Går det bakåt för kalifatet - eller ?

 

Det senaste halvåret har varit fyllt av militära bakslag

för Kalifatet i Syrien och Irak. Assadregimen befriar

stad efter stad i Syrien, medan kurderna och iranska

legosoldater nu rensat de irakiska oljefälten.

 

Men betyder det att Kalifatet är döende ?

Uppenbarligen har man inga utsikter att försvara

och behålla stora territorier vid traditionella

fältslag mot USA, Ryssland, Iran och

deras marionetter. 

Det visar Mosul, Aleppo och Raqqa...

 

Men samtidigt ser vi en våg av jihadistiska

framgångar i ett bälte från Stockholm via London

och Paris till Barcelona. Dagens européer får lära sig leva

med att Kalifatet är alltid nära dig !

 

Så länge vi låter salafisterna bygga nya moskeér

i alla Europas större städer kapslar vi in och bevarar

smittan...

Tillgången på välbeväpnade och välutbildade jihadister

tycks outsinlig i Europa 2017. Den spridda och småskaliga

terrorismen är den verkliga tillväxtbranschen. Och den

lokala salafistmoskéen är dess inkubator...

 

 

 

Clarion Project kommenterar:

 

The Arabic word baqiya (“remaining”) is one of the most common adjectives associated with the Islamic State (aka ISIS), dating back to its earliest incarnation that claimed to be a state: namely, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). Once ISI officially expanded into Syria under the name of the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and began seriously controlling and administering territory, the additional claim of “expanding” was soon tagged on to the organisation’s unofficial slogan, thus baqiya wa tatamaddad. Indeed, with the capture of Mosul and other major towns and cities in Iraq and Syria, the claim to be remaining and expanding was not without merit, especially following the declaration of the Caliphate and spread of the Islamic State franchise into multiple other countries throughout the region.

Today, we no longer speak of the Islamic State as expanding, but rather debate whether it will survive as it comes under increasing pressure on the main fronts in Iraq and Syria but also abroad: thus, in Libya, which was often assumed to be the “fallback” option for the Islamic State, the organisation’s affiliates no longer control any towns in the country.
Given that the Islamic State is now contracting, will any of it ultimately remain? Some of the Islamic State’s messaging has been devoted to this very topic, and predictably argues against the idea that loss of territory means the end of the Caliphate project.

For example, in Tel Afar in northern Iraq, an Islamic State publication entitled “Caliphate will not vanish” was distributed as the Coalition campaign to retake Mosul began. The work argues that “many have forgotten that the Islamic State is not a state of land and geographic spaces, but rather the goal from it is to spread true Islam and restore jihad to the Ummah [global Muslim community] after decades of humiliation and degradation”.

The piece goes on to quote a familiar line from the last recorded speech by Islamic State spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani in May 2016, in which he drew attention to the precedent of ISI’s losses and the retreat into the “desert” in the 2007-2009 period. “Defeat,” argued Adnani, “is the loss of the will and desire to fight. You will be victorious, America, and the mujahideen will be defeated only if you can remove the Qur’an from the hearts of the mujahideen.”
This messaging contrasts strongly with the recruitment drives and propaganda from the peak of the Islamic State’s power in 2014-2015, where the statehood model was proudly displayed and foreigners were urged to migrate to this supposed state and help build it. Now, however, entry for would-be foreign recruits into the Islamic State core in Iraq and Syria is practically much more difficult, especially as the Islamic State no longer controls territory on the border with Turkey.

Besides, the Islamic State’s territorial losses and the undermining of its administrative systems damage the organisation’s credibility as a state project, which was supposed to be its key advantage over rival jihadi groups. One thing we can therefore be sure of is that the streaming of thousands of foreign recruits into the Islamic State’s ranks is over.

Nonetheless, presumptions that the Islamic State will vanish with territorial defeat are naïve. While Adnani’s reference to the desert may seem vague, there are certainly large desert spaces in the border areas between Iraq and Syria (e.g. the Anbar-Deir az-Zor areas) where the Islamic State’s remaining core leadership can operate and manoeuvre even if it loses all towns under its control. Prospects of the Coalition or others clearing out and securing these vast spaces remain very remote, and they thus constitute the true “fallback” for the Islamic State.

