Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Thursday, March 28th, 2024

Suicidal Attacks and 9/11 Anniversary

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Suicidal Attacks  and 9/11 Anniversary

One day, in India I came across two people with contrasting notion about my country Afghanistan. The first one was a bearded Muslim who was able to utter only few sentences of Pashtu, one of the national languages of Afghans, with Hindi accent approached and asked about my nationality. When I answered him, a welcoming smile emerged on his face and started talking with much enthusiasm.

He reprimanded of shaving my beard and said that I was the first Afghan he saw clean-shaved. He admired Taliban-led militants, fighting the, so-called, great infidel of the world and challenged its might. The second one was a clean-shaved, smiling-faced man that seemed completely terrified after figuring out about my nationality.

However, with giving example of two persons, a theory cannot be built having a scientific and analytical basis, but what I want to try to tell with the above story is that Taliban-led militants and al-Qaeda are, perhaps, increasingly finding devotees in the biggest democracy of the world.

However, the sectarian controversy has always persisted in the nerve of secular culture of the country and pointedly burst out in the face of quarrel and sometimes violent opposition among sects, seemingly the ideology of political Islam is taking hold for a layer of people and, vise-versa, there is growing discussions about Hindu Fundamentalists and extremists, which portrays that extremism can grow within a secular system, using facilities that a liberal political system along with secular social structure provides.

Few days ago when the news of suicidal attack in crowded entrance of a court in Delhi hit the headlines of Indian and international newspaper, I remembered a sad memory in Delhi. A month ago, when I arrived in Delhi with a friend, wanted to settle in an area called Bahar-Ganj, where, though old and dirty, there are huge numbers of restaurants, hotels, motels, guest houses.

We rented an Auto-Rekshah, a famous transporting vehicle, and stopped in the front of various lodges and hotels, but none accepted to rent us a room for a night. Firstly, all were welcoming and telling that they had empty rooms with good price because they were unable to recognize me as an Afghani due to my Oriental face.

After checking the identity card and my passport, they were just excusing themselves. Those who had traveled to India understand that the situation was not bad that much. After the suicidal attack on Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai, and several other terrorist attacks, people are afraid of Afghan citizens.

Though none of the attackers was holding Afghan citizenship, but as the media daily reports and broadcast the troublesome situation in Afghanistan, they think all Al-Qaeda are trained here. Moreover, in Delhi there are particular check-up for Afghan citizens, and lodges are afraid of police staring and questioning in the case of lodging any Afghan citizen. Thus, some of them avoid renting rooms, of course in particular areas of Delhi, not in the entire city.

When the report of suicide bombers hit the headlines of all electronic and print Media, I could guess how much the situation of settlement has got tougher in the city for Afghani and Pakistani citizens.
In addition a similar suicidal attack took place in Quetta which killed around twenty people and injured many more.

President Karzia strongly condemned both terrorist attacks of Quetta as well as in Delhi. According to credential reports, At least 11 people were killed and more than 60 others injured on Wednesday when a powerful blast ripped through a crowded reception area at the entrance to the High Court in the Indian capital, New Dehi. And also on Wednesday, 22 individuals were killed and more than 60 others wounded in twin suicide car bombings in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's southwester Balochistan province.

In a statement from the Presidential Palace, Karzai denounced both the attacks. Branding the perpetrators as the enemies of humanity, he said terrorism posed a serious threat to the region and the world at large.

He called for greater international coordination and sincere efforts to eliminate the scourge. "Afghans better realize the magnitude of the problem, as many of them fall victim to such attacks daily."
But, seemingly, the world feels less sympathy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, because they are looked as the epicenter of global terrorism.

Annually, Pakistanis and Afghans pay the highest toll and they are the main victims of terrorism, but still innocent people of these countries are also the main victim of global misunderstanding. Innocent people both in Pakistan as well as in Afghanistan are tortured, injured, killed, but when they travel out of the country they are humiliated and mistreated as suicide bombers or Al-Qaeda members.

This particular conception is largely true about Afghanistan. But the case differs in the case of other countries which are suffering similarly like AfPak—for instance Somalia—but common people in the world do not bear the same mentality as they do in the case of Afghans.

Anyhow, finally these recent suicide bombings took place as the Americans are preparing to celebrate the anniversary of 9/11 terrorist attacks. Perhaps, they try to pretend that though al-Qaeda leader and the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks was killed his terror network still strongly persists and is able to attack American allies around the world.

Thus, the United States and other militarily involved countries should take notice of these series of incident in various countries and must not take a hasty decision which would end into further empowerment of Taliban militants and terror networks.

Jawad Rahmani is the permanent writer of the Daily Outlook Afghanistan. He can be reached at jawad_rahmani2001@yahoo.com

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