Murder Most Foul

‘ONE can only imagine the feeling of betrayal on the faces of the two suicide bombers when they find that the cold-blooded murder of 27 people is as repugnant to Allah as it is to the rest of us.

Turkey shoot

No eternal bliss for these two killers, no martyrs’ welcome, no gardens full of virgins – just the rest of time to dwell on the fruits of their perverted philosophy.

The immediate result of the two suicide bombs which went off outside the British consulate and HSBC Bank in Istanbul yesterday was inevitably carnage.

Among the dead in the first bomb was the Consul-General Roger Short, as well as three Britons and 10 Turks. More than 400 people were injured in the two explosions.

The Times says the bombers, who deliberately timed their attacks to coincide with the London meeting of President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair, ‘mocked the massive security precautions in London by launching assaults hundreds of miles away against soft targets’.

However, writing in the Guardian, Martin Kellner argues that the ‘victory’ for the Muslim radicals that make up al-Qaeda will be short-lived.

‘As bomb succeeds bomb, the radical groups in many Muslim countries that have taken up what they see as the duty of jihad are losing key members both in the attacks themselves and in the arrests that follow,’ he suggests.

‘They are also losing not popular support, which they do not really possess in most places, but the romanticised image which they were able to exploit in the past.’

However, the papers are as divided as to the best way to respond as they were about the war in Iraq.

The Independent blames the invasion and occupation of Iraq for ‘recruiting martyrs to the cause of hating the non-Muslim world in general and America (and Britain and Israel) in particular’.

The Guardian agrees, suggesting that the Western response to 9/11 has only served to polarise opinion.

‘There is no case for surrender,’ it says. ‘But there is a very strong case for a more intelligent, less confrontational, combined east-west approach to an intensifying global crisis.’

However, the Telegraph is having none of it, claiming that al-Qaeda’s vision is ‘inspired by a deep-seated hatred of the fruit of European Enlightenment’.

‘Yesterday’s atrocities,’ it says, ‘are yet another reminder that the West and its allies, and moderate Muslims throughout the world, are up against a foe who, blasphemously, given that God is the creator of life, glorify their deaths and the innocent people they kill as a passport to Paradise.’

As they will find, it is not a passport that is accepted as entry into any Paradise – but the mark of a murderer.’

Posted: 21st, November 2003 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink