Thaindian News

Los Angeles, May 3 (ANI): The death of most wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden will ease tense relations and suspicions Muslim Americans have faced since 9/11 attacks, according to experts.

The Saudi-born terrorist, who had evaded capture for a decade, was killed in a top secret operation involving a small team of US Special Forces in Abbottabad city, located 50 kilometres northeast of Islamabad and 150 kilometres east of Peshawar.

The reactions reflected unalloyed joy and deliverance from Muslim American leaders and scholars, for whom the news of bin Laden’s death came bundled with an extra form of relief.

“American Muslims have kind of been in a kettle, a boiling kettle, and the fire has been this terrorism. Hopefully, the demise of Qaeda and this terrorist philosophy will put out the fire,” said Ihsan Bagby, an associate professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Kentucky.

For all that hope, there were those who said Monday that it was too early to tell whether bin Laden’s assassination by US forces would unshackle the American Muslim community from associations in the public mind with extremism, The Los Angeles Times reports.

“I think the potential lies in either this being a step forward or being a step back, and it all depends on how we decide to use the moment and reflect on it,” said Imam Khalid Latif, a chaplain with the New York Police Department and New York University.

“We would need people to step up beyond press releases and statements, and really begin to do meaningful work that highlights to people how Islam and Muslims are able to bring benefit back to society,” he added.

The September 11, 2001, attacks unleashed by bin Laden was a disaster in many ways for American Muslims, who suddenly faced the sort of broad-based suspicion that fell on Japanese Americans during World War II and German Americans during World War I. (ANI)