Judith Bergman : Canada Supports, Infantilizes Jihadis

Canada Supports, Infantilizes Jihadis

by Judith Bergman
June 26, 2018 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12522/canada-jihadis

• The Canadian government is willing to go to great (and presumably costly) lengths to "facilitate" the return of Canadian jihadists, unlike the UK, for example, which has revoked the citizenship of ISIS fighters so they cannot return.
• Attempts at deradicalization elsewhere have frequently turned out to be ineffective. In the UK, for example, a new government report shows that the vast majority of deradicalization programs are not only ineffective, but even counterproductive, and that those tasked with executing the programs "...would refuse to engage in topics over fears of bringing up matters of race and religion without appearing discriminatory"
• In France, the country's first and only deradicalization center closed in September 2017 after just one year, without having "deradicalized" a single individual. On the contrary, three participants reportedly behaved as if the center were a "Jihad academy".

Canadians who go abroad to commit terrorism – predominantly jihadists, in other words – have a "right to return" according to government documents obtained by Global News. They not only have a right of return, but "... even if a Canadian engaged in terrorist activity abroad, the government must facilitate their return to Canada," as one document says.
According to the government, there are still around 190 Canadian citizens volunteering as terrorists abroad. The majority are in Syria and Iraq, and 60 have returned. Police are reportedly expecting a new influx of returnees over the next couple of months.
The Canadian government is willing to go to great (and presumably costly) lengths to "facilitate" the return of Canadian jihadists, unlike the UK, for example, which has revoked the citizenship of ISIS fighters so they cannot return. The Canadian government has established a taskforce, the High Risk Returnee Interdepartmental Taskforce, that, according to government documents:

"... allows us to collectively identify what measures can mitigate the threat these individuals may pose during their return to Canada. This could include sending officers overseas to collect evidence before they depart, or their detention by police upon arrival in Canada."

Undercover officers may also be used "to engage with the HRT [High Risk Traveler] to collect evidence, or monitor them during their flight home."
In the sanitizing Orwellian newspeak employed by the Canadian government, the terrorists are not jihadis who left Canada to commit the most heinous crimes, such as torture, rape and murder, while fighting for ISIS in Syria and Iraq, but "High Risk Travelers" and "High Risk Returnees".
The government is fully aware of the security risk to which it is subjecting Canadians: According to the documents, "HRRs [High Risk Returnees] can pose a significant threat to the national security of Canada". This fact raises the question of why the government of Canada is keen to facilitate these people's "right of return" -- when presumably the primary obligation of the government is to safeguard the security of law-abiding Canadian citizens.
The government also does not appear hopeful that the returning terrorists will face criminal charges. By the end of 2017, the Trudeau government had only charged two returned ISIS fighters, and Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said at the time, "This is an issue that is bedeviling countries around the world in terms of how you actually... move from intelligence to evidence and make a case stick".
The documents describe terrorism cases as "complex and resource intensive," citing the difficulties of terrorism investigations and caution that "there may not be sufficient evidence for charges", and that, therefore, the government will have to "mitigate the threat through efforts outside the criminal justice system."
Such efforts might include sending an "intervention team" that can "engage with the returnee and the returnee's family to open up dialogue with the individual and to help support the returnee's disengagement from their radical ideology and past behavior... While they may have engaged in terrorism abroad and broken the law, not all returnees continue to post [sic] a threat — they may now be disillusioned with the cause" or "...may no longer be interested in violence."
How comforting for Canadians that their government is pandering to terrorists while pretending that there is a chance that returning jihadis will suddenly change their ways.
Attempts at deradicalization elsewhere have frequently turned out to be ineffective. In the UK, for example, a new government report shows that the vast majority of deradicalization programs are not only ineffective, but even counterproductive, and that those tasked with executing the programs "...would refuse to engage in topics over fears of bringing up matters of race and religion without appearing discriminatory". In France, the country's first and only deradicalization center closed in September 2017 after just one year, without having "deradicalized" a single individual. On the contrary, three participants reportedly behaved as if the center were a "Jihad academy".

The Canadian government is willing to go to great lengths to "facilitate" the return of Canadian jihadists. But attempts at deradicalization in Western countries have frequently turned out to be ineffective. In France, the country's first and only deradicalization center (pictured) closed in September 2017 without having "deradicalized" a single individual. (Image source: 28 minutes - ARTE video screenshot)

Some members of the Canadian government are evidently aware of the near-futility of such deradicalization efforts. In November 2017, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said "You have to prevent the problem before it exists. Once a person has been in a war zone, once they've been actively engaged in terrorist-related activities, the capacity to turn them around is pretty remote."
These facts, however, are unlikely to bother Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who appears to compare returning ISIS fighters to Italian and Greek immigrants who settled in Montreal in the post war years. Trudeau has said, "We know that actually someone who has engaged and turned away from ... hateful ideology can be an extraordinarily powerful voice for preventing radicalization" -- but he appears to disregard the evidence that few actually turn away from jihadism.
Perhaps the Trudeau government simply cares more for jihadists and Islamists than for Canada. In early May, the Toronto Sun revealed that the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC), which has ties to terrorist organizations, would receive 10 grants from the government's Canada Summer Jobs Grant[1] to fund its activities across Ontario.
According to the Toronto Sun, "MAC provided $296,514 between 2001 and 2010" to IRFAN-Canada. Within that period, from 2005 and 2009, "IRFAN-Canada transferred approximately $14.6 million worth of resources to various organizations associated with Hamas". Both MAC and IRFAN-Canada are considered linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. In 2014, Canada's government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper designated IRFAN-Canada a terrorist entity.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government is facilitating the return of ISIS terrorists and granting government funds to Islamist organizations who end up funding banned terrorist groups. So, whose interests is the Canadian government really looking out for?

Judith Bergman is a columnist, lawyer and political analyst.

---

[1] Canada Summer Jobs (CSJ), according to the government website, provides wage subsidies to employers to create employment for secondary and post-secondary students. It welcomes applications from small businesses, not-for-profit employers, public sector and faith-based organizations that provide quality summer jobs for students.

Giulio Meotti : European Terrorism: The 'Batman Syndrome'

European Terrorism: The 'Batman Syndrome'

by Giulio Meotti
June 27, 2018 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12567/european-terrorism-batman-syndrome

• "It is the 'Batman syndrome': the hero refuses to kill, he systematically saves his enemy who escapes and kills new victims until the hero catches up with him, and so on". — Causeur magazine.
• "These crimes will continue so long as the Republic leaves the enemy in peace". — Ivan Riofoul, Le Figaro.
• In the end, there might be still a region called "Europe", but it may no longer enfold European culture.

The European Union lost €180 billion (USD $210 billion) in GDP due to terrorism between 2004 and 2016. The United Kingdom (€43.7 billion) and France (€43 billion) suffered the highest losses, followed by Spain (€40.8 billion) and Germany (€19.2 billion), 
according to a Rand Corporation study.

