Terrorism Stalks the World

How different life is today than it was before September 11, 2001, when the two hijacked airplanes were flown into the World Trade Center buildings, causing their destruction. The Pentagon also was struck at that time by a hijacked airplane and a fourth airplane was brought down into a field near Shanksville, Somerset County, Pennsylvania.

These hijacked airplanes were flown by radical extremist Moslems. These individuals were part of the A1 Qaeda terror network that had developed around the world. It is the intention of A1 Qaeda to bring down today's world order and turn the entire world into a Moslem religious empire. This concept is no different than it was almost 1,500 years ago when Charles Martel (the grandfather of Charlemagne) in 732 C.E. halted the advance of Islam at the Battle of Tours.

Although recognizing the danger that everyone in the world faces at the present time, the government of the United States has urged its citizens that life should continue just as before 9-11, 2001. The author was a youth in 1941 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, causing over 2,000 deaths. That treacherous strike united our country behind the government to wage war against the Axis nations. Today, that unity is certainly not evident; therefore, the war on terror cannot be won unless attitudes and methods change.

Indeed, terror continues to be a very real threat everywhere. As this Prophetic Trends section is being written, the Republican National Convention is in progress in Madison Square Garden, New York City. There is extremely tight security, with 37,000 policemen on duty, along with many other security personnel. While demonstrations were held at the beginning of, and during, the Convention, the atmosphere was kept calm by the great work of the police.

We shall list some of the terroristic acts that have taken place in just the past few days. In the city of Beer Sheva, the largest city in southern Israel, two buses exploded almost simultaneously. According to the most recent reports, 16 were killed and more than 80 were injured. The buses were bombed near the main intersection in the center of the city. This is the first such terroristic attack in nearly six months. Palestinian militants last carried out a major attack inside Israel on March 14, when 11 people were killed in the city of Ashdod. That attack prompted Israel to assassinate the spiritual leader of the Hamas militant group in the Gaza strip, Sheikh Yasin. Hamas claims that this week's bus bombing was in retaliation for the assassinations of major Hamas figures.

One night last week, two airplanes took off from Moscow's Domodedova Airport, flying in opposite directions. The planes took off within 45 minutes of each other and crashed just three minutes apart. Immediately, most people suspected the work of terrorists. The two crash sites were about 500 miles apart, and 90 passengers and crew were reported dead. It was later proven that the crashes were not accidental, because both contained traces of the explosive hexogene used in Chechen attacks against Russia.

A little known Islamic extremist group called Al-Islambouli Brigades issued a statement on their website that five of its Mujahedin had hijacked the two planes. The report that the authorities gave was that two Chechen women dressed all in black, because their husbands had been killed by Russian security forces, had bought tickets on these two flights shortly before departure. Similar black widows wearing dark Islamic dress and explosives-rigged martyrs' belts were implicated in the siege of a Moscow theater in 2002 and at least two Russian bombings last year.

Our local evening paper published a major front-page article entitled, "Entire School Taken Hostage." It described how attackers wearing suicide bomb belts seized a school in Beslan, Russia (bordering Chechnya), taking hostage about 1,000 people, half of them children, threatening to blow up the school building unless some imprisoned Chechen terrorists were released. These hostage-takers released about 15 children several hours later, but continued to hold most of the hostages in the school gymnasium. The attackers warned that they would blow up the school if police tried to storm it and forced children to stand at the windows. The Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said, "In essence, war has been declared on us, where the enemy is unseen, and there is no front." The siege ended in an armed confrontation that claimed 350 lives, with upwards of 600 people being hospitalized.

Terrorism stalks the world and it is only a matter of time until another major terrorist attack is launched upon the United States. Russia has now been attacked several times, just as was Spain last year, and other countries recently.

Why is this doom so obvious? It is because the western world has been oblivious to the terror threat that stalks the world. When one sees a Moslem person, can you tell if this is a terrorist, or a law-abiding citizen? Hardly!

Terror has been predicted to occur at the end of the age. "Your heart shall ponder the terror: Where is he that counted, where is he that weighed the tribute? Where is he that counted the towers?" (Isaiah 33:18).