Islamism Series: The Two Jihads

Back in April of this year, local Philadelphia Bulletin writer Herb Denenberg pointed out that the War on Terror (or the 'contingency operation' or whatever other soft-sounding name the Obama administration wants to rename it today) needed to be fought on two fronts.

Fail to fight battles aggressively on either front, and we are in danger of ultimately losing the entire war.

Denenberg opined that al Qaeda and other radical Islamist terror organizations and their sponsor states were fighting the war on those two fronts: the 'Explosive Jihad' being carried out by the terror organizations through bombings, beheadings, and other planned mass attacks and the 'Stealth Jihad' being carried out by the slow manipulation of populations, politicians, universities, and cultures.

That 'Explosive Jihad' has again blasted into the American news headlines in recent days with the FBI raids in the New York borough of Queens.

The Feds uncovered the first proven al Qaeda cell operating on U.S. soil since the 9/11 attacks, and moved quickly to take them down with raids in New York and Denver. Complete plot details have not been released, but as reported in the New York Daily News, this was "the real deal" and not some informant-based action.

These raids follow on the heels of the May foiling of a major plot to bomb a pair of New York synagogues and then shoot down an airliner with a Stinger missile. That plot was foiled when the New York-area Joint Terrorism Task Force uncovered and infiltrated the scheme.

The NYJTTF supplied the cell with phony plastic explosives. When the terrorists planted these fake bombs, the Feds moved in and made their arrests. The Daily News reported also that one of the suspects, Abdul Rahman, stated "I hate those motherfuckers, those fucking Jewish bastards. I would like to get a synagogue."

Islamism Series: Infiltration of America

Steven Emerson, one of the nation's leading terrorism experts, states it appropriately when he says that "only by knowing how the terrorists' networks operate...can we be vigilant in detecting any new activity."

There are at least three significant foreign Islamic terror groups operating in America today: Hamas, al Qaeda, and PIJ (Palestinian Islamic Jihad.)

These groups receive support from, and give it to, countries such as Sudan, Egypt, and Afghanistan. They are here for the sole purpose of attacking America and Americans right here in our homeland, and they were getting more successful at it until the increased efforts of the Bush administration in the post-9/11 world slowed them.

But they have not stopped, they continue to plot and plan and make attempts, and without continued strong security and intelligence on our part they will succeed again, probably on an even larger scale than 9/11.

Emerson has divided the terrorists activities into four categories: recruitment, fund-raising/money-laundering, networking, and direct organization.

In recruiting, the Islamofascists love to find willing participants in Jihad who already hold American passports, at times finding these people among naturalized U.S. citizens of Middle Eastern descent. People who can generally travel freely into and out of the country, and within the country, with little suspicion.

Other recruitment, orientation, and indoctrination can come from websites and newspapers, and the terrorists actively use our freedoms against us. We cannot stop anyone from preaching violence unless a standard of "clear and present danger" is met. As Emerson states, "We cannot stop groups from gathering to share their political views, even if one of those views is that the U.S. must be destroyed."