"Beyond those who have been directly physically affected by terrorist attacks, the extensive coverage of terrorist attacks through multiple media and social media channels has substantially increased the amount of people and companies that could be psychologically affected. This subsequently affects their economic behaviour".

New statistics have also come from the Britain's anti-terrorism office. 441 people have been arrested in the UK for terrorism in the last year alone, and 4,182 since the attacks of September 11, 2001. The threat of terrorism is exhausting Europe.

According to the Spanish "black book" of terrorism, 658 Europeans have been murdered in terror attacks on European soil, while 1,029 Europeans have been killed by them abroad.  
Half of the French army has been deployed within the French Republic to protect the civilian targets, such as schools, monuments, and religious sites. Europe's armies are exhausted from patrolling the streets, to the point that NATO planners now fear that, over time, European armies "may get better at guarding railway stations and airports than fighting wars". An officer who recently returned from Afghanistan for guard duty in Belgium said: "We are standing around like flowers pots, just waiting to be smashed". Germany also sent troops into the streets for the first time since the Second World War.

A soldier stands guard in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France. (Photo by Franck Prevel/Getty Images)

One has to ask: Is Europe really serious about its war on terror? The French magazine Causeur just called it "the Batman Syndrome":

"How can we respect a society that is too cowardly to fight those who threaten its citizens, and that demonstrates its weakness by systematically seeking appeasement at the price of the most unreasonable accommodations? It is the 'Batman syndrome': the hero refuses to kill, he systematically saves his enemy who escapes and kills new victims until the hero catches up with him, and so on."

France is now close to freeing at least 50 terrorists from prison. The UK is also due to free 80 Islamic fundamentalists from prison. According to a new French report, nearly 10% of the 512 prisoners incarcerated for terrorism are likely to be released by the end of 2018. Their release may well pose a major threat.

 Khamzat Azimov, a terrorist who stabbed a man to death and injured four other people with a knife in central Paris, was known to counter-terrorism forces. Belgium released from prison a terrorist who had gone on a "bloody rampage" in the city of Liege two days before he killed two policewomen and a passerby.

Unless it gets serious about arresting not only the terrorists but also their deadly ideology, Europe will not see the end of the jihadist siege. A few days after the attacks in Liege, France thwarted another jihadist plot "with either explosives or ricin, this very powerful poison". 
After that, there was another terror attempt to strike the French gay community.

"France is the priority target of the terrorism unleashed in Europe by conquering Islam" wrote Ivan Rioufol in Le Figaro.

"Since 2015, 247 people have been killed in France in attacks by Islamists. The 'knife intifada' is no longer reserved just for Israel. In Magnanville, a couple of policemen, Jean-Baptiste Salvaing and Jessica Schneider, were stabbed in front of their three-year-old child. Father Jacques Hamel was slaughtered in his church. In Marseille, Laura and Maurane had their throats slashed. These crimes will continue so long as the Republic leaves the enemy in peace".

The level of threat in France remains alarmingly high. "9,157 people were subjected to at least one surveillance measure by the intelligence services in 2017 in the name of the prevention of terrorism", an official French report recently revealed. In 2017, 20 major terror attacks in France were foiled.
Regarding the West's current "war on terror," American historian Victor Davis Hanson wrote:

"The result is the present age of serial Punic conflict, perhaps intolerable to the psyche, but in amoral terms tolerable as long as casualties are kept to a minimum and defeat is redefined as acceptable strategic wisdom. In the past, such periods of enervating war have gone on for a century and more. Ultimately, they too end — and with consequences."

In the end, there might be still a region called "Europe", but it may no longer enfold European culture.

Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.

A. Z. Mohamed : Blasphemy Laws in Pakistan

Blasphemy Laws in Pakistan

by A. Z. Mohamed
July 3, 2018 at 4:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12576/blasphemy-laws-pakistan

• Many extremist Muslims are aiming at even more government submission to sharia through intimidation and terror.
• Christians and Ahmadis continue to raise concerns regarding the government's failure to safeguard minority rights, as well as the government's persistent discrimination against religious minorities.
• Pakistan is also where Muslim militants, such as the Pakistani Taliban, carry out assassinations and terrorist attacks. It seems no one is there to stop them.

On May 6, Ahsan Iqbal, Pakistan's Minister of the Interior, was shot during a rally in his own constituency, in the province of Punjab. Fortunately, he survived the attack, but the bullet in his abdomen could not be removed. "The bullet lodged in my body... will keep reminding me of the impending need to remove the seeds of hatred sowed in the country," Iqbal said.
An initial report suggested that the main suspect, Abid Hussain, 21, had carefully planned the attack; recently, Pakistan's Anti-Terrorism Court issued an 8-day judicial remand of four possible accomplices.

On May 6, Pakistan's Minister of the Interior, Ahsan Iqbal (pictured at left), was shot and wounded by an Islamist extremist during a rally in Punjab. (Image source: USAID Pakistan/Wikimedia Commons)

According to other reports, Hussain is linked to Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) -- also known as Tehreek-e-Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah ("Movement of the Prophet's Followers"). TLP is a new Sunni extremist party known for aggressively calling for enforcing Pakistan's blasphemy laws, which can carry the death penalty, and for opposing any relaxation of these laws.
Many fear that this assault is not an isolated incident and that other members of the cabinet are on the TLP's hit list. This apprehension, however, does not mean that the government is against sharia or blasphemy laws, or is even thinking of reforming them. Many extremist Muslims are aiming at even more government submission to sharia through intimidation and terror.
Extremist Muslims in Pakistan have been successful in achieving their objectives. according to the U.S. Department of State's 2017 Report on International Religious Freedom:

"The [Pakistani] courts continued to enforce blasphemy laws, the punishment for which ranges from life in prison to the death sentence for a range of charges, including 'defiling the Prophet Muhammad.'"

According to reports from civil society organizations, in 2017, there were at least 50 individuals imprisoned on blasphemy charges, at least 17 of whom had received death sentences, In addition, the report added, the police registered at least 17 new cases under the blasphemy laws against still other individuals.
Pakistan's TLP party activism is just one example of how extremist Muslims and official complicity combine to perpetuate sharia and blasphemy laws. TLP itself was apparently inspired by a "blasphemy killer." The party "was born out of a protest movement supporting Mumtaz Qadri, a bodyguard of the governor of Punjab who gunned down his boss in 2011 over his call to relax Pakistan's draconian blasphemy laws," Reuters reported.
In October 2017, Pakistan's president, Mamnoon Hussain, signed into law a bill that changed an electoral oath which affirmed the belief that the Prophet Muhammed is the final prophet of Islam to a "declaration" and abolished separate voter lists for Ahmadi Muslims, whom many Muslims consider non-Muslim, as Ahmadis regard Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835-1908) as their Mahdi (Messiah). In 1974, a constitutional amendment introduced by the prime minister at the time, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, had declared the Ahmadiyya community a non-Muslim minority; and in 1984, President Zia-ul Haq issued Ordinance XX which makes it a criminal offense for Ahmadis to call themselves Muslims, and to practice or propagate their faith.
In any event, the law sparked weeks of protests, led by Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan members, against the government. The TLP accused then-Minister for Law and Justice, Zahid Hamid, of blasphemy and demanded his resignation. The government succumbed to pressure by extremist Muslims, and attributed the change in the oath to "clerical error." Parliament reversed the provisions; Hamid was forced to resign and the government gave assurances that Asia Bibi, a Christian mother of five with a highly questionable blasphemy conviction, would not be sent abroad. Notably, Qadri had apparently also murdered governor Salman Taseer for speaking against a death sentence on Asia Bibi.
More appalling is what the U.S. Department of State report said: that government officials -- under pressure from the extremist Muslims' protests of October 2017 -- and probably to deny any support to Ahmadis -- had engaged in anti-Ahmadi rhetoric and attended events that Ahmadis said incited violence against members of their community. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community leaders and human rights organizations "continued to express concerns about the government's targeting of Ahmadis for blasphemy, and Ahmadis continued to be affected by discriminatory and ambiguous legislation that denied them basic rights," the report added.
Christians and Ahmadi Muslims are not by any means exceptional: members of all religious minority communities in Pakistan are distressed that the government submitted to Tehreek-e-Labbaik party and other Islamists' pressure. Christians and Ahmadis continue to raise concerns regarding the government's failure to safeguard minority rights as well as its persistent discrimination against religious minorities. Authorities have also often failed to intervene during episodes of violence against religious minorities, and the police have often failed to arrest perpetrators of these abuses.
In his condemnation of the assassination attempt of the Minister of Interior, Rizvi, TLP's leader, emphasized that his party is waging an unarmed struggle to bring "the Prophet's religion to the throne," in a way that clearly identifies his party role in achieving Islamists' ultimate goal of al-hakemyah of Allah (the sovereignty of God and sharia law), a role that consists in spreading narratives such as the supremacy of Islam, the supposed religion of truth, over all other world religions (Quran 3:19); the supposed supremacy of sharia over all man-made laws, and that the Christians and Jews are supposedly conspiring against Islam and Muslims (Quran 2:109). Extremist Muslims, like Tehreek-e-Labbaik, have been able to plant seeds of intolerance, hatred and fear, lionize terrorists and lead protests to impose sharia and blasphemy laws.
Within this context of Islamists' "unarmed struggle," the goal of bringing "the Prophet's religion to the throne" is likely to take place in a country where the government, under religious pressure, was unable to defend an electoral reform bill enacted by the president last October. The government also has not followed most of the instructions issued four years ago by Pakistan's Supreme Court to protect religious minorities after a terrorist bomber murdered 127 innocent people at a church. Pakistan is also where Muslim militants, such as the Pakistani Taliban, carry out assassinations and terrorist attacks. It seems no one is there to stop them.

A. Z. Mohamed is a Muslim born and raised in the Middle East.

Soeren Kern : Spain: Barcelona Attack Was Preventable

Spain: Barcelona Attack Was Preventable

by Soeren Kern
August 22, 2017 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10887/barcelona-attack

• The measures to place bollards or planters in public areas were never implemented in Barcelona because the leaders of the Catalan independence movement did not want to be seen as taking orders from the central government in Madrid.
• Far more difficult to explain is why no one reported suspicious activity at the chalet.
• Although some Catalans are having second thoughts about the wisdom of promoting Muslim mass immigration as a strategy to achieve Catalan independence, at least 10,000 Catalans with links to the separatist movement have actually converted to Islam in recent years.

As details emerge of the August 17 jihadist attack in Barcelona, the evidence points to one overarching conclusion: the carnage could have been prevented if a series of red flags had not been either missed or ignored.
The failure to heed intelligence warnings, enhance physical security and report suspicious activity are all factors that facilitated the attack, which had been in the planning stage for more than six months.
The attack was also enabled by the idiosyncrasies of Spanish politics, especially the tensions that exist between the central government and the leaders of the independence movement in Catalonia, the autonomous region of which Barcelona is the capital.

Failure to Install Bollards on Las Ramblas

The Barcelona attack could have been prevented had municipal officials complied with an order to install bollards, vertical poles designed to prevent car ramming attacks, on the Rambla, the city's main tourist thoroughfare.
On December 20, 2016, one day after a Tunisian jihadist drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people and injuring 56, Spanish National Police issued a circular ordering all central, regional and municipal police departments in Spain to "implement physical security measures to protect public spaces" to prevent jihadist attacks "in places with high numbers of people." The circular advised:

"Municipalities should protect these public spaces by temporarily installing large planters or bollards at access points to hinder or prevent the entry of vehicles."

The measures were never implemented in Barcelona because the leaders of the Catalan independence movement did not want to be seen as taking orders from the central government in Madrid.

After receiving the directive, Catalan autonomous police, known as the Mossos d'Esquadra, accused the central government of "alarmism" and insisted that it would not order municipalities in Catalonia to implement this "indiscriminate measure." The Mossos also claimed to have the jihadist threat under control, that local police were trained to "detect symptoms or radicalization," and that there were "no concrete threats."

After the Barcelona attack, Deputy Mayor Gerardo Pisarello blamed the absence of bollards on the Catalan Interior Ministry. "The City of Barcelona has never refused to install bollards. Whenever it has been requested, we have done so," Pisarello said. Ada Colau, Barcelona's leftwing mayor, however, has repeatedly refused to "fill Barcelona with barriers," insisting that it must remain "a city of liberty."
El Periódico de Catalunya, a paper based in Barcelona, elaborated:

"The total absence of police collaboration between the Mossos d'Esquadra, which is the police force deployed on the ground, and the National Police and the Civil Guard translates into huge security deficiencies. The relationship between police forces — influenced by the political situation — is terrible and, in the case of the Mossos and the National Police, it is open war.
"The result is that the information services of the Mossos, on the one hand, and those of the National Police and the Civil Guard, on the other, do not exchange information. The cooperation is reduced to the personal relationships of individual agents who, without the knowledge of their superiors, exchange information and put safety first."

On August 19, hours after the jihadist attack in Barcelona, Spanish Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido repeated that it would be "appropriate" for all municipalities to comply with the December circular. His ministry issued a new letter calling on municipalities to install safety measures in the neuralgic points of cities. It remains to be seen if Catalan officials will now implement the recommendations.

