This week a group of Kurdish fighters battling Islamic State militants in Northern Syria successfully captured a key district in Kobane. They have now gained control of 80% of the town, including key locations such as the police headquarters, according to BBC News. The Kurdish fighters have been playing an important role in the battle against IS since September 2014. A look at the fascinating and at times tragic history of the Kurdish people can give some insight into how they have become increasingly important to events in the Middle East.
Kurds belong to the Iranian section of the broad family of Indo-European peoples, but details of their exact origins are hard to confirm. Links can be found to the Medes, a tribe from the sixth century BCE who conquered Assyria and founded an empire that included what is now Iran and central Anatolia. The Medes political influence came to…
French police were reportedly warned more than a year ago about the radical views of Ayoub El-Khazzani, the 25 year-old Moroccan who attempted a massacre on a high-speed train.
Round Up, One Hour Compilation of how Islam is Ruining Europe and America
Countless footage and evidence of how Islamic immigration to Western society will inevitably destroy it. No one can deny that Islam is a dangerous religion after watching this video. I AM NOT A RACIST. I AM NOT A NAZI. I simply believe Islam as a religion is dangerous and does not belong in any western or civilized society and my evidence in this video proves that statement. How can Islam be a religion of peace but cause so much sadness and devastation?
The battle plan to “end the world” is described in six phases (three of which have already passed) – ripping pages from al-Qaeda’s original plans to defeat the west, in a graphic illustration of how ISIS sees itself as the true heirs to Osama Bin Laden’s legacy.
Phase 1 “Awakening” 2000-2003: Islamic State calls for “a major operation against the U.S. .. to provoke a crusade against Islam.”
Phase 2 “Shock and Awe” 2004 – 2006: Islamic State will lure U.S. into multiple theatres of war, including cyber-attacks and establish charities across the Muslim and Arab world to support terrorism.
Phase 3 “Self-reliance” 2007-2010: Islamic State will create “interference” with Iraq’s neighboring states with particular focus on Syria.
Phase 4 “Reaping/extortion/receiving” 2010-2013: Islamic State will attack “U.S and Western interests” to destroy their economy and replace the dollar with silver and gold and expose Muslim governments’ relations with Israel and the U.S.
Phase 5 Declaring the Caliphate 2013-2016: Not much details offered here. The document just says, “The Caliphate According to The Prophet.”
Phase 6, Open Warfare 2017-2020: Islamic State predicts faith will clash with non-believers and “Allah will grant victory to the believers after which peace will reign on earth.”
The document urges followers of al-Qaeda and the Taliban to join the Islamic State in overthrowing Arab governments who have relations with the U.S. and Israel, unlike al-Qaeda, which believed it was “important to weaken the U.S before launching an armed revolt in Arab states and establishing a caliphate.”
In response to the document, a senior ranking Israeli official said that in the Middle East the world faces two threats – from Islamic State and from Iran. “We need not strengthen one at the expense of the other. We need to weaken both and prevent the aggression and arming of both,” he warned.
Alistair Baskey, deputy spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council said Islamic State is being monitored “closely to see whether their emergence will have a meaningful impact on the threat environment in the region.”
The document builds on evidence that Islamic State is expanding into the region where the September 11 attacks were born. A united Taliban, backed by the hundreds of millions of dollars of Iraqi oil revenue now enjoyed by Islamic State, would be a “game-changer,” officials said.
The document warns that “preparations” for an attack in India are underway and predicts that an attack will provoke an apocalyptic confrontation with America: “Even if the U.S tries to attack with all its allies, which undoubtedly it will, the (entire global Muslim community) will be united, resulting in the final battle.”
A war in India would magnify Islamic State stature and threaten the stability of the region, said Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution who served more than 30 years in the CIA. “Attacking in India is the Holy Grail of South Asian jihadists.”
Pakistan Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry denied the presence of Islamic State in the region, calling it only “a potential threat.”
Unlike al-Qaida, whose focus was the United States and other western nations, the document said Islamic State leaders believe that’s the wrong strategic goal. “Instead of wasting energy in a direct confrontation with the U.S., we should focus on an armed uprising in the Arab world for the establishment of the caliphate,” the document said.
