30-Nov-16: An Islamist mole inside Germany's homeland security office?

A BfV security person [Image Source]

Less than two weeks ago, we wrote here ["21-Nov-16: German experts "discover" that Islamist terrorists are "being trained" to come into Europe as asylum seekers"] about some serious terrorism-related matters that had just been uncovered in Germany.

In addition to being Europe's strongest economy, Germany has the additional distinctions of (a) being home to what has just become Europe's largest community of Muslims and (b) having admitted a seven-digit number of immigrants in the past year under a remarkably flexible and generous asylum-seeker program,

The problems that have followed are life-impacting in a variety of serious ways.

We ran down a list of deeply worrying developments in the context of Germany's embrace of a huge influx of largely undocumented migrants in a single year and expressed our concern that German officialdom seemed to be unsure of what it ought to be doing:

Forgive us, but given the scale of the threat and the indications that serious-minded malevolents with Islamist doctrine as their guide have targeted their towns and public places, these German voices strike us as being sadly indecisive. For their sakes, we hope we're wrong... [That earlier post of ours]

German Salafist Islamists at a spiritual gathering [Image Source]

And for the sake of those who place their faith in the German government's security apparatuses, we hope what has just been uncovered - see the next paragraph - is quickly addressed by decisive and effective action.

This ["Germany Arrests Suspected Islamist Mole in Spy Agency"] comes from today's Wall Street Journal:

A suspected Islamist mole in Germany’s domestic intelligence service has been detained, officials said Wednesday, sparking criticism of an agency that has been on high alert following a string of attacks and foiled plots this year. Prosecutors in Düsseldorf said they had arrested a 51-year-old German national and recent Islam convert on suspicion of preparing an attack on the agency’s headquarters in Cologne and attempting to violate professional secrecy. Officials said the man had offered to help other Islamists launch an attack, but there was no proof he had started work on a plot...
The suspect was intercepted sharing agency secrets in an online chat and offering “fellow believers” access to its headquarters for an attack, the prosecutor’s office said. His chat partner was in fact an undercover agent. The suspect said he was “ready for anything to help his brothers” and that an attack against “infidels” was “in the interest of Allah,” according to the prosecutor’s office. The office said the man had confessed to infiltrating the agency to warn “fellow believers” about investigations into them.

But an AFP report [here] suggests the suspicions are actually more concrete than that: the suspect

is believed to have been planning a bombing at the BfV headquarters in the western city of Cologne, according to the German press [though] there was no immediate suggestion he had any ties to ISIS.

And in Der Spiegel, it's said that the arrested intelligence man had already "made a "partial confession" to the plot".

(BfV stands for Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, the domestic intelligence service of the Federal Republic of Germany. In English, the name translates somewhat ambitiously to "Office for the Protection of the Constitution".)

Germans watched in horror during this past summer as ISIS claimed several mass-terror attacks carried out by so-called asylum-seekers:

• One on train passengers in the vicinity of Wurzburg [see "19-Jul-16: Tentacles in Germany: Again, a train, an axe, a religious war-cry, innocent victims and a search for motives"
• A second - an attack on people at a shopping centre in Munich ["24-Jul-16: In Germany, a gunman with Iranian citizenship kills 9"]
• A third on people at a music festival in Ansbach ["25-Jul-16: German tentacles: An explosion in a wine bar and deepening concern about 'asylum seekers'"].

The Wall Street Journal report says these attacks

most of them by recently arrived refugees, showed the country was a prime terror target. The arrival of well over a million refugees, mainly from the Middle East, since the beginning of last year has stretched the agencies’ already limited surveillance capacity. The domestic intelligence agency started a recruiting drive recently to try to keep up. The suspect was hired in April 2016 after a change of career and was part of a team observing followers of the fundamentalist Salafi branch of Islam. The number of Salafists in Germany has tripled since 2012.

Putting "tripled" into a concrete perspective, the BfV believes Germany has about 40,000 Islamists today, among them some 9,200 Salafists (ultra-conservative Islamists).

