Tag Archive for: Jihad in the U.S.

NYC: Muslim gets 30 years for stabbing cop in neck, shooting two others, says ‘my religion made me do it’

“When you meet the unbelievers, strike the necks…” (Qur’an 47:4)

NYC man sentenced to 30 years for stabbing cop in neck during George Floyd protests

by Ben Feuerherd, New York Post, September 21, 2022:

A Brooklyn man was sentenced to 30 years in prison Wednesday for stabbing an NYPD cop in the neck and shooting two other officers in an ambush during the 2020 George Floyd protests, authorities said.

Former Flatbush resident Dzenan Camovic, 23, was sentenced by Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun after pleading guilty in March to three counts of aggravated assault on a police officer and other crimes.

On June 3, 2020, Camovic walked up to police officers Yayon Frantz Jean Pierre and Randy Ramnarine on Flatbush Avenue near Church Avenue, screamed “Allahu akbar!” drew a knife and stabbed Jean Pierre in the neck.

Camovic then rushed Ramnarine and threw his knife at him, the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office said.

Wounded, Jean Pierre fired at the attacker, but tripped and lost control of his gun.

Camovic, a Bosnian national, grabbed the firearm and shot Ramnarine in the hand, according to police. He also shot another cop who responded to the scene in the hand.

After the attack, John Miller, then the NYPD’s deputy commissioner of counter terrorism, said it appeared to be terror-related, but authorities turned up no connection between Camovic and international terror groups.

Camovic allegedly told a hospital worker that he was a “worthless piece of s—t,” after the failed assassination attempt.

“I killed two police officers and my religion made me do it,” he told the hospital worker, according to court papers filed after the attack….

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No Further Questions, Your Honor

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

An Afghan Muslim Refugee Carried Out America’s Worst Islamophobic Killings

Leftists import bigoted killers and blame “Islamophobia.”

Diversity is our strength so it couldn’t have been too shocking that an Afghan Muslim refugee was responsible for America’s single worst Islamophobic killing spree. Much as another Afghan, Omar Mateen, brutally carried out the single largest massacre of gay people in America.

Americans are generally fairly tolerant so liberals decided to import bigoted immigrant killers.

When the migrant surge began, politicians and the media assured us that Afghans would make profound contributions to America. They have already set two particularly ugly national records.

And that was bound to happen.

Long after the last American soldier had left Afghanistan, the fighting between Sunnis and Shiites continues in the terrorist state with ISIS-K carrying out bombing attacks on Shiite mosques.. The massive influx of Afghan refugees to America has brought the bloody ethnic, tribal and religious clashes from that failed state to America.

Including the true and undiluted Islamophobia that only Sunnis and Shiites are truly capable of.

“I am angered and saddened by the horrific killings of four Muslim men in Albuquerque,” Joe Biden had tweeted. “While we await a full investigation, my prayers are with the victims’ families, and my administration stands strongly with the Muslim community. These hateful attacks have no place in America.”

“The targeted killings of Muslim residents of Albuquerque is deeply angering and wholly intolerable,” Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham tweeted. “We will continue to do everything we can to support to the Muslim community of Albuquerque and greater New Mexico during this difficult time. You are New Mexicans, you are welcomed here, and we stand with you.”

CAIR offered a $10,000 reward for the perpetrator of the “hateful shooting spree” and demanded that Biden make it his responsibility to “protect Albuquerque Muslims from further harm”. But when the perpetrator turned out to be a fellow Sunni Muslim, CAIR is no longer describing his actions as “hateful”, but “deranged”. Soon he’ll be dismissed as mentally ill.

The media was even less circumspect, interviewing local Islamists who claimed that they feared American intolerance and the media warned that “another Islamophobic attack could happen”.

The killing of four Muslim men from “South Asia”, the last of them outside a Lutheran Family Services refugee services office, was indeed Islamophobic in the most traditional way.

The alleged perpetrator, Muhammad Syed, a Sunni Muslim refugee from Afghanistan, was reportedly angry at his daughter’s marriage to a Shiite Muslim.

And took it out on some local Shiite Muslims in Albuquerque which is now the new Afghanistan.

Since the withdrawal, four Afghan refugees have been accused of sexual assault, two involving children and two involving adult women. Some 324 Afghans with terror ties have popped up on watchlists. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg that we actually know about.

In the 6 years since he arrived in America, Syed had racked up quite a record.

In 2017, the Afghan Muslim refugee, along with his wife and son, had been accused of assaulting his daughter’s boyfriend. That was in 2017. Next year, Syed was accused of grabbing his wife by the hair and throwing her out of the car. Then he allegedly attacked her at a Human Services office and pulled out “a large chunk of hair” from her scalp.

That same year, his son called the police claiming that Syed had been beating his mother, while he and his sister tried to hold him back. The beating left the younger Syed covered in blood.

By 2020, Syed was allegedly busted for refusing to comply with police orders after running a red light. Police reports indicate that four years after coming to America, Syed still only spoke “pashto” except for apparently the term “mother______r”.

Syed may not have enriched our culture, but we had clearly enriched his.

“I am deeply disturbed by the killings of four Muslim men in Albuquerque. As law enforcement continues to investigate these heinous attacks, we remain clear that we stand with the Muslim community in New Mexico and around our country. Hate has no place in America,” Kamala Harris had tweeted.

Hate has a huge place here and Kamala and her boss have made plenty of room for it.

Syed’s killing spree wasn’t domestic terrorism as we understand it. The Afghan Muslim refugee, who told police that he had fought in his country’s special forces, was settling communal grudges and disputes the same way that his countrymen usually do.

Men beating wives and family members isn’t unusual in Afghanistan. Neither is responding to a daughter’s rebellious relationship with murder. The case is only notable because it’s in America.

And because top elected officials, including Biden and Kamala, are in denial about it.

