Thanks to our elected officials’ trepidation in affirming uncomfortable and inconvenient truths about Islam and the mindset of its followers, we have an obvious eruption of criminal activity and seditious behavior. Anyone paying attention has been seeing the fruits of false tolerance ripening.
A few days ago it was discovered that Alton Nolen the man who beheaded a co-worker in Moore, Oklahoma, was a devotee of an Imam – Suhaib Webb, in Oklahoma City, with connections to Anwar al-Awlaki, participant in the 9/11 terror event.
Webb, coincidentally, was part of the ministerial staff at the Islamic Society of Boston during the time frame the brothers Tsarnaev of the Boston Marathon bombing infamy, were congregants.
More recently it has come to light that ISIS has openly declared adherents in the Mid West and in Texas who are propagating calls for violence on social media. The common denominator in this instance is Ahmad Musa Jibril. Jibril, 42, of Dearborn, Michigan – is an American born cleric that was previously convicted of fraud and sentenced to 8 years in federal prison. The conviction stemmed from evidence that Jibril and his father vandalized rental properties they owned in order to collect insurance settlements.
His background is of interest. Although born in the U.S., Jibril spend part of his youth in Medina, during the time that the father, Sheikh Musa, attended the Islamic University of Medina. Young Ahmed attained Hafidh al Qur’an – complete memorization of the Quran, in Saudi Arabia when he was 11.
In the footsteps of his father, Ahmed returned to Medina and obtained a degree in Shariah (Islamic law) and later, supposedly received a Master’s degree in law in Michigan – where from, it is not disclosed.
Jibril is of the Salafist sect of Islam (synonymous with Wahhabism – a literalist interpretation of Islam) and is, according to researchers at King’s College in Cambridge England, one of the two most followed clerics of the Islamic State terrorists in Syria and Iraq. Because Jibril was being monitored by the FBI prior to his sentencing in 2005, agents at the time submitted to the judge Jibril’s documented activities of running a radical Salafi website, in which were archived “a library of fanatically anti-American sermons by militant Islamic clerics”.
Due to this, Jibril’s activities in social media and public communications are cautiously avoiding explicit advocacy of jihad. Though he doesn’t openly incite his followers to violence, Jibril, started tweeting support for the Syrian rebels 13 days after he was released from prison. In one of Jibril’s ‘sermons’ on Youtube, he states, “When your brothers in Syria speak, everyone today needs to shut their mouth and listen, because they’re proving themselves to be real men.”
Jibril evidently endorses a standard of ‘manhood’ that includes, slaughtering unarmed victims, abducting women and children, sexual assault, torture, human trafficking and genocide.
“It is clear that (Jibril and Australian preacher Musa Cerantonio, also esteemed by militant Muslims) are important figures whose political, moral and spiritual messages are considered attractive to a number of foreign fighters”, the researchers conclude.
The online news site, Vocativ reports that:
One American ISIS supporter is a young man from New York City who is now studying at a prominent Jesuit university in the Midwest. The ISIS flag serves as his Facebook profile banner, and he has also posted a picture of a man wearing a balaclava and carrying a sword on his back with the phrase “Under the Shade of the Sword,” a reference to an infamous book about the clash of Christianity and Islam. A favorite quote—”How can you defeat an enemy who looks into the barrel of your gun and sees paradise?”—is attributed to a Russian general speaking of the Chechen mujahideen.
When reporters from Vocativ called local law enforcement officials to ascertain whether this individual (unnamed because under investigation) and his activities were known to them, the police official told them the student had “potentially put out questionable messages through social media.” The police spokesperson also acknowledged that the Joint Terrorism Task Force were on scene to coordinate and determine the threat level posed by the student. He told them, “I am sitting here right now with a couple of agents who have received some information and begun working on something.”
The individuals that Vocativ reporters have tracked so far, also include a university student in Texas and a single woman in Minnesota. The man in Texas is a self-described engineering major and his facebook page is riddled with ISIS flags, propaganda videos, portraits of Islamic State leader al-Baghdadi and anti-U.S. rants. His selfies picture him in Islamic garb and publicly disseminating tracts promoting ISIS.
The woman is teacher in a mosque school. Her Facebook page is a bizarre mash up of ‘likes’ including Nutella spread, popular movies, a WNBA team the Lynx – along with images of the late Al Qaeda operative Anwar al-Awlaki and various other assorted ISIS promulgations.
What general conclusion can one draw from the fact that a news gathering organization is a few steps ahead of Homeland Security officials? Perhaps that while radicalism can be traced to a limited number of mosques and known individuals, there is every likelihood that acts of terror can be launched while authorities are still operating in a cautious and reserved ‘containment’ mode.
Complicating the situation is the climate of political correctness and the reality that unless a plot is uncovered with probable cause for arrest, the government cannot pre-emptively detain anyone except for questioning.
The King’s College researchers related that, “a number of British ISIS fighters have told us that they watched his (Jibril’s) lecture series … before embarking on jihad.” Jibril is on probation with a monitoring device and his communication devices are subject to search as ordered by a Federal Judge.
Is it unreasonable to require a convict to refrain from activities that although they may not directly advocate terror, obviously inspire it? Especially when Jibril has more than 145,000 followers on Facebook and is now the most “liked” personality on Facebook among the foreign fighters they tracked and is followed by 60% of foreign jihadists in Syria on Twitter?
All of this brings into question how elastic should be the constraints of speech that meets the guidelines of the Supreme Court’s ‘Brandenburg Test” – in which the violence advocated must be intended, likely and imminent.
One thing is certain. We’re spending $60 billion on NSA surveillance violating the 4th Amendment, meanwhile independent reporters are finding possible extremist recruits without such apparatus – in some cases before they even become apparent to law enforcement.
Let’s not even talk about border security and the Secret Service.
