April 2006 Archives

More evidence that our friend and ally Musharraf may not have been quite as successful in stamping out support for Osama and Company as he would like us to believe. Tiny Minority of Extremists Update: "FEATURE-Pakistani jihadi videos thrive on execution scenes," from Reuters, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

ISLAMABAD, April 30 (Reuters) - The movie salesman was selling jihad to the converted.

The buyers thronging his stall on the sidelines of a late-night rally in the Pakistani capital belonged to a crowd organised by a sectarian Sunni Muslim group.

"This is the latest video of the beheadings," he told his customers, as they pored over titles including "Slaughter of Americans in Iraq", "Slaughter of Traitors in Afghanistan" and "Taliban Celebrations"....

The video seller didn't have the latest action from the conflict on the Afghan border, but he had something just as gruesome.

"This one is about the activities of mujahideen in Waziristan and Afghanistan," the seller said.

Dated in December, and supposedly shot in Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, it had footage of hangings ordered by influential militant clerics.

The bodies of the hanged men, described as criminals and bandits, were then dragged through the streets by pick-up trucks, in a grisly demonstration of rough justice in an area where the civil administration has, according to tribesmen, collapsed.

HEAVENLY VIRGINS

"The commentary in them makes no bones about who is producing them -- they are Pakistani Talibs," said Samina Ahmed, the Islamabad-based director of the International Crisis Group's South Asia project.

For less than a dollar apiece, some VCDs glorify the exploits of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters, promise 72 heavenly virgins for prospective suicide bombers and prescribe beheadings for informers.

There are also training films on how to run a guerrilla war, based on Islamist militants fighting the Russian army in Chechnya.

Messages in the films put Presidents George W. Bush, Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan and Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan at the top of a hit list for would-be assassins in a war against what are described as the American "crusader forces".

Musharraf has banned several militant organisations since 2002, and just last year he launched yet another campaign against groups stirring sectarian violence between Pakistan's majority Sunni Muslims and minority Shi'ites.

But some, such as Sipah-e-Sahaba (Soldiers of Companions of the Prophet), keep bouncing back, although they seem to be getting less space to put their message across. The group organised the recent late-night rally in Islamabad but under another name.

BAD FOR BUSINESS

Irfan Ali runs an Islamic bookshop in Karachi and says Musharraf's policies since Sept. 11, 2001, have definitely been bad for business.

"The fact is our business was doing very well when we were selling jihadi literature," Ali lamented. "Now our sales have come down drastically."

The owner of another bookshop in Karachi said such material could always be arranged for trusted customers.

"Jihadi literature, cassettes and VCDs are still available but you will not find it openly. This business has gone underground. It is only sold to known acquaintances or reliable people," he said.

That said, it is not too hard to find the leader of one of the most feared militant groups in Pakistan. His message of radical Islam can be heard outside a number of well-known mosques.

Maulana Masood Azhar, head of Jaish-i-Mohammad, has kept a low profile for some time because of pressure from Pakistan's security apparatus, according to some analysts.

But outside Islamabad's Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, his voice blares out from speakers from among the stalls selling perfumes, skull caps, religious texts, cassettes and videos after Friday prayers.

"Curse on the face of the Americans ... Mullah Omar and Osama are the light of our eyes. Whoever tries to steal this light, we will rob them of their peace," Azhar shouts.

"Spread the message of Jihad in every street."

Not all Pakistani preachers of militant jihad are such shadowy figures. Some are members of the National Assembly, representatives of Islamist parties that form the largest opposition block. Maulana Mairaj-ud-Din, a legislator from South Waziristan, is captured on a video titled "Ghadaran", or Traitors, inciting tribesmen to take up arms for the cause.

A few days ago you could have checked my biography at Wikipedia and found this:

Most have discredited Mr. Spencer's views on Islam due to oft-exaggeration. It must also be noted that Mr. Spencer's work is highly biased and influenced by his Jewish Ancestral viewpoints.

Of course, this has happened before. Jihad Watch News Editor Anne Crockett has noted here before that Wikipedia, since anyone can edit it, is absolutely worthless, and here is yet more evidence that she was correct: the Wikipedia editor above assumes that I speak about the roots of jihad violence within Islamic theology solely because I'm Jewish. That might make some small bit of sense except for one little catch: I'm not Jewish.

Reading this latest morsel of Wikipedia baloney made me think that this sunny Sunday afternoon here in Secure Undisclosed Locationville might be a good time for me to do something I have been meaning to do for a long while: answer some critics. Now, these are people whom normally I would consider not worth answering; for the most part they are rather self-evidently nutty and unhinged. But when I was in Holland for the Pim Fortuyn Memorial Conference last February, I got in a conversation with Daniel Pipes about Internet pests, and he recommended answering them. Otherwise, he said, the charges would remain accessible on the Internet, no answer would be available, and in such cases sometimes the charges are picked up by more reputable sources, circulate into cleaner and better-lighted corners of the Internet, and take on a life of their own. Thus, he said, it was better to have the truth on record.

I think that is good advice. So here, on this sunny Sunday, I offer a grab-bag of on-the-record and for-the-record replies to various hacks, nuts, ideologues, jealous lovers, and conspiracy theorists. If you are not attracted to this particular sort of train wreck, don't hesitate to move along to the next thread now. I am aware that probably the only person who would be interested in reading all of this would be my mother, but she is no longer with us. I'll even give away the ending for your convenience: I am not a Christian fundamentalist Jewish Zionist member of Opus Dei who denies Israel's right to exist. If you ever do run across such an animal, call the zoo immediately. In the meantime, on with the show:

From the Bandar Beacon, aka The Washington Post with thanks to Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald.

HAWIJAH, Iraq - After midnight on a bare stretch of highway near this ramshackle town last week, Staff Sgt. Jason Hoover saw what looked like a fishing line strung across the road and ordered his Humvee to a screeching halt.

The cord was connected to an old, Russian artillery shell half-buried in the earthen shoulder and rigged to activate with a firm tug. Hoover traced its path nearly a half-mile though a plowed field, over another highway, and across a canal, where he found four Iraqi infrastructure policemen who were supposed to be guarding an oil pipeline. They said they had no idea what the cord was doing there.

"There's two kinds of Iraqis here, the ones who help us and the ones who shoot us, and there's an awful lot of 'em doing both," said Hoover, 26, of Newark, Ohio. "Is it frustrating? Yes, it's frustrating. But we can't just stop working with them."

The incident is a window on the mixed results of U.S. efforts to train Iraqi forces. American troops trying to tame the restive northern town of Hawijah have done what has proven impossible in many Sunni Arab enclaves: raised a security force from local volunteers. More than 1,500 Iraqi soldiers and 2,000 policemen patrol the area, virtually all of them drawn from the city and the pastoral hamlets that surround it.

But in a town where the local population is hostile to the American presence in Iraq, U.S. soldiers have developed a deep distrust of their Iraqi counterparts following a slew of incidents that suggest the troops they are training are cooperating with their enemies.

The top local Iraqi army commander here was sent to Abu Ghraib prison in November, accused of tipping off insurgents about the routes taken by American convoys, said Lt. Col. Marc Hutson, commander of a Hawijah-based battalion of the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division. The city's police chief was also fired and briefly arrested in January for refusing to go after armed groups.

Earlier this month, a U.S. sniper team caught 14 policemen placing roadside bombs in the nearby town of Riyadh. More than 60 other police officers are named on a watch list of suspected insurgent collaborators, according to U.S. military policemen who train them. And last week a raging fire erupted from a sabotaged oil pipeline 50 feet from a police checkpoint, covering the sky with a blanket of black smoke...

From AP, with thanks to Andrew Bostom.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Police found an Indian hostage's beheaded body in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, officials said. Taliban militants said they shot the hostage dead as he tried to escape.

Escape beheading, perhaps?

"The death of the Indian engineer who was working for the construction and reconstruction of Afghanistan is no doubt the work of enemies of Afghanistan," Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in a statement...

Qari Yousaf Ahmadi, who releases regular statements on behalf of outlawed Taliban fighters, said militants shot the Indian after he tried to escape and fought with his captors.

Ahmadi issued a threat a day earlier saying all Indians must leave Afghanistan by 6 p.m. Sunday or Suryanarayana would be executed...

Taking a cue from the master saxophonist Ornette Coleman, Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald asks, "Who's crazy?": people like Ghassan Abdullah al-Sharbi and Zacarias Moussaoui, or the dhimmi analysts who diagnose them?

“'I'm going to make this easy for you guys. I fought against the United States. I took up arms,’ he said in English, his hands clasped on the defense table in front of him. Later, he added: 'I'm going to tell you what I did ... I'm proud of what I did.'”

These are the words of Ghassan Abdullah al-Sharbi, “an electrical engineering graduate from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Ariz.,” who “was captured in March 2002 in Pakistan with senior al-Qaida lieutenant Abu Zubayda and other figures.”

More help from our friend and ally. From AP, with thanks to JE:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A senior Pakistani scientist suspected of helping leak nuclear weapons technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea has been released after two years in detention, an army spokesman said Sunday.

Mohammed Farooq, who worked at Pakistan's top nuclear weapons facility, was detained in December 2003, along with 10 other people, when it was revealed that the head of the facility, Abdul Qadeer Khan, gave sensitive technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

Farooq, who was director general at Khan Research Laboratories, was suspected of allegedly leaking technology on Khan's orders.

He was freed last week, army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan told The Associated Press.

Asked whether Farooq would be allowed to keep his job at the laboratories, Sultan said only that "he has been advised to restrict his movement and activities and stay at home for security reasons."...

Farooq was the last of the 11 people detained in 2003 who remained in custody. The 11 — scientists, security and administration personnel who worked at the lab — were detained for questioning over the spread of nuclear technology in the alleged black market network that Khan headed....

In February 2004, Khan confessed that he sold nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya.

But President Gen. Pervez Musharraf pardoned him due to his role in giving Pakistan a nuclear prowess to rival that of neighboring India. The two countries carried out nuclear tests in 1998....

Pakistan, a close U.S. ally in the war against terrorism, has rejected Washington's requests for access to Khan for questioning on nuclear black marketing.

More Iranian activity in Iraq: Al-Zarqawi planning to set up an Al-Qaeda army in Iraq with help from Iran's Revolutionary Guards. What's that? A Sunni group getting help from Shi'ites? Don't they realize that the learned Western analysts have told us that Sunnis don't work with Shi'ites? Al-Zarqawi must be some kind of simplistic Islamophobic propagandist with a magpie's knowledge of Islam garnered from armchair reading.

My Brother Against My Brother, But Both Of Us Against Our Cousin Alert from the TimesOnline, with thanks to JE:

THE leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is attempting to set up his own mini-army and move away from individual suicide attacks to a more organised resistance movement, according to US intelligence sources.

Faced with a shortage of foreign fighters willing to undertake suicide missions, Zarqawi wants to turn his group into a more traditional force mounting co-ordinated guerrilla raids on coalition targets.

Al-Qaeda is sending training and planning experts to help to set up the force and infiltrate members into Iraq with the assistance of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, the sources said.

Shi'ite and Iranian jihad against American and British troops in Iraq. 1938 Alert from The Telegraph, with thanks to JE:

A multi-charged roadside bomb, developed by Hizbollah in Lebanon, is being used against British and American soldiers by Iraqi insurgents linked to Iran, according to military intelligence sources.

The device consists of an array of up to five armour-piercing "explosively formed projectiles" or EFPs, also known as shaped charges. They are fired at different angles at coalition vehicles, resulting in almost certain death for at least some of the soldiers inside.

The bombs are easier for insurgents to use because, unlike single EFP devices, they do not need to be carefully aimed and so can be planted beside a road within a few seconds. Their killing potential is also enhanced because more than one EFP is likely to hit a single vehicle.

Some have been painted to look like concrete blocks - a modification of a tactic used by Iranian-backed Hizbollah, which hollowed out imitation rocks, bought in Beirut garden centres, to conceal bombs targeting Israeli vehicles.

A senior defence source said: "There are clear signs of Iran's sinister hand, and through that, Hizbollah, in this development."

Steadfastly refusing to consider the power of Islam, and probably utterly ignorant of Qur'an 9:111 (which guarantees Paradise to those who "slay and are slain" for Allah), and not even considering whether suicide bombers found a religion-based appeal compelling, these dhimmi "experts" just can't figure out why any Muslim would want to blow himself up. Must be something in their psychology, doncha know.

A Refusing to Look At What Is Before Their Faces Alert: "Seeking out the suicide bombers," from the BBC, with thanks to JE:

Anti-terrorist experts are floundering about trying to understand Islamic suicide bombers in the UK and the rest of Europe.

The experts came together and argued together at a conference in London organised by the Centre for Defence Studies at King's College and the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment.

The conference sought to assemble "the puzzle that will help us better understand what determines and motivates the actions of individual jihadists."

The puzzle however remained frustratingly in pieces.

One major argument was about the issue of psychological profiling. This seeks to understand the motives of one group of terrorists in order to predict who might be the next.

Iemma says that young Muslims don't join the police force because they feel unwanted. He doesn't seem to consider that there might be another explanation: that many young Muslims don't consider themselves Australians and don't want to take part in an infidel governing apparatus. This reminds me of the handwringing last fall over the French's failure to encourage assimilation among its Muslim population; all the learned experts conveniently forgot that they had actively resisted such integration for decades, per agreements made between the EU and the Arab League.

"Premier tells Muslims to join police," from AAP, with thanks to JE:

YOUNG Muslims should not be discouraged from joining the police force, NSW Premier Morris Iemma says.

His comments follow a media report that as few as 24 of the state's 15,000 officers are practising Muslims.

The report said young Muslims who want to join the police force don't sign up because they feel unwanted.

But Mr Iemma dismissed the suggestion today, saying young Muslim cops were active and effective in his electorate of Lakemba, in Sydney's south-west.

"I can speak from personal experience where there are young Muslim men who are police officers and do a very good job in my electorate of liaising with the local ethnic community," he told reporters.

"(The force) quite deliberately seeks to recruit from the non-English speaking community."

Mr Iemma called on interested young Muslims to join the force as part of a massive recruitment drive, announced by the government in the wake of the Cronulla race riot.

A jirga is a tribal council. Dir and Wari are in Pakistan. It is a good sign that the government will not accept the jirga's ruling, but this nevertheless indicates why we don't see more moderate Muslims speaking out. In this case as in many other cases, those who question established belief and practice are threatened with death. "Jirga to kill anyone reporting honour killing cases to police," from the Daily Times of Pakistan, with thanks to Andrew Bostom:

DIR: Anyone reporting an honour killing case to the police or filing a case with the court will be killed by the jirga (tribal court) since the publicising of such cases has brought a bad name to the area, Malik Faiz Muhammad, a member of the Nihag-Wari jirga in Upper Dir, said on Friday.

The Nihag-Dara Wari jirga had issued a controversial verdict in favour of honour killing around 15 days ago, declaring it a permissible act.

A Wari police station official said that over 150 people had attended the jirga, but Malik Faiz told Daily Times that the jirga consisted of more than 4,000 people representing the entire area.

“We stick to our verdict that honour killing is permissible and those who commit it will not be liable to any punishment. We will also not allow the aggrieved party to report the case to the police or file the case before a court. We will kill those who will violate the jirga verdict,” he said.

Malik Faiz said that the jirga would investigate such cases and punish those found guilty on its own. He said that the jirga members were ready to sacrifice their lives to uphold their verdict....

The jirga also declared that no action would be taken against anyone killing a robber. Jirga participants said that they would defend any oppressed person taking shelter in the area, but pledged action against those sheltering aggressors....

Sajid Mohmand, Upper Dir senior superintendent of police (SSP), said that the government would not accept the jirga’s “illegal” verdict on honour killings, adding that all such cases would be registered and those found guilty would be punished according to the due process of law.

Richard Miniter has alerted me to an error I made in my post on his talk here (read the comments for his message and my response), but he did not dispute my core assertion, that he holds to the demonstrably false line that Islam's core teachings do not encourage the jihad violence that we see around the world today.

I am happy to report that that assertion was disproven in all kinds of ways at today's session of the symposium -- especially during the morning session. Brigitte Gabriel spoke movingly and passionately of how she and her family suffered from jihad violence during her childhood in Lebanon; Babu Suseelan of the Indian American Intellectual Forum traced the violent advance of jihad in India directly to the jihad ideology; Andrew Bostom did the same thing in a historical overview of jihad in Palestine, Walid Shoebat explained his mindset as a young Palestinian mujahid and what moved him to forsake the jihad and Islam; and I explained why everyone talks about moderate Muslims and longs to make common cause with them, but only very few can be found and those seem to have little or no following in the Islamic world.

This was a groundbreaking and in many ways encouraging conference. I heard there are plans for more, and hope there will be.

This just in from the Hate Mail Bag (the headline above was the email's subject line):

Hope, u will be fine and I want tell little information that no body can stop the jehadies. Jehad will be being at till the last day of this earth. Its understood.

God bless You.

No body can stop the jehadies?

Well, it won't be for want of trying.

This comes to us from Pieter Dorsman at Peaktalk:

Just to show how far Dutch tolerance goes: Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s neighbors have sued the Dutch state in order to get her to be removed from the apartment complex in which she is living under police protection. The request was initially rejected, but following an appeal a higher court has now ordered Hirsi Ali to leave her house within four months, I translate:

"The court considers in its ruling that the neighbors have been put into a situation that has contributed to them feeling less safe in their own house. That feeling is extended to the communal living spaces of the apartment complex, but also to their own apartments. The court argues that this is a severe violation of one’s private life (as per Article 8 of the European Treaty for Human Rights)."

..It should be noted that Hirsi Ali is now booted out of her own house by virtue of the European Treaty for Human Rights which does indeed supersede Dutch law...

Secondly, is that somehow Hirsi Ali’s neighbors self-interest runs so deep that they are prepared to use the court system to throw someone whose life is in danger out of her own house. It goes like this: we’re tolerant, we support free speech and a critical attitude, but if it comes too close to our front porch, sorry, we are no longer interested. On the contrary, self-interest is the deciding motivator. True, Hirsi Ali’s flatmates do have a reasonable point in arguing that the Dutch State has an obligation to ensure that their security measures benefit the entire complex. If the State has dropped the ball in that respect, they should be compelled by the courts to correct this, but to put the burden on Hirsi Ali is a very disturbing precedent. Yet, the plaintiffs are quite happy with the ruling:

“We are relieved. We just didn’t feel safe any longer in our own homes. Of course, we consider it to be terrible for Hirsi Ali to have to leave her house. The case was not directed at her personally. The point was that the State should not open us to so much danger”...

From today's Bandar Beacon, aka The Washington Post:

BAGHDAD, April 28 -- U.S. forces killed a local leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and captured another in raids north of Baghdad on Thursday and Friday, dealing a blow to the insurgent organization's leadership in the violent city of Samarra, Iraqi police and U.S. military authorities said.

U.S. troops tracked Hamadi al-Takhi al-Nissani, al-Qaeda's "emir" in Samarra, to a safe house north of the city Friday morning, the U.S. military said in a statement. As the soldiers approached the house, Nissani fled and was killed. Two other armed insurgents in the house were also killed, according to the statement.

On Thursday night, U.S. troops also arrested Abdul Qadir Makhool, another al-Qaeda leader in Samarra, and released a police officer who had been kidnapped by the group, Maj. Jamal Samarraie, an officer at the provincial Joint Command Center, said in an interview...

Nissani "was an individual who they had been working to capture and take down for some time," Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said in a telephone interview. "This is a very critical element in halting a lot of the illegal terrorist activity there."...

It's interesting the officer would use the word "illegal" as a modifier for "terrorist activity", implying to westerners there could be legal terror activity, but in the Muslim world the word "illegal" seems to be universally used to denote "wrong" or "immoral" because within Islamic thought these concepts are not separate.

From VOA:

One of Asia's most wanted fugitive terrorist leaders, Noordin Mohammed Top, has escaped an early morning raid by Indonesian police in a central Java town, but the police say they killed two other wanted militants.

Malaysian-born Noordin Mohammed Top, believed to be one of the leaders in the regional terrorist network Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) was not in the safe house in the central Javenese town of Wonosobo when heavily armed police arrived Saturday before dawn.

Police officials said Noordin, who has escaped arrest several times in the past, frequented the house, and they thought they might have him this time. But they said he wasn't there.

National Police Chief General Sutanto said two JI suspects, Abdul Hadi and Jabir, were killed in the ensuing firefight, while another two suspected JI members were arrested.

Abdul Hadi and Jabir were thought to be JI explosives experts, and were suspected of involvement in the bombing of the Australian embassy in Jakarta in 2003...

More jihadist persecution of Christians in Nigeria. "Anglican Bishop Survives Fourth Attack," from Compass Direct, with thanks to all who sent this in:

The latest attack on the Rt. Rev. Ali Buba Lamido, 47, Anglican bishop of Wusasa diocese in Kaduna state, began as the past year’s previous three did: Armed men whom he believes were Muslim militants asked a guard at his home where he was, announcing they were going to kill him.

Not concerned about stealth in heavily Islamic Kaduna state, the attackers fired into the air, then struck the bishop’s workers in the courtyard. This time, last March 10, one of his guard’s guests, Samaila Gandu, was shot dead. Guard James Daso and another worker, Bulus Moses, were seriously injured.

This scenario matches other instances in which Muslim militants have assaulted Christian clergy, Lamido said.

“It is difficult to believe that it was not religiously motivated, because some bishops have been attacked and one priest was murdered in a similar way,” he said. “And the killers never stole any thing from their houses.”

This morning I am in the Belly of the Beast, the Capital of the Great Satan, for a day-long symposium hosted by the America's Truth Forum, "The Underlying Roots of Terrorism: Terrorism's Threat to World Peace and National Security." Security is very high, and with good reason: speakers include Walid Shoebat, Walid Phares, David Horowitz, Paul Williams, Brigitte Gabriel, and Andrew Bostom. I have had the honor and pleasure of meeting many Jihad Watch readers, including Catherine, the squirrel hunter and spider killer who has often posted here, TES, and others.

Unfortunately, however, the proceedings got off on an exceptionally sour note last night when Richard Miniter, author of Losing bin Laden and Shadow War, demonstrated once again that he doesn't have the first foggiest idea what Islam or the global jihad are all about. Miniter challenged the crowd head-on, saying at the outset of his speech that many of those listening would not like him in four or five minutes. And he was right -- at least in terms of this listener's agreement with his assertions.

To say that the war on terror had anything to do with Islam, he asserted, was to agree with Osama bin Laden and to foreclose any possibility of cultivating allies among Muslims. He said that there were no more than 50,000 or so Salafis worldwide, and that we are at war with them, not with the billion-plus Muslims in the world. We should take note, he said, of a Yemeni program that used the Qur'an to turn mujahedin into lambs.

There were, in fact, so many false assumptions and erroneous assertions in his twenty-minute address that I don't have time to unpack them all here. But I am writing this because Miniter's is an influential voice, and his perspective is still mainstream. And because his kind of thinking has led the U.S. into numerous policy blind alleys -- witness the Abdul Rahman case in Afghanistan, which happened because the wonks at State were (and are) insufficiently concerned about the Sharia provision in the Afghan Constitution.

The Yemeni program, as you can see from the link above, was a sham. The "rehabilitated" terrorists told the judge what he wanted to hear, got their early release, and went back to the jihad. To agree with Osama bin Laden that Islam is at the core of the global conflict today is not to endorse his jihad, but merely to recognize why his appeal has such power in the Islamic world today. Nor is recognizing the role of the Islamic jihad ideology in inciting violence today tantamount to writing off peaceful Muslims and foreclosing on any alliances with them. Rather, it focuses the hard questions we need to ask them in order to make sure that their moderation is genuine and not feigned. This is being done virtually nowhere in the world today. No one seems to care whether or not a Muslim holds to the overall goals of Osama bin Laden -- to institute Sharia in the Muslim world and ultimately over the non-Muslim world as well -- as long as the Muslim in question doesn't pursue that goal by violent means. Yet the many non-violent, sub-radar, subversive ways in which this goal is being advanced today are ultimately much more important than the violent ones. And it is being advanced by a much larger group than Miniter's 50,000 violent Salafis.

If Miniter and those who agree with them don't want to get their intellectual pockets picked, and end up being made into useful idiots of the jihad, they need to make sure that the moderates they are so avid to work with don't share those goals. They need to ask them: do you believe in the indefinite peaceful coexistence of Muslims and non-Muslims as equals? Do you accept Western constitutional pluralism? Would you like to see Sharia someday adopted in the West? They need to examine the actions of these moderates to make sure that the answers given weren't deceptive.

There is so much deception among self-proclaimed moderates, and it is only abetted by wishful thinking, fuzzy thinking, and half-truths. To ignore the problem within Islam is only to allow it to grow and metastasize. How can we prevail over a challenge we won't confront?

It was disappointing to see dhimmi self-deception even in a conference devoted to speaking realistically about terror issues, but ultimately, given the fog that envelops us, it is not surprising. Anyway, I will be speaking to these issues when my turn comes at the symposium this morning. And reporting back here when time permits.

