MUSLIM
YOUTH HATE!
Nablus residents worried about minors joining clashes with IDF
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
Published: DECEMBER 17, 2022
Jerusalem Post
Some
Palestinians in Nablus have expressed concern over the recruitment of
minors by armed groups in the city and the nearby Balata Refugee Camp.
Some
of them have been tasked by the Lions’ Den and Balata Battalion with
preparing explosive devices that are being used against soldiers,
Palestinian sources said. Others have been armed with rifles.
The recruitment of minors by Palestinian armed groups is not a new phenomenon, but has been ongoing for decades.
In
recent weeks, however, some Nablus residents have criticized the armed
groups for allowing boys aged 15-17 to take part in clashes with the
IDF. The residents also attacked the groups for using the boys to
prepare explosive devices and monitor the movements of IDF troops.
“This
is very bad and worrying,” said a prominent businessman from Nablus. “I
appeal to the armed groups to stop using children.”
A
school headmaster from the city said he received complaints from many
parents about the “exploitation” of their children by the armed groups.
“We are working closely with the families and the Palestinian security
services to solve this problem,” he said. “We don’t want to endanger
the lives of our children.”
Nasser wants to be a martyr
A 15-year-old boy, who identified himself as Nasser, told The Jerusalem
Post that he “works for” the Balata Battalion, which consists of dozens
of gunmen from the refugee camp.
Interviewed
in the Old City of Nablus last week, Nasser said he and one of his
friends, 16-year-old Mohammed, were involved in preparing improvised
explosive devices for the group.
He said he and other children have quit school to join the Balata Battalion.
“My
role model is Ibrahim al-Nabulsi,” Nasser said, referring to the gunman
killed by the IDF in the Old City of Nablus last August. “I want to be
a martyr like Ibrahim.”
According to Nasser, his father is aware of his activities on behalf of the battalion.
“I
told my father, ‘You love me and want me to be with you, but God also
loves me and wants me to be with Him. I have chosen to be with God.’”
Nasser
said he and his friends have lost confidence in the Palestinian
Authority. “Our leader is [Hamas military commander] Mohammed Deif,” he
said. “He represents us and the Palestinian resistance.”
Although
he lives in Balata Refugee Camp, Nasser visits the site where Nabulsi
was killed in the Old City of Nablus almost every day. When he returns
to the camp, he joins other teenagers in preparing explosive devices.
Mahdi Hashash killed by bomb he was carrying
Last month, Mahdi Hashash, 15, was killed when an explosive device he was carrying exploded.
The
incident took place during clashes between gunmen and IDF soldiers
accompanying Jewish worshippers to Joseph’s Tomb near the Balata camp.
The
Balata Battalion later endorsed Hashash as one of its “martyrs.” The
group, however, did not publicly admit that Hashash, nicknamed
Shaimoun, was carrying an explosive device.
Hashash’s
friends told the Post that, like many teenagers, one of his missions
was also to monitor the movements of the IDF when they enter Nablus.
After his death, the Balata Battalion praised Hashash as a “hero” describing him as a “Lion of the Battalion.”
Waseem Khalfeh killed in clashes with IDF
Last
August, 18-year-old Waseem Khalifeh, also of Balata Refugee Camp, was
killed by the IDF while fighting alongside Balata Battalion gunmen. A
year earlier, he was shot and seriously injured by the IDF during armed
clashes in the camp.
Sources in the camp confirmed that Khalifeh had joined the Balata Battalion at the age of 16.
Ahmed Shehadeh, also 16, was killed during armed clashes with the IDF in Nablus in late November.
A
resident of the Old City, he was a close friend of Hashash. Days before
he was killed, Shehadeh posted a video of himself standing next to his
friend’s grave.
A
leaflet issued by the ruling Fatah faction in Nablus mourned Shehadeh
as a “martyr,” describing him as the “boy of rocks,” a reference to his
involvement in throwing rocks at IDF soldiers. Some residents claimed
that he had been recruited by the Lions’ Den.
A
23-year-old gunman from the Old City of Nablus told the Post that there
was full cooperation between the various armed groups in the Nablus
area, including the Lions’ Den and Balata Battalion.
The
gunman confirmed that the groups have been recruiting teenagers. “Many
young people want to join the resistance,” he said. “Anyone who has the
ability to carry a rifle is welcome.”
Wanted by both Israel and the Palestinian security forces, he said the armed groups in the Nablus area were now more cautious.
“We
believe that Israel and the Palestinian Authority have infiltrated the
armed groups,” he said. “There are many spies here and we have learned
from the mistakes of the past.”
Boko Haram Recruiting Children as Soldiers,
Suicide Bombers
Voice of
America
By Sirwan Kajjo, Hassan Maina Kaina
September 04,
2020 04:48 PM
ABUJA/WASHINGTON
- The militant group Boko Haram continues to recruit children and use them in battlefields
across Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Chad, officials and experts say.
While it has
suffered major military losses in the Lake Chad Basin, the extremist group
seems to be adopting new strategies to revive its influence in the region,
according to the experts.
Officials with
the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF), a regional military alliance
fighting the Boko Haram insurgency, say one strategy of the group is to step up
child recruitment.
"Information
on this disturbing development was brought in by human intelligence sources and
corroborated by concerned individuals and groups," said Colonel Timothy Antiga, a spokesman for the MNJTF.
"Boko
Haram terrorists themselves further confirmed the atrocious acts when they
posted pictures of children dressed in military fatigues and holding assault
rifles in a video released during a celebration of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha," he told VOA in a recent interview.
The Nigerian
military official added that the recruitment of child soldiers "is the
latest in a retinue of brutal and inhuman tactics deployed by Boko Haram"
since it began its insurgency a decade ago. Boko Haram has been fighting to
create an Islamic caliphate based in Nigeria.
Long-standing
practice
Boko Haram has
long engaged in mass abduction of schoolgirls, sexual enslavement of women and
the mass murder of innocent civilians, officials and rights groups say.
In July, the
United Nations Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict presented
a report to the U.N. Security Council in which it described "gruesome
violations against children" in Nigeria's northeast, Boko Haram's main
stronghold, and other countries where the militant group has an active
presence.
"The
children of Nigeria and neighboring countries continued to endure horrendous
violations by Boko Haram, and the expansion of the group's activities across
the Lake Chad Basin region is a serious concern for the
secretary-general," said Virginia Gamba, the
special representative of the secretary-general for children and armed
conflict.
According to
the report, which documented violations between January 2017 and December 2019,
the recruitment and use of children accounted for the greatest number of
verified violations, with a total of 3,601 boys and girls affected.
Boko Haram was
responsible for the recruitment and use of 1,385 children, mainly through
abduction, used in direct combat and other support roles, including as sexual
slaves, the report said.
In 2014, Boko
Haram militants kidnapped 276 female students from their school in the Borno state town of Chibok.
The
kidnappings gained international attention when many world leaders campaigned
for the release of the schoolgirls. Some of the girls escaped or were rescued
by Nigerian military forces. Currently, the militants are believed to be
holding about 112 of the girls.
New York-based
Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently said Boko Haram militants used child suicide
bombers in an early August attack on a site for displaced people in northern
Cameroon, killing at least 17 civilians, including five children and six women.
"Using
apparent children as suicide bombers to attack displaced people is a grossly
repugnant war crime," Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior
Africa researcher at HRW, said in a statement.
Exploiting
victims of conflict
John Campbell,
a senior fellow for Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations
in Washington, says while Boko Haram has been using children between the ages
of 5 and 8, the militant group has also relied on older children whose families
have been killed during the conflict.
"The
small children are being used as suicide bombers and having absolutely no idea
whatsoever what is going on," he told VOA, "but if you take older
children, 13, 14 and 15 years old, particularly girls, as far as we can tell
they are very often orphans."
"They are
very often promised immediate entrance into heaven as martyrs, and their
position in this earthly life is pretty terrible," he added.
Campbell, who
is a former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria, said, "We have to consider that in
some cases what they're doing may be voluntary."
"Talking
about older and female suicide bombers, there is also the question of the
extent to which they are trying to avenge family members, spouses and so forth
that have been killed by security services," he said.
Terrorism
expert Mohammed Tukur Baba, who teaches at the Federal University of Birnin Kebbi in Nigeria, says while the use of child
soldiers is nothing new in Africa, regional governments should increase their
efforts to create better lives for children, in order to dissuade them from
joining armed groups.
Tukur Baba
added that such efforts "have to be regional so that we get these children
out of the street and on to schools and meaningful activities."
Palestinian Kids at EU-Funded Festival:
“Jihad is Needed, Pull the Trigger”
by TheTower.org Staff
02.23.17
The winning performance at a recent Palestinian youth dancing competition in
Nablus called for violence against Israel and featured the lyrics “jihad is
needed, pull the trigger,” the watchdog organization Palestinian Media Watch
reported Monday.
