Tag Archives: Terrorism

Al Aqeda, Arab Revolutions, Cairo, Media, Muslims, Saudi Arabia

Friedman Dumps Faithful Abdo for Two Saudi Intellectuals…….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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“Abdul Rahman al-Rashed, one of the most respected Arab journalists, wrote Monday in his column in Al-Sharq Al-Awsat: “Protests against the recent terrorist attacks in France should have been held in Muslim capitals, rather than Paris, because, in this case, it is Muslims who are involved in this crisis and stand accused. … The story of extremism begins in Muslim societies, and it is with their support and silence that extremism has grown into terrorism that is harming people. It is of no value that the French people, who are the victims here, take to the streets………….. “Muslims need to ‘upgrade their software,’ which is programmed mainly by our schools, television and mosques — especially small mosques that trade in what is forbidden,” Egyptian intellectual Mamoun Fandy wrote in Al-Sharq Al-Awsat…………”

Friedman has finally dumped his all-wise Arab taxi driver. Abdo in Cairo, Abed in Beirut, Abul-Abed in humorless Jordan have all been ditched in favor of something new (at least new to me). Something he considers loftier (I disagree on this one). Friedman has settled on the prototype of great Arab thinker and intellectuals. And where did he find both? In a newspaper owned by Saudi Crown Prince Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. Yep, in Prince Salman’s Asharq Alawsat. That font of intellectual power.

Al-Rashed, who is “one of the most-respected Arab journalists” but only in Riyadh and the Gulf states. He used to be the editor in chief of Asharq Alawsat, and is now general manager of Saudi semi-official Alarabiya network but also moonlights in Asharq Alawsat. Both parts of the vast Saudi royal media that spans the Middle East and Europe. Mr. Fandy is ‘very close’ to the Saudis. I remember him mainly for ranting during the late Mubarak months, maybe 2010 0r 2009, about the Muslim Brotherhood members of the tame parliament being Iranian agents and that they should not be allowed in the puppet Mubarak parliament. Apparently he thought that parliament was not puppet enough (the next one will surely be puppet enough). I mean, you can’t get any more intellectual than that.
Now one of them wants a million-man Arab march, but of course a march not in Saudi Arabia, the incubator of Wahhabism. I recall last time a million Arabs marched was in Cairo in 2011. They were eventually betrayed and the old Mubarak regime is back in power, even more beholden to Saudi and UAE money.

Besides, it is impossible to get any prominent Arabs, besides Mahmoud Abbas, to publicly claim that “Je suis Charlie”. Almost universally Arabs believe that Charlie Hebdo blasphemed the Prophet, which it did of course (the French are deep into blaspheming, and not just against Islam). Unless Friedman and his “intellectual” pals can get Generalissimo Al Sisi and a certain ailing old king to set the tone by joining the march. The palace muftis can also tag along for the ride.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Al-Qaeda, Caliphate, Terrorism

Has Success Spoiled the Jihadi Terrorists?…….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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“Al Qaeda is on the run”
“Al Qaeda is being defeated”
“Mission Accomplished“
“Oh, grow up, will you?” Me

After the Al-Qaeda attacks of September 2011 on New York and the Pentagon, it was inevitable that emulating them would be harder, nearly impossible. Before that, major Al Qaeda operations were mostly confined to Asia, Yemen and some attacks on residential complexes housing Americans in eastern Saudi Arabia in the 1990s. Those caused some American deaths and casualties, but they were not spectacular.

The September attacks made Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda household names in most of the world. They also attracted new money and volunteers to the Wahhabi terrorist group. Still, there were no further attacks in the West of the kind that was widely expected. With time there was widespread acceptance of such cliches like “Al Qaeda is on the run“, “Al Qaeda is being defeated“. Other versions of “Mission Accomplished“. Which brings us to Iraq and Syria and the wider Arab uprisings that exploded in the spring of 2011.

The Wahhabi terrorists established a foothold, a base of operations in Western Iraq. They were struggling to get traction by 2010, when the Syrian uprising started in 2011. Wahhabis from the Persian Gulf essentially bought and took over the Syrian uprising. They quickly shifted the political uprising in Syria into a sectarian conflict of the kind they have been good at instigating in the Gulf region and across the wider Islamic world. Money and volunteers and weapons quickly found their way into Syria, and Iraq, allowed by a helpful Islamist regime in Turkey. What I once called the Erdogan Trail was started. Money from the Gulf region, volunteer Jihadis from all over the world, and arms continued to flow through Turkey and into Syria.

