Crazy beliefs can come from all angles, it isn't coincidental that Islam happens to be responsible every single day for about the same number of deaths as the KKK have killed since 1945, around 26. It isn't coincidental because dying in defence of the faith is considered the highest honour of Islam. You bypass judgement day and go straight to Jannah.

Quran (4:74) - "Let those fight in the way of Allah who sell the life of this world for the other. Whoso fighteth in the way of Allah, be he slain or be he victorious, on him We shall bestow a vast reward."

Now this would all be amusing if people didn't take it seriously. Problem is I have come over the years after repeatedly seeing these attacks to trust what they say. At first on 9/11 I thought it might be economics and politics. Then after reading about the lives of people who joined ISIS and devoted there lives to these causes, it clicked one day.

Jihadists believe what they say they believe, they really, really believe that all other ways of life lead to hell, and they believe that Islam and there particular interpretation of it is a guarantee to paradise after death.

It doesn't matter how many sociological reasons I hear trying to rationalise to secular people, I then see what the jihadists says, I then see things like young men with all the opportunity in the world flying planes into skyscrapers at 550mph. It is only western people who look at that and still think there bluffing after they've died, after such events have occurred thousands of times.

Once you understand the power of that belief, how intoxicating it is to them, then you realise we're in deep trouble, whether we provoke them or not is secondary and to be considered with a lot of attention, but it isn't what is motivating these people.