A BfV spokesman says the suspect

hadn’t behaved suspiciously during his recruitment, his training or his work

and even though he

was thought to have pledged allegiance to Mohamed Mahmoud, the Austrian leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorist group [Telegraph UK, November 29, 2016]

the man's wife and family

reportedly knew nothing of his conversion to Islam two years ago and subsequent radicalisation. [Telegraph]

That last line might be the most incredible thing about this newest European encounter with lethal jihad. And in certain ways, the most alarming.

26-Oct-15: Monday night Gazan rocket hits southern Israel

No one was killed. No one was injured. No serious property damage ensued.

Thus, the rocket fired from one of the numerous, and vast, inventories of explosive missiles stored in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip about an hour ago will achieve trivial media coverage tonight.

Here in Israel, it's of course being reported in the news bulletins because tens of thousands of Israeli homes heard - and acted upon - the awful tones of the incoming-rocket alert - the famed Tzeva Adom (Color Red) warning system that has sounded thousands of times in the decade since Israel handed the Gaza Strip over to the Palestinian Authority in 2005. (Hamas grabbed control shortly afterwards,)

Tonight's rocket firing, at about 7:05 pm this evening (Monday) is believed - reports Times of Israel - to have landed and exploded in southern Israel in an open area within the Sha’ar Hanegev region. The report, barely touching on the impact this instantly forgettable matter will have had on thousands of families, says

Local residents reported hearing an explosion outside one of the Israeli communities adjacent to the border fence." According to Israel National News, "A Salafist organization, the Sheikh Omar Hadid Brigades - which is affiliated with Islamic State (ISIS) - claimed responsibility for the rocket fire.

In June, Aljazeera, which seems to have good connections with parts of the Islamist terror industry, attributed a rocket attack from Gaza to the same Omar Hadid/ISIS terror group, explaining that

Salafists are Sunni Muslims who promote a strict lifestyle based on that of early "pious ancestors". In Gaza they have made no secret of their disdain for Hamas over its observance of a tacit ceasefire with Israel and what they see as Hamas' failure to implement Islamic law.

The Hadid entity (some background here) appears to be relatively new to the lobbing-rockets-over-the-Israel-fence business. On June 11, 2015, one of their attacks produced yet another "Fell Short" [see this Algemeiner report] meaning they fired a rocket in the vague direction of Israel but succeeded only in having it crash-land and explode inside the Gaza Strip, with unknown consequences. We posted about that at the time: see "13-Jun-15: Gazan evidence that Gazan rocket attack Thursday night struck Gaza".

Then a little over a month ago, they struck again [see "19-Sep-15: Gaza rockets: Another Friday night attack"]. We wrote at the time that

"Credit" was rapidly claimed by one of the proliferating Gaza Strip terror industry groups, the so-called Sheikh Omar Hadid Brigade, also known as Ahfad Ashaba, which first emerged (and was probably created) in the last few months.

The terror-by-rocketry business in Gaza is getting crowded. Meanwhile the role of the dominant and ruthless Hamas regime is currently less overt and somewhat less destructive than it might have been. An interesting piece in today's Wall Street Journal ["Why Hamas Has Not Unleashed Violence From Gaza", Jonathan Schanzer] proposes a theory as to why this is.

28-Nov-14: Tentacles: Anti-terror raids in Austria today

Austrian police via Aljazeera

From TheLocal.at ("Austria's news in English") this afternoon:

Austrian police arrested 13 people and raided homes, prayer rooms and mosques around the country early Friday in a mass operation targeting suspected jihad recruiters, prosecutors said. Some 900 police were involved in the raids, which took place in Vienna, Graz and Linz. They follow a two-year investigation into several people suspected of recruiting young people to fight in Syria. Media reports said a Vienna-based Bosnian preacher, who was the main suspect, was among those arrested in the raids which began at 4:00am. Police also seized "terrorist propaganda," files and money in various homes, said prosecutors in Graz, who were coordinating the operation. Beyond recruiting fighters, the Kronen Zeitung newspaper said that the suspects were investigated for helping to finance the Islamic State group.... Austria's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counterterrorism (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz und Terrorismusbekämpfung) warned in June over the threats faced by the country, saying: "Religiously motivated extremism and terrorism – above all of Islamic character – as well as Salafi-jihadi groups continue to present a great potential threat…The number of young radicalized followers of violent Salafism continues to rise. In this context, the conflict in Syria is of urgent relevance for Austria, since systematic efforts are being made within [Austria] to radicalize and recruit people for the war in Syria…The conflict in Syria has become very popular among violent extremist Salafis... The spectrum of recruits to the conflict in Syria is broadly ethnically diverse. The motivation, however, seems to be uniformly jihadi."

