Theo Van Gogh

Here's a dutch intelligence report on the Theo Van Gogh murder. Very interesting. My understanding is that Dutch intelligence is famous for being quite good for a European service.

The most interesting point with this report, that differs from my popularized version of the Van Gogh murder, is that Van Gogh was NOT attacked as a result of the offensive nature of his movie. The killing was NOT a reactionary move. Rather, making the film "Submission" put Van Gogh on a "target list" by a radical Islamic group because he became a public symbol of anti-Islamic thought. This list included a couple of Dutch politicians, including a mayor and a few representatives to Dutch parliment...one of those representatives was the screenwriter of the project, a Muslim-Somali women, who, police think, was the real target of the attack. The Islamicists could not get to her because she already had police protection. Van Gogh was a secondary target.

The reasons for the attack, again, were not simply a reaction to the film. The attacked coincided with the US assault on Falluja and was meant as a response by a loosely-organized insurgent group, with ties to Zarqawi as a counter attack.

It's an interesting, rather long report, worth reading if these issues are of interest to you.