August 2006 Archives

Thai Jihad Update from AFP:

YALA, Thailand (AFP) - A wave of small bombs have exploded almost simultaneously at 22 banks in Thailand's Muslim-majority south, leaving one person dead and at least 29 injured.

Militants, many of them dressed as students, left the bombs hidden inside books at commercial banks across the province of Yala, the regional army commander, Lieutenant General Ong-korn Thongprasom told Thai television on Thursday.

"Two suspects were arrested in connection with the bomb attacks. Mostly the militants used young men dressed in student uniforms to plant small bombs which were hidden inside books," he said on Thursday.

Nopporn Thammasart, branch manager of the Bank of Ayudhya in Yala, said his staff received a telephone call warning of a bomb just minutes before the blast injured two of his customers.

"I had no time to inform the police, because within two minutes of the phone call, the bomb exploded," he said.

The blasts shattered windows but caused relatively little damage at the banks. Most of the banks in the region closed immediately, and the Bank of Thailand said most would remain closed Friday to make repairs.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said the government had sent intelligence reports to security officials in the region warning of an imminent attack.

"We learned about the attack in advance through our intelligence and we had warned local officials," he told reporters.

Thailand's top security official, deputy prime minister Chidchai Vanasathidya, said the separatists, who are mainly ethnic Malay, wanted the attacks Thursday to coincide with independence day in neighboring Malaysia.

"We warned security forces in the region that the militants may stage attacks today to mark the Malaysian national day," he told reporters.

The bombs exploded at 10 banks in Yala provincial town, and the rest in outlying areas of the province, police said.

Banks under the umbrella of the Bank of Thailand, including the Bank of Ayudhya mentioned above, charge interest -- considered usury, or riba -- which is forbidden under Sharia law.

[...]

Two Muslim men were shot dead in Yala during the night, police added.

Most of the attacks in the region along the southern border with Malaysia are small bombings or drive-by shootings.

But during the last three months, militants have shown themselves capable of conducting well-coordinated attacks that seemed designed to intimidate rather than kill, political analyst Panitan Wattanayagorn said.

"The bombs in the south are to make local people scared and feel that government cannot provide them security," Panitan said.

In the last wave of attacks on August 2, militants staged nearly 100 coordinated bomb and arson attacks that injured three people.

On June 15, they bombed 46 police, government and business targets, killing two people and wounding at least 21.

The three provinces along the Malaysian border were an ethnic Malay sultanate until Buddhist Thailand annexed them a century ago, and separatist unrest has simmered ever since.

More than 1,400 people have been killed in the mainly Muslim provinces since the latest violence erupted in January 2004.

Sudan Jihad Update from Reuters:

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council on Thursday voted to create a United Nations peacekeeping force in Sudan's Darfur region to avert a new humanitarian disaster, but the Khartoum government rejected the resolution as "illegal."

The vote to send the force to Darfur once Sudan has agreed to its deployment passed with 12 votes in favor, none against and abstentions from Russia, China and Qatar, the only Arab council member.

The United Nations wants to replace and absorb an African Union force in Darfur, which has only enough money to exist until its mandate expires on September 30. It has been unable to halt the humanitarian catastrophe in the west of the country.

The resolution calls for up to 22,500 U.N. troops and police officers and an immediate injection of air, engineering and communications support for the 7,000-member African force.

The measure, drafted by Britain and the United States, is designed to allow planning and recruitment of troops for an eventual handover as well as to put pressure on Khartoum.

It certainly would, as the jihadists have threatened to turn their weapons on the Sudanese government if it accepted a UN peacekeeping force (as well as the peacekeeping force itself), which might be marginally more effective in stopping the genocide in Darfur.

"It is imperative that we move immediately to implement it fully to stop the tragic events unfolding in Darfur," U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said. "Every day we delay only adds to the suffering of the Sudanese people and extends the genocide."

The Darfur conflict erupted in February 2003, when non-Arab rebels took up arms against the government. In response, the government mobilized Arab militias known as Janjaweed, who have been accused of murder, rape and looting.

Fighting, disease and hunger have killed some 200,000 people and driven some 2.5 million into squalid camps.

Rebel groups have splintered and are now also conducting atrocities. Bloodshed has only increased since the government signed a peace agreement with one rebel group in May and Sudan is planning to send some 10,500 troops into Darfur, which the West fears will lead to full-scale war.

US OPTIMISTIC OF SUDAN CONSENT

In Washington, the State Department's top official on Africa, Jendayi Frazer, who met Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir this week, said she believed he would eventually consent to the U.N. force.

But in Khartoum, Ali Tamin Fartak, a presidential adviser, told Reuters, "Our stand is very clear, that the Sudanese government has not been consulted and it is not appropriate to pass a resolution before they seek the permission of Sudan."

Another presidential adviser, Majzoub al-Khalifa, told Al Jazeera television that the resolution was "illegal."

[...]

Russia and China supported the force but said Sudan's consent was needed first. Qatar pointed to Sudan's plan to send troops to Darfur, which it called positive.

A senior State Department official, Kristen Silverberg, said it was "inexplicable" that Russia and China had abstained "in light of the very grave and serious and deteriorating security situation."

For starters, Khartoum is a good business partner for both: That includes arms sales, and of particular urgency for China, oil.

The resolution allows U.N. troops to use force to protect U.N. personnel and facilities and prevent attacks and threats against civilians.

Sunni-Shi'ite Jihad Update from AFP: "Sixty-one killed as Iraq prepares to take charge of military"

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Insurgents killed at least 61 Iraqis, including 14 in a car bomb attack on a popular Baghdad market, as the government prepared to take full command of its own military.

At least 43 were killed when a series of seven rocket and bomb attacks were launched almost simultaneously against Shiite and Christian districts of Baghdad shortly before the nightly curfew, security officials said.

A car bomb went off in the southern neighbourhood of Al-Amin, killing 14 people and wounding 38, including six women, a medic at Al-Kindi hospital said.

Sunni extremists often target markets to kill civilians who venture out to buy household goods before the dusk-to-dawn curfew begins.

Six more explosive devices, including rockets, detonated in three areas, of which two were in the Shiite bastion of Sadr City, the security official said. At least 29 people were killed in these attacks.

Earlier in the day, another 18 people were killed in a string of attacks, including nine in the restive Diyala province, as the war-torn country's latest round of bloodletting claimed more than 250 lives in five chaotic days.

A British diplomatic convoy was hit by a roadside bomb in Baghdad's upscale Mansur district but no one on board was hurt, embassy officials said.

Even as the brutal violence stretched hard-pressed security forces, Iraq prepared to activate a joint military headquarters to command Iraq's navy, air force and 10 army divisions, totaling 115,000 troops.

A statement from the defence ministry said military leaders would meet their US and coalition counterparts Saturday to announce an agreement "on the control of strategic and combat operations."

US military officials confirmed that the announcement would mark the creation of a joint headquarters.

Iraq's armed forces are currently coordinated by US headquarters under the command of General George Casey, the head of US-led coalition troops in Iraq, who said Wednesday it would be at least a year until US troops could leave.

Will officials be saying that next year, too?

It boggles the mind that a five-year estimate on Iran's nuclear capabilities could be viewed with any kind of relief, let alone that it could lead to a "general lack of urgency" for dealing with Iran's nuclear program. From the Washington Times:

The U.S. military is operating under the assumption that Iran is five to eight years away from being able to build its first nuclear weapon, a time span that explains a general lack of urgency within the Bush administration to use air strikes to disable Tehran's atomic program.

Defense sources familiar with discussions of senior military commanders say the five- to eight-year projection has been discussed inside the Pentagon, which is updating its war plan for Iran. The time frame is generally in line with last year's intelligence community estimate that Iran could have the capability to produce a nuclear weapon by the beginning or middle of the next decade.

But the sources said that while the five-year window provides President Bush additional time to decide on whether to launch military strikes, they suspect it underestimates Iran's determination to build a bomb as quickly as possible.

Iran faces a United Nations Security Council deadline today to stop enriching uranium or face economic sanctions.

Advocates of stopping Iran's nuclear ambitions point to gaps in what the U.S. intelligence community really knows about Iran's secretive process. They also point to the fact that Iraq was much closer to building the bomb than the U.S. thought in 1991, when Operation Desert Storm air strikes destroyed much of Baghdad's atomic capability.

Some of this impatience was revealed in a bipartisan report Aug. 23 from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The report, which dealt with Iran's support for terrorism and quest for weapons of mass destruction, chastised the U.S. intelligence community for not devoting sufficient resources to Tehran. It also indirectly criticized current intelligence reporting on Iran as too timid.

"An important dimension of the detection of Iran's WMD program is how intelligence analysts use intelligence to characterize these programs in their analysis," the report said. "Intelligence community managers and analysts must provide their best analytic judgments about Iranian WMD programs and not shy away from provocative conclusions or bury disagreements in consensus assessments."

Concerning intelligence resources for Iran, the report said, "The national security community must dedicate the personnel and resources necessary to better assess Iran's plans, capabilities and intentions, and the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) must identify, establish, and report on intelligence goals and performance metrics to measure progress on critical fronts."

Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, a prominent proponent in Washington of air strikes against Iran, said that whether the estimate is five years or 10 years, the time span instills complacency in war planning. He said that Mr. Bush is now following the State Department's diplomatic path, without a clear policy.

[...]

Gen. McInerney advocates using B-2 stealth bombers, cruise missiles and jet fighters to conduct a one- or two-day bombing campaign to take out Iran's air defenses, military facilities and about 40 nuclear targets, which includes a Russian-built reactor and an enrichment plant.

The Washington Times has previously reported that Israel has drafted plans for air strikes using long-range versions of the F-15 and F-16 fighters. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has often threatened to destroy Israel, which is within range of Iran's Shahab-3 ballistic missile.

The Times also reported that U.S. Central Command is updating a target list for Iran.

The House report said Iran owns the largest ballistic missile arsenal in the Middle East, and is also working on a missile re-entry vehicle that could carry a nuclear warhead.

While Hizballah's attempts to infuse itself with popular culture and entertainment, and to indoctrinate children are not new, materials discovered by the Israel Defense Forces show a lower-tech and more direct angle via the content of children's games. From YNet News: "Hizbullah presents: How to recruit children"

Do you know who is "the most senior Lebanese prisoner jailed in the Israeli enemy's prisons"? And where did the aircraft of "the Zionist enemy" assassinate Sheikh Abbas Mussawi (who served as the Hizbullah secretary-general before Hassan Nasrallah), his wife and his toddler son?

If you know the answers you have a good chance of winning the children's quiz written by Hizbullah members. However, this is not a simple quiz examining the general knowledge of the children and youth of Lebanon. Hizbullah is attempting to recruit them to the organization at an early age.

Material collected by Israel Defense Forces soldiers in southern Lebanon -- alongside the weapons, rockets and explosives -- reveals a complex and rare picture of Hizbullah's contents and activities among children and youth, mainly in southern Lebanon villages which are considered its stronghold.

A special document of the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies (CSS), which was distributed this week, sheds light on the issue. It appears that one of the organization's goals is to assimilate its values among the younger generation.

The document writers note that "the aid authority for the Islamic resistance" is part of a comprehensive infrastructure of Hizbullah institutions and bodies which hold diverse social activities among the Shiite community in Lebanon, focusing on the young generation.

These activities are not only performed "for a purely spiritual purpose," but are aimed at raising the popularity of the organization among the Shiite population and assimilate the its radical Islamic-Shiite ideology, similar to Hamas' Daawa activity in the territories.

Quiz stars: From Playstation to Samir Kuntar

A special kit for children was found at the village of Aita al-Shaab. It includes an award-bearing quiz titled "the 2006 competition of victory youngsters," alongside a possibility of donating money to Hizbullah.

The kit was produced by the "aid authority for the Islamic resistance." Alongside the questions presented to the infants in southern Lebanon, there are also quizzes presented as a multiple-choice test. Alongside answers to questions like "the Risk game, Playstation or Atari," one can find answers like "Nissim Nasser, Samir Kuntar or Yahya Sahef" (the three prisoners which Hizbullah wants to see released).

Read it all.

A case that gives new meaning to "guns and butter." From AFP: "US targets Hezbollah fundraising arm"

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US government blacklisted a fundraising arm of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah which it said makes no pretence of hiding the deadly aim of its activities.

The Treasury froze any US assets held by the Islamic Resistance Support Organization (IRSO), and banned any transactions with the outfit by US citizens.

The department released fundraising literature from the group that gave donors the choice to direct their funds to buy rockets and bullets, or to aid children and build homes.

"While some terrorist-supporting charities try to obscure their support for violence, IRSO makes no attempt to hide its true colors," said Stuart Levey, the Treasury's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.

"IRSO's fundraising materials present donors with the option of sending funds to equip Hezbollah fighters or to purchase rockets that Hezbollah uses to target civilian populations," he said.

"IRSO works to inflict suffering rather than alleviate it."

The Treasury said the fundraising group operates out of Beirut and is also known as the Islamic Resistance Support Association or Hayat al-Dam Lil-Muqawama al-Islamiya.

Eurabia Alert from AFP:

ZURICH -- Swiss prosecutors have charged a Pakistani man over the "honor killing" of his wife, according to legal documents published Wednesday [August 23].

Ajmal Butt Aziz, 24, is accused of murdering his 20-year-old wife Khudeja because she refused to follow Islamic tradition and wear a headscarf, according to the charge sheet published by the Corriere del Ticino newspaper.

Aziz's spouse died in July 2005 after he allegedly bludgeoned her to death with a hammer as she slept at the couple's home in Bellinzona, in Switzerland's southern canton of Ticino.

Born in Pakistan, Khudeja Aziz was brought up in Switzerland and was a citizen of the Alpine country.

Aziz claimed that he acted in self-defense after being attacked by his wife.

Prosecutors, however, alleged that he acted because he was opposed to his wife's Western lifestyle and her wish to find a job, and also that she was seeking a divorce.

No date has yet been set for Aziz's trial.

Ceasefire Update from YNet News: "Hizbullah: We're arming for second round"

Hizbullah representative in Iran Muhammad Abdullah Sif al-Din, said Wednesday that Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah has a new strategic plan to rearm ahead of the "next round against Israel."

In an interview with the Iranian news agency Fars, al-Din said: "No one can promise us that Israel won't attack again. Whoever lives as a neighbor to the Zionist regime is in danger and must not save any effort to obtain all of the means to defend himself. We are convinced that there [is] still danger and the situation has not yet been solved. We must, all the time, prepare ourselves for self-defense and to plan for the next stage."

'Situation is good'

During an interview, al-Din was asked about Hizbullah's military situation after the war.

"Our situation is very good, the Israelis didn't manage to strike Hizbullah's military command and our ability to launch missiles. In the first days we launched 100 missiles and in recent days we fired 350 missiles a day. So we have no problem from a military perspective," he replied.

Unlike Nasrallah, the Hizbullah representative in Iran expressed no regret for kidnapping soldier, the operation which caused the outbreak of the war. "In retrospect, if Israel would have attacked again and we had to defend ourselves, we could have done it again and with great vigor," he said.

Regarding UN Resolutions 1559 and 1701, calling for, among others, the disarmament of Hizbullah, Sif Al-Din said that his organization had no intention of disarming, as the issue was an internal Lebanese one.

"From the perspective of the parliament and government in Lebanon, Hizbullah is not a military militia, but a resistance force. Therefore, the clause in resolution 1559 (calling on the disarmament of armed militias) can't include Hizbullah. The Lebanese agreed among themselves that Hizbullah's disbanding is an internal issue and should be solved among one another," he said.

Fine. Then Lebanon is a state sponsor of terrorism, and should be treated as such, like Iran and Syria, most immediately in terms of halting "reconstruction" aid, and continuing Israel's blockade of Lebanon (in spite of Kofi Annan's complaints) with Western assistance.

He added that pressure from the West on Hizbullah would not be effective.

... as long as Lebanon chooses not to act against Hizballah.

[...]

Despite his remarks on the arming of Hizbullah for a second round with Israel, al-Din said that he was not interested in war.

But the saber-rattling sure is fun.

"We are not interested in war, because we have families. We want to live. But so long as there is a danger called the Zionist regime we'll continue to protect ourselves. The current way is best way to remove the danger from the direction of the Zionist regime," he added.

Addressing the deployment of the Lebanese army in south Lebanon, al-Din said that his organization had no opposition to the move so long as it would not be asked to disarm. He added that there was no possibility that Hizbullah would join the Lebanese army.

"One of the reasons we didn't agree in advance to the deployment of the army in south Lebanon is that we are worried for the army, because it doesn't have the capability of dealing with Israel. If the Lebanese agree that the army deploys in the south, we have no problem. But the entrance of the army to this area is dangerous for it and we are worried from this perspective," he said.

The article calls it "an event that would turn a page in American history," but it's really just proof once again that former President Dhimmi Carter learned nothing from the crisis with Iran that occurred during his administration. The Carter Center in Atlanta is making preparations for the possible visit by Khatami, doubtlessly considered another "fellow man of faith," as Carter once referred to Ayatollah Khomeini.

From the Washington Post: "Carter Agrees to Hold Talks With Khatami"

For an event that would turn a page in American history, former president Jimmy Carter has agreed in principle to host former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami for talks during his visit to the United States starting this week.

Carter's term as president was dominated by the rupture in relations after the 1979 Iranian revolution and the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, where 52 Americans were held for 444 days until the day he left office.

Iranians made the overture for the meeting, and the Carter Center in Atlanta is working on the possible timing, said Phil Wise, the former president's aide.

"President Carter, in his role since leaving the White House, has made his office and services and center available to basically anybody who wants to talk. He believes that it is much better to be talking to people who you have problems with than not to, and that's the approach he takes now," Wise said. "I can confirm that President Carter is open to a meeting if the former president of Iran would like to have one."

Despite mounting tensions between Washington and Tehran over the latter's nuclear program, the Bush administration issued a visa for Khatami yesterday, as well as for about a dozen family and staff members, for a visit lasting about two weeks, the State Department confirmed. Khatami is expected to arrive in the United States tomorrow.

Khatami, a reformer who served as president from 1997 to 2005, is scheduled to speak at the Washington National Cathedral on Sept. 7. His schedule may include speeches at the University of Virginia and to an Islamic group in Chicago. He may also pay a private visit to Thomas Jefferson's home at Monticello, according to sources familiar with his trip. He will begin his visit in New York at a U.N. conference on the dialogue of civilizations.

The White House said yesterday that Khatami had been invited by private organizations and is not part of the current Iranian government.

[...]

"Carter, who has every reason to be angry about the way in which the Iranian revolution undid his presidency over the hostage affair, is willing to meet, with no hesitation, a person who was president of the Islamic republic and who has never disavowed Ayatollah Khomeini's actions when he was supreme leader," said William Quandt, a national security staffer in charge of the Middle East during the Carter administration.

Another Iranian "answer" to the UN Security Council's proposed incentives package ahead of tomorrow's deadline. From the Washington Post:

Iranian nuclear specialists have begun enriching a new batch of uranium in an apparent act of defiance just days ahead of a U.N. Security Council deadline for Tehran to stop such work or face the prospect of economic sanctions, officials in Washington and European capitals who have been monitoring Iran's efforts said yesterday.

Inspectors with the International Atomic Energy Agency plan to formally disclose the new enrichment work, as well as additional Iranian nuclear advances, in a report due out tomorrow, according to the officials, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The officials stressed that the Iranians are working at a slow pace with small quantities of uranium, and that they are enriching the material to an extremely low level that could not be used for nuclear weapons. Still, it is unlikely that the Iranians will stop the work in time to meet the Security Council's deadline.

For three years, Iran and the United States have publicly sparred over a nuclear program that Tehran says it built to produce energy but which the Bush administration believes is a cover for nuclear weapons work. IAEA inspectors have been trying, without success, to determine the true nature of the program, which Iran kept secret for 18 years.

[...]

Despite comments over the weekend from senior Russian officials that it is too early for sanctions, Burns said the administration would press for the commitments that it believes Moscow and others made when they passed the deadline resolution in July.

[...]

Privately, two senior administration officials said that if Russia or China balked at sanctions now, the United States would push a backup plan to restrict Iran's nuclear industry, freeze the assets of key members of the Tehran government, and prevent them from traveling abroad. The measures would be imposed collectively by the European Union and possibly Japan. Some hoped that the IAEA report would encourage nations to work harder on the Iran issue.

"A tough report puts the focus back on Iran, which has broken rules and has failed to cooperate, and takes it away from this perception that the U.S. is just bullying Iran," said George Perkovich, vice president at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "An IAEA report that calls it like it is makes it hard for countries to walk away from the issue because it will be clear that it isn't getting better."

Several times since international pressure began to build against Iran's nuclear program in 2003, Tehran has rushed to complete small projects immediately ahead of deadlines, calculating that technical achievements would give it a tactical advantage during negotiations.

Officials familiar with the inspectors' summer findings said they will report that Iran has produced several kilograms of low-enriched uranium and as much as 145 tons of converted uranium in the past year. Iran's two main nuclear facilities, the IAEA's most heavily monitored in the world, are outfitted with dozens of cameras pointed at every piece of equipment and barrel that contains uranium.

Inspectors continue to visit certain sites as well, but Iran ended voluntary cooperation with the agency several months ago and has threatened to end it entirely if the Security Council imposes sanctions.

Much of what is known by U.S. intelligence about Iran's nuclear program comes from the inspectors. Current intelligence assessments predict that Iran could have a nuclear weapon within a decade if it vastly improves its capabilities.

Well, why not? I suppose even Goebbels would have no trouble getting a visa these days. "US grants visa to Iran's former leader," from Reuters, with thanks to Senator:

The United States has issued a visa to Mohammad Khatami, the former Iranian president, to visit next week.

Tom Casey, the US state department spokesman, said on Tuesday that the visa allowed Khatami to make a private visit that would include giving a speech at Washington's National Cathedral next week and attending a UN conference in New York on September 5 and 6.

The Shia Muslim cleric would be the most high-profile Iranian to visit the US since Washington cut diplomatic ties with Tehran in 1979 when 52 Americans were held hostage at the US embassy there after the Islamic revolution.

"The visa for former president Khatami was issued approximately an hour ago and that is in keeping with the functions that he had outlined," Casey told reporters....

"This is an opportunity in part for former president Khatami to hear the concerns of the American people," Casey said. "He is going to get some tough questions."

Yeah, surrrrre.

In FrontPage this morning I discuss some elements of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad's example that blur the distinction between forced and uncoerced conversions to Islam (news links in the original):

The most bizarre element of the two weeks of captivity suffered by Fox News reporter Steve Centanni and photographer Olaf Wiig at the hands of Gaza’s Holy Jihad Brigade was the video that surfaced depicting their conversion to Islam. Even before the journalists revealed that their conversions had been coerced, there were disturbing indications that they were not acting freely. While reading a statement he himself had ostensibly written, Centanni stumbled over words, appeared to puzzle over the handwriting, and seemed to grimace after pronouncing the words “peace be upon him” after the name of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

Their messages as new converts to Islam were predictable denunciations of the United States and Israel, combined with emphasis on Islam’s universal call as the solution to the world’s problems. But most jarring was the video editor’s invocation of the favorite Qur’an verse of Western analysts of Islam and terrorism, “There is no compulsion in religion” (2:256). The irony of featuring this verse in a video depicting two forced conversions has been widely noted. In fact, however, the juxtaposition of this verse with the video of Centanni and Wiig was probably not simply transparent deception, as strange as that may seem, and has far-reaching implications.

Well, anyone can see how that would make you want to kill random pedestrians out in front of the Jewish Community Center.

There is nothing in this story about how he identified himself as a terrorist. Looks as if that one has already dropped down the memory hole. And of course, I am sure he really is a mental patient suffering from stress. But this case joins the long, long line of other cases in which questionable aspects that suggest some other motive seem somehow to disappear without a trace or an explanation.

"THE SUSPECT: Recently began arranged marriage," from the San Francisco Chronicle, with thanks to Teri:

Omeed Aziz Popal, now in custody for a fatal hit and run rampage that apparently began in Fremont and ended in San Francisco, has a history of mental problems and lives in fear of the devil, some family members say. Other family members say he may have been anxious because of his recent marriage arranged by his family.

But those involved in the investigation -- speaking on condition of anonymity -- discount any mental illness, saying Popal seemed coherent, unrepentant and claimed that he repeatedly drove at pedestrians because he "just wanted to.''

A month ago, the 29-year-old Fremont resident and one-time auto worker returned home after getting married in his native Afghanistan, his family said. There was a wedding celebration two weeks ago, and Popal seemed to have everything to live for, some family members said. The family said Popal's father had arranged the marriage.

"He was so happy and excited about being married -- I can't believe this happened today,'' said Homa Aziz, a cousin who lives in Hayward. "Omeed is not that kind of boy. I don't know what is wrong with him. He is the nicest boy.''

She said that Popal, who was studying auto mechanics at WyoTech, formerly known as the Sequoia Institute, intended to bring his wife from Afghanistan to settle in the area. "He just talked about his wife.''

Hamid Nekrawesh, another cousin, said Popal's arranged marriage could have been stressful.

"Arranged marriage is a very common practice -- people don't kill people over that,'' Nekrawesh said. "But that was the only thing new in his life.''

Popal was "a very loving, caring person,'' he said. "I can never see him doing such an act.''

He said that he joked with Popal before he went to Kabul about him becoming a man. "I didn't see anything out of the ordinary,'' Nekrawesh said. "After he came back, he went to the celebration gathering at his house -- he was happy.''

But another cousin, Zarghona Ramish, said Popal was having mental problems. Popal "thought the devil was coming to get him" and dreamed about bad things, Ramish said.

Abu Bakar Bashir weighs in on a variety of subjects, and expresses a desire to preach in Australia -- "to save people." In this brief, but wide-ranging interview, he very clearly spells out the nature of the Sharia law he wants to impose on the rest of the world. From the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:

MARK COLVIN: When John Howard recently met Indonesia's President Yudhoyono, he specifically requested that Indonesia apply tight controls to the spiritual leader of the terrorist organisation Jemaah Islamiah, Abu Bakar Bashir.

