Former prime minister warns of large-scale terror attacks in Europe as he praises MPs for voting for airstrikes in Syria and says Isis ideology ‘has deep roots’

Support for the propaganda of Islamic State stretches “deep into parts of Muslim societies”, Tony Blair has said as he warned of terror attacks on a larger scale than the shootings and bombings in Paris last month unless the group and its ideology are defeated.

In a speech in Washington, in which he praised British MPs for the “important” decision to extend RAF airstrikes against Isis targets from Iraq to Syria, the former prime minister warned that “a belief in innate hostility between Islam and the west” is not the preserve of a few.

“Those who believe in concepts of the caliphate and the apocalypse – so much part of Daesh [Isis] propaganda – stretch deep into parts of Muslim societies,” Blair said. “A belief in innate hostility between Islam and the west is not the preserve of the few.”

The remarks by Blair in the 7th Kissinger lecture at the Library of Congress echoed earlier speeches by the former prime minister – and by David Cameron – in which they have said that advocates of extremist ideology must be confronted in addition to advocates of extremist violence. Michael Gove praised Blair last year when he criticised government officials for just believing in “beating back the crocodiles that come close to the boat rather than draining the swamp”.

Blair endorsed this view in a wider global context when he spoke of the large number of Muslims who have sympathy for extremist views. He said: “Of course a large majority of Muslims completely reject Daesh-like jihadism and the terrorism which comes with it.

“However, in many Muslim countries large numbers also believe that the CIA or Jews were behind 9/11. Clerics who proclaim that non-believers and apostates must be killed or call for jihad against Jews have Twitter followings running into millions ... The ideology has deep roots. We have to reach right the way down and uproot it.”

Blair’s reference to the caliphate and the apocalypse refer to two of the central beliefs of Isis. In their reading of Islam the apocalypse – the final confrontation between Muslim and Christian armies – will take place in the historic Syrian town of Dabiq. Isis aims to restore caliphates in ancient Islamic lands.

He said that Isis forces and allied groups – plus those who support its ideology – must be defeated in Syria, Iraq, Libya, the Sinai area of Egypt and in parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Blair said: “Defeating Daesh is only a necessary beginning. Force alone will not prevail. The challenge goes far wider and deeper than the atrocities of the jihadist fanatics. The Islamist ideology has also to be confronted.

“Today it can be, in alliance with the modernising and sensible voices within Islam determined to take the name and reputation of the faith of Islam back from the extremists. A continued failure to recognise the scale of the challenge and to construct the means necessary to meet it, will result in terrorist attacks potentially worse than those in Paris, producing a backlash which then stigmatises the majority of decent, law-abiding Muslims and puts the very alliance so necessary at risk, creating a further cycle of chaos and violence.”

Blair praised MPs for taking an important step in the battle by voting in favour of extending air strikes against Isis targets from Iraq to Syria.

He said: “For Europe, there is a huge calculation to be made. This security threat is at our door. It is actually within our home. We have a paramount interest in defeating it, which is why last night’s vote in the British House of Commons was so important. Europe has to create, within its nation states, the armed force capability to allow us not just to play our part but to lead.”