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Need to put an end to madness

Jun 29,2016 - Last updated at Jun 29,2016

Images of bloodshed, panic and debris at Ataturk Airport in Istanbul have been exchanged by people since the early hours of Wednesday.

These, along with eyewitnesses’ accounts of Tuesday evening’s attacks, reportedly by three suicide bombers, were shocking and painful.

The perpetrators of the heinous crime — Daesh being the prime suspect —again targeted innocent civilians indiscriminately.

It could have been any one of us peacefully travelling through that airport, clutching bags, carrying babies, holding presents for beloved ones, looking forward to reaching our final destination, never suspecting that some evil misfits would be waiting for the right moment to pull the trigger or detonate their deadly luggage. 

Anyone could have been targeted by the mindless criminals who only thought of inflicting pain and spreading death.

They, and those who sent them on their mad mission, cannot claim that they had political or other reasons for striking. It was sheer evil.

The vast majority of the Tuesday victims were Turkish. Maybe all were Muslims, but it does not matter, as Daesh only seeks to spill blood, preferably the blood of innocent people.

It did that before in Belgium, France, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, Ivory Coast, Syria, Iraq, Jordan and elsewhere. 

And it will do that again and again if it does not get stopped.

The whole world is a target and, unfortunately, the whole world is incapable of stopping the misfits who claim to act in the name of a faith.

Here in Jordan, almost one week ago, this group targeted an army post that was offering humanitarian assistance to tens of thousands of Syrian refugees escaping the war at home.

Seven young men died in the attack, from the army, police and civil defence; delivery of food, water and aid to refugees stranded in the desert was hampered as a result.

It was not clear whether Daesh intended to punish the Syrian refugees escaping terror or Jordan for its determination to fight terrorism. One fact is certain, however: Jordan’s position on the need to uproot Daesh will not change.

To the contrary, the attack only makes the Jordanian people more united behind their leadership, army and security agencies in their fight against terrorists.

Tuesday’s Istanbul attack should do the same: unite the civilised world in the fight against the forces of evil, with Muslim countries at the forefront.

Muslim countries have to come together and agree on more effective mechanisms to fight terrorists and, more importantly, to properly address the ideological aspects of this war.

This is a fight they have to wage and win for Islam and its principles of tolerance, coexistence, love, peace and harmony.

 

The attack in Istanbul, with which the whole world stands in solidarity today, will hopefully constitute a turning point in the fight against terror.

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