Asia Times
September 30, 2015
Millions of people in the West may perish in a nuclear tsunami the Islamic State (IS) is planning to launch, warns a German journalist who embedded on the frontline with the terror group for 10 days in the northern Iraq town of Mosul in 2014, agencies report.
Recounting his impressions about IS in his new book Inside IS – Ten Days in the Islamic State, former German MP and noted journalist Jürgen Todenhöfer says the IS want to wipe out all those opposed to their plans for an Islamic caliphate and enslave their women and children.
According to him, the West is underestimating the power of IS which is trying to get its hands on nuclear weapons.
With more countries obtaining nukes, the chances of this terror group obtaining such weapons and using them against the West are more, the Munich native says.
The main people IS are planning to target are Shiites, Yazidis, Hindus, atheists and polytheists.
Moderate Muslims who believe in democracy too may be killed as they promote human laws over the laws of God from IS point of view.
The IS problem cannot be solved militarily or through other means of intervention because with every bomb dropped and hitting civilians, the number of terrorists will keep increasing.
“I don’t see anyone who has a real chance to stop them. Only Arabs can stop IS. I came back very pessimistic,” he says in the book.
The IS now control land greater in size than the United Kingdom.
“They are supported by an almost ecstatic enthusiasm the like of which I’ve never encountered before in a war zone. Every day, hundreds of willing fighters from all over the world come. They are the most brutal and most dangerous enemy I have ever seen in my life,” he says.
What made the meeting between Todenhöfer and his IS hosts possible was his highly critical view of America’s military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan.
That did not, however, give him or his son, who accompanied him, the liberty to use their cell phones during their ten-day stay with them. Their phones remained in the custody of their hosts until they left them.
Todenhöfer slept on the floor in the sleeping bag he had carried with him along with his suitcase and backpack.
When the Islamic world grabbed on to George Bush’s “Islam is a religion of peace”, we should have known it would end up proven wrong disastrously like his own Presidency..
I disagree that military might cannot defeat ISIS. The world should unite to destroy ISIS militarily. The West should support whatever dictator emerges is in the region – of Egypt, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Central Asian Republics, provided they have a clear and avowed stand against religious extremism. The West is the Light-bearer of Civilisation in the way the Arabs, Indians and Chinese once were. Even it means making common cause with the rapacious Russian bear, the West must team up with all the enemies of IS. Remember, it is still early enough for some one to dare say that one opposes IS. We in Malaysia are safe enough to dare to say so despite our government unwittingly giving encouragement to religious extremists, day in and day out. Rampant corruption and autocratism can make it easier for the country to fall under the spell of IS, “take it from me”. The example of Iraq and Syria should be foremost in our minds. You and I cannot afford to leave the country at the first sign of trouble because we have not feathered our nests adequately. So, my advice is repent and be saved. Move in the direction of the Merdeka days not in the direction that Mahatir has taken, and Najib is taking, us.