As far as the nature of operations is concerned, we already have models for what “post-Islamic State” looks like, which suggests the organisation will not die with loss of territory. In Iraq’s eastern province of Diyala, for instance, the Islamic State has not controlled any towns for more than two years, yet there are constant reports of sleeper cells and security incidents like IED attacks, car bombings and attacks on security positions, with some areas having to be cleared out multiple times. In this case, there is no doubt that the Islamic State partly plays on sectarian fault lines in the province, undermining the Iranian-backed Badr-led security order.

Beyond Diyala, reports are emerging of the “return” of the Islamic State to areas where the organisation had lost territorial control such as Tikrit. Many of the problems here stem from general plagues in Iraq’s present-day order that transcend sectarian boundaries, such as poor management of security checkpoints that allow would-be Islamic State bombers to pass through as well as widespread corruption, which might, for instance, allow real Islamic State operatives to escape from detention through bribing the local security forces. Though the Islamic State has recruited people from all over the world, personnel records recovered in Iraq show the organisation within that country remains thoroughly local in its manpower base, allowing personnel to blend into the population.

Likewise, in Syria, the Islamic State has demonstrated a capacity to conduct operations deep inside the territories of its enemies, whether in the Syrian coastal regions controlled by the Assad regime, Turkish-backed rebel-held areas in north Aleppo countryside, and Kurdish-held territories spanning much of the northeast of the country (with the latter two areas constituting places from which the Islamic State lost territory). Many of the reasons for the persistence of these operations overlap with the problems in Iraq: sectarian and ethnic tensions, vast manoeuvring space, control of territories for extended periods of time that allowed for recruitment from local populations, proliferation of militia factions and the like.

In sum, there is little to suggest the Islamic State will completely die out with territorial loss. In Iraq and parts of eastern Syria in particular, the Islamic State remains the only real expression of Sunni insurgency, having destroyed its rivals nearly three years ago. It is hard to see those rivals reviving themselves and filling the Islamic State’s place.
Not only will the Islamic State remain in Iraq and Syria, it is also likely to persist as an international franchise even with loss of core territory. In several parts of the world, such as southeast Asia, the Islamic State has already moved beyond the insistence on territorial control and statehood, dropping the notion of claiming new “provinces”. In short, the Islamic State is indeed baqiya.




 

Koptisk präst mördas på gatan i Kairo

 

 

Den koptiske prästen fader Simon Shehata knivhöggs
till döds av en salafist när han var på besök i en
kyrka i Kairo. Mordet skede tydligen helt slumpartat
när islamisten såg två präster på gatan. Som ni ser
jagades de av mördaren medan de försökte hinna in
i kyrkan.
(Koptiska kyrkor har oftast kraftiga järngrindar.....)
Men i själva kyrkporten knivhuggs fader Simon till
döds.
 

 A Coptic priest affiliated with a church in Upper Egypt’s
governorate of Beni Suef was  stabbed by a man on
Thursday in Cairo’s northeastern suburb of El–Marg,
state-run newspaper of Akhbar Al Youm reported.

The priest, Samaan Shehta, was in Cairo when a young
unemployed man blocked the way in front of his vehicle
and asked him to step down from it. He then hit the priest’s
 head with cleaver and ran away, a local journalist told
Egypt Independent on condition of anonymity.

“It is believed that it is a hate crime that has been
executed by an extremist affiliated to IS or
Salafism,”  he explained.

The Egyptian Coptic Church released a statement asserting
that the death of priest Samaan Shehta occurred near
El-salam city while he was with another priest, Benjamin
Moftah, who was also assaulted.
 The statement did not provide further details about
the second priest.
***

Samtidigt varnar en brittisk forskare för hur kalifatets
inflytande över salafisterna i Egypten växer och resulterar
i ett ökande antal anti-koptiska våldsdåd.

Igår rapporterade AINA News hur sju kristna och poliser
dödats vid en kalifatattack i El-Arish nära gränsen till Israel.



Islamism och kriminalitet i nära förening....

 

 

 

 

De minnesgoda minns säkert terrormorden i Köpenhamn 2015.

