IRAQ - The Salafi Phenomenon.

In its Aug. 2 edition, The Christian Science Monitor looked at the origins and goals of Salafi militancy, and of al-Qaeda in particular. Its briefing explored how the movement was evolving at a time of concern about terror cells in Western cities such as London. Is the global jihad spreading to Europe? The paper said: "It seems clear that this is happening. Events like the London bombings, as well as online postings by Islamist extremists calling Muslim brethren in Western countries to action, suggest to many counterterrorism experts that the global jihad has entered a new phase.

"All of the members of the London terror cells were longtime residents of Britain, and some were born there, confirming the view that Islamist extremism has taken root. While attacks appear to have ebbed in places such as Indonesia, they have spread to what experts consider the fertile ground of the 'ummah', or Islamic community of Europe".

Experts do not foresee jihadism becoming a mass movement. Still, if al-Qaeda's Salafi ideology hooks a few hundred followers in countries with many Muslim immigrants, that is enough to wreak havoc, with recruitment in Europe fuelled by a sense of isolation and disappointment in Western culture. Another factor may be freedom of speech. Hate-filled rhetoric and extremist ideals have been spread in European mosques and over the airwaves, even as the governments have pressed Muslim states to curb the freedom and teachings of radical Salafi religious men.

Mainstream Muslim groups in America note that US Muslims differ from their counterparts in Europe - they are often from more prosperous backgrounds in their home countries and less confined to Muslim ghettos. Still, experts point out that the British Salafi bombers were not living in poverty. The key problem appears to be alienation which opens minds to radical Salafi thinking. And in that sense, America may have a problem. Recent cases in Virginia and California involving Salafi religious men allegedly recruiting young Muslims for jihad suggest the dissemination of extremist ideals exists in isolated cases.

While Salafi groups like South-East Asia's Jemaah Islamiyah (Islamic Group) and the pan-Islamic Hizb ut-Tahrir (Party of Liberation) have some doctrinal differences with al-Qaeda, they have overlapping interests. Are the goals of Salafi jihadists changing? Not much, experts say. The targets and tactics may be influenced by current circumstances - such as the US presence in Iraq - but an unchanging worldview underlies it all: The Salafi jihadists see Muslims as locked in a life-or-death struggle with a West which hates Islam.

While the goal of a Salafi super-state remains central, the impetus for jihad can shift. Salafi ideologues motivate adherents by citing specific cases of perceived injustice. The South-East Asian militants behind a deadly October 2002 attack in Bali wanted to undermine the Indonesian state in order to create a Sunni caliphate there. They subscribed to the broader vision of a Sunni caliphate running the whole world.

Al-Qaeda is against democracy as most in the West would understand it. What it wants is the replacement of existing authoritarian regimes with religious states. These would impose an extremely rigid Sunni view of the Qur'an on citizens. In al-Qaeda's view, Western democratic ideas stand in the way of God's will on earth.

Al-Qaeda's Egyptian Salafi ideologue Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi - the self-proclaimed mastermind of al-Qaeda in Iraq - have attacked democracy as a "trick" to deny Muslims the full flowering of Islam. In his videotaped statement on June 17, Zawahiri lashed out at Egypt's democracy protestors for playing an American game. It was an attack on Egypt's secular democracy and reform movements such as Kifaya. Analysts saw it as a thrust at Sunni groups like Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, which favours Islamic law but claims it is committed to democratic institutions. To Zawahiri, such groups can only thwart the utopian vision of a vast Sunni caliphate.

In a video aired on Aug. 4 by al-Jazeera, Zawahiri blamed UK Prime Minister Tony Blair for the July suicide bombings in London, saying: "Blair has brought to you destruction in central London and there will be more of that, God willing". He warned the US of further attacks, saying the horrors would be worse than Vietnam, saying: "As for you, the Americans, what you have seen in New York and Washington, what losses you see in Afghanistan and Iraq...are merely the losses of initial clashes. If you go on with the same policy of aggression against Muslims, you will see, with God's will, what will make you forget the horrible things in Vietnam and Afghanistan". At his ranch in Crawford, Texas, Bush said: "The comments by the number two man of al-Qaeda make it clear Iraq is a part of this war on terror, and we're at war. People like Zawahiri have an ideology that is dark, dim, backwards". Here are excerpts from Zawahiri's video statement: "To the people of the crusader coalition... our blessed Shaikh Osama has offered you a truce so that you leave Muslim land. As he said you will not dream of security until we live it as a reality in Palestine and until all your infidel armies leave Prophet Mohammad's lands. Our message to you is clear, strong and final: there will be no salvation until you withdraw from our land, stop stealing our oil and resources and end support for infidel [Arab] rulers".

Al-Qaeda has increasingly used the Iraq campaign as a lightning rod for its followers in video and audio tapes issued to the news media. In December, bin Laden released a tape endorsing the insurgency and its leader Zarqawi, who bin Laden dubbed the "Emir" of the al-Qaeda organisation "in the land of the two rivers" (Mesopotamia).

The new Zawahiri tape follows a recent trend by al-Qaeda's senior leadership to attempt to influence internal politics of states involved in Iraq. In late October, days ahead of the US presidential election, a bin Laden video blamed Bush and the US for provoking terrorist attacks against the West and said: "[US policy] means the throwing of millions of pounds of bombs and explosives at millions of children in Iraq, as Bush junior did, in order to remove an old agent and replace him with a new puppet to assist in the pilfering of Iraq's oil and other outrages. Is defending oneself, and punishing the aggressor in kind, objectionable terrorism? If it is such, then it is unavoidable for us". The March 11, 2004 bombings in Madrid occurred just days before the Spanish election; at the time, Spain had thousands of troops in Iraq - they were withdrawn subsequently.

However Italian police investigating Hamdi Issac, the Ethiopian-born Briton arrested in Rome and suspected of involvement in the July 21 attempted bombings in London, suggested that Issac and the other bombers were probably unconnected to any larger group, raising the possibility of a new breed of militants with no Qaeda link. US intelligence says the senior leaders surrounding bin Laden remain isolated.

However, bin Laden and Zawahiri may be using audio and video tapes to radicalise Western Muslims in targeted countries. Despite mounting evidence that a majority of Britons see a link between the bombs and British policy in the Middle East and Afghanistan, Blair says the occupation of Iraq is no "justification" for terrorism. Zawahiri's video statement on Aug. 4 came on a day when police again flooded the UK capital to reassure Londoners.