Sea, sun and jihad
Islamist extremism rears its head in the tourist paradise
A RECORD number of tourists, some 650,000, visited the Maldives' upmarket and otherwise uninhabited island resorts last year. But from the populated parts of the Indian Ocean archipelago the news is more worrying. On a January visit to one of its 1,200 white sand and coral islands, President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom was rescued from a knife attack by a boy scout. The would-be assassin's shout of “Allahu Akbar!” was the latest evidence of growing Islamic extremism in the 350,000-strong nation of Sunni Muslims.
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “Sea, sun and jihad”
From the February 16th 2008 edition
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