13 years ago today, the world watched in horror as commercial aircraft slammed into the North, and then the South tower of New York’s World Trade Centre.

Within minutes, another plane had ploughed into the Pentagon in Washington DC and another plane – which was destined to crash into the White House – crashed outside the capital as passengers overpowered the hijackers.

At first, people thought it was an accident, but the enormity of what had happened soon hit home. As the twin towers blazed, people jumped to their death to escape the inferno.

Before long, the towers collapsed, killing thousands and injuring many more. Within hours, al-Qaeda had claimed responsibility for the attack. In the ensuing reaction, a coalition was assembled and the world went to war against the Taliban and against al-Qaeda.

The terror group was tackled head on and its head eventually fled to Pakistan, where he was subsequently killed by US special forces in 2011. But that was not before other terror plans were thwarted. Spain and the UK also had their own attacks to deal with in 2004 and 2007 respectively.

The UK and the US eventually invaded Iraq and toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, and now, years later, we are seeing the result of the terrible power vacuum that was created when the UK and the US pulled out of the country.

The civil war in Syria and the vacuum in Iraq has given birth to something far more ruthless and far more dangerous than al-Qaeda and its affiliates all put together – the Islamic State. The group is so extreme that even al-Qaeda has distanced itself from the Caliphate and the atrocities it has committed.

This group that has sprung out of the ashes and carnage of Syria and lawless Iraq, has helped itself to stockpiles of weapons that were left to the Iraqi Army by Western powers.

This is the new threat. Islamic State has made no secret of its ambitions to infiltrate Western countries and establish a Caliphate to straddle the Middle East, and branch off into the East and North Africa. When one considers what this group has done to their own countrymen, women and children, who are of different religious belief, we are shocked. But when we consider what they are doing to their own Muslim brothers, then we really begin to see the extent of what they are capable of. The West is preparing to hit IS and to hit it hard. But what will it solve? Will we merely be resetting the cycle? Will we just be waiting for the next extremist terror group to rise like a Phoenix out of the ashes of the old one? It is certainly becoming more and more clear that IS is a threat. It is a threat because it is an ideology that spans countries and continents. It is pure unbridled hate that has even managed to entice westerners into its ranks. We must be wary. IS as we know it is not confined to the Middle East. It is all around us.