In an essay for '' The Wall Street Journal '' , Nawaz stated that Jihadists of all types seek to create discord by " pitting Muslims against non-Muslims in the West and Sunni Muslims against Shiite Muslims in the East " . He argues that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ( ISIL ) is out to provoke a Clash of Civilisations , and we can avoid this clash by calling out the underlying Islamist ideology and isolating Jihadists from ordinary Muslims . He also took exception to Pope Francis 's characterisation of Paris attacks as the start of " World War 3 " , noting that we are not facing another World War but a Global Jihadist insurgency . According to him , an insurgency is different from a conventional war in that insurgents rely on some level of support from the communities they recruit from . And since it is an insurgency , the Counter-insurgency strategy should have messaging and psychological warfare as its critical parts , with the aim of isolating insurgents from their target host communities . On a physical level , he supported the idea of an international coalition against ISIL , fronted by Sunni Arab forces and backed by international special forces
Paris attacks
November 2015 Paris attacks
Maajid Nawaz