Newsweek: ISIS Supporters Suggest Helpful Ways to Make Forest Fires Worse

So far, there is no definitive evidence that the devastating fires that have been blazing across California were caused by orthodox Muslims. But, quoting from Newsweek:

The Islamic State militant group (ISIS) described the death and destruction associated with the recent California wildfires in its latest newsletter, days after supporters suggested laying gasoline-filled bottles in the woods to inflict further damage.

ISIS has not claimed responsibility for the raging blazes that have killed at least 41 people and injured 100 more across California, but the jihadis appeared eager to share the news of what they called "the worst fire disaster in the history of the United States."

ISIS in the past has encouraged its followers to use fire as a weapon against the West. Featuring a flaming cover, the fifth issue of the Al-Rumiyah English-language digital magazine, released in January, included instructions for "Arson Attacks" under the "Just Terror Tactics" section (see photo).

"Throughout history and until the present day, incendiary attacks have played a significant role in modern and guerilla warfare, as well as in 'lone wolf' terrorism. Such attacks have been behind the destruction of towns, neighborhoods, and public, private, and governmental property, while likewise claiming numerous lives," the article read.

The piece included instructions on how to create such flammable weapons as molotov cocktails and when to strike, in order to best target "Crusaders" and to send them from "the fire of this world to the inferno of Hellfire." It specifically includes "forest fires" as a method of attack.

Read the whole article here: ISIS Celebrates California Wildfires Death Toll As Supporters Suggest Ways to Make it Worse.

What is ISIS's purpose? Besides Islam's prime directive, there is a more specific strategy being executed: What Does ISIS Hope to Achieve With Random Violence?

Read more about ISIS's use of fire, which they recommend for the beginner jihadist: ISIS Has a New Weapon: Fire.

ISIS isn't the only one that has recommended fire as a jihadist weapon. According to an article in Wildfire Today back in 2012, "A magazine published by members of al Qaeda has called for Western Muslims to wage war within the United States, urging them to engage in lone wolf attacks, including setting forest fires. According to ABC News, a recent issue of Inspire magazine has surfaced on jihadi forums with one article titled 'It Is of Your Freedom to Ignite a Firebomb,' which gives detailed instructions on how to build an 'ember bomb' in a forest in the United States, and suggested Montana as a choice location due to the rapid population growth in forested areas.

"A previous issue of the magazine contained information on how to construct remote-controlled explosives, and helpfully listed the needed parts along with instructions and photos."

Read more about that here: 'Unleash Hell': New Al Qaeda magazine describes in detail how to start huge forest fires across the U.S. with instructions on how to make 'ember bombs'

William Scott, a former National Security Agency official, says that after U.S. Navy SEALs killed al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden, they “captured a treasure trove of material that provided some unprecedented insight into the al-Qaida plans. And one of those was a detailed campaign for starting fires throughout the [American] West.”

“U.S. officials have pretty much determined that some of the fires that burned in California [in 2011] were ignited by al-Qaida operatives,” Scott said. (Source)

Terror funding expert Rachel Ehrenfeld says that Russia’s security chief, Aleksandr Bortnikov, has warned, “Al-Qaida was complicit in recent forest fires in Europe” as part of terrorism’s “strategy of a thousand cuts.”

“Since then, more fatwas advocating that ‘fire is a cheap, easy and effective tool for economic warfare’ have been issued,” Ehrenfeld wrote. “They’ve included detailed instructions for constructing remote-controlled ember bombs, and how to set fires without leaving a trace.”

Read the rest of the article: Are Terrorists Setting U.S. Wildfires?

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ISIS and Al Qaeda Urge Muslims to Kill People for Christmas

Christopher Holton makes some points worth reading (as usual) in his latest post, More on the Jihad Threat this Christmas and New Year's Season. But his main point is a warning. Here are some excerpts:

Both the Islamic State and Al Qaeda have issued audio, video or online threats to attack the West this Christmas.

