Pamela Geller's Blog, page 20

California: "Pillar of the Muslim Community" "Active Member of His Mosque" Sentenced for Trying to Honor Murder his Wife

This devout Muslim hired a hit man to run her over with a truck and park it on her head for a while to “just make sure she’s dead.”

(US) 'Pillar of the Muslim Community' Sentenced for Trying to Have Wife Killed (thanks to Halal Pork Shop) 

Hader Nasim walked out of a courtroom Friday stone-faced, his hands cuffed behind his back, a seven-years-to-life prison sentence on his head and a judge’s observation in his ears that nobody really knows who he is. Nasim, 31, was convicted last month of the attempted murder of his pregnant wife. He had hired a hit man to run her over with a truck and park it on her head for a while to “just make sure she’s dead.”

Sacramento Superior Court Judge Maryanne G. Gilliard said the recording of Nasim’s instructions obtained by an undercover police officer displayed a wretchedness “so disorienting and terrifying” that it ought to make anybody question themselves if they think they really know him.

“Sometimes those who think they know us the best don’t know us at all,” Gilliard said in handing down the sentence on the defendant, whose expression never changed during the hourlong court hearing.

Nasim’s mother wrote one of a couple dozen letters to the court on behalf of her son. She said the University of California, Davis, electrical engineering graduate “worked very hard” and was “determined to build a better life for all of us.” His father said in his letter that Nasim was a “loving, calm person.”

But there wasn’t much love for Nasim’s wife in a Sept. 12, 2012, conversation he had with the undercover officer in the Home Depot parking lot on Florin Road.

In their talk, Nasim gave the phony hit man a description of his wife, told him what kind of clothes she’d be wearing, provided him with a pattern of her morning walks in the Valley Hi area, and where and at what time and how it would be best to kill her.

“Yeah, like you run her over, she’s on the ground, you back up on her, and you just stay on top of her,” Nasim instructed. What got Gilliard the most was the part when the undercover officer asked how badly he should disfigure the wife, and whether Nasim wanted her presentable for an open-casket funeral.

“Surprise me,” Nasim said. “That is a window into the mind of Mr. Hader Nasim, and it is frightening,” the judge said.

Prosecutors said Nasim wanted his wife dead because they were having marital difficulties, and he’d already been through one divorce and another would have been culturally unacceptable for him.

The American-born son of immigrants, Nasim had Sarah Bukhari flown to Sacramento from Pakistan to marry her.

Nasim worked in his family’s stores and helped manage their properties. Gilliard acknowledged that he “presents as a doting, faithful, loving son,” that he “was an active member of his mosque” and that he looked like “a pillar of the community, and he certainly was.”

15-year-old Muslima Badly Beaten Behind the Burka

What is most telling about the article is that the Muslim community knew -- the mosque, the religious leaders, everyone -- and they all kept silent, in keeping with the misogynistic honor code under the sharia.

The young teen was beaten badly, hiding her injuries under her burka. Another reason to ban the vicious face covering. The girl was removed from the household by authorities and placed with another Muslim family -- that is hardly reassuring.

Javed Khan, acting president of the Federation of the Islamic Associations of New Zealand, called it "a one-off case," in spite of the thousands of girls who have been honor beaten and honor killed under Islam. He deceived the police and the media, saying that the Muslim community would not condone anything like that, despite the fact that they did know and kept silent about it. We see this repeatedly in the Muslim community. Take, for example, Aasiyah Hassan, honor murdered in Buffalo, New York. "Everyone in the Muslim community was aware" that Aasiyah Hassan was "going through abuse" before her husband beheaded her.

Instead of Javed Khan speaking the truth and saying, yes, we have a problem in the Muslim community with the honor code of violence under Islam, he deceives and perpetuates the lie, thereby insuring that no action will be taken to address the very real problem of Islamic honor violence.

Exclusive: Auckland police claim injuries were hidden on purpose, " By Sam Boyer | The New Zealand Herald (thanks to Sharia Unveiled)

A teenage girl police believe was beaten at home was forced to hide her facial injuries behind a burqa, while members of the Muslim community are alleged to have hushed up the abuse.

Her injuries included a broken nose, damaged teeth and extensive bruising. Police claim the 15-year-old was subjected to sustained physical abuse from at least one family member over two or more months.
The abuse was known to some Muslims in the Auckland region, who chose not to report it, they claim.
“The case was brought to police attention when a school friend of the girl was made aware of the abuse and was able to borrow a cellphone from another child at a neighbouring school to call 111,” child protection officer Detective Sarah Boniface said. “The girl was not able to get access to a phone herself.”
She was kept home from school after sustaining the facial injuries, police say.

When officers visited her home, the girl was allegedly instructed by family members to cover up with a burqa that left only her eyes exposed – a covering the girl told police she would not usually wear. At school, she wore a head scarf.

She was absent from school long enough for a friend to become anxious about her whereabouts, police say. When the friend learned of the abuse through community networks, she called the police.