The event took place at the Yafa Cultural Center, which is funded by Germany,
Norway, and the European Union itself. The winning dance was performed by
14-year-old Ru’a Ahmed Sa’id
Hamdan to the song “Pull the Trigger,” which was previously broadcast on a
Palestinian Authority television channel in 2010.
The song includes the lyrics:
We replaced bracelets with weapons
We attacked the despicable [Zionists]
We do not want [internal] strife or disputes
While this invading enemy is on the
battlefield
This is the day that Jihad is needed
Pull the trigger.
We shall redeem Jerusalem, Nablus and the country.
Hamdan and the competition’s top two
runners-up received trophies bearing a map of “Palestine” that encompassed the
entirety of Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Incitement to violence against Israel is a
recurring theme in music promoted by the Palestinian Authority. During the
ruling Fatah party’s conference late last year, an official PA television
channel repeatedly played a song calling “to free the state from the hands of
the Zionists” and to “slice open the enemy’s chest, slice it.”
The New York Times reported in October
2015—at the start of the so-called “knife intifada”—that violent, “nationalistic”
tracks were dominating Palestinian airwaves, with one young listener saying the
tunes make him “boil inside” and prepare him to throw stones at Israeli
soldiers. The songs feature lyrics such as “stab the Zionist and say God is
great” and “say hello to being a martyr,” and their accompanying videos often
contain graphic imagery.
Music from the Gaza Strip, which is ruled by
the terrorist group Hamas, similarly incites its audience to violence against
Israel. A Gaza-based Palestinian band released a music video in December
telling Jews to flee before the Palestinians “burn down” Tel Aviv, “or else
your body parts will be collected and you will go to Hell to be roasted in its
fire.” Earlier this month, Hamas released a video filled with stereotypical
anti-Semitic images that warned, “Zionist, a rocket will get you where you
live.”
Israeli officials have accused Palestinian
incitement, both by leading officials and on social media, of fueling terrorist
attacks. The aunt of an Arab teenager who stabbed an Israeli security guard
last year said the girl may have been influenced by online videos encouraging
attacks. The Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, attributed a stabbing
attack in which an Israeli mother of six was killed by a Palestinian teenager
in January 2016 to similar incitement. “On the day of the murder, while under
the influence of the programs he had been exposed to on Palestinian television,
the minor decided to commit a stabbing attack with the goal of murdering a
Jew,” the agency said in a statement.
Europe's Boys
of Jihad
LA Times, April 02, 2005
By Sebastian
Rotella, Times Staff Writer
PARIS - The case file of the French homeboys who joined the Iraqi jihad
contains a startling photo.
It's the mug shot of Salah, the alleged point man in Damascus, Syria, who
authorities say arranged for guns and safe passage into Iraq for extremists
from Paris. Salah has a serious expression beneath a short Afro-style haircut.
He looks as if he's posing, reluctantly, for a middle school yearbook.
When Salah left for Damascus with the jihadis last summer, he was 13 years old.
"He's just a little kid!" exclaimed Ousman Siddibe, a leader of Good Boys of Africa, an African-French
community association in Paris' Riquet neighborhood.
"We have some husky guys around here, but he's not one of them. And he's
got an innocent face."
Salah, the son of African immigrants, remains a fugitive two months after
police here broke up the alleged terrorist cell. His odyssey is a drastic
example of a trend, investigators say: Not only are Islamic extremists in
Western Europe radicalizing faster, they are also younger than ever.
"The trajectory is changing," said Marc Sageman, a forensic
psychiatrist at the University of Pennsylvania and a former CIA officer.
"Extremism is now appealing to younger and younger people."
Before the Sept. 11 attacks, the thousands of militants from around the world
who flocked to Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, and to the wars in Chechnya and
Bosnia-Herzegovina, were mostly in their 20s and 30s. In his book profiling 172
jihadis of that era, "Understanding Terror Networks," Sageman found a
median age of 26, as "most people joined the jihad well past
adolescence."
In the aftermath of Sept. 11 and the Iraq war, however, the process of
radicalization has spread and speeded up. At an age when angry teens in Los
Angeles drift into street gangs, some of their peers in Europe plunge into
global networks that send them to train, fight and die in far-off lands.
"Iraq is the motor," said a senior French anti-terrorism official,
who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons. "It's making them all
go crazy, want to be shaheed [martyrs]. The danger of suicide attacks in Europe
and the United States increases as you have younger guys who are fervent and
easily manipulated."
Along with longtime resentment and alienation experienced by some in immigrant
communities, technology such as computers and Arabic-language satellite TV plays a major role in molding militants earlier, European officials
say. Internet sites and chat rooms have become a virtual sanctuary, widening
access to propaganda and training materials for an emerging "second
generation" of extremists.
"This generation of young kids are far more Internet-focused than guys who
are only 10 years older," Sageman said.
Last year, a group of young Internet enthusiasts was charged with unleashing
terrorism in the Netherlands: the killing of filmmaker Theo van Gogh and a plot
to assassinate politicians. Police captured Jason Walters, 19, in a raid that
left him and three officers wounded. His 17-year-old brother was also jailed.
Walters' Internet chats reveal a casual, adolescent cold-bloodedness, according
to excerpts published in the Dutch media. A spokesman for the AIVD intelligence
service, the leading Dutch anti-terrorism agency, confirmed that the
transcripts were authentic.
In an Internet conversation on Sept. 28, 2003, Walters joked about beheading
the Dutch prime minister and bragged about a monthlong training session at an
Afghan terrorism camp. The son of a Dutch mother and American father said he
had fooled his family into thinking he was in Britain.
He urged his chat partner, "Galas03," to join him on a future trip.
"They will train you how to use guns," Walters wrote, using the name
"Mujaheed." "I can assemble and
dismantle a Kalashnikov blindfolded."
"Is shooting difficult?" Galas03 asked.
"No way, man, it is not that hard," Walters responded. "I even
had to roll over with a pistol and then shoot and that went all right, praise
Allah."
Walters became radicalized at about 16, investigators say. Fellow suspect Samir
Azzouz, 18, was equally precocious. Azzouz was first detained in 2002 in Ukraine en route to joining Muslim combatants in Chechnya, AIVD
spokesman Vincent van Steen said.
Iraq has become the new Chechnya, a promised land of jihad, for many militants
in Europe. The Iraq war played a central role in radicalizing Salah, the
fugitive middle-schooler from Paris, and his homeboys, according to interviews
with investigators, defense lawyers, youth counselors and friends.
Salah's family declined to be interviewed for this article. French authorities
have not made public his last name because of legal restrictions on identifying
minors, particularly criminal suspects.
Salah was born in France to a large family of immigrants from Mali. He grew up
in Riquet, a neighborhood that seems more hopeful and
less grim than the concrete housing projects outside Paris that are bastions of
extremist networks.
The family lives in a ground-floor apartment across the street from the north
bank of the La Villette basin: an urban waterway alive with boats, bridges and
bike paths. Gray-haired Frenchmen play boccie by a tree-lined promenade named
for the actors Yves Montand and Simone Signoret.
Riquet is on the northeastern edge of Paris in the
19th arrondissement, or district, whose population runs the ethnic gamut:
Moroccans, Algerians, Tunisians, Asians, Orthodox Jews, Turks and a large
concentration of immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa.
The area is socioeconomically diverse as well. Crime and low-income housing
abound, but gentrified sections attract the French equivalent of yuppies. Salah
lived near a kosher pizzeria and a cafe/bike shop that offers bicycles and repairs
as well as espresso and hot chocolate.
Salah's Muslim family was attached to its religion and homeland. His older
brothers would go back to Mali for extended stays. Salah was calm and focused
and became very religious about the age of 12.
"After 9 p.m., you'd find him and his crew at the mosques, not on the
street," said Bakary Sakho, 25, a founder of
Good Boys of Africa who knows Salah's family well. "He didn't have trouble
with the police. He was a young, serious Muslim. He did his five prayers a day.
He wore the traditional vestments at the mosque, but around the neighborhood he
wore jeans and basketball shoes like everybody else."
Salah told people he was determined to be an imam, friends and judicial sources
say. When Salah and his longtime neighbor, Chiakhou Diakhabi, decided this year to study at a Koranic school in
Syria, their parents were pleased. Diakhabi, a son of
Senegalese immigrants, found religion after years of scrapes with the police.
Many African and Arab families in Riquet, and
elsewhere in France, see rediscovering Islamic heritage as a calming,
stabilizing experience that keeps kids off the street.
"The parents thought it was a good idea," Sakho said. "Being an
imam, that means discipline. For these families, a Koranic school in Syria was
a big deal - like a university."
