Jihadi attack on Mumbai - The Rationale of Terror

Radical Islamism & Jihad

08 Feb 2009, NewAgeIslam.Com

Jihadi attack on Mumbai - The Rationale of Terror

The Rationale of Terror -- Patrick J. Buchanan What Is the Message of Terrorism: Without a Message? By William Pfaff Terrorist Attacks Rock Mumbai, Stun the World by M.M. Ali Hindus, Jews and Jehadi terror in Mumbai by Andrew J Boston Terrorists, Their Organizations Are All Around, yet We Slumber by Herb Denenberg Terror suspects maintain contact with terrorist groups, despite restrictions ----------------     The Rationale of Terror By Patrick J. Buchanan   Arguably the most successful act of revolutionary terror was the June 1914 assassination of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand in Sarajevo.   Believing his mission to murder the heir to the Austrian throne had failed, Gavrilo Princip suddenly found himself standing a few feet away from the royal car. He fired twice, mortally wounding the archduke and his wife.   Tactically, that act of terror eliminated the reformist Ferdinand, who meant to address the grievances of his Slav subjects by granting them greater autonomy and equality with Austrians and Hungarians inside the empire.   Strategically, the assassination succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of its Black Hand plotters. Hard-liners in Austria demanded an ultimatum to Serbia. When her demands were not met in full, Vienna declared war. Czar Nicholas mobilized in support of Russia's little Slav brothers. The Kaiser ordered mobilization. When the French refused to declare neutrality, Germany declared war. In hours, the British cabinet had reversed itself to back war with Germany on behalf of Belgium and France.   Princip had lit the fuse that set off in six weeks the greatest war in history. While Serbia suffered per capita losses as great as any other nation, she ended the Great War as the lead nation in a Kingdom of the South Slavs embracing Slovenes, Croats, Bosnians, Albanians, Montenegrins, Macedonians and Hungarians. The Habsburg Empire at which Princip had struck had vanished.   The November Mumbai massacre seems a similar triumph of terror. Tactically, by sending a platoon of suicide warriors into India's financial capital, terrorizing a train station, two five-star hotels, and a Jewish centre, and killing nearly 200 in over 60 hours, the plotters assured themselves of round-the-clock worldwide television coverage.   In so riveting the world's attention for four days, this terrorist atrocity was a success. And by using Pakistanis to perpetrate the massacres and Karachi as port of embarkation, the plotters focused India's rage exactly where they want it, against Pakistan. By this slaughter in India's commercial capital, the Islamists have destroyed the détente Pakistan was seeking with India and pushed both toward war. Out to murder moderation and stoke militancy, the terrorists succeeded.   Years ago, this writer observed: "Terrorism is a tactic, a technique, a weapon that fanatics, dictators, and warriors have resorted to through history. If, as [Carl von] Clausewitz wrote, war is the continuation of politics by other means; terrorism is the continuation of war by other means."   Yet terrorism—the killing of innocents for political ends—can only triumph if the aggrieved play the role the terror masters have scripted for them in their bloody drama. What, then, may we surmise are the tactical and strategic goals of the terror masters of Mumbai?   To humiliate, wound, and outrage India in her pride as a great new democratic and economic power in Asia. To imperil Mumbai's future as a safe and secure financial capital in which to live, work, and invest. To awe the world and inspire Islam's young by their audacity. To attain immortality!   But the strategic target of the militants is the Pakistani government.   Pakistan's offences? Cooperating with America in Afghanistan and the border region, battling al-Qaeda and the Taliban, withdrawing from the fight for Kashmir, seeking peace with a Hindu nation where 170 million Muslims are denied their place in the sun.   President Bush should pray New Delhi does not adopt his Bush Doctrine of preventive war or the Cheney Doctrine: "Even if there's just a 1 percent chance of the unimaginable coming due, act as if it is a certainty." For war in the subcontinent between India and Pakistan would be a calamity and a triumph for the terrorists across what Zbigniew Brzezinski has called the "Global Balkans."   War would pit two nuclear powers against each other for the first time since the Sino-Soviet border clash of 1969. It would spawn bloodshed between Muslim and Hindu in India. It would see the collapse of Pakistan, it's possible dissolution, and a military dictator in a nation already divided against itself over whether to continue resisting al-Qaeda and the Taliban, or cut ties to the unpopular Americans.   Wounded and enraged by the atrocities of 9/11, America lashed out, first at Afghanistan and the al-Qaeda source of the conspiracy, then at Iraq, which had nothing to do with the attacks. Thus did the Bush administration disunite its nation and forfeit its mandate.   For India to lash out at a Pakistan that was not complicit in the Mumbai crimes against humanity, but harbours elements within that are guilty and are celebrating, would be as great a mistake.   India and Pakistan both have a vital interest in no new war. But a new war is exactly what the terrorists killed for and died for. Should it come, they win—and enter history as revolutionary terrorists alongside Princip and the perpetrators of 9/11. Source: http://www.wrmea.com/archives/Jan_Feb_2009/0901012.html ---   What Is the Message of Terrorism: Without a Message? By William Pfaff   What is the message of a terrorist attack that fails to deliver a message? Threats and warnings are being exchanged by India and Pakistan about the terrorist attack on Mumbai, carried out by presumed Muslim extremists. But acting to what purpose, and under whose instructions?   