On Friday, Feb. 17, a long-term FBI sting operation culminated in the arrest of a would-be terrorist while he was en route to the U.S. Capitol to carry out a suicide bombing.  Amine el Khalifi, a 29-year-old Muslim from Morocco who entered the U.S. with his parents on a trip to Disney World 1999 and illegally overstayed his tourist visa by over a decade, had been on the FBI’s radar since early 2011, during which he was “closely and carefully monitored,” according to a law enforcement spokesperson. Over this period, Khalifi’s planned target and method changed several times (from bombing a synagogue, to targeting an American general officer, to blowing up a building known to contain some DOD offices, to targeting a crowded restaurant frequented by high-ranking military personnel, to a suicide attack on the U.S. Capitol), his ultimate goal of carrying out a terrorist attack on American soil remained the same.

Thanks to the FBI’s efforts (in particular, its undercover assets who engaged Khalifi over the long term), when Khalifi finally set out to commit the terrorist act he had been preparing for, law enforcement officials were able to make sure that he did so with inert explosives in his suicide vest. Khalifi was ultimately arrested en route from a mosque, where he had been praying before his attack, to the U.S. Capitol.

Because Khalifi intended to carry out this suicide attack alone, media are falling back on one of their favorite misnomers – ‘Lone Wolf’ – to describe him. This is as predictable as it is wholly incorrect, as even a brief glance at the criminal complaint filed against Khalifi shows. In fact, Khalifi was the opposite of a ‘lone wolf,’ both in reality and, even more importantly, in his own mind. His plans were conceived and materials acquired with the assistance of others, but perhaps more importantly Khalifi thought that his suicide attack on the U.S. Capitol was the first of a two-part strike on America by al Qaeda, with the second part being a larger attack on a military installation by domestically-based al Qaeda terrorists.

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On Friday, Feb. 17, a long-term FBI sting operation culminated in the arrest of a would-be terrorist while he was en route to the U.S. Capitol to carry out a suicide bombing.  Amine el Khalifi, a 29-year-old Muslim from Morocco who entered the U.S. with his parents on a trip to Disney World 1999 and illegally overstayed his tourist visa by over a decade, had been on the FBI’s radar since early 2011, during which he was “closely and carefully monitored,” according to a law enforcement spokesperson. Over this period, Khalifi’s planned target and method changed several times (from bombing a synagogue, to targeting an American general officer, to blowing up a building known to contain some DOD offices, to targeting a crowded restaurant frequented by high-ranking military personnel, to a suicide attack on the U.S. Capitol), his ultimate goal of carrying out a terrorist attack on American soil remained the same.

Thanks to the FBI’s efforts (in particular, its undercover assets who engaged Khalifi over the long term), when Khalifi finally set out to commit the terrorist act he had been preparing for, law enforcement officials were able to make sure that he did so with inert explosives in his suicide vest. Khalifi was ultimately arrested en route from a mosque, where he had been praying before his attack, to the U.S. Capitol.

Because Khalifi intended to carry out this suicide attack alone, media are falling back on one of their favorite misnomers – ‘Lone Wolf’ – to describe him. This is as predictable as it is wholly incorrect, as even a brief glance at the criminal complaint filed against Khalifi shows. In fact, Khalifi was the opposite of a ‘lone wolf,’ both in reality and, even more importantly, in his own mind. His plans were conceived and materials acquired with the assistance of others, but perhaps more importantly Khalifi thought that his suicide attack on the U.S. Capitol was the first of a two-part strike on America by al Qaeda, with the second part being a larger attack on a military installation by domestically-based al Qaeda terrorists.

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JUST WEEKS AFTER the attacks of September 11, 2001, a small number of elite special were inserted into northern Afghanistan.  The Degüello, by Special Forces veteran Scott Zastrow, tells the story of the first unit to deploy: ODA 555, or ‘Triple Nickel,’ an A-Team from Ft. Campbell, Kentucky’s 5^th Special Forces Group (Airborne).  Accompanied by an Air Force combat controller, the ten-man team infiltrated northern Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley by helicopter shortly after the 9/11 attacks.  Their mission was to link up with Northern Alliance fighters, train and prepare them for an eventual advance on Kabul, and prep the battlespace for a follow-on invasion of coalition forces.

Though titularly a work of historical military fiction, The Degüello‘s content is made up almost entirely of truth hidden behind a paper-thin veneer of slightly altered events and identities (a necessity for operational security reasons).  Within the relatively short (238 pp.) text, Zastrow recounts Triple Nickel’s exploits and experiences, from 9/11 to the capture of Kabul, in the fast-paced and personal style of a writer who personally experienced the events he is writing about.