Democrats frequently remind us that other Muslims are the leading targets of Muslim terrorism. That’s true insofar as Islam has a rich 1,360 year history of fatally settling theological differences. The world’s greatest ‘Islamophobes’ are Muslims who have been killing each other and members of variant sects because, beginning with Mohammed, for most of their history the inherent violence of Islam leaves few other options for resolving religious differences except “submission”. Cultural differences end with slavery, forced marriage, repression and genocide.

In the decades since the Islamic terrorist attacks of September 11, Biden, Kamala, local officials in New Mexico and most of the country’s political elites and cultural establishment have learned to respond to Islamic violence with cries of Islamophobia. But what happens when Islamic violence is no longer being directed at Americans, but at other Muslims?

Americans are some of the least hateful people in America. Polls and surveys show that we are less racist, more tolerant of religious differences, and more willing to share spaces with people who are different than they are than most of the rest of the world.

And, it ought to go without saying, Afghanistan.

Taking in massive numbers of Afghan Muslim refugees has had the opposite effect. Multiple Afghan refugees have already been caught up in ordinary domestic physical and sexual offenses. And that’s just the recent arrivals, not longtimers like Syed in New Mexico.

The mass migration of Afghans to America means that we now have to police cultural, gender, and religious disputes in a population that could not, even with our extended help over the course of two decades, settle those differences in their own country. Now we have been cursed with the even more hopeless task of trying to settle Afghan differences in America.

The Albuquerque killings, like the assaults on military bases housing refugees, and the sexual assaults off those bases, is a warning of the scale and hopelessness of the task before us.

From Omar Mateen, the perpetrator of the second deadliest mass shooting in America at the Pulse nightclub, to Muhammad Syed, Afghan immigration means violence, terror and death for everyone as the norms of a deeply broken culture pop up in cities like Albuquerque.

Syed, who violently clashed with his family members and had repeated run-ins with the law until his violent impulses allegedly turned lethal, is not an outlier, he is the face of the future.

Our future.

What happened in Albuquerque is just what happens when Afghanistan comes to America.

AUTHOR

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Media Tries to Report on Salman Rushdie Stabbing Without Mentioning ‘Islam’

Author Salman Rushdie, who was forced to spend a chunk of his life in hiding because his book, The Satanic Verses, offended Islamic religious authorities in Iran who imposed a murder fatwa on him, was stabbed in the neck and had to be airlifted to a hospital when he was attacked on stage.

 Author Salman Rushdie, being stabbed at an event in New York State on Friday, suffered “10 to 15” blows in the attack, eyewitnesses said. One of them said she thought it was “a stunt” at first.

“This guy ran on to platform and started pounding on Mr Rushdie,” said Rabbi Charles Savenor, who was in the audience for the lecture at Chautauqua Institution, about 100 km from the city.

A reporter from AP said the attacker “punched or stabbed Mr Rushdie 10 to 15 times”.

“At first you’re like, ‘What’s going on?’ And then it became abundantly clear in a few seconds that he was being beaten,” Mr Savenor told the news agency. He said the attack lasted about 20 seconds.

The media, at least in this country, has wrapped itself in knots to avoid using the “I” word.

Back when Rushdie wrote The Satanic Verses, it was controversial. Today, any kind of criticism of Mohammed is considered hate speech and censored to such a degree that the media would not even report what an Indian elected official said about Mohammed’s pedophilic tendencies, only to denounce it as hurtful and hateful to Muslims.

Today, a new author could never publish something like that. And the media is uncomfortable even discussing what it is that Rushdie wrote.

The various condemnations likewise don’t mention Islam, Islamic terrorism or any beyond generic concepts like “freedom of expression.”

Long before this attack, the sharia censorship that Iran wanted to impose on Americans had already been achieved.

AUTHOR

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Next Generation of Jihad Suicide Bombers is Being Trained at an Islamic School in Houston, Texas

Americans have gotten very comfortable thinking that 9/11 is in the rearview mirror and that after Afghanistan and Iraq, we’ve done enough and we don’t have to think about it anymore. Islamic terrorist plots keep happening and migration is changing the country’s demographics. Mehmet Oz’s GOP/MAGA Senate nomination in PA has been a political game changer that has mostly flown under the radar. Gitmo is being emptied. We think we’ve won when actually we’re losing. Badly.

Here’s a little preview of what’s coming.

The lines include, “I make an oath…one day when you need me, I will be your martyr.”

Here’s a little background.

The Islamic Education Center of Houston, Texas, is organizing a “group recitation” — sung by children as young as four — of a new Iranian anthem saluting Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.

“The song Salam Farmande is an expression of one’s love for the Imam of our age,” says the center.

And a little more.

Iran has marked the 33rd anniversary of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s death with a new revolutionary anthem sung by boys and girls segregated in town squares, mosques and stadiums across the country.

In order to convey to the young generations the zeal of the 1979 revolutionary days, the regime has resorted to making multiple music videos of children born in the last decade, singing the anthem, “Salute Commander.” They give a military salute, pledging their unswerving loyalty to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

The original Persian lyrics of the anthem are heavily ideological: “In spite of my small size, when the time comes I will rise up for you … I am a child but the life of my family and I belong to you.”

The children also raise their right arm and sing: “I make an oath to become your Qassem Soleimani when you need me,” and pledge to become Khamenei’s “nameless soldiers,” a reference to Iran’s intelligence operatives.

When the children in the UK sing “We wait under the flag of our leaders,” there should be no doubt that they refer not to the Queen, but to the Supreme Leader of Iran.

MEMRI had documented a previous effort by the Islamic Education Center of Houston.

