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.

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, :

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, :

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, :

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 Looney Tunes:

...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, :

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 Looney Tunes:

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, :

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 puzzles key envoy"

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A key U.N. Security Council member said on Monday he was puzzled by an Arab League request for an indefinite delay in a planned council meeting on the crisis in Darfur.

Ghanaian U.N. ambassador Nana Effah-Apenteng, the Security Council president for August, said he got a positive response when he asked the Arab League about the meeting last week.

"The initial response I had from the Arab League was that they were positive with respect to such a meeting. So if we do schedule the meeting, I expect the Arab League to participate," Effah-Apenteng said.

And if they don't, will their input be excluded in the future?

The Sudanese government, African Union and Organization of the Islamic Conference were also approached about the meeting, tentatively set for next Monday and intended to explore the way ahead in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, he said.

[...]

With U.N. officials warning of a deteriorating humanitarian situation, the United States and Britain want the council to quickly adopt a resolution clearing the way for the 7,000-strong African Union force now serving in Darfur to be replaced by a bigger and better equipped U.N. force.

But the Arab-dominated Sudanese government has so far refused to accept a U.N. force, and Arab League foreign ministers meeting in Cairo asked the council on Sunday to postpone its planned meeting even before it was made public.

Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol called on Arab nations to instead support a Sudanese plan, under which the Khartoum government would send 10,500 new government troops to Darfur.

New York-based Human Rights Watch has dismissed that plan as a way to avert the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers.

I wonder if the dhimmi Eurabian non-Muslim populations understand the difference. Tamimi, whose duplicity was unmasked here, also reiterated his support for suicide jihad martyrdom attacks. "Firebrand Islamic academic: 'dying for your beliefs is just,'" from the Daily Mail, with thanks to John Doe:

A British-based Muslim radical appeared to back suicide bombing yesterday when he claimed that dying for your beliefs was 'just'.

Dr Azzam Tamimi told an 8,000-strong crowd that standing up for your principles was the 'greatest act of martyrdom'. The 51-year-old was speaking at the ExpoIslamia convention in Manchester.

The Palestinian-born academic - who previously boasted he would carry out a suicide bombing in Israel - also repeated his public backing for Hamas, which remains banned in the UK.

He said: "The greatest act of martyrdom is standing up for what is true and just. Martyrs are those who stand up and stand up in defiance of George Bush and Tony Blair. You stand up to them and you say desist. Stop this injustice. Stop this oppression."

Dr Tamimi claimed the war on terrorism was a war on Islam. "We are Muslims in Europe, not European Muslims," he added.

"Being fair and just means finding the middle path. The middle path is not rubbing shoulders with Tony Blair and George Bush."

The crowd erupted with cheering and applause when he said that Israel had been defeated by Hezbollah. He continued: "Hamas is making sacrifices for you. We tell this government Hamas is not a terrorist group. It is elected by the people of Palestine. We are not terrorists. We are defenders of the truth. Fighting those who invade Muslims is a just cause.

"The government is trying to turn the war on terror into the war on Islam."

In November 2004, Dr Tamimi told the BBC that he was prepared to be a suicide bomber if the opportunity arose. In an interview which was roundly condemned, he said that 2sacrificing myself for Palestine was a noble cause. It is the straight way to pleasing my God and I would do it if I had the opportunity".

Dr Tamimi, a prominent member of the Stop The War coalition, is married with three children and lives in Willesden, North West London. After coming to Britain from the Middle East more than 30 years ago, he and his family have become British citizens and live in a council block.

He has repeatedly spoken out in support of Hamas and described their suicide bomb tactics as 'the courage of man'.

In July 2004, he invited the radical Sheikh Yusuf Al Qaradawi to the UK. Al Qaradawi, who spoke at a taxpayer subsidised conference in London - has called for a war on Jews and the execution of homosexuals.

Is telling the truth about Islamic teaching vilifying Islam? Many Muslims would say so. And in the State of Victoria. It is law. We covered the first trial in this case at some length. Here is an update on the appeal. "Religion in the dock in Muslim vilification appeal," from The Age, with thanks to Rosie:

IT IS impossible to vilify Islam without also vilifying Muslims, because the two are indistinguishable, the Victorian Court of Appeal was told yesterday.

"If one vilifies Islam, one is by necessary consequence vilifying people who hold that religious belief," Brind Woinarski, QC, told the court.

Mr Woinarski was appearing for the Islamic Council of Victoria in the appeal by Christian group Catch the Fire Ministries and pastors Danny Nalliah and Daniel Scot against a finding under Victoria's religious hatred law that they vilified Muslims in 2002. The Racial and Religious Tolerance Act defines vilification as inciting hatred, serious contempt, revulsion or severe ridicule against a person or class of persons.

Cameron Macaulay, for the pastors, argued that the act explicitly confined the prohibition to vilifying persons, not the religion — otherwise it could operate as a law against blasphemy. Instead, it recognised one could hate the idea without hating the person.

Justice Geoffrey Nettle asked Mr Woinarski: "There must be intellectually a distinction between the ideas and those who hold them?" "We don't agree with that," Mr Woinarski said. "But in this case it's an irrelevant distinction, because Muslims and Islam were mishmashed up together."

Justice Nettle: "Are you saying it's impossible to incite hatred against a religion without also inciting hatred against people who hold it?" Mr Woinarski: "Yes."

Mr Macaulay said orders by Judge Michael Higgins against the pastors to take out a newspaper advertisement apologising and not to repeat certain teachings were too wide, and beyond his powers under the act.

He said it was surprising that the pastors could hold the beliefs but not express them. "They are restrained by law from suggesting or implying a number of things about what in their view the Koran teaches: that it preaches violence and killing, that women are of little value, that the God of Islam, Allah, is not merciful, that there is a practice of 'silent jihad' for spreading Islam, or that the Koran says Allah will remit the sins of martyrs.

"Contentious or otherwise, these are opinions about Islam's doctrines and teaching. Statements of this kind are likely to offend and insult Muslims but their feelings are not relevant under the act." Mr Macaulay said the act burdened free speech, contravened international treaties Australia had signed and breached the Australian constitution....

Abu Bakar Bashir here does what jihadists always do: he presents the form of Islam known to the mainstream media and government officials as the extremist, radical, hijacked version of a peaceful religion, as the pure, true form of Islam -- an asssertion he can back up with abundant citations of Qur'an and Hadith. He also says that Muslims should follow the example of their prophet, Muhammad. Westerners who wonder why he, as an advocate of jihad violence and Islamic supremacism, would ask them to follow the example of the founder of a noble religion of peace and tolerance should investigate the life of Muhammad -- as explored in books such as my forthcoming The Truth About Muhammad (coming October 9 from Regnery Publishing).

Is Abu Bakar Bashir "vilifying Islam"? Is he an "Islam basher"? If his interpretation of Islam is wrong, the self-proclaimed moderate Muslim leaders in the West should explain how. They haven't yet.

From IslamOnline, with thanks to T.:

Cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, founder and head of the Pesantren al-Mukmin of Ngruki, based in the Indonesian city of Surakarta, is widely known in Southeast Asia and around the world.

Following the bombings on the island of Bali in 2002, he was accused of being involved in the attack and subsequently jailed. After his early release last month, he has once again appeared on the Indonesian political scene.

[...]

FN: We have just returned from a demonstration where you and the students of Ngruki were present along with members of the Majlis Mujahidin Indonesia (MMI), Front Pembela Islam (FPI), Front Pemuda Islam Solo (FPIS), Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI), Partai Keadilan Sejahtera (PKS) and others. When you spoke to the crowd you focused mainly on the current conflict in Lebanon and the aggression of the Israelis. You also criticised the weakness of the Muslim leaders of the world. Why has it come to this? Recently there was the OIC meeting in Kuala Lumpur and the statement they came up with was lame and non-conclusive; why are Muslim governments so scared to speak up and call for united action?

ABB: This is to be expected from them. What else can they do? What else can they say? There is not a single Muslim leader today who has the courage and commitment to defend Islam and Muslims, they are all in awe of the United States and other Western powers, and are indebted to them. This is what we call ‘Wahn’. Our Prophet warned that this would be the case in the future, that the Muslim ummat would be great in numbers, but weak in spirit - until they are trampled upon again and again.

[...]

...Muslims must believe that all power, success and victory comes from God alone. If God wills it, they will win - no matter what the odds may be. The Prophet defeated the enemies of Islam even when he and his followers were small in number. Why? Because they had the ultimate power, God, on their side. This is the real superpower. The Afghans did not have sophisticated weapons like the Soviets did, but with their faith they defeated a superpower. That is when the kafirs feared us Muslims, when we had discipline and faith, when we were strong in our hearts and not weak in our stomachs.

This jihad spirit is not in the OIC now. Show me an OIC leader who can talk about jihad. Not even the leaders of Malaysia or Indonesia have this, so how can we do anything?

The only Muslim leader who has some spirit left is your former leader Mahathir Mohamad, who called for a boycott of US and other Western currencies. He was right, when he said that Muslim countries should abandon the US Dollar and trade with their own currencies instead. Why should we use the Dollar even when we trade among ourselves? Even though Mahathir did not openly call for jihad, at least he said something. This was the least we could have done.

But the leaders of the OIC could not even accept Mahathir's proposal, yet they talk about respect and honour. What honour have we got left, when nobody is listening to us?

FN: Some would argue that this weakness stems from the fear of being seen as being 'too radical'. I have problems with this concept, for I believe that being a radical is not necessarily a bad thing. After all Nelson Mandela, Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyata, Ghandhi, Nehru, were all radicals in their time; and they did not compromise in their opposition to colonialism, imperialism, racism and apartheid. So why can't we be radicals now?

ABB: You are right, but the weakness does not come from the millions of Muslims in the world. They do not mind being radical, they have no fear to speak out and to protest and to jihad. But the weakness comes from these Westernised co-opted Muslim leaders who just want to look good in the eyes of the West and Western media. They are scared that the BBC or CNN may call them radicals, so they remain soft instead. The problem lies there, with the Muslim leaders, not the Muslim masses.

The Muslim leaders swallow the advice of the Western powers and bodies like the IMF and World Bank, even when it is bad for their countries and they know this. They are the real hypocrites and traitors to Islam and Muslims. Yet as you say we should not accept the idea that being a radical is a bad thing. Any movement for change will be radical. Our Prophet was a radical too- he fought against the injustices of his community and challenged the feudal order of his society, so they called him a radical. So what? We should be proud of that!

We should be proud that our Prophet came into the world with the message of Islam to change it for the better, and not for the worse, or to keep things as they are. What use is revelation or religion if it doesnt change anything?

[...]

ABB: The only model to follow is pure Islam. Because Islam in its original form was tough and hard, not weak and pliable. Islam is fixed, stable, ordered and disciplined, and so are Muslims.

If we return to the real practice of true Islam we would be much stronger and that is when the kafirs will fear us. That is why we need to uphold the Shariah and return to real Islam. But the West is trying to weaken Islam from outside and inside. They attack our people and invade our countries from outside, and they weaken us from within with ideas like secularism, liberalism and democracy. This is all designed to contaminate our pure Islam.

Why do we Muslims have to learn from them? Islam is perfect, there is nothing to be added or changed. We have shown that Islam can rule the world perfectly for 14 centuries, and during this time of Muslim power we did not borrow ideas like democracy from others, so why do we need to learn democracy from them now? As long as Muslims were confident they could not be defeated, but now we are just puppets.

This is why we are calling for the upholding of the Shariah here in Indonesia. We demand an Islamic state, and not some form of Islamisation of society. We want the state to be Islamic, with Islamic leaders who have the courage and will to implement the Shariah in total. There is no other way.

FN: Can you elaborate a little more on that? What do you mean by ‘enforcing Shariah with determination?’

ABB: Islam’s laws are fixed and that is why Islam is stable. Laws are to be enforced justly but firmly, with an iron hand. This is the case anywhere, even in a family.

Look at my own case: I am the father in my family. It is my duty to enforce the Shariah in my family and I do so with an iron hand. If my children do not behave according to Islam, if they do not pray for instance, I will punish them. Likewise the leader of any state has to do the same, he has to enforce Shariah firmly, for he will be held in account later in the afterlife if he fails. If his society breaks Islamic law, who is responsible? Is it not the leader, who has failed to enforce the laws of God? Here in Indonesia we have such laws but they are never enforced, that makes a mockery of Islam and Shariah.

So we want an Islamic state where Islamic law is not just in the books but enforced, and enforced with determination. There is no space and no room for democratic consultation. The Shariah is set and fixed, so why do we need to discuss it anymore? Just implement it!

Right now we are drafting our own constitutional ammendents for Indonesia, the framework for an Indonesian Islamic state where Islamic laws are enforced. Indonesians must understand that there is no Islamic state without the enforcement of Islamic laws. Otherwise it is just talk and nothing else.

[...]

As for Malaysia, you may be economically better off but your leaders are weak. Badawi may come from a family of ulama but his faith is weak and so is his spirit. How can Malaysia sign a free trade agreement with America and Japan? Are these not kafir countries? And America today is an enemy of Muslim states and the supporter of Israel. In Islam that makes America a kafir harbi (enemy) state, and we Muslims are obliged to cut off all ties, diplomatic and economic with such an enemy state.

I have been pointing out that the Lebanese government has never been able to stand up to Hizballah, and so Lebanese troops patrolling the border with Israel are likely to be simply Hizballah troops. Or maybe Hizballah will simply face down the UN openly, and do whatever it wants. "Hizbollah pushes past guards in show of force," from the Telegraph, with thanks to LGF:

Hizbollah mourners on a funeral parade shoved aside anti-tank barriers at a United Nations base in Lebanon yesterday in a demonstration of their new political strength.

The party had been told it would be allowed to bury three "martyrs" at the Naqoura town cemetery inside the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) compound, but only if there was no flag-waving or political sloganising.

When the chanting procession, several hundred strong, reached the gates, it found the way barred by cruci-form steel tank traps. Mourners argued with the French guards, but failed to gain entry.
advertisement

A mob of young men then dragged the barriers away and the UN opened the gates. "They will eat us alive," said a middle-aged official as the throng surged in.

A column of black-shirted men carried the three coffins to the graveyard. They waved yellow Hizbollah banners and portraits of the movement's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and yelled anti-Israeli and anti-American doggerel.

While academics bury their heads in the sand. "Extremist groups set to recruit freshers," from the Times Higher Education Supplement, with thanks to LGF:

Universities have been warned this week that Islamist extremists are likely to target freshers fairs looking for recruits, fuelling accusations that politically correct academics are burying their heads in the sand about terrorism.

Shiraz Maher, who joined the radical group Hizb ut-Tahrir while studying at Leeds University but later renounced his membership, told The Times Higher that universities were "bread-and-butter" recruiting grounds for extremist groups.

He said: "If you go to freshers fairs at University College London, the School of Oriental and African Studies and the London School of Economics next month, you will find Hizb ut-Tahrir undercover.

"Vice-chancellors have been wilfully blind to the problem. Recruitment of students is going on. That is categorical. Universities are not on top of this."

Bernie Taffs, head of security at the LSE, said that during freshers week last year he called the police after seeing extremist Islamist groups giving out leaflets and putting up posters.

Bill Durodie, senior lecturer in risk and security at Cranfield University, agreed that freshers fairs could be a target. He said: "The worry is that students might find a paucity of other groups offering coherent arguments."

What? No plethora of moderate, peaceful Muslim groups advocating the true understanding of the Religion of Peace?

No surprise here, since this law was designed by British dhimmis to silence critics of jihad, not jihadists. From, of all places, the New York Times, with thanks to all who sent this in:

LONDON, Aug. 20 — From his home on the northwest edge of this city, Muhamad al-Massari runs a Web site that celebrates the violent death of British and American soldiers. It is visited by tens of thousands of people every day, he said.

Mr. Massari maintains the Arabic-language site, tajdeed.org.uk, in the face of a strict new law aimed at curtailing violent speech and publishing. Just last week, the Council of Holy Warriors, a group affiliated with Al Qaeda, posted a declaration on the site praising a suicide bombing in Iraq that killed or wounded 55 people.

“If you kill our civilians, we kill your civilians,” Mr. Massari declared during an interview.

Mr. Massari’s Web site, and his public remarks, appear to violate of the Antiterrorism Act of 2006, which makes it a crime to glorify or encourage political violence. Inciting violence has long been illegal here but the new rules, drawn up after the London subway and bus bombings in July 2005, are intended to be much tougher.

The law’s underlying assumption is that speeches and publications by Britain’s more extreme Islamists may play a role in leading disgruntled young men toward violence. In addition to banning speech that encourages terrorism, the new law also criminalizes reckless speech that may have the same effect.

Yet despite the antiglorification law, and an array of other measures approved since last summer’s bombings, Islamist leaders like Mr. Massari persist, some of them declaring it the duty of British Muslims to kill in the name of Islam.

Some British leaders are beginning to publicly question why such clerics are allowed to continue. Last week, David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party, chastised the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair for failing to enforce laws intended to make it more difficult for political extremists to operate.

In remarks to the press, Mr. Cameron, a possible successor to Mr. Blair, accused the government of failing to “follow through when the headlines have moved on.”

“I do not believe that our government is doing enough to fight Islamist extremists at home or to protect our security,’’ he said. “Why have so few, if any, preachers of hate been prosecuted or expelled, with those that have gone having done so voluntarily?”

In addition to curtailing political speech, the British government outlawed 15 militant groups, most of them Muslim. It took a sterner attitude toward Islamists who had preached violence in the past, barring one well-known Syrian-born cleric, Omar Bakri Mohammed, from returning to the country. Earlier this year, it secured the conviction of Abu Hamza al-Masri, the country’s most militant cleric, for soliciting murder and racial hatred.

Yet for all those actions, the new measures do not appear to have silenced those either praising or calling for violence in the name of Islam. Some Islamist preachers have carefully scaled back their language, even if, in context, the meaning seems clear.

On Sunday, speaking before 8,000 followers in Manchester, Azam Tamimi extolled the glories of suffering for the faith.

“The greatest act of martyrdom is standing up for that is true and just,” Mr. Tamimi said. “Martyrs are those who stand up in defiance of George Bush and Tony Blair.”

The remarks by Mr. Tamimi, one in a line of Islamist scholars and clerics to address the Manchester crowd, were the latest in a series of carefully worded public statements by British Islamist leaders that seemed aimed at testing the limits of the new law. In the Islamic world, “martyrdom” means sacrificing one’s life, often violently, for the faith.

Others, meanwhile, have carried on as before, speaking in support of political violence or publishing tracts that do the same.

One of them is Atilla Ahmet, leader of the Islamist group Supporters of Shariah. In meetings with supporters and in interviews, the British-born Mr. Ahmet speaks freely about what he considers the necessity for violent action, both here and abroad, to avenge what he considers unjustified attacks on Muslims abroad.

“You are attacking our people in Muslim countries, in Iraq, in Afghanistan,’’ Mr. Ahmet said, referring to the British and American governments. “So it’s legitimate to attack British soldiers and policemen, government officials, and even the White House.”

Mr. Ahmet, a 42-year Briton of Cypriot descent, went on to include bank employees as legitimate targets “because they charge interest,” which he says is in violation of Islamic law.

Mr. Ahmet said he is aware of the new law, but that he could not shirk his duty to defend Islam, which he believes is under assault by Britain and the United States in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. He says he often addresses his followers, who he says number 3,000.

“If you are going to kill a Muslim, then I will do everything in my power to kill you,’’ he said.

Mr. Massari, the Web site operator, said he approved of violence against British and American soldiers in Iraq, as well as against most of the governments in the Middle East. He said, for instance, that it “is legitimate for Iraqis to kill Tony Blair, the same with Bush.’’

The posting on his Web site about the Iraqi bombing said of the attackers, “We ask God to accept our brothers as martyrs.’’

Mr. Massari makes several distinctions that he says insulate him from being deported or prosecuted by the British government. He says, for instance, that he does not post any material on the Web site himself; he lets his members do that, most of whom sign up anonymously. The other important distinction, he said, is that he does not call for violence in Britain....

Asked why no one had been arrested or prosecuted for encouraging terrorism, a spokesman for Scotland Yard, the national police force, declined to comment.

Sure. What can they say? "We're spineless, terrified, cringing dhimmis"?

The Bush administration, under laws toughened after the Sept. 11 attacks, has prosecuted a number of people for encouraging terrorism.

In one of the more high-profile cases, a Muslim scholar in northern Virginia, Ali al-Timimi, was sentenced to life in prison in 2005 for urging his young Muslim followers to wage war against the United States overseas.

At a dinner meeting on Sept. 16, 2001, Mr. Timimi told some of the men in the group that it was their Muslim duty to fight for Islam overseas and to defend the Taliban in Afghanistan against American forces, according to testimony at his trial. In an Internet message in 2003, he described the destruction of the space shuttle Columbia as a “good omen” for Muslims in an apocalyptic conflict with the West....

“Anyone who supports Tony Blair,’’ said Khalid Kelley, an Irish-born convert to Islam, “is not a civilian.’’

Remember that one the next time a "moderate Muslim" assures you that Islam forbids the killing of civilians.

British troops appear to bearing the brunt of this activity thus far, as they are situated in heavily Shi'ite southern Iraq, already a known destination for the transport of Iranian weapons. From the Telegraph:

Three factories in Iran are mass-producing the sophisticated roadside bombs used to kill British soldiers over the border in Iraq, it has been claimed.

The lethal bombs are being made by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps at ordnance factory sites in Teheran, according to opponents of the country's theocratic regime.

Designed to penetrate heavy armour, the devices being manufactured in Iran involve the use of "explosively formed projectiles" or EFPs, also known as shaped charges, often triggered by infra-red beams.

The weapons can pierce the armour of British and American tanks and armoured personnel carriers and completely destroy armoured Land Rovers, which are used by the majority of British troops on operations in Iraq.

The Sunday Telegraph revealed in April that Iranian-made devices employing several EFPs, directed at different angles, were being used in Iraq.

And in June, this newspaper obtained the first picture of one of the Iraqi insurgent weapons - designed to fire an armour-piercing EFP - believed to have been responsible for the deaths of 17 British soldiers.

British Government scientists have already established that the mines are precision-made weapons thought to have been turned on a lathe by craftsmen trained in the manufacture of munitions.

Members of the Washington-based Iran Policy Committee have released the details about the three bomb factories gathered by the exile group, the National Council for Resistance in Iran (NCRI).

Iranians working for the NCRI pinpointed the facilities at three industrial sections called Sattari, Sayad Shirazi and Shiroodi. The factories are in the Lavizan neighbourhood in northern Teheran which is controlled by the country's defence ministry. The Sattari Industry specialises in anti-tank mines and operates under the aegis of the IRGC's al-Quds or Jerusalem Force.

[...]

"These sites are close to a military site, known as Lavizan 2, that is now being used for Iran's nuclear programme. It shows there is a high level of co-ordination by the Iranian regime, which wants to destabilise Iraq to make way for an Islamic Republic.

"This is not a ragtag workshop in some remote area. These sites are within an area that is one of the most sanitised parts of Teheran which is controlled by the Iranian Defence Ministry."

[...]

The infra-red triggering mechanism for roadside bombs was perfected by Hezbollah, under Iranian tutelage, against Israeli forces in the 1990s. Mr Jafarzadeh said that in recent weeks Iran had facilitated the movement of cash from Shia groups in Iraq to Hezbollah.

Ceasefire Update from the Jerusalem Post:

Israeli and American intelligence agencies alerted Turkish authorities last Friday that several Lebanon-bound Iranian planes, loaded with military hardware meant for the Hizbullah, were making their way through Turkish airspace, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

According to information obtained by the Post, the intelligence agencies were tracking several suspicious Iranian aircraft as they were taking off from an Iranian airfield.

Turkey was then warned about the planes and their cargo which were to fly over Turkish airspace. Shortly after Turkey was tipped off, Iranian officials ordered the planes to return to their point of departure, where, according to unconfirmed Turkish reports, the arms were removed from the Iranian planes.

But who tipped off the Iranian officials to call back the planes before they were intercepted?

After offloading the arms, the planes took off again and were forced to land in Turkey for inspection by the airport authorities. Turkish aviation officials told the Post that no weapons were found on the planes.

Since the war with Hizbullah erupted last month, and especially since the ceasefire, Turkey has intercepted several Iranian and Syrian Lebanon-bound ships in the Eastern Mediterranean sea, as well as two transit trucks from Syria, the Post has learned.

Meanwhile, the London-based Arab daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reported on Monday that large amounts of rockets have been transferred from Iran to Syria en route to the Hizbullah in Lebanon.

According to the report, the Iranian Revolutionary Commands have set up a special body in Damascus whose aim is to supply all of Hizbullah's needs.

Scheduled:

Michael Savage at 6:30PM.

Lars Larsen at 7PM.

George Noory at, so help me, 1AM.

Then Mancow at 8AM and Michael Smerconish at 8:15AM tomorrow.

UPDATE: Oops, one little detail: all times EDT.

NEW UPDATE 8/22 6:30AM: I had been scheduled for TV -- CNN's "American Morning" -- this morning, but I was just dropped. The producer called to say there was breaking JonBenet Ramsey news, which of course, as everyone knows, is far more important than Iran's saber rattling.

In your dreams, Mahmoud

More saber rattling from the Thug-In-Chief of Iran surfacing internationally on the eve of his big day, although it was recorded last week. "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: The U.S and England Are Not Worthy of Security Council Membership. Those Who Want Good Relations with the Iranian People Should Bow and Surrender to its Right and Might," from MEMRITV:

Following are excerpts from a speech delivered by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which aired on Iranian News Channel (IRINN) on August 15, 2006:

[...]

If you want to have good relations with the Iranian people in the future, you should acknowledge the right and the might of the Iranian people, and you should bow and surrender to the might of the Iranian people. If you do not accept this, the Iranian people will force you to bow and surrender.

No, Mahmoud. While some of us have already surrendered, some others among us will never ever surrender, no matter what.

A superb piece by Melanie Phillips in NR:

When America was attacked on 9/11 by Islamic jihadis, it was said that this was a doomsday wake-up call for the West. Within a short while, however, much of Britain decided that 9/11 was actually America’s fault and that Israel was at the core of the problem.

When Britain was attacked last year on 7/7 by Islamic jihadis, it was said that this was a doomsday wake-up call for the U.K. Within a short time, however, much of the country decided that it was Britain’s own fault on account of “Islamophobia” and the war in Iraq.

Now 25 British Muslims have been arrested for an alleged plot to blast up to ten trans-Atlantic airliners out of the sky. This vast alleged conspiracy, thought to encompass many dozens more plotters from Germany to Pakistan, bears all the monstrous hallmarks of a classic al Qaeda operation. In addition, security sources say that dozens more al Qaeda-linked terrorist cells are at large in the U.K.

From the evidence of one opinion poll this week, the British public has at least woken up to the fact that we are in the throes of a world war. Not so, however, the British establishment and chattering classes. Denial is no longer a river in Egypt but a British pathology.

Read it all.

Soon it will be August 22 in Tehran. Do I really think something catastrophic will happen? I actually tend to think this is just more saber-rattling, but we'll see not too long from now. Certainly if nothing happens on August 22, something will soon enough.

From AP, with thanks to Uriel Septem:

VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Iran has turned away U.N. inspectors wanting to examine its underground nuclear site in an apparent violation of the Nonproliferation Treaty, diplomats and U.N. officials said Monday.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the confidentiality of the information, told The Associated Press that Iran's unprecedented refusal to allow access to the facility at Natanz could seriously hamper international efforts to ensure that Tehran is not trying to make nuclear weapons.

Jihad Watch reader (and first-class link referrer) Twostellas has informed me that there is a CAIR Action Alert against me:

Action: Islam-Basher to Appear on C-SPAN

ISLAM-BASHER TO APPEAR ON C-SPAN

ACTION ALERT: Robert Spencer, the publisher of "Jihad Watch," will appear Sunday, August 20, on a PRE-TAPED C-SPAN "Q&A" segment.

In his book "Guide for Catholics," http://watchjihadwatch.blogspot.com/2006/05/bias.html

"Islam itself is an incomplete, misleading, and often downright false revelation which, in many ways, directly contradicts what God has revealed through the prophets of the Old Testament and through his Son Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh.. . .For several reasons. . .Islam constitutes a threat to the world at large.

The subtitle of Spencer's forthcoming book claims Islam is "the World's Most Intolerant Religion."

Please watch the program and then contact C-SPAN to express your concerns about the network's decision to provide air-time to someone whose website promotes bigotry and hatred.

SEE: http://www.q-and-a.org/Program/?ProgramID=1086

CONTACT: viewer@c-span.org

COPY TO: info@cair.com

A few observations:

1. CAIR's source for this is Watching Jihad Watch, a site whose anonymous operator has thoroughly discredited himself to any fair-minded observer by lying many times, in quite obvious fashon, about my positions and my work, and who is so inveterately dishonest that he has even lied about revealing his own name. Details here (scroll down). (Addendum: His lies continue. A reader just emailed to tell me that his latest post, from August 20, excoriates me for not pointing out that Muslim tipsters helped expose the British airline plot. Oops: I pointed that out on August 17. See also here.)

2. The "Action Alert" quotes a book that I cowrote several years ago, ignoring the two bestsellers that I wrote on my own. This is fair enough, as I certainly do not disavow Inside Islam: A Guide for Catholics, but I do think it's interesting that they can't find anything they can use in A) books I am fully responsible for, with no coauthor; and B) books that sold ten or twenty or 100 times more copies than Inside Islam.

Note also the substance of their scare quote. It is, in sum, an affirmation of Christian belief and of non-belief in Islam. If CAIR succeeds in presenting that as "bigotry" or "Islam bashing," they will have essentially ruled out of polite society and the public discourse any affirmation of a religious faith other than Islam and concomitant rejection of Islam. Obviously Islam does contradict the Old and New Testaments, or it would not be a religion separate from Christianity and Judaism. One might only find the pointing out of this offensive if one subscribes to the supremacist Muslim view that the original Jewish and Christian Scriptures were Islamic texts, and that the present versions of them are corruptions of those Islamic texts. In other words, CAIR is trying to impose the Islamic perspective on the rest of us under the guise of cries of "bigotry." This is a matter of freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and more.

Let me repeat that: CAIR is condemning as "bigotry" a simple affirmation of Christian faith.

They also include part of a quote in which Daniel Ali and I say Islam constitutes a "threat." But this should be obvious also. Even if the jihadists do twist and hijack Islam as CAIR claims publicly, they arise from within Islam. And CAIR has done little or nothing effective to counter this threat among Muslims.

3. It's ironic that CAIR would take umbrage at the subtitle of my forthcoming book, The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion, in the context of trying to silence me and scold C-Span for giving me airtime. How tolerant!

4. This website does not promote bigotry and hatred. This website tells the truth about how Islamic jihadists promote bigotry and hatred, as well as violence against non-Muslims. I challenge CAIR -- Nihad Awad, Ibrahim Hooper, Hussam Ayloush, anyone -- to produce even a single statement that I (not unmoderated commenters, since Muslims as well as non-Muslims, and jihad supporters as well as anti-jihadists post here) have written that says something false about Islam. I also would be happy to debate anyone. Nihad, Ibrahim, Hussam, you can contact me at director@jihadwatch.org.

5. CAIR exhorts its minions to contact C-Span at the email link above. I don't usually do this, but I think in the name of freedom of speech that it is worth asking you to write to C-Span also, at viewer@c-span.org. Tell them what you think of the interview with me last night. Tell them whether or not you think I promoted bigotry and hatred, or said anything false at all.

You might also wish to tell them about CAIR. CAIR recently dropped a suit contesting these propositions -- evidently they could not disprove them:

· “Let their [sic] be no doubt that CAIR is a terrorist supporting front organization that is partially funded by terrorists, and that CAIR wishes nothing more than the implementation of Sharia law in America.”

· CAIR is an “organization founded by Hamas supporters which seeks to overthrow Constitutional government in the United States and replace it with an Islamist theocracy using our own Constitution as protection.”

· “ACAIR reminds our readers that CAIR was started by Hamas members and is supported by terrorist supporting individuals, groups and countries.”

· “Why oppose CAIR? CAIR has proven links to, and was founded by, Islamic terrorists. CAIR is not in the United States to promote the civil rights of Muslims. CAIR is here to make radical Islam the dominant religion in the United States and convert our country into an Islamic theocracy along the lines of Iran. In addition, CAIR has managed, through the adroit manipulation of the popular media, to present itself as the ‘moderate’ face of Islam in the United States. CAIR succeeded to the point that the majority of its members are not aware that CAIR actively supports terrorists and terrorist supporting groups and nations. In addition, CAIR receives direct funding from Islamic terrorists supporting countries.”

· “CAIR is a fundamentalist organization dedicated to the overthrow of the United States Constitution and the installation of an Islamic theocracy in America.”

CAIR is with this Action Alert again behaving like a schoolyard bully, a thug engaging in intimidation tactics. I challenge CAIR to drop the attempt to bully C-Span and silence me -- which they are trying to without demonstrating that anything I have said is false or damaging in any way -- and to meet me instead in an honest and open debate. Write to C-Span and let them know what you think.

If he gets what he wants from United, it will send the signal that passenger concerns about Muslim passengers will not be tolerated. And our guard against genuine jihad terrorists will be that much lowered. From CBC News, with thanks to F.:

A Winnipeg doctor is demanding an official apology and compensation from United Airlines after being kicked off a flight in the U.S. this week, an incident he has characterized as "institutionalized discrimination." Dr. Ahmed Farooq, a Muslim, was escorted off an airplane in Denver on Tuesday. According to Farooq, reciting his evening prayers was interpreted by one passenger as an activity that was suspicious.

"The whole situation is just really frustrating," Farooq said. "It makes you uneasy, because you realize you have to essentially watch every single thing you say and do, and it's worse for people who are of colour, who are identifiable as a minority."

You do have to watch every single thing you say and do. So do we all when flying these days. My work involves the Qur'an and other Islamic texts, but I no longer do work while flying that would mean having out in plain view books that would make other passengers concerned. Flying is a serious business nowadays. But this "people of colour" remark is just a cheap attempt to make this out to be a racial problem. It isn't. Farooq was "reciting prayers" -- when he could have done it silently. I have been in the presence of Muslims who have done so, so please don't tell me that that is impossible. These are the same prayers that jihad terrorists have prayed, so a passenger was concerned. I am sorry he was inconvenienced, but we all have been in so many ways since 9/11, haven't we? He should seek an apology from Osama bin Laden for indirectly occasioning his being taken off this flight.

Farooq said the allegation came from a passenger who appeared drunk and had previously threatened him during the trip.

Oh really? Did he report the threat? What was its substance? Did he tell the airline officials about this threat when they approached him to take him off the plane?

When flight personnel were alerted, the 27-year-old radiology resident and two colleagues — a man and a woman — were taken off their flight. They had been returning from a conference in San Francisco.

Farooq said that even officials from the Transportation Security Administration soon realized the flight crew had overreacted, but by the time that conclusion had been reached the trio were forced to stay in Denver for the night and catch a flight the next day — at their own expense. "There's no recourse," Farooq said. "There's no way to really be able to talk to anybody to really be able to reason it out. The police officers who talked to me afterwards and subsequent officials within the first three to five minutes, they were like, 'You know what? The crew made a mistake. We apologize that they took you off. They overreacted.'"

So then why is he still seeking more?

Brandon Borrman of United Airlines told the Winnipeg Free Press this week that the airline is obliged to take any allegations threatening passenger safety seriously, particularly in the wake of last week's arrests in the alleged bomb plot on flights from Britain to the U.S.

Yes.

Rumpled Academic Update from the New York Sun:

A co-defendant in the terrorism-related trial of a Florida college professor was sentenced in Chicago on Friday to an additional 14 months in prison for food-stamp fraud, according to press accounts.

Judge Milton Shadur ordered a 51-month sentence for Hatem Fariz, 33, who was already facing a 37-month term for assisting Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

While the former convenience store owner seemed to receive a more serious punishment for fraud than for an offense connected with a deadly terrorist group, Judge Shadur said the 51-month sentence was what Fariz would have received if the two cases had been handled together.

"I will serve my time quietly and productively, and I just want to get this behind me and go on with my life," Fariz said, according to the Associated Press....

In the Chicago case, Fariz was charged with making $1.4 million off a scheme which involved giving food stamp recipients a discounted amount of cash in exchange for credits on their electronic benefit cards. He has been ordered to repay the swindled money.

Prosecutors said in 1999 and 2000 that Fariz redeemed $1.6 million in credits while ringing up only $149,000 in eligible food sales.

Get on with his life? Of bilking and money laundering and jihad?

Since a little after 1PM yesterday until just now, the Jihad Watch site has been locked up by some kind of malfunction, making it impossible for me to post anything and impossible for anyone to comment. I apologize for the inconvenience, but things seem to be up and running now. I don't know the cause of these problems, but since this latest one occurred after a fix that supposedly took care of the source of the difficulty, I'll be monitoring things closely.

August 1939 Alert from AP, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Iran on Sunday test-fired a surface-to-surface short-range missile a day after its army launched large-scale military exercises throughout the country, state-run television reported.

