ISIL plans terror attacks across Europe

It seems ISIL's leaders have planned widespread terror attacks throughout Europe.  The Guardian reports:

Nine days before the Paris attacks, Islamic State leaders gathered in the Syrian town of Tabqah to talk about what was coming next for the terror organisation ... In what marked a critical phase in the group’s evolution, there was to be a new focus on exporting chaos to Europe, the assembled men were told. And up to 200 militants were in place across the continent ready to receive orders.

. . .

The move marked a decisive shift away from putting all the organisation’s efforts into holding on to lands it had conquered in Syria and Iraq – a cause it acknowledged could not prevail against 14 different air forces and the omniscient eavesdropping powers of its foes.

Instead, the group now had the capacity to take the fight to the heart of its enemy. The means to do so had always been there through Europe’s porous borders, which had often facilitated the original journeys. However, the migrant route that had ferried hundreds of thousands of Syrians and Iraqis fleeing persecution had also allowed a small number of Isis members to blend in, and head back the other way.

In essence, Isis had begun to prioritise controlling populations over geography. While it hadn’t given up its grip on the large swath of Iraq and Syria it had seized at the expense of each sovereign state, the original area it controlled was now less important than the faraway societies it could influence.

. . .

Isis now contends that geography was a means to its ultimate ends, which were always to spread its influence far and wide. The group’s most senior leaders, among them the still recuperating Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, are implacably ideological, convinced of their role as custodians of an ultra-radical reading of Islamic teachings and compelled to fight anyone who does not submit to their world view.

Isis leaders believe that European societies are easily weakened through savagery. One of the group’s members said its senior officials had a deep understanding of the European political architecture and of the fears of its people.

. . .

While the group is clearly on the back foot militarily in some corners of its “caliphate”, its strategic goals are now perhaps more in reach than ever before.

“They think a lot about this. They think they know you better than you know yourselves.”

There's more at the link.

This makes a lot of sense from ISIL's point of view.  The organization has been thrown into military disarray by the beefed-up attacks against it from Syrian, Iranian and Russian opponents, as well as US-supported efforts by Jordan, Iraq and the Kurds.  However, if it can ramp up terror attacks in Europe, it'll remain in the forefront of Western consciousness and force extensive - and very expensive - security precautions and disruptions to normal society.  Those disruptions will, in turn, be noted in the Islamic world, where they'll be taken as evidence that ISIL is still the foremost opponent to Western 'imperialism' and 'Crusader aggression'.

The danger is very great that such attacks will also extend to the USA.  Frankly, I'll be astonished if we don't see at least one mass casualty event in this country within the next six months.  We know that ISIL has many sympathizers in America, and our southern border has been deliberately (for political reasons) rendered almost defenseless against the onslaught of a wave of illegal aliens.  I'm sure terrorists have already infiltrated using that route;  after all, Iran, Hezbollah and other extremist nations and organizations have established enclaves in Latin America.  They aren't doing so for no reason at all.

I think tourists will do well to avoid popular centers in Western Europe this summer;  and those of us in the USA should be on our guard as well.

Peter