James Foley’s murder will haunt Islamic State jihadis: Editorial
The Islamic State “caliphate” on the Syria/Iraq border, carved out of the power vacuums and chaos that have engulfed the region in recent years, is an emirate of thugs.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS - File photo of U.S. journalist James Foley, who was beheaded by Iraqi extremists.
Published on Thu Aug 21 2014
TheStar.com
So now we know. The Islamic State jihadists who beheaded American journalist James Foley this week are not only depraved murderers, but also crude extortionists. They were willing to set him free for a $132-million ransom.
Le masque est tombé, as the French might say. These self-professed Sunni warriors for Islam led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may be master propagandists, energized by Al Qaeda’s warped vision of “cleansing” the Middle East of foreign influences, but at root they are common, self-serving criminals. This murder, like their endless other crimes, will haunt them.
As U.S. President Barack Obama observed, journalists aren’t their only targets. They have murdered Syrian and Iraqi Muslims, Christians, Yazidis and others by the thousands, torturing, beheading and raping. Their shaky “Caliphate” on the Syria/Iraq border, carved out of the power vacuums, chaos and death that have engulfed the region in recent years, is an emirate of thugs.
A reporter for GlobalPost, a Boston-based online news agency, Foley gave his life trying to convey “the suffering of the Syrian people” to the wider world, as his family put it. That includes the death of 180,000 people. Like Marie Colvin, the remarkable London Sunday Times journalist killed in Syria, he saw his job as bearing witness to the truth.
By now 70 journalists have died in the Syrian conflict and its spillover, and 20 are missing.
Yet horrific as the Islamic State’s crimes are, they no longer shock as they once did. The beheading of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002 shattered any illusion that reporters were not to be targeted. And the jihadis’ savagery is well established.
This latest outrage won’t change American policy in any way that favours the killers. Faced with calls to “bomb the monsters who killed James Foley,” the Obama administration has redoubled its air assaults to help Iraqi and Kurdish forces recapture the strategic Mosul Dam and other key areas. Meanwhile Canada, Britain, France, Germany and other allies are mobilizing to support the Baghdad government and arm the Kurds.
And French President François Hollande is trying to organize an international conference to mobilize the region against this threat.
Having boasted of plans to “drown all of you in blood,” the Islamic State finds itself on the defensive. Its fighters have been pushed back from Irbil, the Mosul Dam and Mount Sinjar. Significantly, its leaders are trying to blackmail Obama into calling off the airstrikes by threatening another journalist’s life. That validates Washington’s current tactics of pounding the jihadis’ armour and artillery, while arming the forces that oppose them.
While the Islamic State still controls the big Iraqi city of Mosul, plus Raqqa and others in Syria, as well as oil and water supplies, pressure is building on both Baghdad and Damascus to retake these centres to prevent the region from becoming another Taliban-run Afghanistan and a launch pad for international terror. That should concern Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, even Iran.
The Islamic State can rule only with the support of Sunni tribes in the areas it controls. To defeat it, the international community must press Baghdad’s new Shia-led government to reach out to the disaffected Sunni minority, regain their trust and enlist them in the fight. There also needs to be more support for moderate Syrians who are waging a two-front war against both the regime in Damascus and the jihadis, so they can hold their own. And the Shia/Sunni rivalry that fuels so much conflict in the region needs to be reined in. These issues should be the focus of any conference.
Despite their propaganda boasts, the jihadis can’t win this struggle unless the world lets them. It shouldn’t.
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Despite their propaganda boasts, the jihadis can’t win this struggle unless the world lets them. It shouldn’t.
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