"Saegheh, the missile, has a range of between 80 to 250 kilometers (50 to 150 miles)," the report said. It said the missile was tested in Kashan desert, about 150 miles southeast of Tehran, the capital.

Saegheh means lightning in Farsi.

Caroline Glick's grim prognosis in the Jerusalem Post (thanks to John Doe):

Since the cease-fire was implemented in Lebanon, we have heard scattered reports indicating that a prisoner swap with the Palestinians may be in the works. In exchange for hundreds if not thousands of Palestinian terrorists now held in Israeli prisons, IDF Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who has been held hostage by Palestinian terrorists for nearly two months, may be released from captivity.

These reports lend weight to the view that things are back to normal. Terrorists kidnap Israelis and hold them hostage and Israel releases terrorists in order to free them. It is a comforting thought for people like Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his colleagues and the members of Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz's General Staff who continue to believe that it will be possible for Israel to sign on a dotted line and achieve "a normal existence." Unfortunately, the chance that Shalit will be released is almost as small as the chance that Israel will be able to achieve a "normal existence." Palestinian sources explain that the decision of whether or not to release Shalit is firmly in the hands of the Iranians and Syrians, and they are not in any mood to horse trade with the Jews.

Read it all.

Soon he will be free to resume his jihad. From The Observer, with thanks to JE:

An Islamic cleric who influenced at least one of the 7 July bombers and whose videos may have been seen by several of the terror suspects arrested earlier this month, is to be freed from prison in weeks.

Sheikh Abdullah el-Faisal encouraged Muslims to attend training camps so they could wage jihad on the West. He was jailed in February 2003 for nine years, reduced to seven on appeal, after being convicted of soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred. Hundreds of Muslims attended his lectures in mosques across Britain, including Birmingham, London and Dewsbury in West Yorkshire.

His trial heard recordings of el-Faisal, Jamaican by birth but living in Stratford, east London, praising Osama bin Laden. 'You have to learn how to shoot and fly planes and drive tanks,' el-Faisal told those who attended his lectures. 'Jews,' el-Faisal said, 'should be killed... as by Hitler.'

He encouraged the use of chemical weapons to 'exterminate non-believers', and exhorted Muslim women to buy toy guns for their children to train them for jihad. He also suggested that nuclear power stations could be fuelled with bodies of Hindus, slaughtered for their 'oppression' of Muslims in Kashmir.

Videos of his lectures have been found circulating in Muslim circles in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, where police are concentrating inquiries into this month's alleged bomb plot involving airliners.

El-Faisal is eligible for parole having served more than half his sentence. The Home Office confirmed he had been served with a notice of deportation to Jamaica, signalling that he will be released in weeks - bar a successful appeal against the decision.

The prospect of a man described in court as a 'fanatic and an extremist' being freed has troubled Muslim leaders who fear he will continue to disseminate his views in Britain. 'Once he's deported to Jamaica, what restrictions will there be to prevent him spreading his message of hate over the internet,' asked Andrew Dismore MP.

Is Andrew Dismore a "Muslim leader"?

"Asians," of course, is UK mediaspeak for Muslims. These Muslim passengers don't seem to have been up to anything more than speaking Arabic, and no doubt all sorts of opprobrium is now going to rain down on the passengers' heads: cries of ingrained "Islamophobia," and calls by Muslim leaders and their willing Leftist stooges for some kind of institutionalized and nationwide "education" (i.e. propaganda) campaign to prevent this sort of thing. You can see in the full article here, not in what I have excerpted below, that this is already being called a "victory for terrorists" because it led the passengers to act "irrationally" and display "racism."

However, this is a manifestation of a mounting frustration among ordinary citizens. The passengers clearly didn't believe that PC authorities were able or willing to do proper screening, and were willing to risk the media firestorm that is sure to come, which will portray them as closet Hitlerians. No one is likely to note the simple fact that if authorities would come out of the PC fog long enough to do their jobs properly, this kind of thing would never happen.

"Passengers refuse to fly until Asians are removed," from the Daily Mail, with thanks to all who sent this in:

British holidaymakers staged an unprecedented mutiny - refusing to allow their flight to take off until two men they feared were terrorists were forcibly removed.

The extraordinary scenes happened after some of the 150 passengers on a Malaga-Manchester flight overheard two men of Asian appearance apparently talking Arabic.

Passengers told cabin crew they feared for their safety and demanded police action. Some stormed off the Monarch Airlines Airbus A320 minutes before it was due to leave the Costa del Sol at 3am. Others waiting for Flight ZB 613 in the departure lounge refused to board it.

The incident fuels the row over airport security following the arrest of more than 20 people allegedly planning the suicide-bombing of transatlantic jets from the UK to America. It comes amid growing demands for passenger-profiling and selective security checks.

It also raised fears that more travellers will take the law into their own hands - effectively conducting their own 'passenger profiles'....

The Tories said the Government's failure to reassure travellers had led the Malaga passengers to 'behave irrationally' and 'hand a victory to terrorists'.

Websites used by pilots and cabin crew were yesterday reporting further incidents. In one, two British women with young children on another flight from Spain complained about flying with a bearded Muslim even though he had been security-checked twice before boarding....

Passengers noticed that, despite the heat, the pair were wearing leather jackets and thick jumpers and were regularly checking their watches.

Initially, six passengers refused to board the flight. On board the aircraft, word reached one family. To the astonishment of cabin crew, they stood up and walked off, followed quickly by others.

The Monarch pilot - a highly experienced captain - accompanied by armed Civil Guard police and airport security staff, approached the two men and took their passports.

Half an hour later, police returned and escorted the two Asian passengers off the jet....

A spokesman for the Civil Guard in Malaga said: "These men had aroused suspicion because of their appearance and the fact that they were speaking in a foreign language thought to be an Arabic language, and the pilot was refusing to take off until they were escorted off the plane."

Islamic Tolerance Alert. "Two Chaldean Priests Kidnapped in Baghdad," (the second has since been released) from Compass Direct:

August 17 (Compass Direct News) - Iraqi church leaders issued appeals today for the release of a Chaldean Catholic priest kidnapped in southeast Baghdad yesterday morning.

In an e-mailed statement, Chaldean Archbishop of Kirkuk Louis Sako called for the release of Father Saad Sirop of St. Jacob parish in Baghdad’s Doura district.

The appeal quoted Sura 5 of the Quran, asking that Muslims protect priests and monks. Sako also noted that Sirop was a good man who had preached and practiced love and peace.

Priests and monks are mentioned specifically in Sura 5, verse 82:

Certainly you will find the most violent of people in enmity for those who believe (to be) the Jews and those who are polytheists, and you will certainly find the nearest in friendship to those who believe (to be) those who say: We are Christians; this is because there are priests and monks among them and because they do not behave proudly.

The article continues:

"I think that there are two reasons these kidnappings are taking place," Sako told Compass over the telephone. "The first reason is money. But the second reason is that they want to push Christians out of Iraq."

The archbishop said that Doura was a majority Sunni Muslim area with a significant minority of 3,000 Christians. He said that Sunnis moving into the area from other parts of Iraq wanted to take possession of the Christians’ homes.

"Sirop was on his way home from celebrating mass at St. Jacob church at about 6:30 a.m. when his car was stopped by three armed men with masks," Sako told Compass. "They forced him into their car but left his driver alone."

The clergyman’s kidnapping was also reported today on Iraqi news websites "Buratha News" and "Aswat Al-Iraq." According to the latter, the Iraqi Islamic Party has demanded that Sirop’s kidnappers free him.

Chaldean Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Baghdad Shlemon Warduni, traveling outside of the country, also issued an appeal for the priest’s release. He directly addressed Sirop’s captors, saying that kidnapping a clergyman who had faithfully served his country did not help their cause.

So what good, then, is the ceasefire? None at all, of course. Peace In Our Time Update from the UN, with thanks to IMRA:

Unofficial transcript of press encounter with Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown at UN Headquarters

18 August 2006 - Deputy Secretary-General: I just want to say a few remarks first, and then open to take any questions you have....

Deputy Secretary-General:... The core thing that capitals have to get over the hump on, is the character and purpose of the force which is consistent with the resolution, which is that it is not an offensive force, it's not going to go in there and attempt large scale disarmament. Rather it is going to police the political agreement which triggers disarmament, called for under the resolution and therefore it will make a prudent use of force. It calls very clearly in the rules of engagement, as it did in the resolution itself, that where combatants forcefully resist a demand from UNIFIL or from the Lebanese army to disarm, UNIFIL will then exercise use of force, if it has to, to force that disarmament. I think we have been very clear on that, this is not going to be a force which can be characterized as a force of occupation, or a force of offensive effort to disarm Hezbullah, but is going to provide Israel with that security guarantee that this political agreement which will ultimately call for disarmament, [it] does already in the resolution, will be enforceable....

How's that again? This force will not affect disarmament of Hizballah, but will call for the disarmament of Hizballah? Great. But you don't need a UN force for that. I can save you billions of dollars: I'll call for the disarmament of Hizballah for you right now, from right here in my offices on the 113th floor of the Jihad Watch Towers in Secure Undisclosed Locationville. No, don't thank me. I know what I have just done is completely ineffective -- just like this UN force.

Seriously, this is just not strong enough. They'll use force if Hizballah resists, and yet they will not make an offensive effort to disarm Hizballah. It's very easy to see how this will become a recipe for inaction and impotence.

British Jihad Update from the BBC, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Police investigating an alleged plot to bring down airliners have found several martyrdom videos in the course of their searches, the BBC has learned.

An unofficial police source said the recordings - discovered on laptop computers - appear to have been made by some of the suspects being questioned....

It is believed up to 17 people are being held in Pakistan over the alleged plot - with two British nationals of Pakistani descent among them.

Scotland Yard officers have also flown to Pakistan to liaise with the authorities there over the questioning of Rashid Rauf, the only man who has so far been named by Pakistani authorities.

Just a reminder that CSpan Q&A will feature my interview with CSpan's Brian Lamb tomorrow night at 8PM and 11PM EDT.

This is the famous pre-refuted interview: Akbar Ahmed already replied last week. More about that here. Meanwhile, I'm told that this morning on CSpan's Washington Journal, CAIR's Nihad Awad told people that I say many false things about Islam, and that viewers should go to CAIR's website for the truth after watching the interview.

CSpan seems quite eager to give a forum to such assertions; will they give a forum to my rebuttal, or to an honest debate? I challenge Nihad Awad or anyone else to produce even one false statement I have ever made about Islam. He hasn't, and won't, because he can't. But my standing offer remains: I will debate Nihad Awad, or Akbar Ahmed, or any other Muslim spokesman, on CSpan or off. Lots of people are ready to say in broad terms that I am inaccurate, but they never seem able to supply any specifics, or willing to discuss matters with me head on. Mr. Awad, Dr. Ahmed, I can be reached at director@jihadwatch.org.

The Hamilton Spectator has published an excerpt from The al-Qaeda Reader, translated by Raymond Ibrahim and with an introduction by Victor Davis Hanson. The book will be published in early 2007 by Doubleday. The paper, meanwhile, assures us: "Radical Muslims claim to be acting out the words of God, Moderate Muslims have competing interpretations." Unfortunately, like so many hundreds of other articles that casually invoke the presence of a significant non-jihadist vision of Islam that is competing with jihadism within the Islamic world, they give no example of those "competing interpretations," or any indication of how successfully they are competing. Thus the moderates' competing interpretation of Islam remains the great unicorn, the wonderful kingdom of Prester John, the thing that everyone knows is there but no one can quite find.

Raymond Ibrahim is a bit more realistic in his introductory remarks in the Spectator:

While the West battles al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, the Taliban and other radical organizations and individuals, its more challenging task will be to marginalize the underlying ideology of radical Islam.

Right. And this is not being done today, not least because so many analysts dogmatically assume that it has already been done, and thus no more work remains to be done in this area.

Long dormant, but always alive, this ideology, based on literalist readings of Islam's texts, is history's latest and perhaps greatest incarnation of anti-Westernism.

Ibrahim doesn't point out, however, that "literalist readings of Islam's texts" have always been mainstream in the Islamic world, and consistently triumphed in Islam's early centuries over competing understandings.

Radicals claim to be acting out the words of God. Moderate Muslims may have their competing interpretations of their Islamic texts, but whether their version will win out over that of the radicals is an unanswered question.

It would be nice if someone could point to even one place in the world where moderates are successfully competing with jihadists on Islamic grounds.

Then the Hamilton Spectator quotes from Ibrahim's translation of "The World Islamic Front's Declaration to Wage Jihad against the Jews and Crusaders," which first appeared in al-Quds al-'Arabi on February 23, 1998. Note the strong religious appeal. A few excerpts:

Praise be to Allah, who revealed the Book (Koran), controls the clouds, defeats factionalism and says in His Book: "Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever you find them -- seize them, besiege them and be ready to ambush them" (9:5). And prayers and peace be upon our Prophet, Muhammad bin 'Abdullah, who said: "I have been sent with the sword between my hands to ensure that no one but Allah is worshipped -- Allah who put my livelihood under the shadow of my spear and who inflicts humiliation and scorn on those who disobey my commandments."

Never since Allah made the Arabian Peninsula flat, created its desert and encircled it with seas has it been stormed by any force like the Crusader hordes which have spread in it like locusts, consuming its wealth and polluting its fertility. All this is happening at a time in which nations are attacking Muslims in unison -- as if fighting over a plate of food! In face of this critical situation and lack of support, we are all obliged to discuss current events, as well as reach an agreement on how (best) to settle the matter.

[...]

All these crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on Allah, His Messenger and the Muslims.

Ulema throughout Islamic history are unanimously agreed that the Jihad is an individual duty whenever the enemy tears into the lands of the Muslims. This was related by Imam bin Qudama in al-Mughni; Imam al-Kisa'i in al-Bada'i; al-Qurtubi in his commentary; and the Sheik of Islam (Ibn Taymiyya) in his chronicles, where he states: "As for defensive warfare, this is the greatest way to defend sanctity and religion. This is an obligation consensually agreed to (by the Ulema). After faith, there is nothing more sacred than repulsing the enemy who attacks religion and life."

On that basis, and in compliance with Allah's order, we hereby issue the following decree to all Muslims:

The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual obligation incumbent upon every Muslim who can do it and in any country -- this until the Aqsa Mosque (Jerusalem) and the Holy Mosque (Mecca) are liberated from their grip, and until their armies withdraw from all the lands of Islam, defeated, shattered and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the Word of the Most High -- "(F)ight the pagans all together as they fight you all together" (9:36) and the Word of the Most High, "Fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and (all) religion belongs to Allah" (8:39).

And the Most High said: "And why should you not fight in the cause of Allah and on behalf of those oppressed men, women and children who cry out, Lord! Rescue us from this town and its oppressors. Give us from Your Presence some protecting friend! Give us from Your Presence some defender!" (4:75).

By Allah's leave we call upon every Muslim who believes in Allah and wishes to be rewarded to comply with Allah's order to kill the Americans and seize their money wherever and whenever they find them.

We also call on Muslim Ulema, leaders, youths and soldiers to launch the raid on the Devil's army -- the Americans -- and whoever allies with them from the supporters of Satan, to rout those behind them so that they may learn (a lesson).

Allah Most High said: "O you who have believed! Respond to Allah and the Messenger whenever He calls you to that which gives you life. And know that Allah comes between a man and his heart, and that it is He to whom you shall (all) be gathered" (8:24).

Allah Most High said: "O you who have believed! What is the matter with you? When you are asked to go forth in the cause of Allah, you cling so heavily to the earth! Do you prefer the life of this world to the Hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, in comparison to the Hereafter. Unless you go forth (and fight), He will punish you with a grievous torment, and put others in your place. But He you cannot harm in the least; for Allah has power over all things" (9: 38-39).

Allah Most High said: "So do not lose heart, nor fall into despair. Have faith and you shall triumph" (3:139).

Another peek inside Pakistan's jihad factories -- mixed with some of the usual mainstream media twaddle, but still containing some useful information. "Welcome to the 'jihad factory.' It's still in production: SONYA FATAH meets Islamic firebrand Sami ul-Haq on his home turf -- the school where he trained most of the top Taliban," from the Globe and Mail:

AKORA KHATTAK, PAKISTAN -- In the 16th century, a Muslim warlord who had come to be known as Sher Khan, the original Lion King, began building the Sadak-e-Azam, or royal road, to link the four corners of his vast empire. Before it was finished, he died in an accidental gunpowder blast, but the great thoroughfare continued to grow, and today, known as the Grand Trunk Road, it stretches 2,500 kilometres from the gateway to Afghanistan across Pakistan and India to Bangladesh.

The Lion King was an Afghan, and he relied on the Grand Trunk to give his fighters the mobility they needed to keep his domain intact. More than 450 years later, those in charge of a sprawling complex of domes and spires that sit beside the road just east of its starting point, the Pakistani border city of Peshawar, are hoping their followers can do something even more dramatic -- bring about an Islamist revolution. And many people around the world now wonder just how far they are willing to go to achieve it.

As investigators try to uncover who was behind last week's apparent attempt to blow up as many as 12 U.S.-bound passenger planes over the Atlantic, they say they keep uncovering evidence that points toward Pakistan, especially its remote and often lawless provinces bordering on Afghanistan.

Peshawar is the capital of the North Western Frontier Province which, along with the neighbouring province of Baluchistan, is where so many of the "homegrown terrorists" being found in Muslim communities around the world have their family roots. This region is where they are believed to come to learn the art of war, and where Islamic militants are believed to be slipping back and forth across the border to attack the Canadian, American and British troops fighting to avert a Taliban comeback.

Read it all.

A poster at Jihad Watch recently wrote: “Once upon a time I lived in the NE. The anti Israel bias of the Boston Globe turned me into a Boston Herald customer. The Globe had more than one op-ed columnist weighing in against Israel. HDS Greenway was the worst.”

Was, and is. Though he is officially retired, the vaporings of HDS Greenway, half or 2/3 of them devoted in some way to Israel (his main topic, practically his only topic these days) can still be found on Fridays at The Boston Globe, where he has spent many years. Greenway is a Peter-Jennings sort of fellow. He never liked the Jews in Israel, something about them, but always liked the American Colony Hotel, the Arabs, smooth and accommodating. He never, not once, appears to have studied the cadastral (land-ownership) or demographic history of the area under the Ottomans, nor for that matter does he appear to know anything about the history of the wider and always demonstrated a preference for the Arabs. He had lots of friends among them -- charming, liquid brown-eyed. He found them his sort.

