The Writing is On the Wall for the U.S. Military in the Persian Gulf - Stephen Bryen and Shoshana Bryen

by Stephen Bryen and Shoshana Bryen

In the simplest terms, the U.S. facing a nuclear Iran will either have to significantly change how it deploys to the Middle East and Persian Gulf, or get out of harm's way. The weakening of the overall American military posture under sequestration makes the latter most likely.

The long U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt is likely drawing to a close. What once worked to assure stability in the region and keep the oil flowing will not work in the face of Iranian nuclear capability, and the administration is disinclined to rethink a workable strategy. The United States will likely reengage, but only when the resulting chaos spreads to our shores, as it surely will.

How different it was twenty-five years ago this month, when President Bush (41) said Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait “would not stand.” American and allied forces rushed to the battlefield despite concerns about Iraq’s unconventional weapons -- primarily poison gas, which had already been used against the Kurds in the north. But Israel provided a counter-threat to Saddam, letting him know that if Israel were threatened with chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons it would join the war. It was a threat Saddam took seriously, as his nuclear program at Osirak had been destroyed by Israel a decade earlier.    

Israel’s counter-threat worked. Iraq fired some 80 Scud missiles at Israel and Saudi Arabia. None had chemical or biological warheads; and, of course, none were nuclear.

Without actually fighting, Israel proved to be a key security asset that allowed American troops to operate with relative freedom against Iraq.

Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, on the other hand, will similarly constrain American military planning, but this time Israel will not be able to offer a counter-threat. In the simplest terms, the U.S. facing a nuclear Iran will either have to significantly change how it deploys to the Middle East and Persian Gulf, or get out of harm's way. The weakening of the overall American military posture under sequestration makes the latter most likely.

There are a number of factors that need explication:

(1) Prior to the Israeli strike on Osirak, Iran had sent its own Phantom jets to try to knock out Iraq's centrifuge facility adjoining the reactor; reports have it that the Iranians also shared photo reconnaissance with Israel of their raid to help Israel pinpoint the right targets and finish the job. Israel's strike caused a firestorm in American policy circles because Washington had a secret relationship with Saddam Hussein and was turning a blind eye to the transfer of nuclear technology to that country. But Iraq could never be sure whether/when Israel would strike again. Thus Israel created an enforceable red line. The U.S. has none with Iran.

(2) The Shah of Iran was after nuclear weapons and delivery systems. The work started by the Shah simply continued under the Mullahs. As with Iraq, technology from many countries, Western and otherwise, flowed into Iran and is still pouring in. The scope of the Iranian nuclear drive dwarfs anything Iraq attempted.

(3) All "wannabe" nuclear powers follow multiple paths to weapons development. No country can afford to risk everything on a single solution that could fail for technical reasons, be blocked politically, or destroyed by a hostile force. Iran may be unique because it has positioned some of its nuclear weapons development capabilities outside the country, most notably in Syria where there were at least three sites, one of which was destroyed by Israel, and North Korea. Iran also has a very sensitive relationship with South Africa, which has highly enriched weapons grade uranium, enrichment facilities, and knows how to build nuclear weapons.

(4) Once Iran reaches nuclear weapons operational capability, if the United States wants to continue as the guarantor of regional stability it will have to introduce active nuclear forces into the region as a deterrent. Or, alternatively, it can decide to pull back from the area. But no responsible American planner can overlook the fact that Iran can achieve an operational capability in perhaps as little as five years. Not for nothing did the Obama administration keep the Pentagon out of the Iran negotiations. President Obama and Secretary Kerry were seeking a political -- not a military -- deal. The JPCOA is not an arms control agreement.

(5) This leaves Iran as an emerging nuclear power facing Israel, which is also a nuclear power. What isn't clear is whether the Israelis can risk a nuclear Iran or whether Israel has to conjure a way to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons capabilities. Prime Minister Menachim Begin acted on multiple fronts to kill the Iraqi program: before Osirak was taken out, Saddam's nuclear accomplices in Europe were raided and bombed and at least one top Iraqi scientist was killed in France. Iran is much farther down the road than Iraq was and it has moved some of its assets offshore -- in some cases to points outside Israel’s reach, i.e., North Korea. Europe will likely step up its cooperation with Iran to supply nuclear knowhow, just as the Russians are upping the ante.

(6) An American pullback from the Gulf is not anathema to the Obama administration or to the American public, and one can argue it has already happened. The U.S. is gone from Iraq and nearly so from Afghanistan. It is no longer either the protector of European and Asian energy supplies or the strategic partner of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, or Israel. Middle Eastern oil is no longer essential to the United States, which is nearly energy independent. Americans generally see no reason to protect oil resources for other countries, and are horrified by a culture war in the Middle East that is entirely alien to American values. The American public may be inclined to accept a decision that the U.S. can reduce its posture in the Gulf and not seek to play a significant military role in the area.  

This is an uncomfortable and dangerous situation and without some dramatic intervention does not augur well for the future. The spread of chaos under Iran’s nuclear shield will ultimately require a return of U.S. power, but it will happen under conditions far less favorable.

Stephen Bryen and Shoshana Bryen

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/08/the_writing_is_on_the_wall_for_the_us_military_in_the_persian_gulf.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Do Women’s Rights and Black Lives Matter in the Middle East and Africa? - Jack Kerwick

by Jack Kerwick

First, if it really is women’s rights and black lives, and not politics, that are the objects of concern, then the “pro-women” and “pro-black” forces should be screaming from the rooftops over the systematic degradation of women’s rights and black lives occurring in places like the Middle East and Africa.

Feminists and other “progressives” in America cry oppression at the mere suggestion that taxpayers shouldn’t be made to subsidize abortion services.

Black (and non-black) American activists scream that “Black Lives Matter” whenever a black criminal suspect dies in an altercation with police.

In the meantime, there is scarcely a peep from either of these sectors when it comes to the unrelenting brutality suffered by women and black Africans in places under the thumb of the Islamic State.

When I noted this selective outrage to a left-leaning colleague of mine, he responded that the one issue didn’t have anything to do with the other. But this response misses the point for two reasons.

First, if it really is women’s rights and black lives, and not politics, that are the objects of concern, then the “pro-women” and “pro-black” forces should be screaming from the rooftops over the systematic degradation of women’s rights and black lives occurring in places like the Middle East and Africa.

