Jihad: Battlefield America

Wednesday, March 15th, 2006 5:19 pm by Neal

07 March 2008 UPDATE: Fox News List of Known Terrorist Attacks Since 09/11/2001.
07 August 2007 UPDATE: Yousef Megahed, and Ahmed Mohamed South Carolina Pipe Bomb Scare.

Ahmed Mohamed and Yousef Megahed — Arrested in South Carolina for possessing pipe bombs (made from materials purchased at WalMart. They were near the Naval Weapons Station, located in Goose Creek, South Carolina, and they claim they were driving to vacation at a North Carolina beach for Mohamed’s birthday. Both are students at the University of South Florida in Tampa

Jihad Watch: “2 Muslim students arrested in South Carolina had pipe bombs”
Michelle Malkin: “Saturday night bomb scare”
Megahed UPDATE–FBI: “Just Fireworks” Terrorists Who Are “Not Linked to Terrorism” Are Actually Terrorists
Had They Been Two White Kids, No One Would Have Cared … about, y’know, those Pipe Bombs

01 August 2007 UPDATE: Nuradin Abdi (Arrest occurred November 28, 2003)

Terrorist suspect, Nuradin Abdi, pleads guilty in Ohio Mall plot on 07/31/2007.

The Ohio shopping mall bomb plotter pleads guilty
(08/02/2007) Man Pleads Guilty To Supporting Terrorism
Suspect Pleads Guilty in Ohio Mall Plot

A Somali immigrant the government says plotted to blow up an Ohio shopping mall pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiring to provide material support to terrorists. Nuradin Abdi, 35, entered his plea before U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley a week before his trial had been expected to start Aug. 6.

The Justice Department accused Abdi of suggesting the plan to attack a Columbus shopping mall during an August 2002 meeting at a coffee shop with now-convicted terrorist Iyman Faris and a third suspect, Christopher Paul.

Faris is serving 20 years in a maximum-security federal prison in Florence, Colo., for his role in an al-Qaida plot to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge. Faris scouted the bridge and told al-Qaida its plans wouldn’t work, court papers have said.

Federal agents arrested Abdi the morning of Nov. 28, 2003, the day after Thanksgiving, out of fear the attack would be carried out on the heavy shopping day. He was arrested at 6 a.m. while leaving his Columbus home for morning prayers.

Prosecutors say Abdi gave stolen credit card numbers to a man accused of buying gear for al-Qaida, and lied on immigration documents to visit a jihadist training camp.

01 August 2007 UPDATE: Derrick Shareef
A terrorist mall plot: “I swear by Allah… I’m down for the cause”
‘Lone Wolf’ Charged With Plotting Attack During Christmas Rush

ABC News has learned a Chicago-area man has been charged with plotting a terrorist attack.

Derrick Shareef, of Rockford, Ill was arrested Wednesday by the Joint Terrorism Taskforce when he met an undercover agent to trade hand grenades and a 9-millimeter handgun for a set of stereo speakers.

Shareef is accused of planning to use firearms and explosives to attack the CherryVale shopping mall in Rockford. The alleged plan was to target the 130-store mall during the holiday shopping season.

In September, Shareef became acquainted with a confidential witness who was cooperating with the FBI and confided to him that he wanted to commit acts of violent jihad against civilians.

On December 2, Shareef and the confidential source made video tapes of their last wills and testament.

On the video, Shareef again mentions jihad and says, “This is a warning to those who disbelieve, that we are here for you and I am ready to give my life.”

10 July 2007 UPDATE: Al Qaeda of Scranton
U.S. man accused of plotting to blow up pipelines
Linked from The Corner
08 May 2007 UPDATE: Fort Dix Soldiers Targeted
Terrorist plot in Cherry Hill, NJ; illegal aliens among alleged plotters
Major Terrorism Bust in New Jersey
FBI Smashes ‘Jihad Plot’ To Kill GIs ‘In Name of Allah’

14 February 2007 UPDATE: Solejman Talovic
Terrorist in Utah Mall Shootings is a MUSLIM
The Salt Lake City shooter

31 July 2006 UPDATE: Naveed Haq
hotair.com.
Meet the Muslim shooting suspect.

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21 April 2006 UPDATE: Added Georgia Jihadists, Ahmed and Sadequee.

***

In my conversations with co-workers and others, I’m constantly amazed at how unaware the average American citizen is of domestic terrorist attacks perpetrated by Islamist terrorists. I am forced to conclude that the American MSM simply refuses to cover these events with the attention they deserve or to integrate the attacks in the context of jihad, and as a result, those who do not read blogs or seek alternative sources of news (such as talk radio) are ignorant of the battles on their own soil.

Many Americans are aware of the Islamist attacks in the Netherlands (the Theo Van Gough assassination, the Pym Fortune assassination, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, etc.), the French Muslim riots, the worldwide riots in response to the Danish cartoons, and the unrest of large, unassimilated populations of Muslims in Europe. America is similarly under attack, yet this fact has remained largely unreported. The purpose of this post is to document and expose the Islamists battle here.