The 19-year-old Diakhabi had a strong influence on
Salah. Their fathers are close friends, and the families live in the same
apartment complex.
In France and other European countries, adolescents from Muslim families
increasingly turn to rigorous practice of Islam, often a badge of cultural
identity for second- and third-generation youths from immigrant families who
feel marooned in Western society. Youth counselors and friends didn't think
Salah had become an aggressive extremist.
Nonetheless, it was unusual for the boy to spend so much time with youths in
their late teens and early 20s.
"There are other kids his age who become very religious, boys and
girls," Sakho said. "But not to the point of leaving school and going
to a foreign country."
Salah and Diakhabi became followers of Farid Benyettou, an Algerian-French street preacher. He was a
fixture at the Addawa Mosque on narrow Tanger Street in an area dominated by drab high-rises and
industrial compounds.
A weather-beaten building without a minaret or ornamentation, the mosque is one
of the largest in Paris, attracting as many as 1,500 worshipers on Fridays. Its
leaders have not been linked to the alleged extremists.
In other terrorism cases around Europe, accused ringleaders were in their 30s
or 40s. They were exiled ideologues of the Muslim Brotherhood from Syria or
Egypt, battle-scarred North African veterans of Afghanistan, Bosnia or
Chechnya.
Benyettou was 23 when he was arrested here in
January. His look was more ragged Rasta than mean mujahedin: thick glasses,
unruly long curls spilling out of his turban, high-top gym shoes beneath his
robes. His main street credential was having a brother-in-law who was arrested
for extremist activity here in 1998.
Benyettou allegedly formed an autonomous cell,
bringing together friends from high school and soccer fields. He taught
religion and Arabic at his apartment about five blocks from Salah's middle
school, using the classes to screen and groom about 20 disciples. In 2003, the
group participated in protests against the Iraq war and last year protested a
French law banning Muslim head scarves in public schools.
Their behavior at the antiwar marches drew the interest of the intelligence
division of the national police, whose agents snapped surveillance photos as a
dozen youths knelt behind Benyettou in sidewalk
prayer sessions.
As the group evolved, the youths spurned girlfriends and adopted rigorous
Islamic lifestyles and ideas. Prosecutors allege that the youths discussed
potential violence in France; defense lawyers see little evidence of that. Both
sides agree they were obsessed with Iraq.
"Benyettou would talk to them about Abu Ghraib
[prison], the abuse of Muslims, and say, 'What are you going to do about it?'
" said Dominique Many, a lawyer for a suspected jihadi. "He was like
a little guru who claimed to know the sacred texts. And he convinced them that
the texts said it was their duty to go to Iraq to fight for the cause."
Last spring and summer, at least eight members of the group departed for
Damascus, the Syrian capital. Several enrolled at a Koranic school there.
Syria is popular with young European Muslims hoping to study religion or
Arabic, because it is cheaper to live there than in Egypt or Saudi Arabia.
Syria is also a hub of smugglers and operatives of the Iraq insurgency: a
gateway to jihad. Koranic schools in Damascus have become steppingstones and
cover stories for Iraq-bound militants.
The circumstances of Salah's departure are murky. It's not clear if his
intended destination was Iraq. Investigators and friends say his parents gave
him permission to travel to Damascus and study there. Salah went to Syria in
July with neighbor Mohammed Ayouni, 22, whose
whereabouts are also unknown.
"Somebody had to manipulate Salah, had to influence and help him,"
said Siddibe of Good Boys of Africa, which tries to
steer teenagers away from crime, drugs and extremism. "A little guy like
that is going to be a lot more vulnerable."
There have been reports that Salah tried to enter Iraq and was turned back by
Syrian border authorities. But French law enforcement officials could not
confirm that.
By the time he turned 14 in October, Salah had become streetwise in Damascus,
say police, who describe his role in the cell as handling logistics for jihadis
passing through from Paris.
Some think the authorities have exaggerated Salah's role.
"To call him an intermediary in Syria, and to call this a network, is to
exaggerate what was a crude, improvised group with little structure or
connections," said Vincent Ollivier, a defense
lawyer.
But after French police arrested Thamer Bouchnak, a 22-year-old from Riquet,
in January on the eve of a flight to Syria, he identified Salah as the operative
expected to meet him at the Damascus airport and arrange for lodging, guns and
passage to Iraq. Bouchnak spent three weeks at the
Koranic school last summer and apparently had met Salah there.
"The kid was the one who knew where to find the smugglers to cross them
into Iraq," said Many, Bouchnak's lawyer.
"He was the one who was going to help them buy AK-47s."
Unlike five Dutch suspects in the Van Gogh case who allegedly trained at secret
Pakistani and Afghan camps, the preparation in Paris was minimal: exercise
sessions in the wooded Buttes-Chaumont Park, perfunctory consultation of
weapons manuals.
"No training," said a senior French intelligence official, whose
agency does not permit him to be quoted by name. "These are guys who go to
get themselves blown up. Once they arrive at the destination in Iraq, they are
very quickly prepared because the insurgents need fighters."
The network may have been crude, but several recruits attained their goal. One
19-year-old Riquet homeboy died in a suicide car
bombing in Iraq last summer.
Two others, ages 19 and 24, were killed in combat in the Sunni Triangle west
and north of Baghdad. During the battle to retake Fallouja
in November, U.S. troops captured Diakhabi, Salah's
longtime neighbor, and a 22-year-old from the neighborhood. Another member of
the group is in a Syrian jail.
And Salah? His trail stops at the Koranic school in Damascus. He is wanted in
France on suspicion of involvement in terrorist activity.
The jihadi homeboys have become the talk of the streets here. Not a good sign,
Sakho said, at a time when global conflicts stir youthful imaginations, when
kids grow up faster than ever.
"There are kids in this neighborhood who admire them for making a name for
themselves," he said. "We don't want them to become heroes."
Anger Burns on
the Fringe of Britain's Muslims
By HASSAN M.
FATTAH
July 16, 2005
LEEDS, England, July 15 - At Beeston's Cross
Flats Park, in the center of this now embattled town, Sanjay Dutt and his friends grappled Friday with why their friend Kakey, better known to the world as Shehzad Tanweer, had decided to become a suicide bomber.
"He was sick of it all, all the
injustice and the way the world is going about it," Mr. Dutt, 22, said. "Why, for example, don't they ever
take a moment of silence for all the Iraqi kids who die?"
Note: Muslim suicide bombers are murdering
children in Iraq not Americans.
"It's a double standard, that's
why," answered a friend, who called himself Shahroukh,
also 22, wearing a baseball cap and basketball jersey, sitting nearby. "I
don't approve of what he did, but I understand it. You get driven to something
like this, it doesn't just happen."
Note: Western Muslims are showing empathy to
Muslim murderers.
To the boys from Cross Flats Park, Mr. Tanweer, 22, who blew himself up on a subway train in
London last week, was devout, thoughtful and generous. If they understood his
actions, it was because they lived in Mr. Tanweer's
world, too.
Note: Devout Muslims are suicide bomber
murderers.
They did not agree with what Mr. Tanweer had done, but made clear they shared the same sense
of otherness, the same sense of siege, the same sense that their community, and
Muslims in general, were in their view helpless before the whims of greater
powers. Ultimately, they understood his anger.
Note: Western Muslims are showing empathy to
Muslim murderers.
The news that four British-born Muslim men
from neighborhoods around Leeds were suspected of carrying out the bombings in
London has made the shared dissatisfaction of boys like these and the creeping
militancy of some young British Muslims an urgent issue in Britain.
Note: Steering Muslim youth away from the
Qur’an must be a priority.
The bombers are an exception among Britain's
1.6 million Muslims. But their actions have highlighted a lingering question:
why are second-generation British Muslims who should seemingly be farther up
the road of assimilation rejecting the country in which they were born and
raised?
Speak to young Muslims like Mr. Dutt and his friends in Leeds, or to others like Dr. Imram Waheed, 28, and Farouq
Khan, 32, two Islamic activists living in Birmingham, another Muslim population
center, and the answers seem clear. Each expresses the grievance in his own
way, but the root is nearly the same.
They say they are weary of liberal Muslim
leaders and British politicians who promise changes. They see them backing
policies against the Muslim world in general, from Iraq to the Middle East to
Afghanistan, and promising relief from economic distress and discrimination.
Still, Britain's Muslims have languished near the bottom of society since their
influx here in the 1950's.
Note: The Muslim world is stuck in ignorance.
"I know what people don't understand -
it's how terrorists could have been born in this country," Shahroukh said. "But my point is, why not?"
A recent poll commissioned by The Guardian
found that 84 percent of Muslims surveyed were against the use of violence for
political means, but only 33 percent of Muslims said they wanted more
integration into mainstream British culture. Almost half of those surveyed said
their Muslim leadership did not represent their views.
