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Definitive Terrorist Talks (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, April 3, 2012) -- The decade-long Islamic quest to define terrorism came to an explosive pause here today when exiled former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat paid a surprise visit to the 188th session on the topic held by the Organization of the Islamic Conference and promptly self-detonated. The suicide bombing, which occurred just minutes into the meeting, killed seven, including Arafat, and injured eleven of the OIC foreign ministers in attendance. The injured were taken to Kuala Lumpur Hospital, where three were listed as critical. Surviving ministers, however, declined to condemn the bombing as an act of terrorism, pending an investigation of circumstances. Arafat, exiled to a nursing home in Great Falls, Montana, since January of 2003, had been severely depressed since the United States refused to classify him as a bona fide terrorist in 2002. He became even more depressed just last year, when the U.S. State Department officially labeled him as a "Former Suspected Terrorist Who May Yet Serve U.S. Interests in Manipulating the Policies of Islamic Middle East Leaders." U.S. authorities were uncertain as to how Arafat, who was under loose house arrest in the nursing home, had managed to thwart security measures, acquire explosives and find his way to Malaysia without being spotted. "It wasn't our day to watch him," an FBI spokesman said. "Besides, he looked a lot different without his headdress." In its initial 2002 session, the OIC had deferred responsibility for defining terrorism to the United Nations. The UN, however, noting that the majority of ostensibly terrorist acts of the past 40 years had been perpetrated by extremist Islamic factions, immediately passed the buck back to the OIC, charging that the ministers had a moral and global responsibility "to come to grips with their own demons." "From the very beginning of these meetings, we concluded that terrorism and acts of terrorism should be condemned," observed Minister Ismail al Dodjdaissu, current host and spokesman for the OIC sessions. "What we have been unable to resolve what amounts to an act of terror or what amounts to terrorism. We would have had no difficulty, for example, in defining this latest incident to be an act of terrorism had the bomber been an Irishman." |
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