Muslim Leaders Wage Theological Battle, Stoking ISIS’ Anger
As the military and political battle against the Islamic State escalates, Muslim imams and scholars in the West are fighting on another front — through theology.
Imam Suhaib Webb, a Muslim leader in Washington, has held live monthly video chats to refute the religious claims of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. In a dig at the extremists, he broadcast from ice cream parlors and called his talks “ISIS and ice cream.”
Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, an American Muslim scholar based in Berkeley, Calif., has pleaded with Muslims not to be deceived by the “stupid young boys” of the Islamic State. Millions have watched excerpts from his sermon titled “The Crisis of ISIS,” in which he wept as he asked God not to blame other Muslims “for what these fools amongst us do.”
It is a religious rumble that barely makes headlines in the secular West since it is carried out at mosques and Islamic conferences and over social media.
The Islamic State, however, has taken notice.
The group recently threatened the lives of 11 Muslim imams and scholars in the West, calling them “apostates” who should be killed. The recent issue of the Islamic State’s online propaganda magazine, Dabiq, called them “obligatory targets,” and it said that supporters should use any weapons on hand to “make an example of them.”
The danger is real enough that the F.B.I. has contacted some of those named in the Islamic State’s magazine “to assist them in taking proper steps to ensure their safety,” said Andrew Ames, a spokesman for the F.B.I.’s field office in Washington.
The death threats are a sign that Muslim religious leaders have antagonized the Islamic State, according to analysts who are studying the militant group. Their growing influence also contradicts those who claim that Muslim leaders have been silent in the fight against violent extremism.
“This is what hurts ISIS the most. It is Muslims speaking out,” said Mubin Shaikh, a Canadian who once joined an extremist Islamist group and now advises governments on countering radicalization. “Fear-mongering is what ISIS is trying to do, whether to silence these people or to silence others as a deterrent.”
Several of the targeted Muslim leaders said in interviews that, while they were taking the threat seriously, they had no intention of backing off. They have hired security guards and fortified their workplaces, and some keep guns at home.
These Muslim leaders say they are responding to fellow believers who are looking for a religiously based rebuke to violent movements that claim to be acting in the name of Islam. They say that extremist groups like the Islamic State are a threat not just to civil society and security, but to the future of their faith.
“None of our senior scholars of any school — any school — has justified these deeds,” Sheikh Qadhi said at the East London Mosque.
He argued that the terrorist attacks of recent years had clearly violated Islamic teaching because they “cause more harm than good,” bringing more bombs, more drones and more chaos to Muslim communities, he said.
“Who has benefited? Please use the intelligence that Allah gave you,” he said. “These radical groups have harmed the image of Islam infinitely more than all of the foreign policy of Western lands combined.”
The imams named by the Islamic State are based in the United States, Canada, Britain and Australia. They represent a broad spectrum of Islamic thought — from spiritual Sufis to puritanical Salafis, and even the more militant “Salafi Jihadis.”
The list also includes Salafi-oriented preachers such as Bilal Philips, a Canadian convert who has been barred from several countries because of allegations that he preaches extremism; Tawfique Chowdhury, an Australian doctor who founded organizations and charities that propagate orthodox views of Islam; and Abu Basir al-Tartusi, a Syrian preacher based in London who has spoken in support of Al Qaeda, according to news reports.
“What ISIS is saying is that even if you support Al Qaeda, even if you’re a supporter of someone like Tartusi, you’re still not on team Islam.”
READ FULL ARTICLE :-
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/09/us/is ... il0=y&_r=0
A Powerful & Merciless Force Has Emerged On World Stage
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ghulam muhammed
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qutub_mamajiwala
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Re: A Powerful & Merciless Force Has Emerged On World Stage
Radicalized Muslim youth gravitate towards Islamic State, ignore Lashkar, Jaish
Islamic State (IS) is fast emerging as the new choice of jihadist-leaning, radicalized Muslim youth in India and its immediate neighbourhood, threatening to undercut more established terror outfits like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad as its success in acquiring territory touted as the "caliphate" gives it significant appeal.
The IS's denunciation of Pakistan army as an "apostate" force allied with America and its harsh and uncompromising interpretation of religious tenets threaten to do to Lashkar what the terror outfit did to its rivals: label it as a theologically suspect adjunct of the state lacking the will to recreate a 7th century caliphate.
Only recently, IS chief for Bangladesh Shaykh Abu Ibrahim Al Hanif declared IS's intention to use fighters from Pakistan and Bangladesh to mount "guerilla attacks inside India" by partnering local mujahideen.
Indian agencies fear attacks by JMB cadres in Assam and West Bengal in the coming days.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 317388.cms
Islamic State (IS) is fast emerging as the new choice of jihadist-leaning, radicalized Muslim youth in India and its immediate neighbourhood, threatening to undercut more established terror outfits like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad as its success in acquiring territory touted as the "caliphate" gives it significant appeal.
The IS's denunciation of Pakistan army as an "apostate" force allied with America and its harsh and uncompromising interpretation of religious tenets threaten to do to Lashkar what the terror outfit did to its rivals: label it as a theologically suspect adjunct of the state lacking the will to recreate a 7th century caliphate.
Only recently, IS chief for Bangladesh Shaykh Abu Ibrahim Al Hanif declared IS's intention to use fighters from Pakistan and Bangladesh to mount "guerilla attacks inside India" by partnering local mujahideen.
Indian agencies fear attacks by JMB cadres in Assam and West Bengal in the coming days.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 317388.cms
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ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
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Re: A Powerful & Merciless Force Has Emerged On World Stage
The Hypocrisies of Terror Talk
The frightful and bloody hours of Friday night and Saturday morning in Munich and Kabul – despite the 3,000 miles that separate the two cities – provided a highly instructive lesson in the semantics of horror and hypocrisy. I despair of that generic old hate-word, “terror”. It long ago became the punctuation mark and signature tune of every facile politician, policeman, journalist and think tank crank in the world.
Terror, terror, terror, terror, terror. Or terrorist, terrorist, terrorist, terrorist, terrorist.
But from time to time, we trip up on this killer cliché, just as we did at the weekend. Here’s how it went. When first we heard that three armed men had gone on a “shooting spree” in Munich, the German cops and the lads and lassies of the BBC, CNN and Fox News fingered the “terror” lever. The Munich constabulary, we were informed, feared this was a “terrorist act”. The local police, the BBC told us, were engaged in an “anti-terror manhunt”.
And we knew what that meant: the three men were believed to be Muslims and therefore “terrorists”, and thus suspected of being members of (or at least inspired by) Isis.
Then it turned out that the three men were in fact only one man – a man who was obsessed with mass killing. He was born in Germany (albeit partly Iranian in origin). And all of a sudden, in every British media and on CNN, the “anti-terror manhunt” became a hunt for a lone “shooter”.
One UK newspaper used the word “shooter” 14 times in a few paragraphs. Somehow, “shooter” doesn’t sound as dangerous as “terrorist”, though the effect of his actions was most assuredly the same. “Shooter” is a code word. It meant: this particular mass killer is not a Muslim.
Now to Kabul, where Isis – yes, the real horrific Sunni Muslim Isis of fearful legend – sent suicide bombers into thousands of Shia Muslims who were protesting on Saturday morning at what appears to have been a pretty routine bit of official discrimination.
The Afghan government had declined to route a new power line through the minority Hazara (Shia) district of the country – a smaller electric cable connection had failed to satisfy the crowds – and had warned the Shia men and women to cancel their protest. The crowds, many of them middle-class young men and women from the capital, ignored this ominous warning and turned up near the presidential palace to pitch tents upon which they had written in Dari “justice and light” and “death to discrimination”.
But death came to them instead, in the form of two Isis men – one of them apparently pushing an ice-cream cart – whose explosives literally blew apart 80 of the Shia Muslims and wounded at another 260.
In a city in which elements of the Afghan government are sometimes called the Taliban government, and in which an Afghan version of the Sunni Muslim Islamic State is popularly supposed to reside like a bacillus within those same factions, it wasn’t long before the activists who organised the demonstration began to suspect that the authorities themselves were behind the massacre. Of course, we in the West did not hear this version of events. Reports from Kabul concentrated instead on those who denied or claimed the atrocity. The horrid Islamist Taliban denied it. The horrid Islamist Isis said they did it. And thus all reports centred on the Isis claim of responsibility.
But wait. Not a single report, not one newscast, referred to the Kabul slaughter as an act of “terror”. The Afghan government did. But we did not. We referred to the “suicide bombers” and the “attackers” in much the same way that we referred to the “shooter” in Munich.
