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Could THIS be one the reasons O is defending Muslims and Islamism?

Today, the National Journal reported that a senior State Department official has announced, “THE WAR ON TERROR IS OVER.”“Now that we have killed most of al Qaida,” the source said, “now that people have come to see legitimate means of expression, people who once might have gone into al Qaida see an opportunity for a legitimate Islamism.” (April 2012)

Interesting website:

That awkward moment when your Salafi al-Qaeda proxies turn on you like mangy dogs...

In short, Al-Qaeda (Salafi Jihadists) and Salafis have the same goal, but have differing ways to get there.

Salafist jihadism

Whereas "Salafists originally are supposedly not violent," and the Salafis whom Gilles Kepel encountered in Europe in the 1980s were "totally apolitical", by the mid 1990s he met some who felt jihad in the form of "violence and terrorism were justified to realize their political objectives". The combination of Salafi alienation from all things non-Muslim—including "mainstream European society"—and violent jihad created a "volatile mixture". "When you're in the state of such alienation you become easy prey to the jihadi guys who will feed you more savory propaganda than the old propaganda of the Salafists who tell you to pray, fast and who are not taking action."

According to Kepel, Salafist jihadism combined "respect for the sacred texts in their most literal form, ... with an absolute commitment to jihad, whose number-one target had to be America, perceived as the greatest enemy of the faith."

Salafist jihadists distinguished themselves from salafis they called "sheikist", so named because they had (according to the jihadists) forsaken adoration of God for adoration of "the oil sheiks of the Arabian peninsula, with the Al Saud family at their head". The theorist was Abd al-Aziz ibn Abd Allah ibn Baaz "the archetypal court ulema [ulama al-balat]". These "false" salalfi "had to be striven against and eliminated," but even more dangerous was the Muslim Brotherhood, who were believed by Salafi Jihadists to be excessively moderate and lacking in literal interpretation of holy texts.