Terrorism Writ Large: Islam/Jihad

"I think that [Norwegian Anders] Breivik was a turning point, because he was sort of a proof of concept as to how much an individual actor could accomplish."
"He killed so many people at one time operating by himself, it really set a new bar for what one person can do."
"This is a particularly strong wave [of white supremacism] and I think it's being fueled by a lot of political developments and also by the sort of connective tissue that you get from the Internet that wasn't there before that's really making it easier for groups to be influenced and to coordinate, or not necessarily coordinate but synchronize over large geographical distances."
J.M. Berger, research fellow, Vox-Pol, European academic study of online extremism

"There's a common framing of far-right terrorism or domestic terrorism as being 'terrorism lite' and not as serious."
"It's an interesting question given that far-right attacks can be quite devastating."
Erin Miller, database manager, National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, University of Maryland

"We conceive of this problem as being a domestic one. But that's not the case."
"They [supremacists sharing a common ideology] don't see themselves as Americans or Canadians, very much like the Christchurch killer didn't see himself as an Australian; he saw himself as part of a white collective."
"It has never been the case that these people didn't think in a global way. They may have acted in ways that looked domestic but the thinking was always about building an international white movement."
Heidi Beirich, Intelligence Project director, Southern Poverty Law Center, U.S.

The Christchurch killer acted alone but followed a terrifying trend

The identified and studied interconnectedness of the Internet, the ease with which people with particular agendas and fixed ideas of ideological dimensions can find one another, inspire and stir one another, share tips and declarations of hatred of noted groups, and set out to emulate one another's successful hit rates of hated groups is on the rise, it would seem. It would seem thus from the very increase in frequency of white supremacist attacks around the world. And that all too frequently those taken into custody after the commission of particularly gory blood-letting targeting the vulnerable, confess to their inspired contacts with others of their ilk.

White extremist terrorist attacks that took place in Norway, the United States, Italy, Sweden and the United Kingdom, as an example, appear to have inspired the man who stands accused of killing 50 people in a rampage in March at two Christchurch mosques in New Zealand, according to his online-posted manifesto preceding his hugely successful attack. His killing exploit serves as a particularly notable example of that informal global network of fellow extremists.

Continents are spanned as the incidents and their connectedness highlight the manner in which social media and the Internet have served to facilitate the spread of the ideology of violence through the white extremist message. A school gunman in New Mexico was seen to have corresponded with a gunman who had attacked a mall in Munich; between them eleven people were killed at their disparate geographical locations.

None, however, killed as many people as did Anders Bering Breivik with his bombing and mass shooting in 2011 in Norway, with a death toll of 77. His manifesto with its grievances listing immigration and Islam as dire provocations threatening the stability and future of his homeland has gone on to inspire others in his wake. His massive attacks were seen as a model to be emulated by aspiring hate-mongers.  A white supremacist, Frazier Glenn Miller wrote on a supremacist forum that Breivik had "inspired young Aryan men to action".

He appears to have done that and more for Miller, a prominent white supremacist in the United States who went on to attack a Jewish retirement home and community center, weapons ablaze, in Kansas, where he murdered three people. The Canadian who stormed a Quebec City mosque in 2017 and killed six worshipers had helped to inspire the Christchurch attacker who added his name to other killers whose names he wrote on his weapon. In turn Alexandre Bissonnette, the mosque shooter, had focused on American Dylann Roof who shot to death nine worshipers at a South Carolina black church in 2015.

Close to 350 white extremist terrorism attacks took place in Europe, North America and Australia from the years 2011 through to 2017, according to data from the Global Terrorism Database. The database defines terrorism as the use of violence by a non-state actor to attain a particular social goal. White extremism is a term used to describe white nationalist, white supremacist, neo-Nazi, xenophobic, anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic ideologies. And which accounted for roughly 8 percent of all attacks around the world, many in the United States.

In the Oceania region, five white extremist attacks took place from 2011 to 2017 in Australia, all attacks on mosques and Islamic centers. The New Zealand attack was carried out by an Australian who claims to have been radicalized while travelling through Europe. The targets take place in Perth, Dresden, Germany, or Pittsburgh on mosques and synagogues, or asylum centers. Those who study white extremists lament the attention focused on Islamic extremism, pointing out it is not the only driver of international terrorism.


However, it's a safe bet that Islamic jihadist attacks, their frequency, ferocity, deadliness and ongoing threats against the West have inspired white nationalists to play back the Islamist game plan. And while any attacks on innocent people -- destroying lives and causing chaos in society -- are grim and soul-destroying, there is little comparison in total effect between those mounted by white extremists as opposed to the dreadful toll taken by the fearsome attacks launched by various Islamist jihadi groups for whom death deliverance is a sacred duty to Islam and to which no one is immune.

The Irresistibly Romantic Lure of Jihad

"The Islamic State, a young adult couple who want to leave Canada to join this terrorist group and the discovery of a recipe to make a bomb with some of the necessary ingredients. In one sentence, that is what our case is about."
"In a binder found on the nightstand in the bedroom of the condo [an officer] found, on two pages, a recipe about how to make a bomb, written by hand by Mr. Jamali."
"This recipe, the evidence will show, was word for word a recipe published by al-Qaeda [in one of their magazines]."
Federal prosecutor Lyne Decarie, Montreal

Sabrine Djermane and El Mahdi Jamali were 19 and 18 years old respectively when they were charged in April 2015. (Radio-Canada)

Crown prosecutor  Decarie spoke of a propaganda video to be addressed by the last of the witnesses, an expert on Syria, Islamic State and its fascist ideology, that was produced to incite Muslims in Canada to commit as faithful in Islam to one of two choices: pack a bag, buy a plane ticket and join Islamic State abroad -- alternatively prepare explosives, sharpen knives, use vehicles, whatever it takes to perpetrate an attack right where they live; in this instance, Canada.

"The Crown intends to demonstrate that El Mahdi Jamali and Sabrine Djermane responded to this call", Decarie informed the jury at this trial on terrorism expected to take ten weeks before it winds up with a jury declaration of innocent or guilty.  The accused pair are young Montrealers; El Mahdi Jamli and Sabrine Djermane, now 20 and 21 respectively, both of whom have pleaded not guilty to the charges brought against them.

