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Islam and Terrorism - Part 1

One often comes across the general statement today that “not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.” Students of terrorism know that this, at least in one sense, is quite a flawed statement. An FBI report shows that only a meager six percent of terrorist attacks carried out on U.S. soil between 1980 and 2005 were perpetrated by Muslims. The FBI’s data shows that Latinos, which actually means Puerto Rican separatist groups, Cuban exile groups and the like, were responsible for 42 percent of the terrorist attacks, extreme left groups for 24 percent, communists for 5 percent, and Jewish extremists for 7 percent. 16 percent of the attacks were carried out by “others.” As regards Europe, the facts can be found in the Europol annual report entitled EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report. The report proves decisively that not all terrorists are Muslims.  In fact, a whopping 99.6% of terrorist attacks in Europe were by non-Muslim groups, and a good 84.8% of attacks were from separatist groups completely unrelated to Islam.  Leftist groups accounted for over sixteen times as much terrorism as radical Islamic groups.  Only a measly 0.4% of terrorist attacks from 2006 to 2008 could be attributed to extremist Muslims. Therefore, there is need for caution in declaring all terrorists to be Muslims. 

There is, however, one sense in which the statement that “all terrorists are Muslims” may be nearly true. If there is one religious community resorting to acts of terrorism to promote its religious or religious-political ends in a major way worldwide, it is only the Islamic community. There may be terrorist groups like Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA) in Myanmar, or the Lord’s Resistance Army of the Christians in Uganda, but they are mostly local in impact. The acts of terrorism perpetrated by Muslims are also often so grandiose and the death tolls so massive that they attract worldwide attention, and. consequently, invite worldwide hatred. In the 9/11 World Trade Centre attack they claimed nearly 3000 lives in the USA. In the Mumbai attack they claimed in one incident over 150 lives. The Paris attack has claimed around 150 lives and yesterday in  Mali 18 lives were lost  No wonder the idea of terrorism always instantly brings to a lay mind the picture of a Muslim.

(To be continuued)