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Jihad and the West - Black Flag over Babylon Podcast

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by jihadandthewest

45 episodes

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Podcast Overview

The word “jihad” is misunderstood and misrepresented. It is a human concept (rather than a heavenly mandate) and has a historic and political as well as religious context, and has been applied in different ways by different users over the centuries. Today its most important application is by the members of the Global Jihadist Movement, most specifically Al Qaeda and the Islamic State which grew out of Al Qaeda. For Abu Bakr al Baghdadi and the tens of thousands of young men who have joined his cause, “jihad” refers to the last Holy War against the Infidel, a war to be waged in the eschatologically highly significant territory of Syria and Iraq as well as on the soil of infidel lands, be it a nightclub in Orlando, a concert hall in Paris, or on the streets of Boston. Many clichés are founded on a modicum of truth, and the wisdom inherited from Sun Tsu that one must “know the enemy” to defeat them is just such a fact-based cliché. (For the record, the ancient strategist actually advised that we must know ourselves and the enemy if we wish to be victorious, but that apparently was too long a phrase for general consumption!) Dr. Silinsky has done the Western world a great service by writing Jihad and the West: Black Flag over Babylon. In fact, his contribution must be read by as many national security professionals, policy-makers, and leaders as possible if we are to truly understand the threat we face and soon vanquish the new totalitarianism that is Global Jihadism. The facts about the religiously-bounded ideology and strategy our foe follows is available for all to unearth without even having to learn Arabic. Al Qaeda has its English-language internet magazine Inspire, and the Islamic State, as I write these words, is already on the fifteenth issue of its End-Times-suffused Jihadi magazine Dabiq. These publications are the “field manuals” of modern Jihad. But the story of where these ideas came from and how they evolved over time is a far richer one than can be gleaned from solely reading today’s internet propaganda. The information is available but it is dispersed, scattered around the globe. What Dr. Silinsky has done is bring all the disparate threads together in one tome, backed up by the latest news reports and on-the-ground information, which allows us to do the most important thing any nation can do in a war: understand the enemy as they understand themselves. More importantly, the author does so not to fulfill some abstruse academic requirement but to support the war-fighter and the policy-maker. With decades of practical experience inside the “machine” that is the US Intelligence community, Dr. Silinsky only writes of that which is relevant. This is best exemplified by the numerous case studies and three dozen profiles his book is built around. If the fact is not relevant to the war, it is not important. This is how such works should be written and is an exemplar for others. Dr. Silinsky must also be commended for braving the political correctness that has so infected and distorted Western threat-assessment in recent years. Denying that Jihadism is but “Fascism with an Islamic face” will not secure our nations or help undermine our enemy. In fact, such distortions of reality will strengthen groups like the Islamic State and weaken our Muslim allies who know full well just how adroitly the Jihadis leverage and exploit religious themes to recruit fighters and justify their atrocities. The willful blindness on behalf of our leaders has led in part to the abysmal reality that 2015 saw the highest number of Jihadi plots on American soil since 2001, and the highest number of terrorist attacks on the European continent since the EU started recording terrorist attacks. (It is no accident that halfway through the Orlando massacre, the largest US Jihadi attack since 9/11, the perpetrator stopped to call 911 and pledge his allegiance to Abu Bakr and the Islamic State). Lastly, I have a personal thank you to make. As someone who makes his life by reading and utilizing such works, I am indebted to the author for making Jihad and the West: Black Flag over Babylon just so enjoyable a text. As Dr. Silinsky subtly injects quotes from fine literature and stage plays to get his points across, he achieves that which I thought was nigh impossible: making a book on the horrors of Jihad eminently readable. May as many people as possible learn what they need to know about our enemy from this book and may the city of Palmyra rise again.

