Jihad Watch

Worth murdering for, they thought

The jihad against free speech, free expression, and free thought continues. "2 charged in 'plot to kill Swedish cartoonist,'" from CNN, March 16:

(CNN) -- Irish authorities said Tuesday they have charged two men who were reportedly part of an international plot to kill a controversial Swedish cartoonist.

The two men appeared in Waterford District Court on Monday night, the Courts Service of Ireland said. While the service refused to confirm whether their case is related to the alleged plot, Irish and British media outlets including The Irish Times reported the connection.

The first man, Ali Charaf Damache, was charged with making a menacing call to an individual.

The other man, Abdul Salem Monsour Khalil al Jahani, was charged with failure to produce a valid passport or other valid document to establish his identity, contrary to the Immigration Act 2004....

An American woman who called herself "Jihad Jane," Colleen LaRose, was indicted in the United States earlier this month for allegedly conspiring to support terrorists and kill a person in a foreign country, namely a resident of Sweden. The U.S. official identified the target to CNN as Lars Vilks, a cartoonist who outraged some with a drawing of the prophet Mohammed.

The indictment against LaRose says she worked with at least five co-conspirators. The U.S. official said the people arrested in Ireland were directly related to the same plot to which LaRose was allegedly connected....

How did they do that? By allegedly dancing and drinking alcohol inside the synagogue -- which sounds as if it could have been an ordinary and reasonable celebration under the circumstances. But Egyptian officials preferred to portray it as the dhimmis getting out of line. After all, how would it look to be rededicating a synagogue in Cairo while their Palestinian brothers are ratcheting up their jihad against Israel?

"Egypt scraps synagogue ceremony after 'provocative' acts," from AFP, March 14 (thanks to all who sent this in):

CAIRO (AFP) - Egypt cancelled the formal opening Sunday of a renovated 19th-century synagogue in Cairo to protest what antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said were "provocative" Jewish and Israeli action.

Hawass and Culture Minister Faruq Hosni were due to attend the event, a week after 150 people, including rabbis and the US and Israeli ambassadors, attended the rededication of the Maimonides synagogue.

Hawass, citing press reports, said in a statement that the cancellation comes after "provocative" acts during the March 7 ceremony in Cairo's ancient Jewish quarters by the Jewish community.

He referred to "dancing and drinking alcohol in the synagogue, as reported by several newspapers" and said these acts "were seen to provoke the feelings of millions of Muslims in Egypt and across the world."

The decision was also taken at "a time when Muslim holy sites in occupied Palestine face assaults from Israeli occupation forces and settlers," Hawass said.

He was referring to clashes at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and plans to include two contested West Bank holy shrines on a list of Israeli heritage sites. Hawass said this was also a "provocation."

The synagogue of Maimonides, known in Egypt by its Arabic name of Musa bin Maymun, is named after the 12th century Jewish scholar, philosopher and physician.

Egypt began restoration of its Jewish sites several years ago....

But...but...deep down, they really, really want peace! "Senior Fatah officials joined Fatah youth movement in 'popular inauguration' ceremony for terrorist square," by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik for Palestinian Media Watch, March 14 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Although world pressure forced the Palestinian Authority to cancel the official ceremonies to name a square after the terrorist Dalal Mughrabi last week, several senior Fatah officials participated in a "popular inauguration" organized by Fatah's youth movement. According to the PA, the square is now named after Mughrabi and an official ceremony, including placing a monument, will take place at a later date. Thursday's "popular inauguration" was on the 32nd anniversary of "the Coastal Road Massacre" of 1978, in which 37 were murdered in a bus hijacking.

Among the senior Fatah officials participating in the popular inauguration were Tawfiq Tirawi, member of the Fatah Central Committee and former head of the PA Police in the West Bank, and Jamal Huweil, a Fatah member of Palestinian Parliament from Fatah.

Poster Text: "On the anniversary of the Coastal Road Operation we renew our commitment and our oath that we uphold the charge and that we will not stray from the path of the Shahids - Shahida (Martyr) Dalal Mughrabi Square, Shabiba students' movement / Palestine] [Al-Quds, March 12, 2010]

Palestinian Media Watch first reported in January that the square was to be named for Mughrabi, After the initial story, PMW published five follow-up bulletins, including one reporting that the day chosen by the PA for the naming ceremony was to be March 11, the anniversary of the terror attack. Israeli news reported that PM Netanyahu asked George Mitchell and then Vice President Biden to put pressure on the PA to cancel the event. On March 10, the PA cancelled the official ceremony.

Click here to see timeline of PMW reports and other news stories related to the cancellation of the official ceremony.

Trying to minimize the impact of world pressure on the PA, Adnan Al-Dumeiri, spokesman for the PA Security Apparatus, announced at the "popular inauguration" that the official inauguration was postponed "due to technical reasons and not because of Israel's request."...

Of course!

Not that we'd expect Hamas to call for a day of hacky sack tournaments and indie rock concerts. In any event, things are going downhill fast in Jerusalem, and the usual suspects are egging it on. "'Day of rage': Riots in Jerusalem," from YNet News, March 16:

The day dubbed "the day of rage" by Hamas and extremist Islamic groups opened with riots - both in the holy city and on the way to it. Hundreds of Arabs burned tires and hurled stones at Border Guard officers at several locations throughout the city Tuesday morning. At least three officers and 11 rioters were lightly injured, and eight were detained. Meanwhile, in the North, a bus full of Muslim passengers on their way to al-Aqsa Mosque was stopped and turned back. Police said the bus was inspected following tip-offs of possible plans to riot in Jerusalem.

Arab MKs and members of the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee also arrived at the al-Aqsa Mosque Tuesday morning. "The Netanyahu government is dangerous and irresponsible, and is leading the region to a third intifada," said MK Talab El-Sana (United Arab List - Ta'al).MK Ahmad Tibi told Ynet he was inside the mosque: "There is a renewed occupation of east Jerusalem and the al-Aqsa Mosque, gunshots can be heard in every direction."

Dozens of masked rioters hurled stones at Border Guard officers near the Shuafat refugee camp in Jerusalem, and set fire to tires. The force dispersed the rioters using stun grenades. Two policemen were lightly injured and seven Palestinians were arrested.

In another incident, at the northern entrance to the Isawiya neighborhood in Jerusalem, masked protesters also burned tires and hurled stones at Border Guard officers. The rioters were calmed and dispersed by the village's elders. Security forces also dispersed masked rioters hurling stones near the Temple Mount's Majlis Gate....

Telling lies to further the jihad -- as Muhammad said, "War is deceit."

"PA Libel: Israel tried to burn down Al-Aqsa Mosque in 1969," by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook for Palestinian Media Watch, March 15 (thanks to all who sent this in):

As Palestinians continue almost daily rioting in Jerusalem and other cities, claiming Israel is damaging places holy to Islam, the Palestinian Authority has chosen to rekindle another libel whose goal seems to be to increase the unrest and rioting.

This renewed libel is based on a rewriting of history by the Palestinian Authority, accusing Israel of assisting in the arson attack in the Al-Aqsa Mosque in 1969.

The facts of the case were as follows: A non-Jewish Australian started a fire in the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Aug. 21, 1969. The fire was extinguished and the damage was repaired.

More than ten years ago the Palestinian Authority initiated the lie that Israel was involved in the arson or that it Jew who started the fire with the Israeli government's help. The libel was revived this week with this slide broadcast on PA TV:

Text on top: "Israeli aggression against the holy places"

Text in middle: "And on Aug. 21, 1969, the Jew Dennis Michael set fire to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, with the support of the Jewish government, which cut off the water supply from the neighborhoods close to the Al-Aqsa Mosque with a view to delaying the operations to extinguish [the fire]."

Text on bottom: "Aggression against the holy places - the occupation: a long history of defiling and desecrating that which is sacred."
[PA TV (Fatah), March 5, 2010]...

Meanwhile, Pamela Geller does some historical investigation and finds that this sort of incitement has happened before.

Of course it is. "The Jihadists Next Door," from Investors Business Daily, March 15:

Security: The arrests of three new homegrown terrorists, including two "Jihad Janes" and an al-Qaida suspect who infiltrated nuclear plants, confirm a rise in homegrown jihadist activity.

Sharif Mobley is one of the latest jihadists next door. Before he was rounded up in a sweep of suspected al-Qaida terrorists in Yemen, Mobley worked at five nuclear plants in New Jersey, Maryland and Pennsylvania. He shot two guards, killing one, before his capture.

Mobley grew up in New Jersey before converting to Islam. His militancy shocked an old high school friend, who ran into him after returning from an Army tour in Iraq. Mobley told him: "Get the hell away from me, you Muslim killer!"

Then there's Colleen LaRose, aka Jihad Jane, who was arrested in Philadelphia for allegedly plotting to kill a Swedish cartoonist who'd "offended" Muslims. Jamie Paulin-Ramirez of Denver was also arrested in connection with the assassination plot.