The attacks are thought to have to do with the Kashmiri Muslims fighting to force India to withdraw from their part of the disputed region in the north of the Indian subcontinent, bordering the two countries as well as Tibet and China. Its Hindu ruler chose in 1947 to deliver its Muslim population to India during the frantic days of British India's partition. The U.N. ordered a referendum among the Muslims (believed today to favor independence). India has never accepted it.   If Kashmir's situation was the motive for the Mumbai attacks, why were the targets hotels and restaurants frequented by Western tourists, but also by residents of Mumbai and other prosperous Indians, and a Lubavitch Hasidic Jewish center, presumably associated with America and Israel? None of them have anything to do with Kashmir.   This makes the message seem a Middle Eastern message, having to do with Iraq and Palestine. But the terrorist who was captured said he was a Pakistani, and the evidence thus far is that the terrorist party embarked in Pakistan. Could Samuel Huntington be right after all, and it is now indiscriminate war between civilizations? No. We know as a fact that the modern conflict between Muslims and the Europeans and Americans began with the Europeans' post-1918 partition and colonization of the Ottoman Empire's Arab possessions, and a quarter-century later, by Israel's European-supported installation in Palestine. After that there was the Suez attack, a fiasco for Britain and France, when Washington supported Egypt. A quarter-century after that, the Americans and the Muslim Pakistanis, together with the Saudi Arabians, organized the successful Muslim mujahideen resistance to the Russian invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.   In 1980 there was a terrible war between Muslim Iraqis and Muslim Iranians. The Desert War followed that, caused by the invasion of Muslim Kuwait by Muslim Iraq, resisted by Muslim as well as European armies under American leadership. After that came the American refusal to remove the military bases it had built in Saudi Arabia, which was the grievance that inspired Osama bin Laden's 9/11 attack on New York and Washington. The Asian Muslim countries, including Indonesia, where more Muslims live than anywhere else, had nothing to do with any of this. So what actually is it all about? Certainly not Huntington's fantasy of a war of civilizations, despite the American political and journalistic habit of forgetting the past and pinning everything that happens today on the Muslims, plus the well-publicized and self-serving obsession of Osama bin Laden and his acolytes that they are leading a mighty jihad that soon will conquer Spain, France, Britain, and Germany, and besiege the United States—which is still more dangerous nonsense.   There is wide concern today that India will retaliate against Pakistan for the Mumbai attacks, even though there is no conclusive proof of Pakistani official responsibility. That the attack was by a militant offshoot of the Kashmir clash is more plausible. It would be deeply illogical for the new Pakistani civilian government to be involved with an action that embroiled it in further conflict with India, when it simultaneously has extremely difficult relations with the United States over American attacks on supposed Taliban and al-Qaeda centers inside the Pakistani frontier tribal zones, and while intense American and NATO pressure is on Pakistan to do more against the Taliban.   Der Spiegel Online carried an article on Nov. 27 entitled "Terror in India—Obama's First Test." Why a test for Obama? Even if he were already president of the U.S., what would he be expected to do about it? It would be closer to the truth to suggest that this might have been influenced by conflicts in which the United States has directly or indirectly taken an irresponsible hand in the past, without positive results for the United States and with tragic results for others. But the U.S. has never had anything to do with Kashmir.   The mind-set expressed in the Spiegel headline, that anything unpleasant that happens in the world is either the result of American actions or something for which the United States must take responsibility, is widespread, and the result of an American policy of global interventionism which Barack Obama and his new national security team seems ready to continue. If they do so, they are likely to regret it. William Pfaff is the author of eight books on American foreign policy, international relations, and contemporary history. ---   Hindus, Jews and Jehadi terror in Mumbai Andrew J Boston, February 5th, 2009   Sixty hours of jihadist terror depredations throughout India's financial capital, Mumbai — during which nearly 200 innocent victims were murdered, and 300 wounded — apparently ceased this Saturday, November 29, when Indian commandos slew the last three gunmen inside a luxury hotel, while it was still ablaze. Mainstream media coverage of these rampaging, cold-blooded murderous acts of jihad terrorism — perpetrated by a self-professed "mujahideen" organization (i.e., "The Deccan Mujahideen") — consistently ignored the clear ideological linkage to Islam. Simply put, "mujahideen" are Muslim jihadists, "holy warriors," because there is just one historically relevant meaning of jihad, despite present day apologetics.   The root of the word jihad appears 40 times in the Koran and in subsequent Islamic understanding to both Muslim luminaries — from the greatest jurists and scholars of classical Islam, to ordinary people — meant and means "he fought, warred or waged war against unbelievers and the like." As described by the seminal mid-19th century Arabic lexicographer E.W Lane, "Jihad came to be used by the Muslims to signify wag[ing] war, against unbelievers." A contemporary definition, relevant to both modern jihadism and its shock troop "mujahideen" was provided at the Fourth International Conference of the Academy of Islamic Research at Al Azhar University, Cairo — Islam's most important religious educational institution-in 1968, by Muhammad al-Sobki: …the words Al Jihad, Al Mojahadah, or even "striving against enemies" are equivalents and they do not mean especially fighting with the atheists…they mean fighting in the general sense… Contemporary validation of the central principle of jihad terrorism — rooted in the Koran — (for example, verses 8:12, 8:60, and 33:26)-i.e., to terrorize the enemies of the Muslims as a prelude to their conquest — has