February 2007 Archives

Cyberspace is indeed a combat zone, in many ways, and an arena of the jihad, as we have noted here many times. Here is a useful overview from E. Alshech in the Jerusalem Post (thanks to all who sent this in):

Alongside military jihad, which has been gaining momentum and extracting an ever growing price from many countries around the globe, Islamists have been developing a new form of warfare, termed "electronic jihad," which is waged on the Internet. This new form of jihad was launched in recent years and is still in its early stages of development. However, as this paper will show, Islamists are fully aware of its destructive potential, and persistently strive to realize this potential.

Electronic jihad is a phenomenon whereby mujahideen use the Internet to wage economic and ideological warfare against their enemies. Unlike other hackers, those engaged in electronic jihad are united by a common strategy and ideology which are still in a process of formation.

This paper aims to present the phenomenon of electronic jihad and to characterize some of its more recent developments. It lays out the basic ideology and motivations of its perpetrators, describes, as far as possible, its various operational strategies, and assesses the short and long-term dangers posed by this relatively new phenomenon. The paper focuses on electronic jihad waged by organized Islamist groups that mobilize large numbers of hackers around the world to attack servers and Web sites owned by those whom they regard as their enemies.

Organized Electronic Jihad

In the past few years Islamist Web sites have provided ample evidence that Islamist hackers do not operate as isolated individuals, but carry out coordinated attacks against Web sites belonging to those whom they regard as their enemies. As evident from numerous postings on the Islamist Web sites, many of these coordinated attacks are organized by groups devoted to electronic jihad. Six prominent groups of this sort have emerged on the Internet over the past few years: Hackboy, Ansar Al-Jihad LilJihad Al-Electroni, Munazamat Fursan Al-Jihad Al-Electroni, Majmu'at Al-Jihad Al-Electroni, Majma' Al-Haker Al-Muslim, and Inhiyar AlDolar. All these groups, with the exception of Munazamat Fursan Al-Jihad and Inhiyar alDolar, have Web sites of their own through which they recruit volunteers to take part in electronic attacks, maintain contacts with others who engage in electronic jihad, coordinate their attacks, and enable their members to chat with one another anonymously.

The Majmu'at Al-Jihad Al-Electroni Web site, for example, includes the following sections: a document explaining the nature of electronic jihad, a section devoted to electronic jihad strategy, a technical section on software used for electronic attacks, a section describing previous attacks and their results, and various appeals to Muslims, mujahideen, and hackers worldwide.

A more recent indication of the increasingly organized nature of electronic jihad is an initiative launched January 3, 2007 on Islamist Web sites: mujahideen operating on the Internet (and in the media in general) were invited to sign a special pact called "Hilf Al-Muhajirin" (Pact of the Immigrants). In it, they agree "to stand united under the banner of the Muhajirun Brigades in order to promote [cyber-warfare]," and "to pledge allegiance to the leader [of the Muhajirun Brigades]." They vow to "obey [the leader] in [all tasks], pleasant or unpleasant, not to contest [his] leadership, to exert every conceivable effort in [waging] media jihad...[and to persist] in attacking those websites which do harm to Islam and to the Muslims..."

This initiative clearly indicates that the Islamist hackers no longer regard themselves as loosely connected individual activists, but as dedicated soldiers who are bound by a pact and committed to a joint ideological mission.

There is much, much more. Read it all.

"Are You Prepared for Jihad?" IN THE NAME OF OBL. 2007: THE YEAR OF ISLAMIC VICTORY!" "OBL" -- you know who that is. Talk of "Crusaders" and praise for suicide bombers. Run by a Kent State prof.

"Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard," by Mike S. Adams (thanks to all who sent this in):

Yesterday afternoon, I logged on to the "Global War" blog (global-war.bloghi.com) of Associate Professor Julio Pino – a Muslim convert who teaches at Kent State University. The heading for the site used to read "The Worldwide Web of Jihad: Daily News from the Most Dangerous Muslim in America." Now it reads "Are You Prepared for Jihad?" IN THE NAME OF OBL. 2007: THE YEAR OF ISLAMIC VICTORY!"

Hardly able to believe what I was reading, I called Pino at his office in Ohio around 4 p.m. According to his secretary, he had not been at work that day (he only has office hours two days of the week). He was drawing a paycheck from the people of the State of Ohio while trying to launch a Jihad against people like me. In fact, just five minutes before I called he posted an entry under the title "Crusaders Can’t Take Anymore in Afghanistan!"

Pino began his morning of not going into his office at Kent State by penning a post under the title “Frightened British Crusaders Rush More Troops to Occupied Afghanistan.” Using terms like “occupation” and “Crusaders” it isn’t really necessary to read these posts in order to ascertain who this employee of the State of Ohio is rooting for in the War on Terror.

But, just in case you were curious about the purpose of this site, it is provided in the upper right corner: "We are a jihadist news service, and provide battle dispatches, training manuals, and jihad videos to our brothers worldwide. All we want is to get Allah’s pleasure. We will write ‘Jihad’ across our foreheads, and the stars. The angels will carry our message throughout the world."

There is also an "Oath of Freedom" in the upper right corner: "We were born free. We will live freely and when death comes to us, we will die freely. Jihad is changing all that can be changed; freeing ourselves through our own efforts; and the conviction that truth will prevail, inshallah."

Under the entry "Sister Detonates Herself to Eliminate Shia Traitors" there is a description of a female suicide bomber who recently killed 41 people. Just in case you wondered how the host of the site feels about the suicide bomber, the next line tells you: "Now she lies on the Golden Couch of Paradise."

UPDATE: More on Pino here.

The use of the word "hypocrite" indicates that they regard this U.S. "spy" as akin to the "hypocrites" of Muhammad's day, who supposedly pretended to be Muslims while plotting against Muhammad. The Qur'an frequently rails against them. So this is another indication of how the jihadists see this present conflict in religious terms, while the learned Western analysts do their best to deny that religion has anything to do with the real causes of jihad terrorism or Islamic supremacism.

"Militants behead 'US spy', carve grisly message," from AFP, with thanks to JE:

PAKISTANI Taliban militants decapitated an Afghan accused of spying for US forces and scrawled the word "hypocrite" across his forehead, tribal officials said today.

The man's remains were found in a sack by the side of the road in the town of Jandola in the troubled South Waziristan tribal region, in the fifth such killing in Pakistan this year, the officials said.

A note in Urdu was pinned to the bag identifying the man as Akhtar Usman, an Afghan, and saying his death “is a result of spying for Americans” across the border in Afghanistan, the officials said.

Local authorities brought the body to their office in Jandola and placed it outside to be formally identified.

Militants last week cut off the hands and feet of a suspected spy in neighbouring North Waziristan. On February 6 the bullet-riddled bodies of two more were found in the same area, while another was killed around February 1.

Now why would these "militants" have done such a thing? Might it have been because of this? "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." -- Qur'an 5:33.

Those at the Emory Wheel are reduced to this transparent nonsense of Taqiyya and Tu Quoque. How else can they proceed? They know what is in the texts. They know what states, societies, families suffused with Islam are taught. They know the tenets. They know the attitudes. They are well used to the atmospherics. They just don't know how to handle those Infidels who also know those texts, those teachings, those attitudes, those atmospherics.

And there is nothing they can do to stop more and more Infidels, as they pick up their newspapers or turn on the evening news, from realizing how much of it is about this or that local manifestation of the worldwide and permanent Jihad -- which can only get worse, and examples of which will only proliferate. Those Infidels will find out, slowly and then more rapidly, in greater and greater numbers, about Islam. There is nothing Islamic apologists can do about this, try as they will to lie, or to hide, or to distract with irrelevancies, or by appeals to Western "guilt" and false claims of victimization. Islam itself, as the vehicle for Arab imperialism, is the most successful imperialist project in history, the force which caused whole peoples to jettison and ignore, or despise, their own histories, pre-Islamic or non-Islamic. In light of that, the raising of idiotic claims of "racism" will not forever prevent Infidels, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and all others, everywhere and not just here in this country, from finding out about Islam.

A reader asks, "Is anyone else getting bored with Iraq and Islam?"

I am. I am getting bored, quite bored, with Iraq and Islam. In fact, I've long been bored silly with the whole business of Iraq and Islam. It is not terribly interesting in itself, except as a case study offering a rich variety of different kinds of willful ignorance, sentimentalism, and avoidance of the obvious -- as well as of sheer stupidity in so many different, and differently unappealing, forms. It must have been the same for all kinds of people who encountered similar phenomena, although perhaps it was not boring for Winston Churchill to have to again and again say the obvious things (or obvious now) about Adolf Hitler, about the Storm Troopers, about Nationalsozialismus, and about how Mein Kampf was meant seriously and should not be dismissed.

Or it may not have been similarly boring for all those who wrote about Japanese militarism and emperor-worship, that is Kodo, in Japan beginning in the 1920s, with the full menace already clear to some by 1930: one Western student of the subject laid it all out, and even predicted the exact places the Japanese would attack.

One may compare this case to many such cases in Pakistan, where gang rape is rather frequently used to settle scores, often to put a lower social group back in its supposed place. Moreover, the burden of proof is on the victim, per the "four witnesses" requirement in Qur'an 24:13, to demonstrate they were not at fault, well in line with that which is so often imposed on Israel when jihadists attack.

"Gang rapes Jewish women as 'revenge'," by Rebecca Anna Stoil and Shelly Paz for the Jerusalem Post:

A gang of serial rapists has been prowling the North, raping Jewish women as revenge for IDF actions in the West Bank, police revealed Tuesday after arresting six suspects.

"We are raping Jews because of what the IDF is doing to the Palestinians in the territories," one of the six suspects told investigators from the Northern District Central Investigative Unit (CIU) during questioning. During their questioning and their brief appearance at the Nazareth Magistrate's Court Tuesday, none of the four main suspects indicated that they felt remorse for their actions.

Police said they were aware of four attacks carried out by the gang, but they believed there were probably other incidents that had gone unreported by the victims.

In all four cases, police said, the rapists' modus operandi were strikingly similar - all of the attacks were directed against young women who were waiting at bus stops or designated hitchhiking points in the western Galilee and the Haifa area.

In all of the cases, the attackers forced their victim into a car and drove together with the victim to an isolated spot, where they raped her.

All of the suspects are from the Galilee town of Bir al-Maksur, a Beduin village near the Hamovil Junction. The last of the four known rapes was carried out in a forested area just outside of the village.

The first attack occurred in April 2005, when a 13-year-old girl was raped at the Zevulun Beach in Kiryat Yam. In December of that year, a 19-year-old soldier was kidnapped and raped just outside of Kiryat Ata.

According to police, the gang attacked again three days later. In that assault, the gang allegedly kidnapped a 16-year-old girl who was standing with her friends at the Kiryon Junction in Kiryat Bialik. They allegedly took her to a grove near Tamra, where they raped her.

It was after the third attack, commander of the Northern District CIU Asst.-Cmdr. Menahem Haver said, that the police realized they were dealing with a serial rape gang. In that case, the teenage victim told investigators that one of her attackers told her the attack was in revenge for IDF operations in the Gaza Strip.

Minneapolis Sharia Cab Controversy Update by Patrick Condon for Associated Press, with thanks to JS:

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. - For Abdi Mohamed, it's not a question of whether he'll carry passengers with alcohol in his cab. The question is whether he'll get punished for refusing to do so.

"I am Muslim. I'm not going to carry alcohol," Mohamed, a driver for Bloomington Cab, told a Metropolitan Airports Commission panel that gathered public opinion Tuesday regarding proposed penalties for cabbies who refuse service to passengers carrying alcohol.

Dozens of cab drivers showed up for the hearing at a hotel near the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Commissioners are charged with setting a new policy by May, when airport licenses for cab drivers are set to expire. Under the proposal, drivers who refuse service for any reason would have their license suspended for 30 days. A second refusal would mean a two-year revocation of the license.

According to airport officials, about 80 percent of their cabdrivers are Somali, who are commonly Muslim. Islam religious law strictly forbids the carrying of alcohol.

Last year, airport officials said alcohol-bearing passengers were being refused service an average of 77 times a month, though that dropped drastically after new travel safety rules prohibited liquids in carry-on luggage.

In September, the commission proposed a compromise that would have let Muslim cabbies purchase and mount a different-colored light on their cab if they didn't want to pick up passengers carrying alcohol.

But that proposal triggered a huge backlash, from both passengers and other taxi drivers who feared it would make travelers avoid taxis altogether. Soon the airport commission went the other direction, proposing the stiff penalties for cabbies who refuse service to alcohol-toting passengers.

Douglas Bass, of St. Paul, came to the hearing to argue for what he believes is an important principle.

"I don't have a problem with people practicing their religion," Bass said, "I don't even have a problem with people who want everyone to believe what they believe. But I do have a problem when a majority is being forced to observe other religions and customs."

Much of the hearing was dedicated to concerns over whether Muslim cabbies would also refuse service to blind passengers with trained guide dogs, because of Muslim prohibitions against interacting with dogs.

Several blind people voiced their concerns, but cabbies at the hearing said such worries aren't warranted. Refusing service to blind passengers is against federal law.

[...]

Abdifatah Abdi, who said he is counseling cabdrivers on legal issues related to the controversy, warned commissioners that instituting the penalty would set off a long legal battle.

"This is a religious freedom issue, and it will not end here," Abdi said. "It will go to the courts, even the Supreme Court. The drivers will not relinquish their rights to be protected under American law."

There are other American laws involved here. There were some people a few years back who sat down at lunch counters and at the front of buses to prevent this sort of thing.

Of course, readers of Jihad Watch have known this since at least April 17, 2004, when I wrote here that "we used to hear all the time that Sistani was a moderate. But it should be clear to everyone now that he wants Sharia in Iraq, and, in accordance with Sharia principles, will not side with infidels against a fellow Muslim."

"Mugged By Reality," by Hugh Hewitt (thanks to Andrew Bostom):

John Agresto's memoir of his service in Iraq as senior advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education came out this week. He'll join me in the third hour today.

It is a very personal book, full of regret and sober observations on the mistakes made throughout the post-invasion period. There is plenty of blunt talk as well. Example:

We insisted that the Ayatollah Sistani was surely a "moderate" and a friend to civil and religious liberty despite all the hard evidence to the contrary. Let me repeat my previous observations and predictions: The Ayatollah Sistani is an Islamist bent on establishing a theocracy not far removed from that found in Iran. He is an open anti-Semite and a not-too-subtle anti-Christian. he threw his support behind democratic elections because they were the handy vehicles for imposing religious authority all over Iraq. Nor is he the only one, or even the worst, only the most prominent. Yet while I believe the evidence is as clear here as it is in the case of Chalabi, we only see what we want to see,, not what's visible. In our religious lives, Hope may well be a virtue -- but in foreign policy it is more often a sin, a temptation to willful blindness.

Yes, the willful blindness is everywhere, isn't it, Mr. Hewitt?

See also these other Jihad Watch posts:

Fitzgerald: Sistani for Nobel? No thanks

Sistani funnels money to Iran

Sistani: "Sodomites should be killed in the worst manner possible"

Jaafari: Sistani wants Islamic law in Iraq

And there are more where those came from.

Also, Andrew Bostom's article, "Is Paul Bremer 'Unclean'?," dates from February 20, 2004.

Bridge for Sale! From AP:

The supreme leader of Hamas has promised that the group will end missile attacks and other violence against Israel, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday.

"Hamas should use its authority to stop violence including missile attacks against Israel," Lavrov said at a news conference after his meeting with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal.

Vague language, complete with the use of the passive voice to mask just who would be taking those steps:

"We received confirmation that such steps will be taken," Lavrov said.

However, Mashaal said at a separate news conference that the group is not ready to recognize Israel.

Renouncing violence and recognizing Israel are both key demands of international peace negotiators.

And the usual, deliberately vague pledge:

"First of all, Israel has to end its occupation of Palestinian territory and put an end to the suffering of the Palestinian people," Mashaal said when asked about the recognition issue. "When Israel does that, the Palestinian people will make their position clear."

In remarks before his morning meeting with Mashaal, Lavrov called for international support for the power-sharing arrangement between Hamas and Fatah and for lifting an international financial aid blockade against the Palestinian Authority.

However, the Quartet of Middle East peace brokers, which includes Russia, has said recognizing Israel is a key condition for resuming aid. It was not immediately clear if Russia's expression of support for the Hamas-Fatah power-sharing agreement meant it was stepping back from the Quartet demands.

Mohamed Shorbagi Update. "Muslim leader sentenced for backing Hamas," from AP:

ROME, Ga. (AP) -- The former Imam of a Rome Muslim congregation has been sentenced to more than seven and a half years in prison for providing monetary support to the terrorist organization Hamas.

U.S. District Judge Harole Murphy sentenced 42-year-old Mohamed Shorbagi today in Rome.

Federal prosecutors said Shorbagi had sought donations from his mosque that were sent to the Palestianinan terrorist group. They also said he provided logistics for them by creating media materials that ultimately were distributed oversesas.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Kim Dammers suggested that his sentence be reduced from 15 years in prison because of Shorbagi's help in testifying for the government in other terrorism-related trials.

After the sentencing, Shorbagi shook hands with about a dozen friends and family members who were gathered at the court before he was taken away.

At the sentencing, Shobagi said he realized that some of his actions were wrong, which was why he decided to cooperate with the government.

He pleaded guility in August to a charge of providing material support to Hamas.

He is a citizen of the Palestian territories but is in the United State legally. He says he has been in America for 22 years.

Julia Gorin at Political Mavens details a particularly jaw-dropping case of moral equivalence.

I had to do a double take when I read these opening paragraphs in Saturday’s Salt Lake Tribune:

Holocaust survivor mesmerizes students

He was just a little older than his audience when the Nazis starved him and showed him such unspeakable brutality. He’s still talking about it now.

The reaction at Fort Herriman Middle School last week was to stand and cheer his courage. Days after a teenager went on a shooting rampage in Salt Lake City, students at Jordan School District middle schools were mesmerized by David Faber, a Holocaust survivor who weighed 72 pounds when he was freed from a concentration camp at 18. He was the same age as Sulejman Talovic, the Trolley Square shooter.

What was that? Come again? Where did that line come from? What is it doing there? What is its meaning? It appears that the Salt Lake Tribune has made it official: A Killer Muslim is no worse than a Jewish survivor. Said differently: a Jewish survivor is as bad as a Muslim killer. Said another way: A Jew who wasn’t killed is as bad as a Muslim who has killed.

The author doesn’t even make a bland comparison of this victim of an atrocity to the victims of the killer. No, she compares a Jew who survived death to a Muslim who caused it. She is equating a villain with a victim, with someone who actually witnessed the Holocaust and didn’t go about killing people later as a result, to someone who left an enclave — which was not a labor or death camp — before any killing of its inhabitants took place. She’s comparing someone guilty of the kind of genocidal behavior and religious persecution that the other person was a victim of.

But the dumbness doesn’t stop there. She also bases the comparison on age similarities, but there isn’t even enough for that. She compares the survivor’s age at rescue to the killer’s age at killing, which gives the whole thing even less sense, if possible, since Talovic left Srebrenica when he was four.

Read it all.

Jihad Watch reader Greg writes from Minneapolis with an update about the Sharia Cab Controversy:

I attended the MAC hearing today about increasing refusal-of-service penalties for cab drivers. It was very well attended, especially by the Somali cabbies (must have been 100 of them). Also present were the NCAA, a Teamsters Union representative, Northwest Airlines, the vistor bureau, a couple of imams, a number of blind people with their dogs and a whole lot of media.

After about 2 1/2 hours there was a break. A couple of cabbies took the opportunity to pray, and chose an interesting location for that activity.

As you can see.

However, no group has claimed responsibility. "Indo-Pak peace train hit by terror; 67 dead," from NewsLocale:

Terror struck the Samjhauta Express early Monday morning when a bomb blast ripped apart the peace train causing the death of at least 67 people and injuring many others. The attack involved two crude bombs and occurred near the Indian city of Panipat.

The train links New Delhi with Lahore and was restarted in 2004 as a mark of peace between the two warring neighbors. It is not clear how this will affect the peace process, but one fact was significant. This is the first terror attack to target innocent citizens of both countries.

Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf called the attack wanton and vowed that it would only strengthen the peace process rather than derail it. "Such wanton acts of terrorism will only serve to further strengthen our resolve to attain the mutually desire objective of sustainable peace," he said.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that the culprits would be brought to book. The finger of suspicion is being pointed at Islamic terrorist groups Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, although no group has claimed responsibility.

How did they find out? Probably through contact with people who work with the Americans -- in other words, this is likely another indication of the fact that there is no firewall within Muslim communities between jihadists and peaceful Muslims. Jihadists have never been expelled from Islamic communities, but rather move freely within them. And so things like this are virtually impossible to prevent.

An update on this story from AFP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Islamabad - A suicide attack at an Afghan air base where US vice-president Dick Cheney was staying shows that the Taliban and al-Qaeda have penetrated local intelligence agencies, analysts and officials said.

The blast early on Tuesday at Bagram air base near Kabul also highlights the increasing sophistication of the extremist outfits as they prepare for a feared spring offensive against Western troops, they said.

[...]

"This shows how much the militants have penetrated the intelligence of the Afghan security forces. It is a most shocking attack," retired Pakistani general turned analyst Talat Masood told AFP.

Visit unannounced

Cheney's visits to Pakistan and Afghanistan were unannounced and shrouded in even tighter secrecy than when US President George W Bush travelled to the two countries in March 2006.

[...]

A senior Pakistani counter-terrorism official said the "sophisticated" attack "indicates the militants' preparedness and the quality of their intelligence collection in the run-up to the so-called spring offensive".

He added: "They must have had information (a) few days before that the US vice-president would be in town and stay at Bagram. This is not something you can plan with 12 hours notice."

A sadly unsurprising report by Terry Trippany at Newsbusters (thanks to all who sent this in):

Violence and chaos are terms that are pretty well defined in society. A person tends to conceptualize events tied to such words by visualizing bombs exploding, bullets flying and all commonly associated images from the ravages of war and crime.

But violence is not limited to the media driven coverage that most often captures the readily available public examples of violence. There are plenty of examples of violence that occurs relatively unnoticed to the public eye. Violence such as the quietly executed political and religious persecution that happens in the middle of the night and well away from western cameras. Violence such as the forced recognition of Islamic law by dhimmi slaves and non-religious infidels. These examples, which have plenty of evidence to back them up, are sadly considered non-chaotic because they happen either quietly or with the acceptance of many.

Which makes the BBC characterization of the Islamic takeover of Somalia all that more appalling. Such willingness to ignore the quiet forms of violence and perpetuate the myth that there is a lack of chaos simply because certain crimes against humanity are perpetrated away from the media's selective eye is an affront to journalistic integrity.

Read it all.

