The attacks seem to be coming in rapid-fire succession. First 7/7 in London. Then, bombs in Turkey, ongoing blasts in Iraq, another attempt in London followed immediately by another devastating attack in Iraq and then the deadly weekend blast at Sharm El-Sheik in Egypt. And to top it all off, a small plane -- with no connections to terror whatsoever -- crashed on the field in front of the chancellor's office in Berlin demonstrating just how vulnerable the German capital is.

Thankfully, investigators have made quick headway in investigations into most of the recent attacks. But is that enough? Feelings of disgust, revulsion and helplessness are also rapidly on the rise and German papers on Monday address all the questions reopened by this latest wave of random death. When will it end? Where will they strike next? And how many freedoms must we sacrifice to protect ourselves from terror if, in fact, we can protect ourselves from terror?

"Aimless Terror," is the headline of the editorial in Monday's Sueddeutsche Zeitung as it questions whether there is any strategy at all behind the violence. In attempting to answer the question, the center-left daily considers the origins of al-Qaida noting that the head ideologist of the terror organization, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, long ago fought against the pro-Western government in his native Egypt. When he didn't succeed there, he got together with Osama bin Laden to found the World Islamic Front for the Jihad Against the Jews and the Crusaders in 1998 and expanded the movement to fight a global enemy. Now, notes the paper, "al-Qaida appears mired in a multiple-front war. At first they only wanted the US soldiers out of Saudi Arabia." Now their victims could be Americans, Europeans, and even fellow Muslims. But unlike the Palestinian Hamas movement or the Hisbollah in Lebanon, al-Qaida has no stated political goal. "In the long run, it doesn't have more to offer than chaos and death, and without a goal, this movement will run out of steam -- if it doesn't fall apart in a fight over direction. For now it's enough for the militants to kill a lot of people at any time. That's what makes nihilists so dangerous."

The conservative Die Welt observes that each of the recent terror acts had a different genesis and direction: political extremists in Egypt against Mubarak's pro-western stance, Kurdish separatists in Turkey and unsuccessfully-integrated Muslim immigrants in London. "Al-Qaida merely provides the ideological superstructure for a multitude of largely autonomous terrorist cells. The organization of Terror Godfather, Osama bin Laden, lost its strict hierarchy after being forced out of Afghanistan and has taken on an amorphous structure. Today it is more of a principal witness to, rather than an initiator of, bombing attacks committed in its name, which is why the arrest and killing of the al-Qaida leaders wouldn't end the attacks on civilians. This isn't the Third World War, but it is a life and death struggle."

The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wants the Islamic world in on the fight against terror. It says that while most Muslims are peaceful, "a survey shows that a shockingly high percentage of them has a certain amount of understanding for Islamists." Furthermore, some Islamic states -- including Pakistan and Saudi Arabia -- tolerated and even supported some of these extremists. Quoting Mao, the paper notes that "There will never be a victory in the War on Terror as long as the terrorists can cavort in a certain part of the world 'like fish in water.'" In other words, the only hope for success is if the Islamic world itself fights Islamist terrorism. At the same time, the West needs to acknowledge its mistakes in Iraq. "After the Allied victory, Iraq has descended into a chaos, in which al-Qaida has found niches and places to hide. If the war on terror is to be successful, the West cannot afford such paradoxical results."

The best way to fight back, says a stiff-upper-lipped Financial Times Deutschland, is not to fall into hysteria. After the first attacks in London two weeks ago, Britons reacted stoically. After the second round of bombs in London, and the attacks in Sharm El-Sheik and Istanbul, the tension rose and led to tragedy, when a suspiciously-behaving young Brazilian man was mistaken for a suicide bomber and shot in the head. Indeed we must all be careful, says the financial daily. "The West should not allow itself to be led by hysteria. With its bloody two-pronged strategy -- attacks on cities and vacationers --Islamist terror is not only counting on attrition, but also on hysterical escalation."

The left-leaning Die Tageszeitung focuses on Jean Charles de Menezes, the 27 year old Brazilian who was shot by London Police after behaving extremely suspiciously. "But even when all the evidence against him is counted up" -- the dark-haired man left an apartment building that was under police surveillance, walked to a subway station wearing a coat unseasonably big and warm and fled when the police approached him -- "it should never have been allowed to result in shooting the man." Indeed, says the paper, "the shoot to kill policy cannot be defended." The commentator is careful to note, however, that "the suicide attackers are also to be blamed for this escalation."

Many editorialists also commented on an odd German foot note to the whole discussion. On Friday night, a light aircraft crashed in flames on the grass between the German parliament building, the Reichstag, and the Chancellor's office smack in the middle of Berlin's government quarter. It quickly became clear that the pilot was not a suicide bomber, but a suicidal amateur flyer under pressure from the police in the investigation of his wife's mysterious disappearance. Still, in a country where there is a certain complacency due to the perceived "Iraq Bonus" for their stance against the war, the incident served as a wake-up call. "When a small aircraft can penetrate the center of government undisturbed, then it's like a how-to for international terrorism," cried Die Welt.