Now this is very odd. How come a Muslim can be a terrorist in Europe but a mere “attacker” in south-west Asia? Because in Kabul the killers were not attacking Westerners? Or because they were attacking their fellow Muslims, albeit of the Shia Muslim variety?
I suspect both answers are correct. I can find no other reason for this weird semantic game. For just as the terrorist identity faded away in Munich the moment Ali Sonboly turned out to have more interest in the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik than the Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of Mosul, so the real Isis murderers in Kabul completely avoided the stigma of being called terrorists in any shape or form.
This nonsensical nomenclature is going to be further warped – be sure of this – as more and more of the European victims of the attacks in EU nations turn out to be Muslims themselves. The large number of Muslims killed by Isis in Nice was noticed, but scarcely headlined. The four young Turks shot down by Ali Sonboly were subsumed into the story as an almost routine part of what is now, alas, the routine of mass killing in Europe as well as in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
The identity of Muslims in Europe is therefore fudged if they are victims but of vital political importance if they are killers. But in Kabul, where both victims and murderers were Muslim, their mutual crisis of religious identity is of no interest in the West; the bloodbath is described in anaemic terms. The two attackers “attacked” and the “attacked” were left with 80 dead – more like a football match than a war of terror.
It all comes down to the same thing in the end. If Muslims attack us, they are terrorists. If non-Muslims attack us, they are shooters. If Muslims attack other Muslims, they are attackers.
Scissor out this paragraph and keep it beside you when the killers next let loose – and you’ll be able to work out who the bad guys are before the cops tell you.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/25/ ... rror-talk/
The frightful and bloody hours of Friday night and Saturday morning in Munich and Kabul – despite the 3,000 miles that separate the two cities – provided a highly instructive lesson in the semantics of horror and hypocrisy. I despair of that generic old hate-word, “terror”. It long ago became the punctuation mark and signature tune of every facile politician, policeman, journalist and think tank crank in the world.
Terror, terror, terror, terror, terror. Or terrorist, terrorist, terrorist, terrorist, terrorist.
But from time to time, we trip up on this killer cliché, just as we did at the weekend. Here’s how it went. When first we heard that three armed men had gone on a “shooting spree” in Munich, the German cops and the lads and lassies of the BBC, CNN and Fox News fingered the “terror” lever. The Munich constabulary, we were informed, feared this was a “terrorist act”. The local police, the BBC told us, were engaged in an “anti-terror manhunt”.
And we knew what that meant: the three men were believed to be Muslims and therefore “terrorists”, and thus suspected of being members of (or at least inspired by) Isis.
Then it turned out that the three men were in fact only one man – a man who was obsessed with mass killing. He was born in Germany (albeit partly Iranian in origin). And all of a sudden, in every British media and on CNN, the “anti-terror manhunt” became a hunt for a lone “shooter”.
One UK newspaper used the word “shooter” 14 times in a few paragraphs. Somehow, “shooter” doesn’t sound as dangerous as “terrorist”, though the effect of his actions was most assuredly the same. “Shooter” is a code word. It meant: this particular mass killer is not a Muslim.
Now to Kabul, where Isis – yes, the real horrific Sunni Muslim Isis of fearful legend – sent suicide bombers into thousands of Shia Muslims who were protesting on Saturday morning at what appears to have been a pretty routine bit of official discrimination.
The Afghan government had declined to route a new power line through the minority Hazara (Shia) district of the country – a smaller electric cable connection had failed to satisfy the crowds – and had warned the Shia men and women to cancel their protest. The crowds, many of them middle-class young men and women from the capital, ignored this ominous warning and turned up near the presidential palace to pitch tents upon which they had written in Dari “justice and light” and “death to discrimination”.
But death came to them instead, in the form of two Isis men – one of them apparently pushing an ice-cream cart – whose explosives literally blew apart 80 of the Shia Muslims and wounded at another 260.
In a city in which elements of the Afghan government are sometimes called the Taliban government, and in which an Afghan version of the Sunni Muslim Islamic State is popularly supposed to reside like a bacillus within those same factions, it wasn’t long before the activists who organised the demonstration began to suspect that the authorities themselves were behind the massacre. Of course, we in the West did not hear this version of events. Reports from Kabul concentrated instead on those who denied or claimed the atrocity. The horrid Islamist Taliban denied it. The horrid Islamist Isis said they did it. And thus all reports centred on the Isis claim of responsibility.
