Star comment: Terrorists destroying normality
These are their rules of war. Kill anyone. Anywhere. Nobody is safe.
Aid workers, journalists and – as we have now seen with the appalling killing of Salopian Sally Adey – holidaymakers, are all targeted by the terrorists, who have nothing to offer the world but their hate.
It was through a terrible mischance that Mrs Adey, who lived near Shifnal, was in the wrong place at the wrong time when the terrorists in Tunis launched their deadly attack.
Tragedy is piled on tragedy in that she was on a Mediterranean cruise holiday with her husband which was apparently booked at the last minute. The visit to the famous Bardo Museum was a cruise excursion.
Those who travel to known danger zones to work or to deliver aid do so having assessed the risks. They know they cannot relax or take their safety for granted. Mrs Adey was, like hundreds of thousands of Britons who travel abroad, in the completely opposite situation. She was on holiday, where relaxation is what it is all about.
Among the Arab Spring countries, Tunisia has been something of a beacon of hope in that it has not followed those places in which the light of democracy briefly flickered before they fell into strife and chaos.
Mrs Adey was visiting a place considered safe for Westerners. That perception has changed in an instant. It will, of course, be one of the reasons that holidaymakers were targeted. It is all from the terrorists' handbook in which first on the agenda is destroying normality. The cruise firm has understandably already suspended stops in Tunis.
Islamic State has said it is behind the attack. History is full of examples of terrorist threats which are negotiated away. It has been said there are no bad causes, just bad people.
With Islamic State, al-Qaida and their ilk, there is nothing to negotiate about because their cause is to destroy those who are against them, and that includes destroying Western values wherever they encounter them and murdering Westerners. Even people on holiday.
This malign ideology has now taken hold in North Africa, with Islamic State having a foothold in Libya and now, potentially, in Tunisia.
The spreading shadow has arrived at the gates of Europe. We want to live our lives in peace but the truth is sinking in that a war has been declared. On us.