We begin with this FACT: The actions and goals of the Islamists to achieve worldwide sharia represent the single, greatest threat to freedom, liberty, individual rights and Western civilization. The free countries of this world must stand together as one to combat this evil, and we will prevail. During this struggle, keep in mind the great Winston Churchill’s observation that “You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.” We are fighting now for victory.

Those who blame America and the free countries of the world are wrong. We do not seek to enslave the Islamists; they seek to enslave us. You will find no solace here because you are apologists and enablers of an evil that you don’t comprehend. In the end, the history of progress, civilization and freedom will prove us right, but now is the time to fight for what is ours — as rational, moral human beings. There is no point in entertaining the deluded, self-loathing apologists among us who think we are somehow responsible for the grievances of freedom’s enemies. History has shown that they never can be counted on to fight for liberty.

To my readers, I ask that you check back often as this article will serve as ongoing documentation of the Jihadist’s battle in America. Also, if anyone is aware of attacks, incidents, groups or individuals who are conducting this battle and aren’t listed here, please e-mail me at southchild@gmail.com, and I’ll post the information with credit and link to your article.

Table of Contents:

  1. Background and Supporting Articles
    1. Wafa Sultan
    2. Tony Blankley: “Media Won’t Report Radical Islamic Events”
    3. Mark Steyn: “Media shockingly ignorant of Muslims among us”
  2. Islamic Terrorist Incidents in America
    1. Mohammed Taheri-azar
    2. Joel Hinrichs III
    3. Media ignores homegrown Islamic terror trial
    4. L.A.’s Thwarted Terror Spree
    5. Mohammed Ali Alayed
    6. Hesham Mohamed Hadayet
    7. John Muhammad (DC Sniper)
  3. Domestic Islamic Supporters, Apologists and Enablers
    1. Syed Ahmed and Ehsanul Islam Sadequee
    2. Taliban at Yale
    3. Ward Churchill
    4. Jay Bennish
    5. Johnny Taliban

I. Background and Supporting Articles:

I.a. Wafa Sultan (On the clash between freedom and oppression):

“The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions, or a clash of civilizations. It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality. It is a clash between freedom and oppression, between democracy and dictatorship. It is a clash between human rights, on the one hand, and the violation of these rights, on other hand. It is a clash between those who treat women like beasts, and those who treat them like human beings. What we see today is not a clash of civilizations. Civilizations do not clash, but compete.”

“Brother, you can believe in stones, as long as you don’t throw them at me. You are free to worship whoever you want, but other people’s beliefs are not your concern, whether they believe that the Messiah is God, son of Mary, or that Satan is God, son of Mary. Let people have their beliefs.”

“The Jews have come from the tragedy [of the Holocaust], and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror; with their work, not with their crying and yelling. Humanity owes most of the discoveries and science of the 19th and 20th centuries to Jewish scientists. Fifteen million people, scattered throughout the world, united and won their rights through work and knowledge. We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people. The Muslims turned three Buddha statues into rubble. We have not seen a single Buddhist burn down a mosque, kill a Muslim, or burn down an embassy. Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people, and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them.”

I.b. Tony Blankley: “Media Won’t Report Radical Islamic Events”:

But when a person, or a society, denies emerging or imminent dangers, the peace of mind it gains will be extremely short term, while the harm may be sustained or fatal.

Most of the world today not only is in denial concerning the truly appalling likely consequences of the rise of radical Islam, it often refuses to even accept unambiguous evidence of its existence.

The media has pointed out that there is no evidence he [Mohammed Taheri-azar — editor] was connected to Al Qaeda or another terrorist cell. But that is exactly the point. As I discussed in my book last year, the threat to the West is vastly more than bin Laden and Al Qaeda (although that would be bad enough.)

The greater danger is the ferment in Islam that is generating radical ideas in an unknown, but growing percentage of grass-roots Muslims around the world — very much including in Europe and, to a currently lesser extent, in the United States.

A nation cannot design (and maintain public support for) a rational response to the danger if the nature and extent of the danger is not identified, widely reported and comprehended.

What are we dealing with? A few maladjusted “youth”? Or a larger and growing number of perfectly well-adjusted men and women — who just happen to be adjusted to a different set of cultural, religious (or distorted religious) and political values. And does it matter that those values are inimical to western concepts of tolerance, democracy, equality and religious freedom?

The public has the right and vital need to have the events of our time fully and fairly described and reported. But a witch’s brew of psychological denial and political correctness is suppressing the institutional voices of government, police, schools, universities and the media when it comes to radical Islam.

As the danger grows but is not publicly described, the public will first be ignorant and fail to demand sufficient remedial action.

