Indian security forces are again waging pitched battles with violent Islamists on the streets of the Muslim-majority province of Kashmir. Mobs began congregating in towns on July 9, after the customary Friday prayers, to protest the killing the previous day by Indian security forces of a prominent Islamic terrorist, Burhan Wani. The protestors waved black ISIS flags and pelted stones at riot police. The riots have so far claimed 49 lives, including 2 policemen.

The mainstream media in the West have been quick to point the finger of blame on India for using — as BBC puts it — “excessive force.” “Allegations that the forces are trigger happy in the region have been a common criticism for years,” the BBC said. The mainstream media, however, did not take into account that more than 1,500 members of the Indian police and army were injured by the mobs.

Germany’s state-run Deutsche Welle featured a Pakistan-based social media campaign that criticised the use of BB guns by Indian riot police against stone-throwing mobs of Islamists.

The New York Times criticised the Indian Army for “escalating” the situation by confronting the armed Islamic terrorists in the first place:

“A dozen boys with a few guns — they were no threat to the Indian army, one of the largest in the world. There is no record of Burhan and his crew waging any attack. Their rebellion was symbolic, a war of images against India’s continuing occupation of Kashmir, where about half a million of its soldiers, paramilitary and armed police are still stationed.”

What New York Times did not say is that these “boys with guns” are members of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, a group designated as a terrorist organisation by both the European Union and the United States.

India is not “occupying” Kashmir, which is already part of India. They are waging a war against Islamic terrorism which has claimed the lives of more than 4,800 Indian civilians and more than 2,400 Indian security personnel.

The New York Times styled the dead terrorist, Burhan Wani, as if he were an affable gun-rights activist with a large Facebook following: “He built up a following on social media, posting pictures of himself and his associates in combat fatigues, often carrying arms.” After being at the forefront of gun control campaigns in U.S. for decades, the New York Times finally supports “open carry” — but only for terrorists waging jihad against “infidels.”

With reverence, the New York Times describes Wani, the “internet sensation” who had put “together a small band of Kashmiri militants. Barely out of their teens, they had taken to the forest and social media.” Elsewhere they called him a “22-year-old separatist who wanted an independent Kashmir and had built up a following on social media among disaffected Indian Kashmiri youth.”

Undoubtedly, Burhan Wani created a “social media sensation” among Muslim youth in Kashmir, as do all those gruesome ISIS beheading videos among Muslim youth in Middle East, North Africa and Europe.

The mainstream media, quick to blame India for the ongoing unrest, will not tell its readers how the province of Kashmir became the Islamist hellhole that it is today.

The minarets of the mosques, reserved in times of peace for prayer calls, proclaimed armed jihad against Hindus in towns and cities across the province. Kashmiri Hindus were given three options: either to convert to Islam, leave their ancestral homes, or face certain death.

“Eviction notices” were handed out to the leader of Hindu and Sikh community. The notices read:

“We order you to leave Kashmir immediately, otherwise your children will be harmed — we are not scaring you, but this land is only for Muslims, and is the land of Allah. Sikhs and Hindus cannot stay here”.

The notice ended with a threat; “If you do not obey, we will start with your children.” In an ultimate act of humiliation, Hindu men were told to move out of Kashmir without taking their property or women.

Hamas-style marches took place in towns and cities across Kashmir. Jihadis brandishing Kalashnikov assault rifles marched in military formations, targeting Hindu men, women and children.

Members of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, the same terrorist group that the New York Times affectionately calls the “crew” of “boys with guns,” have been at the forefront of killing, raping and pillaging Hindus.

The campaign to purge Kashmir of its native Hindu and Sikh population has been one of the most effective ethnic cleansing campaign of recent times. An estimated 95% of Kashmir’s Hindus were forced to leave — a cleansing that made Kashmir more than 90% Muslim. Some 400,000 Kashmiri Hindu Pandits were forced to live as internally displaced refugees inside India. Hindu temples were desecrated and destroyed, wiping out the signs of Hinduism from its ancient land.

