Will truth prevail in Islamization #PCMadness in America,
just this once?
just this once?
College forced to apologize after trying to CENSOR professor
over ‘offensive’ questions about ‘Islamic terrorism’
over ‘offensive’ questions about ‘Islamic terrorism’
A public college in Arizona has been forced to backtrack on plans to censor a professor’s quiz content on ‘Islamic terrorism’ which had “offended” students, after a legal warning was sent by an academic freedom organization.
The uproar began when Professor Nicholas Damask, who chairs the political science department at Scottsdale Community College (SCC) and teaches a module called ‘Islamic Terrorism’, included questions on a quiz about how terrorism is justified by some in the Islamic faith – and about where in Islamic doctrine and law they take these justifications from.
The quiz prompted a complaint from one student, who felt the questions were “in distaste of Islam” and who was unconvinced by Damask’s explanation that they were relevant “to the study of the religious justifications of terrorists.” Other offended students soon aired their own complaints online.
The college immediately sided with the students, with President Chris Haines declaring in an Instagram post that the questions were “inappropriate” and not reflective of the “inclusive nature” of the institution. Haines even promised that Damask “will be apologizing” to offended individuals, and said the questions would be “permanently removed” from future quizzes.
This is what I call #PCMadness.
The knee-jerk reaction to censor “insensitivities” in political content didn’t go exactly as planned, however, and Damask did not apologize. Instead, the college was sent a legal warning by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), cautioning that its actions were “flatly inconsistent” with its First Amendment obligations.
Damask was also warned that “a leader in the Islamic faith” would need to vet his course content in future to ensure that it was “appropriate,” FIRE program officer Katlyn Patton said in the letter, adding that he came away from phone calls with college higher-ups "feeling that his job security was in jeopardy.”
Censoring Damask, removing his content and forcing him into an apology would have “an impermissible chilling effect on faculty expression and teaching,” the organization said, noting that the principle of free speech “does not exist to protect only non-controversial expression.”
FIRE's letter warned that SCC not only violated the First Amendment but also Arizona state law, which protects the faculty against compelled public expression of “a particular view.”
The fact that students “may experience discomfort” in the course of their studies “should have no bearing on a professor’s right” to select relevant materials as they see fit, Patton wrote.
Hiding the truth so sensitive people aren't offended is another form of #PCMadness.
FIRE's later (letter) had the desired effect and SCC interim Chancellor Steven Gonzales issued an apology on Monday for its “uneven” handling of the matter, and for a “lack of full consideration” of Damask's rights. Gonzales also promised an “immediate independent investigation” into its handling of the incident and the creation of a new “Committee on Academic Freedom.”
The happy ending for Damask is in stark contrast to the outcomes for many other professors who have had their academic freedom curtailed to spare the feelings of offended students and over-reactive college administrations in recent years.
Last year, a professor was fired by the University of Louisville for expressing the view that young children may not be old enough to be sure they are transgender, while in 2015 a University of Illinois professor got the sack for posting angry anti-Israel tweets during the summer assault in Gaza.
2 infants among 13 killed by gunmen in attack
on MSF-backed hospital in Kabul
12 May, 2020on MSF-backed hospital in Kabul
A brutal raid on a hospital in western Kabul, where Doctors Without Borders (MSF) operates a maternity ward, has left 13 people dead, including two infants. The attackers were killed after an hours-long standoff.
Gunmen stormed the 100-bed hospital located in the Dasht-e-Barchi area of the Afghan capital on Tuesday morning. At least two powerful explosions were heard at the scene, followed by gunfire, local media reported. The attack reportedly started with a suicide bomber setting off an explosion at the entrance to the compound, with men wearing military uniforms then storming in shooting guns and throwing grenades.
Afghan security forces were deployed to the scene, with the tense confrontation ending hours later with all gunmen killed. The raid left 13 people dead at the hospital, including two newborn babies, the ministry reported in the aftermath. Fifteen people have been injured and were taken to other hospitals for treatment.
The identities of the four attackers were not immediately disclosed. The Taliban militant group has denied any involvement in the attack on the hospital, leading to speculation that Islamic State must be behind it.