He is not quite as bad as Robert Fisk, more sure of himself than the uncertain but vicious Chris Hedges, and more intelligent than the vacuous Tom Ashbrook -- who after having proved his intense dedication to journalism by leaving The Globe for a get-rich scheme of some Internet company that was going to sell household goods, rushed back and begged for a job, and was finally taken in by Jane Christo. While the smarmy Dick Gordon was fired, the just-as-smarmy and even dumber Ashbrook was kept on, and there he is today, with his "On Point" that, whenever it comes to the Middle East, apparently vets the callers so that those offering a word of support of Israel are always swamped by the others. I know several such callers whom Ashbrook has banned -- he has their phone numbers and names. The young people who answer the phone take these down, then go away, look up the list of those whom Ashbrook has banned because they are too damn convincing, and then they always come back -- several people have told me -- and always say "Gee, we have another question just like that ahead of you" or "Gee, afraid we won't have time to get to you." So much for the phoniness of that invitation to "join the conversation" that Ashbrook keeps repeating.

It is good to see that Israel doesn't follow the Western nations' increasingly common tendency to treat the murderous thugs of Hamas as if they were statesmen. From the BBC, with thanks to JE:

Israeli forces have seized Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister Nasser al-Shaer in a raid on his home in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

He was held when troops burst into the house early on Saturday, his wife said.

The Israeli military confirmed the detention of Mr Shaer, who is a senior member of the governing Hamas movement, which does not recognise Israel.

Israel has detained about 30 MPs and a third of the cabinet since the capture of an Israeli soldier in June.

Mr Shaer's wife added that he had been in hiding since Israel began its crackdown in late June.

He was rarely home during that period, she said.

An unnamed Israeli army spokesman quoted by AFP news agency said the detention was "part of our fight against the radical Hamas movement".

Franck Salameh, who teaches Arabic studies at Boston College, writes about the marginalization of non-Muslim Arabic-speaking people, as well as of non-Arab Muslims, and the erasure of Israel, at Middlebury College's highly politicized Arabic Summer School. From RealClearPolitics:

At Middlebury College's Arabic Summer School, where I recently taught Arabic, students were exposed to more than intensive language instruction. Inside the classroom and across campus, administrators and language teachers adhered to a restrictive Arab-nationalist view of what is generically referred to as the "Arab world." In practice, this meant that the Middle East was presented as a mono-cultural, exclusively Arab region. The time-honored presence and deep-rooted histories of tens of millions of Kurds, Assyrians, Copts, Jews, Maronites, and Armenians--all of whom are indigenous Middle Easterners who object to an imputed "supra-Arab" identity--were dismissed in favor of a reductionist, ahistorical Arabist narrative. Those who didn't share this closed view of the Middle East were made to feel like dhimmi--the non-Muslim citizens of some Muslim-ruled lands whose rights are restricted because of their religious beliefs.

In maps, textbooks, lectures, and other teaching materials used in the instruction of Arabic, Israel didn't exist, and the overarching watan 'Arabi (Arab fatherland) was substituted for the otherwise diverse and multi-faceted "Middle East." Curious and misleading geographical appellations, such as the "Arabian Gulf" in lieu of the time-honored "Persian Gulf," abounded. Syria's borders with its neighbors were marked "provisional," and Lebanon was referred to as a qutr (or "province") of an imagined Arab supra-state.

Nor was the Arabic school's narrow definition of Middle Eastern culture restricted to the classroom. Alcohol was prohibited during school events and student parties, and although a school official claimed the ban reflected Middlebury's campus policy, beer and wine flowed freely during cookouts and gatherings organized by the German, French, and Spanish schools. Banning alcohol is a matter of Islamic practice and personal interpretation--not accepted behavior throughout the Middle East--and reflected the Arabic school's conflation of Arabic with Islamic.

Similarly, the Arabic school's dining services conformed to the halal dietary restrictions of Islam, an act implying that all Arabic speakers are Muslims, and that all Muslims are observant; yet less that 20 percent of the Arabic school community was Muslim. No such accommodations were made for Jewish students who kept kosher, even though they outnumbered the Muslims.

Read it all.

The jihad takes many forms. From AP:

A former grocery store owner already facing three years in prison for aiding a terrorist group got 14 months tacked onto his sentence Friday for swindling a government social welfare program out of $1.4 million (€1.1 million).

Hatem Fariz, 33, must serve a total of 51 months in federal prison under the sentence handed down by US District Judge Milton I. Shadur.

Fariz, who now lives in Spring Hill, Florida, also was ordered to repay the money he siphoned off by swapping cash for government food stamp vouchers.

At the same time, Fariz pleaded guilty in a federal court in Tampa to conspiring to provide financial aid to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which has been designated by the US government as a terrorist organization.

Ceasefire Update from AP:

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Hezbollah fighters battled Israeli commandos who landed near the militants' stronghold deep inside Lebanon early Saturday, killing one soldier, in the first large-scale violation of the U.N.-brokered cease-fire between the sides.

Hezbollah said its guerrillas foiled the raid after a gunbattle, and the Israeli army said one soldier was killed and two were wounded, one seriously.

Witnesses said Israeli missiles destroyed a bridge during the raid — the first major violation of the U.N.-imposed cease-fire that took effect Monday following 34 days of fighting.

The Israeli army said the special forces operation aimed "to prevent and interfere with terror activity against Israel, especially the smuggling of arms from Iran and Syria to Hezbollah." It said the commando team completed its mission.

The army said such operations would be carried out until "an effective monitoring unit" of Lebanese or multinational troops was in place.

"If the Syrians and Iran continue to arm Hezbollah in violation of the (U.N. cease-fire) resolution, Israel is entitled to act to defend the principle of the arms embargo," Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev said.

Islamic Tolerance Alert from our friend and ally: "Muslim Land-Grabbers Attack Christians: One believer missing, three severely injured; police file charges against victims," from Compass Direct:

August 18 (Compass Direct News) – In an attempted land-grab, Muslim attackers have terrorized a predominantly Christian village in Pakistan’s Punjab province over the past two weeks and demolished its church.

Three Christian men were hospitalized with serious hatchet wounds from an initial August 7 attack on Mominpura Thaiki village near Sharaqpur, 20 miles southwest of Lahore. The Muslim aggressors came from a neighboring village.

Another critically injured Christian, Bashir Masih, was abducted and remains missing since a second assault on the village on Saturday (August 12), when he tried to stop armed attackers from stealing his cattle.

Yaqoob Maher, a Muslim ex-convict and landowner from a neighboring village, has been accused under Pakistan’s anti-terrorist laws of masterminding and leading the two attacks.

After a six-year campaign to force the Christian villagers off their lands, Maher’s latest assaults left the village church in ruins. The marauders exploded several hand grenades inside the church, stole everything of value and desecrated Bibles and hymnbooks. They also destroyed two houses adjacent to the church, one by fire.

A number of Christian women were beaten and their clothes ripped and partially torn off, an especially painful public disgrace in Pakistani culture.

Read it all.

Watch this CNN video (thanks to F.) of an interview with a jihadist cleric, a convert to Islam, in Britain. Note that the voiceovers, without presenting any evidence, tell us that his views would be repugnant to the vast majority of Muslims, and say that he "tries" to justify violence by invoking the Qur'an -- with the clear implication, again without any evidence, that the Qur'an doesn't actually teach what Abu Abdullah says it teaches. Whoever put this video together is dogmatically convinced that Islam is a religion of peace, and no amount of evidence to the contrary is going to change his mind.

Why does this matter? Because it's false. And false analysis cannot lead to correct policy. The West's misapprehensions about Islam have led it to a number of blunders already. No doubt there will be many more.

Anyway, note also Abu Abdullah's complete identification with Muslims as "my people," despite his so obvious Englishness. His Islam has entirely effaced his ties to his family, his country, and his heritage.

The Truth About Muhammad. (No, no cartoons on the cover, wiseguy.) I just finished going over the page proofs today, and Monday it goes to press. The book will be available October 9 from Regnery Publishing.

Pakistan continues to play Good Cop, Bad Cop. "Pakistan Asks U.S. to Help Catch London Mid-Air Terror Mastermind," from AP, :

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan has sought U.S. help to capture an Arab Al Qaeda terrorist who allegedly masterminded the foiled plot to blow up trans-Atlantic jetliners and operates out of Afghanistan's eastern mountains where hundreds of American troops are based, an intelligence official said Friday.

Pakistani authorities have passed details regarding the Al Qaeda member to the American military, including his whereabouts in the remote Nuristan and Kunar provinces on the Pakistan border, through which hundreds of militants and locals routinely cross, the official said.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the investigation, declined to reveal the Al Qaeda operative's name or nationality.

But he allegedly exchanged messages carried by a courier with detained British national Rashid Rauf, who is being interrogated by Pakistani authorities in connection with the plot that was smashed last week with at least 30 people arrested in both Britain and Pakistan, the official said.

The wanted Al Qaeda operative is a close aide to Egyptian-born Al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri, the official said. Detained terror suspects have told interrogators that al-Zawahiri likely approved the plan to blow up passenger planes leaving London for the United States by detonating disguised liquid explosives carried onboard in hand luggage.

What if that plot to blow up airliners had not been detected well in advance, but had succeeded? What then? What would have followed? Other than stricter security measures at airports, what punishment would have been meted out to Muslims, to their interests, to the Umma -- a collective punishment as in modern warfare punishments always are, so that it would be far less likely to happen again? What exactly would the Western world, would the United States, would Great Britain, would France, would Germany, would all the countries of the Western world have done?

Would they have bombed several of the entry points into Mecca, so as to limit access to it, and threatened to steadily bomb others, until such time as only one narrow road led in and out -- a far better step, because deliberately incremental, than destroying Mecca or the Ka'ba itself, the Magic Wonderstone often confused with the meteorite which it contains within? Would they have promptly seized the assets of Saudis and other rich Arabs, declaring these to be the assets of enemy aliens, whose property was seized during World War II -- or would that first require legislation? Would they do something, as obviously they should, to damage the interests of Muslims living within the Bilad al-kufr, the Lands of the Infidels, deep behind what Muslims themselves are taught to regard as enemy lines?

"Difficult if not inconceivable" is putting it quite delicately. From the BBC, with thanks to John:

Israel says it would be "difficult if not inconceivable" to accept nations which do not recognise its right to exist as part of a UN force in Lebanon.

Israeli UN envoy Dan Gillerman was speaking after Indonesia and Malaysia, which do not recognise Israel, pledged troops for the UN deployment.

Malaysia said Israel should have no say in the make-up of the force.

The UN has expressed cautious optimism that it can deploy an initial 3,500-strong force within two weeks.

UN deputy chief Mark Malloch Brown warned earlier that delay could threaten the ceasefire....

France, which agreed to lead the force once its mandate had been set, said it would send only 200 extra troops immediately, far fewer than expected.

The UN had hoped for a larger European contingent and was disappointed by France's offer.

But French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie defended the decision. "You can't send in men telling them: Look what's going on but you don't have the right to defend yourself or to shoot," she told RTL radio.

Italy's government has approved the deployment of troops, saying it would decide how many in the coming days. Officials said as many as 3,000 troops could be sent.

Bangladesh and Nepal have also pledged troops, while Germany has offered a maritime task force. The UK and the US say they will provide logistical support.

Disappointment

As the UN's efforts to build the force continued, Mr Gillerman made clear Israel's unhappiness with some of the contributors.

"It would be very difficult if not inconceivable for Israel to accept troops from countries who do not recognise Israel, who have no diplomatic relations with Israel," he told the BBC.

He said they would be "very happy" to accept troops from Muslim countries they have friendly relations with.

"But to expect countries who don't even recognise Israel to guard Israel's safety I think would be a bit naive," he said.

Naive, or something.

In "Judges, Politics, and Security: The awful NSA decision proves, once again, that they don’t mix" in National Review, Andrew C. McCarthy explains what is so wrong with Judge Taylor's decision on wiretapping:

It would be wrong and regrettable, but it is certainly conceivable that the Supreme Court will eventually find the Bush administration’s NSA Terrorist Surveillance Program unconstitutional. One thing is certain, though. Such a ruling by the high Court will not rely on the handiwork of Michigan federal district judge Anna Diggs Taylor. Her effort yesterday to invalidate the program is a transparently political screed.

Judge Taylor last garnered national attention in 2002 when she was caught trying to rig the outcome of an affirmative-action case. Now, this relic of the Jimmy Carter twilight has fixed her gaze on a war against ruthless enemies who have already attacked the United States massively, serially and globally — an enemy whose leadership is unabashed in telling us, repeatedly, that its devout mission is an exponentially more devastating reprise of 9/11’s carnage.

And what does this jurist see? What she calls “the War on Terror of this administration” — not of the American people, but of George W. Bush — which “[p]redictably” seeks to evade judicial review.

Yes, here we have the thematic history of the administration that has fought to defeat jihadists … as told by a vestige of the administration that first empowered jihadists.

Read it all.

The two unexploded bombs on German trains on July 31 were part of a failed jihad attack, authorities now say -- although of course they don't say "jihad." "German bombs 'mass murder' bid," from the BBC, with thanks to John Doe:

German police have ruled out blackmail as the reason why two bombs were left on trains on 31 July - and now believe it was a failed terror attack.

The bombs were in identical black cases on trains in Dortmund and Koblenz.

They had been timed to explode 10 minutes before the trains arrived, said federal crime chief Joerg Ziercke.

"We are now working on the basis that this was the work of a terrorist group... and was an attempt to kill a large number of people," he said.

Police want to trace two men seen on CCTV wheeling cases at Cologne station....

The devices consisted of gas canisters, alarm clocks, wires, batteries and a flammable liquid in soft drink bottles.

A handwritten note in Arabic, listing groceries, a telephone number in Lebanon and packets of starch labelled in Arabic and English, were also found.

Some jihadists have bigger fish to fry than Jihad Watch. Tourist Jihad in Lucknow: "Letter threatens to blow up Taj Mahal," from AP, with thanks to Hal:

LUCKNOW, India - Soldiers were on 24-hour guard at the Taj Mahal after officials received a letter threatening to blow up the monument, officials said Friday.

Authorities were investigating a handwritten letter received Thursday — purportedly sent by an al-Qaida supporter — that said the terrorist group planned blasts at the 17th century monument, which drew nearly 2.5 million tourists last year.

"Police are verifying the source of the letter," said Ashok Kumar, a senior government official in Uttar Pradesh state where the Taj Mahal is located. "The letter could be false but we cannot afford to be complacent. We are not taking any chances and have enhanced security at the Taj."

We may be experiencing a DOS attack or two. We're certainly experiencing technical difficulties yesterday and today that have at times taken the site down and even when it was up have sometimes made it virtually impossible for me to post.

Hosting Matters, however, denies that any DOS attack has occurred or is occurring, although a commenter did post several hundred comments here in the space of a few minutes last night, obviously intending to take down the site.

We will be dealing with this problem as soon as possible. Meanwhile, thanks for your patience. I apologize for the inconvenience.

Jihad Jack Update from The Australian, with thanks to Nicolei:

THE families of terror victims have described the decision by an appeals court to release "Jihad" Jack Thomas - the first man jailed under the Howard Government's new terrorism laws - as a farce.

A Melbourne court's decision yesterday to quash the conviction of the Muslim convert - who met Osama bin Laden and other al-Qa'ida operatives just months before the September 11 attacks - was embarrassing for the Government and the Australian Federal Police and distressing for families of terror victims.

Although Mr Thomas could face fresh terror charges arising out of an ABC interview conducted in his Melbourne home during the trial and aired after the conviction, Peter Iliffe, the father of a Bali bombing victim, said the decision to free him showed how "disconnected the judiciary was from reality".

And David Byron, who lost his 15-year-old daughter Chloe in Bali, said there should be "zero tolerance" for those accused of terrorism. "I don't know what's happening in this country. I read that another terrorist was released in Indonesia last week because of a holiday."

But the lawyer for Faheem Lodhi, a Sydney man convicted of preparing a terrorist attack, praised the court's decision as "good old-fashioned" justice.

It is too early to assign victory or defeat. Much will depend on the pusillanimous politicians of Lebanon. Will those enraged at the behavior of Hizballah boot out the paid Syrian agents, such as Emile Lahoud? Will Siniora stop his undignified spectacles, his solipsistic display of sympathy for Lebanese "victims"? (Quite a few of those victims were instantly, unthinkingly, toted up as part of the "civilian" scorecard that Hizballah and Arab propagandists shrilly ululated their fake grief about all over Arab and Muslim radio and television stations, and in the hysterical press of those countries.)

Will Siniora think carefully about the duties of a government, of any government, to retain a monopoly on violence? Will the Christians, the Druse (Walid Jumblatt, varium et mutabile in his alliances, has gone too far out on an anti-Syrian and anti-Hizballah limb this time to climb back down that particular tree), the Sunni Arabs (like Hariri's aide, Siniora), and even some of the more intelligent and aware Shi'a manage to patrol the only border that counts -- not that between Israel and Lebanon, but that between Lebanon and Syria, in order to keep out the Iranian agents and weaponry?

Never mind that carrying liquids onto planes is still banned in the aftermath of the foiled trans-Atlantic bombing plot. Never mind that one-way tickets come under automatic suspicion nowadays. Never mind that two tests came up positive for explosives.

And never mind that the canine team got a positive hit: Rover is racist, you see, and needs sensitivity training. From AP: Woman says she suspects Pakistani heritage was reason for US airport’s security alarm

CEREDO, West Virginia -,A Pakistani woman whose daughter’s carry-on luggage caused an airport to shut down for 9 ½ hours says it was her ethnic background, not a few bottles of suspicious liquids, that set off security officials.

Initial laboratory testing by the FBI turned up no evidence of explosive materials in the bottles carried at Tri-State Airport in West Virginia by Rima Qayyum, a 28-year-old Pakistani woman dressed in the traditional Islamic headcover.

The presence or absence of the hijab is completely irrelevant, as the same events would have unfolded if she wore nothing on her head.

No charges were filed against the woman, who was never detained and was cooperative when interviewed by the FBI.

Qayyum’s mother, Mian Qayyum of Jackson, Michigan, told The Associated Press that her daughter is four months pregnant, lives in Barboursville and is innocent.

It was not only a false alarm, it was racial discrimination because there was nothing,’ Mian Qayyum said. They should clear her name and apologize on national TV.’

This is the height of silliness: Because it was a false alarm (though tests are still ongoing), the whole thing was racially motivated.

The FBI did not return messages Thursday night seeking comment on the allegations.

A screener noticed a bottle in Rima Qayyum’s carry-on bag as she was going through security before her 9:15 a.m. flight Thursday to Charlotte, North Carolina, airport authority president Jim Booton said.

The terminal was evacuated at 11:25 a.m. after two bottles of liquid in the bag initially tested positive for explosives residue twice, and a canine team also got a positive hit. Chemical tests of the bottles’ contents later turned up no explosives, said Capt. Jack Chambers, head of the State Police Special Operations unit.

The woman had purchased a one-way ticket to Detroit by way of Charlotte on Wednesday. The flight eventually left for Charlotte without her.

Rima Qayyum planned to return to the airport Friday to take another flight, her mother said.

She just had water to drink because she is pregnant and she had a face wash that had a drop of bleach on it,’ Mian Qayyum said.

The FBI plans to perform additional tests on the bottles Friday, Killeen said.

US authorities banned the carrying of liquids onto flights last week after British officials made arrests in an alleged plot to blow up U.S.-bound planes using explosives disguised as drinks and other common products.

The thing is, aside from the effectiveness of, Constitutionality of, and need for this program, the ACLU and CAIR should not have been able to bring the suit, as they were not the aggrieved parties. Unless, say, Nihad Awad can prove that he made a call to get sitoo's kibbee recipe and then Laura Bush was eating it, CAIR should not have been allowed to proceed with the case.

"Judge nixes warrantless surveillance" from AP:

DETROIT - A federal judge on Thursday struck down President Bush's warrantless surveillance program, saying it violated the rights to free speech and privacy, as well as the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit is the first judge to rule on the legality of the National Security Agency's program, which the White House says is a key tool for fighting terrorism that has already stopped attacks.

"Plaintiffs have prevailed, and the public interest is clear, in this matter. It is the upholding of our Constitution," Taylor wrote in her 43-page opinion.

The administration said it would appeal to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.

"We're going to do everything we can do in the courts to allow this program to continue," Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said at a news conference in Washington.

White House press secretary Tony Snow said the Bush administration "couldn't disagree more with this ruling." He said the program carefully targets communications of suspected terrorists and "has helped stop terrorist attacks and saved American lives."

An exceptionally frank discussion of strategy by an Al-Aqsa commander, who reiterates the fact that all of Israel's concessions for "peace," and its preoccupation with avoiding international scorn for its self-defense, have amounted to a weakening of the state that is exactly what the jihadists wanted. And now, they're ready to make their move. From YNet News:

The Palestinian terror organizations are looking north and are filled with satisfaction and hope for the next step.

"We learned from Hizbullah that the tools that make a difference are missiles. If achieve expertise in this field, we won't make do with the simple rockets we have. There is no doubt that we can subdue Israel ," Abu Nasser, a commander in the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Fatah's military wing, told Ynet.

"Since the Gulf War, missiles were what brought Israel to the negotiation table. The withdrawal from Gaza was also a result of missiles. If we use them correctly in the West Bank, we will get rid of the IDF here too," Abu Nasser explained.

According to him, his organization wasn't surprised by what he defines "the defeat Hizbullah handed to Israel."

He continued on to say that "Hizbullah has been impenetrable in recent years, working quietly and successfully putting the IDF to sleep. If we adopt these operational patterns, there is no doubt that our turn will come. We learned that with faith and good preparation, you can defeat the Israeli military."

Abu Nasser is not ruffled by the IDF's threats to West Bank towns if they use missiles against Israeli cities. "They threatened to demolish Gaza and Lebanon and we saw that wasn't so terrible. The question is if we, the Palestinian organizations, can withstand the initial fire of Israel. If we succeed in prevent collapsing after the first hit -- there is a chance we will win."

According to him, the inability to withstand the initial blow is what defeated the Palestinians in Defensive Shield.

[...]

The success of the Israeli security forces to penetrate the terror organizations, which enables the thwarting of terror attacks in their planning stages, is in Abu Nasser's opinion another weak point of the Palestinian organizations in contrast with Hizbullah. "There is no doubt that we need to work on this issue because it explains, in my opinion, 90 percent of their success," he explained.

[...]

According to Abu Nasser, Nasrallah's organization still hasn't had its last word.

"From our acquaintance with them, there is no way they are going to disarm. The organization has strategic objectives and the current battle proves that if it will decide to initiate another battle -- the road is paved. The next time Iran will be in the picture and missiles on Tel Aviv will be part of the game. When this happens, it will be a lot easier for us. We are proud of our brothers, the Hizbullah fighters. They are inspirational teachers that demonstrated everything we have been feeling in recent years -- Israel is falling apart," he said.

Once again an Iranian official couches this present conflict in explicitly religious terms -- a phenomenon that President Bush and virtually every Western analyst has been cowed into ignoring for fear of charges of "Islamophobia." When you see them on television, imagine a bunch of vintage 1938 talking heads congratulating themselves for analyzing the "root causes" of Kristallnacht without ever once mentioning Nazism.

August 1939 Alert from MEMRITV: "Top Iranian Official Ahmad Khatami: Israel and the US Should Fear the Day Our Missiles Land in the Heart of Tel Aviv":

Following are excerpts from a speech by Ahmad Khatami, member of the Iranian Assembly of Experts, which aired on the Iranian News Channel (IRINN) on August 15, 2006.

Ahmad Khatami: This victory was promised in the Koran: "The party of Allah must triumph." On this occasion, I want to tell Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Olmert that they should learn a lesson from this shameful defeat. They should not bare their fangs, expose their stings, or make threats against Islamic Iran. They should learn a lesson from the fact that a single party [Hizbullah] has turned their days into dark nights. If they decided to display the slightest aggression against Islamic Iran, they should bear in mind that the missiles of the Lebanese Hizbullah, with a range of 70 kilometers, have turned Israel into a ghost-country. They should fear the day that our missiles, with a range of 2,000 kilometers, land in the heart of Tel Aviv. Therefore, we hope that Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Olmert have learned the necessary lesson. They should know that playing with Islam is like playing with a lion's tail.

The Mufti of Egypt -- yes, the same one who wants to destroy all of Egypt's pre-Islamic artwork -- repeats the ancient blood libel. From MEMRI, with thanks to all who sent this in:

In an article in the Egyptian government daily Al-Ahram, Egyptian Mufti Sheikh Dr. 'Ali Gum'a expressed his support of the resistance in Lebanon and stated that the lies of the "Hebrew entity" expose "the true and hideous face of the blood-suckers... who prepare [Passover] matzos from human blood." [1]

The following are excerpts from the article:

"Greetings to the Lebanese people, to the Lebanese government, and to the Lebanese resistance - to the small and beautiful country that has proved to the world that the ideals of determination, bravery and self-dignity still exist in this era that has been taken over by the blood-sucking murderers.

"Anyone who follows the news will discover that the Hebrew entity has turned into a [source] of [empty] talk, while the Arab discourse, which was characterized in the sixties [as empty talk], has developed significantly. [The Arabs] have learned a lesson and have moved from talk to action, and from the fostering of illusions to honesty, transparency, realistic goal-setting and ability to change. The Israeli discourse, [on the other hand], has turned to false declarations based on illusions, with wishful thinking taking precedence over facts.

"These lies have exposed the true and hideous face of the blood-suckers who were described by Filmange in his book The Treasure Hidden in the Talmudic Laws [sic], which tells how [the Jews] planned [to prepare] a matzo [unleavened Passover bread] using human blood. [2] If we follow events, the most important thing [that we discover], in my opinion, is that the war going on [today] plants hatred in the next generations, as though one of its goals is to perpetuate the conflict for many years to come.

He's certainly right about the hatred, if not about its perpetrator.

"BREAKING NEWS: Explosive Substances Believed to be Found at Tri-State Airport," from WSAZ NewsChannel 3, with thanks to R.:

Tri-State Airport in Wayne County has been evacuated. A perimeter has been set up, and evacuees are being asked to stand back 350 feet from the airport.

The Transportation Security Administration reports that a passenger's water bottle screened positive for an explosive material around 9:15 this morning. A second test was confirmed at 11:25. TSA is waiting for further testing to determine the exact substance.

NBC News reports that federal screeners found four containers of liquids inside a woman's carry-on bag during the screening process this morning. Larry Salyers, Tri-State Airport Director, tells WSAZ the woman is of Pakistani origin, lived in Jackson, Michigan and most recently lived in the Huntington area. She is being detained for questioning.

The flight in which the woman was going to board was on its way to Charlotte, North Carolina with a final destination of Detroit, Michigan.

FBI officials are on scene.

UPDATE: Keystone Kops Alert: the "suspicious substances" were cosmetics.

Friend and Ally Update: "Pakistan let al-Qaida front fund UK plot: Terror war 'ally' didn't outlaw 'charitable' group even after U.S. blacklisted it," from WND, with thanks to Robert:

WorldNetDaily has learned that ally Pakistan failed to outlaw an al-Qaida charitable front after it was tied to last year's London bombings, and the inaction allowed the charity to finance the new London-based plot to bomb U.S.-bound jetliners.

On April 28, the U.S. Department of State added Pakistan-based Jamaat-Ud-Dawa to its blacklist of Specially Designated Global Terrorist Organizations. But the Pakistani government did not follow suit.

Islamabad neglected to blacklist Jamaat-Ud-Dawa (JUD) or freeze its assets, allowing the al-Qaida front to continue to operate legally inside Pakistan's borders.

Authorities have traced money for the British sky terror operation back to the JUD charity. Funds were funneled through three separate bank accounts in Pakistan. The money was to be used by the Pakistani-British suicide bombers to buy plane tickets for dry runs and the final targeted flights.

JUD is based in Lahore, where at least one of last year's London bombers received aid, and maintains branches in Karachi and Peshawar. Ringleader Mohammed Sidique Khan visited a madrassa (Islamic school) run by JUD in Lahore just before the July 2005 attacks.

Sources say Scotland Yard is furious that terror-war partner Islamabad failed to dismantle the Pakistan-based terror infrastructure that supported the London bombings. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf vowed to crack down on militant groups in Lahore and Karachi in the wake of last year's attacks....

Experts say Al-Qaida's inner circle has found sanctuary in Pakistan. Osama bin Laden is "hiding in Pakistan in the northern tribal areas above Peshawar," says recently retired CIA officer Gary Schoen.

August 1939 Alert from AP, with thanks to Herb:

Iran will launch a series of large-scale military maneuvers across the country and has not made plans for an end to the ongoing war games, the army said Thursday.

"The maneuvers are aimed at introducing Iran's new defensive doctrine," military spokesman Gen. Mohammad Reza Ashtiani was quoted as saying by state-run television.

He said the exercises would begin on Saturday in the south east of the country. "It will continue in the whole of Iran, stage by stage for an unspecified period," Ashtiani said.

The announcement came as Iran faces heightened international scrutiny because of its contentious nuclear program and for supporting the Lebanese Hizbullah guerrillas.

Iran denies Israeli accusations it is arming and training Hizbullah fighters.

Ashtiani praised Hizbullah for its month-long fight against Israel. "Human forces can decide fate of a war. We saw it in Lebanon," the general said, echoing Hizbullah claims it won the war by resisting a massive bombing and ground offensive for more than a month before a UN-brokered cease-fire came into place earlier this week.

The military spokesman said Iran's maneuvers reflected the current level of tension in the Middle East. "We have to be prepared against any threat and we should be a role model for other countries," local newspapers quoted Gen. Ashtiani, as saying. "Our army is ready to defuse all plots against Islamic Republic of Iran."

The military exercise, involving 12 infantry regiments, is called "The Blow of Zolfaghar," in reference to a sword that belonged to Imam Ali, one of the most revered figures of Islam for Shi'ite Muslims. A majority of Iran's 70 million people are Shi'ite.

The Ba'ath party official who is the source of this report mentions that Syria started signing up volunteers in June, even before the month-long war and farce of a "cease-fire" between Israel and Lebanon. In light of yesterday's report that plans for the July 12 abduction were hatched in Damascus (principally by Hizballah and Iran, but certainly with Syrian involvement), a picture emerges of an even broader campaign to destroy Israel in the present conflict. From YNet News: "Syria to form its own Hizbullah"

On the heels of what it views as a Hizbullah victory against the Jewish state, Syria is forming its own Hizbullah-like guerilla organization to fight Israel in hopes of "liberating" the Golan Heights, an official from Syrian President Bashar Assad's Ba'ath party told WorldNetDaily yesterday.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Syria learned from Hizbullah's military campaign against Israel the past month that "fighting" is more effective than peace negotiations with regard to gaining territory.

In other words, the "Slow Jihad" of endless negotiations, dialogue, and diplomatic deception had been exploited for all it could prior to July, signaling that it was time to switch to "Fast Jihad," or open combat to bring about new conditions on the ground.

He said Syria's new guerilla force would be trained by Hizbullah leaders.

"Syria is very serious about establishing this new guerilla force," the official said.

Hizbullah claims its goal is to liberate the Shebaa Farms, a small, 200-square-kilometer bloc situated between Syria, Lebanon and Israel. The Farms is the last post held by Israel after its withdrawal in 2000 from positions it took along the Lebanese border.

Most western analysts agree Hizbullah uses the pretext of the Shebaa Farms to maintain its weapons to start conflicts with the Jewish state. Hizbullah is sponsored by Syria and Iran.

The ceasefire resolution accepted by Israel earlier this week calls for negotiations leading to Israel's relinquishing of the Shebaa Farms.

'Hundreds of Syrian volunteers'

The Baath party official told WND the new Syrian "resistance" group is calling itself the Front for the Liberation of the Golan, and is already in the process of being formed. He said it seeks to ensure the return of the Golan Heights.

Israel captured the Heights, strategic mountainous territory, after Syria used the terrain to attack the Jewish state in 1967 and again in 1973. The Golan Heights borders Israel, Syria and Lebanon.

Israeli security officials said they had no information about the Front for the Liberation of the Golan.

The Ba'ath party official told WND the Front was formed last month and will attempt attacks against Israel.

The official said the group currently consists of "hundreds" of Syrian volunteers, many from the Syrian border with Turkey. He said Syria held registration for volunteers to join the Front in June.

The official said most Front members will be Palestinian and not members of the Syrian army.

"We know from history guerilla resistance works against Israel," said the official.

He pointed not only to Israel's most recent confrontation with Hizbullah, but also to what he said was a previous Syrian "victory" against the Israeli Defense Forces using guerilla tactics.

"After a ceasefire was imposed in 1973 (following the Yom Kippur War) for 100 days Syria led guerilla attacks against Israel in the Golan Heights and they were successful. The IDF withdrew nearly 100 kilometers from the original ceasefire lines."

Sheikh Qaradawi has been praised as a "reformist" by Islamic "expert" John Esposito. From Middle East Online, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

CAIRO - Prominent Islamist preacher Sheikh Yusef al-Qaradawi has called for a holy war against Israel, an Egyptian newspaper reported Wednesday.

"Muslims must carry out jihad to liberate all the land of Islam. Palestine does not belong only to the Palestinians but to all Muslims," Qaradawi was quoted as saying by the Al-Masri Al-Yom independent daily.

The Egyptian-born cleric, best known for his regular appearances on the Qatari satellite channel, Al-Jazeera, said that the Islamic world "needs men like those of Hezbollah: in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and everywhere".

"There isn't even an Arab willingness to fight Israel," he complained at a seminar at the University of Cairo, adding: "The peace that the Arab leaders are calling for is in fact a capitulation."

Honesty and realism, i.e., anti-dhimmitude, from Charles Chaput, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Denver (thanks to Uncle Jeff):

...Catholics who do know history may remember the following:

Islam has embraced armed military expansion for religious purposes since its earliest decades. In contrast, Christianity struggled in its divided attitudes toward military force and state power for its first 300 years. No “theology of Crusade” existed in Western Christian thought until the 11th century. In fact, the Christian Byzantine Empire had already been resisting Muslim expansion in the East for 400 years before Pope Urban II called the First Crusade — as a defensive response to generations of armed jihad.

Much of the modern Middle East was once heavily Christian. Muslim armies changed that by imposing Islamic rule. Surviving Christian communities have endured centuries of marginalization, discrimination, violence, slavery and outright persecution — not always and not everywhere; but as a constant, recurring and central theme of Muslim domination.

That same Christian suffering continues down to the present. In the early years of the 20th century, the Muslim Ottoman Empire murdered more than 1 million Armenian Christians for ethnic, economic, but also religious reasons. Many Turks and other Muslims continue to deny that massive crime even today. Coptic Christians in Egypt — who, even after 13 centuries of Muslim prejudice and harassment, cling to the faith — continue to experience systematic discrimination and violence at the hands of Islamic militants.

Harassment and violence against Christians continue in many places throughout the Islamic world, from Bangladesh, Iran, Sudan, Pakistan and Iraq, to Nigeria, Indonesia and even Muslim-dominated areas of the heavily Catholic Philippines. In Saudi Arabia, all public expressions of Christian faith are forbidden. The on-going Christian flight from Lebanon has helped to transform it, in just half a century, from a majority Christian Arab nation to a majority Muslim population.

These are facts. The Muslim-Christian conflict is a very long one, rooted in deep religious differences, and Muslims have their own long list of real and perceived grievances. But especially in an era of religiously inspired terrorism and war in the Middle East, peace is not served by ignoring, subverting or rewriting history, but rather by facing it humbly as it really happened and healing its wounds.

In the featured article at FrontPage this morning I explain why profiling is necessary, albeit imperfect (news links in the original):

To profile or not to profile? Some recent suspicious incidents involving mass purchase of cell phones by Middle Eastern men have given this debate a new urgency.

On Tuesday, terrorism charges were dropped against two Muslims from Dearborn, Michigan, who had been arrested in Ohio. Ali Houssaiky and Osama Sabhi Abulhassan had been stopped for a traffic violation a week before; in their car, sheriff’s deputies found $11,000 in cash, airline passenger lists, material about airport security procedures, and twelve cell phones. It turned out that they had bought 600 cell phones recently.

Before visiting a mosque, please google the phrase "taqiyya and tu-quoque" and arm yourself with knowledge. Be prepared to ask -- sweetly, in an Infidel-Wants-to-Know Mode -- about Muhammad's marriage to Aisha when she was nine, about the assassinations of Asma bint Marwan and others, about the massacre of the inoffensive Jewish farmers of the Khaybar oasis, about the decapitation of 600-900 helpless prisoners of the Banu Qurayza, and about so much more. Be sure to mention the Hadith.

Do not let the presentation to those Infidels (hmmm, doesn't that spicy chicken and that pita, and then the honeyed dessert, all waiting for us afterwards, smell good, I can't keep my mind off it, how nice these people are, what good hearts they have to invite us in to share their food and their faith) be allowed to finish without making the most that you possibly can out of that "question time." And bear in mind that you will only be called on once, so you had better have your questions ready -- not really to be answered, but so that they can provoke thought and unease in your fellow Infidels who have come, unlike you, without any mental weapons whatsoever.

