THE murderous assault on a synagogue and a Turkish-owned eatery in the German city of Halle are both being blamed on a far-right extremist. Two people died in a hail of gunfire. It comes in a week that a suspected Syrian terrorist hijacked a truck in Limburg, near Frankfurt and plowed it into a line of motorists, seriously injuring nine people.

Both these crimes were acts of terror, like all such enormities the deeds of ignorant and hate-filled bigots. In their warped view of the world, they somehow imagined that killing and maiming complete strangers were going to advance the cause that they espouse. They doubtless saw themselves in some perverse way as heroes. They were striking a blow against enemies, who in their pathetic estimation, were so wicked, they did not deserve the slightest mercy, not even the most basic humane consideration.

But each and everyone of these killers is a dupe. There are others behind them, men of total evil, who are exploiting their ignorance and gullibility. They encourage these fools into desperate attacks and assure them that if they are killed, they will have died a noble death for The Cause. It is easy to dismiss such manipulation of dim-witted fools as cynical. In fact what the puppet-masters of international terror are doing is very far from cynical. Their schemes are coldly logical. What each and every act of terror is supposed to trigger is more than ‘terror’. It is supposed to light the fires of anger and retribution. Daesh (the self-proclaimed IS) supremos are not interested in the crime itself but in its consequences. If mass murder in France, Germany, Spain or the UK can lead to suspicion and a clampdown on Muslim communities, then from their perverse point of view, it is all to the good. Ordinary Muslims, content wth their daily lives in Europe would be upset by newly-introduced security measures and increased surveillance which inevitably targeted their communities.

The Lords of Terror anticipate, sadly, all-too often correctly, that the authorities will overreact. In their anxiety to snuff out the evil of terrorism, they will begin to alienate peaceable fellow citizens who just happen to be Muslims. By pumping up this outrage, the terrorist gangs will seek to portray European societies as inherently Islamophobic and set out to make new recruits, with the siren message that the only way Muslims can stem this hatred, is to fight back, as violently as possible. They are thus intent on promoting a cycle of violence and ever more stringent crackdowns by the authorities, that will become self-perpetuating.

It is a testament to the good sense and moderation of the vast majority of European Muslims that this is an ember which the terrorist gangs have failed to fan into a fire. Long may this wise response continue.

For white neo-Nazi gangs, the agenda is subtly different. They aspire to some ludicrous Hitlerian claptrap about ‘racial purity’, as if all widely-successful and cohesive European states are not themselves the product of many centuries of immigration and racial mixing. While right-thinking moderates reject the crimes that terrorists claim to be perpetrating in their name, so it is incumbent on all other European citizens to speak out and reject decisively the abhorrent crimes of white supremacists.