Is the Government wary of provoking ISIS?

When President Higgins addressed foreign diplomats this week he remarked, with respect to the slaughter of people by terrorists that “these new forms of violence are extremely difficult to tackle, arising as they do at the obscure intersection of geopolitical tensions, individual trajectories and beliefs, complex structures of social inequalities and globalized passions that prosper on feelings of hopelessness, resentment, humiliation or the search for glory”.

He advised the diplomats that the international community should be “wary of undertaking actions – or to allow the undertaking thereof – that might exacerbate destructive collective feelings of resentment or humiliation”.

Last week, the media reports that Islamic State militants hope to build a maritime arm that could carry out attacks in the Mediterranean on cruise ships and container ships using sophisticated Korean, Chinese and Russian weapons.