In short, ultimately, we are dealing with one problem: the problem of women’s rights and black lives.

Second, the notion that, in the year 2015, women and blacks in America suffer some sort of systemic oppression courtesy of white men is manifestly absurd.  Still, even assuming that it is true, even the most vocal supporters of a mother’s right to kill her offspring on the taxpayer’s dime and the Michael Browns of the world couldn’t conceivably think that the plight of blacks and women in America can be spoken of in the same breath as that of women and blacks in hot spots like Africa and the Middle East.

This being so, the Left’s silence on the topic of the latter is that much more deafening given its incessant wailing over the former. 

To say the least, this is a curious kind of phenomenon.  It raises reasonable questions as to the rationality, values, and motivations of those who, in Jesus’ words, prefer to “strain out the gnat” while “letting in the camel.”

Actually, it is a Republican politician from California, Congressman Ed Royce, who is calling attention to the dehumanization of women and “black lives” occurring under Islamic militants of the ISIS and Boko Haram varieties.

Royce is the Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.  According to Open Doors, an organization that exists for the sake of serving persecuted Christians around the world, Royce explained that “violence against women is in fact a sinister and calculated strategy that goes to the heart of ISIS’s survival” (emphasis original).

In “forcing local women to marry into ISIS,” Royce continued, “the group expands its demographic base while reducing the population of those diverse communities it seeks to eradicate and replace” (emphasis original). 

Open Doors refers to an article published by the Hudson Institute’s Nina Shea.  Shea writes that while the crucifixions and beheadings of Christian men have garnered much media attention, the return of “sex slavery” has disappeared from the public’s eye.

A United Nations report released on August 5, 2014, claimed that “some 1,500 Yazidi and Christian persons [in Iraq] may have been forced into sexual slavery.”  There may be as many as 4,000 enslaved Yazidis.

Shea informs us of “an entire convent of Syrian Orthodox nuns” that were abducted in 2013 and held for ransom.  Just this past March, 135 Christian women and children were abducted from 35 Christian villages in Syria and sold into sex slavery. 

“‘Their families,” Shea writes, “‘unable to afford the $23 million ransom demanded, were told by ISIS, ‘They belong to us now.’”

One particularly ominous, heart wrenching account of the kind of brutality that Koranic literalists routinely inflict upon their victims comes from “a young Yazidi woman” who managed to speak by phone with activists from Compassion4Kurdistan:  “I’ve been raped thirty times and it’s not even lunchtime.  I can’t go to the toilet.  Please bomb us.”

Seventeen year-old girls have relayed accounts of how they, along with dozens of other kidnapped females as young as at least 12, were daily beaten, raped, and tormented by their captors—grown men as old as 50—who would refer to them as “war booty” and liken them to “goats bought at a market.”

Others, Shea writes, relay how “girls were separated by eye color” and according to whether they were “pretty” or “ugly.”  The “pretty” girls were then given to “high ranking ISIS members.”

Black lives in Africa are hardly doing any better.  In Nigeria, the Islamic fundamentalists in Boko Haram are giving ISIS a run for its money in terms of ruthlessness and cruelty.

Open Doors shares “Mercy’s” experience. Mercy is a 24 year-old Christian and single mother whose town was taken over by Boko Haram.  Mercy, her baby, and some others ran to the mountains to hide.  Still, Mercy would sneak back to her home for food during the cover of darkness.  Tragically, her luck ran out one morning and she was captured.

The building into which she was lead contained several other young women and girls who had been there for some time. Regularly, their captors would drag men from the town before the females and “slaughter” them in order to “intimidate” the latter.

Mercy, thankfully, climbed over a barbwire fence one evening while her Muslim tormenters and their captives were in prayer and escaped.

Ladi Apagu, a 16 year-old, escaped with Mercy.  Ladi had been held captive for four months. She had been given an Islamic name, but she often resisted saying Islamic prayer.  Ladi had been kicked by an Imam when she told him that she couldn’t perform Muslim prayer rituals because she was menstruating. 

Today she is has scars on her legs from the regular beatings that were visited upon her.  Yet, even worse, Ladi is psychologically scarred. Particularly difficult for her to escape is the experience of having watched many decent men brutally murdered before her eyes for refusing to join Boko Haram.

The next time we hear the by now predictable lamentations over a lack of “women’s rights” in America, or chants to the effect that “black lives matter,” perhaps knowing all of this will help us to keep perspective.   

Jack Kerwick

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/259715/do-womens-rights-and-black-lives-matter-middle-jack-kerwick

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Why Isn't the Right-Wing Govt. Adopting the Levy Report? - Benny Toker

by Benny Toker

Famed activist questions why right-wing coalition doesn't pass commissioned report legalizing Jewish 'settlement.'

 

Moshe Zar

Flash 90

 

Moshe Zar, an activist and redeemer of land in Samaria, spoke to Arutz Sheva on Friday and expressed his disbelief that the right-wing coalition government is not passing the 2012 Levy Report, which proved the Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria is legal according to international law.

Zar began by criticizing radical leftist organizations that have constantly worked against him, noting, "it used to be when I purchased lands I never dreamed that Jews would block me."

"I know some of them personally, and forgive me but they are traitors to the nation of Israel," he said. "They receive huge funds from foreign money that comes from all sorts of places, and they do it for greed."

The solution to the lawsuits by radical leftist groups against Jewish construction according to Zar is the implementation of the Levy Report, which despite being commissioned by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has yet to be adopted by his governments.

"There's a professional opinion by three legal experts led by (former Supreme Court) Judge Edmond Levy, peace be upon him, and Binyamin Netanyahu selected him," noted the activist. "So why aren't they accepting this opinion and putting an end to all the ridiculous lawsuits against settlement in the land of Israel?"

"We have a right-wing coalition, a prime minister of the Herut movement (that merged with Likud - ed.), a right-wing defense minister, an excellent justice minister, and an excellent internal security minister, all of them right-wingers, so let them all vote for the Edmond Levy Report."

While no member of the coalition government has raised the Levy Report, one party vowed to demand its adoption if elected - that party was the Yachad - Ha'am Itanu joint list with Otzma Yehudit that just missed out of the elections by roughly 10,000 votes.

Zar turned his attention to the recent Supreme Court demolition orders passed against the Draynoff housing complex in Samaria's Beit El, which came despite government processes to complete the full legalization of the structures.

