Terror and Jihad as a weapon of war . . .

This is long, but worth the time the time to read, if you really want to understand the functionality of terror:


"In 1979, that year of turmoil in Tehran, Mecca and Kabul, an astonishing book was published in Pakistan by Brigadier General S. K. Malik under the title The Quranic Concept of War. The book is remarkable no only for its direct connection to later events like 9/11 and it rationalization of such heinous acts but also for its highly original, indeed revolutionary analysis. For the Quranic Concept of War is unlike any strategic work in the canon of Western military thought.
Malik destroys the central tenets of Western military thought, especially the seminal theories of Carl von Clausewitz. Ever since he analyzed the earth shattering campaigns of Napoleon, Western military academies and war colleges have taught as holy writ the Prussian's dictum that war is an instrument of the nation state, a violent tool to be used in the furtherance of the national interest when all other tools fail. We teach that war is simply an extension of policy, that war is politics with a gun, or as Clausewitz originally put it "the continuation of politics with an admixture of other means."
Upending centuries of military doctrine, Malik states that the war has nothing to do with the nation state--which is in any case a heretical construct of the infidel West--or with serving the nation or earthbound politics. War serves only one purpose: the realization of Allah's sovereignty here on earth. According to the Pakistani general, all war must serve only the objective of recreating the caliphate, the theocratic empire of Islam, so that Allah's writ may once again reign supreme.
Malik's next challenge to Western strategic though is his rejection of the way the infidel goes to war. When American or allied forces ready themselves for war, they perform what is called an "intelligence preparation of the battlefield'. This analysis serves in part to identify what are termed "key vulnerabilities" or "centers of gravity" within the enemy's forces and infrastructures--those targets whose destruction will most incapacitate the enemy or force his surrender. Malik states that the infidel's concept of multiple centers of gravity or key vulnerabilities in war is just as fallacious as the idea that war serves political purposes. According the the Pakistani general, there is only one target of importance in war: the soul of the enemy. The infidel foe must be converted to Islam or crushed.
Lastly, since the only target that matters in war is the soul of the infidel, Malik concludes that the most effective weapon in war is terror. Here we see the relevance of his book to groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS. The enemy's belief system must be utterly destroyed, and terror is the most effective way to do that. That is why 9/11 was so important. It is the highly symbolic suicide attacks, the crucifixions, the beheadings, the bombings of civilian crowds and the videos of immolations that will destroy the will of the infidel to go on.
Lest anyone think The Quranic Concept of War was a product of the radical and disenchanted fringe of the Pakistani military, it must be noted that the book was published with a foreword by General M. Zia ul Haq, chief of the army staff and the president of Pakistan who affirms that jihad in the cause of Allah "is not the exclusive domain of the professional soldier," echoing Azzam's fatwa declaring holy war an obligation of all Muslim believers.
---Sebastian Gorka, "Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War"

We are fighting an idea, not a nation state, and jihad is everywhere