Posted on 10/14/2005 9:01:53 PM PDT by FairOpinion
PARIS/BERLIN (Reuters) - What prompts someone to convert to Islam and to sign up for global "holy war" in the name of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda?
Security agencies are asking that question with increasing urgency as they confront a growing catalog of actual or attempted attacks in which Muslim converts are suspected of playing prominent roles.
Richard Reid, the convicted British "shoe bomber" who tried to set off explosives in his footwear on a 2001 transatlantic flight, was a petty criminal who first turned to Islam during a spell in prison.
Christian Ganczarski, a German suspected of involvement in a 2002 bombing in Tunisia, converted at 20 before embarking on a jihadist career in which, investigators believe, he became a close associate of bin Laden's.
Other high-profile militant converts include Jamaican-born Germaine Lindsay, one of four suicide bombers who killed 52 people in London in July, and Briton Andrew Rowe, jailed for 15 years last month for possessing terrorist materials.
Frenchman Lionel Dumont, a suspected Rowe associate and another convert, will go on trial in December accused of a series of attacks in the 1990s, including an attempt to bomb a Group of Seven summit in Lille.
"It's striking, the number of converts engaged in terrorist activities," said Michael Taarnby, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies who has studied the recruitment and radicalization of Islamist militants.
Jean-Louis Bruguiere, France's top anti-terrorism judge, told the newspaper Le Figaro in an interview: "The converts are undeniably the toughest. Nowadays the conversions happen more quickly and the commitment is more radical."
"AMERICAN TALIBAN"
The phenomenon is not confined to Europe.
John Walker Lindh, dubbed "the American Taliban," was convicted and jailed in 2002 for fighting alongside the Afghan militia, and U.S. citizen Jose Padilla has been held for more than three years as a suspected enemy combatant in connection with an alleged "dirty bomb" plot.
In Australia, British-born Muslim convert Jack Roche was jailed for nine years in 2004 for conspiring to bomb the Israeli embassy in Canberra.
In interviews with Reuters, European experts said the vast majority of those who converted to Islam did so for legitimate personal reasons. Some convert in order to marry Muslims.
Many converts were drawn, the experts said, by the appeal of a universal faith that transcended national and ethnic barriers, offered a sense of belonging and brotherhood and provided a new identity, including the choice of a Muslim name.
However, a small fraction were extremists who saw in radical Islam a vehicle to challenge and overthrow the existing world order, said Olivier Roy, research director of the French National Center for Scientific Research.
"If you are a youngster in the French suburbs, your mates are second-generation Muslim immigrants and you want to wage war against society, the system, where do you go?" said Roy.
"Thirty years ago, you joined the Maoists, the Trotskyists, the far left, the Baader group, Action Directe. Today, where do you go? Bin Laden."
A German intelligence official cited cases where radical foreigners had acquired residents' status by marrying local women, complicating authorities' attempts to kick them out.
"It gives them more security in their legal status. If they're married to a German woman, it's very hard to expel them," he said.
DRIFTERS AND SMALL-TIME CROOKS
Some of the best-known extremist converts whose cases have come to trial were drifters on the margins of society.
David Courtailler, a Frenchman convicted last year of abetting terrorists, was drawn into radical circles when he converted to Islam at a British mosque and was approached by a stranger there who gave him money and an air ticket to Pakistan.
Reid, Rowe and Ganczarski all had records as small-time thieves or drug dealers.
"They are people who feel devalued, despised and by becoming terrorists they suddenly become supermen, heroes," said Roy.
Once they converted, the experts said, such people often moved toward violence quickly, driven partly by a need to prove themselves. They might also be more easily manipulated by extremists because they lacked the cultural grounding to distinguish between true and distorted versions of Islam.
"Basically, you can tell them just about anything and they're willing to believe it," Taarnby said. "They're not asking the right questions. They're just accepting what they're being told at face value."
BELOW THE RADAR
The advantage for militant groups -- and the problem for security agencies -- is that converts can often move more freely and attract less suspicion than people of obviously Middle Eastern appearance.
