http://gatesofvienna.net/2016/12/bastille-day-in-the-caliphate/Bastille Day in the CaliphatePosted on December 20, 2016 by Baron Bodissey
Matt Bracken sends this excerpt from his next novel, which is close to completion.
NOTE: This is an excerpt -- see URL above for full text.
A ten-day passage would give me a chance to compare notes with men who had actually been living through the strife, at least in the British Isles. During one of the first mornings of the voyage, I was in the cockpit with Colonel Rainborow, chatting over tea. I assumed that as an ex-SAS officer and the leader of a private military outfit, he would be as tuned in to current events as it was possible to be.
“So what’s really going on in Europe?” I asked him. “Ireland was as close as I’ve gotten in a few years, and I don’t know how to judge what I hear on the radio. It’s almost all propaganda or fantasy, as far as I can tell.”
“The radio? Yes, it mostly is. Hmmm…let’s see… I assume that you know about the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower?”
“Sure, of course: seven-ten was the French nine-eleven. That was two years ago, at the beginning of the French Civil War. They were both blown up at the same time, on July tenth.”
“Not quite the same time,” said the colonel. “The Louvre was first. A lorry delivered four tons of Semtex. A team of jihadis hijacked an art shipment and made the switch out in the countryside. Drove the lorry into an underground garage and straight up to the receiving dock. The blast killed a thousand tourists and cratered the place.”
“So the Louvre attack was a diversion.”
“Right. It pulled away all the security forces, and then the Eiffel Tower was attacked by terrorists. About twenty of them held a hundred tourists on the observation deck and threatened to kill them all and destroy the tower. After what had just happened at the Louvre, the French had no doubt of their sincerity. The terrorists burned the big French tricolor on top and raised a gigantic black flag of jihad. They declared the Eiffel Tower to be the minaret of the new grand mosque of Muslim Europe. Paris was the capital of the European Caliphate. It was a very sophisticated operation, blowing up the Louvre and then capturing the Eiffel Tower.
“They brought their own television and radio broadcasting equipment with them. Loudspeakers, generators, the lot. Then they made the usual demands: free all the Muslims held in European jails and remove all European forces from Muslim lands. And then on Bastille Day, when none of that had happened, they began pitching the hostages off the tower one by one, starting with an elderly Jew. Goes without saying they raped all the women and children. The Caliphate declared it a major victory for global Islam. The terrorists held out for a week, leading the call to prayer from on top of the tower, black flag and all. And after each call to prayer, another hostage was thrown down. Finally, after nine days, French commandos tried a helicopter assault behind a smoke screen. It was a bloodbath — the terrorists were ready for them. But the terrorists didn’t have enough Semtex to completely destroy the tower. They only had enough to demolish the top third of it. French sappers had dismantled the charges they’d planted lower on the legs.
“Attacking the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower were taken by the French as a declaration of war on France itself. After those twin disasters, nobody spoke of radical Islam anymore, just Islam. Islam was declared to be the enemy of France. The French passed new anti-Islam laws almost overnight. Loyalty oaths were demanded for all Muslims in France. The Sharia no-go zones had to be opened up for inspection and completely disarmed. Military-age Muslim men had to be registered, photographed, and fingerprinted. This was all refused out of hand, of course. Instead, the no-go zones were barricaded, and then the French had car bombs going off in front of schools and police stations. Oh, and rocket attacks, and random mortars. And snipers, of course, the snipers… That lasted until August, when the French Army went full-out medieval. The Muslim no-go Sharia zones were attacked and then destroyed, one after the other. Like I said, they went medieval.”
“I thought the French military was full of Muslims.”
“It was — before the loyalty oaths. The loyalty oaths were rejected in the Sharia zones, but they worked well enough in the military. Almost all of the Muslims in the French Army were thrown out. The ones who didn’t desert and run into the Sharia zones were put behind razor wire as a risk to French society. It surprised everybody how fast the French could build concentration camps when they put their minds to it. This led to even more car bombs and rocket attacks, until the French used heavy artillery on the no-go zones. Leveled them. Parts of Paris and the other French cities look like Stalingrad now, but at least they’re one hundred percent French again. Well, in the north, anyway.”
