Islamic State
“The trial has exposed tensions in Minnesota’s Somali community, where some believe the men were entrapped by a former group member turned paid FBI informant who testified at trial.”
What would it take for you to commit mass murder in the name of Allah?
Would you do it for money? For love? Out of a sense of justice? Out of a sense of religious duty?
Absurd as they may seem, these are serious questions, for as jihad mass-murder plots are being uncovered in the United States more frequently than ever, those are accused of perpetrating them and several Islamic groups are increasingly charging entrapment: that overzealous FBI agents pushed poor innocent Muslims into taking part in a jihad plot that otherwise would never have existed.
And so it is here. The same claim has been made in connection with numerous other jihad cases in the U.S. Yet charges of entrapment are silly for any Muslim caught in a jihad terror plot to try to pursue. For there is every indication that these jihadis were more than willing to do whatever was necessary to enable them to join the Islamic State. If undercover agents approached you and tried to entice you into joining a murderous jihad group, how hard would it be to convince you to do it?
Speaking strictly for myself, I have absolutely no worries of ever being entrapped in this way; there is simply nothing, under any circumstances, that anyone could say to me to convince me to blow anyone up or behead anyone. And so if someone showed up and started trying to cajole me into doing so, I would find him irritating, but I wouldn’t even come close to doing anything that would enable anyone to portray me as guilty of anything. Law enforcement agents were not to blame and cannot justly be held accountable for these men’s choices.
These increasingly common charges of entrapment should be seen for what they are: yet another attempt to divert attention from the ugly reality of Islamic jihad activity in the U.S. and around the world, and to place the responsibility for jihadist misdeeds upon non-Muslims — specifically the ones who are trying to thwart the jihadists” plans. After 9/11, we were assured again and again that the vast majority of Muslims in the U.S. and worldwide were peaceful, and sincerely condemned such violence perpetrated in the name of their religion. Yet nearly fifteen years later, we still have yet to see a sincere and effective effort within mosques to expose and report those who hold to the beliefs that led to those attacks.
Instead, we get more finger-pointing and claims of victimhood, even from self-proclaimed moderate Muslims. And that means we will also get more jihad.
“Three Minnesota men convicted of conspiring to join Islamic State,” Reuters, June 3, 2016:
MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) – Three Minnesota men were convicted on Friday of conspiring to commit murder in Syria on behalf of the Islamic State militant group, the U.S. Justice Department said.Jurors convicted Guled Omar, 21, Abdirahman Daud and Mohamed Farah, both 22, on multiple counts in Minnesota federal court. All three could face life in prison.U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger told a news conference after the verdict the evidence showed the men, part of a larger group of Somali-American men charged in the case, were not “wayward kids who just got caught up in a fantasy.”“They wanted to fight for a brutal terrorist organization, kill innocent people, and destroy their own families in the process,” Luger said.The men accused of making multiple efforts to leave the United States for Syria were convicted on all but one of the charges against them including conspiring and attempting to provide material support to Islamic State.Farah was also found guilty of lying to a grand jury and FBI agents and Omar of attempting to use $5,000 of student financial aid in the plan. Jurors acquitted Daud of a perjury charge.Prosecutors put on more than two dozen witnesses, secret audio recordings and terror videos in the trial that went to the jury on Wednesday afternoon.Farah’s attorney, Murad Mohammad, said he and his client were disappointed in the verdict. They had argued that Farah’s actions did not rise to the level of conspiring to murder anyone or provide material support to Islamic State.“Farah fell victim to ISIL’s slick marketing campaign, dusted with enough misrepresentations of Islam to make it appear to be a legitimate Islamic organization,” Mohammad said, using a different acronym for Islamic State….The trial has exposed tensions in Minnesota’s Somali community, where some believe the men were entrapped by a former group member turned paid FBI informant who testified at trial.Luger said the jury rejected the idea of entrapment.
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