Too little, too late. Police officers line the street on Las Ramblas on August 18, 2017, near the scene of the previous day's terrorist attack in Barcelona, Spain. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)

Failure to Heed Warnings

In June, the CIA reportedly warned Catalan police that Barcelona was being targeted by jihadists: "Two months ago the Central Intelligence Agency warned Catalan police of a threat to Las Ramblas," according to El Periódico.

Additionally, on June 30, two weeks before the Barcelona attack, a Twitter account associated with the Islamic State warned of an impending attack against al-Ándalus, the Arabic name given to those parts of Spain, Portugal and France occupied by Muslim conquerors from 711 to 1492. Many jihadists believe that territories Muslims lost during the Christian Reconquest of Spain still belong to the realm of Islam and that Islamic law gives them the right to re-establish Muslim rule there.

It remains unclear why Catalan authorities failed to increase security in light of the warnings and threats. El Periódico wrote:

"In recent years Barcelona has become a city known all over the planet. Both because of its attraction as a tourist destination and because of the media impact of the Barça football club, the Catalan capital is a world icon. In the eyes of the jihadists, that makes it a priority objective, as they seek to attack sites that generate a great impact at the international level.
However, neither the authorities nor the citizens seems to have realized that their city is on the same list of targets as other major cities such as New York, Paris, London or Madrid."

Failure to Report Suspicious Activity

The jihadists prepared for the Barcelona attack at a chalet in the beachfront town of Alcanar, situated 200 kilometers (120 miles) south of Barcelona. A year ago, the terror cell "occupied" the property, which was foreclosed and had been vacant. Squatters are protected by Spanish law, so it is common for youth in Catalonia to take over vacant properties. This may explain why neighbors did not contact the police.

Far more difficult to explain is why no one reported suspicious activity at the chalet. During the course of several months, the jihadists collected more than 100 large gas canisters, which investigators believe were to be used as car bombs. An explosion on August 16, the night before the Barcelona attack, leveled the property. Investigators later found traces of the explosive triacetone triperoxide (TATP), also known as the "Mother of Satan," a substance widely used by members of the Islamic State in Europe.

Failure to Follow-Up on Leads

Police found the remains of at least two people in the rubble of the Alcanar chalet. The head of the Mossos d'Esquadra, Josep Lluís Trapero, confirmed that one of the bodies was that of Abdelbaki Es-Satti, a Muslim cleric who is suspected of organizing the terror cell and radicalizing its members.
Es-Satti, a Moroccan national who lived in the Catalan town of Ripoll, served in a local mosque. He was a convicted drug trafficker who had spent four years at a prison in Valencia, where he is believed to have met Rachid Aglif, known as "The Rabbit," one of the main plotters of the 2004 Madrid bomb attacks that killed 192 people and wounded 2,000. Police are now looking into whether Es-Satti was involved in the ISIS attacks on the Brussels airport and metro in 2016.
Ali Yassine, the director of the mosque in Ripoll, said that he had reported Es-Satti to local police more than a year ago as part of a security protocol to monitor Muslim preachers. Authorities did not place him on a watch list, however, even though he had been convicted of trafficking drugs and violating Spanish immigration laws.

Catalan Migration Policy Fuels Radicalization

Catalonia not only has the highest Muslim population in Spain, it is also one of the most Islamized regions of the country. Catalonia has 7.5 million inhabitants, including an estimated 510,000 Muslims, who account for around 7% of the total Catalan population. In some Catalan towns, however, the Muslim population is above 40% of the overall population.

In his book "Jihadism: The Radical Islamic Threat to Catalonia," Catalan terrorism analyst Jofre Montoto estimates that at least 10% of the Muslims in Catalonia are "radicals" who are hardcore believers in the "doctrine of jihadism."

A five-page diplomatic cable, dated October 2, 2007, described the link between mass immigration to Catalonia and the rise of radical Islam in the region:

"Heavy immigration — both legal and illegal — from North Africa (Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria) and Southeast Asia (Pakistan and Bangladesh) has made Catalonia a magnet for terrorist recruiters. ... The Spanish National Police estimates that there may be upwards of 60,000 Pakistanis living in Barcelona and the surrounding area; the vast majority are male, unmarried or unaccompanied, and without legal documentation.

There are even more such immigrants from North Africa. ... They live on the edges of Spanish society, they do not speak the language, they are often unemployed, and they have very few places to practice their religion with dignity. ... Individually, these circumstances would provide fertile ground for terrorist recruitment; taken together, the threat is clear....
"There is little doubt that the autonomous region of Catalonia has become a prime base of operations for terrorist activity. Spanish authorities tell us they fear the threat from these atomized immigrant communities prone to radicalism, but they have very little intelligence on or ability to penetrate these groups."

Many of Catalonia's problems with radical Islam are self-inflicted. In an effort to promote Catalan nationalism and the Catalan language, Catalonian pro-independence parties have deliberately promoted immigration from Arabic-speaking Muslim countries for more than three decades, in the belief that these immigrants (unlike those from Latin America) would learn the Catalan language rather than speak Spanish.

Although some Catalans are having second thoughts about the wisdom of promoting Muslim mass immigration as a strategy to achieve Catalan independence, at least 10,000 Catalans with links to the separatist movement have actually converted to Islam in recent years.

It is believed that two out of every ten Catalan radicals who belong to the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), a far-left political party, are converts to Islam. The ERC, which now governs Catalonia, has vehemently refused to sign a cooperation agreement with the central government in Madrid to fight jihadist terrorism.

Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute

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Ruthie Blum : Canada's Multi-Million-Dollar Pay-Out to a 'Foreign Terrorist Fighter'

Canada's Multi-Million-Dollar Pay-Out to a 'Foreign Terrorist Fighter'

by Ruthie Blum
July 15, 2017 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10679/omar-khadr-settlement

• "Has any soldier who fought FOR Canada ever received as generous a reward as this soldier who fought against us?" — Canadian Senator Linda Frum.
• In 2003, Khadr confessed to throwing the grenade that killed U.S. Special Forces Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer and caused Sgt. 1st Class Layne Morris to lose an eye. Years later, he retracted his confession, claiming it had been extracted under duress. In fact, it was part of a plea deal that enabled him to be extradited to Canada to serve the rest of his sentence there.
• "There was a Canadian flag flying along with the American flag at our base there, so it's quite a thing that now Canada is giving millions to a guy who would attack a compound where Canadians were serving. I don't see this as anything but treason. As far as I am concerned, Prime Minister Trudeau should be charged." — Sgt. 1st Class Layne Morris, who lost an eye from the grenade thrown by Omar Khadr.

The government of Canada recently issued an official apology -- and acknowledged awarding an "undisclosed" sum of money -- to Toronto-born Islamist terrorist Omar Khadr for his "ordeal" at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and "any resulting harm" he was caused by the "torture" (specifically, sleep deprivation, solitary confinement and threats) that led to his confession.

On July 7, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Ralph Goodale released a statement announcing the "hope that this expression, and the negotiated settlement reached with the Government, will assist him in his efforts to begin a new and hopeful chapter in his life with his fellow Canadians."

