Ramadan Terrorist Attacks: Last night's murder of at least seven innocent civilians in London was one of several terrorist attacks last week, which also included three bombings in the Mideast.
In Kabul, terrorists detonated a massive truck bomb near Zanbaq Square, one of the busiest sections of the city. The bomb, concealed in a water truck, killed at least ninety people.
The Taliban denied involvement and no one else has stepped forward to claim responsibility. State security officials fingered the Pakistan-based Haqqani Group.
In view of the number of embassies in the neighborhood, some suspect that foreign nationals were the target. But as one woman who works nearby pointed out, “It's always Afghans that are harmed and get killed.”
CNN notes that this is just one of six major terrorist attacks in Afghanistan during the past year. The United States is considering sending additional troops in light of the worsening security situation.
Baghdad, meanwhile, suffered twin attacks of its own. A Daesh (ISIS) suicide bomber detonated a car bomb near an ice cream stand in the Karrada district, where crowds were celebrating Ramadan Monday night. Targeting an ice cream stand, a place where children gather, is despicable even by Daesh standards. The bombing was followed by a second attack, close to the Shuhada Bridge. Daesh, which is Sunni, said in a statement that it chose these particular neighborhoods in order to take aim at their predominantly Shiite residents. At least twenty-six people were killed in the two attacks.
The London, Kabul, and Baghdad attacks, combined with last week’s massacres of concertgoers in Manchester and Coptic Christians near Cairo, represent a pattern, which has persisted for several years now, of stepped-up terrorist activity leading up to and during the holy month of Ramadan.
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Wonder Woman Banned in Lebanon: The Lebanese government banned the film Wonder Woman in the country. The official rationale: the actress playing the title role, Gal Gadot, is Israeli, and therefore the ban on the movie, which was filmed in four countries, none of which were Israel, is in line with Lebanon’s boycott of Israeli products. The decision, coming as it did hours before the scheduled premiere, took theaters and moviegoers by surprise. The movie had been heavily promoted in Lebanon and many were disappointed by the ban.
(They were right to be disappointed—Wonder Woman is awesome! See my movie review on my other blog, Nerds who Read.)
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Bahrain Government Cracks Down on Opposition. The BBC reported that in Bahrain this week, a court dissolved the National Democratic Action Society, the country’s foremost secular opposition group, on the grounds of “advocating violence, supporting terrorism, and incitement to encourage crimes.” In a statement, Amnesty International called the charges “baseless and absurd” and noted they were part of a “general clampdown on human rights” by Bahraini authorities.
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Trump Backs Away from Israel Embassy Promise. President Trump this week, following in the footsteps of his last three predecessors, renewed a waiver to a 1995 law requiring the United States to move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. In renewing the waiver, Mr. Trump backpedaled on a campaign promise to relocate the embassy.
Conservative Review blasts the president for the decision: "By signing the waiver, President Trump has ignored the constituents who elected him and appears to have bowed to the pressure from his 'shallow state' advisers." The White House hastened to assure those constituents that the president “made this decision to maximize the chances of successfully negotiating a deal between Israel and the Palestinians, fulfilling his solemn obligation to defend America's national security interests. But, as he has repeatedly stated his intention to move the embassy, the question is not if that move happens, but only when.”
I confess that I don’t feel reassured by the knowledge that the delay is temporary and will last only until peace comes to the Middle East, at which point the move would be completely useless as a gesture of America's support for Israel. While I could understand the United States’ reluctance to move its embassy to East Jerusalem, which is considered occupied territory, I am mystified why moving it to unoccupied West Jerusalem, which is the seat of the Israeli government, would present any obstacle to Israeli/Palestinian talks. It's not as if West Jerusalem is an issue in the talks. Is it?
To the best of my knowledge, Israel is the only country in the world where the United States has placed its embassy somewhere other than the nation’s capital.
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Michael Isenberg writes about the Muslim world, medieval and modern. His forthcoming novel, The Thread of Reason, is a murder mystery that takes place in Baghdad in the year 1092 and depicts the battle for the Muslim soul between those who embrace science and tolerance, and those who throw in their lot with mysticism and persecution.
Photo credit: CNN
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