Selig Harrison notes something that almost no one knows, not in Congress, not in the press, and not, it seems, many others: that since 9/11/2001 the Bush Administration has given Pakistan the equivalent of $27.5 billion dollars. That makes Pakistan, after Iraq, the largest recipient per annum of American aid. The next time someone begins to squawk to you about "all that aid to Israel" -- an unshakeable ally in the war of self-defense against the Jihad, as of course it must be, given it is also the victim of the earliest, and best publicized, of the Lesser Jihads begun after World War II (along with that against Hindus in Kashmir), remember this. Growing Muslim wealth and power has, of course, made for dozens of Lesser Jihads, all of which should be correctly seen as local manifestations of the same impulse arising out of the texts, teachings, attitudes, and atmospherics of Islam.

27.5 billion dollars from America to Pakistan? For what, exactly? What has been the great achievement? How is Al-Qaeda doing in Pakistan? Why, it is doing just fine, thank you. An occasional pretend pinprick, nothing serious, a handful of people possibly killed, often the wrong people. Much huff-and-puffing for the endlessly -- at least until now -- gullible Americans, who have decades of trusting faith in those fine Pakistani generals, those terry-thomased mustachioed ramrod-straight graduates of Sandhurst. Or at least that was how those American generals who for decades preferred them to the Indians, to Nehru and Menon and Mrs. Gandhi, saw them. And by the way, wasn't Islam a "bulwark against Communism"? And wasn't Saudi Arabia, just like Pakistan, the true-bluest friend America could ever have? What, me worry?

On February 16 I sent this letter to the Emory Wheel, the newspaper of Emory University, in response to a letter they had printed protesting an advertisement from our Terrorism Awareness Program at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

The Emory Wheel printed it a few days later, whereupon I wrote here: "I predict right now that none of the responses will deal with the fact that this letter is made up largely of quotations from Islamic sources, except possibly to claim (falsely) that these sources are "marginal" and that no Muslims pay attention to them. However, while the claim will be made that my quotations are 'cherry-picked,' 'out of context,' and so on, no actual documentary evidence will be offered that the schools of Islamic jurisprudence do not actually teach warfare against and the subjugation of unbelievers. No such evidence can be offered, because they do teach this." I might have added that I would almost certainly be personally attacked as a "hatemonger."

Anyway, as if on cue, no less than four authors, Sharefa Aria, Ridwan Khan, Huma Mirza and Aneel Naeem, have collaborated to defame me and Jihad Watch in The Wheel: "The Wheel Prints Hate Against Islam," in the Emory Wheel (thanks to Jihad Watch News Editor Marisol Seibold):

What is the difference between the Internet hate site jihadwatch.com and the Wheel? Not much, if you read Robert Spencer's commentary on the Wheel's decision to run an advertisement equating jihad with bigotry against non-Muslims, women and homosexuals ("A Bestselling Author Offers a Different Definition of Jihad," Feb. 20).

Jihad Watch is in favor of freedom of conscience, equality of rights before the law, and other elements of Western societies that are contravened by Sharia. If that makes it a "hate site," then the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights are hate literature.

It is apparent that Muslims, including Emory's sizable Muslim community, have become the new "other" - a scapegoat for terrorism, war, cavities and whatever other ills currently plague society.

What other community could be compared to Mussolini's black shirts or the Nazis with impunity on the pages of a major university newspaper? Were the same things said about Zionists, the paper would understandably baulk about running such material. Evidently it is acceptable, however, to print such work attacking Muslims.

Who compared Muslims to Fascists or Nazis? Read my letter. It wasn't I, yet this sizable writing team is only discussing my letter. The writing committee, I suspect, is setting up a straw man, which is easier to knock down than what I actually wrote.

When talking about Spencer, for example, the Wheel demurred from printing the entire title of his book, The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion. As is evident from that title, Spencer has no academic background in Islam, but is rather a polemicist whose expertise is in Islamophobia.

I'd welcome any evidence -- from today's world, not tendentious and politicized historical accounts -- that any other religion is more intolerant than Islam. Sharefa Aria, Ridwan Khan, Huma Mirza and Aneel Naeem can send it to me here, at director@jihadwatch.org.

Spencer's specious arguments and David Horowitz's original ad use cherry-picked quotes without any context to stigmatize a community, which comprises nearly one-fifth of our world population.

This sentence makes me feel like a prophet, but anyway, I wrote in my letter about the teachings of Islam, which are a matter of record. Anyone who wishes to discover what they are can do so. The fact that the teachings of Islam mandate warfare against unbelievers does not mean that all Muslims are pursuing or will ever pursue this warfare, any more than all Catholics will ever forgo contraception. That is why it does not follow from the fact that "a community, which comprises nearly one-fifth of our world population" is stigmatized. If Sharefa Aria, Ridwan Khan, Huma Mirza and Aneel Naeem renounce these teachings and begin to work to convince other Muslims to do so, I will not only not stigmatize them, but I will congratulate them.

When the Wheel first ran Horowitz's ad, we believed that the paper's staff simply prioritized revenue before civic duty. However, running Spencer's editorial suggests a more active agenda to malign Islam and hurt the Emory Muslim community. To see the kind of hate Spencer spawns and which the Wheel facilitates, one need not go further than the comments section of the newspaper's website. Like-minded bigots across the country congratulate Spencer for exposing "barbaric" Islam, while another claims Islam is not "religion, but a mental illness." Is this the kind of discourse with which we wish to define Emory?

For both the Wheel's record as well as Mr. Spencer's, we'd like to say that we are Muslims, and being maligned by the Wheel is unacceptable. It is our very Islamic beliefs that command us not to threaten or transgress against our fellow man, but rather to be productive members of both the Emory and greater human communities. No Muslim at Emory is proud of Al-Qaeda, but at the same time we can distinguish between the religion and those who exploit it for political motives. This kind of exploitation is not relegated just to terrorists, but is also used by Islamophobes like Spencer - and now the Wheel - to erroneously smear every Muslim....

I have never in my life said or written anything about what "every Muslim" believes or does. To do so would be asinine, but of course to characterize me as having done so is part of how Sharefa Aria, Ridwan Khan, Huma Mirza and Aneel Naeem evidently hope to compel people of good will not to pay attention to what I am saying.

In my prediction I said that "no actual documentary evidence will be offered that the schools of Islamic jurisprudence do not actually teach warfare against and the subjugation of unbelievers. No such evidence can be offered, because they do teach this." And indeed, Sharefa Aria, Ridwan Khan, Huma Mirza and Aneel Naeem do not offer any such evidence. They can't.

Nor does Ammara Abbasi in another letter in the Wheel, "Jihad Isn't Just Warfare" (thanks again to Marisol). After indulging in some familiar tu-quoque arguments, Abbasi says:

And for those interested in one point of view, by all means go to Jihad Watch's website. Unfortunately, Robert Spencer's earnest attempts to make his points are marred by his sensationalist approach. Spencer's words inevitably dehumanize and ostracize Muslims in what should be a respectful dialogue.

In fact, I'm all for a respectful dialogue. I have invited numerous Islamic scholars to a respectful dialogue, including Ahmed Afzaal, Omid Safi, Akbar Ahmed, Jamal Badawi, and Carl Ernst. All have either declined or never quite gotten around to getting back to me. There have been others also. If I am really the ignorant hatemongering flamethrower of myth, one of these guys ought to agree to debate me, mop the floor with me and show me up before the world, no? But I will be happy to engage in a respectful dialogue with Ammara Abbasi. I can be reached, again, at director@jihadwatch.org.

Chicago Jihad Update. "Cousins sought `training in Jihad,' prosecutors say," by Jeff Coen in the Chicago Tribune, via the KRT Wire, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

CHICAGO - Two Chicago-area cousins linked to a terrorism conspiracy last week traveled to Egypt in 2004 and planned to head to Pakistan for military training, federal prosecutors told a judge Monday.

Zubair A. Ahmed, 27, and Khaleel Ahmed, 26, were seeking "training in Jihad," prosecutors said during a detention hearing on whether Khaleel Ahmed should be kept in custody as he is transferred to Ohio to face the charges.

The trip was not a vacation as the Ahmeds have maintained, Assistant U.S. Attorney Vickie Peters said.

"It was intended as the first stop of a trip that would land him on the battlefield of Iraq fighting U.S. servicemen," Peters told U.S. Magistrate Judge Geraldine Soat Brown.

From Pakistan comes this When Men Own Women Update, via the Daily Times, with thanks to Twostellas:

MULTAN: The wife of a farmer from Bahawalpur has registered a case against her husband, accusing him of selling her kidney without her consent to purchase a tractor, police said on Monday.

District Police Officer (DPO) Bahawlapur Arif Nawaz said that police had registered a case against farmer Shakeel Ahmed following the written complaint of his wife, Safia, “in the light of a medical report indicating that (her) husband had unlawfully sold one of her kidneys”.

Safia moved an application to the Noshera Jadeed station house officer (SHO), stating that her husband, whom she married in 2004, had beaten her when she was three-months’ pregnant, causing her to miscarry.

She said that her husband then took her to Bahawal Victoria Hospital, on the pretext of seeking medical treatment. She accused doctors of removing one of her kidneys during a surgical procedure, claiming that they had acted in collusion with her husband and had failed to secure her consent before removing the organ.

Safia said that she only came to know about her ordeal when she later contracted a urinary tract infection and sought medical treatment. She also pointed out that that her husband then confessed what had happened, admitting that he had sold her kidney and used the money from the transaction to buy a tractor.

An update on this story. "More polio cases if resistance continues: NIH, WHO," from the Daily Times, with thanks to Twostellas:

ISLAMABAD: The National Institute of Health (NIH) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) fear that more polio cases will crop up in the Bajaur and Malakand agencies since workers are denied access to children amid threats by Taliban-backed clerics, Daily Times learnt on Monday.

A senior official at the NIH said that health authorities had confirmed yet another polio case in the Nowshera. He said that the polio victim was originally from the Bajaur Agency. In addition, the Health Ministry has also reported three more confirmed polio cases in urban and rural Sindh.

The clerics, including Tehreek Nifaz Shariat-e-Muhammadi (TNSM) leader Maulana Fazlullah and his supporters in the Malakand Agency, have been ‘warning’ people during sermons in mosques or through illegal FM radio stations not to administer polio drops to their children since it was against religious norms and brought infertility. Maulana Fazlullah is the son-in-law of Maulana Sufi Muhammad, ex-chief of the TNSM.

To complete the polio immunisation drive, the WHO and the Ministry of Health are contemplating enlisting the help of the district/tehsil and union council nazims, political and religious leaders, public representatives and tribal elders, sources said.

Some religious leaders in the Bajaur and Malakand agencies are telling the people not to get their children vaccinated since the practice is un-Islamic, and that those that die of polio would be considered martyrs.

William Rees-Mogg in the TimesOnline (thanks to all who sent this in) addresses the fashionable moral equivalence that would see all religions as presenting more or less the same threat to generally accepted modern notions of human rights. I address the same question from a different angle here.

From the earliest days Christianity has been opposed to slavery. In his Letter to the Galatians, St Paul wrote: “As many of you that have been baptised in Christ, have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek: there is neither bond nor free: there is neither male nor female. We were all one in Jesus Christ.” Undoubtedly Christians have compromised with slavery — as with other social evils — in the course of history, but the orthodox Christian doctrine is one of liberty and equality.

The Christian belief was the inspiration in William Wilberforce’s long campaign to end the slave trade. His Bill received the Royal Assent on March 25, 1807, 200 years ago. That was the most important of all the great reforms of the 19th century; essentially it was a Christian reform, inspired by the Protestant conversion of Wilberforce himself. March 25 was the old New Year’s Day; it is also the feast of the Annunciation of Mary, the Mother of Jesus.

We live in an age when modernists regard religion with something approaching panic. It is like the Devil’s attitude to Holy Water. There was a comic example of Christianophobia in The Sunday Times yesterday. Michael Portillo, who used himself to be seen in Brompton Oratory, was hyperventilating at the idea of David Cameron going to church. “I worry,” he wrote, “because men of power who take instruction from unseen forces are essentially fanatics . . . I would be more reassured to hear that the Tory leader goes to church because that is what it takes to get a child into the best of state schools, not because he is a believer.”

Perhaps this neurotic response to Mr Cameron’s habit of going to church reflects Mr Portillo’s recognition that religion is again becoming an important influence on society. Many of the current news stories show that religion is back in public consciousness; for those who feel uneasy about religion, that is unwelcome.

Islam is, of course, the alarming religious issue that will not go away. In the 20th century the world failed to adjust to two major belief systems, nationalism and Marxism. Now we face a similar global challenge from Islam, which opposes Judaism in Israel, Hinduism in India, Buddhism in South East Asia, Christianity in Europe and America and modernism in the whole advanced world. We certainly cannot say that all religious influences are benign; al-Qaeda is a religious cult, but a perverted one.

Religion turned William Wilberforce into a Protestant saint, but Wahhabism has turned Osama bin Laden into a devil.

Read it all.

The idea that women are possessions of men is deeply ingrained in the Qur'an and Sunnah. This kind of thing is the result.

From Reuters, with thanks to all who sent this in:

HYDERABAD (Reuters) - A teenage girl in southern Pakistan, whose late father lost her in a poker game when she was 2 years old, has asked authorities to save her from being handed over to a middle-aged relative.

Rasheeda, 17, said she has filed applications with the police and a local councillor asking them to prevent Lal Haider, 45, from taking her to his home.

Her mother, Nooran said her husband racked up a debt of 10,000 rupees ($151) to Haider playing cards.

"My husband didn't have money to pay, and instead he told Lal Haider that he could take Rasheeda when she grows up," she said.

Despite being paid his money last year, she said Haider still insisted the girl should be given to him because of tribal customs.

"The state of Hezbollah is already in existence in south Lebanon."

"Hezbollah land grab heralds war," by Nicholas Blanford for the Times via The Australian, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

HEZBOLLAH, the militant Shia organisation, is building a new line of defences just north of the UN-patrolled zone in south Lebanon ahead of a potential resumption of war with Israel. The military build-up, only six months after the last Lebanon-Israel conflict, is being conducted in valleys and hillsides guarded by uniformed Hezbollah fighters in the rugged mountains north of the Litani river - the limit of the 12,000-strong UN Interim Force In Lebanon (Unifil).

Christian and Druze-owned land is being bought for cash by a Shia businessman.

Hezbollah's opponents believe the goal is to create a Shia-populated belt spanning the northern bank of the Litani, allowing the Lebanese group to operate away from prying eyes.

"The state of Hezbollah is already in existence in south Lebanon," the Druze leader and arch Hezbollah critic Walid Jumblatt said.

Since the end of the month-long clash last northern summer, Unifil's strength has increased sixfold, with reinforcements from European countries such as France, Italy and Spain.

An additional 20,000 Lebanese troops have flooded the area, making it impossible for Hezbollah to resurrect its military presence along the border with Israel.

"There have been no instances of attempts to smuggle weapons into the area," Unifil senior adviser Milos Strugar said.

Instead, Hezbollah's fighters are preparing a new system of fortifications and expanding old positions in the mountains on the northern bank of the Litani.

Residents say the activity has increased lately, and peacekeepers confirm this.

"We can see them building new positions. There's a lot of trucks coming into the area as well," a Unifil officer said.

The Russians, of course, don't see the ideological kinship between the Palestinians and the jihadists who are threatening them. But why not?

From AFP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

MOSCOW - Russia will push for the lifting of an economic embargo against the Palestinian government, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday during a visit by Hamas political director Khaled Meshaal.

‘We are striving to have the international community support the peace process and make it irrevocable, including helping end the blockade’ against the Palestianian government, Lavrov told journalists.

The so-called Middle East diplomatic Quartet -- Russia, the United States, the European Union and the United Nations -- imposed the sanctions after Hamas took control of the Palestinian government in elections last January and refused to recognize Israel or renounce violence.

Meshaal met Lavrov on the second day of a visit to Moscow aimed at marshalling support to lift the crippling sanctions, and said Russia was the next logical destination after Hamas and rival party Fatah struck a power-sharing agreement in Mecca earlier this month.

‘From the very beginning we wanted to make Moscow the first place we visited after the talks in Mecca in order to consult with you about steps that need to be taken after the Mecca agreement,’ Meshaal said.

While the Russians continue to pursue short-sighted and ultimately self-defeating aid to Iran -- the same country that is backing the anti-Russian jihadists in Dagestan.

"Terrorist Bombing Prevented in Moscow," from MosNews, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

According to Moscow police security officials prevented a bomb attack in the Russian capital the day before the country celebrated a national holiday last week, the Bloomberg news agency reports.

The Federal Security Service and city police detained a 29-year-old man from Dagestan with a 500-gram explosive device on a trolleybus in northwest Moscow on Feb. 22.

“The device was in a solid cylinder, and filled with buckshot, nails and other pieces of metal,” the police said in an e-mailed statement. The man, identified as Farid Magomedov, was traveling to a metro station and had a remote-controlled detonator in his pocket, police said.

"Officials say the new tactics are to identify 'Talibs who are sick of fighting' and persuade them to rejoin their tribes and benefit from the human rights laws and state structures being set up in the country." Good luck with that, but it is certain to come up against the objection that such things are "un-Islamic." But that is territory that neither the British nor any other Western powers wishes to venture into.

"Britain switches tactics to undermine the Taliban," by Richard Norton-Taylor in The Guardian, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

Britain has launched a "reconciliation" drive to undermine support for the Taliban after Whitehall strategists concluded that a decisive military victory in Afghanistan cannot be won, the Guardian has learned.

In a significant shift in tactics, senior British officials have stopped talking about winning a war. "We do not use the word 'win'," one said. "We can't kill our way out of this problem."

The admission came as Des Browne, the defence secretary, announced a larger than expected 1,400 increase in British troops deployed in southern Afghanistan, with extra armour, artillery, and aircraft. It brings the total number there to 7,700, more than there are in Iraq.

Officials say the new tactics are to identify "Talibs who are sick of fighting" and persuade them to rejoin their tribes and benefit from the human rights laws and state structures being set up in the country. Captured fighters may also be offered alternatives to incarceration, while more deals will be sought with tribal elders.

They hope increasingly to damage the Taliban without relying on a shooting war, a tactic which has often proved counter-productive in the past, notably when Nato air strikes kill civilians. "We are convinced most people do not support the Taliban and want to take a route through it," said one source. British officials distinguish the Taliban from al-Qaida, describing it as a "more fluid" organisation.

Contrasting the Taliban with al-Qaida, a one said: "Al-Qaida's operations are more sophisticated than the Taliban and al-Qaida is very choosy about who they work with."

An official familiar with British policy on Afghanistan described the difference this way: "The Taliban is not a homogenous group. It is a mixture of characters - criminals, drug dealers, people out of work. There is a wide variety of different people. The Taliban pays them to carry out these attacks so there are ways to tackle the problem, to split off the disillusioned."

Dinesh D'Souza, call your office: these farmers are being radicalized not by the immorality of American culture and the audacity of American writers who criticize the elements of Islam that give rise to violence and Islamic supremacism, but because they are being prevented from growing opium. Anti-drug American cultural conservatives who seek to ally with "traditional Muslims" like these, in accordance with D'Souza's recommendation, would be in for a rude surprise.

By Tim Albone and Claire Billet in the TimesOnline, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

The tractor roared through the field, the plough tearing through the valuable poppy crop as the farmer looked on. A helicopter searched for insurgents and armed police stood watch, their uniforms replaced by robes and turbans to make them less conspicuous.

“The people are unhappy with this eradication campaign; if it goes on they will all join the Taleban,” Dilbar, a poppy farmer in Helmand province, told The Times.

The prospect of such a surge in Taleban numbers is bad news for the 5,000 British troops based in Helmand and 1,400 more heading there after the announcement by Des Browne, the Defence Secretary. The fiercest fighting since the Taleban were overthrown in 2001 came last year, with more than 4,000 people killed, and intelligence reports predict a new offensive this spring.

Poppy eradication is a double-edged sword. Afghanistan provides nine out of every ten grams of heroin sold on the streets of Britain, and officials are determined to stamp out poppy growth. Yet a successful campaign would leave many unemployed as potential recruits for the Taleban.

Afghans, ever the pragmatists, have devised their own solution. “We leave some fields without destroying the poppy so everyone is happy . . . otherwise they will go and support the Taleban,” said Aminullah, 21, a policeman with the eradication force in Helmand.

Another indication of the fact that there is no firewall within Muslim communities between jihadists and peaceful Muslims. Jihadists have never been expelled from Islamic communities, but rather move freely within them. And so things like this will always happen. "Dozen Islamic militants 'infiltrated army base,'" from Expatica, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

MADRID — A dozen radical Islamists have infiltrated the Spanish army garrison in Madrid's North African enclave of Ceuta, a magazine claimed on Tuesday.

Interviu magazine, citing what it describes as reports from a now-defunct spy unit, said Spanish military intelligence discovered the infiltration.

The unit had been conducting a special review for several years of the army units in Ceuta and Melilla, cities that have large Muslim populations.

The report came as 29 men - including 15 Moroccans - are on trial in Madrid for the 11 March, 2004 train bombings that left 191 dead and more than 1,800 others wounded in the Spanish capital.

The massacre was blamed on Muslim radicals angry with Spain's then-conservative government for backing the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

Interviu denounced the "fundamentalist infiltration" found by military intelligence in one Ceuta-based unit that has a "long tradition of native troops and today has a large number of soldiers of the Muslim faith".

In the case of Ceuta, nearly 40 percent of the troops stationed there are Muslims.

The Taliban continues to reassert its presence in Afghanistan. "Cheney OK after explosion in Afghanistan," by Alisa Tang for AP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

BAGRAM, Afghanistan - A suicide bomber killed and wounded some two dozen people outside the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan on Tuesday during a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney. The Taliban claimed responsibility and said Cheney was the target.

The blast happened outside the base at Bagram, north of the capital, Kabul. Cheney's spokeswoman said he was fine, and the U.S. Embassy said the vice president later met with President Hamid Karzai in Kabul.

There were conflicting reports on the death toll. Provincial Gov. Abdul Jabar Taqwa said 20 people were killed, but NATO said initial reports indicated only three were killed, including a U.S. soldier, a South Korean coalition soldier and a U.S. government contractor whose nationality wasn't immediately known. NATO said 27 people were also wounded.

It was unclear why there was such a large discrepancy in the reports.

Associated Press reporters at the scene said they had seen at least eight dead bodies carried in black body bags and wooden coffins from the base area and into the market area, where hundreds of Afghans had gathered to mourn.

Maj. William Mitchell said it did not appear the explosion was intended as a threat to the vice president. "He wasn't near the site of the explosion," Mitchell said. "He was safely within the base at the time of the explosion."