All three suspects are U.S. citizens from different parts of the country. One is black, one white and one formerly married to a Hispanic immigrant. Two, shockingly, are women. While each suspect has a different background, all three are Muslim converts radicalized over the Internet -- a dangerous trend.

American converts are al-Qaida's prime recruits right now, because they have a better chance of slipping through security checkpoints. [...]

While the essential ingredient in these cases is militant Islam, we have to wonder if the left isn't making otherwise normal Americans vulnerable to such treasonous seductions. After all, the hate-America lobby -- led by the American Civil Liberties Union and often cheered by the media -- has comforted even the most guilty in the war on terror, including the 9/11 mastermind and other Gitmo detainees.

Take Omar Hammami. A smart American college kid who grew up Baptist in the Alabama suburbs, he's now an al-Qaida field commander in Somalia wanted by the FBI.

What happened? He became consumed with events in Iraq and Afghanistan and began subscribing to conspiracy theories about 9/11. He learned to hate his country, which he calls a legitimate "target" for attack....

Read it all.

So whom do you want to believe? Do you want to believe those who claim, such as Charles Krauthammer, that there is "Islam" and then there is "Islamism" and there is vast and therefore comforting difference between the two - though that difference is never really adequately discussed in detail - and we must never forget it?

What do others, aside from Charles Krauthammer, have to say about Islam and "Islamism"?

Ibn Warraq has repeatedly said that he has no idea what "Islamism" may mean. For Ibn Warraq, the real distinction is between the ideology of Islam and some of those who call themselves Muslims, that is, adherents of the ideology: "There are moderate Muslims. Islam itself is not moderate."

This lapidary formula points to a truth: that the texts of Islam, if not only taken literally -- and they are taken literally, that is the whole point - but also taken to heart, create people who are, to appropriate a line of Shakespeare, toward Infidels (and not infrequently toward each other), "savage, bloody, rude, not to trust."

Wafa Sultan, who has thought long and hard about the matter, says repeatedly that "there is no difference between Islam and Islamism."

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, who has thought long and hard about Islam and Kemalism and everything in-between, angrily says that "there is no difference between Islam and Islamism."

Has Bing come down with the same "bug" that infected Google for so long -- the one that censored negative searches about Islam?

Try it yourself: go to Bing and type in "Jews are." One suggested completion of the phrase will show up:

Now type in "Christians are," and you'll get two suggestions:

But if you type in "Muslims are," you get no hint that they are evil, pumpkin-like, or stupid. You get nothing at all:

So once again possible negative suggestions are filtered out for the world's most thin-skinned and lethal religious believers -- the ones waging a global campaign against free speech about the aspects of their religion that incite and justify violence and supremacism. What a coincidence!

For more on Bing, see here.

(Thanks to Richard for the heads-up.)

Calling Obama on his double standard. "Barack Hussein Obama vs Israel," from Sultan Knish, March 14 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The manifold organs of the ObamaMedia are abuzz with outrage over what they are calling Israel's "insult" to the United States. But what was the nature of this awful and outrageous insult? Did Israeli officials pull off V.P. Biden's rug to show off his bald head underneath. Did they ask him why the suit of his pants is so shiny. Did they make him sit at the kiddie table?

More to the point did Israeli TV air calls for a Jihad against America, as Palestinian Arab TV did? Did Israel name a square after the murderer of an American photographer, as the Palestinian Authority did? Did an Israeli Anchorman do a skit in blackface during Obama's visit, as a Turkish anchorman did during Obama's visit to Turkey? Are Israeli religious institutions issuing Fatwahs against America, as Al Azhar University, which Obama visited and spoke at, has done? Are Israeli leaders funding terrorism against America, as the Saudi King, before whom Obama bowed, does?

No, none of those incidents were described as insults. Nothing that Muslim countries did to mock, humiliate and murder Americans were even noticed at all. None of them produced furious condemnations from the White House or two hours of Hillary Clinton screeching on the phone at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. So what did Israel do that was so awful, so horrible and terrible? It built houses. Yes, civilian houses. Not army bases or nuclear missiles or walls. Houses.

Israel approved a construction project to build housing for its own people, in its own capitol city, Jerusalem. Some of the housing will be built in the Shimon HaTzadik neighborhood, situated around the grave of Shimon the Righteous, a Jewish religious figure famed for rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. A neighborhood where Jews have lived for over a century. As well as Ramat Shlomo, a thriving neighborhood with thousands of Jewish families living in it.

The Obama Administration's objections to Jews living in Jerusalem are purely racial and religious. If Israel were approving a construction project to build housing for Arab Muslim citizens of Israel, Biden, Hillary and their media troupe wouldn't be screeching about it to the high heavens. It is only because Jews are to live there, that they have a problem with it. Their objections therefore are purely based on race and religion-- and completely racist....

Read it all.

"It's really shocking to us. Islam means peace. Can you make peace with terrorism?"

No, Islam means submission. Can you make peace with dissembling and half-truths? And are you trying to convince jihadists that their version of Islam is wrong, or is your ire reserved for non-Muslims who dare to notice that Muslims are plotting blood and death against the Infidels in the name of Islam?

"Rev. John B. Rochford, a Baptist minister and administrator of the South East Refugee Information Center, compared the situation to the plight of the Irish decades ago, when they were frequently suspected of terrorism."

Yes, and some Irishmen were terrorists. Thus non-terrorist Irish should have understood the suspicion and cooperated fully with law enforcement efforts -- particularly if they really opposed the terrorism, no?

"U.S. Woman Released in Terror Case," by Neil Shah, Vanessa O'Connell and Evan Perez in the Wall Street Journal, March 15:

Irish police released without charge an American woman who was among seven people arrested last week in Ireland in connection with an alleged plot to murder a Swedish cartoonist.

Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, a 31-year-old Colorado mother and recent convert to Islam who was among those detained, is no longer in the custody of the Irish police, said a person familiar with the matter. Both Irish and U.S. authorities declined to provide further details. [...]

Others worry about the impact of the arrests. Rev. John B. Rochford, a Baptist minister and administrator of the South East Refugee Information Center, compared the situation to the plight of the Irish decades ago, when they were frequently suspected of terrorism.

Some residents also said they were upset about the media's portrayal of the Islamic religion in recent coverage of the terror-related arrests.

Sheikh Ahmed, 45, a law student at the Waterford Institute of Technology, said some coverage in the tabloids--including images of Osama bin Laden--hurts the Muslim community by stirring up tensions.

"It's really shocking to us," he said. "Islam means peace. Can you make peace with terrorism?"

In "Glenn Beck, Think Before You Preach" in Human Events today, Pamela Geller calls out Glenn Beck for smearing Geert Wilders:

Something very disturbing happened last Monday on FOX. Glenn Beck, who has, for the most part, steered clear of jihad, sharia and Islamic supremacism, put his toe in the water, and for the first time since I started fighting the long war, I got nervous.

Beck called the Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who produced the film Fitna about Islamic Koran-based violence, a fascist, and far-right.

What is Beck doing?

Why would he stigmatize Wilders this way? Wilders is the embodiment of what our founding fathers extolled. Individual rights. Freedom of speech. Not sharia law.

In the House of Lords on March 5, Wilders said:

I believe that Islam is not compatible with our Western way of life. Islam is a threat to Western values. The equality of men and women, the equality of homosexuals and heterosexuals, the separation of church and state, freedom of speech, they are all under pressure because of islamization. Ladies and gentlemen: Islam and freedom, Islam and democracy are not compatible. They are opposite values.

Was Beck saying that standing up to defend the "equality of men and women, the equality of homosexuals and heterosexuals, the separation of church and state" and "freedom of speech" is fascist?

Good question. Read it all.

They did this, of course, in order to draw retaliatory fire they could then use to claim that Israel was targeting civilians. "'Hamas used kids as human shields,'" by Yaakov Katz for the Jerusalem Post, March 15 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

Hamas gunmen used Palestinian children as human shields, and established command centers and Kassam launch pads in and near more than 100 mosques and hospitals during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip last year, according to a new Israeli report being released on Monday that aims to counter criticism of the IDF.

The detailed 500-page report, obtained exclusively by The Jerusalem Post, was written by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (Malam), a small research group led by Col. (res.) Reuven Erlich, a former Military Intelligence officer who works closely with the army.

The IDF and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) cooperated with the report's authors and declassified hundreds of photographs, videos, prisoner interrogations and Hamas-drawn sketches as part of an effort to counter the criticism leveled at Israel in the UN-sponsored Goldstone Report....

Read it all.

Via Atlas Shrugs.

In "Is the Gitmo Bar Pro-Islamist?" at The Corner, March 13, the always clear-thinking Andrew McCarthy takes on the artificial Islam vs. Islamism that Charles Krauthammer and so many others take for granted. I discussed Krauthammer's remarks here.

