2002 October

Islamic Terrorism Timeline

10/11/2006

- October 1, 2002: In Kashmir, the month of October began engulfed in blood. Elections were on the horizon and liberty, free expression, and free will were things Muslims could not tolerate.

Eight people were killed and nine others were injured when Islamic terrorists dressed as police officers attacked a bus in the town of Hiranagar. Muslims had vowed to disrupt the elections and they were doing so. Two security personnel were injured when jihadists lobbed a grenade inside a polling station in Telwani. An explosive device was detonated near a polling station in Nadimarg. Muslim militants set off a bomb inside a polling station in Gulzarpora-Taknu. Three security personnel were wounded in that blast.

At the direction of the United Jihad Council, Islamic terrorists hurled a grenade at the vehicle of a National Conference candidate and then opened fire on it in Shopian. A grenade thrown by militants detonated in Bijbehara and wounded a woman who had come to vote. Another civilian was injured in a blast in Kundlan.

Also in Kashmir, the brother of a high-ranking National Conference politician escaped an assassination attempt when militants fired on his vehicle in Arahama. Muslim militants fired a rocket at a polling station in Norpora. Two women were wounded when Islamic jihadists attacked a polling station in Sagam. Muslims detonated a bomb inside a polling facility in Litter, injuring three security personnel. They fired shots at a power grid station in the Hiranagar area. They opened fire on a polling station in Quil in Tral.

One person was wounded when jihadists working on behalf of Pakistan opened fire on a Kashmir polling station in Pinglish. One person was injured when these Islamic terrorists attacked a polling station in Ladoora. They also assaulted a polling booth in Kokernag.

That afternoon, Muslim militants fired their assault rifles into a polling station in Motigowaran. They attacked a polling station in Payinmoh. Militants fired at a polling booth in Wagat. Militants attacked a polling place in the Tral township of Pulwama. They shot at and injured a National Conference leader in Badragund in the Islamabad District.

Then at the direction of Pakistan's United Jihad Council, Muslim militants lobbed grenades into a polling station in Arikatnu, injuring four security and polling personnel. They also threw grenades into a polling station in Kawdoora, wounding three people inside.

- October 1, 2002: In Israel, bomb disposal experts neutralized three explosive devices near the settlement of Morag. The following day, bomb squad dismantled an IED found in a gas station on the outskirts of Afula.

- October 2, 2002: In Kashmir, Islamic gunmen shot and killed three National Conference activists in the village of Jaktial. That afternoon, Muslim militants killed three National Conference workers in the town of Haihama. Lashkar-e-Jabbar claimed credit for the murderes.

- October 2, 2002: In Kashmir, two people were killed and 21 others were injured when a bomb planted in a bus detonated as it traveled through Manda. The bus had departed from Jammu and was carrying Hindu pilgrims. Police suspected Lashkar-e-Tayyba and Jaish-e-Muhammad.

The same day, the body of a kidnapped Hindu man was recovered from Kurigam in Varmul.

- October 2, 2002: In the Philippines, Mark Jackson, a 40-year-old American Green Beret and two local Filipino men were killed when a remote control bomb exploded in front of a restaurant frequented by American soldiers from Camp Enrile Malagutay. More than 20 other people were injured, including another Green Beret. Authorities blamed the Abu Sayyaf Group of Islamic fundamentalists.

- October 2-24, 2002: In the United States, two Islamic terrorists, John Muhammad, a member of the Nation of Islam, and Lee Malvo, also a Muslim, murdered ten people and wounded three innocent civilians in a three-week-long shooting spree in the Baltimore-Washington Metro area. The media coverage was intense while the killer was called the "Beltway Sniper," and was suspected of being a right-wing whacko. But when it was leaned that the murderer was a Muslim, there was total radio silence from every national media outlet. John Muhammad even told friends that he was pleased that Muslims had flown planes into the World Trade Center.

- October 3, 2002: One Israeli construction worker was injured when he was fired upon as he toiled on a road east of the village of Baqah al-Sharqiyah. The same day, Palestinians fired a mortar shell at a settlement in the central Gaza Strip.

- October 3, 2002: In Kashmir, Islamic gunmen killed a man in the Thatri area. Another civilian was shot and killed in Sara Dessa.

- October 3, 2002: An Israeli-Arab man was injured in a shooting attack near the northern town of Baka al-Gharbiyeh while he was working on the security fence. Palestinians fired on him from the West Bank.

- October 3, 2002: In the Philippines, a day after a bomb exploded outside a bar in Zamboanga City, a homemade bomb was detonated outside the Iglesia ni Kristo church.

- October 4, 2002: In the Philippines a grenade was thrown at a Christian hospital in Bannu.

- October 4, 2002: Two mortar shells were fired at settlements in the Qatif Bloc.

- October 4, 2002: In Kashmir, a National Conference politician was attacked by Islamic gunmen in Warel Kund. A People's Democratic Party politician was wounded when Muslims detonated a bomb under his motorcade as he drove on the Doda-Marmarg road.

- October 5, 2002: A mortar shell was fired at a settlement in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. The following day, a Qassem rocket was fired at a settlement in the northern Gaza Strip.

- October 5, 2002: In Kashmir, Islamic gunmen abducted and later shot a Sajna Daresh man to death. Then they barged into a Garoora Bandipora home and dragged the owner out, assassinating him in public view. When other family members resisted, they shot them too, killing and wounding the rest of the man's family. Then that evening, Islamic jihadists shot and killed a man from the Poonch District.

- October 6, 2002: In Yemen, a Bulgarian was killed and twelve Bulgarian citizens and a Frenchmen were wounded in an attack on the French oil tanker, the Limburg. It took investigators four days to determine that the explosion was an act of terrorism. The orientation and location of the hole in the tanker, which was blown inward and at sea-level, as well as traces of TNT and foreign materials confirmed that the vessel had been attacked.

The tanker had taken on crude oil in Iran and was docking to take on more in the Mina al-Dabah port near the city of al-Mukalla before proceeding to Malaysia. As a result of the attack 90,000 barrels of oil were spilled along 45 miles of the Yemeni coastline. What's interesting here, is with environmentalists screaming bloody murder over the Exxon Valdez spill, suing the company for billions, no one criticized Islam for this human and environmental disaster.

The bombing came one week short of the two-year anniversary of the deadly assault on the USS Cole that killed seventeen Americans. The Aden Abyan Islamic Army claimed responsibility. The group stated that the intended target was not the French tanker but rather an unspecified U.S. Navy vessel.

The Yemeni authorities tried to arrest Abdul Hakeem Bazeeb, the suspected mastermind behind this attack, but he was now a hero in the land of Islam. Interrogations revealed that Bazeeb received money to perpetrate the assault from a Yemeni civilian living in Saudi Arabia.

The Aden Abyan Islamic Army emerged publicly in mid-1998 when the group released a series of communiqués that expressed support for the overthrow of the Yemeni government and for operations against U.S. and other Western interests in Yemen. The Islamic Army praised the attacks on U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in August 1998 as "an heroic operation carried out by heroes of the jihad." They announced their support for al-Qaeda and the Taliban following the American reprisal raid on his camps in Afghanistan by way of Clinton's cruise missiles. The AAIA called on the Yemeni people to kill Americans and destroy their property.

In November 1998, al-Mehdar called on all members of the Yemeni parliament and Consultative Council to resign and demanded that President Ali Abdullah Salih surrender and face trial in accordance with Sharia Law. His hostility towards the Yemeni government stemmed from his conclusion that Shari'a Law was not applied properly in Yemen.

Al-Mehdar, who died at 32, came from an important tribe in the Shabwa province. His clan practiced salafi Islam and enjoyed relationships with Wahhabists in neighboring Saudi Arabia. He fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s and on his return to Yemen in the early 1990s became associated with Islamic Jihad. Like most mujahideen returning to Yemen, Mehdar became a jihadist for Yemen's President, Ali Abdullah Saleh, during the 1994 civil war and then later turned against him.