These threats focus on European population centers, such as Paris and London, and New York City in America, though the possibility of Jihadi attacks in other places in the West can certainly not be discounted. History has shown that places as diverse geographically as Brussels, Berlin and San Bernardino have all been targeted, especially at Christmas time.

Warnings in Jihadist literature and on Jihadi social media aren’t meant to give us a heads up. They are meant to inspire individual Jihadis to rise up and attack, in this case during the Christmas season. If recent history is any indication, we will see an act of deadly jihad somewhere in the West as a result of these communications.

The Christmas and New Year season is a particularly high-risk period as it offers unusually large numbers of potentially high-value and high-casualty targets, not just in places like New York, London, Paris and Berlin, but in just about every major city in the West.

The holiday season brings large crowds at sporting events, Christmas celebrations and ceremonies, churches, parks, restaurants and other gathering locations. In addition, the holiday season is also characterized by high volumes of leisure travel leading to large numbers of travellers in airports and train depots. The vast number of potential targets makes it virtually impossible for homeland security and law enforcement agencies to deploy enough personnel to successfully prevent every possible attack.

The Western holiday season is particularly attractive to Islamic jihadists because any successful attack, even a minor one, becomes a propaganda victory that can inspire others to follow suit and aid in Jihadist organization recruitment (despite what the U.S. government has said, Jihadis don’t recruit based on the prison at Gitmo; they recruit based on their successful attacks).

Read Holton's whole article here (and subscribe to his updates): More on the Jihad Threat this Christmas and New Year's Season.

Along the same lines, he also reports that a pro-ISIS group has called for attacks on Western children.

Do you know what orthodox Muslims hope to accomplish with this kind of random violence? It's worth knowing and sharing with people. Find out here: What Does ISIS Hope to Achieve With Random Violence?

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Muhammad Was All About Love

Someone posted this on a Facebook page. It wasn't a counterjihad page, and it's a popular page, so it got lots of comments, many of them positive. But one commenter had this concise answer:

Love was not Muhammad's religion. According to Islamic history, Muhammad kidnapped people and held them for ransom, he ordered assassinations, he took slaves, he tortured a rabbi by building a fire on the rabbi's chest, he oversaw the beheading of 800 Jewish men, and took one of those men's wives as his sex slave.

I like how this comment just sticks to facts, doesn't get hysterical over the ridiculousness of the posted meme, and doesn't even really say everything that could be said, but it was enough. If anyone reads that and thinks, "No, it can't be," they can easily look up any of those factoids and find out that — surprise — they are all true. That's enough of a reality check to change anyone's general opinion about Islam, and a powerful refutation of this ridiculous meme.

Citizen Warrior is the author of the book, Getting Through: How to Talk to Non-Muslims About the Disturbing Nature of Islam and also writes for Inquiry Into Islam, History is Fascinating, and Foundation for Coexistence. Subscribe to Citizen Warrior updates here. You can send an email to CW here. 

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What If Islam Really Is Different?

The following is the "About Us" page on TheReligionOfPeace.com. It was so good I gained permission to republish it here (and on Inquiry Into Islam).

TheReligionofPeace.com (TROP) is a pluralistic, non-partisan site concerned with Islam's true political and religious teachings according to its own texts. The purpose is to underscore the threat that Islam poses to human dignity and freedom, part of which includes documenting the violence and dysfunction that ensues as a direct consequence of this religion's supremacist teachings.

TROP is not associated with any organization. The site does not promote any religion, but it is not hostile to religion. We generally support the rights of atheists, Christians, Hindus, Jews, homosexuals, women, Muslims and anyone else on the planet to live as they wish without violating the rights of others.

TheReligionofPeace.com strongly condemns any attempt to harm or harass any Muslim anywhere in the world because of their religion. Every human being is entitled to be treated as an individual and judged only by his or her own words and deeds. (see About Muslims).

We also denounce any act of vandalism against mosques or other property, including juvenile attempts to offend Muslims by desecrating copies of the Quran. (The best way of discrediting the Quran is to tell non-Muslims what it actually says about them).

