Global Issues: Terrorism ~ Beyond Bin Laden

Heads up on a fantastic feature in the Guardian by Jason Burke on Al-Qaida: how great is the terrorism threat to the west?Jason Burke is author of the excellent '9/11 Wars' and also an earlier book on 'Al-Qaida'. Really good background reading for the Terrorism topic. His conclusion:"But does this all add up to al-Qaida 3.0, more dangerous than ever before? There's a simple test. Think back to those dark days of 2004 or 2005 and how much closer the violence seemed. Were you more frightened then, or now? The aim of terrorism is to inspire irrational fear, to terrorise. Few are as fearful today as they were back then. So that means there are two possibilities: we are wrong, ignorant or misinformed, and should be much more worried than we are; or our instincts are right, and those responsible for the violence are as far from posing an existential threat as they have ever been."