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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; rescue</title>
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		<title>Saved by Love from the Islamic State</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/stephenbrown/saved-by-love-from-the-islamic-state/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=saved-by-love-from-the-islamic-state</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 04 Dec 2014 05:44:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Stephen Brown]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bouzer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bride]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Dutch]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jihad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Petalo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rescue]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=246627</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Dutch mother daringly rescues her daughter, and jihad-bride-to-be, from the claws of ISIS. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/nk.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-246671" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/nk-450x299.jpg" alt="nk" width="286" height="190" /></a>There is nothing stronger than a mother’s love. And Dutch mother Monique Verbert proved this adage recently when she rescued her 19-year-old daughter from the Islamic State (IS) after traveling there disguised in Muslim dress.</p>
<p>Verbert’s daughter, Sterlina Petalo, had previously gone to Syria to marry a Dutch jihadist, a former member of the Dutch military. Verbert’s safe return to Holland with her child, a feat of bravery in and of itself, also represents the first time that a girl who had voluntarily gone to the Islamic State to marry a jihadist has returned home safely to the West.</p>
<p>“She basically saw him as a sort of Robin Hood …that he was a nice man and fought against Assad,” Verbert said in an interview on Dutch television that was reported in <em>Die Welt</em>. “She said again and again: “Mum, look at that guy. Isn’t it good what he does?”</p>
<p>Petalo’s story is not an unusual one for the dozens of girls from Western countries who have travelled the same path to the Islamic State to wed a jihadist. <em>Die Welt</em> relates the Dutch teenager converted to Islam at age 18 during a spiritual quest and soon became radicalised. She started calling herself ‘Aicha’, covered her hair, shunned friends, and read the Koran and Islamic websites, “hardly leaving her room.” Petalo’s mother, who is separated from her father, said her “greatest scare” occurred when her daughter appeared for the first time completely veiled.</p>
<p>“Then I truly asked myself: ‘girl, what are you doing’?”  Verbert said.</p>
<p>But <em>Die Welt</em> reports that the “decisive day” occurred last January when Petalo saw her future ‘husband’ on a television program. She contacted him via the internet and subsequently decided to travel to him in Syria. Warned by a friend of her daughter’s intended departure, Verbert was able to prevent this first attempt to leave the country by contacting the police, who put Petalo’s name on a list of potential terrorists and took her passport away. Petalo, however, successfully left Holland for Syria on a second try, using different identification.</p>
<p>Finding the police and Dutch authorities powerless to help get her daughter back, Verbert took matters into her own hands, appearing on a television show in an effort to contact her. Later, Verbert discovered her child had separated from the Dutch jihadist and was now together with another IS fighter in Raqqa, the IS’s main city. Verbert then travelled to Turkey, but could not get over the border to Syria and returned home.</p>
<p>After receiving a call for help from her daughter, <em>Die Welt</em> reports Verbert decided to return to Turkey to try and reach her again. After locating her child, she crossed into Syria, completely covered in Islamic dress, and successfully brought her out and back to Holland safely. Details concerning how this was accomplished, however, are unknown, since Dutch authorities are remaining silent. Petalo is currently in custody, as she may still pose a security risk and may also face charges for aiding a terrorist organization.</p>
<p>French anthropologist Dounia Bouzar has studied the phenomenon of young people in France who are suspected of wanting to leave, or have already, like Petalo, left their families and country to join the Islamic State. Last spring, Bouzar set up a center to prevent such departures and was also hired by French police, seeking assistance in this area.</p>
<p>From her work with the 130 families that have contacted her, Bouzar published a book last October titled, “<em>Ils cherchent le paradis, ils ont trouve l’enfer” </em>(<em>They Are Searching For Paradise, They Found Hell)</em>. Of the youths at risk, Bouzar told the French newspaper, <em>Le Figaro</em>, that as many as 80 percent were atheists with many coming from atheistic homes, an astonishing 60 percent of their parents were teachers, and 90 percent came from the middle and upper classes. Bouzar estimates about a dozen females have made it to Syria from France, but French authorities are monitoring 90 families of girls in danger of leaving. About half of these girls are converts and even include Jewish girls among their number.</p>
