When you hear the word "terrorist," who comes to mind? Basque separatists in white hoods? Anarchists wearing bandanas with five-pointed stars? Or perhaps some right- or left-wing pariah building bombs in basements?
My guess is that none of these characters wins top billing in the minds of most people when they think of terrorists. Why? Mainly because we don't generally hear about these kinds of terrorists in the news, and when we do, they aren't typically called "terrorists." They're called murderers, thugs or lunatics. These days, when we read or hear the term "terrorist" in the news, it's almost always accompanied by some reference to "Islamic extremism" or worse yet, to Islam itself.
So, it must be that most terrorists are in fact Islamists, right? Not so much.
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