In Amsterdam airport, police arrested twelve people – the ones who had aroused the crew's suspicion; the rest had a brief conversation about the incident, after which they were transferred to another plane heading for Mumbai. Many passengers never understood what exactly happened. "The plane took off, and after a while they announced that we were returning for a security check. We didn't hear any discussions. Only upon landing did we see that police had detained several people and handcuffed some," recounts one of the female passengers.
After clarifying the circumstances of the incident – inspection of the plane, search and interrogation of those arrested – the Dutch prosecutor's office was unable to find "any evidence that these people intended to commit violent acts." In the end, it turned out that the only offense of the 12 arrested Indian citizens was their rudeness and insatiable passion for mobile phones. Moreover, as it turned out, the rudeness was far from exceptional, and these people were doing nothing extraordinary with their mobile phones. However, after the recent high-profile exposure of terrorists in London, the panic of the crew and the representative of the US security service (on every American airline flight there now fly corresponding agents) is quite understandable.
Let us recall: a month ago, British police conducted a large-scale operation to prevent an unprecedented series of terrorist attacks. The terrorists planned to simultaneously blow up several American passenger planes flying from London, and not over the Atlantic, but when approaching landing over various American cities. The explosive device was to be assembled right on board the plane from liquid explosives (smuggled as drinks) and detonators (smuggled as consumer electronics). And, on top of everything, all the arrested terrorists are from Pakistan. And if add to that that on July 11, several terrorist attacks occurred on the railway connecting different districts of Mumbai (killing about 200 people and wounding more than 700), organized by the Pakistani group Lashkar-e-Taiba, then it is easy to understand what feelings the mere sight of South Asian natives with a cell phone on board a plane evokes in the crew and security service. Political correctness and multiculturalism, of course, require treating any citizens, any appearance and culture without prejudice, but lately this has become a very difficult task.
The loud echo of the foiled terrorist attack
However, if the only consequence of the latest anti-terrorist operations had been the Amsterdam incident, then it probably wouldn't be worth writing about. But the consequences of the "successful intelligence operation" turned out to be more far-reaching.
In recent weeks, Britain had three main news stories: terrorism, airports, and the Muslim community. The foiled terrorist attack against American airliners triggered a whole wave of events, turning the usually calm holiday August into a tense month. In British airports, chaos reigned for almost ten days – more than two thousand flights were cancelled, several million passengers were unable to depart on time, new safety rules and baggage regulations were introduced. The state of emergency at airports hit the airlines themselves hard – over two weeks, the aviation sector suffered losses of about $350 million.
"What happened is a partial victory for the terrorists. Even when they fail to carry out their planned attacks, they create serious problems for the normal functioning of the economy and infrastructure. Because the attacks themselves are becoming more difficult to carry out each year, terrorists may choose a new strategy – destabilizing the economy through threats of attacks," Philip White, senior economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit research center, told Expert.
However, if the transport crisis has gradually begun to dissipate and today security measures in British airports are no longer extraordinary, though still severe, the political and socio-cultural crisis is only gaining momentum.
The focus again turned to the 1.8-million-strong Muslim community. All the arrested suicide bombers and their accomplices turned out to be young British Muslims, mostly of Pakistani origin, but born in the British Isles and belonging to the middle class. The fact that young British Muslims were ready to give up their lives in the struggle for radical ideas provoked a political mini-crisis. Its scale was felt not only in Britain but also beyond – from Europe (the Amsterdam incident is only one of its manifestations) and the Middle East (where there is a British military presence) to Pakistan and the United States.
All this is happening just a little over a year after the London bombings, which claimed the lives of nearly 50 people in the subway and a bus. The suicide bombers then were also young British Muslims, whom neighbors described as "good guys." Last summer, there were also arrests, the introduction of enhanced security measures on transport, and close attention from the authorities and society to the Muslim community. But over time, all this began to be forgotten. The events of August 2006 showed that the problems that led to last year's attacks had not disappeared. The only difference this year was that the authorities and special services managed to avoid the attacks this time. But this success was not received by society with due enthusiasm; rather, the opposite: the once again exposed problem of "a nation held hostage by the Islamic community" caused a wave of anxiety and pessimism.
Although the terrorist attacks in August 2006 were prevented, this does not mean at all that they did not have the effect of a bomb exploding.
Prime Minister Tony Blair had been aware of the intelligence service investigation since July, but decided not to interrupt his vacation in Barbados. His deputy, Vice Premier John Prescott, drew a wave of criticism for distancing himself from the leadership of the government during the crisis. Influential newspaper The Times accused him of incompetence – at the height of the chaos at airports, he went not to Heathrow, but to a small airport in the north of the country. Only Home Secretary John Reid did not disappear from television screens, trying to assure Britons that the authorities were doing everything possible to speed up the investigation and provide citizens with an adequate level of security. What was happening in the government essentially became a political crisis. The ruling Labour Party came under fire from both the opposition Conservatives and its political opponents within the party. According to analysts polled by Expert, this could threaten Blair's cabinet with serious consequences as early as this month. At the end of September, the Labour Party is holding its next party conference in Manchester. And there, Blair and the ministers will have to answer to their party colleagues for what happened in August.
