Killing in the Name

“You don’t have the right to kill people in the name of God,” says Ashraf al-Khaled, the main character in this Oscar-nominated short documentary. He has some moral authority; in 2005, an Iraqi suicide bomber walked into his wedding and killed 27 members of his family, including his father and father-in-law, and 130 people overall. It was the most ever by a single terrorist and considered by the planners—who are interviewed in the film—to be “a great killing.” With characters like this, Killing in the Name certainly veers into the heart of darkness, but it also touches your heart when it introduces you to the relatives of victims and a father whose son became a suicide bomber. Given that it only focuses on the Muslim world, the result is certainly an incomplete portrait of terrorism today, but the details we do see are both insightful and unsettling.

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