Tag Archive for: Iraq

Pentagon: Kurds “Reliable and Effective” Partners in War Against Islamic State

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Monday, July 6, 2015 was a red letter day in Washington with Pentagon officials acknowledging the critical role of Kurdish YPG and Peshmerga forces successfully fighting ISIS in Syria and Iraq. President Obama appeared at the Pentagon to give an update on the campaign to “degrade and destroy the Islamic state”.  It wasn’t a great score card since his declaration made on national television on September 10, 2014. He suggested that winning the war was going to a “generational conflict’.  “This will not be quick. This is a long-term campaign. (ISIS) is opportunistic and it is nimble,” Obama said. As usual he reiterated that the ISIS campaign was “not a war against Islam”.  This despite that ISIS  practices pure Salafist Islam that has attracted tens of thousands of foreign fighters from across the Muslim ummah. The President still hasn’t addressed a coherent strategy except to commit minimal numbers of  U.S. trainers to develop combat cadres in both Iraq and Syria and conduct air assaults against ISIS targets. During his remarks he pointed to more than 5,000 air strikes in Iraq, Syria and North Africa equivalent to just three days of  air operations during the Gulf Wars.

According to CNN, President Obama suggested that the ‘coalition’ was going after “the heart” of the Islamic State. He exhorted Congress to confirm the replacement head of the Treasury Department, Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Adam Szubin.  He suggested that U.S. Trained forces had some successes on the ground in both Iraq and Syria backed up by air support, without naming them.   They are the Kurdish YPG (Popular Resistance Forces) in Syria and the Peshmerga in Iraq.  In our July New English Review (NER) Article, “Empowering Kurdistan”, those front line Kurdish forces have been the only forces capable of rolling back ISIS forces.  Obama and his national security staff had met with President Barzani  and aides of the Kurdish Regional Government in early May 2015 during the latter’s meetings in Washington seeking quality weapons and support  in the war against ISIS. We noted in our NER article that both KRG and Syrian Kurdish leaders had met separately with Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) in the House and Senate Armed Forces Committee Chairman John McCain (R-AZ).  That resulted in amendments to the National Defense Appropriate Act authorizing military assistance for Kurdish fighting units in both Syria and Iraq.

Watch this C-Span video of President Obama’s Pentagon Conference on the ISIS War, July 6, 2015:

Secretary Ashton Carter and French Defese Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian Pentaon, July 6, 2019 Source Carolyn Kaster AP

Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, The Pentagon, July 6, 2015. Source: Carolyn Kaster/AP.

A few hours before President Obama and military leaders briefings on the War against ISIS, there was another Pentagon meeting with a more positive message. This one featured  Secretary of Defense, Ashton Carter and French Defense Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian to specifically discuss military aid for the Kurds.  McClatchey had a definitive report on that more substantive meeting recognizing the Kurds as “reliable and effective allies” in the war against ISIS, “Kurdish militia proving to be reliable partner against Islamic State in Syria.”   The McClatchey report noted:

In comments Monday, Defense Secretary Ash Carter acknowledged that Kurdish fighters from the YPG militia are identifying bombing targets for U.S.-led airstrikes. He referred to the militia as “capable,” hailed its “effective action,” and said because of the Kurds’ actions, U.S. forces had been able to “support them tactically.”

It was the first public description by a senior Obama administration official detailing the cooperation that has been unfolding for months between the United States and the militia, which has drawn the ire of key NATO ally Turkey.

The militia’s success is one of the reasons the United States is intensifying its bombing campaign against the Islamic State in Syria, Carter said.

“That’s what we were doing over the weekend north of Raqqa, which is conducting airstrikes that limit ISIL’s freedom of movement and ability to counter those capable Kurdish forces,” Carter said, referring to the Islamic State by a common acronym.

Carter’s singling out of the YPG, or the People’s Protection Units, comes after months in which U.S. officials have said they were putting off a more concerted campaign in Syria in favor of pressing against the Islamic State in Iraq because the U.S. lacked a capable ground partner in Syria. As long ago as October, then Pentagon spokesman John Kirby was blunt about why U.S. activities there were lagging: “We don’t have a willing, capable, effective partner on the ground inside Syria. It’s just a fact.”

Secretary Carter went on to commend the YPG, ironically an offshoot of the Turkish Kurdish resistance PKK, still listed as a terrorist organization. The YPG successes have unnerved Islamist Turkish President Erdogan that he has suggested invading Syria to establish a 100 x 30 mile buffer zone to forestall further Kurdish advances to the west of Kobani on the Turkish frontier at Suruc.  Turkish military leaders are less supportive of that incursion.  Moreover, Erdogan’s agenda may have been effectively eclipsed despite an agreement to form a working coalition with the Turkish National Party, HNP. The latter was one of three minority parties, including the Kemalist CHP and the upstart Kurdish HDP that won a plurality of seats in the Ankara Parliamentary elections of June 7, 2015.

Carter went to site the YPG contributions in Syria:

Backed by U.S. air power, he said, YPG forces have advanced in the past weeks to within 18 miles of Raqqa, the main stronghold of the Islamic State in Syria.

“That’s the manner in which effective and lasting defeat of ISIL will occur, when there are effective local forces on the ground that we can support and enable so that they can take territory, hold territory and make sure that good governance comes in behind it,” Carter said.

How far the YPG will push its offensive is uncertain. Raqqa is not traditionally a Kurdish area, and Kurdish forces, which are said to number an estimated 16,000 troops, are not expected to try to take the city alone.

But the YPG offers a much more robust anti-Islamic State force inside Syria than does the training program the United States has undertaken: so far, only about 190 so-called moderate rebels have been enlisted in the program, which is intended to train 5,000 anti-Islamic State fighters a year.

The United States last month also expanded its airstrikes to northern Aleppo, another key northern Syria city about 100 miles west of Raqqa, putting the Islamic State on notice that a new drive to remove them from what is called the Marea front could be in the offing.

[…]

Carter made it clear that U.S. and allied warplanes are increasingly depending on the Kurdish forces as part of the Pentagon’s broader campaign to defeat the Islamic State.

“We are doing more in Syria from the air,” Carter said. “I think you saw some of that in recent days. And the opportunity to do that effectively is provided in the case of the last few days by the effective action on the ground of Kurdish forces, which gives us the opportunity to support them tactically.”

What has not been addressed publicly is the delivery of quality military weapons and training of YPG and Peshmerga forces who have fought with Soviet era weaponry against U.Sl arms and equipment obtained by ISIS from fleeing Iraqi national forces routed from Mosul in June 2014 and Ramadi in late May 2015. That may soon be coming given the presence of French Defense Minister Le Drian.  You may recall Secretary Carter upon learning of the fall of Ramadi accused Iraqi national forces of having” no will to fight”.  The Kurds exemplify military valor and have a proven record.

Secretary Carter should move expeditiously to release weapons and equipment from the US War Reserve Stock pre-positioned in Israel to the YPG, KURDNAS forces in Syria and Peshmerga in Iraq. Moreover, Gen. James Allen who heads the U.S.-led coalition force should ramp up aerial sorties beyond the paltry 40 sorties used to provide close air support to the YPG this past weekend. President Obama, unfortunately, has yet to recognize the pure Salafist form of Islam that is embodied in the barbaric violence perpetrated by ISIS on women, children, ancient religious minorities and Syrian and Iraqi military prisoners. Yes, Mr. President this is a war against Salafist Islam that the secular Muslim Kurds recognize must be destroyed.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is of a female Kurdish fighter known as ‘Rehana’ (Image from Twitter user / @PawanDurani).

Obama: “Ideologies are not defeated with guns”

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1. Yes, they are. Cf. National Socialism.

2. The United States is not trying to defeat the Islamic State, or the global jihad in general, with “a more attractive and more compelling vision.” Instead, we supervised the installations of constitutions that enshrined Sharia as the highest law of the land in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Imposing Sharia is the goal of all jihad groups, including the Islamic State. The United States has never stood in Iraq or Afghanistan, or anywhere else, for the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, equality of rights for women, etc. — all of which are denied in Sharia. In other words, we didn’t counter their ideas with a more attractive and compelling vision. We didn’t counter them at all, and still aren’t doing so, because to do so would be considered “Islamophobic.”

And how is he going to counter their ideology when he won’t even acknowledge what it is?

3. “Our efforts to counter violent extremism must not target any one community because of their faith or background.” If he is referring to attacks on innocent Muslims, of course, no innocent Muslims should suffer any harm or injustice. He seems to be saying more than that. The idea that it is wrong to fight Islamic jihad by paying attention to Muslim communities more than Baptist or Jewish or Hindu or Amish communities is absurd. Islamic jihad is committed by Muslims. Obama won’t even call it Islamic jihad or admit that it is a specifically Muslim phenomenon, and insofar as he diverts any resources to tracking “right-wing extremism” on the basis of bogus studies, he makes us all less safe.

“Obama’s War Speech: ‘Ideologies Are Not Defeated With Guns,’” by Charlie Spiering, Breitbart, July 6, 2015:

At the Pentagon, President Obama delivered an update on his war against Islamic State terrorism, saying that the operation would take time to defeat the terrorist organization.

“This will not be quick, this is a long-term campaign,” he asserted, describing ISIS as “nimble” and infiltrated with civilians across the Middle East.

Obama did not announce any major shifts in his strategy, but reminded reporters that the fight was “not simply a military effort.”

