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Every time an act of terror or shooting occurs, Muslims closely watch the news with extreme trepidation praying that the suspect is not Muslim. This is not because these terrorists are likely to be Muslim but rather because in the instances where they happen to be, we see amplified mass media coverage and extreme unjustified hatred towards Muslims.

As a Muslim, I am tired of condemning terrorist attacks being carried out by inherently violent people who hijack my religion. I am tired of condemning these attacks to people who are calm and apathetic when Muslims are killed by these same radicalized terrorists.

I am tired of hearing the word "terrorist" not being used when the suspect in a terrorist attack is a non-Muslim. I am tired of the "mentally disabled" excuse being recycled when the suspect in a terrorist attack is a Caucasian. I am tired of seeing hundreds of terrorist attacks carried out by non-Muslims not get the same coverage of even a single terrorist attack where the suspect happens to be Muslim.

Above it all, I am tired of having to repeatedly say that Muslims are not terrorists. It is time we silence this Islamophobia with facts. My next five points will prove once and for all that Muslims are not terrorists:

1. Non-Muslims make up the majority of terrorists in the United States: According to the FBI, 94% of terrorist attacks carried out in the United States from 1980 to 2005 have been by non-Muslims. This means that an American terrorist suspect is over nine times more likely to be a non-Muslim than a Muslim. According to this same report, there were more Jewish acts of terrorism in the United States than Islamic, yet when was the last time we heard about the threat of Jewish terrorism in the media? For the same exact reasons that we cannot blame the entire religion of Judaism or Christianity for the violent actions of those carrying out crimes under the names of these religions, we have absolutely no justifiable grounds to blame Muslims for terrorism.

2. Non-Muslims make up the majority of terrorists in Europe: There have been over one thousand terrorist attacks in Europe in the past five years. Take a guess at what percent of those terrorists were Muslim. Wrong, now guess again. It's less than 2%.

3. Even if all terrorist attacks were carried out by Muslims, you still could not associate terrorism with Islam: There have been 140,000 terror attacks committed worldwide since 1970. Even if Muslims carried out all of these attacks (which is an absurd assumption given the fact mentioned in my first point), those terrorists would represent less than 0.00009 percent of all Muslims. To put things into perspective, this means that you are more likely to be struck by lightening in your lifetime than a Muslim is likely to commit a terrorist attack during that same timespan.

4. If all Muslims are terrorists, then all Muslims are peacemakers: The same statistical assumptions being used to falsely portray Muslims as violent people can be used more accurately to portray Muslims as peaceful people. If all Muslims are terrorists because a single digit percentage of terrorists happen to be Muslim, then all Muslims are peacemakers because 5 out of the past 12 Nobel Peace Prize winners (42 percent) have been Muslims.

5. If you are scared of Muslims then you should also be scared of household furniture and toddlers: A study carried out by the University of North Carolina showed that less than 0.0002% of Americans killed since 9/11 were killed by Muslims. (Ironically, this study was done in Chapel Hill: the same place where a Caucasian non-Muslim killed three innocent Muslims as the mainstream media brushed this terrorist attack off as a parking dispute). Based on these numbers, and those of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the average American is more likely to be crushed to death by their couch or television than they are to be killed by a Muslim. As a matter of fact, Americans were more likely to be killed by a toddler in 2013 than they were by a so-called "Muslim terrorist".

When a drunk driver causes a car accident, we never blame the car manufacturer for the violent actions of that driver. This is because we understand that we cannot blame an entire car company that produces millions of safe vehicles just because one of their cars was hijacked by a reckless person who used it to cause harm. So what right do we have to blame an entire religion of over 1.6 Billion peaceful people because of the actions of a relatively insignificant few?

I will not deny that terrorism is a real threat, it definitely is. However, it is extremely incorrect to associate the words "Muslim" and "terrorist" when literally all the facts implore you to do otherwise. The only way that we as Americans can defeat terrorism at home and across the world is by accurately targeting its root causes. There have been 355 mass shootings in the United States this year and falsely blaming Muslims for the San Bernardino shooting will do absolutely nothing to address this serious problem. It is time that we begin addressing terrorism on an educated and factual level.

As an American Muslim, I plead you all to deeply consider the facts mentioned here the next time you see a news headline about Muslims and terrorism. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that". We cannot allow the disparity in media coverage to blind us from the facts and turn us into hateful people, we are smarter than that.

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Muslims Are Not Terrorists: A Factual Look at Terrorism and Islam

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Every time an act of terror or shooting occurs, Muslims closely watch the news with extreme trepidation praying that the suspect is not Muslim.

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(Image: Getty)

A convicted terrorist known as the 'Silent Bomber' who plotted a massacre to mark the 10th anniversary of the 7/7 attacks has admitted keeping instructions on how to make explosives in his jail cell.

Mohammed Rehman, 26, was found with a handwritten recipe for a homemade bomb by a prison officer at high-security HMP Belmarsh, where he is serving a life sentence for planning an ISIS-inspired atrocity with his wife .

Rehmen was jailed for a minimum of 27 years in December 2015 after a trial heard how he and Sana Ahmed Khan used their home as a bomb factory filled with deadly chemicals.

He today pleaded guilty to another terror charge following the discovery of the folded A4 sheet in a cupboard in his cell during a search in February last year.

This notes contained instructions on how to make the explosive chemical Hexamethylene Triperoxide Diamine (HMTD,) which the Old Bailey heard could have produced a viable device capable of "causing life threatening injuries and damage to property" within several metres of a blast.

Appearing via video link from Whitemoor jail wearing a prison-issue grey jumper, a black prayer cap and sporting a bushy dark beard, he admitted a charge of possessing a document "containing information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism".

The discovery of the recipe came just months after he was jailed for an ISIS-inspired plot to attack a Westfield shopping centre or the London Underground on July 7, 2015 - a decade to the day after four suicide bombers killed 52 people on Tube trains and a bus in the capital.

Rehman, formerly of Reading, was sentenced to life in December 2015, while his wife Sana Ahmed Khan, 24, was jailed for 25 years for preparing acts for terror.

Calling himself the Silent Bomber, Rehman was caught when he went online to ask Twitter users for suggestions on which target to choose.

Thomas Halpin, prosecuting, told an earlier hearing on the latest charge at Westminster Magistrates' Court: "Notwithstanding the fact that this defendant is serving a life term, this offence was committed early on in that sentence."

