Muslim Acts of Beheading in the West

By Daniel Pipes

The gruesome murder yesterday of a soldier outside London by a Muslim convert, Michael Adebolajo, brings to mind that throat slitting and beheading are Islamically sanctioned forms of execution. Although these occur particularly often in the course of family-related crimes – think, for example, of the case of Aasiya Hassan in suburban Buffalo, N.Y., killed by her husband in 2009, stabbed with two hunting knives more than forty times in the face, back and chest, then beheaded – this monstrous form of violence is also used in non-family instances. Some of those that took place over the past decade in the West in chronological order include:

• Ariel Sellouk – Houston, August 2003: throat slit attempted but incomplete beheading.
• Sébastien Selam – Paris, November 2003: throat was slit twice; his face was mutilated with a carving fork and his eyes were gouged out by a Muslim neighbor who boasted "I killed my Jew, I'll go to paradise."
• Theo Van Gogh – Amsterdam, November 2004: shot, throat slit, and five-page paper pinned to his body.
• Hossam Armanious, Amal Garas, Sylvia Armanious, and Monica Armanious, – Jersey City, N.J., January 2005: necks, throats and bodies stabbed, mutilation of Coptic tattoo. (A non-Muslim was found guilty of this crime; I do not accept that verdict.)
• Brendan Mess, Erik Weissman, and Raphael Teken - Waltham, Massachusetts, September 2011: throats slit, probably by Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bombers.
• Hany F. Tawadros and Amgad A. Konds – Jersey City, N.J., February 2013: shot, decapitated, hands severed.
• Lee Rigby – Woolwich, England, May 2013: run over by car, mutilated, beheaded.

In addition, Ibragim Todashev, who was shot and killed yesterday while being interviewed about the Waltham murders, reportedly grabbed a knife and stabbed an officer several times, including in the head, possibly an attempt on his neck. In any case, it was so threatening that the officers used deadly force and on the spot killed Todashev.

This list (to be updated as needed) is only part of the story: other characteristically Muslim crimes taking place in Western countries include honor killings, female genital mutilation, and slave holding. These, sadly, are among Islam's contributions to the lands of immigration.

Postscript: What this analysis does not cover: (1) Daniel Pearl, Nick Berg, and other Westerners murdered in Pakistan, Iraq, and other non-Western places. (2) Meir Kahane, Hitoshi Igarashi, and other prominent individuals assassinated in the West but not beheaded; Theo van Gogh is the only person listed both here and at "Islamist Assassinations in the West." (May 23, 2013)

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