A poster at Jihad Watch recently referred to an excellent article about Israel by Thomas Sowell as "the same tired Zionist propaganda...."

How, one wonders, is what Thomas Sowell wrote about the silliness of these ceaseless, unceasing, never to permanently lead to a permanent peace but only to more war followed by more ceasefires, an expression of the "same tired Zionist propaganda"? And what "tired Zionist propaganda" is that, anyway? For the last forty years, all over the world, the Arab and Muslim propaganda machine has run circles around the naive Israelis, who seem incapable of understanding the nature of the enemy they face, or are unable for reasons of realpolitik to describe accurately that enemy.

Perhaps this is out of fear of damaging morale: no one likes to be told that the threat to his nation is a permanent one, prompted by the immutable tenets of a belief-system with hundreds of millions of thoroughly brainwashed believers.

With this kind of hardware -- including Katyusha rockets and mortar shells -- the Shi'ites of southern Iraq and their Iranian backers were gearing up for something big: A war for secession? From Iran Focus:

Baghdad, Aug. 16 - An array of weapons made in Iran were discovered in Iraq’s southern port city of Um Qasr, the Iraqi television channel al-Zora reported on Monday.

In the weapons cache were hundreds of Katyusha rockets and mortar shells as well as several thousand light arms, the report said, adding that the weapons had all been manufactured in neighbouring Iran.

The weapons were discovered in the city’s al-Hora district, it said.

Um Qasr, the country’s largest deepwater port city, is close to the city of Basra which Iraqi officials say has become a hub for agents of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS).

Somali Jihad Update from AFP: "Somali Islamists seize key port, claim new government defections"

MOGADISHU (AFP) - Islamist courts controlling much of southern Somalia seized a key central port and said at least 100 government troops had defected to their side, in new blows to the weak administration.

Hundreds of fighters loyal to the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia (SICS) faced no resistance as they swept into the port of Hobyo on machine gun-mounted pick-ups known as "battlewagons" or "technicals," officials and residents said.

"We have extended our reach to Hobyo," a senior SICS official said in Mogadishu, from where the Islamists have expanded their territory since taking it from warlords in June after months of fierce fighting.

"We did not capture it, but we reached the people of Hobyo to bring them our message of peace," the officer told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Accept our message of peace, or we'll kill you.

"The courts were welcomed by the people of Hobyo. This is a great gift from the mighty Allah, we thank him," a second senior Islamist official said.

Telephone communication is impossible to Hobyo, about 500 kilometers (300 miles) north of Mogadishu, but residents reached by radio confirmed the Islamists had entered the town after several days of talks with elders.

"The courts are now in control of Hobyo. They arrived this morning after staying overnight in nearby villages," resident Farah Dullane told AFP. "Their presence is a reality in our town."

The move north follows the weekend seizure by the Islamists of the port of Haradere, further south, from where bands of pirates had been operating, attacking dozens of ships off the Somali coast in the past year.

Failed states seal their demise when extra-national militias fill the vacuum in providing order and security, as in this case, and with the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Lebanese government should take note.

Earlier Wednesday, Islamist officials said around 100 government troops, along with seven battlewagons, crossed into their territory overnight from near the temporary government seat of Baidoa.

"The militiamen communicated with Al-bayan Islamic court in Mogadishu and said they wanted to join our holy effort to bring peace to the Somali people," said court chairman Mohamed Ali Bilal.

"They are ideologically uncomfortable with the government and also claim to have been mistreated," he told AFP.

"I pray Allah will give his courage to the remaining soldiers in Baidoa to see the true realities of Somalia, I hope they will all join us," Bilal said.

[...]

As the courts consolidate their power, they have also introduced increasingly strict Sharia law, banning makeshift cinemas and other facilities deemed un-Islamic.

More persecution in Egypt. "Christian Cobbler Knifed for Offhand Comment: Muslim fanatic with criminal record admits intention to kill him and ‘all infidels,’" from Compass Direct:

August 15 (Compass Direct News) – A Muslim ex-convict stabbed and killed a Christian cobbler northeast of Cairo in June, confessing that he had planned to murder him because he was an ‘infidel’ who had made an offhand comment that offended him.

Hossam Hafez Ahmad Attaya knifed Fouad Fawzy Tawfik on June 27 as the shoemaker was bending down to take the Muslim man’s foot measurement near his shop in Zagazig, provincial capital of Sharkeya.

“I want to kill him because he is an infidel, let me kill them all!” Attaya was heard to shout as he sunk an eight-inch blade into the Christian’s left lung and stomach, according to Tawfik’s family.

“My brother was clearly victimized for being a Christian,” Noshe Fawzy Tawfik told Compass.

Restraining Attaya from stabbing Fouad Tawfik a second time, bystanders called an ambulance. The shoemaker died minutes later from loss of blood before he could reach the hospital.

A Boston Globe reporter sent out a request that turned up on the Islamic Society of Boston/Muslim American Society email list. A moderator of that list sent it on with the comment: "very interesting opportunity and it is IMPORTANT to get positive pieces about Muslims out in the media so do consider volunteering." The Globe reporter explained:

I am interested in speaking with young Muslim men and women in the Boston area (for transportation and logistical reasons, the closer to Boston proper, the better) about how they see themselves in Boston and American society. As you are aware, governments and news media alike have given a lot of attention to disaffected Muslim youth in Europe (because of last year's London transit bombings and last week's foiled terror plot), and I am curious how Muslim youth in America compare.

Questions floating around my head include, do Muslim youths here feel "American"?; do they feel scrutinzed or under suspicion by their general surroundings, especially since the 9/11 attacks five years ago?; are young Muslims here at risk of "radicalization" as they reportedly are in Europe, and if not, why not (what makes America's Muslims different from those in Europe)? What insight into the mindset of their European counterparts can young Muslims here provide?

Etc., etc.....

I apologize for the generalized phrasing of those sample questions. Obviously, no one Muslim (nor any other single person, for that matter) can speak for an entire group of people, and of course this story cannot fully explore this huge issue all by itself. But I do want to address the nuances as best as possible....

You want nuance? Here's some nuance. Please feel free to use these additional questions. No charge at all. Don't even bother to thank me:

Does your mosque have teachers in it who adhere to or sympathize with the goals of the global jihadists? If so, have you contacted authorities? If not, why not?

Does your mosque have a program teaching a peaceful version of Islam and refuting the jihadists' use of the Qur'an and Sunnah? If not, why not?

Do you support Hamas and/or Hizballah? If so, how do you distinguish the ideology and goals of those organizations from that of Al-Qaeda?

Do you believe that Islamic terrorists were responsible for the 9/11 attacks? If not, who do you think was actually responsible?

Do you believe that Muslims and non-Muslims should live as equals before the law on an indefinite basis in a society in which there is no established religion?

Do you believe that women should enjoy equality of rights before the law with men?

More crowing. It's interesting to contrast Khamenei's open avowal of the religious aspect of this conflict, calling it a "victory for Islam," with George Bush's ridiculous haste to abandon his already belated and inadequate characterization of this war as a conflict with "Islamic fascism." CAIR doesn't call on Khamenei (or Zawahiri, or any other mujahid) to stop invoking Islam. But we who are targeted by those mujahedin are not allowed to notice those invocations.

"Iran leader praises Hezbollah resistance," from AP, :

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a message to Hezbollah head Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, described the militant group's clashes with Israel as a "victory" for Islam.

"Your unprecedented holy war and steadfastness are beyond the limits of my description. It's a divine victory. It is a victory of Islam," Khamenei said in the message read by an announcer on Hezbollah's Al-Manar television.

Hezbollah is heavily financed and backed by Iran's Shiite Muslim theocracy.

"With God's help you were able to prove that military superiority is not (measured) in the number (of soldiers), planes, warships and tanks. Rather, it depends on the power of faith and holy war," Khamenei said.

"You have ridiculed the myth that the Zionist army is invincible," he said.

Let Ibrahim Hooper and Mahdi Bray denounce Khamenei for misusing Islam. Then they may have a leg to stand on when they mau-mau the President into declaring a war on "individuals" instead of against "Islamic fascists."

Still photographs of their meeting have circulated for years. Here is video, via LGF.

Just so you remember, amid the fog of Leftist/Jihadist rhetoric, who the real Nazi symapthizers are.

The implications of this article are astounding. On the one hand we're told again and again and again that only a Tiny Minority of Extremists™ holds to the jihad ideology, and that most Muslims (like Azzam Tamimi, for example?) abhor violence and reject today's global jihad. Yet while everyone takes this for granted, no one thinks anything is amiss when non-Muslim European governments have to take it upon themselves to initiate efforts to eradicate the jihad ideology from Muslim communities in their countries. No one seems to notice that this very fact -- and the concomitant implication that Muslims are not at this point working against the jihad ideology in any significant way on their own -- contradicts the entire "Vast Majority of Loyal Citizens" meme. Obviously some Muslims in Europe, if not many, are indeed loyal European citizens who accept Western values; however, they obviously aren't numerous or powerful enough to place in power men who share their views.

"European Nations Plan New Anti-Terror Efforts," from the New York Times, aka the New Duranty Times, with thanks to Seymour Paine:

LONDON — European security chiefs pledged increased cooperation against terrorism on Wednesday, saying they may begin blocking Web sites, fingerprinting or iris-scanning airline passengers and training Muslim preachers to fight radicalism.

Ministers from Finland, Germany, Portugal, Slovenia and France met in London on Tuesday with British home secretary John Reid to map out new anti-terrorism measures. Afterward, in a press conference, members of the meeting laid out proposals that signaled a shift for Europe, which in the past has been loathe to limit individual freedoms or try to impose one set of values on all citizens.

[...]

In addition, ministers are proposing closer cooperation between governments and the Muslim community. Mr. Frattini outlined a plan to organize meetings of Muslim teachers to “eradicate violence from inside.” Governments may also work to train Muslim religious leaders to attempt to prevent radicalization.

“We do want a European Islam,” Mr. Frattini said. “That is very important not only to show to the Muslim communities that we fully respect other religions, other faiths, but we also want them to respect national laws, European laws and fundamental rights, and first of all right to live,” Frattini said.

At the moment, there are two fundamentally different sets of values in play in Europe, Mr. Reid said: Those of the European Union, including “democracy, freedom and justice to all” and those of “totalitarianism,” which hopes to “subvert a religion whose very name stands for peace.”

I discussed Reid's statements yesterday here.

Evidently, it's only "terrorism" when it's directed against the Indonesian President. First, there's "Indonesian President urges vigilance against terrorism," from AFP, with thanks to DFS:

JAKARTA - Islamic extremists, led by a fugitive Malaysian, are still planning attacks in Indonesia, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono warned Wednesday.

"In 2006, so far we can be thankful because our country has not suffered any terrorism attacks. But this... should not make us drop our guard and become less vigilant," he said in his annual state-of-the-nation address.

Indonesia has been the target of a series of deadly terror attacks, most recently a triple suicide bombing on Bali which killed 20 bystanders. The worst attack hit the resort island in October 2002 and claimed 202 lives.

The attacks have been blamed on the Al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) network, though some militants -- including Malaysians Azahari Husin and Noordin Mohammad Top -- were believed to have split to form an even more hardline group....

Then there's this: "Men in Bali blast get sentences reduced," from AP, with thanks to Twostellas:

JAKARTA, Indonesia - An Islamic militant convicted in the 2002 Bali bombings was released from prison Thursday and 11 others jailed for minor roles had their sentences reduced to mark Indonesia's independence day, officials said.

It is an Indonesian tradition to cut jail terms on holidays, but the decision was expected to anger countries that lost citizens in the twin nightclub attacks that killed 202 people, many of them foreign tourists.

Family members of some of the victims said they were pained by the news.

Three militants serving time in East Kalimantan's capital of Balikpapan received reductions of four months, paving the way for one, Puryanto, to walk free on Thursday, said Edi, a prison official who uses a single name.

Nine other men imprisoned on Bali island had their sentences cut by four months, said justice ministry official Djoko Bambang Untung.

"This shows that the Indonesians aren't serious about fighting terrorism," said Australian Brian Deegan, who lost his 21-year-old son Josh in the bombings.

Thirty-three people were jailed over the blasts blamed on the al-Qaida-linked militant group Jemaah Islamiyah.

"Islamic fascists"? Never mind. Oh, and in other news: to avoid offending Germans, President Roosevelt has announced that he is dropping all reference to the "National Socialist German Workers Party," and will henceforth refer not to our war against the Nazis, but to our war against "individuals that would like to kill innocent Americans to achieve political objectives."

Archdhimmitude in Washington, as Bush bows to his Saudi masters: "Bush drops reference to 'Islamic fascists,'" from AP, with thanks to Looney Tunes:

STATE DEPARTMENT President Bush has avoided repetition of a term that angered Muslims.

Responding last week to the foiling of an alleged plot to blow up flights between Britain and the United States, Bush said, "This nation is at war with Islamic fascists."

That triggered immediate objections from the Council of American-Islamic Relations, and another objection today from the government of Saudi Arabia.

In a statement after its weekly meeting, the Saudi Cabinet "warned against labeling Muslims with accusations of terrorism and fascism."

Bush didn't repeat the reference to "Islamic fascists" at the State Department today, referring instead to "individuals that would like to kill innocent Americans to achieve political objectives."

Azzam Tamimi of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought in London is a frequent guest on talk shows, and he spreads the predictable soothing syrup about how most Muslims abhor violence, etc. But when he speaks to Muslim audiences, he sings a different tune. How different? Dan Sytman (thanks to LGF), cohost of "Sytman & Boze" on Seattle's Talk 770 KTTH radio, has put together an audio file showing exactly how different. Take a listen.

In "West alone is not threatened," Kanchan Gupta in The Pioneer reminds us that the jihad is not only against the West:

It's difficult to fault US President George Bush for being obnoxiously upfront and brutally honest while describing the jihadis and their cohorts who planned "mass murder on an unimaginable scale" by blowing up 10, probably more, trans-Atlantic passenger jets taking off from Heathrow as "Islamic fascists". British Conservative politician and writer Michael Gove, in his book, Celsius 7/7, in which he analyses the phenomenon of Islamist terrorism, is equally, if not more, scathing in his description of "the totalitarian nature of the ideology that drives jihad's warriors" who "are driven by a divine mission to ensure that the whole earth, in due course, learns to submit to Islamist rule".

If there's anything objectionable about Mr Bush's comments following the unravelling of the plot last Thursday, it's his insistence that the US is the main target of "Islamic fascists". Even the most cursory survey of jihad's global assault on free societies and democracies will make it abundantly clear that the threat posed by radical Islamism and its remorseless practitioners to the rest of the world is no less than that posed to the US and Americans.

This simple fact, however, is lost on those who believe that 9/11 marked the launch of the crusade against non-believers and, therefore, place the US and its allies in the centre of the unremitting assault by jihadis looking for spectacular hits with heart-wrenching consequences. Hence the Western media's astonishing refusal to list the July 11 Mumbai bombings, which left 187 commuters dead and hundreds of others physically and mentally scarred for the rest of their lives, as a terrorist strike of any consequence even while recalling other "mass murders" committed by those who repose their faith in radical Islam. Thus, in the wake of the unmasking of the London plot, people were asked to recall the Madrid bombings, the Bali bombings, even bombings in Turkey and, of course, the 7/7 terror attacks of last year.

There is also this amazing reluctance to acknowledge and accept that Pakistan continues to remain a hub for global jihad, notwithstanding claims to the contrary by Gen Pervez Musharraf and the West's description of him as a "valuable and reliable ally" in the war against terror. Ever since last October's earthquake which devastated large tracts of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, based in Lahore, has been using human misery to collect enormous sums of money from "Islamic charities" for relief work. That money has been used for recruiting fresh cadre for Jamaat-ud-Dawa's armed wing, the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, in acquiring arms and explosives and plotting attacks, like the plan to blow up passenger aircraft over the Atlantic or while they were landing in American cities, across the world, including India.

Read it all.

I am scheduled to be on the Mike Reagan Show tonight. I expect we'll be discussing some of the recent headlines.

Diana West over at Michelle Malkin's site has penned an extraordinarily kind and generous summation of the circumstances surrounding my pre-refuted interview for C-Span, which will air in its entirety this coming Sunday at 8 and 11PM, after already having been refuted by Akbar Ahmed, the Chair of Islamic Studies at American University. The full transcript of what Ahmed said is here, and you can watch the show featuring him here. C-Span gave me no opportunity to reply to Dr. Ahmed or to interact with him at all; so I did so here at Jihad Watch.

Says Diana West:

...In one of the looser interpretations of what are vaguely known as journalistic ethics, C-Span took portions of the unaired Spencer interview and showed them, in a completely separate interview that has already aired, to Akbar Ahmed, a Muslim academic from American University. Mr. Ahmed was then asked, on the air, to refute Robert's taped analysis of jihad doctrine and other now-controversial issues. Since Robert was not given the same chance to respond to Mr. Ahmed, he has exercised his Freedom of the Blogosphere and done so here--and sent it to Mr. Ahmed. "Thank you for your response. I look forward to talking soon," Mr. Ahmed replied.

It seems like an awful lot of trouble for Robert to have to go just to try to have a reasoned debate. Here's a bright idea for C-Span: Invite both men back at the same time to talk this thing out face to face.

Thanks, Diana. I'm ready anytime they are.

Curious assertion and retraction about a disturbance on a flight from London. Where did anyone get the idea that this material existed? Why was this confirmed and then retracted? "Flight diverted to Boston over passenger disturbance," from AP, with thanks to Amber:

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- Fighter jets escorted a London-to-Washington, D.C., flight to Boston's Logan airport Wednesday after the pilot declared an emergency because an apparently claustrophobic passenger caused a disturbance, federal officials said.

The federal security official for Logan said there was no indication of terrorism and denied reports that the woman had a screw driver, matches and a note referring to al-Qaeda.

The passenger aboard United Flight 923 said she was claustrophobic and became very upset and got into some kind of confrontation with the flight crew, said George Naccara, security director for the Transportation Security Administration for Massachusetts' airport.

The disturbance -- coming just a week after authorities in London said they foiled a terror plot to blow up trans-Atlantic flights -- was enough to concern the pilot to issue an alert, which activated two fighter jets to escort the plane into Logan, Naccara said.

Two F-15s were scrambled from Otis Air National Guard Base on Cape Cod to escort the airliner, said Master Sgt. Anthony Hill, spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He said the fighter pilots can intercept, shadow or escort commercial aircraft and, if ordered, shoot down an aircraft deemed to be a threat.

