March 2005 Archives

From the Stop the Presses Department, via MSNBC, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Inside Saudi Arabia today there's a national campaign against extremism. Television ads, billboards and even ATM machines drive home the toll of terror.

The Saudis recently hosted a worldwide conference condemning all terrorism and declaring they've cracked down.

"When imams preach intolerance or hate towards others, they are dismissed or punished," says Adel Al-Jubeir, a Saudi Arabian foreign affairs advisor.

Senior U.S. officials say the Saudis have changed significantly. Many clerics now speak out against jihad. Yet when it comes to killing Americans in Iraq, some send a very different message.

"I praise the jihad against the occupiers in Iraq," said Sheik Ai'dh Al-Qarni on Arabic-TV. "Throats must be split and skulls must be shattered."

Ah, what a holy man!

Another cleric says suicide bombings are forbidden inside Saudi Arabia, but outside they can be "a good thing."

"There is nothing wrong with [suicide attacks] if they cause great damage to the enemy," said Sheik Abdallah Al-Muslih, also on Arabic-TV.

In fact, in November 2004, 26 Saudi clerics published a religious statement urging Muslims to wage holy war in Iraq. "Jihad against the occupiers is a must," said the statement. "[It is] not only a legitimate right but a religious duty."...

However, a senior Saudi official insists that these clerics represent "a vocal fringe minority," whose views do not represent the Saudi government or religious establishment. He says the government cannot control these clerics because most are not on the payroll, and they are exercising their rights to free speech.

What's that? A "vocal fringe minority"? So out the window again goes that media talk of "Wahhabi dominance." That was fast.

CAIR finally loses one. Good thing Ballenger didn't retain Rich Lowry as his lawyer. "Judge kills suit against ex-Rep. Ballenger," from the Charlotte Observer, with thanks to Daniel Pipes:

WASHINGTON - A federal judge has dismissed a $2 million lawsuit filed against former Rep. Cass Ballenger by an American Muslim civil rights group for linking it to terrorists during an October 2003 interview with The Charlotte Observer.

In a seven-page decision released Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon agreed with the Hickory Republican's argument that he made the comments "in the scope of his employment as a federal employee" and that the suit should be converted into one against the U.S. government.

And because a doctrine called sovereign immunity bars most suits against the federal government, Leon threw out the case.

In the newspaper interview, Ballenger blamed the breakup of his 50-year marriage partly on the stress of living near the group's Capitol Hill headquarters, which was so close to the Capitol that he and his wife worried "they could blow the place up."

He also called the Council on American-Islamic Relations "the fundraising arm for Hezbollah."

In its lawsuit, CAIR said that these and other comments by Ballenger damaged its reputation and good name.

But it ain't over:

Arsalan Iftikhar, CAIR's national legal director, said Wednesday that the group plans to appeal the ruling, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.

Stephen Schwartz, a convert to Islam, makes a momentous announcement in TechCentralStation, via FrontPage:

On March 25, seven American Muslim activists joined me in founding a new, and much-needed platform for moderate Islam in America. Our organization is titled the Center for Islamic Pluralism. We have a website, www.islamicpluralism.org, at which our inaugural press release may be read, and have gained tax-exempt status as a public charity under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

Our founders represent the main Muslim communities in America: Sunnis and Shias, born Americans and immigrant Americans, of Arab, Turkish, and south Asian descent, as well as "new Muslims" -- Islam eschews the term "convert" -- originating in the U.S. and elsewhere in this hemisphere.

We define moderate Islam in the American context as an Islam that finds its proper and equal place as one among the many religions represented in America, with rights neither greater nor lesser than any other.

Moderate Islam recognizes its own history, the need to evolve, and the urgency for an intellectual revival, especially with regard to non-Muslims, women, and political governance. The CIP emphasizes pluralism to signal that it believes not in the tolerance of non-Muslims, but in their true acceptance as fellow believers in the one God, creator of the universe.

In addition, Islamic pluralism defines our approach to intra-Muslim relations. We seek mutual respect and dialogue between Sunnis and Shias, among Sufis, or spiritual Muslims, of both traditions, and full recognition within Islam of those who define themselves as cultural and secular Muslims.

Dialogue is the foundation of our activity. We come to this work with no preconceived program or demands, aside from our commitment to moderation, our loyalty to Western democratic principles, and our firm defense of American citizenship and obedience to American laws.

It's ironic that a man like Schwartz, who returns requests for dialogue with abuse and haughty refusals to answer, would now be heading up an organization with "dialogue" as its "foundation," but such are the vagaries of life.

And of course, despite Schwartz's unwarranted hostility to me, I will be the first to wish his new organization success. I'd rather see millions of Muslims belonging to the CIP than to Al-Qaeda. In fact, I'll even start the ball rolling on that dialogue with a few questions.

Schwartz says:

Islamic fundamentalists depend on the warped and distorted Wahhabi interpretation of Qur'an, but the stoning of adulterers appears nowhere in the Book itself. The situation of woman's rights is advancing in many Muslim countries, and may be improved without contradicting Islamic scripture.

It is true that the Qur'an prescribes lashes for adultery (24:2), but it also says that "if any of your women are guilty of lewdness, take the evidence of four (reliable) witnesses from amongst you against them; and if they testify, confine them to houses until death do claim them, or Allah ordain for them some (other) way" (4:15). The great Qur'anic commentator Ibn Kathir explains: "The early ruling was confinement, until Allah sent down Surat An-Nur (chapter 24) which abrogated that ruling with the ruling for flogging (for fornication) or stoning to death (for adultery)." He says that this is "a matter that is agreed upon." And indeed, it is the opinion of Ibn Abbas, 'Ikrimah, Sa'id ibn Jubayr, Al-Hasan, Ata Al-Khurasani, Abu Salih, Qatadah, Zayd bin Aslam and Ad-Dahhak.

None of these are "Wahhabis": all of them predate Wahhab. How does the CIP plan to respond to Muslims who invoke them to justify the traditional practice?

Schwartz also says:

Qur'an and the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) command us to moderation; we can do no less than to fulfill these high responsibilities in that spirit.

Schwartz in this seems to be calling Muslims back to adherence to the Qur'an and the example of Muhammad. Interestingly, just today, "a group calling itself al Qaeda in Iraq" said that "Terrorizing enemies of God is our faith and religion, which is taught to us by our Koran." Another Muslim group set about "justifying violent acts through ideological and doctrinal arguments." I could give hundreds of examples of jihad terrorists pointing to the Qur'an and the example of Muhammad to justify violence. And Schwartz's all-purpose bogeymen, the Wahhabis, are just today touting Muhammad, apparently just as would Schwartz himself, as "the perfect role model in all situations." So will the real Muhammad please stand up? How will the CIP respond to jihad terrorists when they invoke Muhammad and the Qur'an?

In another place, Schwartz has decried those who "demand a revision of the Muslim holy book, Qur'an," and asserted that "Islam needs no Reformation, merely to return to its long-established tradition: pluralistic, spiritual, and committed to the protection and refinement of its civilizational heritage."

What we got here is more than a failure to communicate: it is a case of dueling traditionalisms. If Schwartz is correct that all Islam needs to do is go back to the books and recover its traditions, what does he make of Muslims who invoke the same tradition to argue for violence? For example, take this article, "The True Meaning of Jihad." It argues for jihad violence from the Qur'an and Hadith, and then adds this from the Sira:

Moreover some will say that Jihad was only defensive; this is incorrect. A quick study of the Life of the Prophet (SalAllahu Alaihi Wasallam) shows us something different:

• The Battle of Mut’ah was instigated by the Muslims against the Romans the Muslims were 3,000 faced against a Roman army of 200,000.

• The Battle of Hunayn was inevitable shortly of the Muslims had conquered Makkah.

• The Battle of Tabuk was also instigated to finally destroy the Romans.

Clearly this is not the Muhammad that the CIP is calling Muslims to follow. So where are we to find this Good-Joe, Rotarian Muhammad? Not in the earliest biography of him, Ibn Ishaq's Sira. Not in the Hadith of the Sahih Sittah, the six collections considered most reliable by Muslims. Not in At-Tabari's history. All these portray a man of violence. So where is CIP's Muhammad?

Questions like these have led one member of the CIP's board, Tashbih Sayyid, editor of Pakistan Today, to reconsider his role in the organization. Sayyid explained to me: "I don’t know much about the group as yet. Since I am not participating in the process of evolution or development, I have no idea what the group is actually doing. But my whole life is devoted to one end: to make the Muslims understand that their theology needs to be reformed and reinterpreted. Anybody who thinks that there’s nothing wrong with their theology is either a blind person or an apologist."

Sayyid continued: "I have to find out if they’re on the same page with me. There are many things in Muslim Scripture that need to be reshaped and reframed and reinterpreted, so that they cannot be used by terrorists to justify homicide bombings and honor killings. I need to talk with Schwartz. If Schwartz believes that there is nothing wrong with Muslim theology, I cannot be part of this group."

I myself will be very interested to learn the outcome of that conversation.

Jihad Watch Advisory Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald has nothing in common with Woodrow Wilson except that they are both carbon-based life forms -- and both have Fourteen Points:

For people to discuss Islam properly, they would need to do a number of things. The first thing would be to recognize that the Qur'an itself is only the major but hardly the sole text, and that the other great source of Islamic beliefs and acts come from the Sunna, which means "Custom" or “Tradition,” and which itself is comprised of the Hadith, records of the sayings and doings of Muhammad, and the Sira, which is Muhammad’s actual biography. (Obviously there is a great deal of overlap between these two). Once all that has been clearly understood, one would have to:

1) Read, and re-read, together with the most authoritative Muslim commentaries, or at least some of them (as well as ‘Umdat al-Salik, "The Reliance of the Traveller," which is a most enlightening and helpful compendium of Islamic law put together for the use of Muslims), the three canonical texts of Islam: the Qur'an (available online in various English translations set out synoptically), the Hadith (available online in the recensions of Bukhari, Muslim, Malik, and, partially, Abu Dawud), and the Sira (chiefly the earliest, that of Ibn Ishaq in the recension of Ibn Hisham). For the Sira, in addition to the Muslim version, see also the many biographies of Muhammad by Western scholars of Islam: Sir Wiliam Muir, Professors Arthur Jeffery, and Tor Andrae, and Maxine Rodinson. All are readily available.

2) Study not only the texts, but how they are received. Are they taken literally? Figuratively? Are there different guides available by which Muslims reconcile seemingly contradictory elements, as for example the doctrine of abrogation, or "naskh"? And is that doctrine of abrogation helpful in smoothing out the harshness and hostility in many passages, or does that doctrine, on the contrary, make the Qur'an far harsher in its impact than a cursory reading, and a misunderstanding, might suggest?

In FrontPage today, Tzvi Kahn takes another look at my old pal Mark LeVine. Funny how all of Mark's challenges to debate me melted away when I asked him actually to supply a specific date and venue.

Here is my first article about the great LeVine.

Here is his reply, with additional responses by me.

And here is a final exchange.

The coup de grace, however, comes in this Hugh Fitzgerald piece on Marvelous Mark.

From the Norwegian Kafir's superb Fjordman blog:

One of the men, Hizir Kilic, was born in Denmark, while his cousin Ferhat Kilic came to the country when he was three. The two men were minors at the time of the crime, and had therefore not yet become Danish citizens, since anyone born to immigrant parents in Denmark must be at least 18 before requesting to become a national. Two young criminals have been sentenced to deportation to Turkey, after killing an Italian tourist in Copenhagen in 2003. Two teenagers were sentenced to deportation by the Supreme Court on Tuesday, for murdering an Italian tourist in Copenhagen's Nørrebro quarter in 2003. The cousins Hizir and Ferhat Kilic were 16 and 17 years old when they assaulted and stabbed a young Italian traveller, Antonio Currà, and left him to die on the street.

The court sentenced them to 10 and 8 years in prison for the murder, and to be deported to the country of their
birth, Turkey, even though they had lived almost all their lives in Denmark.

'The deportation is ten times worse than the prison sentence,' Hizir Kilic told the court last week. 'I won't be able to go to Turkey and survive.' The cousins' defense attorneys tried in vain to convince the court's seven judges, that the boys' young age and strong roots in Denmark should exempt them from new laws, which allow courts to have criminal immigrants deported.

And here is a translation of some Danish leftist reactions, courtesy Faith Freedom:

By Christina Rosendahl, film director:

"Dear Hizir and Ferhat,

You guys did a dirty trick. You stabbed a young Italian man, someone almost like yourselves. He was a living human being. Now he is dead. You have to go to jail and you guys have deserved that, of course. But I want to apologize to the both of you on behalf of Denmark. Sorry about the arrogant and narrow-minded vindictiveness that you meet in the Danish streets. Sorry about all those Danes who think it is all right to send you guys out of the country although you have been given a gigantic prison sentence.

Although you have lived here all your life and even are born here, went to school, made friends and have been petty criminals and even smoked pot (as they claim on the radio), there seems to be different rules for you than for other criminals.

Sorry about all those Danes who gladly are being interviewed on TV or on the radio who want to 'honor' us all with their home-spun philosophy: »We really cannot accept people killing each other in the streets « or »it is their own fault, we want them out of the country «. Thank god I'm not the only one who feel sick about the Danish rhetorics of fear. You guys are going to prison and you have deserved that. How I had hoped that the Danish community would take responsibility and give you lots of help: Psychiatric help, psychological help, help at school, more financial help and helping you guys knowing how to kill time in stead of killing people; help getting an education, getting work and a family eventually. And more hope for the future as well as self-esteem. Sorry about those Danes who live in a different century. I hope the best for you. Even though you did do a dirty trick!"

The great Nidra Poller, writing in Frontpage (thanks to EPG):

October 2000, Place de la République in Paris: the first of what would become an endless series of ambiguous pro-Palestinian demonstrations welcomed the snake of anti-Semitism into its heart. "Death to the Jews" rang out loud and clear that day as policemen stood by, journalists watched with apparent indifference, and the mass of demonstrators thronged and thrust as demonstrators do.

8 March 2005, Place de la République: a thousand young toughs pierced the heart of a student demonstration and unleashed their rage, not against the police but against the "privileged classes" in their own age group--the protesting lycée students. Operating in gangs of ten and twenty, the casseurs (smashers) in brand-name sweat suits swept through the march like pirate ships, zeroed in on their prey, attacked from behind. They threw kids to the ground, gratuitously beating and kicking them, snatching handbags, ipods, wallets, and cell phones. Riot police looking like robots with their thick leather padding stood by as the predators cut through the crowd wielding knives, clubs, and tear gas bombs....

Read it all.

Another article about Latinas converting to Islam, in Florida this time. From the TBO News, with thanks to Skeetstreet:

TAMPA - As a child, Amy Perez attended different Christian churches, praying at Catholic Masses and singing at Baptist revivals. But she never felt satisfied with the answers those faiths provided to her questions.

At 12, Perez left Webb Middle School for the Universal Academy of Florida, a Muslim school in Tampa, because she did not like the cliques and social scene at Webb. And she wanted to learn more about Islam.

Perez read about the Muslim faith and asked her classmates questions.
After much research and contemplation, Perez took the Shahada, the declaration of faith to become Muslim.

She was 14.

``I finally found peace,'' said Perez, 22, who is of Dominican and Puerto Rican descent. ``A peace that I had never known. Everything made sense to me. Every question I had, there was an answer for. It was truly remarkable.''

Perez's sentiments seem to resonate with U.S. Latinas, who are embracing Islam in increasing numbers. They join a faith dominated in the United States by blacks, who make up about half the estimated 6 million followers, according to a 1990 study by the American Muslim Council, the most recent available. Followers of South Asian and Arab descent constitute about 35 percent.

Numbers of Muslims are difficult to determine since faith is not included in the U.S. census, but there is abundant anecdotal evidence that more Hispanic women are adopting Islam....

Once again, still searching for a reporter with the guts to ask one of these converts what she thinks of Qur'an 4:34.

From World Net Daily, with thanks to EPG:

JERUSALEM -- A plan by a grassroots Jewish organization to bring 10,000 Jews to the Temple Mount has prompted an Islamic group allegedly connected to Hamas to instruct followers to disrupt the visit, a high-ranking Jerusalem police official told WND.

Revava, a group with the stated mission of ''restoring self-esteem to the state of Israel by restoring national pride and values,'' has planned the April 10 event at the heavily restricted Temple Mount to spark Israeli dialogue about reclaiming the holy site from its Islamic custodians.

The Jerusalem police last week told WND they would not allow thousands of Jews on the Temple Mount at once.

Shmulik Ben Ruby, a police spokesman, said the current government restrictions of allowing only small groups of about 30 to 50 non-Muslims to ascend the Temple Mount, the holiest site for Jews, will apply on the day of the scheduled gathering.

''We will not let so many Jews up at once. This is not the usual habits on the Temple Mount," Ben Ruby said. "We have to ensure that every Jewish group is going up in safety and will go up quietly."...

The Islamic Movement [which plans to disrupt the event] has been accused by Israel of urging its members to join Hamas, and was blamed for participation in several terror attacks, including a car bombing in September 1999. Many Movement members allegedly recruited by Hamas in the West Bank have been arrested in recent years....

Ben Ruby told WND although Jews are barred from the Mount in large groups, the Israeli police would allow thousands of Muslims to ascend.

"Outside View: Terrorist Financing and Crime" is an egregious piece of ignorance and dhimmitude by Juan Carlos Zarate, U.S. assistant secretary of the Treasury Department for terrorist financing. Among other duties, Zarate is responsible for formulating and coordinating the department's counter-terrorist financing and anti-money laundering efforts. From UPI, with thanks to EPG:

Washington, DC, Over the last several years, the U.S. Treasury has established an important relationship and dialogue with the Muslim and Arab-American communities as we work together to deal with the corrosive effects and threat of terrorist financing to the United States and the Muslim and Arab worlds. This relationship is acutely necessary as we work to protect and preserve the sanctity of charitable giving and Zakat from terrorist groups like al-Qaida, which have purposely usurped the goodwill and donations of Muslims around the world to fuel their terrorist agenda.

This relationship is also critical to advancing our collective mission of promoting charitable relief and development around the world to those most in need of our assistance. The American Muslim and Arab communities are uniquely situated because they have the powers of the purse and persuasion to affect global practices and perceptions that are essential to advancing both of these goals and winning the long-term battle against terrorism.

Charitable giving is a proud and vibrant component of virtually every community in America, regardless of religion, culture or background. This is especially true in the case of Islam, where Zakat -- charity -- is a pillar of the faith. The unfortunate reality of the post-9/11 world is that terrorist groups like al-Qaida and Hamas have abused charitable organizations to finance their lethal schemes. Terrorists have created charitable fronts and have sought out corrupt or vulnerable non-profits to raise and move money, to transport operatives and materiel, to recruit and indoctrinate new members, and to support family members of operatives or deceased suicide bombers.

Yes, and nobody -- but nobody -- who gave money to these groups had any idea of where their money was going. Every last one of them was shocked, shocked!

This is the sad reality of a violent minority that has corrupted the goodwill of the donor community, and in particular, the good faith of Muslims....

If you plan on reading it all, it might be wise to keep a bottle of Pepto-Bismol handy.

From the Edmonton Journal:

A former Edmonton-area cinema owner has been charged in the United States with raising cash and recruiting Muslim extremists in North America throughout the 1990s to help wage a worldwide Islamic jihad.

Kassem Daher, linked by CSIS to al-Qaeda, is a Lebanese native who came to Canada in the 1980s as a business immigrant. Daher, who once ran movie theatres in Leduc and Ponoka, left Canada in 1998.

In 2000, he was arrested in Lebanon after a shootout between police and alleged terrorists. After his arrest, Daher's relatives denied he was ever involved in terrorism and urged the Canadian government to intervene on his behalf. He was never formally charged with a crime in Lebanon or Canada and has been free on bail for the past year, Barbara Campion, a spokeswoman for CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) told CanWest News Service on Tuesday.

But a criminal complaint unsealed this week in Florida named Daher -- along with three other men, including a former Detroit public school administrator -- as co-conspirators in a network aimed at supporting
terrorist activities around the globe.

The alleged network came to light on Monday following the arrest of Kifah Wael Jayyousi, a former assistant superintendent in Detroit's school system. Authorities told the Detroit Free Press that Jayyousi was arrested around 12:30 p.m. Sunday at the Detroit airport after arriving from Qatar via Amsterdam.

U.S. customs agents detained Jayyousi after a computer check showed he was wanted on a federal terrorism warrant issued in Miami, along with two other men: Adham Amin Hassoun and Daher.

Jayyousi and Daher are charged with conspiring to provide material support and resources for terrorism and conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim or injure people or damage property in a foreign country....

Earlier this week, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami released a 14-page affidavit sworn out by FBI agent John T. Kavanaugh detailing what he described as the "Jayyousi-Daher-Hassoun North American Support Network" for Islamic terror.

"The investigation of Jayyousi, Daher (and) Hassoun began in late 1993 and revealed that they had formed a network across North America to fundraise for and recruit mujahedeen to train and fight in various jihad areas including but not limited to Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, and Somalia," the affidavit states....

In one February 1995 conversation, Jayyousi, Daher and Zaky allegedly discussed how the network was moving jihadist soldiers between Algeria, Egypt, Somalia, and Eritrea. Daher said "we are in charge of it in Canada," according to the affidavit, and added that "we have brothers in Lebanon who are ready to go to Chechnya but there's no money."...

What? These terrorists use "doctrinal arguments" to recruit? Why, does Rich Lowry know about this attempt to discredit Muhammad and Islam? "Jihad's latest 'rag' hits the Internet," from the Asia Times:

BANGALORE - A new jihadi magazine made its appearance on the Internet this month. [1] Named Dhurwat al-Sanam, Arabic for "the highest or most virtuous belief/insight", the magazine has been posted by the official spokesman of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Dhurwat al-Sanam is the latest of several online publications produced by jihadi organizations.

The 43-page inaugural issue of Dhurwat al-Sanam appears to be aimed at motivating jihadis in Iraq and is replete with the usual tedious and bellicose rhetoric and doctrinal arguments. There are messages from Osama bin Laden commending Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's fighters in Iraq and accepting the allegiance of al-Zarqawi to al-Qaeda. The letters refer to al-Zarqawi as the "emir" of al-Qaeda in Iraq and call on people to obey him. There are letters in turn from al-Zarqawi expressing loyalty to bin Laden. Much of this appears to have been rehashed from text already published on the Internet.

There are comments by the "edicts committee" on the recent elections in Iraq. Democracy and elections are condemned as "Western" and "un-Islamic". "Democracy and parliaments, my brothers, are from the religion and desires of the infidels ... Democracy means the rule of the people ... which means that who is to be obeyed and worshipped is man, not God."...

I told you so.

Dhurwat al-Sanam appears to be a successor of the now-defunct Sawat al-Jihad (Voice of Jihad), a bi-weekly publication published by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Like many other online jihadi publications, the Sawat al-Jihad was aimed at motivating jihadis and indoctrinating those interested in becoming jihadis. More important, it seemed preoccupied with justifying violent acts through ideological and doctrinal arguments....

Another jihadi online publication, this one with motivational material interwoven with military training input, was Maaskar al-Battar (al-Bataar Training Camp), which also ceased publication a few months ago. It was aimed at building a jihad culture among Muslim youth and to equip them to fight against those who have "invaded the Islamic world".

With Maaskar al-Battar, training to be a jihad was available at the click of the mouse. An aspiring jihadi did not have to go to Afghanistan for training, he could learn how to fight from the comfort of his home. The first issue of Maaskar al-Battar drew attention to the convenience of online training it provided. "Oh Mujahid [holy warrior] brother, in order to join the great training camps you don't have to travel to other lands ... Alone, in your home or with a group of your brothers, you too can begin to execute the training program. You can all join the al-Battar Training Camp."

Subsequent issues provided operational guides for using automatic weapons, physical fitness programs, do-it-yourself assassination kits, propaganda techniques and other tips on terrorism.

Jihadi online publications cater to women, too, with articles and advice on how women can bring up their children to become good jihadis, why they must have more sons, what books they should read to their children and how they should support fighters by providing food and shelter. In August last year, jihadi online publishing broke new ground. Al-Khansa, a magazine aimed exclusively at women, hit cyber newsstands. The magazine, which is named after a female Arab poet who was a close associate of Prophet Mohammed, aimed at motivating women to participate more actively in the jihad.

The magazine sought to convince women that they could be both a jihadi and a good woman. Women are not neglecting their role as mothers by joining the jihad. There was no contradiction between their roles as woman/mother and as jihadi. The editorial in the inaugural issue of al-Khansa said, "We will stand covered by our veils and wrapped in our robes, weapons in hand, our children in our laps, with the Koran and the Sunna of the Prophet of Allah directing and guiding us. The blood of our husbands and the body parts of our children are the sacrifice by means of which we draw closer to Allah, so that through us, Allah will cause the martyrdom for His sake to succeed."...

Well, move over Good Housekeeping!

From the Detroit Free Press, with thanks to EPG:

Michigan Muslims of Indian descent are hailing the U.S. government's decision to deny a prominent Indian minister entry into the country because of his intolerance toward religious minorities.

The State Department's move came after U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Detroit, sponsored a congressional resolution last week to condemn Narendra Modi, chief minister of the Indian state of Gujarat. In 2002, anti-Muslim riots broke out in his state after a train carrying Hindu activists was attacked. Some Muslim and human-rights groups said Modi failed to stop the violence and has allowed a culture of intolerance to take hold in the state where Mohandas Gandhi was born....

Hmmm. Modi didn't start any violence...he just "failed to stop" the violence actually started by Muslims -- and he's the "intolerant" one.

Conyers said Thursday that he was urged to action by the Council on American Islamic Relations, or CAIR, an advocacy group based in Washington, D.C....

Well well, these are heady days for CAIR. We might as well elect Ibrahim Hooper President and get it over with.

The decision brought protests from some Indian Americans and the Indian government, which asked the United States to reconsider, noting that Modi was a democratically elected official and should have been given the respect afforded elected officials....

"I personally call him the Hitler of Gujarat," Quayid Saifee, a computer consultant from Rochester Hills born in India, said Thursday....

Conyers' resolution, introduced March 15, was supported by U.S. Reps. Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania and Trent Franks of Arizona, both Republicans. They also expressed concern about Modi's treatment of Christians.

In the resolution, Conyers noted that the Indian Supreme Court had admonished Modi for his inaction in the 2002 riots.

Conyers said he hopes the move won't adversely affect America's relations with India. "We consider ourselves allies of India," Conyers said Thursday. "We just have this one problem."

We sure do.

From AP, with thanks to EPG:

NEWARK -- From a living room festooned with dozens of elephants in all shapes and sizes, Sherine El-Abd is busily raising money for gubernatorial candidate Bret Schundler, whose call for lower property taxes she loves.

It's only March, but the Edison woman, an Egyptian immigrant and Republican organizer, is already planning candidate forums for October.

In Denville, Aref Assaf is supporting U.S. Sen. Jon Corzine, warming to his willingness to include more Arabs and Muslims in his administration and to fight what the Democrat considers the excesses of the USA Patriot Act.

Great. Any word from Assaf on what he plans to do to eradicate elements of the jihad ideology from the American Muslim community?

Three and a half years after the terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Arab-American and Muslim communities are important to candidates for the New Jersey governor's office. The growing political organization -- and prodigious fund-raising potential -- of Arabs and Muslims in New Jersey make them an appealing source of votes and campaign cash.

Candidates are already speaking at Arab-American dinners, taking out congratulatory ads in souvenir journals and asking for money from a group almost giddy with its newfound political influence.

"We are becoming players," said Assaf, a Palestinian activist and president of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee's New Jersey chapter. "It's a recognition of the fact that the Arab-American community is coming center stage on the American political stage. We are no longer a liability; we are an asset."

With an estimated 250,000 Arab-Americans and an additional non-Arab Muslim population of about 450,000 in New Jersey, these communities could prove decisive in a close election, said Magdy Mahmoud, president of the New Jersey chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations....

From the Bridge for Sale Department, via Reuters, with thanks to Rebecca Bynum:

NATANZ, Iran - Iran's President Mohammad Khatami took a group of journalists deep underground on Wednesday into the heart of a key nuclear plant which Washington wants dismantled and whose existence was kept secret until 2002.

About 30 local and foreign journalists visited Natanz uranium enrichment facility, 250 km (150 miles) south of Tehran, the centerpiece of a disputed atomic fuel drive which Tehran suspended under international pressure in late 2003.

The unprecedented visit was an unusual gesture of openness by the Islamic state. Reporters, allowed to photograph and film the unimposing complex, were later shown parts of another atomic facility in the central city of Isfahan.

See? Nothing to worry about. It was "unimposing."

Iran says its nuclear program is nothing for the world to fear and will only be used to generate much-needed electricity....

Reporters left the premises with promissory notes handing over them control of the Brooklyn Bridge in exchange for an undisclosed sum which informed sources described as "princely."

Could this be National Review's last article critical of the creeping Islamization of Europe? "Wrong from Head to Toe: A ridiculous and ominous decision in Britain," by Theodore Dalrymple in the March 28 issue of NR, via The Manhattan Institute, with thanks to EPG:

In the long annals of judicial stupidity, there can rarely have been a more idiotic judgment than that recently given by Lord Justice Brooke of the British Court of Appeal. It reads like the suicide note not of a country alone, but of an entire civilization.

A young Muslim girl, Shabina Begum, who attended a state school in Luton, England, four-fifths of whose pupils were Muslim, started a legal battle when she was 13 to be allowed the jilbab, a form of dress that leaves only her face and hands exposed. She was almost certainly put up to this by her older brother, a supporter of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a Muslim party that seeks to establish a Muslim world state, that believes democracy is blasphemy, and that denies that the Western citizenship of Muslims is real or meaningful, or confers any privileges or imposes any duties.

The school in question had, in fact, worked out a dress code for Muslim girls that satisfied almost everyone. It was extremely accommodating: Various forms of modest dress were allowed, including certain types of scarf. But, after two years of accepting the dress code, Shabina Begum suddenly started to appear in her jilbab. The school demanded that she go home and change into a costume that accorded with the dress code, but she refused. Eventually she brought a case, supported and possibly funded by the Hizb ut-Tahrir, under the U.K.'s Human Rights Act. She claimed that the school was denying her right to an education.

She lost the case, and also an appeal, but won at the last hurdle. The Guardian reported that after her victory, she said she "could scream with happiness."

When they heard of her victory, many Muslim women around the country must have wanted to scream with quite different emotions, despair and rage prominent among them. For Lord Justice Brooke's ruling, that Shabina Begum's human rights had been denied, and that she had been discriminated against illegally on religious grounds, displayed a complete and invincible ignorance of the social context of the case. Lord Justice Brooke saw no evil, heard no evil, and felt no evil. In effect, therefore, he was giving succor to those Muslim men who still abuse women in a medieval fashion.

Regardless of whether Shabina Begum acted in this case without duress and of her own free will, which seems to me highly unlikely given that the traditional place of Muslim women is not the public spotlight, the fact is that substantial numbers of young Muslim women are virtually enslaved in Britain; they grow up in what can only be called a totalitarian environment. I know this from what my patients have told me. They are not allowed out of the house except under escort, and sometimes not even then; they are allowed no mail or use of the telephone; they are not allowed to contradict a male member of the household, and are automatically subject to his wishes; it is regarded as quite legitimate to beat them if they disobey in the slightest. Their brothers are often quite willing to attack anyone who speaks to the women in any informal context. They are forced to wear modes of dress that they do not wish to wear. Their schooling is quite often deliberately interrupted, so that they are not infected by Western ideas of personal liberty; ambitious for a career, they are kept at home as prisoners and domestic slaves.

Worst of all are the forced marriages to which they are subjected. They are taken by their parents, often at a young age, "back" to Pakistan, where they are told that they are getting married, often to a first cousin. Their fathers regard their British passports with all the respect Hitler accorded to treaties. The young women have possession of their passports only fleetingly, as they pass through immigration. Thereafter, they are confiscated by the father and held as ransom against their good behavior, which in this, as in every other, instance means doing as they are told.

If by any chance they should object to their marriage, they are mercilessly beaten and in some cases killed. All the young women who are taken to Pakistan are aware of such cases: Like the shooting of Admiral Byng, such cases are committed pour encourager les autres. Very occasionally, the parents do not even transport the recalcitrant girls to Pakistan to kill them: They do it in England. Recently in the prison in which I work, I met a young man of Pakistani origin who was afraid of the other young men of Pakistani origin in the prison. Why? Because he had previously given important evidence in court in a case in which a girl who had refused to marry the husband selected for her by her parents was murdered by her father and brothers. The other young men of Pakistani origin thought the man who had testified was a traitor to their religion and culture; for in fact it is a religion and culture very convenient to the young men, whom it supplies with a domestic slave and mother of children while they can entertain themselves elsewhere. The whole evil system would break down if any of the young women were allowed their freedom, which is why the men must stick together. Like any form of totalitarianism, it is strong but brittle.

I have spoken to Muslims about this, and they tell me that what I am
describing is customary or cultural practice, not a religious requirement. I am not scholar enough to know whether they are right, but it is certainly customary practice over a large area of the earth's surface. And so long as this practice, be it religious or customary, is widespread, the word of no Muslim girl who claims to want to wear increasingly "modest" dress can be taken at her word, any more than a public figure in the USSR could have been taken as expressing his own personal opinion. If the judge was aware of this, he took no notice of it....

Read it all.

Wouldn't it be important, with this kind of rhetoric going around, to know what the Prophet said and did? And how jihad terrorists make use of it? Apparently not. "The Prophet as a Man - 29: Perfect Role Model in All Situations," from Arab News, with thanks to JJP Mackie:

The Prophet (peace be upon him) was the perfect role model in all situations, including those that do not have a religious aspect. This is due to the fact that he lived in accordance with the Qur'an and was keen to implement its values and principles. A well-known Hadith speaks of Aishah being asked about the Prophet's manners. Her answer was simple: "His manners were the Qur'an." What she meant was that the Prophet was keen to implement the Qur'an, its morality and social values in every situation.

Everything was going along great in this one until I chanced upon mention of the illustrious Omid Safi, who is such a kind professor that he does his students' thinking for them — particularly on that global menace, "Islamophobia."

From the Washington Times, with thanks to Bill Roggio:

CAIRO - The condemnation of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda by the Islamic Commission of Spain on the first anniversary of the train bombings in Madrid that took 200 lives is making waves throughout the Muslim world.

It's interesting: just a couple of days ago I was on a radio show with a host who kept pressing me about the multiplicity of sects in Islam, as if to suggest (again) that those who pursue violent jihad all belong to just one group (Wahhabis, no doubt -- about whom more later if time permits), while other Islamic sects teach peaceful coexistence with non-Muslims.

But in fact, all we have in three and half years since 9/11 is one fatwa and a few groups that don't seem to have much of a following (more on that later), and we are supposed to be thrilled that this fatwa was issued. Well, ok, I'm thrilled. I'd be more thrilled if it had actually explained how it proposed to refute the jihad theology and ideology, but I guess I shouldn't expect too much too soon.

The Spanish commission's fatwa, or condemnation, follows other signs of the kind of public theological debate rarely seen in the Muslim world, openly challenging the dominance of Saudi Arabia's wealthy Wahhabi fanatics. One Islamic scholar even calls it a sign of "a counter-jihad."

I noted it in an earlier post, but it still amazes me: the "dominance" of the Wahhabis? The media seems to have gone from "tiny minority of extremists" to "Wahhabi dominance" so fast that I'm dizzy.

Yet still no one seems to be asking whether it wasn't just oil billions that won that dominance, but a convincing exegesis of the Qur'an and Sunnah -- which the moderates still have yet to refute.

In a recent interview with the Qatari daily newspaper Al-Raya, for example, Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari, the former dean of Shariah and law at the University of Qatar, urged his fellow Muslims to purge their heritage of fanaticism and adopt "new civilized humane thought."

Such humane thought, he said, "must be translated [into deeds] in educational ways, via the media, tolerant religious discourse, nondiscriminatory policy and just legislation."

"We must purge the school curricula of all sectarian implications and elements according to which others deviate from the righteous path and the truth is in our hands alone. We must enrich the curricula with the values of tolerance and acceptance of the other who is different [in school of faith, ethnic group, religion, nationality or sex].

Waaaaaaaait a minute. Who put that bracketed part in? On what basis?

"The political regime must refrain from sectarian or ethnic preference; it must respect the rights and liberties of the minorities and must guarantee them through legislative action, practical policy and equal opportunity in the areas of education, media and civil positions."

There is a lot in that that I'd like to see clarified. "Sectarian" preference: does that include non-Muslims as well as Muslims? And respecting the rights and liberties of minorities, and even guaranteeing them, is not enough. The enforcers of the dhimma would say they did that. But if he really means "equal opportunity" for non-Muslims, then that sounds great. Except:

Other Muslims quickly attacked the Spanish fatwa.

Oops...

A group calling itself al Qaeda in Iraq -- the name Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab Zarqawi gave his organization after he aligned himself with bin Laden -- mocked it in the familiar religious rhetoric. "Allah has promised us victory," it said in a posting on its Internet Web site...."Terrorizing enemies of God is our faith and religion, which is taught to us by our Koran."...

This is the kind of thing I have predicted many times as the fate of Islamic reformers: the jihadists challenge their Islamic loyalty. The Qur'anic verse in question is: "Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into the hearts of the enemies, of Allah and your enemies, and others besides, whom ye may not know, but whom Allah doth know. Whatever ye shall spend in the cause of Allah, shall be repaid unto you, and ye shall not be treated unjustly" (Qur'an 8:60).

The subject of suicide attacks sharply divides the Islamic world. Many Islamic scholars denounce it, citing the Koran: "Do not kill yourself." There are deep divisions over what the Koran justifies in a perceived defense of Islam. "There needs to be an awakening that radicals are manipulating the Koran for their own narrow motives," said Omid Safi, professor of philosophy and religion at Colgate University....

Omid, my man, I ask you one more time: please explain to us exactly how the radicals are "manipulating the Koran," and how you propose to convince them to stop. As long as you keep hiding behind your degrees and refusing to answer such questions, as well as demonizing those who ask them, I will keep on wondering if you have any answers at all.

The arbiters of what is and is not "Islamophobia" in the United States, the Council on American Islamic Relations, are planning to devote their 2005 Annual Conference to "Islamophobia and Anti-Americanism, Causes and Remedies."

Among the luminaries speaking is the infamous Muzammil H. Siddiqi of the Islamic Society of North America. A Harvard educated, highly influential imam who serves on several boards of national Muslim groups, he was the Muslim representative at the prayer service for victims of 9/11 at the National Cathedral. He has visited with President Bush in the White House, where he assured the President that the Muslim community "unanimously condemns" the terrorist acts of 9/11.

Here is an interesting statement from Mr. Siddiqi, taken from Paul Sperry's Infiltration:

"I believe that as Muslims, we should participate in the system to safeguard our interests and try to bring about gradual change" and in a 2003 fatwa, he said, "We must not forget that Allah's rules have to be established in all lands, and all our efforts should lead in that direction." In an anti-Israel rally across from the White House, he said, "America has to learn, if you remain on the side on injustice,the wrath of God will come."

Well, aren't we blessed to have such nice, sweet and moderate Muslims in the highest levels of leadership in the Muslim community in America?

Rich Lowry of NR says this at The Corner about the CAIR book brouhaha:

THE BOOK BUSINESS [Rich Lowry ]

Some folks have e-mailed in asking about a book brouhaha going on in some parts of the blogosphere involving us. Here is what happened: A National Review Book Service e-mail blast for the book "The Life And Religion of Mohammed" by Rev. J.L Menezes was sent out a couple of weeks ago to the magazine's (opted-in) e-mail list. The ad copy in the e-mail, which invoked "the dark mind of Mohammed" among other things, was written by author Robert Spencer. But it went out under the name of a member of NR's publishing staff, who should have, but didn't review it. The book service is a joint project with a publisher who has been responsible for what books to feature in this service and how best to publicize them.

So, National Review didn't sit down and say, "Hey, let's have a public fight over Mohammed and aggressively market books about him," then reverse course. In contrast, Robert Spencer and some others on the right feel very strongly that it is important to discredit Mohammed and Islam as such in order to win the war on terror. That's certainly their prerogative, but it is not the tack NR has taken, even as we have vigorously attacked Islamic terrorism and supported the war against it. CAIR has been agitating for us to apologize for weeks, but we obviously aren't going to apologize for a position that isn't our own. We are, of course, more than happy to defend our own actual positions against CAIR, or any other noxious grievance group.

Fair enough, except that Lowry has me wrong. I do not in the least "feel very strongly that it is important to discredit Mohammed and Islam as such in order to win the war on terror," and in writing this sentence Lowry betrays a rather severe misunderstanding of the nature of my work and that of others.

So, to clarify: I am not in the least interested in discrediting Muhammad and Islam as an end in itself. Nor do I think that such a discrediting would be of much use in anti-terror efforts. The importance of critical examination of Muhammad and Islam comes from the fact that jihad terrorists around the world -- from Osama bin Laden to Omar Bakri in England and Abu Bakar Bashir in Indonesia and everywhere in between -- invoke Muhammad and Islam to explain their goals and justify their actions, as well as to win recruits among Muslims. When they do that, it becomes important for non-Muslims, and in particular those in government and law enforcement positions, to know how they do it, so that such efforts to invigorate and expand the jihadist ranks can be effectively countered. In that case, a refusal to acknowledge these unpleasant elements of Islam becomes a hindrance to anti-terror and human rights efforts.

To wit: I would never have thought it a matter of importance to non-Muslims that Muhammad took a 9-year-old bride at the age of 52 (see Sahih Bukhari, vol. 5, bk. 58, no. 236) were it not for the fact that child marriage is rampant in the Islamic world, and that that is a public health and human rights issue. To combat it effectively, there must be an honest appraisal by Muslims of the influence of Muhammad's example here, and a forthright willingness to stand up and say that his example in this must not be followed today. Whether or not there is any hope that Muslims will actually do that in any significant group is another question, but if it is not done, it is certain that the problem will continue.

Another example with immediate relevance to the war on terror is the Qur'an's "Verse of the Sword" (9:5), which includes the command to "slay the unbelievers wherever you find them," and for which Osama bin Laden praised Allah in a sermon broadcast on Al-Jazeera in 2003: "Praise be to Allah who revealed the verse of the Sword to his servant and messenger [the Prophet Muhammad], in order to establish truth and abolish falsehood."

In the face of that use of the Qur'an and Islam by terrorists -- of which I could give thousands of examples -- it becomes imperative to know what the Qur'an, as well as Islamic tradition and law, actually say about warfare against unbelievers. For we cannot mount an effective resistance against a threat we do not know or wish to acknowledge. If Lowry or others at NR are expecting the Vast Majority of Peaceful Muslims to have their back in the war on terror and fight with them against the Tiny Minority of Extremists, they may be unpleasantly surprised. But they won't even know that without a thorough investigation of the Islamic sources, such as the books they dropped and my own books actually provide. This is not about "discrediting Muhammad and Islam" for its own sake, but about knowing how jihadists think, how they gain recruits, and what their overall plans are. And if you think it is not important to know that about your enemy in a war, you have just told me that you are resigned to being defeated.

Misapprehension in this area can lead to immense miscalculations. Recently Powell and Rice both opined that tsunami relief would show Muslims that Americans aren't all that bad. That statement in itself shows ignorance of the teachings of Islam about unbelievers, and ignorance of the history of the region, and how jihadist preachers used similar disasters to stir up hatred of the unbelievers, even as those unbelievers were helping them. It was not wrong for them to give the aid, but it was wrong for them to expect anything as a result. This is a relatively innocuous example; many more sinister ones can be drawn from the Wilsonian adventure in Iraq.

Also, by removing the books, NR has tacitly acknowledged that CAIR was right: all they were was anti-Muslim hate speech. That seems to be established also by Lowry's Corner post above. This is extremely important -- and disastrous -- because, as I show in my article, everything with which CAIR took issue can be readily established from Islamic sources. That suggests that CAIR is trying to keep Americans from knowing unpleasant truths about Islam, which will also keep them from guarding themselves effectively from Muslims who are acting upon those unpleasant directives. It also gives CAIR a victory in their efforts to silence all criticism of Islam as "hate speech" -- and again, it looks as if Lowry obliged them because he agrees that any examination of the Islamic roots of jihad violence is out of bounds in anti-terror efforts.

Yet right now, somewhere in the world, someone is explaining from the Qur'an and Sunnah why Muslims must wage jihad against unbelievers. But let's not think about that. Let's just roll over and go back to sleep.

Sharia alert. As I have pointed out many times, this is what makes reform in Islam virtually impossible: when reformers seek to set aside practices such as polygamy, hardliners see it as a transgression of Allah's will. "Ugandan Muslims March in Defense of Polygamy," from Reuters, with thanks to Nicolei:

KAMPALA - Hundreds of Ugandan Muslims demonstrated in the capital on Tuesday to protest a proposed restriction on polygamy they see as an affront to their religion.

Under Islamic law, a Muslim man is allowed to take up to four wives, as long as he can provide for all of them equally.

But a domestic relations bill being debated by Uganda's parliament says Ugandan Muslims should have to seek approval from their first wife before marrying again.

"Islamic law has been there since it was passed on from Allah to the Prophet Mohammed, it cannot be re-written now," one of the protesters, Bukulu Haruna, told Reuters....

"Other cultures want to overcome Islam, but we will not allow it. People are willing to die so that no one will trample over them," one demonstrator said.

Human rights campaigners in Uganda have called for polygamy to be banned....

"God gave us guidelines on how marriage should be handled. Telling us how many women we should marry makes the bill ridiculous and infringes on our freedom of worship," Kampala district Khadi Sheikh Silman Ndilangwa told reporters.

The domestic relations bill, first seen by parliament last year, also
includes proposals on the scrapping of bride-price, one of the requirements of a Muslim marriage....

When is news not really news? When the whole world knows it. Yet Syria continues in denial. From AP, :

ASHKELON, Israel - A 20-year-old Palestinian recruited from a mosque in Gaza by Hamas militants told The Associated Press in a jailhouse interview Tuesday that he received weeks of military training in a Hamas camp in Syria this year.

The allegations by Osama Mattar, now in Israeli custody, mark the first time a Palestinian has spoken publicly about being trained in Syria, and contradict repeated Syrian denials.

The training base outside Damascus was far from secret and was once even inspected by Syrian intelligence agents, Mattar said.

"They know very well about the presence of Hamas," he said. "What they may not have known about was the presence of a guy from Gaza coming to train at the training camp in Syria."

Israel has long accused Syria of allowing Palestinian militants to train there and offered up Mattar - arrested March 2 as he tried to cross back into Gaza - as proof....

Syria has repeatedly denied accusations it allows militants to train on its territory. The Syrian government says it once allowed militants to run media offices from Damascus, but those were closed after a visit by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell in May 2003.

On Oct. 5, 2003, Israel bombed what it said was an Islamic Jihad training camp in Syria after the group carried out a suicide bombing at a Haifa cafe that killed 19 Israelis. Syria said at the time the base had been long abandoned.

With relations between Israel and the Palestinian leadership warming in recent months, Israel has stepped up its accusations against Syria. Israel blamed a Feb. 25 suicide bombing in Tel Aviv that killed five people on Islamic Jihad militants following orders from their leaders in Damascus and said it held Syria responsible.

Israeli officials say Syria continues to be a hub for Palestinian
militants....

I posted an earlier story about this here. This one, "An unholy alliance: Aryan Nation leader reaches out to al Qaeda," is from CNN, , who notes that this is "another story of Nazi goals to link with Islamist extremist terrorists. This is why I have a separate watch of Nazi extremists and terrorists at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/againstnazi/ and http://www.againstnazi.com/. Nazis could readily provide inconspicuous operatives to carry out Islamist extremist goals. I have posted stories where such Nazis have gone to actively support Islamist extremist groups in UK."

SEBRING, Florida - A couple of hours up the road from where some September 11 hijackers learned to fly, the new head of Aryan Nation is praising them -- and trying to create an unholy alliance between his white supremacist group and al Qaeda.

"You say they're terrorists, I say they're freedom fighters. And I want to instill the same jihadic feeling in our peoples' heart, in the Aryan race, that they have for their father, who they call Allah."