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2/11/2026

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Recent Episodes

February 15, 2026

Jihad and the West - Black Flag over Babylon Chapter Nine Podcast Five

Belgium A recent cover [of a British satirical magazine] proclaimed, “Cameron to bomb ISIS heartland,” with a fighter pilot saying, “Belgium, here we come! Private Eye magazine, 2016 “A ghost town, a mummy of a town, it smells of death, the Middle Ages, and tombs.” Charles Baudelaire’s description of Brussels, circa 1860 Small Belgium, located in the heart of Western Europe and home to the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union, has more Islamic State (IS) foreign fighters per capita than any other Western country. It is home to many symbols of Western military, cultural, political, and social power. It also has more Muslims per capita than any other country in Europe. Half of the country’s Muslims live in Brussels. Islam mobilizes more people in Brussels than the Roman Catholic Church. Most of Brussels’s Muslims are from Morocco (70 percent). As in other European countries, the Muslim population in Belgium is young. Nearly 35 percent of Moroccans and Turks in the country are under eighteen, compared with 18 percent of native Belgians. Since 2008, the most popular name for baby boys in Brussels has been Mohammed. It is also the most popular name for baby boys in Belgium’s second-largest city, Antwerp, where an estimated 40 percent of elementary school children are Muslim. If there is any Western country that exemplifies the Great Replacement, the transition from a secular to a Muslim Europe, it is Belgium. By early 2016, Belgium’s intelligence services had identified 451 Jihadists. They were, largely, not poor. Only one in six Jihadists came from an impoverished background. Muslim–Non-Muslim Relations Belgium was never an imperial power, except for its holdings in the Congo, nor was it associated with militarism. Nonetheless, Brussels was targeted because, in the words of the State, “Crusader Belgium “has not ceased to wage war on Islam.” Most Belgians were unaware of this image, and many Europeans asked how a country known for its beer, chocolate, and bureaucracy could become a European hotbed of radicalization and extremism. In many ways, Muslims and non-Muslims live very separate lives in the country. To tourists, the Molenbeek area of Brussels feels like a South Asian or modern North African city. It spans 6 square kilometers and, with a population of nearly 100,000, is nearly twice as dense as the average Brussels neighborhood. The Bataclan murders in Paris were planned there, and approximately a hundred men and women from Molenbeek left to fight in the Middle East. Belgium has been a hotbed of radical Islam for more than a decade, breeding organizations like Sharia4Belgium, which want, as their name proclaims, to have Sharia introduced in Belgium. They are loud, intimidating, and belligerent. When the Bataclan murders occurred, one leader of the group said, “We couldn’t hold our joy.” That November 2015 attack in neighboring France panicked Belgium as well. The metro was closed down. Prime Minister Charles Michel said authorities feared a “Paris-style” attack with explosives and weapons at several locations despite the hundreds of soldiers patrolling the city, home to the EU and NATO. But Belgians are concerned about the many attacks that receive little or no media attention. For example, youths threw a petrol bomb under a Christmas tree, setting it aflame. As they ran away, the teens could be heard yelling “Allahu Akbar.” “Today they will set fire to a Christmas tree, tomorrow they will behead a Christian,” wrote one man. The Caliphate The Caliphate used Brussels as its center of planning and operations for two mass murders—the Paris killing of November 2015 and the Brussels attack of March 2016. In the Brussels attack, one of the three chief perpetrators, known as the “man in the hat,” was born in Syria and came to Europe as a refugee in 2015. The Islamic State bragged that it was sending cadres disguised as refugees to Europe to conduct oper

