Well before the American-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, a backlash against the US was predicted by a number of politicians and observers in the Middle East and elsewhere. But those who sit back and now say “I told you so” should think again.

Although American intelligence has once again been shown to be staggeringly ill-informed — just days before the Riyadh attacks President Bush was busy saying that “Al-Qaeda is on the run,” that it was “not a problem any more” — the Riyadh and Casablanca attacks are not a backlash. They are expressions of a hatred and a bigotry that encompasses far more than the US.

Who precisely are the victims in this supposed backlash? In Riyadh, Saudis and Filipinos were among the dead, as well as Americans. In Casablanca, the targets were not Americans at all. The victims were almost all Moroccans, most of them Muslims. Yes, a Spanish restaurant was chosen. But the theory that it was chosen because Spain supported the invasion is clearly false. The Belgian Consulate General was also hit; yet Belgium was one of the few EU states to actively oppose the Iraqi invasion.

Jews were another target. But not Israeli Jews or even American or European Jews on holiday. No, these were Moroccan Jews — Arab Jews for whom Morocco is as much home as it is for all other Moroccans. The Casablanca outrages had nothing to do with resentment over Iraq. This was about religious bigotry, a seething bitter rage among a deviant, minuscule number of Muslims against the entire non-Muslim world; and that includes all the West.

A Spanish restaurant and the Belgian Consulate were targeted because they were seen as symbols of that world. The killers do not differentiate between Westerners sympathetic to the Palestinians or those supporting Israel, between Westerners opposed to the invasion of Iraq and those backing it; as far as they are concerned the only good Westerner is a dead one. Ditto Jews. Local Jews were targeted purely because of their faith.

It is easy to point out the lunacy of their actions. They want to ethnically cleanse Morocco, to terrorize the country’s Jews into leaving. But where are they going to go? To Israel so that they can then add numerically to the oppression of the Palestinians?

A third group was targeted in Riyadh and Casablanca. Local people. In Casablanca, almost all the victims were Moroccan Muslims. But they too are seen as targets by the fanatics because they go out to restaurants, because they mix with foreigners.

The real victims of such fanaticism are the Palestinians, whose dreams of freedom are set back even further every time a suicide bomb goes off. The real victims are the Kashmiris, who face increased intransigence from Delhi every time the militants attack. The real victims are ordinary Arabs.

The biggest victim of all is Islam. The actions of the fanatics feed Islamophobia. They send the warped message that Islam is a religion drenched in blood. They must stop. But it is not enough to say that this is the work of a minuscule minority, that the overwhelming majority of Muslims are sickened by these attacks. It is not enough to condemn. It is not even enough to hunt them down and punish them. The world has to see that the cancer threatening the Muslim world is being cut out — vigorously so. Unless something is done, it will create a backlash of its own — against Muslims, against Islam.