TIME TO HIT THE SUICIDE FACTORIES
by Amir Taheri
New York Post
July 8, 2005

July 8, 2005 -- 'WE have fulfilled our promise and carried out our blessed military raid in Britain after our mujahideen exerted strenuous efforts over a long period of time to ensure the success of the raid." This was how an Islamist group, using the al Qaeda brandname, announced its responsibility for the terror attacks that claimed nearly 40 lives in London yesterday.

Although the exact circumstances of the raid on London remain murky, one thing is certain: This was a suicide operation aimed at killing as many civilians as possible. That the raid came as the G-8 summit opened in Scotland is certainly significant, as is the fact that it was the first day of the Arabic lunar month of Jamadul al-Akhir, Prophet Muhammad's favorite season for organizing raids against the "infidel."

What do we do about people who are prepared to court certain death in exchange for killing others? The question has been asked by the Israelis for years and by the Americans since 9/11. It is now the turn of the British to ponder it.

The first thing to do is not to get impressed by the fact that an individual who has been brainwashed out of his or her humanity is ready to die in order to kill others. The only reasonable way to treat such individuals is as a new form of weaponry. And, like all other weapons that impress when first introduced, these suicide-killers will continue to terrorize and fascinate until we find an antidote.

Cyrus the Great used camels as a weapon when he conquered Babylon. Hannibal used elephants for his raid on Rome. The Islamist terror leaders who wish to conquer the world and convert entire mankind to their brand of "true Islam" have gone one better by using the human body as a weapon.

But like all others, this weapon is designed by some people, financed by investors, manufactured somewhere and deployed by leaders who can be identified and destroyed. These human weapons are designed and shaped by a constant flow of anti-Western propaganda from Arab satellite TV, the so-called Islamic associations and countless madarassahs (Islamic schools) -RD>and mosques throughout the world, including in London itself.

Go to any mosque in the West (let alone in the Islamic countries) on any Friday and you are sure to hear a litany of woes about how the "cross-worshippers" have allied themselves with the "plotting Jews" in order to destroy Islam, which, as God's final message, is the only true faith.

You will hear how the West is mired in corruption, its womenfolk exposing their midriff in public and its governments sanctioning gay and lesbian marriages. You will also hear how "the Crusaders" have invaded Muslim lands and are trying to impose their democratic system on Afghanistan and Iraq.

Such a discourse might leave most Muslims indifferent or even annoyed. But it is enough for it to seduce even 1 percent of the world's Muslims — that is to say a cool 13 million people — for everyone to be in trouble.

The deadly propaganda is reinforced by other means. The future terrorist is comforted by the fact that his or her fellow Muslims in the West use their bodies as an advertising space for their beliefs. In many Western cities, this comes in the form of al Qaeda-style beards and long shirts (qamis) for men and jet-black hijab (headgear) for women. (Not long ago, I saw a baby girl in a carriage wearing that prop of visual terrorism.)

The would-be suicide terrorist is also likely to be impressed by the self-styled Islamic theologians coolly debating the issue of whom to kill and how. Any viewer of Al-Jazeera, the satellite channel owned by the emir of Qatar, has seen its chief Islamist guru Yussuf al-Qaradawi insist that Islam allows the murder of unborn Israeli babies because they may grow up and join the army. In a recent visit to Mecca, I witnessed another self-styled guru, Sheik Safar al-Hawali, informing visitors to his home that it was "licit" to kill innocent Muslim women and children in Iraq if that led to "the defeat of the Crusaders and their apostate Muslim allies."

The would-be suicide-killer is also comforted by the sense of guilt manifested by many in the West. He has seen do-gooders from the United States in the streets of Arab Jerusalem apologizing to astounded Muslim passersby for "the Crusades" — which happened long before the United States came into being.

He may also note that he is treated with something bordering on deference by much of the Western media, which has banned the use of the word "terrorist" altogether, using, instead, such terms as "militants" or " resistance fighters."

And then there was the successful ghazva (raid) on Madrid last year, when the Islamists succeeded in changing the government of a major Western democracy with a single attack.

If the suicide-terrorists were weapons made of metal, the victims would certainly try to bomb places where they were made. But because these weapons are of human flesh, the assumption is that they can't be traced back to any specific locality. It is as if we were dealing with ethereal beings existing beyond the limits of reality.

The London attack was not the work only of the few individuals who carried it out. It was the bitter fruit of a faith that has been hijacked by a minority of extremists while the majority of its adepts watch with a mixture of awe and ill-concealed pride. The real fight against this enemy of humanity will start only when the so-called "silent majority" in Islam speaks out against these murderers and those who brainwash, train, finance and deploy them.

Amir Taheri, an Iranian author and journalist, is a member of Benador Associates.

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