February 15, 2026

Jihad and the West - Black Flag over Babylon - Chapter Nine Podcast Four

.In this excerpt from Chapter Nine, we examine the response of French leaders to the upsurge in killings and turn to the growing influence of Islam in France and Belgium. Foreign Fighters French foreign fighters, along with other Westerners, are reeling from a series of military setbacks in Syria and Iraq and have been battered by multiple airstrikes. The Caliphate is hemorrhaging foreign volunteer fighters, keeping intelligence services on edge. By June 2016, at least 248 French Jihadis had returned to France, while 666 were still in the Middle East. Other seasoned, dedicated fighters have also returned. The proportion of French women in the State has increased to 35 percent of French members. Observers speculate that women in the Caliphate are being groomed for more violent activities in the Middle East and in France. Already active in domestic operations, logistics, and recruiting, they are likely to become more violent. French counterterrorism leaders anticipate further attacks by individuals who detonate powerful bombs concealed in vests. Individuals would attend crowded events and shopping areas and detonate the explosives. The goal is to immobilize France. Islamic State is likely to use car bombs and other explosive devices as it seeks to carry out more atrocities in France. Profile Thirty-Six: French-Speaking Political Leaders Marion Maréchal-Le Pen—“Either We Kill Islamism or It Will Kill Us” She has been described as a combination of Joan of Arc and Brigitte Bardot. French Member of Parliament Marion Maréchal-Le Pen assumed office at age 22, becoming the youngest parliamentarian since 1791. Four years later, she is one of the NF’s most promising politicians. Heir to a two-generation conservative family tradition, she is the niece of NF leader Marine Le Pen and shares many of her aunt’s views—respect for Western, particularly French, civilization; a strong Catholic identity; and a conviction that France is in a life-and-death struggle with political Islam. “Either we kill Islamism or it will kill us again and again. You are with us and against Islamism, or you are against us and for Islamism.” Her fan base is largely composed of young, traditional Catholic men, who compare Le Pen alternately to Joan of Arc and Brigitte Bardot. Tall, blonde, and attractive, she is more popular than ever and, like Aunt Marine, has distanced herself from her grandfather’s anti-Semitic barbs. After a French priest was murdered in his Norman church, she joined the army reserves in her constituency and invited her countrymen to join her. She enlisted to take the war to the Islamic State and intends to do so in a military uniform and, if need be, with arms. Some Europeans are concerned about an emerging dynasty. One writer spoke of the “Poison le Pens.” “Maréchal-Le Pen, like many on the far right, slipped in under the radar. Would it be enough to hope the voters will swiftly push her back again at the next available opportunity?” She may be voted out, but that is unlikely to happen anytime soon. Too many of her countrymen look to the “golden girl of the right” for national leadership. Belgium’s Yves Goldstein—No Chagalls, Dalis, Warhols, or Dreams Yves Goldstein is a council member from the Belgian town of Schaerbeek and chief of staff to the minister-president of the Brussels Capital Region. He does not share Le Pen's political pedigree, but he faces similar challenges. Belgium and France face unprecedented and increasingly frequent outbursts of Islamic radicalism and violence. However, unlike Le Pen, he largely blames Europeans, not Muslims, for the tinderbox. If Marion Le Pen embodies an invigorated pushback against the mounting Islamic presence in Europe, Goldstein exemplifies the multicultural bridge builder. The council member insists his country’s young Muslim rage is driven by ethnic alienation and poverty. The attacks have little to do with true Islam. Radicals cherry-pick violent verses to mili

February 15, 2026

Jihad and the West - Black Flag over Babylon Chapter Nine Podcast Two

Welcome to an excerpt from Jihad and the West, Black Flag over Babylon by Mark Silinsky, with a foreword by Sebastian Gorka. It was published by Indiana University Press in Bloomington and Indianapolis. This reading is presented by Kensington Security Consulting, which brings education to national security. This excerpt comes from chapter nine and examines two cases of Westerners who became militant Islamists. The statistics are stomach-churning: almost 250 innocents have been murdered in France in the past eighteen months by terrorists—more than the total number of French nationals killed by them in the entire twentieth century. While police, military, and paramilitary personnel are prepared and alert for attack, many French engaged in civil society are not. Many attacks come without warning and are directed against persons completely unconnected with national security. Some Islamist attacks are difficult to explain. A man-and-woman couple armed with a knife and an axe and shouting “Allahu Akbar” attacked a charity leader at a soup kitchen near Paris. The attackers allegedly called him an “infidel dog,” but the charity leader fed Muslims out of compassion. The look of Paris changed after the 2015 attacks, with more dog patrols, random checks at gates and in terminals, video surveillance cameras, and “profilers”—police officers, sometimes in plain clothes—around public transportation venues. Steps may go further; right-wing politicians reiterated calls for preventive detention or electronic bracelets for suspected Islamists, longer prison sentences, shutting down mosques, and deporting radical imams The Caliphate Pro-Caliphate activists have partnered with French Islamist organizations from the beginning of the State. They have shouted support for the Caliphate at demonstrations and waved the “black flag of Jihad,” which quotes the Shahada—“There is no god but Allah, Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.” By January 2016, France was host to 8,250 radical Islamists, a 50 percent increase over the previous year. As in Britain and France, Islamists have infiltrated the civil services, police forces, and armed forces. According to one report, police officers broadcast Muslim chants while on patrol. France is between 9 and 11 percent Muslim, and 16 percent of French citizens have a positive opinion of the Caliphate. This percentage increases among younger respondents, spiking at 27 percent for those aged eighteen to twenty-four. Profile Thirty-Four: A French Girl and a French Woman In France, more teenage girls than boys joined the Caliphate in 2016. Among recruits, women began to outpace French male residents preparing to travel to the Caliphate or who had already done so. “The Story of A” It is sometimes difficult to determine which factors drive the transition from conventional politics and everyday life to a full embrace of the Caliphate’s beliefs, values, and aspirations. Some teenagers who live uneventful, seemingly normal lifestyles have become Caliphate propagandists or gunmen. But the full-turn conversions and blood lust of some converts beggar the imagination. This is the story of “A.” Because A is not an adult, her full name was not released, but authorities did reveal that she was Jewish, one of two known French Jews to join the State, and she had been raised in a religious home. Her parents were described as “loving and open,” and she was an outstanding student until she found Islam online. She began to wear a veil, but this did not mask her increasing hatred of the West, France, and Jews. A is certainly an anomaly within the Islamic State's spiritual ranks. According to a French anthropologist who extensively studied French women in the State, most converts to Islam come from atheistic homes with spiritual voids. But A was raised in a religious home. Her parents don’t know what happened to her. A feels obligated to kill her parents because they are not Muslim. Many people convert to Islam, very few of wh