But as incidents and rumors are encountered over time, the public mind will inevitably suspect the worst and demand the strongest action. Demagogues will emerge to gratify that vox populi. (The Dubai port deal is a small example of such a process — although in that incident the threat is real and there are many sincere and rational voices amidst the many demagogues.)

Institutional voices are not being responsible by suppressing honest description of radical Islamic events. Denying the existence of evil (or refusing to be judgmental about it) has never proved a reliable method for defeating it. Hell is presumably filled with souls who didn’t understand that point.

I.c. Mark Steyn: “Media shockingly ignorant of Muslims among us”:


And yet the M-word [Muslim — editor] appears nowhere in the Times report. Whether intentionally or not, they seem to be channeling the great Sufi theologian and jurist al-Ghazali, who died a millennium ago but whose first rule on the conduct of dhimmis — non-Muslims in Muslim society — seem to have been taken on board by the Western media:

The dhimmi is obliged not to mention Allah or His Apostle. . . .

Are they teaching that at Columbia Journalism School yet?

Five years after Sept. 11, it’s astonishing how little we still know about the West’s Muslim populations.


II. Islamic Terrorist Incidents in America:

II.a. Friday, 3 March 2006: Muslim Terrorist Attacks UNC-Chapel Hill

Muslim terrorist: Mohammed Taheri-azar

From our original post:

An Iranian born, UNC graduate, Mohammed Taheri-azar will be charged with nine counts of attempted murder after he rented “the largest SUV he could find” in order to attack UNC-Chapel Hill students at a commons area known as “the Pit”.

“The Pit” — A commons area at UNC-Chapel Hill where the attack occurred
Here is an excerpt from the initial police search warrant:

Mohammad Taheri-azar had this to say at his first court appearance (Monday, March 6):

A suspect who is accused of hitting students with a sport utility vehicle at the University of North Carolina made his first court appearance Monday.

Mohammad Taheri-azar, a 2005 UNC-Chapel Hill graduate, smiled and waved before his hearing Monday. Taheri-azar told the courtroom that he was “thankful for the opportunity to spread the will of Allah.”

As he left court, Taheri-Azar told reporters, “the truth is my lawyer.” When asked if he was trying to kill people, he said yes.

Mohammed Taheri-azar in custody

Mohammed Taheri-azar had the following to say in a letter to local ABC TV affiliate 11 in Raleigh (dated Friday, March 10):

The suspect in this month’s attack on the UNC-CH campus has written a letter to ABC11 Eyewitness News. Eyewitness News received the letter Monday, in response to our request for an interview. It was sent from Central Prison in Raleigh and dated Friday, March 10. Addressed to ABC11 Eyewitness News anchor Amber Rupinta, the two-page letter includes Taheri-azar’s explanation of what he was trying to accomplish in the attack.

“Allah gives permission in the Koran for the followers of Allah to attack those who have raged war against them, with the expectation of eternal paradise in case of martyrdom and/or living one’s life in obedience of all of Allah’s commandments found throughout the Koran’s 114 chapters…”

“The U.S. government is responsible for the deaths of and the torture of countless followers of Allah, my brothers and sisters. My attack on Americans at UNC-CH on March 3rd was in retaliation for similar attacks orchestrated by the U.S. government on my fellow followers of Allah in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, and other Islamic territories. I did not act out of hatred for Americans, but out of love for Allah instead.”

Mohammad Taheri-azar wrote the following letter to The Herald Sun from his prison cell:

3/10/2006

Mohammad Reza Taheri-Azar

T328156

1300 Western Blvd.

Raleigh, NC 27606

In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate

Dear Ms. Velliquette;

To get right to the point, I will answer each of your questions:

1) The Koran, the truth from Allah, the creator of all things, dictates in numerous places, e.g. Chapter “Muhammad,” that Allah’s followers have permission to attack these who have waged war against them, with eternal paradise as an expected reward so long as Allah’s followers abide by all commandments listed throughout the Koran. The fact that the Koran is a scientific and mathematic miracle proves that it is from a supernatural source.

2) Judging by the U.S. government’s continuing invasions and killing of my fellow followers of Allah in Islamic territories in the Middle East, even after the deaths of more than 1,000 U.S. soldiers, I concluded that I didn’t want to attack in the Middle East since there would likely be no significant change in the U.S. government’s military presence in Islamic territories.

3) I therefore decided to attack within the U.S. borders, hoping that the U.S. government would understand that my fellow followers of Allah will do everything necessary to defeat our enemies, even giving up a college degree from UNC Chapel Hill, as I did myself.

4) I have no hatred for anyone. I only act out of love for Allah and I never hesitate to do as Allah has commanded in the Koran, which I have read all 114 chapters of approximately 15 times now, beginning in June 2003.

5) In response to the 9/11/2001 attacks, I have always believed that the U.S. government should have immediately seeked peace instead of war.

6) I discussed my plans with no one but Allah when I prayed to him in the days prior to March 3rd.

7) I turned myself in to assure the world that I wasn’t some insane person who went on a killing rampage suddenly.

