The Heads of an Islamic Hydra Rise in South Asia
The Heads of an Islamic Hydra Rise in South Asia
Their malicious plot to destroy the West is far from over.
The so-called peace deal between the U.S. and Afghanistan never addressed an important fact: the powers-that-be ignored all the players in the game, somehow missing an endless supply of terrorists who are all heads connected to the same body.
In a post 9/11 interview, Osama bin Laden told Al-Jazeera television correspondent Tayseer Alouni that “all the Muslims are brothers.” Following this statement, he explained that a training camp established by Abu Ebeida El-Banashiri for mujahideen fighting against the former Soviet Union became known as al-Qaeda (the base). As far back as the late 1980s, these “sons of the nation” were considered “brothers in Islam from the Middle East, Philippines, Malaysia, India, Pakistan and as far as Mauritania,” he revealed. And it is this aged, subtle point which remains quite relevant — and often-overlooked — today.
The version of al-Qaeda dating back to the Soviet-Afghan War era is not the same al-Qaeda of today, as many have failed to recognize. In February 1998, the transnational Salafist organization was reformed at the World Islamic Front (WIF) by five prominent Islamic leaders: Osama bin Laden; Ayman al-Zawahiri, emir of the Jihad Group in Egypt; Ahmed Refai Taha of the Egyptian Islamic Group; Mir Hamzah, secretary of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Pakistan; and Fazlur Rahman, emir of the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh.
The WIF was comprised of at least 14 international pro-jihad organizations, including Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines, Chechen Jihad Group, the Islamic Jihad Group (Egypt), the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Lashkar-e-Taiba, North Caucasian Jihad Group, the Turkistan Islamic Movement, the 055 Brigade (the Shadow Army), Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (Afghanistan), Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (Pakistan), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (Afghanistan), Sipah-e-Sahaba (Pakistan), Uyghur Jihad Groups (Western China), and the Taliban.
To this day, according to the U.S. State Department’s Country Reports on Terrorism 2019, Pakistan is a “safe haven” for many “regionally focused terrorist groups.” These include, but are not limited to, the Taliban, al-Qaeda, Harakat ul-Jihad-i-Islami, Harakat-ul-Mujahideen, Hizbul Mujahideen, Jaish-e-Mohommad, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi.
The majority of WIF founders and the organizations above have something uniquely in common. Apart from Osama bin Laden and his successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the other three founders subscribed to the Asian branch of Islam. They are Deobandi. Furthermore, the latter seven of the 14 WIF organizations and at least half of the organizations operating safely out of Pakistan, today, also have something uniquely in common. They, too, are Deobandi.
The U.S. would be wise to make note of these ideological ties as it keeps a watchful eye on the future of Afghanistan amid the withdrawal of troops. The Taliban has a near-endless supply of Deobandi jihadists (including suicide bombers) coming from the east to join the effort to overthrow the Afghan government. Al-Qaeda and many others will continue to assist the effort to reestablish the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Practicing the original form of Islam through a strict implementation of sharia is their desire.
Not recognizing these facts has had and will continue to have grave consequences. U.S. efforts to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table for peace in Afghanistan was an outright failure in foreign policy. The Deobandi influence to providing a near-endless supply of fighters to the region appears to have gone unnoticed. And without calling upon the Taliban to publicly denounce ties and visibly separate itself from the likes of al-Qaeda and their affiliates, for example, the plan for bringing peace to Afghanistan was doomed from the start.
Dozens of heads connected to the same body of an Islamic hydra have been operating in Afghanistan with the support of Pakistan for decades. “Brothers in Islam from the Middle East, Philippines, Malaysia, India, Pakistan and as far as Mauritania” will continue to be a substantial threat to the world — and their vicious plot to destroy the West is far from over. Osama bin Laden was only the beginning of a persistent global threat, which will continue to rear its ugly head out of South Asia. Heed this warning, America – be careful dealing with this powerful global Ummah who are, indeed, brothers in Islam. They will return to haunt future administrations soon enough.
Terry Bishop’s writings and interests focus on the strategic influence of terrorism and subversion, counter-terrorism and national security. His research includes armed conflict and violence in South Asia with a focus on al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQS), the Taliban, and other Deobandi-linked terror groups. His writings have been published by American Thinker, Defence & Security Alert, and Indian Defence Review.
After all, when was the last time you saw an American academic discuss the Muslim persecution of Christians, or Iran’s treatment of religious minorities, or the inconsistency of Iranian authorities in persecuting Christians while complaining about “Islamophobia”? That’s right: never. That’s not what they do in the Antifa indoctrination factories known as universities these days; they’re too busy recording video messages applauding Iranian propaganda.
Hagia Sophia: Turkish Propaganda vs. Documented History
Millions of Orthodox and other Christians around the world were either shocked, angered, and/or saddened to learn recently that Turkey has just approved of transforming the Hagia Sophia museum — which was originally built, and for a millennium functioned, as an Orthodox cathedral — into a mosque.
