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Violent Jihad

Washington Mall Shooter Came from Turkey, Had a Picture of ISIS Caliph al-Baghdadi on His Blog

Analysts are still looking for motives, but one cannot deny that jihadism has had an influence.

BY Bruce Cornibe · | September 30, 2016

We have witnessed a number of recent attacks over the past couple of weeks in New York, New Jersey, Minnesota, Washington state, amongst others. New information is coming in for these cases, while analysts are still looking for motives; however, one cannot deny that jihadism has had an influence in at least some of the cases. The Burlington, Washington mall shooting is an interesting case. Even though the shooter, Arcan Cetin, is from a Muslim majority country in Turkey (police originally thought he was Hispanic) and has posted pictures of ISIS’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei and had other Islamic references, it isn’t clear yet that he was inspired by jihad. Besides multiple “arrests for assaulting his stepfather, as well as a DUI[,]” Cetin seemed to exemplify an Islamist bent toward the treatment of women. FrontPage Mag states:

He scared at least one neighbor: “Amber Cathey, 21, lived in an apartment next to Cetin for the past three months and said she was so frightened by him that she complained to apartment management and kept a stun gun handy. Cathey said she blocked him on Snapchat after he sent her a photo of his crotch. ‘He was really creepy, rude and obnoxious,’ Cathey said.”

A high school classmate recalled that Cetin “was very hurtful towards girls. He would sexually harass them. And bully a lot of them.”

The Washington Post gives more insight into Cetin’s feelings toward women:

Mehmet Ecder, an 18-year old high school student who grew up with Cetin in Amana, Turkey, said Cetin came from a troubled family and was struggling to connect with American girls once he moved to Washington state. He liked living in the U.S., but “He says, ‘American girls hate me,’” Ecder recalled of conversations over the last year with Cetin.

Cetin had mentioned a young woman who had rejected him, Ecder said.

“He says he doesn’t know how to talk to girls,” said Ecder. He believes Cetin may have committed the crime “out of jealousy.”

Even if Cetin was a socially awkward kid (especially around girls) like many other kids in the U.S. this alone typically doesn’t trigger one to go on a shooting spree. Maybe the reason was more cultural. Coming from Turkey where women are relegated in society and men feel entitled to have women it’s not surprising that Cetin could have been influenced by this Islamist culture – at least within his family. It’s quite possible he used this animosity toward women in selecting his targets in the mall shooting – four out of five of the fatalities were female. Only with more time and information will we be able to know with certainty what inspired Cetin to commit such vicious acts of violence (one victim was a sixteen-year-old girl who had beat cancer). As for now we also still can’t rule out the possible jihadist motive.

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