With his long beard and potbelly, August Kreis looks more like a washed up member of ZZ Top than an aspiring revolutionary.

Don't let appearances fool you: his résumé includes stops at some of America's nastiest extremist groups -- Posse Comitatus, the Ku Klux Klan and Aryan Nation.

"I don't believe that they were the ones that attacked us," Kreis said. "And even if they did, even if you say they did, I don't care!"

Kreis wants to make common cause with al Qaeda because, he says, they share the same enemies: Jews and the American government.

The terms they use may be different: White supremacists call them ZOG, the Zionist Occupation Government, while al Qaeda calls them the Jews and Crusaders.

But the hatred is the same. And Kreis wants to exploit that....

Paintball jihad trial update. Al-Timimi was just exercising his freedom of speech, you see. From AP, with thanks to JS:

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- A federal judge indicated Monday that the defense believes First Amendment issues may play a significant role in the trial of an Islamic scholar accused of exhorting followers to fight U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

While summarizing the prosecution's case, U.S. District Judge Leonie
Brinkema told prospective panelists that the defense contends much of the government's evidence against Ali al-Timimi is constitutionally protected free speech.

"He says that he only counseled the young men at issue to leave the United States and (migrate) to an Islamic country where they could practice their religion freely," she told a pool of 110 people who filled out long questionnaires....

The government's case against al-Timimi, a U.S. citizen born in Washington, D.C., is closely linked to its earlier prosecution of 11 men who were allegedly part of a "Virginia jihad network" _ a group of men who played paintball games in 2000 and 2001 in the woods of northern Virginia as a means of training for holy war around the globe.

Nine men were convicted and received prison sentences ranging from three years to life. Several who struck plea bargains are expected to testify against al-Timimi.

According to prosecutors, al-Timimi served as a spiritual leader to several members of the Virginia group and turned its focus against the United States.

Previously, the defendant's lawyers, Edward MacMahon and Alan Yamamoto, tried to suppress several pieces of government evidence on free-speech grounds _ including an e-mail al-Timimi sent after the Columbia space shuttle disaster, praising it as a "good omen" of the downfall of Western supremacy.

Brinkema ruled, however, it was relevant to show al-Timimi's hostility to America; he is charged with inducing others to levy war against the United States....

Yes, we agree that all this is quite relevant.

From ABC News, with thanks to Nicolei:

However big a shock a recent suicide bombing in Doha was to the Qataris, it was far from unexpected in Western capitals, where intelligence agencies had discreetly put out a travel warning through their respective embassies.

The emirate, a key ally in the Bush administration's war on terror, has been high on the terrorist target list ever since it became home to the U.S. Central Command's operational headquarters in early 2003. Just five days before the March 19 blast, which killed a British teacher and wounded 12 others, the State Department issued a general warning to all Americans travelling in the Gulf that "extremists may be planning to carry out attacks against Westerners and oil workers" in the region. What did surprise intelligence officials was the name of the group which claimed responsibility for the bombing: Jund al-Sham ("Soldiers of the Levant").

Although the group said that this was its first statement, Jund al-Sham is the same name as a group started by the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Intelligence officials believe it may be a sign that Zarqawi is beginning to attack targets outside Iraq, and may, in fact, be emerging as a replacement to Osama bin Laden as the operational leader of the global jihad. Analysts are concerned that Zarqawi may now begin to redeploy his cadre of militants who, having gained important combat experience in Iraq, are capable of carrying out deadly missions elsewhere.

According to Jordanian government sources and European intelligence documents, Zarqawi first set up Jund al-Sham in Afghanistan in late 1999 with $200,000 in startup money from bin Laden. The group's objective was to operate in a geographical area known as the "Levant," which encompasses Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan where al Qaeda's presence was deemed too weak. Headed by Zarqawi, Jund al-Sham federated about 150 jihadis, including Jordanian Islamic militants exiled by the Jordanian government earlier that year, as well as various recruits from Syria (some holdouts of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood), and Lebanon (mostly Palestinian refugees of the movement "Asbat al Ansar"). These militants were trained in explosive, guerrilla warfare and chemical weapons techniques at a training facility ("Al Matar Training Camp") operated by Zarqawi near the Afghan city of Herat, close to the Iranian border.

The group's stated objective, according to Jordanian intelligence documents, was a compromise between Zarqawi's obsession to destabilize the Jordanian monarchy and bin Laden's desire to conduct major terrorist operations in Israel. From Herat and Kabul, where the organization had its headquarters, its members started planning several terrorist operations, including the "Millennium Bombings" in Jordan in December 1999. Most of these plots were fortunately uncovered by the Jordanian intelligence which had sent its own recruits to "join" Jund al-Sham in Afghanistan in 1999. After 9/11 and the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan, the organization was visibly disbanded and most of its members, including Zarqawi himself, fled back to their home countries through Pakistan or Iran....

Read it all.

The nonpareil Hugh Fitzgerald on false dhimmi assumptions made about Islam vis-a-vis Turkey, and much more:

The refusal to allow the American government to use an American airbase for which a large rent is paid, the attacks by important members of the Turkish government or Parliament decrying the Americans in Iraq as "worse than the Nazis," the acceptance of Arab propaganda about the "Palestinian people" which the Turks, who controlled the relevant territory, know perfectly well is a convenient political fiction designed to disguise the relentless Arab Jihad against Israel as merely a matter of "two tiny peoples," and "compromise," and "adjustment of borders" (all nonsense, all misunderstood by those who wish to misunderstand),the inability of the Turkish secularists to properly defend aginst the ruthlessness and guile employed by the Islamic forces in Turkey that are busy throwing off the constraints on Islam that Ataturk had so carefully constructed and deployed -- all of this should cause a few grim conclusions to be drawn in Washington.

To wit:

1) Islam is permanent, Kemalism transient. Islam will always be a threat, as long as it has not been so discredited, so weakened, so tied down, that it cannot again escape from its box.

The lesson of Turkey is that eternal vigilance on behalf of secularism is necessary, and those who have been the beneficiaries of such secularism are foolish not to recognize that it occasionally requires military force (that of the Turkish Army) and constant reinforcement of legal measures taken against the outward expression of Islam as a political and social force, to keep Islam in its place, since it cannot otherwise be dealt with or transmogrified into something less menacing.

2) The Cold War led to some assumptions about Islam which were false. The Americans did not know anything about Islam (and still that government knows very little). But they knew that Islam was incompatible with Communism, and that was good enough for them. They knew that the Turks they were likely to meet, the members of the Defense Ministry in Ankara, were stout fellows, secular, just the kind you could trust. In the same way, they "knew" that Iraq under "strongman" (that was his heroic epithet, until his mutilated corpse was dragged through the streets of Baghdad following the 1958 coup) Nuri al-Said, or Nuri Pasha, would stoutly be on "our" side and was therefore a linchpin in that ill-conceived CENTO (which died a natural death after that 1958 coup). They "knew" that the Shah was Our Man in Teheran, a "pillar of stability" (as Jimmy Carter called him, in making a toast to his regime). They "knew" that those Sandhurst-educated, ramrod-straight, delightly, almost Terry-Thomasly mustachioed Pakistani generals were, like those Turkish generals, "our sort," and could be trusted to help us in the world-wide Campaign Against Communism, and so much more trustworthy than those slithery Indian leftists, with that Krishna Menon, and that pious Fabian-tainted Jawaharlal Nehru, still smelling of bouquets of flowers that bedecked him at Bandung.

And every single time the Americans have made an investment in a Muslim country, a Muslim regime, the good faith of Muslim people, the permanence and the unhindered use of a military base put up at great expense, by the Americans, they have been disappointed. The Moroccan base, the Wheelus Air Base outside Tripoli, the bases in Saudi Arabia -- all gone, or going. The hopes for permanent bases in Iraq, in Kuwait, in Qatar are the fantasies of people who would save themselves a lot of time, and the taxpayers a lot of money, and the Infidel world a lot of heartache, if they only realized this.

It is too late to do what should and could have been done back in 1978 -- demanding that Sadat allow America to stay in the Sinai, both to guarantee the peace and to take over those Israeli-built airbases in a region smack dab in the center of the Middle East, yet largely unpopulated by hostile locals (and with friendly Israelis nearby for R and R, and medical care, and supplies). It is not too late to figure out that wherever there is Islam, sooner or later there will always be hostility to Infidels, and the more powerful those Infidels, the more unwilling those Infidels are to bend to the dictates of Islam, the more hostility there will be.

3) The lesson of Turkey should be applied to Iran. Within a year, or two, or three, it is possible that the hideous Islamic Republic of Iran will fall. And it will be followed by a government reflecting the widespread disgust, in Iran, with Islam as a political force, and even with Islam, period. There may be those who will publicly embrace Zoroastrianism, not out of deep belief but out of a desire to be something, anything, other than Muslim -- and why not the original, pre-Islamic belief that has the sheen of Persian history about it, in the same way that Firdowsi is treated as a nationalist hero for helping, linguistically, to prevent the arabization of Iran and the disappearance of Farsi.

But again, no one should assume that Iran is permanently de-Islamized. Islam will come back, inevitably. And that is why Iran must, whether or not it seems to favor Islam, has to have its nuclear project removed -- because Islam is a permanent threat to Infidels, and no country, with a history of Islamic rule, can be trusted to have permanently put paid to Islam. In Turkey, after 80 years of a systematic attempt to constrain and weaken Islam, Muslim attitudes toward non-Muslims have come back, in a big way. That is the assumption that Infidels must make about Iran as well.

In other words, there can not be any let up in wariness, no let up in what should be a relentless and imaginative campaign to exploit all fissures, all internecine warfare, all resentments, within dar al-Islam. Jihadists have carefully exploited such pre-existing mental conditions as antisemitism and anti-Americanism, not least to split asunder the two parts of the West -- Europe and America.

Two can play that game. But the Infidel side has not even begun. If it had, it would be using Iraq as a point to exploit the Sunni-Shi'a fissure, instead of attempting, crazily, to patch things up and make sure the Shi'a do not respond. And Iraq is the perfect place as well, by promoting an independent Kurdistan, to begin to let other non-Arab Muslims (such as Berbers in North Africa) begin to have hope that the Arab supremacist ideology within Islam can, in fact, be overcome.

These are both worth pursuing. But the spirit of geopolitics, grand strategy, the kind of thing that would have been obvious to any schoolboy in the age of Alfred Thayer Mahan or Sir Halford Mackinder, is now regarded as unseemly, not the kind of thing nice graduate students taking solemn seminars in "International Relations" at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, or the Georgetown Foreign Service Institute, or the Johns Hopkins Center for International Whateveritis, are likely to do -- it smacks of Olden Days, and wallmaps with pins on them, and mad generals and crazed strategists, when we all know that the world has changed utterly, and we all need to find ways of Getting to Yes, in the time-honored manner of -- oh, I don't know, Roger Fisher or Tariq Ramadan or Rodney King or Kofi Annan or the "International Community" or the Easter Bunny, it hardly matters.

Why not?

Here is my piece in FrontPage this morning explaining why this is important. Because jihadists use Muhammad's words and deeds as their primary guide for their own actions, it is imperative for Americans to know what Muhammad said and did -- and thus imperative to read books like those of Menezes and Trifkovic (click to order!).

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has this week waged a campaign against National Review, seeking an apology and the removal of a book called The Life and Religion of Mohammed from sale by the NR Book Service. This was a bit out of focus, since National Review did not publish the book and is not the sole source for it. In fact, I wrote this ad, although I receive absolutely no remuneration from the sales of the book by NR or anyone else. CAIR's campaign was revealing of what CAIR wants Americans to know -- and not to know -- about Islam and Muhammad. And CAIR did succeed in intimidating NR into withdrawing the book, along with Serge Trifkovic's Sword of the Prophet.

In a press release, CAIR called the book "virulently Islamophobic," and quoted sections from advertising copy for book that called it a "guide into the dark mind of (the Prophet) Mohammed." It took issue with the ad copy's description of the book as explaining "why Mohammed couldn't possibly be a true prophet, and reveal[ing] the true sources of his 'revelations." Above all, CAIR was angered by the ad copy's assertions that "Mohammed posed as the apostle of God...while his life is marked by innumerable marriages; and great licentiousness, deeds of rapine, warfare, conquests, unmerciful butcheries, all the time invoking God's holy name to sanction his evil deeds," and that "Mohammed again and again justified his rapine and licentiousness with new 'divine revelations.'"

CAIR's Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper fumed that "this anti-Muslim screed is the literary equivalent of 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion' and should not be promoted by a publication that has any sense of decency. The National Review must clarify its position on Islamophobic hate speech and offer a public apology for promoting a book that so viciously attacks the faith of one-fifth of the world's population." He added, according to the CAIR press release, that "anti-Muslim rhetoric often leads to discrimination and even violence."

In fact, however, The Life and Religion of Mohammed is not "anti-Muslim hate literature." It was written over eighty years ago by Fr. J. L. Menezes, a Roman Catholic priest who was a missionary in India. I have read it, and there is nothing inflammatory or inciteful in it; in fact, it is suffused with a pastoral love for Muslims.

The author, as a Christian priest, obviously did not accept Muhammad's claim to be a prophet. If it is Islamophobic hate literature for a book to explain "why Mohammed couldn't possibly be a true prophet," then the Christian Faith itself is Islamophobic and hateful. (And that, of course, is precisely the view that prevails among all too many today in Pakistan, where many Christians have been victimized under the nation's blasphemy laws after being confronted by Muslims and refusing to acknowledge Muhammad as a prophet.)

From AP, with thanks to Treehugger:

CAIRO, Egypt - An Egyptian stabbed a Hungarian man and woman, slightly wounding them, after the couple kissed while pausing for a photograph near a mosque at Cairo's popular tourist bazaar, police said Tuesday.

Hesham Mohammed, 36, apparently was upset by the kiss Monday in front of Al-Hussein Mosque, a security official said on customary condition of anonymity. The mosque is adjacent to the Khan el-Khalili market where foreign tourists flock to buy souvenirs and locally made crafts.

The Hungarians, who were not identified, were treated at a nearby hospital for minor wounds, the official said, and Mohammed was being questioned. He was described as unemployed and suffering from severe
depression....

Well, I know when I get depressed, my first impulse isn't necessarily to stab somebody...

Picnic jihad update, from the Washington Post Foreign Service in Uruknet, with thanks to Nicolei:

BASRA, Iraq, Celia Garabet thought students were roughhousing. Sinan Saeed was sure a fight had erupted. Within a few minutes, on a sunny day at a riverside park, they realized something different was afoot. A group of Shiite Muslim militiamen with rifles, pistols, thick wire cables and sticks had charged into crowds of hundreds at a college picnic. They fired shots, beat students and hauled some of them away in pickup trucks. The transgressions: men dancing and singing, music playing and couples mixing.

That melee on March 15 and its fallout have redrawn the debate that has shadowed Iraq's second-largest city since the U.S. invasion in 2003: What is the role of Islam in daily life? In once-libertine Basra, a battered port in southern Iraq near the Persian Gulf, the question dominates everything these days, from the political parties in power to the style of dress in the streets.

In the days that followed the melee, hundreds of students, angry about the injuries and arrests, marched on the school administration building and then the governor's office, demanding an apology and, more important, the dissolution of the dreaded campus morality police. The militiamen who attacked the picnickers at first boasted of stamping out debauchery, even distributing videos of the event. But, gauging the popular revulsion, they later admitted to what they termed mistakes. The governor, himself an Islamic activist, urged dialogue to calm a roiled city and deemed the case closed, even as students insisted they remained unsatisfied.

To many in Basra the students managed what no local party or politician had yet done: They interrupted, if briefly, a tide of religious conservatism that has shuttered liquor stores in a city that once had dozens, meted out arbitrary justice and encouraged women to wear a veil and dress in a way considered modest.

"The students broke through the barriers of fear," said Ali Abbas Khafif, a 55-year-old writer and union organizer jailed for 23 years under former president Saddam Hussein. "This was the first mass response to religious power."

The victory may be fleeting in a city where Islamic activism and guns often go hand in hand. Even in their moment of triumph, many secular students acknowledge they are fighting a losing battle; some suggest it is already lost.

"We have felt both our weakness and our strength," said Saif Emad,
24....

Read it all.

"Al-Qaeda funding the return of the Taliban, top US commander says," from the Turkish Press, :

KABUL - Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network is making fresh efforts to engineer a comeback by the Taliban and regain a foothold of its own in Afghanistan, the commander of US forces in the country said Tuesday.

Lieutenant General David Barno said the US believed both Bin Laden and fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Omar were probably still in the region, possibly on the rugged border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"Al-Qaeda clearly still wants to see the Taliban stage some kind of a comeback in Afghanistan," Barno told.

"They're still providing financing, with guidance, training, support and selected individuals that help lead and motivate the operations here in Afghanistan."

Barno, who leads a force of around 18,000 US troops in Afghanistan, added that Al-Qaeda militants were "located in tribal areas, down there in border areas, probably on both sides of the border" with Pakistan.

"We operate under the assumption that they're still in this region," he said when asked where Bin Laden and Mullah Omar were believed to be.

Rich Lowry is choosing his battles; but how many more like this can we afford to lose?

CAIR's crowing press release:

NATIONAL REVIEW REMOVES BOOKS ATTACKING PROPHET MUHAMMAD Hundreds contact Boeing to urge withdrawal of magazine ads

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 3/29/05) - Alhamdulillah (praise be to God), CAIR today announced that National Review magazine has apparently removed advertisements for two virulently anti-Muslim books attacking the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) from its online store.

The removal of the promotional materials for "The Life and Religion of Mohammed" and "The Sword of the Prophet" came after hundreds of concerned Muslims contacted the magazine and Boeing Co., one of the magazine's advertisers, to express their concerns about the Islamophobic views in both books. The previous links to each book, which were working as late as this afternoon, state "Record not found for product."

SEE: http://www.nrbookservice.com/bookpage.asp?prod_cd=C6614
http://www.nrbookservice.com/bookpage.asp?prod_cd=C6077

Yesterday, CAIR issued an action alert calling on Muslims and other people of conscience to urge that Boeing withdraw advertising support from National Review because of its promotion of anti-Muslim hate. Boeing representatives say they were "inundated" with faxes, e-mails and calls.

SEE: "Contact Boeing About National Review's Attack On Prophet Muhammad"
http://cair.com/default.asp?Page=articleView&id=224&theType=AA

"We would like to thank all those who took the time to contact both National Review and Boeing to defend Islam and the Prophet Muhammad from defamation," said CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad. "Once again, your calls, e-mails and faxes have truly made a difference."

Choose your battles. Sure. But to hand a victory to Awad, who is on record supporting the terrorists of Hamas, and Ahmad, who is on record saying that Islam is in America to become dominant, and the Qur'an the only law of the land, is that choosing your battles wisely? By the time you decide to draw the line, will there be anything left to defend?

In their ongoing efforts to obscure uncomfortable facts about the career of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, CAIR is trying to intimidate Boeing into dropping ads from National Review as long as NR continues to advertise The Life and Religion of Mohammed by Fr. J. L. Menezes.

From CAIR's press release (thanks to all who sent this in):

MUSLIMS URGE BOEING TO DROP ADS FROM NATIONAL REVIEW

CAIR says neocon magazine promotes 'anti-Muslim hate'

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 3/28/05) - The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called on aerospace giant Boeing Co. to drop its advertisements in a magazine that the group says is actively promoting virulently anti-Muslim books that attack Islam and the Prophet Muhammad.

Despite messages of outrage from hundreds of concerned Muslims, National Review magazine continues to promote "The Life and Religion of Mohammed" on its Internet store. The magazine claims the book exposes "the ugly truth about the founder of the world's most violent religion."...

According to the promotional materials, the book is a "guide into the
dark mind of [the Prophet] Mohammed." The online review states: "[The author] explains why Mohammed couldn't possibly be a true prophet, and reveals the true sources of his 'revelations.'" It quotes the author as claiming: "Mohammed posed as the apostle of God...while his life is marked by innumerable marriages; and great licentiousness, deeds of rapine, warfare, conquests, unmerciful butcheries, all the time invoking God's holy name to sanction his evil deeds...Mohammed again and again justified his rapine and licentiousness with new 'divine revelations.'"

Here and in a forthcoming article I support each of those assertions from Islamic sources.

CAIR also zeroes in on Srdja Trifkovic's superb Sword of the Prophet:

Another book being promoted by National Review, "The Sword of the Prophet," is described as: "What Muslims, multiculturalists, and the media hope you never find out about Islam."

Looks as if that description was right on the money, as this very press release demonstrates.

The magazine's review claims that the book "gives us the unvarnished, 'politically incorrect' truth about Islam -- including the shocking facts about its founder, Mohammed; its rise through bloody conquest; its sanctioning of theft, deceit, lust and murder."

Once again: is CAIR actually denying those things about Muhammad? Would they care to investigate them from Islamic sources? If you need any help, Ibrahim, give me a call -- but as I am sure you already know, these assertions cannot be proven false, but only proven true by those sources.

In a letter sent today to Boeing CEO James A. Bell, CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad wrote: "I would therefore respectfully request that Boeing address the concerns of Muslims worldwide by withdrawing its advertising support from a magazine that actively promotes anti-Muslim hate."

Note that Awad doesn't show these assertions to be false, or even claim they're false. He just demands that NR and others acknowledge they're false in the teeth of all the evidence. If he succeeds, he will have won a great victory in the propaganda jihad.

UPDATE: The NR link above is broken: it looks as if National Review has definitively caved to CAIR's pressure. They seem to have taken down their ad for Sword of the Prophet also. Add NR to the dhimmi list.

SECOND UPDATE: I just had a good talk with Rich Lowry of National Review, and I can see how this might not be a straight capitulation. It is important sometimes to choose one's battles, and although NR and I might not always agree about which battles to fight and which ones to let go by, I respect the good work they have done in raising awareness of jihad terror, and am confident they will do more in the future.

Also, it is not relevant to this story, but I think it is prudent to reveal that I myself wrote the ad copy for the Fr. Menezes' book -- the ad copy to which CAIR objected. I did not write it for National Review, and I have received and stand to receive no remuneration whatsoever from the sale of the book by NR or anyone else: my stand on this issue was not motivated by anything but annoyance at the fact that CAIR is trying to demonize truth-tellers about Islam.

Earlier today I posted a Time magazine article about suicide bomber (and murderer of 132 people) Raid Al-Banna that had his parents lamenting his deed and wondering what went wrong. But this MEMRI piece, "Iraqi-Jordanian Tension Over the Most Lethal Suicide Bombing in Iraq" (thanks to Waterdragon52), gives a very different picture of his family's reaction. Also, it tells us that the bomber was Hassan Al-Banna's grandson, which makes him the cousin of the famed Muslim "moderate" Tariq Ramadan.

This horrific act would have been simply charted in Iraqi terrorist statistics as another act of terrorism were it not for "a social event" that shed light on the perpetrator himself and on his family. On March 11, 2005, newspapers reported that the terrorist was Raid Mansour al-Banna from the City of al-Salt in Jordan. According to his father, Raid had studied and worked a number of years in the United States, "in one of the Californian airports, to be exact." [2] He was 32 when he blew himself up.

What riled the Iraqis the most was that al-Banna's family honored his act by holding a festive ceremony known as "the wedding of the martyr" [ 'irs al-shahid ] to symbolize his wedding in paradise with 72 virgins. At these events, the bereaved family receives guests who offer it condolences and congratulations for their son's martyrdom. A truck was seen on television bringing food to a special tent erected to receive the guests. [3] In justifying the celebration, the family argued that the victims were Americans. In fact, there was no American casualty in this operation.

After the furor in Iraq regarding the "wedding of the martyr," his father began to deny the event. He said that four Islamists visited him and asked permission to hang a poster of "congratulation for the martyrdom." When he inquired about the meaning of the martyrdom in the case of his son, he was told by the Islamists that "whoever dies drowning or in foreign land is a martyr." Hence, he said, "I agreed to the hanging of the poster." Further, he told the press that his son was killed in Mosul [in the north] and that his body was buried according to Muslim ritual. The father stressed that if his son was involved in a suicide bombing in Hilla there would have been no body to bury in Mosul. [4]

A Letter from the Brother

Not satisfied with the festivities his family organized in honor of his terrorist brother, Naseer al-Banna published a letter on the internet praising Raid and wished him pleasant days in heaven alongside his grandfather Hassan al-Banna. He was puzzled as to why the Iraqis were calling his brother a terrorist.

In his letter, Naseer labeled the Shi'a as "American and Jewish agents." He claimed that the Shi'a religion was created by Jews and the Shi'a killed Prophet Mohammad's grandson, al-Imam Hussein whom the Shi'a consider the greatest martyr in Islamic history.

The brother concluded his letter by stating his intention to join the Jihad against the Americans, the Jews, and the Shi'a. [5]

The Wall Street Journal has shown some disturbing dhimmi tendencies in the past, but it really takes the cake today with a puff piece by George Melloan on the Muslim Public Affairs Council. (WSJ is a paid subscription site, so no link.) In it, Melloan says:

Muhammad was a different kind of prophet also in the sense that he was temporal ruler as well, building his political base in Medina and then conquering the Arab city that had once rejected him, Mecca. After his death, in June 632 by traditional account, Arabs rapidly built an empire stretching from the gates of the Mediterranean to the far side of India, spreading Islam as they went. On the whole, they were tolerant of Christians and Jews in the lands they conquered, acknowledging that all three religions claimed the same origins....

Here's an antidote to that old chestnut. But the WSJ has not come precisely to praise Islamic tolerance, but to sing the glories of the Muslim Public Affairs Council:

A group called the Muslim Public Affairs Council is trying to promote better relations between Muslims and law-enforcement agencies. To that end it has launched its own counterterrorism and civil-rights campaign, working with imams at mosques, Muslim community leaders, law-enforcement agencies and the media. Their credo: "It is our duty as American Muslims to protect our country and to contribute to its betterment."

The executive director of MPAC is Salam al-Marayati, a Baghdad-born former chemical engineer long engaged in Democratic politics in Los Angeles. He and two colleagues, Ahmed Younis and Edina Lekovic, dropped by the Journal's New York office last week to talk about their project. Ms. Lekovic, a Montenegrin by ancestry, is the group's spokeswoman. Mr. Younis, national director, has studied in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Cuba. He wrote a book titled "Voir Dire (Speak the Truth)," discussing the blending of American culture and Islamic values, while studying law at Washington and Lee University.

Mr. al-Marayati is relatively upbeat about the status of Muslims in the U.S., particularly in comparison to Europe. "In Europe, they tend to become 'ghettoized' because they are never really accepted," he said. In the U.S., Muslims are more easily assimilated and find it easier to work within the system....

Mr. al-Marayati apparently has had his moments of alienation as well, judging from a 1999 article by Daniel Pipes, a frequent critic of Islamists, that called him an extremist. But in a speech at the Western Knight Center for Specialized Journalism last fall, the MPAC director asserted: "We reject using Islam as an instrument of political change."

Six years of the kind of history the world has logged since 1999 can change a man. The MPAC group clearly sees it as the wisest choice for American Muslims not only to come to terms with the society of which they are a part, but to actively participate in the struggle against religious extremism. They are well aware of their vulnerability to anti-Muslim sentiments and of the opportunities the liberal U.S. political system offers them for combating that danger....

I once had a memorable exchange with Salam Al-Maryati on the Michael Medved Show, and I wrote this about MPAC in an article refuting their all-out attack on Steve Emerson:

For months now, MPAC has been touting its new "National Anti-Terrorism Campaign" (NATC), garnering uncritical publicity in the media and even praise from government officials. The Campaign's glossy brochure proclaims that "It is our duty as American Muslims to protect our country and to contribute to its betterment." But like the old Whip Inflation Now campaign of the Ford Administration, the NATC is long on style and short on substance. It recommends, for example, that "All activities within the mosque and Islamic centers should be authorized by legitimate, acknowledged leadership..." That sounds great until one realizes that if a mosque is involved in terrorist activity, it is most likely with the complicity of mosque leadership -- as per the Naqshbandi Sufi leader Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani's 1999 testimony before a State Department Open Forum that eighty percent of American mosques were controlled by extremists.[1] The rest of MPAC's recommendations are in the same vein, appearing to be more concerned about misbehavior by non-Muslim law enforcement officials in mosques than about the possibility of terrorist activity in those mosques. WIN buttons are one thing, but the consequences of false advertising by MPAC are much more deadly. Now with the publication of this new report, MPAC's counterterrorism agenda seems to boil down to one substantive point: Steve Emerson, not Islamic terrorism, is the enemy....

Of course, when the MPAC report charges that "Emerson's lack of precision leads him to conflate legitimate organizations that can help America and secure the homeland with others that are neither genuinely American nor transparent," it becomes clear why MPAC is in such a froth about Emerson: because of what he knows about MPAC itself. In American Jihad, Emerson notes that when Abdurrahman Alamoudi of the American Muslim Council, who is now serving a 23-year prison sentence for a terrorism financing conviction, encouraged the Muslim crowd at an October 2000 rally cosponsored by MPAC to declare their support of the jihad terror groups Hamas and Hizballah, "MPAC's Political Advisor, Mahdi Bray, stood directly behind Alamoudi and was seen jubilantly exclaiming his support for these two deadly terrorist organizations." This was just three weeks after Bray "coordinated and led a rally where approximately 2,000 people congregated in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C." Emerson reports that "at one point during the rally, Mahdi Bray played the tambourine as one of the speakers sang, while the crowd repeated: 'Al-Aqsa [Mosque] is calling us, let's all go into jihad, and throw stones at the face of the Jews [sic].'"[18]

There is much more. Emerson's Investigative Project has documented MPAC's indefatigable and consistent opposition to the war on terror; its magazine The Minaret has dismissed key anti-terror operations as part of "[t]he American crusade against Islam and Muslims."[19] Emerson has called attention to the fact that in a book called In Fraternity: A Message to Muslims in America, coauthor Hassan Hathout, who has served as MPAC's President, is identified as "a close disciple of the late Hassan al-Banna of Egypt."[20] MPAC's magazine The Minaret spoke of Hassan Hathout's closeness to al-Banna in a 1997 article: "My father would tell me that Hassan Hathout was a companion of Hassan al-Banna...Hassan Hathout would speak of al-Banna with such love and adoration; he would speak of a relationship not guided by politics or law but by a basic sense of human decency."[21]

This is noteworthy because Hassan al-Banna founded the prototypical Muslim radical group of the modern age, the Muslim Brotherhood, in Egypt in 1928. The Brotherhood is the direct ancestor of both Hamas and Al-Qaeda. Al-Banna wrote in 1934 that "it is a duty incumbent on every Muslim to struggle towards the aim of making every people Muslim and the whole world Islamic, so that the banner of Islam can flutter over the earth and the call of the Muezzin can resound in all the corners of the world: God is greatest [Allahu akbar]! This is not parochialism, nor is it racial arrogance or usurpation of land."[22] He told his followers: "Islam is faith and worship, a country and a citizenship, a religion and a state. It is spirituality and hard work. It is a Qur'an and a sword."[23]

Do Hassan Hathout and MPAC also believe in "a Qur'an and a sword"? What Emerson and the Investigative Project have uncovered about them suggests at very least that the group should receive serious scrutiny. The fact that MPAC has singled out Emerson for such a focused and singular attack only lends credence to these suspicions. For how better to obscure the message than to discredit the messenger?

It is disheartening to see the Wall Street Journal putting on the blinkers and falling for MPAC.

Why? Because the book was called "Friends Forever," and thus seemed to suggest that Muslims should become friends to Jews. From the Khaleej Times, with thanks to Teri:

DUBAI -- Education authorities here have promised to review a book taught in an international private school that features a photograph of two Jewish children sporting plaited hair and yarmulke.

Dr Obaid Butti Al Mohiri, the Director of Curriculums Centre at the Ministry of Education, said he would order the withdrawal of the book for primary Class I of the Dubai International School if the complaints raised were found genuine.

Several teachers of the school telephoned Khaleej Times, complaining against the picture, captioned 'We play together; we stick together', featured in the book Friends Forever. The teachers said that of all the pictures in the book, the students reacted sharply to only this picture.

"O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for friends. They are friends one to another. He among you who taketh them for friends is (one) of them. Lo! Allah guideth not wrongdoing folk." -- Qur'an 5:51

Well, it looks as if it's just about over. Might as well start rolling up the sidewalks. From the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to Doc Washburn:

A thorough analysis of the Koran reveals that the US will cease to exist in the year 2007, according to research published by Palestinian scholar Ziad Silwadi.

And he's not talking about that fraudulent "Qur'anic verse 9:11" that's making the rounds. He's serious.

The study, which has caught the attention of millions of Muslims worldwide, is based on in-depth interpretations of various verses in the Koran. It predicts that the US will be hit by a tsunami larger than that which recently struck southeast Asia.

"The tsunami waves are a minor rehearsal in comparison with what awaits the US in 2007," the researcher concluded in his study. "The Holy Koran warns against the Omnipotent Allah's force. A great sin will cause a huge flood in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans."

Silwadi, who is from the village of Silwad near Ramallah - the home of Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal - is not a world-renowned scholar. He said he decided to publish the findings of his research "out of a sense of responsibility because what is about to happen is extremely shocking and frightening."...

Silwadi said his study of the Koran showed that the US would perish mainly because of its great sins against mankind, including the Native Americans and blacks....

But the Islamic world, evidently, will not perish because of its subjugation of non-Muslims and annihilation of pre-Islamic cultures all across the Islamic world.

Silwadi pointed out that the US continued to commit war crimes and "ethnic cleansing" against humanity by becoming the first country to use nuclear weapons during World War II.

"International law penalizes such crimes," he said. "If these laws were not applied then, they are certainly implemented in heaven. If no one on earth is capable of punishing [the US], Allah was and remains able to do so. All these actions have been documented by Allah in a big archive called the Koran."

Silwadi said he reached the conclusion that several suras (chapters) in the Koran that talk about punishment for those who perpetrate heinous sins actually refer to the US.

As an example, he quotes in his study verse 40 of the Spider Sura, which states: "So each We [God] punished for his sin; of them was he on whom We sent down a violent storm, and of them was he whom the rumbling overtook, and of them was he whom We made to be swallowed up by the earth, and of them he whom We drowned; and it did not beseem Allah that He should be unjust to them, but they were unjust to their own souls."

Drawing parallels between Pharaoh and the US, who share the same "sin" of arrogance and excessive pride, Silwadi noted that the Koran mentions at least 12 times the fact that Pharaoh was punished by drowning for his evil deeds.

It would seem, then, that the actual tsunami that actually hit Muslim areas of South Asia hardest was punishment for their evil deeds, no?

The Narrative Sura, he noted, clearly suggests that the US will drown in the sea: "And Firon [Pharaoh] said: O chiefs! I do not know of any god for you besides myself; therefore kindle a fire for me And he was unjustly proud in the land, he and his hosts, and they deemed that they would not be brought back to Us. So We caught hold of him and his hosts, then We cast them into the sea, and see how was the end of the unjust [verses 38-40]."

Explaining his theory about the approaching extinction of the US, the scholar went on to analyze many numbers and letters mentioned in the Koran. He said a careful reading and analysis of words appearing in the Opening and Yusuf suras show that the US will exist for only 231 years.

How did he reach that number? Silwadi said that by combing a number of suras hinting at US sins he reached the numbers 1776 (the year the US achieved independence) and 231. He added the two numbers and the result was 2007, the year when the US is expected to disappear....

In an attempt to find a reference to this metaphor in the Koran, Silwadi said he counted 1776 verses from the beginning of the Koran until he reached verse 26 of the Ibrahim Sura, which states: "And the parable of an evil word is as an evil tree pulled up from the earth's surface; it has no stability."

From AP, with thanks to Twostellas:

DETROIT -- A former Detroit Public Schools official is accused of conspiring with a Florida man in the mid- and late 1990s to raise money and recruit Muslim extremists to fight in Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya and Somalia.

A criminal complaint unsealed in Miami charges Kifah Wael Jayyousi, 43, and another man.

Authorities said Jayyousi -- a former assistant superintendent -- was arrested Sunday at Detroit Metropolitan Airport after stepping off a flight from Amsterdam.

Muhammad Abu Layla plays us for dummies, or dhimmis. It would be refreshing if he would bother to explain to his fellow Muslims, the jihad terrorists around the world, how they have misunderstood Islam. From the Star Online, with thanks to Nicolei:

KOTA KINABALU: Islam continues to be one of the most misunderstood religions due to its misrepresentation in the Western media, a prominent Islamic scholar said.

Al-Azhar University professor Muhammad Abu Layla said the religion followed by 1.3 billion people had constantly been wrongly portrayed by the western media.

"It is unfortunate when we hear that Islam encourages terrorism," he said in his talk titled "The Misunderstood Religion" during a special session at the International CEO conference here.

Prof Muhammad said even the term jihad had been misunderstood, as the common perception of it was that of an armed struggle.

"Jihad has never meant to hold the sword. It is instead to initiate efforts to be peaceful, to protect the weak," he added.

Prof Muhammad said those who propagate violence in the name of Islam were only twisting it to suit their needs.

Let's see. Jihad was never meant to hold the sword, eh? Yet there are over a hundred verses in the Qur'an that exhort believers to wage jihad against unbelievers. "O Prophet! Strive hard against the unbelievers and the hypocrites, and be firm against them. Their abode is Hell, an evil refuge indeed" (Sura 9:73). "Strive hard" in Arabic is jahidi, a verbal form of the noun jihad. This striving was to be on the battlefield: "When you meet the unbelievers in the battlefield, strike off their heads and, when you have laid them low, bind your captives firmly" (Qur'an 47:4). This is emphasized repeatedly: "O ye who believe! Fight the unbelievers who gird you about, and let them find firmness in you: and know that Allah is with those who fear Him" (Qur'an 9:123).

"Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them captive, and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is forgiving, merciful" (Qur'an 9:5). The "poor-due" in this verse is zakat, which is a central obligation for Muslims. Thus the verse is saying that if the "idolaters" become Muslims, leave them alone.

Jews and Christians were to be fought along with "idolaters": "Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued" (Qur'an 9:29).

Paradise is guaranteed to those who "slay and are slain" for Allah: "Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of Paradise): they fight in His cause, and slay and are slain: a promise binding on Him in truth" (Qur'an 9:111).

One may attempt to spiritualize such verses, but there is no doubt from the historical record that Muhammad meant them literally.

From the Voice of the Martyrs, with thanks to Nicolei:

The Voice of the Martyrs has learned that Sunday's Easter morning service of the Victory Church International (also known as the New Apostolic Church) in the village of Khambay near Lahore, Pakistan was disrupted as four armed assailants opened fire on the church property, murdering one Christian worshipper and injuring six others. Killed was Arshad Masih, a young husband and father of a one-year-old daughter.

According to reports received by The Voice of the Martyrs, members of a Muslim family who had long been opponents of the congregation entered the church property at about 10:00 a.m. as the congregation was worshipping and began shooting. Some reports indicate that there were children playing outside. Arshad Masih was reportedly shot and killed as he went outside of the church building to find out what was happening. Six other believers including Pervez Masih, Naeem Masih, Arshed Masih, Ismael Masih, and two others (exact names to be verified) also came out from church and the attackers also fired on them. The attackers then fled.

An update of this story from Ynet News, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Google has removed the Hamas-funded advertisement that linked to the website of the terror organization's military wing Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, following Ynet's inquiry into the matter.

Internet surfers who entered the word "Hamas" in Arabic in the Google search engine, viewed, in addition to the search results, an AdWord message that linked directly to the website of the organization's military faction Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades....

Google Spokeswoman Debbie Frost said the advertisement was a breach of the search engine's policy and was therefore removed.

Daniel Pipes writes in FrontPage (thanks to all who sent this in) about the Ottawa Islamic school scandal and similar incidents.

"Shocked" is how Aisha Sherazi, principal of the Abraar Islamic school in Ottawa, described the reaction of the school's administration and board on learning last week that two of its teachers had incited hatred of Jews.

And "shocked" was how Mumtaz Akhtar, president of the Muslim-Community Council of Ottawa-Gatineau, described his own reaction to the front-page news about the Abraar school.

But they may have been the only two persons on the planet to be "shocked" to learn that teachers at an Islamic school are promoting anti-Semitism or other aspects of the Islamist agenda. The fact is, inquiries into Islamic schools repeatedly discover just such a radical Islamic outlook. Some examples:

• New York City: An investigation by the New York Daily News in 2003 found that books used in the city's Muslim schools "are rife with inaccuracies, sweeping condemnations of Jews and Christians, and triumphalist declarations of Islam's supremacy."
• Los Angeles: The Omar Ibn Khattab Foundation donated 300 Korans (titled The Meaning of the Holy Quran) to the city school district in 2001 that within months had to be pulled from school libraries because of its antisemitic commentaries. One footnote reads: "The Jews in their arrogance claimed that all wisdom and all knowledge of Allah was enclosed in their hearts...Their claim was not only arrogance but blasphemy."
• Ajax, Ontario, 50 kilometers east of Toronto: The Institute of Islamic Learning is a Canadian emulation of the extremist Deobandi madrassahs of Pakistan. It focuses exclusively on religious topics, has students memorize the Koran, demands total segregation from the Canadian milieu, and requires complete gender separation. Former students complained about the school's cult-like devotion to its head, Abdul Majid Khan, and complained that it "twisted religion and used it to its own benefit."

Read it all. Many links in the original.

Al-Muhajiroun in New York. "Defending Terrorism: Interview with Kristine Withers," from the Global Politician, with thanks to Nicolei:

Kristine Withers claims to have been assaulted by the Islamic Thinkers' Society, a group she says is likely tied to Al-Muhajiroun, which is a radical Islamic group that is believed to have worked with Al-Qaeda. The following is our conversation about ongoing threats to her from the group, and charges that have been brought against her by the group.

Ryan Mauro: First of all, Kristine, what got you involved in looking at the activities of these Islamic protesters you are warning about?

Kristine Withers: I noticed a group of Muslim men, demonstrating against the War on Terror and advocating the pro-fundamentalist Islam view, about 6 months after 9/11/01. I could not help notice them because they were demonstrating a block from me, which is also a busy commercial area for the Islamic-Hindu merchants, in an area I frequent because of the stores and transportation (to get to the subway). They had signs showing the 9/11 tragedy and were handing out brochures advocating fundamentalist Islamic. Upon research, based upon their literature, I found out they were connected with the Al-Muhajiroun group. At that time their brochure contained web links to that fundamentalist websites. I notified the NYPD anti terrorist taskforce, and this group disappeared.

Then around late May of 2003 I noticed the same people were out demonstrating again in the same area. They also knew who I was. I again notified the NYPD, and was told they had a permit. I went to my councilmen, and was ignored. Little by little their space grew with more and more signs, Television and stereo equipment. The crowds around them started to grow. I observed them to gain more information, but that let to verbal sparring with them. I admit it was a bad tactic, but I was genuinely offended that the people that were declaring war against my country, and western civilization, were there to recruit potential terrorist.

RM: Can you describe how you've been threatened and in your view, treated unfairly?

KW: My friend and I were walking our dogs, when we heard some loud voices. As we walked the voices became clearer, then we saw the a group of Islamic men demonstration. They had a loud amplifiers, they were about 3 feet tall, that was blaring out something in Arabic. The reason this caught my attention was because the week before, when I spoke to my State Senator, he informed me that they were not permitted to have sound equipment. I gave my dogs to my friend so she could take them home. I crossed the street to call the police, then I went over to the group, to inform them that I believed they were overstepping their permit, because of the sound system and because they were on both sides of the street. As I crossed to them, I observed their placards on the street (typical al-Muhajiroun stuff : US the real terrorist, oppose the war on terror, God hates the US because they have Homosexuals, restoration of the Caliphate, pictures of Abu Gharab, 9/11 pictures saying it was justified, etc..) Anyway I knocked down one of the signs, (the unaltered abu Gharab pictures, which showed naked people), next thing I know I was engaged in a verbal yelling match with them, they started threatening me and knocked me down. During this period (approx.. 20 mins before the police arrived) I turned down the rest of the signs, and held off a growing angry crowd of mad Muslims. They were telling me how wicked America and I was. A member of the group was also telling me, "we will kill you", and "next time we will get all of NYC". A man punched me in the face, knocking of my glasses. These were not just a group of individuals. These people (that started the demonstration) were men in their 20's who were radicalized, mostly from the Mid-East, who were controlled by one elder man. They had great discipline that you would not see in just a mob. They were also videotaping this whole incident, with the elder man shouting "film this, it will get us more recruits." Any way the police came finally. After a few minutes finding out about the incident, they took me away alone. This even after I informed them that I was assaulted, a fact which was verified by a few witnesses. When I asked the officer why they did not bring the people who assaulted me in, I was told that "since 9/11 we have to bend over backwards for them."

Since that incident I have had other run-ins with them, been assaulted and threatened, but each time the police take me away.

RM: What group was behind the protests and what leads you to suspect them of being tied to radical Islamists?

KW: The group calls itself the The Islamic Thinkers Society. They fly the Al-Muhajiroun, and use Al-Muhajiroun tracts.

RM: And what is so significant about their ties to Al-Muhajiroun?

KW: Al-Muhajiroun is a group which advocates the control of society based on the rule of a Universal Caliphate, and ruled by Islamic law, the shiara. As a member said "we do not seek to coexist with other religions in America, we seek to dominate them". They want to see Islamic rule imposed worldwide. In their propaganda they portray Islam as an ideology, and an alternative to Democracy. They advocate the advancement of their goal by violence and terrorism. One of their members were a part of the team that conducted the 9/11 attacks. They also advocate the self imposition of Sharia in neighborhoods where they are the majority....Another reason that I find Al-Muhajiroun
dangerous is their ability to recruit new adherents, especially among the youth whom they aim their recruitment at. They accomplish this by knowing how to manipulate the system, and take advantage of political correctness. This allows them to recruit openly, while they form a core of true believers in their closed meetings to be used for their Jihad.

RM: Can you explain the reaction of law enforcement to your information?

KW: I cannot explain the reaction of the police, which is what I would describe as apathy and fear. I cannot explain why they would allow a group, which has links to groups which killed fellow officers, to recruit and propagandize our enemies cause. The only logical reasons, in my opinion, would be one of three. First: fear of lawsuits. This precinct (the 115th) was almost sued by a group of Muslims, because they treated the Koran with disrespect when they arrested illegal vendors. Second: political correctness....Three: Political and Police graft. The local politician, Helen Sears, is beholding to the large indo/Muslim merchants, who are represented by the Jackson Heights Merchants Association. Either way it must be seen as corruption or incompetence. This group has such a clear connection with terrorist groups that to allow them to recruit and operate is clearly collusion. This is especially surprising from the NYPD which experienced an attack by these people....They are trying to spread their Islamic Fundamentalist propaganda, as well as recruit members. They use the cover of religious tolerance to spread their political message....

Read it all.

From Time magazine, with thanks to Scaramouche:

Ra'ed al-Banna loved America. During his nearly two years in the U.S., al-Banna, a lawyer by training, made a living as a factory worker, a shuttle-bus driver and a pizza tosser. He went to the World Trade Center and the Golden Gate Bridge, grew his hair long and listened to Nirvana. He told his family back in Jordan about the honesty and kindness of Americans. "They respect anybody who is sincere," he told his father. He said he had planned to marry an American woman until her parents demanded that the wedding take place in a Christian church. After a visit home in 2003, he set off again for the U.S., hoping to find a wife, have a family, settle down. "He was hoping for a job that earns a lot of money," says Talal Naser, 25, who is engaged to one of Ra'ed's sisters. "He loved life in America, compared to Arab countries. He wanted to stay there."

He never got the chance. After he was denied entry at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport for apparently falsifying details on his visa application, al-Banna's life took a turn that led him down the path of radical Islam and ultimately to join the insurgency against the U.S. in Iraq. His odyssey ended on March 3 when al-Banna's brother Ahmed received a call on his cell phone from a man identifying himself as "one of your brothers from the Arab peninsula"--the term radical Islamists use to signify the core of the Muslim world, centered on the holy city of Mecca. Al-Banna's family says that as far as they knew, Ra'ed was in Saudi Arabia working at a new job. But the voice on the other end sounded Iraqi, Ahmed says. "Congratulations," the caller told him. "Your brother has fallen a martyr."...