He told the President that UN Security Council Resolution 1267, covering terrorists connected to al-Qaeda among others, obliged Indonesia to place Bashir under surveillance, freeze his assets and prevent him from travelling overseas.

But now in an exclusive interview, Abu Bakar Bashir has revealed that he's free to travel wherever he likes. In fact, he says he wants to travel to Australia to promote his harsh vision of a perfect world governed by Taliban-style Sharia law.

Abu Bakar Bashir spoke to our Indonesia Correspondent Geoff Thompson.

GEOFF THOMPSON: Abu Bakar Bashir, now that you're a free man, what are your plans? Will you be pushing for Sharia law just in Indonesia or also perhaps some day in Australia?

ABU BAKAR BASHIR (translated): As a Muslim, I'm obliged to bring Islamic Sharia into practice and to advise other Muslims to also bring the Islamic Sharia into practice. In Indonesia I'm also trying to make the Sharia become the official law of the country, as the majority of Indonesian people are Islamic people.

That would be fair, but in Australia, it's not, because Islam is in minority. But I would suggest in Australia that Muslims should practice Sharia as much as they can, because it's an obligation.

GEOFF THOMPSON: And what about the question of wanting to travel to Australia to preach? It seems unlikely you'll be allowed to do so.

ABU BAKAR BASHIR (translated): Well, I have no problem with it. My only objective, my only aim is to help mankind save itself by preaching Islam. God willing, if the situation changes it will still be possible to go there. But if I can't go there that's not a problem. It's not a problem. At least I tried. My aim is to preach, to save people, that's all. With Islam.

GEOFF THOMPSON: And what about travelling overseas?

ABU BAKAR BASHIR (translated): Well, that one is not limited.

The Indonesian Government is not putting any limit on it, but of course I'm aware of how much John Howard's Government wants to limit me. The Australian Government's side keeps after me. So there is no limit on me travelling overseas, I'm allowed to travel anywhere I want to.

But for instance, it would be impossible to go to Australia, because if I go there, I may get arrested and slandered by the Australian Government. They still consider me their enemy without giving clear reasons.

GEOFF THOMPSON: In an Indonesia governed by Sharia law, what would be the punishments for stealing, adultery, and homosexuality?

ABU BAKAR BASHIR (translated): For instance, for stealing, their hands should be cut off, whether or not the thief is a Muslim. This is the criminal law. It has nothing to do with worship, but to maintain security.

But there are conditions, so not all thieves will have their hands cut off. If he was only stealing because he was hungry, it is said in Islam that this person should not be punished.

A bit of tu quoque, with the slight problem that the Old Testament prescriptions regarding stoning haven't been carried out in quite some time:

Regarding homosexuals and adulterers, they should be punished according to Sharia. Jewish and Christian people, I think, they will also punish adulterers by stoning them. This rule comes from the Old Testaments. The Koran also adopts it from the Old Testaments. So, Koran also adopts what's written in the Old Testament and the Bible, such as stoning.

If the person is not married, then the punishment will be to cane him 100 times. If the person is married, then the punishment will be stoning.

GEOFF THOMPSON: Under Sharia law, in some circumstances, would husbands be entitled to beat their wives?

ABU BAKAR BASHIR (translated): In Islam it is allowed for a husband to beat his wife, if the wife has already been corrected. So there are some steps.

First, he should remind and advise his wife. If she still disobeys, then he should leave here, not asking her to sleep together. If she still behaves badly, then he can beat her. But not on her face, not to injure her physically.

GEOFF THOMPSON: Abu Bakar Bashir, under Sharia law, how would you punish someone who criticised Islam or the Prophet?

ABU BAKAR BASHIR (translated): To the people who insult the Prophet, they should be first corrected. If the person is a Muslim, he or she should be given advice, so that they'll ask forgiveness. Otherwise he will be considered an apostate, and in Islam he should be sentenced to death if he doesn't ask forgiveness and insults the Prophet.

But if the one who insults the Prophet is an infidel, then first we should find out whether the insult was based on ignorance, or he is doing it intentionally. If it was only because of his ignorance, then we should teach him. But if he is doing it intentionally, then we'll have to fight with him, maybe even kill him.

MARK COLVIN: The spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiah, Abu Bakar Bashir, speaking to our Indonesia Correspondent Geoff Thompson.

Sudan Jihad Update from the Hizballah News Agency, aka Reuters: "Sudanese Islamists threaten to fight U.N. Darfur force"

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudanese Islamist leaders say they will take up arms against United Nations peacekeepers if they deploy to Darfur, and some have warned they will also fight the Khartoum government if it agrees to the force.

The threats conjure up a disturbing image of more bloodshed in the western Darfur region, where tens of thousands of people have been killed in more than three years of conflict, described as "genocide" by the United States.

Despite Sudan's objections, the United States and Britain have introduced a Security Council resolution that would deploy up to 17,000 troops and 3,000 police in Darfur, where an overstretched African Union force is monitoring a shaky truce.

Leaders of al Qaeda have called on Muslims to fight any U.N. force in Darfur and while the diplomatic wrangling continues, Khartoum's many Islamic groups have delivered a clear message.

"We categorically refuse U.N. troops in Darfur," said Abdel Wahhab Mohamed Ali Ahmed, head of the Sudanese higher council for the coordination of Islamic groups, formed last year.

"And if they come we will fight them until they leave."

The council is composed of representatives from Sudan's main Islamist movements, including Ansar al-Sunna and the Hizb ut-Tahrir group, outlawed in neighboring Egypt.

The U.N. force would take over from the 7,000 AU troops already in Darfur, who are short of cash and capabilities.

Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has said he will personally lead the resistance to a U.N. force, comparing it to a western invasion to colonize Sudan.

This position has brought him closer to Islamist leaders, who in the past have differed with Bashir over how sharia, or Islamic law, is implemented in Sudan.

About 70 percent of Sudan's 36 million people are Muslim. One of the catalysts for a separate two decade-long civil war between the mostly Christian and animist south and the Islamist government in Khartoum was the imposition of sharia in 1983.

"The colonialists have united all the Muslim groups in Sudan ... and we support the government in this position," said Ahmed Malik, another member of the higher council.

[...]

Critics of Bashir's government say it fears U.N. troops may be used to arrest officials likely to be indicted by the International Criminal Court investigating alleged war crimes.

They point to the fact that under a January 2005 deal to end the separate north-south conflict Khartoum invited more than 10,000 U.N. troops to deploy in the country.

Islamist leaders say they oppose even those troops, calling the United Nations a front for U.S. imperialism. "We are an equal member of the African Union but in the United Nations one country, the United States, continuously uses its veto to force the world to follow its agenda," said Ahmed.

University professor and respected Islamist preacher Sadiq al-Hajj Abu Dafirah said any U.N. troops had to be given the choice to convert to Islam or leave the country.

Anti-dhimmitude from the British High Commission, as it steps in to protect British citizens' right to self-determination. From AP:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Her father said it would be a two-week holiday to learn about her Pakistani heritage. But the British woman soon found herself captive in a remote tribal village for over a year and promised in marriage to a first cousin she'd never met.

With the British High Commission's help this month, the woman escaped Pakistan shortly before her planned wedding, avoiding the phenomenon of forced marriage that befalls scores of foreign women, including Americans, annually in this deeply conservative Islamic country.

"My dad made me believe it was just a holiday," said the 20-year-old woman, who declined to reveal her actual name and asked to go by Shazia for her own protection. "But the weeks turned into months and months. I never believed my own father would have a plan to marry me to someone I didn't know, but I was wrong."

More than 100 British nationals of Pakistani descent -- 20 percent of them males as young as 14 -- have been rescued in each of the past two years after being forced into marriages here. Americans with links to Pakistan are also made to marry against their will but in fewer numbers, the U.S. Embassy said.

But this could be just the tip of the iceberg, officials say, as many women forced to marry live in isolated communities or at the mercy of authoritarian families.

Reasons abound for foreigners being forced to wed here. Britain is home to more than 800,000 Britons of Pakistani descent. Many of the first Pakistani migrants to Britain came from rural, conservative backgrounds and oppose letting their children -- particularly daughters -- marry into the more liberal British society.

"It is unacceptable for such fathers living in Britain to allow their daughters to grow up in an emancipated society with more freedom where they could possibly meet men," Sumaira Malik, Pakistani minister for women's affairs, said Monday. "So they force their girls to come back here and marry boys from their village."

[...]

Rape features prominently in forced marriages of foreigners, said Helen Feather, head of consular affairs at the British High Commission. Women forced to wed against their will are often raped so they become pregnant, produce children and, in turn, cement themselves in an unwanted family union. Obtaining British nationality is also sought after by the husband in a bid to improve his economic situation.

In Shazia's case, she was accompanied to Pakistan last year by her father, who was born in Pakistan but migrated with his parents to Britain as a child. After a short time here, her father returned to Britain but ordered Shazia to remain with his family here, despite her protests. "I didn't know what was going on. He never told me anything. But he told all his relatives that the plan was for me to marry some guy in the village," Shazia said during an interview at the British High Commission in Islamabad.

Then for more than a year, Shazia was made to live as a rural Pakistani villager in the North West Frontier Province -- wearing local clothes, cooking food, cleaning the house, fetching water from a nearby well and milking cows.

But all the while, she said she was treated as an outsider by suspicious relatives who were accomplices to the plan to marry her off to a cousin in the same village so he could eventually gain British citizenship.

"They didn't care at all about me, they just cared about that little red (U.K.) passport," she said. "My year here was horrible. I didn't like the food, the way they dressed. I rarely left the house and whenever I did, I was always followed by 20 relatives in case I tried to make a run for it."

About a year later, Shazia's 18-year-old sister was also forced to travel to Pakistan to join elder sibling, believing it would be a short trip. But she too was being groomed for a village marriage.

"I arrived with only British clothes. I don't even own any Asian clothes," said the sister, who also declined to identify herself.

But she was prepared in other ways. She had heard that British authorities had a dedicated team in Pakistan to help British nationals forced to marry here. Once in Pakistan, she got word to British High Commission officials of her and her sister's whereabouts.

At an arranged time, a team of British officials, backed by local police, drove to the house where the sisters were kept and ordered an uncle to give back their passports before driving them away to safety.

They have since returned to Britain and vowed to not contact their father. British authorities are assisting them with initial housing and a loan.

Khalida Salimi, director of the Pakistani anti-domestic violence NGO Struggle for Change, said her workers have retrieved numerous foreigners, including young boys chained in village homes, who had been married against their will.

"It will take some time to make people understand that parents can't treat their children as commodities," Salimi said. "But in Pakistan, women and children are generally considered as possessions, not people."

And given the UN's track record on halting Iran's nuclear program so far, why should he think otherwise, even as the August 31 deadline arrives tomorrow?

From AFP:

TEHERAN, Iran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday said it was ‘unlikely’ the UN Security Council would act against Iran over its nuclear programme.

‘We have said everything in our response. I think the time to use the instrument of the Security Council has expired,’ he told reporters, referring to an Iranian answer to a Western package of incentives over its nuclear programme.

‘I see it as unlikely that they want to use it (the Security Council). Using nuclear energy is Iran’s right and we want to use it according to international law.’

The UN Security Council has given Iran an August 31 deadline to suspend all uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities. Iran has insisted it has no intention of abandoning such work.

‘I think that the opportunity that Iran has given Europeans is extremely exceptional for fairly resolving all issues. Of course, that is if they are interested in justice and I hope they will be,’ said Ahmadinejad.

Omeed Aziz Popal has, like Muhammad Reza Taheri-azar several months ago, driven his SUV into people, clearly trying intentionally to hurt or kill them. Like Taheri-azar, he seemed completely calm and at peace with himself after the incident.

After mowing down as many people as he could, Popal was boxed in by police and arrested. According to this video, he then identified himself as a terrorist (this bit comes right at the end of the report). Police, however, have already ruled out the possibility that these were acts of terrorism -- again, as they did in the case of Taheri-azar.

Here are more incidents of authorities engaging in dubious denials of terrorism.

Was this yet another case of what Daniel Pipes has termed "sudden jihad syndrome"? Perhaps it was, perhaps it wasn't. But clearly an act of random violence by someone who declares himself a terrorist is terrorism even if he lacks a laminated Al-Qaeda ID.

"1 dead, several injured in San Francisco hit-and-run rampage," from CBC News:

One person has been killed and at least 14 injured in the San Francisco area on Tuesday after a driver targeted pedestrians on crosswalks and sidewalks, police allege.

The victims were taken to three hospitals. One was in critical condition.

"These are the things, these are so senseless. They're utterly inexplicable. They're impossible to rationalize," Mayor Gavin Newsom said.

The spree began around noon in the Fremont district, where a 55-year-old man walking on the side of the road was struck. He was thrown into a field and pronounced dead at the scene, said Sgt. Chris Mazzone of the Fremont police.

Witnesses said the driver did not slow down.

The driver then crossed the bay into San Francisco, where at least four separate incidents occurred over a 20-minute span.

"It was like Death Race 2000, "firefighter Danny Bright told the Chronicle. "Guys were walking down the sidewalk and the guy just came up and ran them over. The guy went crazy.''

Police were eventually able to box in a black Honda Pilot in the city's Richmond district.

The arrested man was identified as Omeed Aziz Popal.

More details here: "Up to 14 hurt in SF hit-and-run spree: 7 critical; driver believed to have struck, killed a man in Fremont earlier," from the San Francisco Chronicle.

Misunderstanders of Islam publish a guidebook to the jihad ideology, heavy on quotes from Qur'an and Sunnah. The world has yet to see a coherent case built from the Qur'an and Sunnah for the peaceful coexistence of Muslims with non-Muslims as equals on an indefinite basis. "Analysis: Hezbollah`s indoctrination," from UPI, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

TEL AVIV, Israel (UPI) -- Israeli soldiers who searched Hezbollah homes and bunkers in the south Lebanese village of Maroun el-Ras found a booklet that provided a glimpse into that movement`s religious indoctrination.

It extolled holy war and martyrdom and provided examples from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards` experience.

Soldiers found four copies of that booklet in Maroun el-Ras that has seen some heavy fighting with Hezbollah.

Israeli intelligence experts reckoned that since several copies were found in Hezbollah`s front lines, the 60-page booklet must be an authorized Islamic guidance manual.

It is written like a Muslim-Shiite ideological treatise with quotes from the Koran and Shiite traditions. It presents the Jihad, or Holy War, as a way in which a Muslim may sacrifice his life for Allah and reach heaven. The Shahada, or martyrdom on the battlefield, is a prize for a Muslim warrior, the document says.

There are several gates to Heaven and the most prestigious of all is the one for those involved in a Jihad. That is why every Muslim should strive to take part in a holy war. Victory in a Jihad, or martyrdom, are tops.

Israel`s Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, which the intelligence community uses to release declassified materials, analyzed Hezbollah`s booklet. Its deputy director, Yoram Kahati, noted that Hezbollah considers its fighters as being not only Lebanese but, 'Mainly Muslim-Shiite Jihad fighters who fulfill a most important religious commitment.' That sense increases their motivation to fight Israel, he maintained.

No Arab state has made Jihad its strategy, Kahati noted. Only radical Sunni-Muslims, such as al-Qaida, give Jihad that much importance. However Iran, which is Muslim-Shiite, has been trying to export its ideas to the Shiites in Lebanon and set an example to the other, Muslim-Sunni world, Kahati wrote.

None has made "Jihad its strategy," but many have not hesitated to aid that jihad, and to try to exploit it for their own purposes.

In "Reciting the Shehada in Gaza" in FrontPage, Andrew G. Bostom shows how the Centanni/Wiig forced conversions were not all that out of the ordinary in the Islamic world. I will have more on this in my forthcoming article. (News links in the original.)

Fox News journalists Steve Centanni and his accompanying cameraman Olaf Wiig were released on Sunday, August 27, 2006, following almost two weeks of captivity. While both men appeared to be in good physical health, the prognosis for their psychological state, and future journalistic contributions, is less sanguine. As depicted in this disturbing video, Centanni and Wiig were forced to convert to Islam, and recite an anti-Western diatribe, complemented by treacly Islamic apologetics.

During the brief press conference held almost immediately after their release, both men preferred to focus on the plight of the kind and benevolent denizens of Gaza. Momentarily acknowledging the coercive nature of their “conversion”, Centanni admitted off camera, “We were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint”. But he felt compelled to add this bizarre disclaimer, “Don't get me wrong here. I have the highest respect for Islam, and I learned a lot of good things about it”, before concluding candidly “…it was something we felt we had to do because they had the guns, and we didn't know what the hell was going on.” Centanni expressed his primary concern to the reporters gathered at the Gaza City Beach Hotel press conference as follows: “I hope that this never scares a single journalist away from coming to Gaza to cover the story because the Palestinian people are very beautiful and kind-hearted...The world needs to know more about them. Don't be discouraged.” Wiig reiterated these sentiments: “My biggest concern really is that as a result of what happened to us foreign journalists will be discouraged from coming to tell the story and that would be a great tragedy for the people of Palestine…You guys need us on the streets, and you need people to be aware of the story.” And Wiig’s wife thanked unnamed “Palestinian women” from Gaza for their “solidarity”.

Niall Ferguson imagines a successful British airline plot and makes some pointed observations in the LA Times (thanks to all who sent this in):

"Five passenger aircraft have blown up in midair and crashed into the Atlantic. The planes — believed to be operated by American Airlines and United Airlines — left this morning from Heathrow Airport, bound for the United States. There are no reported survivors."

Such a calamity would at once have been dubbed "8/27." But the political consequences would have been very different from those that followed 9/11....

An 8/27 would have been diametrically different. From an American vantage point, a successful terrorist plot launched from Heathrow would have been doubly Britain's fault. Its proximate cause would have been a lapse in British security. Its root cause would have been the infiltration of British society by radical Islamism.

As details emerged about the perpetrators, Americans' worst suspicions about Britain would have been confirmed. It has been clear for a while that Britain's Muslim communities are proving fertile recruiting grounds for Islamist extremists, and that it is the disaffected sons and grandsons of Pakistani immigrants who are most susceptible.

Perhaps even more troubling, it has been evident since the arrest of attempted shoe-bomber Richard Reid that ordinary British dropouts can also be lured, via religious conversion, into the terrorist network. Imagine if it had been established that one of the perpetrators of the worst terrorist outrage since 9/11 had been the son of a respected Conservative Party official.

Far from editorializing that "We are all British now," the American media might well have reacted to 8/27 by saying, "The British are all suspects now." The Atlantic would have drastically widened.

Read it all.

Since Carl Ernst refuses to debate Robert Spencer, instead of a debate, why not a specific question that deserves to be answered?

A few years ago, entering freshman at the University of North Carolina were required to read Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations by Michael Sells. This bowdlerized version of the Qur'an, turning it into some kind of cross between Rumi and Omar Khayyam, conveyed absolutely nothing to those hapless freshman about what Islam, or about what the Qur'an, is all about. Leaving aside the Sunna, reducing the Qur'an to those softer "Meccan" suras, it was a guide to nothing at all.

Some pearls of wisdom from the Poster Boy for Death Fatwas in Spiegel Online, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Yes. Terror is glamour -- not only, but also. I am firmly convinced that there's something like a fascination with death among suicide bombers. Many are influenced by the misdirected image of a kind of magic that is inherent in these insane acts. The suicide bomber's imagination leads him to believe in a brilliant act of heroism, when in fact he is simply blowing himself up pointlessly and taking other peoples lives. There's one thing you mustn't forget here: the victims terrorized by radical Muslims are mostly other Muslims.

There's "something like a fascination with death among suicide bombers"? Gee, Salman, really? The jihadists have been telling us things like "The Americans love Pepsi-Cola, we love death" for years, and you're just discovering that?

And the "victims terrorized by radical Muslims are mostly other Muslims"? Do tell, Salman. Why not explain to Spiegel, if you can, about the phenomenon of takfir, that is, the declaring of other Muslims unbelievers? Once they are considered unbelievers, you see, they are according to the traditional canons of Islamic jurisprudence eligible to be warred against along with other unbelievers. What are the implications of that for unbelievers in general? Why instead did you suggest that jihad terrorism is some big intramural dispute which sometimes unfortunately catches non-Muslims in its crossfire?

And a little later:

Fundamentalists of all faiths are the fundamental evil of our time.

This tosh of course pops up everywhere, but frequency of repetition doesn't make it true. Salman Rushdie might profitably reflect on why Christian fundamentalists have never pronounced any death fatawa on him or anyone else.

More on the Lina Joy case, and other examples of the "creeping Islamicization" of Malaysia. Sharia Alert, and an Islamic Tolerance Alert, from the International Herald Tribune: "Letter from Malaysia: Nation's secular vision vs. 'writing on the wall'"

KUALA LUMPUR - The idea of a secular state is dead in Malaysia," says Farish Noor, a Malaysian scholar who specializes in politics and Islam. "An Islamic society is already on the cards. The question is what kind of Islamic society this will be."

It is hard to square this view with a drive through modern Kuala Lumpur, its downtown bars and nightclubs not exactly the symbols of a budding theocracy. Yet as Malaysia marks 49 years of independence from Britain on Thursday, lurking behind a cosmopolitan facade is a tense and divisive battle over the country's future.

Those who want to maintain the country's secular roots are fighting what they call creeping Islamicization. Muslim women who at the time of independence often wore silky, tight-fitting outfits today do not leave the house without a head scarf, which is now also required for female police officers of all religions during official functions.

Muslim prayers are piped into the loudspeakers of government offices in the new administrative capital, Putrajaya. And Islamic police officers routinely arrest unmarried couples for "close proximity."

"I see the writing on the wall," said Ivy Josiah, the director of the Women's Aid Organization, a group that lobbies the government on women's issues. "It's only a matter of time before Malaysia becomes another Taliban state."

Malaysia, a multiracial country where just over half the population of 26 million is Muslim, is testing the limits of compatibility between traditional Muslim beliefs and Western- style democracy.

In Europe, the threat of terrorism posed by disaffected Muslims has spurred religious leaders and politicians to wonder whether there is a better way to assimilate Muslim and Western traditions. The experience of Malaysia appears to show that there is no easy solution, even after five decades of trying.

In recent years, a number of high- profile court cases have highlighted the clash between Muslim and secular laws, but none so much as the lawsuit brought by Lina Joy, a computer saleswoman, who is challenging the Malaysian government over its refusal to officially acknowledge her conversion from Islam to Christianity. After two lower courts ruled for the government, Joy awaits a judgment from the country's highest court.

The case has aggravated already mistrustful relations between Muslim, Christian and Hindu communities. It has led to death threats against one prominent lawyer, large protest gatherings and a ban by the government on any further public debate. At the heart of the case is the fundamental question of which is supreme in Malaysia: Muslim law or the country's secular Constitution.

Malaysia has a hybrid legal system that incorporates both Islamic and civil laws for personal and family matters: Muslims are governed by religious laws against drinking, eating during the daylight hours of Ramadan and having close proximity between unmarried women and men. Marriages, divorces, funerals, and inheritance are governed by Islamic laws.

For non-Muslims - Christians, Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs - civil laws apply. But the hybrid system is now in crisis and the multiracial fabric could fray.

[...]

"You are seeing worldwide a common thing happening," said Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, a Muslim lawyer. "Muslims are defining themselves by their religion instead of their country." Malik recently asked for police protection after receiving death threats for his role in the Lina Joy case: he submitted a brief in defense of Joy's right to convert.

"Lina Joy is important because it's finally brought to light the tensions that exist between those who favor an Islamic state and those who believe in the universal values entrenched in the Constitution," Malik said in an interview.

Lawyers who back the government's position in the case say Muslims in Malaysia are subject to Islamic law. "We are not saying you do not have any choice of religion. But if you want to convert out you must do so in the Islamic court," said Zulkifli Noordin, a lawyer who submitted a brief in support of the government's position.

In reality, converting out of Islam is frowned upon if not actively discouraged in Malaysia. Only one state, Negri Sembilan, allows apostasy and usually after ordering the person through a lengthy rehabilitation program - an attempt to keep them from converting.

Zulkifli says 18 people have successfully left the faith, although many others are thought to have done so unofficially. In the country's most conservative state, Kelantan, local laws call for the death penalty for apostates. The law has not yet been applied.

The context of the tensions in the Lina Joy case is a Muslim community that says it feels under siege and threatened by a thriving evangelical Christian movement. Newspapers cite wild estimates of mass conversions if Lina Joy wins her case and call for a strengthening of religious law.

From Reuters:

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi clerics want to impose restrictions on women praying at Islam's holiest shrine in Mecca, one of the few places where male and female worshippers can intermingle.

But women activists in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of the religion where a strict version of Islam is state orthodoxy, say the idea is discriminatory and have vowed to oppose it.

At present, women can pray in the immediate vicinity of the Kaaba, a cube-shaped structure inside the mosque which pilgrims walk around seven times during the haj pilgrimage according to ancient rites established by Prophet Mohammad.

Plans by the all-male committee overseeing the holy sites would place women in a distant section of the mosque while men would still be able to pray in the key space.

"The area is very small and so crowded. So we decided to get women out of the 'sahn' (Kaaba area) to a better place where they can see the Kaaba and have more space," said Osama al-Bar, head of the Institute for Haj Research.

"Some women thought it wasn't good, but from our point of view it will be better for them ... We can sit with them and explain to them what the decision is (about)," he said. The decision is not final and could be reversed, he added.

Pushing and shoving is common in the tight space around the Kaaba where thousands of pilgrims crowd during the haj season.

The plans are likely to provoke a furore among Muslim women in countries whose Islamic traditions are more liberal than Saudi Arabia.

Ordinary Muslims say it as a basic right to be able to pray as close as possible to the Kaaba which Islam regards as the place where God's presence is most felt on Earth. It is towards the Kaaba that Muslims around the world turn when praying.

"Both men and women have the right to pray in the 'House of God'. Men have no right to take it away," said Suhaila Hammad, Saudi woman member of a body of world Muslim scholars.

