Author: Editorial
Publication: India Today
Date: May 26, 2003
Introduction: A still functional
Al-Qaida should worry-and wake up-India too
The attack by suicide bombers in
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on the night of May 12 was a reminder America-or
for that matter the entire world-cannot ignore: Al-Qaida is alive and is
capable of repeating 9/11 on varying scales of horror. The imprints were
a giveaway. The targets were expatriates, the method was a leaf straight
out of the book of Osama bin Laden and the country was his homeland, an
American ally and one of the radical Islamic kingdoms and the very source
of bin Laden's rage. And it coincided with US Secretary of State Colin
Powell's visit. President George W. Bush's America, a nation transformed
by 9/11, may have flushed out bin Laden's militia from Afghanistan, killed
or caught some of the top leaders of Al-Qaida, and liberated Iraq from
Saddam Hussein. The unprecedented, and hugely successful, war on terror
was a global display of national will and power. "Al-Qaida is on the run
... they are not a problem any longer ... we have seen the turning of the
tide in the war on terrorism." The Bush triumphalism was premature, as
Riyadh has shown. Out there, in the neighbourhood apartment block or in
the marketplace, the Ladenite foot soldier is waiting for you.
A still functional Al-Qaida is not
an American worry alone. True, America may be the primary target of the
network of evil, but everyone who lives outside the medieval fantasy of
radical Islamism has a stake in the world-or the value system-that is being
threatened by the authors of 9/11 and Riyadh. India, along with Israel,
is a frontier victim of radical Islamic terror. Over the years, India has
endured quite a few Riyadhs, although, unlike fellow victims like the US
and Israel, this country has been rather passive in its resistance and
stoic in its suffering. Today, there is a diplomatic stirring of a new
beginning between India and Pakistan, for so long a sponsor and protector
of jehadis. Ideally, any war on terrorism is dishonest as long as it keeps
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia out of its purview. Sadly, it is selective idealism
that marks America's war on terror. At the end of the day, the hard reality
is that each victim state has to fend for itself. That is what both the
US and Israel are doing. Post- Riyadh, India too should know complacency
should not be the state of the national mind.