been provided in the mainstream Pakistani text on jihad warfare by Brigadier S.K. Malik, originally published in Lahore, in 1979. Malik's treatise was endorsed in a laudatory Foreword to the book by his patron, then Pakistani President Zia-ul-Haq, as well as a more extended Preface by Allah Buksh K. Brohi, a former Advocate-General of Pakistan. This text — widely studied in Islamic countries, and available in English, Urdu, and Arabic — have been recovered from the bodies of slain jihadists in Kashmir. Brigadier Malik emphas sizes how instilling terror is essential to waging successful jihad campaigns: Terror struck into the hearts of the enemies is not only a means; it is the end in itself. Once a condition of terror into the opponent's heart is obtained, hardly anything is left to be achieved. It is the point where the means and the end meet and merge. Terror is not a means of imposing decision upon the enemy (sic); it is the decision we wish to impose upon him… "Jihad," the Koranic concept of total strategy… [d]emands the preparation and application of total national power and military instrument is one of its elements. As a component of the total strategy, the military strategy aims at striking terror into the hearts of the enemy from the preparatory stage of war…Under ideal conditions; Jihad can produce a direct decision and force its will upon the enemy. Where that does not happen, military strategy should take over and aim at producing the decision from the military stage. Should that chance be missed, terror should be struck into the enemy during the actual fighting. …the Book [Koran] does not visualize war being waged with "kid gloves." It gives us a distinctive concept of total war. It wants both, the nation and the individual, to be at war "in Toto," that is, with all their spiritual, moral, and physical resources. The Holy Koran lays the highest emphasis on the preparation for war. It wants us to prepare ourselves for war to the utmost. The test of utmost preparation lies in our capability to instil terror into the hearts of the enemies. The Islamic correctness of most mainstream media outlets — which refused to consider such ideological motivations, rooted in jihad — did not apply, however to Hindus, or Jews-targeted infidel victims of the attacks. Blithely ignoring obvious Islamic and Muslim connections — credit taken for the attacks by a mujahideen organization; or testimony from a Turkish Muslim couple briefly apprehended, and then released unharmed by the jihadists because, "…[w]hen the (Muezzinoglus) said they were Muslims, their captors told them that they would not be harmed" — some media (at Fox; NPR) even voiced their own "speculations" about the possible culpability of "Hindu extremists," an absurd calumny, stated in full paranoid transference mode by the Muslim Brotherhood: A photograph published in Urdu Times, Mumbai, clearly shows that Mossad and ex-Mossad men came to India and met Sadhus and other pro-Hindutva elements recently. A conspiracy was clearly hatched. Yet these same media offered no speculation about Islamic Jew hatred as an obvious potential motivation for the transparently selective attack on Mumbai's Chabad House — a focal point symbol of the miniscule Jewish community of 5000 (or 0.03%) in a city of some 15 million inhabitants. More egregiously, this neglect of any hateful Islamic motivations for the targeted murder of such innocent Jews — including a young Lubavitcher Rabbi and his wife — was accompanied by consistently dehumanizing and demeaning references to these victims as "Ultra-Orthodox," and their entirely false characterization as "missionaries." This current Jewish tragedy within a much larger non-Muslim, primarily Hindu tragedy, reminded me of the Indian Sufi "inspiration" for The Legacy of Islamic Anti-Semitism, Ahmad Sirhindi. Nearing completion of my first book compendium, The Legacy of Jihad, in early 2005, specifically the section about jihad on the Indian subcontinent, I came across a remarkable comment by the Indian Sufi theologian Sirhindi (d. 1624). Typical of the mainstream Muslim clerics of his era, Sirhindi was viscerally opposed to the reforms which characterized the latter ecumenical phase of Akbar's 16th century reign (when Akbar became almost a Muslim-Hindu syncretist), particularly the abolition of the humiliating jizya (Koranic poll tax, as per Koran 9:29) upon the subjugated infidel Hindus. In the midst of an anti-Hindu tract Sirhindi wrote, motivated by Akbar's pro-Hindu reforms, Sirhindi observes, Whenever a Jew is killed, it is for the benefit of Islam. The biographical information I could glean about Sirhindi provided, among other things, no evidence he was ever in direct contact with Jews, so his very hateful remark suggested to me that the attitudes it reflected must have a theological basis in Islam — contra the prevailing, widely accepted "wisdom" that Islam, unlike Christianity was devoid of such theological Anti-Semitism. Having originally intended to introduce, edit, and compile a broader compendium on dhimmitude in follow-up to The Legacy of Jihad, this stunning observation inspired me instead to change course and focus on the interplay between Islamic Anti-Semitism, and the intimately related phenomenon of jihad imposed dhimmitude for Jews, specifically. Of course Jew-hatred was merely a sidelight to Sirhindi's hatemongering Islamic "ethos." He was an intensely anti-Hindu bigot, as revealed by these words: Cow-sacrifice in India is the noblest of Islamic practices. The kafirs [Hindus] may probably agree to pay jizya but they shall never concede to cow-sacrifice…The real purpose in levying jizya on them [Hindus] is to humiliate then to such an extent that, on account of fear of jizya , they may not be able to dress well and to live in grandeur. They should constantly remain terrified and trembling. It intended to hold them under contempt and to uphold the honour and might of Islam… Completely uninformed about (and stubbornly resistant to any informed discussion of) the motivating Islamic ideology for the Mumbai attacks, the media "meta-narrative," repeated ad nauseum, is also oblivious to the living historical legacy of jihad on the Indian subcontinent. Thus journalists and even policymaking elites appear to accept at face value, and uncritically, the "rationale" for this wantonly murderous jihadism as stated, for example, by one of the Muslim perpetrators: Are you aware how many people have been killed in Kashmir?