SAYHOON NEWS
@NewsSayhoon
Sounds of couple of explosions heard in Dashte Barchi area of Kabul this morning around 10:00 am, Sources. A suicide bomber has also entered into a hospital of Doctors Sans Frontier in the Thanke-thail area of Dashte Barchi % has started back to back firing.#Sayhoon
IS has claimed credit for several high-profile attacks in Afghanistan recent months, including one targeting a Sikh temple in March. The Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood is home to many Hazaras, members of a predominantly Shia ethnic minority. IS, a Sunni fundamentalist group, often targets Shiites.
The attackers were reportedly trying to get inside a guest house where foreigner personnel of the hospital stay.
MSF has been providing support to the government-run Dasht-e-Barchi hospital to operate a maternal care ward. The organization says it’s the only place in the poor neighborhood, with a population of over one million, capable of dealing with emergency and complicated deliveries.
God bless an protect MSF.
"Turn the Infidels' Joy Into Funerals" – Recent Terror Arrests Reinforce Jihadists' Ongoing Menace
Note: Some links may be in Dutchby Abigail R. Esman
Special to IPT News
Coronavirus isn't the only threat Europe is now facing. On Friday, police in Spain arrested a Moroccan man on suspicion he was planning a terrorist attack in Barcelona. According to local police, the suspect has links to the Islamic State, but became even further radicalized after the lockdowns began in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
It was the second Islamist terrorist apprehended by Spanish police in two weeks.
This latest arrest also comes only days after extremists in the Netherlands threatened to assassinate popular Moroccan-Dutch DJ Morad El Ouakili over his radio program, "Ramadan Late Night." El Ouakili's crime: playing music, which extremist Muslims consider haram, or forbidden, during the holy month of Ramadan.
Such threats and plots are precisely what authorities for the Netherlands' two intelligence and counter-terrorism agencies, the Algemene Inlichting- en Veiligheids Dienst (AIVD) and the National Coordinator Terrorismebestrijding en Veiligheid (NCTV), warn of in recently-released reports on the terror threat in 2019.
Both reports note the ongoing dangers ISIS and al-Qaida continue to pose to Western targets, and the threats the spread of their ideologies present to Western enlightenment values such as free speech and appreciation of the arts.
Jihadist terrorism remains the greatest menace to Western security even in the face of rising far right and white supremacist movements, both the AIVD and NCTV determined. While the number of Islamist attacks in Europe has continued to decrease significantly from its record 2017 high, this has largely been thanks to the sharp work of investigators and counterterrorism agents, who interrupted numerous plots throughout 2019. But the threat of extremism continues, observes the AIVD, including from those whose behaviors "may not be criminal, but remain at odds with our democratic order and ideals, and threaten to undermine them."
The NCTV report similarly notes that Salafists, whose numbers are increasing in Europe through heavy recruitment efforts online as well as in mosques and even schools, "spread an anti-democratic and intolerant ideology and attempt to force their views in compelling and intimidating ways on Muslims who adhere to a less strict interpretation of Islam – thereby also limiting other Muslims in their enjoyment and practice of democratic freedoms." Many of these Salafists were born and raised in the West, part of the second generation of Muslim immigrants, both the AIVD and NCTV report.
"They practically dominate the market on internet and social media," the NCTV contends. Indeed, adds the AIVD, "although radical Salafists form an absolute minority, they have a disproportionately large influence within the Islamic communities of the Netherlands." This is true as well in other countries such as Belgium and Germany.
Yet combatting the influence of Salafist groups, the agency says, is difficult. In part, according to the AVID, this is because "the extremist character of their message isn't always immediately clear." Rather, Salafist recruiters work gradually, slowly convincing their followers to reject more moderate Islamic beliefs and to divorce themselves from the society of "infidels" in which they live.
Of particular concern in this regard are the Islamic schools, many of which are financed by foreign governments, the AIVD says. The education children receive there gives them "a black-and-white vision of Islam and an antidemocratic perspective that estranges them from [Western] culture. In the long term, this can stress social cohesion, thereby undercutting democratic order."
