Once again, the forces of evil committed another crime in the house of God in Asir. Before this heinous act, terrorists had attacked other places of worship in Qatif and Dammam and killed a number of innocent people who were offering prayers.
In all the cases, the killers represented terror outfits and the victims were innocent people, majority of them Saudis. The goal was to disturb the Kingdom's stability, security and drive a wedge among various sections of the society.
What these killers have done, and what other killers before them did and what such terrorists plan to do in future cannot be justified by any sane person.
Those who commit such crimes in the name of Islam cannot deceive anyone who has even scant knowledge of religion, because Islam does not justify any crime. These terrorists cannot justify their evil deeds even if they produce tons of skewed interpretations of Islamic teachings.
These criminals wrongly believe that they can achieve their goals by killing innocent people and even those offering prayers, bowing and prostrating before Allah the Almighty.
This satanic organization, Daesh, has committed chilling crimes no less heinous than crimes committed by other parties involved in shedding the blood of innocent people in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
Members of these terror outfits cannot be called humans because they have no mercy and no remorse for what they do. The most surprising thing is that they kill worshippers in the name of Islam and claim themselves to be the custodian of religion.
They have killed thousands of Muslims and fought those fighting against the Assad regime. They and their self-appointed caliph are thriving on bloodshed and killings.
The most dangerous thing they are doing is brainwashing the youth and duping them into carrying out suicide attacks.
The Holy Qur'an says, "Whosoever killeth a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as though he had killed all of mankind, and whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind." (Al-Mai'dah 5:32).
The actions of a few people calling themselves Muslims and yet killing others in the name of jihad is a horrendous crime that has sullied Islam's name.
Jihad means struggling or striving and applies to any effort exerted by anyone. Upon his return from a battle, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said, "We have returned from the lesser jihad to the greater jihad (i.e. the struggle against the evil of one's soul)."
These terrorists are psychopaths and insane. They should be placed in mental hospitals and shouldn't be allowed to roam around freely to spill the blood of Muslims and that too in the name of religion.
The government has taken a number of steps to provide us security and the surveillance and vigilance by our security forces have thwarted many attacks by these terror groups.
The most important thing that each of us needs to do is to play his/her role as a citizen and as a soldier because we are facing a shameless enemy that is striking at our roots by brainwashing our youngsters and using them to kill us. It is a battle that every citizen has to fight. It is not only the government's responsibility, but the responsibility of every citizen because the terror group is making our own sons our enemies, pitting brothers against brothers and trying to drive wedge among us on the basis of sectarianism.
I suggest establishment of a center to receive information from citizens about any possible terror incident. The identity of the informers should be kept secret for their safety. The reason for this proposal is that some of those criminals are living among us and we should keep any eye on their movements and on those who harbor them and abet them in their crime. Every citizen should become a soldier and must shoulder his responsibility to protect peoples' lives, that may be the lives of his family and his loved ones.
