Editor’s note: Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin is an online, subscription intelligence news service from the creator of WorldNetDaily.com – a journalist who has been developing sources around the world for the last 25 years.
The Arabic message accompanying the pictures of the beheading of American hostage Paul Johnson suggests those perpetrating the murder in Saudi Arabia were mimicking what they saw in the slaughter of 26-year-old Nick Berg in Iraq, says a translator and expert in Islam and the Quran, Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin reports.
The message, untranslated by other English-language media, like the one accompanying the Berg video, concludes with a call to Muslim faithful to kill all non-believers found in the Islamic world. That message was described by the same analyst, Joel Cohen, with a master’s degree in Semitic languages from Princeton University and a student of the Quran at the University of Chicago, as a “how-to” training tape for the murder of non-Muslims by other terrorists around the globe.
“While the Nick Berg document was composed by someone with a high level of Quranic exegesis and most likely a cleric, this document was penned by someone with far less ability, showing that the author of this document is attempting to copy and repeat what he had seen in the video,” concludes Cohen.
Al-Qaida took responsibility for the slaying of Johnson and four of those believed to be responsible were killed hours later by Saudi security forces. The leader of the group was Abdelaziz al-Muqrin, described by al-Qaida as the commander of the group’s operations on the Arabian Peninsula and a veteran of numerous jihadi wars in Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Chechnya.
In the message accompanying the horrific photos of Johnson’s beheading, the writer cited the following Quranic verse in justifying the slaying: “If you gain the mastery over them in war, disperse, with them, those who follow them, that they may remember.” (Quran 8:57)
Cohen sees as significant that the killers referred to Johnson as a “Christian.”
“In most Islamic militant documents, the actual word Christian is seldom used, instead, using the most preferable ‘crusader,'” he explains. “This was done originally with the belief that certain members of the Christian community were supportive of their goals. … Islamic militants as whole avoid the attacking of the Christian religion in their public documents, however, in this document, we see a subtle change of course.”
The Arabic message decries those who complain about the kidnapping and murder of Johnson “whilst these same voices were silent and filled with cowardice from saying a word of truth, by which they free their conscious at least, and by which support is granted to the weak oppressed imprisoned and tortured Muslims at the hands of the slaves of the Cross, and the Taw?gh?t of Abu Ghrayb, H?’ir, Guantanamo, ar-Ruways and others.”
Again, Cohen sees a direct frontal attack on Christianity.
“The reference to ‘slaves of the cross’ is a subtle change in verbiage but significant,” says Cohen. “To the writer, they are now at war with Christianity itself. The killing of Robert Jacobs, a Jewish-American earlier in the week seems to illustrate the point that to the writer of this document, what matters is not that the person is a Christian or a Jew, but simply that they are not Muslim. That enough is call for death.”
Cohen observes that while the Nick Berg video and accompanying message were designed for the consumption of the Islamic body of believers, the Johnson photos and message had a broader purpose.
“While the Nick Berg video was a training video, this death is meant as an example and is released for the public literally to terrify them,” he says.
Cohen cites the next part of the message as his reason for this statement: “… so that they know for certainty, that anyone who treads our land from them, will receive this same punishment, and Allah guides to the correct path.”
“This is a direct call to kill anyone who is not Muslim who comes into a so-called Islamic country regardless of who or what they believe,” Cohen explains. “While the justification for Paul Johnson’s death was that he was a ‘millitary Christian,’ the call now is to kill anyone who is not Muslim who sets foot on so called Islamic land. What is vague and chilling is that the exact limits of what the author understands as Islamic land are not defined clearly. The call is to behead all non-Muslims in the same way.”
The Nick Berg execution is believed to have been carried out by al-Qaida ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The grisly film included a statement, signed off with Zarqawi’s name. The CIA concluded Zarqawi was probably the one who beheaded Berg.
Johnson was a Lockheed Martin employee from New Jersey. He was 49.
Cohen adds the document indicates the purpose of the jihad as envisioned by Johnson’s killers is to create a utopian Islamicstate “where non-Muslims simply don’t exist. The people who are promoting Islamist terror don’t simply wish the USA to leave Iraq or Saudia Arabia: The long-term goal is the hope of a worldwide Shariah state, Dar al Islam, where Jews and Christians are simply eradicated. To those who promote that ideology, the beheadings are simply a sign that this age has begun.”
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