The New Jihad: More Threatening Than Ever

by Guy Millière

• It is important to emphasize that radical Islamists use means other than terrorism to gain ground.
• This week, the unelected judges of the European Court of Human Rights submitted to the demands of Sharia blasphemy laws and decided not to allow criticism of Muhammad, lest Muslim feelings be hurt. The court actually chose hurt feelings over freedom of expression and truth as a defense.
• "As someone who has known what it is to live without freedom, I watch in amazement as those who call themselves liberal and progressive – people who claim to believe so fervently in individual liberty and minority rights – make common cause with the forces in the world that manifestly pose the greatest threats to that very freedom and those very minorities... We need to say to Muslims living in the West: if you want to live in our societies, to share in their material benefits, then you need to accept that our freedoms are not optional". — Ayaan Hirsi Ali, 2016.

Following the destruction of the Islamic State, awareness of the danger embodied by radical Islam has been largely erased in Europe. Knife attacks and the slaughter of passers-by in France or Britain were not treated by the mainstream media as more important than road accidents. Pictured: Police officers and soldiers secure the site of a terror attack, in which a police officer was shot and killed, on April 20, 2017 in Paris, France. (Photo by Aurelien Meunier/Getty Images)

When the Barcelona terror attack took place August 17, 2017, as horrible as it was (13 deaths, 130 injured), the jihadists did not consider it a success. They had a more lethal project. They wanted to drive vans packed with explosives into the of the Sagrada Familia basilica and two other tourist areas of the city. That, however, was the last major jihadist attack in a Western country. The Manchester attack had taken place two month earlier, on May 22, 2017; the attack in Nice, France, had taken place on July 14, 2016; and the in Orlando attack, in Florida, on June 12, 2016.

The destruction of the Islamic State under President Donald J. Trump has not only deprived jihadists of what had become a rear base and training camp; it also deprived them of the idea that they could quickly defeat the West.

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