"Agreements need to be honored from both sides, so how does it make sense to give a demolition order on buildings that have a fundamental certificate of approval? They need to remove the authority that the Supreme Court has taken for itself to cancel laws of the Knesset."

Despite the challenges, Zar remains optimistic, saying, "today there is construction and in all the towns they will build a lot, if not more than a lot. Once we were twenty guys and girls, and today there are 700,000 residents in Judea and Samaria. We need to be happy."

Aside from a building permit given after the demolition in Beit El, for the last two years or so there has been a complete covert Jewish construction freeze in Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem for the most part as well.


Benny Toker

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/199168#.VcZWYfmzchQ

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Sex Slaves, Beheadings and Twitter Terrorism - Soeren Kern

by Soeren Kern

• "If European countries accept a wave of migrants, there will be terrorists among them. ... By accepting the migrants, we strongly facilitate the Islamic State's expansion to Europe." — Czech President Miloš Zeman.
• "We are committed to being active participants in our society, but it has to be on Islam's terms, without compromising our own principles and values. Democracy is antithetical to Islam... The way forward for Muslims in Denmark is to resist the anti-Islamic integration policy and the aggressive foreign policy pursued by successive governments in this country." — Hizb-ut-Tahrir.
• "If you talk about immigration, you are a xenophobe. If you talk about security, you are a fascist. If you talk about Islam, you are an Islamophobe." — French MP Henri Guaino.
• "We cannot lose this war because it is fundamentally a war of civilization. It is our society, our civilization that we are defending." — French Prime Minister Manuel Valls.

In Austria, a 26-year-old Bosnian immigrant named Alen Rizvanović drove his SUV at high speed through the main shopping areas of Graz, Austria's second-largest city, and rammed into a crowd. He then got out of his vehicle and began stabbing bystanders with a large knife. The June 21 attack left three people dead and 34 others injured.

Police were quick to rule out a religious motive and insisted that the attack was a random act of violence perpetrated by a deranged killer, but a subsequent investigation found that Rizvanović was a devout Muslim with many links to radical Islam.

On June 16, the Criminal Court of Vienna found ten Muslims guilty of attempting to join the Islamic State in Syria. A Turkish man accused of organizing transportation for the group of nine native Chechens, aged between 17 and 27, received a three-year jail term, while others got prison terms of between 19 months and three years. The men were arrested by Austrian border police in August 2014 as they were attempting to travel to Syria via Turkey.

The convictions came just weeks after a 14-year-old Turkish boy who downloaded bomb-making plans onto his Playstation console was sentenced to two years' detention after pleading guilty to terrorism charges. The boy, who was living in Sankt Pölten in northeast Austria, had also established contacts with jihadists linked to the Islamic State. Sixteen months of the sentence were suspended. The boy will serve what remains of the eight-month term in a juvenile detention center.

More than 200 Austrian citizens and residents have joined jihadist groups in the Middle East; 30 have been killed and around 70 have returned.

In Belgium, police on June 8 carried out 21 coordinated raids of suspected Islamist militants, mostly of Chechen origin, in Antwerp, Bredene, Louvain, Namur and Ostend. Some of those investigated were known to have received jihadist training in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Syria, but police found no evidence to confirm suspicions that they were planning an attack. Initially, 16 people were arrested, but later, all but two were released.

In Brussels, Françoise Schepmans, the mayor of the Molenbeek-Saint-Jean district of the capital, initiated dismissal proceedings against a police officer identified as Mohamed N. after he wrote in a debate on Facebook that he would kill "each and every Jew." Using the pseudonym Bebeto Gladiateur, the police officer wrote: "The word Jew itself is dirty. If I were in Israel, frankly, I would do to the Jews what they do with the Palestinians — slaughter each and every one of them." Schepmans said: "These statements shock me. I've never been ambiguous about those issues. I cannot accept that a municipal police officer has that attitude."

In Britain, a 22-year-old female refugee from Iraq was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for "twitter terrorism." Alaa Esayed, from Kennington, South London, was sentenced at the Old Bailey after pleading guilty to encouraging terrorism and disseminating a terrorist publication. Between June 2013 and May 2014, she posted on an open account to her 8,240 followers more than 45,000 tweets in Arabic, many of them encouraging violent jihad. Her account, which included a profile image of a woman in a burka and holding a Kalashnikov, was listed by Al-Qaeda as among the 66 most important jihadi accounts.

In Manchester, 33-year-old Iqbal Ali of Oldham was sentenced to life in prison for using threats and violence to force four women to serve as his sex slaves in a harem. Ali, allegedly as part of a 14-year campaign to "sleep with as many women as possible," subjected the women to beatings, physical punishment and public humiliation if they disobeyed him. He was caught when one of the women received hospital treatment for severe neck injuries after she collapsed in a pharmacy.

In Lancashire, 34-year-old Mohammad Liaqat was sentenced to two years in prison after he stormed into the Mount Carmel Roman Catholic High School in Accrington and attacked the headmaster over a dispute about the school's policy on beards. Liaqat said he was angered by the school's decision to ban two 14-year-old Muslim pupils from lessons because they refused to shave off their beards. Liaqat's own children were not involved in the case. He later turned up at the St. Oswald's RC Primary School, also in Lancashire, and attacked the principal there. Liaqat has been banned from having contact staff at four schools in the Accrington and Burnley areas.

More news about Islam in Britain during June 2015 can be found here.

In Cyprus, Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides confirmed that a 26-year-old Lebanese-Canadian man — who was arrested after authorities found almost two tons of ammonium nitrate in his basement — was part of a Hezbollah bomb plot to attack Israeli and Jewish targets on the island. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the case was proof that Iran, which backs Hezbollah, continues to foment terrorism in the region.

In the Czech Republic, Saudi Arabia canceled a scheduled Czech-Saudi economic forum to protest against alleged anti-Islam statements by Czech officials. Czech President Miloš Zeman has issued statements in which he linked Islam with violence. In remarks on International Holocaust Remembrance Day in January, the 70-year-old president said: "The Islamic State is similar in character to the Nazi Germany of the early 1930s. If we are to prevent a super Holocaust and massive slaughters of people, we need concerted military action... under the aegis of the United Nations Security Council."

