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Thursday, November 11, 2004
Terrorism is all about family values |
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Two of the seven terrorism suspects that were apprehended yesterday, turn out to be brothers.
Yeah, I got a warm fuzzy feeling too.
What's more, they're not Moroccans. They're Dutch Americans, both from Amersfoort. Their father is an American soldier based in Europe. Their mother is Dutch. The oldest of the two is names Jason W. He is 19 years old and, according to some sources, converted to Islam five years ago. Another source states he converted at the age of 13, which at least isn't contradictory. At that time, he got a new name: Abu Mujahied Amrik, according to shock blog GeenStijl. Jason left a goodbye note for his parents in Dutch. It is mainly rethorical drivel, although one sentence intrigues me: he begs his mother not to erect another altar like the last time.
Jason was arrested in The Hague yesterday and got hurt. This probably means he's the guy that didn't follow police orders. Yesterday it was reported that one of the suspects was subsequently shot in his shoulder. GeenStijl has a really small picture of Jason here. His brother Jermaine is 17. He was arrested in Amersfoort.
Jason had finished VWO (the highest level of secondary school in the Netherlands) and had started his university studies. As with Mohammed B., who was also well educated, and as with many of the hijackers during the 9-11 attacks, this goes to show we are not dealing with mindless drones, but misguided ones.
It would be foolish to underestimate them.
(Information compiled from RTL Nieuws, De Telegraaf and GeenStijl.
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23:59 |
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Update: Siege in The Hague |
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Only three grenades were found in the Antheunisstraat, so the fear for a huge cache of explosives turns out to have been unfounded.
Nevertheless, police have conducted a number of operations in the past few months looking for a large weapons cache. There was even a bit of uproar when they busted what was apparently the wrong house of a Moroccan family in Utrecht. I wouldn't expect them to tell the public anything about an ongoing investigation, but perhaps they don't even need to. The siege in The Hague combined with their earlier activities make it rather likely that they think they're on to something.
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16:07 |
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New attacks on mosques and schools |
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• Racist slogans as well as symbols (White Power, swastika) were painted on the walls of a mosque and the city hall in Veendam.
• Police discovered a small fire in a church in Utrecht. Fortunately, only a chair got damaged. I'm not sure it's a coincidence the church was on the Marokkodreef, which means Morocco Drive.
• An attempt to burn down a church in Rotterdam failed due to bad throwing and molotov cocktail making skills on behalf of the arsonist(s).
• An attempt to attack a mosque in Venray was scotched by the police.
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15:41 |
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Chairman of political party threatens his own people |
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In what is one of the most depraved things I've read since the attack on Mr. Theo van Gogh, Sergej Moleveld, the director of the Lijst Pim Fortuyn (LPF) party was arrested today for sending a threatening letter to two LPF MP's. The letter was sent in the name of an Islamic organization. Its content has not been made public. The LPF is the party of the late politician who was murderd in 2002.
The LPF party organization and the LPF MP's are currently not on speaking terms. In the Netherlands, it is possible for MP's to sever their connections with their party and retain their seat in parliament. Of course, LPF MP Van As immediately declared this incident proves they made the right choice in separating from their party.
Why Moleveld did this, is unclear. It may have had something to do with the strained relations between the MP's and the party. It's also possible he wanted to capitalize on existing fears in society. Either way, it's deplorable.
I hope the judge gives him an alternative sentence. Six months (the maximum length for an alternative sentence) of teaching immigrant school children in Uden to write Dutch letters might just have a wholesome effect on his personality, although I am not keeping my hopes up.
Yeez.
(Breathing in deeply...)
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15:03 |
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Arrested men belong to 'Hofstad Group' |
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The seven men which were arrested yesterday in The Hague, Amersfoort and Amsterdam, are part of the so-called Hofstad Group (Hofstadgroep in Dutch). 'De Hofstad' is a colloquiall Dutch name for The Hague, where two of the men were arrested. I wonder whether this is an informal name used by authorities, or the name the group has given itself. Either way, Mohammed B. was in regular contact with one of the people from this group, Samir A., who as this blog has previously reported, was already arrested some time ago on suspicion of preparing terrorist attacks. There is very little known about de Hofstad Group, but of course, I'll post it if more information becomes available.
Update 16.14: Three members of the Hofstad Group travelled to the European soccer championships in Portugal, De Telegraaf reports. The Dutch intelligence agency AIVD tipped off the Portuguese, who arrested them.
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13:19 |
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Van Gogh song |
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Since this blog is brimming with Americans, I thought y'all might appreciate a bit of Dutch 'gangsta rap' ;-). This is a song by Lange Frans & Baas B (Long Frans & Boss B.) called 'Zinloos' (Meaningless). It's currently high up in the Dutch charts. After Van Gogh was killed, a special version was made, which can be listened to here (streaming WMA).
My apologies to anyone who expects talk about glorious gun fights, beautiful biatches and fast cars. It can't be found in this song. Instead, it's about a number of people who have died as a result of what is colloquially known in the Netherlands as 'zinloos geweld' or 'meaningless violence': people who were murdered for no reason whatsoever, or because they stood up to wrongs in Dutch society and public life. From Joes Kloppenburg, who tried to end a brawl in Amsterdam and paid for it with his life, to René Steegmans, who got clubbed to death in Venlo with a helmet after he corrected two fellow young men who nearly ran over a senior citizen with their scooter, this is their song.
Please buy the record if you can, as all proceeds will go to the Stichting Kappen Nou! (Foundation 'Cut it Out!'), which tries to combat 'meaningless violence'. 'Kappen nou!' were the final words of Joes Kloppenburg.
For a partial translation, click 'Lees verder'.
More...
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12:36 |
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Moroccan leak in intelligence service |
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The mole in the Dutch intelligence agency AIVD turns out to have been a Moroccan translator. His name is Outmar Ben A. (family names are customarily abbreviated in Dutch journalism) and he is 34 years old. After the Van Gogh murder, it became apparent that secret AIVD documents got into the hands of radical Islamists. This afternoon, secretary Johan Remkes of Domestic Affairs will have to answer to the Second Chamber, the Dutch Lower House of Parliament, for the failures of the AIVD.
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9:23 |
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Returning home |
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No word yet if any explosives have actually been discovered in The Hague, but at least people living in the Antheunisstraat are allowed to return home now.
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9:11 |
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Nudity and zebras |
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In Douglas Adams' infamous Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, there's a philosopher who conclusively manages to prove that white is actually black. He then gets himself killed on a zebra crossing, for if there's no difference between black and white anymore, the crossing can't exist.
Andrew Sullivan criticizes an article on the British online magazine Index, in which Van Gogh is blamed for censoring others. How did he do that, according to Index? Well, apparently by saying what he thought. So, according to the warped world view of the writer, if other people are such cowards they daren't speak out about their hurt feelings in the public arena, or can't find their way to a judge, but can only channel their feelings in acts of aggression (and that goes for killers as well as mosque arsonists), it's your fault if you happen to have infuriated him by maintaining a contrary opinion.
This way of reasoning can only boil down to no one saying anything meaningful anymore, for fear of offending the other. It ends with a society which is so 'tolerant', even (and especially) against intolerance, that the public debate becomes subdued as a result. Does that remind anyone of anything? A small country with a lot of dykes and coffee shops perhaps?
It's for a good reason that Theo van Gogh was considered by many to be a breath of fresh air, even by those who didn't always agree with him, like me. He was the proverbial child (for childish he could be) who pointed out the tolerance-clad emperor wasn't wearing any clothes.
Surely the Dutch of all people can also tolerate a bit of nudity?
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8:38 |
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Please do not post full articles in the comments section |
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For a number of reasons:
• It's illegal. You're infringing upon someone else's copyright.
• Under recent Dutch jurisprudence, I am liable for any wrongdoings of other people posting on this site. I really don't like judges, at least not when they're judging me.
• It clogs up the comments. Nobody likes to scroll down endlessly in order to be able to comment.
• It takes ages to clean it all up. I'm a guy. I don't like cleaning. I like whiskey, jellybeans, and wearing pink lingerie under my business suits. Forget the last sentence.
For the sake of debate and the continuation of this blog, please just post the links. Do not use href's, the content management system will remove them. Instead, a simple http://www.thisisareallygoodurl.com will suffice. It will be auto-converted into a clickable link.
(Comments are off for the night anyway. See you all tomorrow!)
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0:59 |
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After the siege in The Hague |
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• The Antheunisstraat in The Hague will remain closed off. The official reason is that 'there's no guarantee there are no explosives in the house'. In non-bureaucrat lingo: the house is probably full of explosives, meaning the rumors were right.
• As was already known, two suspects were taken into custody.
• During the arrest, one of the suspects 'did not follow orders from the police'. He was shot in the shoulder.
• A third suspect was arrested in Amersfoort. Despite an extensive search, no explosives were found.
• Four other suspects were arrested in Amsterdam today, bringing the total number to seven.
• The evacuated people in The Hague will have to spend the night elsewhere.
Update 1.08:
• Two people were arrested in Baexum. The police won't say why. It makes me wonder: if they can find all these guys this quickly now, why couldn't they have done this before? Especially since:
• Mohammed B. turns out to have been in the scope of the Dutch intelligence agency AIVD since August 2002. If this were America, and we had a dual party political structure, some people would have a field day.
• Well, they may have it anyway, since this information comes from the letter secretaries Johan Remkes (Domestic Affairs) and Piet-Hein Donner (Justice) have sent to the Second Chamber (the Dutch Lower House). Remkes is under a lot of criticism, and he was the sole responsible person for the AIVD at the time.
• Idiots seem to be in no short supply outside of politics either, as there has been yet another torching of a junior high, this time in Eindhoven. Apart from one destroyed classroom, the damage seems limited. The interesting thing is that this was not a Muslim school, so it may have been a retaliation - or an 'ordinary' arsonist or copycat. Yesterday, a Muslim school in Uden was completely destroyed by fire. On Monday, some equally mentally challenged people tried to blow up a Muslim school in Eindhoven. They failed, but did destroy a lot of windows as well as the entrance of the school.
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0:18 |
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