In Brief... Bangladesh Movement Highlights New Pan-Islamic Identity

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In Brief... Bangladesh Movement Highlights New Pan-Islamic Identity

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TEHERAN, IRAN : (SNS) - The recent arrest of a network of terrorists in Bangladesh and India points to an important new pattern emerging among fundamentalist Islamic militancy.

Terrorist financier and organizer Osama Bin Laden has rejected the traditional militant hotbeds of Iran and the Levant, and with them the tacit equation of Islamic identity with Arabic or Persian identity, and has instead turned to the Indian Ocean basin. There he has set about forging a new pan-Islamic identity and movement that ignores ethnic, social, and political differences.

While there is nothing wrong with religious unity, in this case, forged by a terrorist, it has a distinctly violent underside—one we expect to plague Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia for some time to come.

It may not be long before we see the sword of Islam unsheathed again in the hands of a madman with a vengeful hatred for America. Bin Laden's terrorist activities are not finished. They are merely on hold.