Guest post by Nandagopal R. Menon

Scepticism is warranted only when patterns are broken. Normally, prejudice alone will suffice. So if there is a bomb blast in a Western capital, it can only be an Islamist “terror plot”. The motivations could be chosen from a short list of grievances of a peculiarly “Islamic” nature –  anger against illegal occupation of “Muslim lands” being the most favourite among them.

In the immediate aftermath of the July 22 terrorist attacks in the government quarters of Oslo, there was no room for doubt. All that was left to be done was to identify the exact name of the “jihadi” group involved (Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami, The New York Times concluded after a swift investigation); and the specific motive that propelled the attack (first choice: presence of Norwegian troops in Afghanistan; second: publication of the infamous Danish cartoons in the Norwegian press; and a distant third: Colonel Gaddafi’s retaliatory attack for Norway’s participation in bombing Libya). Whatever the motive or the group, it was indisputable that it was a “terrorist” attack.

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