Koran burnings -- by Jones or others -- raise fears of dire consequences
Intelligence and law enforcement agencies around the world fear that Koran burnings in America — by fringe preacher Terry Jones or by other copycats that are sure to follow — will have negative consequences, complicating the uneasy relationship between the United States — and the West — and large swaths of the Muslim world. Even more difficult; the predicted popular backlash in the “Muslim Street” against what many Muslims perceive as an insult to their holy book, may be exploited as a recruiting tool, by the cynical leaders of Islamic terror groups.
Recent Koran burning in India // Source: hyscience.com
It is not yet clear whether or not Terry Jones, the Florida pastor, will go ahead with his Koran burning event on 11 September, but it is very likely that there will be copycats across America, who, over the next days and weeks and months, will seek to emulate Jones by organizing their own Koran-burning events.
The warnings that intelligence and law enforcement agencies have issued about the consequences of the Jones’s event may thus apply to these coming future spectacles as well.
ABC News’s Pierre Thomas and Jason Ryan report that before Jones began to waffle about whether or not he would go ahead with the book burning, the FBI became concerned that Islamic extremists might attack and retaliate at this Saturday’s event. “While the FBI has no information to indicate a specific attack has been planned against the United States or U.S. assets in response to the ‘International Burn a Koran Day’ event, the FBI assesses with high confidence that, as with past incidents perceived as “acts of desecration” against Islam, extremist actors will continue to threaten or attempt to harm the leaders, organizers, or attendees the event,” an FBI intelligence bulletin noted.
The FBI is concerned not only about the potential for an attack at the event — but also about retaliation going forward. The 19 August 2010 intelligence bulletin out of the Bureau’s Jacksonville field office is entitled “Extremists Likely to Retaliate Against Florida Group’s Planned ‘International Burn a Koran Day.’”
Thomas and Ryan report that the intelligence bulletin states that Jones’ advertising of the event drew an immediate response from a known terrorist website frequented by radicals. Postings on the al Faloja Web site included a forum member writing, “I wish to detonate myself in this church now. … I want to become a martyr and detonate myself in this filthiest filth.”
Another member warned, “Oh you Americans, I swear by Allah if you do this deed await a war that you have not witnessed … we will not rest until we kill tens of you in place of every letter in the book of Allah.”
Word of the memo first was posted by Kurt Nimmo on the blog Infowars.com.
The FBI bulletin further observes that INSPIRE, a new online terrorist propaganda magazine, specifically instructs “home-grown extremists to conduct small scale attacks” and “attacks on persons who disrespect symbols of Islam.”
The FBI’s bulletin notes serious fears should the burnings take place.
