Recently in American jihadis Category

The question asked in this headline is never answered in the article. The AP can't bring itself to consider the possibility that Moeed Abdul Salam read the Qur'an and Sunnah and was "radicalized" in that way. "Why did boarding school graduate join al-Qaida?," by Chris Brummitt and Gene Johnson for AP, January 18 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Moeed Abdul Salam didn't descend into radical Islam for lack of other options. He grew up in a well-off Texas household, attended a pricey boarding school and graduated from one of the state's most respected universities.

What? But doesn't poverty cause terrorism? Isn't that what the learned analysts always tell us? Was Moeed Abdul Salam simply a Misunderstander of Islam?

But the most unlikely thing about his recruitment was his family: Two generations had spent years promoting interfaith harmony and combating Muslim stereotypes in their hometown and even on national television.

Salam rejected his relatives' moderate faith and comfortable life, choosing instead a path that led him to work for al-Qaida. His odyssey ended late last year in a middle-of-the-night explosion in Pakistan. The 37-year-old father of four was dead after paramilitary troops stormed his apartment.

His Nov. 19 death went largely unnoticed in the U.S. and rated only limited attention in Pakistan. But the circumstances threatened to overshadow the work of an American family devoted to religious understanding.

And his mysterious evolution presented a reminder of the attraction Pakistan still holds for Islamic militants, especially well-educated Westerners whose Internet and language skills make them useful converts for jihad....

It is not clear to what extent Salam's family knew of his radicalism, but on his Facebook page the month before he died, he posted an image of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American al-Qaida leader who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen, beside a burning American flag.

He had also recently linked to a document praising al-Awlaki martyrdom and to a message urging Muslims to rejoice "in this time when you see the mujahideen all over the world victorious."

After his death, the Global Islamic Media Forum, a propaganda group for al-Qaida and its allies, hailed Salam as a martyr, explaining in an online posting that he had overseen a unit that produced propaganda in Urdu and other South Asian languages....

The family, originally from Pakistan, immigrated to the U.S. decades ago. Salam's father was a pilot for a Saudi airline, and the family eventually settled in the Dallas suburb of Plano. Their cream-colored brick home, assessed at nearly $400,000, stands on a corner lot in a quiet, upper-class neighborhood....

Salam went on to study history at the University of Texas at Austin and graduated in 1996. His Facebook profile indicated he moved to Saudi Arabia by 2003 and began working as a translator, writer and editor for websites about Islam....

Back in the United States, Salam's mother is a prominent resident of Plano, where she is co-chairwoman of a city advisory group called the Plano Multicultural Outreach Roundtable, as well as a former president of the Texas Muslim Women's Foundation....

Salam's brother, Monem Salam, has traveled the country speaking about Islam, seeking to correct misconceptions following the 9/11 attacks. He works for Saturna Capital, where he manages funds that invest according to Islamic principles — for example, in companies that do not profit from alcohol or pork. He recently moved from the company's Bellingham, Wash., headquarters to head its office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

After the 2001 attacks, he and his wife made a public-television documentary about his efforts as a Muslim man to obtain a pilot's license. They also wrote a column for The Bellingham Herald newspaper that answered readers' questions about Islam....

Officers said they pushed through the flimsy door, and Salam killed himself with a grenade when he realized he was surrounded.

The Islamic media group and the al-Qaida contact in Karachi disputed that account, saying Salam was killed by the troops....

Neighbor Syed Mohammad Farooq was woken by an explosion. Minutes later, one of the troops asked him to go inside the apartment and see what had happened, he said.

"He was lying on the floor with blood pooling around him. One of his arms had been blown off. I couldn't look for long. He was moaning and seemed to be reciting verses from the Koran," he said. "I could hear the children crying, but I couldn't see them."

Hours later, Salam's wife and father-in-law, a lawyer in the city, came to collect the children from the apartment in Gulistane Jauhar, a middle-class area of Karachi, Farooq said. On the night he died, Salam led evening prayers at the small mosque on the ground floor of the apartment building.

"His Koranic recitation was very good," said Karim Baloch, who prayed behind him that night. "It was like that of an Arab."

Probably this American went to Yemen to study Islam, and ended up getting involved in jihad warfare. Yet the U.S. Government's official position is that jihad warfare has nothing to do with Islam, and that it is offensive to suggest otherwise.

It's sheer madness. We are ruled by madmen.

"Weeks of clashes in north Yemen kill 200," by Ahmed al-Haj for the Associated Press, December 21 (thanks to Wimpy):

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Nearly 200 people, among them 15 foreigners, have been killed in clashes over the past few weeks between an ultraconservative Islamist group and former Shiite rebels in northern Yemen, a military official and the leader of the Islamist faction said Wednesday. In Moscow, Russia's Foreign Minister said four Russian citizens were among those killed.

The tension between the Salafi Islamists, who are Sunni, and the former Hawthi rebels, who are Shiite, escalated just as Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh signed in late November a U.S.-backed proposal crafted by powerful Gulf Arab neighbors, under which he transfers power to his vice president in exchange for immunity from prosecution. He agreed to step down after a 10-month uprising against his 33-year authoritarian rule....

Salafi spokesman Surour al-Wadee said 71 Salafi fighters, among them an American and French, Russian, Algerian, Malaysian, Somalian, and Libyan citizens, have been killed in the clashes. A Yemeni military officials said more than 120 Hawthis have been killed. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

Many of the foreigners were studying in the Salafi Dar al-Hadith school in Saada, which has attracted students from around the world. It was set up more than 20 years ago as a learning center to counter Shiite Islam in the area. Its funds often flow from Yemen's neighbor to the north, Saudi Arabia.

What? Salafis studying in an Islamic school? But don't the Vast Majority of Peaceful Muslims take them aside and explain to them how they're getting Islam all wrong?

Salafism is a particularly hardline branch of Islam. Some Salafis follow a militant ideology similar to al-Qaida's, but the terror network operates separately. Salafi preachers in Saada have used the pulpit to argue that the killing of Hawthi Shiites is an Islamic duty.

During Yemen's uprising, security has unraveled and al-Qaida and other Islamist militants have tried to exploit the vacuum to gain a firmer foothold in the impoverished country. The al-Qaida branch in Yemen is one of the most active in the world.

In the months leading up to Saleh's signing of the agreement to give up power, security forces appeared to have turned a blind eye to Salafis arming themselves and amassing in greater numbers in Saada province. The Saudi government pressures Saleh to step down as of the group of Gulf states that formulated the plan for him to go.

On Tuesday, the Hawthis and Salafis agreed to a cease-fire brokered by opposition tribesmen, politicians and religious figures. It collapsed less than 24 hours later in part of Saada. According to al-Wadee, eight Hawthis and two Salafi fighters were killed on Wednesday.

Al-Qaida fighters have not attempted a cease-fire with Hawthi Shiites. Instead, leading al-Qaida figures in Yemen have reportedly called on fighters in recent weeks to fight the Shiites.

Russia tracks its citizens who travel abroad for training in Muslim seminaries. The Russian Embassy in Yemen counted 36 Russian citizens living in Saada — students at Dar al-Hadith school for Islamic studies and their families....

Tired of widespread poverty and a government perceived as corrupt and abusive, many Muslims from the Caucasus have traveled to the Middle East and South Asia to study with radical Islamic leaders who challenge the Kremlin-backed Muslim clerics at home.

Study after study has shown that poverty doesn't cause terrorism, but AP will never admit that. And why should they? Just look at all the Haitian suicide bombers!

In 2009, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called on Russia's Muslim leaders to join forces in an effort to keep young Muslims in Russia and quell recruitment by extremist groups abroad. In May, Alexander Khloponin, Medvedev's envoy to the Caucaus region, said authorities were planning to closely monitor young people who go abroad to study Islam.

Obama better take Medvedev aside and have a word with him: it looks as if he is on the verge of committing "Islamophobia."

American and Irish misunderstanders of Islam came together over Motoon rage, and plotted murder to defend their religion and prophet. Here again, it is odd how those who consider themselves to be most devout and active in the defense of Islam are those who tend to violence; this is never, ever explained by those who claim that they're misunderstanding the Religion of Peace. "Irish journalist reveals details of Jihad Jane plot: New details of Islamic terrorists in Ireland revealed," by Antoinette Kelly for Irish Central, October 31:

Last year, four men and three women were arrested in Waterford and Cork in relation to an alleged plot to kill Lars Vilks, a Swedish cartoonist who had depicted the prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog.

Two of the female converts linked to the plot were from the United States, including Colleen R LaRose, otherwise known as 'Jihad Jane', the pseudonym she used for the internet.

For the first time, an Irish journalist rovided many details that have been missing from the bizarre story. Writing for the Irish Times, Mary Fitzgerald writes that a 14-page indictment obtained by the paper details 55 "overt acts" in relation to the conspiracy.

"The indictment alleges that, from about 2008 to July 2011, Damache and Khalid conspired with LaRose, Paulin-Ramirez and others to provide material support and resources, including logistical support, recruitment services, funds, identification documents and personnel, to a conspiracy to kill overseas," she writes.

She adds that, according to the indictment, "Damache, Khalid and others 'devised and co-ordinated a violent jihad organisation consisting of men and women from Europe and the US divided into a planning team, a research team, an action team, a recruitment team and a finance team; some of whom would travel to south Asia for explosives training and return to Europe to wage violent jihad.'

"The indictment alleges that Damache, Khalid, LaRose and others recruited men online to “wage violent jihad” in south Asia and Europe. In addition, Damache, Khalid, LaRose and others allegedly recruited women who had passports and the ability to travel to and around Europe in support of such activity.

The indictment further alleges that LaRose, Paulin-Ramirez and others travelled to and around Europe to “participate in and support violent jihad”, and that Khalid and LaRose and others solicited funds online for terrorists."...

This convert to and Misunderstander of Islam said of her attempt to murder Muhammad cartoonist Lars Vilks: "I will make this my goal till I achieve it or die trying."

Murder for a cartoon. For Allah.

"Pennsylvania woman known as 'Jihad Jane' to plead guilty to terror conspiracy," from Newscore, January 28 (thanks to all who sent this in):

PHILADELPHIA -- A Pennsylvania woman, nicknamed "Jihad Jane," who pleaded not guilty to four terror conspiracy charges back in March 2010, is expected to change her plea, CNN reported Friday.

Colleen LaRose's attorney told CNN that she will change her plea to guilty to charges that she conspired to support terrorists and kill a person in a foreign country.

LaRose, 47, was arrested in 2009 for trying to recruit Islamic fighters and for plotting to assassinate a Swedish artist who poked fun at the Prophet Muhammad.

The federal indictment claims that LaRose, who hails from suburban Pennsburg, Pa., grew obsessed with Islamic radicals online and, using the screen names "Jihad Jane" and "Fatima Rose," agreed to raise funds for them as well as to assist them with recruiting others.

Prosecutors say she managed to recruit at least one person, a single mother named Jamie Paulin-Ramirez from Leadville, Colo. She eventually moved to Ireland with her young son and married a terror suspect from Algeria. She is in custody and had pleaded not guilty to terror-related charges.

LaRose is also accused of making false statements to government officials and for stealing a passport that she intended to give to an Islamic fighter.

