Jihad Watch: Germany considers increased spying on Muslims

Jihad Watch: Germany considers increased spying on Muslims

By Matthew Schofield at McClatchy via Matt Drudge.

BERLIN — After thwarting what might have become a "massive" attack on American installations, German authorities will review ways to fight homegrown terrorists, including a proposal to allow Internet spying on all German converts to Islam.

The search for seven other suspected members of a German cell of the Pakistan-based Islamic Jihad Union continued into Thursday night, with investigators saying only that they knew who they were seeking.

Anti-terror police arrested three men in a village in central Germany Tuesday, outside a vacation cabin where they were suspected of building a bomb. Germans were shocked to learn that two of the alleged bombers were native-born and had common German names, Fritz and Daniel. All three were unemployed and living on German government benefits, but other details are sketchy.

Fritz came from an upper middle class background, and German media reported that he converted to Islam about 10 years ago. His mother was a doctor, his father owned a successful business, and he's married and attends a technical college in Ulm.

"Daniel", who like Fritz hasn't been further identified, was known for angering his neighbors in Saarbruecken by praying loudly every three hours, but little else is know about him or "Adem", the Turkish-born third suspect.

This was "something new, and not in a good way," said Col. Christopher Langdon of London's International Institute for Strategic Studies. They "came from the white German population. They were very traditional German residents who converted and radicalized. These bombers were not Pakistani or Moroccan. That is raising eyebrows."

It is raising eyebrows among the politically-correct who insist that Islam is a religion of peace and that terrorists develop only within oppressed ethnic minorities. The case of Fritz and Daniel provides compelling evidence that the only irreducible attribute of Islamic terrorists is -- you guessed it -- ISLAM.

Anti-terror forces had been concerned primarily with first or second generation Muslim immigrants — not white Europeans.

Guenther Beckstein, the interior minister in the German state of Bavaria and a conservative leader of the southern wing of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Party, has called for a new law authorizing online surveillance of Islamic converts.

Entirely sensible -- though one can only imagine the heat he is going to take.

"Germans converting to Islam should be watched because they tend to show particular fanaticism in order to prove worthy of their new religion," he said Thursday.

The number is growing, according to the German Islam archive. In the last decade, only about 300 Germans each year converted to Islam. But in 2005, the number rose to 1,000, and it jumped to 4,000 in 2006.

4,000 new potential jihadists last year from within the native German population. Not a reassuring thought. The problem is: what is the alternative to Islam for a thirsty European soul? Fervent European agnosticism? Brussels worship? Having thrown God out of their societies, Europeans are now having to confront Allah.

Posted by Greg

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Jihad Watch: Only his hairdresser knows for sure

Jihad Watch: Only his hairdresser knows for sure

Robert Spencer has picked up a very interesting point about the fact that Osama bin Laden has dyed his hair black. It is a very sinister move, and it is one that needs very close scrutiny:

Characteristically, no one is picking up on the significance of the dye job. The Shafi'i school of Islamic jurisprudence forbids men and women to dye their hair black "except when the intention is jihad...as a show of strength to unbelievers" ('Umdat al-Salik e.4.4). Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, in his The Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam, says essentially the same thing: "Some of the early Muslims, including some sahabah [companions of Muhammad] such as Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas, 'Uqbah ibn 'Amr, al-Hassan, al-Hussein, Jarir, and others permitted the use of black dye. Some scholars, on the other hand, do not consider the use of black dye as permissible except during time of war, when the enemy might be impressed by the fact that all the soldiers of the Muslim army look young."

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Following Mohammed's lead: Invitation to convert

A new tape has been released in the name of Osama Bin Laden and within the tape there is the invitation to convert to Islam. What is more sinister this time, is that Bin Laden has appeared in the tape with his beard dyed black. (more on this point later).

What I am concerned about here is the fact that the invitation to convert to Islam is extremely menacing, and it should not be taken lightly by the world at large. This is what is written in the Koran by Mohammed, for he told his followers that if the invitation is rejected then permission is given to attack (the enemy - in this case the USA).

