When Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri issued their 1998 fatwa proclaiming that every Muslim had an "individual duty" to kill Americans, they justified their declaration on the premise that "crusader armies" are "spreading in [the Holy Land] like locusts, eating its riches and wiping out its plantations." In other words, Al Qaeda's chieftains argued that because dar-al-Islam was under attack by America and her allies, the situation merited all-out war against the Yankee infidel. The qualification is important: according to the Koran, jihad is only for defensive purposes:
Permission to take up arms is hereby given to those who are attacked, because they have been wronged. (22:39)
Salafists have used the "defending Islam" concept to justify terrorist attacks from Mogadishu to Manhattan, Madrid to Mosul. Lately, however, that notion of "defensive action" has expanded to avenge perceived assaults on Muslim culture--as we first saw with the Rushdie affair and, more recently, the murder of Theo van Gogh.
Which brings us to the "radical Moroccan pizza courier." No, that's not a character out of South Park, but, according to a December 10th article on Expatica, a website for English expats in the Netherlands, it refers to a pizza deliverer who was allegedly scoping out Amsterdam's infamous Red Light district for a terrorist attack. Tipped off by anonymous e-mails, Dutch officials arrested a 20 year-old Moroccan identified as Bilal L., otherwise known as Abu Qataadah.
According to Amsterdam's De Telegraaf newspaper, which broke the story last Friday, Bilal L. allegedly hung out with Syrian terrorist Redouan al-Issa, reported head of the Islamist network Hofstadgroep (Main City Group). Al-Issa, it seems, gave Koranic lessons to Main City member Mohammad B., the suspected killer of Theo van Gogh. (Strangely enough, one of van Gogh's movies, Najib and Julia, dealt with a love affair between a Moroccan pizza deliverer and a Dutch woman.) The anonymous e-mails warned that al-Issa planned to attack the Red Light district, in addition to the Dutch Parliament, and that Bilal L. had purchased equipment for the operation. As Expatica explains, the "Muslim extremists were allegedly furious at the lack of morals in the prostitution zone."
Well, welcome to Amsterdam, boys. More seriously, though, if Dutch authorities are correct, then al-Issa's aborted attack on sex-workers dramatically widens the "defensive action" justification for jihad. To Main City Group, at least, it matters not if an outrage perpetrated by unbelievers has a connection with Islam at all--if Netherland's mutawwa'in find it offends their morality, it deserves destruction. Logically, this potential jihad-list can now include anything that Western cultures do that affronts Muslim sensibilities--which is another way of saying just about anything we do. Drink alcohol? Walk about with your "finery" exposed? Fly the American flag? Watch Desperate Housewives? All you canine owners, beware, Mohammad hated dogs...
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