This time it was al-Muhajiroun (formerly known as Al Ghurabaa) and an associated but not banned group, Islamic Thinkers Society of New York, USA. He was found to be an original member of al-Muhajiroun and to have promoted its terrorist objectives.

When he was previously convicted, in 2016, it was for involvement with Da'esh also known as Islamic State, ISIL and ISIS (and their related full names).

Choudary's function was to identify and radicalise followers including encouraging them to engage in acts of terrorism and other criminality.

Choudary's latest conviction shows that it's not over until it's over and one thing we know for sure is that false-flag operations of terrorist groups such as Da'esh (and its various AKAs) aren't over just because they have fallen out of the news.

Da'esh made the front pages of media outlets around the word and led broadcast news because of their willingness to commit atrocities. So did Boko Haram and, if one thinks back, the Taliban - and pretty much every terrorist, authoritarianist and insurrectionist group throughout history.

An uncomfortable truth

There is an uncomfortable truth: terrorism survives because terrorism works.

But the terrorism that is branded "Islamic Terrorism" rarely has anything to do with Islam: in fact many leaders in Islam decry not only the activities but also the objectives of the radicals and those that create them. That's why it's a false flag operation.

But that doesn't stop it.

Extremist groups develop in various ways: some become terrorists; some become totalitarian regime and some become political parties.

In 2015, Da'esh was the poster child for extremist groups because western media made it such. There is a difference between reporting and glorifying (even in an anti-hero sense) the actions of a culture of brutality.

It was at that time that I wrote "The Ten Real Life Exploits That Da'esh / ISIS use to Hack The World". It looked at the ways in which extremist groups, be they economic, political or nominally religious, grow and groom their networks. And "network" is a very relevant term because Da'esh was the first large scale terrorist network of the internet age and it was able to capitalise on it.

We know, since, that what I wrote was accurate.

A sense of belonging

The many young men and women found a sense of belonging in internet chat rooms, on social media and mobile communications apps, leading them to secretly travel to Da'esh's bases using what, in other times, have been called things like "Freedom Trail" and "Ratlines" as well as ironically named "railways" (ironic because there were no trains. Or rails) passed from supporter to supporter to avoid detection.

Make no mistake: Da'esh built a very effective and entirely secret international network for the movement of goods, money and people. And a network of safe houses and centres of persuasion in plain sight across the world. Demeaned by many as ragheads living in caves, the truth is that by the time Da'esh began its high-profile campaigns it had already well and truly hacked the world.

How they did it and why the same techniques have persisted for thousands of years is not a matter of history.

This week, it's been announced that efforts are being made to excavate and identify an estimated 1,000 sets of human remains found in a mass grave near Mosul, all allegedly victims of Da'esh between 2014 and 2017.
Current threats based in earlier activities

The growth of Da'esh, both directly and through affiliated groups, has never stopped. Everything that is happening today arises - indeed is possible - because of the infrastructure and techniques the group developed a decade ago.

Within the past several weeks, intelligence sources have become more urgent in their warnings that Da'esh and its supporters are engaged in a major fund-raising campaign and are heavy buyers of weaponry including explosives.

Also Da'esh has claimed responsibility for several, apparently unconnected, attacks on people and property across the Middle East.

In South East Asia, it is well established that Da'esh is embedded in the district of Mindanao in the southern Philippines. Its rat runs across Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines are very well established and effective. During the Christmas period, it blew up a mass in a Catholic cathedral in that district. Philippines authorities conduct frequent raids to capture leaders and to intercept those en route to commit acts of terrorism.

In 2019, Al Jazeera spoke of the results as "ISIS crumbles." Syria claimed that ISIS was defeated. They were wrong.

As the conviction of Choudary - and around the world others like him and those they recruit - shows, the media might have forgotten about the risks of extremism and of Da'esh in particular but the threat is omnipresent.

And in the respects covered by the book, nothing material has changed.

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