The left-wing Guardian in the UK has been focused on the so-called “air war” waged by the Royal Air Force in Syria and Iraq, with the emphasis being on accusing the RAF of covering up civilian casualties.
The Guardian essentially discounts the British official claim that RAF air strikes caused only one civilian casualty.
The RAF may be wrong. But to dispute the RAF claim the Guardian relies on “Airwars,” an NGO that in turn relies on local claims and reports in Syria and Iraq. Anyone who has served in the Middle East knows just how problematic it can be to get the truth out of locals…we’ll leave it at that.
Then there is “Airwars” itself. It’s staffed by a hodgepodge of leftists, mainly with journalism backgrounds. There is no mention among their staff of anyone with any military background at all, much less experience in bomb damage assessment.
The tragic and sad fact is that in war civilians die. That has always been the case and will probably always be the case. But focusing on the alleged mistakes of the side in this conflict that was clearly fighting on the side of human rights and civilization is misguided and clearly one-sided.
Why focus only on “air wars?” Isn’t it true that the Jihadists in Iraq and Syria have killed far more innocents than the coalition fighting them have? Why ignore those numbers? Is there a hidden agenda here?
A case can be made that air strikes inflicting heavy casualties on Jihadist terrorists actually prevent the barbarians from killing innocent civilians. Why isn’t that taken into account?
The forces of freedom have a distinct advantage over our Jihadist enemies in terms of air power. We should continue to exploit that advantage to minimize casualties to our side as well as to innocent civilians.
French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner announced this week that a Jihadi (our word, not his) had been arrested for plotting an attack on France inspired by the September 11th terrorist attacks on America.
Castaner shared an ominous statistic: there have been 61 attempted or actual terrorist attacks in France since 2013. That’s nearly one per month.
Reuters reports that since the November 2015 attacks in Paris, 230 people have been killed in France by terrorists.
An unknown number of French jihadis were held in detention camps in Syria until recently when those camps were disrupted by the Turkish incursion into northwestern Syria. It is now feared that those jihadis will work their way back to France where they will pose a threat to carry out more terrorist attacks.
The news has been dominated recently by the withdrawal of U.S. special operations advisers from northern Syria ahead of the Turkish invasion of the region.
Those advisers were primarily charged with training and assisting indigenous forces in battling Islamic State jihadists, who, despite reports to the contrary, are still very much active in the area.
The Department of Defense released a statement emphasizing that the withdrawal does not mean that U.S. forces have abandoned the fight against the Islamic State:
U.S. Will Continue Defeat-ISIS Campaign, Official Says
The United States will continue its campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria from outside Syria, said a senior defense official…
“The Defeat-ISIS campaign will continue,” the official said. “The enduring defeat of ISIS remains one of our top security priorities. We have significant assets and personnel as well as coalition capabilities throughout the region that will continue to prosecute that campaign.”
Here is the most important part of the DOD statement. I don’t agree with the terminology, but the substance is important:
It is important to remember that ISIS is not just a Middle East/Central Asia phenomenon. The terror group is attempting to foment extremism in many other areas including Somalia, Niger, Southeast Asia, the Philippines and elsewhere.
This statement is important because it acknowledges the fact (without coming right out and saying so) that we are in a global jihadist insurgency. The Islamic State was not defeated when its caliphate was rolled up in Syria and Iraq. Its affiliates operate in West Africa, East Africa, Southeast Asia (most likely referring to Thailand), the Philippines (where just a few years ago ISIS took over an entire medium-sized city for months) and elsewhere.
What is meant by “elsewhere?”
We can’t be sure what DOD means by this, but there is no doubt that the Islamic State has sympathizers and operatives throughout Europe and here in the USA. Periodically we read of plots, attacks and arrests. Mostly our media has relegated these reports to the “back pages” of the news, in my opinion because they seek to downplay the threat because it doesn’t resonate for Leftist politicians most of the media covertly support.
