OVER the last week or so, innocent civilians of different faiths have met violent deaths in separate parts of the world: Christians in Russia; Buddhists in Iraq; Hindus in Kashmir; and Jews in Israel.

In each incident, the perpetrators have been Muslims. While it can be argued that in the same period, Muslims have been killed in Kashmir, Chechnya, Iraq and Palestine, there is a crucial difference. In the latter events, legally constituted and directed state power was responsible for the killings. In the former, the killers were terrorists, and their victims unconnected with security forces.

It is true that the faith of the various groups behind the deaths of the non-Muslims is coincidental as they all have different agendas. The Chechens behind Beslan, the Palestinians who carried out the recent suicide bombing in Israel, the Kashmiris who continue to target Hindu civilians, and the Iraqis who are killing and kidnapping foreigners are all fighting different wars.

Despite the attempts of the occupying powers to link them, the fact of the matter is that these militant movements have very little in common except their religion. By and large, they are motivated more by the spirit of nationalism than by faith. And except for a handful of pan-Islam zealots, these are all indigenous struggles.

However, while these unequal contests demand unorthodox tactics, the fact is that increasingly, it is the innocent who suffer most. Being soft targets, they are killed or taken hostage almost at will by the guerrillas; and as they are perceived by the state as sheltering the resistance, they become acceptable collateral damage in the “war on terror”.

The fact that many of the most violent groups operating today are Muslim is not without significance in a world where the electronic media has no time for fine distinctions, and sound bites carry more weight than serious analyses. Thus, when global TV channels speak of “Islamic terrorists”, western audiences do not differentiate between Chechen and Iraqi guerrillas. For them, the killers who deliberately target civilians are Muslims. Ergo, Muslims are bloodthirsty people who target the innocent.

In part, this is the legacy of 9/11. There is a growing concern in the West that Muslims living in their countries are a fifth column who produce terrorists and oppose the values of the host societies. Moderate Muslims protest rightly that the vast majority are peaceful, hardworking citizens, and their Islam is a religion of peace.

But each atrocity with a Muslim connection, and each arrest of alleged Muslim terrorists, confirms the impression that there is a global Islamic conspiracy against the West headed by Al Qaeda. Putin and Sharon have been happy to jump on the bandwagon, claiming that the Chechen and Palestinian nationalist movements are both part of this fundamentalist plot. Western support for both leaders and their efforts to crush the resistance is an indication of the fear the perceived Islamic threat inspires in much of the non-Muslim world.

To some extent, it is the increasingly brutal methods being used by some fundamentalist groups that revolts civilized people and make them reject whatever cause the killers espouse. Anybody who saw images of the recent slaughter of 12 Nepalese workers by an underground group in Iraq would find it hard to sympathize with the killers. Photographs distributed on the Internet show a dagger being drawn across the throat of one unfortunate Nepalese, and his head being placed on his chest. The remaining 11 were shot and their blood-stained bodies were dumped on the ground like slaughtered sheep.

How can such a savage and cowardly act be explained or condoned? Working as drivers and cooks, these poor people were only trying to make a living. Neither they nor their government could influence American policy in Iraq, so what was the point of kidnapping and slaughtering them? While they were a soft target, they were certainly not a military target.

Similarly, by taking children hostage and causing over 350 deaths in Beslan, the Chechens have only strengthened Putin’s hand. He has won tremendous sympathy from previously critical western governments in his refusal to talk to Chechen “child-killers”. The plight of terrified children and their anguished parents shown across the world has lost the rebels much of the support they had earlier enjoyed among liberal westerners.

Chechens (and Palestinians as well as Kashmiris) ask: “But what about our children? The Russians (or the Israelis or the Indians) have been killing our men, women and children indiscriminately. The world does not condemn them for their use of state terror against our people.”

To a certain extent, this anger is justified. But it’s an unfair world, and states traditionally enjoy a monopoly on the use of power. Armed resistance to legitimate power, no matter how justified, is generally viewed as undermining the status quo and leading to violence and disorder.

So what’s the answer? When nobody listens, how do the oppressed and the occupied make themselves heard? How do they dislodge their oppressors and take charge of their own destiny? While this despair and anger are understandable, more often than not, asymmetrical warfare is a losing proposition. Powerful military states like the United States and Israel now use missiles and tanks rather than risk their ground troops. Any “collateral damage” among civilians is unfortunate, but acceptable.

The more difficult route of passive resistance calls for a high degree of discipline and patience. But as we saw in the case of South Africa, it does generate worldwide sympathy and can result in international pressure. When violence is used against civilians, the state benefits as it is transformed from oppressor to victim.

Of course, this is easier said than done. Exposed to daily doses of violence on satellite television, the world is hardened to the sight of mayhem in distant lands. But when much of this is linked to followers of one faith, most people assume that all Muslims are prone to violence.

Currently, Muslim groups (often mistakenly referred to as Islamic) seem bent on antagonizing the rest of the world as they kill innocent bystanders at random. Instead of creating terror, these acts are generating a backlash against equally innocent and peaceful Muslims. And they are hardening existing prejudices. Above all, they are hardening the resolve not to make any concessions.