Where did Faruq learn about Islam? Are law enforcement officials going to wave away such questions by saying yet again that he was “radicalized” on the Internet? Faruq is clearly a convert to Islam. Converts to Islam seem to be especially susceptible to jihadist appeals. What are U.S. Muslim organizations doing to prevent this? Why, nothing.
“Texas man pleads guilty to attempt to join ISIS,” by James Queally, Los Angeles Times, June 27, 2014:
A 23-year-old Texas man admitted Friday that he had been practicing military maneuvers and planned to travel to Syria to join ISIS, the terror group that has claimed thousands of lives in a violent march through Iraq in recent weeks.
Michael Wolfe, a.k.a. Faruq, of Austin, Texas, pleaded guilty to one count of attempting to provide support and resources to a foreign terrorist organization, according to a statement issued by the U.S. attorney’s office in San Antonio.
He was arrested 10 days ago when he tried to board a flight out of Houston. Another man, 23-year-old Rahatul Ashikim Khan, was arrested the same day at his house in Round Rock, Texas, and was charged with trying to recruit men to join terrorist organizations, federal authorities said.
A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office would not say if Khan attempted to recruit Wolfe specifically.
During his court appearance Friday, Wolfe admitted he launched the plot to join ISIS in August 2013. In the last year, Wolfe said he did physical fitness training, practiced military maneuvers and tried to cover up communications about his plans to engage in a “violent jihad,” the release said.
Wolfe traveled to Houston on June 17 and planned to take several flights, eventually hoping to land in Syria, where he would join ISIS’ armed conflict. But the man he purchased the plane tickets from was an undercover FBI agent.
Wolfe will stay in custody pending a sentencing hearing, which has not been scheduled.
Daryl Fields, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office, told the Los Angeles Times Khan has entered a plea of not guilty, and a detention hearing has been scheduled for June 30.
He remains in federal custody, and jury selection for hsi [sic] criminal trial is expected to begin on August 25, Fields said….
bettina says
I’m sure the FBI agent at the airport was NOT alerted by any muslim within their forsaken communities…
What Wellington or Mortimer earlier said about the Germans and Japanese gladly joining our armed forces in WWII to prove their allegiance to America, these silent cretins are morally complicit in their allegiance to islam and the terrorists that it keeps spawning.
Rob says
This topic is linked to the question (in the UK at least) ‘Why are 2nd generation Muslims in the West more radical than their parents?’
The answer lies in the mosques where the attitudes and mores of the source culture are continually refreshed by Imams imported from home.
These people have had none of the acculturation of the migrants and in fact recognise a distinct threat to their influence if the process continues.
Nicolai Sennels tells us that Muslims are prone to external influences and act on them far more readily than internally motivated people.
I note that in China’s Muslim West the authorities require mosques to teach an anti extremist set of values.
Jay Boo says
Reference to:
“I note that in China’s Muslim West the authorities require mosques to teach an anti extremist set of values.”
——————-
I am not sure how we can teach ‘anti extremist set of values’ to someone who loves to kiss the floor five times a day.
Charli Main says
sounds a bit like teaching Christians , in church, not to believe in Jesus and Christianity.
Rob says
I guess the fact that the Chinese station security personnel inside the mosques to monitor what is preached, may have a bearing on how successful the strategy is.
Charli Main says
Rob,
no offence intended to you or your post. I was just trying to figure out how an imam could teach that, a religion that is violent to its very core, is in reality peaceful.
Perhaps an analogy would be the SS teaching Germans, that the Nazis loved Jews.
jin khan says
Am pretty sure it was a sting operation wea FBI will persuade this man in disguise of a Muslim man and instigate him to join the ISIL, then after that Capture him for potential terrorism.
And a Reply To Jay, We don’t kiss the floor 5 times, we bow down to Your Lord Allah Five times
Shane says
The second generation Muslims, like Major Hassan, have to prove what good Muslims they are by killing infidels. To Obama, that’s just work place violence and has nothing to do with Islam. What a dhimmi.
Kepha says
Re China and religion–
The Chinese government also forbids Christian churches to preach the Second Coming of Jesus and calls baptizing an infant “forcing someone to believe in religion” (ten years in laogai!). At least in the 1990’s, if not now, when in certain areas more eighteen-year-olds applied for baptism than for Communist Party membership, a crackdown on unregistered churches would ensue. Only recently, the authorities in Zhejiang (an eastern Chinese province) have been tearing down churches they deem “too large”.