I have mixed thoughts on the US cruise missile strike on the Syrian airfield last night.
These thoughts are going to appear all over the map but given the situation in the Middle East, that seems unavoidable:
• There can be no doubt that Syria’s armed forces launched the sarin attack that prompted the US cruise missile strike. The excuse that the Syrians and Russians gave that Al Nusra moved a sarin lab into the area and an air strike inadvertently released the chemicals is absurd. Sarin would burn off in such a strike and would not be dispersed in such a way as to cause mass casualties. Syrian forces have used fixed wing aircraft to launch chemical attacks in the past. It appears that the US military has intelligence, either through technical or human means–or both–about how the chemical attack was conducted.
• I hope that the cruise missile strike is strictly a punitive strike against Assad for his use of chemical weapons and not a signal that the US is getting more involved in the Syrian melee or choosing sides in a multi-sided war that has no good guys (in any significant numbers) on any side.
• America’s main interest in Syria continues to be the destruction of the Islamic State.
• The Jihadists who are arrayed against Assad are organizations that he for years supported and allowed to stage through Syria via rat lines into Iraq’s Al Anbar province. This is a case of Frankenstein’s monsters turning against Dr. Frankenstein.
• The pundits who are claiming that Assad is “secular” or a “protector of Christians” and therefore should not be targeted are ignorant. Assad has been a long-time sponsor of Jihadist terrorism. The groups that he is now fighting against were once under his protection. He is a long-time sponsor of Jihadist terrorism, particularly Hezbollah. Syria has protected and provided safe haven to Hezbollah for decades. Until September 11th, 2001, Hezbollah had racked up the highest body count of Americans of any terrorist organization in the world, including the 23 October 1983 Islamikaze bombing of the US Marine Barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. In other words, Assad is an enemy of the US and always has been. The fact that he dresses like a Westerner and is not a pious Muslim himself is completely irrelevant. Moreover, Assad has waged a propaganda campaign to convince gullible Westerners that he is a protector of Christians. It serves his purposes at this point to portray himself that way, but, remember, the organizations committing genocide against Christians in Syria today once enjoyed Assad’s protection.
• Obama was in a much better position to take action against Assad’s chemical arsenal years ago and failed to do so after speaking loudly about it. President Trump inherited a position of weakness and sought to re-establish American strength in the theater of operations.
• The Russians claimed that they had removed all of Syria’s chemical weapons back in 2014 in a deal trumpeted by the Obamanistas. They lied. The Russians lie. That is what they do.
• The key ally to the Russians and Syrians in the conflict is Iran, a mortal enemy of the US. That’s worth mentioning.
At the very best, President Obama is out of touch when it comes to the threat posed by the Islamic State. From the time he called them the “JV” to his comments a few months ago when he admitted that he still had not developed a strategy to confront them, President Obama has, for one reason or another, neglected the threat from the Islamic State.
As is often the case, the president’s neglect has influenced those serving underneath him as they take cues from the “commander’s intent.” So, what we now have is a brewing scandal in which an unprecedented number of Pentagon intelligence analysts have decided to blow the whistle on what they see as Obama administration political appointees watering down their analyses to make it seem that the threat from the Islamic State is not as serious as it actually is.
Multiple investigations have been launched into allegations that senior officials altered intelligence estimates about the Islamic State to indicate a more favorable impression of progress:
In addition to the Pentagon inspector general’s investigation into allegations by dozens of intelligence analysts, other inspectors general inside the intelligence community and two oversight committees in Congress have begun their own probes, according to senior lawmakers and intelligence officials. The Congressional investigations will expand the scope of the existing inquiry by examining allegations of intelligence tampering that predate the war against the Islamic State, some dating back years.
The roots of the intelligence scandal go back to July when the New York Times reported that the Pentagon’s inspector general had launched an investigation into allegations that intelligence products had been distorted by CentCom’s top intelligence officer. The Daily Beast earlier this month reported that 50 CentCom analysts backed up the allegations in the initial complaint, an almost unprecedented revolt inside military intelligence.