"At this stage it is clear that a number of members of the community were aware of the extent of the abuse and did not seek medical assistance for her injuries or alert authorities,” Ms Boniface said. “This included people who were in positions of trust and who should have been relied upon to provide help.” P

Police believed that family members were also instructed to lie to investigators about the abuse, and did so out of fear for their own safety.

Officers learned about the abuse in early November. The girl was removed from her home by Child, Youth and Family and placed in “secure care” with another Muslim family. No one has yet been charged, although police say arrests are likely. She recently completed her school exams, Ms Boniface said. Detective Inspector Jim Gallagher, a police field crime manager, said people needed to speak up about child abuse. He praised the bravery of the school friend who called police.

“When you know about a child that possibly could be at risk, then that warrants you making it your business. If you do nothing, then no one will ever know. It’s a child’s life you’re gambling with if you don’t report it.” Javed Khan, acting president of the Federation of the Islamic Associations of New Zealand, said the offending could not be tolerated. It was likely a one-off case, he said. “Maybe the family members were trying to hide it, but I don’t think the community would condone anything like that. If we became aware of it we would definitely bring it to the attention of the authorities. “We are subject to the laws of the country and follow the laws of New Zealand. Anything like that is not accepted here. It has nothing to do with Islam or the religion. It’s more to do with a cultural thing … It could just be the family.”

 

Jihad in America: Wichita Muslim wanted to be "martyred in the path of Allah" by causing "maximum carnage + death" at airport

Further proof that counter-terror programs and surveillance of jihadist-supporting mosques and Muslims is essential. Had this devout convert not been flagged and caught, there is no telling how many hundreds, perhaps thousands would have been murdered. The same surveillance that Muslim Brotherhood groups like Hamas-CAIR, ISNA et al are working furiously to dismantle.

Anwar Awlaki, American imam and former leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula was an inspiration to would be Wichita bomber

An al Qaeda group is behind the foiled homicide bombing at Kansas Airport," By Lori Marcus, The Jewish Press, December 13, 2013

The suspect, Terry Lee Loewen, believed he was about to die as a suicide bomber. He planned to detonate what he believed were live explosives in the car he was driving at the Wichita airport. He was doing this in order to “assist a foreign terrorist organization,” as charged in the criminal complaint filed against him, according to U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom and Special Agent in Charge Michael Kaste of the FBI office in Kansas City.

Loewen worked at the airport as an avionics technician.

He was arrested without incident at approximately 5:40 a.m. Kansas time, as he was about to enter the tarmac Friday morning, using his employee access card. At the time of his arrest, Loewen believed he was going to detonate explosives in his car. He planned to die “as a martyr” in the explosion.

The explosives in Loewen’s car, however, were “inert.” During the six months when Loewen was under surveillance, the suspect studied maps and photographs of the airport. He also researched flight schedules in an attempt to ensure that his planned bombing would inflict harm to the greatest number of passengers.  (Continue reading here).

Wichita jihadi wanted to be "martyred in the path of Allah" by causing "maximum carnage + death" at airport (thanks to Robert Spencer)

The would-be mass murderer

The imam at the local mosque says nobody there knew Loewen, and so that's that: they are thus neatly excused from having to answer any potentially uncomfortable questions about where he got his ideas about jihad. But the larger question remains: where did Loewen get his views of Islam ("the Internet," we're told), and what is the relation of his understanding of Islam to what we're told is the genuine article? Why do so many Muslims continue to misunderstand Islam in this way? What is the imam of the Wichita mosque, or any mosque, doing to make sure that no more Muslims come under the sway of this lethal understanding of Islam that he ostensibly rejects?

"Man Arrested in Wichita Airport Bomb Plot," by Andrew Grossman for the Wall Street Journal, December 13 (thanks to Kenneth):

Authorities on Friday arrested a 58-year-old man they accused of trying to commit a suicide bombing at a Kansas airport.

Terry L. Loewen, an avionics technician who worked at Wichita Mid-Continent Airport, was arrested Friday morning after he tried to use his airport access card to drive onto the tarmac and set off what he thought was a bomb near the terminals, according to a complaint filed in federal court Friday.

The bomb was inert, authorities said. Mr. Loewen had constructed it with the help of a man he thought was tied to the wing of al Qaeda based in Yemen, but who was actually an employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the complaint said.

Prosecutors charged Mr. Loewen with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, attempting to damage property with an explosive and attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organization....

According to the complaint, Mr. Loewen communicated online during the summer and fall with another FBI employee who also pretended to be connected to al Qaeda's Yemeni arm, known as al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Mr. Loewen told the FBI employee he had been inspired by the work of Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki, the AQAP leader killed in a drone attack in September 2011, the complaint said. Mr. Awlaki has been cited as an inspiration by others who attempted or committed attacks in the U.S., including the 2009 Fort Hood shooter and the alleged Boston Marathon bombers.

