The Islamic State has declared jihad against the U.S. and called for the murder of American civilians and military personnel. If he had been plastering an American city with swastikas during World War II, would the FBI have been as sanguine as it is about this fellow?
“This Man Has Been Plastering Houston With ISIS Stickers,” by M.L. Nestel, Vocativ, October 27, 2014 (thanks to Pamela Geller):
At a time when the FBI is on high alert for signs of ISIS allegiance in the U.S., a bearded man in Texas has been proclaiming his support for the militant Islamic group in some fairly conspicuous ways. Adam Abdulrahman has been wearing ISIS garb around town, staging pictures in public places of American flags next to ISIS flags, and posting his critiques of American culture on YouTube.
You might call him an ISIS performance artist.
Now the man who’s dubbed himself “Houston Baghdadi” on Twitter has a new act. Throughout October, as the U.S. has stepped up a bombing campaign to wipe out the militant group in Syria and Iraq, Abdulrahman has been papering Houston with white-and-black ISIS stickers. He has plastered memorials, city vehicles, grocery store checkout machines and many other things, and shared his conquests on Twitter and YouTube.
With ISIS beheading Western journalist hostages and threatening in its forums to attack specific targets in the U.S., Abdulrahman, with his overt displays of ISIS fervor, is testing the limits both of the First Amendment and of his fellow Texans’ tolerance.
The FBI tells us that it knows all about Abdulrahman. “We were made aware of the social media reports of that individual,” a spokeswoman says.
We reached out to the Abdulrahman, but he hasn’t responded.
We first came across Abdulrahman a couple of months ago as we began tracking the social media activities of ISIS sympathizers in America. He had landed on our radar because he was a Twitter follower of a sheikh named Ahmad Musa Jibril who had helped funnel hundreds of foreign fighters into the war in Syria to oust that country’s president.
Some of Abdulrahman’s posts seem innocuous enough. This past summer, the 28-year-old posted pictures of himself mugging for the camera with cops. All smiles.
But more recently, Abdulrahman, who claims the title of “Islamic caliphate state fact reporter,” has gotten more provocative, and at times confrontational. He posted pictures of himself in September being booted from a Houston mosque where he had tried to chant and pray, despite requests for him to leave.
“Allah says I’m welcome, and this is the house of Allah,” he tells a cop. After a standoff, Abdulrahman was ushered out of the mosque by uniformed cops—but not before he belted out the name of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
“May Allah prrotect Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,” he says.
The police officer responds that he doesn’t understand what that means.
Abdulrahman tried to return to the mosque that same night and captured video of an angry security guard warning him that he was criminally trespassing and telling him, “You are done here.”
Also in September, when he tried to buy food at a downtown Houston diner, a person in line behind him snapped a photo of the ISIS insignia printed on his right shoulder and called the cops on him.
When the police arrived, they put Abdulrahman in a cop cruiser and later released him.
Abdulrahman, who grew up in the Midwest and says he has ancestors from Palestine, describes himself as a married college student majoring in engineering management at a Texas University. Sometimes he rails against the excesses of America, including a video he narrated in a grocery store. While he guides a shopping cart through the liquor aisle, Abdulrahman chats another customer and then pans over the copious amount of beer and spirits. “I wish I could break every bottle,” he says.
Another video on YouTube and Twitter shows Abdulrahman behind the wheel of a car, wearing an ISIS baseball hat and sunglasses, reciting prayers in Arabic.
Sometimes he talks about jihad. In one video, Abdulrahman performs verses from a chapter of the Quran while standing over a patient at West Houston Medical Center. As he chants in Arabic, he paraphrases in English to the patient—whose face doesn’t appear in the camera frame.
“We’re an ethical people,” he declares during the 14-minute video. “But you mess with us, you try to hurt us or you try to lie to our Prophet Muhammad, then it’s arms baby!”
KrazyKafir says
Doesn’t this backseat Jihadist know that real Jihadists think he is a gutless coward hiding in the States while they fight. He should leave immediately and join them.