Given our own “liberal” government’s weaponizing the IRS, forcing devout employers to pay for employees’ abortions, and our courts picking on people who won’t cater or photograph homosexual weddings, I foresee a lot more petty totalitarianism creeping up on us–our becoming a lot more like Communist China.
By the way, in areas of Hui dissidence, the PRC government gets a lot more conciliatory than where unregistered Christians get too thick on the ground. It all goes to tell me that any regime that is “progressive” is ultimately going to get nasty with Christianity while making nice with at least portions of its Islamic community out of fear.
Charlie Griffith says
Well said.
Also, this word, “progressive” can have elastic and differing meanings depending on context; sort of like who saying in effect, “progressing from what point, exactly”.
Here is where our clever Muslim lawyers here in America are so quick to see a place to apply their “Lawfare” in their knee-jerk application of “prejudice!” and “racism!”
Another fertile field for hypocrisy.
Angemon says
Pat Condell on “progressives”:
mortimer says
At what number of jihadists-per-1000-converts will our law enforcement be authorized to use training materials explaining about JIHAD???
The Leftard politicians see Muslims as their allies in the destruction of freedom, democracy and pluralism.
Shane says
The Left views Muslims as their allies against Christians and Western Civilization. Left wingers are traitors to their civilization.
Angemon says
mortimer posted:
“At what number of jihadists-per-1000-converts will our law enforcement be authorized to use training materials explaining about JIHAD???”
Very likely, the answer is: never. Like mr. Spencer mentions often, he taught the FBI, CIA and police forces about jihad and the islamic justification to wage warfare against non-muslims. That is, until they caved in to CAIR and its cries of “Islamophobia!!!”, scrubbed all mentions of jihad and islam from their manuals, stopped working with trainers who know what jihad is and what islam mandates and “reeducated” those agents who were trained in “islamophobic” material.
Given what happened in the investigations of 9/11 and Benghazi, what are the chances of the FBI or CIA director coming in and saying somethings along the lines of “My predecessor was wrong in shifting the paradigm of the fight against terrorism to exclude islam and jihad as a clear and present danger. That change of paradigm caused heavy material losses and the loss of lives of american citizens, but we will now do everything we can to amend what we can consider to be a critical failure”? And don’t get me started on the UK, with the cut in the counter-terrorism budget in a time where they need to be extra vigilant of jihadis returning from Syria and Iraq.
Jack Diamond says
The eschatology aspect of this has not been remarked upon enough. Walid Shoebat quoted an ISIS member fighting in Syria (who was profiled by Foreign Policy in 2013) named Abu Omar– ‘these fighters who gather in Iraq and Syria are not there for the primary goal to fight Maliki and Assad. Abu Omar, a Sunni jihadist fighting in faction in Aleppo between Islamic factions of the many anti-Assad said, “If you think that all these mujahideen came from around the world to fight Assad, you are mistaken. All of them came here as it was foretold and promised by the Prophet. It is the war He promised us; the war of The Great Tribulation.” In the FP article Abu Omar also said ‘he considers the jihad in Syria “holier” than in Iraq — a view he says is shared by other extremist fighters. “The Quran and the hadiths already predicted that Satan will be defeated in Damascus,” he says.’
Islamic eschatology centers immense events before the Day of Judgment in Damascus, it is where the Mahdi (the final Caliph) will rule from ( and then lead the great victory over the “Christian Romans” (white European-Americans) at al-Malhamah al-Kubrah or Armageddon, though a third of the Muslims will die-and another third will betray Islam and join the other side– (and yes Sunnis believe in the coming of a Mahdi, too). The Messiah (Jesus) will descend in Damascus, too, to pray behind the Mahdi and proclaim Allah’s only religion, Islam. Many of these mujahideen, it is fair to say, believe they are living in or ushering in such times, (proceeded with a great slaughter) every bit as much as the Twelvers in Iran, and this is part of the recruitment.
Mirren10 says
Good post, Jack Diamond, and very interesting. I wasn’t fully aware of their thinking on this.
No-one who believes they’re engaged in a war prophesied by the ‘prophet’ is going to be interested in negotiation, or any other milky solution. But the West will never acknowledge that.
voegelinian says
Muslims have been fanatically motivated by eschatology for 1,400 years. There’s nothing new going on here. The West needs to stop looking for ways to “explain” Muslims, and just see what has always been there, from day one when they exploded out of the Arabian desert to take the world by storm.
