Shots fired in Munich mall - possibly several dead and injured

[Zanza]

The police found a video from the suicide bomber in Ansbach where he talks about the Islamic State Caliph al-Bagdadi and how he wants to take revenge against Germans because they kill Muslims. They are now looking for potential contacts who could have provided material for the bomb.

[Valmy]

The police found a video from the suicide bomber in Ansbach where he talks about the Islamic State Caliph al-Bagdadi and how he wants to take revenge against Germans because they kill Muslims. They are now looking for potential contacts who could have provided material for the bomb.

Strange that one would ally with one of the biggest Muslim killers of them all to take revenge against Muslim killers.

[Zanza]

I don't think Logic 101 is required reading before becoming a suicide bomber.

[Sheilbh]

All the recent attacks have been committed by what one could politely call "troubled" individuals. Those individuals have also all had Middle Eastern ancestry.

I'm wondering about the importance of cultural fashion in these attacks.

To stereotype a little; if one lives in NYC and has problems it is off to the psychologist, a troubled Englishman will drink a lot.........and so on. The existence of ISIS and Islamist terrorism in general permits a different mode of expression for troubled muslims. I think one can see the attraction, "I'm not the problem, the problem is the diseased West".

The recent attacks have a very different feel to previous operations involving traditional terrorist cells. In a way they are far more dangerous, if it becomes somehow legitimate for a troubled muslim to take out his angst on society at large then we can expect a big increase in attacks.

In fairness there's a great deal of mass killings around that don't fit that profile: Dallas, Baton Rouge, the Fort Myers attack, Japan - and that's just in the last month. There seem to be a lot of attacks at the minute.

But on your point many of these attacks (and attacks since the rise of ISIS) don't feel like normal terrorist attacks. They remind me of school shootings which is a sense I've had since the Sidney attack on a chocolate shop. It just felt very different from suicide bombers on public transport or even the guy trying to blow up a nightclub in London. I can't identify why so many of them feel different to me but they do (maybe the lack of any network or group? the lack of explanation/justification? the lack of radicalisation/ideology?).

One thought I had when details started to emerge about Munich was that we know that media coverage of school shootings influences how many school shootings or attempts you're likely to get in the aftermath. There is always an uptick but there is evidence that how it is covered by the media influences how much that happens. So the advice is don't start coverage with sirens blaring and police rushing to the scene; don't make the perpetrator an anti-hero; don't make it look anything like an action film - instead you should localise it as much as possible. In total about 20-30% of school shootings happen in the two weeks following one.

And it made me wonder after we started to hear about the background of the Munich attacker if that's kind of happening more widely now that we're going through this density of attacks - I sort of hoped that he was obsessed with Breivik because that makes it likely he would attack on that day regardless. We know that school shootings have that almost contagious effect and sitting through this past month I wondered if there's something similar here which scares me. Or it may just be a function of this weird spate of killings we're having.

I also think you're giving too much credit to the Muslim who's inspired by ISIS I think it is far simpler than blaming the West: it's a licence for violence. There's a reason their videos glorify ultra-violence - they attract and appeal to people who want to do that stuff. They don't actually, as al-Qaeda used to, focus on lengthy theological justifications for what they do; they focus on the gore and the suffering they're causing. And this group, in the name of Islam and the Caliph, gives these people permission to live out their sickest fantasies whether it's murder and enslavement if they travel to Syria or murder at home. It's horrible to think but I do think a significant part of ISIS's success is because they are the nastiest which they focus on and there is a market who are getting off on, and wanting to join in with, that violence.

But you may be right. I don't know that traditional counter-radicalisation measures work with these people who commit awful crimes and then shout 'Allahu akbar' and suddenly they're committed Islamist terrorists. The old al-Qaeda terrorists all normally had friends and family saying they were normal guys who at some point became more interested in religion or politics and then withdrew as they became more engaged in extremist networks. That's a radicalisation that can be studied academically and intercepted by good intelligence, it can be observed and it can be countered.