The failure to target the radical Islamic ideas has given the group breathing room to spread throughout the world much like Hitler did.
“We did a lousy job predicting what Hitler was going to do in the 1920s, 1930s – honestly, we blew it,” Cooper said. “It’s hard to take seriously or believe that such hatred was real or would be possible. They made jokes about Jews, degraded Jews but nobody believed that they would be capable of what they were saying. So now, when groups, like [Islamic State] come along and say they are going to do A B and C, you have to take them for their word.”
On this day in 1096, the armies of the First Crusade officially set out for the Holy Land. They were responding to Pope Urban II’s call the previous November for people of the faith to travel to Jerusalem and liberate the Church of the Holy Sepulchre from the Muslims. The pope chose August 15 because it is the date of the Feast of the Assumption.
His armies were preceded by the so-called People’s Crusade, which was organized several months earlier by the itinerant preacher Peter the Hermit and decimated by the Seljuks in Anatolia before ever making it to Jerusalem.
While reclaiming Jerusalem was the pope’s nominal goal, he was also responding to an appeal for help from Alexios I Komnenos, the Byzantine emperor in Constantinople, who too was fighting off Seljuk Muslims from the east. Only on June 7, 1099, the pope’s Crusaders, led by Raymond of Toulouse, Robert of Normandy and Tancred, arrived in Jerusalem, which the Fatimids of Egypt had by then wrested from Seljuk control. After a siege of more than a month, the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem on July 15. Their new Kingdom of Jerusalem lasted until it was routed – almost completely – by Saladin in 1187. The Crusades continued until early in the 14th century.
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German police attempt to quell riots in Hamburg between Kurds and Islamist radicals. (Photo: Screenshot from N24 video)
Spiraling levels of violent crime perpetrated by immigrants from the Middle East and the Balkans are turning parts of Duisburg, a key German industrial city, into “areas of lawlessness” — areas that are becoming de facto “no-go” zones for police, according to a confidential police report that was leaked to the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel.
The report, produced by the police headquarters of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany (and also the state with the largest Muslim population in Germany), warns that the government is losing control over problem neighborhoods and that the ability of police to maintain public order “cannot be guaranteed over the long term.”
Duisburg, which has a total population of around 500,000, is home to an estimated 60,000 mostly Turkish Muslims, making it one of the most Islamized cities in Germany. In recent years, however, thousands of Bulgarians and Romanians (including Sinti and Roma “gypsies”) have flocked to Duisburg, creating a volatile ethno-religious cauldron.
According to Der Spiegel:
“There are districts where immigrant gangs are taking over entire metro trains for themselves. Native residents and business people are being intimidated and silenced. People taking trams during the evening and nighttime describe their experiences as ‘living nightmares.’ Policemen, and especially policewomen, are subject to ‘high levels of aggressiveness and disrespect.’
“In the medium term, nothing will change, according to the report. The reasons for this: the high rate of unemployment, the lack of job prospects for immigrants without qualifications for the German labor market and ethnic tensions among migrants. The Duisburg police department now wants to reinforce its presence on the streets and track offenders more consistently.
“Experts have warned for some time that problem neighborhoods could become no-go areas. The president of the German Police Union, Rainer Wendt, told Spiegel Online years ago: ‘In Berlin or in the north of Duisburg there are neighborhoods where colleagues hardly dare to stop a car — because they know that they’ll be surrounded by 40 or 50 men.’ These attacks amount to a ‘deliberate challenge to the authority of the state — attacks in which the perpetrators are expressing their contempt for our society.'”
The leak of the document comes amid a spike in attacks on police by mobs of immigrants, not only in Duisburg, but across the country.
In the Duisburg neighborhood of Marxloh, for example, a horde of Lebanese immigrants on June 29 attacked two police officers who were attempting to arrest two men for smoking cannabis on a public sidewalk. Within minutes, the officers were surrounded by more than 100 men who tried to prevent the arrests from taking place. Ten squad cars and dozens of police reinforcements were required to rescue the two officers.
