On this day

Has it really been seven years?

About 3,000 people lost their lives on September 11, 2001, most of them in New York city.

They must be few who have not been affected to some degree by the events of 9/11. Although Melancholicus did not know anyone in the World Trade Center personally, his sister works for an insurance management firm whose New York branch was located in the south tower; the staff of the Dublin branch were distraught to hear that 175 of their colleagues had perished. Later, as a seminarian, Melancholicus knew a priest who had lost a friend in one of the towers.

This was a day on which the world changed, and not for the better. But if one good thing might be said to have come out of the attack on the twin towers it is that the west is beginning to wake up, slowly and painfully, to the fact that Islam is at war with us. But too many of our political leaders still make fools of themselves by repeatedly offering exculpatory excuses for the behaviour of our deadliest enemies—it’s nothing to do with religion, violence is un-Islamic, Islam is a religion of peace, yadda yadda yadda.

Melancholicus only hopes that it will not take a further event on the scale of 9/11, or worse, before the connection between terrorist behaviour and the violence of the Qur’an is finally accepted.

May the souls of the departed through the mercy of God rest in peace on this, their seventh anniversary.

Portrait of a terrorist

Listen to the BBC Radio 4 programme Jihad UK, broadcast last Monday in the wake of the convictions of three British Muslim men for terror offences, here. Unfortunately Melancholicus is unable to embed the BBC media player in this post, so readers will have to activate the thing themselves after clicking the link.

The objective quality of the coverage is really quite good, in spite of the BBC’s institutionalised reverence for all things Mahometan. Nevertheless, the BBC still cannot bring itself to name religious ideology as the inspiration behind jihadi violence lest the reputation of Islam itself be besmirched.

Instead, the blame is laid on a variety of external factors; the seductive lure of foreign jihadi groups, the youth and impressionability of young British Muslims and—that perennial scapegoat for Mahometan aggression—western foreign policy.

It was interesting—and certainly refreshing—to hear comments such as “platitudes such as Islam meaning ‘peace’ won’t cut it here”—but the reporter failed to go the full distance and inform his audience that Islam does not mean peace at all; it means submission.

Particularly interesting, even revealing, is this comment by Hanif Qadir of the Active Change Foundation in describing the motivation of young Britons who give themselves up to the jihadi cause:

“These people who carry out terrorist activities, they’re not evil individuals. It’s because they’re most human, unselfish and often self-sacrificing kind of individuals, that will jump in when they see unfairness, and when they see injustice being done to a person, or to a race or to a community. It’s often these type of people that want to get involved.”

For all it seems to exculpate those who participate in terrorist attacks, this remark nevertheless rings true to a large extent. Ah, the idealism of thoughtless youth! The misplaced zeal that leads young persons to become socialists and that which leads them to become jihadis is ultimately the same. Young persons are often gifted with a self-sacrificing desire to make a change and be of service to something important—or at least something that they consider to be important. What that something is, however, makes all the difference. The foolish, idealistic young that are seduced by an evil, twisted ideology such as socialism—or Islam—will end by becoming evil and twisted themselves. That is simply the way of things. One’s character cannot remain untainted by one’s acts.

At the end of it all, it is disquieting to know that even though Britain may not have the largest Muslim population in Europe, it certainly has the most radical. Britain has been a breeding ground for jihadis for years. In this respect, Melanie Phillips’ Londonistan is required reading. Melancholicus does not quite agree with her stance vis-a-vis the invasion of Iraq, but her social commentary and her diagnosis of the malaise currently afflicting British legal and political life is right on the money.

But that such a programme can be aired on the BBC at all is progress in itself; it must surely indicate that Britain is beginning to wake up to the fact that a significant proportion of her Muslim minority, including those born and raised on British soil, does not identify with her culture and institutions, and is intent on turning her into an Islamic state.

And why? What is the cause of their alienation?

Is it really because of poverty and hopelessness, as is so often claimed?

If so, why are university campuses such fertile recruiting grounds for the jihadis?

Is not the problem rooted in something much simpler than the interplay of complex socio-economic factors?

