Jihad Jane

'JihadJane' indictment alleges threat from within U.S., by Richard A. Serrano. Los Angeles Times, March 10, 2010.

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Reporting from Washington - Using e-mail, YouTube videos, phony travel documents and a burning desire to kill "or die trying," a middle-aged American woman from Pennsylvania helped recruit a network for suicide attacks and other terrorist strikes in Europe and Asia, according to a federal grand jury indictment unsealed Tuesday.

Colleen R. LaRose, who dubbed herself "JihadJane," was so intent on waging jihad, authorities said, that she traveled to Sweden to kill an artist in a way that would frighten "the whole Kufar [nonbeliever] world."

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http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/20...jihad_jane.jpg

Indictment: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. COLLEEN R. LAROSE, a/k/a “Fatima LaRose,” a/k/a “JihadJane” (PDF)

I turned in Colleen "Jihad Jane" LaRose to the FBI -- A Jawa Report Exclusive

Colleen LaRose: YouTube’s homegrown terrorist

http://smackdowncorps.org/

Besides the Colleen R. Larose indictment (linked above and also here), here are the DoJ press release and her Wiki.

This strikes me as an odd case: arrest in Oct 2009 with her agreement to detention; now, indictment Mar 2010. I suppose we will find out more as the case progresses (to a plea bargain ?).

Regards

Mike

Seriously? How is this important or even noteworthy? Would we be all so surprised if she was a white supremacist or devil worshiper?
She just happens to white, American and to have taken a shine to militant Islam? - This is far more about possible mental illness or her lack or self-esteem and feelings of alienation than it is about anything to do with national security.
Says far more about middle-aged women in America, than it does about Islam.

I mostly agree with Mr. Owen. At one level, all this shows is that some woman that the typical high-schooler would classify as a "loser", managed to get herself into even more trouble using militant Islam.
On the other hand, it does show that the paranoid delusional mindset of militant Islam is a great fit for such people and we should expect more losers to flame-out in the days to come.
But as details about her so-called co-conspirators come out, I suspect that their profile will be a little different. They will NOT all be losers. A couple may be engineers or social workers with real jobs, "nice kids" about whom nobody can believe that they would want to go out and risk life and limb to kill an obscure Swedish artist.
The artist meanwhile seems to be taking this in a spirit that is a cross between a stiff upper lip and a wild joke, and has given entertaining and rational comments about the whole thing. His estimate of Jihad Jane is close to Mr. Owen's.
Blasphemy is militant Islam's Achilles heel. I say this because I think that the first instinct of sober Westerners is to ignore this whole shindig, but there is just no way the true believers can let this be. They will continue to provide new ammunition to anyone who wants to make jokes about the "religion of peace" and "those who love death more than they love life"....its the gift that wont stop giving....

Civilian Monitors Warn of Others Like 'Jane' on the 'Net Who Are More Dangerous

While the rest of America was stunned to hear that a suburban Pennsylvania woman allegedly used the Internet identity of Jihad Jane and tried to join militant jihadists, for a group of 'Net vigilantes it was old news.

MSM has discovered a Virtual Militia.

One other type of militia merits consideration. Some analysts contend that the Internet has made “virtual” militias (and insurgencies) possible and potentially dangerous.66 That runs counter to the definition of militias used here since “virtual” militias do not control territory or assume state functions. Perhaps, though, virtual militias and insurgents should be considered a separate category. Interestingly, just as the emergence of “real” insurgents sometimes spawn the creation of counterinsurgent militias, the emergence of “virtual” insurgents has led to the formation of virtual counterinsurgent vigilantes. One example is the “Internet Haganah,” part of a network of private anti-terrorist web monitoring services, which collects information on extremist websites, passes this on to state intelligence services, and attempts to convince Internet service providers not to host radical sites.67 The logic is that it takes a network to counter a network. As insurgents and terrorists become more networked and more “virtual,” states, with their inherently bureaucratic procedures and hierarchical organizations, will be ineffective. Vigilantes, without such constraints, may be.

-- from RETHINKING INSURGENCY by Steven Metz

From one of the many links to links at Cannoneer's webpage, we have the Globe & Mail's story of Said Namouh's sentencing to "life" (possible parole in 2017), which is being appealed. From the G&M article:

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Canadian terrorist handed life sentence

Judge calls Saïd Namouh extremely dangerous, hands out the toughest sentence for a convicted Canadian terrorist

Les Perreaux
Montreal — Globe and Mail Update
Published on Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2010 11:32AM EST
Last updated on Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2010 5:37PM EST

An Islamic extremist from small town Quebec who schemed to set off bombs abroad has received the toughest sentence possible for a terrorist convicted under Canadian law.

