Every week and, with increasing frequency we are treated, almost every day to fresh news of Islamic State advances and atrocities being committed in nearby Libya.

These warped militants with twisted ideologies are edging ever closer to some kind of an attack against Europe and their threats to invade or attack Europe are also growing with equal frequency. And the thoughts on most Maltese minds are that we are the closest, softest and most enthusiastically Christian target in the whole of Europe.

Malta's geographic position between Europe and North Africa was once a major selling point for investment in Malta but now that very geographic position is the cause for a whole lot of concern. Is that concern justified? We believe so. Does our role as a media organisation call for us to highlight the situation, to call a spade a spade and to inform the population to the best of our ability of clear and present dangers prevailing? Again, we believe so.

There is, however, a fine line between being purely alarmist and telling the people what they should know and what they need to know, and that is a line that we will not cross.

Yesterday, our sister daily newspaper ran an article explaining how Malta has practically no missile or air defence capability. That story has been dragged over the hot coals over the course of the day, with our website having received a significant amount of feedback, most of which took the article to task for letting Islamist militants in on the fact that this country is defenceless.

Our newsroom also received numerous phone calls from concerned citizens yesterday chastising us for having let the figurative cat out of the bag.

Firstly, we stand foursquare behind the publication of that story. The Maltese people have a sacrosanct right to know exactly what threats they are facing, minus the political gloss and whitewash.

Malta is a small and neutral country and no one could reasonably believe that it has the serious military capability that many of its fellow European states possess. Much of this is also public knowledge from parliamentary questions, EU and international reports on military expenditure and dozens of others sources. Does anyone out there seriously believe that the web-savvy Islamic State would not be able to do its own research and draw its own conclusions?

There is a fine line between being alarmist and being responsible and we have endeavoured to not cross that line, a line which is easily crossed in the pursuit of copy sales and website hits. We have published what we have with a deep sense of the national interest at heart.

Over and above that, making this information public should spur the powers that be into quick action, to immediately set about acquiring the equipment and training that is direly needed, now more than ever in light of recent events in Libya.

This is a situation that requires urgent addressing. Not only does Malta have no missile or air defence capability, it doesn't have an early warning radar system either - meaning that should a missile, God forbid, be launched toward Malta not only would we not be able to shoot it down, but we would not even know that we were about to be hit in the first place.

Sources within the AFM told our sister paper that under successive governments there had never been any serious interest in acquiring new and modern ordnance and expertise with the associated training as it was deemed too expensive. This was short-sighted in the extreme.

According to the report, even Italian-donated army air defence artillery military radars and their guns, which were already technologically obsolete and were only donated to Malta instead of having them scrapped in Italy, have been lying in neglect.

The arrival of two Libyan Air Force Mirage jets that defected to Malta at the beginning of the revolution against Gaddafi stands as a case in point: no one knew they were anywhere near Maltese airspace until they had actually touched down, according to sources speaking with the paper.

With no effective surface-to-air guns or missiles, or early warning military radar, Malta remains defenceless, as had been proved with the surprise arrival of two Libyan Air Force Mirage jet fighters.

In the event of a missile strike, Malta would have to rely on nearby military ships' surface-to-air defence missiles - if there are any in the area that is.

Those who say that such information should be hidden from the Maltese public, we are sorry to say, have got it all wrong. Exposing this serious lacuna in the country's defences, which can be quite easily otherwise ascertained by any military-minded individual, let alone the maniacs that comprise the Islamic State, was an exercise in the national interest.

Being neutral does not mean defenceless and the government must address this situation urgently and seriously.