I'm repeating what's already been said, but "unlikely group of terrorism suspects" is a conclusion drawn only if every assumption you've made about terrorism is wrong. The bizarre and even insane loop most of the West is stuck in only seems to oscillate from "perverters of a Great Faith" to "what did we do to make them hate us?"

Both of these false constructs require convoluted and complicated narratives -- someday pure fatigue may force many to consider the most obvious, non-complicated and accurate solutions to the conundrum: Islam is a terror religion. It creates droves of mass murdering Muslims who take its hateful and supremacist doctrines very seriously. That day can't come soon enough.

Posted by: jsla at February 28, 2008 9:57 AM

"I find it hard to believe that all these movements were mixed together in the same cell," said Rami, who knows the jailed politicians.

This "expert on Islam" has yet to learn a lesson others learned long ago: politics makes strange bedfellows.

Posted by: PMK at February 28, 2008 10:13 AM

RABAT, MOROCCO -- They are politicians and businessmen, bureaucrats and pharmacists, a police commander and a TV journalist.

What, no Doctors? Islam has a high percentage of Doctors. They usually don't tell us Doctor of what. Taqiyya maybe? Well I am surprised that no doctors are listed. I would have thought at least one or two. A doctor terrorist has more shock value than a shoe repair terrorist or a falafel farm terrorist.
No one wants to believe that a doctor would blow anything up. A bureaucrat maybe? A pharmacist for sure, possibly even a police commander, but a Doctor? That list is incomplete, there must be a doctor involved somewhere. There always is...

Posted by: duh_swami at February 28, 2008 10:35 AM

"Benmoussa said in an interview that the group plotted to assassinate Cabinet ministers, military chiefs and *Jewish leaders* to destabilize this moderate Muslim nation."

Isn't Jewish life with the Moors paradise?

Posted by: CTYankee at February 28, 2008 11:59 AM

But Rami sees contradictions in the official version alleging that the Moroccan group of suspects was influenced by both Sunni-led Al Qaeda and Shiite Hezbollah.

"I find it hard to believe that all these movements were mixed together in the same cell," said Rami, who knows the jailed politicians. [...]
.......................................

Everbody knows these sorts of groups never cooperate--except, of course, when they do. Against infidels, say, or regimes which are insufficiently jihadist, like Morocco's.

Posted by: gravenimage at February 28, 2008 1:29 PM

All their Doctors died from infections they incurred as a result of Islamic hygiene standards!

Posted by: dmann at February 28, 2008 1:45 PM

The ennemies of my ennemies are my friends.

hezbollah (chiite) and hamas (sunnite) have no problem to work together against Israel, and even fatah which officially plays "moderate nice terrorist group" has no problem to work with hamas. Abbas even explained recently that he tought everything to hezbollah and was the first to fire against Israel in 1965, so it is not something new.

So if I know that how come that so-said experts on islamic jihhad don't?

Posted by: elf at February 28, 2008 3:31 PM

All their Doctors died from infections they incurred as a result of Islamic hygiene standards!
Posted by: dmann

Ohhhhh...Now I see said the blind mouse...

Posted by: duh_swami at February 28, 2008 4:21 PM

Former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer's states that Islamic terror attacks against are motivated by the perception that U.S. and/or Israeli foreign policy is a threat to Islam. He cites actions such as the stationing of U.S. troops on Muslim holy ground in Saudi Arabia, U.S. support for authoritarian regimes in the Middle East such as those in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Pakistan, ect. This may explain the lack of suicide bombings in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in Israel for nearly 30 years after the occupation began and the massive increase in suicide bombing has meant most suicide bombings in 2003.

Condemnation of Islamic terrorism on Islamic grounds has been made by anti-terrorist Muslims such as Abdal-Hakim Murad:

"Certainly, neither bin Laden nor his principal associate, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are graduates of Islamic universities. And so their proclamations ignore 14 centuries of Muslim scholarship, and instead take the form of lists of anti-American grievances and of Qur'anic quotations referring to early Muslim wars against Arab idolaters. These are followed by the conclusion that all Americans, civilian and military, are to be wiped off the face of the Earth. All this amounts to an odd and extreme violation of the normal methods of Islamic scholarship. Had the authors of such fatwas followed the norms of their religion, they would have had to acknowledge that no school of mainstream Islam allows the targeting of civilians. An insurrectionist who kills non-combatants is guilty of baghy, “armed aggression,” a capital offense in Islamic law."

Dale C. Eikmeier, a counter-terrorism scholar, points out the "questionable religious credentials" of most Islamist, or "Qutbists," which can be a "means to discredit them:

"With the exception of Abul Ala Maududi and Abdullah Azzam, none of Qutbism’s main theoreticians trained at Islam’s recognized centers of learning. Although a devout Muslim, Hassan al Banna was a teacher and community activist. Sayyid Qutb was a literary critic. Muhammad Abd al-Salam Faraj was an electrician. Ayman al-Zawahiri is a physician. Osama bin Laden trained to be a businessman."

Yemeni Judge Hamoud Al-Hitar attacked the Islamic basis of terrorism using hujjat or proof "in theological dialogues that challenge and then correct the wayward beliefs" of terrorists or would-be terrorists.

Fethullah Gulen, a prominent Islamic scholar, stated that "a real Muslim, who understood Islam in every aspect, could not be a terrorist."

