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Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

Tunisia museum jihad murderer started frequenting mosque last year

Mar 21, 2015 9:10 pm By Robert Spencer

national-bardo-museum-shootingHe started frequenting a local mosque “where ultraconservative Salafists gave talks on jihad in Syria and Libya.” Why didn’t the vast majority of peaceful Muslims who understand the Religion of Peace properly rise up and cast these “ultraconservative Salafists” out of the mosque?

“Tunisian took break from travel agent job to shoot tourists,” by Tarek Amara, Reuters, March 20, 2015 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

OMRANE SUPERIEUR, TUNISIA, March 20 (Reuters) – Shortly before he and a friend gunned down 20 foreign tourists at Tunisia’s Bardo museum, Yassine al-Abidi sat down to a breakfast of olive oil and dates with his family and left for work at his travel agency as usual.

His relatives, mourning his death in a hail of police bullets in the midst of the attack, said they could not understand how a lively, popular young man with a taste for the latest imported clothes could have done such a thing.

They said he was typical of the young men of Tunis’ Omrane Superieur suburb. He graduated in French, held down a job and showed no sign of the hardline Islamist ideology that would drive him to commit the worst militant attack in a decade.

But relatives said last year he had begun to spend more and more time at a local mosque, following a pattern of radicialisation of Tunisian young men who then find themselves fighting in Syria, Iraq and Libya.

“I am sad for Yassine, but even sadder for the victims that Yassine killed. They were innocent, why did they have to pay the price of a false understanding of Islam,” said his uncle Mohamed Abidi. “They are the victims of terrorism. We are the victims of a demagogic network that wants only death.”

Yassine’s family had set up a traditional mourning tent outside their home, a well-made orange duplex standing in contrast to the more rundown residences nearby.

Chairs sat empty inside, with only ten family members present. Nearby his mother wept constantly.

Four years after a popular revolt toppled autocrat Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia has had free elections, a new constitution and compromise politics.

But the new government is also caught up in a low-level war with militants who have taken advantage of the new freedoms.

More than 3,000 Tunisians have left to fight in Syria and Iraq and the government estimates around 500 have since returned, fuelling fears of further attacks on Tunisia’s fragile new democratic state.

‘COULDN’T HURT A BIRD’

Abidi and his fellow gunman were trained at a jihadist camp in Libya before the Bardo attack, the Tunisian government has said. Officials said the two men had been recruited at mosques in Tunisia and travelled to Libya in September.

Islamic State, which has declared a caliphate in large parts of Iraq and Syria and is active in Tunisia’s chaotic neighbour Libya, praised the two attackers in an audio recording as “knights of the Islamic State” armed with machineguns and bombs.

Family members said Abidi had left home for two months, saying he would be working in the commercial city Sfax on Tunisia’s coast. But he did not display any of the conservative beliefs of hardline Islamists, never, for instance, complaining about alcohol being consumed at his uncle’s house.

“He was always fun, we danced together at family weddings. He wasn’t like hardline Salafists,” said his cousin Hanen.

“On the last day he had breakfast of dates and olive oil and went to work. At 10 am he asked for a break and went and did what he did.”

Last year, he had started visiting a local mosque where ultraconservative Salafists gave talks on jihad in Syria and Libya, relatives said.

But even when Abidi spent lots of time there, he acted normally with his family, unlike the Islamist hardliners who frown on popular music and entertainment.

“He never told us not to watch television for example,” Hanen said.

Since its revolution, Tunisia has seen the emergence of several hardline Islamist groups, including Ansar al-Sharia, which the United States blames for storming its embassy in Tunis in 2012 and lists as a terrorist organisation.

In the early days after the revolution, hardline imams took over mosques, profiting from the new freedoms to preach their extremist vision of Islam and encourage young men to leave to fight in foreign wars.

The Tunisian authorities have began taking back control of most of those mosques. But young men are still leaving. Some are students, unemployed and middle class, rather than poor. Some lived in marginalised rural communities, and most were simply taken in by extremist recruiters….

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Filed Under: Featured, mosques, Tunisia Tagged With: Yassine al-Abidi


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Comments

  1. Nathan says

    Mar 21, 2015 at 9:17 pm

    They have to be made to suffer the consequences of their actions. If a terrorist is linked to a mosque, then CLOSE THAT MOSQUE DOWN! If they all riot then that shows the problem.

    See what they preach then. Love ‘n’ peace, no doubt. 🙁

    • Jay Boo says

      Mar 21, 2015 at 10:16 pm

      Close one mosque down and wait for the noise, then use that as the excuse to close down three more with the stated warning that if they continue to act out we will regretfully be forced to shut down all mosques.

      • deja vu says

        Mar 21, 2015 at 10:19 pm

        Excellent solution, Jay Boo.

    • Shane says

      Mar 22, 2015 at 9:47 am

      That won’t work as you would have to close 80 to 90% of the mosques in the world. The State dept. should advise all Americans to stay out of Tunisia, and all non-Muslims should avoid Tunisia, a hot-bed of jihadism.

