IS terrorism 'is Germany's concern too'

For months now the terrorist militias of the group known as "Islamic State" have been blazing a trail of bloody devastation across Syria and Iraq. Their advance appears almost unstoppable. The global community is at a loss as to how to address the phenomenon. So how should it deal with it? How can it stop "Islamic State"?

These were the questions politicians from the parliamentary groups of Germany's conservative sister parties, the Christian Democratic and Christian Socialist Unions (CDU/CSU), wanted to discuss with political and academic experts in Berlin. Elisabeth Motschmann, member of parliament for Bremen, got straight to the point: "Do we have to get involved in this at all?" she asked.

The answer was unequivocal. "Yes," said former diplomat Geza Andreas von Geyr. Von Geyr, the head of the political department at Germany's Defense Ministry, is convinced: "We, the Europeans, cannot stay out of it, because thousands of European fighters have joined the terrorist militia."

He pointed out that these fighters constituted both an immediate threat to the West, and a responsibility that had to be fulfilled. Furthermore, he continued, it was not in the West's interest to accept permanent instability in the Middle East, its neighboring region. Iraq and Syria are both threatening to fall apart, and the consequences cannot be predicted. This, von Geyr said, was why Europe and the United States had to come up with a strategy that combines military and political action with humanitarian assistance for the civil population. "This is in the interests of our own security," he emphasized.

Using Germany's political weight

Walter Posch from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs agreed that staying out of the conflict was not an option. "As the leading power in Europe, Germany's political weight is now too great for us to be able to run away from this," said the Austrian researcher, whose work focuses on Islamist radicalism, Turkey, and the Kurdish question. He is in favor of collaboration with regional partners, and says that Turkey in particular has an important role to play.

However, Posch emphasized that one should not demand too much of Ankara. He said that it was impossible for Turkey to police its long border with Syria and Iraq one hundred percent, in order to put a complete stop to IS supporters getting through and prevent the smuggling of weapons.

Furthermore, he reminded his colleagues that the fight against the PKK Kurdish organization remains a key priority for the Turkish military. Today's leading Turkish generals had, he explained, all served in the fight against the PKK, which they regard as a threat to the Turkish state.

Posch stressed that the Kurds, who live in all the countries in the region - Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran - definitely do not constitute a united front against IS. They all have very different interests and aims. He also commented that a surprisingly strong Islamist movement also exists among Kurds: Many of the IS fighters in Iraq are themselves of Kurdish origin.

Foreign terrorist fighters

The German Foreign Office's Middle East envoy, Miguel Berger, believes that Germany and Europe have a responsibility. "There are 15,000 foreigners from 80 states fighting with IS, around 20 percent of whom are from Europe," he explained during the experts' discussion with the conservative members of parliament. These foreign fighters, he said, constituted what could be described as the third ring around the hard core of IS. Western secret services estimate that this hard core consists of around 30,000 experienced fighters who started out with the terrorist organization al Qaeda.

The second ring, he said, were former soldiers of the Iraqi army who were marginalized under the United States occupation and by the government of the Shiite former Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki. They too had battle experience and determination, and this had contributed to IS' rapid rise.

However, Berger said that what was even more crucial to the advance of the terrorist militia was that they had good financial resources. Revenues from conquered oil fields, taxes, and ransoms for hostages had, he said, rendered the terrorist militia broadly independent of foreign backers. Cutting the terrorists off from the sources of their funding must therefore be a central part of Western strategy.

Assad is not a partner

Furthermore, Berger advised that the West must work with the central government in Baghdad to combat terrorism in Iraq. The new government under Haider Al-Abadi must approach the neglected Sunni population and offer them some kind of perspective in a future Iraq. This, Berger said, was the only way to dry out the fertile soil that breeds terrorism.

All three experts were, however, agreed that the Syrian head of state, Bashar al-Assad, was not a partner one can work with, as he bore the responsibility for the war in Syria in which tens of thousands have died. Walter Posch described him as "a dysfunctional dictator" who was unable reconquer the lost parts of his country and restore order in them. In Posch's view, Assad was no more than a "warlord" who is benefiting from his enemies being weakened by Western intervention.

All the politicians and experts in Berlin were agreed that "Islamic State" is not a passing phenomenon, and that it will continue to pose a challenge to German and European foreign policy for a long time to come.