Patterns of Islamic extremist terrorism: now it’s Bangladesh
It’s a terrible and repetitive story, this time occurring in the predominantly Muslim country of Bangladesh: Islamic terrorists, perhaps allied with ISIS, attack a restaurant. In this case they took the patrons hostage (after possibly killing some in the initial takeover), and the ensuing events were described this way in a Bangladesh paper:
Those who could recite a verse from the Quran were spared, others were tortured, said a rescued hostage of the Gulshan restaurant attack where at least two lawmen were killed.
“The others were tortured by the gunmen,” said Rezaul Karim, father of Hasnat Karim who was held hostage inside Holey Artisan Bakery in the diplomatic zone for over 10 hours…
“The gunmen were doing a background check on religion by asking everyone to recite from the Quran. Those who could recite a verse or two were spared. The others were tortured.”
That anecdotal report seems to conform to these official reports of who died and under what circumstances:
Gunmen stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery cafe in Dhaka late on Friday before troops entered almost 12 hours later.
Six attackers were also killed and one was arrested, officials said. Bangladeshi PM Sheikh Hasina has declared two days of national mourning.
Nine Italians, seven Japanese and one US citizen and an Indian also died.
Bangladesh Army Brig Gen Naim Asraf Chowdhury said the victims had been “brutally” attacked with sharp weapons…
The Holey Artisan Bakery is known as a bustling cafe popular with expats and wealthy locals.
The attack was reportedly perpetrated by eight or nine terrorists, and two policemen were killed in the rescue. According to this report six of the attackers were killed and one arrested; it’s not clear whether the initial report of the number of terrorists was correct, and one or two escaped, or whether they are all accounted for.
Three people of Bangladeshi origin were killed, but two were American college students at Emory. A student of Indian origin from UC Berkeley was also murdered (and one of these three was apparently a US citizen):
Survivors said the terrorists asked the hostages to recite portions of the Koran. Those who could prove they were Muslim were spared and given food to eat. Those who couldn’t rattle off passages of the holy book were tortured and killed.
Kabir was executed despite her faith, Adiba said.
“Was it her fault that she couldn’t speak Bangla that much?” she asked, referring to Bangladesh’s language. “Or was that her fault that maybe she couldn’t recite Qur’an properly?”
Nothing was her fault, of course (and I doubt the speaker quoted above actually meant it was her fault, either).
The terrorists are determined to impose their brand of Islam on all Muslims, and to kill infidels. Their goal is also almost certainly to depress tourism and foreign involvement in the country; for example, the Japanese nationals killed were described as follows: “The seven that died were consultants for Japan’s foreign aid agency and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said they ‘were giving their all for the development of Bangladesh.'” The nine Italians killed were probably employed in Bangladesh; there is a large expat business community there:
The killing of foreigners will likely shatter the confidence of the expatriate community in Bangladesh, many of whom work for multinationals in the country’s $US26 billion ($A35 billion) garment industry that accounts for around 15 per cent of the economy. Bangladesh is the world’s second largest apparel exporter after China.
Another detail of note:
The gunmen, who stormed the busy restaurant in Dhaka’s diplomatic area late on Friday night, ordered all Bangladeshis to stand up before they began killing foreigners, a source briefed on the police investigation said.
Among the dead was the wife of an Italian businessman killed by a machete.
She was found by her husband after he spent all night hiding behind a tree outside the cafe while the gunmen were inside, said Agnese Barolo, a friend who lives in Dhaka and spoke to him…
Army spokesman Colonel Rashidul Hasan said he could not yet confirm the nationalities of those who had died. Most of them had been killed by “sharp weapons”, he said.
So it’s fairly clear that we have a situation in which the victims were targeted and not random: foreigners and non-Muslims, or those Muslims who resided in foreign countries such as the US. The restaurant was chosen because many foreigners generally frequented it, and then the actual victims were selected because they met those criteria. The larger goal appears to have been to discourage foreigners—tourists, investors, workers—from coming to the country and helping its economy, as well as to frighten everyone and inspire similar attacks, and the especially horrific mode of death—hacking—is part of that.