Members of this Islamic club adhere to the salafi religious foundation of Islam and are therefore fundamentalists. As Sunni Muslims they would be indistinguishable from Wahhabists - the salafi form of Islam taught and practiced in Saudi Arabia. The Aden Abyan Islamic Army is suspected of being an offshoot of the Yemeni Islamic Jihad, a group of terrorists supported by bin Laden. The majority of its members are former Mujahideen with experience in Afghanistan.

Saleh Haidara al-Atwi was also a leader of Yemen's Islamic Jihad and the Aden Abyan Islamic Army. Two weeks after his December 1998 arrest, ten AAIA militants attacked a five vehicle convoy of Western tourists, taking 16 of them hostage and demanding the release of al-Atwi and another high-ranking Islamic terrorists. A rescue operation conducted by Yemeni security forces secured the release of 12 hostages, though four were killed and three wounded in the attempt. After a trial that lasted from October 1999 to June 2000, al-Atwi was given a sentence of 7 years in prison.

- October 6, 2002: In Kashmir, jihadists killed a Hindu civilian in the Baba Vayil village in the outskirts of Srinagar. An independent candidate for the Bhadarwah constituency escaped a bid on his life when militants fired on his motorcade. That night, Muslims killed three people in the Bhaderwah Forest after the gunmen had entered Banjala village and kidnapped the villagers.

- October 6, 2002: In Chechnya, a dozen gunmen broke into a private home in Staraya Zunzha and shot the homeowner at pointblank range. The attack was being blamed on Chechen rebels, lesser known as fundamentalist Muslims.

- October 6, 2002: One Palestinian was killed, and another two were wounded when fired on by Jewish settlers near the village of Akrabah. The Palestinians were reportedly harvesting olives when the group of settlers attacked them. One of the four Palestinians wounded in that attack lost an eye.

- October 6, 2002: In Turkey, a pipe bomb was found and defused outside a cinema in the Beyoglu neighborhood of Istanbul.

- October 7, 2002: A group of masked Muslims and HAMAS members kidnapped and killed Palestinian Authority Police Chief Colonel Rageh Abu Lehiya in Gaza City. HAMAS held him responsible for the death of a HAMAS demonstrator during a 2001 riot. He was shot at least ten times in his car. The group's leadership distanced the group from the attack, claiming it was a family affair.

- October 7, 2002: In Kashmir, the body of a Hindu man was recovered by police from Turikami Nallah. The servant of a National Conference candidate from Tral was killed in the Karmulla village.

- October 7, 2002: In Pakistan, the pilot of a Cessna aircraft was killed when his plane came under fire while dropping campaign leaflets over Khyber Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Area of Pakistan. The plane had been chartered by an independent candidate from the Agency. The pilot died from a shot to the head.

- October 7, 2002: Three mortar shells were fired at a settlement in the Qatif Bloc of Israel.

- October 8, 2002: Four Israelis were wounded in a shooting attack south of the West Bank city of Hebron in Tel Zif. Palestinian gunmen opened fire on their car near the Zif junction from a roadside ambush. One of the wounded died of his injuries the next day.

HAMAS's military wing, the Izz-ad-Din al Qassem Brigades claimed credit for the attack. Fatah's al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades also claimed credit which means that one of them was lying.

- October 8, 2002: In Kashmir, Muslim militants attacked the town hall in Doda with explosives and gunfire. Two soldiers and one militant were killed in the ensuing shootout. Three more Indian soldiers were injured.

- October 8, 2002: In Afghanistan, four people were killed when Muslims fired a portable anti-tank weapon into a vehicle carrying civilians in Gardez.

- October 8, 2002: A U.S. Marine was murdered and another was wounded in Kuwait by Kuwaiti Muslims. Anonio Sledd, 20, of Tampa, Florida was killed when Muslim militants fired on 150 Marines who were practicing urban assault training on Faylaka Island.

The two U.S. Marines were attacked during a war games exercise on the Kuwaiti island of Failaka. Two gunmen, believed to have received training in Al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, drove up in a pick-up truck and opened fire, wounding Lance Cpl. Antonio J. Sledd of Tampa, FL and Lance Cpl. George R. Simpson of Dayton, Ohio. Sledd died of his injuries and the other Marines shot and killed the two assailants.

- October 8, 2002: In Indonesia, citizens alerted the police to a suspicious package found in a marketplace. Four civilians and two policemen were injured as authorities attempted in vain to defuse the explosive device.

- October 8, 2002: Palestinians used olive trees as cover as they fired shots into a settlement southeast of Jenin.

- October 9, 2002: In Kuwait, in the second incident in two days, two Muslim men in a pick-up truck aimed a rifle at American soldiers after pulling alongside their Humvee in Kuwait City. The soldiers fired on the truck, forcing it off the road. No one on either side was injured.

- October 9, 2002: In Kashmir, militants detonated an explosive device outside a polling booth in Ramban. They detonated another bomb outside a polling booth in Banihal. Then they fired a rifle-launched grenade into a polling booth in Pahalgam, injuring two police officers.

- October 10, 2002: In Israel, an Islamic suicide bomber killed one other person and injured 16 more when he detonated himself outside a bus in the greater Tel Aviv area. The bomber had fallen while trying to board the bus when it stopped across from Bar-Ilan University. He was temporarily pinned in by the driver and two passengers. They decided to let him go, at which point he began running and self-detonated. The militant wing of HAMAS, the Al-Qassem Brigades, claimed credit for the attack.

To understand why anyone who motivate and equip a person to do such a heinous thing, we need to examine HAMAS, an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawammah al-Islammiyya. It means Islamic Resistance Movement. The terrorist group is an outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood - the same organization that has spawned most fundamentalist Islamic hate groups. The Muslim Brotherhood is a Sunni, Salafist, Islamist, religious movement that originated in Egypt. It seeks the forced imposition of fundamentalist Muslim social, moral, legal, religious, and political mandates on the Israel, which they call Palestine, and the world.

Throughout the late 1960s, HAMAS's founder and spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, was actively engaged in the Muslim Brotherhood. He was an Islamic preacher, educator, and charity/social worker. In 1973, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin established al-Mujamma' al-Islami as an umbrella organization overseeing Muslim Brotherhood projects in Gaza. By the early 1980s, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin's fundamentalist Islamic ideology caused him to include jihadist acts along with his preaching and educating duties. He openly espoused violence against Israel and America.

After the outbreak of the first Palestinian intifada (armed Islamic uprising) in December 1987 (called by Fatah and the PLO), HAMAS was established as the political/religious/militant arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in Israel. At this time, HAMAS members began actively terrorizing and killing Jews.

In August 1988, HAMAS released its official charter. It stated that HAMAS was "committed to creating an Islamic state in the territory of Palestine" which it took to be all of Israel. According to the HAMAS charter, "the land of Palestine has been endowed to Islam, and it is therefore the duty of all Muslims to liberate Palestine through violent jihad." In this regard, the charter of HAMAS is indistinguishable from that of the PLO and it differs only in respect to scope with that of the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Jihad, Islamic Jihad, Hizballah, and al-Qaeda. And that is because the Qur'an orders Muslims to fight non-Muslims until the whole world surrenders to Allah and Islam.

HAMAS remains zealously dedicated to its violent, fundamentalist Islamist goals and seeks to destroy Israel and replace the Palestinian Authority with an Islamic state. While HAMAS and the Palestinian Authority/PLO do cooperate occasionally, HAMAS has generally presented itself as a pure Islamic alternative to Arafat's Marxist Muslim Fatah. HAMAS has violently opposed any political compromises with Israel and has frequently used suicide bombings and rocket attacks against to derail the peace process.

As part of its Islamist ideology, HAMAS maintains an active network of social services within the Palestinian Territories. They are funded by the OPECers in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iran (somewhat surprising since Iran is Shia, not Sunni) and are designed to bribe Muslims into compliance with fundamentalist, jihadist, Islam. If you were a Palestinian, the choice would be between starving and submission.

