On April 11, 10 days before the horrific attacks by Islamic terrorists on Christians observing Easter in Sri Lanka, the country’s Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police sent out an urgent alert to government officials and security heads of all agencies.
The subject line said: “Information of an alleged plan attack.”
The intelligence report could not have been more explicit in its contents about what was about to unfold in the tear-shaped island nation at the southern tip of India; a paradise turned into hell by the seekers of paradise.
DIG Priyalal Dassanayake identified the name of the Islamists and their organizations. He wrote: “You are hereby instructed to pay particular attention to the reference made in Page 2-4 of the above under title National Thawhith (Tawhid) Jamaan [NTJ] concerning a possible suicide attack being planned in this country by Mohammed Zaharan, leader of the National ‘Thawhith Jamaan.’”
The memo, translated by The New York Times, said: “Foreign intelligence has informed that Mohammed Cassim, Mohamed Zaharan alias Zaharan Hashmi the leader of the National Thowheeth Jama’ath and his followers are planning suicide attacks in this country. The reports noted that these attacks could target Catholic churches and the Indian High Commission in Colombo.”
Suffice to say, no politician in the country paid any attention to the warning as the president and prime minister squabbled with each other over power.
As suicide bombers exploded and hundreds died, top officials and government ministers unashamedly admitted the warning never reached them, and therefore no action was taken to prevent the Islamist group from carrying out their mass murder.
If Nero was caught napping in Colombo, the reaction around the world by the media, TV consultants, as well as Canadian and other Western politicians was tepid, if not dismal.
Almost no one dared to mention the word “Christian” let alone identify the terrorists as Muslim or Islamist or whatever safe word they could find in the politically correct dictionary that only the chattering classes employ. Using ordinary plain English to describe the atrocities would of course open one to be labelled “White Nationalist” or “Islamophobe.”
It’s no wonder the trio of America’s living liberal saints, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren all used the phrase, “Easter Worshippers,” instead of Christians. It was almost as if the C word was beneath them.
Others, like Alan Keenan of the International Crisis Group, claimed the real victims of the Sri Lanka attacks could end up being the broader Muslim community targeted in the wake of the attack, irrespective of the fact their co-religionists carried out the blood bath.
Here are the words of the suicide bomber Mohamed Zaharan from his YouTube channel where he declares: “It is a sin to live in Dar Al Kufr, (a country with a non-Muslim majority)” and “Even if a Kaffir (non-Muslim) does good things, I hate him, because he is a non-believer [in Islam].”
Such hate may not be a dominant trait among ordinary Muslims, but as one, I am aware where such hate is planted in our minds. Seventeen times a day, every Muslim child in every mosque, in every country, hears the Imam read a prayer where both Christians and Jews are referred with derision, yet no one dares to intervene.
Whereas Islam’s foundation is based on ‘Tawhid’ (invoked in the name of the Sri Lankan terrorist group), which means strict monotheism, its exact opposite is the concept of ‘Shirk’ (the Christian belief in the Trinity). No amount of inter-faith dialogue can bridge the zeal of the Muslim to answer the call to end ‘Shirk’ from the surface of earth.
Colombo is not the last city to be attacked. It’s just the latest in a long list that began with Constantinople.
Tarek Fatah, a founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress and columnist at the Toronto Sun, is a Robert J. and Abby B. Levine Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
