similar doomsday narrative has served as a crucial recruiting pitch for foreign fighters to fight with Daesh in the final battles of the apocalypse.

Also right-wing extremists, who believe the world is heading towards a genocidal race war, might see in the apocalyptic scenarios of the pandemic a call for violent action.

The Covid-19 outbreak could also lead to a rise of violent actions by the hands of environmental extremists. Economic difficulties, a lack of public support, and more urgent needs might thwart advances in the global warming agenda and interrupt green investments by national governments.

Moreover, having witnessed the immediate environmental benefits due to radical actions like a global lockdown and economic disruption, eco-activists could be triggered to resort to violence.

European counter-terrorism?

The pandemic is showing its first effects on terrorism. The global pandemic could, however, also have a long-term impact on Europe's counter-terrorism measures.

Particularly worrying is the risk of a possible application of epidemiological tracking tools for counter-terrorism purposes.

Both democratic and non-democratic countries have, under the exceptionalism of emergency laws and with various degrees of invasiveness, introduced wide-spread contact and movement digital tracking tools aimed to determine the whereabouts of an infected person.

A future 'national emergency' situation, in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack, could pave the way for adding such apps to the counter-terrorism toolbox.

However, similar wide-spread and systematic analytical tools to survey the spread of radicalism would not only threaten a number of fundamental rights, but would also be ineffective.

Based on an idea that radicalisation is contagious and spreads by the mere interaction between people, it would risk increasing stigmatisation and other grievances among segments of the population and eventually create new breeding grounds for extremism in the EU.

Author bio

Annelies Pauwels is a researcher specialising in counter-terrorism and radicalisation. Her research at the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) in Paris covered EU security and foreign policy. Prior to that she conducted research on crime prevention and criminal justice at the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the UN Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI).

Disclaimer

The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author's, not those of EUobserver.

New Dutch terror bill must not target aid workers

A controversial counterterrorism bill could end up criminalising aid workers in the Netherlands if they enter conflict hotspots when assisting the world's most vulnerable people.

Will coronavirus change EU's pharma supply chain?

The European Commission vice-president Vera Jourova recognised that the EU's pharmaceutical sector had a 'morbid dependency' on third-country suppliers. But some experts from the pharma field have warned export bans undermine global supply chains.

Internal EU report: Far-right terrorist attacks rise

An internal document drafted from the EU presidency highlights a rise in attacks by right-wing terrorists. The paper says the algorithms behind social media giants not only fuels violent radicalisation but also spreads right-wing violent extremist ideology.

Europol: Extremists exploited pandemic to spread radicalism

A new report reveals how extremists attempted to exploit the Covid-19 pandemic to spread their radical messages and propaganda across the EU. In 2020, a total of 57 completed, failed or foiled terrorist attacks took place in the EU.

Latest News

  1. Borrell: 'Israel provoking famine', urges more aid access
  2. Europol: Israel-Gaza galvanising Jihadist recruitment in Europe
  3. EU to agree Israeli-settler blacklist, Borrell says
  4. EU ministers keen to use Russian profits for Ukraine ammo
  5. Call to change EIB defence spending rules hits scepticism
  6. Potential legal avenues to prosecute Navalny's killers
  7. EU summit, Gaza, Ukraine, reforms in focus this WEEK
  8. The present and future dystopia of political micro-targeting ads

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Nordic Council of MinistersJoin the Nordic Food Systems Takeover at COP28
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersHow women and men are affected differently by climate policy
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersArtist Jessie Kleemann at Nordic pavilion during UN climate summit COP28
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCOP28: Gathering Nordic and global experts to put food and health on the agenda
  5. Friedrich Naumann FoundationPoems of Liberty – Call for Submission “Human Rights in Inhume War”: 250€ honorary fee for selected poems
  6. World BankWorld Bank report: How to create a future where the rewards of technology benefit all levels of society?

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Georgia Ministry of Foreign AffairsThis autumn Europalia arts festival is all about GEORGIA!
  2. UNOPSFostering health system resilience in fragile and conflict-affected countries
  3. European Citizen's InitiativeThe European Commission launches the ‘ImagineEU’ competition for secondary school students in the EU.
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersThe Nordic Region is stepping up its efforts to reduce food waste
  5. UNOPSUNOPS begins works under EU-funded project to repair schools in Ukraine
  6. Georgia Ministry of Foreign AffairsGeorgia effectively prevents sanctions evasion against Russia – confirm EU, UK, USA

Join EUobserver

EU news that matters

Join us