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JUST WEEKS AFTER the attacks of September 11, 2001, a small number of elite special were inserted into northern Afghanistan.  The Degüello, by Special Forces veteran Scott Zastrow, tells the story of the first unit to deploy: ODA 555, or ‘Triple Nickel,’ an A-Team from Ft. Campbell, Kentucky’s 5^th Special Forces Group (Airborne).  Accompanied by an Air Force combat controller, the ten-man team infiltrated northern Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley by helicopter shortly after the 9/11 attacks.  Their mission was to link up with Northern Alliance fighters, train and prepare them for an eventual advance on Kabul, and prep the battlespace for a follow-on invasion of coalition forces.

Though titularly a work of historical military fiction, The Degüello‘s content is made up almost entirely of truth hidden behind a paper-thin veneer of slightly altered events and identities (a necessity for operational security reasons).  Within the relatively short (238 pp.) text, Zastrow recounts Triple Nickel’s exploits and experiences, from 9/11 to the capture of Kabul, in the fast-paced and personal style of a writer who personally experienced the events he is writing about.

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“The greatest deception the devil ever pulled-off was to convince the world he didn’t exist.”

Selected excerpts from Islamization and Jihad:

What is ISLAM?

 

ISLAM is a self-propagating, theocratic ideology that’s anchored to the belief that Mohammed (Muhammad, Mohamet) was the last true prophet of God (Allah); and that the true Word and Will of Allah was gradually revealed to him by the Angel Gabriel (Jibrīl), over the course of 23 years.

 

Muslims believe that these revelations were “channeled” by Mohammad and written down by his entourage (Sahabah). Following his death in 632 AD, his dictations were eventually gathered into one official compilation known as the Holy Quran (Koran, Qur’an). The content of the Quran, along with anecdotal and biographical texts about Mohammed, known as the Sunnah and the Hadiths, became the doctrinal source of Islamic civil Law known as Sharia.

 

Sharia Law encompasses, regulates, and prescribes every aspect of human activity: from what to eat, what to say, what to do, and wear—to how to deal with non-Muslims (Dhimmi and Kafir) and apostates (those who turn away from the Faith).  It is the implementation of Islamic religious doctrine through political enforcement.

 

What does the term ISLAMIZATION mean?

 

In a nutshell, ISLAMIZATION is the transformation of a regional population into an Islamic state. In essence, an Islamic state is any nation whose population (Muslim and non-Muslim alike) is regulated by Sharia Laws: such as the crime of blaspheming Allah or his Holy Prophet, Mohammed.

 

The self-propagating mandate of Islam is to continually strive to transform the entire world into a unified Islamic society.  For Islamists (Muslims), this religious duty of manifesting such a society is called jihad.

For Muslims,  jihad is a fundamental religious mandate to manifest the expansion of the Ummah—and Dar al-Islam—by various other methods, as well: including proselytization, propaganda, stealth jihad, and cultural invasion.

U.S. officials have reportedly confirmed that deadly bombings in the Syrian cities of Damascus (in December and January) and Aleppo (Friday) were the work of al Qaeda in Iraq, whose members were acting with authorization from al Qaeda central head and Osama bin Laden successor Ayman al-Zawahiri. According to McClatchy:

The Iraqi branch of al Qaida, seeking to exploit the bloody turmoil in Syria to reassert its potency, carried out two recent bombings in the Syrian capital, Damascus, and likely was behind suicide bombings Friday that killed at least 28 people in the largest city, Aleppo, U.S. officials told McClatchy.

The officials cited U.S. intelligence reports on the incidents, which appear to verify Syrian President Bashar Assad’s charges of al Qaida involvement in the 11-month uprising against his rule. The Syrian opposition has claimed that Assad’s regime, which has responded with massive force against the uprising, staged the bombings to discredit the pro-democracy movement calling for his ouster.

The international terrorist network’s presence in Syria also raises the possibility that Islamic extremists will try to hijack the uprising, which would seriously complicate efforts by the United States and its European and Arab partners to force Assad’s regime from power. On Friday, President Barack Obama repeated his call for Assad to step down, accusing his forces of “outrageous bloodshed.”

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U.S. officials have reportedly confirmed that deadly bombings in the Syrian cities of Damascus (in December and January) and Aleppo (Friday) were the work of al Qaeda in Iraq, whose members were acting with authorization from al Qaeda central head and Osama bin Laden successor Ayman al-Zawahiri. According to McClatchy:

The Iraqi branch of al Qaida, seeking to exploit the bloody turmoil in Syria to reassert its potency, carried out two recent bombings in the Syrian capital, Damascus, and likely was behind suicide bombings Friday that killed at least 28 people in the largest city, Aleppo, U.S. officials told McClatchy.

