Today is the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Every American adult remembers where they were when the towers and the Pentagon were hit. We all remember the bravery of regular Americans on Flight 93 who probably saved the Capitol or the White House from a similar fate.
And yet if you look at a newspaper today, we’re still at war with a fundamentalist strain of Islam which sees America as an enemy they want to destroy.
Houthi rebels effectively completed a rapid push to take control of Yemen’s Red Sea coastline on Friday, tightening their grip on one of the world’s most important shipping routes and delivering a dramatic boost to their backers in Iran.
Houthi forces captured Perim, an island in the middle of the vital Bab el Mandeb Strait, several news agencies reported, citing multiple sources. A day earlier, the Houthis captured the historic port city of Mocha.
That was followed by an advance on the strategic coastal town of Dhubab and the apparent withdrawal of forces from the Saudi-backed, internationally recognized Yemeni government, from Perim, also known as Mayun.
The Houthis are of course supported by Iran and are part of the Shia branch of Islam. Al Qaeda arose from the Sunni branch. In the past the two groups have fought each other in Yemen: This report is from 2016:
The BBC has found evidence in Yemen that troops from a Saudi-led coalition force and al-Qaeda militants are both fighting Houthi rebels in a key battle.
On a visit to the frontline near the city of Taiz, a documentary maker filmed jihadists as well as UAE-supported pro-government militiamen.
The coalition of 10 mostly Sunni Arab states is backing Yemen’s government in its war against the Shia rebels.
But it denies co-operating with Sunni extremists also opposed to the Houthis.
So there was a time where the US backed Saudi Arabia as it fought the Houthis and we were essentially fighting on the same side as al Qaeda. In more recent years, the Houthis and al Qaeda seem to have made up because they have a common enemy, or two actually.
Nearly a decade after fighting the Houthis, AQAP adapted again, this time entering an “opportunistic alliance” with the Iran-backed group, according to the 2024 report by the UN Panel of Experts on Yemen. The two terror groups subordinated ideological and religious differences to their shared interest in fighting Israel, the United States, and the West, while promoting instability in Yemen. The alliance may not be as strange as it seems on the surface. Iran hosts al-Qaeda’s current overall leader, Sayf al-Adl.
So whether they are Sunni or Shia, what these militant Islamists all agree on is that they hate Israel and they hate the United States. The Houthis, like the Iranians, regularly chant “Death to America.” It’s part of their motto or Sarkha, which has been around since 2003. When the Houthis seized Mocha this week, they were heard chanting “death to America.”
Yemen’s Houthis seized control of the strategic Red Sea port city of Mocha on Thursday, with witnesses telling AFP of fighters marching on the area chanting “death to America, death to Israel”.
The Houthis’ goal is to cut off the transit of ships in the Red Sea by controlling the Strait of Bab al-Mandab. This helps Iran by increasing pressure on oil shipments and thereby increasing pressure on the United States which is currently trying to keep the Strait of Hormuz open.
The big picture here is that on the 25th anniversary of 9/11 we’re still targets for al Qaeda (the Sunni extremists) and we’re also fighting against Iran and the Houthis (the Shia extremists). What all of these groups have in common is Islamic militancy and hatred for the United States.
That seems worth mentioning on the anniversary of the worst terror attack on U.S. soil, a day when American media is simultaneously awash in stories about Islamophobia and Islamic militants who want us dead.
That’s not to say that bigotry against people who aren’t militants (and therefore don’t deserve to be treated as threats) doesn’t matter, only that we arguably have bigger fish to fry at this moment because of the people who are militants. They are being very loud about their desire to kill our people and damage our nation.
On this day of all days, painting “Islamophobia” as the biggest challenge we face seems absurd. The worst part of 9/11 wasn’t the Islamophobia, it was the murder of our fellow citizens by Islamic extremists.
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