At its heart, this is a story about race. And these extremists are the most hilariously racist people on the planet. More racist than KKK members. More racist than Donald Trump on a bad day. They are racist against white people because, for their entire history, white people have been A) rich, and B) bombing their countries. It doesn't matter whether those white people had a good reason to bomb their countries, and it doesn't matter how those white people got rich. But three things are certain. They are bombing them. They are rich. And they are definitely white. So now those extremists are superracist.
By taking "revenge" (read: fabricating a sense of shared identity, purpose and brotherhood through gratuitous taboo acts whose sad repercussions they couldn't hope to fathom), they're engendering a boat load of racism in return. Juicy, delicious racism!
Racism that will keep the conflict going for generations, which is (surprise surprise!) a side effect they like A LOT. They don't give a shit about winning. If they did, they would realize terrorism isn't a constructive means of warfare. They just like the game. They want something to do that makes them feel alive. It's gives them something to do to distract themselves from a modern life which, as many have discovered, is kind of lonely and agonizing if you cave to the expectations of the wider culture.
An office job, a wife and kids, working week after week to eventually buy a tiny house in the suburbs and die surrounded by brand new TVs. If you've grown up listening to ego-ballooning music and seeing superhero movies and experiencing shitty media where the enjoyment comes from fantasizing about being better than everyone else, and owning fast cars, and falling madly in love with a perfect 10, and having endless sex with everyone you see, and being world famous... guess what? You are going to be extraordinarily disappointed with your life.
You are also going to be riddled with guilt and self-hatred if you happen to be raised in an unbelievably religious household.
But the extremist microculture offers a way out, a way to be the MOST MUSLIM POSSIBLE (in their eyes) as well as SUPER FAMOUS (in their eyes). There's a way to get on the front page of every newspaper on the planet and have hi-fidelity video of how Muslim you are distributed to five hundred countries across every social media network instantaneously, and have your little group of buddies cry tears of joy and jump up and down and feel like they just banged a rail of awesome black tar heroin. My god, just imagine the thrill of joining up with extremists and attending all those cool secret meetings. Everything's different now! Excitement! Meaning! Importance! Value! It's all within your reach. And then when everyone watches the news, and your buddy Jimbo does a jihad! Hurray! You did it! All you have to do now is get exploded, and take out those filthy rich asshole white people with their money and their bombs and their praying to the wrong symbol who you imagine hate you en masse even though they don't. (Forget the fact that they also have husbands and wives and kids and families and fall in love and have bad days and good days and don't want there to be war and never asked to be born in their country with their skin color or their religion, and spend nights poking at their face and wondering if they look old, and have tickets to see a concert next week with this girl they met, but damn it they're doing the best they can and try to be a good person but who's that guy over there yelling? why are people screaming --
Whoever Akbar! God is really something.