On the First of January 1915, Near Broken Hill in Outback NSW, The First Known Muslim Ghazi Raid Against Australian Non-Muslims Took Place on Australian Soil

I say the first known raid, because Muslim fishermen – Buginese and Makassarese – had been sporadically visiting the northern and northwestern coastlines for at least two centuries, and although much modern discussion of that subject represents in the rosiest light the interactions between the Muslim seasonal visitors – mostly seeking trepang – and their Aboriginal hosts, knowing what I know about the way that many Muslims habitually behave toward Infidels, I have my doubts.  

But, now to New Year’s Day 1915, and a train full of picnickers – mostly women and children – who are fired upon by two Muslim gunmen.  One person, shot in the head, was a 17 year old girl.

At a website  some years ago I found and, fortunately ( for the link has now broken) made a full copy of a transcript from the report that was published, just after the attack, by the local Broken Hill paper, the Barrier Miner. You will observe that even in 1915 the critical role of the ideology of Islam as driver for the attack is obscured.  The attackers are described as “Turks” – though they were not ethnically Turkish – not as “Muslims”. 

“Two coloured men, Afghans or Turks, armed with rifles, fired on a picnic train laden with men, women and children just outside the city route to Silverton. Killed and wounded several. The police when informed, went in pursuit of offenders, who took refuge on a rocky hill, and fired on the police and wounded Constable Mills. The two men were finally shot down:  one dead, the other wounded. Constable Mills, wounded, and wounded offender in the hospital.

“KILLED

“COWIE, Elma M – Freeberg Hotel, Railwaytown.

“MILLARD, A E – Cobalt Street, Railwaytown.

“SHAW, William – Foreman sanitary department.

“GREIG, James – next Cable Hotel, shot in abdomen whilst chopping in back yard.

“WOUNDED

“KAVANAGH, Mary,

STOKES, George,

CAMPBELL, Thomas,

SHAW, Lucy,

CROCKER, Alma,

CRABB, Rose,

MILLS, Robert (Constable)

“TURKS IDENTIFIED

“The identity of the Turks who were shot has been established by the police. Mulla Abdulla, who was killed outright, was a butcher.

“Some days ago he was convicted and fined for slaughtering sheep on premises riot licensed for slaughtering. He had previously been before the court on a similar charge. He was an elderly man, by appearance about 60, and he was short and thick set.

“Gool Mahomed died on the way to the hospital. He is believed to have been an ice cream vendor.

“Abdulla carried a Snider rifle and an apparently home-made bandolier. The latter has pockets for 48 cartridges, and 26 of the pockets were empty. As a number of cartridges were in the man’s pocket it is concluded that the bandolier must have been full and that he had fired the 26 cartridges away. He also had in his possession a revolver and cartridges and a new knife and sheath. The other man’s rifle was a Martini Henry.

“Mulla Abdulla had been 16 years in Broken Hill, chiefly camel-driving.

“For the past few years he had been butcher for the camp at North Broken Hill, vested with priest rights in order to kill according to the Mohammedan religion.

“He was of a very reserved disposition, rarely speaking to anyone, and even the men in the camp are not sure where he was born

Note how eerily similar this is to the “we didn’t know anything about him”  and “he was such a quiet fellow” stonewalling response that many Muslim families and ‘communities’ have deployed in the West when fellow Muslims from their midst have run amok killing or attempting to kill the local Infidels. – CM

“He was always childish and simple in his ways. He was unable to pay a fine when he was convicted for killing a sheep on unlicensed premises and has become very broody as a result.

“About this time Gool Mahomed came to the camp, and lived next to Abdulla. They became friends.

“It is Inspector Miller’s view that Gool Mahomed was the instigator of the affair. He believes that as Abdulla was unable to pay the fine in the recent court case Gool used this as a lever in persuading Abdulla that there was very little to live for as he was certain to be arrested or undergo imprisonment.

“He no doubt preyed upon Abdulla’s mind until he was persuaded that it was better to die and that it would be dying gloriously and with the certainty of great happiness in the hereafter if he killed as many of the British [sic: i.e the Infidels – CM] as he could before he was himself slain. Mahomed then made his plans and Abdulla fell in with them.”

Barrier Miner, 2nd January, 1915″.

There is more detail in an op ed in Israel National News.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/16227

‘Op-Ed: Australia’s First Jihad Attack, January 1, 1915’.

