Banner Online News

By  Owei Lakemfa

IF the claims of the Islamic State, ISIS, are to be believed, four of its members on Friday, March 22, 2024, broke into the Crocus City Hall, Moscow. The complex housed a shopping centre and a music hall. The band, Picnic, was scheduled to play in the hall. The quartet, opened fire with automatic weapons on defenceless people, threw an explosive and set the complex ablaze. At least 133 persons perished in the attack with over 100 injured.

Nothing justifies this level of barbarity and bestiality in which throats were slit. How did we get here? There may be divergent views; but, there is no doubt that ISIS is the product of the Cold War.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, USSR, the progenitor of current Russia, was the power in Afghanistan having been invited there by the government on December 24, 1979. The United States, US, thought a way of getting the Soviets out was to mobilise youths in the Arab countries on the basis of religion. It then cast the Afghan government and their Soviet backers as atheists and devils who must be removed. Accordingly, Arab youths were encouraged to travel to neigbouring Pakistan where they received military training and weapons to carry out guerrilla warfare in Afghanistan. They were called the Mujahedeen or Afghan Arabs.

The plan went on so well that the Soviets were forced out on February 15, 1989 and the Afghan government collapsed. But what resulted was anarchy until students, called the Taliban, seized power in  September, 1996. The Taliban, led by their teacher, Mullah Mohammed Omar, a pious gentleman had been an Afghan Mujahideen general.

The rest of the Afghan Arabs returned to their countries, only to be hunted by their governments. A wave of them, led by former US points man and darling, Osaman Bin Laden, fled to Afghanistan and called their group, the al Qeada.

After the US and its allies invaded Iraq in 2003 and disbanded the Iraqi military, some of its officers joined al Qeada in Iraq, AQI. The AQI leader was the Jordanian, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who was replaced in 2006 by the Egyptian, Abu Ayyub al-Masri. In 2010, he was replaced by Abu Bakr al-Bagdadi who was to declare the Islamic Emirate.

In 2012, the US Central Intelligence Agency Director, David Petraeus, under the directive of President Barack Obama, trained thousands of AQI members, now renamed Islamic State, IS, to invade Syria whose government was perceived as communist and a stooge of Russia. The Islamic State added Syria to its name and became known as ISIS.

The ‘mistake’ the US made in training and funding the Mujahideen in the 1980s, it repeated in the early 2000s by training and funding ISIS and another terrorist group, the al-Nusra Front. The ISIS was to spread its terrorism across the world, including in Africa where it invaded countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad and Nigeria. Here, it is known as the Islamic State of West Africa Province, ISWAP.

It was the ISIS faction known as Islamic State-Khorasan Province, ISIS-K, that carried out the attack in Russia. So, due to US myopia, parts of the world are under the ISIS scourge.

Another scourge we are forced to live with is the Israeli State. Its gallant armed forces which scored unparalleled success in world history by pitilessly fighting hospitals, scored another spectacular victory this Easter Monday, April 1, 2024. On that day, a clearly marked three-vehicle aid convoy run by the World Central Kitchen, WCK, was on a “deconflicted zone” dropping off food supplies with the consent of the Israeli military, which also coordinated the convoy’s movements.

On the outskirts of Deir al Balah, along the Al Rashid Street, a street “designated for the passage of humanitarian aid” by Israeli authorities, the military used what the CNN reported as “highly accurate drone fired missiles” to take out the first vehicle. It said the Israeli military in carrying out the strike “had total visibility of the cars, including the WCK logo.” The shocked occupants of the two other vehicles, quickly packed the occupants of the hit vehicle to speed off. Then a second missile was fired at the second vehicle. Later, 1.6 kilometres down the road, a third missile was fired to take out the third aid vehicle. Seven aid workers were killed in the attacks, which despite the so-called apologies of the Israeli government, was a deliberate act. The Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, said the military although conscious it was an aid convoy, decided to launch the attacks “because of suspicion that a terrorist was travelling with the convoy.”

The WCK aid workers are part of the about 200 aid workers killed in five months by the Israeli military. This is apart from the 484 medical staff and 136 journalists so far killed in Gaza along with over 14,500 children.

The obvious intention of Israel is to halt humanitarian aid to the starving Palestinians in Gaza. Israel has largely succeeded, as the WCK has suspended all aid. The United Nations has also suspended its own aid programme for 48 hours. All these fit perfectly into the policy announced by Israeli Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, who declared: “We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything will be closed. We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.”

This same Monday that Israel attacked the WCK aid convoy in Gaza, it also sent warplanes to fire multiple missiles at the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria. It levelled the consulate and killed seven persons, including two Iranian generals, Mohammed Reza Zahedi and Mohammed Hadi Haji Rahimi.

Israel with the strikes, violated the territorial integrity of Syria and Iran, and may simply be looking for ways to trigger another global conflict in the Middle East. Israel is lawless. It violates international conventions and principles primarily because it is protected and encouraged by the US and its allies which supplies it, amongst others, with arms and funds.

The US itself is Violator-in-Chief of international conventions. It has ensured there are no international sanctions against Israel. It has, like Israel, carried out attacks against Iranian targets, including the January 2022 murder of Iranian General Qassim Suleiman. A US drone strike killed him and some Iraqis while on a visit to Baghdad. It has in the last few weeks threatened a number of countries, including Niger Republic which asked it to remove its military base; and pliant Ghana for daring to pass an anti-gay bill.

One of the challenges to world peace today, is how to tackle or manage the terrorist Islamic State, the Apartheid Israeli State and the bullying United States.