The Sousse killings in context

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The Sousse killings in context

Summary: British reaction to mass murder in Tunisia. Lessons to be learned about IS and about Tunisia.

Thirty-nine people including probably thirty British were killed on 26 June by an armed gunman at a holiday resort near Sousse on the Tunisian coast. The incident has pretty well dominated the British media, the Home Secretary has flown to Tunisia, and the Prime Minister told the BBC that IS posed "an existential threat" to the West and the UK must have a "full-spectrum response." His first phrase is an understandable exaggeration; IS does not, at present at least, pose a threat to the existence even of Tunisia, let alone UK or the West. His second phrase is helpful if it means that the response must take several forms including security at home, support for the Tunisian government, and a new look at the IS phenomenon both in Iraq/Syria and elsewhere with the determination to commit the necessary resources so that the UK can play its part in dealing with it. David Cameron reportedly said that the response would include continuing with airstrikes in Iraq; asked if British troops were needed on the ground, he added: "Our strategy is to build up local armies. It's much easier to just invade a country... it's easier and faster, but that has consequences."

The Tunisian incident was not of course the whole story. On the same day an attack on a Shi'ite mosque in Kuwait killed nearly thirty and there were incidents in Egypt and France which could have been as or more serious. Yesterday 29 June dozens were wounded in an attack on a Shi'ite mosque in Sana’a. All of these incidents have been plausibly claimed by IS, which has called for more action against enemies in Ramadan, although Ramadan is associated with peace rather than with war. It seems clear however that many or most of the perpetrators act more or less independently, not as agents of a quasi-state authority. That makes the problem of security more difficult.http://us7.campaign-archive1.com/?u=2820afb1fbae0c99e88fb6f52&id=9da4ecade2&e=672f0b89c4