Displaying items by tag: Islamist extremism
Philippines: Authorities surprised by Filipino jihad suicide bomber, thought suicide bombing “against local culture”
Confirmation that the attack involved a Filipino would mark a major escalation in terror tactics in the Southeast Asian nation, where authorities had long said suicide bombings went against local culture, analysts said.”
This is yet another illustration of the cost of authorities’ refusal to consider Islam as a motivating factor behind such phenomena as suicide bombing. They should have known that whatever “local culture” said about the matter, a zealous Muslim such as Norman Lasuca would consider cultural norms to be overrun by Qur’anic dictates:
“Indeed, Allah has purchased from the believers their lives and their properties, for that they will have Paradise. They fight in the cause of Allah, so they kill and are killed.” (Qur’an 9:111)
“Filipino’s Family Identifies Body Tagged by Military as Suicide Bomber,” by Jeoffrey Maitem and Jojo Rinoza, Benar News, July 2, 2019:
The Philippine military on Tuesday named an alleged Filipino militant as one of two suicide bombers whodetonated explosives while trying to enter a military camp on southern Jolo island last week, killing themselves and six people.
Maj. Gen. Cirilito Sobejana identified the bomber as Norman Lasuca, 23, whose father was a Muslim convert and whose mother is a member of the island’s Tausug ethnic group.
“He is Filipino. This is hard for his family because they last saw him in 2014, according to the father,” Sobejana told BenarNews.
Confirmation that the attack involved a Filipino would mark a major escalation in terror tactics in the Southeast Asian nation, where authorities had long said suicide bombings went against local culture, analysts said.
Sobejana, the Western Mindanao Command chief, said family members had identified Lasuca by his head, which was severed in the blast. He said DNA tests would be conducted to confirm Lasuca’s identity.
Military officials said one of the two bombers managed to sprint past the gate of the 1st Battalion Combat Team in Jolo’s Indanan town and shouted “Allahu Akbar,” the Arabic phrase for “God is Great,” before setting off his vest packed with explosives. The other militant, who has not been identified, set off his bomb at the gate, killing three soldiers and three civilians.
The blasts injured 22 people, including 12 soldiers, authorities said.
Military intelligence reports indicate that Lasuca joined an Abu Sayyaf faction controlled by Hatib Hajan Sawadjaan, a religious elder identified by the U.S. Defense Department as the new head of Islamic State in the Philippines….
With reporting by Robert Spencer for Jihad Watch
Let us PRAY that these attacks do not escalate regardless of the ethnicity of the perpetrators.
Let us PRAY for the military to thwart any more acts of violence in the region and to bring the leaders of these extremist organisations to justice.
Extremism in UK backed by Saudi Arabia
The think-tank Henry Jackson Society has reported a 'clear and growing link' between Islamist organisations preaching violence in the UK and foreign state funding. It has called for a public inquiry into extremism bankrolled by several Gulf States. Saudi Arabia and Iran are responsible for much of the foreign funding of extremism in the UK; Saudi Arabia has spent millions on exporting its conservative Wahhabi Islam to Muslim communities since the 1960s. Funding takes the form of endowments to mosques and Islamic educational institutions which host radical preachers and distribute extremist literature. Running parallel with this is the fact that the Saudis are one of the main buyers of UK-made arms, with the UK Government approving £3.5bn-worth of arms exports licences to the Gulf state recently and British ministers cultivating trading relationships as the UK looks for post-Brexit trading partners.