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Category - osama bin laden

  • 3 May 2011
    Sober response by religious and community leaders to bin Laden killing

    Despite scenes of jubilation from the USA following Osama bin Laden's killing, many religious leaders and commentators have reacted soberly.

  • 2 May 2011
    A death blow or shot in the arm for al-Qaida?

    US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's call on the Taliban and al-Qaida to renounce violence in the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden is a statement from the heart of a world power which feels a renewed sense of vigour in the light of what is being called a "policy success". But it does not strike one as arising from a very thoughtful, perceptive or accurate view of the world.

  • 2 May 2011
    Rejoice? Bin Laden and the cycle of violence

    This morning I woke to an orgy of media-fed delight about a violent death. According to Irenaeus, the second century Bishop of Lugdunum, “the glory of God is a human being fully alive.” According to at least one politician I listened to on the radio, what pleases God most is an enemy brutally murdered.

  • 2 May 2011
    The murder of Osama bin Laden: The end of the beginning of the 'clash of civilisations'?

    Osama Bin Laden may be dead, but if Americans and Europeans now think that they can begin to relax over the prospect of ‘international terror’, they are very mistaken, says Michael Marten. US policy in particular is catastrophically misaligned in the Middle East, Africa and South East Asia. The 'clash of civilisations' thesis is also gravely misleading, and religion (not least Islam) is not implicated in all this in the way simplistic analyses presume.

  • 2 May 2011
    Christians do not rejoice in any death, says Vatican over bin Laden

    The Vatican has said that a Christian “never rejoices” in the face of someone’s death, even if that person has committed heinous crimes.