HAMAS's substantial financial support comes with strings attached. Children must attend their schools and mosques and parents must sign oaths of allegiance. HAMAS succeeds by providing financial support, food, housing, education, health care, religious, and recreation services that the Palestinian Authority has been unwilling to offer because the PLO/Fatah/PA is more interested in enriching themselves than indoctrinating the populous in Islam. So the HAMAS inducements have substantially increased popular support for fundamentalist Islam, drawing political support away from Fatah, the PLO, and the Palestinian Authority. HAMAS has been able to leverage this support into an increased barrage of terrorist activities.

In January 2006, HAMAS supplied candidates for Palestinian parliamentary elections for the first time. Shocking everyone in the West besides those who had read Tea With Terrorists, HAMAS won a landslide victory, winning over 65% of the vote and garnering 76 out of a possible 132 seats. While Western politicians and media spokespeople claimed that this negative turn of events could not have been predicted, I actively described this very outcome in the book and on radio shows beginning in 2002. Read the opening and title chapter of Tea With Terrorists if you'd like to know what other predictions I got right.

Let's examine some of the people who contributed to the rise of the Islamic Resistance Group. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was born in the late 1930s. He became paralyzed from the neck down as a result of a childhood accident. During his teenage years he was influenced by Muslim Brotherhood teachers. Thereafter, Sheikh Yassin began training as an Islamic teacher in Cairo. In the late 1960s, Yassin began efforts to encourage pious Islamic religiosity and ritual observances among Gaza youth. He was briefly imprisoned by Egypt in 1966 and became disillusioned 1967 following Israel's rout of Team Islam in the 6 Day's War. Thereafter, Sheikh Yassin focused entirely on preaching and teaching fundamentalist Islam.

This focus on Islamic religiosity prompted Yassin to revive Muslim Brotherhood activities in Gaza. In 1973, he founded the Islamic Center which coordinated Muslim Brotherhood activities in the Strip. He was arrested in 1983 and 1984 after arms caches were discovered in his home. He was given a 13-year sentence. He was released in May 1985 following a prisoner exchange. He was arrested again in May 1989 and sentenced in to life imprisonment. He was again released in a prisoner exchange in October 1997. The Palestinian Authority tried to place Yassin under house arrest in December 2001, leading to widespread clashes. He was killed in an Israeli missile attack on March 22, 2004.

Abd al-Aziz Rantisi was another influential HAMAS member. He was born in 1947 in Yabna and grew up in the Khan Yunis refugee camp. He was educated as a pediatrician at Alexandria University starting in 1972. That is where he first came into contact with the Muslim Brotherhood. He helped establish the Islamic Center in Gaza in 1973 and was admitted into the Muslim Brotherhood in 1976. He worked at Khan Yunis hospital as head of pediatrics but was dismissed by Israel in 1983 and was imprisoned multiple times for jihadist activities.

Abd al-Aziz Rantisi led HAMAS starting in April 1989 but was deported by Israel to Lebanon in 1992. There he served as the spokesperson for other deportees. On his return, he was rearrested by Israel in December 1993 and held until April 1997. He was then held by the Palestinian Authority in detention for 21 months until February 2000. He was arrested again in July 2000 after calling the Palestinian participation in the Camp David talks an act of treason. He was released in December 2000 but has been rearrested multiple times since. He currently operates out of the Shaykh Radwan area of Gaza City where he served as a spokesman for HAMAS. Following the killing of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, HAMAS's founder, Rantisi was elected as the group's commander. Rantisi was killed by an Israeli missile strike on April 17, 2004.

Mahmoud al-Zahhar is one of HAMAS's most senior political and religious leaders. He was educated as a surgeon and served as a lecturer at the Islamic University in Gaza. He became HAMAS's chief recruiter and publicist in April 1989. He then served as HAMAS's representative to the PLO from January 1990. He was also deported to Lebanon in December 1992. Al-Zahhar was the target of an unsuccessful Israeli assassination attempt in September 2003 in Gaza City. The raid killed his son and a bodyguard in addition to injuring members of his family. With HAMAS's victory in the 2006 Palestinian elections, al-Zahhar joined the government as their Foreign Minister. His first major initiative was a tour of neighboring Islamic countries. He was able to garner substantial aid from OPECers in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

Ibrahim Ghousheh was born in Jerusalem in November 1936. He was trained as a civil engineer in Cairo and then worked as an engineer in Jordan between 1962 and 1966. He served the Kuwaiti Emirs in 1971 and 1972. He toiled in HAMAS public relations beginning in late 1992, operating out of Amman, Jordan. In 1999, he was arrested and held by Jordan, but was eventually deported to Qatar. In June 2001, Ghousheh attempted to return to Jordan via Amman's international airport, provoking an international dispute between Jordan and Qatar. Jordan finally permitted him to say on the condition that he curtail his work with HAMAS.

Mahmud Abu Hanud was born in 1967 and graduated from Islamic College in Jerusalem. He was an active participant in the 1987 intifada, being wounded in a raid during that time. In 1992, he was deported to Lebanon where he is believed to have acquired military training. Following his return to the Palestinian Territories, he became the West Bank commander of HAMAS's ‘Izz al-Din al-Qassem Brigades. In 1994, he was arrested by the Palestinian Authority for firing on settler vehicles near Nablus, though he was released soon after his arrest. Israel attempted to assassinate him in Asira al-Shamaliyya in September 2000. He surrendered to Palestinian Authority forces and was detained until May 2001 when Israel bombed his prison in Nablus. He was finally killed on November 23rd 2001 when an Israeli missile hit his van.

Musa Abu Marzuq was born in 1951 in Gaza. He studied engineering at Ayn Shams in Cairo and worked in the United Arab Emirates until 1981. He studied in the United States from 1981 through 1991, receiving his PhD and gaining residency rights. After returning to the Middle East, he became the head of HAMAS's Political Bureau. Musa Marzuq was expelled from Jordan, where he was in charge of public relations, in 1995. He was arrested at New York's JFK airport though the U.S. dropped all charges against him in 1997, allowing him to return to Jordan. Marzuq was expelled again from Jordan in August 1999 when HAMAS's offices there were closed by the Kingdom. Marzuq is now a Yemeni national and operates out of Damascus, Syria. He has been cited as a leading terrorist figure in assaults against Americans and yet Musa Marzuq uses Islamic charities in the United States to raise money for HAMAS.

Ismail Abu Shanab was born in 1955. He was educated as a construction engineer at Colorado State University, where he received his Masters degree. He taught engineering at Gaza's Islamic University and served as deputy to Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of HAMAS. For his involvement in HAMAS terrorist acts against Israel, he was imprisoned for seven years. After his release in 1996, he served as HAMAS's observer to the PLO Central Council and toiled as HAMAS's representative to the Committee of National and Islamic Forces. He was killed in an Israeli attack in Gaza on August 21st, 2003.

Salah Shihadah was born in Gaza in 1953. He obtained a secondary school certificate but his financial circumstances did not allow him to pursue his university education. He was however, later invited to study medicine and engineering in Turkish and Russian universities. He continued his education in the Higher Institute for Social Service in Alexandria where he first became affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Salah Shihadah was arrested in 1984 on suspicion of anti-Israel terrorist activities and was jailed for two years. After being released in 1986, he worked as director of student affairs at the Islamic University until Israeli authorities closed the university during the first Palestinian intifada. Salah continued to work at the university and was arrested again in August 1988. Shihadah was the founder of the first organized militant apparatus of HAMAS, known as the Palestinian Mujahideen. This jihadist was killed in an Israeli missile strike on his residence in the Daraj neighborhood of Gaza City in 2002.

- October 10, 2002: In Afghanistan, Muslims attacked a convoy carrying the governor of Khost province in eastern Afghanistan. They killed two of his bodyguards and wounded four others.

- October 10, 2002: In Russia, acting on a tip, authorities located an explosive device that had been left in the basement of a nine-story apartment building in Norilsk. The bomb was made of TNT, an F-1 grenade, and a tripwire connecting them.

- October 10, 2002: In the Philippines, a bomb exploded at a bus terminal in Kidapawan City in North Cotabato Province, killing eight and injuring 19 others. Authorities suspected that a joint force between Abu Sayyaf Group  and the New People's Army were behind this attack.

