By Mark Ellis
The recent terror attack in Brussels was the latest reminder that Islamic terrorism is now a perpetual, ongoing threat to life throughout the world.
“Not a single day now goes by without an Islamist suicide bombing, rocket attack, shooting spree, kidnapping or stabbing somewhere in the world,” writes Sohrab Ahmari, a Wall Street Journal editorial writer based in London.
He asked readers to consider a recent 10-day period.
On March 13, al Qaeda terrorists leveled gunfire on sunbathers in Grand Bassam, a resort town in the Ivory Coast popular with Westerners and wealthy Ivorians. The attack killed 16.
On March 14, two Palestinians fired on Israelis waiting at a bus stop in the West Bank, wounding one soldier before Israeli forces killed both attackers. A third terrorist rammed his car into an Israeli army vehicle nearby and was shot dead.
On March 15, al Qaeda’s branch in Somalia kidnapped three Red Crescent aid workers.
On March 16, two female suicide bombers blew themselves up at a mosque in Nigeria, killing 24. The attack has been attributed to Boko Haram, an Islamic State affiliate.
On March 17, a pair of Palestinian terrorists stabbed an Israeli soldier with a knife in Ariel, in the West Bank. Israeli security forces killed both assailants.
On March 18, suspected al Qaeda fighters fired rockets at a gas facility in Algeria.
On March 19, a bomb went off in a high-end shopping area of Istanbul, killing three Israelis (two of whom were U.S. citizens) and one Iranian, and wounding 39 others. It was attributed to Islamic State. The same day, a mortar assault on a checkpoint in Egypt killed 15 policemen. An Islamic State affiliate claimed credit.
On March 20, al-Shabaab attacked a Somali military base, killing at least one person. Also on the same day, the
Istanbul governorate canceled a soccer match after receiving “serious intelligence” regarding a planned terror attack.
On March 21, Islamist fighters fired on a hotel in the capital of Mali, Bamako, that houses an EU military-assistance mission. EU personnel were unharmed, and one attacker was killed by hotel security.
On March 22, the Brussels airport attack was the first major terrorist incident in the West since Paris and San Bernardino.
“You could create a calendar like this one that stretches back for weeks and months, and the above doesn’t even include the civil wars and humanitarian calamities in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan,” Ahmari notes.
Ahmari warns of the danger of allowing ISIS and al Qaeda to metastasize in Syria and Iraq. “The Syrian vortex is especially perilous. It has been drawing the barely stable nations that surround Syria into its spin and spewing out battle-hardened jihadists along with millions of legitimate refugees. The longer Islamic State and al Qaeda thrive in Syria and Iraq, the stronger their adherents and affiliates elsewhere will become.”