The Saudi-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), refuted the allegations. It said:

"The Czech President's statements on Islam are in line with the statements the President made in the past, where he linked believers in the Quran with anti-Semitic and racist Nazis and said that the enemy is anti-civilization spreading from North Africa to Indonesia, where two billion people live.
"Such statements not only show President Zeman's lack of knowledge and misunderstanding of Islam, but also ignore the historical facts that anti-Semitism and Nazism are a European phenomenon through and through. They have no roots in Islam, neither as a religion nor as a history or civilization. The Holocaust did not take place in the area from North Africa to Indonesia."

President Zeman has refused to apologize for his statement. On June 28, he said: "If European countries accept a wave of migrants, there will be terrorists among them. ... By accepting the migrants, we strongly facilitate the Islamic State's expansion to Europe."

In Denmark, Hizb ut-Tahrir, a radical Islamic group, told Muslims to boycott the June 18 general election because democracy is incompatible with Islam. In a press release, the group said:

"We are committed to being active participants in our society, but it has to be on Islam's terms, without compromising our own principles and values. Democracy is antithetical to Islam, and it is a sinking ship, even its own supporters lose increasingly confidence in the system and are looking for an alternative.
"The way forward for Muslims in Denmark is to resist the anti-Islamic integration policy and the aggressive foreign policy pursued by successive governments in this country. We must protect our Islamic identity and values ​​as well as disseminate the message of Islam to the wider society around us in word and deed. We also have the duty to call for and support the global work for the restoration of the Caliphate, the Islamic solution to the myriad of problems that we Muslims are facing globally."

With all votes counted, a bloc of center-right parties led by former Prime Minister Lokke Rasmussen ousted Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt's center-left coalition. The anti-immigration Danish People's Party became the second-largest party in parliament. The election results reflect voters' growing frustration with multiculturalism, Danish asylum and refugee policies and runaway immigration from Muslim countries.

New statistics released by the Danish Immigration Service showed that 90% of all asylum applications have been approved so far in 2015. This is in stark contrast to 2004, when only 10% of such applications were approved.

In Copenhagen, the Islamic Society in Denmark began accepting donations for the construction of a third mega-mosque in the capital. The project is expected to cost 80 million kroner ($11.7 million) and construction could begin in 2017.

In France, former president Nicolas Sarkozy's opposition party — recently rebranded "The Republicans" — held a meeting on the question of "Islam in France or Islam of France" as part of a roundtable discussion on the "crisis of values" in France. Sarkozy said: "The question is not to know what the Republic can do for Islam, but what Islam can do to become the Islam of France."

Muslim groups criticized the meeting. "We cannot participate in an initiative like this that stigmatizes Muslims," said Abdallah Zekri, the president of the National Observatory on Islamophobia. The organizer of the meeting, MP Henri Guaino, said: "Can we not talk about subjects that split opinion? If you talk about immigration, you are a xenophobe. If you talk about security, you are a fascist. If you talk about Islam, you are an Islamophobe."

Prime Minister Manuel Valls told a half-day conference on relations with the Muslim community on June 15 that "Islam is here to stay." He also stressed that there is no link between Islam and extremism. "We must say all of this is not Islam," Valls said. "The hate speech, anti-Semitism that hides behind anti-Zionism and hate for Israel ... the self-proclaimed imams in our neighborhoods and our prisons who are promoting violence and terrorism." The conference did not discuss radicalization because the issue was deemed to be too sensitive.

On June 28, Valls told iTele that there are between 10,000 and 15,000 salafists in France, and that 1,800 people were "linked" in some way to the Islamist cause. He said that the West was engaged in a "war against terrorism," adding: "We cannot lose this war because it is fundamentally a war of civilization. It is our society, our civilization that we are defending."

On June 6, Valls said that more than 850 French citizens or residents had travelled to fight in Syria and Iraq. More than 470 are still there and 110 are believed to have been killed on the battlefields.

On June 29, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve revealed that France has deported 40 imams for "preaching hatred" in the past three years. "We have deported 40 preachers of hatred since 2012," he said. "Since the beginning of the year we have examined 22 cases and around 10 imams and preachers of hatred have been expelled."

On June 7, Cazeneuve said that 113 French citizens or residents have died as jihadists on battlefields in the Middle East. There are 130 ongoing judicial proceedings concerning 650 persons related to terrorism, and 60 individuals have been banned from leaving the country.

In Lyon, Yassin Salhi, a 35-year-old father of three, confessed to beheading his boss and trying to blow up a chemical plant near the city. The severed head of his boss was found hanging on the fence of a site belonging to a US-based gas and chemicals company, next to two flags bearing the Muslim profession of faith. Salhi, a truck driver, was born in France to parents of Moroccan and Algerian descent. Before his arrest, Salhi took a picture of himself with the severed head and sent the image to a French jihadist fighting for the Islamic State in Syria. Salhi's wife said: "We are normal Muslims. We do Ramadan."

In Bordeaux, the De L'Orient à L'Occidental grocery store, whose owners recently converted to Islam, scrapped a "gender ban" after facing a barrage of criticism. In an effort to ensure that males and females did not come into contact with each other at the store, the owners attempted to ban women from shopping on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and to ban men on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays.

In Paris, the Administrative Court on June 23 rejected a case brought by a mother trying to sue the French government for failing to stop her teenage son from leaving to join jihadists in Syria. The boy was 16 when he left with three others from the southern French city of Nice in December 2013, taking a plane to Turkey and then traveling overland to Syria. His mother, identified only as Nadine A., argued that airport police in Nice should have stopped the boy because he had only a one-way ticket and no baggage. But the court ruled that the airport officers were not responsible, and it rejected her demand for €110,000 ($120,000) in compensation.

Meanwhile, more than a dozen members of Forsane Alizza (Knights of Pride), a group formed to defend Muslims against Islamophobia, went on trial in Paris on June 7 for allegedly plotting terrorist attacks. The group — formed in August 2010 by a 37-year-old Franco-Tunisian, Mohamed Achamlane, who refers to himself as "Emir" — put a message on its website demanding that French forces leave all Muslim-majority countries. The message said: "If our demands are ignored, we will consider the government to be at war against Muslims."

Members of the French Islamist group Forsane Alizza rally in the street. More than a dozen members of the group went on trial in June on charges of plotting terrorist attacks.

Achamlane also released videos of himself giving inflammatory speeches, using phrases such as, "By all-powerful Allah, we will put scars on France." The group also issued a list of "targets" including Jewish shops in the Paris region. In court, Achamlane said: "There is no radical or moderate Islam. There is only authentic Islam." The government described the group as a private militia, but the 15 members of the group denied that they were members of a terrorist group. If convicted, each member of the group faces up to ten years in prison.