In a background analysis published just a few weeks back ["Radical Islam in Austria is active and growing", TheLocal.at November 11, 2014], the same newspaper observed that Austria

has become a hub of extremism that includes not only Islamic State terrorism but also Iranian nuclear proliferation activities as well as active support for Hamas... The mushrooming recruitment by Islamic State, and the presence of a large pocket of support for Hamas, pose major challenges for Austria's struggling counterterrorism establishment. Even so, Iranian intelligence's extensive network, including agents who have previously carried out a 1989 terrorist attack with impunity in Vienna, will remain Austria's greatest terror threat for the foreseeable future. The interrelationship among the three jihadist movements -- Hamas, Iran's regime, and the Islamic State -- playing out in Austria helps to explain why critics view the relatively small Central European country as a danger zone.

A syndicated Reuters report ["Facing fears over extremism, Austria unveils new law on Islam", Reuters, October 2, 2014] noted that Austria is currently home to about half a million Muslims, about 6 percent of the total population. Growing concerns about rising Islamist radicalization and reports of Austrian Muslims joining Islamist forces in the Middle East led the Austrian government to announce a new law that will

prohibit foreign funding of Muslim organizations on its soil... prompting concern from a major local Islamic body, which saw it mirroring widespread mistrust of Muslims. "The clear message should be that there is no contradiction between being a faithful Muslim and a proud Austrian," said Foreign Affairs and Integration Minister Sebastian Kurz, a member of the conservative People's Party. "If you don't have orderly legal regulation ... this can always bring dangers (of extremism). In this sense, if you like, this is maybe a part of prevention," he told reporters. He added that Sharia, or Islamic law, had "no place here". [Reuters]

On December 27, 1985, Palestinian Arab terrorists hurled grenades and fired guns at travelers lined up at the El Al check-in counter of Vienna's international airport,  Three people were killed.

21-Jan-14: Eilat under rocket attack tonight

There has been a rocket attack on the Israeli resort city of Eilat tonight (Monday).

AFP is reporting that "at least one rocket struck the outskirts" of Eilat; authorities found their remains on the city's outskirts. Searches are continuing for signs of more rockets. Residents reported hearing several explosions during the evening, but at this stage (it's just after midnight) both the Israel Police and the IDF are still unable to confirm that there was rocket fire. At various points in the past five hours, it was suggested that rockets had crashed to earth near one of Eilat's best-known hotels; those reports are almost certainly wrong and may simply reflect the reality that people hearing sudden loud explosions are not always well-placed to judge how close the source of the noise is.

Over at Haaretz, they say that what was heard in Eilat was a series of explosions, indicating incoming rockets from the Sinai Peninsula. The blasts were around 7:00 pm, Monday. A police search will get underway at dawn.

Times of Israel says there were two GRAD rockets and that they struck an open area close to the city. (GRADs have been deployed by Sinai-based terrorists in their attacks on Eilat in the past - in April 2013 for instance.) Egyptian military forces are carrying out anti-terrorism operations in the north of the Sinai peninsula - with Israel’s blessing, according to a military source referenced in the Times of Israel piece tonight.

UPDATE Tuesday January 21, 2014: Credit for the attack on Eilat has been claimed by the terror group Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, which Times of Israel describes as having close ties to Egypt’s Salafi movement. Their motivations are not so complicated: "Our war with the enemy in Egypt will not distract us from the war with the nation’s first enemy, Israel. With Allah’s help, from us the Jews will see only injury.”

27-Nov-13: Enter the Salafists

Salafist making a doctrinal point in Jordan
[Image Source: AP/BBC]

Wikipedia defines Salafism as "the fastest growing" Islamic movement, but for those inclined to see this as connected to acts of jihadist murder, it says Salafist

groups and individuals that carry out terrorist attacks are regarded as being out of the fold of the methodology of the Salaf, misguided and deviant... [Wikipedia]

If only the world worked like Wikipedia describes it.