- October 10, 2002: In Kashmir, jihadist opened fire on the house of a National Conference leader in the Palpora village.

- October 10, 2002: In Iraq, two explosions in the front yard of a Raniyah house in the Kurdish enclave in the north injured three people.

- October 10, 2002: In Chechnya, a powerful bomb exploded at a police station in the Zavodskoi district of Grozny, killing 22 policemen. Nine others were wounded. Chechen Muslims infiltrated the police and were responsible.

- October 11, 2002: In Russia, a homemade bomb was found at the Uralgiprtotrans Institute building in Yekaterinburg. The device was made of five pounds of ammonite, three detonators, and a battery.

- October 11, 2002: In the Philippines, a homemade bomb was found near the U.S. Armed Southern Forces Command Headquarters. Local authorities said that the bomb was intended to explode at a time when the fort was the most crowded. It was meant to disrupt the celebration of the feast of Our Lady of Pilar - a Catholic festival. The Abu Sayyaf Group was responsible.

- October 11, 2002: A security guard at the Tel Aviv Beachfront Café averted a suicide bombing when he spotted the would-be Muslim murderer and chased him away with the help of guards from the nearby U.S. Embassy.  He was wearing an explosive vest. The bomber's target had been the Tayelet Café.

- October 11, 2002: In Kashmir, militants assassinated one of their former associates in his home in Peeripora. Later that day, a Sherpora Keeri man was shot to death in his residence.

- October 11, 2002: A bomb exploded in the Indonesian compound of the Philippine Consulate General.

- October 12, 2002: In the Islamic OPEC swamp of Indonesia, the salafi, fundamentalist terrorist organization known as Jemaah Islamiyah car bombed the Sari Night Club and Paddy's Bar in Kuna Beach, Bali, as well as the U.S. Consulate building. A total of 202 people had their lives snuffed out by those corrupted by Muhammad's deadly religion. In addition, 300 people had their body's mutilated. Most of the casualties, including 88 of the dead, were Australian tourists. Seven Americans were among those killed.

The Muslims convicted of planning and executing the mass murder stated that their intention was to target holidaying Westerners. Iman Samudra, a leader of Jemaah Islamiyya, was sentenced to death for the attack. Hell was becoming a more crowded place.

Samudra, and another Muslim, Amrozi, have admitted that the explosion targeted Westerners to avenge perceived injustice against Muslims worldwide. Four months later, another Indonesian Islamic militant, Sarjiyo, was jailed for making the bombs used in this attack. Sarjiyo was found guilty of mixing the chemicals and packing the explosives into the back of the van. One or more of the perpetrators were believed to have worn suicide bomber vests into Paddy's Bar, the smaller of the two explosions.

On their website called Al Neda, al Qaeda also claimed credit for this savage attack. Coveting the acclaim Jemaah Islamiyya was enjoying in the Islamic community for this mass murder, al-Qaeda claimed to have targeted "nightclubs and whorehouses in Indonesia" that are part of a "Jewish Crusader alliance." These boys are delusional if nothing else. Having a stupid enemy would be handy if the West were not so ignorant regarding Islam.

Jemaah Islamiyah, which means the "Islamic Community" was formed in Indonesia and Malaysia when two Muslim clerics, Abdullah Sungkar and Abu Bakar Bashir, desired a salafi fundamentalist Islamic organization to terrorize the region into Submission/Islam. Both men were supporters of Darul Islam, a salafi or fundamentalist movement grounded in the five earliest Islamic sources - the Qur'an, Sira, Ta'rikh, and Hadith Collections of Bukhari and Muslim. That would make Darul Islam indistinguishable from Wahhabi Islam, which is extraordinarily similar to Shia Islam. The two Muslim clerics wanted nothing less than the creation of an Islamic theocracy in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

In 1978, Sungkar and Bashir were arrested in Indonesia for subversive activities - treason. Upon their release, the men left Indonesia for Malaysia and settled in the Indonesian-expatriate community in Johor. No longer living in Indonesia, they openly preached their Qur'anic ambition of creating a unified Islamic state across all of Southeast Asia to also include Singapore, Brunei, East Timor, and Thailand in addition to Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

Being a fundamentalist Islamic organization, Jemaah (or Jamaah) Islamiyah, advocated the use of terrorism to attain its political and religious goals. By the late 1990s, coterminous with the faux peace accords postured by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, Jemaah Islamiyah was busy recruiting and training Muslim Jihadists throughout all of Southeast Asia for the express purpose of perpetrating acts of terrorism. Jemaah Islamiyah demonstrated the ability and willingness to inflict significant casualties on innocent civilians and those they believed to be allied with "Western or Christian interests.".

In August 2003, the Community of Islam's leader, Hambali was captured. It made no difference. Jamaah Islamiyah remains an active and significant terrorist threat in all of Southeast Asia. JI's terrorist violence, often brutal and fatal, continues to this day. After the October 2002 Bali bombings, on October 1st, 2005, Jamaah Islamiyah perpetrated a triple-suicide bombing which murdered another 20 innocent souls.

To better understand MILF, ASG, and JI, let's take a closer look and the Community of Islam's founders, Muslim clerics Abu Bakar Bashir and Abdullah Sungkar. In 1978, both Islamic clerics were imprisoned because of terrorist acts they had committed as part of the Commando Jihad Group. Since membership in the CJG got these religious Muslims into trouble, when they were released from prison they formed the even more violent and fundamentalist Islamic group, Jemaah Islamiyah. Following a subsequent arrest, imprisonment and eventual release in Indonesia, Bashir and Sungkar started corrupting Malaysian Muslims in 1993.

Upon Sungkar's death in 1999, Bashir took over as the Community of Islam's spiritual leader. Bashir was quickly ousted from power by younger Jamaah Islamiyah members who considered him to too weak and moderate. Bashir then formed the International Mujahideen Rabitatul, or Council of Holy Islamic Warriors and eventually, the Majelis Mujahideen Indonesia in August of 2000.

Bashir was arrested for connections to a number of terrorist attacks and a failed assassination plot against Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri. Like so many good Muslims this Islamic cleric served many prison terms for bad behavior. He was arrested again in late 2002 shortly after the Bali bombings because of his Mujahideen Council's involvement in this attack. Released, he was jailed in August 2003, following the bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, for which al-Qaeda was also implicated. In March 2005 Bashir was acquitted of involvement in the Marriott attacks but he was convicted of being part of an "evil conspiracy" (better known as Islam) in relation to the Bali bombing, and was given a 30-month term in prison. After his sentence was reduced for good behavior, Bashir was released from jail in June 2006. Keep in mind, Malaysia and Indonesia are Islamic states and in such places terrorism is good and terrorists are heroes.

Jamaah Islamiyah's political manifesto, dated May 1998, states: "The people of Southeast Asia must live under Islamic rule and Sharia Law in a pan-Islamic state," referred to as "Daulah Islamiyah." Abu Bakar Bashir told the Herald Sun: "Muslims and non-Muslims will only be free under Islamic law.".

- October 12, 2002: In Kashmir, Islamic fired on a Nowpora man. He sustained injuries as a result of the attack but survived. A woman was shot and injured by jihadists in Behota Marmat. She died of her injuries two days later.

- October 12, 2002: In Pakistan, two people were killed and another two were injured when a bomb exploded in a shop in Wazirabad.

- October 13, 2002: In Kashmir, a National Conference worker was shot by militants in Shopian. The same day, jihadists barged into a Udyanpore home and assassinated the owner.

- October 13, 2002: In Serbia, a citizen of Belgrade was killed when an explosive device that had been planted underneath his car exploded.

- October 13, 2002: In Turkey, two firebombs were thrown into a bank in Istanbul.

- October 14, 2002: In Israel, Muslims hurled a bomb into the home of Bethlehem's mayor, Hanna Nasir. After the blast they opened fire with their assault rifles.

- October 14, 2002: In Chechnya, a car bomb containing 50 pounds of explosives was found outside the main police headquarters in Grozny.

- October 14, 2002 James Ebbers, 19, of Illinois, a U.S. soldier deployed in the "War Against Terrorism," died of a non-hostile gunshot wound in Dijibouti, Africa.