‘Islamic Jihad was less able to accomplish its goals 100 years ago, but not for lack of trying.”

which in turn draws upon an article by one “Nicholas Shakespeare” (surely a nom de plume) that has appeared online, and whose author appears to have done some research into the people involved and the course of events.

http://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2014/november/1414760400/nicholas-shakespeare/outback-jihad

It’s not bad – click on the link and read, but bear in mind that the author – though not as foolish as those who wrote the ABC article with which I will conclude – is far too ready to accept and validate Muslim claims of victimhood and perceived “persecution” as an excuse for Muslim violence. 

For a lucid and accurate discussion of what motivated the gunmen – and an intelligent discussion of the parallels between this Muslim attack on defenceless picnickers (mostly women and children) in outback NSW in 1915, and Haron Man Monis’ hostage-taking and murder of two unarmed non-Muslims in Sydney in December 2014 – parallels that are not at all coincidental – one must go to the Australian scholar of Islam Rev Dr Mark Durie and his article ” One Hundred Years of Jihad in Australia”, which appeared at the Middle East Forum on January 1 2015. Before you go any further, click on the link and read.

http://www.meforum.org/4947/one-hundred-years-of-jihad-in-australia 

“One Hundred Years of Jihad in Australia” (also titled, “From Broken Hill to Martin Place: Individual Jihad Comes to Australia, 1915 to 2015”).  

Now, go back and click on the link to the ‘Nicholas Shakespeare” piece and the “Barrier Miner” report as transcribed.  See the difference between those, and Durie’s essay?  See how things in those other accounts suddenly spring into focus that were blurred or even wholly invisible? 

And after having read Durie, you wil be able to see just how foolish and even dangerous is the article that appeared in the ABC’s “Just In” news section, last night; and why the ABC would have done better to have gone to Mark Durie and asked permission to republish his article, instead.

Excerpt from Durie’s article, on the parallels between the Martin Place attack and the Broken Hill attack:

“There are striking parallels between the Broken Hill massacre a century ago, and the recent Martin Place siege.

“1/ In both cases the media puzzled over the motivation of the attackers. The Barrier Miner wrote in 1915 “The question has been asked over and over again, and by many people since yesterday morning’s tragic occurrence, as to the motive of the men in attacking the picnic train with its load of women and children…”

“2/ The attackers in both cases had resided for many years in Australia and were well-known in their communities.

“3/ Both attacks were individual acts; although the 1915 attack by two individuals working together, they were not part of a larger network of jihadis (except insofar as the Ummah itself may be viewed as such a network – CM) Ebut were merely combining their individual efforts.

“4/ In both cases the attackers subscribed to the dogmas of jihad in the path of Allah, and martyrdom in Holy War.

“5/ In both cases, attackers were mobilized in response to a global call to jihad: in 1915 issued by the Ottoman Caliphate; in 2014 issued by Islamic State.

“6/ Both global calls to jihad had specifically invited Muslims around the world to commit individual acts of jihad by killing infidels (see here on the Islamic State’s call to Muslims to run over infidels with their cars).

“7/ In both cases the perpetrators had been experiencing difficulties with the law [that is, with Infidel law and law-enforcement – CM]: in the 1915 massacre, Mullah Abdullah had been convicted days before for slaughtering sheep on an unlicensed premises. In the Martin Place siege, Hojat al-Islam Muhammad Hassan Manteqi (AKA ‘Sheikh’ Man Haron Monis) was facing criminal charges as an accessory to the murder of his ex-wife and had a history of convictions for serious offenses.

“There were also similarities in the way the wider community and the media responded:

“1/ In both cases the media took pains to point out that the majority of people in the Muslim community abhorred the killings, and reported that no-one from the Muslim community wished to claim the bodies (see here and here).

In other words: the local branch of the Ummah opted to dissociate themselves publicly from the dead Jihadi, in the interests of Damage Control. – CM

“2/ In both cases there were no reprisals against Muslims. However the Broken Hill German Club was burned down in 1915; the killings were considered to be linked to the World War I conflict as a whole, rather than as manifestations of individual jihadism.” (That is, they were not recognised as manifestations of a specifically Muslim attitude and program of aggression toward non-Muslims qua non-Muslims – CM)

Durie puts it plainly, a little further on in his article – “Jihadi terror is a manifestation of Islamic theology”.

It seems that neither in 1915 nor in December 2014 were our press or our politicians able or willing to face that fact head on.

