10-Nov-18: In Melbourne, the stabber is called "lone wolf" but with connections to Islamic State

Image Source: Video capture

I am traveling [this is Arnold Roth] and am spending a few days in Melbourne, Australia.

Here's a summary of the terrorist attack that turned the downtown area here into a murder scene during this past Friday afternoon's peak hour.

• A man drove his utility vehicle - a Holden Rodeo - onto the sidewalk of the central business district's Bourke Street, near the busy corner with Swanston Street where around 4:20 pm Friday it exploded in flames. It later emerged that he had loaded it up with gas cylinders. A large explosion was evidently his plan.
• A man, Hassan Khalif Shire Ali, aged about 30, exited the vehicle armed with a large knife. He attacked several pedestrians in an evidently random way, stabbing 74-year-old Sisto Malaspina. According to one Australian source, the man yelled “Allahu Akbar” during the attack "but [police] Commissioner Ashton said this had not been confirmed."
• Malaspina is the well-known co-owner of Pellegrini's Espresso Bar, a Melbourne icon. 
• Two other men were next: Rodney Patterson, 58, suffered head injuries; a male security guard aged 24 is injured in the neck, evidently from being stabbed. Both of them are in stable condition as of Saturday night as we write this.
• Transit police arrived at the scene. The attacker punched one of them through the window of their vehicle.Many more police quickly arrived as the two transit police engaged with the attacker. The knifer then lunged at them with his weapon. A bystander tried to assist police by ramming a shopping trolley between them and the suspect.
• At about this point, a police officer fired at the attacker. He was hit in the chest and fell to the ground. He was rushed to hospital in critical condition and later died.
• In the words of The Age, a Melbourne daily, "Police have said it was a lone-person terror attack, and that the threat has been mitigated."
• All streets in the vicinity remained closed to traffic and pedestrians until 8 on Saturday morning as police examined the attack scene.
• The knifer, a child migrant who arrived in Australia with his parents from Somalia and now dead, is widely described tonight as "known to counter terrorism agencies... and 
  known to have radical views
  ... 
  His passport was seized in 2015  when he made plans to travel to Syria". Though he "had links" to ISIS, he was "not actively monitored". 
• Australia's national broadcaster, ABC, reported that "his family is well known and respected within the Somali community in Melbourne."
• They attended the Virgin Mary Mosque in Hoppers Crossing, west of Melbourne.
• His wife, parents and siblings have been questioned by police in the past day and his home raided and combed for evidence.
• The Age again: "The police have been given the green light for the first time to use preventative detention, where they may detain terror suspects for four days without a court order."

Lots of questions to be answered here.

28-Nov-17: In Melbourne, a would-be terrorist shooter is in police hands

Image Source

In Australia, there's a breaking story about major terrorism thwarted by alert police action. This report comes from Australia's ABC Online:

A man has faced court charged with terrorism offences after allegedly trying to get a gun and plotting to "shoot as many people as he could" on New Year's Eve. Ali Khalif Shire Ali, 20, from Werribee, was arrested at a home in Melbourne's south-west just before 3:00 pm on Monday. He appeared before Melbourne Magistrates' Court this afternoon charged with preparing to commit a terrorist attack and gathering documents to facilitate a terrorist act. He was described by police as one of their "high persons of interest", and the charges relate to actions Mr Ali took between March and April this year, and in June. Earlier, Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton said they believed Mr Ali was trying to get an automatic rifle to "shoot and kill as many people as he could" around Federation Square, in Melbourne's CBD [Central Business District], during New Year's Eve celebrations. Police said they moved in today because he had been having face-to-face meetings about getting a gun. Mr Ali, who police said was connected to other extremists, did not manage to obtain one, Deputy Commissioner Patton said.
Federation Square is one of the most popular spots in Melbourne to bring in the new year. Mr Ali is an Australian citizen with Somalian parents.