At the same time, we see no use in pretending that Islam is just another religion - which always seems to be the assumption of those preferring not to look too closely.

In fact, Islam is dreadfully unique — and it should be OK to say so.

What other religion's most devoted members videotape themselves cutting people's throats while screaming praises to their god? What other faith has tens of thousands of terrorists across the globe united by an explicit commitment to advance the cause of their religion by pursuing horrific mass murder and mutilation?

What other religion has clerics lauded as 'moderates', 'bridge-builders', and advocates of 'peace and tolerance' who, at best cannot even bring themselves to condemn suicide bombers or denounce Islamist terror organizations, or at worst actually supportterrorism, wife-beating, female genital mutilation, praise Islamist assassins and justify the killing of apostates and homosexuals?

What other religion kills innocent people over cartoons and teddy bears, burns poets and intellectuals alive and murders humanitarian workers of other faiths who are merely trying to help them?

What other religion childishly brags about its growth while at the same time openly denies other religions equal opportunity to evangelize — and even endorses killing those who leave?

What other religion has prominent PR organizations and charities so closely tied to terrorism - organizations like CAIR, which whine about dress codes and rubber ducks in the West while ignoring the Jihad genocide of thousands in Darfur?

What other religion has verses in its holy book that remind men of their divine permission to beat their wives and rape their slaves?

The list could go on (and does — each day on TheReligionofPeace.com). Islam so routinely produces horrible atrocities in the name of Allah that no one is all that surprised when...

Adults are tied to a tree or planted in the ground and bludgeoned to death by fundamentalists for engaging in consensual sex...

A New York woman trying to file for divorce is beheaded by her husband, who also happens to be the founder of a Muslim-American TV channel dedicated to combating "misconceptions" and "stereotypes" about Islam...

One of Europe's largest mosques publicly eulogizes a terrorist who killed for the cause of persecuting Christians...

Religious leaders are charged by authorities with plotting spectacular acts of mass murder in the name of their god...

A Christian woman is arrested, raped and tortured by police who also starve her children in an explicit effort to get her to return to Islam...

Gunmen take time out to pray to Allah in amidst shooting and torturing dozens of innocent people at a shopping mall because they are not true believers as a clericapplauds...

Clerics advocate raping virgins prior to executing them for verbal crimes and political dissent...

Pollsters admit that about 1 out of 3 Muslims worldwide (450 million) view the terrorism of 9/11 as justified...

The most prominent self-proclaimed Muslim "civil rights" group in America (CAIR) bluntly refuses to condemn an organization (Hamas) that kills innocent people specifically in the name of Islam...

A Christian is murdered in front of his own family for leaving Islam, and his children are then kidnapped and 'conscripted' by his killers...Muslims express no outrage when an admitted terrorist is assigned by a government to oversee "Islamic Affairs", nor even when unrepentant child killers are invited to make the holy pilgrimage with VIP treatment... 80% of all federal terror prosecutions involve a religion that is practiced by only 1% of all Americans...Each of the top 10 global terrorists in the world happens to share a devout commitment to the same religion...

How shocking any of this would be if it didn't involve the Islamic religion. As it is, much of it barely registers in the media. The very fact that the bar of expectation is set so low for "the Religion of Peace" underscores just how different it really is.

No other religion has to attach "phobia" on the end of its name in order to bully others into silence - lest they be accused of harboring irrational fear for suggesting that Islam is different. Yet, all other religions combined do not account for even a fraction of terrorism in the name of their god that Islam produces each day. No religion is so demanding of respect while doing so little to earn it.

In fact, Islam is more than a religion. It is a rigid political and cultural system with a mandate to conquer and govern the lives of others via necessary force "until religion is only for Allah." Violence is sanctioned by the Quran, a book which not once tells Muslims to love those outside the faith.

The enemy of this orthodoxy is not just intellectual dissent and free speech, but human freedom. The divine charter of Islam is to impose itself and thus prevent the individual from discovering a different meaning for their own lives.

