The Philadelphia Bulletin: US to Review Military Police after Attack

by David Bedein

Jerusalem - The Middle East Newsline has confirmed that the U.S. military plans to begin a review of its increased Muslim presence in the armed forces.

The U.S. Defense Department and Joint Chiefs of Staff plan to discuss an examination of the Muslim presence in the U.S. military and the threat of Al Qaida influence. They said Congress was pressing for such a review in wake of the Nov. 5 killing of 13 U.S. troops by a Muslim officer.

“We have to go back and look at ourselves and ask ourselves the hard questions," U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey said. "Are we doing the right things? We will learn from this."

The review will focus on the exact number of Muslims in the U.S. military, which has encouraged such enrollment.

The U.S. Defense Department reported 3,409 Muslims on active military duty as of April 2008, but officials said the number could be at least three times higher.

"We believe there are many more Muslims who, when recruited, did not list their religion," an official said. "Some of these people simply wanted to avoid harassment; others might have had a sinister agenda."

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, born in the United States and alleged to have killed 13 soldiers in the army base at Fort Hood, Texas, did not identify himself as a Muslim when he enlisted.

Mr. Hasan was, however, recruited as part of a U.S. military drive to reach out to the Muslim community. Over the last decade, the military has intensified its recruitment of Arabic-, Farsi- and Pashtun-speaking soldiers for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Pentagon has been receiving reports of Muslim soldiers who expressed opposition to the U.S. military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. They said the opposition was encouraged by Islamic clerics as well as Muslim officers such as Mr. Hasan, who warned Muslims against harming co-religionists.

In 2003, U.S. Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar, said to have opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq, killed two officers and injured 14 others in a grenade attack. Mr. Akbar, a convert to Islam, was sentenced to death.

The U.S. military has sought to shield Muslims from retaliation in Afghanistan and Iraq. In many cases, they said, Muslim soldiers were ordered to use fake family names to prevent reprisals against their families abroad.

Some in Congress have called for clear guidelines on allowing soldiers to express political views in the military. They said Mr. Hasan's pro-jihad views were tolerated by officers concerned over charges of discrimination.

"I want to say very quickly we don't know enough to say now, but there are very, very strong warning signs here that Mr. Hasan had become an Islamist extremist and, therefore, that this was a terrorist act," Sen. Joseph Liberman, a Connecticut independent and chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said.

Senator Lieberman said his committee would investigate the Hasan shooting, particularly the motive for the attack. He said a focus would be whether the U.S. Army ignored warning signs that Mr. Hasan was heading for an attack.

Mr. Hasan underwent an investigation in April on suspicion that he had adopted Al Qaida doctrine of holy war against the West. They said Mr. Hasan was suspected of trying to contact Al Qaida via the Internet.

"I am intending to begin a congressional investigation of my homeland security committee into what were the motives of Mr. Hasan in carrying out this brutal mass murder and to ask whether the Army missed warning signs that should have led them to essentially discharge him," Mr. Lieberman said. "If Mr. Hasan was showing signs, saying to people that he had become an Islamist extremist, the U.S. Army has to have zero tolerance. He should have been gone."

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The Philadelphia Bulletin: Saudi Arabia:The Source Of Islamization In US Military

by David Bedein

JERUSALEM - Saudi Arabia has been identified as the source of the growing Islamization in the U.S. military.


Army Pfc. Michael Pearson’s mother, Sheryll Pearson, is comforted by her son, Kristopher Craig, who is also Michael’s brother, at their home in Bolingbrook, Il. on Nov. 6. Pfc. Pearson was shot and killed at Fort Hood Army base in Texas on Nov. 5. (Paul Beaty/Associated Press)

A leading analyst asserted that Saudi Arabia spent millions of dollars in its effort to convert U.S. soldiers to Islam. Dr. Gal Luft, co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security in Washington, said the campaign pioneered by the Saudis began during the 1991 war against Iraq, which involved the deployment of nearly 500,000 U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia.

"Nearly two decades have passed since the Saudi conversion campaign, and most of the converts may no longer be in uniforms," Dr. Luft said.

"But the seeds sown during the Gulf War have germinated, creating scores of radicalized Americans who are a threat to their comrades in uniforms as well as to their civilian communities."

Dr. Luft traced the recent killing of 13 U.S. soldiers by a Muslim officer to a Saudi indoctrination campaign.

Dr. Luft said the Saudi campaign resulted in the spread of Wahabi doctrine, which stresses Islamic war.

"While Muslim soldiers have served in uniforms loyally for decades, it is the rising number of Wahabi-trained and converted Muslims that is a relatively recent phenomenon," Dr. Luft said in a report, "Since Wahabism is one of the most radical and puritan strands of Islam, the penetration of Wahabi thinking into the ranks of the military must be treated with care."

Dr. Luft's report, released on Tuesday, said the spread of Wahabi influence has endangered U.S. soldiers. A recurring prospect has been the turning of Wahabi-indoctrinated soldiers on their colleagues.

Dr. Luft, quoting former U.S. officers, said Saudi military personnel were directed to identify and missionize their American counterparts. He said the Saudi campaign was a "well-orchestrated and generously funded effort sponsored by the Saudi government to convert as many American military members as possible to Islam."

At one point, Saudi commander and now deputy defense minister, Prince Khaled Bin Sultan, bragged that more than 2,000 U.S. troops converted to Islam in 1991. Some of the U.S. officers were said to have been given as much as $30,000 to convert.

"These Muslim troops are now the messengers of Islam in the U.S. forces," Dr. Abu Ameena Bilal Phillips, an Islamic convert who missionizes in the military, was quoted by the report as saying.

The report said the shooting by Maj. Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood, Texas represented an Islamic attack. Dr. Luft quoted Hasan as shouting to fellow

soldiers, "You guys are coming into our countries and you’re going to rape

our women and kill our children."

"It is time to investigate what exactly happened back then in the desert

and assess how serious and deep-rooted the damage is," Dr. Luft's report said.
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