The former British prime minister called for a "fundamental change of strategy" to defeat the "global" extremist threat.

Writing in the Sunday Times, Tony Blair said the fight needs to be not only against the violence of extremism, but also the ideology behind it.

Calling the attacks in Belgium "shocking", he warns they are going to "keep coming".

The risk is that we leave the roots untouched. It is easier to look upon this problem as if the violence were cultish in nature, the provenance of tens of thousands of brainwashed crazies who, person by person, we have to arrest or 'deradicalize'.

"Regarding it instead as a much broader problem of ideology leads us into uncomfortable terrain because here the challenge is not measured in thousands but in millions."

As well as defeating Daesh quickly by force, Blair called for greater co-operation between intelligence agencies, an effective system of processing refugees, and in the long term, education promoting religious tolerance and effective aid and development policy.

Source: MENA