Medical personnel carry wounded children to be airlifted to the Turkish capital for treatment after they were injured in Saturday’s car bomb blast in Mogadishu, Somalia, Sunday, Dec. 29, 2019. A truck bomb exploded at a busy security checkpoint in Somalia’s capital Saturday morning, killing at least 79 people including many students, authorities said. It was the worst attack in Mogadishu since the devastating 2017 bombing that killed hundreds. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)
Victims were all innocent Muslims going about their business.
It is al Shabaab, not Kenya, that needs to be permanently detached from Somalia. Revealingly, nowhere in Somalia, or Kenya, has al Shabaab built a single school, dispensary or infrastructure.
The horrifying Saturday car bomb attack in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu, which claimed more than 95 lives and injured 137 others, was not just a fresh disaster resulting from yet another cold-hearted act of terror by al Shabaab. It was also fresh evidence that the militant group is not pro- Muslim as it generally proclaims in Somalia and Kenya.
The victims were all unmistakably innocent Muslims who were going about their usual business. Among them were more than a few young university students who carried the hope of a better tomorrow in Somalia; a tomorrow where the pen would be mightier than the guns of Al Shabaab and other destructors. But even so, that dream is inerasable and continues to live on in the redemptive actions of many others, including the Kenya Defence Forces troops in Somalia.
Al Shabaab, has been allied to al Qaeda since 2010, has not yet claimed responsibility for the attack so as to hide its fraudulence and hypocrisy of claiming to be the “defender” of Muslims when in reality they are their worst destroyers. The militant group has regularly targeted Muslims in Mogadishu with car bombings. Saturday’s blast is al Shabaab’s deadliest attack in Somalia in two years. In October 2017, the terrorists organised a truck bombing that killed 512 innocent Muslims and left 295 hurt.
The group has also waged numerous attacks in Kenya demanding that KDF exit Somalia. But as it has been frequently proved, even in this latest attack, it is al Shabaab, not Kenya, that needs to be permanently detached from Somalia. Amisom and the international community should intensify their efforts to eliminate the group and its ideological setup.
Revealingly, nowhere in Somalia, or Kenya, has al Shabaab built a single school, dispensary or infrastructure. All they do is destroy lives and properties in the name of achieving their utopian and useless political ideals that have no basis in any religion, let alone Islam.
These butchers are only worshippers of their violence and chaos, and seem to be ignorant of the Holy Qur’an whose chapters begin with the soothing reminder: ‘Bismillahi Rahmani Raheem’, meaning in the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, and the Most Merciful. Prophet Muhammad, from whom Islam was publicised foretold the evils of such extremists and described them with the disdain they deserve as “the Dogs of Hellfire”.
Muhammad Pickhall, a British Quran translator in 1930, also observed that “it was only when Muslims fell away from their religious law (teachings) that they declined in tolerance”.
Sharing the stories of mainstream Muslims and informing others about their beliefs, attitudes and behaviours in addition to their deaths and suffering under extremists like al Shabaab will surely go a long way to counter their untruthful narratives and unjustifiable activities.
The Holy Qur’an states that whoever kills an innocent soul “…it is as if he had killed mankind entirely. And whoever saves one—it is as if he had saved mankind entirely.” (5:5)
Source: The Star, Kenya