Major European capitals have beefed up security over fears of terrorist attacks ahead of New Year festivities. Thousands of police and military personnel have been deployed to protect the civilians in Paris, Berlin, Brussels, Madrid and Rome among other European cities. On December 23, a terrorist affiliated to the Daesh Takfiri group rammed a truck into a Christmas market and killed dozens people. French and Belgian capitals are among other European cities which witnessed Daesh terrorism in November 2015 and March 2016 respectively.

Ian Williams, a senior analyst at Foreign Policy in Focus from New York, says that the phenomenon of terrorism in Europe and the US has its roots in a joint venture by the US and Saudi Arabia to establish and nurture extremist groups like al-Qaeda.

“The origin of all of this (terrorist attacks) is the American-Saudi axis in Afghanistan many years ago,” Williams told Press TV on Friday night.

The United States and Saudi Arabia have “provided the weaponry and technology and the organizational ability for many of these [terrorist] groups for what they are doing now,” he said.

The analyst said terrorism in the US and Europe is a blowback on a huge scale, reminding that the late al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, was a Saudi who was working in Afghanistan with the CIA and others.

Williams touched on the US policy of ignoring Saudi attempt to support terrorism throughout the world, saying the Americans "tolerate Saudi cultivation of Wahhabi mosques and religious centers which are breeding grounds for this type of extremism.”

He also criticized the Western governments’ misuse of the threat of terrorism and extremism.

“Terrorism is a real threat but one always has to worry whether the authorities in Western countries sometimes manipulate the degree of the terrorism threat up or down to get political result.”

Williams further ruled out the allegation that the West is a major victim of terrorism, noting that according to the US State Department, the top 10 countries which are victims of terrorism are not in Europe, but in places like Afghanistan, India, Pakistan and Nigeria.

He compared the aftermath of terrorism and road accidents, saying the menace of terrorism is not as big a threat as being highlighted “statistically and emotionally.”

“The US alone is 10 times as many people die of road accidents every year as die of terrorism worldwide,” he said.

The West has been gripped by a surge in deadly terror attacks over the past few years, which according to many observers, stem from the wrong policies it adopted towards terrorism in the Middle East and North Africa.