“We usually celebrate Ramadan at the end of the month,” says taxi driver Abdullah Hissein in Iraq, in a story about Iraqis cheering the downing of a U.S. helicopter there yesterday. “Now we are celebrating in the beginning after these infidel Americans were shot down.” (Thanks to Little Green Footballs for this one.)
Meanwhile, in Riyadh, “Saudi security forces shot dead two militants in a clash in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, the interior ministry confirmed.” Said an unidentified interior ministry official: “Saudi authorities were able to prevent a terrorist attack being prepared by terrorists, which did not respect the sanctity of the holy city of Mecca and the month of Ramadan.”
So is murder and mayhem in keeping with the spirit of Ramadan, or isn’t it? Unfortunately, there are many in the Muslim world who consider that to wage jihad during Ramadan is wonderfully in keeping with the holy disciplines of the season. This is the kind of thinking within Islam that moderate Muslims must confront and refute before the war on terror can possibly end.