HMTD is a primary high explosive, which is sensitive to ignition by heat, flame, spark, impact and friction and could cause serious injuries to those close to an explosion.

The recipe found in Rehman's cell would have provided 50g of HMTD, enough to cause life-threatening injuries to those within several metres of it, according to a case summary.

Judge John Bevan QC handed Rehman a three-year jail term today. It will be served concurrently so will not add to the terrorist's time behind bars.

But the judge warned the parole board should consider the fresh sentence when the time came to discuss Rehman's potential release.

Mr Bevan told him: "The parole board should bear this offence in mind when eventually they come to consider whether you are suitable for release.

"Whether this offence will affect their view or not and extend the time you will serve as part of the life sentence is not a matter for me, but will be a matter for them in due course."

Rehman claimed he had written out the document in the knowledge his cell would be searched and hoped it discovery would result in him being put into segregation or moved to a different prison.

Prosecutor Steven Gray said the prisoner had claimed he felt uncomfortable and a "victim of persecution" in Belmarsh, although he had not reported any bullying and said he had a number of friends who would come into his cell.

After the discovery of the recipe, which he said he wrote from memory and did not intend to share with anyone, he was put into segregation for around three weeks and later moved from the prison.

In mitigation, Benjamin Williams said Rehman had committed the offence within the first month of his sentence, when he was still susceptible to the lure of jihad.

He said: "It is understandable that, having been seduced by the ideology, and having immersed himself in it and jihadism as a way of thinking, in the early months of his sentence he had not yet shaken off something akin to an addiction.

"He tells me now he is using his time constructively, working in cardboard recycling and the rest of the time studying English language and literature."

He added that Rehman should be given credit for pleading guilty at the earliest opportunity.

Also in the Belmarsh cell were graphics featured in Rehman's first trial and an A4 pad which contained the handwritten words "Phase two Jihad", "They kill and are killed" and other expressions, the court was told.

A pamphlet which was referred to as an Islamic State guide was also discovered.

As he handed down the jail sentence, Mr Bevan said he hoped Rehman was spending his jail time constructively, and that he would apply himself "to a more law-abiding approach".

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Terrorist who planned 7/7 anniversary attack kept bomb-making notes in jail cell

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A convicted terrorist known as the 'Silent Bomber' who plotted a massacre to mark the 10th anniversary of the 7/7 attacks has admitted keeping instructions on how to make explosives in his jail cell.

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You are more likely to be struck by lightning than killed or injured in a terrorist attack.

This is the type of rhetoric that is often used to calm the public when the national threat level is increased. Although the days of the color-coded ranking system from the Department of Homeland Security are long gone, the U.S. government is still quick to warn the public when there are credible reports of an upcoming terrorist plot against Americans.

Public concerns over terrorism have certainly declined precipitously since September 11, 2001 and have remained far behind the economy, job creation and political polarization on the list of voters' worries. Yet it only takes one mass casualty attack or a single, publicized beheading of an American citizen to regain the attention of the American public. The fact that 71 percent of American voters in the 2014 midterms were worried about a terrorist attack on the U.S. homeland is an indication that violent groups like Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula are still hovering in the minds of many Americans.

Like it or not, terrorism will continue to be a problem for the United States, its allies and the rest of the international community. Like narcotics or petty crime, terrorism cannot be eliminated-it can only be degraded and managed to a point that allows everyone to live their lives in relative peace.

Here is a list of the five deadliest terrorist groups that are operating today, and the five that are no doubt at the top of Washington's radar:

1. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant:

It takes a special kind of terrorist organization to force the world's most powerful and professional military into action halfway around the globe. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, ISIS or simply the Islamic State) is exactly this type of organization: strong enough to rout several divisions of a national army, and rich enough to sustain their operations at an impressive pace.

Estimated by the Central Intelligence Agency to have a size of 31,000 fighters, ISIL has single-handedly swept across an area of the Middle East roughly the size of Belgium. The swift and easy capture of Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, by several thousand ISIL fighters in June 2014 had the effect of not only embarrassing the Iraqi government in the eyes of its people, but revealing how poorly led and pathetic the Iraqi security forces had become. Absent President Barack Obama's decision to authorize targeted airstrikes against ISIL positions in early August, there was a very real possibility that several more divisions of the Iraqi army could have collapsed.

A major difference between ISIL and the litany of other Islamist terrorist organizations competing for fundraising and recruits is that the former is succeeding in a task that not even Al Qaeda could accomplish: capturing territory, holding that territory and declaring an Islamic caliphate in the very heart of the Arab world. And ISIL is doing it in the most brutal way imaginable: rounding up and executing anyone who shows the slightest bit of resistance to its domination. At least four cases of mass killings by ISIL terrorists have been documented, including the execution of 250 Syrian troops in August after the group captured the al-Tabqa air base. Several weeks ago, over 200 Iraqi tribesmen were massacred west of Ramadi in what can only be described as an attempt by ISIL to extinguish any competitor, however passive, who dares to rise up and challenge its authority.

Combined with a Treasury Department study that assesses ISIL's crude oil revenue at a value of $1 million per day, it's safe to say that the United States and the coalition it has assembled has a lot of work ahead of them.

2. Boko Haram:

The jihadist group in northeastern Nigeria catapulted to the world's attention when a boarding school in the Nigerian border town of Chibok was raided in the middle of the night. Around 300 Nigerian schoolgirls were taken captive by Boko Haram militants and threatened with forced marriage and forced conversion.

Yet Boko Haram has been menacing Nigeria's northern communities for years. Public reports state that the organization was founded in 2002, but it's activities only reached global spotlight in 2009, when Boko Haram's new leader, Abubakr Shekau, launched what can only be described as an insurgency against the Nigerian government using nothing but terrorist tactics.

Boko Haram has razed entire villages to the ground, its inhabitants often killed with bullets to the head or burned alive. The Council on Foreign Relations estimates that at least 6,742 people have been killed as a result of Boko Haram's violence since May 2011-although the murky nature of violence in Nigeria and multiple claims of responsibility guarantee that this is an incredibly conservative figure. No target is off limits for Boko Haram either; last Monday, over fifty schoolchildren were killed in a suicide bombing that many speculate was a Boko Haram member. This wouldn't be all that surprising, given the group's history of destroying schools and burning students alive in their dormitories.

