These are certainly troubled times we are living in today. But as we here in Malta may be somewhat diverted by public scandal after public scandal as they roll off the presses almost on a daily basis, we are perhaps losing sight of the big picture.

And that big picture places us, geographically, at the centre of a tempest – a maelstrom created by two very opposing forces: the Western ideal of democracy and freewill and a heinous, extremist, religious ideology that will seemingly stop at nothing to persecute, murder and terrorise anyone subscribing to a different worldview.

The two countries closest to Malta – Libya and Tunisia, both a figurative stone’s throw from our shores - are both heavily afflicted by the odious and diseased ideology espoused by IS, ISIS, ISIL, or whatever name one attaches to these extremist, fanatical, murdering miscreants.

The world recoiled in horror last week when a lone gunman opened fire and lobbed grenades at tourists enjoying an otherwise peaceful and idyllic day at the beach in Sousse, Tunisia – literally the country closest to Malta – killing dozens of people in the process. After the attack on Tunis’ Bardo Museum, this latest rampage has left the country’s crucial tourism sector in tatters. Yesterday Tunisia’s president declared a state of emergency due to the state of affairs in the country.

Interpol has also reportedly issued a warning to countries in the Mediterranean to be on the alert for an attempt by ISIS militants to carry out some sort of operation at sea over the next few days, at a time when smugglers in coastal areas west of Tripoli are preparing to put hundreds of migrants to sea, taking advantage of the current clement weather conditions.

Exponents of the Italian and Libyan governments have warned continuously of the clear and present danger that the Islamic State poses to Europe.  Both have also said that IS militants could very well seek passage to Europe inconspicuously on boats carrying legitimate asylum seekers.

These warped militants with their twisted ideologies are edging ever closer to some kind of an attack against Europe and their threats to attack Europe are also growing with equal frequency. Malta, by geographic quirk is the closest – as well as the softest and most enthusiastically Christian – target in the whole of Europe.

Last January ISIS warned, “Many of them [extremists disguised as asylum seekers] can bypass maritime security and reach the heart of [European] cities. If we are able to exploit this channel and develop it strategically as we should, the situation in the countries of southern Europe will be transformed into an inferno.”  A suspected accomplice of the Sousse gunman was reported earlier this week to have been seeking passage to Europe on one of those boats.

At least, the current EUNAVFOR Med – a military operation targeting human traffickers but which for the time being is limited to intelligence gathering – and the Italian Mare Sicuro operations are both operational in Malta’s stretch of the Mediterranean. Other EU military assets, such as the HMS Bulwark, are also patrolling the area.

It has emerged that 23-year-old Seifeddine Rezgui, the person responsible for the Sousse attack, was trained at an Islamic State base in Libya – the same base at which the Bardo Museum attackers had been trained. That base is in Sabratha, one of the primary points of departure for Europe-bound migrant boats.

The situation in North Africa presents a potentially deadly cocktail for Europe, and for Malta as well. 

While Tunisia enjoys the rule of law, and will certainly leave no stone unturned to thwart any terrorist activity on its soil, it is not so with Libya. There the two rival governments are not only battling each other but they are also separately battling ISIS and al-Qaeda, both of which are vying for territory in the virtually lawless country, and where ISIS and al-Qaeda are even fighting each other for control.

In the meantime, negotiations between Libya’s rival Tobruk and Tripoli governments with a view to forming a unity government and, in the process, provide at least some semblance of law and order to the land, are proceeding at a snail’s pace, with the latest news suggesting that there could be no unity government formation until at least December.

Malta has already suffered, directly or not, a terrorist attack when the Islamic State struck against Maltese-owned assets with its attack on the Tripoli Corinthia last January. This was an attack on one of the country’s largest private sector foreign investments and it has given Malta its first bitter, albeit small, taste of the viciousness that this organisation is capable of. Hopefully that will be the last taste too.