However, a purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said Cheney was the target of the attack.

"We knew that Dick Cheney would be staying inside the base," Ahmadi told AP telephone from an undisclosed location. "The attacker was trying to reach Cheney."

The former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dr. Mahathir "Jews rule the world by proxy" Mohamad, says now that Islam is by its very nature moderate, and so the label "moderate Muslim" is simply redundant. He does not address in detail, however, the jihadist intepretation of the Qur'an and Sunnah, or show why it is wrong: such a refutation remains the Great White Whale of moderate Muslims.

"No such thing as a moderate Muslim - Dr M," from Bernama, with thanks to Ken and Elisabeth:

(Bernama) -- Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad today asked Muslims to do away with false assumptions when declaring themselves as moderate followers of Islam because the religion is indeed moderate.

The former prime minister said Muslims did not need to defend themselves as moderate or liberal Muslims as this gave a picture that were only partial followers of Islamic teachings while others (teachings) were deemed extreme.

"Islam is already a moderate religion...there is no need for us to show that were are more liberal Muslims than others. We are Muslims...period," he said when opening the 45th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Muslim Welfare Organisation of Malaysia (Perkim) here.

Dr Mahathir, who is also Perkim president, said that even if some Muslims were labelled extremists, it was not because of the teachings of Islam but a lack of understanding of them or the religion being manipulated by irresponsible followers.

"There is nothing extreme about Islam if we follow its teachings as contained in the Quran," he said.

Dr Mahathir said the ummah (faithful) and Islamic nations must intensify efforts to dispel the notion held by many of Islam as being extreme, its followers ignorant, poor, do not know how to administer a country and are fond of asking for help from others.

He said that if the negative perception of Islam continued, it would adversely affect efforts to spread the religion as "no one would be interested to join a religion whose followers are seen as losers".

"People will only be attracted when there is a successful track record...as such only when Muslims become successful in all spheres or better than others in them can we successfully carry out effective missionary activities," he said.

According to Dr Mahathir, efforts must also be intensified to give a clear an correct picture that the religion was not an obstacle to progress.

"We must encourage followers who want to be successful and competitive. We should show that Islam does not stand in the way of followers who want to attain great achievements," he said.

About time. Anti-dhimmitude in Britain. By Philip Johnston and Joshua Rozenberg in The Telegraph, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

The Home Office won a key legal victory yesterday in a five-year battle to eject a suspected al-Qa'eda terrorist leader from Britain.

A court ruled that Abu Qatada, a radical Muslim cleric described as Osama bin Laden's spiritual representative in Europe, can be deported to his homeland.

Abu Qatada, a London-based imam, has been fighting Government efforts to remove him to Jordan since 2002, claiming he faces torture or death.

Wait a minute. Isn't Jordan supposed to be modern, moderate, forward-looking and Western?

Yes, Secretary Rice, clearly the Palestinian people want peace. "Plowshares beaten into swords in Gaza: Palestinians: 'Looting and burning' of Jewish holy sites 'was a great joy,'" by Aaron Klein for WorldNetDaily.com, with thanks to Gabrielle Goldwater:

TEL AVIV – The ruins of two large synagogues in Gush Katif, the evacuated Jewish communities of the Gaza Strip, have been transformed into a military base used by Palestinian groups to fire rockets at Israeli cities and train for attacks against the Jewish state, according to a senior terror leader in Gaza.

When Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in August 2005, it left in tact 20 synagogues of the Gush Katif Jewish communities following an Israeli Cabinet decision against demolishing the structures.

Immediately after the Israeli evacuation was completed, Palestinians mobs destroyed most of the Gaza synagogues, including two major synagogues in Neve Dekalim, the largest Gush Katif community. In front of international camera crews, the Palestinians ripped off aluminum window frames and metal ceiling fixtures from the Neve Dekalim synagogues, which were situation close to each other in the center of town. Militants flew the Palestinian and Hamas flags from the structures before mobs burned down the synagogues.

Speaking to WND from Gaza, Abu Abir, spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees terrorist organization, said the area where the synagogues once stood now is used to fire rockets at Israel.

"We are proud to turn these lands, especially these parts that were for long time the symbol of occupation and injustice, like the synagogue, into a military base and source of fire against the Zionists and the Zionist entity," Abu Abir said.

"The liberated lands of the destroyed ugly and Nazi settlements [Gush Katif] is our property, and we have the right to do whatever we feel is suitable for the struggle against the occupation and for the general interest of the Palestinian people," the Committees leader said.

1938 Alert: "'Devastating response' if Iran nukes attacked: Terrorists say Tehran providing instructions in case U.S., Israel strike atomic facilities," by Aaron Klein for WorldNetDaily.com, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

JERUSALEM – Iran is anticipating a U.S. or Israeli military strike on its nuclear facilities and has been providing Palestinian terrorists and other regional allies with contingency plans for attacks against the Jewish state and American regional interests in the event of war, according to Palestinian terrorist leaders.

A senior leader of the Islamic Jihad terror group, which Israel says is backed by Iran, told WND Tehran is expecting to be attacked, but he didn't provide a time frame in which Iran anticipates a strike.

He claimed during any attack his organization has been directed by Iran to "wreak havoc" on Israel with suicide bombings, rocket attacks and "special surprises." He said rocket attacks would be launched from both the Gaza Strip and from the West Bank, which borders Jerusalem.

He threatened his terror group will target American interests in the Middle East whether any purported strike against Tehran is carried out by Israel or the U.S.

"The Zionists and the Americans are coordinated 100 percent. It doesn't matter who attacks Iran, we are planning to hit them both," said the Islamic Jihad leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he said the topic was "very sensitive."

He said overall Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Shallah has been coordinating war plans with Iran, Syria and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah Lebanese militia. Shallah resides in Damascus and travels frequently to Tehran.

Shallah, you may recall, is confessed Islamic Jihad leader Sami Al-Arian's friend and former colleague at the University of South Florida.

More Islamic cultural imperialism. By Smadar Perry in YnetNews, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

"It is well known that the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids; they regarded these structures as a national project for ancient Egypt," said Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.

Hawass filed an official complaint to the Egyptian attorney general of Egypt against a Cairo high school for teaching the students that it was the Israelites who built the pyramids.

Hawass, prominent figure in Egyptian culture and around the Arab world, criticized the school curriculum for "insisting that the Jews built the pyramids and highlighting the fact that those who refused to partake in the building were physically tortured."

The longstanding debate over who built the five pyramids of Giza, West of Cairo, was rekindled at the first official visit of an Israeli delegation to Egypt, in 1977.

"We built the pyramids," said the late Prime Minster Menahem Begin at the National Museum in Cairo. He spurred fury among Egyptian historians and archeologists. Subsequently, the Egyptian press was full of protest articles.

I just about dropped my teeth when I saw this clip of Bill Maher agreeing with Ayaan Hirsi Ali that Islam is not a religion of peace and has not been hijacked by a tiny minority of extremists, and that Muhammad was not exactly the 7th-century Gandhi of Karen Armstrong's imaginings. It was also good to see Hirsi Ali coolly correct Darrell Issa's PC vaporings about how wonderfully Muslims, Christians, and Jews coexisted in the Middle East for centuries, but the most striking aspect of this segment is that Maher here casually affirms something that the mainstream media has been denying and laboring to refute for years.

Of course, it is part of the silliness of our culture that a black female ex-Muslim can say things that a white male non-Muslim would never be brought on to say -- is not the truth the same no matter who says it? But it is good that they are finally being said.

And Mr. Maher: if CAIR contacts you with demands for an apology and equal time on your show, I'd be happy to help you prepare. Contact me at director@jihadwatch.org.

From our Unintended Irony Department comes "Only One Side of the Story" by Lorraine Ali in Newsweek, in which Ali serves up a hatchet job on Ayaan Hirsi Ali and calls her a "bombthrower." The real bombs often thrown by those whom Hirsi Ali opposes don't seem to faze Lorraine Ali one bit.

In FrontPage this morning I discuss the new fashion in the mainstream media: exposing the alleged plot to establish a theocracy in the U.S. -- the Christian plot, that is (news links in the original):

A new book that is climbing the New York Times Bestseller List warns Americans of a dedicated minority of religious fanatics who are hijacking a great religion and actively working to destroy the United States Constitution and set up a theocracy in America, in which nonbelievers will be discriminated against or even summarily killed. Nor is their nefarious vision confined to the United States alone: this small but influential and wealthy band of religious zealots is also trying to turn events in the Middle East to their own advantage, so as to advance their religious agenda there also.

Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Muhammad Atta? No, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and Tim LaHaye. The book in question is Chris Hedges’ American Fascists, which argues that America as we know it is under threat – not from Islamic jihadists, but from a small group of evangelical Christians who are determined to remake the United States as a Christian state. Warning about “Christianism,” a neologism coined to parallel “Islamism,” has become fashionable. Ranging from the merely hysterical to the ranting and paranoid, books sounding the alarms about Christian theocracy are appearing in large numbers. Among the crop published in 2006 alone were, besides Hedges’ book, American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips; The Baptizing of America by James Rudin; Kingdom Coming by Michelle Goldberg; The Theocons: Secular America Under Siege by Damon Linker; Thy Kingdom Come by Randall Balmer; Piety & Politics by Barry Lynn; and Religion Gone Bad by Mel White. Other popular books sound many of the same themes, including The Conservative Soul by homosexual activist and blogger Andrew Sullivan and the atheist apologetics The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris.

From Christian News Wire:

Former Sultan Ali El-Shariff comments on Islam and Sudan:

"Today Islam is responsible for almost all of the human sufferings from war, persecution, and poverty, particularly in the country of Sudan.

"Since the 1983 start of the civil war in the southern Sudan more than 4 million people have been displaced, and an estimated over 2 million have been killed because Islam has declared the Holy War (Jihad) (Qur'an 9:5) against the non-Muslim black indigenous people. Islam is responsible for more than 100,000 children either killed or sold as slaves in Muslim homes. Islam is responsible for raping and kidnapping more than 50,000 women during the war (Qur'an 4:3). Islam is responsible for cutting hands and feet of hundreds of innocent people because Islamic laws were applied; bringing shame and infirmity to many families for the rest of their lives. Islam is responsible of abusing millions of women every day through beating, atrocious treatment and emotional deprivation because of the Islamic teaching (Qur'an 4:34).

"It is a shame for any African American to embrace Islam which makes them a participant in these disgraceful acts. It is a shame to embrace Islam to enforce the practice of slavery, abuse of women and children and to humiliate human kind through persecution, poverty and destruction. Unfortunately, Islam always has two faces. The Islamic missionaries always present the peaceful, respectful and the nice face of Islam. The fact is, there is a real violent face of Islam that Muslims in North America try to hide. It is a shame for anyone who embraces Islam without thinking, asking questions or reading about the true face of Islam. Islam is responsible today for the destruction of lives and cultures. Sudan is a vivid example. Why would you want to be a Muslim and participate in their wicked ways?"

Why indeed?

Ibrahim Ahmed Update: "Men Claim Cabbie Praised Hitler Before Attack: Victims Say Driver Claimed 'Hitler Was Right,'" by Laura McPherson for WSMV.com, with thanks to Jennifer:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Two college students involved in an alleged attack by an angry cab driver last month testified Monday that his rage came seemingly out of the blue.

Video: Crash Victim Says Cab Driver's Rage Unexpected

They said they weren't arguing or discussing religion, but that the cab driver went on a rant saying, "Hitler was right" and that "white people should be eradicated from the earth.”
Click here to find out more!

The students said they paid their fare, but that the cab driver accelerated and ran over Jeremy Inbus.

Inbus suffered a broken leg and an injured pelvis.

Inbus said he didn’t remember the crash but that he recalled what the cab driver, Ibrahim Ahmed, told him and passenger Andy Wilson while they were in the cab.

“’Hitler did what he did and he was right for doing what he did because,’ the term he used, ‘Jews were responsible for the evil and corruption and the sin in the world. At some point, I believe Jews maybe became white people, and, you know, that’s why Hitler was a good person because he was trying to cleanse the world of these people,’” Inbus testified in court.

Ahmed is charged with attempted murder.

Police said Ahmed was driving Inbus and Wilson to the Vanderbilt area when the conversation turned to religion.

Wilson and Inbus said they told Ahmed to stop the cab once the conversation became heated.

“I just briefly said, ‘If you’re going to live in a country like ours, you’re going to have to learn to tolerate and accept other people’s beliefs and faiths, even if you don’t believe them yourself,’” Wilson testified.

“He(Ahmed) said he had become offended at the remarks the boys made and that made him very angry,” Officer John Pepper testified.

It's not just the Danes anymore. But although the questions below seem to have been understood as mocking, the Hadith contains much information about Muhammad just like the material here. In my book The Truth About Muhammad I quote Muqtedar Khan of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy: "No religious leader has as much influence on his followers as does Muhammad (Peace be upon him) the last Prophet of Islam…So much so that the words, deeds and silences (that which he saw and did not forbid) of Muhammad became an independent source of Islamic law."

By Robert Tait in The Guardian, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Iranian MPs have demanded an apology from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after teachers were given government-sponsored tests deemed "insulting" to the prophet Muhammad.

Why? Did the Thug-In-Chief write these questions?

The exam - sat by teachers seeking promotion - provoked outrage by posing questions which appeared to degrade Islam's holiest figure by alluding to personal habits and proclivities. Most of the 40 multiple-choice questions have been judged so mocking that Iran's state-controlled media has refrained from publishing them.

One less offensive question, reproduced by local newspapers and websites, lists four choices when asking how Muhammad compared himself with the prophet Joseph. They are: "A) I am more beautiful than Joseph; B) Joseph is more beautiful than me; C) I am cuter than Joseph; D) Joseph is more beautiful than me but I am cuter than him." Others refer to his hair and beard colour.

The national teachers' representative body protested after the test was given to diploma and higher-diploma level teachers in Tehran province. The local education authority admitted the questions were "in bad taste" and withdrew them. An alternative exam is being drawn up for teachers who failed, although the results of those with pass marks have been declared valid.

Some MPs branded the incident a deliberate plot to undermine Iran's Islamic system and likened it to last year's row over Danish cartoons satirising Muhammad, which provoked outrage throughout the Muslim world after they were published in several European newspapers.

"What is the difference between these questions and the caricatures drawn in Denmark against the prophet?" said Emad Afrough, the fundamentalist head of the cultural committee in Iran's parliament.

[...]

Teachers were given 30 hours off classroom duties to study a biography of the prophet by the late Ayatollah Muhammad Tabatabai, a Shia philosopher whose teachings inspired many senior figures in Iran's Islamic revolutionary movement. Its strong focus on personal characteristics - including hygiene, physical appearance and eating habits - was the subject of staffroom gossip and jokes. "Some teachers were even exchanging notes on the book's content in text messages," one teacher told the newspaper Etemade Melli.

Personal questions

The test posed questions on the minutiae of the prophet Muhammad's life, including:

God's prophet never ate food with

a) Two fingers

b) Three fingers

c) Four fingers

d) Five fingers

God's prophet's hair was

a) Black

b) White

c) With the exceptions of a few hairs, predominantly black

d) Whitened at the end of his life

What colour was the prophet's beard?

a) Totally white, even upon his chin

b) Totally black, even over his chin

c) White over the chin and the rest salt and pepper

d) Salt and pepper over the chin and the rest white

On which side did God's prophet sleep?

a) On his back

b) On his chest

b) To the right

d) To the left

They had stopped to rest. "3 French travelers slain in Saudi desert." from AP:

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Three French travelers were killed by gunmen Monday in the Saudi Arabian desert when they stopped their car to rest on the side of a road leading to the holy city of Medina in an area restricted to Muslims only.

Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki said it was too early to determine whether the attacks were terror-related. Saudi Arabia has been waging an intense campaign against al-Qaida militants since a wave of suicide attacks on foreigners in the kingdom in 2003.

The travelers were resting on the side of a road about 10 miles north of Medina when gunmen fired at their car, instantly killing two of the men. The third man died later after he was taken to a hospital, and the fourth Frenchman was in serious condition at an area hospital, al-Turki said.

Then AP speaks of "the Prophet Muhammad" in capsule form, with no caveat such as "Muslims believe that...":

The area the group was traveling in is restricted for Muslims only. Non-Muslims are barred from the area around Medina and neighboring Mecca, the holiest cities in Islam. The Prophet Muhammad was born in Mecca, where he began spreading the message of Islam, until he fled to Medina. From Medina, he spread Islam until he died and was buried in the city. Muslims perform the annual hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and usually visit Medina as well.

Partly the usual paranoia, and partly deflection of responsibility for failed economic policies. "Tomato price hikes an enemy plot: Iran president," from Reuters:

TEHERAN - Iran’s president said on Sunday the country’s enemies had hatched a range of plots to push the Islamic Republic to give up its disputed nuclear programme, including driving up the price of tomatoes and other food.

Zionists, the Great Satan, or both?

But Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said such tactics would not work, Iran’s ISNA news agency quoted him as saying.

Rising prices, particularly the cost of tomatoes which form an important ingredient in Iranian food, have prompted growing public criticism of Ahmadinejad’s government. The president has often dismissed complaints as media exaggeration.

‘In order to harm us, they (enemies) make plots, for instance they come and push tomato prices up in the market. They think we will give up our ideals with their plots,’ Ahmadinejad said in a speech in which he said Iran would not reverse its atomic plans.

The West accuses Iran of seeking atomic bombs and demands Teheran halt sensitive atomic work, a step Teheran has rejected.

The United Nations has slapped restrictions on aspects of Iran’s nuclear programme and Washington has imposed sanctions on two Iranian banks and three firms. Ahmadinejad’s opponents blame price hikes on government spending policies not sanctions.

[...]

In a speech in January presenting the new budget to parliament, he also dismissed comments that tomatoes had risen to 30,000 rials ($3.25) per kg from 12,000 rials, suggesting shoppers should be more discerning about where they bought.

‘Come and buy them from the fresh fruit and vegetable market next door to us. Why are you buying them from expensive places?’ the president, who won over many voters in the 2005 presidential race with his down-to-earth style, told lawmakers.

Some shopkeepers cite the early onset of cold weather for the particularly sharp rise in the price of tomatoes, a reason Ahmadinejad has also cited in the past.

Ahmadinejad swept to power promising to share out Iran’s oil wealth more fairly, but he has been blamed for fuelling inflation by what critics call his profligate spending policies of the country’s windfall earnings from high crude prices.

"Going off the rails on a Crazy Train" in Tehran. From AFP:

TEHERAN - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday defied Western threats to impose more sanctions over Iran’s contested nuclear programme, comparing its atomic drive to a ‘train with no brakes’.

Ahmadinejad’s declaration came a day before the UN Security Council’s five permanent members plus Germany are to meet to discuss more possible punitive measures against Teheran.

‘Iran has reached the technology to produce nuclear fuel and Iran’s movement on this path is like a train on a one-way track with no room for stopping, reverse gear or braking,’ the president told a gathering of religious leaders.

‘A while ago, we threw away the reverse gear and the brakes of the train and we announced to them that this Iranian train has no reverse gear or braking,’ the ISNA and Fars news agencies quoted him as saying.

The UN Security Council in December imposed limited sanctions against Teheran over its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment, a process that the West fears could be used to make nuclear weapons.

A report by the UN atomic watchdog has confirmed that Iran is still continuing with uranium enrichment work in defiance of the UN Security Council, opening the way towards possible further sanctions.

The United States has never ruled out the prospect of military action to halt Iran’s nuclear programme and Vice President Dick Cheney reignited such speculation by saying that ‘all options are still on the table.’

The United States and Israel accuse Iran of seeking nuclear weapons. Teheran denies the charges, insisting its atomic programme is peaceful in nature.

Hmm. A Nuclear Program of Peace?

‘We have prepared ourselves for any situation, even if war happens,’ Deputy Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mohammadi told the ISNA news agency

He added that Iran was prepared for talks with the United States but without preconditions. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has insisted she would only hold talks if Teheran first agreed to a suspension of enrichment.

‘We have had unofficial meetings with Americans over Afghanistan and Iraq, but they say first Iran should accept US conditions and then the talks take place,’ Mohammadi said.

Ahmadinejad shrugged off the impact of a resolution against Iran, saying such a move would neither hurt the Islamic republic economically and nor affect the progress of the nuclear programme.

‘They think they can hurt us economically. Since they have threatened us and issued a resolution against us we have had record contracts. They cannot do anything,’ Ahmadinejad said.

Huh?

‘Our revolution is going fast towards the summit like a bulldozer. The enemies think they can stop this bulldozer by throwing a few pebbles at it. They then magnify their small pebbles 500 times in psychological warfare’

[...]

In another move that could increase tensions, Iran said on Sunday it had successfully launched its first rocket into space in a possible first step to launching its own satellites.

Indeed it must. But will it? In any case, it is good to see the White House at least doing something to call Pakistan to account.

By Terence Hunt for AP:

WASHINGTON - The White House is pressuring Pakistan to crack down on al-Qaida and Taliban operatives in the lawless border area with Afghanistan that President Bush recently said was "wilder than the Wild West."

The move comes amid growing concern in Congress and the administration that terrorist forces are regrouping in the border area and preparing for a spring offensive in Afghanistan.

Vice President Dick Cheney made a surprise visit to Pakistan on Monday for talks with President Gen. Pervez Musharraf on efforts to stabilize Afghanistan. The Bush administration wants Musharraf to be more aggressive in hunting down al-Qaida operatives, and has raised the possibility that Congress could cut aid to Pakistan unless it takes tougher steps.

Cheney praised Pakistan's contribution in the war against terrorism but also "expressed U.S. apprehensions of regrouping of al-Qaida in the tribal areas and called for concerted efforts in countering the threat," Musharraf's office said.

"He expressed serious U.S. concerns on the intelligence being picked up of an impending Taliban and al-Qaida 'spring offensive' against allied forces in Afghanistan," the statement said.

On this day fourteen years ago, Islamic jihadists set off a bomb in the World Trade Center, killing six people, wounding 1,000, and causing $500 million in damage.

Over eight years later, Islamic jihadists brought down those same Towers.

One might have been forgiven for thinking, in the interim between February 26, 1993 and September 11, 2001, that the problem of "terrorism" was under control, and that the 1993 strike was a lucky hit that would not be repeated.

These days, likewise, I am frequently asked in radio interviews whether I think there is really a problem with terrorism on American soil, since, after all, there has not been a terrorist attack here since September 11. Well, this has not been for want of trying, as the archives here abundantly illustrate. But what's more, we should note that those who grew complacent between 1993 and 2001 were wrong to do so, and so are those who have grown complacent now.