On February 20, 2019, the Islamic Education Center of Houston, Texas uploaded to its YouTube channel a video of a February 17 ceremony celebrating the 40th anniversary of Iran’s Islamic Revolution. Morteza Kazemian, a tenth grader, spoke and said that the United States continues to sanction Iran because it is scared of it and that America’s two goals in the Middle East are to support Israel and Saudi Arabia. The audience chanted: “Away with the humiliation… Allah Akbar! Khamenei is our Leader!” In addition, young boys wearing scarves and green headbands sang a song that went: “We are your followers, you are our Leader… We are your soldiers, and together we can all be your power… May Allah always keep your hand upon us… A warrior just like the Battle of Khaybar… May you always be the light to our guidance.”

Khaybar notes the beginning of the Islamic ethnic cleansing of the Jews which originated the phrase, “Allahu Akbar”.

The real war at home is still coming.

AUTHOR

RELATED VIDEO: Muslim Kids in Houston Get Trained to Praise Islamic Iran’s Terrorism.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

2022 Is Lit: Army Private Sent Sensitive Military Info to White Supremacist Group to Facilitate Jihad Attack

The official propaganda line that the regime would have us believe, solemnly repeated by Old Joe Biden, Gestapo chief Merrick Garland, and others is that “white supremacists” constitute the greatest terror threat the nation faces today. The only problem with this scenario is that in the absence of a large number of white supremacist terror attacks, the narrative has had to be shored up by branding parents as terrorists for being angry about drag queen story hour in elementary schools. That is not to say, however, that there is no white supremacist terrorism at all. It’s just not a matter of MAGA hat-wearing rednecks descending on obscure gay black actors in sub-zero weather while declaring that Chicago is “MAGA country.” Reality, as always, is more complicated than the narrative, as a recent case illustrates.

On Friday, according to the Justice Department, a U.S. Army private named Ethan Phelan Melzer, who also went by the name Etil Reggad, “pled guilty to attempting to murder U.S. service members, providing and attempting to provide material support to terrorists, and illegally transmitting national defense information.” Melzer was involved with the Order of the Nine Angles (O9A), which the DOJ says is “an occult-based, neo-Nazi, and white supremacist group.” But no one is wearing MAGA hats in this crowd: “O9A espouses neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic, and Satanic beliefs, and promotes extreme violence to accelerate and cause the demise of Western civilization.  The group has expressed admiration both for Nazis, such as Adolf Hitler, and Islamic jihadists, such as Usama Bin Laden, the now-deceased former leader of al Qaeda.”

The group didn’t just admire bin Laden; it wanted to emulate him. Melzer, the DOJ explains, “planned a jihadist attack on his U.S. Army unit in the days leading up to a deployment to Turkey and sent sensitive details about the unit” to O9A. Underscoring the seriousness of this plot is the fact that this information included details of his unit’s “location, movements, and security.” This wouldn’t have been the first time O9A committed an act of terrorism: “Members and associates of O9A have also participated in acts of violence, including murders. O9A members are instructed to fulfill ‘sinister’ deeds, including ‘insight roles,’ where they attempt to infiltrate various organizations, including the military, to gain training and experience, commit acts of violence, identify like-minded individuals, and ultimately subvert those groups from within.”

That was why Melzer joined the Army in the first place: solely in order to set up this attack. No one initially suspected him, however, and so in October 2019 he went to Italy as part of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team. While he was there, however, Melzer “consumed propaganda from multiple extremist groups, including O9A and the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, which is also known as ISIS.” He also “subscribed to encrypted online forums where he downloaded and accessed videos of jihadist attacks on U.S. troops and facilities and jihadist executions of civilians and soldiers, in addition to far-right, neo-Nazi, and other white supremacist propaganda.”

Then in May 2020, Melzer was reassigned to a different unit, and classified briefings as part of his training to deploy with it. He started passing on this information to O9A, and to “a sub-group of O9A known as the ‘RapeWaffen Division,’ providing details about his unit’s anticipated deployment including troop movements, relevant dates, locations, armaments, topography, and security, all in connection with the proposed attack on his unit and the Military Base.” Melzer himself and other O9A members referred to what they were planning a “jihadi attack” and envisioned it as a “mass casualty” event that would kill numerous U.S. service members. He also passed on this information to someone who represented himself as a member of al-Qaeda.

Melzer understood the gravity of what he was doing, telling other O9A members: “[y]ou just gotta understand that currently I am risking my literal free life to give you all this.” He said he was willing to die to pull off his attack, but “I would’ve died successfully…cause [] another 10 year war in the Middle East would definitely leave a mark.”

So the DOJ got its white supremacist terrorist, but he had nothing to do with pro-Trump conservatives, and turned out to be working hand-in-glove with the jihad terrorists that the Biden administration has consistently downplayed or ignored outright. Once again, the narrative of the political and media elites is shown to be false – not, of course, that they will take any notice of that, much less change course.

AUTHOR

RELATED ARTICLE: White Supremacists Everywhere: Biden Tries to Link Jan. 6 with Buffalo Shooting

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

California: Muslim tries to join ISIS, says he’d try again if acquitted, gets 20 years

He might have had a better chance of being acquitted if he had worked harder to fool the infidel authorities, telling them that he now realized that ISIS was un-Islamic and all the other nonsense that we so often hear from jihadis in court. And those infidel authorities are so ignorant, and so very eager to be fooled. But Augustine was honest with them, and will have a few years in prison at least to think about that and work on his prison dawah.

California man who tried to join ISIS sentenced to 20 years

by Gabrielle Fonrouge, New York Post, April 7, 2022:

California man who tried to join ISIS and wanted to encourage more English speakers to be part of the terror group was sentenced to 20 years behind bars, Brooklyn federal prosecutors announced.

Bernard Augustine, 25, represented himself during his one-week trial in August and told jurors that if he was acquitted, he’d try once again to join the terror group, prosecutors said after his Wednesday sentencing….

