In April 2004, Sayful Islam, head of the Luton branch of Al-Muhajiroun (Arabic: "the immigrants"), an Islamist British group, announced that he supports Osama Bin Laden "100 percent" in the quest to achieve "the worldwide domination of Islam." "When a bomb attack happens here, I won't be against it, even if it kills my own children....But it is against Islam for me to engage personally in acts of terrorism in the UK because I live here."
In an August 2004 story in the New Statesman, "Why Terrorists Love Britain," Jamie Campbell cited Mohamed Sifaoui, author of Inside Al Qaeda, that it has long been recognized by the British Islamists, by the British government, and by UK intelligence agencies that as long as Britain guarantees a degree of freedom to the likes of Hassan Butt [an overtly pro-terrorist Islamist], the terrorist strikes will continue to be planned within the borders of the UK but will not occur there.
But in January 2005, Omar Bakri Mohammed, a Syrian immigrant to the UK who headed Al-Muhajiroun, determined that the covenant of security had ended for British Muslims because of post-9/11 anti-terrorist legislation that meant "the whole of Britain has become Dar ul-Harb [the Abode of War, the territory open for Muslim conquest]." Therefore, "the kuffar [unbelievers] has no sanctity for their own life or property." Thursday's explosions mark the end of the "covenant of security."
Let's hope they also mark the end of an era of innocence, and that British authorities now begin to preempt terrorism rather than wait to become its victims. (FrontPageMagazine)
The multiple, simultaneous explosions that took place on the London transportation system were the work of perpetrators who had an operational capacity of considerable scope. There was careful planning, intelligence gathering, and a sophisticated choice of timing as well as near-perfect execution. We are faced with a deadly and determined adversary who will stop at nothing and will persevere as long as he exists as a fighting terrorist force. We are in the throes of a world war, raging over the entire globe. We are in for the long haul and we must brace ourselves for more that will follow.
The executives must be empowered to act resolutely and to take every measure necessary to protect the citizens of their country and to carry the combat into whatever territory the perpetrators and their temporal and spiritual leaders are inhabiting. The rules of combat must be rapidly adjusted and international law must be rewritten to permit civilization to defend itself. There is no doubt that international cooperation is essential. Yet this cannot replace the requirement that each and every country effectively declare itself at war with international Islamist terror and recruit the public to involve itself actively in the battle. The writer, who heads the Center for Strategic and Policy Studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, is a former head of the Mossad. (Jerusalem Post)
Anybody who tells you these bombers are fighting for the rights of Muslims in Iraq, Palestine, or Chechnya should look at the places they chose to bomb. Aldgate? The poorest and most Muslim part of the country. Edgware Road? The center of Muslim and Arab life in London and, arguably, Europe. Does anybody need greater evidence that these Islamic fundamentalists despise Muslims who choose to live in free societies, and they would enslave Muslims everywhere if they were given the opportunity? Nor is this tit-for-tat revenge for deaths in Iraq: very similar jihadist plots have been foiled in France and Germany, countries that opposed the invasion. Anybody who doubted that the fight against Islamic fundamentalism - a murderous totalitarian ideology - was always our fight should know better now. (Independent-UK)
According to witnesses, Theo van Gogh, the Dutch film-maker, who was shot by an Islamist assassin on his way to work in Amsterdam last November, tried to reason with his assailant. "Surely we can discuss this," he kept saying as the shots kept coming. Van Gogh was reacting like BBC reporters did Thursday, assuming that the man who was killing him may have some reasonable demands which could be discussed in a calm, democratic atmosphere. But sorry, old chaps, you are dealing with an enemy that does not want anything specific, and cannot be talked back into reason through anger management or round-table discussions. Or, rather, this enemy does want something specific: to take full control of your lives, dictate every single move you make round the clock and, if you dare resist, he will feel it his divine duty to kill you. (Times-UK)
When jihadist-style bombings happen in Riyadh, that is a Muslim-Muslim problem. That is a police problem for Saudi Arabia. But when al-Qaeda-like bombings come to the London Underground, that becomes a civilizational problem. Every Muslim living in a Western society suddenly becomes a suspect, becomes a potential walking bomb. Either the Muslim world begins to really restrain, inhibit, and denounce its own extremists, or the West is going to do it for them.
The greatest restraint on human behavior is what a culture and a religion deem shameful. The Muslim village has been derelict in condemning the madness of jihadist attacks. To this day, no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwa condemning Osama bin Laden. (New York Times)