Fifth column
Other people decided to take advantage of the government's inaction. Thus, a group of Muslim leaders in the UK (which included three members of parliament, three peers, and leaders of 38 Muslim organizations) literally the day after the arrests, when the terrorist threat was raised to "critical" level, sent a letter to the government criticizing London's foreign policy. In their opinion, Britain's involvement in military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as support for Israel in the Middle East, leads to a rise in extremism among British Muslims. The Muslim community leaders called on Downing Street to reconsider Britain's foreign policy towards Muslim countries (including withdrawing troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, ending support for Israel) in order to reduce the risk of homegrown Islamic fundamentalism.
British Home Secretary John Reid reacted immediately and very harshly. He called the letter "inappropriate," stating that the government had no intention of changing its foreign or domestic policy under pressure from terrorists. However, Reid acknowledged that local Islamic terrorism indicates the problem of insufficient integration of many Muslims into British society. "Of course, the government could not make concessions under the circumstances. Because that would look like a victory for the terrorists. However, this shows that the Muslim community in Britain is trying to seriously influence the country's domestic and foreign policy, disproportionately to its share of the total population," Keith Thornton, a fellow at the IPPR research center, told Expert.
There are 1.8 million Muslims living in Britain, mostly from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and other former British colonies. Many of them moved to Britain in the 1950s or 1960s and settled in industrial cities in the center and north of the country, as well as in the eastern suburbs of London. Among all communities, British Muslims are the least educated, integrated, and well-off. Poverty and unemployment levels in Muslim neighborhoods of Manchester or London are among the highest in the country.
This leads to very significant segregation of Muslims and their unwillingness to integrate. According to polls, 34% of British Muslims would like to live under Sharia law, 26% understand the reasons that drove suicide bombers to carry out attacks, and 7% (that is 125,000 people) consider terrorist attacks a "justified measure" in the fight for their rights. "Despite the officially declared policy of multiculturalism in Britain and many other European countries, it is failing. Rather, there is a formation of parallel monocultural communities. They interact little with each other, do not integrate, and poorly understand each other," believes Shami Chakraborty, director of the human rights organization Liberty UK.
The problem of the Muslim community in Britain is not new. Back in 2001, clashes occurred between Pakistanis and white Britons in the northern English town of Oldham. However, there is still no clear government policy towards the Muslim community.
The way the authorities have approached the problem of Islamic terrorism now looks more like another firefighting effort. Minister for Communities and Local Government Ruth Kelly announced that in September a special integration commission would be created to deal with inter-community relations. Kelly met with Muslim community leaders and called for a plan to counter extremism in Muslim organizations, schools, and mosques in Britain. In particular, she supported the idea of creating an advisory council of mosques and imams that would monitor that all 1,500 mosques in the country do not contain calls for religious extremism and fundamentalism. "These measures are completely insufficient because the Muslim community does not trust the government, and the government does not trust it. Radicalism can be dealt with in mosques, but then it will be out of reach of moderate Muslim organizations and harder to combat. The government is still fighting the consequences of segregation and integration, not its causes. Until the government and the Muslim community start speaking the same language, there will unfortunately be no progress," Tahib Abbas, a political science lecturer at the University of Birmingham, told Expert. And measures such as the more thorough screening of young men of Indo-Pakistani appearance proposed by the British authorities do not lead to increased trust between the two sides.
Life on alert
All this means that Islamic terrorism remains a serious problem in Britain and the rest of Europe. If the United States, with its small and well-integrated Muslim community, managed to reduce the danger of terrorism by tightening border controls, then in Europe this is more difficult to do. The EU countries are home to about 20 million Muslims, and among them there are many who fail to integrate into local society. This leads to radicalism and extremism, and consequently to terrorism.
It is clear that the solution to the problem of segregation and insufficient integration cannot be simple and will require a willingness to change on the part of both governments and all communities – both Muslim and Christian. Until this happens, the risk of Muslim terrorism in Europe persists and no security measures can completely eliminate it. As Sally Livesley, a security consultant, told Expert, "Tightening security measures at airports, of course, reduces the risk of attacks that could have been carried out using old methods – like in 2001 in the United States or in 1994 in the Philippines. Therefore, bans on carrying liquids and sharp objects will remain in place. But this does not mean that the risk of attacks themselves will decrease. For every measure taken by authorities, terrorists come up with new moves. They can blow up planes with missiles or detonate bombs in the airports themselves, which would be enough to cause chaos. If that proves impossible, they will choose targets in the subway or on trains. Security services can do a lot, but they are not all-powerful. If there are extremists willing to prepare attacks, the threat to public security will remain."
Andrei GROMOV, Alexander KOKSHAROV.
Expert