Note: 16 percent of British Muslims favor
violence to achieve domination.
Note: 67 percent of British Muslims reject
western English culture.
The grievances of the boys of Cross Flats
Parks have not propelled them toward political action. But Dr. Waheed, a practicing psychiatrist, and Mr. Khan, a
documentary filmmaker, are acting on their alienation.
Both men, eloquent, better educated and
better off than most in their community, are also among the more politically
motivated. They have embraced one of the more conservative, if not militant,
Islamic movements in Britain today - Hizb ut-Tahrir, or Party of Liberation.
Note: Educated British Muslims have rejected
western English culture.
The party's stated goal is to rebuild the
Caliphate - the Muslim state dissolved with the fall of the Ottoman Empire - to
displace corrupt dictators in the Muslim world, and to instill Islamic mores
and Islamicize almost every aspect of daily life.
Note: Their goal is to replace English
culture with Islamic style dictatorship.
The group has drawn about 10,000 members to
its recent annual meetings, its members say, and includes chapters abroad in
places like Uzbekistan. It is a controversial movement, even among British
Muslims, and its members have become emblematic of the shift of Muslims born in
Britain to more conservative and outspoken expressions of their faith.
Note: British Muslim youth are being drawn
toward death and destruction.
In interviews earlier this week in
Birmingham, where they were born and bred, Dr. Waheed
and Mr. Khan described the group's struggle as one for the very identity of
Muslims in Britain.
Note: Their goal is to replace English
culture with Islamic style dictatorship.
"For our parents, the attention was
focused on getting a job and building a life here," Mr. Khan said.
"My generation had to go through more of a thinking process to discover
who we are, our Islamic identity."
Note: Their goal is to replace English
culture with Islamic style dictatorship.
What makes the message of conservative
movements especially compelling, Dr. Waheed, Mr. Kahn
and others say, is that they articulate the fundamental anger of many British
Muslims that more mainstream movements seem incapable or unwilling to discuss.
Note: Their goal is to replace English
culture with Islamic style dictatorship.
That anger stems not merely from unhappiness
with the situation of Muslims in Britain, but also solidarity with what they
see as the aggressive and unjust treatment of Muslims abroad, and not least
from Britain's part in the war in Iraq.
Note: Their goal is to replace English
culture with Islamic style dictatorship.
For instance, at a small meeting hall in
Birmingham last Sunday, Dr. Waheed, who now serves as
the group's spokesman, and about 100 other members, discussed the London
bombings. Unlike most Muslim groups, which have been seeking to reach out to
other communities and stem the fallout of the bombings, this gathering was
decidedly unsympathetic.
Note: British Muslim youth are being drawn
toward death and destruction.
"We know that the killing of innocents
is forbidden," Dr. Waheed said. "But we
don't see two classes of blood; the blood of Iraqis is just as important to us
as English blood." He emphasized that they in no way condoned the
bombings. "But when you understand things from that perspective, why
should we condemn the bombing?"
Note: Muslim suicide bombers are murdering
children in Iraq not Americans.
Dr. Waheed is
ethnically Pakistani, but British in everything from his clothing style to his
goatee. He said he was a model student, captain of the cricket team and among
the top in his class.
But like many Muslims in this part of
Britain, he has felt divided from non-Muslims. He married in his mid-20's and
has a child. His brother-in-law is a member of the party, and his father-in-law
has joined, too.
He sees Muslim political leaders basically as
sellouts, beholden to the British government, and Britain's Muslims as so cowed
that they choose silence.
Note: Their goal is to replace English
culture with Islamic style dictatorship.
He recalled one day, in particular, when the
chairman of Birmingham's central mosque stood up to condemn the killing of Ken
Bigley, a hostage taken in Iraq last year who was murdered, apparently by a
group loyal to Abu Musab al Zarqawi.
"I remember the hypocrisy of it,"
Dr. Waheed said, "Then several older people in
white beards stood up as well and said, 'Why did you not do anything when the
Iraq war began?' "
Note: Many British Muslims favored Saddam
Hussein over democracy.
Another turning point occurred when he
watched a BBC Panorama program about Britain's Muslims aired in the summer of
1993. "It was a very harsh, Islamiphobic program
about Muslims in ghettos, mistreating their women and similar things," he
said.
Note: Muslim culture favors the harsh
treatment of women.
His nerves rattled, he chanced upon a leaflet
from Hizb ut-Tahrir
discussing media propaganda against Islam. "I met with members of the
group and became convinced on an intellectual level of what the party was
doing," he said. "Most others wanted us to stay in mosque - change
ourselves as individuals, they said, but don't stand up as a community. Some
asked us to stay out of politics."
Note: Islam is a religion of intolerance with
devout Muslims becoming terrorists.
That prescription was exactly the wrong one,
Dr. Waheed felt.
Mr. Khan's path was different. Unlike Dr. Waheed, who grew up religious, Mr. Khan was not
particularly observant, the son of an upper-middle-class doctor who had come to
Britain from Pakistan to study medicine and then stayed on. The spark for his
activism was the war in Bosnia and the Persian Gulf war.
Note: Western non-Muslim armed forces saved
Bosnian Muslims from destruction.
Note: Many British Muslims favored Saddam
Hussein over democracy.
"Watching the news every day and
watching people being killed every day got me to think," he said. "It
made me start to think of my own identity and who I was, and it became
especially important during the first gulf war, when Britain sent troops to
Iraq and they were all very jingoistic and xenophobic."
Note: Devout Muslims don’t realize that
murder is wrong.
Then he happened upon a Hizb
ut-Tahrir member canvassing for the party, and
everything clicked, he said.
"I could see the logic," he said.
"It was the situation in the Muslim world in terms of killings, massacres
and the realities of what our governments are doing to them."
Note: Islam is a religion of intolerance with
devout Muslims becoming terrorists.
Like the militant socialist movements of the
1960's, the group promises action, change and a well-packaged set of ideals. It
provides a team and a sense of belonging. It publishes books with
recommendations on how to live a better Muslim life. It actively proselytizes
within the Muslim community.
Note: Their goal is to replace English culture
with Islamic style dictatorship.
Officially, the party is against the use of
violence. It calls on members to use their minds to argue their stands, Dr. Waheed says. But its talk often comes perilously close to
incitement, say mainstream Muslim leaders, who say they ultimately bear the
brunt of the group's attacks.
Note: Their goal is to replace English
culture with Islamic style dictatorship.
In previous years, the members have taken to
crashing other Muslim community meetings and drowning out speakers. They have
taken imams to task and debated politicians in the media. Some Muslims accuse
them of harassment, death threats and instilling fear of retribution in their
communities.
Note: Their goal is to replace English
culture with Islamic style dictatorship.
In recent days, politicians have called for
curbs on the movement's activities. Such efforts, Dr. Waheed
said, are a "clear attempt to blur the margins between political Islam and
violence."
Note: Their goal is to replace English
culture with Islamic style dictatorship.
"They want to say that Hizb ut-Tahrir is violent,"
he said. "We are not underground and we're not looking to recruit people.
We're just looking for awareness."
Note: Their goal is to replace English
culture with Islamic style dictatorship.
He acknowledged the group's ways were more
"controversial" a decade ago, but added that much has changed since.
"Maybe some of the means and styles at those times could have turned
people away, but we have moved on significantly," he said.
Note: Their goal is to replace English
culture with Islamic style dictatorship.
Even in Leeds, where Muslims have struggled
to co-exist with white Britons, Hizb ut-Tahrir's activists have vied for control of some
mosques, community leaders say. They are not always welcome, and the group has
not enjoyed much success here, despite the grievances of young men like Mr. Dutt and his friends.
Note: Their goal is to replace English
culture with Islamic style dictatorship.
"They're too far over the top," Mr.
Dutt said. "They talk about the Caliphate, when
we have our own problems here."
Note: Their goal is to replace English
culture with Islamic style dictatorship.
Jonathan Allen contributed reporting for this
article.
Goebbels and the Jihadist Youth
April 11th, 2006
The Big Lie as
propaganda device has a long and dishonorable history, gulling onto complacency
those who prefer to avoid unpleasant worries. The Nazi propagandist Goebbels
was its most notable practitioner, but for sheer numbers and historical roots,
no other group can match the efforts of jihadist Muslims, with their
religiously-sanctioned practice of deceiving infidels to protect the faith.
Al-Jazeera
aired on March 24, 2006, a rather chilling, one-sided “dialogue” between
representatives of Arab and Danish student organizations who met in Damascus,
ostensibly to discuss the violent worldwide Muslim reactions following
publication of the Muhammad cartoons by the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten. Video clips
and a written transcript of this event are available through the Middle East
Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
Ahmad Al-Shater, Chairman of the Arab Students Union, and his
Sudanese Student Union colleague “Muhammad,” were unremittingly truculent in
their presentations, which melded classic taquiyya (sanctioned
dissimulation of Islamic doctrine to “protect” the faithful), or sheer
ignorance, Muslim Jew-hatred, and a Goebbels-like distortion of contemporary
events, including the requisite conspiratorial Judenhass (Jew-hatred).
Al-Shater began by stating that it was the nefarious
“Zionists” and “imperialists” who had deliberately misrepresented Islam by
wrongfully associating the religion with terrorism. He asserted categorically:
According to
the Islamic religion, even in times of war, it is forbidden to uproot a tree,
it is forbidden to kill a woman, it is forbidden to kill a child, it is
forbidden to destroy wells… It is forbidden to fill wells with earth… Water
wells… It is forbidden to harm human life, it is forbidden to destroy a church,
it is forbidden to attack a religious belief…
Classical
Islamic doctrines on jihad war, and more
importantly the actual practice of jihad campaigns in accord
with this theory, put the lie to Al-Shater’s
uninformed or deliberately taquiyya-laden assertions.
Al-Shater’s basic contention that “it is forbidden to
attack a religious belief” is patently absurd—the archetypal proto-jihad
campaigns of Muhammad himself imposed
Islam and Islamic suzerainty upon the pagans, Jews, and Christians of ancient
Arabia, and continue to provide the rationale for aggressive jihad imperialism
to this day.
For example,
Muhammad, according to a summary of sacralized Muslim sources,
..waited for some act of aggression on the part of the Jews of Khaybar,
whose fertile lands and villages he had destined for his followers…to furnish
an excuse for an attack. But, no such opportunity
offering, he
resolved in the autumn of this year [i.e., 628], on a sudden and unprovoked
invasion of their territory.
Ali (later,
the fourth “Rightly Guided Caliph”, and especially revered by Shi’ite Muslims)
asked Muhammad why the Jews of Khaybar were being attacked, since they were
peaceful farmers, tending their oasis, and was told by Muhammad he must compel
them to submit to Islamic Law. The renowned early 20th century scholar of
Islam, David Margoliouth, observed aptly:
Now the fact that a
community was idolatrous, or Jewish, or anything but Mohammedan, warranted a
murderous attack upon it.
Moreover, this
canonical hadith (from Sahih Muslim Book 019, Number 4324), which further
incorporates a Koranic verse (K 59:5), states clearly
that Muhammad also sanctioned the destruction of the trees (i.e., date palms)
of infidel foes:
It is narrated
on the authority of ‘Abdullah that the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon
him) ordered the date-palms of Banu Nadir to be burnt and cut. These palms were
at Buwaira. Qutaibah and
Ibn Rumh in their versions of the tradition have
added: So Allah, the Glorious and Exalted, revealed
the verse (K59:5): “Whatever palm-tree you cut down or leave standing upon its
roots, It is by Allah’s command, and that He may abase the transgressors”
And with only
minor points of internal disagreement, the consensus amongst all four major
schools of classical Sunni Islamic jurisprudence
contradicts each claim made by Al-Shater. The Hanafi
jurists Abu Yusuf (d. 798), Shaybani (d. 803/805),
and Shaikh Burhanuddin Ali of Marghinan (d. 1196),
state:
[Abu Yusuf]—It
seems that the most satisfactory suggestion we have heard in this connection is
that there is no objection to the use of any kind of arms against the
polytheists, smothering and burning their homes, cutting down their trees and
date groves, and using catapults.
[Shaybani]—The army may launch the attack [on the enemy] by
night or by day and it is permissible to burn [the enemy] fortifications with
fire or to inundate them with water.
[Shaikh
Burhanuddin Ali of Marghinan]—in the Traditions…the
Prophet plundered and despoiled the tribe of al-Mustaliq
by surprise, and he also agreed with Asamah to make a
predatory attack upon Qubna at an early hour, and to
set it on fire, and such attacks are not preceded by a call…If the infidels,
upon receiving the call [to Islam], neither consent to it nor agree to pay
capitation tax, it is then incumbent on the Muslims to call upon God for
assistance, and to make war upon them, because God is the assistant of those
who serve Him, and the destroyer of His enemies, the infidels, and it is
necessary to implore His aid upon every occasion; the Prophet, moreover,
commands us so to do. And having so done, the Muslims must then with God’s
assistance attack the infidels with all manner of warlike engines (as the
Prophet did by the people of Ta’if), and must also
set fire to their habitations (in the same manner as the Prophet fired Baweera), and must inundate them with water and tear up
their plantations and tread down their grain because by these means they will
become weakened, and their resolution will fail and their force be broken;
these means are, therefore, all sanctified by the law.
The Hanbali
jurist, Ibn Qudama (d. 1223) concurs, and both he and
Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328), also a Hanbali, elaborate on
the issue of when killing women and children may in fact be allowed:
[Ibn Qudama]—It is permitted to surprise the infidels under
cover of night, to bombard them with mangonels [an engine that hurls missiles]
and to attack them without declaring battle (du‘a’).
The Prophet attacked the Banu Mustaliq unexpectedly,
while their animals were still at the watering-place; he killed the men who had
fought against him and carried off the children into captivity. It is
forbidden to kill children, madmen, women, priests, impotent old men, the
infirm, the blind, the weak-minded, unless they have taken part in the
combat.
[Ibn Taymiyya]—As for those who cannot offer resistance or
cannot fight, such as women, children, monks, old people, the blind,
handicapped, and their likes, they shall not be killed, unless they actually
fight with words [e.g. by propaganda] and acts [e.g. by spying or otherwise
assisting in the warfare]. Some [ jurists] are of the opinion that all of
them may be killed, on the mere ground that they are unbelievers, but they make
an exception for women and children since they constitute property for Muslims.
Averroes (d.
1198), the renowned philosopher and scholar of the natural sciences, who was
also an important Maliki jurist, outlines some of the (rather trivial) points
of controversy:
Opinions vary
as to the damage that may be inflicted on their property, such as buildings,
cattle, and crops. Mālik allowed the felling of
trees, the picking of fruits and the demolishing of buildings, but not the
slaughter of cattle and the burning of date-palms…According to Shāfiī, dwellings and trees may be burnt as long
as the enemy have the disposal of fortresses.
The Shafi’i jurist Al-Mawardi’s (d.
1058) opinion confirms the prevailing consensus views:
The amir [leader] of the army may use ballistas
and catapults when besieging the enemy, for the Messenger of Allah…set up a
catapult against the inhabitants of Ta’if. He
may also destroy their homes, make night raids against them and cause
fire. If, moreover, he reckons that by cutting their date-palms and their
trees down it will serve to weaken them, such that they are overcome by force
or are compelled to make a peace agreement, then he should do so; he should
not, however, act in this way if he does not see any such benefit in it…. It is
also permitted to block off the supply of water to them, or to prevent them
from using it, even if there are women and children amongst them, as it is one of he most potent means of
weakening them and gaining victory over the, either by forcer or through a
treaty. If a thirsty person amongst them requests a drink, the amir may either give him to drink or refuse him, just as he
has the option of killing him or letting him live.
Even the
writings of the much lionized paragon of mystical Sufism and Shafi’i jurist al-Ghazali (d. 1111)—who, as noted by the
esteemed scholar W.M. Watt, has been “…acclaimed in both the East and West as
the greatest Muslim after Muhammad…”—underscore how these practices were normative: one must go on
jihad (i.e., warlike razzias or raids) at least once a year…one may use a
catapult against them [non-Muslims] when they are in a fortress, even if among
them are women and children. One may set fire to them and/or drown them…One may
cut down their trees…One must destroy their useless books. Jihadists may take
as booty whatever they decide..
Ibn Hudayl, a 14th century Granadan
author of an important treatise on jihad, explained how these allowable methods
facilitated the violent, chaotic jihad conquest of the Iberian peninsula, and
other parts of Europe:
It is
permissible to set fire to the lands of the enemy, his stores of grain, his
beasts of burden – if it is not possible for the Muslims to take possession of
them – as well as to cut down his trees, to raze his cities, in a word, to do
everything that might ruin and discourage him…[being] suited to hastening the
Islamization of that enemy or to weakening him. Indeed, all this
contributes to a military triumph over him or to forcing him to capitulate.
And these
repeated attacks, indistinguishable in motivation from modern acts of jihad
terrorism, like the horrific 9/11/01 attacks in New York and Washington, DC,
and the Madrid bombings on 3/11/04, or those in London on 7/7/05, were in fact
designed to sow terror.