"Men and women mix when they circumambulate the Kaaba, so do they want to make us do that somewhere else too?" she asked. "This is discrimination against women."

Nothing new. For example, Bukhari 001.006.301:

Once Allah's Apostle went out to the Musalla (to offer the prayer) o 'Id-al-Adha or Al-Fitr prayer. Then he passed by the women and said, "O women! Give alms, as I have seen that the majority of the dwellers of Hell-fire were you (women)." They asked, "Why is it so, O Allah's Apostle ?" He replied, "You curse frequently and are ungrateful to your husbands. I have not seen anyone more deficient in intelligence and religion than you. A cautious sensible man could be led astray by some of you." The women asked, "O Allah's Apostle! What is deficient in our intelligence and religion?" He said, "Is not the evidence of two women equal to the witness of one man?" They replied in the affirmative. He said, "This is the deficiency in her intelligence. Isn't it true that a woman can neither pray nor fast during her menses?" The women replied in the affirmative. He said, "This is the deficiency in her religion."

Surely this contributes to the rationale for freeing up space that would otherwise be taken up by women in the heart of the Grand Mosque.

The Grand Mosque is one of the few places where men and women can pray together in Islam although technically there are separate spaces for each gender throughout the vast complex.

Religious police charged with imposing order according to Saudi Arabia's austere Wahhabi brand of Islam often harass women who decide to pray outside the prescribed areas.

Historian Hatoun al-Fassi said the move to restrict women's prayer in the mosque would be a first in Islamic history.

"Perhaps they want women to disappear from any public prayer area and when it comes to the holy mosques that's their ultimate aim," she said, adding the religious authorities recently restricted women's access at the Prophet's tomb in Medina.

Perhaps.

I'm not the only one asking for debates and being rebuffed these days. August 1939 Alert from the Hizballah News Agency, aka Reuters, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

TEHRAN (Reuters) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad voiced defiance on Tuesday as a deadline neared for Iran to halt work the West fears is a step toward building nuclear bombs, and challenged President Bush to televised debate.

In a news conference, Ahmadinejad condemned the U.S. and British role in the world since World War Two but made no direct mention of the international nuclear confrontation.

"I suggest holding a live TV debate with Mr. George W. Bush to talk about world affairs and the ways to solve those issues," he said.

More evidence of the oppressive nature of Pakistan's Sharia-based blasphemy law. "Radical Islamic politicians accused of blasphemy," from Asia News, with thanks to DFS:

Islamabad (AsiaNews) – Ashfaq Chaudhry, head of the Islamabad’s chapter of the Pakistan People’s Movement, has accused members of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA, a political alliance of six radical Islamic organisations), including opposition leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman, with blasphemy. Last Wednesday in parliament, MPs for the MMA tore up copies of the Women’s Protection Bill containing verses from the Qur’an. Mr Chaudhry also charged MMA President Qazi Hussain Ahmed, and MMA Deputy Secretary General, Hafiz Hussain Ahmed. In his opinion, their action was offensive to all Pakistani Muslims, and they should be prosecuted under the blasphemy law and receive an exemplary punishment. The infamous blasphemy law refers to Section 295-b of Pakistan’s Penal Code which provides for life in prison for desecrating the Qur’an.

Qazi Hussain Ahmad reacted immediately, rejecting the accusations. The MMA president did confirm the protest action against the Women’s Protection Bill, but insisted that the draft legislation did not contain any verse from the Qur’an.

For Peter Jacob, executive secretary of the National Commission for Justice and Peace (an agency of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference), this episode is but another example of how religion is used and abused for personal reasons.

Yes indeed.

An Albuquerque law firm found nothing to the allegations. That, of course, wasn't good enough for the ACLU. The upshot of this will be politicized "diversity" training at NMSU, spreading CAIR/ACLU propaganda to the unsuspecting dhimmis. From AP, with thanks to Doc Washburn:

LAS CRUCES, N.M. – Three former New Mexico State University football players – all Muslims – on Monday sued the university and coach Hal Mumme, alleging they were dismissed from the team because of their religious beliefs.

The federal lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Mu'Ammar Ali and brothers Anthony and Vincent Thompson. The lawsuit alleges religious discrimination and violations of the athletes' right to freely exercise their religion.

The suit claims that Mumme, who was hired by New Mexico State in January 2005, instituted a “religious brotherhood” within the football team and singled out Muslim athletes on the team.
“Universities are supposed to be places of evolved thinking and reason, not of base intolerance and bigotry” said Peter Simonson, executive director of ACLU New Mexico. “They are supposed to rise above the knee-jerk prejudices that sometimes afflict our society. In this case, the university failed its purpose and a coach indulged in those prejudices to assert his own religious preferences over the players and the team.”...

The lawsuit said Mumme had players recite the Lord's Prayer after each practice and before each game. Ali and the Thompsons said that practice made them feel like outcasts and caused them to pray separately from the other players.

According to the lawsuit, not long after Mumme learned that Ali and the Thompsons were Muslim, he prohibited the Thompsons from attending the team's spring 2005 training camp and questioned Ali about his attitudes toward al-Qaeda.

The lawsuit says the Thompsons were dismissed from the team on Sept. 2, 2005, allegedly because they moved their belongings to an unapproved locker and were labeled “troublemakers.”

The lawsuit said Ali, the Aggies' leading rusher in 2004, found out he was being dismissed from the team via a telephone message from Mumme on Oct. 9, 2005. Ali is currently attending Portland State and is expected to be the Vikings' starting halfback when they open the season Saturday against New Mexico.

The players are seeking compensatory and punitive damages.

The ACLU last year filed a grievance against Mumme, alleging he repeatedly questioned Ali about al-Qaeda.

In response to the allegations, New Mexico State hired an Albuquerque law firm to investigate and the law firm concluded the football program had not engaged in religious discrimination against the three Muslim athletes.

The investigation by Albuquerque law firm Miller Stratvery found that the players were released from the team based on their performance and attitudes, not because of religion. The probe included interviews with the football coaching staff, athletics department personnel and student-athletes.

Simonson at the time questioned the fairness of the investigation.

“I think it's very troubling that the university could not find any basis for these allegations whatsoever when three very sincere individuals came forward with such serious allegations,” he said. “It really raises questions in my mind about the university's commitment to diversity and racial equality and issues of equality.”

The ACLU last year sought a public apology from Mumme and disciplinary action against him. It also asked that the school provide diversity training to all students and employees.

Mumme said during a news conference last November that he apologized to his team for any unintentional actions on his part that may have offended anyone.

And not because of soccer yobs. From The Telegraph, with thanks to Roseanne:

Britain now presents a greater security threat to the United States than Iran or Iraq, an American magazine said yesterday.

In an article on Islamists headlined "Kashmir on the Thames", the New Republic painted Britain's Muslim communities as a breeding ground for violent extremism.

Citing recent opinion poll evidence suggesting that one in four British Muslims believed that last year's London Tube bombings were justified, the magazine said: "In the wake of this month's high-profile arrests, it can now be argued that the biggest threat to US security emanates not from Iran or Iraq or Afghanistan, but rather from Great Britain, our closest ally."...

Many have been appalled both by the existence of enthusiastic jihadis in British cities and by the call from some of their leaders for a change in the country's foreign policy.

Other publications and the think-tanks that shape public debate in America have also issued stern criticism both of Britain's Muslims and of the Government. Nile Gardiner, of the Right-wing Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Telegraph yesterday that Americans were coming to view Britain as "a hornet's nest of Islamic extremists" and thought it posed ''a direct security threat to the US".

He said that if British-based terrorism continues, America is likely to respond harshly.

"A major concern would be the tightening of travel restrictions unless the authorities start to crack down on Islamist militancy," he said. More than four million Britons enter America annually using the visa waiver programme. Any change would force Britons wishing to visit the US into lengthy queues at American diplomatic missions....

Investor's Business Daily has already demanded an end to the programme because it "allows Pakistani Britons to dodge security background checks".

Much of the outraged American response this month was sparked by the call from Muslim leaders for a change in British foreign policy. The letter from six Muslim MPs and 38 community leaders said "current British Government policy risks putting civilians at increased risk both in the UK and abroad".

The theme was taken up by the Wall Street Journal, which said: "It is typical of some of Britain's so-called moderate Muslims, who seem less concerned with fighting extremists in their midst than in excusing them."

The newspaper went on to attack Tony Blair's government for "cultivating and promoting such pseudo-moderate Muslim organisations". The BBC and the Foreign Office, described as "a preserve of Arabists", were also lambasted both for quoting extremists and allowing them into Britain.

But as I have noted before, Blair doesn't have a large genuinely moderate Muslim organization with which he could work.

A planned attack in Manila foiled. "Philippines: Security Forces Foiled Terror Attack," from AKI, with thanks to Cindy:

Cotabato City, 28 August (AKI) - Security forces in the Philippines have foiled a major terror attack as three suspected members of the home grown terrorist group, Abu Sayyaf, were arrested while boarding a Super Ferry in Parang, Maguindanao (Mindanao), bound for the capital Manila. The Filipino army's Lt. Col. Julieto Ando, Army's Sixth Infantry Division spokesperson, told reporters on Monday that the three were carrying explosives and that the attack was to be carried out in Manila.

"They were about to board the Superferry on Sunday when we arrested them. Our informer knew them as the bombers. Their initial plan was to board the ferry and carry out the bombings in Manila in exchange for money”, he told reporters.

"Two improvised explosive devices were found on them," he added.

The arrest of the three came as a report said the police fear bombings during the upcoming fifth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

My invitation to debate Islamic scholar Carl Ernst can be found here. He now joins Omid Safi, Ahmed Afzaal, Mark LeVine, and other scholars of Islam in declining my invitation to debate, preferring instead to shy bricks from their ivory tower. (Actually, LeVine and I agreed to debate, but he never got back to me with any concrete details.) As I said in my reply to Ernst below, one would think it would be easy for any of these eminences to wax me and thereby rid the world of my baneful influence, if their characterizations of my work are true. But alas, no one has yet come forth with the required viscera.

Dr. Ernst's reply:

Dear Mr. Spencer,

I am not interested in having a debate with you, and I stand by my remarks on the biased and nonscholarly nature of your publications and publishers.

Sincerely,
Carl Ernst

And my reply to this message from Dr. Ernst:

Dear Dr. Ernst,

Thank you for your gracious reply. It is interesting that neither you nor anyone else can document any specific inaccuracy in my works, but rather persist in unsubstantiated broad-brush claims to "bias" and such, while pretending that academic publications and presses are free from bias. One would think that it would be easy, if what you say is true, to defeat me handily in a debate and thus discredit me once and for all. But we'll never know, will we?

Cordially,
Robert Spencer

In contrast with his letter to George W. Bush, Ahmadinejad takes a gentler approach this time: See? We're just like you, victimized by the Allies who won in World War II. And hey, we all want the same thing. Peace, prosperity, the return of the Mahdi -- wait, never mind that last one.

From Fars News Agency, with thanks to DrunkenBlogger: "Full Text of Pres. Ahmadinejad's Letter to German Chancellor"

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate

Her Excellency Angela Merkel

The Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany

Excellency,

Please accept my warmest greetings.

If it had it not been for Germany being a great contributor to progress in science, philosophy, literature, arts and politics;

If it had not been for a more important and positive influence of Germany in international relations and promotion of peace;

Moreover, if it had not been for the persistence of a strong will by certain global powers and special groups to constantly portray Germany as defeated and indebted country of World War II in order to continue their extortions;

And if it had not been for the presence of Your Excellency at the top of the executive branch of your country as an experienced stateswoman with bitter and sweet experiences in two dissimilar societies with different political systems and traditions,

And at the same time, if it had not been for the advantages that are limited to women, such as stronger human sentiments and certain manifestations of the divine compassion and kindness, specially in the position of a mother and being at the service of the people, and the common responsibility of all people with faith in God to defend human dignity and worth and to prevent violations of their rights and their humiliation, and proceeding from this conviction that we are all created by the Almighty and He has bestowed upon us all dignity and no one has any special privileges over the other, and under no circumstances could a society be deprived of its rights, barred from pursuit of progress and perfection or be controlled or humiliated;

Finally, if it had not been for the oppression, however different, of our nations, our shared responsibility to promote justice as the most basic foundation for promotion of peace and human equality, I would not have found the motive to write this letter.

Honorable Chancellor

Rulers come and go, but people with culture and history and their attachments and desires will keep on staying. Opportunities in front of those in position of high power are transient, even if they may be vast and broad. These opportunities are very auspicious and can play a key role in the negative and positive transformations and developments of a nation.

Those in position of high power do not normally have many opportunities, but are accountable before the Almighty and people due to their high responsibility. We know this, and you know it as well.

Some of these developments can have regional, continental and global ramifications and can hardly be overlooked.

[...]

Excellency

World War II came to an end with all its material and moral losses and its 60 million casualties. The death of human beings is tragic and sad. In all divine religions and before all awakened conscience and pure nature of mankind and the sense of right and wrong, the life, property and honor of people, regardless of their religious persuasion and ethnic background, must be respected at all times and all places.

Sixty years have passed since the end of the war. But, regrettably the entire world and some nations in particular are still facing its consequences. Even now the conduct of some bullying powers and power-seeking and aggressive groups is the conduct of victors with the vanquished.

The extortion and blackmail continue, and people are not allowed to think about or even question the source of this extortion, otherwise they face imprisonment. When will this situation end? Sixty years, one hundred years or one thousand years, when? I am sorry to remind you that today the perpetual claimants against the great people of Germany are the bullying powers and the Zionists that founded the Al-Qods Occupying Regime with the force of bayonets in the Middle East.

The Honorable Chancellor

I have no intention of arguing about the Holocaust. But, does it not stand to reason that some victorious countries of World War II intended to create an alibi on the basis of which they could continue keeping the defeated nations of World War II indebted to them. Their purpose has been to weaken their morale and their inspiration in order to obstruct their progress and power. In addition to the people of Germany, the peoples of the Middle East have also borne the brunt of the Holocaust. By raising the necessity of settling the survivors of the Holocaust in the land of Palestine, they have created a permanent threat in the Middle East in order to rob the people of the region of the opportunities to achieve progress. The collective conscience of the world is indignant over the daily atrocities by the Zionist occupiers, destruction of homes and farms, killing of children, assassinations and bombardments.

[...]

It is sad to admit that Europe has lost a lot of its clout in global interactions and has not been able to face and overcome major challenges by relying on itself. This is, of course, understandable. The big powers outside of the continent intend to prove that Europe cannot rely on itself and do anything without their help and intervention.

Our people have also suffered from the interventions by some of the victors of the war after World War II. For many years they interfered in our internal affairs and did not want to see our nation conquer the pinnacles of progress and perfection. They had their eyes on our natural wealth, above all on our energy resources. To secure their own interests, they overthrew the legally constituted government of the time, installed a dictatorial regime and supported it to the end. Later, they supported Saddam in the war imposed on our people and observed no humanitarian boundary in their support for the Iraqi dictator. Our nation has experienced the pain and anguish from the interferences of those who are now crying out for human rights. There are still many suffering from the wounds and injuries of this war.

Many of these aggressions have taken place by those who regard themselves the victors of the World War II. They allow themselves to do whatever they wish, and unfortunately, after the end of the Cold War, the arrogance and expansionist ambitions of these powers have escalated.

We believe that still a major part of the peoples of the world and even international organizations are under the influence of the behavior and the conduct of the victors of the World War II.

[...]

And no missive from the Thug-in-Chief would be complete without the following sales pitch:

Where are the roots of these problems? How long can they continue? Do you not think that the main root lies in the fact that some of the rulers and powers of today have distanced themselves from the teachings of the divine prophets, the teachings of Abraham, Moses and Jesus Christ (peace be upon him) and the Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him).

[...]

Honorable Chancellor,

The inner instincts and nature of the peoples of the world have wakened up.

Tendency toward faith in the oneness of God is on the rise.

Tawhid, that is. Islamic monotheism.

People will no longer tolerate to be tyrannized, humiliated and their rights violated.

The prevailing circumstances today differ from those of yesterday. Multiple standards and approaches in relations will not endure.

Iran and Germany can play a more important role together in the international arena by relying on the noble and high values.

This cooperative relationship can also enhance the role of Europe on the global scene and serve as a model of cooperation between two governments and nations.

[...]

Together we will be able to prove to some powers that respecting other nations and their rights is good for them as well. Our two nations and governments, next to each other, will be able to play a fundamental role in promoting peace, security, progress, and human dignity at the scale of two countries and internationally.

In closing, I pray to the Almighty for the success of Your Excellency and the government and people of Germany.

UPDATE: Fars News Agency has released the text, posted above.

Ahmadinejad's letter to Merkel from last month has not yet been released in its entirety by Germany or Iran, though the New York Daily News recently reported that Reuters has obtained a copy. It would be nice to see it. Meanwhile, details continue to emerge. An update on this story from AFP:

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has told German Chancellor Angela Merkel that the Holocaust may have been invented by the victorious Allied powers in World War II to embarrass Germany, the semi-official news agency Mehr has reported.

The remarks by the outspoken Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly questioned the veracity of the Holocaust, came in a letter sent to Merkel in July whose contents have not been disclosed until now.

"Is it not a reasonable possibility that some countries that had won the war made up this excuse to constantly embarrass the defeated people ... to bar their progress," Ahmadinejad said in the letter on Monday.

"The question is if these countries, especially Britain, felt responsible for the Holocaust survivors, why they did not settle them in their own countries?" it said.

It is not the first time Ahmadinejad has voiced doubt about the mass slaughter of six million Jews under Nazi Germany, previously describing the Holocaust as a "myth" used to justify the creation of Israel.

"By promoting the necessity of settlement of Holocaust survivors in the occupied Palestine, they have created a constant threat in the Middle East," he said, referring to Israel.

Merkel on July 21 indicated that she would not formally respond to the letter, saying it contained "totally unacceptable" criticism of Israel and "constantly put in question" the Jewish state's right to exist.

[...]

Ahmadinejad in his letter also praised the German people as a nation with potential in science, art, philosophy and politics, but "who are not allowed to play their constructive role in the world."

"Undoubtedly, we, our two governments and nations, can make big steps to resolve the existing global problems... together we can convince some powers that respecting nations' rights is in best interest of everybody," Ahmadinejad said.

Somali Jihad Update from The Ethiopian Reporter: "Somalia: 'Withdraw Or Be Ready for-Full Scale War' - Aweys to Ethiopia"

"We call on Ethiopia to withdraw its forces from Somalia, otherwise be ready for full-scale war," Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, leader of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) of Somalia, warned on Thursday.

Ethiopia, despite numerous witnesses who say they have seen its troops in Somalia, has denied the statements.

Aweys' statement comes a decision made one week ago by defense chiefs from the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), that the first deployment of a nearly 7,000 African peace support force is to assemble in northeast Kenya near the Somali border late September. The troops are to be comprised of Sudanese and Ugandan soldiers.

"We say again that Ethiopian intervention in Somalia will never be accepted, no one can dare divert us onto a path other than Sharia law," added Aweys during an inauguration ceremony that saw the opening of Mogadishu's International seaport.

And the conquest continues:

On Thursday several hundred gun men went into a town called Doul, some 40 kilometers south of Galkayo bordering Somaliland.

There are reports that the UIC militia are preparing to fight the warlords in Bandiiradley, and expand their territory further north into Galkayo and the semi-autonomous north-eastern region of Puntland.

Warlords that were defeated and chased out of Mogadishu by the UIC are also bracing themselves for battle in Doul, according to reports from the residents of Galkayo.

Sohail Ashraf and Khurram Zeb were removed from a flight from Malaga to Manchester recently when other passengers refused to fly with them. In the full version of this story, they deny that they were staging their odd behavior in order to provoke the passengers' reaction. But there are plenty of unanswered questions about their behavior. "Asian students forced to deny airline mutiny was a set-up," from The Independent, with thanks to Nicolei:

Mr Ashraf and Mr Zeb were removed from the late-night Airbus A320 by order of the captain, who had been contacted by several passengers worried by their appearance and behaviour after they boarded the plane. They were said to have been talking loudly in Urdu, and wearing suspiciously heavy clothes. When the airline looked into details of their itinerary, the pair were detained pending further security checks....

Industry sources revealed they booked their flights after the recent security scare began on 10 August, paying £166 each for the day-trip to Malaga. Although they have claimed that the purpose of the visit was to carry out research for a holiday in September, the pair decided to take an evening flight to the resort. It touched down at 7.25pm, leaving them just a few hours in Malaga before they had to check in for the 3am return journey.

The story goes on to point out that if they were really carrying out "research for a holiday," would they choose a flight that enabled them to see the resort only in the dark? Also, they say they're students at the the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), and have claimed that they can't do any more interviews because they have exams, but the university is closed and this is not an exam period. University officials wouldn't even confirm that they are really students there.

Daniel Pipes details other incidents of profiling.

Remember Shakespeare's Macbeth, when Macbeth slays Duncan and proclaims an Islamic republic in Dunsinane?

No, that one is a parody, but it's not too far off from the Turkish versions of Western books circulating now. The good news is that Turkish secularists are taking some Islamic publishers to court for Islamizing Western classics in translation.

"Minister lashes out at publishers for scandalous books," from the Turkish Daily News (coming to us from some Turkish anti-jihadists, via Philip):

Minister of Education Hüseyin Çelik has blasted publishers for distorted versions of books included in a reading list recommended for school children and announced the ministry would bring lawsuits against the publishers involved in the scandal.

"If you like Heidi, don't try to Muslimize her; write your own Heidi book," Çelik said in remarks published in some Turkish newspapers yesterday. He said the publishers would be sued because they used the ministry's logo on the controversial books.

The scandal concerning translations of the books was uncovered when the daily newspaper Radikal recently published citations from the books included on the "100 Essential Readings" list, comprising children's and world literature as well as Turkish classics recommended to school children.

Some publishers had inserted Islamist ideology into the translations, making alterations in such classics as Hugo's Les Miserables, Spyri's Heidi and Collodi's Pinocchio.

[...]

In one translation, Geppetto's little son Pinocchio says "Give me some bread for the sake of Allah," and gives thanks to "Allah" when he becomes an animated marionette.

In Dumas' "Three Musketeers," D'Artagnan while on his way to see Aramis is stopped by an old woman who explains: "You can't see him right now. He is surrounded by men of religion. He converted to Islam after his illness."

Eleanor H. Porter's "Pollyanna" confirms her belief in the Muslim apocalypse, while La Fontaine's fisherman prays using Muslim terminology to catch more fish.

Spyri's Swiss orphan Heidi is told by Ms. Sesasman that "praying is relaxing."

"Invented" phrases employing Muslim terminology were also inserted into classics from masters such as Anton Chekhov and Oscar Wilde.

Ah yes. The Importance of Being Mustafa.

“With this centrality in mind, our goals in the Middle East should change from, in effect, promoting sharia-democracy to preventing the export of sharia and terrorism to advance sharia.” – Diana West, in her proposed speech for President Bush

Diana West’s speech would be a considerable improvement on what is coming from Washington today. But “Shari’a” is perhaps not the best framing of the conflict either. The problem with the use of the term "Shari'a" is that while it is the ideal which the more fanatically "immoderate" Muslim states (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Pakistan, Afghanistan under the Taliban) attempt most closely to approximate in their legal codes, other Muslim states do not. And if they do not, then some Muslims well versed in taqiyya-and-tu-quoque would answer the speech by saying that this is an "exaggeration" and just look, look at all the Muslim states that, while independent, have not imposed the Shari'a.

To this one can reply in several ways. First, the Shari'a is aspirational, and not always and everywhere to be imposed at once. But surely Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the Sudan are four Muslim countries that are very large in land area, contain between two and three hundred million of the world's Muslims, include both the center of Shi'a Islam (Iran) and of Sunni Islam (Saudi Arabia, with its Two Holy Places), and two of the four are currently the greatest recipients of oil and gas revenues and likely to remain so for years to come. So to say that "only four" of the 57 members of the O.I.C. have accepted the full Shari'a should be seen as the taqiyya it is.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki still insists there's no civil war, and none looming in the future, either. From AP:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A wave of bomb attacks and shootings swept Iraq Sunday, killing dozens of people despite a massive security operation in the capital and appeals from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for an end to sectarian fighting.

[...]

Al-Maliki insisted that his government was making progress in combatting attacks by insurgents and sectarian clashes between Shiites and Sunnis.

"We're not in a civil war. Iraq will never be in a civil war," he said through an interpreter on CNN's "Late Edition." "The violence is in decrease and our security ability is increasing."

Asked about U.S. allegations that Iran is supporting Iraqi groups involved in sectarian violence, al-Maliki said the reports were being investigated. He said Iraqi authorities were in contact with Iran in order to determine the veracity of the information "and to prevent this interference."

[...]

Across Iraq, Sunday's attacks left more than 50 people dead.

A group of assailants in three cars raked an open-air night market with gunfire, killing at least 12 people and wounding 25 others, police said.

The gunmen fired indiscriminately at throngs of people at the main market of Khalis, a mostly Shiite town 50 miles north of Baghdad, Diyala provincial police said. Earlier in the day, another six people were killed and 14 wounded when a bomb exploded on the outskirts of the town.

[...]

In downtown Baghdad, a bomb in a minibus exploded outside the Palestine Hotel, killing nine people and wounding 16, while a car bomb outside the offices of a government-run newspaper left three dead and at least 29 wounded, police and witnesses said.

Two back-to-back suicide car bombings in the northern city of Kirkuk killed nine people and wounded 22, hours after another suicide car bomb killed one person and wounded 16.

In Basra, Iraq's second largest city, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad, a motorcycle bomb at a night market killed four people and wounded 15, the governor's office said.

Drive-by shootings also killed two people in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad; one in Numaniyah, a town near Kut, 100 miles southeast of the capital; and another three -- believed to be the bodyguards of a member of parliament -- in Dujail, 50 miles north of the capital, police in both cities said.

In Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, police found the bodies of eight people in various parts of the city, Capt. Rasheed Al-Samerayi of Mahmoudiyah police said. All had been handcuffed and blindfolded, he said.

This item by Geneive Abdo accurately notes the proverbial "circling of the wagons" that has taken place in Muslim communities in America since September 11, 2001, and the consequent revival of interest in Islamic traditions; it is unsurprising, but nonetheless helpful to have documented again the fact that Muslims favor their identity as Muslims over an identity as Americans.

But through the revival of their faith and close examination of their scriptures and tradition, what will Muslims find, other than a sense of belonging? Will they find that their faith has been "hijacked" and "misinterpreted" by the 9/11 hijackers and their ilk, or rather, followed literally? And for many, what will they decide as a consequence, when they already feel more Muslim than American?

From the Washington Post:

If only the Muslims in Europe -- with their hearts focused on the Islamic world and their carry-on liquids poised for destruction in the West -- could behave like the well-educated, secular and Americanizing Muslims in the United States, no one would have to worry.

So runs the comforting media narrative that has developed around the approximately 6 million Muslims in the United States, who are often portrayed as well-assimilated and willing to leave their religion and culture behind in pursuit of American values and lifestyle. But over the past two years, I have traveled the country, visiting mosques, interviewing Muslim leaders and speaking to Muslim youths in universities and Islamic centers from New York to Michigan to California -- and I have encountered a different truth. I found few signs of London-style radicalism among Muslims in the United States. At the same time, the real story of American Muslims is one of accelerating alienation from the mainstream of U.S. life, with Muslims in this country choosing their Islamic identity over their American one.

A new generation of American Muslims -- living in the shadow of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks -- is becoming more religious. They are more likely to take comfort in their own communities, and less likely to embrace the nation's fabled melting pot of shared values and common culture.

Part of this is linked to the resurgence of Islam over the past several decades, a growth as visible in Western Europe and the United States as it is in Egypt and Morocco. But the Sept. 11 attacks also had the dual effect of making American Muslims feel isolated in their adopted country, while pushing them to rediscover their faith.

From schools to language to religion, American Muslims are becoming a people apart. Young, first-generation American Muslim women -- whose parents were born in Egypt, Pakistan and other Islamic countries -- are wearing head scarves even if their mothers had left them behind; increasing numbers of young Muslims are attending Islamic schools and lectures; Muslim student associations in high schools and at colleges are proliferating; and the role of the mosque has evolved from strictly a place of worship to a center for socializing and for learning Arabic and Urdu as well as the Koran.

The men and women I spoke to -- all mosque-goers, most born in the United States to immigrants -- include students, activists, imams and everyday working Muslims. Almost without exception, they recall feeling under siege after Sept. 11, with FBI agents raiding their mosques and homes, neighbors eyeing them suspiciously and television programs portraying Muslims as the new enemies of the West.

[...]

I spent several days at one of the institute's "mobile madrassas," this one in San Jose, and watched hundreds of young Muslim professionals sit on cushioned folding chairs and listen intently as Yusuf delivered his lecture. "Everywhere I go, I see Muslims," he told them. "Go to the gas station and the airport. Muslims are present in the United States, and that was not true 20 years ago. There are more Muslims living outside the Dar al-Islam [Islamic countries, or literally the House of Islam] than ever. So we have to be strategic in our thinking, because people who are our enemies are strategic in their thinking."

No mention is made of Dar al-Harb -- the "House of War" -- the traditional counterpart to Dar al-Islam, or Dar al-Dawa -- the "House of Invitation," an alternate designation for places where Islam has recently been introduced, and proselytizing is underway.

The "enemies" Yusuf referred to that day were not non-Muslims, but rather those who use Islam as a rationale for violence. For the students at this madrassa and for many Muslims I interviewed, their strategy focuses on public displays of their faith.

Hamza Yusuf is not, however, the bold reformer he's cracked up to be; for example, in the aftermath of 9/11, he said:

"This country is facing a terrible fate" for occupying Muslim lands, Yusuf warned. "The reason for that is that this country stands condemned like Europe stood condemned because of what it did.

"And lest people forget that Europe suffered two world wars after conquering the Muslim lands, Europe's countries were devastated, they were completely destroyed," he added. "Their young people were killed."

The article continues:

Being ambassadors of Islam is daring behavior when you consider that American Muslims live in a country where so many people are ignorant of -- if not hostile to -- their faith. In a Gallup poll this year, when U.S. respondents were asked what they admire about the Muslim world, the most common response was "nothing" (33 percent); the second most common was "I don't know" (22 percent).

Despite contemporary public opinion -- or perhaps because of it -- Muslim Americans consider Islam their defining characteristic, beyond any national identity. In this way, their experience in the United States resembles that of their co-religionists in Europe, where mosques are also growing, Islamic schools are being built, and practicing the faith is the center of life, particularly for the young generation. In Europe and the United States, young Muslims are unifying around popular imams they believe understand the challenges they face in Western societies; these leaders include Yusuf in the United States and Amer Khaled, an Egyptian-born imam who lives in Britain. Thousands of young Muslims attend their lectures.

Again, the outlook is not quite so rosy. Amr Khaled's writings can be found on his website, including his "Message to the World regarding the Danish Cartoons," in which he says, among other things:

Thus, my message to the Muslim ummah is that we should not forsake dignifying the Prophet (SAWS) under any circumstance. On the other hand, my message to the West is that the value of freedom of speech should be adapted to Muslim values.

Abdo continues:

In my years of interviews, I found few indications of homegrown militancy among American Muslims. Indeed, thus far, they have proved they can compete economically with other Americans. Although the unemployment rate for Muslims in Britain is far higher than for most other groups, the average annual income of a Muslim household surpasses that of average American households. Yet, outside the workplace, Muslims retreat into the comfort zone of their mosques and Islamic schools.

And in conclusion, blame America:

It is too soon to say where the growing alienation of American Muslims will lead, but it seems clear that the factors contributing to it will endure. U.S. foreign policy persists in dividing Muslim and Western societies, making it harder still for Americans to realize that there is a difference between their Muslim neighbor and the plotter in London or the kidnapper in Baghdad.

More jihadist venom from Abu Abdullah. Will the British dhimmis do nothing?

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

AN associate of Abu Hamza, the hook-handed cleric, has defied Tony Blair’s ban on glorifying terrorism by praising the July 7 bombers and describing how he would “love” to kill British troops fighting in Afghanistan.

Abu Abdullah said he supports suicide bombers using “household chemicals” to attack the West and believes the prime minister is a legitimate target for assassination because of his foreign policy.

Abdullah, a former spokesman for Hamza, who was jailed this year for his hate-filled sermons, said the 9/11 attacks were a “deserved punch in the nose” for America. He argues that high street banks ought to be destroyed because they charge interest, which is against the tenets of Islam.

Blair, when announcing the ban in the wake of last year’s London bombings, said Britain was tolerant but that there was “a determination that this very tolerance and determination should not be abused by a small fanatical minority”.

Abdullah, however, is apparently being allowed to operate unchecked by the authorities five months after a law was passed making it a criminal offence to glorify terrorism.

Abdullah, 42, is the self-styled “emir”, or leader, of a radical group called Supporters of Shariah, which Hamza founded when he ran the Finsbury Park mosque in north London.

After Hamza was jailed for seven years in February for inciting his followers to murder non-Muslims, Abdullah has taken over a movement claiming up to 3,000 sympathisers.

Abdullah is barred from preaching in most mosques but he has been spreading his views in private meetings or “study circles” at low-key venues, such as community centres in London and the home counties.

Unlike other so-called preachers of hate, Abdullah, a former youth football coach, was born and bred in Britain.

Read it all.

I think it actually is likely that he didn't expect Israel to make any serious response. "Nasrallah sorry for scale of war," from the BBC, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Hezbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah has said he would not have ordered the capture of two Israeli soldiers if he had known it would lead to such a war.

"Had we known that the kidnapping of the soldiers would have led to this, we would definitely not have done it," he said in an interview on Lebanese TV.

He added that neither side was "heading towards a second round" of fighting....

This could mean that Hizballah is in worse shape than his crowing about a great victory might lead one to believe.

Speaking in Brussels on Friday, Mr Annan said the plan would only work if the enlarged UN force, called Unifil 2, was "strong, credible and robust".

This sort of discord is good for Israel, and for Infidels in general, as the warring factions waste energy fighting over who gets to take credit for waging jihad for the sake of Allah (jihad fi sabil Allah).

Also, Rahman's rant again underscores the fact that the conflict over Israel is religious in nature rather than being based on some nationalistic grievance, as is also the case with the Sunni-Shi'ite conflict, and every other front of jihad -- many of which Rahman enumerates at the end of the article.

Sunni-Shi'ite Jihad Update from YNet News: "Al-Qaeda member: Hizbullah backed by evil"

A speech allegedly made by Sheikh Abu Abdul Rahman has surfaced on a jihadi pro al-Qaeda website in which Rahman is cited as condemning the "infidel Hizbullah" and "the most corrupted regimes of Syria and Iran."

The speech was posted on the Islamist Muntada internet forum, frequently used by British Muslim al-Qaeda sympathizers, and was described as being a "summary of an address by Sheikh Abu Abdul Rahman speaking from Lebanon."

It is unclear whether the speaker identified as Rahman on the forum is a reference to al-Qaeda's second in command in Iraq, Abu Abdul Rahman al-Iraqi, and whether the senior al-Qaeda figure actually delivered the message from Lebanon.

The statement does, however, represent the seething resentment of Sunni al-Qaeda, directed at what it sees as an attempted Shiite takeover of the jihad campaign in the Middle East.

In the speech, Rahman espoused anti-Semitic conspiracy theories inspired by the Russian forgery, the protocols of the elders of Zion: "We know very well from our history that the Jews target to occupy Lebanon, Syria and even the north of the Arabian peninsula even up to Iraq to the river of Furaat (Euphrates)."

However, he then turns his wrath to Hizbullah, Iran, and Syria, calling them "infidel entities," and arguing that they are preventing Sunni jihadis from attacking Israel.

'Hizbullah not fighting for Allah'

"We need to know the reality, and we already know how Hizbullah do not fight for the sake of Allah. They declare themselves that they fight for the sake of Lebanon, are backed by the most corrupted regimes -- Syria and Iran -- and backed by the most evil people," Abdul Rahman was cited as saying.

"We cannot be fools to die for nationalism and tribalism, if two entities of Kuffar (infidels) fight that does not bother us. What bothers us is if we side with any one of them," he added. "Hizbullah has been the shield for the northern border of Israel, just like the eastern and southern shield is Jordan and the western shield is Egypt. These shields are all to prevent any Mujahideen (holy warriors) from entering Israel or to attack them," the message said.

Abdul Rahman claimed that Israel was actually focusing on "the Sunni and Palestinian Mujahideen in Lebanon rather than Hizbullah who will escape disarmament by joining the Lebanese army."

"We remember when al-Qaeda launched rockets from southern Lebanon, it was Hizbullah who rose to defend Israel and condemned it and threatened to cut the hand of those responsible if they caught them," the statement said.

Rahman also complained that Muslims were being led to disregard warfronts launched by Sunni jihadis around the world: "The mistake of many Muslims is that because of this one story, they have forgotten about Somalia while the enemy forces are preparing to enter Mogadishu, they forgot about Sudan and Darfur, they forgot about Afghanistan, China, Iraq, Kashmir."

"Lebanon is a battle between two kuffar (infidel) entities but those losing out are the innocent people caught in between who are not part of the conflict. The people should be patient, we do not fight for land or rock; we fight for the word of Allah to be the highest in that land, we fight in the Muslim lands to make the word of Allah the highest, not for the word of the kuffar regimes to be the highest. We need to believe decisively that all of Muslim land is our land: Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine and all others," the message said.

"We should let Israel and Hizbullah weaken each other so that the Muslims can benefit in the long run and will use the opportunity to prepare for the future. The Muslims need to invest this war for the long war to liberate the whole of Palestine and all Muslim lands, and not to let the kuffar choose our battlefield nor let the media set our agenda," the statement concluded.

More media deception in aid of the jihad. Zombie (thanks to Henry Morgan) has the whole story:

On the night of July 23, 2006, an Israeli aircraft intentionally fired missiles at and struck two Lebanese Red Cross ambulances performing rescue operations, causing huge explosions that injured everyone inside the vehicles. Or so says the global media, including Time magazine, the BBC, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and thousands of other outlets around the world. If true, the incident would have been an egregious and indefensible violation of the Geneva Convention, and would constitute a war crime committed by the state of Israel.

But there's one problem: It never happened.
* * *

Of all the exposés and scandals surrounding the media's coverage of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict in Lebanon, The Red Cross Ambulance Incident stands out as the most serious. The other exposés were spectacular in their simplicity (photographers staging scenes, clumsy attempts at Photoshopping images), but often concerned fairly trivial details. What does it matter whether there was a big cloud of smoke over Beirut, or a really big cloud of smoke, as one notorious doctored photograph showed? The fact that the media was lying was indeed extremely important, and justified the publicity surrounding the exposés -- but what they were lying about was often minor, a slight fudging of the visuals to exaggerate the damage.

The ambulance incident, however, was anything but trivial. The media accused Israel of the most heinous type of war crime: intentionally targeting neutral ambulances which were attempting to rescue innocent victims. If true -- and it is almost universally accepted as true -- then Israel would lose any claim to moral superiority in the conflict. The commanders who ordered the strike should be brought up on war-crimes charges. As it is, the worldwide outcry over Israel's purported malfeasances grew so strident that the country was pressured into a ceasefire. The media's depictions of Israel's actions so influenced public opinion that Israel felt compelled to end the fighting right at the moment it was starting to gain the upper hand. And as a result, Hezbollah has now claimed victory.

The Red Cross Ambulance Incident was perhaps the most damning of all the evidence against Israel, and the most morally indefensible. Other incidents were open to debate: in those cases where Israel bombed buildings that turned out to have civilians inside, Israel claimed either that it didn't know the building was occupied, or that it was trying to hit a Hezbollah stronghold elsewhere in the same building; or that the strike was a mistake, an errant missile. But targeting clearly marked ambulances, and hitting them directly -- there's no possible excuse for that. So this specific incident contributed to the outrage over the war, eventually causing Israel to stand down.

Which makes it all the more shocking to learn that the attack on the ambulances most likely never occurred, and that the "evidence" supporting the claim is in fact a hoax.

He then presents the evidence for the hoax. Be sure to read it all.

Several Jihad Watch readers have informed me that the Wikipedia wars have broken out again, with apologists for jihad dredging up anything negative anyone has ever said about me and putting it into my biography there, while editing out anything positive. Those who may be interested can read Jihad Watch News Editor Anne Crockett's account of earlier campaigns here. I have also heard from several other prominent anti-jihadists that their biographies have been targeted recently also.

I am not too interested in Wikipedia, although I appreciate the efforts of all those who are trying to keep it balanced; its free-for-all editing policy makes it too easy a prey for propagandists, such that it would not be worth bothering with at all were it not for the odd fact that many seem to take it seriously. I am more interested in the recurring phenomenon of critics making blanket dismissals of my work without providing a single particular example of its inaccuracy. The current version of the Wikipedia entry (which may, of course, be much changed by the time you read this) quotes something written several years ago by Dr. Carl Ernst, author of Following Muhammad. So I just wrote Dr. Ernst this letter:

Dear Dr. Ernst,

I had the honor of meeting you briefly several years ago when I spoke at the University of North Carolina.

Shortly thereafter it came to my attention that you had written a criticism of my work, not on the basis of what it actually says, but on the basis of my publishers, alleged political agenda, and lack of credentials.

I made no response to this and confess I had quite forgotten about this until recently, but recently it has come to my attention as part of a larger-scale attempt to discredit my work.

Accordingly I added this reply to the FAQ section at my website, www.jihadwatch.org: "I present the work not on the basis of my credentials, but on the basis of the evidence I bring forth; evaluate it for yourself. One example: after I spoke at the University of North Carolina, Professor Carl Ernst of the university wrote a piece about me warning that my books were non-scholarly and were published by presses that he believed reflected a political agenda of which he did not approve. That kind of approach may impress some people, but Carl Ernst did not (and cannot) bring forth even a single example of a supposed inaccuracy in my work. I would, of course, be happy to debate Carl Ernst or any other scholar of Islam about Islam and jihad; this is a standing invitation. Also, as this site has shown, I am always open to new information."

And to your charge of bigotry: "It is not an act of hatred against Muslims to point out the depredations of jihad ideology. It is a peculiar species of displacement and projection to accuse someone who exposes the hatred of one group of hatred himself: I believe in the equality of rights and dignity of all people, and that is why I oppose the global jihad. And I think that those who make the charge know better in any case: they use the charge as a tool to frighten the credulous and politically correct away from the truth."

The invitation to a debate remains open. If you accept, we will, of course, need to agree on the precise subject, but I suggest something concerning the nature of jihad in Islam, the role of Muhammad's example as al-insan al-kamil in contemporary jihad recruitment, or some related topic. My own schedule permitting, the debate can be at a time and place, and in a format of your own choosing.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kindest regards
Robert Spencer

Yeah, surrre

Here, from LGF, is a video trumpeting the conversions to Islam of the Fox journos Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig -- conversions that we know now were coerced.

Ironically, the video highlights every Western dhimmi analyst's favorite Qur'an verse, "there is no compulsion in religion" (2:256).

Centanni, I can't help but notice, looks a bit like Johnny Carson reading a script from a bad Karnak the Magnificent routine, and indicating by various pauses and stumbles that he has never seen it before. See if you can count how many times the two of them make statements that scream with irony given the fact that what they're saying is coerced.

This just came in to the Hate Mail Bag, which has been bulging lately but alas, I have been too busy to post some of the choicest missives. This one's subject line was "hate mongering."

Do you really believe that muslims want to conquer americancer and rule it by sharia law? Muslims at large would be satisfied if they themselves could live under Islamic sharia. Muslims that migrate to the west hate islam, they dont want to spread it whether they accept it or not.

I think you know this already. Your just spreading hate, and lies to serve your agenda. Whatever it is.

It constantly amuses me that people say I'm lying about Islam without being able to produce even a single actual lie. But anyway, I answered in this way:

You call it "americancer" and then accuse me of hate mongering?

You are over-generalizing. Not all Muslims in the West hate Islam, and not all Muslims in the West want Sharia.

I think you know this already. You're just spreading hate, and lies to serve your agenda. Whatever that is.

An update on this story, with more information on the nature of the incident.

From Oil Online: "Condemnation towards Iran on attacking Romanian oil rig"

"It is totally unacceptable and reprehensible to place innocent workers’ physical safety at risk, as Iran’s armed forces did in this matter," said ICEM General Secretary Fred Higgs. "We understand that a commercial dispute was in progress between the companies, and this dispute must be settled through negotiation and the civil process."

The Orizont rig was under maintenance at the time, in Iranian waters and a very short distance from international waters. After boarding the vessel, Iranian armed forces kept the crew on the rig’s heliport for several hours without food and water. They then allowed the crew to return to other quarters, but cut off all communications between the workers and GPS.

[...]

The commercial dispute between GPS and Oriental Oil occurred after the Romanian company terminated a contract in April 2006 after Oriental failed to get a renewed bank letter of credit for work this year. Prior to Iran taking military action on Tuesday, the dispute over the removal of Romanian rigs from Iran’s gas fields to maintenance facilities elsewhere had been taken up in Iranian courts, as well as brought before other international bodies.

Iran's version of the story accuses the Romanian firm of being part of a grand, multi-company scheme to steal from Iran:

Iranian police forces foiled an attempt by the Romanian oil firm Group Servicii Petroliere (GSP) to rob the Orizon drilling rig in the Persian Gulf, reports said on Tuesday.

According to Mehr News Agency, the Romanian company first started the dispute by kidnapping two representatives of PetroIran Company on Fortuna drilling rig, beating them up and then kicking them out of Iran’s waters in the Persian Gulf on 13 August.

How? On a boat? From the heliport? This doesn't add up.

After the incident and in response to a request from Iranian partner of the contract, Kish Oriental Company, a judiciary court in Kish Island ruled for confiscation of the rig and the ruling was passed on to the police which in turn took appropriate action, it added.

In spite of the ruling, the Romanian company tried to take away Orizon, the second Iranian oil rig, but the attempt was foiled by Iranian police.

The GSP enjoys the backing of the Alfajr Lel Aqarat Company in the United Arab Emirates which is run by an influential Sheikh and an Iranian born manager.

It is reported that Alfajr Lel Aqarat has been trying to earn some 600 million dollars by stealing the Iranian oil rigs.

The latest from Iran is that a "settlement" has been reached. Never mind the court proceedings.

August 1939 Alert from the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to Romy:

Iran successfully test-fired a submarine-launched long-range missile in the Persian Gulf, Iranian state television reported on Sunday.

The test was part of a continuing series of military exercises the Islamic Republic began earlier this month.

My Weekly Standard is generally hopelessly clueless about the global jihad, but this piece, "What did you do in the war, UNIFIL?" by Lori Lowenthal Marcus (thanks to all who sent this in) contains important information about UN dhimmitude and complicity with Hizballah.

DURING THE RECENT month-long war between Hezbollah and Israel, U.N. "peacekeeping" forces made a startling contribution: They openly published daily real-time intelligence, of obvious usefulness to Hezbollah, on the location, equipment, and force structure of Israeli troops in Lebanon.

UNIFIL--the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, a nearly 2,000-man blue-helmet contingent that has been present on the Lebanon-Israel border since 1978--is officially neutral. Yet, throughout the recent war, it posted on its website for all to see precise information about the movements of Israeli Defense Forces soldiers and the nature of their weaponry and materiel, even specifying the placement of IDF safety structures within hours of their construction. New information was sometimes only 30 minutes old when it was posted, and never more than 24 hours old.

Meanwhile, UNIFIL posted not a single item of specific intelligence regarding Hezbollah forces. Statements on the order of Hezbollah "fired rockets in large numbers from various locations" and Hezbollah's rockets "were fired in significantly larger numbers from various locations" are as precise as its coverage of the other side ever got.

This war was fought on cable television and the Internet, and a lot of official information was available in real time. But the specific military intelligence UNIFIL posted could not be had from any non-U.N. source. The Israeli press--always eager to push the envelope--did not publish the details of troop movements and logistics. Neither the European press nor the rest of the world media, though hardly bastions of concern for the safety of Israeli troops, provided the IDF intelligence details that UNIFIL did. A search of Israeli government websites failed to turn up the details published to the world each day by the U.N.

Read it all.

Here is the continuation of Diana West's superb proposal for recasting the "war on terror." Part I is here. West for President!

At home, the line of defense is clear. It is our border. My new strategy calls on us to think of our border as more than just a line on a map. We need to see the border as a cultural line also, a defining line of freedom against proponents of sharia, which, I cannot emphasize enough, poses a direct threat to our founding principles of liberty and equality. It is that simple. There is a crucial military component to the anti-sharia defensive, which I will outline momentarily. But without taking civil precautions at the border, even a decisive military victory abroad could be nullified by non-violent means at home.

How? Through largely unregulated immigration of peoples from "sharia states" -- those regions whose governing traditions derive, wholly or in some important part, from the edicts of Islam. If such an influx continues, Islamic law will be accommodated, adopted and even legislated, at least in some jurisdictions, according to majority will. We know this to be true because such a "sharia shift" is already transforming what sociologists call post-Christian Europe into an increasingly Islamic sphere. If we do not want to see such changes here, we must act. Accordingly, I am asking Congress to amend our laws to bar further Islamic immigration, beginning with immigration from sharia states. This, the most crucial domestic component of my anti-sharia program, will undoubtedly be regarded as the most controversial because it necessitates making a definitive judgment against the laws promulgated by Islam, a religion. This may appear to go against our cherished tradition of religious tolerance, not to mention good manners. But if the laws promulgated by Islam directly threaten freedom of conscience, freedom of expression and religion, women's rights and key concepts of equality -- and they do -- it is a sign of intellectual rigor mortis not to say so. And I do say so, but, again, not to launch a transformative military or cultural offensive against Islam, but to initiate the mobilization of a defensive movement to prevent the Islamization of American law and liberty.

And what about Iraq? Thanks to American-led coalition troops, a Ba'athist dictatorship has been dismantled, and Iraq is a parliamentary democracy under a new constitution. It is a matter of increasing significance, however, that this new constitution, ratified by the people of Iraq, enshrines Islamic law above all. This means that when the new Iraq joined the ranks of democratic nations, it simultaneously joined the ranks of sharia states. This may help explain widespread Iraqi sympathy for Hezbollah, for example, the Iranian-supported Shi'ite terrorist group that not only attacks American and Israeli interests, but also seeks the expansion of sharia. It also begs the question about long-term American support: How, in the war on terrorism, can we uphold a partner that feels solidarity with terrorists?

We cannot -- certainly not as a realistic war strategy to safeguard the liberty of the Free World. Once, I saw the war that began on Sept. 11, 2001, as dividing the world between those countries that were with us, and those that were against us. I have now come to define the crisis, both cultural and military, as occurring between the Free World and the Sharia World. The centrality of sharia in Islam is not something Americans can or should try to change. But it is not something we can ignore, either.

With this centrality in mind, our goals in the Middle East should change from, in effect, promoting sharia-democracy to preventing the export of sharia and terrorism to advance sharia. Accordingly, I have directed our military to formulate a plan to redeploy American troops from Iraq's cities, where they have been operating at great risk to attain stability for the Iraqi government, to bases in the north. From there, they may assist as needed in our mission to neutralize the terrorism- and sharia-exporting capabilities of freedom's enemies in the region. These would include nuke-seeking Iran and Syria, without whose support Hezbollah would not exist, and Saudi Arabia, from whose coffers comes global jihad.

What we call the war on terror now moves into a more focused phase, which better defines our mission and makes it more attainable. The road ahead is long and difficult, but our next steps are clear.

God bless the United States.

