Speaking at a news conference in Riyadh the other day, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres laid the responsibility - though partially - where it belongs when he said "one of the things that fuel terrorism is the expression in some parts of the world of Islamophobic feelings and Islamophobic policies and Islamophobic hate speeches." Indeed, the Trump administration's partial ban on Muslims entering the US and the anti-immigration rhetoric of right wing politicians in some European countries fuels anger among the targeted people and plays into the hands of extremist groups, such as the IS. What is being conveniently ignored in the context, though, is the reason that has given rise to this brand of terrorism: Western governments' wars in the Muslim world.

A little history is in order to understand the Western narrative presents a distorted view of the problem in blaming 'Islamic terrorism' on Islam rather than something that is the outcome of the blamers' own policies. It needs to be recalled that Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda founder and the world's most wanted terrorist until his elimination in May 2011, was a product of the US' war against erstwhile Soviet Union. He was one of the thousands of religious extremists the US, with the help of its regional allies, had brought from various Muslim countries to be trained and armed in camps set up on Pakistan's soil to go fight the Soviet 'infidels' in Afghanistan. In the accompanying propaganda, this was supposed to be 'Islamic Resurgence' while the fighters were affectionately described as mujahedeen. The US left after achieving its objective of giving its rival power a bloody nose, but the radicalization the war produced would lead to the 9/11 atrocity, and another war in Afghanistan that goes on till today. Yet the US embarked on another adventure against a small Muslim nation, invading and occupy a largely secular Iraq after Condoleezza Rice's and Paul Wolfowitz's key adviser Professor Fouad Ajami likened Saddam Hussein to Hitler and asked Washington to confront 'culture of terrorism' in North Africa and the Middle East. From the ashes of that war emerged the violent, head chopping extremists led by people like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (later killed in a US strike) and Abu Bkr al-Baghdadi, who was to establish the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). The US and its European as well as regional allies went on to launch yet another military intervention in Libya, and then to turn a pro-democracy movement in Syria, also a secular state, into a civil war by inciting insurgency (their actions, however, helped the brute regime of Bashar al-Assad to perpetuate). Once again, local as well as foreign fighters were financed, trained and armed to wage war that failed to attain the desired goal, but created further radicalization in the region. Some of such radicalized groups and individuals have been targeting innocent people in Western countries, claiming to avenge military interventions in their part of the world.

Muslim peoples and their countries are the victims of terrorism unleashed by the very governments who now accuse them of being terrorists. Hundreds of thousands have lost their lives and millions rendered homeless, forcing many to seek refuge in neighbouring countries as well as in Europe, the US and Canada. Things being what they are, painting all Muslims with the brush of 'Islamic terrorism', as the UN Secretary-General said, "is the best support that Daesh can have to make its own propaganda." Violent religious extremists are a common enemy that calls for a joint effort to fight and defeat them.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2017