Could it be a matter of theology, perhaps?

Is it not the Islamic religion that ultimately drives the jihadis?

This programme is perhaps the closest the BBC has ever come to making the link between Muslim violence and the Islamic religion.

Will they ever get there? Melancholicus somehow doubts it. Political correctness is so deeply engrained in the minds of the British intelligentsia that he cannot see it being dislodged any time soon.

Islamist plot against the Queen

From The Telegraph:

Islamic terror cell 'may have been plotting to attack Queen'

A terror cell caught with details of bomb-making and suicide vests may have been plotting to attack the Queen and members of the Royal family, it can be disclosed.

By Duncan Gardham, Security Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:55PM BST 19 Aug 2008

The cell, which included Britain's youngest ever terrorist, arrested on his way home from his GCSE chemistry exam, was found with information about the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh along with the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, the Earl of Wessex and the Princess Royal.

Also on the list were Princess Michael of Kent, The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and The Duke and Duchess of Kent.

Aabid Hussain Khan, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, had compiled pictures, maps and details of the opening hours of official residences from information available on the internet.

There were also details of London landmarks including the Houses of Parliament, Tower Bridge and the underground as well as the New York and Washington metros and a home-made video of the Washington Memorial and World Bank in the US.

A counter-terrorism source said: "They had details of explosives and poisons along with information about London landmarks and a computer folder on Royal residences. We would be foolish to rule out the fact that they may have been planning an attack."

Detective Chief Superintendent John Parkinson, Head of the Counter Terrorism Unit in Leeds, said the men posed a "very real threat".

He added: "Let there be no doubt, these are dangerous individuals. These men were not simply in possession of material which expressed extremist views. They were also in possession of material that was operationally useful to anyone wishing to carry out an act of violence or terrorism."

Khan, 23, was yesterday convicted of three counts of possessing articles for terrorism but the jury was not told he was part of a network of international terrorists in Europe and North America.

It can now be revealed that Khan was closely connected to the alleged leader of a group of men currently awaiting trial for plotting an attack.

Khan, using the name Ocean Blue, was also in regular contact with an aspiring suicide bomber in Edinburgh, Mohammed Atif Siddique.

He had also communicated regularly with three terrorists who ran websites for Al-Qaeda in Iraq from London and Kent.

Khan groomed Hammaad Munshi, then 15, the grandson of the head of a sharia court in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire.

Munshi, who lived with his parents and four brothers, was carrying two small bags of ball bearings, a key component of a suicide vest, when he was arrested on his way home from Westborough High School in Dewsbury on the afternoon of June 2006.

He had been running his own website selling knives and Islamic flags and using the online identity Fidadee – meaning "to die for" - on the auction website ebay.

He also had hand-written notes on martyrdom and had created and circulated technical documents via email and secure web forums on how to make Napalm, how to make a detonator and the production of home made explosives.

Operation Praline, run by the Counter-Terrorism Unit in Leeds, was sparked when police, acting on intelligence, stopped Khan at Manchester airport as he returned from Pakistan.

Officers found two computer hard drives, DVDs, forged currency, false identification papers, handwritten notes and correspondence.

Mr Denison said the collection amounted to a "terrorist encyclopaedia or library that would have enabled him or others to carry out terrorist attacks here or abroad in a variety of ways, and thereby to further the cause that appeared to be his mission in life - the war on western values and anyone who was a non-believer in the Muslim faith."

Khan, an unemployed burger-bar worker, who used the email name Delboy and FoolsandHorses claimed he was selling Islamic streetware.

It took detectives some time to unravel all Khan's aliases and some of the conversations he held in internet chat rooms, which were found on the hard drives, were discovered too late for the trial.

Khan wrote to one recipient: "If you can find a big target and take it out, like a military base in the UK, then praise be to Allah.

"Our group is growing. We need to plan better and to adapt now a few more people are showing interest. We need to confirm and to encourage...I want to have a group of at least 12 if possible."

He reassured another correspondent who had told him: "I am not too sure about strapping a bomb to myself anymore."