"By the time you read this I will—if everything went as planned—have been martyred in the path of Allah," Mr. Loewen allegedly wrote in a letter cited in the complaint. The letter was left for his wife, according to a person close to the investigation. "There will have been an event at the airport which I am responsible for. The operation was timed to cause maximum carnage + death."

A man who identified himself as Mr. Loewen's 24-year-old son, Damien Loewen, said Mr. Loewen was "a really nice guy. Really laid back, really happy guy. I never thought this would happen."

Speaking by phone, Damien Loewen said he had spoken to his father a month ago and didn't detect anything amiss. He said he didn't know about any turn toward Islam by his father.

At a news conference, Kansas U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said officials have "no indication that the defendant was involved or working with any member of any religious community in Wichita."...

 

With Sharia law de-emphasized, Egyptian Christians "cautiously optimistic" about draft constitution

Now if only Obama can keep his grubby sharia-happy mitts off the newly restored and fragile political process in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood and their patron, Obama, are the threat to freedom-loving people and religious minorities living under the sharia:

With Sharia law de-emphasized, Egyptian Christians "cautiously optimistic" about draft constitution (thanks to Robert Spencer) December 14, 2013

What's that? Egyptian Christians don't love Sharia? What on earth turned them into racist, bigoted Islamophobes? "With Sharia law de-emphasized, Egyptian Christians call draft constitution a positive step," by Sean Savage for JNS.org, December 12:

Egypt’s new draft constitution, to be voted on in a national referendum in January, is being hailed for its improvements over the 2012 Islamist-backed constitution. But the new constitution still has a number of shortcomings on religious and personal freedoms, according to concerned Egyptian Christians and human rights groups.

“Personally I’m cautiously optimistic,” said Halim Meawad, co-founder of Coptic Solidarity, a U.S.-based international Coptic Christian human rights organization.

Meawad said the draft constitution is an improvement over the Muslim Brotherhood constitution of 2012, particularly with elimination of Article 219, which defined aspects of Sharia law on which legislation could be based. Article 219 and other aspects of the 2012 constitution led many liberal and Christian leaders to boycott the Muslim Brotherhood government, eventually culminating in popular protests and the military’s ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

The new draft, by removing Article 219, eliminates the political authority that Al-Azhar University, Egypt’s highest Islamic institution, had over the legislative process.

“The new draft maintains the position of Sharia in social conscience, but prevents any infringements on constitutional jurisdiction,” Adel Ramadan, legal affairs official at local NGO the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, told Ahram Online.

Nevertheless, controversial aspects still remain in the draft constitution, including Article 2, which states that the principles of Islamic Sharia are “the main source of legislation.”

“The infamous Article 2, declaring the principles of Sharia to be the primary source for legislation, is still there like a sword drawn and can be used against non-Muslims at any time and in any situation,” Meawad told JNS.org.

Meawad explained that Article 2 goes back to former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who included it to gain the support of Islamists.

“Article 2 introduced by President Sadat in 1971 to create an Islamic base for himself…Ever since, this article was used by authorities, including the judicial system, to discriminate against non-Muslims, especially Copts, despite the facts that other articles in the same constitution gives all the freedom of religion,” Meawad said.

Egyptian Christians and liberals on the constitutional committee attempted to remove all mentions of Sharia law from the constitution. But the ultraconservative Salafi party, Al-Nour, insisted the mention of Sharia law remain, albeit in a watered-down version.

“Dr. Safwat al-Baiady and other Christian members of the constitutional committee made a weak attempt to change Article 2 because they knew very well that it is a mission impossible,” Meawad said.

Another change in the draft constitution is Article 235, which addresses the longstanding complaint about the difficulty Egyptian Christians faced in constructing new churches. While church construction was permitted under President Hosni Mubarak, it required special permission from him or from the prime minister.

Under the new draft, Article 235 authorizes the Egyptian parliament to “organize building and renovating churches, guaranteeing Christians the freedom to practice their religious ritual.”

“Christians have freedom of belief and practice,” Safwat al-Baiady, president of the Protestant Churches of Egypt and a member of the constitutional committee, told Christianity Today. “And for the first time in the history of Egypt’s constitutions, building churches becomes a right.”

The new Article 235 will allow many of Egypt’s Christians the opportunity to rebuild dozens of churches destroyed by the wave of violence by Islamic extremists in mid-August.

Amnesty International, which has been vocally critical of attacks on Egypt’s Christians, said in a report that the new constitution was a step in the right direction, but that it “still falls short of Egypt’s international human rights obligations.”

“Unfortunately there is a glaring inconsistency between the aspirations in the draft, and the reality of ongoing human rights violations in Egypt,” Amnesty International said.

“There is no guarantee that this inconsistency will go away. I was hoping for, or I should say dreaming of, a true secular and modern constitution with no contradictions between its articles,” Meawad told JNS.org.

Despite the fact that Sharia law is still mentioned in the draft, Coptic Christian Pope Tawadros II endorsed the constitution and has urged followers to vote for it in the upcoming referendum in January, saying that participation is their duty. Ultimately, the draft should be accepted because it “could have been much worse,” Meawad said.