Another source, Melbourne Herald-Sun, describes him as "born in Australia to Somalian parents" who has lived in Victoria (the state of which Melbourne is the capital) all his life, and whose "extremist behaviour gradually escalated over time". There's something vaguely familiar about the newspaper's recounting of the accused's ordinariness:

The young man attends prayer regularly with his family at Virgin Mary [sic] mosque in Werribee. Worshippers described the family as decent members of the community and they had not noticed anything suspicious about his behaviour... The suspect’s boss Warsame Hassan said he had been working at his Footscray computer business part-time for about three months to learn new skills and had not shown any signs of radicalisation. Mr Hassan said the young man often asked to use a computer in the back of the store and usually explained that it was to sell and buy on website eBay. He had not shown any worrying behaviour, Mr Hassan said. “If I had (noticed any) then I would have told the police,” he said. “It’s very sad, it’s a shock. "He is a very quiet guy,” said Mr Hassan. “This is an absolute shock.” He said he had not been to work for about a fortnight. Detectives raided the business yesterday afternoon and seized a computer which had been used by the suspect. [Melbourne Herald-Sun, today]

The local Somali community is worried:

Somali youth leaders have condemned Mr Ali’s alleged actions. “I’m here to reassure the Australian wider community that as Australian Somalis we obviously are shocked ourselves,” Ahmed Dini said. “We want to stand together and we want to make sure that these actions never take place.” The radicalisation of disenfranchised youth was a “global threat”, the youth leaders said at a press conference today, and high unemployment and lack of education could make Australia’s Somalian youth particularly vulnerable. Mr Dini said global terror groups had easy access to youth through the internet. “When some young person excludes themselves from society... they become friends with the internet and you can find a lot of dark things on the internet,” Mr Dini said. “We’re calling upon government and also our friends in the Australian community ... help us, support us in making sure that we do what ever we can to build the capacity of our youth.” [Melbourne Herald-Sun, today]

Dini is not described any further in the article. We found these background details.

Somalis have been immigrating to Australia in significant numbers since the early 1990s in the wake of the outbreak of civil war in their country. About 80 per cent arrived under Australia's Refugee and Special Humanitarian Program. Most live in Melbourne's suburbs. A 2016 source says they number two to three thousand.

12-Feb-17: Yelling at each other about travel bans, some weighty issues are liable to get lost

Image Source: CBS News, November 28, 2016

From where we sit, it's deeply troubling that major matters of policy and public security have divided Americans, and to a great extent people elsewhere as well, according to their views about the new president of the United States and his nascent administration. 

If life were like Saturday Night Live, we might be able to laugh it off. But as the title of our blog indicates, that's not how we feel about terror, those who practice it and those who become its victims.

How much it's not like a TV show is borne out by a news report published today in Boston. Everyone's free to choose whether to accept its claims as factual or significant. But it's a mistake (we say) to treat questions of whether and how to protect our societies to the margins of some domestic political slugging match:

