On his visit to a new Turkish-funded mosque in Lanham, Md., Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erodogan said his government chose the site because of its location in “free territory.”
He said when he attended the groundbreaking of the 15-acre, $100 million mega-mosque that the Turkish-American Cultural Center likely will become “the largest and most striking examples of Islamic architecture in the Western hemisphere when finished in 2014.”
But those seemingly innocuous words are alarming to a number of analysts, including former Palestinian operative Walid Shoebat, who says the West doesn’t realize the significance of what Erdogan was saying.
Shoebat said Erdogan’s true mission is to claim the land for Islam, and the evidence is in his words.
“The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers,” Shoebat said, quoting Erdogan.
“The West is unaware that in Islam, a mosque is an embassy and Turkey is acting stealthily, which is why the project is not arousing much alarm,” Shoebat said.