In some respects, the Bannas resemble the many other families around the Arab world whose sons have gone to fight and die in Iraq. But the Bannas also express astonishment that Ra'ed joined the insurgency, insisting that he had never shown signs of Islamic extremism or hatred for the West.

No one ever does, apparently. Just once I'd like to see one of these stories quote a neighbor or friend saying, "Yes, he hated America. He was always taking about getting his chance to die a shahid."

On the basis of accounts given by his family, friends and neighbors, Ra'ed apparently led a double life, professing affection for America while secretly preparing to join the holy war against the U.S. in Iraq. "Something went wrong with Ra'ed, and it is a deep mystery," says his father Mansour, 56. "What happened to my son?"

Read it all.

Turkey's Hitler Fan Club update, from Reuters, with thanks to all who sent this in:

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey's government Monday played down soaring sales of Adolf Hitler's anti-Semitic book "Mein Kampf" ("My Struggle") and said there were no racists in the large Muslim country.

Booksellers say "Mein Kampf," or "Kavgam" in Turkish, has featured among the top 10 bestsellers in the past two months, to the dismay of the country's small Jewish community and of the German embassy in Ankara.

Asked to comment on the phenomenon, government spokesman Cemil Cicek said: "We cannot allow prejudice against people for belonging to a certain race."

"We have never had such an attitude in our culture, nor in our history, and we do not have it now ... It's not possible for people to choose their races ... Turkish society's idea about this issue is clear. There is no racism in this country."...

Gee, Cemil, that's great. Have you ever thought about applying for the job of Iraqi Information Minister? Oh, and by the way, I suppose there are no trees in Turkey, either, eh?

Anti-Semitism has traditionally been weak in Turkey, a Muslim but secular country that has forged close security ties with Israel in recent years.

The Turkish Ottoman Empire offered refuge to Jews and other minorities fleeing persecution in Europe from the time of the Spanish Inquisition onwards.

That last paragraph is a textbook example of a beast that is slain in a volume called The Myth of Islamic Tolerance.

Political analysts say "Mein Kampf" probably reflects rising nationalism and anti-American sentiment rather than anti-Semitism or specific support for Hitler and his ideas.

Why, of course. These sweet, tolerant Turks couldn't possibly be indulging anti-Semitic, Hitlerian thoughts. After all, the Ottoman Empire was tolerant.

Many Turks are worried their country is having to make too many concessions to the European Union as it prepares for the start of long-delayed entry talks later this year.

There is also widespread anger about the U.S. occupation of neighboring Iraq.

Yeah, I can see how those things would drive people to read Mein Kampf. Why, just yesterday I was in a bookstore and I heard someone say: "I am so upset about the new earthquakes in Southeast Asia that I am going to buy a copy of 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.'"

The current No. 1 bestseller in Turkey, ahead of "Mein Kampf," is "Metal Storm," which depicts a U.S. invasion of the country. The Turkish hero avenges his homeland by destroying Washington with a nuclear device.

I am going to get one of my Turkish-speaking contacts to translate that one into English: it will be a sure bestseller among certain segments of the American voting public.

While Iraqi pols debate the role of Islam in the new government, Al-Qaeda adds is own unique contribution to the debate. "New Purported Video From Al Qaeda in Iraq," from AP, :

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Al Qaeda in Iraq released a video Sunday claiming to show the murder of an Interior Ministry official, and the debate raged about religion's place in Iraq's much-anticipated new government as lawmakers were summoned to their second-ever session.

Supporters of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi criticized the involvement of the religious authority in politics, while Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the Shiite-led United Iraqi Alliance, defended the role of the clergy.

"As long as we're alive and as long as Iraq and the believers are there, we will continue to work according to the directions and the advice of the religious authority," al-Hakim told the U.S.-funded Al-Hurra TV station, according to a transcript provided by his office. "The religious authority does not want to intervene in the details. It just gives direction when it thinks it will be beneficial."

Secular-minded politicians have expressed concern about the influence of religion in the National Assembly. In a letter to the United Iraqi Alliance, politicians who ran under an Allawi coalition warned against allowing religion to play a greater role in Iraq's government, saying it could "lead to instability in the relations between political forces in the Iraqi arena."

That could be the understatement of the decade.

Shiite leaders have repeatedly denied they are seeking an Islamic state, saying they plan to include Kurdish and Sunni Arabs in the government.

After meeting Sunday with Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf, the top U.N. envoy in Iraq, Ashraf Qazi, said al-Sistani told him he did not intend to involve himself in any political process, except for expressing his opinion in times of crises. The alliance, which won 140 of the 275 seats in the assembly, came together under al-Sistani's guidance.

Yes, al-Sistani actually brought himself to meet with a UN envoy. Of course, it helped that that envoy was a male Muslim.

Sharia alert from the Meet the New Boss, Same As the Old Boss Department in Afghanistan: "Conservatives wage new campaign against 'anti-Islamic' TV stations," from Reporters Without Borders, with thanks to the Norwegian Kafir:

Reporters Without Borders today called on President Hamid Karzai to take a clear and definitive public stance in support of cable television and diversity in the broadcast media in response to a new wave of pressure from conservatives, especially the Ulema Council led by supreme court president Fazl Hadi Shinwari, for a ban on "anti-Islamic" TV stations. The Ulema Council asked the government on 13 March to make the country's state and privately-owned TV stations stop broadcasting "immoral and anti-Islamic" programmes. Around 100 of the council's members meeting in Kabul singled out the only privately-owned broadcast station, Tolo TV, for criticism.

One representative of the Council told Pajhwok Afghan News agency : "We have decided this in accordance with the constitution and we have also called for a ban on telecasts which have dances as this is absolutely contrary to the Sharia." Article 3 of the constitution says no law can be contrary to the Sharia, while article 34 protects freedom of expression.

More on the Islamic jihad against the truth about Islam, from AP, with thanks to Ted Robertson:

KUWAIT CITY, A Kuwait professor convicted Sunday of mocking Islam said he will seek political asylum in a western country to protect his life and family and his freedom of speech.

Ahmed al-Baghdadi was sentenced to a suspended one-year jail term for a June column saying he wouldn't send his son to state schools where ''ignorant'' teachers would tell him ''how to disrespect women and non-Muslims.''

Let's see now. What part of that sentence is untrue?

He told The Associated Press he didn't insult Islam and only criticized the way state schools teach it.

Ah. That clears it up.

Al-Baghdadi's Monday column for the Al-Siyassah newspaper spoke of asylum plans and said he would ''stop writing about religion'' until a higher court hears his appeal.

The writer previously blamed extremists for teaching intolerance and encouraging young citizens to take up arms alongside militants in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya and Iraq.

In 1999, al-Baghdadi was convicted of blaspheming Islam for writing that the Prophet Muhammad initially failed to convert nonbelievers in Mecca, but was pardoned after serving half of a one-month sentence.

When does any of this become embarrassing? Two plus two equals, um, how many again?

From Deutsche Welle, with thanks to the Norwegian Kafir:

Frankfurt University is the most recent German college to launch an Islamic studies program. But it's already under fire for working closely with Turkey's state religion authority....

Mehmet Emin Köktas and two professors of Protestant theology have been working on the curriculum for two years. Köktas, a Turk, is able to teach in Frankfurt thanks to an agreement signed between the university and the Turkish Presidium for Religious Affairs (Diyanet).

Criticism followed public announcement of the cooperation, alleging Turkey meant to use the new degree program to influence the training of Islamic scholars in Germany. But its supporters vehemently deny the Turkish state plays any role in the project.

Diyanet, however, is a state agency, and it represents Sunni Islam as taught in secular Turkey, a modern, non-fundamentalist form of Islam -- but that is strictly controlled by the government.

But the dean of the university's Protestant theology department, Stefan Alkier, can't understand the criticism of the cooperation with Diyanet. On the contrary, he's pleased that the deal to fund the position brought a renowned Islamic scholar to his faculty.

"We could have carried out the course of studies with our own resources, but it's much more interesting for students that we have Muslim professors," Alkier said. He stressed that Diyanet has no direct influence on who is appointed to the position.

Hmmm. It seems that American universities aren't the only ones susceptible to the lure of Islamic money.

From the Keystone Diplomat Department, a real head-shaker from the New York Sun, with thanks to Romy:

Ambassador Nancy Powell, America's representative in Pakistan, refused to allow the distribution in Pakistan of wanted posters, matchbooks, and other items advertising America's $25 million reward for information leading to the capture of Mr. bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders.

Instead, thousands of matchbooks, posters, and other material - printed at taxpayer expense and translated into Urdu, Pashto, and other local languages - remained "impounded" on American Embassy grounds from 2002 to 2004, according to Rep. Mark Kirk, Republican of Illinois.

While the American government was engaged in a number of "black" or covert intelligence activities to locate Al Qaeda leaders, Mr. Kirk said, the "white" or public efforts - which have succeeded in the past in leading to the capture of wanted terrorists - were effectively shut down in the months following the September 11 attacks.

Mr. Kirk discovered Ms. Powell's unusual order in January 2004 and, over the past year, launched a series of behind-the-scenes moves that culminated in a blunt conversation with President Bush aboard Air Force One, the removal of the ambassador, and congressional approval for reinvigorating the hunt for Mr. bin Laden.

From the Keystone Kops Department, one from the Washington Post, with thanks to Nobody:

Ahmed Fathy Mehalba, who was released from jail earlier this month, contacted the FBI's Boston office Tuesday after he realized agents had inadvertently given him the computer disk containing the secret files along with his personal property.

Mehalba had the disk in his possession for only a "matter of hours" before the FBI retrieved it, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Ricciuti. "Someone in the bureau obviously made a serious mistake," Ricciuti said.

FBI spokeswoman Gail Marcinkiewicz said the disk was not labeled "secret" -- as all classified data should be -- because prosecutors had to keep it in the same condition as when it was seized from Mehalba. Authorities have not said what exactly was stored on the disk, other than it concerns "national defense."

Mehalba, an Egyptian-born U.S. citizen who was working as a civilian Arabic translator at Guantanamo, was arrested at Boston's Logan International Airport on Sept. 29, 2003, after customs agents found the disk containing hundreds of documents labeled "SECRET" or "SECRET/NOFORN" among 131 other disks in his luggage.

But would they have been suspended, or even reprimanded, and would the principal have been shocked, shocked!, if reporters hadn't discovered this essay to begin with? From The Telegraph, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Two teachers at an Islamic school in Canada who praised a pupil's essay about killing Jews with hand grenades and machine guns have been suspended for allegedly inciting racial hatred. The pupil, who has not been identified, illustrated his creative writing assignment, which was written in Arabic, by drawing a picture of a Star of David in flames next to a machine gun. He also drew a Palestinian flag on top of the Dome of the Rock mosque in Jerusalem, one of Islam's holiest sites. Claims that the essay was put on display in a glass case at the entrance of the school, in Ottawa, are being investigated.

The boy's story told of a fictitious "hero", Ahmed Yassin, born in Gaza two weeks after Israel assassinated Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a co-founder of the terrorist organisation, Hamas. One passage describes how, watched by a friend called Salah, Ahmed attacks Jewish soldiers with a gun and bombs.

"Without thinking, Ahmed took his M16 machine gun and threw the bombs, and he showered the Jews; this resulted in the killing of the soldiers," the story reads. "Salah said: 'You killed them all.' Ahmed answered: 'Praise be to God'."

At the end of the story, the boy's fictitious heroes say: "We promise God and the heroes of Al-Aqsa that we will continue the path, we will continue in spite of the difficulties and the hardships until the victory of the martyrdom, we will not surrender; we will fight for the sake of God until the end."

The essay drew praise from one of the teachers of Arabic at the Abraar Islamic School, who wrote on the story: "God bless you, your efforts are good. The story of the hero Ahmed and the hero Salah is still alive. The end will be soon when God unites us all in Jerusalem to pray there." The teacher's name has not been released.

It is unclear how long the story was on display before it was brought to the attention of The Ottawa Citizen newspaper, which obtained two translations of the story before confronting the school. The headmistress, Aisha Sherazi, who is originally from Wimbledon, in south-west London, said that the school was "extremely shocked, disturbed and concerned" about the boy's story.

The human cost of the paranoia fueled by jihadists. From AP, with thanks to Twostellas:

KANO, Nigeria -- Accusations by Islamic preachers that vaccines are part of an American anti-Islamic plot are threatening efforts to combat a measles epidemic that has killed hundreds of Nigerian children, health workers say.

Government officials play down the anti-vaccine sentiment, but all the measles deaths have been in Nigeria's north, where authorities had to suspend polio immunizations last year after hard-line clerics fanned similar fears of that vaccine.

Nigeria, whose 130 million people make it Africa's most populous nation, has recorded 20,859 measles cases so far this year. At least 589 victims have died, most of them children younger than 5 and all in the north, the Nigerian Red Cross and the U.N. World Health Organization say.

Southern Nigeria, which is mainly Christian, had only 253 measles cases, and no deaths.

Health services are much better in the south. But the anti-vaccination sentiment in the north, evident from interviews with parents, seems to be a factor.

From Ynet News, with thanks to Alain:

Terror organizations are advancing their recruitment and public relations methods: Internet surfers who enter the word “Hamas” in Arabic in the Google search engine, will view, in addition to the search results, an AdWord message that links directly to the website of the organization’s military faction Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades.

The link also appears in a search of several other words, such as the “Gaza,” “Palestine,” “Jihad.”

This indicates that a Hamas source has paid Google, the most popular search engine on the web, for the advertisement.

Tiny minority of extremists update: contrary to this story, the jihad terror group Jemaah Islamiyah will not be banned -- apparently because it has too much support among Muslims. From Laksamana.net, with thanks to Chas & Pat:

Laksamana.Net - A presidential spokesman has denied claims by a senior security official that Indonesia is planning to outlaw regional terrorism network Jemaah Islamiyah.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s spokesman Andi Mallarangeng on Wednesday (23/3/05) said the government did not intend to ban the group, which has been blamed for a series of deadly bombings.

"We know nothing about that. We have no plans," he was quoted as saying by the Australian Associated Press....

Banning the group would win praise from the US and Australia, and make it easier for authorities to arrest and prosecute militants. But such a move would be opposed by certain Muslim groups and political parties, which fear it could usher in wider crackdowns on Islamic activists.

Wider crackdowns on Islamic activists? Why, we couldn't have that.

Internet jihad update, from Snoozeweek, with thanks to EPG:

NewsweekApril 4 issue - Intelligence and law-enforcement agencies are learning that tracking down the operators of Islamic terrorist Web sites is like trying to locate a floating craps game: here today, gone tomorrow. During the past year, investigators in America and Europe watched as a business called 357Hosting, based near Utrecht, the Netherlands, became the officially registered Internet host for several notorious militant Islamic Web pages and bulletin boards, including sites that disseminated videos of beheadings of foreign hostages in Iraq and messages from Qaeda leader Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi. The public prosecutor's office in Utrecht tells NEWSWEEK that it has opened a criminal investigation into possible Internet hate crimes.

The article goes on to note that this outfit hosted Abu Hamza's site and others. The owner was no doubt just trying to make a buck -- with no concern for the larger picture at all.

"How to Influence Muslim Minds and Capture the Arab Hearts" is the title of this piece by Ibtissam Al-Bassam in Arab News (thanks to Skeetstreet), but a better title might be "How to Flatter Muslim Minds and Cater to Arab Hearts." Dina Powell is going to the Middle East, and when she's there, she better not criticize anything:

Since Arabs have little tolerance for people who criticize their faith or disparage their culture, Mrs. Powell should refrain from any criticism of the way Arab and Muslim men women and children eat, live, think or dress. She should avoid stating, or insinuating that Western values are superior to Muslim and Arab values. She should never recommend that they exchange their cherished identity for a Western one.

Smile and play the dhimmi, Ms. Powell, and you will be beloved all over the Arab world.

Thereby legitimizing jihad terror and the ideology that fuels it. But of course, the ideological distinction between them has never been all that sharp in the first place. From China View, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

GAZA, March 28 (Xinhuanet) -- The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and Islamic Jihad (Holy War) may join the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) executive committee, a senior IslamicJihad leader said Monday.

Mohamed al Hindi told reporters the issue was discussed at a meeting held late Sunday between Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and senior members of the two Islamic militant groups.

He said the meeting, which he termed as positive, would pave theway for merging Jihad and Hamas into the PLO executive committee....

The scheduled meeting would focus on "bases that the organization would be built on," the leader said, adding "all these bases are also based on what have been agreed upon in Cairo on March 17."...

Both Jihad and Hamas, sworn to the destruction of Israel, used to oppose the principle of joining the PLO, however, they modified their stances recently by opening merge talks with the mainstream PLO and agreeing to a temporary halt to violence....

Al-Qaeda-linked gang update, from the Washington Times, with thanks to RB:

NACO, Ariz. -- Members of a violent Central America-based gang have been sent to Arizona to target Minuteman Project volunteers, who will begin a monthlong border vigil this weekend to find and report foreigner sneaking into the United States, project officials say.

James Gilchrist, a Vietnam veteran who helped organize the vigil to protest the federal government's failure to control illegal immigration, said he has been told that California and Texas leaders of Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, have issued orders to teach "a lesson" to the Minuteman volunteers.

"We're not worried because half of our recruits are retired trained combat soldiers," Mr. Gilchrist said. "And those guys are just a bunch of punks."...

The MS-13 gang has established major smuggling operations in several areas along the U.S.-Mexico border and have transported hundreds of Central and South Americans -- including gang members -- into the United States in the past two years. The gang also is involved in drug and weapons smuggling.

Gang members in America have been tied to numerous killings, robberies, burglaries, carjackings, extortion, rapes and aggravated assaults. Authorities said that the gang has earned a reputation from the other street gangs as being particularly ruthless and that it will retaliate violently when challenged.

The MS-13 gang, with 20,000 members nationwide, has risen in recent months to such prominence that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, has begun a nationwide crackdown on gang members in this country -- as part of a sweeping law-enforcement initiative known as Operation Community Shield.

ICE agents arrested more than 100 members of the gang during limited raids that began in January in just six cities, including 35 who were taken into custody in Virginia and Maryland. The authorities said MS-13 gang members originally moved into the Los Angeles area in the 1980s.

MS-13 also has strongholds in Boston and Washington D.C.

On this the holiest of days for Roman Catholic, Eastern Catholic, and Protestant Christians comes an article on the necessity of spreading Islam in the West. "Countering Islamophobia: The Urgency of Da`wah in the West," from IslamOnline, with thanks to the Norwegian Kafir:

USA:"A girl like you should take off this burqa and start getting an education," a middle-aged white woman told a 17-year-old Muslim girl at the dressing room of a respected health club. The Muslim girl was shocked by these hostile comments, but chose not to reply. Later, she reported the harassment incident to the club's manager. The manager apologized and assured her that this behavior is against their policy, and if it was repeated, he would take an action against the aggressor. Ironically, this Muslim girl is a national merit scholar who started her college education at one of the well-known universities at age sixteen.

In the middle of a friendly conversation, a receptionist at a medical clinic told a young Muslim mother who came to see a doctor for her baby, "You don't know how to drive."...

Good gravy! Women encouraging women to get an education and learn to drive! Will the harrassment never end? (Actually, I've been told "You don't know how to drive" more than once, and several times while I was actually in the act of driving. I have yet to file harassment charges...)

Anti-Muslim Hate: Why Da`wah Is Our Top Priority

Since September 11, the damage of planned media campaigns against Islam and Muslims has been increasing exponentially with time. "Hateful, negative rhetoric regarding Muslims is on the increase both in tone and frequency. It has almost become socially acceptable to engage in bigoted and racist speech about Muslims. More frightening is the reality that the hateful thoughts and speech can turn into hateful, even violent action, which can ruin an innocent person's life", Karen J. Dabdoub-the director of the Cincinnati office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Ohio, USA-wrote in The Enquirer.

I might have known that CAIR was mixed up in this somewhere. This is the group, of course, that has labeled telling the truth about Muhammad an act of bigotry and hatred.

Islamophobes are aggressively organizing propaganda that portrays Islam as a foreign religion that came with the backward, violent Arabs, who oppress women and deny them their rights of education, driving, working, or even leaving their homes.

Land sakes, where could these wicked Islamophobes have gotten these ideas? Hmmm, let's see. Maybe from here and here and here and here. And as for "even leaving their homes," there's this: "The husband may forbid his wife to leave the home" ('Umdat al-Salik, m10.4). I know: which are you going to believe: the Islamic whitewashers, or story after story coming out of the Islamic world? "Me, or your lying eyes?"

But of course, this is all the fault of "bigots":

This completely distorted image is ingrained in the minds of the majority of the American public as a result of organized efforts by bigoted figures. Daniel Pipes, a critic of "Islamism," has proposed the creation of a new "Anti-Islamist Institute" (AII), designed to expose legal political activities of "Islamists," according to Jim Lobe of the Inter Press Service News Agency (IPS).

The draft of a grant proposal by Pipes' Middle East Forum (MEF), obtained by IPS, reads, "In the long term... the legal activities of Islamists pose as much or even a greater set of challenges than the illegal ones."

"Pipes is also working with Stephen Schwartz on a new 'Center for Islamic Pluralism' (CIP) whose aims are to 'promote moderate Islam in the U.S. and globally'" and to oppose the influence of extremists," Lobe writes.

Yet Schwartz haughtily refuses to explain how he proposes to counter the extremists. You can read my most unpleasant and unfortunate exchange with him here; in it, he uses the same reply-by-smear tactics that groups like CAIR, which he has fought indefatigably, employ with such skill. And here is my analysis of his recent downplaying of the evils of the dhimma.

Still, despite the fact that Schwartz seems to share their hostility to those who dare to explore and expose the roots of jihadist terror, IslamOnline is firmly in the opposition camp:

"The 'extremists,' according to the CIP proposal, are mainly represented by ... an array of organisations consisting of CAIR, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), the Muslim Students' Association of the U.S. and Canada (MSA), the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), as well as 'secular' groups, including the Arab-American Institute (AAI) and the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC)," he adds.

Muslim civil rights organizations, such as CAIR, are working day and night to counteract the effects of such campaigns. But they are limited in number and resources compared to Islamophobes. The American people are victims of the biased and racist media propaganda. Ordinary American citizens do not have the time or motivation to filter the information fed to them through media outlets.

Unless, of course, they read Jihad Watch.

Leaving this destructive tide unchallenged could lead to serious consequences: For instance, some Muslims-especially the young-will be forced or tempted to deviate from the authentic teachings of Islam in order to be called liberal or progressive. On the other hand, those who have strong beliefs will be persecuted for false allegations; they will be labeled extremists, isolated, and discriminated against.

In Islam Unveiled and in many other places I have written about just this: those who try to construct a peaceful Islam while rejecting and condemning belligerent verses from the Qur'an are always targeted by more literal-minded Muslims, who often apply the many Qur'anic verses denouncing the munafiqun (hypocrites) to them, and refute them using the Qur'an and Sunnah. And here it is in action: IslamOnline warns against "deviat[ing] from the authentic teachings of Islam in order to be called liberal or progressive" and says that those who have "strong beliefs" will be labeled "extremists."

This is why, although I have been ferociously misquoted and viociously misrepresented on occasion, I never use the term "extremists" for jihadists. As I have made clear in both Islam Unveiled and Onward Muslim Soldiers, they are actually traditional Muslims, working in a mainstream Islamic tradition. There is nothing extreme about them except their actions.

To preserve genuine Islam in the West, every sincere Muslim has an obligation to educate as many people as he/she can about Islamic beliefs and values.

Islam is a complete way of life. We must adjust our lifestyle to our religion-not the other way round. That is, we cannot twist the laws of Allah and His message to fit our convenience or to please a person or group. To accomplish this noble mission, Muslims need to coordinate and unite their efforts to withstand the plots that aim at distorting Islamic teachings under slogans like "Reforming Islam" or "Promoting Liberal Islam." We need to focus our energy in passing the genuine message of Allah to humanity....

I have many times here at Jihad Watch made clear my skepticism about the feasibility of reforming Islam. Reform will be well-nigh impossible because of this phenomenon, which I have noted in the books mentioned above: it is all too easy for hardliners to use the Qur'an and Sunnah to equate reform with disloyalty to Islam. How would FMCAT, for example, respond when faced with such a charge?

Oh, and to all those who are celebrating today: Christ is risen! He is truly risen!

From the Malaysian Manorama, with thanks to Twostellas:

Riyadh: Saudi religious police have destroyed a clandestine makeshift Hindu temple in an old district of Riyadh and deported three worshippers found there, a newspaper reported.

Members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, or religious police, Thursday stumbled across a room converted into a temple while raiding a number of flats suspected of being used to manufacture alcohol and distribute pornographic videos, pan-Arab Al-Hayat said.

"They were surprised to find that one room had been converted into a Hindu temple," it said.

A caretaker who was found in the worshipping area ignored the religious police orders to stop performing his religious rituals, the paper added. He was deported along with two other men who arrived on the scene to worship. All forms of non-Muslim worship are banned in ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia, which is home to Islam's holiest shrines.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an advisory panel, last month urged the US government to impose sanctions on Saudi Arabia, as well as Vietnam and Eritrea, for violating religious rights....

And has the US government complied? Yet?

The other side says, "Bring it on." From the SITE Institute, with thanks to DC Watson:

A recent message from al-Qaeda in Iraq welcomes new US reservists recently deployed for active duty in Iraq....

Addressing the soldiers specifically, the message argues: "cross worshippers: we have more and more killing and death for you.good news, we will get you [with] soldiers (mujahideen) who love to be martyrs as much as you love to run away."

Cross worshippers? This is yet another example of the jihadists' persistent fantasy that they are fighting modern-day Crusaders. I will touch on this in my forthcoming book from Regnery Publishing, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades, which has been scheduled for July publication. (All I have to do is finish it.)

The current situation in Iraq, according to the communiqué "is created by the grace of Allah and what was achieved by the mujahideen when they rubbed their (Americans) noses in the dirt of humiliation."

There's a touch of Baghdad Bob to this, but apparently this brand of empty bravado sells well to the home crowd.

From the BBC, with thanks to Nicolei:

A militant Somali Muslim cleric has warned of a Holy War or "Jihad" if foreign peacekeepers are deployed.

Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys is a senior member of the Islamic courts, which has a militia, and is accused by the United States of having links to al-Qaeda.

President Abdullahi Yusuf wants peacekeepers to protect his government when it relocates from Kenya.

Somalia has not had a functioning government for 14 years and has been
divided by rival warlords....

Mr Aweys, who denies that any terror groups operate in Somalia, said it would be the religious duty of all Somalis to fight any peacekeeping force.

"We will fight fiercely to the death any intervention force that arrives in Somalia," he said.

He also urged foreign countries not to fund the proposed peace force.

East African countries have agreed to send some 6,800 Sudanese and Ugandan troops to Somalia.

Several Mogadishu-based warlords, named in Mr Yusuf's exiled government, have also opposed the use of foreign troops....

Yes, yes, it's heartening to see how fiercely these gentlemen protect their freedom and sovereignty. Good thing they shucked those evil European colonialists, eh wot?

And the worldwide media maintains a respectful dhimmi silence. "Official death toll rises from Iranian soccer protests; Arrested female soccer protesters to be lashed," from the Student Movement for Democracy in Iran (SMCCDI)

At least six demonstrators were killed in the Greater Tehran and several other in some of the riots which rocked cities, such as, Khoram-Abad, Esfahan, Shiraz, Kermanshah, Sari, Ardabil, Babol, Rasht, Mashad, Hamedan, Mahabad and Oroomiah (former Rezai-e) due to popular demonstrations which happened following Iran's win over Japan in the frame of the qualification games for the 2006 Soccer World cup. Tens of other have been severely injured and some are in critical conditions.

Brutal militiamen were seen using clubs, chains and knives against demonstrators with the firm intention to kill anyone standing against the regime. Several female protesters were seen beaten to death in Guisha and Fatemi as they took off their veils.

Islamic regime's propaganda tools, such as, the official so-called "Iran Students News Agency" (ISNA) have qualified some of these deaths as due to "having been trampled under the spectators' feet" or "Dying of heart attack due to excitement". Foreign news agencies, such as, Reuters, AP, Xinhua or AFP have ignored the existence of street riots while echoeing the official version due most likely of fear of seeing their correspondents expelled or due to their financement by major lobby groups interested in continuing business with the Islamic republic....

Arrested female demonstrators are to be lashed for their "un-Islamic behavior" before getting released. Such decision has been announced to some of the families who have searched for their missing members arrested following yesterday's Soccer riots....

Family members are afraid about the consequences of the methodic barbarian lashing punishment on the health of the arrested demonstrators who are mostly slim due to their often young age. The Islamic regime is applying the backwarded Islamic Sharia Law by which stoning, mutilation, amputation, lashing or eye for eye punishments are promoted....

In The Spectator, Anthony Browne, European correspondent for The Times of London and a man with whom I once had the great pleasure of appearing on BBC Radio along with the illustrious jihadist leader Omar Bakri, reports on the world-wide persecution of Christians, beginning with post-Saddam Iraq (thanks to Mark Durie for the link):

For most citizens of Iraq, the invasion meant the end of tyranny. For one group, however, it meant a new start: the country’s historic Christian community. When the war stopped, persecution by Islamists, held in check by Saddam, started.

At a church in Basra I visited a month after the war ended, the women complained of attacks against them for not wearing the Islamic veil. I saw many Christian-owned shops that had been firebombed, with many of the owners killed for exercising their legal right to sell alcohol. Two years and many church attacks later, Iraq may still be occupied by Christian foreign powers, but the Islamist plan to ethnically cleanse Iraq of its nearly 2,000-year-old Assyrian and Armenian Christian communities is reaching fruition.

There is nothing unusual about the persecution of Iraqi Christians, or the unwillingness of other Christians to help them. Rising nationalism and fundamentalism around the world have meant that Christianity is going back to its roots as the religion of the persecuted. There are now more than 300 million Christians who are either threatened with violence or legally discriminated against simply because of their faith — more than any other religion. Christians are no longer, as far as I am aware, thrown to the lions. But from China, North Korea and Malaysia, through India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, they are subjected to legalised discrimination, violence, imprisonment, relocation and forced conversion. Even in supposedly Christian Europe, Christianity has become the most mocked religion, its followers treated with public suspicion and derision and sometimes — such as the would-be EU commissioner Rocco Buttiglione — hounded out of political office....

Browne finds that, despite their power, Christian states or peoples seem remarkably unwilling to use any of that power or strength in defense of oppressed fellow Christians:

While Muslims openly help other Muslims, Christians helping Christians has become as taboo as jingoistic nationalism....

But just as Christian-majority armies control Iraq as it ethnically cleanses itself of its Christian community, so the power of Christian countries is of little help to the Christian persecuted where most Christians now live: the Third World.

Across the Islamic world, Christians are systematically discriminated against and persecuted. Saudi Arabia — the global fountain of religious bigotry — bans churches, public Christian worship, the Bible and the sale of Christmas cards, and stops non-Muslims from entering Mecca. Christians are regularly imprisoned and tortured on trumped-up charges of drinking, blaspheming or Bible-bashing, as some British citizens have found. Just last month, furthermore, Saudi Arabia announced that only Muslims can become citizens.

The Copts of Egypt make up half the Christians in the Middle East, the cradle of Christianity. They inhabited the land before the Islamic conquest, and still make up a fifth of the population. By law they are banned from being president of the Islamic Republic of Egypt or attending Al Azhar University, and severely restricted from joining the police and army. By practice they are banned from holding any high political or commercial position. Under the 19th-century Hamayouni decrees, Copts must get permission from the president to build or repair churches — but he usually refuses. Mosques face no such controls.

This is in full accord with Sharia provisions forbidding Christians to build or repair churches -- and yet learned commentators still maintain that Sharia is only found today in Saudi Arabia and Iran. And that's true in terms of full implementation -- but Christians still suffer in various ways as dhimmis all over the Islamic world. Read on:

Government-controlled TV broadcasts anti-Copt propaganda, while giving no airtime to Copts. It is illegal for Muslims to convert to Christianity, but legal for Christians to convert to Islam. Christian girls — and even the wives of Christian priests — are abducted and forcibly converted to Islam, recently prompting mass demonstrations. A report by Freedom House in Washington concludes: ‘The cumulative effect of these threats creates an atmosphere of persecution and raises fears that during the 21st century the Copts may have a vastly diminished presence in their homelands.’

Fr Drew Christiansen, an adviser to the US Conference of Bishops, recently conducted a study which stated that ‘all over the Middle East, Christians are under pressure. “The cradle of Christianity” is under enormous pressure from demographic decline, the growth of Islamic militancy, official and unofficial discrimination, the Iraq war, the Palestinian Intifada, failed peace policies and political manipulation.’

In the world’s most economically successful Muslim nation, Malaysia, the world’s only deliberate affirmative action programme for a majority population ensures that Muslims are given better access to jobs, housing and education. In the world’s most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia, some 10,000 Christians have been killed in the last few years by Muslims trying to Islamify the Moluccas.

In the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, most of the five million Christians live as an underclass, doing work such as toilet-cleaning. Under the Hudood ordinances, a Muslim can testify against a non-Muslim in court, but a non-Muslim cannot testify against a Muslim. Blasphemy laws are abused to persecute Christians. In the last few years, dozens of Christians have been killed in bomb and gun attacks on churches and Christian schools.

In Nigeria, 12 states have introduced Sharia law, which affects Christians as much as Muslims. Christian girls are forced to wear the Islamic veil at school, and Christians are banned from drinking alcohol. Thousands of Christians have been killed in the last few years in the ensuing violence....

Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, director of the Barnabas Trust, which helps persecuted Christians, blames rising global religious tension. ‘More and more Christians are seen as the odd ones out — they are seen as transplants from the West, and not really trusted. It is getting very much worse.’...

You get the gist. Dr Paul Marshall, senior fellow at the Centre for Religious Freedom in Washington, estimates that there are 200 million Christians who face violence because of their faith, and 350 million who face legally sanctioned discrimination in terms of access to jobs and housing. The World Evangelical Alliance wrote in a report to the UN Human Rights Commission last year that Christians are ‘the largest single group in the world which is being denied human rights on the basis of their faith’....

But the BBC, despite being mainly funded by Christians, is an organisation that promotes ridicule of the Bible, while banning criticism of the Koran. Dr Marshall said: ‘Christians are seen as Europeans and Americans, which means you get a lack of sympathy which you would not get if they were Tibetan Buddhists.’...

To this day, while Muslims stick up for their co-religionists, Christians — beyond a few charities — have given up such forms of discrimination. Dr Sookhdeo said: ‘The Muslims have an Ummah [the worldwide Muslim community] whereas Christians do not have Christendom. There is no Christian country that says, “We are Christian and we will help Christians.”’...

Today is a good day to read the entire article. And to give it to others to read.

The FBI has already explicitly ruled this out as a possibility, and here in my office this morning I have no reason to doubt them. However, the fact that there is this claim of credit is interesting in itself: here is an individual or group trying to keep up the "psychological jihad."

From the SITE Institute, with thanks to DC Watson:

In a message posted on the Internet, a group calling itself "Qaedat al-Jihad in the United States" claims responsibility for the Texas Refinery bombing and states that "This operation took place in spite of the tight security, which is unprecedented in America's history."

The communiqué, which has not been corroborated by any other source, also states that the attack was a follow up to a promise made by Abi Hamza "the American" who had declared that "He will turn your streets red, covered with blood." It seems that the communiqué refers to Abu (abi) Azzam the American, a purported al-Qaeda member who in a videotape broadcasted on October 26, 2004 had threaten to carry out attacks in the United States.

The communiqué also promises that "This announcement will be followed by a detailed and illustrated announcement of this blessed operation in Texas' main refinery."

OK. Let's see it.

"Iraqi Forces Seize 131 Suspected Insurgents in Raid," from Reuters, with thanks to RB:

BAGHDAD - Iraqi soldiers backed by U.S. helicopters killed several suspected insurgents and seized 131 more in a dawn raid Saturday, capturing tons of explosives earmarked for attacks on the holy city of Kerbala, officials said....

Earlier this week Iraqi police commandos said they killed 85 militants in a raid on a suspected insurgent training camp near Baghdad, hailing it as a breakthrough against the insurgency.

Shaalan said several suspected militants were killed in the latest operation, which began late Friday and culminated in the dawn raid just outside Kerbala, about 100 km (60 miles) southwest of Baghdad.

The vast majority of the 131 captured were Iraqis, although officials said many faked Iraqi identification papers were also found. It was not clear how many people were killed.

"We carried out this operation so that visitors to Kerbala can go there in peace," Shaalan said.

Kerbala, an important Shi'ite Muslim holy city, has been targeted by militants several times in the past. Next week it will draw hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from throughout the region for Arbain, a major mourning ceremony.

Another defense ministry official said many of those detained were from Ansar al-Sunna, a militant group based in northern Iraq, near the border with Iran, that has carried out several high-profile attacks over the past 18 months.

"This group was intending to attack Kerbala," he said.

Seized along with the suspects were three tons of TNT explosive, at least three ready-made car bombs, hundreds of rocket-propelled grenades, several Katyusha rockets, more than 250,000 rounds of ammunition and other equipment....

From the Times-Dispatch (thanks to Twostellas), more on the continuing saga of Amina Wadud, a Muslim woman had the temerity to lead a prayer service in New York City, thereby angering male Muslims the world over, and raising murderous ire in some.

Virginia Commonwealth University officials met yesterday to discuss concerns about the safety and security of a female professor of Islamic studies who defied Islamic tradition by leading a prayer service that included men and women.

The professor, Amina Wadud, has been threatened and sharply criticized in many parts of the Islamic world since the March 18 prayer service in New York that was attended by an estimated 80 to 100 people, about half of whom were men. Traditionally, Muslim women do not lead prayers in a mosque, and they pray separately from men.

Wadud called in sick yesterday, according to Pamela D. Lepley, director of university news services. Wadud's home telephone has a security system that permits only calls from approved numbers to go through, and she could not be reached for comment last night.

Lepley said the discussions at yesterday's "debriefing" focused on Wadud's security "and the security and safety of the whole institution." She added that such sessions are routine during high-profile matters.

VCU officials have been in touch with state and federal agencies to be certain "we're all doing what we need to do," Lepley said. She did not elaborate....

The events surrounding Wadud's prayer service come at an unsettling time for VCU.

Last Saturday, a day after Wadud's prayer service, a suicide car bomber struck a theater in Doha, Qatar, about 7 miles from where VCU's Qatar-based College of Design Arts is located.

About 10 faculty members and students from the college were at the Doha Players Theater watching a production of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" when the bomber struck.

None of the faculty or students was injured "beyond a scrape on an ankle and a bruised shoulder," said Richard E. Toscan, dean of VCU's School of the Arts in Richmond, in a news conference this week.

Lepley said all information so far indicates no link between the car bombing and Wadud's prayer service.

However, VCU has stepped up security on its Qatar campus, as has the Qatar government.

The design college in Qatar, one of the richest nations on earth thanks to oil and natural-gas reserves, has been a godsend to VCU since it was opened in 1998.

Fees paid to VCU by the Qatar Foundation, which provides funding for the school, have provided the resources for a meteoric rise of the Richmond-based School of the Arts to the top tier of arts schools in the United States....

"Sudan: Company Takes Over Episcopal Church Property: Khartoum judge refuses to enforce court injunction," from Compass Direct, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

March 24 (Compass) -- The Sudanese Arab company claiming ownership of a disputed church property in Khartoum moved into the building last week, ignoring a court injunction barring any alterations or use of the property before a judicial ruling on the case.

Stunned representatives of the Episcopal Church of Sudan (ECS) discovered during a March 15 trial hearing before the Khartoum Public Court that the United Al Azra Company had arbitrarily taken possession of their church headquarters and guesthouse, first confiscated at police gunpoint 10 months ago....

Before last week’s hearing began, ECS lawyer Aziza Ismail asked Judge Wahhabi Ibrahim what action had been taken to enforce the court injunction, in response to last month’s court-ordered engineer’s report. The report had confirmed that “extensive repairs” amounting to “a complete renovation” were being made on the property in blatant violation of the court injunction ordered last June.

“What is the problem? Why is the church complaining?” the judge reportedly asked.

“Your honor,” the lawyer replied, “you are letting them trample on the court order. It has been ordered that nothing should be done on this building until you have made your ruling on the case.”

Shrugging off the complaint, the judge commented, “Yes, that is the order of the court. But it is up to me to decide what to do with the fact that the law has been broken.”

Judge Ibrahim brushed aside the church’s request to post a guard at the property, declaring that they should not be worried, “Because in the end, you will get the building back in better shape than it was before!”

The other day I criticized FMCAT's statement supporting the Spanish fatwa. Some have accused me of supporting the terrorists by trying to make things difficult for moderate Muslims. Nothing could be farther from the truth. All I am saying is this: if someone wants to identify himself as a Muslim and yet eschew the jihad ideology now and in the future, a good way to start would be by being honest about what his religion actually teaches, and working from that basis. Saying that Islam actually teaches peace is not only inaccurate and deceptive; it also won't hold up against questioning from jihadist Muslims. Unless the vision of peaceful Islam that these groups put forward is strong enough to convince Muslims that violent jihad is not the way, it has no value.

Why is that so? Because if they say they are Muslims but their Islam is not coherent on Islamic grounds, then they are either trying to deceive non-Muslims or they are deceiving themselves. There are many Islamic sects, and there is room for another that teaches peaceful co-existence with non-Muslims instead of jihad warfare. But if the theology of this hypothetical new sect is so easily refutable, then how will it win recruits? How will it sustain itself against charges of heresy? It won't.

And these problems are made even more urgent by the fact that the Qur'an allows for religious deception (see 3:28 and 16:106). Is FMCAT trying to deceive? I doubt it -- but it cannot be dismissed as a possibility. They would allay all such suspicions by producing proof, or at least viable support, of what they say, if they be truthful.

But this Spanish fatwa, at least as published so far, contains no such proof.

From AP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

The fatwa, issued on the anniversary of the Madrid train bombings that claimed 191 lives, was believed to be the first cleric-sanctioned condemnation directly against Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. But it highlights a wider, critical dialogue emerging across the Islamic world.

Moderate Muslims are turning to Islam's sacred core -- the Quran and the laws and traditions it inspires -- to defend their views and discredit radicals as part of a "counter-jihad" for Islamic hearts and minds.

Great. How, exactly? When I have asked this question of Muslims, I either get more obviously inadequate argumentation or just open abuse.

Terrorist attacks by al-Qaida and other militant groups add urgency to the ideological debate, which challenges the long dominance of Saudi Arabia's fundamentalist Wahhabist strain that has used its wealth and influence to mute moderate Islamic voices.

"Long dominance"? I thought that we were supposed to believe they were a tiny minority of extremists. It's funny how AP can acknowledge so breezily, as if everyone knows it, what the mainstream media and the Administration have been strenuously denying since 9/11: that the jihad terrorists have not "hijacked" the religion, but are in fact the majority view. How did so many hundreds of millions of people get their religion so drastically wrong?

"The long and painful silence of moderate theologians and experts in Islam jurisprudence is finally starting to break apart," said Khaled Abou El Fadl, an authority on Islamic law at UCLA. "We are seeing signs of a counter-jihad."

The deluge of support messages appeared to touch the frustration among mainstream Muslims. But the response was dominated by those outside the Middle East, suggesting centers of moderate influence reside outside traditional Muslim areas.

Nor am I reassured by the presence of Khaled Abou El Fadl in this piece. In Onward Muslim Soldiers I detail how he tried to argue that Islam has no doctrine of holy war on the basis of the fact that the words "holy war" -- harb muqaddasah -- do not appear in the Qur'an. If you find that an adequate argument, go back to school.

Fascinating information from "Al Qaeda in the Balkans: Who in the Balkans wants to destroy America?," by Miroljub Jevtic, Ph.D. in Serbiana, with thanks to Fraser:

The news that a group of mujahadeens headed for Osama bin Laden's jihad were captured on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan would be nothing new, had the Pakistani authorities not announced that one of them was an Albanian citizen. Clearly, Clinton's cooperation with Balkan Islamists in the 1990s is only now turning like a boomerang against the US.

While the official affront is that Bosnian Muslims and Albanians are American allies in the war on terror, the US forces are tied up in Bosnia monitoring and chasing the jihadists who have made Bosnia and Albanian inhabited areas in the Balkans their domicile. Overtly then, Balkan Muslims are supporting the West, while covertly they may seek destruction of it.

The American strategists believed that by caving into territorial demands Balkan Muslims are making, the newly established Islamic entities will, because of the American influence and endorsement of it, be a model to the Islamic world, showing the right political path. The Christians of Bosnia, for example, are increasingly being centralized under Islamic authority; Christian Croats are spliced within Muslim federation and dominated by them while the Serbian entity is under tremendous political pressure and may disappear. Meanwhile, Bosnian Muslims want to offer Muslim Turks a dual citizenship because they consider these centuries old occupiers of Bosnia their liberators.

In Macedonia, likewise, the real masters of the situation are the Muslims Albanians who have placed the Christian Slavs there into virtual political ghettos.

Instead of showing themselves content with this, Balkan Muslims are not only setting out towards Islamizing their territories, but also towards actions aimed at America's destruction.

Tradition has it that the most extreme Islamists among Slavic Muslims in the Balkans are from the Raska district, i.e. from Tutin, Novi Pazar and Rozaj so one is to expect extremist Imams to come from this region. Yet, the Islamic extremism and open attacks on the US that is spreading among the Balkan Muslims is preached by an Imam, who is not a native of Novi Pazar, nor of Sarajevo, but is an ethnic Albanian from village of Orahovac in Kosovo. This Imam, Bugari, is a hodja of the White mosque in Vratnik, known as the most Muslim part of Sarajevo.

Ironically, the fiercest fighter of jihad has not turned up from the middle of Bosnia with its numerous Islamic top ranking religious schools, but from Albanian dominated Kosovo, busy teaching the Bosnians in the midst of Sarajevo what real Islam is.

Says Bugari: "The speech of the sword is more sincere than that of the letter. Its blade lies between seriousness and jest. The whiteness of the sword, not the blackness of the letters, for its back knows no rust of doubt'.

Continues he: "The status of Muslims cannot be improved by papers. This doesn't work. It is well known what can improve the status of Muslims worldwide. How was it improved at first? By taking Islam to all places. By convincing people that only God Allah exists."

Bugari concludes with a call to violence: "By purifying the heart of all idols, and then, if necessary, by the jihad. And jihad was necessary and will be necessary! Don't think that we can survive in any other way, except by these three things: faith, economics and responding to Allah when the time for jihad comes".

"[T]aking Islam to all places", including the US is the obligation of every Muslim, preaches Bugari.

This Albanian Muslim Imam is also an avid anti-Semite. Says Bugari: "Americans rule the world, and so do the Jews. With the Americans' help, they have again outsmarted the entire world, especially the economy. We consume American-Jewish products every day. We drink their 'Coca-Cola' and their 'Pepsi', we use their banks, buy their weapons, their 'Nikes' and various other products. Imagine how many 'cokes' a billion and a half Muslims drink every day. According to some data, 700 million 'Coca-Colas' every day, and you know well that 10 percent of every 'Coca-Cola' goes to Israel".

The Jew-hating Albanian Burguri attributes Islamic inability to legitimize their land conquests in the Balkans on the damnation Allah bestowed on Balkan Muslims because they relied on Americans. "We have indeed asked them for help during the war, and we have started to improve." says Burguri. "The Serbs are running away as they can, and we say: Come, Americans, and lend us a hand. This is why Allah is now punishing us."

Finally Burguri sides with Al-Qaeda by accusing America for holding 6 Algerian Bosnians in Guantanamo. "Now they will come and chase the Algerian group to Cuba, then they will chase Imad El-Mis'ri, then they will chase Fiusanin .."

Among those who were placed under surveillance by the authorities and
arrested in Bosnia because of their make-believe humanitarian work that was a cover-up for the terrorist logistic base, an ethnic Albanian was again identified. His name is Durguti. Once more we have someone coming from the town of Orahovac in Kosovo, where Bugari is also from. This may suggest that Orahovac Albanians in Kosovo may be the leading cadre of terrorist recruits, European by race, recruited by al-Qaeda in order to be trained and easily blend in the western societies to conduct terrorist killings....