In Muslim countries, Muslim groups not infrequently protest Christian activity. In Western countries, Muslim groups not infrequently protest any perceived restriction on Islamic activity, even if it is undertaken in order to restrain terrorism.

This is because of the assumption of Islamic supremacy, and of the inferiority and venality of the dhimmis -- for unbelievers are "the vilest of creatures" (Qur'an 98:6).

From Compass Direct, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

April 25 (Compass Direct) – A Muslim community group called Majlis Taklim on April 9 entered the premises of a Christian social institution in West Java, Indonesia, demanding its closure for the fifth time this year.

The Apostolic Nation Building Foundation (ABB) operates from a residential building in the Griya Bintara Indah housing complex in Bintara sub-district, West Bekasi district, West Java.

Around 70 Majlis Taklim members came to the ABB headquarters on April 9 and told the foundation to cease all activities, accusing them of running an illegal church and trying to “Christianize” the community.

Staff immediately called the police, who arrived and monitored the situation; there was no violence.

Majlis Taklim coordinator Radesman Saragih said the group had observed people entering the building for worship services on Sunday mornings. “The foundation is only a façade to cover up the real activities of the church,” Saragih said.

Saragih also said the foundation lacked a proper permit. “We ask the foundation to restore the house’s proper function – that is, as a place to live, not as a church,” he continued. Saragih said church members should take the warning seriously or be prepared to face unspecified negative consequences.

"Al-Qaida Leader: U.S. 'Broken' in Iraq," from AP, with thanks to JE:

CAIRO, Egypt - Hundreds of suicide bombings in Iraq have "broken the back" of the U.S. military, al-Qaida's No. 2 said in a video posted Saturday — the latest in a series of messages from the terror network.

The video by Ayman al-Zawahri, posted on an Islamic militant Web forum, came within the same week as an audiotape by al-Qaida's top leader Osama bin Laden and a video by the head of al-Qaida's branch in Iraq — a volley of messages by the group's most prominent figures.

Al-Zawahri, an Egyptian militant believed to be hiding in Afghanistan or Pakistan, also denounced the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq as "traitors" and called on Muslims to rise up to "confront them."

He said that U.S. and British forces in Iraq had bogged down in Iraq and "have achieved nothing but loss, disaster and misfortune."

Al-Qaida in Iraq "alone has carried out 800 martyrdom operations (suicide attacks) in three years, besides the sacrifices of the other mujahedeen, and this is what has broken the back of American in Iraq," al-Zawahri said....

This is in line with his bedrock assumption that the U.S. lacks the will to prevail in a long-term struggle. And since official Washington and the mainstream media seems to lack the will even to define the conflict properly, he may be right.

Al-Zawahri's 16-minute video posted Saturday, entitled "A Message to the People of Pakistan," was mainly dedicated to criticism of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, accusing him of undermining his own country to help the United States, Israel and India....

"Every soldier and officer in the Pakistani military should know that Musharraf is throwing them into the burner of civil war in return for the bribes he is getting from the United States," al-Zawahri said

"For this reason I call on every soldier and officer in the Pakistani army to disobey the orders of his commanders to kill Muslims in Pakistan or Afghanistan or otherwise he will be confronted by the mujahedeen," he said.

Al-Zawahri is speaking in accord with Qur'an 4:92, which forbids a Muslim to kill a fellow believer intentionally.

A courageous and clear-sighted editorial in the Dallas Morning News (thanks to LHK) skewers Muslim racism and hypocrisy over the killing of black Muslims by Arab Muslims in Darfur. Ultimately that killing is a manifestation of Arab supremacism, and the violent imperative from Khartoum to impose Wahhabism on the entire country.

Good for Osama bin Laden.

You read that right. Good for him for revealing even more about the depth of al-Qaeda's depravity. In his latest audio dispatch, the terror mastermind declares that all good Muslims should defend the racist genocide that Arab Muslims in the government-backed Janjaweed militia are committing against the black African Muslims of Darfur. We hope this latest outrage will shake the confidence of Muslims who believe in al-Qaeda's cause.

Even better for the sake of moral clarity and action, Osama's Darfur declaration forces an issue that many of the world's Muslims have been avoiding. The al-Qaeda leader is exploiting a widely held view among Arab Muslims that the humanitarian crisis in Darfur is an invention of Jews and Christians who want to take over Muslim land.

Anyone who believes something that outrageous should talk to Salih Mahmoud Osman. He is a Darfurian Muslim and human rights lawyer who was in Dallas recently, sponsored by local Jewish groups, to talk about what is happening to his people. "Since this situation erupted, never once have we seen a single person from the Arab world or the Muslim community come and show sympathy for the survivors," Mr. Osman told us.

The vast majority of the world's Muslims are not Arabs, but rather Asians and Africans. Why are they acquiescing without protest to this Arab-led genocide against fellow Muslims? Does the silence from the Islamic world on Darfur mean that the world's Muslims agree with Osama bin Laden that it is more important to maintain a morally bankrupt unity against the so-called "crusader-Zionist" enemy than to stand up for defenseless people?

Read it all.

They won't get to control the ports, but the President is making sure to give them a consolation prize. From AP, with thanks to Fake, who comments: "Why are Dubai companies trying to take over various security and military operations? How about buying an ice cream company instead?"

Of course, there are precedents for an ice cream jihad as well.

WASHINGTON (April 28) - President Bush on Friday approved a deal for a Dubai-owned company to take control of some U.S. plants that manufacture parts for American military contractors.

Initial reactions from Congress indicated that there would not be the opposition to the deal that prevented another Dubai-based company from taking over operations of several U.S. ports.

"This was a transaction that was thoroughly reviewed and closely scrutinized," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said in confirming the deal. "In the view of the committee, it does not compromise our national security."

As a condition of the president's approval, the company signed an agreement that promised an uninterrupted supply, McClellan said. The White House was in the process of informing key members of Congress of the president's decision.

House leadership aides, speaking on condition of anonymity, said lawmakers from both parties on the relevant committees had been briefed on the deal, and had agreed that necessary safeguards were in effect. They said there had been numerous contacts with the administration.

I hope so. Still, I can't help but think this is unwise. Even one mujahid in the right place could do a great deal of damage.

Thanks for all your messages of concern. We were taken down in the big denial-of-service attack that took down several other sites, and which seems to have originated in Saudi Arabia, but all appears well now. And the site was not hacked at any point.

In "Not for the Faint of Heart," at National Review, Andrew McCarthy breaks through the conservative and liberal media silence that has hitherto largely prevailed about my book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), which nonetheless -- in a fine indication of the fact that many Americans are fed up with their politically correct media masters -- spent four months on The New York Times Bestseller List:

It is often said that in order to keep polite company polite, we must refrain from speaking of religion and politics. Yet, the two are not equals in the hierarchy of politesse. Political debate may be unwelcome in many settings, but no one clears the room by observing that the great totalitarian evils of the 20th century, Communism and fascism, were directly responsible for incalculable carnage.

Not so when it comes to religion — or, at least, one particular religion. The past three decades have borne witness to a rising, global tide of terrorist atrocities, wrought by Muslims who proclaim without apology — indeed, with animating pride — that their actions are compelled by Islam. Nonetheless, the quickest ticket to oblivion on PC's pariah express is to suggest that the root cause of Islamic terrorism might be, well, Islam.

That the possibility is utterable at all today owes exclusively to the sheer audacity of Muslim legions, who have rioted globally, on cue, based on what even their exhausted defenders must now concede are trifles (newspaper cartoons and a tall tale of Koran abuse at Guantanamo Bay leap to mind). But the largest obstacle to any examination of creed — larger even than a growing alphabet soup of Muslim interest groups — has been the same Western elites who are the prime targets of jihadist ire. In the most notable instance, President Bush absolved Islam of any culpability even as fires raged at the remains of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. And, although attacks before and after that date have been numerous and widespread, it has become nearly as much an oratorical staple as "My fellow Americans" for U.S. politicians to begin any discussion of our signal national security challenge with the observation that Islam is a "religion of peace" — a religion that has surely been perverted, "hijacked," and otherwise misconstrued by terrorists.

No more, insists Robert Spencer, the intrepid author and analyst behind the Jihad Watch website. Spencer's theory is as logical as it is controversial: when the single common thread that runs through virtually all of the international terrorism of the modern era is that its perpetrators are Muslims, and when the jihadists themselves tell us that their religion is the force that drives them, we should seriously consider the probability that Islam is a causative agent, even the principal causative agent, of their terrorist actions. This he undertakes to do in The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades).

Read it all.

This morning at FrontPage there is a lively discussion of the Abdul Rahman case and the Islamic death penalty for apostasy, featuring the Muslims Thomas Haidon and Salim Mansur along with Serge Trifkovic and me. Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald also makes a guest appearance near the end.

The recent case of Abdul Rahman raises, once again, serious concerns about the possibility of the modernization and democratization of the Muslim world. To be sure, what does it say about a religion that, in the year 2006, pronounces that a human being must be executed if he changes his faith? Can it be denied that Rahman is still breathing in Italy today not because the Afghan government let him go, but because he escaped from the Islamic world? And what does it say about Islam that the leading clerics in Afghanistan supported Rahman’s execution on a theological basis – and that almost the entire Islamic world was behind them? How, in the context of these realities, can true democracy ever be really built in Afghanistan, Iraq and the rest of the Muslim world?

To discuss these questions with us today, we have assembled a panel of experts. Our guests today are:

Thomas Haidon, the Chief Legal and Policy Advisor of the Free Muslim Coalition and a member of its Board of Advisors. A commentator on legal issues surrounding counter-terrorism measures and Islamic affairs, he currently serves as an advisor to the New Zealand government and has provided guidance to parliamentary committees on counter-terrorism issues. His works have been published in legal periodicals, newspapers and other media.

Salim Mansur, a Muslim writer and a professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario.

Serge Trifkovic, a former BBC commentator and US NEWS and World Report reporter. His last book was The Sword of the Prophet. The sequel, Defeating Jihad, will be published by Regina Orthodox Press in April. Read his commentaries on ChroniclesMagazine.org.

and

Robert Spencer, a scholar of Islamic history, theology, and law and the director of Jihad Watch. He is the author of five books, seven monographs, and hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism, including Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World’s Fastest Growing Faith and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). He is also an Adjunct Fellow with the Free Congress Foundation.

FP: Thomas Haidon, Salim Mansur, Serge Trifkovic and Robert Spencer, thank you for joining Frontpage Symposium.

Mr. Haidon, let’s begin with you.

I think it would be important to start with this question: As a Muslim yourself, what do you think about the death sentence handed down on Rahman? It is based on the teachings of Islam that you yourself cannot deny and must also follow, correct?

Haidon: On a personal level, the imposition of any criminal or social sanction to punish an individual who has made a decision of conscience to change their religion is morally and legally indefensible from an international legal perspective and, in my view, from a contextualist interpretation of the Qur’an and Sunnah (which is not necessarily a prevailing Islamic view).

The prosecution of Mr Rahman, and others recently arrested in Afghanistan (not to mention those accused and punished in other Muslim countries), poses a serious challenge to moderate Muslims, to not only condemn this punishment (which also applies, according to Yusuf Qaradawi, to “intellectual apostates as well) but to develop clear and thorough theological arguments showing that the punishment is indefensible, using the Qur’an and Sunnah.

The only positive outcome from the prosecution of Mr. Rahman, is the open visibility of Islamic intolerance exhibited by the Afghan government (including the ambivalent Afghanistan Human Rights Commission), and Muslims throughout the Muslim world who have rabidly called for Rahman’s death. This visibility will hopefully increase Western awareness of the tenets of Islamism and lead to more effective strategies in combating it.

At the outset, I acknowledge, that according to traditional Islamic jurisprudence, as informed by the scholars of the four Sunni madhabs, as well as Shi’ia jurisprudence, affirm that an apostate in Islam, must generally be killed. However, as I hope to explore in this discussion, the Qur’an, the authoritative source of Islamic jurisprudence contradicts the Muslim tradition on this issue (which creates the legal basis for the penalty). The Qur’an prescribes no earthly penalty for the individual who ceases believing in Islam, in fact, many verses appear to affirm the freedom of religion and conscience. The particular hadith, as a reliable source for the punishment, when read with the Qur’an should be explored today.

FP: Serge Trifkovic?

Trifkovic: It may be possible to dispute the Kuranic justification of death for apostasy, but it is not possible to deny that the demand for such punishment is based on incontrovertibly valid Islamic sources, precedents, and methods of deduction.

While in some details Islam is not monolithic and there is no single "correct Islam," the advocates of death for apostasy invoke sources and principles that are independent of any capricious or dubious interpretations of the Kuran or the Hadith.

These core sources have created a moral philosophy and a legal code that erases individual judgment based on natural morality or on the allegiance to any other source of authority but itself. Analogies thus derived stand above reason, conscience, or nature. The lack of any pretense to a moral basis for executing apostates is explicit: there is no "spirit of the law" in Islam, no rationality behind it for human reason to discover. There is no discernment of the consequences of deeds, and revelation and tradition must not be questioned. No other standard of good and evil can be invoked, least of all a notion of "natural" justice.

Islam's denigration of the individual conscience has serious political consequences for societies that derive their concept of authority from the "Prophet.": Any notion of freedom distinct from complete submission is forbidden and sinful. Human imperfection is not subject to improvement in the direction of God. Political progress of the kind that defined America in 1776 is not just impossible, it is irrelevant.

The fruits of Islam's denial of natural morality are as predictable as they are grim, for the Muslims no less than for their victims: both are enslaved, brutalized, and de-humanized. Discrimination against non-co-religionists and women, racism, slavery, anti-Semitism, and cultural imperialism can be found, individually or in various combinations, in other cultures and eras. Islam alone has them all at once, all the time, and divinely sanctioned at that. As Clement Huart pointed out back in 1907,

"Until the newer conceptions, as to what the Koran teaches as to the duty of the believer towards non-believers, have spread further and have more generally leavened the mass of Moslem belief and opinion, it is the older and orthodox standpoint on this question which must be regarded by non-Moslems as representing Mohammedan teaching and as guiding Mohammedan action."

It is not Rahman's would-be executioners who are "distorting" Islam; the reformers are. It breeds a peculiar mindset, the one against which Burke warned when he wrote that "intemperate minds never can be free; their passions forge their fetters."

FP: Salim Mansur?

Mansur: Thank you, Jamie.

Oddly I will be in agreement with just about everyone in this discussion. The reason is simple. Islam and the Qur’an can be practiced and explained, justified or denounced, in whichever way and with whatever understanding an individual or collective approaches it.

The Qur’an describes itself as an inexhaustible ocean from whose bosom men might pull forth a mix of things life-sustaining and life-denying. In this metaphor the Qur’an is as is nature with volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis, and in their midst you will also find fragile roses. Muslims driven by power-seeking individuals remain wilfully negligent of fragile roses. Abdul Rahman is that rose as was Mansur ibn Hallaj, as was Ali ibn Talib and Husayn ibn Ali, and countless others killed by Muslims on the basis of life-denying reading of the Qur’an.

Islam is now open to global scrutiny as it should be. Religion is a human construct, and any religion as life-denying is worthless. So Muslims have to step forth unapologetically and fearlessly to cast aside the shell in securing the pearl inside the Qur’an. God gives man intelligence and freedom to discern the difference between the shell and the pearl within it. The Qur’an has been used by Muslims in their majority as a legal code to be enforced (hence a shell), rather than as a book of ethics enjoining freedom and responsibility (hence a pearl). The inevitable consequence of this has been Muslims making Islam into a political instrument shaping their life-denying culture -- now fully exposed as in the incidence of Abdul Rahman.

Hopefully the outside world will squeeze Muslims to make them become eventually discerning individuals wanting freedom, as the Qur’an instructs, and cast aside their life-denying reading of the Qur’an for reconciling themselves with the modern world of science and democracy.

FP: The Qur’an instructs Muslims to become discerning individuals wanting freedom? This is news to me. Am I missing something here? To be honest, I have never read any consistent themes in the Qur’an that resemble anything even close to what is in the American Declaration of Independence or in the American Constitution or in anything else that promotes the individual’s right to live his life by his own conscience – and that instructs that it is no one else’s business what beliefs he has and how he lives his life.

Robert Spencer perhaps you can shed some light on the discussion thus far?

Spencer: The responses thus far have been illuminating both for what has been said and what has not been said. Both Muslims have acknowledged that, in Haidon’s words, “according to traditional Islamic jurisprudence, as informed by the scholars of the four Sunni madhahib, as well as Shi’ia jurisprudence, affirm that an apostate in Islam, must generally be killed.” Thus Trifkovic is correct that “it is not Rahman's would-be executioners who are ‘distorting’ Islam; the reformers are.”

This indicates that the moderate Islam which is the object of so much confidence and hope in the West is at this point essentially a chimera, a fantasy. When George Bush, Tony Blair, and other Western leaders refer to a vast majority of law-abiding Muslims in the West, they are assuming that the major portion of Muslims in their countries accepts the principles of the societies in which they live. But if they accept the canons of traditional Islamic jurisprudence -- in other words, if they adhere to what has been mainstream Islam throughout the history of the religion -- they will not only approve of the execution of apostates, but will also accept many other notions that are fundamentally incompatible with core elements of Western pluralism and many Judeo-Christian principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Right now the public discourse is dominated by a dogmatic unreality that not only refuses to confront these unpleasant realities, but stigmatizes and marginalizes those who do so. But the implications of these facts will have to be confronted sooner or later -- particularly as the force of events, in the United States and Western Europe as well as elsewhere around the world, makes it ever more difficult for the prevailing fantasies to be maintained.

Haidon: At the outset, I want to briefly outline why, in my view, and of some scholars, that the death penalty for apostasy should be inapplicable. My objective is not to convince Mr. Trifkovic or Mr. Spencer. Genuine moderate reformers have an obligation to engage in research that helps clarify the edicts of Islam towards moderation. We are not, as Mr. Trifkovic and Mr. Spencer point out of, distorting Islam (although it is recognised both gentlemen are merely restating, not endorsing what many Muslims would argue). I find this particularly offensive however as genuine moderate Muslim reformers are often the subject of fatwa and the rulings of apostasy which result in death.

Some scholars have gone so far as to accuse genuine reformers of being the “worst kind” of apostates (“intellectual apostasy”). I need not cite the countless examples of brave Muslim reformers who have set forth clear arguments in favour of moderation, and have suffered greatly. Having been called an apostate (by some Muslims) myself and threatened, I stand in solidarity with Mr. Rahman, and all others who have been deemed as such.

Over the past month I have articulated to Muslims in several forums and meetings our position (FMC) why the death penalty for the “crime” of apostasy is wrong. I will briefly walk my colleagues through it here (understanding full well that they may take issue with it).

The principle source of usul al fiqh is the Qur’an, the primary source (in theory at least) of sharia’. With respect to religious questions, the Qur’an must be consulted first. In cases where there is no clarity from the Qur’an, other, secondary sources are consulted (ie Sunnah, qiyas). The Qur’an could not be any clearer on the fate of those who accept and then reject faith (2:217, 3:176, 5:54, 9:101, 9:74, 9:80, 47:25, 47:27, 47:28, 88:21-260 (not an exhaustive list). They are to be punished by God alone (please note that I have not employed the oft used 2:256). The oft-cited hadith clearly contravenes the Qur’an.

According to most fuqaha, a hadith can limit the application of a general Qur’anic statement, but cannot negate it. For instance, a clear hadith which specifically stated that apostasy is illegal when coupled with high treason or sedition, would arguably be a valid limitation. But this is not the case, and should cast serious doubt on the validity of those hadith. Further, if we look to the actual practice of the Prophet, we will find that there is a lack of sufficient evidence to suggest that the Prophet killed apostates solely for the reason of their apostasy; in other words, he did not follow his own purported tradition.

The Prophet was surrounded by hypocrites (often deemed to be the worst of apostates) at times and even lived amongst them. How did the Prophet deal with them generally (outside of battle)? He prayed for them until he was ordered by Allah to stop. Some Muslims have used the examples of Abdullah ibn Abu al Sarh and Abdullah ibn Khatal to demonstrate that the Prophet ordered the death of apostates. While the Prophet did order their execution however, the evidence points to the fact their apostasy was coupled with the acts of spreading tales which the Prophet deemed false, in the time of war.

Sharia in Lincoln Park. An update on this story from the Detroit Free Press, with thanks to Teri:

After pressure from many of its customers, Fitness USA announced Wednesday that it has placed a divider and frosted glass in its Lincoln Park gym to ensure men and women can work out separately.

"We hope all of our female members will be pleased," said Jodi Berry, administrative director for Fitness USA.

The move comes after the Free Press reported last week that almost 200 Muslim women signed a petition saying the company reneged on a promise to maintain separation between men and women in its Lincoln Park facility.

Some interpretations of Islamic law call for separation of the sexes when women are not covered with headscarves and modest clothing. Several non-Muslim female Fitness USA members contacted the Muslim women to express support.

More Eurabian dhimmitude and suicidal jihad-abetting from Sweden. From Israel National News, with thanks to Mark:

Sweden is boycotting an international air force exercise in Italy next month due to the fact that Israel’s Air Force will take part. It has also decided to grant entry visas to Hamas members.

Though not mentioning the Jewish State by name, Sweden’s Defense Minister Leni Bjorklund said that her country was withdrawing its participating due to the fact that "the Swedish Armed Forces were notified at a late stage that a state not belonging to the Partnership for Peace, and with which Sweden did not previously have bilateral military cooperation, and which does not take part in international peacekeeping missions was to take part in the air exercise."

A Swedish official told Israel Radio that Israel was not currently advancing peace and was therefore not fit to take part in the exercise.

The Compassionate, The Merciful Update from WND, with thanks to Frank the Great:

JERUSALEM – Daniel Wultz, a Florida teenager lying in a coma after being critically injured last week in a suicide bombing at an Israeli restaurant, is the "best target combination we can dream of – American and Zionist," Abu Nasser, a leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, one of the groups responsible for the deadly blast, told WorldNetDaily.

Abu Ayman, a leader of the Islamic Jihad, which also took responsibility for the April 17 bombing in which Wultz was injured, threatened all Americans and Jews worldwide and expressed regret Wultz is still alive.

Wultz, 16, was one of over 60 people injured in the attack in which a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded section of Tel Aviv as Israelis celebrated the fifth day of the Passover holiday. The blast ripped through a falafel restaurant just outside the city's old central bus station, killing nine. The same restaurant was hit by a suicide attack in January, wounding 20 people.

Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Brigades, the declared military wing of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party, claimed responsibility for the bombing.

Why not ask those applying for education visas some hard questions to determine their view of the jihad ideology? "Detainee Says He's Proud to Fight U.S.," from AP, with thanks to Mackie:

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) - A U.S.-educated Saudi accused of being part of an al-Qaida bomb-making cell said Thursday he is proud that he fought against the United States and doesn't want an attorney at his military trial.

"I did not come here to defend myself," Ghassan Abdullah al-Sharbi calmly told the military judge. "I did what I did and I'm willing to pay the price no matter how many years you sentence me."

Al-Sharbi, 31, an electrical engineering graduate from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Ariz., was captured in March 2002 in Pakistan with senior al-Qaida lieutenant Abu Zubayda and other figures.

He is charged with conspiracy in an alleged plot to build remote-controlled explosives to attack U.S. troops in Afghanistan and faces up to life in prison if convicted in the military tribunal at Guantanamo.

The military panel that determined whether al-Sharbi was an "enemy combatant" disclosed that he was known by other detainees as Abu Zubayda's "right hand man" and that he had been seen "chatting and laughing like pals" with Osama bin Laden at a terrorist training camp, according to Pentagon documents recently obtained by The Associated Press.

At his military trial, al-Sharbi, who has long hair and a thick, flowing beard, told the presiding judge that he would not cooperate with his court-appointed attorney.

"I'm going to make this easy for you guys. I fought against the United States. I took up arms," he said in English, his hands clasped on the defense table in front of him. Later, he added: "I'm going to tell you what I did. ... I'm proud of what I did."

Yet again we see the protestations that a violent mujahid is really a capital fellow, peaceful and devout, doncha know. Hardly a jihadist has been arrested who hasn't been thus praised by his family and friends. "'He Was Such a Nice Boy,'" from Der Spiegel, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Zacarias Moussaoui is the first suspect charged with complicity in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He pleaded guilty in April 2005. But his mother, who hasn't spoken to him for years, insists he is innocent.

Aicha el-Wafi...: "All he's done is talk, and no one can be condemned to death for that."

He looks dreamily into the camera, smiling timidly, a lanky boy in a red T-shirt, with peach fuzz on his upper lip. The photograph of Zacarias Moussaoui at age 14 stands on a coffee table next to his mother's couch, fixed in a gold frame. A bouquet of red roses lies next to it.

"He was such a nice boy, a gentle boy," says his mother, Aicha el-Wafi. "But that's just the problem. He couldn't stand being called a dirty Arab on the street. That's how it started."