Jay Boo says
$500 million in your taxes are being proposed to help fund this.
We have to pay the tax to Islam per sharia.
David says
I guess that he must have been trying to join the ISIL in Iraq, and not Syria, because if it had been in Syria then this young man might have been celeberated by the authorities, and yet could have gone to Syria as an emissary of John McCain and Barack Obama to deliever $500 million to their “vetted” “moderate” “rebels”.
Why have Obama, McCain and co. not been charged with providing material support to foreign terrorist organisations?
It is a terrible story. There is a physical war, but also a spiritual war happening. We should not lose any of these young ones in that war, but we have been.
Paleologos says
A little more …
http://kxan.com/2014/06/18/central-texas-men-face-terrorism-charges/
Charge: man in terrorism case “could not wait to spill blood”
By Patrick Tolbert and Kevin SchwallerPublished: June 18, 2014, 12:46 pmUpdated: June 19, 2014, 3:29 pm
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Two Central Texas men are facing charges that they provided material support to terrorists, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Rahatul Ashikim Khan, 23, was arrested Tuesday at his home on Pebblestone Trail in Round Rock. Authorities say he conspired with others to recruit people who would “travel overseas to support terrorist activities including committing violent jihad.”
Photo Gallery:
FBI raid at accused terrorist’s home
The charges accuse Khan of connecting a confidential FBI source with co-conspirators who eventually discussed the secret source’s “passport and possible routes to move [the source] into Somalia to join al-Shabaab, an Al-Qaeda-affiliated , [terrorist organization].”
The documents also say the FBI source met with Khan in Austin, in an unrecorded meeting. Investigators believe Khan said that “he could not wait to spill blood. Khan said that he was actively searching for recruits for [a conspirator] and he was the only person he knew of doing this.”
“We just recently moved into this neighborhood back in October and all the neighbors seemed friendly and nice and never heard anything or saw anything out of the ordinary coming from the folks across the street or anything like that,” said Kenneth McKnight, who lives nearby.
Khan, was arrested in the Teravista community in Round Rock. Several residents there were notified of FBI activity Tuesday by a neighborhood social media site.
Court documents show Khan is a full-time student at the University of Texas at Austin.
In a separate case, Michael Todd Wolfe, also known as Faruq, 23, of Austin, was arrested as he prepared to board a flight to Europe. Officials say he was planning to travel to the Middle East “to provide his services to radical groups engaged in armed conflict in Syria.”
According to the federal criminal complaint, Wolfe told an undercover investigator that he was doing “Cross-Fit” to physically prepare for jihad.
Wolfe and the undercover agent began communicating in late 2013. Court documents detail their conversations as well as Wolfe’s plans to fly his family from Texas to Denmark under the guise of attending a concert.
At Austin’s oldest mosque, the Nueces Mosque, IMAM MOHAMMAD-UMER ESMAIL TOLD KXAN HE KNEW KAHN A BIT FROM YEARS AGO AND TRADED SOCIAL MEDIA MESSAGES WITH WOLFE . THE IMAM SAYS HE NEVER SENSED ANY ANGER OR DANGER FROM EITHER MAN.
“It’s really sad hearing about what happened,” he said. “We’ll let the justice system make the call on it. Right now it’s premature to make any sort of statement.”
If convicted, both men face up to 15 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
“The growing safe haven for Islamic extremism in Syria and Iraq poses the greatest threat to the national security of Western Europe and the United States today,” said Texas Congressman Michael McCaul, who serves as chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security. “Americans and other Westerners with legal travel documents are going to Syria to join the fight and are being trained by jihadists to attack Western targets. This war is not over and the administration needs to face this crisis head on.”
The men were arrested as a result of a joint investigation between federal agents, military intelligence and local police agencies.
“This case is the culmination of a long-term investigation by the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force made up of local, state and federal law enforcement agencies in Central Texas. It’s a textbook example of how well law enforcement agencies in this area work together,” stated United States Attorney Robert Pitman.
“Protecting the citizens of this community from the threat of harm both from within the United States and abroad is our highest priority, and we will continue to work with our partners to detect, investigate and prosecute those who seek to advance their ideology through acts of terrorism.”
***************************************************************************
Do the imams ever know anything? Do they ever help investigators?
Why do we let ANY muslims come into the U.S.?
Why don’t we deport all muslims before we become like the muslim-rat infested U.K.?