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The 5 Deadliest Terrorist Groups on the Planet

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You are more likely to be struck by lightning than killed or injured in a terrorist attack. This is the type of rhetoric that is often used to calm the public when the national threat level is increased. Although the days of the color-coded ranking system from the Department of Homeland Security are long gone, the U.S.

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A record number of terrorist attacks were planned, foiled or carried out in European Union countries last year, with the UK reporting the highest number of attacks.

EU law enforcement agency Europol said there were 211 attacks in 2015, the highest since records began in 2006.

Of those, the UK had the highest with 103 attacks, thought mostly to have been in Northern Ireland.

More than half of arrests in the EU - 687 - were "for jihadist terrorism".

Of these arrests, 94% were later found guilty in court.

The failed, foiled and completed terrorist attacks were in six EU member states - Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, Spain and the UK.

A spokeswoman for Europol said it did not have a breakdown of the number of terror attacks that had actually been carried out in the EU.

'Worrying developments'

France had the highest number of planned, foiled or completed attacks - 72 - followed by Spain with 25.

According to the agency's EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report, there were more than 1,000 arrests for terrorism-related offences last year - 424 of which were in France.

In addition to the jihadist terrorism arrests, there were 67 for left-wing terror, 11 right-wing terror and 168 separatist. A further 144 arrests were unspecified.

Europol said 151 people died and more than 360 were injured in terrorist incidents last year.

In its report, Europol said: "As in previous years, the attacks specifically classified as separatist terrorism accounted for the largest proportion, followed by jihadist attacks."

Europol also said the report outlines two "worrying developments".

"The overall threat is reinforced by the substantial numbers of returned foreign terrorist fighters that many member states now have on their soil, and the significant rise in nationalist (xenophobic), racist and anti-Semitic sentiments across the EU, each resulting in acts of right-wing extremism."

Potential targets

Europol said there was "no concrete evidence to date that terrorist travellers systematically use the flow of refugees to enter Europe unnoticed".

However, it noted that two of the men who carried out the Paris attacks in November, which killed 130 people, entered the EU through Greece as part of the influx of refugees from Syria.

The report said nuclear power plants and nuclear weapon facilities in the EU "remain potential targets for terrorists", as does "the deliberate contamination of water supplies".

It added: "Explosive remnants of war and illicit trafficking in explosives from former conflict areas present a significant threat to the EU.

"Chemical facilities or companies, especially these perceived as having a low profile until recently, can become a vulnerable target.

"Terrorists prefer the use of conventional firearms and explosives because of their availability, simplicity and effectiveness."

Europol also described cyber terrorism as "high potential but currently low probability".

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A record number of terrorist attacks were planned, foiled or carried out in European Union countries last year, with the UK reporting the highest number of attacks. EU law enforcement agency Europol said there were 211 attacks in 2015, the highest since records began in 2006.

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Muslims becoming radicalized and joining the Islamic State terror group - and in some cases leaving their home countries to travel to the Middle East - is becoming a growing crisis in the West.

Local imams are speaking about having to fight against a tide of young people who are turning to radical Islam in increasing numbers, Twitter is scrambling to shut down Islamic State accounts that spew propaganda and advertise the brutal acts the group carries out, and airport customs officials are now on the lookout for people who are trying to enter Syria illegally through Turkey.

The Islamic State (also known as ISIS, ISIL, and Daesh) has carefully marketed its "caliphate" - an area about the size of Belgium that the terror group controls in Iraq and Syria - as a utopia. The group has also been incredibly successful at using the internet to recruit fighters and other Muslims to join.

Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger wrote in their book, "ISIS: The State of Terror," that "as part of its quest to terrorize the world, ISIS has mastered an arena no terrorist group had conquered before - the burgeoning world of social media."

As Stern and Berger noted, earlier terror groups like Al Qaeda haven't been nearly as successful in pushing their propaganda to a mass audience.

But by using Westerners like the now infamous "Jihadi John," who has since been identified as a British Muslim, to behead other Westerners on videos uploaded to the internet, ISIS quickly caught the attention of just about every major news outlet in the world.

After ISIS terrorists started beheading Western journalists and aid workers, its propaganda quickly reached a mainstream audience.

"Jihadist propaganda had had a history measured in decades, but it had long been obscure and limited to an audience of mostly true believers," Stern and Berger wrote. "Suddenly, the stuff was everywhere, intruding on the phones, tablets, and computers of ordinary people who were just trying to go about their daily business online."

Through this online propaganda, ISIS not only touts its violent acts against "non-believers," but also the lifestyle the group claims to offer its members, referred to by some within the group as "five-star jihad." Most recently, ISIS media channels announced the reopening of a luxury hotel in Mosul, complete with a photo spread of the facilities.

ISIS Chicks Show Off Their "Five Star Jihad" Lifestyle By Posing On A BMW Toting AK-47s - http://t.co/TIT71ZSv3Bpic.twitter.com/QgO53IqVyu- Diyar (@DKurdistan) March 22, 2015

And ISIS isn't just targeting Arabic-speaking Muslims who are already in the Middle East. The New York Times reported last month that foreigners make up half of ISIS' fighting force, and an estimated 4,000 come from Western countries.

To further capitalize on this influx of foreigners, ISIS has released propaganda videos featuring foreign fighters who speak Western languages and can encourage others to come to Syria to wage violent jihad or help the caliphate in some other way.

And these Western recruits, many of whom are recent Muslim converts who are searching for adventure or a purpose for their lives, are becoming "some of the most dangerous and fanatical adherents to radical Islam," according to The Washington Post.

The newspaper also pointed out that "the number of converts streaming to aid the Islamic State ... is far greater than in any other modern conflict in the Islamic world."

To lure these new recruits into a new life in the caliphate, ISIS recruiters - many of whom are young women - are on Twitter and Tumblr, updating their followers about their lives and portraying ISIS territory in an overwhelmingly positive light.

Recruiters also use messaging apps like Kik to communicate with those who want advice on how to cross into Syria. ISIS' propaganda arm has created brochures on how to get there and what to pack, and recruiters can arrange for an ISIS member to meet new recruits in Turkey and help them across the Syrian border.

The idea is to remove potential barriers of entry into ISIS rather than create them, helping huge numbers of foreign fighters to swell their forces in the Middle East.

While Al Qaeda does have foreign fighters in its ranks, the central organization and its offshoots are much more restrictive than ISIS, and their media campaigns aren't as wide reaching or sophisticated. They also missed a big recruitment opportunity after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks in the US.

