Even those who don’t follow Islamic issues as assiduously as I do must have a sneaking feeling that something big is afoot, with more to come.
First, for 2015, I’m going to compile a list of what I can dredge up from my memory –without recourse to the net.
Charlie Hebdo and the Jews
Garland
Memphis
Frenchman beheaded
Copenhagen
Kenyan college massacre
San Bernardino
Bangkok bomb
Tunisian attacks on tourists
Paris
Australian kid kills accountant
Russian Airplane
Bangladeshi bloggers murdered
UC Merced knife wielder
All right then. This is what I come up with, after checking my list and deleting some from 2014.
I’ve kept this to events that were widely reported and generally, involved western targets; the ongoing carnage in war zones such as Nigeria, together parts of Africa, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, the Southern Philippines, Israel, the Russian Caucasus, India, and the failed state of Pakistan is so unremitting that it amounts to background noise. The events I list are clearly jihadist, in that Muslims specifically targeted non-believers.
Now, let’s now look at these stories in chronological order, with the internet as an aide memoire.;
Charlie Hebdo’s first Cover after the attack. Cowardly Print and and broadcast media largely refused to show it. Oh yeah, try turning it upside down. Heh.
7 January 2015 Paris, Charlie Hebdo . Most will be familiar with the murder of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo’s editor Stephane Charbonneau and nine others. Once again Islamic rage at uncomplimentary graphics results in death. Two days later the two killers were taken out after a pursuit and manhunt that mobilized some 80,000 French Security forces.
Around the same time Ahamed Coubaily held patrons of a Paris Kosher supermarket hostage, killing two, before being taken out.
15 February, Copenhagen: In fallout from the Muhammad Cartoons affair of the last decade, a free speech debate at which Lars Vilik, Dansh cartoonist, and the French ambassador, among others, met to discuss the issue and show solidarity with the dead of Charlie Hebdo, when a Muslim gunman attacked. One attendee was killed. The killer then fled, to go on to kill a security guard at a synagogue, before security forces gunned him down. The usual excuses, obfuscation and ludicrous hand wringing ensued. “Danish prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt said there were no signs the gunman was part of a wider terror cell.
“This is not a conflict between Islam and the west,” she said. “This is a conflict between the core values of our society and violent extremists.”
The Roys in better days.
February 27: Dhaka, Bangladesh: Avijit Roy, an atheist blogger and American citizen, is chopped to bits on the street in Dhaka. His wife survives. This may seem like a stretch for this list, but as this blogger was both an American, and a defender of Enlightenment values, I see this as a proxy attack on Western beliefs. Mr Roy was neither the first nor the last such blogger killed in this manner in the streets of Bangladesh.
Mrs.Roy minutes after the attack.
Tunisia, birthplace of the “Arab Spring” this year saw two murderous attacks on Westerners, the first at the Bardo Museum in Tunis, on 18 March, thronged with visitors from a cruise ship. 20 dead, of many nationalities
Museum visitors flee Bardo Museum, Tunis
Later in the same month, tourists, mostly British, along with two Tunisian nationals, are gunned down on a beach resort. Final toll: 38.
Some of the dead, Sousse, Tunisia.
April 2: Garissa, Kenya. Islamists kill 147 students and staff at a teachers college. All were Christians. Muslims were spared, as the killers examined potential victims for knowledge of Islam before deciding to kill them, just as they had done to(number) at the Westgate mall massacre in Nairobi, 2013. I include this atrocity because Kenya has long discarded the puerile anti-Westernism of the immediate post-colonial era. The medium of instruction at the college is English. Kenya is with us.
Garissa, Kenya: dead multitudes
May 30: Once again, cartoons rile up the faithful. In Garland, Texas,a ”Draw Muhammad” contest is attacked. Only the gunmen die, as security and local LEOs take them down. A particularly egregious bout of “blame the victim” follows as the sponsors of the contest are told they asked for it, and should show more respect.
15 February,Copenhagen: In fallout from the Muhammad Cartoons affair of the last decade, a free speech debate at which Lars Vilik, Dansh cartoonist and the French ambassador, among other met to discuss the issue and show solidarity with the dead of Charlie Hebdo when a Muslim gunman attacked. One attendee was killed.
Frenchman beheaded in suburban Lyon.
June 26 Chasseue, France. A Frenchman is beheaded, by an ISIS sympathizer who also tries to blow up the bottled gas plant where the victim was manager.
July 26 Chattanooga, TN. Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez shoots up a recruiting center, then moves on to Naval Reserve center where 4 die immediately, one later of his wounds. Police then blow the jihadi away.
17 August, Bangkok: Erahwan Shrine, a popular site for locals and tourists, is bombed. 20 die. A murky plot emerges – to date not wrapped up – involving local muslims, Turks, Uyghurs (Chinese muslim minority) and Pakistanis.