These charges are explosive in their nature, four in number: attempting to leave Canada to commit a terror act abroad; possession of an explosive substance; facilitating a terrorist act; and committing an act under the direction or for the profit of a terrorist organization. The Crown prosecutor has named as witnesses, 31 members of the police along with expert and civilian witnesses whom her legal team plans to call upon throughout the extended trial.

Police are set to give testimony over their seizures taken from the condo that the two accused share. The home of Jamali's parents also  yielded evidence, in the form of a receipt for passports, a new suitcase with new, tagged clothing, along with a plane ticket complete with planned May departure date. A number of other documents were also taken as evidence. RCMP agents as well, discovered a bag containing bomb-making equipment.

When they returned again in the company of an explosives expert other incriminating evidence was unearthed, along with a list alleged to have been written by Djermane. Their cellphones, three computers and a tablet were taken and analyzed in RCMP laboratories. Their Facebook pages were of interest to the experts tasked with going through them to flag conversations of interest, messages and links they had posted.

The two accused cast themselves by pleading not guilty, as innocents who had no idea that the materials they had amassed, the ideology they appeared connected to through Islamist zeal, and the motivational effect of the video extolling the virtues inherent in violent jihad had nothing whatever to do with them.  If it had not been for the concern expressed by an as-yet unidentified individual who alerted police, according to Kevin Rouleau, the first witness and principal RCMP investigator on the case, their activities would have gone undetected.

Sabrine Djermane and El Mahdi Jamali, shown here in a courtroom sketch during jury selection, are on trial for terrorism-related offences. (Radio-Canada)

It was, in fact, by Jamali's own hand, posting the iconic black flag of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant on his Facebook account, that took the initial attention of the person who contacted the RCMP. Officer Rouleau was given the initial suspicious information about the pair on April 10, 2015, meeting soon afterward with the complainant, then going on to interview the suspects.

"Saudi Vision" 2030 : Wait for It!

"The overall progress with the economic cities has been very slow, even before the collapse of the oil price."
"Since then, the pace of development has moderated even further with a number of projects being placed on hold."
Monica Malik, chief economist, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank PJSC

"While the current authorities seem to be committed to open up the country to forms of entertainment previously banned, a big test will be the reaction of the more conservative parts of the Saudi society."
Philippe Dauba-Pantanacce, senior economist, geopolitical strategist, Standard Chartered Bank, London

Mada’in Saleh  Photographer: Vivian Nereim/Bloomberg

As a tourism draw, aside from the massive annual trek -- Muslims only -- to Mecca, Saudi Arabia doesn't quite come first to mind. This repressive regime that will not permit the presence of any religious devotion to sully its landscape, other than Islam, which also strictly forbids entry to Mecca of any who are not Muslim (British explorer/adventurer extraordinaire Sir Richard Burton's disguise and Arabic proficiency enabled him in a sole instance of penetrating its sacred precincts in the 19th Century) and where women are expected to wear black, body-and-face-concealing burqas lest they arouse the lust of Muslim men -- doesn't seem at first thought to represent tourism material.

Second thought, recalling that it forbids the consumption of alcohol, frowns upon unseemly conduct such as unattached males and females appearing together in public, in casual social company, views music, dance and theatre as un-Muslim in character, also supports the impression that building specially designed tourism cities on the sands of Arabia might not represent the best of investments. On the other hand, despite the lower returns on petroleum resources, of which Saudi Arabia represents the world's foremost exporter, the Kingdom has untold wealth at its disposal.

Another jog of the memory in the fact that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is not particularly known for its charitable generosity. While it has spent and continues to spend, a king's ransom in the establishment of madrassas all over the global landscape, from the Middle East to North Africa, Southeast Asia to Europe and North America and beyond, to teach its very special Salafist brand of Islamic Wahhabism which has produced more than its share of jihadi terrorist groups that have gone on to slaughter Muslims and non-Muslims with fervent abandon, it has spent nothing in support of Muslim refugees.

Al Shabab    AtlantaBlackStar.com

The world has seen an unimaginable proliferation of refugees from the Muslim world fleeing the predations of Al Shabaab, the Taliban, Boko Haram, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Abu Sayyaf, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, among many others. And there is also the homeless produced by the civil conflict in Syria where its president, like Sudan's attack on Darfurians, has committed civilian slaughter by the hundreds of thousands as punishment for defying the rule of Bashar al-Assad. Neighbouring nations have taken in fleeing Iraqis and Syrians, yet Saudi Arabia which has vast empty spaces it plans to turn into tourism hubs has no space for Muslim refugees.

The Kingdom has announced two major developments, one for an area larger than Belgium, the other to include an airport and shipping port, along with a series of economic cities, designed as special zones for tourism, industry and finance. Fifty islands and 34,000 square kilometres along the coastline of Saudi Arabia on the Red Sea are to be transformed into a global tourism destination, to attract cosmopolitan wealthy tourists from every corner of the tourism-hungry world.

Sun-and-surf-lovers arriving to disport themselves on Saudi beaches could rival the millions of Muslim pilgrims trekking to the holy shrines in Mecca and Medina, according to Saudi development plans. West of Mecca, an emerging city to be named Al Faisaliyah, will be complete with thousands of upscale residential units, entertainment facilities, an airport, sea port, all on 2,450 square kilometres, with a completion date projected to 2050.

Another cultural, sports and entertainment city is to be developed southwest of the capital Riyadh, a project to be developed on 334 square kilometres, equipped with a safari area and a Six Flags Entertainment Corp. theme park.  The internal goal is to ensure that household spending on recreation is to double to six percent by 2030. But of course the larger aim is to attract the attention of he wealthy global community of fun-loving, entertainment-seeking tourists to Saudi Arabia. The country that brought to world attention the spectacle of 9-11 has its eyes on an alternate subject of rapt attention.

The ISIL Returnees Issue: The Dilemma of Unmitigated Child Abuse

"The government has absolutely no choice but to protect the Charter rights of these Canadians [who choose to go abroad to fight with terrorists in Syria and Iraq]."
"The embassy, the consulate would have to deal with them, the way they would any Canadian who's gotten in trouble abroad and assist them to come home if that's what they want to do."
"They [federal officials] always stress ... 'We cannot in any way afford to allow our actions to result in a Canadian citizen receiving basically torture, or abuse. That will never happen again'."
Lorne Dawson, professor, University of Western Ontario

"Does the Canadian government have a legal, let alone a moral, responsibility to act on these people's behalf? I think the answer is 'No'."
"They made a conscious decision to leave this country and to join a group that everyone and his dog knows is a terrorist group ... 'It sucks to be you; live with it'."
"This issue of orphans and kids born to people who joined Islamic State is going to haunt us for a decade. Who wants to take care of them? It's not the kids' fault, but these are the sons and daughters of terrorists."
Phil Gurski, former Canadian Security Intelligence Service analyst

"I really think they need to work with the Muslim community in terms of developing plans to assist them."
"They [terrorism-linked returnees] are Canadian kids, we can't just sort of throw them away."
Barbara Jackman, immigration lawyer, Toronto

UN: ISIL kills 163 people in Mosul in one day: Al Jazeera

The issue is undeniably a complex one, and fraught with emotion; a sense of compassion for the children born to people who of their own free will have dedicated their time, energy and aspirations to be part of an Islamist caliphate of conquest, restrained by nothing, evincing themselves no compassion whatever for the other Muslims and non-Muslims they slaughter through deliberate enactment of atrocities, the better to shock the watching world.

And it is telling, the response from various sources. From a professional immigration lawyer who speaks for immigrants and refugees, a response weighted in favour of human rights irrespective of the fact that human rights have been entirely trashed by the very people now anxious to return to a society they spurned in favour of one that modelled itself on Islam at its inception in the 6th Century as a warring, conquest-driven ideology encompassing religion, politics, social life.

From a professor who has studied the phenomenon of radicalized  youth from the perspective of a liberal-left profession priding itself on its 'progressive' credentials that allow it to proudly and loudly support the entitlements of Palestinian Arabs whose response to the creation of a Jewish state was to initiate a wide-ranging program of violent assaults, airplane hijacking, suicide bombings, attacks on Jews in foreign countries, the creation of a death cult inciting their youth to become martyrs.

From a man whose prism is that of a former intelligence officer who has seen at first-hand the plots and schemes and actions and crimes of terrorist groups threatening the stability of civilized nations serene in their democratic processes, suddenly placed on notice that their geographical distance from the volatile violence taking place in the Middle East will no longer grant them immunity from violence inflicted on them because the world has become a smaller place where air travel minimizes distance and trained assassins motivated by religious zeal commit themselves with lethal passion, and more latterly Western societies well infiltrated by religious zealots are readily conscripted to jihad.

At the present, and in the moment, as it were, when the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the most current iteration of terrorist-jihad central in its purest-yet form of incendiary hatred theologically inspired, is in the process of swift collapse book-ending its swift rise, the issue of the hundreds of Western-sourced Islamists, trained as jihadists in the use of lethal weaponry turn restively to their adopted countries, including what offspring they have conceived. Some of whom have been known as the lion-cubs of ISIL, trained as children to kill, shoot, behead.

Social media images alleging to show an Isil sniper believed to be 16-year-old German Linda W Credit: Twitter

Canada, like other Western countries, is bracing for their return. And how to react, to treat them, to deal with them all, is an issue of grave and great concern. Canadians have experienced a taste of how their government will react under the Liberals, when a mere two weeks earlier, the al-Qaeda/Taliban-linked Omar Khadr, child soldier of Islamofascism was released from his status as a terrorist through a government apology to him, resuscitating his 'reputation' and sweetening it with a $10.5-million gift.

The government of Canada is consumed with the contrite view that it must not under any circumstances be seen to be complicit with other governments seeking to bring to justice Canadian jihadis who might be exposed to some form of torture while imprisoned, preparing to repatriate, perhaps prosecute them, but ensuring they are not persecuted for their misdeeds, as Canadian citizens. The fate of vulnerable children is yet another, critical issue which must be resolved. And it can readily be done.

With the recognition that the parents that bore them did so while threatening and committing unspeakable violence and planning far more in the future, those parents qualify for the designation and recognition of unqualified to raise those children on the evidence. Those children under their care have not been nurtured with love, but taught hatred. Their destiny, as far as their parents were concerned, was to populate a fascist Islamist state whose agenda was conquest through fear and slaughter.

Having proven themselves incapable of raising children in a familial environment based on the virtues of civilized society and providing for those children security and nourishment of the spirit, the children should be taken into custodial care. Parents charged under the Criminal Code under section 83 for leaving Canada to join a terrorist organization, participating in or facilitating terrorist activity or committing a crime for a terror group which has penalties up to life in prison are in no position to raise children.

A little girl named Amina was found by Iraqi Army soldiers when they heard her cries from the rubble.  Credit: Rex

Loving Death and Martyrdom

"We love death like you love live."
"Like a summer camp [jihadi camp in Syria]. You chill, you have fun. You see different groups and drink tea with the Syrians."
"I wouldn't do attacks here [in Canada]. That's not my style. I'm not against them [Islamic State]. If they do it [attacks on foreign soil] , that's their business."
Ismael Habib, 29, Montreal

Facebook    Ismael Habib

 

He repeated that tired old mantra beloved of all Islamists explaining how and why it is that they take part in terrorist attacks against those whom they perceive as enemies or as standing in the way of their accomplishing the goal of achieving a global caliphate. Jihad is incumbent upon the faithful, a duty not to be set aside, but to be embraced. Martyrdom is an opportunity to demonstrate the strength of one's faith. And the rewards are significant; while committing oneself to become a martyr it is best accomplished by taking the lives of the non-faithful, who take up too much room with their presence.

They, non-Muslims, have the option, after all, of embracing Islam themselves, to save their lives. When they fail to exercise this option they invite death. The very fact that they have eschewed Islam renders them fully complicit in their own death, and it is the duty of the faithful Muslim to lead them to their death. As simple as that. When the Iranian Revolution took place, this obligation for all Muslims was emphasized. The Shiite Iranians sent the al Quds division of the Republican Guard to Lebanon in the 1980s.

There, they indoctrinated the Lebanese Shiites, a poverty-stricken minority, to understand their obligations and take pride in them, re-awakening their spiritual lives. And the mantra of "We love death like you love life" exemplified their pride. And Hezbollah was born. A pride and an explanatory statement that was adopted by another terrorist group, Hamas, the offspring of the Muslim Brotherhood. It has since become a universal declaration of exceptionalism adopted by Islamist jihadists.