…Are you aware how your army has killed Muslims? The Muslim supremacist, jihad-inspired conflict in Kashmir — really a tragic ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Hindus by Muslim jihadists which began in earnest during the 14th century — re-emerged in late June of this year when the Indian government had the "temerity" to want to transfer 99 acres of land to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board, a trust running the popular Hindu shrine (including the cave that houses a large ice stalagmite itself, revered by Hindus as an incarnation of Siva, the god of destruction and reproduction). Hundreds of thousands of Hindus visit the area as part of an annual pilgrimage to the cave. Please view the poignant, elegantly produced video by Kashmiri filmmaker Ashok Pandit, "And the World Remained Silent," (linked here, Parts 1 and 2) which chronicles in gory detail the brutal ethnic cleansing of some 350,000 indigenous Hindus from Kashmir during early 1990, orchestrated by Pakistan. And it's Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto. (Focus on the time period 2:15 to 4:00 minutes, from Part 1 above, and witness the jihadist speech of the late, much ballyhooed "modernist reformer" Ms. Bhutto. She was a jihadist, plain and simple; the head of what remains a jihadist state.) Despite the brutal Islamization of India — dating back to the initial 8th century Arab Muslim jihad ravages, and the subsequent more extensive campaigns under the Ghaznavids (Islamized Turkic nomads who annihilated the indigenous Hindus of Afghanistan by the mid-9th century), through the Delhi Sultanate period (1000-1525 C.E.) during which an estimated 70-80 million Hindus were slaughtered — due largely to bowdlerized educational and public discourse on Islam, even many modern Hindus remain ignorant of both this history, and the Koranic injunctions which inspired the brutal waves of jihad conquest, and Muslim colonization of India. The Muslim chroniclers' al-Baladhuri (in Kitab Futuh al-Buldan) and al-Kufi (in the Chachnama) include enough isolated details to establish the overall nature of the conquest of Sindh (in modern Paksitan) by Muhammad b. Qasim during 712 C.E. These narratives, and the processes they describe, make clear that the Arab invaders intended from the outset to Islamize Sindh by conquest, colonization, and local conversion. Baladhuri, for example, records that following the capture of Debal, Muhammad b. Qasim earmarked a section of the city exclusively for Muslims, constructed a mosque, and established four thousand colonists there. The conquest of Debal had been a brutal affair, as summarized from the Muslim sources by the renowned Indian historian R.C. Majumdar. Despite appeals for mercy from the besieged Indians (who opened their gates after the Muslims scaled the fort walls), Muhammad b. Qasim declared that he had no orders (i.e., from his superior al-Hajjaj, the Governor of Iraq) to spare the inhabitants, and thus for three days a ruthless and indiscriminate slaughter ensued. In the aftermath, the local temple was defiled, and "700 beautiful females who had sought for shelter there, were all captured". The capture of Raor was accompanied by a similar tragic outcome. Principle of Islamic theocracy. It recognized only one faith, one people, and one supreme authority, acting as the head of a religious trust. The Hindus, being infidels or non-believers, could not claim the full rights of citizens. At the very best, they could be tolerated as dhimmis, an insulting title which connoted political inferiority…The Islamic State regarded all non-Muslims as enemies, to curb whose growth in power was conceived to be its main interest. The ideal preached by even high officials was to exterminate them totally, but in actual practice they seem to have followed an alternative laid down in the Koran [i.e., Q9:29] which calls upon Muslims to fight the unbelievers till they pay the jizya with due humility. This was the tax the Hindus had to pay for permission to live in their ancestral homes under a Muslim ruler. Regarding the Islamization of Hindu Kashmir, although Mahmud of Ghazni made brutal forays into Kashmir in the early 11th century, it was not until the mid-14th century when the ruling Hindu dynasty was displaced completely by Shah Mirza, in 1346, and Kashmir was brought under Muslim suzerainty. During the reign of Sikandar Butshikan (1394-1417), mass Islamization took place as described by the great historian K.S. Lal: He [Sikandar Butshikan] invited from Persia, Arabia, and Mesopotamia learned men of his own [Muslim] faith; his bigotry prompted him to destroy all the mostfamous temples in Kashmir-Martand, Vishya, Isna, Chakrabhrit, Tripeshwar, etc. Sikandar offered the Kashmiris the choice [pace Koran 9:5] between Islam and death. Some Kashmiri Brahmans committed suicide, many left the land, many others embraced Islam, and a few began to live under Taqiya, that is, they professed Islam only outwardly. It is said that the fierce intolerance of Sikandar had left in Kashmir no more than eleven families of Brahmans. Lal also notes that, His [Sikandar Butshikan's] contemporary the [Hindu] Raja of Jammu had been converted to Islam by [Amir] Timur [the jihadist, Tamerlane], by "hopes, fears, and threats." When the Moghul ruler Akbar annexed Kashmir in 1586, the majority of the population was already Muslim. Lal summarizes the chronic plight of the Kashmiri Hindus during a half millennium of Islamic rule, through 1819, which explains the modern demography of Kashmir: When Kashmir was under Muslim rule for 500 years, Hindus were constantly tortured and forcibly converted. A delegation of Kashmir Brahmans approached Guru Teg Bahadur at Anadpur Saheb to seek his help. But Kashmir was Islamized. Those who fled to preserve their religion went to Laddakh in the east and Jammu in the south. It is for this reason that non-Muslims are found in large number in these regions. In the valley itself the Muslimsformed the bulk of the population. There is also a modern era nexus — rooted in jihad-between the Hindus of Islamized Kashmir, and the Jews of Islamized Palestine. Hajj Amin el-Husseini, ex-Mufti of Jerusalem, and Muslim jihadist, who became, additionally, a full-fledged Nazi collaborator and ideologue in his endeavours to abort a Jewish homeland, and destroy world Jewry, was also a committed supporter of global jihad movements. Urging a "full struggle" against the Hindus of India (as well as the Jews of Israel) before delegates at the February 1951 World Muslim Congress, he stated: We shall meet next with sword in hand on the soil of either Kashmir or Palestine. And el-Husseini's jihadist, Koran (and hadith)-inspired Jew hatred was shared by a seminal modern Muslim ideologue from the Indian subcontinent, Maulana Mufti Muhammad Shafi (d. 1976), a major late 20th century Koranic commentator. An eminent scholar, Maulana Muhammad Shafi served as a professor and as a grand Mufti of Darul-Uloom Deoband, the well-known university of the Islamic Sciences in pre-partition India. In 1943, he resigned from Darul-Uloom, because of his active involvement in the Pakistan movement. When Pakistan came into existence, he migrated to Karachi devoting his life to the service of this new Muslim state. He also established Darul-Uloom Karachi, and renowned institute of Islamic Sciences patterned after Darul-Uloom Deoband, and considered today as the largest private institute of Islamic higher education in Pakistan. Here is Maulana Muhammad Shafi's commentary on the central anti-Semitic motif in the Koran, sura (chapter) 3, verse 112: …verse 112 speaks of the general condition of the Jews. They played the most virulent role against the Holy Prophet [Muhammad] and the movement of Islam. It was not strange that they were the most malignant against the Holy Prophet because they had played a similar role against the Prophets before the advent of Islam. They had slandered Jesus Christ, they had plotted to kill him, and they had slain so many Prophets before Jesus Christ. They had earned the wrath of Allah before the Holy Prophet by killing the Prophets and the Saints and by their vociferous opposition to the Divine Commands. This wrath increased when they deadly opposed the Holy Prophet and made treacherous and surreptitious plans to kill Muhammad and defeat Islam. They tried to harm the Muslims and prevented the common men from Islam. These activities enhanced the wrath of Allah, and curse became their eventual fate. The wrath of Allah manifested itself in conditional abasement, but permanent poverty. Their abasement could be suspended if they could cover a bond of Allah or they should be covered by a bond of the people. But the poverty and the general wrath of Allah was pitched without any suspension. Bond of God means adherence to some remnants of the Torah. Bond of men means either becoming the subjects of some Muslim State or some Christian State or some other constitutional State; or becoming a satellite or a protectorate of some powerful people, whoever they may be either Muslims, or non-Muslims, by means of some agreement, treaty, or merely political support. Their separate individual existence enjoying an inviolable sovereignty or commanding a good respect in the Comity of Nations is not implied in this verse because of the extreme wrath of Allah which is significant of their superlative Kufr [infidelity] against Allah and their extremely tremendous enmity against the Holy Prophet as compared to other non-Believers. For example, the modern State of Israel cannot survive if the Americans and Russians, etc., give up their support. [note: this commentary was written beginning in the 1960s] This is the bond of the people which has outwardly suspended their abasement. But so far as wretchedness (poverty) is concerned it is pitched on them permanently and the general wrath and anger of Allah surrounds them forever. Inner wretchedness can be reconciled with outer opulence. The Jews may have become billionaires but the wretchedness and poverty of hearts cannot leave them any moment. Parsimony has become a part and parcel of their internal self. Nearly six decades ago, Sir Jadunath Sarkar (d. 1958), the pre-eminent historian of Mughal India, wrote admiringly of what the Jews of Palestine had accomplished once liberated from the yoke of jihad-imposed Islamic Law. The implication was clear that he harboured similar hopes for his own people, the Hindus of India, and those of their Muslim neighbours willing to abandon the supremacist, discriminatory, and backward mandates of Islam: Palestine, the holy land of the Jews, Christians and Islamites, had been turned into a desert haunted by ignorant poor diseased vermin rather than by human beings, as the result of six centuries of Muslim rule. (See Kinglake's graphic description). Today Jewish rule has made this desert bloom into a garden, miles of sandy waste have been turned into smiling orchards of orange and citron, the chemical resources of the Dead Sea are being extracted and sold, and all the amenities of the modern civilised life have been made available in this little Oriental country. Wise Arabs are eager to go there from the countries ruled by the Shariat [Sharia; Islamic Law]. This is the lesson for the living history. The jihadist carnage in Mumbai, and some 12,327 other acts of jihad terrorism since 9/11/2001 — motivated by supremacist Islamic doctrine, and the atavistic hatred of Hindus, Jews, and other non-Muslims it inculcates — provides ugly living proof that Sarkar's wistful admonition from 1950 remains almost entirely unheeded. Source: http://www.aseemaa.com/2009/02/hindus-jews-and-jehadi-terror-in-mumbai/ ---   Terrorists, Their Organizations Are All Around, yet We Slumber By Herb Denenberg, February 05, 2009   One of the most astounding facts of modern times is that we are in a war with radical Islam, but don't seem to know it. We're in their gun sights; they are out to destroy us; they proclaim their intent as clearly as Hitler did in Mein Kampf and other documents. Yet we slumber on, in a relaxed mode, oblivious to the obvious, and without reaction as a noose is placed around our neck.   