But wait. Not a single report, not one newscast, referred to the Kabul slaughter as an act of “terror”. The Afghan government did. But we did not. We referred to the “suicide bombers” and the “attackers” in much the same way that we referred to the “shooter” in Munich.
Now this is very odd. How come a Muslim can be a terrorist in Europe but a mere “attacker” in south-west Asia? Because in Kabul the killers were not attacking Westerners? Or because they were attacking their fellow Muslims, albeit of the Shia Muslim variety?
I suspect both answers are correct. I can find no other reason for this weird semantic game. For just as the terrorist identity faded away in Munich the moment Ali Sonboly turned out to have more interest in the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik than the Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of Mosul, so the real Isis murderers in Kabul completely avoided the stigma of being called terrorists in any shape or form.
This nonsensical nomenclature is going to be further warped – be sure of this – as more and more of the European victims of the attacks in EU nations turn out to be Muslims themselves. The large number of Muslims killed by Isis in Nice was noticed, but scarcely headlined. The four young Turks shot down by Ali Sonboly were subsumed into the story as an almost routine part of what is now, alas, the routine of mass killing in Europe as well as in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
The identity of Muslims in Europe is therefore fudged if they are victims but of vital political importance if they are killers. But in Kabul, where both victims and murderers were Muslim, their mutual crisis of religious identity is of no interest in the West; the bloodbath is described in anaemic terms. The two attackers “attacked” and the “attacked” were left with 80 dead – more like a football match than a war of terror.
It all comes down to the same thing in the end. If Muslims attack us, they are terrorists. If non-Muslims attack us, they are shooters. If Muslims attack other Muslims, they are attackers.
Scissor out this paragraph and keep it beside you when the killers next let loose – and you’ll be able to work out who the bad guys are before the cops tell you.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/25/ ... rror-talk/
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qutub_mamajiwala
- Posts: 1052
- Joined: Tue Jul 23, 2013 4:17 am
Re: A Powerful & Merciless Force Has Emerged On World Stage
4 ways to tackle Islamic State's terror
'Terrorism is merely a tactic and Islamic State its most brutal face
while jihad may have begun as a quest for domination in Afghanistan and the defeat of 'Godless' Communism, it later transformed into an anti-West ideological struggle
The counter-terror operations for the last 15 years or so have achieved some success in killing the leaders and disrupting organisations. However, due to the 'politically correct' approach to religion, the ideology of the terrorists has never been seriously questioned.
All this while the cause of converting the whole world to a (mythical Islamic State) Dar al Islam (from its current Dar al Harb) has continued unchallenged.
The idea of geographical divisions along religious lines -- the dar -- is not mentioned in the Quran or Hadith. The only 'dar' the Quran speaks of is 'the abode of the Hereafter (heaven) and the earthly life,' with the heaven described as clearly superior to life on earth.
This makes it obvious that what is claimed as sanctioned by religion is actually a 'political' tool that is being used by some elements/nations
Indian and Indonesian Muslims must come together and question the two concepts of Dar al Harb and kufr (non-believers). It is these two concepts that are at the root of motivation of Islamic terror.
In order to effectively deal with this falsehood that has crept into Islam due to historical reasons (when religion was used as a tool to spread an empire), it is necessary to denounce these concepts as un-Islamic and excommunicate those who profess these notions.
In short, one is advocating a clear split between majority peace loving Muslims and its radical/intolerant part. This is a historical necessity and is not a new phenomenon as many other faiths (including Islam) have indeed undergone such convulsions in history.
Vladimir Lenin, the father of the Russian revolution, is often quoted as having said that 'ideas are even more fatal than guns', so if we do not permit easy access to guns to all and sundry, then why should we permit the same freedom in the realm of ideologies that propagate violence and are a danger to humanity?
The sad truth is while technology has progressed to give the human race unlimited opportunity to communicate freely, human development has lagged far behind. Mindsets and the attitudes of many betray a medieval mindset
http://www.rediff.com/news/column/4-way ... 160725.htm
'Terrorism is merely a tactic and Islamic State its most brutal face
while jihad may have begun as a quest for domination in Afghanistan and the defeat of 'Godless' Communism, it later transformed into an anti-West ideological struggle
The counter-terror operations for the last 15 years or so have achieved some success in killing the leaders and disrupting organisations. However, due to the 'politically correct' approach to religion, the ideology of the terrorists has never been seriously questioned.