8) With Allah’s help, I am prepared and will be prepared for a life sentence. I only fear and only respect Allah.

9) Please see to it that this letter is broadcast throughout the world in its entirety.

Sincerely yours,

Mohammad Taheri-Azar

Additional Resources:

  • Michelle Malkin:Jihad in N.C.: MSM Whitewash, Tar Heel Terrorist: It’s in the Koran (this article contains links to Michelle’s other resources)
  • Daniel Pipes: Sudden Jihad Syndrome (in North Carolina)

    This is what I have dubbed the Sudden Jihad Syndrome, whereby normal-appearing Muslims abruptly become violent. It has the awful but legitimate consequence of casting suspicion on all Muslims. Who knows whence the next jihadi? How can one be confident a law-abiding Muslim will not suddenly erupt in a homicidal rage? Yes, of course, their numbers are very small, but they are disproportionately much higher than among non-Muslims.

    This syndrome helps explain the fear of Islam and mistrust of Muslims that polls have shown on the rise since September 11, 2001.

    The Muslim response of denouncing these views as bias, as the “new anti-Semitism,” or “Islamophobia” is as baseless as accusing anti-Nazis of “Germanophobia” or anti-Communists of “Russophobia.” Instead of presenting themselves as victims, Muslims should address this fear by developing a moderate, modern, and good-neighborly version of Islam that rejects radical Islam, jihad, and the subordination of “infidels.”

II.b. Saturday, 1 October 2005: Oklahoma Student, Joel Hinrichs III, who blew himself up outside of a football stadium.:

(From Our initial post):
It’s bad enough that the MSM downplays and ignores real, bonified terrorist attacks by Islamic fascists around the world, but the silence on what is happening in the United States is unforgivable. The latest “MSM Press Blackout” concerns the University of Oklahoma bomber who unceremoniously failed to blow up a packed football stadium. You do know about that one, yes?

Michelle Malkin covered this story here:

Now, many of my readers wonder why the MSM won’t touch the strange and troubling story of the University of Oklahoma bomber, Joel Henry Hinrichs III. On Oct. 1, Hinrichs died on a park bench outside the school’s packed football stadium when a homemade bomb in his possession exploded. The Justice Department has sealed a search warrant in the case. The university’s president, David Boren, is pooh-poohing local media and Internet blog reports of possible jihadist influences on Hinrichs. The dead bomber was, we are being told, simply a depressed and troubled young man with “no known ties” to terrorism.

Never mind that, according to local news reporters, the bomb-making material found in Hinrichs’ apartment was triacetone triperoxide — the explosive chemical of choice of shoe bomber Richard Reid and the London 7/7 subway bombers.

Never mind the local police department’s confirmation that Hinrichs had attempted to buy ammonium nitrate a few days before his death.

Never mind the concerns of Oklahoma University student journalist Rachael Kahne, who told me this week in a call for the media’s help:

Additional Resources:

  • “Oklahoma Bomb Squader Says Hinrichs Did Not Intend to Kill Self; Anti-Personnel Materials Found in His Apartment, Notes Describe AP Bomb Work”

    The article [from The Oklahoman, referenced below. –editor] includes significant new details about what was found in Hinrichs apartment, including evidence of intent to build an anti-personnel bomb loaded with shrapnel.

    Middle Eastern terrorists often have loaded suicide bombs with nails and other objects designed to increase their lethality, especially when detonated in buses, restaurants and crowded city streets and markets.

    Hinrichs died during the second quarter of the game when a bomb made of materials commonly used by Middle Eastern terrorists detonated as he sat on a park bench just across the street from Oklahoma Memorial Stadium.

    There were more than 84,000 fans in the stadium at the time and there were numerous unconfirmed reports subsequently that Hinrichs had unsuccessfully tried to enter the stadium.

  • OU bombing accidental, experts say

    By Jane Glenn Cannon
    The Oklahoman

    NORMAN – A Norman police bomb expert said Tuesday he does not believe University of Oklahoma student Joel Henry Hinrichs III committed suicide by blowing himself up outside a packed football stadium.

    “I believe he accidentally blew himself up,” Sgt. George Mauldin said.

    Mauldin said Hinrichs, 21, an engineering student, had two to three pounds of triacetone triperoxide, commonly known as TATP, in a backpack in his lap when it exploded Oct. 1.

    When asked if he believed Hinrichs meant to enter the stadium with the explosives, Mauldin replied, “I don’t believe he intended for an explosion to occur at that spot (on the park bench).”

    “Some of us will forever wonder what he (Hinrichs) was doing at that time, at that place,” Police Chief Phil Cotten said.

    Hinrichs was sitting on a park bench 173 yards from the OU stadium during the second quarter of OU’s night game against Kansas State when the TATP inside his backpack detonated.

    “Someone saw him fiddling with it (the backpack) shortly before the explosion occurred. I think he got cocky, and it went off,” Mauldin said.