Read it all.

"Terror Suspect Details Training, Plots," from ABC News, with thanks to Nicolei:

MANILA, Philippines - A terror suspect on Wednesday said the southern Philippines has become a major training ground for regional terror group Jemaah Islamiyah graduating 23 bomb experts just days ago and a refuge for Indonesians involved in major attacks, including the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings.

Rohmat, arrested last week as an alleged Jemaah Islamiyah operative in the Philippines, told The Associated Press that he had trained new recruits of the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf group and said its leaders were plotting more bombings and kidnappings.

Details provided by the 26-year-old Indonesian martial arts expert showed a close but highly compartmentalized relationship between two of the most dangerous groups in Southeast Asia and partly explained why the threat of terrorism has persisted despite years of crackdown.

Rohmat, who only goes by one name, said 23 Indonesian recruits had just finished jungle training including lessons in explosives, weapons, combat and Islam when he left a Jemaah Islamiyah camp called Jabal Qubah in southern Mindanao island shortly before being arrested at a military checkpoint....

Now that's religious training: "Explosives, weapons, combat and Islam." Just doesn't have the same ring as "Scripture, theology, morals"...

Rohmat said he joined Jemaah Islamiyah knowing it fostered "pure Islamic teachings" but it was too late when he learned that the group advocated a type of violence that he disagreed with because it victimized innocent people.

Yeah, yeah, Rohmat, tell it to the judge.

Rohmat said he was present in a meeting when Janjalani and Sulaiman plotted the Feb. 14 bombings that killed eight people and injured more than 100 others in Manila and two southern cities.

The two leaders also gave orders for new major bombings in Manila and one of two southern cities, probably Davao, during the Easter holiday, he said.

Hey, didn't you fellows learn in your Islamic studies that the Qur'an has unparalleled respect for other religious traditions? Can we get Reza Aslan and Ibrahim Hooper over to Manila to teach these guys about Islam?

From the Dow Jones Newswire, :

NEW YORK - Japan's Foreign Ministry on Thursday warned Japanese citizens planning to visit Indonesia of potential terror threats during a three- day Easter holiday beginning Friday, the Kyodo news agency reports.

The ministry advised Japanese visitors to Indonesia to stay away from crowded places such as shopping malls and hotels frequented by Westerners which could become targets of terrorism, Kyodo said.

The move came after the U.S. Embassy in Indonesia issued a similar terror warning. The U.S. Embassy issued the warning after a group of suspected terrorists recently arrested in the Philippines included those with ties to Indonesia.

Malaysia Tells Religious Police Not to Copy Taleban," from Reuters, with thanks to Twostellas:

KUALA LUMPUR, 25 March 2005 - Malaysia clipped the wings of its religious police yesterday, warning that it did not want to be like Afghanistan under Taleban rule, and ordered national police supervision of their controversial raids.

The religious police stirred a storm of protest with heavy-handed behavior during a January raid on a nightclub in the Malaysian capital, and in another incident by detaining a transsexual person visiting the home of Muslim friends.

"This is a very serious matter, we do not want to see Malaysia turning into Afghanistan during the Taleban (rule)," said Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz, the minister who announced the change. "If this is not stopped, it may happen," he said.

Yes, and why might it happen? Because Islam asserts itself politically everywhere it exists. That is what it has done yesterday, is doing today, and will do tomorrow.

"Exclusive: Look Out Below-The Terror Threat From the Sea," from Newsweek, with thanks to Nicolei:

March 28 issue - Al Qaeda frogmen sound like one of the more exotic terrorist threats-but Homeland Security chiefs are preparing, just in case. Last month the Coast Guard launched a special program to train members of its seagoing SWAT teams how to protect U.S. ports against scuba-diving attackers. Members of Coast Guard commando teams based at 12 ports on the U.S. coastline will be taught underwater fighting techniques and how to use secret weapons....

The notion that Osama bin Laden's followers might turn to scuba diving is not a Tom Clancy fantasy. Three years ago Dutch authorities looking into a jihad recruiting ring in the town of Eindhoven learned that one of their suspects was keen on scuba diving. Investigation led them to a Tunisian diving instructor with a connection to radical Islam. Dutch intelligence watched as the Tunisian ran his own diving classes, which attracted suspected Islamic militant students from around the Netherlands. The diving instructor eventually left the country, but a spokesman for the AIVD, the Netherlands' secret service, told NEWSWEEK the investigation is still open.

Dutch authorities note that they know of no current specific terrorist threat posed by Qaeda divers, nor have the Dutch launched any special diver-related security measures to protect their ports, which include Rotterdam, one of the world's largest. U.S. officials also say they know of no imminent underwater threat. An FBI official said the bureau surveyed diving schools after the Dutch case first came to light, but never repeated the exercise. An intelligence source said the threat should be kept "in proportion." But only last week, a captured militant from a Qaeda affiliate in the Philippines claimed he and other jihadis took diving lessons to prepare for a seaborne attack....

I have spoken many times of how moderate Muslims can be turned into jihadists by appeals to the Qur'an and Sunnah. This is most likely what happened to this man. From ArabNews, with thanks to Nicolei:

CAIRO, 25 March 2005 - Visibly distressed, Muhammad tossed his head in disbelief as he talked of how his friend's promising life ended in disaster. His friend was identified as the perpetrator of last Saturday's car bombing that killed a Briton outside a theater near a British school in Doha.

"This is unbelievable," Muhammad said. "He was an ordinary person and never sounded like an extremist or someone who has a different religious or political ideology."

Maybe that's because he really didn't have a "different" ideology.

Muhammad added that his 39-year old friend, Omar Ahmad Abdullah Ali, had only interests related to his computer studies and his work and always planned for having a potential career....

Ali had worked in the information technology department of the energy firm since 1990, his mother said. "He had everything he wished for: A nice Palestinian wife born in Qatar, three cute kids and a job with a very good salary.

"He was also very happy when he got a baby last month and he was planning to visit Egypt this summer so that I will be able to see the baby," the mother told Arab News.

The mother said her son called last week to tell her he was fine and confirmed his summer visit. "My son sounded very normal in the phone call and was giving me details of his next trip," said the mother.

"If he had any intentions of carrying out the attack I would have noticed something and he would have tried to say goodbye indirectly. But it was just a normal call like all the calls he made during the past 18 years."

Ali's family, friends and neighbours in Cairo agreed on one thing. He was a decent man and a moderate pious Muslim who never talked about politics or even thought about having a beard.

The wife of the computer programmer, Umm Abdullah, in Doha was quoted by AFP as saying he was a devout Muslim and a man of integrity. "I am shocked," the mother of three said. "It is impossible that he could have done that because he had no motivations and his history is as clean as snow," said another friend....

Except for the fact that he undoubtedly read the Qur'an, and most likely came across the verse promising Paradise to those who "slay and are slain" for Allah (9:111).

He was discharged from the Air Force for pro-Osama statements. Then he got a job as...an airport screener. But of course, what he said was taken out of context. From AP, :

DETROIT (AP) -- A Yemeni immigrant who was discharged from the U.S. Air Force after expressing sympathy for Osama bin Laden following the Sept. 11 attacks faces trial next week on accusations of lying to land a job as an airport screener.

Sadeq Naji Ahmed, 25, of Dearborn faces up to 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted of making false statements on a questionnaire to get a job with the Transportation Security Administration at Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

"This is a case of vast government overkill," defense lawyer William Swor said Thursday after U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman declined to dismiss the indictment. "My client is an absolutely loyal American."

Following his arraignment in July, Ahmed told reporters "people take things out of context, that's not the right information."...

The indictment said that Ahmed made statements in support of bin Laden, that he was neither for or against the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, that the United States deserved to be attacked, that he would not fight if the U.S. military took action in Iraq and that U.S. aircraft flying over Iraq should crash.

On Sept. 17, 2001, superiors suspended his access to classified information and secure areas of the base, the indictment said. He was reassigned to administrative duties and honorably discharged 11 days later, two months shy of completing his 4-year tour.

He returned to Detroit and got a job in December 2001 as a baggage screener for a private contractor at Detroit Metro. In October 2002, he was conditionally appointed to the Transportation Security Administration contingent upon passing a background check, which included filling out a questionnaire.

He was dismissed in August 2003 after the government learned about his Air Force discharge.

Swor said his client "was simply exercising his First Amendment right to question and criticize the policies of the U.S. government. The military and the government didn't like his point of view, and they've charged him with a felony that could ruin the rest of his life."

A message from the Free Muslim Coalition Against Terrorism:

Resolution of Condemnation by Muslims Against Al Qaeda, ALL Suicide Bombers and other Terrorists

On Friday, March 11, a remarkable thing happened in Madrid, Spain. A large number of clerics from the Islamic Conference of Spain issued a very tough fatwa (religious opinion) which condemned Osama bin Laden as an "apostate" and as a "kafir" (an infidel) and for violating the teachings of Islam.

This public and formal condemnation goes much farther than the Bush Administration or any other government has gone to date.

We, Muslims in America and Canada appreciate this courageous step by the Spanish Muslim clerics and we seek to support them and go one step further by offering a road map to winning the ideological battle against all terrorists who justify their crimes by relying on a fascist misinterpretation of Islam.

At present, al Qaeda and its clones call their murderous cause "Jihad" (Holy War), their assassins "mujahiddin" (holy warriors) and "martyrs" and their destiny Paradise. All too often, these are the same words that we (including virtually all Governments,
academia, media and assorted other "experts") carelessly use for them -- thus tending to confirm their patently false terms of self-sanctification.

The use of words with positive meanings is deadly and has helped many terrorists market their evil and criminal acts as acts of good and justice. We seek to define these evil criminals with negative terms rather than let them define themselves with positive terms. The Islamic labels that must be applied are those of "Hirabah" (unholy ar) by "mufsidoon" (evildoers) on their way to "Jahannam" (eternal Hellfire), instead.

By rejecting the terms used by terrorist suicide murderers we can go a long way in winning the ideological war against terrorists.

Now that these faithful and brave Spanish clerics have broken the ice and have declared an authentic Jihad against the al Qaeda evildoers, other terrorists and suicide bombers, we request the Muslim clergy and Muslims in general to reiterate their support for this condemnation without equivocation or explain their refusal to do so.

In redefining Bin Laden, all terrorists, including ALL suicide bombers as criminals we offer the following Resolution of Condemnation:

a) we denounce the ongoing attack on America, the West, Muslims and all innocent people of the world. This attack is not "Jihad" (Holy War) but a heinous crime and a mortal sin of Hirabah (Unholy War which is a forbidden "war against humanity");

b) we label those who are fomenting and waging this forbidden type of warfare as mufsidoon (evildoers) and muharibun (unholy warriors) and not as the mujaheddin (holy warriors) or the shahiddin (martyrs) they falsely claim to be;

c) we affirm that unless these evildoers cease their evil ways, turn themselves to the proper authorities, we will oppose them, expose them, fight them with writing, speaking, and organizing for they are criminals, and enemies of Muslims and all civilization;

d) we proclaim that this forbidden slaughter of innocent people, fomenting of hatred among religions, communities and nations, and condemnation of everyone but themselves as "infidels" and many other violations of Quranic law are not the will of God but rather, criminal acts and the evil deeds of those who wants to play the role of God;

e) we conclude that such blasphemy and crimes against humanity-- by Al Qaeda, ALL suicide bombers and other terrorists no matter what their cause may be is an unholy war by evildoers and criminals who are placing young Muslims, and themselves, in mortal danger of eternal damnation and world-wide condemnation;

f) we conclude that the death, destruction and mayhem perpetrated by Al Qaeda, other terrorists and ALL suicide bombers have not been approved by the merciful, compassionate and just God of us all but, rather, by a hate-filled and violent group of criminal fascist cults which are plainly shaitaniyah (satanic) in nature;

g) we affirm that it is a moral, ethical and Islamic duty for all Muslims to uphold these declarations by aiding and abetting established authorities around the world in apprehending these mufsidoon (evildoers) and muharibun (unholy warriors).

h) Let it be known that this resolution of condemnation does not solely represent the beliefs of the authors. This resolution is inspired by the Islam we know and our holy book, the Koran as we understand it. The Koran has many paragraphs that support our beliefs and this resolution. In one chapter for instance, the Koran reads that "whoever slays a soul...is considered like slaying all of humanity and whoever save a soul shall be considered as saving all of humanity." In another chapter the Koran reads that "Wars are not holy in anyway when Lives are lost." With this resolution we are merely affirming the Islam we know and rejecting the misinterpretation of Islam by the terrorists. With this resolution, we seek to take our religion back from the criminals who hijacked it and encourage all Muslims around the world to stand up to the terrorists, fanatics and extremists because no Muslim can afford to remain silent. The civilized world is counting on us.

Finally, we offer the following "bill of particulars" which fully justifies our resolution of condemnation against Al Qaeda, ALL suicide bombers and other terrorists:

* Wanton killing of innocents and noncombatants, including Jews, Christians, Muslims and people of other faiths

* Decapitating the bodies of the living and desecrating the dead bodies of perceived enemies

* Committing and enticing others to commit suicide bombings with the false promise of paradise as a reward for their terrorism. Committing suicide is a sin in Islam with no exceptions

* Fomenting hatred among communities, nations, religions and civilizations

* Ruthless warring against non Muslim-nations in which Islam is freely practiced

* Issuing and inspiring unauthorized and un-Islamic fatwas (religious opinion)

* Forcing their version of Islam on Muslims, when the Quran clearly says that there shall be "no compulsion in religion"

* Distorting the word "infidels" to include all Christians, all Jews and many Muslims, when the Quran calls them all "People of the Book" (the Old Testament ), "Sons of Abraham," and calls Jesus one of God's primary messengers and the Messiah. Moreover, the Quran specifically says that Christians, Jews, Muslims and others who believe in God and who do good work for mankind are destined for heaven

* Deliberate misreading, ignoring and perverting of passages of the Quran to suit the arrogant and soul-less ambitions

This resolution has been endorsed by Muslims in America, Canada and the Middle East. We ask all Muslim organizations, mosques and Muslims in general to sign on this resolution by sending an email to Kamal Nawash at president@freemuslims.org. Once we receive a complete list of endorsers, we seek to publish this resolution in various news papers and web-sites catering to Muslims. Will you join us and help take back our religion for the terrorist and evildoers?

Of course, I am all for this, and so it is only with great reluctance that I point out a few problems:

1. Thomas Haidon noted about the Spanish fatwa, "This seems to be a positive development. I would like to see, however, the analysis undertaken by the Ulema Council in reaching their decision. Is it just a statement? I want to see the steps taken to arrive at that decision. Without them this fatwa is worthless." The same thing applies here: without detailed reasoning from Islamic sources, the assertions about Islam made in this document are just that: assertions. Without Islamic sources to back them up, they will do nothing to convince the jihadists that what they are doing is wrong on Islamic grounds. And if they can't do that, what purpose do they serve?

2. The same thing applies to FMCAT's statement that "the use of words with positive meanings is deadly and has helped many terrorists market their evil and criminal acts as acts of good and justice. We seek to define these evil criminals with negative terms rather than let them define themselves with positive terms. The Islamic labels that must be applied are those of "Hirabah" (unholy war)by "mufsidoon" (evildoers) on their way to "Jahannam" (eternal Hellfire), instead." That's great, but where is the Islamic theology to back it up? This reminds me of a non-Muslim gentleman who has contacted me several times, asking for my support in getting people to stop calling the acts of Osama and his ilk "jihad" and call them "hirabah" instead. I told him that I'd be happy to do so if he could provide grounds from Islamic theology to do so. Of course he couldn't, but that hasn't stopped him from getting a platform at State, the DoD, the DHS, etc.: he tells them what they want to hear. As for me, I will stop calling it "jihad" when Osama and Co. stop doing so -- because they are convincing Muslims to join their ranks by appealing to Islamic teachings, and until we acknowledge that, we cannot defend ourselves adequately against it. Calling it by another name will do nothing -- unless you think that if Churchill had stopped calling Hitler's men "Nazis" and started calling them "Dumbheads," he would have compelled the Germans to lay down their arms.

3. There are, of course, a couple of texts presented here to support this resolution: "The Koran has many paragraphs that support our beliefs and this resolution. In one chapter for instance, the Koran reads that 'whoever slays a soul...is considered like slaying all of humanity and whoever save a soul shall be considered as saving all of humanity.' In another chapter the Koran reads that 'Wars are not holy in anyway when Lives are lost.'" Now, I have read the Qur'an countless times and I can't remember ever seeing the latter verse. Also, I just searched for it and can't find it either. Can someone please point out to me where it is? Wherever it is, it seems to contradict numerous other verses, such as this one: "To him who fighteth in the cause of Allah,- whether he is slain or gets victory - soon shall We give him a reward of great (value)" (4:74). If a war is not holy when lives are lost, why would someone who is slain or gets victory in a war be rewarded by Allah?

And as for the former verse, it has never been understood in Islamic theology as a prohibition of jihad warfare -- in fact, it comes in the context not of a universal principle, but of a warning to the Jews that they will be punished if they reject Muhammad. Thus I hope that Kamal Nawash and FMCAT will explain why they think this verse takes precedence over others such as 9:5 and 9:29, and how they plan to convince their fellow Muslims of that fact. Ibn Kathir, the great Qur'anic commentator, explains it thusly: "The Ayah states, whoever kills a soul without justification -- such as in retaliation for murder or for causing mischief in the land -- will be as if he had killed all mankind..." How would FMCAT reply to a Muslim who said, in line with this, that modern terrorist attacks are a legitimate retaliation for murders allegedly committed by Americans, as well as for "mischief in the land" perpetrated by the Great Satan?

4. Same question with suicide bombings. The Qur'an guarantees Paradise to those who "slay and are slain" for Allah: "Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of Paradise): they fight in His cause, and slay and are slain: a promise binding on Him in truth" (9:111). On what grounds, then, does FMCAT call this a "false promise"?

Again: I am all for this in principle. But unless it is strong enough to convince Muslims that violent jihad is not the way, it has no value. Thus I hope FMCAT will strengthen it in view of my questions here.

Brown needs to revisit the source material. "Britain's Muslims praised by Brown," from the Telegraph, with thanks to Effractor:

Gordon Brown last night paid tribute to British Muslims as "modern heroes" who brought hope and idealism to the country.

The Chancellor said they had contributed to Britain spiritually and economically because Islam was a religion that encouraged fair play, social justice and equality.

Please, Mr. Chancellor, show me where I can find in the Qur'an and Sunnah the idea of equality for non-Muslims.

"Islam teaches us that we are all part of one moral universe, that humanity is intertwined and interlinked like different parts of a human body, reflecting each other's condition. This is a universal moral principle we can all learn from," he said.

Many of Britain's 1.5 million Muslims supported Labour until the Iraq war and the party is now working hard to try to win them back.

"As Chancellor, I want in particular to thank you for the enormous contribution the Muslim community makes to our economy. I have learnt much from your entrepreneurial flair and talent," Mr Brown said in a speech at the Muslim News awards for excellence.

"But the contribution of British Muslims to British life goes far beyond the economic realm."

Mr Brown, whose father was a Church of Scotland minister, praised the teachings of Islam and defined a hero as "someone who has given their life to something bigger than themselves"....

"What we share in common is the belief in fair play, in social justice and in the equality and potential not just of some but of all," he said.

If that is so, why do non-Muslims not enjoy full equality of rights with Muslims in any majority-Muslim state on the planet today?

Remember this story?

Here's an update from Israel National News, with thanks to Romy: "Sweden: Gazan Guilty of Kidnapping Children."

An Arab was found guilty today in a Swedish court of kidnapping his children from the country and bringing them to the Gaza Strip.

Ismail Nawaja, of the Gaza Strip kept his children with him from June 2004 until December, when they were taken back to their mother. Nawaja has been detained in Sweden since January.

"Islamists See Opening in C. Asia Chaos," from Newsday, with thanks to JS:

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan -- The only splash of color in the drab bluish gray office of Kyrgyzstan's Coalition for Democracy and Civil Society was a wool orange scarf thrown over the back of its president's chair.

It was Edil Baisalov's souvenir from Ukraine's Orange Revolution that swept opposition leader Victor Yushchenko to the presidency. Baisalov had been in Kiev in December as an election monitor. He returned home inspired: "I was intoxicated by the protests, by the desire for change, the power of the people."

The popular uprisings in Ukraine and in Georgia a year earlier have fired up Central Asia's nascent political opposition and brought protesters into the streets of Kyrgyzstan.

The movement is unsettling authoritarian regimes who have ruled since the Soviet Union collapse 15 years ago. But it's also exposed the frailty of opposition groups who lack charismatic leaders -- and created an opening for extremist Islamic parties to gain power in a strategic oil-rich region known as a terrorist haven....

Although the Bush administration supports pro-democracy movements, the turmoil in the region also has created a potentially dangerous opening for extremist Islamic parties.

Hizb ut-Tahrir, or the Party of Liberation, has a following among the young in Central Asia. It has called for Islamic rule to replace secular governments and unite the Muslim world. And its pamphlets criticize U.S. bases established in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks to support the war on terror.

A senior Western diplomat in Tajikistan confirmed that Hizb ut-Tahrir's influence is growing across the region, particularly among the young who are looking for alternatives to what they perceive as corrupt, totalitarian regimes with links to the Soviet past.

The United States has not declared Hizb ut-Tahrir a terrorist organization because it does not advocate violence, but the diplomat said some of its literature is virulently anti-American and anti-Semitic and could inspire violence.

Leaders across Central Asia have banned Hizb ut-Tahrir. Kyrgyz security authorities have accused the group of having links with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which is allied to al-Qaida and operates in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Kyrgyz government has also warned of cooperation between Hizb ut-Tahrir and Uighur separatists in China, but has not provided evidence. Russia has accused Hizb ut-Tahrir of involvement in breakaway Chechnya.

The south of Kyrgyzstan is where Hizb ut-Tahrir is strongest, residential spokesman Seghizbayev told the AP. He said the group blames the government for every problem and makes promises it cannot fulfill.

Hizb ut-Tahrir has become more politically active. In Jalal-Abad, the scene of some of the fiercest anti-government protests, the group collected 20,000 signatures on a petition calling for more Islamic instruction in schools and segregation of the sexes.

The petition, circulated in November, also demanded state sponsorship of Muslim schools and restrictions on the sale of pornography. Candidates who espoused a like-minded philosophy got support from Hizb ut-Tahrir members.

Askarov Azimjan, a human rights activist whose office in southern Kyrgyzstan is partially funded by Freedom House, says Hizb ut-Tahrir has emerged as an alternative for residents frustrated by corruption.

"Most ordinary people I think support them now because they feel that in a democratic society it is difficult to get anything done without corruption. People believe that if the government was religious the situation would change," he said from Bazar Korgon, about 20 miles from Jalal-Abad....

Why are the Palestinian MP's doing this? Because the Greeks are thought to have sold land to (gasp) the Jews! From AFP, with thanks to Charles Martel:

ATHENS (AFP) - The Greek government said it will defend the historical character of the Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem, following Palestinian calls for its "Arabisation."

In Ramallah, on the West Bank, Palestinian MPs -- furious at the alleged sale of Jerusalem land to Jewish investors by the Greek patriarchy -- voted Tuesday for Arab Orthodox Christians to secede from the Greek patriarchy.

They passed a resolution urging the Palestinian Authority to no longer recognise the authority of the Greek Orthodox patriarchy over the Orthodox Arab community.

Denials of the alleged land sale, issued by Greek Patriarch Irineos I in Jerusalem, fell on deaf ears.

A Greek government spokesman, Evangelos Antonaros, said here that the Greek Orthodox patriarchy in Jerusalem had a history spanning centuries, and he believed most of the flock would not want to abandon it.

An investigation into the matter is under way, assisted by Greek foreign ministry experts who arrived in the Old City on Monday.

"Taking the results of the investigation into consideration, we will decide on steps that will defend the patriarchy's historical characteristics," Antonaros said. ...

Traditional Islamic theology holds that any land that has once belonged to the House of Islam belongs to it forever. That is the ultimate impulse behind the efforts to eradicate Israel, and a growing parallel movement in Spain. "Andalusia's connection," from the Toronto Star:

At the Jamal Islamiya mosque in this seaside town, a Muslim lament of historic proportions is proclaimed in large letters on a framed poster: "In 1492, we lost everything."

For the mosque's leader, and much of the Muslim world, the year marks the traumatic conclusion of Islam's golden age, a time remembered like a collective wound.

It's a period when the last piece of Muslim-held territory in Spain fell to Catholic monarchs, ending almost 800 years of Moorish rule on the Iberian peninsula.

Centuries when poetry, science and architecture flourished under Islamic caliphs expired with bonfires of Arabic manuscripts, mass expulsion and extermination in the Inquisition.

To the east, the Muslim empire of the Ottomans would reign for another four centuries. But many would trace its long decline to the fall of Al Andalus, the Moorish name for Andalusia.

The result is a yearning that today makes Spain, more than any other
European country, a battleground in the name of Islam.

"They stole 500 years of history from us," says Omar Checa Garcia, who heads the Jamal Islamiya mosque and cultural centre. "We want it back, but we don't want revenge."

What does it mean to want it back without wanting revenge? Just restore the Islamic state and there will be no reprisals?

Others are not so accommodating. Osama bin Laden uses what he calls the "tragedy of Al Andalus" as a rallying cry for his deadly brand of Islamic jihad against "the crusaders and Jews."

After the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, bin Laden's chief lieutenant, Ayman al Zawahiri, drew a parallel between the loss of the Iberian peninsula and the struggle of Palestinians.

"We will not accept that the tragedy of Al Andalus be repeated in
Palestine," he said....

On March 11, 2004, a cell of mainly Moroccan extremists, calling themselves "the brigade situated in Al Andalus," detonated 10 bombs that killed 191 people on Madrid commuter trains....

Read it all.

Jamie Glazov interviews Harvey Kushner, author of Holy War on the Home
Front, in FrontPage.

Kushner says:

I knew that it was two years after the 9/11 attacks and we were no safer than before the terrorists blasted holes in the New York City skyline. I had the evidence that Government agencies are still sloppy, negligent, or worse. I could show that federal judges were probating illegal aliens who are "known or suspected terrorists" back onto our streets. I knew that federal probation officers can't report suspicions of terrorist activity from felons they supervise because there's no one to report it to. I knew that a drug worth billions of dollars a year is being smuggled into the country by a Middle Eastern-African-British network, but no one is investigating it-or its links to terrorism. The USCIS Asylum Offices get applications from Middle Easterners who testify to involvement with terrorism, but they can't reject them because the FBI won't return their phone calls.

Don't believe it? Sorry, but I had the documents to prove it and I had to tell Americans that for all the time and money we've spent in the past three years on "security," Americans are no safer. As I say in the book: "In my thirty years in counterterrorism, I have never been more worried about my country." That's why I wrote Holy War. Let the truth be told.

FP: Why do you think there is so much government incompetence in dealing with the threats facing this country?

Kushner: Like the old Tom Lehrer song about the French hating the Germans and the Germans hating the Dutch, and so on-this federal law enforcement agency hates this federal law enforcement agency, this federal intelligence gathering agency hates this federal intelligence gathering agency, and everybody seems to have a problem with a particular federal agency, even local law-enforcement personnel. Like other government agencies, federal law enforcement and intelligence gathering agencies don't share information and that makes local law enforcement feel like second-class citizens.

Moreover, in some ways 9/11 made a federal agency like the FBI only more self-conscious and protective of their image. The FBI, was always reticent about giving information. After 9/11 whatever came into their possession never left it. I have spoken to many state and local agencies or departments charged with protecting American citizens where they live and work. Almost all report their biggest problem in the War on Terrorism is nobody giving them up-to date information about threats from the Islamic terror network. Most say even three years after 9/11, the FBI and related federal agencies still don't "download" real-time information to local agencies.

As long as the men and women of local law enforcement are kept in the dark about real-time terrorist data, government incompetence, either real or perceived, will continue.

FP: Can you illuminate for us a bit how the secret Islamic network operates?

Kushner: Near the end of the Spanish Civil War, General Emilio Mola's army was advancing on Madrid when someone asked him which of his four columns would capture the city. "The fifth column," he replied, meaning the rebel's militant supporters inside the capital whose efforts had already undermined it from within. This is exactly the strategy of the secret Islamic network.

Islamic extremists constitute a fifth column-a highly organized underground army whose tentacles reach into our colleges and universities; recruit converts in mosques and prisons; and raise money through bogus Muslim charities and drug running operations-in America. They are committed to the most violent goals of Islamic jihad and united in their belief that God wants them to destroy America completely.

The Islamic secret network's complicated web of multialphabet acronym organizations and interlocking directorates helps conceal their activities. This is evident through the many Islamic charities raising fungible monies aimed at both charitable and terrorist causes. Muslim anti-discrimination organizations are also created to appear to be the voices of moderate Islam when they are in fact the supporters of Militant Islam.

In contrast, many operatives in the secret network hide by being prominent, so that no one could accuse them of anything, much less investigate them. Consider, for example, the case of Abdurahman Muhammad Alamoudi, now serving time in a federal penitentiary. Alamoudi's way of hiding was to be prominent, so that no one could accuse him of anything, much less investigate him. Alamoudi's invitations to the White House and meetings with President Clinton gave him a lot of influence. He used it to make friends, silence critics, and hide influence-buying into Washington's most prominent circles....

Read it all.

Could this be the end of Musharraf? From UPI, :

The southwestern Pakistani province of Baluchistan has turned into a battlefield with both government and armed tribesmen preparing for a major clash that could cause hundreds of deaths and start a rebellion that would be difficult to put out.

Journalists who visited the area Tuesday reported that civilians had already fled a 40-mile area in and around the small tribal town of Dera Bugti.

"All one could see were hundreds of heavily armed Bugti tribesmen. Other than that, there were only signs of the heavy ordnance used -- perhaps from both sides -- in the shape of shrapnel and spent rocket shells," said BBC's Zafar Abbas in a report....

The Bugti tribe, especially its chief Nawab Akbar Bugti, demand a greater share in gas revenue and more administrative control over their area. The government says it already gives millions of dollars to the Bugti chief who uses the money to buy weapons instead of development....

After all, it worked in Spain. From Reuters, :

LONDON (Reuters) - Terrorists may try to strike the country in the runup to an election expected within weeks, just as bombers struck Spain shortly before a vote there, London's police chief says in an interview.

"I don't see this in the sense of some huge security operation, but I have pointed out that -- with an election coming up -- terrorists might just remember the bombings in Madrid only a year ago," Sir Ian Blair said on Thursday.

"We must be aware that al Qaeda will see the opportunity this year for a worldwide statement," he told Whitehall and Westminster World, a magazine for civil servants.

"I know my professional intelligence assessments and I know that we are facing a threat more significant than anything we have faced since the Cold War and the Nazi tyranny before it."

Good of you to notice, Ian. Now if you keep on cracking down so hard on miscreants like that "porking yard" fellow, you might find that your enemies have won without detonating a single bomb.

Galloping UK dhimmitude alert. You just can't make up this sort of thing. (But what's an "Asbo"?) "Car Park Sign Asbo 'A Joke' Says Pub Landlord," from the Scotsman, with thanks to plishman:

A man who was made subject to an Anti-Social Behaviour Order for putting up a sign saying "porking yard" in his pub car park, because it was offensive to Muslims, today described the court action as "a joke".

Leroy Trought, 42, was given a two-year Asbo at a hearing at Bristol Magistrates' Court on Monday.

Magistrates ordered him to change the wording of the "porking yard" sign at The Swan With Two Necks in St Judes, Bristol, to "parking yard".

He was ordered not to display any signs that may be threatening, abusive or insulting at the pub, which is next to a Somali mosque....

But Mr Trought today said that imposing the Asbo was a joke.

He said the sign was intended to commemorate the large number of butchers' shops that used to be located in the area and he had never intended to cause any offence.

He said: "We ran a competition in the pub to think of a funny name for the car park and one of the customers came up with the name 'the porking yard'.

"I grew up in Bristol so I know that this area has traditionally had a lot of butchers. It was always known as 'pork alley' so 'the porking yard' just seemed to fit.

"There's a butcher across the street that has been here for more than 100 years. It's political correctness gone mad....

That it is, my good man.

Beat manager Adrian Williams, of Avon and Somerset Police, welcomed the Asbo.

He said he had received complaints about the sign from school teachers, community leaders and members of the Somali community.

He said: "We are very pleased that the order has been made following
complaints from the community.

"It shows that this kind of behaviour, which is provocative, will not be tolerated."

Will anything non-Islamic be long tolerated in Britain?

Anti-dhimmitude in Germany. From Deutsche Welle, with thanks to Cathy J. Palmer:

Invoking new anti-hate legislation, a Berlin court ruled Wednesday that a well-known Turkish religious leader accused of preaching hatred should be extradited to Turkey.

The administrative court in Berlin accused 59-year-old Yacub Tadshi of asking for God's protection for suicide bombers in Israel and Iraq during a rally in the city center in 2004.

That same year, the Muslim preacher of Turkish origin who has lived in Berlin since 1971 used the occasion of an early Ramadan prayer to lash out against native Germans in his Mevlana mosque in Kreuzberg. Tadshi said Germans could only expect the flames of hell for their weird beliefs.

German public TV correspondent Reinhard Laska filmed the Imam's address.

"We were able to show how the Imam insulted all Germans in his Berlin mosque," he said. "He repeatedly said that all Germans were stinking people and doomed to go to hell because they were useless creatures and infidels. His words were all the more shocking as shortly before, the press spokesman of this mosque had told us about the Turks' strong interest in fostering good relations with native Germans. He said it was so important for people of different faiths to share views and live together peacefully - what a lie that turned out to be!"...

A lie? From the press spokesman of a mosque? We're shocked, shocked to hear of such a thing!

This is what makes for pandemic discrimination against and harassment of Christians in Pakistan. From Arab News, with thanks to Twostellas:

ISLAMABAD, The government of Pakistan has restored the column of religion in passport, said Federal Minister of Defense Rao Sikanader Iqbal here yesterday.

The column identifying the bearer's religious affiliation will be restored to the Pakistani passport, in a bid to avoid a clash with Islamic parties threatening a countrywide strike over the issue....

The move came ahead of a strike called by six-party Islamic alliance Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal to protest the government's policies including the deletion of religion column from the machine readable passports, which were launched late last year.

The Islamists have said the deletion of the column was a deliberate attempt by President Pervez Musharraf to damage the Islamic identity of the 150-million strong overwhelmingly Muslim nation....

The pioneering scholar of dhimmitude, Bat Ye'or, will be on the John Batchelor show tonight at 10:00PM EST (thanks to Jerry Gordon for the notice).

Listen in to hear continuing discussions of Eurabia, which is the title of Bat Ye'or's new book about the encroaching Islamization of Europe.

Go to www.wabcradio.com and listen live tonight.

UPDATE: Bat Ye'or's appearance has been postponed until March 31.

Caught in the act. From the Ottawa Citizen, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Two teachers at the Abraar Islamic school in Ottawa were suspended yesterday pending an investigation into the encouragement or incitement of hatred against Jews expressed in a young student's violence-laden writing project.

Principal Aisha Sherazi said the seven-member school board and
administration were "shocked" by teacher involvement in the project that was brought to her attention by the Citizen yesterday morning, and decided at an emergency meeting to suspend the instructors.

I'm sure they were shocked, shocked!

One teacher was apparently involved in the artistic production of the eight-page story of killing and martyrdom. Handwritten in Arabic and titled The Long Road, the cover page was illustrated by a drawing of a burning Star of David beside a machine-gun and Palestinian flag atop the Dome of the Rock, an ancient Muslim shrine in Jerusalem.

The other teacher had written comments on the student's paper, praising the boy's story of revenge for the assassination by Israeli forces a year ago of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, a co-founder of Hamas, in retaliation for suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.

"God bless you, your efforts are good," the teacher wrote on the title page.

"The story of the hero Ahmed and the hero Salah is still alive. The end will be soon when God unites us all in Jerusalem to pray there."

On the margins inside the story, the teacher had written a note endorsing the boy's fantasy of a young Ahmed Yassin and his friend, Salah El-Dine, ambushing Israeli soldiers.

"Without thinking, Ahmed took his M16 machine-gun and threw the bombs, and he showered the Jews; this resulted in the killing of the soldiers," the boy's text reads. "Salah said: 'You killed them all.' Ahmed answered: 'Praise be to God.'"

The fantasy heroes are quoted at the end of the story saying: "We promise God and the heroes of Al-Aksa that we will continue the path, we will continue in spite of the difficulties and the hardships until the victory or the martyrdom, we will not surrender; we will fight for the sake of God until the end."

Mrs. Sherazi declined to name the student, for privacy reasons, or the teachers until the investigation is complete. "Then we'll see what action we decide we want to take," she said.

Mrs. Sherazi, a 32-year-old teacher who took over as principal in recent months, does not speak or read Arabic. She expressed surprise about the drawing and the story, even though it had reportedly been displayed in a glass case at the school.

The Citizen obtained two translations of the story before asking the principal about it. She said such a subject was not on the curriculum, but it may have been a submission in a creative writing contest for the Arabic studies class, where students could choose their own topics....

From IOL, with thanks to Twostellas:

Assuit, Egypt - About 7 000 students demonstrated on Tuesday in the Upper Egyptian city of Assiut calling on the Arab League to declare war on Israel.

The demonstrators gathered amid tight security on the campuses of Assiut university and the local branch of Al-Azhar, the Islamic university with headquarters in Cairo.

Demonstrators shouted: "Leaders, be strong, we want the summit to declare war."

The protesters did not say which countries the Arab League should declare war on. However, students in Assiut screened films on Monday night about Israeli military action against the Palestinians and Lebanon.

The protests coincided with the start of the Arab League summit in Algiers and the first anniversary of former Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin's assassination in Gaza.

From Arab News, with thanks to Twostellas:

JEDDAH, A 25-year-old Indonesian woman who came to Saudi Arabia as a guest worker will have several of her fingers, toes and part of her right foot amputated because of gangrene after being tied up for a month in a bathroom by her Saudi sponsor, who also apparently beat her severely, injuring her eye and knocking several of her teeth out.

The reason given was that the woman, who worked as a maid, had not finished cleaning the house. The Indonesian government is demanding justice as Riyadh police continue to investigate this disgusting crime....

Nour Miyati told Fathallah that her sponsor punished her because she had not finished her housecleaning completely. She also told the official that her hands and feet had been tied up and that she had been imprisoned in a bathroom for a month. She said her sponsor warned her not to talk to police or embassy officials.

The medical report showed that there had been no sexual
assault....

Gee, I guess by comparison to other Saudi slaves, she got off lucky.

Still, I couldn't help but notice.

This story just came in:

TEXAS CITY, Texas (AP) - All but one of the 1,800 or so oil refinery workers have been accounted for after overnight search efforts following the thunderous blast that killed 14 and injured more than 100, officials said Thursday....

BP refinery records indicate the one unaccounted-for worker checked out and left the refinery, but no one has heard from him, Parus said. Those who died were all contractors for Los Angeles-based field services company J.E. Merritt, he said....

This one is from last July:

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Law enforcement officials said on Monday they are looking for a man seen taking pictures of two refineries in Texas City, Texas....

The man, described as white with dark hair, was seen taking pictures outside the refineries, all located on the same highway, at about 5 p.m. CDT on Saturday, said Bruce Clawson, emergency management and homeland security director for Texas City....

"This is based on the idea that al Qaeda does its homework," Clawson said. "That's not to say we don't have enough home-grown idiots already who might want to do something."

And this one from January 2004:

While FBI, Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs, the U.S. Coast Guard, state police and local law enforcement sources are publicly downplaying terrorism fears in the shooting of a guard at a BASF Corp. ammonia terminal in Freeport, Texas, some of those same sources are telling Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, off the record, they strongly suspect the guard stumbled into a terrorism reconnaissance operation....

Robbie House, the guard, questioned the driver of the truck about why he was in the vicinity of a large, multi-story ammonia tank. He told police the truck driver explained that he was taking pictures of it. When the guard turned to radio for help, the driver pulled out a handgun and shot House in the shoulder....

Of course, this explosion was most likely just an accident, but the vulnerability of the refineries has long been noted.

UPDATE: All workers are now accounted for (thanks to the Truth Seeker).

SECOND UPDATE: From AP, with thanks to EPG: Terrorism Ruled Out in Oil Refinery Blast

TEXAS CITY, Texas (AP) - FBI agents have ruled out terrorism, but federal regulators estimate it will take them months to determine what caused an oil refinery explosion that killed 15 and injured more than 100.

Investigators from two agencies, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, arrived Thursday at the 1,200-acre BP plant to start sorting through the debris.

Also Thursday, an FBI spokesman in Houston dismissed a statement posted on an Islamic Web site claiming responsibility for the blast. He said there was no indication of foul play.

Note the repeated claims to follow the Qur'an and Islamic tradition, which jihadists have backed up elsewhere with detailed expositions of Islamic theology. How would Badawi and Hooper respond to this? They haven't yet; so these guys continue unimpeded to make recruits among Muslims with these arguments. From the "Department of Indoctrination" of the Al-Qa'ida-Iraq organization's online magazine, courtesy of MEMRI, with thanks to RB:

"...What is the Al-Qa'ida organization in Iraq? This is an organization consisting of a group of Muslims from amongst the followers of the tradition and the community of believers [ ahl al-sunna wa'l jama'a ] which tries to please Allah by committing themselves to keep Allah's orders and proscriptions and to see to it that others do so [as well]... it has set for itself a number of central goals which are mutually interrelated and complementary:

"1) Renewing pure monotheism which was brought by our Prophet Muhammad amongst those whose monotheism was sullied by the filth of polytheistic elements, and the spreading of the axiom 'there is no God but Allah' in lands where Islam has not yet arrived.

"2) Jihad for the sake of Allah, so that His message be supreme, and in order to recapture all the lands of the Muslims from the hands of the infidels and the apostates, and to apply the Shari'a law, Allah's law, in these areas, without any distinction [in this respect] between ruler and ruled, and to free the Muslim prisoners of war, since this is a personal obligation [incumbent] on every Muslim, as all the ulama agree...

"3) To come to the aid of Muslims wherever they are and to reclaim the Muslim's dignity, which has been soiled by the [foreign] invaders and their agents, and his human rights of which he has been deprived, and to strive to improve his conditions and circumstances in every respect, both religious and this-wordly – material, social, educational, etc. – in accordance with the teachings of Islam...

"4) To re-establish the Rightly-Guided Caliphate in accordance with the Prophet's example, because [according to the tradition] 'whoever dies without having sworn allegiance to a Muslim ruler dies as an unbeliever.' [2]

"Our guiding principle with regard to our great goals is: [to follow] the Koran and the tradition of the Prophet, in the way of the righteous early generations, and [to follow] the elucidations of the great ulama from among those faithful to the Sunna [ ahl al-sunna ]....

"This is not an issue of Iraq in the geographic sense; rather it is an issue for our great Islam. Don't you see how all the infidels in the world have united and assembled armies from more than 30 countries to invade Iraq and to plunder its resources and to humiliate you and to violate your wives' honor. So why should your brothers the Jihad fighters - both foreigner and native [3] - be subject to reproach? These brothers of yours emigrated from their homelands, left their wives and children, and sacrificed their blood for your sake - to protect you, to protect your families, and to preserve your honor, and to drive the invaders from your land.

"Beware of the Western media's deception and of its agents, such as the 'Alawi government, who distort the image of your brothers the Jihad fighters, who came to you for your sake, without desiring for themselves neither your reward nor your gratitude, neither a penny nor a pound. They put their neck before your neck, their blood before your blood, and their life to ransom your life. God forbid that our Jihad should be [considered] civil strife [ fitna ]. Rather the avoidance of Jihad is civil strife. That was the verdict of Allah, who said of those who shirked Jihad, 'Surely they have already succumbed to temptation [ fitna ], and Hell engulfs the unbelievers.' [4]

"Come, Oh descendants of Khalid [Ibn Al-Walid], Qutayba [Ibn Muslim], and Al-Muthanna [Ibn Haritha], [5] rise up with your brothers who fight Jihad to conquer Iraq, and after that [to conquer] the rest of the Muslim lands that were conquered by the infidels. Extend a helping hand with whatever you can... to gain God's pleasure and to be saved from the fires of Hell, and in order to be worthy successors to good forefathers so as to free yourself from the guilt of shirking Jihad...

"As for you, soldier and policeman, we ask Allah to give you guidance before it is too late. You who betrayed the Muslims and who have degraded yourself in the service of the agents and under the command of the Cross in order to gain some crumbs from this world, trading your afterlife for your worldly goods... try to rectify what you have done wrong, before death overtakes you, and come back and return to your inborn Islamic nature, so that there be no more civil strife [ fitna ] and so that Allah's religion shall reign supreme. [6] If you do not do so, then the only thing you will deserve from us is the cutting off of your head as a punishment for your being a foreign agent and your betraying your religion and that of the Muslims. For you are the shield with which the occupying infidel defends himself. Repenting from being a foreign agent and joining the caravan of faith to make Allah's word supreme is surely better for you than this world and its goods, and we also would want and desire this much more."

Fjordman reports on the galloping Islamization of Sweden:

Malmö, Sweden's third largest city, which should be known to those following Muslim immigration to Scandinavia, has now taken another step towards its Islamization: Starting from the fall of 2005, the district of Hyllie will begin education in Arabic only for groups of immigrant preschool children. This seems logical, given that Muslims already make up close to one third of its population, and may well be the majority within a few years as native Swedes are leaving the city in record numbers. The idea is that once the children learn the language of their parents, it will become easier for them to learn Swedish as well. So the Swedish state paying for educating Swedish citizens on Swedish ground in Arabic is somehow supposed to increase integration. The idea is so ridiculous that even the regional newspaper Sydsvenskan is skeptical.

Yeah, that's it: it's because they come from broken homes, see? Probably this symposium's solution to this will be the panacea that the Islamic world always turns to in times of crisis: more Islam. And as their youth dive ever more deeply into the Qur'an and Sunnah, these seminar attendees will discover, lo and behold, more terrorism! And the sociologists can collect another paycheck coming up with another cockamamie explanation that ignores the real source of the problem.

From Arab News, with thanks to Romy:

RIYADH, 24 March 2005 — An unhappy home is the cause of youths going astray and eventually taking to terrorist activities. This was the general consensus of Saudi women delegates at a symposium on the role of the business community in combating terrorism, held yesterday at the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry (RCCI).

More than 200 male and female sociologists took part in the meeting held to coincide with the International Day of Social Services.

A woman sociologist pointed out that a broken home is bereft of understanding and communication with one another within the family. Such a family environment leads to frustration which eventually leads the youth to be misfits in society who resort to nefarious activities.

The symposium focused on the role of social services in combating terrorism. The speakers included Maj. Gen. Dr. Saad A. Al-Shahrani, dean of the College of Higher Studies at Naif Arab Academy for Security Sciences, and Professor Abdul Majeed Tash Muhammad Niazi, member of the Faculty of Social Services, Social Science College, Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University.

Muslim "militants" like this guy should be shipped COD to Ibrahim Hooper for instruction in the benign Islam that he demands Americans accept as axiomatic in the teeth of all the evidence. From the BBC, with thanks to cgiddensjr:

The Philippine military has arrested a suspected Muslim militant and found explosives believed to have been stored away for attacks on Manila over Easter.

Soldiers and police stepped up security this week after Muslim group the Abu Sayyaf vowed revenge for the deaths of several rebels in a prison uprising.

The military arrested the suspect, Tyron Santos, who was a convert to Islam, on Tuesday.

He led soldiers to 10 sacks of explosives and 18 improvised bombs.

They were in an abandoned house in Metro Manila.

Security has been tightened at train and bus terminals, airports, shopping malls, parks and churches, as Filipinos in the mainly Roman Catholic country prepare to celebrate the religious holiday of Easter.

Another unfortunate Muslim who misunderstood Islam seems to have killed Rafik Hariri. From Newsday, :

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Lebanese investigators have concluded that former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was killed by a suicide bomber driving an explosives-laden truck, according to two security officials familiar with the probe....