Muhammad directs Muslims to issue this invitation first, and if they refuse, to invite non-Muslims to enter the Islamic social order as second-class dhimmis, and if they refuse both, to go to war with them:

Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war, do not embezzle the spoils; do not break your pledge; and do not mutilate (the dead) bodies; do not kill the children. When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them....If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah's help and fight them. (Sahih Muslim 4294)

The tape also includes a rather ridiculous revisionist comment about Jesus being a prophet of Allah. The comment has absolutely no truth within it, and therefore should be dismissed out of hand. However, there are people who, through ignorance will believe such a story.

Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch made this comment about the religious comment within the communique:

In reality, however, such statements go right to the heart of why Al-Qaeda and other jihadists are fighting, and what they are fighting for. I discuss this in my book Religion of Peace?, but I'm not seeing it much of anywhere else. The ideological challenge that the jihadists are making to the West is still almost universally misunderstood. Here is Osama inviting us to accept Islam, and probably very few Americans would be able to articulate why they wouldn't want to accept the invitation. If more attention is not paid to this, Osama's appeal will surely make inroads among Westerners that will deeply surprise most analysts.

 

Beware the home grown terrorist - a German lesson

Two of three men arrested on suspicion of terrorist activities are German by birth and the other is a Turk. One of them is a man by the name of Fritz Gelowicz, a man who converted to Islam at the age of 18 in Ulm:

"Germans concerned about Muslim converts," by Alexander G. Higgins for the Associated Press:

BERLIN - Fritz and Daniel — two of the three militant Islamic suspects arrested in a purported plot to bomb American targets are as German as their names.

The pair allegedly are among the small number of Western converts who have been used by terrorism masters because their ability to blend in is matched by their willingness to become violent, Muslim and non-Muslim experts say.

Not even a thought given to the content of traditional Islamic texts there.

The two Germans and a Turk were arrested Tuesday on suspicion of planning attacks on U.S. and other facilities. Police say they had stockpiled enough material to build bombs more powerful than those that killed 191 commuters in Madrid and 52 in London.

The extremism behind the alleged plot was in many ways inculcated not in far- off lands but on the banks of the Danube River in Germany, security officials say.

Fritz Martin Gelowicz, described as the leader of the Islamic Jihad Union terror cell, converted to Islam 10 years ago at age 18 in his hometown of Ulm, security officials told The Associated Press.

Ulm, in Baden Wuerttemberg in southwestern Germany, is a center for radical Islamic activity along with Neu-Ulm, just across the Danube in Bavaria. Authorities say the local Islamic scene is marked by particular zeal.

Security officials said Gelowicz first became an adherent of what they described as an Islamic hate preacher at the Multicultural House in Neu-Ulm, which he attended regularly with a German friend of Turkish descent, identified only as Tolga D. Tolga D. was arrested in Frankfurt last month after being deported from Pakistan and is accused of recruiting a German citizen for terrorism.

Where is that "hate preacher" now?

After the Multicultural House was closed, Gelowicz began going to the Islamic Information Center in Ulm — which was searched by police this week. Officials at the center could not be reached for comment.

"I believe this center in Ulm has played a calamitous role," said Udo Steinbach, a specialist on Islam at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies in Hamburg.

Posted by Marisol: Jihad Watch

Disaster: Half of British mosques are under quasi-Taliban control

Here is some interesting news about the situation with British mosques being under the quasi-Taliban control, meaning that they belong to  the Deobandi school of “pure” Islam. Hot Air reports the following situation regarding the preaching in the mosques:

Riyadh ul Haq, who supports armed jihad and preaches contempt for Jews, Christians and Hindus, is in line to become the spiritual leader of the Deobandi sect in Britain. The ultra-conservative movement, which gave birth to the Taleban in Afghanistan, now runs more than 600 of Britain’s 1,350 mosques, according to a police report seen by The Times.

The Times investigation casts serious doubts on government statements that foreign preachers are to blame for spreading the creed of radical Islam in Britain’s mosques and its policy of enouraging the recruitment of more “home-grown” preachers…

Seventeen of Britain’s 26 Islamic seminaries are run by Deobandis and they produce 80 per cent of home-trained Muslim clerics. Many had their studies funded by local education authority grants. The sect, which has significant representation on the Muslim Council of Britain, is at its strongest in the towns and cities of the Midlands and northern England…

A commentator on religious radicalism in Pakistan, where Deobandis wield significant political influence, told The Times that “blind ignorance” on the part of the Government in Britain had allowed the Deobandis to become the dominant voice of Islam in Britain’s mosques.

