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Manchester Massacre – four key reasons exposed
02.06.2017
Introduction
The simplistic explanation for the Manchester Massacre and other Jihadi attacks on Western targets is that promoted by the so-called ‘Counter-Jihad’ movement: That ALL Muslims are our automatic enemies, ‘human time-bombs’ just waiting to be triggered.
In this narrative, there is no need to look for mistakes or criminal decisions by our own ruling elites, all we need to do is to expel all Muslims from Western nations and “bomb their countries back into the Stone Age”.
The Knights Templar International shares some of the concerns of the Counter-Jihad movement - indeed, a number of our UK-based members were campaigning to highlight issues such as the Muslim grooming gangs scandal while most of today’s ‘Counter-Jihadists’ were still dyed-in-the-wool liberals.
But while we fear that the present tensions between Muslims and other communities will indeed lead to a terrible explosion of uncontrollable “us-against-them” communal violence, we reject the Counter-Jihad claim that, right now, “they are all the same”. Further, we believe it is our duty to point out the numerous ways in which Western elites bear a heavy responsibility for unleashing the Islamist terror plague.
Our deep historical roots and awareness, as well as our modern day contacts across a vast range of independent researchers and expert analysts, teaches us that the fact-based policies needed to fight and win a genuine and successful War on Terror are very much more complex than the simplistic view presented by the would-be leaders to the darkness and death of full-scale communal violence would have us believe.
This study will therefore concentrate on four of the key practical factors which combined with the wickedness of Salman Abedi to murder 22 innocent people in Manchester: Blowback; Wahhabism; drug abuse and catastrophic failures by the security services
Finally, it includes a short set of recommendations for addressing the problems identified as part of a genuine, coherent and effective War on Terror.
BLOWBACK: Terror doesn’t come out of thin air
The sorry story of how the Washington ‘Deep State’ founded Al Qaeda as a weapon against Soviet Russia has been told many times (though rarely in the mainstream media) since the folly of this policy first became fully clear on September 11th 2001. It has re-emerged in the alternative free media in the last few days following the death of the architect of the scheme, Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski. [1]
If anything, the ‘blowback’ factor is even stronger in the case of the Manchester Arena attack than it was in the case of 911. It is already crystal clear that the Manchester bomber Salman Abedi was inspired, trained and directed to murder his innocent victims by radical Islamists based in Libya.
Under the rule of Muammar Gaddafi, Libya was a moderate, secular state, in which the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood and its violent Jihadi offshoots were all vigorously suppressed. All that changed in 2011 when then-UK Premier David Cameron decided to use Gaddafi’s successful crushing of the Muslim Brotherhood/CIA ‘Arab Spring’ rebellion as the excuse for ‘regime change’ disguised as ‘humanitarian intervention’.
The official estimate for the cost of the UK bombing campaign was £320 million [2] but calculations by independent experts put the figure very much higher at well over £600-million, and arguably into the £1.25-billion-plus range.
Airstrikes alone, however, cannot win a war, so the Cameron regime and allies decided to use ‘tame’ Jihadis to do their dirty work. The Islamist militias were duly provided with weapons up to and including tanks and anti-aircraft missiles.
Steps were taken to provide them with extra manpower and, in his haste to overthrow Gaddafi and secure a place in the history books, David Cameron wasn’t at all fussy about who went.
Part of the scheme involved lifting travel bans on Libyan Islamists living in Britain and handing them back their passports so that they could go to Libya and join the fighting.
The British government introduced an "open door" policy that allowed Libyan exiles and British-Libyan citizens to join the 2011 uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi even though some had been subject to counter-terrorism control orders, Middle East Eye has revealed:
“Several former rebel fighters now back in the UK told MEE that they had been able to travel to Libya with ‘no questions asked’ as authorities continued to investigate the background of a British-Libyan suicide bomber who killed 22 people in Monday's attack in Manchester.
“One British citizen with a Libyan background who was placed on a control order – effectively house arrest – because of fears that he would join militant groups in Iraq said he was ‘shocked’ that he was able to travel to Libya in 2011 shortly after his control order was lifted.
