Read The Complete Infidel's Guide to ISIS Online
Authors: Robert Spencer
Tags: #Religion, #Islam, #History, #Political Science, #Terrorism, #Non-Fiction
Brinsley: “Strike Terror into the Hearts of the Enemies of Allah”
Thirty-three days after Adnani’s letter urging attacks on the police, absolving jihadis of any guilt for the blood of non-Muslims, and urging improvised attacks with
any weapon that might be to hand, Zale Thompson used his hatchet on the New York City policemen. He wasn’t the first Western Muslim to heed the call of ISIS here—and he wouldn’t be the last.
On December 20, 2014, a Muslim named Ismaaiyl Abdullah Brinsley murdered NYPD Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu as they ate lunch in their patrol car.
Brinsley had written that he was going to avenge the killings of Eric Garner and Michael Brown that caused so much racial strife in 2014. Much less noted in the media was the fact that Brinsley’s Facebook page featured a photo of the Qur’an open to the eighth chapter, where Allah exhorts the believers to “strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah” (8:60).
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Brinsley also had worked for the Islamic Society of North America, an organization with ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, and went by the name Ismaaiyl Abdullah-Muhammad.
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DON’T BE AFRAID TO IMPROVISE!
“If you are not able to find an IED or a bullet, then single out the disbelieving American, Frenchman, or any of their allies. Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car, or throw him down from a high place, or choke him, or poison him. Do not lack. Do not be contemptible. Let your slogan be, ‘May I not be saved if the cross worshipper and taghut (ruler ruling by manmade laws) patron survives.’ If you are unable to do so, then burn his home, car, or business. Or destroy his crops.
“If you are unable to do so, then spit in his face. If your self refuses to do so, while your brothers are being bombarded and killed, and while their blood and wealth everywhere is deemed lawful by their enemies, then review your religion. You are in a dangerous condition because the religion cannot be established without wala’ [loyalty to believers] and bara’ [disavowal of unbelievers].”
—September 21, 2014, letter from the Islamic State’s Ab
Muhammad al-‘Adn
n
ash-Sh
m
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Were his murders another example of a Muslim heeding the Islamic State’s call to individual Muslims to attack police in Western countries? Authorities have remained tight-lipped, and there is no doubt that Brinsley was interested in avenging what he saw as the unjust deaths of Garner and Brown. But the Islamic State has sought to appropriate racial tensions in the U.S., and specifically anger about the killing of Michael Brown, for its own cause—tweeting out ISIS support for the Ferguson protestors and urging them to commit to jihad.
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And the timing, as well as the photo of Qur’an 8:60 on Brinsley’s Facebook page, was certainly suspicious. Brinsley may have thought,
What better way to strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah than to kill a couple of infidel, racist police officers, just as the Islamic State has called for?
It would be refreshing if we had law enforcement and government officials willing to investigate such questions, but in this age of Obama, we do not.
Rouleau: “NO SURRENDER. IT’S EITHER VICTORY OR MARTYRDOM”