“Ideologies are not defeated with guns, they are defeated by better ideas, a more attractive and more compelling vision,” he said.

Obama warned Americans of the increasing threat of individual acts of terror by lone wolf terrorists, but warned against targeting the region of Islam.

“Our efforts to counter violent extremism must not target any one community because of their faith or background – including patriotic Muslim Americans who are keeping our country safe,” he said.

But he admitted that ISIL was targeting Muslims.

“We also have to acknowledge that ISIL has been particularly effective at reaching out to and recruiting vulnerable people around the world including here in the United States and they are targeting Muslim communities around the world,” he said.

When asked by reporters if he was considering the use of American ground troops to defeat ISIS, he insisted that it was not under consideration.

“If we try to do everything ourselves all across the Middle East, all across North Africa, we’ll be playing ‘Whack-a-mole’ and there will be a whole lot of unintended consequences that ultimately will make us less secure,” he said.

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Israel’s Contribution towards Defeating the Islamic State

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Manfred Gerstenfeld, author of The War of a Million Cuts reviewed in the June 2015 New English Review, published a prescient essay mid-June in the Jerusalem Post. Gerstenfeld is the former Chairman of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs that sponsored a symposium on his new book on June 22, 2015. It was on the difficulty of “defeating”, let alone “degrading” the resilient Islamic State-the self declared Caliphate, “Will defeating Islamic State take more than a generation? “ While addressing the myriad of threats in the Middle East and potentially in the West from Islamic State Jihadis, Gerstenfeld draws attention to the contributions from Israel’s experience fighting asymmetrical wars against Islamic extremists seeking its destruction.

Tunisian Jihadi gunman Seifddine Rezgui

Tunisian Jihadi gunman Seifddine Rezgui. Photo by Rami Al Lolah

There was a trio of bloody spectacles inspired by the Islamic State on the first Friday in Ramadan. In France there was the beheading of an American owned chemical company executive by a Muslim employee. In Tunisia there was a massacre at a beach resort killing and injuring among others dozens of British, Belgian, Irish and German tourists by a Kalishnikov-toting attacker. In Kuwait there was  the bombing of a Shia Mosque where several dozen  at prayers were killed or injured .

In January there were the Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Casher Market attacks by Al Qaeda and ISIS inspired émigré Muslims that killed seventeen, including four French  Jews and a Tunisian Jew.  Last fall, we saw attacks in Sydney, Ottawa and Quebec. There were an ax attack injuring  New York police officers and a beheading of food service employee at a company in Oklahoma City both perpetrated by converts to Islam. Last month we had the attack by two Jihadis from Phoenix  who were killed  in an attempted attack a Mohammed Cartoon event in Garland, Texas. One of the speakers at the event  was Geert Wilders, the leader of the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) who is under 24/7 protection of the Royal Dutch Protective service because of threats against his life for his anti-Islam  views in the Netherlands and the EU.

Reuters reported Islamic State spokesman Muhammad al-Adnani urging brothers in the Muslim ummah in honor of the observances of Ramadan to undertake attacks on kaffirs, unbelievers,   whether Christians, Shiites or Sunnis opposing the self-declared Islamic State. He declared in an audio message, Jihadists should turn the holy month of Ramadan, which began last week, into a time of “calamity for the infidels … Shi’ites and apostate Muslims.”  Not lost on many is that June 29th marks the first anniversary  of the Islamic State  self declaration of a Caliphate by  Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Gerstenfield’s op-ed was triggered by comments from US General James Allen, commander of the US-led coalition combating the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, suggesting that it might take a generation to defeat IS.  Gerstenfeld wrote:

General Allen’s remarks, whether realistic or not, can serve for more detailed reflection on what it would mean if IS -controlled territory of a substantial size in say 20 years from now. This would indeed have a major impact on the world order, or better said world disorder. It would also have particular consequences for the Muslim world, the West, Russia and many other countries. Israel and the Jews, though minor players, would be affected by the global impact and by possible targeted attacks by IS.

As far as the Muslim world is concerned, the Arab Spring has already added Libya, Yemen and Syria to the roster of failed countries. The continued existence of IS may cause Iraq and possibly other countries to be added to that list. As the Islamic State is an extremist Sunni movement, it is directly opposed to Shi’ite Muslims, with no inclination to compromise. The longer the Islamic State lasts, the greater the threat to the Shi’ites.

That would mean that eventually the Islamic State would likely confront Iran, the leading Shi’ite country. Iran has been an international troublemaker and hardly any external forces have reacted to it militarily in the current century. The more powerful the Islamic State becomes, the more it will have to challenge Iran.  As the Islamic State also opposes the Sunni countries presently ruled by various royal families, the instability in these countries would increase substantially as well. The same is true concerning Egypt.

[…]

The Islamic State calls for murder may bring with it a shift back toward terrorist attacks perpetrated by foreign jihadists. There have been threats and rumors of having them brought into Europe amongst the boat refugees arriving from Libya, or smuggled through the Balkans. … Yet if we speak about decades of sizable continued Islamic State activity, it is likely that there will be attacks from terrorists disguised as refugees.

[…]

Substantial Jihadi-caused terrorism in the West will lead to further stereotyping of all Muslims.

The previous massive influx of Muslims and its ensuing social problems, including the lack of successful integration, has already led to the rise and/or growth of anti-Islam nationalistic parties in various countries.

These include Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party (PVV) in the Netherlands, the Swedish Democrats, and above all, France’s Front National. Substantial Muslim terrorism is not only likely to increase the popularity of these parties but will influence the positions of other parties, who will have to compete for the votes of those with harder positions regarding Islam.

What would all this mean for Jews living abroad? Not much good. Attacks on others are often followed by attacks on Jews.

Gerstenfeld notes the ability of Israel to contend with extremist Salafist jihadi Islamic groups. Groups equipped with advanced weaponry supplied by Iran or Russian and U.S. weapons stocks abandoned by Assad forces in Syria or Iraqi National Forces:

No other country has accumulated as much experience in effectively fighting Muslim terrorists of various kinds as Israel. Israeli know-how in this field is already in demand and that is only likely to increase.

This fact is not well-publicized, but in future it should be, to improve Israel’s image with the Western mainstream populations.

A second opportunity may lie in Israel using the anti- Islamic State (IS)  sentiment in the West to highlight that the majority Palestinian faction, Hamas, is not very different from IS. Israel hasn’t done much about this until now, but at the same time, the grounds for response from the West have been far less fertile than they may become in the future.

A third opportunity for Israel could be the possible change in political alliances in the Middle East. Some Arab states might consider that whatever hatred they promote of Israel to be less beneficial than allying them with Israel against IS, which has become a real threat to many Arab states. A recent poll showed that Saudis consider Iran to be their largest threat, followed by IS, and that Israel ranks third.

There has already been alleged secret meeting between Saudi military and Israeli security counterparts. Doubtless drawn together by the threat of a Shiite Mahdist Iran on the verge of becoming a nuclear threshold state destabilizing the Middle East. That is reflected in the Saudi undeclared war against the Houthi insurgency in the failed State of Yemen. An insurgency equipped and backed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image of Islamic State fighters is courtesy of PamelaGeller.com.

Islamic State Video: Slaughtering People in Revolting New Ways

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Jihadis frequently tell us how much they love death. Austrian Muslim teenage girls who recently traveled to Syria for jihad announced: “Death is our goal.” Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau said: “I’m even longing for death, you vagabond.” A Muslim child preacher taunted those he has been taught to hate most: “Oh Zionists, we love death for the sake of Allah, just as much as you love life for the sake of Satan.” Jihad mass murderer Mohamed Merah said that he “loved death more than they loved life.”

Ayman al-Zawahiri’s wife advised Muslim women: “I advise you to raise your children in the cult of jihad and martyrdom and to instil in them a love for religion and death.” And as one jihadist put it, “We love death. You love your life!” And another: “The Americans love Pepsi-Cola, we love death.” That was from Afghan jihadist Maulana Inyadullah.

This idea comes from the Qur’an: Say, “O you who are Jews, if you claim that you are allies of Allah, excluding the people, then wish for death, if you should be truthful.” (62:6)

In their new video, the Islamic State shows how much it loves death, by lavishly depicting new and imaginative ways it brings death upon its enemies. “Sickening new ISIS video shows caged prisoners lowered into a swimming pool and drowned, shot with an RPG and blown up with explosive-filled ‘necklaces,’” by John Hall, MailOnline, June 23, 2015 (thanks to Anne Crockett):

Vile jihadis fighting for the Islamic State in Iraq have brutally murdered five prisoners by locking them in a metal cage and lowering them into a swimming pool.

Filmed in the ISIS stronghold of Mosul, the sickening seven minute long video uses expensive underwater cameras to film the terrified men as they sink below the surface with no hope of escape.

Shortly afterwards the cage is lifted back out of the water, with the dying men – who are understood to have been accused of spying – seen foaming at the mouth as they lie motionless on the floor of the cage, piled on top of one another.

Elsewhere in the video, ISIS militants are filmed brutally killing prisoners by locking them in a car and shooting them with a grenade launcher, while another group of jihadis chain a set of prisoners together with explosive necklaces which are then detonated.

The barbaric video is a new low for the terror group, whose catalogue of horrific filmed murders includes the savage beheading of several British and American hostages, the burning to death of Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kasasbeh and numerous clips of people being shot and stoned to death.

