UPDATED: "Allahu akbar!" in Texas - Hostage-taker was British Muslim

This is just a short report, since it's Sunday morning and I have better things to do. And I'm tired of these stories. Anyhoo... 

Around 1100 CST yesterday, police were called to Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville TX (a suburb of Dallas), where a man was reported to have interrupted the Shabbat service. 

A live stream of the service on Facebook (since deleted, for some reason) captured audio of a man talking loudly. He could be heard saying: "You get my sister on the phone," and "I am gonna die!" He was also heard saying: "There's something wrong with America." [No kidding! Ed.]

Four people, including the rabbi, were taken hostage. Others were evacuated from the area shortly after.

Apparently the attacker, who has not been named, but has been identified as a "Muslim citizen of Britain", was demanding the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist who is currently serving an 86-year prison term in the USA, having been convicted of trying to kill American soldiers while in custody in Afghanistan. 

The attacker claimed to be Ms Siddiqui's brother, but her attorney told the Clinton News Network that the hostage-taker was not her brother, saying Siddiqui's family condemned his "heinous" actions. [No kidding! Ed.]

Texas resident Victoria Francis, who was watching the livestream before it cut out, told AP that she heard the man rant against America and claim he had a bomb. "He was pretty irritated and the more irritated he got, he'd make more threats," she said. 

The cops sent in the SWAT team, while FBI negotiators spent hours talking to the assailant. Explosions and gunfire could be heard before the ten-hour stand-off ended and the hostages released unharmed. Not so the unidentified (so far) jihadi wannabe, who was sent to Paradise where he is presumably being serviced by 72 virgins.

 

UPDATE added at noon: Authorities have identified the Colleyville synagogue hostage-taker as 44-year-old Malik Faisal Akram, a British citizen. No more information about Akram has been provided. As to the late Mr Akram's motivation, FBI Special Agent in Charge Matthew DeSarno said "We will continue to work to find motives.... We believe that, from engaging with the subject, he was singularly focused on one issue and it was not specifically related to the Jewish community." [Seriously? Ed.]

Further update added 17/1/22 @ 0600. Greater Manchester (UK) police announced yesterday that "Two teenagers were detained in South Manchester this evening. They remain in custody." Isn't that interesting! The FBI's field office in Dallas had earlier said there was "no indication" that anyone else was involved in the attack on the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue. And then this, mere hours later.

Innocent question from Walt: Mr Akram, a resident of the Blackburn area of Lancashire, UK, arrived in America just two weeks ago. Who let him in? Did anyone ask him his reason for coming to the USA? Just askin'... 

Apparently Mr Malik's brother, Gulbar Malik, wondered the same thing. "He's known to police," the brother told an interviewer from Sky News. "Got a criminal record. How was he allowed to get a visa and acquire a gun?" Good question, to which the FBI/DHS/CBP has no answers.

Don't mention the Muslims!

One has to wonder -- perhaps not for very long -- at the reluctance of the lamestream press in the USA and Canada to identify murderers, hostage-takers, assassins and terrorists as Muslims. Could it have anything to do with political correctness, or fear of being prosecuted for fomenting Islamophobia? Errr, quite possibly. Cases in point....

Item: In the Philippines, four hostages -- two Canadians, a Norwegian, and a Filipina -- appear in a video released by their captors, appealing to authorities to stop military operations in the Philippines and to negotiate for their freedom with the Islamist militants who hold them. For details of the story, see "ISIS in Philippines: New video shows kidnapped Canadian, Norwegian hostages pleading for life", on the International Business Times website. [Funny that IBT didn't mention the Filipina. Ed.]

The video can be found on YouTube, but, curiously, is not being shown on either the Canuck government's CBC-TV or the main independent network CTV. Why would that be? The voice-over identifies the kidnappers as being linked to Al-Qaeda. ISIS flags appear behind the captives. Looks like the work of Islamic extremists, wouldn't you say? But neither CBC or CTV wants to mention that fact, in the week preceding an election in which the wearing of niqabs (headgear worn by religious Muslim women) has become a hot button, with over 80% of Canadians against the "accommodation" of the Muslim minority.

Item: Remember the Shafias? They're the Muslim man, his No. 2 wife and son -- all immigrants to Canada -- who murdered No. 1 wife and her three daughters in an honour killing which Shafia père blamed on the girls' sinful desires to wear western clothing, and date boys, just like Canadian girls. See "GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY in Shafia honour killings" (WWW 29/1/12).

The honour killings -- that's what they were -- took place on 30 June 2009, when the four women were locked in a car which was then pushed into the Rideau Canal. Convictions were registered in January 2012, and the three Muslim miscreants were sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years, which is the maximum provided for in the Criminal Code of Canada.

Now, 45 months after their conviction, the killers have filed a 110-page factum with the Ontario Court of Appeal arguing for a new trial. On what grounds, you may well ask. Why, they were victims of "cultural stereotyping", of course! They say the trial judge should have intervened when the Crown presented arguments that they believe improperly swayed jurors in their decision-making.

Like what? Well, the Shafias say, the Crown was so politically incorrect as to suggest that their religion had something to do with their motivation for killing over half of their immediate family. And not only that! The document also questions the testimony of University of Toronto Professor Shahrzad Mojab -- himself a Muslim -- an "honour killing" expert who testified on for the prosecution. His expert evidence, they say, might have turned the jury against them. "Even assuming that the jury may have legitimately been assisted by evidence about Afghan cultural norms or concepts of honour, the way in which Dr. Mojab's evidence was presented exceeded that purpose and created enormous prejudice."

