November 19, 2010: Most of the terrorism in the world is being carried out by Islamic radicals obsessed with the belief that Islam is under attack. Yet it is Islamic radicals who are doing most of the attacking. If that sounds nuts, well, it is, and an increasing number of Moslems agree. Most of the Islamic terrorism is concentrated in a few small areas (southern Somalia, the tribal territories of Pakistan along the Afghan border, central Iraq, southern Afghanistan, the Palestinian Territories of the West Bank and Gaza, southern Thailand, southern Philippines, northern Nigeria, southern Yemen and southern Russia). The only two places where there is a lot of non-Islamic terrorism is Colombia and Greece.

In short, religious and political terrorism is dominated by Islamic radicals fighting for everything from local domination to world conquest. Most Moslem nations (or those with a large Moslem minority) have suffered from some of this terrorism, and several (Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia) had to undertake massive police operations to suppress the Islamic radical groups. The terrorists were not completely eliminated, but their attacks have been reduced to a handful a year.

The motivation behind the Islamic terrorism is created by a collection of cultural artifacts that have caused similar problems in the Islamic world for centuries. But modern communications and transportation enable the terrorists to take their message, and their violence, just about anywhere. At least, they could until the non-Moslem world cracked down on the free movement of suspected Islamic terrorists. A growing number of Moslems opinion leaders are urging some fundamental changes in Islamic culture, to eliminate these constantly recurring outbreaks of terrorism. These changes are long overdue, but still very slow in arriving.