Many in the Lebanese opposition reject the suicide bomber explanation and insist that the bomb, which killed Hariri and 17 others, was planted underground. They argue such an operation would require greater planning and the knowledge of the country's security services. The opposition quickly blamed the assassination on Syria and its allies in the Lebanese government, but officials in Damascus and Beirut have denied any involvement.

Both sides are awaiting a preliminary report on the bombing due to be released today by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Oh. That guy will get to the bottom of this, no doubt about that.

Even if the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber, opposition leaders say they would still blame Syrian and Lebanese intelligence as complicit. There is a long history of intelligence agencies in the Middle East using front groups to carry out political assassinations.

A new piece on the jihad factories that are Islamic schools in Pakistan, from William Dalrymple in the New Statesman, :

Halfway along the dangerous road to Kohat - deep in the lawless tribal belt between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and where Osama Bin Laden is widely believed to be sheltering - we passed a small whitewashed shrine that had recently been erected by the side of the road: "That is where the army ambushed and killed two al-Qaeda men escaping from Afghanistan," said Javed Paracha. "Local people soon began to see the two martyrs in their dreams. Now we believe that they are saints. Already many cures and miracles have been reported. If any of our women want to ask anything special from God, they first come here."

He added: "They say that each shahid [martyr] emitted a perfume like that of roses. For many days a beautiful scent was coming from the place of their martyrdom."

Javed Paracha is a huge, burly tribal leader with a granite outcrop of nose jutting from a great fan of grey beard. In many ways he is the embodiment of everything that US policy-makers most fear and dislike about this part of the Muslim world. For Paracha is a dedicated Islamist, as well as a wily lawyer who has successfully defended al-Qaeda suspects in the Peshawar High Court. In his fortress-like stronghouse in Kohat he sheltered wounded Taliban fighters - and their frost-bitten women and children - fleeing across the mountains from the American Daisy Cutters at Tora Bora, and he was twice imprisoned by General Musharraf in the notorious prison at Dera Ismail Khan. There he was kept in solitary confinement while being questioned - and he alleges tortured - by CIA interrogators. On his release, he found his prestige among his neighbours had been immensely enhanced by his ordeal. His proudest boast, however, is building the two enormous madrasas he founded and financed, the first of which he says produced many of the younger leaders of the Taliban.

"They are the biggest madrasas in the [North-West] Frontier," he told me proudly after stopping to say a prayer at the al-Qaeda shrine. "The books are free. The food is free. The education is free. We give them free accommodation. In a poor and backward area like this, our madrasas are the only form of education. The government system is simply not here. "

Paracha got back in the car - the vehicle sinking to the left as he lowered himself into the back beside his two armed bodyguards - and added: "There are 200,000 jobless degree holders in this country. Mark my words, a more extreme form of the Taliban is coming to Pakistan. The conditions are so bad. The people are so desperate. They are waiting for a solution that will rid them of this feudal-army elite. The people want radical change. We teach them in the madrasas that only Islam can provide the justice they seek."

Read it all.

A CAIR press release entitled "Neocon Mag Promotes Anti-Muslim Hate Literature; CAIR Seeks Clarification, Apology from National Review" says this:

WASHINGTON, March 17 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called on a prominent national neoconservative magazine to clarify its policy on anti-Muslim hate following revelations that the publication distributed an Internet advertisement for an virulently Islamophobic book.

CAIR's request came in response to a complaint from a member of the National Review's e-mail list who received a message promoting an apparently self-published book that, according to the magazine, is a "guide into the dark mind of (the Prophet) Mohammed."

The National Review's review of the book states: "(The author) explains why Mohammed couldn't possibly be a true prophet, and reveals the true sources of his 'revelations.'"

It quotes the author as claiming: "Mohammed posed as the apostle of God...while his life is marked by innumerable marriages; and great licentiousness, deeds of rapine, warfare, conquests, unmerciful butcheries, all the time invoking God's holy name to sanction his evil deeds."

According to the National Review, the book shows how "Mohammed again and again justified his rapine and licentiousness with new 'divine revelations.'"

"This anti-Muslim screed is the literary equivalent of 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion' and should not be promoted by a publication that has any sense of decency," said CAIR Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper. "The National Review must clarify its position on Islamophobic hate speech and offer a public apology for promoting a book that so viciously attacks the faith of one-fifth of the world's population."

Hooper said anti-Muslim rhetoric often leads to discrimination and even violence.

What a load of radioactive hogwash, Ibrahim. And it's hogwash on several levels:

1. National Review didn't originate the advertising material that CAIR quotes here. I couldn't find it on their site, although it may be there somewhere (unless they have already caved). In fact, this is ad copy that has circulated to a number of book services; I found it here. (This is also a good place where you can buy the book.)

2. The book in question, The Life and Religion of Mohammed by Fr. J. L. Menezes, is not a volume of "anti-Muslim hate literature." It was written over eighty years ago by a Roman Catholic priest who was a missionary in India. I have read it, and there is nothing inflammatory or inciteful in it; in fact, it is suffused with a pastoral love for Muslims.

3. The author, as a Christian priest, obviously did not accept Muhammad's claim to be a prophet. If it is Islamophobic hate literature for a book to explain "why Mohammed couldn't possibly be a true prophet," then the Christian Faith itself is Islamophobic and hateful. (And that, of course, is precisely the view that prevails among all too many today in Pakistan, where many Christians have been victimized under the nation's blasphemy laws after being confronted by Muslims and refusing to acknowledge Muhammad as a prophet.)

4. As this press release itself reflects, The Life and Religion of Mohammed doesn't say anything false about Muhammad. "Mohammed posed as the apostle of God...while his life is marked by innumerable marriages; and great licentiousness, deeds of rapine, warfare, conquests, unmerciful butcheries, all the time invoking God's holy name to sanction his evil deeds." Aside from the judgment that all this is "evil," what in it is CAIR actually denying? That Muhammad claimed to be the apostle of God? No, I'm sure Hooper and Co. would affirm that. That he was married more than once? Universally acknowledged by Muslims. That his career was marked by "great licentiousness, deeds of rapine, warfare, conquests, unmerciful butcheries"? Let's take each of those in turn.

a. "Great licentiousness":
Again, these are judgmental words, but the judgment is not unreasonable or unfounded. Just one of many possible examples comes from the Qur'an, in which Allah allows Muhammad to have more wives than are allowed to other Muslims: "O Prophet! Lo! We have made lawful unto thee thy wives unto whom thou hast paid their dowries, and those whom thy right hand possesseth of those whom Allah hath given thee as spoils of war, and the daughters of thine uncle on the father's side and the daughters of thine aunts on the father's side, and the daughters of thine uncle on the mother's side and the daughters of thine aunts on the mother's side who emigrated with thee, and a believing woman if she give herself unto the Prophet and the Prophet desire to ask her in marriage - a privilege for thee only, not for the (rest of) believers..." (Qur'an 33:50)
b. "Deeds of rapine":
Yet again this is not an unreasonable judgment. The Qur'an assumes that Muslims will be waging war and forcibly seizing others' property, and so far from forbidding this, only insists that the Prophet get a share: "And know that whatever ye take as spoils of war, lo! a fifth thereof is for Allah, and for the messenger and for the kinsman (who hath need) and orphans and the needy and the wayfarer, if ye believe in Allah and that which We revealed unto Our slave on the Day of Discrimination, the day when the two armies met" (Qur'an 8:41).
c. "Warfare":
Muhammad fought in many battles and enjoined warfare on his followers:
"Warfare is ordained for you, though it is hateful unto you; but it may happen that ye hate a thing which is good for you, and it may happen that ye love a thing which is bad for you. Allah knoweth, ye know not" (Qur'an 2:216).
Muhammad, of course, started almost all the battles in which he fought. A sampling: "Ibn Shihab reported that Allah’s Messenger made an expedition to Tabuk and he (the Holy Prophet) had in his mind (the idea of threatening the) Christians of Arabia in Syria and those of Rome" (Sahih Muslim, book 37, no. 6670).
d. "Conquests":
Did Muhammad not conquer? "And that Our forces, they surely must conquer" (Qur'an 37:173).
"Narrated 'Amr bin Salama: We were at a place which was a thoroughfare for the people, and the caravans used to pass by us and we would ask them, "What is wrong with the people? What is wrong with the people? Who is that man?. They would say, "That man claims that Allah has sent him (as an Apostle), that he has been divinely inspired, that Allah has revealed to him such-and-such." I used to memorize that (Divine) Talk, and feel as if it was inculcated in my chest (i.e. mind) And the 'Arabs (other than Quraish) delayed their conversion to Islam till the Conquest (of Mecca). They used to say." "Leave him (i.e. Muhammad) and his people Quraish: if he overpowers them then he is a true Prophet. So, when Mecca was conquered, then every tribe rushed to embrace Islam, and my father hurried to embrace Islam before (the other members of) my tribe" (Sahih Bukhari, volume 5, book 59, number 595).
e. "Unmerciful butcheries":
Ibn Ishaq, Muhammad's earliest biographer (and a pious Muslim) recounts the massacre of the Jewish Banu Qurayzah: "The apostle went out to the market of Medina (which is still its market today) and dug trenches in it. Then he sent for [the men of Banu Qurayza] and struck off their heads in those trenches as they were brought out to him in batches....There were 600 or 700 in all, though some put the figure as high as 800 or 900." (Ibn Ishaq's Sira, 689).

CAIR may differ with Fr. Menezes's assessment of this material, but it can't very well deny its existence. Muslim apologists try to justify Muhammad's marriages, battles, and killings in various ways, but it would be the height of chutzpah to deny they took place at all. Would CAIR, in contrast, paint for us a picture of Muhammad the Rotarian?

5. "Hooper said anti-Muslim rhetoric often leads to discrimination and even violence." Fr. Menezes calls for no violence. Everything he says about Muhammad is, as I have shown, easily established from Islamic sources. What this charge does is attempt to divert attention from the real violence committed by jihadists today to a chimera of violence against Muslims in America, and thereby silence criticism of Islam and, in particular, investigations of the sources of Islamic terror in the Qur'an and Sunnah.

But what about when the jihadists themselves quote the same passages to justify their behavior? Surely they aren't "Islamophobic" too, are they? Of course they aren't -- and if non-Muslims can't look into Islamic sources to investigate the causes of jihad violence, it plays into their hands: the less Americans know about how they recruit and motivate terrorists, the less we can do about it.

6. "This anti-Muslim screed is the literary equivalent of 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.'" No it isn't. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a malicious work of fiction. But I have cited Islamic sources only in illustrating each of the points above. Is CAIR ready to say that all that (and much more that could be adduced) is false?

Of course not. They would say (except that they won't have to, because they won't be called to account) that it is all taken out of context. Yet no one has ever satisfactorily explained in what context this all becomes benign.

Finally, the book is not "self-published." It was first published in the 1920s; what is being advertised now is a new reprint from Roman Catholic Books.

If CAIR succeeds in intimidating NR into silence or getting them to drop this book, it will be a victory for those who don't want Americans to know the uncomfortable details about Muhammad that are in the book. Unfortunately, however, jihad terrorists around the world today know these elements of the life of Muhammad quite well, and are imitating them. Ignorance of them on the part of Americans will only make us more vulnerable.

Hugh Fitzgerald, the Vice President of the Jihad Watch advisory board, discusses a choice bit of dhimmitude from Rajiv Chandrasekaran, the Washington Post’s former Baghdad bureau chief:

“The US needs to find a way to engage the Arab media, rather than shut down, marginalize, and ostracize news mediums such as Al-Jazeera,” said Rajiv Chandrasekaran, the Washington Post’s former Baghdad bureau chief.

No, we don't have to "engage the Arab media." We should be doing everything we can to "shut down, marginalize, and ostracize news mediums [sic] such as al-Jazeera."

Hundreds of thousands of households in the United States receiving propaganda for the Jihad, for that is what the worldview of Al-Jazeera is all about, is a security threat. Does Rajiv Chandrasekaran speak as one who has studied what Islam teaches, in all of its main canonical texts, or is he one more Tom Friedman, skimming on the surface and, as a mere reporter (not all reporters are mere reporters -- think of Peroncel-Hugoz, or Arnold Hottinger -- but a good many are), who may believe that because he was the Washington Post's "Baghdad bureau chief" (what a satisfying phrase that must be for reporters -- "bureau chief"), he understands things in the Middle East. But without an understanding of what is essentially kept from the superficial Western reporters, with their breathless reports on what happened that day, that hour, an understanding of the deepest wellsprings and promptings of Muslim behavior, of the role of Islam in the life of any Muslim society (simply incomparably more present and vital and overpowering than any that of any other faith, so that Westerners have a hard time understanding just how omnipresent Islam is, especially when they are likely to have their closest contact with people who know exactly how to minimize this, to present themselves as quasi-Western men).

Al-Jazeera is a cross between TASS and Der Stuermer. During World War II the Americans would not have stood for one minute to have Nazi propaganda broadcast into this country. During the Cold War, the Russians were ultimately allowed only to produce one glossy magazine, full of smiling kholkhozniks fulfilling the glorious five-year-plan on a collective farm, and of course articles about "50 Years of Soviet Rule in Azerbaijan" and "Pushkin and the Great October Revolution." But we already have a small army -- no, a large army -- of apologists for Islam abroad in the land. We have a hundred different Muslim groups, spreading a view of Islam far more deceptive than the best the clumsy Soviet propagandists could ever come up with.

Al-Jazeera is a spreader of lies and nonsense. It has the blood of Americans -- beginning with Americna soldiers in Iraq -- on its hands. Allowing it to broadcast in this country is madness.

We are run, in large part, by people who are ignorant, and utterly obstinate in that ignorance, of Islam. Part innocence, part stupidity, part denial because to recognize the truth means to recognize how much of what has been done, over the past few decades, implicates so many of our ruling class in past and present follies, this phenomenon is akin to what one observed in the 1930s. But the folly of the 1930s came to an end with Hitler's invasion of Poland. Reality broke in.

There will be no cross-border attack of large, mechanized forces of Islam. The attack is different; it involves not so much qital, or battlefield combat, as the use of "wealth" and "pen, tongue" (propaganda) and demography, the latest weapon of the Jihad to create conditions everywhere so that Islam may triumph. This is not a fiction, a dystopia. Right now, in tolerant Holland, the leader of a major political group, Geert Wilders, lives in hiding, moving from army base to army base. The same is true for one of the most outstanding members of the Dutch parliament, Ayaan Hirsi Ali. In England, one Will Cummins lost his job even for writing some very mild home truths about Islam; so did a popular BBC host. At the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva, when evidence was produced that high-school textbooks in Egypt contained Qur'anic passages urging the killing of Infidels, the Pakistani ambassador, speaking for all 56 or 57 members of the Organization of Islamic Countries, called such a charge an act of defamation and incitement to hatred, and prevented the textbooks to be shown. In other words, Muslims can inculcate hatred of Infidels (and it is all over the Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira), but those who point this out are guilty of "whipping up hatred" themselves.

One wonders of Rajiv Chandresekar has any idea of what is really in Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira. Now that he has returned from being "Baghdad Bureau Chief" with all of its excitement, he can actually begin to study what Islam teaches, and what has been the treatment meted out to non-Muslims -- Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Hindus, Buddhists -- under Muslim rule. It would be instructive.

If the Administration will not ban Al-Jazeera, then Congress should do so. And the Democrats, who by being even worse in their misunderstanding of Islam, make this Administration look good even when it is far from being what it should be, need to come up with a few more Henry Jacksons, and many fewer William Fulbrights.

Time to fill in another country on the Tiny Minority of Extremists World Map. From NewsMax, :

Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reports that the al-Qaida terrorist group is active in Panama and may be making the Central American country a base of operations.

Panamanian security chief Javier Martinez, speaking at a U.S.-organized seminar in his country earlier this month, said al-Qaida also is planning an attack on the Panama Canal.

The paper did not cite additional specifics.

Jihad TV is coming! From Arab News, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

WASHINGTON, 22 March 2005 — Al-Jazeera news channel, the bete noire of both the Bush administration and many Arab governments, is shown on a daily basis to 35 to 50 million Arab households throughout the world.

Soon Americans will be viewing it in their homes — in English....

And a moral equivalence alert from the WaPo's former Baghdad chatter chief:

“The US needs to find a way to engage the Arab media, rather than shut down, marginalize, and ostracize news mediums such as Al-Jazeera,” said Rajiv Chandrasekaran, the Washington Post’s former Baghdad bureau chief.

Hugh Fitzgerald discusses Rajiv Chandrasekaran's remark here.

Al-Sadr's goons spread a little Islamic cheer at a picnic in Iraq. From the Times Online, with thanks to Treehugger:

THE students had begun to lay out their picnic in the spring sunshine when the men attacked.

“There were dozens of them, armed with guns, and they poured into the park,” Ali al-Azawi, 21, the engineering student who had organised the gathering in Basra, said.

“They started shouting at us that we were immoral, that we were meeting boys and girls together and playing music and that this was against Islam.

“They began shooting in the air and people screamed. Then, with one order, they began beating us with their sticks and rifle butts.” Two students were said to have been killed.

Standing over them as the blows rained down was the man who gave the order, dressed in dark clerical garb and wearing a black turban. Ali recognised him immediately as a follower of Hojatoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shia cleric. Ali realised then that the armed men were members of Hojatoleslam al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army, a private militia that fought American forces last year and is now enforcing its own firebrand version of Islam.

The picnic had run foul of the Islamist powers that increasingly hold sway in the fly-blown southern city, where religious militias rule the streets, forcing women to don the veil and closing down shops that sell alcohol or music....

That victory has brought to a head the issue of whether Iraq’s new constitution will adopt Islamic law — or Sharia — as most religious Shia leaders desire.

In Basra, however, Islamic militias already are beginning to apply their own version of that law, without authority from above or any challenge from the police.

Students say that there was nothing spontaneous about the attack. Police were guarding the picnic in the park, as is customary at any large public gathering, but allowed the armed men in without any resistance.

One brought a video camera to record the sinful spectacle of the picnic, footage of which was later released to the public as a warning to others.

It showed images of one girl struggling as a gunman ripped her blouse off, leaving her half-naked. “We will send these pictures to your parents so they can see how you were dancing naked with men,” a gunman told her. Two students who went to her aid were shot — one in the leg, the other twice in the stomach. The latter was said to have died of his injuries. Fellow students say that the girl later committed suicide. Another girl who was severely beaten around the head lost her sight.

Far from disavowing the attack, senior al-Sadr loyalists said that they had a duty to stop the students’ “dancing, sexy dress and corruption”.

“We beat them because we are authorised by Allah to do so and that is our duty,” Sheik Ahmed al-Basri said after the attack. “It is we who should deal with such disobedience and not the police.”

After escaping with two students, Ali reached a police station and asked for help. “What do you expect me to do about it?” a uniformed officer asked.

This time the people of Baghdad fought back against the jihadists. From AP, :

BAGHDAD -- Shopkeepers and residents on one of Baghdad's main streets pulled out their own guns yesterday and killed three hooded terrorists who were shooting at passers-by, giving a rare victory to civilians increasingly frustrated by the violence bleeding Iraq.

The clash in the capital's southern Doura neighborhood erupted when terrorists in three cars sprayed bullets at shoppers. Three persons -- a man, a woman and a child -- were wounded....

Why, we are. Annie Jacobsen explains how in Women's Wall Street (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

The Center for Security Policy, a non-partisan, non-profit project in Washington DC., recently released an analysis of the investment patterns of America's public pension funds. The 100+ page report, The Terrorism Investments of The 50 States, points out that America's top 100 pension systems invest between 15 to 23 percent of their portfolios in companies doing business in terrorist-sponsoring states. The State Department identifies terrorist-sponsoring states as Iran, Syria, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, Cuba and Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

Read it all.

Daniel Pipes (thanks to RB) expertly targets the latest lunacy from the Administration:

If Al-Qaeda renounced terrorism, would the U.S. government welcome its running candidates in American elections? Had the Nazis denounced violence, would Hitler have become an acceptable chancellor for Germany? Not likely, because the tactics of Al-Qaeda and the Nazis matter less than their goals.

Similarly, Hezbollah and Hamas are unacceptable because of their goals. These organizations are important elements of the Islamist movement that seeks to create a global totalitarian order along the lines of what has already been created in Iran, Sudan, and in Afghanistan under the Taliban. They see themselves as part of a cosmic clash between Muslims and the West in which the victor dominates the world.

Washington, trying to be consistent in its push for democracy, prefers to ignore these goals and instead endorses involvement by Hezbollah and Hamas in the political process, pending their making some small changes.

Ah, yes. A nip here, a tuck there, and Hamas will look just like the Christian Democrats.

These signals began last week when President Bush stated that although Hezbollah, a Lebanese group, is "a terrorist organization," he hopes it will change that designation "by laying down arms and not threatening peace." White House spokesman Scott McClellan then elaborated on this comment by specifying the two alternatives: "Organizations like Hezbollah have to choose, either you're a terrorist organization or you're a political organization."

Why is it an either/or? Why can't they get their minds around the possibility that a jihadist organization might pursue violence and political action in pursuit of its ultimate goals?

Bush himself explained further what he meant a day later, presenting elections as a method to shed the terrorist designation: "I like the idea of people running for office. There's a positive effect when you run for office. Maybe some will run for office and say, vote for me, I look forward to blowing up America. I don't know, I don't know if that will be their platform or not. But I don't think so. I think people who generally run for office say, vote for me, I'm looking forward to fixing your potholes, or making sure you got bread on the table."

Mr. President, you are assuming too much. Baalbeck isn't Boise. What plays in one won't necessarily play in the other.

Hamas, a Palestinian organization, Secretary of State Rice then noted, could also evolve in the right direction once it enters the democratic process:

"When people start getting elected and have to start worrying about constituencies and have to start worrying not about whether their fire-breathing rhetoric against Israel is being heard, but about whether or not that person's child down the street is able to go to a good school or that road has been fixed or life is getting better, that things start to change."...

Somebody, please, fetch me my smelling salts...Read it all...read it...all...

"Violence Against Chinese Christian Women in Indonesia Warrants Asylum, Ninth Circuit Panel Rules," from the Metropolitan News-Enterprise, with thanks to Twostellas:

Violence against ethnic Chinese in Indonesia, particularly against women and Christians, is sufficiently pervasive to require that a Chinese Christian woman be found eligible for asylum, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday.

Overturning a ruling by a divided panel of the Board of Immigration Appeals, the court ruled that Marjorie Kinda Lolong's petition for review be granted. The attorney general will now have the final decision as to whether Lolong, who applied for asylum while here as a student in 1998, may remain permanently in the United States.

Senior Judge Betty B. Fletcher, writing for the Ninth Circuit, noted that elements within the Indonesian military have been linked to the violence, even though the country's president and other leaders have called for tolerance.

"Evidence of the government's willingness to control the perpetrators of ethnic and religious violence in Indonesia fails to rebut the
overwhelming evidence of the government's inability to control those forces," Fletcher wrote.

The jurist cited a "voluminous record that documents ongoing discrimination and violence against the ethnic Chinese minority in Indonesia," which the court addressed in another asylum case last year.

Lolong, the judge noted, filed her application just months after
riots in which dozens of ethnic Chinese women were raped; the State Department has estimated the number at 300. Lolong testified that one of the victims was a friend of hers, and that another friend had escaped a rape attempt; both women became afraid to leave their homes, she said.

Fletcher also cited evidence that anti-Chinese violence has spread to areas of the country where it had been rare. "Indeed, the Indonesian government's decision to permit Chinese language press and cultural displays has caused heightened resentment and acts of retaliation," the judge said....

Let me get this straight: it was the government's own fault that violence broke out and 300 women were raped? Because they allowed "Chinese language press and cultural displays?" Oh, come now. Even the good judge Fletcher must blush at the absurdity of this kind of moral equivalence.

This bit of dhimmi idiocy comes to us from Catholic News, with thanks to Twostellas:

Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart's Vicar for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations has explained its support for the Islamic Council of Victoria's anti-vilification case against Catch the Fire Ministries, before the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

A statement from the Archdiocese's Ecumenical and Interfaith Commission says that Episcopal Vicar Fr Peter Kenny sought to make an intervention on behalf of the Islamic Council. The Uniting Church also sought to make such an intervention. Dr Gary Bouma, an Anglican priest, appeared as an expert witness on behalf of the Islamic Council....

The Commission said that the intention of the Catholic intervention was to show the respect the Catholic Church has towards Islam.

"We wished to show our respect in the face of possible vilification, in accordance with 'with the official policy of the universal Catholic Church' which urges [Catholics] to 'acknowledge, preserve, and encourage the spiritual and moral truths found among [Muslims], also their social life and culture'"....

But was there actual vilification? Or just truth-telling? Must this "official policy of the universal Catholic Church" be implemented at the expense of accepting incomplete and deliberately distorted versions of what Islam actually teaches?

Here is an excellent summary report that brings together many stories we have posted here. Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli in MEMRI (with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist), discusses the plight of Iraqi Christians:

The high level of violence in Iraq has affected every sector of the Iraqi population, and Christians are no exception. Christians, however, have been specifically targeted by Islamists, who either accuse them of collaborating with the "invading crusading army" or label them infidels. As Islamist pressures mounted in Iraq, following its occupation, Christian businesses were destroyed, Christian university students were harassed and Christian women were forced to wear the veil. [5]...

Recently, the unidentified "Brigades for the Liquidation of Christian Agents and Spies" has threatened to liquidate those working with the multinational forces and to "pursue them in their homes and churches." In placards posted in Christian areas, the Brigades wrote:

"The Christian minority enjoys peace and security in the land of the Muslim and in our country in particular. Its members have held senior positions in the State. But their malevolence toward Muslims became evident when the occupier entered our country. He found great support among them in the form of translators and agents who acted as informers against Muslims. Their churches receive evangelist groups. They spread moral corruption and pornography in our streets. Muslims have been arrested, women raped and houses destroyed as a result of Christians being agents of the occupiers." [7]

Violence Against Churches

In August 2004, five churches, one in Baghdad and four in Mosul, were hit in one day, in a coordinated attack that killed 12 people. In October, five churches in Baghdad were hit on the first day of the Muslim month of Ramadan. In November, eight people were killed in two church bombings. [8] The August attack on churches was followed on September 10 by mortar attacks against the Assyrian town in Bakhdeda (also referred to as Qarqosh ) in the Ninevah Governorate in northern Iraq. [9]

The Destruction of Businesses

With the public sector and the military all but closed to them, Christians have focused on the services sector of the economy and retail business. Because of Islamic restrictions on alcohol consumption, Iraqi governments have limited the liquor retail business to Christians, who, in turn, have been meeting an obviously high demand for alcoholic beverages among a large segment of the Iraqi Muslim population....

Shortly after the fall of Saddam, Islamists, who took control of the streets of many Iraqi cities, began to target Christian owners of liquor stores. They first ordered the owners to close their businesses; if the owners failed to comply, the Islamists gutted the stores and often killed the owners. An example is liquor merchant Bashir Toma Alias, who was shot in the head in the center of a bazaar in Basra while on his way home to celebrate Christmas. [10]...

Often the police stand idly by in the face of crimes committed in their presence because they are afraid of the armed Islamists or because they sympathize with their aims.

The Christians complain that after they were driven out of the liquor business by Islamist groups, Muslims have taken over the business and continue to sell liquor publicly. [14]

The Islamists have also targeted barber shops run by Christians because the Islamists object to haircuts and to shaving. [15]

Harassment of Students

Christian students at Iraqi universities are also subjected to harassment and often to violence. At the University of Mosul, the second largest university in Iraq, 1,500 Christian students recently decided to suspend their studies because of threats to their lives by Islamists who have taken control of the university. [16] Because many of these students traveled to campus in buses from outside the city, they were afraid that their transportation would be bombed if they persisted in attending the university. [17]...

Christmas Celebrations

Christians celebrated Christmas in their homes, for fear of attacks. Most churches avoided the traditional midnight Mass or large gatherings of churchgoers. [20] Indeed, the churches called upon their parishioners to avoid coming to churches on Christmas out of concern for their safety. [21]...

Conversion to Islam

Chaldeans also complain about pressures to convert to Islam. When a parent converts to Islam all minors in the family are forcefully converted regardless of the wishes of the other parent. [24]

Even though this is a long excerpt, there is much, much more. Read it all.

First there was that little matter of jihad genocide, and now there's the really big problem: alcohol sales. From the BBC, with thanks to Adam:

At least 21 people have died in Sudan and another six have been blinded after drinking illegally-produced alcohol, the country's interior ministry says.

In a newspaper statement, the ministry warned people of the dangers of consuming contaminated alcohol.

It said a campaign was being launched to close down illegal breweries.

Alcohol sales are banned in northern Sudan under Islamic law, but displaced non-Muslim southerners living around Khartoum frequently brew their own.

Imposing Islamic Sharia law on a population with a sizeable non-Muslim minority has long proved difficult for Sudan's Islamist government, says the BBC's Jonah Fisher in Khartoum.

The unpopularity of Sharia in the mainly Christian south contributed to the 21-year-long civil war - and now the question of alcohol in Khartoum is proving a real headache,, our correspondent says....

Yeah, that 21-year genocidal jihad was tough -- and now comes the real headache: moonshine.

As part of the recent peace deal between the north and south, a commission is being set up to protect the rights of non-Muslims in Khartoum.

However, the government has made it clear that Sharia law and the selling of alcohol is not up for negotiation.

So what rights exactly will be protected for non-Muslims? Only, evidently, those of the dhimma: toe the line, bow and scrape, keep your mouth shut, and you might not get brutalized.

The tiny minority of extremists seems to have a bit of support among Malaysian authorities. From AP, :

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- Malaysia has released from prison a man who allegedly financed the deadly Bali bombings in 2002, as well as five other suspects who trained with weapons and explosives in Afghanistan, officials said Tuesday.

None of the six had ever been charged with a crime. All had been imprisoned under laws that allow for indefinite detention without trial.

Wan Min Wan Mat, a former university lecturer who was detained in 2002, allegedly provided about US$30,500 to members of the Jemaah Islamiyah terror group to carry out the Bali bombings, which killed 202 people, mostly foreigners.

Wan Min was released on Monday "after he had shown remorse over his past actions and militant-like views," a security official told The Associated Press on customary condition of anonymity. He did not elaborate.

Oh! He showed remorse! That makes it all OK!

More on Hatun Surucu, from the LA Times, with thanks to Nicolei:

BERLIN - Frost covers the roses, and the scrawled eulogies are tattered near the sidewalk where Hatun Surucu was gunned down. The attackers appeared on a cold night more than a month ago. Three shots were fired and the young Turkish woman crumpled in the blurred glare of a streetlight.

The accused assailants fled to a place that Surucu knew well: the home where she was raised. Her killers, police say, were her brothers.

A 23-year-old single mother seeking to escape tradition and religious constraints, Surucu was the sixth Muslim woman to have died in the German capital since October in suspected "honor killings," slayings arranged by families who believe that their reputations have been stained.

I just cannot believe these sweet folks would do such a thing.

Such crimes are rarely mentioned in Germany's newspapers.

Why not?

But Surucu's public slaying has instigated fresh debates on politics, immigration, human rights and a rigorous Islam adopted by a minority of Muslims confronted with poverty, discrimination and liberal European attitudes.

Ah, that's it, you see. They were driven to it by poverty, discrimination, and liberal attitudes. It certainly isn't anything for which they themselves have any responsibility.

The case is a portrait of contradictions - much like Surucu, whose memorial pictures show her either wearing the hijab, the head scarf of her Eastern heritage, or with the uncovered hair of her Western aspirations.

"Hatun couldn't bring her two worlds together," said Marko Katovcic, a classmate in an electrical apprentice program. "There is too much contradiction between these worlds. We knew she had problems, but she didn't talk about private things."

Surucu's violent fate is a verse in the larger epic of European immigration. The continent's Muslim population has nearly doubled to about 14 million over the last decade. Many Muslim immigrants seek immediate assimilation. Others practice their religion and traditions while embracing their adopted countries. A small but growing proportion turns to more radical religious precepts that have unsettled the continent since Sept. 11, 2001, and last year's Madrid train bombings....

Hatun married and left a husband and returned home to live alone.

"What's worse, she didn't want anything to do with her biological family. They couldn't figure this out. She just didn't want to be controlled anymore."...

Gee, I just can't figure that out.

A new entry for the Here We Go Again Department, from the Journal News of Westchester, NY, with thanks to Nicolei.

PURCHASE - The teachers were gathered at round tables, answering a quiz about the Jewish scripture, the New Testament and the Quran. They were asked to match the holy book with the quotations, which included references to Adam in the garden, Moses parting the sea and the immaculate conception of Mary. To the surprise of some, the correct match for all of the above was the Quran, the Islamic holy book.

See, it's just like the Bible! See, Muslims hate terrorism as much as anyone else! See, terrorists are just a tiny minority of extremists, like the KKK! I can write the rest of the script without even having been there. And of course, the chances they studied the jihad verses are as great as those of the proverbial snowball.

"For most people, this quiz serves as a wake-up call," said Audrey Shabbas, who led the workshop, "Teaching about the Arab World and Islam," at Manhattanville College in Purchase yesterday. "When talking about Judaism, Christianity and Islam, we're talking about connections, not just similarities."

Shabbas' organization, the Arab World and Islamic Resources, conducts workshops nationwide to help educators understand Arab culture and history, as well as Islamic faith, and to bring that knowledge into the classroom.

The workshop included discussions about geography, the different populations of Muslims, and the connections between Arabs and Muslims and the United States.

Many of the 21 teachers who participated were history teachers, but others taught elementary school or art and came to the workshop to learn more about the traditions of the Muslim and Arab students in their schools.

Theresa Kubasak, who teaches second grade at a Manhattan school, said she wanted to learn more about her students' backgrounds.

"It validates the kids' cultures who are sitting in my classroom," she said. "I have all kinds of kids who have experienced war and racism. They deserve to have a teacher who understands their culture."

Louise Kuklis, an economics and global studies teacher at Edgemont High School, wanted to tackle her own assumptions and misconceptions.

"Ever since Sept. 11," she said, "kids have had so many questions.
They're always wondering what is this religion that terrorism comes from. I'm trying to give them awareness of Muslim
society."...

Yes, of course, we're all just one big, happy family - that's the ticket, just one big, happy family...let's not worry about who gets to play the Daddy.

"Islamist Organizations Use Public Television to Market Sharia Law to American Youth," from Andre Rublev in Sixth Column Against Jihad, with thanks to LGF:

For Most Americans who regularly watch the news, the term “Sharia law” evokes gruesome images of beheadings, punitive amputations, and women being stoned to death. Muslims who do not approve of the cruelty and misogyny that is often associated with Sharia have two legitimate options for dissociating these practices from Islam. They can either reject Sharia law altogether (much like modern day Judaism no longer believes in the application of Mosaic law), or they can at least demand that the egregious human rights violations that are currently associated with Sharia be declared forever obsolete.

A high school teaching module prepared by the Council on Islamic Education titled “What is Sharia?” rejects the first option by describing Sharia as the "centerpiece and backbone” of Islam 1. It ignores the second option by failing to make any reference whatsoever to the barbarism and misogyny that is currently associated with Sharia law. Despite this appalling oversight, students are expected to explain significance of the five major schools of Islamic law, list the fields of knowledge required for a qualified Muslim jurist, and learn a total of no less than 21 legal terms. In an era when college professors are lamenting the lack of basic knowledge of modern-day high school graduates, it is amazing that anyone should remotely consider supplementing their social studies curricula with so much arcane minutia.

Read it all.

Is blogging forbidden by Sharia? Un-Islamic? If not, then why the restrictions in a culture that supposedly so highly values the free exchange of ideas? From William Fisher in the Lebanese Daily Star, via AINA, with thanks to Nicolei:

In democratic countries, personal Web sites known as Weblogs have grown exponentially over the past few years. In the United States, for example, there are literally millions of "blogs."

Not yet in the Middle East, even though there are many parallels in the region with what has made the phenomenon explode in the United States. For example, blogging technology is available to anyone with access to the Internet, it is cheap, indeed free, and content can easily be created in Arabic, Hebrew, Persian and other languages. While home-computer ownership is still embryonic, the deep suspicion of government-owned mainstream media has almost certainly helped spur the growth in the region's Weblogs.

But there is at least one critical difference. In most of the countries of the Middle East, using a personal Weblog to express political dissent can land someone in jail as easily as taking part in an unauthorized political protest in a public square. For example, recently in Iran - one of the worst anti-blogger offenders - a blogger was jailed for 14 years for "spying and aiding foreign counterrevolutionaries," after using his site to criticize the arrest of other online journalists. Despite the risks, an estimated 75,000 Iranians among the country's five million Internet users maintain online blogs. Especially among middle class youth, they have become an important way of expressing dissatisfaction.

Mona al-Tahawy, a columnist at the London-based Saudi daily Ash-Sharq al-Awsat, writes that bloggers in Iran and Iraq "have inspired others in the Arab world." She also adds: "Despite working in an elite medium, requiring a computer and literacy, bloggers are the voice of the true Arab Street, especially the young."

Like Iran, most countries of the region impose varying degrees of
restriction on Weblogs. Saudi Arabia, where authorities block some 400,000 Web sites, is among the most restrictive. It is unclear how many blogsites there are in the kingdom, but those that are accessible focus largely on political dissent.

Typical is a site called "The Religious Policeman." One recent posting
asked:

"What reforms? There aren't any reforms! The government promised to set up a higher commission on women's affairs, guaranteed women participation in the recent National Dialogue Forum and in the National Human Rights Commission."

It adds: "The National Dialogue Forum agreed to change nothing, the 'team photo' had no women in it, anyone with any sense left in
tears."...

We know the feeling.

From AINA , with thanks to Nicolei, who comments: "It seems that the Arabs' cry for the "right to return" applies only to the Palestinian Arabs."

Demonstrators from both Turkmen and Arab Shiites ethnic groups turned out for a rally held in the northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk Friday night, to denounce the a transitional law and its article 58, which if implemented, would give the right of return to tens of thousands of Kurds to Kirkuk.

Local Sadr spokesman, Sheik Ahmed al-Lamy said, "Kirkuk must remain a city that belongs to all religions: Turkmen, Christian, Arabs and Kurdish, and that it must not be dominated by Kurdish rule alone."

Interim Foreign Minister Kurd Hoshyar al-Zebari said that the government was committed to resettling displaced Kurds, but also placed importance on the arbitration over property disputes that may arise between the Arabs and the Kurds.

Tiny minority of extremists update: tens of thousands of demonstrators in Pakistan from "an alliance of Islamic parties." From CNN, :

LAHORE, Pakistan (CNN) -- Tens of thousands of people from all religious parties have staged a rally in Karachi against Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, declaring him unacceptable because of his pro-American policies.

During Sunday's rally, Muthaida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), an alliance of Islamic parties, called for a nationwide general strike on April 2 to protest rising unemployment and inflation, the promotion of secularism and the exclusion of religious affiliations on passports.

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, head of the Pakistan-Muslim League, announced he would support the strike.

Qazi Hussain Ahmed, president of the Islamic parties' alliance, told
demonstrators the march marks the beginning of the opposition's campaign to oust Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless military coup in 1999.

"The illegal government of General Musharraf will end shortly and we will not accept another American tout now as Musharraf's replacement," he said....

"Musharraf is playing into the hands of America and destroying the Islamic Identity of Pakistan," said Maulana Fazlur-Rahman, leader of the opposition in the National Assembly....

From the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (thanks to RB) comes "Environments of Hate: Indoctrination in the Arab World and Propaganda Advocacy in Americas University Classrooms," a wonderful article from the courageous Lebanese speaker and writer Brigitte Gabriel:

I'm honored to bring Columbia a unique perspective concerning the academic freedom issue. I see similarities between the issue and my personal experiences growing up. I was raised in an Arab society in Lebanon that took impressionable young minds and filled them with propaganda – minds that were young and didn't know any better. I am an eyewitness and a victim of the indoctrination of hate education, racism, intolerance, intimidation and fabricated lies by my government and religious influences.

This indoctrination was for one purpose: to eradicate the newborn state of Israel – to foment hatred and wipe out Jewish presence in an Arab-dominated world. For Arabs, the simple existence of Israel was viewed as a catastrophe: “al nakbah!” This pan-Arab hate indoctrination was a reaction to Jews returning to their homeland, after Arabic and Islamic belief for 1400 years that the “Yahud” were vanquished and subjugated as Dhimmi.

I believe hate-motivated indoctrination fosters irrational thinking and faulty reasoning, whether it influenced my education as a child in Lebanon or the advocacy education that roils the classrooms here at Columbia. This is the root cause of the controversy swirling around several members of the Middle East Asia Languages Arts and Culture (MEALAC) faculty and their alleged intimidation of students and other faculty!

What is at stake is our future, the students of today who will become tomorrow's leaders. If their minds are poisoned with irrational hatred, and this hatred is not combated and eliminated, then academic freedom and free speech in an open marketplace of competitive ideas is dead.

But let me begin by talking about my experience growing up in Lebanon where doctrinal hatred of Jews and Israel was ever present.

From television programs, to national songs, hourly radio newscasts and newspapers, our citizens were fed a steady diet of lies poisoning our attitudes towards the Jews. Israel (“Aaesrael”) is the devil. Al-Yahud shayateen, The Jews are evil. Sarakou Al-Ard Al Arabiyah. They stole Arab land. Al Wakt al wahid allazi yassir endana salam huwa lamma naqtul kul al yahud wa narmihum bil bahr, The only time we'll have peace in the Middle East is when we kill all the Jews and drive them into the sea. Every time Israel was mentioned, “Al adew al Israeli” was attached to the phrase: the Israeli enemy.

My country and others saw nothing wrong with practicing this form of mind abuse, of taking a generation hostage and molding them into misguided weapons – some willing to be martyred in the name of Islam or Palestinian nationalism. It's a form of mental child abuse taking place in every Arab country....

Read it all.

"Pak commission says govt. biased against minorities," from Expressnewsline, with thanks to Fanabba:

The Pakistan National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP) has, in its 'Human Rights Monitor - 2005' report condemned the preferential treatment given to Muslims by allowing them only to become head of state and suggested that the policy of exclusivism should be abandoned by the government as it makes non-Muslims feel marginalized despite their contribution to the country.

Such laws, of course, are a hangover of the dhimma.

The Dawn quoted the report, which gives a detailed account of the situation of religious minorities in Pakistan in 2004, as saying that the government seldom invokes the articles of equality and distrust in government institutions have become inevitable due to biasness [sic].

There are other hangovers, too:

The NCJP has said that the attack on minorities' places of worship, instances of forced conversions, discriminatory laws are being used as weapons for political leverage and evictions of minorities indicate the state's failure to ensure not only human rights but implement legislation for effective governance....

From CBS's 60 Minutes, with thanks to Sparta:

(CBS) Fifteen years ago, Osama bin Laden sent one of his operatives to the United States to buy and bring back two-dozen .50-caliber rifles, a gun that can kill someone from over a mile away and even bring down an airplane.

In spite of all the recent efforts to curb terrorism, bin Laden could do the same thing today, because buying and shipping the world's most powerful sniper rifle is not as difficult as you might think.

Two months ago, Correspondent Ed Bradley reported on just how powerful the gun is. New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly had a sharpshooter fire the department's own .30-caliber sniper rifle and the bullets bounced off a half-inch-thick plate of steel. Then, the marksman fired the .50-caliber sniper rifle, and the bullets blew right through the steel plate.

Now, you'll hear from a gunrunner who, just a few years ago, was able to outfit a guerrilla army in Kosovo with those powerful weapons. He was willing to talk to 60 Minutes, because now he thinks what he did was much too easy.

The gunrunner's name is Florin Krasniqi, and he is seen providing a new shipment of weapons to Albanian rebels, who are about to smuggle them over the mountains into Kosovo. After a few days' journey on horseback, the guns will end up in the hands of a guerrilla force known as the Kosovo Liberation Army, which has been fighting for independence from Serbia for nearly a decade.

Krasniqi took these guns to his family's home in Kosovo. Most of them were easy to get in Albania, but not the .50-caliber rifles. "This is, we get from the home of the brave and the land of the free, as we would like to say," says Krasniqi, who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y....

Krasniqi came to America in 1989. He was smuggled across the Mexican border in the trunk of a car with just $50 in his pocket. Today, he's an American citizen, and the owner of a highly successful roofing business.

"This is what I do for a living," says Krasniqi. "This is how we earn the money in New York. There's a large Albanian-American community in the New York City area."

I guess gun-running is just a hobby for him.

What was Krasniqi's largest shipment of .50-caliber rifles to Kosovo? "One was on an airplane that he filled up with weapons," says Sullivan. "And I think there were about a hundred guns in there,. 100 .50-caliber rifles."

According to Sullivan, the gunrunners transported the guns on a truck to New York's Kennedy airport and hid them inside shipments of food and clothing destined for refugees.

"They put the palettes into a plane. Nothing gets X-rayed," says Sullivan. "It's wrapped up as humanitarian aid.

In a story about the still-unsolved synagogue arson in Switzerland, a curious paragraph. From Israel National News, with thanks to Alain:

Switzerland has a large Moslem population of some 500,000 - and the city of Lugano has a strong representation thereof. On the day before the double arson, the Neue Zurcher Zeitung reported that Lugano tourism officials had published a brochure in Arabic catering specifically to Moslem tastes. A comparison of the Italian, French and German versions of the Lugano tourist brochure with the Arabic-language text reveals that in the latter, pictures of churches are conspicuously missing. In addition, references to the local variety of pork-based salami were replaced with inoffensive local cheeses.

Ah, yes, let's continue bending over backwards not to offend the sensibilities of the our extremely sensitive Muslim friends. Never mind those burning synagogues.

ADDENDUM: Gabrielle Goldwater takes issue with the 500,000 figure above:

According to the Government's Statistics Office, membership in religious denominations is as follows: 41.8 percent Roman Catholic; 33.0 percent Protestant; 1.8 percent Orthodox; 0.2 percent Old Catholic; 0.2 percent other Christian groups; 4.3 percent Muslim; 0.2 percent Jewish; 0.8 percent other religions (Buddhist, Hindi, and other); 11.1 percent no formal creed.

According to official statistics, the Muslim population has doubled to more than 310,000 over the past several years, .....but independent sources believe an additional 150,000 Muslims may be residing illegally in the country. But this is not confirmed, also we have a very close police system and tight borders.

More reverberations over the Muslim woman who led prayers in New York last Friday. "Anger over NY woman 'imam,'" from the Calcutta Telegraph, with thanks to Nicolei:

She is being called the "shock Imam", having stunned Muslim clergy across continents. In India, the shade of opinion over a Muslim woman leading namaz ranges from anger to flippancy to allegations of an American conspiracy.

On March 18, Amina Wadud, a professor of Islamic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, led Friday prayers in New York, where about half of the estimated 100 people were men. Clad in a hijab (veil), she also read out the Khutba (the holy sermon).

This has triggered a controversy as traditionally, women are not even allowed to offer namaz inside mosques. In exceptional cases, women pray in a separate room or behind a partition.

Muslim religious leaders in India have been dismissive about Amina, claiming that the event was aimed at hogging media attention.

"It's a matter of modesty that prevents a Muslim woman from leading prayers," said Lucknow-based Shia leader Maulana Kalbe-Jawwad. He pointed out that when Muslims pray, they form ruler-straight lines. Resting on their knees, they lean forward until their foreheads touch the floor. Both the worshippers and the prayer leader face west towards Mecca.

What's that go to do with anything? I've got a newsflash for you, buddy, women have seen men's rear ends before. So what?

Peer Sayeed Mian, the rector of Bhopal-based Taj-ul-Masajid, said the event was "un-Islamic" as women are not supposed to lead prayers. "It is not a question of gender equality," he said, questioning the need for it.

What is it a question of, then?

"In Islam, the role of duties of men and women are clearly defined. There is no such thing as aping men," he said, terming it another "conspiracy" to create differences on gender lines.

Well, well, if it isn't another conspiracy. I suppose the Zionists are whispering in Amina Wadud's ear, eh?

Maulana Mohammad Saleem, a preacher in Bhopal, said offering namaz was an act between a person and God. "It is not that one who leads would go to heaven and those following would get a lesser reward."

