Talk politics.

"Do you have vacancies for executioners?" The question was asked by a wannabe Jihadist at the Ask.fm website. The Latvia-based social network allows users from around the world to ask questions to fellow users under the safe cover of anonymity. Along with Twitter, FB and Youtube, it's one of the most popular websites that IS (ISIS) uses for promoting their particular brand of fanatical extremism, and fill their ranks with new recruits from the West.

Thus, the video showing a man covered in black, and speaking in distinct British English, subsequently beheading US journalist James Foley, is not just meant to be a fear-inducing message, but a job announcement of some sorts. The masked suspect is known as John the Beatle (or Jihadi John) in the UK media, and is part of a trio that also included guys nicknamed Paul and Ringo. He used to be known as L Jinny for those who were familiar with the hip-hop scene of West London. The fact that he was the one to be selected for the main acting role in that horrible video, is no coincidence. The Jihadist propaganda machine is explicitly targeting young lads from London, Paris, Brussels and Stockholm, who also fancy themselves being executioners.

IS's skilful PR and unprecedented brutality has achieved one more thing: it has drawn the public attention to the increasing number of foreigners among the ranks of the group. The number of Europeans fighting for the radical Islamists in Iraq and Syria is not in the hundreds any more, but thousands, and keeps growing. The concern is that when these people come back home, they'll bring back what they've learned on the battlefield and in the Jihadist training camps, and some of them would be time bombs, now ticking inside Europe.

( Read more... )

For more than half a year, a territory the size of Texas has been ruled by Sharia law. Women are not allowed outside their homes without male escort. Ancient tombs and temples are being destroyed for "contradicting pure Islam". "Crimes" such as possessing cigarettes, playing soccer or wearing "indecent clothes" are being punished by canning. Theft is punished by cutting an arm off. And those convicted of infidelity are stoned to death.

The black flags of Al Qaeda flow freely in the towns of Northern Mali, and the leaders of the African branch of the movement, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) have cast deep roots there. The area is awash with terrorist training camps where international jihadists are being trained. The rumours are that the majority of them come from Saharan and Sub-Saharan Africa, but there are also some Pakistanis, and fundamentalists from Europe.

The analogy to Taliban Afghanistan comes naturally. And naturally, the existence of such a place just a couple of hours' flight away from Europe poses a serious security threat not just for the entire region, but for the world at large. In this situation, the international intervention against the Islamists in Northern Mali was as undesirable, as it was unavoidable. And despite the controversial history of the French military interventions in Africa, president Francois Hollande may not have had much of a choice when he received a request from his Malian counterpart Dioncounda Traore to send troops against the incoming Islamists.

( And thus, the war begins )