What may seem exotic and far off, what seems an issue only for faraway lands, what seems to be virtually harmless as we relax protected by oceans on either shore is in fact a threat here and now, ready to explode at any time, and repeat or even magnify what happened on 9/11. As I was reading up on the terrorist organization Hamas, it occurred to me that it would be a useful exercise to show how such an organization, which might seem so remote to our lives, is already stretching its terrorist tentacles throughout our land, along with many other terrorist organizations. Yesterday, I focused on Islamic organizations that represent themselves as "moderate," but are in fact part of the silent jihad and terror network. See "Government, FBI, Media Years behind Understanding Radical Islam," (Feb. 4) on The Bulletin's Web site at:   Consider a few facts on Hamas, which go beyond the fact that the U.S. and most of the West have long branded it as a terrorist organization: • Hamas may be planning terrorist operations in the U.S. In a classic on radical Islam by Steven Emerson, Jihad Incorporated: A Guide to Militant Islam in the U.S., the threat posed by Hamas is documented. Mr. Emerson writes, "Evidence collected since 9/11 suggests that the group may try to conduct terrorist operations against targets in the United States." And Hamas has also participated in some unsuccessful terrorist attacks on the homeland.   • What's more, Hamas may be working with other terrorist groups to plan terrorist attacks in the U.S. Mr. Emerson writes that evidence collected since 9/11 indicates Hamas "may be collaborating with other terrorist organizations in gathering intelligence for U.S.-based attacks." When it comes to killing Americans, all these terrorist groups seem to be willing to put their differences aside and work together to spill our blood.   • As early as 1989, Hamas was setting up charitable and political organizations in the U.S., and by the late 1990s these fund-raising ef forts on behalf of Hamas were paying huge dividends. As my column yesterday showed, terrorist front organizations have managed to fool a long list of prominent politicians, the FBI and other government agencies. • Hamas sets up organizations that it tries to disguise as innocuous by using titles and claimed purposes that involve only education, research, charity and the like.   • In these Trojan horse operations, Hamas goes out of its way to hide the connection between it and what amounts to subsidiaries and puppets of Hamas. • These Hamas terrorist fronts go far beyond just fund raising and terrorism. For example, they are also into domestic lobbying, propaganda, and pressure group organization.   • This goes on all over the U.S. and has a close connection with Philadelphia. One of the important meetings in the Hamas organizing efforts was held at the Philadelphia Marriott. With that overview, it might be useful to take a closer look at Hamas and its American connections. On Sept. 14, 1993, FBI electronic surveillance captured details of planning leading up to a meeting at the Philadelphia Marriott to bolster Hamas's fund raising and political activity in the U.S. and to thwart the attempt at peace in the Israeli-Arab conflict set out in the Oslo accords. That meeting took place as planned on Oct. 1 and 2, 1993. Among those present were representatives of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), a group later indicted and convicted of raising money for terrorists. At the meeting, the participants spent much effort hiding their connections with Hamas. They referred to it as Samah, which is Hamas spelled backward. Their main concern was to determine how these U.S. organizations could support Hamas. They wanted to extend help in every possible way such as those involving financing, propagandizing, and political action on behalf of Hamas.   One participant stressed that to be effective, the attendees "had to behave as an American organization — and take care of the people and not a particular population. Our relations had to be good with everyone … but we can give the Islamists 100,000 [dollars] and 5,000 to the others." A participant also stressed that they should avoid revealing Hamas's true agenda. The participants also stressed the need for domestic lobbying and deeper engagement with the American Muslim community. The participants wanted more political activity by the community so it could bring pressure to bear on Congress and the decision makers in America. In summary, the participants planned a full court press on every front on behalf of Hamas. Hamas has already taken aim at Americans and American interests. Although most of its terrorism has occurred in the Middle East that terrorism has already claimed more than a dozen American victims overseas. It has not yet carried out a successful attack in the U.S., but its operatives did participate in the foiled 1993 New York City landmark bombing plot. According to an FBI affidavit, members of Hamas were among conspirators plotting the bombing of landmarks, tunnels, and the FBI building. In addition, the FBI believes Hamas now has the capability to carry out terrorist hits in the U.S. Two arrests involve suspected Hamas operatives thought to be plotting terror attacks in the U.S.   Another FBI affidavit indicates that al-Qaida often enlists Hamas operatives to conduct surveillance. Hamas has also been involved in attacks on the American military in Iraq. Another Hamas front is the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), serving as its propaganda organ. A federal magistrate found that if the IAP "has never out rightly cheered on Hamas terrorist activities, it has come awfully close." FBI counterterrorism official, Oliver Revell, called the IAP "a front organization for Hamas that engages in propaganda for the Islamic movement."   The IAP also delivers the Hamas charter all over the America continents. Its publications also heap praise on terror attacks carried out by Hamas. Hamas also has an elaborate array of organizations that do fund rising for it. One of the most important is the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), which claims to raise money for the needy in Gaza and the West Bank. However, evidence collected by federal authorities and Mr. Emerson's Investigative Project finds that the HLF since its inception has been raising money for Hamas. The HLF established offices throughout the U.S., including in California, Illinois, Michigan and New Jersey. There are all kinds of relationships between HLF and Hamas.   