The Jihadists’ Eternal Plan

**Jolie Rouge** · 11-15-2015, 02:30 PM

What ISIS Really Wants

The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy—and for how to stop it.

Graeme Wood
| March 2015 Issue

What is the Islamic State?

Where did it come from, and what are its intentions? The simplicity of these questions can be deceiving, and few Western leaders seem to know the answers. In December, The New York Times published confidential comments by Major General Michael K. Nagata, the Special Operations commander for the United States in the Middle East, admitting that he had hardly begun figuring out the Islamic State’s appeal. “We have not defeated the idea,” he said. “We do not even understand the idea.” In the past year, President Obama has referred to the Islamic State, variously, as “not Islamic” and as al-Qaeda’s “jayvee team,” statements that reflected confusion about the group, and may have contributed to significant strategic errors.

What to Do About ISIS?

The group seized Mosul, Iraq, last June, and already rules an area larger than the United Kingdom. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been its leader since May 2010, but until last summer, his most recent known appearance on film was a grainy mug shot from a stay in U.S. captivity at Camp Bucca during the occupation of Iraq. Then, on July 5 of last year, he stepped into the pulpit of the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul, to deliver a Ramadan sermon as the first caliph in generations—upgrading his resolution from grainy to high-definition, and his position from hunted guerrilla to commander of all Muslims. The inflow of jihadists that followed, from around the world, was unprecedented in its pace and volume, and is continuing.

Our ignorance of the Islamic State is in some ways understandable: It is a hermit kingdom; few have gone there and returned. Baghdadi has spoken on camera only once. But his address, and the Islamic State’s countless other propaganda videos and encyclicals, are online, and the caliphate’s supporters have toiled mightily to make their project knowable. We can gather that their state rejects peace as a matter of principle; that it hungers for genocide; that its religious views make it constitutionally incapable of certain types of change, even if that change might ensure its survival; and that it considers itself a harbinger of—and headline player in—the imminent end of the world.

The Islamic State, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), follows a distinctive variety of Islam whose beliefs about the path to the Day of Judgment matter to its strategy, and can help the West know its enemy and predict its behavior. Its rise to power is less like the triumph of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (a group whose leaders the Islamic State considers apostates) than like the realization of a dystopian alternate reality in which David Koresh or Jim Jones survived to wield absolute power over not just a few hundred people, but some 8 million.

We have misunderstood the nature of the Islamic State in at least two ways. First, we tend to see jihadism as monolithic, and to apply the logic of al‑Qaeda to an organization that has decisively eclipsed it. The Islamic State supporters I spoke with still refer to Osama bin Laden as “Sheikh Osama,” a title of honor. But jihadism has evolved since al-Qaeda’s heyday, from about 1998 to 2003, and many jihadists disdain the group’s priorities and current leadership.

Bin Laden viewed his terrorism as a prologue to a caliphate he did not expect to see in his lifetime. His organization was flexible, operating as a geographically diffuse network of autonomous cells. The Islamic State, by contrast, requires territory to remain legitimate, and a top-down structure to rule it. (Its bureaucracy is divided into civil and military arms, and its territory into provinces.)

We are misled in a second way, by a well-intentioned but dishonest campaign to deny the Islamic State’s medieval religious nature. Peter Bergen, who produced the first interview with bin Laden in 1997, titled his first book Holy War, Inc. in part to acknowledge bin Laden as a creature of the modern secular world. Bin Laden corporatized terror and franchised it out. He requested specific political concessions, such as the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Saudi Arabia. His foot soldiers navigated the modern world confidently. On Mohamed Atta’s last full day of life, he shopped at Walmart and ate dinner at Pizza Hut.

There is a temptation to rehearse this observation—that jihadists are modern secular people, with modern political concerns, wearing medieval religious disguise—and make it fit the Islamic State. In fact, much of what the group does looks nonsensical except in light of a sincere, carefully considered commitment to returning civilization to a seventh-century legal environment, and ultimately to bringing about the apocalypse.

The most-articulate spokesmen for that position are the Islamic State’s officials and supporters themselves. They refer derisively to “moderns.” In conversation, they insist that they will not—cannot—waver from governing precepts that were embedded in Islam by the Prophet Muhammad and his earliest followers. They often speak in codes and allusions that sound odd or old-fashioned to non-Muslims, but refer to specific traditions and texts of early Islam.

To take one example: In September, Sheikh Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the Islamic State’s chief spokesman, called on Muslims in Western countries such as France and Canada to find an infidel and “smash his head with a rock,” poison him, run him over with a car, or “destroy his crops.” To Western ears, the biblical-sounding punishments—the stoning and crop destruction—juxtaposed strangely with his more modern-sounding call to vehicular homicide. (As if to show that he could terrorize by imagery alone, Adnani also referred to Secretary of State John Kerry as an “uncircumcised geezer.”)

But Adnani was not merely talking trash. His speech was laced with theological and legal discussion, and his exhortation to attack crops directly echoed orders from Muhammad to leave well water and crops alone—unless the armies of Islam were in a defensive position, in which case Muslims in the lands of kuffar, or infidels, should be unmerciful, and poison away.

The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic. Yes, it has attracted psychopaths and adventure seekers, drawn largely from the disaffected populations of the Middle East and Europe. But the religion preached by its most ardent followers derives from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam.

Virtually every major decision and law promulgated by the Islamic State adheres to what it calls, in its press and pronouncements, and on its billboards, license plates, stationery, and coins, “the Prophetic methodology,” which means following the prophecy and example of Muhammad, in punctilious detail. Muslims can reject the Islamic State; nearly all do. But pretending that it isn’t actually a religious, millenarian group, with theology that must be understood to be combatted, has already led the United States to underestimate it and back foolish schemes to counter it. We’ll need to get acquainted with the Islamic State’s intellectual genealogy if we are to react in a way that will not strengthen it, but instead help it self-immolate in its own excessive zeal.

Control of territory is an essential precondition for the Islamic State’s authority in the eyes of its supporters. This map, adapted from the work of the Institute for the Study of War, shows the territory under the caliphate’s control as of January 15, along with areas it has attacked. Where it holds power, the state collects taxes, regulates prices, operates courts, and administers services ranging from health care and education to telecommunications.

MORE : http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...-wants/384980/

**Advertisement** · 11-15-2015 02:30 PM

**Jolie Rouge** · 11-15-2015, 10:01 PM

The 100-Year-Old Agreement You Need to Know About to Understand What’s Driving the Islamic State
Sep. 18, 2014 8:45pm Erica Ritz

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014...n=ShareButtons

**Eddie** · 11-27-2015, 09:59 PM

Nigeria’s Boko Haram is now officially the deadliest terror group in the world. That they have reached this position is a direct consequence of Cameron and Co’s war on Libya – and one that was perhaps not entirely unintended.

According to a report just released by Global Terrorism Index, Boko Haram were responsible for 6,644 deaths in 2014, compared to 6,073 attributed to ISIS, representing a quadrupling of their total killings in 2013. In the past week alone, bombings conducted by the group have killed eight people on a bus in Maiduguri; a family of five in Fotokol, Cameroon; fifteen people in a crowded marketplace in Kano; and thirty-two people outside a mosque in Yola.

In 2009, the year they took up arms, Boko Haram had nothing like the capacity to mount such operations, and their equipment remained primitive; but by 2011, that had begun to change. As Peter Weber noted in The Week, their weapons “shifted from relatively cheap AK-47s in the early days of its post-2009 embrace of violence to desert-ready combat vehicles and anti-aircraft/ anti-tank guns”. This dramatic turnaround in the group’s access to materiel was the direct result of NATO’s war on Libya. A UN report published in early 2012 warned that “large quantities of weapons and ammunition from Libyan stockpiles were smuggled into the Sahel region”, including “rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns with anti-aircraft visors, automatic rifles, ammunition, grenades, explosives (Semtex), and light anti-aircraft artillery (light caliber bi-tubes) mounted on vehicles”, and probably also more advanced weapons such as surface-to-air missiles and MANPADS (man-portable air-defense systems).

NATO had effectively turned over the entire armory of an advanced industrial state to the region’s most sectarian militias: groups such as the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Boko Haram.

The earliest casualty of NATO’s war outside Libya was Mali. Taureg fighters who had worked in Gaddafi’s security forces fled Libya soon after Gaddafi’s government was overthrown, and mounted an insurgency in Northern Mali. They in turn were overthrown, however, by Al Qaeda’s regional affiliates - flush with Libyan weaponry - who then turned Northern Mali into another base from which to train and launch attacks. Boko Haram was a key beneficiary. AS Brendan O’ Neill wrote in an excellent 2014 article worth quoting at length: “Boko Haram benefited enormously from the vacuum created in once-peaceful northern Mali following the West’s ousting of Gaddafi.

In two ways: first, it honed its guerrilla skills by fighting alongside more practiced Islamists in Mali, such as AQIM; and second, it accumulated some of the estimated 15,000 pieces of Libyan military hardware and weaponry that leaked across the country’s borders following the sweeping aside of Gaddafi. In April 2012, Agence France-Presse reported that ‘dozens of Boko Haram fighters’ were assisting AQIM and others in northern Mali. This had a devastating knock-on effect in Nigeria. As the Washington Post reported in early 2013, ‘The Islamist insurgency in northern Nigeria has entered a more violent phase as militants return to the fight with sophisticated weaponry and tactics learned on the battlefields of nearby Mali’. A Nigerian analyst said ‘Boko Haram’s level of audacity was high [in late 2012]’, immediately following the movement of some of its militants to the Mali region.”

That NATO’s Libya war would have such consequences was both thoroughly predictable, and widely predicted. As early as June 2011, African Union Chairman Jean Ping warned NATO that “Africa’s concern is that weapons that are delivered to one side or another…are already in the desert and will arm terrorists and fuel trafficking”. And both Mali and Algeria strongly opposed NATO’s destruction of Libya precisely because of the massive destabilization it would bring to the region. They argued, wrote O’Neill, “that such a violent upheaval in a region like north Africa could have potentially catastrophic consequences. The fallout from the bombing is ‘a real source of concern’, said the rulers of Mali in October 2011. In fact, as the BBC reported, they had been arguing since ‘the start of the conflict in Libya’ – that is, since the civil conflict between Benghazi-based militants and Gaddafi began – that ‘the fall of Gaddafi would have a destabilizing effect in the region’.” In an op-ed following the collapse of Northern Mali, a former Chief of Staff of UK land forces, Major-General Jonathan Shaw, wrote that Colonel Gaddafi was a “lynchpin” of the “informal Sahel security plan”, whose removal therefore led to a foreseeable collapse of security across the entire region. The rise of Boko Haram has been but one result – and not without strategic benefits for the West.

Nigeria was once seen by the US as one of its most dependable allies on the African continent. Yet, following a pattern that is repeated across the entire global South, in recent years the country has been moving ever closer to China. The headline grabbing deal was the $23 billion contract signed in 2010 with the Chinese to construct three fuel refineries, adding an extra 750,000 barrels per day to Nigeria’s oil producing capacity. This was followed up in 2013 with an agreement to increase Nigerian oil exports to China tenfold by 2015 (from 20,000 to 200,000 barrels per day). But China’s economic interests go far beyond that.

A Nigerian diplomat interviewed by China-Africa specialist Deborah Brautigam told her that “The Chinese are trying to get involved in every sector of our economy. If you look at the West, it’s oil, oil, oil and nothing else.” In 2006, China issued an $8.3billion low-interest loan to Nigeria to fund the building of a major new railway, and the following year China built a telecommunications satellite for Nigeria. Indeed, of last year’s $18 billion worth of bilateral trade between the two countries, over 88% was in the non-petroleum sector, and by 2012 Nigerian imports from China (it’s biggest import partner) totaled more than that of its second and third biggest import partners, the US and India, combined. This kind of trade and investment is of the type that is seriously aiding Africa’s ability to add value to its products – and is thereby undermining the Western global economic order, which relies on Africa remaining an under-developed exporter of cheap raw materials.

Not has China’s co-operation been limited to economics. In 2004, China supported Nigeria’s bid for a seat on the UN Security Council, and in 2006, Nigeria signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the Establishment of a Strategic Partnership with China – the first African country to do so. It is a partnership with a solid base of support – according to a BBC poll conducted in 2011, 85 percent of Nigerians have a positive view of China; perhaps not surprising when even pro-US security think-tanks like the Jamestown Foundation admit that “China’s links with Nigeria are qualitatively different from the West’s, and as a result, may potentially produce benefits for the ordinary people of Nigeria”. Symbolizing the importance of the relationship, current Chinese Premier Li Keqiang made Nigeria his first foreign destination after taking up the role in 2013.

This growing South-South co-operation is not viewed positively by the US, which is witnessing what it once saw as a dependable client state edge increasingly out of its orbit. The African Oil Policy Initiative Group – a consortium of US Congressmen, military officials and energy lobbyists – had already concluded in a 2002 report that China was a rival of the US for influence in West Africa that would need to be deterred by military means, and China has been increasingly viewed by US policymakers as a strategic threat to be contained militarily ever since. A report by US Chief of Staff Martin Dempsey just this July highlighted China as one of the major ‘security threats’ to US domination, for example - although Obama’s ‘Pivot to Asia’ policy had already made this clear back in 2013.

