How do we classify the embassy attack in Syria?

Over at Open University, I posted the following question last week: While security officials are largely focused on organized terror groups like Al Qaeda, lone attackers like Mr. Jaoura present a new challenge. They are hard to track and even harder to stop, making them an especially difficult target for the police and security officials. ...

By Daniel W. Drezner, a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast.

September 12, 2006, 1:52 PM

Over at Open University, I posted the following question last week: While security officials are largely focused on organized terror groups like Al Qaeda, lone attackers like Mr. Jaoura present a new challenge. They are hard to track and even harder to stop, making them an especially difficult target for the police and security officials. "No force on earth could have prevented an attack like this," said a senior Jordanian security official, who said Mr. Jaoura was surprisingly forthcoming under interrogation. "He was not an Islamist. He was isolated, and he did it on his own." With tensions soaring high in much of the Middle East in the aftermath of Israel's war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, the risk of copycat attacks has grown higher.... If you read the whole story, this seems like the kind of attack that, in the United States, would qualify as a drive-by shooting rather than "Islamofascism." Now, the Syrian attack does not qualify as a drive-by shooting. At the same time, the odds of success of such an enterprise in Damascus seem very low -- as the Guardian points out: Peter Ford, Britain's ambassador to Syria, told CNN that the incident did not seem similar to an al-Qaida attack, but appeared to be "an operation by a small group". Security forces have clashed with Islamist militants several times since last year, usually in raids carried out to arrest them. Hugh Macleod, a freelance reporter at the scene, said hundreds of troops and other security personnel were at the embassy following the attack. "This looks to have been a suicide mission by Islamist militants," Macleod told Guardian Unlimited. "This is one of the most heavily guarded streets in Damascus. "President Bashar al-Assad has his office on the same street, the EU building is here ... there are a number of embassies, including the Chinese embassy, which is next to the US building." So, either a) Al Qaeda's having a really bad draft year, or; b) This was a local operation with zero ties to AQ. I'll leave it to the commenters to sort this out.

Over at Open University, I posted the following question last week:

While security officials are largely focused on organized terror groups like Al Qaeda, lone attackers like Mr. Jaoura present a new challenge. They are hard to track and even harder to stop, making them an especially difficult target for the police and security officials. “No force on earth could have prevented an attack like this,” said a senior Jordanian security official, who said Mr. Jaoura was surprisingly forthcoming under interrogation. “He was not an Islamist. He was isolated, and he did it on his own.” With tensions soaring high in much of the Middle East in the aftermath of Israel’s war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, the risk of copycat attacks has grown higher….

If you read the whole story, this seems like the kind of attack that, in the United States, would qualify as a drive-by shooting rather than “Islamofascism.”

Now, the Syrian attack does not qualify as a drive-by shooting. At the same time, the odds of success of such an enterprise in Damascus seem very low — as the Guardian points out:

Peter Ford, Britain’s ambassador to Syria, told CNN that the incident did not seem similar to an al-Qaida attack, but appeared to be “an operation by a small group”. Security forces have clashed with Islamist militants several times since last year, usually in raids carried out to arrest them. Hugh Macleod, a freelance reporter at the scene, said hundreds of troops and other security personnel were at the embassy following the attack. “This looks to have been a suicide mission by Islamist militants,” Macleod told Guardian Unlimited. “This is one of the most heavily guarded streets in Damascus. “President Bashar al-Assad has his office on the same street, the EU building is here … there are a number of embassies, including the Chinese embassy, which is next to the US building.”

So, either a) Al Qaeda’s having a really bad draft year, or; b) This was a local operation with zero ties to AQ. I’ll leave it to the commenters to sort this out.

Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner

Tag: Department of Defense