“Jihadists have tweaked their different versions of this terror strategy in various parts of the world.

It could have been passed as a consolation that the lone suicide bomber in Lamitan late last month was a Moroccan, easing Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana’s announcement because it would have been different had the car bomber been a Filipino.

We do not have a case yet of a Filipino suicide bomber. This despite suicide attacks becoming the most favorite terror strategy by the jihadists who found it the most effective since the 11 September 2001 at the World Trade Center in New York.

Jihadists have tweaked their different versions of this terror strategy in various parts of the world, with lone wolf shootings and stabbings and, lately, a favorite among nuts claimed by the IS as theirs is ramming mostly rented cars on innocent people.

They needn’t need arms or bombs anymore. They can make statement killings with not much expense although on a lesser scale as those of the three planes the al-Qaeda had used to bring down two mighty towers and almost, either the Pentagon or the White House.

No Filipino had followed that terror line. The possession of mighty firearms was more appealing to the old and young jihadists who had joined four or five or many more incarnations of separatist/secessionist movements and of late, al-Qaeda and IS-inspired groups — smaller actually but are more radical and dangerous.

The latest Lamitan bombing had sent more chills especially to the authorities, though. It would have been the first had the driver of that van accosted during a routine checkpoint been a Filipino.

The Moroccan, or so he was claimed, had killed a policeman and several members of a para-military force and some members of their families, including a woman and a child, who happened to be near where the blast occurred.

The explosion was so powerful that even animals from a nearby farm were also killed and several wooden houses were also destroyed.

Lorenzana said the suicide bomber was a Moroccan who lived in Mindanao. He confirmed it was a suicide bombing — his preferred way out rather than get arrested by the authorities for possession of improvised explosives.

Said Lorenzana: “Our intelligence is 80 percent sure that he was Moroccan. Recovered terrorist photos in Sulu showed that his picture has been encircled and marked ‘martyr.’

Well, did he die? We don’t know but maybe he is the guy,” Lorenzana said.

That makes the statement unsure. Leaving 20 percent to the possibility of Lorenzana committing a mistake is still high.

The suicide bomber was quickly linked by authorities to the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), which of late had been receiving quite too many beatings. The ASG is the only IS-inspired terror group still kicking in the face of efforts to forge peace in the region.

We should not deny that the Mindanaoans are hopeful of peace. The surveys say it and their stamp of approval to President Duterte remains high despite the fluctuations in numbers in the Luzon and the Visayas at times.

Mindanao is eyeing the Bangsaramoro Oraganic Law as a possible means to end the decades-old wars in the region. But the ASG is bringing a different war in Mindanao. The Abu Sayyaf is not territorial, its IS-inspired members believe they are god-ordained to carry out a war long displaced in history but not forgiven and forgotten.

If he was a Moroccan indeed, it could be possible that the ASG strategy was to pass him off a Filipino to shift ASG radicalism to higher gear and goad other members to take what they believe as a holier path of self-sacrifice.

Leaving 20 percent to a chance of a mistake in the announced identity of the suicide bomber gives them a validation. He could still be a Filipino. There’s stilll chance we have had the first suicide bombing by a Filipino.

Filipino or Moroccan, the Lamitan suicide bombing should alert authorities of the new plots. He will not be the last for sure.

Imagine if he had suceeded getting nearer the 4,000 schoolchildren slated to attend a graduation ceremony at the public plaza for the Department of Education’s feeding program. How many children would the suicide bomber have killed?

There will be events of a similar or a larger scale in the future that terror groups will mark for targets. All it will take is a single nutcase to make it happen.

“Fear is the weapon that is being used against us by those who are probably provoked by fear themselves.

One may suppose the sacrifice of 10 lives in place of 4,000 children who could have died in a suicide bomb blast in Lamitan, Basilan, is easier to take.

But is it, really? Is this how we have come to insulate ourselves from evil?

For those who lost a loved among the 10 victims, however, the truth of that horror would have felt the same — the same intense pain and sorrow, the same shock and anger and despair at a world gone mad.

The issue of that bomb-rigged van that broke down on its way to the plaza and exploded at a checkpoint brought home some stinging realizations more than the actual terrorism that had reached our shores. And the fact that the suicide bomber was a Moroccan national who was a part of the Abu Sayyaf does not matter as much as the reality that terror is in our soil.

Fear is being sown in our home. And if we are not vigilant and able to defend ourselves from this insidious enemy, we cannot survive.

Right now, some of us may be dwelling on the kind of man who would believe that killing children in that plaza was a justifiable act. We know there is absolutely nothing justifiable in killing no matter how you may explain it.

Killing is the wrong way to solve a problem; killing sows violence and hate; killing is a temporary balm to whatever deep-seated rage lies within.

That man supposedly had a background that caused him to seek vengeance and he chose to believe that justice would be his if he went to a place populated with children and detonated a bomb there. His twisted reasoning made him go and do such a thing.

I choose to believe, after reading up on what happened, that some higher purpose saved those innocents.

Reports say the van carrying the explosives broke down on its way and it was the army men who reportedly tried to help by pushing the vehicle to help get it restarted, who died instead when the man, fearing arrest, detonated the explosives.

Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize winning author of the book “The Soul of America,” was interviewed on CNN to talk about the topic of his book: “to help us understand the present moment in American politics and life by looking back at critical times in our history when hope overcame division and fear.”

I chanced upon a portion of the show after watching the news where a stolen plane was flashed onscreen and a witness talked about terrorism and other details I failed to catch.

What struck me after listening to Meacham’s message is that fear is the weapon that being used against us by those who are probably provoked by fear themselves.

What is it we fear today that is causing us to sow violence against one another and moreover making us immune to this sort of hate and violence and closed-mindedness and spite?

Meacham may have written about America, but the core message applies to all, I think.

As The New York Times Book Review says: “Appalled by the ascendancy of Donald J.

Trump and shaken by the deadly white nationalist rallies in Charlottesville in 2017, Meacham returns to other moments in our history when fear and division seemed rampant.

He wants to remind us that the current political turmoil is not unprecedented, that as a nation we have survived times worse than this…”

Fear and division, indeed, is at the core of our current turmoil.

But as Meacham reminds us, we can “summon our better angels,” or the good that still resides in all of us, to overcome the power of fear.

The StaffBorn at the turn of this century, the Daily Tribune immediately took hardcore stance on issues, bearing a slogan that speaks of its character.