The main section of the film begins with the stomach-churning sight of five men being locked in a tiny metal cage that has been suspended above a luxury swimming pool somewhere in the ISIS-held city of Mosul in Nineveh province.

Standing up straight with their legs bound, the men look reasonably calm until the moment the cage begins to be lowered into the pool.

As the water begins to enter, the victims start to panic, praying and pacing the tiny metal cell.

Once completely submerged, the video cuts to the high-tech underwater cameras, which show the men thrashing around until they appear to lose conciousness and fall to the floor.

The cage is then removed from the pool, with the dying men seen foaming at the mouths as they lie piled on top of one another under the blazing Iraqi sun….

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Reign of Terror: Inside the Islamic State

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In FrontPage today, I discuss new gruesome details that have emerged of life inside the Islamic State.

The Islamic State’s caliphate turns one year old on June 29, and few inside its domains, aside from the true believers who have traveled all over the world to live in the Islamic promised land, are likely to be celebrating. Like all totalitarian states, it has swiftly established for its citizens an environment of oppression and fear, supported (in a new twist) not by a personality cult centered upon the specter of a ubiquitous, all-seeing, all-knowing leader, but by the guilt-manipulation of religious duty. Obey the Islamic State’s dictates, no matter how egregious, or else you’ll not just be tortured and brutally murdered, but you’ll burn in hell besides.

And so those deemed to be ideologically deviant are not labeled “counterrevolutionaries” or “imperialist running dogs” or “capitalist roaders,” but “heretics,” and are made to carry “repentance cards.”

A repentance card is not a get-out-of-jail-free card, however. Everyone in the Islamic State must show signs of his or her repentance and devoutness in Islam every day, or else. Breaking the law in the Islamic State can get you lashed or even beheaded – even for “infractions” such as these, many of which are classic Sharia provisions and thus are found in Saudi Arabia, Iran, and elsewhere as well:

  • Women must cover their entire body except face and hands. (According to some reports, they must cover their faces as well.)
  • Women may not leave the house without a male accompanying them.
  • Only women may sell clothing to women.
  • Women must not wear high heels, but only flat-soled shoes.
  • Not only drugs and alcohol, but cigarettes are forbidden.
  • Those who leave Islam are to be killed.
  • Graves and shrines are forbidden, and are to be destroyed.

There are other rules as well – many recalling Woody Allen’s Republic of San Marcos. Women may not wear makeup or sit in a chair. Men may not cut their hair, put gel in it, or wear it in a “modern style.” Men may not wear low-hanging jeans (okay, for that one I’m booking my ticket to Raqqa now). Just as postwar Vietnamese were forbidden to utter the name “Saigon,” in the Islamic State no one may refer to the ruling group as “Daesh,” the Arabic acronym for the group’s former name, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Those wearing soccer jerseys will receive 80 lashes. And several weeks ago, Islamic State clerics banned pigeon breeding: the sight of the birds’ genitals as they flew overhead was un-Islamic.

That’s right: this is a state that legislates about pigeon genitals. But no one is laughing, as it commands respect at the point of a gun.

That’s also how it inspires Islamic piety. A deserter from the Islamic State has recounted that Islamic State prisons in Raqqa are filled with people were not sufficiently reverent during prayers or who have uttered the name of Allah in a way that Islamic State authorities deemed blasphemous. Their Islamic State captors torture them with sticks and cattle prods, and occasionally even burn prisoners to death.

Sharia forbids music, and so playing music on your car radio can get you ten lashes. Just as in Saudi Arabia, stores must close during the time for Islamic prayers.

And there is no recourse within the Islamic State itself. No political parties or armed groups are allowed other than the Islamic State. The ruling elites exert control over their people so tightly as to arouse the envy of Hitler, Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot: inside the caliphate’s capital of Raqqa, in the experience of one man who lived there, “the once colorful, cosmopolitan Syrian provincial capital has been transformed…Now, women covered head to toe in black scurried quickly to markets before rushing home. Families often didn’t leave home to avoid any contact with the ‘Hisba’ committees, the dreaded enforcers of the innumerable ISIS regulations.”

Raqqa’s central square is now known as Hell Square, as it is where the Islamic State carries out public executions, often leaving the dead bodies on display for days, as a warning to the living.

There is no end in sight. “People hate them,” said one man whose family lives in the Islamic State, “but they’ve despaired, and they don’t see anyone supporting them if they rise up. People feel that nobody is with them.” In fact, lots of people are with them: Barack Obama, who has vowed to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State, but done little to make good on his vow; the Iranians, the Shi’ite regime in Baghdad, the Assad regime in Damascus, the Kurds, and a host of others. None of them, however, have the will or the means so far to deliver the knockout blow to this evil state. And so the citizens of the caliphate are in for, at very least, a second year of misery.

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That Imaginary War Room by Hugh Fitzgerald

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We have all had fantasies — have we not? — of being President or Chief of Staff, and being present, somewhere in the Pentagon, in a War Room that, we like to think, directs that campaign of self-defense against the hydra-headed Jihad.

And we like to imagine, too, what might go on in that room, what kinds of things we hope are being discussed and planned.

Consider, among the many imagined scenarios, these three:

1) A War Room devoted to the counter-Jihad in the Muslim World itself. In this War Room, the computers bristle with information about the active fighting going on in the Middle East and North Africa (Libya) and Central Asia (Afghanistan), and with news of what war materiel has been requested, and is being sent, and what troops have been sent, too, to Egypt, to Iraq, to Jordan, to Yemen, to a dozen other possible places. And there are solemn debates about how to keep the countries of the Middle East from being “failed states” and succeeding, thanks to our help, with the assumption being that this is the only conceivably correct goal.

2) A War Room devoted to the domestic front — for by now there would be recognition that there is a war inside our countries, too. That would take the form of non-military aid being given to “moderate” Muslims in the United States and Western Europe, who, if only they are given enough access to, and support from, Western leaders and the media, and funds, too (as the French government supplies so generously to what it thinks are “tame because government-subsidised mosques” in France), these “moderates” will be able to sway the local Muslims, now within the West by the millions, to embrace, unswervingly, democratic ideals, and what those ideals imply, such as freedom of speech and freedom of religion. And little is said about what is in the Qur’an and Hadith; for the planners, such a discussion would only complicate matters, would make what they are doing seem even less plausible, would show up the egg on too many faces. So what is in the Qur’an, as glossed by the Sunnah (Hadith and Sira), doesn’t come up. It’s “real people” who are being kept in mind in this particular War Room.

3) Finally, in the third of our imagined War Rooms, everyone is already well-versed in Islam, and disinclined to deny what is contained in the texts; disinclined, too, to find reasons to explain or interpret away those texts. The strategies of denial that were in fashion for so very long, despite all the evidence, have finally been put to rest. And it is the members of this hard-headed group, chastened by more than a decade of experience dealing with Islam and Muslim peoples, in this War Room, on whose computer screens would be displayed the strategies for demoralizing and dividing the Camp of Islam. Not much about soldiers and weapons here, for military intervention in Muslim lands is not regarded as much use. It has only allowed Muslims to blame the interfering Infidels, and not one another, nor themselves. But in this War Room, measures are discussed to limit, in the West, the survival — or still worse, spread — of intellectual bromides about Islam that do not correspond to what the best-prepared students of the subject, which includes the “defectors” from Islam such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Wafa Sultan, and Ibn Warraq, tell us that Islam inculcates. The internecine conflicts within the Muslim world would not be deplored, but regarded with grim satisfaction, knowing that such conflicts have no natural end.

Indeed, who thinks the conflict in Syria will come to an end, or that Syria itself can possibly be reconstituted? How exactly would the bitterest of enemies now make peace and live together? It isn’t possible. Instead, in this War Room the discussion would be about how refusing to intervene leads to a better outcome for the West, if not for Muslims.

And in this War Room, a great deal of the planning would be about how best to support and protect  non-Muslim figures, especially those members of the media who, having prepared themselves at length by appropriate reading of Qur’an and Hadith, and a lot else besides, are of great national worth, for everyone who writes in a no-nonsense fashion about Islam has overcome an atmosphere of such nonsense and lies as to deserve a Pulitzer just for that mental persistence. Instead of mockery, they deserve  thanks, support, and dissemination of their message.

The theme of the third imagined War Room is Division and Demoralization — of Muslims. This involves exploiting, often by not moving to mend, the fissures within the Muslim Camp, the main one being that between Sunni and Shi’a, but there are also the ethnic hostilities between Arab and non-Arab Muslims, most obviously between Arab and Kurd in Iraq, but hardly limited to that case. The non-Arabs can be encouraged to note, and resent, the conviction of the Arabs that they are superior in the Muslim hierarchy, that it is right that non-Arabs must forget their own histories and civilization, for as Muslims they must  read the Qur’an in Arabic, turn Arabia-wards five times a day in prayer, emulate the mores of 7th century Arabs, and ideally take Arab names. That resentment surely can be encouraged; the rich pre-Islamic pasts of many Muslim peoples could be written and spoken about, and the consciousness raised about how Islam has razed history the way the Islamic State has razed historical monuments.

Of the three, which do you favor? Do you think constant military intervention, and especially the wars in Iraq, and in Afghanistan, and the overthrow of Qaddafi in Libya, have been a wise use of Western resources? Is Islam weaker as a result? Has the West been made more secure? And is the Muslim presence in the West smaller or larger, and growing? Has the experience of the past 15 years made a sufficient number of people in the West more aware of what they face, or simply anxious and confused, and feeling things are out of their hands, “there is nothing we can do,” for example, when our governments increase the number of Muslim immigrants?