A familiar sight in the wake of Islamic terror. This time, Bangkok.
October 2. Paramatta, Australia. An accountant working for the Police is shot outside the station where he worked. Cops then take out 15 year old killer, Farhad Khalil.
Some of those who died as ISIS brought down their plane in the Sinai.
Ocober 31: Egypt: Russian plane bound for St. Petersburg downed by a bomb stowed aboard. 224 holiday makers die. Officials eventually confirm ISIS chatter: Islamist terror brought down the plane.
Paris: 13 November There is no need for me to get into this very deeply, as it is still so fresh in public memory that even politicians are forced to refer to it. As did SOS John Kerry, when he said:
“There’s something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would feel that.”
“There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of – not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, ‘OK, they’re really angry because of this and that’,” Kerry said.
“This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate. It wasn’t to aggrieve one particular sense of wrong. It was to terrorize people.”
So as long as it was people with a beef against Islam, and Jews, not such a big deal
November 4, Merced California. Faisal Mohammed, 18 year old student, knifed 4, before bystanders tackled him, and then campus cops plugged him fatally. Despite having a Xerox of an ISIS flag,and copious notes invoking Allah, we are told that he wanted revenge for being kicked out of a study club. This story pretty much died after the FBI came in and took over the investigation. We have a picture of the kid, accounts that say he was from Santa Clara, or Santa Clarita, two entirely different places, a banal statement from the family released by a lawyer and nothing more. Looking at the kid he could be of Pakistani descent, but who knows? The incurious media performs as expected.
Faisal Mohhamed: Who was this kid? We’ll probably never know.
December 2, San Bernardino, California. This too needs no recapping. 14 dead Americans in the Inland Empire,and Obama was finally forced to concede that threre amy be a problem.
That’s it for 2015, as far as I remember. Post Paris, we saw the three day lock-down of Bussels, capital of the Belgian state,as well as the EU, and home of NATO headquarters.
So, we have attacks on almost every inhabited continent , with Latin America unscathed. This region is, coincidentally, home to a vanishingly small Muslim population. The attackers are Middle Easterners, Africans, East Asians and native born Americans, some of immigrant descent, some not. All are Muslims, all citing Muslim scripture and tradition, despite the risible efforts or authorities to deflect. A common thread in official response is that we are somehow supposed to be calmed when told that an event has no links to terrorists groups. So what? It is the lone actor who will most likely succeed.
In fact all have links to the organized terrorism that is Islam. Not only do authorities, the press and academia continue to obfuscate, but, I suspect, are sometimes involved in active concealment. Consider this story:
Belgian military barracks attack: ‘Hooded man’ tries to storm Flawinne Army base
This was Ocotober 26, 2015. The story is around for a couple of days after that, then we are told a suspect is in custody, and that there is no terrorism link. The end. Nothing further in English, nor in the Belgian press, neither in Flemsh or French, as far as I can find.
No name has ever been released. Given the prominence in jihadist activity Belgium has achieved, I find this interesting.
The year ended with much anxiety, reduced celebration over the holidays, and a final scare in Munich. As was the case in the story of the three American Dudes Who Kicked Jihadi Ass on a Train, despite all the horror I’ve recalled above, the real story is what doesn’t happen. Or hasn’t happened yet.
No large scale attacks, just the usual pranks by les jeunes/youths/jongen such as this
Diverse youth firebomb Christmas tree, Place Clemenceau,Brussels
Car Burning is so last year. Again, Place Clemenceau, Brussels.
Christmas tree demolition, and quite creative roll – a-car –down- a- pedestrian- stairway- to- the- underground, both in Brussels. The lads enjoyed themselves,as their enthusiastic “Allahu Akbar” demonstrates.
So now we are in 2016. So far, so good. The new year did see a minor incident in France on January 1, first broken as a story of an attack on a mosque, but in fact another of the faithful was instead attacking the French Army guarding a mosque. So, attacked by Muslims, the French guard mosques. In the US, presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and other prominent Democrats visit a mosque in the wake of San Bernardino, as the New York Times tells us “American Muslims Under Attack After San Bernardino and Paris Terror”
As I suppose they are:
“FBI offers $5,000 reward after raw bacon found on door of Las Vegas mosque.”
Or perhaps not:
“Man charged with setting Houston mosque fire says he was a devout attendee
It’s tricky to predict the future. I certainly hope 2016 does not see the acceleration in Muslim violence that many predict. I can confidently say, however, that the official cover for the religiously motivated crimes of Muslims will continue, and no doubt reach new heights of absurd mendacity, as public trust continues to decline.
Houston Mosque Arsonist
Stock popcorn and beer
Happy New Year
Allahu Akbar!
Stonefree2rant 