Jihad and the West - Black Flag over Babylon Chapter Nine Podcast Two

Welcome to an excerpt from Jihad and the West, Black Flag over Babylon by Mark Silinsky, with a foreword by Sebastian Gorka. It was published by Indiana University Press in Bloomington and Indianapolis. This reading is presented by Kensington Security Consulting, which brings education to national security. This excerpt comes from chapter nine and examines two cases of Westerners who became militant Islamists. The statistics are stomach-churning: almost 250 innocents have been murdered in France in the past eighteen months by terrorists—more than the total number of French nationals killed by them in the entire twentieth century. While police, military, and paramilitary personnel are prepared and alert for attack, many French engaged in civil society are not. Many attacks come without warning and are directed against persons completely unconnected with national security. Some Islamist attacks are difficult to explain. A man-and-woman couple armed with a knife and an axe and shouting “Allahu Akbar” attacked a charity leader at a soup kitchen near Paris. The attackers allegedly called him an “infidel dog,” but the charity leader fed Muslims out of compassion. The look of Paris changed after the 2015 attacks, with more dog patrols, random checks at gates and in terminals, video surveillance cameras, and “profilers”—police officers, sometimes in plain clothes—around public transportation venues. Steps may go further; right-wing politicians reiterated calls for preventive detention or electronic bracelets for suspected Islamists, longer prison sentences, shutting down mosques, and deporting radical imams The Caliphate Pro-Caliphate activists have partnered with French Islamist organizations from the beginning of the State. They have shouted support for the Caliphate at demonstrations and waved the “black flag of Jihad,” which quotes the Shahada—“There is no god but Allah, Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.” By January 2016, France was host to 8,250 radical Islamists, a 50 percent increase over the previous year. As in Britain and France, Islamists have infiltrated the civil services, police forces, and armed forces. According to one report, police officers broadcast Muslim chants while on patrol. France is between 9 and 11 percent Muslim, and 16 percent of French citizens have a positive opinion of the Caliphate. This percentage increases among younger respondents, spiking at 27 percent for those aged eighteen to twenty-four.   Profile Thirty-Four: A French Girl and a French Woman In France, more teenage girls than boys joined the Caliphate in 2016. Among recruits, women began to outpace French male residents preparing to travel to the Caliphate or who had already done so. “The Story of A” It is sometimes difficult to determine which factors drive the transition from conventional politics and everyday life to a full embrace of the Caliphate’s beliefs, values, and aspirations. Some teenagers who live uneventful, seemingly normal lifestyles have become Caliphate propagandists or gunmen. But the full-turn conversions and blood lust of some converts beggar the imagination. This is the story of “A.” Because A is not an adult, her full name was not released, but authorities did reveal that she was Jewish, one of two known French Jews to join the State, and she had been raised in a religious home. Her parents were described as “loving and open,” and she was an outstanding student until she found Islam online. She began to wear a veil, but this did not mask her increasing hatred of the West, France, and Jews.   A is certainly an anomaly within the Islamic State's spiritual ranks. According to a French anthropologist who extensively studied French women in the State, most converts to Islam come from atheistic homes with spiritual voids. But A was raised in a religious home. Her parents don’t know what happened to her. A feels obligated to kill her parents because they are not Muslim. Many people convert to Islam, very few of whom feel compelled to kill their parents. A’s mother and father moved to a new apartment because of their daughter’s Jihadi ties, and they keep their address a secret. They are worried about their daughter attacking them, as she has repeatedly sworn to do. Perhaps some Friday, as they are lighting candles, breaking bread, and saying prayers over their Sabbath meal, their daughter will storm into their home brandishing a butcher knife and lunge at them, shouting, “Allahu Akbar.” Emilie’s Manhunt Emilie converted to Islam at age seventeen and changed her name to Samra. She began wearing a niqab because she believed it would help her attain the highest level of paradise. However, she began wearing it only after the French government banned it in 2012. A female journalist remarked that without her heavy clothing, Emilie/Samra is strikingly pretty. She takes Islam very seriously, and when Emilie thought her son was possessed by a demon, she shook her boy, yelling, “Jinn [a jinn is a spirit], leave my son!” According to Emilie’s account, the jinn quickly left her son.   As with many European converts to Islam, Emilie had a tough childhood. She lamented, “My father has erased me from his heart.” He left the family when Emilie was two years old, and her experiences with men never improved. She described her life as “a series of failures.” She dropped out of school and became both a Muslim and a barmaid. She married an Islamic man who impregnated her, but he beat her, sold drugs, and went off to prison.   She looked for a new man and advertised for a “virile and pious Muslim.” One suitor claimed to be a former friend of bin Laden, which initially impressed Emilie because she admired bin Laden and mourned his death. But Emilie later became convinced that this man had never met bin Laden and had made up the story to get her into bed. After he published a selfie with a naked Emilie, she broke off the relationship. Emilie hoped to travel to the Islamic State to find the right kind of man. But police were on to her, froze her bank account, and kept an eye on her. She supports violence against nonbelievers, including those killed in Paris. Nonetheless, she insists, “I am French, born French. I consider myself a human being. I am no monster.”