Posts Tagged Islam

Paris Attacks Had Nothing To Do With Islam

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USS Carl Vinson Night Flight Ops

http://youtu.be/P36FXnzP0Go?list=PLA8EauFaBPYK8QiX4BiqVtgf60supyaw4

Aircraft assigned to Carrier Air Wing 17 finish out 2014 flight operations aboard USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70). The ship and embarked air wing are deployed in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, strike operations in Iraq and Syria as directed, maritime security operations, and theater security cooperation efforts in the region. Video by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class James Guthrie.

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Europe Rediscovers Nationalism

Europe Rediscovers Nationalism is republished with permission of Stratfor.”

In his latest novel, French writer Michel Houellebecq presents a controversial situation: The year is 2022, and France has become an Islamicized country where universities have to teach the Koran, women have to wear the veil and polygamy is legal. The book, which created a stir in France, went on sale Jan. 7. That day, a group of terrorists killed 12 people at the headquarters of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

Also on Jan. 7, German Chancellor Angela Merkel met British Prime Minister David Cameron in London. Although the formal reason for the meeting was to discuss the upcoming G-7 summit, the two leaders also discussed Cameron’s proposals to limit migration in Europe. Finally, a much less publicized event took place in Germany that day: A group of politicians from the Euroskeptic Alternative for Germany party met with members of Pegida, the anti-Islam protest group that has staged large protests in Dresden and minor protests in other German cities. Read the rest of this entry »

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Obama Administration: Our Job Is To Promote Islam

From Breitbart.com:

On Thursday, White House press secretary Josh Earnest announced that the Obama administration would prioritize fighting Islamophobia in the aftermath of the terrorist attack onCharlie Hebdo in France. Never mind that most Westerners aren’t Islamophobic, but rather GettingShotInTheFaceForExpressingMyOpinion-Phobic.

 

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After Hostage Incident Australia Senator Says It’s a “Nation of Victims”

From Australia Broadcasting Company:

“What happened in that cafe would have been most unlikely to have occurred in Florida, Texas, or Vermont, or Alaska in America, or perhaps even Switzerland as well,” Senator Leyonhjelm told the ABC’s AM program.

“That nutcase who held them all hostage wouldn’t have known they were armed and bad guys don’t like to be shot back at,” Senator Leyonhjelm said.

 

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Shoebat: ISIS Will Take Over Pakistan

From Walid Shoebat:

ISIS now has camped in Pakistan and all across Pakistan, the black standard of the Islamic State has been popping up all over from urban slums to Taliban strongholds, the ISIS logo and name have appeared in graffiti, posters and pamphlets and a cluster of militant commanders in Pakistan declared their allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the caliph of the Islamic State as ISIS presence there increases by the day. But the one trillion dollar question is will the world leaders secure Pakistan’s nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of ISIS? It doesn’t look like it and the prospects of ISIS gaining nuclear bombs are very likely as the news from Pakistan reveals.

 

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Islamic State (Daesh) Murders Another UK Hostage

From: BBC

Alan Henning

Alan Henning

 

A video purporting to show UK hostage Alan Henning being beheaded has been released by Islamic State militants.

The Salford taxi driver was delivering aid to Syria in December when he was kidnapped and then held hostage by IS.

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The Islamic Threat: Even Bill Maher Gets It

From Fox News:

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Brother Rachid on The President’s Speech

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As Caliphates Compete, Radical Islam Will Eventually Weaken

As Caliphates Compete, Radical Islam Will Eventually Weaken is republished with permission of Stratfor.”

Summary

The rise of the Islamic State will inspire other jihadist groups to claim their own caliphates and emirates. In the long run, the extremism of these contrived dominions and the competition among them will undermine the jihadist movement. However, before that happens, the world will witness much upheaval.

Analysis

In a 52-minute video that surfaced in late August, Abubakar Shekau, the head of Nigerian jihadist group Boko Haram, spoke of an Islamic State in northeastern Nigeria. The statement came two months after Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the chief of the transnational jihadist movement in Syria and Iraq, declared the re-establishment of the caliphate, renaming the group the Islamic State. Though likely inspired by the Islamic State, Boko Haram is not simply mimicking its more powerful Syrian-Iraqi counterpart; it is taking its cue from the Nigeria-based Sokoto Caliphate, which was established in the early 1800s and existed for almost a century until Britain gained control of the region.