Is it such a stretch, then, to think that the US might actually want to cripple its strategic rival, China, by destabilizing her allies, such as Nigeria? After all, despite continued US links to Nigeria, it is China, more than any other foreign partner, who has the most to lose from the Boko Hara insurgency, as the Jamestown Foundation makes clear: “Unlike most other foreign actors in the country, [the Chinese] are investing in fixed assets, such as refineries and factories, with the intention of developing a long-term economic relationship. Consequently, stability and good governance in Nigeria is advantageous for Beijing because it is the only way to guarantee that Chinese interests are protected”.

If the US increasingly sees its own strategy in terms of undermining Chinese interests – and there is every sign that it does – the corollary of this statement is surely that instability in Nigeria is the only way to guarantee that Chinese interests are threatened – and, therefore, that US strategic goals are served. The US’s lackluster efforts in backing Nigerian efforts against Boko Haram - from blocking arms deliveries last year, to funding the fight in all of Nigeria’s neighbors, but not Nigeria itself – as well as its suspension of Nigerian crude oil imports from July 2014 (“a decision that helped plunge Nigeria into one of its most severe financial crises”, according to one national daily) would certainly indicate that.

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/323656-de...or-boko-haram/

**Jolie Rouge** · 11-29-2015, 08:27 AM

Can a Dying Civilization Defeat ISIS and Radical Islam?
By any measure, we are losing the war against ISIS and radical Islam. A bigger problem is we do not yet realize we are losing or why. Their legions are growing, their ambitions are apocalyptic, and our resolve is as strong as silly putty.

Without question, our military is superior to any other on earth and we could inflict devastating damage to ISIS if we unleashed our military forces against them. But we are not going to do that—not today, not next month and not after the next atrocity strikes Cleveland, Phoenix or Richmond.

•We have a President and his designated replacement-in-waiting who think “climate change” is a greater threat than Islamists with nuclear weapons, and that the way to defeat squads of suicide bombers is to welcome their brothers, sisters and cousins as our neighbors and give them the right to vote.

•But we have a deeper problem than our commander in chief being AWOL. If you ask yourself how he can get away with never uttering the words “radical Islam,” then you might begin uncovering the deeper problem: Obama is not alone in willfully avoiding the truth about an enemy sworn to our destruction. He has many accomplices and coconspirators.

If we are honest we must face a very dark and sobering fact: The outcome of this war is far from certain. We are proud of being a nation of can-do optimists, but we are also a nation in denial about a culture in a tailspin.

•The real enemy is not “over there” in Syria and Iraq, or in Paris or London. The enemy is already here in our homeland, and I am not speaking of terrorist cells, Syrian refugees, or radical imams. I am speaking of the accelerating rot in our own culture.

Our secular culture is adrift in a sea of relativism, escapism, and self-indulgent inanities, with our media and entertainment elites leading the parade.

•“Where were you, Daddy, when we were waging the war on terror?” Oh, well, I was watching reality TV. On TV, the good guys always defeat the bad guys. And I can always change the channel.

In this besotted condition, we are ill equipped to fight an enemy full of passion, idealism and self-confidence. Islamist suicide bombers believe they are dying for a higher purpose, the greater glory of Allah. What, exactly, are our ideals? The freedom to enjoy pornography and polygamy and 24-hour pizza delivery?

•The war with ISIS and its Islamist allies is what historian Samuel P. Huntington called a “clash of civilizations” in a book by that title in 1996.

•Tocqueville warned us 200 years ago that we would never be defeated by an invader, but we could abandon liberty by adopting a “soft tyranny” of democratic corruption.

•The early 20th century economist Joseph Schumpeter gave a similar warning about the inevitable corruption of morals that comes with capitalism’s triumph. If everything is permitted in an open marketplace, higher values will be replaced by cheaper ones— and there is no principle within pure capitalism to halt that cultural degeneration.

Then in our generation, along comes “multiculturalism” to teach that there are no superior cultures, only different ones. Witchcraft is as much a legitimate personal religion as Christianity or Buddhism if that is what turns you on, and polygamy is just another “lifestyle” with its own cable TV channel.