- October 15, 2002: In the Sudan, a Saudi national and an unidentified individual attempted to hijack a Saudi airplane. Reports are they tried to fly the plane to the U.S. but were convinced by the crew to return to the airport.

- October 16, 2002: In Afghanistan, a bomb exploded at a girl's school in Qandahar, wounding a teacher. Afghan officials blamed the Taliban and al-Qaeda for the attack because under the Taliban regime, girl's schools had been banned consistent with Islamic law.

- October 16, 2002: In Pakistan, eight policemen and a private citizen were injured in three parcel bomb explosions in Karachi. One took place at the Crime Investigation Department, a unit created in the fall of 2001 to help track down al-Qaeda members in Pakistan. The second blast occurred in the offices of the Sindh Home Department. The third damaged the Deputy Inspector General's office.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a fundamentalist Sunni sectarian group, claimed credit for the attacks. The first parcel was inscribed with the message: "This is a gift from the MMS," referring to the Muttahidda Majlis-e-Amal, the alliance of six fundamentalist Islamic parties who won large vote gains in the previous week's general elections. Despite the Lashkar-e-Jhangvri's claim for the attack, Pakistani officials blamed the Indian government.

- October 16, 2002: In Macedonia, a bomb planted underneath a car parked in front of the Democratic Union for Integration headquarters exploded, destroying nearby shops.

- October 17, 2002: Seven mortar shells were fired into the Qatif Bloc of Jewish settlements by HAMAS Palestinians.

- October 17, 2002 Jerry Pope, 35, was killed in a non-hostile traffic accident between Sanaa and Hodeidah in Yemen. Pope was in Yemen training Yemeni Special Forces. That is akin to sending Americans to Hanoi to train the Viet Kong during the Vietnam Conflict.

- October 18, 2002: Philippine Muslims detonated a bomb in Manila, murdering two and mutilating 20.

- October 18, 2002: In Afghanistan, four people, including two musicians were killed and 40 others were wounded when a wedding ceremony was attacked with hand grenades in the Paghman. Music was banned under the former Taliban regime because Muhammad claimed it was bad.

- October 18, 2002: In Kashmir, jihadists shot and killed an alleged informer in Taratpora.

- October 18, 2002: In Israel, a bomb blew up near the settlement of Dugit. Even though there were no casualties, HAMAS's military wing, the Al-Qassem Brigades claimed responsibility for the dastardly deed.

- October 18, 2002: In the Philippines, two bombs exploded thirty minutes apart in two department stores, killing seven and wounding 144 more. The first explosion occurred at 11:30 a.m. at the Shop-O-Rama Department Store. Thirty minutes later there was another explosion at the adjacent Shoppers Central Store. Both bombs bore similarities to the October 2nd blasts that killed a U.S. soldier and two Filipino men.

- October 19, 2002: Three mortar shells and two Qassem-2 rockets were fired at settlements in the Gaza Strip.

- October 19, 2002: In Russia, a car bomb exploded in Moscow outside a McDonald's restaurant, injuring at least seven people and killing one. In February 2004, five Chechen Muslims went on trial for staging and organizing this attack, along with the hostage-taking incident in the Dubrovka theater in late October 2002.They were charged and sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

- October 19, 2002: In Montenegro, a remote-controlled explosive device was found in a van belonging to Dzevad Zecevic in Ulcinj.

- October 19, 2002: In Kashmir, Islamic gunmen shot and killed a teenaged boy in Kapran, Islamabad. He was a 9th grade student.

- October 20, 2002: In Pakistan, the land of pure Islam, a girl was killed and 20 other people were injured in a bomb blast at Kamra's Sunday Bazaar. Police said the bomb had been planted in a flower vase which was placed in the bazaar. The wounded included employees of the nearby Pakistan Aeronautical Complex.

- October 20, 2002: In the Philippines, a bike bomb parked near a Roman Catholic Shrine in Zamboanga exploded, killing a soldier and injuring at least 13 others. Officials suspected the Abu Sayyaf Group.

- October 20, 2002: In Lebanon, two bombs exploded outside the home of a Fatah public relations official, Lieutenant Zeid Oshman, in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp.

- October 20, 2002: In Pakistan, journalist Shahid Soomro was assassinated in front of his home in Mirzapur Mohalla. He was a correspondent for the Sindhi daily Kawish. He had resisted the attackers who tried to kidnap him and was subsequently shot in the stomach.

- October 21, 2002: In Kashmir, eight people were injured when a grenade planted in a garbage container near the Kulgam bus stand detonated. That evening, jihadists shot and wounded a National Conference activist in Srinagar. Then Muslims shot and wounded another National Conference worker.

- October 21, 2002: In Chechnya, children found a remote-controlled explosive device in a ditch in the Bart refugee camp outside the town of Karabulak. The TNT bomb and a detonator connected to a motorcycle battery with a radio receiver was neutralized by bomb experts.

- October 21, 2002: Two Palestinians rammed their car into an Egged bus at the Karkur Junction between Tel Aviv and Haifa. The car was packed with approximately 250 pounds of nail-studded explosives. Palestinian Islamic Jihad's Al-Quds Brigades claimed credit for the attack which killed 16 and injured 42 otehrs. The group, recently diminished by Israel Defense Force actions, was clearly regrouping.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad operates in Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and Iraq, as well as in Egypt and Jordan. Like HAMAS, Islamic Jihad is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafi Sunni Islamic religious movement that originated in Egypt that has spawned so much evil. They seek to impose by force fundamentalist Islamic social, moral, legal, educational, religious, and political ideologies on Israel, which they call Palestine, and then upon the world.

The Palestinian variant of Islamic Jihad is only one faction within a loosely organized, highly secretive group of Islamic Jihad movements that span the entire Middle East. For example, Egyptian al-Jihad, was larger when it merged into al-Qaeda. Born a Sunni organization, Palestinian Islamic Jihad is now sponsored by the Iranian and Shi'a Hizballah.

The PIJ was founded in the late 1970s by a group of fundamentalist Muslims living in Egypt. Led by Fathi Shaqaqi and Sheikh Abd al-Aziz Awda, they believed that the Muslim Brotherhood had become too moderate. Inspired by the Shi'a Islamic revolution in Iran, the PIJ blended Sunni religious fundamentalism and Shi'a political revolutionary thought into an Islamic ideological agenda.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad believes that the annihilation of Israel is a prerequisite for recreating a pan-Islamic empire. The PIJ stresses that the Islamic-Israeli conflict is not a national dispute over territory but rather a worldwide religious conflict. The group rejects any political or diplomatic solutions to bring peace to the war they have initiated. Islamic Jihad believes that terrorist violence will inspire Muslims to destroy Israel and conquer the rest of the world. They believe that they are following Muhammad's example and Allah's orders.

The PIJ initially operated out of Egypt, but after the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981 by fundamentalist Muslims, the leadership was exiled to the Gaza Strip. Starting in the early 1980s, Palestinian Islamic Jihad carried out a series of vicious attacks on Israelis.

During the first Palestinian Intifada that began in 1987, the PIJ leadership was exiled to Lebanon. This allowed many Islamic Jihad leaders to establish direct contact with Iranian clerics by way of the Islamic Republic's embassies in Beirut and Damascus. Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives soon began training in Hezbollah camps in Lebanon under the supervision of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Islamic Jihad terrorists stationed in Lebanon also carried out some joint operations with Hezbollah against Israelis during the 1990s.

While Shi'a Muslims have been conditioned to see Sunni Muslims as insufficiently Islamic, the simple truth is that apart from the leadership structure and a few holidays, there is no difference between a fundamentalist Shi'a and a Salafist Sunni. The five oldest Islamic sources, the Qur'an, Ishaq's Sira, Tabari's Ta'rikh, Bukhari's and Muslim's Hadith, were all written under Shi'a influence in Baghdad in Islamic Persia. That means that Shi'a Islam is Salafi Islam. Further, Salafi Islam forms the basis of Sunni Wahhabi Islam which is the Islam at the heart of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the Taliban, and al-Qaeda.

