Kevin Kohlman posts on a new guide published on the Internet, in which an alleged former resident of the Iraqi-Syrian border region has explained in detail for potential foreign fighter recruits how they can enter Iraq and join in the jihad by traveling through neighboring Syria. According to "Al-Muhajir al-Islami", foreign jihadists should travel to the eastern Syrian city of Dayr al-Zawr: "it is recommended to enter the city using a car and do not carry large sums of money. If anyone asks, say you are here on a vacation and have come to go fishing in the Euphrates—therefore, bring some fishing equipment and another person with you so you won’t look suspicious." Recruits are also advised to avoid consulting government-sponsored Muslim clerics in local mosques and only to "approach the Salafist youths" outside of mosques and beyond the prying eyes of Syrian intelligence.

Iraq's interior minister, Bayan Jabr, recently told The Associated Press (if we can believe what they write as being even remotely accurate) in an exclusive interview that Iraq's neighbors — especially Syria and Jordan — must take stronger measures to stem the flow of militants and money for the insurgency from their territory into Iraq, and said he had pictures and addresses of insurgents in Syria. Notably, he said that, "It is not important to capture or not capture al-Zarqawi, the problem is not to let al-Zarqawi get more followers."

And just who are these followers Byan Jabar refers to and what drives them? The answer tells us much of what we're up against in the West, and how dangerous a threat an 'Islam gone amuck' can be!

Those "Salafist youths" referred to by the "alleged former resident of the Iraqi-Syrian border region" in Kevin's post, and others like them around the world, are younger followers of the same belief that drives Usama Bin Ladin and other Islamist terrorist leaders, a belief that draws upon a long tradition of extreme intolerance within one stream of Islam (a minority tradition but fastly becoming more mainstream), from at least Ibn Taimiyyah, through the founders of Wahhabism, through the Muslim Brotherhood, to Sayyid Qutb. Sayyid Qutb eschewed islah (reform) in favour of violent overthrowing of existing political systems, and it is this "political salafism" that has been adopted by terrorist groups and that the free world must defeat.

In its authoritative report on the tragedy of 11th September 2001, the the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Against the United States (the 9-11 Commission) summarises the threat from salafist(Islamist) terrorism in Chapter 12 at page 363 in these words:

(...) The catastrophic threat at this moment in history is more specific. It is the threat posed by Islamist terrorism—especially the al Qaeda network, its affiliates, and its ideology.

(...) That stream is motivated by religion and does not distinguish politics from religion, thus distorting both. It is further fed by grievances stressed by Bin Ladin and widely felt throughout the Muslim world—against the U.S. military presence in the Middle East, policies perceived as anti-Arab and anti-Muslim, and support of Israel. Bin Ladin and Islamist terrorists mean exactly what they say: to them America is the font of all evil, the “head of the snake,” and it must be converted or destroyed.

(...) It is not a position with which Americans can bargain or negotiate. With it there is no common ground — not even respect for life — on which to begin a dialogue. It can only be destroyed or utterly isolated (emphasis mine).

Just as with Iraq and expressed so appropriately by it's interior minister, Bayan Jabr, we in the West must stop the flow of potential terrorist into our countries, but we must also identify, kill or capture those already here, and remembering one of the few things that the 9/11 Commission got right, "that there can be no dialogue with these people, they can only be destroyed or utterly isolated," we have no options but to go after the Islamists, the followers of the perversion called Salifism, wherever they are, and capture or kill all of them and all of those that support them. We must bring a halt to right vs. left bickering, and get on the same train to securing the continuence of our civilization and culture.

As a post script, I borrow from the same chapter of the 9/11 Commission Report that the above excerpts are drawn from:

Tolerance, the rule of law, political and economic openness, the extension of greater opportunities to women—these cures must come from within Muslim societies themselves(emphasis mine). The United States must support such developments. But this process is likely to be measured in decades, not years. It is a process that will be violently opposed by Islamist terrorist organizations, both inside Muslim countries and in attacks on the United States and other Western nations. The United States finds itself caught up in a clash within a civilization.

Sources and related reading:
Salafist (Islamist) Ideology

Saudi influences in the Netherlands. Links between the Salafist mission, radicalisation processes and Islamic terrorism.

Iraqi Insurgency Groups

9-11 Commission Report

"Islam, the West, and the World"

Muslim Brotherhood - Egypt

Other coverage - Security Watchtower

Posted by: Richard@hyscience at 03:12 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 912 words, total size 6 kb.