This Is How Children Become Jihadists

France 24: 'Of Fathers and Sons,' a bleak look at children training for jihad

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - A group of children giggle as they play in a dusty, barren landscape near their home in northern Syria, but this is no ordinary game of catch, for their ball is a live bomb.

The macabre game of chicken is one of the most blood-chilling scenes in "Of Fathers and Sons," filmmaker Talal Derki's disturbing new expose on the grip of Islamism in his native Syria.

"This is the scene that broke my heart," Derki told AFP in an interview in Los Angeles this week, recalling the blood-chilling episode.

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WNU Editor: To say that these kids are lost is an understatement. Unfortunately .... many will embrace the hate that their fathers have taught them, and they will continue to pass it on to their children in the future.

Inside The Jihadi Mind

Terrorism Watch: Inside the Jihadi Mind: Understanding Ideology and Propaganda

There is increasing recognition from politicians and policy makers, including by both President Barack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron at the UN General Assembly in September 2015, that the ideology of jihadi movements must be countered to undermine the threat. Its combination of theology and political objectives needs to be uprooted through rigorous scrutiny, and sustained intellectual confrontation.
After the 9/11 attacks, Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda had approximately 300 militants. ISIS alone now has, at a low estimate, 31,000 fighters across Syria and Iraq. Understanding how ideology has driven this phenomenon is essential to containing and defeating violent extremism.

After the 9/11 attacks, Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda had approximately 300 militants. ISIS alone now has, at a low estimate, 31,000 fighters across Syria and Iraq. Understanding how ideology has driven this phenomenon is essential to containing and defeating violent extremism.

WNU Editor: This is a good compilation. The full report is here.

Today's Islamist Extremists Are Far More Dangerous Than Al Qaeda

ISIS is rejecting the leadership of al Qaeda. What's the difference between the two radical jihadist organizations? WSJ's Jason Bellini has #TheShortAnswer

The New Jihad -- Margaret Coker, Wall Street Journal

A new generation of Islamist extremists battle-hardened in Iraq and Syria sees the old guard of al Qaeda as too passive.

Last week, a self-described heir to the Prophet Muhammad declared himself the supreme leader of a new Islamic state stretching from eastern Syria to northern Iraq. How did Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the nom de guerre of a mediocre Iraqi religious scholar in his mid-40s, outmaneuver al Qaeda as the new vanguard of jihadist ideology? How did he and his followers—armed with Kalashnikovs, smart phones and their ominous black banner—so suddenly take over the campaign to rid the Muslim world of Western and secular influence?

The rise of Mr. Baghdadi and his newly proclaimed "caliphate" highlights what had been a closely held secret of the Sunni jihadist movement: a split in the ranks that had been festering for years. It pits a new generation of shock troops hardened by battle in Iraq and Syria against al Qaeda veterans who had built the movement but were increasingly seen as too passive, both politically and theologically.

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My Comment: ISIS has the money, resources, territory, and determination to succeed in creating an Islamic Caliphate .... while Al Qaeda .... for many radical Muslims .... has become yesterday's news.

Islamic Fanatics Have Made Jihad A Global Conflict

Fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria carry their weapons during a parade at the Syrian town of Tel Abyad, near the border with Turkey. Reuters

Radical Onslaught: Body Count Mounts As Islamic Fanatics Wage Global War -- Perry Chiaramonte, FOX News

From the Middle East to Russia, and from Africa to Asia, the bloody tide of jihad is rising as increasingly fragmented terror groups battle governments and each other for power and property.

Daily reports of the terror group Islamic States of Iraq and Syria/Levant, or ISIS, advancing toward a caliphate in Iraq have supplanted equally horrific news from Nigeria, where Boko Haram slaughtered schoolboys and kidnapped girls to sell into slavery. All the while, terror attacks in the name of Islam have continued in China, where members of the Islamic sect known as Uighurs are suspected of mass stabbing attacks, and Kenya, where the Muslim terrorist group al-Shabaab murdered 48 people a week ago.

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My Comment: I commented after the death of Osama Bin Laden that even though the founder and leader of Al Qaeda had been killed .... the philosophy and ideology had not. And while many in the Muslim community never approved of the methods that Bin Laden employed .... a significant minority did .... and still do today. The global Jihad movement has only a few tens of thousands of soldiers spread out throughout the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Russia .... but they have tens of millions who support their cause and objectives, and as long as this situation exists .... global Jihad and the wars that it spawns will be with for us for a very long time.

How To Defeat Islamic Extremism

Defeating Jihad -- Dilip Hiro, L.A. Times

To finish the war against Islamist terrorism, the U.S. and its allies need different approaches to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

If the 11-year war against jihadist terrorism is to succeed, then its leaders must change their approach. So far, the U.S. and its NATO allies have approached jihadist violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan as a single problem, to be met with a single strategy.

But success will require a more nuanced parsing of who is conducting jihad and why, because the jihadists are not a homogenous group.

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My Comment: An optimistic viewpoint on how to defeat radical Islam .... and one that I do not share.

The Evolution Of The Global Jihadist Movement -- A Commentary

Photo: Chechen commander Shamil Basayev. Photo from Sydney Morning Herald

Russia's New Age Terrorist, And What He Tells Us About The Global Jihadist Movement -- The Telegraph

Back in 2004, the Russian jihad commander who founded the organisation which carried out this week’s murderous attack in Moscow set about writing an inspirational manifesto for his followers.

He turned, bizarrely enough, to the Brazilian New Age novelist Paulo Coelho for inspiration.

“In late March of last year,” Shamil Basayev wrote in the preface of The Book of the Mujahid, “I had two weeks of spare time when I got hold of Warrior of the Light: A Manual. I wanted to derive benefits for the mujahideen from this book and this is why I rewrote most of it, removing some of the excesses.”

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My Comment: This is one of the best commentaries that I have read on the Global Jihadist movement in a long time .... this is a must read.

Unable To Define the Enemy

Faisal Shahzad is suspected of driving a bomb-laden vehicle into New York's Time Square. Photograph: Orkut.com/Reuters

Times Square Suspect: The ‘Foreclosure Terrorist’?

Faisal Shahzad is a Muslim terrorist motivated to kill by his religion, not by the loss of his house to the bank.

It is fascinating to see how the authorities and the major media outlets avoid the words “Islam” and “Muslim” in connection to the failed Times Square bombing. In both this piece in Time and in this piece in the New York Times the word “Islam” is only used in the name of the city of Islamabad in Pakistan.

The Times uses the word “Muslim” once: “At his news conference, Mr. Bloomberg warned against any backlash against Pakistanis or Muslims in New York, saying, ‘We will not tolerate any bias.’”

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My Comment: Being a Canadian with European roots, I have a non-American perspective on seeing how different Governments and the media define Islamic radicalism and Islamic terrorism. For example, in Eastern Europe everyone knows that Islamic terrorism and Islamic radicalism is done using Islam as the moral justification for their actions. Western Europe is now also the same, with places like Britain sometimes splitting hairs on defining Islamic radicalism. Asia holds no punches when it comes to this issue .... with countries like China and India being blunt on what is Islamic radicalism, and even more forceful in their response to it.

The U.S. and (to a lesser extent) Canada are completely blinded to defining Islamic radicalism and the jihad that they follow. If there was ever a case of political correctness running amok .... this will be exhibit A. Fortunately .... unlike the U.S. government and much of the main stream media .... the American public (by vast majorities) do not share this point of view.

In This War, Islamists Have Found A Shared Strategy. We Haven't -- A Commentary

The body of Islamic Jihad commander Muhammad Abdallah, killed in an Israeli air strike, is carried during his funeral in Nusseirat in the central Gaza Strip, 28 December 2007. Abdallah was killed in an Israeli air strike, and is one of six Palestinian militants killed in separate Israeli attacks on Thursday. (Wissam Nassar/MaanImages)

From The Telegraph:

David Miliband is misguided to claim that the terrorist threat is disaggregated and heterogeneous, writes Matthew d'Ancona.

The inauguration of Barack Obama on Tuesday will be a festival of hope, generational change and soaring rhetoric. But the predominant emotion will be relief: goodbye President Bush, squinty dynast and low-IQ ideologue. Welcome, President Obama, brilliant, handsome and sensible person. Please, sir, can we have our planet back? The world will click the heels of its ruby slippers and sigh: There's no place like home. Everything will be OK now.

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My Comment: Liberals like President Obama and Hilary Clinton are of the firm belief that their "anti-Bush" policies will help to protect America. A majority of Americans are also of the same opinion.

Critics (like myself) can only voice an opposite point of view. We know that we are right .... but we hope that we are wrong.

President Obama and his administration are of the belief that they are right .... and are not even thinking that they are wrong.

Because critics like myself are not in a position to implement strategy and policy, our options are only limited to the following. If they (the Obama administration) are wrong .... and the worse happens .... they must be taken to task for what they have done. They must accept the responsibilities and consequences for their bad decisions, and we (in turn) must position ourselves to convonve them that their strategies were wrong, and that President Bush's were right.

The Patriot Act, Guantanamo, the war on terror, defining properly Islamic jihad and all of its content, FISA, rendition, water boarding ... all of the measures that have protected us for the past 7 years must be brought back .... or at least looked at.

There is a part of me that fears that I will be saying a lot of "I told you so" in this blog in the next year or two .... that the worst will happen. I hope that I am wrong.