Washington D.C., Jun 30, 2004 / 22:00 pm
The recent beheading of American Paul Johnson in Saudi Arabia by Muslim extremists is not simply an attack against Americans but one in a stream of attacks against Christians and “infidels,” says Paul Marshall in the latest issue of the Weekly Standard.
The senior fellow at Freedom House’s Center for Religious Freedom and Islam expert wrote an article on the subject, called “War against the Infidels: The message behind the beheadings.” It appears in the July 5 edition of the publication.
In his article, Marshall states that the extremists, whose beheadings of two Americans and one South Korean have made headlines recently, have many more enemies than the Americans and a much larger goal than simply crippling the oil industry in Saudi Arabia. Their goal is to rid the Muslim world of “infidels” or unbelievers of Islam, argues Marshall.
This goal is clearly expressed in a quote that Marshall cites in his article. He reports that the man who claimed responsibility for Johnson’s death, Abdelaziz al-Muqrin, said: "We renew our determination to repel the crusader forces and their arrogance, to liberate the land of Muslims, to apply sharia [Islamic law] and cleanse the Arabian Peninsula of infidels."