Investigative Project on Terrorism, 9 March 2010: The “most important ideological struggle in the world today is the battle over the future of Islam,” writes Hudson Institute scholar Zeyno Baran. Baran is the editor of an important new book, which goes on sale March 16, entitled The Other Muslims: Moderate and Secular
. . . . For several decades, Wahhabists and Muslim Brotherhood groups have been courted by Western governments and treated by the media as representatives of a near-monolithic “Muslim community.” But an alternate narrative has emerged in the Muslim world – one that rejects the Islamist worldview as anti-democratic. Baran, director of Hudson’s Center for Eurasian Policy, minces no words in describing the danger.
“Islamism has much [in] common with totalitarian ideologies such as Nazism, Fascism, and Marxism-Leninism, including anti-Semitism, ethno-religious hatred, ambition to restructure the world, and an embrace of violence,” she writes in the introduction to the book. “However, unlike purely political totalitarian movements, Islamism has a profound and deeper appeal that derives from its claim to stem from the will of Allah.”
At a March 3 Hudson Institute forum launching The Other Muslims, Baran, Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, and Hedieh Mirahmadi, an Iranian-American lawyer and activist, said that officials in Western democracies mistakenly try to promote nonviolent Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood as “alternatives” to violent Islamists like Al Qaeda.
But the real differences between these organizations are tactical in nature. Both believe that Islam is superior to other religions and seek to impose sharia law in order to regulate virtually every aspect of life. “The West has lost sight of a fundamental truth: empowering Islamists, regardless of whether or not they are violent, sows the seeds for future radicalization that undermines our civilizational structures and breeds terrorism,” Baran writes. “It is difficult to understand that ‘nice people’ who may even share an outwardly secular lifestyle still firmly believe that their lives should be governed according to a legal code of seventh-century Arabia.”
The book’s other contributors are Muslims from a wide variety of backgrounds who also oppose Islamists. Some are devoutly religious, while others are relatively secular. They are united in the belief that Islam is fully compatible with Western liberal democracy, and that Western governments should not be yielding to Islamist demands for the creation of “parallel societies,” where they will be forced to live under Sharia. . . .
Human Events/Robert Spencer, 10 March 2010: Al-Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn in a new videotape released Sunday declared:
“I am calling on every honest and vigilant Muslim in the countries of the Zionist-Crusader alliance in general and America, Britain and Israel in particular to prepare to play his due role in responding to and repelling the aggression of the enemies of Islam.”
He called upon Muslims to be imaginative in their choice of jihad targets:
“You shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking that military bases are the only high-value targets in America and the West. On the contrary, there are countless other strategic places, institutions and installations which, by striking, the Muslim can do major damage.”
Gadahn, who is known in jihadist circles as “Azzam the American,” is the first U.S. citizen to be indicted for treason since World War II. His new video shows that the charge is entirely justified.
In it, he held up 9/11 as a model for jihad attacks: “As the blessed operations of September 11th showed, a little imagination and planning and a limited budget can turn almost anything into a deadly, effective and convenient weapon.” He exhorted Muslims to sow mayhem in the U.S. and elsewhere in the West “by killing or capturing people in government, industry and the media.”
As surprising as it may be to hear an American fantasizing about mass murders in his native land, it is no surprise coming from Gadahn, who in a September 11, 2006 message called America “enemy soil.” And in his new communiqué, the pudgy Al-Qaeda operative even praised Nidal Hasan, the Islamic jihadist who murdered thirteen people at Fort Hood in November 2009, as
“the ideal role-model for every repentant Muslim in the armies of the unbelievers and apostate regimes,” and as a “pioneer, a trailblazer and a role-model who has opened a door, lit a path and shown the way forward for every Muslim who finds himself among the unbelievers.”
Earlier videotapes show that mass murders on American military bases, such as the one eventually committed by Hasan, were long the stuff of Gadahn’s dreams. In July 2006, while engaging in an extended exercise in grievance theatre over alleged murders of children by American troops in Iraq, he said: “It’s hard to imagine that any compassionate person could see pictures, just pictures, of what the Crusaders did to those children, and not want to go on a shooting spree at the Marines’ housing facilities at Camp Pendleton.” He was anxious to demonstrate his own bloodlust, declaring: “We love nothing better than the heat of battle, the echo of explosions, and slitting the throats of the infidels.”
And therein lies the core of the problem. Gadahn has become a traitor who plots violence against Americans because of his allegiance to Islam, and his concomitant belief that he has a responsibility before the supreme deity to kill Infidels whom he believes to be at war with Islam. Yet aside from vague and loophole-laden condemnations of terrorism, Muslim groups in America have done nothing to counter the appeal of jihad recruiters to young men like Gadahn. We know from the recent flow of Somali immigrants in Minneapolis back to their homeland to wage jihad that jihad recruitment is continuing on American soil; and the people who converted Adam Gadahn to Islam and convinced him that Allah was pleased when he murdered people are still active, still spreading Islam among unsuspecting and alienated young Americans.