Item: The "progressive" parties -- Liberals and NDP -- opposing Steve Harper's Conservatives in next week's Canadian election are making a meal of the Harper government's introduction, in the last parliament, of the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act, which proscribes honour killings, female genital mutilation, forced marriages and the like, even though most of those BCPs were already covered in the Criminal Code. What they don't mention, in their scathing criticisms, is that such practices do exist in Canada, mainly within the Muslim communities.

Allah forbid that anyone should suggest that the values and customs of the followers of the Prophet Mohammed are somehow different from those of the society into which they desire to insinuate themselves. Doing so would suggest that our Western Christian (?) ways are superior to theirs, which we know -- or the politicians and media would have us believe -- is untrue.

Canucks admit "lone wolf" shooters "were influenced by ISIS"

Fancy that! Walt no sooner posted "Why the Australian terrorist wannabe did it" than Agent 3 sent us a link to a story from the online edition of the Toronto Star, headlined "Parliament shooter may have been in contact with Islamic State, Peter MacKay says".

Mr. MacHackey is Canada's Minister of Justice. (Before that he was Minister of Defence, until he got rather too fond of being photographed sitting in jet fighter cockpits and making vroom-vroom noises.) The Star's reporter says that Minister MacKay told him, at the Halifax International Security Forum (sic) in November, "They were influenced by ISIS there is no question."

He (MacKay) was referring to Michael Zehaf-Bibeau and Martin Couture-Rouleau, Canadian converts to Islam. Zehaf-Bibeau was the one who killed a Canadian soldier standing on ceremonial guard at the War Memorial in Ottawa. Couture-Rouleau had, just two days earlier, driven a car into two soldiers near Montreal, killing one of them.

At the time (as Walt told you) the Harper government's politically correct line was that the cowardly killings were caused by a "mix of personal disaffection and jihadist zealotry" -- the same syndrome now ascribed to Man Haron Monis, the perpetrator of Sunday's hostage-taking in Sydney, Australia.

"But," writes Josh Rogin-Bloomberg, "sometimes, early reports are later proved wrong. Several weeks after the Ottawa attack, Canada’s top law-enforcement official now says the gunman was not only inspired by Islamic State, he may have been in direct contact with the group.

"[MacKay] said that Canadian intelligence and law enforcement agencies were still trying to pin down exactly what sort of back-and-forth might have occurred between the homegrown terrorists and Islamic State. 'I don’t know that for certain, we have that suspicion, let’s put it that way,' he said, referring to “statements both of these individuals have made to others.

"In the case of the Parliament Hill shooter, there is also evidence contained in a video that Zehaf-Bibeau made before carrying out his suicide mission. The Canadian authorities have not released the video to the public. MacKay said the attacker’s statements in it are 'consistent with our belief that his motivations were very much as a result of being radicalized by the Islamic State.'"

Will the linkage between these attacks and the involvement of Canada and Australia in the "degradation" of ISIS result in any change in their government's foreign policy? Errr, no!

Germans marching against Islamization, religious extremism

While Americans are marching against "racist" cops, Germans are taking to the streets by the 10s of 1000s to protest something that really matters -- the Islamization of their country.

Just this last November 27th, Walt posted "IS jihadists clash with Kurds -- guess where?". The answer turned out to be Hamburg, the second-largest city in Germany. Daniel Abdin, imam of Hamburg's Al-Nour Mosque, called the area "Hamburgistan". And ethnic Germans -- as opposed to the hordes of Muslim immigrants, refugees and "guest workers" who have swamped their country -- have had enough.

Immigration has become a hot topic in Germany this year, amid a surge in the numbers of asylum-seekers, fuelled by the wars in Syria and Iraq. Germany takes in more asylum-seekers than any other country. By the end of this year, they expect to have received 200,000 claims for asylum, a 63% increase over the number for 2013.

Asylum-seekers, yes... like Man Haron Monis, who we see here preaching jihad against us infidels in Australia. The Aussies took him in as an asylum-seeker from Iran back in 1996. Was he grateful? Apparently not. Yesterday, the self-styled imam took several hostages at a café in downtown Sydney. Following a lengthy standoff, he was shot just hours ago by the (doubtlessly Islamophobic) police. Presumably he's now in Muslim paradise being serviced by 72 virgins.

But back to Germany... A march against "Islamization of the West" is due to take place in Dresden, with turnout expected to reach about 10,000 in the eastern German city. Dresden is the birthplace of a movement called "Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West" (Pegida), which staged a big rally a week ago.

"Most of their demands are legitimate," said Bernd Lucke, leader of the conservative Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD), which has campaigned for a tougher policy on immigration, as well as rejection of the euro. The AfD leader in Dresden, Frauke Petry, said Pegida "is protesting against inadequate legislation on asylum rights - they are also demanding that German law be applied against law-breakers, and they are opposing religious extremism".

Good for them, says Walt. But will patriotic Australians, Americans, Britons and Canadians have the courage to take to the streets to voice their opposition to "make nice with the Muslims" policies of their governments? Or will they refrain from doing so, for fear of being accused by the chattering classes and PC police of acting like Nazis? I know which way I'm betting!