Islamism is a much broader and more mainstream (in Islam) ideology than suggested by the surprisingly ill-informed comments Charles Krauthammer made about a week ago (see Dr. K's commentary here; Mark Steyn's reaction, with which I agree, is here.) Jihadist terrorists are a subset of the Islamists, but many Islamists disagree with the terrorists' means — they are mostly on the same page as far as ends are concerned.

Personally, I don't think there is much difference, if any, between Islam and Islamism. In that assessment, I'm not much different from Turkey's Islamist prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who claims it is "very ugly" for Westerners to draw these distinctions between Muslims as "moderate" or "Islamist" -- "It is offensive and an insult to our religion," he says, because "there is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam, and that's it."

Islamists are Muslims who would like to see sharia (Islamic law) installed. That is the necessary precondition to Islamicizing a society. It is the purpose of jihad. The terrorists are willing to force sharia's installation by violent jihad; other Islamists have varying views about the usefulness of violence, but they also want sharia, and their jihadist methods include tactics other than violence. I reluctantly use the term "Islamist" rather than "Islam" because I believe there are hundreds of millions of Muslims (somewhere between a third to a half of the world's 1.4 billion Muslims) who do not want to live under sharia, and who want religion to be a private matter, separated from public life. It is baffling to me why these people are Muslims since, as I understand Islam, (a) sharia is a basic element, and (b) Islam rejects the separation of mosque and state. But I'm not a Muslim, so that is not for me to say. I think we have to encourage the non-sharia Muslims and give them space to try to reform their religion, so I believe it's worth labeling the sharia seekers "Islamists" in order to sort them out. But I admit being very conflicted about it because I also concede that the Islamists have the more coherent (and scary) construction of Islam. We wouldn't be encouraging reform if we really thought Islam was fine as is.

In any event, Islamist ideology is multi-faceted. You can be pro-Islamist, and even pro-Qaeda, without signing on to the savage Qaeda methods. And the relevant question with respect to progressive lawyers is not so much whether they are pro-Qaeda as it is whether, as between Islamists and the U.S. as it exists, they have more sympathy for the Islamists. That's a fair question, but a very uncomfortable one to ask. Indeed, as Jonah broaches it, he softens it to whether the insinuation that the lawyers are pro-Qaeda is "counter-productive." That's an interesting question but a very different one from whether the insinuation is true.

In a column a few days ago, I addressed the insinuation this way:

“Al-Qaeda Seven” reminds me of another legal shorthand expression: “mob lawyer.” It’s a common expression — everyone uses it. I’d wager that a number of the DOJ’s Gitmo lawyers have either used it or been in conversations where it rolled effortlessly, and without objection, off the tongues of other prosecutors. “Mob lawyers” are lawyers who regularly represent members and associates of the mafia. It’s such a commonplace that even the mob lawyers call themselves “mob lawyers.” It’s a handle; it doesn’t mean the people who use the term don’t see the moral difference between mobsters who commit heinous crimes and the lawyers who defend them. Same with the “al-Qaeda Seven.”

Much of the commentary on this point, including from some people who usually know better, has been specious. The normally sensible Paul Mirengoff, for example, huffs, “It is entirely inappropriate to suggest that these lawyers share the values of terrorists or to dub the seven DOJ lawyers ‘The al-Qaeda Seven.’” The values of the terrorists? Which values?

Jihadists believe it is proper to massacre innocent people in order to compel the installation of sharia as a pathway to Islamicizing society. No one for a moment believes, or has suggested, that al-Qaeda’s American lawyers share that view. But jihadist terrorists, and Islamist ideology in general, also hold that the United States is the root of all evil in the world, that it is the beating heart of capitalist exploitation of society’s have-nots, and that it needs fundamental, transformative change.

This, as I argue in a book to be published this spring, is why Islam and the Left collaborate so seamlessly. They don’t agree on all the ends and means. In fact, Islamists don’t agree among themselves about means. But before they can impose their utopias, Islamists and the Left have a common enemy they need to take down: the American constitutional tradition of a society based on individual liberty, in which government is our servant, not our master. It is perfectly obvious that many progressive lawyers are drawn to the jihadist cause because of common views about the need to condemn American policies and radically alter the United States.

That doesn’t make any lawyer unfit to serve. It does, however, show us the fault line in the defining debate of our lifetime, the debate about what type of society we shall have. And that political context makes everyone’s record fair game. If lawyers choose to volunteer their services to the enemy in wartime, they are on the wrong side of that fault line, and no one should feel reluctant to say so.

Read it all. And there is more here.

This trend, of course, is nothing new. "Muslim gangs imposing sharia law in British prisons," by Andrew Gilligan for the Telegraph, March 15:

Non-Muslim inmates at the high-security Long Lartin jail have been forced by the gangs to stop playing "Western" music and take down pictures of women from their cells, according to one former prison officer there. Prisoners at the jail, although allowed to cook their own food, are not allowed to prepare pork for fear of offending the Muslim inmates, the officer said.

The officer, speaking to Radio Five Live's Donal Macintyre show, told how younger prisoners were targeted for forced conversion to Islam by the gangs. "They went along because they were intimidated. They genuinely weren't of the Muslim faith," she said. "I knew one lad quite well, who was approached by the radical Muslims and he changed. He was being controlled and bossed around and he wasn't even allowed to look at me or speak to me.

"He just seemed very frightened all the time. He used to be forced to pray at certain times and he was even forced to grow a long beard even though he didn't want to."

One Catholic prisoner who refused to convert was seriously assaulted after being repeatedly threatened by the gang, the officer said. "He said every so often they would come to his cell and hold the Koran up through the small window in the cell door and start running their fingers along their throats," she said.

The officer's testimony is consistent with findings by the official prison watchdog, the chief inspector of prisons. In a report last year, the inspector, Anne Owers, quoted a number of prisoners at Long Lartin about the increasing dominance of Muslim gangs in the jail.

Long Lartin was, said one, "turning into an American-style jail, [where] if you are not in a gang, you're in trouble. People are converting to Islam for protection."

Another said: "There is a gang culture here, which is an issue. There are issues with Muslim gangs wanting to overpower others. A lot of people are becoming Muslim just because it is a bigger gang."

Ms Owers says there is a similar gang culture in at least three other high-security prisons, Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire, Belmarsh in south-east London and Full Sutton in North Yorkshire. Some of the gang leaders are terrorist prisoners but most are in for ordinary offences.

Two Muslim former prisoners claimed in the BBC programme that Muslims "run" some London jails and describe how they watched al-Qaeda videos in their cells, brought in by corrupt prison officers. They also detail further bullying and abuse of prisoners who refused to convert to Islam and said that in one London jail, prisoners who wanted to play music had their stereos smashed. They said that the official prison imams appointed by the Home Office were largely ineffective and not respected by Muslim prisoners.

Malcolm Moss, national chair of the Prison Officers' Association, said: "We are seeing more and more Muslim gangs in our prisons. Often Muslims who go to prison are forced into gangs for their own protection. And that culture takes over a wing, takes over an area of the prison. We see it as a real danger, now and for the future of prisons."

Mr Moss called for more Muslim prison officers to be recruited as part of an urgent effort to "face up" to the gangs.

Why can't the current prison staff "face up" to the gangs? Who is in control in the prison?

A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said: "It is ridiculous to suggest that any gang 'controls' a prison. The Prison Service has a wealth of experience in dealing with gang activity and managing prisoners who form gangs. Expert staff identify, challenge and disrupt those prisoners attempting to bully, influence or intimidate others. We have long established strategies to address gang behaviour, and to counter bullying, combat illicit mobile phones and tackle drugs."

If you've got the strategies... use them.

The spokesman said there was "no evidence" that al-Qaeda videos had been watched and insisted that bacon was not banned.

The author asks: "Should the immigrants adopt the values of their adoptive land -- or, to the contrary, should society change to accommodate the newcomers who now form part of it?"

Liberal democracies depend on the premise that there are unalienable human rights that a government cannot violate and retain a legitimate right to rule. To want to defend that concept is far from the extreme, rabid, reactionary position that it is portrayed as here -- even (horrors!) at the risk of being impolite. You don't defend your values by... not defending them.

"Culture clash: European art provokes Muslims," by Michael Weissenstein for the Associated Press, March 14:

LONDON - With the West locked in conflicts across the Muslim world, why would anyone throw fuel on the fire?

Yeah, you'll want to read this one sitting down.

A small group of Europeans have been doing just that -- provoking death plots and at least one murder by turning out art that derides the Prophet Muhammad and the Quran in the name of Western values.

Behind the scenes is something bigger: a rising European unease with a rapidly growing Muslim minority, and the spreading sense that the continent has become a front in a clash of civilizations.

Recent events -- including surprising electoral success by an anti-Islamic Dutch party, moves to ban veils in France and minarets in Switzerland, and arrests in Ireland and the U.S. this week in an alleged plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist -- are signs of the rising tensions.