These goals and methods are very very familiar, and they are neither new nor are they specific to ISIS, although ISIS is one of the worst examples. But for those with long memories, I suggest they recall last year’s Tunisia beach attack and even the attack at Luxor in Egypt in 1997. I’ve written of both before:
The goal [of the attack in Tunisia]: to frighten the West and to harm the Tunisian tourist industry. Mission accomplished…
[A] trainee mechanic, who works part-time at hotel nearby, said the gunman told him ”˜I don’t want to kill you; I want to hit tourists,’ according to The Independent”¦
…But the Luxor attack was even more barbaric and horrifying than yesterday’s on the Tunisian beach, if possible, and it took more victims as well. The intent was to depress tourism and the victims were almost all Europeans, as in Tunisia…
“They killed two armed guards at the site. With the tourists trapped inside the temple, the killing went on systematically for 45 minutes, during which many bodies, especially of women, were mutilated with machetes. They used both guns and butcher knives. A note praising Islam was found inside a disemboweled body. The dead included a five-year-old British child and four Japanese couples on honeymoon…
“Four Egyptians were killed, including three police officers and a tour guide. Of the 58 foreign tourists killed, 36 were Swiss, ten were Japanese, six were from the United Kingdom, four from Germany, and two were from Colombia.”
The Tunisia attack, the Orlando attack, the Istanbul airport attack, and the Bangladesh attack have all occurred during the Muslim holiday of Ramadan. ISIS has explicitly called for this to happen:
Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the spokesman for ISIS, released an audiotape in late May in which he called for attacks, saying, “Ramadan, the month of conquest and jihad… make it a month of calamity everywhere for the non-believers.”
And followers have obliged, not just by perpetrating the attacks I’ve already listed and which got the most attention in the west, but by committing a host of others attacks as well:
Beginning on Monday, ISIS or its affiliated groups started carrying out multiple attacks across the Middle East. ISIS suicide attackers blew themselves up in a Christian village in Lebanon close to the Syrian border, killing five people.
Also on Monday, a wave of ISIS suicide attacks in Yemen in the southeastern city of Mukalla killed more than 40.
On Tuesday, ISIS launched a suicide attack that killed seven Jordanian security personnel at a border crossing between Jordan and Syria.The same day, the Istanbul airport was attacked by three suicide bombers who were likely dispatched by ISIS.
In the past two and half weeks, ISIS-inspired attackers also struck in the West, first in Orlando, Florida, where 49 people were killed in a gay nightclub — the most lethal terrorist attack in the United States since 9/11 — and, the day after the Orlando attack, an ISIS terrorist killed a police official and his partner in a town outside Paris.
The article adds the following:
For Islamist terrorist groups such as ISIS, the holy month of Ramadan — a time of fasting and prayer for the vast majority of Muslims — is seen as a particularly auspicious time to launch terrorist attacks.
This is especially the case around the 27th day of Ramadan, the “Night of Power,” which is a particularly sacred day for the world’s Muslims as it was the time that the Prophet Mohammed started receiving the first verses of the Koran.
On the Night of Power in 2000, which that year fell on January 3, al Qaeda militants attempted to launch a suicide attack against the American warship USS The Sullivans off the coast of Yemen with a bomb-filled boat. The attack failed. This year, the 27th day of Ramadan will fall on July 2.
Need I add that all of this has something to do with Islam?
[NOTE: Obama issued a typical press release.]
Right now, the West considers these victims (which they have been essentially ignoring since 1997 -and probably earlier) as “collateral damage” in the pursuit of business. If the Jihadis do succeed in driving away investment and tourism, it will be the fault of the governments that failed to dissuade them from their pursuits.
Maybe it’s time to boycott the Middle East and majority Muslim countries until the people who live there take out of their own trash.
“Maybe it’s time to boycott the Middle East and majority Muslim countries until the people who live there take out of their own trash.”
Actually, the truth is that to accomplish that you’ll pretty much have to kill the Muslim Middle East.
vanderleun Says:
“Maybe it’s time to boycott the Middle East and majority Muslim countries until the people who live there take out of their own trash.”
Actually, the truth is that to accomplish that you’ll pretty much have to kill the Muslim Middle East.
And the Muslim Africa, and the Muslim India, and the Muslim Far East, and the Muslim Phillipines, and the…
Muslim nations are very dependent on food imports. They would starve quickly without grain coming from the USA, Canada, Australia, Brazil, etc. Pick one of the more dangerous supporters of jihad, Iran comes to mind but so does Saudi Arabia, and blockade their ports. Those who try to interfere can be blow out of the water and the air. We are at war. Of course the West lacks the will and the willingness to admit we are at war.
Prior to the arrival of Islam in the area now known as Bangladesh, it’s population was composed of Hindus, Buddhists and Jainists. Today, 87% are Muslim, 12% Hindu and .6% Buddhist and .3% Christian. That ‘pattern’ holds true for every nation brought within the Ummah. Some might ask why Islam tolerates that last 13%… the answer of course is that it must have those it can terrorize.
parker,
That’s inhuman! I like it. It’s certainly an alternative to turning the Ummah into a glass parking lot.
GB, convert, pay tribute, or die. I learned that in high school history in 1963 or so. Somehow that’s been forgotten.