Around the time Augustine turned 18 while living in Keyes, a small rural community outside of Modesto, he made plans to travel in February 2016 to Tunisia from San Francisco with the goal of joining ISIS across the border in Libya.

In the months leading up to his trip, Augustine spent time watching ISIS propaganda videos that glorified the terror group’s violence and googling questions like “how to safely join ISIS,” prosecutors said.

The wannabe terrorist also visited websites on the ISIS recruitment process, including one titled: “How does a Westerner join ISIS? Is there a recruitment or application process?”

Augustine went through with his February 2016 trip to Tunisia, but before he could cross the border into Libya, he was detained for two years and then returned to the US in 2018.

During his trial, Augustine testified that he still wanted to join ISIS and described videos of the group beheading Syrian captives as “good” and “really cool.” He said he intended to help the group by providing English-language voiceovers for their propaganda videos.

Prosecutors asked him to confirm testimony he gave that he “would do it all again and would go back today” if given the chance and Augustine replied, “No, tomorrow, when they let me off.”…

AUTHOR

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

KANSAS: Muslim Convert Wanted to Bomb College Campus for ISIS

Muslim converts tend to be far more fanatical, but the strange element to this story is that we haven’t heard her name before.

According to the DOJ, Allison Elizabeth Fluke-Ekren, aka “Allison Elizabeth Brooks,” aka “Allison Ekren,” aka “Umm Mohammed al-Amriki,” aka “Umm Mohammed,” and aka “Umm Jabril,” 42, “a former resident of Kansas, traveled to Syria several years ago for the purpose of committing or supporting terrorism.”

Fluke-Ekren appears to have converted to Islam at least as far back as 2004 since a news story from that year appears to show her wearing a hijab.

Photos from a blog apparently showcasing her unfortunate kids show little girls being forced to wear hijabs. The kids have Turkish names inflicted on them so it seems likely that she married a Turkish Muslim man and went all the way.

“Since her departure from the United States, Fluke-Ekren has allegedly been involved with a number of terrorism-related activities on behalf of ISIS from at least 2014. These activities allegedly include, but are not limited to, planning and recruiting operatives for a potential future attack on a college campus inside the United States and serving as the appointed leader and organizer of an ISIS military battalion, known as the Khatiba Nusaybah, in order to train women on the use of automatic firing AK-47 assault rifles, grenades and suicide belts. Additionally, Fluke-Ekren allegedly provided ISIS and ISIS members with services, which included providing lodging, translating speeches made by ISIS leaders, training children on the use of AK-47 assault rifles and suicide belts and teaching extremist ISIS doctrine.”

The DOJ materials mention that she went with her husband to Syria to live “in the land of Sharia”

There was a proposed attack on a college campus in which the terrorists would “dress like infidels” and leave a bomb backpack.

Fluke-Ekren “explained that she could go to a shopping mall in the United States, park a vehicle full of explosives in the basement or parking garage level of the structure, and detonate the explosives in the vehicle with a cell phone triggering device.”

When Fluke-Ekren “would hear about external attacks taking place in countries outside the United States, Fluke-Ekren would comment that she wished the attack occurred on United States soil instead.”

“Fluke-Ekren translated her extremist beliefs into action by serving as the appointed leader and organizer of an Islamic State military battalion, directly training women and children in the use of AK-47 assault rifles, grenades, and suicide belts to support the Islamic State’s murderous aims,” wrote First Assistant U.S. Attorney Raj Parekh in a detention memo.

After her original husband’s death, she was passed around ISIS fighters, marrying one after another, now she’s back to face justice.

This is, to put it bluntly, another tragedy caused by Islamic immigration into the United States. And another reminder of how much harm the “international students” and “workers” that universities and companies demand be allowed to come to America do to us.

COLUMN BY

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

Did the Texas Synagogue Jihadi Act Alone?

In the wake of the turbulence surrounding the 15 January 2022 Texas synagogue attack, it may be useful to take a step backward to review those events from a broader strategic perspective. John Guandolo at Understanding the Threat has done an excellent job explaining how this attack fits into the overall Islamic Movement jihad campaign against Western Civilization and the United States Constitutional Republic and the Jewish people in particular. Here, though, let us focus on the particular involvement of two international aspects: the Tablighi Jama’at Islamic revivalist/missionary organization and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.

First, the event itself: from what we know as of this writing, a Pakistani jihadi with British citizenship named Malik Faisal Akram entered the Reform Jewish Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, TX (a Dallas-Ft. Worth suburb) around 10:40 the morning of 15 January 2022 during Shabbat services. The shul’s prayer and services schedule is helpfully posted online at its monthly calendar page. Services were being livestreamed for the benefit of congregation members praying from home, so much of the event and subsequent 10-hour stand-off with law enforcement was captured on audio, although apparently not on video.

Akram initially approached the closed front doors of the synagogue and was let in by Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, affectionately known by his congregation as ‘Rabbi Charlie”. At first Rabbi Charlie didn’t suspect anything untoward, but interrupting Shabbat services, decided to make tea for Akram. In a 17 Jan 2022 interview with CBS News, Rabbi Charlie recounted the moment when things turned terrifying. Reportedly, Akram pulled a gun and made claims about bombs. According to a portion of the synagogue livestream broadcast obtained by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Akram is heard saying, “I’ve got these prisoners” and “I am going to die.” While his key spoken demand was the release from U.S. federal prison of the Pakistani jihadi known as “Lady Al-Qa’eda” – true name, Aafia Siddiqui – that was but a pretext for a broader objective. Akram claimed that he and Siddiqui would be “going to Jannah (Muslim belief of heaven) after he sees her,” according to a statement from the FBI on Saturday night.

