It's been around for a while. Longer than people would care to admit. But now in a world of the press and public opinion making dictators around the world weaker than they used to be, these groups have less to fear. In the past if they tried anything stupid the government would come in with troops and mow down the whole village. Now that's not going to happen without CNN running stories about how an innocent village that hasn't hurt a fly in over 2000 years has just been slaughtered for saying "the president is bad."
Not only that, but these terrorist groups now have communications that they previously did not have or had less of. But like I said, that's only a part of the equation. It's almost like terrorists and the press have this sort of symbiotic relationship where the terrorists give the press the ratings and the press protects the terrorists' families and gives them exposure.
Oversimplified I guess but you get the idea.
