September 2006 Archives

Multiple suicide car bombings were to occur inside the Green Zone, hence today's lockdown of Baghdad. From AP:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A bodyguard detained at the home of a leading Sunni Arab politician is suspected of being a member of Al Qaeda in Iraq, thought to be involved in planning a major suicide car bombing assault inside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, the U.S. command said Saturday.

Guard Khudhir Farhan was taken into custody Friday at the home of Adnan al-Dulaimi, the head of the largest Sunni bloc in parliament, al-Dulaimi told The Associated Press.

"The detained individual is suspected of involvement in the planning of a multi-vehicle suicide operation inside Baghdad's International Zone," the U.S. military said in a statement without identifying the suspect.

The zone in downtown Baghdad is home to the Iraqi government, parliament and the U.S. and other western embassies.

"Credible intelligence indicates the individual, a member of Dr. Dulaimi's personal security detachment, and seven members of the detained individual's cell were in the final stages of launching a series of (car bomb) attacks inside the International Zone, possibly involving suicide vests," the military said.

The man is suspected of having links to a car bomb network operating in the southern area of Baghdad, the military said.

"He is believed to be a member of the Al Qaeda in Iraq group," the military said.

Immediately after the arrest Friday afternoon, al-Dulaimi denied the guard had any terrorist links, but when contacted Saturday he seemed to be retreating slightly from his previous comments.

"That individual joined my residence as a guard no more than a month ago, therefore I haven't got complete data about his background," al-Dulaimi said. "Anyhow, they are only suspicions about his involvement, which have not been proved."

The military later issued another statement saying al-Dulaimi cooperated with the soldiers when they showed up to apprehend the guard.

"This operation in no way implies Dr. al-Dulaimi was associated with any illegal activity; he was not the target in this operation," the U.S. command said.

Following the arrest, the Iraqi government ordered a complete lockdown of Baghdad to pedestrian and vehicular traffic through Sunday morning. The curfew was put into place on the advice of U.S. forces, Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdul-Kaim Khalaf told the AP.

"They have information terrorists entered Baghdad," Khalaf said. "The prime minister agreed to (the curfew) to give our security forces the freedom of movement to raid certain places."

Here is the first of a multi-part series from the great European essayist Fjordman, in which he tests whether he can find any evidence of whether the thesis Bat Ye'or put forward in her book "Eurabia" is accurate.

I decided to write this essay after a comment from a journalist, not a Leftist by my country's standards, who dismissed Eurabia as merely a conspiracy theory, one on a par with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. I do not disagree with the fact that conspiracy theories exist, nor that they can be dangerous. After all, the Protocols and the Dolchstosslegende, or "stab in the back myth" - the idea that Germany didn't lose WW1 but was betrayed by Socialists, intellectuals and Jews - helped pave the way for Adolf Hitler and the Nazis before WW2.

However, what puzzles me is that it is a widely-held belief of many (not just in the Islamic world but in Europe and even in the United States) that the terror attacks that brought down the Twin Towers in New York City on September 11th 2001 were really a controlled demolition staged by the American government and then blamed on Muslims. I have seen this thesis talked about many times in Western media. While it is frequently (though not always) dismissed and mocked, it is least mentioned.

In contrast, Eurabia – which asserts that the Islamicization of Europe didn't happen merely by accident but with the active participation of European political leaders - is hardly ever referred to at all, despite the fact that it is easier to document. Does the notion of Eurabia hit too close to home? Perhaps it doesn't fit with the anti-American disposition of many journalists? Curiously enough, even those left-leaning journalists who are otherwise critical of the European Union because of its free market elements never write about Eurabia.

Because of this, I am going to test whether the Eurabia thesis is correct, or at least plausible. I have called this project The Eurabia Code, alluding to author Dan Brown's massive bestseller The Da Vinci Code. Brown's fictional account "documents" a conspiracy by the Church to cover up the truth about Jesus. I'm not sure my work will become equally popular, but I'm pretty sure it's closer to reality.

The next time Mr. Brown wants to write about massive conspiracies in Europe, he would be well-advised to set his eyes at Brussels rather than Rome. It would be a whole lot more interesting. What follows is a brief outline of the thesis put forward by writer Bat Ye'or in her book "Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis." My information is based on her book (which should be read in full). In addition I have drawn from some of her articles and interviews. I republish the information with her blessing, but this summary is completely my own.

In an interview with Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Bat Ye'or explained how French President Charles de Gaulle, disappointed by the loss of the French colonies in Africa and the Middle East as well as with France's waning influence in the international arena, decided in the 1960's to create a strategic alliance with the Arab and Muslim world to compete with the dominance of the United States and the Soviet Union.

"This is a matter of a total transformation of Europe, which is the result of an intentional policy," said Bat Ye'or. "We are now heading towards a total change in Europe, which will be more and more Islamicized and will become a political satellite of the Arab and Muslim world. The European leaders have decided on an alliance with the Arab world, through which they have committed to accept the Arab and Muslim approach toward the United States and Israel. This is not only with respect to foreign policy, but also on issues engaging European society from within, such as immigration, the integration of the immigrants and the idea that Islam is part of Europe."

"Europe is under a constant threat of terror. Terror is a way of applying pressure on the European countries to surrender constantly to the Arab representatives' demands. They demand, for example, that Europe always speak out for the Palestinians and against Israel."

Thus, the Eurabian project became an enlarged vision of the anti-American Gaullist policy dependent upon the formation of a Euro-Arab entity hostile to American influence. It facilitated European ambitions to maintain important spheres of influence in the former European colonies, while opening huge markets for European products in the Arab world, especially in oil-producing countries, in order to secure supplies of petroleum and natural gas to Europe. In addition, it would make the Mediterranean a Euro-Arab inland sea by favoring Muslim immigration and promoting Multiculturalism with a strong Islamic presence in Europe.

The use of the term "Eurabia" was first introduced in the mid-1970s, as the title of a journal edited by the President of the Association for Franco-Arab Solidarity, Lucien Bitterlein, and published collaboratively by the Groupe d'Etudes sur le Moyen-Orient (Geneva), France-Pays Arabes (Paris), and the Middle East International (London). Their articles called for common Euro-Arab positions at every level. These concrete proposals were not the musings of isolated theorists; instead they put forth concrete policy decisions conceived in conjunction with, and actualized by, European state leaders and European Parliamentarians.

During a November 27, 1967 press conference, Charles de Gaulle stated openly that French cooperation with the Arab world had become "the fundamental basis of our foreign policy." By January 1969, the Second International Conference in Support of the Arab Peoples, held in Cairo, in its resolution 15, decided "…to form special parliamentary groups, where they did not exist, and to use the parliamentary platform support of the Arab people and the Palestinian resistance." Five years later in Paris, July 1974, the Parliamentary Association for Euro-Arab Cooperation was created, under the Euro-Arab Dialogue rubric.

Bat Ye'or has highlighted this shared Euro-Arab political agenda. The first step was the construction of a common foreign policy. France was the driving force in this unification, which had already been envisaged by General de Gaulle's inner circle and Arab politicians. The Arab states demanded from Europe access to Western science and technology, European political independence from the United States, European pressure on the United States to align with their Arab policy and demonization of Israel as a threat to world peace, as well as measures favorable to Arab immigration and dissemination of Islamic culture in Europe. This cooperation would also included recognition of the Palestinians as a distinct people and the PLO and its leader Arafat as their representative. Up to 1973 they had been known only as Arab refugees, even by other Arabs. The concept of a Palestinian "nation" simply did not exist.

During the 1973 oil crisis, the Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries announced that, due to the ongoing Yom Kippur War between Israel and its Arab neighbors Egypt and Syria, OPEC would no longer ship petroleum to Western nations that supported Israel. The sudden increase in oil prices was had lasting effects. Not only did it create a strong influx of petrodollars to countries such as Saudi Arabia, which permitted the Saudis to fund a worldwide Islamic resurgence, but it also had an impact in the West, especially in Europe.

However, Arab leaders had to sell their oil. Their people are very dependent on European economic and technological aid. The Americans made this point during the oil embargo in 1973. According to Bat Ye'or, although the oil factor certainly helped cement the Euro-Arab Dialogue, it was primarily a pretext to cover up a policy that emerged in France before that crisis occurred. The policy, conceived in the 1960s, had strong antecedents in the French 19th-century dream of governing an Arab empire.

This political agenda has been reinforced by the deliberate cultural transformation of Europe. Euro-Arab Dialogue Symposia conducted in Venice (1977) and Hamburg (1983) included recommendations that have been successfully implemented. These recommendations were accompanied by a deliberate, privileged influx of Arab and other Muslim immigrants into Europe in enormous numbers.

The recommendations included:

1. Coordination of the efforts made by the Arab countries to spread the Arabic language and culture in Europe,
2. Creation of joint Euro-Arab Cultural Centers in European capitals,
3. The necessity of supplying European institutions and universities with Arab teachers specialized in teaching Arabic to Europeans, and
4. The necessity of cooperation between European and Arab specialists in order to present a positive picture of Arab-Islamic civilization and contemporary Arab issues to the educated public in Europe.

Islamic Tolerance Alert from Iran, via Compass Direct:

September 29 (Compass Direct News) – Iranian secret police arrested a Christian couple in the northeastern city of Mashhad three days ago, forcing them to leave behind their 6-year-old daughter and holding them incommunicado ever since.

Plainclothes policemen who declined to identify themselves demanded entrance into the apartment home of Reza Montazami, 35, and his wife Fereshteh Dibaj, 28, at 7 a.m. on Tuesday (September 26).

Claiming they had “permission” from the proper authorities, the men conducted a complete search of the family’s home. The couple’s computers and various other personal items were confiscated, along with all the Christian literature in the house.

When it became clear that both he and his wife were going to be physically detained, Montazami managed to telephone his mother, asking her to come quickly to pick up their daughter Christine.

Shortly after the grandmother arrived, Montazami and his wife were taken away in an unmarked car. When the grandmother went into the apartment to get Christine, she found two men still searching the premises.

Asked where Christine’s parents were being taken, the men named a local police station. But when Montazami’s relatives went to the designated place, the police on duty declared they knew nothing about any such detention.

So the family continued to search and inquire, going from one office to another around the city. Finally near the end of the day, authorities at a local intelligence branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) admitted that they were holding the couple there for questioning....

Despite repeated inquiries, officials would only say that interrogations were continuing, with documents being prepared on the “exact charges” against them....

“They are just lying to them,” said one Iranian Christian who himself fled persecution in Iran several years ago for abandoning Islam and becoming a Christian. “It is psychological warfare, to keep their families uncertain and try to make them afraid.”

From a well-known Mashhad family, Montazami converted to Christianity in his 20s. He now goes by the first name Amir among his friends and family.

His wife Fereshteh is the youngest daughter of the Rev. Mehdi Dibaj, an Assemblies of God minister who was martyred for his faith 12 years ago. A Christian for 45 years, Dibaj spent more than nine years in prison, where he was given the death penalty for committing apostasy. A few months after international protests prompted his release, he was abducted and assassinated on the way to his teenage daughter Fereshteh’s birthday party.

Montazami and his wife lead an independent house church in Mashhad, the only known remnant of two active Protestant Christian congregations worshipping in the city before Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1976.

Both churches were closed by government order in the 1980s. Then in December 1990, the government executed a Mashhad pastor, the Rev. Hussein Soodmand. A former Muslim who had become a Christian 24 years earlier, Soodmand refused to recant his faith after four months under extreme physical and psychological mistreatment in prison....

An extraordinary column in the Toronto Sun (thanks to Nooze):

In a recent column, Michael Coren, my colleague here at the Sun, demanded Muslims apologize for wrongs too numerous to list.

Coren is right. I, as a Muslim, apologize without equivocation or reservation for the terrible crimes -- small and big -- committed by Muslims against non-Muslims and against Muslims, as in Darfur, who are weak and easy prey to those who hold power in the name of Islam.

I imagine, however, Coren is not seeking an apology from a person of Muslim faith such as I, who maintains no rank and cannot speak on behalf of the institutionalized world of Islam.

Like many others who share his frustration and legitimate anger, Coren is asking to hear a contrite voice from within institutionalized Islam -- to repent for Muslim misconduct, past and present, that is indefensible by any standard of civility and decency, and seek forgiveness.

But Coren and others might well wait indefinitely for such an apology from those representatives of institutionalized Islam convinced of their own righteousness, even as they are engineers of a civilization's wreckage and prosper in it by the art of bullying.

Muslims and non-Muslims often point to the fact there is no Vatican in contemporary Islam -- no figure like the Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury who authoritatively represents the Muslim world....

And here comes a point with extraordinary implications:

Within the Arab Sunni world the Egyptian-born Sheikh Qaradawi, 80, of Qatar, is the face of institutionalized Islam. He is the closest to what might pass for a titular head of Muslims akin to the Pope. Qaradawi's words, now broadcast by television network al-Jazeerah, are taken as authoritative pronouncements of Islam. He is the "spiritual" leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, a movement formed to repudiate freedom and democracy, and a defender of Islam's war against the West by any means, including suicide bombings.

For such representatives of institutionalized Islam, all things are political. They are the authoritative guardians of the ideology that in Islam religion and politics are inseparable, and jihad -- holy war -- is its defining aspect.

Hence, since this institutionalized Islam is at war with the West, for Coren or anyone else to expect an apology from its generals is rather naive.

Well, not naive at all really, given the repeated insistence from Muslim and non-Muslim authorities alike that the overwhelming majority of Muslims abhor jihad violence. But in any case, search for Qaradawi at Jihad Watch and at Dhimmi Watch. Find out what he has said about jihad, about martyrdom-suicide bombings, and about a host of other issues. And reflect for a moment on the implications, if Mansur is correct that he is "the face of institutionalized Islam."

Data emerging in Morocco puts another dent in the frequently encountered notion of poverty as the principal catalyst for turning seemingly "normal" people into jihadists. From AP: "Extremist Islam may be rising in Morocco"

RABAT, Morocco - Little would seem to connect a soldier, a shopkeeper, airline pilots' wives and a woman known for helping people in need. But all have been named as suspects in a purported Islamic terrorist plot, suggesting extremism may be leaping Morocco's class divides.

In all, Moroccan authorities arrested 56 people last month for allegedly being part of a network that was planning attacks on military and tourist sites in hopes of bringing down the government of this North African monarchy.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States and suicide bombings two years later that killed 33 people in Casablanca, this country's economic capital, Moroccans have grown accustomed to police crackdowns on Islamic militants.

[...]

What's new in the latest case is the wide range of people accused. Middle-class women and security force members allegedly formed the core of a group that authorities say called itself Ansar al-Mehdi, or Supporters of the Mehdi -- a divine figure in Islamic tradition who will establish justice on Earth before Judgment Day.

While the Mahdi is more commonly associated in the media with Shi'ite Islam, it is worth noting here that Sunni Islam -- to which Moroccans are adherents -- also teaches the coming of a Mahdi, though of a different identity from the hidden twelfth imam in the Shi'ite tradition.

Previously, Islamic extremism was most evident in Morocco's urban slums like Sidi Moumen, the cinderblock jungle in Casablanca where many of the 2003 suicide bombers lived. If the charges are true, the new case would suggest Muslim militancy is spreading into the middle class.

Penetration of the army would be a particular blow because the Western-equipped force has traditionally stood as a pillar of state power. After the sweep, King Mohammed VI fired the head of military intelligence and the head of Morocco's general security forces.

Morocco ended compulsory military service this month, but officials said it had nothing to do with the Ansar al-Mehdi revelations.

Officials have released little information about the Mehdi suspects and their alleged targets, divulging just a few names. The Justice Ministry says judges are preparing for public hearings originally planned for mid-September but now delayed until late October.

Two of the four female suspects are wives of Royal Air Maroc pilots, and Interior Minister Chakib Benmoussa alleged they were recruited by alleged Ansar al-Mehdi chief Hassan Khattab to carry out suicide attacks in Morocco.

Khattab spent two years in jail for involvement in the May 2003 suicide bombings.

Another woman in custody, Fatima Zahra Rehioui, 51, is described by authorities as a central figure in the alleged plot. In a rare news conference in August, Benmoussa said Rehioui was a confidant of Khattab and knowingly gave him $17,280 for terrorist activities.

As always, someone steps up to say what a swell person the accused is:

Rehioui's lawyer tells a different story, describing her as someone who helps people. Attorney Khalid Idrissi said Khattab asked Rehioui for the money so he could see a doctor about a heart condition and she gave the money freely, with no questions asked.

"She's known as a very charitable woman who helps poor families in her area, especially during Ramadan and at other religious festivals," Idrissi said.

Moroccan authorities say that Badr Bouziki, a 27-year-old shopkeeper, also was deeply involved with Ansar al-Mehdi and that he helped test explosives in forests near Sale, just outside the Moroccan capital, Rabat.

[...]

Mohamed Khalouki, 27, whose family lives in an outlying village of Sale, is one of five soldiers arrested in the terror sweep.

[...]

Drawn early to music, he became a drummer in the army band, traveling to Europe for concerts and shifting his ambitions to a musical career. Denied permission to quit the army, he deserted in 2005 and was captured this year, serving three months in jail, the family said.

"On the day he was supposed to get out, I went to pick him up, but he wasn't there," a brother said. Khalouki had been transferred into police custody for alleged involvement with four fellow band members in Ansar al-Mehdi.

More jihadists claiming the carrying out of sentences for serious crimes as a pretext for committing more crimes. From AFP:

SRINAGAR, India - Islamic rebels warned on Friday of "dire consequences" if India executes a Kashmiri Muslim convicted over a 2001 attack on parliament, amid a paralysing protest strike in Indian Kashmir’s main city and a third day of clashes between demonstrators and police.

The turmoil erupted in the Muslim-majority state after a New Delhi judge ordered that Mohammed Afzal, found guilty last month of helping to mastermind the attack, should be hanged on October 20.

"We warn of dire consequences if the death sentence is carried out," said Sadaqat Hussain, a spokesman for the United Jihad Council, Indian Kashmir’s main militant alliance which is battling New Delhi’s rule here.

Hussain, who said Afzal was innocent, did not make any specific threats in the statement published in local Indian Kashmiri newspapers.

Shops, businesses and schools were closed in Srinagar to protest the planned execution of Afzal.

Say we're peaceful, or we'll kill you. Robert Redeker Update: "Teacher forced into hiding after attacking Islam," from the TimesOnline, :

A philosophy teacher today described how he was forced into hiding after a newspaper article in which he attacked Islam provoked death threats against himself and his family.

Robert Redeker, 52, from Toulouse in south-west France, is receiving round-the-clock police protection and changing addresses every two days, after publishing an article describing the Koran as a "book of extraordinary violence" and Islam as "a religion which ... exalts violence and hate".

He told French media today that he had no regrets about writing the article and that it was part of his job as a philosophy teacher to ask difficult questions.

In an interview with i-TV he said that he had received several e-mail threats targeting himself and his wife and three children and that his photograph and address were available on several Islamist internet sites.

"There is a very clear map of how to get to my home, with the words: ’This pig must have his head cut off’," he said.

Another e-mail says: "You will never again be safe on this earth. One billion, 300 million Muslims are ready to kill you."

And interviewed over the telephone from a safe house by Europe 1 radio, he complained that the education ministry had left him alone and abandoned. He said the ministry "has not even contacted me, has not deigned to get in touch to see if I need any help."

He accepted that his detractors had "already won a victory of sorts."

"I cannot do my job. I have no freedom of movement. I am in hiding. Already they have succeeded in punishing me ... as if I was guilty of holding the wrong opinions."

Dominique de Villepin, the French Prime Minister, said that the threats were "unacceptable".

He said: "We are in a democracy, everyone has the right to express his views freely -- of course while respecting others. That is the only restriction that is acceptable on this freedom.

"This shows to what extent we live in a dangerous world... and how vigilant we must be to ensure people fully respect one another in our society."

The Paris state prosecutor’s office today launched a preliminary inquiry for "criminal conspiracy in relation with a terrorist enterprise", asking the intelligence agency to look into the death threats.

Gilles de Robien, the Education Minister, yesterday expressed "solidarity" with M Redeker, but also warned that "a state employee must show prudence and moderation in all circumstances".

Even when "one billion, 300 million Muslims are ready to kill" him.

Michelle Malkin has the text of Redeker's article, along with the one by German historian Egon Flaig that was banned in Egypt.

Friend and Ally Update: "ISI backs al-Qaeda: British report," from Associated Press, with thanks to F.:

London, September 28: A leaked British document accuses Pakistan's intelligence agency of indirectly supporting terrorist groups including al-Qaeda, and it calls on Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to disband the agency.

Musharraf, who is scheduled to meet British Prime Minister Tony Blair in London on Thursday, told the British Broadcasting Corp. that he rejected the assessment and would raise the matter with his counterpart.

"ISI is a disciplined force, breaking the back of al-Qaeda," Musharraf told the broadcaster, claiming his intelligence service had secured the arrests of 680 suspected terrorists.

Sure, Pervez. They started breaking the back of al-Qaeda right after Armitage threatened to bomb Pakistan back to the stone age, right?

Ramadan mubarak! Abu Hamza al-Muhajir adds to the love note just received from Al-Zawahiri. More on this tape from China Daily:

Al-Qaida's leader in Iraq called for the kidnapping of Westerners to swap for a Muslim cleric jailed in the United States, according to an Internet audio tape issued yesterday.

"I call on every holy fighter in Iraq to strive during this holy month (Ramadan)... to capture some dogs of the Christians so that we can liberate our imprisoned sheikh," said the speaker, identified as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir.

He accused US jailers of "torturing" Egyptian cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman, held over links to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York.

The speaker also called for attacks on US military camps in Iraq using "unconventional bombs such as biological and dirty bombs."

The tape's authenticity could not be verified but it was posted on major websites used by militants....

But it is the holy month, after all, and so he offers clemency for those who collaborated with the enemies of Islam:

"As for those who supported the occupiers and their agents, becoming their eyes and ears, and who betrayed their religion, honour and land for material or social gains ... I declare a general amnesty during this month of generosity and forgiveness," the speaker on the tape said.

"We waive the right to (avenge) the blood that was shed by your hands and your betrayal," he said.

