The jihadis of Philadelphia… and Ireland?

The Danish cartoons that inspired the Swedish cartoonist, helpfully censored

Interesting — the FBI and CIA have apparently foiled a terrorist cell targeting a Swedish cartoonist who poked fun at the Muslim prophet Mohammed.

Why is it so interesting?

The cartoonist who was targeted, Lars Vilks, is not American. He is Swedish… and the assassins, it seems, are Irish:

Seven people were arrested in the Republic of Ireland yesterday as part of an international investigation into a conspiracy to murder a Swedish cartoonist whose work has led to death threats from Muslim extremists.

Four men and three women were arrested in the cities of Cork and Waterford and other locations across southern Ireland in early-morning raids, as police seized mobile phones, computers and documents. The suspects are originally from Morocco and Yemen and aged from their mid-20s to late 40s. They were reportedly in Ireland legally and had refugee status.

The raid was conducted by the Irish Gardai in the cities of Cork and Waterford. The Gardai acted on intelligence provided by the American CIA, FBI and several other unnamed foreign agencies.

Unmentioned in the quote above is the fact that Irish authorities are now reporting the terrorist cell included several Muslim converts.

The al-Qaeda linked Islamic State of Iraq militant group placed a $100,000 bounty on Vilks’ head (with a 50% bonus for having him “slaughtered like a lamb”) after the Swedish cartoonist published several cartoons depicting Mohammed as a dog in Swedish newspaper Nerikes Allehanda in 2007. The cartoon is freely available on Wikipedia. Following publication of the cartoons, a flurry of frenzied overreaction took place. Iran and Pakistan filed formal protests against Sweden, while the governments of Egypt and Jordan officially condemned Nerikes and Vilks instead of Sweden as a whole. Subsequent threats against Swedish interests in Syria led to Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt apologizing to the Grand Mufti of Damascus for antagonizing Muslims. All this was before the death threats.

Vilks drew his cartoons in the wake of the Jyllands-Posten cartoon controversy, where a Danish newspaper published 12 blasphemous cartoons insulting Mohammed, which can again be viewed on Wikipedia.

The Jyllands-Posten affair led to angry mobs attacking the Danish embassies in Tehran, Beirut and Damascus along with massive economic boycotts against Denmark in the Muslim world (Editor’s note: Denmark is a major exporter of dairy products to the Middle East).

The cartoonists who participated in the contest were forced to enter police protection after dozens of credible death threats.

Just months ago, cartoonist Kurt Westergaard and his granddaughter were attacked when a knife-wielding Somali jihadist broke into his house. Westergaard hid in his panic room while his granddaughter was left alone in the living room with the Somali. The granddaughter, and Westergaard, were unharmed after Danish police shot the intruder.

So what were the FBI and CIA doing breaking up an Irish terrorist cell?

The obvious answer is that, in the course of their own investigations, the intelligence agencies encountered information of interest to the Gardai about Irish jihadis.

Both the FBI and CIA are avid readers of jihadist bulletin boards, blogs and websites published in English and Arabic. Both have their own moles in the amorphous blobs of western Islamist organizations that style themselves as homegrown al-Qaeda imitators. In the age of globalization, a threat against a Swedish cartoonist by a Maghrebi in Cork can easily be seen by a CIA analyst in Rockville before it is seen by his counterpart in Dublin. It’s strange, but so is life.

Also strange is that American authorities arrested a white female convert to Islam in the Philly ‘burbs on charges of plotting to kill an unnamed Swedish individual. The woman, 46-year-old housewife Colleen Renee LaRose, is a recent convert to Islam who styled herself as “JihadJane” on her truly hilarious MySpace page.

LaRose was arrested in October but her case was kept under seal until this week.

The question: How did the paths of a 46-year-old Philadelphia housewife and an irish terrorist cell intersect? And can inept suburban MySpace users really be dangerous terrorists?

We’re looking forward to the answers to those questions.