The 17th century Muslim historian al-Maqqari,
explained that the panic created by the Arab horsemen and sailors, at the time
of the Muslim expansion in the regions subjected to those raids and landings,
facilitated their later conquest:
Allah thus
instilled such fear among the infidels that they did not dare to go and fight
the conquerors; they only approached them as suppliants, to beg for peace.
The essential
pattern of the jihad war is captured in the classical Muslim historian
al-Tabari’ s recording of the recommendation given by Umar b. al-Khattab (the
second “Rightly Guided Caliph”) to the commander of the troops he sent to al-Basrah (636 C.E.), during the conquest of Iraq. Umar
reportedly said:
Summon the
people to God; those who respond to your call, accept it from them, but those
who refuse must pay the poll tax out of humiliation and lowliness. (Koran 9:29)
If they refuse this, it is the sword without leniency. Fear God with
regard to what you have been entrusted.
By the time of
al-Tabari’s death in 923, jihad wars had expanded the Muslim empire from
Portugal to the Indian subcontinent. Subsequent Muslim conquests continued in
Asia, as well as Eastern Europe. Under the banner of jihad, the Christian
kingdoms of Armenia, Byzantium, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia,
and Albania, in addition to parts of Poland and Hungary, were also conquered
and Islamized by waves of Seljuk, or later Ottoman Turks, as well as Tatars.
Arab Muslim invaders engaged, additionally, in continuous jihad raids that
ravaged and enslaved Sub-Saharan African animist populations, extending to the
southern Sudan. When the Ottoman Muslim armies were stopped at the gates of
Vienna in 1683, over a millennium of jihad had
transpired.
These
tremendous military successes spawned a triumphalist jihad literature. Muslim
historians recorded in detail the number of infidels slaughtered, or enslaved
and deported, the cities, villages, and infidel religious sites which were
sacked and pillaged, and the lands, treasure, and movable goods seized.
And once
again, despite Mr. Al-Shater’s ignorance or
disingenuous denial, this sanctioned but wanton destruction, resulted in: the merciless
slaughter of non-combatants, including women and children; massive destruction
of non-Muslim houses of worship and religious shrines—Christian churches,
Jewish synagogues, and Zoroastrian, Hindu, and Buddhist temples and idols; and
the burning of harvest crops and massive uprooting of agricultural production
systems, leading to famine. Christian (Coptic, Armenian, Jacobite, Greek, Slav,
etc.), as well as Hebrew sources, and even the scant Zoroastrian, Hindu and
Buddhist writings which survived the ravages of the Muslim conquests,
independently validate this narrative, and complement the Muslim perspective by
providing testimonies of the suffering of the non-Muslim victims of jihad wars.
Al-Shater also spewed forth this lying invective—180 degrees
divorced from reality—which included a frank “burning of the Reichstag”
reference to mosque destruction considering the recent bombing of the revered
Shi’ite “Golden Mosque” in Samarra—a striking contemporary event, but also just
another manifestation of over a millennium of
Muslim sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shi’a:
Those who try
to pin the blame for terrorism on the Muslims, headed by the leader of
international terrorism, America, and by Zionism and imperialism, are killing
our children in Palestine and Iraq on a daily basis, as you can see. They are
destroying schools. They are destroying churches and mosques. They violate our
honor. They rape women and slit open the stomachs of pregnant women.
The bitter
irony is that in stark contrast to Al-Shater’s
mendacious slurs against American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, or Israeli
forces in Gaza, Judea or Samaria, it is modern jihad campaigns which have been
fraught with the atrocities he enumerates. A few prominent examples
include: the Ottoman massacres of the Bulgarians in 1876 and larger genocidal
slaughters of the Armenians at the close of the 19th century, through the end
of World War I; the Moplah jihad against the hapless
Hindus of South India in 1921; the massacres of Assyrian Christians by Arab and
Kurdish Muslims near Mosul in 1933; and the recent genocidal jihad waged
against Southern Sudanese Christians and Animists by the Arab Muslim Khartoum
government, primarily during the last decade of the 20th century.
American
correspondent Januarius A. MacGahan recorded these observations from
Batak, July-August, 1876 during his investigation of the Bulgarian massacres:
The number of
children killed in these massacres is something enormous. They were often
spitted on bayonets, and we have several stories from eye-witnesses who saw
little babes carried about the streets, both here and at Otluk-kui,
on the point of bayonets. The reason is simple. When a Mahometan has killed a
certain number of infidels, he is sure of Paradise, no matter what his sins may
be…the ordinary Mussulman takes the precept in broader acceptation, and counts
women and children as well. Here in Batak the Bashi-Bazouks,
in order to swell the count, ripped open pregnant women, and killed the unborn infants.
As we approached the middle of the town, bones, skeletons, and skulls became
more numerous. There was not a house beneath the ruins of which we did not
perceive human remains, and the street besides were strewn with them.
Lord Kinross described the slaughter of
the Armenian community of Urfa in December, 1895, one of a series of brutal
massacres committed by the Ottoman Turks between 1894 and 1896, as
follows:
Cruelest and
most ruinous of all were the massacres at Urfa, where the Armenian Christians
numbered a third of the total population. Here in December 1895, after a
two-months siege of their quarter, the leading Armenians assembled in their
cathedral, where they drew up a statement requesting Turkish official
protection. Promising this, the Turkish officer in charge surrounded the
cathedral with troops. Then a large body of them, with a mob in their
wake, rushed through the Armenian quarter, where they plundered all houses and
slaughtered all adult males above a certain age. When a large group of
young Armenians were brought before a sheikh, he had them thrown down on their
backs and held by their hands and feet. Then, in the words of an
observer, he recited verses of the Koran and “cut their throats after the Mecca rite
of sacrificing sheep.”
When the bugle
blast ended the day’s operations some three thousand refugees poured into the
cathedral, hoping for sanctuary. But the next morning – a Sunday – a
fanatical mob swarmed into the church in an orgy of slaughter, rifling its
shrines will cries of “Call upon Christ to prove Himself a greater prophet than
Mohammed.” Then they amassed a large pile of straw matting, which they
spread over the litter of the corpses and set alight with thirty cans of
petroleum. The woodwork of the gallery where a crowd of women and
children crouched, wailing in terror, caught fire, and all perished in the
flames. Punctiliously, at three-thirty in the afternoon
the bugle blew once more, and the Moslem officials proceeded around the
Armenian quarter to proclaim that the massacres were over. They had wiped out 126
complete families, without a woman or a baby surviving, and the
total casualties in the town, including those slaughtered in the cathedral,
amounted to eight thousand dead.
Vahakn Dadrian recounted
the harrowing details of the slaughter of 6400 Armenian children, young girls,
and women from Yozgad, described in Reverend K. Balakian’s eyewitness narrative of the World War I period
(1914-1920), Hai Koghota (The Armenian Golgotha). The
victims were left by their Turkish captors at a promontory some distance from
the city. Then,
To save shell
and powder, the gendarmerie commander in charge of this large convoy had
gathered 10,000-12,000 Turkish peasants and other villagers, and armed with
“hatchets, meat cleavers, saddler’s knives, cudgels, axes, pickaxes, shovels”,
the latter attacked and for some 4-5 hours mercilessly butchered the victims
while crying “Oh God, Oh God” (Allah, Allah). In a moment of rare candor, this
gendarmerie commander confided to the priest-author, whom he did not expect to
survive the mass murder, that after each massacre episode, he spread his little
prayer rug and performed the namaz, the ritual of
worship, centered on prayer, with a great sense of redemption in the service of
Almighty God.
J. J. Banninga, an American graduate of the Western Theological
Seminary, spent forty-two years in India, serving for 25 years as head of the
Union Theological Seminary at Pasumalai in South
India. His analysis of the 1921 Moplah (i.e., Muslims
of Arabic and Hindu descent living in the Malabar district of South India)
jihad—one of many periodic outbreaks of Moplah
fanaticism—included these harrowing descriptions:
…the Hindu
population fell easy prey to their (i.,e., the Moplah) rage and the atrocities
committed defy description…The tale of atrocities committed makes sad reading
indeed. A memorial submitted by women of Malabar to Her Excellency the Countess
of Reading mentions such crimes as wells filled with mutilated bodies, pregnant women cut to
pieces, children torn from mother’s arms and killed, husbands and fathers
tortured, flayed, and burned alive before the eyes of their wives
and
daughters; women forcibly carried off and outraged; homes
destroyed; temples desecrated…not less than 100 Hindu temples were destroyed or
desecrated; cattle slaughtered in temples and their entrails placed around the
necks of the idols in place of garlands of flowers; and wholesale looting.
No fiendish act seems to have been too vile for them to perpetrate.
…There were,
during the rebellion, many cases of forced
conversion from Hinduism to Mohammedanism. There was a double
difficulty about restoring these people to their old faith. In the first place
there is a severe penalty resting on any Mohammedan that perverts…and in the
second place there is really no door save birth into Hinduism.