"It was as if bin Laden believed al Qaeda could somehow continue to act as the hidden hand after killing thousands of Americans in a single unforgettable spectacle," Stern and Berger wrote. "It took years for al Qaeda to begin fully exploiting the media-ready elements of September 11."

Radicalized Westerners have caught onto this.

The New York Times told the story of Ifthekar Jaman, who lived in England and was born to parents who emigrated from Bangladesh. He traveled to Syria to join a jihadist group, but had trouble getting accepted into the Nusra Front, the Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria.

Ifthekar met a man on a bus in Turkey who took him to a Nusra recruitment office, but the group turned him down because he didn't have the recommendation letters he needed to get in.

Shiraz Maher, a research fellow at the International Center for the Study of Radicalization in London, explained to the Times: "Al Nusra has a vigorous vetting process, especially for foreigners. It's called tazkiyah, and it means that you must be vouched for by someone already in the organization. The system has worked well for Arabs with links to the group, but it has made it much more difficult for Europeans to join."

When Al Qaeda was first created, the group noted in a memo that there were four requirements for membership - swearing allegiance to the emir and being obedient, obtaining a personal referral from a member of Al Qaeda's inner circle, and displaying "good manners," according to Stern and Berger. Al Qaeda also funded foreign fighters around the world who could plan attacks, but these fighters couldn't necessarily call themselves members of the central group itself.

ISIS, on the other hand, says: "'If you're a Muslim, you're already part of the Caliphate,'" Maher said. "'So even if you're too fat, or too old to be a fighter, we'll find something else for you to do. You have a right to emigrate. We'll find a place for you.'"

And while ISIS does vet aspiring militants, social media has made it much easier for radicalized Westerners to find and connect with a recruiter who can vouch for them and help them travel to the caliphate. Al Qaeda has also established a presence on social media, but its exclusionary policies still make it more difficult for outsiders to penetrate the organization.

Another important point of distinction that sets ISIS apart from rival terror groups like Al Qaeda is that it is trying to establish itself as a legitimate authority that controls territory and provides civil services to its residents.

While some Al Qaeda affiliates have considered doing the same in the past, they saw it more as a PR opportunity rather than a necessary function that was core to its mission, Stern and Berger argue. ISIS "seemed to relish" providing these services and the group's members "radiated enthusiasm for these projects," according to the book.

ISIS established consumer protection bureaus, displayed its flag prominently in public, and set up police forces.

Part of this has to do with its message that any "true" believers should emigrate to the caliphate. In his first public speech after declaring himself the "caliph" or leader, of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi said that " hijrah (or emigration) to the land of Islam is obligatory" for Muslims. And ISIS wasn't just calling for fighters to join its caliphate, but also for doctors, administrators, engineers, scholars, and women who could marry future martyrs and bear their children.

Al Qaeda, however, sees the caliphate as a "distant goal" that would not be reached in the immediate future, Stern and Berger note.

And while ISIS compels Muslims to travel to its territory, the group also encourages "lone wolf" attacks in Western nations. This threat is becoming of increasing concern for countries that already have a hard time monitoring potential extremists, some of whom carry out attacks on their own terms without being directed by any leaders within the terror group itself.

Through these means, aspiring jihadists can create a Twitter account and say they're members of ISIS even if they have only minimal ties to the organization. Social media has also made it easy for foreigners to connect with fighters and recruiters in the Middle East without ever having to set foot in Syria.

We saw this happen recently with two gunmen who shot a security officer in Texas at a contest that invited participants to draw the Prophet Mohammed.

One of the gunmen maintained a Twitter account with which he discussed ISIS and pledged allegiance to the group. ISIS later claimed responsibility for the attack, although it's unclear if the gunmen were merely inspired by ISIS or if the group actually ordered the attack.

The US government is now scrambling to contain this threat. Just this week, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hosted a panel called "Jihad 2.0: Social Media in the Next Evolution of Terrorist Recruitment." Berger was a member of the panel.

"What ISIS has accomplished so far will have long-term ramifications for jihadist and other extremist movements that may learn from its tactics," Stern and Berger wrote in their book. "A hybrid of terrorism and insurgency, the former al Qaeda affiliate, booted out of that group in part due to its excessive brutality, is rewriting the playbook for extremism."

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ISIS has mastered a crucial recruiting tactic no terrorist group has ever conquered

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Muslims becoming radicalized and joining the Islamic State terror group - and in some cases leaving their home countries to travel to the Middle East - is becoming a growing crisis in the West.

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The Syria quagmire

Turkey's foreign policy has been a moveable feast recently -- from pushing for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's fall and largely ignoring ISIS, to an about-face on both.

"Turkey is becoming increasingly entangled in the Syria quagmire," Fadi Hakura, a Turkey expert and associate fellow at London-based Chatham House, told CNN. "As Turkey becomes more involved in the implosion of Syria, we are seeing the instability there crossing over the border and impacting security."

At the start of the Syrian civil war, Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan backed the rebels, who were Sunni Muslim, against the regime of Assad, who is Alawite.

"Erdogan was one of the main players who took sides in the Syrian conflict to accelerate the downfall of Assad in Syria," Hakura said. "He brought Turkey deeper and deeper into the conflict, which has produced the negative blowback we see today in Turkey."

Turkey had left ISIS alone, and ISIS largely left Turkey alone in terms of attacks, though fighters and supplies were routed through the country. By the time Turkey decided to take more precautions, ISIS had established many footholds and supporters.

Turkey launched its biggest military offensive in Syria last summer, backing opposition forces to drive ISIS out of a strategic area along the border and block further advances by Syrian Kurds allied with Turkish separatists. The advance drew approval from Russia and air support from the United States.

The Kurds, an ethnic group in the Middle East, have increasingly influenced developments in the region, fighting for autonomy in Turkey, and playing a prominent role battling ISIS in the Syrian conflict.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had made peace with Turkey's Kurdish population a few years ago, but then started to strike Kurdish forces across the border in Syria. Snap elections hurt the Kurdish vote and restored Erdogan's grip on government. And by 2016, the familiar violent insurgency of Kurdish groups was back.

The militant Kurdistan Worker's Party, or PKK, have mostly targeted military and police personnel, but the Kurdish Freedom Hawks (TAK), a splinter nationalist group, recently carried out a deadly attack targeting an Istanbul soccer stadium.