Battle-hardened jihadis from successful recruiting network at European mosques now returning

Hostile invaders threaten our shores ....  European Muslims have been providing the infrastructure for jihad, (laundering money, supplying false documents and weapons and recruiting new operatives for a global network that spans from the United States to the Far East), and now they are also providing the fighters.

"Battle-hardened veterans from successful recruiting network at European mosques now returning," Special to WorldTribune.com, December 13, 2013

LONDON — An Islamist movement is said to have been recruiting fighters for the Sunni revolt in Syria.

Western diplomats said European intelligence agencies have identified Hizb Al Tahrir as a leading recruiter of fighters for the Sunni revolt in Syria. They said Hizb, which for years eschewed politics, was indoctrinating and recruiting Westerners to fight the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Many of Europe’s mosques are seen as prime recruiting spots for the Islamist group Hizb Al Tahrir.

“Hizb is using its huge network of mosques to send at least 2,000 Europeans to Syria,” a diplomat said.

Some of those sent by Hizb to Syria have returned to Europe, sparking fears of an Islamist blowback. The diplomats said EU authorities were closely monitoring the activities of the returnees.

“They are a serious concern to our countries because they can and will return battle-hardened, further radicalized, traumatized,” Dutch security coordinator Dick Schoof said.

The diplomats said Hizb is believed to be working with Al Qaida militias in Syria. They said many of those recruited by Hizb ended up joining Al Qaida’s Islamic State of Iraq and Levant as well as the Nusra Front for the Defense of the Levant, which control much of northern Syria.

“There is no return for many of these [European fighters],” Belgian
Interior Minister Joelle Milquet said.

Hizb, which directs the recruits to Turkey for training, was said to
maintain a presence in virtually every European Union state. The diplomats
said Hizb, not restricted by the European Union, was particularly active in
Britain and Denmark.

“They create small groups and form a strong sense of group cohesion with
a leader in the middle surrounded by young, aspiring jihadists,” a European
diplomat told the U.S. daily Wall Street Journal said.

The diplomats said the United States urged EU states to crack down on
Hizb recruitment. Over the last few months, Britain and France arrested
several Islamist recruiters linked to Hizb. At least 400 Frenchmen were said
to have been recruited, about half still in Syria.

“We cannot take this matter lightly because the strengthening of Islamic
militant groups is dangerous,” French Interior Minister Manuel Valls said.

The 9/11 Cover-up: More evidence of state-sponsored war in the cause of Islam

More evidence that 911 was not merely a group of devout Muslims waging jihad, but a state-sponsored attack on our commerce and defense centers in the cause of Islam by the most devout Islamic nation in the world.

Bush's actions in the days following 9/11 and the subsequent cover-up are monstrous and inexplicable.

"Inside the Saudi 9/11 coverup" | By Paul Sperry, New York Post, December 15, 2013

After the 9/11 attacks, the public was told al Qaeda acted alone, with no state sponsors.

But the White House never let it see an entire section of Congress’ investigative report on 9/11 dealing with “specific sources of foreign support” for the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudi nationals.

It was kept secret and remains so today.

President Bush inexplicably censored 28 full pages of the 800-page report. Text isn’t just blacked-out here and there in this critical-yet-missing middle section. The pages are completely blank, except for dotted lines where an estimated 7,200 words once stood (this story by comparison is about 1,000 words).

A pair of lawmakers who recently read the redacted portion say they are “absolutely shocked” at the level of foreign state involvement in the attacks.

Reps. Walter Jones (R-NC) and Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) can’t reveal the nation identified by it without violating federal law. So they’ve proposed Congress pass a resolution asking President Obama to declassify the entire 2002 report, “Joint Inquiry Into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001.”

Some information already has leaked from the classified section, which is based on both CIA and FBI documents, and it points back to Saudi Arabia, a presumed ally.

The Saudis deny any role in 9/11, but the CIA in one memo reportedly found “incontrovertible evidence” that Saudi government officials — not just wealthy Saudi hardliners, but high-level diplomats and intelligence officers employed by the kingdom — helped the hijackers both financially and logistically. The intelligence files cited in the report directly implicate the Saudi embassy in Washington and consulate in Los Angeles in the attacks, making 9/11 not just an act of terrorism, but an act of war.

The findings, if confirmed, would back up open-source reporting showing the hijackers had, at a minimum, ties to several Saudi officials and agents while they were preparing for their attacks inside the United States. In fact, they got help from Saudi VIPs from coast to coast:

LOS ANGELES: Saudi consulate official Fahad al-Thumairy allegedly arranged for an advance team to receive two of the Saudi hijackers — Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi — as they arrived at LAX in 2000. One of the advance men, Omar al-Bayoumi, a suspected Saudi intelligence agent, left the LA consulate and met the hijackers at a local restaurant. (Bayoumi left the United States two months before the attacks, while Thumairy was deported back to Saudi Arabia after 9/11.)