Swedish artist Lars Vilks says he was defending freedom of speech when he produced a crude black-and-white drawing of Muhammad with a dog's body in 2007. Authorities say that set him in the crosshairs of an assassination plot by extremists including Colleen LaRose, a 46-year-old Muslim convert from Pennsylvania who dubbed herself "Jihad Jane."

"I'm actually not interested in offending the prophet. The point is actually to show that you can," Vilks said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. "There is nothing so holy you can't offend it."

The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten also said it was defending free speech in 2005 when it printed 12 cartoons of Muhammad, one in a bomb-shaped turban, setting off protests and the torching of Western embassies in several Muslim countries. And bottle-blond Dutch populist politician Geert Wilders said he was promoting European values by producing Fitna, a 15-minute film that lays images of the Sept. 11 attacks alongside verses from the Quran. The film was shown in Britain's House of Lords this month.

The cases are extreme, but millions of moderate Europeans also are re-examining the meaning of the liberal values widely cherished across the continent. How, many are asking, should a liberal society respectfully deal with immigrants who often espouse illiberal values? Should the immigrants adopt the values of their adoptive land -- or, to the contrary, should society change to accommodate the newcomers who now form part of it? [...]

Jan Hjarpe, a professor emeritus of Islamic studies at Lund University in southern Sweden, near Vilks' home, said the deliberate provocations were helpful to Islamic extremists, who have been hunting for targets that would win them popularity in the Muslim world.

Translation: Fighting back causes "extremism."

"It has had almost no effect on the Muslim community in Sweden, who regard it as not very interesting," he said. "These threats against him have to do with extremist groups that want something to react to."

Denmark's Prophet Muhammad cartoons emerged from a discussion in 2005 about whether Islam was being treated with special sensitivity among Danish artists for fear of reprisals from extremists. Jyllands-Posten said the project was a way to challenge self-censorhip [sic] and show that Muslims, too, must be ready to put up with mockery in a society based on democracy and free speech. [...]

In light of the abysmal record of the Dutch toward the Jewish population during the Nazi occupation, when some 70 percent were deported and killed, it was considered impolitic to show resentment against another ethnic group. But that didn't mean the resentment wasn't there. It was only in 2002 when the populist politician Pim Fortuyn began speaking openly against immigration and the threat to the Dutch identity that people felt free to voice their anger. Fortuyn's popularity soared, and the party he founded was hugely popular even after Fortuyn himself was assassinated (by an animal rights activist).

Successive governments clamped down on immigration and forced new arrivals to learn about the Dutch language and culture in an attempt to integrate them into mainstream society.

Oh, the humanity!

Wilders is derided by his enemies as a neo-fascist but has been able to turn his provocations into political success: his Freedom Party winning in the town of Almere and coming in second in The Hague this month the only two races it ran out of 394 cities and towns that elected local councils.

Sorry, AP.

Lending legitimacy to a system that does not deserve it, and would seek to subjugate them if it were strong enough. "Fears over non-Muslim's use of Islamic law to resolve disputes," by Afua Hirch for the Guardian, March 14:

Campaigners have voiced concerns over a growing number of non-Muslims using Islamic law to resolve legal disputes in Britain despite controversy over the role of sharia law.

A spokesman for the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal (MAT) said that there had been a 15% rise in the number of non-Muslims using sharia arbitrations in commercial cases this year. Last year, more than 20 non-Muslims chose to arbitrate cases at the network of tribunals, which operate in London, Birmingham, Bradford, Manchester, Nuneaton and Luton. "We are offering a cheap and effective service for Muslim and non-Muslims," said MAT spokesperson Fareed Chedie.

"95% of the people who come to us for arbitration do not feel they need legal representation." Chedie said that tribunals deal mainly with civil and commercial cases, including mosque disputes referred by the Charity Commission. But the tribunals have also continued to hear cases in the field of family law and divorce, Chedie said.

"We are increasingly dealing with reconciliation and mediation in marriage," said Chedie. "Many of these are cases where women have petitioned because they have a difficult marriage and want some guidance and direction. If they then want to terminate the marriage then we can help with that."

The increase in marriage and divorce cases comes as one law firm has begun offering advice on civil Scots law and sharia law, making it the first in Britain to offer both civil and Islamic law as part of one service.

Glasgow law firm Hamilton Burns says that it is responding to a greater demand from Muslim clients who want advice on sharia law alongside civil advice under Scots law. It has teamed up with Shaykh Amer Jamil, a Muslim scholar who specialises in Islamic family law.

"We hope that by incorporating sharia family jurisprudence against a background of domestic Scottish legislation, we can provide our clients with as much relevant information as possible," said Niall Mickel, a solicitor advocate and managing partner at Hamilton Burns.

But some groups have criticised the move by the Scottish firm, arguing that the recognition of sharia law decisions in Britain is regressive and harmful to women....

The propagation of non-Islamic faiths is forbidden under Islamic law, and "moderate" Morocco seems to be taking the opportunity to purge Christian aid workers in general. "Christian aid worker purge? Morocco orders dozens in five cities to be deported," by Eric German for the Christian Science Monitor, March 11:

Rabat, Morocco - Moroccan authorities have ordered dozens of foreign Christian aid workers deported in at least five major cities this week, calling into question an unspoken but long-standing truce between missionaries and their Muslim hosts.

"This is a change in policy from the top of the government," says Jack Wald, who has spent 10 years as pastor of Rabat International Church, a protestant congregation here in the capital. "It's like going to sleep, waking up, and all of the sudden you're in a different country."

The largest incident took place at an orphanage for 33 abandoned children in the Middle Atlas mountains on Monday. Moroccan police showed up in the village of Ain Leuh, located 50 miles south of the ancient city of Fez, and separated orphans from their adoptive parents before delivering a grim piece of news: the Moroccan authorities had accused the volunteers of spreading Christianity - a crime in this overwhelmingly Muslim nation.

Witnesses described an anguished scene as Dutch, British, Kiwi, and American volunteers hastily emptied households under stormy skies and hugged weeping Moroccan kids for the last time. [...]

Moroccan officials say they're merely targeting isolated instances of law-breaking.

"This is not a move against Christians, it's a move against people who don't respect the law of this country," said Morocco's Communication Minister Khalid Naciri in a telephone interview.

But Christians see a sudden, coordinated campaign that has reversed an unwritten understanding. [...]

Another wave of expulsions?

In the past week, police have expelled foreign Christians suspected of seeking converts from the cities of Fez, Tangiers, Essaouira, Rabat, and Marrakesh, according to interviews with pastors in several cities.

In recent days the Moroccan government has marked at least "several dozen" foreign nationals for expulsion, said one Western official who requested anonymity.

The spokesman for the US Embassy in Rabat, David Ranz, confirmed that Americans are among those Christians whom Morocco has declared unwelcome. Mr. Ranz declined to release specific numbers or names, but said Moroccan authorities have told the embassy "additional people will be expelled."

Orphanage office manager: 'We weren't proselytizing'

Mr. Naciri, the government spokesman, said people of all faiths remain welcome to worship freely in Morocco so long as they don't seek to "undermine" Moroccan Islam.

He cited recent moves the government has made against Islamist groups as evidence Christians aren't being singled out, saying "the Moroccan government today deals harshly with anyone who manipulates the religion of the people."

Equating jihadist groups with Christian aid workers: impressive.

A "peaceful nuclear program" characterized by secrecy and subterfuge, and an advancing missile program with help from a country that has spent decades playing a nuclear shell game: sure, those are completely unrelated. "Iran's secret nuclear base," by Marco Giannangeli for the Sunday Express, March 14:

Iran's lurch towards becoming a nuclear power took another stride last night after reports of a new missile-launching facility.

Satellite images of the complex reinforced concerns that the Islamic Republic is being aided by North Korea.

Iran unveiled the Simorgh (Phoenix) space launch vehicle (SLV) on February 3 but has not publicly revealed the location of the rocket's launch complex.

According to Jane's, the London-based intelligence group, new satellite images show a launch pad 6.5 miles north-east of the existing Semnan site. It could ultimately launch Tehran's next-generation Simorgh rocket, said experts. Worryingly, the nature of construction suggests that Iran has been collaborating with Pyongyang.

Last month President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proclaimed that Iran was officially a "nuclear state" after allegedly producing its first batch of uranium enriched to a higher level. The claims, made before hundreds of thousands of cheering Iranians on the 31st anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, came a day after the US imposed tougher sanctions.

Mr Ahmadinejad repeated that Iran was pursuing nuclear energy and had no intention of producing nuclear weapons.

However, satellite images taken on that day revealed Simorgh and Safir-2 rockets displayed in Tehran's Azadi Square.

The new site includes a gantry tower which is 43 feet wide, approximately 60 feet tall "and has a cliff-side flame bucket nearly as high as the tower itself". A Jane's report said: "It appears midway towards completion," adding that the launch pad could easily accommodate the 88-foot Simorgh if the gantry were to be extended by 33 feet.

It went on: "The development of the Semnan facility and the Simorgh SLV both demonstrate the likelihood of collaboration with North Korea in Iran's missile programme.

