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 Converts
to Terrorism
New Jihadist replacements...
[by
Daniel Pipes] 12/12/05
Converts
to Islam are taking over the terrorist operations previously
carried out mainly by Muslim-born immigrants and their children.
This was
dramatically illustrated when a Belgian convert to Islam, Muriel
Degauque, 38, blew herself up near Baghdad on November
9 in a suicide attack on American troops, becoming the first
Christian-born Western woman to kill herself for Islamist purposes.
And of the fourteen
people arrested because of connections to Degauque, half
were converts to Islam. In neighboring Holland,
a just published government report specifically worries about
radicalized converts.
Contributor
Daniel Pipes
Daniel
Pipes is director of the Middle
East Forum, a member of the presidentially-appointed
board of the U.S.
Institute of Peace, and a prize-winning columnist
for the New York Sun and The Jerusalem
Post. His most recent book, Miniatures: Views
of Islamic and Middle Eastern Politics (Transaction
Publishers) appeared in late 2003. His website, DanielPipes.org,
the single most accessed source of information specifically
on the Middle East and Islam, offers an archive and
a chance to sign-up to receive his new materials as
they appear. [go to Pipes index]
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Islamist terror organizations particularly prize converts. They
know the local culture and blend in. They cannot be deported.
They can hide their religious affiliation by avoiding mosques,
lying low, even drinking
alcohol and taking drugs to maintain their cover. One
guide counsels would-be suicide bombers going to Iraq to "wear
jeans, eat doughnuts, and always carry your Walkman."
Converts who either carried out a terrorist operation or were
jailed come from many Western countries. Here is a partial listing.
(Converts as yet only suspected, arrested, or indicted will be listed
in a separate article at my Web site, www.DanielPipes.org.)
-
Australia: British-born Jack
Roche, nine years in jail for trying to bomb the Israeli
embassy in Canberra.
-
France: David
Courtailler, four years for abetting terrorists. Pierre
Richard Robert, life for planning terrorist attacks
in Morocco. Ruddy
Teranova, three years for physically attacking a moderate
Muslim.
-
Germany: Steven
Smyrek, seven years for planning a suicide mission
for Hezbollah.
-
Italy: Domenico
Quaranta, twenty years for setting fire to a Milan
subway station and trying to attack ancient Greek temples
in Agrigento, Sicily.
-
Netherlands: Jason
Walters, the son of a black American father and a Dutch
woman, belonged to the Hofstad Network and threw a hand
grenade at police; his trial begins this week.
-
United Kingdom: Germaine
Lindsay, an immigrant from Jamaica, one of the London
transport suicide bombers of July 2005, killing 26. Richard
Reid, life for the "shoe bomber" who tried to bring
down a Paris-to-Miami flight. Andrew
Rowe, fifteen years for planning terrorist attacks.
-
United States: Ryan
Anderson, life for trying to aid Al Qaeda while serving
as a National Guardsman. David
Belfield, assassinated a former Iranian diplomat outside
Washington and fled to Iran. Clement
Rodney Hampton-el, 35 years for helping bomb the World
Trade Center in 1993. Mark
Fidel Kools, death sentence for "fragging" and killing
two of his army officers. John
Muhammad, death sentence for his role as the lead "Beltway
Sniper." Randall
Royer, twenty years for weapons and explosives charges "stemming
from the investigation into a militant jihadist network
in Northern Virginia." Five members of Jamaat
ul Fuqra, a Pakistan-based group suspected of at least
thirteen murders in America, jailed for up to 69 years.
Lorenzo Vidino reports in Al
Qaeda in Europe (Prometheus) that the authorities
find that "dozens of European converts have joined terrorist
groups." Nor is the problem restricted to Western converts
to Islam.
-
In the Philippines,
for example, one convert confessed to bombing a ferry in
February 2004, killing over 100, and others are linked to
an attempt to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Manila. More generally,
the government charges that Al-Qaeda and
Jemaah Islamiyah use the Rajah
Solaiman Movement, a group of converts, to carry out
terror attacks.
-
Non-Western converts move to the West and engage in terrorism
there. Consider three American cases: Rashid
Baz, born a Lebanese Druze, 141 years for murdering a
Jewish boy on the Brooklyn Bridge. Wadih
el-Hage, born a Lebanese Catholic, life without parole
for his work with Osama bin Laden. John
Samuel, born an Ethiopian Christian, awaits trial at
Guantánamo, accused of entering the United States to terrorize
for Al Qaeda.
The growing prominence of converts to terrorism means that such
counterterrorism tools as looking
for Muslim names or excluding potential terrorists at the
border do not suffice. Instead, it is now also critical to know
exactly who converts to Islam and to watch converts to see which
of them are radicalized.
Even without becoming Muslims, some of the persons named above
could have engaged in terrorism. But security in the West, the
Philippines, and elsewhere requires coming to terms with a very
awkward fact: Conversion to Islam substantially increases the
probability of a person's involvement in terrorism. -one-
This article
first appeared at New York Sun
copyright
2005 Daniel Pipes
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