CogitoErgoSum says
The man is a walking time bomb, ticking away.
Alex says
Just picture the situation if the stickers were saying something against Islam (even softly) and had been put up by a Christian. The pop media (and the police, and the politicians, etc.) would be all over him screeming islamophobia.
DiMu says
You are so right! But we should do it anyway.
BC says
You Yanks like to criticise Europe and especially UK but things are as bad if not worse in USA where you have CAIR calling the tune everywhere. When are you going to stand up to these people?
TNT says
Send to the whitehouse to have tea with his friends.
Darren says
The Islamic State Department is way ahead of you. They are offering him a position of chief of intelligence to show their tolerance and how diverse they are.
Lawyer says
If we had a competent US Attorney General, people would be prosecuted for treason. Here is the criminal definition of treason, from US Code Title 18 Chapter 2381:
“Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.”
This man is giving aid to ISIS, an enemy of the US, by promoting their agenda and advertising for them. He’s an enemy recruiter operating in the USA. The DOJ could easily get a warrant for this guy and prosecute him, including the death penalty.
Darren says
Didn’t you hear the news horse face I mean Kerry is going to make him head of intelligence within the Islamic State department to show how diverse he is and to show support for the efforts of the hard working muslim brotherhood operatives doing Allah’s work in the district of criminals.
Gail Griffin says
I don’t think law enforcement or the government knows what treason is.
Judi says
Why isn’t he behind bars instead of being feted. Oh, no I forgot, he’s got an a sympathiser in the WH.
BW022 says
I don’t get it. Why not arrest him?!?
Ignoring treason, aiding a terrorist organization, or being a member of a terrorist organization… vandalism is still a crime… right? Arrest him and get a warrant to search his home, car, etc. and go through his papers and computer. Find out how he is talking to. Have officers taking pictures of anyone attending his bail hearing. Find out where those stickers were made, who provided them, etc. Show up with warrants at their places.
Even if you don’t have much… why let him go? Ignoring the change to get a warrant and search for more evidence against him or his friends… why not make him spend some time and money fighting for bail and giving the FBI a chance to go after him.
Are the police so stupid that they don’t even know the insignia of banned terrorist groups? How hard is it to put up a “list of banned terrorist groups” with pictures of their symbols in the lunch room these days?
I’m trying to imagine a bunch of Bloods in LA walking up to a police officer and asking for a picture, a group of Nazi’s in WWII going around and posting swastikas, etc. Heck… in most cities the police will fine you for putting up posters of a bake sale on highway signs.
Most police would “love” criminals to do something as stupid as vandalism. Easy arrest, days in jail, haul in front of a judge, bail, lawyers, etc. while you get a free look at his apartment, car, computer, email, etc.
Darren says
It goes against the political correct dogmatic belief system so prevalent in the western world. Just like 80% of mosques in this country preach jihad but they are still allowed to operate with impunity. We need to disband every intel agency and turn the NSA data centers into server farms for the next gen MMORPG. I understand chain of command is what it is, and when your top leadership is compromised or more concerned about their position than doing what’s right it is hard for an average intel person to do much about it. They also want to keep their job and position it’s human nature, and most people have no desire to be a martyr, but this is getting ridiculous. Having generals come out saying we need to understand islam better and blah blah blah, the leadership in the military is a joke at the highest levels just like the leadership in the intel agencies is a joke, and just like the leadership at the political level is a joke. A bunch of inbreds the lot of them.
Gail Griffin says
Bw022 you see it clearly.
Beagle says
He’s a sort of funny Ali G jihadi character until he goes tactical and kills a whole bunch of people and has to be shot or blows himself up. After he’s dead they can charge him with murder or something. The last thing we should do is infringe on his right to support an organization which enslaves, commits genocide, and brutally murders civilians by the thousands. The freedom to destroy freedom is very important to our freedoms. Coexist.
Terry says
Thank for reminding me – I just went and had a beer.
