Gates of Vienna went down sometime on the morning of Wednesday, October 29. I posted this notice early the following morning. If you are reading this, it obviously means that the site has come back up.
The hosting service is working on the issue, which seems to have something to do with domain name servers. There’s no specific estimated time of resolution, so it will be interesting to see when our blog reappears.
A prominent right-wing Israeli activist named Yehuda Glick was shot and seriously wounded by an Arab assailant in Jerusalem. Mr. Glick advocated that Jews be granted increased access to the Temple Mount. In the wake of the shooting, Israeli authorities closed the Temple Mount to both Jews and Muslims.
In other news, a young unemployed Long Island man beheaded his mother and dragged her body out into the street before killing himself by jumping in front of a commuter train.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to Fjordman, Jerry Gordon, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
The following report from Erick Stakelbeck at CBN concerns the recruitment of Somalis in Minneapolis for the jihad in Iraq and Syria. Mr. Stakelbeck also takes a look at the phenomenon of “self-radicalization” — which, along with the mujahideen returning from the jihad in the Middle East, poses a significant security threat to Western nations.
Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for uploading this video:
Below are excerpts from the accompanying article at CBN:
ISIS in America: Radicalized in the Heartland
MINNEAPOLIS — Islamic State has engaged in a reign of terror across the Middle East, raping, pillaging, and beheading its way to a new caliphate.
Now a growing number of U.S. citizens are leaving America to join the brutal ISIS army. These recruits are being radicalized on U.S. soil and they may eventually return home.
It’s hard to imagine America’s heartland as a breeding ground for terrorism. Yet when news emerged that two U.S. citizens had been killed in Syria fighting alongside ISIS, the path led back to, of all places, Minnesota.
The two men were part of a growing number of young Muslims from Minneapolis and St. Paul who have answered the call of jihad (“holy” war).
At least a dozen young Muslims from the Twin Cities area have left their homes to travel to the Middle East and join ISIS. Some of them worshipped at the al-Farooq Mosque in a quiet suburb of Minneapolis.
An Egyptian-American man allegedly recruited young Somali Muslims from the mosque and helped send them to Syria.
Mosque officials say they banned Amir Meshal earlier this year when they learned he was preaching jihad. The suspected terror recruiter remains at large.
“There is an organization that makes this happen,” former sheriff Bob Fletcher told CBN News. “But usually there is one principal person that I call ‘the Guide’ that can take this person in this ideological state and guide them to Syria or wherever it might be.”
The following fascinating interview with a recruiter for the Islamic State was originally published by Der Spiegel and has been translated by Rembrandt Clancy.
You’ll notice that the interviewer is what is commonly referred to as a “moderate Muslim”. In his eagerness to find acceptable, humane parts of the Koran with which to confront his subject, he seems unaware that the Doctrine of Abrogation has rendered those verses irrelevant. The IS recruiter, in contrast, is fully versed in all the nuances of Islamic law.
“Islamic State” Recruiter Interviewed: “Democracy is something for Unbelievers”
What makes the “Islamic State” tick? How do their followers see the world? An IS-recruiter gives SPIEGEL ONLINE an account of how the extremists imagine the future. A disputatious discussion with an uncompromising radical.
Source: Spiegel Online
Translation: Rembrandt Clancy
by Hasnain Kazim
23 October 2014
The conditions of the Islamist [des Islamisten] are stringent: no photograph, no sound recordings; and it goes without saying that he will not divulge his real name, any more than reveal his country of origin. He says only that he is an Arab. His English is polished, with a British accent.
He calls himself Abu Sattar, a man of roughly 30 years with a thick, black, full beard reaching down to his chest, with a shaved upper lip, his head is shorn. He wears a black floor-length robe. In a black leather briefcase, he carries a Koran wrapped in a cloth.
In Turkey Abu Sattar recruits fighters for the terrorist militia, “Islamic State” (IS). He checks the basic cast of mind of interested parties who wish to travel from the many countries of the world to Turkey, whence they wish to go to war in Iraq or move to Syria. Many IS-followers, independently of one another, recommended him as a discussion leader, one they believe can best explain what the IS stands for. For many, he is something of an ideological paragon.
