by Robert M. Traxler
“A pro-ISIS media group continued its online verbal jihad against the Vatican and Christmas today, with a threat accompanied by an image of a jihadist and a wolf overlooking St. Peter’s Square.” PJ Media.
The good news is that ISIS/ISIL are rapidly circling the drain and their Caliphate, the fifth in history, is going the way of every Caliphate since 746 AD. We can debate the why; our military actions under President Obama, the Russian brutal assaults on the Caliphate’s infrastructure and logistical base, or the people just getting fed up with the seventh century social norms of the radical jihadist.
The new military attacks, after the gloves and blinders were removed from our military under President Trump, are also a factor. A good choice would be to look to a combination of all four.
So the question is, what now? Sure, we killed a large number of Jihadists, in the Caliphate the Russians many more, but over a hundred thousand have been trained in the Fifth Caliphate over the last eight years, and the
y are deployed worldwide, awaiting Allah to call them to wage holy war against the infidels. Estimates of the number of worldwide ISIS/ISIL trained leaders range from a few hundred thousand to a million. Please keep in mind there are 1.7 billion Muslims; so a million is a very small percentage, but still a large number. Those militants are the cadre who will train others and be the leadership for thousands of terrorist cells ranging from a few to a few dozen.
A person can get an advanced degree in nine months if they work at it; to train a jihadist in the black arts of terrorism only takes a few months. The Fifth Caliphate had eight years to operate basic and advanced training for the stone-cold murderers, and they used the time to their advantage.
The pinpricks and half measures under President Barack Obama did help defeat the Fifth Caliphate, but it took a very long time and only worked after the Russians destroyed their infrastructure in Syria. ISIL/SIS used the time to train a world-wide cadre of Mujahedeen (Islamic Warriors of God). In the future, we will see a period of inaction by the radicals as they plan and prepare for an attack. Now that they do not have a nation to operate, they can focus their assets on traditional terrorist acts.
ISIL/ISIS may change its name, but it is a concept, a belief in the literal word of “The Book” The Holy Koran, as written in the seventh century with no interpretation or moderation. The murder of non-believers and those who “are not pure” is celebrated, such as gays, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, Wiccans, Muslims who do not properly display piety — in short, all folks not “properly Muslim.”
Though many countries in the Middle East, North Africa region are heavily Muslim, where the religion originated in the seventh century, the region is home to only about 20% of the world’s Muslims. A majority of Muslims globally (62%) live in the Asia-Pacific region, including large populations in Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Turkey. The polls in the different nations show support for terrorism is much stronger in the Mideast, North African nations.
President Trump’s travel ban is concentrated in those very few nations and affect less than 11% of the world’s Muslims, leaving 1.54 billion to travel freely to the United States. To the good folks who call the travel ban a Muslim ban, North Korea is now on the banned list; .001 % of its population is Muslim (some 2,000 Muslims), with most coming from those nations helping with the Nuclear Weapons /ICBM programs or diplomats.
The constant in our history is that we will be attacked again by radical Muslims as we have since 1801. The death of ISIS/ISIL is sadly not the death of terrorism. Those who were trained by ISIS/ISIL are rock stars in the radical Islamic world, and we will hear from them for generations to come.