Prosecutors say that LaRose responded to instructions to kill cartoonist Lars Vilks, who had drawn the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog, by saying, "I will make this my goal till I achieve it or die trying."...

"Despite ties to two of the 9/11 hijackers and the Fort Hood gunman, al-Awlaki has avoided terrorism charges over the years because he never crossed the line into being an active member of al-Qaida -- someone who recruits and trains terrorists and plots attacks on the U.S."

That is a very fine line, apparently.

"U.S.-Born Radical Cleric Added to Terror Blacklist," from AP, July 16 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The Obama administration added the U.S.-born, al-Qaida-linked cleric accused of helping to plan the failed Christmas Day airline bombing to a terrorism blacklist Friday, targeting him with sanctions aimed at cutting off his financial support. fox news

The Obama administration added a U.S.-born, al-Qaida-linked cleric to a terrorism blacklist Friday, targeting him with sanctions aimed at cutting off his financial support.

The Treasury Department placed Anwar al-Awlaki -- accused by officials of helping plan the failed Christmas Day airline bombing -- on its list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists. That means any bank accounts found in the United States belonging to him are frozen. Americans are forbidden from doing business with him. And, it bans him from traveling to the U.S.

The move comes about six months after the U.S. government put al-Awlaki on a secret list of targets to be captured or killed, according to U.S. officials.

Born in New Mexico, al-Awlaki, 39, is not perceived by American officials as a major tactical terror leader on par with al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden. But his role as an inspirational exhorter for al-Qaida's cause and his growing involvement in plots aimed at the U.S. has made him a prime target in the effort to counter the militant movement.

The U.S. government has been monitoring al-Awlaki for years. But the Treasury Department was able to slap the cleric with sanctions because officials established an operational link between him and an al-Qaida spinoff group in Yemen, according to a government official who was not authorized to speak publicly about this matter and spoke only on condition of anonymity.

Despite ties to two of the 9/11 hijackers and the Fort Hood gunman, al-Awlaki has avoided terrorism charges over the years because he never crossed the line into being an active member of al-Qaida -- someone who recruits and trains terrorists and plots attacks on the U.S.

But that changed with his involvement with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the young recruit to al-Qaida's nascent Yemen branch, who tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day....

Capital offense

And of course "defamation," in this context, means "telling the truth about what he said and did," as well as the Motoons.

"Qaida magazine urges killing of those who defame Mohammed," from AFP, July 11 (thanks to Mukund):

DUBAI: An English-language Al-Qaida magazine in its first issue ran an article it said was penned by US-born Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki calling for the execution of anyone who defames the Prophet Mohammed.

"The proper solution to this growing campaign of defamation" of the prophet is "the execution of those involved," reads the article in web magazine "Inspire," in a text provided by the US monitoring service SITE on Sunday.

The article singles out Seattle-based cartoonist Molly Norris, who satirically proposed to make May 20 an "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day," although Islam bans the depiction of any prophet as blasphemous.

"A cartoonist out of Seattle, Washington, named Molly Norris started the 'Everyone Draw Mohammed Day,'" the article attributed to the radical Yemeni cleric says.

"She should be taken as a prime target of assassination, along with others who participated in her campaign."

"The large number of participants makes it easier for us because there are many targets to choose from," reads the article in al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula's magazine.

The killings should not, however, be limited to "Draw Mohammed" participants, the article says.

"Because (participants) are practising a 'right' that is defended by the law, they have the backing of the entire Western political system. This would make ... attacking any Western target legal from an Islamic viewpoint."

Awlaki, now based in Yemen, rose to prominence last year after it emerged he had communicated by email with Major Nidal Hasan, a US army psychiatrist accused of opening fire on colleagues at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13.

The imam has also been linked to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian student accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound flight with explosives in his underwear on December 25....

The new charges, says the WaPo, "present the government's clearest case to date that the main al-Qaeda organization remains active in trying to attack U.S. targets." This was in question? "Al-Qaeda operative is charged in N.Y. subway plot," by Spencer S. Hsu for the Washington Post, July 8 (thanks to Block Ness):

A Saudi American al-Qaeda operative based in Pakistan personally directed a failed plot to bomb New York City's subway last September, federal authorities charged Wednesday, asserting that the same al-Qaeda unit helped plan an attack that was thwarted last year in Britain.

Newly unsealed charges against Adnan G. El Shukrijumah, 34, a naturalized U.S. citizen who lived in New York City and South Florida before fleeing after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, present the government's clearest case to date that the main al-Qaeda organization remains active in trying to attack U.S. targets, alongside similar efforts by al-Qaeda affiliates.

In addition to alleging Shukrijumah's operational role, the superceding indictment returned in the Eastern District of New York identified five other suspects tied to the plot, led by Colorado airport shuttle driver Najibullah Zazi, to set off suicide bombs in New York's transit system. Officials did not make public the name of one of the five and provided only aliases for another. [...]

U.S. officials launched a global manhunt for Shukrijumah in 2003, setting a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture and calling him an "imminent threat to U.S. citizens and interests."...

And they do it despite the fact that interest in jihad and violence runs through the kid's life. More claims of victim status and evasion of responsibility: "Parents of accused NJ terrorist blame FBI for son's interest in jihad," by Matthew Van Dusen and Peter J. Sampson for The Record, June 25 (thanks to Twostellas):

At age 6, Mohamed Alessa declared to his parents that he would someday become the first Muslim president of the United States -- "President Mohamed," he would be called.

Today, a 20-year-old Alessa sits in a cell at a New York detention center, charged with conspiring with his best friend, Carlos Almonte, 24, of Elmwood Park, to wage violent jihad on Americans overseas.

But even at a young age, his parents said their son suffered from the uncontrollable rages that would plague him throughout his teens and fuel run-ins with school officials and law enforcement.

In their first interview together, Mahmood and Nadia Alessa, of North Bergen, detailed their son's psychological problems, his troubled teen years and their belief that the FBI pushed two innocent young men into a terrorist mold.

"It's like they're against these two kids, they want them to be terrorists," Nadia Alessa said of federal authorities. "These kids [don't] know what's going on, they don't know anything."

They also said many of the government's claims against their son are dead wrong and that authorities have mistaken his anger problems and grandiosity for something much more serious.

They said a 2007 trip to Jordan, which the FBI believes was a failed attempt to join the insurgency in Iraq, was a chance for Mohamed Alessa to study abroad. The Alessas also said he was traveling to Egypt on June 5 to meet a 19-year-old Swedish Muslim he planned to marry, not as a way station to jihad in Somalia, as the government alleges.

The Alessas also said they did not provide the FBI with the October 2006 tip that started the government's investigation.

They said their son, an animal lover who once kept 13 cats, is a misguided young man who had been monitored by the FBI since age 16 and was encouraged by an undercover agent to act like a terrorist.

This claim, which others in North Jersey's Muslim community have repeated, irks FBI officials.

Michael Ward, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Newark division, said agents often consult the Muslim community and ask for help in turning young lives around.

But Ward said that when troubled teens get into their 20s and go from "aspirational to operational," there is only so much that outreach can accomplish. He stressed that he was not specifically addressing the investigation into Almonte and Alessa.

"They evolved, they went deeper into the radicalization process, and I don't believe that, here at these last stages, there's anything we could've done," Ward said of the two young men.

Exodus from Kuwait

Nadia Alessa, a Palestinian from the West Bank, gave birth to her only child in July 1989 while visiting friends in North Bergen.

She and her husband, an ethnic Palestinian from Jordan, then returned to Kuwait, where he owned a billboard advertising business.

After Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August 1990, the family was evacuated by American officials to the United States because Mohamed was a citizen.

"The United States saved my life," Mahmood Alessa said.

As a child, their son displayed "anger management" problems that a battery of psychologists and psychiatrists tried to treat. Still, he bounced in and out of almost a dozen different Catholic, Muslim, local and boarding schools, they said.

In February 2005, North Bergen High School officials placed him on home instruction because he presented safety concerns for other students and staff, district spokesman Paul Swibinski said.

In August 2005, his mother said he was arrested in Jersey City for defacing a Coptic Christian church with the words "allahu akbar," which means "God is great" in Arabic. He was released without charges, she said.

He moved to the alternative school KAS Prep in September 2005 and became even more belligerent. He allegedly threatened to blow up the school, a claim Nadia Alessa said was a lie told by another student. Mahmood Alessa said his son came home and cried after fellow student told him, "you look like [al-Qaida leader Osama] bin Laden."

Officials at KAS Prep reported Mohamed Alessa's threats to the New Jersey Department of Homeland Security.

In January 2006, police officers -- the Alessas weren't clear on what agency -- came to the modest second-floor apartment, arrested their son and put him in the Hudson County Juvenile Detention Center in Secaucus for one month for his threats.

A judge dismissed him as "a stupid kid," Nadia Alessa said, and released him.

'It's almost like a fad'

Mohamed Alessa claimed he had exclusively read the Quran while in juvenile detention and emerged a self-professed pious Muslim.

He asked his mother, who does not wear traditional garb or head coverings, why she didn't cover herself.

"My son is not that religious," she said. "He like to talk, he like to show. What I think, both of them, they're having a problem. They want to be famous."

His brand of piety seemed to preclude regular attendance at mosque, and he resisted efforts by local Muslim elders to help him.

Walid Bejdough, a former spokesman for the Islamic Center of Passaic County, said Mahmood Alessa asked him several years ago to counsel his son to come to mosque and stay out of trouble.

Bejdough arranged to meet the young man, but Mohamed Alessa never showed up.

Mohammad Abbasi, a spokesman for the North Hudson Islamic Educational Center, said he met Mohamed Alessa for the first time at a Teaneck mosque just before he was arrested.

He said he didn't come across as pious or observant but noted, "It's almost like a fad for kids ... his age."

Abbasi also questioned whether the FBI should have followed the young pair. Agents had come to him before about problem kids, he asked, why not with these two? [...]

Almonte and Mohammed Alessa were arrested on June 5 at John F. Kennedy International Airport and charged with conspiring to kill, maim and kidnap outside the United States. Mahmood Alessa said he can't sleep and has lost weight because he has been unable to contact his son since the arrest.

He and his wife have received only one communication from jail, a handwritten letter from Almonte, whom they regard as a second son. In it, he writes, "All I want is for me and Mohamed to have a decent life. I know we don't deserve this."

Pakistani authorities and experienced players of the double game keep up appearances for the gullible West. "US 'jihad seekers' awarded 10 years imprisonment by Pak court," from ANI, June 24 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Islamabad, June 24 (ANI): A Pakistani anti-terrorism court on Thursday awarded 10 years imprisonment to each of the five US terror suspects who were arrested from Punjab province's Sargodha District in December 2009.

Waqar Husain Khan, 22 (Virginia), Ahmed Abdullah Mani, 20 (Virginia), Ramay S Zamzam, 22 (Egypt), Iman Hasan Yamar, 17 (California), and Omar Farouk, 24 (Virginia) were arrested on charges of plotting terror attacks across Pakistan, The News reports.

The five 'jihad seekers' had visited a religious seminary linked to the outlawed Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) in Hyderabad and were on their way to terror camps based in the volatile Waziristan region....

A religious seminary? Full of Misunderstanders of Islam? Why, it's...inexplicable, if you buy into the mainstream view of Islamic terrorism's relationship to Islam.

