The Complete Infidel's Guide to ISIS

by Robert Spencer

  “It was also through these two successive American-led campaigns to impose the Democratic system upon the world,” said Bilardi, “that I woke up to the reality of what this ideology was, nothing but a system of lies and deception.” He came to harbor “complete hatred and opposition to the entire system Australia and the majority of the world was based upon,” and determined that “violent global revolution was necessary to eliminate this system of governance and that it [sic] I would likely be killed in this struggle.” But violent revolution in the service of what? “What would replace,” he asked, the rotten Western system of democracy? “Socialism? Communism?? Nazism??? I was never quite sure.”

  Bilardi’s hatred of the U.S. and its interventionism coincided with what he was reading in the Qur’an, which he had picked up because of his admiration for the mujahideen:

  As I read through the Qur’an, I couldn’t help but make strong associations between the speech of Allah (azza wa’jal) and the chaotic scenes around the world today. For example, Allah (azza wa’jal) says, “And when it is said to them: ‘Make not mischief on the Earth’, they say: ‘We are only peace-makers.’ Verily! They are the ones who make mischief, but they perceive it not.” [Surat al-Baqarah 2:11–12]. Is this not the reality of the kuffar today? Who claim to be helping to free the people while doing nothing but increasing their suffering.

  Thus he finally “began to truly understand what I had focused on studying for more than five years, the motivation of the mujahideen: The doctrine of jihad and it’s [sic] superiority in Islam.” John Kerry might be surprised to learn that the young suicide bomber says nothing at this juncture about poverty or a lack of economic opportunity.

  NOT THAT THIS HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH ISLAM

  “As the Messenger of Allah, Muhammad ibn Abdullah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: ‘The head of the matter is Islam, its pillar is the prayer and its peak is jihad.’ I now for the first time truly understood why there were Islamic armies from Mali to China, from Chechnya to Indonesia, it was an obligation upon every able Muslim to fight, an obligation that a person who dies without having fulfilled, he dies upon a branch of hypocrisy as stated by Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him).”

  —Australian teenager Jake Bilardi explains why he became an ISIS suicide bomber

  Now he understood “the concept of jihad, it’s [sic] benefits, it’s [sic] importance and the rewards for taking part in military operations to raise Islam in the land.” And the more he learned, “the more I desired to join the mujahideen.”

  Bilardi had originally agreed with “the assessment of the mischief-makers that the Islamic State were from the khawarij,” the seventh-century rigorists who fought, as we have seen, against all other Muslims, and that accordingly it was “a duty upon others to slaughter the mujahideen of the Islamic State.” However, the more he had online discussions with Muslims who had joined the Islamic State, the more he began to come around to their point of view. He acknowledged forthrightly that in this matter, might made right: “As the Islamic State began to expand, seizing the cities of Raqqah, Fallujah, Mosul, Tikrit and others, Allah (azza wa’jal) Himself exposed the lies of the liars and humiliated the enemies of the State, a clear sign that they were upon the truth.”

  As he came to admire and approve ISIS, he was also “growing tired of the corruption and filthiness of Australian society and yearned to live under the Islamic State with the Muslims.” But failing, at first, to find any way to get there, he decided instead to wage jihad right at home, launching “a string of bombings across Melbourne, targeting foreign consulates and political/military targets as well as grenade and knife attacks on shopping centres and cafes and culminating with myself detonating a belt of explosives amongst the kuffar.”

  NOT THAT THIS HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH ISLAM

  “Slowly but surely, I would come to love the [Islamic] State, recognising that they are the only people in the region establishing the Islamic system of governance, providing services for the people and most importantly they possess a sound aqeedah [creed] and manhaj [methodology for discovering the truth] that has led to their correct and effective implementation of the Sharia.”