We are on the road to Hell …
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/number-muslims-u-s-doubles-9-11-article-1.1071895
A new survey reveals the dramatically changing face of religion in America, with the number of Muslims in the U.S. soaring 67% in the decade since the 9/11 attacks.
Data released Tuesday from the 2010 U.S. Religion Census shows Islam was the fastest growing religion in America in the last 10 years, with 2.6 million living in the U.S. today, up from 1 million in 2000.
Mormonism too saw remarkable growth, with a 45% increase in adherents. It added nearly 2 million members since 2000, bringing their number in the U.S. to 6.1 million.
“Both of these groups entered more than 200 counties that they weren’t in 10 years ago,” said Dale Jones, data analyst and mapping specialist for the Religion Census.
The findings represent religious people who attend services. Census surveyors collected data on congregational adherents of 236 religious groups, including full members, their children and others who regularly attend services, with a 5% margin of error.
In the Midwest and parts of the South there are now more Muslims than Jews for the first time. Immigration from parts of the Muslim world and a small rise in conversions are the driving force behind the growth, researchers said. Jones also speculated that the burst of anti-Islam sentiment after the 9/11 attacks could have done more to grow the religion’s presence in the U.S. than slow it. Those on the fence about converting to Islam may have decided to do so on principle.
“Persecution is sometimes good for a religious group — in the sense of being able to attract more followers, for some reason,” Jones said. “Rarely is opposition a very effective tool in stopping the growth of a movement.”
Dr. Ihsan Bagby, associate proessor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky, agreed that any negative sentiments against Islam has only built up resiliance in the Muslim community. “You get stronger with resistance,” he said. “If everything is just peachy keen, it’s hard to grow. I think the anti-Muslim atmosphere in certain segments of the public square have actually made Muslims more religious.”
The Mormon faith, formally called Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, spread beyond the “Mormon Corridor” of Utah, Idaho and parts of Nevada and Arizona, the study also found.
Christianity and Catholicism both saw a small decrease in membership, while the number of Americans who don’t identify with any organized religion grew considerably, the report showed.
More than 158 million Americans fell into the “unclaimed” category — more than triple the amount of even the most popular religions in the country.
The data was collected by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies and released by the Association of Religion Data Archives. The full report and detailed maps are available on the ARDA website.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/number-muslims-u-s-doubles-9-11-article-1.1071895#ixzz35u6ZNseL
R/
Paleologos
Angemon says
Where and with whom?
Eels says
On his own, with a wooden rifle and toy tanks.
Thomas says
I go to many parades and ceremonies for veterans and patriotic reasons. I have yet to see a muslim family waving the American flag. Never see it.
I also go to many PIG Roasts, open to the public and all muslims are invited to attend and enjoy the brother and sister hood of being an American and free. But for some strange reason muslims NEVER come to these partys, huh, I wonder why?
duh_swami says
At 23 he is just right for jihad, young, dumb and full of…frustrated sexual desires. Jihad seems like an adventure, like living an episode of 24, with Jack Bower in hot pursuit . Reality sets in when Jack catches up with him. Or he is seriously wounded in Iraq by a Shia fighter. The best thing to do if you are injured by a Shia fighter in Iraq, is seek medical attention immediately, if you can find any…
kevin says
If Holder is responsible for prosecuting this malfeasant then this worthless dude is going to be free soon to kill Americans in a work place violent act to get 72 virgins in heaven. Thanks Obama you are being a faithful Muslim
Kevin says
Is that Atta’s son?
Ashley says
Why is there little to no mention of Michael Todd Wolfe’s wife, Jordan Furr?
From ABC: “According to charging documents, Wolfe’s wife met an undercover FBI agent in August 2013 and told the agent she and her husband wanted to “perform a violent form of jihad” outside of the United States.”
I don’t understand. Furr was complicit in all this.
This echoes of Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s widow, Katherine Russell. Jihadist material, including instructions on how to assemble a pressure cooker bomb, were found on HER computer. And yet we are led to believe she was clueless of her husband’s activities and intentions leading up to the marathon bombings.
I just don’t get it.
Jack Diamond says
Yes, it was the wife who first met with the undercover agent.
The FBI agent’s criminal complaint– http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/case_docs/2402.pdf has some interesting aspects.
The wife (Furr, married to the aptly named Wolfe) said “she wanted to perform hijrah (religious migration), and that as part of her hijrah, she wanted to support her husband’s goal of traveling to perform a violent form of jihad.”
