Beheading Britney?

According to WorldNetDaily, radical Palestinian Islamists are less than enamored with the likes of Britney Spears and Madonna:

"If I meet these whores I will have the honor – I repeat, I will have the honor – to be the first one to cut the heads off Madonna and Britney Spears if they will keep spreading their satanic culture against Islam," said Muhammad Abdel-Al, spokesman and senior leader of the Popular Resistance Committees terror organization.


I'm not exactly the biggest Britney Spears fan, but this does seem a bit much. As the article points out, though, the views expressed by Abdel-Al to WND's Aaron Klein are indeed shared by others:

"Unfortunately, I heard the names of Madonna and Spears on [Arab] television when parents complain that their children neglect their studies and their values because they are influenced by your cheap American music that you call culture," explained Sheikh Abu Saqer, a founder of the Sword of Islam terror group.

The Sword of Islam has taken responsibility in Gaza for bombings of Internet cafes, pool halls and secular music stores, and is suspected of attacking a United Nations–funded school in Gaza accused of allowing girls and boys to play sports together.

Abu Abdullah, a senior member of Hamas' so-called "military wing" is quoted in "Schmoozing" describing what his group would do with Madonna and Spears if jihad groups took over the U.S.:

"At the beginning, we will try to convince Madonna and Britney Spears to follow Allah's way. But I honestly don't think they will follow. If they persist with their whoring music, we will prevent them by force. I don't think that I can be in the same place with these singers. They might be killed if they do not respect our laws."


It's easy to dismiss such over the top Islamist rhetoric as silly, especially when uttered in regards to an utterly frivolous person like Ms. Spears. Unfortunately, there is nothing funny about threats by radical Islamists to behead women they accuse of immorality. Just last week, the Taliban beheaded two women in northwest Pakistan whom they accused of being prostitutes. According to the BBC, a note was left with the bodies stating that "(w)e have started doing this to end obscenity in the area." In Iraq, under the supposedly secular Saddam Hussein, the Fedayeen Saddam militia publicly beheaded over 200 women accused of prostitution.

Anytime Islamists express their desire to murder someone they believe to be immoral or "un-Islamic", the evidence suggests that they mean it. However improbable the odds that Ms. Spears would meet such a horrific fate, there are numerous other women who likely will.