If Terrorism is Not a Muslim Threat, What About Muslim Violence?

Paul Williams, PhD

Picture above: Noor Almaleki was murdered by her Iraqi father in 2009 who ran his car over her in an honor killing. He objected to her living and dressing like an American.

A study (pdf) from Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill maintains that the terrorist threat posed by radical Islam has been greatly exaggerated.

The study captured front page headlines in Arab News and newspapers throughout the Muslim world.

Charles Kurzman, one of the co-authors of the study, maintains that fewer than three dozen murders have been committed by American Muslims on American soil. What Kurzman fails to take into account are the number of murders committed by non-American Muslims on American soil and the homicides perpetuated by members of the Nation of Islam.

The actual figures show that Islamophobia is a justifiable stance since Muslims have been responsible for the murders of 5,000 Americans in the past fifty years.

This number includes the nearly 3,000 Americans killed on 9/11 and the hundreds of victims of the so-called Zebra killings that took place in the 1970s.

Kurzman and his crew also neglect to point out that the number of Muslims in America, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, is almost statistically insignificant. Of roughly 4.6 million Muslims in the Americas, more than half live in the United States and make up less than 0.8 percent of the population.

Yet Muslims have wreaked more death and destruction on American soil than the combined toll of all political, social, and religious hate groups, including the Ku Klux Khan.

The following is a very short list of incidents of Islamic violence that have taken place within America since 9/11:

Date: December 5, 2009- - Binghampton, New York - - A 46 year-old graduate student at Binghamton University stabs to death his Jewish professor and mentor because he was “persecuted as a Muslim.” The slain professor is the author of several books, including “Understanding Fundamentalism: Christian, Islamic, and Jewish Movements.” The killer, who was writing his dissertation on early Arab culture, once told one told his roommates: “I feel like destroying the world.”

Date: November 5, 2009 – Fort Hood, Texas - - Major Malik Nidal Hasan, 39, a Muslim American psychiatrist, opens fire on American troops at Fort Hood, Texas in a murderous rampage that leaves 13 soldiers dead and 38 wounded. The carnage begins as approximately 300 soldiers, in preparation for deployment to Afghanistan, line up to get vaccinations and to have their eyes examined at a Soldier Readiness Center. Hasan, who worshipped at the radical Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Virginia, with several of the 9/11 ops, screams “Allahu Akbar” before opening fire with his semi-automatic pistol. Six months before the massacre, Major Hasan drew the attention of law enforcement officials for his anti-American tirades and his statements of support for the global jihad. In an Internet posting, the Muslim Major equated suicide bombers to soldiers who throw themselves on a grenade to save the lives of their comrades. Reacting to the carnage, President Barack Obama says: “We don’t know all the answers yet. And I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts.”

Date: November 2, 2009 - - A 20-year-old woman dies in Glendale, Arizona from injuries suffered when her Muslim father ran her down with his Jeep Cherokee for becoming too Westernized. The father had taken his daughter to Iraq under the pretense of visiting relatives only to marry her off to a man nearly three times her age. The young woman managed to scrape up enough to escape from her forced marriage and to make her way back to the U.S. After killing his daughter, the Muslim father sets fire to his house in Glendale. Nine people are inside the house when the fire starts.

Date: October 29, 2009 - - Brighton, New York - - A 37 year-old Muslim housewife slits the throat of her sleeping husband at the couple’s home in Brighton, New York. She tells the police that she was forced to commit the crime because her husband was not a devout Islamist. She says that he pressured her to eat pork and even attempted to give her a drink that contained alcohol.

Date: August 21, 2009 - - Three members of a Somali street gang travel from Columbus, Ohio to Grand Island, Nebraska, where they gun down two Sudanese men at the Autumn Wood Apartments. The local television station reports that the motive of the shootings, which leaves one dead and another critically wounded, is religious. The gunmen are Muslims; the victims Christians.

Date: June 1, 2009 - - A Muslim convert opens fire at a recruiting station in Little Rock, Arkansas, killing one young soldier and wounding another. The convert - - Carlos Bledsoe, 24 - - says that he “is mad at the U.S. military” because of what American soldiers “had done to Muslims in the past.” The killing, he says, was for the sake of Allah. “I do not feel I am guilty,” Bledsoe further tells Little Rock police officers. “I don’t think it was murder because murder is when a person kills another person without justified reason. U.S. soldiers are killing innocent Muslim men and women. We believe we have to strike back. We believe in an eye for an eye.”
Date: February 14, 2009 - - The founder of a Muslim TV station beheads his wife in the hallway of his studio in Buffalo, New York when he learns that she is seeking a divorce. Despite the heinousness of the crime, Muzzammil Hassan is only charged with second degree murder. Hassan had been hailed by the Buffalo community as a model example of a moderate Muslim. Bridges TV - - Hassan’s television station - - had been established “to fuse American culture with the values of Islam in a healthy, family-oriented way.”

Date: January 1, 2008 – A Muslim cabdriver in Irving, Texas shoots and kills his two teenage daughters in his taxi upon discovering they had dated non-Muslim boys. He had plans for Amina, his eldest daughter, to marry a man three times her age in Egypt. Discovering that she is no longer a virgin, he withdraws a 9 millimeter pistol and shoots her twice at point blank range in the chest, severing her spinal cord. Then he turns the pistol on Sarah, his younger daughter, who is sitting in the backseat of the taxi. He pumps nine bullets into her body before abandoning the cab in the parking lot of the Omni Mandalay Hotel. He escapes arrest and remains at large. Many believe that he has returned to the welcoming arms of his family and friends in Cairo.

Date: July 6, 2008 – A distraught Muslim smashes his daughter’s skull with an electric iron and strangles her to death with a bungee cord when she expresses her unhappiness over her arranged marriage. The incident takes place in Jonesboro, Georgia. Ajay Nair, Associate Dean of Multicultural Affairs at Columbia University, sugar-coats the killing by saying to CNN: “I think there are ways that we can rationalize it and make sense of it particularly in thinking about new immigrant communities in the U.S. and thinking about some of the struggles that they face.”

Date: February 12, 2007 - - An 18-year-old Muslim refugee goes on a shooting rampage at the Trolley Square Mall in Salt Lake City - - targeting shoppers who are buying Valentine’s Day cards. Five shoppers are killed; four more critically wounded. Witnesses say that the shooter - - Sulejman Talovic - - had a smile on his face every time he took aim, pulled the trigger, and cried out: “Allahu Akbar.” His aunt tells reporters: “We don’t know what happened, just like you guys. We know him as a good boy. He liked everybody, so we don’t know what happened.” Others claim to know what happened. Robert Spencer, noted author and journalist, says that Talovic is a victim of “sudden jihad syndrome” - - a malady increasing common among Muslim men, ranging in age from 14 to 40. The warning signs of this disorder are growing a beard, wearing long Islamic robes and skullcaps, going to mosques, and reading the Koran.

Date: October 6, 2006 – In Louisville, Kentucky, a Somali Muslim, clubs his estranged wife with a blunt object, leaving her for dead, and then proceeds to murder their four children for adopting American lifestyles. The children range in age from 8 to 3. The youngest of the children - - a boy and a girl - - are stabbed to death while sleeping in their bedroom; the other two girls are killed in the kitchen - - their bodies bearing defensive wounds on their hands and arms. The father tells the arresting police officers that he was compelled to kill his family because his wife had treated him with disrespect.

Date: September 20, 2006 – A self-professed Black Muslim shoots and kills a plain clothes police officer in Aurora, Colorado. He says that God wants him to kill. His mother later testifies that her son became transformed into a killer by reading the Koran.

Date: August 20, 2006 – An unemployed Muslim automobile worker uses his black Honda SUV to run down 18 pedestrians through the streets of San Francisco - one is killed. When the police arrive to take him into custody, the Muslim says: “I am a terrorist. I don’t care. Everyone needs to be killed.” A jury disagrees with the killer’s self assessment and rules that he is not guilty by reason of insanity.

Date: July 28, 2006 - - An angry Muslim American, making use of a 14 year-old girl as a hostage, breaks into a Jewish Center in Seattle, Washington. He selected his target by researching “something Jewish” on the internet and purchased two semi-automatic pistols from a local arms dealer. Upon entering the Center, he announces to the receptionist, “I’m a Muslim American and I’m angry at Israel” and shoots her. He proceeds to walk down the hallway, firing at women as they sit at their desks. Three of the workers are shot in the abdomen; one in the chest; and another in the head. He fires another shot at the stomach of an employee who is five months pregnant. The bullet misses and strikes the arm which she has raised for protection. He orders the pregnant woman to pick up her phone and to dial 911. He tells the operator: “I am tired of our people getting pushed around by the situation in the Middle East.” The police arrive at the scene and persuade the angry Muslim to surrender. In the wake of the carnage, six women are hospitalized - - three in critical condition - - one is paralyzed by a shot to the spine; another is near-death with wounds to the liver, pancreas, kidney, and heart. A seventh victim - - the director the Center - - is found dead at the scene. An FBI spokesperson later says that the shooting rampage was “the work of a lone gunman” who was “acting out his antagonism” against the system. Media coverage of the incident is eclipsed by the news of actor Mel Gibson’s DUI arrest.

Date: July 25, 2006 – A Muslim warehouse worker in Denver, Colorado - - announcing it is “Allah’s Choice - - shoots four of his co-workers and a police officer with a long-barreled handgun. One is dead, the others critically injured, before a SWAT team arrives to take out the shooter who greats them with a hail of gunfire. The Muslim’s sister later explains to the police that her brother was upset because people at the warehouse were making fun of his religion.

Date: June 16, 2006 - - A 24 year-old Muslim gunman goes to a movie theater on the outskirts of Baltimore and opens fire with his .367 Magnum at the packed audience as they watch “X-Men: The Last Stand.” One man – a 62 year-old Jewish medical supply salesman is dead at the scene. The Muslim lives in a multi-million dollar home and has no criminal record. He graduated with a degree in biology from Loyola College in Baltimore. He provides the police with no motive for his act. Tried for 1st degree murder, the Muslim receives no prison time. He is rather sent for an extended stay at a Maryland psychiatric clinic.

Date: March 3, 2006 – An irate Iranian Muslim, experiencing sudden jihad syndrome, presses the pedal of his SUV to the metal in order to mow down nine students on the campus of the University of North Carolina. After striking each victim, he cries aloud: “Allahu Akbar.” The Iranian explains his actions by saying: “Allah’s followers have permission to attack those who have waged war against them with eternal paradise as an expected reward.”

Date: January 11, 2005 - - A quiet Muslim man, working as a housekeeper, at a retirement facility in Alexandria, Virginia, transforms into a homicidal maniac and commences to strangle, stab, and slash six elderly patients. One patient suffers a broken neck; another requires more than 200 stitches. Taken into custody, the Muslim, now subdued, reportedly recites the shahadah.

Date: August 6, 2004 – Houston, Texas - - A Saudi college student, upon receiving a so-called “religious awakening,” slashes the throat of his Jewish room-mate with a 4 inch butterfly knife, and nearly decapitates him. After the murder, the Saudi visits a mosque to give praise to Allah. Authorities refuse to treat the homicide as a hate crime. The Saudi is granted a deal which allows him to plead guilty to second degree murder and escape the mandatory death sentence. No motive for the crime is ever given.

Date: September and October 2002 - - Muslim snipers in the name of Allah killed ten people in suburban Washington D.C. for no apparent reason, save jihad. They critically wounded 3 more. Previous to this, the so-called Beltway snipers were responsible for additional murders in California, Georgia, Alabama, and the state of Washington.

Date: July 5, 2002 - - An Egyptian Muslim, living in Irvine, California, decides to celebrate his 41st birthday by going on a one-man jihad in order to gain martyrdom, entrance to 7th heaven, and the award of the 72 awaiting houris. He heads off to the Los Angeles International Airport, where he proceeds to shoot and kill a 24 year old ticket agent and a 61 year old diamond merchant. He critically wounds four more people before being gunned down and killed by security guards.

Date: September 11, 2001 - - Muslim terrorists conduct coordinated attacks that results in 2,993 deaths.

The carnage, listed above, could have been much worse, since of host of other attacks have been prevented by watchful law enforcement officials.

This list includes plots to set off radiological bombs in midtown Manhattan, to collapse the Brooklyn Bridge and the Sears Tower in Chicago, to down commercial American aircraft, to kill U.S. troops at Fox Dix, to attack National Guard facilities, to bomb transit systems and subway stops, and to ignite jet fuel arteries leading to the JFK Airport on the outskirts of New York.

Prior to 9/11, scores of additional eruptions of Islamic jihad have taken place throughout the country, including the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, the homicidal rampage of numbers of Jamaat ul-Fuqra, the assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane, and the above-mentioned Zebra killings.

The new study also fails to take into account the fact that four Islamic attacks take place every day throughout the world; that Muslims have been responsible for 16,132 attacks since 9/11; and that every conflict within today’s world from China to Chechnya, from Somalia to the Sudan, from Afghanistan to Argentina, from the Balkans to the Philippines, from Indonesia to India, from Iran to Iraq, from Pakistan to Denmark, from Britain to Bangladesh involves a manifestation of Islam.

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Paul L. Williams, Ph.D., is the author of The Day of Islam: The Annihilation of America and the Western World, The Al Qaeda Connection, and other best-selling books. He is a frequent guest on such national news networks as ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, MSNBC, and NPR. Visit his website at http://thelastcrusade.org/.