"The platforms seen on the new gantry tower resemble those seen on the gantry tower at North Korea's new launch pad at Tongchang. A drainage pit 570 feet directly in front of the pad also mirrors one at Pyongyang's new west-coast launch site.

"Similarly, the first stage of the Simorgh strongly resembles the North Korean Unha-2, with four clustered engines and nearly the same dimensions."

The respected information group concluded: "Given these investments in its missile infrastructure, and despite the United States attempting to garner support for further sanctions against Iran for its nuclear programme, Tehran appears determined to continue developing its missile and rocket capabilities in the foreseeable future."

Last night Shadow Defence Secretary Dr Liam Fox warned: "Iran is our single biggest emerging threat."

He added: "If Iran becomes a nuclear weapon state, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt will be next.

"After all that we did to try to stop nuclear proliferation at the end of the Cold War, failing with Iran will lead to a nuclear arms race in the world's most unstable region."

Note the prominence of the Orwellian-sounding "reconciliation" proceedings, where, as described in this report, "Coptic victims give up all criminal and civil charges against the perpetrators."

"Muslim Teacher Sexually Abuses Christian Children In An Upper Egyptian School," by Mary Abdelmassih for the Pakistan Christian Post, March 14:

Cairo: March 14, 2010. (By Mary Abdelmassih for PCP) A scandal was uncovered this week at an Upper Egyptian elementary girl's school, where a Muslim teacher has been sexually assaulting Christian Coptic children. Copts are enraged due to the impunity with which the State Security authorities have dealt with these crimes.

The last incident took place on Tuesday 3/3/2010 in the Helwa Girl's Elementary School, when Arabic teacher Hany Taha, lured 11-years-old Hanan Adel Aziz to the school's lower ground floor and dragged her into the washroom. She was later rescued by another Muslim teacher when he heard her distressed screams. The village of Helwa lies in the district of Matai, 200 km south of Cairo, in the Minya Governorate.

"Hany Taha has been targeting only the school's Christian minor girls and has five 'known rape precedents' in the same school. However, the guardians of the children were put under pressure to accept a reconciliation using both coercion and threats not to report the incidents, according to activist Mariam Ragy of Katiba Tibia advocacy after interviewing Adel Aziz, the victim's father. Aziz said that the Muslim teacher lured his daughter from the classroom under the pretext that her aunt who works mornings in the same school is waiting for her. Ragy said that the accused Muslim teacher used to work in a private school before being sacked due to the same pervert behavior. "Also two transfer resolutions from this school were issued against him but were waived due to the "the existence of a family relationship between the headmistress and the brother of the accused, said Ragy. "

"Ironically, only 3 months ago did teacher Taha rape the Coptic minor Magda Bochra Shaker from the same school. Her family was forced into reconciliation with the intervention of the school headmistress," said activist Medhat Klada of Copts United advocacy. [...]

Adel Aziz told Mariam Ragy that he is being put under pressure to reconcile with the perpetrator. "But I flatly refuse any kind of reconciliation. This is a matter touching on my honor, Taha ought to get the full brunt of the law."

Copts all over the Minya Governorate, are angered over the double standards used by the Security authorities in handling rape cases of Muslims and Christian girls.

End November 2009 [sic], provoked by a rumor of an alleged rape of of Muslim minor by a Coptic man, villagers in Farshout carried out collective punishment against the whole Coptic community in the area, burning and looting their homes and property, with Muslims asking for the death penalty to be carried out on the alleged molester Girguis Baroumi. In all these incidents, State Security forces were colluding with the Muslim vigilantes.

Activist Wagih Yacoub poses the question, "Did the Copts go out and collectively punish the Muslims of Matai by burning and looting their property, just for the action of that Muslim teacher, similar to what the Farshout Muslims did to the Coptic community?" He adds "The constant State Security interference, coercion of Coptic parents into reconciliation and withdrawal of their police report against the Muslim Taha, makes one wonder if they are not there just to protect the abuser? Is the State Security there to protect all citizens or just the Muslims?"

An update on this story. "Al-Qaida vet 'takes over Somali jihadists," from UPI, March 11:

MOGADISHU, Somalia, March 11 (UPI) -- The reported takeover of Somalia's al-Shebab Islamists by al-Qaida veteran Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the 1988 [sic] U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa, could rally the divided jihadists as they brace for a U.S.-backed government offensive.

According to counter-terrorism operatives in Kenya, Somalia's northern neighbor that sides with the beleaguered TFG in Mogadishu, officials believe Fazul took command of the jihadist forces following the assassination of Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan by U.S. SEALs on Sept. 14.

Nabhan's convoy was attacked by U.S. Navy helicopters south of Mogadishu near Baraawe in a raid codenamed Operation Celestial Balance in which he was the main target.

The Kenya-born Nabhan, a close associate of Fazul for many years, was wanted for involvement in the Aug. 7, 1998, embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es-Salaam, Tanzania, in which 241 people were killed.

U.S. authorities also wanted him for twin attacks in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa on Nov. 28, 2002 -- the suicide bombing of the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel and a near-simultaneous two-missile attack on an Israeli airliner that had just taken off from the city's airport. The bombing killed 15 people; the missiles missed the Boeing 757 taking Israeli vacationers home.

Fazul was born in the Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Mozambique in 1972. He trained as a computer expert and speaks five languages, including English, French and Arabic.

While pursuing Islamic studies in Pakistan, he was recruited by al-Qaida in 1991 and was sent to Somalia to help train Islamist militiamen. He has been closely linked to them since.

He took over leadership of al-Qaida's East Africa cell following the embassy bombings and was heavily involved in the African "blood diamonds" trade to fund al-Qaida....

Remember, the Fatah guys are the "moderates." Partners for peace and all that. And in this case, the "provocation" du jour is the renovation of a synagogue situated in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem -- still enough fuel for some quality conspiracy paranoia. It never takes much. "PA calls Arabs to 'defend al Aksa'," by Khaled Abu Toameh for the Jerusalem Post, March 14:

A senior Palestinian Authority official on Sunday called on Israeli Arabs and Palestinian residents of Jerusalem to come to al Aksa Mosque in the Old City "to protect it from Israeli schemes."

Top Fatah official and holder of the Jerusalem portfolio Khatem Abd el-Kader called Palestinians on Sunday to "converge on al Aksa to save it" from what he called "Israeli attempts to destroy the mosque and replace it with the [Jewish] temple."

Khader was speaking ahead of a dedication of a renovated synagogue in the Jewish Quarter in the Old City, planned to take place Tuesday.

Remember, in the long-standing traditions of Islamic law, repair or construction of new non-Islamic houses of worship is forbidden. There's that pesky Pact of Umar again, the tenets of which some apologists will insist no one really observes... except, of course, when they do.

He called Israel's renovation of the Hurva Synagogue a "provocation" and warned Israel that it was "playing with fire."

Police has been imposing a ban on Israeli Arabs from coming to the Temple Mount, fearing clashes might erupt. Only holders of Israeli ID cards over 50 years old were allowed into the mosque.

The closure remains in place until after the dedication of the synagogue on Tuesday.

Maher U'dda is implicated in the deaths of over 70 Israelis through the years. But that won't stop Hamas and others from maligning Israel as the aggressor, and possibly retaliating. "Israelis nab senior Hamas leader," from CNN, March 14:

Jerusalem (CNN) -- Israeli forces have arrested a senior Hamas operative they say is responsible for killing more than 70 Israelis in various terrorist attacks, the Israel Defense Forces said Sunday.

Maher U'dda, who had been wanted since the end of the 1990s, was arrested Saturday night in a joint operation by Israeli police and security forces in Ramallah, on the West Bank, the IDF said.

"Pinpoint intelligence information" from the Israel Security Agency led to the arrest, they said.

U'dda, who is in his early 40s, was one of the founders of Hamas in Ramallah and lives in a village northeast of the city, the IDF said.

In the early 1990s, he formed a Hamas cell in his village that abducted and interrogated Palestinians suspected of cooperating with Israel, the IDF said.

The cell demanded weapons as ransom and used them in terrorist attacks, according to the IDF statement.

Palestinian security forces investigated U'dda in 1998 and held him in a prison for several months, the IDF said.

During the Palestinian uprising that began in 2000, U'dda helped organize and manage a Hamas military cell responsible for killing 10 Israelis, the IDF said.

"U'dda's arrest is the final stage of thwarting Hamas' military headquarters in Ramallah, which executed various terror attacks and is responsible for the murder of more than 70 Israelis," the IDF statement said.

Acting, according to police reports, on instructions from jihadist groups in Pakistan. "2 Indians arrested in alleged Mumbai terror plot," from the Associated Press, March 14:

MUMBAI, India - Indian police said Sunday they prevented a major terrorist strike in Mumbai by arresting two men who were preparing to attack several targets in the city, the country's financial and entertainment hub.