Gärningsmannen Omar al-Hussseini var precis släppt efter

två års fängelse för grov missshandel. Medlem i ett shariagäng,

knarklangare, rånare, islamist etc

 

Det är en bakgrund som snarast är "det normala" för

dagens jihadistiska terrorister. Frontpage Magazine

har undersökt ett antal av de senaste årens terrorister

och konstaterar ett klart mönster:

There exists a symbiotic relationship between Islamic
terrorism and non-ideologically driven criminality.
For the hard core or petty criminal, Islam represents
a pathway for redemption.
The terrorism component enables the assailant to
 continue his violent or deceitful activities while
claiming that these activities are being performed
in the name of Allah. Some violent recidivists are
simply drawn to the cruel and sadistic aspects
of radical Islam.

 

Något som inte särskilt nämns i artikeln är kopplingen

salafistmoské-jihadister. Inte minst Malmö, som ju precis

begåvats med Skandinaviens största salafistmoské mitt

i stadens kriminella träsk borde fundera över detta
klara samband...

 

 

***

Läs hela artikeln:

On October 1, a Muslim man of North African descent in his 30s arrived at Saint-Charles station in Marseille with one purpose in mind – to murder as many people as possible in the name of Islam. His first victim, a 20-year-old medical student from Marseille never stood a chance. The assailant lunged at her with a knife whose blade measured 8 inches, and stabbed her repeatedly while screaming “Allah Akbar.” He fled the scene but returned shortly thereafter to claim his second victim, a 21-year-old trainee nurse from Lyon. According to sources, one of the victims also had her throat slit.

The cold-blooded and depraved murder of the two young women failed to satiate terrorist’s lust for blood. After murdering his second victim, he ran toward soldiers patrolling as part of Operation Sentinelle, who shot him dead. In Western Europe, this is the new normal but the situation is particularly acute in France, which has experienced a rolling wave of terrorism since 2012. The country currently resembles an armed camp with the deployment of thousands of soldiers and police armed with automatic weapons, patrolling sensitive locations. But apart from increased security, France appears unable or unwilling to do more to counter the threat.

The Marseille slaughter could have easily been prevented but French authorities imbibed with a combination of political correctness, laziness and just plain stupidity, allowed it to occur. The terrorist who committed the gruesome attack was known to law enforcement. He was a recidivist whose rap sheet included a laundry list of petty crimes. In fact, just days before the attack, he was arrested for shoplifting but inexplicably released despite the fact that he possessed at least seven fake identities. The man, who informed the police that he was homeless, had given them a Tunisian passport in the name of Ahmed H, born on November 9, 1987 at Bizerte. But a quick fingerprint check would have revealed that he was lying through his teeth. Unfortunately, the fingerprint verification was performed after the Marseille slaughter.

French law enforcement officials attempted to deflect responsibility by claiming that the man had no known terrorist ties and that shoplifting offenses generally result in a police report and a court summons to appear at a later date. The proffered excuse is disingenuous at best. For years, French law enforcement officials have been cognizant of the nexus between criminal activity and radical Islamic terrorism. Several well-researched and detailed studies have confirmed this interconnection. In fact, as many as 80% of those who have committed terrorist attacks in the UK, France, Belgium, Germany and elsewhere in Western Europe in the name of Islam have criminal records with lengthy rap sheets that include drug dealing, petty larceny, assault and identity theft.

As noted, the terrorist who committed the Marseille outrage was a serial shoplifter and an identity thief. Khalid Masood, the UK terrorist who carried out the Westminster car-knife attack in March had a number of convictions for causing Grievous Bodily Harm (GBH) possession of offensive weapons and public order offenses. Kobili Traore, the Muslim man who brutally beat elderly Jewish pensioner Sarah Halimi, while yelling Islamic and anti-Semitic slogans, and then proceeded to throw her out of a third-floor window to her death had spent several years in prison for acts of aggravated violence and drug dealing. Amedy Coulibaly, the terrorist who stormed the Hypercacher kosher supermarket in Paris killing four, had previously been jailed for dealing in stolen goods, drug trafficking and robbery. Brothers Ibrahim and Salah Abdeslam, who were part of the gang that perpetrated the deadly Paris attacks in November 2015, were drug users and traffickers. The bar the duo owned in Molenbeek, a district of Brussels, was shut down by police for being a drug den.

