The Islamic State and Al-Qaeda hardly appear in the media anymore, but that by no means means their threat has been diluted. Quite the contrary, and that’s what he spoke about this Tuesday. Carlos Echeverriaprofessor of international relations at the National University of Distance Education (UNED), during a seminar organized at the University of Córdoba.
-Until recently it was common to hear about Al-Qaeda and ISIS in the media, but for some time now they seem to have disappeared. Have they ceased to exist?
-No, it has not ceased to exist. The only problem is that it is overshadowed for several reasons. There are obviously unexpected and more high-profile situations, such as the war between Russia and Ukraine, the war between Israel and Hamas. I also call the Islamic State that and it’s not a political error, it’s the truth, or ISIS, which is also a correct name, is the English acronym for a terrorist group. And I guess a lot of people listen to ISIS and don’t know what they’re talking about. The Islamic State and Al-Qaeda They evolve favorably for their interests and unfavorably for ours. In other words, there are still two realities when it comes to active terrorist groups. The Islamic State has not been defeated in Syria and Iraq, and al-Qaeda has not been defeated elsewhere, but both are moving across the world, particularly in two scenarios I discussed. They were not defeated either, in Central Asia, which also includes Afghanistanand I spoke about the Western defeat against the Taliban in August 2021.
-We’re not talking about the Taliban now either.
-We must continue to associate the Taliban with Al-Qaeda, and that is why this actor returns, twenty years after so much effort, both human and economic, to try to make Afghanistan what he did not end up being, quite the contrary. The Islamic State is active there and fighting Al-Qaeda, but that in itself is not good news. There are those who believe that they are weakened by the bad guys fighting among themselves, but that is not the case at all. And of course, let’s say that if we focus closer to home and also on what is most worrying on a global scale, the African continent is the scene of the deployment of both the Islamic State and ‘Al-Qaeda. Bad news for Africans and for us, who are also land neighbors, in Ceuta and Melilla, of an African country, Moroccoand the rest of the Maghreb and the continent.
-For them, Cordoba has a very high symbolic value. Are Spain, and more specifically Cordoba, still a target for them?
-Yes, because let’s not forget that the worst of everything I have had to explain is precisely the ideological dimension, that is to say the fuel that makes certain individuals and certain groups act like terrorists. The ideology is nourished by a reinterpretation of an erroneous representation of Islam and draws a series of scenarios, of symbols, which deserve to be sought through combat. And it is the instrumentalization of Al-Andalusit is the instrumentalization of Cordoba, it is the instrumentalization of the Mosque-Cathedral. And what conclusion does this bring us? Well, what we have to fight, namely this distortion and this instrumentalization, obliges us, the Spaniards, the inhabitants of Cordoba, to always be attentive, because even if we do not want to, we are in the eye of the hurricane of these actors who drink and feed these referents. Córdoba or Al-Andalus is as important as Loop or like Kashmir. And on this, I have already said everything, but it is not my invention, it is the message of the leaders of Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.
“In victimist terms, they draw a lost paradise which is not the reference of a poet, but of terrorists, and we must be worried”
-It’s sort of the embodiment of a lost paradise, isn’t it?
-Indeed, indeed. Lost and also loaded with beauty, attractiveness and historical references which are the key to a rigorous historical approach, even if his is obviously not. Neither to the question of the Mosque-Cathedral, nor to that of the Reconquestor whatever. They depict, in victimist terms, that a lost paradise which is not a poet’s reference, it is the reference of terrorists and therefore we must take it seriously, worry and get busy.
-A few years ago there was an intense debate over the ownership of the mosque-cathedral. It was said that it was the church which had usurped it, even though it had owned it since the 13th century. Were they behind all this? Did they take advantage of it?
-They undoubtedly benefited from it, but not only jihadists Salafists, that is to say not just terrorist actors. There is a series of states, Arab and non-Arab, in the Islamic world, which have played this trick with their tools of influence, with political pressure. And there were also, let’s not forget, and this is worrying because here our pedagogy must begin at home, people around us, political and non-political, who believed in this message in terms of grievanceof usurpation. Let’s not forget that history is an accumulation. And before being a cathedral, it was a mosque, but before being a mosque, it was also a Christian temple. History therefore has its journey, its ups and downs, and all this must be assumed with the maturity that should be demanded, not only of academics, but of citizens.
