Boko Haram: Digging into Untold History

Today it’s little known that Islam’s holy city Medina was predominantly Jewish city in the time of Mohammad. During that time the city was called Yatrib and it was inhabited by three large Jewish tribes: Banu-Nadir (or “Sons of Nadir,”), Banu-Korayzeh, and Banu-Kainuka. Consistent with Torah-based lifestyle of tilling the land, these tribes engaged in Date palm agriculture, unlike their Bedouin non-Jewish counterparts in the region, who made a living thru caravan trade from Yemen to Syria. Politically Arabia and Israel seem worlds apart but in reality the distance between Eilat, Israel’s southernmost city and Medina is the same as between Boston and Washington DC.

This land where Mecca and Medina stand, the Arabian stretch along the Red Sea, is the same land that was inhabited in the Biblical times by Medianites. The most famous Medianite was Yitro (Jethro) – Moses’ father-in-law. He famously joined the Israelite camp and converted to Judaism, after which he “returned to his people” (Exodus 18:27) to convert them to Judaism. Even though connection between Yatrib (Medina) and Yitro(Jethro) is more phonetic than etymological, due to the one letter variance in their roots, it is certainly an interesting conjecture based on circumstantial evidence of Jewish presence in what was historically Jethro’s homeland. The only scholarly consensus is that Yatrib is a non-Arabic word, so we know that Yatrib and its predominantly Jewish population’s origins predate Arabic culture in that land.

Muslim conquest of Medina in 630CE was of the first of Muslim conquests. Prior to becoming mighty enough to conquer the city, Mohammad tried desperately to endear the Jews of Yatrib to his newfangled religion. He sought after their validation and acceptance. For 16 months, Mohammad prayed with his few early followers along with the Jews of Yatrib in the direction of Jerusalem. After that time, Mohammad realized that Jews will not ever accept him as prophet despite his initial pleading and later threats – Jews insisted that he does not match criteria of prophet in Torah. When Mohammad took over Medina, he beheaded hundreds of Jewish men there, giving the remaining choice to leave, convert or die. His next act was to attempt and erase the Jewish past of the city by renaming it ‘Medina’. Medina means simply “city”. ‘Medina’ also sounds like tribute to Medianite- the pre-Judaic pagan past of the region. Incidentally, this is also when Mohammad turned his prayers from Jerusalem toward the pagan Kabba Stone in Mecca; it remains so until this day.

These acts of Mohamad vis-à-vis Jews of Yatrib (Medina) are clear messages from him to his followers, echoing all these fourteen centuries later. Just as Mohammad showed he cannot co-exist with Jews but must convert, erase or replace them, set the tone for Islam ever since in its attitude towards non-Muslims in general. Throughout the existence of Islam, its spread into the world, and most notably today, it is being experienced in the form of jihad- “holy war” on non-Muslims. The first to experience jihad were the Jews of Yatrib. The polemic nature of Islam evolved from the insecurity Mohammad experienced in being rejected by these Arabian Jews, and even by his own tribe members (Tribe of Qurayish). Some of his tribe could not understand why he thinks he is ‘messenger’ if his message consists of Judaism and Christianity, with which they were already familiar thru hearsay. It is important to understand that this episode in Mohammad’s evolution from unknown preacher of new faith to military and political leader impacted Islam as political ideology and as religion, making the two inseparable. Tracing the roots of this union helps understand how and why Islam majority countries simply have no substantial separation of “church and state”, which impacts social and governmental structure fundamentally.

 Source: http://www.jewsnews.co.il/2014/09/16/muhammads-first-jihad/

Australia Muslim named commander of Islamic State unit

Abu Yahya ash Shami has been reported as having been killed waging jihad for the Islamic State, so it is unclear who this new commander really is, but if he is indeed Australian, he highlights one of the West’s most important new exports: jihad terrorists.

ASIO is investigating reports the head of Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has appointed a 40-year-old Sydney man to a senior military leadership role in northern Iraq.

An Iraqi news website is ­reporting that an Australian fighting with Islamic State, and who goes by the name Abu Yahya ash Shami, has been named the military commander for the town of Jalula in northern Iraq.

Citing a local source, the Iraqi News site said the Australian had proved his allegiance to Islamic State after he beheaded four ­people who refused to swear a bayat, or oath of allegiance, to Baghdadi. “The Australian was fighting in the front of Deir al-Zour (in Syria) before arriving to Jalula,” the website quotes the sources as saying. “The new commander beheaded four militants belonging to different factions (who) were detained a week ago because they refused to swear ­allegiance to Baghdadi.”