The list is endless. There exists a symbiotic relationship between Islamic terrorism and non-ideologically driven criminality. For the hard core or petty criminal, Islam represents a pathway for redemption. The terrorism component enables the assailant to continue his violent or deceitful activities while claiming that these activities are being performed in the name of Allah. Some violent recidivists are simply drawn to the cruel and sadistic aspects of radical Islam.

Islamic terrorists frequently recruit from the rather large pool of criminals who domicile in Western countries but feel no loyalty to their host countries, despite the fact that these liberal democracies often provide them with outrageous entitlements including subsidized housing and stipends. The Islamist recruiter offers the criminal a pathway for redemption through religion but at the same time, takes advantage of the skills offered by the criminal to implement the terrorist scheme. For example, a drug dealer can use proceeds to finance a terror operation while an identity thief has the know-how to either forge or illegally obtain identity papers. The violent felon is often knowledgeable in the use of firearms or has the necessary connections to obtain illegal firearms and explosives. 



Daniel Pipes: Merkel's historic folly

 

Gårdagens jihad i Marseille 

 

Daniel Pipes var en av de första forskare som varnade Västerlandet för den expanderande islamismen.
Hans artiklar har fungerat som lärorika varningsklockor för de politiker och journalister, som är mottagliga för fakta. 
Inför tyska valet häromveckan skrev han en uppmärksammad artikel om Angela Merkels stora misstag. Den har publicerats över hela världen, inte minst i Tyskland....
Jag har hämtat ett utdrag från israeliska Arutz Sheva.
 

Mr. Pipes, You have written that Angela Merkel's decision to open the border to over a million migrants in 2015 "will likely be seen as a turning point in European history." You are a historian, so, what do you mean by this expression?                                                                                                                             I expect that when the evolution of European civilization is studied in the future, August 2015 will be seen as a key moment. The decision to allow unlimited immigration into Germany has had profound implications for Europe by raising this issue in a more acute way than ever before, creating divisions both among native Europeans who are for and against large-scale immigration and between native and new Europeans.

What basic questions do Europeans face?
Lacking sufficient children, the question is whether Europeans will they continue passively to accept whomever turns up, even if they lack skills and come from a largely hostile culture or whether they will develop a plan of controlled immigration, selecting people around the world most suited to bring skills and fit in? Germany's decision to open the borders meant choosing the former option.

Why are relations between Europeans and Muslim immigrants so fraught with tension?
They are fraught because Islam is an imperialist faith and many Muslim immigrants want to replace existing European civilization with Islam. Exacerbating matters, Europeans and Muslims are opposites on several key issues: Europeans have a low birthrate, Muslim immigrants have a high one. Europeans have a weak religious identity, Muslims have a strong one. Europeans feel guilty for their historical sins; immigrants have boisterous confidence in the superiority of their civilization.

 

Many Germans argue that as a rich nation, they morally must open their doors to people in need.
I admire that humanitarian impulse but it is unrealistic. Can Germany take in, say, 2 billion people? If not, how does it morally pick the tiny percentage it does allow in?

Is it not strange that migrants from Syria and Iraq move to places like Germany and Sweden? They would be better off going to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, where the climate, the language, the religion, and the mores are all like their own; plus, these countries are much closer to Syria.

What, then, is the answer?
Practically speaking, see the world in terms of cultural and geographic zones: Westerners in need should stay in the West, Middle Easterners should stay in the Middle East, and so forth around the globe. Is it not strange that migrants from Syria and Iraq move to places like Germany and Sweden? They would be better off going to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, where the climate, the language, the religion, and the mores are all like their own; plus, these countries are much closer to Syria

Cultures and customs change. Perhaps Muslims will adapt to European cultures if given the opportunity?
In theory, yes; in practice, no. Experience shows that the first generation of Muslim immigrants to Europe is more adaptable than its children and grandchildren, as cultural separation increases over time. It is hard to find any place in Europe where Muslim immigrants have assimilated, leading me gravely to doubt that this will take place in the future. Chileans, Chinese, and Congolese fit better into European culture than do Muslims.

