RUTHFULLY YOURS

And it’s true: the divorce of parents has driven many an unhappy child to try to set off a bomb in a crowded place and murder hundreds, if not thousands, of people, hasn’t it?

Of course, many more terrorist attacks have been committed by Islamic jihadists who read and took seriously the Qur’an’s commands to wage war against infidels than by children traumatized by their parents’ divorce, but never mind: when it comes to exonerating Islam of any responsibility for motivating violent jihadists, government, law enforcement and media officials join Islamic spokesmen in grabbing hold of any alternative explanation, no matter how implausible.

“Neighbors say wannabe Christmas bomber Mohamed Mohamud embraced extremism after parents split,” by Lukas I. Alpert for the New York Daily News, November 28:

[…] Neighbors say Mohamud was doted on by his family but embraced militant Islam not long after his parents split up.”He was a quiet kid, but with his folks splitting up, who knows?” Adam Napier, who lived next door to Mohamed Osman Mohamud for years told the newspaper.

Mohamud’s family moved to the U.S. when he was just 5 and were described as friendly and modern.

Mariam Barre did not wear a hijab and her husband, Osman Barre, reportedly worked as an engineer for Intel. Mohamud appeared to be particularly close to his mother, neighbors said.

“She always talked so good about him. He was just a good kid,” said Adam Napier’s mother, Stephanie.

In 2009, Mohamud parents split up, not long after he turned 18, the paper said.

Omar Jamal, first secretary to the Somali Mission to the United Nations, told KPTV that Mohamud’s father had remarried a woman in Minneapolis, which has a large Somali population and has been a hotbed for jihadist recruitment.

Later in 2009, Mohamud began communicating with jihadists abroad, and wrote articles for a website called “Jihad Recollections,” authorities said….

Oregon jihadist in failed bomb attempt made “Osama-style” pre-attack video, railed against parents who “held me back from Jihad in the cause of Allah”

Obviously, the folks had a few extra reasons not to let Junior borrow the car on a Friday night. “Six 55-gallon drums [of explosives] with detonation cords and plastic caps,” for example.

In the end, Allah’s own orders in the Qur’an to “fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)” (9:5) clearly took precedence for Mohamud. Funny how that keeps happening. “Words from the Oregon Bomb Suspect,” by T.C. Baker for IndieProPub, November 28:

Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, behind the planned bomb in Portland told an undercover agent in August that he “had found the perfect location for a terrorist attack: the city’s annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony”.

He said during the hotel meeting he had “dreamed of carrying out an attack for years, and the city’s Pioneer Courthouse Square would be packed with thousands. A huge mass that will…be attacked in their own element with their families celebrating the holidays.”

Mohamud, scheduled for court on Monday, has been followed for four years. When he was 15 and a student at Beaverton’s high school, he told undercover agents about a prayer he made for guidance “about whether I should…go, you know, and make a jihad in a different country or to make like an operation here.”

In one meeting, Mohamud told an agent, posing as an extremist, ways he could help “the cause” from “praying five times a day” to “becoming a martyr”. But, he “thought of putting an explosion together but that he needed help doing so.”

When he was warned several times of that women and children could die, he declined to back out.

Mohamud also made a video dressed in what he called “Sheik Osama style” which included a white robe, red and white headdress and camouflage jacket. In the video, he went on to “read a statement on his dream of bringing a dark day on Americans and blamed his family for getting in the way”.

In his statement, Mohamud said, “To my parents who held me back from Jihad in the cause of Allah. I say to them…if you – if you make allies with the enemy, then Allah’s power…will ask you about that on the day of judgment, and nothing that you do can hold me back.”…