SAN DIEGO: Bayoumi and another suspected Saudi agent, Osama Bassnan, set up essentially a forward operating base in San Diego for the hijackers after leaving LA. They were provided rooms, rent and phones, as well as private meetings with an American al Qaeda cleric who would later become notorious, Anwar al-Awlaki, at a Saudi-funded mosque he ran in a nearby suburb. They were also feted at a welcoming party. (Bassnan also fled the United States just before the attacks.)

WASHINGTON: Then-Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar and his wife sent checks totaling some $130,000 to Bassnan while he was handling the hijackers. Though the Bandars claim the checks were “welfare” for Bassnan’s supposedly ill wife, the money nonetheless made its way into the hijackers’ hands.

Other al Qaeda funding was traced back to Bandar and his embassy — so much so that by 2004 Riggs Bank of Washington had dropped the Saudis as a client.

The next year, as a number of embassy employees popped up in terror probes, Riyadh recalled Bandar.

“Our investigations contributed to the ambassador’s departure,” an investigator who worked with the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Washington told me, though Bandar says he left for “personal reasons.”

FALLS CHURCH, VA.: In 2001, Awlaki and the San Diego hijackers turned up together again — this time at the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center, a Pentagon-area mosque built with funds from the Saudi Embassy. Awlaki was recruited 3,000 miles away to head the mosque. As its imam, Awlaki helped the hijackers, who showed up at his doorstep as if on cue. He tasked a handler to help them acquire apartments and IDs before they attacked the Pentagon.

Awlaki worked closely with the Saudi Embassy. He lectured at a Saudi Islamic think tank in Merrifield, Va., chaired by Bandar. Saudi travel itinerary documents I’ve obtained show he also served as the ­official imam on Saudi Embassy-sponsored trips to Mecca and tours of Saudi holy sites.

Most suspiciously, though, Awlaki fled the United States on a Saudi jet about a year after 9/11.

As I first reported in my book, “Infiltration,” quoting from classified US documents, the Saudi-sponsored cleric was briefly detained at JFK before being released into the custody of a “Saudi representative.” A federal warrant for Awlaki’s arrest had mysteriously been withdrawn the previous day. A US drone killed Awlaki in Yemen in 2011.

HERNDON, VA.: On the eve of the attacks, top Saudi government official Saleh Hussayen checked into the same Marriott Residence Inn near Dulles Airport as three of the Saudi hijackers who targeted the Pentagon. Hussayen had left a nearby hotel to move into the hijackers’ hotel. Did he meet with them? The FBI never found out. They let him go after he “feigned a seizure,” one agent recalled. (Hussayen’s name doesn’t appear in the separate 9/11 Commission Report, which clears the Saudis.)

SARASOTA, FLA.: 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta and other hijackers visited a home owned by Esam Ghazzawi, a Saudi adviser to the nephew of King Fahd. FBI agents investigating the connection in 2002 found that visitor logs for the gated community and photos of license tags matched vehicles driven by the hijackers. Just two weeks before the 9/11 attacks, the Saudi luxury home was abandoned. Three cars, including a new Chrysler PT Cruiser, were left in the driveway. Inside, opulent furniture was untouched.

Democrat Bob Graham, the former Florida senator who chaired the Joint Inquiry, has asked the FBI for the Sarasota case files, but can’t get a single, even heavily redacted, page released. He says it’s a “coverup.”

Is the federal government protecting the Saudis? Case agents tell me they were repeatedly called off pursuing 9/11 leads back to the Saudi Embassy, which had curious sway over White House and FBI responses to the attacks.

Just days after Bush met with the Saudi ambassador in the White House, the FBI evacuated from the United States dozens of Saudi officials, as well as Osama bin Laden family members. Bandar made the request for escorts directly to FBI headquarters on Sept. 13, 2001 — just hours after he met with the president. The two old family friends shared cigars on the Truman Balcony while discussing the attacks.

Bill Doyle, who lost his son in the World Trade Center attacks and heads the Coalition of 9/11 Families, calls the suppression of Saudi evidence a “coverup beyond belief.” Last week, he sent out an e-mail to relatives urging them to phone their representatives in Congress to support the resolution and read for themselves the censored 28 pages.

Astonishing as that sounds, few lawmakers in fact have bothered to read the classified section of arguably the most important investigation in US history.

Granted, it’s not easy to do. It took a monthlong letter-writing campaign by Jones and Lynch to convince the House intelligence panel to give them access to the material.

But it’s critical they take the time to read it and pressure the White House to let all Americans read it. This isn’t water under the bridge. The information is still relevant ­today. Pursuing leads further, getting to the bottom of the foreign support, could help head off another 9/11.

As the frustrated Joint Inquiry authors warned, in an overlooked addendum to their heavily redacted 2002 report, “State-sponsored terrorism substantially increases the likelihood of successful and more ­lethal attacks within the United States.”