Many Muslims of immigrant origins point to discrimination as a factor hindering them from fully integrating into German society.
Yes, discrimination is a problem. I would not want to be named Muhammad and look for a job in Hamburg. But that supports my argument that it is better to be named Muhammad in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. Why push together peoples who, as the last 55 years have shown, cannot live easily together? As Thilo Sarrazin has showed, the experiment of Muslim immigration has failed; continuing it will increase tensions.

 

You stress that Islamism, not Islam, is the threat. How do you define Islamism?
Islamism is a specific understanding of Islam that holds if Muslims wish to return to the riches and power of 1,000 years ago, they must apply the Islamic law in its entirety. Islamists argue among themselves how to do so: the modern-oriented Gülen movement in Turkey represents one extreme and ISIS, which wants to return to the seventh century, represents the other. Some Islamists use violence, others work through the political system. In this way, they resemble communists, with their major tactical differences but similar goals

You describe "the Islamist threat" as "arguably the most consequential issue of our time" facing the West. Islamist terror can certainly do damage but how can Islamists threaten the West as a whole, given the West's dominant economic and military power?
I see Islamism as the third great totalitarian threat after communism and fascism, a seductive and powerful body of ideas that threatens our way of life. And just as we had to fight against the fascism and communism, we now must fight Islamism.

When you say that the West needs to fight Islamism, what kind of fight are you thinking of - cultural, political, or military?
Fighting violence is the easy part because murderous jihadi attacks are frightening and the West has police departments, intelligence agencies and armed forces competent to deal with this problem. Further, this low-level violence destroys property and kills people but cannot shift civilizations. Lawful Islamists, in contrast, by working within the system, in the political, educational, philanthropic, or media arenas, have a potentially profound influence. While I'd rather encounter a lawful Islamist rather than a violent jihadi on the street, only non-violent tactics change the face of society; and relatively few Westerners even notice what's happening.

How do you view Europe's response to Islamism?

Compared to 20 years ago, a great leap in awareness has occurred – but not enough yet to make a difference in policy. Virtually everywhere in Europe, political parties exist that make immigration and Islamism a priority, but almost none of them has been in power because these groups tend to be staffed by amateurs, contain too many extremists, and are ostracized. As a result, they cannot reach 51 percent.

 

Like the Alternative für Deutschland in Germany, the only party that consistently opposes Muslim immigration?
Precisely. The AfD is an excellent example of amateurs mixed with extremists trying to figure out who they are – liberals, Neo-Nazis, or something in between? As long as they leave this question open, their electoral potential is limited, and they are dangerous. But I expect that eventually the AfD will mature, and I think and hope it will move toward the mainstream for there clearly exists a need for such a party in Germany. But every year that goes by, the danger grows.

Will the anti-immigration remain excluded from power?
No, I expect this will change, that these parties will start to gain power within a decade.

The AfD stands below 10 percent in the polls while Merkel's CDU gets almost 40 percent. Does this signal that Germans are not that unhappy with Merkel's immigration policies?
I am surprised by and cannot explain the lack of a CDU challenge to Merkel.

Geert Wilders of the Netherlands, one of the most prominent politicians against Muslim immigration, has been put on trial for hate speech. Your organization helped cover his legal costs; why?
We at the Middle East Forum believe in the freedom publicly to state opinions on matters concerning Islam and Islamism, whether or not we happen to agree with that opinion. Toward this end, our Legal Project often helps defendants pay legal costs, including Wilders' a few years ago. I disagree with his views on who the enemy is (he says Islam, I say Islamism) but that is secondary; I will help him, as any Westerner, assert the right to talk about Islam without getting hauled into Court.

Is Donald Trump's "Muslim ban" a useful way to keep Islamists out of the United States?
The Trump administration's ban of the citizens of six majority-Muslim countries was well-intentioned but poorly executed. One should not look at a person's passport but at his ideas. Some Canadians are our enemies and some Iranians are our friends. Of course, ideas are more elusive than nationality. But banning certain nationalities does not offer protection; that requires a serious effort to know each person entering the country.