Also in Marxloh, two men who got into a fight on June 24 used their cellphones to call their friends for backup support. Within minutes, more than 300 people had gathered at the scene. At least 100 police officers attempted to separate the two groups, but the mob quickly turned on the police. According to Duisburg police spokesperson Ramon van der Maat, “It happens time and time again, we are called to an incident that at first does not seem so bad. But then we need nine, ten or eleven police cars to restore order.”
In Gelsenkirchen, another city in North Rhine-Westphalia, two police officers on July 24 tried to pull over a driver who ran a stoplight. The driver got out of the car and attempted to flee on foot. When police caught up with him, more than 50 people appeared from virtually nowhere to prevent the suspect’s arrest. A 15-year-old attacked a policeman from behind and began strangling him, rendering him unconscious. Massive amounts of police reinforcements and pepper spray were needed to bring the situation under control.
In Berlin, some 30 members of rival immigrant gangs got into a fight on June 24 outside a nightclub in the Neukölln district of Berlin. After police arrived, the mob began attacking the officers. More than 60 police officers were needed to restore order.
Also in Berlin, dozens of police officers were deployed to break up a brawl between 50 members of two rival immigrant families at a public playground in Neukölln on June 4. The melee began when two young boys got into a fight, which quickly spiraled out of control after adult family members got involved on behalf of each of the boys.
One day earlier, more than 90 police officers were deployed to break up a fight between 70 members of rival immigrant clans at a public playground in Moabit, an inner city neighborhood in Berlin. The fight began when two women got into an argument over a man, and turned violent after more and more family members got involved. Two police officers were injured.
On June 8, more than 50 police officers were deployed to break up a brawl at a wedding reception for Bosnian immigrants in the Tempelhof district of Berlin. The melee began when two wedding guests got into an argument that led to fisticuffs. Within moments, more than a dozen other people joined in. As soon as the police arrived, however, the rival clans stopped fighting each other and began attacking the officers. One of the wedding guests hit a police officer over the head with a chair; the officer was critically wounded. Other officers were attacked with bottles, while still others were spit upon and verbally abused.
In an interview with the German newsmagazine Focus, the head of the police union in North Rhine-Westphalia, Arnold Plickert, warned of the emergence of no-go zones in the cities of Cologne, Dortmund, Duisburg and Essen. “Several rival rocker groups as well as Lebanese, Turkish, Romanian and Bulgarian clans are fighting for supremacy of the streets,” he said. “They make their own rules; here the police have nothing more to say.”
In an August 2011 interview with the newspaper Der Westen, Bernhard Witthaut, Chief Police Commissioner of Germany, revealed that immigrants have been imposing “no-go” zones in German cities at an alarming rate.
The interviewer asked Witthaut: “Are there urban areas — for example in the Ruhr — districts and housing blocks that are ‘no-go areas,’ meaning that they can no longer be secured by the police?” Witthaut replied:
“Every police commissioner and interior minister will deny it. But of course we know where we can go with the police car and where, even initially, only with the personnel carrier. The reason is that our colleagues can no longer feel safe there in twos, and have to fear becoming the victim of a crime themselves. We know that these areas exist. Even worse: in these areas, crimes no longer result in charges. They are left to themselves. Only in the worst cases do we in the police learn anything about it. The power of the state is completely out of the picture.”
The threat posed by immigrant clans has been growing for many years. In October 2010, Der Spiegel published an article — “Large Arab Families: The State Cowers in Fear of Criminal Clans” — which warned of the emergence in Germany of a “parallel society of criminality” run by “immigrant mafia clans with thousands of members” who are “taking advantage of legal loopholes, social welfare services and international contacts with dominant organized crime groups.” The article said the state was helpless to confront the problem because German authorities were “pussyfooting around.”
According to Der Spiegel:
“The gangs traffic in heroin and cocaine, run brothels or are active in the contraband smuggling business. The brutality with which they carry out their activities has made them very powerful, the police are afraid of them. The state is passive with respect to these clans, the politicians ignore the phenomenon.
