where is the front line in the war on terrorism?

On September 10 the BBC anchor Katty Kay, a frequent guest, gave a surprisingly prickly answer to a question that Chris Mattews puts to his guests every Sunday morning on his NBC show. Matthews wasn’t paying attention, but I was, because I’ve been following social and political attitudes in Europe:

MATTHEWS: Welcome back. Katty, tell me something I don’t know.

Ms. KAY: President Bush is going around the country telling people that Iraq is now the front line in the war on terrorism. Well, many in Britain would disagree with that. We’re starting to feel that Britain is the front line on the war on terrorism, certainly in Europe. And a recent poll shows that 13 percent of British Muslims think that the people who attacked the Underground in July of last year were martyrs. Thirteen percent.

That was my first inkling that the overheated partisan debate here at home is serving as a smokescreen from realities on the ground around the world. Now comes confirmation of Katty Kay’s fears. According to British authorities, Britain is now al Qaeda’s number-one target:

Britain has become the main target for a resurgent al-Qaida, which has successfully regrouped and now presents a greater threat than ever before, according to counter-terrorist officials. They have revised their views about the strength of the network abroad, and the methods terrorists are able to use in the UK.

The Guardian piece goes on to describe Britain’s homegrown recruits and the training they undergo:

Potential new recruits are carefully selected and targeted - mainly Muslim men in their late teens and early 20s - with recruiters often shunning the more obvious recruiting grounds of mosques and Islamic bookshops.

These young men are then put through a psychologically compelling indoctrination of weekend and evening briefings which start with legitimate religious lectures and prayer, but move gradually to more radical teachings and political discussions about the position of Islam in relation to the western world.

“It’s all about building up these recruits to consider themselves as Muslim ‘patriots’ and encouraging them to make the leap and ask themselves ‘This is how the west treats Muslims, what are we going to do about it?’” said one source.

This focus on the transnational character of the movement is similar to what was described in the interviews with the French jihadis I mentioned in this post.