What would possess a man to take a hatchet and attempt to kill police in broad daylight (New York City)? Or mow down civilians (Jerusalem) or soldiers in uniform (Montreal suburb of St.-Jean-sur-Richelieu)? Or behead innocents at work (Oklahoma) or on the street (London, U.K.)?  Or shoot unarmed soldiers with the intent of killing the country’s Prime Minister (Ottawa)? Western politicians are stumped, resorting to words like “senseless” or “madness”.  However, the answer lies in the new and improved jihad strategy that is gaining traction throughout the world.

“The Call for Global Islamic Resistance”, written by al-Qaeda’s leading jihad theorist and strategic thinker Abu Musab al-Suri, an associate of Osama bin Laden, warns new jihadists not to make the same mistakes as before.  Al-Suri, an expert in chemical warfare who was implicated in the 2004 Madrid and 2006 London bombings, advocates commitment to the Islamic ideology as opposed to any Islamic group.

Al Suri urges recruits to stay under the radar and decentralize by establishing “small, completely separate non-central cells so that they will not be linked” as they were before.  These recruits must perform “Individual Terrorism Jihad” from wherever they are, including from western soil, in order to “awaken the spirit of jihad and resistance in Muslims”.

For lack of a better understanding, the mainstream media and many Western politicians attribute the cause of the recent attacks from this past week (including the two September beheadings in Oklahoma and the U.K.), to the random and deranged actions of lone wolves or madmen troubled by psychological issues; the insanity defense is often employed. These barbaric attacks have nothing to do with Islam, officials insist, despite the killers referring to the same source -- that being jihad and Allah -- to motivate their barbaric actions.

The global jihad 9/11-type strategy of spectacular, large-scale mass killing has been superseded by al-Suri’s strategy of individual, decentralized, small-scale, Lee Rigby-style operations where recruits are advised to utilize any kind of weapon. The establishment of small-cell terrorism was in reaction to improved Western counterterrorism measures that threatened the existence of jihadi terrorist groups.

The goal of these small cells was to remain undetected while bringing the operating government “to the point of security exhaustion, political confusion, and also economic exhaustion”, until eventually the government topples. It’s no wonder al-Suri’s book is referred to as the textbook of homegrown terrorism, the online Jihadi Mein Kampf.

The tremendous influence wielded by al-Suri’s jihadi teachings becomes quite apparent in the recent rants of Islamic State spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani. He orders his followers to kill unbelievers “in any manner or way, however it might be... smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car, or throw him down from a high place, or choke him or poison him."

Muslim terrorists across the world are doing just that: they are using anything that passes for a weapon on anyone who happens to be around.  Officials are still referring to them as lone wolves, or sometimes, if they dare, will refer to them as lone wolf “terrorists”.

But these so-called lone wolves are all motivated by the same jihad ideology, and are all part of the universal Islamic community (ummah) that is obligated to obey the call to jihad, as mandated in the Koran and other highly venerated root sources of Islamic doctrine.

The attackers only appear to be acting alone in order to avoid detection, as instructed by al-Suri, but they are all linked by a common mutual goal to subjugate unbelievers and enforce sharia law in a universal caliphate.

Furthermore, the individual terrorists who waged the recent inhuman attacks are neither disturbed nor mad. Their violence is ideologically-based: they are doing whatever it takes to fulfill the religious obligation of jihad. They are simply acting in accordance with the Koran. Western politicians are baffled by this, while the rest of us can’t help observing, along with Shakespeare, that: “Though this be madness, yet there is method in't.”

Now that the Islamic State has declared its new caliphate (an Islamic state ruled by sharia law) in Syria and Iraq, the call for jihad has become a caterwaul of warlike zeal and offensive aggression, just as it did at the time of the caliphate (632 AD) when an offensive jihad was waged to expand Islamic territory.

With the re-establishment of the caliphate, offensive jihad is once again on the menu, and is being waged not only against non-Muslim countries that were conquered and became part of the original caliphate (like Spain, Israel), but also against those countries that were not part of that caliphate (like the U.S., Canada, or the U.K.). Hence, the rise in jihad terror attacks worldwide.

There are three things to remember:

These killings are not senseless  -- attackers usually target uniformed guardians of the state and, even when caught, soak up huge state resources that clog up the system as a result of misguided attempts to deal with them by way of policing operations (prison, court, and legal fees).

These killers are neither lone nor mad -- they follow, and are linked by, Islamic doctrine which calls for every kind of violence, particularly killing against the unbelievers until they convert, pay the jizya (Islamic taxes) and accept permanent subjugation as dhimmis, or die.

These killings are not random -- the individual terror attacks are merely a change in fighting tactics, away from overt activities of terrorist groups towards covert activities of terrorist individuals linked by the common Islamic goals. The reason for this change of strategy was to escape detection, disruption and infiltration by Western counterterrorism operations that possess leading-edge technology.

This evolution of strategy has been laid down by Islamic theorists, like Abu Musab al-Suri, to confuse and disable Western intelligence and security apparatuses. The sad thing is that the West’s main chance of succeeding comes from the inaction and apathy of its leaders. It is forbidden to realize what is really going on when certain words are being expunged from Western vocabulary, like jihad and Islamic terrorism. What people can do, is refuse to have the wool pulled over their eyes by submissive politicians and Muslim apologists. 

We are at war with a new generation of jihadists.