The Australian
THEY are the new global warriors of militant jihad. Their battleground now stretches in a vast crescent from the old world to the new, from the once thriving industrial towns of Leeds and Bradford in northern England to Gallipoli St, Bankstown, in the western suburbs of Sydney.
This virtual community of radical Islamists, united by the internet and divided by a ravine of hate from unbelievers, is the sinister face of globalisation, altering our perceptions of a borderless world. In the past week they have helped inspire an orgy of arson in the Muslim ghettos of northern Paris, mounted murderous assaults on US hotels in Amman, blown themselves up in suicide-bomber attacks stretching from Baghdad to Batu in the highlands of East Java, and preached the virtues of holy war from comfortable suburban Melbourne.
Across the world, democratic governments and their security advisers are grappling with the most perplexing and troubling phenomenon of our age: how to identify and thwart Islamist terror cells flourishing across the continents.
Since September 11, hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent countering the threat posed by Islamist terror groups. Counter-terrorism has become the overwhelming preoccupation for our military as well as our police and intelligence agencies.
But how effective has the US-led war on terror been in reducing the overall threat level? Four years after September 11, it is no longer possible to maintain that the US is winning the war on terror. The number of terrorists is growing, as is the pool of people who may be inspired to turn to violent action.
Radical Islamists are steadily gaining adherents and their jihadist ideology has become the rallying point for an array of grievances afflicting the Muslim world from the Middle East to Pakistan and Southeast Asia to Western Europe.
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