Khaled Ahmed said: “The UK has been ruined by the puritanism of the Deobandis. You’ve allowed the takeover of the mosques. You can’t run multiculturalism like that, because that’s a way of destroying yourself. In Britain, the Deobandi message has become even more extreme than it is in Pakistan. It’s mind-boggling.”

It is a very real problem because, as can be seen from the above comments by Khaled Ahmed, the Deobandi message in Britain is more extreme than it is in Pakistan. This means that without a doubt the British mosques are a breeding ground for terrorists. The British need to pull their heads out of the sand, they need to abandon the PC attitude, and they need to become realists. If Britain fails to act then that country will fall to Islam.

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lgf: The Dreaded Roundabout Dogs of Blasphemy

lgf: The Dreaded Roundabout Dogs of Blasphemy

This is an interesting story at Little Green Footballs. It seems that there are some angry raging Mohammedans on the loose and they are committing acts of vandalism in the name of their false prophet Mo the pedophile

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German police hunt for terror plot 'back-up team' | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

German police hunt for terror plot 'back-up team' | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

10am German police hunt for terror plot 'back-up team' Staff and agencies Thursday September 6, 2007 Guardian Unlimited A German police officer patrols at Frankfurt airport. Photograph: Julian Stratenschulte/AP   German police were today searching for around 10 more members of a terror cell suspected of plotting major bomb attacks, after the arrest of three men and the seizure of explosives materials. Officials have said the three men already in custody - two German converts to Islam and a Turkish national - were planning attacks which could have proved more deadly than those in London or Madrid, with possible targets including US military bases, discos, pubs and Frankfurt's international airport. August Hanning, a senior interior ministry official who formerly headed Germany's foreign intelligence service (BND), said today that police were now seeking around 10 more people suspected of acting as a back-up team to the alleged plotters. "This is the network that we are aware of at the moment," he told the ARD TV station, saying that the suspects included Germans and Turks, as well as other nationalities. The terror cell no longer posed a direct security threat, he added. Article continues The three men in custody were arrested after security services swooped on a rented house in Sauerland, 60 miles east of Düsseldorf. The trio had amassed more than 700kg (1,500lbs) of hydrogen peroxide, officials said. The alleged plot shared some details with recent terrorist attempts foiled in Britain, notably the use of hydrogen peroxide to make the bombs and the targeting of airports and social venues. However, British officials suggested there was no link with any network in the UK. German officials said an attack appeared imminent and major loss of life had been averted. Jörg Ziercke, the head of Germany's Federal Crime Office, told a news conference that the volume of explosive "would have been enough to cause damage on a greater scale than in London and Madrid". He added that the suspects were motivated by a "deep hatred of US citizens" and were aiming to produce as many victims as possible. In Washington, a senior US state department official said German investigators had determined Frankfurt International airport and the nearby US Ramstein air base were the primary targets. The men, named only as Daniel S, Fritz G and Aden Y, were in their 20s and were all said to have attended training camps in Pakistan. In Germany they are accused of setting up a national cell of the Islamic Jihad Union, a shadowy splinter group from an Uzbekistan grouping thought to have become obsolete. In the months before their capture they had made a living from temporary work or unemployment benefits while spending most of their time planning the attack, the German authorities said. News of their capture came a day after Danish police arrested eight young Muslims also suspected of preparing a bomb attack. Officials said no immediate link had been established between the two cells. The federal prosecutor's office also declined to comment on whether there was any connection to groups in Britain or elsewhere in Europe, saying investigations were still at an early stage. But some speculated that the suspects might have hoped to stage a reminder attack to coincide with the sixth anniversary of September 11. "These groups are highly motivated by getting as much media resonance as possible. That means that symbolic acts, like the anniversary, become very important," said Klaus Segbers, an expert on terrorism at the Otto-Suhr-Institut, in Berlin. The German cell aroused suspicion when members were seen around a US military facility in Hanau, near Frankfurt. Since then a 300-strong force had tracked them day and night in what became Germany's biggest counter-terrorism operation since September 11. On Tuesday afternoon, when fears grew that they were assembling a bomb, members of an elite anti-terrorist unit stormed the rural holiday house they were renting. Two were arrested immediately but the third fled through a window.

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