Have the “moderate Muslims” in Europe, other than an occasional showy denunciation of this or that Islamic State outrage as “un-Islamic,” done a single thing to further the right education of non-Muslims, and to come to grips with the need to discuss, in order if possible to modify (as Ayaan Hirsi Ali holds out, just, as a possibility), through interpretation, what is contained in the Qur’an and, especially, the Hadith? They have not, and they cannot. So it is up to the people in that imaginary third War Room to help create demoralization, as well as to do nothing to prevent division within the Camp of Islam.

How many Muslims are capable of interpreting the Qur’an in such a way, and ignoring so much of the Hadith, as Ayaan Hirsi Ali suggests will be necessary if there is to be co-existence, or any sort of harmony? Many? Few? And how might one encourage their numbers to grow, or even to encourage people to do that seemingly impossible thing, leave Islam altogether? One way, as those in that third War Room know, is to make public as much news about the relative performance of Muslim peoples and states as possible. Long ago, the scholar Armand Abel wrote an article that deserves widespread study:  “Underdevelopment, stagnation, and decadence. The study of a psychotype: the case of Islam.” Why is it that Muslim states have not created modern economies? The handful of Croesus-rich oil sheikdoms are not exceptions; they are rentier-economies, dependent on the result of an accident of geology. What Muslim state has succeeded, or put differently, is it not true that those Muslim states that have either had a significant non-Muslim population (as Lebanon and Malaysia) or a long secular history (Kemalist Turkey), have created those economies not dependent on the three mainstays of most Muslim states: oil, Western tourism, Western foreign aid?

This third War Room would conduct a campaign to unsettle and demoralize the enemy, a war of propaganda. It involves holding up, for constant inspection and discussion, all the ways that Islam itself can be considered a retrograde (Churchill’s word) force. Does Islam encourage democracy, or in Islam is the despot to be obeyed as long as he is Muslim? Does Islam encourage economic innovation, or does Islam denounce bida (innovation, new ways of doing things)? Does Islam encourage equality of the sexes and equal treatment of minorities under law? What is the evidence that we see before us, presented in the news every day? Does Islam encourage people to think for themselves, or does it discourage free and skeptical inquiry? Have you heard of anyone being lashed recently, or attacked by a mob, or killed, because that someone dared to question something about Islam? Raif Badawi in Saudi Arabia, the freethinkers hacked to death in Bangladesh, the endless attacks on those who dare to think for themselves in Pakistan, the endless prison sentences meted out in Iran — what should we make of this, if not that Islam does indeed punish free inquiry? Can’t you feel sympathy for the people living in these places, who think for themselves but can never express it?

The third War Room would offer subventions to publishers, so that works by ex-Muslims, as valuable as that of defectors from the KGB, would appear, in millions of copies, small in format so that they could be easily smuggled in, and of course — most important — there would be websites, well-publicized websites, where such works could be read in full.

Islam itself is the source of the many failures, political, economic, social, moral, and intellectual, of Muslims themselves. How many times have I said this? It is the spelling out of that proposition that requires efforts, at length,  ad nauseam, till it all seems so obvious that no one in his right mind could disagree. That is the task of this ideal War Room. Political failure: the despot is permitted in Islam; the citizen, rather than the subject, protected by civil rights that we take for granted in the West, does not exist. That is not complicated to say, but apparently complicated enough so that many refuse to understand.  Economic failure: inshallah-fatalism, the belief that everything is in the hands of Allah, who can undo our efforts at whim, and to whom we also owe our riches (and the oil of the Gulf might be seen to confirm it), suggests to Muslims that neither hard work, nor entrepreneurial flair, are either sufficient or necessary. And the readiness of the West to supply aid to so many Muslim states has allowed them to think of this, too, as a kind of jizyah, a tribute exacted on the non-Muslims to which they willingly submit, manna that will not stop.

Those in the third War Room should not be swayed by talk of “failed states.” They should stop all American aid to Muslim states, in order to allow the economic failures of Islam to become more apparent to Muslims themselves. Social failures: the War Room will promote discussion of how women are mistreated in Islam, how minorities are treated, and why these reflect the teachings of Islam, clearly misogynistic and clearly uninterested in the position of non-Muslim minorities. Moral failures: vide the Islamic State. Or see how both sides treat the other side in Syria or Libya or Yemen or Iraq. This is what that War Room should be publicizing, talking about, forcing Muslims to talk about.

The Islamic basis for Muslim failure is now much more widely understood among non-Muslims; websites such as this one have had a considerable role in forcing this understanding. But the trick is to force Muslims to understand the sources of their own unhappinesses of so many different kinds. Look at Al-Sisi. Do you not sense in him someone who knows that Islam has to be modified, or re-interpreted, or if nothing else will work, ruthlessly constrained, as he is doing with the True Believers the Muslim Brotherhood? For Al-Sisi is afraid of the effect of too much Islam, taken straight up, on the minds of True Believers. And that is because he has spent decades thinking about Islam, and having studied in the United States, surely noted from afar the very failures that we’ve been discussing.

Would that in the Pentagon and the White House there were more who have come to the conclusion that Islam itself, with its amazing power over the minds of men, is the problem. Then imagine a thousand articles commissioned by that War Room from authorities in different fields: economists would write about the lack of major innovation in Islamic world, political scientists would write about  the persistence of despotism in the Islamic world, sociologists would study the comparative treatment of women, and the position of minorities; psychologists would write about the moral insensitivity of Muslims to the suffering of their enemies (see those Yazidi women). This would create an atmosphere — call it demoralization —  that could force Muslims to admit that something was wrong, and then to begin to analyze the problem correctly, and not find themselves suppressed. The ability to think would come, albeit slowly. All of this has been said before, and all must be said again and again.

But isn’t this the essential strategy worth trying, not only in that Ideal War Room of our imagination, but in the real one?

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The Islamic State is the Fourth Reich by V.S. Naipaul

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A grotesque love of propaganda. Unspeakable barbarity. The loathing of Jews – and a hunger for world domination. In this stunning intervention, literary colossus V.S. Naipaul says ISIS is now the Fourth Reich

Imagine a world in which a young man is locked in a cage, has petrol showered over him and is set alight to be burnt alive.

Imagine the triumphant jeering of an audience that has gathered to witness this. Imagine, also, a 12-year-old child with elated determination on his features shooting at close range a kneeling man with his arms tied behind his back.

Then picture the spectacle of a hundred beheadings of victim after victim in humiliating uniforms, their hands and feet bound, kneeling with their backs to their black-robed executioners who wield knives to cut their throats as though they were sacrificial lambs.

Picture queues of helpless men and women being marched by zealous executioners who nail them to wooden crosses and crucify them, howling and bleeding to death as crowds watch.

Then picture thousands of girls and women, their arms tied, being marched by hooded and armed captors into sexual slavery. And then, if that is not enough, picture men being thrown off cliffs to their deaths because they are accused of being gay.

Yes, all these scenes could have taken place in several continents in the medieval world, but they were captured on camera and broadcast to anyone with access to the internet. These are scenes, of yesterday, today and tomorrow in our own world.

I have always distrusted abstractions and have turned into writing what I could discover and explore for myself.

So I must begin by admitting that I have not recently travelled in those regions threatened by barbarism — the Middle East, the north west of Africa, in pockets of Pakistan and in the Islamic countries of south eastern Asia.

However, in the 1980s and early 1990s I undertook to examine the ‘revival’ of Islam that was taking place through the revolution in Iran and the renewed dedication to the religion of other countries.

I travelled through Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia attempting to discover the ideas and convictions behind this new ‘fundamentalism’.

My first book was called Among The Believers and the second, perhaps prophetically, Beyond Belief. Since those books were written, the word ‘fundamentalism’ has taken on new meanings.

As the word suggests, it means going back to the groundings, to the foundations and perhaps to first principles. It is used to characterise the interpretation given to passages of the Koran, to the Hadith, which is a collection of the acts in the life of the Prophet Mohammed and to an interpretation of sharia law.

However, the particular fundamentalist ideology of ‘Islamist’ groups that have dedicated themselves to terror — such as Al Qaeda, Boko Haram and now in its most vicious, barbaric and threatening form the Islamic Caliphate, Isis or the Islamic State (IS) — interprets the foundation and the beginning as dating from the birth of the Prophet Mohammed in the 6th Century.

This fundamentalism denies the value and even the existence of civilisations that preceded the revelations of the Koran.

It was an article of 6th and 7th Century Arab faith that everything before it was wrong, heretical. There was no room for the pre-Islamic past.

So an idea of history was born that was fundamentally different from the ideas of history that the rest of the world has evolved.

In the centuries following, the world moved on. Ideas of civilisation, of other faiths, of art, of governance of law and of science and invention grew and flourished.

This Islamic ideological insistence on erasing the past may have survived but it did so in abeyance, barely regarded even in the Ottoman Empire which declared itself to be the Caliphate of all Islam.

Islamic State is dedicated to a contemporary holocaust

But now the evil genie is out of the bottle. The idea that faith abolishes history has been revived as the central creed of the Islamists and of Isis.

