• President Obama’s credit card was refused. From force of habit, he shut down the Washington Monument.
• Two in Canada, one in Queens: The end of October was marked by three bloody acts of one-man jihad. Martin Couture-Rouleau ran over two soldiers, killing one of them, in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, southeast of Montreal; Michael Zehaf-Bibeau shot and killed another soldier in Ottawa before storming the House of Commons. On a Queens street, Zale Thompson struck two cops with a hatchet (neither of them fatally). All three attackers were killed; all three were converts to Islam. The phrase “lone wolf,” routinely applied to such men, does not do justice to the case. The next phase of terrorism, since al-Qaeda’s fascination with grandiose plots has been thwarted since September 11, is the open-ended invitation to individuals to strike as best they can. The Boston Marathon bombers responded to such appeals; ISIS renewed them after the United States, Canada, and other Western countries went to war with it. Where Islamists can band together, they rape and slaughter Christians and Yazidis; where they live apart, they attack soldiers and cops. Western intelligence and law enforcement must be alert and unillusioned.
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