[How is it that only the Israelis know that World War III started on September 11, 2001?]

Sooner or later it was bound to happen ? Jihad would come to the United States. (Not that it hasn't been here since the Oklahoma City bombing, mind you.) And by this statement, I don't mean attacks on America's infrastructure, such as the assault on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the apparent attempted assault on the White House that occurred on 11 September 2001. No. I'm thinking of something much more simple than elaborate plans to fly commercial aircraft into buildings. I'm thinking of something as simple as the murder of a Jew by a Muslim. In Houston, Texas, no less.

The Muslim man has confessed to the crime, which his own roommate witnessed as a near decapitation of the Jewish victim.

Amazingly, the press is reporting that Houston police say they don't have a clue as to why he did it.

Honest, I'm not making this up....

The story made the January 12 edition of the Houston Chronicle and WorldNetDaily.com on January 13. According to the details of the reports, killer Mohammed Ali Alayed, a Saudi Arabian national, was in the US on a student visa when he slashed the throat of Ariel Sellouk, the son of Moroccan Jewish immigrants to the United States and a personal friend. Alayed "went to a local mosque after the killing."

I called the Houston Chronicle's Andrew Tilghman, who is assigned to the paper's Court House Bureau, to discuss the matter. Mr. Tilghman wrote the Chronicle story on the slaying. We discussed the puzzling statement that appears in paragraph three of the WorldNetDaily story, concerning the Houston Police Department's alleged inability to attribute religious motives to the slaying, despite the "religious reawakening" of Alayed to a "conservative, Islamic lifestyle".

Does one light a candle to see the sun?

It turns out, according to my interview with Tilghman, that the prosecutors chose not to pursue hate crime indictments because by doing so, the prosecutors risked complicating the case.

"Does it really matter why Alayed murdered Mr. Sellouk?" mused Mr. Tilghman during our conversation.

Good point, Andrew.

I concluded my conversation with Mr. Tilghman by suggesting to him that I'd attempt to send him a list of other Islam-motivated murders that have taken place within the borders of the United States of America since the Oklahoma City bombing. I didn't bother to mention that I won't count the 2,800 Islam-motivated murders that took place in the United States on 11 September 2001.

After all, as President Dubya points out, Islam is a religion of peace.

Concluding Thoughts
We are Dar al-Harb* ? and proud of it.

* Dar al-Harb: The Domain at War: Territory under the hegemony of unbelievers, which is on terms of active or potential belligerency with the Domain of Islam.... (Glossary of Islamic Terms by Muhammad Ishaq Zahid; Copyright © 1998-1999 by The Sabr Foundation.)