March 21, 2004.
Anyone thinking that the massacre in Madrid is the result of Spain’s support for
the war in Iraq, should pay careful attention to one sentence in the
announcement of responsibility. “This was part of settling an old score with
Spain, which bears the cross”, declared the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigade.
When Al-Qaeda speaks of an unsettled score, it doesn’t matter if the group that
took responsibility is actually the one that perpetrated the attack. They are not
referring to the 1,300 soldiers that Spain sent to Iraq or to President Aznar’s
summit meeting with President George W. Bush before the war.
They are referring to a much older score, one that goes back to 1492, when
the Christians expelled the last Moslems from Grenada and completed their
re-conquest of Spain. The score will be settled only when the flag of Islam
again flies on Spanish soil.
The ambitions of current-day Islam go beyond Spain. We recommend that
European leaders and citizens, especially those who think that Israel is the
source of all evil, read the Islamic legal decision written by Sheikh Yusuf
Al-Qaradawi, one of the most important legal authorities in the Islamic world,
last year.
In the article (Selections of which are quoted by Jonathan D. Halevi on the
Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center website), Qaradawi notes: “Islam
will return once more to Europe as a conqueror and as a victorious power after
it was expelled twice from the continent. I assume that next time the conquest
will not be achieved by the sword but by preaching and spreading
its ideology. The expansion of Islam will reach all the areas where the sun
shines and the moon appears”.
He also writes that the conquest of Rome, the center of Roman
Catholicism, will be symbolic of Islam’s victory over Christian Europe. (Italians
and Christians everywhere, take note).
Qaradawi is not the most extreme Islamic legal authority. He actually spoke out
against the attacks on September 11. The difference between Qaradawi and
Al-Qaeda is limited to the means. Their goal is the same, to conquer the world.
Qaradawi thinks that this can be done by preaching ideology while Bin Laden’s
minions want to destroy the infidels (Jews and Christians), to the last man,
woman and child.
“Just as the requirement to destroy infidel forces was implemented
against ancient nations, it will be implemented against the infidel forces of our
day. Not one will escape.”, wrote senior al-Qaeda author Saif al-Din al-Ansari.
Hitler could not have expressed it any more clearly.
In the meantime, Islam is taking both paths. While preachers are spreading their
ideology in the mosques of Paris, London and Brussels, al-Qaeda terrorists are
mercilessly massacring men, women and children in Madrid, just because they
are infidels.
Let us hope that the echoes of the bombs in Madrid will awaken Europe’s
dozing leaders and citizens and make them understand that 60 years after their
liberation from the German Nazis, they are again being threatened by conquest,
this time by fundamentalist Islam.