"One of the problems with the any potential ceasefire with the PKK is an emotional issue," Simon Waldman, a visiting research fellow at King's College London and the co-author of The New Turkey and Its Discontents, told CNN's Ian Lee. "When you look at the PKK and the attacks they've committed, especially when they target security personnel, the police and armed forces...it's very difficult emotionally for Turkey's politicians to have some sort of ceasefire."

The Kurdish issue can be handled effectively by way of an ambitious program of human rights and democracy, Hakura said, emphasizing that this tact was essential to improving security in Turkey.

"During times of increased democracy, the Kurdish issue became less and less pronounced in Turkey's profile," Hakura told CNN. "If Turkey resolves the Kurdish question within a democratic framework, it will prevent outside, regional players from taking advantage of these divisions."

Political polarization

Turkey's pervasive political and social polarization has contributed to an atmosphere where attacks are more likely.

"The political and social culture is so abrasive, fragmented, and divided, along ethnic, sectarian, and ideological lines, that it has created an environment where these violent incidents can take place," Hakura told CNN.

Internal struggles within the government are also at a tipping point, with supporters of Fethullah Gulen, Erdogan's ally-turned-rival who now lives in the United States, being blamed for a bloody failed coup in June.

Instead of using the coup to bring about unity, the government adopted policies that re-energized divisions in Turkish society and political culture, Hakura said.

"The more divided you are, the more opportunities you create for regional players to take advantage of them," Hakura said. "Promoting internal unity will strengthen Turkey's stability and security in one of the most volatile parts of the world."

Waldman told CNN that Turkey's post-coup purges have left a security vacuum in the country at a critical moment.

"I don't think at this present juncture Turkey can confront multiple terrorist groups at the same time," Waldman said. "Turkey's military and security services are facing purges. There are thousands of personnel who have been, if not detained, suspended from their jobs. This has left a vacuum in their ability to confront terrorist threats."

"As a result, dealing with two significant terrorist groups at the same time is an incredible burden. What is needed for Turkey is a pragmatic policy approach in fighting terrorism," Waldman added.

Erdogan's growing closeness with Russia and abandonment of the Syrian Sunni rebels he'd once supported could also have created new opponents and enemies.

Russia has said it has no conclusions yet on the motive behind the assassination of Ambassador Andrey Karlov by a man shouting about Aleppo, the northern Syrian city held by rebels that was besieged, bombed and finally retaken by Russian-backed Syrian forces. The Kremlin has pushed back against Turkey's allegations that the Gulen movement was behind the assassination.

"You've got a Turkish state that's clearly under a lot of pressure, dealing with a lot of issues at the same time," Raffaello Pantucci, director of international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute, told CNN. "As a result, you can wage attacks in Turkey with greater ease, and you're more likely to succeed."

And whatever the internal and external politics of Turkey, there will always be the geography.

Turkey's position at the intersection of Europe and Asia has long made it the place for the clash or melding of cultures. Turkey was established as a secular if majority Muslim nation, and while religion began to play a more important role under Erdogan, there are still many places that celebrate Western freedoms -- like the Reina nightclub, which ISIS apparently condemned as a place where "Christians were celebrating."

Even more relevant now, perhaps, is its 500-mile border with Syria -- essentially an open border that has allowed fighters and resources to flow to Syria for years -- as well as refugees to flood out -- but also now allowing in those who wish harm inside Turkey.

"One of the main problems Turkey has at the moment is that they're sitting next to a major civil war, where many insurgent groups are using Turkey as an entry point," Pantucci told CNN.

Pantucci suggests that Turkey has become an easy target in large part because of its location.

"The tempo of attacks is increasing because the Turks are dealing with multiple problems at the moment. Not only are they seeing attacks by ISIS, but the other groups feeding the fight in Syria," Pantucci says. "In Turkey, you're looking at a security environment that is going to be quite difficult in the immediate future."

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why turkey is such a target for terror - cnn

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The Syria quagmire Turkey's foreign policy has been a moveable feast recently -- from pushing for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's fall and largely ignoring ISIS, to an about-face on both. "Turkey is becoming increasingly entangled in the Syria quagmire," Fadi Hakura, a Turkey expert and associate fellow at London-based Chatham House, told CNN.

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A century ago, British women still did not have the vote and violent protests by the suffragettes were escalating. Were these women seen at the time as something akin to terrorists, or as activists legitimately fighting for a political cause?

Frustrated by the lack of reform at the start of the 20th Century, hundreds of suffragettes were jailed after taking part in protests.

Until 1912 the campaigning was largely within the law, mainly chaining themselves to railings and disturbing the peace. But activism grew to include planting bombs, smashing shop windows and acts of arson.

Targets were not just buildings, even artworks were mutilated - most notably Velazquez's famous Rokeby Venus, repeatedly slashed with a meat cleaver at the National Gallery in 1914.

There had been earlier concerns. In 1909, the government had been concerned about a plot to assassinate Prime Minister Herbert Asquith. The perceived threat came from an unidentified "little woman" picketing the House of Commons and "wearing a Tam o' Shanter", according to a file only released in 2006 by the National Archives in Kew.

The government's concern was heightened when it was informed that two women had been observed practicing with revolvers at a shooting range.

But the period after 1912 marked a clear escalation.

How suffragettes were described

April 1913: Times newspaper - "militant movement of the Women's Social and Political Union..."

June 1914: Home secretary Reginald McKenna - "these women are so foolish and mischievous"

Also McKenna: "What is thought is that the indignity of being sent to Broadmoor as criminal lunatics would bring them to their senses"

In 1913, Emily Davison threw herself in front of the King's horse at the Derby and died from her injuries. Historian Sir Brian Harrison thinks she was probably seeking martyrdom - as later Irish militants did.

"A funeral is a great opportunity for publicity. The militants made the most of the publicity resulting from that death," he says.

But "terrorism" is far too strong a word for the actions of the suffragettes, considering the context, says Baroness Brenda Dean.

"If you look at any major social change, within it somewhere has been a degree of militancy... You've got to throw yourself back to the turn of the century when the whole social order was very different."

Their actions have to be seen through the prism of their inability to use normal means to advocate their views, she suggests.

"These were pretty desperate measures by people in a desperate situation."

Baroness Dean is calling on the government to give a posthumous apology for the way the suffragettes were treated.

Krista Cowman, a professor of women's studies at the University of Lincoln, says the suffragettes would have been considered terrorists at the time but not in the same way people would view terrorists today.

