Word: jihadism
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...with Iraq and now focus on the Afghan-Pakistan area has been astounding," says one French counter-terrorism official. "No one recruiting for or seeking to join jihadist fighting in Europe are trying to get to Iraq: it's all Afghanistan now," he reports "No one raising money for jihad is directing funds to Iraq, either. The Afghan-Pakistan region has regained the power of attraction it had prior to September...
Though the number of European radicals who have actually tried to make it to Afghanistan via Pakistan have been minimal - less than a dozen, at most - the country's reinvigorated jihadist allure is unmistakable. "It was the original jihad against occupying infidels, and it was long al Qaeda's terror sanctuary - bin Laden still lurks there somewhere!" notes a French intelligence official, explaining the thinking of European radicals. "Afghanistan isn't just about killing Americans, but fighting the assembled forces of the world they accuse of attacking Islam...
...including 17 United Nations workers. It also outstripped the 33 mortalities in similar attacks on government and police buildings in central Algiers in April, 2007. Responsibility for both was eventually claimed by AQIM, which vowed upon taking the al Qaeda name in 2006 that it would intensify its jihad against the Algiers regime even as it widened attacks towards foreign enemies, notably France...
...French counter-terrorism officials take threats of exported violence to European soil seriously, but so far AQIM has waged its jihad largely within Algeria's borders. In July, for example, the group executed an attack targeting employees of a French company, killing one French engineer. A second blast detonated 30 minutes later killed a dozen Algerian medical and rescue workers who had flocked to the site (a technique the plot's authors took from international jihad's playbook...
...over the decades. But more than anything else, Russia would never forget that it was Washington that created the Sunni jihadist Frankenstein in Afghanistan. That was an arrow pointed straight at the heart of Russia. With Muslims making up 10% to 15% of Russia's population, the Afghan-born jihad became an existential threat to Russia proper. Indeed, it would slosh across the continent into Chechnya...