ABSTRACT
In recent years 9/11 has become a strong signifier, not only for the first major attack of Islamist terror against the West and the ensuing ‘war on terror’, but also as a trigger for an ongoing and controversial debate on the role of Western European countries as ‘hotbeds of radicalisation’. After all, the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks had been living and studying in Germany for several years, were indeed labelled the ‘Hamburg cell’ and were, as it turned out, part of a larger Al Qaeda network spread out all over Europe ( Economist 2002). In fact, for a country such as France, experienced with confronting Algerian Islamist terrorism in the 1990s, the ties to Europe came as no surprise:
It is the result of a long evolution that had gone ignored by law enforcement, by the government, by the US, by Europe, the media, and the public … I am not a psychic, but I believe there will be an attack on the West, and that it is likely to be an American target here in Europe,