"The key difference you have to remember, unlike today's terrorist act, where acts are being committed by people who do have a vote, who are enfranchised, these women were completely outside the system but asked to work within it."

It was natural that the establishment would fear the suffragettes.

Lloyd George's failure

My great-great-grandfather David Lloyd George had always supported women getting the vote when in opposition, but didn't make much of it when in power.

Votes for women was too difficult to swing and he cared about it less than his welfare reforms - it was a useful Conservative-bashing tool when in opposition but too controversial once he was in power.
Dan Snow, presenter, The Lost World of the Suffragettes
"Because there were many other political issues at that time, such as the Irish militancy, it makes it more dangerous. If you can't contain your own women, particularly middle class women who have traditionally been a quieter group, then you really are losing a grip on everything," she adds.

However, Prof June Purvis, who wrote a biography of Emmeline Pankhurst, disagrees, and says that there is a great difference between lawlessness and being labelled a terrorist.

Key dates for women's suffrage

1867: MP John Stuart Mill supports equality for women in the Second Reform Act, but is defeated

1903: The Women's Social and Political party, later referred to as the suffragettes, holds its first meeting

1918: Representation of the People's Act allows women over 30 to vote

1928: Women over 21 get the vote

Listen to women describing their role in the suffrage movement
Purvis says the Liberal government tortured women by force feeding them when they were on hunger strike and perpetrated other indignities.

"It wasn't just forcible feeding. On Black Friday, 18 November 1910, women were kicked to the ground, punched, their breasts were pinched."

Helen Moyes - who died in 1979 - belonged to the non-militant arm of the suffrage movement, known as the "suffragists". She objected to the militant tactics employed by Christabel Pankhurst, a daughter of the movement's leader Emmeline.

"I saw no value or use of militancy in a cause. I told her that and said 'you use argument and reason in a cause, not militancy'," she told historian Sir Brian Harrison, who interviewed 180 people in the 1970s as part of his research on the suffragette movement.

Independent newspapers, later banned by the government, clever photo journalism and mass protests all brought the cause for women's rights to the public eye.

Find out more

The Lost World of the Suffragettes will be broadcast on Saturday 11 February at 20:00 GMT on BBC Radio 4

Catch up later via the iPlayer

The Suffragette-defaced penny Jenni Murray on being a 20th Century woman
Dressmaker Elsie Flint, a suffragette who was part of the militant arm, recalled in the 1970s: "People laugh and say what ridiculous things to do, but it was never done for fun. They had to get the notice of the public and that was their way of doing it."

On the afternoon of 1 March 1912 around 150 women were standing in front of shop windows and government offices in London's West End and simultaneously took hammers and stones from their pockets and smashed the windows, explains historian Elizabeth Crawford.

"There was great confusion, they didn't try to run away. They were arrested immediately."

One of the suffragettes, Victoria Lidiard, recalled the attack in the 1970s: "We started at the Marble Arch and... were stationed right down from Marble Arch to Tottenham Court Road - and then bang went all the windows."

An estimated 124 women were arrested. After the window smashing episode, the police used weapons and force to close down the Women's Social and Political Union.

A year later, arson attacks were commonplace. One such attack greatly damaged an unfinished house being built for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd-George, who had become a hate figure for the suffragettes.

Dr Tobias Feakin of the Royal United Services Institute compares the suffragettes to a protest campaign like the Occupy movement against economic inequality, but says today they would not be perceived as terrorists.

"Animal rights activists have used more extreme measures to express themselves, though in the US they do ban a lot of environmental groups as environmental terrorists."

Crawford says she "can't help but sympathise" with the suffragettes, but believes their methods were "a rather dangerous way of going about things".

"We tend to underestimate the amount of damage that was done. At the time they wouldn't have used the term terrorism, but with our experience of terrorism now, if one group is trying to coerce the state, I think we might view it rather differently."

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Were extreme suffragettes regarded as terrorists?

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A century ago, British women still did not have the vote and violent protests by the suffragettes were escalating. Were these women seen at the time as something akin to terrorists, or as activists legitimately fighting for a political cause?

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Terrorism Is a Real Threat ... But the Threat to the U.S. from Muslim Terrorists Has Been Exaggerated An FBI report shows that only a small percentage of terrorist attacks carried out on U.S. soil between 1980 and 2005 were perpetrated by Muslims. Princeton University's Loon Watch compiled the following chart from the FBI's data:
Terrorist Attacks on U.S. Soil by Group, From 1980 to 2005, According to FBI Database

According to this data, there were more Jewish acts of terrorism within the United States than Islamic (7% vs 6%). These radical Jews committed acts of terrorism in the name of their religion. These were not terrorists who happened to be Jews; rather, they were extremist Jews who committed acts of terrorism based on their religious passions, just like Al-Qaeda and company.

(Loon Watch also notes that less than 1% of terror attacks in Europe were carried out by Muslims.)

U.S. News and World Report noted in February of this year:

Of the more than 300 American deaths from political violence and mass shootings since 9/11, only 33 have come at the hands of Muslim-Americans, according to the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security. The Muslim-American suspects or perpetrators in these or other attempted attacks fit no demographic profile-only 51 of more than 200 are of Arabic ethnicity. In 2012, all but one of the nine Muslim-American terrorism plots uncovered were halted in early stages. That one, an attempted bombing of a Social Security office in Arizona, caused no casualties.

Wired reported the same month:

Since 9/11, [Charles Kurzman, Professor of Sociology at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, writing for the Triangle Center on Terrorism and National Security] and his team tallies, 33 Americans have died as a result of terrorism launched by their Muslim neighbors. During that period, 180,000 Americans were murdered for reasons unrelated to terrorism. In just the past year, the mass shootings that have captivated America's attention killed 66 Americans, "twice as many fatalities as from Muslim-American terrorism in all 11 years since 9/11," notes Kurzman's team.

Law enforcement, including "informants and undercover agents," were involved in "almost all of the Muslim-American terrorism plots uncovered in 2012," the Triangle team finds. That's in keeping with the FBI's recent practice of using undercover or double agents to encourage would-be terrorists to act on their violent desires and arresting them when they do - a practice critics say comes perilously close to entrapment. A difference in 2012 observed by Triangle: with the exception of the Arizona attack, all the alleged plots involving U.S. Muslims were "discovered and disrupted at an early stage," while in the past three years, law enforcement often observed the incubating terror initiatives "after weapons or explosives had already been gathered."