The great Russian novelist Alexandr Solzhenitsyn saw this deepening hollowness in the West as a global development spanning five centuries, with Soviet Communism only a symptom of lost souls. In his Templeton Lecture in 1983, long before the rise of radical Islam, he warned:

It has become embarrassing to state that evil makes its home in the individual human heart before it enters a political system. Yet it is not considered shameful to make dally concessions to an integral evil. Judging by the continuing landslide of concessions made before the eyes of our very own generation, the West is ineluctably slipping toward the abyss.

ISIS and radical Islam have declared war on us not because of anything we have done — not because we are a friend to Israel and not because we have not yet toppled the bloody Syrian dictator Assad. ISIS and radical Islamists hate us for who we are. The irony is, we ourselves do not know who we are.

The Chinese philosopher Sun Tsu said it best in The Art of War:

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

ISIS hates the West as an abominable nest of infidels, infidels who reject the Quran and Shariah Law, and so must be annihilated. We are the obstacle to the new Caliphate. OKAY— got it: We stand against the Caliphate. But what do we stand for? What is our alternative ideal to the Islamist ideal? Those happy optimists who think this is a largely academic question should consider the generational dimension to cultural identities and dissatisfactions.

•While radical Islam may indeed hold little attraction for the large majority of Muslim immigrants and refugees now relocating in Europe and America, it will be different matter for thousands of their children. The mastermind behind the Paris terror attack was the son of successful, fully assimilated Moroccan immigrants.

•A growing number of reliable public opinion polls of Muslim populations (Pew, Gallup, Rasmussen, among others) reveal that 13% to 32% of Muslims have a positive view of ISIS — as do 17% of Syrian refugees.

So, it is both reasonable and prudent to ask ourselves — what percentage of the children of several million Muslim migrants will choose the values of our ascendant secular hedonism over the allure of “true Islam”? One percent of two million is 20,000 potential jihadists.

Radical Islam’s principles are out there for all to see if they open their eyes. But what are our principles? In truth, they are up for grabs.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...radical-islam/

comments

Islamist suicide bombers believe they are dying for a higher purpose, the greater glory of Allah. What, exactly, are our ideals? The freedom to enjoy pornography and polygamy and 24-hour pizza delivery?

..

These radicals will come here and target all of the people that are currently trying to support them! The liberals, the feminists, the LGBT community, etc...because they embody the things that the Muslims hate!

Why do liberal Americans not realize that?"

..

The article is very timely and exactly on point. We are our own worst enemy and don't even know it. We have no frame of reference anymore. There is no societal compass that sets our direction. We have taught several generations that if it offends them, it must be wrong. Therefore, toss it to the side, trample it out. All is good. No repercussions for anything. All is not well on the western front folks.

**Jolie Rouge** · 11-29-2015, 04:38 PM

.

Muslim Cleric Posts 13 Things Islam Will Outlaw After They Take Over

By Kimberly Morin

radical British cleric has posted a list of things that Islam will outlaw. This is preceded by another tweet that claims the whole world will one day be ruled by Muslims.

From The Conservative Tribune:

It is no secret that Islam is an extremely conservative religion, one that requires adherents to perform prayers throughout the day, dress overly modestly, and treat women as second class citizens.

Islam will outlaw ALCOHOL - PORK - GAMBLING - PORN - USURY - PROMISCUITY - FREEMIXING - GAYS - CINEMAS - IDOLATRY - INSURANCE - STOCKS/SHARES - INSULTING PROPHETS

If you look further at his Twitter stream you’ll see other tweets that are a bit disturbing.

It’s almost amusing that he claims everyone would get along under Shari’ah law. That is the law of Islam if you obey Islam. There is NO Freedom of Religion under Shari’ah law.
http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/u...they-take-over

**boopster** · 11-29-2015, 06:06 PM

if they would only ban golf i think O might get onboard to actually defeat isis. Mr O can you imagine life without a private jet, multiple paid vacations, getaways from the family to play golf, having your closest 5000 people at a party you hosted with hollywood stars performing for you, denigrating those who do not agree with you (if isis took over they would not name you to the supreme leader thus no luxuries for you) because if you tried it, they would contain and destroy you......michelle can you imagine becoming a sex slave or just a slave, not having designer clothes, not being able to dictate what people can and cannot eat and actually having men dictating to you.....which obama likes spare ribs? well whichever one it is it will not be on the menu. no more naps for the obamas on the sabbath and having to pray all day long, kneeling on a mat that can be bought at target and not neiman marcus........