After some hesitation, Abu Sattar agrees to a meeting. He sets a date and promises to specify a location in good time; but then allows the arrangement to fall through, only to once more set up a meeting the next day, in the morning, in a public place. This time he actually surfaces: a man with brown eyes behind rimless glasses. He gives the impression of being self-confident and confrontational. He orders tea and allows a prayer chain with wooden beads to glide through his hands during the interview.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Assalamu alaikum.
Abu Sattar: Are you a Muslim?
SPIEGEL ONLINE: What part does that play here? For me, religion is a private matter.
Abu Sattar: Then why do you say “Assalamu alaikum”?
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Because it means “Peace be with you”, and I consider it a friendly greeting.
Abu Sattar: Therefore you are not a Muslim. But I knew that!
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why is your way of thinking within the “Islamic State” constantly driven by a division of the world into believers and unbelievers? Why is it, that in the “Islamic State” everything is always black and white, “we against the rest of the world”?
Australia has become the first Western nation to close its borders to travelers from Ebola-stricken countries in West Africa. Meanwhile, the governor of Italy’s Veneto region says that American soldiers returning from the Ebola zone should be quarantined at home in the USA rather than at the Vicenza airbase in northern Italy.
In other news, under pressure from the EU and animal rights groups, the Norwegian government has cut subsidies for seal hunting.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to Caroline Glick, Fjordman, Insubria, Jerry Gordon, Phyllis Chesler, Valerie Price, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
As reported in the news feed over the weekend, the Parliament Hill mujahid Michael Zehaf-Bibeau made a video prior to his murderous rampage last Wednesday at the Cenotaph and in the Parliament building in Ottawa. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police found the video on his person after he was shot and killed. They are still analyzing it, and have not yet released it to the public.
Surprisingly enough, the RCMP Commissioner didn’t shy away from talking about JIM at a press conference yesterday. Not only did he refer to jihad and Islam, but he also said Mr. Zehaf-Bibeau “praised Allah”.
Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for uploading this audio:
Below are excerpts from an article on the same topic from The Globe and Mail:
Ottawa shooter referred to Allah in video, RCMP says
Before he killed Corporal Nathan Cirillo and stormed Parliament last week, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau recorded a video that cited Canada’s foreign policy and made a religious reference, the head of the RCMP says.
RCMP don’t believe the video, recovered from the gunman, was shared but they continue to dig into whether anyone saw it and whether anyone helped Mr. Zehaf-Bibeau.
“He was quite deliberate, he was quite lucid and he was quite purposeful in articulating the basis for his actions, and they were in respect broadly to Canada’s foreign policy and also in respect of his religious beliefs,” RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson, describing the video, told reporters Monday after an appearance before a Senate committee.
He later said Mr. Zehaf-Bibeau referred specifically to “Allah,” or God in Arabic, in the video.
The video comes after one witness said Mr. Zehaf-Bibeau made reference to Iraq, where Canada is part of an international coalition against Islamic State extremists, after killing Cpl. Cirillo.
Mr. Paulson also said Monday that last week’s attacks were due more to a “distorted world view” than mental illness, specifically citing Mr. Zehaf-Bibeau’s “jihadist views.”
We reported on Saturday about a demonstration against Salafism by “right-wing extremists” in Cologne. Similar demonstrations have also taken place in Dresden under the leadership of an anti-Islamization group called PEGIDA.
Many thanks to JLH for translating this article about yesterday’s demo from Sächsischen Zeitung:
Demonstration Against Alleged “Islamization”
More than 500 Dresdeners demonstrated peacefully in the inner city yesterday against “religious war” on German soil. It was the second demonstration of a group called PEGIDA — “Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West.” The organizers intend to march in Dresden every Monday evening as long as the political system does not take on the problem.
Lutz Bahmann, one of the organizers, said to applause: “With understanding for all the misery and horror of the warlike confrontations in all the war-torn areas of the earth, we Germans and Europeans cannot be the reception center of the world, and bring these wars to our own streets, no matter how beautiful our land is.” He emphasized the rejection of violence, from whatever direction it may come. Isolated right extremist slogans could be heard, however.
