The events of the Sri Lanka massacres have distressed us, even though they did not come as a surprise.
Those innocent, simple people were the victims of a terrorist act and were perfidiously murdered. Before that, the mosque shooter in New Zealand committed a similar crime, and so did Daesh and Al-Nusra Front in Syria, Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, Europe and the US, and other criminals who have become part of today’s terrorist threat to mankind.
I am convinced that the battle is long. The world has been fighting terrorism for three decades, and we cannot see an end to this war, which may last a century. Wars involving terrorism are more dangerous than the wars of tribes and nations, as they are the product of ideologies that are deeply rooted in the history of the ancient world. The weapon of terrorism is derived from holy books and modern technology, which enable it to spread at the cheapest prices. And every time a terrorist group is eliminated, other groups are born. Without an international agreement against terrorism and without pursuing it on an intellectual level, it will last long, leave deep wounds and horror, and remain a threat to the future of humanity.
Although the focus in the confrontation is on pursuing terrorist organizations and their finances, they persist and become stronger thanks to their supporters.
The apologists are no better than the terrorists themselves. They find excuses for murderers and sow doubt in people’s minds, filling them with conspiracy illusions.
Although the focus in the confrontation is on pursuing terrorist organizations and their finances, they persist and become stronger thanks to their supporters.
Abdulrahman Al-Rashed
Stay aware because these are the defense brigades of terrorist ideologies and have learned the arts of manipulation and justification. In the early days of Al-Qaeda’s crimes, they claimed Al-Qaeda was a "fifth column" group.
They then claimed the crimes were part of a foreign conspiracy. And, when the terrorist organization published videos of the murderers admitting their crimes, which was proof beyond a shadow of a doubt, the apologists moved to the next stage: Describing these crimes as acts of vengeance and a war of defense, citing books from past centuries.
When the horrific massacres in Sri Lanka took place, the Islamist terror apologists' first reaction was to deny their link to the blasts in order to confuse the public by claiming the massacres were committed by others. They then attempted to justify them, and they will continue to spread their narratives in the light of the failure of intellectuals and cultural institutions.
They said: “We have never heard of this before,” “this never happened in Sri Lanka before,” and “there are no terrorist organizations in Sri Lanka.” Nervana Mahmoud replied to one of them in a tweet: “Dear Bigot Khalid: Never heard of ‘a first?’ Before 9/11 there was no terror attack in America. Before 2015, there was no terror attack in Paris. Before Twitter, we never had the *pleasure* to meet bigot like you!”
Thousands of those involved in promoting terrorism are ideological armies that support extremism. Some of them have real names, while the majority are dummy armies.
The battle on the ground continues, and the four terrorists who failed in their operation and were killed in Zulfi, Saudi Arabia, remind us that the international organization is alive and kicking and that there are those who work to bring them back to life every time they are destroyed.
- Abdulrahman Al-Rashed is a veteran columnist. He is the former general manager of Al Arabiya news channel, and former editor-in-chief of Asharq Al-Awsat. Twitter: @aalrashed