The Holy Month of Ramadan

The end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan has approached.  Eid al-Fitre represents a time to celebrate.  Now isn't it odd beyond belief that during that holy month of Ramadan, Islamist terrorists seem to enjoy planning assaults on their co-religionists, attacks that leave numberless people dead.  Which seems like a peculiar way to honour a holy spirit which the faithful revere.  Yet in Iraq dozens of worshippers were killed and dozens more wounded in bomb and shooting attacks.

The Iraqi branch of al-Qaeda is taking credit for that lethal holiday surprise.  Authorities in the country, where sectarian violence is anything but unusual, are taking extra steps in tightening security in the hopes of forestalling additional attacks ahead of Eid al-Fitre, closing the holy month of Ramadan.  But of course it is not just Shia against Sunni whose viciously bloodthirsty massacres denote relations between members of a religion.

Devout Muslims who espouse a militant response to their religious irritations also, when they are able to, target non-Muslims.   And a firefight between American soldiers and Afghan allies against Afghan Taliban in remote southern Afghanistan provided the Taliban with an especially delightful gift for Ramadan.  The successful gunning down of a Black Hawk helicopter

The Kandahar provincial government has supported the Taliban claim of a dead shot.  Explaining the helicopter to have been shot down in a rural area north of Kandahar City where the Taliban (reign freely) regularly launch attacks; this one successfully.  As well, within a week's time frame, six American service members were gunned down by two Afghan security force members whom they were training.

The increased frequency of these "insider" attacks, whereby uniformed Afghan soldiers turn their U.S.-supplied weapons against the American soldiers tasked with their training ahead of the final 2014 NATO troop withdrawals, are rather alarming to NATO.  More than 34 international service members have been killed by Afghan security forces this year.  (The numbers growing.) At first it was one a month, then one a week, and more latterly the pace has accelerated to one a day.

Two U.S. soldiers were killed again as they handed over a weapon to an Afghan soldier they were in the process of training. Who accepted the weapon and the opportunity to turn it directly on his trainers.  But, then, as mentioned before, it's not just foreign military who are being targeted, it is also their own.  Islamists armed with rocket propelled grenades and automatic weapons attacked Pakistan's largest air base.  They were eventually repelled when commandos were called in to reinforce security.

"We are proud of this operation: Our leadership had decided to attack Kamra base a long time ago" exulted Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan.  Casting doubt on the Pakistani military's boast that their operations had severely disrupted the capabilities of the Pakistani Taliban whose intention it is to bring down the government and install a strictly Sharia rule.

At the air base, many of the soldiers were awake for prayers or breakfast, despite that the attack initially occurred at 2:00 a.m.  For it was the holy fasting month of Ramadan.  And, when one is reminded that the Pakistani military is one of the largest in the world, one can only wonder at their incompetence, their inability to put down the violent activities of the tribal-area-located Taliban.  Colleagues-at-arms of al-Qaeda.


Pakistan's Taliban have been resolute and bold in their many attacks against the military; on army headquarters, naval bases, police stations, just wherever they want to assert themselves and their agenda. To prove that they can.  And they obviously can. And then one may recall the proverbial elephant in the room; Pakistan's nuclear armaments secure in storage on a number of secured army bases.

Secure?