“He said he had met several other British-Libyans in London who also had control orders lifted in 2011 as the war against Gaddafi intensified, with the UK, France and the US carrying out air strikes and deploying special forces soldiers in support of the rebels.
‘They didn't have passports, they were looking for fakes or a way to smuggle themselves across,’ said the source.
“But within days of their control orders being lifted, British authorities returned their passports, he said.
" ‘These were old school LIFG guys, they [the British authorities] knew what they were doing,’ he said, referring to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, an anti-Gaddafi Islamist militant group formed in 1990 by Libyan veterans of the fight against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.”
The British government had listed the LIFG as a proscribed terrorist organisation in 2005, describing it as seeking to establish a "hard-line Islamic state" and "part of the wider Islamist extremist movement inspired by al-Qaeda". Former members of the LIFG deny that the group had any links with al-Qaeda and say it was committed only to removing Gaddafi from power.
Belal Younis, another British citizen who went to Libya, described how he was stopped under 'Schedule 7' counter-terrorism powers and asked by an intelligence officer from MI5, the UK's domestic security agency: "Are you willing to go into battle?"
"While I took time to find an answer he turned and told me the British government have no problem with people fighting against Gaddafi," he told MEE.
So many went from Manchester that they have a special mural commemorating their contribution in Tripoli.
The Manchester bomber’s father, Ramadan, a former airport security worker, was a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting group in the 1990s, according to a former Libyan security official. The group had links to Al-Qaeda. Although the LIFG disbanded, he reportedly belongs to the Salafi Jihadi movement, the most extreme sect of Salafism and from which Al-Qaeda and ISIS hail.
Certainly, he was living in an area of Libya dominated by radical Islamist fighters when his son Salman made repeated visits to the country, the last just days before he used the advanced bomb-making skills he was taught there to murder 22 innocent people.
The House of Commons committee which investigated Cameron’s war on Libya wrote damningly:
“We have seen no evidence that the UK Government carried out a proper analysis of the nature of the rebellion in Libya. It may be that the UK Government was unable to analyse the nature of the rebellion in Libya due to incomplete intelligence and insufficient institutional insight and that it was caught up in events as they developed.
“It could not verify the actual threat to civilians posed by the Gaddafi regime; it selectively took elements of Muammar Gaddafi’s rhetoric at face value; and it failed to identify the militant Islamist extremist element in the rebellion. UK strategy was founded on erroneous assumptions and an incomplete understanding of the evidence.”
Moreover: “The deployment of coalition air assets shifted the military balance in the Libyan civil war in favour of the rebels.”
Cameron, who said he wanted to be “heir to Blair”, has ended up as just that, pivotal cheerleader for the butchery of a sovereign leader, most of his family, government and the destruction of a nation.
And now, of course, the former Tory PM also has on his hands the blood of the victims of Manchester, for the atrocity was the direct result of the train of events that he set in motion when he decided to use people he knew perfectly well were Islamist terrorists to finish off the job carried out by the RAF.
The bomb was detonated by Abedi, but the people who ‘radicalised’ him in Libya, the base at which he was trained, the experienced killers who taught him and the equipment they used to train him, were all available by the actions of David Cameron.
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WAHHABISM
When faced with Islamist terror, two very different explanations seem to be the most common. One is the line pushed by the liberal political and media elite. Every new attack prompts renewed squawks that “this has nothing to do with Islam” and that the terrorists are “a tiny minority with no connection to real Muslims.”
At the other extreme, the counter-jihad position, which dominates the alternative media, is that “all Muslims are the same; they are all Jihadi time-bombs just waiting to blow up”.
Both of these extremes are terribly wrong and – assuming the aim of those making them is genuinely to address and end the problem – horribly counter-productive. The liberal position is so patently at odds with real life experience that, far from reassuring ordinary people, it tends to drive them towards the counter-jihad position, which is a problem because it in turn tends to alienate young Muslims and so acts as a recruiting sergeant for Islamic State.