Their determination to deny, eliminate and erase the past manifests itself in the destruction of the art, artefacts and archaeological sites of the great empires, the Persian, the Assyrian and Roman that constitute the histories of Mesopotamia and Syria.

They have bulldozed landmarks in the ancient city of Dur Sharukkin and smashed Assyrian statues in the Mosul museum. Destroying the winged bull outside the fortifications of Nineveh satisfies the same reductive impulse behind the destruction by the Taliban of the Bhumiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has described this destruction of art, artefacts, inscriptions and of the museums that house them not only as a butchery of civilisational memory but as a war crime.It is telling that the victims of Wednesday’s barbarous shootings were visitors to the great Bardo Museum in Tunis, a repository of art and material from Tunisia’s rich, pre-Islamic past.Isis is dedicated to a contemporary holocaust. It has pledged itself to the murder of Shias, Jews, Christians, Copts, Yazidis and anyone it can, however fancifully, accuse of being a spy. It has wiped out the civilian populations of whole regions and towns. Isis could very credibly abandon the label of Caliphate and call itself the Fourth Reich.

bulldozing historic statues

Isis has bulldozed landmarks in the ancient city of Dur Sharukkin and smashed Assyrian statues in the Mosul museum (pictured).

Like the Nazis, Isis fanatics are anti-semitic, with a belief in their own racial superiority. They are anti-democratic: the Islamic State is a totalitarian state, absolute in its authority. There is even the same self-regarding love of symbolism, presentation and propaganda; terror is spread to millions through films and videos created to professional standards of which Goebbels would have been proud.

Just as the Third Reich did, Isis categorises its enemies as worthy of particular means of execution from decapitation to crucifixion and death by fire.

Whereas the Nazis pretended to be the guardians of civilisation in so far as they stole art works to preserve them and kept Jewish musicians alive to entertain them, Isis destroys everything that arises from the human impulse to beauty.

Such barbarism is not new to history and every nation has suffered mass murder and barbaric cruelty in the past.

That Isis has revived the religious dogmas and deadly rivalries between Sunnis and Shias, Sunnis and Jews and Christians is a giant step into darkness.

That a European country in the 20th Century launched a holocaust on the basis of race is a matter of the deepest shame

The Arab lands, relatively stable under the Ottoman Empire, were divided up by the British and French victors of the First World War into the kingdoms of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria and Jordan at the Cairo Conference of 1920. Borders were drawn in straight lines and the sons of the Mufti of Mecca imposed on the newly carved territories as kings.

Winston Churchill was advised at the Cairo conference by T. E. Lawrence and by Gertrude Bell, who should have known that the Shia would not readily welcome or acknowledge a Sunni king and vice versa.

After upheavals, rebellions and military coups, the region settled down under dictatorships in the 1950s and 1960s.

The Ba’athist Party was, in some senses, a modernising force and Saddam Hussein, though a Sunni, ruled the predominantly Shia and partly Kurd nation of Iraq with a ruthless hand. Wherever two or three were gathered in the name of the Almighty, he sent in his police.

He may not have been a savoury character but his overarching policies were holding on to power and modernising Iraq.

He was the cat that kept the rats of Islamism at bay. His invasion of Kuwait, another artificial sheikdom, poor in territory at the knee of Iraq but rich in oil, triggered the international reaction against him. The Bush-Blair alliance invaded Iraq and the puppet regime they set up executed Saddam. In the absence of the cat, the rats ran riot.

And so it has proved throughout the region. The Libyans, with the assistance of a European alliance, overthrew Gaddafi. The country is now at the mercy of Islamic militants. The same Arab Spring saw democratic protest against the Egyptian dictator and resulted for a while in an elected regime veering towards the repressions of Islamism.

It was overthrown by a military coup whose leader, General el-Sisi, speaking to the clerics and supposed scholars of the authoritative Islamic university Al-Azhar, called on them to denounce Isis as the greatest threat to international peace and exhorted them to declare the ideology of Isis a heresy. The mullahs of Al-Azhar have not as yet complied.

In Syria, the conflict of groups opposed to the government of Bashar Al-Assad resolved itself in the formation of a Sunni Islamicist militia, which in turn evolved — after a significant bloodletting — into Isis.

Are Isis and its followers heretics? The politicians of Europe and America, including David Cameron, Barack Obama and Francois Hollande, after every Islamicist outrage insist on describing them as a lunatic fringe. Their constant refrain is that these perpetrators of murder and terror have as much to do with Islam as the Ku Klux Klan has to do with Christianity or the testament of Jesus Christ. But does such political assurance bear scrutiny?

nazis pretended to be civilized

Whereas the Nazis pretended to be the guardians of civilisation in so far as they stole art works to preserve them and kept Jewish musicians alive to entertain them, Isis destroys everything that arises from the human impulse to beauty.

Of course the politicians, church leaders and others who say ‘these atrocities have nothing to do with Islam’ are not making a researched or considered theological statement. They are attempting, quite rightly, to prevent civil discord in a world in which there are considerable Muslim immigrant populations in most countries of Europe and in the US.

So what impels the tiny minority of young men and women from immigrant communities to volunteer themselves to ‘jihad’ and to almost certain self-destruction, or young women to abscond from their families and from European reality to become jihadi brides.

When I visited Pakistan, I discovered what I have characterised as the effects of an ideological nurture. The Pakistani or Bangladeshi Muslim is taught that he or she has no historical antecedents before the conquest of parts of India and its conversion to the faith.

The pressures of poverty and promise bring this Muslim to Britain. He and his family don’t speak English.

They are confined to work and live in an exclusively immigrant area of an inner city — say Bradford, Tower Hamlets or parts of Greater Manchester or Birmingham.

Their children are raised as Muslims, some strict some not so strict, and are sent to the normal city schools which soon become almost exclusively immigrant.

Some find that the values that traditionally inform them are at variance with those of the lives they see around them. This is true for even those Muslim young men and women who are being educated, through Britain’s by-and-large egalitarian system, to be surgeons or computer programmers.

Islamism is simpler. There are rules to obey, a jihad to fight against the civilisation you can’t comprehend, a heaven to go to when you martyr yourself and now a real fighting force in the world which you can join to simplify and solve your existence: no history to complicate your self-awareness, no art to distract you, no ambivalence and choices that ‘Western’ civilisation offers you, no doubt about the fruits of martyrdom, no allegiance to the country in which you were brought up and which gave you a free education and perhaps welfare benefits. A gun, a half-understood prayer and the simplicity that a simple and singular upbringing craves.

That is why they go. And volunteer for death, and die.

In the past three or four centuries since Descartes, Leibniz and Newton, Islam remained encrypted in the revelations of the Koran and the Hadith of a 6th Century life.

The expansion of the scientific enquiry coincided with or possibly caused the maritime expansion of European colonialism. Empirical science, the progress of liberal religion and the germination of modern democratic ideas coincided with European colonial dominion over Asia and Africa.

The process of decolonisation in the 20th Century gave rise to the idea that every advance in civilisation, scientific or democratic, was to be condemned as ‘colonial’. There may be no ideological answer to such bigotry.

The Islamic world does contain currents that are opposed to the interpretations that Isis gives to the Koran, the Hadith and to sharia. These are yet to declare themselves.

Though the appeal of Isis can be challenged by other strands of Islam, its murderous presence persists in the failed states of Iraq and war-torn Syria and threatens to spread through northern Africa.

The crippled Iraqi government has launched its reluctant armies against Isis. The Iranians, being Shias opposed to Sunni Caliphates, are supporting the Iraqi army and the Shia militias, who are a considerable force independent of the Iraqi government, are in a coalition to fight Isis on the ground. With air support from the West, they may manage to push Isis back.

Such an offensive, with the immediate objective of regaining Iraqi territory has to be urgently expanded. Isis has to be seen as the most potent threat to the world since the Third Reich.

Its military annihilation as an anti-civilisational force has to now be the objective of a world that wants its ideological and material freedoms.

ABOUT V.S. NAIPAUL

VS Naipaul

The Nobel Prize-winning author V.S. Naipaul has warned that Islamic State are the most potent threat to the world since the Nazis.The Daily Mail (UK) wrote of this article: In a hard-hitting article in today’s Mail on Sunday, the revered novelist brands the extremist Muslim organisation as the Fourth Reich, saying it is comparable to Adolf Hitler’s regime in its fanaticism and barbarity.

Calling for its ‘military annihilation,’ the Trinidadian – born British writer says IS is ‘dedicated to a contemporary holocaust’, has a belief in its own ‘racial superiority,’ and produces propaganda that Goebbels would be proud of.

A long-term critic of Islam as a global threat, he also challenges those who say the extremists have nothing to do with the real religion of Islam, suggesting that the simplicity of some interpretations of the faith have a strong appeal to a minority.

The author of A House For Mr Biswas, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001, is known for his sharp views.

He has likened Tony Blair to a pirate whose socialist revolution had imposed a ‘plebeian culture’ on Britain and found himself embroiled in controversy in 2001 by comparing Islam to colonialism, saying the faith ‘has had a calamitous effect’ as converts must deny their heritage.”

EDITORS NOTE: This article originally appeared  on March 21, 2015 in the Daily Mail (UK) and is archived here.

Jihad on Churches: Muslim Persecution of Christians

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On Sunday, March 15, as Christian churches around the world were celebrating morning mass, two churches in Pakistan—one Catholic, one Protestant—were attacked by Islamic suicide bombers. At least 17 people were killed and over 70 wounded.