Yes, of course, it's all because of racism. What racism, incidentally, fueled the jihad wars of the great Islamic empires of the past?

Read it all.

I hope we henceforth see much more of this, around the world. "Alliance to report Maftuh to police," from The Jakarta Post, with thanks to RG:

A group campaigning for the freedom to worship is planning to report Religious Affairs Minister Maftuh Basyuni to the police for his recent comments about the Ahmadiyah sect.

The Alliance of Religious Freedom sent a warning to Maftuh on April 17, demanding the minister make a public apology for his offensive statement against Ahmadiyah, a small Islamic sect that was declared heretical last year by the Indonesian Ulema Council.

The warning in the form of a letter was signed by more than 300 people, including Muslim scholars, journalists, artists and activists from non-governmental organizations.

It gave the minister a week to apologize to the sect through media and affirm his commitment to religious pluralism in the country or the alliance threatened legal action.

Maftuh was quoted by several national newspapers calling Ahmadiyah a deviant faith, and saying its teachings went against Islam.

The minister also said he would issue a new decree to reconfirm the state's recognition of only six faiths -- Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confuscianism.

Moderate Muslim scholar Dawam Rahardjo, who leads the alliance, said the minister had failed to respond to the letter.

"Last Tuesday was the deadline. We will report this case to police. We are still discussing the exact time (to do so)," he said....

He said Maftuh should treat all religions and beliefs in Indonesia equally, and should not have made disparaging statements remarks about any faith.

"A (religious) minister must protect all religious believers from discrimination," Dawam added.....

Dawam urged Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, the country's two largest Muslim organizations, to join the action again the minister.

Under the Constitution, people had the right to believe in whatever religion they chose and this also meant choosing new faiths, the group said.

This chimp's name could be an indication of how popular Osama is in Sierra Leone, or how unpopular -- depending on one's view of chimpanzees. In any case, this chimp's participation in the mauling of the four men should in no way reflect on the Vast Majority of Peaceful, Law-Abiding Chimpanzees, who abhor the Osama Chimp's hijacking of chimphood. It's a Species of Peace, you know. "'Osama bin Laden' still on run in Sierra Leone," from Reuters, with thanks to DFS:

FREETOWN (Reuters) - "Osama bin Laden" is still on the run in the jungles of Sierra Leone -- after escaping with some 20 other chimpanzees from a wildlife sanctuary where they killed a local taxi driver on Sunday.

The chimp, named by wardens after the wanted al Qaeda leader, was among a pack of apes which mobbed and mauled four men at the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary in the forested hills outside the Sierra Leonean capital Freetown.

Astounding Chutzpah Alert from AP, with thanks to JE:

UNITED NATIONS - Iran's U.N. ambassador on Thursday denounced Israel's election as a vice-chair of the U.N. Disarmament Commission, calling the Jewish state a threat to peace in the Middle East.

Ambassador Javad Zarif accused Israel of "violating every single Security Council resolution that has been adopted about the Middle East."

He also lashed out at Israeli criticism of Iran's own election as a vice-chair of the commission, noting the Jewish state has refused to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty but "has the audacity to talk about another country having a seat."

"That's absolutely ridiculous," he told a group of reporters at a lunch he hosted. "It's pushing the issue to the border of absurdity."

Javad, there is a lot of absurdity going on at the UN, but in that regard you should look to yourself.

Nor should we, but this is just one more indication of the Thug-In-Chief's bellicose intentions. From The Telegraph, with thanks to Interested:

Iran's president has said his country will pay no attention to international calls to halt its nuclear work, as the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) prepares to report on whether Tehran has met UN Security Council demands. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a rally in northwest Iran: "Those who want to prevent Iranians from obtaining their right, should know that we do not give a damn to such resolutions," according to the official IRNA news agency.

He added: "Enemies think that by ... threatening us, launching psychological warfare or ... imposing embargos can dissuade our nation to obtain nuclear technology."

This is a positive step, but I would like to see the actual content of the test. Australia and all non-Muslim nations need to set up a test that asks Muslim immigrants such questions as whether they can accept peaceful coexistence as equals with non-Muslims on an indefinite basis, whether they would someday like to see Sharia implemented in the country to which they wish to immigrate, what they think of women working, what they think of wife-beating, and the like. This would focus the attention of immigration officials and applicants on questions of jihad and Sharia, and make clear that the host nations consider such positions unacceptable. If an immigrant were later found to have lied on his application about his positions on such matters, that should be grounds for deportation.

From AAP, with thanks to JE:

A MUSLIM leader has welcomed a Federal Government proposal to introduce compulsory citizenship tests for Australian migrants.

Under the proposal by immigration parliamentary secretary Andrew Robb, prospective immigrants would have to take a test to demonstrate their English language skills and knowledge of Australia's values, customs, laws and history.

Muslim leader Mustapha Kara-Ali, a member of the Prime Minister's hand-picked Muslim community reference group, said a basic level of language skills and understanding of Australian culture could be a useful tool for new citizens.

"A basic understanding of Australian culture and a practical knowledge of the English language will go a long way in laying the foundation for a new mindset in the Muslim community," Mr Kara-Ali said.

"It's stifled minds that are opposing outright this draft blueprint by Mr Robb - it's in the Muslim community's best interest to set such citizenship requirements."

Julia Gorin reports in Jewish World Review (thanks to Sparta) on some egregious Alabama dhimmitude. (News links in the original.)

Earlier this month, Rabbi Jonathan Miller of Birmingham's Temple Emanu-El hosted Bosnia's Grand Mufti Mustafa Ceric to address an interfaith audience at his synagogue so that we Jews and Christians might "make room in our hearts and souls for others who believe differently from us," as his op-ed in The Birmingham News read. According to one attendee, the mufti packed a big house and the evening was replete with Martin Luther King tie-ins and civil rights-era imagery.

The rabbi should have done some research first. Ceric recently called on the world to stand by Syria, a state that sponsors terrorism against Israel and U.S. forces in Iraq, among other targets. During the March, 2004 pogroms in Kosovo against Orthodox Christian Serbs by Albanian Muslims — in which 19 people were killed, dozens of churches and cemeteries destroyed, and close to 4,000 of Kosovo's minority Serbs displaced — BBC.com reported that Ceric "expressed concern about the rise of anti-Islamic hysteria in the West." He added that there was "no such thing as Islamic terrorism," and assured reporters that there were no charities linked to al-Qaeda operating in Bosnia.

In fact, a CNSNews.com article titled "Jihadists Find Convenient Base in Bosnia" reported that "terrorists who previously targeted the U.S. are now in Bosnia, where they have access to a 'one-stop shop' of jihad training camps, weapons and illegal Islamic 'charities' — all at the doorstep of Europe."

Read it all.

Eurabia, and some resistance to it. From Sweden's The Local, with thanks to Paul:

Sweden's largest Muslim organisation has demanded that Sweden introduce separate laws for Muslims, according to Swedish television. Sweden's equality minister Jens Orback called the proposals "completely unacceptable".

The Swedish Muslim Association, which represents around 70,000 Muslims in Sweden, has sent a letter to all Sweden's main political parties suggesting a number of reforms, SVT's Rapport programme reported.

The proposals include allowing imams into state (public) schools to give Muslim children separate lessons in Islam and their parents' native languages. The letter also said that boys and girls should have separate swimming lessons and that divorces between Muslims should be approved by an imam.

The letter provoked an instant, and damning, response from integration and equality minister Jens Orback.

"We will not have separate laws in Sweden. In Sweden, we are all equal before the law. In Sweden, we have fought for a long time to achieve gender-neutral laws, and to propose that certain groups should not be treated like others is completely unacceptable."...

Liberal Party leader Lars Leijonborg also slammed the idea of separate laws.

"Sweden has equality between men and women. To introduce exceptions for Muslims so that women can be oppressed with the support of the law is completely unacceptable to me," Liberal leader Lars Leijonborg wrote in a statement.

Some have interpreted this as a blow to Iranian ambitions in Iraq, but given that Sistani is shipping large sums to Iran, I rather think that it is an indication that he now believes that Iranian power in Iraq can be consolidated without these militias.

"Cleric Calls for End to Militias," from the LA Times, with thanks to all who sent this in:

BAGHDAD — Iraq's senior Shiite Muslim religious figure Thursday called on the country's controversial militias to disarm, marking one of the most overt forays into matters of politics and policy by the influential cleric.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, regarded as the moral voice of Iraq's Shiite majority, called for a government of technocrats rather than political loyalists or sectarian interests and said that only government forces should be permitted to carry weapons on the streets.

"Weapons must be in the hands of government security forces that should not be tied to political parties but to the nation," said the Iranian-born Sistani in a statement released by his office in Najaf after he met with the newly designated prime minister. "The first task for the government is fighting insecurity and putting an end to the terrorist acts that threaten innocents with death and kidnapping."

Sistani's views, representative of the clerical leadership based in the seminary city of Najaf, seemed to echo the statements of U.S. leaders who are eager to stem the cycle of sectarian violence and chaos so that they can begin withdrawing American-led military forces. But Sistani's statement alarmed many secular and Sunni Iraqis who fear increased involvement of powerful Shiite clerics in matters of state.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald notes an opportunity for freelance intelligence gatherers to join the resistance against the global jihad:

Without Arab and Muslim customers, brothels from Bangkok and Bombay, and of course maisons de passe of every kind in Europe, the high-end call-girl trade (hotel calls only) on several continents could collapse.

You can sit right on the water, at a restaurant or cafe, in Porto Banus, just outside Marbella, and watch the Arab yachts. They come right up to shore, and they are as large as ferries. Like ferries, the cars -- a stream of Mercedeses -- come off, one by one, carrying away for a half-day or the entire evening, or for the evening and a night in a hotel on land, the many wives and many children and their many guards. A half-hour later (it's fun to watch, and I hope the CIA has been clicking away) other cars arrive. From them emerge girl after girl after girl. They then are not driven onto the various yachts, but simply walk on, one after the other, while the Arab males on board are waiting for them.

Whatever fantasies you can dream up, whatever kinds of things would promptly get you arrested on five continents if you were not a rich and immune Arab, is already being lived, quite casually, in the daily lives of a very large number of very rich Arabs. Sometimes this goes on behind high-walled palaces in Dar al-Islam, where the religious police do not inquire. Since the women or children involved are Infidels, what does it matter?

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses the jihad in Jammu and Kashmir, and on the subcontinent in general:

Why do Muslim terrorists attack in Jammu-Kashmir? Because they can. The Muslim claim to Kashmir differs from their claim to all of India (or for that matter to Spain (Al-Andalus), to Israel, to Sicily, to the Balkans, to Bulgaria, to Rumania, to Hungary, and to all the areas once dominated by Muslims) only in the ability to push that claim. Of course, in the jihadist view the entire world in the end must submit to Islam and be dominated by Islam -- though non-Muslims may, should they accept what many Muslims continue to believe is perfectly just, live under those unambiguous conditions of humiliation, degradation, and physical insecurity whose sum is the status we now describe as "dhimmitude".

Any land area, even within the Western countries where Muslims come to dominate, will by many of them be regarded as "Muslim land." The claims made by various local Muslims may seem comical to us, such as that for the "Caliphate" in Cologne, or the insistence that certain areas in Malmo or Rotterdam or Muslim-populated towns in France are not to be treated as any longer under the control of representatives of the Infidel nation-state, but they are quite serious. That seriousness is being demonstrated even now both by Muslims and by the representatives (police, firemen, teachers) of that nation-state, who are often too afraid not to comply with the Muslim demands that they stay out of what is no longer their territory.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses a particular element of traditional Islamic family values: the need to ask permission of one's parents before going on jihad.

Family values, family values. Tradition.

I just checked my copy of The Lawful and The Prohibited in Islam (Al-Halal Wal Haram Fil Islam) by Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi of Qatar, who is at present the most famous guide in Sunni Islam to what is haram and halal, a defender of suicide bombings, and the great friend of London Mayor Redken Livingstone.

On pages 234-235 al-Qaradawi discusses the need for those going on "violent" Jihad (qital) to ask permission of their parents:

I just finished posting this story about MPAC's calling for Muslims to join the illegal immigration protests on May 1 when I saw this article by LTC Joseph Myers and Patrick Poole in FrontPage. Here is abundant documentation that Hizballah is taking advantage of our porous borders in order to place operatives in the U.S. and plan for a future strike here. MPAC's call to support the illegal immigrant protests, with MPAC senior advisor Maher Hathout's support for Hizballah, must be evaluated in light of that. (News links in the original.)

AUTHORS NOTE: This article was prepared and approved before the London Times report this past weekend which verified that longtime Hezbollah terror chief, Imad Mugniyah, has been tapped by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to initiate attacks against the West, especially the U.S., in the event that any preemptive strikes are made against Iran's nuclear facilities. In the following article we identify Mugniyah and his extensive role in a number of attacks on Americans since the 1980s and have assumed that any action taken by Hezbollah would be directed by Mugniyah, but this new supporting information was important enough and directly relevant to the discussion at hand to warrant us including this author’s note to call our reader's attention to it. This new report reinforces our argument made here that Hezbollah and its operations inside America and throughout Latin America pose an immediate national security risk that should be among the primary topics of consideration in the ongoing border security debate.

“Death to America was, is, and will stay our slogan!” – Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah Secretary-General (“Hezbollah Vows Anew To Target Americans”, Los Angeles Times, April 17, 2003)

In the prosecution of the Global War against Terror (GWOT) initiated only after the horror of 9/11, an important threat to the United States fell from the public radar screen while al-Qaeda, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and the regime of Saddam Hussein became the primary targets. That important threat was the Iranian-backed terrorist organization, Hezbollah.

Let's see. The Muslim Public Affairs Council has a senior advisor who has declared support for Hizballah. The Council on American-Islamic Relations has had five officials associated with various terrorism-related activities and no longer contests statements connecting it with Hamas. The Muslim American Society has U.S. chapters that speak of establishing Islamic government.

When groups have called for Islamic government and speak well of or have ties to organizations that pursue violence in order to institute Sharia, and then those groups protest restrictions on illegal immigrants entering the United States, it is reasonable to suspect that they are pursuing an agenda that may involve the advancement of jihad and Sharia within the United States by making it easier for people dedicated to those causes to enter the country.

From WND, with thanks to KJL:

Muslims in Los Angeles and elsewhere are being urged to join millions of Latino protesters in the streets May 1 to demonstrate in favor of leniency toward illegal aliens currently living in the United States unlawfully.

"In solidarity with immigration activists around the country, the Muslim Public Affairs Council as well as the Council on American-Islamic Relations - Los Angeles, the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, the L.A. Latino Muslim Association, the Muslim American Society - Los Angeles, and the Muslim Students Association - West are calling on American Muslims to participate in a day of action on May 1, 2006," says a statement from the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

"Islam's message is one of social justice, economic fairness, and fair treatment in the workplace. The Quran urges the proper treatment and respect of workers."

Choosing May 1, the day Communists worldwide celebrate the worker, activists have vowed to "close" major American cities as millions of Latinos, both legal and illegal, mark what some organizers are calling "a day without an immigrant" and others refer to as the "Great American Boycott." They are urging supporters not to go to work, school or spend money on that day....

The Muslim organization pushing participation is urging the faithful in Southern California to attend a march near downtown Los Angeles at 4 p.m. Monday.

The nonpareil Diana West once again speaks truth to power, and even does me the honor of including me on a short list of people she thinks should be part of a presidential advisory council instead of the one just constituted. And I couldn't agree more, both with her selections for the group and with the need for such a group in the first place.

"Shariah nations," from the Washington Times, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Certainly, we didn't put up all those ballot boxes across the Middle East to mandate a rollback of freedom. But in failing to assess the ideology central to Islam that makes Western notions of liberty fatally heretical, this is increasingly what is happening. Which gives a head-hurting circularity to our policy. Maybe such dizzying confusion should make us welcome the advent of the Iraq Study Group, a presidential advisory council created, as the New York Times put it, "to generate new ideas on Iraq."

But new ideas on "Iraq" are the last thing we need, particularly as generated by a bipartisan snooze of a group that includes James Baker, Vernon Jordan, Charles Robb, Sandra Day O'Connor, Alan K. Simpson and Lee Hamilton — I can hardly tap out the other names because they're so solidly and venerably uninspiring (with the notable exception of Rudy Giuliani).

Framing their study around "Iraq" reveals how blinkered government thinking is. Iraq is only a small piece of our troubles in this period of resurgent Islamic jihad, from Osama bin Laden's cave to downtown Tehran, from worldwide Danish cartoon protests to Tel Aviv falafel stands, from Paris banlieus to Zacarias Moussaui's courtroom hot seat. Squeezing big brains for "new ideas" about winning Iraq is sort of like planning the Normandy invasion to win France. We need something bigger. We need new ideas about Islam.

My list of idea men and women would include Hirsi Ali, Bat Ye'or, Bruce Bawer, Andrew G. Bostom, Walid Phares, Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer, Wafa Sultan, Ibn Warraq and other experts and observers unbowed by the strictures of political correctness that strangle debate on Islam — its teachings, its demands, its history.

Iraq would figure into such a curriculum, but from a broader perspective that would allow us to size up the global battlefield in terms of the two great threats to the Western way of life: the spread of shariah through active jihad (war, terrorism), and the spread of shariah through Islamization (demographics, multicultural correctness). Of the two, the second — quiet jihad — is the more serious threat, as the continuing Islamization of Europe shows.

We need an Islam Study Group.

Ms. West, I would be happy to participate. But I won't be waiting by the phone for Mr. Bush to call.

This report comes to us from the g2 bulletin (subscription required):

Hamid Mir, the only journalist to interview Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri in the wake of 9/11, has confirmed that al-Qaida has obtained nuclear suitcase weapons from the Russian black market, that the weapons were tested in Kabul in 2000 and that may have already been forward deployed to the United States.

"If you think that my information and analysis about bin Laden's location is correct," Mir said, "then please don't underestimate my analysis about his nuclear threat also."

Mir said that he met with an Egyptian engineer last week who had lost an eye after one of bin Laden's nuclear tests in Kunar. The Pakistani journalist said that the encounter with the engineer greatly disturbed and depressed him since it provided further assurance that a nuclear nightmare for America is about to dawn.

Mir believes that an "American Hiroshima" will occur as soon as the U.S. launches an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. "Al-Qaida and Iran," he says, "have a long, secret relationship."

That relationship dates back to June 21, 1996, when bin Laden attended a terror summit in Tehran. The gathering attracted terror leaders from various places throughout the world, including Ramadan Shallah (the Palestinian Islamic Jihad), Ahmad Salah (Egyptian Islamic Jihad), Imad al-Alami and Mustafa al-Liddawi (HAMAS), Ahmad Jibril (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), Abdallah Ocalan (the Kurdish People Party), Muhammad Ali Ahmad (al Qaeda), and Imad Mugniyah (Hezbollah). The summit resulted in the creation of the "Committee of Three" that would meet on a regular basis for the "coordination, planning, and execution of attacks" against the United States and Israel. The committee members were Ahmad Salah, Imad Mugniyah and bin Laden.

Mir's position that al-Qaida's nuclear weapons may have already been forward deployed to the United States confirms the report of Sharif al-Masri, a key al-Qaida operative who was arrested in Pakistan in November 2000.

Al Masri, an Egyptian national with ties to al-Zawahiri, said that al-Qaida had made arrangements to smuggle nuclear weapons and supplies to Mexico, From Mexico, he said, the weapons were to be transported across the border and into the United States with the help of a Latino street gang.

Mir also maintains that numerous sleeper agents are in place in major cities throughout the United States to prepare for the nuclear holocaust. Many of these agents, he says, are Algerians and Chechens who obtained European passports and are posing as Christian and Jews...

Robert Fisk, Middle East correspondant for the UK Independent, is interviewed by Tony Jones for Lateline about the new Zarqawi video:

TONY JONES, LATELINE PRESENTER: Well, Robert Fisk is Middle East correspondent for 'The Independent' newspaper and more than 30 years of reporting from the region makes him one of the most acute observers of the Arab world. To discuss the implications of the al-Zarqawi video, he joins us now from Beirut. Thanks for being there, Robert Fisk. Do you have any doubt at all that these really are images of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi?

ROBERT FISK, AUTHOR AND JOURNALIST: They do look like Zarqawi. I think it's pretty clear that he is alive, which I doubted for some time and that he, indeed, made this videotape. It clearly is a blow to the United States in the sense that they have several times claimed that they've killed him, which they obviously haven't done, and the tape is obviously new. But I think it is part of the bestialisation, if you like, of those people we want to hate, in the sense that I think individuals like Zarqawi or bin Laden don't actually matter. It's a bit like, you know, after you make a nuclear bomb, you go around arresting all the nuclear scientists and putting them in prison. It doesn't do any good. The nuclear bomb exists. Al-Qaeda exists. The organisation which bin Laden has created exists. So, the individuals per se don't actually matter anymore, but that's something which I think the Americans don't yet grasp.

TONY JONES: The last time we spoke, you did indeed think it very possible that he'd actually been killed and no-one knew where he was. So that's not so surprising.

ROBERT FISK: Yeah.

TONY JONES: You also thought he was a creature invented to fill the narrative gaps. In other words, a creature created, in a sense, by American propaganda. He's much more than that; isn't that evident from this video?

ROBERT FISK: Yeah. It is pretty clear. He does exist. He is still alive and that was him on the video. I don't think there's any doubt about that. I watched it several times over and am clearly of the mind that this is the man. What we do need to know, of course, is whether he has actually any real status over and above being a name al-Zarqawi. In other words, does he actually have any real status as a militant, as a resistant, as a rebel, whatever you like to use the word, terrorist, other than just being a person who is to be hated and to be bestialised in front of the television screens. The issue really is, I think, is this a person who is seriously an enemy of the "West" or is this just another person who is popping up on our screens to say this is the latest mad lunatic, the latest fanatic, the latest terrorist whom we have to be concerned about? That is the real issue, you see. Over and over again we've had this system where whereby we've had Ayatollah Khomeini and Gaddafi in Libya. We've had these extraordinary figures in the Middle East, like Nasser, for example, in Egypt in 1956 and people whom we are encouraged to loathe, encouraged to hate and who, ultimately, are just figureheads, who in the end are people who we just are encouraged to loathe, encouraged to hate. People who, at the end of the day, are not per se people who we need to worry about, people who, indeed --

TONY JONES: Robert Fisk, can I interrupt you there?

ROBERT FISK: Yeah, yeah.

TONY JONES: I'm surprised to hear you say some of these things because isn't it he himself who put these images on the Internet, including make a beast of himself by earlier putting on the Internet images of him with a mask on beheading Nicholas Berg, for example?...

Read it all.

This piece shows how the mainstream media is both actively obfuscating and highly ignorant of the jihad ideology. The fact that this man is a Muslim and a jihadist, not that he is a Pakistan native, is the reason why he plotted these actions. But which one shows up in the AP headline? Of course our Politically Correct masters wouldn't have that any other way.

Then down at the end of the article we hear about Siraj's "naivete and ambivalence about the plot." Evidence? That he said he had to ask his mother whether or not he could go ahead.

That's not naivete and ambivalence. That's Islamic practice. Siraj may have had this hadith in mind:

Abdullah b. 'Anir reported that a person came to Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him) and sought permission (to participate) in Jihad, whereupon he (the Holy Prophet) said: Are your parents living? He said: Yes. Thereupon he (the Holy Prophet) said: You should put in your best efforts (in their) service. (Sahih Muslim, bk. 032, no. 6184)

"Pakistan Native Tried in NYC Subway Plot," from AP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

NEW YORK - A Pakistani immigrant, angered by the war in Iraq and the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, wanted to punish Americans in 2004 by bombing one of New York City's busiest subway stations, a police informant testified Monday at a conspiracy trial. Shahawar Matin Siraj vowed to "teach these bastards a lesson," the informant, Osama Eldawoody, told jurors on the trial's first day in federal court in Brooklyn.

In his opening statement, prosecutor Todd Harrison said Siraj considered several potential targets including the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge before settling on the Herald Square subway station, located beneath Macy's flagship department store.

"In the summer of 2004, he could barely pass a bridge or subway station without planning to place a bomb there," Harrison said.

Defense attorney Martin Stolar claimed his client was entrapped by Eldawoody while the informant was trying to infiltrate a Brooklyn mosque.

The government "created a crime where none previously existed," Stolar said.

Siraj, 23, and alleged co-conspirator James Elshafay drew diagrams of the subway station before being arrested on Aug. 27, 2004, on the eve of the Republican National Convention....

Eldawoody, 50, said he met Siraj at a Muslim bookstore where the defendant worked. When the conversation turned toward jihad, or religious war, Siraj asked him about making a nuclear bomb, he said.

"I told him it's very hard to find nuclear material," he said....

In his opening, Stolar said Siraj had no interest in violence until the informant approached him with photos of prisoners being abused at Abu Ghraib and told him it was his duty as a Muslim to retaliate....