  • “Let’s Connect the Dots on OU Suicide Bomber”

    Here are what I believe are the three most important facts that have become public since Joel Hinrichs died last Oct. 1 when the bomb he made and strapped to himself detonated as he sat on a park bench near 84,000 people watching the OU-Kansas State football game at Oklahoma Memorial Stadium:

    First, we learn today that one of the initial bomb squad investigators on the scene questions whether Hinrichs intended to kill only himself. Authorities found two to three pounds of the deadly “Mother of Satan” explosive favored by Middle Eastern terrorists in Hinrichs’ apartment – far more than needed for suicide – as well as materials used in anti-personnel bombs, which is also characteristic of Middle Eastern terrorists. Hinrichs kept detailed notes about his experimentation with anti-personnel explosives in the weeks prior to his death.

    Second, Italian authorities arrested three Algerian men with Al Qaeda links in December 2005 who were accused of plotting to stage attacks on ships, railways and stadiums in the U.S. Clearly, the possibility of attacks on American sports stadiums has received significant attention in Al Qaeda.

    The link here to Hinrichs is the fact one of the men taken into custody along with his Pakistani roommate the night of Hinrichs’ death was an OU visiting professor of Middle Eastern descent who had his suitcase packed and was scheduled on a one-way flight the next morning to Algeria.

    Third, there are approximately 30,000 suicides annually in America. Hinrichs use of a bomb in a public place makes his case the most extreme of extreme outliers if his death is considered a suicide. In other words, the Hinrichs case simply doesn’t “fit” the statistical profile of a suicide.

    Short of a written confession, all of the evidence uncovered to date is circumstantial but these three facts seem most reasonably explained by some kind of terrorist connection for Hinrichs. The lone suicide scenario of the FBI seems the least reasonable.

II.c. Tuesday, 7 March 2006: Media ignores homegrown Islamic terror trial:

Unbeknownst to most Americans, federal prosecutors opened their case recently in the terrorism trial of a young American who studied under two Taliban-tied imams in California and whose grandfather was Pakistan’s minister of religion in the 1980’s.

The trial of Hamid Hayat, 23, is not taking place in the dark of night nor in a military tribunal from which the media is barred. It is in an open California courtroom, the very kind that has been overrun for trials of the likes of Scott Peterson and O.J. Simpson. Yet in the month of February, the New York Times had exactly one story on the alleged terror cell in Lodi, California. The Washington Post had none. And on the cable news channels, the trial has received scant attention.

Not that the trial suffers from lack of excitement. Hayat confessed that he had attended terror training in Pakistan, the video of which jurors saw last week. An FBI informant who had befriended the defendant—while wearing a wire—testified that Hayat would offer praise for “martyrs” and the Taliban, while professing disgust for America.

Almost none of these details, however, have made their way into the national media. Local papers have dutifully covered the terrorism trial, but major outlets in Washington and New York have mostly ignored it.

While miniscule coverage could be explained away by the fact that only Hayat is standing trial for attending terrorism training camps (his father’s trial on lying about his son’s travels starts this week), the Sacramento Bee last summer reported that authorities now believe that seven men from the Lodi mosque also traveled to Pakistan for training.

Such a scenario would not be shocking given what is known about the two now-deported imams, Mohammad Adil Khan and Shabbir Ahmed, both of whom were imported from Pakistan. Evidence presented at Ahmed’s deportation hearings (Adil Khan did not challenge his deportation) indicated that several high-ranking Taliban members were students and later teachers at the Karachi-based Jamia Farooqia.

The madrassa also apparently also had a fan in bin Laden himself. Citing classified documents, the Sacramento Bee reported, “Bin Laden, in a 1998 news conference, counted the scholars of the Farooqia school among his supporters.”

Ahmed, for his part, admitted to delivering fiery anti-American sermons in Pakistan in the wake of 9/11, in which he encouraged his followers to take up arms against the United States. That November, the Boston Globe quoted Ahmed calling for armed revolution against Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf: “Whoever is against Islam, we will destroy him. If this is rebellion, we are not afraid of rebellion. Blood is going to be spilled in Pakistan.”

Just months later, Shabbir Ahmed was granted a visa to come the United States.

Is this the new media barometer, that terrorism is only worth reporting if it’s successful?

II.d. October 2005: L.A.’s Thwarted Terror Spree:

The Jewish High Holidays this year fall in early October, and that’s when a massacre was planned against two Los Angeles synagogues, as well as other targets, according to an indictment just handed down against four young Muslim men.

Law enforcement traces the origins of this plot to 1997. That’s when Kevin Lamar James, a black inmate at New Folsom Prison, near Sacramento, Calif., founded Jam’iyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh (Arabic for “Assembly of Authentic Islam” and known as JIS). JIS promotes the sort of jihadi version of Islam typically found in American prisons. As the indictment puts it, James, now 29, preached that JIS members have the duty “to target for violent attack any enemies of Islam or ‘infidels,’ including the United States government and Jewish and non-Jewish supporters of Israel.”

