| Submit your comments on this article |
| Europe |
| Milan is the center for radical Islam in Europe |
| 2006-03-26 |
| Italian officials have known for some time that their country was exporting Islamic militants and that the city of Milan is the center for these potential terrorists. Now the officials worry that militants may return from fighting in Iraq to carry out bombings in Europe, according to the BBC Considered the center for radical Islam in Europe, Muslims have arrived in Milan more recently and relatively few have acquired citizenship. Prosecutors in Milan and Rome ordered dozens of raids in the aftermath of the London bombings last July, resulting in almost 200 arrests. Four expulsions of suspected Muslim extremists followed -- including an imam, a vice-president of an Islamic institute in Como, and a suspected member of an armed Algerian fundamentalist group, according to the Brookings Institution, a Washington, DC think-tank. "It's a community without integration," says Magdi Allam, well-known Egyptian-born columnist at the Corriere della Sera newspaper. "The majority of Muslims in Italy don't speak Italian in a proper way, don't know the culture or the religion of the Italian people, and don't share the values of Italian society," he said. He is deeply suspicious of mosques which have fallen under the sway of radical imams, according to the BBC. Sometimes these radical clerics resort to violence or threats of violence to push out more moderate Islamic clerics from their mosques. Jihadist networks span Europe from Poland to Portugal, thanks to the spread of radical Islam among the descendants of guest workers once recruited to shore up Europe's postwar economic miracle, according to Robert Leiken of the Council on Foreign Relations. In European cities such as Milan, Madrid and Marseilles, immigrants or their descendants are volunteering for jihad against the West. It was a Dutch Muslim of Moroccan descent, born and socialized in Europe, who murdered the filmmaker Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam last November. Leiken notes a Nixon Center study of 373 mujahideen in western Europe and North America between 1993 and 2004 found more than twice as many Frenchmen as Saudis and more Britons than Sudanese, Yemenites, Emiratis, Lebanese, or Libyans. Fully a quarter of the jihadists it listed were western European nationals -- eligible to travel visa-free to the United States. The emergence of homegrown mujahideen in Europe threatens the United States as well as Europe. Yet it was the dog that never barked at last winter's Euro-American rapprochement meeting. Neither President George W. Bush nor Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice drew attention to this mutual peril, even though it should focus minds and could buttress solidarity in the West, according to Leiken. Radical Islam is spreading across Europe among descendants of Muslim immigrants. Disenfranchised and disillusioned by the failure of integration, some European Muslims have taken up jihad against the West. They are dangerous and committed -- and can enter the United States without a visa. According to Dr. Daniel Pipes, a leading expert on radical Islam and terrorism, Muslim life in Western Europe and North America is strikingly different. European cities such as Milan have seen the emergence of a culturally alienated, socially marginalized, and economically unemployed Muslim second generation whose pathologies have led to "a surge of gang rapes, anti-Semitic attacks and anti-American violence," not to mention the raging radical ideologies and terrorism. North American Muslims are not as alienated, marginalized, and economically stressed. They show less inclination to anti-social behavior, including Islamist violence. Those of them supporting jihad usually fund terrorism rather than personally engage in it. Therefore, most jihadist violence in North America is carried out by hit squads from abroad, as were the 9-11 attackers. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #5 Milan - Why do I get the distinct impression that you are yourself a malcontented Muslim in Milan? LR |
| Posted by: Lone Ranger 2006-03-26 23:16 |
| #4 I live in Milan. There is certainly a problem with some mosques which have witnessed considerable radical activity, but I rule out that the majority of the Muslims living here are potential terrorists or jihad supporters. Magdi Allam (the columnist mentioned in the article) is well-known for earning a living from being a cheap Islamophobe and for his analyses and predictions, all turned to be wrong. Choose another testimonial if you want to be credible. As for the charge of "a surge of gang rapes, anti-Semitic attacks and anti-American violence," [by second-generation Muslims] it is simply lacking of any statistical evidence. Crap, in other words. Gerd, by the way... I don't think you smell any better than me. Quite the other way round. At least, the "muzzies" know which hand they should wipe their ass with. You're not even at that stage. |
| Posted by: Inter Milan 2006-03-26 17:45 |
| #3 I'm still trying to get this straight. Muslims immigrate to Europe and refuse to integrate. The isolation and humiliation this refusal to integrate causes them to teach their children to refuse to integrate. And the isolation and humiliation at not being able to join others at school, to bring home new ideas or even try to learn about others. The anger and humiliation at knowing your own beliefs are what stand in the way are what make you want to destroy what you are not allowed to have. And your jealous fury at what is denied you - because you are muslim and the laws prohibit it - lead you to destroy it. And that's our fault. |
| Posted by: Thinemp Whimble2412 2006-03-26 12:53 |
| #2 Hamburg is the center of Radical Islam in Europe. That's where the 9/11 bombers trained. The only reason the Muzzies want to stay in Milan is that they cannot be as easily identified by their smell. |
| Posted by: Gerd Schroeder 2006-03-26 08:49 |
| #1 "It's a community without integration," Thus less collateral damage should the Italians ever decide to fight back. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2006-03-26 08:24 |