Saïd Namouh, 37, who plotted over the Internet from his basement apartment in Maskinongé, Que. [* see below], was handed a life sentence, with no chance of parole for 10 years.

Unlike three other Canadians recently convicted for terrorism, Mr. Namouh never got his hands on bomb-making material and took few concrete steps toward carrying out his plot. .... (more in article)

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M. Namouh seems to have been more of an Psyops person (from G&M):

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Mr. Namouh, a member of the Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF),was also found guilty of trying to extort Germany and Austria into withdrawing troops from Afghanistan and other propaganda activities.

In internet jihad circles, the GIMF is known as one of the oldest and most far-reaching networks. Writing under the pseudonym “Ashraf,” Mr. Namouh submitted 1,075 postings to a GIMF site.

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When he was arrested, the initial reaction of those who knew him at Maskinongé and in the Trois Rivieres area was surprise, Maskinonge: one church, one terror suspect:

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September 15, 2007

To the RCMP, Said Namouh is a would-be bomber with possible ties to Al-Qaeda who was plotting death and mass destruction overseas.

But to the woman who rented him a cozy 3 1/2-room basement apartment in her family home for the past 18 months, Mr. Namouh was a polite, good-looking young man who bought clothes to give to the poor, played with her three children and was so sensitive that he would cry when he had girlfriend problems.

"For me, in my mind, he's not a terrorist," Jose Boudreault said yesterday outside her home in Pointe du Lac, a small community just outside Trois Rivires.

"If anything, I found him a little naive sometimes." ... (much more in article)

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However, in the months following, evidence presented in pre-trial proceedings showed a different picture of M. Namouh; for example, 'We Came To You With Slaughter':

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Quebec terror suspect berated Muslims for not fighting jihad
Stewart Bell, National Post: Thursday, January 31, 2008

- On the Internet, he was known as Ashraf. It means noble in Arabic.

But the hundreds of incendiary messages he posted to pro-al-Qaeda Web sites were anything but.

From his computer in Quebec, Ashraf disseminated articles that berated Muslims for not fighting jihad; called for war until "religion will be for Allah alone"; and bluntly advised the West that, "We came to you with slaughter."
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Growing up in Kenitra, Morocco, Mr. Namouh was not a religious zealot, his brother said yesterday from the port city, built by the French on the Sebou River.

"He did not pray, and he sometimes drank alcohol when he was in Morocco," Jamal Namouh told the National Post. "I do not think my brother could have done that."

In 2003, Mr. Namouh immigrated to Canada after marrying Carole Lessard, a waitress from Maskinonge, about 100 kilo-metres northeast of Montreal.

The couple divorced last year, and in March, 2006, Mr. Namouh rented a basement apartment in the Trois-Rivieres home of Josee Boudreault, who described her ex-tenant as a kind man.

"He would buy clothing to give to people in need," she said.

Contrary to the picture painted by his brother, his landlady said Mr. Namouh prayed regularly and abstained from drinking alcohol. He never ate meals with her family because he observed a strict Halal diet, she said.

She said she evicted him last month because he was not good at housekeeping. He never came back to collect his belongings, so she put them in his red Volkswagen Jetta, which remains parked outside her house. In recent weeks, he had returned to live with his ex-wife in Maskinonge, where he was arrested on Wednesday morning.

The arrest followed a joint investigation by Canadian and Austrian counter-terrorism authorities. Mr. Namouh is believed to be just one of several GIMF members operating from Canada. ... (more in syory)

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And so it continued, with enough evidence to convict him in Oct 2009, and to cause the judge to impose sentence last month.

Before pontificating on how serious "Jihad Jane" was or was not, I'd like to see much more evidence (sans speculation), especially about those who were "running" her (if she actually were something of a dupe).

These cases raise an important issue which is not being handled well. That is the drawing of lines (if any) between combatants and non-combatants in these irregular warfare organizations. The Psyops or Tax Collector person is more important than some grunt running about the hills with an AK or RPG. And, the former may easily go over to the active combatant side of the ledger.