After the protests had been announced, a large police presence cordoned off the demonstration. Last week, speakers for the Left Party had reported “harassment” of opponents of this allegedly “rightist” demonstration. This, however, was confirmed neither by the police nor the office of public order. The riots in Cologne may also have contributed to the police presence.
The following post is the result of various discussions Vlad Tepes and I had a few weeks ago.
When was the last time you heard of a beheading where the perpetrator was neither a Muslim nor a Mexican gangster?
And, out of all such beheaders, what percentage professed the Islamic faith?
I began this post more than a month ago, before the press of current events relegated it to the back burner. As a matter of coincidence, the very day I started writing it (September 25), a news story broke about a beheading that had occurred the day before at a food distribution facility in Oklahoma. The alleged killer (who was shot but not killed by an officer of the company) was a recent convert to Islam, and had attempted da’wa on his fellow employees before he was fired from the plant.
Most of the early media reports on this incident either failed to mention JIM or played down the Islamic aspect of the incident. This is typical of the way the MSM handles instances of grotesque barbaric violence carried out by Muslims — either reporters decline to discuss the religion of the perpetrator, or they hastily explain it away, before all the details of the case have been revealed, before the body parts have even been collected and the blood hosed off the floor. If possible, they avoid mentioning the killer’s Islamic name, even if it had been legally changed. A case in point is the late John Allen Williams, the Beltway Sniper. The media were extremely reluctant to use his preferred surname (Muhammad) and thereby assign his crimes a Mohammed Coefficient of 100%. In the weeks after his arrest, back in the fall of 2002, they used “Williams” for as long as they possibly could.
The media reports on the more recent “lone wolf” attacks in Canada and New York have used the same playbook. In most instances, the jihadis’ infidel names are the only ones mentioned by reporters. The perpetrators’ conversion to Islam is played down, or papered over. Their actions are ascribed to insanity, or poverty, or sunspot activity — anything to avoid looking at Islam and the ideology of jihad.
Such behavior on the part of the Fourth Estate simply follows the lead of our governments, which tell us repeatedly that such-and-such atrocity “has nothing to do with Islam”, regardless of the faith professed by the perpetrators, or their regular attendance at a well-known mosque, or which god they pray to five times a day, or what books they were reading just before their bomb belts detonated.
The corollary statement that “there was no connection to terrorism” is part of the same syndrome. Spokesmen for the Department of Homeland Security might as well hand such statements out to media people on a pre-printed card after each new atrocity. “Terrorism” is now commonly understood to mean “Islam”, so no incident, no matter how horrendous it is, no matter how many victims are killed, can possibly be a “terrorist” attack. “Workplace violence” — maybe.
Or “senseless violence”, which seems to be the phrase preferred by President Barack Hussein Obama. Fjordman has compiled a handy list of Mr. Obama’s utterances on the topic:
All of the formulae described above are examples of what I call “The Big Lie”. The core falsehood of this ideological complex is the assertion that Islam is not inherently violent. As an immediate corollary, anyone who commits violence in the name of Allah or Mohammed is perforce un-Islamic, and “does not represent true Islam.”
It is remarkable to hear Western political leaders — who are not Muslims, do not speak Arabic, and have no training in Islamic law — make such confident declarations about the true nature of Islam.
Why should we take David Cameron’s word on what constitutes “true Islam”? Why does John Kerry have any credibility when he pontificates on the nature of Islam?
Mind you, Mr. Obama may well be an expert on Islam, since he was raised as a Muslim. But that means he is also well-trained in the art of taqiyya, and knows exactly what to say about Islam, true or otherwise, when the infidel is listening.
And, whether it is taqiyya, stupidity, or political expedience, the rest of the governing class in the Multicultural West is singing the same tune:
[Lower House Speaker Laura] Boldrini said the group had deviated from Islam…. ISIS is “religious deviance using religion for political purposes; that’s not Islam,” she said.
