As horrific as the
ISIS-inspired or directed attacks have been in the West, most recently the
wholesale execution of 49 innocents in Orlando, Florida, the bulk of such anger
continues to focus on the Middle East and the rest of the Muslim world. As the
holy month of Ramadan, normally a time of peace and prayer, shuddered to a
close, as ISIS’ hold on Fallujah slipped away, ISIS and ISIS sympathizers unleased
an unprecedented pattern of wrath against innocent civilians in their universe.
“The Islamic State issued a communique before Ramadan began imploring jihadists
to ‘make it, with God’s permission, a month of pain for infidels everywhere.’”
USAToday.com, July 4th. No one could have contemplated how effective that
message would become.
Ramadan 2016 saw an
unbelievable litany of carnage, from Florida to Indonesia, from Kashmir to
Iraq, from Saudi Arabia to Bangladesh, Israel, Libya, Africa, Europe and the bloodbath
at Istanbul’s international airport that killed 44. More than 600 killed during
that holy month, the worst Ramadan ever. Particularly within ISIS sights:
foreigners and Shiites (considered non-believers by the diabolically Sunni
fundamentalist-ISIS). To understand the schism between Sunnis and Shiites, my
October 20, 2015 Persians, Phoenicians and Arabs – Modern Consequences provides
a short explanation of “why.”
On July 1, ISIS-inspired
gunmen shamelessly invaded an upscale restaurant in Bangladesh’s capital
(Dhaka), taking hostages, many of them foreigners. When the police force ended
their counter-assault, 28 people lay dead. As the identities of the attackers
were revealed, it appears that their number included scions of the educated
upper classes, schooled at some of the best universities at home and abroad.
ISIS issued this statement: “Let the people of the crusader countries know that
there is no safety for them as long as their aircraft are killing
Muslims," The victims didn’t have a chance.
Bangladesh had
experienced a recent spate of fundamentalist attacks against outspoken
secularists who were brutally hacked to death. Seemingly lackadaisical
authorities finally mounted what seemed to be an out-of-control massive
crackdown by arresting over 8,000 suspects with terrorist links. But clearly,
ISIS was way ahead of anything Bangladeshi police could contemplate. Terror
continued across the Islamic world.
Perhaps we are so jaded
at the constant attacks in and around Baghdad, that the death-by-suicide-bombing
explosions that litter the secondary headlines in the West finally grabbed our
attention as a massive truck-bomb, planted on July 3rd near one of the city’s
busiest marketplaces, took out at least a staggering 250 civilians, just as a
smaller explosion in a suburban market killed one victim. Sunni-fundamentalist
ISIS took credit for this massive assault (pictured above) on these Iraqi
Shiite targets. Iraqi police were stymied at the scale of the assault.
With its eye on a global
Sharia-law-based Sunni caliphate, ISIS is severely calculating in its efforts
to destabilize its opponents. “… Cedric Leighton, a CNN military analyst and
retired Air Force colonel, said he thinks the attacks will worsen, adding that
ISIS' game plan is to generate instability… ‘They are trying to create enough
chaos in Iraq itself so that the Iraqi forces will find it very difficult to
actually take advantage of the forward momentum they have achieved because of
their victory in Falluja and that is a very serious issue that the [Iraqi]
al-Abadi administration is going to have to address.’
Attacks such as the one
in Baghdad will drive a wedge between the government and the people, in
particular Shiites…‘The wedge was already there, and it's fairly easy for them
to exploit this,’ Leighton said.” CNN.com, July 4th. While Sunnis represent 20%
of the Iraqi population, the majority Shiite (and fairly anti-Sunni) government
in Baghdad is one of the reason ISIS – claiming to fight for Sunni rights – has
grown so fast. Baghdad just executed 7 terrorists, with 3,000 more prisoners
(many of whom are ISIS-driven) waiting on death row.
But ISIS has also made it
clear that the Saudi monarchy, a bastion of ultra-conservative Wahhabi Sunnism,
is also an enemy of their view of Islam. ISIS hates that the monarchy is the
“protector” of Mecca and Medina, the two holiest cities in Islam. To underscore
that position, it appears that ISIS probably fomented an series of suicide
bombings in Saudi Arabia: “An attack [on July 4th] in the western city of
Medina targeted security forces near Al-Haram al-Nabawi, a mosque built by the
prophet Mohammed and one of the holiest in Islam. The attack took place during
prayers and in the evening, when observing Muslims break the Ramadan fast [the
end of Ramadan]… Saudi Arabia’s Interior Ministry said in a statement on the
state-run al-Ekhbariya news channel that four security officers were killed and
five others were wounded in the attack…
“Also [on July 4th], a
suicide bomber blew himself up near a Shiite mosque in the eastern city of
Qatif. A car bomb also exploded nearby, but no other deaths or injuries were
immediately reported… Qatif sits on the Persian Gulf in Saudi Arabia's
expansive Eastern Province. Saudi Arabia is dominated by Sunnis but has a
substantial Shiite population in the east. Resident Nasima al-Sada told the
news agency AFP that ‘one bomber blew himself up near the mosque’ and that no
bystanders were hurt.
“The Qatif blasts came
hours after a suicide bomber struck near the U.S. consulate in the western city
of Jiddah. The Saudi Interior Ministry said the Jiddah attacker detonated his
suicide vest when security guards approached him near the parking lot of a
hospital. Some cars were damaged but no injuries were reported.” USAtoday.com.
It’s interesting to see
Western politicians propose “let’s end ISIS terrorism” with old world notions
of attacking territory, bombing or employing other massive strikes against ISIS
holdings, and extermination of this scourge against humanity with the vastness of
our military power. What a rather complete misunderstanding of such extreme
forms of religious vengeance and hostility!
As tempting as site-based
attacks might be, even the most devastating attack on ISIS strongholds – which
would have some of the most horrific rates of civilian casualties imaginable –
the fight against strident and violent Islamic fundamentalism is a long, battle
that must enlist the entire world’s attention… a whack-a-mole effort against a
malevolent religious force that feeds on anti-Muslim sentiments, the relegation
of immigrants from Muslim lands (and their children) to second class
citizenship, and recruits accordingly.
Every anti-Islamic
polemic, every Western leader who castigates immigrants because they came from
Muslim states, seems to draw ISIS sympathizers out of the woodwork, persons who
now feel the call to defend their faith and destroy those who denigrate Islamic
beliefs. Instead of fostering true containment of ISIS toxicity, the misguided
politicians inspire an entirely new “backlash” generation to “defend the
faith.”
I’m
Peter Dekom, and it is incredibly disheartening to watch ignorant political
voices make a bad situation that much worse.
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