Naccara said he did not believe any items the passenger was carrying were the cause of the outburst. An airport spokesman, Phil Orlandella, previously confirmed broadcast reports that the woman was carrying Vaseline, a screw driver, matches and a note referring to al-Qaeda, but backed off the statement. Naccara said it wasn't true.

"I don't know what she had on board with her, but we have been told she did not have a screw driver, she did not have any liquids such as Vaseline, and any notebook she may have had, it did not contain an al-Qaeda reference," Naccara said. "This is still playing out, of course."

"There was speculation in the beginning of all those items, but those have been proven untrue," he said. He said he had no information about matches.

Of course, in fact it means "submission." How confident can Reid really be of defeating this "intolerant and violent totalitarianism" when he refuses even to look squarely at its deep roots in Islamic tradition and teaching -- despite the fact that the very depth of those roots will give him a good indication of what he really may reasonably expect from many Muslims in Britain?

"Europe faces 'very real threat,'" from the BBC, with thanks to M.:

UK Home Secretary John Reid has said Europe faces a "persistent and very real" threat from terrorism, after a meeting with EU counterparts in London.

But he said the presence of five other interior ministers and top EU officials symbolised Europe's determination to stand together and defend their values.

Finland, holder of the EU presidency, congratulated the UK on pre-empting an apparent plot to bomb US-bound planes.

Twenty-four people are now in custody in the UK over the alleged plot.

Mr Reid said the European Union needed to develop its counter-terror policies in response to the evolving threat.

He said the talks had discussed practical measures in four areas:

* Tackling liquid explosives
* Co-ordination of transport security
* Exchange of intelligence
* The nature of European Islam

The world was faced by a form of "intolerant and violent totalitarianism", he added, which was subverting a religion, Islam, whose very name stood for peace.

And even if it did stand for peace, what kind of peace, Reid? On what terms? What makes you think Islam means by peace the same thing you mean by it? Why has it never occurred to you even to consider seeking answers to such questions?

What Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali thinks of as "Islamic radicalism" is older than he realizes; it didn't begin with Ibn Taymiyya, as the great jihad conquests that created the heart of what we think of as the Islamic world took place before the birth of that famous Islamic jurist; in fact, "Islamic radicalism" is as old as the Muslim Prophet Muhammad himself, as I demonstrate in my forthcoming book The Truth About Muhammad. But much of what the Bishop has to say here is absolutely true, and useful.

From the Telegraph, with thanks to B.:

Islamic radicalism did not begin with Muslim grievances over Western foreign policy in Iraq or Afghanistan. It has deep roots, going back to the 13th-century reformer Ibn Taimiyya, through Wahhabism to modern ideologues such as Sayyid Qutb in Egypt or Maududi in Pakistan.

The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan gave it the cause it was looking for, and Afghanistan became the place where Muslim radicals were trained, financed and armed (often with Western assistance).

The movements that were born or renewed do not have any kind of centralised command structure, but co-operate through diffuse networks of affinity and patronage. One of their most important aims is to impose their form of Islam on countries such as Pakistan, Egypt, Malaysia and Indonesia. This may be why they were not regarded as an immediate threat to the West. Their other aims, however, include the liberation of oppressed Muslims in Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya and elsewhere, and also the recovery of the Dar Al-Islam (or House of Islam), in its historic wholeness, including the Iberian peninsula, the Balkans and even India.

In this cause, the rest of the world, particularly the West, is Dar al-Harb (House of War). These other aims clearly bring such movements into conflict with the international community and with Western interests in particular.

So how does this dual psychology - of victimhood, but also the desire for domination - come to infect so many young Muslims in Britain? When I was here in the early 1970s, the practice of Islam was dominated by a kind of default Sufism or Islamic mysticism that was pietistic and apolitical. On my return in the late 1980s, the situation had changed radically. The change occurred because successive governments were unaware that the numerous mosques being established across the length and breadth of this country were being staffed, more and more, with clerics who belonged to various fundamentalist movements.

There were no criteria for entry, no way of evaluating qualifications and no programme for making them aware of the culture that they were entering. Until quite recently, ministers and advisers did not realise the scale of the problem, even though it was repeatedly brought to their attention. Secondly, in the name of multiculturalism, mosque schools were encouraged and Muslim pupils spent up to six extra hours a day learning the Koran and Islamic tradition, as well as their own regional languages. Finally, there are the grievances. Some of these are genuine enough, but the complaint often boils down to the position that it is always right to intervene where Muslims are victims (as in Bosnia or Kosovo), and always wrong when they may be the oppressors or terrorists (as with the Taliban or in Iraq), even when their victims are also mainly Muslims.

Given the world view that has given rise to such grievances, there can never be sufficient appeasement, and new demands will continue to be made. It is clear, therefore, that the multiculturalism beloved of our political and civic bureaucracies has not only failed to deliver peace, but is the partial cause of the present alienation of so many Muslim young people from the society in which they were born, where they have been educated and where they have lived most of their lives.

Read it all.

Eurabia Alert from AKI, with thanks to S.:

Rome, 14 August (AKI) - Italian police investigating the suspected 'honour killing' of a 20-year-old Pakistani woman are looking for her father and two other male relatives - a brother-in-law and an uncle - in connection with the murder. The body of the woman, Hina Saleem, was found buried in the garden of her parents' home in Sarezzo, near the northern Italian city of Brescia on Saturday. Her throat had been slit.

The woman's disappearance was reported by her Italian boyfriend, a 33-year carpenter, identified as Giuseppe in news reports.

The couple began their relationship a year ago against the wishes of Saleem's father Muhammad, against whom Hina had pressed violent abuse charges in the past, only to withdraw them later, and who according to reports had promised her in marriage to a cousin in Pakistan. In March Hina went to live with Giuseppe and began working at a local pizzeria.

While she preferred to wear Western-style clothes most of the time - she was wearing jeans when her body was found - she would cover her hair as a "sign of respect" when visiting the family home, neighbours said.

Investigators believe that Hina's mother Bushra - who the neighbours often tried to defend her daughter from her father's rage - may have left for Pakistan a few week ago taking her younger children with her.

In his wife's absence, police suspect the 56-year-old Muhammad, together with the other male relatives decided to murder Hina after she refused one last request for her to leave Italy and to accept the arranged marriage in Pakistan.

On Saturday police found Muhammad's car abandoned on the side of a road near Sarezzo, but have thus far failed to locate him or the other two men.

Countering stereotypes by hijacking someone else's website. From the Evening Mail, with thanks to Twostellas:

CATHOLICS logging onto a Barrow church website were diverted onto a site run by a Muslim organisation.

St Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church, on Michaelson Road, Barrow Island, keeps abreast of 21st century technology by having its own website.

But anyone trying to access www.stpatrickscumbria.co.uk website last week was diverted instead to a site called Islam Answers Back.

The site says Islam Answers Back is a division of Islaminfo.com.

In what appears to be a response to events both in the Middle East and here in the UK the website message says: “Muslims cannot stand idly by watching as Islam is under siege.

“Muslims have to provide answers to the objections and negative stereotypes of Islam.”...

More on this case from WorldNetDaily:

An announcement that the U.S. Marine base at Quantico, Va., has refurbished a building to be used as a prayer room for Muslim soldiers and civilians on base is a "bad signal," one critic has concluded.

The Marines announced earlier this summer that one of the buildings on the base had been repainted so that Muslims would have a place to pray and hold religious services

The new "Islamic Prayer Center" is the first of its kind on a Marine base, and "serves to express the Marine Corps' recognition of diversity among service members and the commitment to provide continued support to all Marines regardless of race, religion, ethnicity or gender," the base announcement said.

However, Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer said he wonders why the Marines do not seem concerned such facilities might to used to generate anti-American sympathies.

"It's going to go up as part of a testament to American multiculturalism and so on without any indication of the possibility that this could be a source of what we're fighting against," he said. "It just sends a bad signal."

Peter Bergen, consistently miscomprehending Islam -- go back and check the record of rich embarrassment -- is hardly alone. All sorts of writers on Bin Laden or on Al Qaeda purvey inside dopesterism and piquant details about Bin Laden's wives (including the one who ordered lingerie and ran around in a track suit, no doubt trying to hold onto her man who jettisoned her for a 15-year-old Yemeni girl -- a full six years older than little Aisha, the favorite wife of the man Bin Laden aims to emulate). They appear to think that these details about Bin Laden as son, Bin Laden as brother, Bin Laden as would-be leader of mujahedin in Afghanistan, Bin Laden as either the great leader and inspirer, or alternatively, as the great organizer of Al Qaeda, are illuminating of the “root causes” of the Jihad. So this is all breathlessly packaged and then appears, in tantalizing bits, in GQ or The New Yorker or Vanity Fair. But the reader learns nothing, absolutely nothing, about Islam, about the texts that have consumed Bin Laden, that animate him and his fellows. It is all Reader's Digest-level stuff, though the income from being a "consultant" or an "expert" to this or that news channel certainly kicks one's economic status up several rungs.

On NPR I listened to a voice that sounded as if it belonged to someone particularly naive. He was talking all about Bin Laden. I heard him, as I pulled out of the grocery store's parking lot, discussing how before Al Qaeda the various terror groups were all "nationalistic" in their desires. Yes, how true. Not the desire to eliminate the Infidel state of Israel, but rather the desire by so many Arabs and Muslims to show their solicitousness for the "legitimate rights" of the "Palestinian people" (whose actual lives are a matter of complete indifference to other Arabs and Muslims, as one can see by how they are not permitted to integrate into or become citizens of any Arab country but Jordan). And how very "nationalistic" are the declared aims of Lashkar-e-Taiba, or a hundred other groups.

If the UN has no direct mandate, but can only "help" disarm Hizballah (and Siniora and Nasrallah have reportedly agreed this won't happen), then the blue berets that do go in will only be an internationalized set of human shields for Hizballah to hide behind. By deploying them willingly in that atmosphere, the UN will thus be using its influence and resources to protect Hizballah from Israel. From the Jerusalem Post: "IDF: We'll disarm Hizbullah if UN can't"

The IDF will have to resume operations in Lebanon if the expanded United Nations force being assembled does not fulfill its obligation to dismantle Hizbullah, an official in the Prime Minister's Office warned on Tuesday.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah reportedly reached a deal allowing Hizbullah to keep its weapons but refrain from exhibiting them in public. Israeli officials called the arrangement a violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which passed over the weekend and was approved on Sunday by the cabinet.

"The resolution is clear that Hizbullah needs to be removed from the border area, embargoed and dismantled," the official said. "If the resolution is not implemented, we will have to take action to prevent the rearming of Hizbullah. I don't think backtracking will serve any useful purpose. There has to be pressure on Hizbullah to disarm or there will have to be another round."

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is expected to raise the issue when she meets in New York on Wednesday with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Annan angered Israeli officials when he told Channel 2 on Tuesday that "dismantling Hizbullah is not the direct mandate of the UN," which could only help Lebanon disarm the organization. Annan upset officials further when he said that deploying international forces in Lebanon would take "weeks or months," and not days as expected.

At the gym I watched CNN, an hour of complete mindlessness with Christiane Amanpour, trying to find, trying to understand, trying to come to grips with, what it is, what could it be, what might it be, that makes some "young Muslims" -- a tiny tiny minority of them, contemplate suicide bombings of the kind involved in the plot just revealed in England.

There were "experts" on Islam and "experts" on terror. The first "expert" explained at as long as "young Muslims" (the British equivalent of the "yoots" in "My Cousin Vinny") were exposed to "pictures" of what was going on going on in "Palestine" -- yes, what is going on in "Palestine" or rather Israel (and by the way, why are there not Jewish plotters planning to get revenge on so many countries that have abandoned Israel, thrown it to the Arab and Muslim wolves?) -- and in "Iraq" and in "Chechnya" and in "Afghanistan" and, continued the "expert," as long as these yoots believed that Islam was being attacked, Islam was under siege, their rage would continue to grow.

Or else more of us will become jihadists.

In a sane world, it would be Muslim leaders who would be reassuring the British government that they would redouble efforts to root terrorists out of their midst. "Muslims call for special bank holidays," from the Daily Mail, with thanks to Designnut:

Muslim leaders summoned to talks with the Government on tackling extremism in their midst called for public holidays to mark their religious festivals....

Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly had prepared an uncompromising message on the need to tackle dangerous radicalism.

But, in what she admitted were 'sharp' exchanges, some senior Muslim figures turned the tables yesterday and made a series of demands which also included the introduction of Sharia law for family matters.

Dr Syed Aziz Pasha, secretary general of the Union of Muslim Organisations of the UK and Ireland, said: 'We told her if you give us religious rights, we will be in a better position to convince young people that they are being treated equally along with other citizens.'

Dr Pasha said Miss Kelly had agreed to look at the proposals, though her spokesman insisted later that she did not favour any legal change which would give 'special treatment' for the Muslim community.

Some of the 30 moderate Muslim leaders at the meeting told Miss Kelly that important days in their two main religious festivals - Ramadan and Eid-ul-Adha - should be made public holidays for followers of the faith.

Sharia law, which is practised in large parts of the Middle East, should also be introduced in Britain, they argued. While it specifies stonings and amputations as routine punishments for crimes, Dr Pasha said he wanted it only for family affairs.

Under the law, a husband pays his wife a dowry on marriage, and money and assets are shared out between family members in specified amounts after someone dies.

'We are willing to co-operate but there should be a partnership,' Dr Pasha said.

'They should understand our problems then we will understand their problems.'

A recent poll suggested that a third of British Muslims would rather live under Sharia law, while a similar number said they also hope Britain will one day become an Islamic state. But Dr Pasha claimed the legal changes he proposed would help convince young Muslims to integrate better into British society.

The Union of Muslim Organisations of the UK and Ireland claims to be a widely representative umbrella group. However, it does not include more influential and high-profile bodies such as the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB). Inayat Bunglawala, spokesman for the MCB, also attended the meeting but distanced his group from the calls for Sharia law.

He said: 'We believe one legal code should apply for all citizens of the UK. There is no place for multiple legal systems for people of different religious or ethnic backgrounds.

'If people object to a certain law they should campaign peacefully and democratically for a change - but only so that it applies to all people, not just Muslims.' The Government has accused Muslim leaders of a 'dreadful misjudgment' for claiming its foreign policy has fuelled the threat of extremism. An open letter, signed by three Muslim MPs, three peers and 38 community groups, said the 'debacle' of Iraq, combined with the recent failure to do more to bring about an immediate end to the Middle East conflict, had encouraged extremists who threaten Britain....

Haras Rafiq, of the Sufi Muslim Council, said: 'The first thing that we need to do as a community is admit there is a problem.

'It is like being an alcoholic - we need to stand up and say these things and have an open and honest debate.'

Kharshid Ahmed, chairman of the British Muslim Forum, said: 'We believe that the threat is still external - it is people coming from outside and leading the radicalisation.

'We need to deal with that before people inside our communities are leading the radicalisation.'

They already are, Kharshid. Or haven't you noticed that some of the 7/7 bombers and most of those recently arrested were British citizens?

Islamic Tolerance Alert from Egypt: "Egypt: Copts Lose Homes, Freedom Over Murder Charge: Months after mosque calls for attack on Christians, victims of riot still awaiting justice," from Compass Direct:

August 14 (Compass Direct News) – Families of five jailed Christians have lost their homes northeast of Cairo after authorities persuaded them to turn over deeds to their property in exchange for what was supposed to be the release of relatives accused of murder.

Abdel Masih Awad Sayeed, 86, and four relatives in Sharkeya province have been in police custody since December 11. Officials detained the five after the death of a Muslim the previous day prompted rioting in the village of Kafr Salama Ibrahim.

Medical examiners concluded that injuries to Mohammed Ahmad Abu Talib in a fight with two of the Christian men could not have caused his death, but lawyers and a family member told Compass that the two Christians and three relatives are charged with “conspiracy to murder” Talib.

Talib’s death occurred last December 10, when he intervened on his son’s behalf in a fight with Christian brothers Yusef and Wa’el Abdel Maseh Awad, a relative said. The brothers’ cousin, Milad Samy Zaki, told Compass that after beating the Christians, Talib suffered a stroke and died minutes later.

A forensic medical report published in June, more than six months later, found that Talib had 75 percent blockage in his right coronary artery, and that two other arteries contained 60 and 90 percent blockage.

“Advanced atherosclerotic changes were found in all coronary arteries,” said the report, obtained by Compass.

Medical examiners concluded that “superficial injuries” to Talib’s nose, neck and left leg in the fight were “not sufficient to cause a death.” But when the Muslim population of Kafr Salama Ibrahim heard a call from mosque loudspeakers to attack Christian homes, many retaliated under the assumption that the Awad brothers had killed Talib.

“From 2:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., a crowd of Muslims attacked Christian homes while police did nothing,” Milad Zaki said. “They went to Sayeed’s house, where Yusef and Wa’el Awad’s families were also living, and threw all of the furniture out the window and burned it, beating everyone up.”

According to a police report, the crowd destroyed seven Christian homes and a chicken farm during the rioting.

Read it all.

The caption to this AP photo (thanks to Bill) reads:

Backdropped by a poster of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, United Nations peacekeepers from France sit atop their armoured personnel carrier in the outskirts of the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2006....(AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

Quite an auspicious beginning, wouldn't you say?

"Police Arrest New Bomb Suspect," from SBS World News Australia, with thanks to JE:

British police have arrested another suspect in connection with the alleged plot to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners from London to the United States.

A total of 24 people are now being held in custody in Britain.

Scotland Yard alleges suspected Islamic militants planned to use liquid explosives to bomb up to 10 US bound aircraft.

Police said the new suspect was arrested in the Thames Valley area in southeastern Britain, where several houses were raided last week....

The 23 people who had been arrested earlier are all British-born Muslims, mainly of Pakistani descent....

According to British media, one of the houses raided in High Wycombe, may have been used to mix the chemicals....

Meanwhile, a British Muslim leader warns that if British officials single out Muslims for scrutiny to determine whether or not they are terrorists, more Muslims will become terrorists:

The idea of passenger profiling has been rejected by Muslim leaders who warn it could alienate the nation's 1.5 million Muslims.

The Times newspaper reported that the Department for Transport is considering a profiling system to select people behaving suspiciously.

Under the proposal, they may also be targeted if they have an unusual travel pattern or a certain ethnic or religious background.

It said the government was considering introducing a screening system that allows security staff to focus on those passengers who pose the greatest risk.

John Stevens, former head of London's Metropolitan Police, told the News of The World that airport chaos could be reduced by targeting passengers for more rigorous checks, with "young Muslim men" a focus.

Muslim leaders warned that profiling would backfire.

"If the community is profiled as a community, there will be a backlash and no-one is going to co-operate with the police and the authorities, which is important to fight terror," Abdul Bari, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said.