The officials cited U.S. intelligence reports on the incidents, which appear to verify Syrian President Bashar Assad’s charges of al Qaida involvement in the 11-month uprising against his rule. The Syrian opposition has claimed that Assad’s regime, which has responded with massive force against the uprising, staged the bombings to discredit the pro-democracy movement calling for his ouster.

The international terrorist network’s presence in Syria also raises the possibility that Islamic extremists will try to hijack the uprising, which would seriously complicate efforts by the United States and its European and Arab partners to force Assad’s regime from power. On Friday, President Barack Obama repeated his call for Assad to step down, accusing his forces of “outrageous bloodshed.”

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Mind you, you wouldn’t know that from the Washington Post’s article on the arrest of John Kiriakou. While the Washington Post – from appearances, somewhat reluctantly – reported that Kiriakou (a former CIA officer and Senate Foreign Affairs staffer) had been arrested for revealing names, operations and investigations to the media back in 2008-2009, the paper completely neglected to mention who Kiriakou ended up working for – which is to say, Senator John Kerry (D, MA). Oddly enough, the Washington Post managed to simultaneous note that “[t]he committee had not been aware of the criminal probe of Kiriakou, according to a former U.S. official familiar with the matter” in its article, while unaccountably mentioning that Kiriakou has been leaking classified information publicly for years – including to the, well, Washington Post. One can only guess why a premiere Left-Establishment paper would be so eager to whitewash the record when it comes to protecting prominent Left-Establishment politicians… like, say, John Kerry, who is the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee (at least until next January)…

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Mind you, you wouldn’t know that from the Washington Post’s article on the arrest of John Kiriakou. While the Washington Post – from appearances, somewhat reluctantly – reported that Kiriakou (a former CIA officer and Senate Foreign Affairs staffer) had been arrested for revealing names, operations and investigations to the media back in 2008-2009, the paper completely neglected to mention who Kiriakou ended up working for – which is to say, Senator John Kerry (D, MA). Oddly enough, the Washington Post managed to simultaneous note that “[t]he committee had not been aware of the criminal probe of Kiriakou, according to a former U.S. official familiar with the matter” in its article, while unaccountably mentioning that Kiriakou has been leaking classified information publicly for years – including to the, well, Washington Post. One can only guess why a premiere Left-Establishment paper would be so eager to whitewash the record when it comes to protecting prominent Left-Establishment politicians… like, say, John Kerry, who is the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee (at least until next January)…

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TEN YEARS HAVE passed since terrorists hijacked airliners and flew them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  In that period, America has fought wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, carried out hundreds armed drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen (among other locations), and conducted covert operations around the world, all in the name of what President George W.  Bush termed the “Global War on Terror.”  Terror plots and attempted attacks have been foiled, terrorist leaders have been killed or captured in massive numbers – including the world’s most wanted terrorist himself, Osama bin Laden.  All of this has combined, in the words of President Barack Obama, to “put al Qaeda on the path to defeat.”

Given all this, is it possible that America is actually losing the war on terror? In Bin Laden’s Legacy: Why We’re Still Losing the War on Terror, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, director of the Center for the Study of Terrorist Radicalization at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, argues not only that we are losing, but that we as a nation still fail to understand what kind of a war we are fighting, and what our enemies’ actual goals are.  This is a powerful indictment, and Gartenstein-Ross painstakingly lays it out in a book that is both sharply analytical and accessible to any audience.

A KEY PROBLEM with America’s attempt to wage a War on Terror while safeguarding itself from future attack, Gartenstein-Ross writes, is that our ignorance of the enemy we are facing has allowed us to pursue both goals in a profligate fashion that plays right into the hands of an enemy that sees America’s economy as the long-term target.  To understand the reasoning behind this, we must look to the Soviet Union.  Though myriad factors contributed to the dissolution of the U.S.S.R., its collapse so shortly after its withdrawal from a decade-long quagmire in Afghanistan helped convince Osama bin Laden and other former mujahedeen that they had been the cause of its ultimate defeat.

Now, al Qaeda has taken this strategy of embroiling a much larger and wealthier enemy in a long and costly war of economic attrition and has aimed it at the United States, with no small measure of success gained over the last decade.  “Even though it has lost Osama bin Laden and its safe haven in Afghanistan,” the author writes, al Qaeda’s “fight against America is broader, and al Qaeda and its affiliates are key players in more regions than they were engaged in a decade ago…Meanwhile, the U.S. economy is shattered, it faces an almost unthinkable debt burden, and its policy makers have largely been consigned to arguing with each other on the sidelines while the country’s traditional allies…are overthrown or see their power erode” (p. 200).

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