'Trump's belligerent remarks encouraging more terrorist attacks'

The recent wave of gruesome attacks that claimed scores of innocent lives across several countries, including the attack on Coptic Christians in Egypt, the bomb explosion in Manchester, UK, and several deadly attacks in Iraq and Syria, bears witness to the unbridled spread of terrorism to different parts of the world. Following is a synopsis of Press TV’s interview with author and political commentator Carol Gould and Egyptian activist Hazem Salem, about the rise of global terrorism.

Carol Gould maintains that the kind of extremism that has lately emerged in the language and action of some Western leaders, US President Donald Trump in particular, is pushing the terrorist groups towards more radicalism.  

“I said last week when I saw President Trump’s speech in Saudi Arabia in which he particularly condemned Iran, that I felt that his bellicose speech, warlike speech, would cause more terrorist attacks and in fact the next day was the attack in Manchester which is now being connected to IS [Daesh],” Gould said.

“So, I think it is possible that the rise in terrorism is because of the anger at the fact that there is very reactionary and somewhat anti-Muslim administration in Washington although there was Trump dancing with Saudi Arabians,” she noted.

Meanwhile, Hazem Salem, the other panelist, pinned the blame for the rise of terrorism on the US and its Arab allies, adding that those who are leading “regressive regimes” in the Middle East and the West are the main beneficiaries of acts committed by terrorist groups such as Daesh.

“Daesh has been created, one way or the other, by the Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia, the version that advocates radicalization [and] benefits Saudi interests,” Salem said. “Now, Saudis are trained to counter that by aligning their interests with the US which has been funding the militants ... Therefore this is a dilemma for the Saudis as such and it is a real benefit for Israel and the fanatic Christian right-wing in the US and they wish that this would continue to escalate.”

The gory attacks in Egypt and Britain came in the wake of Donald Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia supposedly aimed at shaping a unified counterterrorism front in the region and resetting relations with the Muslim world.

The US and Saudi Arabia, along with a number of their regional allies, stand accused of providing weapons and financial backing to various militant groups wreaking havoc in countries like Syria and Iraq.

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