Must Our Leaders Always Lie about Islamic Terrorism?

By Timothy Furnish Published on January 7, 2025

New Year’s 2025 started with a deadly bang: a Muslim terrorist killed 14 and injured dozens more in a truck jihad in New Orleans. He had also planted s improvised explosive devices in the area beforehand.

Shamsud Din Jabbar, the perpetrator, died in a subsequent firefight with police. Jabbar was an American from Texas, and an Army veteran — not an immigrant. He was flying an “ISIS flag” from his truck bumper, which the FBI initially covered up — literally. (More on that later.)

Every time such an attack occurs, the American media and government at all levels — particularly federal — show us the truth of Proverbs 26:11. Here’s a list of the major elements of vomitus to which they return, repeatedly:

Let’s examine each of these, in turn.

A List of Lies

“Inspired by ISIS.” Necessary but not sufficient to explain such jihads. What is ISIS, after all? The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham [Syria]. One of 53 ISLAMIC terrorist groups, according to the US State Department. These ISLAMIC groups make up 78% of the world’s terrorist organizations (68 total).

What ideas link all of the ISLAMIC ones? Slavish devotion to the Quran and hadiths (sayings of Muhammad), which include Allah’s orders to subjugate the entire world and impose shari`a, Islamic law. Huge numbers of Muslims who do not belong to terrorist groups believe exactly the same things. Large percentages of shari`a-supporters, in turn, favor stoning for adultery and the death penalty for leaving Islam.

So ISIS is neither “radical” nor “extremist” in its Islamic doctrines — only, arguably, in how violently it wishes to enact them. But even that violence is embedded in Islam. Shamsud Din Jabbar, then, was not “inspired by ISIS.” He was inspired by Islam itself.

“ISIS flag.” Jabbar drove into the Bourbon Street crowd with an ISIS flag festooned on the back of his truck. Its sports an Arabic phrase in white letters on a black background that translates as “there is no deity but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger.” That’s not an “ISIS” message — it’s the key profession of Islamic faith, the shahada. Starting in the ninth century AD, Muslim armies have carried identical or similar flags. The shahada also bedecks the modern Saudi and Afghan flags. So Jabbar’s flag proclaimed his allegiance not just to one terrorist group, but to the central tenet of the world’s second-largest faith.
“Radicalized online.” This is perhaps the ultimate example of stressing process over substance. Is it really “radicalization” (or “extremism”) to fully embrace the literal teachings of a religion? Jihad fi sabil Allah, “holy war in the path of Allah,” is not a fringe edict in Islam — it’s central. The Quran enjoins it The founder of Islam himself led armies in battle and ordered enemies beheaded. That these teachings are emphatically espoused online by imams doesn’t mean the internet is to blame; these ideas come from the Quran, hadiths, and Islamic history. (Don’t behead the messenger.) Jabbar and his ilk are “radicalized” — that is, weaponized — by ISLAM, not by the internet. (And the claim that he learned his jihadist ways online may well be overstated.)
“Acted alone.” This may be literally true, but ideologically it’s farcical. As I said earlier, almost 80% of the world’s terrorist groups are Muslim in orientation. Here are some key findings of the “Global Terrorism Index 2024.”

ISIS remains the world’s deadliest group, although Hamas killed the most people (1,210) in one attack on October 7, 2023, in Israel.

The top four deadliest terrorist groups are all Islamic: ISIS; Hamas; Jama`at Nusrah al-Islam wa-Muslimin (JNIM), the West African “Support Group for Islam and Muslims;” and Somalia’s al-Shabab. These four killed 4,443 people in 2023.

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Specific recent examples? On December 20 a Saudi Muslim doctor drove his car into a Christmas crowd in Magdeburg, Germany, killing five and injuring hundreds. Unidentified jihadists in Nigeria killed 14 Christians at a Christmas service. Boko Haram, Nigeria’s main Muslim terrorist group, also killed two Christians on Christmas Day. Muslims in Pakistan shot three Christians on Christmas Day, including a pastor. For someone who’s allegedly “alone,” Jabbar certainly has a legion of like-minded company around the world.

“Homegrown extremist.” For that second term, see #3, above. As for the first: Jabbar seems to have been born in the US, so he indeed was “homegrown.” But his Islamic “extremism” isn’t intrinsically American — it’s quite foreign. And, in fact, jihadists have been our enemy since the founding of the Republic. This is not to say that Muslims can’t be patriotic Americans. They can and often are. But fundamentalist Muslims — which is what they are, not “Islamists” — like Jabbar who try to recommit the acts of Islam’s founder are living out an ideology that has no place in our society, with its finely balanced mix of Judeo-Christian precepts and Enlightenment guidelines. And while Jabbar wasn’t an immigrant, the more Muslims that the US imports, the more likely that someone in that mass will believe the same things he did —and act on those beliefs. Have we learned nothing from Europe’s craven stupidity?
“Never know his motive.” This is just willful ignorance, as I explained on my blog several years ago. Practically every government (with the possible exception of the Russians) trots out this lame line whenever a perpetrator kills someone while shouting, “Allahu akbar!” or sporting the Islamic flag. Do you not have eyes to see and ears to hear? The German authorities are already chalking up the aforementioned Magdeburg jihad to mental illness. US administrations of both parties tend to do this as well — perhaps to placate allies like the Saudis.

Democrat politicians kick the propaganda up a notch, however, in order to score domestic political points. Witness the incessant Biden administration claims that “white supremacy” is our greatest terrorism threat — a lie I’ve exposed eight times in articles in recent years. Outgoing White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre pointedly ignored a question about this in Friday’s initial 2025 press briefing. Because the very contention is absurd, and an insult to Americans, she cannot answer in any way that makes sense.

Let me close with another biblical passage: “Eloquent lips are unsuited to a godless fool. How much worse lying lips to a ruler!” (Proverbs 17:7). As we used to say in the Army, don’t blow smoke up my (derriere). The media and Democrats have been doing this with Islamic terrorism for years. God willing, the second Trump administration will put this shameful and dangerous practice to rest.

Timothy Furnish has a PhD from Ohio State in Islamic, World & African history. He’s been an Arabic interrogator in the 101st Airborne, a US Special Operations Command analyst, an author and professor. Furnish is the military/security affairs writer for The Stream.