      • Jane says

        Mar 22, 2015 at 11:48 am

        So let’s close 90% of the mosques, or even 100%. If someone wants a peaceful religion, they have choices enough, from christianity to Buddhism and lots of others.
        Islam has the poison in its very heart, and I mean: every kind of Islam, because it’s the Quran that is anti-democratic, totalitarian and just plain sick. Any ex-muslim with half a brain will tell you that.
        This problem will only find a solution once people start to realize that Islam is not a religion, it’s a dangerous sect. Just happens to be a very old and nasty one. But that doesn’t change anything.
        Moderate muslims are either victims of (still incomplete) indoctrination unaware of the terror in their cherished Quran, either abiding their time, or fighting a jihad using democracy and western values against themselves (hollowing out from the inside, playing victims of “racism” and such). And we’re standing by like nitwits letting it happen.
        We did a short analysis of the Quran according to eight scientific criteria of totalitarian indoctrination. Quran’s result: 8/8. See http://democracyversusquran.blogspot.be/2015/02/is-islam-religion-or-sect.html.

  2. Joseph says

    Mar 21, 2015 at 9:54 pm

    Last year, he had started visiting a local mosque where ultraconservative Salafists gave talks on jihad in Syria and Libya, relatives said.

    If The tables were turned and these jihadists were visiting any other place of worship that that place and any other like it would be shut down IMMEDIATELY. It also would make the lead story on the news for weeks on end.

    Before you post, Shitbeer and “Rez the Fez” why don’t you go away. Your goats need some love and attention. Both of you are retarded. You say the same thing over and over. Copy and paste, copy and paste. You are a waste of space, food, water and air. I bet that when they plant you six feet under not even the most vile of weeds will grow on top of your graves. Your prophet Mohammed(MBCHA May boils cover his anus) was a vile goat poker too.

    • Huck Folder says

      Mar 25, 2015 at 11:33 pm

      “I am sad for Yassine, but even sadder for the victims that Yassine killed. They were innocent, why did they have to pay the price of a FALSE [?] understanding of Islam,” said his uncle Mohamed Abidi. “They are the victims of terrorism. We are the victims of ‘a demagogic network that wants only death’.”

      Duh? islam!

      “Yassine’s family had set up a traditional mourning tent outside their home, a well-made orange duplex standing in contrast to the more rundown residences nearby.” [And that’s just the tent!]

  3. Saleem Smith says

    Mar 21, 2015 at 9:59 pm

    He started frequenting the local mosque.
    He started reading the Qur’an and Muhammad’s Sunnah.
    He started taking Islam seriously.

    He then planned his jihad and executed it, murdering 20 infidel tourists, thinking this would guarantee him his 72 virgins in Islamic paradise. Imaginary Allah will be so pleased.

    We ex-Muslims living with Islam’s formal and informal death penalty for apostasy know that Islam inspired murders like this will likely increase in frequency in the coming years.

    Muhammad the prophet of Islam was an evil madman and warlord whose behavior the Muslims are taught to emulate. The Qur’an is oozing with hatred and violence towards the unbelievers. These jihad attacks are to be expected.

    Here is a recent statement from a group of Bangladeshi apostates living in the UK explaining the reasons why they have abandoned Islam:

    “One who claims to be a messenger of God is expected to live a saintly life. He must not be given to lust, he must not be a sexual pervert, and he must not be a rapist, a highway robber, a war criminal, a mass murderer or an assassin. One who claims to be a messenger of God must have a superior character. He must stand above the vices of the people of his time. Yet Muhammad’s life is that of a gangster godfather. He raided merchant caravans, looted innocent people, massacred entire male populations and enslaved the women and children. He raped the women captured in war after killing their husbands and told his followers that it is okay to have sex with their captives (Qur’an 33:50). He assassinated those who criticized him and executed them when he came to power and became de facto despot of Arabia. Muhammad was bereft of human compassion. He was an obsessed man with his dreams of grandiosity and could not forgive those who stood in his way…

    The statement continues,

    Muhammad was a narcissist, like Hitler, Saddam or Stalin. He was astute and knew how to manipulate people, but his emotional intelligence was less evolved than that of a 6-year-old child. He simply could not feel the pain of others. He brutally massacred thousands of innocent people and pillaged their wealth. His ambitions were big and as a narcissist he honestly believed he is entitled to do as he pleased and commit all sorts of crimes and his evil deeds are justified.”

    http://www.islam-watch.org/

    • Joseph says

      Mar 21, 2015 at 10:24 pm

      @ Saleem Smith
      Muhammad was a narcissist, like Hitler, Saddam or Stalin. He was astute and knew how to manipulate people, but his emotional intelligence was less evolved than that of a 6-year-old child

      Is this why Mohammed(MHABP May his anus bleed profusely) was a pedophile? He couldn’t relate to mature women.

  4. Michael Copeland says

    Mar 22, 2015 at 10:30 am

    “a false understanding of Islam”…. “their extremist vision of Islam” ?
    No. A faithful understanding of Islam, a straightforward vision, or, as Lt.Col Allen West would say, “exactly what this book says”.

    • Jane says

      Mar 22, 2015 at 11:49 am

      Exactly, Michael Copeland, exactly!

  5. Jerry says

    Mar 22, 2015 at 3:37 pm

    I am now starting to properly understand Jihad and Islam with great assistance from Obola and Co-Moron:

    You attend mosque and study the Qur’an and the Hadith.

    Than you try to emulate the perfectly holy fake prophet genocidal maniac and paedophile.

    Then you miraculously become radicalised.

    This was probably because of poverty and lack of education opportunities.

    Then you behead people and plunder others and take sex slaves.

    But that is not really true Islam according to Obola and his Co-Moron.

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