What neither Rabbi Charlie, his congregation members, nor apparently Local Law Enforcement Officers (LLEOs) and the FBI have understood was that, with these statements, Akram was reciting his belief in core Islamic doctrine. As Robert Spencer wrote in PJ Media, antisemitism is deeply rooted in the Qur’an itself, where it is written that “Jews are called the strongest of all people in enmity toward the Muslims (5:82); they fabricate things and falsely ascribe them to Allah (2:79; 3:75, 3:181); they disobey Allah and never observe his commands (5:13), and Muslims should wage war against them and subjugate them under Islamic hegemony (9:29), among many other slanders.” Further, as Spencer writes, the abduction of infidels as hostages is also sanctioned in the Qur’an (Sura 47, Verse 4), where it is stipulated that Muslims may choose to kill hostages, enslave them, ransom them, or “show favor” and release them. Similarly applicable is Sura 9, Verse 111, which offers the promise of paradise to those who “kill and are killed” for Allah, in the act of jihad, thus becoming a shahid.

While it is a tremendous relief to know that Rabbi Charlie and all the other hostages got out of the situation alive and unharmed, their unfamiliarity with these Qur’anic passages may well have contributed to their unquestioning acceptance of interfaith dialogue associations that in retrospect may be seen as unwise. Indeed, as the synagogue’s Mission Statement declares, “we believe in interfaith inclusion” and “Tikkun Olam (Repair the World).” Further, as the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue’s Facebook pages show, the Rabbi and his congregation had promoted interfaith events, including a 2 November 2019 and 6 November 2021 “Peace Together Walk,” with a photo of the walk beginning in front of the Colleyville Masjid, also known as the “Colleyville Association of Mid-Cities”. The Islamic Center of Southlake also was a participant. Unfortunately, each of these mosques has Muslim Brotherhood/jihadist connections, as documented by Understanding the Threat. Just one of those connections, for example, is the Imam Siraj Wahhaj, of the Brooklyn, NY Al-Taqwa Mosque, who was specifically named in a list of the unindicted co-conspirators at the 1993 World Trade Center bombing trial.

Now, to the Tablighi-Jama’at and Pakistani connections. As we now know, Akram entered the U.S. through JFK Airport in late December 2021 with his British passport on the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP)’s visa waiver program. He would have obtained that entry permit through the CBP’s online portal. Once waived through Customs at JFK, Akram was free to travel onward anywhere in the U.S. that he wished. It is unlikely that CBP is aware of what Tablighi Jama’at is or that Akram was affiliated with it. CBP should have, but possibly didn’t know either about Akram’s criminal record, as revealed by his brother. As Ilana Freedman documented in her excellent October 2016 monograph, “Gateway to Jihad: Tablighi Jama’at,” Tablighi Jama’at (TJ) is a global Islamic proselytizing organization with millions of followers in at least 80 countries. Although TJ is jihadist, it is not known to commit terrorism per se, but rather sends its missionaries to preach in mosques and Islamic Centers to strengthen the commitment of Muslim faithful to the essential doctrine and law (shariah) of Islam. Such dawah efforts, however, in many cases, serve as a conveyer belt or gateway to kinetic jihad, as was the case with Akram.

Akram himself, born in the United Kingdom (UK) of a family that hailed from the Jhelum district in the Pakistani Punjab, reportedly had traveled abroad on just such missions. According to reporting from the Hindustan Times, in the Blackburn, Lancashire area of England where Akram grew up, he “served as the head of the Rondell Street Islamic Centre in the London area, also known as Reza Masjid, where largely Muslims of Pakistani origin prayed. He also prayed at the Eldorado Masjid that was frequented by Gujarati Muslims in the region.” Two teenagers, possibly Akram’s sons, were arrested by UK Counterterrorism police in South Manchester on Sunday 16 Jan 22 and held for questioning.

As we can see, the connections to Pakistan are many. Nevertheless, it must be said that any possible connections to the Pakistani government or to the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency are premature at this point. It is instructive, though, to recall the many Islamic terror attacks in which ISI has been involved. We may begin with the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai, India, in which, according to the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) drawing on classified Indian government documents, the ISI was “heavily involved”. The following year, on 30 December 2009, according to declassified U.S. government documents, a Jordanian doctor reportedly recruited and dispatched by the ISI, detonated a suicide vest at the CIA’s Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan, killing seven and injuring an additional six. Then, on 2 December 2015, U.S.-born Syed Rizwan Farook and his Pakistani wife, Tashfeen Malik carried out a deadly shooting attack at Farook’s office Christmas party in San Bernardino, CA.  The couple had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State online and expressed support openly for Islamic jihad. Malik had attended college and the Al-Huda International Welfare Foundation women’s Islamic seminary in the Punjab before marrying Farook through an online arranged wedding that took place in Saudi Arabia in 2014.

Once again, while direct ISI involvement in this attack has not been publicly documented, the area of the Punjab where Malik studied is known as a stronghold of Deobandi jihadist groups, such as Lashkar-e Jangvi and Lashkar-e Taiba, both closely affiliated with the ISI. Then, in June 2016, Omar Mateen, who identified himself as “an Islamic soldier” in talks with a crisis negotiator, opened fire inside the Orlando, FL Pulse nightclub, killing 49 people and leaving 53 wounded. Mateen, age 29, was a U.S. citizen, born in Queens, NYC to Afghan immigrant parents. At some point, Mateen had attended the Islamic Center of Ft. Pierce, whose imam, Syed Shafeeq Rahman, quickly after the shooting, named Wilfredo Amr Ruiz, a local leader of the Hamas-related Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), as the mosque’s new spokesman. Rahman, also a General Practitioner medical doctor, obtained his medical degree from the Ayub Medical College in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Finally, a brief mention must be made about the 2018 cybersecurity breach involving multiple Members of Congress. The Pakistani Awan brothers, who were given access to highly sensitive government information without a background check, were permitted to work remotely – from Pakistan – up to several months at a time, according to investigative reporter Luke Rosiak.