Jihadis, trained and armed by Pakistan, after purging Kashmir of its native Hindu and Sikh populations, are now waging a terrorist campaign to carve out a separate Islamic country in that part of India.

Certainly, the Indian state also carries responsibility for the current state of affairs in Kashmir. Successive Indian governments have failed to intervene or provide safety to Hindus and Sikhs during the ethnic cleansing of 1990s. After more than 25 years, no Indian government has made any serious effort to help displaced help Hindus and Sikhs return back to their homes in Kashmir.

Left: Indian soldiers carry the coffin of Indian Army Colonel M N Rai, who was killed in January 2015 by terrorists in Kashmir. Right: Masked Islamist radicals in Kashmir display a version of the black flag of jihad.

If Kashmiri Hindus and Sikhs cannot go back to their original homes due to security risks, it would only be fair to allocate them enclosed and fortified housing at other locations in Kashmir. If Indian authorities, in their characteristic incompetence, cannot guarantee security to returning Hindus and Sikhs, they could at least supply them arms to defend themselves.

Only reversing the tide of ethnic cleansing can put an end to this Islamist takeover. Arming the police with BB guns — regardless to how dangerous the BBC or the New York Times editorial staff might consider them — is not going to put an end to the Islamist aspiration of turning Kashmir into another “Islamic State”.

Vijeta Uniyal is an Indian current affairs analyst based in Europe.

Islamic militants are stepping up a propaganda war against Spain. In recent months, Islamic State and other jihadist groups have produced a flurry of videos and documents calling on Muslims to reconquer al-Andalus.

Al-Andalus is the Arabic name given to those parts of Spain, Portugal and France occupied by Muslim conquerors (also known as the Moors) from 711 to 1492. Many Muslims believe that territories Muslims lost during the Christian Reconquest of Spain still belong to the realm of Islam. They claim that Islamic law gives them the right to re-establish Muslim rule there.

A recent Islamic State document includes a list of grievances against Spain for wrongs done to Muslims since the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa on July 16, 1212, when the Christian forces of King Alfonso VIII of Castile routed the Almohad Muslim rulers of the southern half of the Iberian Peninsula. More than 100,000 Muslims were killed in the battle, which was a key victory in the Catholic Monarchs’ “Reconquista” of Spain.

The document said that since the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition in 1478, Spain “has done everything to destroy the Koran.” It said that Spain tortured Muslims, including burning them alive. Therefore, according to the Islamic State, “Spain is a criminal state that usurps our land.” The document calls on jihadists to “reconnoiter airline and train routes for attacks.” It also calls on followers to “poison food and water” with insecticides.

The document concludes: “The actions of your ancestors are the reason for our actions today.”

On July 15, 2016, Islamic State released its first propaganda video with Spanish subtitles. The high quality of the Spanish translation, both in writing and in syntax, led some analysts to conclude that that the translator’s mother tongue is Spanish and that the subtitling may even have been done inside Spain.

On June 3, Islamic State released a video — “Month of Ramadan, Month of Conquest” — which mentions al-Andalus four times. Spain is the only non-Muslim country mentioned in the video.

On May 30, Islamic State released a two-page document in Spanish in which it issued threats directly against Spain. The document states:

“We will kill any ‘innocent’ Spanish infidel we find in Muslim lands, and if not we will reach your land. Our religion and our faith lives among you, and even though you do not know our names or what we look like and do not even know whether we are European in origin or not, we will kill you in your cities and towns according to our plan, in the same way that you are killing our families.”

On January 31, Islamic State released a video in which one of its Spanish jihadists warned Spain that it would “pay a very heavy price” for expelling Muslims from al-Andalus. The eight-minute video included the following statement:

“I swear by Allah that you will pay a very heavy price and your demise will be very painful. We will recover al-Andalus, Allah willing. Oh dear Andalus! You thought we forgot about you. I swear by Allah we have never forgotten you. No Muslim can forget Córdoba, Toledo or Xàtiva. There are many faithful and sincere Muslims who swear they will return to al-Andalus.”