All this while the cause of converting the whole world to a (mythical Islamic State) Dar al Islam (from its current Dar al Harb) has continued unchallenged.
The idea of geographical divisions along religious lines -- the dar -- is not mentioned in the Quran or Hadith. The only 'dar' the Quran speaks of is 'the abode of the Hereafter (heaven) and the earthly life,' with the heaven described as clearly superior to life on earth.
This makes it obvious that what is claimed as sanctioned by religion is actually a 'political' tool that is being used by some elements/nations
Indian and Indonesian Muslims must come together and question the two concepts of Dar al Harb and kufr (non-believers). It is these two concepts that are at the root of motivation of Islamic terror.
In order to effectively deal with this falsehood that has crept into Islam due to historical reasons (when religion was used as a tool to spread an empire), it is necessary to denounce these concepts as un-Islamic and excommunicate those who profess these notions.
In short, one is advocating a clear split between majority peace loving Muslims and its radical/intolerant part. This is a historical necessity and is not a new phenomenon as many other faiths (including Islam) have indeed undergone such convulsions in history.
Vladimir Lenin, the father of the Russian revolution, is often quoted as having said that 'ideas are even more fatal than guns', so if we do not permit easy access to guns to all and sundry, then why should we permit the same freedom in the realm of ideologies that propagate violence and are a danger to humanity?
The sad truth is while technology has progressed to give the human race unlimited opportunity to communicate freely, human development has lagged far behind. Mindsets and the attitudes of many betray a medieval mindset
http://www.rediff.com/news/column/4-way ... 160725.htm
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ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
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Re: A Powerful & Merciless Force Has Emerged On World Stage
Shocking video shows Isis hanging prisoners from meat hooks, cutting them like goats and sheep
In a fresh show of barbarism it is capable of enacting, the Islamic State group released a video that purportedly contains visuals of its prisoners -- clad in orange jumpsuits -- being hung upside down from meat hooks in what looks like a factory, and then being slaughtered -- killed and cut open -- like sheep and goats.
What is even more shocking is the similarities between the manner in which these prisoners were killed and how sheep and goats are sacrificed on Eid al-Adha, the holy festival Muslims celebrate all over the world. That the video was released on this occasion is being seen as no coincidence.
The video, titled "The Making of Illusion," shows people purportedly from the Der Ezzor province of Syria, a stronghold of the Islamic State group, which is also known as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis) or Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil).
All the men are shown dressed in orange jumpsuits, a common trait among people in videos who Isis says are its prisoners. Many of them are blindfolded, and their hands tied behind them. The video depicts them in what could be either a factory or a prison, while some are saying it could also be an abattoir or a slaughterhouse.
The video initially names many -- if not all -- of the "prisoners" who go on to be killed. It then shows the Syrians being hung upside down from meat hooks, their hands restrained behind them with zip-ties. At one point, two of them are also shown being carried like goats on two arms by an Isis member.
Their throats are then slit -- much like how goats and sheep are cut in the halal way so their meat is deemed safe for eating by Muslims. Their "execution" happens because Isis suspects them to be spies.
https://in.news.yahoo.com/shocking-vide ... 59432.html
In a fresh show of barbarism it is capable of enacting, the Islamic State group released a video that purportedly contains visuals of its prisoners -- clad in orange jumpsuits -- being hung upside down from meat hooks in what looks like a factory, and then being slaughtered -- killed and cut open -- like sheep and goats.
What is even more shocking is the similarities between the manner in which these prisoners were killed and how sheep and goats are sacrificed on Eid al-Adha, the holy festival Muslims celebrate all over the world. That the video was released on this occasion is being seen as no coincidence.
The video, titled "The Making of Illusion," shows people purportedly from the Der Ezzor province of Syria, a stronghold of the Islamic State group, which is also known as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis) or Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil).
All the men are shown dressed in orange jumpsuits, a common trait among people in videos who Isis says are its prisoners. Many of them are blindfolded, and their hands tied behind them. The video depicts them in what could be either a factory or a prison, while some are saying it could also be an abattoir or a slaughterhouse.
The video initially names many -- if not all -- of the "prisoners" who go on to be killed. It then shows the Syrians being hung upside down from meat hooks, their hands restrained behind them with zip-ties. At one point, two of them are also shown being carried like goats on two arms by an Isis member.