“This negligence has, over the years, enabled the emergence of a criminal parallel society. This would not have happened if the authorities had acted early and decisively: As early as 2004, a Commission of the Federal Criminal Police (BKA) warned that the ethnic groups were out of control and also warned about the so-called Mhallamiye-Kurds [an Arab-speaking ethnic group with roots in southern Anatolia], including the Bremen-based clan known as Family M.
“At the time, special investigators from federal and state governments criticized the lack of any efforts at integration and attacked the German judiciary. It was said that due to misconceived tolerance, the courts exacerbated the problems with their persistent lenience.
“The report warned of ‘insular ethnic subcultures that were already firmly established under considerable abuse of the existing weaknesses of the federal government’s immigration and asylum law.’
“Today these criminal structures are so entrenched that they ‘could only be partially dismantled,’ and this only with the support and cooperation of ‘all relevant authorities, judicial assistance and the expansion of criminal tactical investigative measures.’ In other words: actually never.”
The article reveals that some delinquents possess more than a dozen different identities, and that it is common for them to continue collecting social welfare benefits because German privacy laws prevent police from being informed of a suspect’s whereabouts.
According to a police investigator interviewed by Der Spiegel, the immigrant clans “view German society as one to be plundered; they see us as born losers.” This is unlikely to change anytime soon, he added, because there are nearly 1,000 children in the clans in Bremen alone.
In her book titled “The End of Patience,” the late German juvenile court judge Kirsten Heisigwarned about the growing danger posed by the so-called ethno-clans:
“A family, father, mother, 10 to 15 children, in some cases up to 19 children, emigrated from Lebanon. Some children were born in the ‘homeland,’ others in Germany. Before the mothers give birth to their last child, they already have grandchildren. Therefore, a clan increases at breathtaking speed. In official documents, the nationality of the families is given as ‘stateless,’ ‘unknown,’ ‘Lebanese’ or increasingly ‘German.’ It refers to government social welfare transfers and child benefits.
“An extended family easily generates hundreds of police investigations. If drug trafficking or other illegal transactions intrude on the turf of a rival clan or even of gangs from different ethnic backgrounds, the problem is solved by killing each other, or at least attempting to do so.
“The female family members are focused predominantly on theft while the males commit crimes from all sectors of the Penal Code: drug and property crimes, threats, robbery, extortion, bodily harm, sexual offenses and pimping to murder. The children grow up largely unchecked in these criminal structures.”
According to Roman Reusch, a former top public prosecutor in Berlin, young people born into the immigrant clans “are consistently trained to become professional criminals.” He said the youths were growing up in an environment in which “the most serious crimes are completely normal.” He added: “They have developed a self-service mentality. They are determined to take whatever they want, whenever they want, and as often as they want.” This makes them an “ideal reservoir for the foot soldiers of organized crime.”
After Reusch attempted to initiate a crackdown on the clans, he was summarily removed from his post. His politically correct successor had a clear message for how he would henceforth deal with the criminals: “I do not like the word ‘toughness.'”
Back in Duisburg, the newspaper Rheinische Post offered a glimpse into the reality of German multiculturalism by means of an interview with a streetcar driver. “I wish I would not have to drive the train through this neighborhood [Marxloh],” he said, adding that he often has to apply the brakes because immigrant children are playing on the tracks. “If they are chased away by the police, they are immediately back again as soon as the officers are gone.”
As for those riding the trains, there are far more fare evaders than paying passengers, because conductors are afraid they will be assaulted if they ask immigrants to present their tickets.
Duisburg city councilman Volker Mosblech expressed his frustration with the intractability of the situation in Marxloh: “When I say that steps must be taken to ensure immigrants comply with rules and regulations, I’m immediately branded as a far right extremist. But order is exactly what is needed.”
Nearly a half-decade ago, Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted that German multiculturalism has “utterly failed.” Speaking to a meeting of her center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in Potsdam in October 2010, Merkel said:
“We are a country which at the beginning of the 1960s actually brought [Muslim] guest workers to Germany. Now they live with us and we lied to ourselves for a while, saying that they will not stay and that they will have disappeared again one day. That is not the reality. This multicultural approach — saying that we simply live side by side and are happy about each other — this approach has failed, utterly failed.”
