Recent cases highlight terror threat from Muslim soldiers

It is simple common sense that soldiers who are Muslim might be hearing from other Muslims that no non-Sharia government has any legitimacy, and that the U.S. is the enemy of Muslims for waging war in Afghanistan and Iraq, etc. It is simple common sense to try to determine the allegiances and loyalties of Muslim soldiers. But to attempt such a thing would be “Islamophobic,” and the need to avoid “Islamophobia” trumps everything.

“Jihadist 5th Column Targets The Military,” from Investor’s Business Daily, April 3:

Infiltration: Though the Fort Hood copycat shooter wasn’t motivated by jihad, the FBI is hunting for another member of the Army, a Muslim convert allegedly planning a terrorist attack on U.S. bases.

After a Muslim Army major in 2009 massacred 13 fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, the FBI and Pentagon opened more than 100 investigations into suspected Islamic extremists inside the military. At least a dozen showed a strong intent to attack military targets.

These ongoing threats come on top of the 30 plots or attacks against military targets within the U.S. that law enforcement has disrupted or prosecuted since 2001, and don’t include the three military-related terror busts from this year alone, which are:

• Nicholas Teausant, aka Assad, a California National Guardsman and convert to Islam, who was arrested last month trying to join al-Qaida fighters in Syria. (An FBI affidavit quotes Assad as saying “I despise America” and threatening to kill his “kaffir” mother if she tried to stop him from joining “Allah’s army.”)

• Craig Benedict Baxam, a Maryland Army vet and recent convert who was imprisoned in January for trying to join al-Qaida in Somalia. (Court records show he told FBI agents he planned to fight the U.S. in jihad.)

• Mozaffar Khazaee, a U.S. defense contractor arrested in January for shipping secret documents detailing the F35 Joint Strike Fighter program to Iran. (He was taken into custody while catching a flight to Tehran.)

Despite continued evidence Muslims and Muslim converts pose a threat to military and national security, the Pentagon continues to make special accommodations for Muslim soldiers. Earlier this year, it relaxed uniform rules to allow Islamic beards and turbans.

Such accommodations only attract more Muslims at a time when recent terror cases highlight the ongoing danger of them in uniform. What’s needed, instead, is special screening and monitoring of such recruits.