In Germany, Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière, in an interview with the newspaper Rheinische Post, said that the number of German jihadists fighting in Syria has risen to around 700. "The number has never been as high as it is now," he said. The number of violent Islamists in Germany who are "prepared to commit politically motivated crimes of considerable importance" was around 330. He said there are more than 500 ongoing counter-terrorism operations involving 800 Islamists.

Meanwhile, a debate erupted over whether Muslim students should be exempted from mandatory visits to former concentration camps as part of Holocaust education programs. The dispute centered on a proposal that would require students in all secondary schools in the southern state of Bavaria to visit Holocaust memorials as part of the school curriculum.

The proposal was opposed by the governing Christian Social Union, which said that "many children from Muslim families... have no connection to our past and... will need much more time before they can identify with our history. We need to be careful about how we address this issue with these children."

Also in Bavaria, the administrators of the Wilhelm-Diess-Gymnasium, a school in Pocking, warned parents not to let their daughters wear revealing clothing in order to avoid "misunderstandings" with the 200 Muslim refugees housed in emergency accommodations in a building next to the school. The letter said:

"The Syrian citizens are mainly Muslim and speak Arabic. The refugees have their own culture. Because our school is directly next to where they are staying, modest clothing should be worn in order to avoid disagreements. Revealing tops or blouses, short shorts or miniskirts could lead to misunderstandings."

A local politician quoted by Die Welt newspaper said:

"When Muslim teenage boys go to open air swimming pools, they are overwhelmed when they see girls in bikinis. These boys, who come from a culture where for women it is frowned upon to show naked skin, will follow girls and bother them without their realizing it. Naturally, this generates fear."

In Berlin's Neukölln district, a 26-year-old Muslim woman was allowed to begin an internship as a junior lawyer in the town hall. Local authorities had initially considered rejecting Betül Ulusoy's application because she insisted on wearing a Muslim headscarf. Berlin's neutrality law (Neutralitätsgesetz) stipulates that anyone who works for the city is prohibited from showing outward signs of religiosity. But city officials made an exception for Ulusoy, apparently in order to avoid being accused of Islamophobia.

In the Netherlands, the Dutch parliament voted against allowing MP Geert Wilders to stage an exhibition of American cartoons based on the Prophet Mohammed. Wilders said he was disappointed in the parliament's decision and pledged to show the cartoons during a television party political broadcast. But the national public broadcasting company NPO failed to air the video as planned. Wilders accused NPO of sabotage. On June 24, Wilders' video was finally aired on Dutch public television.

Also in June, Social Affairs Minister Lodewijk Asscher said that he was considering a plan that would require Turkish imams to take a course in the Dutch language and culture before they are allowed to move to the Netherlands. Such a course would "lay the foundations for successful integration," Asscher said. Yassin Elforkani from the Muslim lobby group CMO, which claims to represent nearly 400 mosques in the Netherlands, said that rather than "continually importing" imams from Turkey, the Netherlands should establish an indigenous imam training program similar to the one in Germany.

Meanwhile, a court in Rotterdam sentenced a 22-year-old man from Delft to four years in prison for planning to use the proceeds of an armed robbery to support jihadists in Syria. Police, who were tipped off by an informant, arrested Mohammed A. while he was on his way to carry out an armed robbery in Scheveningen. They found three guns in his car. The court ruled that Mohammed A. was guilty of a "serious terrorism offense" because he was planning to use the proceeds from the robbery to support violent jihad.

In Norway, the Police Security Service (PST) revealed that nearly a dozen refugees sent to Norway under the UN's quota system turned out to have close links to the terror groups Islamic State and the al-Nusra Front. Police also discovered that some refugees had backgrounds in Syria's secret police, and others were suspected of carrying out war crimes during the country's ongoing civil war.

The newspaper Dagbladet also reported that Islamic extremists are scouting refugee reception centers in Norway in search of new recruits for terrorism. According to the paper, several people who received asylum in Norway later became central figures in the country's radicalized Islamic community.

Meanwhile, an increasing number of Norwegians are converting to Islam, apparently because of a perceived need for stronger rules in Norway's liberal society. "Converting to Islam is perhaps the most extreme form of youthful rebellion today," Muslim convert and religion professor Anne Sofie Roald told the newspaper Aftenposten. She said she thinks conservative Islam represents clear limits and a new form of security in Norway's "anything goes" society.

In Spain, police arrested three young Frenchmen after they were caught driving a Mercedes at 235 kilometers per hour (146 miles per hour), almost twice the 120 km/h legal speed limit, on the AP-7 motorway through the southern province of Valencia. Police found €200,000 ($219,000) in cash stuffed in a duffel bag in the car's trunk; none of the three men was able to explain the provenance of the cash. A subsequent investigation found that one of the three men was being monitored by French authorities on suspicion that he had been recruited by the Islamic State and was preparing to leave for Syria.

On June 22, the trial of Nabil Benkaddour, a Moroccan who attempted to join the Islamic State in Syria, began at the High Court in Madrid. Benkaddour was arrested the southern Spanish region of Murcia in November 2014 after he tried to travel to Syria via Turkey. He was not allowed to board the plane, however, because he did not have a return ticket. Spanish police later discovered that Benkaddour had been "very active on radical jihadist forums on the Internet" and had broadcast videos used for jihadist indoctrination and recruitment. He had also posted a photograph of his three-year-old son holding a toy rifle, along with images of various terrorist leaders, with the message: "You have chosen the path of Jihad and we will follow it." Benkaddour faces two years in prison if the court finds him guilty of "glorifying terrorism."

In Sweden, police arrested two people in raids in Stockholm and provincial city of Orebro on June 1 as part of a crackdown on the recruitment of young men to fight with jihadists groups abroad. The Swedish Security Police (SAPO) said Orebro, a city of 140,000 people, has become the fourth largest Swedish source of recruits for Islamist groups after Malmo, Gothenburg and Stockholm. According to SAPO, about 300 Swedish nationals or residents are believed to have joined the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Around 35 of these have been killed and 80 have returned to Sweden.