In "Removing the ‘cloak’ of religious extremism" for the Common Ground News Service (via Middle East Online), Laura McAleer, a student at Georgetown University, and Hala Ali, a student at South Valley University of Cairo, who together participated in a "Western-Arab intercultural dialogue program," spin some fanciful but familiar tales:

Washington, D.C./Cairo Egypt - In the wake of September 11th, many in the Western world have struggled to correctly identify acts of terrorism and their perpetrators. Often, people reading newspapers and watching television news reach the conclusion that such acts were committed in the name of jihad, the Islamic concept commonly, and incorrectly, defined as "holy war."

Why do they rush to such a conclusion? Could it be because of statements urging "Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders"? Of course not. The primary culprit here is -- who else? -- Westerners. Oh, and "others" do it too, which is like saying "In 1933 in Germany a regime came to power consisting of some established German politicians such as Franz von Papen, along with some others."

Many Westerners (and others around the world) equate the two, developing misconceptions about Islam and the Muslim community. This misunderstanding is detrimental to relations between the U.S. and the Arab world, and it can only be mitigated by recognising the distinct definitions of both terrorism and jihad.

The U.S. State Department, according to the official National Strategy for Combating Terrorism policy document, defines terrorism as "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents," usually intended to influence an audience. It is an act condemned by all religions that aims to shake the stability of major world powers and seeks to undermine their capabilities and threaten their futures.

The events of September 11th clearly fit this description. However, the fact that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were committed by a group of people acting in the name of Islam has lead to a great deal of prejudice toward the Muslim community in the United States and around the world. This is evidenced by a March 2006 Washington Post-ABC News Poll, which reported that 33% of Americans believe Islam condones violence against non-Muslims (up from 14% in 2002). Even Americans who said they understood Islam and were more likely to see the religion overall as peaceful and respectful were no less likely to say it harbours harmful extremists, and they were also no less likely to have prejudiced feelings against Muslims.

You see that the 33% of Americans who believe that Islam condones violence against non-Muslims do not understand Islam, while those who see it as peaceful "understand it." Unfortunately, McAleer and Ali do not explain how such passages as Qur'an 9:5, 9:29, 47:4, as well as ahadith such as Sahih Muslim 4294, and innumerable other similar passages, can be understood in a way that does not somehow condone violence.

Also, does the Islamic world harbor "harmful extremists"? Even if they have "hijacked" the religion, isn't that self-evident with every day's headlines?

What is the definition of jihad that Muslims feel is accurate and want the Western world to understand?

The best way to get the Western world to understand this would be to live it out, and to rein in those who commit violent acts in the name of jihad.

The word "jihad" is derived from an Arabic root (J H D) that means to make good use of your virtues, good nature, and God's gifts to help please yourself and others. More specifically, one could say that to practice jihad is to make every effort to worship and obey God, to gain knowledge, to advise others how to be good and true believers in God, and to work hard to spread peace, freedom, love, and tolerance. Moreover, the word "Islam" is derived from the Arabic word "saalam", which means peace.

Actually no, it is not derived from "saalam"; rather, both Islam and salam are derived from the same SLM root. And "Islam," of course, means "submission."

The events of 9/11 and terrorism acts committed since then cannot, when the true meaning of 'jihad' is considered, be seen as acts of jihad. Rather, they were planned and executed by those who chose to use their religion as a sort of cloak. A comparison can be made to the Crusades: the Crusaders of Europe acted in the name of Christianity, but the tenets of Christianity (both then and now) do not allow for their horrible, even "terrorist" actions. The Islamic extremists who commit acts of terrorism are somewhat similar to the Crusaders; they have misunderstood, misinterpreted, and grown accustomed to distortions of Islam, and they have used these misrepresentations as a basis for action.

It is exceedingly odd, then, is it not, that those Muslims who hold to an undistorted, unmisrepresented version of Islam have not managed to mount any large-scale, comprehensive program to teach Muslims to reject the jihadist version of Islam. If what McAleer and Ali are saying is true, this shouldn't be difficult. Is it too much to ask for?

Clearly, those Muslims who have been involved in terrorism have been acting on their own personal beliefs which do not accurately represent the tenets of the faith or the convictions of the majority of the world's Muslim population. Rather, the Qur'an teaches that "anyone who murders any person who had not committed murder or horrendous crimes, it shall be as if he murdered all people. And anyone who spares a life, it shall be as if he spared the lives of all people…"

This is the oft-quoted verse 5:32, which is followed by 5:33, which 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..." What's more, in condemning "anyone who murders any person who had not committed murder or horrendous crimes," the Qur'an leaves a huge loophole for someone who believes that he is killing someone who has committed horrendous crimes and thus deserves his fate. And that's just what Osama bin Laden thinks.

The basic truths about the concept of jihad have not been widely disseminated in the West.

I couldn't agree more!

The resulting dearth of information is not only a disappointing disconnect between two cultures, but also a major cause of further terrorist acts.

So are McAleer and Ali saying that Americans' alleged "ignorance" about jihad causes terrorism? I can't begin to figure out how the reasoning behind that one goes, unless they're making a D'Souza-like point -- something like, our thinking jihad can be violent so enrages Muslims that they turn to...jihad violence.

And yes, that is what is going on:

The fact that many Americans and other Westerners fail to make an effort to understand Islam and, as revealed by the polling described above, are suspicious of all Muslims they meet, can only serve to drive more and more Muslims under the "cloak" of Islamic extremism. This cycle of misperception leading to further violence can only be stopped through education. With proper definitions and through mutual understanding, the "cloak" can be removed from those who have engaged in acts of terrorism in the past, and future acts can be prevented.

So we are to believe that Westerners' suspicion of Muslims, arising from 9/11, drives Muslims to become "extremists." So put yourself in that position: imagine yourself as a Muslim who "understands" Islam, and is aware that jihad is a peaceful interior struggle, and that those who commit violence in the name of jihad lack any justification whatsoever within Islam itself. Then 9/11 happens, and some Americans start being unkind to you. This so enrages you that you begin to misunderstand Islam, and join a group that promotes violent jihad. Anger toward being unjustly suspected has led you to throw the truth of your religion overboard and to join a gang you had hitherto regarded as heretics and criminals.

This is the Dinesh D'Souza theory of one of the causes of jihad violence. I think its absurdity is self-evident.

David Thompson profiles Islamic apologist Karen Armstrong:

In my review of Robert Spencer's The Truth About Muhammad, I wrote: "In his book, Islam and the West, the historian Bernard Lewis argued: 'We live in a time when… governments and religious movements are busy rewriting history as they would wish it to have been, as they would like their followers to believe that it was.' This urge to sanitise unflattering facts is nowhere more obvious than in biographies of Muhammad, of which, Karen Armstrong’s ubiquitous contributions are perhaps the least reliable." I've since received a number of emails asking me to clarify why Armstrong is unreliable in this regard. To that end, here's a brief catalogue of Ms Armstrong's errors and distortions, a version of which was first published by Butterflies & Wheels. Some of her rhetorical airbrushing is, I think, quite spectacular.

"Armstrong would have us ignore what terrorists repeatedly tell us about themselves and their motives. One therefore has to ask how we defeat an opponent whose name we dare not repeat and whose stated motives we cannot mention..."

Karen Armstrong has been described as “one of the world's most provocative and inclusive thinkers on the role of religion in the modern world.” Armstrong’s efforts to be “inclusive” are certainly “provocative”, though generally for reasons that are less than edifying. In 1999, the Muslim Public Affairs Council of Los Angeles gave Armstrong an award for media “fairness.” What follows might cast light on how warranted that recognition is, and on how the MPAC chooses to define fairness.

In one of her baffling Guardian columns, Armstrong argues that, “It is important to know who our enemies are… By making the disciplined effort to name our enemies correctly, we will learn more about them, and come one step nearer, perhaps, to solving the… problems of our divided world.” Yet elsewhere in the same piece, Armstrong maintains that Islamic terrorism must not be referred to as such. “Jihad”, we were told, “is a cherished spiritual value that, for most Muslims, has no connection with violence.”

Well, the word ‘jihad’ has multiple meanings depending on the context, and it’s hard to determine the particulars of what “most Muslims” think in this regard. Doubtless countless Muslims would recoil from connotations of violence and coercion. But it’s safe to say the Qur’an and Sunnah are of great importance to Muslims generally, and most references to jihad found in the Qur’an and Sunnah occur in a military or paramilitary context. Aggressive conceptions of jihad are found in every major school of Islamic jurisprudence, with fairly minor variations. The notion of jihad as warfare against unbelievers is affirmed by Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi and Shafi'i traditions, to which the majority of Muslims belong. And Muhammad’s own celebration of military jihad and homicidal ‘martyrdom’ makes for interesting reading. How these ideas are reconciled by believers is not entirely clear.

Muslims who do commit acts of terrorism and intimidation do so, by their own account, because of what they perceive as core Islamic teachings. The jihadist movements in Indonesia, for example, refer to theological imperatives and the names they give themselves – jihadi, mujahedin, shahid – have no meaning outside of an Islamic context. Mukhlas Imron, the Bali bombing ‘mastermind’ and leader of the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah, explained his actions not as a response to Iraq, Bush or Blair, but as intended to advance the creation of a vast Sharia state covering Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines. Imron pointedly cited Muhammad as his inspiration: "You who still have a shred of faith in your hearts, have you forgotten that to kill infidels and the enemies of Islam is a deed that has a reward above no other? Aren't you aware that the model for us all, the Prophet Muhammad and the four rightful caliphs, undertook to murder infidels as one of their primary activities, and that the Prophet waged jihad operations 77 times in the first 10 years as head of the Muslim community in Medina?"

In his book, Robert Spencer argues, “If peaceful Muslims can mount no comeback when jihadists point to Muhammad’s example to justify violence, their ranks will always remain vulnerable to recruitment from jihadists who present themselves as the exponents of ‘pure Islam’, faithfully following Muhammad’s example.” But Armstrong would have us ignore what terrorists repeatedly tell us about themselves and their motives. One therefore has to ask how we defeat an opponent whose name we dare not repeat and whose stated motives we cannot mention.

Read it all.

Terror Free Tomorrow, an organization that recommends jizya as an antidote to terror, says that Islamic terrorism isn't that big a deal anyway. In "The myth of Muslim support for terror: The common enemy is violence and terrorism, not Muslims any more than Christians or Jews" in the Christian Science Monitor (thanks to Ahsen), Kenneth Ballen, the founder and president of Terror Free Tomorrow, explains that poll results show that more Americans support terrorism than do people in majority-Muslim countries:

WASHINGTON - Those who think that Muslim countries and pro-terrorist attitudes go hand-in-hand might be shocked by new polling research: Americans are more approving of terrorist attacks against civilians than any major Muslim country except for Nigeria.

The survey, conducted in December 2006 by the University of Maryland's prestigious Program on International Public Attitudes, shows that only 46 percent of Americans think that "bombing and other attacks intentionally aimed at civilians" are "never justified," while 24 percent believe these attacks are "often or sometimes justified."

Contrast those numbers with 2006 polling results from the world's most-populous Muslim countries – Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria. Terror Free Tomorrow, the organization I lead, found that 74 percent of respondents in Indonesia agreed that terrorist attacks are "never justified"; in Pakistan, that figure was 86 percent; in Bangladesh, 81 percent.

It would have been interesting to see how the results would have changed if the people in Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria had been asked about jihad violence, instead of about terrorist violence.

Do these findings mean that Americans are closet terrorist sympathizers?

Hardly. Yet, far too often, Americans and other Westerners seem willing to draw that conclusion about Muslims. Public opinion surveys in the United States and Europe show that nearly half of Westerners associate Islam with violence and Muslims with terrorists. Given the many radicals who commit violence in the name of Islam around the world, that's an understandable polling result.

Mr. Ballen is generous to grant that. He might have added that the evasions and smear tactics that self-professed moderate Muslims frequently employ in the West against those who are exploring the elements of Islam that jihadists use to justify their actions only feed the suspicions of Westerners who are unfooled by the reflexive cries of "racism" and "bigotry."

But these stereotypes, affirmed by simplistic media coverage and many radicals themselves, are not supported by the facts – and they are detrimental to the war on terror. When the West wrongly attributes radical views to all of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims, it perpetuates a myth that has the very real effect of marginalizing critical allies in the war on terror.

Who in the West really "attributes radical views to all of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims"? What the Qur'an and Sunnah teach, and how those teachings have been interpreted by the schools of Islamic law, is one thing, but what any given Muslim knows or cares about all that is quite another. By conflating the two, as is common practice in the mainstream media, Ballen is just setting up a straw man and obscuring the crucial effort need in order to distinguish true "critical allies in the war on terror" from false ones.

Indeed, the far-too-frequent stereotyping of Muslims serves only to reinforce the radical appeal of the small minority of Muslims who peddle hatred of the West and others as authentic religious practice.

I don't believe it when Dinesh D'Souza says it, and I don't believe it when Ballen says it. Stereotyping is always annoying, but the idea that it would make peaceful people turn violent is, at the mildest, unproven. And if Ballen means by stereotyping examinations of the violent elements of the Qur'an, Sunnah, and Islamic law, I still maintain that any genuine Muslim reformer will not react with rage and radicalism to an exploration of the elements of Islam that need reforming.

Terror Free Tomorrow's 20-plus surveys of Muslim countries in the past two years reveal another surprise: Even among the minority who indicated support for terrorist attacks and Osama bin Laden, most overwhelmingly approved of specific American actions in their own countries. For example, 71 percent of bin Laden supporters in Indonesia and 79 percent in Pakistan said they thought more favorably of the United States as a result of American humanitarian assistance in their countries – not exactly the profile of hard-core terrorist sympathizers.

Nonsense. If America wants to pay jizya, the jihadists certainly will not refuse it.

For most people, their professed support of terrorism/bin Laden can be more accurately characterized as a kind of "protest vote" against current US foreign policies, not as a deeply held religious conviction or even an inherently anti- American or anti-Western view.

This view founders, of course, on the fact that jihad violence is much older than current US foreign policies.

In truth, the common enemy is violence and terrorism, not Muslims any more than Christians or Jews. Whether recruits to violent causes join gangs in Los Angeles or terrorist cells in Lahore, the enemy is the violence they exalt.

Indeed. But how to address this phenomenon, and combat it? In Lahore it cannot be ignored that people join terror cells because they believe it is their religious responsibility to do so, and that they will be rewarded with Paradise. To ignore this because of political correctness would be silly, and possibly dangerous.

Our surveys show that not only do Muslims reject terrorism as much if not more than Americans, but even those who are sympathetic to radical ideology can be won over by positive American actions that promote goodwill and offer real hope.

America's goal, in partnership with Muslim public opinion, should be to defeat terrorists by isolating them from their own societies. The most effective policies to achieve that goal are the ones that build on our common humanity. And we can start by recognizing that Muslims throughout the world want peace as much as Americans do.

D'Souza couldn't have said it better, Mr. Ballen. But neither you nor he explain how we can identify these peace-loving Muslims, much less build alliances with them. Maybe the Muslims throughout the world who want peace as much as Americans do could start off the kumbaya party by taking decisive and effective action to pronounce takfir on Osama bin Laden and all violent jihadists and Islamic supremacists. Takfir is the declaration that they are so far outside the pale of Islamic orthodoxy that they are non-Muslims. One would think that since most Muslims abhor what they do, that shouldn't be a difficult operation to perform, should it?

From the International Herald Tribune:

PATTANI, Thailand: Some are already calling it war, a brutal Muslim separatist insurgency in southern Thailand that has taken as many as 2,000 lives in three years, with almost daily bombings, drive-by shootings, arson and beheadings.

It is a conflict the government admits it is losing. A harsh crackdown and martial law in recent years seem only to have fueled the insurgency, generating fear and anger and undermining moderate Muslim voices.

A new policy of conciliation pursued by Thailand's junta since it took power in a coup five months ago has been met by increased violence, including a barrage of 28 coordinated bombings in the south that killed or injured about 60 people a week ago.

"The momentum of violence is now beyond the control of government policy," said Srisompob Jitpiromsri, a political scientist at Prince of Songkhla University here.

[...]

"Buddhist monks have been hacked to death, clubbed to death, bombed and burned to death," said Sunai Phasuk, a political analyst with the Human Rights Watch monitoring group. "This has never happened before. This is a new aspect of violence in the south."

Some remote areas in the south have become, in effect, no-go zones for the police or military, according to Francesca Lawe-Davies, an analyst with the International Crisis Group.

Exactly the sort of thing happening in the major metropolitan centers of Western Europe.

"It appears in the last year or so that insurgent groups are actually starting to control territory in a more conventional sense," she said.

Some Buddhist and Muslim villages have begun sealing themselves off from one another. People say that old friendships and patterns of cooperation are being undermined by mistrust.

In a report published last month, Zachary Abuza, the author of "Militant Islam in Southeast Asia," said that entire Buddhist communities have fled in a "de facto ethnic cleansing."

"The social fabric of the south has been irreparably damaged," he said.

[...]

"In the local communities in the red zones, it already is a war situation," Srisompob said. "It is different now from last year, from the last two years."

About 1.3 million ethnic-Malay Muslims form a majority in Thailand's three southernmost provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani, accounting for a tiny percentage of Thailand's overwhelmingly Buddhist population of 65 million.

The Muslims have complained of discrimination and attempts at forced assimilation since Thailand annexed the former Sultanate of Pattani a century ago. Armed insurgencies have risen and subsided over the past four decades, but the government may now be facing its most dangerous challenge.

"What is new about the current conflict is the level and degree of violence, the Islamist agenda of the insurgents, and their unprecedented degree of cooperation and coordination," Abuza said.

"The level of violence in Thailand's south has never been higher," he said. "Nor has it been more brutal."

He said there had been more than 24 beheadings in the past three years and as many as 60 attempted beheadings.

Human Rights Watch counted more than 6,000 violent incidents over the past three years. It said that more than 60 teachers and 10 students had been killed and 110 schools — the most visible signs of central government authority in many places — had been set ablaze.

The insurgency is all the more difficult to combat because it does not show its face. Unlike similar movements around the world, this one has not set out its demands or published a manifesto. It is a collection of violent groups without an identifiable central leadership.

"We are fighting a ghost," said Chidchanok Rahimmula, a lecturer in security at Prince of Songkhla University.

The new policy of conciliation was put in place by Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont, a Muslim, who took power after Thaksin Shinawatra was ousted as prime minister in a coup in September.

Surayud apologized for the harsh policies his predecessor implemented during his six years in office, promised to investigate abuses and restructured the military command for the south.

People in rural areas say that soldiers and police officers have become less aggressive and are attempting to reach out by attending local fairs and holding dialogues.

Last week, Surayud conceded that none of this was working. "We can't see the results in three to four months because the painful feelings of southern people in the past four to five years run deep," he said. "This is not easy to cure."

Indeed, the insurgency has responded by stepping up its violence, in an apparent effort to block any peace process. There has been no serious reply to Surayud's offer of negotiations.

People who live here, both in the villages and urban areas, say they have never been so frightened.

An update on this story. "Lawsuit over mosque site is dismissed," by Stephen Kurkjian for the Boston Globe:

A Suffolk Superior Court judge dismissed a lawsuit that contended the Boston Redevelopment Authority's sale of a parcel of land in Roxbury for a price significantly below its appraised value to the Islamic Society of Boston violated the constitutional separation between religious groups and the state.

Judge Sandra L. Hamlin ruled that James C. Policastro of Mission Hill did not have legal standing to challenge the sale because he did not file his lawsuit within 30 days of the sale, which the Legislature set as the BRA's deadline for appealing the agency's decisions. Policastro filed his suit on Sept. 28, 2004, more than 16 months after the BRA sold the parcel. The sale price for the parcel was $175,000, and the society spent another $43,820 to improve the land. It had been appraised at more than $400,000.

The Islamic Society planned to build the largest mosque in New England on the site, along with a school and a cultural center, but completion of the project has been delayed by funding problems and controversy over extremist remarks by two former officials of the society.

In her decision, Hamlin rejected Policastro's contention that he was not bound by the BRA's deadline but instead should be afforded the court's customary three-year period to bring the suit because he was contesting the agency's decision on constitutional grounds.

Hamlin, however, said she was basing her ruling on a 1988 Supreme Judicial Court decision that held that taxpayers were limited to the 30-day period to appeal decisions of redevelopment agencies.

In an interview yesterday, Policastro said that because he was not paying for the lawsuit himself, the decision whether to appeal would be up to his lawyer, Samuel Perkins of Boston. Perkins said yesterday that he would appeal. Policastro and Perkins both declined to say who was paying for the lawsuit.

Perkins said Policastro remains determined to find out why the BRA was so intent on selling the 45,000-square-foot parcel, located in Roxbury Crossing, to the Islamic Society. A related suit filed by the David Project, a nonprofit Jewish advocacy group, to force the BRA to release all documents related to the sale, remains open.

"The city isn't getting full payment for the land, and there are a lot of things that we need to be aware of that we are not," Policastro said yesterday.

A spokeswoman for the Islamic Society of Boston praised Hamlin's decision in a statement.

"We are very pleased that the court put an end to the legal campaign against the Islamic Society of Boston, which is part of a greater effort by those seeking to oppose area Muslims from building a place of worship," said Jessica Masse, the society's inter faith coordinator. "Part of Mr. Policastro's suit demanded that the ISB return the land and the mosque be torn down. Now this threat is gone. It is full steam ahead now -- we will see our mosque built to completion."

Albert L. Farrah Jr., a lawyer for the Islamic Society, said Hamlin's decision was a proper one that would discourage legal objections to redevelopment projects long after contractors had broken ground on the jobs.

About $12 million has been spent on the project so far, and Massie said yesterday that the Islamic Society hoped to raise another $2 million to complete construction of the mosque and part of the school in time to open by the beginning of the Ramadan season in September.

With a great deal of funding coming from the usual suspects, the Saudis.

In this post I quoted several Qur'an verses that are being used by Muslims today to justify mistreatment of women and warfare against non-Muslims. A comment appeared in the comments field there that I thought worth a separate posting, along with my reply.

Here is the comment, a message to me:

Robert,

As a Muslim and aspiring filmmaker, it hurts and disturbs me that you make a living off of criticizing and vilifying my beautiful and peaceful way of Life. I just want you to know that Muslims all around the world, including the CAIR organization will always be there to stand up and speak out against your immaturity, ignorance, and prejudice.

Hate never did the world any good and I personally think you should be ashamed of yourself for calling yourself a Christian while you demonize your Abrahamic brothers/sisters. I think there's still a lot you need to learn about being a human being. I'm only 23 years old, yet I have learned in life that not all adults are mature and grown up. From the quality of your work, it shows that you don't care about compassion or peace, but separation and war.