Another Hamas charitable front is the Al Aqsa Educational Fund (AAEF). It claims to be a charity to raise money for charities located in Gaza and the West Bank.  There is abundant evidence that it functions as a fund-raiser for Hamas terrorism. There has been a lot of progress in shutting down the flow of money from Hamas-fronts to Hamas. For example, the HLF was shut down, a top Hamas operative helping set up the front organizations was deported, and some of those involved were indicted. However, Mr. Emerson says much work remains to be done.   He says it is still clear that Hamas may be considering attacks on American soil, may be helping such groups as al-Qaida with intelligence work for possible terrorist strikes, and that Hamas still issues threats against the U.S. and its activities in Iraq. So Mr. Emerson concludes any statements or movements by these individuals or groups regarding America "warrant the closest scrutiny." This column focused on Hamas. But it is only one of the terrorist networks, which include Hezbollah, the Palestinian Jihad, the Pakistani Jihadist Network, and many others. Mr. Emerson sees a continuing and serious threat from militant Islam and among other things that calls for an informed public. Mr. Emerson writes,   "Militant Islamism continues to present a grave threat to America and the world. Given that indisputable fact, it becomes vital for the American public to gain the greatest possible awareness of the face of the enemy. Clearly, the task of ferreting out and combating the ever-shifting terrorist threat falls primarily to our law enforcement agencies and intelligence community, who remain vigilant in that pursuit. But an informed and supportive citizenry is also a vital factor." Mr. Emerson also stresses that al-Qaida may pose one of the most serious threats to American safety, but it is only one group among many: "Various groups that have waged jihad in South Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and beyond have infiltrated our society. They have hatched plots from within our borders to execute attacks domestically and to raise funds for their terror campaigns abroad." We better not wait for another 9/11; we better wake up now. Europe slumbered through a process during which it was transformed to what is now called Eurabia. The great scholar, Bat Ye'Or, in her book Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, describes that phenomenon: "In her forceful book, La Forza dela Ragione, Oriana Fallaci ponders the steady Islamization of Europe, noting, 'it was all there for years and we didn't see it.' " That might be said within years of the U.S. It was all there for years and we didn't see it. We don't have a lot of time to wake up, as we've seen Europe fall to Islamization, and we have started the same descent.   The first step in fighting the loss of America and our Western values and Judeo-Christian tradition is to get informed about what is going on. We haven't faced the reality of a Islamic Jihadist threat to our survival, and Ms. Ye'or explains that in her book: "Constructive public debate has been hampered by profound ignorance of the jihad dynamic and by the tendency of Europe's political elite to continue to appease jihadist driving forces. "This book describes Europe's evolution from a Judeo-Christian civilization, with important post-Enlightenment secular elements, into a post-Judeo-Christian civilization that is subservient to the ideology of jihad and the Islamic powers that propagate it."   So perhaps the first step in getting informed is to read some of the books cited in this column. I'd recommend for starters Robert Spencer's classic volume Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam is Subverting America without Guns or Bombs. For a broad historical sweep, you might then read Ms. Ye'or's book, which shows how Europe was conquered by the stealth jihad. A book that focuses on the United Kingdom's surrender to Islam is Melanie Philipps, Londonistan.   Another powerful volume is Mark Steyn, America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It. And then there are the important books from Mr. Emerson, the latest of which is cited in this column, and from Daniel Pipes Militant Islam Reaches America. Finally, there is Bruce Bawer, While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within. After getting informed yourself, you have to wake up the media and the political class, which both seem to sleeping in the face of mortal danger to our way of life. And as the old song goes, it's later than you think. But unlike the advice of that song, don't enjoy yourself. Instead start fighting for your freedom and the survival of your country.   Herb Denenberg is a former Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner, Pennsylvania Public Utility Commissioner, and professor at the Wharton School. He is a longtime Philadelphia journalist and consumer advocate. He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of the Sciences. His column appears daily in The Bulletin. You can reach him at advocate@thebulletin.us. Source: http://thebulletin.us/articles/2009/02/05/herb_denenberg/doc498a6db69f4ea566660306.txt ----   Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January-February 2009, pages 12-14 Three Views Terror in Mumbai Terrorist Attacks Rock Mumbai, Stun the World By M.M. Ali   BOMB BLASTS in several parts of Mumbai, the major Indian port city and commercial and financial hub formerly known as Bombay, and the takeover of two of the city's 5-star hotels, the Taj Mahal and Oberoi, and a nearby synagogue stunned the world and posed a serious challenge to the Indian government. The well-coordinated attacks, which began Nov. 26, lasted for the next 36 hours, killed more than 170 people, and injured more than 300.   Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Foreign Minister Pranab Mukerji were quick to accuse Pakistan of being behind the killings and violence, and demanded that Islamabad hand over "20 suspects" now living in Pakistan. These included the names of Ibrahim Dawood and Mian Azhar, whom Delhi has blamed for past violence in India and Kashmir.   