While we are on the subject of a Sunni terrorist organization transforming itself into a Shi'a militant group, it's important to recognize that Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Iran are now essentially one country. The political and religious leadership either comes from Iran or they are influenced by Tehran. You could call it a crescent from Babylon to the Promised Land.

Surrounding this Shi'ite crescent on the east is Pakistan, on the south, Saudi Arabia, on the west, Egypt, and in the north, Turkey. These fiefdoms form the heart and soul, the mind and fuel, of Sunni Islam. And while on a personal level, the Sunni and Shi'ite conflict gives the impression that Islam is a religion divided, understand that at the warlord and cleric level there is a consensus when it comes to most every important issue - including killing Christians and Jews en route to establishing a pan-Islamic world empire.  .

With militants in Lebanon, in 1989, the leadership of Islamic Jihad moved their headquarters to Damascus, where it has remained ever since - something it also shares with Hizballah. The Damascus PIJ office controls funding, engages in recruiting, and coordinates terrorist operations. In addition, it is widely known that Syria allows Iranian weaponry to pass through its territory en route to Palestinian terrorist groups such as PIJ.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad strongly opposed the 1993 Oslo Accords because they elevated Fatah and PLO at the expense of their movement. Like HAMAS, they attempted to derail the peace process by committing a number of terrorist attacks against Israel.

Israel dealt the PIJ a temporary blow in 1995 with its assassination of Shaqaqi in Malta. However, with the beginning of the Fatah/PLO al-Aqsa Intifada in September of 2000, Islamic Jihad sprang back to life. Since 2000, it has claimed responsibility for countless terrorist attacks in Israel against Jews. In part, their "success" is a measure of Islamic Jihad's coordination with other Islamic terrorist groups such as HAMAS and Hizballah and a radical increase in Iranian OPEC funding. There is a direct corrrelation between the price of crude and the quantity of Islamic terror.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad is smaller than HAMAS because the Iranian-funded organization has an exclusive focus on terrorism while the Saudi and Kuwaiti funded HAMAS offers impoverished Palestinians a network of social services, including homes, financing, food, education, healthcare, and religion. But that all comes with a price - accept their charity and you join their cause.

Ramadan Shallah, who replaced Shaqaqi as PIJ's leader, lacked the founder's charisma which diminished recruiting. Islamic Jihad's activities have further been hampered by a series of arrests and indictments in the United States following the September 11, 2001 attacks. Also, the construction of security fences by Israel along both the West Bank and Gaza border have made it more difficult for the PIJ to execute terrorist attacks in Israel. Still, Islamic Jihad remains dedicated to the violent destruction of Israel and shows no interest in joining the political process.

Let's examine some of Islamic Jihad's leadership to better understand why these Muslims kill. Fathi Shaqaqi was born in 1951 in Gaza. He studied mathematics at Birzeit University in the West Bank and medicine in Egypt. He was inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood during his medical training. During the early 1980s, Shaqaqi and Sheikh Odeh formally established Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Shaqaqi believed that a campaign of spectacular terrorist attacks against Israel in the name of revolutionary Islam would inspire a popular revolt. He was arrested and sentenced by Israel to one year of prison in 1983, and to three years in 1986 for his treasonous activities. Israel then deported him to southern Lebanon in August 1988. He was a key player in setting up the National Alliance in 1994, a coalition of eight PLO groups, including the PIJ and HAMAS which all rejected the Oslo Accords. Shaqaqi is said to have been behind many suicide bomb attacks in Israel. He was assassinated in Malta, apparently by Mossad agents on October 26, 1995. His funeral in Damascus was attended by 40,000 people. Terror is very popular in Islam.

Ramadan Abdullah Shallah was born in the Gaza Strip and spent five years at Durham University in northern England, where he reportedly coordinated the activities of Palestinian Islamic Jihad by sending and receiving orders to and from cells of the organization in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria. From 1990 to 1995, Shallah lived in Tampa, Florida where he was a leading member of the Islamic Concern Project, also known as the Islamic Committee for Palestine. The organization distributed official Palestinian Islamic Jihad literature used to indoctrinate followers by glorifying suicide bombers as martyrs. Ramadan Abdullah Shallah headed an Islamic think tank called the World Islam and Studies Enterprise (WISE). It operated out of the University of South Florida. During this time, WISE sponsored the visits of Islamic fundamentalist and terrorist leaders to the United States. It's not a coincidence that the fundamentalist Muslims who murdered 3,000 Americans on 9/11 trained in central Florida flight schools. After PIJ leader Fathi Shaqaqi's death in October 1995, Shallah became the new chief of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and a member of its Shura Supreme Council.

Born in Kuwait in 1958, Sami al-Arian grew up in Egypt before coming to the United States more than 30 years ago. Today he lives in a U.S. prison. Al-Arian was a University of South Florida professor who was arrested by the U.S. government in February 2003 on a number of charges relating to terrorism. The indictment against him listed more than a dozen PIJ attacks and 100 deaths that he was accused of facilitating. Al-Arian originally denied the charges claiming he was a martyr to free speech and a victim of anti-Muslim sentiment. In early 2006, he pleaded guilty in a secret hearing to a charge of conspiring to help a terrorist organization. Unsealed court papers have revealed that al-Arian admitted he raised money for Islamic Jihad and that he conspired to hide the identities of other members of the terrorist organization. In return for the plea, prosecutors agreed to drop the remaining eight charges against him. Al-Arian was deported from the U.S. after serving a prison sentence that amounted to a little more than time served. It is not clear as to what country Sami al-Arian was sent.

Abd al Aziz Awda was born in Gabaly, Israel. He was a founding member and spiritual leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. In addition, he was a member of the Jihad Shura Council. At one point, Awda was the imam of the Al Qassem Mosque, located in the Gaza Strip. He was designated by the U.S. as a terrorist in January 1995. A few years later, in February 2003, a U.S. Department of Justice federal grand jury in Tampa, Florida indicted Awda, among others, on 50-counts of terrorism. Abd al Aziz Awda remains at large.

Musa Nafi was born in Egypt, and he currently resides in Oxfordshire, England. There he teaches Islamic Studies at Muslim College. A 1995 U.S. search warrant described Nafi as a significant leading member of the PIJ. He wrote much of the group's early ideology. Musa Nafi was a lecturer at the World Islam and Studies Enterprise (WISE) that was affiliated with the University of South Florida. Israeli officials claimed that while Nafi lived in England during the late 1980s, he was a communications link between terrorists in the field and Islamic Jihad's headquarters in Syria. In 1996, Nafi was deported from the U.S. back to England for visa violations.

Luay Saadi was a top commander in Palestinian Islamic Jihad before he was killed by the IDF in October 2005. His cell was responsible for several suicide bombings, including the Stage nightclub attack in Tel Aviv in February 2005.

When one comes to know Islamic Jihad, they come to understand Islam's role in terrorism. Islamic Jihad was born out of the Muslim Brotherhood - a Salafist Sunni organization and yet today they are armed, financed, trained, and directed by Shi'a clerics in Iran. Islamic Jihad has become indistinguishable from Allah's Party, known as Hizballah. Their goal is to annihilate Jews and Christians en route to establishing a worldwide Islamic state - and in that cause they are indistinguishable from al-Qaeda. The PIJ will infiltrate any academic, political, or religious organization anywhere in the world to achieve their means, publicly acknowledging that deception and terrorism are justified, even a glorified means to their ultimate goal of a worldwide Islamic Empire.

- October 22, 2002: Israel Defense Forces discovered a 70-pound bomb in the greenhouses of the Morag settlement in the Qatif Bloc.

- October 23, 2002: In Kashmir, Islamic jihadists assassinated a Kotli Kalaban man in his home before his family. Muslim militants murdered a Guzarbal woman because she had served as a polling agent for an Awami League candidate in the recent elections. Then at the direction of Pakistan's United Jihad Council, a National Conference activist was shot to death in New Theed.

