Family Jihad Tour: European Parents Are ‘Taking Children to Terror Training Camps’
MAIL ONLINE: German intelligence is warning of a new breed of terrorist - whole family groups travelling to training camps on the Afghan-Pakistan border where they learn how to use explosives and raise funds.

Parents travelling with children have in the past raised less suspicion than single men or women travelling to and from Germany.

Now officials have the names of 100 suspects they believe may be radicalised and ready to strike.

Germany is braced for a terror attack after repeated threats because of its involvement in Afghanistan. >>> Allan Hall | Easter Monday, April 05, 2010

The Third Generation: German Jihad Colonies Sprout Up in Waziristan
Islamist Cüneyt Ciftci, a former employee for Bosch, who hailed from the quiet southern German town of Ansbach, carried out a suicide bombing in Afghanistan in March 2008. Photograph: Spiegel Online International
SPIEGEL ONLINE INTERNATIONAL: A wave of Germans traveling to training camps for militant jihadists has alarmed security officials back in Europe. The recruits are quickly becoming radicalized and, in some cases, entire families are departing to hotbeds for terrorism. It is even believed that colonies catering to German Islamists have taken shape in the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

It was a Sunday in September when they lost their son Jan*. He gave his parents a particularly tight hug, his father recalls, a long and intense embrace. The father says that he could sense that this was no normal goodbye, and that it was about more than the supposed vacation trip to celebrate the couple's first wedding anniversary -- which was the story that Jan, 24, and his wife Alexandra* had cooked up for him.

It was the day of the German parliamentary elections in 2009, and the autumn sun was shining in Berlin, but Jan and Alexandra weren't interested in who would govern the country. They were going to leave Germany. They had rejected this society and this state. Jan and Alexandra packed their things into a rental car, picked up another couple, and the four friends headed off into exile. One of their traveling companions was 17 years old and six months pregnant -- her husband had just turned 20. Their child would not be born in Germany.

The two married couples headed to Budapest, where they boarded a plane for Istanbul. Jan placed one last call to his parents from a hotel.

Since then there have been only sporadic e-mails. These have been loving messages to his father and mother. But he also writes things that frighten his parents. He is living among brothers and doesn't need much money, Jan writes. No, they can't visit him -- it would be too dangerous, he says. And no, he can no longer imagine returning to Berlin, to a life among the kuffar, the infidels.

Then, in December, he wrote that he didn't know if he would live to see the next summer. Since then his parents have been looking in their mailbox every morning -- and every morning it's the same: nothing. They can hardly bear the uncertainty. Extremist Expats >>> Yassin Musharbash, Marcel Rosenbach and Holger Stark | Easter Monday, April 05, 2010

* Editor's note: Name has been changed by the editors.

Translated from the German by Paul Cohen

Saudi Arabia Defends Al-Qaeda Rehabilitation Scheme
THE TELEGRAPH: Saudi Arabia says it will not give up a controversial rehabilitation programme for Islamist radicals heavily criticised in the US after former inmates set up an al-Qaeda cell in neighbouring Yemen.

One former Guantanamo Bay inmate who went through the programme, which features "positive thinking" classes, art therapy and video games, is now deputy leader of Al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula, the cell behind the Christmas Day "underwear bombing" in an airliner over Detroit.

Four others from the same group of Guantanamo inmates handed over to the Saudis in November 2007 are among more than a dozen inmates who have returned to terrorism, including one who was shot dead while wearing a suicide vest under a burka last year.

But senior officials including an Interior Ministry general and the cleric and psychologists responsible for overseeing the programme's "religious re-indoctrination" courses told The Daily Telegraph it had been an overall success.

"We are confident in our system," said General Mansur al-Turki. "Part of that is the rehabilitation programme, and when we say that we are considering one thing - the results we are getting. We are not giving up because a few people decided to go back and share al-Qaeda activities." >>> Richard Spencer in Riyadh | Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Arrests as Rival Race Demonstrations Clash
TIMES ONLINE: Police have arrested 34 people amid tense scenes at an anti-Islamic demonstration in central Manchester.

The English Defence League (EDL), which opposes "radical Muslims" and Sharia Law, staged the protest, but the anti-far right group Unite Against Fascism (UAF) arranged a counter demonstration bringing both sides together in the city centre . >>> Simon Alford | Saturday, October 10, 2009

We Need to Confront Islamist Extremists, Not Conciliate Them
THE TELEGRAPH: The conviction of the terrorist bomb plotters shows that we need to confront the Islamists, and show that being Muslim and Western are indeed compatible, says Ed Husain.