On June 17, the Swedish government announced that it was contemplating drafting a new law that would ban its nationals from fighting with jihadist groups such as the Islamic State. "It is unacceptable that Swedish citizens are travelling to join the Islamic State, financing the group or fighting for it," Justice Minister Morgan Johansson and Interior Minister Anders Ygeman wrote in an article published by the newspaper Dagens Nyheter.

More news about Islam in Sweden during June 2015 can be found here. 


Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter.

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6226/beheadings-twitter-terrorism

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Sweden: The Defense that Disappeared - Ingrid Carlqvist

by Ingrid Carlqvist

• According to a 2013 statement by Sweden's Supreme Commander Sverker Göransson, Sweden can, at best and in five years, defend itself in one place for one week.
• "One needs to always be prepared to defend the nation's capital, vital infrastructure, power supply and telecommunications, important airports, import of basic necessities and military reinforcements. ... [Sweden] today does not have that capability. ... The consensus had been that no state in Europe would ever attack another state. But someone just had, and it wasn't just anybody. It was Russia." — Wilhelm Agrell, military historian.
• "The idea of defending Sweden as the most important thing was lost." — Owe Wictorin, former Supreme Commander.
• "As far as the Russians are concerned, it would be a great advantage to 'borrow' Gotland. ... it's quick and easy and they can say: 'We mean you no harm, you'll get Gotland back in two-to-three months, we just need to get the Baltic states to do what we want.'" — Karlis Neretnieks, former head of the National Defense College.
• Parliament demanded many things, but has never given the Armed Forces enough money to do them.

A couple of decades ago, Sweden had a strong military. Its air force was one of the capable in the world, its navy had dozens of ships and submarines, and artillery guarded the coastlines from a multitude of secret mountain hideaways.

Now, after a number of fatal decisions, based on the belief that wars in Europe were a thing of the past, most of its military is gone and Sweden has virtually no means of protecting itself.

According to Sweden's Supreme Commander Sverker Göransson, we can, at best and in five years, defend ourselves in one place for one week.

Sweden is a large country: with 447,435 square kilometers, it is the fifth largest in Europe. It also has one of the longest coastlines in Europe (3,200 kilometers), which not easily defensible.

Four days before the Second World War broke out, then Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson declared that "Sweden's preparedness is good." But that statement was a lie. Sweden's financial preparedness may have been good, but its military preparedness was abysmal. The Swedish Army was outdated. Since the 1920s, Sweden's military had been cut almost in half. Sweden could perhaps have resisted Hitler's Germany for a few hours.

By declaring itself neutral -- and allowing Germany to use the Swedish railway system to transport weapons and personnel to and from Norway -- Sweden was able to avoid the fate of Denmark and Norway, which were occupied by the Germans. During that war, however, Sweden did start mobilizing substantially. By 1943, it had achieved a respectable military strength.

The clever things about Sweden's military doctrine were the draft and the "mobilization repositories." The draft meant that all young men were required to do military service -- a tradition going back to the Viking Age, then known as ledungen, a native army at the king's disposal.

The mobilization repositories were a Swedish innovation. Instead of having a standing military force in centralized bases as in other countries, Sweden went for a military that could be quickly mobilized -- with weapons and other equipment hidden in many small secret stashes out in the woods. According to some sources, there were as many as 6,000-8,000 repositories. Everybody who had served in the military regularly underwent refresher training exercises, and knew exactly where to go in the event of war. If an enemy were suddenly to attack Sweden, hundreds of thousands of fully armed soldiers could be deployed within hours.

This strong Swedish military endured until the mid-1980s. At that time, there were 100,000 active-duty soldiers in Army combat units; and counting local defense units and Home Guardsmen, another 350,000 men were available. The Air Force had over 300 airplanes; the Navy had some 40 warships and 12 submarines, and the Coastal Artillery had 28 battalions.

On April 16, 2015, Swedish public television (SVT) broadcast the documentary, "What Happened to Defense?" It was a complete review of the military that had disappeared.

"Sweden had a home defense, manned by conscripts who could be called upon when needed," Wilhelm Agrell, a military historian, says in the documentary. "You could enhance preparedness and mobilize step-by-step. The potential was huge if you went full throttle, which we never did."

But the upkeep was expensive. When the Cold War ended and the Berlin wall came down in 1989, and when the Soviet Union collapsed shortly thereafter, the quality of the Swedish military began to wane. Why care, the thinking went? The Russian Bear was at peace.

That was when a strange thing happened -- the leaders of the Armed Forces decided to take a "time out." The highest military leaders in the country were convinced that the threat of invasion was all in the past, and that the country's defenses could therefore be shut down. They convinced the politicians that a complete military makeover was the right thing to do; they wanted a "pause" and to come back in ten years -- more modern and stronger than ever.

We now know what happened. "Half of the transformation went very well," Wilhelm Agrell states. "The dismantling of the old structure."

One of the advocates for the military transformation was Army Lieutenant General Johan Kihl. He became Chief Strategy Officer at military headquarters in 1996, and was amazed to find that so many things in the Swedish military were outdated. "For example," Kihl says in the documentary," we had 850,000 flyswatters in stock. We had loads of cars from the 1960s, trucks that ran for only a couple of miles. This wasn't sustainable; we needed to phase that out."

But what should replace it? Ideas flowed. Maybe the wars of the future would be completely different -- maybe fast, agile forces were the way to go? Maybe forces that could use this internet everybody was talking about -- what if everything could just be connected?

In 1994, Kihl spoke of "hacker platoons," sensors that could monitor all of Sweden, unmanned airplanes and balloons that could report on everything that moved.

General Owe Wictorin, Supreme Commander of the military during that period, was just as enthusiastic. In a television interview, he said: "Maybe a future Supreme Commander can use the phone to stave off an attack, instead of bullets and gunpowder. Maybe say: 'I see what you are doing. Stop or we will fight you.'"

In the same period, a severe recession hit Sweden. In 1992, interest rates were raised to a staggering 500%, and politicians were searching everywhere for possible budget cuts. When General Wictorin suggested defense cuts and reform in favor of modern and flexible armed forces, the idea sounded as if it were a Christmas present.

In the fall of 1998, General Wictorin had his plan for the historical transformation all worked out. But his big mistake was that he had not grasped that the politicians had now identified defense as an area ripe for major budget cuts. When the state budget was presented, two days after General Wictorin proposed his plan, the defense budget was 15 billion kronor short (about $1.9 billion USD in 1998 dollars). In the documentary, General Wictorin says: "It demanded magic tricks we could not perform. Our plan went straight in the trash; with these cuts, it was not possible to implement it."