Bjørn Stærk is one of the most famous bloggers in Norway. He has also come out in favor of suicide rather than political incorrectness. A Will The Last Free Person Leaving Europe Turn Out The Lights Update from Stærk's weblog (thanks to Fjordman):

Brave is sitting down calmly on a plane behind a row of suspicious-looking Arabs, ignoring your own fears, because you know those fears are irrational, and because even if there's a chance that they are terrorists, it is more important to you to preserve an open and tolerant society than to survive this trip. Brave is insisting that Arabs not be searched more carefully in airport security than anyone else, because you believe that it is more important not to discriminate against people based on their race than to keep the occasional terrorist from getting on a plane. Brave is not watching the news anxiously for hours whenever there's been an attack, or a new plot has been uncovered.

Let the jihadists do whatever they want. Don't lift a finger to resist them. This is what they're calling "bravery" in Norway.

Sharia Alert and Somali Jihad Update from News.com.au: "Somali Islamists close down media"

ISLAMIST gunmen who captured the Somali port of Kismayo have forcibly closed a private media network there which they accuse of distorting news about protests against the takeover, journalists said today.

Islamist fighters on battle-wagons turned up at HornAfrik Radio's Kismayo offices late yesterday, ordering staff to stop operations, the National Union of Somali Journalists said.

"We are strongly bothered by this show of aggression against this media house, which is a conscious attack on the freedom of the press and fundamental freedom of expression," said union secretary general Omar Faruk Osman.

[...]

... there have been anti-Islamist protests this week in Kismayo, and Somalis in general are becoming increasingly worried about signs of hardline practices by the movement, which was born out of sharia courts.

The Islamists' rise has challenged the aspirations of Somalia's western-backed interim government - based in the provincial town of Baidoa - to restore central rule to the Horn of Africa nation for the first time since 1991.

Islamist sources said HornAfrik had made false broadcasts about this week's protests in Kismayo, including reports that a boy had died and women were mistreated in the violence.

The Islamists say they are simply restoring law and order to Somalia after 15 years of anarchy since the ousting of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. They are also openly calling for mainly Muslim Somalia to be ruled by a sharia system.

The above paragraph seems to separate the aims of the jihadists to "restore law and order" and to establish Sharia law. But a decline in crime rates is only part of their larger agenda, which would impose the entirety of the Islamic social order, including the governance of minute details of individual behavior.

In a new video from the boys at Al-Qaedawood, ol' Doc Zawahiri, like his boy Adam Gadahn, prescribes conversion to Islam as the cure for what ails ya -- or else, of course. Sounds as if the Good Doctor has been reading off Howard Dean's teleprompter.

"A Video Speech from Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri: Bush, the Pope of the Vatican, Darfur, and the Crusader Wars, by as-Sahab Productions," from the SITE Institute, with thanks to Schoolraider:

As-Sahab, al-Qaeda’s multimedia production arm, issued today, Friday, September 29, 2006, a 17:51 minute video speech featuring Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri and titled: “Bush, the Pope of the Vatican, Darfur, and the Crusader Wars”. He appears in two scenes: one, subtitled in English, with an office-setup background with a lamp, flag bearing “No God, but Allah”, and a cannon; the other is without a background, and depicts Zawahiri dressed entirely in white, without subtitles.

To U.S. President George W. Bush, Zawahiri brands him a "deceitful charlation" and liar, and questions: “why don't you tell them how many million citizens of America and it's allies you intend to kill in search of the imaginary victory and in breathless pursuit of the mirage towards which you are driving your people’s sons in order to increase your profits?” He questions his motives for initating the War in Iraq, ridiculing the false prexets under which it was conducted. To this end he cites the purported links of Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda, and the presence of weapons of mass destruction. He also addresses the capture of Khalid Shaikh Muhammad and questions that if it helped in the "war on terror" then “why are your troops retreating in secrete from the south and east of Afghanistan?... Bush...be aware that the liberation of our captives is a debt on our shoulders which we must fulfill”. Other individuals who have been captured, such as Ramzi Yusef, Omar Abdul Rahman (the "Blind Sheikh") and Abu al-Faraj al-Libi are also cited.

That, I trust you understand, is a threat of violent actions to free these jailed jihadists.

Then al-Zawahiri retails some jihad recruitment pretexts:

In the Arabic portion, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri discusses the issue of the Pope Benedict XVI's slanderous comments to Islam and the Prophet Muhammad, by prefacing such attacks as beginning with the Satanic Verses of Salmon Rushdie, followed by desecration of the Qur'an at Guantanamo Bay, and banning of the hijab in French schools. He states that the current pope is reminiscent of Pope Urban II, who "provoked the people of Europe to fight the Muslims" in the Crusades. Zawahiri disregards Christinaity due to its "supersitions" and alleged irrationality, but avers that Muslims are not enemies of Jesus as Pope Urban II claimed. On the pope's comments directly, Zawahiri adds: "if Benedict attacked us, we will respond to his insults with good things. We will call upon him, and all of the Christians to become Muslims who do not recognize the Trinity or the crucifixion, and say that Allah united with the human."

What a generous offer!

SITE has made available a one-minute clip of this masterpiece.

This is, of course, a consequence of the failure to consider the nature and implications of the jihad ideology and the Sharia imperative. Democracy On The March Update from AP:

WASHINGTON - About six in 10 Iraqis say they approve of attacks on U.S.-led forces, and slightly more than that want their government to ask U.S. troops to leave within a year, according to a poll in that country.

The Iraqis also have negative views of Osama bin Laden, according to the early September poll of 1,150.

The poll, done for University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes, found:

_Almost four in five Iraqis say the U.S. military force in
Iraq provokes more violence than it prevents.

_About 61 percent approved of the attacks — up from 47 percent in January. A solid majority of Shiite and Sunni Arabs approved of the attacks, according to the poll. The increase came mostly among Shiite Iraqis.

_An overwhelmingly negative opinion of terror chief bin Laden and more than half, 57 percent, disapproving of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

_Three-fourths say they think the United States plans to keep military bases in Iraq permanently.

_A majority of Iraqis, 72 percent, say they think Iraq will be one state five years from now. Shiite Iraqis were most likely to feel that way, though a majority of Sunnis and Kurds also believed that would be the case.

The PIPA poll, which included an oversample of 150 Sunni Iraqis, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The State Department, meanwhile, has also conducted its own poll, something it does periodically, spokesman Sean McCormack said. The State Department poll found that two-thirds of Iraqis in Baghdad favor an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces, according to The Washington Post. McCormack declined to discuss details of the department's Iraq poll.

This just in from the British dhimmis who are paving the way for the Islamic Republic of Britain: "Met backs off over Muslim protests," from the Telegraph, with thanks to all who sent this in:

No criminal offences were committed in a Muslim protest over the Pope outside Westminster Cathedral, police have decided.

The Metropolitan Police has also decided not to take action against the controversial Muslim figure, Anjem Choudary, who allegedly said in a television interview about the row over the Pope that anyone who insulted the Muslim faith would be "subject to capital punishment".

Police received about 25 complaints from members of the public about the protest, which was said to have left worshippers attending the cathedral on September 17 feeling "upset" and "intimidated"....

However, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, told a meeting of his force's police authority yesterday that, after reviewing the evidence, Scotland Yard officers had concluded that "no substantive offences" were committed during the cathedral demonstration.

Sir Ian said that the cathedral authorities had expressed satisfaction with the policing of the event and added: "We are in an angry time and it is our job in the Met to hold the line on free speech."

David Davies, the shadow home secretary, who called for action to be taken against Mr Choudary, said: "It is quite disgraceful. It sends out a message to Muslim extremists that we, as a country, do not have the moral courage to stand up to them."

Right you are, Davies.

Holding-Political-Power-Will-Exert-A-Moderating-Influence-On-Hamas Update: "Hamas rally in Gaza draws tens of thousands, denounces Israel," from Reuters, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Tens of thousands of Hamas supporters held a peaceful rally in Gaza on Friday to denounce the state of Israel and declare that they would never recognize its right to exist.

"We ask God to punish the so-called Israel and the allies of Israel and to punish those who recognize Israel and those who called on us to recognize Israel," Hamas lawmaker Mushir al-Masri told the crowd that thronged the Jabalya refugee camp.

"We vow to God that we will never recognise Israel even if we would be all killed," Masri told the cheering audience of men, women and children, many of whom were wearing green Hamas baseball caps and held aloft Hamas banners.

Masri, a popular young lawmaker, also aimed criticism at Fatah, a rival movement headed by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, saying it was trying to pressure Hamas, which now runs the Palestinian government, into recognizing Israel.

"Those people are demanding us openly to recognize the occupation and that will never happen," Masri said.

Islamic Tolerance Alert from Compass Direct:

September 28 (Compass Direct News) – Born on June 18 to a Christian family in northern Azerbaijan, three-month-old Ilya Eyvazov still has no official name.

Local authorities in the town of Aliabad at first refused to issue a birth certificate when the baby’s father, Novruz Eyvazov, tried to register his son’s birth on June 21.

“Impossible,” city administration officials told Novruz Eyvazov when they saw his son’s name was the Russian form of Elijah.

“They said it was because it was a Christian name,” said the Baptist church member....

But an official in the regional registration office in Zaqatala said that Baptists in Aliabad were facing difficulties because their attempt to take non-Azeri names was part of a plot to cede Zaqatala to neighboring Georgia.

“I have a letter here with the signatures of 3,000 residents of Aliabad, sent to the president and the European Council, complaining that they [Baptists] want to make [Aliabad’s residents] Georgians,” Aybeniz Kalashova told Compass.

“The letter says, ‘They [Baptists] want to change our names, make us Georgian and then claim that this area is part of southern Georgia.’ Why have they become Christians and started serving a foreign country?”...

The majority of Aliabad’s residents belong to the ethnically Georgian Ingilo minority who converted to Islam several centuries ago....

Without a birth certificate it is impossible for an Azeri to receive medical care, go to school or travel abroad. It is not yet clear what practical problems Ilya Eyvazov will face if his official I.D. carries no name....

Soltanov, who had been instrumental in securing a birth certificate for Luka Eyvazov, was skeptical of the Eyvazovs’ motives for giving their children foreign names.

“Why is it that Novruz wants to give his sons foreign names?” Soltanov asked Compass, continuing speculations, initially made to Forum 18, that the Christian family was being forced to choose the foreign names by “some religious sect.”

Zaur Balayev, pastor of Aliabad’s first Baptist church formed in 1993, told Compass that he knows at least five families from his congregation that have faced opposition from local officials in giving their children Christian names....

Pastor Shabanov told Compass that members of his congregation are constantly being called in to the police station to answer questions about their worship activities.

“They can’t actually keep us from worshipping, but they do everything they can to scare away people who are interested in attending our services,” Shabanov said. He told Compass that new converts to Christianity were often told to return to Islam or their relatives would lose their jobs....

“No one in the whole world recognizes the Baptists,” Kalashova of Zaqatala’s registration office commented to Compass. “They are Muslims who converted to Christianity and received help from foreigners. They don’t intermarry or have relations with [people outside their group].”

Azeri churches outside of the capital city of Baku have found it difficult to register with the government, a move that would in theory allow them to worship with minimal government interference.

Warith Deen Umar Update from AP, :

NEW YORK (AP) -- The former head Islamic chaplain for the state prison system was sentenced Thursday to a year of home detention by a judge who said he deserved leniency on a gun charge after decades of achievements that followed childhood poverty.

Warith Deen Umar will be permitted to leave home for work, medical care and religious services, Judge Robert P. Patterson said.

Earlier this year, Umar, 62, pleaded guilty to a gun charge after admitting he waved an empty shotgun at an angry tenant who struck him at a Bronx building he owns. He also owned a .22-caliber rifle and four shotgun shells.

The government charged Umar with gun possession, saying he was not allowed to have one because he had been convicted in 1971 of possession of a dangerous weapon.

The judge rejected efforts by the government to get him to take into consideration a published report that quoted Umar as saying in an unpublished memoir that even Muslims who say they are against terrorism secretly admire and applaud the Sept. 11 hijackers.

That would be this Wall Street Journal piece (subscribers only). Prison officials took it seriously enough to ban him from the prison system:

Umar was banned from state prisons shortly after the article was published in 2003 despite his assertion that his comments were taken out of context and that he never said the terrorists were martyrs or honored them.

The judge said he considered the article and two others cited by prosecutors "unreliable for sentencing purposes."...

He said he was shunned by many in his religious community after a false report that he had sympathized with Sept. 11 hijackers. He said one New York mosque has permanently banned him.

Good for them.

He said he had been comforted by neighbors around his home in Glenmont, N.Y., near Albany, where he said a mostly white group of people including Christians, Jews and gays came to his defense.

"These are Americans," he said....

Yes, probably. And besotted dhimmi fellow travelers also, probably.

Umar has said he believes "they are persecuting me because I'm Muslim and I'm black and I speak out and because I was the Muslim chaplain in the state prison system for 25 years."...

Get real, Umar. Being Muslim and black, if you were an outspoken anti-jihadist, would get you front-page, above the fold coverage, plus seats on all the pseudo-fearless conservative talking head shows. There is nothing that American officials and media want to find more than an outspoken, passionate, articulate moderate Muslim. If you were one, you'd be everyone's hero.

The judge told Umar that some Christians and others in the United States had trouble understanding how some Muslims could interpret the Quran in a way to permit people to blow themselves up in Afghanistan and Iraq in an effort to kill others.

"I happen to be Christian," the judge said. "That's very difficult for me to understand."

Well, judge, why don't you explain to us how you think Muslims should interpret the Qur'an? Here is another non-Muslim lecturing a Muslim about how to understand a book that he probably hasn't actually even read.

Jihad in Israel continues. From Reuters, :

A SUSPECTED car bomb exploded in a town south of the coastal city of Tel Aviv today, killing at least one person and wounding up to six others, Israeli rescue and ambulance services said.

And from AFP: Israel seals Palestinian territories for Yom Kippur

As Yom Kippur falls during Ramadan this year, that is a prudent move.

Apparently not all Somalis are thrilled with the Talibanization of Somalia, even if the mujahedin do make the trains run on time. From the Mail & Guardian, with thanks to DFS:

Islamic fighters opened fire on stone-throwing demonstrators in a key Somali seaport on Thursday, in a third day of protests over their seizure of the town. No casualties were reported.

Seven women were arrested by the Islamic militia after they joined demonstrations that have erupted in Kismayo, Somalia's third largest town, residents told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

The stone-throwing crowds chanted that the fighters "are not Muslims" and "use Islam as a cover".

The Islamic militia has swept through southern Somalia since taking over the capital in June. Its strict and often severe interpretation of Islam raises the spectre of Afghanistan's ousted Taliban militia, and contrasts with the moderate Islam that has dominated Somali culture for centuries. Some Somalis, though, have welcomed the order the militia have brought after years of anarchic clan rule.

In Kismayo on Thursday, demonstrators, most of them women and children, blocked roads with trees and rocks to prevent Islamic militia using their armoured trucks, many of which were flying the black flags associated with Islamic extremism, to break up the protests.

Iran's "long-term influence is bound to wane." Among Iraqi Shi'ites? Really? Why?

And of course they don't want a "destabilized Iraq." They want a Shi'ite client state in Iraq, and they're doing all they can to establish one.

From DefenseNews.com, with thanks to DFS:

Iran is funneling weapons and cash to buy the loyalty of armed groups in Iraq, but its long- term influence is bound to wane as Iraqis focus more on their own interests, a senior U.S. military official said.

The United States and Britain have in the past accused Iran of fostering violence in Iraq. The Islamic Republic denies it.

But the official gave far more detail, and said the latest weapons finds -- including explosives bearing factory stamps indicating they come from Iran -- show that the policy of arming Iraqi militia is supported at high levels in Iran and not the work of rogue Iranian operatives.

"You see them enabling all comers," he said. "And by the way, nobody in this country stays bought. You’re rented."

The senior military official was discussing intelligence issues under condition he not be named, in a briefing with journalists in Baghdad on Sept. 27, the transcript of which was made available on Sept. 28.
He estimated that Iran has sent "millions of dollars" to the Mehdi Army militia of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, including rogue elements that had slipped out of Sadr’s direct control.

Iranian weapons found in Iraq include surface-to-air missiles and anti-tank rockets like those used by Hizbollah in Lebanon against Israel, as well as tank-destroying Explosively Formed Projectiles (EFPs) that have become common in roadside bombs used to attack U.S. and British troops....

But the official said parties seen as pro-Iranian were already falling behind in Iraq, losing ground to groups like Sadr’s who portray themselves more as Iraqi nationalists.

"For them to function effectively inside Iraq, they have to make a decision to be Iraqi," he said.

"Iran only has a window of opportunity to influence Iraq before Iraq -- and its natural tendencies as both an Arab state and one who’s got a whole series of friction points with the Islamic Republic -- will start to take over."

He said Iran had fomented violence in Iraq, especially places like Basra in the south, but this could be counter productive because of mainly ethnic-Persian Iran’s own worries about unrest among its Arab and Kurdish minorities.

"It’s not in their best interest to have a destabilized Iraq, because guess what? There are Arabs in the south (of Iran) and Kurds in the north that pose significant challenges to Iranian internal stability," he said.

"But nonetheless, they’re not sure who is going to come out on top. And so basically they fund everybody."

Pakistan's "peace agreement" with the Taliban is quickly yielding predictable results. From AP:

KABUL, Afghanistan - American troops on Afghanistan's eastern frontier have seen a tripling of attacks since a truce between the Pakistani army and pro-Taliban tribesmen that was supposed to stop cross-border raids by militants, a U.S. military officer said Wednesday.

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry rejected the U.S. claim and said home-based insurgents were behind the violence in Afghanistan, where at least 25 militants were reported killed in fighting Wednesday.

Raising further questions about the cease-fire, a Pakistani political leader maintained Taliban leader Mullah Omar approved the deal. A government official denied that.

The developments could add to the feuding between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who were having dinner Wednesday night with President Bush at the White House to try to patch up their dispute over how to quell Islamic extremists.

The U.S. officer said the cease-fire that began June 25, cemented by the signing of a peace accord Sept. 5, contributed to the Taliban's resurgence in Afghanistan. He said ethnic Pashtun insurgents are no longer fighting Pakistani troops and are using Pakistan's North Waziristan border area as a command-and-control hub for attacks in Afghanistan.

Pakistani tribal elders brokered the truce between Musharraf's government and militants, which ended years of unrest in the tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

But the agreement appears to have bolstered Taliban infiltrators, with the number of attacks in eastern Afghan provinces rising threefold since July 31, said the U.S. officer, who agreed to discuss the situation only if not quoted by name due to the sensitivity of the issue.

"That's why they had the chance to rest and refit, because they were in a sanctuary," he said, referring to a surge in Taliban attacks over the last several months without giving specific numbers for incidents before or after the truce.

[...]

Meanwhile, Latif Afridi, a top official in Pakistan's Awami National Party, said he received a letter containing Taliban leader Mullah Omar's approval of the North Waziristan peace deal.

He said the letter also claimed Pakistani militants who back the Taliban in North Waziristan would fall under the command of Jalaluddin Haqqani, a front-line Taliban commander.

[...]

The U.S. officer said the Taliban's connections with Pakistan run so deep that wounded fighters seek treatment on the Pakistani side of the border and even carry their dead to Pakistan for burial.

Some of the suicide bombers in Afghanistan have been recruited in Pakistan, including a 17-year-old boy who blew himself up in front of a U.S. military convoy in Kabul this month, killing a bystander and wounding three American soldiers, Afghan police say.

Better dying through chemistry. From AP: "Iraq terrorist calls scientists to jihad"

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Al-Qaida in Iraq's leader, in a chilling audiotape released Thursday, called for nuclear scientists to join his group's holy war and urged insurgents to kidnap Westerners so they could be traded for a blind Egyptian sheik who is in a U.S. prison.

The fugitive terror chief said experts in the fields of "chemistry, physics, electronics, media and all other sciences -- especially nuclear scientists and explosives experts" should join his group's jihad, or holy war, against the West.

"We are in dire need of you," said the speaker, who identified himself as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir -- also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri. "The field of jihad can satisfy your scientific ambitions, and the large American bases (in Iraq) are good places to test your unconventional weapons, whether biological or dirty, as they call them."

The 20-minute audio was posted to a Web site that frequently airs al-Qaida messages. The voice could not be independently identified, but it was thought to be al-Masri's. He is believed to have succeeded Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who died in a U.S. airstrike north of Baghdad in June, as head of the al-Qaida-linked organization.

Thursday's message focused attention on Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, an Egyptian cleric who was convicted in 1995 of seditious conspiracy for his advisory role in a plot to blow up five New York City landmarks, including the United Nations.

Barghouti isn't the only one scheming about prisoner swaps:

"I appeal to every holy warrior in the land of Iraq to exert all efforts in this holy month so that God may enable us to capture some of the Western dogs to swap them with our sheik and get him out of his dark prison," said al-Masri, who is also Egyptian.

He also said more than 4,000 foreign militants have been killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 -- the first known statement from the insurgents about their death toll.

It was unclear why al-Masri would advertise the loss of the group's foreign fighters, but martyrdom is revered among Islamic fundamentalists, and could be used as a recruiting tool. Analysts said the announcement was likely a boast aimed at drumming up support.

"It's showing the level of dedication to their cause, the level of sacrifice jihadists are making," said Ben N. Venzke, director of the Washington-based IntelCenter, which monitors terrorism communications.

"In a strange kind of way, it's almost showing a sense of strength and purpose in their cause to other people around world who might be thinking about joining the fight," Venzke said in a telephone interview.

The statement followed the release of a U.N. report Wednesday that said fewer foreign fighters have been killed or captured in Iraq in the last few months, "suggesting that the flow has slackened." The report also said some fighters had expressed dissatisfaction they were asked to kill fellow Muslims rather than Western soldiers and that the only role for them was to be suicide bombers.

Still, the report said al-Qaida "has gained by continuing to play a central role in the fighting and in encouraging the growth of sectarian violence; and Iraq has provided many recruits and an excellent training ground."

Paul Belien of the Brussels Journal has kindly alerted us to some alarming developments in Belgium: "Third Night of Ramadan Rioting in Capital of Europe" (many news links in the original):

It looks as if immigrants youths want to turn nightly rioting during the Islamic holy month of ramadan into an annual tradition. Around 8:30pm last night violence erupted again in Brussels, the capital of Europe. The riots centered on the Brussels Marollen quarter and the area near the Midi Train Station, where the international trains from London and Paris arrive. Youths threw stones at passing people and cars, windows of parked cars were smashed, bus shelters were demolished, cars were set ablaze, a youth club was arsoned and a shop was looted. Two molotov cocktails were thrown into St.Peter’s hospital, one of the main hospitals of central Brussels. The fire brigade was able to extinguish the fires at the hospital, but youths managed to steal the keys of the fire engine.

