The WAR Report has consistently warned of the significant danger to the security of the United States of the increasing radicalization of Muslim immigrant communities in Europe and the upsurge in terrorist recruitment that has resulted. The excellently researched report by Craig Whitlock for the Washington Post (In Europe, New Force for Recruiting Radicals) provides a classic case study of the emergence and development of an Islamic terrorist network and should, therefore, be studied by anyone interested in terrorism.

The report focuses first on the case of the former Lebanese army officer Mustapha Darwich Ramadan, who according to unnamed European intelligence sources recently resurfaced in Iraq as a leader of Ansar al-Islam . It is reported that Ramadan was arrested in Denmark in 1997 and subsequently convicted for his part in an armored car robbery that netted some $300,000. It transpired that Ramadan was already under surveillance by the Danish authorities, as a suspected Islamic extremist. Ramadan was released in June 2001 and was soon involved in another theft, although he escaped on this occasion either to Jordan or to Lebanon .