U.S. intelligence officials tell us the objections began when an analyst in charge of Iraq intelligence at CentCom for more than 13 years complained through intelligence community whistleblower processes that the assessments produced by his unit were being rejected or distorted before they reached decision makers.
Top officials like Secretary of State John Kerry have used isolated statistics to show progress, but those figures often do not stand up to scrutiny. Ret. Gen. John Allen, who will resign this fall as the president’s envoy to the collation against the Islamic State, used to say that half of the group’s leaders in Iraq had been killed. That was an exaggeration.
Interestingly, while the Obama administration has sought to downplay the threat from the Islamic State and exaggerate the effectiveness of the pinprick US-led air campaign, other world leaders are sounding the alarm, painting quite a different picture of the threat than the rosy scenario that Barack Obama and John Kerry would have us believe.
This week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India called the Islamic State among the “greatest challenges facing the international community.” Modi met with King Abdullah of Jordan, a leader who has taken a particularly strong stand against the Islamic State, to the point he was personally flying sorties against Islamic State forces.
Czech President Miloš Zema will be in New York this week where he will be continuing to “call for a joint struggle against Islamic State, now dominating a large part of Iraq and Syria during his speech in the United Nations.”
Zema is expected to call for the creation of an anti-terrorist unit under the auspices of the United Nations Security Council and for the cooperation of the international community in the struggle against Islamic terrorism.
We’re not crazy about his call for a UN-led anti-terrorism unit under the Security Council due to the UN’s atrocious track record of putting barbarians, savages and despots in charge of things like human rights, but we do agree that there needs to be a greater cooperation between world powers in the West to destroy the Islamic State.
That might mean cooperating closely with Russia and Putin in their campaign against the Islamic State, which is commencing largely because Obama has been so inept in attacking the Islamic State…
If Putin is successful in leading a coalition absent the US in “crushing” the Islamic State, it will have certainly fulfilled one of President Obama’s goals of cutting American influence in the world down to size. That will be a terrible legacy for the next and future presidents to live down.
France has joined the air campaign against Islamic State targets in Syria. Up to now France has limited its air strikes to Islamic State targets in Iraq.
Allowing your enemies any kind of safe haven is a bad idea, so this decision by France is a welcome one indeed. It’s also good because of the pathetically slow pace of the U.S. air campaign, which involves just a few air strikes a day, often on targets of dubious value.
Hopefully the addition of French aircraft will result in a better pace for the campaign going forward.
Nevertheless, it is highly unlikely that the Islamic State can be defeated by air strikes alone and defeating the Islamic State needs to be a top priority for Western powers.
The saga of the Obama administration’s shameful, failed policy of trying to outsource the defense of America and Western civilization continues apace.
When the so-called “moderate” rebels we trained were unleashed into Syria to fight the Islamic State, they quickly disappeared.
Last week the commanding general of CENTCOM admitted that the total number of fighters remaining in the ranks of those trained by the US measured just “4 or 5.” Not 4 or 5 thousand. Not even 4 or 5 hundred. 4 or 5. Total. And the general couldn’t even say accurately whether the figure was 4 or 5.
Now we learn that the “moderate rebel” force that was sent to fight over the summer immediately turned its weapons over to Al Qaeda.
The Jihadists mean us harm. They want to kill us and subjugate us. Sooner or later we’re going to have to confront them.
We can’t outsource that mission to anyone else, especially not other Jihadis.
We shouldn’t have to even say this after our experiences as a nation over the past 14 years, but there are still many in government, to include Barack Obama and John Kerry, along with retired General Petraeus, who are clueless when it comes to this…
Americans seem to be oblivious or desensitized to the growing evidence that Jihad is hitting the streets here in America. About a week ago or so we posted a rundown of recent Jihadi activity on the continent of Africa, illustrating the fact that it has become the central front in the global Jihadist insurgency:
What may not be apparent is the escalating level of Jihadi activity here in the USA. Even attacks such as those that occurred in 2014 in Moore, Oklahoma (beheading of a grandmother by a former Muslim co-worker) and Queens, New York (hatchet attack on NYPD officers) were far from front page news.