On August 11,
1933, less than a year after British withdrawal from the region, the “new”
Iraqi armed forces, aided by local Arab and Kurdish tribesmen, began the
wholesale massacre of Assyrians in the Mosul area (Simel,
Dohuk). Before the end of August, 1933, 3000 Assyrians were murdered, and
thousands more displaced. An example typical of the carnage was described in a contemporary chronicle
believed to have been written by Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII, a Cambridge University graduate and Patriarch
of the Church of the East:
The
inoffensive population was indiscriminately massacred, men, women and children alike,
with rifle, revolver and machine gun fire. In one room alone, eighty-one men
from the Baz tribe, who had taken shelter… were barbarously massacred. Priests were tortured
and their bodies mutilated. Those who showed their Iraqi nationality
papers were the first to be shot. Girls were raped and women violated and
made to march naked before the Arab army commander. Holy books were used as
fuel for burning girls. Children were run over by military cars. Pregnant women were
bayoneted. Children were flung in the air and pierced on to the points
of bayonets. Those who survived in the other villages were now
exposed day and night to constant raids and acts of violence. Forced conversion
to Islam of men and women was the next process. Refusal was met with death.
Sixty five out of ninety five Assyrian villages and
settlements were either sacked, destroyed or burnt to the ground. Even the
settlements which existed from the year 1921 and who had no connection in any
way with the trouble were wrecked and all property looted by Iraq army and
tribesmen.
The intrepid
Dr. John Eibner made 20 visits to the Sudan during decade of the 1990s, reporting on the
recrudescence of jihad slavery. The Arab
Muslim dominated Khartoum government established an
overtly jihadist Popular Defense Force, which further incorporated local Arab
militias. Their jihad depredations targeting the Christian and Animist tribes
(principally the Dinkas of northern Bahr al-Ghazal,
together with the black African Nuba tribes of
southern Kordofan) slaughtered, displaced, and enslaved tens, sometimes
hundreds of thousands at a time. During the spring of 1998 alone, more than
300,000 persons were displaced, while the total number killed and enslaved
remained unknown. These Dinka victims—women and children—shared the fate of the
Nuba, as described by Eibner:
Some Nuba captives end up as chattel slaves but the overwhelming
majority are deported to concentration camps elsewhere in Sudan, where they
serve in slave-like conditions. The children are sent to militant Qur’anic schools,
while the women are sent out to work without pay as day laborers on farms and
in private homes. Sexual abuse is rife.
Al-Shater’s
conspiracy mongering (the publication of the Danish cartoons was yet
another act of the “cabal”), and gross distortions of Islamic doctrines and
history were complemented by his lionization of Holocaust deniers Roger Garaudy and David Irving (whose name he could not recall—“He relies on documents. I cannot recall his name, but he
is a great English intellectual, a university professor, who refuted the
Holocaust.”), as well as the viscerally anti-American and Antisemitic British
politicians George Galloway and Ken Livingston.
The briefer
presentation of Al-Shater’s colleague, Sudanese
Student Union Chairman “Muhammad” included raw Muslim Judenhass, threats to
Danish soldiers, and equally mendacious assertions of U.S. murderousness in
Iraq—compared, with earnestness, to the putatively “light casualties” inflicted
on the Iraqis during Saddam’s 30-year reign of domestic terror.
I’d like to
tell you that harming the Prophet is not a new thing. One thousand four hundred
years ago, the Jews tried to kill him in Al-Madina.
In our religion, harming the Prophet is where we draw the line. We are prepared
to die to prevent this……As you know, Bush killed 110,000 people in Iraq, while
Saddam did not kill even one third of this figure. Saddam did not kill even 30,000
people throughout his rule. I would like to welcome you on this visit, because
the image of Denmark and the Danish people has become very negative in the Arab
and Islamic world. In conclusion, I would like to say that tomorrow America
will pass a resolution in the U.N. Security Council calling for international
military intervention in Sudan. Among these forces, obviously, there will be
Danish forces. I would like to inform you that because the Sudanese people are
so angry over this affront, they will kill the Danish soldiers before they kill
the others.
He may be
invoking an oral tradition, preserved in the hadith, for this uniquely Islamic
motif of Jew hatred (Bukhari- Volume 3, Book 47, Number 786), which maintains that
the perfidious Jews caused Muhammad’s protracted, excruciating death from
poisoning.
Narrated Anas
b. Malik: A Jewess brought a poisoned (cooked) sheep for the Prophet who ate
from it. I continued to see the effect of the poison on the palate of the mouth
of Allah’s Apostle
The rest of
Sudanese Student Union Chairman “Muhammad” statements speak for themselves.
And what were
the responses of the Danish Student Delegation Head to his Muslim
interlocutors, the Chairmen of the Arab Students and Sudanese Student Unions?
…as a
representative of the Danish youth and not a representative of the government,
I cannot explain to you why the Danish government has not apologized…And
another important question, in your last very concrete questions about… could a
Danish newspaper have made drawings of the Holocaust or denying the Holocaust. And the answer to that question is yes. There’s
no law in Denmark preventing a Danish newspaper from making drawings of the
Holocaust.
These muted,
largely non-sequitur responses by the Head of the Danish Student Delegation are
a tangible product of the “Eurabian ethos”, which Bat Ye’or warned, pervades
Western European academic and political institutions. The very “cartoon dialogue” itself was but a
microcosm of the larger Euro-Arab Dialogue process
and a distressing illustration of the most craven dhimmitude that parent
institution has engendered, threatening, as Bat Ye’or notes, the very foundations
of Western society:
This Eurabian
ethos operates at all levels of European society. Its countless functionaries,
like the Christian janissary slave-soldiers of past Islamic regimes, advance a
jihadist world strategy. Eurabia cannot change
direction; it can only use deception to mask its emergence, its bias and its
inevitable trajectory. Eurabia’s destiny was sealed
when it decided, willingly, to become a covert partner with the Arab global
jihad against America and Israel. Americans must discuss the tragic development
of Eurabia, and its profound implications for the
United States, particularly in terms of its resultant foreign policy realities.
Americans should consider the despair and confusion of many Europeans,
prisoners of a Eurabian totalitarianism that foments a culture of deadly lies
about Western civilization. Americans should know that this self-destructive
calamity did not just happen, rather it was the result of deliberate policies,
executed and monitored by ostensibly responsible people. Finally, Americans
should understand that Eurabia’s contemporary
anti-Zionism and anti-Americanism are the spiritual heirs
of 1930s Nazism and anti-Semitism, triumphally resurgent.
Andrew G. Bostom is the author of The Legacy of Jihad.
Muslims Pervert Their Own Children
In order to understand a culture, you must examine how that culture views and
treats their most vulnerable of citizens--their children. Most Americans could
not imagine the horror of out-living their child, it is widely accepted that it
is the worst experience one could endure. However, what would seem to be a
universal emotion does not hold true amongst scores of Arab Muslims. Many
Muslims view their children as nothing more than walking bombs. An Egyptian
children's show recently touted the fact that suicide bombing is in fact a
Muslim family value.
Muslim cleric Sheik Muhammad Sharaf Al-Din said during a recent episode of a
children's show appearing on the Egyptian Al-Nas
network: "We want mothers who teach their sons Jihad, the love of Allah
and his messenger, sacrifice for the sake of Islam." The Sheik had just
finished reading a story depicting Muhhamed's triumph
over a Jewish woman. After taking a phone call in which
a Muslim boy named Ruqaya voiced his hatred of Jews,
the Sheik began shouting "Allah Akbar!" Al-Din went on to say:
"The Jews are the people of treachery, betrayal, and vileness."
A June 15 episode of the same show which is hosted by Muhammed Nassar of the
Egyptian Ministry of Religious Endowment, encouraged young children to become
martyrs for Islam and kill "infidels." Nassar addressed his young
audience by saying: "Let's listen to a very beautiful story to learn about
the courage of a child, and how, when a child is brought up in a good home, and
receives proper education in faith, he loves martyrdom, which becomes like an
instinct for him. He can never give it up."
Last year in Lebanon, a hate-filled claymation film
was produced by Hezbullah. The short movie directed
at children portrayed Jews as greedy peddlers in an open market, selling on the
Sabbath. The Jews were later turned into pigs and monkeys by Allah and cast
into the Red Sea for their crimes.
A children's cartoon which appears on Iranian television, tells the tale of a
"bloodthirsty" Israeli army officer named Ariel, who is claimed to
"have no mercy, not even for children." Of course, the Palestinians
are shown as purely innocent victims of murdering "Zionists." The
animated adventure ends with Palestinian children fulfilling their destiny by
lobbing grenades at Israeli soldiers.