On July 7, 2005, my sister missed one of the trains that was attacked by the bombers by four minutes. I was living in Saudi Arabia, but returned to Britain to help this country better understand why so many young activist Muslims were becoming extremists – as I briefly had. The convictions this week of three men who wanted to attack transatlantic flights show why that task remains as urgent as ever.

Organised hatred, separatism, and extremism were present in Britain's cities and campuses long before July 7, often cloaked in the guise of moderation. But very few people understood the complexities of extremist ideology, while many politicians had Muslim constituents they did not want to upset.

The toughest task has been convincing Muslim leaders of the need to end denial, and stop playing politics with Islamist extremism. At a recent meeting with a Muslim grandee, I was stunned to learn that he thought the British government had carried out the July 7 bombings, to give it an excuse to spy on us.

It beggars belief how many Muslim organisations have claimed that by founding Quilliam, a counter-extremist think tank which argues that there is no inherent contradiction between being Muslim and being Western, I have somehow sold out, become a patsy of the intelligence services.

I have very little idea about the espionage industry. But what have we got to hide? Why are we so worried? We should be proud citizens in a liberal democracy, committed to protecting our country from terrorist attacks just like any other crimes. Instead, I am attacked on websites, newspapers and Islamic television channels in the crudest terms.

Nor are our politicians standing up to the threat. When Quilliam's researchers revealed that Abu Qatada, "al-Qaeda's ambassador to Europe", was smuggling propaganda letters from inside a British prison, the then justice minister turned up on the BBC to dismiss our findings and say such work was "unhelpful". Boris Johnson recently called for greater understanding and tolerance of Islam at the East London Mosque – the same place where I and many others were introduced to radical Islamist ideology, and whose Saudi-trained imam is a signatory to a document that many say calls for attacks on the Royal Navy. >>> Ed Husain* | Saturday, September 12, 2009

*Ed Husain is co-founder of the Quilliam Foundation and author of 'The Islamist' (Penguin)

Quilliam >>>

Wilders Prosecution is a Welcome Opportunity to Expose Islam
CANADA FREE PRESS: Prosecuting Geert Wilders, member of the Dutch Parliament, is a welcome opportunity to expose fascist Islam and radical Muslims. Wilders and his lawyers do not need to go far away to fetch crystal clear evidence that Islam, i.e. the Koran and Hadeeth incite to violence and hatred, and radical Muslims are behind numerous crimes against humanity.

A summary of quotations from the Koran which clearly incite to hatred and violence can be found in the following link: [sic]

There is an abundance of fatwas (religious edicts) by Muslim authorities inciting to genocide and suicide attacks against Christians and Jews. All these fatwas are based on the Koran and Hadeeth.

Ali Gom’a, the grand mufti of Egypt, the highest Muslim religious authority in the world, supports murdering non-Muslims. In the daily Al Ahram (April 7, 2008), he says, “Muslims must kill non-believers wherever they are unless they convert to Islam.”

He also compares non-Muslims to apes and pigs, not only the Jews.

Muhammad Sayyid Al Tantawi, president of Al Azhar University also approves of killing and maiming Christians, Jews, and other infidels. He added, “This is not my personal view. This what the Shari’a Law says, the law of Allah, the only valid law on the earth.”

Yousef Al Qaradhawi, the spiritual leader of the fundamentalist organization, the Muslim Brothers, urged on Al Jazeera TV (Jan. 9, 2009) Muslims to kill the Jews, not only in Israel but also worldwide. He added, “No peace can be made between us (Muslims) and the non-believers. This what our holy book says. This what Allah says.”

Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti, Sheikh Abdulaziz Bin Abdullah Bin Mohammed al Sheikh said on Iqra’ TV channel, “Killing producers who show women unveiled is legal.”

