What do the terrorists want?

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There is no terrorist threat. There is no terrorist threat.

— Filmmaker Michael Moore, Sept. 26, 2003.

Tell that to London. Four explosions, perhaps set by home-grown terrorists, targeted that city's transportation system. The current death toll stands at 52, with more than 700 people injured.

The train bombings in Madrid on March 11, 2004, killed 191. Three days later, Spaniards voted out the pro-war government and voted in the antiwar Socialists. The incoming prime minister vowed to promptly pull out Spanish troops from Iraq. Spain's reward? On April 2, 2004, Spanish authorities found a 22-pound bomb on a railway track between Madrid and Seville. And, later that year, in October, Spanish authorities foiled a plot to blow up their National Court, Spain's center for prosecuting terrorists. So much for Osama bin Laden's "offer," a month after the Madrid train bombings, for a "truce" to any European country that stops "attacking Muslims" before a three-month deadline.

After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on American soil, many asked, "Why do they hate us?" Now, after London, many again ask, "What do the terrorists want?" How can one "solve" the problem of Islamic extremism?

Osama bin Laden, in 1998, issued the following "fatwa," or religious edict: "The killing of Americans and their civilian and military allies is a religious duty for each and every Muslim to be carried out in whichever country they are until Al Aqsa mosque has been liberated from their grasp and until their armies have left Muslim lands [emphasis added]."

So, Islamic fascists demand that "infidels" leave "Muslim lands." But define "Muslim lands." Arabs, after all, dominated Europe from the eighth-century AD until 1492 AD, occupying lands as far west as Spain and modern France.

"One day the black flag of Islam will be flying over Downing Street," said Anjem Choudray, a spokesman for Al-Muhajiroun ("the immigrants"), described by the Jerusalem Post's Ori Golan as a radical Islamic organization based in Britain. In calling for jihad, Mr. Choudray says, "Lands will not be liberated by individuals, but by an army. Eventually there'll have to be a Muslim army. It's just a matter of time before it happens."

Wall Street Journal reporters Ian Johnson and John Carreyrou recently noted that Muslim extremists define Arab lands to include Europe. "Fatwas," they write, "are traditionally only valid in the Islamic world, so [Ayatollah] Khomeini's [1989] fatwa implied something profound: Europe was part of the Islamic world [emphasis added]. It was a revolutionary change that now is accepted by many Islamic theologians and thinkers." Europe was part of the Islamic world?

Migration to Europe with no intent to assimilate, says Robert S. Leiken, a Brookings Institution nonresident fellow, serves as a tactic for Muslim reconquest: "In Islamic mythology, migration is archetypically linked to conquest. Facing persecution in idolatrous Mecca, in AD 622 the Prophet Muhammad pronounced an anathema on the city's leaders and took his followers to Medina. From there, he built an army that conquered Mecca in AD 630, establishing Muslim rule. ... Europe could even be viewed as a kind of Medina, where troops are recruited for the reconquest of the Holy Land, starting with Iraq."

How can one "solve" the problem of Islamic extremism? The problem is this: To Islamic extremism, democracy is toxic. Al Qaeda-affiliated Abu Musab Zarqawi, just before the January Iraqi elections, gave a speech in which he listed seven reasons to condemn democracy: Democracy requires obedience to man, not Allah; democracy allows freedom of religion, even to convert from Islam to another religion; under democracy, the people, rather than Allah, rule and pass judgment; democracy's freedom of expression would allow condemnation of Allah; separation between religion and state calls for secularism, totally inconsistent with Islam; democracy's freedom of association would allow one to join an unacceptable party; and finally, majority rule is "totally wrong and void because truth according to Islam is that which is in accordance with the Koran and the Sunna [i.e., the tradition of the Prophet], whether its supporters are few or many."

In London, where one of the blasts went off near the Arab area — Edgeware — the New York Times quoted a Lebanese resident, "This was a message to us. They want us to get out of here and go home." So Arabs living outside the Middle East are now legitimate targets?

What do they want?

Islamic extremists say they want America and her allies to leave "Arab lands." Islamic Sharia law says Muslims must present non-Muslims with the three choices from Sura 9:29 of the Koran: conversion, submission to Islamic rule with second-class status and a special tax called the jizya, or death.

For those of us who support freedom, minority rights, women's rights, religious freedom, rule of law, transparent government, and separation of religion and state — they want mass suicide. Nothing less.

Larry Elder is a nationally syndicated columnist and a syndicated radio talk-show host and author of "Showdown: Confronting Bias, Lies, and the Special Interests That Divide America" (St. Martin's Press, 2002).