The jihad seekers had pleaded innocence, saying they were being 'set up' and tortured by the FBI and the Pakistani police in custody. (ANI)

Al-Qaeda advises its operatives always to claim torture when in non-Muslim custody.

American traitor Adam Gadahn, the self-described "revolting geek of mass proportions," looks as if he has well imbibed Islam's doctrines, rooted in the Qur'an (3:28; 16:106) and several ahadith, regarding deceiving enemy unbelievers. He here retails nonsense about Obama, the best friend that Muslims, including Islamic jihadists, have ever had in the White House, and "Muslims-only concentration camps" in the U.S. But conspiracy paranoia is so rampant in the Islamic world that his words will probably find a wide audience.

War Is Deceit Update: "American-born al Qaeda spokesman appears in new video," from CNN, June 20 (thanks to all who sent this in):

(CNN) -- American-born al Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn appears in a new video purportedly from the organization, calling President Obama "snakelike" and saying he is "running the affairs of a declining and besieged empire."

In the video, posted Sunday on Islamist websites, Gadahn criticizes what he says is the United States' "aggression and interference" in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, and also criticizes moving his "captive brothers" from detention centers worldwide to "Muslim-only concentration camps in Illinois, Bagram [Airfield, Afghanistan] and elsewhere -- all in the name of protecting the American people from the threat of Muslim retaliation for American crimes."

He is apparently referring to a maximum-security prison in Thomson, Illinois, being considered by the government as a possible venue to house terror suspects.

CNN could not independently verify the authenticity of the 24-minute video, posted on websites known to carry such messages in the past and carrying the name of as-Sahab, al Qaeda's media arm. In it, Gadahn speaks in English; the video features Arabic subtitles.

"Yes, Barack," Gadahn says. "Just as our demands remain the same, the choice America and its allies face also remains the same -- either the possible restoration of your safety and security by ignoring the opposition of your tyrannical corporations and special-interest groups and restoring the rights you have stolen from Muslims and other persecuted and oppressed nations, or guaranteeing for yourselves a future of misery, insecurity and ultimately defeat, should you continue to ravage our countries, interfere in our affairs and trample on our dignity, liberty and sovereignty."

The solution to U.S. security, he says, does not lie in improving intelligence-sharing, "occupation" or supporting "despicable regimes."

Addressing Obama, Gadahn says, "I know that as you slither snakelike into the second year of your reign as a purported president of change, you are fighting, your hands full, with running the affairs of a declining and besieged empire, and in the process proving yourself to be nothing more than another treacherous, bloodthirsty and narrow-minded American war president."...

The scope of the plot just keeps getting wider. "Times Square car bomb suspect indicted in NYC," by Larry Neumeister for Associated Press, June 18 (thanks to all who sent this in):

NEW YORK (AP) -- Times Square bomb suspect Faisal Shahzad was charged Thursday with 10 terrorism and weapons counts in an indictment that accuses him of receiving explosives training and financial help from the Pakistani Taliban.

The indictment returned by a grand jury in U.S. District Court in Manhattan added five charges to the original case against the 30-year-old Shahzad and also detailed in greater depth his alleged financing, saying Shahzad had received a total of $12,000 from the militant group through cash drop-offs in Massachusetts and Long Island.

Shahzad is accused of plotting to build and detonate a homemade gasoline-and-propane bomb inside a used SUV among thousands of tourists on a busy Saturday night. He was charged with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction among several terrorism and weapons counts.

"The facts alleged in this indictment show that the Pakistani Taliban facilitated Faisal Shahzad's attempted attack on American soil," Attorney General Eric Holder said in a release. "Our nation averted serious loss of life in this attempted bombing, but it is a reminder that we face an evolving threat that we must continue to fight with every tool available to the government."...

It turns out that New Jersey jihadist Carlos Almonte is the genocidal punster holding the "Death to All Juice" sign above -- as captured by the indefatigable Pamela Hall, SIOA's Director of Media and Communications, in 2008.

Congratulations to Pamela Hall for being way, way ahead of the curve.

And here is an illuminating article on the background of these two New Jersey jihadists: "From Troublemaking Teenagers to Terror Suspects," by Kareem Fahim, Richard Pérez-Peña and Karen Zraick for the New York Times, June 11:

NORTH BERGEN, N.J. -- One was a spoiled child so prone to fits of rage -- fights, screamed insults, threats -- that his parents began taking him to psychiatrists at age 6 and medicating him in a vain struggle to control his moods. By their count, his short fuse and incendiary tongue forced him to change schools no fewer than 10 times.

The other was arrested three times in less than four months for petty crimes, and seemed like an aimless youth -- until he developed a passion for a strict version of Islam that shocked and alienated his Dominican family. Within a few years, he was posting extremist views on the Internet and assailing the United States while predicting its downfall....

It is noteworthy how his "passion for a strict version of Islam" fed into his pre-existing pathologies. In a sane world, law enforcement officials would be studying this and formulating ways to stop it.

"Of course we tried everything we could," said Nadia Alessa, mother of Mohamed M. Alessa, the one so given to angry outbursts. "We couldn't just keep him at home."

The next chapter in such tales often charts a descent into drugs or gangs, but Mr. Alessa, 20, and Carlos E. Almonte, 24, who both grew up in the New Jersey suburbs, apparently had other plans. They were arrested Saturday as they prepared to fly separately to Egypt -- and, the authorities say, to join a militant group in Somalia and kill non-Muslims....

Many of their peers dismissed them as hapless blowhards, more pathetic than perilous; friends said they liked to play Ping-Pong, or go into Manhattan and hang out at a halal restaurant. Yet there they are, in transcripts of secretly recorded conversations, talking about shooting and beheading people, and sending American troops home "sliced up in 1,000 pieces."

Mr. Alessa's parents, Palestinian immigrants, are Muslim, but Ms. Alessa was at a loss to explain her only son's recent transformation. She recalled asking why he was growing a beard: "He said real men grow their beards."...

At the two public high schools, North Bergen and KAS Prep, Mr. Alessa made an escalating series of threats against students and staff members through 2005 and 2006, saying that he would blow up the school, mutilate gays and punish women who were not subordinate to men, according to officials granted anonymity to discuss confidential matters. Both schools alerted the Department of Homeland Security.

As a 10th grader at North Bergen High, he had to receive his lessons at a local public library under the eye of a security guard, said Paul Swibinski, a school spokesman, because "administrators felt that his presence in school posed a safety threat to other students and staff."

In those years, neighbors say, the police were called to the Alessa home several times. The North Bergen police declined to give details, noting that juvenile records were not public, but Lt. Frank Cannella said: "He was known to us, I can tell you that much."

The Suspects Meet

Around 2005, when he was 14 or 15, Mr. Alessa met Mr. Almonte, who lived in Elmwood Park, but was spending much of his time in North Bergen, 10 miles away. The two hung out with a group of young men who called themselves the PLO. Mr. Alessa was not particularly religious then, but Mr. Almonte, a recent convert to Islam, was becoming more so.

Growing up, Carlos Almonte had a less turbulent childhood. But by the time he was 18, he, too, was running afoul of the law.

In May 2004, with a month left in his senior year at Elmwood Park Memorial High School, Mr. Almonte, a naturalized citizen, was arrested for taking a knife to campus. That August, he was arrested for punching a youth in the parking lot of a supermarket. Two weeks later, he was caught drinking beer in a park.

It was around then, family friends say, that Mr. Almonte turned to Islam. He told Priscilla Caicedo, a young woman he met last year, that his interest began when he heard someone preaching at the Garden State Plaza mall in Paramus. He visited mosques in Paterson and Union City, and called himself Omar.

Mr. Almonte's conversion, his compulsion to proselytize, and his friendship with Mr. Alessa all alienated his family, though he continued to live with them. The friction culminated in their living room on May 23, 2009, when, according to a police report, Mr. Almonte began preaching about Islam to his younger brother, Elvin, who demurred, and "Carlos became angry and they both began fighting."

Their mother tried to separate them and Elvin bit her arm, thinking it was his brother's. Carlos then struck Elvin in the back of the head with a picture frame.

One young man who befriended both suspects said that Mr. Almonte was more easygoing and supportive than Mr. Alessa, and that he liked to read and use computers. Another friend, Martin Robert, said that sometimes while playing Ping-Pong and basketball, Mr. Almonte would try to turn the conversation to Islam but would not insist. "He seemed like a nice, peaceful guy," Mr. Robert said.

Another student who knew them casually, Mostafa Higazi, said the pair were "very oriented to politics." He called Mr. Alessa "really a talker, just bragging," while Mr. Almonte was quiet. He said that he did not recall specific things Mr. Alessa said, but that none of it resembled the bloody talk in the criminal complaint.

Ms. Caicedo met Mr. Almonte more than a year ago when she took her computer for repairs to a store where he worked near his home. Even in the store, she recalled, he began proselytizing, and gave her a book on Islam, which she said she never read.

They talked and traded instant messages, and went out once, as friends, last December. He took her to a Spanish-language service at a mosque in Union City and then to dinner at T.G.I. Friday's. Quiet and serious, he told her he wanted to find a wife who knew that her role was to stay home to cook and clean. "He was like one of those men that had to be the dominant one," she said.

Recently, Ms. Caicedo said, he told her he was moving to North Carolina, and arranged for her to get his job at the computer store. Hours before he was arrested at Kennedy Airport, they were at the store, Mr. Almonte training her.

A Friendship's Dark Side

But others saw a darker side to the suspects and their friendship. In October 2006, the Federal Bureau of Investigation received a tip that Mr. Alessa and Mr. Almonte talked about holy war and killing non-Muslims, and law enforcement agencies began keeping a watch on them. From the start, the authorities were in touch with Mr. Almonte's family....

In February 2007, while Mr. Alessa was a high school senior, he and Mr. Almonte traveled to Jordan; the F.B.I. says it was in the vain hope of being recruited by a militant jihadist group.

On a Facebook page started in October 2008, Mr. Almonte posted long quotations from medieval Islamic scholars and present-day radicals like Abu Qatada, considered by many countries to be a terrorist, and the jihadist cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri.

Mr. Almonte was also outraged at the treatment of Muslim prisoners accused of terrorism. He posted a comment concerning Omar Khadr, a prisoner who said he was abused by American interrogators. Mr. Khadr is charged with throwing a grenade when he was 15 that killed an American soldier in Afghanistan. Mr. Almonte wrote: "We feel for our brothers unjustly locked up even afghanistan at the time didn't pose a threat to america for them to attack them over 2 towers but the end of them will be like the end of persia, rome, n the soviet union."

He posted a photo of himself at a Dec. 28, 2008, protest in Manhattan, holding a sign saying "DEATH TO ALL JUICE," with the word "ZIONIST" written faintly above "JUICE."

Kudos again to the unacknowledged photographer, Pamela Hall.

Mr. Almonte dismissed the religion of American Muslims, saying, "In truth, it isn't Islam." He showed a particular fixation on the ideas that Muslim men should be bearded, and should hold one another's hands....