Over the past few years, hundreds of these Western Salafist youth traveled to the Islamic State in the hopes of building a society in keeping with their extremist ideologies. Now as many return home, intelligence agencies globally struggle to combat their influence on others. For the most part, returnees have been imprisoned, but their sentences tend to be relatively brief, and not without their own dangers. In March, 2019, for instance, a man serving time in France on charges that include "condoning terrorism" attacked prison guards with knives. A similar attack took place January in the UK. Both cases, as well as another 2018 prison attack in France, have been designated as terrorism.
Further, some former ISIS sympathizers – even those who did not travel to the former caliphate – have staged attacks after their release from prison. In January, for instance, British authorities released Sudesh Amman, who had been jailed in 2018 for distributing terrorist propaganda. On Feb. 2, Amman went on a rampage with a stolen machete, killing two people on the streets of South London before being fatally shot by police.
Others may not engage in violence themselves, the NCTV says, but instead take an active role mentoring others and forming international networks with fellow returnees they met in the Islamic State.
With the death of the late ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who killed himself during a raid by U.S. forces last October, those networks may soon turn their attention away from Western targets in general, focusing more on Israel and the Jews. Abu Ibraham al-Hashimi al Quraishi, who replaced al-Baghdadi as ISIS leader, has expressed specific interest in attacks on Israel and on Jews worldwide. Quraishi, also known as Amir Mohammed Abdul Rahman al-Mawli al-Salbi, is described in the Guardian as "one of the most influential ideologues among the now depleted ranks of ISIS."
In a 37-minute statement that circulated on social media, the new ISIS leader directed his followers to "incite their brothers everywhere to attack the Jews and slaughter them, inside Palestine and outside Palestine, and kill them wherever they can find them."
Not that this means non-Jews are safe. According to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Al Quraishi also instructed his followers to "double the activity and increase the strikes. Write down the targets, draw up plans and booby-trap the roads, lay down IEDs, and spread out snipers and kill with silencers. Turn the infidels' joy into funerals, and lie in wait for them everywhere..."
It seems the man just arrested in Barcelona heard that message. And the counterterrorism experts of the Netherlands are sending a warning to the rest of us: others are listening – and plotting – too.
Abigail R. Esman is a freelance writer based in New York and the Netherlands. She is the author of Radical State: How Jihad Is Winning Over Democracy in the West (Praeger, 2010). Her next book, Rage: Narcissism, Patriarchy, and the Culture of Terrorism, will be published by Potomac Books in October, 2020. Follow her at @radicalstates.
Truck bomb in Afghanistan kills 5 civilians
By Clyde Hughes
A group of Taliban militants are seen in Kandahar, Afghanistan, on June 17, 2018.
File Photo by Muhammad Sadiq/EPA-EFE
May 14 (UPI) -- Five civilians were killed in Afghanistan on Thursday by a truck bomb in front of the defense ministry building in the eastern Paktia province city of Gardiz, officials said.
The explosives, on a pickup truck, were detonated in front of a gate just after dawn, said Afghan army spokesman Aimal Mohmand. He added that five security officers were among 19 injured by the blast. Another report put the number of injured at 30.
Afghanistan's defense ministry said a suicide bomber was shot when he set off the bomb.
The Taliban claimed responsibility, in response to a government decision to order security forces to switch from an active defensive posture to offensive mode. Afghan forces had moved into the offensive phase to counter attacks by the militant group.
The explosion was the Taliban's first major car bombing in an urban area since it signed a peace deal with U.S. negotiators in February.
State Department adds Cuba to counterterrorism blacklist
Iran, North Korea, Syria and Venezuela were also recertified on the terrorism blacklist, the State Department said.
By Darryl Coote
The State Department Wednesday blacklisted Cuba over its refusal to extradite members of the National Liberation Army to Colombia after the organization took responsibility for the January 2019 bombing of the Santander General Police School in Bogota. File Photo by Mauricio Duenas Castaneda/EPA-EFE
May 13 (UPI) -- The Trump administration said Wednesday it has added Cuba to the list of countries that do not cooperate with the United States' counterterrorism efforts.