Such incidents are almost always reflexively followed by the meant-to-be-comforting caveat…”no known connection to a terrorist organization.” This is actually more alarming than it is comforting as it is an indication that a revolutionary atmosphere has developed in the US Muslim community that has prompted individual Muslims to act on the calls to Jihad that we have seen from Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Ayman al-Zawahiri and other Jihadi leaders.
We’ve decided to post recent articles about Jihadi arrests, plots and cases that have appeared in the news to illustrate that, well, the enemy is indeed here in our midst and active. Keep in mind that these are only the enemy that our law enforcement community has publicly identified, pursued and apprehended…
In just the last week, Jihadis from Texas, Philadelphia and New York have been apprehended…note also mention of a Jihadi from Minnesota…
U.S. prosecutors in New York City and Philadelphia charged four people with terrorism-related crimes, including two Queens women who allegedly discussed making bombs with an undercover federal agent.
Noelle Velentzas, 28, and Asia Siddiqui, 31, were accused of conspiring to prepare an explosive device to detonate in the U.S.
A Texas man, Muhanad Mahmoud al Farekh, was charged separately with seeking to train alongside Muslim militants who allegedly plotted to attack New York City subways.
Friday, U.S. prosecutors announced charges against a Philadelphia woman, Keonna Thomas, accused of attempting to join Islamic State. The government said she posted items expressing support for the group on Twitter, and communicated online with a Somalia-based jihadi fighter from Minnesota, a radical Islamic cleric and an ISIS fighter in Syria.
Velentzas allegedly praised the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, and declared that she and Siddiqui were “citizens of the Islamic State.” Siddiqui had repeated contact with members of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, including propagandist Samir Khan, former editor of Inspire, al-Qaeda’s English-language online magazine, the U.S. alleged in court papers.
Khan, who was killed in Yemen in 2011, published articles including “I am proud to be a traitor to America” and “Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom,” according to prosecutors.
In discussions with the undercover officer last year, the women allegedly said they were learning “science” in order to build a bomb. They later said they were reading technical books and learning about making homemade grenades, pipe bombs and pressure-cooker bombs, the U.S. alleged.
Siddiqui wrote jihadist poetry with lines about dropping bombs and referred to “nations wiped clean of filthy shrines,” according to the government. She obtained multiple propane tanks and had instructions for using them as explosives, prosecutors alleged.
Farekh [the Texas man], who studied at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, is accused of leaving the school for Pakistan in 2007, joining others seeking to train for attacks against U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan. He was eventually deported from Pakistan.
An alleged co-conspirator, Ferid Imam, aided a plot to attack the New York City subways, according to the government. That plot was foiled in 2009.
In the Philadelphia case, Thomas, who allegedly went by the name “YoungLioness,” was asked by an ISIS fighter if she wanted to be involved in a martyrdom operation. Thomas, 30, responded by stating, “that would be amazing….a girl can only wish,” according to the government. She was arrested after purchasing tickets to fly overseas, prosecutors said.
The cases are U.S. v. Velentzas, 15-mj-00303, and USA v. AL Farekh,1:15-mj-00021, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York (Brooklyn).
There have been separate reports that Velentzas and Siddiqui sought to attack a police funeral to maximize casualties among U.S. law enforcement and that one of the two put on a veneer of patriotism with an American flag displayed in front of her home.
Noelle Velentzas…Note her affiliation with the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), one of the largest Islamic organizations in America
Velentzas and Siddiqui were apparently tied to Tairoid Pugh, the US Air Force veteran who was arrested in March for joining the Islamic State:
A one-time Air Force mechanic whose radical beliefs had him on the FBI’s radar since the late 1990s has been charged in federal court in Brooklyn with trying to join the Islamic State terror group..