Note that Hashmi says that he was compelled by his faith, and refers to the "noble mujahideen." Islamic jihadists virtually always refer to Islam and the Qur'an and Muhammad to explain and justify their actions. Yet last night, one of the Muslim American Society apologists trying to mollify Staten Islanders angry about the shady sale of a convent to the MAS asserted, after a questioner read from a long list of Islamic jihad attacks, that those attacks had nothing to do with Islam and were not perpetrated by genuine Muslims. But of course he didn't explain why so many Muslims misunderstand their peaceful faith so spectacularly, and all in the same way.

The cognitive dissonance is enormous, and growing.

"New Yorker in London gets prison for al-Qaida help," by Tom Hays for Associated Press, June 10 (thanks to Block Ness):

NEW YORK (AP) -- A New Yorker extradited from Great Britain was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years in prison for helping an al-Qaida operative supply equipment to militants in Afghanistan.

U.S. District Court Judge Loretta Preska said the stiff sentence was intended to send a message to anyone tempted to join the network of al-Qaida "sympathizers and facilitators" who "hide under the cloak" of American citizenship.

Syed Hashmi, a 30-year-old Pakistani-American, had pleaded guilty in April in federal court in Manhattan to charges he stashed away equipment for two weeks in 2004 in his apartment while studying in London. The al-Qaida operative eventually gave the raincoats, ponchos and waterproof socks to a high-ranking al-Qaida member.

"Mr. Hashmi knew exactly what he was doing and where that equipment stored in his apartment was going," Preska said.

Before sentencing, a tearful Hashmi apologized to his family in a rambling statement rife with references to Allah and Islam. He said his faith had compelled him to help fellow Muslims like the operative, who later cooperated with the government.

The cooperator, Mohammed Junaid Babar, of Queens, admitted in 2004 that he had traveled to the province of Waziristan to supply cash and military equipment to the terror network.

"Yes, I was wrong in helping my brothers in the noble mujahideen, but they will remain in my heart," he said in a courtroom packed with supporters....

Family, friends and civil rights groups insisted Hashmi was prosecuted because he had been outspoken against U.S. policies in the Middle East....

Then why wasn't Noam Chomsky locked up?

Honest Ibe Hooper, call your office! "The faces of hate: Jersey jihadis junior hellions," by Carolyn Salazar, Perry Chiaramonte and Chuck Bennett for the New York Post, June 9:

...Officials last night released the mug shots of New Jersey terror suspects Mohamed Alessa, 20, and Carlos "Omar" Almonte, 24.

They were taken after the two hate-spewing terrorist wannabes were captured as they headed to Somalia, allegedly to wage holy war on Americans.

Their neighbors weren't surprised -- they said jihad started early for the two.

Now that's a surprising and refreshing departure from the usual "neighbors were shocked and said they were quiet, gentle souls" claptrap that the mainstream media usually serves up after jihadis are arrested.

They were terrors in their suburban communities years before they were busted last Saturday at Kennedy Airport.

Not a single school could handle Alessa. He openly talked of blowing up his schools in the name of Islam.

Almonte was picked up by cops several times for increasingly violent behavior.

The duo are due back in Newark federal court today for a bail hearing on charges of plotting to murder, maim and kidnap people overseas.

Back when Alessa was a North Bergen HS student in early 2005, officials there were so troubled by his radical-Islam-inspired rants that they contacted Homeland Security.

Even the Al Huda School, an Islamic institution in Paterson, couldn't handle him, and he left after few months in 2005.

Later that year, when he was transferred to KAS Prep, an alternative school for troubled teens, the outbursts continued, a school official said.

Yet this guy, with this rap sheet, was still on the street as of a few days ago. Why?

He recalled that Alessa had his own misinterpretation of Islam, claiming that the religion required the subordination of women and the mutilation of gays.

Horror of horrors! A misinterpretation of Islam! How could Alessa have misunderstood Islam so thoroughly as to think it required the "subordination of women"? Could he have read this verse? "Men have authority over women because Allah has made the one superior to the other" (Qur'an 4:34). Could he have read on in the same verse to see its prescription for what should be done to disobedient women -- "beat them"? Could he have gotten the idea from some of these other Qur'anic passages?

The Qur'an likens a woman to a field (tilth), to be used by a man as he wills: "Your women are a tilth for you (to cultivate) so go to your tilth as ye will" (2:223).

The Qur'an also declares that a woman's testimony is worth half that of a man: "Get two witnesses, out of your own men, and if there are not two men, then a man and two women, such as ye choose, for witnesses, so that if one of them errs, the other can remind her" (2:282).

It allows men to marry up to four wives, and have sex with slave girls also: "If ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly with the orphans, marry women of your choice, two or three or four; but if ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one, or (a captive) that your right hands possess, that will be more suitable, to prevent you from doing injustice" (4:3).

It rules that a son's inheritance should be twice the size of that of a daughter: "Allah (thus) directs you as regards your children's (inheritance): to the male, a portion equal to that of two females" (4:11).

It allows for marriage to pre-pubescent girls, stipulating that Islamic divorce procedures "shall apply to those who have not yet menstruated" (65:4).

But the New York Post tells us that it's a "misinterpretation" of Islam to think that it requires the "subordination of women."

As for "mutilation of gays," sure. Usually Muslim countries punish homosexual activity with fines or a whipping, but not with mutilation. So the Post actually gets one right.

Alessa even said he wanted to organize a squad of Muslims to blow up the school, the Bergen Record said yesterday.

Almonte, a Dominican-born convert to Islam whose family said was "brainwashed" by Alessa, likewise made a name for himself.

He was busted several times in 2004 for his involvement in a bloody brawl in a parking lot, plotting an after-school rumble, bringing a knife to class and drinking a 40-ounce bottle of beer in a park.

Almonte smashed a picture frame over his brother Elvin's skull and then bit his mother on the arm in an altercation sparked by his nonstop "preaching" that they needed to convert to Islam, according to a May 31, 2009, police report.

This is not all that incongruous. Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, told his followers to invite the unbelievers to accept Islam, and to fight them if they refused: ""When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them....If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah's help and fight them" (Sahih Muslim 4294).

Sister Ingrid Almonte, 17, blamed Alessa for turning her brother bad.

"He brainwashed him and tried to convert us, too," Ingrid, 17, said outside the family's Elmwood home.

The pair talked of the best ways to chop off their victims' heads and said they'd eagerly wage jihad back home as battle-hardened veterans, according to the federal complaint....

In Human Events today I skewer media bias regarding the latest jihad news in the U.S.:

How biased is the liberal media? No more or less biased than Barack Obama. Both have made it a matter of policy not to mention "Islam" in connection with "terrorism," and to look resolutely the other way when Islamic jihadists justify their actions by referring to Islamic texts and teachings.

So millions of Americans are completely clueless about the nature of the threat we're facing--understandably, since they simply never have been told. A case in point of how this deceptive game works comes in a Sunday Reuters story about two Islamic jihadists who were arrested at JFK Airport on their way to Somalia to join the jihad there.

This story is not a particularly egregious example of media bias. In fact, it's fairly straightforward (not to say remotely objective), but it reflects what passes for acceptable practices among "journalists" these days.

What details does Reuters think are the most salient details in this case? We learn that the people arrested are "men," and that they're "unmarried American citizens" and "residents of New Jersey." They were planning to join a "militant group" in Somalia, one that Reuters describe as a "youth movement"--you know, like the Boy Scouts with beheadings.

Reuters adds that the arrests had something to do with the men's "social circle." It's unclear what they meant by this. Were these men part of a criminal gang? Or did they plot murder and mayhem at the local mosque, as so many other Muslims have done around the world over the last few years? And if the latter, what interest does Reuters have in making them sound like a bunch of guys playing basketball instead of a band of murderous Islamic supremacists that they are?...

Read it all.

in saying that "it's already enough that you don't worship Allah, so . . . that's a reason for you to die," this jihadist confirms that Islamic hardliners don't view non-Muslims as innocent -- thus rendering meaningless the condemnations of attacks on "innocent people" that have been issued by Islamic advocacy groups with unsavory ties to jihad terror.

More on the Jihad of Unmarried New Jersey Men with Militant Ties: "Bloodlust of NJ 'jihadists': Pair craved terror carnage, feds say," by Perry Chiaramonte, C.J. Sullivan, Murray Weiss and Chuck Bennett for the New York Post, June 7:

They were the hate-filled, homegrown terrorists next door -- ready to cut your head off if they got the chance.

"They only fear you when you have a gun and when you, when you start killing them and when you take their head, and you go like this, and you behead it on camera," hissed terrorist wannabe Mohamed Alessa, 20, of North Bergen, NJ, during an undercover operation in 2009, a federal complaint unsealed yesterday revealed.

"My soul cannot rest until I shed blood."

Alessa and Carlos Eduardo Almonte, 24, of Elmwood Park, NJ, were busted at JFK Airport on Saturday night, trying to leave the country on separate flights for Cairo, allegedly en route to Somalia for training to kill Americans overseas -- and back at home....

"We'll start killing here, if I can't do it over there," Alessa, the son of Palestinian-Jordanian immigrants, said, according to the complaint.

"Freaking Major-Nidal-shaved-face-Palestinian-crazy guy, he's not better than me," Alessa allegedly said, referring to Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, the shrink who gunned down 13 fellow soldiers and injured scores more at Fort Hood in Texas.

"I'll do twice what he did. I wanna, like, be the world's known terrorist."

Not to be outdone, Almonte -- a native of the Dominican Republic who had converted to Islam and started calling himself Omar -- allegedly said he wanted to send Americans home "in caskets."

"Any Muslim that gets . . . even a 10 percent out of 100 chance of [waging jihad] should risk it . . . because [it's] better than sitting back here and working like a dog . . . and being somebody's puppy," Almonte seethed, according to the complaint.

Almonte also allegedly boasted, "I'm gonna get a gun. I'm the type of person to use it anytime . . . I'll have more bodies on it than . . . the hairs on my beard. You know what I'm saying? It's already enough that you don't worship Allah, so . . . that's a reason for you to die."...

"Once we got to high school, [Alessa] got very shady. He grew out his beard and started dressing differently. He got picked on because of the way he looked, and he had to quit and go to a prep school," said Daniel Forbes, 20, a former classmate in North Bergen.

"He always isolated himself from being American."

Almonte and Alessa started hanging out with a group [of] troubled Arabic kids who called themselves the Arabian Knights, neighbors said....

They went to help out orphans, doncha know. Yeah, sure, that's it: orphans. War Is Deceit Alert: "5 Virginia men facing terrorism charges in Pakistan write of 'noble' motivation," by Brigid Schulte for the Washington Post, May 16 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

For the first time since they were arrested Dec. 9, the five young Muslim men from the Alexandria area facing life in prison in Pakistan on terrorism charges presented their side of the story Saturday, handwritten on pink paper and delivered to the judge in a closed court inside a high-security prison in the eastern Pakistani city of Sarghoda.

Throughout the prosecution's case, which concluded Saturday, Pakistani police have maintained that the five secretly and abruptly left their homes, families, college classes and jobs to wage jihad against Americans in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States. Police and court records charge that the five made contact with a known al-Qaeda operative through social-networking Web sites and that they communicated via a shared e-mail account: ramadanhaji99@yahoo.com.