"Shariah is Islamic law", Habib explained to an undercover RCMP officer who had gained the man's trust, portraying himself as a Montreal gangster boss who could help Habib travel back to Syria to rejoin the jihadi group he was interested in. He was explaining to the man known as "the Boss", how, as a teen, he became more invested in Islam, than the superficial Muslim upbringing he had been brought up with. Now, he said, he was intent on following the path that Allah lays before all faithful Muslims.

The RCMP agent was interested in persuading this man to relay to him the names of other Montrealers who would ostensibly appreciate help in evading authorities to travel to Syria. Since he was prepared to smuggle them by ship directly to the war zone. Habib recommended the Assahaba mosque, where Adil Charkaoui, a controversial imam preaches. It is known also as the Centre islamique de l'Est de Montreal, linked to young people who previously left for Syria.

"You know he gives course to the youth and there are a lot of young people who are riled up", stated Habib helpfully. His own previous trip in 2013 to Syria was where he met up with his brother-in-law and where they made contact with Chechen jihadis. He had been there in Syria for three months, prior to the point where Islamic State made its surprise successful grab for geographical territory in Iraq and Syria, enabling it to declare the presence of its caliphate.

And he was anxious to return.

Although Habib described his jihad as fighting to establish an Islamic state in the Middle East, in his opinion the November 2015 attacks in France were just dessert reflecting French military involvement against ISIL. He was "really happy" at the attacks that killed 130 people. And should he find himself in need of gathering new recruits around him he would look for them at Adil Charkaoui's mosque.

That was then, and now he is charged with attempting to travel to Syria to commit a terrorist act, and with giving false information to obtain a passport. The undercover RCMP officer is giving testimony at Ismael Habib's trial. Habib has had his plans to return to Syria derailed. Life is so cruel and unfair. His intention to die as a martyr and receive his duly-earned reward, 72 women "beautiful and virgins", as he described them, delayed, for his trip to Paradise has been aborted.

Splitting Hairs Over Precise Nomenclature

"Genocide has occurred and is ongoing. [ISIL] has subjected every Yazidi woman, child or man that it has captured to the most horrific of atrocities."
"[ISIL] has sought to erase the Yazidis through killings; sexual slavery, enslavement, torture and inhuman and degrading treatment and forcible transfer causing serious bodily and mental harm; the infliction of conditions that bring about a slow death; the imposition of measures to prevent Yazidi children from being born, including forced conversion of adults, the separation of Yazidi men and women, and mental trauma; and the transfer of Yazidi children from their own families and placing them with ISIS fighters, thereby cutting them off from beliefs and practices of their own religious community."
UN Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic : Paulo Pinheiro

"ISIL continues to deliberately target ethnic and religious communities though a range of abuses and crimes as part of its policy of suppression, expulsion or elimination of these communities, and to employ sexual violence as a tactic of war."

Yazidis flee Isil Credit: Rodi Said/Reuters

An almost universal consensus prevails, that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant mercilessly preys on and commits horrible abuses against religious and ethnic minorities, women and the LGBT community. ISIL's solution to those who like Yazidis, Christians and Shiites fail to follow its own fanatical view of Islam, is to impose torture on those hapless enough to fall into their hands, to enslave them and to commit mass slaughter.

The European parliament, the British parliament, the Australian parliament and the United State Congress have seen fit to label ISIL guilty of genocide.

The International Association of Genocide Scholars themselves fittingly adopted a resolution whose purpose was to declare that ISIL has committed genocide.The former chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo, has minced no words to declare that what ISIL has mounted represents "a very clear case" of genocide.

And in Canada's Parliament? Foreign Minister Stephane Dion, from the height of his moral pillar of wisdom gropes about for excuses and mentions that Sweden has declined, as  has the Government of Canada, to name ISIL's reprehensible actions recognizable as genocide. The Government of Canada, insisted Mr. Dion, saw no incontrovertible evidence to claim that ISIL is guilty of genocide.

And then, oh dear, the following day the UN report was produced that provided solidly conclusive evidence of genocidal intent and action on the part of ISIL. Leaving the Liberal government flailing about to respond to demands from the opposition that Canada officially name the jihadis Islamist campaign to scourge Iraq and Syria of the presence of non-Sunni Muslims and ethnic and religious minorities for what it is.

Yazidi refugees, including several children, go about their lives in Nawrouz refugee camp, approximately 40 kilometres from the Syrian border with Iraq. Photo: UNICEF/Razan Rashidi

"We do not feel that politicians should be weighing in on this. Determinations of genocide need to be made in an objective responsible way." And the Government of Canada, said Justin Trudeau, has asked the UN Security Council "to make a determination on this". As doubtless China and Russia will be extremely pleased to do, to satisfy the punctiliously politically correct Liberal conscience of a prime minister who ordinarily vents subjectively on things he knows nothing about.

Ferreting Out Abu Sayyaf in Mindanao

"Radullan is a fairly committed Jihadist who has spent an extensive part of his life fighting on Jolo Island. Everyone puts it [the abduction of two Canadians, a Filipina and a Norwegian for ransom, the subsequent beheading of one of the captives, John Ridsdel] on him."
"[But Sahiron] is more a tribal elder than an active insurgent these days. It was Sawadjaan's Tanum group which grabbed John. It was his group which held him, it was his group which killed him. In that culture, I am sure Sawadjaan was directly involved in John's actual murder or would have been on hand for it."
"[Sahiron and Sawadjaan are] ruthless monsters. I have seen pictures and videos of what they do and I wish I hadn't."
"If you are young and unemployed, somebody will hand you a gun. But this is not an intense movement. It mostly conducts hits and runs on the military. If any infrastructure comes, their days would be numbered."
"Every day they [the remaining three captives, Canadian Robert Hall, Filiopina Maritess Flor, Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad] remain out there is bad for them. From the four videos taken of them we can see how bad their situation is. Each time they are more gaunt. It is barbarism."
Marc Singer, director of business intelligence, Manila office, Pacific Strategies and Assessments Inc.

Militant Video via The Associated Press   A militant video shows Canadians John Ridsdel, right, and Robert Hall being held captive.

