The attacker in Nice, who last night killed some 80-plus people by driving a truck into a crowd, was likely incited by al-Qaeda. Inspire, al-Qaeda’s magazine distributed over the Internet, called for such truck attacks in its Issue Number 2 (pdf). Page 54 read:

Pick your location and timing carefully. Go for the most crowed locations. Narrower spots are also better because it gives less chance for the people to run away. Avoid locations where other vehicles may intercept you.

To achieve maximum carnage, you need to pick up as much speed as you can while still retaining good control of your vehicle in order to maximize your inertia and be able to strike as many people as possible in your first run. …

The ideal location is a place where there are a maximum number of pedestrians and the least number of vehicles. In fact if you can get through to “pedestrian only” locations that exist in some downtown (city center) areas, that would be fabulous. There are some places that are closed down for vehicles at certain times due to the swarms of people.

The Promenade des Anglais, the seaside boulevard in Nice where the attack took place last night, was blocked off from ordinary traffic to allow a large crowd of pedestrians to watch the Bastille Day fireworks. The place and occasion perfectly fit the al-Qaeda terror recommendations.

While Osama Bin Laden had at times cautioned about indiscriminate attacks, al-Qaeda has hardly refrained from such on other occasions. Currently the government-held western part of Aleppo, filled with mostly Sunni refugees, is under daily indiscriminate fire by improvised artillery from al-Qaeda and “moderate-rebels” who hold parts of east-Aleppo.

The French government did not care or even favored when its citizens went to Syria to overthrow the legitimate Syrian government by force:

“The fighters in Syria are not fighting France or Europe; they are fighting against the Assad regime,” Valls [,the French interior minister,] said.

Now these fighters and their ideology are coming back to France.

The Syrian president Assad had warned that terrorism committed against Syria would return to the “West” to bite:

“The West uses any element, even if it is against them elsewhere,” Assad said. “They fight Al Qaeda in Mali and they support it in Syria and in Libya, but the West doesn’t know — or perhaps it knows but is not now aware — that this terrorism will return to it and they will pay the price later in Europe and the United States.”

Now the French president Hollande said he would reintroduce a state of emergency and call up troops to patrol the street. But both measures have been in place for the last months and obviously could not prevent such an attack. Hollande also vowed to intensify that attacks on the Islamic State. But it is France’s and its allies’ support for “moderate rebels” in Syria what keeps al-Qaeda in Syria and the Islamic State alive.

The United States, like France, does not fight al-Qaeda in Syria. Weapons it provides to “moderate rebels” in Syria are used in coordinated attacks with al-Qaeda against the Syrian government. Indeed its proxy war for “regime change” against Syria depends on al-Qaeda storm troopers:

Up to now, the United States has carried out occasional strikes against what have been described as senior Qaeda figures in Syria. But it has refrained from systematic attacks against the Nusra Front, whose ranks are heavily Syrian, including many who left less extreme rebel groups because Nusra was better armed and financed. Faysal Itani, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, was also critical of the proposed military coordination with the Russians. He said that combined attacks against Nusra would effectively end the Syrian opposition, cementing Mr. Assad’s grip on power and enraging most Syrians.

As long as France, the U.S. and their allies in the Middle East support “rebels” in Syria to achieve a change of government by force the terrorism committed in Syria by al-Queda, its affiliates like Ahrar al Sham or by the Islamic State, will come back to strike in their own countries.

We can expect more attacks like in Paris, Brussels, Orlando and Nice until some sanity regains some space in the brains of “western” governments.