The statements of the five men, which their defense attorney provided to The Washington Post on Saturday, the first day of defense proceedings, say their intentions in traveling secretly to Pakistan were motivated by friendship, "fun" and a "noble" desire to help Muslim orphans in Afghanistan. All five, in statements so similar that they mostly read word for word, said the idea for the journey was hatched in 2008 after the group watched the movie "Kite Runner" at Umar Chaudhry's house -- what they called the usual hangout of the youths, who lived in the same neighborhood off Route 1.

The movie "showed the suffering of the Afghani people, in particular the homeless and orphans," wrote Aman Yemer, who, at 18, is the youngest of the group. "We were very much affected by the living conditions of our brothers and sisters living overseas and hoped to help them one day." He and the others thought that would never happen, he wrote, because Afghanistan is such a dangerous place and their parents are "very protective."

The reason that they left secretly, all five -- including 20-year-old Ahmed Minni -- wrote, was that they were sure their parents would never give permission. Their parents, alarmed by their disappearance during Thanksgiving weekend, notified the FBI and handed over a video one had made showing images of the United States at war in Muslim countries. A local Muslim leader who saw it described it as a "farewell video."...

Pakistan's efforts to wrest its frontier provinces from jihadist control may be compared to a child who is trying to get out of cleaning his or her room by doing as half-hearted a job as possible: Put a few things away; how about now? No? Straighten up a few more things; now? No? And the reluctant participant actually starts to look serious for a while, but nonetheless keeps his or her eye out for that magic milestone of progress known as "good enough for now."

Of course, the analogy breaks down where the hypothetical youngster probably isn't crafty enough to keep demanding more resources, purportedly for the task at hand, but not entirely. "Pakistan under pressure after NY car bomb," by Chris Brummitt for the Associated Press, May 10:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - U.S. claims that the Pakistani Taliban were behind last week's failed car bombing in Times Square add pressure on Pakistan's government to attack the militant sanctuary of North Waziristan close to the Afghan border, but few expect its stretched army to rush into any operation there.

New calls from Washington for the army to move into North Waziristan could backfire because they would create the impression the force was acting on the orders of America -- a perception that would undercut the public support needed for such an operation to be successful.

Aside from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's warning over the weekend of "severe consequences" if an attack on U.S. soil is traced back to Pakistan, most U.S. officials have been careful not to criticize Pakistan in their public comments since Pakistan-American Faisal Shahzad was arrested soon after the terror attempt in New York.

America is limited in what it can do to tackle the threat coming from Pakistan's tribal regions.

It is seen as highly unlikely that nuclear-armed Pakistan would ever allow American troops to operate there, meaning Washington must try to work through the Pakistani army, which has received billions of dollars in U.S. aid since 2001.

The Pakistani Taliban, which have previously not conducted attacks on U.S. soil, have been the target of several Pakistani army offensives over the last two years and been battered by scores of American missile strikes. They are allied to al-Qaida, which has also found sanctuary in the northwest, and the Afghan Taliban just across the border.

A suspected U.S. missile strike early Tuesday killed at least three people in the Doga area of North Waziristan, two intelligence officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The identities of those killed were not immediately known.

Pakistan officially protests the strikes on its territory as violations of its sovereignty, but it is believed to aid them. The U.S. rarely discusses the unmanned-drone-fired strikes, which are part of a covert CIA program.

The army has not moved into North Waziristan, in part because powerful insurgent commanders there have generally not attacked targets in Pakistan. In recent months, however, fleeing fighters and commanders from the Pakistani Taliban -- which have launched scores of bloody suicide attacks around the country since 2007 -- have moved there.

Even before the failed Times Square bombing, many security analysts had said that the army would need to move into at least some areas of the region if it wanted to deal a decisive blow against militancy in the country.

The army has said it cannot spare the troops for a full-scale offensive this year and needs to consolidate gains elsewhere against militants, including in neighboring South Waziristan. It says it is carrying out small-scale, targeted missions in the north against insurgents, but Associated Press reporters who have visited recently say it is under militant control....

More on this story, and what continues to be Pakistan's most prominent export. "Times Square Bomb: U.S. Officials Finding Foreign Links to New York Bomb Plot," by Richard Esposito, Pierre Thomas, and Brian Ross for ABC News, May 3:

Federal authorities are closing in on the man they say tried to set off a car bomb in Times Square Saturday, and there is growing evidence the bomber did not act alone and had ties to radical elements overseas.

Police release video of possible suspect seen near site of failed attack.

One senior official said there are several individuals believed to be connected with the bombing and that at least one of them is a Pakistani-American.

Attorney General Eric Holder said today the investigators had made "substantial progress" in tracking the man who drove a Nissan Pathfinder into New York's Times Square with a crude bomb that failed to detonate. [...]

Other law enforcement officials said the investigation was closing in on the driver of the vehicle and an unknown number of others connected to him.

"This is moving very fast because they left behind a treasure trove of evidence in the unexploded car," one US official told ABC News.

Officials told ABC News Senior Justice correspondent Pierre Thomas that the Connecticut owner of the vehicle told them he had sold the Nissan SUV last month in an unrecorded sale to an "Arabic or Latino looking man" in his 20's or 30's, for a few hundred dollars in cash.

The license plate on the car was apparently stolen from an auto repair shop outside Bridgeport, Connecticut, according to law enforcement officials.

The authorities told ABC News that the previous owner provided a description of the man who bought the car, and told investigators the vehicle was sold for several hundred dollars in cash, with no written records identifying the purchaser. [...]

"They would not have been able to have stopped the bomb if it had been wired properly," said former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, now an ABC News consultant. "Someone was able to drive into New York with what looks like bomb parts, drive right into the heart of Times Square, pull up on the sidewalk, jump up and run away and not get caught."

The bomb bore similarities to two Al Qaeda-connected attacks on a London nightclub and an airport in Scotland in 2007. Three vehicles used in the attempted bombings contained propane gas tanks.

Al Qaeda has posted videos showing how to construct a bomb using propane tanks and gasoline.

Will the Islamophobia never end? "NYC student pleads guilty to terrorism charge," by Larry Neumeister for Associated Press, April 27 (thanks to Block Ness):

NEW YORK (AP) -- An American student who prosecutors say helped a friend deliver some protective clothing to an al-Qaida military commander fighting Americans has pleaded guilty to a single terrorism charge.

Syed Hashmi (Sigh-IHD' HASH'-mee) entered the plea Tuesday in Manhattan federal court to conspiracy to provide military support to al-Qaida.

Both sides in the case recommended a maximum prison term of 15 years for the plea.

The 30-year-old Hashmi had faced up to 70 years in prison if convicted of four criminal counts....

Fox provides an illuminating profile of the young convert to and Misunderstander of Islam, demonstrating yet again the jihadists' consistent tendency to portray themselves as the exponents of authentic, pure Islam -- and featuring Hamas-linked CAIR's Honest Ibe Hooper pretending that he never heard a jihadi speak before. "Road to Radicalism: The Man Behind the 'South Park' Threats," by Joshua Rhett Miller for FOXNews.com, April 23 (thanks to all who sent this in):

EXCLUSIVE: By all appearances, Zachary Adam Chesser was the boy next door. He played football and was on the crew team at one of the best high schools in the country. He even studied Japanese. He was hardly the sort of boy you'd expect would suggest on a radical Islamic website that the creators of the edgy cartoon series "South Park" will be targeted for death.

But Chesser also had a dark side. He was a "loner," a former classmate said, one who frequently drew pictures of Satanic figures in his notebooks and had just a few friends, most of them male.

"He was definitely sort of weird," the classmate told FoxNews.com. "He was very into violent industrial music, borderline Satanic bands and stuff like that. He had dark undertones in his interests."

Two years later, Chesser is literally a changed man. He now uses an alias and has a new set of hobbies. He now likes to be called Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee, and his primary interest in this world appears to be Islamic radicalism.

Last week, Chesser, 20, posted a warning on the website RevolutionMuslim.com following the 200th episode of "South Park," which included a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad disguised in a bear suit. The young man, who just two years ago was studying foreign languages at George Mason University, wrote on the site that Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the cartoon's creators, "will probably end up" like Theo van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker who was murdered in 2004 after making a film critical of Islamic society.

"It's not a threat, but it really is a likely outcome," Chesser told FoxNews.com from his home in Centreville, Va. "They're going to be basically on a list in the back of the minds of a large number of Muslims. It's just the reality."...

True enough. The real tragedy here is that a rapidly declining number of non-Muslim Westerners seem willing to stand up to this thuggery. Instead, they appear all too willing to kowtow and give the jihadis what they want, as long as the jihadis don't hurt them -- even Bill O'Reilly was saying this the other day.

Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, characterized Revolution Muslim as a loosely-organized group with such outrageous beliefs he believes it may be a "setup" to smear Islam.

"They say wild and irresponsible things periodically," Hooper told FoxNews.com. "There's a strong suspicion that they're merely a setup to make Muslims and Islam look bad. They say such wild and crazy things that you have to wonder."

Sure. They're saying that those who insult Islam should be killed, which is standard Islamic teaching. Apparently Honest Ibe has never heard of this. Does Nihad Awad know that his partner is so ignorant of Islam?

Chesser, for his part, declined to indicate exactly what led him to join the group. A faculty member for George Mason University's Muslim Student Association said he had no knowledge of Chesser, who began attending the school in fall 2008 before dropping out in his second semester.

Reached by FoxNews.com via e-mail on Thursday, Chesser said one of his goals in writing for the group is to "raise awareness of the correct understanding of key Islamic beliefs." But he also warned: "If you kill us, then we kill you."

"I seek to help the world understand that neither the Muslims in general nor the mujahideen including Al Qaeda are abject to peace, but that this peace come with the following conditions: a complete withdrawal of non-Muslim forces from Muslim lands, an ending of the propping up of the apartheid regime of Israel, and a ceasing of the propping up of the brutal dictators we currently have who refuse to rule by divine law," Chesser's e-mail read....

Sounds like Obama's plan. The only catch is that even if the West did all those things, the jihad imperative to impose Sharia would still remain.

No surprise on the media blackout. Kudos to Erick Stakelbeck for getting the facts. "CBN Uncovers Exclusive New Details About Ohio Muslim's Arrest," by Erick Stakelbeck for CBN, April 21:

There is a full-fledged media blackout regarding the latest potential case of a phenomenon we've covered extensively here at CBN News: homegrown jihad.

Thankfully, CBN does not subscribe to the "move along, folks, no jihad here" philosophy that is so prevalent in the mainstream media, not to mention at the highest levels of the U.S. government.

I have obtained court documents from the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of Ohio detailing the case of a 38-year-old Caucasian convert to Islam named Abdullah Mohammed Muslim (formerly known as Johnnie Clagg). See picture below.

He pleaded guilty on March 24th to charges of being a previously convicted felon in possession of a firearm, to possession of unregistered destructive devices and to charges related to attempted identity theft and Passport fraud.

Muslim's attorney told a local Columbus TV station that his client had traveled to the tribal regions of Pakistan--where Al Qaeda operates tons of training camps--but had no connections to terrorist groups.

Of course not. I guess North Waziristan is merely a new vacation hotspot for white Muslim converts from middle America (and Germany: see here)

What follows are the details about Muslim's case, including some exclusive new information that has been previously unreported.