K.P. Raghuvanshi, chief of Mumbai's anti-terrorism squad, said the two Indian men -- both residents of the city -- had targeted a popular shopping mall, a market and a state-owned gas facility. He said Abdul Latif Rashid and Riyaz Ali were arrested late Saturday in Mumbai's Matunga suburb.

Police said the men had links with terror groups in Pakistan and were acting on directions from handlers there.

"They were getting instructions from Pakistan to execute their activities here," Raghuvanshi said.

India has blamed Pakistan-linked Islamist militant groups for a deadly November 2008 terror attack on Mumbai in which 166 people were killed. Last month, 16 people were killed in a bombing in a popular bakery in the nearby city of Pune.

It was not immediately clear whether the men were preparing to attack the offices, oil tankers or a housing estate belonging to the Oil and Natural Gas Commission, Raghuvanshi said.

The suspects will remain in custody until Thursday, when they will appear before a judge and be assigned lawyers, Raghuvanshi said.

Mumbai has been on high alert since the Pune bombing. Following the latest arrests, police have further tightened security measures with additional police patrolling markets and cinemas.

In a civilized society, one would send a certified letter. "Kandahar blasts were warning to US and Nato - Taliban," from BBC News, March 14:

Saturday's bomb attacks in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar were a warning to US and Nato forces, the Taliban say.

A Taliban spokesman said the attacks were in response to a planned major offensive by international forces against militants in the region.

At least 35 people were killed and some 57 injured in the blasts in Kandahar, Afghanistan's third largest city.

The main target appeared to be Kandahar's prison, officials said, though no prisoners escaped.

'Sabotage'

Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi said the blasts were retaliation for comments made by the commander of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, Gen Stanley McChrystal, that the Kandahar region would be targeted to wipe out the Taliban.

"This was an answer to Gen McChrystal," Mr Ahmadi told the AFP news agency.

"This was to sabotage the operation and to show we can strike anywhere, any time we want," the spokesman said....

Today's New York Post has a cover story on the family of Jamie Paulin-Rodriguez filled with eye opening details about what her conversion meant for her son.

The 6-year-old son of a Colorado nursing student who ran off to Europe to join a terrorist murder cell was brainwashed into a hate-filled
Islamic fundamentalist zombie, his family said yesterday.

Among other statements from the boy's grandmother:

He said they taught him how to shoot a gun," Christine Mott said. "They taught him how to kick and fight . . . We're Democrats. We won't even
buy him a toy gun."

Read it all.

War is Deceit, said Muhammad. "Al-Qaida suspect from US tricked his Yemeni guard," by Ahmed Al-Haj for AP, March 13 (thanks to all who sent this in):

SAN'A, Yemen -- The U.S. al-Qaida suspect detained in Yemen had persuaded his guard to unshackle him so the two could pray together and then snatched his unattended gun and killed him during the suspect's failed escape attempt, senior security officials said Saturday.

Sharif Mobley, a 26-year-old American of Somali descent, had traveled to Yemen two years ago, ostensibly to study Arabic, and was recently arrested there in a sweep against al-Qaida.

Mobley made his bold escape attempt March 7 after being transferred from prison to a hospital in the capital, San'a, for medical treatment. He tried to shoot his way out of the hospital, killing one guard and seriously injuring another before being recaptured.

New details about the episode obtained by The Associated Press indicate Mobley had a level of training and cunning characteristic of the al-Qaida terror network....

Mobley grew up in Buena, New Jersey. His parents said he is not a terrorist, though a former friend said Mobley was becoming increasingly radical in his Muslim beliefs before he moved to Yemen. His mother last spoke to him in January.

Worth committing murder for

More on the plot that has already resulted in the arrests of two female American converts to Islam. Indeed, as you read this report, you will see that there is a large number of converts to Islam involved with this plot. Why is it that they all so thoroughly misunderstood their new, peaceful religion? "Irish police hold four allegedly for links with Jihad Jane," by David Sapsted for The National, March 13:

LONDON // Four Irish residents, including a US woman, remained in custody last night as anti-terrorism police continued to probe the Irish connection in the "Jihad Jane" plot to murder Lars Vilks, a Swedish cartoonist.

Three of the seven people taken into custody in raids on homes in the Republic of Ireland on Tuesday - a couple originally from Algeria and a Palestinian woman - were released without charge late on Friday night.

It was the arrest of the seven at addresses in Cork and Waterford that led to disclosure by the US justice department that Colleen LaRose, a 46-year-old US-born convert to Islam, had been held since October on charges of plotting to kill Mr Vilks, whose 2007 cartoon portraying the Prophet Mohammed had offended Muslims worldwide.

Ms LaRose is alleged to have used the names Jihad Jane and Fatima LaRose on websites as she attempted to recruit people in South Asia, Europe and the United States to wage a bloody jihad.

Last August, she flew to Europe, initially visiting the Netherlands and inquiring about residency in Sweden, before flying to Ireland for two weeks in September.

Amateur internet sleuths, who had been tracking Ms LaRose's internet activities for two years, had alerted the US authorities early last year after she made an alleged appeal for funds to sponsor terrorist activity.

The CIA alerted the Garda, the Irish police, who kept her under surveillance throughout her stay in Ireland. Her main point of contact, according to sources in Dublin yesterday, was 49-year-old Sharif Damache, an Algerian who settled in Ireland in 2000 and who became a naturalised Irish citizen two years ago.

Mr Damache, who was arrested at his home in Waterford, remained in custody last night along with his wife, Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, a 31-year-old convert to Islam from Colorado.

Christine Mott, her mother, told the Associated Press that her daughter disappeared in September and later told her family she had gone to Ireland with her six-year-old son and married an Algerian whom she had met online.

Mrs Mott said her daughter had announced to her family a year ago that she was converting to Islam and began wearing headscarves.

"It came out of left field," Mrs Mott said. "I knew she was talking to these people online. What caused her to turn her back on her country, on her family and become this person? I don't know how or why.

"All I know is she was in contact with this Jihad Jane. The only thing I could think of is that they brainwashed her."

Sources within the Garda have indicated, however, that her husband remained of much greater interest to them than Ms Paulin-Ramirez.

"We are not linking those arrested to any al Qa'eda cell," one official said. "The central question is whether any of those in custody were directly involved in a plot to kill Mr Vilks."...

An Algerian couple who run a bakery in Ballincollig - Ghamrassan Moulay-Slimane and his wife, Iles - were released on Friday evening, along with Nadah Sameh, a Palestinian woman from Tramore.

Her husband, Abd al Salam Mansur al Jahani, a Libyan who has been living in Ireland for almost a decade, remained in custody along with Danijel Orsos, a 26-year-old Croatian convert, and Mr Damache and his American wife....

Claiming the Qur'an's guarantee of Paradise to those who "kill and are killed" for Allah (9:111).

"Suicide attack in northwest Pakistan kills 13 people," from the Daily Star, March 14 (thanks to all who sent this in):

A suicide attacker set off a bomb at a security checkpoint in northwest Pakistan yesterday, killing at least 13 people and injuring 52, officials and a doctor said, underscoring the relentless security threat to this Islamic nation.

It was the second attack in Pakistan in less than 24 hours. Suicide bombers killed 55 people in near-simultaneous blasts Friday in the eastern city of Lahore.

In the Saturday violence, an attacker driving a three-wheeled motorised rickshaw detonated explosives at a roadblock manned by soldiers and police in the town of Saidu Sharif in the Swat Valley, police official Qazi Farooq said.

Swat was the scene of months of violence last year between Islamist militants and Pakistan's security forces.

Lal Noor, a doctor at a local hospital, said 13 people died in the attack one soldier, one policeman and eight civilians and another 52 were wounded.

The Pakistani military launched a major offensive in Swat early last year after the collapse of peace talks with local Taliban officials who at the time controlled much of the valley.

The military took back the Swat Valley by mid-2009, but sporadic violence has continued.

No one claimed responsibility for Saturday's attack, but suspicion quickly fell on the Islamist militants, who have stepped up attacks against security forces in recent days....

Good investigative work, fellas!

"The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with 'Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death)." -- Bukhari 7.62.88

This is Muhammad's example. It will be essentially impossible to keep Muslim men from emulating his example as long as he is held up as the supreme model for conduct (cf. Qur'an 33:21).

Sharia Alert from the Kingdom of the Two Holy Places: "Child marriage still an issue in Saudi Arabia," by Joel Brinkley for the San Francisco Chronicle, March 13:

Saudi Arabia has a serious child-marriage problem.

It's emblematic of the nation's struggle between modernity and traditional Islam. But the lives of thousands of little girls are being destroyed as the Saudi government ponderously debates a solution.

Child marriage has been acceptable, even encouraged, in many Islamic states since the religion was born. After all, among the prophet Muhammad's dozen wives was Aisha, who is believed to have been 6 or 7 years old when the two were married. But in Saudi Arabia, at least, the practice slammed headlong into modern values last spring, when a Saudi court refused to nullify the marriage of an 8-year-old girl from Unaiza to a man in his late 50s.

