World leaders and global organisations have in recent days raced to condemn the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant for their lack of Islam. First among them was the US President Barack Obama who called the group “neither Islamic nor a state”.
British Prime Minister David Cameron weighed in after the brutal execution of British aid worker David Haines, calling the group “the embodiment of evil”. A group of British Muslims representing several organisations even went so far as to plead with the prime minister to stop referring to the group as “Islamic State”, instead offering “Unislamic State” as an alternative. This statement was issued just hours before Haines’s death.
Curiously, all of these groups have been silent about previous brutal deaths at the hands of ISIL. I heard no such anger from anyone in officialdom when my dear friend and cameraman Yasser Faisal al Jumali was killed in Syria in December 2013. I heard no condemnation for the eight people beheaded in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia last month alone. It seems the only way to galvanise the world to act is when westerner’s die brutal deaths.
There is historical precedent to back that statement up.
It is 2004 and Iraq is aflame with violence. Two men, unknown to each other but who are now forever linked, are in Iraq. Both are helping rebuild after the American occupation. Nick Berg, a freelance American radio tower repairman, and British Civil Engineer Ken Bigley.
Both are beheaded by al-Qaeda, the killing of Berg in response to American atrocities that took place at Abu Ghraib prison.
Their deaths send shockwaves throughout the world. The then US president, George Bush, tells reporters that there is no justification for Berg’s death. House Majority leader Tom Delay goes even further, calling them “terrorists” and “monsters”.
None of them mention Abu Ghraib.
Murderer or freedom fighter?
The outrage is similar when Ken Bigley is killed. The Muslim Council of Great Britain makes great steps to intervene and prevent his killing, but to no avail. His is said to be a response to Iraqi women being held without charge by British forces, a charge the British government denies.
The man behind the group responsible for the beheadings is developing a fearsome reputation. Abu Mus’ab al Zarqawi is a Jordanian national who the US accuses of ties with Saddam Hussien before the war, ties that were never proven. After the war his group becomes one of the most feared and quickly picks up support from Iraqi Sunni groups who felt the war in Iraq was turning against them. Between 2004 and his death in 2006 he creates havoc. The US puts a $25m bounty on his head, the same as
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