Numerous other sources take a considerably more robust view of the connection between murderous jihadism and the Salafists. A major PBS Special Report for instance, "The Salafist Movement: An examination of the ideology that has inspired the global jihad and the emergence of its most dangerous incarnation" by Bruce Livesey [online here]. An extract:

• Salafism is an ideology that posits that Islam has strayed from its origins. The word "salaf" is Arabic for "ancient one" and refers to the companions of the Prophet Mohammed. Arguing that the faith has become decadent over the centuries, Salafists call for the restoration of authentic Islam as expressed by an adherence to its original teachings and texts. "Salafists originally are supposedly not violent," [Prof. Gilles Kepel, chair of Middle East Studies at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris] explains. "They are not advocating the revolt against one who holds power, against the powers that be. They are calling for re-Islamization at the daily level."
• By the mid-'90s, Kepel saw an alarming change among Europe's Muslims. Increasingly he was coming across Salafists who had embraced jihad -- in other words, who felt violence and terrorism were justified to realize their political objectives. Kepel explains that when Salafists, who tend to be alienated from mainstream European society, meet and mingle with jihadists, it fuses into a volatile mixture. "When you're in the state of such alienation you become easy prey to the jihadi guys who will feed you more savory propaganda than the old propaganda of the Salafists who tell you to pray, fast and who are not taking action," he says. "And this is why the [Islamist terrorists] who had been arrested were often good Salafists in the beginning."
• Kepel labeled these Muslim fundamentalists "Salafist jihadists", a term that he extends to include the followers of Al Qaeda. Salafist jihadists are now a burgeoning presence in Europe, having attempted more than 30 terrorist attacks among E.U. countries since 2001.

Tonight (Wednesday night), while most of us Israelis are home taking care of our Hannukah candles and enjoying traditional doughnuts and potato latkes, our neighbours the Palestinian Arabs - in their thousands - have their minds on matters of a far less congenial but arguably no-less-traditional nature. An Associated Press report that went to air in the past hour sets the scene, pointing out that this particular brand of terror has been unknown in our area until now.

Thousands of mourners attended the funerals Wednesday of three suspected Palestinian militants who were killed in an Israeli army raid in the West Bank the day before. The three were jihadi Salafis, or followers of a militant stream of puritanical Islam, and had planned attacks on Israelis and on the Palestinian Authority... said Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, an Israeli army spokesman. Lerner said... the cell was the "first substantial indication" of violent activity by jihadi Salafis in the West Bank... Jihadi Salafis believe in a global jihad, or holy war. The ideology is linked to that of al-Qaida. Many have flocked to Syria to fight alongside the rebels trying to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad... A Palestinian security official said jihadi Salafis in the West Bank are a cause of concern, but declined to give an estimate on how many there are. Jihadi Salafis are on the rise in the Gaza Strip, which is run by the Islamic militant Hamas... Palestinians identified the three killed as Mohammed Nairouh, 29, Mahmoud al-Najjar, 23, and Moussa Makhamreh, 22. Palestinian security forces previously had attempted to arrest the three, but they escaped... [Associated Press report published tonight]

Ma'an News Agency (established, by the way, with funding from the Danish and Dutch governments and sustained by ongoing injections of millions of dollars from foreign donors) manages to report on today's Salafi funerals without even once mentioning the word Salafi. (Aid money well spent, no?)

Israelis understand that they are likely to start hearing more about the Salafists. Over at the IDF Blog, they say the three terrorists killed during Tuesday's operation

"were carrying explosive devices and two hand guns... [and were planning] terror attacks against Israeli targets and against the Palestinian Authority. Over the past few months, the members of the terrorist network acted to organize an expanded terror infrastructure, which included preparing and manufacturing explosives, purchasing weapons and arranging an apartment for hiding."

On the jihadism-advocacy website of Hamas' Al Qassam wing, they name the dead killers as

Mahmoud Khaled Najjar and Mohammad Mousa Fansha, both from Yatta, and Mohammad Fuad Nairoukh from Al Khalil. 

Concerning the third deceased terrorist, probably the one AP called Nairouh, they issued a tweet from their official Al Qassam Twitter account [here] late yesterday in which they call him Nyrook and say

#Palestinians killed by #Israeli forces in #AlKhalil identified as,Mousa Fansheh, Mahmoud Al Najjar & freed prisoner Mohammed Nyrook #Hebron
— Alqassam Brigades (@AlqassamBrigade) November 26, 2013

When did Nyrook/Nairouh/Nairoukh become a "freed prisoner" and by whom? We don't know but we're making enquiries.

12-Jun-13: As Islamist numbers grow, Europe's future is unlikely to ever again be what it was

The cartoons irritated their sensibilities: Salafist Islamists rioting in Solingen, Germany, May 2012 [Image Source]

Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (in German, the BfV), yesterday issued its annual report on domestic extremism. Der Spiegel says it shows

a surge in support for Islamists and growth in the number of influential neo-Nazi music groups... 

It says Germany's largest Islamist organization, the Milli Görüs, and Hezbollah Germany, now count on some 42,550 members. Last year's tally was 38,080.

Members and supporters of the German Salafist movement saw the sharpest overall rise. Germany's Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich, in issuing a banning order against three German Salafist organizations, said in March that:

"Salafism, as represented in the associations that were banned today, is incompatible with our free democratic order. The groups aim to change our society in an aggressive, belligerent way so that democracy would be replaced by a Salafist system, and the rule of law replaced by Sharia law."

Salafism, originating in Saudi Arabia and highly influential there, holds that democracy must be destroyed and replaced with an Islamic form of government. While Salafists represent only a small part of Germany's 4.3 million Moslems, they have clout and know how to use it. They launched a very public campaign called Project READ! in April 2012, in which 25 million copies of the Koran were handed to every household in Germany, Austria and Switzerland for free... 

The campaign to place a Koran in every German household is being spearheaded by a Rhineland-based Salafist, Ibrahim Abou-Nagie, a Palestinian hate preacher who leads a radical Islamic group called "The True Religion" [Die Wahre Religion]. In September 2011, German public prosecutors launched an investigation into Abou-Nagie after he called for violence against non-believers in videos posted on the Internet. In his sermons, Abou-Nagie glamorizes Islamic martyrdom and says that Islamic Sharia law is above the German Constitution. He also says that music should be prohibited, homosexuals should be executed, and adulterers should be stoned... In May 2012... more than 500 Salafists attacked German police with bottles, clubs, stones and other weapons in the city of Bonn, to protest cartoons they said were "offensive". ["Germany vs. Radical Islamists", Soeren Kern - March 15, 2013]

For their well-heeled Saudi Arabian backers/funders/leaders, the cost of the high-profile stunt was probably mere sauerkraut. But the significance of the German Salafists' ability to operate freely and attract media attention while delivering a resonating message of hatred and calling for the overthrow of democratic government and conventional law and order has implications that the German authorities have noticed. 

Extremist neo-Nazi music bands also do well, without giving away books. Today's Germany has 182 of them, but the report says they "held significantly fewer concerts than in the previous year" which probably indicates something.

21-Apr-13: Charismatic, 'folksy' Egyptian politician incites followers to martyrdom

From Abu Ismail's presidential campaign [Image Source: Al Ahram]

Egypt's political landscape is dotted with people and issues that, from a reasonable distance, are  incomprehensible.

Unfortunately, when you share a neighbourhood with some of those people, you can't always afford the luxury of trying to comprehend 'root causes' and socio-demographic dynamics. The dangers are existential, not intellectual, and so you need to first take defensive measures and then try to understand. People who fail to understand this tend - usually - to be those who live far from the threats, or think they do.

The Dubai-based Al Arabiya news site carries a report from Egypt today. It focuses on a televised sermon delivered Friday by Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, a 'holy man' and lawyer who is "the country’s most charismatic Salafist politician" and a front-running candidate in Egypt's 2012 presidential election. He was reckoned to have a serious chance up until his electoral run was forcibly ended by the disclosure, denied by the candidate but subsequently confirmed by the Egyptian authorities, that his mother was a citizen of the United States. It appears he is still laboring to overcome that disgrace.

