Bahrain’s Crown Prince has reiterated his call for the 'war on terror' to be replaced by a war on 'evil fascist theocracies'.

Satellite channels in the Middle East, which fan the flames of extremism by broadcasting 'message of intolerance and venom', were also singled out as a major concern by His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Prime Minister, said a report in the Gulf Daily News (GDN), our sister publication.

He argued that a new focus was needed in which theocrats are recognised as the 'new-world foe', rather than simply going after terrorists who carry out acts of violence, in a letter published in a British newspaper.

“Almost 15 years since the current 'War on Terror' began, we seem little closer to understanding and defeating a common enemy, which remains primarily defined by its tactics of terror and the underlying subversion of Islam,” the Crown Prince said.

“But terrorism is merely a tool of twisted ideologues, whose recent atrocities include the murdering and kidnapping of journalists, and the grotesque immolation of Jordanian pilot Muath Al Kasasbeh.

“The weekend's attacks in Copenhagen are a further reminder that if we're meaningfully to address this spiralling global threat, we need to widen our understanding and define our foe, in order to refocus our efforts accordingly.”

The letter, titled 'To defeat our foe, we must first define him', was published by The Telegraph yesterday just a day after Bahrain dispatched war planes to Jordan to support operations targeting the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria.

However, the letter stresses the current war is not against Islam.

“Terrorism is not an ideology; we are not merely fighting terrorists, we are fighting theocrats,” the Crown Prince said.

“I use the term 'theocrats' as the current war is not against Islam any more than it could be against Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, or any religion.

“It is against those who commandeer religion for their own ends and, in the process, sully the name of great traditions and beliefs that many of us hold divine.”

Prince Salman suggests the response to terrorism so far has been to 'hop blindly and haphazardly' from one threat to the next without understanding the enemy.

“We must agree the specific terminology and identified characteristics to take us to the very root of the problem we face,” he said.

“For one group alone, we already struggle with an absurdity of titles including Isis, Isil, IS and Da'esh.

“We see the likes of Al Qaeda and its various offshoots. We have Al Shabab and Boko Haram and that's before contemplating yet unformed groups of their type that may develop in the future.

“In each case, however, we continue to hop blindly and haphazardly from one tactical threat to the other, without strategically understanding or categorising our foe.”

Policies

He said there was more chance of bringing down such groups by going after the theocrats themselves.

“If we start to define ourselves as in a war with theocrats, however, then I believe we can begin the process of delivering the military, political, economic - and maybe even the social - policies to counter this threat together, as we have in the past,” he said.

“In the last century, the world faced a series of overwhelming threats: fascism, totalitarianism, cold-war communism.

“They were studied, however, as concepts, understood and clearly defined. We addressed them, clinically, as ideologies.”

However, the Crown Prince acknowledged that even with a change in focus it would still be a long time before 'barbaric and primitive' movements such as IS were defeated.

“While in all probability we will sadly be fighting them for a long time to come, barbaric and primitive though they are, it is naming and understanding of the ideology itself that should next be our target,” he said.

“These individuals and groups will of course ebb and flow, but it is the ideology that must be combated and defeated.

“In the process, we can replace the term 'war on terror' and focus on the real threat, which is the rise of these evil fascist theocracies.” - TradeArabia News Service