DEARBORN (WWJ) – Police patrols are beefing up in Dearborn after a Wall Street Journal article calling the city “America’s Jihad Capital” led to a rise in “alarming” online threats targeting the Metro Detroit suburb over the weekend.
Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud said in a social media post just after 1 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 3, that Dearborn police would ramp up its presence across all places of worship and major infrastructure points effective immediately.
“The this a direct result of the garbage the Wall Street Journal opinion piece that has had led to an alarming increase in bigoted and Islamophobic rhetoric online targeting the City of Dearborn,” Hammoud said.
The piece written by Steven Stalinsky — an American commentator on the Middle East, terrorism, terrorist use of the Internet, and encryption technologies who as served as the Executive Director of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) since 1999 — and published on Friday opens with:
Dearborn, Mich.
Thousands march in support of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. Protesters, many with kaffiyehs covering their faces, shout “Intifada, intifada,” “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and “America is a terrorist state.” Local imams give fiery antisemitic sermons. This isn’t the Middle East. It’s the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Mich.