Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury
Americans needs to worry at the news of release of Afghanistan-returned jihadist John Walker Lindh from prison. John was captured while fighting with the Afghan Taliban two months after the 9/11 attacks. Authorities in the United States already warned about John remaining potential violent Islamic extremist. It is most likely that a person like John Walker Lindh may pose potential threat to the American citizen. Most disturbing part about John is his letter written in 2005, in which he had expressed support for Islamic State (ISIS), saying the terror group that beheaded Americans was “doing a spectacular job”.
He wrote, “The Islamic State is clearly very sincere and serious about fulfilling the long-neglected religious obligation to establish a caliphate through armed struggle, which is the only correct method”.
John’s correspondence with journalists and other comments he made in prison formed part of the basis of a 2016 U.S. intelligence document, produced by the National Counter Terrorism Center, saying that he “continued to advocate for global jihad and to write and translate violent extremist texts.”
Concerns about John’s extremist views were the subject of a 2017 article in Foreign Policy magazine, but they have not been widely publicized. Many people, including prominent figures, had urged that his sentence be commuted, portraying him as a misguided young man who was caught up in the heightened tensions of the post 9/11 period.
One expert said John Walker Lindh would be wise to clarify his views about ISIS.
“John Walker Lindh served his time. Given the support for ISIS expressed in this letter from four years ago, it would be important for John to go on record declaring his intentions to live a peaceful and constructive life and to renounce terrorism and violence,” said Karen Greenberg, director of Fordham University’s Center on National Security. “Without that, allegations, confusion and anger will likely continue to surround him”.
It’s not only the worrying news about John Walker Lindh alone. According to media reports, as many as 108 other federal terrorist offenders are scheduled to complete their sentences and be released from the United States prisons over the next few years. Little information has been made available to the public about who, when and where these offenders will be released, or whether they still pose an ongoing threats.
The criminal justice system of the US is well equipped to prosecute and convict terrorists but are much less well postured to carry out successful rehabilitation and de-radicalization programs. What does that mean? It means, convicted terrorists like John Walker Lindh, on serving their sentences would be released thus posing a grave security threat to the American people.
Rise of radical Islam in United Kingdom and the West
Radical Islam clearly has declared a silent jihad against the Western nations. The war between radical Islam or Islamism and the Western world (most often understood as the United States and Israel) has been going on since 1979. The Islamist view of Islam implies that the ultimate survival of non-Muslim government anywhere in the world would be a defeat for the cause – or a demonstration that their view of Allah’s requirement is wrong.
According to Max Singer, the understanding that militant Islam cannot win its war leads to a second fundamental perspective: in the long run the crucial struggle is within Islam, not between Islam and the rest of the world. The final defeat of Islamism will come only when sufficient elements of the Muslim world decide that they will no longer accept the problems and costs caused by the war and its interference with progress. In other words, the Islamist war has two components: physical actions and ideological conflict. Even when the physical actions are defeated, the internal ideological struggle can continue.
He further said, “An important feature of the long-term internal conflict within Islam is that Islamists suppress Muslim leaders and thinkers who oppose the war against the West. As a result, internal Muslim public debate, especially outside Asia, has been largely one-sided because most of the other side is afraid to speak. A key turning point will be when Muslim communities decide that it is no longer acceptable to suppress non-Islamist voices. There is reason to think suppression depends on unspoken acceptance by Muslim communities, and when that acceptance is withdrawn the suppression will gradually weaken and become less effective.
“To meet the Islamist ideological challenge, Western governments and leaderships need to stop giving legitimacy and help to local Muslim organizations dominated by Islamists like the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC)”.
We need to remember, jihadists kill in the name of their religion. Some Muslim conservatives believe it lets them force their daughters to marry. When asked, Westerners say that Islam is the religion they least want their neighbors or in-laws to follow. Bestselling books such as “The Strange Death of Europe”, “Le Suicide Français” and “Submission” warn against the march of Islam.
Fear of terrorism, not least the danger that jihadists returning from Syria will cause bloody havoc at home, and the rise of anti-immigrant populism are leading governments to try to control Muslims. President Donald Trump has banned travelers from some Muslim-majority countries; France and other states have banned Muslim head- or face-coverings.
On the other hand, we are missing a serious point. Islam not only is spreading in the Western nations, even in Russia, but radical Islam and jihadist ideology are being regularly preached in the Muslim community centers and mosques on a regular basis.
Let me remind what an investigative documentary in Britain had exposed. We have seen in the video where Imam Dr. Ijaz Mian on the subject of non-Muslim laws had said, “You cannot accept the rule of the kafir [infidel]. We have to rule ourselves and we have to rule the others”, meaning, he was talking about establishing Islamic Sharia or Caliphate in Britain.
Imam Abu Usamah said, “Praises the killer of a British soldier serving in Afghanistan, stating “The hero of Islam is the one who separated his head from his shoulders”.
Imam Abdullah el-Faisal: “You have to bomb the Indian businesses, and as for the Jews you kill them physically”.
He also said, “Advocates violent Jihad against the non-Muslims and predicting that an army of Muslims will arise against the non-Muslims in England”.
Imam Dr Bilal Philips called for the overthrow of the British government and democracy saying, “They will fight in the cause of Allah. I encourage all of you to be from amongst them, to begin to cultivate ourselves for the time that is fast approaching where the tables are going to turn and the Muslims are going to be in the position of being uppermost in strength, and when that happens, people won’t get killed – unjustly”.
Do we get any idea of the degree of radicalization continuing in Britain? They are preaching jihad and caliphate and even giving provocations of bombing Indian businesses and killing Jews.
I don’t know if the British MI5 are aware of the numbers of Muslim female immigrants, especially those migrated from the European Union nations have been notoriously radicalized. In London alone, every year, a large proportion of the Muslim women are putting on hijab or burqa and by heart becoming predators. They have extreme hatred towards Jews and Christians and even consider their stay in Britain or any of the Western nations as part of jihad for ultimately bringing those nations under the “flag” of Sharia or Caliphate. Situation in Canada is even worst as radical Islam is receiving patronization from Prime Minister Justin Pierre James Trudeau. There even are rumors about Britain’s Prince Charles embracing Islam or Queen Elizabeth the direct dissident of the Prophet Mohammad.
Anti-Semitism and jihadism inside mosques
During Friday prayers, imams in the mosques are giving quotes from the verses of Sura Tawbah of Quran, which asks Muslims to kill Jews, Christians and non-Muslims. There are narrations about Allah’s commitment to Muslims of rewarding with heaven, 72-virgins and unending amusement and luxuries in the heavens, and Quran particularly encourages waging jihad. Most of the Muslim clergymen give self-interpretation or misinterpretation of Quran and of course the false interpretations of people like Jamaat-e-Islami’s funder and spiritual guru Moulana Abul Ala Moududi, where Muslims are taught to be militants and anarchists and apply force in establishing Sharia rule. There even are sermons from the imams promoting Caliphate and denouncing democracy by terming it as the “rules of Satan”.
Imams never tell the Muslims that the Quran does not claim that all the Jews and Christians are wrongdoers, instead it affirms the righteousness of both Jews and Christians (3:113–115; 3:199; 7:159; 7:168). So while the Quran criticizes some Jews for their unrighteousness, it praises others for their righteousness. In so doing, it makes no blanket claims about all Jews as a people group.
Like Muslims, Jews who believe in God and perform good deeds will be rewarded (2:62): “Those who believe, and those who are Jewish, and the Christians, and the Sabeans − any who believe in God and the Last Day, and act righteously − will have their reward with their Lord; they have nothing to fear, nor will they grieve.” Moreover, synagogues and churches, along with mosques, are praised in the Quran, as these are the places where the name of God is much mentioned (22:40).
In my opinion, any Muslim hating Jews or Christians or non-Muslims are clearly violating the Quran. But again, no one can present any acceptable argument as to why Quran promotes jihad and slaughter of non-Muslims. Again in my opinion, Islam and Quran need to be reformed, if we at all expect Muslims come out of the culture of hatred and anti-Semitism. But that might be a too wild expectation, especially in a world where radical Islam is on rise.