On October 19, 2009 federal agents found a large weapons arsenal in Muslim's Columbus, Ohio home. According to court documents, the stash included:

-- Enough material to make five pipe bombs.

-- Several smoke cannisters

-- An AK-47

-- An Arsenal 7.62 assault rifle

-- A military/swat ballistic vest, plus one ballistic face mask

-- A military flak jacket.

-- A 9mm semiautomatic rifle

-- Over 1,000 rounds of ammunition

-- A CD with digital images of The Anarchist Cookbook "and similar books."

-- A CD with pictures of a small plane crash in Ohio

But the weapons stash was just the tip of the iceberg.

Materials uncovered during the search of Muslim's home confirmed that he was also trying to steal the identity of a wheelchair-bound man in West Virginia who suffers from cerebral palsy. Columbus ATF spokesperson Kimberly Riddell told CBN News that while ATF took the lead in the Muslim investigation, the State Department also became involved due to the identity theft/passport offenses.

According to court documents obtained by CBN News:

"Muslim devised a fraudulent scheme to steal the identity of another real person for the purpose of obtaining a passport so he could leave the country prior to his November 12, 2009 sentencing."

Yes, you read that right. At the time he was picked up in October '09, Muslim was already awaiting sentencing on additional weapons-related charges....

There is much more. Read it all.

Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari, aka Michael Mixon -- yet another convert to the Religion of Peace™ who misunderstands his new religion? "US loan shark jailed for aiding Afghan terrorists," from the London Evening Standard, April 20 (thanks to Block Ness):

A New York businessman has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for trying to funnel money to a terrorism training camp in Afghanistan.

Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari, 57, pleaded guilty in September to terrorism financing. He helped transfer £152,000 believing it would help train militants but his accomplice was an undercover agent....

Alishtari, also known as Michael Mixon, thought the money would be used to buy night vision goggles, medical supplies and other equipment. He told the agent to make sure he was "three steps away" from the money to avoid it being traced.

Alishtari donated $20,000 in 2003 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee and more than $15,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee between 2002 and 2004, which the Republican Party election bodies have given to charity.

Grover, is that you?

In Human Events this morning I discuss more media bias:

Prosecutors in Cook County said Friday that James Larry, a Chicago Muslim, has confessed to brutally murdering his wife, his seven-month old son Jihad, and two of his nieces. According to the Chicago Tribune, Larry was a prison convert to Islam who had been arguing with his wife over her refusal to become a Muslim and wear Islamic clothing. His sister revealed that he had been clutching a copy of the Koran and telling relatives that "something in the book told him to kill someone."

Were James Larry a Christian, his murders would be front-page headlines, and talking heads on all the networks would be discussing in hushed tones the dangers of Christian fundamentalism, complete with clips of Robert DeNiro as the Scripture-addled maniacal killer in Cape Fear, or any number of hundreds of other Hollywood fantasies about violent Christian fanatics.

But James Larry is a Muslim, and so true to form, outside of the Tribune and a handful of other sources, mainstream media coverage ignored the story altogether or, at very least, did not deem fit to print or mention all the inconvenient evidence that he was motivated to kill at least in part by such Koranic exhortations as "kill the polytheists wherever you find them" (9:5). The Associated Press story on the murders has none of that. According to AP, Larry was just "hearing voices."

The whole process of news gathering and news reporting needs to be demystified, even in this Internet age, and news reports recognized not as objective, dispassionate accounts, but as the work of human beings with agendas. While it is possible that Kristen Schorsch, Annie Sweeney and Cynthia Dizikes, the authors of the Chicago Tribune story, are simply better, more thorough reporters than Don Babwin of AP, it is more likely that Babwin had access to exactly the same information that showed up in the Tribune report, but chose not to go with it.

He probably thought it would be "Islamophobic" to do so, or that to do so would fuel one of those fabled but nonexistent "backlashes" against innocent Muslims. So he appears to have decided that it was better to cover up key facts about this incident....

Read it all.

"Akhtar has been arrested twice before - in the United Arab Emirates in 2004 and by Pakistani authorities in 2008 - but released each time for unknown reasons." Now, that's interesting. Surely he wasn't released because authorities in the U.A.E. and Pakistan were sympathetic to jihad -- naah, that couldn't be it. An update on this story. "American suspects linked to militants: prosecutor," from AP, April 17 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani government presented evidence in court Saturday that allegedly showed contacts between five detained Americans and a reputed al-Qaeda-linked militant leader, revealing the leader's identity for the first time, a prosecutor said.

The northern Virginia men are on trial charged with planning terrorist attacks in Pakistan and conspiring to wage war against nations allied with it. They deny any wrongdoing.

But prosecutors say they made contact with Qari Saifullah Akhtar, the leader of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami militant network, which is believed to have extensive contacts with al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Formed in the 1980s, it recruited militants from the Punjab province to fight in Afghanistan and later Kashmir in operations supported by Pakistani security forces.

Akhtar has been arrested twice before - in the United Arab Emirates in 2004 and by Pakistani authorities in 2008 - but released each time for unknown reasons. At the time of his arrest in 2008, he was publicly accused of involvement in a failed attack on former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007.

Prosecutor Nadeem Akram said the evidence produced Saturday at the court includes documents, phone call logs and retrieved e-mails. The court sessions are taking place behind closed doors in a high security prison in Sargodha.

The Americans, all in their late teens or early 20s, were arrested in December in Sargodha, a city in Punjab province. They were reported missing by their families in November after one left behind a farewell video showing scenes of war and casualties and saying Muslims must be defended....

Abdullah Muhammad Muslim, the former Johnnie Clagg

No doubt Abdullah Muhammad Muslim intended to fashion pipe bombs of peace.

Columbus, Ohio -- I wonder if Abdullah Muhammad Muslim goes to the mosque whose members informed Rifqa Bary's parents that she had converted to Christianity. In any case, note that he is yet another prison convert.

"Man Faces Gun Charges After Cache Of Weapons Found," from 10TVNews.com, April 16 (thanks to D. C. Watson):

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Federal officials said on Friday that a large amount of weapons were found at the home of a man who allegedly stole the identity of someone bound to a wheelchair and suffering from cerebral palsy, and used it to try to flee the country.

Abdullah Mohammed Muslim, formerly known as Johnnie Clagg, faces felony gun charges, 10TV's Andy Hirsch reported.

Muslim, 38, allegedly stole personal information from people and tired to use it to get a passport to leave the country.

Police stopped Muslim's vehicle on the city's southwest side in October. He was wanted on charges of identity theft and trying to falsify a passport.

After being arrested, federal agents went to his home and said they found an arsenal inside, Hirsch reported.

Investigators said they found two AK 47s, a 9mm semiautomatic rifle and more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition, pipe bomb materials, a ballistic face mask and vest, and a flak jacket.

Muslim's attorney said his client traveled from Columbus to tribal areas of Pakistan and that he converted to Islam while spending time in prison.

He said his client has no ties to any terror organizations.

Federal authorities agreed, saying this was not a case of terrorism...

Of course not! It never is -- not even when a Muslim shouting "Allahu akbar" mows down thirteen Americans at Fort Hood!

He had fought with his wife because she would not become a Muslim and wear Muslim garb. "Suspect held in slayings of wife, baby son, two young nieces: 2 other family members are hospitalized, one on life support," by Kristen Schorsch, Annie Sweeney and Cynthia Dizikes for the Chicago Tribune, April 14 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Amid the sudden crackle of gunfire, a 12-year-old girl ran from a Marquette Park bungalow and fled along South Mozart Street. A gunman -- a relative -- took a shot at her and missed. Soon, she burst through the door of a nearby gas station, dressed only in pajamas, begging an attendant to call her mom.

When Keshia Larry answered the phone early Wednesday morning, she heard her daughter speak these panicked words: "He killed everyone."

Police would later enter the bungalow and find a scene one commander described as "incomprehensible." Four people -- an adult and three children, all related -- were dead. The adult and the oldest child were pregnant. Two other family members were hospitalized, one on life support.

Police had soon apprehended a suspect, a Wisconsin man with a lengthy criminal record who was related to all those killed. Sources involved with the investigation said the man had converted to Islam several years ago while serving time in prison and had a dispute with his wife -- one of the victims -- because she would not adhere to his faith.

He told police that he needed to take his family back to Allah and out of this world of sinners, a source said. A police report quoted him as saying, "I wish I had more bullets. I wish I had more bullets."...

Family members said the suspect had been acting strangely. The wife's sister, Shirina Thompson, said the suspect had been talking about "going to Allah." Both Thompson and a neighbor in Wisconsin said the man had fought with his wife in recent days because she refused to wear Muslim garb.

The children killed were Jihad, the 7-month-old son of the gunman; his 3-year-old niece, Keleasha Larry; and his 16-year-old niece, Keyshai Fields, who friends said was four months pregnant. The nieces, both daughters of Keshia Larry, were found shot to death in the same bed.

The suspect's wife was 19-year-old Twanda Thompson. Family members said the couple were married just weeks ago and that Thompson was expecting their second child. She and Jihad were found in bed in a separate bedroom with gunshot wounds in their heads, police said....

Letisha Larry, one of the suspect's sisters, said her brother had been acting strange, carrying around the Quran and telling family members that something in the book told him to kill someone....

He's a preacher, not a terrorist, they say. And to a man like al-Awlaki, this distinction means what, exactly? "Yemen not going after radical US-born cleric," from AP, April 10 (thanks to all who sent this in):

SAN'A, Yemen (AP) -- Yemeni forces are not going after a radical U.S.-born cleric who has reportedly been added to the CIA's list of targets to be killed or captured, the foreign minister said Saturday.

The United States has not handed over evidence to support allegations that Anwar al-Awlaki is recruiting for al-Qaida's offshoot in the impoverished country on the southern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, the minister said.

The Obama administration has authorized his killing because it believes he has shifted from encouraging attacks on the U.S. to participating in them, The New York Times reported earlier this week.

Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi said Saturday that al-Awlaki is not a terrorist and is not on Yemen's own wanted list. Yemeni security officials believe he is hiding in an area of the mountainous country that has become a refuge for Islamic militants.

"Anwar al-Awlaki has to us been always looked at as a preacher rather than a terrorist and shouldn't be looked at as a terrorist unless the Americans have evidence that he has been involved in terrorism," al-Qirbi said.

Al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen born in New Mexico to Yemeni parents, came to the attention of U.S. officials after being linked to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day, as well as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the U.S. Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people in November at Fort Hood, Texas.

He has used his personal Web site to encourage Muslims around the world to kill U.S. troops in Iraq....

The cleric's family and many members of his powerful Awalik tribe deny the 38-year-old is a member of al-Qaida, depicting him as a victim of Yemeni and U.S. persecution.

Of course! What else would he be?

"If that's how they call it then so be it I am what I am" -- until she gets caught, apparently.

"Second Woman in 'Jihad Jane' Case Pleads Not Guilty (Update1)," by Sophia Pearson for Bloomberg, April 7:

April 7 (Bloomberg) -- A second woman tied to the alleged "Jihad Jane" terror plot pleaded not guilty to charges she conspired to support and train with terrorists.

Jamie Paulin Ramirez, a former Colorado resident, entered her plea today in federal court in Philadelphia. Prosecutors added her name to a four-count indictment charging Colleen LaRose, who went by the alias Jihad Jane, with conspiring to provide support to terrorists and commit murder in a foreign country.