During the month of ramadan Muslims are required to fast during the day and are only allowed to eat after sunset. As Esther pointed out “What should be noticed about the riots is that they start after sunset. Besides the fact that they start after dark, it also gives the rioters enough time to break their fast and enjoy the traditional family meal. Sunset is around 7:30pm.” Tuesday’s and Monday’s riots began around 8:30pm.

He "accused Islam of 'exalting violence,'" and they threaten to kill him. Doesn't anyone notice the irony here?

From AFP, with thanks to Fjordman:

SAINT-ORENS-DE-GAMEVILLE, France, Sept 28, 2006 (AFP) — A French philosophy teacher was under police protection Thursday after receiving death threats over an article he wrote in a national newspaper that accused Islam of "exalting violence", school and police officials said.

Robert Redeker has not attended classes at his secondary school near Toulouse in southern France since September 19, when his opinion column appeared in the right-wing daily Le Figaro.

"He received written death threats in the form of emails. On the face of it they were pretty serious," said the lycée's headmaster Pierre Donnadieu.

Police confirmed the threat but refused to comment on the protection Redeker is receiving.

Under the heading "In the face of Islamist intimidation, what must the free world do?", Redeker described the Koran as a "book of extraordinary violence" and Islam as "a religion which ... exalts violence and hate".

Likening Islam to Communism, he said that "violence and intimidation are the methods used by an expansionist ideology ... to impose its leaden cloak on the world".

"In the face of Islamist intimidation, what must the free world do?" Above all, not give in. Not stop speaking the truth. The fact that for all too many Muslims "violence and intimidation" are indeed the methods by which they impose their will has been proven again by the threats to Redeker. The way to respond to intimidation is not to allow oneself to be intimidated.

And Muslims who proclaim their moderation should make it clear that they reject all this, whether directed against the Pope, or Redeker, or Salman Rushdie, or anyone else. They should work against the beliefs and assumptions within the Islamic community that lead to this kind of intimidation. Or if they don't, then rational observers will have every reason to suspect the sincerity of their moderation.

After retailing nonsense since 9/11 about how all this jihad terrorism has nothing to do with Islam, someone in the Pentagon actually took a look at the Qur'an itself, and -- lo and behold! -- discovered what I have been trying to tell people for years now: that the jihadists have a broad justification within the Qur'an and Islamic theology and law, and that fact has to be confronted by both Muslims and non-Muslims if anything effective is ever going to be done about it. "Suicide bombers follow Quran, concludes Pentagon briefing: Tasked with pinpointing motivation, analysts find terrorists 'rational actors' following 'holy book,'" from WND, with thanks to all who sent this in:

With suicide bombings spreading from Iraq to Afghanistan, the Pentagon has tasked intelligence analysts to pinpoint what's driving Muslim after Muslim to do the unthinkable.

Their preliminary finding is politically explosive: it's their "holy book" the Quran after all, according to intelligence briefings obtained by WND.

In public, the U.S. government has made an effort to avoid linking the terrorist threat to Islam and the Quran while dismissing suicide terrorists as crazed heretics who pervert Islamic teachings.

"The terrorists distort the idea of jihad into a call for violence and murder," the White House maintains in its recently released "National Strategy for Combating Terrorism" report.

But internal Pentagon briefings show intelligence analysts have reached a wholly different conclusion after studying Islamic scripture and the backgrounds of suicide terrorists. They've found that most Muslim suicide bombers are in fact students of the Quran who are motivated by its violent commands – making them, as strange as it sounds to the West, "rational actors" on the Islamic stage.

In Islam, it is not how one lives one's life that guarantees spiritual salvation, but how one dies, according to the briefings. There are great advantages to becoming a martyr. Dying while fighting the infidels in the cause of Allah reserves a special place and honor in Paradise. And it earns special favor with Allah.

"Suicide in defense of Islam is permitted, and the Islamic suicide bomber is, in the main, a rational actor," concludes a recent Pentagon briefing paper titled, "Motivations of Muslim Suicide Bombers."

Suicide for Allah a 'win-win'

"His actions provide a win-win scenario for himself, his family, his faith and his God," the document explains. "The bomber secures salvation and the pleasures of Paradise. He earns a degree of financial security and a place for his family in Paradise. He defends his faith and takes his place in a long line of martyrs to be memorialized as a valorous fighter.

"And finally, because of the manner of his death, he is assured that he will find favor with Allah," the briefing adds. "Against these considerations, the selfless sacrifice by the individual Muslim to destroy Islam's enemies becomes a suitable, feasible and acceptable course of action."

The briefing – produced by a little-known Pentagon intelligence unit called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA – cites a number of passages from the Quran dealing with jihad, or "holy" warfare, martyrdom and Paradise, where "beautiful mansions" and "maidens" await martyr heroes. In preparation for attacks, suicide terrorists typically recite passages from six surahs, or chapters, of the Quran: Baqura (Surah 2), Al Imran (3), Anfal (8), Tawba (9), Rahman (55) and Asr (103).

Particularly 9:111, which guarantees Paradise to those who "kill and are killed" for Allah.

At Hot Air today I am talking about Pope Rage on a new videoblog.

Jihad Watch will henceforth be a weekly feature at Hot Air.

Dean Esmay is at it again, ranting and raving in yet another Ralph-Peters-esque (credit Michelle Malkin with the phrase) substanceless hit-and-run attack, this time on Michelle herself -- plus a few swipes at Jihad Watch, Little Green Footballs and the Jawa Report in his comments fields.

I wouldn't have noted it at all except that his initial sally was linked at Instapundit, which demonstrates that despite all of Esmay's frothing hysteria and foaming-at-the-mouth slanders and distortions, some people evidently still take him seriously. How anyone could possibly do so after his foul-mouthed raging in the comments that Michelle Malkin links to is a mystery to me.

Bryan Preston and Michelle Malkin respond cogently.

You can read the whole sorry history of Esmay's frenzied attacks on me and my responses here, here, here, here, here, and here.

From Memri a two-fer: not only Jack Sparrow but also Tom and Jerry. Who knew?

"In any event, Zionism is not restricted to the capitalistic weapons companies, such as Lockheed and the banks that support it. Cinema is considered another, subtle, weapon in the hands of those who support this corrupt ideology. In Hollywood, Disney is the manufacturer of this weapon, and Pirates of the Caribbean is its newest ammunition.

"Watch Schindler's List. Every Jew was forced to wear a yellow star on his clothing. The Jews were degraded and termed 'dirty mice.' Tom and Jerry was made in order to change the Europeans' perception of mice. One of terms used was 'dirty mice.'

"I'd like to tell you that... It should be noted that mice are very cunning...and dirty."

[...]

"No ethnic group or people operates in such a clandestine manner as the Jews."

[...]

"Read the history of the Jews in Europe. This ultimately led to Hitler's hatred and resentment. As it turns out, Hitler had behind-the-scene connections with the Protocols [of the Elders of Zion]."

"Tom and Jerry was made in order to display the exact opposite image. If you happen to watch this cartoon tomorrow, bear in mind the points I have just raised, and watch it from this perspective. The mouse is very clever and smart. Everything he does is so cute. He kicks the poor cat's ass. Yet this cruelty does not make you despise the mouse. He looks so nice, and he is so clever... This is exactly why some say it was meant to erase this image of mice from the minds of European children, and to show that the mouse is not dirty and has these traits.

Last night some one sent in this and this.

For people who are not very prominent, Wikipedia biographies can be an "attractive nuisance". It says, to every troll, vandal, and score-settler: "Here's an article about a person where you can, with no accountability whatsoever, write any libel, defamation, or smear. It won't be a marginal comment with the social status of an inconsequential rant, but rather will be made prominent about the person, and reputation-laundered with the institutional status of an encyclopedia."

Where living people are concerned, there is a cost-shifting aspect: instead of falling on Wikipedia's poor quality control, any negative effects are usually borne by the aggrieved party, except in the very rare case where he or she has enough power to publicise Wikipedia's failings.

It also allows those who don't like history to rewrite it. Look at the link above on "Khaybar, Khaybar!" Wouldn't it be useful to know what Khaybar means?

An update on this story from the Washington Times:

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Indonesian Christians, deeply troubled by the executions of three Christians last week, say they are watching closely to see whether the government will be equally firm in dealing with three Muslims facing the ultimate sanction for their roles in the 2002 Bali bombings.

[...]

The three executed men had participated in a May 2000 attack on a Muslim school that left 191 persons dead, propelling a slumbering conflict between Christians and Muslims on the lush spice island of Sulawesi into open war.

But Christians, who make up about 8 percent of the population, say the courts have been less aggressive in prosecuting Muslims for similar attacks, noting that only a handful have been convicted and none has been sentenced to more than 15 years in prison.

"Another question is why these three farmers were sentenced to death and were executed, while the real culprits responsible are still alive," said Regina Astuti, a lawyer with the Legal Aid and Human Rights Association.

"Mr. Tibo named 16 former military and police officers he considered responsible for killing Muslims. These people were never called to the witness stand."

Christian pressure groups now are focusing their attention on three Muslims -- Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, Mukhlas Samudra and Imam Samudra -- who have been sentenced to death for the Oct. 12, 2002, bombings in Bali, which killed 202 persons.

The last deadline for their execution passed without comment, and a new date is unlikely to be set while a defense request for a new trial is pending.

"The first question is trying to find an answer about the death penalty in Indonesia in general terms, and more broadly, about justice in this country," said Dewi Sularca, a consultant with a European nongovernmental organization.

Dozens of men were arrested and tried for the Bali bombings, most receiving sentences of up to 30 years. But some received amnesties on the national holiday six weeks ago, causing anger in Australia, home to 88 of the victims.

Canberra was also upset because the pardons and reduced sentences did not extend to Australians and other foreigners in Indonesia's prisons. Four young Australian drug dealers have been sentenced to face a firing squad.

Azyumardi Azra, rector of the Islamic University of Jakarta, argues that the Sulawesi and Bali cases should not be linked.

"In the case of the Christians executed in Sulawesi, religious sentiments were very strong," he said. "That was not and is not the case in the Bali trials. There are no Islamic groups defending the authors of the Bali slaughter."

Azra's comments bring to mind Abu Bakar Bashir, who called the attacks "Allah's will," and was allowed to walk free after serving a ridiculously short sentence for his role in the conspiracy.

In a television interview, Vice President Jusuf Kalla also said last week's executions had no religious dimension. "They were the result of our judicial system," he said. "This is the way we work in Indonesia."

Yes. That's the problem.

Blaming the victim, Barghouti claims the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers -- which sparked the month-long war with Hizballah and escalated operations in the Gaza Strip -- is Israel's fault for not releasing its Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners. Of course, Barghouti has a vested interest in this, as he sits in an Israeli prison serving five life sentences for the deaths of four Israelis and a Greek monk. From YNet News: "Barghouti: More kidnappings if top prisoners not freed"

If senior Palestinian security prisoners are not released as part of the prisoner swap deal to free kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, more kidnappings will likely ensue, jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti said.

Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison, expressed this view during a one-and-a-half hour meeting Wednesday with MK Taleb El-Sana at the prison's visiting quarters. In addition to Shalit’s release, the two discussed the pending PA unity government and the implications of the war in Lebanon.

El-Sana said he came away with the impression that Barghouti was in heightened spirits and that he was familiar with the smallest details of the political realities in both Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

According to El-Sana, during their conversation Barghouti charged Israel with responsibility for the kidnappings. If Israel had agreed to free Samir Kuntar, the kidnappings in Lebanon could have been avoided, and Israel’s release of Palestinian prisoners would have not only prevented the snatching of Shalit, but also strengthened Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' leadership.

Samir Kuntar (whom Palestinian Authority media has called a "beacon of light") is serving multiple life sentences for killing an Israeli father and his two daughters in 1979. Barghouti would like this, and his own crimes, swept under the rug, lest the Palestinians kidnap more Israelis to use as bargaining chips for their release.

Barghouti added, "Just as Gilad Shalit is important to his family and country, so is every Palestinian prisoner."

It has already been proven that the prisoners are the true leaders of the Palestinian people, he declared, as only they could draft the list of principles which became a basis of unity for the Palestinians, and came to be known as the ‘Prisoners’ Document.’

He noted that any step towards a prisoner swap deal must be approved by the prisoners themselves, and therefore if the deal doesn’t include senior detainees -- it will only invite additional kidnappings.

Not content with simply buying influence in world media, which could take a while, the Organization of the Islamic Conference has decided to reconstitute two of its news outlets, which will no doubt bring you the human interest stories behind the effigy burnings, showcase the latest fashion in niqabs, and, yes, blame Israel and the West for all the world's problems. One question remains: Will they lure away the in-house talent at Hizballah's al-Manar? From AP:

KUALA LUMPUR - The world’s largest Islamic grouping would revive two Saudi Arabia-based news organisations to counter Western media’s "skewered view" of Islam, a Malaysian official said on Wednesday.

The 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference, or OIC, would restart the International Islamic News Agency and the Islamic States Broadcasting Organization -- both set up in the 1970s, Malaysia’s deputy Information Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamid said.

Malaysia is the current chairman of the OIC.

"We want to revive it," Zahid said, adding the Saudi information minister has asked Malaysia to head the task.

It wasn’t clear how long or why the two organizations -- which would provide text and video -- have been dormant. Zahid didn’t provide details.

"The negative view of Islamic countries must change. The foreign media often has a bias against us," he said. "They have a skewered view."

No starting date or costs were provided.

Muslim nations, including Malaysia, have said media coverage by Western news organizations, particularly in the Middle East, is lopsided and portrays a negative view of Islam.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar, after a tour of Lebanon, recently complained images and stories displayed a bias toward Israel.

Zahid said Malaysia has offered to set up a center for journalists from Islamic countries, which would be funded by the OIC, the world’s largest political grouping of Muslim nations.

No doubt because of the Zionist occupation of Palestine.
From NEWS.com.au:

In one attack, two teenagers in Islamic students' dress and riding a motorcycle, shot and killed three Buddhists in Yala, the capital of a province of the same name.

“The militants exploited the fact that the men were shopping at a grocery store and could not defend themselves, even though they had a gun,” police Colonel Somsak Wannawak said.

The fourth man was shot while riding a bus.
Do you think we will hear that the attackers suffer from Buddhiphobia?

Anti-dhimmitude in Germany. The idea of needing to censor Mozart may well be a breaking point in German tolerance of the creeping Islamicization of their country. From Reuters:

BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Germans on Wednesday not to bow to fears of Islamic violence after a Berlin opera house canceled a Mozart work over concerns some scenes could enrage Muslims and pose a security risk.

"I think the cancellation was a mistake. I think self-censorship does not help us against people who want to practice violence in the name of Islam," she told reporters. "It makes no sense to retreat."

Merkel's comments, which echoed those of other senior German politicians, fueled a row over the cancellation of Mozart's "Idomeneo" which overshadowed a government-sponsored conference to promote dialogue with the country's 3.2 million Muslims.

Berlin's Deutsche Oper said on Monday it had pulled performances of the opera, which shows the severed heads of the Prophet Mohammad, Buddha and Jesus, after police warned that it could pose an "incalculable" security risk.

Why did Hizballah News Agency, aka Reuters, only give Muhammad an honorific title?

The row comes two weeks after Pope Benedict enraged some Muslims by quoting from a medieval text linking the spread of the Islamic faith to violence. Last year's publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in a Danish newspaper triggered violent Muslim protests.

Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told reporters after the conference the participants were united in their call for the opera to restart performances of "Idomeneo."

"I am glad that we all agreed we would like the production to resume," Schaeuble, who has no authority over the opera house, told reporters after the conference. "To send a signal, we could all go to the performance together," he said.

While both items from Palestinian media mentioned below occurred before Pope Benedict's meeting with Muslim envoys, no one seems to be in a hurry to apologize either for the cartoon or the content of the sermon following that meeting, which was clearly not enough for those who would demand the Pope grovel for forgiveness like a proper dhimmi, or convert to Islam. From YNet News:

Pope Benedict XVI is "arrogant," "stupid," and "criminal," and will be judged by Allah on the day "when eyes will stare in terror," declared a sermon delivered this past weekend on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' state-run television station.

The sermon coincided with a cartoon also published this weekend in an official Hamas-run daily newspaper in which the pontiff is depicted holding a swastika while wearing a scarf of American and Danish flags.

The cartoon, published by the Hamas paper Al-Risala ("the message"), can be found here at Palestinian Media Watch. Will Al-Risala's publishers be disappointed when Catholics don't riot, engage in shootings and bombings, and call for the conversion or death of Ismail Haniyeh?

"To this arrogant Pope -- criminal and arrogant -- this message is from Allah the Elevated and the Exalted, as it was said: 'Think not that Allah is unaware of what the wicked do. He but gives them a respite until a day when eyes will stare (in terror),'" stated Gaza preacher Osama Al-Mazini in a sermon broadcast by the official television station of Abbas' Fatah party.

"For this ignorant and stupid pope, who has no one to attack besides Islam and the prophet (Muhammad) ... (the pope) characterized Islam as a cruel religion and characterized Muhammad, may the Creator have mercy on him and protect him, as a cruel man, spilling blood, who strove to kill," Al-Mazini said in the sermon, which was translated by Palestinian Media Watch.

An answer from Sheik Abu Saqer, "leader of Gaza's Jihadia Salafiya Islamic outreach movement," to the Pope's invitation to Muslims to dialogue: "Pope in 'Crusader conspiracy' with Bush," from WorldNetDaily.com, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

JERUSALEM – Pope Benedict XVI's meeting this week with a delegation of Muslim leaders and his calls for interfaith dialogue following earlier remarks about Islam are really "Crusader conspiracies" to subjugate the Islamic faith and force "Christian-Zionist" worldviews upon Muslims, a prominent Gaza Strip preacher told WorldNetDaily in an interview.

Sheik Abu Saqer, leader of Gaza's Jihadia Salafiya Islamic outreach movement, which seeks to make secular Muslims more religious, called the pope a "puppet" for "that Crusader George Bush."

The Gaza imam said the only Christian-Muslim dialogue that is acceptable is one in which "all religions agree to convert to Islam."

"The call for so-called dialogue by this little racist pope is a Trojan horse with the main goal of reaching a new system in which the ideals [of Christianity] are a new ideology that will rule relations between nations and people. The dialogue he wants is dangerous," said Abu Saqer, speaking to WND from the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis.

"The pope is the spiritual and religious wing of the Crusader ideology," Abu Saqer said. "He is totally coordinated with Bush. Through this dialogue he hopes to break the lines of unity between Muslims and polarize the Muslim world, which has some partisans who will accept this new dialogue. But true believers know Islam must rule all relations. The only dialogue we will accept is when all other religions agree to convert to Islam."...

In an interview with WND last week, Abu Saqer called for holy war against the pope. He declared the "green flag of Muhammad" would soon be raised over the Vatican.

"We did not need the words of the pope in order to understand that this is a Crusader war against Islam and it is our holy duty to fight all those who support the pope, who follow him and who did not condemn what this small racist had to say," said Abu Saqer.

Pakistan has a nuclear program based on the thefts of secrets by "Dr." A. Q. Khan, national hero of Pakistan, and willing sharer -- a Secret Sharer -- of such secrets with Iran and North Korea. Pakistan has been the incubator and promoter and supporter of the Taliban, the same Pakistan that has just announced plans to make 40-50 nuclear weapons a year.

Pakistan is a land of impoverished masses who find their solace in Islam and only Islam, while the anglophone families of zamindars and generals are hardly Muslims in their own lives. Their children enjoy English and American universities. Some of those children -- such as the son of the untrustworthy, but bearing-the-allure-of-rectitude Musharraf -- choose to remain (and why not? You would too), making their permanent lives in the Infidel West. (Did Musharraf himself pass out from the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurt, like so many of those "trustworthy" and "pro-Western" Terry-Thomas-mustachioed Pakistani generals who for decades won the heart of American geneals and civilian policymakers?) It is understandable that military men stay in Pakistan, for if you are not a zamindar, it is the best way to obtain power and money, but your children may head geographically Infidel-wards. English is not a problem. Musharraf’s son, when last he was in the news, was working as an accountant in Massachusetts.

Tariq Ramadan has once again been disallowed entry into the United States.

Who will translate into English "Frere Tariq" by Catherine Fourest, which tells you all you need to know? Now that Ramadan has been exposed in France, both through his televised debates and through articles and books by no-nonsense people who set out his sinister taqiyya-and-tu-quoque, he had to get out of the French-speaking arena. His contract was not renewed at the University of Geneva. It was time to head to the English-speaking-world, where Fourest and others were not read, and he could start anew.

Some American TV channel would do well to obtain footage of Tariq Ramadan's two televised debates, one with Nicolas Sarkozy, and the other with Alain Finkielkraut. It would be well worth dubbing and showing both, and showing them again. Sarkozy dismembered him; Finkielkraut made mincemeat of what remained. A sight to see. It does not take much; he is such an obvious, even if soft-spoken and sly practitioner of taqiyya (he told a radio questioner once who dared to mention "taqiyya" -- Ramadan was startled at hearing the word, but knew he could not deny the practice outright -- that "taqiyya" is limited to Shi'a; we were given to understand that, therefore, Sunnis never ever lie about Islam, they just don't have it in them, and Ramadan is Sunni, so no need to worry). He is also a master of tu-quoque, omission, and stony silence. One has to be as willing to be fooled, as are the Scott Applebys (of the Kroc Center, would-be eager benefactor of Tariq Ramadan) of this world, to fall for a Tariq-Ramadan. That doesn't mean that various NPR talk-show hosts and others won't do so, for foolishness is in fashion. But it takes some doing.

Illuminating information from Rachel Ehrenfeld, who provides more information here:

The Department of Homeland Security had revoked Ramadan's visa on July 28, 2004 under the Immigration and Nationality Act. The grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hasan al-Banna was barred entry to the U.S. amid press speculation that the action involved a clause covering persons with a "position of prominence within any country to endorse or espouse terrorist activity," or who have "potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States." Indeed, Ramadan who claims to be a moderate Muslim and a reformer, added his voice to Pope Benedict XVI's critics for "inviting the peoples of the continent [Europe] to become aware of the central, inescapable Christian character of their identity, which they risk losing." Ramadan sees the Pope's message "deeply troubling and potentially dangerous in its reductionism."

