The factory that was targeted by ISIS. New York Times/AFP
Today looks like a banner day for terrorism. Three major terrorist attacks in three separate countries.
The first attack took place in France where two men decapitated someone and then attempted to destroy a chemical plant. New York Times. (Live updates here from the Guardian). The attackers had brought the decapitated body with them. Terrorist flags were found at the scene. The suspects attempted to light off an explosion. On attacker, Yassine Sali was captured in the attack while the second was killed by a firefighter on the scene.
The second attack happened in Kuwait where a Shiite Mosque was bombed. Wall Street Journal. ISIS took credit for the attack which has been confirmed to have had fatalities. The bomber used a suicide belt and hit the Shiite Iman Sadiq mosque. This is the first time that ISIS has targeted Kuwait, which has mostly managed to avoid the sectarian violence in the Middle East. The goal of the attack was most likely to incite violence and anger between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
The third, and apparently most deadly, attack happened on two beachfront hotels in Sousse, Tunisia. BBC. (Live updates here from the BBC) At least 27 people have been killed in a shooting spree targeting tourists. At least one gunman was killed in the attack and another is still at large, as of this writing. Tunis was of course the site of another major terrorist attack just a few months ago.
My Comment:
What a terrible day. I'm looking at the latest casualty figures on Twitter and it looks like at least 10 people died in Kuwait, but I haven't seen that confirmed yet. What is really worrying me about this is the possibility that this was a coordinated assault by ISIS. That is in no way confirmed yet, but this strikes me as being too much for a coincidence. If it is true then that is a level of coordination that I haven't seen from ISIS to this point. They have largely been a local menace, and they don't have much experience in these kinds of attacks.
Of course, ISIS always likes to take credit for attacks, even if they had nothing to do with them. They have a long history of taking credit for other peoples terrorism, so we should remain skeptical until more information comes out. Still, none of this looks good. If they are indeed responsible for all three attacks then that is a huge escalation. They are capable of more complex operations and are better at coordinating them then we thought.
The attack on France seems to have been largely a failure. Yes they did manage to decapitate someone, and that is a tragedy, but their larger goal failed and failed miserably. Plus one of them was killed by a firefighter, of all things. I can't imagine how that happened, but I am hoping that the firefighter is all right. If he is, he should drink for free for the rest of his life. That being said, they still managed to decapitate someone in the middle of France. Even if their main goal failed, they still committed a terrible crime.
Kuwait is important just because they haven't been hit before. Attacks on Shia Mosques aren't anything new. After all, ISIS just did the same thing in Saudi Arabia recently. But this is the first time Kuwait has been hit by the Islamic State. The country has largely avoided all the terrorism and death that has cursed the region. Perhaps that is over now.
The most successful attack though is obviously Tunisia. This again looks like a Charlie Hebdo, gunman style attack, and I've said before that these kinds of attacks are extremely effective and very hard to prevent. If you look at all three types of attacks, this one seems like it was the most effective and the easiest to pull off. All they needed were a couple of guys with guns and a low security target to kill 27 people.
I'll keep an eye on this story for the rest of the morning and will update if anything else happens. If not, expect a recap later tonight.
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