ISIS are thugs and killers, they do not speak for Islam: Obama

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Monday 07 Dec 2015 - 09:53 Makkah mean time-25-2-1437 Image from CNN Washington, (IINA) - In a rare address to the nation from his Oval Office, US President Barack Obama urged his countrymen not to discriminate against people based on religion, as being feared inside America in the aftermath of a radicalized couple killing 14 people in San Bernardino in California recently, Firstpost online news reported. While asserting that the IS does not speak for Islam, Obama has also urged Islamic leaders across the world to speak out against the extremist outfit and its ideology. In addition, Obama urged Americans not to turn against one another by letting this fight be defined as a war between America and Islam. "That, too, is what groups like ISIL want," he noted. "ISIL does not speak for Islam. They are thugs and killers, part of a cult of death. And they account for a tiny fraction of a more than a billion Muslims around the world, including millions of patriotic Muslim-Americans who reject their hateful ideology," he said. "Moreover, the vast majority of terrorist victims around the world are Muslims. If we're to succeed in defeating terrorism, we must enlist Muslim communities as some of our strongest allies, rather than push them away through suspicion and hate," Obama said. "Muslim leaders here and around the globe have to continue working with us to decisively and unequivocally reject the hateful ideology that groups like ISIL and Al Qaeda promote, to speak out against not just acts of violence, but also those interpretations of Islam that are incompatible with the values of religious tolerance, mutual respect, and human dignity," Obama said. But, just as it is the responsibility of Muslims around the world to root out misguided ideas that lead to extremism, it is the responsibility of all Americans, of every faith, to reject discrimination, he asserted. "It is our responsibility to reject religious tests on who we admit into this country. It's our responsibility to reject proposals that Muslim-Americans should somehow be treated differently. Because when we travel down that road, we lose. That kind of divisiveness, that betrayal of our values plays into the hands of groups like ISIL," Obama concluded. SM/IINA