He favours lowering the legal age of marriage to puberty (for girls, of course); chopping off the hands of thieves, naturally; ending the 1979 Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty; supports the veiling of women and their segregation from men in the workplace (according to the LA Times). He calls Iran a successful model of keeping your independence from the United States. And about the 9/11 massacres, he said

'Folksy' Salafist in Tahrir Square 2011 [Image Source]

"I am one of those who believe these events were fabricated from the outset as part of the global groundwork for the distortion of Islam's image. I mean, this is part of a comprehensive global plan that includes a media aspect." [Interview on a 2004 Saudi TV program]

There's an eye-popping selection of other public pronouncements of this person here.

On Friday, according to Al Arabiya, the 'ultra conservative' Abu Ismail preached that

The only way to build a strong Egypt is to have tens of thousands fight and be “martyred” under the name of God, a prominent Salafist politician told worshipers during a televised sermon on Friday. “So what if a hundred or a thousand, or even ten thousands are martyred to build a long-prevailing nation,” Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, a former presidential candidate, said. “There is no other plan but to be martyred.”

A lunatic, right? Yes, and/or a cynical manipulator. But that's not necessarily the impression you would get from the mainstream Western media coverage he has enjoyed during this past year.

A handful of examples from just one source: the LA Times:

• Abu Ismail's is "a robust voice in the fractious political Islam" of post Mubarak Egypt
• He embodies "a new Egypt searching for a religiously resonant yet pragmatic brand of politics that can fix the nation's deep economic and social problems" 
• "He's a favorite on talk shows and Internet videos, a charismatic speaker who can charm a university crowd as easily as he can raise cheers from millworkers in the provinces." 
• "He skims the edge of fundamentalism — he once suggested that he and Osama bin Laden shared the same ends, if not the means, to create an Islamic state — but connects with Egyptians' everyday worries.

The Economist has said he is "committed to replicating the seventh-century ways of the Prophet Mohammed [and] could be the country's next pharaoh". More recently, it has also called him a man with "folksy charm putting the dour Mr Morsi in the shade". He's a politician whose followers are "rowdy enthusiasts".

There is no suggestion that Abu Ismail himself has any intention of embracing martyrdom. It's a near certainty that his inspiration will bring less discerning Egyptians (aka rowdy enthusiasts) to that end. Martyrdom-minded religious fanatics have a bad reputation in this part of the world, so this "folksy" sermon is less than good news.

14-Mar-13: The Salafists

Salafists protest outside Central Mosque (Zentralmoschee) in Cologne's
Ehrenfeld district,, May 8, 2012 [AFP] 

Germany yesterday (Wednesday) banned three Salafist Muslim groups which the Interior Ministry said wanted to overturn democracy and install a system based on sharia, or Islamic law. [Source: Reuters]. It's the latest step taken by German authorities

who have increased surveillance of Salafists who espouse a radical version of Islam. The ministry said it has banned the organizations "DawaFFM" and "Islamische Audios", as well as "An-Nussrah", which is part of the "Millatu Ibrahim" group that was outlawed in June. [Reuters]

At the same time, German prosecutors said

Police have foiled an attempted attack by Islamists against far-right targets... Police made four arrests on Wednesday after making raids in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). Prosecutors in Dortmund said that a raid in Bonn, carried out by special police force commandos, had uncovered a firearm and a kilogram of possible explosives. Arrests also took place in Leverkusen and Essen. Authorities said they believed "imminent" terrorist activities were in the pipeline. A specific attack had reportedly been planned against the leader of the far-right Pro-NRW political party, Markus Beisicht. In addition, said the prosecutors, a ticked list of Pro-NRW party officials and journalists was found. The arrests came in the wake of raids across the states of NRW and Hesse, with computer equipment, propaganda material, cell phones and over 10,000 euros ($13,000) in cash seized... [Deutsche Welle]

Analysts of events in the Arab world and those parts of the world impacted by Arabs, Moslems and Islamist terror frequently refer to the Salafists. It is a slippery descriptor that sometimes produces contradictory outcomes. Wikipedia's definition of Salafist Jihadism includes these elements:

• The term Salafist jihadism describes the beliefs of Salafi Moslems who, starting in the mid-1990s, became interested in violent jihad. 
• The salafis distinguish themselves from those they call the "sheikists", so named because... the "sheikists" had forsaken adoration of God for adoration of "the oil sheiks of the Arabian peninsula, with the Al Saud family at their head"... 
• Even more dangerous [according to the Salafists] was the Muslim Brotherhood, who [are] excessively moderate and lacking in literal interpretation of holy texts.
• The number of Salafi jihadists in the world is less than one percent of the world's 1.9 billion Muslims [source] meaning fewer than 20 million people. (What's the fuss, right?)

What's much less slippery is the way the Salafists are affecting the places where they live and operate. Here's an extract from a hair-raising piece on the Al-Monitor site, called "Exclusive: Gaza Salafists Take Fight To Syria", datelined yesterday. The writer, Asmaa al-Ghoul,is described as a journalist and writer from the Rafah refugee camp based in Gaza:

In a coffee shop in Gaza, Muhammad Hijazi, an expert on Islamic and Salafist groups, explained that Salafist jihadism is a global phenomenon, not a local one. It moves from certain regions of tension to others. It moved from Afghanistan to Iraq, then to Libya. He noted that its mission, at the beginning of the '80s, was to fight the Soviet Union. However, after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, Salafist jihadism took its mission to the socialist South Yemen. After the region fell to North Yemen, the Salafist jihadists moved to Chechnya, Caucasia and Sudan, then to Algeria, Iraq and Libya and now Syria.Hijazi said the members are getting to Syria through Iraq and Turkey, since the border is open. Many of them are currently involved in Jabhat al-Nusra. Salafists in Jordan constitute around half of the total number of militants in Syria, amounting approximately to 4,000 fighters and residing in rural areas. Moreover, he noted that they are financed by Gulf and Islamic charities, especially in Saudi Arabia. The Wahhabi ideology intrinsically supports this dogma, while some countries, like Qatar, are using Salafists for political ends and jihadist purposes. Hijazi considered unofficial political oil money to be the biggest sponsor for such movements. Hijazi added that Salafists in Gaza are supported by an international network of small associations, whose mission is to offer logistical support. Those provide individuals with money and means to move to regions of tension. Through them, Salafists get salaries, visas and tickets and are directed to the conflict regions, where there is a political vacuum. The associations make sure to help them move around easily, and often, the countries that are the source of financing are aware of that. He said he considered Syria a favorable environment, where this trend that opposes the revolution’s principles of liberalism can constantly grow, as long as money and weapons are available. [Source: Al-Monitor] 

Notice how frequently money plays a key role in the way Islamist terror groups operate. It's fundamental to their ability to live and fight. And despite the claims in the Wikipedia article, the Salafists have no problem at all turning to Saudi Arabia and Qatar for their oxygen. If this Gaza writer is to be believed, that information comes directly from the source.

3-Dec-11: The Islamists are marching...

The centrality of the religious factor in Arab public life is increasingly a talking point in media coverage as major changes wash across the entire area.

Under the headline "Jordan apology to Hamas baffles many", a mainstream Arab news publication is reporting today on Jordanian overtures to the most dangerous of this region's terrorist organizations.

The mea culpa was offered by Jordan's prime minister, Awn Khasawneh, for the 1999 decision to close the Islamist group's offices and expel its members - action widely believed to have been taken under pressure from the US. Calling it a "constitutional and political mistake", his regret was extended soon after Jordan's King Abdullah II appointed him to the premiership in October. Further, the Hamas leader, Khaled Meshaal, reportedly is arriving in Jordan today for talks. Mending relations with Hamas has raised eyebrows among the king's loyalists and his detractors, and not only because Washington considers the Palestinian group a terrorist organisation. Increasingly, it is perceived as an attempt to outflank the king's domestic critics and bolster his standing in the Arab world... Beginning this year with calls to end official corruption, [widespread Jordanian] protests have escalated into angry demonstrations - increasingly by members of the monarchy's tribal support base. By reaching out to Hamas, however, suspicion has mounted that the king is trying to put off reforms by cutting a deal with the group's influential brethren in Jordan, the Muslim Brotherhood. Their support could prove useful for restraining dissent..."

