Mr Hoffman, who helps run a terrorism research centre at the University of St Andrew's in Scotland, has argued that ultra-rightist militias in America, millenarian sects in Japan and Islamic fundamentalists in the Middle East are all representatives of the same trend: towards a sort of insatiable fanaticism which has no agenda other than destruction and revenge.

ECONOMIST: Coming soon to a city near you | The

The director of St Andrew's University's Research Institute for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, Professor Paul Wilkinson, said the advice was sensible, not alarmist.

BBC: The threat

This high speed has been exploited by a research team led by Andrew Cameron of the University of St Andrews, in Scotland.

ECONOMIST: Extrasolar planets