What those radicalized Muslims in the West say
Being an investigative and anti-militancy journalist, I have interviewed few of the radicalized Muslims in the West and was terrorized seeing Bin Laden or Abu Bakr Baghdadi in each of them. For example, a Muslim woman aged 42, who had migrated to Britain from a European nation and who was living a secular life before she went to the West gave me a huge shock when I discovered her being totally radicalized. She covered herself beneath burqa and was consistently referring to Jews, Christians and non-Muslims as infidels. As I asked, why she was living in the land of ‘infidels’ and why she does not return to her home country (a Muslim nation in Asia), she looked onto me with great surprise and said, “We are here to destroy them!”
Her husband was even a worst radicalized person with long-beard and talking about waging jihad against democracy and Western culture. He even went further saying it was his dream of having the Jews, Christians, Hindus and non-Muslim females in the Western world as his “sex slaves”. This couple is influencing their children in growing as jihadist monsters and hating their non-Muslim classmates in the schools.
Isn’t that terrible?
I also found a dentist living in New York City in the United States who had worked in Libya for years before he went to the United States under OP-1 immigration visa. This man became radicalized in Libya and was always talking about jihad and expressing hatred towards Jews and Christians. It is beyond my understanding as to how the US authorities had allowed this family in getting immigrant status.
Then of course is the story of a man named M. Sajjad Hussain, his wife Nahid Parvin Neeru and son Asif Hussain, who are currently living is Houston, Texas in the United States. For years, Sajjad was working for Pakistani spy agency Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) and had contacts with various jihadist and terrorist outfits including Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed etc. Sitting in the US, this man and his family are preaching radical Islam and anti-Semitism, while the US intelligence agencies including Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are either ignorant of the matter or are reluctant in bringing them under radar. The US intelligence establishments even are not scrutinizing the fact as to how M. Sajjad Hussain has been living in that country without any visible source of income. To my knowledge, the only amount he has been receiving is a monthly allowance paid by the Pakistani spy agency.
In London, another man named Md. Shahid Uddin Khan, his wife Farjana Anjum Khan and daughters Shehtaz Munasi Khan, Parisa Pinaz Khan and Zumana Fiza Khan are leaving posh life with the dirty money they brought into the United Kingdom in 2009. Khans had obtained immigrant status under Visa Tier 1, VAF Number 511702, by showing two million pounds as investment in properties. The National Crime Agency (NCA) in Britain did not inquire about the money this family had invested and even did not bother about the entire amount being dirty money. The family even has established a company named Zumana Investment & Properties Limited (registration number 7417417, dated October 23, 2010) in United Kingdom.
In Bangladesh, this family owns a house (House 428, Road 7, Baridhara DOHS, Dhaka), which was raided on January 17, 2019 by the Counter Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit of Bangladesh Police. During this raid, huge volume of arms, ammunition, detonators, explosives, counterfeit currency note, Islamic State propaganda materials and recruitment tools. In the seized documents, CTTC also found evidence of the Khan family’s involvement in terror financing.
Three separate cases were lodged on the same day with the Cantonment Police Station in this regard against Md. Shahid Uddin Khan, Farjana Anjum Khan, Shehtaz Munasi Khan and Parisa Pinaz Khan. These include, CR case number 4466/2009, dated December 30, 2009, under section 416, 467, 471 and 109 of the Bangladesh Penal Code, which is under trial with the Court of the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate; Case number 10, dated January 17, 2019, under section 6 (2), 7, 11 and 12 of the Anti Terrorism Act of 2009; Case number 11, dated January 17, 2019, under section 25/A of the Special Powers Act of 1974; and Case number 12, dated January 17, 2019, under section 19/A of the Arms Act of 1878.
It was also learnt that Md. Shahid Uddin Khan and members of his family are having business interests worth millions of dollars in the United Arab Emirates with notorious terrorist Dawood Ibrahim’s D-Company. But, surprisingly, members of this family are still roaming into many countries, including Russia and India and continuing their jihadist activities cheating the eyes of the law enforcement agencies.
Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury is the editor of Blitz. Follow him on Twitter Salah_Shoaib