Their findings must be released, even if they forever change US-Saudi relations. If an oil-rich foreign power was capable of orchestrating simultaneous bulls-eye hits on our centers of commerce and defense a dozen years ago, it may be able to pull off similarly devastating attacks today.

Members of Congress reluctant to read the full report ought to remember that the 9/11 assault missed its fourth target: them.

Paul Sperry is a Hoover Institution media fellow and author of “Infiltration” and “Muslim Mafia.”

 

Wichita jihadi's ex-wife: "I would have never ever thought he would do anything this horrible" -- recently learned of his conversion to Islam

Here we go again, the relentless conundrum. Always the same, always the same "misunderstanding" of Islam and jihad in the exact same way, and always the shocked (shocked!) relatives, friends and neighbors.

Wichita jihadi's ex-wife: "I would have never ever thought he would do anything this horrible" -- recently learned of his conversion to Islam (thanks to Jihadwatch)
 
Something doesn't add up here. The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Damien Loewen "said he didn't know about any turn toward Islam by his father." But the story below says of Sarah Loewen that "Damien told her that his dad had become a Muslim." Is Damien or someone else trying to cover for Terry Loewen, or for some other person?

In any case, she says he was a gentle, happy guy, a good father who had loving parents and a normal childhood. The story is set up as a head-scratcher: what, then, could have made him try to do this horrible thing? The idea that it could have something to do with his conversion to Islam is never entertained; to think such thoughts would be Thoughtcrime: "Islamophobia."

"Ex-wife of Terry Lee Loewen: ‘I would have never ever thought he would do anything this horrible,’" by Molly McMillin for The Wichita Eagle, December 14 (thanks to Darcy):

In the 10 years Terry Lee Loewen was married to his now ex-wife, Sarah, he was a peaceful, easy-going, quiet man.

Loewen, a native Wichitan and graduate of Heights High School, had loving parents and a normal childhood, Sarah Loewen said.

“Terry didn’t like confrontation; he was never one to start a fight,” Sarah Loewen said. “He was so mellow.”

He was a good father to their son, Damien, 24.

Terry Loewen has not been part of her life now for a long time, Loewen said.

Today, she’s angry for what he’s done and what he’s putting their son through.

The man who was capable of developing a suicide attack on the Wichita Mid-Continent Airport “is somebody I never knew,” Loewen said. “I would have never ever thought he would do anything this horrible. I can’t even put it in words.”

Terry Loewen, a 58-year-old avionics technician, was arrested early Friday as authorities allege he moved forward with a plot to detonate explosives at Wichita Mid-Continent Airport.

In the aftermath, some Wichitans are left trying to come to terms with what they knew and what they didn’t know about this man.

Damien Loewen declined an interview request.

Terry Loewen’s planned attack was designated to kill himself and inflict the maximum number of deaths, a detailed criminal complaint said.

Authorities arrested Loewen about 5:40 a.m. after they say he tried to open a security access gate to the airport and deliver a vehicle loaded with what he thought to be high explosives but were not.

What he didn’t know until his arrest is that the people he had been conspiring with were undercover FBI agents, U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom announced Friday.

Loewen faces three federal charges: One count of trying to use a weapon of mass destruction, one count of attempting to damage property and one count of attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization that Loewen allegedly thought was al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen.

The news was a “total shock,” Sarah Loewen said.

“It angers me to no end that my son has to deal with this,” she said. “I don’t know how he could do this to his child.”

Her son and his father had a good relationship.

“They were close,” Sarah Loewen said. “This is going to be a hard road for him (Damien).”

She’s not seen Terry Loewen since their son’s wedding in April....

“He was happy. He was a normal human being,” she said.

They filed for divorce in 1994.

She didn’t know why or how Terry Loewen had formed such radical ideas.

But recently, Damien told her that his dad had become a Muslim.

“I said, ‘What is wrong with him?’ ” Sarah Loewen said....

 

Pamela Geller, Jerusalem Post: "The Syria mess is Obama's doing"

Read my oped column in today's Jerusalem Post here:

 "The Syria mess is Obama's doing," Pamela Geller, The Jerusalem Post, December 14, 2013

Syria, Israel's northern neighbor, is becoming a destination for jihadists from all over the world; Who is to blame? President Barack Obama.  

Syria is the new rallying point for the worldwide jihad. There has not been a secular fighting force in Syria for close to a year. Instead, it has become the destination for jihadists across the world to engage in holy war. This war is not about nationality, borders, geography. Jihadists in Syria include British, American, French, German, and Norwegian Muslims.
 
It has come to this: Israel and the world have to choose between Bashar Assad and al-Qaida. Former Israeli Chief of Staff Dan Halutz said Tuesday that although “the Syrian regime is killing its citizens every day…we have to recognize that the opposition in Syria is made up primarily of Muslim extremists like Al Qaeda.” He concluded: “The question ‘what is better for Israel?’ is an important question, because we need to ask ourselves if we want to swap the bad Syrian regime we know for a very bad regime that we don’t know.”
 
