Islamist

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is the leading Islamic extremist organization in North America. CAIR pretends to be a civil liberties group but has a long record of promoting radical ideology and of flimsy complaints of discrimination against Muslims. On March 17, CAIR unveiled a new effort--not its first--to interfere with educational publishing. At a press conference in Philadelphia, CAIR accused the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), which is located in that city, of fostering “incorrect information and fear-mongering” by publishing a 10-book series, “World of Islam.”

Over the past decade, since the U.S.-led NATO intervention to defend the Kosovar Albanians against the terrorism of the late Slobodan Milosevic, Artemije Radosavljevic, bishop of the Serbian Orthodox church in Kosovo, has gained considerable local and global publicity. Artemije’s media career began with his admission that Serbian nationalists had subjected the Kosovars to abuse. He later moved on to demands that the remaining Serb minority in the territory benefit from permanent international protection. Bishop Artemije became a frequent visitor to the United States, and, after September 11, 2001, emerged as a favorite of those who falsely accuse the entire Kosovar Muslim community of jihadism. He directed this flamboyant propaganda, which attributed unspeakably horrible crimes to the Albanians, from a large enclave at the Serbian monastery of Gracanica, near the Kosovo capital of Pristina. There Artemije and his cohort have been assiduously guarded by Swedish as well as NATO forces.

The United Nations has recently ratcheted up its criticism of the United States’ decision to withhold humanitarian aid to parts of Somalia controlled by the Islamist terror group al Shabaab.  The international body’s official in charge of aid distribution in Somalia accused the U.S. of preventing the distribution of tens of millions of dollars in aid to a desperate and starving population.  Any decision regarding the limiting of humanitarian aid to a country in need can be terribly difficult, especially for a country such as Somalia, which has seen 85,000 people displaced in 2010 alone and is described by the World Bank as “one of the poorest countries in the world.”  But the United States' decision to withhold aid to terrorist-controlled parts to the country is the right decision for the people of Somalia and, more importantly, the security of the United States.

Early this month, Bosnian police and military forces conducted their first major operation since war ended in the country in 1995.  On February 2, some 400-600 agents raided a major center of radical Islamist activity.  Officers were sent to the notorious “Wahhabi village” of Gornja Maoca from Sarajevo, capital of the Muslim-Croat federation that makes up about half of the country, since partition was imposed by the Dayton Accords fifteen years ago.

Islamist infiltration of the Albanian-speaking areas in the Balkans began even before the U.S.-led Kosovo intervention of 1999. (The offensive by radical Islam continues in Kosovo has previously been chronicled here, here, here, and here, with attacks focused on moderate Muslim clerics.) The upsurge of armed struggle for Kosovo independence in 1998 was accompanied by the unexpected emergence of Saudi-financed radicalism in the Albanian-majority zone of western Macedonia.  The syndrome is too widespread to be coincidental. Wherever local Muslim-majority communities resist post-Communist abuses – including Kosovo and Macedonia – Islamist radicals show up (beards, short pants, and all), allegedly in emulation of the Prophet Muhammad. The religious extremists assault moderate Muslims and Christians, dividing the forces of national freedom.