Bad economy creating jihadis in Pakistan?

Interesting NYT article on well educated and sophisticated “frustrated strivers” turned jihadis in Pakistan.

Is “extremism” becoming the norm?

John Avlon, former chief speechwriter for Rudy Giuliani, poses this question in his CNN article about the increasing presence and impact of political fringe extremists in this culture.

This point is particularly prescient in an age where certain pro-Islamists seek to foster divisiveness in America. So much for “United We Stand.”

Uighurs don’t make headlines in the Middle East.

Go figure. Does the Arab media think the Muslim Uighurs aren’t Muslim enough? Maybe; after all, the Saudi Arab Times did distinguish them as “co-religionists.” Maybe we’re seeing some Anti-Asian bias?

Or maybe, as the Time article suggests, state-sponsored publications don’t want to focus on it because of political, economic, or trade interests:

According to U.S. government statistics, China is both Iran and Sudan’s biggest trade partner, and either the main or secondary source of imports for most of the other countries in the region.

This is not to say that some of the radicals in the region haven’t noticed. This week,  “al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb this week called for attacks on Han Chinese in North Africa in retaliation for Muslim deaths.”

I’d be interested to see how this develops. Will al Qaeda and other militant groups turn their sights to China and start recruiting Uighurs en masse into their training camps (if they haven’t already)? The Chinese don’t mess around when it comes to terrorists. Or pirates, for that matter.  I have a feeling it’ll get really ugly (and hopefully entertaining).

Somali pirates and Islam: natural allies?

Last year, we saw one major wave of Somali pirate attacks on tankers and other ships traversing the region.  In December, analysts were warning that, in its weakened state, Somalia may become a new safe haven for militant jihadis as well as pirates and other international criminals.

Around that same time, in a particularly ironic move the Somali Islamist group Al-Shabab  “vowed” to hunt down and attack the pirates who hijacked a Muslim-owned Saudi oil tanker.

However, analysts have posited the idea that in fact the al-Shabaab extremists are in collusion with the pirates and have sought to take a share of any ransom gained. 

Now, UPI writer Claude Salhani suggests that Somali pirates are natural allies of radical Islam:

U.S. Navy warships supported by helicopter gunships tracked four Somali pirates and their American captive in the Horn of Africa throughout the weekend as American negotiators tried to obtain the release of the hostage.

Local militias, many of them adherents of strict Islamist theology, offer a fertile breeding ground to al-Qaida and its affiliates. If and when the day Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida begin to feel the pressure in their current safe haven, the region around the Horn of Africa will look very enticing.

U.S. web hosting companies renting cyberspace to extremists?

On a routine basis, reports the Washington Post.

Apparently, American-owned Web-hosting outfits often unknowingly rent cyberspace to anti-American extremists, and the practice is growing.

Intelligence officials and private experts cite dozens of instances in which Islamist militants sought out U.S. Internet firms — known for their reliable service and easy terms that allow virtual anonymity — and used them to incite attacks on Americans.

“The relatively cheap expense and high quality of U.S. servers seems to attract jihadists,” said Rita Katz, co-founder of the Site Intelligence Group, a private company that monitors the communications of Muslim extremist groups. Even al-Qaeda has sometimes paid American companies to serve as conduits for its hate-filled messages, said Katz, who has tracked such activity since 2003.

The firms acknowledge that it is not always easy to spot militants’ activity….Yvonne Donaldson, spokeswoman for ThePlanet, said the firm cannot afford to monitor every site and instead reacts to complaints, as it did in the case of alemarrah1.com. “If the complaint is credible, we notify the authorities,” she said.

Beheadings by Islamic terrorists: the practice goes viral

In the wake of recent beheadings by Islamic terrorists (including victim Piotr Stanczak, a Polish national  executed by the Taliban in Pakistan) I’ve found it useful to investigate more about this particularly brutal trend: its history, the psychology behind it, the cultural and religious significance, and the ways in which the trend may be developing.

Click here for Middle East Forum article, Beheading in the Name of Islam.

Click here for American Chronicle article exploring the possibility that Mexican cartels are adopting the Islamic terrorist practice of beheading their targets.

Update: (via  Rhetorican and Instapundit):  Has this cultural meme gone viral?  The Boston Herald reports that Muzzammil Hassan, a Buffalo, N.Y. area man who runs an American-Islamic television station, is accused of beheading his wife. “Hassan is the founder and chief executive of Bridges TV, which he launched in 2004 in hopes of portraying Muslims in a better light.”

So is this to be a new, savage hallmark of “honor killings”? Shades of Henry VIII and Charles Perrault’s Bluebeard.

On a related note: click here for Middle East Quarterly article, Are honor killings simply domestic violence?

Muslim “Firebrand” Cleric’s pole dancing daughter…

Daughter of hard-line Muslim cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed is a topless dancer in London? I guess what they say about preachers’ daughters has some truth behind it.

If you’re going to take a conservative stance on “family values,” go with step one of the basics (courtesy of Chris Rock):

“They don’t grade fathers, but if your daughter’s a stripper…you got to keep her off the pole!”

Click here for Daily Mail article.

H/T and read more at thepiratescove.us.