Related:This is Barack Obama’s doing. He has supported every single transition in the Middle East from secular Arab state to brutal Sharia thugocracy. And he supports the jihadi savages in Syria. The only movement we should be supporting in Syria are the Kurds who have declared independence. The genocide of millions of religious minorities by the Muslim supremacists would be stopped in an independent Kurd state. 

I have been reporting on Obama’s alignment with enemies of America since Obama took office and his support of jihad elements in Syria for well over a year now. The Wall Street Journal ran a front-page news story confirming this treachery in November -- so why isn't Congress calling for hearings? Why are our elected officials standing by while a traitorous administration backs the very enemy that has vowed to destroy us and has brutally attacked us at home and abroad?
 
In the middle of this fresh hell stands the indefatigable Jewish state. They face the Muslim Brotherhood to the south, al-Qaida to the north, and hostile invaders within their own borders, with the tacit support of an American President who is aligned with these vicious, Jew-hating supremacist forces. A terrorist takeover of Syria promises death and destruction not just for Israel, but for all free nations. Is this the objective of Obama’s statecraft? What does he expect the region to look like in ten or twenty years? A sheet of glass? 
 
The idea that Obama is somehow naive or clueless is indeed clueless. The terrible fact is that in every situation, in every conflict, Obama supports the jihadists. In Libya, Obama involved the United States in the efforts to overthrow Qaddafi without congressional approval, and without anything close to national self-interest. And while Qaddafi was a somewhat madcap barbarian, he was secular. And yes, as can be seen by what followed his overthrow, he contained the jihadist threat in that part of Africa.
 
Obama aided and abetted the rise of the Islamic supremacist regime in Libya, which is has now “transitioned” to Sharia government. When Ambassador Christopher Stevens and others at our embassy in Benghazi called for help against the growing jihad threat there, the Obama administration employed an Al Qaeda brigade as additional security for the embassy. Is it any wonder that the jihadists who attacked our consulate and murdered our people had intelligence that could only have come from insiders? They knew where Ambassador Chris Stevens’s safe-house was, as well as where the fuel was.
 
After the fall of Libya, Mali fell to jihadists as well. There was a major (although almost completely ignored) jihad attack on a British Petroleum gas complex in Algeria: hundreds of non-Muslims were taken hostage and scores murdered. The jihadis have been acting with greater impunity than ever, knowing that Obama is going to do little or nothing to stop them, and may actively send them aid. 
 
For Libya was just one in a long string of Obama interventions on behalf of jihadists. As soon as Obama came into office in 2009, he made an apology tour to the Muslim world. At its center was his historic June 4, 2009 speech to the ummah, which he delivered from Al-Azhar University in Cairo. Just five months into his presidency at the time, he invited the then-banned Muslim Brotherhood to that speech.
 
That invitation prohibited Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak or his cabinet from attending that speech. Obama had, in effect, decided then where he was going with Egypt. And so it went.
Concurrently, the Iranian people were marching and taking to the streets for freedom --the only real freedom revolution that took place in the Middle East. They were marching for freedom because they had been living under the boot of the Sharia since 1979 when the Ayatollah Khomeini seized power in a coup against the shah.
This was a real freedom revolution, led by women

Beheadings help Obama-backed jihadists gain ground in Syria

Not only does Obama support these savages, but he means to make a "peace deal" with them in Geneva.

Many of these animals cut their teeth in Libya, another place where Obama was on the wrong side. Just ask Ambassador Stevens,  Sean Smith,  Glen Doherty, and Tyrone Woods.

Insight: Beheadings and spies help al Qaeda gain ground in Syria Defense Web, December 6, 2013

Armed with machine guns, black-clad al Qaeda fighters drove their pick-ups calmly into the northern Syrian town and took over its imposing agriculture ministry building.

They beheaded a sniper from a rival rebel unit, displayed his head in the main square and put roadblocks on major routes.

Not a shot was fired in the takeover, in which informants, including a preacher from a local mosque, played key roles.

The scene in Termanin, recounted by an activist who witnessed it last week, is being repeated in towns along the border with Turkey and at road junctions further inside Syria that have fallen out of President Bashar al-Assad's control.

Whether through weakness or a desire to focus on Assad, rebel units are making way for the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), an al Qaeda affiliate led by foreigners hardened by guerrilla warfare in Iraq, Chechnya and Libya.

The landgrab has given radical jihadists a large territorial base in the heart of a Middle East convulsed by the civil war raging in Syria since 2011.

While constant conflict and shifting alliances mean Syria is a long way from becoming a center for global jihad, Western and Arab states backing moderate opponents of Assad are alarmed.

The ISIL is taking over supply lines to rebel areas and attracting members of less organized opposition units by its efficiency, undermining efforts by Washington to contain it ahead of talks in Geneva on a possible peace deal, opposition sources and Middle East security officials say.

As well as an end to Assad's rule, a key aim of such a deal would be to establish a government and moderate army capable of fighting off the ISIL, a Middle East-based diplomat said.

