The same thing, incidentally, happened just before Christmas in Germany. On December 20, Taleb Abdulmohsen, a Muslim man from Saudi Arabia
(with a long history of pretending to be an anti-Islamic convert to
Christianity) plowed his vehicle through a crowded Christmas market in
Magdeburg, killing five people and injuring more than 200 others.
The media and officials were, and are, at a loss to establish motive
for either of these attacks — other than telling us the usual, that the
men were suffering from mental disorders, were experiencing personal problems, had “grievances,” and so on and so forth.
Yet the motive — which, as we shall see, does seem erratic and
counterintuitive —was spelled out just over one year ago, and is worth
revisiting.
A Year-Old Call to Act
On January 3, 2024, the Islamic State issued a statement making seemingly strange and unexpected assertions.
For starters, the terror group took responsibility for bombing
Israel’s archenemy, Iran, and killing over 100 people in Kerman. It also
told Muslims that, although Israel and Jews are indeed chief enemies of
Islam, and although Muslims were at the time irate over the killing of
Palestinians, it was not the time to fight Israel. Rather, ISIS urged
Muslims to randomly kill people in the West.
From here, of course, it is easy to see why some accuse the terror group of being created by the CIA, Mossad, etc. And yet — and here’s the interesting part — everything ISIS said was connected to Islamic teaching and law.
Muslim vs. Muslim
First, ISIS attacked Iran because, as a Shia nation, not only is it
not Muslim — and therefore an infidel enemy like the rest — but it’s
something of a wolf in sheep’s clothing. To the average Sunni Muslim, it
seems Islamic enough; it seemingly champions the causes of Islam, such
as pitting the Palestinians against Israel, etc. But in reality, argues
ISIS, Iran’s “expansionist plans, their projects, and their plots
against Muslims are no less dangerous and spiteful than those of the
Jews or Crusaders.”
Second, ISIS counseled Muslims not to fight Israel because the
primary beneficiary of such a fight would be the Palestinian Authority,
which is no less an infidel than Israel because it does not enforce
sharia. What’s the point of toppling one infidel power only to replace
it with another? According to the statement:
