RUTHFULLY YOURS

By Benoit Faucon and Laurence Fletcher in London and Giovanna Legorano in Rome

U.K. and other Western security agencies were seeking to nail down international connections of the attackers in London’s weekend rampage, as it emerged that one of them had tried to go to Syria from Italy.

Authorities had been warned about at least two of the attackers but weren’t actively monitoring them before the attack, exposing the difficulty national security services have keeping tabs on extremists and communicating with their foreign counterparts.

Security agencies are probing possible links to Islamist networks of Moroccan origin, a Western security official said Tuesday, focusing on the movements and connections of two of the attackers: Youssef Zaghba —a 22-year-old dual Italian-Moroccan citizen police identified on Tuesday—and Rachid Redouane, a 30-year-old Libyan-Moroccan with an Irish identity card.
They are also investigating a mostly South Asian group in London that has been a fertile recruiting ground for Islamic State in Syria, the official said. The third attacker, 27-year-old Khuram Butt, was a Pakistan-born British citizen known to U.K. authorities, but police have said no intelligence suggested an attack was being planned.

“People are going to look at our front pages today and they’re going to say, ‘How on earth could we have let this guy or possibly more through the net?’” Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told Sky News, adding security services would have to answer to how Butt and the others were able to stage the attack.

Another security official said the attack was potentially put together quickly and it was still too early to draw conclusions about which of the three attackers led the operation and how deeply their networks extended in Britain and abroad.

The three men, all residents of east London, mowed down pedestrians in a van on London Bridge and slashed their way through the popular Borough Market pub-and-restaurant area before being shot and killed by police. CONTINUE AT SITE

Well into the second decade of Islamic jihad against the West, we all know the bloody script. In London, “radical jihadists” or “Islamist extremists” for the third time in a year went on a rampage, ramming pedestrians and slashing throats, and leaving seven dead and 48 wounded so far. Police immediately round up suspects they obviously could have snatched before the carnage. Prime Minister Theresa May blusters “enough is enough” and “terrorism breeds terrorism.” Politicians across the world issue rote “condemnations” of terrorism,” then go back to business as usual. Shrines of teddy bears, flowers, candles, and therapeutic bromides are the best the Brits can do in response to yet another act of a war they don’t even know they’re in.

Welcome to the new normal for a Western civilization, content, like H.G. Wells’ Eloi, to party and consume in leisure and affluence until the Morlocks devour them.

Like most acts of appeasement, this refusal to defend our way of life––individual rights and freedom, tolerance, separation of church and state, representative government, popular sovereignty, and political liberty––starts with the denial of reality. PM May’s comments in response to the attack are a textbook example of the received wisdom that cripples our response to Europe’s ancient enemy that it fought for a thousand years to drive from its lands.

The terrorists, May claims, “are bound together by the single evil ideology of Islamist extremism that preaches hatred, sows division and promotes sectarianism. It is an ideology that claims our Western values of freedom, democracy and human rights are incompatible with the religion of Islam. It is an ideology that is a perversion of Islam and a perversion of the truth. Defeating this ideology is one of the great challenges of our time but it cannot be defeated through military intervention alone.” Meaning, as May says, “teaching Western values.”

It’s important to parse this statement, for it reprises every delusion that has marked the West’s response to Islamic jihad since 9/11. Jihad is not “Islamist extremism,” but has been a foundational tenet of traditional Islam since the seventh century. The Koran repeatedly commands Muslims to “slay the idolaters wherever you find them,” “Fight those who do not believe in Allah,” “fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you and let them find in you hardness,” “kill them wherever you find them, and drive them out from whence they drove you out,” “I [Allah] will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve . . . Therefore, strike off their heads” ––these are just a few samples of the divine justification for “hatred, division, and sectarianism” found in Islam’s most holy book.

Moreover, the jihad imperative is consistent over 14 centuries. Here is Ibn Taymiyyah, 14th century jurist and theologian:

Since lawful warfare is essentially jihad and sine its aim is that the religion is Allah’s entirely and Allah’s word is uppermost, therefore, according to all Muslims, those who stand in the way of this aim must be fought.

Or Ibn Khaldun, the 15th century historian and jurist:

In the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the [Muslim] mission and [the obligation to] convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or force . . . Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations.

Medieval backwardness? Here’s Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna writing in the early 20th century:

It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its laws on all nations, and extend its power to the entire planet.

His disciple Sayyid Qutb explains how this domination will happen:

Islam has the right to remove all those obstacles which are in its path,” not “through sermons or discourse,” for “Those who have usurped the power of Allah on earth and made his worshipers their slaves will not be dispossessed by words alone.”

So too the Ayatollah Khomeini, the most revered modern Shi’a theologian and creator of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism:

Those who study jihad will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world . . . Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless. Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! . . . Kill them, put them to the sword and scatter [their armies]! . . . Islam says: Kill in the service of Allah those who want to kill you!

Not only are knife-related crimes surging, but the perpetrators and victims of such crimes are increasingly younger and increasingly female.

Germany’s knife-crime problem is being exacerbated by its lenient judicial system, in which offenders receive relatively light sentences, even for serious crimes. In many instances, individuals who are arrested for knife-related crimes are released after questioning from police. This practice allows criminal suspects to continue committing crimes with virtual impunity.

More than 1,600 knife-related crimes were reported in Germany during just the first five months of 2017 — an average of 300 such crimes each month, or ten a day.

A Syrian migrant was stabbed to death in northern Germany by another Syrian because he was eating ice cream during Ramadan. The murder — which occurred in broad daylight in a busy pedestrian shopping area in Oldenburg and caused great consternation among local citizens — is not just the latest example of Sharia law being enforced on German streets. The crime also highlighted the growing epidemic of knife violence in Germany.

Knives, axes and machetes have become weapons of choice for criminals in Germany, which has some of the strictest gun laws in Europe. Knives are not only being used to carry out jihadist attacks, but increasingly to commit homicides, robberies, home invasions, sexual assaults, honor killings and many other kinds of violent crime.Reliable statistics on knife violence in Germany do not exist. A search of German police blotters, however, shows that during the past ten years the number of knife-related crimes in Germany has increased by more than 1,200%. Around 4,000 such crimes were reported to police in 2016, up from just 300 in 2007.

It is also impossible to determine how many of these knife crimes involved migrants. Increased censorship by the police and the media, aimed at stemming anti-immigration sentiments, makes the public incapable of knowing the names and national origins of many perpetrators or victims.

The surge in knife-related violence in Germany does, however, coincide with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to allow in some two million migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The number of reported knife crimes in Germany jumped by 600% during the past four years — from about 550 in 2013 to nearly 4,000 in 2016.

Police reports show that both migrants and non-migrants are responsible for the increase in knife crimes in Germany. Merkel’s open-door migration policies appear to have set in motion a self-reinforcing cycle of violence in which more and more people are carrying knives in public — including for self-defense. Her policies appear to be leading to more and more stabbings, especially when alcohol is involved.

The mosque boasts that it has been “able to organize many activities”. One of these, it says, “is to spread Islam to the non-Muslims in Finland”.

Now Muslims in Finland want a mega-mosque. The idea that mega-mosques “prevent radicalization” is clearly popular among proponents of Finnish mega mosques, but on what evidence is this view based? Can they name one country where this was actually the case?

Finland would be wise to look at what the establishment of Saudi and Gulf state-funded mosques in the rest of Europe has already done to the continent in terms of Islamization and radicalization.