<p>Also in the <em>Le Figaro </em>interview, Bouzar gave a detailed account of the radicalisation process Petalo probably underwent and what she likely experienced in Syria as a jihadist’s bride. Bouzar related the radicalisation of these girls, some as young as 14, is “like lightening hitting the house.” The majority are not of North African origin, France’s main source of Muslim immigration, and “have nothing to do with Islam.” But they are “passionate.”</p>
<p>“These are brilliant girls, who are getting ready to study medicine, political science or altruistic professions…,” Bouzar stated. “They had the misfortune of talking about this on Facebook. It’s as if the terrorists have psychological head-hunters who locate the personality profiles of those who wish to change the world and fight against injustice. One would say that they are specifically looking for the elite.”</p>
<p>The same holds true for girls of all classes. Even among working class or less privileged sectors of French society, the jihadist “head-hunters” search out only “very good students.” As for the boys, it is just the opposite. Bouzar says recruiters look for unemployed males who have adjustment difficulties in society.</p>
<p>After contact, Bouzar states the girls are then methodically manipulated mentally over a period of time by their recruiters to the point where, almost cult-like, they become the only ones, with whom they communicate. First, all confidence in adults, including parents, and society is removed. Then videos are received, telling the girls that they are being deceived and “secret societies are manoeuvering to kill people in order to hold on to their power.” Societies that only Islam can destroy.</p>
<p>“It’s the theory of conspiracy,” said Bouzar. “They ask them ‘Which side are you on? Are you going to let people be massacred? Wake up?’ They make them reject the real world.”</p>
<p>Next, photos are sent of brutally killed babies, claiming they were murdered by Assad, and the girls are told to leave school and come and rescue them. They are also told their parents are not the “elect of God” and not to watch television any more. Eventually, the girls targeted are cut off from all their former bases of reference and come under the control of the recruiters, or “bearded prince charmings,” as Bouzar calls them. The mothers, Bouzar says, describe their daughters as having been “robotised.”</p>
<p>“When one analyses their telephones, one sees they receive 100 messages a day,” Bouzar told <em>Le Figaro.</em> “This starts at five o’clock in the morning. Sometimes, they don’t sleep anymore.”</p>
<p>Like Petalo, the girls eventually don the niqab or jilbab. Bouzar says the girls call it “my security blanket, my best friend, or my comforter and use it like a cocoon, in a form of regression.” She adds that, when deprogramming girls prevented from leaving France, the most difficult part is getting them to shed the Muslim dress.</p>
<p>“I counsel parents to search under the beds, since these clothes are the first signs of danger,” Bouzar warns.</p>
<p>Also included in the radicalisation process, the French anthropologist says, are promises of marriage. And this promise, Bouzar states, is acted on almost as soon as the girls arrive in the Islamic State. With marriage, a girl becomes her husband’s “inheritance,” living with three or four of his other wives in a house, polygamy apparently the norm. Her only job now is to look after the children under the supervision of a “boss” or older woman who monitors her telephone calls home.</p>
<p>“It’s all an organization,” said Bouzar. “When they are not married, they are herded together. One knows of a house where 17 girls are waiting for ‘distribution’. For some time now, it is worse, since they get them pregnant as soon as possible. They say they will be less tempted to flee, if they have a baby”</p>
<p>But, according to Bouzar, this tactic of quickly impregnating the girls in order to ground them in the Islamic State may sometimes backfire. She told <em>Le Figaro</em> that becoming pregnant is one of the three things that sometimes serve to shake girls out of their cult-like mindset.</p>
<p>“One notices that the moment the baby starts to move, they (the girls) once again have a normal voice on the telephone,” Bouzar says.</p>
<p>The parents’ repeated evoking of childhood memories can also lead to their daughters “de-programming themselves,” and to feeling and thinking again. The third factor that can lead to an awakening from the brainwashing, Bouzar says, concerns the girls having personally witnessed, or heard talk of, “the slitting of a Syrian Muslim’s throat.”</p>
<p>“They begin to cry and want to return (home),” Bouzar says. “It is at this moment that they speak of terrorists and realize the difference between the talk and the reality. But here, it is too late. In truth, no girl has yet succeeded in returning.”</p>
<p>Until ‘Aicha’.</p>
