A violent end

It was like a shot out of the blue, this report that all of a sudden, al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden was killed in a luxury compound in Pakistan where he was said to have been holed up since August last year.

Ever since the infamous Sept. 11, 2001, attacks at the World Trade Center in New York, U.S. authorities have launched probably the most extensive, exhaustive manhunt for the man who claimed responsibility for the deaths of thousands of Americans.

His death occurred just as the United States is set to commemorate the first decade anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Announcement of his death has set off a celebration among the Americans with words like “justice done” and “closure” being the common theme.

For followers of bin Laden and critics of the United States, yesterday’s celebration of al-Qaeda’s founder may appear quite obscene, akin to dancing on a dead person’s grave. Then again, reports that bin Laden’s remains were thrown out to sea have sent conspiracy theorists into a speculating frenzy that he is not really dead and the White House announcement was all a sham.

Such theorists would point out the recent controversy over the authenticity of U.S. President Barack Obama’s birth certificate, which casts doubts on his American citizenship as proof of their claims.

But for what it’s worth, the announcement of bin Laden’s death has given not just closure and justice to the families of the 9/11 victims but also sent a strong message that terrorism will not escape punishment, either in a court of law or, as in the cases of bin Laden and the son of Libyan strongman Moammar Qaddafi demonstrated, through a violent end.

It had been reiterated that bin Laden’s death isn’t an attack on Islam as Islamic countries themselves have disowned the terrorist attacks spawned by his al- Qaeda group. The Muslim community in Cebu expressed relief over bin Laden’s death, saying this may help towards erasing erroneous public perception on Islam as a religion of violence.

How it affects the rest of the world remains to be seen but vigilance became the order of the day. The Aquino administration ordered its military on alert, despite the assessment by top armed forces officials that the security threat isn’t so serious even with the presence of the bandit Abu Sayaff group and the more radical Jemaah Islamiyah (JI).

Bin Laden has in the eyes of the Western world particularly the United States and its allies represented the face of terrorism especially in the birth of the 21st century. His death thus doesn’t mean an end to that terrorism but it does take out of the equation one of its most influential leaders.