The massacre at Tunisia’s Bardo National Museum on Wednesday didn’t just bear all the hallmarks of modern extremist terror, it was an almost precise re-enactment of one of the first such large-scale atrocities.

In 1997 six insurgents disguised as members of Egypt’s security services hunted down and systematically executed 62 victims, mainly foreign visitors, at the pharaonic Temple of Karnak on the River Nile.

The terrorists were members of Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya (the Islamic Group), an Egyptian forerunner to Al-Qaeda and a pioneer in the use of militant operations intended to produce both mass casualties and global mass media coverage.

The Karnak attack combined grandiose theatrics with equally grandiose notions of igniting a nationwide backlash against a US-backed Egyptian military government the plotters rightly anticipated would strike back ruthlessly and systematically at Islamist opponents.

But the group only succeeded in creating revulsion for their own cause. Egyptians were appalled by the massacre, the first such outrage bankrolled by Osama bin Laden.

While the vicious assault against the lucrative Egyptian tourism industry almost succeeded in mortally wounding the country’s always tottering economy, it galvanised the population against radical Islam. To this day Egypt remains deeply suspicious of religious fundamentalism masquerading as political ideology. But despite failing in its primary strategic objective, Karnak continues to provide the preferred template for terrorists intent on carrying out high-profile, high-casualty attacks against their enemies.

Today such made-for-television spectacles aren’t viewed as a means to a particular end by apocalyptic-minded fanatics. The bloodshed and body counts and publicity are ends unto themselves.

The Karnak methodology was in full evidence in Tunis this week. So, of course, was the same bemused disregard for human life.

In an attack straight out of the jihadist drill book, militants wearing police uniforms and armed with assault rifles stalked the halls of the internationally renowned Bardo museum, murdering dozens of vacationers.

Tunisia was, of course, a target rich in symbolism for the terrorists responsible for this week’s act of barbarism.

The cradle of the 2010 Arab Spring, Tunisia remains the only country in the region where the ideal of peaceful coexistence between Islam and democracy continues to be both preached as well as practised.

In 2011, just months after a largely bloodless revolution ousted the country’s long-time strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia went to the polls and overwhelmingly rejected Islamic extremism for modernity, secularism and cultural and religious pluralism.

Edward Said, the late dean of post-colonial Middle Eastern studies, once described Tunisia as “the gentlest country in Africa. Even the Islamists are highly civilised”.

Until this week Said’s whimsical observation about Tunisian fundamentalism elicited smiles and knowing nods. Today nobody is laughing.

Modern Tunisian political thought is, by and large, more informed by the ideals of the French Enlightenment than either the medieval mindset of Islamists or the oil-financed megalomania of neighbouring despots like Libya’s late “Guide to the Era of the Masses” Muammar Gadaffi. This progressive bent reflects the country’s longstanding tradition of inclusiveness. The splendid city of Kairouan is an ancient seat of Islamic scholarship. Yet the country’s Jewish community, which dates back to Roman times, is explicitly protected (as are other minorities) under the country’s constitution and enjoys Cabinet-level political representation in the government.

Its long history of tolerance, acceptance and hospitality has not only made Tunisia an oasis of calm in a turbulent region but helped to establish the country as a cosmopolitan and increasingly popular travel destination.

The country’s Carthaginian and Roman ruins, picturesque deserts, Mediterranean beaches and relaxed, French-style cities and towns draw millions of visitors every year.

But the country is home to a tiny minority of disaffected Islamists (more than 3000 Tunisians are thought to have travelled to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS’ bloody revolt against modernity). And a handful of these homegrown extremists are thought to have been responsible for planning and mounting the Bardo operation.

The long-term damage inflicted on Tunisia’s nascent democracy, economy and reputation by the attack will take months, if not years, to quantify and assess. But the short-term damage has already been immediate, brutal and hugely disruptive. Thousands of tourist bookings to the country have been cancelled. Two large cruise ship companies announced their vessels will not be calling in Tunis for the foreseeable future and two German tour companies said they have halted trips to the city from nearby beach resorts.

It’s another reminder to Bermuda that putting the Island in the global spotlight with the 2017 America’s Cup will also place us in the cross-hairs of publicity minded radicals. A globally televised event bearing the name of the Islamists’ Great Satan would almost be too tempting to ignore.

The America’s Cup has certainly drawn the attention of jihadists in the past. In 2003 letters containing cyanide crystals were mailed to the US, British and Australian diplomatic missions in New Zealand when that country was hosting the regatta.

Those foiled attacks took place at the height of the American-led invasion of Iraq which London and Canberra were both supporting militarily and diplomatically.

And plans to hold the 2010 competition in the United Arab Emirates were scuttled precisely because of widespread fears the Persian Gulf country could be too easily infiltrated by Al-Qaeda fanatics.

Today the extremist threat is increasingly diffuse and difficult to combat. It can come from disciplined cells, radicalised amateurs such as those responsible for the 2005 London transport bombings or even lunatic lone wolves like the self-styled jihadist who stormed Canada’s Parliament last October.

For those seeking a cause, a sense of identity or, most often, a supposedly divinely inspired formula which claims to explain all that is inexplicable in life and promises to overthrow the mighty, lay waste their cities and redeem the despised, the lure of jihad can be irresistible.

To go from being a marginalised outsider in a cold and uncaring world to becoming a foot soldier of a wrathful God who punishes the wicked and rewards true believers with eternal gifts provides a sense of fulfillment and purpose to otherwise purposeless lives.

There are just two years to go before Bermuda hosts the America’s Cup and it took that long for San Francisco, venue for the last competition, just to put security arrangements into place for the 2013 event.

Bermuda, working against a foreshortened deadline, has to complete all the preparations for one of the world’s premier sporting events, in that time.

Let’s hope security isn’t sacrificed for speed as the Island races to beat the clock. For as this week’s tragedy underscored, a media-conscious enemy obsessed with theatricality will not hesitate to stage its nihilistic extravaganzas in any vulnerable, symbol-rich setting which can provide the worldwide publicity they now view as an end unto itself.