Terror Trends BulletinThe Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR), which is a Muslim Brotherhood front group that has been tied in documented reports to HAMAS and was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial, is now calling for leniency by the Feds in prosecuting 5 American Muslims who traveled to Pakistan to join the Jihad and receive terrorism training.
We are literally speechless.
Fortunately, the intrepid Pamela Geller is not…
Since September 11th 2001, Americans have been understandably apprehensive when it comes to airline safety, particularly when it comes to the behavior of passengers.
Many TTB readers may be aware of recent reports about what could have been a possible “dry run” on an AirTran airlines flight.
Over on American Thinker, John Leonard has done an excellent job of covering the reports circulating about that episode. Today, however, he took it a step further and provided a chronology of disturbing incidents on airliners which have not received enough attention. We urge our readers to view his latest work: “Terror Test Runs on Airlines?”
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/terror_test_runs_on_airlines.html
From Reuters:
An Italian couple were missing and their bullet-riddled car was found abandoned on Saturday in eastern Mauritania, near the border with Mali.
The vehicle was found in an area where armed groups with links to al Qaeda are known to operate, and a local journalist said they had probably been kidnapped.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BI1K320091219
In an editorial column published on 18 December, the editors of The Toledo Blade point out that capturing or killing Osama Bin Laden would not defeat Al Qaeda and capturing or killing Mullah Omar would not defeat the Taliban.
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091218/OPINION02/912180305
They are correct in this but their notions do not go far enough.
The fact of the matter is, Al Qaeda and the Taliban could cease to exist tomorrow and the U.S. and Western civilization would still face a Jihadist threat. This overall war–which we at TTB believe should be properly called World War IV–goes way beyond Al Qaeda.
Already, there are spin-offs of Al Qaeda in the Asia-Pacific Region, Southwest Asia, North Africa, Europe and the U.S. These are loosely formed groups which are inspired by Al Qaeda and model themselves in some way off of Al Qaeda, but are not operationally attached to Al Qaeda in the classic sense. Bin Laden and Zawahiri don’t command them and those two Jihadi leaders could be vaporized by a JDAM tomorrow and the global offshoots would still exist.
(Incidentally, we believe that Osama Bin Laden is dead and has been for some time. More on that in a future posting.)
The Jihad extends beyond Al Qaeda as well. When the Jihadist terrorists attacked Mumbai in November of 2008, it was automatically assumed that they were Al Qaeda. When it was surmised that they were in fact Lashkar-e-Taiba, that organization was labeled as an Al Qaeda affiliate.
Now, it turns out that, while both Al Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba are both Salafist Jihadist terrorist organizations and ideological allies, they are separate groups. One could be wiped off the face of the earth this afternoon and the other would still be waging Jihad.
Then there is the whole issue of Jihadist groups who are certainly NOT part of Al Qaeda. Hezbollah is the prime example of this. Hezbollah is Shia and, while they have cooperated with Al Qaeda in the past, they are definitely not part of Al Qaeda. Moreover, Hezbollah is perhaps even more dangerous than Al Qaeda due to their backing from Iran and a robust infrastructure set up on every continent, with the possible exception of Antarctica.
The fact that some of these groups are not actively engaged in ongoing operations against the U.S. or the West on a day-to-day basis should not be construed to mean that they are somehow not waging Jihad against us.
On one of the laptop computers uncovered in the investigation of Lashkar-e-Taiba after the Mumbai attacks, it was discovered that the group had a global list of 320 possible targets for attack. And the recon man for the Mumbai attacks turns out to have been a guy from Chicago.
It has been falsely and widely stated that Hezbollah has not been engaged in operations against the U.S. since the late 1980s. They have. Not only did Hezbollah help Al Qaeda set up the two East Africa embassy bombings in 1998, but Hezbollah was extremely active in the Iraq insurgency. Senior Hezbollah operatives were captured by U.S. forces in Iraq in the past few years and Hezbollah fighters were killed by U.S. G.I.s right along with members of Al Sadr’s “Mahdi Army” in Iraq:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/28/world/middleeast/28military.html
http://defensetech.org/2007/07/02/hezbollah-in-iraq/
http://www.voanews.com/uspolicy/2007-07-16-voa4.cfm
America is, unfortunately, largely in denial about the war we are in and that makes victory all the more elusive. Too many believe that “killing Bin Laden” will end it or that wiping out Al Qaeda will mean victory. This is simply untrue.
There is a global Jihad being waged against America and its allies. It is being waged in Afghanistan and Iraq to be sure. But it is also being waged in Israel, Algeria, Somalia, Sudan, Western Europe, Russia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Thailand, the Philippines, Central and South America and, yes, right here in North America.
Muslim insurgents blew up a gas tank near a school in southern Thailand on Saturday, killing three Buddhist villagers and wounding two including a local leader, police said.
More than 3,700 people have been killed in five years of unrest in the region bordering Malaysia, only a few hours by car from some of Thailand’s most famous tourist beaches.
Despite public proclamations that the Saudis and Pakistanis are our “allies” in the war on “terrorism,” the Pakistani secret intelligence service (ISI) and wealthy Saudis (including members of the Saudi royal family) continue to support the Taliban.
The Paks provide training and safe haven for the Taliban in the city of Quetta, Pakistan and the Sauds bankroll the operation.
