'Global terrorism goes westward'

By Kang Hyun-kyung

Terrorism has moved westward from Iraq and Afghanistan to Yemen and Sudan following the Arab Spring, a Middle East expert said recently.

Prof. Seo Jeong-min, dean of the Department of Middle East and African Studies at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, said that “west-bound terrorism” was behind the rise of terrorist attacks in Arab Spring countries such as Egypt and Syria.

“There has been a noticeable trend regarding the direction of global terrorism after a series of popular uprisings in the Middle East had led to regime change in some countries there,” he said.

Seo noted that terrorism initially began in countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq and then moved westward to Yemen, Somalia, Sudan and other African countries.

He said that now the countries that underwent a wave of popular uprisings in recent years are suffering the consequences of this westbound terrorism.

He made the remarks during a roundtable interview with Egyptian Ambassador Hany Selim last month.

Prof. Seo said that the Feb. 16 attack against Korean tourists in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, came against the backdrop of post-Arab Spring terrorism. Three Koreans and one Egyptian were killed in the incident.

An annual report by IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Center found that terrorist attacks surged in countries that have experienced severe political upheaval in recent years.

Ambassador Selim was, however, confident that terrorism in the northern part of Egypt is now under control. He said that the rise of terrorist attacks in his country is the second such incidence, after a first wave in the 1990s.

Selim claimed the Egyptian government’s crackdown on terrorists in the Sinai Peninsula has borne fruit, noting that it successfully ended the first wave of terrorism at that time.

hkang@ktimes.co.rk