Islam breeds arrogance and self-absorption, which accounts for the collective petulance and perpetual grievance that characterizes Muslim populations in general — along with the astonishing unwillingness to extend equal moral consideration to those outside the religion.

This disregard for others is rooted in the supremacist ideology of the Quran and Islamic law, which unashamedly draws the sharpest distinction between those within the group of believers and those without - towards whom arbitrary denigration is cast and hatred, harsh treatment and eternal punishment is prescribed.

As a consequence, not a day goes by without someone, somewhere in the world being horribly murdered by devout Muslims in the name of this religion - over ten thousand persons each year. More innocent lives were snuffed out in just two hours by devout Muslims on 9/11 than by the Ku Klux Klan in its entire 145-year history (source). Yet, there was never one massed protest against Osama bin Laden in the entire Muslim world (although many condemned his killing).

Where Islam dominates, there is systematic discrimination and oppression of those of other faiths. Where Muslims are a minority, there is a trend toward peevish self-interest, disloyalty and eventual rebellion and terror when demands for special privilege and entitlements are not met - all part of the eternal jihad to bring about the rule of Islam as Muhammad instructed.

It isn't the victims who need lessons in tolerance and understanding — it is the Islamic world.

Can one name a single country in the West in which the significant influx of Muslims has not been accompanied by severe social strain? Can one name any country affected in the same way by Hindu immigration?

Those willing to open their minds will find that, regardless of the excuse-du-jour, the remarkably wide-spread level of narcissism, repression and violence is deeply ingrained in the teachings, double standards and early history of the Islamic religion. While there is not a single verse in the Quran that commands love for those outside Islam, there are nearly 500 that either promote violence or allude to Allah's hatred for unbelievers - in a book that is largely about how to think of and deal harshly with those outside the "true" faith.

Why rely on rosy platitudes and carefully-edited fragments of Quran verses from apologists when Islam speaks so well for itself? Beyond the whitewashing are obvious reasons why so many devotees do horrible things in the name of Allah, while most of the rest never seem to get terribly upset by it - busy as they are throwing tantrums and demanding for themselves what they explicitly deny others.

How much favor are we really doing Muslims by not challenging them to the sort of self-critique necessary for moral progress? How much favor are we doing ourselves by desperately trying to accommodate that which has no intention of accommodating us, or by continuing to sacrifice blood and budgets for those who hate us in return? Is it really in our best interests to assist the expansion within our own borders of a religion that is consistently incapable of building countries in which even Muslims themselves want to live?

Tolerance is a good thing, but not when we allow it to be used cynically against us by those who have no use for it once they obtain power. We need to back away from the altar of political correctness and throw out our preconceptions. We need to embrace critical thinking.

The truth is that Islam is not a religion of peace and it is not like other religion. Sometimes the truth isn't comfortable. Sometimes the truth offends. But it is far better that we offend others than lose our own freedom.

See also:

FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions
How We Feel about Muslims
Our Case Against Race
What to Do about the Islamic Threat

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A Real Example of Fake News

“Huge Growth in Anti-Muslim Hate Groups During 2016: SPLC Report,” wails NBC News. “Watchdog: Number of anti-Muslim hate groups tripled since 2015,” FOX News bleats. ABC News vomits up this word salad. “Trump cited in report finding increase in US hate groups for 2nd year in a row.”

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, anti-Muslim hate groups shot up from only 34 in 2015 to 101 in 2016.

What could possibly account for that growth?

The SPLC decided to count 45 chapters of Act for America as separate groups.

How do you get a sudden rise from 34 to 101 hate groups? It helps to suddenly add 45 chapters of one group. Act for America isn’t a hate group. It’s also just as obviously not 45 groups.

And it didn’t come into existence last year.

Act for America was only listed as one group in the 2015 list. It shot up to 45 now.

The SPLC this year listed the Los Angeles chapter of Act for America as a separate group. But the chapter has been around for quite a few years.