This should come as no surprise. Both Saudi Arabia and northern Pakistan are epicenters for Salafi Islam, a particularly violent, intolerant and expansionist strain of the Islamic religion. The Sauds’ strain is known in the West as Wahhabi Islam and the Paks are known as Deobandis.
Both are enemies of the West and particularly the United States and continuing to pretend as if they are friends is not going to help us defeat them…
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=514693
Over the years, Islamic jihadist terrorists claiming to act in the name of Islam have targeted mass transit systems around the world.
This occurred in 1995 in the Paris Metro rail system when the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA) detonated a series of bombs which killed 8 innocent victims and wounded 122:
Then, on 6 February 2004, Chechen Jihadist terrorists set off an Islamikaze attack in the Moscow Metro rail system which killed 41 innocent victims:
On 11 March 2004, Islamic jihadist terrorists thought to be affiliated with, or inspired by, Al Qaeda set off a series of bombs in the Madrid rail system, killing 191 and wounding over 1,800 innocent victims:
On 7 July 2005, Islamic jihadist terrorists affiliated with, or inspired by, Al Qaeda, bombed transit targets in London, killing 56 and wounding 700 innocent victims.
No doubt because of this history, security authorities in Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada are taking appropriate measures to guard against such an attack, especially during the upcoming Olympic Games to be held there.
The transit police in Vancouver are planning on using specially-trained bomb-sniffing dogs to detect explosive devices in the Vancouver transit system. Dogs are extremely effective at this type of duty because they have a keen sense of smell and seem never to tire or suffer from lapses which severely effect their job performance. Dogs have successfully detected explosive devices in security situations for decades around the world.
So what does a local Muslim leader in Vancouver, Shawket Hassan, have to say about all this?
He is “worried” about bomb sniffing dogs because dogs are considered unclean in Islam and Muslims might get touched by such dogs while on their way to pray.
Note that Mr. Hassan has expressed no “worry” about the threat of terrorism to the transit system. He has only express worry about the possibility of getting dog saliva on his person.
It’s difficult not to think of the victims in Paris, Moscow, Madrid and London when you read Mr. Hassan’s comments. Those people were killed by terrorists who openly stated that they believed that they were acting in the name of Islam. Someone might want to remind Mr. Hassan that dogs don’t discriminate according to religion. The bomb-sniffing dogs will be protecting innocent Muslims who ride the Vancouver transit system as well as everyone else.
Mr. Hassan should be thanking Allah that such animals exist on earth to protect us all from evil.
The Islamic Society of North America, a Muslim Brotherhood front group and unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorism financing trial in US history, has been hired as a contractor to work at Fort Hood.
This is beyond infuriating and reflects the same loser mentality which overlooked all the signs of Nidal Malik Hasan’s Jihadist beliefs for months, if not years, resulting in 13 American soldiers being murdered and 32 wounded.
There is no way this happens without the approval of General Casey, the Army Chief of Staff, the same shameful officer who expressed more concern over diversity than the safety of his own troops on national TV.
It is past time for Casey to resign. He is clearly what can only be described as a useful idiot.
Here are two stories on this outrage:
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/199803.php
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Y2QxNWFlZDM5MDQ0NzM4MDg3ZjA3MDE5ZjNmYzBjYzU=
This morning while we were going through our email we came across a notification of a comment on one of our old blog postings here on TTB.
The posting that prompted the comment was our commentary on Barack Obama’s speech directed toward the leaders and people of the Islamic Republic of Iran back in March:
The commenter dubbed himself “Mahdi,” which we think highly presumptuous on his part, but we suppose every man is entitled to his own delusions.
For those TTB readers who aren’t entirely familiar with the term “Mahdi,” here is a brief rundown:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahdi
We think that rather than “Mahdi” perhaps a more fitting handle for this commenter might be “Moron.” But perhaps “Moron” and “Mahdi” actually mean the same thing. That’s something certainly worth looking into…
We did some tracking and Mr. Mahdi has a blog himself:
http://Bavelayat.parsiblog.com/
On that blog, Mr. Mahdi has posted a picture of himself. (We’d post pictures of ourselves on TTB as well, but we don’t want to have to handle all the incoming fan mail from adoring female fans in the Western world, but I digress…)
We don’t speak Farsi or Persian or Gibberish so we can’t tell what Mr. Mahdi has posted on his web site, but judging from all the photos of the Supreme Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, we have a general idea of the tone anyway.
Here are some other photos of Ayatollah Khamenei which may give clues to just what type of web site Mr. Mahdi is running…(not that there is anything wrong with that!)
By now you might be wondering what Mr. Mahdi posted in his comment to TTB. Well, here it is:
Death to America
the blood in our veins is a gift to our leader(Khamenei)
It’s not particularly original. The Iranian jihadists have been singing that same old sorry tune for 30 years now. But I guess it’s the best Mr. Mahdi could come up with so, we’ll give him a free pass…
Oh, we responded to Mr. Mahdi’s comment with a comment of our own, which we thought was particularly relevant to his offer to shed blood (and other bodily fluids, no doubt) for his “leader.” It’s pretty self-explanatory.
“No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country.
He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”
General George S. Patton, Jr.
So, thank you for playing Mr. Mahdi, you can go back to what ever it is that you do over on your blog (not that there is anything wrong with that…)
Terror Trends Bulletin 