Over the past few years, long-standing social practices in Saudi Arabia have been thrown into the glare of world opinion, embarrassing the state and forcing at least cosmetic changes.

In 2006, for example, a judge sentenced a young woman to 200 lashes and several months in prison for being alone in a car with a man she was not related to, where they were attacked and she was raped. Opprobrium from around the world rained down on Riyadh. President George W. Bush asked: "What happens if this happens to my daughter? I'd be angry at a state that does not support the victim." King Abdullah commuted the sentence.

In 2008, one of the nation's most senior religious authorities directed that two reporters for a mainstream Saudi newspaper be executed for publishing stories suggesting that religions other than Islam are worthy of respect. Once again, the cleric's remark spawned international outrage, and the cleric's order was ignored. Then came last spring's court ruling on that 8-year-old wife....

Saudi Arabia is hardly the only state facing this problem. Last year, Turkey made it legal for 12-year-olds to marry, if their parents agree. The Turkish Statistical Institute estimates that one-third of the state's brides are under 18. In Yemen and Bangladesh, even among some sects in Burma, child marriage is commonplace. The victims, in those places and elsewhere: little girls who are forced into wasted, often miserable, lives....

And they laughed as they fired the gun. Be sure to go over to AtlasShrugs, where Pamela has much more on the implications of this case for San Francisco authorities. "Video has more BB attacks, S.F. officials say," by Jaxon Van Derbeken for the San Francisco Chronicle, March 13 (thanks to Pamela):

A video made by three cousins from Hayward charged with an alleged anti-gay shooting with a BB rifle last month in San Francisco shows 11 other attacks in a single night, authorities said Friday.

The men have been charged in San Francisco with a hate crime and assault for allegedly firing a BB rifle Feb. 26 at the face of a man they believed was gay. The man, who was walking on 16th Street near Guerrero Street, was not badly hurt and later identified the three suspects.

The three were freed on $50,000 bail soon after their arrest. But on Friday, Mohammad Habibzada, Shafiq Hashemi and Sayed Bassam, all 24, appeared in court and were immediately rearrested. They were all being held late Friday on $450,000 bail.

They were returned to custody after prosecutors viewed a video that police found in the three men's car when they were arrested.

Brian Buckelew, spokesman for District Attorney Kamala Harris, said the video showed the 16th Street attack and BB rifle shootings aimed at 11 other men. Police say the video depicts the suspects laughing as they fire....

But...but...I thought that the Vast Majority of Peaceful Muslims utterly repudiated the Tiny Minority of Extremists! "German Islamic leaders may quit integration conference," from Deutsche Presse Agentur, March 12:

Cologne - Islamic leaders in Germany debated on Friday whether to suspend their involvement in a government-sponsored forum on German-Islamic integration, after a fundamentalist Islamic group had been excluded.

Four leading Islamic organizations, representing religious groups and secular Muslims, threatened to leave the German-Islam Conference after the Interior Ministry excluded the Council of Islam, dominated by the international Milli Gorus movement.

The ministry had ruled that legal investigations into the activities of Milli Gorus, viewed by officials as the largest Islamist organization on German soil, could overshadow the conference, set up to address Muslim integration issues....

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said he was happy to take the groups' concerns on board.

'Subjects such as racism and Islamophobia can certainly find a place,' Maiziere told German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung in reference to the reorganized German-Islam Conference.

But of course!

Here is my talk last night at the Young America's Foundation High School Conference in Santa Barbara, California, at the Reagan Ranch Center.

Exactly. Here is a dead-on assessment of "illiberal liberalism," and its role in attempts to suppress criticism of Islam. "Ian McEwan: Criticising Islam is not racist," by Stephen Adams for the Telegraph, March 13 (thanks to Twostellas):

Ian McEwan has insisted that criticising Islam is not racist and blamed left-leaning thinkers for "closing down the debate".

It's not McEwan's first rodeo, either.

The Booker Prize winner said those who claimed judging Muslims was "de facto" racism were playing a "poisonous argument".

McEwan, 61, the best-selling author of novels including Amsterdam, Atonement and Saturday, thought many in the left wrongly took this position because they had an anti-Americanism shared with Islamists.

In an interview with today's Telegraph Magazine, McEwan said: "Chunks of left-of-centre opinion have tried to close down the debate by saying that if you were to criticise Islam as a thought system you are a de facto racist. That is a poisonous argument.

"They do it on the basis that they see an ally in their particular forms of anti-Americanism," he said.

"So these radical Muslims are the shock-troops for the armchair Left who don't want to examine too closely the rest of the package - the homophobia, the misogyny and so on."...

"[Their] fury, encouraged by the imam, was sparked by the rumor that the Christians have begun to build a new place of worship."

Apologists often insist that no one pays attention to stipulations on unbelievers such as those which appear in the Pact of Umar. Really? Here are about 3000 people in Egypt who missed that memo.

"Crowd of 3 thousand Muslims attack a Coptic Christian community, 25 injured," from Asia News, March 13:

Cairo (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The toll from an attack on the Coptic Christian community that took place yesterday in the north-western province of Mersa Matrouh, Egypt is 25 wounded, including women and children. A crowd of around 3 thousand Muslims attacked the faithful gathered in prayer in a building adjoining the local church. The fundamentalists fury, encouraged by the imam, was sparked by the rumour that the Christians have begun to build a new place of worship.

Around 5 o'clock yesterday afternoon, the Muslims - a group of Bedouins and Salafi fanatics - started throwing stones at a construction site, which they believe in reality will be a new church. Local witnesses reported that security forces present were not sufficient to contain the attack. The police fired tear gas and arrested a dozen people, including Muslims and Christians. Only this morning, reinforcements arrived from Alexandria, thanks to which the Coptic faithful trapped inside the building could return to their homes.

At the moment of the attack the Christian prayer house contained four priests, one deacon and about 400 parishioners. Christians say that the building under construction, in fact, is a nursing home and said they were "terrified" by the latest attack. The local imam Shaikh Khamees intervention during Friday prayers has helped to foment the anger of Muslims. He emphasized the duty to fight against the "enemies" of Islam and stressed that "we do not tolerate the Christian presence in our area."

Reverend Matta Zakarya confirms that this morning there was a summit between the leaders of the local church, state security forces and even some Muslims. "The Coptic are scared - he stresses - especially women and children who were inside the building and witnessed the assault."

In Egypt, the Coptic Christian community is about 10% of the population in a country with an overwhelming Muslim majority, which discriminates against the Christian community. It is the victim of violence, caused by a sharp rise of Islamic fundamentalism. Sometimes the basis of many attacks there are disputes over land ownership and disputes for women, but they soon become sectarian clashes."

Another in a long line of stories of abuse of Christian workers by Muslims in Pakistan. This behavior has its roots in the doctrine that unbelievers are "vile" (Qur'an 98:6) and must be subjugated (9:29), and of the lawfulness in Islam of sex with slaves and captives (4:24). "Punjab: Christian maid burned alive to prevent her from reporting a rape," by Fareed Khan for Asia News, March 12:

Lahore (AsiaNews) - A Christian girl was raped and burnt alive by the son of a Muslim master, for whom she worked as a maid. The girl died in hospital yesterday after two days of agony, for the burns on 80% of her body. The incident occurred in a small town in Punjab and has similar details to the sad story of Shazia Bashir, the 12 year old Christian raped and murdered by a powerful lawyer in Lahore, a crime still for which he is still unpunished.

Kiran George worked for a Muslim family in Sheikhupura, a Punjab town. The girl died yesterday at the Mayo Hospital in Lahore, where she was hospitalized on 9 March in critical condition. To unleash the murderous madness of the son of the employer the threat of a complaint of sexual assault.

Peter Jacob, executive secretary of the Justice and Peace of the Catholic Church of Pakistan (NCJP), told AsiaNews that "the house of a Christian family was set on fire" as revenge because "a young man is accused of killing a Muslim." The Catholic activist explains that the suspect, Yasir Abid, is "subject to pre-trial detention. The victim is the son of a Muslim landowner in the village of Kirtu Pandora, in the Narang Mandi".

Mohammad Raza Ahmda raped the Christian girl who, at first, confided only with her friends for fear of losing her jobs. Her family's conditions of extreme poverty had led the young girl to remain silent. When Kiran George threatened her tormentor of telling her story to the police, the young man blocked her escape and closing the door, he poured gasoline all over her with the help of his sister, setting her on fire.

The Muslim master, instead of bringing the girl to the hospital, called her parents telling them that her clothes caught fire while cleaning the kitchen. Kiran George was subjected to two days of slow agony, however, before dying, she told the whole story to the police who opened an investigation file on the young man.

Also in Punjab a crowd of Muslims robbed and burned the house of a Christian family. The assault happened on 10 March in Narang Mandi, a town in the district of Sheikhupura. The extremist's anger was triggered by the alleged involvement of a Christian in the killing of the son of a local landowner. The mob also burnt some copies of the Bible.

