IS slaughterer Muna Al-Fuzai - Kuwait Times “Jihadi John” or “IS Slaughterer”, this man caused a lot of panic by butchering innocents. When he appeared with his covered face in black, it was hard for many to identify him, but the British authorities used some techniques and methods to reveal the identity of “Jihadist John”, including audio analyses and interviews with former hostages, which confirmed his true identity. The Washington Post published a full report about the “IS Slaughterer”. According to the paper, this man is Mohammed Emwazi, a British citizen born in Kuwait, and is well-known to British security services. His place of birth was a subject of discussion here. But the fact that he was born in Kuwait doesn’t mean he is a Kuwaiti citizen. He grew up and was educated in UK. The Interior Ministry has to clear this point because it has created some fuss here. Some information in the report is indeed disturbing, and it should be a wakeup call for governments to put extra efforts in combating terror. For those who are not aware of this man’s crimes against humanity, let me tell you what he did and how he appeared to the public. “Jihadist John” has slaughtered foreign hostages in videos broadcast by IS. He appeared for the first time in a video in August, when he slaughtered American hostage James Foley, then in a similar videos slaughtering American journalist Steven Sotloff, British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning and US relief worker Abdul Rahman (Peter) Kassig. I n January, he killed two Japanese hostages Haruna Yuk awa and Kenji Goto. This man has done great damage to Islam and millions of Muslims, and people like him are a true threat to humanity and not only civil societies. Here is what I think. His appearance in the media may be a means to convince some gullible people, especially the youth, that this is Islam and they might tr y to imitate him or trust IS’ call, and this is the real danger to everyone. Also, there is a lot of intolerance and ex tremism in the world today, even in Western societies, and this can be used as an excuse to tarnish the image of Islam and moderate Muslims, as if we are all involved in these crimes, which is undoubtedly an injustice. I am a Muslim, but I reject any justifications or calls made by IS. I understand that ex tremism has no religion. But so far, we Muslims seem to be the prime suspects in any crime in the world due to IS. Any Muslim that rejects acts of terrorism has to clearly express his rejec tion to extremism and intolerance and any ideas that encourage terrorism, including conservative private religious channels. The problem of these religious channels is that young people are the target audience and their calls are suspicious. The newspaper mentioned some remarks made by the jihadist’s friends, that he suffered from harassment by UK authorities and this led him to join IS. Frustration can never be an excuse to justify brutal murders. This man has offended the Islamic religion, which prohibits the killing of innocents and distorted the image of Muslims. So prosecuting this man and others like him who are preparing to join this organization is inevitable and a duty of all Arab and Western governments, to prevent them from causing further harm to innocents, whether they are Muslims, Christians or others. The West’s policies of naturalizing extremists were wrong and must be corrected. By Muna Al-Fuzai [email protected] |