How do you stop or even notice the gay bar frequenting, pork eating, drinking, drug-taking, apparently Christian or atheist guy who decides, after a failure of a life, to distinguish himself by phoning the ISIS allegiance network and killing people? That's the other clever thing that ISIS offer is instant recognition and glory in some global villainous network without doing the hard lines of actually going to a fucking training camp in Pakistan.

Edit: On that last point the image always returns to me of the Orlando killer stopping his massacre to take out his phone and see if Orlando or Pulse were trending on Facebook yet. I've not been able to get that out of my head since I read it back in early June - and how much further back does it feel Orlando was?

[Richard Hakluyt]

"Recent attacks" is very much a hostage to fortune these days, there have been several more since I posted, some of them lacking any Islamic involvement at all.

I'm re-reading the science fiction classic Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner at the moment. Written in the 1960s it is his view of a possible future (our present of course). It is fairly dystopian with over-population, environmental degradation, housing shortages, information overload etc etc. In the book there are frequent lethal attacks by "muckers" (as in "amok"), there are no real political reasons for these attacks, it is just the more dysfunctional members of a dysfunctional society crossing a line. Perhaps that is where we are and the apparent importance of Islam is simply that muslims have been leading the way as their countries are invariably the most badly-run on the planet.

[dps]

In the book there are frequent lethal attacks by "muckers" (as in "amok"), there are no real political reasons for these attacks, it is just the more dysfunctional members of a dysfunctional society crossing a line. Perhaps that is where we are and the apparent importance of Islam is simply that muslims have been leading the way as their countries are invariably the most badly-run on the planet.

Just being from a dysfunctional society can't be the whole explanation, though.  If that were the case, though, we'd expect to see a lot of Haitian terrorists.

[garbon]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/27/explosion-migration-office-zirndorf-nuremberg-germany-reports

Explosion near migration reception centre in Germany, say reports

An explosion has occurred around 200 metres (220 yards) from a reception centre for migrants in the town of Zirndorf near Nuremberg, German broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk reported, but initial reports said noone had been injured.

The broadcaster said on its website that a suitcase filled with aerosols had been detonated, adding that it was unknown who had caused the explosion.

It had earlier reported that the explosion took place near a migration office.

Bayerischer Rundfunk cited police as saying witnesses had reported hearing a loud bang before finding a burning suitcase in an allotment garden.

Police could not immediately be reached for comment.

Television images showed police standing near a partially destroyed suitcase lying in a small alley.

[Valmy]

In fairness there's a great deal of mass killings around that don't fit that profile: Dallas, Baton Rouge, the Fort Myers attack, Japan - and that's just in the last month. There seem to be a lot of attacks at the minute.

Yeah but mass murder is what the United States has done for decades. I am not sure you can include us in calculations of European trends.

[alfred russel]

Some of this is probably just the nationalization and internationalization of news.

When I was a kid growing up in Fort Myers, we got the Miami newspaper in addition to the local one--and I remember that they had a counter for a while of Miami metro homicides. I'm probably horribly misremembering but I think it was up around 700 by year end.

No one back then really cared on a national level. So the other day there is a mass shooting at a nightclub in Fort Myers in a rougher part of town--yes it was different because minors were involved--but still, a couple people killed after midnight in a shooting would not have been a significant international story pre internet.

[LaCroix]

gang/criminal violence =! mass shootings. people talked about the clock tower shooter

[Sheilbh]

"Recent attacks" is very much a hostage to fortune these days, there have been several more since I posted, some of them lacking any Islamic involvement at all.

I'm re-reading the science fiction classic Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner at the moment. Written in the 1960s it is his view of a possible future (our present of course). It is fairly dystopian with over-population, environmental degradation, housing shortages, information overload etc etc. In the book there are frequent lethal attacks by "muckers" (as in "amok"), there are no real political reasons for these attacks, it is just the more dysfunctional members of a dysfunctional society crossing a line. Perhaps that is where we are and the apparent importance of Islam is simply that muslims have been leading the way as their countries are invariably the most badly-run on the planet.

I think there's something to it in Europe. There's something very different happening in Middle East obviously.