Regards

Mike

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[*] Maskinongé was the home of my grandmother's primary ancestral family (Aubry dit Francoeur) from 1761. It is, indeed, an unlikely place to find an international terrorist. The Internet has broadened our horizons (and their horizons, as well).

I thought I'd toss in an exchange on this from my Facebook page. I blanked out the names of the other participants in the exchange since I don't have their permission to copy it here.

Steve Metz During the Cold War, our enemies were the best minds the other side could find, some of them brilliant. In the "long war," the bulk of our enemies are life's losers from here and around the world. I continue to think that our goal of trying to re-arrange the world to produce fewer losers is a fool's errands. There will always be losers (e.g. gangs in our culture). There has to be another way.

Yesterday at 8:52am

Participant #1 Well, looking at it another way, the enemies might have produced the best minds, but they lost the Cold War. Can we say the same thing about networked Islamist violence and the larger diaspora currently considered "global guerillas" arrayed against us?

The USSR fell. With a deterritorialized, non-state enemy, could we say the same thing is possible?

Yesterday at 8:59am

Steve Metz Well, I've been someone from the beginning who never thought AQ could "win." Its most important technique is one of the most pervasive ones for an early-stage insurgency: provoke the state (us in this context) into an over reaction which erodes its power more than it weakens the insurgents. And we've swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.

Yesterday at 9:01am

Participant #2 ...needless to say, books and dissertations have and can be written on this - but sure seems to me that the USSR collapse, mainly as Kennan said - because of its own internal contradictions. Add to that corruption, economic inefficiency, quanty v. quality emphasis and considerable military overreach - the idea that the Mujahadeen caused the USSR to collapse seems pretty silly to me. Empires collapse due to their own internal and external contradictions. And, also when they fail to prioritize well and over-react to provocations. As Steve says, we've swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. To me, this is the fundamental folly of the surge strategy in Afghanistan - as Amb. Eikenberry made clear in his memos - other strategic approaches apparently weren't even considered. At any rate, only great powers can defeat great powers - especially if they spend themselves into oblivion...

Yesterday at 9:08am

Participant #1 Possibly. But the goals of AQ aren't to win by "defeating" the US, at least not in the short time span that could be measured in decades.

Some might suggest that the goal also isn't mere survival. Rather, much as PIRA in the later years, the task at hand was to produce compelling events (propaganda of the deed) to create a strategic narrative attractive to enough in the local population to sustain it, but more importantly to communicate to a global audience, begining with the ethnic diaspora and then reaching other consumers of the news imagery worldwide.

This what was always so nettlesome about AQIZ in Anbar: Many of their most lethal, daring and photogenic events really weren't going to affect the balance of forces there. Indeed, many of the VBIED attacks that killed so many civilians likely worked against some of their legitimacy, but remained spectacular images online used to recruit volunteers and raise money through donations. AQ and its various franchises have shifted strategies throughout the GWoT, but the propaganda of the deed has remained paramount. In the end, maybe because that's what's at the heart of their effort.

Yesterday at 9:09am

Steve Metz The goals of AQ are to cause the West to collapse from exhaustion and to augment its own support. To do that, they encourage us to over extend and, in effect, chase them. And they augment their support by provoking us to validate their claim that we have invaded the Islamic world and intend to make it more secular and hence less Islamic. We willingly play along with this strategy.

Yesterday at 10:12am ·

Participant #1 Well, the goals (stated) have changed over the years. The immediate goal of forcing the US to quit propping up the dynastic or secular despotic states of the Middle East and North Africa has remained the same. The fixation from the far-enemy by AQ compared to the near-enemy by the Salafi affiliates (and some not affiliated yet) is there only because they identified the US military underpinning as the security on which these despised governments survive.

At first, the goal became to prod the US by attacking diplomatic and military assets. That failed. So they turned to daring POP involving iconic targets of interest to the American people. That didn't work. Today, I don't really think that AQ's goal to tie the US down in endemic conflict around the globe is anything more than a propagandistic point made about the obvious. AQ can't compel the US to do that which is geo-strategically stupid forever.

In the end, perhaps in McLuhanesque fashion we reach the conclusion that the violence in the POP is an end in itself, a loop wherein the act creates volunteers, donations, sympathy and a consistent narrative.which needs a machine in place to carry out the deeds. Simple. Seamless, really.

