The mysterious and terrifying Assassins sect: new article draws on my book

An interesting article on the history of the Assassins sect, who murdered their way through the Middle East from the late 11th to the 13th century, quotes my book Assassins' Deeds. A History of Assassination from Ancient Egypt to the Present Day (Reaktion).

A breakaway sect of a breakway Muslim sect, the Assassins killed many prominent Muslims, sometimes in cahoots with the Crusaders then trying to establish a Christian kingdom in the region. Even the great Saladin was afraid of them.

But they also murdered Crusaders such as Conrad of Montferrat, who had just been elected king of Jerusalem. The Assassins later apologised to Conrad's successor for their deed, and, to make up for it, offered to murder any enemy he chose to nominate. The order was eventually destroyed by the terrifying Mongol hordes led by the descendants of Genghis Khan. 

Marco Polo, without any first-hand knowledge, told racy tales of how young men were recruited to the order in a valley like paradise inhabited by the world's 'most beautiful damsels' whose favours could be enjoyed by those prepared to commit murders when ordered. He also said they did their killings under the influence of hashish, a story which led to them being dubbed 'hashishin' which morphed into 'assassin'. There's not much sign that any of this was true, and, if anything, the Assassins' regime was probably rather puritanical. 

You can find the article here: https://history.howstuffworks.com/world-history/order-of-assassins.htm

Mumbai bombings: a bizarre twist

A chapter has closed in a strange story on the fringes of the Mumbai terrorist attacks of 1993 which left 257 people dead. The Bollywood star, Sanjay Dutt, aged 56, has been released from prison after serving 5 years for buying guns from the terrorists.

Dutt’s defence was that he had needed the weapons to protect his family during riots in which Muslims fought Hindus.

The son of a Hindu father and a Muslim mother, he was one of India’s most popular stars, specialising in tough anti-hero roles. Sentencing him at his trial, the judge said: ‘Don’t get perturbed. You have many years to go and work like the Mackenna’s Gold actor Gregory Peck.’

A hundred people were convicted for their role in the bombings, with 12 given the death penalty and 20 others sentenced to life imprisonment.  For more, see A Disastrous History of the World.

Pakistan: fanatics for polio

There are only two countries in the world where polio is still endemic – Afghanistan and Pakistan. In Pakistan, Muslim extremists are helping it to go on killing and paralysing children by murdering vaccination workers.

In the latest attack this week, at least 15 people were killed by a suicide bomber at an inoculation centre at Quetta in Balochistan. It happened just as medics and the security staff who are needed to protect them had reported for duty before going out on their rounds. Another 20 people were injured.

There were more than 300 cases of polio in Pakistan in 2014, the highest number since 1999, following a series of attacks by extremists. Last year, energetic efforts by the security forces enabled the vaccine teams to penetrate what had previously been no-go areas, and the number of cases fell to 50.

The fanatics claim immunisation is a Western plot to sterilise Pakistani children. As a result of the latest bombing, the vaccination programme in Balochistan has been suspended. (See also my posts of 24 February, 3 March, and 10 December, 2014.)

Remember Paris, but don't forget Beirut, Nigeria, Mali, Egypt, Cameroon....

is not every week that English football supporters sing the Marseillaise when a French team is playing England, nor every week that British prime ministers and home secretaries break into French, but then it is not every week that 129 people are murdured in Paris by Muslim fanatics.

But that was only one of a spate of recent Islamist attacks across a number of countries. In Beirut, ISIS said it carried out two suicide bombings that killed 40 people. In Nigeria, more than 40 people died in bombings by Boko Haram, which killed more than 6,640 in 2014, making it the world’s deadliest terror organisation.

In Mali, 20 people perished in an attack on a hotel claimed by two Islamist groups, one affiliated to al-Qaeda, while ISIS claims it brought down the Russian airliner that crashed in Sinai on October 31 with the loss of 224 people.

Just today, suicide bombers, suspected to be from Boko Haram, claimed another four victims in Cameroon. It is not only the dead and injured of Paris that we need to remember.

Another Hajj tragedy

All able-bodied Muslims who can afford it are supposed to go to Mecca during the week of the Hajj at least once in their lives, but this year the event has again been marred by tragedy, as 107 people were killed when a crane collapsed on top of worshippers gathering outside the Grand Mosque.

The crane was operated by the Saudi Binladin Group (some relation – it is run by Osama’s brother). The group has been hired on a 4 year contract worth $27 billion to expand the Grand Mosque.

The accident happened during high winds and heavy rain, and one of the company’s engineers said it was an ‘act of God’, but the Saudi government’s official mouthpiece said the Binladin Group had not ‘respected the rules of safety’, and the company’s directors have been ordered not to leave the country.

At the Hajj in 1990, more than 1,400 pilgrims were killed in a fatal crush in a tunnel. Four years later, at least 270 died in another stampede. A fire in 1997 killed 343, and further stampedes in 2004 and 2006 killed another 580.

Srebrenica - the battle over its history

Twenty years ago this month, 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were murdered by Serb forces at Srebrenica in the worst mass murder in Europe since World War Two. It was condemned as genocide by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, and also by the International Court of Justice.

But Serb leaders deny the massacre was genocide, arguing that Serb victims of the wars that followed Yugoslavia's break-up have been forgotten, and a recent UN Security Council resolution denouncing it was vetoed by Russia.

Today Bosnia is split between Serb, Bosnian and Croat run sectors. Bosnian children learn all about the massacre, while Bosnian Croat children hear little about it, and Bosnian Serb children are taught that its mastermind, Ratko Mladic, currently on trial at The Hague, was a hero.

Srebrenica has never recovered, but one bright spot in the story is the absence of inter-communal revenge killings, though worryingly last month ISIS released a video calling on Balkan Muslims to murder their non-Muslim neighbours. 

Boko Haram terrorists move into Niger

The Islamic fanatics of Boko Haram have launched their first assault on Niger, targeting the border town of Bosso. Until now most of the group's attacks have been in Nigeria, though it has also ventured into Cameroon where it killed at least 70 people in Fotokol on Wednesday.

Boko Haram terrorists reportedly attacked Bosso in the early morning using heavy weapons. The Niger government later claimed it had driven them back, killing 109 terrorists, while a civilian and four soldiers also died. Bosso is home to thousands of refugees who have fled the violence in Nigeria.

The Nigerian army has been heavily criticised for its failure to combat Boko Haram, while it killed at least 5,000 people in the country, and forced a million to flee their homes. Now Chad has deployed 2,500 troops to help Cameroon and Niger fight the terrorists.

Boko Haram, which means ‘Western education is forbidden’, has sworn allegiance to so-called ‘Islamic State’ in the Middle East. It is still believed to be holding 300 Nigerian schoolgirls it kidnapped last year. (See also my blogs of 3 March, 23 June, 19 December, 2014, and 15 January, 2015.)

Terrorism: Remember Paris....but don't forget Nigeria

The murders by Muslim fanatics in France have attracted widespread condemnation, and an impressive demonstration of international solidarity. What a pity the same cannot be said of the massacres committed by the Islamic terrorists of Boko Haram in Nigeria.

Amnesty International, after compiling eyewitness reports and studying satellite pictures, says last week’s attack on the villages of Baga and Doron Baga killed at least 150, including small children and a woman in labour.

The terrorists are said to have opened fire indiscriminately, and some say the death toll could be as high as 2,000. The villages were razed to the ground, with about 3,700 buildings, mainly people’s homes, destroyed.

In April 2013, the Baga area was raided by the Nigerian military in response to a Boko Haram attack that killed a soldier. Human Rights Watch say local people were killed, and more than 2,000 buildings destroyed, though the Nigerian government denied the claims.

(See also my blogs of March 3 and June 23, and December 19, 2014.)

Attacks on schools

Tuesday’s murderous assault on a school at Peshawar in Pakistan by Muslim fanatics that cost the lives of 132 children and 9 staff has caused revulsion across the world, but between 2009 and 2013, there were nearly 10,000 attacks on schools in 70 countries.

Diya Nijhowne, director of the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, says murders and abductions of pupils and staff and the destruction of school buildings are seen by terrorists and criminal gangs as very effective ways of intimidating and undermining communities, and preventing them from becoming more prosperous.

Muslim fanatics, such as Boko Haram in Nigeria, are often particularly resentful if girls are educated. The group kidnapped hundreds of female pupils in April. While in Pakistan, girls often have to be taught in secret by teachers who are risking their lives, to avoid the murderous attentions of the Taliban.

The deadliest ever terrorist attack on a school happened at Beslan in southern Russia in 2004, when Chechen terrorists massacred 334 people, including 186 children.  For the full story, see A Disastrous History of the World.

Islamic extremists for polio

Pakistan has recorded its highest number of new polio cases for 15 years, and is now one of only three countries in the world where the disease remains endemic. Health officials say the main reason is the killing of health workers carrying out immunisation programmes by Islamic extremists.

The extremists say the health workers are spies and that the immunisations are a Western plot to sterilise Muslims. They claim the US used a fake vaccination programme to track down and kill Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011.

The latest murder happened in the north-eastern city of Faisalabad where a 40 year old man was shot down by attackers on a motorcycle. Deaths among immunisation workers or police guarding them now number more than 60 over the last two years.

One result is that the World Health Organization has imposed travel restrictions, so that all Pakistanis must now carry proof of vaccination before going abroad. (See also by blogs of 24 February and 3 March.) 

7/7 bombings memorial vandalised

While mourners and survivors prepared to mark today’s ninth anniversary of the London bus and tube bombings of 2005, vandals sprayed the 52 steel columns which commemorate the victims of the attack with slogans such as ‘4 innocent Muslims.’

Royal Parks staff cleaned off the graffiti before the event began. There is one column for each of the 52 who were killed by four Islamist suicide bombers a day after London won the contest to host the Olympic Games of 2012.

The then mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, described it as an attack on ordinary Londoners – ‘black and white, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Jew, young and old’. And the names of the victims reinforced his message – Adams, Ciaccia, Gunoral, Ikeagwu, Islam, Rosenberg etc.

The radical imam, Anwar al-Awlaki, who was said to have inspired the bombers was killed by a US drone in Yemen in 2011.  

Pakistan and Nigeria - Islamists against health and education

Another deadly attack on health workers trying to fight polio in Pakistan (see also my blog of Feb 24). At least 11 people were killed by a roadside bomb in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province near the Afghan border.

No group has claimed responsibility, but the Taliban oppose polio vaccination, which is claimed to be part of a Western plot to sterilise Muslims. Pakistan is now one of only 3 countries where polio remains endemic (Afghanistan and Nigeria are the others). Indeed it is on the increase.

Meanwhile in Nigeria, the Islamist extremist group, Boko Haram, whose name apparently means ‘western education is forbidden’, have murdered 40 schoolchildren aged 11 to 18 in the town of Buni Yadi in the north-eastern state of Yobe.

A teacher said the assailants locked the victims in buildings then set fire to them. Those who managed to escape by climbing out of windows had their throats slit. Boko Haram is estimated to have murdered more than 300 civilians during the past month.

* Article on my new book Flood: Nature and Culture from the Camden New Journal - http://www.camdenreview.com/reviews/books/flood-nature-and-culture-by-john-withington

Bombing for God + paying for ignorance

The murderous Islamic religious struggle between Shias and Sunnis goes on. In Pakistan, 25 people – mainly Shia pilgrims – were killed by two bombs in Karachi, the second of which went off at a hospital where victims of the first blast were being treated.

Meanwhile in Iraq, two suicide bombers have killed at least 40 Shias on the outskirts of Karbala, where they were visiting one of their holiest shrines. The bombs went off at either end of a bridge that the pilgrims were crossing. On Monday, more than 40 pilgrims were killed on the outskirts of Baghdad as they began their journey to Karbala. Yesterday was the last day of a period of mourning that Shias observe for the martyrdom of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson.

According to a former American ambassador, shortly before he ordered the attack on Iraq, President Bush was unaware that there were Sunni and Shia Muslims. Did Tony Blair know? (See also my blog of June 22)

* An updated version of my Disastrous History of the World has just been published by Skyhorse in the United States as Disaster! A History of Earthquakes, Floods, Plagues and Other Catastrophes.