Don't you feel ashamed of yourself at all for being so negative and prejudice? Is this the type of world you want people to live in? Do you want to keep spreading intolerance and ignorance in the United States? Do you want your children to be just as hateful and ignorant as you? Let me tell you something, I would NEVER IN MY LIFE insult another religion or direct my work at a specific group of people because I CARE about other people's feelings. Islam teaches us to journey outside of ourselves and help people who are in need. I could easily get a book published if I said some bad things about my religion because that's what the world wants, they like when ex-Muslims write negative things about Islam, but no thank you, I choose God over worldly "success" because His Love is Greater than anything people like YOU have ever known. The Love I have for my people is greater than yours because my work stems from Truth and flows with compassion and peace, they came from my Heart. Yours are filled with lies and deception. How are you making the world a better place?? You're making it worse. Because of people like you, I have to worry about my children being picked on just because of their ethnicity and religious background. Because of people like you, I can't stand up for my rights without someone complaining and saying Islamophobia is some "myth." A myth? I've been pulled over by police officers so many times while working on my independent films, just because I'm brown skinned, but do I judge all Americans and say they are evil? No, of course not! America is a country founded on religious freedom and tolerance, Mr. Spencer, and even our elementary schools teach us to treat others as human beings and to never judge people based on the color of their skin, religion, or nationality.

Shame on you, Mr. Spencer.

No matter what you do, Muslims will always be here. And I know that bothers you. Just remember that peace, tolerance, and Love is being taught to you RIGHT NOW by a Muslim, and I hope one day, insha'Allah, you will see my films.

Salaam, Shalom, Shlama, Peace

~JehanZeb~

al-jahil 'adoww nafsoh
The ignorant is his own enemy

And my reply:

JehanZeb

Thanks for your note. For someone who supposedly eschews hate, it is interesting that it is so full of insults and inaccurate, pejorative characterizations of my work.

It is also interesting that you don't address any of the Qur'an passages I quoted above, or explain what you plan to do to keep Muslims from interpreting them, as you well know that many do, in a way that harms women and non-Muslims. As long as you and others like you continue to claim that such Qur'an quotes only manifest "ignorance" and "hate" on the part of those who quote them, and as long as you engage in defamation of those who explore the elements of Islam that are giving rise to violence in the world today instead of setting out some positive ways to mitigate the effects of such verses among Muslims, you will be contributing to the climate of suspicion toward Muslims that you claim to be a victim of.

And you are contributing to that climate of suspicion far more effectively than I ever could.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

There has been much discussion lately of whether or not this or that case has anything to do with “terrorism.” The Salt Lake mall shooter and the Nashville would-be murderer by taxicab spring immediately to mind. The word "terrorism" may not quite fit if the FBI takes it to mean some kind of organized conspiracy, something done by a group. What should be made clear is that Islam supplies a pre-fabricated mental grid or, to vary the metaphor, a prism through which to view the universe. And on that grid, or through that prism, there is always an Identifiable Enemy, and that Enemy is Always the Infidel.

Feeling bad? Feeling blue? Feeling things aren't going right for you? It happens to all of us. We blame our parents, our siblings, our children, The System, Amerika with a "k," Capitalism, fate, the stars, our serotonin level, our cholesterol level. Even, at times, we may blame ourselves. That's if you are an ordinary Infidel.

TERROR suspects could be given taxpayer-funded counselling for being angry or having low self-esteem.

Under the proposal, the [Australian] Federal Government would provide psychological counselling and anger management support to terror suspects and those subject to control orders. – from this article

Not real comprehension. Not any sense that there may be something wrong with the naive and sentimental love-affair with the idea that People Are the Same the Whole World Over or People All Want the Same Thing or We Are All God's Chillun' or Why Can't We All Get Along or If Only We Could Speak to Each Other We'd Be Able to Iron Things Out or Everyone Deserves High Self-Esteem No Matter What (in Louisiana this used to be translated as: Every Man a King) or...oh god, fill it in yourself.

Everything, anything, to turn the Real World and its Real Threats -- the Nazis, the Communists, and those who believe, who agree (or might believe, or might agree, if they felt their triumph was inevitable) that "Islam is to dominate and is not to be dominated" -- into something small, tame, and manageable.

To the social workers of this world, it is all about low self-esteem.

The Copenhagen Qur'an Petition. One would hope, probably against hope, that this proposal would lead to a fruitful public discussion of the passages of the Qur'an and Hadith that jihadists use today to justify Islamic supremacism, and an honest initiative by Muslims in Denmark to teach their people never to understand such passages literally. But instead, there will be the predictable cries of "racism."

From Sabah, with thanks to Ummah News Links:

A political party named SIAD (Stop Islamiseringen af Danmark-Stop Islamisation of Denmark) has demanded a censorship for parts of Quran, stating that that certain parts 'encourage violence.'

After caricature crisis and the attack no Muslim graves, Denmark has hit the headlines for the third time again with its anti-Islamist movements. A political party called Stop Islamisation of Denmark has claimed that 67th and 69th verses of Quran are violating the Danish constitution and the mosques across the country should be closed according to the 78th article of the Danish constitution. SABAH Newspaper has talked with the leader Anders Graves of SIAD; a party that has about 400 members. Graves said: "Denmark is our country. Some verses of the Quran are filing me with worries about the lives of my children and grand children." Stating that they have no intention or expectation on banning the Islam religion across the country Gravers said people living in Denmark should obey the constitution of the country no matter what they believe in.

67th and 69th verses? I don't know what they're referring to there.

"It is thought the plotters could number more than 2,000," up from the 1600 estimated last November. "Secret report: Terror threat worst since 9/11," by Sean Rayment for the Telegraph:

The terrorist threat facing Britain from home-grown al-Qaeda agents is higher than at any time since the September 11 attacks in 2001, secret intelligence documents reveal.

The number of British-based Islamic terrorists plotting suicide attacks against "soft" targets in this country is far greater than the Security Services had previously believed, the government paperwork discloses. It is thought the plotters could number more than 2,000.

Tiny Minority of Extremists Alert:

Under the heading "International Terrorism in the UK", the document - seen by The Sunday Telegraph - states: "The scale of al-Qaeda's ambitions towards attacking the UK and the number of UK extremists prepared to participate in attacks are even greater than we had previously judged."

It warns that terrorist "attack planning" against Britain will increase in 2007, and adds: "We still believe that AQ [al-Qaeda] will continue to seek opportunities for mass casualty attacks against soft targets and key infrastructure. These attacks are likely to involve the use of suicide operatives."

The document, which has been circulated across Whitehall to MI5, Scotland Yard's Counter Terrorist Command, the Home Office, the Cabinet Office and the Ministry of Defence, also reveals that al-Qaeda has grown into a world-wide organisation with a foothold in virtually every Muslim country in North Africa, the Middle East and central Asia.

Eliza Manningham-Buller, the director general of MI5, warned recently that there were more than 1,600 "identified individuals" actively engaged in plotting terrorist attacks. There were 200 known networks involved in at least 30 terrorist plots. It is thought that the number of British citizens involved in plots could be well in excess of 2,000.

MI5 believes that soft targets, such as the transport system and economic targets such as the City of London and Canary Wharf, are most at risk.

A senior political source said the picture painted by the document was "particularly bleak and unlikely to improve for several years".

He said: "The Security Services have constantly warned that the task of countering Islamist terrorism is a daunting one. There will be more attacks in Britain."

Patrick Mercer, the Tory spokesman for homeland security, said: "This document absolutely underlines the threat and makes me wonder why the Government still has a counter-terrorist strategy that has been officially declared obsolete. It does make the Government's response look hugely complacent."

Entitled Extremist Threat Assessment, the document, which was drawn up this month, also discloses that Afghanistan, where more than 7,000 British troops will be based by the end of May, is expected to supersede Iraq as the location for terrorists planning Jihad against the West.

It says that al-Qaeda's influence extends from North Africa, including Egypt, through to Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan, and into Somalia and Sudan. Al-Qaeda is "resilient and effective" in Iraq, its "operating environment and financial position" in Pakistan has improved and a new group had emerged in Yemen.

This Raleigh News & Observer story about Kamil Solomon's presentation on Islam at Enloe High School in North Carolina, "Students told to shun Muslims" by Yonat Shimron and Kinea White Epps, quotes CAIR's Ibrahim Hooper and a student, but not Kamil Solomon himself. As such the claims about what was said have to be taken with a grain of salt. And a few elements bear closer examination:

RALEIGH - A national Muslim advocacy group has rebuked the Wake County Public School system for allowing a Christian evangelist to speak at Enloe High School and distribute pamphlets denouncing Islam.

The Council on American Islamic Relations said the school system will have created a "discriminatory, hostile learning environment," violating federal civil rights law, if it does not investigate the incident and apologize to students.

The complaint stems from a guest appearance last week in several classes by Kamil Solomon, a Raleigh-based Christian evangelist, who urged students to shun Muslims.

"When you bring in somebody to distribute hate-filled literature without an opportunity for rebuttal, you have a disturbing situation," said Ibrahim Hooper, communications director for the national council, known as CAIR....

Great, Ibrahim. I am available to rebut your literature whenever and wherever you distribute it. You know where to contact me.

Solomon's appearance Friday in teacher Robert Escamilla's social studies classes at Enloe, a magnet school for gifted and talented students, shocked many who took the pamphlets home and showed them to their parents, students said. One pamphlet, comparing Jesus with Muhammad, says the Muslim prophet "enslaved people, abused women and taught Muslims to terrorize non-Muslims and force them into Islam."

Well, that's a summary statement, of course, but a case can be made for it. The N&O assumes prima facie that it is false, but on what evidence? Hooper's word?

One wonders, however, why people keep getting this impression about Muhammad. Hooper could do more to keep this sort of thing from happening by dropping the bully-boy intimidation tactics and addressing the elements of the Qur'an and Sunnah that give rise to this view of Muhammad. Did he enslave people? Of course. His life, as detailed in the earliest Islamic sources (which I used for my own biography, The Truth About Muhammad) is full of battles, after which his men enslaved their captives. This is also in the Qur’an, which assumes that a Muslim will be a slaveowner, and prescribes freeing a slave as the penalty for breaking an oath (5:89). The Qur’an also includes directions about marriage with slaves: "And marry such of you as are solitary and the pious of your slaves and maid-servants" (24:32).

"Abused women"? Well, the Qur'an does sanction wife-beating: "Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them" (4:34).

"...taught Muslims to terrorize non-Muslims and force them into Islam"? Terror is in the Qur'an too: "Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into (the hearts of) the enemies, of Allah and your enemies..." (8:60). "Force them into Islam"? Forced conversion? No. But non-Muslims, including the "People of the Book" -- Jews and Christians -- are to be fought until they are subjugated and made to pay a poll-tax (jizya) from which Muslims are exempt: "Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued" (9:29).

So is Kamil Solomon being vilified for telling the truth? Memo to Ibrahim Hooper: non-Muslims can read those Qur'ans you're sending out. In fact, I encourage them to do so. And they can see that when people do what I just did -- quote some problematic passages -- you don't explain them, or make any effort to keep Muslims from taking such passages as marching orders. Instead, you vilify the non-Muslim who quotes them as "hateful." Well, people are seeing through your game. Until you engage these issues honestly and forthrightly, people will see you as disingenuous or worse -- except the mainstream media, I suppose, and that's all that matters.

Back to the article:

"He basically told us Muslims were bad and we should convert to Christianity," said Alyssa Kaszycki, 14, of Cary, who heard Solomon during a freshman seminar class. "He told all the girls we should never marry a Muslim man because they would take away our freedom and beat us."...

Did he really tell her "Muslims were bad"? Maybe he did, but I doubt it. I don't know Kamil Solomon, but I expect he is as aware as we all are that human nature is everywhere the same, people are people everywhere, some are good, some are not so good, and no one is perfect. But none of that negates the fact that some Muslims do act upon Qur'an 4:34 and other verses regarding women, and their presence in the Islamic holy book, unmitigated by any interpretative tradition that rejects literalism, makes the mistreatment of women systemic and self-perpetuating.

Michael Evans, Wake County schools spokesman, said the district was looking into the matter.

"We're going to take the accusations seriously," Evans said. "It is part of our ongoing investigation. We need to ascertain what happened and what comments were made."...

I hope they do, accurately, without allowing themselves to be mau-maued by CAIR.

A poster at Jihad Watch recently expressed conventional wisdom when he wrote: "The Iraqi military is not ready yet. Chaos would be the result. Iran would take the opportunity to control the southern half of Iraq, along with substantial additional oil resources. If the U.S. will not aggressively deal with Iraq, there is no chance it will deal with Iran."

I replied:

What is the "Iraqi military"? Is it Sunni Arab? Is it Shi'a Arab? Is it Arab rather than Kurd? Explain to me exactly the makeup, and real desires of, and size, and competence, of this "Iraqi military" you posit. Are there Sunni units and Shi'a units, or mixed units, and if there are mixed units, how do you think they perform now together? In the future? Ever?

And why do you say that "chaos would be result"? Would not a civil war be the result? It would not necessarily be "chaos," for most of the country is clearly Sunni-Arab-ruled, or Shi'a-Arab ruled, or Kurdish (non-Arab)-ruled, save for Baghdad. Would chaos exist for a long time? Would not the armed parties on either side quickly establish their own lines, and then would not something like the civil war in, say, Russia, ensue, with here the Sunnis defeating the Shi'a or being defeated, and here the Kurds pushing out the Arabs, or vice-versa? Is that "chaos"?

How very interesting that a law that has been in place since 1978 would only now be found to be at variance with Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. From the BBC, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Canada's Supreme Court has struck down a controversial system that allowed the government to detain and deport foreign-born terror suspects.

The nine judges ruled that the security certificate system - in place since 1978 - violated Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The debate over the law pitched security against individual rights
Canada's Supreme Court has struck down a controversial system that allowed the government to detain and deport foreign-born terror suspects.

The nine judges ruled that the security certificate system - in place since 1978 - violated Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The system allowed a suspect to be held indefinitely or deported on the basis of evidence presented in secret.

The case was brought by three men who deny accusations of links to al-Qaeda.

'Fair process'

The Supreme Court has given parliament one year to rewrite the section of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act - under which the certificates are issued - to comply with the constitution.

"Before the state can detain people for significant periods of time, it must accord them a fair judicial process," wrote Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin on behalf of all nine judges.

From AP:

A civil rights group asked a judge Friday to find it unconstitutional for the federal government to exclude a prominent Muslim scholar or anyone else from the United States on the grounds that they may have endorsed or espoused terrorism.

Another blow for civil liberties in America: "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Terrorism."

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the papers attacking the policy in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. The group included in its submissions a written declaration in which the scholar, Tariq Ramadan, said he has always "opposed terrorism not only through my words but also through my actions."

The ACLU said schools and organizations who want to invite Ramadan and others into the United States are concerned about what is known as the ideological exclusion provision.

It said an entry in the State Department's Foreign Affairs Manual says that the provision is directed at those who have voiced "irresponsible expressions of opinion."

The group said the provision violates the First Amendment and has resulted since 2001 in the exclusion from the United States of numerous foreign scholars, human rights activists and writers, barred "not for legitimate security reasons but rather because the government disfavors their politics."

The ACLU said some foreign scholars and writers are now reluctant to accept invitations to the United States because they will be subjected to ideological scrutiny and possibly denied entry.

And might have their feelings hurt, one hastens to add.

Rebekah Carmichael, a spokeswoman for government lawyers, said she had no comment Friday.

You could have managed better than that, Rebekah.

Before his visa was revoked in 2004, Ramadan had spoken at Harvard University, Stanford University and elsewhere. He said he continues to decline numerous invitations to appear in the United States, including a request by The American Academy of Religion to speak next November at its annual meeting.

From Reuters:

AMSTERDAM: The leader of a Dutch anti-immigration party will call for a vote of no-confidence in two Muslim government ministers next week, citing their dual nationality as the issue, a newspaper reported today.

Geert Wilders said in an interview with the Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad the appointment of Moroccan-born Ahmed Aboutaleb and Turkish-born Nebahat Albayrak as junior ministers was wrong because both could have loyalties towards countries other than the Netherlands.

Wilders, whose Party for Freedom (PVV) party won 9 seats out of 150 in the November election, said he will call for a no-confidence vote when the cabinet discusses its policy plans in parliament.

The new cabinet, formed by Christian Democrats, Labour and the Christian Union and sworn in on Thursday by the Dutch queen, is expected to soften immigration policy, which had been tightened under the previous coalition in response to the rise of the populist Pim Fortuyn in 2002.

Maverick politician Fortuyn broke taboos with his criticism of Muslim immigrants before he was murdered by an animal rights activist.

In Saturday's interview, Wilders said: "I do not want to live in a country where some day six or seven members of cabinet could be Muslim," adding that Islamic laws were "barbaric", referring to four people who were beheaded in Saudi-Arabia this week.

"I want to encourage Muslims to leave the Netherlands voluntarily. The demographic development should become such, that the chance is small that we again have two Muslims in the cabinet." About 1 million Muslims live in the Netherlands out of a population of 16 million.

Last week Wilders called on Muslims to ditch half the teachings in the Koran and said he would chase Islam's Prophet Mohammad out of the country if he were alive today. The Iranian embassy called those remarks "spiteful", while the Saudi Arabian embassy held talks over the comments with Dutch foreign ministry officials.

Lt. Gen. William Odom, ret'd., was head of Army intelligence and director of the National Security Agency under Ronald Reagan, and served on the National Security Council staff under Jimmy Carter. He is a West Point graduate with a PhD from Columbia, and is a fellow at the Hudson Institute. He somehow has managed to remain outwardly respectable: why, he even teaches impressionable students at Yale, who are no doubt impressed with his having been on the National Security Agency. But Odom is an appeaser, and of a particularly appalling kind, the kind that pretends to "tough minded realism." You know – remember Zbigniew Brzezinski, who pretended to be different from Jimmy Carter, but in the end turned out to be more or less the same?

Look at Odom’s appalling remarks on Iran. His reasons for not invading Iraq are essentially the same as those of MoveOn.org, and Markos Kos Zuniga, and Jimmy Carter and Brzezinski. About Iran he insists, falsely, that there is "nothing to be done" (nothing? nothing at all?) and that the only way to un-nuclearize Iran is to have the Israelis give up their nuclear weapons. A clearer statement of sweetly sinisterly calling for the suicide of Israel cannot be imagined. He's transparent, is Lt. Gen. William Odom, ret'd.

Whoops. "Biking militants die when bomb explodes prematurely," from AP, with thanks to Morgaan Sinclair:

CHEECHA WATNI, Pakistan (AP) -- Three Islamic militants died in eastern Pakistan when a powerful bomb they were transporting by bicycle accidentally exploded Saturday near a bustling cattle market, police said.

Mohammed Shakil, a police inspector at the scene, told The Associated Press one of the men riding a bicycle had strapped explosives to his body that exploded prematurely, killing himself and the two others in Cheecha Watni, a town about 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Multan, a city in Punjab province.

Shakil said the slain men were students of a local seminary and had links with Sipah-e-Sahaba -- a Sunni militant group outlawed by the government in 2001 in an effort to purge Pakistan of extremism.

Local police chief Mohammed Bashir said the cattle market with hundreds of customers may have been the target, or police who had gathered for a funeral service at the home of an officer recently killed in a gunbattle with militants.

The severed head of one of the militants was found in a nearby field, Shakil said. Police collected the suspects' remains for DNA testing.

The Danish Embassy in India is located on Aurangzeb Road in New Delhi. So there is still a road in India that is named after the most ruthless and cruel of the many ruthless and cruel Muslim rulers, oppressor and mass-murderer of Hindus. Why is there a road by that name? Change it, for god's sake.

Placenames are not forever. Burma becomes Myanmar (though Burma Shave jingles are immortal, and cannot be touched). Saigon becomes Ho Chi Minh City. Stalingrad becomes Volgograd, and Leningrad reverts to Sankt Peterburg. Bombay becomes Mumbai. Ceylon, Sri Lanka. So why in god's name does "Aurangzeb Road" have to stay?

It was right, proper, necessary to destroy Iraq's military power, and its regime. The Ba'athist regime owed its origin to the desperate attempt of Syrian Christians to concoct an ideology that would be an alternative to naked Islam (Michel Aflaq, the founder of Ba'athism, converted to Islam on his deathbed; his life was one of pathetic dhimmitude, while his Communazi Ba'athism did little, really, to defang Islam). Despite being ostensibly "secular," whenever necessary the Ba’athist regime made appeal to Islam: witness Saddam Hussein's use of the Battle of Qadassiyah, the Qur’anic inscription put on the flag, the Qur'an written using his own blood, etc. Like that other "secularist," Nasser, Saddam Hussein was a Muslim through and through in his essential attitudes -- simply one who wanted to start with a unified Arabdom rather than aim for a worldwide Caliphate a la Bin Laden.

But the current campaign is a diversion of men, materiel, and attention. We should be winning back Europe by promoting a long-overdue alarm about the demographic invasion. We should expose the international alliance of fellow-travellers of Islam, from certain members of the BBC (such as John Simpson) and Agence France Press (which is, in its Middle East coverage, virtually a handmaiden of the PA) to some in the European media and in the EU hierarchy, including Javier Solana, Chris Patten, and others. Their antisemitism and anti-Israel attitudes are mutually reinforcing. Those who display either or both are obviously, in their analyses and attitudes, the ones least inclined to see Islamic tenets as a threat to Western (and other) civilizations, and most inclined to ascribe our problems to that pesky affair in western Palestine -- like the antisemites who were those most inclined, of course, in the 1930s to pooh-pooh the Nazi threat.

WORLD opinion emphatically rejects the idea that Islam and the West are heading for an inevitable clash of civilisations, according to an ambitious poll of public attitudes across 27 countries, commissioned by The Age and the BBC World Service.—from this article

This "opinion poll" was commissioned by the BBC World Service. The American who conducted the poll and possibly even some of those who were behind it were just delighted with the skewed results, resulting from an absurd list of questions. The most absurd at all was the distinction that the questions offered simply took as a given: that there is a difference between disputes with a "religious" basis and those with a "political" basis. But this, in Islam, makes no sense. Religious promptings explain what for others, for Infidels, might be mistaken for merely "political" disputes.

The Muslims of Pakistan want control of Kashmir themselves, or at the very least want to end control by Hindu India of that part of Kashmir that is in Indian control (the rest is under Pakistani control). But is that a "political" desire or a "religious" one? It is, of course, a desire prompted by the tenets of Islam. It is wrong for lands once part of Dar al-Islam ever to be regained and ruled by non-Muslims. It is wrong for non-Muslims ever to dominate, in any way, Muslims. And if Kashmir were to be put in the hands of Muslims, that "dispute" would simply be ended and a new one pressed even more violently and firmly, with all the swelling triumphalism that the win in Kashmir would fill Muslim hearts: a claim to India itself, once under Muslim rule.

WASHINGTON — A Muslim group said Monday it had invited Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Va., to expand on biting remarks he made last week during debate on a House resolution disapproving of President Bush's decision to send more than 21,000 U.S. troops into Iraq.