Yesterday at 10:24am ·

Steve Metz We may be talking past each other. My concern is that we believe that tactical prowess--which we've got a lot of--can compensate for a flawed strategy. To me the question isn't whether what we're doing in Afghanistan today is the right method, it's what do we hope to accomplish. Imagine we succeed in Afghanistan. We end up with a fragile ... See Moregovernment in need of assistance forever which is less likely than the Taliban to provide open bases for AQ. And the cost for that is $1 trillion or more, thousands of dead or maimed Americans, and a badly strained military. That's a very bad deal coming on the heels of a very bad deal in Iraq.

Yesterday at 10:49am ·

Participant #3 Actually the US doesn't have a lot of tactical prowess. It does a lot of "tactical stuff" but that's not the same thing. The UK in Afghanistan has been forced into performing tactically irrelevant actions because the strategy is poor.

Yesterday at 11:45am ·

Something has been floating around in the back of my mind which I thought I would toss out. Did the early Arab / Muslim expansion, say 620-720ce ever attack and win against an internally strong state? Certainly the Byzantines were in major problems in the areas that the Arabs overran and, I believe although I'm not sure, that the Persians were in a longish standing civil war as well.

So if the foundational narrative of Islam is centered around only attacking areas with weak states, wouldn't that imply that there is a propensity for their modern day wannabes, AQ in particular, to attempt to reconstruct a similar situation in the present?

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Originally Posted by SteveMetz

During the Cold War, our enemies were the best minds the other side could find, some of them brilliant. In the "long war," the bulk of our enemies are life's losers from here and around the world. I continue to think that our goal of trying to re-arrange the world to produce fewer losers is a fool's errands. There will always be losers (e.g. gangs in our culture). There has to be another way.

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Steve, I don't think we're "trying to re-arrange the world to produce fewer losers," though I do agree that any attempt to do so would be a fool's errand. We cannot produce fewer losers, but we might be able to create an order whereby 1) the losers are constrained by a host country security apparatus and 2) we create incentives for those states to share information about activities that could pose a threat to other states.

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Originally Posted by marct

Something has been floating around in the back of my mind which I thought I would toss out. Did the early Arab / Muslim expansion, say 620-720ce ever attack and win against an internally strong state? Certainly the Byzantines were in major problems in the areas that the Arabs overran and, I believe although I'm not sure, that the Persians were in a longish standing civil war as well.

So if the foundational narrative of Islam is centered around only attacking areas with weak states, wouldn't that imply that there is a propensity for their modern day wannabes, AQ in particular, to attempt to reconstruct a similar situation in the present?

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What an odd question.

Did the British Empire ever conquer an internally strong state?

Can you provide any evidence that the "foundational narrative of Islam" advocates attacking only weak "states"?

Also, how do the 9/11 attacks and the emphasis by al-Zawahiri and bin Laden on fighting the "far enemy" fit into your thesis?

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Originally Posted by Schmedlap

Steve, I don't think we're "trying to re-arrange the world to produce fewer losers," though I do agree that any attempt to do so would be a fool's errand. We cannot produce fewer losers, but we might be able to create an order whereby 1) the losers are constrained by a host country security apparatus and 2) we create incentives for those states to share information about activities that could pose a threat to other states.

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Then we should be promoting police state dictatorships, not democracies. And, as the Saudia and Pakistanis have shown, the governments we help have no problem with radicals who only attack Americans. They consider it safer to ignore them than to provoke them.

Hi Tequila,

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Originally Posted by tequila

What an odd question.

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I agree, it is an odd question :wry:.

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Originally Posted by tequila

Did the British Empire ever conquer an internally strong state?

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Actually, yes, several of them. You have to understand, and I should have made it clear in my initial post, that by "internally strong" I am not solely referring to military power; I am talking more about how cohesive the social structures of the state are and a low level of internal dissent.

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Originally Posted by tequila

Can you provide any evidence that the "foundational narrative of Islam" advocates attacking only weak "states"?

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Hmmm, I'm not saying that the foundation narrative advocates attacking weak states, only that the states that were attacked were weak. When they ran up against internally strong "states", they got the snot kicked out of them - at least during the first hundred or so years of the expansion of Islam.

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Originally Posted by tequila

Also, how do the 9/11 attacks and the emphasis by al-Zawahiri and bin Laden on fighting the "far enemy" fit into your thesis?