Meaning, women don't have to worry their pretty little heads about big, weighty matters like leading prayers. They get to go to heaven anyway...maybe.

Kamal Farooqui, a member of the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board, said Islam has consciously-defined gender roles. "Women have been bestowed the greatest honour of giving birth to children. Does that mean that men start complaining about it?" he asked.

So since you don't see many men complaining about not being able to have children, (except maybe "Stan" in Life of Brian) well, that means women shouldn't complain about things like your everyday, average and very Islamic "sexual slavery" marriages. These things are ordained by Allah, you silly girls!

Amina countered that Prophet Mohammed had granted permission to a woman called Umm Warraq to lead her family in prayers.

That's it? That's the entire argument you're putting up against Centuries of Islamic Law and Tradition? Good Luck, Amina, good luck. You'll need it:

Scholars at Darul-Uloom, Deoband, and Nadwa-tul-ulema, Lucknow, said what Amina had failed to mention is that Umm Warraq led the people of her house in a prayer at one occasion only.

Imam Malik and Imam Abu Hanifa, famed commentators of Islam, considered it an exception....

Wouldn't you know it.

Golly, those pious mullahs couldn't be trying to deceive anyone, could they? From AFP, with thanks to Nicolei:

VIENNA : Iran is to establish a secret nuclear engineering faculty within a year to provide engineers for what the United States claims is a covert project to develop atomic weapons, a Western intelligence source told AFP.

"This is a very significant step towards training an Iranian nuclear cadre," the source, who asked not to be named, said in a recent interview.

The Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported in London Sunday that Iran has approved a secret nuclear research centre to train scientists in atomic technology.

Iranian officials, questioned by AFP recently, have so far declined to comment on this matter.

"The declared purpose for establishing the faculty is to create a source of skilled and professional manpower to promote Iran's military nuclear project, whose activity is increasing," the source told AFP.

"By setting up this installation, the Iranians are trying to make sure they have trained people whom the West doesn't even know about," the source said....

If calling the method for determining the beginning of Ramadan and Eid "primitive" gets 275 lashes, how many would you get for questioning Sharia provisions on jihad and dhimmitude? "Ministry Intervenes as Writer Sentenced to 275 Lashes," from the Arab News, with thanks to JJP Mackie:

RIYADH, 21 March 2005 - The case of a Saudi writer who was sentenced by a Shariah court in Riyadh to 275 lashes and four months imprisonment after being accused of being "corrupt" by members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, has returned to the Ministry of Culture and Information yesterday after the intervention of the ministry, Arab News has learned.

The case is the first of its kind in Saudi Arabia.

Dr. Ali Al-Mizeini, an Arabic language professor at King Saud University, was charged by the commission with allegedly questioning the religious institution's abilities and knowledge in an article written by him in Al-Watan newspaper. The commission was represented in court by another professor at the university, Abdullah Al-Barak from the Islamic Culture Department.

The accusers demanded that Dr. Al-Mizeini be tried according to Shariah for his writings. Dr. Al-Mizeini was later summoned to a court hearing....

The regulation issued by the minister of justice states that "whatever offends Shariah or Islamic ethics or contradicts anything in the Qur'an or Sunnah (the Prophet's sayings) or is an accusation of a person toward another which demands a religious punishment of lashes or imprisonment according to the nature of the crime is a matter that concerns public courts."

The regulation continues: "Public courts or primary courts which are given cases that deal with offenses concerning moral issues or attacks on Shariah that demand religious punishment should not transfer it to other concerned lawful bodies to look into it."

Judge Suleiman Al-Fantooh of the Shariah court sentenced him to a four-month jail term and 275 lashes....

Al-Mizeini's article angered many Islamists when he said that the method used by the Supreme Judiciary Council in determining the beginning of Ramadan and Eid was "primitive" that still relied on the naked eye's vision of the moon at a time where the crescent can be determined by telescopes as well by Saudi astronomers who are experts in the field.

Meanwhile, another Saudi writer is being tried by a religious court in the Kingdom for criticizing the commission in another Saudi daily, Al-Jazirah.

Abdullah Al-Bikheit, the writer, published many articles in the daily criticizing the approach of the people who work for the commission. Arab News contacted the writer who revealed his story. "In the beginning, I got a call from the police department to appear in the station to deal with a case filed by a person I did not know," he said....

"I later found out that 80 percent of those who filed the case were members of the commission who were angered by my writings in the daily," he said....

Al-Bikheit said that he criticized the commission in the Saudi daily as "any other government body that has its shortcomings." He said that he replied to the negative feedback to his articles in the letters to the editor column of the paper which did not "please the commission's members". He intends to publish a book with all the 17 articles he has published in Al-Jazirah.

Don't hold your breath waiting for that book to come out.

From BBC News, with thanks to Shiva:

Forced marriage should be made a specific criminal offence, police say.

Currently families who compel their children to marry can be charged only with offences like assault or kidnap.

Officers are due to tell a London conference that in the past two years nearly 500 people have asked for help to avoid being forced into marriages.

Metropolitan Police research suggests a link between forced marriage and honour killings and officers say a specific offence would make prosecutions easier.

Honour killings are when people are murdered because they are deemed to have shamed their families and can occur when someone refuses to marry a partner chosen for them.

Police say making forced marriages illegal would send a clear message that this is not acceptable in the UK....

Last year, government officials said a special unit within the Foreign Office had dealt with almost 1,000 cases of forced marriage since it was set up in 2000.

It had also rescued and repatriated to the UK 70 young people a year from overseas....

"Rebels kill Iraqi women as 'betrayers' of Islam," from the TimesOnline, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist.

THE terrible screams will haunt Najat al-Alloussi every time she remembers her last telephone conversation with her kidnapped daughter. "Mama, mama," cried Hadeel, 24. "They have just executed my husband in front of my eyes. Please help me. They just shot him in the head. Please help me, mama."

A male voice then told Alloussi, a prominent Iraqi gynaecologist: "We have killed him and now we shall kill your daughter as well."

She begged for the young woman's life, promising to hand over gold, cash and a valuable building if her captors would set her free. But the line went dead.

Two bags containing the bodies of her daughter and son-in-law, graduates in medicine who had taken internships at al-Qaem hospital close to Iraq's border with Syria, were dumped near their Baghdad home 48 hours later.

Alloussi's daughter had been shot in the heart.

The couple were apparently suspected of having tipped off US forces that insurgents were being treated in their hospital.

Whatever the reason she was targeted, Hadeel was one of a growing number of Iraqi women to have fallen prey to insurgents killing those in prominent positions. Some die because their work brings them into contact with American or Iraqi officials, others because their advocacy of more rights for women offends certain religious fundamentalists.

A few seem to have been singled out for failing to conform to an extreme Islamic code of dress and for abandoning traditional lives at home.

Zeena al-Qushtaini, a divorced mother who owned one of Baghdad's best known pharmacies and had contracts with coalition forces, dressed in western clothes and mingled with women activists.

"Lady Zeena", as she was known, was wearing a diamond necklace and ring when she was shot twice in the head after being abducted. Her body was found dressed in a full-length black abaya that she would never have chosen to wear, the headscarf covered in blood.

Tawheed wal-Jihad, the group run by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, released a film of her murder and that of her business partner, Ziad Baho, who was beheaded.

Islamic militants have killed 20 women in the northern city of Mosul and a dozen more in Baghdad. The victims shared a common desire to live freely and a vision of a better role for women in Iraqi society....

A few weeks ago I published an article in FrontPage entitled "The Million Dollar Qur'an Challenge," in which I laid claim to the million dollars offered by Islamic apologist Jamal Badawi, according to NorthJersey.com, to anyone who could show that the Qur'an teaches religious warfare.

But alas, the Jihad Watch learjet has gone back to the shop and there will be no more trips to Gstaad, for Dr. Badawi has sent me a message explaining that the reporter got his challenge wrong. I am not surprised, as I have more than once fallen prey to blundering and/or malicious reporters. Dr. Badawi's letter follows, interspersed with comments from me. The bold type in his letter is in the original.

I apologize for the long delay in putting this up; pressing personal matters including a death in the family have made it impossible for me to draft a detailed reply to this sooner.

Dear Mr. Spencer,

Greeting of peace and thank you for your two recent emails concerning my presentations; one reported by www.NorthJersey.com on Feb. 14, 2005; and one in late 2003 reported by The Minneapolis-St.Paul Star Tribune and commented on by you in www.frontpagemag.com, which you sent to me on Feb 17, 2005. I am glad that this is the first time you communicated with me directly to seek clarification of my views on Muslim/Non-Muslim relations as stated in both presentations. Let me first a make correction to the NorthJersey’s report. I have never equated “religious war” with Jihad. In fact, I repeatedly said that Jihad is not “holy war”. The common error of translating Jihad into “holy war” seems to have influenced the reporter’s perception of what I said.

Speaking as someone who has been misquoted and misrepresented by reporters many times, I know how easily that can happen.

What I promised was to pay $1 Million to “anyone who can show me a single verse in the entire original Arabic Qur`an that ever used the Arabic equivalent of the term “holy war”, which is “Harb Muqaddasah”. That offer was repeated so many times in public, even on national television in Canada. I have yet to hear from anyone to prove the inaccuracy of my statement.

Nor will you ever, of course, because it is absolutely true, for what it’s worth: the Qur’an never speaks of harb muqaddasah. I discuss this in my book Onward Muslim Soldiers, noting there that Khaled Abou El Fadl, among others, has tried to argue that because the Qur'an does not speak of harb muqaddasah, that therefore Islam has no doctrine of holy war. I believe this is assuming too much, as I will illustrate below.

All the material you emailed to me did not meet that challenge.

That is correct. I was responding to the challenge as represented by the reporter, not to this one.

I was not joking when I made [and am still making] that offer. Nor was I joking when I stated that no verse in the Qur’an, understood in its proper textual and historical context sanctions waging war against others for the sole reason that they are non- Muslims.

On this we disagree, but I will respond as you make your points below.

The ultimate source of Islam is the Qur’an followed by the authentic teaching [Sunnah] of the Prophet. Opinions of scholars or actions of Muslims in history are to be evaluated and judged based on these two primary sources, not the reverse.

Apparently you used the term “religious wars” to mean any verse about war that says anything about God, disbelief in God, supporting the cause of Satan versus the cause of God.

While I did not actually argue that any verse about war that says anything about God must therefore make the war religious, I do think that saying that one group of warriors is fighting for the cause of God and another for that of Satan (cf. Qur'an 4:76, etc.) constitutes a war that is at least in some strong degree religious in character — particularly when the enemies are consistently and repeatedly described as “unbelievers” (cf. Qur'an 2:191, 8:12, 9:5, 47:4, etc. etc. etc.).

Others may see the term as waging war against other religions because of their “wrong” beliefs. This is the meaning I referred to when I used the expression “holy war”, which is its lexical meaning. A person may fight others because of their aggression with the view that injustice is against God’s commands, and remembers God whether in periods of peace or war. This “religiosity” as a motive to resist oppression and injustice does not make his actions a “religious war” in the sense explained earlier [holy war].

So we are to suppose that in 9:29, the fact that the People of the Book "believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth" constitutes "oppression and injustice" that must be "resisted" by Muslims? For in that verse the Muslims are commanded to fight the People of the Book who do not do those things. Does the non-acceptance of Islam therefore in itself constitute "aggression" against Muslims?

“Holy war” or “religious war” is not the equivalent of Jihad. Jihad is an Arabic term derived from the root “J-H-D” which means, literally, to strive or exert effort. It is the same root from which the legal term “Ijtihad” is derived since Ijtihad refers to the exertion of intellectual effort by scholars so as to come up with an informed religious opinion on a new issue or problem. The term Jihad and similar terms derived from the same root are used in the Qur’an and Hadeeth in various meanings. Firstly, it is used in the context of prayers, doing righteous deeds and self-purification; inward Jihad or struggle against evil inclinations within oneself [Qur’an, 22:77-78; 29:4-7]. Secondly, it is used in the context of social Jihad, or striving for truth, justice and goodness in one’s relationship with other humans. Examples of this usage include charity to the needy [49:15]. Thirdly, it is used in the context of battlefield, which is often called, more specifically, qital, meaning fighting. That later form; the combative Jihad, is allowed in the Qur’an for legitimate self-defense in the face of unprovoked aggression or in resisting severe oppression on religious or other grounds. In fact, the first verses in the Qur’an that allowed self-defense [22:39-40], were not revealed until the early Muslim community had endured more than thirteen years of suffering and aggression at the hands of the idolatrous Arabs.

I am well aware of the many meanings of jihad in Islam, as I have discussed at Jihad Watch and elsewhere many times. And I discuss in detail the evolution of the Qur’an’s teachings on jihad warfare in Onward Muslim Soldiers. What concerns me here is how you would respond, Dr. Badawi, to Muslims who argue on the grounds of the Qur'an and the example of Muhammad against your assertion that "the combative Jihad, is allowed in the Qur’an for legitimate self-defense in the face of unprovoked aggression or in resisting severe oppression on religious or other grounds."

For example, in an article entitled “The True Meaning of Jihad,” which was posted in 2003 at the website Khilafah.com, which is affiliated with the jihadist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir, one Sidik Aucbur cites the example of Muhammad against those who would argue that jihad is purely defensive:

Moreover some will say that Jihad was only defensive; this is incorrect. A quick study of the Life of the Prophet (SalAllahu Alaihi Wasallam) shows us something different: • The Battle of Mut’ah was instigated by the Muslims against the Romans the Muslims were 3,000 faced against a Roman army of 200,000. • The Battle of Hunayn was inevitable shortly of the Muslims had conquered Makkah. • The Battle of Tabuk was also instigated to finally destroy the Romans. We see from the ijmaa (Consensus) of Sahaba [the companions of Muhammad], that they too instigated Jihad, through As-Sham, Iraq, Iran, Egypt and North Africa. Moreover, the status of Martyr in Islam is of the highest, so how can it be that Jihad is reduced to anything lower that that.

A consideration of the recent request from Al-Azhar that the Vatican apologize for the Crusades, from Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer at FP:

Ever mindful of keeping the West on the defensive and portraying it as the guilty party in today’s global jihad, Al-Azhar (the highest ranking religious authority in Egypt and most respected Sunni Muslim authority in the world), has asked the Vatican for an official apology for the Crusades. Sheikh Fawzi Zafzaf, President of the Interfaith Dialogue Committee of Al-Azhar, explained that “Al-Azhar is only asking for a similar treatment” following Vatican apologies to other groups. According to the Vatican ambassador to Egypt, the Holy See is thinking it over.

This is just the latest indication that the Crusades have grown into a myth that little resembles reality, and remain politically charged over three years after President Bush was roundly criticized for labeling the war on terror a “Crusade.” Bill Clinton even explained 9/11 as fallout from the Crusades: “Indeed, in the first Crusade, when the Christian soldiers took Jerusalem, they first burned a synagogue with 300 Jews in it, and proceeded to kill every woman and child who was Muslim on the Temple mound…. I can tell you that that story is still being told to today in the Middle East and we are still paying for it.”[1]

The West has questioned the Crusades — something probably not possible if the shoe were on the Islamic foot — almost since they took place. Virtually all Westerners have learned to apologize for the Crusades, but less noted is the fact that the Crusades have an Islamic counterpart for which no one is apologizing and of which few are even aware. Over a hundred years ago, Mark Twain spoke for many Westerners in Tom Sawyer Abroad when he has Tom explain to Huck Finn that he wants to go to the Holy Land to liberate it from the Muslims.

“How,” Huck asks, “did we come to let them git holt of it?”

“We didn’t come to let them git hold of it,” Tom explains. “They always had it.”

“Why, Tom, then it must belong to them, don’t it?”

“Why of course it does. Who said it didn’t?”[2]

Historical fact says it didn’t. As it happens, I am these days working on a new book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades, which will out from Regnery Publishing in a few months. In it, I am clearing away propaganda and telling what really happened. Islam originated in Arabia in the seventh century. At that time Egypt, Libya, and all of North Africa were Christian, and had been so for hundreds of years. So were Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Asia Minor. The churches that St. Paul addressed in his letters collected in the New Testament are located in Asia Minor, modern Turkey, as well as modern Greece. North of Greece, in a buffer zone between Eastern and Western Europe, were lands that would become the Christian domains of the Slavs. Antioch and Constantinople (Istanbul), in modern Turkey, and Alexandria, in modern Egypt, were three of the most important Christian centers of the first millennium.

But then Muhammad and his Muslim armies arose out of the desert, and — as most modern textbooks would put it — these lands became Muslim. But in fact the transition was cataclysmic. Muslims won these lands by conquest and, in obedience to the words of the Qur’an and the Prophet, put to the sword the infidels therein who refused to submit to the new Islamic regime. Those who remained alive lived in humiliating second-class status. Conversion to Islam became the only way to live a decent life. And lo and behold, the Christian populations of these areas steadily diminished.

Jihad Watch Advisory Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald takes on this outstanding display of dhimmitude from the eminently cloudy-minded Thomas Friedman at the New Duranty Times:

Everyone will have his own startling encounter with Islam -- the real thing, not what Muslim apologists, hoping to give everyone a carefully-circumscribed "peek into the Koran" (and let's make sure that none of these unwary Infidels manages to read anything beyond the Michael Sells "Approaching the Qur'an" and by all means, keep them from looking into the Hadith or the Sira), have on offer. It is almost always limited to highly selective quotation from the Qur'an. The Hadith, and the Sira -- sorry, off limits for now.

One keeps being surprised at how little people think they need to know before making grand pronouncements. Yesterday, amused by the latest display of vacuity and portentousness by Tom Friedman, nominating -- modestly -- Ali al-Sistani for the Nobel Prize -- I went to www.sistani.org to look around. There, between Sistani's complete banning of chess (and to think that checkmate is merely the Persian "shakh mat"), and his discussions of all the usual subjects that inquiring Muslims wish to know about, from whether it is okay to marry the sister of a man you have sodomized, or who has sodomized you (I forget which) to whether your canonical prayers count if you haven't performed the wudu (ablutions) correctly -- you know, all the stuff that you want to know, was something else, and that something was all about what is considered by Sistani and those who seek his guidance to be "Najis" or "unclean."

If you click on "Muslim Laws" on the left, and then, once a list comes up, click on "najis things," you will get a list -- #84 -- and if you then go a little further, and click on the menu where, among those unclean things, the "kafir" (which is to say, the Unbeliever, that is to say -- You and I, Dear Reader) you will get a further discussion of how, in the wonderful, "moderate" Islam of the al-Sistani variety, the Unbeliever, the Infidel, the Kafir (guilty of "kufr" or "ingratitude" for failing to receive the Revelation of the Last of the Prophets in the right, accepting, submissive way) is viewed.

So here, for everyone out in Ames, Iowa, is just a little sample of what you are missing, and what one suspects that Mohammed Fahmy, and Tariq Ramadan, and Hamid Dabashi, and Zeinab Bahrani, and a cast of hundreds of millions, would prefer that you not inquire into too deeply. And please, whatever you do, in order to accommodate them, at least promise that you will NOT read the websites www.dhimmitude.org and www.faithfreedom.org and www.co-jet.org and www.jihadwatch.org, and certainly do NOT read anything by Bat Ye'or, but especially do not read Islam and Dhimmitude or The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam. And do not read Ibn Warraq's Why I Am Not a Muslim. And let's not even talk about Robert Spencer. These books will only confuse you. And never pay attention to a man named Ali Sina or any of those ex-Muslims who appear at his website. Never google the name "Habib Malik" to read what he has to say about the historic relationship of Islam to Christianity; never read a similar article by James V. Schall, a professor at Georgetown.

Well, here is what you can find at www.sistani.org:

"84. The following ten things are essentially najis: 1. Urine 2. Faeces 3. Semen 4. Dead body 5. Blood 6. Dog 7. Pig 8. Kafir 9. Alcoholic liquors 10. The sweat of an animal who persistently eats najasat [i.e., unclean things].

108. The entire body of a Kafir, including his hair and nails, and all liquid substances of his body, are najis.
109. If the parents, paternal grandmother and paternal grandfather of a minor child are all kafir, that child is najis, except when he is intelligent enough, and professes Islam. When, even one person from his parents or grandparents is a Muslim, the child is Pak (The details will be explained in rule 217).
110. A person about whom it is not known whether he is a Muslim or not, and if no signs exist to establish him as a Muslim, he will be considered Pak. But he will not have the privileges of a Muslim, like, he cannot marry a Muslim woman, nor can he be buried in a Muslim cemetery."

So who wants to second the nomination of Al-Sistani for the Nobel Prize? Anyone out there in Ames, Iowa?

From AP, :

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) Indonesia plans to formally outlaw the al-Qaida-linked terror group Jemaah Islamiyah, a move that will make it easier for authorities to arrest and prosecute militants in the world's most populous Muslim nation, a top security official said Monday.

Banning the organization which is listed by the United Nations as a terrorist group will please the United States and other foreign governments but risks opposition from Muslim groups and political parties that fear it may herald a broader crackdown on Islamic activists.

It would really help if somebody knew where the line was between terrorism and plain ole "Islamic activities." Where will they draw this line, given that Islam is inherently political?

Ansyaad Mbai, who heads the counterterrorism desk at Indonesia's Coordinating Ministry for Political and Security Affairs, said the government intends to outlaw the group, which is blamed for a host of attacks and plots throughout Southeast Asia, including the 2002 Bali nightclub attacks....

Authorities have locked up more than 150 militants in the last three years, but officials balk at publicly identifying them as belonging to Jemaah Islamiyah or being motivated by sympathy with al-Qaida.

Part of the reluctance to ban Jemaah Islamiyah rests on its name, which means ``Islamic community.'' Proponents of an Islamic state in secular Indonesia, who were brutally repressed under former dictator Suharto, fear that such a ban could mean they too will be targeted.

"They too?" Aren't terrorists THE proponents of an Islamic state? What's the difference? Where's the line?

Mbai said that banning the group was essential in the fight against terror.

``We know there are many JI members who have got military training and have the ability to make bombs and use weapons who are still around, but the police cannot arrest them unless there is evidence they are involved in a particular act of terrorism,'' Mbai said....

Gee, Mbai, you don't think the reason why they're getting all this training is to fight for an Islamic state? Well, I guess maybe it's just for the exercise.

Jemaah Islamiyah's alleged spiritual leader, Abu Bakar Bashir, was sentenced to 30 months in jail earlier this month for conspiracy in the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings that killed 202 people. Analysts have said prosecutors would have been able to build a stronger case against the 66-year-old cleric if they had been able to directly charge him with heading the group....

It also continues to be noteworthy how nobody seems to bat an eye at all these Islamic clerics who also double as terrorists.

From our new Monsters in the Closet Department comes this contribution from Attallah Quiba, the PA's ambassador to Sri Lanka. Arafat, you see, couldn't have done something as prosaic as die; had he not been murdered, he would clearly have lived to be 562. From Bernama, the Malaysian National News Agency, with thanks to Teri:

COLOMBO, March 19 (Bernama) -- Attallah Quiba, the Palestinian ambassador in Sri Lanka, believes that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was killed by unnamed Israelis using advanced technology, the Island newspaper said.

Responding to questions at a media conference in Colombo on Friday, Quiba claimed that two Israelis who met Arafat on the day he was taken sick "used a laser device to attack Arafat."

"They tried to flee after using the device but were wrestled down by the Palestinian Authority security personnel. Both men were carrying Canadian passports."

Quiba was quoted as saying the Palestinian Authority immediately informed the Israeli government of the "attempt on Arafat's life." Samples of Arafat's blood were tested in 16 countries and it was revealed that he had been poisoned by high technology, he said.

The illustrious Samuel Berbano gives us another one for the Here We Go Again Department, in the Iowa State Daily, with thanks to the Norwegian Kafir:

Although dispelling stereotypes among a large population is not child's play, some Islamic students on campus say the solution could be as simple as ridding a common childhood fear.

Just as one takes a peek in their closet to find that there are no monsters lurking in the shadows waiting to jump out, if one takes a peek at the Quran, they'll find Islam does not promote violence, said Omar Manci, sophomore in agricultural engineering and president of the ISU Muslim Student Association.

Not to criticise your clearly immense journalistic credentials, Sammy, but did you happen to "take a peek inside the Qu'ran" yourself before reporting so uncritically on Manci's assertion? Child's play, eh? Why aren't you questioning these people who are treating you (and your readers) like children?

"Fear and ignorance are behind the negative stereotypes of Muslims in the media. If you fear something and don't know anything about it, it's a negative combination -- like seeing monsters in your closet," Manci said....

Yes. Remember those burning towers on 9/11? It was all ignorance, you see. Could they do it again? Monsters in the closet!

"Islam never refers to Christians as infidels," said Mohammed Fahmy, professor of industrial technology at the University of Northern Iowa, who presented sessions on Islam and marriage during the conference.

Right, Fahmy, but of course, there is that little matter of the fact that it does say they are under the curse of Allah: "The Christians call Christ the son of Allah. That is a saying from their mouth; (in this) they but imitate what the unbelievers of old used to say. Allah's curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the Truth!" (9:30). Behold the grandeur of Islam! How open-minded this is! How respectful of diversity!

Plot against European embassies in Yemen. "Terror Suspects Admit Yemen Embassy Plot," from AP:

SAN'A, Yemen - Eight suspected Al Qaeda members, including an Iraqi with Swiss nationality, admitted in court Monday to planning attacks on Western embassies here, while six convicted terrorists were sentenced to two years in jail in another case.

The trials were the latest in a series of Yemeni cases involving the terror network of Usama bin Laden, who has ancestral ties to this tribal-dominated Arabian Peninsula country that has long been a haven for Islamic extremists.

The eight suspected Al Qaeda members told the court on the opening day of their trial Monday that they had planned to attack the British and Italian embassies and the French Cultural Center in the Yemeni capital and that they received money and instructions from Al Qaeda operatives in Saudi Arabia. They face five to 10 years in jail if convicted....

From the Dutch Blog Zacht Ei, with thanks to Ali Dashti:

All hail Mrs. Verdonk

A few months ago, our immigration secretary Rita Verdonk was lambasted in the press for daring to comment on an imam who refused to shake her hand.

Now, it seems more people are willing to stand up for their right to be treated as human beings.

An Islamic man in The Hague will not be receiving his Social Security
allowance this month for being unwilling to greet female employers of the Sociale Dienst (Social Services). In some Dutch media, the story is being spun as if the man is being punished for not wanting to shake hands. That's not the whole story. The statute of this particular office of the Sociale Dienst allows for religious people who are forbidden to touch women to express themselves in another way, for example by nodding or bowing. But this particular guy didn't want to greet women in any way....

From BBC News, with thanks to Shiva:

Australia is to review the cases of a group of 30 asylum seekers after some of them converted to Christianity.

The migrants, from Iran and Iraq, are being held in detention centres after their original applications for refugee status were rejected.

Immigration officials said their conversion to Christianity, and changed conditions in their home countries, meant their cases would be reassessed.

It was unclear how many of the 30 have renounced Islam for Christianity.

Immigration officials have said that in some cases, new information had been obtained about the dangers they could face if they were deported.

'Face saving'

Australia's Prime Minister, John Howard, said there were concerns that if detainees were sent back to their homelands they could suffer persecution because they had embraced a different religion.

They could even be killed, as Islamic law dictates.

Mr Howard has stressed that this policy of review was not biased in favour of Christians.

The main opposition Labor party, however, has warned that reviewing asylum claims based on religion would damage the country's reputation.

It said other detainees could be encouraged to adopt Christianity simply to stay in Australia....

Exactly why is that such a bad idea?

Jihad Watch reader DC Watson has some politically incorrect observations and recommendations at the Counter-Jihad Education Taskforce site. A small sampling:

Why are organizations like the Council on American Islamic Relations still operating inside American borders after three of their former officers have been convicted for various terror and fraud related crimes?

http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2004/April/04_crm_225.htm
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/terrorism/usroyer603ind.pdf (p.15-20)
http://news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/infocom/uselashi121702sind.pdf (P. 6-9)
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=9981
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3875507.stm

Why, with these facts on record, does our government permit this group to hold training classes for law enforcement officers on how to better understand the Islamic culture? This is the United States, so shouldn't CAIR be hosting training classes for Muslims who are having difficulties integrating into American society instead?

Read it all.

From AP (thanks to Shiva) comes more evidence of jihadist gang activity in Washington DC, Boston, and New York -- linked to Al Qaida (click on the DC and Boston links) and the smuggling of potential terrorists in from Mexico.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- More than 100 alleged members of the violent Central American street gang MS-13 have been arrested in a nationwide sweep, authorities said Monday.

Using information from local and state law enforcement agencies, federal agents charged 103 members of the Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, gang with a range of criminal and immigration charges. The arrests came in the New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Newark, Miami and Dallas metropolitan areas over the last several weeks.

Officials said MS-13 is one of the largest and most violent street gangs in the United States, and the majority of its members are in the country illegally. The gang has carried out beheadings and grenade attacks in Central America and is known to hack their enemies with machetes in cities along the East Coast in the United States.

The arrests are the result of a new "Operation Community Shield" nationwide sting by the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to target violent gangs....

Half of the alleged gang members have prior arrests or convictions for violent crimes, including murder, sodomy, assault, arson and weapons and drug possession, officials said.

In one example, on March 13 agents arrested a man who acknowledged he is a founding member and leader of the MS-13 cell in Hollywood, officials said. The man, who was charged with immigration violations, was previously convicted in the United States for robbery, possession of a dangerous weapon and mail theft.

Authorities also arrested the purported leader of the MS-13 cell in Long Branch, New Jersey. on March 10. The suspect has a criminal rap sheet that includes charges of arson, weapons possession and grand larceny, officials said. He was also arrested on immigration charges.

Last month, former Homeland Security Deputy Secretary James Loy called MS-13 an emerging threat to the United States, referring to the gang and the al-Qaida terrorist organization in the same breath in testimony to Congress. Besides al-Qaida, Loy said, "We are seeing the emergence of other threatening groups and gangs like MS-13 that will also be destabilizing influences."...

Honor killing of a 17-year-old girl in the "Northern West Bank." At least the perpetrator was arrested. What kind of punishment he gets remains to be seen; honor killers have all too often gotten off very lightly. "Palestinian kills sister," from AFP, with thanks to Twostellas:

Al Ayyam daily said the teenager was strangled by her 27-year-old brother on Wednesday in Bala'a town near the northern city of Tulkarem. Arrested by Palestinian security forces, the brother admitted he had killed her to "erase the shame" after her pregnancy began showing.

He also admitted knowing that his sister had become pregnant because their father raped her. Police are now hunting the 52-year-old father, who witnessed the murder, and has since disappeared....

"The police did not arrest or even question the father," the group charged in an open letter published in another paper. Signed by the Palestinian Working Women's Society for Development, the letter called on the Palestinian parliament to adopt laws to protect women from all forms of violence.

Note the hostile reaction of the mayor and State Security to Fraihi's report. Why is that? What is it about this that makes them feel threatened? It is that it shakes their stifling orthodoxy that Islam is a religion of peace and Europeans need not be concerned about the growing Muslim populations. "Journalist defends report on Islamic extremists in Brussels," from Belgium's RVI, with thanks to Twostellas:

In the Brussels municipality of Molenbeek, youngsters are being recruited to commit fundamentalist terrorist attacks. This is suggested in an undercover research by the daily Het Nieuwsblad. The mayor of Molenbeek and the State Security both put this into perspective.

A young journalist for the Flemish paper Het Nieuwsblad spent 2 months
undercover in the Moslem community in the district of Sint-Jans-Molenbeek in Brussels. Under the guise of a student, working on a sociology thesis, Hind Fraihi investigated extreme Moslem practices including the recruitment of young Moslems for the Jihad.

Youngsters would be encouraged to go to Afghanistan to take a military
training, says the freelance research journalist Hind Fraihi. She talked with dozens of people who claim to have been addressed about this.

Recruitment takes place in the streets, in subways and in mosques that are well hidden behind the facades of terraced houses, she says.

Head of the editorial staff of the newspaper has confirmed her story:
"Research journalist Hind Fraihi, a religious moslem woman herself, has been living in the heart of Molenbeek for 2 months under the guise of being a sociology student. Her aim was to investigate whether the rumours are true that the municipality is a centre of moslem extremism in our country."

Fraihi's report came under fire from the local police commissioner Johan De Becker who referred to the journalist as a tourist who had brought the work of the police into jeopardy. The relativistic reaction of both the State Security and the local mayor Philippe Moureaux surprised the young journalist. According to Fraihi, the mayor had said that he knows youngsters that are willing to blow themselves up. She asks if Moureaux finds that quite normal. As a Moslem herself, Fraihi explains that she was able to enter mosques where the mayor had never been. She claims to have heard imams calling for a holy war against Jews and Westerners during the holy period of Ramadan....

"8-year-old killed in Kashmir school blast," from the Times of India, with thanks to Twostellas:

SRINAGAR: An eight-year-old was killed and six other students of Nadihal high school were injured in a grenade blast in the school compound in Bandipore, Baramulla district of north Kashmir on Friday.

The victim, identified as Moshin Sarwar, was killed on the spot while the injured were rushed to hospital. The police said unknown militants, in a bid to attack an army camp, threw a hand grenade that fell inside the school compound.

However, a defence spokesman countered the police version saying the explosive device was in the school bag of the deceased child. Following the blast, residents of the township took to the streets to express their resentment.

While Pakistan flexes its nuclear muscles, jihad violence there continues. From the Canadian Press, with thanks to Twostellas:

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) - A bomb exploded Saturday as Shiite Muslims congregated at a shrine in a remote town in southwestern Pakistan, killing at least 24 people and wounding 16, police said.

Thousands of worshippers were at the shrine of a Shiite saint near the town Naseerabad, about 340 kilometres south of Quetta in restive Baluchistan province, when the bomb went off outside, Mubarak Ali, a local police official, said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility and no indication the attack was linked to clashes between renegade tribesmen and government forces at a town elsewhere in southwestern Baluchistan that left at least 30 people dead this week.

"It was a powerful bomb. There was blood and body parts everywhere," Mehrab Khan, another police official said....

Pakistan has a history of sectarian violence, mostly blamed on rival Sunni and Shiite extremist groups. About 80 per cent of Pakistan's 150 million people are Sunnis and 17 per cent are Shiites.

Most of the Muslims live together peacefully but small groups of militants on both sides stage attacks....

From Reuters, with thanks to RB:

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan Saturday successfully test-fired a long-range, nuclear-capable ballistic missile, the latest in a series of tests in one of the world's flashpoints.

"Today, we carried out a successful test-firing of the indigenously developed Shaheen II missile," a military official told Reuters.

The missile could travel up to 2,000 km (1,200 miles) and carry all kinds of warheads, he said....

Pakistan first successfully tested a nuclear weapon in 1998....

President Pervez Musharraf, who watched the missile test, said the country's nuclear program had broad public support and was a matter of the highest national importance....

"The capability was here to stay, will continue to go from strength to strength and no harm will ever be allowed to come to it," he was quoted as saying....

Update on this story. From Reuters, with thanks to RB:

BEIRUT, Lebanon's pro-Syrian president invited anti-Syrian opposition and loyalist politicians to begin immediate talks on Saturday, hours after a car bomb raised fresh fears of a return to the country's violent past.

The blast wounded several people in a Christian suburb of eastern Beirut, gutting the ground and first floors of a residential block and destroying nearby cars.

The explosion comes amid acute political tension since the Feb. 14 killing by bomb of former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, and prompted President Emile Lahoud's first personal initiative to break the deadlock over Syria's influence in its tiny neighbor.

"The president affirms the need for such a dialogue meeting starting today in any place they agree on, including the presidential palace, which will keep its doors open," Lahoud's office said in a statement.

Damascus has already bowed to international demands it withdraw its troops from Lebanon after Hariri's assassination sparked street protests in Beirut against the Syrians, blamed by many Lebanese for his death.

Syria denies the charge but has begun withdrawing the troops it poured into Lebanon early in the 1975-1990 civil war....

But coming from those governments, I wouldn't be surprised if it shuts down more anti-jihad and anti-terror sites than actual jihadist and terror sites. From the BBC, with thanks to RB:

Five European governments are setting up a hi-tech team to monitor how terrorists and criminals use the net.

The group will make recommendations on shutting down websites that break terrorism laws....

The five countries also agreed to make it easier to swap data about terror suspects and thefts of explosives.

The interior ministers of Spain, Britain, France, Germany and Italy - the G5 - met in Granada this week for an anti-terrorism summit.

Easy sharing

To combat terrorism the ministers agreed to make it easier for police forces in their respective states to share data about suspects connected to international terror groups.

Information shared could also involve intelligence about money laundering, the forgery of identity papers, stolen cars, DNA data, missing persons and unidentified corpses.

Part of this anti-terror work will involve the creation of the technical team that will keep an eye on how organised crime groups and terrorists make of the web.

Many criminals have moved many well-known crimes to the web because the returns are so good and the chance of being detected is still relatively low.

The group is also likely to make recommendations on shutting down websites that contravene laws on inciting acts of terror....

This is the same explosion in which Natasha Tynes almost perished. From The Telegraph with thanks to Granny Weatherwax:

A car bomb in Doha which demolished a theatre leaving one Briton dead and up to 50 people injured, may be the work of al-Qa'eda, investigators believe.

Jonathan Adams died when an explosion rocked the building in Qatar's capital Doha where a 100-strong audience was watching a performance of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night....

The Qatar Interior Ministry said a suicide car bomber, Egyptian Omar Ahmad Abdullah Ali, caused the explosion and an investigation is under way.

One theory being investigated is that al-Qa'eda was behind the attack. It has been reported that the group has threatened to target Westerners living in the region....

Or perhaps Shakespeare doesn't agree with them.

Woman leads Muslim prayer service update. It seems that Muslims in the Middle East are up in arms, so to speak, about a prayer service held in New York -- because a woman led it. From AP, with thanks to Scaramouche:

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Muslims in the Middle East yesterday angrily denounced a mixed-gender Islamic prayer service led by a woman in New York as a violation of their religion.

Amina Wadud, a professor of Islamic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, led the service on Friday before a congregation of 80 to 100 men and women at Synod House at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan, an Episcopal church.

Three mosques had refused to hold the service, and an art gallery backed out after receiving a bomb threat. Organizers said the service was intended to draw attention to the inequality faced by Muslim women.

The Egyptian newspaper, Al-Messa, reported the service on its front page, with the emphatic headline: "They are tarnishing Islam in America!"

It referred to Wadud as "the deranged woman."

A female Islamic law professor condemned the act as apostasy, explaining that a woman's body "stirs desire" in men.

Well, stop the presses.

Some suggested the event was a U.S. conspiracy to mold traditional Islam into a secular U.S. religion....

Remember that sentence the next time CAIR or MPAC tries to strong-arm and intimidate you into assuming that Islam is nothing more or less than just another "secular U.S. religion," and accuses you of "Islamophobia" if you disagree.

"Women were not allowed to have input in the basic paradigms of what it means to be a Muslim," Wadud said after the service. She added that while the Islamic holy book, the Quran, puts men and women on equal footing, men have distorted its teachings to leave women with no role other than "as sexual partners."

Come now, Ms. Wadud. I respect what you are doing, but really, do you expect us not to notice that the Qur'an says that "men have authority over women because Allah has made the one superior to the other" (Qur'an 4:34)? Are you hoping that Americans aren't aware of this verse, or are you yourself in a state of denial and wishful thinking about the Qur'an?

From Reuters, with thanks to Twostellas:

DUBAI: Two US missionaries detained in Dubai on suspicion of distributing Christian compact discs and Bibles in the Muslim Gulf emirate have returned to the United States, a local newspaper said.

A US embassy official confirmed the report but declined to give details, citing the US privacy act.

The United Arab Emirates, which includes Dubai, forbids proselytising by non-Muslims.

Double standard watch: imagine for a moment the international outcry that would ensue if Britain, or France, or the United States for that matter, forbade proselytising by non-Christians. Yet the chattering classes persist in retailing moral equivalence and all-religions-are-equally-capable-of-inspiring-violence arguments, despite the fact that anyone who looks at the world with an objective eye for five minutes can see that they aren't true.

The daily quoted a Dubai Justice Department official as saying the case against the two women had been dismissed but that the public prosecution department kept the 26 CDs and 19 Bibles confiscated when the women were arrested last month....

In 1993 a UAE court sentenced a British man to six months in prison for handing out Christian literature to Iranians. Dubai, unlike other places in the Gulf which follow Islamic law to the letter, tries to cater to differing cultures and religions and has both churches and mosques.

That last sentence is odd. Are they "catering" to different cultures by releasing these women instead of executing them? Gee, thanks.

Another I told you so update. It is very much within the realm of possibility that the U.S. has toppled Saddam Hussein and stayed in Iraq for all this time only to see the creation of another Sharia state there. This would not and could not have happened if the Administration and the State Department had properly identified the source of Islamic terrorism in the Qur'an and the Islamic doctrine of jihad, and in the impulse to impose Sharia that comes from and works through those sources. But because they persist in illusions about Islam, and persist in listening to the wrong people, they may well end up creating a problem greater than the one they solved.

One would think that the example of Saudi Arabia and Iran would be enough to show them that above all they don't want another Sharia state. But of course, Jaafari assures us that Iraq won't be like that; it will presumably be Sharia with a human face. It will be interesting to see where he will draw the lines that will have to be drawn to create and maintain this humane form of Sharia, and how long they will last in the face of inevitable pressure from hardliners.

From AFP, with thanks to Nicolei:

IRAQ'S frontrunning Shiite candidate for prime minister, Ibrahim Jaafari, said in an interview he aimed to introduce sharia Islamic law and federalism and confirmed Saddam Hussein would be judged by the end of the year.

"It's understandable in a country where the majority of people are Muslim," Mr Jaafari said of the Sharia law, in an interview conducted in Baghdad due to appear in Tuesday's edition of German magazine Der Spiegel.

"Iraq should become a Muslim country but without falling under the influence of Iran or Saudi Arabia," he said.

"Everyone will have the same rights, even members of the many minor religious communities," he said, explaining there would be multiple forms of jurisprudence.

This probably refers to the Sharia provision that dhimmi communities govern their own internal affairs, and are not subject to Sharia courts. But the idea that "everyone will have the same rights" is going to collide with numerous Sharia precepts. How he succeed in creating and maintaining this smiley-face version of Sharia?

He also said women would be under no legal obligation to wear a veil.

"They will make their own decisions," the Shiite candidate said.

Same problem again: his statement conflicts with Sharia. Maybe it's because, as noted below, he doesn't want "a strict application of sharia law," but, as I said above, it remains to be seen how he will draw this line and preserve it.

According to results of a poll released yesterday, most Iraqis are deeply attached to their Islamic identity but do not want a strict application of sharia law, as in neighbouring Saudi Arabia or Iran.

About 48 per cent of those interviewed agreed that "religion has a special role to play in the government", while 46 per cent supported a separation of state and mosque.

The Jordanian journalist Natasha Tynes (thanks to JS), now based in Qatar, was recently uncomfortably close to a jihadist explosion in Doha -- not that she was much surprised:

The borders for GCC (Gulf Countries) members are open, any GCC resident can move freely. I hate to sound judgmental but the signs were here. Religious extremism is not absent from Qatar. Only last week I was in a cab and the driver was listening to a speech encouraging people to go to Jihad across the globe. The preacher highlighted specific areas: Iraq, Palestine, Chechnya and Kashmir. The driver didn't seem to be bothered by what he was hearing, he just sat quietly absorbing it all. The two of us listened to that speech in the cab from my house to work. It was still going when I got out.

The fact that an Egyptian national decided to blow himself up as a form of Jihad (since he's killing mostly westerners) should not come as a surprise. Many here are likely being convinced by what extremists preach; brainwashing is possible, just sit in a cab all day listening to the sort of stuff I'm describing. I never felt this type of extremism in Jordan. People there are just more aware and skeptical of whatever ideology comes their way. Things are, unfortunately, not the same here.

We continue to hear that the jihadists are a tiny minority. Yet again and again we see reports indicating that their reach and influence is much greater than one might expect -- for example, they seem to have a place on the Qatari airwaves, and at least one devoted listener. I suspect they have many more than that as well.

Yehuda Avner writes in the Jerusalem Post (thanks to Romy) about a revealing encounter with a veteran British espionage agent:

Carefully combing a few long strands of gray hair over the top of his bald head, he retorted rather ominously: "In this war of ours on Arab terror all our bloody state-of-the-art technology isn't worth a damn farthing. Deploy as much highfalutin satellite surveillance and computer decryption as you like, it won't track down Bin Laden in a month of Sundays. The only way to go after him and his sort is by going back to the most primitive methods of intelligence in the book: personal counter-espionage."

"In other words, plain, straight forward, old-fashioned spying," explained Sir Herbert. And then, sardonically, "Allah will not be mocked. He toys around with our clever gadgets and laughs in our faces. Islamists wage their holy war by simply outflanking our technology."

"Precisely," snapped the other fellow. "So what we need are first-class operatives - people who look like them, talk like them, think like them, can infiltrate them, and then eliminate them. Your blokes are champions at that sort of thing."

"My blokes?"

"People of your tribe. Jews are past masters at duplicity. You have any number who can pass convincingly as Muslims. In your Mossad and Shin Bet you have Jews who speak native Arabic and can adopt Islamic disguises at the drop of a hat."

Sir Herbert interjected: "That's how you won the intifada, isn't it? Your intelligence was superb. Through infiltration, dissimulation and deception you got your killer almost every time."

"And that's why we could do with some of your human assets," said Sir Charles wistfully, knocking his liquor back and wiping his chin with the back of his hand. "We need people like yours - types who can pass muster as Arabs, win over their trust, crawl into the insides of their minds, gather hard intelligence. MI6 and the CIA simply don't have enough of them."

"Why not?" I asked.

The MI6 man leaned toward me and in a conspiratorial manner, whispered: "Because our Muslims can't be trusted, that's why. Their first loyalty is to Islam, not to Britain. It's the same in the US."

My host concurred: "Islam poses such a powerful bond over its fellow believers that the problem of recruiting Muslim undercover agents is acute. Walk into a Muslim neighborhood and begin making inquiries about terrorists and you will hit a wall of silence."

Grimly, as if infected with an existential angst, Sir Charles brooded: "We've never had a security problem like this in England before. And it's getting bigger all the time."

As he spoke, a white-coated waiter glided between the armchairs and potted palms, holding up two liquor bottles in a pose of affability, pausing to top up a glass of whiskey here and bestow a drop of brandy there.

Scotch-refueled, the old spy rambled on: "It's not like Northern Ireland during the Troubles, when we could do our undercover work like a fish in water. Even the most diehard Irish Republican nationalist cracked under a little bit of coercion, or the promise of a little cash. But your average Muslim fanatic - he'd rather blow himself up first, and take you with him into the bargain."

Sir Charles' speech was now getting warped with whiskey, and he began to nod off. So for the next 20 minutes Sir Herbert and I talked quietly of other matters, particularly the latest Israel-Palestinian developments. Then we gathered up our belongings, descended to the Athenaeum's exit, and stepped out into the street.

"Good Lord, look at that!" he barked abruptly, halting in his tracks, outraged.

Propped up against the nearby wall of what was once Joachim von Ribbentrop's ambassadorial London residence, an Evening Standard billboard bellowed: "POLICE BUST FINSBURY PARK ARAB TERRORIST CELL."

Sir Herbert, his long aristocratic nose white with resentment, blew out his cheeks and exclaimed, "This is the Battle of Britain Part Two, and it's more insidious than the last. Think about it: western civilization has been locked in an historic war with Islam now for 1,000 years. We had thought we had settled it for good in our favor, thanks to our technological superiority. But look what's going on now. All our modern gadgetry is impotent in face of their fanaticism. So, by George, yes - the MI6 and the CIA could do with a strong infusion of Mossad and Shin Bet savvy. Do me a favor and tell your people that when you get back home."

Reza Aslan is a doctoral candidate and Robles fellow in religious studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He is working on a new book called No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, which will be out soon from Random House, and he has adapted part of it for publication in The Chronicle Review of the Chronicle of Higher Education (thanks to all who sent this in). From the looks of this, I know what to expect from the rest of the book.