The sample of Muslim Americans turning to terror is "vanishingly small," Kurzman tells Danger Room. Measuring the U.S. Muslim population is a famously inexact science, since census data don't track religion, but rather "country of origin," which researchers attempt to use as a proxy. There are somewhere between 1.7 million and seven million American Muslims, by most estimates, and Kurzman says he operates off a model that presumes the lower end, a bit over 2 million. That's less a rate of involvement in terrorism of less than 10 per million, down from a 2003 high of 40 per million, as detailed in the chart above.

Yet the scrutiny by law enforcement and homeland security on American Muslims has not similarly abated. The FBI tracks "geomaps" of areas where Muslims live and work, regardless of their involvement in any crime. The Patriot Act and other post-9/11 restrictions on government surveillance remain in place. The Department of Homeland Security just celebrated its 10th anniversary. In 2011, President Obama ordered the entire federal national-security apparatus to get rid of counterterrorism training material that instructed agents to focus on Islam itself, rather than specific terrorist groups.

Kurzman doesn't deny that law enforcement plays a role in disrupting and deterring homegrown U.S. Muslim terrorism. His research holds it out as a possible explanation for the decline. But he remains surprised by the disconnect between the scale of the terrorism problem and the scale - and expense - of the government's response.

"Until public opinion starts to recognize the scale of the problem has been lower than we feared, my sense is that public officials are not going to change their policies," Kurzman says. "Counterterrorism policies have involved surveillance - not just of Muslim-Americans, but of all Americans, and the fear of terrorism has justified intrusions on American privacy and civil liberties all over the internet and other aspects of our lives. I think the implications here are not just for how we treat a religious minority in the U.S., but also how we treat the rights & liberties of everyone."

We agree. And so do most Americans. Indeed - as we've previously documented - you're more likely to die from brain-eating parasites, alcoholism, obesity, medical errors, risky sexual behavior or just about anything other than terrorism.

Kurzman told the Young Turks in February that Islamic terrorism "doesn't even count for 1 percent" of the 180,000 murders in the US since 9/11.

While the Boston marathon bombings were horrific, a top terrorism expert says that the Boston attack was more like Columbine than 9/11, and that the bombers are "murderers not terrorists". The overwhelming majority of mass shootings were by non-Muslims. (This is true in Europe, as well as in the U.S.)

However you classify them - murder or terrorism - the Boston bombings occurred after all of the statistical analysis set forth above. Moreover, different groups have different agendas about how to classify the perpetrators (For example, liberal Mother Jones and conservative Breitbart disagree on how many of the perpetrators of terror attacks can properly be classified as right wing extremists.)

So we decided to look at the most current statistics for ourselves, to do an objective numerical count not driven by any agenda.

Specifically, we reviewed all of the terrorist attacks on U.S. soil as documented by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). (2012). Global Terrorism Database, as retrieved from http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd.

The START Global Terrorism Database spans from 1970 through 2012 (and will be updated from year-to-year), and - as of this writing - includes 104,000 terrorist incidents. As such, it is the most comprehensive open-source database open to the public.

We counted up the number of terrorist attacks carried out by Muslims. We excluded attacks by groups which are obviously not Muslims, such as the Ku Klux Klan, Medellin Drug Cartel, Irish Republican Army, Anti-Castro Group, Mormon extremists, Vietnamese Organization to Exterminate Communists and Restore the Nation, Jewish Defense League, May 19 Communist Order, Chicano Liberation Front, Jewish Armed Resistance, American Indian Movement, Gay Liberation Front, Aryan Nation, Jewish Action Movement, National Front for the Liberation of Cuba, or Fourth Reich Skinheads.

We counted attacks by Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Black American Moslems, or anyone who even remotely sounded Muslim ... for example anyone from Palestine, Lebanon or any other Arab or Muslim country, or any name including anything sounding remotely Arabic or Indonesian (like "Al" anything or "Jamaat" anything).

If we weren't sure what the person's affiliation was, we looked up the name of the group to determine whether it could in any way be connected to Muslims.

Based on our review of the approximately 2,400 terrorist attacks on U.S. soil contained within the START database, we determined that approximately 60 were carried out by Muslims.

In other words, approximately 2.5% of all terrorist attacks on U.S. soil between 1970 and 2012 were carried out by Muslims.* This is a tiny proportion of all attacks.

(We determined that approximately 118 of the terror attacks - or 4.9% - were carried out by Jewish groups such as Jewish Armed Resistance, the Jewish Defense League, Jewish Action Movement, United Jewish Underground and Thunder of Zion. This is almost twice the percentage of Islamic attacks within the United States. If we look at worldwide attacks - instead of just attacks on U.S. soil - Sunni Muslims are the main perpetrators of terrorism. However: 1. Muslims are also the main victims of terror attacks worldwide; and 2. the U.S. backs the most radical types of Sunnis over more moderate Muslims and Arab secularists.)

Moreover, another study undertaken by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism - called "Profiles of Perpetrators of Terrorism in the United States" - found:

Between 1970 and 2011, 32 percent of the perpetrator groups were motivated by ethnonationalist/separatist agendas, 28 percent were motivated by single issues, such as animal rights or opposition to war, and seven percent were motivated by religious beliefs . In addition, 11 percent of the perpetrator groups were classified as extreme right-wing, and 22 percent were categorized as extreme left-wing.

Preliminary findings from PPT-US data between 1970 and 2011 also illustrate a distinct shift in the dominant ideologies of these terrorist groups over time, with the proportion of emerging ethnonationalist/separatist terrorist groups declining and the proportion of religious terrorist groups increasing. However, while terrorist groups with religious ideologies represent 40 percent of all emergent groups from 2000-2011 (two out of five), they only account for seven percent of groups over time.

Similarly, a third study by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism Religion found that religion alone is not a key factor in determining which terrorists want to use weapons of mass destruction:

The available empirical data show that there is not a significant relationship between terrorist organizations' pursuit of CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear) weapons and the mere possession of a religious ideology, according to a new quantitative study by START researchers Victor Asal, Gary Ackerman and Karl Rethemeyer.

Therefore, Muslims are not more likely than other groups to want to use WMDs.

* The Boston marathon bombing was not included in this analysis, as START has not yet updated its database to include 2013 terrorist attacks. 3 people died in the Boston attack. While tragic, we are confident that non-Musliims killed more than 3 during this same period.

