by Daniel Huff*

On December 29, Scandinavian authorities arrested five terrorists planning an attack in Denmark. Almost as interesting as what they targeted is what they spared and the lessons it holds for future counterterrorism efforts.

The plot was to storm the Copenhagen newsroom of Jyllands Posten and murder its staff. It was the fourth attempt this year by Islamic extremists to punish the newspaper that published the Mohammed cartoons. But the terrorists are guilty of selective prosecution. They have yet to strike Politiken, which also published the cartoons, even though its offices are literally next door.

(more…)

by Audrey Kurth Cronin
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009. 330 pp. $29.95

Reviewed by Max Abrahms*

A battle is raging in terrorism studies. Proponents of the “strategic model” claim that rational people participate in terrorist groups mainly for the political return. Proponents of the “natural systems model” claim that rational people participate in terrorist groups mainly for some form of social gain. The first model argues that terrorists attack civilians for the collective benefit of coercing political concessions, whereas the natural systems model claims that individuals engage in terrorism for the personal, selective benefit of participating in an exciting, tight-knit, social group. Although this debate is spearheaded by academics, it is hardly academic: The question of terrorist motives is fundamental to counterterrorism because one cannot expect to cure a malady without understanding its underlying cause.[1]

(more…)

by Daniel Huff*

Last Christmas, it looked like TSA might finally be getting serious.

That day, Umar Abdulmutallab very nearly brought down a jetliner using explosives hidden in his underwear. The agency’s response was swift and two-fold.

Body scanners would become the norm in major airports. When TSA first proposed this, prior to the attack, the plan faced fierce opposition. Legislation was even introduced to prohibit it. The near-miss changed the mood. Suddenly, as a former security official put it, critics of the technology had “some explaining to do.”

(more…)

By Andrew Whitehead

The truth of the founding of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) to support Islamist terrorists has been proven, over and over again. A sealed ruling of the Holy Land Foundation trial by Judge Jorge Solis has been unsealed and officially reveals what many already knew: CAIR was specifically created to support the terrorists of Hamas and advance the goals of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Several years ago, CAIR all but admitted its connections to Islamist terror by refusing to defend itself in litigation CAIR initiated against Anti-CAIR.

(more…)

by Raymond Ibrahim*

Islamist enmity for infidels, regularly manifested in the jihad, is by now moderately well known. Lesser known, however, but of equal concern, is the mandate for Muslims to be loyal to fellow Muslims and Islam — a loyalty that all too often translates into disloyalty to all things non-Muslim, including the American people and their government.

This dichotomy of loyalty to Muslims and enmity for infidels — which, incidentally, corresponds well with Islamic law’s division of the world into the abode of war (deserving of enmity) and the abode of Islam (deserving of loyalty) — is founded on a Muslim doctrine called wala’ wa bara’ (best translated as “loyalty and enmity”). I first encountered this doctrine while translating various Arabic documents for The Al Qaeda Reader. In fact, the longest and arguably most revealing document I included in that volume is titled “Loyalty and Enmity” (pgs.63-115), compiled by Aymen Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s number two.

(more…)

Whenever an honest person invents a new lock, the thieves always find a new way to pick it (adapt). For example, look at software operating systems and viruses — an endless battle; and there are many more analogies. Case in point: Counter-terrorism. Are we doing enough to fight Islamo-fascism? Are we adapting and staying ahead of the curve? Read this ominous new report about the growing internal threat posed by Islamist extremism:

Report calls immigrants and domestic Muslims a terror threat in U.S.

Nine years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the United States faces a growing threat from home-grown insurgents and an “Americanization” of al-Qaeda leadership, the former heads of the 9/11 Commission reported Friday. …

(more…)

by Benjamin T. Acosta*

Beginning with the 1979 Shi’i Iranian revolution and the subsequent success of the Sunni mujahideen’s resistance to the Soviets in the 1980s, acts of violence committed in the name of Islam have risen sharply. Increasingly, the role of martyrdom has taken a central position in violent campaigns conducted by Islamic groups. The suicide bomber has become the ideal of Islamic martyrdom, simultaneously appalling Western audiences and captivating Islamic ones. What seems to have gone unnoticed, however, is how the concept of Islamic martyrdom has undergone a transformation that blends and synthesizes notions that were once limited to one or the other of the main Muslim sects. In order to better address the challenge of Islamic violence, it is necessary to examine both the Islamic world’s attachment to such behavior and to understand better how the role of the martyr has changed with the times.

(more…)

By Barry Rubin

Two readers asked me questions well worth answering. The first asked whether Islam itself isn’t the enemy; the second, how these distinctions appear from an Israeli standpoint.

