Bomb in Turkey! coordinated attacks in Iraq! printer-bomb found Yemen plane! Iran weapon ship stopped on its way to Africa! What a scary place our world has become. How has this happened? Where did we go wrong?
Terrorist bombers have existed for decades. Israel used to be a focal point for fundamental Islamic terror organizations. With the birth of terror bombings a new myth emerged.
Media reported of a bomber, crazed and oppressed by the forces of occupation. This troubled soul was lead to a desperate act of violence as defiance; Whereas the bomber is perhaps reproachable, the media pleaded, his act is but a red flag to encourage us to look at his desperate cause.
This was what we would call "The Myth of the Lone Bomber". Why a myth?
As we can learn from terrorist attacks the world over this is almost never the case. Take for example the attack on Mike's Place, an Israeli Bar a few years back. This young Muslim bomber was a British college dropout who was unemployed and yes, he was desperate. However here is the route he underwent before finally committing his desperate act:
Indoctrinated in Jihadist Islamic Ideas through his local mosque, he became an activist in London. Recruited as an Islamic soldier to Bosnia fighting for the Mujahidin, he then flew to Syria, then to Pakistan for combat training, passed the border and met with Al-Qaida in Afghanistan, fought allied forces, then flew back to London and once more to Syria from which he was supposed to be taken to Iraq to combat allied forces yet again, but his mission changed and he was handed over to Hamas.
This is where his Jihadist ideology would finally be transformed into action but not before Hamas would drive him through Jordan across the border to Israel to research possible bombing targets, then invite him back to Gaza for more mental training, recording his farewell tape and receiving his already prepared trigger and explosives.
Luckily this man did not manage to carry out the attack, his bomb did not go off. His partner yet another desperate soul with a similar route was the one that ended up committing mass murder as an act of defiance in Mike's Place.
Not Exactly a one man show, is it?
What is clear from all the current events is that there is a network surrounding the bomber. The bomb itself is just the most apparent part of the network, the tip of the Iceburg.
This network provides the ideological doctrine, identifies and recruits , trains, transports, smuggles weapons and explosive, engineers the bomb, plans the route, provides documents and takes care of media relations after the attack.
Yes it is easier to recruit people who are desperate and yes the occupation is one of the reasons that a lot of people are desperate in the small Gaza strip but why are British Muslims desperate not to mention Iraqis, Saudis and Yemenites, Turks, and Kurds?
Should we look at London's underprivileged class as a breeding ground for terror because it inspires desperate bombers? We think not.
We believe that this myth of the bomber being just a symptom of desperate plight as oppose to a fanatic ideology and network of terror, rewards terror organizations such as Hamas and Hizballah and encourages them to continue utilizing terror as a means to an end.
If terror is allowed to be an effective tool to voice an opinion in Israel, than why not in Iraq or for that matter England or the United States.
At Identity Travel we encourage people to plead their case through dialogue, and to travel throughout the world, meeting other people with other views, listening and constantly reassessing their own opinions.
After all, as Mark Twain said "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness".
