SALAMEH NEMATT

One of the things that was not mentioned about what exists in common among the terrorists who are perpetrating these acts is the fact that almost every single one of them, if not every one of them, is a Sunni Muslim. None of them, none of the groups, none of the individuals have been Shiite, for example. I think this is significant. The fact that the Taliban regime that was ruling Afghanistan was a Sunni Muslim regime is also significant. The fact that Pakistan is a Sunni Muslim state is important; the fact that after 9/11 the U.S. administration decided to target the Taliban regime first is also significant. In my view, the overthrow of the Taliban regime was very important because Pakistan has a nuclear weapon. After the defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, the U.S. government thought that Pakistan would contain the new order in Afghanistan. What happened was that instead of Pakistan containing the Taliban, the Taliban was containing the Pakistani military security establishment. This extremist Sunni regime was getting close basically to putting its hand on the first Muslim nuclear weapon.

Now there is another question that nobody has addressed and that is why 9/11 happened in 2001 and why we have been witnessing this rapid increase in the frequency of terrorist attacks all over the world.