Stolar said Siraj's naivete and ambivalence about the plot is apparent on a videotape shot by a camera planted inside the informant's car. In the video, the lawyer said, his client tells the informant and Elshafay that before he can go forward, "I have to check with my mother."

More tourism jihad. Tourism for the mujahedin is just another manifestation of jahiliyya -- non-Islamic ignorance. It is also a context that leads to immorality, which to some gives rise to the idea that violent attacks are an appropriate response. "14 hurt in grenade attack in Kashmir tourist town," from DPA, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

NEW DELHI - Suspected Muslim militants in the northern Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir injured fourteen people, including seven tourists, in a grenade attack, news reports said.

The incident occurred in the tourist resort of Pahalgam, 96 kilometres south-east of state capital Srinagar, IANS news agency reported.

The suspected militants hurled a grenade at some policemen near a hotel in the town, the report said, quoting the police. Fourteen people, including seven Indian tourists, were injured, a local police official said. One of the tourists was in critical condition.

A There-Is-No-Compulsion-In-Religion Update from Malaysia. From The Star, with thanks to Nicolei:

KOTA BARU: Skipping Friday prayers is a major sin for Muslims and it is punishable under the state’s Syariah laws, said Kelantan Bar Committee chairman Datuk Wan Harun Shukri Noordin.

Therefore, Muslims in the state must remember that Friday prayers are compulsory, otherwise they can be jailed or fined by the religious authorities, he said yesterday.

He was commenting on a recent case in which a Muslim man was fined by the Syariah Court here for not attending the weekly prayers.

Islamic Tolerance Alert from Ekklesia, with thanks to Cornelius:

A Roman Catholic parish school and a Protestant Bible-study centre in the West Bank have been fire-bombed twice since the Islamist Hamas movement won a legislative election in January 2006, according to Christian clerics in the region.

According to the Presbyterian Church USA News Service, a priest at the Roman Catholic Al-Ahliyya College in the West Bank city of Ramallah says that several fire-bombs were thrown into a school sports room in early March 2006, causing serious damage and destroying equipment stored there.

About a month earlier, said the same priest, several petrol bombs were thrown into an Al-Ahliyya classroom.

In other recent incidents, a Protestant Bible-study centre in the town of Bir-Zeit near Ramallah was attacked, and phrases from the Qur’an were daubed on its doors. Windows in a Lutheran church in Ramallah were also shattered by unknown assailants.

Have some of the global mujahedin said, "This is the place"? "A Utah link to terrorism?," from The Salt Lake Tribune, with thanks to Cindy:

Counterterrorist agents pounced on five men, one in Utah and four in California, on Wednesday as part of an investigation into the U.S. connections of a suspected senior al-Qaida operative imprisoned in Iraq.

But for now, the federal indictments against the men - all of whom have ties to Utah and all of whom are related to accused terrorist Shawqi Omar - involve only fraud and money laundering.

But FBI agents say that some of the money alleged to have been stolen in various schemes wound up in Jordan. And now they want to know whether that cash has ended up in the hands of terrorists.

"We would be derelict not to investigate where that money is going," said agent Greg Bretzing, a supervisor in the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force in Utah.

The Omar family has extensive ties in Jordan, where Shawqi Omar moved his family in 1995 and where he now stands accused of helping terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi plot a chemical attack.

Well, yes, but they plan to use them only as minarets. From Reuters, with thanks to JE (both for link and quip):

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Iran has received a first shipment of missiles from North Korea that are capable of reaching Europe, Israel's military intelligence chief was quoted on Thursday as saying.

Known in the West as BM-25s, the Russian-designed missiles have a range of around 1,500 miles, giving them a longer reach than the Iranian-made Shihab-4 missiles which are capable of hitting Israel.

The intelligence chief, Major-General Amos Yadlin, was quoted by Israel's Haaretz newspaper as saying in a lecture on Wednesday that some BM-25s had arrived in Iran.

This will, of course, lead to a systematic denial of equality of rights to non-Muslims if Sharia is fully implemented. "Indonesia: Government Wants Non-Muslims Tried By Acheh Islamic Court," from AKI, with thanks to Nicolei:

Banda Aceh, 26 April (AKI/Jakarta Post) - The Indonesian government has insisted that Muslims and non-Muslims alike in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam district of Muslim-devout Aceh province should be tried by a planned Islamic Court. Non-Muslims accused of committing crimes such as theft and adultery, would be tried under the Sharia inspired bylaws, state secretary Yusril Ihza Mahendra told the special committee deliberating a crucial bill on Aceh's future administration.

Mahendra, responding to the proposals of several legislators who wanted non-Muslims to be given the freedom to choose under which law they would be tried, said it would only create legal uncertainty.

"Should such freedom be given, non-Muslims will certainly choose to be tried under the Criminal Code, because it carries more lenient punishment," Yusril told the hearing, held to discuss the authority of the planned Islamic Court, also known as Mahkamah Sharia.

Yusril said that in the case of adultery, non-Muslims who committed adultery with Muslims would undoubtedly opt for trial by Indonesia's penal code, because it was more lenient than stoning or other forms of corporal punishment stipulated under Islamic Law.

Khan urged Hayat to attend a jihadi camp, but now of course it was all made up to please interrogators. Hamid Hayat Update from AP, with thanks to Mackie:

A federal jury on Tuesday convicted a 23-year-old man of supporting terrorists by attending an al-Qaida training camp in Pakistan three years ago.

Hamid Hayat, a seasonal farm worker in Lodi, an agricultural town south of Sacramento, was convicted of one count of providing material support to terrorists and three counts of lying to the FBI.

The verdict came hours after a separate jury hearing a case against the man's father deadlocked, forcing the judge to declare a mistrial.

The father, 48-year-old ice cream truck driver Umer Hayat, is charged with two counts of lying to the FBI about his son's involvement in the training camp. Defense attorneys and prosecutors will meet in court May 5 to decide whether he will be retried.

Both men are U.S. citizens and stood trial in federal court before separate juries. They have been in custody since their arrests last June....

Prosecutors described Hamid Hayat as having "a jihadi heart and a jihadi mind" who returned from a two-year visit to Pakistan intent on carrying out attacks. Possible targets included hospitals, banks and grocery stores....

Their biggest hurdle was trying to persuade jurors to discount the men's videotaped confessions. The statements were given separately last June during lengthy interrogations by the FBI in Sacramento.

Defense lawyers said the confessions were made under duress, after the men had been questioned for hours in the middle of the night.

The father and son eventually told the agents merely what they thought they wanted to hear, without realizing the legal consequences, their lawyers argued....

That investigation ultimately fizzled, but it did lead agents to Naseem Khan. The 32-year-old former Lodi resident was working a variety of fast-food and convenience store jobs in rural Oregon when agents approached him in October 2001, just a month after the terrorist attacks.

Khan, a Pakistani native who moved to the U.S. as a teenager, was recruited to infiltrate Lodi's Pakistani community.

He initially investigated the money laundering allegations and then targeted a pair of local imams before finally befriending Hamid Hayat. The Hayats grew to eventually consider Khan almost a member of the family.

After Hamid Hayat left for Pakistan in spring 2003, Khan kept in touch and recorded their telephone calls _ some of which show Khan urging Hayat to attend a jihadi camp.

In one conversation, Khan exhorted Hayat to "be a man _ do something!"

From our "no kidding" department and Newswise, with thanks to LS.

Jihadis place a great deal of emphasis on developing comprehensive public relations and communication strategies to aid their side in the media war. That’s according to communication researchers at Arizona State University who studied recently declassified al-Qaida documents and other open source reports captured in Iraq and Afghanistan during U.S. military operations.

“Their strategies are crafted after careful audience analysis and message adaptation, two of the most fundamental rules underlying any communication or public relations campaign,” write the authors of a report released this week titled: “Communication and Media Strategy in the Jihadi War of Ideas.” Contributing to the report are faculty members and graduate students in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication in ASU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Professor Steven Corman, who co-authored the report with graduate student Jill Schiefelbein, says that in his experience “people are surprised the jihadis think of media as a weapon.”

Yet, by using text analysis techniques to review nearly 300 documents, some recently released from the Department of Defense’s HARMONY database, the researchers concluded that jihadis place a great importance on media and public relations as part of their overall strategy.

“Their strategy is not hard to discern,” Corman says. “All you have to do is listen to what they say and what they worry about.”...

“During the Cold War, America had a robust academic effort to better understand the communist ideology. We are not seeing a parallel research effort today. Scholars have been hesitant to engage in this conversation, in part because this is such a politically charged topic, and, in part because they’ve lacked access to data,” says Jarret Brachman, [an assistant professor and director of research at the center. The Combating Terrorism Center is a Department of Defense entity, housed at West Point].

“ASU’s work in this area will hopefully catalyze more academic institutions to undertake similar research,” he says, “helping us to better understand and combat the radical ideology we face today.”...

May I humbly point to our Jihad Watch data base as a place to start?

More jihad in Egypt. Just in from Reuters:

CAIRO (Reuters) - Two men blew themselves up in Egypt's north Sinai on Wednesday, one near an airport used by an international observer force and one near the northern town of El Arish, security sources said.

The bombs, which followed three deadly explosions in the east Sinai resort of Dahab on Monday, killed only the bombers, an Interior Ministry statement said.

It was not immediately clear if all the incidents were related but most members of the group blamed for attacks in Sinai over the past two years came from the El Arish area.

A spokesman for the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) group, which supervises the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, said the first bomber appeared to target two of its vehicles but there were no MFO injuries.

The second man blew himself next to a police car outside a police station in Sheikh Zuwayed, near the northern coast town of El Arish. The car was empty and there were no other casualties, the security sources said.

The office of the governor of Sharkia province in the east of the Nile Delta denied reports of a third incident in the Sharkia town of Bilbeis.

I just received this email:

Robert,

Why don't you use your talent and energy in something positive that can be more benfitted to human being than running this jihadiwatch website?

Regards,
Hasan

Gee, Hasan, it's swell of you to be concerned about my professional prospects. I can't tell you how grateful I am. But just one question: Don't you think that standing for human rights against a global totalitarian and violent movement that would deny many basic rights to women and religious minorities is beneficial to human beings?

1938 Alert from The Guardian, with thanks to JE:

Iran will harm US interests anywhere in the world if America launches an attack, the supreme leader of the country, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said today.

"The Americans should know that if they assault Iran their interests will be harmed anywhere in the world that is possible," he was quoted as saying by a state television announcer.

International efforts to persuade Iran to end its uranium enrichment programme reach a crunch point this week when a UN security council deadline for it to stop expires on Friday.

The US president, George Bush, has said he wants a diplomatic solution to the crisis but insisted "all options are on the table" to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

For those who haff vays of reading it, it can be found here.

Why, we wouldn't want to offend our friend and ally. "Feds Nix Pol's Arab Tour," from the New York Post, with thanks to David:

April 24, 2006 -- WASHINGTON - The State Department blocked a New York congresswoman from traveling to Qatar after being informed she planned to raise sharp questions about a high-ranking Qatar official's relationship with the al Qaeda terror network, The Post has learned. Rep. Sue Kelly (R-Katonah) confirmed that she was forced to cancel a visit to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates earlier this month after the State Department raised questions about her eligibility to receive official travel expenses.

State Department officials raised concerns about funding with Kelly the same day they allowed another member of Congress to receive funds under the same exchange program to travel to Qatar, sources told The Post.

State Department officials had no immediate comment on why Kelly's trip was scuttled.

But the sudden action came as Kelly, who chairs the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation, had been raising a number of questions about terrorism financing in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE.

Kelly has been particularly vocal about Qatari Interior Minister Abdullah bin Khalid al Thani, who has been identified as a major al Qaeda supporter.

We hope you can. I have expressed that hope many times here myself. But they haven't yet. From "A Peaceful Koran?" by Father Jonathan Morris at FoxNews, with thanks to all who sent this in:

The Muslim tradition leaves no room for interpretation or theological development. The Koran is what it is. Those who dare to interpret are considered untrue Muslims, or Westerners in disguise. This tradition of cemented theology can almost work if all play by the rules. But they don’t. The radical imams of the ilk of bin Laden have a monopoly on theological interpretation. And their grip is tightening, on Islam and on the world.

Theological problems don’t vanish with good public relations, political dialogue, or military force. They are resolved with good theology. Healthy Muslim clerics, who love God and love their religion, have a choice to make — either remain quiet and prepare to witness a clash of civilizations of epic proportion, or be willing to wrestle with the bad theology of their boisterous spokesmen. Can you provide to your fellow Muslims a convincing interpretation of a peaceful and loving Koran? We hope you can.

Give Phillip Boulten an award for imagination. It wasn't jihad, it was detergent. It wasn't a terrorism manual, it was a kid's toy. "'Terrorism manual' a 'Boy's Own spy kit,'" from the Sydney Morning Herald, with thanks to JE:

The case against accused Sydney terrorist Faheem Khalid Lodhi was completely and utterly rebutted and based on "speculative analysis", a court has heard.

Lodhi not only did not believe in "violent jihad", as alleged by the Crown, but did not support any type of violence against anyone, his defence barrister told the NSW Supreme Court today.

Defence barrister Phillip Boulten, SC, said there were legitimate business reasons for Lodhi possessing maps of the Australian electricity grid and aerial photographs of three Sydney defence sites.

Mr Boulten said Lodhi was planning to start a detergent business and that was why he contacted Deltrex Chemicals inquiring about substances.

"He was not planning a terrorist act, he certainly may have collected and possessed documents, but none of them were intended to be used or in connection with terrorist acts," Mr Boulten said.

Lodhi is on trial on four terror-related charges - namely that he was preparing in October, 2003, for a terrorist act.

Mr Boulten said Lodhi did not own and had no knowledge of two CDs which the Crown alleged were his and contained fundamentalist doctrine including "violent jihad".

He said he looked at aerial photographs on the internet of defence sites Holsworthy Army Barracks, Victoria Barracks and HMAS Penguin - which he had previously worked on as an architect - simply because he was able to and with no illegal motivation.

He said material that Lodhi possessed, which the Crown called a "terrorism manual", was nothing more than a "Boy's Own spy kit".

He said Lodhi had never been convicted of any criminal charge and had strong family ties to Australia, with many relatives working here in professions.

His wife is a medical doctor, said Mr Boulten.

Oh, his wife's a doctor! Then he can't be a terrorist. Why didn't you say so sooner?

Why threats of violence? Why not a simple request that the ad be altered? Or even peaceful protests if the request is not honored?

From the BBC, with thanks to all who sent this in:

A Cologne brothel touting for clients with a World Cup-themed banner has blacked out the flags of Iran and Saudi Arabia after threats from Muslims.

The giant banner on a high-rise building shows a semi-naked woman and the flags of the 32 countries in the World Cup, which kicks off in June.

The Pascha brothel's owner, Armin Lobscheid, said a group of Muslims had threatened violence over the advert.

He said they had accused the brothel of insulting Islam by using the flags.

First there were telephone threats of violence, then about 30 hooded protesters armed with knives and sticks turned up outside Pascha on Friday, the Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger newspaper reported.

1938 Alert from Agence France-Presse, with thanks to JE:

THE US ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, today slammed as "irresponsible" Iran's assertion that it was ready to share nuclear technology with other countries.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, while meeting Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir, said today that the Islamic republic was ready to share nuclear technology with other countries, Sudanese state media reported.

"It shows how irresponsible Iran is and why it represents, in our view, a grave threat of proliferation," Mr Bolton told reporters.

Following are excerpts from a speech delivered by Iranian President Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, aired on Iranian News Channel (IRINN) on April 24, 2006, brought to us by MEMRI TV:

Iranian President Ahmadinejad: The greatest problem from which humanity suffers today, the main problem facing the countries of the Middle East, is the continuation of the process that took place during World War II.

[...]

Although they claim that their hearts bleed for the Jews, during World War II and following it they caused the widespread phenomenon of anti-Judaism in two or three European countries. If you support the Jews - how do you explain this anti-Judaism? Why did you turn Europe in its entirety into a place unsafe for the Jews? Could there possibly be another reason than creating unsafe conditions for the Jews, so they would flee and find shelter in Palestine?

Why do you think they are safe in Palestine? These people, who left their homelands as a result of your pressure and anti-Judaism, went to a country that did not belong to them. Different minorities from different countries came to live side by side, just like pieces of paper joined together with a paper clip. They live in an atmosphere of insecurity on a daily basis. I've said this once, and I'll say it again: Open the gates of this big prison. Allow these people to decide freely, and you will see that they will return to their homelands. Of course, you must first let go of your anti-Judaism. You must let go of it. We believe that just like the rest of mankind, the Jews have the right to live a life of prosperity, freedom, and security. Set them free, and let them return to their homelands.

[...]

Now allow me to say a few words to the people of Germany and Austria. Look at the atmosphere in the world today. See how those who purport to promote human rights and democracy actually want to run the world. Sixty years ago a war took place, and 60 million people were killed by both sides. If we had any power in those days, we would have prevented this carnage. To the best of our ability we would not have allowed such a massacre. Sixty years have passed since that war, and the people of Palestine are still paying the price for a war in which they did not participate. The people of today's Germany are paying reparation for a war in which they themselves did not participate.

My question is the following: Let's assume that 60 years ago a certain regime in Germany started a certain war, and certain crimes were committed. Three generations later - what is the fault of the current German generation that it must be so humiliated? Why can't it play an independent role in international relations? They are constantly being reminded that their parents were criminals. Monuments are built there. All countries build monuments for things that they are proud of, and when tourists come, they show them these monuments. Over there, they build monuments, and every German who passes by a park is constantly reminded: "Look, you are the son of criminals, and you must be humiliated."

[...]

In culture, science, and international politics, Germany should have a prominent standing. But 60 years later, they are still held prisoner by a handful of people, who themselves had planned all the events of that era. Now they say that no one is allowed to talk about or research this event. Why not research it?

[...]

Why should a small handful of people ignite the entire world, merely in order to fill their pockets? Why? We are against this method of running the world, and we say this clearly. I am declaring clearly that I am against the policies of the U.S. and England in running the world. And by the way, I support peace and quiet, and I am a very peace-loving man...

Shaul Mofaz tells the truth. 1938 Alert from the Telegraph, with thanks to Frank the Great:

Iran's nuclear programme is the most serious threat faced by Jews since the Nazi holocaust, Israel's defence minister has said.

Shaul Mofaz said: "Of all the threats we face, Iran is the biggest. The world must not wait. It must do everything necessary on a diplomatic level in order to stop its nuclear activity."

He added: "Since Hitler we have not faced such a threat."

From AP, with thanks to Shinoliite.

CAIRO, Egypt - In a rare video posted Tuesday on the Internet, al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden and said any government formed in Iraq would be merely a "stooge."

He also mocked the U.S. military in Iraq for what he called suicides, drug-taking and mutinies, and he warned that "worse" attacks were to come.

The video, released just days after Iraq named a new prime minister and a high-profile audiotape from bin Laden appeared on Arab TV, seemed a deliberate attempt by al-Zarqawi to claim the spotlight again following months of taking a lower profile...

The video was believed the first to show al-Zarqawi's face. The bearded, black-clothed terrorist leader, thought to be about 40, was in a flat desert landscape, dotted with scrub brush as if after a spring rain, that looked startlingly like Iraq's western Anbar province.

The footage showed him and about two dozen insurgents, masked and dressed in black uniforms, undergoing combat training.

In another scene, al-Zarqawi was filmed inside, sitting with his lieutenants and Anbar's insurgent commander, according to a caption in the video. The men, sitting on traditional Arab cushions and mats, could be seen discussing strategy over a large map spread on the ground.

"Any government which is formed in Iraq now _whether by Shiites or Zionist Kurds, or those who are dubbed Sunnis — would only be a stooge," al-Zarqawi said in the video. "They are a poisoned dagger in the heart of the Muslim nation."...

Al-Zarqawi also claimed the U.S. military was overwhelmed in Iraq.

"Why don't you tell people that your soldiers are committing suicide, taking drugs and hallucination pills to make them sleep?" he asked, directing his words to President Bush.

"By God, your dreams will be defeated by our blood and by our bodies. What is coming is even worse," he said.

The U.S. military in Iraq said it would have no immediate comment...

Update on the Egyptian bombings from Reuters:

DAHAB, Egypt - Egyptian police detained at least 10 people, including computer engineers, on Tuesday in connection with a triple bombing that killed at least 18 people and wounded scores in the Red Sea tourist resort of Dahab.

Security sources provided few details on those detained, but the state MENA news agency said two of them were computer engineers who arrived in Dahab from Cairo the day before the nearly simultaneous blasts on Monday evening.

Foreign holidaymakers described scenes of carnage caused by the bombings near a cafe, a restaurant and a supermarket in the tightly packed streets of the town, popular with scuba divers and backpackers.

Egypt's Interior Ministry confirmed 18 deaths, among them four foreigners -- a Russian, a Swiss man, a German child and a Lebanese national. Earlier, the ministry put the death toll at 23. Lebanese authorities said they knew of no nationals killed.

The bombings, the third similar-style attack in the Sinai peninsula in the past 18 months, threatened to dent Egypt's vital tourist industry, which brings in more than $7 billion a year and employs around 10 percent of the country's workforce...

As Secretary Rice prates on about how the Iraqi government must respond to the "legitimate aspirations the Iraqi people," the facts on the ground are solidifying. From the Washington Post aka, the Bandar Beacon.

KIRKUK, Iraq -- Hundreds of Shiite Muslim militiamen have deployed in recent weeks to this restive city -- widely considered the most likely flash point for an Iraqi civil war -- vowing to fight any attempt to shift control over Kirkuk to the Kurdish-governed north, according to U.S. commanders and diplomats, local police and politicians.

Until recently, the presence of the militias here was minimal. U.S. officials have called the Shiite armed groups the deadliest threat to security in much of the country. They have been blamed for hundreds of killings during mounting sectarian violence in central and southern Iraq since the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in February.

The Mahdi Army, led by firebrand cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, has sent at least two companies, each with about 120 fighters, according to Thomas Wise, political counselor for the U.S. Embassy's Kirkuk regional office, which has been tracking militia activity. The Badr Organization, the armed wing of Iraq's largest Shiite political party, has also boosted its presence and opened several offices across the region, military officers here said...

The fate of oil-rich Kirkuk -- Iraq's third-largest city with about a million residents and sizable ethnic Kurdish, Arab and Turkmen communities -- has been a pivotal and divisive issue since long before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Iraq's constitution, endorsed in nationwide balloting in October, calls for a referendum on the future of the region by the end of 2007, but many key details are in dispute, such as who will be permitted to vote.

Kurdish leaders speak openly of their intention to use force if necessary to gain control of the city, which they consider the historical capital of a vast Kurdish nation also extending into Iran and Turkey. During the rule of President Saddam Hussein, Arabs brought in from elsewhere in Iraq displaced thousands of Kurds. As many as 300,000 Kurds who were pushed out have returned to the area, according to U.S. estimates, establishing vast settlements on the outskirts of the city and making them its largest ethnic community. Kurds also occupy most of the top provincial political and security jobs...

Our Secretary of State's ignorance of Islam and the mindset it engenders, even among "pot-hole fixers" like the former mayor of Tehran, seems to allow her to believe in a "peaceful solution" to the Iranian nuclear build-up. From AP:

ATHENS, Greece Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice dismissed new threats from Iran over the future of its disputed nuclear program on Tuesday, but won no public pledge of support from ally Greece for punitive sanctions again Tehran.

Iran's top nuclear negotiator said Tuesday that Iran will withdraw its cooperation from the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency if faced with U.N. sanctions and will be forced to hide its nuclear program if the West takes "harsh measures" against it.

A day earlier, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had warned that Iran could pull out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty if the international standoff escalates.

"What Iran's statements do is further Iran's isolation from the international community," Rice said, adding that the Iranian people "deserve better then they are currently seeing from their government."

Rice said the next step in the international effort to counter Iranian nuclear ambitions is not certain...

Dear Mr. Khan:

It has come to my attention (via the BBC, with thanks to Interested) that you had to fork over eighty dollars for a fingerprint check when applying for a U.S. visa, since you share the name of some jihad terrorists.

I wish to apologize to you on behalf of the American government and people for the humiliation and outrage to which you were subjected. Please send me your address and I will personally send you the eighty bucks. I can be reached at director@jihadwatch.org. Imagine! Rogue American visa officials trying to keep jihad terrorists out of the country -- and in the process actually daring to inconvenience you! Imagine -- putting national security above your feelings! It's insensitive! It's an insult!

In fact, I plan, after sending you the eighty dollars, to advocate the adoption of a policy by U.S. officials requiring that anyone named Muhammad who applies for a visa be immediately admitted into the country, with no restrictions and no questions asked.

No, don't thank me. It's the least I can do to try to make up for the grave insult to which you were subjected.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

P.S. Here is a bit of that BBC report, "Muslim 'must pay for visa checks'":

A Muslim student had to pay extra for security checks when applying for a visa to visit the United States, because his name was Mohammed.

Mohammed Umar Haleem Khan, 22, was told by US Embassy officials that "a lot of bad people" shared his name.

