ISIS' Ramadan terror campaign

Story by CNN
Written by Peter Bergen

In the past two days, ISIS has conducted lethal suicide attacks in Jordan, Lebanon, Yemen and also, very likely, in Turkey.

Referring to Tuesday's suicide bombings at the Istanbul Ataturk Airport that killed at least 41, a U.S. government official told me there is "no reason to think it isn't ISIS." The official also noted that the airport is "not a typical PKK target," using the initials of a Kurdish group that also has carried out a number of recent terrorist attacks in Turkey. And Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said early signs point to ISIS. Still, ISIS has not claimed responsibility and it's not certain that it was behind the Istanbul attacks, which are the most lethal terrorist attacks ever at an airport.

In the past month, we've seen a surge of terrorism in the Middle East and the West.
None of this should be too surprising. After all, ISIS explicitly called for terrorist attacks during the holy month of Ramadan, which commenced three weeks ago.

Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the spokesman for ISIS, released an audiotape in late May in which he called for attacks, saying, "Ramadan, the month of conquest and jihad... make it a month of calamity everywhere for the non-believers."
Beginning on Monday, ISIS or its affiliated groups started carrying out multiple attacks across the Middle East. ISIS suicide attackers blew themselves up in a Christian village in Lebanon close to the Syrian border, killing five people.

Also on Monday, a wave of ISIS suicide attacks in Yemen in the southeastern city of Mukalla killed more than 40.
On Tuesday, ISIS launched a suicide attack that killed seven Jordanian security personnel at a border crossing between Jordan and Syria.
The same day, the Istanbul airport was attacked by three suicide bombers who were likely dispatched by ISIS.

In the past two and half weeks, ISIS-inspired attackers also struck in the West, first in Orlando, Florida, where 49 people were killed in a gay nightclub -- the most lethal terrorist attack in the United States since 9/11 -- and, the day after the Orlando attack, an ISIS terrorist killed a police official and his partner in a town outside Paris.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/29/opinions/airport-terror-istanbul-analysis-bergen/index.html