Show Notes
Hello from Jihad and the World – a podcast that explores the connection between Western and Islamic cultures. This is Mark Silinsky of Kensington Security Consulting, where we bring education to national security. Today’s podcast revisits topics discussed in Jihad and the West – Black Flag over Babylon, released ten years ago. Here, we provide brief biographies of two men who were in the news several years ago. Both were Americans who answered the call of Jihad and traveled abroad to fight against the West.
Anwar al Awlaki was born in New Mexico in 1971 to Yemeni parents and moved to Yemen when he was seven. He lived there until he enrolled at Colorado State University, where he earned a degree in civil engineering. His true calling was Islam, and he served as an imam at mosques in California and Virginia, though he was not formally trained in Islamic jurisprudence or qualified as a sheikh. In 1994, he married a cousin from Yemen and worked part-time as an imam at the Denver Islamic Society. He was charismatic and persuasive. He preached on college campuses and aimed to present a positive view of Islam to the world. He ran into trouble after engaging with prostitutes in San Diego. When the FBI started tracking him, they found he visited prostitutes at least seven times and paid up to $400 for sex each time. He preached in mosques in San Diego and Falls Church, Virginia. During investigations into the December 2001 Islamic attacks in the United States, the FBI discovered that three of the hijackers had attended his mosques. Awlaki left for Britain in September 2001, claiming he felt unsafe in America after the al-Qaeda attacks. He became radicalized and started preaching there. He moved to Yemen in 2004 but was imprisoned on charges of aiding terrorists. During his time in prison, he immersed himself in the writings of the Islamic Brotherhood and devoured the works of Sayyid Qutb, which intensified his fervor. After his release, he headed to Yemen's mountains, where he built his website and propaganda center. U.S. officials believe he shifted from simply inspiring to actively planning terrorism in the West. He definitely inspired Farouk Abdulmutallab, the underwear bomber who failed to detonate explosives on a Detroit-bound plane on Christmas Day 2009. The group also ramped up its online recruitment efforts, issuing an English-language magazine featuring articles such as "Make a Bomb in Your Mother's Kitchen." Inspire features articles about how to harm non-Muslims. One example is from an American, Samir Khan, titled "I am Proud to be a Traitor to America." Khan grew up in North Carolina and New York City. Much of the propaganda was effective because its creators were native Americans who understood social idioms and nuances of American society. Awlaki used references to pop stars like Michael Jackson in his sermons. For other audiences, he quoted Dickens and upscale authors. His message resonated deeply, inspiring the Christmas Day airplane plot and the 2009 Fort Hood shooting by a U.S. Army psychiatrist. Unlike the reclusive and mild-mannered bin Laden, Awlaki was engaging and extroverted. He also had more credibility as a sheikh than bin Laden. He was involved in planning attacks in Britain, Australia, and the U.S. before he was killed. Security officials believe that al-Qaeda aimed to target London's transportation system, the Sydney Opera House, and New York's Grand Central Station. In November 2009, he inspired U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan, a radicalized soldier, to attack fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas. Their correspondence was uncovered by federal law enforcement before the attack, but no action was taken. Some of the September 11 hijackers were inspired by Awlaki. Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, who flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon, attended a mosque where he preached. They include the July 7 bombers in London, who used to meet in a bookstore that sold lectures by Awlaki, and t
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You’ve likely heard former Chancellor Merkel’s moniker “Wir schaffen das,” or “We can do it!” This goes back more than 10 years, when Merkel opened Germany’s gates to absorb more than a million mostly Muslim migrants. She clarified, “We Germans can successfully integrate these migrants into our societies.” Was this claim borne out? The answer depends on whom you ask. The optimistic, multicultural, and left-leaning set will likely say this is a national work in progress. Given the killings and social stressors, it would not be convincing to say we have done it. By that, I mean the general argument that migrants have been successfully integrated into the mainstream of German society. Too many Muslims rely on regional and federal benefits, and many remain siloed in Muslim neighborhoods. Attitudinal surveys do not indicate broad acceptance of Western values among Muslim immigrants or their children. To support my claim, I would like to give some examples. The first was the early August 2026 car attack at the Christopher Street Day gay pride celebration in Berlin. A German-born Muslim man, whose mother came from Lebanon, plowed a van into the celebrants. He then hit a tree, scrambled out of the van, and chased revelers with a machete. He murdered one woman and injured 29 people. The assailant, Abdul Ballout, was known to Berlin police. Earlier, he attempted to join ISIS and was placed in a deradicalization program. Well, it apparently didn’t work. Could his attack have been prevented? Many people say yes, though it is not clear how he could have been deported, given that a parent was naturalized and that he was born in Germany. Some said he could have worn an ankle-tracking device. OK, but how would that have stopped him? Also, Ballout was one of nearly 29,000 Islamofascists under surveillance by German authorities.
Hello. This is Mark Silinsky, president of Kensington Security Consulting, where we bring education to national security. Today we will look at Spain. Specifically, the flood of North African migrants into Spain in late July and early August 2026. How did this happen? Why did this happen? What are the consequences? I will conclude with a tragic account of a young woman who literally could not live with her depression caused, in large part, by a migrant gang rape. OK. Let’s start with the invasion. You likely read about it in the papers. But was it really an invasion? When I think about invasions, I think of Germans thrusting into Russia in 1941 or the Allies storming the beaches of Normandy three years later. Invasions are generally contested. They are often coordinated military operations that meet spirited resistance on the shores. Did this happen in Spain last month? Hardly. Let’s take a look by first listening to the Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sanchez. Here he is: “I’m the Prime Minister of Spain. This Is Why the West Needs Migrants. Imagine you’re the leader of a nation, and you face a dilemma. Half a million or so people who are crucial to everyone’s daily lives inhabit your country.” And his solution? To legalize 500,000 migrants. It was not difficult to do this.” So, that is what he said, and the legal system allowed him to do it. The Spanish Supreme Court ruled that migrants entering by sea could need to have their asylum claims reviewed before they could be deported. This could take years. When the word went out, thousands of Arab Muslims responded by entering Ceuta, a Spanish city in North Africa that shares a border with Morocco. And poor Ceuta, which has a population of 85,000 covering 7 square miles, was promptly swamped. And this is not the first time tiny Ceuta became inundated with a population it could not possibly absorb. At the time, PM Sánchez assured his countrymen that many newly arrived would be returned to Morocco. Some were, but many were not. They were, in the terms of the Spanish government, “regularized.” Did Spain benefit from this regularization? Migrants, Sánchez claimed, had given Spain a booming economy and urged Americans and Europeans to accept mass migration. He continued, “What is working for us can work for others. The time has come for leaders to speak clearly to their citizens about the dilemma we all face. We, as Western nations, must choose between becoming closed and impoverished societies or open and prosperous ones… Governments can buy into the far-right’s zero-sum thinking and retreat into isolation, scarcity, selfishness, and decline.” Well, this is quite a claim. Yes? Sanchez offers Western nations a binary choice. Become, in his words, “closed and impoverished” or “open and free.” Governments that choose the former sink into “isolation, scarcity, selfishness and decline.” Really? Does he offer evidence to support this? Has Britain become more open, free, and prosperous as a result of the half-century of Third World immigration? Are Britons getting better jobs? Are they happier? Is the standard of living better? A few months ago, a credible report estimated that Great Britain was poorer than Mississippi. So Britain is now poorer than the most impoverished state in the Union. Is this a consequence of immigration? Perhaps not all of it, but did it contribute? You decide. Sanchez has his detractors. Nabil Bissada, a popular blogger, opined, “Of course you are the Prime Minister of Spain. Your loyalty must be to Spain and to the citizens of Spain. If the West needs migrants, they must choose the correct ones. Not those who have already committed murder, rape, beheading, theft, destroyed churches, and kidnapped, and who live on welfare. Their target is to Islamize the West. If you are accepting more Muslims as migrants, it means you agree with and support all the crimes they are committing daily against your citizens.” Well, Bissada may have overstated this, but many
Hello. This is Mark Silinsky from Kensington Security Consulting, where we bring education to national security. Welcome to the Kensington Weekly, a program that explores Islam's relationship with the world, week by week. This is the third week in August 2026. Let’s take a look at Jihad Watch and see what stories are posted. First, let’s go to Germany to examine the migrant situation. This is a recurring theme in my podcasts. Years ago, then-Chancellor Merkel promised her countrymen that “We can do it.” She meant that native Germans could assimilate the “New Germans.” So…how is it going? Well, let's look at a few examples. First, there is a municipal swimming pool in Berlin. What can be controversial about a public pool? A drowning perhaps? No, nothing like that. Maybe it was those burkinis. The combination of a burka and a bikini. You may have seen them. Imagine a wet, swimming mummy in a pool, and you will get the idea. But that is not it. No, this harkens back to the Nuremberg Laws of the 1930s. It is a sick story of rank racial discrimination….AGAIN! Berlin allocated €300,000 (£255,000) to open a "people's swimming pool." A people's swimming pool reminds me of the Volkswagen, Ya? Well, the pool announced six hours of restricted swimming. That is, no whites were allowed to swim during those hours. It was scheduled for August 14, 2026. Now… let's look closer. From the article I read, an organization called Each One Teach One, which bills itself, in its words, “as a non-discrimination collective,” was behind the effort. And the reasoning for the exclusion? In the words of Each One Teach One. "In doing so, the People’s Swimming Pool provides access for people who are frequently affected by exclusion and racism.” I am not sure that I understand the logic here. Do you? And, while we are at it, what is a non-White? I mean…would Barack Obama have been invited or excluded? His mom was white, and his father was black. Maybe he could have gone halfway, to his waist, into the pool given his mixed-race genes. I had never heard of Each One Teach One. So let’s drill down a bit. This is from its homepage. “We counsel according to the principles of empowerment and partisanship, which means that the person seeking advice, with his or her history, desires and interests, is at the center of our work. In most cases, discrimination is subtle and difficult to grasp; sometimes there is even uncertainty as to whether it was discrimination at all. Those seeking advice can also turn to us in order to find words to express what they have experienced.” Wow! I am taken by this line: “In most cases, discrimination is subtle and difficult to grasp.” Well, folks, I don’t think there is any subtlety to a pool sign that says “people of color only.” Do you? It is about as subtle as saying “Raus Juden!” Well, this group disagrees with me and other critics. They announced, "Labeling this (the black-only restriction) as a form of discrimination is very revealing." Well, Each One Teach One: we agree on one thing – it is revealing. Yes, it reveals to me the continued obsession with race in Germany and elsewhere. After pressure, the government canceled this event. But some form of it will be back. Mark my words. What does this have to do with Islam? I don’t have the details, but many of them are considered non-white and are from North Africa and, presumably, Turkey and the Middle East. So, I would like to know who funds this group. Let me know if you have insights or opinions. Let’s move away from the pool and into the classroom. How well are things going there with mass migration? Here is a story from Hugh Fitzgerald about a school in the Rhineland. The headlines read, “German teacher says school with 75% migrant-background students is plagued by violence, drugs, and even prostitution in toilets.” Speaking anonymously to Bild, special education teacher “Carola S.” said many New Germans had arrived from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, or Ukraine. The teac
Hello from Kensington Security Consulting, where we bring education to national security. This episode is called Ramming – Muslims, Cars, Pedestrians, and Europe. Last week, I discussed the rampant and random stabbing attacks. I offered you the term “getting stabby,” a play on words. In England, it means getting irritable and getting skewered on the street generally by a knife-wielding Muslim in the name of Allah. Well, this applies to running people over as well as impaling them. I don’t have any gallows humor or punny phrase for vehicle killings. Is there an equivalent for “getting stabby?” I don’t know of any. Let me know if you do. But let's get right to the stories. Well, you likely heard about yet another car-ramming incident in Europe. More specifically, a 21-year-old named Abdul Ballout. Following the terror attack during the Christopher Street Day event in Berlin, a car struck several people in the Tiergarten area. One woman died in the attack and over 16 were wounded. According to the German magazine Bild, he was a German citizen of Lebanese descent. If you are curious about Christopher Street, it is a famous street in Manhattan that attracted many gays before the Stonewall Riot of 1968. Back to Berlin … well, Ballout had a past, not a clean one. In fact, he has a long criminal record. But why would a repeat offender plow a car into a group of peaceful gays celebrating an annual festival? Why kill his fellow countrymen? What gives? Well, the answer lies in Islamofascism. Last week, I shared an episode called “Getting Stabby.” I quoted Robert Spencer, and I will do so again. The Islamic State issued this call back in September 2014. Here it is -“So O muwahhid, do not let this battle pass you by wherever you may be. You must strike the soldiers, patrons, and troops. Strike their police, security, and intelligence members, as well as their treacherous agents. Destroy their beds. Embitter their lives for them and busy them with themselves.” It continues, “If you are not able to find an IED or a bullet, then single out the disbelieving American, Frenchman, or any of their allies. Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car, or throw him down from a high place, or choke him, or poison him….” Sound familiar? It should be, because this sentiment is often repeated by Muslim clerics. Notice that the demand is to kill by any means possible, with a bullet, bomb, poison, rock, knife, or car. Use whatever you have. And Islamofascists do just that. According to Bild, Ballout was long part of the Islamofascist scene in Berlin. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz declared, “We will not allow this poison of terrorism to spread further in our society.” That was tough talk indeed, but what are the chances he will purge the “poison of terrorism” from Germany? And notice that Chancellor Merz did not mention Islam, let alone Islamofascism. I have discussed this ad nauseam. Western leaders avoid, at almost all costs, the ideology that drives the attacks. And that ideology is Islamofascism. European leaders are not alone. Several gay activists openly stated this. Before Ballout’s identity was known, they hoped the perp was a Christian, white person. And this is the mindset of intersectionality, which is part of the Green-Red alliance. I have discussed this repeatedly. Was Ballout the only Islamofascist to bowl over Europeans like tenpins? Hardly. In February of last year, Farhad N. carried out an Islamofascist vehicular rampage in Germany. He killed several infidels but did not die in the attack. The prosecutor in his case said, “He acted out of religious motivation.” Well, yes. So what was that religion? Was he a Lutheran? Lots of Lutherans in Germany, and Catholics, too. Jews? Probably not. Most are long gone. Hmmmm. Buddhists or Hindus? Maybe, I suppose. Hmmm. Well, somebody in the prosecutor's office added: “He believed he was obliged to attack and kill randomly selected p
Hello. This is Mark Silinsky from Kensington Security Consulting, where we bring education to national security. Welcome to the Kensington Weekly, a program that explores Islam's relationship with the world, week by week. This is the second week in August 2026. Let's begin with an article by Hugh Fitzgerald at Jihad Watch that tells a compelling and tragic German story. What happened? Marius Dick, a young German, was killed by an Afghan who stabbed him. Dick was walking home after shopping when Afghan asylum seeker Sajad M, 22, sprang from a hedge and plunged a kitchen knife into his heart. The two had never met. Why did Sajad M kill a random pedestrian? According to a public health officer, he was mentally ill. This surprised some who knew him, who described him as a good neighbor and fellow worker.