Salt Lake Jihad?--more than an isolated nut?

FrontPageMagazine.com ^ | February 15, 2007 | Robert Spencer

[SJackson]

Is the Bosnian Muslim who shot civilians in the Salt Lake City mall more than an isolated nut?

When Sulejmen Talovic entered the Trolley Square mall in Salt Lake City Monday night with a shotgun, a pistol, and a backpack full of ammunition, he intended to “kill a large number of people,” according to Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank. Talovic killed five people and wounded four before he himself was killed by an off-duty Ogden police officer who happened to be in the mall.

Why did Talovic do it? No one knows. Talovic’s aunt, Ajka Omerovic, told reporters: “We want to know what happened, just like you guys. We have no idea...We know him as a good boy. He liked everybody, so I don’t know what happened.” Talovic, who was eighteen at the time of the murders, was a Bosnian Muslim who came to the United States with his family in 1998. Could he have been motivated by jihadist sympathies?

 

FBI special agent Patrick Kiernan discounted that possibility. “We’re working closely with the Salt Lake P.D. and we’re obviously aware that that [terrorism] is a potential issue out there,” he explained. “But at this point there is nothing that is leading us down this road.” And with Talovic dead and apparently having acted alone, unless something he wrote explaining his actions is discovered, it is unlikely that his motive will ever be definitively known.

 

But was Kiernan really correct that “there is nothing that is leading us down this road”? Unfortunately, he didn’t explain how he came to this conclusion. Talovic joins an unfortunately growing list of Muslims who have committed random acts of violence, only for officials to assure us that their actions have nothing to do with terrorism. Maybe none of them do, but the list is full of troubling details:

 

• On January 31, Ismail Yassin Mohamed, 22, stole a car in Minneapolis. He went on a rampage, ramming the stolen car into other cars and then stealing a van and continuing to ram other cars, injuring one person. His father told officials that Mohamed was suffering from mental problems; his mother added he had been depressed and hadn’t been taking his medication. During his rampage, Mohamed repeatedly yelled, “Die, die, die, kill, kill, kill,” and when asked why he did all this, he replied, “Allah made me do it.”
• Omeed Aziz Popal, a Muslim from Afghanistan, who killed one person and injured fourteen during a murderous drive through San Francisco city streets in August 2006, during which he targeted people on crosswalks and sidewalks, identified himself as a terrorist after his rampage, according to Rob Roth of San Francisco’s KTVU. Later the murders were ascribed to Popal’s mental problems, and to stress arising from his impending arranged marriage.
• On July 28, 2006, a Muslim named Naveed Afzal Haq forced his way into the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle. Once inside, Haq announced, “I’m a Muslim American; I’m angry at Israel,” and then began shooting, killing one woman and injuring five more. FBI assistant special agent David Gomez stated: “We believe...it’s a lone individual acting out his antagonism. There’s nothing to indicate that it’s terrorism-related. But we're monitoring the entire situation.”
• In March 2006, a twenty-two-year-old Iranian student named Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar drove an SUV onto the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, deliberately trying to kill people and succeeding in injuring nine. After the incident, he seemed singularly pleased with himself, smiling and waving to crowds after a court appearance on Monday, at which he explained that he was “thankful for the opportunity to spread the will of Allah.” Officials here again dismissed the possibility of terrorism, even after Taheri-azar wrote a series of letters to the UNC campus newspaper detailing the Qur’anic justification for warfare against unbelievers, and explaining why he believed his attacks were justified from an Islamic perspective.

None of these were terrorist attacks in the sense that they were planned and executed by al-Qaeda agents. And it is possible that all of them were products of nothing more ideologically significant than a disturbed mental state, although it is at least noteworthy that each attacker explained his actions in terms of Islamic terrorism. As such attacks grow in number, it would behoove authorities at very least to consider the possibility that these attacks were inspired by the jihadist ideology of Islamic supremacism, and to step up pressure on American Muslim advocacy groups to renounce that ideology definitively and begin extensive programs to teach against it in American Islamic schools and mosques.

 

In October 2006, a pro-jihad internet site published a “Guide for Individual Jihad,” explaining to jihadists “how to fight alone.” It recommended, among other things, assassination with guns and running people over. Is it possible that Sulejmen Talovic and some of these others were waging this jihad of one? It is indeed, but with law enforcement officials trained only to look for signs of membership in al-Qaeda or other jihad groups, and to discount terrorism as a factor if those signs aren’t there, it is a possibility that investigators will continue to overlook.

[Al Gator]

This all makes perfect sense to the skinhead crowd. Read Alex Curtis' (World Church of the Creator? or some such) screeds on "Lone Wolf" actions. He wrote them before he went to jail. I think you may still be able to find them somewhere in cyberspace.

[BuffaloJack]

Typical Liberal Denial.

[Mygirlsmom]

And with Talovic dead and apparently having acted alone, unless something he wrote explaining his actions is discovered, it is unlikely that his motive will ever be definitively known.

This was an 18 yr old kid living in a time when the entire lives and goings on of most 18 yr olds is well documented in cyberspace. Did he have a MySpace or a cel phone? Who did he hang around with?

Usually people come out of the woodwork to give interviews. ("Yeah, my aunt's cousin's best friend's daughter waited on him at the Taco Bell...."). Of course, that only happens if the MSM is out to get a story.

[Stayfree]

No Jihad here, just another victim of stress caused by living next door to an extreme right-wing Christian family who always parked their car so that he couldn't avoid seeing it's bumper sticker, "No Jesus-No Peace, Know Jesus-Know Peace"
N. Y. Times Editorial

[mewzilla]

This was an 18 yr old kid living in a time when the entire lives and goings on of most 18 yr olds is well documented in cyberspace. Did he have a MySpace or a cel phone? Who did he hang around with?

Don't ask, don't tell. Looks like the investigation is over, at least as far as the locals are concerned...

A child of violence: Talovic survived genocide

[maica]

I wonder if the MSM will go down to the mosque and ask the hard questions.


####

I wonder if the FBI, ATF or Homeland Security will go down to the mosque and ask the hard questions.

If a Christian had shot up an abortion clinic, his religious affiliation would be hyphenated to his name in every news article. I believe that everyone should be made aware of which mosque was involved in this killer's religious practice.

[arthurus]

These perps are members of a terrorist organization as defined by Homeland Security but not as recognized by HS. They are members of the Mohammedan Religion.

[Utah Binger]

I believe that everyone should be made aware of which mosque was involved in this killer's religious practice.

I live three hundred miles from Salt Lake City so I don't know exactly where the Mosques are, however it looks like there are two or three there.

[redgolum]

Just another isolated event. Nothing to see here. Perp was not, repeat NOT, motivated by islam. It was the Twinkies and the evil handgun that made him do it./sarcasm

[redgolum]

Don't hate the FBI guys to much. They are in a very bad position. If they say this was "islamic motivated", they will be sued by every one under the sun, and the agents will have their lives ruined.

There is a lot of pressure from the White House on down not to view this or any other of the attacks as anything more that "isolated events". Soon, we will be like Israel. Everyone just expects that if you go out there is a chance you will die a violent death.

[redgolum]

The reason you aren't hearing much about this, or the shooting in PA, is because the perp was muslim.

That is also why you haven't been hearing the call for the banning of handguns yet.

[maica]

From a 2004 article by Daniel Pipes:
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/1563

As this incident suggests, in some cultures Valentine's Day prompts controversy.

The Saudi religious authorities issued an edict indicating that "There are only two holidays in Islam - Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha - and any other holidays ... are inventions which Muslims are banned from" and calls again on the kingdom's subjects to "shun" Valentine's Day this year. In keeping with this prohibition, the Saudi religious police monitor stores selling roses and other gifts associated with the holiday. They have even arrested women for wearing red on Valentine's Day.

Saudi authorities are hardly alone in their fear and loathing of a fourteenth-century holiday named after the patron saint of lovers. In Iran last year, the police ordered shops to remove heart-and-flower decorations, not to speak of images of couples embracing.

In Pakistan, the Jamaat-e-Islami party, an Islamist organization, calls for a ban on Valentine's Day. One of its leaders dismisses it as "a shameful day" when Westerners "are just fulfilling and satisfying their sex thirst."

In Malaysia, a mufti thunders against the day: "We Muslims do not need such a culture or practice, which is clearly against the teachings of our religion [which are] complete, perfect and credible."

In the United States, Imam Jamal Said of the Bridgeview mosque outside Chicago condemns Valentine's Day (as well as Thanksgiving) as a non-Islamic holiday.

&&&&&&&

There is a deafening silence about the fact that the dead people were shopping in a card shop on the day before Valentine's Day.

Did an imam go wild last Friday in the mosque about the horrors of Valentine's Day? I don't believe that a kid who is a school dropout loner, is able on his own initiative to obtain the weapons and bullets that he had.

[WV Mountain Mama]

Exactly, and haven't we seen videotape after videotape from the lead nutters in the mideast telling their minions that it is time to start doing this?

I feel like we are iin Oz and the media and police are telling us not to pay attention to the man behind the curtain.

[GreenLanternCorps]

I consider these people to be Al-Quaida groupies. They are not terrorists as such because they are not part of any organized cell or network. They generally meet the profile of the random shooter nutball, except they have fixated on Islam as the justification for their actions.

Since they are not organized, and not in communication with any outside group, there is not much of a way to stop them, until they start shooting.

[silverleaf]

http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/2006/12/outrage_muslim.html

Here's another one. Angry young muslim randomly murders man (Jewish) in Maryland movie theater- gets no jail time.

Then of course, there also was the angry young muslim who shot up the El Al ticket counter at LAX several years ago.

No discernible pattern/sarc

[jiggyboy]

In October 2006, a pro-jihad internet site published a “Guide for Individual Jihad,” explaining to jihadists “how to fight alone.” It recommended, among other things, assassination with guns and running people over.

Is it possible that Sulejmen Talovic and some of these others were waging this jihad of one?

Well according to the article, the SF car rampage was August 2006 and the NC car rampage was March 2006. If "running people over" was a standing order, they got it from some other source before that particular website posted it.

[WV Mountain Mama]

Note to self, learn how to use video and camera options on cell phone...

[Frosted Flake]

You are right about the PC rules.
My points are:
1. Call Islamic terrorism what it is. The people have a right to know.
2. If more of the populace would arm themselves and fight back, there would be fewer deaths. How many more would have died if not for an off-duty cop? The survivors are very fortunate.

[oldcomputerguy]

"there is not much of a way to stop them, until they start shooting."

How about internment?

[Charles Martel]

I sure wish that Winston would whisper in W's ear a bit more often.