Their throats are then slit -- much like how goats and sheep are cut in the halal way so their meat is deemed safe for eating by Muslims. Their "execution" happens because Isis suspects them to be spies.
https://in.news.yahoo.com/shocking-vide ... 59432.html
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ghulam muhammed
- Posts: 11653
- Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:34 pm
Re: A Powerful & Merciless Force Has Emerged On World Stage
Egyptian state media claims Isis is 'made up' and 9/11 was carried out by West to justify war on terror
A columnist for a state-run newspaper in Egypt has suggested the US invented Isis and set up the 9/11 attacks to justify its military interventions in the Middle East.
“Is it possible to believe the official version, from the US government, of the events of 11 September 2001?” wrote journalist Noha Al-Sharnoubi in Al-Ahram, a major national Egyptian newspaper owned by the government.
Ms Al-Sharnoubi said the World Trade Centre and Pentagon attacks could have been premeditated to "justify the war on terror” in her column, published on 23 August.
She also cast doubt over the veracity of the actions of the so-called Islamic State, alleging the extremist group could have been made up to “trick” the world and validate US foreign policy.
Ms Al-Sharnoubi does not appear to shy away from controversial subjects. Her weekly column has recently discussed issues such as burkini bans, French military involvement in Libya and whether it is acceptable to sacrifice chickens, duck and geese.
According to an English translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute (Memri), Ms Al-Sharnoubi wrote: “Is it a coincidence that the commanders of the September 11 attack trained at American flight schools?”
“Is it conceivable that four hijacked planes flew around so freely, penetrated US airspace and hit the towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon one by one, with an interval of 15 minutes and 30 minutes between the attacks," she added.
"All this took place without the Americans targeting the planes and downing them, despite all their intelligence, satellites and radars?
“Or was the whole thing planned [in advance] in order to justify the war on terror, the [first] episode of which [later] began in Iraq?”
Ms Al-Sharnoubi also questioned the contents of Isis propaganda videos, suggesting the militant group could be “another story that was prepared in advance [by the West] to justify the devastation, partitioning and occupation” of Middle Eastern countries.
“Does it make sense that most Isis members are foreigners [i.e., Western nationals], unless ISIS is another story that was prepared in advance [by the West] to justify the devastation, partitioning and occupation [of countries] that is taking place and will continue to take place in the Middle East?” she wrote, according to Memri.
“Those who are murdered and [then] accused of perpetrating terror attacks in the West – are they the real culprits?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 08926.html
A columnist for a state-run newspaper in Egypt has suggested the US invented Isis and set up the 9/11 attacks to justify its military interventions in the Middle East.
“Is it possible to believe the official version, from the US government, of the events of 11 September 2001?” wrote journalist Noha Al-Sharnoubi in Al-Ahram, a major national Egyptian newspaper owned by the government.
Ms Al-Sharnoubi said the World Trade Centre and Pentagon attacks could have been premeditated to "justify the war on terror” in her column, published on 23 August.
She also cast doubt over the veracity of the actions of the so-called Islamic State, alleging the extremist group could have been made up to “trick” the world and validate US foreign policy.
Ms Al-Sharnoubi does not appear to shy away from controversial subjects. Her weekly column has recently discussed issues such as burkini bans, French military involvement in Libya and whether it is acceptable to sacrifice chickens, duck and geese.
According to an English translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute (Memri), Ms Al-Sharnoubi wrote: “Is it a coincidence that the commanders of the September 11 attack trained at American flight schools?”
“Is it conceivable that four hijacked planes flew around so freely, penetrated US airspace and hit the towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon one by one, with an interval of 15 minutes and 30 minutes between the attacks," she added.
"All this took place without the Americans targeting the planes and downing them, despite all their intelligence, satellites and radars?
“Or was the whole thing planned [in advance] in order to justify the war on terror, the [first] episode of which [later] began in Iraq?”
Ms Al-Sharnoubi also questioned the contents of Isis propaganda videos, suggesting the militant group could be “another story that was prepared in advance [by the West] to justify the devastation, partitioning and occupation” of Middle Eastern countries.
“Does it make sense that most Isis members are foreigners [i.e., Western nationals], unless ISIS is another story that was prepared in advance [by the West] to justify the devastation, partitioning and occupation [of countries] that is taking place and will continue to take place in the Middle East?” she wrote, according to Memri.
“Those who are murdered and [then] accused of perpetrating terror attacks in the West – are they the real culprits?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 08926.html