In a statement, the State Department announced it had notified Congress Tuesday of Cuba's recertification under the Arms Export Control Act for "not cooperating fully" with the U.S. efforts last year. It was Cuba's first time being added to the list since 2015.
The State Department explained the move was in response to Cuba's refusal to extradite members of the National Liberation Army known as ELN living in Havana to Colombia after the group claimed responsibility for the January 2019 bombing of a Bogota police academy that killed 22 people and injured more than 60 others.
"As the United States maintains an enduring security partnership with Colombia and shares with Colombia the important counterterrorism objective of combating organizations like the ELN, Cuba's refusal to productively engage with the Colombian government demonstrates that it is not cooperating with the U.S. work to support Colombia's efforts to secure a just and lasting peace, security and opportunity for its people," the State Department said.
Ten leaders of the group had traveled to Havana to conduct peace talks with the government in 2017 and have remained there since.
The State Department added Havana also harbors several U.S. fugitives wanted on charges of political violence, some who have been sought for decades including Joanne Chesimard, also known as Assata Shakur, who was convicted with killing New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster in 1973.
Chesimard, a member of the Black Liberation Amry, has been sought by the Federal Bureau of Investigation since she escaped from a New Jersey (prison?) while serving a life sentence for murder.
Carlos F. de Cossio, the Cuban Foreign Ministry's general director for U.S. affairs, rejected the listing and claimed Cuba has been a victim of U.S. terrorism.
"There is a long history of terrorist acts committed by the U.S. government vs. Cuba and complicity of U.S. authorities with individuals and organizations that have organized, financed and executed such actions from U.S. territory," he tweeted.
The listing comes in the wake of a shooting at the Cuba Embassy in Washington, D.C. A suspect has been taken into custody, but Havana has balked at the silence from the Trump administration over the incident.
Foreign Affairs Minister Bruno Rodriguez held a press conference to denounce "the complicit silence" of the U.S. government on the attack, stating the shooting could have been avoided if the United States had shared with it information it had on the matter.
On Wednesday, Rodriguez rejected Cuba's inclusion on the "spurious" list while failing to condemn the shooting. "It conceals its own history of state terrorism vs. Cuba & impunity of violence groups in the U.S.," he tweeted.
The State Department also said Iran, North Korea, Syria and Venezuela were recertified on the list, which prohibits them the sale or license for export of defense articles and services.
Pakistani doctor on a H-1B visa planning to carry out ‘lone wolf’ terror attacks in US, indicted
By Jean Patrick Grumberg - on May 16, 2020
JIHAD IN AMERICA
28-year-old Pakistani doctor on H-1B visa has been indicted by a federal grand jury on pledging allegiance to the Islamic State terror group and expressing his desire to carry out “lone wolf” terror attacks in the US.
According to the indictment, Muhammad Masood, a licensed medical doctor from Pakistan, was formerly employed as a research coordinator at a reputed medical clinic (Mayo Clinic) in Rochester, Minnesota.
The indictment against Masood was announced on Friday by US Attorney Erica MacDonald. Masood was initially charged by criminal complaint and has been in custody since his March 19 arrest at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
Between January and March this year, he made several statements to others, including pledging his allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) and its leader, and expressing his desire to travel to Syria to fight for ISIS. Masood also expressed his desire to conduct “lone wolf” terrorist attacks in the United States, the court papers said.
On March 16 this year, Masood’s travel plans changed because Jordan closed its borders to incoming travel due to the coronavirus pandemic.
He made a new plan to fly from Minneapolis to Los Angeles to meet up with an individual who he believed would assist him with travel via cargo ship to deliver him to ISIS territory.
On March 19, Masood travelled from Rochester to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP) to board a flight bound for Los Angeles, California.
Upon arrival at the MSP, Masood checked in for his flight and was subsequently arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Joint Terrorism Task Force.
This case is the result of an investigation conducted by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. Masood is in custody at the Sherburne County Jail, Fox News reported on Friday.
According to the allegations in the complaint, Masood, a licensed medical doctor in Pakistan, was working in a medical clinic in Rochester under an H-1B visa.
