Radical Islam has 'outspent, outmanoeuvred, out-strategised' democracies: Blair

New York, Oct 7(ANI): Radical Islamist extremists have "outspent, outmanoeuvred and out-strategised" democracies around the world, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has claimed.

Speaking in New York to thinktank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Blair said that warnings of 26/11 Mumbai-style terror plots against Europe should remind people that they remained under threat.

He said that it was "absurd" that some people were surprised at how powerful Islamist extremist groups were, given the amount of funding they received and indoctrination they spread.

"Measure, over the years, the paucity of our counter-attack in the name of peaceful coexistence. We have been outspent, outmanoeuvred and out-strategised," The Telegraph quoted Blair, as saying.

The former Prime Minister further called for a 'fresh confrontation' saying that it would be impossible to defeat extremism "without defeating the narrative that nurtures it".

"The practitioners of extremism are small in number. The adherents of the narrative stretch far broader into parts of mainstream thinking," Blair said.

"It is a narrative that now has vast numbers of assembled websites, blogs and organisations," he added. (ANI)