WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama has described South Asia and the Middle East as “ground zero” for winning back hearts and minds of young Muslims.

In an interview to CNN, Mr Obama insisted that the fight against terrorism was neither a religious war nor a fight against radical Islam. He also insisted that to win this war it was necessary also to win back hearts and minds of young Muslims.

“The Middle East and South Asia are sort of ground zero for us needing to win back hearts and minds, particularly when it comes to young people,” he said.

Mr Obama said that efforts to present this fight as a religious war would hurt efforts to root out radical ideologies in Muslim communities.

The United States, he said, should align itself with the overwhelming majority of Muslims who reject the radical ideology and tactics of terrorist groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda.

The president that there were elements in Muslim communities in certain parts of the world that had perverted the religion, and had embraced a nihilistic, violent, almost medieval interpretation of Islam.

In doing so, they were “doing damage in a lot of countries around the world,” he added.

“But it is absolutely true that I reject a notion that somehow that creates a religious war because the overwhelming majority of Muslims reject that interpretation of Islam. They don’t even recognise it as being Islam,” Mr Obama said.

“And I think that for us to be successful in fighting this scourge, it’s very important for us to align ourselves with the 99.9 per cent of Muslims who are looking for the same thing we’re looking for — order, peace, prosperity.”

President Obama said he did not “quibble with labels”, although he acknowledged “this is a particular problem that has roots in Muslim communities”.

Mr Obama said that those who insisted on labelling this as a religious war were hurting the cause.

“I think we do ourselves a disservice in this fight if we are not taking into account the fact that the overwhelming majority of Muslims reject this ideology,” he said.

Republicans have criticised President Obama for refusing to label the terror threat the US and the West faces from radical Islam. “We are in a religious war with radical Islamists,” Senator

Lindsey Graham said on Fox News last week. “When I hear the President of the United States and his chief spokesperson failing to admit that we’re in a religious war, it really bothers me.”

Published in Dawn February 4th , 2015

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