Tunisia Attack: the West must prepare for a fight that it has to win

A floral tribute lies on the beach in Tunisia where 38 tourists were murdered by terrorists

Picture: Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty Images

By Telegraph View
1:11AM BST 28 Jun 2015

Telegraph View: The fight against Islamist terrorism will be long and hard. The intelligence community needs new tools, the West must unite and Tunisia needs our support

The images are powerful, horrific: dead bodies lying on the sand, shrouded in beach towels. The massacre in Sousse on Friday afternoon was the most devastating attack on British civilians since the July 7 bombings a decade ago. At least 15 Britons are confirmed killed. One 16-year-old boy was injured as members of his family were murdered. 

It was a day of terror. In the morning, a decapitated head was found at the scene of an attack near Lyon, France. Around noon, a suicide bomber in Kuwait killed at least 25 worshipping at a Shia mosque. Meanwhile, fighters for Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil) slaughtered at least 200 during an attack on the Syrian town of Kobane. And Al-Shabaab militants claimed to have killed scores of African Union peacekeepers after they overran a military base in southern Somalia. 

^{Owen Richards, left, witnessed his brother Joel Richards, right, being killed. Their uncle, Adrian Evans is also thought to be among the dead}

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How much longer can this madness continue? Speaking of the recent mass shooting in South Carolina, Barack Obama said that America should not treat such violent incidents “as if this is the new normal”. That same degree of disgust and will to put a stop to Islamist atrocities is evident in Britain. David Cameron said yesterday: “For as much as [terrorists] try to divide people around the world, they will only unite us more strongly in our determination to defeat these Islamist extremists and all that they stand for.” The sentiment is right. The question is what steps should follow. 

Col Tim Collins writes in these pages of the importance of knowing our enemy. He argues that this enemy is a death cult – an extreme, radical fringe of Sunni Islam that seeks to obliterate all opposing systems of thought. Indeed, it is a global ideology that can be adapted to suit the particular politics of local cells. The goal of the bombing in Kuwait, for instance, was obviously to terrorise the Shia community. The attack in Tunisia, by contrast, may have been meant to send a message to Western governments. Fighting this hydra will be difficult. It might present clear military targets in Iraq and Syria, but its operations elsewhere can rely on just one or two fanatics. Yassin Salhi, the man who carried out the French attack, could have been a lone wolf. He was investigated for radicalism in 2006 but the surveillance stopped in 2008. 

Salhi’s story is a common one: so many Islamist plotters have been watched at one time by the authorities only for them to drop off the radar – and then reappear in a newspaper headline. The intelligence services do good work, but their resources are limited. Sometimes they have to make difficult choices about who to keep tabs on. 

The first thing that the West must do, then, is to ensure that its intelligence agencies have the necessary tools. They must be properly funded. And while the civil liberties of individual citizens must be respected, the law must be updated to reflect the communications revolution – for it is online that people are recruited and attacks are planned. This will trigger a huge political battle. The UK government wishes, for example, to compel communications providers to decode encrypted messages and hand over data about suspects. It also wishes to create a new international framework to encourage companies to comply.

While the security services get on with their work behind the scenes, a problem growing in the Mediterranean may invite a military-style response. The collapse of the Libyan dictatorship of Muammar Gaddafi and the Syrian civil war have created a refugee crisis. Its scale is astonishing: some 100,000 people have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe these past six months alone. This has generated new security risks. Terror suspects and Isil extremists have been known to slip into Europe through illegal immigration routes, and the UK police have conceded that they could also try to reach Britain via Calais. Hence it is in this country’s interest to seek a solution to this catastrophe. This must surely involve naval patrols, requiring a fresh injection of cash into defence. 

^{The body of a tourist shot dead by a gunman lies near a beachside}

Of course, Britain should not take responsibility for this alone. No, the whole of Europe must recognise that the deterioration of North Africa is a matter it has to tackle as a continent. This might mean more investment in search and rescue or the destruction of the boats of people smugglers. Certainly, the countries that serve as the first point of arrival should fulfil their obligation to properly fingerprint and document everyone. And, most important of all, order has to be restored in Libya. Europe needs to invest more widely in North Africa and encourage stability through open trade. For all of this to be accomplished there has to be unity of purpose among Western nations – a willingness to give support to local fights against terrorism in the developing world. 

Tunisia is one such worthy cause. Questions will rightly be asked as to why security in resorts was not improved following the Bardo National Museum attack earlier this year. Nevertheless, Tunisia is still the only country in the region to have enjoyed a successful Arab Spring – and it needs Western support to continue. When it threw out its dictator in 2011, it established an order in which secularists and Islamists coexisted with a greater degree of peace than elsewhere. Tunisians have, it is true, contributed more jihadist fighters to the conflict in Syria and Iraq than any other nation. It is said that the country has tolerated extremism so long because the effects are felt abroad. But following this attack on its tourism industry, which makes up almost 15 per cent of GDP, it will hopefully turn its attention to dealing with the terrorists in its midst. And the West should offer its full cooperation. 

^{Welsh holiday maker Matthew James and his partner Sarah Wilson. Mathew was hit by a bullet a protecting his partner (Wales News Service)}

Courage and determination are necessary for this fight. Both were on display in Sousse. One Briton, Matthew James, threw himself in front of his fiancée when the shooting started in order to protect her. He was hit by four bullets. He told her, “I love you. Tell our children that their daddy loves them.” Mr James was later taken to hospital and, happily, survived. The West should reflect upon the bloody events of last week, unite and show its strength. There is a long and hard fight ahead.