Only two years after this moronic Keystone Kops policy was instituted, it has been dropped. Now I would like to know who instituted it, and for what reasons, and if this was a matter of simple bubbleheaded stupidity, of which of course there is an abundance in Washington, or something worse. Because it is very hard for me to believe that anyone genuinely interested in the safety of air travel could have instituted this policy in the first place.

From the ABC News blog, with thanks to Romy:

Undercover federal air marshals will no longer be held to a strict dress code that many thought compromised their in-flight anonymity.

The elimination of the dress code is one of a number of significant operational changes announced in a message to air marshals today by the director of the Federal Air Marshal Service, Dana Brown.

Brown's announcement comes just three months after an ABC News investigation revealed policies which air marshals said compromised their undercover status....

Effective Sept. l, air marshals will be allowed to "dress at your discretion, recognizing that the manner of dress should allow you to blend in and not direction attention to yourself," according to Brown's message.

Brown also said air marshals will be free to select their hotels. Under the previous policy, air marshals were required to stay at the same hotel, where their names were often kept on a roster visible to the public at the front desk.

Brown told the marshals the service is also considering changes in boarding policies, "which unfortunately do not lend themselves to simple solutions or immediate, unilateral decisions."

Air marshals had complained passengers could easily spot them because they were required to show their badges publicly at the airline check-in counters and were forced to board in advance.

"Most important, the children understand that the conflict with the Jews is not over land, but rather over religion."

Why will Rice and Bush and Olmert and everyone else never grasp that? From Haaretz, with thanks to all who sent this in:

GAZA - On Sheikh Ajlin Beach, dozens of Palestinian children are shouting and playing and splashing each other, like children anywhere. They are at summer camp. The lifeguard moves in between them, blowing his whistle and ordering them to stay within the marked-off swimming area. There are always a few who stray, deliberately or not. When that happens the teenaged girls who lead the various activities wade into the water in their long dresses and head coverings to make sure that the future generation of Islamic Jihad does not drown in the ocean. The organization runs the camp for disadvantaged children.

All the Palestinian factions have been talking about social welfare in the past several weeks, including Islamic Jihad. Hisham, one of the camp directors, volunteers to discuss the children's schedule. He prefaces his remarks with the opening chapter of the Koran, Al-Fatiha.

"Gaza suffers from shellings, terrible economic straits and threats to the life of each one of these children day and night," Hisham explains. "So we try to detach them from the bad feelings and the horrors they are exposed to. They come in the morning and have lessons in sports such as soccer or volleyball. Afterward they go to the beach, where they swim and run around, followed by lunch. We don't forget our martyrs, and we teach them about making sacrifices on behalf of the Palestinian people and tell them the truth about Islam."

When asked about this "truth," Hisham launches into a monologue on history from his perspective: "We teach the children the truth. How the Jews persecuted the prophets and tortured them. We stress that the Jews killed and slaughtered Arabs and Palestinians every chance they got. Most important, the children understand that the conflict with the Jews is not over land, but rather over religion. As long as Jews remain here, between the [Jordan] river and the sea, they will be our enemy and we will continue to pursue and kill them. When they leave we won't hurt them."

“Militants inside the Al Qadir Al Kilami mosque fired small arms, machine guns and rocket propelled grenades at U.S. forces…” – from this news item

The entire Muslim conquest resulted in the destruction, or appropriation, of synagogues and temples and churches. Many think it all happened long ago. They flip through a book on Islamic Art and discover that the first mosque known to have been built in India was built over what remained, after destruction by Muslim conquerors, of a Jain temple. Hindu scholars have compiled a two-volume work, its pages filled merely with a laconic list of the thousands of Hindu temples, and vast temple complexes, with their artwork as well, destroyed by the Muslims, their carved stones quarried for the erection of mosques.

All over the Christian world, too, tens of thousands of churches and Christian libraries and other structures were destroyed, or were turned into mosques if the structure was famous enough. Think of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, built partly on what was once the Church of John the Baptist. Think of the Hagia Sophia, its crosses ripped out, its wall-paintings vandalized, itself turned into a mosque until finally Ataturk managed to make it into a museum. (But suggest to even the outwardly most advanced, most secular Turks that Hagia Sophia should be returned to use as a church, and they look at you as if you were completely mad -- and in a sense, they are right). Think of the hundreds of churches in Constantinople alone, destroyed. There is a maquette of Constantinople in 1453, showing all of those churches on the second floor of the Museum of Greek and Roman Antiquity in the Topkapi complex. Few visitors ever go there -- the day I went, I was the only one. But there you will see those churches, and a list of all those known to have once existed and then wiped from the face of the earth by Muslims.

But that was then, some will say. That was in the bad old days. Those things don't happen now.

Sharia Alert from Down Under. Sheik Mohammed Omran is perfectly free to moralize, but bitter experience has shown that slurs on Islam often turn into threats of violence against those who are perceived as doing the slurring. "Beauty queen uproar," from The Herald Sun, with thanks to JE:

THE Islamic community is bitterly divided over a Melbourne Muslim girl's entry into the Miss Teen Australia beauty pageant. Aspiring model Ayten Ahmet, 16, says she wants only to be a positive role model for teenagers.

She believes religion is irrelevant to the competition.

The Craigieburn teenager hopes to be announced as a Victorian finalist in the contest, marketed as the southern hemisphere's biggest teen beauty pageant, at a preliminary event at Federation Square today.

But the pageant, which includes a swimwear section, has been condemned as sinful by some senior Muslims.

Melbourne cleric Sheik Mohammed Omran criticised the event, with his spokesman branding participation by Muslim girls as "a slur on Islam".

"They are ignorant of what their religion teaches and should learn their religion," the sheik's spokesman said.

"The teachings of the prophet and the Holy Koran do not encourage a girl to go out and uncover her modesty in public."

Victorian Islamic leader Yasser Soliman said participating in the contest was not in accordance with the teachings of Islam.

"What Islam teaches is that God-given beauty is only to be shared with the husband. It is not something used as a commercial gimmick, for financial gain, fame or entertainment,' he said....

Forced conversion is officially forbidden in Islamic law, but this is a law that has quite often been honored in the breach throughout Islamic history. Of course, since the Muslim prophet Muhammad couched his appeal to Islam in terms that made it clear that a negative response would result in loss of property and exile, the line between forced and uncoerced conversion to Islam has always been rather thinner than non-Muslims might assume.

"Fox reporters freed in Gaza, say forced to convert," from Hizballah News Agency, aka Reuters, with thanks to all who sent this in:

GAZA (Reuters) - Militants in the Gaza Strip released two kidnapped journalists from the American Fox News Channel on Sunday after forcing them at gunpoint to say in a videotape they had converted to Islam.

Correspondent Steve Centanni, a 60-year-old American, and New Zealand-born cameraman Olaf Wiig, 36, were in a hotel in the Palestinian coastal strip after two weeks of captivity.

A previously unknown group called the Holy Jihad Brigades had made a sweeping demand for the United States to free Muslim prisoners in exchange for the release of the men. The United States had rejected the demand.

"I am really fine, healthy, in good shape and so happy to be free," Centanni told the Fox Channel.

Centanni said he and Wiig were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint.

"I have the highest respect for Islam ... but it was something we felt we had to do because they had the guns and we didn't know what the hell was going on."

Russia remains eager to defend Iran from sanctions, protecting its energy interests in the Islamic Republic. From Reuters:

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia on Friday rejected any talk for now of sanctions against Iran and France warned against conflict with Tehran, raising doubt whether it will face swift penalties for not halting nuclear work by an August 31 deadline.

Responding to an offer of economic incentives to stop enriching uranium, Iran hinted to six world powers on Tuesday it could curb its program as a result of talks to implement the package -- but not as a precondition as they demand.

The reply seemed designed to crack the ramshackle united front of four Western powers and Russia and China behind the U.N. Security Council deadline. The West sees Iran's nuclear work as a looming threat to peace. Russia and China do not.

"I know of no instances in world practice and previous experience in which sanctions have achieved their aim and proved effective," Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov told reporters during a trip to Russia's far east.

"Moreover, I believe that the question is not so serious at the moment for the U.N. Security Council or the group of six to consider any introduction of sanctions. Russia stands for further political and diplomatic efforts to settle the issue."

Ivanov is regarded as close to President Vladimir Putin.

The Security Council passed a legally binding resolution on July 31 telling Iran to suspend its nuclear enrichment program within 30 days or risk sanctions.

Iran says it is enriching uranium solely to generate electricity. The West suspects the Iranian nuclear program is a front for building atom bombs.

U.S., French and German leaders said that Iran's 21-page response to the incentives offer was unsatisfactory because it did not specifically agree to stop purifying uranium.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said on Friday that Tehran's reply had touched on "many different elements, different from the ones that we had proposed".

"For that reason we will have to hold a dialogue session ... or a conversation with the ... Iranians to improve upon some of the expressions and meanings of the subject matter treated in its document," he told Spain's RNE state radio.

But while Washington, backed by closest ally Britain, has said the six powers will move quickly to adopt sanctions if Iran disregards the deadline, Germany and France have been less conclusive in public and Russia and China have been unwilling.

"For the moment, it (the Iranian response) is not satisfactory," French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said on RTL radio, but added it was important to avoid escalating conflict with Iran and the Muslim world.

"The worst thing would be to escalate into a confrontation (between the West and) Iran on the one hand, and the Muslim world with Iran...," he said.

No, the worst thing would be for that confrontation to involve a nuclear-armed Iran.

"I'm starting from the principle we should have a dialogue with the Iranians, that we must hold out our hands to them."

You do that. I'm keeping mine.

[...]

Some analysts believe that widespread anger in the Arab and Muslim worlds over Washington's perceived slowness to push Israel into a ceasefire with Hizbollah could erode support in the 15-member Security Council for a showdown with Iran.

"The strongest motivation to give talks a chance seems to be the international community's lack of appetite for a fourth conflict in the Middle East," said Trita Parsi, a U.S.-based Iranian author and commentator.

Russia, which is building Iran's first nuclear power plant, has traditionally argued that sanctions would not work.

Russia and China, also long averse to sanctions as a policy tool, have major energy and investment stakes with Iran and could veto sanctions in the Security Council.

Mark Fitzpatrick at the International Institute for Strategic Studies said Russia's stance seemed to contradict the intention of the Council resolution but most diplomatic players remained keen to find a palatable alternative to sanctions.

"I'm sure there will be high-level talks on whether there is some formula regarding sequencing of suspension" based on Iran's hint it could shelve enrichment as the upshot of talks to carry out the incentives, he said.

"The question is whether there is a basis to fudge the sequencing -- that is, Iran commits to suspension after a very short time period of negotiations. I don't know if that would be enough for (the West)."

Well, there can always be another UN deadline.

Now it's a fait accompli. Will the West respond with a healthy sense of self-preservation? August 1939 Alert from AP:

KHONDAB, Iran - Iran's hard-line president on Saturday inaugurated a heavy-water production plant, a facility the West fears will be used to develop a nuclear bomb, as Tehran remained defiant ahead of a U.N. deadline that could lead to sanctions.

The U.N. has called on Tehran to stop the separate process of uranium enrichment — which also can be used to create nuclear weapons — by Thursday or face economic and political sanctions.

War Is Deceit Alert:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared that his nation's nuclear program poses no threat to other nations, even Israel, "which is a definite enemy."

Ahmadinejad said in a speech that Iran would never abandon what he once again called its purely peaceful nuclear program.

"There is no discussion of nuclear weapons," he said. "We are not a threat to anybody even the Zionist regime, which is a definite enemy for the people of the region."

And are edging toward stardom as a result. "I see people turning toward Islam, so I have to sing to that." Tiny Minority of Extremists Update from AP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

YAMOUN, West Bank - They were struggling in a boy band, working the West Bank wedding circuit and dreaming of stardom.

Now the five singers who make up the Northern Band have come a little closer to their goal, with help from an unwitting ally — Hezbollah guerrilla chief Hassan Nasrallah.

At the height of the Israel-Hezbollah war, the band wrote new lyrics, in praise of Nasrallah, for an old tune. The "Hawk of Lebanon" song tapped into Nasrallah's huge popularity among Palestinians and became an instant hit.

The song is being played on Arab TV networks, used as a ring tone for cell phones, passed around on e-mail and distributed on pirate CDs and tapes. Music stores have trouble keeping up with demand, in part because Israeli soldiers have confiscated some Nasrallah tapes and CDs at checkpoints.

Basking in its newfound success, the band has doubled its fee per performance to $230. At a recent wedding in the town of Ramallah, the band was asked to play the Nasrallah song six times.

Lead singer and manager Alaa Abu al-Haija, 28, said he gives the audiences what they want to hear. "I see people turning toward Islam, so I have to sing to that," said Alaa, sitting in the living room of his family's two-story house in the northern West Bank village of Yamoun.

The lyrics consist of constant repetition of a few simple rhymes: "Hey, you, hawk of Lebanon. Hey, you, Nasrallah. Your men are from Hezbollah and victory is yours with God's help."

Responding to a prediction by the historian Paul Johnson that the Muslim world would soon “collapse” into secularism, Robert Spencer observed that "the Muslim world was much more secular 100 years ago and fifty years ago than it is now."

Fifty years ago, one hundred years ago, the Muslim world was obviously weak, without resources, facing an obviously much more powerful and self-confident West. Those who recognized this and wished to do something about it were the ones who, like Kemal Ataturk, pushed "reform" in the sense of greater constraint on Islam and the granting of rights closer to what had been granted in the West to individuals. But the extent of that "reforming" impulse has often been exaggerated. Furthermore, it was often undertaken by those who wished not to jettison Islam, but to rescue it from what they took was certain decline and possibly fall in relation to that West.

The most important such reformer was Ataturk, who as a result of Turkey's loss of the Ottoman Empire and obvious weakness, put in place a series of measures designed to constrain the political and social role of Islam in Turkey. But Ataturk could do this only because Turkey was toppling, and he, as a war hero and capable of great ruthlessness, could reasonably present himself as impelled -- as he was -- by nationalist fervor as well as by doubts about Islam. Kemalism essentially replaced the myths of Islam with a mythological cult of The Turk, who had supposedly always inhabited Anatolia and to whom the credit for everything, practically back to the Hittites, should be given.

A Handbook for Muslim Debaters certainly exists. It consists of all the wiles and evasions and mistatements and tu-quoque (Zionists! Americans in Iraq! Stealing Our Oil! The Crusades! The Inquisition! The Holocaust! Timothy McVeigh! and so on) that have been used to obscure the truth about the Jihad, and which we have seen so often in the comments section here at Jihad Watch.

This kind of deception comes naturally to many people in societies where, as one Christian informant who spent the first 40 years of his life in Haleb told me, a Muslim will not even trust his own brother to enter his house when the man in the family is away, and where one lives in a miasma of rumor and fear and mistrust, and where the most implausible things are believed. Why would they not be, when one is raised in a society suffused with an attitude entirely inimical to free and skeptical inquiry?

But no such Handbook for Infidel Debaters exists. Nor does there exist a handbook for those who conduct radio programs.

Third Grade Jihad Update: "College Park teacher gets 15 years for aiding terrorists," from The Gazette, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

A third-grade teacher at Al Huda School in North College Park was sentenced to 15 years in prison Friday for his participation in the ‘‘Virginia Jihad Network.”

Ali Asad Chandia, 29, was the last of a group of 11 Muslim men charged in Alexandria, Va. U.S. District Courts for training with Lashkar-I-Taiba, a group fighting against the Indian government and labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. government, according to a Washington Post report.

Six of the men pleaded guilty to charges of aiding terrorists, three were convicted in court and two men were acquitted, the Post reports....

A Washington Post article quotes Chandia defending himself while exiting the courtroom: ‘‘With Allah as my witness, I tell everyone that I am innocent. ... God knows that I did not support and would not support any terrorists.”

Ice Cream Jihad and Keystone Kops Updates from AP, with thanks to PRCS:

SACRAMENTO - Umer Hayat was jailed for a year, branded a liar by federal prosecutors and forced to sell his house to his brother to pay his legal bills.

Still, the naturalized U.S. citizen said he loves his adopted country and harbors no grudge against a justice system he claims was coercive in its pursuit of a terrorism case that could send his oldest son to prison for three decades.

The Lodi ice cream vendor was released from federal custody Friday and spoke to reporters about the federal terrorism case that has left him broke and his family life in turmoil.

"I lost my house and I lost my job, and right now we're living in the garage with my family, which is difficult for us," Hayat, 48, said outside the federal courthouse. "We lost everything for nothing."

Hayat and his 23-year-old son, Hamid Hayat, were arrested in June 2005 and charged with lying to federal agents about whether the younger man attended an al-Qaida training camp in Pakistan in 2003.

Hamid Hayat also was charged with providing support to terrorists for attending the camp. He was convicted in April and is awaiting sentencing.

The same jury deadlocked on the charges against his father. Umer Hayat later pleaded guilty to lying to a customs agent about trying to bring $28,000 into Pakistan three years ago. He variously claimed the cash was for wedding gifts or to buy a house for his family.

[...]

"I still love this country," Umer Hayat said. "We are Muslims and we are peaceful people. ... I hate terrorism."

During Hayat's sentencing hearing Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. gave him credit for time served, fined him $3,600 and ordered him to spend the next three years on supervised release. A tracking device was removed from his ankle,

"We think the sentence imposed by the court is wholly appropriate, given the false statements Umer Hayat made in 2003 and 2005," Assistant U.S. Attorney S. Robert Tice-Raskin said outside the courtroom. "We believe justice has been served."

Now the truth is beginning to come out. Only the most bemused Canon-Peterson types will be surprised. From Iran Focus, with thanks to Arjun:

Tehran, Iran, Aug. 26 – A top Iranian official warned on Friday that Tehran may develop nuclear weapons as a “preventative measure” against threats posed by the West.

“The patience of the Iranian nation has a limit. If [the West] crosses this limit, our nation, which is very suspicious of the good will of Western countries, will force Majlis to ratify the law for Iran to withdraw from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty”, Mohammad-Reza Bahonar, the deputy speaker of Iran’s Majlis, or Parliament, said on Friday.

“The Iranian nation is facing illogical powers that have nuclear weapons and see no deterrent. If they exert pressure on us it is possible that our nation will ask the government to produce nuclear weapons as a preventative measure”, Bahonar, who is also secretary general of the Islamic Association of Engineers, said following a meeting by the group’s leaders.

The courageous writer Rachel Ehrenfeld has been subjected to a bullying lawsuit by the Saudi billionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz. You can find the details here. Now 9/11 Families For A Secure America has written a strong and much-needed letter in her defense:

The members of 9/11 FSA, as direct victims of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, have therefore have a special interest in the uncovering of all those individuals and organizations which played a role, either directly or indirectly, in the conspiracy which led to the mass murders of that day. It is for this reason we support the position of the plaintiff Ehrenfeld.

A decision for the defendant would severely inhibit and perhaps put an end to further investigation into the involvement of persons of wealth or influence who participated in some fashion in the 9/11 plot. Were the defendant to prevail responsible individuals would be far less likely to undertake the research that is essential if all questions about the events of that day are to be answered.

Many facts about the 9/11 conspiracy are beyond dispute and among them are these:

Individuals of Saudi Arabian nationality were among those who actually carried out the hijackings and murders on September 11.

Many of the “masterminds” who originated the plot, directed the planning of the attacks, and who comprise much of the leadership of the terrorist organizations involved are Saudi nationals. These Saudi terrorist leaders maintain operational control over terrorist acts of the organizations they head, and in addition are responsible for raising funds to pay for their activities.

The members of these terrorist organizations are believers in radical Islam which advocates the persecution and murder of non-moslems. One of the most extreme sects of radical Islam is that which is known as “Wahabism.” Many members of the terrorist groups responsible for the 9/11 attacks are either members or sympathizers of Wahabist cells.
Some members of the Saudi government and members of the Saudi royal family (essentially one and the same) and other wealthy Saudis are members of this sect. Despite claims by the Saudis that that they are allies of the United States the Saudi royals, government and associates have supported the spreading of Wahabism through financial support of Wahabist schools and ‘holy men’ in the West.

That financial links exist between members of the Saudi government and its ruling class to groups intent on the murder of Americans has been demonstrated by the 9/11 Commission and private researchers.
FBI Director Robert Mueller has told 9/11 family members that he “is not here to point fingers,” thus indicating that the chief investigative agency of the United States government is not interested in finding all the facts of the 9/11 mass murders.

9/11 family members and members of the public have expressed on numerous occasions that they lack faith in the desire of the members of the 9/11 Commission to fully expose involvement of officials of various governments in the 9/11 plot.

Given these facts it to would be a clear threat to the people of the United States if responsible private individuals lacking governmental immunity were discouraged from pursuing and publishing information that might lead to exposure of individuals involved, whose positions of wealth or power might enable them to intimidate private researchers.

Should defendant bin Mahfouz obtain a favorable judgment, publication of research into 9/11 will be the subject of severe self-censorship. The American people and the 9/11 families have heard repeatedly how segments of the US government did not “connect the dots” prior to 9/11, “dots” which, had they been connected would have led to conclusions and knowledge that would have thwarted the September 11 plot prior to its execution. Had that occurred our 3000 loved ones would still be alive and those of our members facing illness and death from exposure to airborne toxins would not have been exposed.

A decision for defendant bin Mahfouz will mean that in the future, the “dots,” and the individuals and terrorist organizations represented by those dots will be free to exploit the legal systems of nations around the world and through them the courts of the United States, to intimidate those who would find the facts.

In short, a decision for defendant bin Mahfouz will help secure participants in the 9/11 plot and future plots from exposure.

CONCLUSION

For these reasons, 9/11 Families for a Secure America respectfully request that this Court reverse the decision of the district court.

Peter Gadiel, President, 9/11 Families for a Secure America

Bruce DeCell, Vice-President, 9/11 Families for a Secure America

Another kind of useful idiot. From the Toronto Star, with thanks to Scaramouche:

NEW DELHI—When Indian soldiers gunned down Hindu Uttam Singh, along with three Muslim militants in a border district of Indian-administered Kashmir Doda in August last year, the 23 year old was described by the army as a conscript in the ranks of the mujahedeen.

Security forces in Kashmir have insisted such militants fight an Islamic struggle that a Hindu could never support.

But the killing yesterday of another Hindu militant rebel leader lends weight to a growing theory that at least some minority Hindus in Kashmir willingly support the jihad of its Islamic extremists.

The two deaths, plus the arrest of at least three other Hindu militants this summer, are also raising doubts about the government assertion that Kashmir's bloody insurgency is being fought simply in the interests of Islamic militancy.

Acting on a tip, Indian forces trapped two jihadists in Khilandi village in the Indian border district of Doda and killed them yesterday.

After the night-long gun-battle by a team of army and police commandos, it became clear both dead men belonged to the largest rebel group, Hizbul Mujahedeen, but that one — Kuldeep Sharma, 25 — was Hindu.

Eight years ago, police said, school dropout Kuldeep crossed into Pakistan, where he was trained in arms and explosives. Two years later, with the Muslim nom de guerre Kamraan (Success), he returned to India-controlled Jammu and Kashmir, where he was made a deputy commander of Hizbul Mujahedeen, which fights for all of Kashmir's inclusion in neighbouring Pakistan.

Read it all.

Regular readers of Jihad Watch will recognize that many of these useful idiots have passed through here and left comments. From Amil Imani, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Islam enjoys a large and influential ally among the non-Muslims: A new generation of “Useful Idiots,” the sort of people Lenin identified living in liberal democracies who furthered the work of communism. This new generation of Useful Idiots also lives in liberal democracies, but serves the cause of Islamofascism—another virulent form of totalitarian ideology.

Useful Idiots are naïve, foolish, ignorant of facts, unrealistically idealistic, dreamers, willfully in denial or deceptive. They hail from the ranks of the chronically unhappy, the anarchists, the aspiring revolutionaries, the neurotics who are at war with life, the disaffected alienated from government, corporations, and just about any and all institutions of society. The Useful Idiot can be a billionaire, a movie star, an academe of renown, a politician, or from any other segment of the population. Arguably, the most dangerous variant of the Useful Idiot is the “Politically Correct.” He is the master practitioner of euphemism, hedging, doubletalk, and outright deception.

Read it all.

Turkey, Jordan, Egypt. Will these troops be protecting Israel from Hizballah, or Hizballah from Israel? "EU Wants Mideast Peace Force With Strong Muslim Component," from AP, with thanks to Bill:

The EU and U.N. agree the peacekeeping mission must have a strong Muslim component to give it credibility. But Israel objects to nations that do not recognize the Jewish state, saying such troops would make it impossible for Jerusalem to share intelligence with the U.N. force.

Israel's objection would include Indonesia, Malaysia and Bangladesh, which have volunteered troops. Turkey, meanwhile, which does have diplomatic relations with Israel and would be acceptable to all parties, has not decided whether to join the force.

It was unclear how the United Nations would meet Israel's demand to prevent the Islamic militants of Hezbollah from rearming, including controlling the Lebanon-Syrian border.

"Israel seeks troops from Muslim nations," from AP:

JERUSALEM - Israel said Saturday it was encouraging some Muslim countries to send peacekeepers to southern Lebanon, a contribution that would lend credibility to the heavily European force....

The EU and U.N. agree the peacekeeping mission must have a strong Muslim component to give it credibility. Israel, however, objects to nations that do not recognize the Jewish state, saying such troops would make it impossible for Jerusalem to share intelligence with the U.N. force. That would exclude Indonesia, Bangladesh and Malaysia, which have offered troops.

But Israel said it has been in touch with other Muslim countries to encourage them to participate, particularly Turkey, which has diplomatic relations with Israel.

"If Turkey decides to send a contingent, we would welcome that," said Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev.

Jordan and Egypt also are among Muslim countries that have diplomatic relations with Israel.

Oscar Arias makes it clear below that what Costa Rica has done is back the strong horse, bearing out again Osama's now-famous dictum. "El Salvador to move embassy from Jerusalem," from the Hizballah News Agency, aka Reuters, with thanks to JS:

El Salvador will move its embassy in Israel from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, the Foreign Ministry said on Friday, in a move bound to upset Israel and please Arab nations.

