By Arun Kumar, IANS,
Washington : Citing the dramatic confession of Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone surviving Mumbai terrorist, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said good education and jobs were the ways to keep people from turning to terrorism.
“We have to make sure people do get a good education; we have to make sure that people do have jobs. I mean, those are all part of what we see as a more positive alternative than to what the terrorists are selling,” she told a Thai TV channel in Bangkok Wednesday.
“You probably saw in the news the very dramatic development in the trial in India of the surviving Mumbai terrorist who confessed in court,” Clinton said, according to a transcript released by the State Department. “But what I found so interesting about his confession is that he was a young man without much purpose in life.
“He was in a job that he didn’t find particularly satisfying, and he was susceptible to the blandishments of the terrorist organisations that this will make you feel strong and powerful; this will give you a meaning and a purpose in your life. And he bought into that and joined this group that was trained for the Mumbai attack.
“And yet when you listen to his confession, as I heard on Indian television, this is not someone who had some deep, overriding ideological commitment. It was someone who got swept up in it,” Clinton noted.
“So we want to convey to families and communities across the world there’s a better way. Now, we have to put some meat on the bones of that statement.”
Reiterating US resolve to defeat international terrorists and their networks, Clinton said international terrorism was still a big threat “and it is, of course, an overwhelming priority of the United States because of our own experience”.
Describing the Jakarta bombing as a cowardly terrorist attack, she said: “Clearly, the terrorists, they don’t want to compete in the political environment. … So they engage in this very destructive, violent behaviour.
“So as tragic as something like that is, I think it’s important to convey to the terrorists that they will not intimidate us and they will not, in any way, undermine our resolve to defeat them and their networks.”
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at [email protected])