Then everything just unraveled. In 2000, the Swedish Parliament made a new decision on defense -- to cut the budget by half. Compared to 1985, there was now only:

• Fifteen percent as many Army combat units
• One tenth as many local defense units
• Half as many Home Guardsmen
• Half of the Air Force
• One quarter of the Navy

The modern Swedish military, built up over a hundred years, was scrapped in ten or eleven years. According to the military historian Wilhelm Agrell, the dismantling process was inconceivably vast. Every last item stored in the mobilization repositories was hauled away to central storage bases. The process quickly got out of control, and before long, no one knew where anything was. The whole maneuver also turned out to be quite a bit more costly than expected. Nothing went according to plan, and then it was time for the next big decision on how the military should be handled.

In 2004, more units were scrapped and 5,000 military personnel (25% of the total) were let go.

"The new defense," said Agrell, "was supposed to be in place in 2004, but at this time, everything was a screaming mess. There was no new defense and not enough money. What to do? Well, the politicians once again ordered more cutbacks."
This was what was left:

• Six percent of the combat units
• No local defense
• The Home Guard was once again cut in half
• 100 airplanes instead of 200
• A navy cut in half, with only seven surface vessels and four submarines

The focus of the Swedish military now turned to international operations. Troops were sent to Afghanistan on a mission that dragged on for 13 years. However, conscripts could not be ordered to serve abroad; that mission required professional soldiers. Therefore, in 2010, national service was repealed and professional armed forces were introduced.

Meanwhile, in 2008, the unthinkable happened: Russia invaded Georgia, and a five-day war took place. The Russian bear had awakened.

"Now," according to Agrell, "there was a stone in our shoe. The consensus had been that no state in Europe would ever attack another state. But someone just had, and it wasn't just anybody. It was Russia. It was not supposed to happen, but it had. Suddenly Swedish politicians understood that we need to have some kind of ability to defend ourselves, if we against all odds were to be threatened again."

Armed Forces brass, which until then had pretty much kept quiet, suddenly came to life. In 2011, Russian military aircraft once again started to fly close to Swedish airspace (which was a common practice during the Cold war but had ceased during the 1990s), and there were new reports on foreign submarines sighted along the coasts. In 2013, General Sverker Göransson, Supreme Commander of Sweden's military, made a statement that scared the wits out of the Swedes -- and made the politicians furious. Asked how good the Swedish military was, General Göransson answered, "We can defend ourselves against an attack against a localized target. We're talking about a week on our own."

Was Göransson really allowed to say that, or was this classified information? The Supreme Commander was accused of breaching national security, but he did not waver.

A Russian television news-parody show, joking about Sweden only being able to hold out for a week, aired a parody of the ABBA song "Mamma Mia," mocking Sweden and its female Minister of Defense: "Mamma Mia, Russians coming here, on foot -- oh my God it's scary! ... Defense Minister wears a dress..."

Russian TV mocks Sweden's military capabilities. (Image source: Yesterday Live video screenshot)

Strangely, even though very little remains of the Swedish military, it still costs huge amounts of money. The defense budget has only been cut about 20%. The savings are so meager mainly because professional soldiers are paid more then draftees, but there are other explanations as well.

Alyson J.K. Bailes, a high-ranking British diplomat to several Nordic countries, and former head of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), stated in the documentary "What Happened to Defense?":

"Sweden has cut its manpower very, very drastically in recent years, so that it now has almost the smallest forces and smallest army of any Nordic state -- despite being twice as big as any other. I think that when people do see that, they become quite surprised, and I think any external defense expert looking closely at that, would conclude that Sweden does not have the resources to defend itself.
...
Sweden has such a large defense industry, it has been proud of having heavily mechanized forces. But if you look at how much money it has been spending on equipment and research, for each man in the Armed Forces, that figure turns out to be the highest in Europe. It is four times as high as what Germany pays for the equipment for one soldier. And then you have to ask yourself -- has some of this been about protecting the industry rather than achieving a balanced and effective defense?"

Dazed and confused in the face of the new threats close to Sweden, most political parties now want more money for defense. But they are asking for peanuts. In April, Parliament decided to raise the defense budget by 10.2 billion kronor ($1.2 billion USD) from 2016 to 2020, and appointed a new security policy inquiry into the pros and cons of Sweden's international collaborations such as the UN, OSSE, EU and NATO. That sum is far below what the Supreme Commander requested just to be able to implement what Parliament had ordered five years earlier. Parliament demanded many things, but has never given the mil enough money to do them.

Only the Sweden Democrats demanded a return to the level of defense spending Sweden had in 1999, which would require an additional 40 billion kronor (around $4.6 billion USD) from 2016 to 2020.

Mikael Jansson, defense policy spokesperson for the Sweden Democrats, told Gatestone Institute that after the Cold War ended, it was natural to make defense cutbacks, but he feels that the politicians responsible went much too far:

"If the defense cutbacks had ended in 1999, we would have had a more reasonable situation today. The goal today is to build a tiny military organization, but even though it is minuscule, it is still under-financed. We are about 50 billion kronor short (around $5.8 billion USD). So, even if the defense budget is significantly increased, it is going to take time before Sweden reaches a reasonable defense capability once again. It is easy to see why the defense budget needs to be doubled to achieve the reality the politicians speak of so beautifully: To be able to defend Sweden. We urgently need to order new submarines, to prevent the total number from dropping below eight. It is also important to order a new, modern, long-range air defense system so we can defend Stockholm, Gotland and all our bases. The order for new SAAB 39 Gripen E should be increased to 100 planes. The old Gripen airplanes should be saved for us to increase the number of military aircraft divisions."

So how do Swedish politicians imagine defending the country if the Russians get it into their heads to, say, invade Gotland?

The island in the Baltic Sea is a strategically important outpost, close to the Baltic countries, which are all members of NATO. Joining NATO never appealed to Swedish politicians, but in 2009, the Swedish Parliament suddenly announced a "declaration of solidarity" with the EU. It reads:

"Sweden will not remain passive if a disaster or attack should hit another member state, or Nordic country. We expect other countries to act the same way if Sweden is hit. Our country will thus give and receive support, civilian as well as military."

Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves was not impressed by the declaration. "The problem with the declaration of solidarity," he says, "is that it doesn't contain anything concrete. You could send 10,000 bottles of olive oil and meet the demands of solidarity."

Instead, he puts his faith in NATO, which regularly patrols Estonia's airspace. U.S. President Barack Obama has said that, "the defense of Riga, Vilnius and Tallinn is as important as the defense of Paris, Berlin and London."

NATO is well aware that Swedish territory is important. A NATO drill in the fall of 2014 played out a scenario in which Russia had occupied southern Sweden. This exercise was not at all surprising to Karlis Neretnieks, former headmaster at the National Defense College.

"There will be a race over Swedish territory if a serious crisis should emerge in our close proximity. As far as the Russians are concerned, it would be a great advantage to 'borrow' Gotland. It doesn't cost anything, it's quick and easy and they can say: 'You'll get the island back. We mean you no harm, you'll get Gotland back in 2-3 months, we just need to get the Baltic states to do what we want.' Why would the Russians abstain from this?"

But surely, Sweden has at least made sure that Gotland is well defended? Actually no. The total defense of Gotland now consists of 14 tanks tucked away in a storehouse. The tanks are among the best in the world, and the Swedish Armed Forces have bought 120 of them; but as there are only three tank companies (none of which is stationed on Gotland), there is only enough staff to man 42 tanks -- or about a third of them.

Today, the architects of the lost military are sorry for what they did. Johan Kihl says that due to lack of resources, the Armed Forces are unable to defend the country in any sensible way. In the documentary, Former Supreme Commander Owe Wictorin looks devastated. He says that the direction was right, but the ambition, quantity and pace at which the changes were implemented were wrong. "And the idea of defending Sweden as the most important thing was lost. I still think so."

Military historian Wilhelm Agrell notes that there are several obvious needs that have to be met: "One needs to always be prepared to defend the nation's capital, vital infrastructure, power supply and telecommunications, important airports, import of basic necessities and military reinforcements. ... [Sweden] today does not have that capability."

• Follow Ingrid Carlqvist on Twitter

Ingrid Carlqvist

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6287/sweden-military

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Kerry Doubts Iran Wants to Destroy Israel - Ryan Mauro

by Ryan Mauro

Kerry's statement comes despite the fact that Ayatollah Khamenei published his strategy to eliminate Israel in a new book published last week.

US SEc. of State John Kerry testifying before Congress about the nuclear deal with Iran (Photo: © Reuters)

Iran may not mean it when it says it wants to destroy Israel—that's the shocking statement that Secretary of State John Kerry said in an interview published yesterday. And his reason for thinking that the Iranian regime is nicer than its calls for genocide make it seem? Because Iran hasn't tried it yet.

The telling exchange with Jeffrey Goldberg is as follows:

"Goldberg: Do you believe that Iranian leaders sincerely seek the elimination of the Jewish state?

Kerry: I think they have a fundamental ideological confrontation with Israel at this particular moment. Whether or not that translates into active steps to, quote, “Wipe it,” you know...

Goldberg: “Wipe it off the map.”

Kerry: I don’t know the answer to that. I haven’t seen anything that says to me—they’ve got 80,000 rockets in Hezbollah pointed at Israel, and any number of choices could have been made. They didn’t make the bomb when they had enough material for 10 to 12. They’ve signed on to an agreement where they say they’ll never try and make one and we have a mechanism in place where we can prove that. So I don’t want to get locked into that debate. I think it’s a waste of time here."

If the Iranian regime doesn't believe in destroying Israel, then why does it say it when the regime gains nothing from it? If the regime's tyrants are fundamentally no different than other tyrants, then why not drop the calls to genocide and open the doors to better satisfying their power-hungry, selfish desires?

See Related Story: Ayatollah Khamenei Publishes Book on How to Destroy Israel

The Israeli Prime Minister made the point that the deal creates a "more difficult path to one or two bombs today and a much easier path to hundreds of bombs tomorrow." Agreeing to the deal—and even complying with the deal—is not at all inconsistent with Iran's ideologically-based grand strategy.

Kerry is mistakenly equating Iran's rational strategic thinking with having a rational ideology and rational objectives. It is true that Iran is not like the Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State terrorist groups who hold nothing back, often causing self-inflicted wounds in the process. But all that means is that the Iranian regime has a rational strategy for acting upon its irrational ideology. An irrational ideological enemy with smart, rational strategic calculations is an enemy that is much more dangerous, skilled and difficult to understand.


Ryan Mauro is ClarionProject.org’s national security analyst, a fellow with Clarion Project and an adjunct professor of homeland security. Mauro is frequently interviewed on top-tier television and radio.

Source: www.clarionproject.org/analysis/kerry-doubts-iran-wants-destroy-israel

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Islamic State: Germany and Austria are Next - Clarion Project

by Clarion Project

German jihadists to bring terror to the streets of Germany and Austria in ISIS' latest German-language execution video.

Screenshot from video.

The Islamic State has threatened to bring slaughter to Germany and Austria in its latest execution video, calling on Muslims living there to move to the Islamic State, or if they cannot for whatever reason, to kill non-Muslims in their countries.

The video was shot in Palmyra and featured jihadists executing two soldiers of Assad’s army. It is in German with Arabic subtitles, speaking directly to its target audience.

One of the two jihadists featured in the video praised Allah and made the journey himself to the Islamic State (termed ‘hijrah’ – migration).

He called on German Muslims saying “My dear brothers, make hijrah with Allah’s permission. I swear in the name of Allah if you do this you will be very happy. You will live here knowing that the sharia of Allah rules all around you.”

The emphasis in the video was on moving to the Islamic State, with carrying out terrorist attacks in the West framed as a last resort only if hijrah is not possible.

The second jihadist, shortly before the pair executed their prisoners, called on Muslims who can’t move to Syria to kill their non-Muslim neighbors saying “You don’t need a lot to do this. Take a big knife, go out into the street & slaughter every infidel you see.”

Warning: This video contains graphic images of execution


This is not the first time the Islamic State has attempted to radicalize German Muslims. Rapper turned jihadist Denis Cuspert released a rap song earlier in the year. Entitled ‘Fisabillilah’ (fighting in the cause of Allah), it threatened jihad in Germany from sleeper cells within the country and called on German Muslims to rise up.


Clarion Project

Source: http://www.clarionproject.org/news/islamic-state-germany-and-austria-are-next

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.