Episode 151 - Church Threats, Earthquakes and ISIS Metastasizing

Churches get serious about security in light of recent threats, and ISIS fighters around the globe renew their commitment to murder and mayhem.  All that coming up on today's hot zone.

 

Hi folks.  It's another beautiful day out here in Reno Nevada, where I"ve been for the past week or so caring for my mom, who has pancreatic cancer.  I really appreciate all the prayers and messages of support.   Mom is comfortable and this week she'll start the treatment doctors are telling us could prolong her life by months or even years.  So keep praying!  

 

Well churches across the United States are getting serious about security as they realize that they are at risk from the next whackjob with a grudge who is looking for a soft target.  

 

Last week I saw news that some jewish synagogues in the US are doing actual active shooter drills during services to keep all their folks on their toes.  That might sound crazy, but we actually filmed this short dramatization at the end of one of our church services in Beckley West Virginia a few years ago.  

 

[hicks attack]

 

But that's west virginia.  Now this is happening in Philadelphia and other places.  And none too soon.  On June 19th a 21 year old Syrian refugee (living in Pittsburgh) was arrested for attempting to provide material support for terrorism to ISIS.  He was also attempting to radicalize others.   Mustafa Mousab Alowemer planned to attack a Pittsburgh church (according to court documents) with explosives in an attempt to inspire ISIS supporters in the US to conduct similar attacks.  This is not the first time this sort of aspiration was thwarted by the FBI.  He was following through with that plan when he distributed DIY plans to construct an improvised explosive device (IED).  Praise God that he was actually sending the plans to an undercover agent.   As late as June of 2019, he was distributing ISIS propaganda and offered to identify potential targets in the Pittsburgh area.  Demonstrating his intentions, he made a "martyrdom" video pledging support to the leader of ISIS (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi) and requested a gun with a silencer (a telling detail that he likely planned to kill people "quietly" in the beginning of his attack as he approached his target). 

 

Look, there have been enough of these attacks around the globe now that nobody can make a serious case that churches aren't at risk.  If you are a churchgoer, make sure your leadership is taking security seriously.  Full disclosure, I'm on the board of Lionheart International Services Group, a company that does church security training.  For all my podcast subscribers I'm sending out links to our church security video training series, so head over to patreon.com/hotzone and subscribe to support the podcast and you'll get those and lots of other goodies.

 

Okay, I'm sure you heard about the earthquakes in California last week, and for a quake that was measured above 7, I have to say it's amazing there wasn't more damage and injuries.  A quake like that in many countries would result in thousands of dead from collapsed buildings and such.  Haiti comes to mind.  Well, last week in Medellin, Colombia a four-story building collapsed all by itself - no quake needed.  File this under reasons why building codes are a good thing.  Fortunately, only six people were believed to have been in the building, and at least three of them have already been found alive.

 

In haiti, where building codes were all but nonexistent, when the earthquake hit back in 2010 in some places ninety percent of the buildings collapsed in a matter of seconds.  A quarter million people died.  So as much as building inspectors, permits and such are a pain in the backside, this is the reason they are needed.

 

From one disaster to another - in Greece wildfires have forced the evacuations of several villages.  That's not really international news, but I just wanted to mention it because we have this awesome footage of a couple of firefighting planes dumping water on the fires.  Those are some pretty amazing pilots.

 

Now let's talk ISIS.  We've talked a lot about how the Islamic State might be kaput as a country, but it's definitely still around as a global terror organization.  In Khorasan province, ISIS fighters are claiming responsibility for an increasing number of attacks, and recently released a 12-minute video pledging allegiance to Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi.  They've released similar videos this year featuring jihadists in West Africa, the Sinai, the Caucasus and the Philippines, all renewing their fealty to Baghdadi.

 

Originally believed to be from Samarra, Iraq, Baghdadi has been the leader of ISIS since before it was called ISIS, back when Al Qaeda Iraq changed its name to The Islamic State of Iraq back in 2010. Since then, he's presided over the rise of one of the most brutal and publicity-saavy terror groups in modern history, and his many escapes from assassination or capture by western governments has earned him the nickname "the invisible sheikh" or " the ghost."  

 

In reality, we had this guy in our hands back in 2004, when he was arrested and sent to the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq for about nine months.  But we let him go, along with a bunch of other prisoners who were deemed to be "low risk".  Many of those guys also ended up as leaders in ISIS.  So great job, US intelligence!

 

Since getting crushed in Syria, ISIS has lived on through tens of thousands of jihadis around the world. That's because ISIS isn't an organization so much as an idea, kind of like anarchy.  You can kill the followers but you'll have a hard time killing the idea.  

 

Take the fact that there are still tens of thousands of ISIS brides languishing in camps in syria, where their Kurdish caretakers don't have the money or the manpower to care for them.  Many of these women are still die hard believers and claim that ISIS in Syria will rise again just as soon as their kids are raised.  

 

Germany has started to prosecute some of these women for war crimes. A 27-year old German woman is in court there being charged with a host of crimes including the murder of a 5-year-old Yezidi girl whom the ISIS woman and her husband bought as a slave, then left chained up outside like a dog in the hot sun until the poor little girl died of exposure.