Tairod Pugh, 47, of Neptune, New Jersey, allegedly did Internet searches for border crossings into Syria and downloaded execution videos by the jihadist group, before traveling from Egypt to Turkey in January to fight for the group…
After being turned away, the government said, he wiped most of his electronic devices of evidence but kept a picture of a machine gun on his phone. Deported from Egypt to the United States, he was charged in a sealed complaint in January, and indicted this week.
“Pugh, an American citizen, was willing to travel overseas and fight jihad alongside terrorists seeking to do us harm,” Diego Rodriguez, head of the FBI’s New York office, said in a statement.
In February, three Brooklyn men were accused of plotting to aid the terror group, including two who planned to join, authorities said.
Court papers said Pugh served in the Air Force as an avionics instrument system specialist from 1986 to 1990, and worked for American Airlines and a military contractor in Iraq. Overseas for the past 12 to 18 months, he allegedly lost his last job as a mechanic in Kuwait in December.
The government said Pugh converted to Islam in 1998. In 2001, a co-worker allegedly tipped the FBI that Pugh sympathized with Osama bin Laden and held anti-American views. In 2002, an associate said Pugh hoped to fight jihad in Chechnya.
But the government said he objected to deportation from Egypt because the “U.S. doesn’t like black Muslims.” A search of his laptop revealed 180 jihadist videos and an email intended for his Egyptian wife, according to the criminal complaint.
“I am a Mujahid,” said the email. “. . . There is only two possible outcomes for me. Victory or Martyr.”
Tairod Pugh: Air Force veteran, former American Airlines employee and long-time Jihadi
Note in the article above the mention of the three Brooklyn men indicted on terror charges in February.
Here is an article about the Philadelphia woman who faces terrorism charges…
Authorities charged a Philadelphia woman on Friday with attempting to join Islamic State…
Keonna Thomas, a 30-year-old U.S. citizen who went by “YoungLioness” online, was arrested before she could travel to Syria and join the group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, according to a criminal complaint.
Last month she bought a plane ticket to Barcelona, court records show, and was due to fly on March 29. Federal agents executed a search warrant at her home on March 27 and seized evidence, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Philadelphia said.
Ms. Thomas, who is charged with knowingly attempting to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization, was ordered held until a detention hearing next week.
Ms. Thomas’s postings on social media drew the attention of law enforcement, according to an affidavit from a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent.
But her case differs from other recent prosecutions of Islamic State sympathizers because it doesn’t appear to rely on an undercover FBI operative working with the target. Instead, the FBI intercepted communications between Ms. Thomas and an overseas Islamic fighter, among others. In them, she allegedly expressed her desire to travel to join the group in Syria.
In the past 18 months, dozens of Americans—from Colorado to Minnesota to New York—have faced criminal charges related to ISIS.
Ms. Thomas’s alleged support of Islamic State dates to 2013, according to court filings. The FBI affidavit claims that in August 2013 she reposted a picture on Twitter showing a camouflage-clad boy wearing firearm magazine pouches, with this caption: “Ask yourselves, while this young man is holding magazines for the Islamic state, what are you doing for it? #ISIS.”
In December 2013, court filings show, she exchanged messages with a man described by the FBI as a Somali-based violent jihadi fighter from Minnesota. Ms. Thomas allegedly told him she planned to “leave the land of kufr [nonbelievers]” and would travel once she got enough money.
In January 2014 she tweeted, “Only thing I’m jealous of is when I see the smiles of shuhadaa [martyrs],” according to court records, which allege that she posted messages throughout the year that appeared to support ISIS.
In late January of this year, the FBI alleges, she sent a message to a radical Islamic cleric in Jamaica in which she wrote, “i don’t want to say much here….as of now im still here in the states but will be leaving soon.”
