Extremism Breeds 'Like a Virus'

PARIS (Reuters) - Islamic extremism is breeding "like a virus" in Europe and international cooperation is not strong enough so far to combat the threat effectively, France's top anti-terrorist judge said on Sunday.

Jean-Louis Bruguiere, who started tracking terrorists two decades ago, also said he believed France was among the two or three countries most at risk of attack due to its historic links with Algeria, a Muslim-dominated former colony in North Africa.

"In Europe, there's a multitude of small networks which are developing in relatively anarchic fashion, like a virus," he told state radio station France Inter in an interview when asked about the threat of Islamic extremism.

"It's a globalised war, a war of a third kind with extremely different ways of operating. The enemy is everywhere and hard to get a fix on," he said.

"International cooperation, and cooperation in Europe in particular, does not live up to the stakes involved. Efforts must absolutely be undertaken by governments to raise the level of cooperation very considerably," he said.

Bruguiere said militant cells operating in Europe were often not directly financed or controlled by the al Qaeda network of Islamic militant Osama bin Laden, blamed for attacks that killed more than 3,000 in New York in September 2001.

But there were numerous networks developing in France and elsewhere not necessarily directly connected, he said, adding that they were "shifting networks, hard to pin down."

Bruguiere said bin Laden and groups including Islamic charities were financing or suspected of funding major operations.

But many other more localised militant groups were financed largely through credit card fraud scams and the trafficking of false documents, he said.

French police arrested nearly 20 people in a series of raids in and around Paris last week in an attempt to find fresh leads on the activities of groups linked to al Qaeda or other Islamic extremist movements.

Bruguiere has put several of those arrested under official judicial investigation, allowing him to keep them in police custody for longer than normal.

Among those being questioned is Slimane Khalfaoui, 27, a French citizen of Algerian descent suspected of possibly being a main European recruiters for the al Qaeda network, judicial sources have said. Khalfaoui's brother-in-law, Nicolas Belloni, is also being questioned, they say.

Islamic extremism is breeding "like a virus" in Europe...France's top anti-terrorist judge said on Sunday.
Not just in Europe judge.
A Matter of Faith: Islam is Fastest-Growing Religion in the U.S.

Abdullah Yusuf, center, prays at the Masjid As-Salam in Sacramento
on Friday. Yusuf says he was raised Catholic but converted to Islam
because he liked the teachings of the Qur'an.
Latino Muslims
In April, California State University, Sacramento, hosted a forum on the "Islamic Presence in Latin America" before and after Columbus. One of the speakers, Salvadoran-born AbdulHadi Bazurto (President of Latin American Muslim Unity), said the more he examined his roots, the more he questioned the validity of Catholicism in his life. "Since the day the Spanish arrived, we as people have suffered a lot," he said. "Christianity's 'white God' concept was harmful to our people, who were definitely not white."
Another speaker, Daniel Denton, a Stockton elementary school teacher who was born in Mexico, said he was a hard-drinking veteran of the Gulf War when he began to explore Islam in 1994. At the invitation of Muslims at Delta College, he went to a mosque. "There was a carpet on the floor, and the walls were bare. I wondered, 'Where is everything?' and then I realized that was everything. If you go to a Catholic church, every few feet they have an image or a statue, but in Islam, there is no association between God and any image."
Denton also was impressed by the Islamic belief that each individual will be judged by their deeds on Judgment Day. That night, he took the shahada, the Muslim vow that says "There is only one God, Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger."
When he started fasting for Ramadan, "I heard my relatives in Stockton were calling my mom in San Diego and telling her I had become a terrorist and was doing drugs," Denton said. "When I went down to San Diego toward the end of Ramadan, I had lost 15 pounds and was starting to grow my beard. My mom was just in tears for days."
But, Denton said, his mother soon realized that instead of partying, he was staying home and talking to her as he had never done before.
"As she began to see the change, she came to accept it, and now she's happy. There's a saying in Islam that goes, 'Heaven lies at the feet of the mother. You have to treat her well at all times, take care of her.' "
Denton, 29, sees similarities between Islamic and Latino culture. "I've noticed that if you take away the crosses, the alcohol and the pork, the smells in my house are similar to Muslim homes..."
Link to article HERE.
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California State University, Sacramento, hosted a forum on the "Islamic Presence in Latin America" before and after Columbus. One of the speakers, Salvadoran-born AbdulHadi Bazurto (President of Latin American Muslim Unity), said the more he examined his roots, the more he questioned the validity of Catholicism in his life. "Since the day the Spanish arrived, we as people have suffered a lot," he said. "Christianity's 'white God' concept was harmful to our people, who were definitely not white."
Our tax dollars at work.
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