It is pluralism, not secularism, that defines democracy. A democratic state can be established upon any normative moral framework as long as pluralism remains the source of its legitimacy. Israel is founded upon an exclusivist Jewish moral framework that recognizes all the world's Jews -- regardless of their nationality -- as citizens of the state. England continues to maintain a national church whose religious head is also the country's sovereign. India was, until recently, governed by partisans of the elitist theology of Hindu Awakening (Hindutva), bent on applying their implausible but enormously successful vision of "true Hinduism" to the state. And yet, like the United States, those countries are all considered democracies, not because they are secular but because they are, at least in theory, dedicated to pluralism.

Islam has had a long commitment to religious pluralism. Muhammad's recognition of Jews and Christians as protected peoples (dhimmi), his belief in a common divine text from which all revealed scriptures are derived (the Umm al-Kitab), and his dream of establishing a single, united Ummah, encompassing all three faiths of Abraham, were startlingly revolutionary ideas in an era in which religion literally created borders between peoples. And despite the ways in which it has been interpreted by militants and fundamentalists who refuse to recognize its historical and cultural context, there are few scriptures in the great religions of the world that can match the reverence with which the Quran speaks of other religious traditions.

"Aslan" means "lion," as Schwartzie would remind us, and I must admire this young man's leonine chutzpah in postulating the dhimma as a model of religious pluralism. "The subject peoples," [i.e., the dhimmis] according to a manual of Islamic law endorsed by Al-Azhar University in Cairo, must "pay the non-Muslim poll tax (jizya)" and "are distinguished from Muslims in dress, wearing a wide cloth belt (zunnar); are not greeted with 'as-Salamu 'alaykum' [the traditional Muslim greeting, 'Peace be with you']; must keep to the side of the street; may not build higher than or as high as the Muslims' buildings, though if they acquire a tall house, it is not razed; are forbidden to openly display wine or pork . . . recite the Torah or Evangel aloud, or make public display of their funerals or feastdays; and are forbidden to build new churches." ('Umdat al-Salik, o11.3, 5).

That's pluralism? You can have it, Reza.

And as for "few scriptures in the great religions of the world that can match the reverence with which the Quran speaks of other religious traditions," that may be, but it's pretty slim pickings here as well. The Qur'an, after all, holds Jews and Christians in such reverence that it says they are under the curse of Allah: "The Jews call 'Uzair [Ezra] a son of Allah, and the Christians call Christ the son of Allah. That is a saying from their mouth; (in this) they but imitate what the unbelievers of old used to say. Allah's curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the Truth!" (9:30).

Aslan continues:

It is true that the Quran does not hold the same respect for polytheistic religions as it does for monotheistic ones.

Right. Instead of conversion, submission as dhimmis, or death, Islamic law offers them only conversion or death. But in practice, they have been accorded dhimmi status, as Aslan notes:

However, that is primarily a consequence of the fact that the Revelation was received during a protracted and bloody war with the "polytheistic" Quraysh, the ruling tribe of Mecca. The truth that is the Quranic designation of "protected peoples" was highly flexible and was routinely tailored to match public policy.

The foundation of Islamic pluralism can be summed up in one indisputable verse: "There can be no compulsion in religion." That means that the antiquated partitioning of the world into spheres of belief (dar al-Islam) and unbelief (dar al-Harb), which was first developed during the Crusades but which still maintains its grasp on the imaginations of traditionalist theologians, is utterly unjustifiable. It also means that the ideology of those Wahhabists who wish to return Islam to some imaginary ideal of original purity must be once and for all abandoned. Islam is and has always been a religion of diversity. The notion that there was once an original, unadulterated Islam that was shattered into heretical sects and schisms is a historical fiction. Both Shiism and Sufism in all their wonderful manifestations represent trends of thought that have existed from the very beginning of Islam, and both find their inspiration in the words and deeds of the Prophet. God may be One, but Islam most definitely is not.

Wonderful. I am glad to see him rejecting the Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb distinction. I am glad to see him opposing Wahhabism. But to insist that the guiding principle is "there is no compulsion in religion" is not enough. Wahhabis see that verse as abrogated; I trust Aslan has an answer for them based on recognized Islamic theological principles. Alternatively, Muslim Brotherhood theorist Sayyid Qutb and others have argued that the verse means only that Muslims must not force others to accept Islam, but that they should wage wars to extend Islamic law over them and subjugate them as dhimmis. I suspect, given his apparently rosy view of the dhimma, that Aslan would have no trouble with this.

Nevertheless, the Islamic vision of human rights is not a prescription for moral relativism. Nor does it imply freedom from ethical restraint. Islam's quintessentially communal character necessitates that any human-rights policy take into consideration the protection of the community over the autonomy of the individual. And while there may be some circumstances in which Islamic morality may force the rights of the community to prevail over the rights of the individual -- for instance, with regard to Quranic commandments forbidding drinking or gambling -- those and all other ethical issues must constantly be re-evaluated so as to conform to the will of the community.

In other words, Islamic law will prevail, not some Western model of pluralism. Caveat emptor.

"Blast Rocks Beirut Suburb," from AP, :

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Investigators searched for clues Saturday amid the rubble of a car bombed building in a largely Christian neighborhood in Beirut, an attack that sparked fears of a renewed bloodshed in Lebanon and complicated already troubled negotiations between rival political groups over the formation of a new government.

The attack, which wounded nine people, came amid the withdrawal of Syrian troops to eastern Lebanon and Syria after a 29-year presence in this former civil war-ravaged country. The redeployments followed intense international and local opposition to Syria's role in Lebanon since the Feb. 14 assassination of ex-premier Rafik Hariri in a massive bombing that killed 17 others....

"This has been the message to the Lebanese people for a while -- to sow fear and terror among Lebanese citizens," Christian opposition member Pierre Gemayel told Al-Jazeera satellite television. The message is "if there is a Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, look what Lebanon will face."

More border follies. From the Arizona Republic, with thanks to Robert T.:

TUCSON - A federal grand jury Wednesday indicted two Syrian men on charges of impersonating U.S. citizens after Border Patrol agents stopped them in southern Arizona and found an undocumented Mexican immigrant in their car.

According to a criminal complaint, Ala Salem Mamoud Al-Kurdi and Mohamed Tamman Nakchgandi, both citizens of Syria, were pulled over by Border Patrol agents on Feb. 18 on Arizona 86, a highway that runs through the Tohono O'odham Nation, a vast reservation southwest of Tucson.

In the back seat of the Cadillac, driven by Kurdi, agents spotted a Mexican man who later admitted to crossing the U.S.-Mexican border illegally three days earlier, according to Border Patrol reports. Kurdi and Nakchgandi, the passenger, said they were naturalized U.S. citizens born in Syria, but agents found they were in the country illegally, according to court records.

The agents reported that a second Cadillac was spotted traveling in tandem with Kurdi's along the highway, but got away. The Mexican man later told authorities he crossed the border with five other undocumented immigrants, who were in the second car, the Border Patrol reported.

A check of immigration records showed that Nakchgandi had entered the country legally in 1999 with a temporary visitor's visa, but overstayed, according to the Border Patrol. The agency reported that Kurdi also entered legally with an employment-authorization card that recently was canceled....

"Norway: The Rapes Continue," from the Fjordman Blogspot:

7 Kurdish Muslim immigrants are suspects in a gang rape case against a 16 year old Norwegian girl in Oslo in December. One of the men charged with the gang rape is suspected of being involved in another gang rape of a girl in Oslo ten days later.

Now, everybody is innocent until proven otherwise, and none of these men have yet been convicted of anything. But it does sound a lot like a recent such case in Sweden, where a group of Kurdish males had raped a Swedish teenage girl for hours and taken photos of the event. There are reports of more such incidents coming in with disturbing frequency. Kurdish Muslims in Norway have even openly threatened Norwegian girls with rape before.

I am by now almost convinced that the theory presented in my first post about Muslim rapes in Sweden and Norway is true. The staggering numbers revealed in 2001 in Oslo have been suppressed for political reasons, as they would destroy too many multicultural pipe dreams and be inconvenient for the elites. So in the end, the safety of young Scandinavian women is sacrificed in order to keep the glossy image of a multicultural society intact. I find this absolutely appalling. I don't know who made the decision to quiet down these statistics. It has to be somebody high up in the police hierarchy, or probably in the Ministry of Justice. Regardless, it is in the end the responsibility of the Norwegian Minister of Justice, Odd Einar Dّrum, who should announce his immediate resignation.

It is a national, if not international, scandal that the authorities in a nation that prides itself on being a champion of women's rights can put fear of offending Muslim immigrants higher than the security of its own young women. Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik should also consider resigning. At a time when racist attacks from Muslim immigrant youngsters make it increasingly unsafe for Norwegian women in their own capital city, their Prime Minister is mainly concerned with who puts together book shelves at IKEA. Such a politician either does not understand what's going on in his own country or no longer cares about protecting his own people. In both cases, he is unfit for public office, let alone that of Prime Minister.

Taqqiya alert from the Queens Chronicle at ZWire, with thanks to Twostellas. Now it comes right to your doorstep, at least in Queens:

To counter perceived misinterpretations of Islam, members of a local mosque sent out thousands of information pamphlets about their religion and its teachings last month to Southeast Queens residents.

Imanul Hak Kauser, the imam of the Bait-ul Zaffar Ahmadiyya Muslim mosque at 86-71 Palo Alto Avenue in Holliswood, said the public relations initiative was his idea. Timed to coincide with an Islamic religious holiday, the campaign targeted more than 5,300 homes in Hollis, Jamaica, Richmond Hill and Ozone Park.

"There are a lot of people with the wrong impression about Islam," Kauser said. "We wanted to inform them that what you see in the media is often a few fanatical Muslims, less than one percent worldwide, who have tried to change the meaning of our teachings. For us, jihad means holy struggle not holy war, and our main struggles are in bettering ourselves and in bringing peace to the world."

The glossy, five-fold, color pamphlet sent out by Kauser and the mosque is titled, "Jihad or Terrorism? The Islamic Perspective" and tackles several controversial subjects, including religious wars and terrorism.

It states that Islam prohibits the use of force or coercion to spread its message and that terrorism and Islam are "diametrically opposed." It also adds, "jihad is not intended to shed blood, encourage disloyalty toward established governments or disrupt peace in any manner."...

According to classic Islamic law, jihad requires the Muslim community to make "war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians . . . until they become Muslim or pay the non-Muslim poll tax" (Umdat al-Salik, o9.8). "Not intended to shed blood"? Only the most gullible would fall for that.

Kauser, a Pakistani native, said that misconceptions are not isolated to just one group of people. "Some Muslims misunderstand the Western countries, too," he said. "After 9-11, many there expected the public to attack us, but my experience was only one of understanding and warmth. They just couldn't understand this."

Kauser added that the tragic events of 9-11 have made public outreach from the Muslim community of even greater importance. "To achieve peace, we need more communication, and I think people are more interested in Islam and knowing about us."

Despite the hundreds of rejections, Kauser remained optimistic about the mailing campaign's long-term effect.

"If we have opened one mind out of the 5,000, it will have been worth
it.

"Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' sells 50,000 copies in Turkey in three months," from AFP, with thanks to all who sent this in:

ANKARA: Cheap cover prices and a rise in nationalist sentiment have made an unlikely best-seller in Turkey of Adolf Hitler's infamous autobiography, "Mein Kampf."...

But since January, the book has sold more than 50,000 copies and is number four on the best-seller list drawn up by the D&R bookstore chain.

"'Mein Kampf' has always been a sleeper, a secret best-seller," said Oguz Tektas of Mefisto editions, one of several publishing houses to re-release the book Hitler wrote while in jail in 1925. "We took it out of the closet for purely commercial reasons." His company's sole aim, he stressed, was "to make money," which they did by slashing the cover price.

"Mein Kampf," published by about a dozen companies over the years, always sold at a fairly steady annual rate of about 20,000 copies at some 20 New Turkish Lira ($15) a copy.

The Mefisto edition retails at YTL5.90 and sold 23,000 copies in two months....

"The times we live in have a definite impact on sales," Kilic said. "It is an astonishing phenomenon."

TigerHawk again has some dead-on observations (with links in the original):

Not surprisingly, The Jerusalem Post is more willing to see a trend than the Daily Star:

Filiba said the sales were part of a "worrying trend" with anti-Semitic publications - such as the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," a 19th-century anti-Semitic tract - on sale even in bustling department stores.

Fifty thousand copies sold in less than three months is a huge sales figure for Turkey, equivalent to 250,000 copies in the United States. I could not find U.S. sales figures, but I found one source that said that American sales averaged 15,000 copies per year.

History does not progress in a straight line. Racist fascism has tremendous appeal to the world's dark hearts, and it will emerge in some quarters whenever there is social distress and conflict, as there is today in Turkey. No such platitude should let us forget, though, that Islam and Nazism have close historical ties that could re-emerge at any time.

"Woman leads Muslim prayer service in New York City despite criticism in the Middle East," from AP, with thanks to all who sent this in:

NEW YORK (AP) A female professor led an Islamic prayer service Friday with men in the congregation despite sharp criticism from Muslim religious leaders in the Middle East who complained that it violated centuries of tradition.

Amina Wadud, a professor of Islamic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, said the service she was leading helped emphasize ``the belief in the reality that women are equal'' under Islam.

Oh really? "Women are equal" under Islam? Since when? "Men have authority over women because Allah has made the one superior to the other" (Qur'an 4:34).

She addressed a congregation of between 80 to 100 men and women attending the service at Synod House at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, an Anglican church in Manhattan.

Many of the women in attendance were modestly dressed and, in accordance with Islamic tradition, covered their hair with the hijab, or head scarf.

Wadud conducted the service primarily in English with verses of the Quaran [sic] read in Arabic.

``Women were not allowed to (have) input in the basic paradigms of what it means to be a Muslim,'' she said, adding that while the Quran puts men and women on equal footing, men have distorted its teachings to leave women with no role other than ``as sexual partners.''

Of course, the Qur'an itself gives rise to this ambiguity. It says that men are superior to women, as I quoted above, and also says this: "O mankind! reverence your Guardian-Lord, who created you from a single person, created, of like nature, His mate, and from them twain scattered (like seeds) countless men and women" (4:1). Many use that verse and other similar ones to argue that men and women are equal in dignity in Islam. They do not, of course, mention 4:34.

Then there's this from CNN, with thanks to Mediawatch:

There was a brief outburst from some protesters outside the building at the start of the service, but they were kept from entering by a heavy police presence. One young U.S.-born, bearded activist, who only gave his name as Nussrah, said Wadud was not representative of Muslims.

"She is tarnishing the whole Islamic faith," he said.

CNN for whatever reason doesn't tell us everything this man said. From Knight-Ridder, with thanks to LGF:

Only a handful of protesters showed up outside the event and they conducted a counter prayer service on the sidewalk, led by a young American man who would only give his name as Nussruh. "These people do not represent Islam," said the clearly furious Nussruh. "If this was an Islamic state, this woman would be hanged, she would be killed, she would be diced into pieces."

That's true.

From IslamOnline, with thanks to the Norwegian Kafir:

VIENNA, March 16, 2205 - Austrian Interior Minister Liese Prokop has backtracked on anti-hijab statements, thanks to immediate and astute action from the Muslim minority in the south-central European country.

"I respect Muslim women and their right to choose their attire," Prokop said in press statements carried by IslamOnline.net Tuesday, March 15.

She shifted her ground following a visit by a delegation led by Amina
Baghajati, the media spokeswoman for the Islamic Religious Authority (IGG), the main representative body of the Muslim minority in Austria.

Prokop told the state-run Falter magazine on March 8 that she strongly supported banning hijab-clad women from teaching in schools.

"I consider now the legality of banning hijab in schools," Prokop told the state-run Falter Magazine Tuesday, March 8. "But, anyhow, I will throw my weight about the ban."

Expectedly, the minister's statements raised the ire of the Muslim minority and government officials with Chancellor Wolfgang Schussel saying Prokop was in no position to address such an issue.

Reinforcing the eminent status they enjoy under Islam, Austrian Muslim women established last month the Muslim Women Forum in Austria (FMFO) as an affiliate to the IGG to get the message across.

"The eminent status they enjoy under Islam"? The eminence of getting beaten for disobedience (cf. Qur'an 4:34)?

From Expatica, :

MADRID-Spanish police have arrested a Syrian for the second time for his alleged links to the Madrid bombings.

Mohannad Almallah Dabas was detained in his home in Madrid for his alleged links to the massacre in which 191 people were killed and 1,500 injured when four commuter trains were bombed on 11 March last year.

Dabas was arrested in March last year in the wake of the attacks, but later released.

He and his brother Moutaz Almallah were accused of recruiting young men and turning them into Islamic extremists and sending them abroad....

How do you think they turn young men into "Islamic extremists"? With Qur'an and Sunnah, of course.

Update on this Keystone Kops terror prosecution — a luxury we can ill afford these days, but which seems to be in no short supply. From AP, :

DETROIT - An immigrant who was once tried on terrorism charges in a case marred by prosecutorial misconduct plans to plead guilty next week to unrelated insurance fraud charges and be deported, his lawyer said.

Ahmed Hannan, 36, of Detroit is tired of fighting the legal system, defense lawyer James Thomas said Thursday.

"After coming to court for five bond hearings and not being able to obtain a bond — and after having been assaulted by another inmate at Wayne County Jail and losing his front teeth — he decided that continuing the legal battle wasn't worth it anymore and he wants to go home," Thomas told the Detroit Free Press.

Thomas said Hannan will admit to his role in the fraud case, and is expected to be sentenced to time already spent in custody and be deported promptly to his homeland of Morocco.

Thomas said the plea is set to be entered Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen. He will not be required to testify against his co-defendant, Karim Koubriti, 26, also of Morocco.

Hannan, Koubriti and two other immigrants were accused of being part of a "sleeper" cell and charged with conspiracy to provide material support or resources to terrorists. The charges stemmed from a raid on a Detroit apartment six days after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Koubriti and Abdel-Ilah Elmardoudi were convicted in 2003 of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists. Hannan was acquitted of that charge but was convicted, along with Koubriti and Elmardoudi, of document fraud. The fourth man was acquitted.

Their trial was the first in the United States for an alleged terror cell detected following the attacks.

But in September, the U.S. attorney's office admitted widespread prosecutorial misconduct in the case, saying potentially exculpatory evidence was not shared with the defense. At the government's request, Rosen dismissed the terrorism charges and ordered a new trial on the document fraud charges.

They will say: "But, but, Islam forbids killing the innocent!" Sure, but who decides who is innocent? From AFP, with thanks to Twostellas:

BANGKOK (AFP) - A janitor of a government office was shot and killed in Thailand's predominantly Muslim south, while an elderly rubber tapper was slashed by assailants, police said Thursday. Chai Yongyosying, a 55-year-old Buddhist, was shot by unidentified gunmen who followed him home from work at Yaring district's administrative office in Pattani province Wednesday evening.

"He was shot twice as he almost arrived home in Ban Leam village ... and pronounced dead at Yaring district hospital at 6:55 pm," police in Yaring said.

In neighbouring Yala province, rubber farmer Sommai Khampanai, 72, was seriously wounded when he was slashed in the head Wednesday, police said. He remained in intensive care.

Police described the attacks as the latest linked to rampaging violence that has left at least 630 people dead and hundreds more wounded.

Authorities blame the unrest -- mostly targeting security officials but including teachers, state workers, civilians and Buddhist monks -- on a separatist insurgency.

Otherwise known as a jihad.

Dude! You're gettin' a prayer room! From AP, with thanks to RB:

Muslim contract employees at the Dell Inc. plant in Nashville reached a settlement with the company on issues related to a dispute over prayer in the workplace, a national Islamic civil rights advocacy group announced yesterday in Washington.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations said the 31 Muslim employees, who left work last month in a disagreement over Islamic prayers, will be reinstated, receive back pay, and be granted religious accommodation. Managers also will also receive additional training on existing religious accommodation policies and practices....

The settlement came following a meeting yesterday between representatives of the council, Dell, the Muslim workers, the Metro Human Relations Commission and Spherion Corp., the company that provided the workers to Dell.

''We are pleased with both the terms of the settlement and with the cooperative attitude of all parties in the negotiations,'' CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad said. ''We thank everyone from around the world who contacted Dell to express their support for reasonable religious accommodation in the workplace.''...

...said the spider to the fly. A piece on hope and future prospects for the Middle East, by Silence Dogood:

Things have been moving rapidly in the Middle East these last two weeks. Democracy seems to be breaking out all over. The neo-cons are vindicated and Secretary Rice is all smiles. Iraq is beginning to stabilize. Civil war there seems to have been averted for the time being. The ‘big gamble’ seems to be paying off. Democracy is winning, so why am I so worried?

Is it because once again, our foreign policy team seems to be playing checkers while our enemies are playing chess? Could we be just a move or two away from check or even checkmate? I’m afraid so, very afraid. Let me tell you why.

The former Syrian “President-for Life” Hafez Al-Assad was predictable. We always knew exactly what to expect from him, i.e. nothing, ever. Bashir Al-Assad, on the other hand, is a different kettle of fish. He is giving us exactly what we want by pulling out of Lebanon, without so much as a peep. He’s bowing to pressure, you say? Perhaps, but then again, maybe we should look at things from the point of view of the Islamists, of which he is certainly one, for it is common knowledge that he is surrounded by ‘bearded ones’ who have been calling all the shots in Syria after the death of the old man. What do they want? What are their goals and why?

“We have political goals, for religious reasons,” so says Usama bin Laden; and this general rule holds for all Islamists, for all Islamists hold the same religious ideas. While they may vary slightly from situation to situation on short-term political goals, their long-term political goals are identical, especially the goal of weakening the United States so they can get on with the business of destroying Israel. This is the goal of Al Qaida everywhere, and of the Zarqawi group in Iraq; it is the goal of Hamas in the Palestinian territories; the goal of Hez(Death to America)bullah; and it is certainly the goal of the Mullahs running Iran. In fact, if you were to take a poll across the crescent of the Muslim world, from Malaysia to the Balkans, you would very likely find near unanimous agreement on this point.

First we weaken America, then we destroy Israel, then we restore the Caliphate and consolidate the entire Muslim world into one big fascist state, then we subjugate Europe, (if necessary, that is) then we fight the ‘final battle’ with the infidel Americans for control of what’s left. News Flash – Enemy plan revealed!

Now, if your goal were to weaken America militarily, which war would you study?

"Va. man charged in Mideast funds transfer," from AP, :

WASHINGTON - A Virginia man was charged Wednesday with illegally wiring millions of dollars to Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and other nations.

Louay Habbal allegedly wired more than $23 million from Mena Exchange, an unlicensed money transfer business he ran from his home in suburban Vienna, Va., according to an indictment unsealed Wednesday in the U.S. district court in Alexandria, Va.

Authorities said no terror charges have been brought against Habbal, but the investigation is continuing.

Between November 2001 and July 2004, officials said, Habbal deposited funds from worldwide customers in a Virginia bank account. After taking out his fee, Habbal transferred the funds to individuals designated by his customers in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Sudan, Britain and France.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigators seized more than $100,000 from the Mena Exchange bank account.

Habbal, 45, is a naturalized U.S. citizen from Syria. He was arrested late Tuesday at Dulles Airport as he returned from Syria and was charged with operating a money transmittal business without a license....

Pretext alert: they will retaliate for the deaths of the prisoners, with no admission whatsoever of the fact that their own actions led to those deaths. From AP, with thanks to Nicolei:

MANILA: Grieving relatives buried yesterday 22 Muslim inmates killed when police stormed a maximum-security jail seized by suspected Abu Sayyaf guerillas, while troops secured the capital and key cities, fearing retaliatory attacks by the terror group.

Three of the slain detainees were prominent commanders of the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf who authorities said led the 29-hour standoff that ended when police special forces stormed the jail in Camp Bagong Diwa in a hail of gunfire on Tuesday.

The jail in Manila's Taguig suburb housed 425 inmates, including 129
suspected Abu Sayyaf members and leaders.

Relatives of the victims raised clenched fists and yelled "Allahu Akbar!" - God is great - as they carried the bodies in white blankets to a mass grave. A Muslim religious leader recited a prayer before relatives pushed earth over the bodies using shovels and hands.

"There is anger and sadness, but this is a reality we must accept," said Mujib Hataman, a Muslim negotiator who unsuccessfully tried to end the standoff peacefully.

Many relatives criticised the government for the attack, believing the inmates were mercilessly killed and falsely made to appear to have put up a fight with smuggled weapons.

"They didn't have guns. They were killed without the slightest chance of defending themselves," Haji Maimuna said, wiping away tears.

Metropolitan Manila Police Chief Avelino Razon blamed lapses by jail officials for the violence, saying some cell gates were unlocked and guards carried firearms when they approached inmates on Monday.

He also admitted that jail officials had been warned of an Abu Sayyaf escape plot, and that not enough was done to prevent it.

An Abu Sayyaf leader still at large, Abu Sulaiman, warned in a radio interview on Tuesday that the militants would bring war "right into your doorstep" in Manila....

Note the lengths to which the Turks have gone to cover up this genocide. The slightest mention of it anywhere will irk the Turk. Well, come and get me, Recep. The whitewashing of what was done to the Armenians and Greeks is just one element of the larger and time-honored Islamic project of whitewashing history in general, which has been so successful that innumerable canards are now accepted as fact by people who have no particular axe to grind or interest in the subject, but are just repeating what they were taught: the Egyptians welcomed the Muslim Arab invaders, so odious was Byzantium's yoke! The Crusades were acts of unprovoked aggression and slaughter of non-Christians! The Islamic empires were paragons of religious tolerance! There was no genocide of Armenians and Greeks!

From the Assyrian News Agency, with thanks to Nicolei:

The Turkish state's elimination of its Armenian, Greek and Assyrian populations was part and parcel of the same effort to obliterate Turkey's Christian minorities. All were perpetrated during the same time frame, by the same governments, and using the same methods - namely, massacres, labor camps and death marches under the guise of deportations.

New York State's governor George Pataki and the Armenian National Committee have recently added their voices to a growing community of individuals and organizations of conscience that have recognized the genocide of Asia Minor's Greeks by the modern Turkish state.

Now Greece, which has wrestled with its own turbulent history to evolve into a champion of democratic ideals, human rights and the rule of law, is poised to betray these very principles by denying the historical reality of a genocide that was perpetrated against its own people....

As noted by Professor Peter Balakian, prominent U.S. scholar and author of "Black Dog of Fate", the driving force behind the renewed awareness of Turkey's Greek holocaust transcends nationality and ideology: "this is not about ethnic conflict, Greek vs. Turk or Armenian vs. Turk, this is about universal moral issues and universal human rights issues . . . Clearly, denying genocide paves the way for future genocide, for it suggests to the world that governments can commit mass murder with impunity."

This chilling postulate was already put into practice just twenty years after Turkey's eradication of its Christian minorities. Eight days before unleashing his exterminationist campaign in Europe, on August 22, 1939 Hitler defended his orders "to kill without pity or mercy all men, women and children" by declaring "who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"...

Hebrew University professor Stanley Cohen's statement regarding the Turkish government's aggressive campaign of denial vis-a-vis the Armenian Genocide applies equally to its denial of the genocide of Asia Minor's Greeks:

"The nearest successful example [of 'collective denial'] in the modern era is the 80 years of official denial by successive Turkish governments of the 1915-17 genocide against the Armenians in which some 1.5 million people lost their lives. This denial has been sustained by deliberate propaganda, lying and coverups, forging documents, suppression of archives, and bribing scholars. The West, especially the United States, has colluded by not referring to the massacres in the United Nations, ignoring memorial ceremonies, and surrendering to Turkish pressure in NATO and other strategic arenas of cooperation" (Law and Social Inquiry, Winter 1995).

According to a groundbreaking expose by The Chronicle of Higher Education, Microsoft's electronic encyclopedia "Encarta" pressured contributing scholars Helen Fein, Executive Director of The Institute for The Study of Genocide, and Ronald Suny, a political scientist at the University of Chicago and the University of Michigan, to incorporate strategies of denial when referring to the Armenian Genocide because "the Turkish government had threatened to arrest local Microsoft officials and ban Microsoft products". Any familiarity with Turkey's record on free speech would demonstrate that these were not idle threats.

A Turkish writer for Encyclopedia Britannica was imprisoned for using the word "Armenia" in a map of ancient Anatolia.

Last year, Turkey imprisoned Assyrian priest Yusuf Akbulut for "telling reporters that his Christian minority had been the victim of genocide" (The New York Times, 12/12/00).

Ankara's Public Prosecutor's Office is now seeking a six-year prison term for Turkish human rights activist Akin Birdal for saying "everybody knows what was done to the Armenians" during a panel discussion in Germany. In 1998, Birdal survived multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and legs by two extremists linked to the Turkish military.

In October, Turkey successfully blackmailed the U.S. House of Representatives to withdraw a majority-supported resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide by threatening economic, military and diplomatic sanctions.

Incredibly, in a not-so-veiled threat Ankara warned that Americans in Turkey would be in danger should the resolution pass, prompting Representative Frank Pallone (D-NJ) to remark "what kind of ally threatens American lives if it doesn't get its way? With friends like that, who needs enemies."...

Quite.

Siham Qandah update, from Compass Direct, with thanks to Nicolei:

March 16 (Compass) -- The Muslim guardian trying to wrest custody of two Christian children away from their widowed mother demanded yesterday that an Islamic court in Jordan discount the mother's testimony because she is a Christian.

But Abdullah al-Muhtadi's attempt to play the "religion card" against his own sister may represent the last card in his hand, one of the widow's friends told Compass today.

Under Islamic law statutes, the testimony of a Christian or any other non-Muslim carries only half the legal weight of a Muslim witness in a sharia court. So al-Muhtadi insisted that the judge must count his testimony as a Muslim to be stronger evidence than anything testified by his Christian sister....

The defendant was ordered on February 6 and again on February 20 to produce before the court documented evidence to disprove accusations that he had embezzled large sums of money from his wards' trust funds....

As Qandah's estranged brother who converted to Islam as a teenager, al-Muhtadi launched legal proceedings in 1998 to gain personal custody of her daughter Rawan and son Fadi, ostensibly to raise them as Muslims. The children are now 16 and 15, respectively....

Qandah was forced to find a Muslim guardian for her children after her husband died in 1994, while he was serving as a soldier in the U.N. Peacekeeping Forces in Kosovo. Local courts had produced an unsigned "conversion" certificate, claiming her husband had secretly converted to Islam three years before his death. Although her children were baptized Christians, Islamic law decreed that the document automatically made the "convert" father's children Muslims as well....

Non-Muslims are not allowed under Islamic law to control the financial affairs of Muslims, so Qandah had asked her brother to take on this court-appointed responsibility to receive and pass on their orphan benefits, never dreaming that he would turn against her and try to take custody of the children himself....

Despite assurances from King Abdullah II and other members of the Jordanian royal family who have pledged the children will not be taken away from their mother, the custody wrangle has yet to be resolved.

Silvio, get hold of yourself. "Berlusconi in trouble over troop pull-out pledge," from the Times Online, :

Silvio Berlusconi was tonight forced into a partial climbdown after his surprise announcement on live television last night that Italy would begin withdrawing its forces from Iraq in September.

The off the cuff remark took Downing Street by surprise. This morning it emerged that Britain, which controls the 3,200 Italian troops and paramilitary police in the southern city of al-Nasiriyah, had not been informed of the Italian Prime Minister's "exit strategy".

Neither had President Ciampi or Gianfranco Fini, the Italian Foreign Minister, who are both visiting the UK this week, or the state Parliament.

Tony Blair issued an urgent statement saying that the Italian premier had been "misinterpreted". He told Parliament today: "Their [the Italian] position is exactly the same as ours, which is that there should be a build up of Iraqi forces so that security is increasingly taken over by them.

"Neither the Italian government nor ourselves have set some deadline to withdraw."

After a conversation with the US President, George Bush, Signor Berlusconi appeared to be forced to backtrack, issuing a statement that tonight that Italy will not begin withdrawing its troops from Iraq in September without the consent of its US and British allies....

And no more Aethelred the Unready acts, either, ok, Silvio? "Italy to stop paying ransoms," from the Times Online again, and again :

THE Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, has promised President George W Bush that he will not pay more ransoms to free hostages in Iraq.

The Italian government has denied newspaper reports that $6m (£3.1m) was paid for the release of Giuliana Sgrena, who worked for the Communist daily Il Manifesto. But senior officials and intelligence sources have confirmed that money did change hands.

Dude, you're cavin' to CAIR! Dell dhimmitude update. From the Dow Jones Newswires, with thanks to Twostellas:

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- A national Islamic civil rights group was retained as legal counsel by 21 of 30 Muslim employees who were allegedly forced from a Dell Inc. (DELL) plant in Nashville, Tenn., for seeking to pray in their workplace.

In a press release Tuesday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, said the workers signed retainer agreements with the council in Nashville on Saturday.

The council's Legal Affairs Director Arsalan Iftikhar said in an interview that the group is optimistic about a settlement over the Feb. 4 incident, which involved workers of Somali origin hired through a contract with the staffing company Spherion Corp. (SFN).

"I do feel that Dell as been responsive so far," Iftikhir said, adding that any settlement acceptable to the group would include reinstatement for the workers as well as back pay.

The council helped settle a similar dispute involving contract workers for Solectron Corp. (SLR) in 1999.

The Dell case is expected to be mediated through the City of Nashville's Human Relations Commission.

Last week, CAIR asked that the Muslim workers who were forced from their jobs be rehired pending resolution of the issues involved. The group also offered to mediate a mutually agreeable settlement to the dispute....

Dell Corp., through a spokesman, said the company is "confident a resolution is going to be reached" between the company and the displaced Muslim contract employees in Nashville...

"'Israel' erased from Canadian passports," from World Net Daily, with thanks to Teri:

Under a new passport policy in Canada, ''Israel" cannot be specified as the country of birth for Canadian citizens born in Jerusalem.

Canadian Jews are being told by their government to surrender their passports so the word "Israel" can be removed if it appears next to the name of the Jewish state's declared capital, according to a report by Israel National News....

A 2004 ruling by the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. mirrors the Canadian policy. The court ruled American consular offices in Israel need not register the birthplace of an American citizen born in Jerusalem as ''Jerusalem, Israel,'' but merely as ''Jerusalem.''

Judge Gladys Kessler rejected two lawsuits filed over the status of Jerusalem on passports, saying the U.S. ''does not recognize any sovereign over the city.''

From the Times Online, :

A RUTHLESS Islamic militant from Saudi Arabia who has been accused of financing some of Russia's most deadly terrorist acts has emerged as joint commander of the Chechen rebels after the killing last week of Aslan Maskhadov, former president of the breakaway republic.

Abu Havs, 40, a Wahhabi extremist, is said to have become one of Russia's two most wanted men, along with Shamil Basayev, the rebel leader who claimed responsibility for the Beslan school siege in September.

It is Abu Havs, according to military intelligence sources in Moscow and Chechnya - and not Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev, a little-known cleric named as Maskhadov's official interim successor - who now wields real power.

"Sadulayev is a nobody," a Russian intelligence source said. "Now that we have killed Maskhadov, the two men pulling the strings in Chechnya are Basayev and Abu Havs. They control the militants and the money - and they are the ones planning any future terrorist attacks."

Maskhadov, a decorated former Soviet army general who became president in free elections in 1997, had always publicly condemned terrorism. Although his power waned in his latter years, he mistrusted the Arab extremists who have moved to Chechnya and acted as a bulwark against their growing influence in the region.

His death has deprived the rebel movement of its last moderate counter-balance to the Islamic fundamentalists, further complicating Russian attempts to end the terrorist attacks that have claimed hundreds of lives.

Maskhadov, a moderate? Well, Stephen Schwartz says it, so it must be true, I guess. Here is my response.

The FSB security service (successor to the KGB) believes that Abu Havs helped to organise and finance the Beslan siege, in which 331 hostages died. It claims that he is the main channel for funds from the Arab world for the Chechen rebels and it suspects him of links with Al-Qaeda. Similar claims have been made by the United States.

Best known as Amzhet, his nom de guerre, Abu Havs was born in Jordan but is believed to have Saudi citizenship. He arrived in Chechnya in 1995 during the first war that Russia waged there, becoming an instructor at a terrorist training camp. He is said to have been so paranoid about being poisoned by rivals that at first he travelled with his own personal cook. But he soon settled in the region and married a Chechen woman. At the height of the second war, which began in 1999, he briefly sought refuge in the Pankisi gorge in neighbouring Georgia where he set up training camps, opened a hospital for militants and built a mosque.

The Russians claim that he quickly became one of the main conduits for weapons procurement. Rabat Kamal Burahlja, a militant and explosives expert from Algeria who was recently captured by the Russians, reportedly told the FSB that Abu Havs helped to organise several attacks, including a raid last year in neighbouring Ingushetia in which Chechen rebels killed about 90 members of the pro-Moscow security forces.

The FSB said the explosives used in the Beslan school siege were prepared by one of Abu Havs's closest lieutenants.

The Kremlin has hailed the killing of Maskhadov - who had a £5m bounty on his head - as a personal victory for President Vladimir Putin, who owes much of his popularity to his hardline stance in Chechnya. Putin had resisted western pressure to talk to Maskhadov by branding him a terrorist....

Basayev himself seems to have accepted that branding with alacrity.

Patrick Robertson, a British political consultant who in 1999 brought Maskhadov to London to meet Foreign Office officials, described his death as a "tragic loss" for the Chechen people. "To describe him as a terrorist is slander," he said. "He was willing to talk to Moscow to find a solution and the Russians' greatest mistake was not to support him. His death can only make things worse."...

Make things worse? How could they be worse?

From AFP, with thanks to the Norwegian Kafir:

ANKARA - The Turkish parliament Tuesday passed for a second time a controversial law pardoning tens of thousands of women who were expelled from universities for reasons including the wearing of the Islamic headscarf, banned under Turkey's secular education system.

The law, which amnesties students expelled since 2000, was already vetoed once by Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer in late February....

The bill was drawn up by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which has roots in a now banned Islamic movement.

Critics have blasted the law as a "populist" political tactic aimed at women who were expelled for wearing headscarves, which are banned in the civil service, schools and universities....

Headscarves are regarded by the establishment, including the Turkish army, as a statement of opposition to the overwhelmingly Muslim nation's strictly secular order.

Thus even in Turkey they understand what Westerners have so much trouble grasping: that sometimes a scarf is not just a scarf. It can be a symbol for an entire political and social system.

From the Islamic Republic News, with thanks to the Norwegian Kafir:

A group of Muslims in the Dutch city of Amsterdam plans to set up the Muslim Democratic Party (MDP) at the end of May.

The party wants to compete in the upcoming local government elections in five cities and later also in the parliamentary elections, Dutch news agency ANP has reported.

The MDP will promote the interests of Muslims in the Netherlands, the agency quoted spokesman M. Jabri saying....

Contacts are also being sought with non-Muslims, 'so that we have a balance within the executive', said Jabri.

"It is a matter of people who think the same way politically." The MDP has drawn up a provisional manifesto with the outline of the movement. Islam forms the basic point here.

The Palestinian question is also raised in the manifesto.

"The MDP declares solidarity with the peoples of the south in their fight against the neo-colonialism that is steered by the US and neo-liberal Europe, but also against the occupation and aggression of the US, its lackeys and internal dictators," according to the manifesto, quoted by ANP.

With language like that, they are sure to pick up quite a few non-Muslim allies in Europe.

Will we finally see some anti-dhimmitude regarding the Saudis? I wouldn't bet on it. Nicholas Kralev in the Washington Times discusses the issue of religious freedom in countries "of concern":

The Bush administration said yesterday it is close to reaching agreements with Saudi Arabia, Vietnam and Eritrea that would improve the state of religious freedom in the three countries of "particular concern" for Washington.

The administration asked Congress, which can impose sanctions on the violators under the International Religious Freedom Act, to extend yesterday's deadline for the three governments to demonstrate commitment to becoming more tolerant toward various religions.

"We've been actively engaged with all three in working for improvements in respect for religious freedom in those countries. We've made some important progress," State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters....

Saudi Arabia, Vietnam and Eritrea were included on the list of "countries of particular concern" for the first time, joining Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Burma and China. They had six months, which expired yesterday, to at least begin reversing the negative trend....

What? No Pakistan? And what about Egypt? Sudan? Jordan?

From Reuters:

The Financial Times said it was unclear how far the remarks of Hossein Kazempour, Iranian governor to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and an energy adviser to the government, represented the policy of Tehran.

"I am telling you that the Americans can come and have 50-50 (of an Iranian nuclear program)," Kazempour was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

"This offer is on the table. But they have their suspicions. This could be removed by their presence (in the program)."...

"Let not the believers take for friends or helpers unbelievers rather than believers: if any do that, in nothing will there be help from Allah: except by way of precaution, that ye may guard yourselves from them" — Qur'an 3:28.

"Al-Azhar – The Vatican: Official apologies demanded," from the Morocco Times, with thanks to LGF:

Egyptian highest religious authority Al-Azhar has requested the Vatican to present official apologies on Christian crusades carried out against Muslims seven centuries ago. Sheikh Fawzi Zafzaf, President of the Interfaith Dialogue Committee of Al-Azhar, said during a press conference that his committee has sent a request to the Pope last February, demanding an official apology on Christian crusades against the Muslim world, following the example of the Jews.

The principle of demanding apology from the Vatican germinated following Pope Jean Paul II's visit to Syria and Egypt a few years ago, and the apologies the Catholic Church presented to the Jewish and some other Christian doctrines, explained Sheikh Zafzaf. “Al-Azhar is only asking for a similar treatment,” he added.

The Vatican's ambassador to Egypt has abstained from commenting, saying that Al-Azhar's request is now being considered by the Holy See.

Charles at LGF notes that Al-Azhar, the most respected authority in Sunni Islam, has praised suicide bombing and stated that Islamic states have a religious obligation to acquire nuclear weapons.

And yes, like TigerHawk, I want to see an apology from Al-Azhar for the 450 years of unanswered Islamic aggression and expansion that obliterated the ancient Christian communities of the Middle East and North Africa, and to which the Crusades were a late and paltry defensive reaction.

But the Crusades have grown into a myth that little resembles reality. One hostile emailer, who represented himself as a professor of divinity in Scotland (and may well be, the level of politicized ignorance in the universities being what it is these days) just today asserted to me that the "whole pretence behind [the Crusades] was to slaughter the un-Christian savages in the East." He also claimed that "2.5 million (approx) Muslim people were slaughtered during the Holy Crusades of the 11th century."

This is absurd, and not just because the Crusades had just barely begun by the end of the eleventh century (the first one was called in 1095 and didn't get going until 1099). But the Crusades were not waged to "slaughter un-Christian savages," and it would not have been possible for the Crusaders to kill 2.5 million people (all in 1099, I guess). I suppose this "professor" would have us think that the Connecticut Yankee showed up in the County of Edessa with a few state-of-the-art 20th century Nazi crematoria. (Estimates of deaths in the Crusades more realistically peg them at about 650,000 on each side -- for the entire period between 1095 and 1291).

Anyway, by bothering the Pope, Al-Azhar is just trying to perpetuate this nonsense. It is, after all, politically useful -- as my addled Scots friend indicates. As it happens, I am these days working on a new book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades, which should be out from Regnery in a few months. In it, I'll do my best to clear away this propaganda and tell what really happened.

What do these false, Zionist Qur'ans say? Don't slay the unbelievers wherever you find them (9:5)? Don't strike the necks of the unbelievers (47:4)? Don't consider unbelievers "the vilest of creatures" (98:6)? Don't fight the Jews and Christians until they become Muslims or dhimmis (9:29)? Don't be ruthless toward unbelievers (48:29)? Don't pretend friendship with unbelievers in order to gain an advantage over them (3:28)?

"Libya: U.S. falsifying Holy Koran," from the Washington Times, with thanks to Martin:

Tripoli, Libya, Mar. 15 (UPI) -- Libya's Deputy Speaker Ahmed Ibrahim accused the United States Tuesday of distributing forged copies of the Koran to tarnish the image of Islam.

During a lecture to the Libyan Students' Union in Tripoli, Ibrahim said the U.S. administration under orders from President Bush "is forging the Koran and distributing the false copies among Americans in order to tarnish the image of Muslims and Islam."...

"The Zionists have ruined America's dream in establishing a peaceful and stable world ... If the Americans do not get rid of Zionist influence they will be endangering their interests and future," Ibrahim added.

But can you use Paypal? "Terrorists launch online fund-raiser," from WorldNetDaily, with thanks to Kemaste:

Jihadis apparently taking a page from American efforts have launched an Internet fund-raising effort.

The posting requests funds be sent to the Arab Bank in Gaza for use in jihad efforts throughout the "Islamic Ummah," or worldwide community.

A copy of the translation, below, has been sent to authorities.

The Jihad Donation Campaign

My generous brothers, we call upon you join in the jihad in the jihad donations campaign; do not deprive yourself of the price and the reward

In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful

The Jihad Donation Campaign

You, my Muslim brothers:

From each of us according to what we can give in support of this blessed uprising. Each of us he contributes what he can from his salary for its support. We have started this fund-raising campaign for our brothers, the mujahideen in Palestine, and all money raised will be required to be used for Jihad. For Allah above said: "fight hard in Allah's name with your money and your work" Qu'ran, Surah: The Repentence, Verse 41. Each of us must exert ourselves to give what we can so that we can encourage our brothers to give what they do....

Fawaz Damra update. From the Cleveland Plain Dealer, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

A federal appeals court has upheld the conviction of Fawaz Damra, a decision that will prompt federal prosecutors to begin deportation proceedings against the imam of Ohio's largest mosque.

The 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied all of Damra's claims in a 17-page opinion released late Tuesday. Damra, 43, of Strongsville, was convicted in June of lying on his immigration form and during an interview in 1993.

He failed to mention his work with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which opposes Israel's existence, and the Alkifah Refugee Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., where the imam knew other radicals. He came to the Islamic Center of Greater Cleveland in 1991.

U.S. District Judge James Gwin sentenced him to two months in prison and four months in home detention. He also stripped Damra's citizenship but told prosecutors they could not begin deportation proceedings until after the appellate ruling.

Once in federal immigration court, it could be two or three years before the Palestinian-born Damra is forced from the country....

Damra's attorneys said their client was never a member of the Islamic Jihad. They said that prosecutors' use of "affiliation" was ambiguous. His attorneys also said he never persecuted anyone.

Citing videotapes played at the trial in which Damra wailed about the need to give money to kill Jews, the unanimous three-judge panel disagreed....

The court also upheld the use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act involving secretly taped calls Damra made to Sami Al-Arian, who prosecutors say is a leader in the Islamic Jihad. The calls concerned Damra's attempts to launder money with the help of a former mosque leader, Dr. Azzam Ahmed, for Al-Arian, according to court records....

From Sherrie Gossett in Accuracy in Media, with thanks to Daniel Pipes:

While the major media have portrayed the president's faith based initiative as a pay-off to conservative Christians, a controversial Muslim group accused of having an association with an extreme form of Islam has also been getting federal funds. The group, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), considers itself moderate and mainstream but has sponsored conferences in the past that included speakers known for violent anti-Jewish rhetoric.

At the beginning of this month President Bush made headlines across the country when he addressed religious leaders who gathered at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington for the White House-sponsored Faith-Based and Community Initiatives Leadership Conference. Bush announced that his administration had awarded a whopping $2 billion in grants last year to social programs operated by churches, synagogues and mosques. A White House official said this was probably the most money the federal government had given in one year to religious charities.

The major media failed to report, however, that ISNA, which was represented at the conference, is under Senate scrutiny. Members of the Senate Finance Committee called on the Internal Revenue Service to turn over private tax and fund-raising records for major Muslim charities, including ISNA, as part of an investigation into possible links between the charities and terrorist groups.

The Senators cited no evidence of such ties in their December 22, 2003 letter to the IRS. But the committee's Republican chairman, Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, and its ranking Democrat, Senator Max Baucus of Montana, said in part: "Many of these groups not only enjoy tax-exempt status, but their reputations as charities and foundations often allows them to escape scrutiny, making it easier to hide and move their funds to other groups and individuals who threaten our national society. This support for the machinery of terrorism not only violates the law and tax regulations, but it violates the trust that citizens have in the large majority of charities."...