Christian families denounced the "deliberate burning" of some copies of the Bible kept inside the home. Police started to investigate and evaluate whether to open a file of investigation for the crime of blasphemy. In this case, says Peter Jacob, the judiciary "will not act under section 295-B of the Pakistan Penal Code, which provides for punishment up to life imprisonment for those who desecrate the Koran, but does not provide for the holy books of other religions".

"We are against the blasphemy laws - concludes activist NCJP - and this applies regardless of the sacred text or who is guilty of the crime." However, he hopes for "thorough investigations" and the punishment of those who "burned the house of the Christian family."

UPDATE: Freed without charge.

Yet another convert to Islam misunderstands the Religion of Peace and gets involved in this jihadist murder plot. "For the Love of Islam: A Second American Woman Is Arrested in Cartoonist Case," by Vanessa O'Connell, Stephanie Simon and Evan Perez in the Wall Street Journal, March 13 (thanks to Pat):

Last Easter, Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, a 31-year-old mom with a $30,000-a-year job as a medical assistant, announced to her family that she had converted to Islam. A few months later, she began posting to Facebook forums whose headings included "STOP caLLing MUSLIMS TERRORISTS!"

On Sept. 11, she suddenly left Leadville, Colo., a small town in the Rocky Mountains, for Denver, then for New York, to meet and marry a Muslim man she connected with online, her family says. Ms. Paulin-Ramirez, who is 5-foot-11 and blonde, phoned her mother and stepfather in Leadville, providing them with an address in Waterford, Ireland, they say.

Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, a 31-year-old mom, is in the custody of the Irish police, along with six other individuals, arrested as part of an investigation into a conspiracy to commit murder.

Now, she is in the custody of the Irish police, along with six other individuals, arrested as part of an investigation into a conspiracy to commit murder, according to officials familiar with the case. The nature of the authorities' suspicions about Ms. Paulin-Ramirez couldn't be determined on Friday.

Ms. Paulin-Ramirez's interest in Islam "came out of left field," said her mother, Christine Holcomb, in an interview at her home Friday, wearing a blue sweatsuit with a silver cross around her neck. [...]

Ms. Paulin-Ramirez is the second American woman to be linked to an alleged plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist who made fun of the Prophet Mohammed. An indictment was unsealed this week against Colleen R. LaRose, 46, a suburban Philadelphia woman who authorities said used the Web alias "JihadJane."

Ms. LaRose was accused of plotting to kill the cartoonist and attempting to recruit jihadis via the Internet. She was arrested in October and charged with providing material support to terrorists. The Justice Department kept its case under wraps until this week while investigators in the U.S. and Europe pursued their investigation against other potential suspects in the U.S. and abroad.

The main contact for Ms. LaRose is believed to be one of the men in Irish custody, an Algerian, who has a relationship with Ms. Paulin-Ramirez, according to a person close to matter. A person close to the Irish police couldn't confirm whether Ms. Paulin-Ramirez and the Algerian are married. Ms. LaRose spent roughly two weeks in Ireland last fall, a person familiar with the matter said.

The Irish police are holding four men and three women, including three Algerians, a Croatian, a Palestinian, a Libyan and a U.S. national, according to a person close to the police. They are being questioned and haven't been charged. A U.S. official familiar with the matter confirmed that Ms. Paulin-Ramirez is the U.S. national. The Justice Department declined to comment. [...]

In the months before Ms. Paulin-Ramirez left Leadville, taking her 6-year-old son but little clothing or other belongings, she began "wearing the black garb so you can only see her eyes," her aunt said. "We knew that she was dabbling in the Muslim religion. But for her to disappear like this was from left field--we weren't expecting it at all," said Ms. Jones, who until last fall would speak to her niece on the phone almost every day. Ms. Paulin-Ramirez had begun spending more time on the computer, her mother complained to the aunt. "All of a sudden, she stopped talking to me and she disappeared," Ms. Jones said. [...]

In 2008 or 2009, Mr. Mott said, Ms. Paulin-Ramirez enrolled in an online course about Islam.

By Easter 2009, she had informed her mother that she was a Muslim. At her father's May 2009 funeral in Kansas, her aunts had to plead with her not to cover her head and hair with a hijab. Over the summer, her family says, she was spending increasing time on the computer and had begun to dress in the traditional garb, covering not only her hair and face but also her hands. Her current Facebook page lists her as Jamie Paulin, with a photo in which all that is visible are her eyes peering from slits in her full-face veil. [...]

A few months before she disappeared, her stepfather says he confronted her: "What are you going to do, strap a bomb on and blow up something?" he asked her. He recalled that she responded: "If necessary, yes." [...]

If necessary.

And why not? What does the UN do these days but play the dhimmi for the OIC, anyway? "Somali tied to Islamists worked with two UN agencies," by Louis Charbonneau for Reuters, March 11 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

UNITED NATIONS, March 11 (Reuters) - A Somali businessman linked to Islamist rebels who likely received a ransom paid for kidnapped French aid workers was a contractor for the World Food Program and UNICEF, a U.N. report said.

The confidential report by the U.N. Somalia Monitoring Group, seen by Reuters on Thursday, said the man, Adbdullah Ali Luway, and his links with Islamist al Shabaab militants was a case study in how U.N. agencies have unwittingly allowed aid for needy Somalis to enrich rebels and criminals.

Three French workers with humanitarian group Action Against Hunger were seized by gunmen in July 2009 and held for several months. In October, a ransom of $1.36 million was paid into an account belonging to Luway at a money transfer firm in Baidoa, Somalia, the report said.

"A prominent businessman, Luway serves as a contractor for WFP and UNICEF in the Baidoa area," it said, adding that he rents vehicles to both agencies and his water firm Gargarwadag often works for UNICEF.

He also receives $3,000 a month in rent from UNICEF, the United Nations children's fund, for use of a building that formerly housed the parliament of Somalia, a virtually lawless country that has lacked an effective government since 1991.

In addition to his work with the United Nations, Luway had been the "local financier" of the al Shabaab authority in Baidoa since the Islamist group took control of the area in January 2009. He is a "close associate" of Sheikh Muktar Robow Abuu Mansuur, a senior al Shabaab official, the report said.

The United States lists Robow as a terrorist....

The facade continues to crumble. "DOJ: CAIR's Unindicted Co-Conspirator Status Legit," from the Investigative Project, March 12:

There's another letter circulating on Capitol Hill affirming federal law enforcement's belief that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is the product of a Hamas-support network in the United States.

Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich sent the letter last month to four members of Congress who asked for details last fall on how CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the terror-finance trial against the Holy Land Foundation and its former officials.

He included trial transcripts and exhibits "which demonstrated a relationship among CAIR, individual CAIR founders, and the Palestine Committee. Evidence was also introduced that demonstrated a relationship between the Palestine Committee and HAMAS, which was designated as a terrorist organization in 1995."

Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, and trial exhibits show the Brotherhood created the Palestine Committee. CAIR officials adamantly deny any involvement with either Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood. The Weich letter, however, shows that the Department of Justice has not wavered in its conclusion that the internal records it possesses prove a connection.

It echoes a letter last spring from an FBI congressional liaison explaining why Bureau policy bars communication with CAIR outside of a criminal investigation. In that letter, Richard C. Powers, an assistant director in the FBI's office of Congressional Affairs, said evidence "demonstrated a relationship among CAIR, individual CAIR founders (including its current President Emeritus and its Executive Director) and the Palestine Committee."

Other exhibits showed that the Palestine Committee was a fundraising and propaganda arm in the United States for Hamas, which has been a designated terrorist organization since 1995. "[U]ntil we can resolve whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and HAMAS," Powers wrote, "the FBI does not view CAIR as an appropriate liaison partner."...

Good. Read it all.

More on this story. "Terrorist British Airways worker planned to take advantage of strike," by Duncan Gardham for the Telegraph, March 12 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

A British Airways worker who allegedly wanted to be a suicide bomber has been accused of offering to take advantage of the airline's approaching strike to join the cabin crew.

Rajib Karim, 30, allegedly arrived in Britain from Bangladesh in 2006 to gain a passport for terrorist purposes.

He worked at a BA call centre in Newcastle dealing with passenger bookings and had access to the company's computer system and details about airport security procedures.

Sources say that Karim's brother has been arrested in the Yemen [sic].

Karim, 30, is accused of preparing an act of terrorism or assisting another person to commit an act of terrorism between the April 13 2006 and Feb 25 this year.

He is also accused of preparing acts of terrorism abroad and sending money to others "knowing or having reasonable cause to suspect that it would or might be used for the purposes of terrorism".

Westminster magistrates' court was told yesterday that Malik was allegedly "advising and counselling terrorist acts relating to his employment with British Airways" where he was a full-time IT developer heavily involved in software development.

He also allegedly passed money to Yemen and Bangladesh for terrorism purposes using Western Union money transfer shops and trusted individuals who carried cash.