How does she know what Islam is or isn’t?
All U.S. troops who have been sent to Ebola-stricken countries in West Africa will be quarantined for 21 days before they are sent home. According to the Defense Department, the troops will be isolated at an airbase in Italy for the required period before returning to the United States.
In other news, the British government has decided that it will no longer contribute to any search-and-rescue operations to aid illegal migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe,
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Diana West, Erick Stakelbeck, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, Steen, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
The following essay by the prominent Austrian journalist Christian Ortner was originally published on his website. Many thanks to JLH for the translation:
The EU as an Accomplice to Terror
by Christian Ortner
October 14, 2014This past weekend the EU decided to devote half a billion euros of tax money to rebuild the Gaza Strip, which was partially destroyed during the last war. And since this money, of course, is non-existent, that much debt will accrue.
Just a reminder: This summer, the Gaza Strip was used by the governing Hamas regime as a launch pad for more than 2,000 rockets fired at Israeli schools, hospitals, a nuclear research center and other civilian targets. And because Israel had the unmitigated gall to defend itself militarily instead of peaceably observing, there is now considerable damage to buildings. Not least because Hamas is especially fond of using schools and hospitals as launching platforms; several of them in Gaza are in ruins.
If you hold your nose, you can half-heartedly argue that it is appropriate on “humanitarian grounds” for the EU to shell out for rebuilding Gaza. For now, we can ignore the fact that the population of Gaza democratically elected Hamas. The EU flushes tons of moolah down the toilet for other nonsense, including some hundreds of millions to Turkey.
Dave Petteys returns with a brief look at the Islamic doctrine of “individual Jihad”, and how it is misunderstood by the media and political leaders in Western countries.
“Terrorism” in the West
by Dave Petteys
Act for America 5280 Coalition
All the attacks in Ottawa and elsewhere are Islamic Jihad, not the work of “deranged young men who have been economically marginalized”, (as the Progressives attempt to rationalize the phenomenon). These attacks conform to the strategy first formulated by Abu Musab al-Suri[1]., an Al Qaeda member and ideologue of Jihad. He rightly recognized the ability of the security services to take down hierarchical Jihad organizations and called for the following:
One only has to look at the online Al Qaeda magazine Inspire[2] or the ISIS Magazine Dabiq[3] and read the newspapers to see this strategy being made manifest. To term such attacks “lone wolf” is to misunderstand and ignore the Abu Musab al-Suri strategy: the attackers may be solitary, but they are not “alone”, nor are they without support.
The most bizarre aspect of all this disinformation and denial is the degree to which the government and the media try to disassociate Jihad from Islam. This catastrophic misunderstanding of Islamic doctrine, fostered by Muslim groups in the West, is the main issue. So let’s straighten this out!
The Qur’an is a collection of “recitations” of Muhammad’s revelations as taken down and recorded by his companions. The early “Meccan” Suras were conciliatory, peaceful and tolerant. They were necessarily so, owing to the fact that Muhammad’s movement was weak in those early days. After the Hijra (migration) to Medina, and the invention of Jihad, Muhammad’s movement became strong and ruled all of Arabia within ten years. His revelations became less tolerant and more violent.
According to German intelligence, the Islamic State now possesses shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles. The anti-aircraft missiles are of Russian origin, and at some point belonged to the Syrian army. They are capable of shooting down passenger airliners at low altitudes.
In other news, the Parliament Hill jihadi Michael Zehaf Bibeau reportedly prepared a video prior to his deadly attacks last week. The RCMP say they are in the process of analyzing the footage, and are not ready to release it yet. However, we can rest assured that the video has nothing to do with Islam.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, RR, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
The following op-ed about the ubiquity of Salafism and support for the Islamic State, in Europe as well as in the Middle East, was originally published in Wina magazine. Many thanks to JLH for the translation:
The Caliphate Next Door
October 13, 2014
Everyone is presently watching the “Islamic State” in the Near East. But there are hundreds of like-minded Islamic towns all over Europe. Terror is among us; it has just not revealed itself.