"A region's long-term kidnapping threats are best dealt with through political, military and law enforcement solutions directed at the perpetrators, rather than placing additional burdens on the families of the victim by restricting negotiations or further endangering their lives through a rescue attempt."
"The most dangerous moments during a kidnapping incident are the first few minutes of the abduction and the next most dangerous time is during an attempted rescue."
Pacific Strategies and Assessments: The Myth of 'No Negotiations'

The Air Force and Navy have deployed helicopters to assist soldiers on the ground on an operation against the Abu Sayyaf, the Western Mindanao Command said. File photo

And that attempted rescue is now been carried forward, part of the Philippine military's offensive against Abu Sayyif the fanatical Islamist group in the Philippines that has for decades confronted the government of the Philippines and carried out forays attacking military bases, abducting Filipino citizens and foreigners for profit through offering their release on payment of ransom. In some instances, killing those whom they take  hostage, in the time-honoured manner of how Islam treats its enemies; beheadings.

'No negotiations' with terrorist groups extorting vast sums of money from governments for the release of their captured nationals is indeed a ruse practised by governments claiming to be immune from the kind of criminality that demands payment to support their terrorist agenda. But there are negotiations going forward in just about every instance, some using foreign intermediaries through whom money is funnelled, and others quasi-governmental appointees to act in lieu of government.

No Western government feels comfortable seeing its citizens become victims of barbaric slaughter; it does not play well in the larger community which feels that government has an obligation to protect and come to the rescue of its citizens. The cynical ploys used by government heads to baldly state that their governments will not engage in supplying terrorists with the wherewithal to continue their exploits convinces no one, least of all the very terrorists who receive the funding and release their captives.

And although many intelligence groups and personalities scoff at the links between militant Islam and Abu Sayyif, a group they claim has limited knowledge and vision of Islam, but is criminally motivated through self-interest, claiming affiliation with and allegiance to Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ISIL itself is delighted to take credit for inspiring the action of a far-off link to their caliphate, spreading the divine word of Islamic conquest.

Apologists in the West who 'understand' the motivation of young Muslim men to lend themselves to jihad, claiming that poverty and lack of education move them toward enlisting in a group whose modus operandi is to stifle any possible vestiges of humanity in their recruits, in the greater interests of instilling terror in non-Muslims to enable their marauding conquests with their targets shrinking in fear from their formidable reputation for savagery, overlook that just as many jihadists are well educated and from well-off backgrounds.

A reputation for ruthless terrorism works to instill fear in the West, and in the East as well. It worked for ISIL when facing and challenging their sectarian counterparts in the Iraqi military who broke ranks to shirk from confronting Islamic State in Mosul and elsewhere. The Philippines' brand of jihadism is comprised of a relatively limited number of dedicated fighters. The military is in possession of weapons of modern warfare, including helicopters, artillery and gunships that can be deployed for the use of their thousands of soldiers.

The weapon that the Muslim insurgents finds most useful is the dense jungle they find haven in, and the Muslim-majority population among whom they mingle who will not betray their presence and from among whom they are able to operate to advantage. The advantages of surprise and of savage intent are also invaluable assets to guerrilla groups like jihadists. When state militias meet non-state fighting groups like jihadis and they use the same brutal tactics, they are condemned by civilized rules of conflict.

The simple fact is an abhorrent menace to civilization must be eradicated. And to do that is to deploy all means to take the advantage of numbers, and when conflict ensues the rule of law sometimes fades because those meeting in combat with ruthless killers who believe that their religion has given them full consent to destroy what they believe is an offence to Islam, have little choice but to respond in kind to be fully effective. Descending, in other words, almost but not quite to the level of brutality employed by jihadis.

Handout    A poster showing Rudullan Sahiron, a senior leader of the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group responsible for the murder of Canadian hostage John Ridsdel in the Philippines.

Egypt's Arab Winter

"Salopek was executed because of Croatia's participation in the war against ISIS [after] the expiry of the 48-hour deadline, which was granted to the Egyptian government to release prisoners."
Islamic State Twitter page

Hostage: Last week a video was shared through ISIS sympathisers, showing Mr Salopek wearing a yellow jumpsuit and kneeling before a knife-wielding masked man wearing military fatigues 

Leaving Cairo in the early morning hours of July 22, 31-year-old Croatian national Tomislav Salopek, an oil and gas sector surveyor working for CGG Ardiseis of France, was abducted by Islamic State jihadists of the Sinai.

President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has dedicated Egypt's military and police to routing the Salafist Bedouin, Hamas militias, al-Qaeda-linked militias, and the militias now swearing allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Sinai. The peninsula has become completely lawless, after the removal of Mohammad Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood from Egypt's presidency.

And President el-Sissi -- in his role as Egypt's top general at the time the Morsi presidency was toppled in response to popular Egyptian rejection of his administration -- was wholly instrumental in his removal. He had warned Morsi that his Islamist agenda was in danger of splitting the country and destroying its economy.

Now that Mohammad Morsi has been sentenced by Egypt's high court to death, along with other key members of the Brotherhood, the country is split and the economy crumbling. All thanks, in great part, to the ongoing influence of the Muslim Brotherhood. That would be the same Brotherhood that was fulsomely welcomed at the White House in Washington, and still is, as the representative of Egyptian weal.

The Brotherhood has been completely involved and instrumental in the ongoing violence in the Sinai, with deadly attacks against Egyptian police and military. With the abduction of a foreign worker and his beheading in the Sinai, the situation is taken to a whole new level. Now, the economy of Egypt, despite generous assistance from Saudi Arabia, teeters on the brink of foreign investors leaving, and Egypt left to its own inadequate financial devices.

The unsettling rise in crime throughout the country, along with Islamist violence and threats of more looming on the  horizon as the Middle East implodes under the ISIL caliphate, has impacted Egypt's once-lucrative tourism industry which provided employment for a good many Egyptians. Manufacturing investment in the country will remain in the decline as long as uncertainty remains.

Cairo was given an ultimatum: release of female Islamists from prison, or the abducted Tomislav Salopek would be a dead man. And now he is, beheaded with the kind of sadistic relish that Islamic State has made itself infamous for. Expatriate workers in Egypt representing foreign companies will now not be excessively eager to remain in the country; if they cannot be safe in Cairo, where in the country can they be?