Report: Dozens of terror convicts from ban countries | Owen Boss | Sunday, February 12, 2017 | Boston Herald | 
Dozens of people from the seven Muslim-majority nations included in President Trump’s executive order on immigration have been convicted on terrorism-related charges in the U.S. since the Sept. 11 terror attacks, according to a review that contradicts an appellate court decision against the travel and refugee ban.
A recent analysis of information gathered last year by the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest led the conservative Center for Immigration Studies to publish a report yesterday revealing that 72 people who entered the United States from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen have been convicted on criminal charges stemming from terror cases since Sept. 11, 2001... The center’s director of policy studies, Jessica Vaughan, said the review’s findings “stand in stark contrast to the assertions by the 9th Circuit judges who have blocked the president’s order on the basis that there is no evidence showing a risk to the United States in allowing aliens from these seven terror-associated countries to come in.”
“This is just another myth that’s been put out there by people who are upset by restrictions on Syrian refugees that say, ‘There’s never been a refugee that’s committed a terrorist act in the United States.’ Well, there’s been 17 just from these seven countries, according to this information,” Vaughan told the Herald.
Vaughan said the subcommittee report, which is no longer available on the Senate website, relied on open sources because the Obama administration refused to turn over government records and found that of the 580 people convicted in terror cases since 9/11, 380 were foreign-born.
“I was shocked that there were that many since 9/11, and even more shocking that 380 of them were foreign-born, which debunks this idea that it’s all homegrown terrorism,” Vaughan said. “The information shows the threat from the inadequate vetting in our immigration system has been present for a long time and I don’t think the public is fully aware of that.”
In a ruling Thursday, three judges of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled against reinstating President Trump’s ban on travelers from the seven predominantly Muslim countries — and noted in court documents that the government “has pointed to no evidence that any alien from any of the countries named in the Order has perpetrated a terrorist attack in the United States.”
And though the subcommittee report was never referenced in court, Vaughan says the proof is in the numbers.
According to the analysis, 20 people from Somalia, 19 from Yemen and Iraq, seven from Syria, four from Iran, two from Libya and one from Sudan were convicted in terror cases since Sept. 11, 2001. Vaughan said the subcommittee report — which includes names of offenders, dates of conviction, terror group affiliation, federal criminal charges, sentence imposed, state of residence, and immigration history — also found that 33 of the 72 were convicted of “very serious terror-related crimes” and were sentenced to at least three years behind bars.
Charges included use of a weapon of mass destruction, conspiracy to commit a terror act, material support of a terrorist or terror group, international money laundering conspiracy, possession of explosives or missiles, and unlawful possession of a machine gun, she said.
And though she admitted opponents argue the Senate report was flawed because it included people who were not necessarily terrorists because they were convicted of crimes such as identity fraud and making false statements, she was quick to point to the case of Abdul Razak Ali Artan, who was shot and killed after attacking and wounding 11 people at Ohio State University in November 2016. Artan was a Somalian who arrived in 2007 as a refugee.
“It shows that every category of immigration has seemed to be exploited by terrorists,” Vaughan said. “It’s not just people coming in on legal visas, it’s people we have admitted on green cards, some of whom have become citizens and that’s something that I don’t think has been fully appreciated.”

The sting is in how factual evidence - the kind people need in order to form serious views and make life-impacting decisions - is being manipulated to advance ideological arguments. So the Boston Herald continues by showcasing these skeptical views:

But Council on American-Islamic Relations spokesman Ibrahim Hooper dismissed the Center for Immigration Studies review as “push-back from the anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim crowd.”
“They’ll spin whatever they can to try and make Muslims or immigrants or refugees look bad to promote their own particular agenda. It’s unfortunately expected in the world we live in,” Hooper told the Herald. “Our nation is so divided now that you get people promoting their particular agenda based on their own spin, on their own view of whatever issue, instead of looking at the reality of the situation.”

The reality is different from what the CAIR man says. Terror and what our societies do about it are not a matter of spin, but involve complex and weighty issues that in the literal sense of the words are a matter of life and death. It would be better if the discussion were conducted in sober and unemotional terms - but we might not have time to wait until that happens.

31-May-15: Making sense of some Somali voices in middle America

A flag-waving girl from
Minnesota's Somali
community [Image Source]

Seven months ago, we posted here about people in Minneapolis agonizing over how three local girls could have decided to travel to the Middle East and hook up with the terrorists of ISIS. According to an Associated Press article reporting at the time on aspects of the phenomenon, suspicion had fallen on two contributing factors: (a) social media; and (b) an online predator.

We felt that was facile. Also, that it concealed more than it revealed. See "26-Oct-14: Standing up for jihad in Minnesota" and notice in particular the comments there on the role played in and about Minnesota by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR).

Somalis are a sizable ethnic group in Minnesota, concentrated in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. There are reports from a range of sources including the Independent UK and the New York Times last month (we plan to review them in a future post) that see the emergence of Islamist sentiment and overt recruiting on behalf of ISIS as connected to the growth of that minority.

You might imagine that the massive destruction visited on Somalia, one of the world's most impoverished countries, by its Islamist Al-Shabaab terrorists (whose savagery was demonstrated in a Nairobi, Kenya, shopping centre massacre in September 2013, and on the campus of a Kenyan university just last month) would have caused wall-to-wall revulsion among Somalians, and especially those who managed to escape the carnage. Turns out it's less than wall to wall.