- October 23, 2002: In Pakistan, six people were injured when a bomb was detonated in a parked car on College Road in Rawalpindi. This is the second explosion in Punjab in four days, following a deadly explosion in a Kamra market that wounded twenty.

- October 23, 2002 Thomas Robinson, 38, was found dead in his stateroom of a self-inflicted gunshot wound while his destroyer was making a port call in Bahrain.

- October 23, 2002: In Russia, between 45 and 50 Wahhabi fundamentalist Muslims from Chechnya seized a Moscow Theater. Called "Chechen rebels" rather than "Good Muslims," these savages were led by Islamic warlord Shamil Basayev. They seized the Palace of Culture to demand an Islamic state in Chechnya and throughout the Caucasus Region. They took more than 800 hostages from 13 countries and threatened to blow up the theater unless their demands were met.

The Muslims were all armed and many were wearing suicide vests. Some carried bombs which they attached to their hostages. The militants allowed all Chechens, Georgians, and Abkhazians to leave the building that they had wired with explosives. Other non-Russians and children were later released. In total, nearly sixty hostages were freed out of the original 800.

During a three-day siege of the Palace of Culture Theater, these Muslim militants killed a policeman and five hostages. Negotiations were on for more than two days before Russian Special Forces stormed the building after the jihadists began their systematic killings to up the ante. They demanded a large sum of money and the removal of all Russian troops from Chechnya. So on October 26, Russian Special Forces pumped an anesthetic gas through the ventilation system and then stormed the theater. All of the Muslims were killed, and 90 to 120 hostages including one American also died, some from the effects of the gas and others from bombs and bullets.

On November 11th, Movsar Barayev, who worked for Shamil Basayev, claimed responsibility for this attack. Under the designations the Popular Front in the Name of Imam Shamil Basayev, the Nation of Islam, the Sword of Islam, the Riyad us-Saliheyn, the Special Purpose Islamic Regiment, the International Islamic Brigade, and Chechen Rebels, they all served the ambitions of a Muslim oligarch and warlord who had used terror to entrench fundamentalist Islam in Chechnya. He was now seeking to establish an Islamic state under Sharia law, something that was already in place in many Wahhabi villages in Chechnya.

Bombings by his "Nation of Islam" under the slogan "the Sword of Islam" had become common occurrences throughout Russia as these Muslims vied for power. By 2002, the bloody arm of Shamil Basayev and the Popular Front reached well beyond the Chechen borders.  At this point in his career, Basayev was the most probable Gog candidate, or at least prototype as he is a little too old. His ambition is to unite all of the Caucasus region into a single Islamic state by war and terror. The name Caucasus means "Gog's Fort," and this region from the Black to Caspian Sea, inclusive of Turkey, is the ancestral homeland of the people group which Scripture says Gog will be a ruler and warlord. .

Chechen Muslims removed all doubt regarding their ambitions Shamil Basayev stated that he and the rebels he commanded under the name, Riyad us-Saliheyn Brigade (a name which translates "the requirements for getting into paradise"), were responsible for the terrorist attacks attributed to them. He went on to say that such attacks would continue until the group achieved its goal - which was the establishment of an Islamic theocracy in the Caucasus region.

The Islamic warlord's Nation of Islam, Sword of Islam, International Islamic Brigade, and Requirements for Paradise Martyrs' Brigade were all relatively recent phenomena because it wasn't very long ago that Communism and atheism dominated all of the Soviet Union - including the Caucasus region. To it didn't take much time for a little Islam to make bad people worse.

Shamil Basayev's Muslim militants are dedicated to the creation of an independent Islamic state in Chechnya and other Muslim regions of Russia such as Dagestan, and non-Russian states between the Black and Caspian Seas - including the Georgian Republic. His Islamic clubs espouse salafi/fundamentalist Islam.

Riyad us-Saliheyn terrorists have claimed responsibility for some of the worst terrorist assaults in history. In their first headline grabbing attack, the Martyr's Brigade Meeting the Requirements for Paradise (at least according to the Qur'an) seized control of a Moscow theater, here in October 2002, taking over 800 hostages. A total of 42 Riyad us-Saliheyn terrorists and 90 of their hostages died in that uncivil assault. Two months later in December of 2002, Shamil Basayev's gang destroyed the headquarters of the Chechen government, killing 72 and injuring 280 people. According to Basayev himself, the perpetrators of that assault were an ordinary Muslim father and his two teenage children. Then there was a brutal hospital blast in August 2003 in which 52 were killed and another 72 were seriously wounded. But Riyad us-Saliheyn's most dead assault on humanity took the lives of 344 women and young children in a Beslan school in September 2004.

The group has also used "Black Widow" suicide bombers to carry out attacks, such as the very deadly August 2004 airline and subway bombings. While the death of Shamil Basayev in July 2006 was seen as a setback for the Paradise Brigades, the Islamic group remains an active threat to civilized people in the region, just as Islam remains a threat to the world.

Movsar Barayev, the operational leader of the Moscow theater raid, was heavy influenced by Salafi Islamic thought, something he shared with most Chechen separatists including Shamil Basayev. Movsar served in anti-Russian militias led by his paternal uncle, the Islamic fundamentalist Arbi Barayev, who was killed by Russian forces in June 2001. Arbi Barayev was especially fond of kidnappings for ransom, and gained notoriety in 1998 when he beheaded three Brits and a New Zealand captive. Shamil Movsar Basayev became a star of the Chechen resistance while still in his teens, leading a faction of rebels known as the Islamic Regiment. However, some claim that Barayev was not driven by lofty Islamic goals but was instead simply using the Islamic faith as a cover for his baser motives. One Chechen religious leader who knew his said that the terrorist was much more interested in making money than in fighting for Allah. Movsar Barayev died with his Islamic jihadists in the Palace of Culture.

Shamil Basayev was Movsar Barayev's superior. He was born in the Chechen village of Dishne-Vedeno in 1965. With a love for fighting, Basayev actually served in the Soviet Army for a while, but then in 1991 he returned to Chechnya after the meltdown of the old Soviet Union. Like the 19th century Islamic Imam Shamil, after whom he is named, Basayev hoped to impose the religion of submission on all people in the Caucuses region.

Sources close to Basayev described him as a man who adopted fundamentalist Islam because he loved to fight and he enjoyed killing. His continued adherence to salafi Islam helped ensure funding from the OPEC fiefdoms in the Middle East - especially Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Despite allegations to the contrary, Basayev claimed that he has never received money from al-Qaeda. Fact is, he didn't need to - OPEC was much more generous. Islam was also great for recruiting jihadists across international borders which became important to Basayev because his butchery caused a loss of popular support in Chechnya.

The first terrorist attack attributed to Basayev was the 1991 hijacking of a Russian passenger plane to Turkey. He struggled to gain notoriety however, because the mass murders he mastermind in the name of Islam were always attributed to a secular independence struggle rather than his Islamic terrorist organization. The world's journalists simply didn't understand Islam and they were not interested in holding the religion accountable because it's not politically correct to criticize a doctrine other than Christianity.

His popularity reached a peak in 1996 when the egotistical Shamil briefly served as Prime Minister of Chechnya. But while Basayev's high profile terrorist attacks, including the 2002 Moscow theater siege, the 2003 hospital attack, the 2004 Beslan school massacre, and the 2005 assassination of Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov, raised his image in the Islamic world, it destroyed it elsewhere. And as a chilling thought, the Martyrs' Brigades Meeting the Requirements for Paradise claims that they possess a Russian nuclear weapon.

Essential to these terrorists' "success" was the Saudi born and indoctrinated Muslim Ibn al-Khattab. The six fingered man (having lost four to one of his own bombs) played jihad mujahideen in Afghanistan when all the really cool Muslims were terrorizing Russians with American weapons. To secure Saudi OPEC funding for his good work, al-Khattab traveled with his own film crew and videotaped his decapitations of prisoners - a real crowd pleaser back home. He garnered considerable fame for his ability to ambush military supply convoys and inflict maximum casualties. In his most famous raid, Khattab ambushed a convoy in Afghanistan in which he killed 36 Russian soldiers initially and nine more later when his captives were beheaded for the cameras.

