The story began to develop late on Tuesday morning, although it had been present in some way or another since the previous week.

Independently of each other, our newsroom was contacted by its sources in the AFM who told us that there had been an alarm raised the previous week, notwithstanding what Minister Karmenu Abela had told us there was nothing to worry about.

In fact, our AFM sources said, more weapons and ammunition had been issued and some other changes made.

Up till then, the only inkling there had been an alarm was a note on the recently-set up website Little Rock (see screen shot) that spoke of considerable alarm in the AFM ranks.

When the minister pooh-poohed everything, we wrote that the minister had denied any cause for alarm.

But coincidentally and independently, also on Tuesday morning, some Italian websites also came up with maps showing Malta among the targets of ISIS.

A worthy colleague from the other side of the pen pooh-poohed the whole thing as over-dramatisation based on an obscure paper from San Marino, but actually there had been a report the previous evening on the more authoritative Giornale di Sicilia.

As our print edition on Wednesday mentioned, the story that had been running on Italian media said ISIS was planning to launch missile attacks from North Africa to Europe targeting Italy, Spain and Malta.

The Italian media referred to a document entitled 'The Islamic State 2015' which had been published on Wikilao.

These two stories meshed together and became one. This was, remember, some days after the attack on the Corinthia Hotel in Tripoli.

This was also the day when the atrocious video of the killing of the second Japanese hostage was released.

The more the government continued to be in denial and it was business as usual, the more people panicked.

The killing of the Japanese hostage was then followed by the even more atrocious video of the Jordanian pilot trapped in a cage and being burnt alive and his smouldering remains bulldozed. (Incidentally, what has happened to the 9pm limit, before which children can watch TV? That video must have disturbed the nights of many).

Things had by then moved beyond any governmental tones of reassurance. Worse was still to come. A news portal got to know that several war planes were about to land in Malta. The portal invented the claim that these planes were on their way to bomb ISIS. The government promptly denied this story which had by then gone beyond credible.

The planes, as they came in to land, made quite a din, far noisier than the usual passenger planes.

I know people who were shocked out of their skins by these stories coming together in the space of one day. People realised, not that this could not have been realised considering the geography that Malta was quite at risk than one would have normally thought. They also realized there was nowhere to run away to, to get away from this small island.

I know people who had a very bad night after that. I also know of people who took some drastic decisions regarding their own safety.

Anyway, the next day dawned and nothing had changed. We had the same traffic jams on the way to work, and we found other things to focus on.

Then the recriminations began. Some questioned why a news service should alarm people so. Initially, our own website was heavily criticized by those who saw all sorts of other motivations behind this news. Then they were answered, or rather sank, by other readers who took them to task, and praised the website for bringing what was common knowledge in Italy to the knowledge of the people in Malta. They also criticised the government for not warning people, although others said any warning by the government would have set off a wave of panic.

It was also time for an analysis of the news itself. The document already referred to, 'The Islamic State 2015', said the attacks on Italy, Spain and Malta would not be immediate. Before these attacks, the paper edition said on Wednesday, other attacks will be directed against Iran, the 'tyrants of Islamic Maghreb' which will be attacked from now to 2020, and after that the Mujaheddin in Tunisia and Libya. It will only be after that that Ansar el Sharia in Libya and al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb will start firing missiles against Europe in revenge for the sufferings of their brethren in Syria.

That blunted in a way the immediacy of the supposed threat.

There are other considerations to be made. For all its aggressiveness, ISIS is not making any forays in areas beyond the Islamic ones, except when it goes in for ethnic or religious cleansing as it did in the Kurd part of Iraq. The main focus of ISIS is an internal Muslim affair, in the eternal feud between Shiites and Sunnis. There is no indication at all of any aggressive expansionary ideas into non-Muslim areas.

Nor has Malta had anything to do with the civil war in Syria, not even in the Libyan one.

There does not seem to be any reason why anybody from Libya would fire missiles at Malta, although a missile from Libya had landed in Pantelleria (or Lampedusa) in the Gaddafi years, landing harmlessly in a field by the shore.

In other words, Malta does not figure in any way as a target for ISIS. Planes bombing ISIS do not take off from Malta and there are so many Libyan refugees among us it is hard to see how they could not be hit if we were attacked in any way.

Having said that, and as I have been saying week after week, there is much to be said for beefing up our security. We listen to the words of reassurance from government personnel and they are welcome words, but we would be more reassured if actions follow the words.

A security expert from Israel once told me how fortunate we are that the sea surrounds us. If only Israel had 30 miles of sea around it, he told me wistfully.

At worst, Malta does not need the Iron Dome like the one Israel has developed because Malta is not in the same situation as Israel.

Nevertheless, Malta must get better means to defend itself in case the need arises.

And we must have better policing as well. Perhaps we should look into the possibility of having laws enabling our police officers to stop anyone and demand to see papers and permits to be a resident here, as well as speedier processes enabling repatriation of undesirables. Defence must not begin on the shores; it must begin well before we get to that stage.

Finally, the government must snap out of the defensive 'there is no threat here' when the rest of the world is saying there is. The reaction by Prime Minister Muscat - that no imminent or direct threat is known but that vigilance must be observed at all time - seems to me a far better way of putting it than blanket denials.

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