Furthermore Act for America boasts not 45, but 1,000 chapters across the country. Why list just 45 of them? Look at it from the SPLC’s perspective. Next year, it can add 200 chapters and claim that anti-Muslim hate groups once again tripled. And then it can do the same thing again the year after that.

That way the Southern Poverty Law Center can keep manufacturing an imaginary Islamophobia crisis.

The list has added Bosch Fawstin: an artist who was the target of the first ISIS terror attack in America during the assault on the Draw Mohammed cartoon contest. The SPLC announced that it was adding the Eisner nominated artist to its list of hate groups after he survived the attack.

Bosch Fawstin is a courageous activist. He’s also an individual. As am I. And the SPLC also has me up as a hate group. Other individual bloggers on the list include Atlas Shrugs, Refugee Resettlement Watch, Bare Naked Islam and Citizen Warrior.

The above is excerpted from an excellent article by Daniel Greenfield. Read the whole thing here: How the Southern Poverty Law Center Faked an Islamophobia Crisis.

And share it with your friends.

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Research Survey: What Do Europeans Think About Muslim Immigration?

Drawing on a unique, new Chatham House survey of more than 10,000 people from 10 European states, we can throw new light on what people think about migration from mainly Muslim countries. Our results are striking and sobering. They suggest that public opposition to any further migration from predominantly Muslim states is by no means confined to Trump’s electorate in the US but is fairly widespread.

In our survey, carried out before President Trump’s executive order was announced, respondents were given the following statement: ‘All further migration from mainly Muslim countries should be stopped’. They were then asked to what extent did they agree or disagree with this statement. Overall, across all 10 of the European countries an average of 55% agreed that all further migration from mainly Muslim countries should be stopped, 25% neither agreed nor disagreed and 20% disagreed.

Majorities in all but two of the ten states agreed, ranging from 71% in Poland, 65% in Austria, 53% in Germany and 51% in Italy to 47% in the United Kingdom and 41% in Spain. In no country did the percentage that disagreed surpass 32%.

The above is excerpted from an article on Muslim Statistics. Read the rest here.

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Is Trump Right About Muslim Refugees?

"I was a Muslim refugee once. I know what it’s like," wrote the author of a recent article in the Huffington Post. "I know what it’s like to gamble your entire future on a one-way ticket to a foreign land, what it’s like to fill in the forms, not knowing for sure what the right answers are. I know what it’s like to fear rejection, deportation and the dangers that await you back home.

"Yet today I am an American citizen, one who has more reason than most to fear Islamic extremism. And that’s why I want to plead with my fellow Americans to calm down and think rationally about the dilemmas and trade-offs that we face.

"When Donald Trump set out his views on Islamic extremism in a campaign speech last August, I was surprised and excited...

"In it, he rightly condemned 'the hateful ideology of radical Islam' for 'its oppression of women, gays, children and nonbelievers.'

"We cannot pretend that all Muslim immigrants are perfect adapters; but similarly, we cannot assume that no Muslim immigrants are fanatics. In our immigration policy, we need to make all possible effort to welcome adapters and exclude troublemakers. The question is how.

"As an immigrant of Somali origin, I have no objection to other people coming to America to seek a better life for themselves and their families. My concern is with the attitudes many of these new Muslim Americans will bring with them — and with our limited capacity for changing those attitudes...

"Contrary to some of the president’s more strident critics, restrictions on foreign immigration are not immoral per se. Canada, for example, accepts only whole families, single women or children from Syria, but excludes single men as a possible security threat. Most countries have such rules. Recent terrorist cases suggest that the U.S. could do with tightening its rules, or applying them more rigorously...

"President Trump was right back in August. The threat posed by 'the hateful ideology of radical Islam' needs to be countered. American citizens — including immigrants — must be protected from that ideology and the violence that it promotes. But the threat is too multifaceted to be dealt with by executive orders. That is why Trump was right to argue in August for a commission of some kind — I would favor congressional hearings — to establish the full magnitude and nature of the threat.