  —Australian convert Jake Bilardi explains how he originally fell in love with ISIS

  Bilardi realized, however, that if he tried to assemble all the necessary material for such an attack, he would attract the attention of the authorities. And then, unexpectedly and in a way he declines to explain so as to refrain from “revealing any sensitive information,” he found a way to get to the Islamic State. Once there, “I felt a joy I had never experienced before, the first time my eyes spotted the banner of tawheed [Islamic monotheism] fluttering above the city, everything felt surreal, I was finally in the Khilafah. . . . I guess I was always destined to stand here as a soldier in the army of Shaykh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (May Allah have mercy upon him) considering the great respect I had for him even before I entered Islam. May Allah accept him among the best of shuhadah [martyrs] and allow me to sit with him in the highest ranks of Jannah [Paradise].”65

  Once happily in the caliphate, al-Australi issued a series of threats to his infidel homeland: “What we have in store for you dogs will make 9/11 look like child’s play. . . . Martin place was just the beginning for you dogs.”66 Martin Place in Sydney was the site of a jihad terror attack in December 2014. A Muslim who went by the name Man Haron Monis and declared that he was a supporter of the Islamic State took customers and employees hostage at the Lindt Chocolat Café there; two people were killed.67 As far as Abdullah al-Australi was concerned, that was just an appetizer.

  However, it will not be he who makes good on these threats. Although it has been impossible to identify him conclusively, Jake Bilardi, who says that he found truth, happiness, and peace as Abdullah al-Australi, apparently killed himself in a jihad-martyrdom suicide attack in the Islamic State in March 2015.68

  Shannon Maureen Conley: “One of the Brightest Kids”

  The transition of the young charity founder Jake Bilardi into a traitor who gleefully predicted blood and death for his own nation and people has been repeated again and again by Muslims who succumbed to the lure of the Islamic State.

  Shannon Maureen Conley was “one of the brightest kids” at Arvada West High School in Arvada, Colorado, according to Arvada West Principal Rob Bishop.69 But that was before she converted to Islam, adopted the name Halima, and began describing herself as a “slave to Allah.”70 Her parents were not initially all that concerned—and anyone who might have warned them had long since been demonized as a “racist” and “bigot.”

  Wearing traditional Muslim garb, Halima started to show up regularly at Arvada’s Faith Bible Church. Asked by church leaders if she was interested in converting to Christianity, she responded that she was a Muslim and was only there to do “research.”71 She began taking notes during church classes and worship services, explaining that she was hoping to “alarm” church members and adding: “If they think I’m a terrorist, I’ll give them something to think I am.”72 When church members asked her about her notes, she responded, “Why is the church worried about a terrorist attack?”73 Authorities later asked her why she was frequenting the church; she replied, “I hate those people.”74

  Halima Conley made contact online with Islamic jihadists, and joined the U.S. Army Explorers, which gives young people a taste of what it is like to be in the U.S. military. She explained that she didn’t join up out of patriotism or interest in a military career, but because she hoped to learn American military tactics that she could then explain to the jihad terrorists of the Islamic State.75

  Eventually Conley made online contact with a Tunisian Muslim who persuaded her to travel to the Islamic State to meet and marry him, as well as to wage jihad herself.76 “Jihad must be waged to protect Muslim nations,” she later explained, saying that she hoped, once she reached the Islamic State, that she “would be defending Muslims on the Muslim homeland against people who are trying
to kill them.” When asked if she would engage in jihad fighting herself, she answered: “If it was absolutely necessary, then yes. I wouldn’t like it . . . but I would do it.” However, she said her Islamic State fiancé was “the man, he should be doing the fighting.”77

  Conley was arrested at the Denver International Airport as she made the attempt to go meet him in person for the first time.78 She later pleaded guilty to aiding a foreign terrorist organization and was sentenced to four years in prison.79 Her arrest, guilty plea, and sentencing did nothing to dim her Islamic fervor; as she prepared to enter prison, she changed her name yet again to Amatullah—“servant of Allah.”80

  “Jihad Shannon,” as she came to be known, was widely written off as a confused young girl whose head had been turned by the much older Tunisian who courted her online—she was nineteen, he was thirty-two.81 But Shannon/Halima/Amatullah was by no means the only convert to take conversion to Islam as a call to commit treason and join the Islamic State, and it was not so easy to write off some of the others as confused youths befuddled by romance.