The Indian and world media were transfixed by the crises in Mumbai, speculating on a variety of theories as to motives and perpetrators. Some analysts feared that elements opposed to improved relations between Delhi and Islamabad were responsible. Not long ago Pakistan's new president, Asif Ali Zardari, had offered to sign an agreement with India promising not to use nuclear weapons to resolve disputes, and making borders between the two parts of the disputed state of Kashmir more fluid for travel and trade. This was in line with the Confidence Building Measures (CBM) the two nuclear neighbours have been discussing for the last four years.   Another speculation was that, in anticipation of upcoming elections, India's extremist Hindu opposition parties under the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) coalition are trying to create unrest to unite the Hindu majority against the ruling Congress government. Indeed, such tactics have been effective in the past.   Yet another view is that the Taliban and/or al-Qaeda may be behind the Mumbai turmoil in an effort to engulf the entire subcontinent.   Regardless of which theory is advanced, however, fingers are being pointed at a small number of extremists among India's 150 million Muslim citizens, the 160 million Bangladeshi Muslims and the 170 million Muslims of Pakistan.   Pakistan has said it will move its troops from its border with Afghanistan if India mobilizes its forces on the Pakistan border. Delhi has assured Islamabad that it will not use the military option to resolve the present crisis, and Pakistan has said it will offer full cooperation to Delhi's investigations, without compromising its right to try its own Pakistani citizens. Oral guarantees may not suffice, however, to calm relations between two traditionally unfriendly nuclear states. No wonder U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice rushed to speak to leaders in New Delhi and Islamabad. Prof. M.M. Ali is a specialist on South Asia based in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. ---   Terror suspects maintain contact with terrorist groups, despite restrictions Watchdog warns individuals are breaching control orders By Alan Travis, 3 February 2009  Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/feb/03/terror-suspects-breach-control-orders A few terror suspects have managed to maintain contact with terrorist groups despite being under control orders which include restrictions that amount to "virtual house arrest", the government's official watchdog on the terror laws warned tonight.   Lord Carlile of Berriew QC said that ­classified material he had seen justified the conclusion that there were "a few controlees" who had managed to remain in contact with other terrorist individuals and groups, and who remained ­determined to act in the future.   It is thought that despite tight surveillance these terror suspects managed to maintain contact through illicit use of mobile phones and unsupervised meetings. The Conservatives said last night that the disclosure was extraordinary. "We told them that this system wouldn't work properly, but they just wouldn't listen," said the shadow home secretary, Chris Grayling.   The anti-terror watchdog also warned against using the control order regime to deal with any former detainees returned from Guantánamo Bay, saying it should not be used as a routine form of control against people who are seen as potentially troublesome. "It is over-simplistic to assume that they would be appropriate, acceptable, practicable or even lawful against a group of people simply because they had been detained elsewhere, under a foreign and unusual jurisdiction," said Carlile.   He also strongly recommended to the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, that there should be a statutory presumption against a control order being extended beyond two years, save for genuinely exceptional circumstances. This recommendation was rejected last year by the Home Office, but Carlile is pressing again this year. He also renewed his call for the use of intercept evidence in criminal trials, adding that this had the potential to reduce the number of control orders – although it was far from certain.   His annual report on the operation of the control order system confirmed that there are 15 control orders in force and that there have been 23 others who have at some point been subject to their restrictions. A total of seven terror suspects have absconded while under a control order. Six others have been deported, four had their orders revoked and three others have been quashed by the court of appeal.   Control orders are imposed by order of the home secretary, based on intelligence information against terror suspects, when there is insufficient evidence to mount a criminal prosecution. The decision to impose a control order has to be ratified by judges sitting as the special immigration appeals commission.   Among the restrictions that can be imposed are curfews of up to 13 hours enforced by an electronic tag, restrictions on the use of mobile phones and the internet, vetting of all visitors and meetings, and restrictions on the suspect's movements. They need to be renewed every 12 months.   The control order regime was introduced four years ago to replace the system of indefinite detention of international terror suspects in Belmarsh prison, after it was ruled discriminatory and disproportionate by the House of Lords.   Carlile revealed that three of the current 15 suspects subject to a control order face trials from next month for breaching the terms of their orders.   In case A, the ­suspect is alleged to have breached his obligations involving communications and the boundary of the area where he is supposed to remain. His trial cannot take place until the outcome of a court of appeal case on whether he can face a fair trial.   Carlile said he had reviewed the material in each case where a control order was issued in 2008 and said he would have reached the same decision as the home secretary each time. He also confirmed that a control order review group meets to discuss the restrictions in each case. ---   URL: http://www.newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1180