In Egypt, where the outcome of this past week's elections have been held back by the military who are the actual post-"Arab spring" rulers, first numbers are emerging and they bode ill for those who understand the close ties between the Muslim Brotherhood in its various forms, and jihadist terror. From AFP ("Islamists sweep Egypt elections") in the past hour (late Saturday night):

Early results from Egypt's first post-revolution election showed Islamist parties sweeping to victory, including hardline Salafists, with secular parties trounced in many areas.

Earlier today, there were reports that "the Muslim Brotherhood claimed the first round in the Egyptian parliamentary elections Saturday, after polls said it has won 40% of the votes. The official results of the elections are still pending."

In last week's elections in Morocco, the Islamist Justice and Development Party dominated, taking 107 seats out of the 395 seats, almost twice as many as the second place party. AP says this means "King Mohammed VI must pick the next prime minister from its ranks and to form the next government."

In elections in Tunisia in late October, the Islamist Ennahda party, banned for decades until January 2011, won 41% of the vote, securing 90 seats in the 217-member parliament. Today in the Tunisian capital, thousands of Islamists and secularists staged competing protests outside the parliament. Reuters says tensions are high:

"The latest round of protests was sparked when a group of hardline Islamists occupied a university campus near the capital to demand segregation of sexes in class and the right for women students to wear a full-face veil."

For the terrorist leadership of Hamas in Gaza, this is all great news. One of its more outspoken insiders, Musa Abu Marzouk, said this week the Egyptian win "serves the interests of Hamas", while his colleague Fawzi Barhoum, one of the Hamas designated spokespeople, said the election results we mentioned will "strengthen Hamas in the face of Israeli, American and European efforts" to isolate the terrorists.

Meanwhile an Arab voice of a different kind sees things via a different, more practical lens. Jeannette Bougrab, minister for youth in the government of France, and a self-described "French woman of Arab origin", said to the Le Parisien newspaper that that the electoral outcomes are 

"very worrying... I don’t know of any moderate Islam... There are no half measures with sharia. I am a lawyer and you can make all the theological, literal or fundamental interpretations of it that you like but law based on sharia is inevitably a restriction on freedom, especially freedom of conscience.”

Muslim Brotherhood activists "clash" with plainclothes
Egyptian police at an anti-Israel rally [Source]

The Moslem Brotherhood's official motto is: "Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope." Establishing an Islamic state based on sharia is at the center of its ideology. Egyptians - according to an April 2010 Pew Research Center poll  - very much like what it has to say about such core values as stoning adulterers (82% support), whipping and/or chopping off the hands of thieves (77%), and imposing the death penalty on apostates (84%)

They held a rally a week ago in Cairo's most prominent mosque, Al-Azhar. This report says 5,000 people took part. The main preacher was its Grand Imam, Ahmed al-Tayeb who said: "The al-Aqsa Mosque is currently under an offensive by the Jews…we shall not allow the Zionists to Judaize al-Quds (Jerusalem.) We are telling Israel and Europe that we shall not allow even one stone to be moved there." The report says Muslim Brotherhood spokesmen, as well as Palestinian guest speakers, made explicit calls for Jihad and for liberating the whole of Palestine. Time and again, a Koran quote vowing that "one day we shall kill all the Jews" was uttered at the site... Throughout the event, Muslim Brotherhood activists chanted: "Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv, judgment day has come."

With the Egyptian election behind us, it's worth recalling what a leading expert on the Muslim Brotherhood ("Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood: In Their Own Words") wrote nearly a year ago:

The Muslim Brotherhood does not hide its global aspirations and the violent path it intends to follow to achieve them. The Brotherhood is meticulous in its step-by-step plan, first to take over the soul of the individual and then the family, people, nation and union of Islamic nations, until the global Islamic state has been realized. The principle of stages dictates the Muslim Brotherhood's supposed "moderation." However, that "moderation" will gradually vanish as Muslim Brotherhood achievements increase and its acceptance of the existing situation is replaced by a strict, orthodox Muslim rule whose foreign policy is based on jihad. 

And now it appears they're taking power in our largest neighbour.