There are 44 major Islamic terrorist organizations in the world focused on imposing their rule on the West, with the Islamic State, responsible for this week’s bombings in Belgium, the best funded and networked in the world, according to a new listing of the killer groups.
“There are more militant Islamic groups now than ever before in history,” declares the just published Encyclopedia of Militant Islam from the London Center of Policy Research. “Islamic extremism is one of the deadliest sources of terror in the world,” it concluded.
The encyclopedia is a grim map of the Islamic terror groups around the world, virtually all based in Muslim nations.
“The nations with the highest rate of terrorist attacks are majority Muslim societies,” said the book. “Major terrorist attacks worldwide tend to be committed by Islamic extremists,” it said, citing a University of Maryland database. “The surge of global terrorism is fueled by Islamist extremism.”
The 44 Islamic terror groups listed are just of the biggest and best funded. The list was collected by author Bryan Griffin. Experts Herb London and Jed Babbin, who also co-authors the weekly presidential report card for Secrets, aided and wrote the introduction and epilogue to the well-researched, 319-page encyclopedia.
Babbin said that “every newsroom in the world should have a copy of this on their desks.” It may be the fullest accounting of the Islamic terror threat for the public yet.
The authors urge the West to wake up and take Islamic terrorists on directly. They slap European “naivete” in hoping democratic principles will save the day, and mock President Obama for repeatedly saying the al Qaeda has been defanged.
Each entry for the 44 shows a map and give details of supporters, territory seized, funding, terror activities and ties to other killing organizations.
For the Islamic State, it puts cash and assets at $2 billion and daily oil sales of $3 million. What’s more, it said that the Islamic State pays troops well enough that it “makes fighting for them more lucrative than joining any other militant group in the region.”
And while the experts said that Islamic State competes with al Qaeda, it found that 60 militant Islamic groups have vowed to support the Islamic State.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
