Salon.com > Jihad

Why are Europeans waging jihad in Syria?

Fri, 10 May 2013 18:25:00 +0000

BRUSSELS, Belgium — A man looks deep into the camera and pleads, in Arabic: “You, there in Europe, watching this video. I’m calling you.”

With urgency in his voice, he refers to children being murdered and women being raped at the hands of the enemy.

“We really need you here. This is your opportunity for paradise.”

“Paradise” via the distinct possibility of death on a Syrian battlefield, he means.

The man is calling for recruits to join the Al Nusra Front, an Al Qaeda affiliate that makes up part of Syria’s fragmented armed opposition fighting the government forces of President Bashar al-Assad.

As unappealing as that “opportunity” may sound to the average European, the message has resonated with hundreds of youths here who have disappeared from their schools and homes and turned up in Syria.

Tsarnaevs follow familiar terror pattern

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 11:48:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (AP) — Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev sought to embrace American lives after emigrating from Russia — joining a boxing club, winning a scholarship and even seeking U.S. citizenship. But their uncle last week angrily called them "losers" who failed to feel settled even after a decade of living in the United States.

The disparity between the brothers' struggle to assimilate in the U.S. and their alleged bombing of the Boston Marathon reflects what counterterror experts describe as a classic pattern of young first- or second-generation immigrants striking out after struggling to fit in. The U.S. has long been worried about people in America who are not tied to any designated terrorist group but who are motivated by ideologies that lead them to commit violent acts. Some are motivated by radical religious interpretations; others feel ostracized by their communities.

Three U.S. officials involved in the investigation said the brothers had no links to any terrorist groups. After interrogating Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on Monday, U.S. officials believe they were motivated by their faith, apparently an anti-American, radical version of Islam. Another official called them aspiring jihadists. All three officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly.

Pamela Geller blames a “Jihadi”

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 21:50:00 +0000

Seizing on a thinly sourced New York Post report that police have ID'd a Saudi national as a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings this afternoon, Islamophohbic blogger and activist Pamela Geller is ready to lay the blame. In her take, the alleged suspect becomes a "Jihadi" and there isn't any doubt in Geller's mind that he did it. She wrote on her blog Atlas Shrugs under the headline, "Jihadi Arrested in Horrific Boston Marathon Bombing":

Jihad in America. 12 dead, 50 injured. My deepest condolences to their loved ones. Monstrous.

Mother charged after sending her son, Jihad, to school wearing shirt that says “I am a bomb”

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 21:37:00 +0000

A French woman, Bouchra Bagour, gave birth to her son, Jihad, on Sept. 11, the same day that terrorists crashed into the World Trade Center. Fast-forward to three years later: Bagour, 35, sent her son to nursery school in a shirt that said “I am a bomb” on the front and “Jihad, born on 11 September” on the back.

The shirt was disturbing enough that the boy's teacher alerted authorities, and Bagour, along with her brother who bought Jihad the shirt, are being charged with "glorifying crime."

But Bagour thought the shirt would “make people laugh,” and her brother insists that "It's the day (of) his birth I wanted to highlight, not the year," the BBC reports. Bagour attempted to defend herself, saying, "We were never trying to claim responsibility for this thing or defend a cause."

Prosecutors are hoping to fine them more than $5,000, collectively. “Idiocy is often the best alibi to hide the real intentions. The most scandalous thing is that they’ve used and manipulated a three-year-old child to voluntarily convey the words of a terrorist," lawyer Claude Avril told Sky News.

The trial will conclude on April 10.

Can “jihad” survive Pam Geller?

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 12:45:00 +0000

So you want to rebrand a word. It's hard to think of a more difficult rebranding project than "jihad."

Since Sept. 11, the term has become synonymous with terrorism and villainy -- but now a group of Muslims is trying to reclaim the word from the extremists, and redefine “jihad” to mean something normal and peaceful and good. They realize this won't be easy.

The campaign hinges on the idea that “jihad” has two commonly accepted usages. One is the violent, physical struggle most of us are familiar with. The other, which many Muslims and Islamic scholars consider the more correct definition, refers to the inner struggle to do good and follow God’s teaching; Muslims strive to attain this every day. This is the “proper meaning” being promoted by My Jihad, a public education campaign recently launched on billboards and on buses in Chicago.

“The campaign is about reclaiming Islam, and not just ‘jihad,’ from both Muslim and non-Muslim extremists,” said Ahmed Rehab, the leader of the effort, in an interview. “Whether it’s the bin Ladens and the al-Qaidas of the Muslim world, or the Pam Gellers and Frank Gaffneys of the non-Muslim world, ironically -- even though they come from the two opposite ends of the spectrum -- they agree exactly on the same definition of ‘jihad’ and on the same worldview of Islam versus the rest of the world.”

Humbled giant

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 15:10:00 +0000

Americans lived in a “victory culture” for much of the twentieth century. You could say that we experienced an almost 75-year stretch of triumphalism -- think of it as the real “American Century” -- from World War I to the end of the Cold War, with time off for a destructive stalemate in Korea and a defeat in Vietnam too shocking to absorb or shake off.

When the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, it all seemed so obvious. Fate had clearly dealt Washington a royal flush. It was victory with a capital V. The United States was, after all, the last standing superpower, after centuries of unceasing great power rivalries on the planet. It had a military beyond compare and no enemy, hardly a “rogue state,” on the horizon. It was almost unnerving, such clear sailing into a dominant future, but a moment for the ages nonetheless. Within a decade, pundits in Washington were hailing us as “the dominant power in the world, more dominant than any since Rome.”