Scott Atran

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Des combattants de l’Etat islamique détenus par des peshmergas, au sud de Kirkouk, le 5 octobre. Photo Ako Rasheed. Reuters

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Après l’expulsion de l’Etat islamique de Mossoul, en Irak, et après la chute de sa «capitale» Raqqa, en Syrie, plusieurs reportages récents dans les médias soutiennent que les combattants de Daech désertent en masse. Le mois dernier, le Guardian a ainsi rapporté qu’en Syrie, des «centaines de déserteurs» ainsi qu’«un grand nombre de militants accompagnés de leurs familles» fuyaient «les derniers vestiges, divisés et démoralisés» de l’Etat islamique (EI). Au début du mois, un titre à la une du New York Times affirmait que dans le nord de l’Irak, «les combattants de l’EI, après avoir juré "la guerre ou la mort", se rendent en masse» aux peshmergas, les forces kurdes.…  Seguir leyendo »

Ako Rasheed TPX/Reuters. A member of the Kurdish Peshmerga detaining ISIS militants, southwest of Kirkuk, Iraq, October 5, 2017

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Following the expulsion of the Islamic State, or ISIS, from Mosul in Iraq, and with the imminent fall of the group’s de facto capital of Raqqa in Syria, reports have suggested that ISIS fighters are defecting or surrendering en masse. But such bullish appraisals of the collapse of ISIS’s fighting spirit may be over-optimistic.

Most people who have fled from ISIS-controlled areas have done so because they were terrified of the invading Shia militias and Shia-dominated Iraqi government forces. Last month, when Iraqi forces liberated the area around the city of Hawija, north of Tikrit, it wasn’t only ISIS fighters who ran.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Alors que l’on évacuait les derniers traumatisés, je me dirigeais vers les Ramblas, la fameuse promenade de Barcelone où, une fois de plus, un nouveau «soldat de l’Etat islamique» venait de lancer son véhicule sur la foule. A peine quelques minutes plus tôt, la nièce de ma femme devait rejoindre des amis et je l’avais déposée à peu près au point d’origine de l’attentat, près de la place de Catalogne. Une fois encore le déjà-vu, l’effroi, comme lors du massacre du Bataclan en 2015 à Paris, tout à côté de là où ma fille habitait à l’époque. Plus loin au sud, sur le bord de mer, une voiture transportant cinq kamikazes issus du même groupe, armés de couteaux, a fauché une femme avant que la police ne les tue.…  Seguir leyendo »

A Nice, sur la promenade des Anglais, lundi. Photo Valery Hache. AFP

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Ce massacre a frappé la France en plein cœur, peut-être plus encore que les attentats précédents, et surpris le monde entier par la simplicité extrême de ses moyens, par l’apparente banalité de son auteur et par la facilité avec laquelle il a commis son acte alors que les autorités avaient annoncé avoir renforcé la vigilance et la protection. L’Etat islamique (EI) a là encore revendiqué l’attentat, même si, cette fois, le lien avec cette organisation semble pour le moins ambigu, ce qui alimente la crainte que des musulmans radicalisés ou isolés mènent des actions violentes n’importe où.

Ajoutant au sentiment de confusion, on entend souvent dire que ces attentats sont des actes nihilistes perpétrés par des individus en rupture avec une société qu’ils veulent détruire parce qu’ils estiment que cette société les a détruits.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Mass murder has again been visited upon France and shaken the world. Again ISIS has claimed credit, though this time the link to the group seems confusingly ambiguous, feeding new fears in the West about random violence by alienated or radicalized Muslims anywhere. It raises the urgent questions: What does the attack tell us about the changing face of jihadist violence today? And how might our own response, in turn, be contributing to it?

The local driver of the truck that mowed down at least eighty-four people, including ten children, and wounded more than two hundred, on the Nice waterfront Thursday was a Tunisian citizen residing in France.…  Seguir leyendo »

‘There is discernible method in the Isis approach.’ Islamic State fighters in Raqqa. Photograph: AP

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It’s “the first of the storm”, says Islamic State. And little wonder. For the chaotic scenes on the streets of Paris and the fearful reaction those attacks provoked are precisely what Isis planned and prayed for. The greater the reaction against Muslims in Europe and the deeper the west becomes involved in military action in the Middle East, the happier Isis leaders will be. Because this is about the organisation’s key strategy: finding, creating and managing chaos.

