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.

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Here… we… go… again… Attempted murder of innocent civilians over a frickin’ cartoon!

Police in Denmark and Sweden said they thwarted a terrorist attack possibly hours before it was to begin Wednesday, arresting five men they say planned to shoot as many people as possible in a Copenhagen building housing the newsroom of a paper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

Four suspects were arrested in the suburbs of Copenhagen, including a Tunisian, a man from Lebanon and an Iraqi asylum-seeker. A fifth suspect, a Swedish citizen of Tunisian origin, was arrested in Sweden. The Danish Security and Intelligence Service said it seized a submachine gun, a silencer and ammunition.

“An imminent terror attack has been foiled,” said Jakob Scharf, head of the service. He said three of the men were arrested as they left a suburban Copenhagen apartment, “either heading out to carry out the terror attack or to do some kind of reconnaissance.”

Scharf described some of the suspects as “militant Islamists with relations to international terror networks.” He said more arrests were possible. …

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By David Rubin

Book Review by Fern Sidman

Issuing an impassioned clarion call to the Western world on the litany of existential dangers that radical Islam represents to America’s cherished democratic principles, author David Rubin’s meticulously researched monograph reveals that Islam is in actuality a political ideology predicated on a pernicious dogma, rather than the “religion of peace” that its proponents purport it to be.

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by Raymond Ibrahim*

Back in 2004, in one of his most recognized messages to America, Osama bin Laden, responding to then President George Bush Jr.’s claims that Al Qaeda hates freedom, rhetorically asked, “If so [if Al Qaeda hates freedom], let him [Bush] explain to us why we have not attacked Sweden, for example.”

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Interview with Daniel Pipes*

Citizen Times: Mr. Pipes, you head various organizations concerning the Middle East and Islam, and are one of the best known American writers on these subjects. How did this all begin for you?

Daniel Pipes: I am a historian of Islam with a special interest in the role of Islam in public life. I received my Ph.D. in 1978, just as Ayatollah Khomeini appeared. For the first time in modern history, Islam had a large and obvious role in Western public life. What had been in the 1970s an abstract interest turned very practical. Islamic matters subsequently became very topical. That prompted me to transit from medieval history to current events. While I cover many other topics besides Islam, Islam remains central to my interests. I have a perspective I hope is useful to understand the role of Islam in politics.

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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.

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Yes, the Islamist/jihadi thugs have once again had their evil dreams of mass murder thwarted because jihad = stupidity = terrorism = an unquenchable thirst for blood, blinding all reason. Here we have some psychopathic Somali gutter-snipe, enjoying the freedoms and protections afforded by living in the U.S., plotting to kill as many of his neighbors/countrymen as possible:

A Somali-born teenager plotted “a spectacular show” of terrorism for months, saying he didn’t mind that children would die if he bombed a crowded Christmas tree-lighting ceremony, according to a law-enforcement official and court documents.

He never got the chance. Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, was arrested Friday in downtown Portland after using a cell phone to try to detonate what he thought were explosives in a van, prosecutors said. It turned out to be a dummy bomb put together by FBI agents. Authorities said Mohamud was acting alone. …

The official said Mohamud was very committed to the plot and planned the details alone, including where to park the van to hurt the most people.

“I want whoever is attending that event to leave, to leave dead or injured.” Mohamud said, according to the affidavit.

“It’s in Oregon, and Oregon, like you know, nobody ever thinks about it,” the suspect told an agent in one discussion. …

Isn’t that sweet? Anyone else getting tired of this shit? Time to take out the trash.

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By Jonathan Spyer

The revelations last week of a sophisticated plot emanating from the Yemen-based al- Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula organization have belatedly refocused attention on this most backward and poverty stricken of Arab states. The sending of explosive packages to synagogues in Chicago is only the latest act of international terror to have emerged from Yemen in the last year.

Yemen today exemplifies the central malaise of the Arab world in particularly acute form. Throughout the Arabic-speaking world, failed development, a political culture in which extremist Islamist ideology thrives and Iranian interference and subversion from outside serve to create a breeding ground for political violence to grow and proliferate.

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A briefing by Daniel Huff*

Daniel Huff is director of the Middle East Forum’s Legal Project, which defends the free speech rights of authors and activists commenting on radical Islam and related issues. A graduate of Columbia Law School, he previously served as counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee to then Ranking Member Arlen Specter, handling a host of national security, civil and criminal matters. On October 28, he addressed the Middle East Forum via conference call on the twin assault Islamists have launched against free speech rights.

