Asharq Alawsat has two opinion pieces on the recently thwarted plot, both worth reading.

First off is Adel Darwish’s “Heathrow Warning: Who Will Protect Britain’s Muslims from the Promoters of Evil?”

Darwish, a noted foreign correspondent for British papers, writes:

The danger is that these young men have been brainwashed, and now they do not recognize the national belonging to the country, and they consider themselves to belong to a mythical expression some people call “Islamic Caliphate,” or what they think to be an Islamic nation. This is similar to the utterance pronounced publicly by the general guide of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, “To hell with Egypt, the father of Egypt, and those who established Egypt.” Therefore, these brainwashed Muslim Britons say “to hell” with Britain, to which their parents emigrated voluntarily looking for a culturally and economically better life, and they were not forced by anyone to come here. These young men say, or are taught to say “to hell” with life itself when they turn themselves into human suicide bombs.

The imams of corruption and hatred lied to these young men when they promised them that they would go to Paradise. Would any rational person believe that a person who committed suicide and who killed dozens of women and children will go to Paradise?

Perhaps for the hundredth time I join those who called in the past for expelling the imams of evil and hatred from Britain…

Darwish points out that the simple act of targetting commercial, trans-Atlantic airlines demonstrates that the plotters were truly terrorists. For who were the targets? The US and the UK? Then how to account for the many nationalities aboard these flights, especially during the summer tourist travel season? Are the children guilty? The various people traveling for business or holiday just transiting the US? Terrorism is imprecise in its aim, no more directed than katyusha rocket, where a miss is as good as a direct hit.

Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed also has an article: Muslims are the First to Be Saved:

Fortunately for Muslims, British security services were successful in foiling the latest terrorist plot. Had they failed, this would have spelled disaster for the Muslim population. Had the planes exploded in mid-air, killing thousands of travelers, this would have brought more pain to Muslims worldwide.

Muslims have suffered a lot from the deeds of extremists and terrorists who have harmed their religion and members of their communities when they attributed their actions to Islam.

The latest plot revealed that terrorism is no longer exclusively Arab. Instead, Arab terrorists and fundamentalists have transferred their ideologies to the United Kingdom and their movements have infiltrated Asian neighborhoods.

As usual, the student tries to outdo his master. If Mohammed Atta carried out an attack with four planes, the Pakistani group sought to bomb ten. Unknown to them, the British and Pakistani security services were hot on their trail.

It has long been my contention that Afghanistan, from the period between the Soviet invasion of the country in 1979 until 2001, was a witch’s caldron in which various strains of Islamic extremism “crossbred” to create the dangerous monster that now goes by the names “Al-Qaeda”, “Lashkar-e-Toiba”, and many others. These are movements with totalitarian goals: “Our interpretation of the ideal world—or death.” Their chosen instrument of policy is terrorism.

Al-Rashed concludes his piece with this warning: …if no one rushes to protect Islam from extremism, it will remain victim of its sons, as we witness from time to time.

Read both pieces.