**Jolie Rouge** · 12-04-2015, 08:23 PM

The data has percentages from 2007 and 2011. Although the numbers from 2011 are 4 years old, the percentages stayed fairly consistent with the percentages from 2007. So one could assume that the 2015 percentages would be at least in the same ballpark.

Before we get into the numbers, bear one thing in mind. The U.S. Muslim population is said to be 5 to 8 million. Throughout searching several credible sites and then averaging the numbers, I calculated 6.67 million Muslims currently in the United States. For purposes of using round numbers, we’ll be conservative and round it down to 6 million.

According to the above graphic from Pew, 6% of U.S. Muslims support Islamic extremism a great deal. 6% converts to 360 thousand. However, 15% give Islamic extremism a fair amount of support. That converts to 900 thousand. In other words, well over 1 million Muslims in the United States support Islamic extremism.

Just in case anyone needs a quick memory refresher, Al Qaeda was the terrorist organization responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

Apparently, 5% of U.S. Muslims are supportive of Al Qaeda. That’s 300 thousand Muslims currently living in America!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

ARE YOU UNDERSTANDING THIS??????

http://buzzpo.com/an-overlooked-fact...velyrepublican

**Jolie Rouge** · 12-31-2015, 08:53 PM

Cargill: Tried to resolve issues before firing Colorado Muslim workers
About 190 workers, mostly Somali, were let go after they left the meatpacking line to protest changes to prayer policy
By Emilie Rusch and Jesse Paul
The Denver Post
Posted: 12/31/2015 10:30:25 AM MST132 Comments

Cargill Meat Solutions said Thursday it tried to resolve a workplace prayer dispute with Somali workers at its Fort Morgan meatpacking plant that led to the firing of about 190 employees.

The workers who lost their jobs were mostly immigrants from Somalia and their termination came after they failed to report to work for three consecutive days last week to protest what they say were changes in times allowed for Muslim prayer.

Cargill says, however, it makes every "reasonable attempt" to provide religious accommodation for all of its employees at the Fort Morgan plant without interrupting operations. "At no time did Cargill prevent people from prayer at Fort Morgan," said Michael Martin, a spokesman for the Wichita-based company, which is part of the agribusiness giant Cargill Inc. " Nor have we changed policies related to religious accommodation and attendance. This has been mischaracterized."

Cargill also said while reasonable efforts are made to accommodate employees, accommodation is not guaranteed every day and depends on changing factors in the plant. "This has been clearly communicated to all employees," Martin said.

But the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which is representing more than 100 of the fired employees, said Thursday messaging from plant supervisors has not always been so clear.

On Dec. 18, the Friday before employee protest began Dec. 21, "the workers were told: 'If you want to pray, go home,' " CAIR spokesman Jaylani Hussein said.

"To these employees, that is what it is. Maybe Cargill never changed its policy, but to these employees, they feel whatever the policy is, or how it is implemented, there was a change put in place," Hussein said.

Cargill provides a "reflection room" at the plant where observant Muslim workers are allowed to pray, something that has been available since 2009.

Hussein said depending on the season, the workers pray at different times of the day, typically taking five to 10 minutes away from their work. The time was carved out of a 15-minute break period or from the workers' unpaid 30-minute lunch breaks.

Many of the workers banded together and decided to walk off the job in an attempt to sway plant managers to reinstate the prayer policy.

"They feel missing their prayer is worse than losing their job," Hussein said. "It's like losing a blessing from God."

Cargill on Dec. 23 fired the hold-out workers who had not returned to work, citing a company policy that employees who do not show up for work or call in for three consecutive days will be let go. "It's an unfortunate situation that may be based somewhere in a misunderstanding," Martin said. "But the policies have been in place and we go over the policies for all people who are newly hired to the company when they are hired."

All of the terminated employees worked second shift on the plant's fabrication floor, where chilled beef carcasses are broken down into smaller cuts and packaged, Martin said.

Of those involved, "fewer than 20" employees walked out in the middle of a shift, he said. About 160 failed to report to work, and 10 resigned.

Before the walkout, Cargill employed roughly 600 Somali workers at the Fort Morgan plant. More than 400 still work there, Martin said, and accommodations are still being made to allow Muslims to leave the floor in small groups to pray. "There has been a desire among some employees to go in larger groups of people to pray. We just can't accommodate that," Martin said. "It backs up the flow of all the production. We're a federally inspected, USDA inspected plant. We have to ensure food safety. We have to ensure the products we produce meet consumer expectations."

The workers earn $14 per hour and up, and are represented by a union, Teamsters Local 445. More than 2,000 people are employed at the plant.

