• This month’s ISIS manifesto claims India as part of Islamic Caliphate and, referring to the recent resurgence of Hindus in the country, states: “a movement of Hindus is growing who kill Muslims who eat beef.”

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• ISIS flags and insignia are regularly displayed at protest rallies and religious gatherings in the Muslim-majority province of Kashmir.

• Indian officials seem just as afraid of calling Islamist terror by its rightful name as their Western counterparts. Instead, they appear to be trying to distract the public by throwing money at ineffective social welfare programs. Perhaps these officials hope the public will think that at least “something” is being done.

The Islamic State (ISIS) is apparently planning to subjugate and conquer the ancient civilizations of the East as part of its worldwide jihad.

The Islamic State’s newly-released manifesto contains, among the ideological positions and strategic objectives of the self-proclaimed Islamic Caliphate, direct threats to Hindus and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The 130-page English-language manifesto, entitled “Black Flags from the Islamic State (2016),” was uploaded in early December on various online forums sympathetic to the Islamic State. Previously, in July 2015, ISIS had circulated another document declaring its ambitions of expanding its Jihad into India.

This month’s ISIS manifesto claims India as part of Islamic Caliphate and, referring to the recent resurgence of Hindus in the country, states: “a movement of Hindus is growing who kill Muslims who eat beef.”

Hindu groups have lately been campaigning for a national ban on the slaughter cows, in keeping with the religious sentiments attached to the animal, which most Hindus consider sacred.

The social and political movement of reviving Hinduism in India was also strengthened by the historic election, 18 months ago, of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his nationalist BJP party.

The ISIS manifesto mentions India’s Prime Minister Modi as a “right-wing Hindu nationalist who worships weapons and is preparing his people for a future war against Muslims.”

Modi’s government wants to reduce India’s dependence on foreign defense suppliers by encouraging foreign firms to set up manufacturing operations in the country. Encouraged by the deregulation of the defense sector, several foreign companies have set up production lines and set up joint ventures with local partners.

Undeterred by the current losses on the ground in Syria and Iraq, ISIS propaganda on social media has repeatedly proclaimed the group’s dream of an Islamic Caliphate or theocratic empire ruling the entire Indian subcontinent, parts of East Asia, the Middle Eastern and North and Central Africa.

The new manifesto recognizes the Mumbai 2008 massacre, which targeted tourist, commercial and cultural targets in the city — including a Jewish synagogue — as the blueprint for the Paris attacks. “In the centre of Paris,” the booklet states, “some Mujahideen holding AK-47s copied the Mumbai attacks’ style of shooting through the window of a Cafe bar (where alcohol and food was served), then the people fell on the floor, so they threw a grenade into the building.”

After last month’s Paris attacks, India issued a nation-wide alert.

Seeking to broaden the ‘intellectual’ horizon of its sympathetic readers, the manifesto recommends earlier texts published by ISIS such as; “Black Flags from the East,” “Black Flags from Rome” and “Black Flags from Palestine.”

According to India’s intelligence agencies, which monitor ISIS activities, at least 20 Indians have joined the ranks of the Islamic State as fighters in Iraq and Syria, and an additional 150 people are being monitored because of suspected involvement in activities related to ISIS. Since 2005, India has lost over 7,400 civilians and 3,200 security personnel to terrorism.

Support for ISIS is not, however, limited to a handful of identifiable operatives. ISIS flags and insignia are regularly displayed at protest rallies and religious gatherings in the Muslim-majority province of Kashmir. In July, the Muslim festival of Eid-al-Fitr was marked by widespread vandalism and stone-throwing, carried out by rioters waving Pakistani, Palestinian and ISIS flags.

The Islamic State’s social media operation also bears at least one Indian signature. Last year, police in southern Indian city of Bangalore arrested a 24-year-old engineer who operated one of the main Twitter accounts associated with ISIS. The India-based Twitter account had 17,700 followers and circulated ISIS propaganda, including beheading videos.

The stated ambitions of ISIS to make India part of Muslim empire are not based on the historic Islamic conquest of India, mainly from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries, but are rooted in established, mainstream Islamic theology, central to an Islamic end-of-time prophecy in thehadith. Those reports of the sayings and actions Islam’s prophet Mohammad — collectively called Ghazwa-e-Hind — predict a final battle with India, and resulting in victory over the Hindus by the invading Muslim armies.

