Raymond Ibrahim
As we ponder the significance of Osama bin Laden's death, it is well to reflect that Islamists are not the cause of hostilities; they are but symptoms of a much greater cause. Individually killing them off—which is nice—is like a doctor temporarily treating a sick patient's symptoms without eliminating the cause of sickness. Ayman al-Zawahiri, now al-Qaeda's de facto leader, once summarized this phenomenon well. Asked in an interview about the status of bin Laden and the Taliban's Mullah Omar, he confidently replied:
Jihad in the path of Allah is greater than any individual or organization. It is a struggle between Truth and Falsehood, until Allah Almighty inherits the earth and those who live in it. Mullah Muhammad Omar and Sheikh Osama bin Laden — may Allah protect them from all evil — are merely two soldiers of Islam in the journey of jihad, while the struggle between Truth [Islam] and Falsehood [non-Islam] transcends time (The Al Qaeda Reader, p.182).
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