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Salim Mansur writes eloquently about the deafening silence of many Muslims when blood is spilled in the name Islam. He emphasizes that the “…silence of Muslim minorities in the West is even more despicable than that of Arab-Muslim governments. It reveals how little they understand, or respect, the political culture of societies where they have made their homes.” From the Toronto Sun:

The non-Muslim world is increasingly not surprised and unmoved by the depravity of Muslim jihadis committing outrage, one after another without end in sight, and what can only be explained, unsatisfactorily, as a pathological wish to cause pain to the living by random acts of terrorist violence.

The murderous attack on the church in central Baghdad last Sunday by Muslim terrorists, if we go with the news reports, was merely another not unusual blood-soaked event in the daily cycle of news from Muslim countries.

But if such an atrocity was not just another criminal event in a “normal” day across the Arab-Muslim world, then we should have heard of a special meeting being called at the UN, or in one of the capitals of member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, to express outrage against those who killed innocent worshippers inside Our Lady of Deliverance Syriac Catholic Church in Baghdad.

We then should have heard of Muslim political and religious leaders expressing their grief over the dead and wounded — there were some 120 Iraqi Christians in attendance at the Sunday evening mass when Muslim terrorists attacked the church and left 58 dead with only a dozen escaping unhurt. …

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by Daniel Pipes*

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

It occurred to me that I should try and fit what I know into the mission of this organisation, so I will try something new. It will be a certain level of abstraction and I invite you in the Q&A to become far more specific.

I am a historian of the Muslim world and, in addition to the day-to-day issues that come up, I look at this civilisational unit as a whole. That’s what I’ll do now.

To start with, the Islamic religion prevails in majority-Muslim countries stretching from Senegal to Indonesia, and is not simply a Middle Eastern phenomenon. Muslim people can now be found in substantial numbers in Europe, North America, Latin America, and indeed, Oceania.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

… Before the court hearing, New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, visiting one of the synagogues, said all four “wanted to commit jihad”. …

BBC, 10/18/2010

FINALLY… Some moral clarity about “jihad.” Why did Kelly say this? Because today:

Four men accused of plotting to bomb New York synagogues and fire missiles at aircraft have been described as “extremely violent men” by prosecutors. …

“This was a very tightly-controlled operation but these individuals did place bombs - or what they thought were bombs - right in front of the building in which we are standing and the temple a few blocks away,” Mr Kelly said. …

Mr Cromitie [one of the accused] allegedly pointed out Jews in the street, saying “if he had a gun, he would shoot each one in the head”, according to the district attorney’s statement. …

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. No beating around the bush. No walking on eggshells. No tiptoeing around Muslim “sensibilities.” The desire to commit heinous acts of terrorism IS “jihad.” I’m tired of proving my point, but I’ll do it again:

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By Barry Rubin

This is one of those obscure Middle East events of the utmost significance that is ignored by the Western mass media, especially because they happen in Arabic, not English; by Western governments, because they don’t fit their policies; and by experts, because they don’t mesh with their preconceptions.

This explicit formulation of a revolutionary program makes it a game-changer. It should be read by every Western decision-maker and have a direct effect on policy because this development may affect people’s lives in every Western country.

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by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Daniel Huff*

Earlier this year, after Comedy Central altered an episode of “South Park” that had prompted threats because of the way it depicted Islam’s prophet Muhammad, Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris proposed an “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day.” The idea was, as she put it, to stand up for the 1st Amendment and “water down the pool of targets” for extremists.

The proposal got Norris targeted for assassination by radical Yemeni American cleric Anwar Awlaki, who has been linked to the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight and also to several of the 9/11 hijackers. This month, after warnings from the FBI, Norris went into hiding. The Seattle Weekly said that Norris was “moving, changing her name, and essentially wiping away her identity.”

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By Barry Rubin

Yes, it’s true; a fringe minister with just fifty followers in America wanted to burn a Koran. But he didn’t. Meanwhile another nut wants to kill all Jews, wipe Israel off the map, destroy the United States, eliminate all Christians, indoctrinate children into being suicide bombers, and carry out a revolutionary war of terrorism for decades no matter how many die and how much destruction occurs.

Oh, and by the way, he and his colleagues have several hundred thousand followers and are ruling what amounts to an independent state bordering on the Mediterranean.

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