The Saudi Sheikh Saleh Al-Lehadan, head of the Supreme Judiciary Council, told Al Watan daily, (March 25, 2008) “After getting rid of the Jews in our Arab land, we must turn to the Christians. They have three options: either they convert to Islam, or leave, or pay Jizia (protection taxes). Further, there is not such a thing as Shiites, Sufis, etc. There are only Sunnis. All these sects must renounce their pagan beliefs and return to Sunna, the right path of Islam.” >>> By Dr Sami Alrabaa | Saturday, January 31, 2009

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback – Canada) >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback – Canada) >>>

Radical Muslim Preacher Advises His Followers How to Screw the British Government
DAILY MAIL: A radical Muslim preacher has been filmed talking about fraudulently claiming benefits and giving advice on how to cheat the Government.

Self-proclaimed extremist Abu Waleed was speaking at the London School of Shariah event in preparation for Ramadan, during which he also made jokes about Muslims taking backpacks on to the Underground.

The British-born radical retold fables from the Koran before encouraging his audience to hoodwink the Government.

After a story about a wealthy man, he said: "There was one man, he had a lot of money - just like us, we have a lot of money today from the income support and the incapacity benefit. Radical Muslim preacher caught on film giving advice on how to 'hoodwink' the Government over benefits >>>

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)

Europe's Muslim Radicals: The Next Generation
WORLD DEFENSE REVIEW: "American kill," said the five-year-old boy. "Bush I kill." And as his proud father watched, beaming, he demonstrated how to cut the evil American's bare throat.

So it was in a Birmingham, England, home – as recorded secretly by British security services a few months ago while investigating the child's British-Pakistani father, Parvis Khan, then a suspect in a plot to kill a Muslim British soldier. This week, after his plan had been thwarted by MI5, Khan was sentenced to life in prison.

And what will become of the boy?

If he is lucky, he will learn from the example made of Dear Old Dad, and steer away from Islamic extremism completely. More likely, angered by the British infidels who took his father away from him, he will follow in Parvis' footsteps and endeavor to continue the work his father started.

And he will be, indeed, a formidable soldier for jihad: if he can slit a person's throat at five years old, just imagine what he can do at 20. (After all, Mozart, whose father Leopold was neither Muslim nor Pakistani but did serve as his teacher, began composing at the age of five. I leave it to readers to do with that parallel what they will.)

He may, for starters, do the way they do in Denmark, where last week, Muslim youths committed over 80 arson attacks in major cities, setting not just cars, but even schools in flames. This unrest followed a decision by Denmark's Jyllands-Posten to republish the 2006 cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed; it is blasphemy, in Islam, to depict Mohammad's image, and those cartoons were met, when they were first published, with anti-Denmark demonstrations and riots throughout the Muslim world.

This time, the cartoons were re-issued as a gesture of solidarity in response to new threats made on the cartoonist's life. Unsurprisingly, Muslim leaders – in Denmark and elsewhere – have had little to say about the actual plan to murder a newspaper cartoonist over a drawing; to the contrary, Iran's Press TV remarked: "This repeated insult towards a religion shared by 2.5 percent of the Danish population and more than 20 percent of the world's people may also have opened old wounds and fueled the violence in the country."

That European Muslim youth are radicalizing at a rapid rate is, of course, nothing new. What is notable is their age, which grows increasingly younger. And we are woefully unprepared, even as we should have seen this coming, to deal with it.

And we should have seen it coming. As radical youth, usually second- and third-generation immigrants, reach their early and mid-twenties, they are having children of their own, and raising those children according to the principles of fundamentalist Islam. Add to this the increasing number of women also flocking towards salafism, and you have an instant two-parent jihadi family, creating a home environment that can't but engender similar world views in the children. Before his arrest, Parviz Khan was already preparing his three-year-old daughter to marry a terrorist. I doubt he was the only such father on the block. Europe's Muslim Radicals: The Next Generation >>> By Abigail R. Esman

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)

Radical Muslims Might Soon Get Their Wings Clipped
THE GUARDIAN: Gordon Brown is considering introducing restrictions on offenders travelling to Pakistan and other countries in an attempt to stop radical Muslims going abroad for training by terror groups, it emerged last night.

Powers to ban those convicted of terror offences from travelling overseas on their release are to be included in a new crime and terrorism bill. But ministers acknowledge that such a measure would not have stopped Muktar Ibrahim, the 21/7 bomb plotter jailed for life yesterday, from going to Pakistan because his previous convictions were for only minor offences.

Travel to certain countries could be restricted, and those convicted of less serious crimes could be included in a ban. "We may need to go wider than just terrorist offences," Mr Brown's spokesman said. Offenders may be prohibited from travelling to Pakistan (more)

Mark Alexander