Days after a series of attacks killed at least 132 people in Paris, Australian journalist Waleed Aly opened his weekly monologue by calling ISIS for what it is: weak.
“They take credit for any act of terrorism on Western soil so they appear bigger and tougher than they actually are,” said Aly during a Monday taping of current affairs show The Project.
ISIS took credit for Friday’s atrocities, but it remains unknown if it planned, ordered, or even funded attackers and accomplices.
His monologue, co-written by Tom Whitty, reminded viewers the terrorist group did the same thing last year when a “lone wolf” gunman shot and killed Cpl. Nathan Cirillo as he stood sentry at Ottawa’s National War Memorial.
Watch the full monologue here:
Aly also brought up ISIS’s claim it was behind a daylight attack on NYPD officers by a hatchet-wielding man in Queens, and for when it took credit for a hostage crisis in Sydney that left two dead.
“They were DIY terrorists who recruited themselves,” Aly said, stripping credence away from ISIS’s hostile messaging.
He quoted an article from a monthly ISIS publication emphasizing a strategy to claim responsibility of rogue attacks so “crusader media” don’t report it as a random killing.
“... both dumbfounding in its stupidity and blood-curdling in its barbarity.”
The television host then turned his focus to politicians who get swept up in ISIS’s fear-mongering narrative and implement legislation to stoke domestic anti-Muslim sentiment in the west.
“ISIL’s leaders would be ecstatic to hear that since the atrocity in Paris, Muslims have reportedly been threatened and attacked in England, America, and here in Australia because this evil organization has it in their heads that if they can makes Muslims the enemy of the west then Muslims in France and England and America will have nowhere to turn but to ISIL.
“Saying that outloud it’s both dumbfounding in its stupidity and blood-curdling in its barbarity.”
In Canada, Muslim women spoke out earlier this year after the previous Conservative government introduced legislation to ban the wearing of the niqab during citizenship ceremonies.
The stance was panned by niqab wearers and civil liberties advocates as one that would foster anti-Muslim sentiment in Canada.
After the attacks in Paris, a mosque in Peterborough, Ont.—the community’s only one—was set on fire over the weekend.
Aly, a Muslim, concluded his monologue by pledging he wouldn’t be manipulated and urged viewers to come together because it’s “exactly what ISIL doesn’t want.”
“And I’m pretty sure right now, none of us wants to help these bastards,” he said.
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