Europe Will Not Be Spared

Expert Says Terrorist's Battleground Expanding

(CBS)  "Europe will not be spared," CBS News Consultant Fouad Ajami tells The Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith, claiming that is the message terrorists are sending to the world.

Ajami, a Middle East expert at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, says, "After Sept.11, the Europeans made it seem as if this was a fight between America and the Islamic world, but Europe is really right there, and in a way, if you take a look at Madrid in 2004, London now, it's a clear battleground. The French have tended to say, 'Well, look, anyone allied with the Americans will be hit,' but there's no way of knowing who will be the next target."

Ajami points out Muslims have a vast presence in Europe, and many there attend radical mosques, "much more radical than the mosques in the Arab or Muslim world itself."

Britain's prime minister is calling the explosions "barbaric" terrorist attacks, and experts say al-Qaeda is probably behind them.

"There is no respite," Ajami says. "Prime Minister Blair was right to call it a confrontation between reasonableness and fanatic."

Even thought there has been progress in the war on terror with thousands of arrests made not only in the United States, but also in Europe, the terrorist presence is still very sobering.

Even Egypt has not been spared. Ihab al-Sherif, the top diplomat to Iraq who was kidnapped in Baghdad Saturday, may have been killed. A Web site posting signed by al Qaeda claims responsibility for his death.

"The Arab states have been second-guessing us about Iraq and they have not accept a single envoy," Ajami notes. "Egypt is clearly important; it has not really supported this Arab venture. It reluctantly sent an ambassador because they were under enormous pressure from Washington, and now this ambassador has been murdered in Baghdad."

Unfortunately, Ajami says, there is no good news to offer to the public.