The way al-Qaeda tells it, the West is locked in an existential war with Islam. This is how the terrorist group justifies its violence and its fundamentalist ideology. And now, they've found a Westerner to back them up – top Trump adviser Steve Bannon.

Bannon graced the cover of the most recent al-Qaeda-linked Al Masra newspaper. That prominence, University of Oxford researcher Elisabeth Kendall told Quartz, is "striking."

The piece focused on Bannon's views of Islam, saying he believes that "the forces of Islam cannot be stopped by peaceful means." The paper cited a conversation Bannon had with a Danish journalist in May 2016. It also claimed that Bannon believes that the struggle is really between Christianity and Islam, not just Islam and the West. And it suggested that Bannon has "lost confidence in secular Europe, and sees Muslim immigrants as partially responsible for the retreat of traditional Christian values."

Like other Trump advisers (and former advisers), Bannon has spoken publicly about these beliefs. In 2014, he gave a speech to the Vatican via Skype in which he said, "We're now, I believe, at the beginning stages of global war against Islamic fascism." On other occasions, he's suggested that the "Judeo-Christian West" is at war with "expansionist Islamic ideology."