Croatia has now been warned that their support for Egypt in its conflict with terrorism and its backing of the Kurds fighting ISIL in Syria and Iraq has its consequences. The Sunni-authoritative, Cairo-based Al-Azhar institute has named the killing a "demonic act of which all religions and human traditions are innocent".

Not, under the circumstances, compelling or reassuring.

The Cradle of Civilization

"ISIS is imposing a curfew and searching for any elements related to the regime."
"They executed nine people from two families after accusing them of being spies for the regime."
Abu Leith al-Shaer, Palmyra refugee

"We have to act because there is a threat against these monuments which are part of humankind's inheritance and at the same time we must act against Daesh [Islamic State]."
"It is really upsetting when a site of such riches, which belongs to all of humanity, falls into the hands of a terrorist group."
French President Francois Hollande

"If they are not willing to fight for the security of their country, we cannot do that for them."
"No, I don't think we're losing. [The U.S. would have] to ramp up not just training, but also commitment [but not] repeat the mistakes of the past [and send in American troops]."
U.S. President Barack Obama

"It [Palmyra] is the birthplace of human civilization. It belongs to the whole of humanity and I think everyone today should be worried about what is happening."
Irina Bokova, director-general, UNESCO

Roman-era ruins in Palmyra -- CNN

Sunni Syrians in their millions-strong who have fled their country for the very real fear of being kidnapped, arrested, tortured, raped, killed by their very own government might feel bitter at the resolve expressed by France's president to rescue heritage antiquities, however priceless and irreplaceable, while there was no international concerted effort to rescue them or their country from the horrors that have since occurred with the civil war leading to a total breakdown of civilization.

So there is great irony in claiming Palmyra to represent the 'birthplace of human civilization', in view of the fact that the Islamist jihadi militias that have now entered the city and dispersed some 50,000 Sunni Syrians from their homes, making of them hapless migrants, killing some among them and threatening to destroy the world heritage site in an expression of pure, unadulterated civilizational dysfunction.

Islamic State represents a pathologically failed human condition from which all human compassion has been drained.

President Obama has responded to calls from Republicans in the U.S. government to send in American troops to face ISIS directly, by a sound rejection, insisting the loss on the weekend of Ramadi represented nothing more than a "tactical setback", irrespective of the tens of thousands of newly-made refugees trudging their way to Baghdad, which has agreed to permit them to enter the city confines, even though the government fears that among them may be some ISIS jihadis.

In line with President Obama's insistence on continuing to 'ramp up' training and commitment, the Pentagon has stated that two thousand anti-tank missiles for defence against ISIL's huge suicide car bombs will represent all the weapons aid scheduled for delivery for the time being. Once again Mr. Obama stressed that the Iraqis themselves had to combat and defeat the Islamic State terrorists, however long it would take.

A senior U.S. State Department briefing by a senior official stated ISIS represents a more 'accomplished' group than al-Qaeda in Iraq. "ISIS as an organization is better in every respect than its predecessor of AQI", he stated unequivocally, but rather opaquely. "Better?" A more heinous modus operandi? As it was, al-Qaeda in Iraq had earned the censure of senior operatives of al-Qaeda, for its brutality that even they abhorred.

Or do they venture to mean that they are more effective strategically in their combat roles than their predecessors? Whatever the analysis, the capture of Palmyra represents a "setback" for the U.S.-led coalition. As for Palmyra, it is being cleansed by Islamic State jihadists, busy going door to door in search of "regime collaborators"; those they have found have been beheaded and left in the street to warn others what lies in store.

The Crac des Chevaliers, Crusader Castle in Syria, CNN

Adept, Audacious Terrorism

"O Kuffar in America, O You who worship the cross, O You crusaders that fight the Islamic State, we say to you: DIE IN YOUR RAGE!"
Islamic State Hacking Division

"We have made it easy for you by giving you addresses, all you need to do is take the final step, so what are you waiting for?"
"Kill them in their own lands, behead them in their own homes, stab them to death as they walk their streets thinking that they are safe."
Islamic State

AFP/Getty Images   A group claiming to be affiliated with ISIS released a "hit list" of U.S. military personnel, including names and addresses over the weekend. The Pentagon has reached out to the families.

To some their overwrought colourful messages of revenge against the Infidel aggressors who malign Islam should be shrugged off as flamboyant ramblings of religious cranks. If it were not for their reviled and fear-inspiring actions. To their followers they represent the invitation to work up the inner courage to act on behalf of Islam, to prove their faith, to dedicate themselves to the jihad that demands the ultimate sacrifice that they should be more than willing to meet in martyrdom.

And this is precisely what led two Canadian converts to Islam to act in October of 2014, representing two successes that Islamic State is proud to claim as their very own. When two Canadian military men were killed as acts of jihadist revenge against a country which has committed itself to becoming involved in an international military campaign resolved to weaken ISIL and eventually entirely degrade both its message and its success on the battlefield in its expanding caliphate.

These so-called 'lone-wolf' attacks are the medium now by which the most ferocious Islamist groups feel they can appeal to foreign Islamists, to act as urban Islamist guerrillas in attacking the symbols of their countries' militaries. Sending the message that what they commit to abroad will come home to haunt them in the stalking death of members of their military in the very places where they feel they are most protected. It is why the Canadian military command reacted by advising their members to avoid wearing their uniforms in public.

Now the Islamic State is exulting in its latest coup, the publicaiton of names, addresses and personal information of one hundred American members of the U.S. military. With instructions to the faithful to emulate the attacks in Canada, in Australia and in Britain against defenceless citizens and members of the military alike. When earlier this year hackers identifying as the CyberCaliphate took control of the U.S. Central Command Twitter account posting jihadist images and threatening personnel, it was shrugged off as a cyber feat of little importance.

There is "a pretty significant difference between a large data breach and the hacking of a Twitter account", scoffed a White House spkesperson at the time. Although one mightn't think so, given that the breach represented the account of the U.S. Central Command, after all; hugely significant and highly concerning. But a matter to be downplayed, needless to say, to ensure that there would be no panic expressed by the public that what might be considered the most secure sites are not necessarily so.

