In FrontPage today I discuss the latest round of denial:
Yassin Salhi, who beheaded his boss and tried to blow up the chemical plant where he worked, is likely to face terrorism charges – yet despite a considerable amount of evidence to the contrary, he denies that he was motivated by jihad terror at all.
Reuters reported Monday that Salhi “told investigators he was not a jihadist and repeated earlier statements that he committed the act outside the southeast city of Lyon on Friday after a row with his wife the day before and his boss a few days earlier.” In response to these “personal difficulties,” he sawed off the head of Herve Cornara, his boss at the American company Air Products in Grenoble, and then hung it on a fence outside the plant, with black flags inscribed with the Islamic profession of faith on either side.
That’s the black flag of jihad. Reuters also reported, “examination of one of Salhi’s phones revealed he had taken a picture of himself with the severed head before his arrest and sent the image to a number belonging to a French national last traced to the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa in Syria.”
But never mind – despite all this, Salhi assures that this was all about personal issues. According to the Guardian, “the TV news channel iTele said Salhi had told police he had wanted to kill himself and stage a media coup by dressing it up as a terrorist act.”
French authorities took these declarations seriously. “We don’t know whether we’re dealing with a fundamentalist who flipped or a real terrorist,” said a Reuters source. “Investigators are wondering whether this isn’t just a simple criminal act.”
Yet it isn’t at all clear that this is a distinction with a difference. It may indeed be true that Salhi “had wanted to kill himself and stage a media coup by dressing it up as a terrorist act,” but whatever the truth may be, clearly jihad terror was part of his frame of reference. If he was really just angry with his boss and wanting to commit suicide, he could have just shot Cornara and then turned the gun on himself. Instead, he beheaded the boss, in accord with the Qur’an’s command, “When you meet the unbelievers, strike the necks” (47:4), placed his head between flags that proclaimed the Islamic profession of faith, and tried to destroy the factory altogether: “he was overpowered by a firefighter as he was trying to prise open a bottle of acetone in an apparent suicidal bid to destroy the factory.”
Even if all this was precipitated by his personal crisis and was just all about his anger toward Cornara and his wife, to express this anger, Salhi turned to jihad. The larger problem that the West refuses to face is that Muslims who are leading perfectly ordinary lives can in times of crisis or difficulty opt to turn to jihad, and the beliefs underlying jihad violence are not being taught against in mosques or Islamic schools in the West.
The idea that it is good and pleasing to Allah to behead infidels and blow up their installations is something to which Muslims such as Yassin Salhi can always have recourse in times of difficulty in their lives. It’s a common human impulse to turn to religion in times of personal crisis; when one’s religion teaches that there is nothing greater than jihad, it can be especially tempting for a Muslim in crisis to pursue, so as to wash away the misdeeds of his past life. According to a hadith, a man once asked Muhammad: “Instruct me as to such a deed as equals Jihad (in reward).” Muhammad replied, “I do not find such a deed.” (Bukhari 4.52.44).
Since jihad has the greatest reward, it outweighs all the sins one may have committed — and to someone such as Yassin Salhi, experiencing overwhelming frustration in his life, that can be an extraordinarily potent appeal. Salhi’s was indeed a criminal act – but it was also a terrorist one. Embroiled in strife with his boss and his spouse, Salhi probably believed, as his knife began to cut through Herve Cornara’s neck, that he was finally turning his life around and doing something worthwhile.
Herve Cornara, of course, would probably have a different perspective.
ECAW says
The magistrate said it was the worst case of suicide he had ever come across.
mortimer says
Hmm. The magistrate didn’t read what ISIS said about Ramadan being the month of jihad when Allah gives victory.
Westman says
Have you noticed that much Muslim lying is so primitive that it’s on the level your 5 year old child used?
Maybe he ordered French flags on the internet and they sent those black Shahada flags. And he just got a new Swiss knife and didn’t realize it was so sharp when he struck his boss on the neck. And that acetone, just a good ol’ boy sniffin’ to get high.
Angemon says
Westman posted:
“Have you noticed that much Muslim lying is so primitive that it’s on the level your 5 year old child used?”
Yes. It was one of the first things I noticed when I started discussing religion with mahomedans. And that was even before I actually looked into islam – back then I would merely pretend to be very interested in converting, ask for further details, listen to what they said and go “wait, but that doesn’t make much sense because such and such”.
ECAW says
More personal issues here:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3147288/Junior-school-teacher-banned-LIFE-spewing-racist-bile-Twitter-including-praising-beheading-Alan-Henning-urging-murder-non-Muslims.html
No charge of course, unlike Pastor McConnell who merely said that Islam is satanic (who could argue with that?)
Dan says
So let me get this straight.
When a SMALL number of priests abuse children, it’s all of Catholicism that gets blamed. (Even though anybody has yet to come across some “Abuse unto little boys…” passage.
And when a racist, or KKK member, kills someone, it’s right wing religion that’s gets blamed, even though no where in scripture does it say, “Ye, verily, if his appearance be unlike thine, then hack true with thy blade.
And as a normal, average everyday, white male who is willing to admit I have just as many issues as the next guy, never, in the worst, of my worst confrontations, have I ever even thought, as in not even a fleeting “Boy I’d sure like to lop this jerk’s head off…” let alone some completely uninvolved.
Yet we’re supposed to believe this how many ten thouandth Muslim to do this isn’t abiding by what are the Koran’s actual chapters and verse?
We can’t even say, “Now let’s not loose our heads over things.” because we actually are!
Which now makes me wonder about the origin of that saying.
Karen says
Beheading someone must be repulsive in the extreme, even for the killer, and physically difficult. To do so, even when enraged, one has to overcome years of religious and social messaging of “thou shalt not kill”, unless your theology provides important loopholes. So, this is not an impulsive act, like shooting a gun might be.
So, this seems like an obvious jihad terror act; but I can’t understand why he is backing away from it, when bragging is the norm. Maybe his conscience is kicking in, but I keep thinking there’s something more to this story. Perhaps he is covering the tracks of accomplices, comrades, etc.
Westman says
Nope, nothing Islamic here, move along.
The “Scholars” say ISIS (Daesh) Is not Islamic but will not refute the Islamic doctrines that were used to justify Daesh actions.
The Sunni say Shia are not Islamic for claiming to have a line on the Mahdi and succession. The Shia say the Sunni are not Islamic. Egypt’s El-Sisi says someone’s Islam needs reform. The “scholars” of Al-Azhar say Saudi Arabia Muslims are so backward that they believe the Earth is flat. Imams everywhere are spouting nonsense, violence(death to Apostates, etc), and stupidity( like the Sun going around the Earth), that show up with regularity on MemriTV and YouTube. Translation is good enough these days that the Mosque lectures are available regardless of the language.
WILL THE REAL ISLAM OF PEACE PLEASE STAND UP? Where are you?
Without central world-wide recognized authority, only violence can enforce any claim to be the “right” Islam. And that is the legacy Muhammad left by not declaring a method of succession. If Islam was ever peaceful, that peace has been permanently lost.
Paul says
Was the victim of the beheading, Herve Cornara, Jewish? Does anyone know?
ECAW says
I’m sure I read somewhere that he was an Iranian shiite.