The U.S. gave no specifics for its 2004 revocation, but Ramadan's activities, lectures and writings in support of the Islamist agenda were presumed the obvious cause. ..........

On December 8, 2005, the French prosecution of Chechen terror network chief Menad Benchellali revealed evidence of Ramadan's links to terrorists in Europe. Benchellali had traveled to Switzerland "one or two times in 2000, to attend conferences on Islam provided by Tariq Ramadan." Benchellali, who later planned chemical attacks in France "under the supervision of Abu Musab Al Zarqawi," in June 2006 was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Earlier, in March 2005, Algerian al Qaeda member Djamel Beghal received 10 years in prison in Paris for participating in a foiled terror attack on the U.S. embassy there. Beghal testified in September 2001, that "his religious engagement started in 1994" when "he was in charge of writing the statements of Tariq Ramadan." That October, Beghal added that he had also taken "courses given by Tariq Ramadan."

Moreover, a 2001 Swiss intelligence memo said: "brothers Hani and Tariq Ramadan coordinated a meeting held in 1991 in Geneva attended by [al Qaeda leader] Ayman Al Zawahiri and Omar Abdel Rahman," the imprisoned planner of the 1993 World Trade Center attack.

Spanish judge Balatasar Garzon, meanwhile, reported Ramadan's "routine contacts" with Algerian Ahmed Brahim, the alleged financial chief of Al Qaeda and financier of the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

In 1995, when the Algerian Armed Islamist Movement, (AIM) perpetrated several terrorist attacks in Paris, French interior minister, Jean Louis Debre, barred Ramadan from France based on his links to AIM."

In FrontPage this morning I examine the CAIR connection of the Muslim candidate for Congress, Keith Ellison (news links in the original):

Keith Ellison (D-MN) is shaping up to be the first-ever Muslim member of Congress, and the mainstream media is treating his candidacy as a huge human-interest story and a triumph of multiculturalism. The Christian Science Monitor gushed that “when Keith Ellison arrives at the Karmel Square, one of Minneapolis’s Somali malls, a rock star might as well be walking by the bustling stalls of bright fabrics, jewelry, phone cards, and videos.” It quoted Larry Jacobs of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota exulting: “You think of the stereotype of Minnesota -- Garrison Keillor and white Norwegian farmers. The first Muslim congressman coming from Minnesota? It says a lot about the changing face of the United States and Minnesota.”

Of course, not all is rosy: the Monitor notes that “conservative bloggers” and Ellison’s Republican opponent, Alan Fine, have raised questions about Ellison’s alleged ties to the Nation of Islam, as well as about a number of unpaid parking tickets that led to the suspension of his drivers’ license. But the Monitor doesn’t mention the most troubling aspect of Ellison’s record: the support he has received from the Council on American Islamic Relations.

And the the EU has expressed objections to this, remaining all too eager to extend the rights and privileges of membership to a country where jihadists can -- and will, if allowed -- exploit the democratic process to achieve their goals. From AP:

A top Turkish general said Monday that increasingly powerful Islamist forces threatened Turkey's secular system and that the army would play its role in defending the country against them, the state-run news agency reported.

General Ilker Basbug's comments appeared aimed at both the Islamic-rooted government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and at EU officials who have repeatedly called on the Turkish military to limit its role in state affairs.

The military views itself as the protector of Turkey's secular identity. Fiercely secular generals have directly led three coups since 1961 and ousted a government from power in 1997 for what they saw as an excessive Islamist bent.

The Pope respects them and is committed to dialogue? So what? He must kowtow. Nothing less than full submission will be acceptable. Pope Rage Update from Reuters, with thanks to Rudi:

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - An organization of 56 Islamic nations pressed Pope Benedict on Tuesday to apologize for his comments linking Muslims and violence, keeping alive a two-week-old controversy.

Foreign ministers of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, or OIC, approved a statement urging the Vatican to "retract or redress" the comments, in which the pope cited quotes saying the Muslim faith was spread by violence.

The group issued its statement a day after Pope Benedict assured diplomats from some 20 Muslim nations and the leaders of Italy's Muslim community that he respected them and was committed to dialogue.

It was the fourth time he had tried to make amends, without actually apologizing directly, for his September 12 speech at a university in his native Germany....

The OIC statement said Islamic nations' foreign ministers "believe that it is befitting to the Vatican to retract or redress the said statement, in demonstration of the correct spirit of Christianity in dealing with Islamic issues."

That "correct spirit" is to the OIC apparently utter deference and submission, in line with dhimmi status.

"I was dreaming a beautiful dream..." From MEMRITV, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Following are excerpts from an interview with Egyptian cleric Safwat Higazi, which aired on Dream2 TV on August 26, 2006:

[...]

When I said what I said, I was dreaming a beautiful dream, which I hope will come true, and that we all agree upon it. I dreamt that we are the Arab Islamic States, not just Egypt, Lebanon, and Palestine. I was truly dreaming that we are the Arab Islamic States. Get a map of the Arab homeland, and erase the borders... Or maybe these can be borders between counties or states, like the USA, in which 49 states were united into one country. I had a dream that we were one country, called the Arab Islamic States. The capital of this country is Egypt, and the president of Egypt and its government head this country. This is the dream I dreamt.

[...]

I said that these Israelis... I specified the Israeli Jew, not just any Jew. I said, word for word, that these are American Jews, Dutch Jews, and Jews from all other nationalities - and to them this does not apply. He must be a Jew and an Israeli, and not just any Israeli, because there are Israeli Arabs, there are Muslim Israelis from the 1948 Arabs, there are Christian Israelis... He must be an Israeli Jew, and, in parentheses - a Zionist. This was the first condition to my fatwa. The second condition is that he must be a combatant - in other words, a reserves soldier in the Israeli Defense Forces.

[...]

The third condition was that this action must cause no damage. I even said that it was entirely forbidden for someone to wear an explosives belt and blow himself up, and destroy a car in the street, just in order to kill an Israeli.

[...]

The fourth condition I mentioned was that no innocent person be killed. If we apply these four conditions of the fatwa in order to kill an Israeli, one must make sure that he is a Jew, an Israeli, and that he is between 21 and 54, the age of the reserves, and if she is a woman, she must be between 21 and 34, which is the age of the reserves [for women], and even then, he must make sure that she has no children, because a woman of this age with children is no longer a soldier in the IDF.

[...]

In an unusual display, someone spoke up against this madness:

Salah Issa, Al-Qahira editor-in-chief: He said: "I was imagining that this has become the Arab Islamic States, and that is why I said this." No. Excuse me, but you live here, in Egypt. Egypt has a peace agreement with Israel. Whether or not we accept it, this agreement exists. According to this agreement, any Israeli who comes here enjoys our protection, as Muslims.

Ceasefire Update from YNet News: "Hizbullah moving rockets to Palestinian camps"

Hizbullah has been transporting rockets and heavy weaponry to Palestinian camps in south Lebanon just a few miles from the Israeli border, according to Lebanese officials.

The officials told WND the office of Lebanese Prime Minister Faud Sinora sent a letter last week to Abbas Zakir, the Palestinian Authority's most senior representative in Lebanon, outlining the alleged Hizbullah weapons transfers into Palestinian camps. The letter noted "unusual activity" in and near the Palestinian camps, including the coming and going of trucks suspected of carrying weapons.

Palestinian groups, including Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, maintain armed bases in Lebanon, mostly in the al-Naemeh province just south of Beirut and in the Bekaa Valley, near Lebanon's border with Syria and Israel. Fatah is the party of PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

The reports follow a WND article last month quoting Lebanese officials claiming Hizbullah, with the help of Iran, started building underground war bunkers in Lebanon's Palestinian camps.

During its 34-day confrontation with Hizbullah in Lebanon that began July 12, Israel destroyed scores of complex Hizbullah bunkers that snaked along the Lebanese side of the Israel-Lebanon border. Military officials said they were surprised by the scale of the Hizbullah bunkers, in which Israeli troops reportedly found war rooms with advanced eavesdropping and surveillance equipment they noted were made by Iran.

[...]

A senior Lebanese official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told WND Hizbullah started building a new set of bunker systems, this time in Palestinian refugee camps.

"The Lebanese Army doesn't have the authority to patrol inside the camps," said the official. "Hizbullah knows it is safe there to rebuild their war bunkers, and they began doing so with Iranian help." Israeli security officials did not deny Nasrallah's claims of continuing to maintain a large rocket arsenal.

[...]

"The message sent is that Hizbullah absolutely maintains the capability of firing hundreds of rockets per day into Israel," commented the official. "Wasn't one of the (Israeli) military campaign's main goals to eliminate the rocket threat?"

Indeed. Where is the political will to secure Israel from those who would wipe it off the map?

Daniel Pipes has a terrific piece in today's New York Sun (there entitled "A Look at Islamic Violence," but it bears the title above at his website.) In it, he notes that "the violence by Muslims responding to comments by the pope fit a pattern that has been building and accelerating since 1989. Six times since then, Westerners did or said something that triggered death threats and violence in the Muslim world."

Those six are the Rushdie incident; the refusal of the Supreme Court in 1997 to remove a statue of Muhammad from the main court chamber; Jerry Falwell's calling Muhammad a terrorist in 2002; the Qur'an-flushing affair; Cartoon Rage; and now Pope Rage.

Pipes notes how these displays of outrage are orchestrated from above, and concludes:

No conspiracy lies behind these six rounds of inflammation and aggression, but examined in retrospect, they coalesce and form a single, prolonged campaign of intimidation, with surely more to come. The basic message – "You Westerners no longer have the privilege to say what you will about Islam, the Prophet, and the Qur'an, Islamic law rules you too" – will return again and again until Westerners either do submit or Muslims realize their effort has failed.

Precisely. Diana West and Cliff May have also noted the same thing.

Instrumental music is automatically an issue under sharia law due to the dictates of Muhammad. For example:

Narrated Abu 'Amir or Abu Malik Al-Ash'ari:

that he heard the Prophet saying, "From among my followers there will be some people who will consider illegal sexual intercourse, the wearing of silk, the drinking of alcoholic drinks and the use of musical instruments, as lawful. And there will be some people who will stay near the side of a mountain and in the evening their shepherd will come to them with their sheep and ask them for something, but they will say to him, 'Return to us tomorrow.' Allah will destroy them during the night and will let the mountain fall on them, and He will transform the rest of them into monkeys and pigs and they will remain so till the Day of Resurrection." (Bukhari 007.069.494v)

In addition, if the subject of Western music is to arise at all at Punjab University, its early history is inextricably linked to the Catholic liturgy and clergy, including at the time of the Crusades. Not to mention the time spent on Lutheran chorales in the instruction of music theory. Clearly, this could pose a problem.

Sharia Alert from The Daily Times: "Punjab University hires British music professor"

LAHORE: Punjab University has hired a British professor, Cambridge-graduate William Keith Timmney, and other international musicians to teach at the Department of Musicology despite threats by conservative elements, officials told Daily Times.

[...]

The department has received hundreds of admission applications for the two-year Master’s programme in Music and classes for the maiden batch will begin on October 6. Theory classes will be held at the old campus of Punjab University (PU) and practical classes will be held at Alhamra.

PU Registrar Professor Dr Naeem Khan has said the faculty was hired despite threats and pressure put by "anti-education elements" such as Islami Jamiat Talaba (IJT).

"We have initiated the academic programme strictly for promotion of culture of our region," he said, "and will not let anyone impose their opinion over the majority." He said the university was "prepared to deal with miscreants".

He said the administration and the vice chancellor had envisioned the Musicology Department in response to demands by students and to promote the legacy of Muslim mystics such as Ameer Khusro, Khawaja Moeenuddin Chishti, Khushhal Khan Khatak and folksinger Pathanay Khan.

"We have started a Master’s programme initially, and Bachelor’s classes will follow soon," the registrar said. The programme was not meant to promote vulgarity, he said, "but to promote our culture internationally." The department will be part of the Institute of Art and Design (IAD) in the beginning, he said, but would become independent later. The IJT has already threatened to "physically resist" music classes on campus and threatened the administration with dire consequences against programmes for performing arts.

Somali Jihad Update from AP: "Demonstrations turn violent in Somalia"

MOGADISHU, Somalia - Fears of regional conflict soared as angry demonstrations against Somalia's radical Islamic militia grew Monday into deadly violence in a southern port city, and the militia for the first time acknowledged getting help from foreign Muslims.

[...]

As it has established authority in the capital and across much of the south starting in June, the Islamic group's strict interpretation of Islam has sparked comparisons with Afghanistan's ousted Taliban. The United States has accused the Islamic group of sheltering suspects in the 1998 al-Qaida bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden has portrayed Somalia as a battleground in his war on the U.S.

Islamic militiamen wearing white headbands opened fire on several thousand people demonstrating against them in the port of Kismayo, 260 miles southwest of Mogadishu, killing a 13-year-old boy, said resident Abdiqadir Filibin.

Two other children were injured, witnesses said on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. Sporadic gunfire could also be heard in other parts of the town.

The militia had seized Kismayo, one of the last remaining ports outside their control and Somalia's third-largest city, on Sunday without a fight.

[...]

Hassan Turki, leader of the Islamic militia, told a demonstration in support of his group in Kismayo earlier Monday that foreign militants were helping his fighters.

"They are your brothers in Islam," Turki said.

"U.S. Rejects Visa for Muslim Scholar," from AP, with thanks to Morgaan Sinclair:

NEW YORK - The government has rejected a prominent Muslim scholar's application to enter the country, contending that he gave support to a terrorist group, but his attorneys allege the U.S. is using charitable donations he made as a pretext for stifling his views.

Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss citizen who teaches at Oxford University, was denied a temporary business and tourism visa Thursday "based solely on his actions, which constituted providing material support to a terrorist organization," said Janelle Hironimus, a State Department spokeswoman.

Hironimus said she could not reveal specifics about Ramadan's case due to confidentiality rules regarding visa applications.

The American Civil Liberties Union said the U.S. government notified Ramadan he was being excluded because he donated $765 to French and Swiss organizations that provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians.

The ACLU said the organizations are legitimate charities in France, but the Bush administration contends the groups gave funds to the Islamic militant group Hamas, and has invoked a law allowing it to exclude individuals whom it believes have supported terrorism.

The ACLU said the decision to bar Ramadan amounts to censorship.

"This case is really about speech," said Jameel Jaffer, an ACLU lawyer. "The government is using the immigration laws as a means of silencing and stigmatizing a prominent cleric."

No, this case is about terror-financing charities and dissimulation.

More depredations of Pakistan's blasphemy laws. From Compass Direct:

A Pakistani Christian jailed last week on suspicion of ripping book pages containing Quranic verses appealed to Punjabi police through his lawyer yesterday (September 21) for his case to be cancelled for lack of evidence.

Lawyer Khalil Tahir Sindhu asked Faisalabad city police to throw out the case against his client, Shahid Masih. According to Sindhu, the sole evidence against the young Christian was the testimony of a Muslim man previously accused of the same crime.

Masih, 17, is implicated for breaking article 295-B of the Pakistan Penal Code, one of the country’s notorious blasphemy laws that criminalizes desecration of the Quran.

If convicted, Masih will serve a life sentence.

The young man allegedly tore pages from a tafseer, a book explaining Quranic verses, while stealing several books from a medical clinic in the Madina Town district of Faisalabad last week.

The charges are based on the testimony of Muhammad Ghaffar, who claimed he had carried out the crime with Masih.

Ghaffar was detained after Dr. Mohammad Arshed Masood arrived at his Madina Town clinic on September 10 to find several books missing and pages ripped from his tafseer, lawyer Sindhu said.

The doctor lodged a complaint with police against Ghaffar, 19, who he suspected of committing the robbery. According to Sindhu, Ghaffar told police that he and Masih had ripped pages from the tafseer when the two broke into the clinic planning to steal and then resell books.

Both suspects are being held in Faisalabad’s District Jail while police conclude their investigation.

A key jihadist who had escaped from the Americans in Afghanistan. From Reuters:

BRITISH troops in Iraq said they killed one of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's top global lieutenants, who escaped from a US prison in Afghanistan last year.

Omar Faruq was shot dead while resisting arrest during a raid by about 200 British troops in Iraq's second biggest city, Basra, British military spokesman Major Charlie Burbridge said.

US leaders have described Faruq as the top al-Qaeda operative in South-East Asia. He was caught in Indonesia in 2002 and held at a high-security detention centre at Bagram airbase, north of the Afghani capital Kabul, until his escape last year.

“The individual had been tracked across Iraq and was in hiding in Basra,” Major Burbridge said, calling him a “very, very significant man”.

Faruq, once believed to be the main link between bin Laden's followers and the Jemaah Islamiah militant group blamed for bombings in Indonesia, was one of four men who escaped from Bagram in July last year.

Ayatollah Jafar Sobhani misrepresents the Pope's words and speaks of jihad as "effort to save mankind from idolatry" -- whether mankind likes it or not, of course. From Iran's Mehr News Agency, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

TEHRAN, Sept. 25 (MNA) -- Most Western jurists know that reason and wisdom are the main sources of Islamic jurisprudence, Imam Sadiq Institute Director Ayatollah Jafar Sobhani said on Monday in an open letter addressed to Pope Benedict XVI.

“Normally, monarchs and tyrants refer to clergymen to legitimize their rule over the people. But now the opposite has happened, in that a religious leader has referred to the words of a medieval emperor to legitimize his own ideas, and thus accused a great community of ignorance and irrationalism,” the senior member of the Qom Seminary’s Council of Mujtahids stated.

Sobhani added, “You have in fact defied the text of the Bible, in which Jesus (AS) says: ‘Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.’

“You shouldn’t have based your words on a medieval emperor’s sayings.”

He explained, “Islam uses the appealing term of jihad, not massacre. Jihad means effort to save mankind from idolatry… Before, some tyrants did not allow preachers to promulgate their divine religion and used to kill the believers. Islamic jihad was meant to pave the way for the divine religion to be genuinely presented to the people...."

Musharraf Meltdown Update: "M16 'didn't tell us that 7/7 bombers were in Pakistan,'" from the TimesOnline, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

PRESIDENT MUSHARRAF of Pakistan says he is angered by the failure of British police and intelligence services to stop young British militants such as the 7/7 suicide bombers visiting his country before staging their terror attacks.

He claims that British security services did not tell him until three weeks after the 7/7 bombs that Mohammad Sidique Khan, leader of the suicide bombers, and another of the gang, Shehzad Tanweer, had slipped into Pakistan only months before the attacks, which killed 52 innocent people.

He claims that British Intelligence kept secret its information about the two Yorkshire-born bombers for 17 months and their links with known Pakistani terror suspects. His disclosure will again raise questions about whether Scotland Yard, MI5 and MI6 have told all they know about the British bombers, three of whom were of Pakistani origin.

Calls by survivors of the attacks for an independent inquiry to determine what the authorities knew about the bombers will be given fresh weight by the allegations.

General Musharraf revealed this apparently serious breakdown in Pakistan’s dealings with MI6 in a TV interview in the US to promote his memoir, In the Line of Fire, which is being serialised in The Times. He told 60 Minutes on CBS News: “It disappoints me, yes. But at the same time it annoys us also. They are not Pakistani. They are born and bred in Britain and they are British.” He did not say why the 7/7 bombers and other convicted British-born terrorists visited Pakistan and denied that their attacks were planned there.

I have received this email from a "Charles B. Hoff," revoking my citizenship as well as that of Jihad Watch Board Vice President "Huge" Fitzgerald:

I as than born amererican want you and Huge to leave America as you are criminality racist for being hateful toward Islam so back to the homeland anster came from I revoke your citzship since you and Huge are so anti-muslim immigment to America I also than removeing federal court power from the federal court as they are failing to protect muslim cival right 100% from criminal bigot racist like you and Huge so leave America as america like me donot want your criminal kind here anymore.

Hear that, Huge? You and I better start packing. And here I didn't even know Islam was a race at all, and it turns out I've been "criminality racist" according to a "than born amererican."

This guy is about as convincing as those "University Educators" and "graduate students" "reviewing" my new book at Amazon, but never quite getting around to specifying any actual inaccuracy in it. It seems, you see, that "even the leader of Constantine made writings attesting to [Muhammad's] character and strength"; funny thing, when I was in college I never did learn where "Constantine" was. Of course, given the level of discourse that comes from real university educators (such as Carl Ernst and Omid Safi) these days, maybe those reviews are authentic.

In the course of an article about the Muslim Congressional candidate, Keith Ellison of Minnesota, CAIR's Nihad Awad declares his support for Ellison -- and his rejection of Hamas.

"Muslims rally around congressional candidate," from AP, with thanks to Mike:

Republicans are trying to make an issue of a contribution from another Council on American-Islamic Relations official - executive director Nihad Awad, who gave Ellison $2,000.

In a fundraising letter last week, state GOP Chairman Ron Carey said Ellison has received "financial support from a self-identified supporter of Hamas."

That was a reference to Awad's 1994 statement that he preferred Hamas to the Palestinian Liberation Organization. In an interview, Awad said that was before the group engaged in suicide bombings and was designated a terrorist organization by the State Department.

Actually, Awad said flatly: "I am in support of the Hamas movement." He said this in 1994. It just so happens that I have preserved the old Hamas website's "glory record" of attacks against Israelis here. Here are some of Hamas' self-described exploits from before 1994:

3. Boureen Operation: The militant Hamdan Hussein Al:najar, a member of Hamas, killed the Israeli settler Ya'coub Berey using a big rock as his weapon. The militant was shot down as a martyr after he had ambushed an Israeli patrol using the dead settler's weapon....

6. Bus No. 405 Operation: Militant Ahmed Hussein Shukry, a member of Hamas, was able to lead an Israeli soldier to a secluded place in Tel Aviv where the militant hit the soldier with a chisel and killed him on 8 September 1989. The following day, the militant got on bus No. 405 and stabbed the driver to take over the bus; however, the passengers were able to stop the militant....

12. Keryat Youval Operation: The militant Mohammed Mustafa Abu Jalala stabbed four Israelis and injured another at a bus station in Keryat Youval in Jerusalem before he was arrested by the Israeli forces.

13. Askalan Road Operation: While driving a taxi, the militant Jameel Ismail Al:baz, a member of Hamas, ran over a group of Israelis waiting on this road on 19 July 1991....

15. Shailou Operation: A military group belonging to Al Qassam Brigades attacked an Israeli bus carrying some settlers on their way to Tel Aviv to participate in demonstrations organized by the extremist party Likud against the peace process. The bus was completely destroyed; two Israelis were killed and five more were injured....

