| ...known at his mosque, Greater Islamic Society of Oklahoma City, as Jahkeem Yisrael and sometimes Jah-Keem Yisrael for reasons that are unclear. That mosque has a bit of a history, having been founded by Mufid Abdulqader, convicted money man of the Holy Land Foundation and half-brother of Hamas big turban Khaled Mashal, while a former imam, Suhaib Webb, was a dear friend of al-Qaeda in Arabia big turban Anwar al-Awlaki. Zacarias Moussaoui was only one of the interesting members of the congregation. Naturally, the Obama administration approved of the place... |
The Supreme Court’s October 1, 2018 rejection of Nolen’s final death penalty appeal went unremarked upon by news media so, partly as a result, I missed it. But the Nolen case is very much worth remembering, along with all terror attacks that occur on U.S. soil, if not just for the victims and their survivors but for lessons that can and must be learned.
The September 24, 2014 attack in Oklahoma is somewhat notable in the annals of many officially uncalled terrorist strikes in that Nolen emulated a favorite ISIS death tactic no doubt learned online: he fully beheaded a co-worker‐the beloved wife, mother, and grandmother Colleen Hufford‐inside the Moore, Oklahoma food processing plant where they both worked. Shouting "Alluah Akbar" throughout the attack, Nolen used the same oversized butcher knife on the neck of a second co-worker, Tracy Johnson, when the company’s chief operations officer, a reserve law enforcement officer named Mark Vaughn, burst in with an AR-15 rifle. He shot and wounded Nolen as Nolen disengaged from his second victim and charged at him with the bloody knife.
Such an attack must generate a particular horror in its witnesses and, when Nolen is finally put to death, one should keep in mind what Hufford must have experienced in her last moments.