It is the exclusive club that will accept almost anyone as a member. To become a Western foot soldier of jihadist Islam, and in some cases its sacrificial, exploding lamb, requires no one to pass a test of intellect or psychological stability.

Numerous examples of would-be martyrs have illustrated that violent Islamism is a death cult that holds a particularly seductive appeal to the social misfit. The ideology is easy to absorb. It paints the world in black and white. And it offers you a chance to belong. For those born into Muslim families in the West, it is often a sense of dislocation that encourages the first step on a path that can lead to terrorism. Unable to identify with the Islam and cultural practices of their parents, they feel equally alienated from the values of a host country that will, they feel, never fully accept them.

The non-Muslim convert to a militant interpretation of the faith may also have found himself searching in vain for a way to fit into a world where everyone else seems to be at home. Whether Muslim or non-Muslim, such young men — jihadist recruits in the West are usually aged under 35 and male — are often angry and confused, and thus ripe for selection.

Introduction to the God who will eventually require them to kill unbelievers comes to some via the internet; others are introduced by friends or preachers. The world is a simple place, they learn. It is inhabited by only two types of people: Muslim and non-Muslim. God’s intention, as revealed to his final prophet, Muhammad, is that Islam should reign supreme.

New Muslims who embrace violence have often proved to be vulnerable, highly biddable individuals. The consolation is that the qualities that led to them being selected as expendable pawns seem also to increase the likelihood of their failure.

Lone wolf convert, willing to kill and die and coming to a shopping centre near you? Possibly. Likely to make a stupid or careless mistake in planning or execution? Certainly. It will be consolation for very few that sooner or later one of them succeeds.

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