The sudden availability of big money would spoil anyone and anything. Couple that with weapons and pliable potential volunteers, and you have the makings of an earthly Jihadi paradise, or hell, depending on your point of view. The Wahhabi Jihadis started splitting away from the distant ‘headquarters’ in relatively faraway Pakistan. Even moving the HQ of the Saudi mothership, Al-Qaeda In the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), to nearby Yemen did not seem to stem that trend.

Several years ago we wrote, I and others, of Al-Qaeda franchising its activities to local groups in Africa, the Arab world or the Far East. But apparently the franchises soon started declaring their independence from their distant colleagues. That was strengthened after the death of Bin Laden, the only charismatic leader in the old Al-Qaeda leadership structure. The doddering Egyptian Al-Zawahri is not an inspiring type of person, nor are the few Arab Salafis around him.

Success has spoiled the Wahhabi terrorists, and turned them into a bunch of rival groups. But wait, that has not been bad for the Jihadis. It has been good for the “cause”. Just look at the geography: they now control large swathes of territory in the Arab world, North Africa, and Northwest Africa. For the first time in modern history. They probably have a few small swathes of territory in several major cities outside the Middle East as well.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Europe, Muslims, Sectarian, Terrorism

Salafi Sectarian War and Terrorism in Europe……..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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Jan 2, 2015:  Reports of  protests against anti-Muslim attacks in Sweden.

Jan 5, 2015: Neo-Nazi anti-Muslim immigrant rallies in Germany.

Jan 7, 2015: Salafi terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris.

Jan 9, 2015: Two hostage situations involving Salafi terrorists in the                              Paris area.

What has gone below the radar in recent years is the low level Muslim vs. Muslim campaign being waged across Europe. It is a one-way Salafi vs. (other) Muslim campaign. It is overshadowed by the general Jihadi threat in Europe and by the sectarian war being waged by Wahhabi salafis against everybody else in the Middle East and by the Western military campaigns in the Middle East.

It is one-sided campaign in Europe by Salafis against other Muslims, especially Shi’as. It verges on violence, although it is more political so far. Salafi (Sunni) groups automatically strongly oppose the establishment of Shi’a mosques in European cities and try to derail them. Even as they complain of European prejudice against Muslims (which also exists).

Sometimes it gets violent. Recently a Belgian court sentenced a Moroccan to 27 years in prison for setting fire to the largest Shi’a mosque in Brussels and killing its Imam. He was acquitted of committing “terrorism” but convicted of setting the fire and causing death. This is not the first time Salafi terrorist plots have been uncovered in Europe against other Muslims (usually Shi’as). A Salafi who was arrested recently in North America admitted that he had plans to attack Shi’a establishments.

What some of the Wahhabi Imams in Europe teach is not just to go to the Middle East and fight the Western infidels. What the dominant message is, what resonates more, is their exhortation to go to the Middle East and fight/kill ‘other’ Muslims who are different. The thousands of civilians who are massacred every year by terrorist bombs and mass murdered in Iraq are Muslims. As are almost all those beheaded and shot in Syria.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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France, Jihad, Terrorism

Paris Non-Suicidal Massacre: the Aftermath……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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The terrorists who attacked Charlie Hebdo in Paris are still on the loose. There is much speculation about the identity of the attackers, their allegiance, their particular connections. Could it be to the Salafi terrorists in Syria (and Iraq) who are loyal to the Caliphate? To West Africa and the Sahel region? France has always been active militarily in Africa. France has also recently participated in the air attacks on the Hollywood Caliphate of ISIS in Syria.
It is important that this was not a suicide attack. It was not meant to send three terrorists to the rewards and diversions of Paradise and to inspire others to follow suit. Here is what might happen back in the Middle East:

  • The governments of Egypt, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia may soon start campaigning to tie the Muslim Brotherhood to the attack.
  • British PM David Cameron, as usual, heartily agrees that this is an avenue to be explored. If only because the Saudi princes and Emirati potentates say so. All based on the principle that “money talks louder”.
  • Benyamin Netanyahu is no doubt trying to find a plausible Iranian-Hezbollah angle. (Plausibility not mandatory in this case).
  • Netanyahu will be supported by the Washington Post‘s David Ignatius, who can quote more of the usual credible Saudi and Bahraini intelligence officials than anyone else in the world.
  • Representative Louie Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) will call Obama a weakling ninny who is afraid to start a war against somebody………. anybody.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Al-Qaeda, France, Jihadis, Terrorism

Wahhabi Terrorism: Why Paris? Why Now?……..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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My first thought this morning on seeing the news was: why Paris? Why the most beautiful city in the world (it is true, not a cliché, to say that)?