Reports Sunday that Gadahn had been captured just as his videotape was released turned out to be false. In fact, another American convert to Islam who is active in Al-Qaeda was the one who was captured – which shows anew that officials have ignored the conversion of rootless young Americans and their recruitment for the jihad to our great detriment. Gadahn himself, in any case, is still at large — and while American forces should continue to hunt for him in Pakistan and Afghanistan, law enforcement officials stateside should be on the lookout for an even greater threat emanating from those Muslims in this country who have taken his words, and the words of those who inspired and influenced him, to heart.
♦ CI CENTRE COURSE: 362–Informant Development for Law Enforcement to Fight Terrorism
♦ CI CENTRE COURSE: 361–The Global Jihadist Threat Doctrine
Gulf News, 10 March 2010: Dubai Police have warned spies operating in the Gulf to leave the region within one week or face consequences. “Those spies that are currently present in the Gulf must leave the region within one week — if not, then we will cross that bridge when we come to it,” Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan Tamim told Gulf News. . . .
. . . . The ultimatum indicates that Dubai Police are aware of the identities of spies operating in the UAE and the Gulf region and appears to be a warning of exposure if they do not comply. Asked if the alleged spies are holders of European passports, the police chief said: “Europeans and others”, but he did not respond when asked if he was also referring to spies holding Arab passports. It is unclear if Dahi was referring to spies working for European governments or those who use European passports to spy for others. . . .
Los Angeles Times, 10 March 2010: Using e-mail, YouTube videos, phony travel documents and a burning desire to kill “or die trying,” a middle-aged American woman from Pennsylvania helped recruit a network for suicide attacks and other terrorist strikes in Europe and Asia, according to a federal grand jury indictment unsealed Tuesday.
Colleen R. LaRose, who dubbed herself “JihadJane,” was so intent on waging jihad, authorities said, that she traveled to Sweden to kill an artist in a way that would frighten “the whole Kufar [nonbeliever] world.” With blond hair and green eyes, the 46-year-old woman bragged that she could go anywhere undetected, boasting in one e-mail that it was “an honour & great pleasure to die or kill for” jihad, or holy war, the indictment said. . . . .
. . . “She appeared to be one of those people who spend a lot of time online and go to all these radical websites and chat rooms,” said one law enforcement source, who, like others interviewed, requested anonymity when discussing the case. “If there was some moment in her life that changed her, I don’t know,” another law enforcement source said. . . . .
♦ CI CENTRE COURSE: 361–The Global Jihadist Threat Doctrine
♦ CI CENTRE BRIEFING: Inside Jihad: Recruited and Radicalized Into Terrorism
AP, 9 March 2010: A traditional Islamic concept about protecting the faith and its followers has become a judicial weapon for Iran’s rulers: charging opponents as so-called enemies of Allah with the threat of possible death sentences. Iran’s accusations of “moharebeh” — literally “waging war” in Arabic — have opened deep rifts between ruling clerics and Islamic scholars questioning how an idea about safeguarding Muslims can be transformed into a tool to punish political protesters.
The outcry increased last week after an appeals court reportedly upheld the death sentence for Mohammad Amin Valian, a 20-year-old student convicted of moharebeh crimes, which Iran’s legal code defines as “defiance of Allah” — or the state — and punishable by hanging. . . .
. . . . On Sunday, Iran’s semi-official ILNA news agency reported that a former Tehran University dean, Mohammad Maleki, was charged with moharebeh for alleged contact with unspecified foreign groups and working to undermine the Islamic system. In January, Iran hanged two men on moharebeh offenses — convicted of plotting to overthrow “the Islamic establishment” and planning assassinations and bombings. They were arrested months before the June election, but were brought before judges last summer in a trial of more than 100 pro-reform activists and politicians. Some were sentenced to death, while more than 80 received prison terms ranging from six months to 15 years.
A hard-line cleric, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, described the executions in ominous terms in a nationally broadcast sermon in January. “If you show weakness now, the future will be worse,” Jannati said. “There is no room for Islamic mercy.” . . . .
. . . . The concept has its roots in a Quranic verse that calls for death, maiming or banishment for those who “wage war” against Allah, the Prophet Muhammad or bring corruption into society. Many Islamic scholars interpret the references to acts that defy universal codes such as intentionally killing civilians during warfare or causing random destruction.
Iranian authorities, however, have pushed the meaning to cover any challenges to the stability and survival of the Islamic state — built largely around the idea that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is divinely empowered. “Iran’s leaders use the Quran as the cornerstone of their rule. They also are using the Quran to justify the punishment of those challenging the existing order,” said Azzam Tamimi, director of Institute of Islamic Political Thought in London. “In this sense, Iran’s leaders see no contradiction.”
Blurring religious and political muscle is not new in the region, with the Taliban using Islamic law to rule Afghanistan until being ousted after the 9/11 attacks. But Iran’s case has evolved in a distinct way: starting as a political clash over disputed elections and gradually turning into a defense of the Islamic Revolution. . . .
♦ CI CENTRE COURSE: 1700–Fundamentals of Iran Training Program — 1701: Crossroads of Conflict in the Middle East, 1702: Iranian Terrorism and Counterintelligence in the Modern Age