  Pugh and Edmonds: From the U.S. Military to the Islamic State

  Tairod Nathan Webster Pugh served in the United States Air Force from 1986 to 1990. He was an avionics instrument specialist, trained to repair and maintain airplane engines.82 In 1998 he converted to Islam, and by September 11, 2001, when he was working for American Airlines as an airplane mechanic, he had turned against the country of his birth, in whose military he had served, so completely that he alarmed his coworkers with his open hatred for America and support for Osama bin Laden.83

  By January 2015, Pugh had been living outside the United States for years, and he had his eye on a new place to live: the Islamic State. He tried to enter the Islamic State through Turkey, but Turkish officials wouldn’t let him into the country. Pugh had flown to Turkey from Egypt, and upon his return to that country he was sent back to the United States. FBI agents seized his laptop and discovered that he had conducted internet searches for “borders controlled by Islamic state” and “kobani border crossing.” Kobani is a town on the Syrian border with Turkey that the Islamic State had tried and failed to seize from Bashar Assad’s forces.84

  We’ve already seen how U.S. Army National Guard Specialist Hasan Edmonds was arrested on March 25, 2015, at Chicago’s Midway Airport for planning to join the Islamic State.85 The plan he and his cousin, Jonas “Yunus” Edmonds, who was arrested as well, had put together involved Yunus storming the Joliet Armory, where Hasan had trained, with hand grenades and rifles—in a jihad attack emulating that of Major Nidal Malik Hasan at Fort Hood in November 2009. Nidal Hasan murdered thirteen people and injured thirty-two.86

  Half the World

  “More than half the world’s countries are now producing jihadists to fill the ranks of violent sunni terrorist organisations in the Middle East.” In May 2015 the Financial Times reported those findings from the United Nations Security Council’s Special Permanent Committee for Monitoring Violent Islamism. The UN put the total number of jihadis who have flocked from around the world to join al-Qaeda and ISIS at twenty-five thousand. And that number is going up rapidly, as is the number of different countries from which they are originating. Meanwhile, ISIS is doing a much better job of assimilating foreigners than al-Qaeda did in Afghanistan. “‘Those who eat together and bond together can bomb together,’ [the report] notes: unlike in Afghanistan, where foreign fighters tended to stick together in their own ethnic groups, in Syria and Iraq jihadists are far more closely integrated into more developed and sophisticated networks.”

  Mehdi Masroor Biswas, a twenty-four-year-old manufacturing executive at ITC Foods, a massive packaged foods conglomerate in India, was almost one of them. His friends and family were stunned when police swooped down on Biswas’s apartment in North Bangalore and arrested him on December 13, 2014.

  Biswas, as it turned out, was leading a double life. By day he worked at ITC Foods, but by night he would take to Twitter as @shamiwitness (Syrian witness), a propagandist for the Islamic State.

  Police said that Biswas was “very emotionally invested in the cause of Islam”—so much so that “the @shamiwitness account seemed to have become his main cause in life. He was so consumed by it that he did not have much of a life beyond his work and the Internet. He was however probably only a major sympathiser of the Islamic State and did not take any concrete measures to join the outfit.”

  Bangalore police commissioner M. N. Reddi stated that Biswas “was not directly involved with the Islamic State but he was also not a mere sympathizer.” A police spokesman added, “He was particularly close to English-speaking terrorists of ISIS and became a source of incitement and information for the new recruits trying to join ISIS. Through his social media propaganda he abetted ISIS in its agenda to wage war against the Asiatic powers.”87

  “Our son is a devout Muslim,” said Biswas’s father. “He had learnt the Quran Sharif [Noble Quran] by heart, and would often give me and my wife lessons from the Holy Book.”88

  He seems to have taken many of those lessons to heart himself.

  Jihadis Wanted

  The Islamic State has recruited openly in the West on at least one occasion: in August 2014, the Islamic State’s supporters in central London handed out leaflets proclaiming the restoration of the caliphate. The leaflet announced:

  KHILAFAH ESTABLISHED

  THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA HAS BEGUN

  The darkness of following manmade law and the abandonment of the Shariah of Allah led to the destruction of the Khilafah (Islamic State) in the year 1924.

