Jihad and the West - Black Flag over Babylon Chapter Seven Podcast One

The Killing Floor   Killing floor: “That part of the slaughterhouse where animals are killed.”   “I want to do an Islamic Bonnie and Clyde on the kaffir.” Bridget Namoa, Australian convert to Islam, 2016   Introduction               By 2015, the Caliphate’s long, lethal arm had reached well beyond Mesopotamia. Its cells and lone operatives plotted in European cities and suburbs. A sleepy Southern California town, a Tunisian beach filled with British vacationers, a hip Parisian nightclub, a watering hole for Orlando’s gay community, the French Riviera, the squares, streets, and haunts of London—all these venues, and others, became slaughter pens for the State. The first part of this chapter will discuss the Caliphate’s killing in the West and in places frequented by Westerners. The second part will discuss some Westerners who have gone to the Middle East to fight their enemy—the Islamic State.   Killing on the Homefront—Westerners Make Sense of the Violence               From its inception, the Caliphate encouraged its followers to kill non-Muslim Westerners. Some adherents did so, proclaiming their solidarity with the State. The killings became so frequent that the carnage lost its shock value. The Caliphate innovated and escalated the level of violence. The State’s death list is long. Occasionally, Jews were targeted, as in Copenhagen and Paris, because Islamists hate Jews in particular. Many killings were random, but some were deeply personal. A blonde Danish teenager murdered her mother after watching the Caliphate’s beheadings of British hostages. Only fifteen years old when she savaged her mother with a large kitchen knife, she was a convert to Islam.               Most of the State’s victims had little or no interest in politics and simply wanted to live fulfilling, joyful lives. Many were killed by chance. They could not have known their lives were in danger. One case among hundreds is Nohemi Gonzalez. The Mexican American was studying design in Paris, and her boyfriend missed his “little firecracker,” as he called her. Dining with friends at a Parisian bistro, she was killed in a bomb blast on November 13, 2015. Dead at twenty-three, the “little firecracker” was the only known American killed in the Caliphate’s Paris attack that day. Like many similar victims, she had fatally bad luck. Had she finished her meal an hour earlier, she would likely be alive today in Los Angeles.               In August 2016, a Norwegian citizen of Somali descent who had moved to Britain went on a stabbing spree in Russell Square, London. One of the victims was a sixty-year-old American woman whose husband was a psychology professor at Florida State University. She and three others—an Israeli woman, an Australian woman, and an American man—were stabbed. Only she died.               Often, the killings are directed. In the hills of San Bernardino, a husband-and-wife pair of Caliphate-supporting killers left their baby with family and then went to a well-attended Christmas party, where they shot at anything that moved. They killed fourteen fellow workers. The Caliphate was delighted and called the killers, both of whom were slain in a police shootout, “lions [who] made us proud. They are still alive.” This is what happened.   Pofile Twenty-Three: San Bernardino—“Cry Me a River”               Two-hundred-year-old San Bernardino is a small city located in the hills of Southern California. It is not particularly chic or famous. Gene Hackman, the two-time Oscar-winning actor, was born there. Julie London, whose song “Cry Me a River” made her a famous torch singer in the 1950s, grew up there. San Bernardino is the first major town on Route 66 in California, reached from the east. A famous song invited Americans to “get your kicks on Route 66.” Many listened. San Bernardino was the gateway for millions of Americans beginning a new life in California, the Golden State.               San Bernardino was also home to Syed Farook and Tashfeen Melik, a married couple with a baby daughter. Syed Farook was born in the United States and turned to Islam with fervor. A county food inspector, he spent much of his free time in the mosque, memorizing the Koran. He described himself on a dating website as enjoying “working on vintage and modern cars, reading and . . . target practice with younger sister and friends.” The target practice would prove useful later.               His lonely-hearts ad landed him a wife, Tashfeen Malik. They married in August 2014 and had a baby girl. Tashfeen Malik was born in Saudi Arabia to a middle-class Pakistani family. She studied pharmacology but was deeply religious, exploring Islam with passion at night. Most of her neighbors did not know her at all, and she did not mix with men outside her family. She was almost always veiled when outside the house.               Few people outside of the family knew the depth of hatred the husband and wife held for the United States. But they made their presence known on December 2, 2015. They dropped off their baby with relatives, explaining that they had a doctor’s appointment. They had no such appointment. The couple drove to the San Bernardino County Health Department with heavy firepower. They discharged up to seventy-five assault-rifle rounds into a crowd of workers, some of whom had worked with Farook. They killed fourteen, taking them completely by surprise. .