Revealed: Why Islamic State Is Carrying Out Attacks On Western Soil

Since Islamic State (IS) militants took control of some parts of Syria and Iraq, they have never received much attention from Western countries like this year.

In January this year, some self-proclaimed Islamists carried out a complete massacre at the offices of the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo in Paris.

Just as the French people have started to forget about those horrible memories, another attack in Paris by same self-proclaimed Islamists has occurred. This time around, the attackers have been identified as Islamic State militants.

IS has officially admitted the responsibility of the attack, and has even gone far to warn Western countries that more attacks will follow.

Since the Paris attack happened, commentators have highlighted why they think IS wants to carry out attack against Western countries in their own countries. Although the international coalition led by the West, and recently joined by Russia has a role to play in these attacks, IS has a very prime strategy carrying out attacks inside Western countries.

A month after the Charlie Hebdo attack, IS published a statement in an online magazine called Dabiq, warning that “Muslims in the West will soon find themselves between one of two choices.”

The militants further revealed that the Charlie Hebdo attack had brought division to the world, boasting that it had polarized society and “eliminated the grayzone,” representing coexistence between religious groups. IS claimed, as a result, Muslims living in the West would soon no longer be welcome in their own societies.

They [Western Muslims] will be treated with increasing suspicion, distrust and hostility by their fellow citizens as a result of deadly attacks. Western Muslims will then be forced to either do what Westerners are doing or migrate to the Islamic State, escaping persecution from the crusader governments and citizens.

Therefore, by launching increasingly shocking attacks against Western targets, the militants are pursuing a specific goal. And that goal is generating hostility between domestic Muslim populations and the broader societies that they live in.

According to the Intercept, this strategy by the militants is not new. In fact, some militants in the past have successfully implemented it before in Iraq. It is said Al Qaeda in Iraq deliberately provoked a sectarian civil war, following the 2003 US invasion.

The Intercept reveals further that in 2004, a letter to Osama bin Laden written by Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, laid out proposal for provoking such a conflict. Zarqawi called for attacks against the Shia majority population that would lead to a harsh crackdown on the Sunni minority. Zarqawi said if this happens, then, his group could then coerce the Sunni population into viewing it as their only protector.

“If we succeed in dragging them into the arena of sectarian war, it will become possible to awaken the inattentive Sunnis as they feel imminent danger and annihilating death”, Zarqawi wrote to Osama bin Laden.

And truly to what Zarqawi had planned, in 2006, an attack by al Qaeda operatives in Iraq succeeded in destroying the Al-Askari mosque in Samarra, one of the holiest sites for Shia Muslims. The attack shocked Shia Muslims across Iraq, ultimately succeeding in triggering a full-blown civil war that has not fully abated to this day.

And that is the kind of scenario IS wants in the West, divide and conquer. Through increasingly provocative attacks, hostage executions, and videotaped threats, the militants are consciously seeking to trigger a backlash by Western governments and citizens against the Muslim minorities living in their societies.

And we have seen that following the attacks in Paris, some politicians in both Europe and the US have responded with calls to indirectly punish Muslims collectively through discriminatory migration policies, restrictions on religious freedoms, and blanket surveillance by law enforcement.

But holding Muslims in the West collectively for the atrocities in Paris would be self-defeating. Treating Muslims in the West with contempt, insults, vilification among others will play perfectly into the hands of IS, and other extremist groups.

Rather, Western countries should reaffirm unity for their own Muslim populations, honoring their best values by continuing to accept refugees without any religious discrimination. This will defeat the motives of IS and its affiliates. And Western countries will win.

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