  Since that year, for over 90 years we have been living in a constant state of ignorance. Our lands separated, resources stolen, Ummah [worldwide Muslim community] disunited, honour humiliated and the laws of Shirk [polytheism] established over us.

  After many attempts and great sacrifices from the Ummah of Islam throughout the world, the Muslims with the help of Allah have announced the re-establishment of the Khilafah and appointed an imam as a Khaleef (Muslim leader).

  As Muslims around the world we all have many great responsibilities towards the success and spread of the Khilafah across the world.

  1.Pledge our Bayah [allegiance] to the Khaleef.

  2.Obey the Khaleef according to the Shariah.

  3.Advise the Khaleef if he does anything wrong.

  4.Dua—Make dua to Allah to help and guide the Khaleef.

  5.Migrate—Those that can migrate and resettle should migrate.

  6.Educate Muslims and non-Muslims about the Khilafah.

  7.Expose any lies and fabrications made against the Islamic state.

  “ . . . And if they seek help of you for the religion then you must help . . . ” (Qur’an 8:72)89

  In February 2015, Michael Steinbach, chief of the FBI’s counterterrorist division, said that the Islamic State was recruiting young Muslims in America, and that it was very difficult to track such efforts: “I’m worried about individuals that we don’t know about that have training. We know what we know. But there is a number that’s greater than that that we don’t know.”

  According to Steinbach, in America today, “there are individuals that have been in communication with groups like ISIL who have a desire to conduct an attack,” including Muslims as young as fifteen years old: Steinbach said that he “can’t speak with 100% certainty that individuals of that age group have not gotten over there successfully.” These teen Muslims, he said, were often encouraged by their parents: “There are individuals out there who are inspired by the message of terrorist groups and they encourage family members, including their children, to follow that path.”90

  They do so because it is the path of jihad. The path of Islam.

  It’s the Meaning, Stupid

  But American officials continued to be tone deaf to the jihadis’ religious motivations and committed to the poverty explanation—to the point of absurdity. In February 2015 State Department spokesperson Marie Harf said,

 
We’re killing a lot of them, and we’re going to keep killing more of them. So are the Egyptians, so are the Jordanians—they’re in this fight with us. But we cannot win this war by killing them. We cannot kill our way out of this war. We need in the medium to longer term to go after the root causes that leads people to join these groups, whether it’s a lack of opportunity for jobs—

  At that point Harf was interrupted by MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, who said: “We’re not going to be able to stop that in our lifetime or 50 lifetimes. There’s always going to be poor people. There’s always going to be poor Muslims, and as long as there are poor Muslims, the trumpet’s blowing and they’ll join. We can’t stop that, can we?”

  Harf responded: “We can work with countries around the world to help improve their governance. We can help them build their economies so they can have job opportunities for these people.”91

  Harf was roundly ridiculed for these remarks, but what she said was just a particularly unconvincing statement of the same line that many other U.S. officials have been pushing over the years. In October 2014, Harf’s boss, Secretary of State John Kerry, had given essentially the same analysis of the rise of the Islamic State. “The extremism that we see,” he said, “the radical exploitation of religion which is translated into violence, has no basis in any of the real religions. There’s nothing Islamic about what ISIL/Daesh stands for, or is doing to people.” (“Daesh” is an insulting name for the Islamic State derived from the Arabic acronym for ISIS and loosely resembling the Arabic words for someone who “crushes something under foot” or “sows discord.”)92

  Instead, it was all about the poor envying the rich: “We’re living at a point in time where there are just more young people demanding what they see the rest of the world having than at any time in modern history.” They don’t have it because of . . . global warming: “And that brings us to something like climate change, which is profoundly having an impact in various parts of the world, where droughts are occurring not at a 100-year level but at a 500-year level in places that they haven’t occurred, floods of massive proportions, diminishment of water for crops and agriculture at a time where we need to be talking about sustainable food. In many places we see the desert increasingly creeping into East Africa. We’re seeing herders and farmers pushed into deadly conflict as a result. We’re seeing the Himalayan glaciers receding, which will affect the water that is critical to rice and to other agriculture on both sides of the Himalayas. These are our challenges.”