Here is a very interesting article that puts Jihadist terrorism in historical perspective.
BOMBS, beards and backpacks: these are the distinguishing marks, at least in the popular imagination, of the terror-mongers who either incite or carry out the explosions that periodically rock the cities of the western world. A century or so ago it was not so different: bombs, beards and fizzing fuses. The worries generated by the two waves of terror, the responses to them and some of their other characteristics are also similar. The spasm of anarchist violence that was at its most convulsive in the 1880s and 1890s was felt, if indirectly, in every continent. It claimed hundreds of lives, including those of several heads of government, aroused widespread fear and prompted quantities of new laws and restrictions. But it passed. Jihadism is certainly not a lineal descendant of anarchism: far from it. Even so, the parallels between the anarchist bombings of the 19th century and the Islamist ones of today may be instructive.
Islamists, or at least those of the Osama bin Laden stripe, have several aims. Some--such as the desire "to regain Palestine", to avenge the killing of "our nation's sons" and to expel all "infidel armies" from "the land of Muhammad"--could be those of any conventional national-liberation movement. Others are more millenarian: to bring everyone to Islam, which, says Mr bin Laden, "is the religion of showing kindness to others, establishing justice between them, granting them their rights, and defending the oppressed and persecuted." All this will come to pass once everyone is living in an Islamic state, a caliphate governed by sharia law. Hence "the martyrdom operations against the enemy" and the promise of paradise for those who carry them out.
Read The full article at The Economist
As conservative rags go, I have the most respect for The Economist. You know where they stand and they can be pretty fair. When I need a whiff of conservative POV, I usually feel less dirty checking them out.