Instead of tackling the problem head-on, Indian Muslim organizations continue to deny the presence of the Islamic State and its affiliates in the country. On December 9, 2015, the umbrella body of Muslim organizations, the All India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat (AIMMM), issued a press release calling the reports of ISIS’s penetration into India “baseless and misleading.”

In 2014, this photo of Muslim ISIS supporters in India’s Tamil Nadu state went viral on Twitter.

Despite regular video footage broadcast by Indian news channels, showing Muslims regularly carrying ISIS flags during religious gatherings and protests in the Muslim majority region of Kashmir, Muslim leaders maintained their claim that “ISIS does not exist in Kashmir.” Instead, they portray themselves as victims of an elaborate conspiracy hatched by the Indian security forces to “pave the way for their large-scale arrests.”

Prime Minister Modi’s government has reacted to the heightened security threat posed by ISIS with a new counter-terrorism strategy. The measures could best be described as an attempt at “social engineering,” with the government pledging more spending on education and employment programs in the hope of keeping Muslim youths away from the influence of radical Islamists. The problem with this approach is that it addresses a problem that is not relevant. Most of the Indian Muslims known to have joined the ranks of ISIS seem to come from affluent families and hold professional degrees. All of them had the means to travel abroad to join ISIS — in a country where majority of people earn less than 3 dollars a day. Poor people are too busy just trying to exist.

If poverty were driving people to commit acts of terrorism, why are Indian’s Hindus not lining up to join their version of “jihadi” outfits?

Indian lawmakers and officials are trapped in the same politically correct — if in every other way incorrect — assumption as their Western counterparts. They also seem just as scared of calling Islamist terror by its rightful name. Instead, they appear to be trying to distract the public by throwing taxpayer money at ineffective social welfare programs. Perhaps these officials hope the public will think that at least “something” is being done and fail to see that, instead of countering ISIS, in they are really just fleeing from the problem.

Vijeta Uniyal is an Indian current affairs analyst based in Europe

• Among young European Muslims, support for suicide bombings range from 22% in Germany to 29% in Spain, 35% in Britain and 42% in France, according to a Pew poll. In the UK, one in five Muslims have sympathy for the Caliphate. Today more British Muslims join ISIS than the British army. In the Netherlands, a survey shows that the 80% of Dutch Turks see “nothing wrong” in ISIS.

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• Even if these polls and surveys must be taken with some caution, they all indicate a deep and vibrant “gray zone,” which is feeding the Islamic jihad in Europe and the Middle East. We are talking about millions of Muslims who show sympathy, understanding and affinity with the ideology and goals of ISIS.
• How many Muslims will this ISIS virus be able to infect in the vast European “gray zone”? The answer will determine our future.

• In the video produced by the pro-ISIS Palestinian Islamic Army (PIA), Hamas leaders are denounced for aligning themselves with moderate Arab leaders in the Gulf, who are described as “criminals and enemies of Islam.”

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• Apparently, Hamas has been too kind to Christians living in the Gaza Strip. The narrator blasts Hamas leaders for offering greetings to Christians on their holidays.
• It seems that there may be valid reasons for Egypt’s reluctance to reopen the Rafah border crossing with Gaza, as well as to Israel’s opposition to lifting the naval blockade on Gaza — initiated to prevent weapons from being imported to Hamas and other extremists in Gaza. The PIA video provides proof that the Gaza Strip has become a hub for jihadi groups posing a murderous threat not only to Israel and “the West,” but also to Muslims who are deemed by the terrorists as lacking in religious standards.

A new group calling itself the Palestinian Islamic Army (PIA) has popped up in the Gaza Strip, signaling incontrovertibly the growing influence of the Islamic State (ISIS) among Palestinians.

A thirty-minute video put out by the PIA shows its followers pledging allegiance to ISIS “Caliph” Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, and paints Hamas leaders as “apostates” and “infidels” for failing to implement Islamic sharia law in the Gaza Strip. The video constitutes proof positive that the ISIS ideology has infiltrated Gaza — a truth that Hamas has unsuccessfully been trying to conceal for the past year.

A frame from the recent video produced in Gaza by the Palestinian Islamic Army (PIA), in which the PIA followers pledge allegiance to ISIS “Caliph” Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.

In the video, Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashaal are denounced for aligning themselves with moderate Arab leaders in the Gulf, who are described as “criminals and enemies of Islam.” Apparently, Hamas has been too kind to Christians living in the Gaza Strip. The narrator blasts Hamas leaders for offering greetings to Christians on their holidays and condolences on the death of some of the community’s members. Hamas leaders are featured making visits to Christian “polytheists” in the Strip.