Drawing conclusions is something that needs more care and depth than we can devote at the moment. But we do want to share a startling video uploaded by Ami Horowitz, a film-maker, last week. It delivers a selection (let's assume for the moment a subjective selection) of Somali voices, all recorded on the streets of the Cedar Riverside section of Minneapolis, near the University of Minnesota campus. Though the film-maker evidently has an agenda, the voices and standpoints appear to be authentic.

The direct questions and responses spoken right into the camera seem to demonstrate that the American-domiciled Somalis shown in the clip have an unambiguous affinity for Sharia (Islamic law), placing its values above those normally thought of as pro-democracy. They also yearn to live somewhere other than in America.

Simplistic analyses usually lead to shallow thinking and often to wrong conclusions. On the other hand, when a society encounters open advocacy for terrorism, and an explicit embrace of Islamist values among the people living in its midst (by far not an exclusively Minnesotan problem as reports in the past few weeks from South Africa, the US and Australia among others demonstrate), it's time to move past the politically-correct, the rhetoric and the sloganeering.

If lives are endangered, thoughtful positions need to be crafted and hard decisions made. Anything less is a betrayal of public trust.

26-Oct-14: Standing up for jihad in Minnesota

The Getty Images caption reads: "Somali Muslims pray during a Somali Week soccer tournament championship game at the Hamline University stadium on June 26, 2011, in St. Paul, Minn." [Image Source]

In Minneapolis (but it could just as easily be almost anywhere else in the world), they are agonizing over how it could possibly be that three local girls decided to get up one day and travel to the Middle East in order to hook up with the terrorists of ISIS. According to AP, they have some strong leads: (a) social media; and (b) an online predator.

The local authorities quite rightly are saying their "biggest concern is for the safety and well-being of these girls". But fewer people, it appears from this distance, are saying the next biggest concern is what to do with Islamist-terror-minded people living in their midst.

Three teenage girls being investigated for trying to join Islamic State forces in Syria were victims of an “online predator” who encouraged them, a school official said Wednesday, as U.S. officials tried to determine how they made it to Europe without anyone knowing and whether terrorists’ appeal is deepening among vulnerable youth. The southeast Aurora girls — two sisters ages 17 and 15, and their 16-year-old friend — were detained at the airport in Frankfurt, Germany, and sent home over the weekend. They were interviewed by the FBI and returned to their parents in suburban Aurora. Those in the tight-knit east African community where they live said the sisters are of Somali descent and their friend is of Sudanese descent...
“Social media has played a very significant role in the recruitment of young people,” said FBI spokesman Kyle Loven in Minneapolis, home to the largest Somali community in the U.S. Authorities there have been concerned about terror recruiting of the young for years.  “What it indicates is we have to be really careful about people in impressionable years and what they’re doing on the Internet,” said Jim Davis, former special agent in charge of the FBI in Denver.
At least one of the girls was communicating with someone online who encouraged the three to travel to Syria, said Tustin Amole, a spokeswoman for the Cherry Creek School District where the girls attend high school. Fellow high school students told school officials on Monday that the girls had been discussing travel plans over Twitter, Amole said... The girls’ parents reported them missing Friday after they skipped classes. They had taken passports and $2,000 in cash...
Amole said the school district was being “extra vigilant” in light of the FBI’s concerns that the girls’ friends or classmates might have similar intentions...
Terror recruiting has been a problem for years in Minneapolis. Since 2007, roughly 22 young Somali-Americans have traveled to Somalia to take up arms with al-Shabab, an al-Qaida linked group. Those were all men. Within the last year, a handful of people from the community left Minnesota to join militant groups in Syria, and this time, there are fears that women might have been targeted...
A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Denver would not say whether prosecutors plan to charge the girls with a crime. State prosecutors said they have no imminent plans to charge the girls. Amole said they will not face discipline. “Our biggest concern is for the safety and well-being of these girls...” [AP, October 23, 2014]

Online predators and social media are frightening factors, no doubt about it. But how about these?

• "Minnesota is home to an estimated 70,000 Somalis -- the largest Somali concentration in the country. Generally speaking, Somali girls growing up in America are thriving. In the culture, parents often take a more protective attitude toward girls, believing that their reputation upholds the dignity of the family..." [Minneapolis Star Tribune, November 21, 2010]
• On the other hand: "... [T]he problems Somali girls face are a reflection of a larger issue -- a lack of programs for Somali youth, and especially for girls. "The problem is there are no activities for the girls," said Hussein, the youth and girls program coordinator for the Confederation of Somali Community in Minnesota. Although as many as 40 percent of the 70,000 Somalis living in Minnesota are 18 years old or younger, there are only a handful of programs for girls, she said." [Minneapolis Star Tribune, November 21, 2010]
• "The wide-reaching sex-trafficking operation, controlled by Somali gangs, preyed on girls from the Twin Cities, including some who were 13 or younger... For more perspective on Monday's indictment, MPR's Tom Crann talked with Abdirizak Bihi, the executive director of the Somali Education and Social Advocacy Center in Minneapolis. Bihi has worked with Somali-American girls who have been caught up in prostitution, and he said many of those girls face similar social situations..." [MPR News, four years ago]
• "The latest ISIS recruit from Minnesota is a 19-year-old woman who told her family she will be taking care of wounded fighters in Syria. Somali-American leaders say they know of at least two other young women who have also left, and they believe at least 15 Minnesotans are among at least 100 Americans who have joined ISIS from around the world. No one is quite sure when the 19-year-old woman left Minnesota for Syria..." [CBS Minnesota, September 4, 2014]
• "Reports of Americans fighting for the group [ISIS] have raised concerns about the radicalization and recruitment of young men from immigrant communities throughout the United States, and particularly those in the large Somali American community in Minnesota... " ["Somali Americans Linked to IS Shock Minnesota Immigrant Community" VOA News, September 4, 2014]
• "As Minnesota teenagers growing up in the 1990s, Troy Kastigar and Douglas McAuthur McCain shared almost everything. They played pickup basketball on neighborhood courts, wrote freewheeling raps in each other’s bedrooms and posed together for snapshots, a skinny white young man with close-cropped hair locking his arm around his African-American friend with a shadow of a mustache... They converted to Islam around the same time and exalted their new faith to family and friends, declaring that they had found truth and certainty. One after the other, both men abandoned their American lives for distant battlefields. “This is the real Disneyland,” Mr. Kastigar said with a grin in a video shot after he joined Islamist militants in Somalia in late 2008... Today, both are dead. While their lives ended five years and over 2,000 miles apart, their intertwined journeys toward militancy offer a sharp example of how the allure of Islamist extremism has evolved, enticing similar pools of troubled, pliable young Americans to conflicts in different parts of the world... “Troy and Doug fit together in some ways,” Mr. Kastigar’s mother, Julie Boada, said at her home here. “They’re both converted Muslims. They both have had struggles.” ["For Jihad Recruits, a Pipeline From Minnesota to Militancy", NY Times, September 4, 2014]
• Before all of these, a not-so-thoughtful op ed from Fox News, March 19, 2007: "Minnesota: America's First Somali-Muslim State?"
• And this from Minnesota Public Radio in June 2014: "Over the past few months, as many as 15 young Somali-American men from the Twin Cities have traveled to Syria to join radical groups trying to overthrow President Bashar Assad's regime, according to the FBI. One of the men, Abdirahmaan Muhumed, told MPR News through a series of Facebook messages that he is fighting alongside the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria... "A Muslim has to stand up for [what's] right," Muhumed, 29, wrote in a Jan. 2 post. "I give up this worldly life for Allah." Muhumed, who claims he wants to save the global Muslim community, said if that causes others to consider him a terrorist, he is "happy with it." He asked Allah to forgive him and to "make my mom strong for the decision that I made." ["Jihad in Syria lures Somalis from Minnesota", MPR, June 11, 2014]

There are some positive reports out there too, but their impact is not so obvious, and their focus is impossibly narrow. For instance

Members of Minnesota’s large Somali community gathered Sunday to condemn the recruitment of youth by terrorist groups and urge collaboration to find solutions to address the problem. About 100 people attended a town hall meeting to denounce groups such as the Islamic State and al-Shabab, which together have recruited more than two dozen fighters from Minnesota since 2007. U.S. Attorney Andy Luger told the crowd he’s working hard to bring more resources to the community to address the root causes of the problem. ["Minnesota Somalis Condemn Islamic State Recruiting", September 28, 2014] 

And then there's the role of the highest of high-profile Islamic groups in America. This report quotes Abdirizak Bihi, the executive director of the Somali Education and Social Advocacy Center in Minneapolis, whom we mentioned above:

"Bihi has been working to stop radicalization of Somali-Americans for years. He has testified before Congress about the dangers of radicalization in the U.S. Somali community, working alongside the FBI and the Justice Department. His involvement is personal. Bihi’s nephew was radicalized by al-Shabaab and joined the group in 2008. He was killed the following year. But he told The Daily Caller the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has blocked his efforts for years, telling law enforcement agencies by telling them that he doesn’t know the Somali community and calling him “an Islamophobe” in a recent report. “They say that I am a bad person, that I am anti-Muslim, and that I don’t represent a hundred percent the Somali community,” Bihi said. “They lie about my life most of the time and try to destroy my character, my capability, and my trust in the community.” [He] also says CAIR has tried to bring Somalis into the organization and denies the threat that terrorism poses. ["Somali-American leader: ‘I tried to warn America’ about homegrown radicalization", September 23, 2013]

Simple but effective solutions are always going to be in short supply. But ignoring the role that religious culture and identity is playing in this unfolding lethal drama, and ascribing the unchecked phenomenon of home-grown jihadists to such vague factors as "social media" and predators is a guarantee that things will get worse before they get better.

And to be as clear as possible about what we mean by "things" in that last sentence: we mean the social imperative of keeping innocent people alive and unharmed.

28-Dec-10: How the militants, fighters, insurgents and freedom fighters turn into terrorists

The Guardian, one of the world's towering superpowers of political correctness, carried a little-noticed story this past Sunday about a disturbing turn of events emanating from our neighbourhood:

"Intelligence services throughout the Middle East and Europe are scrambling to track down more than two dozen fighters linked to al-Qaida who have recently left their base in southern Lebanon. The missing men are thought to have gone to Europe by a newly established route through Syria, Turkey and the Balkans, and multiple intelligence sources in Lebanon warn that the group appears to be operational and could be planning attacks in Europe in the holiday season... "We have received warnings of a significant militant plot in Europe during the holidays and we have been warned about these missing fighters from Lebanon"...

If you follow the link and view the article as published, you may notice that the word terror appears exactly once - in the headline: European terror attack feared as al-Qaeda fighters disappear from base in Lebanon.

In the body of the article, these Al Qaeda individuals are called "fighters", "missing men", "group", "militants" and even "a disparate group of freelance fighters and jihadists" which comes close to the heart of the matter. Not once are they called terrorists.

So what is it about the jihadists that causes this odd metamorphosis? So long as they remain in the Middle East - in Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Iran, Syria, and especially in the towns and villages controlled by the Palestinian Authority, by Hamas and by Hezbollah - these men, women and children are routinely described by the kind of circumlocution that is on display in the Guardian.

But once they execute their satanic plans in Europe, North America and elsewhere, or even do no more than threaten, they undergo reclassification - as terrorists.

What is it about otherwise intelligent and sober editors and journalists that prevents them from applying to the executors of acts of terror - the jihadists and the child-killers and the murderous Islamicists and the homicidal/suicidal/genocidal human-bombs - the simple English-language name that most fits them: terrorists?

Could it be that it depends on the religion or nationality of the intended victims?

We are the parents of a fifteen year-old daughter murdered by the terrorists, and we are sickened and alarmed by the repeated use in various news media of circumlocutions and double-speak about the practitioners of terror. Terrorist acts are too often called "revenge bombings" and  "revenge attacks", which is half-way towards explaining and justifying acts of unfathomable hatred. Innocent people murdered by the terrorists are too often said to have been "caught in the crossfire". [This month alone, you can see examples in the Financial Times,  Business Week, NPR, Washington Post and many other places.] But the reality is terrorists fully intend to harm, maim, terrorize and kill - indiscriminately. There is no crossfire with terrorists. There are no innocent victims. The more casualties the better. We are all in their crosshairs.