Five days later she applied for a passport and in mid-February told the cleric she had deactivated her Twitter account, saying, according to court records, “don’t want to draw attention of the kuffar [nonbelievers] and it mess my plans and they take my pass port and I get stuck here.”
On Feb. 17, the FBI affidavit says, the known overseas fighter wrote to her: “U probably want to do Istishadee [martyrdom operations] with me.” She allegedly replied: “that would be amazing….a girl can only wish.”
“I can make that wish come true,” the militant allegedly responded.
She researched indirect travel routes to Turkey, a common transit point to Syria, according to the complaint. Among them was flying to Spain to avoid suspicion, then traveling by bus to Turkey.
Keonna Thomas appearing in court after arrest on terrorism charges. Why she is allowed to appear in court covered that way is anyone’s guess.
Here is an article on Muhanad Mahmoud al Farekh, the Texas native indicted on terror charges…
A U.S. citizen accused of conspiring to support al Qaeda appeared in a federal court in New York on Thursday. Muhanad Mahmoud Al Farekh, 29, was charged with conspiracy, reports said, citing the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
Farekh reportedly plotted with others to provide material support to the terrorists. He also helped them gain personnel to kill U.S. citizens and members of the U.S. military in other countries, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing a charging document. Farekh was deported from Pakistan and arrested due to a pending warrant.
Texas born Al Qaeda terrorist Muhanad Mahmoud al Farekh
Another Jihadi case surfaced in Illinois over a week ago when two cousins–one a soldier with the Illinois Army National Guard–were arrested on terrorism charges:
An Army National Guard member and his cousin have been arrested in Illinois for allegedly conspiring to provide material support to the terrorist organization ISIS, federal prosecutors said Thursday.
The alleged plot included a plan to attack a U.S. military installation in Illinois.
In the past 18 months, the Justice Department’s National Security Division has prosecuted or is prosecuting 32 cases of people attempting to travel abroad to join or providing support to terrorist groups. Of those cases, 18 allegedly involve support to ISIS.
Spc. Hasan Edmonds, 22, was arrested Wednesday night at Chicago Midway International Airport while attempting to travel to Egypt to eventually join ISIS…
His cousin, Jonas “Yunus” Edmonds, 29, was arrested at his home in Aurora in connection with an alleged plot to carry out an armed attack on an unspecified U.S. military facility in northern Illinois where Hasan Edmonds had been training.
After an undercover FBI informant posing as an ISIS fighter outside the United States sent Hasan Edmonds a Facebook “friend” request in late 2014, he began to receive private messages from him indicating that he and his cousin were willing to travel to overseas and fight for ISIS, according to the court documents.
“InshAllah we will complete our task or be grants [sic] shahada [Arabic for martyr] I look forward to the training,” Hasan Edmonds is alleged to have told the informant in January. “I am already in the American kafir army and now I wish only to serve in the army of Allah alongside my true brothers.”
They continued to communicate over the following weeks, with Hasan Edmonds expressing concerns about Jonas Edmonds’ criminal record and whether he would be allowed to travel overseas.
“They try hard to keep people like him trapped in America,” he told the undercover FBI employee.
“I know several Muslims have been caught attempting the Turkey route so tell me why not many Americans take the Egypt route. I am open to either way,” Hasan Edmonds told the informant, according to court documents.
On February 2, Hasan Edmonds contacted the undercover informant again and said his cousin was willing to carry out an attack on U.S. soil.
“Honestly we would love to do something like the brother in Paris did,” Hasan Edmonds stated, referring to the French terror attacks in January in which 16 people were killed.
Prosecutors said Jonas Edmonds contacted the informant to arrange travel accommodations.
“Number one on my list is Mosul,” he stated, referring to Iraq’s second-largest city. “If I find myself stuck here [in the United States], I intend to take advantage of being so close to the kuffar.”
Jonas Edmonds this week accepted that he would be unable to travel and told the FBI informant of his intention to buy AK-47s and grenades to carry out an attack on the military facility. He would use his cousin’s uniform and “anticipated a body count of 100 to 150.” He was given a list of officer rankings by his cousin and advised to “kill the head,” according to court documents.