Now, Islamic State hackers claim to have cyber-raided the secure files of the U.S. military itself to enable them to publish names, photographs, personal information and addresses from government computers. The propaganda value of this latest episode in the annals of Islamic State public relations and recruitment cannot be overstated. This, on top of its videos of beheadings, mass slaughter, immolation, and its formidable reputation for exulting in the worst kinds of human rights abuses legitimately adds to its reputation as a force representing horrendously primitive sadism.

Serious Public Dangers

"Who knows how to hurt these people the most? You or me?"
"These people [Canadians], they only understand the language of two things. Death and money ... That's it. You hurt them ... you hit them where it really hurts. You take their lives, you take their wealth ... You do these two, they will go crazy."
"[Killing] 50 people on a train [not even] a thousand people ... is it really a big deal to them? No. They [Islamist jihadis] killed how many in 9/ll?"
"They [Canadians] don't give, they don't give a damn, they don't, they didn't even blink. They have no problem, sheep."
"That wasn't a rumour, that actually happened [that Jews in the Twin Towers took the day off on 9/11]."
"[To make their effort count they would have to kill] the expensive Jew, the rich Jew, the Jew that is ... Zionist. Those guys are here. [The ] richest Jews ... in the whole planet [live in Toronto]. And when you take out, when you take 50 of them out, what happens? You will drive them crazy ... you think it's harder to shoot someone in the head? Or to derail a train?"
Raed Jaser, convicted terrorist

Raed Jaser and Chiheb Esseghaier, two men accused of plotting to derail a Via passenger train travelling between Canada and the U.S., have been found guilty on eight of nine terror-related charges. CBC News

Nothing but hate-infused contempt for Canadians, but for Jews in very particular. Raed Jaser felt compelled to involve himself in a terrorist scheme, as long as he would come out of it intact. He wasn't one of those martyrdom-obsessed jihadis, who felt a driving obligation to Islam and to their place in Paradise to sacrifice themselves for the greater cause, but he was prepared to make an effort. And his motivating drive was not merely to advance the cause of Islam but to line his pockets also.

He and Chiheb Esseghaier, a Tunisian who arrived in Canada on a student visa to work on his bioengineering doctorate in Montreal both felt they owed no humanitarian regard to Canada or the people who live there. Of Palestinian descent by way of the United Arab Emirates, Raed Jaser came to Canada with his family in 1993. A petty crook, his criminal background kept him from achieving Canadian citizenship. On the other hand, he couldn't be deported and is a permanent resident.

Raed Jaser felt his friend's scheme represented too much effort for too little payback, and preferred to pursue other schemes, using a sharpshooter to pick off wealthy Jews in as many numbers as possible. Chiheb Esseghaier, having pledged his allegiance to the 'Brothers' back in Iran, went for the original plot he had hatched, to drill a hole in a railway bridge overpass to derail a passenger train en route from New York to Toronto.

After they were questioned briefly by police, who had detained them to ask what they were doing walking about on the bridge (to scope it out for their potential attack), while in the presence of an undercover FBI officer, Raed Jaser wanted no further part of the scheme, while Chiheb Esseghaier continued to be committed to it. They were arrested in April 2013. And almost two full years later, a three-week trial and a ten-day jury deliberation found both guilty of conspiracy to commit a terrorist act.

Canada will not be endeared to their opinion any more graciously nor deeply when they are sentenced on April 10th, to a prison stay. But they will find comfort in their new opportunities to spread their venomous Islamist ideology of violent jihad in a system that appears to be infused with Islamist jihadist sympathizers prepared to join their crusade for Islamist justice and a conquering caliphate.

When Saudi-backed Terrorists Come Home to Roost by Raymond Ibrahim PJ Media February 16, 2015 Originally published under the title, "Secure the Border! Saudi Arabia Building 600-Mile 'Great Wall' to Keep Out ISIS." Saudi Arabia began building a wall along its border with Iraq in September to prevent Islamic State fighters from infiltrating the kingdom. In a move reminiscent of ancient history, Saudi Arabia is building a 600-mile-long "Great Wall"—a combined fence and ditch—to separate itself from the Islamic State to the north in Iraq. The irony here is that those Muslims that Saudi Arabia is trying to keep out are the very same Muslims most nurtured and influenced by a Saudi — or "Wahhabi," or "Salafi" — worldview. Put differently, Saudi Arabia is again appreciating how jihad is a volatile instrument of war that can easily backfire on those who support it. "Holy war" is hardly limited to fighting and subjugating "infidels" — whether the West in general, Israel in particular, or the millions of non-Muslim minorities under Islam — but also justifies fighting "apostates," that is, Muslims accused of not being Islamic enough. Indeed, the first grand jihad was against Muslim "apostates" — the Ridda ["apostasy"] Wars. After Muhammad died in 632, many Arab tribes were willing to remain Muslim but without paying zakat ("charity" or extortion) money to the first caliph, Abu Bakr. That was enough to declare jihad on them as apostates; tens of thousands of Arabs were burned, beheaded, dismembered, or crucified, according to Islamic history. Accordingly, the Islamic State justifies burning people alive, such as the Jordanian pilot, precisely because the first caliph and his Muslim lieutenants burned apostates alive, and is even on record saying that "false Muslims" are its first target, then Israel. Saudi Arabia is the chief disseminator of the Salafi ideology most associated with jihad. This is the problem all Muslim nations and rulers risk: no one — not even Sharia-advocating Islamist leaders — are immune to the all-accusing sword tip of the jihad. If non-Muslims are, as "infidels," de facto enemies, any Muslim can be accused of "apostasy," instantly becoming an enemy of Allah and his prophet. A saying attributed to the Muslim prophet Muhammad validates this perspective: "This umma [Islamic nation] of mine will split into seventy-three sects; one will be in paradise and seventy-two will be in hell." When asked which sect was the true one, the prophet replied, "al-jama'a," that is, the group which most literally follows the example or "sunna" of Muhammad. This saying perfectly sums up the history of Islam: to be deemed legitimate, authorities must uphold the teachings of Islam — including jihad; but it is never long before another claimant accuses existing leadership of not being "Islamic enough." Enter the Saudi/Islamic State relationship. Initially, the Arabian kingdom (or powerful individuals within it) was a supporter of the Islamic State. It was not long, however, before IS made clear that Saudi Arabia was one of its primary targets, calling on its allies and supporters in the kingdom to kill and drive out the Saud tribe. The funeral for Saudi border guards killed last month in an Islamic State attack Nor is this the first time the Saudis see those whom they nurtured — ideologically and logistically — turn on them. Back in the 1980s, the Saudis were chief supporters of the jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan. But once the "distant" infidel was subdued, al-Qaeda and its Saudi-born leader Osama bin Laden came home to roost, doing the inevitable: pointing the accusatory finger at the Saudi monarchy for not being Islamic enough, including for its reliance on the great American infidel during the First Gulf War. Moreover, Saudi Arabia is not only a chief disseminator and supporter of the Salafi ideology most associated with jihad, but the Arabian kingdom itself was forged in large measure by articulating and calling for holy war in the 19th and 20th centuries, including against Turks and fellow Arab tribes (both Muslim). The Saudi argument then was the very same argument being made by the Islamic State now — that the rulers of Islam's holiest mosques in Mecca and Medina (then, the Ottoman Turks) were not "Islamic" enough. Such is the double-edged sword of jihad. All Islamic governments, regimes, and kingdoms must always try to direct this potent instrument of war against enemies or neutral targets — preferably ones far away from their borders (Afghanistan, America, etc.). For they know that the longer the jihad waxes in strength and goes uncontained, the more it becomes like an all-consuming fire indiscriminately scorching all in its path. This also explains why Saudi Arabia is a chief funder and supporter of external jihads: better to send its own zealots out of its borders to fight distant infidels than have them stick around (a "better them than me" mentality). It also explains why nations like Saudi Arabia, which were forged by the jihad, continually find themselves threatened by the jihad — or, to paraphrase a young Jewish rabbi: "Those who live by the sword will die by the sword." Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and a Judith Friedman Rosen Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum. He is the author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians (2013) and The Al Qaeda Reader (2007). Related Topics:  History, Mecca and Medina, Radical Islam, Saudi Arabia  |  Raymond Ibrahim