by Oliver Jeges
For months now in Germany and Austria, we have been hearing about a subject that we thought had been all talked out: Islam. Not a day passes between Hamburg and Vienna, Istanbul and London, Stockholm and Cairo, without some Muslim flipping out because his pride, his honor or his feelings have been in injured. And since the turn of the millennium, terrorism in the name of Islam has become as routine in the news as the weather report. The usual car-bomb in Baghdad, Islamabad or Abuja, the traditional assassination attempt in Syria or Gaza, no longer capture anyone’s attention. Such events have become too “normal.” You could say, it’s just a cultural peculiarity among Orientals.
Everywhere there is Islam, there is Islamism. They are Siamese twins. One cannot survive without the other because they have grown together.
The Takbir, or Allah’s Index Finger as the symbol of an entire youth movement… No problem if you feel good as a “teenie terror.” A milieu without context is releasing these teenagers into an uncertain future.
IS — the Islamic State — had to show up so that the subject of Islam would become prominent in the media again. The caliphate proclaimed by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, its leader, gives a new twist to the reportage. How brutal and insouciant Islam’s evil face is! IS adherents stone adulterous women, crucify “infidel” Christians, dispossess minority Yazidis from Iraq and outlaw any influence which they believe is not compatible with the pure teaching of the Koran.
And for the first time we notice that this is no mere regional hot spot in the Near East. IS is recruiting its fighters from all over the world. More than 2,000 of them are from Europe, including Germans, British, Austrians, Dutch. Even an Australian Muslim with his underage children joined the jihad. It is true that the the caliphate is “only” raging through Syria and Iraq. But the ideology that makes these terrible actions possible has already found its way here.
There is a Salafist Presence in Almost Every European City
There are people who interpret the Koran literally and reject Western values such as the separation of church and state, democracy, freedom of speech, gender equality, sexual self-determination and international law. In Germany’s Wuppertal, there is a sharia patrol after the British model. Young men patrol nightly to enforce Muslim moral order. If there is a too casually dressed Muslim female, a young Turk with a bottle of beer in his hand, a Egyptian-German standing in front of a gambling hall, the watchmen are on the spot. London has had these morality police for at least two years. Young Muslims — converts included — discipline anyone who does not follow the rules of Islamic law. This form of intimidation is the rule, and the European rule of law undertakes little against it.
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Why I Write
by Fjordman
Why write?
What is the point of continuing my writing activities? I have asked myself that question quite a few times.
There is a theory that the Western ruling elites do not care as long as the huge problems of their Multicultural social experiment only hurt common people. They will not react until the problems target them directly. On October 22, 2014, there was an Islamic terror attack in Canada’s capital city Ottawa. An armed Muslim terrorist tried to enter the Parliament. He was fortunately shot and killed by the 58-year-old sergeant-at-arms Kevin Vickers. If the terrorist had succeeded in entering, he might have been able to kill many politicians who believe in dialogue.
This Islamic terrorist was stopped at the very last moment. However, others will no doubt try again.
Still, the ruling elites did not respond forcefully. I looked in vain for senior Western political leaders saying that we most now halt or at least restrict Muslim immigration. I did not see any. True, we would then still face the problem of converts to Islam, but at least the problem would be smaller and more manageable.
Once again, the useless US President Barack Hussein Obama refused to link this Islamic attack to Islam. Obama merely suggested that it was “senseless violence.” As the Canadian-born author Mark Steyn commented, this was a targeted Islamic terror attack aimed for the very heart of the state. It was hardly senseless.
If an attempted Islamic attack on a Western parliament is not enough to wake Western leaders up, then what does it take? There are more Muslims in Europe than in North America. Do they believe that this is the last Islamic attempt to target Western parliaments? The next one could hit lawmakers in London, Paris, Berlin, Rome or Madrid. What about the EU’s institutions in the increasingly Islamic city of Brussels? How long will the security services be able to keep the rapidly growing number of militant Muslims at bay? When will we see an attack on the European Parliament, the EU Commission, or perhaps NATO’s headquarters in the same city?