Wednesday, August 04, 2004
Islam in Europe
Check out this article from the New Yorker on Al Qaeda's plans for Europe, and how they are adapting. Hmm... so they don't hate Europe because of their freedoms?
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I asked Bruguière if he thought that the Madrid attacks represented an evolution in Al Qaeda’s operational ability, or suggested that the organization had lost control. He said that Al Qaeda was now little more than “a brand, a trademark,” but he admitted that he had been surprised. “It was a good example of the capacity and the will of these groups to adopt a political agenda. The defeat of the late government and the agreement of the new government to withdraw troops—it was a terrorist success, the first time we have had such a result.”
Later, Kepel and I discussed the reason that Europe was under attack. “The future of Islam is in Europe,” he said. “It has a huge Muslim population. Either we train our Muslims to become modern global citizens, who live in a democratic, pluralistic society, or, on the contrary, the Islamists win, and take over those Muslim European constituencies. Then we’re in serious trouble.”
