The evil which lurks in the hearts of radical Islamists

It's nearly impossible for me to understand the evil which lurks in the hearts of radical Islamists, which in the past week led them to murder dozens of innocents at a gas plant in Algeria.

They are not unique in world history, of course. There have always been bands of evil men willing to rape, pillage and murder in the name of a sick cause.

In the last 100 years, from the rise of Bolshevism in Russia and other Marxist totalitarians around the world, we saw evil at work, stealing innate human liberty from all who lived and continue to live under their thumbs. And, of course, from the early 1930s to VE-Day in 1945, the world witnessed the greatest evil of them all, the Nazis, who were unembarrassed in displaying their savagery.

Perhaps what sets aside the evils of the Islamists is that a billion others, the supposedly peaceful Muslims, seem unwilling to stand up to them, unwilling to beat them into submission. The ideas and attitudes, if not the violence, of the radical Muslims is clearly popular throughout the Muslim world. They win elections in Palestine, Egypt and elsewhere.

When they despicably harm innocents, as long as the innocents are not other Muslims, their acts are not harshly criticized by the masses. When they slit the throats of Jewish babies, they are celebrated around the Muslim world. When they terrorize Egyptian Copts, their fellow Muslims in Egypt are completely silent and cast blame on the victims.

Although it is an unpopular, undemocratic government in Algeria, I give it great credit for fighting back against the Islamists who murdered so many at the gas plant in the desert. At least Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal is not a coward like most of his fellow Muslims are in the face of evil.

"I cannot find words to adequately describe my feelings over this heinous and cowardly act," Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal said. At least 37 hostages from eight countries were killed during a four-day siege at an the complex. Five foreign workers remain unaccounted for, Sellal said, saying they may have been killed, escaped or held in captivity by terrorists who got away. He said 29 terrorists were killed during assaults by Algerian military forces to end the standoff and "a few" may have escaped. Sellal said the terrorists came from Egypt, Canada, Mali, Niger, Mauritania and Tunisia, and that three were captured. Algerian special forces stormed the plant on Saturday to end the siege, moving in to thwart what government officials said was a plot by the Islamist terrorists to blow up the complex and kill all their hostages with mines sown throughout the site. On Sunday, Algerian bomb squads sent in to blow up or defuse the explosives found 25 bodies, said a security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.