The civil settlement was reached with Khadr, 30, who was 10 when his family returned to the Middle East, and 15 when he was arrested fighting in Afghanistan with al Qaeda and the Taliban, the terrorist organizations to which his father was affiliated -- on the basis of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In 2003, Khadr confessed to throwing the grenade that killed U.S. Special Forces Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer and caused Sgt. 1st Class Layne Morris to lose an eye. Years later, he retracted his confession, claiming it had been extracted under duress. In fact, it was part of a plea deal that enabled him to be extradited to Canada to serve the rest of his sentence there.

With news of the large settlement he received -- 10,500,000 Canadian dollars (approximately USD $8,000,000) -- he gave an extensive interview to CBC's Power & Politics host Rosemary Barton, in which he said he thinks that the apology from the Canadian government "restores a little bit my reputation here in Canada, and I think that's the biggest thing for me." He declined to comment on having just received multi-millions in tax-free dollars.

He also had the effrontery to say that he just wants "to be a normal person" and finish his nursing degree to help under-served communities. "I have a lot of experience with... and appreciation of pain," he explained, expressing only sorrow that the Speer and Morris families consider him responsible for their own pain.
Amid harsh criticism against the Liberal government by opposition Conservatives and members of the public outraged that their tax dollars are going to a convicted terrorist, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded to reporters' questions on the matter during a press conference marking the July 8 close of G20 summit in Hamburg.

Trudeau said that the settlement had nothing to do with Khadr's 2002 actions on the battlefield in Afghanistan, but rather with the fact that his rights had been violated. This is precisely what the Canadian Supreme Court ruled in 2008 and 2010, after Khadr's lawyers sued for damages.

Trudeau added that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects all Canadians, "even when it is uncomfortable. When the government violates any Canadian's Charter rights, we all end up paying for it."

Meanwhile, Goodale tried to evade responsibility, by casting aspersions on the previous government, headed by Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in power when Khadr was returned to Canada in 2012 to serve the remainder of his prison sentence for five counts of war crimes. Goodale accused Harper of having "refused to repatriate Mr. Khadr or otherwise resolve the matter."
In spite of the fact that Khadr was arrested and detained when Liberal governments were in power in Canada, Goodale was referring to appeals during Harper's tenure -- which began in 2006 -- by Canadian Liberal and human rights lawyers to "bring Omar Khadr home."
In 2008, former Canadian Justice Minister Irwin Cotler wrote:

"I join other scholars and associations of jurists in calling for Omar Khadr to be transferred into the custody of Canadian law enforcement officials, to be afforded due process under Canadian law, with prospects for appropriate rehabilitation and integration."

Cotler also stated,

"Admittedly, the Khadr family has emerged, as some have put it, as synonymous with terrorism. But, the test of the rule of law is not its application in the easy cases, but its retention in the unpopular ones... Omar Khadr, a child victim, should now be afforded the justice denied him all these years, however unpopular and unpalatable his case may appear to be."

In response to Goodale's implication that had it not been for the previous government, the current one would not have been forced to apologize to and pay Khadr, Harper immediately took to social media, writing:

The government today attempted to lay blame elsewhere for their decision to conclude a secret deal with Omar Khadr. The decision to enter into this deal is theirs, and theirs alone, and it is simply wrong. Canadians deserve better than this. Today my thoughts are with Tabitha Speer and the families of all Canadian and allied soldiers who paid the ultimate price fighting to protect us.

Canadian Senator Linda Frum railed against the settlement, tweeting: "Has any soldier who fought FOR Canada ever received as generous a reward as this soldier who fought against us?"

Given Khadr's family history, Frum's fury is justified.

As the New York Post reported, Khadr is the son of a Palestinian mother and an Egyptian father (Ahmed Khadr), who had strong ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, and became one of Osama bin Laden's loyal lieutenants. After 9/11, Ahmed Khadr was placed on the FBI's most-wanted list in relations to the attacks. He was arrested in Pakistan in 1995 on suspicion of financing the suicide bombing at the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad, in which 16 people were killed. Protesting his innocence, he went on a hunger strike, and the Canadian government, then headed by Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, rallied behind him.

While on a trade mission to Pakistan, Chrétien appealed to Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and a few months later, Ahmed was released from prison and sent back with his family to Toronto. However, according to the New York Post, the Khadr clan soon returned to Pakistan, where Ahmed Khadr resumed his connections with al Qaeda and the Taliban. Young Omar Khadr not only met with the leaders of these terrorist groups, but lived with his parents and siblings in the bin Laden family compound, attending al Qaeda training camps, which his father -- who was killed in 2003 -- partly funded.

The report continued:

"A month before he joined an al Qaeda cell in 2002, Omar was sent by his father for private instruction in explosives and combat... [where he] learned to launch rocket-propelled grenades and became skilled at planting improvised explosive devices that were used to blow up US armored vehicles in Afghanistan."

In his interrogation about the incident that led to his arrest and subsequent incarceration at Guantanamo, Omar Khadr said he had been on a suicide mission "to kill as many Americans as possible."

In this still image taken from a video found in the rubble of the compound where Omar Khadr was captured on July 27, 2002, a 15-year-old Khadr constructs an improvised explosive device. (Courtesy U.S. Defense Operations/Wikimedia Commons)

This did not prevent the U.S. military from flying an ophthalmologist to the Bagram Air Base -- where was being treated for wounds he sustained while fighting American and Canadian soldiers -- to save his eyes and keep him from going blind.
Nor did it cause Omar to experience gratitude on the one hand, or remorse on the other. On the contrary, as military court documents revealed, when he was informed that Speer had died, he said he "felt happy" for having murdered an American. He also said that whenever he remembered killing Speer, it would make him "feel good."

According to a report in the Globe and Mail, the Toronto lawyer representing Morris and Tabitha Speer -- who won a default judgment in 2015 in the U.S. against Omar for $134 million – began proceedings to contest the Canadian government's settlement and prevent it from going forward.
It is clearly too late for that; the money has already been transferred to Omar. Furthermore, the transaction was done swiftly and "quietly," to make legal action by taxpayers in Canada or the Morris and Speer families in America virtually impossible.

Morris is understandably angry and hurt. "The fact is Chris Speer and myself were fighting with Canadians in Afghanistan," he said.

"We were alongside the PPCLI (Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry). There was a Canadian flag flying along with the American flag at our base there, so it's quite a thing that now Canada is giving millions to a guy who would attack a compound where Canadians were serving. I don't see this as anything but treason... As far as I am concerned, Prime Minister Trudeau should be charged."

