Introduction

Organized terrorism remains a major threat facing many communities of the world. Despite the fact that more than a decade has passed since 9/11, which instigated a long and ongoing first-world ‘war on terror’, there are no signs that terrorism is receding. On the contrary, the most recent developments not only suggest that terrorism remains a large problem, but that it will be so for some time to come. For example, Christopher Stevens, the former American Ambassador in Libya, along with three other American diplomats, was brutally assassinated in September 2012 by a radical Libyan salafist group, some of whom were allegedly disengaged under a de-radicalization program initiated and supervised personally by Saif Dine al-Islam. In Arab countries that have recently experienced a regime change as a result of the outbreak of the Arab Spring almost two years ago (Libya, Tunisia, Yemen and Egypt), this has been associated with the rise of radical salafist movements in these countries. The outbreak of fighting in Syria has apparently attracted thousands of Ansar radical fighters (an offspring of al-Qaeda) to the country who are now dominating the core fighting units of the so-called ‘Free Syrian Army’. The war in Syria has also attracted several hundred Muslim citizens living in Western democratic states, such as Australia.