James, serving a 10-year prison sentence for an armed robbery in 1996, recruited acolytes among fellow inmates. Volunteers swore to obey him and not to disclose the existence of JIS. On release from prison, they promised to get directives from him at least every three months, recruit Muslims to JIS, and attack government officials and supporters of Israel.

Levar Haney Washington, 25, allegedly joined the JIS and swore allegiance to James just before being released from New Folsom in November 2004, having served his six-year sentence for a 1999 assault and robbery. On getting out, Washington immediately began recruiting at his mosque, Jamat-E-Masijidul Islam in the Los Angeles area. “He regarded Osama bin Laden very highly,” reported one person whom Washington tried to recruit.

Two men, both 21 years old and without criminal records, did sign up: a lawful Pakistani immigrant and student at Santa Monica College, Hammad Riaz Samana; and a black convert who had worked at a duty-free shop in Los Angeles International Airport, Gregory Vernon Patterson The three, plus James, now face up to life in prison for conspiring “to levy a war against the Government of the United States through terrorism.”

They did so in five ways. They conducted surveillance of American government targets (military recruitment stations and bases), Israeli targets (consulate in L.A. and El-Al airlines), and Jewish targets (synagogues). The trio monitored the Jewish calendar and, the indictment notes, planned to attack synagogues on Jewish holidays “to maximize the number of casualties.”

They acquired an arsenal of weapons. To fund this undertaking, they set off on a crime wave, robbing (or attempting to rob) gas stations 11 times in the five weeks after May 30. They engaged in physical and firearms training. Finally, they tried recruiting other Muslims.

The emergence of a primarily African-American Islamist terrorist cell signals a new trend. Native-born Americans have taken part in terrorist operations before, but (again, as in London), this case this marks their first large-scale plot.

Terrorist plans that fail don’t make headlines, but they should. This was a near-miss. Home-grown radical Islam has arrived and will do damage.

II.e. Wednesday, 6 August 2003: Muslim murders Jew in Texas:

The victim was a Jew, slaughtered in a Houston apartment, his throat slit so deftly with a 6-inch butterfly knife that he was nearly decapitated.

The killer was an Arab, a newly minted religious Muslim and the son of a millionaire Saudi businessman. He had been bailed out of trouble by the Saudi consulate after previous scrapes with the law, and in the hours after the slaying, authorities said, he plotted to flee to his homeland.

On the surface, the bizarre murder last summer of Ariel Sellouk at the hands of Mohammed Ali Alayed seemed to have all the elements of a classic hate crime, especially when viewed against the violence in the Middle East, continued uncertainty about American security in the wake of the September 11 attacks and the ongoing war on terrorism. But when Alayed appeared last week in a Houston courtroom to plead guilty to murder, there was no mention of terrorism or international intrigue.

Additional Resources:

II.f. Thursday, 4 July 2002: Hesham Mohamed Hadayet — LAX:

A gunman who killed two people at Los Angeles International

II.g.: John Allan Muhammad (DC Sniper):

Additional Resources:

We white male loners were right about the sniper, Mark Steyn from the Sunday Telegraph, October 27, 2002:

After weeks of assurances that the sniper was an “angry white male”, it turns out the only angry white males connected to this story are the ones in America’s newsrooms.

On Thursday, after being informed that the two suspects were a black Muslim called Muhammad and his illegal-immigrant Jamaican sidekick, The New York Times nevertheless reported in its early editions that the pair were being sought for “possible ties to ‘skinhead militia’ groups”. The Feds had already released a photo of Muhammad looking like one of the less goofy members of the Jackson Five and, though one should never rush to stereotype, it seems unlikely that a black Muslim with big hair would have many “ties” to skinhead militias.

But in the early hours of Thursday morning, the Times wasn’t ready to give in: C’mon, there’s gotta be some angry white male National Rifle Association Right-wing redneck Second Amendment gun-nut neo-Nazi militia types in here somewhere, preferably living in a compound Janet Reno can come out of retirement to surround and torch.

Sadly not. Instead, we have a Muslim convert. A Muslim convert who last year discarded the name “Williams” and adopted a new identity as “Muhammad”. A Muslim convert called Muhammad who publicly expressed his approval of al Qa’eda’s September 11 attacks. A pro-al Qa’eda Muslim convert called Muhammad who marked the first anniversary of 9/11, to the exact minute, by visiting the Department of Motor Vehicles in Camden, New Jersey. Two minutes after he left the building, the cops arrived to deal with a mysterious bomb scare.

What are we expert profilers to make of such bewilderingly contradictory signs? Well, obviously, those of us in the media should not to be too hasty in connecting the dots. Instead, we should rush to disconnect them. So CNN’s Aaron Brown found it easier to call Mr Muhammad “Mr Williams”, a formulation likely to be encouraged by the guy’s lawyers, once they’re in place. And my local radio news described him as “an ex-soldier” and “an African-American male”.