Thus far, the administration in Washington has remained silent on Khadr pay-out, which came to light during the weekend of the G20 summit in Germany, where U.S. President Donald Trump heaped praise on his Canadian counterpart.
Trump even opened his speech at a World Bank event to promote and finance women entrepreneurs in developing countries by declaring: "We have a great neighbor in Canada and Justin [Trudeau] is doing a spectacular job... Everybody loves him, and they love him for a reason..."

This assertion, given the information that has since emerged about Khadr case, was unfortunate. Far more ironic under the circumstances, however, was the "Statement on Countering Terrorism," signed by the leaders of the G20.

Its 21 clauses include a commitment to "address the evolving threat of returning foreign terrorist fighters ... from conflict zones such as Iraq and Syria and remain committed to preventing [them] from establishing a foothold in other countries and regions around the world," and to "facilitate swift and targeted exchanges of information between intelligence and law enforcement and judicial authorities... [to] ensure that terrorists are brought to justice."

Such words are empty without actions to back them up. Omar Khadr is a classic example of a "foreign terrorist fighter." Yet the Canadian legal system categorized him -- in Cotler's words -- as a "child victim, [who] should... be afforded the justice denied him all these years."

It is bad enough to describe a teenager who set out to "kill as many Americans as possible" in this way. It is far worse that he is a free -- and still very young -- man, paid not only respect by the government whose values he was raised to abhor, but millions of dollars, to boot. If anything serves to encourage other terrorists to leave North America and Europe to fight in the Middle East, it is stories such as this one.
The Trump administration must call Trudeau to task for this perversion, and offer an immediate and very public apology to Khadr's American victims, who did not receive a penny for their patriotic sacrifice.

Ruthie Blum is the author of "To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the 'Arab Spring.'"

Pamela Geller: Post-Terror Dawah

by Pamela Geller

 6 Jun 2017

You can set your watch to it. In the wake of every jihad terror attack, no matter how heinous and horrifying, in come the washerwomen with buckets of dirty water working double time to scrub and censor the motive from the attack.

No matter the monstrosity, nothing changes. If the torn, dismembered bodies of little girls at an Ariana Grande concert were not a game-changer, then nothing will move the conquered and the unmovable. 

Not only do we, the victims, have to clean up the flesh and bone and blood running down the pavement, we must subject ourselves to endless dawah (proselytizing) for Islam on mind-numbing news shows on the BBC, CNN, MSNBC, and the like. 


FOX is lost. Sunday morning, Fox and Friends had on dissembler Mubin Shaikh. He said, “we must never equate Islam and terrorism.” The hosts nodded gravely. There is nowhere on TV you can get reality.

One of the three London Bridge jihadi attackers said, according to a neighbor, “I’m ready to do whatever I need to do in the name of Allah. I am ready in the name of Allah to do what needs to be done, including killing my own mother.”

What further proof does anyone need? Why the madness and irrational denial? Sixteen years after 9/11 and over thirty thousand deadly Islamic attacks, according to the website thereligionofpeace.com, this is where we are?

Prime Minister Theresa May and every major media news outlet insists jihadis have “perverted” and/or “hijacked” Islam. How have they perverted it? They cite Quranic texts and teachings chapter and verse. They follow the hadith, Muhammad’s example.

Harun Khan, who leads the Muslim Council of Britain, said, “I am appalled and angered by the terrorist attacks at London Bridge and borough market, in my home city. These acts of violence were truly shocking and I condemn them in the strongest terms.” 
Is that so? What have Khan and his coreligionists — who allege that this is a misunderstanding of Islam — done to combat it? 
With the Islamic State energetically recruiting young Muslims in the U.S., that is a significant problem.
The Sun says that Ramadan is meant for devotion and peace. Since when?
As Robert Spencer has noted:

A jihad group explained it back in 2012: ‘The month of Ramadan is a month of holy war and death for Allah. It is a month for fighting the enemies of Allah and God’s messenger, the Jews and their American facilitators.’ Referring to a jihad attack that happened at that time, the message continued: ‘One of our groups aided by Allah managed to bomb a bus full of Jewish tourists, plunderers of holy lands, after careful tracking. The holy war is not confined to a particular arena and we shall fight the Jews and the Americans until they leave the land of Islam.’

You won’t hear much about these scenes from the London jihad slaughter from the enemedia:

–”‘He just stepped outside the bar for a second and a man ran up to him and said: “This is for my family, this is for Islam”, and stuck a knife straight in him. He’s got a seven-inch scar going from his belly round to his back,’ Elizabeth O’Neill told reporters outside King’s College hospital.”

–”[The van was] probably travelling at about 50 miles an hour” … “and then hit about five or six people,” said BBC reporter Holly Jones.

–”According to another witness, Eric, the men inside jumped out once the van crashed and ‘ran towards the people that they nearly ran over’…. ‘[Then] they literally just started kicking them, punching them, they took out knives… it was a rampage really,’ he said.”

–One man, Gerard, said he saw a woman being stabbed “10 or 15 times.” Another witness, Eric, told the BBC the men were shouting “This is for Allah.”

Nor will you hear much about the words spoken to a mother in London before a jihadi plunged a knife into her son’s stomach: “This is for Islam.”

Will we ever learn their motive?

One of the jihadis who attacked London with two coreligionists before being shot dead by police deceived his neighbors into thinking he was a great guy, a good neighbor. 
He played football with their children on the nearby field.
Secretly, he had a devout, destructive hatred, and he frequently changed his appearance in preparation of unleashing a deadly Islamic attack on the capital city, during which seven people died and up to 50 were injured last night.

One of the London jihadi was turned in twice, once by a neighbor and another time by a friend. Why wasn’t anything done? Perhaps because law enforcement did not want to appear to “islamophobic” or “racist” (even though Islam is not a race).



Pamela Geller is the President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), publisher of PamelaGeller.com and author of The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America and Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance. Follow her on Twitter here. Like her on Facebook here.


http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/06/06/pamela-geller-post-terror-dawah/
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Robert Spencer : Theresa May’s New Approach: More of the Same

Theresa May’s New Approach: More of the Same

“Enough is enough,” she says after the London attacks, but clearly she wants more.

June 5, 2017

Robert Spencer

The United Kingdom has just suffered its second major jihad massacre in as many weeks, and Prime Minister Theresa May, facing an unexpectedly tough electoral challenge, is talking tough. “It is time,” she proclaimed, “to say enough is enough….Our society should continue to function in accordance with our values but when it comes to taking on extremism and terrorism things need to change.”
 Indeed they do.

Nothing is clearer at this point than the catastrophic failure of the approach to jihad terrorism that May and her predecessors David Cameron, Gordon Brown, and Tony Blair have pursued since 9/11. 

For years, the British government has hounded, stigmatized, and demonized foes of jihad terror, falsely claiming that they represent a “far-right” equivalent to jihad terrorists, and has appeased and accommodated Muslim groups in Britain, many of which were by no stretch of the imagination “moderate,” and allowing numerous jihad preachers to operate without hindrance.


What has been the result? The jihad massacre at the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester in May, and Saturday night’s jihad attacks in London. And there is much, much more to come. The British government’s approach has failed so dismally that “when it comes to taking on extremism and terrorism things need to change” may be wisest thing Theresa May has ever said, or ever will say, during her tenure as Prime Minister.


One of the chief things that needs to change, if May is really serious about “taking on extremism and terrorism,” is the official denial of the jihad terrorists’ motivating ideology. 

No one can defeat an enemy that he doesn’t understand, much less one that he refuses to understand, and yet that is the position of the May government (and of the U.S. government as well, although we may hope that this swamp will eventually be drained): jihad terror has nothing whatsoever to do with Islam.


Yet the London attackers were hardly shy about what motivated them. One eyewitness recounted: “They went, ‘This is for Allah,’ and they had a woman on the floor, and they were stabbing her, all three, constantly.” The mother of a young man who was wounded in the attacks said: “He just stepped outside the bar for a second and a man ran up to him and said: ‘This is for my family, this is for Islam’, and stuck a knife straight in him. He’s got a seven-inch scar going from his belly round to his back.”


But Theresa May is convinced that they didn’t do it for Allah or Islam at all. She said that the jihadis were “bound together by the single evil ideology of Islamist extremism that preaches hatred, sows division and promotes sectarianism. It is an ideology that claims our Western values of freedom, democracy and human rights are incompatible with the religion of Islam. It is an ideology that is a perversion of Islam and a perversion of the truth.”

“A perversion of Islam.” May didn’t bother to explain how killing non-Muslims was a “perversion” of a religion with a holy book that thrice exhorts believers to kill those who dare to worship others besides Allah (cf. 2:191, 4:89, 9:5), tells them to “strike the necks” of the unbelievers (47:4) and to fight “the People of the Book” (primarily Jews and Christians) “until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued” (9:29). She didn’t elucidate the mysterious process by which Muhammad, who is supposed to be the founder of Islam, ending up holding a “perversion” of it, as he directed his followers to invite unbelievers to accept Islam or pay the jizya, or to go to war with them if they refused both options (Sahih Muslim 4294).

May’s continuing willful ignorance will doom to defeat her effort to change things, if she really attempts one at all. The main thing she needs to change is her mindset, and that of the British political and law enforcement establishment.

But the mindset of denial and willful ignorance is deeply entrenched in Britain, such that if she loses the upcoming election, the new Prime Minister, Jeremy Corbyn, will make her look, of all things, tough on terror.

And so it is likely that in the near future, the British people will look back on the good old days when Islamic jihadis hit Manchester and London within two weeks, and marvel that they waited so long between terror attacks. Jihad mass murder is going to be an increasingly common feature of the British landscape for a considerable period to come, and for that, Britons have no one to thank more than…Theresa May.


Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and author of the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Iran. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.



http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/266895/theresa-mays-new-approach-more-same-robert-spencer
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Henrik Raeder Clausen : The jihad attacks in Britain: This is war, not criminal activity

Jihad Watch

Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

The jihad attacks in Britain: This is war, not criminal activity

June 4, 2017 7:42 am By Henrik Raeder Clausen 

Editor’s note: this piece was written before the jihad attacks in London last night, but its message is all the more urgent in light of them.

It was meant to be a happy and memorable evening last Monday in Manchester Arena, as youth pop star Ariana Grande had ended her concert and her fans started leaving. But in the lobby, a soldier of the Islamic State was waiting, his backpack packed with explosives. He detonated this with devastating effect at 10:30 PM, killing 22 fans and wounding 119, as they were peacefully heading home.

The natural terror of the attack blends with fear and confusion, leading to questions and statements such as “Why on Earth??”, “Will this happen again?” and “We shall not change our way of life!” These reactions are becoming routine, along with odd symbolic statements, such as turning off the lights of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Obviously, our “candles and teddy bears” reactions have not helped us yet, and we need to do something entirely different.

This is not crime – this is war

British police and intelligence services will of course take up their task of discovering networks and connections to the 22-year old Libyan citizen Salman Abedi. As thousands of Islamic warriors before him, he sacrificed his life in order to kill as many “enemies” as possible. In Islamic tradition, this makes him a “Shaheed” (often mistranslated as “Martyr”), a person who dies in the ongoing war against non-Muslims.

The police and intelligence efforts are necessary, yet insufficient. For as the direct perpetrator was the first person to die in the attack, no further punishment of him is possible. His friends, connections and trainers can be found, punished or even assassinated. While that would be effective against criminal networks, it is much less so against networks considering themselves soldiers, proving in word and in action their willingness to die for their cause.

And this willingness is a hallmark feature of Jihadis such as those fighting for the Islamic State. Suicide missions by the hundreds, if not by the thousands, are the most deadly weapons used by the Islamic State in their wars in Middle East. It is a well-known fact that thousands more have been trained and motivated in the battlefield, but have since returned to Western countries who have issued them citizenship and passports.

Further elevating the risk is the declaration of “Total Confrontation” recently issued by the Islamic State, from the start of the Islamic “holy” month of Ramadan – that is, May 27, 2017. Originally a plan devised by Al-Qaeda, this is a call for all Islamic sleeper cells to start attacking their host countries.

As the Islamic State considers itself to be the Caliphate, Islamic tradition and law requires it to be in a permanent state of war against non-Muslims, in order to spread Islam and Sharia. This is expressed in a series of attacks against civilian targets in the West, with more to come. The next logical step is the use of military force to establish Islamic enclaves in the host countries.

An example of using force to establish purely Islamic enclaves can be observed in the Philippines, whose president Duterte recently went to Moscow, practically begging for weapons to restore the constitutional order. There can be little doubt that Russia will, on its own terms, be happy to take over the role previously held by the US as the main supplier of the Philippine Army.

What did the Islamic State say?

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the Manchester attack by issuing this statement (emphasis in the original):

“With Allah’s grace and support, a soldier of the Khilafah managed to place explosive devices in the midst of the gatherings of the Crusaders in the British city of Manchester, in revenge for Allah’s religion, in an endeavor to terrorize the mushrikin, and in response to their transgressions against the land of the Muslims. The explosive devices were detonated in the shameless concert arena, resulting in 30 Crusaders being killed and 70 others being wounded. And what comes next will be more severe on the worshipers of the Cross and their allies, by Allah’s permission. And all praises due to Allah, Lord of the creation.”

Here, the Islamic State reiterates that it is the Caliphate, that one of their soldiers carried out the attack, that is was an Islamic act of revenge, and that the intention indeed is to terrorize their enemies.

A key justification for Islamic State to attack the Manchester Arena was that the participants in the concert supposedly constituted “Crusaders.” This, of course, is a reference to the famous European counter-offensive against Islam that took place eight centuries ago. In this famous offensive against Islamic Jihad, European armies conquered Jerusalem and established several Christian kingdoms that existed for some 150 years.