The Taliban claimed responsibility. It is believed that the group had hoped for much greater death tolls, as there were almost 2,000 people in both churches at the time of the explosions.

According to eyewitnesses, two suicide bombers approached the gates of the two churches and tried to enter them. When they were stopped—including by a 15-year-old Christian youth who blocked them with his body—the Islamic jihadis self-detonated. Witnesses saw “body parts flying through the air.”

According to an official statement of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Episcopal Conference of Pakistan, despite all the threats received by the churches, authorities only provided “minimal” security.

As in other Muslim-majority nations, churches in Pakistan are under attack.  On September 22, 2013, in Peshawar, Islamic suicide bombers entered the All Saints Church right after Sunday mass and blew themselves up in the midst of approximately 550 congregants, killing nearly 90 worshippers. Many were Sunday school children, women, and choir members. At least 120 were injured.

One parishioner recalled how “human remains were strewn all over the church.” (For an idea of the aftermath of suicide attacks on churches, see these graphic pictures.)

In 2001, Islamic gunmen stormed St. Dominic’s Protestant Church, opening fire on the congregants and killing at least 16 worshippers, mostly women and children.

The rest of March’s roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes, but is not limited to, the following accounts, listed by theme and country in alphabetical order, not necessarily according to severity.

Muslim Attacks on Christian Churches and Monasteries

Central African Republic: At least eight churches were burned in the northern province of Nana Grebizi, after heavily armed Muslim Fulani herdsmen attacked several villages. Two Christians, including a pastor, were killed in the attack; another Christian was severely tortured. After the carnage, the Islamic herdsmen started fires and looted the local population. The blaze destroyed swathes of farmland, at least eight churches, several other mission centers and an unknown number of Christian homes.

Egypt: During the early morning hours of March 9, the Coptic Catholic Church of Kafr el-Dawar was attacked by armed men who used an explosive device against the place of worship.  Two policemen were hospitalized after the attack.  Separately, Dr. Yusuf al-Burhami, a leading cleric in Egypt’s Salafi movement, appeared in a video that surfaced in March saying that “Destroying churches is permissible—as long as the destruction does not bring harm to Muslims, such as false claims that Muslims are persecuting Christians, leading to [foreign] occupations.”  He further added that “the reason we agree to their [churches] being built, via the article in the constitution dealing with worship, and the reason we do not collect the jizya [tribute] from the Christians, is because the condition of Muslims in the current era is well known to the nations of the world—they are weak and deteriorating among the people.” Burhami explained that when the Arab Muslims first conquered Egypt in the 7th century, the ancient nation was Christian, and because the Muslims were few in number, Coptic Christian churches were allowed to remain—“just as the prophet allowed the Jews to remain in Khaibar after he opened [conquered] it, but once Muslims grew in strength and number, [second caliph] Omar al-Khattab drove them out according to the prophet’s command, ‘Drive out the Jews and Christians from the Peninsula.’”

Germany: A potential jihadi attack on the cathedral and synagogue in Bremen was averted following action by police, a Belgian newspaper reported.  Numerous police guarded the cathedral and synagogue and searched a local Muslim cultural center.

Iraq: Islamic State militants blew up a 10th century Chaldean Catholic church north of Mosul and bulldozed a nearby graveyard.  According to Nineveh Yakou—an Assyrian Archaeologist and Director of Cultural Heritage and Indigenous Affairs at A Demand for Action—the Saint George monastery was “wiped out” by IS.  The building was founded by the Assyrian Church in the 10thcentury but rebuilt as a seminary by the Chaldean Catholic Church in 1846. “The current monastery was built on an archeological site containing ancient Assyrian ruins. It was an important show of continuity from the Assyrian to our culture,” Yakou said. “ISIS is wiping out the cultural heritage of Iraq. The monastery was classified as cultural heritage. It’s a cultural and ethnic cleansing.”

Kenya: On the afternoon of February 28, in Maramande, Hindi, Muslims from neighboring Somali set a Christian church on fire.  This same church was set on fire last July 5, 2014, but was built again in January 2015.  According to the pastor of the twice-torched church, “These people do not want Christianity in this area….  They want to finish me so that Christianity will not go on here. But I will continue raising up my eyes to God for help.”  According to Morning Star News, “Violence in Kenya’s coastal region has accelerated in the past few years. On Jan. 11 in the Mombasa area, a gunman shot a Christian dead at the gate leading to a church building, apparently after mistaking him for the church pastor. Police reportedly said the assailants could be members of an active Islamic extremist terror cell in Mombasa blamed for past gun and grenade attacks.”

Lebanon: Unidentified persons invaded Mar Elias, an ancient Maronite church in Bekaa.  Along with damaging one of the church’s windows, they destroyed a portion of the flooring, as they dug a large hole near the altar.  According to Maronite Bishop Joseph Mouwad, much of the church’s sacred items were left intact and not stolen.  Instead, “they broke the tiles and dug the ground, apparently looking for something, though we do not know what.”  Fingerprints and cigarette butts were found. 

Muslim Slaughter of Christian ‘Infidels’

Central African Republic:   An argument between a taxi driver and his Muslim passenger led to the slaughter of at least 16 Christians in Bangui, the nation’s capital.  A Muslim man known as Aladji hailed a motorcycle taxi and asked to be taken to a Muslim-dominated district of Bangui. He was carrying a bag of grenades. When the motorcycle broke down, the driver stopped to fix it, but his agitated passenger pulled out a knife and tried to stab him. The driver overpowered Aladji and killed him instead.  After his body was found, Muslims marched to the Christian sector of the city where they slaughtered at least 16 Christians—some decapitated.  Authorities arrested 10 members of Seleka—the almost entirely Muslim rebel group—following the killings…. Click for complete report

RELATED ARTICLE: The Islamic State has displaced 100,000 Christians from Mosul

Hidden Camera: Veterans Administration ‘Turning Veterans into Drug Addicts’

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Project Veritas caught on hidden camera, Deputy Veterans Administration Chief of Patient Services (for the entire VA) Maureen McCarthy, MD, said many of our military veterans “have drug problems, some of which are caused by us and our prescribing.”

In the undercover video, she admitted that the combination of “opiates, like morphine and benzodiazepine like Ativan and Klonopin” are like “candy” for a lot of veterans, “it’s like they want it, they want it, they want it.”

“He had a ten foot step ladder and a rope,” says Bob Cranmer, the father of a Marine Iraq veteran named David who recently took his own life. “And for some reason decided to hang himself.”

On average each day, twenty-two U.S. veterans take their own life. In David’s case, he waited over a year to be seen by the VA, and when they did eventually see him, they prescribed him a combination of opiates and psycho-pharmaceuticals very similar to the ones described by Dr. McCarthy in the undercover video. When you watch the video above/on the right, you will see one VA official after another saying what Nurse-Anesthetist Joe Salmon admitted: “The VA does push pills.”

“In my opinion, they are creating drug addicts,” opined a senior volunteer at a New York Veterans Administration facility.

A VA facility in Wisconsin is under heavy fire for patient deaths due to over medication. This video illustrates that the over-medication problem extends to facilities in Pittsburgh, Little Rock, Buffalo, Minneapolis and the DC area. As an institution, the VA is far too eager to simply write prescription after prescription and quickly move on to the next patient, instead of dealing with the actual problems veterans face on a daily basis.

Bob Cranmer blames his son’s suicide on the VA. So do a lot of VA staffers, when caught on undercover video. Watch it here to find out why.

Our veterans deserve better!

Islamic State recruiting ‘highly trained foreigners’ to produce chemical weapons

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How can they attract “highly trained foreigners” when they represent, as every Western authority will tell us, a twisted version of Islam that outrages all of the true, peaceful principles of the religion? The cognitive dissonance is absolute, but no one in any position of power or influence seems to notice or care.

“Isis recruiting ‘highly trained foreigners’ to produce chemical weapons,” by Alexander Ward, the Independent, June 7, 2015:

The terrorist group Isis is recruiting “highly trained professionals” to make chemical weapons – and has already used them in an attack.

The Australian Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, said the group was now undertaking “serious efforts” to develop their chemical weapons arsenal.

Speaking to the Australia Group, which is composed of nations against chemical weapons, she said: “Da’esh [Isis] is likely to have amongst its tens of thousands of recruits the technical expertise necessary to further refine precursor materials and build chemical weapons,” Ms Bishop added.

Ms Bishop’s speech is the latest concern that Isis is attempting to acquire nuclear and chemical and biological weapons, after India warned the extremists could obtain a nuclear weapon from Pakistan.

It was reported in March that Isis had been attacking Iraqi soldiers with roadside bombs containing chlorine gas in fighting around Tikrit, after footage emerged showing plumes of orange smoke emerging for the bombs.

It follows similar allegations that the extremists had released toxic gases in the eastern district of Kobani, during the siege of the town on the Syrian border, although it could not be confirmed.

Ms Bishop added: “Apart from some crude and small scale endeavours, the conventional wisdom has been that the terrorist intention to acquire and weaponise chemical agents has been largely aspirational.

“The use of chlorine by Da’esh [Isis], and its recruitment of highly trained professionals, including from the West, have revealed far more serious efforts in chemical weapons development.”…

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Rubio: Obama’s Strategy for the Middle East has Backfired

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In a Washington Post op-ed piece Florida Senator Marco Rubio wrote:

The fall of the Iraqi city of Ramadi to the Islamic State and recent gains by the group in Syria are the latest signs that President Obama’s strategy to defeat this brutal terrorist group is failing. But the problem is far bigger than that. The president’s entire approach to the Middle East has backfired.

