IT'S THE TERRORISM
NEW YORK POST
Editorials
July 13, 2005
It now appears that last week's deadly terrorist attacks on the London bus and subway — which killed at least 52 — were the work of suicide bombers. That should have enormous repercussions in the War on Terror.
British police scored a major break in the case after one suspect's family reported him missing the day of the blasts and said he had been accompanied to London by three friends. (All four hailed from the West Yorkshire region.)
Some of the suspect's property was found on the double-decker bus targeted in the attacks, and documents belonging to the other men were found at the scenes of the subway explosions.
Police said forensic evidence suggested at least one bomber died in the attacks, and the probe is continuing.
The likelihood that suicide bombers have become active in Europe is profoundly unsettling. But it highlights the threat that the West faces from this ideologically driven movement — and the need for America to take terrorism more seriously.
Israelis, of course, have faced this daily danger for years. Despite lulls and talk of "ceasefires," the killings continue — as yesterday's fatal suicide bombing in a Netanya shopping mall underscores.
Save for the 9/11 attacks that leveled the World Trade Center, the United States has not had to confront the reality of suicide bombings.
But for how much longer?
If Americans fail to halt the partisan ankle-biting that has come to characterize most discussions of the War on Terror, and instead present a united front to the world, they will soon find out.
That Saddam Hussein's Iraq was a key element in the worldwide terrorist network of which Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda were the kingpins is largely now beyond dispute.
Stephen F. Hayes and Thomas Joscelyn, writing in The Weekly Standard, have compiled an impressive dossier of documentation — all dating back before 9/11 — that shows extensive links between Saddam and Osama. (An excerpt appears on the preceding page.)
Bottom line: Saddam's Iraq was a necessary target in the War on Terror.
Meanwhile, a compelling series in The Wall Street Journal explores radical Islam's presence in western Europe. Yesterday's installment traces it back to the 1950s, when a mosque built by ex-Nazi Muslim soldiers became an outpost for the Muslim Brotherhood — the progenitor of today's Islamist terror networks.
Radical Islam is in this for the long haul; anyone who doubts it either hasn't been paying attention, or simply is willfully ignorant.
This is not an indictment of Islam — though certainly it would be helpful if moderate Islamic leaders brought some rhetorical indictments of their own.
But it is meant to underscore the true nature of the forces now arrayed against civilization — fanatical, intelligent and utterly ruthless.
That such a warning is necessary nearly four years after 9/11 is, to put it mildly, simply appalling.
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