Posted on 11/16/2007 7:01:18 AM PST by ddtorquee
While vacationing tycoons and bikini-clad Hollywood superstars blissfully sipped drinks on the Maldives' secluded white beaches, an Islamic revolution fueled by preachers trained in Pakistan and the Middle East was brewing.
On Sept. 29, the two faces of the Maldives collided when a homemade bomb exploded in a park in the capital, Male, wounding 12 tourists, threatening the critical resort industry and sending the clear message that even this remote corner of paradise is not immune to terrorism.
The attack, and a bloody confrontation days later between police and masked Islamic extremists armed with harpoons, stunned this Indian Ocean nation and threatened its careful effort to balance its traditionally moderate Islamic heritage with liberal Western values.
The government reacted swiftly to crush the fundamentalist movement that had risen amid the palm trees and crystal blue waters of its 1,190 coral islands. Authorities banned the veil, arrested scores of suspected extremists, sealed underground mosques and promised a crackdown on radical preachers.
...By far the most prosperous country in south Asia, with a per capita annual income of $2,700, the republic had seemed safe from the worldwide rise of Islamic militancy. Its longtime ruler, President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, had harnessed his nation's major natural resource _ hundreds of small, deserted islands _ to create remote, upscale resorts that fueled explosive economic growth.
But the country also suffered deep divisions.
While many high school graduates went to Europe or Australia for a liberal education, others studied religion at extremist institutions in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and spread their radical beliefs across the islands, said Rohan Gunaratna, a Singapore-based terrorism expert hired by the government. He estimated that several thousand of the country's 300,000 people now follow these clerics.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
ML/NJ
The religion of peace is actually the cult of death.
I see. Rome burned while Nero fiddled.
Yes, our enemy at the bottom of the whole business is the Saudis. The Pakistani terrorists are bad enough, but they have been made far worse by Saudi money that finances fundamentalist madreassahs all over the country. And all over the world, as we see here.
I once hoped that Bush went into Iraq to secure a source of oil, so we could tackle the Saudi problem down the road. Now it looks as if that isn't in the cards. Too much Saudi money. They own everyone at this point.
Just so. But the Democrats don’t WANT energy victory, because if we got it, they’d have less to whine about and blame on Bush. They LOVE high gas and fuel prices. Every penny it goes up is more votes in their pockets, the way things stand.
Somebody really has to hit them on this issue. Bush had a few good ideas, but he never really fought for them, and in the end he caved and started pitching ethanol. At least he didn’t bow down to Kyoto.
Every day our dear friends are up to something, it seems. We outta bomb too along with Iran while we’re at it.
*bomb THEM too...sorry, left out a word
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