During the 1980s, when I was a youngster, I used to travel occasionally to Paris on matters related to my work. I recall that several times whenever I landed at Orly or Charles De Gaulle, that would be followed by a terrorist attack. I used to, stupidly, joke that I had nothing to do with it.

Paris had several small attacks in those days, but nothing on the scale of these attacks we see nowadays. Those were the days when the Salafi Wahhabis were allies of the West in Afghanistan. Only the Russians, the Soviets, called them terrorists in those days. In the West, they were called freedom fighters. In the West, the words Mujahideen and Jihad were not dirty words yet.

Now the deed is done: the original Afghan incubator of Wahhabi terrorism is spent. It has been replaced with the Syrian (and Iraqi) incubator of Wahhabi terrorism.

Some things never change, however: petroleum fueled the Arab “Afghans” of the 1980s; petroleum fuels the terrorists of the new century. Not just financing: volunteers and weapons and, more important, a warped Salafi ideology.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Jerusalem, Terrorism

American Christian Terrorist Wingnuts Hit Jerusalem?………..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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“Adam Everett Livvix may or may not be a Christian Zionist from Texas, or he may be a fugitive from Illinois, or both. He also has claimed he was a U.S. Navy SEAL. And he was indicted in Israel last week on charges he plotted to blow up sites holy to Islam. Livvix, 30, is now in solitary confinement in the maximum-security Ayalon prison in Ramla, a city near Tel Aviv. According to the prosecutor’s submission to the court outlining reasons for the indictment, which was obtained by The Daily Beast, there would seem to be ample incriminating evidence, but there also remain quite a few mysteries. Much of the material in the dossier was gathered by the Shin Bet………..”
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Al-Qaeda, Arab Politics, GCC, Muslim Brotherhood, Terrorist Lists, UAE, United Arab Emirates

UAE Declares Almost Everybody a Terrorist: from Yemen to Italia to Soumi………

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“The Muslim Brotherhood was designated a Terrorist Group by the United Arab Emirates Saturday, joining several other organizations that received the same designation from the UAE, including the U.S.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, or, CAIR. According to an Associated Press report, the terrorist designation bestowed by the UAE, puts added pressure on the Muslim Brotherhood by putting them in the same category of Islamic extremist groups as the Islamic State group, and even the Nusra Front which is an al-Qaida affiliate in Syria. Along with the Muslim Brotherhood, the United Arab Emirates tagged 83 other groups with the terrorist group label, such as Al-Islah, an Emirati group that many believe has connections with the Muslim Brotherhood, and whose members have been subject to prosecution in the Emirates federation………………”

The list is very long, and it includes some surprising groups like the American CAIR and Associazione Musulmani Italiani (Association of Italian Muslims). That last one immediately had me yell: WTF! Is that some kind of leftover (feloul) Fascist group? I am guessing it is either affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, or maybe for some reason the Al Nahayan Brothers don’t like it. Still, an Italian group? But that is okay: there are also on the list French and other groups that even the CIA has probably not heard of, like The Finnish Islamic Association (Suomen Islam-seurakunta) and the Muslim Association of Sweden (Sveriges muslimska forbund, SMF). 

I did not see Hezbollah of Lebanon on the list, although there are several alleged regional Hezbollah offshoots, real or imagined. Missing also on the terrorist list are the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, the Saudi Commission for the Propagation of Vice, the Communist Party of Belize, and dissident members of the Nabati Poets Society. No mention of the Mossad either. Or maybe they just listed every Muslim group they are not financing. But some of these groups are bona fide terrorist groups, literally cutthroats. Some, not all.