The report could not be verified and there is a possibility it is a case of mistaken identity, as the nom de guerre quoted was used by Zakaryah Raad, an Australian man who was killed while fighting with Islamic State. The report also carried a picture of Raad, who ­appeared in an Islamic State propaganda video before his death. But ASIO, which in recent weeks has issued several high-profile warnings about the threat posed by foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria, is understood to be investigating the claim.

Attorney-General George Brandis has said publicly that a number of Australians in Iraq and Syria had progressed from being mere foot soldiers and were now occupying leadership positions with jihadist groups. As many as 60 Australians are believed to be fighting in Iraq and Syria, with dozens more supporting the terrorist outfit from Australia.

Among them is former Sydney man Abu Sulayman, who is a sharia official and operational planner with Jabhat al-Nusra, al- Qa’ida’s affiliate in Syria and bitter rival of Islamic State. Sulayman is considered by ASIO to be among the most senior terrorists ever produced by Australia. The report came as more details emerged about a Brisbane father now fighting for Islamic State in Syria.

As revealed in The Weekend Australian, Afghan-born Zia Abdul-Haq, who has adopted the nom de guerre Abu Yusseph, is believed to be in a unit with other Westerners from Canada and France, after leaving a son and former wife behind to enter the conflict. He had also sought a wife in Syria, bragging to friends on Twitter that one woman had told him his fighting in the “jihad” would be his dowry to her.

Brisbane newspaper The Sunday Mail yesterday reported that Abdul-Haq was a finance officer and moved to Australia in his late 20s. He had been “brainwashed” after hearing a talk by prominent radical cleric Musa Cerantonio. Mr Cerantonio, who was deported from The Philippines this year and has been identified as one of the most influential English-speaking clerics for Western fighters in the conflict, yesterday hit out the brainwashing claims. “At the time that I gave the talk that was mentioned in the article, the Islamic State did not even exist — it was given two years before the group was even founded,” he said.

Source: http://www.jewsnews.co.il/2014/09/01/australia-muslim-named-commander-of-islamic-state-unit/

ISIS Laptop Reveals Project to Build Biological Weapons

Foreign Policy reports reveals contents of a laptop found in Syria, laying out instructions for building chemical weapons and detailing attempts to weaponize bubonic plague.

US intelligence officials discovered that one of the world’s nightmare scenarios may have some base in reality as, according to a report in Foreign Policy last Friday, a laptop was recently discovered in war-torn Syria, detailing the attempts and ambitions of the Islamic State (ISIS) to build and use weapons of mass destruction.

According to the report, the computer was discovered in the city of Idlib in north-western Syria, near the Turkish border after fierce battles in which other resistance groups captured the area, and with it an ISIS post.

Foreign policy said that the computer belonged to a Tunisian national who studied chemistry at two separate universities in his home country before leaving to join ISIS in Syria.

The Syrian rebels who captured Idlib didn’t know what was on the computer or what importance it may have and therefore passed it on to Foreign Policy reporters who initially thought that the laptop was empty.

Only after further investigation did they discover tens of thousands of folders and documents in French, English and Arabic. The computer’s contents were originally unsurprising for a terrorist organization like ISIS. Reporters found old videos of Osama Bin Laden, a guidebook for building a bomb and stealing a vehicle, and how jihadists should use disguises and fake identities to travel from country to country without being caught.

Finally, after hours of filing through the computer’s documents, Foreign Policy reporters found documents proving that the Tunisian had taught himself how to construct biological weapons for attacks that would astound the world.

Perhaps the most alarming of the documents however, detailed ISIS sanctioned work to weaponize the bubonic plague and other viruses that would have an even greater affect than that of a localized chemical attack.

“The benefits of a biological weapon are that it doesn’t come up often, and the losses are massive,” said the instructions on the laptop. “When a mouse is injected by the bacteria, the symptoms of the disease begin to show after 24 hours. It’s best to use in places like underground trains or soccer fields and it can be used in a suicide attack as well.

Alongside the instructions was also a message of religious approval for the use of such weapons – part of a Fatwa which says that, “If the Muslims can’t overwhelm the infidels in any other way, they are allowed to use weapons of mass destruction to kill everyone and erase them and their descendants from the earth.”

While the idea of ISIS establishing such devastating weapons can easily conjure fear, this isn’t the first me that terrorist organizations have brought the issue of biological weapons to the forefront of the war on extremism.

Source: http://www.jewsnews.co.il/2014/09/01/isis-laptop-reveals-project-to-build-biological-weapons/