The Martyrdom Complex

"We are heartbroken to share that we've received confirmation that Kayla Jean Mueller has lost her life."
"We are so proud of the person Kayla was and the work that she did while she was here with us. She lived with purpose."
Carl and Marsha Mueller,  Arizona, United States

"Everyone, if you are receiving this letter it means I am still detained but my cellmates ... have been released."
"Please know that I am in a safe location, completely unharmed + healthy (put on weight in fact); I have been treated w/utmost respect + kindness."
Kayla Mueller, American aid worker

 Kayla Mueller (Family photo)

Kayla Mueller, as the saying goes, died doing what she loved best; proffering kindness and assistance to those whom she viewed as being in dire need of both. Perhaps the conviction of her compassion extended also to those who held her hostage in reflection of Christ's plea to his father that his transgressors should be forgiven because "they know not what they do". She found it within herself to speak kindly of her vicious wardens, bypassing their commission of atrocities. Those who slaughtered thousands of innocents had "treated her with respect".

Her parents profess to pride in their daughter's determination to bring comfort to the afflicted.

Kayla Mueller perhaps can be said to have developed such a deep well of compassion for other human beings whose fortunes in life have been existentially dismal that she sought to sacrifice her own well-being -- or thought little of her own well-being in responding to their plight - on their behalf. Her instinct to comfort and bring hope and whatever small modicum of aid to those who are victims of oppression, violence, and war whom others prey upon for their own implacable ends, led her to expose herself to danger.

In Islam, jihad, a fixed idealistic personal responsibility of the faithful, celebrates martyrdom as the ultimate sacrifice a pious, or obsessively fixated Islamist is eager to offer to prove his/her complete surrender. That martyrdom comes complete with the intention  of forcing martyrdom on others to complete the goal. This religion that seeks to spread itself like night falling upon day when the source of light is removed, uses faith and psychopathy to obliterate reason, where the passion of fulfilling one's obligation to a proselytizing, conquest-driven ideology overrides the very concept of human rights as a travesty imposed upon theocracy by the blighted 'enlightenment' of the West.

But one needn't be a psychopath to embroil oneself wholeheartedly in that martyrdom complex. Those who die in defiance of Islamist fascism, do so as martyrs to the obligation placed upon humankind as thinking, reasoning creatures, spurning a religion which is divided within itself by its precepts expressed in its sacred writings. Where on the one hand, followers are urged to regard Islam as the ultimate religion of peace, where a single death is to be regarded as a blow to all of humankind. And on the other hand, urges the killing of those who spurn Islam for another religion.

Islamism, Muslims from all points of the geographic compass who express their firm belief that Islam must reflect its founding values, find inspiration in the examples to be found in the Koran of reasons to slaughter non-Muslims, and to consider Jews their mortal enemies. Beheadings, crucifixions, immolation, are hardly forbidden after all, in Sunni Arab countries of the Middle East, and in Shiite Iran the punishment of death is meted out to apostates, to dissenters and those who oppose totalitarian regimes by methods familiar to the Koranic scriptures.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Al Sham who held  the daughter of Carl and Marsha Mueller their prisoner made the gesture of providing to them a last look at their daughter. Not quite hale and hearty as proof of their kindness to her, however. Three photographs of her face; two of their daughter in a black Muslim head coverage complete with visible facial contusions. The third photograph wrapped in a white burial shroud. Kayla, in whose given name those of her parents were meshed, no doubt meant the world to her parents. Their grief will be unassuageable.

They express pride in her commitment to humanitarian aid to others.

Given the circumstances in which Kayla Mueller delivered her compassionate aid to refugees in their desperate to survive against all odds, in a geography where life is casually and brutally taken, she cannot have been totally unaware of the danger she placed herself in by exposing herself as a figure of mercy in an atmosphere and a landscape where mercy is an unacknowledged quality, and the appearance of Westerners a goad to Islamist rage.

Kayla Mueller was then, a martyr to her belief in the common humanity of all of us. She set aside her own fears, if she had any, for the greater burden of presenting herself as a beacon of light in a landscape of darkness. The light was destined to be dimmed by the greater power of the hatred that people steeped in an ancient liturgy of searing hatred and blame preparing the faithful to separate themselves from those damned by their unwillingness to surrender to a religion that urges peace and conflict in the same breath.

Peace is found in death, the death that the faithful of fanatical Islam are all too ready to deliver.