An armed, masked Islamic State jihadist appears in a propaganda video, where he warns Spain that it would “pay a very heavy price” for expelling Muslims from al-Andalus hundreds of years ago. The Spanish subtitle above reads “Oh dear Andalus! You thought we forgot about you. I swear by Allah we have never forgotten you. No Muslim can forget Córdoba, Toledo or Xàtiva.”

On January 7, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which is fighting Islamic State for hegemony of North Africa, released a video calling for jihadist attacks in Madrid as a strategy to help Muslims recover the Spanish North African exclaves of Ceuta and Melilla.

Another Islamic State video vowed to liberate al-Andalus from non-Muslims. A jihadist speaking in Spanish with a heavy North African accent said:

“I say to the entire world as a warning: We are living under the Islamic flag, the Islamic caliphate. We will die for it until we liberate those occupied lands, from Jakarta to Andalusia. And I declare: Spain is the land of our forefathers and we are going to take it back with the power of Allah.”

Meanwhile, 33 jihadists were arrested in Spain in 17 different raids during the first nine months of 2016, according to the Spanish Interior Ministry.

Most recently, two Spanish citizens of Moroccan origin — Karim El Idrissi Soussi, 27, and a second man identified as 18-year-old O.S.A.A — were arrested in Madrid on jihad terror charges. One of the detainees is a 27-year-old computer science student who watched jihadist propaganda videos in class and threatened to massacre his fellow students.

According to the Interior Ministry, Soussi tried to join the Islamic State but was detained by Turkish authorities while attempting to cross the border into Syria. He was deported and just recently returned to Spain.

The Interior Ministry said Soussi’s penchant for radical Islam became evident in November 2015, when the secondary school where he was studying computer science held a moment of silence to honor the victims of the jihadist attacks in Paris. According to teachers and students, Soussi shouted slogans in support of the attacks which killed 130 people, including 89 at the Bataclan Theater.

On other occasions, Soussi publicly justified jihadist attacks by Islamic State, which he said was the ideal form of government for all Muslims. According to the Interior Ministry, Soussi visited a public library almost daily to connect to the internet and browse jihadist websites. He allegedly created fake profiles and posted jihadist material on social media sites. Soussi also criticized so-called moderate Muslims and expressed hope that someday Spain would become an Islamic emirate.

Soussi allegedly watched Islamic State propaganda videos during his computer science class and repeatedly threatened to bring weapons to school to kill his classmates.

The other jihadist, O.S.A.A., was arrested for the offenses of “glorifying jihadist terrorism” and “self-indoctrination for terrorist purposes.” The Interior Ministry did not provide further details.

A total of 636 jihadists have been detained in the country since the March 2004 Madrid train bombings, in which nearly 200 people were killed and more than 2,000 injured.

A recent study by the Madrid-based Elcano Institute found that of the 150 jihadists arrested in Spain during the past four years, 124 (81.6%) were linked to Islamic State and 26 (18.4%) to al-Qaeda.

Of those linked to Islamic State, 45.3% were Spanish citizens, 41.1% were Moroccans and 13.6% had other nationalities. In terms of birth, 45.6% were born in Morocco and 39.1% were born in Spain. Only 15.3% were born in other countries.

In terms of immigration, 51.7% were first-generation immigrants, 42.2% were second- or third-generation immigrants, and 6.1% had no immigration background, which implies they are Spanish converts to Islam.

In terms of residency, 29.8% were arrested in Barcelona, 22.1% in Spain’s North African exclave of Ceuta, and 15.3% in Madrid. The others were arrested in more than a dozen other localities across the country.

Islamic State has suffered setbacks on the battlefields of the Middle East, but the jihadist terror threat remains undiminished. In the words of Spanish terrorism analyst Florentino Portero: “Islamic State is answering military defeats with more terror.”

Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter.