Jihad and the West - Black Flag over Babylon Chapter Eight Podcast Four

In spring and summer 2016, the Caliphate struck around the world at venues frequented by Westerners. Three American college students were killed during a siege at an upscale restaurant in Dhaka, Bangladesh, a favorite haunt of Westerners. The ringleader was young, university-educated, and raised in a well-to-do home. Caliphate operatives demanded that captives recite verses from the Koran to save their lives. This was a pass/fail test. Those who failed were stabbed or shot and lay dead or dying on the floor of the Holey Artisan Bakery in the diplomatic zone. The ringleader’s father wept, “That’s not my son, that’s not my son. He was full of humanity.” There is overwhelming rejection of suicide attacks in Western Muslim communities, but more than a few support them.               In many Muslim countries, once seen as embracing modernity, support for the Caliphate and suicide operations is growing. Tunisia is one such country, and it is profiled below.   Profile Twenty-Six: Tunisia—On the Beach   “If the mountain won’t come to Muhammad, Muhammad must go to the mountain.” Islamic proverb   “How could a place of such beauty, of relaxation and happiness, be turned into such a scene of brutality and destruction?” Then British Home Secretary Theresa May               Tunisia is a popular vacation destination for Europeans. Only 600 miles from Italy, it has an educated but highly unemployed workforce. For Britons, there is sun, gardens, birds, flowers, and turquoise water. For the culturally minded, there are historic sites and ancient Roman treasures. But Tunisia has also produced over 3,000 volunteers for the Islamic State. The country has been transformed from a model of progressive secularism into a center of radicalism.39 Cities are marked by youth unemployment or underemployment. Some work in the tourist trade, and others are students with free time. One was Seifeddine Rezgui.   The Shooting Starts               Seifeddine Rezgui was a twenty-three-year-old student who pledged allegiance to the State. In his youth, he enjoyed breakdancing and later switched to kung fu, which he practiced often. To those who knew him, he seemed content and smiled frequently. For this reason, he went unnoticed as he rented a lair to plan a killing spree. From his safe house near popular resorts, Rezgui could walk near the Marhaba Hotel and mingle among European guests to plan his attack. He would later return, this time with an assault weapon, to walk along the shoreline of a Tunisian resort and kill Westerners. Ambling from the beach to the pool to the lobby, he sprayed fire at anyone who looked European. He did so as an operative for the State and with apparent merriment. By the end of his spree, he had shot dead thirty-eight foreigners, thirty of whom were British.               Rezgui decided who would live and who would die. One young woman spoke Arabic to him and convinced him she was a fellow Muslim. The killer chuckled, “You go away.” A Briton recalled, “He was laughing and joking around, like a normal guy.” Rezgui walked up to a local mechanic and said with a smile, “I don’t want to kill you. I want to hit tourists.” The survivors recounted the panic, the running, and the gunshots. Some people went to their rooms to barricade themselves. As with the Florida killer a year later, his Tunisian counterpart laughed and smiled as he shot his victims.               There were heroes on the beach that day. A sixty-one-year-old man pounded the beach, searching for survivors and rendering aid amid periodic gunfire. He used towels to bandage those with gunshot wounds. A British nurse wanted to help, but she couldn’t. She had been shot in both legs. Sarah Wilson recounts how her fiancé, Matthew, took bullets for her: “Matthew put himself in front of me, then he was hit, he moved, and the man shot him again.” Matthew lived, but not Rezgui, the killer. A police officer shot the murderer as he knelt, praying. Rezgui stumbled, and a shop owner threw terracotta tiles onto his head. A police officer fired a coup de grâce into his skull.               The Caliphate claimed the massacre was an “attack upon the nests of fornication, vice and disbelief in God . . . worse is to follow.” The State’s supporters chuckled about the butchery and posted morbidly sarcastic comments on their tweets. But most Britons were somber. A national moment of silence was held in the House of Commons, and royalty and commoners alike took part.   This concludes a reading from Jihad and the West, Black Flag over Babylon, by Mark Silinsky, with a foreword by Sebastian Gorka. If you enjoyed it, please consider subscribing to continue listening to other chapters. The book is available online or at major bookstores worldwide. Dr. Silinsky’s latest book, “Cauldron of Terror – Hamas, Israel, and the World," will be available for purchase in early spring 2026. This reading does not represent the official position of any agency or individual within the United States government. On behalf of Kensington Security Consulting, thank you for listening.