There is a playbook, a manifesto: The Management of Savagery/Chaos, a tract written more than a decade ago under the name Abu Bakr Naji, for the Mesopotamian wing of al-Qaida that would become Isis.…  Seguir leyendo »

The Kurds’ Heroic Stand Against ISIS

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The Islamic State continues to control a huge section of Syria. But in Iraq, its advance has stalled. While Shiite militias and their Iranian allies fight the Islamic State ferociously, the Kurds have held a 640-mile front against the Islamic State’s advance. Their steadfastness should prompt America to rethink its alliances and interests in the region and to deepen its relationship with the Kurds — who are sometimes described as the world’s largest stateless nation.

Last week, the Sunni town of Tikrit (Saddam Hussein’s hometown) fell to largely Shiite forces from Iraq, backed by Iran. An offensive to retake Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city and the heart of Arab Sunni nationalism, is now within reach.…  Seguir leyendo »

'Western volunteers for Isis are mostly youth in transitional stages in their lives – immigrants, students, between jobs or girlfriends, having left their homes and looking for new families.' Photograph: Zuma Press/Alamy

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In a speech on Wednesday, President Obama said: “Whatever these murderers think they will achieve by murdering innocents like Steven [Sotloff], they have already failed.”

Not so, says the evidence. Publicity, Islamic State (Isis) knows, is the oxygen of terrorism. And publicity it has received in spades with the beheadings of two American journalists. So an organisation that hardly anyone knew existed only a few months ago is now the world’s, and particularly the west’s, premier political and public concern, eclipsing Iran’s nuclear programme and Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

The aim of Isis’s strikingly gruesome spectacle is to terrorise and fascinate public sentiment.…  Seguir leyendo »

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As Egyptians clash over the future of their government, Americans and Europeans have repeatedly expressed fears of the Muslim Brotherhood. “You don’t just have a government and a movement for democracy,” Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, said of Egypt on Monday. “You also have others, notably the Muslim Brotherhood, who would take this in a different direction.”

The previous day, the House speaker, John Boehner, expressed hope that Hosni Mubarak would stay on as president of Egypt while instituting reforms to prevent the Muslim Brotherhood and other extremists from grabbing power.

But here’s the real deal, at least as many Egyptians see it.…  Seguir leyendo »

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For the last week there have been widespread news reports that NATO is facilitating talks between the Afghan government and Taliban leaders, even as it routs Taliban forces from their main stronghold in Kandahar. The United States plan seems clear: allow for “preliminary” talks to end the war through a broad-based “reconciliation” process, but don’t get serious about a deal until beefed-up coalition forces have gained the initiative on the battlefield.

Yet, despite assertions by senior NATO officials that they can defeat the Taliban militarily if given enough money and men, and that military pressure will start the Taliban thinking about alternatives to fighting, the surge in southern Afghanistan appears only to have expanded the scope of the Taliban’s activity and entrenched their resolve to fight on until America tires and leaves.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Not all groups that the United States government classifies as terrorist organizations are equally bad or dangerous, and not all information conveyed to them that is based on political, academic or scientific expertise risks harming our national security. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court, which last week upheld a law banning the provision of “material support” to foreign terrorist groups, doesn’t seem to consider those facts relevant.

Many groups that were once widely considered terrorist organizations, including some that were on the State Department’s official list, have become our partners in pursuing peace and furthering democracy.

The African National Congress is now the democratically elected ruling party in South Africa, and of course Nelson Mandela is widely considered a great man of peace.…  Seguir leyendo »

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In testimony last week before Congress, the American ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, insisted that President Obama’s revised war strategy will “build support for the Afghan government,” while Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top American commander there, vowed that it will “absolutely” succeed in disrupting and degrading the Taliban.

Confidence is important, but we also have to recognize that the decision to commit 30,000 more troops to a counterinsurgency effort against a good segment of the Afghan population, with the focus on converting a deeply unpopular and corrupt regime into a unified, centralized state for the first time in that country’s history, is far from a slam dunk.…  Seguir leyendo »

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As diplomats stitch together a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel, the most depressing feature of the conflict is the sense that future fighting is inevitable. Rational calculation suggests that neither side can win these wars. The thousands of lives and billions of dollars sacrificed in fighting demonstrate the advantages of peace and coexistence; yet still both sides opt to fight.

This small territory is the world’s great symbolic knot. “Palestine is the mother of all problems” is a common refrain among people we have interviewed across the Muslim world: from Middle Eastern leaders to fighters in the remote island jungles of Indonesia; from Islamist senators in Pakistan to volunteers for martyrdom on the move from Morocco to Iraq.…  Seguir leyendo »