The Manchester Metropolitan University student had to pay an extra $80 (£45) to have his fingerprints checked against a US terror suspect database....

He said: "She asked me all the usual questions like what was my purpose for visiting and what was the nature of my job and then she said there was a problem with my name.

"She said there were a lot of bad people in the world with that name, meaning terrorists.

"Then she told me I would have to have some additional security checks, which meant all my fingers were fingerprinted and she told me these would be compared to a database in Washington. I had to pay an extra 80 dollars.

"I was totally speechless. I didn't know what to say to her.

"Now I am worried I may not get a visa and travel to the States because of my name.

"I'm sure that if some white candidate came along there would have been no problem."

Mr Khan added that he had never visited Afghanistan or any other trouble hotspots and could think of no reason why his name would cause a problem.

A spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain Inayat Bunglawala said: "This is a worrying incident and seems to fit a recent pattern whereby the USA appears to be treating all Muslims as potential terrorists just because of their religion.

"Although Muslim parents name their children from a wide variety of names - just like other parents - many of them, especially those from the Indian subcontinent, will often give their male children the name of Muhammad as a kind of respectful prefix in honour of the Prophet, even though the actual name by which these children are known will be something else.

"US Embassy officials ought really to have had the training to cope with basic elements of Muslim culture which would help prevent these kinds of unfortunate situations."

Joining our "staunch ally in the war on terror," Pakistan, the Iranians also want to help spread the joy of the Islamic bomb. From AP:

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran's top leader said Tuesday that Tehran is ready to transfer its nuclear technology to other countries. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made the comments in a meeting with visiting Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who said last month that his impoverished, wartorn country was considering trying to create a nuclear program to generate electrical power.

"Iran's nuclear capability is one example of various scientific capabilities in the country. ... The Islamic Republic of Iran is prepared to transfer the experience, knowledge and technology of its scientists," Khamenei told al-Bashir at their meeting.

Al-Bashir congratulated Iran for its success in producing enriched uranium for the first time, saying the achievement was a "great success for the world of Islam."

Muslim students want Indrek Wichman to be disciplined. The University, at least for now, is reminding them of a little thing called freedom of speech. Of course, given the pattern of events over the last few years in the U.S. and Europe, I wouldn't be in the least surprised if they caved before too long and reprimanded, suspended, or even fired Wichman.

Meanwhile, what did he say? He told Muslims mounting a Cartoon Rage protest that Islamic jihad murders were worse than a few cartoons. He said it in strong language. But what he said was true: everything he mentioned was true and has been reported here at Jihad Watch (Mr. Wichman, if you are a reader, my hat is off to you).

From the Detroit Free Press, with thanks to all who sent this in, here is the text of Wichman's email:

Dear Moslem Association: As a professor of Mechanical Engineering here at MSU I intened to protest your protest.

I am offended not by cartoons, but by more mundane things like beheadings of civilians, cowardly attacks on public buildings, suicide murders, murders of Catholic priests (the latest in Turkey!), burnings of Christian chirches, the continued persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt, the imposition of Sharia law on non-Muslims, the rapes of Scandinavain girls and women (called "whores" in your culture), the murder of film directors in Holland, and the rioting and looting in Paris France.

This is what offends me, a soft-spoken person and academic, and many, many, many of my colleagues. I counsul you dissatisfied, agressive, brutal, and uncivilized slave-trading Moslems to be very aware of this as you proceed with your infantile "protests."

If you do not like the values of the West -- see the 1st Ammendment -- you are free to leave. I hope for God's sake that most of you choose that option. Please return to your ancestral homelands and build them up yourselves instead of troubling Americans.

Cordially, I. S. Wichman, Professor of Mechanical Engineering

And here are selections from the Free Press's story on the fallout:

An Islamic student group at Michigan State University demanded Monday that university officials publicly reprimand a professor whose Feb. 28 e-mail called on Muslims who don't "like the values of the West" to leave the United States.

That's a funny lead. I suppose they are demanding that Muslims who don't like the values of the West should not be free to leave?

Of course, what they really mean is that non-Muslims who realize that there are Muslims in the West who don't like the values of the West should above all not suggest that those Muslims should leave the West. Instead, non-Muslims should acquiesce peacefully while those Muslims set about to transform the values of those Western societies.

But MSU officials said there's little that can be done to punish Indrek Wichman, 55, a tenured professor of mechanical engineering, because his comments essentially constitute free speech. Wichman sent the message to the Muslim Students' Association of Michigan State University while it handed out free cocoa during a public awareness event about controversial cartoons that depicted Islam's founder as a terrorist....

The Muslim Students' Association, along with 12 other student and advocacy groups, called Monday for the university to issue a letter of reprimand. They have met several times with university officials since Feb. 28 and went public with the e-mail Monday because the school had not acted.

Terry Denbow, spokesman for MSU, said Wichman's views in no way represent the university's views. But, he said, they do not violate the university's antidiscrimination policy.

"He was cautioned that any additional commentary ... could constitute the creation of a hostile environment, and that could ... form the basis of a complaint" under the policy, Denbow said.

He said he considers the comments "very inappropriate. And I personally wish he would apologize to the students."

To Farhan Abdul Azeez, an MSU senior studying human biology and the president of the student association, the e-mail was startling.

"Naturally, I was very upset. I was disgusted. All of those emotions went through my body," said Azeez, 20, of Canton.

In addition to a reprimand, the student group wants the university to implement diversity training programs for faculty and a mandatory freshman seminar on hate and discrimination.

"The best way to limit or to kind of defuse hate is through education, no doubt," said Maryam Khalil, 18, a sophomore from East Lansing studying journalism. Khalil is vice president of the association.

No, Maryam. The best way to limit or to kind of defuse hate is for Muslims to stop committing the violent acts to which Wichman refers, and justifying them by Islamic teachings. Those who do not commit violent acts should be directing their energies to those who are, and trying to convince them to stop. As well as working with non-Muslims to root jihad terrorists out of their communities.

If Muslims did that, they would find non-Muslims would have significantly less of what they think of as "hatred" for them, but which is actually a normal impulse for self-defense.

Denbow said discussions with students about sensitivity training are ongoing.

"We're not only willing to, but eager to listen to the students. Their commentary to date has been thoughtful," Denbow said.

Reached at home Monday evening, Wichman said he had regrets.

"I used strong language in a private communication that I would certainly not have used if this communication would have gone public," he said.

But he stressed the importance of free speech.

"I believe very strongly in free speech and free expression. It is one of the building blocks of this great republic in which we live. And any attempts to abridge or diminish it are serious matters."

The Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations also is urging the university to take "appropriate disciplinary" action, saying the e-mail creates a hostile learning environment for students.

I hope Wichman or someone there will point out that the true nature of CAIR.

"It was upsetting, yet sad" that a tenured professor could make such comments, said Dawud Walid, executive director of the council. "It's scary when you think about the power that this gentleman has" as a professor.

Walid said that MSU has the academic and moral obligation to publicly denounce the e-mail, conduct a formal investigation and have sensitivity training on how to deal with Muslims on campus.

The university should "strongly and publicly disassociate themselves from the statement," Walid said.

Azeez said education is most important.

"There's a bigger problem here of racism and discrimination at Michigan State University. Faculty training and sensitivity training are very important to help prevent future incidents like this from occurring," he said.

I would like Walid and Azeez to explain what in Wichman's statement was false. The worst part of it is his reference to "you dissatisfied, agressive, brutal, and uncivilized slave-trading Moslems." But CAIR and the Muslims at MSU must recognize that there are Muslims in the world -- and not a few -- who are behaving with aggression and brutality. And the slave trade exists today only in certain Muslim countries. They should be devoting their efforts to eradicating these evils from the umma, not to protesting cartoons and the unfortunate Professor Wichman.

The major question concerning where the loyalty of Iraqis lie and from whence their sense of identity stems, has been glossed over by the Bush administration from the beginning. Nationhood in the western sense was wrongly assumed to be the main cohesive factor for Iraqi society. From AP:

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- U.S. troops aren't just training Iraqi forces, they're also keeping an eye on them, watching for signs they could be moonlighting in the Shiite death squads that target Sunnis.

Bound and tortured bodies - both Sunni and Shiite - turn up every day in the capital, dumped in the streets. Sunni Arabs say their people are the victims of Shiite militiamen who have infiltrated government forces, especially paramilitary commando units of the Shiite-led Interior Ministry.

In Dora, one of the Baghdad's most violent neighborhoods with a mix of Sunnis and Shiites, U.S. troops working with Interior Ministry units say they can feel the Sunni mistrust.

"There's a fear that when (the Interior Ministry) comes in, it may not be on a legitimate mission, unless they're with us," said Lt. Col. Greg Butts, commander of the 2nd Battalion, 506th Regimental Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division that oversees Dora...

Sunni leaders in Dora have even warned U.S. commanders that they will fire on commandos that try to approach their homes, Butts said.

It's not an idle threat. Earlier this month, residents in the Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah battled for two days against Iraqi forces, believing they were Shiite death squads. Up to 13 people were killed...

In FrontPage this morning I explain why the mujahedin would want to destroy tourist sites in Egypt (news links in the original):

The explosions Monday night in Dahab, an Egyptian resort city, killing at least 30 and wounding many more, was the sixteenth attack on foreign tourists in Egypt since 1992. Egyptian authorities have linked at least some of these attacks to groups that want to establish an Islamic state in Egypt – principally Egyptian Islamic Jihad and Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman’s Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya. Sheikh Omar, of course, is now serving a life term in federal prison in Colorado for his role in masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

These attacks have often been quite bloody. Eighty-eight people were killed in bombings in the tourist resort city Sharm-al-Sheikh in July 2005. Thirty-four were killed at the Taba and Ras Shitan resorts near the Israeli border in October 2004. Jihadists from Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya and another Islamic group murdered fifty-eight tourists (along with four Egyptian natives) in Luxor, the site of several ancient temples and more artifacts of Egypt’s pre-Islamic past, in November 1997. In April 1996, the mujahedin murdered eighteen Greek tourists who were visiting the Pyramids; the killers thought their victims were Israelis.

Such attacks are high on the jihadist agenda for Egypt. Less than a week ago Egyptian authorities arrested six who were plotting to attack tourist sites. Since many Western analysts continue to insist that the groups opposed to Mubarak, including the Egyptian mujahedin, are essentially nationalist in orientation, this may seem curious: why would nationalists want to make foreign tourists fear to visit Egypt’s many archaeological treasures, and its world-famous resorts? Why would they want to weaken Egypt in this way?

Several people have criticized me for posting this story, pointing out that the women were merely protesting the fact that they were promised exercise facilities separate from those of men, and then the gym reneged.

Fair enough. I am not in favor of anyone breaking a contract. But the only comment I put on the piece was "Sharia in Dearborn," and that is all I wanted to highlight: the fact that a gym in Michigan would even offer separate exercise facilities for Muslim women indicates that the Muslim presence in the U.S., or at least in Dearborn, is growing in size and clout -- and that therefore we will see much more calls for implementation of various aspects of Sharia.

And now, an interesting side note: Ammerah Saidi, one of the Muslim women protesting the gym's reneging, showed up at Debbie Schlussel's site with some interesting remarks. She defends homicide bombers and says "If it [America] falls to Islam, so be it." Read what she wrote on Debbie's site. And that, of course, raises larger questions about Sharia in the U.S., and the ultimate goals of the Muslim community here.

Dalci was probably falling under the spell of decadent Western influences; he was probably thinking, "Don't wanna be a bum/You better chew gum/The pump don't work/'Cause the vandals took the handles."

In Turkey, it's either political Islam or the cult of Ataturk. If they don't clap you in the slammer for chewing gum at Ataturk's tomb, watch out: the jihadist vandals will take the handles.

Either way, forget about that pump working.

A Let-Them-Into-the-EU Alert; will the Eurodhimmis take notice of just how far Turkey is from being a Western pluralist free society? This is the kind of thing one might expect happening in Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia, but not in Modern Multicultural Europe. From Reuters, with thanks to Andrew Bostom:

ANKARA (Reuters) - An official in Turkey's ruling party has been arrested for chewing gum while laying a wreath at a monument to the country's revered founder Kemal Ataturk, the state Anatolian news agency said on Monday.

Veysel Dalci, head of the local branch of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the Black Sea town of Fatsa, was charged with insulting Ataturk's memory during Sunday's ceremony marking Turkey's National Sovereignty Day.

CNN Turk television quoted Dalci, a 38-year-old pharmacist and father of two, as saying he chewed gum to hide the smell of garlic which he had eaten the previous evening.

"After laying a wreath at the monument, I noticed I had gum in my mouth. I am very sorry," CNN Turk quoted him as saying.

Anatolian said Dalci was arrested after a local army garrison commander complained to state prosecutors. It was not immediately clear what kind of penalty Dalci would face.

I expected this, but not so soon. "Egyptian analyst: Can't rule out that Mossad was involved in attack," from Ynet News, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Retired General Salah al-Din Salim, an Egyptian researcher at the Strategic Studies Institute in Cairo, said that it could not be ruled out that the Israeli Mossad was involved in the terror attack in Dahab.

"The Mossad's ability to penetrate the Bedouins in Sinai is known," Salim said in an interview with al-Jazeera.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald takes the news agencies of the world to task for their tendency to explain it all for us -- in such plainly wrongheaded ways:

"Staunch U.S. ally Qatar..." -- the opening of a story in Reuters.

“Kuwait - a key U.S. ally in the Gulf…” – from an AP story.

“Egypt is a leading U.S. ally in the region…” – from a Bloomberg piece on the latest bombings in Egypt.

“Saudi Arabia, a close US ally…” – from Reuters.

Memo to Reuters, to AP, to Agence France Presse, Bloomberg, and all the other supposedly unbiased news organizations in the world:

Here is one way to increase Infidel comprehension of the world: Don't tell your readers. Don't impose a conclusion on them. Don't open a story by calling Qatar "Staunch U.S. ally Qatar." Don't tell us, repeatedly, over the past half century, that "staunch ally Saudi Arabia" is doing such and such to keep oil prices down, or up, or sideways. Don't tell us that "staunch ally Egypt" or "Egypt, one of America's best friends" or "Egypt, America's best friend in the Arab world" or even "Egypt, America's best friend in the Middle East" -- every single one of which I have heard or read within the past few days, and so has everyone else who torments himself by reading or listening to the way the news is presented -- has done this, or has done that, against American interests.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses the dhimmi Dutch report asserting the compatibility of traditional Islam with Western notions of democracy:

The Dutch Scientific Council for Government Policy recently recommended that “instead of exporting democracy to Muslim countries, democratic attempts harmonious with their own traditions and cultures must be supported."

Yet the traditional laws of Islam flatly contradict every single principle of individual rights enshrined in the American Constitution and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That is why the Muslim nations of the world ultimately came up with their own, very different, version of that Universal Declaration -- the "Cairo Declaration of Human Rights." Put the documents side by side. The "universal" one, and then the "Islamic" one. You can track precisely the changes made from one to the other. And then you can study, in the texts of Islam, the reasons for those changes. Every single course given on Islam, or on comparative law, should have this as one of its required exercises for students.

Above all, the Cairo Declaration asserts that Sharia is the ultimate arbiter of human rights. If you don’t know what consequences that assertion has for women and non-Muslims, as well as for apostates from Islam, you haven’t been paying attention.

Ibrahim, come in off that ledge.

Actually, this latest debacle for CAIR, following the disastrous Whitehead and Ballenger suits, involves CAIR-Canada. But I'm sure our friends in their parent group, CAIR-USA, are not thrilled with the outcome. David Harris is Director of the International and Terrorist Intelligence Program, INSIGNIS Strategic Research Inc. He is also a former Chief of Strategic Planning of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). Here is a press release from Insignis:

ISLAMIC GROUP'S LAWSUIT AGAINST FORMER CSIS OFFICIAL IS DISMISSED

Statement by David B. Harris, Director
International and Terrorist Intelligence Program,
INSIGNIS Strategic Research Inc.
Ottawa, Canada
24 April 2006

The Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CAN), the Canadian chapter of the controversial Washington, DC-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), has recently issued a press release (attached) purporting to report the outcome of a defamation lawsuit in which I was a defendant. Readers are cautioned that the CAIR-CAN document is misleading in certain important respects.

CAIR-CAN and its then-Chair, Dr. Sheema Khan, sued Ottawa radio station CFRA and me for remarks I made as a regular CFRA national-security guest during an interview with host Mr. Steve Madely on 1 April 2004. At all relevant times, Mr. Riad Saloojee was Executive Director of CAIR-CAN. Dr. Khan and Mr. Saloojee have lately been replaced in their positions by Mr. Abdul-Basit Khan and Mr. Karl Nickner, respectively.

I believe implicitly in the accuracy of all that I said on the radio program. I have withdrawn not a word, and never shall. In the course of the interview I posed a question: Shouldn't someone be looking into CAIR-CAN's relationship with its more-troubling American relative, CAIR? For this, I was sued for libel.

Another Egyptian jihad attack on a tourist site. From AP:

CAIRO, Egypt - Three explosions rocked the Egyptian resort city of Dahab at the height of the tourist season Monday, killing at least 18 people and wounding more than 150 at just one hotel, according to the doctor in charge of the Sinai peninsula rescue squad.

Police said the explosions hit the central part of the city where there are many shops, restaurants, bars and guesthouses. The blasts ripped through the town shortly after nightfall when the streets would have been jammed with tourists, mainly with Europeans, Israelis and expatriates living in Egypt.

Dr. Said Essa, who runs the rescue squad, said his casualty figures were for victims at the el-Khaleeg Hotel only. He said there were casualties from the other explosions....

Terrorist attacks have killed nearly 100 people at several tourist resorts of Egypt's Sinai region in the past two years....

The Egyptian government has said the militants who carried out the bombings were locals without international connections, but other security agencies have said they suspect al-Qaida....

Many Israelis travel to the Sinai for beach holidays.

Israel's ambassador in Cairo, Shalom Cohen, told Israel's Channel 10 TV that there were three explosions, hitting a hotel, a police station and a marketplace.

"We don't know of Israelis" who were hurt, he said, though some Israelis were known to be in Dahab.

Cohen said the best thing Israeli tourists in Sinai could do now would be to "go home."

He said there have been repeated warnings from the Israeli government against visiting the Sinai Desert, where Israelis have been targeted in attacks in the past.

"Unfortunately, the warnings came true," he said.

Might be a good thing to keep in mind for the future.

Daniel Pipes in FrontPage discusses the Bill Hobbs case (news links in the original):

Who would have thought that Belmont University of Nashville, Tennessee, would apply the Islamic law to its staff? But just that happened earlier this month.

Bill Hobbs, a Republican political advisor, blogger, and news writer for Belmont, which bills itself as “the largest Christian university in Tennessee,” was upset in February 2006 about the cowardice of the American media in not publishing the Danish cartoons. So he drew a primitive cartoon of his own and posted it on his personal site. It sat in obscurity until April 5, when a Democratic political operative, Mike Kopp, wrote about it, calling it:

Jihad Watch Board Vice President discusses the impending apotheosis of Juan Cole:

What can one expect from Yale vis-à-vis Juan Cole? If the Director of the Whitney Center for the Humanities, Maria Rosa Menocal, has not been taken to scholarly task for her ill-informed feelgood Ornament of the World (which makes no mention of the relevant authorities, such as Levi-Provencal, in her bibliography), but rather has just been rewarded with a Sterling Professorship, that says a lot about Yale. Her Sterling Professorship, what’s more, is one of four such appointments, and the only one outside of science, with its more rigorous no-nonsense standards.

As for Juan Cole, everything Martin Kramer has written about him should be digested thoroughly by those at Yale who are even thinking of touching Cole with a ten foot pole. Then read around. Go to the Yale Library. Check out Joseph Schacht, C. Snouck Hurgronje, David Margoliouth, Arthur Jeffery. Start with those four. Or, if you prefer, read the samples of a few dozen great Western scholars of Islam, those included in the tremendously useful The Legacy of Jihad. Ask a few European scholars -- say, Alfred de Premare, or Hans Jansen -- or for that matter those who have received their scholarly formation in Europe but are presently in the United States, such as Bernard Lewis, Patricia Crone, and Michael Cook -- what they think of the level of Coke's "scholarship." For that matter, since the subject at hand is "contemporary" political developments, surely Fouad Ajami and Kanan Makiya should be asked (for there they will be truth-tellers) what they think of Juan Cole's "scholarship."

Walid Phares at the Counterterrorism Blog (thanks to JS) has compiled a useful summary of the main points in the Osama tape -- including "twenty 'marching orders." Here they are, with some brief comments interspersed:

Twenty "marching orders"

* One a long attack on the Cartoons crisis: Blood is needed to cleanse the matter.

Why is this a capital offense? Not because Muhammad was depicted; otherwise the Egyptian paper that ran the cartoons would be in the same hot water. The real offense here is that infidels lampooned the Prophet -- a capital offense according to the traditional dhimmi laws.

* Two, there is a Western war on Muslims and Islam.

This is laughable to any Jihad Watch reader who knows the lengths to which Western governments have gone to avoid this perception -- even to the point of compromising their own security -- but Osama needs to propagate this idea because there is no caliph. In traditional Islamic theology, offensive jihad can only be called by the caliph. But if a Muslim land is attacked by infidels, jihad becomes fard ayn -- the individual responsibility of every Muslim. So Osama has to couch all his activity in defensive terms, both to justify it and to try to compel Muslims to join his ranks.

*Three, Western policy towards Hamas proves this aggression.

What has the West done to Hamas? Cut off the jizya. This is aggression? Yes -- if your core assumption is that all the world's bounty belongs to the Muslims, and the Infidels only hold it illegitimately. Bruce Bawer discusses another manifestation of this assumption in While Europe Slept: an Oslo imam who told his flock that since the Infidels weren't paying the jizya, it was perfectly permissible to steal from them.

* Four, the United Nations is an infidel and criminal institution.

Osama, meet Kofi. You should find him very useful.

* Five, there is a Western-infidel aggression against Muslim Sudan. The Black southerners are bandits and the Darfur Blacks are agents of the infidels

Why aren't Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan and Al Sharpton out there protesting against Osama's jihadist racism? The Darfur Blacks are Muslims. They just aren't Muslim enough for Osama. The Black southerners are Christians -- this is an out-and-out jihad war against Infidels.

* Six, Iraq’s Jihad is to stop future US military bases

* Seven, a cultural invasion is underway: Arab TVs are to be stopped, Muslim liberals to be killed

For years now I have documented the threats and violence to which liberal Muslims are subjected by the mujahedin. This tends to dampen prospects for large-scale Islamic reform.

* Eight, France is to be punished for the female Hijab affair

Here again, absolute accommodation to Islam is required of the West. This is a manifestation of the assumption of Islamic supremacy. Osama wouldn't dream of calling on Islamic states to grant equality of rights to non-Muslims. The accommodation is all one way, because non-Muslims are inferior to Muslims and don't deserve equality.

* Nine, Bosnia’s Muslims were not salvaged by the West

Here again, Osama doesn't know who his friends -- and his useful idiots -- really are.

* Ten, The independence of East Timor is a defeat to the Muslims

And it is -- from the standpoint of the assumption that Islamic law must ultimately be imposed everywhere.

* Eleven, India and the Hindus are the enemies in Kashmir

* Twelve, Pakistan’s Musharraf is to be killed

* Thirteen, Russia must be punished

* Fourteen: Salman Rushdie is not to be forgotten

All justifications for more violence.

* Fifteen: The masses in the infidel lands think like their leaders. Their public (enemies) is responsible

This is a justification for attacks on civilians, a la 9/11.

* Sixteen: Calls for Dialogue with the West are to be rejected

Calls for dialogue with the West would only be acceptable to Osama if the Muslims were in his estimation losing the jihad. A hudna, or truce, is only permissible for a temporary period, to allow the Muslims to gather strength to fight again more effectively.

I know he called for a hudna some time ago. If this tape is really new, he has a better opinion of the Muslims' prospects now.

* Seventeen: Do not trust the “traitors” including Muftis and moderate clerics

* Eighteen: King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia ignores world realities

* Nineteen: (Western) civilization is attacking ours

* Twenty: It is of the duty of all members of the Umma to offer everything for Jihad, including their lives.

Nothing much new in these. Just more justifications of violence and calls for Muslims to join the struggle.

Alexander Downer is no Jack Straw. "Downer defies bin Laden," from News.com.au, with thanks to Rosie:

THE latest audiotape by Osama bin Laden only serves to remind the world just how dangerous and fanatical al-Qaeda and its leader were, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said.

Bin Laden has urged his followers to prepare for a long war against Western would-be occupiers in Sudan's Darfur region, according to the latest audiotape attributed to him.

In the tape, the Saudi-born militant criticises the Sudanese Government for agreeing to a US-backed peace deal for the south of that country.

He also criticises the Palestinians' Hamas-led Government for breaking what he said was a taboo against "joining infidel assemblies" and entering parliament.

But he points to the isolation of Hamas as proof the West is waging war against Islam.

Mr Downer today said the West would not be intimidated by such messages.