The Muslim American Public Affairs Council has "extended this invitation to Congressman Goode to give him a venue to explain his recent comments about Muslims and Islam," MAPAC Executive Director Marc Conaghan said in a statement. MAPAC also asked Goode to share a dialogue with Jamal Badawi, an Islamic and comparative religion scholar….

Last week, Goode said the nonbinding resolution would provide "comfort and encourage the radical Muslims who want to destroy our country." He also said Islamic jihadists want U.S. currency to say "In Muhammad We Trust," with an Islamic flag flying over the White House and U.S. Capitol. -- from this article

Congressman Virgil Goode should start to figure out that in his entirely justified suspicion of Islam he does not go far enough, and does not make sense of all of the information available.

If he were to do so, he would not be supporting the "surge" in Iraq with its perfectly predictable outcome. He would be furiously opposing -- for all the right reasons -- the squandering of men, money, and materiel in Iraq to obtain a goal that is the exact opposite of the goal that should be sought: not "freedom" for "ordinary moms and dads in the Middle East," and certainly not a "war on terrorism" that "we are fighting over there so we don't have to fight them over here."

Of course, this is not surprising, as the punishment for apostasy under Islamic law comes directly from the words of Muhammad himself: "If anyone changes his religion, kill him." (Bukhari 9.84.57, and others).

"Founder of ex-Muslim group threatened," from UPI:

COLOGNE, Germany, Feb. 23 (UPI) -- The founder of a group in Germany for former Muslims has sought police protection after receiving death threats.

Mina Ahadi, a native of Iran living in Cologne, said about three dozen people have joined the Central Council of Ex-Muslims.

"I happened to be born in a Muslim family, and I have decided not to be a Muslim," she told the magazine Focus.

Ahadi said she and other members of the group have been "terrorized" and have received death threats, most of them sent via e-mail.

In many Muslim countries, people who abandon the faith face the death sentence under Sharia law.

Ahadi said she hoped to represent the interests of former Muslims who do not practice the religion. She chose the name as a play on the Central Council of Muslims, which has about 800,000 members and is the largest Islamic group in Germany.

"The case is one of the first in Pakistan to underline in court the links between splinter cells of Pakistani jihad groups and Qaeda operatives in Waziristan."

"Blast That Killed U.S. Diplomat Tied to Qaeda," by Carlotta Gall in the New York Times, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

KARACHI, Pakistan, Feb. 22 — The suicide bombing that killed an American diplomat here last March, just before a visit by President Bush, was organized by a small cell of Pakistani militants and masterminded by an operative of Al Qaeda based in the Pakistan’s tribal areas, Pakistan says.

The charge is being made by Pakistani officials as they present evidence — the result of months of investigations by the police, assisted by F.B.I. investigators — at the trial of two men accused in the plot.

The men, Anwar ul-Haq, 27, and Usman Ghani, 26, both ethnic Pashtuns from Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province, grew up in the teeming working-class neighborhoods of Karachi and fought with the Taliban in Afghanistan, the investigators say. On Thursday, they sat behind bars, wearing long beards and knitted prayer caps, at the back of a courtroom in Karachi’s central jail, listening intently to an investigator outline the evidence against them.

The case is one of the first in Pakistan to underline in court the links between splinter cells of Pakistani jihad groups and Qaeda operatives in Waziristan, part of Pakistan’s tribal areas, which have come under increasing scrutiny as a staging area for suicide bombers and Taliban insurgents battling NATO and American forces in Afghanistan.

Followed by a scrupulously fair discussion of Israel’s Report by members of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD/70th session).

Comments by David G. Littman: Representative to the United Nations (Geneva)
The Association for World Education and World Union of Progressive Judaism

On February 22/23, Israel presented its comprehensive periodic CERD Report (10th–13th): CERD/C/471/Add.2: http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cerd/docs/CERD_C_471_Add2_En.doc. It was discussed fairly by CERD members [Chair: Regis de Gouttes, France], as recognized by Israel’s Ambassador Yitzhak Levanon who stated: “The country reporter, Marton Kjaerum [Denmark] gave a comprehensive and scrupulous presentation (…) To begin with, Mr. Kjaerum rightly acknowledged that the freedom of movement is not absolute, and there are times when security matters may dictate that this freedom is restricted. I call the Committee’s attention to this only because so often when dealing with UN mechanisms, Israel is discussed in absolutist terms, with Israeli policies being uniformly criticized, with no recognition or assessment of the unique challenges we face.” Final ‘observations’ will be available within a fortnight, but a balanced CERD text is expected at this stage.

The lunch-time NGO ‘briefing session’ (Feb. 22nd) was chaired by Joseph Schechla, coordinator of Habitat International Coalition’s Housing and Lands Rights Network (Cairo, Egypt). It was a totally one-sided meeting. Comments were limited to negative criticism of Israel, without any reservations, but the questions from CERD members were brief and perfunctory. Comments could be made only by an NGO registered beforehand by the organizing NGOs. The same evening, HICHLRN and others ("Collectif Urgence Palestine - Genève") organized a Conference in Geneva. Similar events were also scheduled. A written Report by Jerusalem-based “NGO Monitor” was submitted (February 15) by its Executive Editor, Dr. Gerald Steinberg: http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cerd/docs/ngos/NGO-monitor.pdf. It usefully analysed several of these NGOs, which “advocate agendas that reflect only one side of the conflict.”

The text below could not be presented at the NGO ‘briefing’, but was circulated to a dozen members of the CERD with two joint written statements on the 1988 Hamas Charter: E/CN.4/2006/NGO/239 and A/HRC/S–1/NGO/4:
E/CN.4/2006/NGO/239
and
A/HRC/S–1/NGO/4

"We're going to war." Who is "we," Mousa? What kind of "war"? It may be that gang warfare was indeed all Mousa Abuelawi had in mind, but mines? Did he expect the gangs to lay landmines in St. Charles, Missouri?

An update on this story. "St. Charles man accused in arms case is indicted," by Robert Patrick in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, with thanks to Cindy:

ST. LOUIS — A St. Charles man accused of buying automatic weapons and a Claymore mine and bargaining for grenades was indicted this week on four federal machine gun charges.

Mousa M. Abuelawi, 22, of Franjoe Court, was originally arrested Dec. 29 and charged with three counts of illegal possession or distribution of a machine gun and conspiracy to violate machine gun statutes....

Abuelawi was indicted Thursday and accused of receiving, transferring and possessing a machine gun, according to federal court documents made public Friday.

An affidavit filed with the court by FBI Special Agent Stephen M. Smith laid out the alleged weapons purchases this way:

During November and December, Abuelawi bought two M-16s, a Heckler & Koch MP-5 fully automatic submachine gun and a Claymore mine from a government informer, not knowing they had been rigged not to work.

He also negotiated to buy a box of 30 grenades and said he wanted any guns the informer could get, "big or small." The grenades were never delivered.

The men met several times in the 5700 block of West Florissant Avenue, where Abuelawi worked. One of Abuelawi's co-workers, Thaed Abde Sumad, met with the men once, according to the indictment, and "stated he wants to buy as many explosives as possible because, 'we're going to war.'" In an interview earlier this month, Sumad said he didn't remember the comment and suggested it may have been a joke.

Sumad said the purchases were intended as a money-making venture supplying St. Louis street gangs in a turf war. Sumad said he had no role in handling the weapons and was not involved in the negotiations. Sumad said he has been interviewed by FBI agents.

The ever-insightful Diana West comments on this story:

I saw something eerie this week. It wasn't an apparition exactly, but rather a head-spinning blur of headlines about global jihad that, rather incredibly, began to take on the unmistakable shape of a British old school tie.

How? Maybe I should start by explaining it was the old school tie that came to mind first in the form of a new publication on British education: namely, a 72-page manifesto (sorry, "guidance") from the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) on how British state schools might better accommodate children from the Muslim community, which, according to the 2001 census, makes up 2.7 percent of the British population.

Did I say "better" accommodate their Muslim pupils? I mean, much, much better accommodate them. In fact, if the British were to adopt half of the MCB's recommendations for making British schooling Muslim-friendly, they might as well re-issue the 19th-century boy's school classic as Abdullah Brown's School Days. At the crux of the Muslim council's document is a call for special treatment for Britain's Muslim students that is so special as to reorient the entire British system according to Islamic law.

The report kicks off with a British poll finding that religion "appears to be more important" to young Muslims than to young people of "white British or mixed heritage." It seems to follow, then, at least according to the council's logic, that Muslim religious requirements should also supercede those of "white British or mixed heritage young people," not to mention those of the Church of England. And, so, in this report, they effectively do.

Muslim girls should be allowed to wear the hijab instead of regulation uniforms — of course, "schools may wish to specify the colour." (Thanks awfully.) Muslim boys should be allowed to grow beards "following the example of the Prophet Muhammad," not school grooming guidelines. Muslim children should receive "halal meals," a suggestion which entails a slew of other "suggestions" for staff training and food preparation and storage, and Muslim children should be allotted prayer rooms, perhaps segregated by sex.

That's not all. "Muslim pupils who wish to pray will need access to washing facilities to perform Wudu, which includes the washing of the hands, mouth, arms to the elbow, and feet." Washing facilities?

The guidelines continue. "This state of purification becomes nullified when one goes to the toilet or breaks wind." Heavens. Such, er, nullification calls for more washing — "private parts," this time. "Hence pupils will need to use water cans or bottles that are easily accessible from a storage area in or near the washing area."

Then comes Ramadan. Rather than simply informing schools how to accommodate pupils' private fasting, the Muslim Council of Britain also explains how schools might participate in the holiday. Urging them to schedule tests, meetings, swimming ("the potential for swallowing water is very high") and sex education — even reproductive science lessons — some other time, the report also advises schools "to build on" the Ramadan spirit and participate in nightly fast-breaking meals.

Muslim students should be allowed to take Arabic as a foreign language, and perhaps study "the art of Qur'anic recitation" instead of music. And on and on. The Muslim council isn't asking the British taxpayer to create the perfect Shariah state exactly, but rather the perfect Shariah state school system.

Read it all.

Dr. Raphael Israeli speaks out in The Australian (thanks to Andrew Bostom) about the dhimmis who canceled his speaking tour in Australia.

AS an Israeli, one becomes used to the bias of the world's media and the frustrations of being misrepresented in the face of hysteria. But as a visiting academic to the land of the fair go, I didn't expect to find the same thing here.

At the end of last week, the Australian Jewish News interviewed me about my research into Muslim communities in Europe. Having spent much of my life studying and writing about this subject, I was asked by a reporter about my views and how relevant they were to Australia. He pressed me as to whether the violence that Europe was experiencing with its Muslim population could happen here.

I said it could happen anywhere, including Australia, that Muslim immigration occurred unchecked.

The response in the media has been less than friendly. Sydney radio broadcaster Mike Carlton and The Sydney Morning Herald implied that I was a racist, and I have been denounced by some leaders of the Jewish community.

I came to Australia to speak about Islam and the Middle East and to share the fruits of my books and research. But I've been dragged into an argument on a sensational issue that was not part of my schedule here. The many audiences who were to attend my lectures throughout the land were deprived of hearing them, except that private organisations, Jewish and non-Jewish, picked up the sponsorship of those lectures and I will end up giving more lectures than previously planned.

I am vastly rewarded by the multitude of supporting voices and the outpouring of calls and emails, from Jews and non-Jews, in Australia and abroad, and by the pressing queues of learners who've signed up for my classes. (There have also been a few hostile callers, some of whom identified themselves as Muslims or Muslim converts who typically use abusive language instead of a civilised voice of reason.)

I have been researching Islam in Europe and have come to some disturbing findings about the new third Islamic invasion of Europe: specifically, the Muslim neighbourhoods that breed violence and trouble and the home-grown European Muslims who have sworn to change Europe to their tune, to Islamise it and to use violence, if necessary, to that end.

Read it all.

No Compulsion In Religion Update from the UK, via the Daily Mail (thanks to Kasper):

Extremist Muslims who force vulnerable teenage girls to convert to Islam are being targeted by police, Met chief Sir Ian Blair has revealed.

Police are working with universities to clamp down on "aggressive conversions" during which girls are beaten up and forced to abandon university courses.

The Hindu Forum of Britain claims hundreds of mostly Sikh and Hindu girls have been intimidated by Muslim men who take them out on dates before terrorising them until they convert.

Dr. Rusty Shackleford has some more info on the infamous Pipes and Spencer Hacking Caper (actually, Pipes and Spencer sounds more like a department store than a hacking team). He even reveals the true culprit, who actually was no culprit at all, but just someone who took over Imam Musa's site after Musa apparently took down his page himself. (Musa is now back.)

Thanks, Rusty, for the credit for the phrase!

I am told that the Flying Imams incident has accomplished just what it was probably intended to accomplish: I have information that Islamic sensitivity training, often led by CAIR, has intensified among law enforcement officials in direct response to this incident. But there are still a number of troubling questions about the imams' behavior.

Here is a video interview with one of the passengers who complained about the imams: "Hear from the passenger that alerted crew of 'suspicious actions,'" at KSTP.com (thanks to Nate).

Erick Stakelbeck details the madness at Hot Air.

The Washington, DC imam whose Myspace page Daniel Pipes and I are alleged to have hacked is back. It's here. (Thanks to Marked Manner.)

A few highlights:

While incarcerated, Imam Musa accepted traditional, orthodox Islam before his release. For many years after his release, the Imam continued his studies of Islam and was a keen observer of the political and social events taking place in the Muslim world. Following the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, in a move that was rare for Sunni Muslims, Imam Musa publicly expressed his support for the Islamic Republic and its leader Ayatollah Khomeini. Since the early 1980s, he made several visits to Iran as a representative of Muslims in the United States and a supporter of the Islamic revival. He made connections with a wide array of Muslim leaders during the decade--both Sunni and Shia--and stressed that unity was a primary objective for the Islamic movement's success. After searching for leadership for several years without success, he took it upon himself to create an organization--the As-Sabiqun--that was capable of supporting the unique needs of Muslims living in the US while simultaneously incorporating an international outlook and agenda. His methodology draws heavily on the writings of Malcolm X, Maulana Mawdudi, Sheikh Uthman dan Fodio, Hasan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb, Kalim Siddiqui, and Imam Khomeini. New members of the group are encouraged to individually familiarize themselves with the works of these Islamic thinkers in addition to attending daily classes and lectures on classical Islamic studies, (Qur’an, Hadith, fiqh, Seerah, etc.). Special emphasis is placed on personal development and growth based on the Qur'an and Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), as well as incorporating tightly knit family units within the overall community structure. The movement has spread across the US and is extremely popular among college students and African-American youth. Imam Musa has been regularly invited to speak at college campuses and Islamic events around the world. Critics have suggested that he promotes anti-Semitism in his speeches, which he claims are directed at Zionist supporters of Israel and not at Jewish people in general. During a rally in July 1999 Imam Musa displayed a cashier's check made out to "Hamas, Palestine," to protest the 1996 U.S. law which declared Hamas a terrorist organization. On July 7, 2000, Imam Musa suffered harassment at the hands of the police when he was assaulted, threatened with a gun and then arrested while stopping the policemen from brutally beating a motorist. Imam Musa was charged with "assaulting the police." He spent two nights in jail before appearing before a judge on July 10. In court, the police reduced the charge against him to a misdemeanor. On October 31, 2001, Imam Musa, along with Imam Muhammad al-'Asi and others, appeared at the National Press Club and, in a program which was televised by C-SPAN, disputed the official story of what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, implying that the U.S. government was involved based on its historical pattern of creating wars to benefit pre-conceived agendas. The re-airing of this program was cancelled due to complaints by the Anti-Defamation League.

A couple of weeks ago I posted here about Imam Musa, a Washington D.C.-area imam whose Myspace page praised the jihad theorists Sayyid Qutb and Syed Abul Ala Maududi, as well as the Ayatollah Khomeini. That Myspace page has since been taken down, but before it was it was apparently taken over by an opponent of Imam Musa. Over at Shiachat.com, they are certain that this is the nefarious work of none other than "Daniel Pipes and Robert Spencer who are part of jihadwatch.org and dhimmi watch."

Dear Brothers and Sisters, The page of Imam Abdul-Alim Musa's khutbahs have been destroyed after being hacked into by zionists entities. They are connected with Daniel Pipes and Robert Spencer who are part of jihadwatch.org and dhimmi watch. They have replaced the page with zionists pictures and blasphemous sayings cursing the Prophet (SAW) and Allah (SWA) and have also placed a song about Prophet Muhammad (SAW) being a pedophile *ASTAGHFIR'ULLAH!!!!!!*. The page that has been hijacked is www.myspace.com/imammusa. Some of you may remember Imam Musa as the Imam who a couple of years ago gave a khutbah on the Ahlul-Bayt going to Sunni sources to show the importance of the Household of the Prophet (SAW) and the importance of unity. For those of you who know him or know of him and respect him and what he does please let him and the world know you support him. Don't allow the spineless, heartless, hide behind rocks and trees zionist entities discolor, discredit and paint him in a bad light. Furthermore, don't allow them to present Islam in ways other than it is. At this time it is important that we maintain solidarity and present ourselves as one solid block. please pass this on to your friends and to people who would be interested in this sort of thing. Jazak'Allahu Khayr. these are the websites on which they proudly (and stupidly) boast about their exploits.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/015226.php

and

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/186516.php

At neither place, as you'll see, do Dr. Pipes or I "boast" about our "exploits," since of course we had nothing to do with the removal of Imam Musa's Myspace page. I admire and support his work, but Dr. Pipes is not involved with Jihad Watch or Dhimmi Watch. That makes no difference to Shiachat, which is a world of conspiracy theories: any two people working in the same field must be -- obviously! -- working together.

This story is making the rounds at a number of Islamic websites. Another (scroll all the way down) has it that Jihad Watch is "controlled" by the infamous Pipes:

Recently, the myspace profile created to spread Imam Musa's message of truth, justice, and hope for our Ummah was destroyed by hackers who have loaded it up with anti-Islamic, pro-Zionist garbage (check it out: www.myspace.com/imammusa). It looked organized with the amount of info put up in such a short of time period. It was brought to my attention yesterday that the Imam Musa myspace profile was (coincidentally?) VERY recently mentioned on the website of Jihad Watch--a website that I believe is controlled or supported by Daniel Pipes, an ardent Islam-hater--as well as a related site.

Yet another, although I don't have the link for this one, goes farther:

Daniel Pipes Racist Website Slandering Imam Musa former Black Panther

[15 February 2007?]

A dear friend of mine Imam Musa a former black panther and now Muslim has had his myspace page hacked by republican Isreali Zionist. I am not down with none of that they replaced all his lectures and placed a picture calling for a “Crusade Against Muslims”. Imam Musa has been active since the 1960s helping African-Americans and Latinos in Americas ghetto. I am proud to say that he helped me along the way when I first became a Muslim. Without people like him I probably would have gotten killed in L.A. gang banging drama.

Imam Musa has established programs across the country for the poor, drug addicted, women, men, children etc. Many children in Oakland and Washington D.C. are recieving education due to his efforts. Many drug dealers in California and across the country have stopped selling dope because of Imam Musa. Imam Musa has helped to educate the countries ghettos about being black in America.

Daniel Pipes is a house hold name to Muslims. His name is like David Duke (former Grand Wizard of the Klu Klux Klan) to African Americans. Daniel Pipes is behind this and he says that Imam Musa’s movement As-Sabiqun (The Vanguard) wants to “ wage war against unbelievers in order to establish over them the hegemony of Islamic law and subjugate them as dhimmis.”

Those are my words. I don't know where this is quoted from, but since I say it about ten times a day, I recognize it as mine.

Daniel Pipes is a racist plain and simple. Dhimmi is a tax paying citizen of an Islamic State. The Dhimmi is a legal status that non-Muslims are given that means they are citizens of whatever country. Muslims in Islamic law are required to pay mutliple taxes called Zakat or Sadaqah (Jews says Sadaka in Hebrew). The Dhimmi is required to pay the Jizyah an annual tax. Okay, and... arent you preparing your annual taxes now anyway whats the difference? Mr. Pipes uses his knowledge of Islam to fill ignorant Americans with fear and hatred of Muslims. He hopes this fear and hate will continue to fuel Americas support for Israels government and war machine with our taxes coming from America.

Mr. Pipes I was at that protest in 1999. I am sure you were filming everyone there protesting against Israeli’s killing civilians and oppressing Muslim and Christians in Palestine. If the United Nations would not give money to the PLO and would give money to Hammas only was Imam Musa wrong for sending that check? Hammas is not a terror organization it is a religious social welfare organiation and now is the democratically elected government of Palestine.

I hope Daniel Pipes and all the Israeli’s have a great black history month. Maybe Mr. Pipes should speak on how Dr. Martin Luther King was assisinated after speaking up about Palestine and Vietnam.
“My American Dream has become the American nightmare”
Dr. Martin Luther King

All this outrage makes me wonder who really did hack Imam Musa's site. But it's interesting that these people are so certain about who did it, in the absence of a shred of evidence to that effect.

Daniel Pipes has sent around this email about the ongoing Minneapolis airport cab controversy:

Dear Reader:

A further decision is due in the controversy over taxi drivers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport who refuse to transport passengers visibly carrying alcohol. The Metropolitan Airports Commission, which has jurisdiction over the drivers, invites the public’s opinion; and I urge your involvement.

MAC has sent a notice (which I have posted in full on my website, at http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/679#meeting) that recounts developments since its decision in October 2006 to deny requests by drivers to distinguish between Shar’i-compliant and –noncompliant taxis. MAC writes:

For the past several months, the Metropolitan Airports Commission has worked with airport taxi industry representatives and with leaders from the Muslim American Society and the Somali Justice Advocacy League. The goal was to find a solution acceptable to everyone and transparent to the customer seeking airport taxi service. Unfortunately, those discussions have not resulted in a workable, voluntary, consensus-based solution. As a result, the Airports Commission is proposing stricter penalties for refusal of service: a 30-day suspension of a driver's airport taxi license for the first instance, and license revocation for a second instance.

Bravo to MAC. It is important that the drivers be sent a strong signal that they must obey the regulations. Were they allowed to boycott travelers with alcohol, I pointed out in “Don't Bring That Booze into My Taxi,” that would intrude Islamic law “into a mundane commercial transaction in Minnesota” and could lead to the transport system as a whole being divided “between those Islamically observant and those not so.”

I appealed to readers in October to urge MAC to impose penalties on those who insist on imposing Shar’i norms in Minnesota and to send a message that this practice is unacceptable. The barrage of e-mails and phone calls had the hoped-for effect. According to airport spokesman Patrick Hogan back then, “we’ve heard from Australia and England. It’s really touched a nerve among a lot of people. The backlash, frankly, has been overwhelming. People are overwhelmingly against any kind of cultural accommodation.”

