RUTHFULLY YOURS

Leoaai Elghareeb, a 37-year-old Muslim in London, was recently charged, according to the UK’s Daily Mail, with “contaminating or interfering with goods with blood at three supermarkets in west London.” Elgareeb must be one of those people the establishment media keeps telling us about, those dirt-poor, woefully ignorant people who turn to jihad out of sheer desperation, right? Wrong. He is a solicitor for a firm known as Opus Legal contractors; legal work generally makes its practitioners affluent, and the Daily Mail tells us that “homes and flats in the area where Mr Elghareeb lives sell for upwards of £1.5m.” (that’s well over two million dollars). So why did he do such a thing? Could it have something to do with his Islamic faith? Of course not! Why, that would be “Islamophobic”!

Elghareeb contaminated food at three London supermarkets: Tesco Express, Little Waitrose and Sainsbury’s Local. According to the Guardian, Elghareeb is “alleged to have entered the Waitrose store at 7.30pm on Wednesday with syringes filled with blood. The prosecutor Jennifer Garland said Elghareeb was accused of using the syringes to ‘inject food items with blood.’” He is also “accused of doing the same in the nearby Sainsbury’s store, as well as throwing eggs, before going on to inject more items in Tesco Express and then being arrested.” No one could be sure of the extent of Elghareeb’s work, and so according to the Daily Mail, “Hammersmith & Fulham Council advised shoppers to throw away anything bought from the three shops.”

Elghareeb, the court was told, was a “man of previous good character.” Sure he was. So what happened? Neither the Daily Mail nor the Guardian would dare mention it, but jihad contamination and poisoning attempts are not new. Earlier this year in India, there were four incidents of Muslims spitting on the food of non-Muslims, one said he’d been doing it for years. Also in India in 2019, Muslims plotted to poison food offered in a Hindu temple that is consumed by at least 40,000 devotees.

Al-Qaeda has long considered the contamination of food as a jihad mass murder tactic. In 2018, a Muslim named Husnain Rashid called on other Muslims to murder four-year-old Prince George and poison supermarket ice cream. That same year, a convert to Islam was sentenced for distributing material calling for jihad and possessing a handbook for poisoning unbelievers. Another owner of that poisoning handbook ultimately plotted instead to attack non-Muslims with a knife. And in 2017, the Islamic State called on Muslims to poison food in Western supermarkets. And it has happened at least twice before in Britain: in 2008, shop owner Saeed Hashmi sold chocolate cake sprinkled with human feces.

The Daily Mail reported back in July 2017 that an Algerian Muslim named Sahnoun Daifallah, a chemist, “squirted a mixture of urine and faeces from a 1.5 litre weed killer container – concealed within a laptop bag – at the Air Balloon Pub in Birdlip, before moving on to a Waterstones bookshop in Cirencester. Two days later, he targeted a Tesco store in Quedgley and a Morrisons in Abbeydale. Damage to the businesses was estimated at £700,000 [$948,000].”

In 2008, according to the BBC, “a man has been remanded in custody charged with spraying urine at two supermarkets, a pub and a book shop. Sahnoun Daifallah, 42, of Bibury Road, from Gloucester, appeared before magistrates and pleaded not guilty to four charges of contaminating products.” In 2006, another Muslim in the UK was found to be selling poisoned hamburgers.

In Canada in 2009, according to the Canwest News Service, “Mastoora Qezil, 41, was arrested by Guelph police Thursday and is facing a common nuisance charge…The Canadian Food Inspection Agency issued warnings last week after sewing needles were found in meat products at a supermarket.”

There is much more. The Islamic State called on Muslims to poison the food that British royal Kate Middleton buys at supermarkets. The Islamic State told Muslims to poison food in Western supermarkets. Two jihadis were arrested for mass poisoning plots, one of the Lebanese army’s water supply.

We also know that jihadis have long wanted to poison the water supply. As far back as 2002, the feds arrested two jihadis who were carrying plans about how to poison water supplies. In 2003, al-Qaeda threatened to poison water supplies in Western countries. In 2011, a jihadi in Spain likewise planned to poison water supplies.

And in May 2013, seven Muslim “chemical engineers” were caught trespassing at the Quabbin Reservoir, a key supply of water for Boston, after midnight. Only months later and indirectly did we hear that it was a “criminal matter.” A month later, locks were cut at the aqueduct that supplies water to Greater Boston.

Also in May 2013, jihadists were caught in Canada who had considered poisoning air and water to murder up to 100,000 people. In October 2013, the FBI was investigating a possible water supply threat in Wichita. In January 2014, a Muslim broke into a water treatment plant in New Jersey. In 2017, Kerala police in India uncovered an Islamic State plot to poison the drinking water of Hindu pilgrims.

So far, none of these plots have caused widespread deaths, but the strange case of Leoaai Elghareeb is a grim reminder that some jihadis still think mass poisoning is a workable tactic. Authorities should be on guard against it – that is, if they can tear themselves away from their outreach events at the local mosque long enough to make adequate preparations.

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 23 books including many bestsellers, such as The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), The Truth About Muhammad and The History of Jihad. His latest book is The Critical Qur’an. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.