The city of Hamburg in 2012 signed an accord, a "Staatsvertrag" with Muslim groups such as Ditib, Schura, and VIKZ to regulate Islamic classes and holidays. Members of those organization have been accused of Islamism and antisemitism, yet the authorities cannot a find clean Muslim organization. Your comment?
Islamists are much better funded and organized than non-Islamist Muslims, in part because they receive help from Middle Eastern states such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey. This permits them routinely to dominate Muslim life in the West, appearing on television, engaging in interreligious dialogue, teaching in classrooms, and (as in this case) partnering with governments.

You want Western governments to empower moderate Muslims but in Germany, only a few Muslims have showed up to protest Islamism, so who and where are the moderates?
Calls for mass Muslim support against Islamism always fail in the West. (Muslim-majority countries are another matter.) In part this results from a lack of funding and organization, in part to intimidation: it takes an awful lot of courage to be a Muslim and to come out publicly against Islamism. The new liberal Ibn Ruschd-Goethe mosque in Berlin is a good example: its founder, Seyran Ateş, has received death threats.

What should Western governments do?
Strongly support non-Islamist Muslims - and especially anti-Islamist Muslims. Islamists like Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan claim there is only one kind of Islam, namely theirs. No: there are many versions of Islam and non-Muslims should reject, and certainly not enable, Islamist hegemony. Rather, brave anti-Islamists like Ateş should get official recognition and other forms of support.

 

 

 

Prof. Daniel Pipes

Daniel Pipes is president and founder of the Middle East Forum and has authored 12 books., He is considered one of the world’s foremost analysts on the Middle East and Muslim history. He warned of militant Islam's war with the USA years before 9.11 and called Arafat's bluff at Oslo.



Militär bevakar Synagogan i Köpenhamn

 

De judiska helgdagarna bjuder på en tragisk nyhet i Danmark.

För första gången sedan kriget har militär trupp satts in för bevakning av bl a Synagogan i Köpenhamn. 160 soldater bevakar just nu judiska
församlingens lokaler och israeliska ambassaden i Köpenhamn.
Terrorhotet anses så akut att en militär specialenhet satts in mot det jihadistiska hotet.
Hotbilden förstärks av de hundratals välbeväpnade kriminella islamisterna i Köpenhamns shariagäng. Mordet utanför Synagogan 2015 begicks av en medlem i ett sådant gäng.



(AFP) COPENHAGEN, Denmark — The Danish military deployed troops in Copenhagen on Friday to guard the city’s synagogue and the Israeli embassy, hours ahead of the Yom Kippur Jewish holiday.

The deployment was the first by troops in the Danish capital since WWII.

The synagogue and the Israeli embassy have been under police protection since two deadly attacks in 2015.

An AFP correspondent at the scene saw armed soldiers standing outside Copenhagen’s main synagogue, with the narrow medieval street where it is located sealed off on both ends, hours before the start of Yom Kippur on Friday evening.

“This is the first time they are used in this type of situation, so it’s unique,” Copenhagen police spokesman Rasmus Bernt Skovsgaard said.



Danish police have protected Jewish institutions in the country since Omar El-Hussein, a Danish citizen of Palestinian origin who swore allegiance to the Islamic State group, opened fire outside the synagogue, killing one Jewish man and wounding two police officers in 2015.

Hours earlier, El-Hussein attacked a cultural centre hosting a free speech and Islam forum attended by the Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who faced death threats for penning a caricature of the Prophet Mohammad.

A filmmaker, Finn Norgaard, was killed in that attack. Police later killed El-Hussein.

The soldiers, who will be deployed until March 2018, are “well-trained and equipped to carry out this type of mission,” Lieutenant Colonel Steen Dalsgaard of the Danish army told AFP.

Some 160 soldiers have been deployed in Copenhagen and at the Danish-German border, where controls were restored at the end of 2015 to limit a migrant influx.

Denmark’s terror threat level is “serious”, ranked four on a five-point scale, according to the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET).

The latest deployment is not a response to any new threat, but rather aims to assist Copenhagen police strained by operations in other parts of the city.

Police will continue to guard the Jewish museum and the school.