Again now, I appeal to all those opposed to application of the Shari‘a in the United States to make their views heard in Minnesota. You can do this in either of two ways.

In writing: MAC is asking for “input from the public” through Friday, March 2, 2007, before it makes a decision on the proposed increase in penalties. Written comments should be addressed to:

Landside Operations Department
Metropolitan Airports Commission
MSP International Airport/Lindbergh Terminal
4300 Glumack Drive
Suite LT-3129B
Saint Paul, MN 55111-3010.

In person: For those living in the Twin Cities area, MAC will hold a public hearing on Tuesday, February 27, 2007, at 2 p.m., to solicit testimony from the public via verbal or written testimony. The location will be at:

Ramada Mall of America (formerly, the Thunderbird Hotel)
2300 East American Boulevard
Bloomington, Minnesota

I thank you in advance.

Yours sincerely,

Daniel Pipes

They were forced to declare that they burned their own houses down. From Compass Direct, with thanks to Suzy:

ISTANBUL, February 22 (Compass Direct News) – Police detained Christian families in Upper Egypt and forced them to deny arson attacks on their homes during a spate of anti-Christian violence last week, the families said.

Two Coptic Orthodox families said police detained them for 36 hours when they attempted to report a February 13 assault on their homes in Armant, 600 kilometers (373 miles) south of Cairo.

The fires came five days after Muslim groups set four Christian-owned shops alight on February 9.

International media reported that rumors of a love affair between a Christian man and Muslim woman sparked the violence, but local papers said hostilities began over accusations that Christians were blackmailing Muslim women to convert.

In the wake of the violence, police detained eight Muslim young men and Copt Ramy Ishaq, whose relationship with a 19-year-old Muslim woman was the basis for the romance rumors, sources in Armant told Compass.

According to the sources, Ishaq and seven of the Muslims remain in police custody.

Two Copts said that on the evening of February 13 unknown assailants threw burning, kerosene-soaked cotton onto their houses on the outskirts of Armant.

The Christians, who requested anonymity, said that they were able to quickly put out the fires and then went with a group of six family members to report the attack at the police station. Upon their arrival, officials refused to investigate the report, saying that there was no evidence and the damage was minimal.

“Police asked them to sign statements that they had attempted to set their own homes on fire to claim that they were being attacked by Muslims and to demand police protection,” one source told Compass.

Evidently it would be the decent thing to do just to allow them to nuke Israel. "Fears grow over Iran," by Tom Baldwin and Philip Webster in the TimesOnline, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Tony Blair has declared himself at odds with hawks in the US Administration by saying publicly for the first time that it would be wrong to take military action against Iran. The Prime Minister’s comments came hours before the UN’s nuclear watchdog raised the stakes in the West’s showdown with Tehran.

[...]

Condoleeza Rice, the Secretary of State, is also opposed to using force, while Steve Hadley, the President’s National Security Adviser, is said to be deeply sceptical.

The hawks are led by Dick Cheney, the Vice-President, who is urging Mr Bush to keep the military option “on the table”. He is also pressing the Pentagon to examine specific war plans — including, it is rumoured, covert action.

But Mr Blair, in a BBC interview yesterday, said: “I can’t think that it would be right to take military action against Iran . . . What is important is to pursue the political, diplomatic channel. I think it is the only way that we are going to get a sensible solution to the Iranian issue.”

In this week's Jihad Watch videoblog at Hot Air I discuss the strange reluctance AP seems to have to identify Muslims who commit crimes as Muslims -- a reluctance they do not display when the perps are Christians.

"This is a case about religious tolerance" -- brought by a culture that, if it gains the upper hand, will be anything but tolerant. "Girl Loses Veil Challenge," from SkyNews, with thanks to all who sent this in:

A 12-year-old Muslim girl has lost her High Court challenge to her school's ban on wearing the niqab full-face veil.

Lawyers for the girl and her father had argued the ban was "irrational" and a breach of human rights.

But Mr Justice Silber rejected their plea for a judicial review.

After the judgement, the girl's lawyers said she and her family were "bitterly disappointed" and were considering an appeal.

The girl, referred to as X as she is protected by an anonymity order, argued the ban thwarted her "legitimate expectation" she would be allowed to wear the niqab.

It also breached her right to freedom of "thought, conscience and religion" under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Buckinghamshire school - also not identified - told X last September, when she started wearing the niqab on reaching puberty, that it was not acceptable.

It said teachers believed the veil, which covers all the face except the eyes, would make communication and learning difficult....

The girl's solicitor, Shah Qureshi, said after the ruling: "This is a case about religious tolerance and the freedom to practice your religion as long as it does not interfere with others."

Chemical Jihad Update. "U.S. troops find chemicals in Iraq raid," from AP:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. troops raided a car bomb factory west of Baghdad with five buildings full of propane tanks and ordinary chemicals the military believes were to be used in bombs, a spokesman said Thursday, a day after insurgents blew up a truck carrying chlorine gas canisters.

Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said the chlorine attack Wednesday — the second such "dirty" chemical attack in two days — signaled a change in insurgent tactics, and the military was fighting back with targeted raids.

"What we are seeing is a change in the tactics, but their strategy has not changed. And that's to create high-profile attacks to instill fear and division amongst the Iraqi people," he told CNN. "It's a real crude attempt to raise the terror level by taking and mixing ordinary chemicals with explosive devices, trying to instill that fear within the Iraqi people."

But he suggested the strategy was backfiring by turning public opinion against the insurgents, saying the number of tips provided by Iraqis had doubled in the last six months.

One of those tips led U.S. troops to a five separate buildings near Fallujah, where they found the munitions containing chemicals, three vehicle bombs being assembled, including a truck bomb, about 65 propane tanks and "all kinds of ordinary chemicals," Caldwell said. He added that he believed the insurgents were going to try to mix the chemicals with explosives.

"Ordinary," perhaps, but there are many such chemicals that weren't meant to be burnt or inhaled, not to mention the myriad unsafe combinations of otherwise generally harmless substances that could increase the body count, as well as the level of panic, that a car bomb can cause.

By Nadi Abou El-Magd for AP:

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt -- An Egyptian blogger was convicted Thursday and sentenced to four years in prison for insulting Islam, the Prophet Muhammad and Egypt's president, sending a chill through fellow Internet writers who fear a government crackdown.

Abdel Kareem Nabil, a 22-year-old former student at Egypt's Al-Azhar University, an Islamic institution, was a vocal secularist and sharp critic of conservative Muslims in his blog. He also lashed out often at Al-Azhar -- the most prominent religious center in Sunni Islam -- calling it "the university of terrorism" and accusing it of encouraging extremism.

[...]

Judge Ayman al-Akazi issued the verdict in a brief, five-minute session in a court in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria. He sentenced Nabil to three years in prison for insulting Islam and the prophet and inciting sectarian strife and another year for insulting President Hosni Mubarak.

Nabil, wearing a gray T-shirt and sitting in the defendants pen, gave no reaction and his face remained still as the verdict was read. He made no comment to reporters as he was immediate led outside to a prison truck.

Seconds after he was loaded into the truck and the door closed, an Associated Press reporter heard the sound of a slap from inside the vehicle and a shriek of pain from Nabil.

His lawyer, Ahmed Seif el-Islam, said he would appeal the verdict, saying the ruling will "terrify other bloggers and will negative impact on the freedom of expression in Egypt." Nabil had faced a possible maximum sentence of up to nine years in prison.

Egypt arrested a number of bloggers last year, most of them for connections to Egypt's pro-democracy reform movement. Nabil was arrested in November, and while other bloggers were freed, Nabil was put on trial - a sign of the sensitivity of his writings on religion.

Alaa Abdel-Fattah, a pro-reform blogger who was detained for six weeks last year, said the conviction for insulting Mubarak will "have a chilling effect on the rest of the bloggers."

"We (the Egyptian people) are enduring oppression, poverty and torture, so the least we can do is insult the president," he said.

Interesting point.

The judge said Nabil insulted Islam's Prophet Muhammad with a piece he wrote in late 2005 after riots in which angry Muslim worshippers attacked a Coptic Christian church over a play put on by Christians deemed offensive to Islam.

"Muslims revealed their true ugly face and appeared to all the world that they are full of brutality, barbarism and inhumanity," Nabil said of the riots. He called Muhammad and his 7th century followers, the Sahaba, "spillers of blood" for their teachings on warfare - a comment cited by the judge.

In a later essay, not cited by the court, Nabil clarified his comments, saying Muhammad was "great" but that his teachings on warfare and other issues should be viewed as a product of their times.

Big no, no.

He blasted Al-Azhar, calling it the "other face of the coin of al-Qaida" and called for the university to be dissolved or turned into a secular institution. He said it "stuffs its students' brains and turns them into human beasts ... teaching them that there is no place for differences in this life" and criticized its policy of segregating male and female students.

Sigh.

Hamas has repeatedly abused and violated the truce, but now sees fit to call it off. One can expect continued, outwardly mixed signals from the "political" wing of Hamas, eager to buy more time by misleading the gullible in Washington and Tel Aviv. "Hamas' military wing: Truce is over," by Yaakov Lappin for YNet News:

Hamas's Qassam Brigades have declared an end to a ceasefire with Israel, according to a statement released on Wednesday evening.

The call to end the truce appeared on Hamas's official website, in both English and Arabic, and is the first time in months that Palestinian armed forces directly under the control of the Hamas government openly threatened to attack Israel.

Abu Obaida, spokesman for the Qassam Brigades, said in the statement that "the truce with the Israeli occupation is no longer valid," citing the "assassination of Islamic Jihad commander" Mahmoud Qassem as the reason.

Qassem was shot dead in the West Bank by Israeli Border Police on Tuesday, after security forces traced a foiled suicide bomb attack planned for Tel Aviv back to him.

In Hamas' statement, Abu Obaida said: "This crime falls in line with a plan to liquidate Palestinian resistance in the West Bank in particular."

"The Zionist enemy continues to try to separate between the Bank and Gaza, and we will not accept that. The assassination in Jenin comes as part of an attempt to take out the Palestinian resistance, especially in the West Bank. We demanded from the start that the ceasefire must include the entire homeland and not be divided at the enemy's discretion," he said.

Abu Obaida called for Palestinian organizations to "unite" and "retaliate" against Israel, saying that "the time has come to restore the honor of the Palestinian resistance."

He added that the Qassam Brigades were "reorganizing their lines in the West Bank after sustaining painful strikes."

Hamas's terrorist cells were largely destroyed in the West Bank by IDF operations in response to a series of bomb attacks between 2001 and 2004, although Hamas remains the strongest armed force in Gaza.

Throughout the duration of the 'truce,' rockets launched from Gaza have continued to land in southern Israel, and security forces say they foiled many terrorist attacks aimed at targets within Israel.

Zilla Huma Usman was apparently not Mohammad Sarwar's first victim. An update on this story. "Pak minister a victim of Islamist 'serial killer'," from AFP:

ISLAMABAD - Pakistani investigators are probing whether a “serial killer” cleric who assassinated a female minister this week — having previously confessed to four other murders — had links to Islamist groups.

In a case that shocked even this unstable Islamic republic, extremist Mohammad Sarwar shot Punjab province social welfare minister Zilla Huma Usman in the head at a public meeting in central Gujranwala city on Tuesday.

Police have said that Sarwar objected to the involvement of women in politics and disapproved of the clothes worn by Usman, a supporter of the moderate and pro-US President Pervez Musharraf.

“I killed her out of conviction that she was leading an un-Islamic life and spreading an evil influence on other women,” he told interrogators, according to a police source.

Police say that in 2003 Sarwar had escaped justice despite publicly admitting that he had killed four prostitutes and injured another four as they waited by roadsides for clients.

“He is a serial killer,” said Saud Aziz, the police chief of Gujranwala at the time of the earlier shootings.

Punjab Law Minister Raja Basharat hit out at the Pakistani justice system, saying “fanatic” Sarwar was still on the streets mainly due to “defective police investigation and poor quality of the prosecution.”

“We are investigating and there is a possibility that he may have support from some religious group,” he said, without elaborating or naming the organisation.

Pakistan has dozens of Islamic militant outfits, most of which have been banned by Musharraf.

The prostitute murders — three in conservative Gujranwala and one in the eastern city of Lahore between September 2002 and January 2003 -- puzzled police and caused a public outcry.

Former police inspector Mohammad Naveed finally arrested Sarwar in early 2003 on the basis of information from local religious leaders and witness reports that a cleric was spotted near the scene of the killings.

He said Sarwar’s usual method of attack was to fire two or three bullets just above the crotch of his victims. One woman who survived was paralysed.

“In no time after his arrest (in 2003) he confessed to the murders and provided all the details,” Naveed said. “He was produced before the media and he made a confessional statement.”

Yet the case collapsed during the trial. Police said the victims’ families took compensation money raised by religious leaders instead of testifying because of the shame of their daughters’ “immoral” profession.

A rickshaw driver who used to drive the prostitutes around initially told police he saw Sarwar shooting one of the women, “but backed down, apparently under pressure from local clergy in Gujranwala who supported Sarwar.”

Eventually Sarwar — a father of nine who had been educated at a madrassa or Islamic seminary in Gujranwala and later taught local children the Koran — withdrew his confession.

His lawyer, Liaqat Sindhu, said he “knew that Sarwar was guilty of the killings” but that he was acquitted because there was no firm evidence and the case was mishandled.

Psychiatric tests on Sarwar in 2003 showed that he was “not deranged”, said Saud Aziz, who is now police chief of Rawalpindi, near Islamabad.

“He said he killed the girls after he got divine revelations,” he said.

Four years later, the murder of Zilla Huma Usman shows how extremism has corrupted Pakistani society, said Iqbal Haider, secretary general of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

“There is no writ of the government, which results in barbaric tragedies like this,” said Haider, a former law minister under Benazir Bhutto, the country’s first female prime minister.

“Our prosecution and our administration is shamelessly incompetent, corrupt and religiously biased.”

An update on this story. "Stanford delays screening of anti-Semitic Turkish film," by Haviv Rettig for the Jerusalem Post:

The showing at Stanford University of Kurtlar Vadisi: Irak (Valley of the Wolves: Iraq), a Turkish box-office hit with characters including a homicidal American colonel and a Jewish doctor who sells Muslim prisoners' organs to the West, was postponed last weekend, apparently due to criticism about the movie's contents.

Previously described by Stanford's Continuing Education department Web site as "The Action Movie You Were Not Meant to See," the movie tells the fictional story of an elite Turkish paramilitary squad fighting against brutal, murderous American commandos in northern Iraq.

"An elite Turkish commando squad infiltrates the Kurdish region of US-occupied Iraq," read the event notice on the Stanford Web site. "What they find is too shocking to contemplate: Their supposed American allies engaged in murder, extortion, organ dealing, and more. Not in our name indeed."

The event promoters further noted the film's enormous popularity in Turkey - it is one of the highest-grossing films in Turkish history - along with its "great popularity in Europe and the Middle East."

The Web site further said the film "was due for a limited American release in December 2006, but was quietly dropped at the last minute after a letter from the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith to the film's US distributors objected to 'the incendiary anti-Jewish and anti-American themes and characters in the film.'

"As a service to the Stanford academic community at large, we offer you the chance to see this important film for yourself," read the Web site, promising movie-goers "non-stop screen action, intellectual stimulation, and real political controversy in one program! This is an event not to be missed."

The screening was cosponsored by the Middle East Collection of the Stanford University Libraries, The Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies and Stanford Continuing Studies.

The cancellation of the screening saw the event promotion replaced with a letter from Prof. Charles Junkerman, Dean of Continuing Studies. The film "has been seen by tens of millions of people across the Middle East, and we thought that an academic screening would provide the opportunity for interested viewers to see the movie themselves, and reach their own judgments about it," wrote Junkerman.

However, due to the fact that the film is "extraordinarily controversial," Junkerman continued, "we feel that this movie needs to be contextualized by points of view represented by a diverse spectrum of academic experts.

But, wrote Junkerman, "we have been unsuccessful in recruiting an appropriately broad panel. Because this film is likely to provoke intense emotions pro and con, we have decided that we cannot go forward without such a panel to ground the post-film conversation. We have consequently chosen to cancel Saturday's screening."

Though Junkerman wrote that the movie was canceled, Stanford's events Web site said it was only postponed. Relevant Stanford University officials could not be reached by press time.

The second chemical attack in as many days. "Iraq insurgents use 2nd 'dirty' attack," by Brian Murphy for AP:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents exploded a truck carrying chlorine gas canisters Wednesday — the second such "dirty" chemical attack in two days — while a U.S. official said ground fire apparently forced the downing of a Black Hawk helicopter. All nine aboard the aircraft were rescued.

The attacks offer a sweeping narrative on evolving tactics by Sunni insurgents who have proved remarkably adaptable.

Military officials worry extremists may have recently gained more access to firepower such as shoulder-fired anti-aircraft rockets and heavy machine guns — and more expertise to use them. The Black Hawk would be at least the eighth U.S. helicopter to crash or be taken down by hostile fire in the past month.

The gas cloud in Baghdad, meanwhile, suggests possible new and coordinated strategies by bombers trying to unleash toxic — and potentially deadly — materials. "Terrorists are using dirty means," said Brig. Gen. Qassim Moussawi, an Iraqi military spokesman.

Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a U.S. military spokesman, said initial reports indicated the chopper was brought down by "small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades" north of Baghdad, but gave no further details. All nine aboard were taken away on a rescue helicopter, he said.

In Baghdad, a pickup truck carrying chlorine gas cylinders was blown apart, killing at least five people and sending more than 55 to hospitals gasping for breath and rubbing stinging eyes, police said.

On Tuesday, a bomb planted on a chlorine tanker left more than 150 villagers stricken north of the capital. More than 60 were still under medical care on Wednesday. Chlorine causes respiratory trouble and skin irritation in low levels and possible death with heavy exposure.

In Washington, two Pentagon officials said the tactic has been used at least three times since Jan. 28, when a truck carrying explosives and a chlorine tank blew up in Anbar province. More than a dozen people were reported killed.

A third Pentagon official said the United States has been concerned about Iraqi militants' ability to get weapons like chlorine bombs and use them effectively. But the official cautioned that chlorine bombs are just one threat on a long list of possible attacks that Iraqi fighters may try to carry out.

It was unclear whether the confluence of new insurgent tactics — attacking isolated combat posts, targeting helicopters more intensely and using chlorine bombs — was coincidental or in response to the U.S. troop increase.

W. Patrick Lang, a former official at the Defense Intelligence Agency, said the insurgents are always "seeking to achieve higher levels of effectiveness" and these new tactics are part of the normal "evolution of sophistication."

Lang said trucks filled with chlorine gas are "really quite deadly" because the gas is potent and spreads easily.

Some authorities believe militants could be trying to maximize the panic from their attacks by adding chlorine or other noxious substances.

"That may be your history, (but) ... our history (starts) from Makkah and Medina." Everything before the coming of Islam is, in their view, worthless trash. Jahiliyya is the pre-Islamic period of ignorance. Will the monuments of Christian Europe one day be regarded as worthles artifacts of jahiliyya also? "MMA against teaching pre-Islamic history," by Raja Asghar in Dawn, with thanks to Twostellas:

ISLAMABAD, Feb 21: Religious parties in the National Assembly were on Wednesday up in arms against teaching Pakistan’s pre-Islamic history in schools to find Speaker Amir Hussain willing to keep the issue burning in a house committee, ignoring some dissenting voices in the ruling coalition.

Members of the six-party Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal also staged a token protest walkout over the inclusion of chapters about Hinduism, Buddhism and ancient emperor Chandragupta Maurya in the history textbooks for classes VI to VIII after a heated discussion, before a listless and inconclusive debate on the law and order situation in the absence of the boycotting People’s Party Parliamentarians, the main complainant in the matter....

Five MMA members had raised the history textbook issue through a call-attention notice, but their claim that the inclusion of chapters they considered objectionable had caused a “grave concern amongst the public” was disputed by Minister of State for Education Anisa Zeb Tahirkheli and some other ruling coalition members, who accused the religious parties of seeking to keep students ignorant about glorious periods of the sub-continent’s history such as the Indus Valley or Gandhara civilisations.

But the authors of the notice seemed unimpressed despite some interjections from the chair to justify the teaching of pre-Islamic history for the sake of knowledge and described the changes as part of what they saw as a government attempt to secularise the educational curricula.

“That may be your history, (but) ... our history (starts) from Makkah and Medina,” MMA member Farid Ahmad Piracha shouted as he led his alliance’s walkout when Bushra Rehman of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League, then chairing the proceedings, allowed party colleague Ali Akbar Vaince to voice his support for the chapters even after the speaker had referred the matter to a house standing committee for more discussion as he did with another call-attention notice of five PPP members regarding changes in the examination system for classes IX and X.

At Taki's Top Drawer today I summarize the plight of Christians in Iraq.

Last October, a Syrian Orthodox priest, Fr. Boulos Iskander, went shopping for auto parts in the Iraqi city of Mosul. He was never seen alive again. A Muslim group kidnapped him and initially demanded $350,000 in ransom; they eventually lowered this to $40,000, but added a new demand: Fr. Boulos’ parish had to denounce the remarks made the previous month by Pope Benedict XVI that caused rioting all over the Islamic world. The ransom was paid, and the church dutifully posted thirty large signs all over Mosul, but to no avail: Fr. Boulos was not only murdered but dismembered. Five hundred Christians attended his funeral, where another priest commented: “Many more wanted to come to the funeral, but they were afraid. We are in very bad circumstances now.”

That is true of Christians all over the Middle East, where safe havens for Christians are dwindling rapidly. Even in Lebanon, traditionally the Middle East’s sole Christian land, Christians suffer persecution, which leads to declining numbers and declining influence – and that in turn encourages more persecution. Christian communities that date back to the dawn of Christianity have been steadily decreasing in numbers; now the faith is on the verge of disappearing from the area altogether. In Iraq, half of the nation’s prewar 700,000 Christians have now fled the country since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Iraqi Christians today are streaming into Syria or, if they can, out of the Middle East altogether. Much of this migration can be attributed to the resurgence of Islamic militarism in recent decades. Indeed, the career trajectories of two twentieth-century regional titans, Yasir Arafat as well as Saddam, are particularly illuminating: Arafat began as a secular nationalist in the Soviet camp and ended up trying to fend off and co-opt a challenge from the Islamic jihadists of Hamas (the Islamic Resistance Movement) and Islamic Jihad. Saddam was never a Muslim hardliner, and was indeed notorious for his personal divergences from Islamic orthodoxy; nevertheless, in the last days of his regime he did not hesitate to cast himself as a mujahid par excellence, a defender of Islam who deserved the support of all pious believers.

