Analysis: The Van Gogh Murder

The tragic murder of Dutch film maker Theo Van Gogh in Amsterdam has underscores a far broader and more sinister trend for Islamic extremism in Europe. It also has a number of dangerous international implications to it, especially as it relates to the broader war on terrorism.

This analysis will attempt to present the facts behind the crime using both English and Dutch news reports. I apologize for the lack of point-by-point sourcing but am more than willing to provide sources upon request.

• Who Dunnit
• Some Context for The Islamists' Plans
• International Links

Who Dunnit

According to press reports, Theo Van Gogh was gunned down in Amsterdam and apparently begged for his life before the attacker finished him off by slitting his throat. The attacker, one Mohammed Bouyeri, had previously been investigated by Dutch authorities for his involvement with Samir Azzouz, an Islamic extremist who appears to have attempted to join Basayev's Chechen contingent 2 years earlier. Bouyeri left a letter containing some atypical Salafist rhetoric on Van Gogh's body, and is already believed to have something of a criminal record.

Van Gogh, as is already commonly known, was involved in making of a controversial film about the life of women under Islam. However, there seems to be a lot more to the murder than simple Islamic extremism.

Some Context for The Islamists' Plans

The Netherlands is one of the most liberal nations in Europe outside of perhaps Scandinavia and like that region, Christianity is more or less an endangered species and the birth rate is plummeting. Because of that, many Islamist radicals like the UK-based al-Muhajiroun hope to be in control of the country by some period in the mid to late 2020s and the general plan seems to be to use the eventual Dutch takeover as a model that can be spread to other European nations, France and the UK in particular.

Now I don't think that this plan is even remotely viable for a whole host of reasons, but then I'm not a radical Islamist and they believe that in order to keep their cadres ready for the inevitable revolution that they have to be kept as separate and unassimilated from the rest of Europe as possible. One of the best ways to do this is to ensure ethnic strife and Amsterdam, one of the most multi-ethnic cities in all of the Netherlands, certainly fits the bill as far as the perfect place to start a race riot.

More to the point, the Islamist extremist leadership in the Netherlands (personified by an individual that we know from the Milan wiretaps as an al-Qaeda leader called "Ismail" who has been operating there for decades) already has a perfect model for whipping up ethno-religious discord: the assassination of the Dutch politician Pym Fortuyn.

Fortuyn was killed by a deranged animal rights' activist, but the political unrest that followed from his death gave Ismail and his immediate superiors in London a perfect model for stirring up political unrest in the Netherlands. In addition, the al-Qaeda/GSPC/Salafi Jihad/Lashkar-e-Taiba networks that run through the Netherlands are extensive enough to ensure that if it does come to riots, Ismail will have anywhere between one and several hundred stormtroopers to call upon.

The Saif al-Din al-Muwaheed (SDM, "Sword of Justice of the Faithful") group that appears to have carried out the Van Gogh murder also planned to assassinate Somali-born VVD MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali, independent conservative MP Geert Wilders, Immigration and Integration Minister Rita Verdonk, Amsterdam Mayor Job Cohen, and Deputy Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb. All of these are fairly prominent targets, especially in a country as small as the Netherlands, and had even half of the attempts succeeded they would have unquestionably stirred up ethno-religious strife throughout the country. All of this might seem fairly odd from a group that purports to seek to advance the interests of Islam - unless one accepts that this was the plan all along.

International Links

Unfortunately, Bouyeri and the apparently 10-man SDM group (cell?) was far from merely a group of disgruntled Islamists. Azzouz, whom I mentioned earlier, was arrested in October 2003 by Dutch authorities along with 4 other al-Qaeda members. According to Dutch intelligence, Azzouz was in contact with Naoufel, a Spanish Moroccan who was involved in both the Casablanca and 3/11 bombings and may have given Azzouz orders to carry out an attack in the Netherlands.

Azzouz was eventually released on lack of evidence but arrested yet again in June after Dutch intelligence linked him to plans to carry out bomb attacks against the Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, the Dutch Parliament, and an unidentified nuclear reactor.

Given the close ties between Azzouz and Bouyeri and the apparent connection between Bouyeri's SDM and the Takfir wal Hijra movement, it would seem fairly obvious, at least to me, that they are part of the larger al-Qaeda network and that Azzouz or an unidentified third party likely recruited Bouyeri and convinced him and his social clique to form the SDM and draw up the hit list. Right now however, all Dutch authorities are saying is that Bouyeri and Co are part of a group of 150-200 North African extremists from several terrorist groups (al-Qaeda, GSPC, Salafi Jihad, etc.) that they're keeping an eye on.

One can't help but wonder though, how many more people like Bouyeri are there out there that the Dutch won't catch in time?

In any case, if this was an act of international terrorism, you can look for the ultimate source of this either with Ismail or his masters in London. Or, if you want to stretch the casuality even further, you can link it all the way back to Saif al-Adel and the rest of the al-Qaeda ruling council in Iran. Because as long as that chain of command remains intact, what we've seen so far is only the tip of the iceberg.

Faster please, in Europe as well as in Iran.