profile terrorist attacks in France, Tunisia and the US in 2015, there was a marked fall in the number of such attacks around the world that year, the US State Department has said. According to data compiled by the University of Maryland, more than 28,300 people died and about 35,300 others were wounded in 11,774 terrorist attacks worldwide last year, which is a 14 percent decline in fatalities and a 13 percent drop in the number of attacks from 2014. The drops are attributed to fewer attacks in Iraq, Pakistan and Nigeria, three of the five countries worst affected by terrorism. The other two are India and Afghanistan. Daesh (the self-proclaimed IS) was the biggest single threat, the State Department said. Although Daesh was losing territory in Iraq and Syria, it had gained in strength in Libya and Egypt. The terrorist phenomenon is unique in human history and anything but conventional. The war against terrorism belongs to a new kind of warfare that has to contend with combatants of a different sort. Terrorism has taken the form of major attacks, but they are not systematic and do not seem to have a clear political agenda other than to cause disruption, acquire notoriety and inflict a form of blackmail that aims to disseminate religious fascism. Terrorists are a select sect of individuals so brainwashed by religious fascism that they have lost all connection to life. Today, the phenomenon has acquired a geopolitical and geostrategic nature connected with organizations and states with expansionist ambitions. Tiny cells are working to wreak terror here and have grown into huge armies that have seized control of vast tracts of land. They use advanced technology and their chief weapon is to disseminate the culture of death, because they have declared war on life. Terrorists suddenly vanish and just as suddenly re-emerge. They have a grim determination to sow fear and terror in civilian areas as well as combat zones, as we are seeing in the current sieges of Mosul, Raqqah and Fallujah. The odds of getting run over by a car while crossing the street are higher than being killed in a terrorist attack. Despite this, the global public worries, as evidenced by the long security lines in US airports, domestic and international, or the visible presence of armed soldiers in several major European capitals. Especially in EU countries, the extreme right is becoming stronger, an issue of critical importance since it serves radical ideologies. As in the case of France and Belgium, the members of radical groups easily blend in with the civilian population. They spread their propaganda particularly through the Internet and social media and establish terrorist cells around the world. They identify young people who have lost their sense of belonging to their country of residence and who think that they are excluded from it. These individuals lack important and necessary knowledge of religion, and they are thus easy targets for recruiters. The problem here is one of ideas and ideologies. It is imperative to replace the wrong ideas and false ideologies adopted by terrorists with the right ones. At the same time, the war against terrorism must teach terrorists how to continually doubt their ability to attain their ends. It needs to sap their self-confidence. Indeed, it looks like terrorism will only meet its end at the hands of those who know how to make terrorists question their criminal beliefs and how to shake their unbounded conviction in their ultimate victory.