17. Eid Al-maskhara Operation: The militant Ra'ed Al:reefy attacked an Israeli crowd in Jaffa on 17 March 1992. He was able to kill 2 and injure 21 Israelis who gathered to celebrate Eid Al:maskhara, also known as Al:boureem.

18. Beit Lahya Operation: On the third anniversary of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin's arrest, a group belonging to Al Qassam Brigades attacked an Israeli settler at Beit Lahya and shot him down then withdrew safely....

21. Carlo Factory Operation: Four militants belonging to Al Qassam Brigades broke into a citrus packing factory (Carlo) near Nahal Oaz at 2:30 p.m. on 25 June 1992. Three militants stabbed two Israelis while the other was guarding....

Suicide bombings? No. Terrorist attacks on civilians? Sure. And there are many, many more on the list dating from before 1994. So are we to understand that Awad supported such operations, and only stopped supporting Hamas later, although these was no change in its ideology and no change in its taste for victimizing civilians?

Now Awad says:

"I don't support Hamas today," Awad said. "My position and CAIR's position is extremely clear - we condemn suicide bombings. We are mainstream American Muslims."

Is that so? It wasn't very long ago that Hamas leader Sheikh Yassin was killed by Israel. CAIR condemned his killing, without ever mentioning that Yassin was the mastermind and director of suicide killings for Hamas. At that time -- March 2004 -- CAIR said:

"We condemn this violation of international law as an act of state terrorism by Ariel Sharon's out-of-control government. Israel's extra-judicial killing of an Islamic religious leader can only serve to perpetuate the cycle of violence throughout the region. The international community must now take concrete steps to help protect the Palestinian people against such wanton Israeli violence."

See also here for more on the CAIR/Hamas ties.

When did CAIR stop supporting Hamas? I searched the CAIR website for "Hamas." There are three possible searches: News Briefs, Action Alerts, and Press Releases. Only News Briefs turned up anything at all: an old article from Haaretz attacking Ariel Sharon.

So if CAIR now condemns Hamas, where is it saying so? Just in the lower paragraphs of articles about other subjects? We can't even get one press release about it? Not one Action Alert calling on Muslims everywhere to condemn Hamas?

Because it might offend Muslims, of course: who wants to get blown up for an opera? From the Violent-Intimidation-Works Department: "German opera house dumps Mozart opera depicting Mohammed," from DPA, with thanks to Sugiero:

Berlin- One of Germany's leading opera houses, Deutsche Oper Berlin, announced Monday that it was cancelling a controversial production because of the likelihood that it might offend Muslims. The original opera, Idomeneo by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, makes no reference to Islam, but director Hans Neuenfels introduced a scene to his production that depicts the decapitated heads of the Prophet Mohammed, Jesus Christ, the Buddha and the Greek god Poseidon.

It caused outrage at the premiere in 2003. The opera company said it was cancelling plans to revive the show next month after advice from security authorities in Berlin that the performances posed an "incalculable" security risk.

CAIR's Ibrahim Hooper: would you buy a used car from this man?

I have canceled my trip to Columbus, Ohio, where I had planned to buy a new car. Dennis Mitsubishi is now kowtowing to the good folks over at the Council on American Islamic Relations, no doubt not realizing the record and lingering questions about that organization. An update to this story: "Car Dealer Drops 'Jihad' Radio Ad: Dealership Draws Fire For Ad Declaring Jihad," from NBC4i.com:

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A car dealership's tongue-in-cheek radio advertisement declaring "a jihad on the automotive market," will not be aired, according to a press release issued on Monday from the Ohio chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Several stations rejected the spot from Dennis Mitsubishi, which boasts that sales representatives wearing "burqas" -- head-to-toe traditional dress for Islamic women -- will sell vehicles that can "comfortably seat 12 jihadists in the back."

An official with Dennis Mitsubishi told CAIR-Ohio that the dealership has issued an apology for any misunderstanding caused by "an attempt at humor that fell short."

In a statement, Dennis Mitsubishi owner Keith Dennis said his company ultimately decided not to air the spots.

"The public reaction to this story has been significant," Dennis said in the statement. "A large number of people have contacted us. Lots of them have seen the humor we were trying to convey, but far too many were clearly bothered by it. This was simply an attempt at humor that fell short.

"I wish to offer my sincere apology to anyone who was offended. We do not wish to alienate anyone in our community -- all of whom are potential customers."

While Dennis on Saturday defended the ad as a harmless attempt to bring levity to a serious situation, the Columbus chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations decried it as disrespectful.

"We appreciate the dealership's constructive reaction to feedback about the proposed advertisements," said Adnan Mirza, director of CAIR-Ohio's Columbus office. "We accept the apology from Mr. Dennis and hope that it and the decision not to air the spots will bring this incident to a close."

I am scheduled to be on the Mike Reagan Show this afternoon at 4PM PDT with guest host Jed Babbin. We are scheduled to be discussing Pope Rage.

Imagine a report from 1944: "This just in: the invasion of Normandy has led to increased Nazi activity in Europe." Leaving aside the question of whether or not the attempt to democratize Iraq is the best way to defeat the jihad, the idea that resisting the jihadists is inadvisable because it causes them to fight back is beyond asinine. What do these "spies" expect? That the jihadists would crumble at the first sign of resistance?

"Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Hurting U.S. Terror Fight," from the Bandar Beacon, aka the Washington Post, with thanks to all who sent this in:

The war in Iraq has become a primary recruitment vehicle for violent Islamic extremists, motivating a new generation of potential terrorists around the world whose numbers may be increasing faster than the United States and its allies can reduce the threat, U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded.

A 30-page National Intelligence Estimate completed in April cites the "centrality" of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the insurgency that has followed, as the leading inspiration for new Islamic extremist networks and cells that are united by little more than an anti-Western agenda. It concludes that, rather than contributing to eventual victory in the global counterterrorism struggle, the situation in Iraq has worsened the U.S. position, according to officials familiar with the classified document.

"It's a very candid assessment," one intelligence official said yesterday of the estimate, the first formal examination of global terrorist trends written by the National Intelligence Council since the March 2003 invasion. "It's stating the obvious."

Obvious. Is that what it is? If the report had argued that Iraq has weakened the U.S. position because we are effectively abetting an Iranian-backed Shi'ite takeover of the country, and thus aiding rather than weakening the global jihad, that would be a defensible, indeed a cogent, position. But instead, the report just seems to be noting that Iraq has become the latest pretext for jihad recruitment, and buys into the false assumption that if we just address the pretext, the jihad will end. It won't, however. It will just find another pretext, because ultimately the jihad is not being waged because of Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Abu Ghraib, or Israel, or any other commonly-retailed pretext. It is being waged to extend Sharia over the world, in accord with imperatives spelled out in the Qur'an and other core Islamic sources.

A report on the Pope's meeting with Muslims from Reuters:

CASTELGANDOLFO, Italy (Reuters) - Pope Benedict said on Monday that Christians and Muslims must reject violence, in an unprecedented meeting with Islamic envoys to defuse anger at his use of quotes saying their faith was spread by the sword.

The Pope expressed his "esteem and profound respect" for members of the Islamic faith in a speech to diplomatic envoys from some 20 Muslim countries plus the leaders of Italy's own Muslim community at his summer residence south of Rome.

He did not specifically mention the quote that angered Muslims, saying the circumstances that made the meeting necessary "are well known." But he called for greater dialogue between the two religions.

"Christians and Muslims must learn to work together ... in order to guard against all forms of intolerance and to oppose all manifestations of violence," the 79-year-old Pope said at the meeting in a frescoed hall of the papal summer palace.

It was the fourth time he has tried to make amends to Muslims, without actually apologizing directly, for a speech at a university in his native Germany on September 12.

The Pope is facing the toughest international crisis since his election in April, 2005, and the severity of some reactions has raised doubts about a planned trip to Turkey in November.

Mario Scialoja, an adviser to the Italian section of the World Muslim League who attended the audience, told Reuters afterwards he thought it was a "very good and warm speech."

"He recalled the differences but expressed his willingness to continue in a cordial and fruitful dialogue, said Scialoja, who added that he "had not been expecting another apology."

The atmosphere at the 30-minute meeting, which was broadcast live on
Vatican television and radio, appeared cordial. After delivering his speech the Pope greeted each of the envoys personally and chatted with them briefly.

The leader of more than one billion Catholics has expressed regret at the response to his quoting 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who said the Prophet Mohammad commanded "to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

LEARN FROM THE PAST

The Pope said Christians and Muslims had to learn from the past and work for a better future.

"I sincerely pray that the relations of trust which have developed between Christians and Muslims over several years, will not only continue, but will develop further in a spirit of sincere and respectful dialogue ...," he said.

Iraqi ambassador Albert Edward Ismail Yelda also said he was satisfied with the speech.

"I pray to almighty God the crisis will be behind us," he told reporters. "We need to sit together -- Muslims, Christians, Jews and the rest of the world, the rest of religions, in order to find common ground for peaceful coexistence."

The Pope has said his intention in using the quote in Germany two weeks ago was to explain that religion and violence do not go together but that religion and reason do.

His speech to Muslim envoys, delivered in French but which the Vatican also made available in Arabic, made repeated references to the need for dialogue between faiths.

"I am profoundly convinced that in the current world situation it is imperative that Christians and Muslims engage with one another in order to address the numerous challenges that present themselves to humanity ...," he said.

The envoys invited included those from the major Muslim countries like Indonesia, Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey, Iran and Iraq, among others, plus the League of Arab States.

At this website, the part of the world least discussed is Latin America. A few things are alluded to: one knows about the triangle between Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, a supposed no man's land full of Muslim Arabs, engaged in all kinds of louche activities, and where support for Hizballah is high. Is it beyond the wit of those whose duty it is to make us secure to clean out, using whatever local forces may be able and willing to help, the entire area? There are a number of local militaries that could do the job.

One knows that there are "Palestinians" who have achieved high office in Central America (e.g., Shafik Handal). One has read that among those who control the Chilean fruit trade -- all those off-season raspberries and kiwis -- are some "Palestinian" families, and one naturally wonders about how easy it is to use large shipments of fruit to smuggle in other things.

If this is true, it shows that Russia is continuing its short-sighted and ultimately self-defeating policy of accommodation with Iran. From
MosNews, :

Russia, pledging to complete the Bushehr reactor, has offered to sell a range of surface-to-air missile systems to protect Iran’s nuclear facilities, the Middle East Newsline reports.

Russian diplomatic and industry sources said Moscow has been negotiating to sell Iran a range of anti-aircraft systems to protect Bushehr from Israeli or U.S. air strikes. The sources said contracts could be signed when Bushehr was ready to begin operations in a move expected to take place in late 2007.

“Russia has already installed and manned SAM systems around Bushehr,” a diplomatic source said. “The current talks regard an air defense umbrella that would protect all strategic sites in Iran.”

In November 2005, Russia reached agreement for the sale of 29 TOR-M1 short-range anti-aircraft systems to Iran in a deal valued at more than $700 million. The sources said Iran has also sought the strategic S-300PMU SAM system, capable of detecting and intercepting enemy aircraft at a distance of 300 and 150 kilometers, respectively.

Laws like this, carefully defined and stringently enforced to prevent propagation of the idea of Islamic supremacism and attendant ideas, are needed all over. From AP, :

AMMAN, Jordan - Jordan's parliament moved Sunday to tighten state control over mosque preachers, amending legislation that aims to prevent the kingdom's mosques from being used to propagate extremist ideas.

Jordanian lawmakers have approved several pieces of legislation in recent weeks that aim to weaken extremists and prevent terror attacks.

The parliament added a provision to a bill to require prior written approval from the government before someone enters the pulpit. The changes came just three weeks after members of the lower house of parliament approved the law.

The latest changes require that the religious affairs minister approve in writing any new mosque preachers and anyone teaching the Quran, the Islamic holy book, in mosques.

King Abdullah II, the ultimate authority in Jordan, is expected to sign the bill into law soon, replacing legislation enacted in 1986.

Islamic opposition legislators argued Sunday that the law curbed religious freedoms and that the government pressed for the changes to appease the United States and Israel by cracking down on Muslim hard-liners.

Great idea, Karzai! (What made you think of it? Have you by any chance been reading Jihad Watch?) But one question: how will you prevent those who take your advice from being branded as apostates by the authors and supporters of these "hate texts," who can quote Qur'an and Sunnah to support their positions? This is a serious question, for such intimidation stymies Muslim reformers everywhere.

From the Herald Sun, :

AFGHAN President Hamid Karzai has urged the world to put an end to Islamic schools that teach hatred and produce suicide bombers.

Madrassas, or Islamic schools, are "teaching hatred rather than religion, (teaching) that some people we must hate, that some people we must destroy," Mr Karzai said on the eve of summits with the US and Pakistan.

He said it "will take a lot of sacrifice from Afghans, and from the rest of the world . . . to get rid of those places who . . . in the name of religious schools . . . are actually training suicide bombers against us".

Mr Karzai also said neighbouring Pakistan must find the political will to eliminate terrorist breeding grounds if Afghanistan is to know peace. He said other nations had to pressure them to do so.

"We have to convince them that it is not in their interest, that it is going to hurt all of us eventually," he was quoted as saying.

"The people know we are returning to power." From a Newsweek report on the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan:

Oct. 2, 2006 issue - You don't have to drive very far from Kabul these days to find the Taliban. In Ghazni province's Andar district, just over a two-hour trip from the capital on the main southern highway, a thin young man, dressed in brown and wearing a white prayer cap, stands by the roadside waiting for two NEWSWEEK correspondents. It is midday on the central Afghan plains, far from the jihadist-infested mountains to the east and west. Without speaking, the sentinel guides his visitors along a sandy horse trail toward a mud-brick village within sight of the highway. As they get closer a young Taliban fighter carrying a walkie-talkie and an AK-47 rifle pops out from behind a tree. He is manning an improvised explosive device, he explains, in case Afghan or U.S. troops try to enter the village.

In a parched clearing a few hundred yards on, more than 100 Taliban fighters ranging in age from teenagers to a grandfatherly 55-year-old have assembled to meet their provincial commander, Muhammad Sabir. An imposing man with a long, bushy beard, wearing a brown and green turban and a beige shawl over his shoulders, Sabir inspects his troops, all of them armed with AKs and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. He claims to have some 900 fighters, and says the military and psychological tide is turning in their favor. "One year ago we couldn't have had such a meeting at midnight," says Sabir, who is in his mid-40s and looks forward to living out his life as an anti-American jihadist. "Now we gather in broad daylight. The people know we are returning to power."

Read it all.

Jihad against women's rights in Afghanistan. From Reuters, :

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) -- Gunmen riding motorcycles shot dead the head of a women's department in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar on Monday, a security official and a relative said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the shooting of Safia Ama Jan. Taliban insurgents have killed numerous government officials as part of their war against the government and foreign forces supporting it.

Ama Jan was on her way to work, getting into a car outside her house, when the gunmen struck, said her nephew, who identified himself as just Farhad.

"She died on the spot," he told reporters.

Farhad declined to speculate on the identity or motive of the gunmen, except to say: "We had no personal enmity with anyone."

Ama Jan had served as the head of the province's women's affairs department since shortly after U.S.-led troops overthrew the Taliban in 2001.

What? You mean they didn't do it readily, out of their own righteous indignation that these terrorists were hijacking their peaceful religion? Musharraf continues courting the jihadists who would remove him from power: "'America paid us to hand over al-Qaeda suspects,'" from the TimesOnline, :

PRESIDENT Musharraf of Pakistan says that the CIA has secretly paid his government millions of dollars for handing over hundreds of al-Qaeda suspects to America.

The US government has strict rules banning such reward payments to foreign powers involved in the war on terror. General Musharraf does not say how much the CIA gave in return for the 369 al-Qaeda figures that he ordered should be passed to the US.

The US Department of Justice said: “We didn’t know about this. It should not happen. These bounty payments are for private individuals who help to trace terrorists on the FBI’s most wanted list, not foreign governments.”

The revelation comes from General Musharraf’s memoir, In the Line of Fire, which begins serialisation in The Times today and will further embarrass the White House at a time when relations between the US and Pakistan are already strained.

General Musharraf claimed last week that the Bush Administration threatened to bomb Pakistan “back to the Stone Age” if did not co-operate with the US after the 9/11 attacks.

The latest revelation will embarrass the White House days before General Musharraf is due to meet President Bush and President Karzai of Afghanistan to discuss how to combat a resurgent Taleban.

The disclosures are also causing consternation in Pakistan. Members of General Musharraf’s Cabinet and senior diplomats apparently did not know he was writing a book and are worried that relations with its allies and Western intelligence agencies will be damaged by the revelations.

The CIA refused to divulge the size of its bounty payments, saying: “Our relationships with international leaders is not something we are prepared to talk about.” One senior CIA figure added: “Nor do we expect these leaders to do so.”

Among the suspects surrendered to the US was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged architect of the 9/11 operation and many other terror plots in the UK, including a planned attack on Heathrow airport, the plot never came to fruition.

A step toward anti-dhimmitude from Italian Interior Minister Giuliano Amato, analyzed by Federico Bordonaro in IPS (thanks to Designnut):

ROME, Sep 25 (IPS) - Interior Minister Giuliano Amato proposed in August that Muslim organisations in Italy will need to subscribe to a Charter of Values to signal their readiness to be fully integrated into Italian society and its political culture.

Rome is facing a huge challenge: it cannot fail to integrate its increasingly numerous Muslim immigrant population, but since integration policies in Europe are regarded as less than successful, it is forced to seek new solutions....

Less than successful? They've been non-existent, due to demands from Muslim leaders that they not be undertaken. Cf. Eurabia by Bat Ye'or; Abou Jahjah's notorious statement that "assimilation is cultural rape," etc.

After the Madrid and London terror attacks in 2004 and 2005, the Danish cartoon controversy, and last summer's so-called honour killing in northern Italy where a Pakistani immigrant killed his daughter, worries about Muslim integration in Italy have increased.

In particular, public debate among Italian intellectuals and specialists highlights the worry that in Muslim countries only a minority of intellectuals have criticised the call for retaliation issued by religious and extremist political leaders, while conciliatory words pronounced by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after the Pope explained that his speech was "not intended to hurt Muslim feelings" have been cautiously received.

"...only a minority of intellectuals..." Indeed: funny how the Tiny Minority of Extremists never seems to behave like a minority at all.

One thing is sure, though, and it is the heart of the matter: Rome cannot afford to fail to integrate Italian Muslims and to enhance their attachment to national democratic and constitutional values if it is to avoid a bitter political and social conflict..

Since both assimilation-oriented policies and multiculturalism are considered unsatisfying models for effective integration strategies, Italy faces inner divisions among policy-makers and within the public about the right way to address the question. Muslim communities are rapidly becoming necessary interlocutors for shaping new political courses.

Compared with Britain, the Netherlands or Germany, Italy still has a relatively small Muslim population (less than one million in a total of 57 million) and, furthermore, its Muslim communities are politically less integrated than in these other European countries.

In late August, after an anti-Israel advertisement by the Union of Italian Islamic Communities (UCOII), which was widely condemned for being anti-Semitic (it compared Israel's military actions to Nazi brutalities), Amato proposed the draft of a Charter of Values whose details are now being studied. The Charter would set out Italy's basic democratic, constitutional rights and obligations, and provide for acceptance among Muslim communities of republican, liberal-democratic values.

Members of the right-of-centre opposition have sharply criticised the government for "too soft" an approach, and vociferously called for the ban of UCOII. Former ministers like Maurizio Gasparri and Roberto Castelli said Rome should disband and outlaw UCOII, or at least suspend it from the recognised Muslim organisations. The government has said such a move would be unrealistic since UCOII is by far the most important Muslim association, although it is rapidly becoming the most controversial as well.

More importantly, UCOII leaders themselves have adopted a flexible approach to the government's proposal. "Our organisation unanimously recognised the mistake made in the communication form (chosen for the advertisement), which was used by many to lambaste us", UCOII said in a statement Sep. 3. "Our religion forbids us to express any racial discrimination and obliges us to respect Christians and Jews alike."

In past centuries, UCOII added, "Islamic jurisprudence provided the framework for religious tolerance and harmony in the East, in Sicily, in North Africa and Turkey."

Sure, plenty of tolerance and harmony as long as Christians and Jews knew their place.

UCOII then agreed to openly discuss Amato's proposal. Such a choice appears in line with recent attempts made both by Rome and by Muslim communities to define a broad framework for the creation of an Italian Islam, an issue considered particularly delicate and important....

The biggest challenge for Rome is to rapidly find a just and effective solution, combining adequate education offers, political participation, and rules to be respected -- a goal that will be reached only if extremist factions on both sides are successfully marginalised.

...which will not happen as long as no one, Muslim or non-Muslim, confronts the jihad ideology.

Moshe Segal, we need you. From Israel National News, with thanks to Cindy:

Shades of the 1920's: A Jewish man was hauled off to the Old City police station in the middle of prayer for sounding the shofar during Rosh HaShanah services at the area known as the Kotel HaKatan.

The incident occurred around 7:30 in the morning, at the northern-most section of the accessible Western Wall - a little-known area called the Kotel HaKatan, the Small Wall. It is considered to have extra sanctity, as it stands opposite the presumed spot of the Holy of Holies of the Beit HaMikdash.

Yesterday morning (Sunday), a group of some 10 men and two women gathered at the site, as they have done for several years on Rosh HaShanah, for early-morning prayers. The holiday prayers feature the blowing of the shofar (ram's horn) at several different times. Towards the end of the first shofar sounding, a Border Guard policeman came in, made an unclear motion with his hand as if to ask what was going on, and then left. He said nothing.

Shortly afterwards, Eliyahu K., the 20-year-old prayer leader, blew the shofar a second time, in the midst of his silent prayer (in accordance with Sephardic custom). Policemen came in once again and began trying to pull him away. However, Eliyahu was in the midst of reciting the Amidah - a long passage during which one must stand in one place without moving - and he therefore did not move.

The policemen informed their supervisors by radio that he was praying and refused to move, and reinforcements were soon sent - no fewer than 20 policemen, according to several witnesses.

They then started dragging him out, and when they stopped for a moment, he got up and resumed his prayers. They then began to drag him away again, and shortly afterwards again stopped for a moment - and again he resumed his prayers. At this point, the policemen allowed him to complete his prayers.