Prosecutors said Jonas Edmonds planned to carry out the attack after Hasan Edmonds left the country.
Hasan Edmonds planned to use his military training to fight for the terrorist organization, prosecutors said in a statement. Hasan Edmonds booked airline travel to depart Wednesday from Chicago and arrive in Cairo on Thursday.
The cousins presented an undercover informant with plans to attacks the military facility, prosecutors said.
More than 20,000 fighters, from more than 90 countries, have traveled to the ISIS battlefield, according to the testimony of Nicholas Rasmussen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, before the House Homeland Security Committee.
The rate of foreign fighters traveling to Syria “exceeds the rate of travelers who went to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen or Somalia at any point in the last 20 years,” Rasmussen said.
Of those fighters, an estimated 3,400 are believed to have come from Western countries, including more than 150 from the United States, officials said.
Jonas Edmonds–evidently no stranger to the penal system.
Hasan Edmonds
Finally, in Boston, Americans for Peace and Tolerance have uncovered evidence of Jihadist indoctrination at the Islamic Society of Boston, which was the mosque attended by the Tsarnaev brothers who bombed the Boston Marathon. It was also founded by Abduraham Alamoudi, who was later revealed to be an Al Qaeda terrorist and was convicted on terrorism charges…
Islamic Society of Boston: co-founded by Al Qaeda terrorist, mosque of Boston marathon bombers.
The Boston Marathon bombers’ mosque, the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB), employs an intensive radicalizing program aimed at Boston’s historically moderate Muslim community, especially at its youth. It’s called “Tarbiya,” which is Arabic for “growth and refinement.” It is not something that is practiced as part of classical mainstream Islam.
APT has obtained several curriculum documents created by ISB-affiliated groups, which describe exactly what is taught and when, with assignments detailed down to book and page number.
Jaws was a blockbuster hit in 1975 based on the best-selling novel by the late Peter Benchley.
The storyline is about a Great White shark that stakes out its territory off the coast of a New England resort town named Amity. Bathers and swimmers start getting attacked and eaten right as the 4th of July tourist bonanza begins.
The Chief of Police and a marine biologist try to convince the Mayor of Amity to close the beaches until the shark can be killed. The mayor ignores their warnings and, sure enough, more people die as a result.
The Mayor refuses to recognize the threat and treats his police chief and the marine biologist as if they were crazy for even suggesting that he close the beaches. His myopia results in dead voters.
There is a lesson here relating to today’s threat from Islam, both in the form of civilizational Jihad and violent Jihad.
In this analogy, the criminally myopic and irresponsible Mayor of Amity is represented by elected and appointed officials in the West who either refuse to recognize the existential threat to Western civilization posed by Jihad or recognize the threat, but deny it publicly.
We’re not just talking about President Obama here, though he certainly personifies the West’s inadequate response to Jihad. It is now abundantly clear that Obama’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood run broad and deep.
Obama’s infamous speech in Cairo in 2009, with Muslim Brotherhood members in the front row
But Obama isn’t the only one to blame. He is essentially implementing the policies he always said he would implement. The people who voted for an support Obama are to blame.
But not just the voters are to blame.
Take Secretary of State John Kerry, for example. He is responsible for the mythology that Jihad is founded in poverty, despite there being no evidence to back up this supposition. To make matters worse, he is leading the charge to strike a horrible bargain that will guarantee that the world’s most active state sponsor of terrorism, Iran, achieves its goal of becoming a nuclear power.
From this point forward, let John Kerry be forever known as the father of the Iranian Bomb.
The Expectant Father of the Iranian Atomic Bomb
Kerry’s predecessor, Hillary Clinton, is also a villain. Hillary and Bill’s close and extensive financial ties to the Saudis, Qataris and other nefarious Gulf interests are enough to make even the Bush family green with envy.