In recent years, Muslims in Finland have been complaining about not having an official mosque. This is not entirely true; the Finnish Tartars have an official mosque with a minaret — in Träskända — which other Muslims are free to use. There are also around 80 small mosques in Finland, around 30 of them in converted buildings or private flats in Helsinki, although many of them are referred to as “prayer rooms”. One such mosque is the Masjid Iman mosque, located in Helsinki on the Munkkiniemen street. According to its website, the 214-square-meter mosque, which calls itself “The Islamic Multicultural Dawah Center”, was established in 1999 and is “one of the well-known mosques in the Helsinki area”. As is increasingly taking place, the mosque, according to the website, was formerly a church. The mosque boasts that it has been “able to organize many activities”. One of these, it says, “is to spread Islam to the non-Muslims in Finland”.

Now Muslims in Finland want a mega-mosque. Two years ago, a Finnish convert, Pia Jardi, spokesperson for the mega-mosque project, known as “Oasis”, said, “There is a need for a grand mosque because so far we do not have one in Helsinki. A mosque would signal to the Muslims that they are a part of society”.

Another board member of the Oasis project, Imam and then chair of the Islamic Society of Finland, Anas Hajjar, was less modest. In October 2015, he told Yle, a Finnish news outlet, “…the need for mosques in the capital region keeps growing… We need three mosques in Helsinki, and one in Esbo and one in Vanda”. According to Hajjar, the planned mega-mosque will be 20,000 square meters, but besides the actual mosque, there will also be sports and youth facilities. The actual prayer room will accommodate 1,500 people. Hajjar told Yle that mega-mosques, “prevent radicalization, as they make young Muslims feel like part of society”.

Anas Hajjar has been linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. In 2014, after the United Arab Emirates designated the Muslim Brotherhood and its local affiliates a terrorist organization, Anas Hajjar’s organization, The Islamic Society of Finland, was included on the list. The Helsinki Times reported the surprise of The Islamic Society of Finland at its inclusion on the terror watch list: “We’re very surprised by such a decision, and we have no idea why we’re on the list. We condemn such, outright arbitrary, decisions,” said the society’s director of public relations, Abdihakim Yasin.

The GCCEI needs to examine, among other things, the way in which its patron, Saudi Arabia, has participated in, if not spearheaded, the very extremism that it is claiming now to combat: the connection between Wahhabism and terrorism; the hostility of its regime to democracy; the abuse of human rights; and the suppression of moderate interpretations of Islam.

When Trump stated that fighting extremism and terrorism “transcends every other consideration,” he was, in effect, giving them unwritten permission to continue repressing their citizens and whatever else they wished.

The GCCEI will be managed by a board of 12 directors appointed every five years, and the number of directors from each member state will be based on that country’s financial contribution to the center. In other words, the center will be ruled by — and further the interests of — wealthy absolute monarchies.

During his trip to Saudi Arabia, Israel and Europe in May, U.S. President Donald Trump inaugurated the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology (GCCEI) in Riyadh — an endeavor that its appointed secretary-general, Nasir Al-Biqami of Umm al-Qura University in Mecca, described as the “fruit of collaboration between Muslim countries that believe in the importance of combating terrorism.”

However admirable a goal from the point of view of the West, this initiative has little chance of success, given the repressive regimes involved and the extremist worldview of the individuals who will be funded to promote it.As Elliott Abrams, senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and top adviser to former U.S. President George W. Bush, wrote:

“Partnerships with repressive regimes may in some cases exacerbate rather than solve the problem for us. Gradual reform is exactly the right approach, but will we see President Trump pushing President Sisi of Egypt (with whom he is friendly), or Erdogan of Turkey, or the Bahrainis, for gradual reform?”

Pointing to the weakness of Trump’s praise of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia for “working to undermine… radicalism,” Abrams stated:

“This is quite wrong. The Sunni royal family’s oppression of the country’s Shia majority is in fact creating a breeding ground for radicalism and opening a door for Iranian subversion. … Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi Islam is at least a gateway drug for extremism. All around the world, Saudi money is being used to suppress indigenous forms of Islam. Saudi preachers, mosques, and schools teach that local and moderate versions of Islam are impure and must be replaced by the only true version: the Saudi Wahhabi version. But that version of Islam treats unbelievers with contempt and often hatred, oppresses women, and opposes democracy.”