The ABC certainly is not.  Here is ABC reporter Jacqueline Breen’s piece on the 1915 Muslim ghazi raid at Broken Hill; complete with constant hints that “it was all us wicked infidels’ fault for persecuting the poor little innocent Muslims and being such nasty racists and bigots”.  With Mark Durie’s article under your belt, you’ll be able to see just what a dreadful piece of disinformation has been perpetrated by Ms Breen and her superiors.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-01/broken-hill-remembers-wwi-attack/5995854

‘Broken Hill Remembers Vicitms of 1915 Attack by Gunmen Brandishing Turkish Flag”.

Can’t possibly call them Muslims, can we?  But if they hadn’t been Muslims they wouldn’t have done it.

No ethnic Germans shouting ‘Long Live the Kaiser” fired on Australian civilian women and children at any time during WWI, even though Australia had a very large population of ethnically German citizens and residents, some of them still speaking German at home and at church, and even though many of those Germans qua Germans were regarded with suspicion and given the cold shoulder during the course of the war.  Despite the suspicion and even in some instances harassment endured by their communities, many German-Australians, my own great-grand-uncle among them, enlisted in the Australian Army and fought valiantly and loyally, at Gallipoli and elsewhere. – CM

‘New Year’s Day marks the anniversary of an early attack on Australian soil motivated by events in foreign war-zones and the nation’s relationship with the Middle East.

Ah yes, it’s all our fault for getting involved and provoking the Muslims...CM

‘On New Year’s Day 1915, two members of Broken Hill’s migrant cameleer community (sic: two Muslim men resident in Broken Hill – CM) brandishing a Turkish flag (that is: the flag that at that time was still the flag of the Ottoman Empire; the Caliphate had not yet been dissolved – CM) opened fire on a trainload of picnic-goers near Broken Hill.

“About 1,200 locals had crowded onto open-roofed train carriages to travel to a picnic in the nearby small town of Silverton for the first day of the year.

‘But just a few kilometres out of town, shots were fired from behind an ice-cream truck parked railside, and sparked a series of events that would see six people killed (note the blurring of distinction between victims and perpetrators, when the dead murderers are counted alongside those whom they murdered – CM) and another seven injured.

Note the use of the passive voice – “shots were fired”, “a series of events…six people killed…another seven injured”.  This is all too common in any reporting of Muslim attacks upon Infidels.  Who  did what to whom, when, and why, is obscured.  Imagine if Ms Breen’s first sentence read – “But just a few kilometres out of town, the two Muslim gunmen, hidden behind an ice-cream truck they had parked beside the line, fired upon the passengers…”. – CM

‘Christine Adams from Broken Hill’s Railway and Historical Museum said the crowd was initially confused.

“For a few seconds they…thought that it was part of the celebration of New Year’s Day, and then they saw, you know, a couple of people had gone down in the wagons (and were) bleeding”, she said.

‘Police said that a letter found on the younger man, an ice-cream vendor named Gool Mahomet, stated he was a subject of the Ottoman Sultan.

Who was, of course, at that time, still Caliph: the titular head of all Muslims everywhere.  But observe that our Ms Breen says “Police said”.  There is at least a hint that we are depending on the word of the police, and that perhaps they were framing our poor innocent little Muswim.  – CM

“I will fight and kill your people, because your people are fighting my country”, the letter read.

Ms Breen could have quoted – but does not – another passage from the letter, which is cited by Mark Durie in his article that I have linked – “I must kill you and give my life for my faith, Allahu Akbar.”  His motivation was not “country”  – not in the sense that we infidels understand patriotism – but “faith”, the “defence” of Islam and the territory controlled by Islam. And note that Ms Breen avoids mentioning the Islamic religious title, “Caliph”. – CM

‘Just a few months earlier the Ottoman Empire had joined World War I with Germany against the British, and it was thought that the war was the motivation for the two gunmen, but the situation was more complex.

If you have read the Durie article that I linked, you will know that there were two fatwas issued by the Caliph in connection with World War I, and that the letters left by the two Muslim jihadis in Broken Hill stated that they were “responding to a call to Jihad issued by the Ottoman Caliphate (on 11 November 1914).  Mullah Abdullah said that his intention was to die for his faith in obedience to the Sultan’s order, and Mahommed Gool wrote “I must kill you and give my life for my faith, Allahu Akbar.” – CM

‘Ms Adams said, from all accounts, life in the area was difficult for the gunmen.

Cue the all-too-predictable validation of the Muslim narrative of victimhood. Which, in the context of this particular story, is a nonsense, because no German-Australians ever took up rifles and took pot-shots at Aussie non-German civilians during World War One, despite copping quite a bit of suspicion, discrimination and harassment because of their being identified with the hated Hun. – CM

“I’m sure that he and the older man had their own perceived grievances of how they were treated”, she said.

Yeah, grievances.  Suuuure.  But, my dear lady, Muslims always have grievances. The fundamental grievance being the mere existence of Infidels and of Infidel polities, as yet unsubdued by Muslims, anywhere on the face of the earth.  Ms Adams, of Broken Hill, needs to get a clue. I would recommend to her David Greenfield’s “The Danger of Legitimising Muslim Grievances”.  here is the link.

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2011/11/dangers-of-legitimizing-islamic.html

Anyone else here who has not yet read this piece by Greenfield would be well advised to click on that link, and read it, before proceeding further.  Now, back to Ms Breen’s “report” – within which, you will note, the words “Muslim”, “Islam” and “Jihad” do not appear even once.

“The White Australia Policy was still in vogue. They didn’t have a very good life here”.

Yeah, all Muslims whenever resident within non-Muslim lands must be enriched, flattered, petted and stroked, and their every wish and desire accommodated, and their breaches of Infidel law tacitly permitted, in case they Go Jihad on us?  This Ms Adams is a fool.    – CM

“If you read earlier accounts of the way they were described by the local media, it was pretty horrific.”

Well, what they damn well did to those innocent, unarmed picnickers on the train was pretty horrific. A seventeen year old girl had the top of her head blown off by a rifle shot from one of these two Muslim ghazi raiders, and a chunk of bone from her skull wounded another girl next to her. Now that is what I call horrific. – CM

‘The older gunman, a butcher named Mullah Abdullah, said his target was the town’s inspector who harassed him for butchering meat without a proper license.

Another of the articles that I linked above – the one by “Nicholas Shakespeare”, called “Outback Jihad” – makes it pretty plain that the town’s sanitary inspector, one Mr Brosnan, was an equal-opportunity persecutor who came down hard on anybody he caught infringing regulations. Lots of non-Muslims in the town had cause to dislike him, as well. – CM

‘Bobby Shamroze is a descendant of Broken Hill’s Afghan cameleers and caretaker of the city’s tiny tin mosque – the oldest in New South Wales.

Oh, the cute lil mosque in the bush.. That word ‘mosque’ is the only and only hint, in the entire article, that this event might have anything at all to do with Islam. – CM

“From what I’ve read there’s one bloke [who] had a bit of a blue with the health inspector about killing the meat. [He]] probably thought it wasn’t healthy back in them days”, he said.

“I don’t know [but] from what I can gather one was only a young bloke and the other was an older bloke and he was supposed to be a bit silly.”

Observe the deflection and denial of responsibility.  At all costs, attention must be shifted from Islam. The attackers had a just grievance – they were being ‘persecuted’  over a minor issue, just a minor issue.  An older man led an impressionable younger man astray. ‘He was supposed to be a bit silly”. N ot all there, psychiatrically disturbed, etc etc etc.  But let’s not talk about Jihad. Let’s not talk about dar al Islam and dar al Harb and the obligation to wage war upon the dirty unbelievers until the whole world is subject to Muslims and governed by the sharia of Islam. – CM

“And they just went off their head and started shooting”.

Except that Muslims seem to do this sort of thing rather a lot, all over the world; their preferred targets being non-Muslims, and such Muslims as the killers have redefined as insufficiently-Islamic or wrong-sect Muslims.  – CM

‘Mr Shamroze said the Broken Hill cameleers refused to bury the bodies of the two gunmen after the attack.

“They never had nothing to do with it. They weren’t the ones who’d done it. It was just these two”, he said.

I’m not so sure. Even at this distance in time, I smell ‘damage control’.  There is no way that that quite small group of local Muslims, all resident in the same quarter on the edge of town, worshipping together at the same little mosque, and all buying their halal meat from one of the men involved,  could possibly have suspected nothing.  And there is no way that they would not all have known about the Caliph’s summons to Jihad. That most of them chose not to act on it – probably because they prudentially deemed the circumambient infidels too strong – does not mean that they would not have understood why two of their fellows did choose to act. – CM

“I don’t know what you’d call them [they are] just two blokes that just went off the rails and took things into their own hands”…

NothingtodowithIslam! NothingtodowithIslam!  Behold our Mr Shamroze tossing the two jihadis under the bus, in order to protect the image of Islam, and to protect the Muslim beachhead in Australia, from any sort of uncomfortable Infidel scrutiny.    Now, go back and read Mark Durie’s article again, and get a good solid dose of reality. – CM