“Italy Sentences Somali Man to Over 8 Years for
Plotting Terrorist Act in Vatican”
Plotting Terrorist Act in Vatican”
ROME (Sputnik) – A court in the southern Italian city of Bari on Tuesday sentenced a 22-year-old Somali man to 104 months in prison for plotting a terrorist attack in the Vatican, national media have reported.
Mohsin Ibrahim Omar, also known as Yusuf, was convicted on international terrorism charges.
The man was arrested in Bari in December 2018 on suspicion of conducting terrorist activities. According to investigators, he was trained in an Islamist school in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.
In the past, the convict had links to Somali’s Al-Shabab extremist group that is affiliated with the Al-Qaeda* terror group. Al-Shabab is known, among other things, for kidnapping Silvia Romano, an Italian aid worker, in Kenya in November 2018. She was released last week.
Omar plotted to detonate a bomb at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City during a Christmas mass that traditionally draws plenty of believers. The Italian intelligence agency believes that the man was in contact with a Somali cell of the Daesh* terror group….
Iran: Queen Esther and Mordechai tomb desecrated
in arson attack
in arson attack
BY BTNEWS · MAY 17, 2020
The tomb of Queen Esther and her cousin Mordechai, the most important Jewish site in Iran which houses the remains of the biblical figures, has been set ablaze this weekend in the Hamdan Province.
‘Disturbing reports from Iran that the tomb of Esther and Mordechai, a holy Jewish site, was set afire overnight,’ ADL director Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted.
‘We hope that the authorities bring the perpetrators of this antisemitic act to justice and commit to protecting the holy sites of all religious minorities in Iran,’ he added.
The attack was confirmed by Iran’s official IRNA news agency, which initially said that the site was “largely unharmed,” but then removed the report from its webpage.
The agency also said the arsonist had been identified after being spotted by security cameras.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center condemned the attack and Iran’s response to it, saying that Muslims protected Jewish holy sites for ages “but all that has changed under the Ayatollahs and the terrorist movements they have spawned.”
Rwandan genocide suspect arrested in France
By Danielle Haynes
An undated picture provided by Interpol shows Felicien Kabuga, one of the most wanted suspects in the Rwandan genocide. File Photo courtesy of Interpol/EPA-EFE
May 16 (UPI) -- French authorities arrested suspected Rwandan war criminal Félicien Kabuga on Saturday after decades on the run, The Hague announced.
The prosecutor for the international tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, said Kabuga was arrested in Asnières-sur-Seine, a northern suburb of Paris, living under a false name.
The U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda indicted him in 1997 on several counts of genocide in relation to the slaughter of ethnic Tutsi in 1994. The genocide left an estimated 500,000 to 1 million people dead, about 70 percent of Rwanda's Tutsi population.
"The arrest of Félicien Kabuga today is a reminder that those responsible for genocide can be brought to account, even 26 years after their crimes," prosecutor Serge Brammertz said.
"Our first thoughts must be with the victims and survivors of the Rwandan genocide. Advocating on their behalf is an immense professional honor for my entire office."
He said Kabuga is expected to be transferred to The Hague to stand trial.
Jewish terrorist convicted in 2015 Duma attack
The arson attack on the Palestinian Dawabshe family home killed 18-month-old Ali and his parents, Sa’ad and Riham
It's important to notice that an Israeli has been found guilty in Israel of a horrific terrorist attack on Palestinians. Palestinians who commit acts of terror on Israelis are not tried in Palestinian courts, but are made heroes and are paid for the horrors.
By YONAH JEREMY BOB MAY 18, 2020
The Jerusalem Post
Amiram Ben Uliel, the suspect in the Duma arson murder in July 2015 where three members of the Dawabshe family
were killed, arrives to hear his verdict at the court on May 18, 2020 (photo credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI/FLASH90)
were killed, arrives to hear his verdict at the court on May 18, 2020 (photo credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI/FLASH90)
The Lod District Court on Monday convicted Amiram Ben-Uliel in the 2015 Jewish terror arson murders of three Palestinians in Duma.