In summary, then, there are far too many Pakistani connections to jihadist attacks and operations, spanning many years, to ignore. Nevertheless, those connections would appear to be rarely noted and only perfunctorily investigated.  Certainly, in this most recent attack on the Texas synagogue, there must have been an extensive support network that conducted the pre-attack casing and surveillance, recruited and prepared Akram, and arranged for his travel to and within the U.S., his lodging, and provision of the funding and knowledge for how to purchase a gun on the street. Clearly, the Muslim Brotherhood/CAIR network in and around the Dallas-Ft. Worth area has been vocal in campaigns to get the Pakistan-born convicted terrorist Aafia Siddiqui released from prison. Siddiqui not only tried to kill U.S. personnel in Afghanistan in 2008, leading to her conviction on terrorism charges in a 2010 Manhattan trial, but had been married to a nephew of Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, who remarked on her “obsession” with jihad. Educated at MIT, Siddiqui earned a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Brandeis University in 2001, before returning to southwest Asia in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. She is serving her sentence at the Federal Medical Center, Carswell, Ft. Worth, located some 24 miles from the Congregation Beth Israel. Note: This does not automatically mean that CAIR was involved in the synagogue attack, but rather that it shares Akram’s antisemitic animus and purpose in obtaining Siddiqui’s release from prison.

This analysis is offered in the interests of encouraging the situational awareness of faith communities, law enforcement, and national-level security agencies alike. Comments such as that made by FBI Special Agent in Charge Matt DeSarno at a press conference following the end of the hostage crisis attest to the critical need for such education. Although roundly criticized later, that evening, DeSarno said that the “hostage taker was specifically focused on an issue not directly connected to the Jewish community” and added that there was “no immediate indication that the man had was part of any broader plan”.

The fact that UK police and counterterrorism officials are assisting their U.S. counterparts in the investigation does indicate that the overall investigation extends internationally. At the same time, comments such as made by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on Sunday 16 Jan 22, who said that it was “too soon to tell” if the Texas synagogue hostage situation was part of a “broader extremist threat” and that they were looking into “what this person’s motives were and whether or not there are any further connections” demonstrate just how far we yet have to go.

COLUMN BY

Clare M. Lopez is the Founder/President of Lopez Liberty LLC and serves as a senior advisory board member for the Near East Center for Strategic Engagement (NEC-SE).

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Psaki claims Texas synagogue jihadi was checked ‘multiple times’ before being admitted to the U.S.

If Psaki isn’t lying outright, which is possible, this makes the Biden administration look even worse, in that they didn’t find anything on this dedicated and hardened jihad terrorist.

Jen Psaki says British synagogue terrorist was checked against US government databases ‘multiple times’ before he entered the country as House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy demands answers

by Elizabeth Elkind and Jennifer Smith, DailyMail.com, January 18, 2022

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Tuesday that the British national who was able to fly to the United States despite having a criminal history and hold four people hostage at a Texas synagogue was checked ‘multiple times’ before he entered the country.

‘Our understanding, and obviously we’re still looking into this, is that he was checked against US government databases multiple times prior to entering the country,’ Psaki said on Tuesday.

A short while earlier, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy released a blistering statement demanding answers from President Joe Biden’s White House and raising alarms over ‘what national security concerns remain.’

In addition to condemning the attack, he and other national Republican figures like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have been grilling the administration over its handling of the incident.

There is growing outrage and demand for answers as to how the British terrorist gunman who took four hostages at a synagogue in Colleyville on Saturday was even able to enter the US on a tourist visa when he was known to intelligence agencies in the UK.

Malik Faisal Akram, 44, flew to New York City from the UK on January 22, despite being known to MI5 and having a criminal record.

She explained that the government did not have any ‘derogatory information’ on Akram when he entered the country.

‘We’re certainly looking back, as I referenced, at what occurred to learn every possible lesson we can to prevent attacks like this in the future,’ Psaki said.

She directed further questions to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). DailyMail.com has reached out to DHS for more information on whether Akram was ever on a US watchlist.

‘Over the past 48 hours, President Biden’s Justice Department has gone from denying the clear and religious, anti-Semitic implications of this attack to now backtracking to what we all already knew to be true. Now as more information becomes available, it only raises more questions,’ McCarthy said in a statement first sent to DailyMail.com….

Akram’s family say he had a criminal history but somehow, he was able to get an ESTA tourist visa – which are supposed to be off-limits to foreigners who have broken the law….

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How did the Texas synagogue jihadi get a tourist visa to come to the U.S. despite having a criminal record?

No one seems to know. That raises even more questions.

How was he allowed into the U.S. to begin with?

House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy demands answers from the Biden administration about how British synagogue gunman with criminal convictions was let into America

by Elizabeth Elkind and Jennifer Smith, DailyMail.com, January 18, 2022:

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is demanding President Joe Biden’s White House answer how a UK national with a criminal history was allowed to fly to the United States where he held four people hostage at a synagogue in Texas over the weekend.

In addition to condemning the attack, he and other national Republican figures like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have been grilling the administration over its handling of the incident.

Many accused the president of directing more federal law enforcement resources toward American parents protesting Critical Race Theory and mask mandates in public schools.

There is growing outrage and demand for answers as to how the British terrorist gunman who took four hostages at a synagogue in Colleyville on Saturday was even able to enter the US on a tourist visa when he was known to intelligence agencies in the UK.

The FBI has declined to comment on the matter.

Malik Faisal Akram, 44, flew to New York City from the UK on January 22, despite being known to MI5 and having a criminal record.

‘Over the past 48 hours, President Biden’s Justice Department has gone from denying the clear and religious, anti-Semitic implications of this attack to now backtracking to what we all already knew to be true. Now as more information becomes available, it only raises more questions,’ McCarthy said in a statement first sent to DailyMail.com.

