3 Countries Hit by Terror Attacks Tighten Security
The French prime minister warned Saturday that France could expect more terrorist attacks, following the three terrorist attacks Friday that hit not only France, but also Tunisia and Kuwait.
Manuel Valls said “the question is not … if there will be another attack, but when.”
An emergency meeting of France’s security cabinet convened at the Elysee Palace in Paris Saturday morning, a day after an attack on a U.S.-owned factory in France.
In London, British Prime Minister David Cameron Saturday warned the country to prepare for the fact that “many” of those killed in the attack on a Tunisian beach resort were British.
Tunisian authorities have so far identified eight Britons among the 39 killed on Friday, making it the biggest loss of British life from a terrorist incident since the July 7 bombings in London in 2005, when 52 people were killed.
“I’m afraid that the British public need to be prepared for the fact that many of those killed were British,” Cameron said in a televised address from his Downing Street residence.
Also Saturday, British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon said security has been stepped up in the United Kingdom following Friday’s attack in Tunisia.
Fallon told broadcaster Sky news there was no warning ahead of the attack, but travel advice to Tunisia would be reviewed at an emergency UK government meeting later on Saturday.
Tunisian gunman
In Tunisia, Prime Minister Habib Essid said an initial investigation found Seifeddine Rezgui, the man identified as the gunman who killed at least 39 people at a beach resort, was from a village in a poor central region of Tunisia and had never traveled abroad.
Rezgui, who was killed by police after the attack Friday in Sousse, was not previously known by authorities, Essid said.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack.
Mohammed Becheur, head of the Imperial Marhaba Hotel, said all guests are being vacated from the hotel that was at the center of the attack.
Kuwait will hold a mass funeral Saturday at 4 p.m. (1300 GMT) for 26 victims of a bombing at the Al-Imam Al-Sadeq mosque in the capital Kuwait City. The Islamic State jihadist group claimed responsibility for the attack, as the shocked oil-rich emirate tightens security.
The interior ministry said in a statement early Saturday that 26 people and the suicide bomber were killed and 227 others were wounded in one of the country’s worst bombings and its first ever on a mosque.
Saturday was declared a day of mourning.
The Kuwait interior ministry has said an unspecified number of suspects were held for questioning in connection with the attack. No other details were provided.
Condemnation
Meanwhile, world leaders joined in their condemnation of the attacks across three continents Friday, which left dozens dead in the space of a few hours.
It was unclear if the violence was linked, but it came days after Islamic State militants urged their followers “to make Ramadan a month of calamities for the non-believers.”
The White House described the assaults as heinous. “Terrorism has no place in any society,” it said in a statement released shortly after the assaults.
Earlier Friday, two gunmen stormed a Tunisian beach resort tourist hotel in the town of Sousse, killing at least 39 people – mostly British nationals – before being stopped. Prime Minister Essid said he was closing mosques that were outside the control of the Ministry of Religious Affairs. “No mosque that does not conform to the law will be tolerated,” Essid said.
In Kuwait, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded Shi’ite mosque, leaving at least 26 dead.
And in France, attackers crashed a car into a U.S.-based gas company then beheaded a businessman, leaving his decapitated body daubed with Arabic writing at the entrance of the premises. Firefighters apprehended suspect Yassin Salhi Friday. The French news agency described Salhi as a 35-year-old married father of three.
Responsibility
“Those responsible for these appalling acts of violence must be swiftly brought to justice,” said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
In a statement on its Twitter feed the Islamic State took credit for the attack on the Tunisian beach resort and named the gunman as Abu Yahya al-Qayrawani. Earlier in the day, the group also claimed responsibility for the Shi’ite mosque bombing.
U.S. Defense Department officials said it was not clear if all three attacks were planned and coordinated by the Syria and Iraq-based extremists.
One U.S. official said the attacks “bear the hallmarks that have defined ISIL’s violent ideology or those inspired by such hatred,” using an acronym for the Islamist group.
“Terrorists could look to the attacks, recent ISIL leadership statements, or other markers – such as last year’s declaration of its so-called caliphate – to spur additional violence,” the official said.
The killings came just three days after an Islamic State spokesman called on the group’s followers to carry out attacks against all “infidels” — unbelievers — during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which started June 17.
Christopher Chivvis, of the International Security and Defense Policy Center and a senior political scientist at the RAND Corp., said it was important that the attacks were different in nature.
“For France, this shows that France is not only targeted by al-Qaida but also by Islamic State,” Chivvis said, referring to the Charlie Hebdo magazine attacks earlier this year that left 12 dead.
“The attacks in Tunisia are important because Tunisia is the final remaining linchpin of security in North Africa. It’s the only state that’s maintained a democracy after the Arab Spring,” he said.
“But the Islamic State clearly has it in its sights, and in the case of Kuwait, it’s obviously an important American ally in the region so it should be a concern that it’s been targeted by the Islamic State,” Chivvis said.
Taking credit
Michael Pregent, adjunct lecturer on international security affairs at the National Defense University, said while it would be a mistake to assume that all three attacks were coordinated by the Islamic State group, the group could easily claim credit.
“They’ve basically given license to anybody to claim affiliation with ISIS when they carry out a terrorist attack, even though there is no formal affiliation,” Pregent said, using another of the group’s acronyms.
“If you do anything in the name of ISIS, that’s good. ISIS doesn’t have to spend money on your operation, ISIS doesn’t have to coordinate it, ISIS doesn’t have to do anything, but they get credit for these things,” Pregent told VOA.
Many Islamic State experts had been expecting an Islamic State Ramadan offensive inside Iraq, possibly geared at fomenting a full sectarian war in the country.
Pregent said that because Iraqi forces and militias had ratcheted up their security for the holy month, the Islamic State group may have switched its focus to easier-to-hit soft targets abroad, such as the mosque in Kuwait.
Few strategic gains
Regardless of the horror factor of the three assaults, Pregent said the Islamic State group did not gain much strategically from the attacks.
He added that the violence did not compare with the 2005-2006 Ramadan campaigns of its predecessor al Qaida in Iraq.
“It is not impressive compared to what al Qaida was able to do. In 2005, you had 56 attacks a day in Baghdad, 56 attacks a day: car bombs, kidnappings, assassinations,” Pregent said.
But Jeff Moore, CEO of Muir Analytics, a company that provides terror and insurgency risk assessments for corporations worldwide, said via Skype that there is a rising trend of global Islamist terror attacks against soft targets that governments have to start grappling with.
“There is an Islamist jihadist saying, ‘why take on a lion when there are plenty of lambs around to be slaughtered,’ and this is part of that trend,” Moore said.
“We have a whole swathe of terrorists that are willing to go after soft targets, and governments haven’t quite gotten to the point where they are increasing security to the degree that it needs to be increased, and neither quite frankly is the hotel and resort community worldwide,” Moore said.
Additional reports from AP, AFP and Reuters.