As for the great Islamic civilization that was supposed to come in the wake of the Muslim conquests, show me.
GB,
I am just an Iowa farm boy, so what do I know? But blockade seemed obvious to me when the Iranians attacked our embassy and held Americans hostage. It definitely crossed my mind when Saudi nationals attacked on 9/11.
Siege is an ancient means of warfare. The object of war is total victory by all means possible. Its only inhumane in that they die or surrender with the minimum of our blood sacrificed. Starvation is a tool, no different than bombs or bullets. Dead is dead. Better them than us. Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind to your own kind.
Is it possible that Wretchard’s Three Conjectures could come to pass with a non-nuclear Second Conjecture?
Parker:
Muslim nations are very dependent on food imports. They would starve quickly without grain coming from the USA, Canada, Australia, Brazil, etc.
The only reason Muslims are powerful and dangerous is that the West found oil under their goat herds only a few generations ago, and Carter the Weak allowed them to extort many, many trillions of dollars from us, and all the other industrial nations bent over with him instead of suffer further shaming as “imperialists” and “colonialists.”
If not for oil, they’d still be nomads living in tents and using their left hands as toilet paper.
They can’t feed themselves while Israel turns the desert into a relative breadbasket. Muslim countries produce little of value to the modern world, and most of those that emigrate to the West are illiterate and have zero marketable skills, which is why they gravitate to the occupations that are prevalent in their home countries: graft, corruption, fraud and terror.
Paul in Boston,
That is Islam’s mantra. But why offer the option of paying tribute? Obviously, in order to be masters, they must have their slaves and servants. And, Muhammad never intended to create a civilization. That wasn’t even a distant consideration. Madmen live in the present.
parker,
Common sense combined with a penetrating intellect leads to wisdom. Whereas, intellectualizing leads to ideas so ludicrous that, “There are some ideas so wrong, that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.” George Orwell
Richard,
Wretchard’s second conjecture being that, attaining WMDs will destroy Islam.
Quite frankly, once nukes are widespread within the Ummah, I don’t see any obvious path to a non-nuclear second conjecture. Islam’s theological imperatives make certain that sooner or later they will use nukes, no weapon being forbidden. Care to elaborate on how a non-nuclear second conjecture might come about?
parker:
“Pick one of the more dangerous supporters of jihad, Iran comes to mind but so does Saudi Arabia”
Not accurate to equate Iran and Saudia Arabia:
http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/old-myths-perpetuate-poor-analysis-of-saudi#page1
The always entertaining debka.com claims that the terrorist attack was a payback for Italian troops in Libya.
Bangladesh is a major fashion manufacturing country – including the Italian fashion names. Several Italian business-men were in the restaurant and were killed.
http://debka.com/article/25521/Bangladesh-ISIS-pays-Italy-back-for-role-in-Libya
As I can have no possible impact on what’s gathering for the future I almost don’t want to look, because most (if not all) of it is going to unspeakably bad.
“Unspeakable” is a strange term. As is “unthinkable.”
Eric Says at 10:45 pm
“Not accurate to equate Iran and Saudia Arabia:”
I read the link but I fail to get Eric’s point. The fact that there are bloody rivalries within Islam doesn’t mean that both factions harbor the same malicious intentions vis-a-vis anyone they consider infidels.
I read the link but I fail to get Eric’s point. The fact that there are bloody rivalries within Islam doesn’t mean that both factions harbor the same malicious intentions vis-a-vis anyone they consider infidels.
SA has factions. Some are paying off terrorism the way rich whites pay off Jackson and Sharpton. Islam has a solid history of extorting tribute in Arabia.
Iran, is united, however. The Shia generally tend to be more united, being the minority, and also tend to be somewhat more fanatical strangely enough.
GB. My point about a non-nuclear Second Conjecture is that something non-nuclear will trigger the Third Conjecture.
Consider the recent discovery in Germany of a weapons cache near a mosque: Over a hundred AK of various types last I heard, plus some RPG launchers. No mention of rounds for the latter.
Suppose these were used for simultaneous attacks by groups of five on maybe twenty targets. For max horror, they’d be all the same kind. Churches on Sunday morning. Nursery schools. Hospitals.
And, suppose it happened here where we do have nukes.
Is there nothing that could happen short of nuclear or other WMD that would trigger Conjecture Number Three?
Consider the recent discovery in Germany of a weapons cache near a mosque: Over a hundred AK of various types last I heard, plus some RPG launchers. No mention of rounds for the latter.
Some background history info.
In Western feudalism, bishoprics sometimes sent heavy infantry, at around 20-45% of their total levy was sent to their liege. However, a feudal lord, who had baronies, earldoms, and dukedoms, was not allowed to directly levy or hold a bishopric.
