Daniel Greenfield
Daniel GreenfieldJNS photo

(JNS) As far back as 2013, Pakistani Muslim terrorists plotted to take “foreign Jews” hostage to trade for “Lady Al-Qaeda.” In 2022, a Pakistani Muslim terrorist actually went out and did it.

The hostage crisis at Congregation Beth Israel, a Reform Temple in Texas, ended with Faisal Akram of Blackburn—another post-industrial English town where Muslims make up a third of the population and Pakistanis account for more than 10 percent—dead and his Jewish hostages set free.

Back home, the Blackburn Muslim Community page announced that “Faisal Akram has sadly departed from this temporary world” and prayed that Allah “bless him with the highest ranks of Paradise.”

The BMC page has previously promoted a Human Relief Foundation “charity” event to raise money for “Palestinians”; HRF was banned by Israel over its ties to Hamas.

The town has produced no shortage of jihadists, including the youngest terrorist in the United Kingdom; a number of jihadis who traveled to join Islamic State; an associate of shoe bomber Richard Reid; and a terrorist who played a key role in an Al-Qaeda plot that targeted New York and Washington, D.C.

Blackburn is one of the most segregated towns in the country and has been described as a “no-go zone.” The area that produced the Temple Terrorist has the highest Muslim population outside of London, with some claiming that flying the English flag there has been effectively outlawed.

The setting couldn’t be any better for the media to whitewash Akram with the familiar excuse that he was the victim of failed integration in the United Kingdom. His family, in an even more familiar excuse, is claiming that he was “suffering from mental health issues.”

That, along with the claim by FBI Special Agent in Charge Matt DeSarno that Akram “was singularly focused on one issue, and it was not specifically related to the Jewish community,” is becoming the very familiar narrative for covering up the latest Muslim terror attack.

But anti-Semitism, like Islamism, was in the air Faisal Akram breathed in Blackburn.

Salim Mulla, Blackburn’s former mayor and current Labour councilor, claimed that Israel was behind ISIS and school shootings in America. Last year, four Muslim men from Blackburn took part in a “Palestinian” convoy while shouting, “F*** the Jews … F*** all of them. F*** their mothers, f*** their daughters and show your support for Palestine. Rape their daughters and we have to send a message like that. Please do it for the poor children in Gaza.”

Aafia Siddiqui, aka Lady Al-Qaeda, on whose behalf the Texas synagogue attack took place, was married to the nephew of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and had assorted recipes for mass murder in her possession when she was captured. She demanded at her trial that jurors undergo DNA tests to prove that they were not Jewish. And the Aafia Foundation posted bizarre anti-Semitic rants about the “degree of poisonous venum [sic] within the heart of American mainstream Jewry.”

The hatred of Jews, and the hatred of all non-Muslims, is a crucial motive for Islamic terrorism.

If Blackburn is a miserable place, the tale of the Akram family may reveal why. The official family statement by the terrorist’s brother, Gulbar Akram, claims that “although my brother was suffering from mental health issues we were confident that he would not harm the hostages,” and denies that the FBI rescued the hostages. “Don’t believe the bull#### in the media they were released from the fire exit and not rescued,” wrote Gulbar Akram.

The Blackburn Community message describes the terrorist as having brothers named “Gulbar,” “Malik” and the “Late Gulzameer Akram.”

Two brothers from Blackburn named Gulbar and Gulzameer Akram had been locked up over stolen cars. Another time, a Blackburn resident named Gulbar Akram almost had his nose sliced off. A Gulzameer Akram ran a massive counterfeiting operation from a Blackburn home. A Malik Akram was locked up for harassing girls.

Were all of them members of the same clan?

The best way to cover up a terrorist attack is to shift the context. And that’s what they’re doing. But it’s important to dig into the true context to understand the true origins of the Texas attack.

In his book “Among the Mosques,” ex-Islamist Ed Husain describes Blackburn as “another global hub for the Deobandis and the Tableeghi Jamaat,” where the mosques pray for the destruction of the enemies of Islam and texts declare that “there can be no reconciliation between Islam and democracy.”

The Deobandis, who control many of the mosques in Blackburn, originated the Taliban.

Aafia Siddiqui is a Deobandi and a popular cause with Pakistanis. A few years ago, the Pakistani Senate even named the Islamic terrorist the “Daughter of the Nation.”

Indian Mujahideen co-founder Riyaz Bhatkal had plotted to take Jews hostage a decade ago in order to force Siddiqui’s release. British Muslim “charities” were a major source of funding for the jihadist group, as they are for many Pakistani jihadist enterprises.

While much has been made of the advocacy on behalf of Siddiqui by CAIR, top Muslim politicians in the United Kingdom also vocally demanded her release, including Lord Nazir Ahmed and Lord Altaf Sheikh.

When Husain visited Blackburn, he warned that “it is clear that a caliphist subculture thrives here, a separate world from the rest of British society.”

Tableeghi Jamaat, whose mosques are known as “breeding grounds” for jihad, is closely intertwined with Pakistani Islamism and vectored Islamic terrorism. Quite a number have joined Al Qaeda. It is no coincidence that so many Islamic terrorists have come out of Blackburn.

Nor is it a coincidence that the latest Islamic terrorist attack on America originated there.

Faisal Akram traveled to Texas, where “Lady Al-Qaeda” sleeps at the Federal Medical Center, Carswell in Fort Worth. He was one of many Muslim pilgrims seeking to extricate her. Just last fall, the Dallas-Forth Worth CAIR and the Pakistani terror regime claimed that Siddiqui had been assaulted in U.S. custody in the latest of many efforts on her behalf.

Faisal’s target, a progressive Reform Temple which happened to carry the traditional name of Congregation Beth Israel, was ideally selected to fit Muslim anti-Semitic obsessions with both Israel and Jews.

The anti-Semitic rants, the hostage crisis and the rapid cover-up are all regular features of life for Jews in Europe. Changing demographics are making them a new reality for American Jews.

Any American city or town can become the new Blackburn. That’s the harsh lesson here.

In Blackburn, Muslims anticipate the Texas jihadist ascending to the “highest ranks of Paradise.” More Muslims from Blackburn, marinating in the same hatred for America, for Jews and for anyone unlike them, will follow in his footsteps.

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical left and Islamic terrorism.

This article was first published by FrontPage Magazine.