The top GOP lawmaker in the House of Representatives accused Biden officials of ‘downplaying’ the attack and demanded to know why the FBI ‘initially disregard[ed] the role anti-Semitism played in this hostage situation.’

‘How was it that someone with an apparent criminal record and suspicious travel history was allowed into the United States to begin with?’ he also questioned. ‘What national security concerns remain?’…

Akram’s family say he had a criminal history but somehow, he was able to get an ESTA tourist visa – which are supposed to be off-limits to foreigners who have broken the law.

Akram spent two weeks at a homeless shelter in Dallas, during which time he was able to buy a gun on the street….

‘How long did the FBI know a radical Islamist foreign national with a criminal record was in the country? Were they working with him or his associates?

‘How did this person get a visa? Did he slip through the cracks because they were too busy surveilling your conservative grandma?’ Donald Trump Jr. tweeted.

‘They don’t want us to talk about how a known jihadist got past the FBI and into the country, obtained an illegal firearm, and took hostages at a synagogue,’ Jasec Posobiec said.

Stephen Miller, Trump’s former adviser, tweeted that ‘every journalist’ should be asking whether Biden changing vetting laws for tourists contributed to the incident.

The Independent reports that Akram was known to MI5 but that they didn’t consider him a severe threat.

It’s unclear what he said in his application for an ESTA tourist visa, which asks whether or not applicants have a criminal record.

The ESTA website claims checks will be carried out to see if an applicant has any undisclosed criminal convictions on file.

But according to social justice charity Nacro, the US authorities do not have access to criminal records held on the UK’s Police National Computer.

There was equal outrage in the UK, where lawmakers demanded to know how he was able to by-pass America’s immigration rules, which are known to be some of the strictest in the world.

Tory MP Bob Seely told MailOnline there seemed to have been a ‘dreadful’ error at the UK and US borders caused by an ‘intelligence failure’ and it needed to be looked at.

‘This is clearly a failure of intelligence sharing. It is absolutely dreadful that he has been allowed to go to the States and hurt people.

‘Clearly something has gone wrong somewhere,’ he said.

Another senior MP with knowledge of the security services voiced surprise that the background had not been picked up. ‘How did he get into the US?’ they said. ‘You get picked up for walking on the cracks in the pavement.’

Yesterday, his brother, Gulbar, demanded how he was allowed into America despite a long criminal record.

He said Malik was mentally ill and was mourning the death of his brother three months ago, reportedly from Covid.

The extent of his criminal record is not yet clear, but it may be that some of his offences may have been too petty or too old to stop him being turned away from the United States’ border.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Texas synagogue gunman identified as Muslim from UK, Malik Faisal Akram who had ‘mental health issues’

Well, sure. All jihadis have mental health issues. Nothing they do has anything to do with Islamic texts or teachings. Don’t you know that by now, you greasy Islamophobe?

Feds Identify Synagogue Hostage-Taker as 44-Year-Old British Citizen

by Dia Gill, Daily Beast, January 16, 2022:

The feds on Sunday identified the gunman who was shot dead after taking four hostages in a dramatic 10-hour standoff at a Texas synagogue as 44-year-old Malik Faisal Akram, a British citizen.

The Blackburn Muslim Community in the U.K. confirmed Akram’s death in a Facebook post on Sunday afternoon, asking the community to “avoid taking part in the sin of backbiting” as authorities continue to investigate the attack, which President Joe Biden has called “an act of terror.”

The group shared a statement from Akram’s brother, identified as Gulbar, that condemned the attack.

“We would like to say that we as a family do not condone any of his actions and would like to sincerely apologize wholeheartedly to all the victims involved in the unfortunate incident,” he wrote.

Hours before the FBI’s announcement, a spokesperson for the British Foreign Office said they were “aware of the death of a British man in Texas and are in contact with the local authorities.”

“The FBI’s Evidence Response Team (ERT) will continue processing evidence at the synagogue,” the FBI wrote in its release. “At this time, there is no indication that other individuals are involved. The FBI’s North Texas Joint Terrorism Task Force (NTJTTF), which includes member agencies from across the region, will continue to follow investigative leads. An FBI Shooting Incident Review Team (SIRT) will conduct a thorough, factual, and objective investigation of the events.”…

According to the Gulbar’s statement, the family was aware of Akram’s involvement during the crisis. They said that despite his “mental health issues,” they believed he would not harm his captives.

According to Gulbar’s post, the FBI is expected to fly to the U.K. and meet with the family later today.

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TEXAS: Muslim takes hostages at synagogue, says he will kill people if anyone gets close

Congregation Beth Israel Synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, was in the middle of Shabbat services that were being livestreamed on Facebook, when a gunman burst in and took hostages. As of this writing, the situation is ongoing, but some details have already emerged.

Amichai Stein of Kan, the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation, reports that “The gunman says he is Muslim and holding at least 6 people says ‘he will kill people if anyone gets close to the synagogue.’” Before the livestream from the synagogue was cut off, the gunman could be heard ranting in a foreign language that, according to journalist and trial attorney Marina Medvin, turned out to be Arabic. Medvin noted that the gunman said, “Are you listening? I am going to die. So don’t cry for me…”

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Kentucky Fried Jihad

My latest in PJ Media:

Everybody knows that “white supremacists” are the biggest terror threat America faces today: Old Joe Biden has told us so, along with Gestapo chief Merrick Garland and the Department of Homeland Security, among others. They wouldn’t lie to us, now, would they? But back in the real world, a threat that the Left has downplayed and denied from the beginning, the global jihad, is still very much with us, even in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Mirsad Hariz Adem Ramic, a good ol’ boy from down there in Bowling Green, was indicted Monday on charges of providing material support to the Islamic State (ISIS). Ramic, who is a dual citizen of the United States and Bosnia, is also charged, according to the Justice Department, “with conspiring to provide material support to ISIS and receiving military type training from ISIS.”