El Salvador would have been the only country in the world left with an embassy in Jerusalem after neighboring Costa Rica announced on August 16 it would pull its diplomatic mission out of the city.

A US ally which has a small contingent of troops in Iraq, El Salvador is governed by conservative President Tony Saca, who is of Palestinian Christian descent....

Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, a former Nobel Peace Prize winner, said earlier this month he made the decision to change the embassy's location to win more friends in the Middle East and comply with UN resolutions.

Sanctity Of The Holy Places Update: "GIs Exchange Fire with Militants in Mosque," from AP, with thanks to Twostellas:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. forces fired tank rounds at a mosque in the restive city of Ramadi Friday and exchanged heavy fire with militants inside, the U.S. command said, as Iraqis looted a base in the south after it was vacated by British troops.

One U.S. soldier was lightly wounded and three people were reportedly killed inside the mosque, while five people were killed elsewhere in Iraq in a relatively peaceful day in the country wracked by sectarian and Sunni insurgency violence.

Militants inside the Al Qadir Al Kilami mosque fired small arms, machine guns and rocket propelled grenades at U.S. forces, a statement by the U.S. command said. They also hurled hand grenades and a bomb, it said.

American soldiers returned fire at first, and finally unleashed several rounds from M1 tanks into the mosque, said the statement. "The mosque suffered serious structural damage to the dome and minaret," it said.

Good. If it is used as a fortress, it should be treated as a fortress.

Another Chechen Jihad Update: "Militancy Reportedly Rising Outside Chechnya," from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, with thanks to Twostellas:

Russia; August 25, 2006 -- The head of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) says militants are becoming more active in southern Russian republics neighboring Chechnya.

Nikolai Patrushev attributed the change to successes scored by security forces against militants in Chechnya itself.

He says that over the past seven months, militants carried out 18 "terrorist" acts in Ingushetia and 11 in North Ossetia, twice as many as in the same period of 2005.

Chechen Jihad Update from Reuters, with thanks to Twostellas:

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A police detective and a former police officer were killed in night-time attacks on their homes near Russia's Chechnya region, local media reported on Sunday.

A group of about 10 men raided the detective's home, killed him and set fire to the property, Interfax news agency reported. They then moved on to the home of the retired officer. The dead men's families were not hurt.

Moscow has been fighting a violent insurgency against its rule in Chechnya that has spilt over into other parts of the poor and mainly Muslim North Caucasus. Attacks on local police and other officials are frequent.

Like every other reform proposed in the Women's Protection Bill currently under heated debate in Pakistan, the National Assembly committee member's proposal for criminalizing marital rape is up against the dictates of the Qur'an, ahadith, and Sunnah, and those who follow them as the immutable word of Allah, and his prophet, whom they believe to be uswa hasana and al-insan al-kamil -- the "perfect example", and the "best of men."

The proposed reforms, from the Daily Times: "Sex without wife’s consent rape: Kashmala"

ISLAMABAD: Kashmala Tariq, a member of the NA Select Committee on Women’s Protection Bill, proposed that a husband having sex with his wife without her consent should be tried under rape charges. Kashmala said at a Select Committee meeting that men should not have sex with their wives against their will. She said that married women should not be treated like "buffaloes". Kashmala told Daily Times that committee members Mehnaz Rafi, Zahid Hamid and Wasim Sajjad had endorsed her viewpoint.

And the rebuttal, also from the Daily Times: "No, it is unIslamic to stop husbands: Aamir"

ISLAMABAD: Dr Aamir Liaqat Hussain, minister of state for religious affairs, opposed Kashmala’s proposal that men having sex with their wives be tried under rape charges, saying that it was "un-Islamic to stop husbands from having sex with their wives even if they were doing so without their consent", sources told Daily Times. Aamir quoted Surah Nisah to defend his contention.

Sura 4, "an-Nisah" ("Women"), deals with rules for marriage and inheritance, and contains the verse:

Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them. Lo! Allah is ever High, Exalted, Great. (4:34)

And confirming the incredibly long odds faced by those who would change the minimum age at which girls can be married (as reported in this story), the article concludes by noting:

Noorul Haq Qadri and Sher Afgan Niazi defended girls’ marriages at an early age. Niazi referred to marriage of Prophet (PBUH) to Hazrat Ayesha (RA), the sources added.

Jihad Charity Update from The Australian, with thanks to JE:

A CHARITY at the centre of concerns over the funding of the alleged terrorist plot to attack trans-Atlantic aircraft has had its assets frozen.

The Charity Commission is investigating the activities of Crescent Relief, which raised large sums from British Muslims for the humanitarian operation after the earthquake in Kashmir last October.

The inquiry follows the revelation that one of the men arrested at High Wycombe, a town near London, in connection with the alleged plot was a fundraiser for the charity.

It has also emerged that a co-founder of the charity was Abdul Rauf, from Birmingham, whose son Rashid is in custody in Pakistan, where the authorities claim that he is a "key figure" in the conspiracy.

August 1939 Alert from Reuters, with thanks to Sam:

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran has completed a new phase in its Arak heavy-water reactor plant, a presidential official said on Saturday, referring to part of Iran's atomic program which the West fears is aimed at producing bombs.

The official said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would give a speech later in the day "announcing that the heavy-water project has become operational".

Chicago Jihad Update: "Video Discloses Alleged Plot To Target Sears Tower," from CBS, with thanks to Noir:

(CBS) MIAMI Undercover video acquired by CBS 2's Miami sister station, WFOR-TV CBS 4, reveals an inside look at a suspected terror group leader accused in a plot to target U.S. landmarks, including the Sears Tower.

The suspected group was based in Miami and was allegedly led by a former Chicagoan.

As CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports, that Chicago suspect was apparently trying to recruit help with his mission when he was busted.

The “Liberty City 7”, as they have been dubbed, face terrorism charges after government agents uncovered an alleged plot to blow up buildings, including the Sears Tower, the Miami Federal Courthouse, and the Miami FBI offices, as well as other structures.

The undercover video shows Narseal Batiste, and others taking, what prosecutors claim, is an oath to the al Qaeda terrorist organization, as well as conversations in which Batiste tells and FBI undercover agent his plans for blowing up buildings.

[...]

The videotape of the front and side doors of that courthouse was to be given to the man they thought represented al Qaeda, a man Batiste first met when he entered a Miami hotel room hoping to make his dream of Islamic jihad a reality.

“My name is Brother Mohammed ali Hussein,” the informant said on tape.

“Ali Hussein,” Batiste asked.

“Yes,” said the informant. “My job is to determine if its worth it or not. My job is to say if these people are serious or not."

Batiste tries to convince him that he and seven other members of his so-called Moorish Science Temple, their mosque housed in a rundown warehouse in Miami, are very serious.

“What's the plan?” asked the informant.

“To build this army,” Batiste replied.

“Army? To build an army?” the informant asked.

“An Islamic army for Islamic jihad,” Batiste said.

“Jihad? To wage jihad?” the informant said.

“Yes,” confirmed Batiste....

Why would you need an army to wage an inner spiritual struggle?

They feel justified in seizing "war loot" in accordance with Islamic law. There is a whole chapter of the Qur'an devoted to war loot, or booty -- Surat Al-Anfal (Spoils of War), which is sura 8. After the Muslims' great victory in the Battle of Badr, Allah rewarded those to whom he had granted victory. There was so much booty for the victors that it became a bone of contention. So divisive did this threaten to become that Allah warns the Muslims not to consider booty won at Badr to belong to anyone but Muhammad: “They ask thee concerning things taken as spoils of war. Say: ‘(Such) spoils are at the disposal of Allah and the Messenger: so fear Allah, and keep straight the relations between yourselves. Obey Allah and His Messenger, if ye do believe” (8:1).

Ultimately, Muhammad distributed the booty among the Muslims equally, keeping a fifth for himself. (8:41). This was in accord with a special privilege that Allah had granted to Muhammad. Muhammad explained: “I have been given five (things) which were not given to any amongst the Prophets before me.” These included the fact that “Allah made me victorious by awe (by His frightening my enemies)” and “the booty has been made Halal (lawful) to me (and was not made so to anyone else)” (Bukhari 1.7.331). The Qur'an is also much preoccupied with booty outside of sura 8.

From AP, with thanks to Del:

AMARAH, Iraq - Looters ravaged a former British base Friday, a day after the camp was turned over to Iraqi troops, taking everything from doors and window frames to corrugated roofing and metal pipes, authorities said....

Several Iraqi soldiers, apparently unarmed, did not seem to make any effort to stop the looting.

"There are only few soldiers at Abu Naji camp. Some of the residents were carrying weapons so they (the soldiers) did not want bloodshed and with such a big number, they cannot stop them," Jabbar said....

When asked by a reporter why he was taking material from the base, one man, who refused to give his name, said: "This is war loot and we are allowed to take it."

I just did a segment of the Laura Ingraham Show, debating Dr. Esam Omeish, president of the Muslim American Society. I didn't get the chance to give prior notice here, but I understand it will be broadcast again later today.

A few observations: I pointed out that every school of Islamic jurisprudence teaches that it is the responsibility of the Muslim community to wage war against unbelievers in order to establish the hegemony of Islamic law. Dr. Omeish in response said that yes, Islam must be spread all over the world, but the primary way to do this was through preaching. I responded, referring to the hadith Sahih Muslim 4294, that Muhammad commanded preaching first, but warfare against those who rejected the message. Dr. Omeish said this was a misrepresentation of Islam, but offered no supporting evidence for his position.

A little while later Laura Ingraham referred to the case in Malaysia where Lina Joy, a convert to Christianity, is having such a hard time, including death threats. I explained that this resulted from the traditional Islamic death penalty against apostates, and quoted Muhammad's dictum, "If anyone changes his religion, kill him." Ingraham then asked Dr. Omeish if Sharia indeed mandated death for apostasy. He said flatly that it didn't, whereupon I said, "He's lying!" but I don't know if my mic was on.

Dr. Omeish offered no evidence for his position. Here is evidence for mine:

1. Muhammad legislated for his community that no Muslim could be put to death except for murder, unlawful sexual intercourse, and apostasy: "The blood of a Muslim who confesses that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that I am His Apostle, cannot be shed except in three cases: In Qisas for murder, a married person who commits illegal sexual intercourse and the one who reverts from Islam (apostate) and leaves the Muslims" (Bukhari 9.83.17). He said flatly: “Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him” (Bukhari 9.84.57).

2. Muslim governments and people seem to understand this well. Here are some recent pertinent news items -- leaving aside the famous Abdul Rahman case in Afghanistan:

Wave of arrests of Christian converts from Islam for apostasy in Egypt

Malaysia: Mufti urges action against apostates from Islam

Pakistan: Woman Raped for Leaving Islam

Pakistan's top cleric: “if a state is truly Islamic” it would have to kill the apostate

Nigeria: Pastor faces arrest for harboring convert from Islam

Qaradawi endorses death penalty for apostasy

Muslim apostates cast out and at risk from faith and family

I would, of course, be happy to debate Dr. Omeish at greater length. If Dr. Omeish or his representatives are reading this, you can reach me at director@jihadwatch.org.

Sharia Alert from AFP: "Mullahs tell aid groups to fire women"

ISLAMABAD: Muslim clerics in earthquake-hit Azad Kashmir have told aid agencies to fire all local women employees or face violent protests, officials and religious leaders said on Thursday.

The threat, given to district officials and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Bagh on Tuesday, will dent hopes that the October 8 quake could have a positive effect on women’s rights in the conservative region. "We have told the administration that we will not allow NGOs to exploit our women and asked them to give a date suitable to them for removal of all female workers," Syed Atta Ullah Shah, prayer leader of the Bagh central mosque, told Agence France Presse.

And if "we" don't get our way:

"If our demand is not met then we will take direct action and extreme steps. There will be demonstrations and damage may be caused to public property and a law and order situation would be created in the area," he added.

The religious leader said locals were angered by "obscene" activities at NGOs. "They hire beautiful girls and take them to Islamabad for enjoyment. They keep women in offices as decoration pieces because we know that women have no work and there is no such work that men cannot do," Shah said. Aid groups say female workers are vital to ensure that religious and social conventions are respected when dealing with women in the devastated region, especially for health matters.

The United Nations, which has coordinated aid efforts after the quake, said it was aware of the issue. "Discussions are going on with the government and clergy. Things are not finalised yet," Raabya Amjad, public information officer for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told AFP.

If a Muslim cannot fight in jihad himself, Islamic law stipulates that he must aid in the jihad in some way if a Muslim land is attacked. Hence many do so through monetary donations, which, as we have seen in recent years, are often funneled through Islamic charities.

From the New York Times, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

LONDON, Aug. 23 — Once again, with another alleged terror plot that has a possible connection to a charity, the question is being asked here, with more urgency: To what extent do Muslim charities — on the surface noble and selfless — mask movements and money for terrorists and extremist groups?

The question has a long history, here and in the United States, but no precise answer. A quick bottom line, though, seems to be this:

Charitable groups, experts agree, continue to play a role in the financing and operations surrounding terrorist groups and plots. But with more scrutiny since the Sept. 11 attacks — demonization, the charities say — the role of charities seems to be changing: diminishing somewhat but also growing more subtle and harder to detect.

“Anyone who has bothered to study terrorist financing at the most shallow level knows the role that charities have played since 1985,” said Evan F. Kohlmann, an American expert on terrorism who acts as a consultant to American and British prosecutors. “Even if charities aren’t playing a primary role, it is almost certain that they are playing a secondary role.”

Read it all.

I don't know why Javed Iqbal felt he had to go to such lengths. Wasn't Reuters enough? "Man Charged With Relaying Hezbollah TV," from AP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

NEW YORK (AP) - A businessman was charged with providing satellite broadcasts of a Hezbollah television station to New York-area customers, authorities said Thursday.

Javed Iqbal, 42, was arrested Wednesday on conspiracy charges of enabling the broadcasts of al Manar, which was designated by the U.S. government this spring as a global terrorist entity, U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia said in a statement.

Garcia said Iqbal used satellite dishes at his Staten Island home to distribute the broadcasts through a Brooklyn company called HDTV Limited.

Later on AP tells us that Hizballah is "sophisticated" (wearing white gloves as they launch terror attacks against civilians, I suppose) and sniffs at the U.S. designation of the group as a terrorist organization:

The U.S. government considers Hezbollah, Lebanon's most sophisticated Shiite group, to be a terrorist group.

And democratic reforms are an "attack on Islam." More on this story from the Telegraph, with thanks to JE:

President Pervez Musharraf has opened a new and especially bitter confrontation with radical Islam by trying to rewrite Pakistan's controversial rape laws.

These place an almost impossible burden of proof on women by compelling them to produce four "pious" male witnesses to prove rape or risk being convicted of adultery and face 100 lashes or death by stoning.

This law, known as the Hudood Ordinance, has been regarded as untouchable since its passage 27 years ago.

It is regarded as untouchable because it is rooted in the Qur'an. After Muhammad's favorite wife, Aisha, is accused of adultery (it's a long story; get it in my forthcoming book The Truth About Muhammad), he exonerates her with a revelation from Allah requiring four witnesses to establish a sexual offense: "Why did they not produce four witnesses? Since they produce not witnesses, they verily are liars in the sight of Allah" (Qur’an 24:11). The adoption of this law was part of the long, slow abandonment of secular law by Pakistan.

It also sets no minimum age for sex with girls, saying only that they should have reached puberty.

This too is based on Muhammad's example. According to a hadith attributed to Aisha herself as the source, "the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years" (Bukhari, 7.62.64).

A powerful militant Muslim lobby regards this code as sacred and based on Koranic texts and sharia law. No previous Pakistani leader, not even the country's first female leader, Benazir Bhutto, dared reform it.

But Gen Musharraf's allies in parliament sparked the fury of the militant opposition by introducing a Women Protection Bill. This would remove the requirement for four male witnesses to prove rape and set 16 as the age of consent for sex with girls.

When this measure came before parliament, Islamic radicals responded by tearing up copies of the bill and storming out. "This bill is against the Holy Koran," said Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the leader of the militant opposition. "We reject it and will try to block it in any possible manner." Other MPs chanted "death to Musharraf" and "Allah is great."

There's a preview of what the British parliament will be like in a few years.

Liaqat Baluch, the deputy leader of an alliance of six Islamic parties, pledged to mount a public campaign to show that "under the garb of this bill and women's rights, the government is deviating from the Koran". The prime minister, Shaukat Aziz, countered that the militants had committed "an act of desecration" by tearing up the bill.

Gen Musharraf, who claims to favour "enlightened moderation", has waited until his seventh year in power before venturing into this uniquely sensitive political territory. But western diplomats, who have repeatedly demanded the repeal or reform of the Hudood Ordinance, believe he will succeed. The general's allies have a comfortable majority in parliament. The bill will go before a parliamentary committee, where Islamic radicals could introduce wrecking amendments. Last month Gen Musharraf, a key US ally in the war on terrorism, changed Pakistani law to allow women detained on charges of adultery and other minor crimes to be released on bail. Hundreds of women were later freed.

Until now the general, who has survived three assassination attempts by radical Islamic groups, has preferred to avoid confrontation over an issue that has not, despite an unprecedented publicity drive by the government, caught the popular imagination.

"How can a dictator propped up by the West introduce democratic reforms?" asked Hazat Aman, an official of a social welfare group run by the hardline Islamic Jamaat-i-Islami party. "It is an attack on Islam," he said.

And that's why he may prevail in the short run, in a parliamentary vote or some such, but he is unlikely to do so in the long run unless there is a larger-scale challenge to Islamic orthodoxy than has hitherto existed.

Watch for more calls to combat "Islamophobia," and few or none to call the Islamic community in Britain to account for nurturing British citizens as traitors. "Islam poses a threat to the West, say 53pc in poll," from the Telegraph, with thanks to JE:

The alleged plot to blow up transatlantic airliners and last year's terrorist attacks on London have made more people fear Islam as a religion, not merely its extremist elements, a poll for The Daily Telegraph has found.

A growing number of people fear that the country faces "a Muslim problem" and more than half of the respondents to the YouGov survey said that Islam posed a threat to Western liberal democracy. That compares with less than a third after the September 11 terrorist attacks on America five years ago.

The findings were revealed as Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary, conceded that the multi-culturalist approach encouraged by the Left for two decades had probably been a mistake and could have contributed to the alienation that many young Muslims said they felt and experienced.

Well, stop the presses.

Guess which groups: that's right, CAIR and the ACLU, continuing their war against America's defense, with an account of harrassment that just doesn't ring true. From Newsday, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Muslim, Arab and South Asian passengers are being profiled by Homeland Security officers at Kennedy Airport, civil liberties groups said Wednesday, citing a New Jersey family that was detained and interrogated after a flight from Dubai last week.

The family, a mother and her 20-year-old twin daughters from Montclair, N.J., said they were plucked from the baggage area, held six hours without food or water by Customs and Border Protection agents and questioned about their views of Iraq.

Nahgam Alyaqoubi and her daughters, Arwa and Sumia Ibrahim, naturalized American citizens, said 200 other passengers of Arab, Muslim or South Asian backgrounds were detained on Aug. 15 in a roped-off area, days after the London bomb suspects were arrested.

The family joined officials from the American Civil Liberties Union and other rights groups at a news conference in the Manhattan office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations to condemn what they say has been an increase in racial profiling since the London plot was uncovered. They also criticized Rep. Peter King for what they said was profiling.

Arwa Ibrahim, who along with her sister is enrolled at Rutgers University, said they were born in Iraq and moved to the United States at age 5. She said the experience was disturbing because they were forced to sit on the floor without food or water and were treated rudely when they asked questions of the officers.

"It was a really humiliating experience -- humiliating because we were treated like animals," she said. "We were treated really horribly by the officers that were there, we were yelled at, we were told to get back, threatened with arrest and threatened to have to stay longer if we complained."

The ACLU and other rights groups said they planned to investigate this and several other complaints of profiling....

A rebuttal of one of the main charges from Lucille Cirillo, a supervisory Customs Border Protection officer in New York City:

On the complaints about lack of water, she said airlines are required to provide food and water to passengers even if they're off the plane and in the luggage area of the airport....

And clear thinking from Congressman Peter King:

"First of all, it's not ethnic or racial profiling," King said Wednesday. "What I'm saying, though, is that screeners should have the right to ask additional questions of a person who belongs to a particular ethnic or religious group if members of that group have threatened the United States."

In a sane world, that would be called common sense.

As we have pointed out here many times, so much strategic thinking about the challenge of the global jihad is dominated by sclerotic thinking -- not only a refusal to face reality (as pandemic as that is), but also by an apparent inability to digest the evidence of the last few decades. Witness the rather offhanded remark by the great historian Paul Johnson in his essay "The Biggest Threat We Face" in National Review:

International terrorism, in its Muslim-extremist variety, is a world phenomenon. In my view it will eventually blow itself out, probably by the collapse of the Muslim world into secularism. But in the meantime it constitutes the biggest threat that Western civilization faces.

The "collapse of the Muslim world into secularism"? Dr. Johnson, I'm terribly sorry to disappoint you, but the Muslim world was much more secular 100 years ago and fifty years ago than it is now. Early in the twentieth century Muslim reformers such as Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida gave rise to widespread hope that Islam could be brought into line with Western principles of human rights. Political systems based to varying degrees on Western models, not Sharia, were established all over the Islamic world in the 20th century; now they are everywhere under pressure by increasingly numerous and powerful adherents of Islamic law. Even 35 years ago in Cairo or Karachi it was much more common to see women in Western dress than it is now.

No, Dr. Johnson, the Islamic world at this point is much less likely to "collapse" into secularism than it is to do away in due course with non-Islamic government altogether.

And yet despite the fact that these instructions include the directive not to appear too obviously Islamic, echoing an Al-Qaeda manual discovered recently, Western journalists will no doubt continue to point to the Western dress of those arrested for jihad terror activity as evidence that they were not actually observant Muslims. "Islamist Al-Hesbah Website Plan of Action for the Jihad Fighter: How to Kill a Westerner in the Arabian Peninsula," from MEMRI, with thanks to all who sent this in:

On August 4, 2006, the Al-Hesbah website published instructions on "How to Kill a Crusader in the Arabian Peninsula." The document was signed by Amer Al-Najdi, and dated June 15, 2006.

[...]

"Below I will explain the jihadist way of action and the security measures to be employed by the jihad fighter [when he wants to kill a Westerner]:

"First of all, before carrying out the operation, pray [to Allah] to guide you on the good path.

"[Regarding your] external appearance - Try as much as possible to look like someone who is not religious. For example, wear [a kuffiyeh] with an 'aqal instead of a turban, and wear cheap dark glasses during the day and regular glasses at night. Your clothes must be long, and try if at all possible for them to be heel-length, or longer; don't be afraid of this. Wear a sport suit or a regular suit. Similarly, it is greatly preferable to be shaven.

"[Regarding] the items or the clothing in [your] car - Immediately get rid of everything in your car that indicates that you are religious, such as jihad cassettes, small papers such as post-its... The most important thing there must not be anything in the car indicating that the owner is a religious man... so that if the dogs of the security [apparatuses], the emergency [apparatuses], or the other [apparatuses] stop you in a suspicious place and search your car they will find nothing proving that you are religious, and will release you right away.

"While you are carrying out the operation, be careful not to take your cell phone with you - especially if it has a camera - so that it won't cause you, or your friends whose numbers are in the phone, problems with unknown consequences.

"Some Ways to Find a Crusader [i.e. a Westerner] or a Dog From the Security Apparatus

"In order to carry out the operation when the time comes, you must have a weapon (a pistol or a submachine gun) or a good knife, if you are interested in slaughtering this infidel or this [Saudi] dog...

"[How to find a target] in the Crusader settlements [i.e. compounds] that are found everywhere:

"The first method: At about seven AM, pass by the settlement and check only how these Crusaders leave it, and what road they take. Beware, my jihad-fighting brother, to pass by only once, because the military dogs at the gates [of the settlement] might suspect you and detain you.

"Two or three days later, pass by the [same] settlement, but don't go near it as you did the first time. That is, go straight to the road where [the settlement residents] go, and wait for them by the side of the road, and when you see one of these Crusaders, follow him.

"It is best to change vehicles each time, if you can. While following the Crusader, be very careful not to be exposed. For the most part, especially these days, they are feeling safer, because there are not many operations against them. But the jihad wave is approaching, and Allah will conceal this matter from them....

Read it all.

Hmmm. Will the Caliph of Gaza declare jihad upon Mullah Omar, the Emir ul-Momineen?

"Fatah leaders meet to discuss Hamas," from the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to Andrew Bostom:

...Meanwhile, a radical Islamic group called Hizb al-Tahrir (Liberation Party) is planning to declare the birth of an Islamic caliphate in the Gaza Strip on Friday. The relatively small party, which is seen as more extreme than Hamas, is said to have increased its popularity following what is perceived as a Hizbullah victory over Israel.

On Tuesday, thousands of the party's supporters staged a demonstration in Gaza City to mark the anniversary of the end of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. It was the first demonstration in the Gaza Strip in which demonstrators called for establishing an Islamic caliphate that would rule not only in the PA territories, but the entire world.

Buoyed by the large turnout, the party's leaders are now considering declaring an Islamic caliphate in the Gaza Strip during Friday prayers, sources close to the party said.

A new essay from the insightful European writer Fjordman, who deserves all of our support:

Note from Fjordman: It is now more than a year and a half since I started writing essays and posts under the name Fjordman. I have so far never asked for donations, but I am now reaching a point where some financial contributions may be necessary for me to continue doing this. I will be posting at least six or seven more essays over the coming three weeks. However, I have plans for at least a dozen longer essays after this, provided I have the time and financial opportunity to write them. The essays will be dealing with why I find a Reformation of Islam unlikely to happen, why the work of many self-appointed Muslim reformists is inadequate, why Islam probably cannot be reconciled with democracy and how the West should deal with these facts. All of these essays will, if possible, be finished during the fall of 2006 and the winter of 2006/2007. Many of them will be published first here at Jihad Watch, some of them at the Gates of Vienna and republished at Faith Freedom International and other websites. All of my online essays can be republished for free by anybody who wants to, as long as credit is given to the author. Any financial donation, which can be given here, will be greatly appreciated, and should be considered as payment in advance for future essays.

