Forty-nine Turkish hostages, including diplomats, women and children, have been released by the terrorists of Islamic State. The lavish scenes of jubilation on their safe return were prominent on Turkish TV. But did you see the earlier pictures of the fearless men of the Turks’ secret intelligence service, backed by special forces, charging across the borders into northern Iraq and Syria brandishing brown envelopes stuffed with lolly?

Ransom payments for the release of hostages is one of the main sources of Islamic State’s funding. How else? You didn’t think they held flag days did you or levied VAT on cut-throats? Though they probably make a packet out of sponsored mass public hangings. Another source of revenue is the sale of stolen antiquities from the ancient cities they have overrun. Colossally rich individuals with jihadist sympathies from the Gulf states have been observed delivering millions in sacks full of dollar bills. But IS’ main source of revenue is from the sheiks of Qatar and Saudi Arabia – who also backed Al Q’aeda – Sunnis, Wahabis who supported the fundamentalist rebels in the uprising against Assad.

The context of these untidy arrangements is the rivalry between the regional superpowers: the Saudis who are Sunnis and Iran which is Shia. These two states did not invent this sectarian rivalry: it is only the latest eruption of the thousand year old attrition between those two Muslim sects. The Sunnis don’t even believe that the Shias are Muslims at all. IS is also the creation of the western powers in the prosecution of the two Gulf wars in which Saddam Hussein’s regime was destroyed and nothing but chaos left in its place.

Now the West has no intention of fighting another war to wipe out IS and to clear up the chaos. Our leaders have repeated the message again and again: “There will be no boots on the ground.” IS knows this very well and that is why they are able to rampage, murder and destroy as they please.But IS is only the most recent and most dramatic – media savvy and filmable – of a fundamentalist Muslim insurgency which extends into Sudan, Somalia, Mali, all across North Africa and into Syria and Iraq. This insurgency is facilitated by the West’s imbecile policy of supporting the Arab Spring – thus compounding in North Africa the errors made in Iraq.

Europe will become the next victim of the Muslims’ imperialistic ambition and for two main reasons: first the Trojan horse of uncontrolled mass immigration and secondly the vastly superior birth-rate among Muslims in the European countries. As Bishop Michael Nazir Ali has warned, there are already no go areas for non-Muslims in many parts of Britain. We must expect these to increase exponentially.

One morning in the not too distant future, we shall wake up to discover that our country, our continent, our civilisation have all gone.

Western governments have no intention of scrapping their suicidal policies. Everything is done with the aim of appeasement and to avoid the suggestion of “Islamophobia” – whatever that might be. All the insurgents on three continents know this. Why shouldn’t they know it, since we confirm it every day by our actions, or rather our inaction?

Unless we discover the wit and the courage to change our policy, Europe faces a new dark age.