But it is striking that we're still not at 1970s level of political violence in Europe and there are similarities between now and then. Elites who seem unable to the world they face, an economic model that's no longer working as it should and where the problems seem insoluble etc. I don't think we're a million miles from then when bored, alienated bourgeois kids became violent Maoists and threw grenades into cafes. But now the cool face of hyper-violence is ISIS. Obviously there's still violent Islamist terrorism but a lot of these attacks remind me more of the absurd violence of school shootings or 70s terrorism.

Yeah but mass murder is what the United States has done for decades. I am not sure you can include us in calculations of European trends.

I'm not being specific to Europe. I think at the minute it just seems almost daily that there's something like this. I can't think of a time like it that I can remember. Again I quite like Martin Rowson's latest:

[mongers]

Will there ever come a point when for most progressive liberals, they'll eventually attribute the violence to a fundamental part of what is Islam? 

[Sheilbh]

Will there ever come a point when for most progressive liberals, they'll eventually attribute the violence to fundamental part of what is Islam?

It depends which violence. The Middle East is a sectarian war so obviously. There is also a war within Sunni Islam which I think stems from a crisis of authority: to my mind you cannot simultaneously have a purely textual way of interpreting your faith for centuries that's been heightened with the Saudis and totally reject ISIS. And, obviously, there are violent Islamist terrorist in Europe (mostly, I think an effect of that Sunni crisis with the odd local feature: has France ever stopped fighting her wars in the Maghreb or is she now fighting them at home?).

But what I'm talking about are these ones that RH said have a different feel than 'traditional' terrorism - even Islamist terrorism of a decade ago - because I've had the exact same sense since the Sidney attack. I don't know what it is but it just doesn't seem to fit with other terrorist attacks. It seems more absurd and pointless, maybe more individual in a way. And, as I say, the individuals are incredible difficult to notice - the common strands I can see are Roy's petty deliquency and violence against women - but if you're targeting Islamist terrorists the last guy you look at is probably the one who routinely goes to a gay bar.

What do you do when the approaches against radicalisation that break up al-Qaeda cells won't work because these attackers aren't in that sort of milieu and don't show those sort of signs? Genuine question, I've no idea. The best I can think of is that we probably need to destroy ISIS (which involves destroying Assad) but beyond that I've nothing.

[mongers]

Will there ever come a point when for most progressive liberals, they'll eventually attribute the violence to fundamental part of what is Islam?

It depends which violence. The Middle East is a sectarian war so obviously. There is also a war within Sunni Islam which I think stems from a crisis of authority: to my mind you cannot simultaneously have a purely textual way of interpreting your faith for centuries that's been heightened with the Saudis and totally reject ISIS. And, obviously, there are violent Islamist terrorist in Europe (mostly, I think an effect of that Sunni crisis with the odd local feature: has France ever stopped fighting her wars in the Maghreb or is she now fighting them at home?).

But what I'm talking about are these ones that RH said have a different feel than 'traditional' terrorism - even Islamist terrorism of a decade ago - because I've had the exact same sense since the Sidney attack. I don't know what it is but it just doesn't seem to fit with other terrorist attacks. It seems more absurd and pointless, maybe more individual in a way. And, as I say, the individuals are incredible difficult to notice - the common strands I can see are Roy's petty deliquency and violence against women - but if you're targeting Islamist terrorists the last guy you look at is probably the one who routinely goes to a gay bar.

What do you do when the approaches against radicalisation that break up al-Qaeda cells won't work because these attackers aren't in that sort of milieu and don't show those sort of signs? Genuine question, I've no idea. The best I can think of is that we probably need to destroy ISIS (which involves destroying Assad) but beyond that I've nothing.

Thanks for the long and considered article, I'll reply when I've some good time and improved powers of reasoning. 

[Malthus]

Will there ever come a point when for most progressive liberals, they'll eventually attribute the violence to a fundamental part of what is Islam?

I guess as soon as they forget that the 'insane acts of random violence' thing is a relatively recent phenomenon while Islam is over fifteen hundred years old.