“Euro 2008 should not fear terrorism”

RDB

Swiss terrorism expert Jacques F. Baud sees no cause for anxiety after calls for a jihad against the European football championships appeared on Islamist websites.

He told swissinfo he sees no reason why Islamists would want to attack either Switzerland or Austria – the co-hosts of the tournament that begins on June 7.

Sections of the Swiss media were up in arms recently after calls for a jihad began, prompting headlines such as “Al-Qaida threatens Euro 2008”.

“Let’s transform the two most secure countries in Europe into hell, like the hell in Iraq or Afghanistan,” appeared in French on a number of sites including Minbar-SoS, known for its radical tendencies.

First to report the story, the local Fribourg newspaper La Liberté said that the federal security services took the threats “very seriously”. And it recalled that some Islamists could have a score to settle with Switzerland.

The initiative of the rightwing against minarets has been widely mentioned in the Arab world and could be a detonator. But Baud, an author of several books on the subject of terrorism, says there is no real need to panic.

swissinfo: Should we fear an Islamist terrorist attack during Euro 2008?

Jacques F. Baud: I obviously don’t have a crystal ball and no one knows what may or may not happen. However, as far as Islamist terrorism is concerned, I tend to believe that the risk is low.

First of all there’s never been an attack on events of this kind. There will certainly be large concentrations of crowds and the temptation could be big, but you have to understand that the strategy of Islamists follows a specific logic. They want to get a message across. And the goal is not always to kill the maximum number of people.

What could be the grounds for taking it out on Switzerland? I don’t see any. There are motives for carrying out attacks against the United States or against enemies the Islamists are fighting in Afghanistan or Iraq… but against Switzerland? Where’s the logic?

And there’s something we tend to forget a little – football is a sport that’s much loved in the Middle East and in Africa. It would be very surprising if terrorists would want to attack something that is so popular to the people of those regions.

Of course, you cannot rule out an attack but I think you have to keep things in perspective. You have to maintain a certain level of alertness and take precautionary measures but I think it would be wrong to become alarmed and exaggerate the threat.

swissinfo: But there were these calls on the internet…

J.F.B.: I don’t really take them seriously. They are not sites that form Islamist opinion or represent it. You certainly see many people interested in the Islamist cause expressing themselves but you rather have the impression that they are somewhere in a suburb and just venting their resentment.

You therefore have to see these threats in their real light. It is true that Austria is involved in Afghanistan, where it has five officers, and Germany has more than 2,000 men there. Last year an extremist group made a video – shown notably on YouTube – which called down the wrath of God on the two countries.

We saw nothing. These are people who play with rhetoric. It’s also very much part of the Middle East. You make a big speech in a melodramatic way as part of this rhetoric. But at the end of the day, that’s about it.

swissinfo: We always speak of Islamist terrorism but there could also be other groups which might attack Euro 2008…

J.F.B.: I think that is even less likely. The Basque Eta movement, the Irish and the new Red Brigades are not hostile enough to carry out this type of attack, which doesn’t fit in with their plans of action.

But what is more probable, and totally unpredictable, is an isolated individual – a crank – who’s decided he’s going to save the world by fighting the corruption of morals, depravity, alcohol abuse or things like that… as happened at the Atlanta Olympic Games.

But there we are in the realm of crime and not terrorism. And this kind of attack escapes any strategic considerations.

swissinfo-interview: Marc-André Miserez

Munich and Atlanta

On September 5, 1972, a Palestinian militant group took members of the Israel Olympic team hostage at the Olympic village in Munich, Germany. It demanded the release of hundreds of Palestinians as well as that of extreme leftwing Japanese and German activists, including Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof.

After negotiations failed, the hostage crisis ended in a bloodbath. Eleven Israeli athletes, five members of the Palestinian group and a German policeman were killed.

Although carried out by Palestinians, the action had no connection to the Islamic attacks that have been carried out since then. The claims of the hostage takers were clearly political and their rhetoric made no allusion to religion.

It was a disaster for the Palestinian cause and led their then leader, Yasser Arafat, to declare in front of the United Nations that he would abandon international terrorism.

On July 27, 1996, a homemade bomb exploded in the Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta. Two people died and there were more than 100 injuries.

The attacker was arrested seven years later and sentenced to life imprisonment. Accused of having carried out other bombings, the man was a member of a religious sect that was anti-Semitic, xenophobic and against homosexuals. He believed he had a divine mission.

Jacques F. Baud

Born in 1955, Baud carried out postgraduate studies as a national security expert at the Graduate Institute for International Relations in Geneva.

He also has a diploma in armed conflicts from the Institute for Humanitarian Law in San Remo, Italy.

He is the author of a number of books on terrorism, strategy and other issues.