“This sharp increase in the strength and reach of jihadist organizations in Syria and Iraq has generally been unacknowledged until recently by politicians and media in the West. A primary reason for this is that Western governments and their security forces narrowly define the jihadist threat as those forces directly controlled by al-Qaeda central or “core” al-Qaeda. This enables them to present a much more cheerful picture of their successes in the so-called “war on terror” than the situation on the ground warrants.”