<p>It is not yet known what made the Dutch teenager reach out to her mother and call for help. Like Albert Speer, Hitler’s armaments minister and originator of the following quote, Petalo did not recognise “the devil when he is putting his hand on your shoulder.” Hopefully, she will be allowed to tell her story soon. Petalo’s testimony would serve as a valuable aid to parents and a powerful warning to other suggestible and vulnerable young people, opening their eyes to that hand. But if she is ever permitted, and desires, to help prevent such evil from hijacking other innocent lives, Petalo should always emphasize in her story how love saved hers.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p><em>Don&#8217;t miss scholar of Islam <strong>Dr. Mark Christian</strong> discuss <strong>Islam’s Assault on Women’s Sexuality</strong> on <strong>The Glazov Gang:</strong></em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/64GGXu-eigE" width="460" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
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		<slash:comments>23</slash:comments>
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		<title>Supreme Court Overturns Limits on Election Spending &#8211; WSJ.com</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/supreme-court-overturns-limits-on-election-spending-wsj-com/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=supreme-court-overturns-limits-on-election-spending-wsj-com</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/supreme-court-overturns-limits-on-election-spending-wsj-com/#respond</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:28:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[anthony kennedy]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=47287</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Freedom has had its best week in many years. On Tuesday, Massachusetts put a Senate check on a reckless Congress, and yesterday the Supreme Court issued a landmark decision supporting free political speech by overturning some of Congress&#8217;s more intrusive limits on election spending. In a season of marauding government, the Constitution rides to the [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703699204575016843479815072.html"><img src='http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/OB-FI505_citize_D_20100121174224.jpg' alt='' /></a></p>
<p>Freedom has had its best week in many years. On Tuesday, Massachusetts put a Senate check on a reckless Congress, and yesterday the Supreme Court issued a landmark decision supporting free political speech by overturning some of Congress&#8217;s more intrusive limits on election spending.</p>
<p>In a season of marauding government, the Constitution rides to the rescue one more time.</p>
<p>Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote yesterday&#8217;s 5-4 majority opinion in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which considered whether the government could ban a 90-minute documentary called &#8220;Hillary: the Movie&#8221; that was set to run on cable channels during the 2008 Presidential campaign. Because it was funded by an incorporated group and was less than complimentary of then-Senator Hillary Clinton, the film became a target of campaign-finance limits.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703699204575016843479815072.html">Supreme Court Overturns Limits on Election Spending &#8211; WSJ.com</a>.</p>
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		<title>Bret Stephens: To Help Haiti, End Foreign Aid &#8211; WSJ.com</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/bret-stephens-to-help-haiti-end-foreign-aid-wsj-com/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=bret-stephens-to-help-haiti-end-foreign-aid-wsj-com</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/bret-stephens-to-help-haiti-end-foreign-aid-wsj-com/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 19 Jan 2010 17:33:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[aid]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=46873</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It&#8217;s been a week since Port-au-Prince was destroyed by an earthquake. In the days ahead, Haitians will undergo another trauma as rescue efforts struggle, and often fail, to keep pace with unfolding emergencies. After that—and most disastrously of all—will be the arrival of the soldiers of do-goodness, each with his brilliant plan to save Haitians [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704541004575010860014031260.html"><img src='http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/ED-AK835_glovie_D_20100118173812.jpg' alt='' /></a></p>
<p>It&#8217;s been a week since Port-au-Prince was destroyed by an earthquake. In the days ahead, Haitians will undergo another trauma as rescue efforts struggle, and often fail, to keep pace with unfolding emergencies. After that—and most disastrously of all—will be the arrival of the soldiers of do-goodness, each with his brilliant plan to save Haitians from themselves.</p>
<p>&#8220;Haiti needs a new version of the Marshall Plan—now,&#8221; writes Andres Oppenheimer in the Miami Herald, by way of complaining that the hundreds of millions currently being pledged are miserly. Economist Jeffrey Sachs proposes to spend between $10 and $15 billion dollars on a five-year development program. &#8220;The obvious way for Washington to cover this new funding,&#8221; he writes, &#8220;is by introducing special taxes on Wall Street bonuses.&#8221; In a New York Times op-ed, former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush profess to want to help Haiti &#8220;become its best.&#8221; Some job they did of that when they were actually in office.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704541004575010860014031260.html">Bret Stephens: To Help Haiti, End Foreign Aid &#8211; WSJ.com</a>.</p>