"Realistically it will be very difficult. We could be looking at a proxy sectarian war - whether Assad stays or goes - in which the ISIL will be a major player."

LESSONS FROM LIBYA

Asked about the group's goals, an ISIL commander in the town of Armanaz in northern Syria who had fought in Libya said it is fighting for "the downfall of the tyrant Bashar" but also seeking to impose Islamic law.

Learning lessons from the 2011 war in Libya, he said ISIL was more determined to hold on to territory under its control.

"Our mistake as mujahideen is that we were preoccupied with fighting Gaddafi and did not pay enough attention to how to hold on territory," said the commander, who goes by the nickname al-Jazaeri, or the Algerian.

In a sign of concern over ISIL's gains, the United Arab Emirates, a staunch U.S. ally, convened a meeting last week for dozens of tribal leaders from the oil-producing region of east Syria bordering Iraq's Sunni heartland.

The ISIL and the Nusra Front, a smaller affiliate of al Qaeda seen as less intent on spreading jihadist ideology, occupy most oil fields in the eastern province of Deir al-Zor, although they lack the ability to operate the wells.

The UAE meeting aimed to gauge the possibility of setting up a force similar to the Sahwa movement that fought al Qaeda in Iraq and rolled back some of its influence, opposition sources said, although neither the tribes nor the Islamists appear ready for a sustained fight.

"There have been some clashes over oil but the ISIL has sought not to mess with the tribes. At the same time the tribes are seeing how the ISIL likes to chop heads and they too are not keen on a confrontation," one of the sources said.

GROWING POWER

Areas under ISIL control include towns across the northern Syrian provinces of Idlib and Aleppo, parts of the eastern provincial capital of Raqqa and, to a lesser extent, of central Syria and the southern province of Deraa.

In some of these it is trying to implement a rigid Islamist social agenda and has also won new recruits, attracted more by its effectiveness than its ideology, local activists say.

In the al-Rouge plain in Idlib, bordering Tukey, Hassan Abdelqader said ISIL has set up training camps for local recruits and has distributed head to toe veils in areas southeast of Idlib city to be worn by women there.

In al-Bab in Aleppo province, where Abu Mouawiya, an ISIL commander, is the effective governor, the group has enforced an Islamist school curriculum imported from areas under al Qaeda control in Yemen, activists said.

They said thousands of poor Sunnis from rural Idlib and rural Aleppo have joined the ISIL in the last few months, including fighters who had left Nusra and the Free Syrian Army -- the Western-backed force that aims to unite moderate rebels.

A Free Syrian Army report prepared for the U.S. State Department and quoted by the Washington Post said the ISIL has a backbone of 5,500 foreign fighters, including 250 Chechens in Aleppo, and 17,000 recruited locally.

The local recruits are rural Sunnis, the majority group at the forefront of the uprising which grew from a crackdown on protests against four decades of rule by the Assad family.

The Assads are from the Alawite offshoot of Shi'ite Islam backed by Iran and Hezbollah, while the Sunni rebels are supported by Gulf heavyweights and Turkey, but inter-rebel clashes have blurred the conflict.

In some areas ISIL works with rivals from Nusra and the Western backed Free Syrian Army while in others it fights them. A new alliance comprising big Islamist brigades also has a mixed relationship with ISIL.

FLUID ALLIANCES

Sikhs Threatened: Embrace Islam or Leave Kashmir Valley

The Sikhs have for centuries suffered untold horrors and unimaginable carnage at the hands of Muslims, so this demand to submit or die is not surprising. What is surprising are the Sikhs who allow themselves to be ill-used by terror-supporting Muslim groups like Hamas-CAIR in order to further an Islamic supremacist agenda in free countries.

"Sikhs Threatened to Embrace Islam or Leave Kashmir Valley," By HJS, December 9, 2013 (thanks to The Religion of Peace)

Margashirsha Shuklapaksha 7,Kaliyug Varsha 5115

 Srinagar, India : In the Kashmir Valley, Sikhs have been recently told to pack up and leave if they do not embrace Islam and help to stand up for the local civilians.The minority Sikh community of 60 000 in the area have been sent letters warning them to leave or join the local protests as Muslims.

The All Party Sikhs Coordinate Committee (ASCC), has addressed its concern regarding the anonymous letters being sent to various Sikh members in a number of areas in the Kashmir Valley.  At a meeting held by Jagmohan Singh Raina, the coordinator of ASCC, stated that the Sikh community has decided to stay put and fight against the threatening letters instead of fleeing.  They will fight to keep their homes.

Raina quoted a letter saying, “When you are enjoying the joys here, why can’t you share the grief and sorrow of Kashmiris as well? We know you are afraid of bullets… Hold protests inside gurdwaras or leave Kashmir.”  He also added that some of these letters have asked Sikhs to embrace Islam or leave the city that does not belong to them.

 

Raina addressed the issue to both factions of the Hurriyat, JKLF, and PoK-based United Jihad Council to take the seriousness of the notes into account and to take measures to avoid a continuation of such notes in the future.