to the September 11th Families Association

We would like to introduce ourselves, for we in a way are mirror reflections of yourselves. We too have lost our loved ones through terror and we too have had our whole lives changed. We are Syrians living in Syria and we are victims of what has been happening in our country. Terror has hit our country violently taking on different forms like looting , kidnapping , raping and killing .

   The same ” Takfiri ” ideology which found way to your country and caused 9/11 has now come to ours and caused vast destruction, for it didn’t stop at massacres or terrorizing innocent civilians but it also hit on our infrastructure preventing us from free education and medical care, attacking schools and medicine factories and turning them into military bases.

   Those same” Takfiri” Jihadists groups came into our country with the aim of establishing and spreading an ‘Islamic Caliphate’ from Syria throughout the world. And in their Islamic Caliphate there is no place for citizenship or human rights and there definitely is no place for women. There is only place for beheadings and executions and Sharia courts!

   There are many examples of this. Take what happened in 2012  when a film on Prophet Mohamad was made public on you tube and met with great disapproval from the Muslim world , instead of channeling their disapproval through legitimate ways like many Muslim organizations and indeed countries did , the ‘Takfiri” groups attacked the American embassy in Libya and killed the American ambassador . He was killed by Islamic extremists. These very same extremists, who now enter our country and kill our children,.

   Our message to you is simple and clear. Please stop these’ Takfiri’ groups from becoming more and more powerful. Your government at the moment is aiding and abetting these groups –this is something that we in Syria find completely incomprehensible! For are they not the very same ones who caused 9/11 – why then is the American government and its allies in the west funding these groups? Why then did the US lose so many of its young men in Afghanistan? Was it not to fight terrorism? Did those soldiers die in vain? These are only some of the questions that Syrians ask.

   American and EU sanctions pose another problem for they are crippling our economy and affecting our very basic needs , banning certain foods and many medicines and medical equipment .

   We would like to extend an invitation to you to come and visit Syria through a delegation , so you can see how things stand for yourselves and you will then know that we face a 9/11 everyday .

   Let us form a unified front against terrorism regardless of its place, goal or color.

Reem Haddad