Islamic State shows it still can inflict harm

Many Muslim majority countries marked Eid al-Fitr, or the end of the holy month of Ramadan, last week. But for politicians and other leading figures from Turkey to Bangladesh, the annual holiday came at a profoundly somber moment, as the month saw an alarming campaign of slaughter unleashed by the militants of the Islamic State, hitting targets in four different countries.

“This has turned into the most blood-soaked Ramadan yet in the Islamic State’s campaign,” wrote the Washington Post’s Liz Sly. “At least 290 people have been killed in attacks claimed by or linked to the Islamic State – at Istanbul Ataturk Airport, at a restaurant frequented by foreigners in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, and in Baghdad. The vast majority of them, 222 people, died in the Baghdad blast, which targeted a shopping street packed with people celebrating the end of the day’s fast and shopping for the approaching holiday.”

The bombing in Baghdad was followed by three more strikes across Saudi Arabia, including an explosion in the city of Medina near the seventh-century mosque where the Prophet Muhammad is buried. It’s one of the holiest sites of Islam.

The near universal reaction to the spate of terrorist violence has been one of outrage and bewilderment.

Saudi Arabia’s supreme council of clerics said the blasts “prove that those renegades … have violated everything that is sacred.”

Despite suffering significant battlefield reverses in Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State has shown its capacity to inflict harm on a wide and devastating scale. Its fighters still preside over a sickening network of captives and sex slaves. Its proxies hit soft targets as far-flung as Jakarta and Paris. And its propaganda organs continue to trumpet the extremist organization’s puritanical creed, challenging the legitimacy of the kings and politicos in the halls of power in the Middle East.

The Islamic State, said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is “a dagger stabbed into the chest of Muslims.”

Still, there’s hope that the recent onslaught will spur greater, coordinated action against the extremist group.

This story was originally published July 10, 2016 at 12:01 AM with the headline "Islamic State shows it still can inflict harm."