I used to be a liberal thinker believing there was no such thing as a bad person. No longer! I used to attempt to analyze the motivations of “misguided” young men throughout the Middle East prepared to blow themselves up along with others for a cause. Was this deadly phenomenon the result of poverty or oppression? Were malleable young minds being brainwashed as fodder for various political agendas? What were their goals? Do they have goals or are they akin to mentally deranged sociopaths without compassion, without conscience? If their valid concerns were addressed, would they morph into responsible citizens?
Those were some of the questions I would ponder on? Simply branding such individuals as ‘evil-doers’ was too simplistic for my liking. But for want of a better word, evil is what they truly are. I finally reached the conclusion that such indiscriminate killers are not only undeserving of being “understood” they present the biggest threat to regional stability and, thus, must be brought to justice or eradicated in the same way that they aim to eradicate the lives of innocent civilians. As long as they stalk this neighborhood brandishing the sinister flags of Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the Al-Nusra Front, Ansar Beit El-Maqdis, Hezbollah et al, the life-blood of the entire region is being infected by groups which, put simply, are traitors to the Arab World, traitors to their homeland and betrayers of their faith.
On Sunday, terrorists blew up a bus carrying Korean pilgrims in southern Sinai just before it crossed into Israel from Taba on the day that the ousted Egyptian President, Muhammad Mursi, was back in court on charges of espionage and collusion with foreign organizations. The explosion killed three Koreans as well as the Egyptian driver. Many are fighting for their lives in hospitals. What was their harm? A gleeful admission posted on Twitter by a shady bunch calling itself Ansar Beit El-Maqdis — formerly funded by the Deputy Muslim Brotherhood leader, Khairat El-Shater and linked to Hamas — is stomach-turning. “As we promised what’s next is more bitter — by God’s grace, a bus was targeted and exploded in Taba.” Those creatures — the word “animals” is too good for them — have no cause other than the lust for revenge and the wish to turn the hopes and dreams of 90 million Egyptians into dust.
It’s a similar story in Syria. Militants sniffed blood and flooded-in like flies to manure, not to assist Syrians remove the shackles of an authoritarian regime, but, rather, to dig-in for the long-term, bent on imposing their warped ideology on the population.
Those ramshackle bands of ignoramuses have turned their weapons on the Free Syrian Army and are guilty of massacres, such as that recently committed by the Ahrar Al-Sham and the Jund Al-Aqsa in the mainly Allawite village of Maan where 42 women, children and elderly men were slaughtered. Such barbaric acts only serve to reinforce the brutal Assad regime, which during the failed Geneva 2 talks halted discussions on a transitional government on the pretext that terrorism should top the agenda.
The terrorist presence in Syria is one of the main reasons why this conflict drags on when governments sympathizing with the opposition are loath to supply heavy weapons to legitimate fighters for fear they’ll end up in the wrong hands. And, sad to say, if Hezbollah continues to take its marching orders from Tehran rather than hold dear the soil of Lebanon, that tiny country sandwiched between Syria and Israel is ripe to follow suit.
A recent decree by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah shows just how seriously Saudi Arabia is taking the problem. Saudis who choose to get involved in foreign conflicts risk prison sentences of between three and 20 years, while anyone who joins a terrorist organization or incites others to join could end up behind bars for 30 years.
Ultimately, the terrorist disease is a worldwide dilemma. No country on earth is immune and many have felt the pain, not least the US, the UK, Russia, Kenya, Thailand, Tanzania, Bulgaria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Lebanon, Syria… It’s a list too long to mention.
Bush’s “War on Terror” was a spectacular failure. In fact, his military adventures oiled the swamp in which terrorism thrives. That said there must be an answer when Al-Qaeda’s affiliates and franchises are proliferating, threatening all of us wherever we are. Without a global commitment to wipeout this scourge, involving agreed joint strategies, intelligence sharing, satellite and communications’ surveillance and a multi-national force schooled in asymmetrical warfare, terrorism is here to stay.