"My reaction is a reaction of defiance," Mr Downer said ABC Radio.

"These tapes from Osama bin Laden only reinforce my determination to fight these terrorists.

"It just reminds us all of the dangerous, fanatical people we're dealing with, and the last thing we should show in a circumstance like that is weakness and defeatism.

"This just reminds us that this is a tough fight. This is going on, it's going to continue to go on for a long time to come.

"The worst thing we should do is show weakness and hesitancy in the face of these kinds of threats."

More threats and murder from a convert to Islam. Why can't Ibrahim Hooper take some of that Saudi money and fund a global program to instruct converts to Islam properly? "Once a friendly Christian, he now backs the bombers," from the Times Online, with thanks to all who sent this in:

A BRITISH Muslim convert has emerged as successor to Omar Bakri Mohammad as the leader of a radical group that wants Britain ruled by Islamic law.

The Times has obtained transcripts of Omar Brooks, now known as Abu Izzadeen, preaching holy war and discussing killing Tony Blair in a recent sermon in London. Abu Izzadeen had previously described the July 7 bombings as “completely praiseworthy” and organised demonstrations in support of the September 11 hijackers.

His organisation, the Saved Sect, was formed from the remnants of the disbanded extremist group al-Muhajiroun, which the Government intended to proscribe. However, it is not on the Home Office’s list of 40 banned terrorist organisations, and a spokeswoman refused to comment on whether it could be outlawed....

Abu Izzadeen, 31, was born into a Christian family of Jamaican origin, in Hackney, East London, and was known as Trevor to some acquaintances. He converted to Islam at the age of 17 and is believed to have become involved with Bakri at Finsbury Park mosque in the late 1990s.

Before he was fully radicalised, Abu Izzadeen trained and worked as an electrician. He eventually chose a new name, which means “Might of the Faith” in Arabic, and immersed himself in his new religion.

He married and now lives in Leyton, East London, with his wife and three young children....

The Saved Sect, also known as the Saviour Sect, rejects democracy and wants Britain to adopt Sharia, or Islamic law. It believes that it is the only group representing the true Islamic path, but has links with another al-Muhajiroun successor, al-Ghurabaa, whose leader was arrested during extremist protests against the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

In lectures given last month at an unknown London location, Abu Izzadeen said that a war was being fought to make Islamic law “completely dominant” in Britain, and that “all Jews and Christians are going to hell fire”.

He also praised Mullah Omar, the Taleban leader, saying: “This man is a winner.” His lectures, entitled The Christian Crusades parts 1 and 2, describe conflict in the Middle East and Britain as a present-day crusade.

Read it all.

Oh, the staggering complexity of Islam! Only a select few can get it right. Even imams around the world misunderstand it and somehow get the harebrained idea that it teaches warfare against unbelievers.

As for the neo-Nazi connection, that's no surprise at all. The Aryan Nations is getting chummy with the mujahedin also. They recognize ideological kinship.

"What the neo-Nazi fanatic did next: switched to Islam," from the TimesOnline, with thanks to all who sent this in:

A NEO-NAZI whose ideas were said to be the inspiration for the man who let off a nail bomb in Central London in 1999 has converted to an extremist form of Islam.

David Myatt, a founder of the hardline British National Socialist Movement (NSM) who has been jailed for racist attacks, has changed his name to Abdul Aziz ibn Myatt. David Copeland, who is serving six life sentences after three people died in his Soho bomb attacks, was a member of the NSM.

Myatt is reportedly the author of a fascist terrorist handbook and a former leader of the violent far-right group Combat 18. But now — in his mid-50s and sporting a red, bushy beard — he subscribes to radical Islamist views.

In an internet essay entitled From Neo-Nazi to Muslim, Myatt asks: “How was it that I, a Westerner with a history of over 25 years of political involvement in extreme right-wing organisations, a former leader of the political wing of the neo-Nazi group Combat 18, came to be standing outside a mosque with a sincere desire to go inside and convert to Islam? “These were the people who I had been fighting on the streets, I had swore (sic) at and had used violence against — indeed, one of my terms of imprisonment was a result of me leading a gang of skinheads in a fight against ‘Pakis’.”

In a later interview, Myatt supports the killing of any Muslim who breaks his oath of loyalty to Islam, and the setting up of a Muslim superstate. He describes himself as having been “staunchly opposed to non-white immigration into Britain and twice jailed for violence in pursuit of my political aims”.

He added: “I spent several decades of my life fighting for what I regarded as my people, my race and my nation, and endured two terms of imprisonment arising out of my political activities.”

But his belief is now that: “The pure authentic Islam of the revival, which recognises practical jihad (holy war) as a duty, is the only force that is capable of fighting and destroying the dishonour, the arrogance, the materialism of the West . . . For the West, nothing is sacred, except perhaps Zionists, Zionism, the hoax of the so-called Holocaust, and the idols which the West and its lackeys worship, or pretend to worship, such as democracy.

“They want, and demand, that we abandon the purity of authentic Islam and either bow down before them and their idols, or accept the tame, secularised, so-called Islam which they and their apostate lackeys have created.

“This may well be a long war, of decades or more — and we Muslims have to plan accordingly. We must affirm practical jihad — to take part in the fight to free our lands from the kuffar (unbelievers). Jihad is our duty.”...

If these nationalists, or some of them, desire to aid us, to help us . . . they can do the right thing, the honourable thing, and convert, revert, to Islam — accepting the superiority of Islam over and above each and every way of the West.”

Read it all.

The redoubtable Diana West speaks truth to power about the EU's latest exercise in Orwellianism:

How wunderbar, merveilleux and perfectly ripping that the European Union is creating a new "lexicon" to discuss Islam and terrorism so as never to conflate the two. The Telegraph tells us that EU officials -- having double-checked that George Orwell and his satirical pen are dead and gone -- are putting together a "non-emotive lexicon for discussing radicalization."

Islamic "radicalization," that is. When it comes to dealing with Europe's Muslim populations, the old "Sticks and stones ..." proverb is out, particularly the "words can never hurt me" part. These days, the update goes: "Say words that hurt me and I'll blow up a train." As an EU official explained non-emotively, "The basic idea is to avoid the use of improper words that could cause frustration among Muslims and increase the risk of radicalization."

As they say over there: What rot. Only hothouse EU officials could believe that words such as "Islamic terrorism" cause radicalization. Fanatical bloodlust (not to mention 72-virgin-lust) inspires acts labeled "Islamic terrorism," not the other way around. But not in EU-land. "These words (Islamic terrorism) cannot sit side by side," Omar Faruk, a Muslim barrister and "adviser" to the British government, told Reuters. The phrase "just creates a culture where terrorism actually is identified with Islam," he continued. "That causes me a lot of stress."

Horrors! A lot of stress! The poor dear. I trust he is taking up his complaint with bin Laden, Zawahri, Zarqawi, etc.

Read it all.

Paul Belien at the Brussels Journal (thanks to JS) reports on some anti-dhimmitude in Belgium, and predictable dhimmitude from the BBC (news links in the original):

Today, some 80,000 people participated in a silent march in Brussels to commemorate 17 year old Joe Van Holsbeeck, who was knifed on 12 April because he refused to hand over his MP3 player to two North African youths. The murder happened during the evening rush hour in a crowded Brussels central station. The murderers were filmed by security cameras, but it took a full week before the authorities released the footage. The assassins are still at large.

This BBC report about the march, which was the largest protest in the country since 1996 when 300,000 marched through Brussels in anger over the murdering of children, does not mention the ethnicity of the assassins, though many Belgians are worried about the extremely violent mentality of North African youth gangs. [update 24 April, 7:30am GMT: the BBC has added a few final paragraphs mentioning "racial tension"] In fact, the initiative for the march came from Fouad Ahidar, a Moroccan-born Flemish member of the Brussels regional parliament, who said last week that many immigrants are equally worried about violent Moroccan youth gangs.

Read it all.

A few weeks ago I spoke at Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut. In my talk I did what I always do: told the truth about how the global mujahedin use core elements of Islamic theology and law to justify what they're doing.

Evidently I created a stir on campus, and some people are attempting to do a little damage control -- no doubt by spreading the deception and half-truths thick enough to befuddle those who may have found my presentation convincing. A Jihad Watch reader has sent me this message from the school's daily events bulletin:

A Short Talk and FREE FOOD: Confused about what Robert Spencer had to say. Don't know about Political Islam or Fudamentalism? Come join us for a talk on "East v. West: Fundamentalists' Ideological Differences" in the Knowlton Common room on Monday, April 24th at 5pm. Contact Tista Nayak at x3999 for more info--food will be catered by Saeed's.

I'm sorry I can't make that. I am sure the food from Saeed's will be delicious. If any Jihad Watchers can make it, please fill us in.

Orwellianism is in the saddle in the EU, and the solons are busy sharpening their Newspeak lexicon. An update on this story. "Fighting terrorism one word at a time: The European Union balks at 'Islamic terrorism' and other phrases. It's working on a lexicon that counters the terrorists' terminology." From the Christian Science Monitor, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Officials in Brussels have embarked on an unusual exercise, combing their dictionaries to excise words and phrases that could cause offense.

When the review is complete and the rules laid down, you will not, for example, hear EU officials talk any more about "Islamic terrorism."

That sort of shorthand reference to the bombings in Madrid and London, and other outrages committed in the name of Islam, is commonplace today. But EU policymakers worry that it lumps all Muslims into the same category, and angers them.

"There is no justification at all for including all law-abiding Muslim citizens in our messages about terrorism," says Friso Roscam-Abbing, an EU spokesman. "The politically more correct term will be 'terrorism that abusively invokes Islam.' "

"That may be all very long and cumbersome," he acknowledges. "But millions of Muslims live in the EU, and they are simply not terrorists."

To speak of "Islamic terrorism" doesn't include "all law-abiding Muslim citizens in...messages about terrorism." It merely acknowledges the fact that the perpetrators of this terrorism justify and fuel it by reference to Islamic concepts. The idea that they "abusively" invoke Islam is highly questionable, since these "law-abiding Muslim citizens" have come up with no effective refutation of their theology on Islamic grounds, and have not made any move to bar them from their communities. If they are abusively invoking Islam, why aren't these law-abiding Muslim citizens leading efforts to resist them?

Mr. Roscam-Abbing may be prepared to admit to political correctness, but he rejects accusations that the EU is soft-soaping "Islamic radicals" - another phrase that is coming under the microscope.

"We are very tough on combating terrorism," he insists. "We will absolutely continue to detect the bad guys and prevent them from committing terrorist acts. But at the same time we are respectful of citizens' beliefs."

Sure, Roscam-Abbing. But unfortunately, pretending that you don't have the problem that you have will not make it go away.

I just received this message from a well-placed contact in the Netherlands:

On Friday, April 21, the Dutch writer Ebru Umar, of Turkish background, was attacked in Amsterdam by two Moroccan young men. She was hurt, but not seriously. She has been lucky. It was just a warning.

Ebru Umar took over Theo van Gogh's weekly column in the daily newspaper Metro. The Dutch media mentioned this yesterday and today. Ms Ebru Umar confirmed the story. The Moroccans probably wanted to convince her once more that Islam is a religion of peace.

More on this as it becomes available.

In "Cole Fire: Yale is set to ditch Taliban Man and may hire a notorious anti-Israel professor," John Fund in the Opinion Journal (thanks to Romy) brings us a Rahmatullah Update: the former Taliban spokesman may be on his way out at Yale, but not because anyone there has had an attack of conscience.

This is abundantly demonstrated by the fact that they considering hiring the dhimmi academic Juan Cole. One small indication of Cole's sense of academic objectivity is indicated by the fact that he printed his comrade-in-arms Mark LeVine's reply to my article about him, but declined to publish my further reply (yes, I did send it to him). (For the record, I would not perform the same discourtesy. If either Cole or LeVine dared to debate me, I would print their full remarks here.)

Cole also purveys howlers such as this: "Dangerous falsehoods are being promulgated to the American public. The Quran does not preach violence against Christians." Then he quotes a few verses that indeed do not preach violence against Christians, but, predictably enough, he makes no mention of Qur'an 9:29, which -- you guessed it -- preaches violence against Christians: "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."

As Juan will tell you, the People of the Book that Muslims must fight in this verse are primarily Jews or Christians.

Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi's luck is running out. Eight weeks ago the Taliban diplomat turned special Yale student made a media splash on the cover of the New York Times magazine in which he proclaimed: "In some ways I'm the luckiest person in the world, I could have ended up in Guantanamo Bay. Instead I ended up at Yale."

But the continued outrage over the news that an unrepentant former official of a criminal regime whose remnants are still killing U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan is part of the Ivy League is catching up with him. Yale is about to establish tougher standards for the program under which he is applying to become a degree-status sophomore next fall, and the consensus is that Mr. Hashemi won't measure up.

Taliban Man's days as a Bulldog look to be numbered. But Yale may be about to stir up new controversy as it appears to be on the verge of offering a notorious anti-Israel academic a faculty position....

Meanwhile, Yale faces a new challenge. In the next few days the university may hire Juan Cole, a history professor at the University of Michigan, to fill a new spot as a professor of contemporary Middle East studies.

Mr. Cole's appointment would be problematic on several fronts. First, his scholarship is largely on the 19th-century Middle East, not on contemporary issues. "He has since abandoned scholarship in favor of blog commentary," says Michael Rubin, a Yale graduate and editor of the Middle East Quarterly. Mr. Cole's postings at his blog, Informed Comment, appear to be a far cry from scholarship. They feature highly polemical writing and dubious conspiracy theories.

In justifying all the time he spends on his blog, Mr. Cole told the Yale Herald that "when you become a public intellectual, it has the effect of dragging you into a lot of mud." Mr. Cole has done his share of splattering. He calls Israel "the most dangerous regime in the Middle East." That ties in with his recurring theme that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee effectively controls Congress and much of U.S. foreign policy. In an article titled "Dual Loyalties," he wrote, "I simply think that we deserve to have American public servants who are centrally commited [sic] to the interests of the United States, rather than to the interests of a foreign political party," namely Israel's right-wing Likud, which was the ruling party until Ariel Sharon formed the centrist Kadima Party. Mr. Cole claims that "pro-Likud intellectuals" routinely "use the Pentagon as Israel's Gurkha regiment, fighting elective wars on behalf of Tel Aviv."

Read it all.

This doesn't necessarily mean that the Bush Administration will not play the dhimmi for Iran, but it's a good sign nevertheless -- except for the nonsense about democratization, which any schoolchild ought to be able to see is just bringing more mujahedin to power. "Bush adviser dismisses call for talks with Iran," from the Financial Times, with thanks to JE:

One of the US government’s top advisers has rebuffed European calls for Washington to negotiate directly with Iran over Tehran’s nuclear programme.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Philip Zelikow, counsellor at the US State Department, also said the Bush administration’s commitment to the democratisation of the Middle East was undimmed, despite the recent victory of Hamas, the militant Islamist group, in Palestinian legislative elections.

“The US position has been that at this time we don’t see value in having direct talks with the Iranians about, say, the nuclear issue,” he said, rejecting calls for such negotiations from Frank-Walter Steinmeier, German foreign minister, and other senior European diplomats.

Keystone Kops Alert from the Washington Times, with thanks to JE:

The top Republican and the top Democrat on the House intelligence panel said yesterday that the United States simply does not know how close Iran is to developing a nuclear weapon.

"We really don't know," said Rep. Peter Hoekstra, Michigan Republican and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. "We're getting lots of different messages from their leadership."

Added Rep. Jane Harman of California, the committee's ranking Democrat: "I hope the White House is listening to what Pete Hoekstra just said. We don't know. Our intelligence is thin."

Good old Abdullah. He really is a moderate. Why, he is calling on the region's nuclear power to be disarmed! How courageous of him to stand up to Iran!

What's that? He meant Israel, not Iran? He said it wasn't fair for Israel to have nukes if Iran didn't? Despite the fact that Israel has no bellicose intentions toward Iran, but the Iranian President has loudly and repeatedly proclaimed his desire to destroy Israel? What are you, some kind of Islamophobe?

"Jordanian King Calls on World to Disarm Israel’s Alleged Nukes," from Israel National News, with thanks to Romy:

(IsraelNN.com) Jordan’s King Abdullah has called on the world to require Israel to disarm its nuclear weapons. He said it was not fair to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, while Israel is armed with such weapons.

Israel has persistently refused to acknowledge that it has any nuclear weapons.

Abdullah said a precondition for peace in the region is for “Israel to give up its nuclear weapons.”

Sure. Peace will be easy then. Israel will be obliterated, and peace will come at last.

St. George the Great Martyr, the new patron saint of Jihad Watch

Today is (on the Byzantine calendar, at least, and maybe others too) the feast day of St. George the Great Martyr (martyr, that is, in the Christian sense: St. George didn't murder anyone to win his martyr's crown). But the dhimmi Chris Doyle would like to see to it that it's the last one he celebrates. "St George comes under fire," from the BBC, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Over the centuries, George and his red cross have become associated with many causes - some admirable, others not.

In legend, he was the figurehead of King Arthur's knights.

Edward III chose him as patron when he founded the Knights of the Garter in 1348.

Red Ensign

St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle was built as the order's spiritual home.

The red cross has been used on the flags of The Royal Navy and the Church of England - and on the official seal of Lyme Regis.

Richard II ordered every man in his army to wear the cross when he invaded Scotland.

Now the Scots have to fly their invaders' mark on the Union Flag.

Crucially, it was also the emblem of the Crusades against the Islam.

Richard the Lionheart wore it, and legend tells how St George appeared to his knights during the siege of Antioch, inspiring them to victory.

Centuries have passed since, but the Crusades are still a cause of resentment among some muslims.

Holy war

Chris Doyle, of the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding, says the red cross is an insensitive reminder of the Crusades.

He said: "It is offensive to Arabs and muslims, including many from non-Arab countries.

"They see the Crusades as Christendom launching a brutal holy war against Islam.

"Because of what has happened in the 20th Century, when most of the Arab world was colonised, the memory of the Crusades has resurfaced."

On the other hand, the saint - if not his sign - is revered in Palestine for his courageous martyrdom.

By the way, for the truth about that "brutal holy war against Islam" that Christendom supposedly launched, see my book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades).

UPDATE: My apologies. I see this is a 2002 BBC piece. I always check the dates, except when I don't. But I am going to keep this up, as the substance of the story is still illuminating.

Meanwhile, the gay community in Europe and the U.S. is much more concerned about people like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, who are not, unlike imams in many countries, calling for the deaths of homosexuals. "Dutch MP condemns Islam's homophobia: Ayaan Hirsi Ali condemed Islam's attitudes towards homosexuality," from the UK's PinkNews, with thanks to Dhimmi Infidel:

A Dutch Muslim-born politician has condemned Islam's attitudes towards homosexuality and claims that the Netherlands have not done enough to protect gay asylum seekers who face death in their country of origin.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, first gained international attention with a film documenting voilence against women within Islamic societies. Her new film claims that Islam is responsible for a great deal of homophobia.

"By that I do not mean that people of other religions do not persecute homosexuals ... but coming from that background that is what I have witnessed and I think that it is my responsibility not to remain quiet," said Ms Ali who has faced death threats since her 2004 film on the role of women.

She also stressed the Dutch government and other European governments had not done enough to protect those trying to flee such persecution.

Ms Hirsi Ali claimed that the Dutch government have not protected the human rights of gay asylum seekers. This claim follows the comments made by Dutch immigration minister Rita Verdonk who claimed that gays did not face persecution in Iran as long as they were discreet.

And we can't have the Taliban return, you see. That would mean the return of Sharia to Afghanistan. And that would mean that the freedom of conscience would be restricted -- why, converts from, say, Islam to Christianity might even be in danger of death!

What's that? Afghanistan is a Sharia state now? Converts are in danger of death now? What are you, some kind of Bush-hater?

From AP, with thanks to Shinolite:

KABUL, Afghanistan - Britain's defense secretary warned on Sunday that any let up on militants could see the toppled Taliban regime and al-Qaida regain power in Afghanistan....

The warning followed a spike in bombings and shootings targeting coalition troops, Afghan forces and often ordinary locals as the Taliban apparently have made good on threats to increase attacks during the warmer spring and summer months.

"The greatest danger of all for the people of Afghanistan and the people of the United Kingdom would be if Afghanistan ever again came under the rule of a Taliban regime prepared to protect al-Qaida or terrorist groups," Reid told reporters in the capital.

Perhaps some French readers of Jihad Watch can fill me in on Philippe de Villiers; I don't know if he is "far right" just because he is speaking forthrightly about the Islamization of France (as Bat Ye'or, who has never been a figure of the Right, has been tarred because of her ground-breaking work in uncovering the machinations of Eurabia), or if he is really a "far right" politician.

In any case, if he is, this is another indication of how the abdication of responsibility of the mainstream political parties all over Europe has created an opportunity which the racist fringe is all too eager to take advantage of. The Islamization of France, and of Europe, is a reality, as we have abdundantly documented here, and has been harrowingly recounted by Bruce Bawer in While Europe Slept. It is not a matter of race, but of ideology. It should not be the concern only of Rightists, but of any and all who believe in the equality of dignity and rights of all people. The mainstream European parties, Left, Right, and Center, should be talking about Islamization. That they are not, and that it is only a "Far Right" issue, is an indication of their cowardice and intellectual and moral bankruptcy.

More's the pity, because the more that the cultural and societal defense of Europe is seen only as a "Far Right" issue, the more people of good will will turn away from it, and continue to believe that the right combination of concessions, accommodations, and multiculturalist initiatives will set everything right.

Well, it won't.

"Far-right leader decries 'Islamisation of France,'" from Reuters, with thanks to Sugiero:

PARIS (Reuters) - A far-right French politician launched his 2007 presidential campaign on Sunday denouncing what he called the Islamisation of the country and declaring Islam incompatible with France's secular values.

Philippe de Villiers, head of the anti-immigrant Movement for France (MPF) party, also charged that Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport was endangered by Islamist radicals who he said had infiltrated the ground staff there.

Villiers has stirred up controversy in recent weeks with increasingly tough statements about Muslims, which critics call racist and officials describe as exaggerated. France's 5 million Muslims make up the largest such minority in Europe.

"I am the only politician who tells the French the truth about the Islamisation of France," he said in a Europe 1 radio interview kicking off his campaign for the election next year.

He plans to publish on Thursday a book entitled "The Mosques of Roissy" detailing his charges about radicals at the airport. His main rival on the far-right, National Front head Jean-Marie Le Pen, has also stepped up his preparations for the 2007 vote.

The headline of this AP story is "Fatah, Hamas make up," but that seems like more wishful thinking -- neither side is backing down, and they have traded gunfire. The tensions between the advocates of Fast Jihad (Hamas) and Slow Jihad (Fatah) seem likely only to increase.

GAZA CITY, April 23: The militant Hamas group and the rival Fatah Party agreed today to work to end tensions between their competing branches of the Palestinian government that exploded into violent clashes and mass protests throughout Palestinian towns in recent days.

But friction threatened to boil over again with neither the Hamas-controlled Cabinet nor Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ more moderate Fatah faction backing down from their conflicting demands in a fierce struggle for control of the security forces.

Supporters of the two sides traded gunfire and hurled stones and firebombs yesterday, and Fatah leaders warned the violence could deteriorate into civil war. In a meeting that began yesterday and is continued till today, Hamas and Fatah officials said they would take steps to end the fighting. “The two movements have agreed to call on our Palestinian masses to stop all displays that might lead to tension,” Fatah official Maher Mekdad said, reading a joint statement. “They agreed to work together to strengthen national unity”. But no agreement was reached on control of the security forces, participants said. Outside the meeting, which was mediated by Egyptian security officials, thousands of Fatah supporters shouted anti-Hamas slogans.

The New York Times Book Review today reviews The Man Who Invented Fidel: Castro, Cuba, and Herbert L. Matthews of The New York Times by Anthony DePalma. In the review, the Times owns up to its reporter Herbert Matthews' role in helping Fidel Castro gain power by means of biased reporting:

DePalma shows that Matthews was a determined liberal but not a faker like Walter Duranty, the Times correspondent who won a 1932 Pulitzer Prize for his fawning coverage of Stalin and was probably in league with the Soviet secret police. Matthews's articles were for the most part factually accurate. But he comes across as a self-righteous and credulous analyst who sided with those who gave him access and then refused to reassess, whatever the changing facts. While other reporters who also misread Castro toughened their coverage after he began ordering summary executions, Matthews stuck stubbornly to his original myth.

While his pacing and historical context are first-rate, DePalma — himself a correspondent at The Times — might have quoted more extensively from the many rationalizations of Castro that Matthews undertook in books and articles in the 20 years between the famous interview and his death in 1977. Did he ever go beyond comparisons to Oliver Cromwell and John Brown and call Castro by his proper name — dictator? Apparently not, though DePalma doesn't say.

The Times editors were able to publish this review, apparently, without noticing any parallels to their contemporary coverage of the global jihad. Yet in its stubborn refusal to discuss the jihad ideology and its role in Islamic violence, the Times comes across as a self-righteous and credulous analyst that has sided with those who gave it access and then refused to reassess, whatever the changing facts. Will the Times ever go beyond comparisons to genuine insurgent and militant groups and call the present conflict by his proper name — jihad? Apparently not.

And that's why we call it the New Duranty Times.

From the BBC with thanks to Interested.

The West's moves to isolate the new Hamas-led Palestinian government prove it is at war with Islam, a tape attributed to Osama Bin Laden declares.

The tape also described the situation in Iraq and Sudan's troubled Darfur region as further evidence that a "Zionist-crusader war" was being waged.

The recording was broadcast by Arab satellite TV al-Jazeera on Sunday.

If confirmed, it is the first message from Bin Laden since January 2006, when he threatened more attacks on the US.

The speaker on the tape said that along with their governments, the people of the West bear responsibility for what he called a "Zionist-crusader war against Islam".

"The war is a responsibility shared between the people and the governments. The war goes on and the people are renewing their allegiance to its rulers and masters," he said.

"They send their sons to armies to fight us and they continue their financial and moral support while our countries are burned and our houses are bombed and our people are killed."

He said that the decision by some Western powers to cut funding to the Palestinian government since the militant group Hamas won elections there was further proof of this anti-Islamic campaign...

"I call on mujahideen and their supporters, especially in Sudan and the Arab peninsula, to prepare for long war again the crusader plunderers in Western Sudan," the voice said. "Our goal is not defending the Khartoum government but to defend Islam, its land and its people."

Bin Laden was based in Sudan until he was expelled following US pressure on Khartoum.

More detailed excerpts here

From CNS News:

Islamic groups and governments are pressing ahead with a campaign to have international organizations take steps, including legal ones, to provide protection for their religion in the wake of the Mohammed cartoon controversy.

In a drive pursued largely away from the headlines, the Organization for the Islamic Conference (OIC) is promoting the issue at the United Nations and European Union, and having some success.

The executive council of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) this month approved an agenda item entitled "respect for freedom of expression, sacred beliefs, values and religious and cultural symbols."

This executive council, obviously has no respect for either language or thought because upholding freedom of expression must come at the expense of "sacred beliefs," (however those are defined) or freedom of expression is meaningless.

Introduced by more than 30 Islamic states and the subject of considerable debate, the motion explicitly tied freedom of expression to " respect for cultural diversity, religious beliefs and religious symbols."

It also directed UNESCO's director-general to carry out a "comprehensive study of all existing relevant international instruments."

The motion did not refer directly to the furor over the publication of cartoons satirizing Mohammed, although an "explanatory note" offered by the OIC members did.

The publication of caricatures of the Prophet of Islam has caused deep and widespread offense and indignation within the Muslim community around the world," the note said, adding that respect for religious symbols and beliefs and freedom of expression were "indissociable."

"Given the importance of religion to peoples and to dignity and the way of life in different cultures, respect for different religious beliefs is essential to international peace and security and to the progress of human civilizations," it said.

The Saudi-based OIC secretariat is spearheading the international campaign of response to what it has called "wanton provocation and reckless, blasphemous libertarianism cowering behind so-called freedom of the press."...

More on the Rumpled Academic Mujahid from the St. Petersburg Times, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

...The plea agreement hinges upon an order issued by the Clinton administration in January 1995.

That executive order declared the PIJ a "specially designated terrorist" organization. It barred "making or receiving contributions, funds, goods or services" to benefit the PIJ, and outlawed actions designed to evade the ban.

In the plea agreement, Al-Arian admits conspiring to help people associated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad and covering up his knowledge of the PIJ associations by lying to Harper and others. He also admits that he had been associated with PIJ during "the late 1980s and early to mid 1990s."

For this guilty plea, Al-Arian, who has already spent three years in prison before and during his trial, will be deported, after possibly serving a prison sentence of several more months, to be determined by a federal judge May 1....

Al-Arian pleaded guilty to knowing that his brother-in-law Mazen Al-Najjar and two other colleagues, Bashir Nafi and Ramadan Shallah, were associated with the PIJ leadership and covering this up. He also admitted helping Nafi and Al-Najjar, after 1995, when it became illegal to do so because, according to evidence, they kept communicating with PIJ leaders.

And he says in the agreement that he knew of the group's violent acts.

Still waiting for those apologies from Kristof, Esposito, etc.

Anti-dhimmitude in Holland from Der Spiegel, with thanks to JS:

An official in Holland's biggest city wants to introduce legislation that would ban unemployed women who wear a burqa from receiving welfare payments if it prevents them from finding a job. The issue is the latest Dutch soul-searching over its relations with its own immigrants.

If this burqa is keeping you from getting a job, Amsterdam Social Affairs Alderman Ahmed Aboutaleb argues, you shouldn't be wearing it.

Watch for the outcry.

Anti-dhimmitude from Dr. Ulrich Maly. An update on this story from Ynetnews, with thanks to Gabrielle Goldwater:

BERLIN - Nuremberg Lord Mayor Dr. Ulrich Maly is hoping for a miracle to solve the big embarrassment awaiting him in a month and a half.

On June 11, at 6 p.m., the first game of the Iranian national team in the World Cup will get under way. Nuremberg's stadium is situated
just dozens of meters from the first Nazi marching square and the enormous conference hall built for Hitler. The huge structure, which was never completed, is used today as historical testimony to the Nazi era.

The arrival of Iran's soccer team would not be causing such a stir, would it not be for the Holocaust denials of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his plans to arrive at the city in order to cheer on his team.

In the halls of government in Berlin, officials believe that the Iranian president will not arrive in the end. Therefore, they do not see a point in comply with a call by the Wiesenthal Center to declare Ahmadinejad as persona non grata.

"Ahmadinejad won't be our guest and he is not wanted among us," Maly told Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel's leading newspaper.

"From the minute FIFA decided not to boycott Iran in the world cup, the arrival of the Iranians turned into a problem for the German government. We would prefer that other teams play here. I don't plan to prevent demonstrations against Ahmadinejad and against his intolerable statements on the Holocaust and the destruction of the State of Israel," he said.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses the Lesser Jihad and the Greater Jihad, by which he means not the distinction between warfare and the struggle within the soul, but the struggle against Israel and that against the rest of the world.

It by now should be clear that the war against Israel is a Lesser Jihad, and always has been. It was such before the Infidels, in this case Jews, dared to buy land and dared to dream of possessing a small sliver of land in which they would not have to live as they and Christians, and all other non-Muslims had had to live: as dhimmis under Shari'a law or some version of it. This was true whether the overlords were Arabs or, as for the past four centuries, the Turks.

"Should be clear." But the Israelis themselves have done everything they can to hide that painful recognition. They would prefer to believe that Islam, and especially the most virulent form of Islam, that possessed by the Arabs who have no other identity to conceivably draw upon, contains no elements that are not benign, and that their struggle is against nationalist Arabs. Yet those same Arabs’ sense of Islam is interwoven with "Uruba" or "arabness." This makes even many Christian Arabs (though not the Arabic-speaking, but non-Arab Maronites and Copts) accept, parrot, and promote the Islamic agenda, including the Lesser Jihad against Infidel Israel that, were it to be successful, might actually improve the prospects for a continued Christian presence in the Middle East.

1938 Alert from the Times Online, with thanks to JE:

IRAN’S president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, attended a meeting in Syria earlier this year with one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, according to intelligence experts and a former national security official in Washington.

US officials and Israel intelligence sources believe Imad Mugniyeh, the Lebanese commander of Hezbollah’s overseas operations, has taken charge of plotting Iran’s retaliation against western targets should President George W Bush order a strike on Iranian nuclear sites.

Mugniyeh is on the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorists” list for his role in a series of high-profile attacks against the West, including the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jet and murder of one of its passengers, a US navy diver.

Now in his mid-forties, Mugniyeh is reported to have travelled with Ahmadinejad in January this year from Tehran to Damascus, where the Iranian president met leaders of Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

The meeting has been dubbed a “terror summit” because of the presence of so many groups behind attacks on Israel, which Ahmadinejad has threatened to wipe from the map.

"PSU censors exhibit," from The Collegian of Penn State, with thanks to Esther:

For Penn State student Josh Stulman, years of hard work ended in disappointment yesterday when the university cancelled his upcoming art exhibit for violation of Penn State's policies on nondiscrimination, harassment and hate.

Three days before his 10-piece exhibit -- Portraits of Terror -- was scheduled to open at the Patterson Building, Stulman (senior-painting and anthropology) received an e-mail message from the School of Visual Arts that said his exhibit on images of terrorism "did not promote cultural diversity" or "opportunities for democratic dialogue" and the display would be cancelled.

The exhibit, Stulman said, which is based mainly on the conflict in Palestinian territories, raises questions concerning the destruction of Jewish religious shrines, anti-Semitic propaganda and cartoons in Palestinian newspapers, the disregard for rules of engagement and treatment of prisoners, and the indoctrination of youth into terrorist acts.

"I'm being censored and the reason for censoring me doesn't make sense," Stulman said.

Well, Mr. Stulman, the fact is that your being censored was part of the dhimmi impulse that is advancing everywhere. If you would like to post images of your exhibit at Jihad Watch, please contact me at director@jihadwatch.org.

"Palestinian people have apparently voted for change, but we believe their aspirations for peace and a peaceful life remain unchanged." They Really Really Want Peace Update from Haaretz, with thanks to Olivia:

Jamal Abu Samhadana, the wanted leader of the armed Popular Resistance Committees whose appointment to a senior Palestinian Authority police post sparked a bitter feud between Hamas and Fatah, told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper that his only enemy is the Jews, and that the paramilitary force he was nominated to create was to become the "nucleus of the future Palestinian army."...

According to Abu Samhadana, "We have only one enemy. They are Jews. We have no other enemy. I will continue to carry the rifle and pull the trigger whenever required to defend my people.

Abu Samhadana, turning aside international and local criticism of his appointment, said "We are also a force against corruption. We are against thieves, corrupt officials and law breakers."

Oh yeah, that's why the Palestinians voted for Hamas, remember: they were voting against corruption. They only want good clean kills.

They are suspected of "violating the freedom of worship"? In what conceivable way did they do that? Eurabia Alert: "Three Finns may face charges for posting Mohammad cartoons," from NewsRoom Finland, with thanks to DZ:

Finnish police said Friday it had given the preliminary investigation material pertaining to three individuals it suspects of violating the freedom of worship to Mika Illman, a state prosecutor.

The three men are members of Suomen Sisu, a nationalistic movement that has posted Jyllands-Posten's controversial Mohammad cartoons on its website.

Russia continues on its short-sighted and ultimately suicidal path of aiding the mujahedin. "Iran struck enrichment deal with Russia," from Al-Jazeera, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Iran reached a "basic" agreement with Russia on a joint venture to enrich uranium and will continue talks in coming days, Iran’s envoy to the IAEA said on Saturday.

Russia offered to enrich uranium on its soil for use as nuclear fuel in Iran to allay Western concerns that Tehran could be working on an atomic weapons program, a charge strongly rejected by the Islamic Republic.

A "basic agreement" on the Russian proposal was previously announced by Iran in February but progress on the deal stalled after Tehran refused to suspend enrichment work.

Ali-Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said a full agreement was now close in reach.

"We voiced our preliminary agreement with this proposal long ago, but there are a lot of issues that should be worked on - technical, legal, and financial ones," Soltanieh told journalists in Moscow on Friday, according to the Interfax news agency.

Iran is continuing negotiations on setting up the joint venture with Russia, he said.

In a certain sense, Somalia is where it all started: when Osama bin Laden saw Bill Clinton cut and run after the Black Hawk incident, he concluded that America was a paper tiger, and the time was right to step up jihad efforts. "Somali Islamists declare jihad on warlords," from AFP, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Tension soared in the capital of lawless Somalia on Friday as Mogadishu's powerful Islamic courts declared jihad, or holy war, on a militia alliance widely believed to be backed by the United States.

With many city residents already convinced new hostilities are imminent between the rival factions, Muslim clerics urged the destruction of the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT).

At a demonstration attended by hundreds in southern Mogadishu after Friday prayers, Sheikh Nur Ollow, an imam and senior Islamic court figure, told the crowd it was time to fight the warlords whose militias make up the alliance.

"It is time to fight the unholy elements that are sabotaging peace efforts and serving the interests of non-Somalis who could not care less about our well-being, culture and religion," he said.

"It is time to help those who want peace and harmony among Somalis and the teachings of the commands of Allah and the words of the Prophet," Ollow said. "We will not be governed by a few warlords financed by the enemy of Islam."

A second cleric affiliated with the courts, Sheikh Mohamed Ibrahim Sulley, echoed those comments and went further, informing the crowd that battling the warlords was a religious obligation.

"As it says in the Qur'an, the fight against those who are promoting hostility and fighting against Islam is a holy war," he said. "Any war against the warlords is a holy war and a sacrifice in the name of Allah.

"Let us eliminate these warlords and set up a peaceful administration supported by the vast majority of people in Mogadishu," Sulley said, prompting the crowd to chant angry slogans denouncing the warlords.

"Down with the agents of America and down with agents promoting Satanic teaching," they yelled, according to an Agence France-Presse correspondent on the scene.

The bellicose comments were clearly directed at the ARPCT, which was founded in February by Mogadishu warlords opposed to the growing influence of the courts that they accuse of hosting Islamic extremists and training terrorists.

An official in the alliance, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the crowd that cheered the imams' call for holy war was "misguided" and unaware of his group's policies, which he claimed had huge backing.

"They are misguided and misinformed," the official said. "The alliance is supported by most people in Mogadishu."

Ah. More misunderstanders of Islam. Of course. Yet it is they who are invoking the Qur'an and placing the conflict in starkly religious terms.

"Abbas Heading for Europe to Break Through Isolation of Hamas," from Palestine Media Center – PMC, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Meanwhile Abbas arrived in Jordan on Friday en route to Turkey, Norway, Finland and France.

On Thursday, Abbas received a letter from British Prime Minister Tony Blair, delivered by his Middle East envoy, Lord Levy, outlining proposals to revive the moribund peace process with Israel.

“The letter contains ways to unfreeze the peace process and the role that Britain can play in this regard,” Rafiq Al-Husseini, said after Levy met with Abbas in Ramallah.

“There are strong indications that intense international efforts are being deployed to restart the peace process after the formation of a government in Israel,” said Al-Husseini.

Speaking to MPs on Wednesday, Blair reiterated his support for a negotiated two-state solution for the Middle East conflict.

“The whole of the international community stands ready and willing to take forward a negotiated solution on the basis of a fair deal that allows for an independent and viable Palestinian state, providing that Hamas recognise the state of Israel and give up violence,” he said.

The EU said Friday its freeze of budget aid for the PNA will stay in effect indefinitely but blamed Israel for the PNA government's financial crunch, said spokeswoman for EU External Relations Commissioner.

Complying with a diplomatic boycott of the Palestinian government, France has refused a visa for the Palestinian Planning Minister, Samir Abu Eisha, to attend a conference in Paris, French Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said Friday.

However France announced Wednesday that it would not halt relief aid to the Palestinians, a move, which it said would be a “major political mistake.”

Ahead of his tour, Abbas said: “If the European countries don't want to have contact with the Palestinian government, there are other means to maintain aid directed towards the Palestinian people,” he said in an interview with French daily Le Monde published Friday.

Abbas said he would explain his position during visits to the leaders of Norway, Turkey and France, “so that the Palestinians are not penalized by the economic blockade.”

“I believe that the stop in European aid is unjustified,” he told Le Monde.

Abbas said government employees' salaries should be paid, in full or in part, as soon as possible.

“We are going to make proposals along this line to the Americans and Europeans in the hope that they will be accepted,” he said.

Earlier this month, Yasser Abed Rabbo, member of the PLO Executive Committee, told the “Voice of Palestine” radio that Abbas would visit the Brussels-based European Commission and address the European parliament during his tour.

On Friday Chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erakat, said the president would also talk to European leaders about reviving peace negotiations with Israel, frozen since a Palestinian uprising erupted in late 2000.

“He will ask for assistance in holding an international conference for peace as preparation to negotiate a permanent agreement in accordance with the road map,” Erakat said, referring to a UN-adopted blueprint for peace.

How can he do that with Hamas' opposition?

A bounty has been put on Jihad Watch by a cyber mujahid. (Thanks to Happy for the notice.)

Hack http://www.jihadwatch.org/ site for $10,000

O.K, I will give anyone who can hack this site $10,000
Now the rules are tus:
1) You will not delete any file on the website or destroy it
2) You will only put up a hacked html on there for a period of 24 hours, thus proving you have hacked it
3) Further more, all logs of the hack should be made available to me to check

Once I am satisfied that the site was indeed hacked and the person claimng the hack is correct, I will give that person $10,000

UPDATE: This hack appeal seems to have been removed.

I can. But anyway, here is a vivid report on the recent attacks on churches in Egypt. From the New York Sun, with thanks to all who sent this in:

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt - In temporary offices near the Virgin Mary Church in the Asafra neighborhood here, Father Bejimey Shawky catalogs the damage the Muslim rioters wrought.

First they smashed his church's windows.Then they unhinged the rear door.

The pious Muslim looters broke the electrical switch for the air-conditioner. They burned the anteroom near the main hall reserved for baptism; they burned the father's offices, and they burned the cupboards and shelves that contained the church's library.

"I cannot say where this hatred comes from," Father Bejimey said, his voice low and weary. "We have coexisted for generations."

The church, which smelled faintly of smoke, was barely fit for worship. But Father Bejimey's flock turned out every night for the evening service between the Coptic Palm and Easter Sundays to recite lines from the Gospel and remember Christ's last week before the crucifixion. A few members of the congregation had bandages on their arms and legs from the clashes two days before....

One of the elders at the church yesterday said the funeral procession turned into anarchy the moment the mourners bared the cross. "When the Muslim youths saw the cross in the sky, and the people saw our soul, the animosity in their hearts became evident," Talat Megala said.

Four other Christian eyewitnesses confirmed this account. A Muslim eyewitness, however, did not recall the moment the rival demonstrations turned violent.

Interesting: this account would be in line with traditional dhimmi laws forbidding Christians to display the cross in public.

Read it all.

This is Umm Farhat, the famous Mother From Hell. She doesn't mean jihad as spiritual struggle, either. From Iran's Mehr News Agency, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

TEHRAN, Apr. 22 (MNA) -- Jihad is the only path to the liberation of Palestine, Palestinian MP Um Farhat said during a visit to an exhibition on Palestine in Tehran on Friday.

“Although we have entered the phase of governing, we will not back off one hairsbreadth from our path of jihad and resistance because this is the only way to victory and freedom,” she told the Mehr News Agency.

“We never regret that we have offered up our children for Islam and Palestinian ideals. Rather, we are proud of that because the enemy has entered our territory and destroyed our homes, so we have to resist, and resistance is nothing but jihad,” said Farhat, who is the mother of three martyrs.

“The enemies seek to punish the Palestinians through the use of economic pressure because they have democratically elected Hamas. They want to alienate the Hamas movement from the government and its ideals, but God is with us, and we will never surrender,” she asserted.

The Palestine issue and the liberation of Qods [Jerusalem] belong to all Muslims, she added.

In conclusion, she said, “I am happy about Iran’s recent achievements since the enemies cannot tolerate development in the Islamic world.”

Sharia in Dearborn. From the Detroit Free Press, with thanks to all who sent this in:

When Arrwa Mogalli agreed to plunk down $1,465 for a lifetime membership with the Fitness USA chain of gyms, she did so after being promised that its Lincoln Park facility would be open only to women on certain days.

As a devout Muslim, Mogalli firmly believes her religion frowns on her working out where she could see men -- and men could see her -- moving and dressed in a manner that might seem immodest.

So when the Lincoln Park gym decided this month to open up part of the center to both sexes every day, the 28-year-old Dearborn resident and other area Muslims felt cheated. So far, about 200 Muslim women with Fitness USA memberships have signed a petition asking the chain to return to gender-specific days for the entire gym or to put up a divider so men and women can't see each other while working out.

Fitness USA officials met with one of the women and a Muslim advocate this week at their corporate office in West Bloomfield and said they are working on a response to the women's concerns. But they also noted that their written contracts say nothing about gender.

The women's concerns reflect the ways many Muslims in metro Detroit are trying to blend their American lifestyles with Islamic traditions. In recent years, for example, Dearborn Public Schools has offered gender-segregated gym and swimming classes. The move came after a growing number of Muslim parents expressed concerns about their children attending physical education classes with the opposite sex, school officials said.

UPDATE: Debbie Schlussel comments:

Americans must decide if we are going to willingly accept the imposition of others' religious rules, or if we will stand up for our own freedoms while we still have them.

That is the debate at the center of America's culture clash with Mid-Easterners who want to impose their Islamist mores on us--on our own shores. At least, it would be a debate, if we would not just immediately fold every time there is a challenge.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald hails the new leader of Italy:

Prodi is awful, as awful as all those who rise high in the E.U. bureaucracy -- Javier Solana and Chris Patten come to mind. Those Solanas, Pattens, Robinsons, and Moratinoses are all imbued with the Eurabian desire to throw Israel to the wolves, to distance Europe from the United States, and to find some kind of phony common ground with the Arab Muslims, beginning with those deux-rivistes (about which see my article here) in France -- who appear to believe that what separates France from the Maghreb is merely a matter of the Mediterranean, and not an entire world-view.

That Berlusconi, crook and clown, managed almost to win, shows just how awful Prodi is. Berlusconi is not readily yielding power, but this is not as much infuriating as it is comical -- possibly because so many just do not want to see Prodi actually come to power. And Prodi has a history of making remarks in the Eurabian vein, such as his address at the Library of Alexandria two or three years ago -- as perfect an example of Bat Ye'or's thesis as could be imagined.

The crime was not actually "entertaining the children," as the Times headline has it. It was entertaining non-Muslim children. Sharia Alert from the New Democratic Iraq. "Executed for the crime of entertaining the children," from the TimesOnline, with thanks to JE:

FOR the crime of staging a children’s show, Faud Radi and Haidar Jawad were executed by the new moral guardians of Baghdad.

The actors were part of the Happy Family Team, a troupe adored by millions of Iraqi children from its frequent appearances on television. The theatrical group and a dozen others were planning an 11-day festival to help youngsters to forget momentarily the curfews, bombings and other dangers of daily life in this city.

Armed militias, which pass for the law in many neighbourhoods these days, had other ideas and set out to sabotage the event.

Safaa Eadi, 31, a founding member of the Happy Family Team, told how the group had been threatened by gunmen, who objected to them giving drama classes to children of all faiths and ethnic backgrounds. A handwritten note had been left on the windscreen of the group’s van, the usual method that the militias employ to warn a target.

“We didn’t take them seriously, so we carried on,” Mr Eadi said. “The next day the building was burnt down.” Then, on the eve of the festival, Mr Radi, 20, and Mr Jawad, 25, were returning to their homes in the Amirayah district of western Baghdad, the heartland of Sunni insurgents.

They were in the van, so they made an easily identifiable target. They had offered to drive a woman friend to hospital on their way. Their vehicle came under a barrage of gunfire on a main road. Mr Jawad and the woman passenger died instantly. Mr Radi was dragged from the van and beaten to death.

Sifting through photographs of the murdered men, Mr Eadi said: “What has Baghdad come to when actors are seen as the enemy? We are not politicians. We don’t care what a child’s religion is. Our goal is to bring joy. Whoever did this cannot have a family of their own, or how could they murder someone who just wanted to make people laugh? This is the start of a mini Taleban in Baghdad if the gunmen decide what we can and cannot do as entertainers.” He buried his head in his hands.

The surviving members of the group voted unanimously to go ahead with the pageant, held at the Children’s Cultural Centre. The performers dared not put up posters, so invitations were passed by word of mouth. Shows were staged during daylight to beat the curfew.

With no awareness of the fact that the only viable pluralist republic ever established in the Islamic world, Turkey, was established in the context of a war against Islam: an open and unapologetic effort, which continues in many ways, to limit the power of political Islam. Modern-day State Department wonks wouldn't dare formulate a strategy including such an effort -- and that's why this proposed effort in Iran, as well as the Iraq democracy adventure, have only dim chances of succeeding. Of course, in Iran State can capitalize on widespread dissatisfaction with the regime. But the Shah had already established a modern pluralist republic and yet still suffered a backlash: the Sharia impulse will not just disappear. More on that in this article I wrote over three years ago (it starts with "NO" at the bottom of the page.)

From the Financial Times, with thanks to JE:

The US and UK are working on a strategy to promote democratic change in Iran, according to officials who see the joint effort as the start of a new phase in the diplomatic campaign to counter the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme without resorting to military intervention.

A newly created Iran Syria Operations Group inside the State Department is co-ordinating the work and reporting to Elizabeth Cheney, the senior US official leading democracy promotion in the broader Middle East.

“Democracy promotion is a rubric to get the Europeans behind a more robust policy without calling it regime change,” a former Bush administration official commented.