Anyone spot the missing category? You can discern the preferred narrative: an African-American male from a deprived background driven psycho by military culture. But he left the army years ago and his transformation into a killer seems to be more or less coincidental with his transformation into Mr Muhammad.

The media behaved much the same way the last time a 40-year old radical Muslim called Mohamed opened fire on US soil. July the Fourth, Los Angeles Airport, the El Al counter, two dead. CNN and the Associated Press all but stampeded to report a “witness” who described the shooter as a fat white guy in a ponytail who kept yelling, “Artie took my job.” But, alas, this promising account proved to be a prank. Instead, it was a Muslim called Hesham Mohamed Hadayet.

Mohamed! What are the odds of that? As with last Thursday’s arrests, no one could make head or tail of this strange turn of events. As The New York Times put it, “Officials Puzzled About Motive Of Airport Gunman”. Hmm. Egyptian Muslim kills Jews on American national holiday. Best not to jump to conclusions. Denial really is a river in Egypt.

Broadly speaking, in these interesting times, when something unusual and unprecedented happens, there are those who think on balance it’s more likely to be a fellow called Mohammed than, say, Bud, and there are those who climb into the metaphorical burqa, close up the grille and insist, despite all the evidence, that we should be looking for some angry white male.

I’m in the former camp and, apropos the sniper, said as much in the Telegraph’s American sister papers. I had a bet with both my wife and my assistant that the perp would be an Islamic terrorist. The gals, unfortunately, had made the mistake of reading The New York Times, whose experts concluded it would be a “macho hunter” or an “icy loner”. Speaking as a macho hunter and an icy loner myself, I’m beginning to think the media would be better off turning their psychological profilers loose on America’s newsrooms. Take, for example, the Times’s star columnist Frank Rich.

Within a few weeks of September 11, he was berating John Ashcroft, the Attorney-General, for not rounding up America’s “home-grown Talibans” – the religious Right, members of “the Second Amendment cult” and “the anti-abortion terrorist movement”. In a column entitled “How to Lose a War” last October he mocked the administration for not consulting with abortion clinics, who had a lot of experience dealing with “terrorists”.

You get the picture: sure, Muslim fundamentalists can be pretty extreme, but what about all our Christian fundamentalists? Unfortunately, for the old moral equivalence to hold up, the Christians really need to get off their fundamentalist butts and start killing more people. At the moment, the brilliantly versatile Muslim fundamentalists are gunning down Maryland schoolkids and bus drivers, hijacking Moscow theatres, self-detonating in Israeli pizza parlours, blowing up French oil tankers in Yemen, and slaughtering nightclubbers in Bali, while Christian fundamentalists are, er, sounding extremely strident in their calls for the return of prayer in school.

Oh, well. It’s not just the media who bend over backwards to look the other way. Mr Muhammad was twice reported to the FBI for suspected terrorist links. Though living in a homeless shelter, he had the wherewithal to travel extensively round the country by plane, as the shelter’s director discovered when a ticket agent called up to confirm Mr Muhammad’s booking. “At the mission, not many airline agents call and ask for residents,” says the Rev Al Archer. I’ll bet. But, even after September 11, a guy in a homeless shelter stacking up the frequent-flier miles wasn’t enough to attract the bureau’s attention. Given the performance of the FBI, the Immigration Service and other federal agencies, it may be time for at least one white male to get a little angry: the President.

Mark Steyn: Muslim Ties are No Surprise:

As I wrote in this space last week, “I bet my assistant a hundred bucks that the sniper would turn out to be a Middle Eastern terrorist.” I had a similar bet with my wife. I’ve no desire to profit from the murder of innocents, so I’ll be donating my winnings to a worthy cause, like the Pentagon R&D budget. But so far my assistant’s taking it better than my spouse. “Technically, our bet was that he’d be an Islamic terrorist,” she said. “He’s Islamic, and he’s terrorizing people. That’s good enough for me.” My wife, on the other hand, insists it doesn’t count unless he’s got an official membership card in al-Qaida.

That’s not the way these fellows work, which, to give them the barest fig leaf of an excuse, may be why all those legions of TV experts clung to the approved “angry white male loner” cliches right up to the moment of arrest. But there’s a difference between a reluctance to leap to conclusions and a bizarre determination to leap away from the facts. There’s been something very weird about the networks’ insistence on busing in armies of “psychological profilers” whose areas of alleged expertise might as well have been on Planet Zongo for all they had to do with what was going on in Maryland and Virginia. Regardless of whodunit, it was very obvious what he’d dun: The killer didn’t kill blondes, he didn’t kill fetching young men he picked up in bars, he didn’t kill lonely spinsters from the personal ads. He killed Americans — male and female, young and old, black and white.

Now whose profile does that fit?

