Who’s behind “Survivors Against Terror”?
I don’t mean who’s at the front of it: the public faces of it are on their website and include Brendan Cox, the widower of the murdered Labour MP Jo Cox, and some survivors...
Category: Terrorism
ISIS terrorists, wannabes and “peace in Muslim societies”
So, today a man detonated a bomb in New York, at the Port Authority bus terminal. The man, a 27-year-old from Bangladesh who lives in Brooklyn and was a cab driver before his licence...
No, the Vegas shooter wasn’t a terrorist. Get over it.
Last week a white man shot dead 59 people who were attending a country music show in Las Vegas from the window of his hotel room at the Mandalay Bay hotel/casino. Already people have...
No, the mosques don’t know
Following the van/knife attacks on and near London Bridge last night in which seven people were killed (plus the three attackers who were shot dead by the police) which have been declared a terrorist...
Manchester: an attack on women and girls?
In the aftermath of last Monday’s terrorist attack on the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, the British feminist writer Karen Ingala-Smith wrote a blog entry claiming that it is “essential that we view the...
Good story 1, Facts 0
The other day I came across a story which a lot of people were sharing on my social media feeds since the appalling terrorist attack in Manchester on Monday night. The story, published on...
The electronics ban: malice or stupidity? Protectionism or security?
Yesterday, the Trump administration announced that ‘large’ electronic items such as tablets and laptops were to be banned from US-bound flights on some airlines, all based in the Arab world or Turkey, from airports...
Some thoughts on the Berlin truck atrocity
On Monday evening, someone hijacked a 40-tonne Scania articulated lorry, murdered the driver, and then drove it into the Berlin Christmas market, killing 12 people. Police arrested a suspect, an asylum seeker from Pakistan,...
A waste of a life
Last Wednesday, Nicky Reilly, who attempted to blow up a restaurant in Exeter with a home-made bomb which exploded in the toilet, injuring only himself, died in Manchester prison (otherwise known as Strangeways) where...
Converts more liable to become terrorists? Really?
ThinkProgress, a site some of us had taken for a progressive opinion site, recently published a piece titled “Why Converts To Islam Are So Susceptible To Becoming Terrorists”, by one Beenish Ahmed (right). That...
The AK-47 has always been the guerrilla weapon
In today’s Guardian there is a feature on why the AK-47 has suddenly become the weapon of choice for terrorists, replacing suicide belts and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The article features a petty arms...
Muslim women don’t owe solidarity to bigots
This morning I was listening to Vanessa Feltz’s phone-in show in London which is every weekday from 9am to noon. I tuned in just before 10am at which point I was heading out on...
Review: Britain’s ISIS Supporters
ISIS: The British Women Supporters Unveiled from Channel 4 (available for 26 days as of this writing) On Monday night Channel 4 broadcast what purported to be an investigation into a group of British...
The Paris attacks: what kind of “game changer” are they?
So, a week and a half after the attacks on civilian targets in central Paris, including a stadium, a concert hall and several restaurants on Friday night supposedly by ISIS (or rather, a group...
‘Hadith 38’ isn’t about war
The BBC reported today that Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez (right), the gunman of Kuwaiti origin who murdered five US marines in Chattanooga, Tennessee, last week, had sent what it called a “war text” to a...
So, the al-Qa’ida chiefs don’t like ISIS
Last Thursday, the Guardian carried a lengthy feature (the “big read” in their comment section) as well as a front-page article on how prominent members of al-Qa’ida have come out against ISIS. The long...
Stable-door logic
Last week a GermanWings airliner was crashed into a moutainside in south-western France, killing everyone on board. The evidence seems to suggest that the co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, crashed it deliberately, and investigations have turned...
Charlie Hebdo and the limits of free speech
Last week three gunmen raided the offices of the French ‘satirical’ magazine Charlie Hebdo (Weekly) and killed its editor, three other contributors, two policemen and various other staff (including bodyguards but some not named)...
Not being spied on used to be called freedom
Yesterday a report from the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) came out that concluded that the murder of Lee Rigby, a British soldier, in London in 2013 could not have been prevented despite the...
FGM and the fallacy of symbolism
Sarah Sands: We cannot lose the battle for liberal values - Comment - London Evening Standard Sarah Sands is the editor of the London Evening Standard, and this article by her appeared in yesterday’s...