Ibn al-Khattab had no qualms about killing civilians. When a Chechen hospital refused to remove its International Red Cross insignias, he murdered six nurses while they slept. Ibn al-Khattab went on to set up fundamentalist Islamic terrorist training camps throughout the Caucasian region and with Gog implications, trained the Georgian supporters of Zviad Gamsakhurdia.

Khattab and Basayev ultimately became militant Muslim brothers with the Saudi media master serving as the prime conduit of funds from the Iranian, Kuwaiti, and Saudi OPECers to the Riyad us-Saliheyn terrorist club. Khattab also sourced jihadists from the Asian and Persian regions immersed in Islam on Basayev's behalf. This partnership allowed the Chechen Muslims to murder their way into the Islamic Hall of Shame.

The third most famous member of Riyad us-Saliheyn was Nur-Pashi Kulayev. He was the sole surviving terrorist to take part in the 2004 Beslan school massacre in North Ossetia, Russia. A former carpenter, Kulayev admitted to taking part in the attack, but has stated that he did not carry a weapon and was only there to protect his brother Han-Pashi, who was killed in the final bombing of the school. Kulayev was put on trial in May 2005 on charges of murder, terrorism, and hostage-taking. A year later he was found guilty of those charges and was sentenced to life-imprisonment.

- October 24, 2002: In Kashmir, the body of a Hindu man was recovered in Kachiwara. Later that day, Muslims forced their way in to a Poonch home and assassinated a National Conference worker. Next, they barged into a Bani home in the Kathna District and shot the owner's wife.

- October 24, 2002: In Indonesia, an explosive device blew up at the Bandung Super Mall, wounding two people.  .

- October 24, 2002: In Afghanistan, a United Nations employee noticed a bomb planted outside a guesthouse in the center of Kabul. The attempted bombing was blamed on remnants of the Taliban, al-Qaeda, the Islamic warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and lax Coalition security. It is interesting to note that the explosive device was concealed in a children's toy.

- October 25, 2002: In Afghanistan, two girls' schools in Wardak province were set on fire by suspected Taliban members. The girls' parents in the area were warned not to send their daughters to school, a practice forbidden under the Taliban regime.

- October 25, 2002: In Kashmir, police recovered the beheaded body of a Beerwah man in Budgam. He had been abducted by militants a few days prior to this discovery. Jihadists also fired on a taxi in Goza Mahalla, killing one person and injuring the driver who died of his wounds the next day.

- October 26, 2002: In Greece, a terrorist group called Uncontrolled Rage claimed responsibility for planting a gas canister bomb at the entrance of a National Bank in the Kolonos area of Athens. The group carried out the attack "to protest the death of 23-year-old Anastasios Limouras" who was killed two days before by a police officer who shot him in self-defense.

- October 26, 2002: In Kashmir, jihadists assassinated a teacher in Deval.

- October 26, 2002: In Macedonia, the car of Muzafer Haruni, a member of the National Democratic Party, was destroyed by a bomb. Reports indicate that Haruni may have been a commander in the National Liberation Army. The following day, a bomb planted underneath a car in downtown Tetovo exploded.

- October 26, 2002: Chechen Muslim militants killed Baudi Abdusalimov, the administrator for the village of Kurchali. They also murdered his wife who had worked in the local school for thirty years. Abdusalimov's daughter had been murdered previously by these jihadists because she had worked for the republican government.

- October 27, 2002: In Israel, three Jews were killed and eighteen civilians were injured when an Islamic suicide bomber's explosives were prematurely detonated as a result him being chased down by those who correctly recognized his intent. Two policemen and soldier had run over to subdue the Muslim man once a bystander noticed his explosive vest. Both HAMAS's military wing, the al-Qassem Brigades and the Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, claimed credit for the attack. The bomber was a HAMAS member, however, so Fatah was lying.

- October 27, 2002: Three shots were fired at an Israeli car near the settlement of Mevo Dotan in the northern Hebron Hills. Palestinians attacked an Israeli car near Har Brakha in the Nablus area. Israel Defense Forces spotted a 70-poound bomb near the Qarni crossing and safely detonated it.

- October 27, 2002: In Kosovo, a day after local elections, Uke Bytyci and his bodyguards were killed by suspected Democratic Party of Kosovo militants who fired on his convoy. Bytyci was a senior official in the Democratic League of Kosovo and head of the Suva Reka town council.

- October 28, 2002: Gunmen in Amman assassinated Laurence Foley, Executive Officer of the U.S. Agency for International Development Mission in Jordan. The "Honest People of Jordan" claimed responsibility. He was gunned down outside his home. His Islamic murderers shot him seven times in the head and chest as he was walking to his car.

Jordanian officials pointed to Al-Qaeda, thinking the the U.S. would be sympathetic. The Israelis suggested possible Iraqi involvement because that served their interests. But a group called Shurafa al-Urdun, the Honorables of Jordan, ruined their ruse by claiming responsibility, stating that it was in retaliation for the U.S. government's support of Israeli aggression and shedding blood in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In their statement to the London-based Al Quds Al Arabi, Shurafa al-Urdun also took credit for killing an Israeli citizen in 2001 in Amman. The Jordanian Information Minister Muhammad Adwan identified Saad bin Suwied and Yasser Ibrahim as the assassins and described the two as al Qaeda members who were paid $68,000 for the assassination. More reliable reports suggested that the two were members of Palestinian groups affiliated with the Jordanian wing of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement.

- October 28, 2002: In Chechnya, an explosive device was detonated under the lead carriage of a train that was carrying oil between Naurskaya and Terek on the North Caucasus railway. The blast derailed eight cisterns with oil. Chechen Muslims were blamed for the attack.

- October 28, 2002: A Qassem rocket was fired into Sederot with the intent of killing Jews.

- October 29, 2002: Three people, including two fourteen-year-olds, were shot to death by a Fatah terrorist in Israel.

- October 29, 2002: In Thailand, the Ban Na Wa school in Chana was attacked by Islamic arsonists. The Ban Lam Plain school in the Thepa district, the Ban Na Kan community school in the Saba Yoi district, the Ban Ta Paed and Wat Khonkha Sawat schools in the Thepa district were also burned to the ground.

The attack was part of a coordinated set of arson and bomb attacks. Four other schools were also burned, sustaining varying amounts of damage. While government officials initially denied that the attacks were the work of terrorists, later arrests confirmed that the arsons were all perpetrated by Islamic separatists.

- October 29, 2002: In Israel, a bomb was detonated against a civilian bus near Bayt Immar, north of Hebron.

- October 29, 2002: A Palestinian entered the Jenin-area settlement of Hermesh and opened fire on residents, killing three and wounding three more Jews, including two soldiers, before he was shot dead himself. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed credit for the attack.

- October 30, 2002: Two firebombs were thrown at the offices of the Young Party in Istanbul, Turkey.

- October 30, 2002: In South Africa, a bomb exploded, destroying a rail line in Protea South, Soweto. A piece of track fell on a home, killed its occupant. This attack was part of a coordinated series of bombings that took place in Soweto that night. A White Supremacist Group, the National Warriors was blamed. At this point Islam had a virtual monopoly on terrorism but not an exclusive franchise.

- October 31, 2002: A grenade was thrown at the Macedonian parliament building. The attack came just hours before the parliament was to discuss a proposed new coalition government including the Democratic Union for Integration party of former Albanian Islamic terrorists. Both the Albanian National Army, an Islamic terrorist group, and the Macedonian National Front  claimed responsibility in two separate communiqués. Journalistic investigations later confirmed that the grenade was thrown because Muslims did not want to share power with the Macedonian government.

- October 31, 2002: In Chechnya, a group of armed Muslim men dragged Uvays Kirimov, a minister in the Oktyabrskoye administration, from his home in the Kurchaloy district southeast of Grozny and murdered him. The same night a local police officer was killed in a similar manner.

- October 31, 2002: In Russia, Chechen Muslims opened fire with assault rifles at a car in which Khamis Shakhbanova, the governor of the Akushinskiy District, was riding. Shakhbanova was wounded and her driver was killed.