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Honestly, I wouldn't call it a thesis or even an hypothesis: it's just an idea that's floating around looking for plausibility indicators. As to how these particular instances would fit, that's actually pretty simple. Pastoralist groups tend to do more raids than any other group and, culturally, tend to think in terms of rapid assault, high mobility in rough terrain, and rapid dispersal - hit and run tactics in other words, followed by massive bragging to "prove" how "great" they are. The 9/11 attacks and many of their other attacks fit this model quite well.

The early conquests of Egypt, Syria, etc. wouldn't have worked at all if there hadn't been a very large segment of the populace that was being systematically and officially oppressed by the central government (i.e. the Copts and the Monophysites) - i.e an internally "weak" state.

Anyway, as I said, it's more of an idea looking for plausibility indicators ;).

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Originally Posted by SteveMetz

Then we should be promoting police state dictatorships, not democracies. And, as the Saudia and Pakistanis have shown, the governments we help have no problem with radicals who only attack Americans. They consider it safer to ignore them than to provoke them.

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Are democracies incapable of constraining losers?

Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are getting better, imo. Saudi is re-educating their whackjobs and Pakistan is finally rounding up members of the Quetta Shura and took military action in the FATA. Obviously these are self-interested moves, but that is what I was getting at when I mentioned creating incentives.

For the Love of Islam: A Second American Woman Is Arrested in Cartoonist Case. The Wall Street Journal, March 12, 2010.

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Last Easter, Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, a 31-year-old mom with a $30,000-a-year job as a medical assistant, announced to her family that she had converted to Islam. A few months later, she began posting to Facebook forums whose headings included "STOP caLLing MUSLIMS TERRORISTS!"

On Sept. 11, she suddenly left Leadville, Colo., a small town in the Rocky Mountains, for Denver, then for New York, to meet and marry a Muslim man she connected with online, her family says. Ms. Paulin-Ramirez, who is 5-foot-11 and blonde, phoned her mother and stepfather in Leadville, providing them with an address in Waterford, Ireland, they say.

Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, a 31-year-old mom, is in the custody of the Irish police, along with six other individuals, arrested as part of an investigation into a conspiracy to commit murder.

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http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/im...0312200230.jpg

notable:

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The main contact for Ms. LaRose is believed to be one of the men in Irish custody, an Algerian, who has a relationship with Ms. Paulin-Ramirez, according to a person close to matter.

A person close to the Irish police couldn't confirm whether Ms. Paulin-Ramirez and the Algerian are married.

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It will be interesting to see this Algerian’s background.

So, now we have two USAian gals involved in Internet-related marriages - with those two possibly linked. And also the Canadian cognate case with the same general format. Patience required as the facts develop.

Regards

Mike

leads with Jihad Jane, although it also links to matters more important. As to Jane, it links the WSJ article of 10 Mar which reported:

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A person familiar with the matter said Ms. LaRose has been cooperating with authorities since her arrest. She helped prosecutors in their case against seven Muslims in Ireland accused of plotting to kill cartoonist Lars Vilks, this person said.

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Newsweek reported that Jihad Jane thought the "Irish" bunch was all talk and no action.

The Irish Times reports that Four still held over 'murder plot' and Three released in 'murder plot' inquiry.

The LA Times reports that one of those released was Jamie Paulin-Ramirez.

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In another section, FP has an article, The History of the Honey Trap, citing as its 5th example:

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5. All the Single Ladies

The broadest honey trap in intelligence history was probably the creation of the notorious East German spymaster, Markus Wolf. In the early 1950s, Wolf recognized that, with marriageable German men killed in large numbers during World War II and more and more German women turning to careers, the higher echelons of German government, commerce, and industry were now stocked with lonely single women, ripe -- in his mind -- for the temptations of a honey trap.

Wolf set up a special department of the Stasi, East Germany's security service, and staffed it with his most handsome, intelligent officers. He called them "Romeo spies." Their assignment was to infiltrate West Germany, seek out powerful, unmarried women, romance them, and squeeze from them all their secrets. ....

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I'm not suggesting that AQ has a Markus Wolf running the show, or that the women here were at the same levels as the various German frauleins. Let's say it looks like a sixth example of the age-old "honey trap" technique.

