The tragic bomb outrage in Bali, in which almost 200 people lost their lives and over 300 were injured, has re-ignited the attention of the main European dailies in the campaign against terrorism and once again raised the spectre of a war against Iraq. The most serious terrorist attack on America, after that on the Twin Towers: that’s the definition of the Herald Tribune (15/10) which on the following day (16/10) emphasized that “the weekend massacre in an Indonesian nightclub on the idyllic island of Bali, on the face of it the work of Al Qaeda and its local allies, is a horrendous confirmation of the fact that the Islamic extremists that have America and the West as their targets may be on the run but they are not defeated (…). The war against terrorism requires that Washington builds and leads a broad coalition that may use diplomacy, as well as military weapons, and hold it together for many years to come. It’s not clear how the war in Iraq will influence this effort, but the events of recent weeks are a reminder that it is easier to complicate things than make them easier”. “The mist of terror”: that’s the title of an article in La Croix (14/10), in which Francois Ermenwein notes that the tragedy in Bali has re-focused attention on “analysis of the terrorist threat and the means used” to combat it. Terrorism today, according to the leader-writer of the French daily, “is a broad movement, with networks not always linked together. It does not resemble a highly structured organization, as it is sometimes imagined by the news services. Individuals, small groups, scattered here and there, thrive on opposition to the West, fomented by consumerist frustrations and forms of fundamentalism, closely interlinked“. “Bali: the USA and Indonesia accuse the Al-Qaeda network”, is the headline in “Le Monde” (16/10), in which it notes that “the president of the United States, George W. Bush, affirmed in Washington on Monday, 14 October, that Saturday’s terrorist attack on Bali can be attributed to the Al-Qaeda network”: the Indonesian government, too, points out the French daily, has “declared its conviction of the involvement of the network of Osama Bin Laden”, thanks to the “collaboration of local terrorists”. The terrorist attack on Bali, Islamic terrorism and the Iraqi crisis: these are the main issues covered by the comments in the German press. In the Süddeutsche Zeitung of 14/10, Stefan Kornelius writes: “ Terror is omnipresent; it now accompanies our daily life and for its perpetrators it is far from insensate, brutal and arbitrary. In Germany, as in many European societies he continues people confront this terror with incredible perplexity… No strategy can be seriously effective if the Islamic societies do not outlaw the extremists present in their midst“. Writing in Die Welt of 14/10, Michael Stürmer analyses the terrorist attack on Bali: “ Hitherto, Europe has remained on the margins of the terrorist attacks, due more to its weakness than to its own strength. But no appeasement, no tolerance, will lead the aggressors to spare the Europeans. Prevention is inevitable. If this analysis is not shared, or if the electoral campaigns and preferences oppose the strategy, a gulf will be opened between America and Europe, disadvantageous for America and pernicious for Europe. For if the American secret services are right, Europe is no less threatened than America, but it’s especially the State of Israel and the Arab conservative regimes” that are at risk. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of 16/10 dedicates a comment to the re-election of the Iraqi dictator: “ Saddam Hussein may be ‘reconfirmed’ with a hundred percent of the votes but that doesn’t alter the fact that in only twenty years he has, with his wars, reduced Iraq to ruin, a country in which the greatest hopes of the region were concentrated, and hence courted by those same Western governments that now want to get rid of the dictator“. The weekly Der Spiegel of 14/10 also devotes ample coverage to the Iraqi situation: “ The dictator has long lost contact with the desolating reality of his subjects“. The disintegration of the country “ could be even more dangerous than the American military pressure. Saddam’s recipe against the disintegration of society now taking place is: islamization… The regime is actively trying to paper over the all too evident cracks in society with the glue of religion“.