In the meanwhile, the other members of the prayer group came out and tried to prevent the policemen from taking Eliyahu away. At this point, the policemen started swinging their clubs violently; no one was hospitalized, but "it was a big brawl," in the words of one witness, with many people being dragged around and beaten while wearing their prayer-shawls and Sabbath suits.

Meanwhile, Eliyahu was taken to the small police station at the Western Wall plaza, and several of his friends followed him there. They wanted to go up the steps into the police station, and demanded that at least the shofar be returned, but the police again came down with their clubs.

They finally took Eliyahu by foot, accompanied by his fiancיe, all the way around the Old City, past Mt. Zion and through Jaffa Gate, to the Kishle police station inside Jaffa Gate. At this point, there was no longer any violence, and Eliyahu was released around 11:30 - after being charged with attacking a policeman, disturbing a policeman in the line of duty, and disturbing the public order.

One witness related, "It's not only that they stopped him from blowing the shofar, but rather the fact that the police beat us up very harshly. I was on my way to the Wall for prayers when I saw 5-7 policemen going with Eliyahu and protecting him very closely. I walked after them, and then a few of his friends came, and then the violence started. We asked the policemen to return the shofar, and they started kicking us and punching us."

The worshipers said that the police had apparently been called by an Arab woman who said the sound of the ram's horn disturbed her children.

A Jewish resident of the Old City told Arutz-7, "How ironic. The loud Arab weddings and nightly prayers by the muazzin [over a powerful loudspeaker] at 4:30 AM disturb our sleep every night." Similar complaints are heard from Jews living near Arab villages in Judea and Samaria....

The rabbi of the Western Wall, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, told Arutz-7, "This is a very grave incident, and I have asked the local police commander, Yossi Priente, to check into it - both the violence and the prevention of the shofar blowing. It reminds us of the days of the British Mandate when Jews [had to make] super-human efforts to blow the shofar at the Western Wall."

He was referring to the 1ate 1920's, when the British, in an attempt to appease the Arabs, and following violence at the Wall, forbade shofar-blowing at the Wall. In one famous incident in 1929, a man named Moshe Segal blew the shofar at the conclusion of Yom Kippur - and was immediately arrested by the British. Though he had fasted for the previous 25 hours, the British detained him without food until midnight, when he was released. It was later reported that the release came about when then-Chief Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook informed the commander that he himself would not eat until Segal was released.

Nearly 40 years later, following the first Yom Kippur service at the Wall under Israeli sovereignty, shortly after the Six Day War, the shofar was again sounded - by Moshe Segal.

No mention is made of any offense connected to this building, other than its being a church. Islamic Tolerance Alert from UPI: "Muslim mob kept from destroying church"

JAKARTA, Sept. 24 (UPI) -- Police in Indonesia prevented Muslim extremists from demolishing a building they claimed was a Christian house of worship.

Police told the mob of 50 people in a hamlet 10 miles south of the West Java capital of Bandung that no group was allowed to shut any house of worship.

The mob dispersed but its members insisted they would return if the church continued its activities, The Jakarta Post reported.

Dozens of churches and other places of worship in the province have been forcibly closed by alleged Muslim extremists.

Apparently authorities aren't ruling out a possible band of irate Unitarians.

The Saturday incident in the world's most populous Muslim nation took place a day before many Muslims began observing the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Another intolerable insult: Fatwa Friday via Fox with thanks to all who sent this in.

A car dealership's planned radio advertisement that declared "a jihad on the automotive market"has drawn sharp criticism for its content but will not be changed, the business said Saturday.

Several stations rejected the Dennis Mitsubishi spot, which says sales representatives wearing"burqas"_ head-to-toe traditional dress for Islamic women _ will sell vehicles that can"comfortably seat 12 jihadists in the back."

"Our prices are lower than the evildoers'every day. Just ask the pope!"the ad says."Friday is fatwa Friday, with free rubber swords for the kiddies." A fatwa is a religious edict.

Dealership president Keith Dennis said the ad does not disrespect any religion or culture. He said it was"fair game"to poke"a little fun at radical extremists."

CAIR, predictably, is not amused:

It exploits or promotes misunderstanding in terms already misunderstood or misused.

CAIR is over and over again in the absurd position of asking us, "Who are you going to believe about Islam, us, or your own lyin' eyes?" Whether CAIR likes it or not, there is an Islamic element to Islamic terror.

The jihad against Iraqi Christians continues. From DPA, :

BAGHDAD - A car bomb blast near a Christian church in Baghdad on early Sunday killed four civilians and wounded 14 others including four Iraqi policemen, witnesses said.

The explosion, apparently detonated via remote control, occurred while worshippers in the Church of the Virgin Mary attended Sunday mass.

The policemen who were killed were members of a security patrol, employed to guard the church. No information was available as to the condition of the wounded, or whether the church was the primary target of the attack.

How will the police be sure that the Muslim leaders to whom they are giving this information will not do anything to compromise their raid? "Police to brief Muslims before terror raids," from the TimesOnline, with thanks to all who sent this in:

POLICE have agreed to consult a panel of Muslim leaders before mounting counter-terrorist raids or arrests. Members of the panel will offer their assessment of whether information police have on a suspect is too flimsy and will also consider the consequences on community relations of a raid.

Members will be security vetted and will have to promise not to reveal any intelligence they are shown. They will not have to sign the Official Secrets Act.

Oh, good, they'll promise.

The first panel, expected to consist of four people, will be set up initially in London. Tomorrow representatives from police forces across England and Wales will decide whether to make the scheme national.

Muslim groups have welcomed the move, which is understood to be backed by Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner.

This week the Association of Chief Police Officers will discuss with MI5 and the Home Office whether to reveal to the panel intelligence information from the security service....

Common sense amid Pope Rage from the last non-dhimmi Prime Minister of Spain. From EITB, with thanks to DRK:

Muslims should apologize for occupying Spain for 800 years and a U.N.-backed program to encourage dialogue between them and West is stupid, former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar has said. Aznar made his comments Friday night in a speech at the Hudson Institute, a thinktank in Washington, D.C., as he discussed Pope Benedict XVI's recent remarks on Islam and violence.

Aznar, a firm ally of U.S. President George W. Bush and his war on terror, said the West is under attack from radical Islam and must defend itself. “It is them or it is us,” Aznar said. “There is no middle ground.” He did not elaborate. Aznar said he found it surprising that Muslims have demanded an apology from the pope over his Sept. 12 remarks.

Aznar noted the nearly 800-year Moorish occupation of Spain that began in the year 711 with an invasion from North Africa. He said Muslims had never apologized for this but still demand apologies whenever they feel offended by remarks by non-Muslims. “It's absurd,” Aznar said.

He also criticized an initiative launched last year by his Socialist successor, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, to encourage dialogue between the West and Muslim countries.

Sharia Alert from the Kashmir jihadists. From the PTI, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Jammu: In a move that will once again create a fear psychosis among womenfolk in Rajouri district, a Hizb-ul-Mujahideen area commander on Saturday threatened them to follow the Islamic dress code of wearing a burka and a veil while moving in public places and warned that they would be killed if they failed to comply, officials said.

They said a poster of ultra Alamgeer Hafiz Gazali had come up in Chokiya village of Darhal tehsil in this regard.

Giving them one week to comply, Gazali, said the throats of those defying the order would be slit. Women not wearing burkas were un-Islamic, he said in the poster.

Tens of thousands turn out in defiance of Hizballah and its Syrian and Iranian sponsors. From Haaretz: "Lebanese Christian leader: War was disaster, Hezbollah must disarm"

BEIRUT - A Lebanese Christian leader said Sunday that Hezbollah's war with Israel was a disaster for Lebanon and rapped the Shi'ite Muslim group for rejecting calls to lay down its arms.

"We don't feel [there was a] victory because the majority of the Lebanese people doesn't feel victory," Samir Geagea, head of the Lebanese Forces militia-turned-political party, said at a rally attended by thousands of supporters north of Beirut.

"The majority of the Lebanese people feel that a major catastrophe has befallen them, throwing their present and future up in the air," he said.

His speech was a response to Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah's vow, made at a rally Friday in Beirut's southern suburbs, not to disarm despite international pressure. Some 800,000 Hezbollah supporters cheered Nasrallah at the gathering.

[...]

Geagea said a strong state could only emerge after Hezbollah surrenders its weapons.

"Betting on maintaining weapons through force is a wrong bet... No weapons will make us surrender to this de facto reality," he said referring to Hezbollah keeping it arms.

Tens of thousands turn out

Tens of thousands of right-wing Christians turned out at the tumultuous rally north of Beirut, in a show of strength two days after a massive gathering by the rival Muslim Shiite Hezbollah.

[...]

The guerrillas' fight with Israel sent their support soaring among Shiites. But a large sector - particularly among Christians and Sunni Muslims - opposes Hezbollah and resents it for provoking the fighting by capturing two Israeli soldiers on July 12.

After all, an insulted populace couldn't possibly exercise self-control, once offended. From Reuters:

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt has banned editions of two French and German newspapers, Le Figaro and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, because of articles deemed insulting to Islam, the state news agency MENA said on Sunday.

Under a decree issued by Information Minister Anas el-Feki, the two editions will not be able to enter the country, it said.

"They published articles which disparaged Islam and claimed that the Islamic religion was spread by the sword and that the prophet ... was the prophet of evil," it added.

The edition of the German newspaper, dated September 16, contains an article by German historian Egon Flaig looking at how the Prophet Mohammad, the founder of Islam, was a successful military leader during his lifetime.

Flaig presents other arguments supporting the view that Islam has had a violent history.

The Egyptian agency said: "The minister of information said that he would not allow any publication that insults the Islamic religion or calls for hatred or contempt of any religion to be distributed inside Egypt."

It did not link the articles to Pope Benedict's speech in Germany on September 12, in which he quoted a Byzantine emperor as making similar remarks about Islam and the [Islamic] Prophet Mohammad.

The Egyptian government rarely bans mainstream European newspapers or magazines.

"We should also encourage the moderate leaders in the Muslim world -- and they're the majority -- to distance themselves from this extremism..." -- from Jose Manuel Barroso's comment

Four Questions and No Answer:

1. Define "moderate leaders."
2. Tell us how you know they are in "the majority."
3. Tell us why the attacks on the Pope can be described, without more, as "extremism."
4. Tell us why you think that "the moderate leaders in the Muslim world -- and they're the majority" -- have not once been capable of denouncing those who riot and agitate and utter death threats, not only now against the Pope, but in other incidents, such as those worldwide Muslim protests, presumably from those Muslims not in "the majority," over Danes daring to exercise in Denmark their right of free speech.

This is a result of Muhammad's exoneration of his favorite wife, Aisha, who was suspected of adultery. Allah gave him a revelation requiring four male witnesses to establish such a crime: "And those who accuse honourable women but bring not four witnesses, scourge them (with) eighty stripes and never (afterward) accept their testimony - They indeed are evil-doers" (Qur'an 24:4). The problem with this is that women who accuse men of rape but cannot produce four male witnesses are often accused themselves of zina -- unlawful sexual intercourse -- and jailed as a result.

"Fareeda's fate: rape, prison and 25 lashes: Up to 80 per cent of women in Pakistan's jails are charged under rules that penalise rape victims. But hardliners have vetoed an end to the Islamic laws," from The Guardian, with thanks to PVB:

In the blinding white desert sunlight in a farm courtyard on the outskirts of the ancient town of Shekhupura, Fareeda nervously passes a green silk hijab between her fingers. Unusually for a young Pakistani woman, her fingernails are not pristine and carefully painted but chewed, cracked and grubby.

Fareeda says she feels safe here - a safe house for rape victims run by a local NGO. Littered with rusting motorcycle carcases and parts of discarded fridges and cookers, it feels like a scrapyard.

The story of this 19-year-old's journey here is horrifying. In spring 2005 she was raped by her family's neighbour, a postman, and his teenage son. She fell pregnant - and later miscarried - as a result. Her mistake was to tell her parents. With their consent, under Pakistan's orthodox Islamic laws, she was charged with fornication outside marriage and sentenced to 100 lashes, later reduced to 50 and then 25 because of her age, and sent to jail. After four months her prison ordeal ended when a family friend secretly paid a bribe. Her plight is not unique.

According to a recent report by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a woman is gang-raped every eight hours in the country. However, because of social taboos, discriminatory laws and the treatment of victims by police, campaigners believe the real figure is far higher. Women who report their rapists remain more likely to go to prison themselves than see justice, so most cases are never reported. Women who are raped can face legal difficulties anywhere in the world, but human rights groups remain particularly concerned over Pakistan's record. Their alarm is centred on enforcement of the 'Hudood ordinances', a complex set of Koranic laws whose name is derived from hud meaning 'punishment'. Similar sharia laws have existed in Saudi Arabia, Iran and Sudan for centuries, but Pakistan's were enacted by former President Zia ul-Haq only in 1979, as part of his radical attempt to 'Islamicise' the country.

The legislation has always been full of legal ambiguities, and none more so than the Zina ordinance which deals with adultery, premarital sex and rape. The maximum punishment for adultery is stoning to death for married people and 100 lashes for the unwed.

For a rape trial to go ahead in Pakistan, four adult Muslim men, 'all of a pious and trustworthy nature', must have witnessed the attack and be willing to testify. Evidence from female and non-Muslim witnesses is considered worthless. A woman who can't produce those witnesses can be prosecuted for fornication and alleging a false crime, the penalties for which are stoning, lashings or prison.

Read it all.

Why does this sort of thing happen? Because the question of whether or not these officers adhered to the ideology of jihad and the subjugation of infidels is something that the Americans wouldn't care, and the Afghans wouldn't dare, to ask about.

From the PakTribune, :

KABUL: Several Afghan officers were detained for trafficking weapons and ammunition to Taliban militants, a local newspaper reported.

"The National Security Directorate arrested some Afghan military personnel in Charasiab district of the central Kabul province 28 days ago when they were trafficking arms and ammunition to Taliban rebels in the neighboring Logar province," Arman-e-Millie said.

The traffickers were carrying 150 boxes of Kalashnikov rounds and other arms by a truck, which was marked with UN emblem and escorted by a military Ranger vehicle.

Several Afghan officers, including Brigadier Abdul Faqir, chief of weapon depots in Khirabad, south of Kabul, have been arrested for being involved in the smuggling case, the newspaper said.

There are two noteworthy components to this story. One is that the US government has expressed particular concern about home-grown jihadists in the West. The other is how the notion of al Qaeda as the source of jihad ideology puts blinders on the policymakers overseeing the "War on Terror." In fact, Rep. Hoekstra appears to use the name of al Qaeda and "Islamic extremism" interchangeably in his assessment below, and the result is confusion over where all these "self-radicalized terrorists from Europe, with no criminal records and no formal links to al Qaeda" are coming from.

From the Washington Times: "Hoekstra warns of European terrorists"

The chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is warning that "self-radicalized" terrorists from Europe, with no criminal records and no formal links to al Qaeda, are quietly infiltrating the United States to proselytize, raise money and possibly plan attacks.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra, [Michigan] Republican, said that the United States has to quickly adapt to the ever-changing threat if it is going to win the global war against Islamic extremism.

Terrorists coming to the United States from Western Europe "are difficult to identify because they are self-radicalized," Mr. Hoekstra told the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) at a breakfast meeting with reporters Wednesday.

"They may have no formal association with al Qaeda, no criminal record. There's nothing in their past to draw the attention of law-enforcement officials to the individuals," he said.

He released a committee report titled, "Al Qaeda: The Many Faces of an Islamist Extremist Threat," which described how the nature of the threat has changed against the United States since the September 11 terrorist attacks.

The war is now one against entities inspired by al Qaeda, including homegrown terrorist cells composed of second- and third-generation radicalized Muslims in the United States, the report says.

"Radical Islam has changed the way that it operates," Mr. Hoekstra said. "Al Qaeda has moved into a decentralized entrepreneurial organization."

He said that by setting out a clear vision, objectives and providing resources, al Qaeda has empowered its appendages "to carry out actions independent of centralized control and then get out of the way."

"They develop a very simple message [that] is appealing to the young generation of Muslims," Mr. Hoekstra said. "They keep their message simple and they keep it consistent."

The intelligence committee chairman insisted that the United States has to overhaul its approach on the war against Islamic terrorists and learn to be as nimble and adaptable as its enemies.

AEI foreign policy analyst Michael Ledeen argued that al Qaeda is not as all-powerful as Mr. Hoekstra suggested.

"They are not 10-feet tall, and they are not that terrific," Mr. Ledeen said.

The question of al Qaeda's relative strength is immaterial when the subject at hand is how the current crop of jihadists planning and executing attacks in the West has little or no association with al Qaeda. But on the basis of Ledeen's assertion that al Qaeda is "not that terrific," there must be something else motivating "self-radicalized terrorists": The ideology of jihad, rooted in the Qur'an, ahadith, and Sunnah.

But you can't say that out loud in D.C.

Nine out of then would contact police. That's good news. It's also good to see that two-thirds note the British Muslim community's failure to root out "extremists" as one factor involved in the continuing threat of jihad terror attacks.

Now what are those nine out of ten doing about the tenth?

From The Guardian, with thanks to John Doe:

Almost one in 10 British Muslims would not inform police if they suspected that someone of the same faith was involved in a terror attack, a poll suggested.

The ICM poll for the News of the World found 9% of the 502 questioned would not tell police if they had such suspicions about a fellow Muslim.

With a Muslim population aged over 16 in Britain of around one million, that would translate to 90,000 "turning a blind eye", the newspaper said.

However, almost nine out of every 10 (86%) would contact police, according to the survey.

Among young Muslims, the figures for keeping quiet were higher with 15% of 16 to 24-year-olds saying they would not tell police and 81% saying they would.

The poll also found that one in 20 Muslims thought attacks like the July 7 bombings were justified. And more than half (56%) said they did not believe a police warning that there are thousands of extremist British Muslims willing to carry out attacks here....

More than eight in 10 (86%) said the Prime Minister should shoulder some of the blame and 72% blamed non-Muslims for racist and "Islamophobic" behaviour.

However, two thirds (66%) said the Muslim community's failure to root out extremists was a factor. Meanwhile, 83% accepted that the terrorists themselves were to blame although one in 10 said they were not.

Update to this story: "Spies reject ‘Bin Laden is dead’ claim," from the TimesOnline, with thanks to all who sent this in:

PRESIDENT Jacques Chirac ordered an investigation last night into the leaking of a French intelligence report that suggested Osama Bin Laden, the Al-Qaeda leader, may have died from typhoid in Pakistan last month.

The eight-line document, which was published yesterday in a French provincial newspaper, L’Est Républicain, was greeted with scepticism by security and government officials from the United States to Pakistan itself.

Yet the DGSE, the French secret service, had judged the report significant enough to send it on September 21 to the offices of Chirac and the prime minister, Dominique de Villepin. The report claimed that “a usually trustworthy source“ had persuaded the Saudi secret service Bin Laden was dead.

“The head of Al-Qaeda, while he was in Pakistan on August 23, 2006, reportedly suffered a very strong case of typhoid which led to a partial paralysis of his lower limbs. His geographical isolation, caused by a permanent flight, reportedly made any medical assistance impossible,“ the report said.

Intelligence of Bin Laden’s supposed death apparently reached Saudi security services on September 4. “They are said to be awaiting additional details, and in particular the exact location of his final resting place, to announce the news officially," the report said.

Chirac said after a summit with President Vladimir Putin of Russia and Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, that Bin Laden’s death had not been confirmed in any way. “I was a bit surprised to see a confidential note from the DGSE had been published,” he added. He told his defence minister to find out how it had happened.

Aftab Khan Sherpao, Pakistan’s interior minister, responded to questions about Bin Laden last night by saying: “We have no such information. I have never heard anything about this.”

Intelligence officials in America and Asia insisted they would have known about the report if it had been true, and said no such information had crossed their desks in recent days. One Washington-based official said: “I don’t think this is a piece of information that would remain secret for long — no one would have any interest in keeping it quiet.”

A source with indirect links to Al-Qaeda claimed Bin Laden had been seen alive by one of his commanders earlier this month.

This guy is getting to be like Sasquatch.

Sunni-Shi'ite Jihad Update from Reuters: "Ramadan bomb kills 34 in Iraq"

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A bomb killed 34 people in Baghdad's Sadr City Shi'ite slum on Saturday as Iraq's minority Sunnis began the fasting month of Ramadan, which U.S. commanders said might see a rise in sectarian bloodshed.

The bomb -- most likely a car bomb, according to police -- struck near a tanker distributing kerosene for stoves in Sadr City, whose poor residents are the power base of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mehdi Army militia.

In addition to the 34 people killed, 35 were injured, many badly burned.

Sunni militants claimed responsibility, declaring the attack revenge for killings by Shi'ite militia.

"This operation comes in reaction to the crimes of the Mehdi Army against our Sunni kin in Baghdad," the Jamaat Jund al-Sahaba -- Soldiers of the Prophet's Companions -- said in a claim posted on the Internet. "Our swords can reach the depth of your areas, so stop killing unarmed Sunnis."

U.S. commanders had warned for weeks that they expected a surge of violence to accompany the holy month, having observed similar patterns in previous years.

"The problem is not the statements of the Pope but the reaction of the extremists." It's amazing that this simple bit of common sense has dawned on so few people, and even more amazing that one of them is the European Commission President. Surprising anti-dhimmitude from Jose Manuel Barroso: "Barroso disappointed at lack of EU support for Pope," from Reuters:

BERLIN (Reuters) - European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso was quoted as saying on Saturday that more European leaders should have spoken out in support of the Pope after he made his disputed comments on Islam.

"I was disappointed there were not more European leaders who said 'naturally the Pope has the right to express his views'," Barroso was quoted as saying to the Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

"The problem is not the statements of the Pope but the reaction of the extremists," the paper quoted him as saying in a preview of an article to appear on Sunday....

"We have to defend our values," he said. "We should also encourage the moderate leaders in the Muslim world -- and they're the majority -- to distance themselves from this extremism," Barroso was quoted as saying.

How strange that that doesn't seem to have occurred to most of them as a possibility.

More fallout of the politicizing of the resistance to jihad. Courtroom Jihad Update from AP:

PORTLAND, Ore. - U.S. Justice Department lawyers filed an appeal Friday aimed at blocking a lawsuit by a former Islamic charity that has challenged a Bush administration secret surveillance program.

U.S. District Judge Garr M. King ruled earlier this month that a lawsuit by the defunct Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation chapter in Ashland could go forward without damaging national security.

But government lawyers argue that state secrets would be revealed if the lawsuit is allowed to proceed.

