Surprise: Attack in Belgium That Had All the Hallmarks of Islamic Terrorism Was In Fact Islamic Terrorism

No one could have seen this coming except everybody.

From the AP:

The man who killed four people in the Belgian city of Liege this week carried out an act of "terrorist murder" and likely intended to cause more carnage, prosecutors said Wednesday, as authorities tried to establish whether he acted alone.

Benjamin Herman, an inmate on a two-day prison furlough, attacked two female police officers from behind with a knife on Tuesday, stabbed them repeatedly, stole their handguns and shot them as they lay on the ground, officials said. Crossing the road, he shot to death a 22-year old passenger in a car. Herman then took a cleaning woman hostage at a nearby school. When police closed in, he ran out onto the sidewalk firing and police fatally shot him. Four officers were wounded. Officials confirmed that Herman had also killed a fourth person Monday.

He yelled "Allahu akbar," the Arabic phrase for God is great, several times during Tuesday's rampage, including when he ran out to face police the last time, prosecutors said.

Yes, he was on a two day prison furlough.

John Sexton has more at Hot Air.

Although this isn't explicitly stated, it seems like authorities are hedging on whether or not this is really terrorism-terrorism, despite the killer shouting "Allahu Akbar" and telling a hostage to think about the Palestinian martyrs. The pretext for casting doubt on whether or not this is terrorism-terrorism is the (apparent) lack of any larger network or overseas connections.

I repeat, once again, that this is a criterion that is only employed to say that clear Islamic terrorism is not Islamic terrorism.

Anders Behring Breivik acted alone, and yet no one questions at all that this was a "right-wing" terrorist attack.

So why, when it comes to Islamic terrorism, do the authorities always insert this nonsensical requirement that there must be an extended network of terrorist plotters and overseas connections for it to be Islamic terrorism?

The answer is obvious: So that they can keep the Islamic terrorism numbers artificially low.

This is a symbiotic conspiracy between Islamophobia, Incorporated and law enforcement: Islamophobia, Inc. is in the business of claiming there is virtually no Islamic terrorism, and law enforcement and intelligence services equally want to pretend that there's no Islamic terrorism so that they can explain away their failures to stop Islamic terrorism by saying "Oh, that wasn't Islamic terrorism, you see."

The FBI does this every single month, and no one says boo about it.

posted by Ace of Spades at 03:37 PM

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