Regards

Mike

From The National, Irish police hold four allegedly for links with Jihad Jane (now reduced to three by release of Jamie Paulin-Ramirez), we get more background on this "Irish" group. And, the name of the Algerian linked to both US blonds:

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David Sapsted, Foreign Correspondent

Last Updated: March 13. 2010 10:17PM UAE / March 13. 2010 6:17PM GMT

LONDON // Four Irish residents, including a US woman, remained in custody last night as anti-terrorism police continued to probe the Irish connection in the “Jihad Jane” plot to murder Lars Vilks, a Swedish cartoonist.
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The CIA alerted the Garda, the Irish police, who kept her under surveillance throughout her stay in Ireland. Her main point of contact, according to sources in Dublin yesterday, was 49-year-old Sharif Damache, an Algerian who settled in Ireland in 2000 and who became a naturalised Irish citizen two years ago.

Mr Damache, who was arrested at his home in Waterford, remained in custody last night along with his wife, Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, a 31-year-old convert to Islam from Colorado.
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Sources within the Garda have indicated, however, that her husband remained of much greater interest to them than Ms Paulin-Ramirez.

“We are not linking those arrested to any al Qa’eda cell,” one official said. “The central question is whether any of those in custody were directly involved in a plot to kill Mr Vilks.”
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An Algerian couple who run a bakery in Ballincollig – Ghamrassan Moulay-Slimane and his wife, Iles – were released on Friday evening, along with Nadah Sameh, a Palestinian woman from Tramore.

Her husband, Abd al Salam Mansur al Jahani, a Libyan who has been living in Ireland for almost a decade, remained in custody along with Danijel Orsos, a 26-year-old Croatian convert, and Mr Damache and his American wife.

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The second piece is from the NY Post, U.S. terror mom brainwashed 6-year-old son (yup, typical Post headline ;)), which has this interesting tidbit re: mom's adult Colorado contact:

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By BARRY BORTNICK in Leadville, Colo., and TODD VENEZIA in NY
Post Wire Services
Last Updated: 12:12 PM, March 14, 2010
Posted: 4:02 AM, March 14, 2010
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The boy's mom, Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, 31, converted to Islam over the last year. Her family said she struck up an Internet friendship with another Colorado radical, Najibullah Zazi, an al Qaeda associate who pleaded guilty last month in a plot to set off bombs in the New York subway system.
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The Colorado woman's parents believe she was recruited by LaRose, who they say introduced her to her Algerian husband.

Paulin-Ramirez was released by Irish authorities yesterday, although charges may still be forthcoming, said a spokesman for the Irish police.
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As she began to become more deeply involved with Islam last summer, Paulin-Ramirez hit it off with failed terror bomber Zazi.

"When I saw him [Zazi] on TV, I said 'That's the fool Jamie's been talking with,' " George said. "She was on the line with Zazi and also with 'JihadJane,' all talking at the same time."

Paulin-Ramirez befriended a Pakistani man over the Internet, and offered to help him come to the United States to take flying lessons.

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So, there may be more here. We shall see.

Regards

Mike

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Originally Posted by marct

Something has been floating around in the back of my mind which I thought I would toss out. Did the early Arab / Muslim expansion, say 620-720ce ever attack and win against an internally strong state? Certainly the Byzantines were in major problems in the areas that the Arabs overran and, I believe although I'm not sure, that the Persians were in a longish standing civil war as well.

So if the foundational narrative of Islam is centered around only attacking areas with weak states, wouldn't that imply that there is a propensity for their modern day wannabes, AQ in particular, to attempt to reconstruct a similar situation in the present?

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... IMO I think it is a very interesting and pertinent observation. But I think we need to unpack or clarify what we mean by "strong state". To provide a slightly more modern example let us look at Syria which may be desrcibed as "fierce but brittle" or a strong state (coercively speaking) with a weak civil society (socially speaking) (or, a la Gramsci, a state that "hangs in the air"). One the Syria government destroyed the Ikhwan at Hama (1982?) the Syrian's faced NO Islamic insurgency. In fact the Sunni majority groups that had supported the Ikhwan further incorporated themselves into the Ba'th superstructure and the Ikhwan themseves chose the IRA route of tacit co-operation. Aside from that it does seem that where the forces of Islam are met with overwhelming superiority they retreat. OTOH the Battle of Poiters and Tours actually brought a strong polity into existence. The relationship between military power, social stability/strength and its relationship with the Islamic targetting process remain's to be more fully explored indeed th realtionship between military power and politcial stability remains a prickly question in sociological cirlces (a la Weber). OTOH is this rally a qeustion of the nature of the polity in question? Are democracies more tempting targets over non-democracies? Its a question I have myself been deply intrigued by.

As for the foundational narrative of Islam there is very little in the way of strategic or operational guidance with regards to the types of targets to be attacked (generally, they attack in any case and develop success where possible- Blitzkrieg from the desert -while retreating and regrouping (i.e., hudna) where necessary (i.e., when encountering superior force, a la Medina) while deploying subversion and dissimulation (taqiyya) to soften up the targte prior to attacking again. However, I am reminded of a hadith in Sahih Bukhari and Muslim where Mohammed warns against his followers taking copies of the Quran (the book of the religion of peace) into non-Muslim/"hostile" regions (why one wonders?! and why are they hostile in the first place?);

Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 233 "Allah's Apostle forbade the people to travel to a hostile country carrying (copies of) the Quran".

Sahih Muslim Book 020, Number 4609 "It has been narrated on the authority of Ibn 'Umar that the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) said: Do not take the Qur'an on a journey with you, for I am afraid lost it should fall into the hands of the enemy. Ayyub (one of the narrators in the chain of transmitters) said: The enemy may seize it and may quarrel with you over it."

Why would anyone quarrel over it? What could it possibly contain that would offend anyone?

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Originally Posted by Schmedlap

Are democracies incapable of constraining losers?

Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are getting better, imo. Saudi is re-educating their whackjobs and Pakistan is finally rounding up members of the Quetta Shura and took military action in the FATA. Obviously these are self-interested moves, but that is what I was getting at when I mentioned creating incentives.

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It's not a matter of capabilitites. Democracies, particularly new, fragile ones, tend to be unwilling to constrain people who only attack outsiders, particularly disliked outsiders like the United States. The Pakistani and Saudi governments simply don't care about extremists who only attack the West. One of the many flawed assumptions of the Bush strategy was that all democracies share our priorities.

In the new issue of World Affairs, I argue that Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and our other key "allies" will do just enough to keep stringing us along, but will never address the true problem that causes violent extremism: their flawed political and economic cultures. The reason is that the elite who could change this have a vested interest in preserving it. Plus, having nice contained insurgencies that don't really threaten to overthrow them helps both keep the U.S. interested in them and toning down pressure for political and economic reform.

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Originally Posted by bourbon

For the Love of Islam: A Second American Woman Is Arrested in Cartoonist Case. The Wall Street Journal, March 12, 2010.

http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/im...0312200230.jpg

notable:

It will be interesting to see this Algerian’s background.

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of Heath Ledger's Joker???

Why sooooo serious???

Contrary to CNN's headline, 2 charged in 'plot to kill Swedish cartoonist', the two males were charged with much lesser crimes than conspiracy to murder:

Quote:

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March 16, 2010 -- Updated 1335 GMT (2135 HKT)

(CNN) -- Irish authorities said Tuesday they have charged two men .....

The two men appeared in Waterford District Court on Monday night, the Courts Service of Ireland said. ......

The first man, Ali Charaf Damache, was charged with making a menacing call to an individual.

The other man, Abdul Salem Monsour Khalil al Jahani, was charged with failure to produce a valid passport or other valid document to establish his identity, contrary to the Immigration Act 2004.

The Irish Times reported that al Jahani admitted telling investigators he gave a false name when he came to the Republic of Ireland to claim asylum in July 2001.

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Both men were remanded into custody until their next court appearance Friday.

Damache is the Algerian with links to both Jihad Jane and Jihad Jamie.

I think these cases are relevant with regard to Islamist aspirations to circumvent stereotypes.

When Daniel Patrick Boyd and friends made the news, I mentioned it to a retired senior MI guy who blew it off as unimportant because he didn't believe that Boyd was really connected directly to AQ. That seemed a strange reaction since it really doesn't matter whether or not he was connected to anybody. What matters is what Boyd was preparing to do, not what organizational credentials he did or did not have.

Likewise, these women may be nuts, but I think it is worth noting that they don't fit the typical profile.

in a superseding indictment - DoJ Press Release and Superseding Indictment.

The superseding indictment charges Ramirez with one count of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison. The charges against LaRose remain unchanged, and carry a maximum potential sentence of life in prison.

Regards

Mike