The case hinges on a classified document that U.S. Treasury officials inadvertently turned over to Al-Haramain lawyers after the charity was declared a global terrorist organization.

The charity's attorneys say the document shows that two U.S. lawyers for Al-Haramain and at least one of its officials were under electronic surveillance in 2004.

Justice Department lawyers have argued the document falls under the "state secrets privilege," allowing a judge to dismiss a lawsuit if it could damage national security by revealing state secrets.

The appeal filed with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said "the district court is wrongly attempting to create some form of secret adversarial proceedings, and, in doing so, is raising a serious danger of disclosure of important national security information."

Jihad registration. If this catches on worldwide, it will give Western officials something new to do: just as now they assure us that this or that incident had nothing to do with terrorism on the basis of the perpetrator not being a known member of Al-Qaeda or some other terrorist group, so then they will assure the public that the latest incident of violence and terror wasn't really jihad, since the perpetrator was unregistered.

From Garowe Online News, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Islamic Courts officials told hundreds of supporters at a rally in Mogadishu that an office would be opened for would-be fighters to register.

The Islamist officials, who were speaking to supporters at Friday's anti-foreign peacekeepers rally in Mogadishu, said the office would be used to register fighters for a jihad against foreign troops.

The Islamists have repeatedly threatened to wage jihad against a proposed plan to deploy African Union peacekeepers to reinforce the Baidoa-based interim Somali government.

Every year now since Jihad Watch began in October 2003 we have chronicled how jihad violence increases during Ramadan, which was characterized last year by the jihadist site Jihad Unspun as a time of "battles of glory and victories over the unbelievers." Ramadan this year, for all too many, offers similar glories -- particularly since it comes during Pope Rage.

From AFP, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

DUBAI - Islam’s holy fasting month of Ramadan began on Saturday in most of the Middle East, with bloodshed in Iraq, threats of violence across the region and many Muslims still incensed over remarks by the pope.

In the first reported bloodshed of the holy month, at least 31 people were killed by a bomb in a Shiite stronghold of Iraq where calls for “jihad’, or holy war, echoed earlier threats of attacks in the Gulf and on Israel.

A day of protests on the eve of Ramadan saw no let-up in demands for Pope Benedict XVI to apologise for quoting a medieval Christian emperor who criticised some teaching of the Prophet Mohammed as ”evil and inhuman”.

The pope has invited ambassadors of Muslim countries to the Vatican for a meeting on Monday as part of a diplomatic offensive to repair rifts caused by his remarks.

But Jordan’s Islamic Action Front derided the pope’s call.

“The pope committed a great wrong against Islam and a meeting with Muslim countries’ ambassadors is not sufficient. There must be a clear apology,” said Zaki Saad Beni Rsheid, the front’s secretary general.

As the religious row rumbled on, the shadow of more violence during Ramadan hung over security forces.

US military commanders in Iraq warned of an upsurge in violence while several other countries were fingered as Ramadan targets in a message to Western leaders from Ayman Al Zawahiri, the number two in Al Qaeda.

Marking the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks in the United States, Zawahiri threatened Israel and countries in the Gulf.

Zawahiri’s message came three days after the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Hamza Al Muhajer, urged the country’s Sunni minority to rise up and kill at least one American in the next 15 days, in a video on an Islamist website.

“These multiple messages could be a prelude to a series of attacks by Al Qaeda or by its supporters, especially during Ramadan, the month of jihad and martyrdom,” said Yasser Sirri, who heads the Islamic Observatory in London.

More violence in service of the proposition that Islam is peaceful. From AP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Palestinian police guarding a church in Nablus exchanged fire with assailants and chased them away early Saturday, witnesses said.

Shortly after midnight, the sound of heavy gun fire was heard outside the Roman Catholic Church in the West Bank city .

Resident Abdel Salam Abu Rob said police guarding the church were exchanging fire with wouldbe assailants. Police guards were posted at churches in the West Bank and Gaza last weekend, after a first spate of attacks.

Residents said they heard intensive fire for about 20 minutes. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage to the church.

Ealier Friday evening, three small pipe bombs were thrown at a Greek Orthodox church in Gaza city , a church official and police said.

A church official in Gaza City, Nabil Ayad, said one bomb was thrown at the facade of the church, shattering glass windows of a nearby van. The main entrance was blackened.

Two other small bombs were thrown inside the church compound, Ayad said. The extent of damage was not clear yet, Ayad, the caretaker of the church said.

Pakistani protesters shout slogans to condemn Pope Benedict XVI for his remarks about Islam which hurt the sentiments of Muslims, Friday, Sept. 22, 2006 in Lahore, Pakistan. Protests continued to demand that Pope apologize fully for his remarks on Islam and violence. Placard on right reads 'Enemy of Islam, down with the illiterate Pope.' – the caption to this photo

Would Americans marching in Washington hold up signs in Arabic? Would French people in Paris hold up signs in Chinese? Would Chinese in Tienanmen Square hold up signs in Spanish?

Of course not. But all over the Muslim world, there have been signs, often badly spelled, but often as well carefully printed in many copies, and all too often in English.

Why?

Just as the "Palestinians" always hold up signs in English when they wish to denounce Israel or the United States, the Muslim protestors want to be on the world-wide television news programs, want to make sure that their slogans are seen by the Western -- i.e., English-speaking -- public.

This too has nothing to do with terrorism -- by which authorities mean that Joseph Bagley has no known ties to Al-Qaeda. And no doubt he doesn't -- if he was indeed up to no good, it looks as if he was most likely a lone (and probably non-Muslim) nut who admired Al-Qaeda for its destructiveness. That in itself, however, is noteworthy: bin Laden's boys have become the idols of homicidal nutjobs everywhere.

"Police find chemicals, al-Qaida literature in north side apartment," from WTHR.com, with thanks to JDH:

Indianapolis - The FBI says it does not suspect a terror plot on the city's northside, but police want to know why a man stored and mixed chemicals in his apartment and had al-Qaida literature.

At the suspect's apartment near 96th and College crews pack the stores of cleaning and other chemicals found inside.

And the sheriff has moved the suspect from court to jail

They're holding Joseph Bagley for 72 hours, that could give police more time to check the computer the took from his apartment.

Capt. Phil Burton of the Marion County Sheriff's Deptartment says police also found, "A lot of hazardous chemicals, a gas mask, some literature about al-Qaida, about Saddam Hussein and how to make bombs. He admitted to mixing several chemicals and in so doing used his gas mask and exhaust fan."

At the lock up, a released prisoner who talked to Bagley told us, "He said he wasn't making bombs, he said there was carpet cleaner out. He said that whosever was cleaning his apartment was just terrified of everything laying out. (It) Didn't really look dangerous at all."

"This doesn't sound like any kind of international criminal conspiracy, it sounds like a lone operation involving one person," said Professor Douglad Woodwell of the University of Indianapolis. "There is definitely an inspiration al-Qaida offers to a lot of people around the world these days. They can perhaps play their own role in an epic battle."

And professor Woodwell says he could very well be a guy who just likes mixing chemicals.

A plot to obtain commercial licenses to haul hazardous materials. Hmmm.

"15 charged in driver’s license conspiracy," from The Kansas City Star, with thanks to DL:

Operators of truck driving schools in Kansas City and southern Missouri conspired to help more than 70 Somali and Bosnian nationals illegally obtain commercial licenses, federal prosecutors alleged Thursday.

Many of those students went on to obtain certification to haul hazardous materials on the nation’s highways, authorities said in announcing the 62-count grand jury indictment. Fifteen defendants face charges of mail fraud, making a false writing and illegally causing identification documents to be produced....

Then comes the by-now pro-forma assurance that, although this involves Muslims plotting to do something with potentially catastrophic results, this has nothing to do with terrorism. The possibility -- and it is just that and only that, a possibility -- that this was part of a freelance jihad, a la Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, is not even on their radar screen -- although this time a U. S. attorney does make a partial acknowledgment:

Although the Heart of America Joint Terrorism Task Force handled the investigation, Bradley Schlozman, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri, emphasized that the indictment did not allege that any of the defendants were involved in terrorism.

“That having been said, I would think it obvious that commercial driver’s licenses are an extraordinarily powerful tool, and a potential weapon, in the hands of someone seeking to do large-scale harm,” Schlozman said at a news conference Thursday.

Schlozman said the key defendants in the case showed a “flagrant and reckless disregard for our national security.”

Although the indictment referred to dozens of test applicants by name, investigators think between 200 and 300 students got their licenses through the conspiracy.

Of those, 150 to 200 later obtained certification to haul hazardous materials.

“I’m not saying we stopped a terrorist act from occurring,” Debby Stafford, an FBI official, said at the news conference. “But this is a clear example of our preventive efforts and of what we do to make our territory safer.”...

The defendants included Ernest A. “Mustafa” White, 49, of Kansas City, who owned the Muslim Brothers and Sisters trucking company in Kansas City, Kan., and Howard E. Schneider, 39, of Overland Park, owner of H.E. Schneider Trucking Co. and co-operator of Muslim Brothers, officials said....

Also charged were Dean P. Proffitt, 71, superintendent of the South Central Career Center Truck Driver Training School in West Plains, Mo., and Orbin Dale May, 63, a truck-driving tester from West Plains....

After a search warrant was served in February, West Plains School District Superintendent Karla Eslinger said that Proffitt had contacted troopers in 2003 to report that a large number of people taking the test had names that sounded Middle Eastern in origin....

Information obtained by The Associated Press under Missouri’s open records law indicated that more than 300 of about 520 people who took the test at the school between May 2004 and December 2005 but did not train there had names that might be Middle Eastern in origin.

FBI agent Mark Wagoner said White converted to Islam while in prison.

“Many of the people he came in contact with were Somali nationals,” he said.

Schlozman said that the awarding of licenses to individuals “from an area as dangerous as Somalia was a matter of particular concern to the community.”

Prosecutors said the others who were indicted generally helped in the conspiracy by driving students to West Plains for testing or helping to arrange the fake tests.

Those other defendants are:

Hiram C. Oliver, 33, Raytown; Osman Abdullahi, 30, a Somali citizen living in San Diego; Elias Mohamed, 25, Ahmed Muhidin Sharif, 27, Abdulfatah Osman Farah, 24, Abdirizak Abdi Mohamed, age unknown, and Yusuf Kalmole, 34, all citizens of Somalia living in Kansas City; Abdiwahab Mohamud Mohamed, 37, a Somali citizen living in Minneapolis; Adil Majlovic, 19, and Mersud Kajtazovic, 31, both citizens of Bosnia living in Kansas City; and Samir Hasanovic, 22, of Arnold, Mo.

More murderous Pope Rage. From AINA, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Baghdad (AINA) -- Sources at Baghdad's Yarmouk Hospital announced on Saturday the death of a second Assyrian Christian who fell victim to multiple stab wounds at the Assyrian market in the Doura District. His murder comes a day after the attack on Syriac Catholic Church in the Ashar district of central Basra where another man was murdered.

Christian Leaders in Iraq have asked their parishioners to be extremely cautious and not to leave their homes as a new group called the young Brigades of Fundamental Islam ' has distributed papers announcing the slaying of all Iraqi Christians in three days if the Pope does not Apologize.

Oh, by all that is holy -- it's racist revving now! Will it never end? Muslims continue to suffer in the racist, hateful Sceptered Isle, where even car mechanics now target them with menacing revved engines. Oh, how long, how long must that innocent, spotless lamb, the Muslim community in Britain, have to endure the virulent, violent, unholy, racist, bigoted, Islamophobic, hate-filled, senseless attacks of infidels? What will they come up with next -- racist tea? Racist bowler hats? Racist fish and chips? Oh, how long, how long will this go on?

"Racist Rev Row," from the Sunday Mail, with thanks to Twostellas:

A DRIVER spent two nights in jail after being accused of "revving his car in a racist manner".

Mechanic Ronnie Hutton, 49, yesterday described his court ordeal which finally ended when prosecutors dropped the allegation of racism.

But he was still convicted of a breach of the peace for revving the engine of his £25,000 Lotus.

Witnesses claimed he had been trying to intimidate a Libyan couple on the pavement. Ronnie, of Stirling, claims he was only revving the powerful V8 engine to avoid another £15,000 repair bill.

But off-duty Chief Inspector Eoin Jenkins thought he was targeting Muslim Isam Maigel and his wife Hana Saad.

And when Jenkins, now retired, confronted Ronnie he was told to "f*** off".

On Thursday, at Stirling Sheriff court, the Crown ditched the racist part of the charge but Sheriff Andrew Cubie convicted Ronnie of breach of the peace and fined him £150.

Last night, he said: "To be convicted for revving my car in a busy street is hard to take. Does this mean anyone driving a noisy car in Scotland is now a criminal?"

[...]

In court, Mr Maigel, 28, then a student at Stirling Uni, said: "The driver came alongside and was trying to annoy us by revving his engine very, very loudly."

Using an interpreter, Hana Saad, 23, said he had degraded them "maybe because we are Muslim".

Ronnie claims he was only trying to prevent the repeat of a engine problem had had suffered earlier with the Esprit.

He said: "I've had problems with the Lotus since I bought it. I paid £15,000 for a new engine in 2003.

"As soon as I started the car the oil pressure light wouldn't go out. I accept I revved the engine - it's a V8 twin turbo and is noisy and frightening.

"I would openly apologise to this couple. I am not a racist."

"Creed of the sword: Islam has to accept that its militants find support for violence in their faith's teachings and should pursue reform, writes Mark Durie." Durie in The Australian (thanks to all who sent this in) makes some pointed observations and shows the hollowness of the moral and theological equivalence arguments that are so common, and not just from Rosie O'Donnell:

THE world has witnessed a flood of reaction this week to Benedict XVI's Regensburg lecture, a reaction that has gone well beyond words, with attacks on churches in Gaza, the West Bank and Basra, and apparently the killing of an elderly Italian nun in Mogadishu, together with her guard. Some have called for the Pope to be executed....

On the other hand, no less a figure than the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdel Aziz al-Sheikh, issued a statement on the official Saudi news service, defending Muslims' divine right to resort to violence: "The spread of Islam has gone through several phases, secret and then public, in Mecca and Medina. God then authorised the faithful to defend themselves and to fight against those fighting them, which amounts to a right legitimised by God. This ... is quite reasonable, and God will not hate it."

Saudi Arabia's most senior cleric also explained that war was never Islam's ancient founder, the prophet Mohammed's, first choice: "He gave three options: either accept Islam, or surrender and pay tax, and they will be allowed to remain in their land, observing their religion under the protection of Muslims." Thus, according to the Grand Mufti, the third option of violence against non-Muslims was only a last resort, if they refused to convert or surrender peacefully to the armies of Islam.

Funny thing: when I point out Muhammad's three options, which are amply attested in Islamic tradition (see, for example, Sahih Muslim 4294), Islamic apologists call me an ignorant Islamophobe. Will they call Sheikh Abdel Aziz al-Sheikh an ignorant Islamophobe also? Ah, but you see, Spencer (I can hear them saying now), that's just it: Sheikh Abdel Aziz al-Sheikh is a Wahhabi leader, and you're just playing into the hands of the extremist Wahhabis by validating their twisted interpretations of Islam.

However, I did not write Sahih Muslim 4294. If a Wahhabi works from a sahih hadith, an Islamic tradition generally considered reliable by Muslims, and I note that it is indeed considered a sahih hadith, I am not helping the Wahhabi -- I'm just reporting. If Muslim reformers sincerely desire to mitigate the aspects of Islam that give rise to violence, they need to try to convince people like Sheikh Abdel Aziz al-Sheikh and his followers that such ahadith should not be considered sahih (reliable), or that they should be set aside in the modern age. But they will not and cannot accomplish simply by denying that such traditions exist, or that any significant body of Muslims pays attention to them.

Abdel went on to urge people to read the Koran and Sunnah (the record of Mohammed's teaching and example) for themselves, pointing out that the Koran, Islam's equivalent of scripture, has been translated into many of the world's languages: "Those who read the Koran and the Sunnah can understand the facts."

On this at least the Archbishop of Sydney and the Saudi Grand Mufti do agree, for in an address earlier this year, Pell also urged people to read the Koran.

Accessing the facts: So what are these facts contained in the Koran and Sunnah that the Grand Mufti would have us read? As it happens, reading the Koran is not without its difficulties. There is, for a start, the thorny problem of context. The Koran gives little help with this: it does not mark off specific passages one from another and its 114 chapters (suras) are not laid out in chronological order.

The keys to unlocking the context for individual passages of the Koran can be found in the life of Mohammed, the Sunnah. The sources for the Sunnah are the traditions (hadiths), of which Sunnis recognise six canonical collections, and biographies of Mohammed (sira literature). Although the volume of this material is considerable, it is now largely available in English translation, much of it on the internet.

In addition to the inherent difficulty of the sources, many secular Westerners rely on certain crippling preconceptions. One is the often-heard mantra that "all religions are the same". Another is the claim that "anyone can justify violence from any religious text". This idea stretches back at least to Rousseau, who considered any and all forms of religion to be pernicious.

Either of these views, if firmly held, would tend to sabotage anyone's ability to investigate the Koran's distinctive take on violence.

There is another obstacle, and that is Western culture's own sense of guilt and suspicion of what it regards as Christian hypocrisy.

Any attempt to critique some of Islam's teachings is likely to be met with loud and vociferous denunciations of the church's moral failings, such as its appalling track record of anti-Semitism. And did I mention the crusades? Finally, the reality is that Muslims adhere to widely varying beliefs and practices. Most people are understandably afraid to come to their own conclusions about violent passages in the Koran, lest they find themselves demonising Muslims.

But does the Koran incite violence, and how does its message compare with the Bible?

The Koran: It is self-evident that some Koranic verses encourage violence. Consider for example a verse which implies that fighting is "good for you": "Fighting is prescribed upon you, and you dislike it. But it may happen that you dislike a thing which is good for you, and it may happen that you love a thing which is bad for you. And Allah knows and you know not." (2:216)

On the other hand, it is equally clear that there are peaceful verses as well, including the famous "no compulsion in religion" (2:256).

Yes, but jihadists and proponents of Sharia in general have never had any trouble reconciling this verse with aggressive warfare against and subjugation of non-Muslims. After all, those subjugated were not (in most cases) forced to become Muslims, were they?

Resolving apparently contradictory messages presents one of the central interpretative challenges of the Koran. Muslims do not agree today on how best to address this. For this reason alone it could be regarded as unreasonable to claim that any one interpretation of the Koran is the correct one.

Nevertheless, a consensus developed very early in the history of Islam about this problem. This method relies on a theory of stages in the development of Mohammed's prophetic career. It also appeals to a doctrine known as abrogation, which states that verses revealed later can cancel out or qualify verses revealed earlier.

The classical approach to violence in the Koran was neatly summed up in an essay on jihad in the Koran by Sheikh Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Hamid [actually, Humaid], former chief justice of Saudi Arabia: "So at first 'the fighting' was forbidden, then it was permitted and after that it was made obligatory: (1) against those who start 'the fighting' against you (Muslims) ... (2) And against all those who worship others along with Allah."

At the beginning, in Mohammed's Meccan period, when he was weaker and his followers few, passages of the Koran encouraged peaceful relations and avoidance of conflict: "Invite (all) to the way of your Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching; and argue with them in ways that are best and most gracious." (16:125)

Later, after persecution and emigration to Medina in the first year of the Islamic calendar, authority was given to engage in warfare for defensive purposes only: "Fight in the path of God those who fight you, but do not transgress limits, for God does not love transgressors." (2:190)

As the Muslim community grew stronger and conflict with its neighbours did not abate, further revelations expanded the licence for waging war, until in Sura 9, regarded as one of the last chapters to be revealed, it is concluded that war against non-Muslims could be waged more or less at any time and in any place to extend the dominance of Islam. Sura 9 distinguished idolators, who were to be fought until they converted - "When the sacred months are past, kill the idolators wherever you find them, and seize them, and besiege them, and lie in wait for them in every place of ambush" (Sura 9:5) - from "People of the Book" (Christians and Jews), who were to be given a further option of surrendering and living under Islamic rule while keeping their religion: "Fight ... the People of the Book until they pay the poll tax out of hand, having been humbled." (Sura 9:29)

The resulting doctrine of war was described by the great medieval philosopher Ibn Khaldun: "In the Muslim community, the holy war (jihad) is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the (Muslim) mission and the (obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force." (The Muqaddimah)

The popular Muslim scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi, head of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, and al-Jazeera television personality, in July 2003 invoked the classical dogma of the Dar al-Harb or "domain of war" that encompasses all the regions of the world in which Islam is not yet dominant. In the Dar al-Harb the lives and possessions of non-Muslims are muba'a, or "licit", making them a legitimate target for military action: "It has been determined by Islamic law that the blood and property of people of Dar al-Harb is not protected ... in modern war, all of society, with all its classes and ethnic groups, is mobilised to participate in the war, to aid its continuation and to provide it with the material and human fuel required for it to assure the victory of the state fighting its enemies."

All this explains Sheikh Abdel Aziz's response to the Pope's speech.

Alluding to the distinction between the Meccan and Medinan periods of revelation, the Grand Mufti invoked the doctrine of Sura 9:29 (cited above), that fighting against People of the Book continues until non-Muslims convert or surrender.

Today most Muslims acknowledge the religious legitimacy of "defensive jihad" - including the Palestinian struggle - but many appear to reject the idea of offensive, expansionist jihad. Most would emphasise the defensive aspects of Mohammed's numerous military campaigns, claiming that his attacks on others were only to pre-empt future aggression against Muslims. It is also often asserted that Mohammed's military exploits were context-specific responses to the unique situations he encountered in his lifetime, and not binding on later generations of Muslims.

However the idea of a purely defensive jihad is hard to reconcile with the phenomenal military expansion of Islam in its first 100 years. For centuries the validity of the doctrine of expansionist jihad just seemed self-evident to Muslim scholars, as it was validated by the military victories it had delivered across the greater part of the Christian world, as well as Zoroastrian Persia and Hindu India.

The New Testament: It is not difficult to find examples of religious violence in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. When Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, he was instructed by God to destroy all who dwelled within its walls.

The New Testament takes a completely different approach.

Throughout the New Testament there is a systematic rejection of religious violence. The key to this is Jesus' message that his kingdom was spiritual and not political. Jesus explicitly and repeatedly condemns the use of force to achieve his goals: "Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword." (Matthew 26:52)...

Durie then goes on to explain how the New Testament's message is quite different from that of the Qur'an. Read it all.