Yet Christians are not the only bedfellows prohibited to Hamas by the PIA. The video also damns Hamas leaders for their alliance with the Shiite Muslims of Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah. For the PIA, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is a “Satan” waging war on Sunni Muslims. And this “Satan” is in good company: “The Hamas government in the Gaza Strip is a sect of apostasy and blasphemy,” the PIA video declares. Muslims are urged vigorously to distance themselves from the heretical Hamas.

The PIA holds Hamas responsible for the deaths of 11 of its members in the Gaza Strip. “The Hamas members executed them in front of their mothers, and left the wounded to die after preventing ambulances from reaching them,” the video charges. “One of those killed in this massacre was brother Saeb Abu Obaida, who was executed by Hamas in cold blood.” According to the video, Abu Obaida was the “emir” of the PIA in the Gaza Strip.

One of the leaders and founders of the ISIS-affiliated PIA, Mu’taz Daghmash (known by his nickname Abu Al-Majd), was killed in an Israeli airstrike two years ago — much to the satisfaction of Hamas. The video reveals that arch-terrorist Daghmash was involved in the 2006 abduction of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and the assassination of two Palestinian security commanders in the Gaza Strip — Musa Arafat and Jad Tayeh.

A second jihadi mentioned in the video, Sultan Al-Harbi, is described as a senior member of ISIS who received military training in Yemen, Sudan and Libya before returning to the Gaza Strip. He too was killed last year in an Israeli airstrike.

Nidal Al-Ashi (aka Abu Huraira) was another PIA member in good standing, before becoming the first Palestinian to be killed in Syria while fighting for ISIS. Al-Ashi participated in multiple rocket attacks on “the enemies of Allah, the Jews,” and attacks on churches and other Christian targets in Gaza, as well attacks as on Western journalists and diplomats.

Egyptian security officials have attested repeatedly that the Gaza Strip has become a major exporter of jihadis to Sinai. Events have proven those officials correct. It seems that there may be valid reasons for Egypt’s reluctance to reopen the Rafah border crossing with Gaza, as well as to Israel’s opposition to lifting the naval blockade on Gaza — initiated to prevent weapons from being imported to Hamas and other extremists in the Gaza Strip. The PIA video provides definitive proof that the Gaza Strip has become a hub for jihadi groups posing a murderous threat not only to Israel and “the West,” but also to Muslims who are deemed by the terror

ists as lacking in religious standards.

Hamas has brought nothing but havoc to its people in the Gaza Strip. As for the Palestinian Authority and its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, all that is left for them is to be grateful for the presence of Israel in the West Bank. Without the Israeli military, Hamas and ISIS would eat Abbas and his Palestinian Authority for breakfast. One wonders: Is this the sort of state that Palestinians are seeking to establish?

Khaled Abu Toameh is an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem.

• The current wave of stabbings of Jews in Israel is an attempt to imitate Islamic State terrorists, who have been using knives to behead many Muslims and non-Muslims. In most attacks, the Palestinian terrorists focused on the victims’ throats and necks. They are trying to replace Islamic State jihadis as the chief “butchers” of humans in the Middle East.

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• How can our leaders in Ramallah accuse Jews of “contaminating” the Aqsa Mosque with their “filthy feet” at a time when our youths burn a religious site such as Joseph’s Tomb? Palestinian Authority security forces, which maintain a tight grip on Nablus, did nothing to prevent the arson attack.

• The attacks are an attempt to erase history so that Jews will not be able to claim any religious ties to the land. This is exactly what the Islamic State is doing in Syria and Iraq.

• Mahmoud Abbas and other Palestinian leaders are lying. This is not a struggle against “occupation” or a wall or a checkpoint. This is an Islamic State-inspired jihad to slaughter Jews and wipe Israel off the face of the earth.

By now, it has become clear that our young Palestinian men and women have learned a lot from the Islamic State (ISIS) terror group.

This new “intifada” that some Palestinians are now waging against Israel should be seen in the context of the wider jihad that is being waged by the Islamic State, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Boko Haram and Al-Qaeda against the “infidels, Zionists, apostates, Crusaders” and against non-extremist Muslims.

The tactics employed by Palestinian youths over the past two weeks show that they are doing their utmost to copy the crimes and atrocities committed by the Islamic State in Syria, Iraq, Libya and other Arab countries.

