The New British Terror Wave and the Belt and Road

April 30, 2019 (EIRNS)—In modern history, the British Empire has always been the mother that has given birth to terrorism as a form of modern irregular warfare. There are compelling reasons to believe that the British have now unleashed a new global wave of terrorism whose strategic target is China’s Belt and Road Initiative. In addition to the April 21 Sri Lanka massacre, there was the synagogue shooting in San Diego April 27 and now the foiling of an alleged major terror attack planned for Long Beach, California. This last case reads like a classic FBI-sting operation from start to finish.

The coverage in the New York Post is typical of the widespread media coverage of this latest incident.

“A U.S. Military veteran who recently converted to Islam was busted for a domestic terror plot in Southern California that he said was revenge for the New Zealand mosque attacks, officials announced Monday. Mark Steven Domingo, 26, was arrested Friday night after he received what he believed was a live pressure cooker bomb as part of an FBI sting operation. The former U.S. Army infantryman who served in Afghanistan, planned to set off the IED ‘in order to commit mass murder’ at a planned white nationalist rally in Long Beach, federal officials said.”

The FBI had contacted Domingo through online chatrooms, where he allegedly said in an online video: “America needs another Vegas event.” He also conveniently announced that if ISIS ever built operations in the U.S., he would gladly join them. He was arrested when he was scouting out one of his potential target sites with his undercover FBI contact.

In parallel with these events inside the U.S., the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, appeared in a video released for the first time since his infamous sermon at the Great Mosque in Mosul, Iraq in July 2014. In the new video, in which he looks a little grayer but otherwise healthy, Baghdadi praised the Sri Lanka bombings and said that they were carried out in revenge for the defeat of the Islamic State’s caliphate in Syria. According to the Washington Post, he also thanked the attackers for their pledge of allegiance to the Islamic State, without claiming a direct role for the group in orchestrating the bombings. He also promised a long and bloody war. Our battle today is a war of attrition to harm the enemy, and they should know that jihad will continue until doomsday, he said.

Baghdadi’s appearance for the first time in nearly five years demonstrates not only that he is still alive, “but also that he is able to reemerge to his supporters and reaffirm the group’s us-vs-the-world message after all the progress made against the group,” Rita Katz, director of the SITE Intelligence Group, told the Post. The main purpose of the video, the Post states, seems to be to signal to followers that the Islamic State not only survived but is expanding worldwide, despite the loss of territory in Syria and Iraq.

Indeed, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, in remarks in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan on April 29, warned that Afghanistan is becoming a bridgehead for the spread of ISIS across Central Asia, which also happens to be a crucial region for China’s Belt and Road Initiative. “It is important to note that after the rout of the so-called Islamic State, terrorists are moving from Syria and Iraq to other regions, including Central and Southeast Asia,” Shoigu said, during a defense ministers meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. “As a result, cross-border crime is growing, a breeding ground is emerging for extremist and separatist movements and terrorist cells are coming into existence. The most complex situation is developing in Afghanistan,” the Russian defense chief said.

“The U.S. presence in that country for many years has not solved existing problems,” Shoigu stressed. “Special concern is caused by the strengthening of the positions of the ISIL, which is using the country as a bridgehead for further expansion into the region.”