Ramic flew from Bowling Green to Istanbul in 2014, along with two other would-be jihadis; once there, the trio bought tickets to Gaziantep, Turkey, a city near Turkey’s border with Syria. They crossed the border to enter the Islamic State’s domains in Syria. Ramic was to all appearances a convinced, dedicated jihadi: he “attended an ISIS training camp where he received weapons and physical training and fired an AK-47.” He appears to have been deeply involved in the Islamic State’s aggressive activities: “The FBI obtained photographs of Ramic in ISIS territory that depict him wearing camouflage clothing and standing in front of a pickup truck outfitted with an anti-aircraft gun and the ISIS flag. A second photograph of Ramic depicts him holding a rifle.”

Ramic kept in touch with the two friends with whom he had made his journey to ISIS, and would clue them in on his activities. They “discussed, among other things, Ramic’s presence in Raqqa, Syria,” which served as the capital of the Islamic State in the heyday of the short-lived ISIS caliphate in Iraq and Syria. He also told his friends about “his use of an anti-aircraft weapon to shoot at planes.”

At the same time, Ramic demonstrated a keen interest in the theoretical side of his activities with the Islamic State. He and his talked about “jihad, martyrdom and fighting for ISIS.” Secure in the ISIS domains, one of Ramic’s friends got cocky: “sent two e-mails to Western Kentucky University, stating that he had traveled to Syria to join ISIS and expressing his desire that ISIS conquer the United States.”

Since the fall of the ISIS caliphate, Ramic has been in prison in Turkey, but was deported back to the United States, where he is looking at fifty years in prison and a $750,000 fine if he is convicted.

The Justice Department press release about Ramic’s indictment is laconic. It gives no indication of how a young man (Ramic is 31) in Bowling Green, Kentucky, could have come to believe that it would be a great idea to join an internationally feared and despised jihad terror group. This is the question that remains unanswered whenever a Muslim living in the United States decides to join a jihad group or even plot a jihad massacre on American soil.

There is more. Read the rest here.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Besides All the Crime in Chicago, There’s Also Jihad Terror Plotting

My latest in PJ Media:

Chicago under the misrule of its woke mayor Lori Lightfoot is already a sinkhole of gang violence, drug abuse, and vaccine tyranny, and it’s even worse than you think. On Monday, the Justice Department announced that “an Illinois man pleaded guilty today to attempting to provide material support to designated foreign terrorist organizations, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and Al-Nusra Front (ANF).” On the same day, another Chicago man was convicted of providing support to ISIS. If this sort of thing keeps up, the skyrocketing crime rate in the Windy City may be the least of Lightfoot’s troubles.

Chicago’s Dilshod Khusanov, 36, according to the DOJ, will be deported after he serves a prison term. He “encouraged individuals to travel to Syria to wage violent jihad, or holy war, in 2014 and 2015. For example, on Sept. 28, 2014, Khusanov urged co-conspirator Akmal Zakirov to engage in jihad: ‘I hope that the only [reason] that is preventing you from jihad is some mistakes and flaws that are occurring among the other fighters.’ Khusanov explained that it would be better to help those fighters, rather than criticize them.”

Khusanov was part of a group of jihad plotters inside the United States who raised money to help get ISIS jihadis to the front lines: “Later in 2014, two Brooklyn residents, Abdurasul Juraboev and Akhror Saidakhmetov began planning to travel to Syria to fight for ISIS.” To further this goal, “a group of individuals in a domestic network based in New York and elsewhere, including Khusanov, worked together to raise and contribute money to help fund that trip to Syria.”

This group began discussing ways to finance Saidakhmetov’s trip to Syria; two members of the group “also agreed to solicit money from others to fund Saidakhmetov’s travel.” They were the ones who contacted Khusanov, who then “arranged for money to be deposited in Zakirov’s bank account before Saidakhmetov’s scheduled departure.”

All of this came to naught, however, when Saidakhmetov was “arrested in February 2015 at John F. Kennedy International Airport, as he boarded a plane bound for Istanbul, Turkey, a transit point for foreign fighters bound for Syria.”

Osadzinski, meanwhile, a former student at Chicago’s DePaul University, was also at work aiding ISIS, apparently independently of Khusanov’s cell. According to the Voice of America, he “wrote a computer code to help IS bypass programs designed to block the group’s propaganda.” He exclaimed that he couldn’t just “sit in the chair while Muslims are dying”; he began studying how to make bombs, and spoke about the massacres he would perpetrate “once I get my gun and explosive belt.”

There is more. Read the rest here.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Chicago: Man converts to Islam, writes computer code for ISIS, his lawyer says ‘liking ISIS is not illegal’

From whom did Thomas Osadzinski learn about Islam? Where did he go to mosque? Is that mosque being investigated? Why not?

US Student Faces Prison for Helping Islamic State

Associated Press, October 19, 2021:

CHICAGO — A former Chicago college student was convicted Monday of attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State group.

Thomas Osadzinski, 22, wrote a computer code to help IS bypass programs designed to block the group’s propaganda, prosecutors said. The former DePaul University student, who was born in a Chicago suburb, was living in the city when he was arrested in 2019 during an FBI sting. He faces up to 20 years in prison.

His attorney, Joshua Herman, said during closing arguments that the case centered on the right to free speech and that Osadzinski had the right to watch and share the videos.

“Liking ISIS is not illegal,” Herman said in court.

But prosecutors alleged Osadzinski worked in coordination or at the direction of IS. Authorities said Osadzinski boasted in communications about his computer skills and ability to speak Arabic, and he bragged that he would use a gun and explosives to elude authorities if need be….

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.