If you are an aspiring Muslim suicide bomber living in Europe, what is the best way to die?

One path is to travel to Iraq and set off a bomb in, say, a marketplace. But you might end up killing only a handful of people, all of them fellow Muslims–and having little impact on the course of world events.

Another path is to travel to Pakistan and prepare there for a “martyrdom operation” in Europe or the U.S. that might end up killing many more people, all of them likely to be infidels. This choice has the added bonus–if it is a bonus–of keeping you alive a bit longer.

It seems that the second option is becoming more attractive. The Los Angeles Times reports that “a dangerous new pattern” is emerging: “an increasing number of militants from mainland Europe are traveling to Pakistan to train and to plot attacks on the West.”

The shift is indeed dangerous, but is it bad news or good news, or mixed? Among other things, it may be yet another piece of evidence that the “surge” in Iraq is working and it is becoming a less hospitable place for foreign terrorists who want to blow themselves up.