Then there is the soon-to-be departed attorney general Eric Holder, who refused to even utter the euphemism “radical Islam” under congressional questioning and then shut down the follow-on to the Holy Land Foundation prosecution, letting Muslim Brotherhood fronts such as CAIR and ISNA, who were named unindicted co-conspirators in that terrorism case, off scot-free. Holder may be the worst villain of all and should be pursued for prosecution on a variety of charges for malfeasance during his long tenure at the helm of Justice.
Running interference for the Muslim Brotherhood
But there are plenty of Republicans to blame, who sat by and let all this happen, with scarcely a word of protest.
There’s John McCain, who cooperated with Obama in setting the stage for Libya to descend into chaos, opening an opportunity for Jihadists and then repeated the same mistake in Syria.
John Boehner is a villain as well, because he rolled over for Obama repeatedly, then teamed with Marco Rubio and the aforementioned McCain in criticizing members of their own Republican caucus who questioned Hillary Clinton consort Huma Mahmood Abedin’s longstanding and proven ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Boehner: An Enabler of Obama’s Policies
All of these people personify the Mayor of Amity from Jaws. They all want the rest of us to believe that the shark isn’t out there, or that it isn’t dangerous. They have differing motivations, but the result is the same: the West is vulnerable and under assault.
If you listen to some political pundits on both sides of the aisle, you might get the misimpression that Jihadists target America and America is viewed negatively in the Islamic world because of our support for Israel.
The problem with that line of thinking is that ignores some 1400 years of Islamic doctrine.
Each Jihadist terror organization around the globe has a specific goal in mind and that is the formation of an Islamic state ruled by Shariah.
This is very important to understand because this is a common goal of all the major Jihadist organizations across the world. It is shared by Al Qaeda, HAMAS, Lashkar e Taiba, Abu Sayyaf, Jemaah Islamiyah, Boko Haram, Al Shabaab and others and transcends any localized disagreements over borders and pure politics.
Israel could evaporate tomorrow and the overriding goal of the formation of Islamic states ruled by Shariah would not change a bit.
Those who blame Jihad on Israel need to ask themselves some important questions:
Did ISIS wage Jihad in Iraq and Syria to establish an Islamic state ruled by Shariah law because America supports Israel?
Did the Jihadist terrorist group Boko Haram in Nigeria kidnap 300 young girls this spring because America supports Israel?
Did the Taliban seize power in Afghanistan in 1996 to establish an Islamic state ruled by Shariah law because America supports Israel?
Did the Jihadist terrorist group Al Shabaab attack the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, in September 2013, killing 67 innocent civilians, because America supports Israel?
Did the Jihadist terrorist group Lashkar e Taiba launch terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India in 2008, killing 154 innocent civilians because America supports Israel?
Did the Jihadist terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah bomb resorts in Bali, Indonesia in October 2002, killing 202 innocent civilians because America supports Israel?
Did Chechen Jihadist terrorists massacre 334 people, mostly school children, in Beslan, Russia, because the US supports Israel?
Did Jihadist terrorists with the group Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) detonate a bomb in Marrakesh, Morroco in April 2011, killing 17 innocent civilians, because America supports Israel.
Of course, the answer to each and every one of these questions is no and the questions and answers prove a point. Jihad is truly global. Tragically, it is one of the most successful “exports” in the world over the past decade.
None of the regions mentioned above have a thing to do with Israel. Most don’t have anything to do with America.
The doctrine behind global jihad is over a thousand years old. In other words, the jihadist doctrine has been around far longer than America has even been in existence.
The Jihadists are not motivated only by our actions. They don’t just react to what we do. They have their own reasons for waging violent Jihad which have nothing to do with America, Israel or anything that you or I have any control over.
The quicker our politicians—both Democrat and Republican—gain a full understanding of this, the better.
![j0189593[1]](https://terrortrendsbulletin.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/j01895931.jpg)
Terror Trends Bulletin 