Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law, is one of the planners who initiated 9/11. He was sitting next to bin Laden when the al-Qaeda leader took credit for the terror attacks.
Now we have learned that Abu Ghaith was arrested in Turkey last month after he entered that country from Iran on a false passport. Turkey said it would deport him to Kuwait, through Jordan. He was intercepted by U.S. officials in Jordan last week and is expected to be prosecuted in federal court in New York. Peter King, R-N.Y., responded: “Definitely, one by one, we are getting the top echelons of al-Qaeda.”
There is no doubt that Abu Ghaith’s arrest is significant. He has served as chief spokesman for al-Qaeda and has been vital to the organization’s popularity among young adults. He may also have recruited the terrorists who attacked U.S. Marines on Faylaka Island in 2002.
In October 2001, Abu Ghaith praised the 9/11 hijackers and threatened more attacks: “The Americans should know that the storm of plane attacks will not abate, with God’s permission. There are thousands of the Islamic nation’s youths who are eager to die just as the Americans are eager to live.” The next year, he claimed that al-Qaeda has “the right to kill four million Americans, including one million children, displace double that figure, and injure and cripple hundreds and thousands.”
Will his arrest deter other Islamist terrorists? Unfortunately, the answer is most likely no. Abu Ghaith, in an article titled “Tests of Suffering on the Way of Jihad,” claims that “Islamic history is full of events and evidences, which taught us that the nation could fulfill its goals and be established only through the sacrifices of its sons in favor of Allah . . . Those heroic prisoners, who were arrested either in Afghanistan or Pakistan . . . played their role for their Lord, religion, and nation. Now it is our turn to play their role . . . The arrest of some Muslims should not hit the rest of them by weakness, enervation, fear, or passivity. This is the price of glory, victory, and power.”
To defeat such a determined foe, we must be equally determined. It is vital that America’s Christians pray for our military as they defend us from the multiplied thousands who believe that killing our citizens is a defense of Islam required by the Qur’an. It is also vital that we pray for spiritual awakening in the Muslim world to continue. I ask God every day for 100 million Muslims to come to Christ this year. Will you join me?
NOTE: To learn more about this critical subject, I invite you to read my Radical Islam: What You Need To Know.
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