What Happens in the Middle East Doesn’t Stay in the Middle East

By Emile Nakhleh

Dr. Emile Nakhleh is a retired Senior Intelligence Service Officer, a founding director of the CIA's Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program and the Global and the National Security Policy Institute at the University of New Mexico. Since retiring from the government, Nakhleh has consulted on national security issues, particularly Islamic radicalization, terrorism, and the Arab states of the Middle East. He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Another deadly terrorist attack hit the streets of Europe Thursday, leaving at least 13 people dead and dozens injured. A van drove through a pedestrian mall in the Las Ramblas district of Barcelona, Spain, a popular area frequented by tourists. Though ISIS has claimed this attack publicly, questions remain: why Barcelona and why now? The devastation caused by the terrorists’ weapon of choice, a vehicle driven at high speed into a crowd of people, echoes previous ISIS attacks across Europe – but also a more recent terrorist attack in the United States by a completely unrelated group of white nationalists. To better understand all the factors at play in this attack, The Cipher Brief’s Callie Wang spoke with Emile Nakhleh, a former member of the CIA’s Senior Intelligence Service, to discuss the broader terrorist threat to Europe and what comes next for Spanish authorities.  

The Cipher Brief: A vehicle being used for an attack is not necessarily a hallmark of international terrorism, but this attack has reportedly been claimed by ISIS. We also saw a similar tactic used in a terrorist attack by white supremacists in Virginia. In a situation like this what are authorities looking for to understand the threat and who is responsible?

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