"Until we recognize that this ideology is already in our midst, we shall expend all our energies in feverish debates about executive orders, when what is needed is cool, comprehensive legislation."

Read the whole article by clicking here.

This article was also posted on Inquiry Into Islam here for your sharing pleasure.

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Americans: Tell Your Representative to Support the Refugee Executive Order

Today, Friday, February 3, open border activists and refugee resettlement contractors will be joining with mosques around the country to raise support for an additional influx in refugees.

Also, on February 22nd, these activists are planning massive demonstrations against the recent executive order taken by President Trump towards refugees, set to take place directly outside the offices of elected officials.

We must counter this offensive!

It is clear these open border advocates have no interest in going away quietly, and as such, neither can we.

Between now and February 22nd, PLEASE, call or email your elected officials to let them know that these open border zealots don’t speak for you!

We must not allow ourselves to become complacent, while those seeking to flood our country with un-vetted refugees continue to pressure our lawmakers!

Here is a pre-written email for you to send to your individual representative, and amend if you so choose by clicking here.

Be respectful but firm in your message.

You may also call your elected representatives office by clicking here.

We need to push back on this deceptive narrative of “Islamophobia,” so that our elected officials know how their constituents truly feel!

We also encourage you to set up meetings if possible, with your elected officials in person. We must pull out all the stops to counter these relentless open border voices.

Again, send the pre-written email by clicking here, or call by clicking here.

These agitators know that Congress is the key to their plan, and that if they press hard enough, they will get their way. Not on our watch!

The above is adapted from an ACT! for America Action Alert.

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Support Stopping the Influx of Refugees From Countries With Significant Terrorist Activity

Are you fed up with the radically anti-American opposition to President Trump’s executive order, halting an influx of refugees from countries with significant terrorist activity?

Are you sick and tired of being lectured to and labelled a bigot, simply for prefacing the safety of you and your family over politically correct endangerment?

The following is an open letter to President Trump, created by ACT! for America, which you can sign by clicking here.

Dear Mr. President,

We wholeheartedly commend you for halting the influx of refugees from countries with significant terrorist activity.

For too long, our nation has been weakened by the tyranny of political correctness, and as a result, the American people have paid the ultimate price.

Those who claim there is no evidence to suggest that refugees from these countries with terrorist activity pose a threat are at best, guilty of willful ignorance, and at worst, intentional deception.

There is incontrovertible evidence that refugee populations have been infiltrated by sympathizers of the Islamic State, and have already carried out jihadist attacks against the Western world.

As you know, some of the most recent attacks include…

• Somali refugee Abdul Razak Ali Artan went on a jihadi stabbing rampage at Ohio State.
• In 2016, an Iraqi refugee Omar Faraj Saeed Al Hardan was accused of planning to bomb a local mall in Texas.
• In September 2016, a Somali refugee named Dahir Adan went on a stabbing spree at a mall in St. Cloud, Minnesota.
• Somali refugee, Mohamed Osman Mohamed, was arrested for planning to blow up a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Oregon back in 2010.
• In 2012, Abdullatif Ali Aldosary, an Iraqi refugee, bombed a Social Security Office in Arizona.
• Two Iraqi refugees convicted for having aided Al-Qaeda in Iraq to kill American servicemen. These so called “refugees,” lied on their applications, and as proof that the screening process is ineffective, were allowed entry without issue.
• Both Boston Bombers, the Tsarnaev Brothers were refugees.

We’ve had enough innocent American bloodshed, courtesy of our own tax dollars.

The American people need not be lectured to with baseless and cliché cries of “Islamophobia,” given the indisputable danger we are facing as a country.

These protests taking place around the country, are financed largely by those who have no respect for rule of law, or the average American citizen.

To think that in a post 9/11 world, we should have to tolerate anarchist mobs at our airports, disrupting and scaring passengers as they try to make their way through security gates peacefully, is a disgrace to no end.

