Asymmetric Warfare

For long, in places like Iraq and Nigeria, Christian churches have been burned (sometimes with the Christians inside), by Sunni Moslems.   Only belatedly, and mutedly, has there been much reflection of this in the mainstream media.

But by way of balance, let us point out, that there have also been several burnings and bombings of mosques, and places of Muslim pilgrimmage.  Only, again -- not by Christians, but by Sunni Moslems (the victims being Shiah).

François Hollande admonishes us, not to “faire l’amalgame”.  Mais parbleu!  l’amalgame se fait d’elle-même.

[Update 4 Feb]  And now Boko Haram is getting into the act, broadening their depredations by burning now  not only churches, but mosques as well (the other day, in Cameroon  -- nearly a hundred worshippers were fried inside).

Jordan pilot murder: Islamic State deploys asymmetry of fear

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-31129416

~

The most outrageous desecration against Islam so far, was the 1979 attack on the Grand Mosque of Mecca, the holiest site of all.  And once again, it was  not Christians who did this -- it was Muslim tribesmen from the Nejd, in KSA.

Naturally this caused outrage among Muslims worldwide.  And they manifested their fury by … burning U.S. embassies (in Pakistan and Libya).

That incartade was by no means atypical for the Muslim world:  striking  not at the actual perpetrators, but at the handy Christian Whipping-Boy.  Thus:  in  Lebanon 1977, after the assassination of Kamal Jumblatt, the Druze massacred every Christian in the Chouf that they could get their hands on.  Revenge?  Not exactly, since it wasn’t the Christians who killed him.  (Syrian intel, apparently.)  Footnote:  Traditionally, and as late as 1975, the Chouf was fifty-percent Christian.   Now, many pogroms later …. less than one percent.

~

[Update 6 February 2015]  Having perhaps borrowed from Da`esh the art of slaughtering even fellow-Sunnis, now Boko Haram -- quick learners -- have discovered the pleasures of beheading:

Forced marriage, slavery and imprisonment are vital institutions in its way of life. And casually meted-out death — by shooting or beheading — is the punishment for men who refuse to join.

Boko Haram fighters returned from combat and grew furious at the sight of elderly men talking peacefully under the shade of a neem tree, so they simply opened fire on them.

“They started distributing property so that people would follow them,” said Hauwa Abubakar, recalling that Boko Haram gave out biscuits, rice and spaghetti that its fighters had looted from Bama’s market.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/06/world/africa/boko-haram-refugees-recount-brutality-and-random-killings-in-nigerias-north.html?_r=0

For more on Muslims oppressing Muslims (and again in this case, fellow-Sunnis), cf. this newly updated essay:

http://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2014/09/isils-caliphate-gender-aspect.html

 

Nor is the oppression of Muslim women by Muslim men  a matter only beyond our borders -- would that it were:

Nearly 507,000 women and girls in the United States could be at risk of female genital excision [owing to] an increase in immigration from countries where the practice is common, including Egypt, Ethiopia and Somalia.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-female-genital-excision-20150206-story.html#navtype=outfit

An increase ?!  Have we learned nothing from the disasters that this sort of immigration has been causing in Europe, where an actual civil war over the issue is no longer out of the question?

 

[Update 7 February 2015]  After years of looking the other way while Christian communities were decimated throughout much of the Third World, the New York Times belatedly twits the Indian Prime Minister for doing the same:

What will it take for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to speak out about the mounting violence against India’s religious minorities? Attacks at Christian places of worship have prompted no response from the man elected to represent and to protect all of India’s citizens. Nor has he addressed the mass conversion to Hinduism of Christians and Muslims who have been coerced or promised money.

Recently, a number of Christian churches in India have been burned and ransacked.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/07/opinion/modis-dangerous-silence.html?_r=0

Hear hear.  Unfortunately, the long trail of such violence has gone little  noticed in the actual news pages, the harumphing being reserved for the editorial page, which nobody reads.

[Update 31 March 2015]  Recently, ISIL slaughtered over a hundred worshippers in two mosques in Sanaa (the capital of Yemen), most of them Huthis (who are Zaydi Shiites), but some Sunni were reportedly among the dead as well.  So, how does ISIL justify attacking mosques?  The answer comes in the new edition of their magazine Dabiq (issue #8, just releasted):  ISIL doesn’t call them “mosques”, but:  “Huthi temples”.

[Update 18 July 2015]  Once again, the Muslim faith has been lethally desecrated, with many dead, this time on the occasion of the Eid al-Fitr, the breaking of the Ramadan fast.

And once again, the perpetrators are fellow Muslims:  Boko Haram in Nigeria, ISIL in Iraq.

[Update 19 July 2015]
The Asymmetric Warfare Group, based somewhere in Delmarva
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-army-isis-watchers-20150718-story.html#navtype=outfit