Jihadist Cells and IED Capabilities in Europe: Assessing The Present and Future Threat to The West (Enlarged Edition)

During the past 2 decades, two interrelated security threats have emerged that Western democracies will likely be forced to contend with for the foreseeable future. The first of these threats is multifaceted inasmuch as it stems from a complex combination of religious, political, historical, cultural, social, and economic motivational factors: the growing predilection for carrying out mass casualty terrorist attacks inside the territories of "infidel" Western countries by clandestine operational cells that are inspired ideologically by, and sometimes linked organizationally to, various jihadist networks with a global agenda. The most important of these latter networks is still the late Osama bin Laden's high-profile group Qa'idat al-Jihad (The Base [or Foundation] of the Jihad), together with its many organizational offshoots and regional affiliates.