Rule of law in this country must be restored and power must be used to benefit the average American citizen, not anti-American mobs, nor the politicians who benefit from enabling them.

So, as our new Commander-in-Chief, thank you for prefacing American lives over political correct endangerment. Please continue to do what is necessary to make America a safer place to call home for all citizens, as your executive action has.

Sincerely, YOU if you click here and sign it.

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20 ‘Vetted’ Muslim Refugees Who Turned to Terrorism After Being Allowed Into America

Put this into context: there have been no refugee Buddhists, Christians, Jews who turned to terrorism after being permitted entry into the United States. And that is pretty remarkable. If terrorism is a human issue and not a Muslim issue, figures would speak otherwise.

The list of refugee terrorists unfortunately is not complete with the names mentioned below. There are more of them.

• In 2016, Somali Muslim migrant Mohammad Barry, who in February 2016 stabbed multiple patrons at a restaurant owned by an Israeli Arab Christian;
• Ahmad Khan Rahami, an Afghan Muslim migrant set off bombs in New York City and New Jersey in September 2016;
• Arcan Cetin, a Turkish Muslim migrant murdered five people in a mall in Burlington, Washington in September 2016;
• Dahir Adan, another Somali Muslim migrant stabbed mall shoppers in St. Cloud while screaming “Allahu akbar” in October 2016;
• Abdul Razak Artan, yet another Somali Muslim migrant injured nine people with car and knife attacks at Ohio State University in November 2016.

Read much more about this here: 20 ‘Vetted’ Muslim Refugees Who Turned to Terrorism After Being Allowed Into America.

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Introduce Your Liberal Friends to an Honest Look at Islam

Below is a message we received from the author of a good book on Islam, who goes by the name Savvy Kafir (SK):

Inside the Minds of Orthodox Muslims

The following are excerpts from an article in The Week entitled, Inside the Minds of Jihadis. It is a book review:

As with any enemy, the best way to defeat the Islamic State is to understand it. And to do that, the best place to start is a new book by Graeme Wood, The Way of the Strangers. This book gives us the best insight yet into what makes the Islamic State tick.

Wood, a national correspondent at The Atlantic and lecturer in political science at Yale, spent years from the streets of Cairo to London to the Philippines to Australia, interviewing supporters of the Islamic State and getting inside their heads. What results is a series of gripping, fascinating portraits. Wood's subjects have little cageyness towards him. Since everything is foreordained by Allah anyway, revealing your plans to a Western journalist won't change the outcome. Plus, Wood has the talented journalist's skill for interview and observation. He's an astute psychologist and a good writer to boot...

The book's implicit thesis, one which is both inarguably true and persistently denied by so many decision makers in the West, is that ideas have consequences. While the motives of any individual and group of people are always multifaceted and almost always include a good helping of interest-seeking and self-delusion, it is also impossible to deny that large sections of Islamic State members and supporters, from its leadership down to foot soldiers, make decisions on the basis of what they believe.

As the Islamic State keeps repeating over and over through its high-polish propaganda apparatus, it has a theology, and this theology has content, and an internal logic, that can be understood on its merits. Once this theology is understood, and once the proponents of this theology are actually listened to, and their actions watched, it becomes impossible to deny that this theology is a key cause (maybe not the cause, but a key cause) of the actions of the Islamic State, most of its leaders, and most of its supporters.

What's more — and this is the source of the willful blindness of elite policymakers and commentators towards the Islamic State — this theology does have Islamic roots...

All Muslims agree on at least one thing, which is that Muslims should follow the example of the Prophet Muhammad. And the Prophet Muhammad did do many of the things that the Islamic State is most reviled for, such as waging absolute religious warfare, engaging in slavery, stoning adulterers, and so forth...

It's a great read. But more importantly, Wood's book reveals truths about ISIS that are hiding in plain sight — but that our leaders make themselves willfully ignorant of. They ought to read his book, too.

Read the whole article here: Inside the Minds of Jihadis

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