I have seen so many lies and half-truths by Western mainstream media exposed in the blogosphere, especially related to Islam, that I no
longer trust them for information. Leading bloggers such as Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs recently demonstrated this by showing how photos distributed by international news service Reuters from Lebanon had been grossly manipulated to make Israel look bad. Blogger Zombie argued, in a very convincing way, that the story about Israel deliberately targeting ambulances in Lebanon was full of holes, quite possibly a complete fabrication. It proves how easily, willingly, many Western journalists believe every piece of nonsense Muslims feed them, as long as it's directed against Israel, the United States or the West in general.

Death threats for Samir Qumsieh, after he denounced the persecution of Palestinian Christians. From AsiaNews, with thanks to Mark:

Bethlehem (AsiaNews) – Death threats are getting nastier for Samir Qumsieh. He is the director and owner of the only private Christian TV station in Palestine. Concerned about his family and his business, he has repeatedly called on the authorities to intervene to the little avail.

In 1996 Mr Qumsieh founded Al-Mahed (the Nativity) TV in Bethlehem. He told AsiaNews that he is forced to live with the constant threats against his life and might have to shut down his TV station, which has been well-receivfed by Christian leaders in the Holy Land. In the past, Mr Qumsieh denounced several times the violence inflicted on Christians in the Holy Land.

A few days ago he called on Bethlehem governor, Salah Al-Ta’mari, to investigate a serious incident. After midnight last Thursday unidentified people threw cocktail Molotov into the garden of his house.

“We avoided the worst by a miracle. One of the bottles fell on wet grass causing little damage; the other did not explode,” he said. Never the less, the incident is but the latest in a long string of similar episodes.

Qumsieh said that “in the past defamatory and indimidatory leaflets about him were circulated”. But what is worse is that “despite my pleas that something be done to find those responsible for these acts, the security forces have done nothing.”

In his letter to the governor, copies of which were also sent to the chiefs of local security forces and to Christian leaders, the TV station owner complained that the threats against him are “a serious and dangerous development that must be taken seriously”.

But it won't be.

Good thing that August 22 business turned out to be nonsense, eh? August 1939 Alert from the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to Lenny:

A senior official in Teheran said Wednesday that in the next few days, a "surprise" was expected regarding Iran's nuclear program, Al-Jazeera reported.

Teheran's apparent refusal to suspend uranium enrichment set the stage for a showdown at the UN Security Council later this month.

The United States said Wednesday that a proposal by Iran for nuclear negotiations falls short of UN demands for a halt to enrichment, and began plotting "next moves" with other governments.

Diplomats from Europe, the US, Russia and China pored over details of Iran's counterproposal Wednesday, a day after Teheran presented it.
Initial comments from Russia and China, however, made clear that the US is likely to face difficulty getting at least those nations to agree to any tough sanctions against Iran.

The fools.

The Muslim states of OPEC have taken in about ten trillion dollars in the past one-third of a century. They have spent much of that money on wage-slaves, from Americans and Europeans at the top (doctors, oilfield engineers, and so on), then Koreans (construction of every kind) all the way down to those Filipino nurses, those chauffeurs from the subcontinent, those Thai and Indonesian house slaves (and slaves, some of them, in other obvious ways as well). But with what has been left over from their pleasure palaces, their guarantees of free everything to their own citizens and of nothing to anyone else, they have had hundreds of billions left over for the duty of Jihad.

They have bought hundreds of billions of dollars worth of arms, the most up-to-date arms they can get. Some of those arms were put to use, as we all know, in the Iran-Iraq War (the best thing, for Infidels, to have happened, to promote division and confusion and alarm in the Muslim world since the defeat of 1967 -- but that earlier conflict took place before the OPEC bonanza appeared).

Those "extraordinarily lax conditions, abetted by corruption among wardens, in some Indonesian jails," is also abetted by sympathy for the jihad among those wardens. Internet Jihad Update from the TimesOnline, with thanks to JE:

ONE of the plotters of the deadly Bali bombings in 2002 raised funds for a second attack on the island via an internet connection from his cell on death row, a senior Indonesian policeman admitted yesterday.

Imam Samudra, who has been sentenced to face a firing squad for his part in the nightclub attacks that killed 202 Indonesians and foreign tourists, advised fellow extremists on ways of raising funds for a second attack last year using a laptop with a wireless internet connection that had been smuggled into his cell.

The revelation, by Police Colonel Petrus Golose, of Indonesia’s anti-terror task force, testifies to the extraordinarily lax conditions, abetted by corruption among wardens, in some Indonesian jails.

According to Colonel Golose, Samudra communicated with a number of extremists, one of whom created a website setting out the best ways of murdering foreigners in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. Two of his contacts, Mohammad Agung Prabowo, and Agung Setyadi, are in custody after being arrested last week in separate raids on the island of Java. They have not been charged.

Last year Mr Setyadi, an information technology lecturer who was conniving with a prison warden, smuggled the computer into the jail in Bali where Samudra was being held after being sentenced to death for the first bomb attacks.

A three-year-old girl among those killed. From Reuters, with thanks to JE:

Five people including a teenage couple who married against their families' will have been killed by relatives in the latest incident of so-called honour killing in Pakistan, police say....

The couple - Kamalan and Allah Rakhio - both 18 and from rival clans in the southern province of Sindh, had married about three months ago after eloping, said Usman Subaho, a police officer investigating the case.

"They were killed just a few days after returning to their village after getting married in Karachi," he said....

The girl's family took her wedding as a slight on their honour.

The attackers stormed the couple's house, killing them and three other family members including a three-year-old girl, said Subaho.

Eleven family members were wounded in the attack, he said.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says about 1,000 people are killed in honour-related crimes every year in Pakistan.

Philippine Jihad Update from AKI, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

Butuan City, 23 August (AKI) - Security forces in the Philippines have found 10 sacks of ammonium nitrate, a chemical used in the manufacture of bombs, in southern Philippines. The authorities said on Wednesday they believe the Abu Sayyaf militant group - which the United States says has links to al-Qaeda - wanted to use the chemicals to make explosives. The find by the Filipino army comes just over a week after the seizure of 6,000 blasting caps from a person on board a ferry in the southern island of Jolo, according to a report by the Philippines News Agency (PNA).

The authorities also said that the blasting caps were similar to those used by the Abu Sayyaf in previous bombings in Zamboanga City and Jolo.

In yesterday's featured article at FrontPage, which I was prevented from putting up yesterday by yet another attack on this site, I discussed the August 22 brouhaha, and why all those who are crowing now about "right-wing hysteria" should not lose sight of the real problem: the continuing threat from Iran (news links in the original):

Iran drew concern worldwide for refusing to respond in a timely fashion to the West’s offer of an incentives package in exchange for Tehran’s abandonment of its nuclear program. Iranian officials brushed aside the June 29 deadline set by the West and said Iran would respond on August 22. Some, including Farid Ghadry of the Reform Party of Syria (as I reported several weeks ago) and Islamic scholar Bernard Lewis, suggested that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the mullahs in Iran’s inner circle may have chosen that date in order to establish a connection with the Islamic prophet Muhammad’s fabled Night Journey, during which Allah is said to have miraculously illuminated the night sky over Jerusalem to facilitate the prophet’s journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, and thence to Paradise. Would Iran’s answer to the West’s tribute package be to illuminate the night sky over Jerusalem again, this time with a nuclear device?

Obviously not – at least not on August 22 itself. That was a cue for some of the loudest advocates of Western appeasement and surrender to the global jihadists to condemn right-wing hysteria, despite the fact that no one who reported on this possibility had ever stated with any certainty that anything in particular would happen on August 22. Brian Whitaker, a columnist for The Guardian who once suggested that Gandhi would admire jihad, sneered: “The purpose of all this scaremongering is obviously to build up fears about an Iranian nuclear attack. The main obstacle to promoting such fears is that Iran does not possess any nuclear weapons but Lewis seems determined not to let that stand in the way and apparently believes that Iran already has a fully-prepared arsenal.” In dismissing these speculations as “scaremongering,” however, Whitaker and others neglect to consider one possibility: that they were correct.

Keystone Kops Alert: "Terrorist screening missed 75% of time: Green card and visa applications not checked against terror watch list," from DailyBulletin.com, with thanks to Doc Washburn:

An estimated 75 percent of applicants for immigrant benefits - green cards, work visas, and a host of other documents - at a major federal processing center were not screened through the U.S. terrorism watch list over the past four years, the Daily Bulletin has learned.

The error - on nearly 3 million applications dating to 2002 - was confirmed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) officers at the National Benefits Center in Lee's Summit, Mo., near Kansas City. The center is one of several facilities across the country that process foreign applications for immigrant benefits.

Numerous Department of Homeland Security e-mails - sent the day after British authorities uncovered major terror plot - noted that supervisors and adjudicators at the Missouri center were not aware that a simple touch of a computer key would have allowed them to check the names of applicants against the highest-priority terrorist list. According to the e-mails and the adjudicators themselves, up to 2.8 million applications at the center dating to 2002 did not get such checks.

Robert Cowan, director of the National Benefits Center, denied that benefits were processed incorrectly and said any failed background checks were given to supervisors for final review. Cowan added that the 75 percent figure was attributable to employees not properly marking enforcement documents, misspelling names, or leaving out names altogether.

Oh, I feel much better now.

Myth, not fact, from dhimmi British fact-finders who steadfastly refuse to discuss the real source of the troubles of non-assimilation they're scratching their heads over: the teachings of Islam, and their reinforcement by Muslim leaders who have preached against assimilation for years. "UK 'must tackle ethnic tensions,'" from the BBC, with thanks to JE:

Tensions between people of different ethnic groups and faiths in British society must be tackled, says Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly.

Ms Kelly launched a Commission on Integration and Cohesion, calling for a "new and honest" debate on diversity.

The body, which will start work next month, will look at how communities in England tackle tensions and extremism....

The launch of the commission comes amid growing fears of alienation, especially among young Muslims....

In a speech in London, Ms Kelly said the UK had moved away from an era of "uniform consensus" about multi-culturalism.

People were now questioning whether multi-culturalism instead encouraged separateness, she said.

But the new debate had to be based on "fact, not myth".

Ms Kelly promised the commission would not be a "talking shop" and would not focus on tackling the ideology of a "perverted form of Islam" - something the government was examining in other ways.

Inner Spiritual Struggle Hamad has turned himself in in Lebanon. "2nd German terror plot suspect arrested," from AP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

BERLIN - The second main suspect in a failed plot to bomb two German trains turned himself in to authorities in his native Lebanon on Thursday, German federal prosecutors said.

Jihad Hamad, 20, was arrested after turning himself in to police in Tripoli, prosecutors said in a statement. The other main suspect, a 21-year-old Lebanese student identified as Youssef Mohamad el Hajdib, was arrested in Germany on Saturday.

The men are suspected of planting crude bombs July 31 on two trains at Cologne station, where they were seen in grainy surveillance camera footage pulling wheeled suitcases.

The detonators on the bombs went off, but failed to ignite the devices, authorities have said. The bombs were found later in the day on regional trains in Koblenz and Dortmund.

El Hajdib's arrest came after a tip-off from Lebanese intelligence, according to German authorities. It was not immediately clear whether they were also involved in Hamad's decision to turn himself in.

Anyone at JW from the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines? Anyone now stationed in Iraq? Anyone who has returned from Iraq, still trying to make sense of why those Iraqis were so ungrateful, so clamoring for more and more and more American goodies for themselves and their family and their tribe, but not for "Iraq"? Anyone wondering why they were so eager to have the American soldiers take all the risks, do all the most important and dangerous tasks -- whether the Shi'a government urging us to fight the Sunnis (or as they have been called, the "unsurgents") or the Sunnis now wanting us to protect them from the Shi'a, and even to see if they can inveigle us, the infinitely-foolable Infidels, into now fighting the Shi'a militias?

If so, then you will want to see the recent C-Span interview with Robert Spencer, in addition to, or preparatory to, reading his books. You will thereby find out what the generals and civilian masters would not teach you, would prevent you from learning adequately about -- lest it cause you to question all kinds of things, including the "forward strategy of freedom" that makes no sense.

Islamic Tolerance Alert from modern, moderate Malaysia: The New York Times (thanks to A.), of all places, has just picked up on a story we first told you about here in September 2005. Better late than never, eh, Pinch?

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Aug. 19 — From the scant personal details that can be pieced together about Lina Joy, she converted from Islam to Christianity eight years ago and since then has endured extraordinary hurdles in her desire to marry the man in her life.

Her name is a household word in this majority Muslim country. But she is now in hiding after death threats from Islamic extremists, who accuse her of being an apostate.

Five years ago she started proceedings in the civil courts to seek the right to marry her Christian fiancé and have children. Because she had renounced her Muslim faith, Ms. Joy, 42, argued, Malaysia’s Islamic Shariah courts, which control such matters as marriage, property and divorce, did not have jurisdiction over her.

In a series of decisions, the civil courts ruled against her. Then, last month, her lawyer, Benjamin Dawson, appeared before Malaysia’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, to argue that Ms. Joy’s conversion be considered a right protected under the Constitution, not a religious matter for the Shariah courts.

“She’s trying to live her life with someone she loves,” Mr. Dawson said in an interview.

Threats against Ms. Joy had become so insistent, and the passions over her conversion so inflamed, he had concluded there was no room for her and her fiancé in Malaysia. The most likely solution, he said, was for her to emigrate.

Read it all.

Yeah, it was all a joke, sure, that's it. Ha ha! Did you hear the one about the Twin Towers in New York? They got a million of 'em, ladies and infidels, let me tell you...

From the TimesOnline, with thanks to DFS:

A MUSLIM student told a terror trial yesterday that he filmed a video of British landmarks that prosecutors claim was a visual guide for terrorists.

The locations in the film include Hyde Park, Big Ben, Parliament Square, the London Eye, Edgware Road Tube station and the Hilton Hotel in Park Lane, Woolwich Crown Court heard.

Rauf Abdullah Mohammad, 26, an Iraqi minicab driver, is charged with making a video likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism contrary to the Terrorism Act 2000.

The prosecution claims that Mr Mohammad drove around London making a film showing “high-profile targets” to help Islamic terrorists to plan and carry out an attack on the capital.

His friend, Maz Ibrahim, 25, a British Sudanese, yesterday gave evidence for the defence, saying that he was the unseen man holding a camcorder whose voice was recorded in Arabic saying: “Rauf is planning a bombing operation.”

Oh man, this is side-splitting stuff. Has anyone contacted Leno?

In the background of the video can be heard religious chants, sounds of machineguns and a missile exploding, and poems about martyrdom, killing and being killed in the name of Allah.

Religious chants? Killing and being killed in the name of Allah? Rauf, you hockey puck! You kidder, you! Everybody knows Islam is a religion of peace!

In fact, Paradise is guaranteed in the Qur'an to those who "kill and are killed" for Allah -- see sura 9:111.

Mr Mohammad, from Forest Gate, East London, can allegedly be heard on the video discussing his hopes for the killing of Tony Blair, President Bush, Silvio Berlusconi and Donald Rumsfeld.

Stop it, Rauf! You're killing me! This is the funniest stuff I've heard since The Day the Clown Cried!

The true interpretation of the hour-long video, extracts from which have been shown several times to the jury, is central to the arguments at Woolwich Crown Court.

Mr Ibrahim, of Southwark, southeast London, told the jury that the video, which was made around September 2003, was no more than a tourist souvenir for overseas relatives and that the terrorism chat was just an example of the companions’ ironic sense of humour. He said that his friend had wanted to make a tape to send back to relatives and suggested going to famous places in London.

Isn't it funny how, when it comes to jihad terrorism, there is always a "true interpretation" that contradicts what you see in front of your eyes? The Qur'an doesn't mean "slay the unbelievers" (9:5) or beat your wife (4:34), and this fellow wasn't planning a terror operation, he was just kidding around. Tell me another, Rauf.

Lawrence McNulty, for the defence, took Mr Ibrahim step-by-step through the tape. It begins with a busker in a subway near Marble Arch. The camcorder holder climbs steps to emerge into Hyde Park. He zooms in to a road sign.

“I just like details of things,” Mr Ibrahim said.

Ah. Jokes with details. The best kind.

The film has a number of shots of police officers. Mr Ibrahim explained that he wanted to show how helpful British constables could be, for example giving people directions.

“There’s a huge difference between the police in the UK and the police back home,” he said. “Back home for no reason they just do anything to you.”

After a long passage showing people at Speakers’ Corner, Mr Mohammad is filmed heading for his car. Mr Ibrahim gets into the passenger seat.

The car stereo plays Islamic chants and the video pans upwards to Paddington Green police station. The men can be heard speaking.

“I was teasing him,” Mr Ibrahim said. “I said he was planning a bombing operation. I used to always like to tease him, calling him a terrorist. I used to make jokes like that. It’s just a bit of a stereotype that people have against certain individuals. It was just a joke because people say that people with long beards are terrorists.”

Next, Mr Mohammad is heard on the video discussing killing the Prime Minister and Western leaders. Mr Ibrahim said that he did not think that his friend had been at all serious about killing Mr Blair.

As the film pans to show pretty women, Mr Mohammad is heard to make a remark. Mr Ibrahim said: “He was teasing me about filming the girls. He doesn’t really look at girls. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t have interest in women, obviously.”

Obviously -- a funny word to be using amid all this fog of misdirection.

In "The tragedy continues," Michael Graham (thanks to Mackie) reflects on the dhimmis who fired him a year ago, and the ongoing (and growing) problem that authorities still refuse to face:

One year ago this month, I was fired from my talk radio job by ABC/Disney for saying on the air — and in these pages — that "Islam is a terrorist organization."

My argument was very simple. Any organization that allows terrorists to operate freely in its name; whose ideology is, rightly or wrongly, used to justify and promote terrorism; and whose membership includes, according to every international poll, hundreds of millions of devotees who suppoIrt suicide bombing — that organization has a unique problem with terrorism.

That's what I said. ABC ordered me to apologize for it. They insisted I perform community service as a form of penance for it. I told them I would never apologize for telling the truth, and they fired me.

One year later, I'm back on the air and I haven't changed a bit.

The problem is, neither has Islam.

One year ago, I reported in horror that approximately one in four British Muslims told pollsters that, if they knew about a terrorist plot targeting their fellow British citizens, they would not report it to the police. "Troubling," I said at the time, but not as bad as actually supporting terrorist attacks.

Now, a new poll shows that about one in four British Muslims support suicide bombings, that the 7/7 attacks in London were justified. Nearly half of British Muslims today believe the 9/11 attacks on New York were a conspiracy involving the US government and Israel.

These are Muslims in Britain. Not Baghdad, not Bangladesh, but living in the heart of the modern, Western world.

Read it all.

UPDATE: Dutch Gov't: Incident Not Terror-Related

Passengers of "South Asian origin" taken off the plane in handcuffs. No doubt South Asian Presbyterians. "12 held as flight is sent back with a jet fighter escort," from the TimesOnline, with thanks to all who sent this in:

POLICE arrested 12 passengers who aroused the suspicions of the crew on a US flight from the Netherlands to India last night. The jet had been escorted back to Dutch airspace by two F16 fighters.

A police spokesman declined to disclose the nationalities of those arrested or the nature of the suspicions against them. “I can tell you 12 people have been arrested,” he said.

It was not clear if any of the suspects had been charged, although the spokesman said that they were being held overnight.

One American passenger on board the Northwest Airlines flight NW0042 said that she saw a number of passengers who appeared to be of South Asian origin being taken off the aircraft in handcuffs at Schiphol international airport in Amsterdam.

Hello Mother... Hello Fathah... Greetings from Camp... Jihad fi sabil Allah.

Somali Jihad Update from the Hizballah News Agency, aka Reuters:

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somalia's powerful Islamist movement opened a militia training camp on Wednesday with trainers from Eritrea, Afghanistan and Pakistan, witnesses said.

The presence of foreign trainers points to what many fear is a growing internationalization of a crisis that has split the Horn of Africa nation and threatened the slim authority of its interim government.

The Islamists' hardline leader, Shiekh Hassan Dahir Aweys, attended the opening of the camp for more than 600 Islamist militiamen at Hiilweyne, north of Mogadishu.

"You will study military tactics, because you will defend your country with Islamic morality," Aweys told the recruits.

Witnesses identified foreign trainers from Eritrea, Pakistan and Afghanistan at the camp.

Diplomats fear Somalia could become a proxy battleground for Ethiopia and Eritrea, and have said that more players like Libya, Iran and Egypt have quietly entered the fray.

Eritrea has long denied any involvement in Somalia, but a U.N. Security Council report said it has sent weapons to the Islamists repeatedly in a bid to frustrate rival Ethiopia.

Meanwhile, the Islamists said Ethiopian soldiers and a warlord ally of the government had taken a town along the Ethiopian border, stoking fears of new clashes.

In light of those developments, the leader of the Supreme Islamic Courts Council, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, has been quoted in an AP report as saying "Ethiopia is the Israel of the Horn of Africa."

No doubt they and their allies from around the ummah would like it to be "wiped off the map," as they do Israel.

"Rev. Canon John L. Peterson, director of its Center for Global Justice and Reconciliation..." -- from this article

The very words "Global Justice" and "Reconciliation" reek of self-righteousness, and reek too of what we have come to realize such words, and the men who employ them approvingly, will always reek of: an attitude of sweet reason that goes beyond reason, a belief that "everyone has a point" and that if only we "listen to one another," "if only we engage in dialogue," "if only this" and "if only that" then all manner of things shall be well. In the mental universe of such people, it is inconceivable that hatred could be embraced, hatred could be taught, hatred could be sacred, and that there can be no compromise with those who uncompromisingly divide the world between Them and Us.

There was no negotiation, no treaty, no forum to which Hitler or more likely Goebbels could have been invited, which would have meant a thing. It would only have offered yet one more way for the terminally naive to believe that somehow it was all based on a misunderstanding, or still worse, of the wicked. (Wicked: do such words still come up, not in the Biblical quotes, but in the their own words, the words of these Canons to the left and so seldom to the right of us?) All of these people refuse to make distinctions based on such silly ideas as Good and Evil.

"The powers of evil are united in waging wars against Islam and their people..." No, we aren't. On our side, evil or not, we refuse to acknowledge that Islam has anything to do with this, and so decline to take the necessary steps to stop jihadist recruitment, limp along in sham alliances with states that are working against us while working with us, and more. From AP, with thanks to Mackie:

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - A previously unknown Palestinian group released the first video Wednesday of two kidnapped Fox News journalists and demanded that Muslim prisoners in U.S. jails be released within 72 hours in exchange for the men.

In the video, correspondent Steve Centanni and cameraman Olaf Wiig appeared to be in good health, seated on the floor in sweat suits against a black background with no logos or banners. No armed men were shown.

The two had not been seen since they were kidnapped Aug. 14 near the Palestinian security services headquarters in Gaza City.

"Our captors are treating us well," said Centanni, 60, of Washington, D.C., adding that they had access to clean water, showers, bathrooms, food and clothing.

"So, just want to let you know I am here and alive and give my love to my family and friends and ask to do anything you can to try to help us get out of here," he added.

A written statement accompanying the video was issued by a group called the Holy Jihad Brigades. The statement railed against the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"The powers of evil are united in waging wars against Islam and their people," it said....

The militants' statement was peppered with verses from the Koran and written in a literary, poetic style - a sharp departure from the terse statements usually issued by Palestinian militant groups....

"Fellow students describe the Lebanese man, who was arrested on Saturday on suspicion of terrorism, as 'completely normal'..." -- from this article

In Stanley Kubrick's "Lolita" Clare Quilty (played by Peter Sellers) carries on a near-monologue, broken only by a few sentences uttered by Humbert Humbert, on the porch of The Enchanted Hunters:

Quilty:
"Tell me, I couldn't help noticing when you checked in tonight...
It's part of my job, I notice human individuals...
...and I noticed your face.
I said to myself when I saw you...

...there's a guy with the most normal-looking face I ever saw in my life.

H.H.:
That's very nice of you.

C.Q.:
Not a bit. It's great to see a normal face, 'cause I'm a normal guy.
Be great for two normal guys...
...to get together and talk about world events, in a normal way.

It's a warhead! "Al-Borz News Service: President Ahmadinejad Expected to Announce Iran's 'Nuclear Birth,'" from MEMRI, with thanks to Andrew Bostom:

The Iranian news service Al-Borz, which is known to have access to sources in the Iranian government, predicted that on the first anniversary of Iranian President Ahmadinejad's government, in late August 2006, Ahmadinejad is expected to announce what the news service called Iran's "nuclear birth."

In addition, an August 23, 2006 article about Iran's reply to the incentives proposal, that was posted on the Iranian Foreign Ministry-affiliated website www.tehrantimes.com , implied that Iran's nuclear technology had already reached the point of no return: "... If the West is seeking to impede Iran's nuclear industry, it should realize that Iran has passed this stage."(1)

The following are excerpts from the Al-Borz report:(2)

"It is expected that the first anniversary of the forming of the ninth government will be the date of the Ahmadinejad government's 'nuclear birth.'...

A previously unknown group of misunderstanders of Islam and jihad claims responsibility for the kidnapping of the Fox journalists. "Group claims kidnapping of Fox journos," from Hizballah News Agency, aka Reuters:

A PREVIOUSLY unknown militant group in Gaza claimed responsibility for the kidnapping nine days ago of two Fox journalists and demanded the United States release "Muslim prisoners" within 72 hours.

“Release what you have, and we will release what we have,” the Holy Jihad Brigades said in a fax sent to reporters.

Fox correspondent Steve Centanni and cameraman Olaf Wiig were abducted by masked gunmen in Gaza City on August 14 as they were working on a story.