Cargill has a policy stating that any workers who are terminated cannot reapply for a position for six months. CAIR continues to talk with Cargill and Hussein said he hopes the six-month freeze is waived and that the workers will be allowed back. "I'm confident in our upcoming negotiations that we can come to a resolution," Hussein said.

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_29...olorado-muslim

I am Roman Catholic - can I leave work to go to Mass ?

**Jolie Rouge** · 03-20-2016, 01:49 PM

Sun Mar 20, 2016 4:33am EDT

Suicide bomber kills four, wounds 36 in Istanbul shopping district

ISTANBUL | By Nick Tattersall and Ayla Jean Yackley

A suicide bomber killed four people on Saturday in a busy shopping district in the heart of Istanbul, pushing the death toll from four separate suicide attacks in Turkey this year to more than 80.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the blast was "inhumane" and would not stop Turkey, which has been targeted by Kurdish and Islamic State militants, from fighting "centers of terrorism".

Israel said two of its citizens died in the attack, Washington said two Americans had been killed and a Turkish official said one victim was Iranian, suggesting that some of the dead may have had dual nationality.

The blast, which also wounded at least 36 people, was a few hundred meters from an area where police buses are often stationed. It sent panicked shoppers scurrying into alleys off Istiklal Street, a long pedestrian avenue lined with international stores and foreign consulates.

"There is information that it is an attack carried out by an ISIS member, but this is preliminary information, we are still checking it," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters, using another name for Islamic State.

He said a third Israeli may have died. Israel also said 11 of its citizens had been wounded while Ireland said "a number" of Irish were hurt.

The attack will raise further questions about the ability of NATO member Turkey to protect itself against a spillover of violence from the war in neighboring Syria.

Turkey is battling a widening Kurdish insurgency in its southeast, which it sees as fueled by the territorial gains of Kurdish militia fighters in northern Syria, and has also blamed some of the recent bombings on Islamic State militants who crossed from its southern neighbor.

"No center of terrorism will reach its aim with such monstrous attacks," Davutoglu said in a written statement. "Our struggle will continue with the same resolution and determination until terrorism ends completely."

THREE SUSPECTS

Germany had shut its diplomatic missions and schools on Thursday, citing a specific threat. U.S. and other European embassies had warned their citizens to be vigilant ahead of Newroz celebrations this weekend, a spring festival largely marked by Kurds that has turned violent in the past.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Two senior officials said the attack could have been carried out by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), fighting for Kurdish autonomy in the southeast, or by an Islamic State militant.

A PKK offshoot claimed responsibility for two suicide bombings in the capital Ankara over the past month which killed 66 people. Islamic State was blamed for a suicide bombing in Istanbul in January which killed at least 12 German tourists.

One of the officials said Saturday's bomber, who also died in the blast, had planned to hit a more crowded location but was deterred by the police presence.

"The attacker detonated the bomb before reaching the target point because they were scared of the police," the official said, declining to be named as the investigation is ongoing.

Another official said investigations were focusing on three possible suspects, all of them male and two of them from the southern city of Gaziantep near the Syrian border. There was no further confirmation of this.

Armed police sealed off the shopping street where half a dozen ambulances gathered. Forensic teams in white suits searched for evidence as police helicopters buzzed overhead.

"I saw a body on the street. No one was treating him but then I saw someone who appeared to be a regular citizen trying to do something to the body. That was enough for me and I turned and went back," one resident told Reuters.

Istiklal Street, usually thronged with shoppers at weekends, was quieter than normal as more people are staying home after a series of deadly bombings.

Health Minister Mehmet Muezzinoglu said 36 people had been wounded, seven of them in serious condition. At least 24 of the wounded were foreigners, according to Istanbul's governor.

INTERNATIONAL CONDEMNATION

Turkey is still in shock from a suicide car bombing last Sunday at a crowded transport hub in the capital Ankara which killed 37 people and a similar bombing in Ankara last month in which 29 died. A PKK offshoot claimed responsibility for both.

The latest attack brought widespread condemnation.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, on an official visit to Istanbul, said it showed "the ugly face of terrorism". France condemned it as "despicable and cowardly".

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg described it as "another terrorist outrage against innocent civilians", while the U.S. State Department said it was the latest "indefensible violence targeting innocent people throughout Turkey".

The Kurdish-rooted opposition Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) condemned the bombing. The PKK's umbrella group said it opposed targeting civilians and condemned attacks on them.

A 2-1/2-year PKK ceasefire collapsed last July, triggering the worst violence in the southeast since the 1990s. Hundreds have since died.

Separately, a police officer and a soldier died in clashes with militants in the southeastern city of Nusaybin, security sources said.

In its armed campaign in Turkey, the PKK has historically struck directly at the security forces but recent bombings suggest it could be shifting tactics.

At the height of the PKK insurgency in the 1990s, the Newroz festival often saw clashes between Kurdish protesters and security forces.

(Additional reporting by Orhan Coskun, Asli Kandemir, Humeyra Pamuk, Daren Butler, Parisa Hafezi in Turkey, John Irish in Paris, Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem, Hans-Edzard Busemann in Berlin and Idrees Ali in Washington; Padraic Halpin in Dublin; writing by David Dolan and Nick Tattersall; editing by David Clarke)

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-tu...-idUSKCN0WL0D5

**Jolie Rouge** · 03-20-2016, 02:09 PM

Two Americans Killed in Suspected ISIS Attack
John S. Roberts
March 20, 2016

Two Americans that held dual citizenship with Israel were killed in a suspected ISIS bombing in Turkey.

One of the victims was a 60-year-old woman, but both were on a 14-person culinary tour and had just finished with breakfast when the attack occurred.

The Turkish interior minister identified the bomber as a militant with ties to the Islamic State, the Associated Press reported Sunday.

The blast targeted Istiklal Street, a major thoroughfare lined with international shopping outlets and restaurants that bustles with foreign tourists on weekends. Five people had been confirmed dead and at least 36 wounded, including 12 foreign nationals, the Hurriyet Daily News reported, citing comments from Turkish Health Minister Mehmet Muezzinoglu.

“The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms today’s terrorist attack in Istanbul,” Ned Price, a National Security Council spokesman, said in a statement released by the White House. “Two American citizens were among those killed in this heinous attack. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families and loved ones of those killed, and we wish a speedy recovery to those injured.”

…

There were no immediate claims of responsibility, but Israeli media reported that the bomber had been identified as a Turkish national, Sabash Yildiz, 33, who was believed to be affiliated with the Islamic State.

…

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday night that Israel had decided to send two emergency planes with medical teams and supplies to Istanbul to help treat the wounded and fly them back to Israel.

Netanyahu also said, “We are looking into the possibility that this terror attack was aimed at Israelis.”

I have a feeling there’s a good chance this was a targeted strike.

RIP to the two Americans who lost their lives, and hopefully the 11 others that were injured at the hands of Yildiz make full and speedy recoveries.
.

http://www.youngcons.com/two-america...d-isis-attack/

**Jolie Rouge** · 03-25-2016, 03:33 PM

ISIS is claiming responsibility for a fresh attack today that has killed at least 29 and injured nearly 60 others, at a football stadium south of Baghdad.

Via Fox News:

BREAKING: In the latest terror attack linked to the Islamic State, at least 29 people were killed when a suicide bomber attacked a football stadium south of Baghdad Friday, Iraqi security officials told The Associated Press.

Nearly 60 other people were reported hurt.

Fox News has learned ISIS immediately claimed responsibility for the blast. The terror group also said it was behind the bombings in Belgium Tuesday, which killed 31 people and wounded 270 others.

Security officials tell the AP Friday’s bombing took place during a match in the small stadium in the city of Iskanderiyah, 30 miles from Baghdad. Medical officials confirmed the death toll.

Even as the Pentagon announced U.S. Special Operations forces have killed ISIS’ second-in-command, ISIS continues on its roll.

It was just three days ago that the radical Islamic group murdered at least 30 and injured 300 in multiple attacks in Brussels. And just last night, French authorities arrested someone involved in an “advanced stage” terror plot. It appears all but certain that more attacks are in the works — the question is where and when. The group warned earlier this week, “What will be coming is worse.”

As Col. West wrote earlier, while taking out ISIS’ #2 guy earlier is good news, it’s not enough.

The global Islamic jihad isn’t just about killing one fella here and there – it’s about delegitimizing a vile and savage ideology. And it’s kinda hard to do that while you’re doing the wave at a baseball game with a communist dictator or supposedly acting suave doing the tango.

Each attack reinforces what most of us already realize: time is of the essence, both to save lives and stop this growing force before it’s too late.

http://www.allenbwest.com/2016/03/br...tball-stadium/
http://www.allenbwest.com/2016/03/br...tball-stadium/

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