Evidently, the constant indoctrination of Muslim children is working. The
Middle East Media Research Institute obtained a video of a young Muslim girl
(who looks to be about six years old) announcing on Saudi Arabia's Iqra TV: "We don't want peace with the Jews." The
little girl who was being interviewed, was asked her opinion as to why the
Israelis commit so much evil. The little darling proclaimed: "Because they
are Jews, villains, dogs. You see? That's why. She went on to say: "The
Jews--we will drive them out of their homes!"
We have known for many years that multitudes of Muslim parents send their
children away to madrassas, where these four and five year
old children memorize the Quran and learn an incredible hatred for Jews
and Christians. They are taught that the greatest accomplishment they could
ever achieve is to kill an Israeli or an American.
Mothers of suicide bombers are hailed as heroes in the Muslim world and given
special status. These women even receive financial rewards by groups such as Hezbullah (It is widely known that Saddam Huessein provided $25,000 to the families of Palestinian
suicide bombers.) and are frequently featured on Muslim television shows.
Considering the slave-like status of women in the Muslim world, the only way
Muslim men would ever honor a woman is if she allows her son to blow himself to
bits for Allah.
It is obvious that our Muslim enemies place no value on human life, not even
for the life of their own children. It is also obvious that most of us cannot
truly fathom the evil that we are now facing. Muslims are brainwashing their
children to become hate-filled murderers.
Most of us want the very best for our children. We want them to become successful
and happy adults. While we love to see them graduate, marry, get good jobs, and
provide grandchildren, the urge to keep them safe is the strongest of all of
our wishes. It may be impossible for an American to understand how someone
could encourage their child to kill himself in a murderous explosion. However,
until we wake up to this horrible fact...we will never defeat this enemy.
This war cannot be won with surgical strikes nor with U.N. resolutions. We are
facing-down evil incarnate and only total and ruthless war can save humanity
from Islam.
Disbanded Militant Youth Group in Somalia Support Al-Qaida Message
Mogadishu
05 January
2007
In Somalia, an
alleged message from Osama bin Laden's deputy urging Somalis to launch an Iraq-style
guerrilla war against Ethiopian forces there is being taken seriously by a now
mostly-disbanded group of militant Somali youths known as the Shaabab. In an interview with VOA Correspondent Alisha Ryu
in Mogadishu, one former Shaabab member warns that he
and many of his colleagues are still committed to waging a holy war against
Ethiopia.
The audiotaped
message, allegedly by al-Qaida's number two leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, appeared Friday on a Web site used by Muslim
extremist groups.
The message
urged Somalis to use guerrilla tactics, including suicide attacks and roadside
bombings, against thousands of Ethiopian troops, backing up interim government
forces, in Somalia.
Many Somalis
in the capital interviewed by VOA acknowledged that Ethiopia is still
considered an enemy and their presence is creating tension.
But they also
lamented al-Zawahri's call for violence, saying
Somalia, which suffered through more than 15 years of factional fighting, does
not need any more instability.
But a local hard-line Islamist, who identifies himself only as Hassan,
tells VOA that there are many well-trained members of the militant Shaabab group ready to heed al-Qaida's call.
Hassan,
27, is a former Shaabab member, who fought in
recent Islamist battles against Ethiopian and government troops. Shaabab, whose members are believed to number more than
1,000, was organized earlier this year by Adan Hashi Ayro, a top Somali Islamist military commander, who had received
terrorist training in Afghanistan.
Hassan says he
probably would not volunteer for suicide missions, but he would do all of the
other things he was trained to do, such as constructing and planting roadside
bombs and launching hit-and-run attacks. He says he and other members of the Shaabab would not stop until all Ethiopians left Somalia.
Hassan
disputes Somali Interior Minister Hussein Aideed's
contention that some 3,500 Islamist fighters are still organized and hiding in
Mogadishu, waiting to re-start the war.
Hassan says
when Islamist leaders, including Ayro, fled the
capital on December 28, most Islamist fighters simply went back to their clans.
Shaabab members who were not part of Ayro's inner circle, stayed in Mogadishu and effectively
self-dissolved.
He says the Shaabab no longer meets and has no weapons. But he says if
the remaining members here can find another sponsor like Ayro,
they could become a radical fighting force again very quickly.
For two weeks
in late December, Christian-led Ethiopia provided troops and massive firepower
in defense of the country's U.N.-backed interim government against Islamist
forces.
Several senior
Islamist leaders, who are believed to have ties with al-Qaida and other
terrorist organizations, were chased out of their strongholds and are now in
hiding near Somalia's border with Kenya.
On Friday,
Ethiopian and government troops battled at least 600 Islamist militiamen in the
area, while U.S. Navy war ships patrolled the coast to keep militants from
fleeing by sea.
Islamic 'Bugs Bunny' programme
'spreads extremism'
An Islamic
television station is using a Bugs Bunny lookalike in a programme
for children, who vote whether to chop off his hands when he breaches Sharia
law.
July 23, 2008
Telegraph.co.uk
Assud the rabbit vows to "kill and eat
Jews" and glorifies the maiming of "infidels" on the Palestinian
children's show Tomorrow's Pioneers.
In one
episode, Assud admits stealing money and is seen
begging for mercy after young viewers and parents
phone in demanding to cut off his hands as punishment.
At that point,
Saraa, the 11-year-old presenter, intervenes and
rules that the bunny should only have his ears severed because he has repented.
The rabbit,
played by a costumed actor, is one of the main characters on the show broadcast
in Gaza by the al-Aqsa channel, which is otherwise known as Hamas TV.
Religious
leaders in Britain, where the channel can be viewed via satellite, criticised the programme, amid
fears British children could be affected by the radical Islamic message.
The
Association of Muslim Schools, which represents Britain's 143 Muslim schools,
said it was opposed to any shows that incite violence.
Dr Mohamed Mukadam, the association's spokesman, said: "It goes
without saying that any programme which promotes the
killing or injuring of human beings is wrong.
"Regardless
of religion, shows that incite or inspire others to inflict violence of any
kind should be condemned.
"Such
shows are against the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed, and we would urge
people of all ages not to watch them."
Set up as a
regional station prior to the Palestinian elections in January 2006, the
al-Aqsa channel now airs on a satellite slot and has a substantial following
across the Arab world.
Tomorrow's
Pioneers was first aired in April 2007, and features young host Saraa Barhoum and her co-host, a large costumed animal.
The show originally
featured a character called Farfur who resembled
Mickey Mouse and urged children to fight against the Jewish community and form
a world Islamic state.
Farfur was later replaced by a bumble bee called Nahoul, who told viewers to "follow the path of Islam,
of martyrdom and of the Mujahideen".
He was
'martyred' earlier this year and replaced by Assud,
who tells children in his first episode: "I, Assud,
will get rid of the Jews, Allah willing, and I will eat them up."
In a
discussion with 11-year-old host Saraa Barhoum, the
young viewers are referred to as 'soldiers'.
Assud asks Saraa:
"We are all martyrdom-seekers, are we not?"
"Yes, we
are all ready to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of our homeland," she
replies.
The phone-in
show accepts calls from children as young as nine on topics about life in
Palestine.
In an episode
aired on July 11, Assud is seduced by Satan into
stealing money from his father - an offence forbidden in Sharia law.
Host Saraa is then seen asking the studio audience what the
rabbit's punishment should be.
Viewers,
including parents and children, phoned in demanding that his hands should be
severed to teach him a lesson.
After taking
several calls, Saraa asks the children: "Do you
think we should go ahead and chop off Assud's hand
now"
The terrified
rabbit slumps to his knees and pleads: "No, no Saraa,
I'm begging you."
In the end, Saraa - acting as judge and jury - rules that his ear
should be cut off instead, but this was not shown on the programme.
During an episode
aired in February, Assud vows to kill and eat all
Danish people over the cartoon images of the Prophet Mohammed which appeared in
Danish newspapers.
He pledges to
assassinate the illustrator and Saraa also agrees
that she would martyr herself for the cause of Palestine.
Saraa, who has seven brothers and sisters, was
invited to host the show after entering a singing competition.
Last year she
defended the programme, insisting it was not
responsible for spreading extremism.
She said:
"We are not terrorists. We do not support terrorism. We are normal people,
but we are defending our homeland.
"The
Israelis hit next door to my house with a shell. I was wounded on my feet and
my little brother Youssef was wounded in the legs.
"We, as
Muslims, are against suicide bombers. We are against the death of civilians on
all sides. We are only the enemy of those who took our land and kill us every
day."
The show is
regularly translated and posted online by The Middle East Media Research Institute, an independent media monitoring group based in
the United States.
The al-Aqsa
channel was unavailable for comment.
Muslim child being taught to be a future terrorist