In "Exclusive: Iran was behind Hezbollah-Israel war," Iran Focus (thanks to JE) makes the case:

London, Aug. 16 – Iran masterminded the July 12 attack on an Israeli military squad by the Lebanese militia Hezbollah which ignited a major military offensive against the group by the Jewish state, Iran Focus has learnt.

A well-placed source inside the clerical establishment told Iran Focus that prior to the start of hostilities Tehran dispatched several top officials including the chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) to attend a summit in Syria which took place on July 4 and focused on ways to upset the regional balance in the Middle East.

Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of the founder of the Islamic Republic, travelled to the Syrian capital last month, staying in Damascus between July 1 and 6 under the cover of pilgrimage to a revered Shiite Muslim shrine.

Simultaneously, several top Hezbollah officials arrived in Damascus for what they claimed was to meet Hassan Khomeini.

On July 4, the secretary general of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Larijani made an unannounced trip to the Syrian capital.

Read it all.

The Hizballah News Agency, aka Reuters, titled this one "Iran says won't back down over atomic rights," but I think that "rights" thing might be just a bit too strong.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday Iran would not yield to Western pressure to give up its home-grown nuclear technology.

His comments came days before an August 22 deadline Iran set itself to respond to a demand by six world powers that Tehran give up uranium enrichment in return for economic and other incentives. Iran has so far shown no signs it will accept.

"Today, we are fully mastering the nuclear fuel cycle for our peaceful atomic activities. It is a native technology... No one can take it away from us," Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech to a rally in the northwestern city of Ardebil....

"The Iranian nation will not yield to pressure but is ready to resolve the nuclear issue through talks," Ahmadinejad said.

Talks, sure. As long as no one asks them to give up the nukes, they'll talk all day.

The proliferation of local militias will amount to another nail in the coffin of the Iraqi national unity dream that US policymakers continue to chase. Could the Iraqi Shi'ites be emboldened by the utter lack of accountability (not to mention its survivial in the first place) that Hizballah has enjoyed thus far? From AFP:

NAJAF, Iraq - The deputy governor of Iraq’s Shia province of Najaf said Tuesday that local militias will boost the region’s security after a recent suicide bomb attack killed 35 people.

"We started today forming a committee in Najaf to choose individuals who will control security in their neighbourhoods and keep an eye on all suspect movements in their areas," deputy governor Abdul Hussain Abtan told AFP.

It becomes clearer later in the article that "committee" is a euphemism for "militia."

"This will be done in collaboration with security forces in the city and is the first step in activating popular committees."

Abtan belongs to powerful Shia party, the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), whose chief Abdel Aziz Al Hakim had called for setting up such committees after the bombing on Thursday.

Last week, Aziz demanded the right to inaugurate the rule of popular committees in areas to give people a chance to defend themselves. His demand was echoed by the movement of Shia radical leader Moqtada Sadr.

Both groups want to form Shia self-defence committees, a move that would undermine the authority of Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki, who has vowed to disarm militias.

Why should he? The jihad against infidels has been going on for 1,400 years. It is stronger now than it has been for centuries. It isn't going to end tomorrow. From AP:

WASHINGTON - President Bush said Tuesday that the foiled plot to blow up flights between Britain and the United States is evidence the U.S. could be fighting terrorists for years to come.

"America is safer than it has been, yet it is not yet safe," Bush told reporters at the National Counterterrorism Center just outside Washington. "The enemy has got an advantage when it comes to attacking our homeland: They got to be right one time and we've got to be right 100 percent of the time to protect the American people."...

"That plot and this building and the work going on here is really indicative of the challenge we face — not only this week, but this year and the years to come," he said.

The master of Lebanon

Peace In Our Time Update: "Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah: The Disarmament of Hizbullah Should Not Be Discussed Now." from MEMRI:

The following are excerpts from a speech delivered by Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, which aired on Al-Manar TV on August 14, 2006.

TO VIEW THIS CLIP: http://www.memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=1236 .

"We are Facing a Strategic and Historic Victory"

Hassan Nasrallah: "We are facing a strategic and historic victory. This is no exaggeration. This is a victory for Lebanon – all of Lebanon – for the resistance, and for the entire [Islamic] nation."

[...]

"What is strange is that the debate revolved around the status of the weapons and the resistance south of the Litani River. Nobody is asking Lebanon now - not even the enemy or the international community - to rush into the disarming of the resistance. This issue is included in the long-term treatment, the permanent solution, and so on. But unfortunately, some have been saying that if there must be disarmament south of the [Litani] River, what will the weapons of the resistance north of it and in all Lebanon be good for? Therefore, we must start discussing all these weapons now... It is not, in fact, a discussion. They did not bring it up for discussion. They are demanding to put an end to this issue. This issue, my dears, will not be determined in this manner, and in such haste. I recommend that no one turn to provocations, intimidation, or pressure, using humanitarian arguments or arguments pertaining to security.

"We know that one of the most important goals of the recent American-Israeli war in Lebanon was the removal of these weapons. But they could not do this."

[...]

"Some say that removing the weapons of the resistance is a basic condition for the building of a strong and capable country. I say the opposite. The building of a strong and capable country, a country of resistance which provides a sense of security, should naturally take place before that country turns to the Lebanese people, to the people of the South, and says to them: Our people, we constitute a strong, capable country, a country of resistance that can defend your honor, your blood, your dignity, and your pride, and you have no need for the popular frameworks known as the resistance, or for the private weapons of the resistance."

Earlier this afternoon I announced that I would be on this show, but I have just gotten word that I have been dropped from the show because of "technical issues."

Ibrahim Hooper will still be appearing.

Diana West, guest blogging for Michelle Malkin, comments on recent calls for Sharia in Britain:

In the wake of the Airplane Plot, the same story reported that Ruth Kelly, who is something official called the Secretary of State for Communities (sounds squishy), met yesterday with British Muslim leaders. They called on the government to sanction sharia for British Muslims in matters of family law and marriage as a means of preventing Muslims from becoming what are rather quaintly known as "extremists." Of course, if sharia isn't extreme, what is?

So here we are. Britain narrowly averts another 9/11 that was to have been caused by British Muslim terrorists, and British Muslim leaders take the opportuity to press forward a political agenda (ending GB-US cooperation abroad, and urging the adoption of sharia at home) that could only please the terrorists. What happens next will tell us how deeply into dhimmitude Great Britain really is.

The sinful photo

Galloping Eurabia Update from the UK: "Passport photograph of girl's bare shoulders rejected 'as it may offend,'" from the Telegraph, with thanks to all who sent this in:

A five-year-old girl's passport application was rejected because her photograph showed her bare shoulders.

Hannah Edwards's mother, Jane, was told that the exposed skin might be considered offensive in a Muslim country.

The photograph was taken at a photo-booth at a local post office for a family trip to the south of France.

Because of the way the camera was set up, the picture came out showing Hannah's shoulders.

The family had it signed and presented it at a post office with the completed form but were told that it would not be accepted by the Passport Office.

A woman behind the counter informed them that she was aware of at least two other cases where applications had been rejected because a person's shoulders were not covered.

It is good to see Fox picking up on this. Fauxtography Jihad Update from Allah at Hotair: the infamous Green Helmet guy takes a dead child who has already been placed in an ambulance out of the ambulance, and poses him for photographers.

See the video over at Hotair.

I am scheduled to appear on CNN's Paula Zahn Now show tonight to discuss profiling. The show runs from 8 to 9PM EDT; I'm not sure when I'll be on. Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American Islamic Relations is set to be arguing the opposite side, with his usual witty effervescence.

Let's see if good ol' Ibrahim can get through the entire segment without using the words "hate," "bigotry," "Islamophobia," or "Muslim-bashing." I expect that if you play a drinking game with this, and take a sip every time he uses one of those or a variant thereof, you'll be thoroughly soused at the end of the five minute segment. And remember: every time he interrupts me, you have to chug the whole glass.

UPDATE: Canceled!

So many analysts who know little or nothing about Islam aren't aware of how little they know, and make all sorts of false assumptions, some of which have disastrous policy consequences, as a result. From "Bergen: Bin Laden, CIA links hogwash," from CNN, with thanks to k1911m:

...CNN.com asked users to send questions to Bergen as part of an upcoming documentary, "In the Footsteps of bin Laden," which premieres on August 23 at 9 p.m. ET. Here are his answers:

QUESTION: If you could see bin Laden face-to-face again, what one question would you ask him?
From Donna Salley, Shreveport, Louisiana

BERGEN: Where in the Quran can you find justification for killing innocent civilians?

Peter, Osama answered this in his November 24, 2002 letter to the American people:

Allah, the Almighty, legislated the permission and the option to take revenge. Thus, if we are attacked, then we have the right to attack back. Whoever has destroyed our villages and towns, then we have the right to destroy their villages and towns. Whoever has stolen our wealth, then we have the right to destroy their economy. And whoever has killed our civilians, then we have the right to kill theirs.

Where did bin Laden get the idea that Allah, the Almighty, ever allowed such a thing? "We ordained therein for them: "Life for life, eye for eye, nose or nose, ear for ear, tooth for tooth, and wounds equal for equal" (Qur'an 5:45). "The recompense for an injury is an injury equal thereto (in degree)" (Qur'an 42:40).

Therefore, once bin Laden establishes, at least to his and his coreligionists' satisfaction, that Western governments are targeting Muslim civilians, he has a free hand against Western civilians -- as mandated by the Qur'an.

But Peter Bergen and so many others will no doubt continue to assume that what they are doing is contrary to the Qur'an. Why does this matter? Because if bin Laden's Qur'anic case is full of holes, we may reasonably assume that he will ultimately find scant support among Muslims worldwide. But if he has an arguable case, it is likely that support for him will be much greater. Western analysts continue pollyannishly to assume that they are dealing with a marginal, already discredited fringe group within the Islamic world. Would that it were so.

This is already being invoked by opponents of profiling as an object lesson in the hazards of assuming that Muslims engaging in suspicious activity are up to no good. But you'll notice that there is still a great deal unexplained in the case; and anyway if Ali Houssaiky and Osama Sabhi Abulhassan are loyal Americans, surely they would prefer to be inconvenienced rather than to see the country suffer another jihad terror attack. An update on this story from AP:

(AP) MARIETTA, Ohio Prosecutors dropped terrorism charges Tuesday against two Michigan men who were arrested after buying large numbers of cell phones, saying they couldn't prove a terrorism link.

The dismissal, in a one-page court document, came the day after Washington County Prosecutor James Schneider said he didn't have enough evidence to present the felony charges to a grand jury.

Ali Houssaiky and Osama Sabhi Abulhassan, both of Dearborn, Mich., left prison after paying a reduced bond on the remaining misdemeanor counts of falsification.

"We know it was just a matter of time. We were just hoping it wouldn't be forever," Abulhassan said. "Everybody knew we were innocent. We knew we were innocent."

The remaining counts stem from allegations that the two men initially gave deputies different names than appeared on their IDs. The men also initially said they were buying phones for a relative's construction business, then changed the story when deputies asked for contact information, Schneider said.

Schneider said his office and federal authorities don't believe "the defendants pose an imminent threat at this time."

But he said the investigation remains open and he could still present evidence to a grand jury to pursue terrorism-related charges....

In Ohio, Houssaiky and Abulhassan were stopped by sheriff's deputies for a traffic violation Aug. 8, then arrested after the deputies found 12 cell phones, $11,000 cash, airplane passenger lists and information on airport security checkpoints in their car, authorities said.

The jihadists and their stooges rejoice and boast. "Iran, Syria Praise Hezbollah, Mock U.S.," from AP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

TEHRAN, Iran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that Hezbollah has "hoisted the banner of victory" over Israel and toppled U.S.-led plans for the Middle East. Hezbollah's main backers _ Iran and Syria _ struck nearly identical tones a day after a cease-fire took effect in Lebanon: heaping praise on the guerrillas as perceived victors for the Islamic world and claiming that Western influence in the region was dealt a serious blow.

"God's promises have come true," Ahmadinejad told a huge crowd in Arbadil in northwestern Iran. "On one side, it's corrupt powers of the criminal U.S. and Britain and the Zionists ... with modern bombs and planes. And on the other side is a group of pious youth relying on God."

Yes, he's right in a sense. On one side is technology, but little or no will to fight. On the other side is plenty of will to fight, but vastly fewer resources. Yet ultimately the will to win will prevail -- unless things change in the West.

In Damascus, Syrian President Syrian President Bashar Assad said Washington's plans for the Middle East were turned into "an illusion" by Hezbollah's resistance to the Israeli military during the 34-day conflict.

Israel "was defeated" and Hezbollah "hoisted the banner of victory," Ahmadinejad told the crowd, including many people waving yellow Hezbollah banners and Iranian flags.

Ahmadinejad drew cheers when he said Hezbollah foiled what he called the plans of Washington and its allies "to create the so-called new Middle East."

"The people of the region are also after the new Middle East, but a Middle East that is free from U.S. and British domination," he said.

Cell phones can be used as detonators. And "Middle Eastern men" have been buying an awful lot of them in the U.S. over the last few days.

Note that when the authorities say there are no terrorist ties involved in any of these purchases, they mean that the purchasers don't have any discernable connections to Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hizballah, etc. They do not mean that these men could not be or are not freelance jihadists -- that possibility still doesn't enter into their thinking, despite Muhammad Reza Taheri-azar and Naveed Haq. "Police seek more information on large cell phone purchases," from the Arizona Daily Star, with thanks to Gary:

Tucson Police Department officials are investigating a report that two men purchased an abnormal number of pre-paid cell phones at a local store.

The incident comes after several similar reports across the country, although authorities have not found any links between the incidents, or any terrorism ties to any of them, as was originally suspected.

Tucson police received a report on Saturday about the two men, who appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent, purchasing the phones at Sam's Club, 4701 N. Stone Ave., earlier in the day....

Time will tell, and soon. "Hezbollah was defeated, Bush says," from the Washington Times:

President Bush said yesterday that Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon had suffered a defeat in their monthlong war with Israel, and he again lashed out at Syria and Iran for sponsoring the terrorist group.

Mr. Bush was emphatic about whom he held responsible for the war, which prompted the U.N. Security Council to pass a cease-fire resolution Friday.

"Hezbollah attacked Israel, Hezbollah started the crisis, and Hezbollah suffered a defeat in this crisis," he said, just hours after the shaky cease-fire took effect. "This was Hezbollah's activities, this was Hezbollah's choice to make."

As Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the strategic balance in the region was transformed by the war and Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said his guerrillas achieved a "strategic, historic victory," Mr. Bush called the cease-fire resolution "an important step forward that will help bring an end to the violence."

The president also said responsibility "for the suffering of the Lebanese people also lies with Hezbollah's state sponsors, Iran and Syria." The fighting left nearly 1,000 people dead, most of them Lebanese.

"The regime in Iran provides Hezbollah with financial support, weapons and training. Iran has made clear that it seeks the destruction of Israel. We can only imagine how much more dangerous this conflict would be if Iran had the nuclear weapon it seeks," Mr. Bush said.

"Hezbollah has been emboldened because of its state sponsors. I know they claim they didn't have anything to do with it, but sophisticated weaponry ended up in the hands of Hezbollah fighters, and many assume and many believe that that weaponry came from Iran through Syria."

The president also said that the conflict in Lebanon "is part of a broader struggle between freedom and terror that is unfolding across the region."

"Lebanese ... Shias resent, are contemptuous of, and will not take dictation from Iranians" Update from the Telegraph, with thanks to JE:

Abandoned Hizbollah positions in Lebanon yesterday revealed conclusive evidence that Syria - and almost certainly Iran - provided the anti-tank missiles that have blunted the power of Israel's once invincible armour.

After one of the fiercest confrontations of the war, Israeli forces took the small town of Ghandouriyeh, east of the southern city of Tyre, on Sunday evening, hours before a ceasefire brokered by the United Nations took effect.

At least 24 Israeli soldiers were killed in the advance on the strategic hilltop town as Hizbollah fighters were pushed back to its outskirts, abandoning many weapons.

The discovery helped to explain the slow progress made by Israeli ground forces in nearly five weeks of a war which Hizbollah last night claimed as "a historic victory." Israeli political and military leaders are facing mounting criticism over the conduct of the offensive, which was intended to smash the Iranian-backed Shia militia.

Outside one of the town's two mosques a van was found filled with green casings about 6ft long. The serial numbers identified them as AT-5 Spandrel anti-tank missiles. The wire-guided weapon was developed in Russia but Iran began making a copy in 2000.

Beyond no-man's land, in the east of the village, was evidence of Syrian-supplied hardware. In a garden next to a junction used as an outpost by Hizbollah lay eight Kornet anti-tank rockets, described by Brig Mickey Edelstein, the commander of the Nahal troops who took Ghandouriyeh, as "some of the best in the world".

EU Referendum (thanks to Nick) uncovers more photo fakery:

Blink and you miss it... the very first frame (black arrow indicates the time) of a video report by Mazen Ibrahim on the Aljazeera channel, commenting on the coverage of the Qana "massacre" in western media. But it is quite definitely there and, equally definitely it is the body of a baby.

This is in the first stages of the rescue/recovery operation at Qana and, if there is one thing all the media reports agree on, it is that there was only one body of a baby recovered - and here is the recovery, by Red Cross workers.

Yet, late in the afternoon (we know it is afternoon because UN troops are on site, and they did not get there until late), we this photograph is taken. It is shot by Reuters' famous Adnan Hajj, the man who subsequently was found out doctoring photographs of the Beruit bombing and the F-16.

Full story, photos and video at the EU Referendum site.

LONDON (Reuters) - A top British Muslim policeman has warned that any moves to "terror profile" airline passengers would create a new offence -- "traveling whilst Asian".

[…]

Such a move could spark outrage among Britain's Muslims but aviation experts said profiling was vital to break the gridlock at airports, in chaos since last week due to tightened security after police said they foiled an Islamist plot to bomb planes.

Former British police chief John Stevens said airport bottlenecks could be reduced by careful targeting, with "young Muslim men" a focus.

Metropolitan Police Chief Superintendent Ali Desai, one of Britain's top Muslim police officers, said of the plan: "What you are suggesting is that we should have a new offence in this country called 'traveling whilst Asian'."

"What we don't want to do is actually alienate the very communities who are going to help us catch terrorists" -- from this news item

This line of blague assumes that these "very communities" are not, by self-definition and deeply inculcated belief, already "alienated" from, or rather intensely hostile to, the non-Muslims within whose society, and whose legal and political institutions, these Muslims are forced to live. But even as they will not leave, but wait to inherit that society by degrees (the degrees determined by the rate of Da'wa and demographic conquest), they make demand after outrageous demand for changes to those institutions and to that society. Suc