Although the Islamic State is not physically present in the West Bank or Jerusalem (largely thanks to the efforts of the Israel Defense Forces and other Israeli security agencies), there is no denying that its spirit and ideology are hovering over the heads of many of our young men and women.

The current wave of stabbings of Jews in Israel and the West Bank is an attempt to imitate Islamic State terrorists who have been using knives to behead many Muslims and non-Muslims during the past two years.

Like the Islamic State, many of the Palestinian terrorists who recently stabbed Jews saw themselves as jihadis acting in the name of Allah, the Quran and the Prophet Mohammed. This was evident by the Palestinian terrorists’ cries of “Allahu Akbar!” [“Allah is Greater!”] as they pounced on their victims. Our young men and women must have been watching too many videos of Islamic State jihadis shouting “Allahu Akbar!” as they beheaded or burned their victims.

The stabbing attacks that were carried out in the past two weeks were actually attempts to slit the throats of Jews, regardless of their age and gender. In most instances, the terrorists were aiming for the upper part of the body, focusing on the victims’ throats and necks. The Palestinian terrorists are now trying to replace Islamic State jihadis as the chief “butchers” of human beings in the Middle East. For now, they seem to be partially successful in their mission.

Our young men and women have learned from the Islamic State not only the practice of stabbing the “infidels,” but also how to destroy religious sites. On Thursday night, scores of Palestinians attacked and torched Joseph’s Tomb in the West Bank city of Nablus, in scenes reminiscent of the Islamic State’s destruction of ancient and holy sites in Syria and Iraq.

Last week, Palestinians torched Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus (left), in scenes reminiscent of the Islamic State’s destruction of holy sites in Syria and Iraq, such as the Armenian Church in Deir Zor (right).

The shrine was set on fire for no reason other than that it is revered as the tomb of a Jewish biblical figure. This is a site frequented by Jewish worshippers, although it is under the control of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its security forces in Nablus. It is worth noting that agreements signed between Israel and the Palestinians guarantee access for Jewish worshippers to Joseph’s Tomb, and there were assurances to the Israelis that the PA could be trusted to safeguard the site.

What the Palestinians did to Joseph’s Tomb is no different from what the Islamic State and other terrorist groups have been doing to holy sites and archaeological sites in Syria and Iraq. The Palestinians who attacked Joseph’s Tomb were obviously influenced by the crimes of the Islamic State against religious and ancient sites.

What is still not clear is why the Palestinian Authority security forces, which maintain a tight grip on Nablus, did nothing to prevent the arson attack.

How can our leaders in Ramallah accuse Jews of “contaminating” the Aqsa Mosque with their “filthy feet” at a time when our youths burn a religious site such as Joseph’s Tomb?

This is not the only Jewish holy site that has been targeted by Palestinians in recent years. While our leaders are screaming day and night about Jews “invading” and “desecrating” the Aqsa Mosque, Palestinians from Bethlehem have been throwing stones, petrol bombs and explosive devices at Rachel’s Tomb near the city. This has been going on for several years now, in an attempt to kill Jewish worshippers and the Israeli soldiers guarding Rachel’s Tomb.

The attacks on Joseph’s and Rachel’s Tombs in Nablus and Bethlehem are part of a Palestinian-Islamic campaign to destroy Jewish holy sites and deny any Jewish link to the land. The attacks are an attempt to rewrite history so that Jews will not be able to claim any religious ties to the land. This is exactly what the Islamic State is doing these days in Syria and Iraq: “erasing history that lets us to learn from the past.”

The terror campaign that we have been waging against Israel in the past few weeks shows that the Islamic State and Islamic fundamentalism and fascism have invaded the minds and hearts of many of our young men and women. We have turned the conflict with Israel into a jihadi war, the goal of which is to slaughter Jews, erase their history and expel them from this part of the world. This is not an intifada. This is brutal killing spree targeting Jews of all ages, including a 13-year-old boy, a 72-year-old woman and a 78-year-old man.

President Mahmoud Abbas and other Palestinian leaders are lying to us — and the rest of the world — when they describe the stabbing attacks against Jews as a “peaceful popular resistance.” This is not a struggle against “occupation” or a wall or a checkpoint. It is time to recognize that this is an Islamic State-inspired jihad to slaughter as many Jews as possible and wipe Israel off the face of the earth. When and if the Islamic State is finally eliminated or disappears, the Palestinians will emerge as the successors of one of the most brutal and murderous Islamic gangs that has surfaced in modern history.

Bassam Tawil is a scholar based in the Middle East.