"She's very troubled and extremely distraught," Ramirez's defense attorney Jeremy Ibrahim said after the hearing. His client pleaded not guilty by shaking her head because, Ibrahim said, he didn't want to give the government a sample of her voice. The attorney said much of the government's evidence may include recordings of Ramirez's conversations that may have been taken from seized computer hard drives. Ramirez will be held in custody while she awaits trial. No trial date has been set.

Ramirez, 31, was arrested April 2 after voluntarily flying to the U.S. from Ireland, Ibrahim has said. She accepted an invitation from LaRose to attend a "training camp" in Europe last year, according to prosecutors. Ramirez is charged with one count of conspiracy and faces as much as 15 years in prison.

'Live and Train'

Prosecutors said Ramirez and her 6-year-old son went to Europe in September "with the intent to live and train with jihadists." She also allegedly married an unnamed and unindicted co-conspirator who she had never met before, the government said.

Ramirez is "distraught and depressed" over the charge and her separation from her son, Ibrahim said. The boy is in the care of child services, the lawyer said.

LaRose contacted Ramirez in August stating that she would "send" for Ramirez to meet her in Europe at a place that would be "like a training camp as well as a home," according to the indictment. LaRose wrote in e-mails to Ramirez that she was "a terrorist and proud to be this," according to the indictment. Ramirez responded by stating "that's right ... if that's how they call it then so be it I am what I am," according to the government....

Irish authorities released her, but now American authorities have arrested her. "Second 'Jihad Jane' charged over cartoonist Lars Vilks 'murder plot,'" from the Times Online, April 3 (thanks to all who sent this in):

A second US woman has been charged over the alleged "Jihad Jane" terror plot to kill the Swedish cartoonist whose drawing of the prophet Mohammed triggered worldwide protests in 2007.

Mother-of-one Jamie Paulin Ramirez, 31, surrendered herself to FBI agents at Philadelphia airport, Pennsylvania, after flying in from Ireland where she had been freed earlier.

Ramirez, a US resident from Colorado, was first arrested in Ireland on suspicion of conspiring with her "friend" Colleen LaRose to murder Lars Vilks.

US prosecutors claim Ramirez was a travelling companion of LaRose, who called herself "Jihad Jane" in online forums.

It is alleged that in August 2009 LaRose emailed Ramirez urging her to join her and others in Europe at a location she described as "like a training camp as well as a home" to "to participate in and in support of violent jihad".

Ramirez is accused of accepting the invitation and flying out to Europe in September with her six-year-old son. She has been charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and could face a 15-year sentence in prison if convicted....

When, oh, when, is Virginia going to institute transparent, honest, comprehensive programs teaching its citizens against jihad violence?

What's that? The problem is not that this guy was from Virginia? The problem is ideas, assumptions and beliefs he learned as a Muslim? What are you, some kind of Islamophobe?

"Carnival Bomb Threat On Cruise: 'We Are Jihad!,'" by Jim Brogan for the Post Chronicle, March 29 (thanks to Pamela):

There has been a bomb threat on board the Carnival Sensation Sunday morning, where a man claimed to be a member of "Jihad."

According to the U.S. Coast Guard, a drunk, 31-year-old Virginia man was heard yelling "We are jihad," and "Come to the top deck and watch the bomb," onboard the Carnival Sensation early Sunday morning.

The man, Ibrahim Khalil Zarou, was arrested and later released on $10,000 bond after his threats were determined to be a hoax.

Zarou, who was on the cruise as member of a party of 12, caused the ship to be held four miles off the coast of Florida for several hours while the Coast Guard, FBI and local sheriff's office officials sweeped the entire boat....

Maybe Zarou was hoping to meet his 72 Virginians.

"Western jihad is here to stay." Well, certainly he is right as long as the current elite remains in power. "Jihad as American as apple pie, says US-born cleric," from AFP, March 20:

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Violent jihad, or Islamic holy war, is "becoming as American as apple pie," US-born fugitive cleric Anwar Al-Awlaqi said in an unauthenticated message released Friday.

"Western jihad is here to stay," warned Awlaqi as he commented on a blonde American who dubbed herself "JihadJane" and has pleaded not guilty to trying to recruit Islamist militants to murder a Swedish cartoonist.

"Jihad is becoming as American as apple pie and as British as afternoon tea," the US-Yemeni cleric said in an English-language message posted on militant forums and released by the US-based SITE monitoring agency....

"Eight years after 9/11 and the declaration of war against terrorism, jihad is still reaching the shores of Europe and America. Not from the outside, but from within. Jihad is not being imported but is being homegrown," read the message attributed to Awlaqi.

He also referred to Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and to Colleen LaRose, the 46-year-old Pennsylvania resident who dubbed herself "JihadJane."

"The US has spent billions to protect its airlines but they couldn't prevent Umar Farouk, and the West has been profiling until 'Jihad Jane' shattered whatever trust was left in the value of profiling," the message read.

"A blond, blue-eyed, small framed, middle-aged female. It couldn't get any further from your typical 'terrorist' profile."...

That's why law enforcement officials should be targeting the ideology and the belief-system. But they aren't. And they won't.

The thing about this is, if someone came up to me and said, Hey, let's bomb a synagogue, I just wouldn't go for it. Ever. Under any circumstances. No matter how much I got "badgered."

War Is Deceit Update: "Synagogue Bomb Suspects: The Feds Put Us Up to It!," by Jonathan Dienst and Hasani Gittens for the NBC New York, March 19 (thanks to all sent this in):

Defense attorneys say an alleged plot to bomb New York synagogues was hatched and directed by a federal informant.

Lawyers for four men from Newburgh have filed a motion to dismiss the terror indictment against them.

They said the informant badgered the defendants until they got involved in the plot.

They said the informant chose the targets, supplied fake bombs for the synagogues and a fake missile to shoot down planes. The motion said he also offered to pay the defendants, who attorneys alleged weren't inclined toward any crime until the informant began recruiting them.

"The government well knew that their case had been a government-inspired creation from day one and that the defendants had not been independently seeking weapons or targets," the motion said....

"Headley, 49, had denied the charges but changed his plea to avoid the death penalty or extradition to India, Pakistan or Denmark."

Jihad Watch reader Paul comments: "Heh. Didn't really believe all those promises of the celestial Playboy Club, did we now, Daood?"

"US citizen David Headley admits role in Mumbai attacks," from the BBC, March 18 (thanks to all who sent this in):

A US citizen has pleaded guilty to scouting targets for the 2008 attacks on the Indian city of Mumbai.

David Headley, at his trial in Chicago, also admitted plotting to attack a Danish newspaper that published a cartoon many Muslims deemed offensive.

Headley, 49, had denied the charges but changed his plea to avoid the death penalty or extradition to India, Pakistan or Denmark.

The attacks on Mumbai in November 2008 left more than 170 people dead....

Prosecutors said Headley, a Pakistani-American, had made several surveillance trips to India and Denmark.

According to court documents, he passed on information to his contacts with the Pakistan-based Islamic militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba.

The group has been blamed for organising the Mumbai attacks....

He is alleged to have told prosecutors that he had been working with Lashkar-e-Taiba since 2002.

He was first charged with plotting to attack the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten after they angered Muslims by publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

Headley changed his name from Daood Gilani in 2006 after he was told by members of Lashkar-e-Taiba that he would be travelling to India to carry out surveillance duties for the group, prosecutors said.

She has been in custody since October, this says. Why are we only hearing about all this now?

An update on this story. "U.S. 'Jihad Jane' Pleads Not Guilty to Terrorism," from Reuters, March 18:

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A Pennsylvania woman who called herself "Jihad Jane" pleaded not guilty on Thursday to charges of providing material support to terrorists and conspiring to kill in a foreign country.

Colleen LaRose appeared in federal court in Philadelphia accused of plotting with others over the Internet to kill a Swedish cartoonist who depicted the Prophet Mohammed in a way that was offensive to Muslims, and of wanting to become a martyr to Islam.

LaRose, 46, from Pennsburg, Pennsylvania, has been in custody since October. A grand jury indictment against her, unsealed on March 9, says that she recruited men online to wage "violent jihad" or holy war, in South Asia and Europe.

She told co-conspirators that her appearance as a blonde-haired white woman would allow her to "blend in with many people" and avoid being detected as an Islamic terrorist, the indictment says.

Yeah, sure. As if anybody were giving Arab or Pakistani men extra scrutiny.

Her jihad against free speech got nowhere, but other Muslims continue to pursue it in other ways. "'JihadJane' said to have confessed" by Derrick Nunnally, John Shiffman, and Kathleen Brady Shea for the Philadelphia Inquirer, March 18 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The Montgomery County woman who calls herself "JihadJane" has confessed to the FBI about her alleged role in a plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist, according to two people close to the investigation.

Colleen LaRose confessed to FBI agents shortly after her October arrest at Philadelphia International Airport, where she had just arrived from London, said the two sources, who spoke on conditon of anonymity.

LaRose, 46, whose arrest was kept quiet until related arrests last week in Ireland, is scheduled to be arraigned this morning at the federal courthouse in Philadelphia....

They have tried to defend themselves by saying they only were waging jihad, and jihad is not illegal in Pakistan. "Pakistani court charges 5 Americans with terrorism," by Zarar Khan for Associated Press, March 17 (thanks to Visvas):

ISLAMABAD - A Pakistani court charged five young Americans on Wednesday with planning terrorist attacks in the South Asian country and conspiring to wage war against nations allied with Pakistan, their defense lawyer said.

The men -- all Muslims from the Washington, D.C., area -- pleaded not guilty to a total of five charges, the most severe of which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison, defense lawyer Hasan Dastagir told The Associated Press....

The men, aged 19 to 25, were charged by an anti-terrorism court inside a prison in Sargodha, the city in Punjab province where they were arrested in December. They were reported missing by their families in November after one left behind a farewell video showing scenes of war and casualties and saying Muslims must be defended.

Their lawyer has said they were heading to Afghanistan and had no plans to stage attacks inside Pakistan.

The court also charged the men with planning attacks on Afghan and U.S. territory, said Dastagir. The charges did not specify what was meant by U.S. territory but could be a reference to American bases or diplomatic outposts in Afghanistan.

The men also were charged with contributing cash to banned organizations to be used for terrorism and with directing each other to commit terrorist acts.

"This last charge carries life in prison while the rest of the charges have lesser punishments," Dastagir said....

Today's New York Post has a cover story on the family of Jamie Paulin-Rodriguez filled with eye opening details about what her conversion meant for her son.

The 6-year-old son of a Colorado nursing student who ran off to Europe to join a terrorist murder cell was brainwashed into a hate-filled
Islamic fundamentalist zombie, his family said yesterday.

Among other statements from the boy's grandmother:

He said they taught him how to shoot a gun," Christine Mott said. "They taught him how to kick and fight . . . We're Democrats. We won't even
buy him a toy gun."

Read it all.

