First it was Osama's lust for Whitney, now we can ogle the Isis sex symbol
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Version 0 of 1. There is always a special thrill reserved for the moment MailOnline gets behind a new celebrity. Whether the website actively perceives itself to be the modern equivalent of Louis B Mayer is unclear, but its ability to spot a new starlet and ruthlessly mould them into a sex symbol who defines the age is second to none. Last weekend was a case in point. If you're wondering why you have spent this week suddenly hearing more about some stuff going on in Iraq, then allow Lost in Showbiz to enlighten you: these conflicts are essentially star vehicles, and the as-yet-untitled Mesopotamian sequel has just had its romantic lead cast. As the Mail's now deleted tweet of its star profile announced: "Isis chief executioner winning hearts with his rugged looks." Winning hearts? Well, he hasn't been pictured eating hearts yet, which puts him a few spots below that cardiovorous Syrian rebel on the dreamboat charts. But those of you keen to scratch his name into your pencil tin with a compass will want to know that the ruggedly good-looking hunk in question is Isis enforcer Shakir Wahiyib. (Dot every letter i with a heart, obviously.) And even as you rip down the One Direction pictures on your bedroom wall and replace them with Athena-inspired images of Shakir cradling a rocket-propelled grenade like a baby, or totally making an execution look like a Levi's ad, chances are you'll want to know more about your new crush. "Now it is claimed he revels in being a jihadist poster boy," claims the Mail, of claims it appears to be the only one claiming, "and has even attracted female admirers from across the Middle East." Disappointingly, there are no anonymous lady onlookers or sectarian bystanders to back up these faintly questionable suggestions – not even ones who speak conveniently fluent tabloidese. You know the sort of thing: "Even among all the unimaginable horror and bloodshed, all the girls are talking about him. We used to like your Towie hunks, but now everyone's going mad for Shakir." Of course, Shakir is far from the first individual to cause a stir in both the worlds of celebrity and jihad. There has been a sort of cross pollination between the two communities ever since the "war on terror" was conceived, and the odd columnist Just Put It Out There that they thought Osama bin Laden had totally sexy eyes. Some years ago, a journalist decided to interview various radical Islamists for a book called Schmoozing with Terrorists, and it seemed they gave a lot more thought to celebrities than you might have imagined. One senior member of Hamas's military wing was particularly exercised by Madonna and Britney Spears's kiss at the 2003 MTV awards – but happily had a plan for how to deal with the problem just as soon as Hollywood fell to the jihadists. "At the beginning," this Abu Abdullah explained, "we will try to convince Madonna and Britney Spears to follow Allah's way." It sounds like an edgy concept for a video – but go on. "If these two prostitutes continue doing what they are doing," we learned, "of course we will punish them. I will have the honour – I repeat, the honour – to be the first one to cut off the heads of Madonna and Britney Spears." Well, there's little point being the second one. But the big doomed romance, you'll recall, was Osama bin Laden's massive pash on Whitney Houston – revealed by one of the late al-Qaida CEO's former concubines. "He said that he had a paramount desire for Whitney Houston," this Kola Boof's memoirs recount. "How beautiful she was, how truly Islamic she is but just brainwashed by American culture and by her husband Bobby Brown, whom Osama talked about having killed. He explained to me that to possess Whitney he would be willing to break his colour rule and make her one of his wives." Alas, for whatever reasons these things don't work out, it wasn't to be. But although the following detail was left out of official accounts for operational reasons, you should know that when US Navy Seals stormed his Pakistan compound, Osama was actually winding up his 437th viewing of The Bodyguard, sobbing his heart out over the fact that Whitney and the man she loves just can't be together, because he cares too passionately about her to be able to protect her properly. (Incidentally, anyone even tempted to whinge about spoilers for a movie like The Bodyguard will invite my own jihad upon their heads.) As for other would-be crossover artists, LiS is still holding out for Lindsay Lohan to drag herself out of insanely hyped London nightspot Chiltern Firehouse and make good on her years-old promise to visit Iraq, apparently at the behest of Hillary Clinton. "My security guard is going to take me to a gun-range," she told an interviewer in 2006. "He says if I'm going to Iraq I should really know how to shoot." Like I say, we have yet to hear Lindsay's deployment date. Then again, Chiltern Firehouse appears so wantonly ghastly that it can only have been conceived as a terrorist recruiting aid – so the suspicion must be that Lohan has been turned in the intervening years, and now works for evildoers as yet unknown. Is this what fellow Firehouse diner David Cameron means by a clear and present threat to us here at home? Is it part of an orchestrated, enemy-within campaign that also includes the Mail sexing up jihadists? When LiS knows more, so will you. |