OPINION:
Whenever a terrorist act occurs in the United States, legacy media pretend to be totally mystified as to the motivation behind it. They then tell us the terrorist was “self-radicalized” or had gone to another country, where he had been taken in by Islamist ideology.
When the terrorist(s) shout, “Allahu akbar,” before they act, there is a clue to their motivation that we can’t overlook.
Let’s stop there for a minute. I don’t agree with Sen. Tommy Tuberville, Alabama Republican, that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is “the” enemy. He is politically dangerous, yes, but it’s the Islamist ideology and the millions of Muslims who adhere to it that are the enemy.
There is an enemy within. They are the radical Islamist preachers who seek to radicalize every Muslim. Under the First Amendment, it’s impossible to stop them. How many they radicalize is unknown.
Consider the incidents America has suffered in the past two weeks.
The first was on March 7, when two teenagers shouted, “Allahu akbar,” as one of them threw two homemade bombs at a crowd of anti-Muslim demonstrators near the mayor’s residence in New York City. Neither bomb exploded, a testament to the perpetrators’ incompetence as bombmakers. The two, Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi, admitted their attack was motivated by the Islamic State group.
Four days later, on March 11, a man later identified as Ayman Mohamad Ghazali rammed his truck through the doors of Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan. The vehicle was loaded with explosives, but before Ghazali could set them off, he was shot by armed guards and died of a self-inflicted wound, according to the FBI.
The next day, March 12, Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, who had been convicted of supporting the Islamic State group, entered an Old Dominion University classroom in Virginia. (The Justice Department had asked the judge to sentence him to 20 years in prison “for attempting to provide material support” to the Islamic State group, but in 2017, he was sentenced to just 11 years. He was released early.)
Dressed in tactical clothes, Jalloh also reportedly shouted, “Allahu akbar,” and shot dead the instructor who was teaching a group of ROTC cadets. The students then chose to fight. They beat Jalloh to death and may also have stabbed him. Good choice, folks.
Also on March 12, an armed man, Kyle Najm Chris (birth name Muhi Mohanad Najm), entered a Texas elementary school asking about security. He was arrested. His name change, which a Texas court granted in 2022, was an apparent insult to the memory of Chris Kyle, a Navy SEAL sniper who served with great distinction in Iraq.
Mr. Najm’s effort doesn’t qualify as a terrorist act because he didn’t have the chance to draw his weapon. But for the fact that Texans are more alert than most of the rest of us, it could have been a mass murder.
Were all these folks self-radicalized? It’s highly doubtful.
I follow the Middle East Media Research Institute for its proven accuracy and its steady flow of information on radical Muslims. Here are a few selected comments by Muslim “scholars” on the current situation in Iran and more.
The Ohio director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Khalid Turaani, said March 4 that he wished for the final end of the Israeli “Zionist entity” once and for all. He said President Trump should enter into negotiations with Iran to end the crisis and that “Iran was willing to give Trump a ladder to climb down,” providing that Iran is compensated for the damages and that final negotiations should result in an American commitment that Iran won’t be struck again.
MEMRI posted a video of a March 12 sermon by Detroit’s Bassem Alsheraa, in which the man said, “I dreamt of dogs devouring a lion, and tried to contact President Trump to warn him that killing Khamenei would cost the Republican Party the elections, but I was too late. Khamenei was martyred by the ‘most vile’ of Allah’s creatures, the slayers of prophets. His blood united his people, many American families emulate him, and that history will curse [Khamenei’s] enemies.”
On March 6, in Orlando, Florida, Sheikh Ibrahim Yassin called the president “stupid and crazy” and said the next ruler of Iran should be “one of the gang of thugs and smugglers he lives with.” On March 10, Mr. Yassin congratulated the choice of Mojtaba Khamenei as the next ruler of Iran.
Numerous other MEMRI posts show efforts in the U.S. right now to radicalize Muslims. People can self-radicalize or be made into terrorists by radical Muslim preachers and the constant flow of propaganda on the internet. Many, if not most, terrorists are.
The Trump administration needs to do a far better job of countering the radical preachers and the flow of lies on the internet. If they don’t, then the Islamist radicals will win the ideological war we’re not even fighting.
• Jed Babbin is a national security and foreign affairs columnist for The Washington Times and a contributing editor for The American Spectator.
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