No answers as extremists step up terror in Nigeria, Horn of Africa

Boko Haram, a terrorist group in Nigeria, last week slaughtered more than 120 Muslims in a devastating attack on the Grand Mosque in the northern city of Kano. The explosions happened as an imam was about to begin his sermon.

In East Africa, al-Shabaab, another terrorist organisation operating in Somalia, reportedly forcibly boarded a commuter bus in north-eastern Kenya and shot dead 28 people. It has been alleged in the media, that all the 28 victims were Christians. A few days later, they massacred 36 quarry workers near the north Kenyan town of Mandera.

There is also a vicious Sunni offshoot calling itself the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria-- the ISIS, ISIL or simply I.S. This terrorist group is known for beheading innocent civilians yet from the viewpoint of the Islamic tenets and culture, killing one innocent person whether Muslim or Christian equals the killing of the whole humanity.

In February last year, as a ruthless coalition of armed groups composed of al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb, the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa, and Ansar Dine, another Islamist group among Mali’s Tuareg population occupied town after town in Mali, intent on seizing the capital Bamako, Sharia law was imposed, and Christians as well as moderate Muslims were killed and hounded.

Targeted innocent Muslims
It may seem counterintuitive to some people that these savages attacked a mosques and murdered innocent worshipers, but Boko Haram in Nigeria, al-Shabaab in Somalia, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and other extremist groups have targeted innocent Muslims accusing them of not defending their madness. But the peace-loving Muslims, the discourteous blanket admonition, notwithstanding, will not be cowed. We will continue to stand against extremists who twist religion to justify terrorism.

The terrorists attack on Muslims in Nigeria is the latest evidence of a brutal and poisonous extremism that murders indiscriminately without any sense of shame. The attack on Muslims and the kidnapping of schoolgirls, confirm the savagery these terrorists, hiding in Islamic faith to commit crimes against humanity.

Innocent Muslims in America, Europe and around the world have endured untold repugnance in the face of a faceless war on terror. This is because the savages have tarnished our faith. They have slaughtered innocent people— the Muslims and Christians. They have raped women and girls and turned children into wives. They pride in bloodshed and anarchy-- and often deliberately misread the teachings of Islamic faith to disrupt world peace. They have stained our faith.

Last week’s attack on a mosque is not the first neither the last attack on Muslim installations in Nigeria. Last year, more than 40 worshippers were murdered at a mosque in Borno state. These terrorists have also eliminated senior Muslim politicians and religious leaders in the country. And they have explicitly targeted anyone calling for or organising self-defence units, known as the Civilian Joint Task Force.

But even with all these fatalities, Muslims efforts in war against terror have not been appreciated. And this has hampered the concerted efforts needed in the war against global terrorism. For instance, at the sidelines of a recent African investigative journalism summit in Johannesburg, a reporter from Mozambique confronted me during tea break when I introduced myself as “Yasiin”.

He rebuked my faith and criticised Muslims for doing little in the war against terrorism. He said we have not been consistent in isolating the terrorists who hide in our faith. In particular, he wondered as to why moderate Muslims never stood up to the terrorists to stop the beheading of innocent people including journalists.

I told him that Muslims around the world did condemn the senseless beheading of innocent people. How can we afford to keep quite when the barbarians are tarnishing our faith? But the unwarranted attack on the Muslims for failure to speak against the beheading of the journalists and soldiers, reminded me of another debate I had with a fellow Muslim in the wake of Israel attack on Gaza in August.

Pushed Muslims to the wall
His argument, shared by most of the intransigent Muslims, was that the West pushed Muslims to the wall and they had no choice but to fight back. He cited the fraudulence in the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the execution of their leader Saddam Hussein in 2006 and other Muslim leaders in various Muslim countries.

He also questioned why the rest of the world chose silence when Israel was shelling Gaza and killing every single person they could get their hands on, including women and children.

In addressing the Palestine question, he sought to be educated on whether the Jews speak for the innocent Muslims and children of Gaza. My answer was uncompromising. While these are valid questions, I also reminded him that an eye for an eye policy is going to leave all of us blind. I also told him that the new breed of extremists is now killing Muslims in mosques and that the Christians they are targeting in trying to avenge the shelling of women and children in Gaza have nothing do with the politics.

They are innocent victims just like the women and children in Gaza or Nigeria for that matter. And in any case, if indeed, it’s question of vengeance, then, how can we explain senseless slaughtering of innocent Muslim children and women? It’s not true that the good Muslims are not doing enough to distance Islam from these barbarians. As a matter of fact, those who come out to speak openly against these ruffians, pay with their lives.

The Muslim response to these senseless attacks on innocent people should be categorical in a sense that terrorism is a global problem and cannot be defeated by mere condemnation of the savages and their heinous acts. Muslims and Christians should work together in the war against global terrorism. The utterly despicable murders of innocent people have not discriminated between Muslims and Christians- we are all victims.

Stained Islam

In the wake of the al-Shabaab attack on a commuter bus in Kenya, I read a cynical comment posted on National Public Radio (NPR) website, by a cynical American listener (Ray Roth), saying “the religion of peace” strikes again. This reader was reacting to slanted media reports that the terrorists singled out the non-Muslims who were heading home for Christmas.

As you can see, from the barbarism of the terrorists, Roth now dishonestly faults Islamic faith for everything yet Muslims are also victims. His post insinuates that Jihad is at the heart of Islam and to question the holy war is to also question the faith. And that war is religion which is a misleading notion.

The detestation of Islamic faith especially in the West, confirms the extent to which terrorists have played Muslims against Christians yet as human beings; we should co-exist peacefully in appreciation of our diversity regardless of skin-color, race, tribe or religion. But it should be recorded that at no point do the basic texts of Islam enjoin terrorism and murder.

As Muslims, at no point do we even consider the random slaughter of uninvolved bystanders not even the attack on mosques and churches as an act of worship. Unfortunately, some people have purposefully lumped good Muslims with terrorists yet Christian or Muslim— we are all victims.

An important component of the anti-Islamic polemic in the modern world is the contention that Islam is a religion of violence. This is why some media outlets especially in the West, occasionally carry disputed reports, painting displeasing situations where these barbarians purportedly kill Christians and spare Muslims. But if this is the case, then how come the same brutes are now shelling mosques and murdering innocent Muslims, including women and children?