Why ISIL chose to strike at the heart of Europe

Brussles wasn't ISIL's real target. It was all of us – Europeans and non-Europeans, Muslims and non-Muslims, writes HA Hellyer

People leave the scene of explosions at Zaventem airport near Brussels, Belgium. Francois Lenoir / Reuters

The perpetrators of the Brussels attacks might have been following instructions from someone in ISIL, but they were Europeans. They killed more than 30 people on Tuesday and injured over 250.

What we know so far is that the two coordinated attacks were meticulously planned and executed. More details are expected to emerge in coming days.

There are many who see a connection between these attacks and the arrest of Salah Abdeslam, the sole surviving participant in last year’s Paris attacks who was arrested in Brussels this month. However, it is likely that the crackdown on Abdeslam and his network helped lessen the impact of the Brussels attacks.

Reports that the perpetrators in Brussels belonged to the same local network that carried out the attacks in Paris point to the need for greater EU security cooperation.

There are many questions that need to be answered, including ones around security cooperation. However, Belgian security services are overstretched because the country has one of the highest numbers of radical extremists in Europe, taking into account its relatively small population of 11 million. It is difficult for the state security department to keep track of all Belgian extremists moving abroad, let alone those in Belgium.

However, this is not a Belgian issue alone. It’s a European issue. While there is an absurd amount of navel-gazing in the European political establishment about the future of the EU, security cooperation on the European continent remains problematic. It is not so much about poor intentions – indeed, there is a lot of readiness across the continent – as it is about poor connectivity.

Brussels was not targeted because Belgian forces are stationed abroad. Brussels was targeted because it’s part of Europe, and because it is seen as more suitable place to launch such attacks compared to other European targets. Europe must respond as such – not just morally, but strategically. A weakness in one European state will affect other states – and as such, a Europe-wide common domestic security policy is vital.

While European leaders consider that to be a necessity, which now must be a prime concern for all European establishments, they must also consider the social consequences and political effects of the Brussels attacks. In times of crisis, some will always try to take advantage. The Syrian regime, for example, has tried to exploit the Brussels incident to bolster its disastrous policies.

US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, unsurprisingly, has repeated his suggestion that Muslims be kept from entering the United States. Ted Cruz, another Republican presidential candidate, has declared: “We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighbourhoods before they become radicalised.”

Other far-right politicians in Europe will no doubt conflate terrorism with refugees and radicalism with Muslims at large. Such ideas do not help develop any effective counterterrorism strategy. On the contrary, they make it difficult to deal with the problem. It is also ethically wrong to hold an entire faith community accountable for the actions of a small minority. European political leaders have to be smarter and better than that.

There are others who are trying to blame Tuesday’s attacks on Belgium’s foreign policy, even though the country is not in Syria. Brussels was, rather ,targeted because it is a western nation and because it opposes ISIL.

More importantly, European politicians should recognise that the struggle against ISIL is going to be a long one. There will almost certainly be more attacks, and Europe has to be able to absorb the effects and counter them while trying to minimise their effect.

That has to be done in a way that reflect the best of European values, rather than simply reacting instinctively. That means getting smarter on intelligence sharing while ensuring that civil liberties are not sacrificed.

In the end, we must recognise the truism that Brussels wasn’t the real target. It was all of us: Europeans as well as non-Europeans, Muslims and non-Muslims. This is why we all must stand united, in common cause, with common respect, against a common foe.

Dr HA Hellyer is an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London and a non-resident senior fellow at the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC

On Twitter: @hahellyer