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ASSESSMENT OF THE JIHADI THREAT AND THE RESPONSE STRATEGIES
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which are in Syria). However, as military history
has shown us so many times before, air strikes
have a limited effect against combatants dug in
on the ground who also make very imaginative
use of their capacity to concentrate and dis-
perse forces without offering worthwhile tar-
gets in the majority of cases, combining terrorist
action with action of an insurgent nature, but
also entering into conventional combat when
they consider it necessary. In this way they have
managed to control a territory of some
55,000km
2
straddling Syria and Iraq and which
is home to around 6 million people.
With the added factor of the foreseeable
phase of ground combat –which has no guaran-
tee of success–, it is possible to imagine that the
structure of DAESH will be seriously damaged.
While in the medium term it may be possible to
imagine that there will be an overall weakening,
it is also very possible to anticipate that it will
reappear under a different name and on anoth-
er stage - without forgetting that in the near
term it is still in a condition to continue causing
a great deal of problems for its enemies (both
local and international).
And the rest
While DAESH practically monopolizes media at-
tention at present, the jihadi threat is not con-
fined to the misnamed Islamic State. We should
not forget that Al-Qaeda remains an established
force, in terms of both its central core - located
in an area straddling Afghanistan and Pakistan,
though considerably weakened following more
than a decade of pounding on the part of
Washington –and its main franchises– with the
Yemeni and Maghreb branches occupying a
prominent position, along with the myriad small
local groups that adhere to its ideological line
and even the so-called “lone wolves,” inspired
by the jihadi creed. This terrorist conglomerate
retains the capacity to strike indiscriminately in
many places and it will certainly try to make the
most of any window of opportunity that arises
(for instance, a concentration of effort against
DAESH that eases the pressure on its forces) to
return to the fore.
For their part, the violent groups that come
under the generic term of Taliban continue to
show clear signs of activism, in both Afghanistan
and Pakistan, though there is nothing to sug-
gest that they appear to be planning to extend
their sphere of action beyond those territories.
The same can be said of Boko Haram, which is
chiefly concentrated in the northern states of
Nigeria, though it carries out violent action in
neighbouring countries (such as Chad or Niger)
from time to time. In both cases, they must be
taken into consideration, given their capacity to
destabilize the countries where they operate,
but they lack the transnational dimension that
DAESH and Al-Qaeda have today.
Notes on an alternative response
Seen from the West, the data mentioned above
discredit those, like the Spanish foreign minister,
who in the wake of the Paris attacks would like
to convince us that jihadi terrorism is the big-
gest challenge to the security of the European
Union. No matter how distressing its effects, it
is not - not in terms of the number of dead it
causes compared with so many other war-relat-
ed factors, and certainly not in terms of its ca-
pacity to cause the collapse of our states. We
must be clear on this point, in the understand-
ing that terrorism is a scourge that is going to
be with us for a very long time, accepting that
there are no short cuts to eliminating it and,