Here is an extensive profile of the American jihadist Omar Hammami, a.k.a. Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki, and how he moved from a middle-class Alabama upbringing to the jihad in Somalia and a life full of hatred and violence. "The Jihadist Next Door," by Andrea Elliott in the New York Times, January 27 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

ON A WARM, cloudy day in the fall of 1999, the town of Daphne, Ala., stirred to life. The high-school band came pounding down Main Street, past the post office and the library and Christ the King Church. Trumpeters in gold-tasseled coats tipped their horns to the sky, heralding the arrival of teenage demigods. The star quarterback and his teammates came first in the parade, followed by the homecoming queen and her court. Behind them, on a float bearing leaders of the student government, a giddy mop-haired kid tossed candy to the crowd.

Omar Hammami had every right to flash his magnetic smile. He had just been elected president of his sophomore class. He was dating a luminous blonde, one of the most sought-after girls in school. He was a star in the gifted-student program, with visions of becoming a surgeon. For a 15-year-old, he had remarkable charisma.

Despite the name he acquired from his father, an immigrant from Syria, Hammami was every bit as Alabaman as his mother, a warm, plain-spoken woman who sprinkles her conversation with blandishments like "sugar" and "darlin'." Brought up a Southern Baptist, Omar went to Bible camp as a boy and sang "Away in a Manger" on Christmas Eve. As a teenager, his passions veered between Shakespeare and Kurt Cobain, soccer and Nintendo. In the thick of his adolescence, he was fearless, raucously funny, rebellious, contrarian. "It felt cool just to be with him," his best friend at the time, Trey Gunter, said recently. "You knew he was going to be a leader."

A decade later, Hammami has fulfilled that promise in the most unimaginable way. Some 8,500 miles from Alabama, on the eastern edge of Africa, he has become a key figure in one of the world's most ruthless Islamist insurgencies. That guerrilla army, known as the Shabab, is fighting to overthrow the fragile American-backed Somali government. The rebels are known for beheading political enemies, chopping off the hands of thieves and stoning women accused of adultery. With help from Al Qaeda, they have managed to turn Somalia into an ever more popular destination for jihadis from around the world.

More than 20 of those fighters have come from the United States, many of them young Somali-Americans from a gritty part of Minneapolis. But it is Hammami who has put a contemporary face on the Shabab's medieval tactics. In a recent propaganda video viewed by thousands on YouTube, he is shown leading a platoon of gun-toting rebels as a soundtrack of jihadi rap plays in the background.

He is identified by his nom de guerre, Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki, "the American," and speaks to the camera with a cool, almost eerie confidence. "We're waiting for the enemy to come," Hammami whispers, a smile crossing his face. Later he vows, "We're going to kill all of them." [...]

There follows an account of a gregarious and charming child raised a Christian, with a Christian mother (Debra) and a Muslim father (Shafik). After awhile, in adolescence, Omar turns toward Islam -- and grows more hateful:

Debra learned to walk a fine line when it came to religion. But Christianity remained the compass of her life. She called Shafik's mosque "his church" and the Koran "his bible." She wasn't going to let her son defect without a fight. "Where are the verses about love in your bible?" she prodded him. They "argued and argued and argued," she recalled. "Then he said, 'That's enough.' "

Like his mother, Hammami was stubborn. When he became convinced of something, he turned to convincing others. At Daphne High, he managed to persuade a handful of students, including his girlfriend, to explore Islam -- a striking development at a school where Christian teenagers routinely gathered at the flagpole for prayer.

"He would say, 'So if Jesus is God, who does he pray to?' " recalled his friend Bernie Culveyhouse. "And if you said, 'God,' he'd say, 'Doesn't that make Jesus a narcissist?' "

Culveyhouse soon converted. Stevenson decided it was not for her, and Hammami broke it off. His other friendships were already strained when, one afternoon in 2000, the subject in class turned to Osama bin Laden. Then a relatively obscure terrorist, bin Laden had claimed responsibility for the 1998 bombings of the United States Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. One boy in the class suggested that bin Laden should be shot dead.

"What if I said that about Billy Graham?" Hammami demanded.

"Billy Graham is a peaceable preacher," the boy, a Christian, recalled saying. "Osama bin Laden is a terrorist."

"One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," Hammami replied.

By his junior year, Hammami had become a spectacle. He made a point of praying by the flagpole outside school yet refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance, friends recalled. In class, he swore at Hirsch, his longtime teacher, assailing her for being Jewish. That spring, in another class, Hammami tried to choke a student who interrupted him as he was reciting the Koran, students recalled. Hammami was promptly suspended. With high grades and an A.C.T. score in the 93rd percentile, he skipped his senior year and enrolled at the University of South Alabama. There, he no longer prayed alone. He could walk to the mosque from campus, and he soon took over as president of the fledgling Muslim Student Association. [...]

New York Times cheap shot of the year (and it's only January): explaining the rigorist Salafi movement, the self-proclaimed exponents of a "pure" Islam, to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia:

The Salafist interpretation of Islamic doctrine tends to be literal and originalist. "They remind me a lot of Scalia in their approach to texts," says Bernard Haykel, a professor at Princeton University. [...]

Throughout his religious transformation, Hammami kept much of his former self intact. Some nights, he and Culveyhouse darted around the mosque in their robes, sparring with invisible light sabers in homage to "Star Wars." He continued to run red lights and rack up speeding tickets, refusing to rise for a judge in traffic court. [...]

Because he did not recognize his authority, but only that of Allah.

But aside from his sister and mother, Hammami had nothing to do with women. Much of the time, he and his friends were tormented by sexual frustrations, two of them recall. Hammami would stare at a woman on the street and then chastise himself for hours, Stewart says. He surfed Islamic Internet forums in search of a wife. His father promised to help him marry a Syrian woman provided that Hammami completed his degree in computer studies. But in December 2002, he dropped out of college, saying that he could no longer bear to be in the company of women. [...]

For a time, Hammami and Culveyhouse took inventory at Wal-Mart. Their boss, an ex-Marine, tolerated their odd look (they tucked their pants into their socks), but he was frustrated by their demands: they refused to touch alcohol, pork, Christmas cards and even dolls. The boss finally assigned them to the women's clothing section. [...]

Hammami concluded that his Salafi mentors had been "hiding many parts of the religion that have a direct relationship to jihad and politics," he wrote. He began searching for guidance on the Internet, Culveyhouse says, discovering a documentary about the life of Amir Khattab, a legendary jihadist who fought in Chechnya. The documentary traces Khattab's evolution as a promising Saudi student who gave up a life that "any young man would desire" to embrace a higher purpose. Hammami was mesmerized, Culveyhouse recalls.

"Once you've made that step, it's a gateway," Culveyhouse says. "Once you've legitimized the jihad in Chechnya, you're compelled to legitimize the jihad in other places as well." [...]

Later, in Egypt:

Alone with his young wife and newborn daughter, Hammami seemed overwhelmed, Dena recalls. He found freelance work translating Islamic texts into English but had trouble supporting his family. In the December e-mail message, he wrote that he was yearning to live in a country "where Shariah was being implemented completely." [...]

From Egypt, Hammami followed the events closely. He was convinced that "jihad had become an obligation upon me," he wrote in his December e-mail message. He wanted to help his "captive brothers and sisters" while helping himself "obtain the highest rank available" as a Muslim. (Jihadists believe that the greatest rewards in the afterlife are granted to them.) On their Internet forum, Hammami and Maldonado made impassioned pleas for action without directly referring to Somalia. [...]

Over the next few months, Mogadishu descended into a hellish war zone. That May, Hammami suddenly reappeared at the grandmother's apartment, asking for a phone number to reach his wife, who had moved back to Toronto. Over the phone, Hammami told Sadiyo that he was still trying to leave Somalia, Ayan said. A month later, he called with a different story. He wanted his wife and daughter to join him.

"He was saying: 'It's so wonderful. There's going to be an Islamic state,' " Ayan recalled Sadiyo telling her. "He was making it this utopia of happiness." [...]

Sometimes months would pass with no word from Hammami. When he reached out through Facebook in early September, he told Dena that he hoped his infamy would prompt people to ask, "How did this guy become that?"

"They can't blame it on poverty or any of that stuff," he continued. "They will have to realize that it's an ideology and it's a way of life that makes people change. They will also have to realize that their political agendas need to be fixed." [...]

On Dec. 3, a suicide bomber disguised as a woman blew himself up at a graduation ceremony for medical students in Mogadishu, killing nearly two dozen people, including three Somali government officials. Somali and American authorities said the attack was carried out by the Shabab. That same month, Hammami seemed more taken by his cause than ever. "I have become a Somali you could say," he wrote in the December e-mail message. "I hear bullets, I dodge mortars, I hear nasheeds" -- Islamic songs -- "and play soccer. Sometimes I live in the bush with camels, sometimes I live the five-star life. Sometimes I walk for miles in the terrible heat with no water, sometimes I ride in extremely slick cars. Sometimes I'm chased by the enemy, sometimes I chase him!"

"I have hatred, I have love," he went on. "It's the best life on earth!"

Well, he certainly has hatred.

The case of Guantanamo chaplain Captain James Yee was a uniquely disturbing one, as it involved an American military officer -- stationed at one of the nation’s most secretive installation -- who had allegedly betrayed his nation to forces aligned with Islamic terrorists. Yee was allowed to walk away from the case a free man, a development more indicative of the federal government’s botched prosecutorial effort than his actual innocence, as documented by Robert Spencer. In an article featured in today’s London Times provocatively titled “An American in Chains,” Yee protests his innocence, but ends up betraying his own disturbing mindset when he attempts to identify the “real” reason he was arrested: (thanks to Scaramouche)

I knew why I had been arrested: it was because I am a Muslim. I was just the latest victim of the hostility born the moment when the planes flew into the twin towers and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

My real “crime” had been that I had tried to ensure that the suspected Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters detained in the Gitmo cages were given every opportunity to practice their religion freely, one of the most fundamental of American ideals.

Yee goes on to suggest that the conditions at Guantanamo were inhumane, especially for a population of prisoners who he calls “friendly.”

By the time I got to Guantanamo, Camp X-Ray was too small for the number of prisoners coming in. When I saw its remains I couldn’t believe that humans were once held here. It looked like a cattle yard. There were hundreds of cages in rows. The only protection from the blistering sun was a tin roof. Dozens of enormous rodents crawled throughout the camp. I was told that these were banana rats and would attack if provoked.

The new prison, Camp Delta, consisted of 19 blocks, each holding 48 detainees in individual open-air cells with steel mesh walls. Like other military personnel, I was briefed that the detainees were among the most dangerous terrorists in the world. We were told that many of the prisoners were responsible for the attacks of September 11 and would strike again if given the opportunity.

I expected to come face-to-face with hundreds of Osama Bin Ladens, but most prisoners were friendly. There were approximately 660 from dozens of countries, including Britain.

While fervently extolling his innocence and the aggressive hatred of American officials, Yee makes mention of past actions which would raise eyebrows even among the most lenient investigators:

On holiday after graduating from West Point, however, I met a young woman who was intrigued by Islam. I began to read about it and eventually converted. Then, after the US army sent me to Saudi Arabia and allowed me to visit Mecca, I wondered why there were no Muslim chaplains in the US military.

My father had taught me as a boy that America promises all people an opportunity to lead an extraordinary life. By becoming a Muslim chaplain in the summer of 2000, after four years’ study in Damascus, I saw myself fulfilling this opportunity. I had no idea what I was letting myself in for.