"Thanks to their physical appearance they can penetrate targets in Europe much more easily without being spotted," said Roland Jacquard, head of the International Terrorism Observatory in Paris.
In theory, white Europeans attending radical mosques would be easy for intelligence services to identify. "But when they are taken on by terrorist organizations, they are asked to ensure they don't draw attention to themselves in that way," Jacquard said.
Such individuals are insiders who understand perfectly the nature of the Western societies they are trying to subvert, Jacquard said. "They know the mentality, the lifestyle that the terrorist organizations want to strike."
He said al Qaeda's recruitment of "blue-eyed" Europeans dated from the Bosnian war.
"Now, when you take Muslim converts whose mother and father are French, English, Spanish or Italian and who live in society normally, with society's habits, they are absolutely undetectable."
But it doesn't mean that we can afford to give up, because it's too tough.
And it shows more reasons that human intelligence and infiltrating them or interrogating captive terrorists is so important.
Can we just exploit 'em based on their Islamism?
Is there any greater sign of immaturity than the need to rebel without a cause?
It's idiotic.
And why on earth would a Western woman want to marry into Islam? Geez.
from the article:
"..Many converts were drawn, the experts said, by the appeal of a universal faith that transcended national and ethnic barriers, offered a sense of belonging and brotherhood and provided a new identity, including the choice of a Muslim name."
BS ALERT!! Islam is not a Universal 'faith'... unless you buy into a 'faith' wants all Jews to be hated or killed!!
The 'blond-blue eyed' most likely come with a buzz cut and a copy of 'The Elders of Zion"!! God..I hate the media...lol
The free Countries will have to invent a "BRAIN METER" to find these maniac murderers.
There are some who believe the latest example of this is the OU "suicide" bomber - willingly or unwillingly. The jury is still out on that one obviously, but this article points to what would appear to be a growing trend among the terrorists. It also explains the reason those of us following the OU Bombing are highly skeptical of the "official" story.
Thanks for posting this...
The Communist-Socilaist use of multi-culturalism has run its course and like a bad "your enemy is my friend" scheme without a safety net has finally come home to roost.
EU-rope's population suffer from envy of the USA and Pacific Rim for material objects which their non-consumer oriented society cannot provide (read VATs) and their demand by corrupt politicians to provide them more than they "collectively" produce as a whole the form of social benefits. Without a strong consumer base and some capitialism, EU-rope is destined to sink into the same "quick-sand" that has since the time of Mohammad dragged down the follower's of the Religion of Peace.
Doesn't this sound like the OU bomber? Jury is out but this article speaks volumes -- what color was his hair? Can move freely around to go buy ammonium nitrate? This is beginning to sound like a textbook case but then who are we -- we are supposed to be buying the official line.
FYI! Does this sound like anyone you have have heard of recently?
GladesGuru said:
"Weird. Not having a Y chromosome seems to sometimes cause weird behavior."
Sorry, I don't think you can blame the weirdness on the lack of a Y chromosome. After all, it's mostly (although not exclusively) individuals with Y chromosomes who claim to be spreading the religion of peace with guns and bombs. And they're often well-educated. Do they think we're very stupid, or do they not see the contradiction themselves?
There's a kernel of illogic at the heart of human nature that can go very rotten indeed.
We are at war. It's time we acted like it. We can apologize 50 years after we win. Heck, we can even pay reparations. But we have to win first.
ON THE NET...
CORRIERE.IT/english: Turin - "TURIN IMAM DEPORTED -- "HE'S DANGEROUS" Accused of praising Bin Laden. Como-based Tunisian activist also expelled." (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "The ten children taking part in the ring-o'-roses protest beneath the market clock in Porta Palazzo were all wearing suicide bomber belts. The year was 1997, and that was the first time Bouriqi Bouchta, whose idea it was, attracted Italy’s attention.") (September 7, 2005)
MEMRITV.org/Transcript - Video Clip No. 838 - 8/31/2005: " 8/31/2005 Clip No. 838: "Sheik of Al-Azhar Muhammad Tantawi Explains on Al-Hurra TV When a Suicide Bomber Becomes a Martyr and When He Is Not" (TRANSCRIPT SNIPPET: "Following are excerpts from an interview with Sheik of Al-Azhar Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, which aired on Al-Hurra TV on August 31, 2005")
MEMRI.org - Special Dispatch Series - No. 909: "BAHRAINI AUTHOR AND JOURNALIST: THE PROPONENTS OF THE SUICIDE IDEOLOGY HAVE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "In an article that appeared in the Saudi daily Al-Yawm, titled "The Globalization of Islamic Suicide" author and journalist Sawsan Al-Sha'er wrote that the extremist Islamist groups are taking advantage of global communications to recruit suicide bombers, and predicted the spread of the suicide bomber phenomenon to Britain as well.") (May 17, 2005)
MEMRI.org - MIDDLE EAST MEDIA RESEARCH INSTITUTE Special Report - No.32: "MEMRI TV Project Special Report: Arab and Iranian TV Clips in Support of Suicide Bombing" (September 1, 2004)
JIHAD WATCH.org (HAARETZ): "10 SUICIDE BOMBINGS FOILED OVER PASSOVER HOLIDAY" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "One of two Tanzim activists caught at the end of March told interrogators the group that sent them had planned a series of other attacks, including one with a device to which blood infected with AIDS would be attached.") (April 13, 2004)
Have you read Laura Mansfield excellent expose "Jihad Comes to Small Town America"?
http://www.lauramansfield.com/j/smalltownusa.asp
Here's an excerpt
"The first speaker was the head of the Muslim Students’ Association at the nearby university. Although I missed the beginning of the discussion, I caught up quickly. He was talking about the problems he had encountered on a recent trip, when TSA flagged him for extra screening. He joked about the fact that they had stopped him for extensive screening. He had anticipated that he would be screened and he had filled his carryon luggage with printouts of the Qu’ran from the internet, and had 15 or 16 CD’s labeled in Arabic, and he had a notebook computer with him.
As he expected he was delayed; he thought it was very amusing that while several TSA personnel were scrutinizing is personal belongings that is classmate from Jordan was able to walk through security, along with his American girlfriend, without any problems whatsoever.
One of the men said, in Arabic “Blonde Americans are good for something!” Another man advised him to be cautious, since there was an American woman in the room. The Imam spoke up and told everyone that I didn’t speak Arabic."
I had thought many women are attracted to these men because they can't cut it in their own culture. But, your ex-girlfriend may show another reason, a need for a thrill. Reminds me of a caller to Rush. He was a doctor in Maryland. He came from a Muslim country. He had contempt for America. When Rush asked why he came here, he said, "For an adventure." I wish his patients knew.
Now that Communism is discredited, the disaffected are attracted to Islam
It also seems there are Islamist recruits trying to influence the government & conservative tax positions.
From The Religious Freedom Coalition:
"THE CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT
THE ANTI-TAX CAMP GOES GAY
I am extremely distressed that a leader in the conservative movement is assisting the "gay agenda." Grover Norquist, the founder of Americans for Tax Reform is from the Richard Nixon camp of Republicanism. He simply does not believe there are any issues for conservatives beyond reducing taxes. He will be the keynote speaker at a gay and lesbian event in Dallas, Texas to raise funds to fight against traditional marriage. In addition he has helped numerous Islamist groups to obtain political clout with the White House and is behind the entire "religion of peace" garbage that is official Administration policy. Islamist associates of Mr. Norquist are currently in federal prisons. Mr. Norquist was recently married to a Muslim woman in a ceremony conducted by a Jewish Rabbi which shows his total disdain for Christianity. The contradictions are enormous. His consulting firm has accepted money from Islamists who believe homosexuals should all be beheaded and he is promoting homosexual marriage. This man has moved so far into left field that he is no longer in the ballpark."
http://rfcnet.org/news/default.asp?action=detail&article=343&category=
Cat Stevens?
These are probably some of the kids of the hippies of the 60's. :)
BTTT
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