In a long speech rationalizing this decision, which he personally spearheaded, Turkish president Erdogan said the following:
The conquest of Istanbul [Constantinople] and the conversion of the Hagia Sophia into a mosque are among the most glorious chapters of Turkish history. On May 29, 1453, [Ottoman] Sultan Muhammad II entered the city after a long siege and headed directly to the Hagia Sophia [Greek for "Holy Wisdom"]. As the Byzantines awaited their fate, fearful and curious, inside the Hagia Sophia, Muhammad entered the Hagia Sophia, giving assurances to the people regarding their lives and freedoms… [He then] recited the first adhan [call to prayer]. Thus he registered his conquest. Then, in a corner of the Hagia Sophia, he performed two prostrations out of gratitude. With this move he demonstrated that he had transformed the Hagia Sophia into a mosque…. The domes and walls of this great place of worship have resonated with prayers and takbirs [shouts of "Allahu Akbar"] for 481 years since then.
Such a pious recounting is only slightly less hagiographical than the position of leading Turkish historians, such as Professor Selim Akdogan. Recently on Al Jazeera he insisted that Sultan Muhammad had actually "purchased" the Hagia Sophia from its conquered Christian worshippers.
Are these rosy renderings accurate? Fortunately, we need not rely on Turkic propaganda; we have primary source documents describing exactly what the Turks and Sultan Muhammad did after conquering Constantinople and its Hagia Sophia in 1453. (All quotes in the following narrative were derived from contemporary sources, mostly eyewitnesses, as documented in chapter 7 of Sword and Scimitar.)
Once inside the city on May 29, 1453, the "enraged Turkish soldiers . . . gave no quarter":
When they had massacred and there was no longer any resistance, they were intent on pillage and roamed through the town stealing, disrobing, pillaging, killing, raping, taking captive men, women, children, old men, young men, monks, priests, people of all sorts and conditions… There were virgins who awoke from troubled sleep to find those brigands standing over them with bloody hands and faces full of abject fury… [The Turks] dragged them, tore them, forced them, dishonored them, raped them at the cross-roads and made them submit to the most terrible outrages… Tender children were brutally snatched from their mothers' breasts and girls were pitilessly given up to strange and horrible unions, and a thousand other terrible things happened. . .
Because thousands of citizens had fled to and were holed up in Hagia Sophia, the ancient basilica offered an excellent harvest of slaves — once its doors were axed down. "One Turk would look for the captive who seemed the wealthiest, a second would prefer a pretty face among the nuns. . . . Each rapacious Turk was eager to lead his captive to a safe place, and then return to secure a second and a third prize. . . . Then long chains of captives could be seen leaving the church and its shrines, being herded along like cattle or flocks of sheep."
The slavers sometimes fought each other to the death over "any well-formed girl," even as many of the latter "preferred to cast themselves into the wells and drown rather than fall into the hands of the Turks."
Having taken possession of the Hagia Sophia, one of Christendom's greatest and oldest basilicas — nearly a thousand years old at the time of its capture — the invaders "engaged in every kind of vileness within it, making of it a public brothel." On "its holy altars" they enacted "perversions with our women, virgins, and children," including "the Grand Duke's daughter who was quite beautiful." She was forced to "lie on the great altar of Hagia Sophia with a crucifix under her head and then raped."
Next "they paraded the [Hagia Sophia's main] Crucifix in mocking procession through their camp, beating drums before it, crucifying the Christ again with spitting and blasphemies and curses. They placed a Turkish cap . . . upon His head, and jeeringly cried, 'Behold the god of the Christians!'"
Many other churches in the ancient city suffered the same fate. "The crosses which had been placed on the roofs or the walls of churches were torn down and trampled." The Eucharist was hurled to the ground; holy icons were stripped of gold, "thrown to the ground and kicked." Bibles were stripped of their gold or silver illuminations before being burned. "Icons were without exception given to the flames." Patriarchal vestments were placed on the haunches of dogs; priestly garments were placed on horses.
"Everywhere there was misfortune, everyone was touched by pain" when Sultan Muhammad II finally made his grand entry into the city. "There were lamentations and weeping in every house, screaming in the crossroads, and sorrow in all churches; the groaning of grown men and the shrieking of women accompanied looting, enslavement, separation, and rape."
The sultan rode to Hagia Sophia, dismounted, and went in, "marveling at the sight" of the grand basilica. After having it cleansed of its crosses, statues, and icons — Muhammad himself knocked over and trampled on its main altar — he ordered a muezzin to ascend the pulpit and sound "their detestable prayers. Then this son of iniquity, this forerunner of Antichrist, mounted upon the Holy Table to utter forth his own prayers," thereby "turning the Great Church into a heathen shrine for his god and his Mahomet."
To cap off his triumph, Muhammad had the "wretched citizens of Constantinople" dragged before his men during evening festivities and "ordered many of them to be hacked to pieces, for the sake of entertainment." The rest of the city's population — as many as forty-five thousand — were hauled off in chains to be sold as slaves.
