"I just know that if I were a follower of Islam, and I witnessed what was happening all over the world in name of Islam, I would distance myself from that religion immediately"
Personally, I would prefer they distance themselves from their religion because religions are nonsense, but I do not suppose that is going to happen anytime soon.
As far as distancing yourself from your religion is concerned - how does that work, exactly? I think for many many believers, their belief is part of their culture and forms part of what shapes their lives, with attendances at places of worship, daily prayer, that sort of thing, so it is asking a lot.
And I also happen to think that many of even those who proclaim themselves to be very devout or pious are cherry-picking which bits of their religion to follow, and which to ignore.
Should Roman Catholics distance themselves from their religion, become apostates, because of the succession of revelations about the Churches handling of priests who have been accused of paedophilia/child abuse?
If you look at all the polls I have seen that ask populations about religion, you will find that, with each successive generation, the overall number of those who have a zealous belief declines. That is our hope.
Tackle the extremism through targeted vigilance and surveillance, arrest and lock up those who commit atrocities, and invest in education programmes within communities to prevent more of the young being indoctrinated with poisonous ideology, because sadly it is still the young that are less equipped to see through the poison and more likely to buy into the ideological grievances being peddled by the deluded zealots.