The Middle East is more dangerous and unstable than when Obama came into office — a time when Iraq and Syria were more stable, the Iranian nuclear program was considerably less advanced and the Islamic State did not yet exist.

Much of this instability is a result of Obama’s disengagement from the region, best symbolized by the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011. The vacuum created by America’s pullback has been filled by bad actors, including terrorist extremists, both Sunni and Shiite, who have flourished in the absence of U.S. leadership.

On one side are the radical Sunni extremists of al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and affiliated groups. The Islamic State has capitalized on the political grievances many Iraqi Sunnis have with their sectarian Shiite leaders, as well as the divisions between Syrian Sunnis and the brutal Alawite-dominated Assad regime, which is supported by Iran. The Islamic State’s black banner is now spreading as far afield as Libya and Afghanistan.

On the other side is Iran, a country run by a militant Shiite clerical regime that is the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism and has as its primary goal regional domination and the export of the Iranian revolution. As the Obama administration has focused on negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran, Tehran has exploited U.S. weakness and expanded its reach into Syria, Iraq and Yemen, among other countries.

To begin to deal with the challenges we face, we need a reassertion of U.S. leadership in the region and specifically in the fight against the Islamic State.

Keep reading here.

Islamic State has 30,000 foreign jihadis from over 100 countries

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30,000: that’s an awful lot of Muslims who fell for this Nothing-To-Do-With-Islam form of Islam. How to explain so many misunderstanders? After all, none of them existed in a vacuum before they joined the Islamic State. They learned their Islam somewhere. Are we to believe that the slickness of the Islamic State’s video presentations alone was enough to induce this throng to throw over the true, peaceful Islam it learned down at the corner mosque and join up with the hijackers of their religion? We live in an age of infantile analysis.

“ISIS has 30,000 foreign fighters from more than 100 countries,” by Abdelhak Mamoun, Iraqi News, May 29, 2015:

(IraqiNews.com) According to a report to the UN Security Council, nearly 30 thousand foreign fighters were recruited currently in the ISIS ranks. They came from 100 countries around the world including countries that had been untouched by the activity of terrorist groups such as Chile and Finland.

The members of the Security Council will meet on Friday to discuss a report on “foreign terrorist fighters” and consider possible measures to combat this threat.

This is the first report of its kind in the United Nations, which addresses the issue of “foreign fighters”, and includes countries such as Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, in addition to North African countries such as Libya.

The report indicated that the number of recruits in ISIS ranks has increased by about 70% during the past nine months.

This sudden rise poses concern about the spread of extremism phenomenon globally, and breadth of its geographical scope to include several countries experiencing the stability, including European countries.

The report indicates that the flow rate of foreign fighters into Iraq and Syria is currently higher than ever before, with the emergence of signs of an accelerating growth of ISIS organization in Libya.

US officials said earlier this year that 3,400 people from Western countries, including 150 from the United States have traveled to Iraq and Syria to join militant groups.

British officials have estimated that more than 700 British have traveled to Syria during the past three years, nearly half of them returned to their country.

The report describes Iraq, Syria and Libya as “real finishing school” for terrorists, pointing out that Tunisia, Morocco, France and Russia, in particular, may contribute in terrorist attacks in the future due to the number of fighters from these countries.

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U.S. saw Islamic State coming, didn’t order airstrikes, let it take Ramadi

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Did they want the Iraqis to win a great victory over the Islamic State all by themselves? Or did they want the Islamic State to take Ramadi? We need answers, but almost certainly aren’t going to get them from a press that covers for Obama at every turn.

“U.S. Saw Islamic State Coming, Let It Take Ramadi,” by Eli Lake, Bloomberg, May 28, 2015:

The U.S. watched Islamic State fighters, vehicles and heavy equipment gather on the outskirts of Ramadi before the group retook the city in mid-May. But the U.S. did not order airstrikes against the convoys before the battle started. It left the fighting to Iraqi troops, who ultimately abandoned their positions.

U.S. intelligence and military officials told me recently, on the condition of anonymity, that the U.S. had significant intelligence about the pending Islamic State offensive in Ramadi. For the U.S. military, it was an open secret even at the time.

The Islamic State had been contesting territory in and around Ramadi for more than a year and had spoken of the importance of recapturing the city. The U.S. intelligence community had good warning that the Islamic State intended a new and bolder offensive on Ramadi because it was able to identify the convoys of heavy artillery, vehicle bombs and reinforcements through overhead imagery and eavesdropping on chatter from local Islamic State commanders. It surprised no one, one U.S. intelligence official told me.

Other observers were willing to speak on the record about how many had seen the Islamic State’s assault on Ramadi coming. “The operations on Ramadi have been ongoing for 16 months,” said Derek Harvey, a former intelligence adviser to David Petraeus when he commanded the counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq. Harvey said many observers had seen the Islamic State’s series of probing attacks and psychological operations aimed at the Iraqi army and local tribes: “Everyone knew that Ramadi for some reason was a major focus.” He conceded that he did not know the exact timing of the Ramadi offensive beforehand and acknowledged that he was surprised at how effective the operations were….

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Defeating ISIS: A Biblical View of America’s Role [Part 3]

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PART THREE: 

HIGHLIGHTS OF PART TWO

Part two explained from scripture that God’s love of people and His hatred of evil are inseparable and presented what should be the natural and necessary response of righteous men and women who wish to live in a world of justice, compassion, and order.  Part two also cited studies that identify the large majority of Americans as Christians of some “brand” and who, basically, concur with the moral principles of the bible. Let’s now consider the immediate and necessary role for America to play in quickly stopping the rapidly advancing Nazis of our time (to which millions have people have chanted for 70 years, “Never again!)

Read Part 1 and Part 2.

RESPONDING AS A NATION: THE POWER OF THE ARAB COUNTRIES, THE NEW COALITION OF ARAB NATIONS, AND THE RESPONSIBILITY OF AMERICA

On a larger scale, just as ungodly nations were destroyed in the Old Testament, the ungodly “world scale gang-bangers” need to be destroyed.  In Old Testament times, there was one situation in which God specifically told the Israelites not to pray for the enemy: “Do not pray for the well-being of this people” (Jeremiah 14:11).  Similarly, in the New Testament, Jesus did not pray for Satan.  ISIS is not simply the radical arm of Islam that establishes Sharia and devises even more cruelty than is conceived by the policies of these laws (cutting off limbs, executing women who have been raped, etc.).  The mission of ISIS is purely demonic and in this writer’s opinion, the “soldiers” (given: this is an insult to the word “soldier”) of ISIS are either demonically oppressed or possessed.

Because America is ultimately threatened in the not too distant future, we must participate in pushing back the forces of evil.  The evil has spread too far around the world already, and it’s already present here in America (see Parts I and II for more information).  We’ve already seen an Islamic extremist military psychiatrist murder many soldiers at Ft. Hood, many people killed in the Boston marathon, a woman’s head severed while she was at work in a factory in Moore, Oklahoma, and more horrors right here in our homeland.  Whether we like it or not, America is already “in the thick of things.”  The battle exists not only half-way around the world, but in America.

Also, whether it was right or wrong to seek to establish democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq, we committed to help the people of these countries live in freedom.  Formerly known as Mesopotamia, Iraq is the very cradle of Christianity (and is now nearly devoid of Christians).  How much more should we now rescue those who suffer the backlash of our abandonment?  Psalm 82:4 says, “Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”  Do you remember when thousands of joyful Iraqi’s proudly held their ink stained thumbs in the air, indicating that they had just voted?  We have left almost all of them to be driven from their homes or to be struck down by the swords of ISIS.

It is way past time for our leaders to map out and enact a clear strategy to defeat our enemies.  We could have stopped ISIS by leaving 15,000 troops in Iraq, but our president chose not to do that (our military leaders advised against this action).  We could have stopped them as they left Syria.  We could have stopped them as they marched from city to city in Iraq.  Iraq isn’t exactly covered with forests and canyons to protect them from our sight.  In Desert Storm, we discovered how easily we destroyed forces of evil with such basic weaponry as A-10 jets (while some people questioned if these planes could be useful at all).  Of course, presently A-10’s are being decommissioned right here in my hometown of Tucson, Arizona, where many of our A-10’s are based.

Also, we chose to ensure the downfall of Gaddafi without helping to stabilize Libya, predictably enabling the Muslim Brotherhood to come to power.  In fact, America sent tanks, fighter jets and millions of dollars to the Muslim Brotherhood.

We could have stood our ground when Assad crossed our president’s “line in the sand,” leaving more room for the terrorists to gain ground.  Of course, these and many other examples of non-action have proven the disastrous consequences of America’s continual abdication of world leadership.

Fortunately, people as evil as the ISIS terrorists are “like the chaff which the wind driveth away” (Psalm 1:1).  But it is probable that righteous men and women must do their part in this life before the Lord executes final judgment in the life to come.  Hopefully, the civilized world will unite around strong leadership, which we pray will emerge (and discussed soon).