He also talked of explosives, warning: "You need to take care to store them in low temperatures otherwise they can kill. They must not come into contact with fire, oil or detergent."

Another associate, Sultan Muhammed, 23, a postman from Bradford, fled to London with £1,265 in cash following Khan's arrest.

When police raided his house they found maps of the London Underground, Jerusalem and Manhattan and a book entitled Suicide Bombings.

"Perhaps one of the most chilling videos was one that provided a step-by-step guide as to how to make a suicide bomber's vest, using ball bearings as shrapnel and demonstrating the effects of such a bomb," Mr Denison said.

Muhammed was found guilty of three charges of possessing articles useful for terrorism and another charge of making a record of useful for terrorism.

Munshi, now 18, was convicted of making a record useful for terrorism. A fourth defendant, Ahmed Sulieman, 30, from south London, was cleared of all charges.

H/T to Exposing Islam.

It is clear that, since this cell possessed information on the monarch and other members of the royal family, they were at the very least considering the possibility of an attack on the Queen, or on a member of her family.

Ought not such intentions—however notional they may have been—to kill or harm the reigning monarch be considered evidence of high treason? Or has British law changed in the interim to such a degree that it is no longer treasonable to plot against the head of state?

Although Melancholicus is not one of Her Majesty’s subjects, he believes that such plots should be treated by the British authorities with the utmost gravity, for an attack against the monarch is more than an assault on a police station, or the congregation of a church, or the passengers on an aircraft. In a certain very real sense, the Queen IS England. An attack on the Queen is more than an attack on a single individual; it is the symbolic overthrow of the British state. The Islamists in Britain can reach no more significant a target than Her Majesty. Were they to succeed in such a venture, they could never top that success for its political significance however many planes they could bring down or however many people they succeeded in killing in events like the 7/7 bombings three years ago.

In the reign of the first Elizabeth, plotters against the monarch were subjected to public evisceration and dismemberment as a warning to other potential malefactors, or—if they were of noble blood or had been royal favourites—to decollation. Either way, death was the end result. In the reign of the second Elizabeth, plotters against the monarch will appear before a court, with their human rights enshrined in law and—if convicted—will spend a few years in prison. Thereafter they will be released back onto the street, to resume their plotting from the point whereat it was interrupted, should they be so minded.

Now while Melancholicus does not advocate a return to the savage butchery of the sixteenth century, he must nonetheless ask: where is the punishment that treason deserves?

Terror attacks on Iraqi churches on the feast of the Epiphany

Here we go.

Is this the first one of the new year?

From Catholic World News:

Iraqi Catholics hit by Epiphany bombing campaign

Baghdad, Jan. 7, 2008 (CWNews.com) - Catholic churches and institutions in Baghdad and Mosul, Iraq, were hit by a series of bombing attacks on Sunday, January 6, the AsiaNews service reports.

Remarkably, no one was killed by the explosions, Church officials said. But several church buildings sustained major damage.

The attacks "represent a clear message," Archbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk told AsiaNews, noting that they seemed clearly to indicate "a coordinated plan." Catholics in Iraq have been shaken by several bombing campaigns, evidently designed to intimidate the Christian minority and encourage further emigration from Iraq.

Car bombs exploded at the Church of St. George in Baghdad, where Chaldean Patriarch Emmanuel III Delly had recently finished celebrating the Divine Liturgy. There were also explosions at a Chaldean convent and a Melkite church near Baghdad, another Chaldean church and an orphanage in Mosul, and a Dominican convent in Mosul.

Melancholicus could comment, but he is already weary with reporting on outrages such as this.

Religion of Peace update: 10,000 mark reached

There have now been over 10,000 terrorist attacks in the name of Islam since 9/11.



H/T to Damian Thompson. Read it all here. After detailing a horrifying litany of atrocities, Mr. Thompson finishes his post with this pertinent observation: As I say, that’s just the last week. I wonder how many people have died in Christian or Jewish terrorist attacks in the same period.

Looking through the list of atrocities, Melancholicus finds it interesting that most victims of Islamist terror attacks are not in fact ‘kuffar’, but other Muslims.