The Caliphate’s Role in History

According to classical Muslim political theorists, there can be only one caliphate for the entire Muslim global community, or ummah. In practice, though, there have been rival claimants to authority and even competing caliphates throughout the history of Islam. In our July 1 analysis on the subject, Stratfor explained not only how multiple emirates and sultanates emerged independently of the caliphate but also that there were rival caliphates — for example, the Abbasid in Baghdad (749-1258), Umayyad in the Iberian Peninsula (929-1031) and Fatimid in Cairo (909-1171).
Read the rest of this entry »

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What Is Political Islam?

From The CATO Institute:

The tragic events in Iraq, where the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) is currently mounting an offensive against the government of the Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, certainly appears to be consistent with Blair’s concern—namely that “the battles of this century … could easily be fought around the questions of cultural or religious difference.”2 But to what extent do Blair’s claims reflect the experience of political transitions throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)?

The rise of political Islam into prominence poses important questions both for people in the MENA region and for policymakers in the West. Since 9/11, the thrust of Western foreign and security policy toward the MENA region has aimed at containing radical forms of Islam. In practice, that often meant cozying up to authoritarian regimes, as long as they were secular, since these were seen as superior to their theocratic alternatives. When the Egyptian military brought down President Mohamed Morsi in early July 2013, there was a sense of relief among many in Washington. American neoconservative commentator Bill Kristol, for example, articulated it in the following way:

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Gauging the Jihadist Movement, Part 1: The Goals of the Jihadists

Gauging the Jihadist Movement, Part 1: The Goals of the Jihadists is republished with permission of Stratfor.”

By Scott Stewart

Editor’s Note: The following is the first installment of a five-part series examining the global jihadist movement. Part 2 analyzes insurgent and terrorist theory. Part 3 defines the jihadist movement and evaluates its various elements. Part 4 looks at franchises and grassroots jihadists and Part 5 scrutinizes the al Qaeda core as well as gauging the overall implications for security. 

Quite often when I am doing speaking engagements, client briefings or press interviews, I am asked questions like: “Given the events in Syria and Libya, is the jihadist movement stronger than ever?” It is a good question, but it is also one that is not easily answered in a five-second sound bite or a succinct quote for print media — it really requires some detailed explanation. Because of this, I’ve decided to take some time to provide a more thorough treatment of the subject in written form for Stratfor readers. As I thought through the various aspects of the topic, I came to believe that adequately covering it requires more than one Security Weekly, so I will dedicate a series of articles to it.

When gauging the current state of the jihadist movement, I believe it is useful to use two different standards. The first is to take jihadists’ goals and objectives and measure their progress toward achieving them. The second is to take a look at insurgent theory and terrorism models to see what they can tell us about the state of jihadist militant networks and their efforts. This week we will discuss the first standard: the jihadists’ goals and objectives. Next week we will discuss insurgency and terrorism theories, and then once we have established these two benchmarks we can use them to see how the various elements of the jihadist movement measure up. Read the rest of this entry »

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New Book On Political Islam

From Macmillan Books:

As a wave of popular unrest toppled autocratic rulers across the Middle East and North Africa, many in the West watched with growing concern as Islamists came to power. The continued prominence of Islam in the struggle for democracy in the Muslim world has confounded Western democracy theorists, who largely consider secularism a prerequisite for democratic transition. In Political Islam in the Age of Democratization, Kamran Bokhari and Farid Senzai offer a comprehensive view of the complex nature of contemporary political Islam and its relationship to democracy. With a useful theoretical framework, classification of Islamists, and rich historical context, this book is a compelling and insightful analysis of Islamism and the role that religion is likely to play in any future Muslim democracy.

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Head of MI5 Warns of Isalmic Threat

From: BBC News

MI5 chief Andrew Parker

MI5 chief Andrew Parker

Threats to the UK are growing more diverse and diffuse, he said, but warned: “It remains the case that there are several thousand Islamist extremists here who see the British public as a legitimate target.”

more

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BBC Reporters Told Not To Use The Word “Terrorist”

From The Daily Mail:

The BBC was criticised yesterday for not describing the armed jihadists behind the Kenya shopping centre siege as terrorists.

The corporation’s journalists have avoided using the words ‘terrorist’ and ‘terrorism’ in reports.

Instead, they described the terrorists as ‘Islamist militants’ or ‘suspected Al Shabaab militants’ – and only used the word terrorist in when quoting someone else.

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