At the time, many voters had hoped that Merkel’s comments would transform the debate over mass immigration to Germany. Since then, however, immigration, especially from the Muslim world, has continued unabated.
Germany is now home to the largest number of immigrants (8.2 million) of any member state of the European Union. Germany also has the second-largest Muslim population (5 million) in the EU.
Germany continues to be the recipient of the largest number of asylum applications in the EU. Germany received more than 200,000 asylum-seekers in 2014, and that number is expected to more than double by the end of 2015.
According to the latest statistics, more than 179,000 people applied for asylum in Germany during the first six months of 2015. Most were from Afghanistan, Albania, Iraq, Kosovo, Serbia and Syria.
Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook. Follow him on Twitter
After books, action. Author of twobookscriticalofIslamic fundamentalism, journalist MireilleValettejust foundedthe Swiss AssociationvigilanceIslam (ASVI), to“bring togetherthose concerned aboutthe Islamizationof Switzerlandand Europe,” explained Timeat the end ofJuneIt now hasseveral dozen members. What for?Interview.
Mireille Valette, why create this association?
Because the development of a literal Islam in Switzerland favors the claims contrary to our values, equality between men and women, for example, and bears generally affecting the secular character of our society. Gradually we come to accept requests for halal meals, medical examination of Muslim women by women, the veil in public places or schools. In the past, girls are so designated as sexual objects and boys as potential predators.
The creation of an association against Islamism would it not have been clearer? You shuffle the debate.
Thorny problem. The literal Islam considers the Koran as perfect. However, this book contains precepts, injunctions regarding such unacceptable amputation of thieves, slavery, women, polygamy, treatment of religious minorities, etc.
In your opinion, can not be a Muslim without being Islamist?
One can, fortunately. But when in the Tribune de Geneva from July 7, Gottfried Locher, president of the Swiss Council of Religions, explains a point to debate with leaders recognized Swiss Muslims is the issue of “freely leave his religion” and that the debate ” will be hot “because” deny his faith in Islam is not a sinecure, “I conclude that these religious leaders who say all year long they comply with Swiss law in fact does not meet the one of its basic components, the freedom of conscience. Can they really be considered integrated … moderate Muslims? And the three imams interviewed by this time from April 30, including that of the great mosque of Geneva, who refuse to condemn the stoning and polygamy, they represent Islam or Islamism? As our association, “there is no watertight division” between the two approaches.
Our societies have accepted their own Christian Diversity. Why not adapt to certain requests of Muslims?
Which ones? I do not accept any compromise on the claims which are or bigoted or reactionary. Those relating to women, morals or freedom of expression. It is very weakened. Self-censorship is widespread. The intolerance of the devotees is so integrated that deprogrammed early manifestations of our cultural heritage. See recently Britten’s opera. On his blog, Hani Ramadan, director of the Islamic Center, attributes all the ills of the planet “Zionism” without arousing the slightest indignation. Now the radicalization of Muslim communities in Europe and Switzerland is accelerating, especially among youth.
The University of Fribourg Switzerland has launched a Center for Islam “include Muslims in a scientific dialogue, subject to qualitative criteria of rationality.” It is opposed by the UDC. What do you think?
Basically, I was favorable. I am more after making a survey to be released in September. The center will address such professionals in contact with Muslims. I fear alas whether example to explain to healthcare professionals how to “treat the Muslim woman” to fit his beliefs rather than teaching them how to understand that Switzerland, patients are treated on an equal basis regardless of their religion or gender.
You condemn the “convenience of the elites face retrograde claims of Muslim communities.” In Geneva, in which facts are you referring to?
The scarf girls is accepted in all schools. A prayer room was installed Lullier. An opera by Britten was canceled and rescheduled. Left, particularly the Greens, no critical debate on Islam or on the sailing is possible on behalf of the refusal to stigmatize.
Your association has set itself the aim of participating in political debate. How?
By entering for example the collection of signatures on the initiative on banning the full veil in Switzerland. I also would dream to launch an initiative banning the wearing of headscarves by students in Geneva.
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