Not everyone sees it our way. Speaking at a conference in Washington in May 2010, the head of the US National Security Council’s Counterterrorism and Homeland Security adviser said [according to this Arab News report] the Obama Administration will no longer tolerate use of the terms “Islamist” and “jihadist”. “Jihad" he explained, "is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purity oneself or one’s community." His chief executive, President Obama, says he knows America is "at war" but it's a war against "terrorism" and not against any particular religious segment. He feels it is

"absolutely important now for the overwhelming majority of the American people to hang on to that thing that is best in us – a belief in religious tolerance, clarity about who our enemies are... We have to make sure that we don't start turning on each other... If we’re going to successfully reduce the terrorist threat, then we need all the allies we can get."

Not surprising, then, that much of the world is still struggling to understand what motivates "homegrown Muslim plotters who are European citizens" like those arrested this week in the UK (London, Cardiff, Stoke-on-Trent and Birmingham - at least five of them of Bangladeshi origin) and accused of "plotting to carry out a terrorist attack" [to quote the Christian Science Monitor].

There are sane voices in the world of ideas - like the Washington Institute for Near East Policy - who argue that, rather than avoid mention of the religious motivation behind the terrorism of al-Qaeda et al, the Obama administration should sharpen the distinction between Islam and the political ideology they call radical Islamism. But they're not being heard.

The religious motivations of Islamic terrorists are clear. To ignore them is not only self-deluding but likely to produce bad outcomes where it counts - in law enforcement, in the courts, in government.

This has real and practical life-and-death importance. There has been a wave of warnings from intelligence agencies since October 2010 about terror attacks that are coming to European cities. A British university graduate called Taimur Abdulwahab al-Abdaly carried out a mostly-ineffective bombing in Stockholm this month - so the Swedes at least know there is some basis to the stories. The Italians too: in Rome, a bomb was found on a train last week. In the Netherlands, the authorities arrested 12 Somali men two days ago on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack on the port of Rotterdam, Europe's largest. The list goes on. It will surely get longer.

Simple good sense dictates that it's time to draw a tight connection between the terrorists and the terrorism. It can't be that these people are militants, fighters and insurgents so long as they operate in the Middle East, but then turn into perpetrators of terror only when they arrive in London or Mumbai. When civilized societies fight them by putting police onto the streets and in the airports and train stations and shopping precincts, it's nice to have "all the allies we can get", as the US president says. But it's even more important to have a clear-eyed, concrete sense of who these terrorists are and what makes them tick, tick, tick.

18-Sep-06: Don't Get Into a Philosophical Argument with These People

Here's what happens when you have a philosophical disagreement with Islamic mobs. So imagine what it means to have a really life-and-death existential struggle over land, history, religion, everything.

AP/Washington Post
Palestinian Muslims Attack Five Christian Churches - Ali Daraghmeh

Palestinians wielding guns and firebombs attacked five churches in the West Bank and Gaza on Saturday, following remarks by Pope Benedict XVI that angered many Muslims. The attacks left church doors charred and walls pockmarked with bullet holes and scorched by firebombs. At least five firebombs hit Nablus' Anglican church and firebombings left black scorch marks on the walls and windows of Greek Orthodox churches as well. Later Saturday, four masked gunmen doused the main doors of Nablus' Roman and Greek Catholic churches with lighter fluid, then set them afire. They also opened fire on the buildings. In Gaza City, militants opened fire at a Greek Orthodox church. Explosive devices were set off at the same Gaza church on Friday.
George Awad, a cleric at the Greek Orthodox church in Nablus, said he and other Christians have apologized for the pope's remarks and urged Muslims to use restraint. "There is no reason to burn our churches," he said.

