August 25th, 2016 
(TERROR TRENDS BULLETIN) — by Christopher W. Holton
Way back in February of 1998, Osama Bin Laden declared a Jihad against Jews and Crusaders in a written document entitled the “World Islamic Front Statement.”
In that document he specifically stated:
“The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it.”
Despite this, with just a few notable exceptions over the years, few Muslims answered Bin Laden’s call to kill Americans.
Bin Laden was of course killed by U.S. Special Operations forces in May 2011.
Since then, we have seen many more attacks here in the U.S.
Why? If Osama Bin Laden was not able to inspire Muslims to attack and kill Americans, why are we seeing so many such attacks in recent years? Such as:
• The Orlando night club massacre
• The San Bernardino massacre
• The Chattanooga massacre
• The failed Garland, Texas attack
• The Queens, New York hatchet attack on police officers standing on a street corner
• The Philadelphia attack on a police officer sitting in his squad car
• The Moore, Oklahoma beheading of a grandmother at the hands of a Muslim co-worker
These are just a few of the incidents in recent years that have, unfortunately, been categorized as “lone wolf” terrorist attacks by our recalcitrant news media.
In fact, the term “lone wolf” does not exist in Islamic doctrine. What DOES exist in Islamic doctrine is the fact that Jihad is an individual as well as a collective obligation.
What we are seeing are in fact individual acts of Jihad–acts of war, not criminal acts. We continue to deny this at our peril. There is a doctrinal basis for the enemy that is waging war against us. This form of warfare does not require formal ties between fighters or units (organizations) waging the war.
The concept of Jihad being an individual obligation is longstanding and has its basis in mainstream Islamic law (Shariah). We can see this from a widely-read and used text of Shariah sold annually at the convention of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the largest Muslim organization in the United States, which was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorism financing prosecution in U.S. history: the U.S. v the Holy Land Foundation. In that trial, ISNA was identified as a Muslim Brotherhood front group. Interestingly, ISNA’s Canadian wing was shut down in 2013 for funneling money to a Jihadist terrorist group in Kashmir.