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What is Jihad and the West - Black Flag over Babylon Podcast?: The word “jihad” is misunderstood and misrepresented. It is a human concept (rather than a heavenly mandate) and has a historic and political as well as religious context, and has been applied in different ways by different users over the centuries. Today its most important application is by the members of the Global Jihadist Movement, most specifically Al Qaeda and the Islamic State which grew out of Al Qaeda. For Abu Bakr al Baghdadi and the tens of thousands of young men who have joined his cause, “jihad” refers to the last Holy War against the Infidel, a war to be waged in the eschatologically highly significant territory of Syria and Iraq as well as on the soil of infidel lands, be it a nightclub in Orlando, a concert hall in Paris, or on the streets of Boston. Many clichés are founded on a modicum of truth, and the wisdom inherited from Sun Tsu that one must “know the enemy” to defeat them is just such a fact-based cliché. (For the record, the ancient strategist actually advised that we must know ourselves and the enemy if we wish to be victorious, but that apparently was too long a phrase for general consumption!) Dr. Silinsky has done the Western world a great service by writing Jihad and the West: Black Flag over Babylon. In fact, his contribution must be read by as many national security professionals, policy-makers, and leaders as possible if we are to truly understand the threat we face and soon vanquish the new totalitarianism that is Global Jihadism. The facts about the religiously-bounded ideology and strategy our foe follows is available for all to unearth without even having to learn Arabic. Al Qaeda has its English-language internet magazine Inspire, and the Islamic State, as I write these words, is already on the fifteenth issue of its End-Times-suffused Jihadi magazine Dabiq. These publications are the “field manuals” of modern Jihad. But the story of where these ideas came from and how they evolved over time is a far richer one than can be gleaned from solely reading today’s internet propaganda. The information is available but it is dispersed, scattered around the globe. What Dr. Silinsky has done is bring all the disparate threads together in one tome, backed up by the latest news reports and on-the-ground information, which allows us to do the most important thing any nation can do in a war: understand the enemy as they understand themselves. More importantly, the author does so not to fulfill some abstruse academic requirement but to support the war-fighter and the policy-maker. With decades of practical experience inside the “machine” that is the US Intelligence community, Dr. Silinsky only writes of that which is relevant. This is best exemplified by the numerous case studies and three dozen profiles his book is built around. If the fact is not relevant to the war, it is not important. This is how such works should be written and is an exemplar for others. Dr. Silinsky must also be commended for braving the political correctness that has so infected and distorted Western threat-assessment in recent years. Denying that Jihadism is but “Fascism with an Islamic face” will not secure our nations or help undermine our enemy. In fact, such distortions of reality will strengthen groups like the Islamic State and weaken our Muslim allies who know full well just how adroitly the Jihadis leverage and exploit religious themes to recruit fighters and justify their atrocities. The willful blindness on behalf of our leaders has led in part to the abysmal reality that 2015 saw the highest number of Jihadi plots on American soil since 2001, and the highest number of terrorist attacks on the European continent since the EU started recording terrorist attacks. (It is no accident that halfway through the Orlando massacre, the largest US Jihadi attack since 9/11, the perpetrator stopped to call 911 and pledge his allegiance to Abu Bakr and the Islamic State). Lastly, I have a personal thank you to make. As someone who makes his life by reading and utilizing such works, I am indebted to the author for making Jihad and the West: Black Flag over Babylon just so enjoyable a text. As Dr. Silinsky subtly injects quotes from fine literature and stage plays to get his points across, he achieves that which I thought was nigh impossible: making a book on the horrors of Jihad eminently readable. May as many people as possible learn what they need to know about our enemy from this book and may the city of Palmyra rise again.
How often does this podcast release new episodes?: This podcast updates daily.
Where can I listen to this podcast?: This podcast is available on 4 platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also use the RSS feed directly.
Does this podcast accept guests?: No, this podcast does not typically feature guests.

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