Isis will not die

The Isis caliphate in Syria and Iraq was defeated at a cost of billions of dollars and the loss of thousands of lives. And yet the ideology of violence and hatred espoused by the Islamic State lives on and has spread into cities in the West like a poison with no antidote.

The black flag attached to the pick-up truck which ploughed through crowds of people in New Orleans celebrating the new year was both a symbol of the Islamic State and a message from the terrorist jihadists that they have ‘sleepers’ ready and willing to carry out atrocities.

For western governments this poses a never-ending challenge. Judging by what the FBI has discovered so far, this was not the act of a foreigner breaching US boundaries to kill Americans but a ‘home-grown’, radicalised, Isis-inspired US Army veteran who turned against his own country.

To underline the challenge to America’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies, the truck driver, identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, was believed to be operating alone.