First to lead the fight was the King of Jordan, and America is giving a billion dollars to Jordan over the next two years.  Even China is giving aid to fight ISIS.  Saudi Arabia has over 200,000 active duty personnel with 75,000 soldiers, the fourth largest military budget in the world (52 billion per year), and has just agreed to take the lead in an Arab coalition to fight ISIS.  This coalition is only in the planning stages and will not be formed in time to save Yemen.  But at least many countries of the Middle East are beginning to clean up their own mess.  Certainly, the Saudis have a more immediate investment in seeing the defeat of ISIS.  Of course, in doing so, they come against Iran, as well, which is a necessary course of action.

The Egyptian Armed forces is reported to have more than 468,500 active personnel, in addition to 800,000 personnel available in reserve and over 400,000 paramilitary personnel making it one of the largest armies in the world (Wikipedia).

Jordan has the fifth most militarized nation in the world with 100,000 active military personnel and nearly 65,000 active reserves.  They will contribute to the coalition.  However, there are internal problems that have kept these countries from working well together.  But if these countries used even half of their forces, ISIS could be destroyed very quickly.

Strong leadership has not yet emerged from the United States.  How strong will be the leadership of Saudi Arabia has yet to be seen.  Of course, God has allowed the present circumstances for a reason, but that does not let America or any nation off the hook from standing up for righteousness against an evil enemy.  Especially an enemy that has designs upon our own nation (indeed, this is its foremost goal).   While the Arabs are forming a coalition, America could act now.  America could immediately provide strong leadership and take much stronger action than it is taking.  Of course, even if victory is quickly achieved, it will take at least a generation to defeat other forms of terrorism around the world, and in this writer’s view, battles against evil will never cease until the return of Christ (see the last chapter of the Book of Revelation).

It’s never too late to take leadership and then turn it over to Arab coalition, should that coalition prove effective.  Keep in mind that the number one responsibility of our government is the security of Americans and that America is presently “in the thick of things” right here on our own soil (see Parts I and II for more details).  Keep in mind that a great threat to America exists at this very moment and the time for decisive action is passing quickly.  Eight miles from the border of Texas is an ISIS training camp.  The State Dept. denies that this is true, but offers no proof of this denial.

Whether you believe we must individually forgive these particular enemies or not is irrelevant to the needed action.  Forgive and love our enemies all you want to, personally.  That’s what Jesus commands.  But our nation must help to stop the senseless murder and rapid advance of darkness, just as the world should have stopped Hitler and could easily have stopped him early in his campaigns.

America must lead the execution of thorough judgment upon ISIS, upon all Islamic terrorists (including upon those that have been released from GITMO and from the jail that released the present leader of ISIS), and upon any other mutation of terrorism that threatens our national security.

Do we need boots on the ground?  We need Arab boots. That’s for certain.   One biblical objection to this suggestion to join with the Arabs is that in biblical times, whenever the armies of Israel joined with ungodly nations, no good came of it.  But these Islamic theocracies are not technically our “enemies.”  As with all the Arab nations, they violate human rights as a way of life, and they persecute women in heinous ways.  Therefore, they are not ideal allies.  Yet considering that these nations are not our enemies and considering how easy it would be for them to defeat ISIS with the right leadership, it seems incumbent upon the United States to provide this leadership.  Such leadership would include providing air power, weaponry and Intel on the ground.  If this leadership proves to be necessary only temporarily, all the better.  Aligning with the Arab nations is no different than aligning with China and Russia to defeat Germany in WWII.  Some people believe that we should withdraw entirely from the Middle East.  We already see how our abdication of leadership has affected Russia, China, and Iran, as well as how this show of apathy and cowardice has affected our allies.  Further or continued abdication would continue to erode the trust of any nation that we can still call an ally.   Also, as already mentioned, whether America likes it or not, we are truly in the middle of the fight right now with terror cells in every state.  As smoke rises in the Middle East, we can provide leadership there – now – or we can exponentially increase our efforts to combat evil in America in the future.

Joining with Iran would be the height foolishness.  That would be the clear equivalent of God’s injunction in the Old Testament to not unite with our enemies.  Yet this is what America seems to be doing!  Iran is the #1 supporter of terror in the world and chants of “death to America” continue to ring in the darkness that covers that land.  Presently, Iran’s Middle East direct influence extends into Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.  Is it any wonder that Arab nations that are friendly to the United States are drawing closer to Israel, hoping that help can come from that nation?  Saudi Arabia has even offered a corridor through their nation for Israel to attack Iran.

Iran would easily defeat ISIS, but it would also add to its territory.  In fact, as America does little, the Shia fighters of Iran are taking the lead.  These Shia militias are quickly eclipsing the Iraqi forces in importance in Iraq.  The result of letting Iran take the lead will likely be to firmly establish Iran as the dominant force in Iran, doubling their territory while on their way to create nuclear weapons in the near future.  Providing help to the Arab nations, primarily in the form of leadership, would press Iran back out of the picture and help to preserve religious liberties in Iraq, helping Iraqis to regain ground lost when American pulled out the 15,000 troops.

Putting his own life in danger, Egypt’s President El Sisi has spoken directly to the leaders of Islam, advocating for them to stand up against Islamic fanaticism and also advocating for Arab boots on the ground.  El Sisi took the stand of a righteous man.

Can America provide air power, Intel on the ground, and weaponry?  Of course.  America could easily take the lead in the battle to defeat ISIS.   Our efforts to merely “contain” ISIS are not working.  Can we airlift those in danger out of Iraq and other nations in order to save them?  We have done this with over a thousand Muslims, as well as with many Syrians, even bringing many of them to America.  With the Syrians that we’ve brought to America, we haven’t even attempted to separate the oppressed from the oppressors.  Why not airlift Christians and those of other faiths out of harm’s way?

Is it worth it to stand up against the darkness?  Here’s another way to ask the same question (biblically): “Is it worth it to live for Jesus, rather than let darkness rule the globe, resulting in the murder of millions of Christians and millions upon millions of people of many faiths and cultures?”  Christians and tens of thousands of people of other faiths are presently being slaughtered.

Pacifism is not advocated in the bible.  Powerful action is not optional.  It’s what defeated the Third Reich and with God’s help – and only with God’s help – it’s what will defeat Islamic terrorism and all forms of terrorism.  I say “only with God’s help” because without God’s favor, Israel was consistently subjugated by other nations.  With God’s favor Israel could not be defeated even by “giants.”  As Psalm 127:1-2 says, “Except the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain that build it.”  America will have victory over any evil only to the extent that the nation turns to God as her strength.  Therefore, from a biblical point of view, God’s believing church in America must call out to Him and pray for the heavens to open in order for God’s power to flow through (2 Chronicles 7:14).  From a biblical point of view, and in the belief of this writer, only through such spiritual warfare will the necessary earthly battle turn in America’s favor.   Keep in mind that as posited in the many scriptures above, love of God goes hand in hand with hatred of evil; and it’s the hatred of evil – this outrage against mass extinction of innocents – that will undergird the passionate pursuit to rid the world of pure evil.  As Bernie Goldberg said recently, “When outrage dies, a piece of humanity dies with it.”   An upsurge of love of God in America, therefore, will greatly help to ignite outrage and necessary action.

While praying for our nation to turn to God, action against the enemies of civilization must be taken quickly.   Of course, believers in Christ know that He will someday go to war against Satan to bring last day’s events to a conclusion.  Until the return of the conquering Messiah, His expectation, I believe, is that Christians and righteous men and women of all faiths will protect their brothers and sisters around the world, as well as in their own countries.  Therefore, fighting Satan in these times agrees with scripture, just as the natural manifestation of righteousness is to hate evil and to love and protect innocent lives.  Leviticus 19:16 says, “Do not do anything that endangers your neighbor’s life.”  How much more should we stand up for the lives of millions of innocents, including the lives of fellow Christians, and including the lives of our own families?  Let’s remember that Jesus was not a peacekeeper; He was a peacemaker.

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41 Muslims from the U.S. have tried to join the Islamic State in 2015

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And it’s only May. But not to worry: all the learned analysts tell us that the Islamic State has nothing to do with Islam. “While D.C. Downplays Risk, U.S. Sees Shocking Rise in Terror Arrests This Year,” by Patrick Poole, PJ Media, May 27, 2015:

The arrest of two southern California men last week who were planning to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State brings the number of U.S.-based individuals involved in international terror-related cases this year to 40. (UPDATE: with the arrest of Houston-area Asher Abid Khan late Monday for supporting ISIS, the tally is now 41.)

This number highlights the metastasizing Islamic terror threat in the American homeland. At the current pace, by the end of June — halfway through 2015 — the number of cases will exceed the number from the past two years combined (48).

The Islamic State, as well as al-Qaeda affiliates and other Islamic terror groups, have repeatedly called for supporters to conduct attacks inside the American homeland:

Recent evidence gives cause for concern. As I noted here at PJ Media, FBI Director Comey downplayed the number of Americans who had traveled to Syria to fight with ISIS and other terror groups before the midterm elections. He stated on 60 Minutes that “roughly a dozen” were fighting in Syria. But in February, senior officials corrected that number. They admitted that 180 had traveled to Syria. They also admitted that 40 had returned to the U.S. and posed a potential threat. FBI Director Comey then said they were investigating ISIS suspects in all 50 states.

Underscoring the failure to alert the public regarding the threat, concerned citizens have not been able to find a list of the 40 individuals arrested this year. Until now, a public list simply didn’t exist.

Here they are: the 40 U.S.-based individuals charged in Islamic terror-related cases in 2015….

Read the list here.

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