The reality is that Islam, far from being monolithic, is in fact as internally divided as was Christian Europe during the Thirty Years War, when the conflict between Catholics and Protestants led to the death of one third of the population of central Europe.
The most obvious fault-line is between the Sunni majority and Shia minority, with the Shia making natural allies for a West run by sensible politicians. Even though the Shia state of Iran is a fundamentalist theocracy, from the point of view of Christian outsiders it is very different from the Sunni theocracies on account of one key point of doctrine:
Unlike large sections of current Sunni Islam, the Shia believe that it is for Allah, and not them, to judge and punish disbelievers and apostates. In practical terms, this translates into full tolerance and civil rights for the thriving Christian and Jewish minorities in Iran – a marked contrast from the state-sanctioned intolerance towards Christians and Jews in Sunni fundamentalist states such as Saudi Arabia.
Yet the most important fault-line of all lies within Sunni Islam. On the one side are those who believe that Islam, including its most holy texts, must be seen through the moderating prism of centuries of ‘interpretation’ by religious scholars. On the other are the Salafists, who insist that such ‘takfiri’ interpretation is heresy and forbidden on pain of death.
It is this Salafism, with its insistence on reading the Koran literally, which is at the root of virtually all Islamist terrorism.
When the counter-jihadists say that terrorism in innate in Islam on account of the violence of the Meccan verses of the Koran, they are absolutely right in as far as the Sunni Salafists are concerned, but wrong in regards to other Muslims, those who follow the schools of Muslim thought which, over the centuries, have tended to ‘interpret’ the original desert harshness out of their faith.
Unfortunately, this does not mean that the liberals are right when they say that violent Islamism is the preserve only of a few dangerous but isolated fanatics. Because a cruel twist of fate, geology and first British and then America elite foreign policy have conspired to turn Salafism from a violent but obscure Muslim heresy into the official religious ideology of Saudi Arabia and Qatar – two of the richest oil states on the planet.
They have been using much of that oil wealth to export their ultra-strict and aggressive Wahhabi strain of the Salafist virus to Muslim nations and communities all over the world. As a result, rather than being a tiny minority cut off from other Muslims, terrorists such as ISIS and Al Qaeda are now the cutting edge of what is close to becoming – if it is not already – the dominant strand within Sunni Islam.
This, the real cause of “radicalisation” has long been known, but governments, the BBC, CNN and others seldom if ever refer to it because they do not want to offend the Saudis or be accused of anti-Islamic bias. It is much easier to say, piously but quite inaccurately, that Isis and al-Qaeda and their murderous foot soldiers “have nothing to do with Islam”.
It is estimated that Saudi spending on religious causes abroad are between $2bn [£960m] and $3bn per year since 1975 (comparing favourably with what was the annual Soviet propaganda budget of $1bn during the Cold War), which has been spent on 1,500 mosques, 210 Islamic centres and dozens of Muslim academies and schools in the UK alone. [4]
These mosques are little more than propaganda factories producing Wahhabi ideologues to populate the streets of Britain. In 2002, Jamaican convert Sheikh Abdullah el-Faisal who had trained at a Saudi university, was caught on tape saying “You can use chemical weapons to exterminate the unbelievers. Is that clear? If you have cockroaches in your house, you spray them with chemicals.” Germaine Lindsay, one of the 7/7 bombers, was among his followers.
In addition to funding their propaganda in Britain, at home in Saudi Arabia, the Islamic University of Medina reserves 85% of its places for foreign students, resulting in hundreds of British graduates who have returned to the UK with their newly found hard-line Salafist views. The movement now has worldwide influence inspiring the ideology of extremists worldwide. [5]
The problem is compounded in Britain by the parallel malign influence of the Deobandi sect. This version of Salafism developed in India under the British Raj and went on to inspire the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Deobandis controls around 45 per cent of Britain’s mosques and nearly all the UK-based training of Islamic scholars [6]
The impact of simplistic but powerful Salafist/Wahhabi ideology on young men in the ‘Muslim street’ is enormous and continues to grow. This is the key factor providing an endless supply of new additions to the ranks of current and future Jihadists in Britain and other Western nations with significant Sunni Muslim immigrant minorities.
