Little island chain ripe for terrorist atrocity says New York Times…
If you believe the news and, frankly, why would you given it’s all in the paws of Jews and Big Pharma, religious terrorism has become quite a thing.
From New York to Kuta to Sydney, Orlando to San Bernardino to Machester, London, Paris, Nice, Berlin, Munich and so on, civilians are machine gunned, stabbed, beheaded, run over and blown apart. It’s a period, I imagine, that will pass but not before a few thousand more people die in the most dreadful manner.
Which is why it’s nice to know there are places like The Maldives where you can go and just goof off for a while.
Not only is the vacationer spared the terrorist threats that make big cities shake, but the waves rarely threaten. It ain’t the North Shore. The benign peel angle of the waves make it the ideal destination for the beginner all the way to the competent amateur.
Howevs, even The Maldives is losing its appeal. As headlined in the New York Times a few days ago, Islamic extremism might suddenly flip the switch in that country from happy little democracy to festering pit of Western resentment.
And you know what happens next.
Fat on a sun-bed reading the cocktail menu to bleeding out on the sand.
Let’s read.
This island paradise made news recently for a reason other than its pristine beaches and high-end resorts: the gruesome killing of a liberal blogger, stabbed to death by multiple assailants.
The killing in April of Yameen Rasheed, 29, a strong voice against growing Islamic radicalization, has amplified safety concerns — particularly for foreign tourists, a highly vulnerable group and one that the islands’ economy depends on. It is no idle threat, in a country that by some accounts supplies the world’s highest per-capita number of foreign fighters to extremist outfits in Syria and Iraq.
Here’s how the terrorist might approach an attack.
The Maldives’ unusual approach to tourism, in which a single island houses a single resort, has also meant that entire islands without robust security teams are vulnerable to being seized.
A collection of about 1,200 islands in the Indian Ocean, the Maldives hosted 1.2 million visitors last year, including over 30,000 Americans.
It was governed as a moderate Islamic nation for three decades under the autocratic rule of the former president, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. But after the country made a transition to democracy in 2008, space opened up for greater religious expression, and conservative ideologies like Salafism cropped up.
Don’t forget Bali or Tunisia, says the NYT.
The tourism industry has mostly remained off limits as a target for terrorism, but security experts say many resorts are ill equipped to fend off an attack on par with those that have occurred in places like Tunisiaand Bali, Indonesia.
A security chief from a resort in a northern atoll of Maldives said the country’s resorts are not prepared, adding that regulations and policies from the government were needed to address the issue. The security chief spoke on the condition of anonymity because of a fear of being targeted by the government, which has a history of jailing individuals who discuss sensitive issues.
Read the rest of the story here.
Oh! And the Four Seasons’ Surfing Champions Trophy kicks off August 7 to 13, at Sultans in the Maldives. The contest stars last year’s winner Taj Burrow, CJ Hobgood, Maya Gabeira and the winner is decided after heats on singles, twins and thrusters.
One scenario: a terrorist attack forces cancellation of the event after one round with CJ leading, who is subsequently announced the winner of the shortened contest.