Regarding the first question, I would stress that “Islam” as a religion functioning in the world is not at war with anyone as such. There are those who want to steer Islam toward an active war against how the majority of Muslims live at present and almost all the governments ruling them, using valid quotations and interpretations. And there are those who oppose them, including most of those governments, also using valid quotations and interpretations of Islam.

Western leaders’ and media’s mistake is not that they aren’t “anti-Islam” or that they are “pro-Islam” but that they don’t understand fully this conflict happening among Muslims, the contending forces, the stakes, and the nature of the struggle. Thus, dire Islamist enemies are often misjudged as friends merely because they aren’t violent at present or because they say soothing words to Western audiences, while genuinely moderate Muslims are shunned as “inauthentic” merely because they disagree with the radicals.

(more…)

by Daniel Pipes*

I visited Toronto in early March 2010 and as I left the country I passed through the usual security check at Pearson International Airport. What made it different is that the next passengers after me in line were a man, a small child, and a person in niqab. (I write “person” rather than “woman” as I hardly know who was under the niqab outfit.)

Curious how the niqabi’s hidden identity would be handled, I looked back as the trio was dealing with the security agent. To my astonishment, the agent did not demand to see the niqabi’s face but was content to see those of the man and child. I wanted dearly to video this procedure on my mobile phone but dared not, thinking that this could well get me hauled in on some charge that I, ironically, was breaching security.

(more…)

By Andrew Whitehead

Much has been written lately about the “Cordoba House”, now known as the “Park51 Islamic Community Center”. What hasn’t been properly explored is the significance of Park51 to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR); a Washington, D.C. Islamic “Muslim civil-rights group” actually created to support Hamas activities in North America.

CAIR’s Ibrahim Hooper, had this to say:

“Why is all this bigotry and hatred being employed to stop the construction of a community center that will house recreational and banquet facilities, meeting rooms, an auditorium — and yes, a prayer space for Muslims and people of other faiths? … The constitutional rights of American Muslims must not be left in the hands of those who exploit and promote fear of the “other” and use the same divisive tactics that have harmed so many other societies throughout history.”

(more…)

By Barry Rubin

1. Saudi and Arab Leaders Want Obama to Rescue Them, Not Flatter Them

A UPI dispatch reports:

“A former Arab leader, in close touch with current leaders, speaking privately not for attribution, told this reporter July 6, ‘All the Middle Eastern and Gulf leaders now want Iran taken out of the nuclear arms business and they all know sanctions won’t work.’”

Now there are few former Arab leaders–they usually stay leader until health or a bullet makes them no longer available for interviews–but this sounds precisely like Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia, former Saudi ambassador to the United States.

(more…)

by Katherine Seifert*

As U.S. policymakers become increasingly uneasy about the fate of the remaining detainees currently held at Guantánamo Bay, greater attention is being paid to so-called jihadist rehabilitation programs that have been established abroad. Numerous governments, including Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Singapore, Canada, and Britain, have established programs that seek either to rehabilitate Islamist terrorists or to prevent further radicalization of jihadist sympathizers. Different states tailor their programs to the mores, laws, and needs of their societies. Muslim-majority countries concentrate on radicals who have either crossed the line into actual terrorist activities or who are active members in Islamist organizations deemed to be a threat to the state. Western initiatives focus instead on individuals who may seek camaraderie with extremist groups online or at local mosques; their programs seek to forestall further radicalization. While there is a clear divergence in approach, both must answer the same question: Have their efforts been successful or have they merely released detainees into their respective societies who feign detoxification but whose commitment to jihad has merely gone underground? The wrong answer to this question poses a serious threat to global, as well as local security.

(more…)

by Daniel Pipes*

When news comes of Muslims engaging in violence, the triad of politicians, law enforcement, and media invariably presumes that the perpetrator suffers from some mental or emotional incapacity. (For a quick listing of examples, see my collection at “Sudden Jihad or ‘Inordinate Stress’ at Ft. Hood?“).

(more…)

By Jonathan Spyer

Wherever departed Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh is now, he is presumably enjoying the considerable trouble the nature of his exit is causing his Israeli enemies.

The British decision to expel an unnamed Israeli diplomat following the conclusion of an investigation into the alleged use by Israel of cloned British passports in an assassination operation probably does not signal the onset of a general crisis in relations between London and Jerusalem. Still, it is not an everyday act, and the language used by the foreign secretary in announcing the expulsion was notably harsh.

(more…)

From Aish.com’s “Heroes of Israel” series, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner is the voice of the victims of terrorism: