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.

[Beckwith]

Here's another one.

It's really an endless list.

Whether they belong to a group or are individual actors they are beyond dangerous.

And -- they can go off anywhere -- at any time.

[GreenLanternCorps]

"How about internment?"

Yes, that really worked out well the last time we tried it, didn't it! /sarc

The US government has no authority to arrest or detain people unless they commit an overt act. Adhering to the Muslim religion does not constitute probable cause. You may think so, but under the law it does not.

If a single individual wants to go into a public area and start shooting, and does not plan the attack with anyone else, or even tell anyone else, you can't stop him until he pulls the gun.

[Mount Athos]

I've been waiting for this article to be written.

[RobbyS]

You have it. The FBI couldn't even understand the thinking of the CHRISTIAN nuts in Waco.

[Remole]

That flight contained some 40 Egyptian military officers who had just completed a period of training in the USA.

[JB in Whitefish]

Amen, Brother...!!!

“If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.” – Winston S. Churchill

[happygrl]

This is the first time I was aware that Marc Leine was Muslim.

We may be approaching the time when some of the major Muslim organizations in this country need to be sued, as was the KKK for the death of that Ethipian man in Portland, which effectively put it out of business.

[happygrl]

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.

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.

Silent no more.

I believe you are on to something here.

I agree: this kid did not obtain this gun and bullet by himself.

[Species8472]

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

Jihad IS a "disturbed mental state"

[maica]

Sadly, this whole mass murder is already off the news cycle, as if the 5 people he killed had died in a traffic accident or house fire.

[silverleaf]

I think it may have been "allu Akhbar"- enhancement of the sound quality of the tape would answer that. Also witness accounts. If the press would ever release such information.

[silverleaf]

What mosque did he go to and who was his imam?

[sport]

I'd rather not die!


posted on 02/15/2007 5:08:41 AM PST by JB in Whitefish

You are one of the few , my friend. Each day they are getting less and less of us.

Just stay prepared because the day is coming when one must fight or die without fighting. I can't say when it will it will get here but I do know that it is coming.

Live and let live is a concept that the other side does not know.

[mvpel]

I also caught what may be another "Allu Akbar" early in the video, just after the mad scramble in the video, with the bench in the frame.

[DTA]

>>>>>>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

Three points:

1. First of all, there was no genocide in Bosnia. There was only a civil war where the actual Muslim casualty figures were increased more than tenfold. It was a mix of Islamic Al Taqqiah and western PR.

2. Suleyman was not at all from Srebrenica, a code word for Islamic propaganda. Nor he was a 'survivor', a favorite word of media shysters, used to plaster this lie using "The Holocaust survivor" analogy as a cement.

3. Misleading article was written by a Muslim and disseminated by Reuters to all MSM.

There is a bigger hand in this game that keeps MSM blind deaf and mute.

This is a case for AIM investigation.

[mvpel]

The MSM certainly wasn't blind, deaf, and mute 9 years ago. On October 31, 1998, Heather J. Maher of ABCnews.com, wrote the following words:

Is it the act of a lone, deranged fanatic? Or the carefully planned, methodical work of an operative in a terrorism movement?

Today, they flat-out refuse to ask the same question.

[dfwgator]

Sadly, this whole mass murder is already off the news cycle, as if the 5 people he killed had died in a traffic accident or house fire.

If only the killer had been the father of Anna Nicole's baby.

[TChris]

There have been a few witnesses to the shooting, and even videotape with some of the perp's speech on it. (See full coverage here.)

Nothing so far has indicated that he was on any kind of jihad. Of course it's possible; anything is. But with plenty of opportunities to yell "Death to America!", "Allahu Akbar!" or "Die, filthy Jew!", he didn't. He didn't target Jews, women, or Christians.

If he was making a statement, he completely blew it.

From watching all the interviews with his family and neighbors, I'm just not convinced this one was an Islamofascist thing. His family are all quite adamant that they left Bosnia so they could live in peace, and that they love America. They dress, speak and act that way too.

There are plenty of jihadist murderous nuts out there, but I'm not putting this kid on that list yet. I think he's just a regular murderous nut, like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.

[mvpel]

TChris, on one of the videos I listened to, from KUTV, had a couple of different points where I heard what sounded like "allu akbar!"

Right in the middle of the KUTV clip, immediately after "Police! Open up! Open up!" - for example.

[Eighth Square]

Yep, as it has been stated before, it wiil take multiple attacks like these together with car bombings or God forbid another 'big one', before the people and our politicians react. The only thing that may stop the probable violence would be for Muslims in this country to take to the streets in mass, shouting "America first, death to extreamists"! Somehow I can't see that in the cards.