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

Former Hamas-linked CAIR official freed from prison after doing time for weapons charges

Apr 24, 2017 8:32 am By Robert Spencer

Royer was just an idealist, you see. Matthew Barakat of the Associated Press loves Ismail Royer. “When I look back at myself, I don’t see myself as an extremist,” he said. “I see myself as being naive, romantic, a Don Quixote kind of guy.” He includes that quote about a man who just served time in prison for “aiding and abetting use of a firearm in a crime of violence and aiding and abetting the carrying of an explosive.”

Can you imagine Matthew Barakat of the Associated Press ever writing this fawningly about a foe of jihad terror?

Let’s note also that Royer “was indicted and arrested for his association with terrorism, specifically his having joined the Pakistani group Lashkar-e-Taiba, traveled to Pakistan, done propaganda work for it, and ‘fired at Indian positions in Kashmir.’ In addition, the indictment also states that Royer ‘possessed in his automobile an AK-47-style rifle and 219 rounds of ammunition’ in September 2001. The grand jury charges that Royer ‘did unlawfully and knowingly begin, provide for, prepare a means for, and take part in a military expedition and enterprise to be carried on from the United States against the territory and dominion of India, a foreign state with whom the United States was at peace.'”

Don Quixote!

“Tariq Nelson, a friend of Royer for more than 20 years, said Royer’s desire to right wrongs on a global scale ultimately led him down the wrong path. ‘He was an idealist who got caught — they all got in over their heads,’ Nelson said. ‘To an outsider it sounds strange. Nobody wanted to be a terrorist. In fact they were anti-terrorist.'”

Yes, lots of “anti-terrorists” carry around AK-47s and 219 rounds of ammunition. Who is Tariq Nelson trying to kid? The kuffar, of course.

“Bosnia to Pakistan to prison: Ex-fighter reflects on life,” by Matthew Barakat, Associated Press, April 20, 2017:

McLEAN, Va. (AP) — Randall Royer grew up in the Midwest, a suburban St. Louis kid. By the time he was 21, he had converted to Islam and changed his name to Ismail Royer, fighting in Bosnia alongside fellow Muslims against Serbian ethnic cleansing.

By the time he was 31, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for helping friends who wanted to join the Taliban after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Now age 44 and out of prison, he remembers Bosnia as both a highlight of his life and the place that launched him on a disastrous path.

“There was so much meaning and purpose in what I was doing,” he said of the Bosnian war. “I spent so much time trying to recapture that feeling of Bosnia. It never came back.”

He remembers with pride the gratitude expressed by the Bosnian families whose homes he defended and says the war is one of those rare conflicts where there was a clear good guy and bad guy.

Royer’s search for the next Bosnia led him to Pakistan, where he joined the fight over Kashmir — a conflict that he said he viewed with ambivalence. Eventually, he came back to the U.S. and served as a spokesman for some of the nation’s most prominent Muslim civil rights groups.

Royer was one of about a dozen young Muslims from the D.C. area who played paintball in the northern Virginia woods as a means of preparing for holy war. After the Sept. 11 attacks, a few members of the group traveled to Pakistan, and with Royer’s help, got in touch with the militant group Lashkar-e-Taibi. Royer’s friends’ ultimate goal was to join the Taliban and help fight U.S. soldiers.

Royer pleaded guilty in 2004 to aiding and abetting use of a firearm in a crime of violence and aiding and abetting the carrying of an explosive.

He was never convicted of a terrorism-related charge — a distinction that is significant to Royer.

“When I look back at myself, I don’t see myself as an extremist,” he said. “I see myself as being naive, romantic, a Don Quixote kind of guy.”

He points out that he has a long history of speaking out against al-Qaida, and he is equally critical of the Islamic State, which is now responsible for motivating and recruiting most of the lone-wolf terrorists who have popped up in the U.S.

Michael Jensen, a researcher with the University of Maryland’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, said he also sees a difference between Royer and the more modern iteration of Islamic extremists. He said Royer was drawn to localized conflicts like Bosnia and Kashmir, as opposed to the global jihadist vision espoused by al-Qaida or the Islamic State.

Royer said what drew him to Islam in the first place was his view that it could be a vehicle for social justice. In the Muslim world, though, he said a quest for social justice gets twisted into a sense of victimization and even a persecution complex.

“If you’re constantly blaming other people, you’ll never change,” he said.

Tariq Nelson, a friend of Royer for more than 20 years, said Royer’s desire to right wrongs on a global scale ultimately led him down the wrong path.

“He was an idealist who got caught — they all got in over their heads,” Nelson said. “To an outsider it sounds strange. Nobody wanted to be a terrorist. In fact they were anti-terrorist.”…

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Filed Under: CAIR, Featured, journalistic bias Tagged With: Associated Press, Ismail Royer, Matthew Barakat, Tariq Nelson


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Comments

  1. Adrian says

    Apr 24, 2017 at 9:11 am

    I can just imagine the AP reporter writing of Joseph Stalin as a “Don Quixote”, who “remembers with pride the gratitude expressed by the [Georgian] families whose homes he defended”…

    Author Matthew Barakat is a JIHAD enabler.

    Will these “reporters” ever be held to account for the terrible damage they are doing ?

  2. Mark Berlinger says

    Apr 24, 2017 at 12:23 pm

    Muslim Propaganda

    “I see myself as being naive, romantic, a Don Quixote kind of guy.” —Ismail Royer

    Fact: Cervantes fought against Islamic supremacism at Lepanto giving up an arm for his noble quest. https://youtu.be/0m-c_LQIjD4?t=2m17s

    • mortimer says

      Apr 24, 2017 at 3:19 pm

      I don’t believe him. He still wears a jihad beard. What’s the deal? It looks like and smells like hot piles of steaming TAQIYYA.

    • mortimer says

      Apr 24, 2017 at 3:23 pm

      Thank you, Mark Berlinger! Right! Cervantes not only fought Islam and paid the price with life-long wounds, but he understood Islam perfectly after being a slave of Turks and Arabs. He knew that only conversion from this pernicious Death Cult would liberate Muslims.

      Don Quixote was a Christian knight who fought AGAINST SLAVERY.

      Randall ‘Ismail’ Royer fought FOR THE IMPOSITION OF SLAVERY!

      Randal Royer is an absurd self-deluded SUPREMACIST and HATE-FILLED CON MAN.

  3. Northern Virginiastan says

    Apr 24, 2017 at 8:09 pm

    I received a tweet from Ismail Royer out of the blue, I asked him why he wasn’t in CMU, where he belonged. I was shocked when he told me that he had been released. He subsequently issued a tweet about a hate crime against a Muslim woman, asking how did the assailant get radicalized? I asked him how did Ismail Royer get radicalized to support LeT, which was behind the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai? No answer.

    Interesting. Barakat is an Arabic name. Might that indicate why he loves Ismail Royer?

    Michael Jensen said that Royer was drawn to localized conflicts like Bosnia and Kashmir, as opposed to the global jihadist vision espoused by al-Qsaida or the Islamic State. Tariq Nelson said that said Royer’s desire to right wrongs on a global scale ultimately led him down the wrong path. So which is it?

  4. awake says

    Apr 24, 2017 at 8:10 pm

    Long time, no see, Randy. How did your dawah campaign in prison go?

  5. Bill says

    Apr 24, 2017 at 9:30 pm

    Yes, it is quite possible that we will hear from him again, in some notorious fashion, after the FBI loses sight of him.

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