She added her husband “just wants to hop in Syria. He’s just ready to die for his deen (religion). He’s ready to die for someone; for something.”
In a later meeting with the pair, Wolfe “indicated that he had learned that al Qaeda in Syria was training brothers from other countries (foreign fighters) and then sending those fighters back from Syria to their home countries to conduct terror attacks.”
In further meetings, Wolfe is becoming more and more interested in the ISIS group and “Wolfe also appeared excited about being part of the prophecy related to Syria (your affiant believes Wolfe was referring to Islamic apocalyptic scripture which describes significant fighting in Syria during the ‘End Times’).”
—echoing my earlier post about eschatology in the call to Syria
Another interesting aspect is the use of Turkey as the well-understood way into Syria for foreign fighters.
I don’t know what or if anything will happen to the wife who was clearly a co-conspirator. The other arrest was Rahatul Khan (also aptly named), a college student at the Univ. of Texas. Khan began communicating in an internet chart room (“Authentic Tauheed”) with a “confidential human source” aka FBI mole, as a “platform to spot and asses potential recruits for committing violent jihad overseas.” They didn’t directly say the Wolfes were among his recruits but it is a logical assumption and would explain how the Wolfes were compromised from the beginning. These wanna-be mujahideen are about as smart in chat rooms as the pedophiles, fortunately.
Jack Diamond says
internet CHAT room
Ashley says
Yeah, Jack. Interesting stuff.
I recall folks being stunned when Colleen LaRose (Jihad Jane) was busted. It was as though an American female providing aid to terrorists was some sort of anomaly.
Dangerous thinking.
Female suicide bombers are ripe for the picking in the shithole areas of the world. We recently saw the first American suicide bomber strike in Syria.
It is my understanding that Jordan Furr has NOT been arrested. And yet she detailed her murderous intentions to the undercover agent.
Something isn’t right here.
Jack Diamond says
Friends of the convert Michael Wolfe are stunned too.
AUSTIN, Texas –“Close friends of Michael Todd Wolfe said it’s hard to believe the allegations. They say Wolfe played music, like to skateboard and is a good dad to his two kids. They also say he became Muslim several years ago, and for all they knew it helped him change his life for the better.
Federal authorities arrested him at a Houston airport this week as he waited to board a flight to Toronto.
“I knew a different Michael,” said friend Julian Leonard.
Leonard met Wolfe in middle school, they later became roommates and played in a band together. Leonard saw Wolfe one month ago.
Everything seemed fine, just normal Michael, you know? Our kids played together, and that’s about it,” he said.
Wolfe went to Round Rock High School, but he didn’t graduate. Friends said he often studied the Bible and Koran, and several years ago he became Muslim. “Whatever he did, he put 110 percent into it,” he explained. “For all I knew I thought the whole Muslim thing, and the whole religious part, was actually a good thing for him.”
“Very shocked and almost unbelievable I guess,” Leonard said.
http://www.khou.com/news/texas-news/Friends-of-Austin-terror-suspect-in-shock-over-allegations-263972341.html
Gee, we thought the whole “Muslim thing” was a good thing for him.
And this is 2014.
voegelinian says
“Gee, we thought the whole “Muslim thing” was a good thing for him.
And this is 2014.”
Not only is it 2014, it was Texas. So much for good ol’ boys.
And the incredulity of his friends matches so many other after-the-fact stories of non-Muslim friends, co-workers, acquaintances, family — all swearing the Muslim convert was “nice” and “friendly” and “normal”.
Well, they were right. They certainly seemed to be nice, friendly and normal. The implication is that only Muslims who are mean, surly and abnormally “extremist” are dangerous. This paradigm obviously is not going to be enough to protect our societies from horrific terror attacks in the coming decades. The only determining factor should be the mere fact of being a Muslim.
The West will only learn the hard way that this is the only way to protect its societies. The learning will be very slow — if even so many in the Counter-Jihad show so many signs of resistance to such a radical paradigm shift.
AndreJackson says
US Citizen’s with “Dual Citizenship’s” should renounce one or the other! You are either one of US or not!
voegelinian says
All Muslims are dual citizens — and the one citizenship, in the Umma through their Mohammedanism, cancels out any other national citizenships they may happen to have (though they continue to pretend they can harmonize both citizenships). The only thing missing is that the vast majority of Westerners (including many in the Counter-Jihad) can’t see this.