Washington, Nov 16 (IANS): The Islamic State has "demonstrated that there is no limit to its reach, and no nation is really safe until they all come together to defeat this scourge", the New York Times said following the terror attacks in Paris.

An editorial "What will come after Paris" in the NYT on Monday said that the terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday, along with twin bombings in Beirut on the day before and the downing of a Russian jetliner over the Sinai Peninsula on October 31, "show a new phase in the Islamic State’s war against the West, a readiness to strike far beyond areas it controls in Iraq, Syria, and increasingly, Libya".

The daily said that the challenge for threatened countries is huge.

"The sort of attacks the Islamic State has launched are hard to anticipate or prevent, yet in Europe each one intensifies the raucous xenophobia of far-right nationalists ever ready to demonize Muslim citizens, immigrants and refugees, and shut down Europe’s open internal borders," it said.

"The Islamic State must be crushed, but that requires patience, determination and the coordination of strategies and goals that has been sorely lacking among countries involved in the war on ISIS, especially the United States and Russia," it added.

The NYT noted that "pouring fuel on the passions swirling around refugees and Muslims in Europe was no doubt a major goal behind the IS attack".

"The choice of the neighbourhoods where most attacks occurred, an ethnically diverse area in eastern Paris increasingly populated by young professionals, seemed designed to send the message that tolerance would be no protection against what IS described in a communiqué as the coming 'storm'.”

It went on to say that the attacks in Paris sent a major shockwave around the world, and the Beirut bombings and the downing of the Russian civilian jetliner were every bit as horrific.

"IS has demonstrated that there is no limit to its reach, and no nation is really safe until they all come together to defeat this scourge."