The arson attack on the Palestinian Dawabshe family home killed 18-month-old Ali and his parents, Sa’ad and Riham, and destabilized Israeli-Arab relations throughout the region.
In addition, judges Ruth Lorch, Tsvi Dotan and Dvora Atar convicted Ben-Uliel of two separate counts of attempted murder and two separate counts of arson, but acquitted Ben-Uliel of membership in a terror group.
Despite that acquittal, the court also declared that Ben-Uliel had murdered the Palestinians for ideological reasons – something that could lead to a harsher sentence or to preventing lenient treatment at some later date.
Asher Ohayon, the lead lawyer for Ben-Uliel, vowed to appeal to the Supreme Court, saying the court had wrongfully accepted confessions given post-torture.
The court said that even though it disqualified confessions Ben-Uliel gave when the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) used enhanced interrogation on him, his confessions 36 hours later were given freely and compellingly.
Furthermore, the court said it was convinced by Ben-Uliel’s voluntary physical reconstruction of the crime at the scene of the murders.
In addition, the court cited Ben-Uliel’s refusal to testify in his own defense.
The court wrote that, “The defendant described the scene of the crime in extreme detail in his confessions… which was later clarified to be meticulously accurate… the defendant carried out a reconstruction with great accuracy and which was close to identical to his confessions – something which rebuts the claims” that he was guessing or tipped off in the moment by the Shin Bet investigators.
Ohayon responded to a question from The Jerusalem Post about the fact that the Supreme Court has been very accepting of enhanced interrogation confessions during the last three years, saying there was no parallel.
He also said Ben-Uliel had been “tortured far worse than any Palestinian.”
The Dawabshe family responded to the decision saying it is important for justice to be done so “no one else’s lives will be ruined” and destroyed like the three murdered Dawabshes.
Supporters for Ben-Uliel yelled at the court, “How can you convict an innocent person?” and had to be silenced by security guards.
The sentencing arguments hearing was set for June 9 and it is expected that the actual sentencing will occur later in the summer or the early fall.
For months after the murder, the Shin Bet performed a massive manhunt and investigation, but turned up empty-handed.
Former Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen has told the Post that he has fundamentally altered the entire approach toward Jewish terrorism against Palestinians, taking a much harder stance and investing far more resources.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-defense minister Moshe Ya’alon made frequent statements about the severity of the incident, and assured regional partners in the Palestinian Authority, Jordan, Egypt and globally of their commitment to bringing the perpetrators to justice.
When the Shin Bet finally apprehended Ben-Uliel, then 21, the alleged murderer of the Dawabshes, as well as a minor who was accused of conspiring with him regarding the murders, the situation was viewed as so desperate that they used torture/enhanced interrogation to get the defendants to confess.
This ushered in a whole new side and saga to the case, because suddenly, enhanced interrogation, administrative detention and other extreme measures were being used not only against Palestinians, as in the past, but also against Jews.
Yamina MK Bezalel Smotrich and activist Itamar Ben-Gvir have accused the Shin Bet and the prosecution of massive overreaction and injustice in the treatment of Ben-Uliel and the minor.
Joint List Party leader Ayman Odeh and other Arab activists have demanded that harsh justice be meted out to Ben-Uliel, if Israel is to avoid accusations that it cracks down harder on Palestinian terrorism than on Jewish terrorism.
Saudi pilot who went on gun rampage at Florida naval base
linked to ‘Al-Qaeda operative’
18 May, 2020linked to ‘Al-Qaeda operative’
Main: A general view of the Pensacola Naval Air Station following a shooting on December 6, 2019 © AFP / Josh Brusted; Inserts: The mugshot of Mohammed Alshamrani © Twitter / FBI Jacksonville; The flag used by the terrorist group Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula © AFP / Said Khatib
The gun attack at the Naval Air Station Pensacola left three victims dead and eight others injured. The gunman, Second Lieutenant Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, was killed by responding police forces. The incident was a major embarrassment for both nations involved.
Attorney General William Barr announced on Monday that FBI investigators discovered evidence of "significant ties" to Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula after finally unlocking Alshamrani’s iPhone.