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		<title>The UN Shines in Haiti</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/joseph-klein/the-un-shines-in-haiti-%e2%80%93-by-joseph-klein/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-un-shines-in-haiti-%25e2%2580%2593-by-joseph-klein</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2010 05:05:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Klein]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Despite the worst loss of life in its history, the UN has led humanitarian efforts in the earthquake-shattered nation. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-46209" title="image-7-for-a-powerful-earthquake-strikes-haiti-gallery-179461758" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/image-7-for-a-powerful-earthquake-strikes-haiti-gallery-179461758.jpg" alt="image-7-for-a-powerful-earthquake-strikes-haiti-gallery-179461758" width="450" height="300" /></p>
<p>This week’s <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/01/14/haiti-earthquake-left-100-000-dead-in-60-seconds-and-toll-could-reach-500-000-warning-graphic-content-115875-21965474/">earthquake in Haiti</a> has been a catastrophe for the island nation, with hundreds of thousands feared dead. Less well documented but equally tragic is that relief organizations, including the United Nations, have also been swept up in the disaster’s wake.</p>
<p>The United Nations has suffered its <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d577a796-0174-11df-8c54-00144feabdc0.html">worst loss of life</a> from a single incident in its history as a result of the January 12 earthquake. As of this writing, the United Nations has reported the loss of 36 lives of its personnel – 13 civilians, 4 policemen and 19 members of the UN military peacekeeping force. At least 150 members of the UN international staff in Haiti remain unaccounted for, including some of the most senior UN officials there. Some UN personnel remain under the rubble that was once the UN’s headquarters building in Haiti, the Christopher Hotel. Half of the Christopher Hotel has totally collapsed.</p>
<p>All the while, to the credit of the UN personnel operating as best they can on the ground, they have redoubled their efforts to maintain order and to deliver humanitarian aid to the earthquake survivors literally living in the streets. Despite the loss of life in its own ranks, the United Nations has been coordinating all rescue, safety and humanitarian efforts in Haiti.</p>
<p>Search and rescue teams have been using dogs and electronic sensing equipment to try to find survivors. There have been at least 8 live rescues of UN personnel, including an Estonian bodyguard who was located when scratching sounds were heard. He was given water through a rubber pipe, and was extracted from the rubble in reasonably good shape.</p>
<p>Reporting via video link from Haiti&#8217;s capital Port-au-Prince, UN humanitarian coordinator in Haiti, Kim Bolduc and senior UN official David Wimhurst described their own harrowing escapes and the human devastation that they observed all around them. There were many dead bodies piled up on the streets, with the injured lying in the road “in a state of shock.” The capital, they said, resembled a “ghost town.” Bolduc and Wimhurst could not confirm reports that fatalities in Haiti have exceeded 100,000, but they said they would not be surprised if that turned out to be the case.</p>
<p>Amidst all of this carnage, Haitian President Rene Preval has taken no observable leadership role. He managed to create more confusion when he claimed, without any apparent confirmation, that the head of the peacekeeping mission in Haiti, Hedi Annabi of Tunisia, was dead. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told reporters on Thursday that he had no information on which to conclude that Annabi was in fact dead and could not reach Preval to determine the basis of Preval’s assertion.</p>
<p>The Haitian police have been nowhere to be found, according to the UN officials reporting from Haiti. The UN forces, supported by U.S. Marines sent by President Obama, will shoulder the burden of preventing mayhem as tensions rise in the capital and elsewhere in Haiti. A question unanswered by UN officials was whether the Marines would be expected to operate under UN command. Nor was there any clarification of the rules of engagement for the UN forces if serious rioting were to break out. For example, would live ammunition be used as it was last November, which resulted in injuries to civilians?</p>
<p>These questions and others will require answers sooner or later. However, the United Nations deserves full support at this critical hour for Haiti. In disastrous conditions, the bravery, dedication and sacrifice being shown by the UN personnel on the ground in Haiti have been astounding.</p>
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