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Although Vienna had been the target of a bloody attack a few days ago, the US magazine “Foreign Policy” considered Austria as the “ideal” model to confront terrorists and militants on the European continent, unlike France, which did not.
Although the government of Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Curtis failed to thwart the Vienna terror attack, it has been fighting terrorism with firm steps and for years has spoken in the language currently used by French President Emmanuel Macron.
And it was a terrorist attack that took place in the Austrian capital at the beginning of November, in which 4 people died and 20 others were injured, before the authorities killed the attacker, who happened to be known to the security services.
As tragic as the Vienna attack was, it did not surprise counterterrorism experts.
A week before this attack, 3 French people were killed in a terrorist attack on a church in the French city of Nice.
The two attacks shed light on the phenomenon of terrorism on the European continent, a threat that has not evaporated, according to experts to combat this phenomenon.
But the truth is that the terrorist threat is currently less severe than between 2014 and 2017, when extremists carried out bloody attacks, some of which appeared to occur on a regular basis, and others were instigated by the terrorist organization “ISIS” , which collapsed into its strongholds in Syria and Iraq. .
The priority to combat militancy
Foreign Policy says Curtis and his party have made confronting “Islamism”, both violent and non-violent, a priority of their policy. He added that Curtis is well ahead of Macron, who speaks these days of the need to confront fundamentalism, since the Austrian chancellor has been talking about the subject for many years. Curtis has a vision of “Islamism” as he considers it a threat to democratic life and social cohesion in Austria. He also drew attention to the foreign funding of local Islamic institutions in his country and its effects.
Concrete actions
The US magazine said: “The Austrian Chancellor has taken concrete steps in this regard. For example, in 2015 Austria passed revisions to the law regulating the relationship between the state and the Muslim community.” Curtis reorganized the criteria for the appointment of imams, in addition to banning foreign funding for Islamic institutions in Austria, and the government introduced a law banning the symbols of the terrorist Brotherhood. Vienna also initiated measures to close several extremist mosques and expel radical imams, and established a permanent observatory of political Islam.
French delay
On the other hand, France began taking these steps recently, after a Chechen extremist beheaded a history and geography professor in Paris, in what appeared to be too late compared to Austria. Foreign Policy considered that “the Austrian policy to confront extremism and terrorism has achieved relative success, despite all the obstacles encountered in the government’s path. Among the challenges the Curtis government faced were obstacles such as a lack of dedicated resources, legal difficulties in deporting extremists and dissolving militant organizations, and lenient court sentences, as was evident in the case of the Vienna bomber, but the Austrian Chancellor he did not sit idly by.
Threats in Austria
Some might think that Austria, with its calm image in everyone’s mind, is far from terrorist threats, but this is not true at all. Austria faced a serious terrorist threat in recent years. About 300 of its citizens left the country to join the terrorist organization “ISIS” in Syria and Iraq, with one of the highest rates in Europe. The militants had found a refuge in Austria long ago, which later led to the growth of extremism in the country. For example, an Egyptian Brotherhood member settled in Austria, then his son began propaganda work for terrorist organizations, before traveling to Syria, where he joined ISIS, and was killed in an American airstrike.
The article expresses the opinion of its author and is not necessarily the policy of the site.
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