Judicial police investigators enter Orly airport southern terminal after shooting incident near Paris | REUTERS

France Analysis: How Paris Orly airport attack underscores continuing threat of Islamist militancy

Situation: Paris Orly Airport Attack

During the afternoon hours of March 18, following an attempted attack on three Air Force soldiers at Paris Orly, French police forces confirmed that the man involved in the incident was known to authorities, based on a number of prior criminal infractions, including theft and drug distribution. Although initial reports indicated that the government were aware of the attackers radicalization, and French Interior Minister Bruno Le Roux claims that police and intelligence services knew of the man, the Paris prosecutor’s office has since maintained that he did not appear in a French government database of people considered potential threats to national security.
The man was arrested following an attempted attack at the airport in which he approached a military patrol and attempted to strangle and seize a weapon from a soldier on duty. The soldier was able to keep a hold of her weapon while two other members of the patrol shot and killed the attacker. Furthermore, Interior Minister Le Roux claimed that the assailant was the same man who shot and wounded a police officer with a pellet gun at a traffic stop in the Paris suburb of Stains, during a routine traffic check before the incident at the airport. The assailant is then reported to have stolen a car at gunpoint and fled. The same car was then found near Paris Orly.
While the man was shot and killed by a soldier before he was able to carry out any large scale attack in the airport, the terminal was evacuated and flights were diverted to other regional airports. Furthermore, preliminary investigations into the incident have indicated that the assailant was not in possession of any explosives. That being said, the father and brother of the attacker were taken into police custody, which is said to be standard procedure for militant suspects in France.

France Analysis: How Paris Orly airport attack underscores continuing threat of Islamist militancy | MAX Security

Assessments & Forecast

Details indicate that attack was likely carried out by lone wolf, inspired by wave of militancy encouraged by Islamic State

Despite the identity of the attacker being known, as well as jihadist intentions being reported, as of the time of writing no connections to any militant groups have been confirmed. Although the individual was likely inspired by global jihadist organizations, the details of the incident do not indicate that the attacker had received extensive militant training abroad, if any at all, nor that the attack itself was particularly well planned. Moreover, it remains likely that the particulars of the attack were chosen not to conduct a major ideological assault on the nation of France, but rather to cause disruptions and fulfill the goal of dying for Islam in an attack on those perceived to be its enemies. This assessment is bolstered by reports that the attacker shouted I am here to die in the name of Allah… There will be deaths” before carrying out the assault.
The attack’s apparent poor planning is exemplified by the fact that its potential success relied on a series of factors that were unreliable, such as the availability of a car to steal, or the attacker’s ability to seize a weapon from an on-duty soldier within a major Paris airport. These types of lesser planned, opportunistic attacks, underscore the essence of much of the current militant threat within Europe and the West. While the risk of well-orchestrated mass casualty attacks, in the same vein as the November 2015 Paris attack, does remain in Europe, the past months have seen a far more pertinent threat emerge from minimally affiliated, locally radicalized individuals, with little to no militant training.
Such unsophisticated planning on the part of the militant is also indicative of the likelihood that for many of the recent brand of loosely affiliated, locally radicalized, lone wolf militants, the act of carrying out an attack in the name of Islam is as important as the attack’s results. A phenomenon that often stems from the personal mental state of the radicalized individual, many of whom are deeply isolated, by various grievances and identity crises. These types of attackers align themselves with extreme Islamist ideologies of groups such as the Islamic State (IS), but often have limited interaction and usually carry out unsophisticated and at times, hastily planned, attacks often in areas close to them with readily available tools used as weapons. Such attacks have been encouraged by the Islamic State continue to release publications calling for individuals to use any methods available to them to carry out attacks in Europe.
Threat of lone wolf militant attacks by supporters of Islamic State are compounded by socio-economic issues in poor migrant communities across European cities
Moreover, the criminal background of the assailant is also of note. While the exact profile of those likely to carry out militant attacks can differ between country and region, the existence of disenfranchised and poor Muslim immigrant communities within certain Western European cities appears to have played a role in catalyzing radicalism. In particular, many reports have shown a nexus between local criminal gangs and Islamic radicalization, particularly in suburban areas of socio-economic depression. Feelings of disillusionment towards government and law enforcement, as well as issues of lacking strong identity, are compounded by the existence recruiters for groups and ideologies such as IS, who attempt to increase their global following by exploiting these communities.

FORECAST: So long as these issues remain in Europe and across the West, the threat of attacks such as the one at Paris Orly on March 18 remains pertinent and reports of similar incidents will continue to occur on a semi-regular basis. Although security forces may be able to limit the threat of such issues, the possibility of totally halting the current trend of radicalization and lone wolf incidents is highly unlikely, in the current political paradigm. Additionally, given that the such attacks are planned in near complete isolation, the nature of the trend fundamentally limits the possibility of intelligence and security forces in thwarting incidents such as that witnessed on March 18.