We are not experts in terrorism analysis. We would therefore defer to people like Kurzman on the exact number. However, every quantitative analysis of terrorism in the U.S. we have read shows that the percent of terror attacks carried out by Muslims is far less than 10%.

Postscript: State-sponsored terrorism is beyond the scope of this discussion, and was not included in our statistical analysis. Specifically, the following arguments are beyond the scope of this discussion, as we are focusing solely on non-state terrorism:

Arguments by University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole that deaths from 20th century wars could be labeled Christian terrorism

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Terrorism Is a Real Threat ... But the Threat to the U.S. from Muslim Terrorists Has Been Exaggerated An FBI report shows that only a small percentage of terrorist attacks carried out on U.S. soil between 1980 and 2005 were perpetrated by Muslims. Princeton University's Loon Watch compiled the following chart from the FBI's data: Terrorist Attacks on U.S.

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The Supreme Court, in a ruling released on Monday, temporarily reinstated a portion of President Trump's executive order banning people from six Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.

Starting this Thursday, citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen will be banned from the United States unless they can demonstrate a "bona fide" relationship with American citizens or organizations. What qualifies as a "bona fide" relationship isn't clear, but that'll be the legal standard for admissions into the United States until the Supreme Court issues a final ruling on the constitutional merits of the entire executive order.

It's hard to say how the legal case will shape up. But as the Court deliberates, it's worth noting that the policy justification for this ban - terrorism - is complete hogwash.

No person from the six targeted countries has committed a deadly terrorist attack inside US borders. The Trump administration has not offered any compelling reason to believe that citizens of those countries pose any kind of special terrorist threat going forward. The odds of being killed by an immigrant terrorist of any kind, let alone a Muslim immigrant, are one in 3.6 million.

Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, of all people, admitted the real thinking behind the ban. In a January interview, he said that the president had asked him and others about how to do a ban on Muslim immigration " legally" - and that this ban was the result of that process. It all goes back to what President Trump said back in December 2015 when he first announced the ban proposal: that the US needed "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States" because there is "great hatred towards Americans" among Muslims.

The thinking here is quite clear - Muslims are an enormous threat to American lives, and that the federal government needs to stop more Muslims from coming to the US by whatever means possible.

This is bigoted - and, according to the best data we have, empirically false. A January study from University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill sociologist Charles Kurzman that tallies up the data on terrorist attacks committed by Muslim Americans shows why.

The study found that only 46 Muslim Americans (defined in the study as "Muslims who lived in the US for an extended period") were linked to violent extremism at home or abroad in 2016. The total Muslim American population is 3.3 million.

Of those 46, only 24 were actually implicated in a concrete terrorist plot; the others did things like attempting to travel to Syria to join ISIS. Those plots claimed 54 lives, the vast majority of which (49) came in a single attack - the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando. Kurzman also looked specifically at immigrants and Muslims whose families hail from the countries targeted travel ban - and, you guessed it, found no special propensity for terrorism.

The study isn't making an apples-to-apples comparison; the more directly relevant statistic would look at whether or not Muslim Americans kill more US citizens here than any other specific political or religious group ( other research has looked at that question). But Kurzman's work vividly underscores a simple fact: Muslim Americans, in both raw terms and as a percentage of size of their total community, commit very small numbers of killings.

By contrast, roughly 11,000 Americans were killed in gun homicides in 2016 - yet Trump has never proposed banning guns.

"It is flatly untrue that America is deeply threatened by violent extremism by Muslim-Americans," David Schanzer, director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security, said in a statement accompanying the study's release in January. "Attacks by Muslims accounted for only one third of one percent of all murders in America last year."

Trump's travel ban is not a serious counterterrorism proposal

Kurzman has been conducting a version of this study every year for the past eight years, in order to get a comprehensive sense of whether jihadist movements are successfully recruiting among Muslim Americans. He found a small increase in extremist activity 2015, in the wake of ISIS's stunning military victories the prior year, which declined in 2016.

Overall, for as long as Kurzman has done the study, the number of actual terrorist attacks committed by Muslim Americans has been exceptionally small.

"The 54 fatalities caused by Muslim-American extremists in 2016 brought the total since 9/11 to 123," Kurzman writes. "More than 240,000 Americans were murdered over the same period."

This year, Kurzman did something new. In light of the travel ban, Kurzman tried to figure out whether immigration from these countries, specifically, posed an special terrorist threat.

It didn't. Muslim Americans with a background from these countries were not well-represented among the (very small) ranks of Muslim American terrorists.

"Since 9/11, only 23 percent of Muslim-Americans involved with violent extremist plots had family backgrounds in [targeted] countries," Kurzman writes. "There have been no fatalities in the United States caused by extremists with family backgrounds in these countries."

Immigrants of all kinds were actually underrepresented in the ranks of Muslims attracted to extremism. The following charts show the percentage of Muslim Americans from different backgrounds, on the left, and the percentage of Muslim Americans attracted to extremism from each of these backgrounds, on the right. Immigrants are clearly underrepresented:

The only overrepresented group, you'll note, are converts - people from non-Muslim backgrounds. Many of these people are likely attracted to extremism rather than Islam per se, as you can see by looking at the rates of violent extremism among non-Muslim groups.

"Between 2001 and 2015, more Americans were killed by homegrown right-wing extremists than by Islamist terrorists," my colleague Jennifer Williams writes. "Adopting extremist views and committing horrendous acts of violence in the name of some 'righteous' cause, be it religion or politics or just plain old hatred, isn't something that only Muslims, or Arabs, or immigrants do."

Correction: This post originally described Charles Kurzman as being affiliated with Duke University. While his report was published by the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security, which is based at Duke, Kurzman himself teaches at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

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There is no rational justification for Trump's travel ban

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The Supreme Court, in a ruling released on Monday, temporarily reinstated a portion of President Trump's executive order banning people from six Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. Starting this Thursday, citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen will be banned from the United States unless they can demonstrate a "bona fide" relationship with American citizens or organizations.

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The rise of ISIS, explained in 6 minutes

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Zak Ebrahim: I am the son of a terrorist. Here's how I chose peace.

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If you're raised on dogma and hate, can you choose a different path? Zak Ebrahim was just seven years old when his father helped plan the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. His story is shocking, powerful and, ultimately, inspiring.

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BBC - History - The Changing Faces of Terrorism

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It is an often used - and often misused - word. How should we define a 'terrorist' in the 21st century? By Professor Adam Roberts.