The Crusades seriously harmed the Islamic self-perception as being ever-expanding, and is neither forgotten or forgiven by Islamic jihadists today. The presence of British forces in the ongoing battle against the Islamic State thus becomes a rationale for attacking civilian targets in Britain, probably in order to turn the tide on the battlefields in the Middle East.

And turning the development in the battlefield is something that the Islamic State desperately needs. Their forces are being decimated at the hands of Kurdish, Syrian, Iraqi, Russian and American military, and most of their financial and military supply lines have been cut off. If this battle is allowed to run its course, the Caliphate in the Middle East will not last many months. Thus the need to resort to desperate measures, such as bombing concerts or creating false flag chemical attacks.

Another gripe from the Islamic State concerns the loss of civilian lives in American air attacks in Mosul and elsewhere. This is a delicate problem, for it has great intrinsic propaganda value. Islamic jihadists such as Hamas are known to use civilians as “bomb shields,” forcing them into harms’ way, in order to create civilian losses, and then use it in their propaganda. So when the US complains about “brutal” Russian air strikes, yet gets criticized by the United Nations for excessive use of air force in Mosul, this carries quite a sting, not least due to the impression of hypocrisy one gets.

It takes a stiff upper lip to stay on course in spite of such criticism, and this is what the Islamic State tries to exploit. To do so, it is well worth understanding and publicizing the suffering of civilians – in particular non-Muslims – ruled by the Islamic State and other Islamic supremacists. The liberation of Aleppo (Syria) from Al-Nusrah showed this clearly: As soon as they got the opportunity to escape from the terror regime they had suffered for over four years, they did so, thousands after thousands.

Also well worth noting is the word “shameless.” This can refer to the singer Ariana Grande, whose performances would never be permitted under Islamic law (Sharia), or to an audience with many young women freely in attendance. It constitutes a message to women everywhere, Muslims and non-Muslims: “Such behaviour is in violation of Islamic law, and we shall act to stop it.”

The worst is yet to come

Islamic State had this final thing to say before their mandatory praise of Allah:

“And what comes next will be more severe on the worshipers of the Cross and their allies.”

Thus their act of war in Manchester is far from the last of its kind – they explicitly tell us that they will escalate their terrorist activities. At this point in time, holding on to their last cities in Syria and Iraq seems futile – and their goals certainly are not restricted to that: Based on classical Islamic ideology, their goal is to spread Islamic rule and Sharia globally, eliminating all forms of democracy and human rights in the process.

The Islamic State has repeatedly declared that they consider themselves at war with the West, and they are executing on that. The motivation and training of Islamic warriors drive them to consider the “Cause of Allah” (Jihad) to be more important than their own lives. This willingness to die for their ideology makes it challenging to put and end to terrorism – even if a considerable part of the terror plots are foiled, too many succeed, with deadly results as we’ve seen often in 2016.

At this point, business as usual no longer even seems to work. Countering Jihad with candles, flowers and teddy bears did not cause Islamic warriors to stop attacking us. The proper response to a declaration of war is to conduct war on the issuer, no matter who it is, with an intensity that forces him to either accept defeat, or eliminates him.

We went into a full war against the national socialists during World War II, and can do the same against the Islamic State. As was the case then, it is vital to understand the ideology that drives the enemy, and act on that understanding. And this is getting urgent: the Islamic State has declared that at the start of Islamic Ramadan, it will initiate “Total Confrontation,” calling upon everyone loyal to them to conduct any form of attack they can. This is now.

Thus, we need urgent action against everything that puts us at risk of terrorist attacks. The Islamic State has openly said that it smuggles their warriors to Europe among refugees. Thus, we should halt immigration from Islamic countries at least until the Islamic State is defeated. And we must go after anyone supporting the Islamic State from our countries, just as Germans and Japanese in our countries were controlled or even jailed during World War II. Working for the Islamic State and Sharia simply means working for the enemy, and that is not protected by freedom of speech or religion.

Yet military action is only one aspect of the struggle required, and hardly the largest. More dangerous in the long term is the culture wars: By permitting Sharia to take root in our societies, we are already in the process of losing the freedoms we used to take for granted. This means freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and equal rights for women. This happens while our classical city centers are starting to show that we are under siege by placing concrete blocks everywhere, and the army is being deployed. Dystopian prophecies about our future with Islam are coming true, now.

Urgent action required

After more than 15 years of sorrow, flowers and declarations of sympathy, it is clear that this does not stop the Jihad against us. We need to take the lead in the war that has been forced upon us. This requires an unconstrained analysis of our enemy, of his objectives and methods, and use this knowledge to hit the enemy where he’s weakest. By studying the political aspect of Islam, it becomes easy to separate political aims from religious ones, and act accordingly – even in śpite of the risk of short-term unrest and increases in terrorist attacks.

This means rejecting any and all demands to promote Sharia, to imprison or deport individuals on grounds of treason, and dissolve all organisations supporting this purpose. This is perfectly doable: As we saw in the American Holy Land Foundation trials, proper investigation can easily lead to conviction on a rich number of crimes and felonies, including very severe ones.

Finally, it is high time for NATO to acknowledge the declaration of war that we have been served, and deploy the full force its expensive arsenals against the Islamic State.

Sources:


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/world/middleeast/us-iraq-mosul-investigation-airstrike-civilian-deaths.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4010690/Around-1-500-European-jihadists-return-Mideast-report.html
http://news.abs-cbn.com/news/05/23/17/philippines-needs-modern-weapons-vs-isis-duterte-tells-putin
www.ambrosekane.com/2015/08/18/stephen-coughlins-red-pill-presentation-a-must-watch/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/manchester-terror-attack-everything-know-far/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Temperer
https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/26/islamic-state-calls-all-out-war-west-start-ramadan-manchester/
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10430/terrorism-candles-teddy-bears
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-05-23/islamic-state-claims-responsibility-manchester-bombing
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/opinion/coptic-christians-islamic-states-favorite-prey.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-air-strike-mosul-200-civilians-killed-isis-northern-iraq-pentagon-central-command-islamic-state-a7651451.html
https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2013/05/25/an-explanatory-memorandum-from-the-archives-of-the-muslim-brotherhood-in-america/
http://www.reuters.com/article/britain-security-manchester-islamic-stat-idUSL8N1IP096

https://clarionproject.org/holy-land-foundation-terror-financing-trial-documents-50/

http://media.clarionproject.org/misc/pdf/List+of+Unindicted+HLF+Co-conspirators.pdf

https://clarionproject.org/muslim_brotherhood_explanatory_memorandum/

 

An unedited form of this piece originally appeared in 10news.one


 https://www.jihadwatch.org/2017/06/the-jihad-attacks-in-britain-this-is-war-not-criminal-activity
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