Anyone who believes that this will remain at the level of isolated cells carrying out acts of terror is liable to be deeply shocked when their ‘Jihad’ mutates to the next phase: Urban guerrilla warfare and ethno-religious conflict and ethnic cleansing. Those who want to know what happens then should study the history of Northern Ireland in the late 1960s, always bearing in mind that, while the police are aware of 23,000 potential Jihadists on the streets of Britain, the IRA at no time had more than 400 active volunteers.
CANNABIS - gateway drug for terror psychosis?
The problem of elite refusal to face facts is particularly acute among liberal elitists. As is well-known, one of the most cherished dogmas in liberal circles is the idea that taking drugs is a harmless matter of individual choice and that all but the most obviously destructive drugs (crack cocaine, for example) should be legalised.
At the very top of the liberals’ list of ‘good drugs’ is cannabis. Unfortunately for the liberals, however, there is mounting evidence of a close relationship between today’s ultra-strong forms of cannabis and the psychological disturbances exhibited by a frighteningly high proportion of Islamic terrorists.
Time and time again, in the aftermath of recent terrorist attacks, as we learn more about the perpetrators and try to understand their motivation, we discover that cannabis was a part of their daily lives.
Mohammed Emwazi, known as Jihadi John — the man who murdered hostages James Foley, Alan Henning and David Haines, among others — was a heavy cannabis smoker.
Richard Reid, the shoe bomber who tried to blow up a plane flying from Paris to Miami in 2001, smoked cannabis as a youngster, as did the killers of Fusilier Lee Rigby, Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale.
Amal el-Wahabi, one of the first British women to be convicted of terror offences, smoked the drug, as did Paris bomber Ibrahim Abdeslam.
Tunis beach killer Seifeddine Rezgui; the Belgian train terrorist Ayoub El-Khazzani; the Leytonstone knife attacker Muhaydin Mire; Khalid Masood, who carried out the Westminster attack in March; ringleader of the 7/7 London bombings, Mohammad Sidique Khan . . the list goes on.
While the pro-cannabis lobby does its best to minimise the evidence for effects on mental health, The Royal College of Psychiatrists backs current research showing that regular use has been found to double the risk of a psychotic episode or of developing schizophrenia.
The drug also has a profound and serious impact on the user’s psychology, affecting the way they behave and think and, most chillingly, view others.
We know cannabis can make people feel apathetic and withdrawn and that these effects can last for years, even if they have stopped using. However, developments in brain scanning techniques show the drug’s impact on specific parts of the brain, and it is this that is ringing alarm bells.
Research by Texas University in 2014 found cannabis causes the orbitofrontal cortex to shrink, the area of the brain involved in mental processing and decision-making. It also plays a crucial role in empathy. Shrinkage can have a devastating effect, stunting someone’s ability to engage with the emotional responses of others. They become more callous.
Without the ability to empathise, not only is it easier to disregard the welfare of others, but also to understand the consequence of their actions. It deadens people to the impact of their behaviour. [7]
Cannabis has also been shown to make people more suggestible and compliant — making users vulnerable to those looking for young, weak, pliable minds to brainwash. And there is evidence suggesting the damage to the brain is long lasting.
Given what we know about the effects of cannabis, it increasingly appears that the drug makes some users more susceptible to the warped, twisted ideology of hate that the Islamists promote by stripping them their usual empathy. [8]
Security Services Failings
British intelligence agency MI5 was reportedly warned by its US counterpart that Salman Abedi was planning an attack on UK soil, three months before he blew himself up outside an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester.
FBI agents are said to have informed British officials earlier this year that the 22-year-old was part of a North African Islamic State cell based in the north west of England that was plotting an attack in the UK.
