Jordan’s Queen Rania has branded the Islamic State (IS) militant group a “bunch of crazy people” who are staining the name of Islam.
The wife of King Abdullah II urged the international community not to focus on the religious claims of the extremists and said IS should drop the “I” from their name “because there is nothing Islamic about them.”
“This fight is a fight between the civilized world and a bunch of crazy people that really want to take us back to medieval times,” she said in a conversation with media mogul Arianna Huffington at a session of the Future of Work conference in London late on Wednesday, organized by the Berggruen Institute and the World Post.
She warned against letting IS “hijack” the identity of Islam, arguing that it would allow them to set up a “battle of civilizations.”
“People call them ISIS — I would love to drop that first ‘I’ because there is nothing Islamic about them. They have nothing to do with faith and everything to do with fanaticism,” she said.
“They want to be called Islamic because it gives them legitimacy and also it means that any action taken against them would automatically be called a war against Islam,” she added. “They want that clash of civilizations that people talk about.”
The 44-year-old queen warned IS that their much-publicized displays of violence, such as the burning to death of Jordanian pilot Muadh al-Kasasbeh, only stiffened the resolve of moderates.
“The scare tactics that these terrorists were using backfired, because it just angered Jordanians,” she told the Huffington Post founder. “Instead of making them scared, it made them want to fight.”
Kassasbeh was captured by IS in December last year after his F-16 crashed in Syria while on a mission for the US-led coalition against the Sunni extremist group.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday declared martial law in an unannounced late night address broadcast live on YTN television. Yoon said he had no choice but to resort to such a measure in order to safeguard free and constitutional order, saying opposition parties have taken hostage of the parliamentary process to throw the country into a crisis. "I declare martial law to protect the free Republic of Korea from the threat of North Korean communist forces, to eradicate the despicable pro-North Korean anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people, and to protect the free
The US deployed a reconnaissance aircraft while Japan and the Philippines sent navy ships in a joint patrol in the disputed South China Sea yesterday, two days after the allied forces condemned actions by China Coast Guard vessels against Philippine patrol ships. The US Indo-Pacific Command said the joint patrol was conducted in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone by allies and partners to “uphold the right to freedom of navigation and overflight “ and “other lawful uses of the sea and international airspace.” Those phrases are used by the US, Japan and the Philippines to oppose China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the
A string of rape and assault allegations against the son of Norway’s future queen have plunged the royal family into its “biggest scandal” ever, wrapping up an annus horribilis for the monarchy. The legal troubles surrounding Marius Borg Hoiby, the 27-year-old son born of a relationship before Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s marriage to Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon, have dominated the Scandinavian country’s headlines since August. The tall strapping blond with a “bad boy” look — often photographed in tuxedos, slicked back hair, earrings and tattoos — was arrested in Oslo on Aug. 4 suspected of assaulting his girlfriend the previous night. A photograph
‘KAMPAI’: It is said that people in Japan began brewing rice about 2,000 years ago, with a third-century Chinese chronicle describing the Japanese as fond of alcohol Traditional Japanese knowledge and skills used in the production of sake and shochu distilled spirits were approved on Wednesday for addition to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list, a committee of the UN cultural body said It is believed people in the archipelago began brewing rice in a simple way about two millennia ago, with a third-century Chinese chronicle describing the Japanese as fond of alcohol. By about 1000 AD, the imperial palace had a department to supervise the manufacturing of sake and its use in rituals, the Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association said. The multi-staged brewing techniques still used today are
RSS