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Jihad in Glasgow
By Jacob LaksinThis was not how Gordon Brown hoped to begin his term as Britains new prime minister. But shortly after assuming office last Wednesday, Brown found himself facing a full-blown terror spree: 36 tension-filled hours that saw two car bombs discovered in London and found grim punctuation this weekend when a Jeep Cherokee, manned by Islamic terrorists, crashed in a fiery blaze into the main terminal of Scotlands Glasgow Airport. No one familiar with the events of recent years will surprised to learn that the suspects are all Muslims. Media accounts of the Glasgow attack described the men as Asian, a common shorthand for Britons of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin, and witness accounts left little doubt about the attackers faith tradition: Those on-scene in Glasgow recalled that one of the attackers, even as he was engulfed in flames, bellowed Allah, Allah while resisting police. And while reports that one of the attackers had donned a Hamas-style suicide belt await further corroboration, British counter-terror forces have no illusions about whom theyre dealing with. Lord John Stevens, a former police chief who has been tapped as a terrorism adviser to Brown, made that abundantly clear when he noted that [t]his weekend's bomb attacks signal a major escalation in the war being waged on us by Islamic terrorists. That prompts the question: Why now? By way of explanation, some news reports in the wake of the Glasgow attack cited a posting last week on an Islamist chat room. Signed by one Osama al-Hazeen, reputedly a repeat visitor to the site, it threatened attacks in retaliation for the war in Iraq and the knighting of author Salman Rushdie, who insulted and slandered Islam. The first theory in particular appeals to those, on the antiwar Left and isolationist Right, who see the U.S.-led military intervention in Iraq as the wellspring of jihadist wrath. The obvious flaw in that argument is that Scotland is headed by a nationalist government whose first minister, Alex Salmond of the Scottish National Party, has been the leading opponent of the war in Iraq, even supporting efforts to impeach Tony Blair over the invasion. The Glasgow attack thus demonstrates yet again that opposition to U.S.-foreign policy is no protection against Islamic terror, while exposing the hollowness of jihadists grievances and the opportunism of their apologists in the West. Far more credible is the explanation suggested by Nile Gardiner, a fellow in Anglo-American security policy at the Heritage Foundation. The timing of the attack is significant because al-Qaeda associates attacks with historical developments and we are just days away from the anniversary of the 7-7 bombings, Gardiner told FrontPage yesterday. The recent attacks, he said, are also meant to test the resolve of the new British government. Al-Qaeda thinks that, compared to Blair, [Gordon] Brown is the weaker link, and the attack in Glasgow is part of their strategy to split Britain off from the United States in the war on terror. Gardiner speculated that Brown is unlikely to cave in to demands to withdraw forces from Iraq, though he noted that many on the Left will be clamoring for precisely that. Browns task now is to show that he can be trusted to handle the terror threat. His early moves have been encouraging. Beyond unequivocally condemning terrorism as an act of evil in all circumstances, and sparing his countrymen familiar platitudes about the religion of peace, the Scottish prime minister has sought to give police broad powers to conduct investigations. Brown also revealed his plans to push forward a slate of counterterrorism measures, among them a provision to allow prosecutors to use evidence collected by phone and email taps in terrorism trials and another that would enable police to detain terror suspects for upward of 90 days without charge. (On the latter measure, Brown finds strong opposition from the Tories, a fact that goes a long way toward explaining the electoral weakness of Britains leading conservative party.) To those who wondered whether Blairs successor would have his clarity about the terrorism threat, it was a welcome sign that Britain is not about to unfurl the white flag. Authorities, to be sure, have also benefited from the ineptitude of the terrorists. For example, the London car bombs were evidently so crudely made that it would have taken nothing short of divine intervention for their lethal contents -- including gas, gasoline and nails -- to explode as intended. Similarly, security officials have said that one of the suspects in the planned London attacks allowed a crystal clear picture of him to be snapped by the citys security cameras. Meanwhile, the driver of the Jeep in Glasgow plowed straight into the airport security posts, which prevented him from driving into the busy terminal. One shudders to imagine the carnage that would have ensued had the would-be terrorists been competent as well as crazed. It seems almost unnecessary to point out that the latest attacks show that the Islamists war is global in scope and that it is driven more by religious fanaticism than a rational response to the policies of the West. But of course that elementary point needs restating when it eludes Democratic presidential candidates like John Edwards, who has declared that the global war on terror is a fiction, conjured up by the Bush administration needlessly to frighten Americans. That line may gladden the hearts of Democratic primary voters, but in a world where even Scottish civilians have to fear for their lives, Edwardss see-no-terror approach is the closest that contemporary politics comes to fantasy. Posted by: anonymous5089 2007-07-02 |
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