There are some ‘funny’ political inserts among these groups. The trick has been played more discreetly by the Saudis: to declare a bunch of people and groups as ‘terrorists’, and to include among them dissidents and reformists and other reactionaries. Hoping the Western powers will ‘bite’ and declare the same as ‘terrorists’. Notably British PM David Cameron, as well and uber-mercenary Tony Blair, have been pushing for the MB to be declared “terrorists” in the West. The reason? Follow the oil money………

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Al-Qaeda, Jihadis, Syria, US Foreign Policy

David Drugeon of Khorasan Group: a Mission Accomplished?……..

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These days we hear of some “top” terror groups and their experts only after they are bombed, possibly killed, in the field.
A few weeks ago the media reported, based on official leaks, that a leader of the Khorasan Group (they are terrorists, not a contracting or industrial company) was killed in a precision bombing in Syria. I tweeted that if he were killed, it will become acknowledged quickly. We Muslims usually don’t deny death: there are certain rites and services that will be observed publicly. As it turned out, there was no acknowledgement of his death back home, which means that he was most likely not killed at that time. So we were told that maybe another leader was hit.

Now there are reports that another leading Khorasan member, converted Frenchman David Drugeon, has been bombed to death in Idlib, Syria. This one is more difficult to ascertain: his family are French, presumably Catholic.

Was he a ‘key bombmaker’ as the officials now claim? Was it leaked so soon in the spirit of the current American popular need for “instant gratification” and the need for a “mission accomplished“? Time will tell, not anonymous ‘officials’.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Crusade, ethnic cleansing, Islam, Muslims, Religion, Sectarian, Wahhabi

Worldwide Wahhabi Crusade Turns More Violent……….

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Yesterday was Ashura, a special day in a special month in the Middle East. But to some it was just another day that brought new opportunities for more sectarian bloodshed.
We occasionally complain about discrimination against Muslims in Europe. That is mainly because we expect better, much better, in the Western democracies than we do in our own “Islamic” region, where your tribe or faith or sect decides your fate. Where your tribe or faith or sect often seals your fate, in some places quite violently.

Just read the headlines from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and Iraq, and other places. In Iraq it is a daily occurrence, with cowardly terrorist bombings of unarmed civilian. In dysfunctional nuclear Pakistan, from Quetta to Karachi, it is becoming an almost daily occurrence. Even Afghanis kill their compatriots of another sect in Pakistan.

The news headlines yesterday did not bring anything new. From Pakistan to Saudi Arabia and through Iraq, many people were targeted and killed and maimed simply because of their sect. Most of the victims of terrorist killings were as usual Shi’as. It was a good day for mass killings from a Wahhabi Jihadist point of view, given that it was a special Shi’a day of pilgrimage. Many unarmed humans packed together practicing their faith, risking their lives, some of them knowing the risks. The killers were also Muslims. It was as usual part of an onging systematic campaign of killings, a one-way terrorist war against Shi’as. There is some occasional sporadic misguided retaliation, mainly in Pakistan or in Iraq, but the trend is clear.

This war goes beyond our native region, spreading into Europe. I recall at least one case of a planned mosque in a Scandinavian city a few years ago. The strong opposition to the mosque did not come from the native Europeans. It came from other dominant Muslims who were of another sect. A Shi’a mosque was strongly opposed, fought against, by Wahhabis in a European country. Establishing a Shi’a mosque is even harder, nay impossible, in many Muslim countries. It is impossible, verboten, in places that have strong Wahhabi influences like Indonesia, Malaysia or Egypt. In these places people have to practice their rites ins secret and risk arrest or worse. Sounds familiar to some in old Europe, doesn’t it?

It is almost like a Wahhabi crusade, absofuckinglutely no pun intended. As violent and with as much indiscriminate mass killings as in the original European crusades.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Islam, Jihadis, Sectarian, Terrorism

Ashura Time is Terrorism Time in the Lands of Jihadist Islam………..

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“The Islamic State jihadist group has claimed responsibility for two car bomb attacks against Shiites in Baghdad, with Iraq under tight security Monday ahead of the annual Ashura commemorations………”

This was just one example. From Pakistan to Saudi Arabia and Iraq, Jihadi terrorists put extra effort in their usual attempts to massacre more Shi’as. This was the Ashura Day, a special day in Islam but especially a day of more historic significance for the Shi’as. Thus the efforts were doubled across the region and beyond.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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