In Islam, mosques were often used the same as baronies, castles, were. A place to produce heavy infantry, heavy cavalry, etc. Now that Islam has lost their military bastions, they still has their mosques though.
In Islam, a lord of a barony, a wartime production center, can also be lord of a mosque. That goes all the way to the Caliph, which ISIL wants to resurrect, the caliphate. The Sunni Caliphate that is.
As for blockading Islam, that was very feasible under Bush II or Reagan. Or even a warmonger Democrat like JFK or Truman.
But you have to be make sure that the Navy, these days, don’t surrender to Islam and Iran. Depending on who you put as the female “officers” of naval ships, you may have destroyers and carriers surrendering.
ymar
Interesting. Read a recent book on the Norman conquest which covered much of the structure of early medieval Europe. Church-state relations and so forth.
However, what happens if, in the US, we have ten Beslans on the same Monday?
However, what happens if, in the US, we have ten Beslans on the same Monday?
The Alternative Right, Traditionalist Worker Party, Trump, the usual would happen.
The reaction is already here, after all. If people don’t know what I am talking about, look up Milo on youtube or Trad Worker Party, and see what’s going on… outside of CNN and MSNBC propaganda from the enemy. CBS. See BS, yep.
I did say a few years ago that 100 Wacos would be needed to wake up America. America is already waking up, of course, because there’s been at least 10 Waco worth of casualty. Hell, there’s been a WACO 2, that people refuse to notice. It’s the same Waco Texas that used to help the KKK string up white REpublicans and black Republicans, hah. They just chose a different target these days under SPLC.
Read a recent book on the Norman conquest which covered much of the structure of early medieval Europe. Church-state relations and so forth.
Most of what I know comes from simulations, like what you see on the historical channel, except I get to fiddle around with the variables. Watching the Vikings convert to Christianity, and then become vassals of the French kings as Normans, was interesting. The Vikings used to be as aggressive, or even more so, than Islamic slave raiders. Christianity mellowed them out, although it took some time until you got Swedes and Norwegians of the modern day weak blood…
The Islamic Iqta system, was their version of feudalism. In the West, a Catholic bishop and an aristocratic lord, were two different career paths. Although a bishop or cardinal with a bishopric, was called a prince or something, so they had similar powers in their domain, just as the Pope does in the Vatican, or a baron has in his barony.
But Western feudal lords always had money issues. Cause all the money to the priests went to either the Catholic Pope (or anti pope if there was one), or to their favored liege lord.
In Islam, you don’t have that problem of lacking money. You get the slaves and the infidels to pay 25-75% tax via the Jizya. They didn’t need to send greedy bureaucrats after the cash, because Muslims will enforce that rule themselves against the infidel Jews and Christians. So all the mosques and money that came in, went to fund jihad or other wars of their lord. And the son with the most land in an Islamic dynasty, inherited everything, allowing them to delay succession crisis and form greater and greater domains, to wage jihad.
And the money was no problem, all the money gathered at a mosque for “Allah” went to jihad or the lord.
It was a very efficient system of war. Not war over a few years, but war over centuries, over more than a millenium. Peace creates wealth, slaves create taxes, and wealth and taxes fund the sinews of War or in this case, Jihad. They knew their logistics.
Y,
In the parker navy there are no female commanders, nor female front line soldiers. Sorry ladies, but you are not able, with exceedingly small exceptions capable to fill those positions. Stick to fighter pilot positions if you want to serve in the front line.
Eric,
BS. The kingdom of saud is the epicinter of sunni jihad. Iran is the epicinter of shia jihad. A plague of locusts and disease upon both of them. Spare us the idiocy of believing there is a dimes worth of difference.
BS. The kingdom of saud is the epicinter of sunni jihad. Iran is the epicinter of shia jihad. A plague of locusts and disease upon both of them. Spare us the idiocy of believing there is a dimes worth of difference.
For people at the tactical level, there is no difference. For those at the logistics and strategic level, there is always a difference between enemies.
Not understanding the enemy is why people lose. Of course, even understanding the enemy and winning means you become closer to your enemy.
Y,
It all comes down to the tactical level. Grand strategy goes out the window at the tactical level. Is at the tactical level that the grand strategy learns what does and does not work,. If the grand strategists are wise. Otherwise, they get people killed.
Grand strategy goes out the window at the tactical level.
That’s because Tactics < Strategy < Logistics.
Is at the tactical level that the grand strategy learns what does and does not work
A high level strategy works irregardless of the tactics.
Vietnam is a great example where enemies of America lost all the battles, yet won the war. Sun Tzu also wrote about that, winning without fighting or in this case, winning wars without winning battles.