But the penny drops exceedingly slow. It turned out police were looking for a Muslim convert. A Muslim convert who last year had discarded the name “Williams” and adopted a new identity as “Muhammad.” A Muslim convert called Muhammad who in the wake of Sept. 11 had expressed anti-American sentiments. Could even the most expert psychological profiler make sense of such confusing, contradictory clues? Apparently not. Even though the crime and the accused are a pretty good match, the network criminologists profess themselves perplexed by the apparent lack of motive, as if we’ll shortly discover that Mr. Muhammad had been denied a promotion at Home Depot or he’d been abused as a child.

Radical Islamism is a highly decentralized operation. There’s a fair degree of organized cooperation: for example, National Review’s Michael Ledeen reports that the Indonesian group that killed hundreds in Bali used bombs delivered by Hezbollah operatives, who’d been trained by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. But there’s also a lot of rinky-dink freelance terrorism by people who hold no rank or serial number — fellows like the Egyptian immigrant who chose to celebrate the Fourth of July by going to LAX and opening fire. After four months of insisting they’ve no idea why a radical Muslim male would observe America’s national holiday by going Jew-killing, the FBI has cautiously decided to characterize the incident as “possible terrorism.”

05/31/2006:
Check out these pictures made by Malvo in his prison cell!

III. Domestic Islamic Supporters, Apologists and Enablers:

III.a. April, 2006: Syed Ahmed and Ehsanul Islam Sadequee

Syed Ahmed, 21, was charged with helping a terrorist group…

Resources:
southchild.com: “Georgia Jihadists?”
Michelle Malkin: “Accused Jihadists In Georgia”
UPDATE: Michelle Malkin (01/15/2008) — The forgotten jihadists in Georgia

III.b. March 2006: Yale Student who was former spokesman for Taliban:


Resources:
03/23/2006:

townhall.com: Nail Yale
Clinton W. Taylor: “The Taliban’s rising star: no poor little lamb”
Michelle Malkin: “GiveYale the Finger”
John Fund: “You’ve Got Mail (It’s From Yale)”

III.c. Ward Churchill:

III.d. Jay Bennish:

III.e. Johnny Taliban:

*** 03/07/2008 UPDATE: ***

This list of known terror attacks since 09/11/2001 was published by Fox News on 03/07/2008:
List of Thwarted Terror Attacks Since Sept. 11

• December 2001, Richard Reid: British citizen attempted to ignite shoe bomb on flight from Paris to Miami.

• May 2002, Jose Padilla: American citizen accused of seeking “dirty bomb,” convicted of conspiracy.

• September 2002, Lackawanna Six: American citizens of Yemeni origin convicted of supporting Al Qaeda. Five of six were from Lackawanna, N.Y.

• May 2003, Iyman Faris: American citizen charged with trying to topple the Brooklyn Bridge.

• June 2003, Virginia Jihad Network: Eleven men from Alexandria, Va., trained for jihad against American soldiers, convicted of violating the Neutrality Act, conspiracy.

• August 2004, Dhiren Barot: Indian-born leader of terror cell plotted bombings on financial centers (see additional images).

• August 2004, James Elshafay and Shahawar Matin Siraj: Sought to plant bomb at New York’s Penn Station during the Republican National Convention.

• August 2004, Yassin Aref and Mohammed Hossain: Plotted to assassinate a Pakistani diplomat on American soil.

• June 2005, Father and son Umer Hayat and Hamid Hayat: Son convicted of attending terrorist training camp in Pakistan; father convicted of customs violation.

• August 2005, Kevin James, Levar Haley Washington, Gregory Vernon Patterson and Hammad Riaz Samana: Los Angeles homegrown terrorists who plotted to attack National Guard, LAX, two synagogues and Israeli consulate.

• December 2005, Michael Reynolds: Plotted to blow up refinery in Wyoming, convicted of providing material support to terrorists.

• February 2006, Mohammad Zaki Amawi, Marwan Othman El-Hindi and Zand Wassim Mazloum: Accused of providing material support to terrorists, making bombs for use in Iraq.

• April 2006, Syed Haris Ahmed and Ehsanul Islam Sadequee: Cased and videotaped the Capitol and World Bank for a terrorist organization.

• June 2006, Narseal Batiste, Patrick Abraham, Stanley Grant Phanor, Naudimar Herrera, Burson Augustin, Lyglenson Lemorin, and Rotschild Augstine: Accused of plotting to blow up the Sears Tower.

• July 2006, Assem Hammoud: Accused of plotting to hit New York City train tunnels.

• August 2006, Liquid Explosives Plot: Thwarted plot to explode ten airliners over the United States.

• May 2007, Fort Dix Plot: Six men accused of plotting to attack Fort Dix Army base in New Jersey.

• June 2007, JFK Plot: Four men accused of plotting to blow up fuel arteries underneath JFK Airport in New York.

• March 2007, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: Mastermind of Sept. 11 and author of numerous plots confessed in court in March 2007 to planning to destroy skyscrapers in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

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