Israel Matzav

There's no neutrality in the war on terror

Dr. Walid Phares argues that the recent suicide bombing in Stockholm shows that attempts to remain neutral in the war on terror are doomed to failure.

Until Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly’s explosive belt went off prematurely in Stockholm last month, Sweden was the poster child for isolationism in the war on terror. While Abdulwahab’s bomb failed to achieve his desired result, it did obliterate the myth that nations can remain neutral to global terrorism.

Abdulwahab’s failed attack typifies the jihadis’ all-out war against “infidels.” He was a doctrinaire jihadist with ties to a local militant Islamist organization, and his attack didn’t spring up out of nowhere. There had already been warning signs that terrorists were mobilizing against the Scandinavian democracy. Militants had threatened Swedish artist Lars Vilks for his satirical cartoon portrayal of the prophet Mohammed, attacking his home and attempting to murder him with an axe. Others threatened Vilks.

The Iraq-born Abdulwahab was a member of the Facebook group “Islamic Caliphate State.” He lived in Luton in Bedfordshire, England, home to four of the terrorists who killed 52 and injured more than 2,000 in the 7/7 train bombings.

Swedish authorities claimed that Abdulwahab had been “completely unknown” to them before the blast, and that they were trying to ascertain when he was first “radicalized.” Swedish prosecutor Tomas Lindstrand said that the country’s security apparatus “was not a Stasi organization engaged in analyzing people’s Facebook pages.”

The irony is that Abdulwahab’s musings on Facebook are the only evidence of his radicalism prior to the attack.

Farasat Latif, the secretary of the Luton mosque to which Abdulwahab belonged, said, “Despite Abdulwahab’s extreme views nothing pointed to the fact that he was going to do something stupid.”

Unfortunately, I think we're reaching the point in the West where we have to assume that any Muslim might do 'something stupid' until we can affirmatively prove otherwise.

Phares sums up:

European authorities have a lot of catching up to do. Whether or not they wish to admit it, they are at war. Even when jihadists act as “lone wolves,” they always have ties to some kind of radicalizing environment. The internet is always a vehicle for radicalization, but small cadres of global jihadists create the habitat that cultivates terrorists like Abdulwahab. Luton had been a known hotbed of radicalization since July 7, 2005.

The Swedes have now joined the community of nations besieged by Salafi terrorists. They may entertain notions of neutrality, but the jihadists who attack them don’t care.

Indeed. What it will take to get them to start catching up?

Read it all.

Labels: Islamic terrorism, Mohamed cartoons, suicide bombing, Sweden, war on terror

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:58 PM