No thanks to Apple
Barr said FBI technicians cracked into the shooter's phone despite Apple declining to help, even after a direct plea from President Donald Trump.
FBI Director Christopher Wray added the connection between the shooter and Al-Qaeda is "more than just inspired" as evidence shows he was "sharing plans and tactics with" the terrorist group, as well as "coordinating" with them.
The airman had been taking part in a three-year aviation training program for the Royal Saudi Air Force, for which he had signed up in August 2017. The 21-year-old was motivated by Islamist ideology when he unleashed violence at the Florida base, US officials said.
Prior to the shooting, he posted quotes from former Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden on social media, and criticized US wars. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, an influential branch of the international terrorist network, claimed credit for the attack, but US officials did not previously confirm the link.
The Jihad Attacks on Churches in Illinois
That You Heard Nothing About
BY ROBERT SPENCER APR 18, 2020PJMedia
Osama E. El Hannouny, a 25-year-old man who lives in the Chicago suburb of Palos Hills, Illinois, has made his prejudices very clear, saying that he doesn’t like Christians. More than once he has acted on that dislike at churches in his area. But as his attacks don’t fit the mainstream media narrative, this article is likely to be the only place where you’ll hear about them.
As it happened, no one was hurt: firefighters quickly arrived on the scene and put out the fire before it did any significant damage. El Hannouny, however, continued his jihad, this time against the police who arrested him. According to Patch, “while El Hannouny was being processed, police said he started spitting at officers, reports said. El Hannouny also wrote a religious slur on the wall of his cell, according to the report. El Hannouny allegedly scratched, bit and spit at police when they tried to stop him.”
The officers who arrested him may have recognized El-Hannouny. It was only six months ago, November 17, 2019, that he showed up at two other churches in Palos Hills. With a laudable eye for ecumenical sensitivities, that time he chose the city’s First Baptist Church and the Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church. At both, he confined his activities to the parking lot, slashing the tires of a total of nineteen cars.
When he was arrested and asked why he had done such a thing, El Hannouny replied with unusual directness: “I don’t like Christians.” According to WBBM, he admitted to the 19 tire-slashings and was “charged with 14 counts of criminal damage to property.” El Hannouny was then “released on a personal recognize [sic] bond and electronic monitoring.” In January, authorities added on hate crime charges.
The hate crime charges didn’t deter El Hannouny from hating. For the new incident over at Sacred Heart Church, according to Patch, El Hannouny “appeared Wednesday before a Cook County judge on charges of arson, hate crimes, criminal damage to property, battery to a police officer and violation of bail bond.”
That’s all very well, and it looks as if a good case can be made against El Hannouny on all these charges, but there still remains a larger question: Why, exactly, does El Hannouny dislike Christians? Does it have anything to do with the Qur’an’s teaching that “they have certainly disbelieved who say that Allah is Christ, the son of Mary” (5:17, 5:72), an assertion that directly contradicts the core Christian belief in the divinity of Christ? Could El Hannouny’s dislike for Christians be linked in any way to the Qur’an’s statement that those who say “Christ is the Son of Allah” are under Allah’s curse (9:30)? Might his tire-slashing and attempted arson have something to do with the Qur’an’s command to Muslims to wage war against and subjugate Christians as inferiors under the hegemony of Islamic law (9:29)?
In today’s political climate, such questions cannot be asked. And yet their pertinence goes far beyond the case of Osama E. El Hannouny. If his self-professed hatred of Christians is indeed based on Islamic teachings, did he learn that hatred at his local mosque? If that mosque is indeed teaching that Muslims should hold the people whom the Qur’an terms “the most vile of created beings” (98:6) in utter contempt, and wage jihad against them, isn’t it possibly that more Muslims besides just young Osama could be influenced to act upon these teachings? And if so, wouldn’t it be prudent for local law enforcement officials to be aware of and prepared for that possibility?
It is much more likely, however, that the local police have never been to El Hannouny’s mosque except for “outreach,” in order to assure the Muslim community of their good will. The possibility that the assurances could ever or should ever flow in the other direction is never considered, even for a moment.
Palos Hills, Ill
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