This is the Mackinac Bridge. Yes, it's very pretty, isn't it? So their photos could have been tourist shots. But with the phones and everything else, suspicions linger.

From The Detroit News, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

DEARBORN HEIGHTS -- Three Texas men once suspected in a possible plot to blow up the Mackinac Bridge were released from jail today after more than 10 days in custody.

Terrorism-related charges against Maruan Muhareb, 18; Adham Othman, 21; and Louai Othman, 23, were withdrawn by the Tuscola County prosecutor last Wednesday after the FBI and Michigan State Police said there was no evidence linking the men to terrorism.

They were arrested in Caro in Michigan's Thumb on Aug. 11 after police found about 1,000 cell phones and photos of the Mackinac Bridge inside their van.

Nabih Ayad, the Dearborn Heights lawyer representing the men, said the photos were tourist shots and the men are entrepreneurs who bought the phones to sell for a profit. They are victims of ethnic profiling, Ayad said.

But the same day the state charges were dropped, the federal government brought charges of conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit goods and money-laundering. The federal charges relate to an alleged plot to alter the phones software and defraud cell phone companies and consumers through their resale.

This article by Thomas Hüetlin and Britta Sandberg in Spiegel (thanks to DFS) about the recently arrested British jihadists has this tagline: "They came from successful immigrant families and their English neighbors described them as nice boys who seemed harmless. So what turned the British Muslim youth behind this month's massive terror plot into extremists?"

Hmmm. Could it be the jihad imperative as taught by the Qur'an and Sunnah, and emphasized as a Muslim duty by all the schools of Islamic law? Naaah.

Why didn't this Muslim convert, Stewart-Whyte, get instructed in the true, peaceful Islam we keep hearing so much about? Why can't its adherents manage to convince converts that theirs is the genuine article?

High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire is a quiet town 35 minutes from the hectic life of downtown London. Its residents can relax at a cricket match in their white outfits, tend to their roses and never feel the need to rush out onto their lawns in their pyjamas to lock up a forgetful child's bicycle -- which is almost always still there the next day.

About 100,000 people live in this idyllic commuter town, which seems to have preserved many of the more pleasant aspects of old England without ignoring the present. When the British Empire disintegrated, about 15,000 Pakistanis moved to High Wycombe, which would eventually boast one of the island's first ethnic Asian mayors. The town is widely seen as a "successfully integrated community."

But for at least one resident of High Wycombe, Jennifer Baker, the world is no longer what it once seemed. Baker lives at Number 17, Hepplewhite Close. Late in the night of August 10, several police cars stopped in front of a house down the street, Number 31, and dragged a man from a red Nissan Micra, a man Baker says was always a "particularly nice boy."

This particularly nice boy was named Don Stewart-Whyte until six months ago, when he converted to Islam and took the name Abdul Waheed. He and 23 accomplices were accused of having plotted to blow up 12 airliners en route from Britain to the United States. According to Home Secretary John Reid, the authorities had amassed "substantial evidence" against the would-be attackers. This evidence presumably includes intercepted emails and wiretapped phone conversations, but also large sums of money, weapons and bomb-making chemicals. A suitcase containing explosive chemicals was found in woods near High Wycombe on Thursday. Videos featuring the likely martyrs surfaced on Friday, and on the same day authorities in the Pakistani city of Bahawalpur arrested Matiur Rehman, a high-ranking al-Qaida terrorist believed to be behind the thwarted attack.

Read it all.

Another He-Was-A-Terrific-Guy-This-Is-A-Complete-Surprise story. Note, however, that he was a religious Muslim -- the one detail that law enforcement and government officials don't dare examine in its implications. "Friendly, Unremarkable and Pious," by Alexander Schwabe in Spiegel Online, with thanks to DFS:

Fellow students describe the Lebanese man, who was arrested on Saturday on suspicion of terrorism, as "completely normal" and "polite". Then, according to the investigators, he became the Cologne train bomber. A possible motive: The death of his brother in Lebanon.

[...]

The students, who had spent the previous evening either celebrating at the back to school BBQ party or preparing for their first exams late into the night, are stunned. They couldn't imagine how one of their fellow students could be a terrorist, a train bomber, that Youssef Mohamed -- this part of his name has been confirmed by the authorities -- had been arrested at around 4 a.m. at Kiel's central train station, while they were still sleeping.

He was a "completely normal guy" says Kamil, a 22-year-old Polish student from the border city of Szczecin, who lived on the same floor as Youssef. "He was friendly, polite, inconspicuous," and he never spoke ill of anyone.

He was religious, says Imane, a 22-year-old economics student from Morocco. The Lebanese student prayed up to five times a day, visiting a prayer room that was set up in the basement of the student block. On the door there is a sign banning cellphones and a poster in which the Imam Ali mosque can be spotted in a pretty view of Hamburg's Uhlenhorst district. According to findings by the Hamburg Office for the Protection of the Constitution, this Islamic center is a meeting place for Shia supporters of Hezbollah. However, Imane says that Youssef is a Sunni.

Nevertheless, the Hezbollah reference doesn't seem to be all that absurd. The word in the student residence is that Youssef told other Muslims that his brother was killed three or four weeks ago during the Israeli military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon. But Imane wonders why he would look for revenge in Germany rather than against Israel.

Youssef led an unremarkable life in Kiel. His fellow students say that he wore jeans and t-shirts. But he would change his clothes during prayer times. Van Anh Nguyen, a young Vietnamese student, tells how Youssef wore long white robes when he went to pray. He also often visited a mosque on Dietrich Strasse in the Gaarden district of the city. The prayer leader there and the spokesman for the Arabic cultural association claim they can't remember Youssef. "Around 300 believers come to Friday prayers here," says al-Samaduni the spokesman.

He usually visited the prayer room in the basement, a meeting point for many of the Muslim students from the nearby houses. Their religious rituals didn't always meet with the approval of those living in the house. "During Ramadan in particular they sang in the middle of the night," says Polish student Kamil, adding that they didn't seem to think about sleep. And Nguyen says: "The men with beards scared me sometimes."

Youssef's room on the first floor was also a favorite contact point for devout Muslims. One of his German neighbors tells how Youssef had a lot of visitors: Arabs and North Africans. He also distributed leaflets about the Prophet Muhammad. At the start of the last semester, he moved from the ground floor to a different floor upstairs in the 1970s-era building, which has 40 rooms. He shared an apartment there with three German students and one other person. One of the beds was said to have been briefly occupied by a Moroccan, who has not shown his face so far. And there is speculation that he might be the second train bomber....

Hal G.P. Colebatch in The American Spectator makes a number of important observations about self-proclaimed moderate Muslims in Britain:

Ali Miraj is a young British Muslim who may go places in the British Conservative Party. He has been twice endorsed by the Conservatives to contest Parliamentary elections and is a board member of the Conservative Party Policy Review on International and National Security. He has written an article in the conservative Daily Telegraph in the immediate aftermath of the airliner bombing plot, headlined: "Muslim anger must be recognized." He says a recent poll indicates more than 100,000 of 1.6 million Muslims in Britain see nothing wrong with terrorism against Britain such as the 7/7 train bombings (some others put the number higher).

He continues that in many mosques up and down the country,

We are constantly reminded that there is a perpetual battle between the righteous (Muslims) and the "kuffar" (non-believers). You will find no "love thy neighbor" sermons of the kind I heard as a child at an Anglican primary school.

In addition to this, anti-Jewish sentiment appears to be hard-wired into a number of Muslims I meet. At the last general election, I remember being told by some of Watford's taxi drivers, slurping the froth from their pints of lager, that they could not vote for me as the leader of my party, Michael Howard, was a Jew.

He then got down to what might be seen as the nitty-gritty:

But it is the foreign policy pursued by the US and Britain, not deprivation or a clash of values, in my view, that is the principal catalyst of radicalization. A leaked Home Office report on relations with the Muslim community from 2004 itself recognized the 'perception of double standards in British foreign policy.'

Tony Blair argues that Muslims have a "false sense of grievance" towards the West. He is wrong. The overwhelming majority of Muslims find themselves on a continuum ranging from "deeply upset" to "extremely angry."

The sense of frustration at the injustice faced by Muslims across the world as a consequence of the foreign policies of the West (principally the US) is palpable. Mr. Blair's refusal to call for an immediate ceasefire in response to the current war in Lebanon only reinforces the view held by more than half of British Muslims that the war on terror is a war on Islam ...

So, surprise! Surprise! Islamic terrorism is the West's fault. In Britain it is also, it seems, Tony Blair's fault for being insufficiently opposed to Israel. Mr. Miraj continues: "There is no doubt that all British Muslims, not just their self-proclaimed leaders, must to do more to combat intolerance in their midst. That task is made more difficult when, despite all the mass protests against the war in Iraq, the Government is seen not to have listened."

There is a great deal more of value in this article. Read it all.

Dhimmitude from loopy Leftist Christians who believe the exercise of the Christian Faith consists essentially of executing a program of cultural surrender and moral blindness. "Iran ex-president invited to Washington," from AP, with thanks to Mackie:

WASHINGTON - Despite a diplomatic standoff over nuclear weapons and other difficult issues, a former Iranian president is making plans to speak next month at the Washington National Cathedral.

The former president, Mohammad Khatami, would be the most senior Iranian official to visit Washington since Islamic fundamentalists seized the U.S. Embassy in 1979 and held Americans there hostage for 444 days....

A State Department official, who was not authorized to be identified by name, said applications for visas had been received from Khatami and several Iranians who would travel with him.

The applications are under review, the official said....

At the Cathedral, the Rev. Canon John L. Peterson, director of its Center for Global Justice and Reconciliation, said U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan had invited Khatami to participate in a conference Sept. 5-6 to promote dialogue.

He said the church's center "thought it would be appropriate to invite the president to speak on the role that the three Abrahamic faiths can play in shaping peace."

"We have a special commitment to embracing the children of Abraham," he said, referring to Muslims, Christians and Jews.

"The Church calls upon us to engage in reconciliation and understanding by having conversations with people with whom we might disagree," he said.

Evan Anderson, deputy director of the Center, said the former president was in Dubai preparing to apply for permission to visit the United States.

"Any headway that is to be made in U.S.-Iranian relations is very important," Anderson said. Religious groups should play a role in fostering dialogue with Iran, he said.

Khatami would speak at the Cathedral Sept. 7 on the role of Muslims, Christians and Jews in improving world understanding.

Faheem Khalid Lodhi Update from the Hizballah News Agency, aka Reuters: "Architect jailed for 20 years for Sydney terror plot"

SYDNEY (Reuters) - A Pakistan-born Australian architect was jailed for 20 years on Wednesday for planning bomb attacks in Sydney, a court official said.

Pakistan-born Faheem Khalid Lodhi had planned to detonate home-made bombs in Australia's largest city as part of a "holy war," the New South Wales Supreme Court was told during his trial.

Prosecutors told the court police had found what amounted to a terrorism manual when they raided his home in October 2003.

Supreme Court Judge Anthony Whealy on Wednesday sentenced 36-year-old Lodhi to a maximum 20 years jail, with a minimum of 15 years to be served, a court official told Reuters.

While it is good that Lodhi didn't get less than 15 years, he will still only be between 51 and 56 when he gets out, and equally, if not more dangerous, to society than he is now. In the meantime, his contact with other prisoners should be restricted as to eliminate any opportunity for da'wa, or proselytizing.

A Supreme Court jury found Lodhi guilty in June on three charges -- collecting maps of Sydney's electricity grid, acting in preparation for a terrorist act by gathering information about bomb-making and possessing documents with information about how to manufacture poisons.

Lodhi was acquitted on a fourth charge of downloading aerial photographs of defense facilities from the Internet.

Lodhi told the court during his trial that he was not a violent religious fanatic and his lawyers said he had the defense photographs because he had worked as an architect at the sites.

Lodhi, who emigrated to Australia in 1996, was charged under tough new anti-terrorism laws introduced soon after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

[...]

Australia is a staunch U.S. ally with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan but has never suffered a major peacetime attack on home soil.

What if there are ten million and one? Religion of Peace Update from CNN, with thanks to Doug:

Michael Scheuer, who once headed the CIA's bin Laden unit, says bin Laden has been given permission by a young cleric in Saudi Arabia authorizing al Qaeda to "use nuclear weapons against the United States ... capping the casualties at 10 million."

"He's had an approval, a religious approval for 10 million deaths?" I asked him.

"Yes," Scheuer responded.

Who is shipping them? Who is receiving them? Why will the shipment be allowed to proceed? "Italy reports seizing US-bound arms shipment," from AFP, with thanks to Kathy:

ROME, Italy (AFP) - Italian authorities seized a container full of weapons, including Kalashnikov assault rifles and plastic explosives bound for the United States from Saudi Arabia in May, press reports said yesterday.

Il Mattino newspaper said that the "arsenal" was discovered during a search of a ship registered to an unnamed ex-Soviet republic, which was travelling from Saudi Arabia to the US east coast.

It was boarded by customs officials in the port of Gioia Tauro in the southern Calabria region. They discovered more than 70 AK-47 assault rifles, plastics used in explosives and launch pads for rockets, the daily said.

Without quoting its sources, the Ansa news agency later reported that "the shipment was permitted, but certain papers were missing from the accompanying documents".

It said that the container could continue its journey as soon as the identification documents had been validated.

An inquiry is under way with the participation of US secret services, Il Mattino said.

Stop The Presses! Nothing really new in this one, but the emphasis is on the fact that Iran has no intention of giving up uranium enrichment. From AP:

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran said Tuesday it was ready for "serious negotiations" on its nuclear program, but a semi-official news agency said the government was unwilling to abandon nuclear enrichment — the key U.S. demand.

Top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani delivered a written response to ambassadors of Britain, China, Russia, France, Germany and Switzerland to a package of incentives aimed at persuading Iran to roll back on its nuclear program.

Larijani refused to disclose whether the response included an offer to suspend uranium enrichment, and no details of Iran's response were released. The state-run television quoted Larijani as telling the diplomats Iran "is prepared as of Aug. 23 to enter serious negotiations" with the countries that proposed the incentives package.

But the semi-official Fars news agency reported that Iran rejected calls to suspend "nuclear activities" — or uranium enrichment — and "instead has offered a new formula to resolve the issues through dialogue."

An update on Hizballah's human shields in blue helmets from AFP: "UN force in Lebanon not authorised to seek Hezbollah arms: Le Monde"

PARIS - The new UN force being deployed to Lebanon is allowed to use force to defend itself or civilians and to enforce a buffer zone along the Israeli border, but cannot actively seek out Hezbollah arms caches, according to UN documents obtained by Le Monde.

The French newspaper said Tuesday the rules of engagement contained in the documents also did not allow the force to intercede if hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah flared up again.

A 21-page text marked "UN restricted," dated August 18, sets the conditions under which the force of up to 15,000 soldiers -- mandated under UN Resolution 1701 -- can use, or threaten to use, weapons.

France, which currently commands the 2000-strong UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) slated to expand under the resolution, has been criticised for sending just 200 extra soldiers, doubling its current contingent.

Several other countries have also expressed reluctance to get further involved, in large part because of a belief that the rules of engagement are too restrictive to effectively enforce the ceasefire contained in Resolution 1701.

According to the Le Monde article datelined from New York, the UN document said UNIFIL is authorised to use "appropriate and credible" force in self-defence.

It can also use "proportional" force to prevent the buffer zone between the Israeli border and Lebanon’s Litani river from being used for "hostile activities"; to counter resistance in enforcing its mandate; or to protect civilians.

Le Monde said a second document -- marked "UN confidential" -- clearly stated that it was up to the Lebanese army to take control of the buffer zone and to "disarm Hezbollah".

"We are not going to actively seek out Hezbollah’s arms," a high-ranking UN military official told Le Monde. "But if, during a patrol, we come across a cache, our mandate is to seize those rockets."

The official added that UNIFIL road checkpoints were also permitted to seize weapons found in stopped vehicles, and that "lethal force" can be used to stop the occupants from forcing their way through.

But if a UNIFIL unit comes across Hezbollah firing a rocket into Israel, it should alert the Lebanese army and not use force against the militia itself, even though a strict interpretation of the UN mandate might allow that, the official said.

The same sidelining of the UN force would apply if Israel mounted another raid in Lebanon and the Lebanese militaries retaliated, he said.

"We will not put ourselves in the middle, we will try to stop them by other means," he said.

"But if Israel targets civilians, we will have to find counter-measures by blocking access roads or putting observers in place, even if that is very dangerous," he said.

That statement is ridiculous, but is nonetheless most revealing of the fact that the UN force is set up to deal with Israel as if it were the chief aggressor.

On the other hand, what about the infinitely more likely scenario of Hizballah targeting civilians in Israel, or continuing their modus operandi of positioning themselves to draw fire upon populated areas? That apparently didn't come up.

The article noted that objections by the Lebanese government stymied France’s effort to give the UN force powers under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which would have permitted military force to back all aspects of the mandate.

Nevertheless, a UN official said UNIFIL had a "robust" mandate that contained some elements of Chapter VII rules of engagement, and a wide degree of autonomy.

UNIFIL is to report directly to the UN’s head of peacekeeping, Frenchman Jean-Marie Guehenno, who in turn reports to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

The world cringed and braced for the worst, and Iran offered a...bridge for sale! Obviously that's far better than any attack; I just hope no one buys the bridge. From AP:

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran formally responded Tuesday to a package of Western incentives aimed at persuading Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment, with officials saying it has offered a "new formula" to resolve the dispute. The country‘s top nuclear negotiator said Tehran was ready to enter "serious negotiations."

Officials close to the meeting said Iran‘s response offered the "new formula" to resolve the dispute over Tehran‘s nuclear activities. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

State-run television said Iran‘s response meant Tehran was committed to its promises....

Mohammed Saeedi, deputy head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said in comments published Tuesday that Tehran‘s response would provide "an exceptional opportunity" for a return to the negotiating table for a compromise....

Azzam Tamimi insists on telling the truth: of course there is no such thing as "European Islam." There is no different text of Qur'an and Hadith and Sira stamped "European edition." Islam does not offer different versions of its immutable texts, the texts that inhibit free and skeptical inquiry, or any possible interpretive escape, a thousand years after the Gates of Ijtihad swung shut with a thud.

How Tariq Ramadan, with his phony but plausible to some (some, such as Olivier Roy and Gilles "Always Wrong" Kepel, the boys who just want to have fun, and want to be fooled about Islam), must be tearing at his hair. For this business of creating a "European Islam" -- carefully undefined, as it must be -- is the shtick of Tariq Ramadan.

A new formula! Probably "bow and surrender." From AP:

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran formally responded Tuesday to a package of Western incentives aimed at persuading Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment, with officials saying it has offered a "new formula" to resolve the dispute.

Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, hand-delivered Iran's response to the Western package of nuclear incentives to ambassadors from Britain, China, Russia, France, Germany and Switzerland, state-run television said, without disclosing details.

Officials close to the meeting said Iran's response offered the "new formula" to resolve the dispute over Tehran's nuclear activities. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

No details yet, but an "ambiguous" answer is expected. From the Hizballah News Agency, aka Reuters:

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran on Tuesday handed over its reply to an incentives package by world powers aimed at allaying Western fears that Tehran seeks to build atomic bombs, Iran's state-run Arabic-language Al-Alam television reported.

Ali Larijani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, gave the response to foreign envoys representing the six co-sponsors of the package in Tehran.

Al-Alam gave no details of the reply which Iranian officials have already indicated is unlikely to address a key demand by the U.N. Security Council that it suspend uranium enrichment work by an Aug. 31 deadline or face the threat of sanctions.

"I expect a very ambiguous answer," said one Western diplomat.

The world's fourth largest oil exporter insists it will not abandon what it calls its right to enrich uranium for use in nuclear power stations.

Refusing to suspend the work, which Iran says is aimed only at generating electricity but which the West sees as a disguised bid for atom bombs, would be tantamount to rejecting the package of incentives offered in return, Western diplomats say.

A rebuff would not yet trigger immediate action by the U.N. Security Council, which passed a resolution on July 31 giving Iran a month to halt enrichment or risk sanctions.

"We are not treating (Tuesday) as a deadline because it is not the Security Council deadline," one Western diplomat said. "If Iran flatly refuses to suspend enrichment, then there will, fairly soon, be more talks in the Security Council."

TWO-WAY ROAD

Security Council permanent members Britain, France, China, Russia and the United States plus Germany have offered Iran a range of economic, political and security incentives if it suspends atomic work that could be used to make nuclear bombs.

Iran has said its reply to the offer will be "multi-dimensional", suggesting no simple 'yes' or 'no'. Officials have also said Iran wants more talks to resolve the dispute.

"Confidence building is a two-way road, trust is always a two-way road," Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said in response to questions after a lecture in Pretoria, South Africa.

"Based on negotiations, there is a possibility for a comprehensive solution to this matter," he said.

A "multi-dimensional" reply, say diplomats, could lay bare divisions in the Security Council where the United States, France and Britain back sanctions but Russia and China, the other two veto-wielding members and both key trade partners of Iran, oppose them.

An odd story from AP, with thanks to Ana. Is Iran looking for a little practice in firing upon and occupying enemy ships? Is the Thug-In-Chief Ahmadinejad planning to throw us all a curve today and declare war on...Romania?

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) -- A Romanian oil rig off the coast of Iran came under fire from an Iranian warship and was later occupied by Iranian troops, a company spokesman said.

The Iranians first fired into the air and then fired at the Orizont rig, said GSP spokesman Radu Petrescu. Half an hour later, troops from the ship boarded and occupied the rig and the company lost contact with the 26 crew members shortly afterward.

Petrescu said he had no information about any injuries or deaths. The Orizont rig has been moored near the Kish island in the Persian Gulf since October 2005, he told the Associated Press.

Eugen Chira, the political consul at the Romanian Embassy in Tehran confirmed the incident, but provided few details.

"Some forces opened fire. That an incident has happened is true. We have no details or the reason yet," he said.

The ambiguous headline comes straight from CNN, and of course in a sense ultimately from Ahmadinejad himself, for he is the one who created this ambiguity.

It is most likely that all that will happen will be that Iran will respond to the West's tribute offer, and that he will respond with contempt and bellicosity. And the world, reassured that August 22 isn't doomsday after all, will allow itself to forget that he is still working toward a nuclear program, and has made his threats and genocidal aspirations quite clear.

From CNN:

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Iran is due to give its formal answer to a United Nations demand that Tehran halt uranium enrichment in exchange for a package of incentives or face a new threat of sanctions.

The response will be delivered at 4 p.m. (1230 GMT) on Tuesday in the Iranian capital, diplomats said.

Iran will hand the reply to diplomats from Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany, and to the Swiss ambassador representing the United States, which has no embassy in Tehran, they said.

"I can confirm, there will be a meeting at 4 p.m. for the EU3 plus Russia, China and the Swiss representative for the USA," one of the diplomats told Reuters, after the news was first broadcast by an Iranian television station.

The response will be handed over at Iran's Supreme National Security Council, which handles the nuclear file, they said.

Iranian officials have said it would be a written reply and have said the reply will be "multi-dimensional," Reuters reported.

From Haaretz News Flashes, with thanks to Cindy:

06:49 Minister Eitan: Prepare bomb-shelters for possible confrontation with Iran (Israel Radio)

More when available.

Sharia Alert from modern, moderate Indonesia. From AP, with thanks to Jimmy:

Fitri Komalasari has heard of plans by Indonesia's increasingly vocal Islamic clerics to forbid the watching of celebrity gossip shows.

But she says she can't imagine life without daily updates on the marital breakdowns, affairs and quarrels of the rich and famous.

"Life without gossip shows would be like vegetables without salt," said Komalasari, 27, who works at a city bookstore that also sells spicy entertainment news magazines. "I love to watch them. I love gossiping."

Religious leaders say some programs - like one that disclosed an alleged affair by a son of a former president and another that claimed a famous Olympic-winning athlete had an illegitimate child before marrying - are sinful because they are slanderous or exploit people's shameful secrets.

The generally moderate group, Nahdlatul Ulama, is considering issuing a fatwa against such shows - another sign, critics say, of the inroads of Islamic conservatism in the world's most populous Muslim nation, which has a tradition of moderation, tolerance and secularism.

Dozens of local governments across the sprawling archipelago have introduced Islamic regulations - from making it obligatory for women to wear head scarves to banning gambling and alcohol - and national politicians are considering bills to impose jail time for nudity in art, lewd dancing, even kissing in public.

Ma'ruf Amin, the leader of Nahdlatul Ulama, said last week the proposed religious edict, or fatwa, warns that the tens of millions of Indonesians who watch gossip shows "could end up in hell".

Fatwa in Indonesia are not legal enforceable, and it is unclear how many of the country's 190 million Muslims would obey it.

Amin said his group also plans to press the government for laws to punish the estimated 40 broadcasters that presently feed on "quarrels between husbands and wives, adultery or people living together outside wedlock".

Reactions from the gossip television industry so far have been reserved - possibly over fears of being seen as un-Islamic. They have asked for clarification about exactly where the line is.

"This edict has no legal implications, and it only applies to their (NU's) members," said Ilham Bintang, who produces eight of the country's major gossip shows and is widely regarded as the godfather of Indonesia's decade-old infotainment industry.

"As a Muslim, I agree that the act of disclosing disgraceful things of one's household should be forbidden," he said, adding that only a small percentage of his episodes deal with the content in question....

"Gossip is natural," she said ordering an iced coffee at a city mall. "It's my right."

Parties on both sides of the debate are operating under the assumption that a UN peacekeeping force would be marginally less ineffective than the current African Union force in stopping the Arab Janjaweed militias' genocide against the black Africans of Darfur. The Arab-dominated government in Khartoum and its sympathizers (including Ayman al-Zawahiri) have eagerly invoked Islam when arguing against the presence of non-Muslim and especially Western UN forces inside Sudan, but clearly the desire to continue the Arabization of northern Africa wins out when considering the mostly Muslim black population their militias are terrorizing. And the Arab League has stepped up as an active enabler.

From Reuters: "Arab call for UN delay on Darfur p