The new direction, the former official said, reflected a growing belief in the US and UK that diplomacy through the United Nations and partial sanctions were unlikely to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. In the absence of a credible military solution, the argument went that international diplomacy could try to slow down the nuclear programme while more “robust” efforts continued towards the ultimate solution of regime change, he said.

The Islamic Thinkers Society of New York, which wished for my "painful torment" after I publicized a video of their stomping on the American flag, is at it again. "Islamists’ message to Israel at New York City rally: 'The mushroom cloud is on its way!,'" from Steven Emerson at the Counterterrorism Blog (thanks to Andrew Bostom):

Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) Newswire - April 21, 2006 : The Queens-based Islamic Thinkers Society (ITS) held a rally yesterday outside of the Israeli Consulate in Manhattan. Members of the Islamic Thinkers Society are easily identified by their Khilafah flags and provocative signs as well as rhetoric against homosexuals, Jews, Christians, Danes and others, depending on the hot button issue at the moment. Yesterday's rally was held in response to Monday’s Tel Aviv bombing that killed 9 and injured scores. While carrying signs including “Islam will Dominate” with a picture of an Islamic flag over the White House, the small but loud group of men chanted threatening slogans (video of the rally will be posted on the Counterterrorism Blog soon):

Excerpts:
Leader (in Arabic): With our blood and our lives we will liberate al Aqsa!
[The rest also respond in Arabic:] With our blood and our lives we will liberate al Aqsa!
Israeli Zionists What do you say? The real Holocaust is on its way
Takbeer!
Response: Allahu Akbar!
Takbeer!
Response: Allahu Akbar!

Israeli Zionists, What do you say?
How many women have you raped today?
Israeli Zionists, What do you say?
How many children have you killed today?

Zionists, Zionists You will pay! The Wrath of Allah is on its way!
Israeli Zionists You shall pay! The Wrath of Allah is on its way!
The mushroom cloud is on its way! The real Holocaust is on its way!

We are not your average Muslims, We are the Muslims of Was al Sunnah

We will not accept the United Nations, they are the criminals themselves
They get paid by the Israeli and the US government to do their job.
We don’t recognize United Nations as a body
We only recognize Allah

Israel won’t last long… Indeed, Allah will repeat the Holocaust right on the soil of Israel
Takbeer!
Response: Allahu Akbar!

* * *
No wonder they call you sons of apes and pigs because that’s what you are.

The "sons of apes and pigs" business, of course, comes from the Qur'an (2:62-65; 5:59-60; and 7:166).

Read it all.

John VI Cantacuzenes Alert: "Russia backs Iran's nuclear programme," from the TimesOnline, with thanks to JE:

Russia today offered its most outspoken support yet of the controversial nuclear programme in Iran, its neighbour and trading partner.

"Our advice to our Iranian colleagues and friends is to complete work with the International Atomic Energy Authority and to calmly continue its nuclear energy programme... and on this path we are ready to provide assistance to Iran," Sergei Kislyak, the Deputy Foreign Minister, told a security conference in Moscow.

"The search for a solution must follow the route of diplomacy, and our position is that the instrument for resolving this problem, as before, must remain the IAEA, as we don’t have another international agency that has such authority and competence in the non-proliferation area."

Young man, there's real need to feel down.
I said, young man, get yourself out of town
I said, young man, 'cause Hamas is around
They want you to be unhappy.

Dhimmi, outta here you must go.
I said, dhimmi, when Hamas runs the show.
You can't stay here, and I'm sure you will find
Sharia life will be a real bind.

We're gonna blow up your Y-M-C-A.
We're gonna blow up your Y-M-C-A.

"YMCA warned to vacate Hamas town: After 6 years of operation, Christian organization being booted by terror group," from WND, with thanks to all who sent this in:

JERUSALEM -- The leadership of a West Bank Palestinian city now controlled by Hamas has warned a local Young Men's Christian Association to close its offices and leave town or face likely Muslim violence, WorldNetDaily has learned.

The move highlighted long-standing fears Hamas would use its win in last January's Palestinian parliamentary elections to impose an anti-Christian, anti-Jewish hard-line Islamist regime in the West Bank and Gaza.

"The face of the new Hamas government is coming to the forefront now that they finally took over and have a lot more confidence. They want to create a territory free of Christians and Jews," said a Christian leader associated with the YMCA in Qalqiliya, a West Bank town under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority.

Yesterday, major Muslim organizations in Qalqiliya in conjunction with local mosques, the city's Mufti and municipal leaders, sent a letter to the interior minister of the Hamas-led PA accusing the YMCA of missionary activities and demanding the Palestinian government immediately shut down the Christian offices.

The YMCA has operated in Qalqiliya since 2000.

The petition, obtained by WND, states, "We the preachers of the mosques and representatives of major families in Qalqiliya ask you to close the offices of the YMCA because the population of Qalqiliya doesn't need such offices, especially since there are not many Christians in our city."

It warned, "The act of these institutions of the YMCA, including attempting to convert Muslims in our city, will bring violence and tension."

More on the Georgia Jihad from CNN, with thanks to BH:

At a news conference Thursday in Atlanta, U.S. Attorney David Nahmias said Ahmed was charged with providing material support for terrorism, not planning or carrying out terrorist acts.

FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said "no imminent threat" existed at any point during the investigation.

Court documents reveal the investigation included court-authorized wiretapping, recounting a conversation between Ahmed and Sadequee's sister.

The FBI affidavit also says agents found two CD-ROMs in the lining of Sadequee's suitcase when he was leaving the United States. One disc contained pornography and the other was encrypted with a code the FBI was unable to crack, according to the affidavit.

It also says Sadequee had maps of the Washington area with the discs.

Georgia Tech Jihad Update. "AP: FBI Says 2 in Ga. Plotted Terrorism," from AP, with thanks to Olivia:

ATLANTA - A 21-year-old Georgia Tech student and another man traveled to Canada to meet with Islamic extremists to discuss "strategic locations in the United States suitable for a terrorist strike," according to an affidavit made public Friday.

Syed Haris Ahmed and Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, both U.S. citizens who grew up in the Atlanta area, met with at least three other targets of ongoing FBI terrorism investigations during a trip to Canada in March 2005, the FBI agent's affidavit said.

The affidavit said the men discussed attacks against oil refineries and military bases and planned to travel to Pakistan to get military training at a terrorist camp, which authorities said Ahmed then tried to do....

Jahiliyya Update from AFP, with thanks to Satinder:

Malaysian authorities have demolished a century-old Hindu temple in Kuala Lumpur, bulldozing the building as devotees cried and begged them to stop, Hindu groups said today.

The Malaimel Sri Selva Kaliamman Temple was reduced to rubble after Kuala Lumpur's city hall sent in bulldozers, they said.

In a complaint to police the temple's vice president, Subramaniam Ragappan, said about 300 devotees were praying Tuesday when the machines arrived, accompanied by police and city hall officials.

"We were forced to stop our prayers and (rituals) halfway as they proceeded to tear down the temple," he said in a copy of the complaint obtained by AFP.

An update on this story. "Tech student charged with supporting terror group: Another Atlanta area man arrested in Bangladesh," from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, with thanks to Buzz Brockway:

A 21-year-old Georgia Tech student taken into federal custody last month has been charged with giving "material support" to a terrorist organization, according to a federal indictment unsealed Thursday.

The student, Syed Haris Ahmed, a mechanical engineering major who had become increasingly religious in his Islamic faith, was arrested March 23 by the FBI.

Syed Ahmed, 21, was charged with helping a terrorist group. The FBI believes he attended a training camp in Pakistan last year, sources say. He was in religious school there, his family says.

"This is the first international terrorism charge ever filed in Georgia," said U.S. Attorney David Nahmias shortly after unsealing the indictment "The charge against Mr. Ahmed is serious and involves national security and will be prosecuted with that in mind."...

Family members said agents confiscated computer hard drives and data CDs from their home last month.

Ahmed told his family that authorities found a video on the Internet and apparently traced it to him. The video was of a building and was perhaps made during a trip with friends. Ahmed's family members said they did not know the location of the building or when the tape was made....

In a separate case that may be related, a 19-year-old Roswell man was arrested Monday in Bangladesh. Ehsanul Islam Sadequee was arrested by Bengali authorities after at least eight months of federal investigation of him and his family, his sister, Sharmin Sadequee, said Thursday.

That is, Islamic martyrdom, which involves killing and being killed in the service of Allah (cf. Qur'an 9:111). The-Americans-Love-Pepsi-Cola-We-Love-Death Alert from AP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

ZACARIAS Moussaoui, who has pleaded guilty to conspiracy in the September11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States, craves martyrdom and would be disappointed not to be sentenced to death, said a British imam acquainted with him.

In court in Alexandria, Virginia, US, however, Moussaoui has expressed a belief that US president George Bush will release him from prison....

“It is my personal belief that the reason he is doing this is that he wants that martyr status,” Abdul Haq Baker, chairperson of the Brixton mosque in south London, said yesterday.

“If he receives the death penalty, he believes in the eyes of the Muslim community he will be seen as a martyr,” Baker said in an interview with BBC radio.

“If that is discredited in any way by questions of his sanity, then he will just be locked up in prison for a long time, and that will not give him any credibility at all.”...

“He wanted a sense of belonging, and there was frustration at what was being seen as atrocities being committed in the Muslim world,” Baker said.

“He was actively seeking a reason for jihad.

“We had conversations about that.

“He asked me ‘Where is the next jihad?’ and do I know where jihad is, and I said ‘No, I don’t.’

“He got very frustrated, because he believed I was withholding information from him.

“He was actively seeking a battlefield.”

"Sectarian violence seen on the march in Egypt," from AP, with thanks to all who sent this in:

CAIRO -- Egypt's latest bloodletting between Christians and Muslims has many fearing an explosion of sectarian violence in the Arab world's most populous country, fueled by frustration with plummeting living standards.

Increasingly radicalized Muslims, facing growing unemployment, have found it easier to take out their anger on the small Christian minority than confront the government of President Hosni Mubarak, social commentators say....

The latest clashes erupted last Friday with knife attacks at three Coptic Christian churches in the port city of Alexandria. Three days of rioting by Christians and Muslims followed. Two persons -- a Christian and a Muslim -- died, at least 40 were wounded and more than 100 were detained....

"The strife didn't start yesterday in Egypt, or a quarter of a century ago in Lebanon, or three years ago in Iraq," columnist Khairy Mansour wrote in United Arab Emirates' al-Khaleej daily. "The worm has been growing inside the apple, eating up most of its fabric."

Mr. Mubarak's government contends that conflict between Egypt's Christians and Muslims is rare and called the Muslim man arrested in last Friday's stabbing of Coptic worshippers "deranged."

"Egyptian people don't distinguish between Muslims and Copts, and no force can affect its national unity," Mr. Mubarak said Tuesday.

Sure, Hosni. Tell us another.

In "A War On Jihadism -- Not 'Terror,'" in the National Journal (thanks to M), Jonathan Rauch considers what for him is clearly a new idea:

The point that Bush, Blair, and others understandably finesse is that the ideology of Jihadism traces its lineage to the very beginning of the religion of Islam. It has "roots in discussions about Islamic law and theology that began soon after the death of Muhammad and that are supported by important segments of the clergy (ulama) today," Habeck writes.

Two other new books strikingly document the connection. One is The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims. Edited by Andrew G. Bostom, it provides more than 700 pages of source material on jihadist doctrine and practice (including many fascinating translations from Arabic). A second is Islamic Imperialism: A History, by Efraim Karsh, a political scientist and historian who heads the Mediterranean studies program at King's College (part of the University of London).

"The birth of Islam," writes Karsh, "was inextricably linked with the creation of a world empire, and its universalism was inherently imperialist." Karsh cites, for example, the Prophet's farewell address to his followers: "I was ordered to fight all men until they say, 'There is no god but Allah.' " Muhammad, Karsh writes, spent his last decade fighting to unify Arabia under his reign; within a decade of his death, Islamic conquest had already built an Arab-Muslim empire, "one of the most remarkable examples of empire-building in world history."

Now, I am glad to see this. The volume edited by Bostom should be required reading for every member of the Administration and every member of Congress. Karsh's is worth reading too. And Habeck's contains some useful information. But Mr. Rauch, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Robert Spencer. S-P-E-N-C-E-R. I have been documenting the connection between the modern-day terrorists and the Islamic doctrine of jihad every day here at Jihad Watch since October 2003. Before that, I wrote two books that documented that connection in various ways: Islam Unveiled, which I wrote in late 2001 and which reached #10 on Amazon.com's Bestseller List. That book contains a discussion of the same statement of Muhammad that you quote from Karsh's book. After that there was Onward Muslim Soldiers, which I wrote in early 2003 and which documents this connection in greater depth. I did it again from a different angle last year in The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), which spent four months on the New York Times Bestseller List.

Now don't get me wrong, Mr. Rauch. I am not claiming to have been the first to have discovered the connection between modern Islamic violence and Islamic teachings on jihad. Others -- most notably Bat Ye'or -- were writing about this long before I began to do this work publicly, and both before and after that others have done it better than I have. I am merely pointing out that this point, which is a crucially important point, and possibly the most important point that policymakers need to grasp today, has been available to you far longer than the time since the Bostom and Karsh books have appeared. I am glad to see you acknowledging this point in the National Journal in 2006 -- it has been ignored and denied almost everywhere in the media for far too long. And that is actually the core of what I am saying: we could have used your help in 2005, and 2004, and 2003, and 2002, and -- you get the idea.

Andrew Bostom in FrontPage reviews Efraim Karsh's Islamic Imperialism, a new book that is refreshing in acknowledging what I have been saying for years: that Islamic jihad violence and subversion is not a "hijacking" of Islam, but a recrudescence of traditions, teachings and assumptions that are deeply embedded within the religion:

Karsh’s latest work, Islamic Imperialism—A History, expands upon themes developed in Empires of the Sand, linking the contemporary imperial aspirations of Middle Eastern Muslim “actors” to the ancient, but living Islamic institution of jihad war. From the outset, Karsh rejects two widely prevalent paradigms invoked post-9/11 to explain the “root causes” of this cataclysmic event. Despite their divergence, these views share the presumption that the Islamic Near East remains merely reactive to the traumatic exploits of Western imperialists in the region.

Thus Karsh does not accept Bernard Lewis’ assertion that Islamic “fundamentalism” and its accompanying “Muslim rage” derive exclusively from a steady decline in the geopolitical power of Muslim states, evidenced, most dramatically, by the official dissolution of the Ottoman Caliphate after World War I, and the creation of the State of Israel after World War II. He also dismisses the even more commonly held apologetic which casts Osama Bin Laden as a fringe, demonic aberration of the “true” Islamic precept of jihad, which even at its most aggressive, remains mere bloodless “striving” in missionary activity for the pacific propagation of the great faith of Islam (for a deconstruction of this apologetic, see here, here, and at length, here).

Instead, argues Karsh, the Middle East’s thousand year legacy of jihad—what he terms its “millenarian imperial tradition”—has been, and remains the most potent historical force shaping the region. And Karsh, in referring to Bin Laden’s August, 1996 “Declaration of Jihad Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places”, has the perspicacity and sheer courage to note that the Saudi jihad terrorist represents the modern apotheosis of this Muslim institution:

Bin Laden’s proclamation of jihad was no novelty in and of itself; declaring a holy war against the infidel has been a standard practice of countless imperial rulers and aspirants since the rise of Islam. Nor does bin Laden’s perception of jihad as a predominantly military effort to facilitate the creation of the worldwide Islamic umma differ in any way from traditional Islamic thinking…

Read it all. There are many useful links in the original.

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald explains why Rumsfeld, Rice and Co. ought to be making serious plans about Turkey now:

For half a century Bernard Lewis has written, and more recently has given advice, on the assumption that Kemalism has worked. By Kemalism, of course, I mean, and Lewis means, the series of measures that together were intended by Kemal Pasha, or Ataturk, to systematically deprive Islam in Turkey of much of its political and social influence. In some ways it has indeed worked. Possibly as much as one-quarter of Turkey's population was able to become secular. But those secular Turks were not sufficiently grateful nor sufficiently vigilant. And they were willing to limit, like liberals in the Western, Infidel lands, the power of the army. But secularists in Turkey could not afford to be like liberals in the Infidel lands. They were dealing with Islam -- quite a different matter.

Some of those secularists have begun to retreat from that secularism and have begun to rediscover wondrous Islam, in rally-round-the-Qur'an fashion. Others (see Mustafa Akyol) have tried to present seemingly plausible (to them) but utterly cockamamie ideas about how to "reform" Islam. Akyol thinks that all one has to do is throw out the Hadith and Muhammad's biography, and then that inoffensive Qur'an will turn those threatening Muslims into the non-threatening Muslims that they were back in -- oh, back in 680 or 700 A.D., before the Hadith, and before that biography of Muhammad.

Daniel Pipes explains in FrontPage this morning (thanks to Mike) why CAIR's settlement of its lawsuit against Anti-CAIR is such a major defeat for Hooper and Co. (many important news links in the original):

In a stunning setback, the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ defamation suit against Andrew Whitehead of Anti-CAIR has been dismissed with prejudice.

The Anti-CAIR website, www.anti-cair-net.org, reports a “mutually agreeable settlement,” the terms of which are confidential. However, Whitehead notes that he issued no public apology to CAIR, made no retractions or corrections, and left the Anti-CAIR website unchanged, so that it continues to post the statements that triggered CAIR’s suit. Specifically, CAIR had complained about Whitehead calling it a “terrorist supporting front organization … founded by Hamas supporters” that aims “to make radical Islam the dominant religion in the United States.” It also objected to being described as “dedicated to the overthrow of the United States Constitution and the installation of an Islamic theocracy in America.”

Sharia Alert from Iran Focus, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Tehran, Iran, Apr. 20 – An Iranian man was flogged in public in the city of Karaj, north-west of Tehran, for drinking alcohol, a state-run daily reported on Thursday.

The man, identified only as Afrasiab H., was flogged 74 times on Wednesday morning, the daily Javan wrote.

The sentence was carried out in a public in the district of Mohammad-Shahr.

Afrasiab was also charged with selling alcoholic beverages.

Have a glass of wine tonight and give thanks that you live in a free society. While it lasts.

Dhimmitude at Belmont University. "A Costly Muhammad Cartoon," from Inside Higher Ed, with thanks to Senora Silvermouse:

A Belmont University administrator is out of a job after Nashville’s alternative newspaper drew attention to a mocking cartoon he drew of the Muslim prophet Muhammad. The Baptist university in turn has been criticized by some for having an official who would mock another faith and for allegedly forcing out someone for expressing a commitment to free expression.

Bill Hobbs is a conservative blogger and political commentator based in Nashville and until Monday, he was a public relations official at Belmont. Hobbs announced his resignation just days after The Nashville Scene published an article detailing a satirical cartoon contest he started (and abandoned) amid the furor over the Danish cartoons mocking Muhammad.

In his contest, since removed by Hobbs, but reproduced in the Scene article, a stick figure of Muhammad appears with a bomb and the caption “Muhammad Blows.” Readers were invited to “exercise your right to free expression by drawing pictures of Islam’s ‘Prophet Muhammad’ before the West gives in to Islamist intimidation and fear of Islamist violence and makes it illegal to do so.”

The contest by Hobbs never took off, and the Tennessee blogging world is full of suggestions that the cartoons were publicized last week as part of various political machinations in the state having nothing to do with Belmont University. But Hobbs was repeatedly identified as an official of Belmont (at least until Monday). To date, several American colleges — among them Century College of Minnesota, New York University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign — have found themselves caught up in controversies over the Danish cartoons and how to respond to them, but no one besides Hobbs has lost a job.

Hobbs announced his resignation from Belmont in a posting on another blog in which he said that his departure was a “mutual” decision and praised the university. But many commenters there and elsewhere criticized the university for not sticking up for Hobbs. His departure from Belmont is being called McCarthyite, “a travesty of justice,” and evidence that “the barbarians are truly at the gate.” (Few of the comments have noted that Hobbs worked in public relations at Belmont.)

Read it all.

More from the courageous Peter Akinola from Christianity Today, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Peter Akinola, Anglican archbishop and president of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) issued some controversial warnings during February's deadly violence between Christians and Muslims. A couple weeks after the clashes he explained his concerns for the church and his nation to CT associate editor Collin Hansen.

What is the greatest challenge for the church in Nigeria?

How are we going to convince our Muslim neighbors and our governments that Nigerian Christians have no other place to call their country but this country? Since 1988, people have been maimed and brutally murdered, their hard-earned money and property destroyed by hooligans, by murderers, all on account of religion. And no one has been brought to justice that we know of. Usually arrests are made, but before you know what is happening they are released, so it's like they're doing this with impunity. So our challenge, therefore, is how we're going to get everybody in this country to know that Nigeria belongs to all of us.

I have been in touch with my Muslim counterpart this whole time, and we are hoping that we can meet soon, so we can work together and see how we can get our followers to understand.

What do you hope to hear from your Muslim counterpart?

Muslims cannot claim that Nigeria is theirs. Now Christians are doing the same. All of us agree that we have to learn to live together. From my point of view, the unity of this country is a done deal. They can't begin to talk of dividing along religious lines. They can't do that, because everywhere you go there are Muslims; everywhere you go there are Christians. But in some parts there are more Christians, in other parts there are more Muslims. But you cannot say "southern Christian" or "northern Muslim." In the north there are seven or eight states where Christians are the majority. So you can't say a northern region is a Muslim area.

There must be integration of the two. That is what we have to work at. And I'm sure the sultan of Sokoto, who is the head of the Muslims in Nigeria, is also very anxious that we can work along those lines. I'm very hopeful.

In February some Muslims rioted in the north about the Danish cartoons of Muhammad and killed some Christians. You responded that Christian efforts to peacefully coexist have been misunderstood by the Muslims as weakness.

That's right. I said that because if they knew that we are willing to retaliate or to fight, if we had been doing things their way, Nigeria would have ceased to exist. If, for instance, the Christians are mobilized to destroy Muslims who live among them, we are a majority. What would happen to Nigeria? It would not exist anymore. That's why I said they have misunderstood our peace approach as our weakness. If they knew that we are stronger in number than they are, would they do this to us? They wouldn't do it. But I believe that, God helping us, the message will get across after our meeting with their leaders in the next couple of weeks.

You also said that Muslims "do not have a monopoly on violence in this nation" and that CAN "may no longer be able to contain our restive youths should this ugly trend continue." The day after you released those statements, some Christians retaliated.

No. You are getting it wrong. You are not within our context. The entire Western press tried to demonize me on this matter. And you are wrong. But I only ask God to forgive the Western press for the way they tried to handle this matter. You do not understand what we are going through here. [The CAN] youth have never been satisfied with us, the elders. They say we are compromising with the government. They want to retaliate. And we have always been telling them, "You can't do that. You are Christians, you must not do things the way others do things." And so far we've been successful. But the question now is for how long will this be? These boys are becoming more and more restive and beginning to doubt our integrity.

So, I have to remind the nation, not Muslims, that no one has a monopoly on violence. But thank God, so far, we have been able to control our youths.

Now, the attacks were not a result of what I said. What happened was that the corpses of those [Christians] killed in [the northern city of] Maiduguri were brought down to [the southern city of] Onitsha in trucks. As they were unloading them, the youth saw what was happening. They were simply mad. It wasn't what I said at all. I've said this many, many times in the past. But I usually do that to put the Muslims in check—to put the murderous ones among them in check. That is the purpose of that statement.

Read it all.

Well, all right. She didn't know. Likewise how many young Muslims in Britain today don't know that they shouldn't be waging jihad in order to impose Sharia on Britain? From the TimesOnline, with thanks to Mazztr:

A BANGLADESHI woman who shook a baby boy so violently that he suffered brain damage walked free from court yesterday because a judge conceded that she did not know how to behave in the West.

Rahella Khanom, 24, caused the five-month-old boy in her care to suffer fractures to his breast bone and ribs as she tried to rid him of evil spirits, Southwark Crown Court was told.

The injuries inflicted on the child over several weeks had caused one side of his brain to shrink. It was believed that the boy would have been screaming in agony for eight weeks because his injuries went untreated.

Khanom, from Poplar, East London, said that she had wanted to purge the baby of evil spirits as it cried and cried. She was not found to be mentally ill.

The court was told that Khanom, a Muslim, did not understand that shaking a helpless baby would not exorcise an evil spirit.

Judge Rodney McKinnon told Khanom: “Normal and right-minded people will be horrified by this. Everybody must recognise how serious it is to treat children in this way and to use violence.” But the judge said that Khanom’s strong cultural and religious beliefs, and the fact that she had been forced by her husband to live in isolation since coming to Britain from Bangladesh, meant that there were exceptional circumstances in her case.

He said: “You are a young lady who came from Bangladesh. You lived there in a rural community, adopting the customs and ways of the people there so that getting to know the ways of living in the West and in this country were not easy.

“I accept you were kept really quite isolated from our society by your community and it would seem to a large extent by your husband as well. Under these circumstances I do not feel it is in the public interest to pass an immediate custodial sentence.”