Texas synagogue terrorist came out of UK Islamist no-go zone

(JNS) — As far back as 2013, Pakistani Muslim terrorists plotted to take “foreign Jews” hostage to trade for “Lady Al-Qaeda.” In 2022, a Pakistani Muslim terrorist actually went out and did it.

The hostage crisis at Congregation Beth Israel in Texas, ended with Faisal Akram of Blackburn — another post-industrial English town where Muslims make up a third of the population and Pakistanis account for more than 10 percent — dead and his Jewish hostages set free.

Back home, the Blackburn Muslim Community page announced “Faisal Akram has sadly departed from this temporary world” and prayed that Allah “bless him with the highest ranks of Paradise.”

The town has produced no shortage of jihadists, including the youngest terrorist in the United Kingdom; a number of jihadis who traveled to join Islamic State; an associate of shoe bomber Richard Reid; and a terrorist who played a key role in an Al-Qaeda plot that targeted New York and Washington, D.C.

Blackburn is one of the most segregated towns in the country and has been described as a “no-go zone.” The area that produced the Temple Terrorist has the highest Muslim population outside of London, with some claiming that flying the English flag there has been effectively outlawed.

The setting couldn’t be any better for the media to whitewash Akram with the familiar excuse that he was the victim of failed integration in the United Kingdom. His family, in an even more familiar excuse, is claiming that he was “suffering from mental health issues.”

That, along with the claim by FBI Special Agent in Charge Matt DeSarno that Akram “was singularly focused on one issue, and it was not specifically related to the Jewish community,” is becoming the very familiar narrative for covering up the latest Muslim terror attack.

But antisemitism, like Islamism, was in the air Faisal Akram breathed in Blackburn.

Aafia Siddiqui, aka Lady Al-Qaeda, on whose behalf the Texas synagogue attack took place, was married to the nephew of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and had assorted recipes for mass murder in her possession when she was captured. She demanded at her trial that jurors undergo DNA tests to prove that they were not Jewish. And the Aafia Foundation posted bizarre antisemitic rants about the “degree of poisonous venum [sic] within the heart of American mainstream Jewry.”

The best way to cover up a terrorist attack is to shift the context. And that’s what they’re doing. But it’s important to dig into the true context to understand the true origins of the Texas attack.

In his book “Among the Mosques,” ex-Islamist Ed Husain describes Blackburn as “another global hub for the Deobandis and the Tableeghi Jamaat,” where the mosques pray for the destruction of the enemies of Islam and texts declare that “there can be no reconciliation between Islam and democracy.”

The Deobandis, who control many of the mosques in Blackburn, originated the Taliban.

Aafia Siddiqui is a Deobandi and a popular cause with Pakistanis. A few years ago, the Pakistani Senate even named the Islamic terrorist the “Daughter of the Nation.”

Indian Mujahideen co-founder Riyaz Bhatkal had plotted to take Jews hostage a decade ago in order to force Siddiqui’s release. British Muslim “charities” were a major source of funding for the jihadist group, as they are for many Pakistani jihadist enterprises.

When Husain visited Blackburn, he warned that “it is clear that a caliphist subculture thrives here, a separate world from the rest of British society.”

Tableeghi Jamaat, whose mosques are known as “breeding grounds” for jihad, is closely intertwined with Pakistani Islamism and vectored Islamic terrorism. Quite a number have joined Al Qaeda. It is no coincidence that so many Islamic terrorists have come out of Blackburn.

Nor is it a coincidence that the latest Islamic terrorist attack on America originated there.

Faisal’s target, a progressive Reform Temple which happened to carry the traditional name of Congregation Beth Israel, was ideally selected to fit Muslim antisemitic obsessions with both Israel and Jews.

The antisemitic rants, the hostage crisis and the rapid cover-up are all regular features of life for Jews in Europe. Changing demographics are making them a new reality for American Jews.

Any American city or town can become the new Blackburn. That’s the harsh lesson here.

In Blackburn, Muslims anticipate the Texas jihadist ascending to the “highest ranks of Paradise.” More Muslims from Blackburn, marinating in the same hatred for America, for Jews and for anyone unlike them, will follow in his footsteps.

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical left and Islamic terrorism.

This article was first published by FrontPage Magazine.