The story begins in Northview Heights, the low-income housing project, which used to be ninety percent African-American. This was altered as the plan under President Obama brought in Syrian refugees with minimal screening. When President Trump attempted to restrict such immigration until a more stringent vetting policy could be implemented, he was attacked as being a racist (please view our article about the use of words such as racist). This sent his order before one court after another and also left the United States to continue to be as vulnerable as they were under President Obama. Many of these Syrian refugees had been settled in Northview Heights. One such refugee, it turns out, was also a member of the Islamic State (ISIS). Mustafa Mousab Alowemer was such an individual. It was presumably a well-known fact which intelligence had reported that the Islamic State had been placing their operatives in amongst the refugees. But this case was slightly different as the terrorist in question came as part of a family. Still, Mustafa Mousab Alowemer had made several social media posts swearing his allegiance to Islamic State and proclaiming his readiness to carry out operations for them within the United States.
The fortunate part of this unreported story was that the FBI and law enforcement moved in and prevented what could have been a horrific crime. This neighborhood had been utilized as an end point for immigrant refugees preciously. This was the international part that was reflected in the multicultural population of African-Americans and African immigrants, including Nigerian Christians. It was the presence of Nigerian Christians which set off Mustafa Mousab Alowemer and he was determined to do something about these, as he saw them, polytheists. He plotted to take care and for the massacre of the Christians whom he called, “Mushrikeen”, an Islamic religious term which condemns Christians and Jews as infidels and deems them to be fair game for mass murder. Mustafa Mousab Alowemer was quoted ranting, “This house is still for the ones who go to church because they are Nigerians. They are all polytheists. We, we, take revenge for our brothers in Nigeria.” This was a reference to Boko Haram which is the Islamic State terrorist allied group which is currently attacking Christian villages and the ones who abducted the girls from a Christian school which received world attention but not much action with a typical response being the hashtag project where people, including Michelle Obama (see image below) calling for action using “#BringBackOurGirls” as a means of applying pressure. As most of Boko Haram do not have internet connections, this became a farce of how to do something while accomplishing nothing.
Mustafa Mousab Alowemer plotted to bomb this church while it was holding services to maximize the numbers of Christians and particularly Nigerians as he was able. He had a decent plan as he would place a backpack bomb at the church with a timer allowing him to reach a Mosque for his alibi and where the others would attest to his having been there the entire morning. This was balanced by his desire to hear the explosion. He had hoped this act would “shock the enemies of Allah almighty everywhere and all over America” as well as preventing Christians “going to their churches and instill fear in their hearts.” He had further planned to leave an ISIS flag and a message, “We’ve arrived.” Mustafa Mousab Alowemer has been in the United States since August of 2016, almost three years. He told the man he thought was his accomplice, “I was raised in Jordan on loving the Jihad and the Mujahedeen. I met some Jordanian brothers, some of which did the Nafir in Raqqah, and I, alongside some brothers, were arrested three times in Jordan, because I was one of the supporters.” Despite three arrests for associating with ISIS fighters and for supporting ISIS, Mustafa Mousab Alowemer made it through the scant vetting process and was permitted entrance into the United States.
Mustafa Mousab Alowemer planned the attack on the church where people from his neighborhood attended services including fellow students from Brashear High School, an English as a Second Language school with a large refugee attendance. He had no compunction over potentially murdering kids he had attended classes with, that was the depth of his hatred for these Christians and specifically the Nigerians. His presumed accomplice was actually an FBI agent and this permitted the FBI to prevent this tragedy. Yet, when talking with our friends and contacts in the United States, surprisingly none had heard a word about this plot to bomb a black church. Perhaps it was to protect the refugee program. Perhaps it was to shield Islam from bad media which might cause people to think differently about trust concerning members of the Islamic faith, not any racial context, merely religious and social context.
Some additional information about Mustafa Mousab Alowemer. He wrote in his nasheed (a musical chant) addressed to the leader of ISIS, “I long for the promise of Allah, he promised me paradise, he motivated me for martyrdom. I long for the land of the Caliphate. I am expecting to raise the banner. I will spill my blood for the victory of my religion.” Fortunately, he was denied this self-defined honor to his faith and to those he had pledged his full-fledged support. Those who may be more callous might claim that the reason this story which has so many intrigues, implications, twists and revealing angles was so under-reported was because it does not fit the narrative the news desires to convey, that right-wing or alt-right white males are the only ones who bomb black churches. To have to report that an American Syrian refugee who is Islamic was planning to bomb a black church would cross too many of the pet sympathies of the mainstream media. Reporting on Islamic criminality has been kept under the radar across Europe and it apparently has crossed over to the United States. But unless you read many foreign news reports from across the globe, you probably missed this story. We would hope that it would be that the media reported the news without their politically correct filters thus allowing the public to be fully informed and able to make up their own minds about what to think about the serious issues of the day, and terrorism is definitely amongst those pressing issues of the day. But the media in the developed world had decided that they should do our thinking for us and that we are too uncultured, uneducated, unrefined, unsophisticated, ignorant and probably a dozen more equally dulling reasons for which they hide news which the public might not grasp the full connotations, innuendos, denotations, inferences and insinuations which in no way could be explained such that the rest of us could ever hope to understand. Such ill regard for the public the media is supposed to serve and report about everything affecting their lives should infuriate the average person. But this was a case of an event which went against almost all the media stereotypes which they have defined to every group because stereotypes are good for them but not for you. Until the mainstream media start reporting instead of filtering according to some editorial slant coloring our news, we will need to rely on outside reporting and commentary to often report reality and give a clearer picture of our world than the fantasy sold on the television, in radio and on the pages of newsprint across the land. That is the state of the world in which we find ourselves and until we repair the damages done by censoring the news has done, many of us are walking around in the dark being denied light by the supposed light-bringers, the media. For now, they are selling us blinders and eventually these will become blindfolds as events continue to make what they have been reporting to become so obviously wrong-headed and slanted that people demand real news sparking potentially a revolution in the media business. Rest easy and do not trouble your heads as the media will sell you sweet songs of alluring tranquility lulling you into a sense of sweet slumber.
Beyond the Cusp
Beyond the Cusp 