Cuts to anti-organised crime budgets are helping Daesh

Imagine Daesh as a solar system; then imagine a white-hot sun in the middle. That is the die-hards, the ideologues, the unpersuadable few whose minds cannot be changed. Their hands are the most bloodied and there is no excuse for their actions; no political grievance can be worth the violence that hard-core Daesh militants have inflicted on innocent people.

We can shoot at the sun, but all a bullet or bomb does is raise the temperature; its impact heats the surface and even provides more fuel for the flames. The beating, ideological heart of Daesh is hard to destroy.

Around this sun, like our solar system, we can observe orbiting entities. Each of these lends power to Daesh, through weight of numbers, weapons, resources or political capital. The question to ask of these entities is simple: why are they there?

Take Planet Sunni, the Iraqi tribal networks which have lent their support to Daesh. What is the gravity that attracts Planet Sunni into the Daesh solar system? It is, in the most general terms, simply a political grievance against the government in Baghdad.

Then you have Planet Baathist. The former Baath Party apparatchiks are experts in constructing security states, in planning and strategy, aggrieved that the influence they once had was ripped from them by America’s boneheaded “de-Baathification” programme following the overthrow of Saddam Hussain.

Then you have the most dazzling and glamorous looking planets, which are nevertheless far smaller than either Sunni or Baathist. These are the foreign fighters: Arab Youth and Western Youth.

Why are Arab youth interested in Daesh? Relative poverty rates, unemployment, lack of education and a catastrophic lack of a moral compass and personal judgement just about sum it up. Much of this could also be said about Arab Youth’s sister planet, Western Youth. Its lack of personal judgement and absence of a moral compass weigh heavier, with economic factors lower (though not insignificant) on the scale, and Islamophobia – despite the naysayers – being a genuine factor. Just check out Planet Trump, thankfully in a galaxy far, far away from Daesh for the time being. For both Arab and Western youth, the appeal of unlimited sex from “jihadi brides” is also irresistible.

Then you have Planet Assad, named after Syria’s charming President Bashar of that ilk, albeit recognising the secondary role that some of his family members have played in promulgating this disaster. A dark planet, swooping through the outer reaches of the solar system, it provides a menacing backdrop to the whole Daesh phenomenon.

Planet Neocon too; what does it offer to Daesh? Having agitated for the removal of Saddam Hussein since the late seventies, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and friends added extra energy to the Daesh solar system with their illegal war in Iraq.

Finally you have Planet Criminal. On the run, it is keen to be in the orbit of the most barbarous playground available, and profit from the trade in oil trade, narcotics and antiquities that in part sustain Daesh.

What this arrangement shows is that the reasons for travelling to fight with the so-called “Islamic State” over and above any other Syrian jihadi group are varied, depending on where and who you are. There are not just ideologues joining Daesh, but also loners, drifters and criminals. That is not to say that some foreign fighters are not genuinely fervent believers, but it’s clear from the background of many of them that terrorism and a predisposition to criminal activities often go hand in hand, as do former drug lifestyles.

The reality is that just as thrill-seekers, the mentally ill, the sexually frustrated and loners looking for a purpose go to join Daesh, so to do those on Planet Criminal. “Gangster jihadi” is now a recognisable phenomenon.

Crucially, any Daesh recruits with prior criminal records may well have been involved — or at least know people who were involved — in serious or organised crime across Europe. Of course, these networks are much better placed than Arab Daesh members to acquire at short notice automatic weapons or even explosives, making it far easier for the group’s commanders, if they wish, to carry out more and more attacks on the West.

In order to combat plunging morale and deserters, one theory is that the Paris attacks were Daesh lashing out against the West to boost its reputation and morale within the territory it controls. The group is certainly under pressure to prove that the Daesh brand can beat, in the long term, that of Al-Qaeda. The latter’s attacks in Mali and Burkina Faso have shown, though, that it is not prepared to relinquish the crown as the leading jihadi group in the world. Daesh is just stepping up to the plate.

Not everyone now fighting under the Daesh banner still wants to be there; criminals and opportunistic thrill-seekers may be amongst those who are fed up with air strikes and poor living conditions. Daesh fighters who fled to Mosul after their defeat in Ramadi were burned alive in the town square for their cowardice. Officials said that the mass execution was designed to remind the militia that fighters are expected to fight to the death.

Daesh is certainly clamping down on the security aspects of running a state, stripping people of national passports, issuing new identification documents and introducing tighter border security. All of this suggests that controlling the outflow of fighters is now just as important as controlling the inflow of new recruits. Much of this activity has been orchestrated by Planet Baathist.

In that context, it is crucial for us to understand not only the strategic and ideological reasons why Daesh is carrying out attacks in Europe, but also exactly how they are being carried out; they often rely heavily on criminal gangs.

As such, it simply makes no sense that contributions towards Interpol’s budget for fighting organised crime are being cut. Europol already has fewer than eight hundred officers dealing with between fifteen and sixteen thousand operations. As cybercrime spirals, more and more law enforcement agencies are having to take officers away from looking at smuggling and allocate them to tackling internet crime. Despite an annual workload increase of up to 20 per cent since 2009, Europol’s €84.8m (£71m) budget was cut by 5 per cent this year, the first cut in its 14-year history.

Even more worrying is the fact that France has dismissed, as part of its government counter-terrorism policy, the nexus between organised crime and terrorism. The French call the drawing of such a link “reductionist confusion”.

This is extremely short-sighted. As Planet Criminal becomes ever more important to Daesh, it’s time for European countries to invest properly in their anti-organised crime programmes as a means to tackle the militant group.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.