The Oxford-based Malayist jurist, Shaykh Muhammad Afifi al-Akiti, issued his landmark fatwa on suicide bombing titled 'Defending the Transgressed, by Censuring the Reckless against the Killing of Civilians'. Also, one of Shia Islam's highest ranking marja clerics, Ayatollah al-Udhma Yousof al-Sanei also decreed a fatwa against suicide bombing, declaring it as a "terrorist act"

There are many scholastic refutations of suicide bombings. Ihsanic Intelligence, an Islamic think-tank, published their 2-year study into suicide bombings, titled 'The Hijacked Caravan', which concluded that, "The technique of suicide bombing is anathema, antithetical and abhorrent to Islam. It is considered forbidden... a reprehensible innovation in the Islamic ... an enormity of sin combining suicide and murder and theologically an act which has consequences of eternal damnation."

Here are some verses relating to Jihad and/or war:

"Fight in the cause of Allah those against those who fight you, but do not transgress, for Allah loves not the transgressor. Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you, but begin not hostilities. Lo! Allah loveth not aggressors. And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution is worse than slaughter. And fight not with them at the Inviolable Place of Worship until they first attack you there, but if they attack you (there) then slay them. Such is the reward of disbelievers. But if they desist, then lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. And fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is for Allah. But if they desist, then let there be no hostility except against wrongdoers." - Surah 2:190-193 (I'm deliberately quoting the entire text in answer because I know you guys LOVE to quote this stuff out of context)

"O ye who believe! do not kill yourselves, for truly Allah has been to you Most Merciful. If any do that in rancour and injustice, soon shall We cast him into the Fire..." (Qur'an 4:29-30).

"Nor take life - which Allah has made sacred - except for just cause...(ie death penalty for murder)" (17:33).

Fighting in defense is considered obligatory upon Muslims, according to the Qur'an. The Qur'an, however, says that should enemy hostile behavior cease, then the reason for engaging such enemy also lapses. The Hanafi school of thought holds that war can only be launched against a state that had resorted to armed conflict against the Muslims. War, according to the Hanafis, can't simply be made because a state was not Islamic. Muhammad ibn Idris ash-Shafi`i, founder of the Shafi'i school of thought, was the first to permit offensive jihad (200 years after Muhammad). He limited this warfare against pagan Arabs only, not permitting it against non-Arab non-Muslims. Javed Ahmad Ghamidi, a well-known Pakistani Islamic scholar, exegete, and educationist, states that after Muhammad and his companions, there is no concept in Islam (until Shafi'i) obliging Muslims to wage war for propagation or implementation of Islam. The only valid basis for military jihad is to end oppression when all other measures have failed. Islam completely prohibits the killing of those who have not participated in war. Commentators of the Quran agree that Muslims should always be willing and ready to negotiate peace with the other party without any hesitation. According to Maududi, Islam does not permit Muslims to reject peace and continue bloodshed.

PS, you talk about "Taqiyya". Let's start with defining "Taqiyyah." The word "al-Taqiyya" literally means: "Concealing or disguising one's beliefs, convictions, ideas, feelings, opinions, and/or strategies at a time of imminent danger, whether now or later in time, to save oneself from physical and/or mental injury." The practice was a method of self-preservation for the Shi'as who historically were the minority and severely persecuted and oppressed by Sunni Muslims (some Sunnis reject it altogether, on the grounds that it is hypocrisy and shows a lack of trust in God). Ayatollah Sistani, a 21st century Shi'a Islamic scholar states:

1) Taqiyah is done for safety reasons. For example, a person fears that he might be killed or harmed, if he does not observe Taqiyah. In this case, it is obligatory to observe Taqiyah.
2) Reconciliatory Taqiyah. This type of Taqiyah is done when a person intends to reconcile with the other side or when he intends to soften their hearts. This kind of Taqiyah is permissible but not obligatory.
3) Sometimes, Taqiyah may cause a more important obligation to be lost or missed, if so it is forbidden. For example, when I know that silence would cause oppression and infidelity to spread and will make people go astray, in such a situation it is not permissible to be silent and to dissimulate.
4) Sometimes, Taqiyah may lead to the death of an innocent person. If so, it is not permissible. It is therefore haram (forbidden) to kill another person to save your own life.

In a nutshell: if a Shi'a Muslim's life is in danger, he may lie as long as he holds his faith true in his heart.

Posted by: Comment at February 28, 2008 8:13 PM

Posted by duh_swami:

A doctor terrorist has more shock value than a shoe repair terrorist or a falafel farm terrorist.

Posted by: Xero G at February 29, 2008 1:34 AM

An insurrectionist who kills non-combatants is guilty of baghy, “armed aggression,” a capital offense in Islamic law."
by some anti-terrorism Muslim

Now all he needs to do is define non-combatant. No one in the WTC was deemed a non-combatant. Just as the Muslim who gives his money to support the suicide bombers is considered by his fellow Muslims to be a jihadist, so all those who died on 9/11 were "supporting America" and so were deemed enemies of Islam. Too bad no one told them that.

Posted by: PMK at February 29, 2008 7:42 AM

EUrabia is the dreamland of the world jihadists and their biggest recruiting, organizing, logistical and fundrising base, and the US is not much better.
Now, the US and EUrabia criminals have degenerated into the lowest degree of dhimmitude, actually murdering Serb Christians for the Jihad and brutally eradicating Christianity from Kosovo for the Caliphate.

Ruslan Tokhchukov, EnragedSince1999.

Posted by: Enragedsince1999 at February 29, 2008 3:12 PM