So much for Erdogan's claim that Sultan Muhammad had given "assurances to the people regarding their lives and freedoms," or that the Hagia Sophia was fairly "purchased."
At any rate, this is the history that millions of Turks extol. In the aforementioned words of Erdogan, their president: "The conquest of Istanbul and the conversion of the Hagia Sophia into a mosque are among the most glorious chapters of Turkish history."
If conquest, mindboggling atrocities, and the desecration of churches — all committed in the name of jihad — are "the most glorious chapters of Turkish history," one wonder what Turkey's future plans for glory look like?
The quotes in the above narrative were taken from and are sourced in the author's book, Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West. Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum, and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.
ran Jails Christians, Then Holds Ceremony for Book on U.S. 'Islamophobia'
ran Jails Christians, Then Holds Ceremony for Book on U.S. 'Islamophobia'
The mullahs know their American Leftist friends will neither notice nor care about the hypocrisy.
“War is deceit,” according to a statement attributed to Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, and the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran were taking notes. After stepping up the persecution of Christians and even carrying out raids and arrests against them, Iranian authorities paused long enough to unveil, with great fanfare, a “scholarly” book about “Islamophobia” in the United States. Yes, that’s the real problem – and the American establishment media will nod along in agreement.
Evangelical Focus reported Tuesday that agents of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) “arrested at least twelve Christians, in a coordinated operation that took place in three different cities. The first arrest took place on 30 June, in Tehran, when ten intelligence agents raided the home of a Christian convert where there were around 30 Christians gathered.”
The agents recorded that raid, but at a certain point they turned off their cameras and began abusing the Christians, who were finally handcuffed, blindfolded, and taken away in a van with blacked-out windows. They were taken to their homes, where the IRGC agents searched for Christian material and beat some of them, along with some of their family members, including some who had not converted to Christianity.
Evangelical Focus noted: “It is believed that, in both raids, the agents were helped by an informant, who had infiltrated the group of Christians within the past few months and gained their trust.”
All this followed a report in late June that seven other converts to Christianity had been sentenced to prison or other punishments, including exile, fines, and work restrictions, for the crime of exercising their freedom of conscience. According to Article18.com, “they were each convicted of the same charge – ‘propaganda against the state’ – under Article 500 of the Islamic Penal Code, which provides for up to a year in prison for anyone found guilty of engaging in ‘any type of propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran or in support of opposition groups and associations.’”
Mansour Borji of the human rights advocacy group Article18 stated: “Condemning these people to prison because of their possession of Bibles and Christian symbols is a clear demonstration that Iran’s Foreign Minister and others aren’t telling the truth when they say that ‘no-one is put in prison in Iran simply because of their beliefs.’ These people have done nothing that could be construed as ‘propaganda against the state’ or ‘acting against national security’, but nevertheless they have been treated so unjustly.”
Meanwhile, the International Quran News Agency reported that “a book on political Islamophobia in the US was unveiled in a ceremony in Tehran on Monday,” that is, the day before the raids and arrest of twelve Christians.
The book in question is entitled Political Islamophobia at American Institutes: Battling the Power of Islamic Resistance, and is the masterwork of University of Tehran Professor Hakimeh Saghaye-Biriya. The Islamic Human Rights Commission not in Tehran, but in London, has published the book.
According to the International Quran News Agency, “it analyses the role of US think tanks in institutionalizing and fueling Islamophobia in the US government’s domestic and foreign policies.” During the ceremony at the International Quran News Agency in Tehran, Saghaye-Biriya “described Islamophobia as a branch of racism in the West. She said at a time when protests against racism have spread globally, there is a good opportunity to make a bridge between Islamic resistance and anti-racism movements in the world.”
During the ceremony, a video message from Wayne State University’s Saeed Khan was played; it “hailed the book for providing a good analysis of the role of political think thanks in US policy making and understanding the roots of Islamophobia in the country.”
Back in the real world, “Islamophobia” is a propaganda neologism designed to intimidate people into thinking it wrong to oppose jihad violence and Sharia oppression of women.
Meanwhile, this book, and the accompanying ceremony, reveals the insidious nature of the entire “Islamophobia” enterprise. The Iranian endorsement and propagation of this term, with the participation of Wayne State University’s Saeed Khan, recalls another Iranian initiative in academic propaganda: Carl Ernst, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill pseudo-academic whose work on Islam is so whitewashed, so fawningly apologetic, so complete in its denial of the jihad doctrine and Sharia oppression, that he was given an award in 2008 by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the genocide-minded anti-Semite who was at that time President of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Ernst happily flew to Tehran to accept. The incident was emblematic of how much American academia has degenerated.
After all, when was the last time you saw an American academic discuss the Muslim persecution of Christians, or Iran’s treatment of religious minorities, or the inconsistency of Iranian authorities in persecuting Christians while complaining about “Islamophobia”? That’s right: never. That’s not what they do in the Antifa indoctrination factories known as universities these days; they’re too busy recording video messages applauding Iranian propaganda.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 21 books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.
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