“Following this US tip-off, Abedi and other members of the gang were scrutinised by MI5. It was thought at the time that Abedi was planning to assassinate a political figure. But nothing came of this investigation and, tragically, he slipped down the pecking order of targets.” [9]
Similarly, friends, family and members of Abedi’s mosque claim they reported him to Counter Terrorism agencies on at least five occasions in the last five years.
A Muslim community worker told the BBC that two people who had known Abedi at college made separate calls to a hotline to warn the police about his extremist views.
Speaking to the Telegraph, Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, revealed he reported the bomber to authorities two years ago “because he thought he [Abedi] was involved in extremism and terrorism”.
Mr Shafiq added: “People in the community expressed concerns about the way this man was behaving and reported it in the right way using the right channels.
“They did not hear anything since.” [10]
Their experience is all too similar to that of several individuals from the English community who have approached the KTI. One, a Greater Manchester minicab driver, took two young Libyan men from Abedi’s address on an airport run. Their conversation was so extreme that he called the anti-terror hotline. He was called back once, but no effort was made to obtain further information from him.
This in turn brings to mind the fact that West Yorkshire police did nothing at all to investigate tip-offs that a group of young Muslims were undergoing paramilitary training in woods near Dewsbury, just months before a terrorist cell based in the town murdered 52 innocent people in the London bombings of July 7th, 2005.
Revelations of links between the Manchester bomber and one of the Muslim grooming rape gangs also raises once again the question to which a fear of being accused of ‘racism’ and ‘Islamophobia’ has hamstrung serious criminal investigations into this community in general.
It is a welcome fact that MI5 has now launched two urgent inquiries into how it missed the danger posed by the Manchester bomber, Salman Abedi, but the truth is that a much broader inquiry is needed into the way in which the entire British state apparatus has blundered into this disastrous situation.
That said, it is clear that the security services face a genuine problem in that they simply do not have the resources even to begin to cope with the scale of the problem. Thus we already know that Abedi had been examined by security service case officers in the past, but was one of a pool of 20,000 one-time Islamist jihadi suspects on a police list but not under any form of surveillance. He was not one of the 3,000 people under active investigation.
Likewise, both of the killers of fusilier Lee Rigby, who was murdered in London in 2013, had been subjects of interest for their extremist views before the attack but had not been under active surveillance.
Given that it takes thirty officers to watch a single suspect for just 24 hours, and that MI5 has only 4,000 officers, it is clearly impossible for them to prevent more attackers getting through. Calls for the internment or deportation of suspects will inevitably grow with each successful or near-miss attack. [11]
Winning the ‘War on Terror’ – Recommendations
- Full public inquiries in the UK and USA into government aid for the ‘rebellions’ in Libya and Syria, followed by the prosecution of those responsible.
- The creation of an international coalition, led by the governments of Russia and Syria, but with active involvement by the USA and Great Britain, aiming at the physical elimination of all forms of armed Jihadism wherever it raises its head.
- International sanctions against Saudi Arabia and Qatar until they stop funding Salafist indoctrination in other countries.
- The expulsion of all Salafist preachers and teachers, the closure of Salafist mosques and the deportation to their land of ethnic origin of anybody convicted of violent protest against this policy.
- The upgrading of cannabis to a Class B drug and the introduction of policies to reduce radically its use. An immediate end to police ‘blind eye’ policies on illegal drug use.
- The deportation of all Islamist terrorist suspects to their lands of ethnic origin.
- The death penalty for failed but potentially deadly plots and acts of terrorism.
- An independent public inquiry into the problem of ‘politically correct’ bias within the security services.
- The creation of an auxiliary force for rapid response to terror attacks in currently disarmed Britain by the provision of training and concealed firearms for all current and retired members of the Armed Forces, police and fire brigades.
REFERENCES
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/sep/26/uk-operations-libya-costs
[4] http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/adam-deen/saudi-funded-mosques_b_16825640.html
[6] https://www.spectator.co.uk/2014/06/who-runs-our-mosques/#
[7] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4250161/