Mary Jacoby and Graham Brink, writing in the St. Petersburg Times, describe ISNA as "subsidized by the Saudi government" and the "main clearinghouse for Wahhabism in the U.S." The New York Times has described ISNA as the umbrella organization for 300 Muslim groups and about one-third of the mosques in the United States....

Read it all.

"Bush calls on Hizbullah to prove it is not a terrorist group," from the Lebanese DailyStar:

BEIRUT: American President George W. Bush called on Hizbullah to "prove they are not a terrorist group by laying down their arms". Speaking after a meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah II in Washington, Bush said: "We view Hizbullah as a terrorist organization, but I would hope that Hizbullah would prove that they're not one by laying down arms and not threatening peace in the region."

Bush's comments will be seen as the strongest indication yet that Washington is softening its stance on the Lebanese resistance group.

But will laying down their arms really prove that they're peaceful? What about the jihad ideology? What about the Islamic idea of a truce (hudna), wherein the Muslims lay down their arms for a temporary period, only so that they can gather strength to take them up again more effectively later?

See? This is the kind of myopia that comes from the Administration's unwillingness or inability to confront the realities of the problem of jihad.

The statement comes hard on the heels of a series of leaked statements from the U.S. State Department in recent days hinting at a new openess within the White House to deal with Hizbullah.

But Bush's plea fell on stony ground within Hizbullah.

A spokesperson for the group said: "Despite the softening of attitude, the U.S. position regarding the Lebanese resistance group has never changed. Hizbullah remains on their list of terrorist organizations and the U.S. administration continues to consider us an enemy."

Bush said a major concern, discussed by him and Abdullah, was that Hizbullah may try to derail the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians.

Gee, ya think?

But how committed can Sfeir really be to Lebanese "sovereignty and independence" if he was in Washington to shill for Hizballah? "Sfeir to meet Bush to talk Hizbullah and bilateral relations," from the Lebanese DailyStar:

BEIRUT: Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir said Tuesday he was in Washington as a "friend of democracy" and to promote friendship between Lebanon and the U.S.

Speaking upon his arrival in the American capital, where he is due to meet U.S. President George W. Bush Wednesday, Sfeir said: "We want for Lebanon to live in peace, to be a free, sovereign and independent country, a country for all people. Let's give it an opportunity to regain its special status within the international community."

It has been understood that Sfeir's visit is aimed at convincing the Bush administration to soften its stance toward the Lebanese resistance group Hizbullah, which the U.S. deems a terrorist organization.

But Sfeir said his visit to the U.S., which he described as a "democratic country par excellence," was aimed at promoting "brotherly relations between Christian and Muslim communities in Lebanon and the people of this great and noble nation."

He added: "The message I am carrying is that of love, respect and appreciation for the United States. We appreciate and thank all those who can help Lebanon regain its sovereignty and independence."...

From the TehranTimes:

TEHRAN (IRNA) -- Negotiators from Iran and the European Union will hold their new rounds of negotiations focusing on political and trade cooperation, Iran's Foreign Ministry said here Tuesday in a statement.

"In this round of negotiations, delegates from the two sides will separately discuss political cooperation as well as trade and cooperation agreement (TCA)," the ministry's head office for information and press said.

For political talks, the director of Foreign Ministry's West European office, Ebrahim Rahimpur, will represent Iran, while a representative of Luxembourg Foreign Ministry will head the EU delegation.

As for a trade and cooperation agreement, the Iranian Foreign Ministry's director for multilateral economic cooperation, Kia Tabatabaii, will sit down for negotiations with the director general for economic affairs of the European Commission, Christian Lefler.

The political talks are the fifth of their kind, while negotiations on the trade and cooperation agreement are the sixth, with their last round held in the Belgian capital of Brussels earlier this month.

The EU-Iran talks began after President Mohammad Khatami came to power in May 1997, with the EU taking up a policy of 'comprehensive dialogue' with the Islamic Republic in the form of biannual troika meetings on political and economic issues.

The political part of the dialogue covers issues regarding conflicts, including in the Middle East, non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, human rights, and terrorism.

On the economic front, the European Union is exploring possibilities for cooperation with Iran in energy, trade and investment as well as refugees and drugs control.

The EU is Iran's biggest trading partner, with oil accounting for over 80 percent of Tehran's exports to the EU. Iran also sells agricultural products -- mainly pistachios -- as well as textiles and carpets to the EU.(...)

Several other Iranian officials have lined up to warn that Tehran might be forced to abandon the diplomatic process if pressed too far.

The key sticking point in the negotiations is uranium enrichment which Tehran has suspended as a confidence-building gesture since last November, but the country insists that it cannot be cajoled to sustain the suspension for good.

The Europeans, represented by Germany, France, and Britain, have been pressing the Islamic Republic on this in return for a package of incentives.

Iran's Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi stressed Tuesday that economic incentives may help improve foreign relations but won't permanently prevent Tehran from pursuing a peaceful nuclear program.

"Our (nuclear) rights cannot be exchanged for any economic incentives," he told a news conference....

From Sharon Behn in the Washington Times:

Christian groups and some other private relief agencies are being asked to halt their work in the tsunami-ravaged Indonesian province of Aceh and leave the area by March 26, Indonesia's defense minister said yesterday.

The decision likely will target Western and smaller church groups as the government moves to tighten control over reconstruction work in Aceh, the home of a decades-old separatist insurgency.

"We want each of the relief agencies to be transparent in their programs: Some of them are not clear about their mandates," said Juwono Sudarsono during an interview in a Washington hotel.

"Aceh is mostly Muslim, and some church groups from Australia and the United States are too eager to be there and do their part," he said.

Mr. Sudarsono said his government had set March 26 some weeks ago as a target date for moving from the disaster-relief phase of post-tsunami operations to the reconstruction phase.

With that goal in sight, he said, the overwhelming presence of U.S. and Western relief agencies could make members of the local Islamic community uncomfortable, adding that they would be replaced by Pakistani and Saudi Arabian workers....

Ah, even Saudi Arabia can't escape the glorious rising sun of modernity, eh? Well, maybe. The headline may be misleading. "87 Percent Saudis Back Women's Participation in Elections," from Arab News, with thanks to JJP Mackie and RB:

JEDDAH, 16 March 2005 - A survey conducted by an independent agency in Jeddah showed 87 percent Saudis backing women's participation in elections. It also reflected the greater role of media in educating the public on the polls.

"Eighty-seven percent of 240 Saudis who took part in the survey called for women's participation in the next round of elections," said Dr. Muhammad Fashetan, chairman of the SAS Center for Opinion Survey and Consultancy in Jeddah.

He said the survey's participants included 50 teachers, 20 businessmen, six university students, 40 government employees, 20 retired military officers, 20 media persons and 30 retired civilian officials.

Some women were actually happy to hear the survey report, no matter how small the number polled was. For them it indicated that there is a change in the way people perceive the matter and some saw it as a result of the media's influence. But a considerable number of women also expressed their doubts on the credibility of the poll.

Nawal Hamed, a physician, said that the number mentioned in the survey, carried by the official Saudi Press Agency, is not representative of the Saudi population. "I have my doubts on the significance of this number and I think the people polled belong to a certain educated class, that is why they seem supportive of women voting."...

From our "We Could Have Told You This" Department, coming from the Herald, and RB:

AUSTRALIA could be the target of the next Jemaah Islamiah attack to be launched from possibly Indonesia or the Philippines, new intelligence warns....

Labor foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd told Parliament yesterday new terror intelligence suggested the Philippines and Indonesia as likely launch bases for attacks against Australian interests.

Experts told Mr Rudd that JI was providing terror training to smaller outfits in the two countries and growing its membership base. "The reality is that JI is now acting more like al-Qaida," Mr Rudd said.

Uh, could that be because they have exactly the same motivational ideology? Just wondering.

I wrote this in this morning's FP article:

Maskhadov was a mastermind of the Beslan school massacre, in which Chechen jihadists held over a thousand schoolchildren and adults hostage for several days, murdering many and engaging in wanton acts of brutality. When one hostage-taker asked Maskhadov and Chechen jihad leader Shamil Basayev why they were doing this, he was told: “Because we need to start a war across the Caucasus.”

Jihad Watch reader JVC has alerted me to this statement by an Islamic apologist at TechCentralStation:

Maskhadov, whose first name, Aslan, means "lion," was a genuine moderate, who sought peace and compromise with the Russians. All objective observers, including the journalists of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, agree that Maskhadov was the only influential Chechen who truly believed that peace was equally in the interest of Slavs and Chechens, Christians and Muslims and Jews....The Russians could kill Dudayev, Yandarbiyev, and Maskhadov but somehow Basayev, a genuine terrorist, remains untouched.

Was Maskhadov really that different from Basayev? JVC has kindly sent along some links, which correspond to my own research on this. From AP, September 3, 2004:

Although most Chechens are Muslim, Aslan Maskhadov, who became president of Chechnya after Russian forces withdrew in 1996, was seen as relatively secular. However, he came under increasing pressure from radical Islamic factions led by warlord Shamil Basayev and eventually declared Sharia law, or Islamic law, an idea that has less support among the public at large than it does among the rebels.

From CNN, September 6, 2004:

Appearing on Russian state television, the unidentified man said the attack was ordered by Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov and Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev.

Can't trust Russian state television, right? Sure. But Basayev did seem to count Maskhadov as an ally. Here is a statement from Basayev from a jihadist website:

Today the Kafirs are showing their weakness by announcing many million rubles of rewards for our leaders and by trying to use their dirty and cunning methods of propaganda and play down the role of President of CRI Maskhadov, and by promising a reward dozens of times lower than they have announced for catching me. But these 'pig shows' of the ones like Kafir-ov (i.e. Kadyrov, head of puppet administration in Chechnya) and other scumbags like him are not new to us.

We are all walking under God. And sooner or later we will all die. A death of one of us will change nothing. Because we are seeking a death of a martyr on the way of Allah, while Kafirs (infidels) and Munafiks (national traitors) are trying to extend their good-for-nothing lives. The Jihad will be continuing. Our entire history is the evidence.

There was a time when the Kafirs were hoping that by killing the first President of CRI J. Dudayev they would be able to have something changed. But after President Dudayev became a Shaheed (a martyr), the Jihad only increased and the Mujahideen (fighters) got even stronger. Nothing will change if President Maskhadov, myself or any other leader becomes a Shaheed.

Thank God (Alhamdulillah!), we are not afraid of death and we are not trying to escape it. But if Kafirs want me to die so bad, I can make them an offer: let them give me some more money, about 10-20 million more, and I will give that money to Maskhadov to continue the Jihad, and I myself will buy me a good KAMAZ truck and will drive right up to them.

UPDATE: I just got an email from someone claiming to be a "Russian, but objective." It asserted that Basayev was a KGB agent. But if Basayev is KGB, and Maskhadov was his opponent, why does Basayev speak here as if Maskhadov was on his side?

The Vice President of the Jihad Watch Advisory Board, Hugh Fitzgerald, here tackles a common false claim: that poverty breeds jihad, and money will restore peace.

This constant refrain about young Muslims turning to "militant Islam" or "Islamism" or somesuch because of poverty can be answered in two ways.

The first way is to point out that the extensive studies by sociologists of the backgrounds of many hundreds, or even thousands, of Muslim terrorists have all concluded that on the whole, they are much better off and much better educated than the average Muslim. The terrorists have included the scions of both what may be described as among the First Families of Egypt (Ayman al-Zawahiri's grandfather's brother was Azzam Pasha, the first Secretary of the Arab League; Al-Zawahiri was a doctor) and Saudi Arabia (the Bin Laden family is, after the Al-Saud, possibly the richest family in Saudi Arabia), as well as urban planners (Mohammad Atta), successful computer engineers ("Mike" Hawash), mild-mannered accountants, and so on.

So the idea that poverty is the problem, which simply helps everyone avoid looking squarely at the theory and practice of Islam over 1300 years, can easily be shown to be nonsense.

The second way, however, is to pretend, for a minute, that "poverty" might have something to do with it -- that when Muslims are poor, they necessarily find solace in Islam and become "immoderate" Muslims. Suppose that were true? What would that mean? Are Infidels supposed to guarantee a particular standard of living to all Muslims living in the West, not to mention elsewhere, so that they never feel sufficiently put upon, do not feel that they are falling behind in their own standard of living? Would that make sense? Is that the Infidel man's new burden?

And what about other kinds of setbacks? What about the Muslim who is rejected by an Infidel woman he is courting, and feels slighted as a result, and resentful, and....well, you know. What about the Muslim who loses his job, and is mad at his Infidel boss, and....well, you know. The problem is this: there are a thousand, or a million reason, why people feel bad, how they suffer in one way or another. We who are not Muslim do not have at hand a ready grid for the universe which teaches us to blame and hate the Infidel. We who are not Muslim do not have at hand a prism, constructed from the verses of Qur'an, and the Hadith stories, and the supposed facts of supposed Muhammad's supposed existence, a prism through which Muslims can view the universe -- and again, blame the Infidel.

And so what are we Infidels to do? Spend the rest of our lives making sure that no Muslims are unhappy, or going directly to the problem itself -- the ideology of Islam, and working to deprive Muslims of the major means of doing us harm, through terrorism and outright warfare (taking away their major weaponry), or through demography (ending all Muslim migration to Infidel lands, and reversing the flow wherever that can be accomplished), and Da'wa (identifying, and countering, all the ways that Da'wa is conducted, all the places it finds its most likely victims).

And then creating the conditions where Muslims themselves, through simple observation, can learn or be forced to learn that what is wrong with their societies, politically, economically, socially, and intellectually, is entirely owed to the teachings of Islam itself. The Soviet Union collapsed because Communism was found to have failed. The outside world, chiefly the United States, helped create the conditions in which that failure was impossible for Soviet citizens to ignore or explain away. The same thing can be done, much more slowly and with much more difficulty, with Islam -- showing its own followers that, for example, it is inshallah-fatalism that keeps them from having developed real economies, and it is the spirit of submission to authority, and blind obedience, that makes despotism such a natural part of Islam. And if Muslims wish not merely the goods and services of the Infidel world, but to be able to produce those goods and services themselves, they will have to at least constrain Islam, as Ataturk did, if they cannot -- out of filial piety -- recognize openly how Islam holds people back, and prevents individual achievement, scientific inquiry, artistic expression.

Islamization in Germany: "Lessons in Islam at Elementary Schools in Baden-Wuerttemberg," from GermanNews, with thanks to the Norwegian Kafir and RB:

Stuttgart. Starting with the 2006/07 school year, Islamic religious education will be offered at public schools in Baden-Wuerttemberg for the first time. According to Ali Demir, the chairman of the Islamic religious community, the lessons will be offered in German at about a dozen elementary schools. Lessons offered will be tied closely to the local Islamic communities and local politics. The teachers will be educators of Islamic faith already working in the teaching profession, who underwent additional training, according to Demir....

There are about 70.000 elementary school students that are of Islamic faith in Baden-Wuerttemberg.

70,000? 70,000 in one province?

What race are Muslims again? Maybe that Nordic giant Ibrahim Hooper can explain to me about "racism" against Muslims. From Islamonline, with thanks to the Norwegian Kafir and RB:

THE HAGUE, Along with the media reports which stereotype them as oppressed under Islam, Muslim women in Holland have other more concerns to worry about, a leading Dutch feminist said.

It is a sort of cliché and stereotype to say that women are oppressed under Islam, but it is a fact to say that immigrant women in the country - particularly Muslims - are being discriminated against, lawyer Vamli Van Arslan told IslamOnline.net on Monday, March 14.

Arslan believed that Muslim women in the Netherlands take the brunt of religious discrimination and racial profiling in the labor market because of their attire and names.

"The government remains largely inactive towards such incidents," she said.

Arslan, herself a Muslim, said that women should have the right to put on whatever suits them, a principle she said is enshrined by the secular laws....

That's true, were it not for the fact that the hijab indicates allegiance to a whole different societal model and set of laws. Ah, so much oppression, so little time to manufacture -- er, uh, explain -- it.

A victory for the Jihad Watch Woman of the Year (and next year, too), Ayaan Hirsi Ali. From Expatica, with thanks to Filtrat and RB:

AMSTERDAM - The Hague Court refused to censor MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Tuesday, dismissing a court challenge to her criticism of the Islam faith and a planned sequel to her controversial film "Submission".

The ruling comes after several Muslims took legal action against the Liberal VVD MP in a bid to prevent her from making what they believe to be insulting, offensive or blasphemous remarks against the Islamic faith.

They also demanded the court block a sequel to the film Submission, which accused the Islam faith of endorsing domestic violence.

Hirsi Ali made the film in co-operation with Theo van Gogh. The 10-minute documentary is believed to have played a key role in the filmmaker's murder at the hands of a suspected Islamic militant last November.

But the court in The Hague ruled on Tuesday there are insufficient grounds to ban a follow-up film, asserting that Hirsi Ali has not acted illegally with her statements. The court did accuse the MP though of testing the bounds of what is acceptable....

He also said Hirsi Ali is repeatedly asserting that the Islam faith is
dangerous "without making a distinction between fundamentalist Islam and Islam in general". Moszkowicz demanded an end to such sweeping statements....

All right, Moszkowicz. Tell me, please: does Qur'an 4:34, which tells men to beat their disobedient wives, belong to "fundamentalist Islam" or "Islam in general"? A cursory look at the Amnesty International reports for the Islamic world will show that it seems to be taken seriously by men all across those regions.

Hirsi Ali has in the past labelled Islam a backward culture, condemning also its oppression of women under Islam. "For me, it is all about a battle of opinions through peaceful means: words against words. I am not out to hurt or offend people with different beliefs," she was quoted saying earlier this year.

Warm congratulations from Jihad Watch, Ms. Hirsi Ali.

From CNN, and RB:

PARIS: A French court on Tuesday handed the maximum 10-year sentence to the alleged organizer of a plot to send a suicide bomber into the U.S. Embassy in Paris.

Five other defendants in the closely watched case were sentenced to prison terms ranging from one year to nine years imprisonment.

Djamel Beghal, 39, and the others were charged with "criminal association in relation with a terrorist enterprise," a broad accusation commonly used in terrorism cases in France that allowed for a maximum 10-year sentence.

The defendants all denied any connection to a terror plot, and Beghal
testified that his confession of a plan to send a suicide bomber into the U.S. Embassy was obtained under torture after his arrest in July 2001 in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. He was extradited to France that September.

Click here for the Al-Qaeda training manual (thanks to Carolyn2) that advises arrested jihadists to claim they were tortured.

The investigation was opened September 10, 2001 -- a day before the terror attacks in the United States -- and involved several European countries....

Asked if he considered himself a radical, Beghal testified: "I am a Muslim and Muslim to the hilt."

He calls it "A Sacred Conversation": Dr. Hesham A. Hassaballa, a Chicago physician and writer, recounts this conversation at AltMuslim.com, with thanks to Nicolei and RB.

[An American woman writes]: "I won't deny that I have hostility towards Islam. I think you should know, however, that before I knew anything about Islam I used to regard Muslims as nice, intelligent, good people and I thought Islam wasn't very different from Christianity. However, after the attacks of 9/11 which took America and myself by surprise, I began to research just what Islam is all about. So far, I don't like what I see. Both in theory and in practice it seems bloody and barbaric."

[Hassaballa responds:] I sincerely appreciated her refreshing honesty. The attacks of 9/11 poisoned the view of Islam for many fellow Americans, and it should not be surprising. The level of the Muslim community's insulation from the greater American society, coupled with the widespread ignorance of the basics of Islam on the part of most Americans, should have set up an enormous backlash against American Muslims after September 11. Yes, there were attacks and some were even killed. Yet, September 11 did not spell the end of Islam in America. It speaks to the fundamental goodness of the people of our country.

Still, it is important for me to point out that Islam is neither bloody nor barbaric in theory. Here, however, is the problem: unfortunately, Islam has been used by a tiny minority as an instrument of bloodthirsty barbarism. I am so angry for that.

Angry, eh? All right, Dr. Hassaballa. What are you going to do about it?

[The woman continues]: "I want to know that somewhere out there are Muslims that won't condone the acts perpetrated by Islamic terrorists all over the world and that Islam is not a threat to everything I hold dear. In other words, I'm looking for some sign that the 'clash of cultures' between Islam and the West is not inevitable. I know I'm asking a lot, but all I'm looking for is some middle ground."

[Hassaballa]: This is a very legitimate concern for many, many non-Muslim fellow Americans. So let me say again what I initially told this fellow American: I do not, never have, and never will condone acts of murder and mayhem in the name of Islam. I reject it, I hate it, I despise it, and I condemn it with every cell in my body. The terrorists who act in the name of Islam are as much my enemy as they are yours. What you hold dear, I hold dear. Islam is not a threat to that. My whole purpose in writing is to be a bridge between America and the Muslim world. I am trying with all my keystrokes to avert a "clash of civilizations." Islam and the West live in harmony in me, and it can do so around the world. Again, please don't confuse Islam for the ugliness you see done by Muslims. Please. It is the same as judging Christianity by the Spanish Inquisition or the Crusades, or judging America by "Baywatch." Both are fallacious.

I am so very grateful to God that I had this conversation, and hence I called it a "sacred" one. I am confident that these very same thoughts and feelings dwell within the minds and hearts of a good number of non-Muslim fellow Americans. I am so grateful to God that this fellow American had the courage to tell me about them.

I would like to invite Dr. Hassaballa to visit us at Jihad Watch, and to explain the specific Islamic grounds on which he condemns terrorism. I hope he will also explain the distinction between jihad and terrorism, and show how the explanations of jihad put forth by Osama bin Laden and his ilk are fallacious on Islamic grounds. Dr. Hassaballa, I'll be right here waiting for you.

But note that it can only retail the unsupported claims of a "rock star." No hangings of sharp-tongued teenagers or religiously-motivated murders of hospital patients to report here. "Muslim American: A new identity?," from the BBC, with thanks to JJohnson and RB:

Islam is one of the fastest growing religions in the US, yet one in four Americans regard Muslims living among them with suspicion. What does it mean to be both Muslim and American?

Touring the US with his band Junoon, rock star and Muslim American, Salman Ahmed, wanted to find out how the aftermath of 9/11 continues to shape the lives of Muslim Americans in 2005.

"Following the attack," he says, "there were human rights abuses against Muslims, using immigration violations as a weapon. Thousands have been detained and others deported."

Better than being incinerated in your office.

Can Ahmed name any who were deported who didn't have terror ties or immigration violations? No system is perfect, but the overwhelming majority had one or the other, or both.

One month after the attacks on New York and Washington, Congress rushed the Patriot Act into law to help track down terrorists.

The great thing about the American system is that it is, to a greater extent than most governments, self-correcting. Elements of the Patriot Act that may conflict with Constitutional freedoms have been the subject of endless discussions, and the whole thing is subject to modification by future legislation.

"The Act gave the FBI the right to spy on American citizens, to look into our lives, our email, and even our library records," he says.

Better than being incinerated in your office.

But anyway, this is a common canard, and is overblown. The Act didn't really give the FBI anything it didn't already have -- and its excesses are being trimmed in any case.

Even though the hijackers who attacked the Twin Towers in September 2001 represented a militant fringe, some Americans have blamed the entire Muslim world.

And the claims made by terrorists, that they acted in the name of Islam, have outraged many Muslims....

But, still, it's better than being incinerated in your office...

And anyway, about that last part, it would be nice if these Muslims who are "outraged" that the terrorists claim to act in the name of Islam would come up with a convincing version of Islam that refutes the jihadists' use of the Qur'an and Sunnah. They haven't done so yet.

Sgrena: mission accomplished. From the New York Times, with thanks to RB:

ROME, March 15 - Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said today that he aimed to begin withdrawing Italy's 3,000 troops from Iraq by September, in a signal that the domestic cost of loyalty to the United States over the war was growing too high.

Mr. Berlusconi, one of President Bush's few close allies in Europe, couched his words carefully, saying in brief comments on a talk show broadcast here that the timing of the withdrawal would depend on the strength of the Iraqi government. Italy represents the fourth-largest contingent of foreign troops in Iraq, its soldiers acting largely as peacekeepers near the southern city of Nasiriya.

But there could be little doubt that Mr. Berlusconi was looking not only at events in Iraq, for on the same program, he said formally that he would run for re-election in the spring of 2006. Political commentators here have long assumed that given the deep opposition to the war in Iraq among Italians, Mr. Berlusconi would be forced to begin the troop withdrawal by then.

That opposition to the war found a vigorous new cause two weeks ago, when an Italian intelligence agent was shot to death at a checkpoint in Iraq by American soldiers after he secured the freedom of a kidnapped Italian journalist....

An interesting report from the New York Times, with thanks to RB. Now what are they doing on the ideological front to identify and monitor potential sites of jihadist recruitment, and to keep an eye on the recruits? Or is that too un-PC for the DHS?

WASHINGTON, March 15 - The Department of Homeland Security, trying to focus antiterrorism spending better nationwide, has identified a dozen possible strikes it views as most plausible or devastating, including detonation of a nuclear device in a major city, release of sarin nerve agent in office buildings and a truck bombing of a sports arena.

The document, known simply as the National Planning Scenarios, reads more like a doomsday plan, offering estimates of the probable deaths and economic damage caused by each type of attack.

They include blowing up a chlorine tank, killing 17,500 people and injuring more than 100,000; spreading pneumonic plague in the bathrooms of an airport, sports arena and train station, killing 2,500 and sickening 8,000 worldwide; and infecting cattle with foot-and-mouth disease at several sites, costing hundreds of millions of dollars in losses. Specific locations are not named because the events could unfold in many major metropolitan or rural areas, the document says.

The agency's objective is not to scare the public, officials said, and they have no credible intelligence that such attacks are planned. The department did not intend to release the document publicly, but a draft of it was inadvertently posted on a Hawaii state government Web site.

By identifying possible attacks and specifying what government agencies should do to prevent, respond to and recover from them, Homeland Security is trying for the first time to define what "prepared" means, officials said.

That will help decide how billions of federal dollars are distributed in the future. Cities like New York that have targets with economic and symbolic value, or places with hazardous facilities like chemical plants could get a bigger share of agency money than before, while less vulnerable communities could receive less....

In "The Region: Another kind of Islam," Barry Rubin addresses the problem of reforming Islam and ending incitement. From the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to Designnut and RB:

A Saudi mother, a college professor, recently wrote about a remarkable experience. Shortly after September 11, 2001, her son came home from fifth grade and sang the praises of Osama bin Laden, repeating what his teacher had told the class. Three years later, that same teacher was one of the Islamist terrorists who attacked the Saudi Interior Ministry.

It is quite clear that terrorists in the Arab world are often the direct product of what they were taught in school about Islam. And even if the graduates make good, pro-regime citizens they are also inoculated against supporting political reform, democracy or moderate Islam.

That is why a recent article by Latif Lakhdar in the March issue of MERIA Journal - and in an earlier Arabic version published in Middle East Transparent Web site - is so important. For Lakhdar shows how this vicious circle can be broken, and is in fact already being broken in one Arab country.

Lakhdar, a Tunisian liberal who lives in Paris, contrasts how Islam is taught in his native country with what is done in places like Saudi Arabia and Egypt. In those places, he explains, Islamic education "instills in the younger generation a religious fanaticism which entails a phobia toward dissimilarity and a rejection of the other, even to the extent of killing." Any debate about religious precepts is an unacceptable deviation that must be punished.

In contrast, there is a way of teaching religion rationally, in a manner that does not bar science or logic. Such an approach includes the comparative study of religions, which shows there has been a historical development. It demonstrates not only the lack of a monopoly on piety but also that change is a natural part of religion.

The sociology and psychology of religion can be either a tremendous benefit or manipulated to serve the interests of unscrupulous people. Linguistics encourages the careful study of texts to show that they have always been interpreted....

Read it all. I wish Lakhdar well, but I wonder how he deals with the objection that the idea that "change is a natural part of religion" conflicts with Islamic orthodoxy. In Islam Unveiled I discuss the uphill (and well-nigh impossible) battle Islamic reformers must face, because reforms inevitably (and quickly) clash with cherished tenets of Islam. It is a problem to which I have yet to see a solution.

The recent declaration of jihad by Chechen Muslims is puzzling enough in the context of recent (and not so recent) Chechen history. But it becomes crystal clear in light of longstanding practices of the global jihad movement. Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer explains in FrontPage:

Stop the presses: Islamic forces in Chechnya have declared jihad! The cause, explains jihadist spokesman Movladi Udugov, was the killing last week of former Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov in a Russian raid. “By killing Maskhadov,” Udugov fulminated, “the Kremlin has killed the last illusion of those Chechens who, despite everything, still believed in so-called ‘international law’ and a civilized form of dealing with the current terrorist regime in Moscow…We ask God to accept the holy war of...Aslan Maskhadov!”

Western observers may be forgiven for finding this puzzling. Maskhadov was a mastermind of the Beslan school massacre, in which Chechen jihadists held over a thousand schoolchildren and adults hostage for several days, murdering many and engaging in wanton acts of brutality. When one hostage-taker asked Maskhadov and Chechen jihad leader Shamil Basayev why they were doing this, he was told: “Because we need to start a war across the Caucasus.” That war was to be waged in order to establish an Islamic state in the region – which is also the goal of Osama bin Laden and other jihad terrorists around the world.

Long before the Chechen massacre, in November 2003 the Shariah Council of State Defense Council (Majlis al-Shura) of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria declared that “jihad for Chechnya and its neighbors today is mandatory.” Yet Udugov is declaring jihad only now? What have they been fighting all this time? The fact that he would issue this statement this week, with all the evidence that the Chechen jihad has been raging for years, is another indication of how jihadists use current events as pretexts to justify what they are doing. Again and again they portray themselves as merely reacting to grievous provocations from the enemies of Islam. By this means they both gain recruits and sway public opinion.

By fulminating about international law, Udugov hopes to obscure the fact that Maskhadov was killed because of Beslan, thus diverting attention from the blood on the jihadists’ hands. This is the same tactic that is used to great effect in reference to Israel, Iraq, and more. Conventional wisdom today among a surprisingly broad spectrum of both Left and Right is that the global jihad movement is a response to some provocation or other -- the invasion of Iraq, the establishment of Israel, the toppling of Iran’s Mossadegh -- or a more generalized offense such as “American neo-colonialism” or “the lust for oil.” Some who are particularly forgetful of history blame it on newly-minted epiphenomena such as Abu Ghraib.

But the jihadists were fighting before Abu Ghraib, before the Iraqi enterprise altogether, before the founding of Israel, and even before the independence of the U.S. that they now identify as the Great Satan and the cause of all their woes. Long before Aslan Maskhadov was killed, the Chechen jihadists had given up on “so-called ‘international law’ and a civilized form of dealing with the current terrorist regime in Moscow” enough to commit the Beslan atrocities. Udugov’s declaration of jihad is just a recruitment tool designed to win over more Chechens to his cause. The fundamental error of all too many Western analysts is that they consistently confuse such recruitment tools and pretexts with root causes – and seem unable or unwilling to face the reality of the jihad ideology that is actually the source of so many modern-day global conflicts. The Chechen Majlis al-Shura emphasized this in its November 2003 declaration by quoting rulings of three of the four principal schools of Sunni Muslim jurisprudence to the effect that jihad is “a war against Kafirs (the infidels).” The Council added that the purpose of jihad was the “protection and spreading of Islam.”

Will the Chechen jihadists consider this purpose accomplished if an independent Islamic state is established in the Caucasus? Will jihadists in the Middle East call it a day if a fully independent Palestinian state is born? Will jihadists worldwide lay down their arms in their respective countries if their particular grievances are redressed? The open-ended nature of the jihad mission as stated by the Chechen authorities and others suggests otherwise. Washington analysts consistently dismiss such talk as theological window-dressing; that same short-sightedness resulted in their discounting the threat to the Shah posed by Khomeini in the 1970s until it was too late to do anything about it.

If the State Department and the defense establishment don’t stop confusing pretexts with root causes, they will be blindsided again, in the same way – not only about Chechnya, but about the global jihad as well.

In the course of an average day I get several emails from people who tell me they can't comment. I am sorry for this, as it is a mysterious problem that seems to originate with TypeKey. And even I have had the experience of signing in and then getting the message that I need to sign in.

For that problem, however, I have discovered a fix: sign in, and then close the window. Open a new window and go back to the thread on which you signed in -- you should then be able to comment.

And when you comment, please be courteous, back up your points with reason, avoid foul language and empty insults (including terms like "Muzzies"), and rather than calling for nuclear actions or genocide, work to come up with constructive and realistic solutions to the problems we face.

Comments continue to be unmoderated, so I can take no responsibility for them (although jihadists and their allies, unable to find anything in my own writings that they can hang me with, continue to quote comments as if I have made them). All are invited to comment: non-Muslim, Muslim, non-Buddhist, Buddhist, whatever. But let's try to make it a productive or at least illuminating exchange, rather than simply a trading of raspberries.

Sharia alert: note how the men were executed, and remember that the next time someone is beheaded in Iraq and the talking heads say it's "un-Islamic." These men committed the murder to avoid the flogging or prison term they would have gotten for homosexual acts. From CBC, with thanks to Skeetstreet and RB:

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - Two Saudi men were executed Sunday for killing a Pakistani man who saw them in a "shameful situation," the Saudi Interior Ministry said in a statement issued by the official Saudi Press Agency.

The phrase "shameful situation" is used to refer to homosexual acts, seen as a sin against Islam and prohibited in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim nations. In Saudi Arabia, homosexual acts can be punished by flogging or prison terms....

They feared the scene he'd witnessed could create a scandal for them, so they first ran him over in a car, then crushed his skull with a rock and set him on fire, the statement said.

Thus bringing the term "overkill" to a new low.

Sunday's beheadings brought the number of people beheaded in Saudi Arabia this year to 24....Beheadings are carried out with a sword in public.

From the Meet the New Boss, Same As the Old Boss Department: "Islamic fundamentalist judge emerges as successor to Chechen rebel commander," from AP, with thanks to Nicolei and RB:

MOSCOW - An Islamic fundamentalist judge emerged Thursday as the likely successor to Chechen rebel commander Aslan Maskhadov, raising the prospect of the separatist conflict turning decisively into a religious war more than a decade after it first erupted.

Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev was backed both by supporters of Maskhadov - who was killed in a Russian raid Tuesday - and by Chechnya's most feared warlord, Shamil Basayev.

On Thursday, Basayev urged his people to rally behind Sadulayev in a message on a separatist Web site.

But Sadulayev is relatively unknown outside rebel circles, leading to speculation that he would be a figurehead while real power is wielded by Basayev. The warlord, an adherent of fundamentalist Wahhabi Islam, is the self-declared organizer of a series of terrorist attacks - including last year's seizure of a school in southern Russia in which 330 people died.

Sadulayev's apparent ascension stems from an 2002 agreement between Maskhadov and other rebel leaders, which emerged publicly Thursday. "As he was chosen by Maskhadov out of so many people, I think he will represent the Chechen republic with dignity," said Umar Khambiyev, a top rebel spokesman.

Ah yes, dignity. Remember that Maskhadov and Basayev both fought (and Basayev still fights) for the dignity of Islamic law: the amputations, the stonings, the beheadings -- all so very dignified.

I hope those in State who want Hizballah to be removed from the list of terror groups saw this insightful Joel Himelfarb piece in the Washington Times, "Hezbollah's deadly record" (thanks to Diana West and RB):

In the wake of the March 8 demonstrations in which Hezbollah brought as many as half-a-million people into the streets of Beirut to support Syria, Americans have been inundated with news stories and analyses emphasizing Hezbollah's role as an indigenous political movement and its popularity with Lebanon's Shi'ites.

Under pressure from France and the United Nations, the New York Times reported in a front-page story on Thursday, the Bush administration appears to be on the verge of acquiescing to a role for Hezbollah -- one of the world's most deadly terrorist organizations, responsible for torturing and killing hundreds of Americans over the past 22 years -- in Lebanon's future. How can this be, given that President Bush has made the fight against Islamofascist terrorism the defining issue of his presidency? Given the fact that more than 800,000 anti-Syrian and anti-Hezbollah demonstraters mobilized in Beirut yesterday, and given Hezbollah's open contempt for democracy, why is Washington doing this?

In part, this move is an outgrowth of the administration's decision to accommodate the concerns of its European allies by taking a more conciliatory posture toward Iran's nuclear program. The accommodations would include the use of financial incentives such as permiting Iran to join the World Trade Organization in an effort to persuade Iran to change its ways.

Regarding Hezbollah specifically, Washington is responding to a number of domestic Lebanese political realities: Hezbollah holds 13 seats in Lebanon's 128-member parliament, a total it hopes to increase in the May elections. It operates a well-run network of social services in a country where the central government is corrupt and incompetent. Western diplomats, particularly European ones, are hoping that Iran will be persuaded to restrain Hezbollah, and that Hezbollah will become so enmeshed in domestic Lebanese politics that it will lose interest in terrorism.

But throughout its history, no aspect of Hezbollah's work is nearly as important as its terrorist role. Outside of Lebanon, Hezbollah's priority in recent years has been its work in collaboration with Iran and Syria to destroy any possibility of Israeli-Palestinian peace. And Hezbollah's history of killing Americans, collaborating with al Qaeda and setting up terrorist cells in the United States makes it one of the most dangerous terrorist organizations in the world today.

Hezbollah, which receives between $100 million and $200 million a year in assistance from Iran, for the most part does not carry out its own attacks against Israel. Instead, it provides logistical help, such as instruction in bomb making, to Palestinian terrorist organizations. It has actively sought to recruit Israeli Arabs into participating in terrorism, and it helps Iran funnel assistance to Palestinian terrorist groups....

Read it all.

But how far will they go? From CNN, with thanks to RB:

BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- Under pressure from the United States, Europe and significant portion of Lebanon's populace, Syrian intelligence units Tuesday were in the process of leaving Beirut, a Lebanese army source told CNN. Witnesses said two pick-up trucks were being loaded at Syrian intelligence headquarters in the Lebanese capital's Ramlet al-Baida district, Reuters reported.... The move follows Monday's mass opposition rally in central Beirut and coincides with a visit to Damascus by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.... Last week, Syria began pulling its 14,000 troops to the Bekaa Valley near the border, and vowed to bring all the troops and intelligence officials across the border into Syria later on.

To counteract the opposition, Hezbollah -- an official party in Lebanon, considered a terrorist organization by the United States and Israel -- organized an enormous pro-Syria rally with a turnout estimated at about 500,000. Monday's opposition rally was designed to pull even greater numbers. Wire services estimated the turnout at about 800,000.... Many Arabs see Hezbollah as heroic for helping drive Israeli forces from Lebanon. Israel pulled its troops from southern Lebanon in 2000. Hezbollah has carried out numerous terrorist attacks against civilians and is listed by the United States and Israel as a terrorist organization. It remains an official party in Lebanon. U.S. officials have called on both Lebanon and Syria to halt support for Hezbollah.

This could be a great opportunity for some anti-dhimmitude: a chance to raise awareness of the historical realities of jihad and dhimmitude. It's a Symposium for Remembering Victims of Genocide (thanks to Sparta and RB):

Jewish, Serb, Armenian, Greek, Roma people,

For centuries, generation after generation of our people are subject to genocide. Let us unite in our demand that suffering of our peoples be finally recognized. Join our effort to organize symposium on this subject.

The symposium will be held in Belgrade on April 22-24. Send your experts, participate.

"Watch the Border," from Time magazine, with thanks to Kemaste and RB:

TWO WEEKS AFTER intelligence officials confirmed that Osama bin Laden had sent a message to Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, urging him to plan attacks on U.S. soil, details are emerging from one of al-Zarqawi's lieutenants about what the man behind many of the terrorist attacks in Iraq could have in mind. Intelligence officials tell TIME that interrogation of a member of al-Zarqawi's organization, who was taken into U.S. custody last year and has been described as a top aide, indicates that al-Zarqawi has given ample consideration to assaults on the American homeland. According to a restricted bulletin that circulated among U.S. security agencies last week, the interrogated aide said al-Zarqawi has talked about hitting "soft targets" in the U.S., which could include "movie theaters, restaurants and schools."

The bulletin also notes the Iraq-based master terrorist's apparent belief that "if an individual has enough money, he can bribe his way into the U.S.," specifically by obtaining a "visa to Honduras" and then traveling across Mexico and the southern U.S. border. Al-Zarqawi's aide also revealed that his boss, after pondering the absence of attacks in the U.S. in recent years, concluded that a lack of "willing martyrs" was to blame. Al-Zarqawi believes, according to his lieutenant, that "if an individual is willing to die, there was nothing that could be done to stop him," even in the U.S.

There is no evidence, say intelligence agencies, that al-Zarqawi's agents have infiltrated the U.S. But authorities remain vigilant....On her visit to Mexico last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice issued her own reminder of the border's vulnerability. "There's no secret," Rice told reporters, "that al-Qaeda will try to get into this country ... by any means they possibly can."

Uh, Dr. Rice, excuse us, but it's no secret that they're already here.

"Saudi Prince Khaled Al-Faisal Against the Islamist Ideology" is a MEMRI report (thanks to RB) on an interview with Saudi Prince Khaled Al-Faisal about the jihad ideology.

Al-Dakhil: "You pointed out that those with a jihadist ideology have deeply penetrated many areas of life, official and social. What do you think should be done in such a dangerous situation?"

Khaled Al-Faisal: "The situation is dangerous, and we must acknowledge this. Making light of this matter is unacceptable to me. I drew the ministers' attention [to the problem] and I think that the attention of the provinces' governors should also be drawn to it. The princes, myself included, have an important role in paying attention to the spread of this ideology and monitoring its diffusion. The prince is responsible for security, as well as for the security mode of thinking, which is very important, and is no less important than security in the streets. We want security of the mind and the soul as well, security within the family and tranquility among people. Therefore, it is the duty of the province governor to monitor matters such as these: What is going on in the schools? In the hospitals? In the institutes, and even in the orphanages?"

Sure. But when Saudi Arabia hosts a conference that purports to include all the states that have been victims of terrorism but doesn't include Israel, pardon me if I suspect that Khaled's response to the jihad ideology will be tepid, superficial measures designed more for Western consumption than real internal reform.

Gee, why didn't we think of this before? Let's impose dress codes on everybody, so Muslims won't take immodest dress as an open invitation to rape. We don't want women raped, now do we? Next, let's impose "hate speech" laws so that non-Muslims won't be killed for offending Muslims by what they say - it's for their own good, you see? Yes, that's how this will work, let's just keep restricting civil liberties, so that Muslims will get along with us and we will get along with them. How easy it all is! From the Malaysian Star, with thanks to Nicolei and RB:

KOTA BARU: Kelantan Mentri Besar Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat has accused women who wear revealing clothes of giving the impression that they are selling their bodies.

"Women who wear such clothes are contributing to the rise in sex crimes and that is why I am in favour of any move to curb such dressing," he told reporters after launching the Kelantan Reading Festival 2005 here yesterday.

Nik Aziz said he was in favour of a dress code for non-Muslims as it would help to reduce sex crimes.

He was asked to comment on the proposal by the council here to introduce a dress code for non-Muslims working in supermarkets. The mentri besar said talk about the dress code started 10 years ago.

His comments drew flak from various quarters...

You don't say!

From AFP, with thanks to Teri and RB:

London: British Prime Minister Tony Blair's government finally pushed a controversial new anti-terror law through parliament on Friday following a two-day, round-the-clock debate, after offering a key concession.

The Prevention of Terrorism Bill was approved by the House of Lords on Friday evening, bringing the curtain down on 31 hours of straight debate in the upper chamber of parliament, one of the longest in its history.

The Lords had repeatedly tried to change the law, which lets terror suspects be subjected to so-called "control orders" including limited house arrest, to make it automatically expire within a year with a so-called "sunset clause."

Blair said that this would seriously undermine the measure, because it "would send a signal of weakness at the very time we should be sending a signal of strength".

However, in the end Home Secretary Charles Clarke partly backed down by promising a major parliamentary review of the law in a year, which satisfied opponents.

The compromise, which saw both sides claiming victory -- ended one of the most dramatic legislative battles Britain has seen in recent years....

Another report on Hatun Surucu; clash of civilizations update. From World Net Daily, and RB:

Police in Berlin arrested three Muslim brothers in what appears to be the latest in a series of so-called "honor killings."

The slaying of a 23-year-old Turkish woman, Hatun Surucu, who died of multiple bullet wounds to the head and chest, bears all the marks of an honor killing, a police psychologist said, according to BBC News.

"In Islamic culture, the woman is the bearer of the family decency," explained Karl Mollenhauer. "She must maintain the honor of the family. Men must defend that honour."

It would be the sixth honor killing in as many months among Berlin's 200,000-member Turkish community and the 45th in the past eight years....

The BBC reported, however, that just yards from the site of the killing, children on a school playground were heard praising it, saying the victim had lived like a German.

Meanwhile, multiculturalism blunts the police response:

Ozcan Mutlu, a Turk on the Berlin city council, complained German authorities have turned a blind eye to the practice, pointing out a Turkish man who beats his wife does not get the same punishment as a German.

The authorities try to explain the disparate treatment as a function of cultural and religious differences, the BBC said, but Mutlu insists there is "no cultural or religious excuse for beating women, and there can be no less punishment for honor killings. But in Germany it was the fact in the past years."...

Indeed.

Palestinian Media Watch (thanks to RB) has television clips and transcripts of Palestinian mothers expressing joy at the death of their children.

A Sample:

Moderator: "They [Israelis] accuse the Palestinian mother of hating her sons and in encouraging them to die. This is what we hear from Israelis. Is this true?

Mother Um Al-Ajrami: "No, we do not encourage our sons to die. We encourage them to Shahada [martyrdom] for the homeland, for Allah."

[She then talks about a group of women, all mothers of Shahids, who go to other mothers of Shahids during the period of mourning]: "We don't say to the mothers of the Shahids, 'We have come to comfort you', but 'We have come to bless you on the wedding of your son, on the Shahada of your son. Congratulations to you on the Shahada . . . ' For us, the mourning is joyous. We give out drinks, we give out sweets. Praise to God -- the mourning is joyous. occasion" [PATV, Nov. 17, 2004]...

There's much more if you can stomach it. This is, of course, nothing new: I discuss similar statements by mothers in Onward Muslim Soldiers.

Daniel Pipes tackles the issue of Muslim special privilages in the NY Sun, via his site, with thanks to EPG and RB:

Throughout the West, Muslims are making new and assertive demands, and in some cases challenging the very premises of European and North American life. How to respond?

Here is a general rule: Offer full rights - but turn down demands for special privileges.

I would only add a caveat: full rights, yes, but with full understanding of Islam's uniqueness as a political and social program as well as a guide for individual piety. For too long too many have gotten away with too much because of the unquestioned assumption that Islam is a religion like all others, and that Muslims therefore will have no trouble accepting Western pluralism.

By way of example, note two current Canadian controversies. The first concerns the establishment of voluntary Shariah (Islamic law) courts in Ontario. This idea is promoted by the usual Islamist groups, such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations-Canada and the Canadian Islamic Congress. It is most prominently opposed by Muslim women's groups, led by Homa Arjomand, who fear that the Islamic courts, despite their voluntary nature, will be used to repress women's rights.

I oppose any role for Shariah, a medieval body of law, in public life today, but as long as women are truly not coerced (create an ombudsman to ensure this?) and Islamic rulings remain subordinate to Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, I see no grounds on which to deny Muslims the right, like other Canadians, to revert to private arbitration....

Here again, it would have to be definitively established that all parties concerned, particularly Muslim women in Canada, were resorting to Sharia arbitration voluntarily. It's a thorny question.

But anyway, read all of Pipes' piece; it's a useful beginning to a discussion that needs to be held. You'll find many useful links in the original.

Mohamed Ibn Guadi is one of the most insightful and honest observers of Islam and jihad on the scene today. He doesn't hesitate here to tell the truth about how mainstream the "tiny minority of extremists" really is. In this interview he echoes points I have made about Islam and jihad in Islam Unveiled, Onward Muslim Soldiers, and many times at this site. "The Evolution of Islam : Interview with Mohamed Ibn Guadi," from the Global Politician, wi