QUOTE OF THE DAY

“These are people who, like Merah, progress into radicalism largely on their own, then decide to travel to Pakistan by their own means for what they expect will be training and confirmation as true jihadi,” says a high-ranking French antiterrorism official. “In contrast to earlier waves, these newer volunteers are organizing trips by themselves, without help from extremist networks that set things in the past. That obviously makes identifying these new radicals and their intentions more difficult — and intervening to interrupt their travel and training plans, a bigger challenge. The do-it-yourself approach means that, in many cases, we won’t get the chance to learn about the trajectory and intentions of these people before they turn up in Pakistan. They regard the contacts and training they receive in the region as spiritually, ideologically and psychologically essential to prepare for jihadist activity to follow. It’s getting harder to detect preparations for those trips and prevent them”