site.btaPolitical Expert: Biggest Challenge Is Europe to Not Betray Itself when Facing the Terrorist Threat

Political Expert: Biggest Challenge Is Europe to Not Betray Itself when Facing the Terrorist Threat

Sofia, November 16 (BTA) - The biggest challenge is Europe to
not lose itself and betray itself when facing the threat of
terrorism, because this is precisely the terrorists' final goal,
 political expert Anna Krusteva told BTA when asked to comment
on the situation after the  November 13 attacks in Paris.

In her words, the new face of war is dramatic: in classical war
the soldiers fight and kill soldiers, while in the terrorist war
 the terrorists kill innocent people who are neither fighting
nor have weapons or intend to arm themselves; they do not even
know why and when they become a military target. In classical
war the enemy is outside, there are  borders and a State that is
 protecting them, while in the terrorist war the killers have
many faces, the most shocking ones being those of  fellow
citizens and neighbours. One of the killers who shot in cold
blood 89 spectators at a rock concert, has already been
identified as a French national. The European civilization, in
which life is a supreme value, is being drawn into a war where
fanatic individuals are turned into a weapon, the expert said.

According to Krusteva, the biggest paradox of the Syrian
conflict is that neither has it been conceived in Europe nor are
 European countries its key players, but it is precisely Europe
that is paying both the military and humanitarian price for the
conflict.

She went on to say that the tragedy in Paris makes the world
leaders face their responsibilities, and added that the solution
 of a conflict starts with its transformation from an elemental
into a structured conflict. In her words, the United States and
Russia will continue to "measure their muscles" in Ukraine but
out of the ball of conflicts in Syria, in which the two
countries are on different sides, one conflict has to be
identified in which they are on the same side. Russia is on the
side of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war
against the opposition, while the US is on the side of the
opposition in the humanitarian war against Assad, the expert
said. "In the war against the Islamic State, in the war against
terrorism, in the war against barbarity, a minimum consensus
needs to be found that will pave the way to joint actions," she
noted. These actions should be carried out as decisively and
systematically as terrorism is conducting its war, she added.

Taking a question, Krusteva said that the reason why Paris has
been a target of terrorist attacks two times within a year has
to do with military policy. France has been on the front in the
fight against terrorism and has been bombing the Islamic State
for months. France is a European country where the biggest
number of candidate Jihadists have departed from and where a
significant number of trained Jihadists have returned to. "At
the same time, France is the birthplace of both democracy and
the laic state, and it is impossible to determine which of the
two Islamic terrorism hates more and at which of the two
terrorism's destructive weapon is directed in a more deadly
way," she said.

"If there is something worthy of admiration in this tragedy, it
is the dignity and decisiveness of both the French citizens and
the French elites (I exclude the Far-right wing) to continue
upholding the values of freedom," Krusteva told BTA.