Darren says
Don’t worry our fearless intel agencies are on the case. After a few seminars on how islam is peaceful, and after the local wahhabi imam is done teaching to the FBI agents on how the west is to blame for the poor oppressed muslims beheading people, and after at least 4 maybe 5 work books are completed focusing on diversity and the rich and proud history of the life of mohammad the perfect man of islam, they will take a lunch break eating halal approved food. After lunch they will go to the local mosque and hand out burkas to show their solidarity with the rich history of womens rights in islamic society. Then they will have a focus group about a focus group that is about a focus group focusing on how noble sharia law is.
They will then conduct their investigation while being monitored by the secular group known as the muslim brotherhood. The muslim brotherhood appointed intel officer will then find out it was Christians and Amish people that are the real threat and we will then have another focus group about a focus group planing how to stop those evil Christians.
eduardo odraude says
All those Muslims who really follow the teachings and example of Muhammad lie to themselves (and thus to others). That’s the only way they can maintain their worldview and justify their beliefs and actions. But their own lies also make them opaque to themselves. In a sense they don’t know what they are doing. They sometimes lie intentionally to others, especially to non-Muslims, but the greater part of the lying they do to others is unintentional, is the attempted propagation of their own self-deception. They are a lie, more than they tell lies.
A website with core texts of Islam referenced to a university website:
http://www.quotingislam.blogspot.com
Jen says
Sickening as usual.
So Satan’s follower plasters terrorist stickers all over the place as part of their propaganda machine.
It actually occurred to me a while ago that people who read JW should plaster JW stickers or post-it notes everywhere with the address of the blog. If you put some kind of enticing message on it, and you leave hundreds or even thousands of them lying around the place, some people will actually Google the blog because they’re curious.
You can leave these in libraries, parks, shopping malls. You could also use chalk to draw the address of the blog on concrete walkways.
Or the blog could hold a contest like those ones where $100 is hidden in public spaces, and people navigate using instructions provided on Twitter or whichever social media. People get excited over receiving free money, even when it’s not that much. The blog could be branded as the sponsor of the competition. It should have some kind of component which requires people to re-tweet a message which contains the JW blog address. That way, their Twitter followers will also have an opportunity to see the link and come to the blog.
Youtube videos that become viral, again, I think extremely helpful. Like KONY 2012. Almost everyone I spoke to had heard of it and it spread through word of mouth. The videos don’t need to be perfect, but just somehow entertaining or shocking (not hard when Islam is the topic) or it draws on parallel ideas that people already have awareness about (the Muslims used t “racial profiling” in their video which they knew had plenty of public awareness/sympathy for).
If the blog can be marketed like a business, even if gimmicky, it will surely bring more people here.
The way I found this blog was through Youtube after searching for information about ISIS.
This whole thing with Islam is a like a propaganda war. Like most goals, it takes longer and more effort than you realise to hit the target. So in this case, the amount of truthful information about Islam needs to overwhelm peoples’ minds. They need to be bashed over the head with it before it sinks in, especially after listening to whitewashed information for so long.
This whitewashing happens on all levels. If everybody understood how much future trouble lies in wait for the US economy, investors would lose confidence and become shaky about wanting to invest. This mass ignorance helps band-aid things together for the time being until the truth comes out later and everyone begins to panic en masse. Then the crumbling comes at an accelerated pace. To prevent that, let’s just keep everyone ignorant for as long as possible until it’s impossible to ignore. Mainstream media is hopeless for business advice, just as it is for Islam advice.
Gail Griffin says
Good job Jen. I would buy the stickers. I think Texans need to over plaster. Hey? And what has happened to Texans? Sissy Alice’s now. Where have all the cowboys gone? Frontier justice and all that?
SMG says
I don’t Facebook, but I understand they remove stuff all the time if someone labels it as offensive. So why is he allowed to put this crap on his page? Just sayin’…
SMG says
Oh, and one more thing. Since they know who he is, why can’t they cite him for littering, or posting signage without permission or permits?
BC says
Kick him out of university and deport him asap. No you cannot because it is just Free Speech. After all you allow people to parade around in Nazi uniforms even though thousands of young men gave their lives to defeat them in WW2