Nun killed after Pope's speech

The attack may have been in response to the remarks. Meanwhile, the pope says he is sorry for the anger he sparked.
Associated Press and Los Angeles Times
MOGADISHU, Somalia - An elderly Italian nun who devoted her life to helping the sick in Africa was shot dead by two gunmen at a hospital Sunday in an attack possibly linked to worldwide Muslim anger toward Pope Benedict XVI and his recent comments on Islam.
Sister Leonella, 65, was shot in the back four times by pistol-wielding attackers as she left the Austrian-run S.O.S. hospital. Her bodyguard was also slain.

Shots fired at Oslo synagogue - police

17 Sep 2006 09:45:29 GMT
Source: Reuters
OSLO, Sept 17 (Reuters) - Norwegian police said gunshots were fired at a synagogue in Oslo early on Sunday, the national news agency NTB reported.
It said armed police had sealed off the area around the synagogue in central Oslo. It did not report any injuries from the incident at around 2.30 a.m. (0030 GMT).
"We have searched the area with police dogs to secure any evidence, but we have still not found the perpetrator," police official Bjoern Oelstad was quoted as saying by NTB.
Norwegian police were not immediately available to comment.
The Mosaic Religious Community, which owns the synagogue, had asked for better protection of its property following threats and after the site was vandalised in early August.

Gazans warn pope to accept Islam

By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
Citing the words of the Prophet Muhammad, Muslim religious leaders in the Gaza Strip on Sunday warned Pope Benedict XVI that he must "accept" Islam if he wanted to live in peace.
The warning, the first of its kind, came as many Christians in the West Bank expressed anger over a spate of attacks on churches in protest against remarks made by the pope about the Muslims and the Prophet Muhammad.
Two more churches in the West Bank were targeted on Sunday in protest against the pope's remarks, bringing to seven the number of churches that have been attacked over the past three days.
In Tulkarm, arsonists set fire to the only Orthodox church in the area, causing heavy damage to the 150-year-old structure. Local residents said the attack occurred shortly after 4 a.m, when a number of assailants forced their way into the church and tossed several fire bombs into the building.
Some Christian families said they were living in fear because of the attacks and called on the Palestinian Authority to do its utmost to protect churches and Christians.
At a press conference in Gaza City, a number of Muslim clerics said the pope's statements were "the result of his hatred for Islam and not the result of ignorance."
One of them, Dr. Imad Hamto, called on the pope to "repent and ask for forgiveness." He added: "We want to use the words of the Prophet Muhammad and tell the pope: 'Aslim Taslam'" Aslim Taslam is a phrase that was taken from the letters sent by the Prophet Muhammad to the chiefs of tribes in his times in which he reportedly urged them to convert to Islam to spare their lives.
Some Muslim scholars, however, have endorsed a more moderate interpretation of the term, arguing that its real meaning was that those who surrendered to the will of God would find peace.
Hamto and his colleagues accused Christians of "resorting to the power of the sword in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine."
They also called on the pope to direct his words to the Jews who, they claimed, were "spreading corruption and destruction."

Islam Peaceful, Pope Deserves Reactions (Turkey)

Who says we're violent?

By Karina Dunger and Andrew Carswell
September 18, 2006 12:00
The Daily Telegraph
MUSLIM fanatics burned an effigy of the Pope, a Catholic nun was shot dead and terrorist organisation al-Qaeda called for holy war as protesters against Benedict XVI's comments linking Islam with violence resorted to just that.
Elderly Italian nun Sister Leonella was shot at a children's hospital in the Islamist-controlled Somali capital in an attack linked to the Pope's comments last week linking Islam to violence.
Two gunman entered the Austrian-funded SOS Hospital in Mogadishu's Huriwa District on Sunday and ambushed the nun, opening fire with pistols before killing a Somali bodyguard and escaping in the ensuing confusion, witnesses said.
In the Shi'ite city of Basra in Iraq, about 150 demonstrators demanding an apology by the Pope burnt his effigy. The agitators also burned German, US, and Israeli flags.
"No to aggression! We gagged the Pope!," the angry crowd chanted. The protest was organised by supporters of hardline Shi'ite cleric Mahmoud Al Hasani, who demanded the Pope and the Vatican be put on trial under UN Security Council resolutions.

As the Telegraph says: Who says they're violent? Anyone who says they're violent gets a bullet in the head, so shuddup already.