And one final word from Durie for the moral-equivalencers:

The New Testament's teachings on the state continue to sustain the more than 300 million believers who live in more than 60 countries where Christians are persecuted. In none of these countries has persecution resulted in Christian terrorism or violent Christian insurgencies aimed at overthrowing civil authorities.

Pakistani protesters shout slogans to condemn Pope Benedict XVI for his remarks about Islam which hurt the sentiments of Muslims, Friday, Sept. 22, 2006 in Lahore, Pakistan. Protests continued to demand that Pope apologize fully for his remarks on Islam and violence. Placard on right reads 'Enemy of Islam, down with the illiterate Pope.' (AP Photo/K.M.Chaudary)

Tiny Minority of Extremists Update from AP, :

JERUSALEM (AP) - Thousands of Muslim worshippers staged marches against Pope Benedict XVI in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza on Friday, waving green Hamas banners and denouncing him as a "coward" and an "agent of the Americans."

The demonstrations in the Middle East, as well as smaller rallies in Pakistan and Malaysia, came as Benedict invited representatives of Muslim countries to meet Monday at his summer residence, the Vatican said....

At Islam's third-holiest shrine, the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, hundreds of worshippers hoisted black flags and banners that read, "Conquering Rome is the answer." Protesters chanted, "The army of Islam will return." The march dispersed peacefully.

In the West Bank city of Nablus, Hamas supporters took to the streets after prayers, shouting slogans against the pope and waving Hamas flags. Raising their hands to the sky, the more than 2,000 protesters chanted: "We put up with hunger, detention and occupation, but we won't put up with the offending the prophet. We sacrifice our lives for you prophet."

Marching in the streets of Nablus, the protesters called the pope a "coward and agent of the Americans."

In northern Gaza, more than 1,000 Islamic Jihad supporters shouted in praise of the prophet, and waved black flags. Khader Habib, an Islamic Jihad leader, told the crowd that the pope's comments "indicate that this pope doesn't understand Islam or the prophet."

Actually, the murderous violence, threats and intimidation of Pope Rage suggests that he, or Manuel II Paleologos at least, understands Islam and the prophet quite well.

In Ramallah, hundreds of Hamas supporters marched around the city center.

Hundreds of radical Islamists chanting "Down with the pope" rallied in several Pakistani cities.

More than 500 supporters of a coalition of six Islamic parties, called Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal, or MMA, demanded the pope's removal and accused him of supporting the policies of President Bush.

"If I get hold of the pope, I will hang him," Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, a senior MMA leader, told protesters in Islamabad, who carried placards reading "Terrorist, extremist Pope be hanged!" and "Down with Muslims' enemies!"

Strange that "...on the cross," the second part of Hafiz Hussain Ahmed's threat, seems to have vanished.

In Karachi, another MMA leader, Ghafoor Ahmed, accused the pope of wanting to force "Christians and Muslims against each other."

"We condemn the pope. We will not tolerate insulting remarks against Islam or our Prophet Muhammad," Ahmed said at a protest that drew about 300 people.

Another 200 rallied in the eastern city of Lahore, while several dozen protested in Multan.

The demonstrations came a day after 1,000 clerics and religious leaders met in Lahore and called for the pope's removal and warned the West of consequences if it didn't change its stance regarding Islam.

Thursday's meeting was organized by radical Islamic Jamaat al-Dawat group, which runs schools, colleges and medical clinics. In April, Washington put the group on a list of terrorist organizations for its alleged links with militants fighting in the Indian part of Kashmir.

After the meeting, a statement was issued demanding the West "change its stance regarding Islam (or) it will face severe consequences." It did not elaborate.

It also said that jihad was not terrorism and that "Islam was not propagated with the sword."

Malaysia's opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party staged demonstrations outside mosques nationwide, calling for the pope to fully retract his remarks. In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia's largest city, some 150 party members chanted "Stop the insults" and held a banner that read "We Muslims are peace-loving people."

Of course. Just pay no attention to that nun-shooting, or to the thousands upon thousands of acts of violence perpetrated by Muslims in the name of Islam since 9/11.

Tiny Minority of Extremists Update: "Defiant Hezbollah chief returns for 'victory' rally," from the TimesOnline, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

HEZBOLLAH held a huge “victory” rally in southern Beirut yesterday, drawing more than 500,000 people in a display of strength aimed at domestic and foreign critics who want to see the disarming of the Iran-backed Shia group.

Greeted by an ecstatic crowd of supporters cheering and waving yellow party flags, a smiling Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, made his first public appearance since going into hiding on July 12 at the beginning of the month-long war with Israel.

“We are not frightened of death. We have God on our side,” the cleric said. “Our presence here is not without any danger. However, my heart and soul would not allow me to address you from a distance.” The rally passed peacefully despite intense speculation that Israel might take advantage of Sheikh Nasrallah’s presence to fulfil its pledge to kill the Hezbollah leader.

More anti-dhimmitude from Australia, where it is getting to be quite a common sight. From Australia's ABC News, with thanks to Rosie:

Federal Treasurer Peter Costello has called on Islamic societies to disconnect church from state.

Mr Costello has said Islamic states should adopt a secular view free of all religion, in an address to the Australian Christian Lobby at a Christian Conference in Canberra today.

He also says Muslim societies should allow robust debate, after reaction to comments made last week by Pope Benedict XVI that sparked outrage across the Islamic world.

"How can one religion exercise the freedom to speak on its values, its faith, without prompting a violent response from other religions?" Mr Costello said.

"It can only happen where we all accept a set of rules, the right to freedom of speech without receiving violence in return."

Mr Costello says separating religion from government allows religious freedom.

"Now, I have argued that separation of church and state is good for both and further consistent with Christ's teaching," he said.

"I believe that a secular, national state can be adopted by Muslim societies and what is more, in doing so, will lead to greater technological and economic progress."

You may recall that he was widely believed to be dead for several years after 9/11. I therefore take this report with reserve. In any case, if he is dead, the jihad will continue. It is not based on the charismatic power of any single leader, but on an ideology.

"Bin Laden believed dead: report," from Reuters, with thanks to all who sent this in:

A newspaper has quoted a French secret service report as saying Saudi Arabia is convinced Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden died of typhoid in Pakistan last month.

The French regional newspaper, L'Est Republicain, has printed what it says is a copy of the report, dated September 21.

It says the report was shown to French President Jacques Chirac, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and France's Interior and Defence Ministers on the same day.

"According to a usually reliable source, the Saudi services are now convinced that Osama Bin Laden is dead," the document said.

"The information gathered by the Saudis indicates that the head of Al Qaeda was a victim while he was in Pakistan on August 23, 2006, of a very serious case of typhoid, which led to a partial paralysis of his internal organs."

The report, stamped with a "confidential defence" label and the initials of the French secret service, says Saudi Arabia first heard the information on September 4 and is waiting for more details before making an official announcement.

And also from Reuters (thanks to Sr. Soph): France orders probe into bin Laden death report leak

Four jihadists (including one Norwegian national) who were arrested on charges of shooting at an Oslo synagogue this past Sunday were found to have plans and equipment to carry out much worse. Oslo Jihad Update from the Jerusalem Post: "Oslo terrorists targeted ambassador"

The terrorists who shot at an Oslo synagogue on Sunday also planned to kidnap Israeli ambassador to Norway Miriam Shomrat and cut off her head, Norwegian press reported on Friday.

According to Army Radio, Norwegian security services had been tracking the four suspects who, when apprehended, were found in possession of equipment necessary to implement their plan. Two of the suspects were reported to be Pakistani nationals, one was Turkish, and the fourth Norwegian.

Sunday's shooting caused damage to the synagogue but wounded no one. Police who arrived on the scene after the incident identified at least ten bullet holes in the shul's windows and exterior wall.

[...]

Sunday's shooting came less than a week after an Al Qaida plot targeting the site was uncovered. Following the exposure of an Italian cell's intention to attack the synagogue, police had said that they would take steps to secure the synagogue, but did not detail what they intended to do.

Somali Jihad Update from AFP: "Islamist movement tightens Sharia law"

SOMALIA'S powerful Islamist movement says it will tighten Sharia law on its territory and has vowed to fight the proposed deployment of foreign peacekeepers.

Already in control of the capital Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia, the Islamists said they would seize the port of Kismayo and close the nation's border with Kenya to prevent an east African peacekeeping force entering the country to shore up the Government's limited authority.

[...]

Sheikh Mohamed Nur Duale, a top SICS member in the Lower Juba Valley, said the Islamists had surrounded Kismayo, about 500km south of Mogadishu, and would soon take it from a local militia.

"We will not attack our Muslim brothers in Kismayo or any other place in the region. Our objective is to defend the country from the enemies of Allah," he told AFP.

"No-one should dare stand in front of this holy objective."

Kismayo is currently held by the Juba Valley Alliance, a militia led by the defence minister in the government. But it has been encircled for several days by Muslim forces, who are negotiating what they say will be a peaceful handover.

Duale said the Islamists were intent on taking Kismayo because African Union-backed plans for the regional peacekeeping mission called for troops to land there.

Meanwhile, witnesses and Muslim militia commanders said the Islamists had boosted their presence along Somalia's remote and largely unpatrolled frontier with Kenya, where the vanguard of the 8000-strong peacekeeping force from the seven-nation Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) is to gather.

"We will close our border with Kenya before foreign troops can set foot on our soil," said one commander from the town of Dhobley, close to the Kenyan border.

[...]

SICS Sharia law enforcers also arrested a karate instructor and six female students at a training facility in Mogadishu, alleging they had violated Koranic precepts on the mixing of the sexes and dress, officials said.

"The detainees were involved in un-Islamic behaviour," said Sheikh Kadar Abdirahman Keyse, who runs the Islamic court in the capital's southern Hamarweine district.

More Peace and Tolerance on the Day of Rage from those who would never, ever insult or disparage a religious figure. Note the "Zionist" pendant. From AP:

A Palestinian protester holds an unflattering picture showing Pope Benedict XVI during a demonstration against his recent speech about Islam, following prayers in front of the Dome of the Rock mosque in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City, Friday, Sept. 22, 2006. Thousands of Muslim worshippers staged anti-pope marches in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza on Friday, waving green Hamas banners and denouncing the pontiff as a coward. The Arabic writing on the poster reads, 'There are many lies that go out of their mouths. ' (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)

Words of peace and tolerance from a Muslim cleric in Pakistan on the Day of Rage.

Why crucified? Because it's in the Qur'an, of course -- immediately following the oft-quoted verse about how killing an innocent person is like killing the whole world. That's Qur'an 5:32. 5:33 says: "The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter."

"Pakistanis protest, cleric says Pope should be crucified," from AFP, with thanks to all who sent this in:

ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Hundreds of Pakistani Islamists held street protests to condemn Pope Benedict XVI for remarks they regard as anti-Islamic, with one leader saying the pontiff should be crucified.

Demonstrators Friday poured out of mosques after the main weekly Muslim prayers in Pakistan's largest city Karachi, the eastern city of Lahore, the capital Islamabad and other urban centres.

"If the pope comes here we will hang him on the Cross," Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, a senior leader of Pakistan's main alliance of radical parties, told around 200 noisy demonstrators in Islamabad.

The alliance, called the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal or United Action Front, forms part of the parliamentary opposition and is often heavily involved in street protests in mostly Muslim Pakistan.

Ahmed also said the pope had joined US President George W. Bush's "crusade" against Muslims, referring to Christians who fought against Muslims from the 11th through the 13th centuries.

...who no doubt wish to treat him, once he is "handed over," with the gentleness and civility for which they have become justly renowned.

Note also the paucity of calls from any Muslim groups for Osama bin Laden to be "handed over."

From AP:

Pakistani protesters shout slogans to condemn Pope Benedict XVI for his remarks about Islam which hurt the sentiments of Muslims, Friday, Sept. 22, 2006 in Lahore, Pakistan. Protests continued to demand that Pope apologize fully for his remarks on Islam and violence. Placard on left reads 'Illiterate Pope should be handed over to Muslims.' (AP Photo/K.M.Chaudary)

Now if only Christians and Jews (and Hindus and Buddhists and atheists and what have you) would indeed get the bright idea to stand together against the global jihad. From the Pope Is A Zionist Department, via Reuters:

Palestinian supporters from Hamas burn an Israeli flag during a demonstration against Pope Benedict's remarks in the West Bank city of Ramallah September 22, 2006. REUTERS/Loay Abu Haykel

More Pope Rage, this time from Karachi, from Reuters:

Supporters of opposition Islamic alliance Muthidda Majlis-e-Amal hold a banner to protest against Pope Benedict's remarks about Islam during a demonstration in Karachi September 22, 2006. (Akbar Baloch/Reuters)

Palestinian Muslims express their rage -- and thirst for conquest -- on the Day of Rage. From Reuters:

Palestinian Muslims hold up a portrait reading 'Conquering Rome is the answer' during a demonstration against Pope Benedict's remarks about Islam, after Friday prayers in the Al Aqsa compound, a mosque at a holy site sacred to both Jews and Muslims in Jerusalem, September 22, 2006. REUTERS/Ammar Awad (ISRAEL)

More Day of Rage rage, from WND, with thanks to Davy:

JERUSALEM – Pope Benedict XVI's apologies for worldwide reaction to his remarks about Islam and his invitation today for Muslim leaders to meet with him next week are "mere diplomatic acts" and prove the pontiff does not really regret his words, a prominent Gaza Strip preacher told WorldNetDaily.

Sheik Abu Saqer, leader of Gaza's Jihadia Salafiya Islamic outreach movement, which seeks to make secular Muslims more religious, called for holy war against the pope.

He said Christian leaders such as Benedict are "afraid" because they realize Islam is Allah's favorite religion and they are going to hell unless they convert. The Gaza preacher declared the "green flag of Muhammad" would soon be raised over the Vatican.

"We did not need the words of the pope in order to understand that this is a Crusader war against Islam and it is our holy duty to fight all those who support the pope, who follow him and who did not condemn what this small racist had to say," said Abu Saqer, speaking to WND from the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis.

"The day will soon come when the green flag of La Illah Illah Allah (There is no god but Allah) and Muhammad Rasul Allah (Muhammad is the Prophet of Allah) will be raised upon the Vatican and all around the world and on the fortresses of those who want to destroy Islam, because they know that this religion obliges them to face the truth that Islam is Allah's favorite religion. And until they join Islam, hell is their last station," Abu Saqer said.

The Day of Rage is in full swing, and we are certain to see more, now that Friday prayers are wrapping up. From Iran comes this gem: Ayatollah Abdullah Javadi Amoli informs the Pope that without the Qur'an, "American Christianity and the Zionists would not left anything of the divine Christianity and Judaism." Amoli, of course, is working from some core Muslim assumptions: that Judaism and Christianity as we know them today are corrupted versions of the original messages of Moses and Jesus, and that Moses and Jesus were actually Muslim prophets who taught Islam. Thus only the Qur'an preserves true Christianity and Judaism.

It is noteworthy that he would casually reassert this theological supremacism, which leaves no room for Christians and Jews as anything other than renegades from Islam, over against the Pope's alleged insult.

"Major cleric condemns Pope's vilifying claims against Islam," from the Islamic Republic News Agency, with thanks to Arc:

Qom's Friday prayers leader, Ayatollah Abdullah Javadi Amoli, condemned recent vilifying and anti-Islamic claims of the world Catholic church leader Pope Benedict XVI.

"Pope should know that had it not been for Islam and its divine book, nothing would have been left of Christianity and Judaism," said Ayatollah Amoli in his Friday prayers sermons.

Amoli noted that had the brilliant and refreshing Quranic verses on the life of such great prophets as Jesus (AS), Moses (AS) as well as Saint Mary (SA) not been revealed to holy Prophet of Islam Hazrat Mohammad (PBUH), the American Christianity and the Zionists would not left anything of the divine Christianity and Judaism.

Javadi Amoli emphasised that Christianity is not in need of Pope and Bush today, but of an honest leader.

Qom Friday prayers leader called as "double-standards" the stance taken by Pope against Muslims' protests and said the world Catholic church leader should specify what he meant by "I am sorry." He further said, "Mr. Pope should make it clear whether he is sorry for his unfounded and baseless claims or why Muslims have not understood his intention?"

The cleric said that regarding Pope's stance, one should be watchful against enemies of Islam and Christianity that are bent on waging another crusade war.

He invited specialized organizations and communities to conduct research and collect Quranic reasons and justifications on all subjects and put them at the disposal of the religious figures and followers of other divine religions, including Pope, so that they get to know that Islam is the religion of reason and logic.

And supremacism and rage.

This just in from the Islamic Republic of Britain: all graves in this multi-faith cemetery must face Mecca, because otherwise, you see, you'd have Christian graves facing one way and Muslim graves facing another, and that wouldn't be...tidy. And of course we mustn't risk offending You Know Who.

"A Question of Faith...Or Tidiness?," from the Nottingham Evening Post, with thanks to Twostellas:

In today's secular society you could be forgiven for not knowing which direction Christian graves face.

Ancient tradition shows they should look east in anticipation of the second coming of Jesus Christ.

But all headstones at the new £2.5m High Wood Cemetery in Bulwell will be plotted to face north-east, in line with Islamic faith.

Muslims believe the dead look over their shoulder towards Mecca, towards the south-east.

Despite there being separate sections at the cemetery in Low Wood Road for different faiths, the council wanted to give a tidy, linear appearance.

Only on special request can families have graves with headstones facing in a different direction.

The controversial decision was taken after consultation with the city's Cemeteries Consultative Committee.

And it has sparked huge debate among city faith leaders.

The Rev David Gray, from St John's Church, Bulwell, said: "All faiths should have their beliefs respected.

"It would be wrong to stipulate one over the other, especially in our climate of trying to be sensitive of other people's beliefs.

"It is an evolving cemetery and should be made for people of all faiths and certainly people of Christian faiths.

"For some people it doesn't matter, but for those who prefer that they are facing east it is important."...

The local imam also opposes this preposterous bit of dhimmitude:

Raza Ul Haq, Imam at the Madni Masjid Mosque, in Gladstone Street, Forest Fields, said: "It is part of our religion for dead bodies to face Mecca. It is very important.

"If for the Christians, this is part of their religion that they should be facing towards somewhere else, then we are 200% in support of them. It is our job to help and support them. If that is their requirement, then we will be supporting the Christians."

In traditional Islamic law, Muslims may only agree to a truce (hudna) for up to a 10-year-period, and only when they are at a disadvantage and need to gather strength to fight again more effectively. Thus the offer of a truce is an acknowledgement of weakness by the forces of jihad, and the most unwise move Israel could possibly make would be to accept the offer.

From AP, with thanks to Sara:

Palestinian PM's aide says Hamas will not join unity government if recognizing Israel is a condition, adds group prepared to agree to 'long term truce' with Jewish state until it withdraws from territories

The Palestinians' ruling Hamas group will not join a planned coalition government if recognizing Israel is a condition, a close aide to Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas said Friday. At the United Nations on Thursday, the moderate Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said the planned national unity government between his Fatah Party and Hamas would recognize the Jewish state.

But Haniyeh's political adviser, Ahmed Yousef, told The Associated Press on Friday that "there won't be a national unity government if Hamas is asked to recognize Israel." The two parties announced last week that they would team up to govern, in an effort to ease crushing international sanctions imposed on the Hamas government to pressure it to soften its violent anti-Israel ideology.

Their preliminary agreement says the new government would strive to establish a Palestinian state alongside Israel - implying recognition of the Jewish state. But coalition talks have faltered because the West and Israel want Hamas to clearly state its willingness to recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept existing peace agreements between Israel and the Palestinians.

5 to 10 year truce

Yousef said instead of recognizing Israel, Hamas was prepared to agree to a "long-term truce for five or 10 years, until the occupation withdraws." He was unclear on what Hamas would do if coalition talks break down.

"...the CIA program's former director, Emile Nakhleh, played down the problem and estimated only two to three percent of the world's 1.4 billion Muslims were politically active."

"'Political Islam is not a threat,' Nakhleh, who retired from the CIA in June, said in an interview posted on the web site of Harper's magazine. 'The threat is if the people become disenchanted with the political process and democracy, and opt for violence.'" -- from this article

There is a good deal to note in the paragraphs above.

Let's stat with that figure of "1.4 billion Muslims" given with such suave assurance by Emile Nakhleh, the "CIA program's former director," and left unchallenged, or even uncommented on, by the reporter for Reuters. By now we are all familiar with the way in which Muslim spokesmen constantly exaggerate the figures for Muslims; we have all seen how, in the last few years, the figures suddenly have pushed up, in increments of 100 million -- 1 billion, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, and even, the other day, 1.6 billion. Any figure given that is over 1.2 billion (which, I think, is also exaggerated, and have written about here) is part of that campaign, part of the same campaign designed to scare non-Muslims, or overawe them, with the theme of "Islam is the world's fastest-growing religion."

Yet how many people, reading these remarks by Emile Nakhleh, "retired since June" from the C.I.A., would even stop to note that "1.4 billion" figure that is just tossed off?

And then there is the estimate, by Emile Nakhleh, that of these "1.4 billion" Muslims, only "two to three percent" are "politically active." What does that mean? What could it conceivably mean when in Islam there is no division between politics and religion? Is "politically active" a term for those who are engaged directly in terrorist acts? Is it a term meaning those who engage directly in terrorist acts and those who support them with money, with guns, with ardent approval? Is it a term that means those who actively take an interest in terrorism and also running for Town Meeting in a New England village? What does it mean? It means nothing. It is simply one more bit of nonsense and blague. Or could he mean, rather, that it his unsupported view, very few Muslims wish to become suicide bombers -- even if very many Muslims proudly named their sons Osama after the attack of 9/11/2001, and very many Muslims, in the Muslim-ruled countries and in the Lands of the Infidels, have expressed their approval of Osama Bin Laden, of Hizballah, and of other terrorists and terrorist groups?

Ignore those burning Pope effigies -- no one is really angry

Consistent with the prevailing assumption among most Western analysts that when Islamic jihadists tell us they are waging a jihad, they are in fact mistaken, and what they are doing has nothing really to do with jihad at all, so now in this ABC story about today's "Day of Rage" against the Pope we are told, with Orwellian aplomb, that rage isn't really rage. It's just Islamic culture, doncha know.

As long as this unreality continues to pervade virtually every aspect of analysis of the problem of Islamic jihad, we will never get anywhere in defending ourselves against it.

"'Day of Rage': Anger Not Jihad," from ABC, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist: