Beyond the beards and burqas - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

They're all out to get 'us'

The former prime minister does not differentiate between extremists - and believes any attempt to try to comprehend the reasons for their murderous rage is futile.

Instead, he takes the much more comforting view that they are "at war with civilisation". We are being targeted, so the reasoning goes, because we are too civilised.

This simplistic view, so often repeated, has gained currency in the British popular imagination. Indeed, for most Britons, July 7, 2005, will be remembered as the day that al-Qaeda terrorists attacked London.

But five-and-a-half years on, no link has been established between the 7/7 bombers and al-Qaeda. While it is possible that two of the bombers, Shehzad Tanweer and Mohammad Sidique Khan, may have visited training camps in Pakistan and met with al-Qaeda operatives, there is no firm evidence of this.

Last year a report from the Centre for Social Cohesion analysing Islamist terrorist offences in Britain over the past decade found that only 14.5 per cent of terrorism offenders had links with al-Qaeda. And yet, despite this, a belief persists that most Islamic jihadist attacks, including the 7/7 bombings, are somehow masterminded by al Qaeda.

Beyond the beards and burqas - Opinion - Al Jazeera English