Article continues here.

In FrontPage today I discuss the coverage of some recent cases (news links in the original):

On Sunday morning, a cab driver in Nashville named Ibrahim Ahmed picked up two college students, Andrew Nelson and Jeremy Invus, at a city bar and drove them to the campus of Vanderbilt University. Along the way, the three got into an argument, apparently leaving Ahmed enraged: after they paid their fare and left his cab, he tried to run down Nelson and Invus. Nelson eluded the cab, but Ahmed hit Invus, who was seriously injured.

What were they arguing about? The only widely available news reports on the incident are not very specific. Nashville’s WSMV reports that “a fight over religion became heated.” Newschannel 5, also of Nashville, has little more to add: “Police said Ibrahim Ahmed chased down visiting students Jeremy Invus and Andrew Nelson after an argument over religion.” Associated Press has it that “police said he ran over one of his passengers after they got into a religious argument.”

Prison authorities suffer from a "lack of knowledge in understanding my religious beliefs, poor training skills, coupled with a no-care and negative attitude to inmates in general." You'd think it was a prison or something.

"Muslim jail-diet ruling may open floodgates," by Hedley Thomas in The Australian, with thanks to Teri:

A CHILD sex offender fed vegetables, nuts and "fatty and salty" tinned meat because prison authorities would not provide him with fresh halal meat prepared in accordance with Muslim religious laws has won a discrimination case against the Queensland Government. In a ruling the Government fears could trigger an avalanche of claims from other prisoners denied special dietary requests, the Supreme Court found Sharif Mahommed, who was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment in 2000, had been discriminated against.

He will be allowed to keep $2000 in compensation and will not need to contribute to a legal bill of tens of thousands of dollars, which will be funded from the public purse unless the Queensland Government attempts to take the matter to the High Court.

Mahommed, now out of prison, said he had suffered stress and lost weight behind bars because he ate more vegetables and nuts to make up for the denial of fresh halal meat. He blamed prison authorities for their "lack of knowledge in understanding my religious beliefs, poor training skills, coupled with a no-care and negative attitude to inmates in general".

In this update on this story, the cabbie's name is given as Ibrahim Sheikhamed; in earlier reports, and therefore also in an article and a videoblog that I put together Monday and which should both appear today, it is given as Ibrahim Ahmed.

Anyway, the cab appears to have been stolen, too.

"Muslim Driver Who Allegedly Ran Over Men After Religious Argument Due in Court Thursday," from FoxNews, with thanks to Twostellas:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The Muslim cabbie charged with assault and attempted homicide after allegedly trying to run down two fares after an argument over religion will be in court Thursday.

Ibrahim Sheikhamed is due in Nashville and Davidson County criminal court at 9 a.m. ET. His case is supposed to be reviewed by a judge, but the district attorney's office told FOX News the hearing likely will be continued to another date.

Sheikhamed is also being charged with theft, since the license plate on his cab was listed as stolen.

Sheikhamed, a 37-year-old Sunni Muslim from Somalia, tried to run over two men near Vanderbilt University early Sunday morning after getting into an argument over religion, police said. One of the fares was Protestant, while the other was Catholic.

Ahmed picked up the two fares — two men visiting Nashville from Ohio — near the Vanderbilt campus, according to the incident report. After the argument, Ahmed allegedly tried to run his cab over the two men; he struck one of them, according to the incident report.

One of the students, identified as Jeremy Invus, was taken to Vanderbilt University Medical Center with critical injuries. The other passenger, Andrew Nelson, avoided the cab.

It was first believed that Sheikhamed worked for United Cab Co., but owner Roderick Brown told FOX News on Tuesday that he was not an employee and was fired last year after a high-speed chase with Nashville police.

Brown thinks Sheikhamed, who teaches English as a second language next door, took the keys to the cab, stole the vehicle, put stolen tags on it, and was pocketing the fares for an unknown period of time.

Great Lakes Jihad. "Two Chicago area men arrested in Ohio terrorism case," from AP:

CHICAGO Two Chicago-area cousins are facing charges that accuse them of conspiring to commit terrorist acts against Americans overseas, including U-S military forces serving in Iraq.

Authorities say 27-year-old Zubair Ahmed of North Chicago and 26-year-old Khaleel Ahmed of Chicago were arrested today. A grand jury in Cleveland returned an indictment charging them and three others who had already been facing terrorism charges.

Update (2/22): More recent reporting from Reuters has confirmed that those "three others" are the same arrested in last year's "Toledo Jihad" case. The Ahmed cousins, arrested yesterday, bring the number of indictments in this case to five.

According to the indictment, the conspiracy included finding fresh recruits to wage "violent jihad" against Americans and locating sites for training them in the use of firearms, explosives and hand-to-hand combat.

The two cousins are both American citizens. The indictment alleges that they traveled to Cleveland in 2004 to meet with a trainer and discuss possible training in the use of weapons.

Why aren't British officials calling Islamic groups to account for this, and ordering them to begin all-out efforts in mosques to teach against the attitudes that lead to it? "Father killed family for being too western," by Nigel Bunyan in the Telegraph, with thanks to Frank:

A father killed his wife and four daughters in their sleep because he could not bear them adopting a more westernised lifestyle, an inquest heard yesterday.

Mohammed Riaz, 49, found it abhorrent that his eldest daughter wanted to be a fashion designer, and that she and her sisters were likely to reject the Muslim tradition of arranged marriages.

On Hallowe'en last year he sprayed petrol throughout their terraced home in Accrington, Lancs, and set it alight.

Caneze Riaz, 39, woke and tried to protect her three-year-old child, Hannah, who was sleeping with her, but was overcome by fumes. Her other daughters, Sayrah, 16, Sophia, 13, and Alisha, 10, died elsewhere in the house.

Riaz, who had spent the evening drinking, set himself on fire and died two days later.

At FrontPage today, a new initiative:

Is Islamic jihad just a harmless form of spiritual struggle -- as is often argued by Western apologists for radical Islam? Is Jihadi violence simply a twisted, hijacked version of Islam, rejected by traditional Muslims? The David Horowitz Freedom Center's new Terrorism Awareness Project, which seeks to educate Americans, and especially college students about jihad, confronts questions such as these. It has produced a powerful new flash video, What Every American Needs to Know About Jihad. This video is adapted from a new pamphlet by Robert Spencer, which puts the threat of jihadist ideology into historical perspective. As Spencer makes clear, the religious imperatives of jihad demand the subjugation or killing of infidels and form the poisoned logic of Islamists' expansionist war against America and the West.

To view the flash video, click here.
To read Spencer's essay, click here.

A cornerstone of the regional economy. Watch for protests to any anti-jihad resistance the government may mount (if it mounts any at all): "No blood for rubber!"

From AP, with thanks to Twostellas:

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Suspected Muslim insurgents in southern Thailand set fire Wednesday to a large warehouse for rubber -- a cornerstone of the region's economy -- with firefighters unable to control the raging blaze for hours, police said....

The fire followed a bold, coordinated assault by separatist rebels which killed eight people and wounded nearly 70 in a 24-hour period beginning Sunday night. Three people were arrested shortly after the attacks, Lt. Gen. Viroj Buajaroon, regional commander for the south, said Tuesday.

Police said suspected rebels set fire to the largest rubber warehouse in Yala, owned by the Southern Land Rubber Co., shortly after midnight and it was still burning more than eight hours later.

Bulgarian Jihad Update: "Bulgaria busts two radical Islamic Internet sites," from the FOCUS News Agency, with thanks to Twostellas:

Sofia.Bulgarian police said Tuesday they had arrested four people for publishing two Internet sites used to preach radical, violent Islam and call for the overthrow of the state, AFP reports. "The texts published on the sites are preaching the radical form of jihad, the holy war against all non-Muslims," the interior ministry said in a statement.

It said they were also urging "Muslims around the world to assist the war against the unbelievers physically, with money and weapons."

The sites also "propagated a change of the constitutional order in the country and its substitution for the so-called sharia state."

The two men and two women arrested were part of the "Union of Muslims in Bulgaria" founded in 2006.

The recommendations are "aimed at ensuring Muslim pupils are 'appropriately accommodated for' so they become part of mainstream school life." So since they can't become part of mainstream school life by getting special exemptions from various aspects of it, school life is going to change to accommodate them.

Read a pdf of the whole report here.

"Schools 'should accommodate Muslim needs,'" by Riazat Butt in The Guardian, with thanks to Twostellas:

State schools should avoid sex education classes and swimming lessons during Ramadan to cater for the needs of Muslim pupils, says the Muslim Council of Britain.

The recommendations, issued today, are included in a 72-page document of Muslim-friendly guidelines on topics such as uniform, halal meals, issues relating to Ramadan, physical education and sex education.

The report, called Towards Greater Understanding, draws on existing educational practices and is aimed at ensuring Muslim pupils are 'appropriately accommodated for' so they become part of mainstream school life.

The MCB claims Muslim pupils may consider it too risky to swim during Ramadan as 'the potential for swallowing water is very high' and they may break their fast. It suggests that schools with a significant number of Muslim pupils should try to avoid scheduling swimming lessons during Ramadan to 'remove unnecessary barriers to full participation'.

Another suggestion is to avoid teaching sex and relationship education, including aspects that are part of the science curriculum, because Muslims are not permitted to engage in sexual activity during the month of fasting and they are also expected to avoid sexual thoughts and conversation.

Barbarism. "Suicide bomber targets Afghan hospital," by Amir Shah for Associated Press, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

KABUL, Afghanistan - A suicide attacker disguised as a health worker blew himself up at a hospital opening ceremony in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, wounding at least two NATO soldiers and a hospital staffer, the provincial governor said.

Afghan security forces had blocked the attacker from approaching a crowd of about 150 people who had gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to open an emergency ward at the main government hospital in the city of Khost, said Gov. Arsalah Jamal.

U.S. troops who took the man away shot him in the leg when he tried to escape. As the crowd took cover, the attacker blew himself up, Jamal said.

Surprised? From AFP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

TEHRAN (AFP) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has rejected a looming UN deadline for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment, saying it would not halt the sensitive nuclear activity as a precondition to talks.

"We are in favour of dialogue. But in order for us to talk they are imposing a condition that would deprive us of our right," Ahmadinejad said Tuesday in a public rally in Rasht, the capital of the northern Gilan province.

Modern, moderate Moroccans journeying to Iraq to join the jihad. By Craig Whitlock in the Washington Post via MSNBC, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

TETOUAN, Morocco - In the Arab world, this hilly North African city is about as far as you can get from Iraq. But for many young men here, the call to join what they view as a holy war resonates loudly across the 3,000-mile divide.

About two dozen men from Tetouan and nearby towns in the Rif Mountains have traveled to Iraq in the past 18 months to volunteer as fighters or suicide bombers, according to local residents and officials. Moroccan authorities said the men were recruited by international terrorist networks affiliated with al-Qaeda that have deepened their roots in North Africa since the invasion of Iraq four years ago.

To stanch the flow, U.S. intelligence and military officials have tried to trace the fighters' steps. On the basis of DNA evidence recovered from the scenes of suicide attacks, as well as other clues, officials have confirmed that at least two bombers came from Tetouan, a city of more than 320,000 across the Strait of Gibraltar from southern Spain.

One of them, Abdelmonaim el-Amrani, a 22-year-old laborer, abandoned his wife and infant child in Tetouan to go to Iraq. On March 6, 2006, just before sunset, he drove a red Volkswagen Passat stuffed with explosives into a funeral tent in a village near Baqubah, Iraq, according to witnesses. Six people were reported killed and 27 injured. It was months before Amrani's family in Tetouan learned of his fate from Moroccan police.

Foreign fighters in Iraq account for only a small percentage of the combatants attacking U.S. troops and their Iraqi allies. U.S. military officials and independent analysts peg the number at no more than a few thousand. But as the war drags on, it continues to serve as a powerful rallying tool for radical Islamic networks around the world that have developed recruiting pipelines as far afield as Europe and Southeast Asia.

From the Times Online:

The War on Terror has radicalised Muslims around the world to unprecedented levels of anti-American feeling, according to the largest survey of Muslims ever to be conducted.
Seven per cent believe that the events of 9/11 were “completely justified”. In Saudi Arabia, 79 per cent had an “unfavourable view” of the US.

Gallup’s Centre for Muslim Studies in New York carried out surveys of 10,000 Muslims in ten predominantly Muslim countries. One finding was that the wealthier and better-educated the Muslim was, the more likely he was to be radicalised.

While there was widespread support for Sharia, or Islamic law, only a minority wanted religious leaders to be making laws. Most women in the predominantly Muslim countries believed that Sharia should be the source of a nation’s laws, but they strongly believed in equal rights for women.
This finding indicates the complexity of the struggle ahead for Western understanding. Few Western commentators can see how women could embrace the veil, Sharia and equal rights at the same time.

“We find that Muslim radicals have more in common with their moderate brethren than is often assumed. If the West wants to reach the extremists, and empower the moderate majority, it must first recognise who it’s up against.”

More on this story from SkyNews, with thanks to all who sent this in:

LODNON — A jury was shown surveillance footage Tuesday of bombing suspect Yassin Omar apparently dressed in a burka after the attempted attacks in London.

The footage shows the terror suspect in a coach station in Birmingham mingling with commuters.

Click here to view the footage on Sky News.

Omar fled the capital the day after he made a failed attempt to detonate a rucksack bomb on a Tube train near London's Warren Street station, Woolwich Crown Court was told.

The head-to-toe outfit gave others at Digbeth coach station no clue that the man inside was wanted by anti-terror police.

The court has already heard how Omar was captured on CCTV wearing the burka at Golders Green coach station in north London earlier in the day.

He was eventually arrested at a house in Birmingham on Wednesday, July 27.

"Under the guise of religious tolerance, German society stood blithely by as some parts of its Muslim communities began turning into parallel societies." Note also that the fact that young Muslims are the ones who are becoming more fiercely Islamic belies the common assumption that exposure to Western culture will mitigate jihadist tendencies.

"A Parallel Muslim Universe," by Andrea Brandt and Cordula Meyer in Spiegel Online, with thanks to Gabrielle Goldwater:

Germany's Muslim population is becoming more religious and more conservative. Islamic associations are fostering the trend, particularly through their work with the young -- accelerating the drift towards a parallel Muslim society.

[...]

Surveys in the country have charted a significant increase in fundamentalist attitudes, particularly among younger Muslims. The experiences of Ekin Deligöz, a member of the German parliament representing the Green Party, underscore the potential dangers. Having called on Muslim women to remove their headscarves, Deligöz faced death threats and now receives police protection.

Disturbing as this trend may be, it cannot be pinned exclusively on Muslim groups. Under the guise of religious tolerance, German society stood blithely by as some parts of its Muslim communities began turning into parallel societies. For years, the country's courts have been excusing Muslim girls from coed swimming lessons and class outings - citing the most absurd reasons for their rulings.

[...]

School is one of the few places where young Muslims come into contact with the non-Islamic environment. As a result, the teachers often see what is happening most clearly. Dietmar Pagel, principal of the Hector-Peterson High School in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin, actively seeks dialog with his students. But with increasing frequency, he and his colleagues feel they are banging their heads against a brick wall. "Lots of our adolescents have a fundamentalist outlook on life," he says. Many more girls are wearing headscarves, and almost all the Muslim students fasted during the major Islamic holidays, with catastrophic consequences for their performance at school. "The further we get into Ramadan, the more distracted the pupils become."

He often feels let down by the politicians who discuss the problems of integration more passionately than ever, yet won't appoint the additional social workers and teachers he needs. But Pagel refuses to give up. After the caricatures of Mohammed were published, he attempted to debate the controversy with his pupils. But the discussion was hopelessly lopsided. The children contributed a few bits of factual information, the principal relates, but then "the room fell silent when it came to the moral dimension, so the teachers simply held forth on their own ideas."

He cannot get through to his pupils any more, Pagel complains. "If I say that headscarves are worn less in Turkey than here, they simply counter: 'That's why we came to Germany, so that we can openly practice our religion.'" And sometimes they simply remind him that - as a non-Muslim - he would be better off keeping such views to himself.

Read it all.

The Shi'ites, according to Mahmoud Al-Sayyed Al-Dugheim, are even worse than (gasp) the Zionists! The fervid conspiracy theorists are beginning to trip over their Protocols. "London-Based Syrian-Born Historian Mahmoud Al-Sayyed Al-Dugheim on Al-Jazeera: Iran Established Global Shiite Government, Operating in Accordance with the Protocols of the Mullahs of Qom, to Annihilate the Sunnis," from MEMRI:

The following are excerpts from an interview with Syrian-born historian Mahmoud Al-Sayyed Al-Dugheim, which aired on Al-Jazeera TV on January 30, 2007.

TO VIEW THIS CLIP: http://www.memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=1380.

Mahmoud Al-Sayyed Al-Dugheim: "We consider the Zionist plan to be dangerous to the Arab nation, but even more dangerous is the Safavid Sassanian Iranian plan to restore the Empire of Cyrus, which would range from Greece to Egypt, and the Arabian Peninsula, in addition to other regions. The Zionist plan was unable to penetrate the ranks of Islamic unity, the way the Safavid Iranian plan did. The collaborators with the Zionists throughout the Arab and Islamic world are too ashamed to reveal themselves, while the collaborators with the Sassanian Safavid plan boast about it in public. Wasn't it one of their leaders who said yesterday: 'We are a Lebanon in Iran, and an Iran in Lebanon?'"

[...]

"While the Zionist plan targets Jerusalem, which is holy to us, the Safavid plan targets Mecca and Al-Madina. If you go back to their books - which they do not mention in the media, yet these books exist and are accepted by them - they claim that their Hidden Imam will come to Mecca and Al-Madina, destroy the Al-Haram Mosque and the Mosque of the Prophet, and dig in the graves of Abu Bakr and Omar and burn them both, and then he will command the wind to blow them away. He will also dig in the grave of Aisha, the Mother of the Believers, and will execute her. All this is part of their plan."

[...]

"The Shah was most definitely one of the sworn enemies of the Arabs, but he did not legislate a law to persecute the Sunni Muslims, who constitute one-third of the Iranian population. The new Iranian constitution persecutes Sunni Muslims in Iran, while it gives constitutional rights to the Zoroastrians, the Jews, and the Christians. This constitution denies the Sunnis these rights. There is no Sunni mosque in Tehran, even though there are over two million Sunni Muslims there."

[...]

"All these actions are part of the 50-year plan of the Protocols of the Mullahs of Qom. This plan has been published and is well known. It aims to infiltrate the Sunni Muslim countries, to annihilate them, and to sow civil strife between the ruler and his subjects, all within fifty years."

[...]

"Listen to the following secret communiqué: 'At the command and with the guidance of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Guide of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and under the title 'The Shi'a of Ali Are Victorious,' the extended conference of the world's Shiites was held in the holy city of Qom. It was attended by the leaders of all Shiite parties and religious authorities. The conference decided that a global organization must be established to annihilate the people who are left, to examine and analyze the current regional situation, to build a military force, to infiltrate governmental institutions through the women's organizations everywhere, and then to infiltrate intelligence agencies, and to finish off the Sunni leaders, even by assassination.' This is the plan of the Hashashin, which still exists.

[...]

"While the American target is economic oil, the Iranian Persian goal is to massacre the Arabs, as is evident in all their writings."

"If they bring leaders of the mujahedeen to court it will tarnish the name of jihad," one legislator argued. An update on this story. "Afghanistan weighs amnesty in war crimes," by Matthew Pennington for AP:

KABUL, Afghanistan - The upper house of parliament passed a resolution Tuesday that calls for an amnesty for Afghans — including some lawmakers and members of the government — who are suspected of war crimes during a quarter-century of fighting, an official said. President Hamid Karzai will now decide whether it should become law, said Kadamali Nekpai, chief of the upper house's press department.

The resolution, which has been condemned by the United Nations and international human rights groups, was passed by the lower house Jan. 31 and covers the mujahedeen leaders who led the anti-Soviet resistance in the 1980s and plunged Afghanistan into civil war in the early 1990s. Many of them sit in parliament.

Senators on Tuesday approved the same resolution by a 50-16 majority, Nekpai said.

Although lawmakers describe it as a resolution rather than a bill, they also say it would be made law if Karzai approves it.

Sen. Abdullah Haqahaqi said if Karzai rejected the resolution, it would be voted on again by the lower house and if two-thirds of lawmakers were in favor, it would still become law.

And that law would set a precedent for upholding a double standard where crimes were committed under the banner of "jihad."

Karzai has not made any public comment on the resolution, but his chief spokesman has said the president will not sign anything that goes against Afghanistan's constitution and has asked his lawyers to assess its legality.

The resolution only applies to those who accept Afghanistan's constitution and government authority, so an amnesty would apply to a minority of former Taliban who have reconciled with the government, but not for current insurgent leaders such as Mullah Omar.

Tens of thousands of Afghans died during the years of civil conflict that followed the Soviet occupation.

"One thing must be very clear, and it should be clear worldwide: amnesty for gross violations of human rights and for war crimes shouldn't exist," Tom Koenigs, the U.N.'s special representative to Afghanistan, told reporters Monday.

A U.S.-backed invasion in late 2001 toppled the hard-line Taliban regime and ushered in an era of democracy, but it also has seen a number of powerful warlords elevated to high office or seats in parliament.

"Unfortunately, the majority of the lower and upper houses of parliament are warlords and people with blood on their hands," said Nafas Gul, a female senator for Farah province who voted against the resolution. "It's a betrayal of the rights of Afghans."

But another senator who voted in favor said it would promote national unity.

"It's a good step because we want the unity in Afghanistan. If they bring leaders of the mujahedeen to court it will tarnish the name of jihad (holy war)."

From The Times of London:

A Pakistani minister and woman’s activist has been shot dead by an Islamic extremist for refusing to wear the veil.
Zilla Huma Usman, the minister for social welfare in Punjab province and an ally of President Pervez Musharraf, was killed as she was about to deliver a speech to dozens of party activists, by a “fanatic”, who believed that she was dressed inappropriately and that women should not be involved in politics, officials said.
Mrs Usman, 35, was wearing the shalwar kameez worn by many professional women in Pakistan, but did not cover her head.

We may be witnessing something of a public conversion. Last week, I posted an article on JW from Townhall.com by Frank Pastore entitled "Islam Is Not the Enemy!" in which he criticizes those who see Islam and the West as incompatible. I thought it a good example of conventional misunderstanding. I see that it attracted 311 comments over at Townhall.com and got an average vote of two-out-of-five. I even think I saw a few Jihad Watch noms de plume chiming in.

Well, Mr Pastore is back with "Islam is Not the Enemy, Part II" -- and no exclamation point. Let's see what he has to say.

The elevator doors opened and in walked a young woman dressed in the traditional veiled hijab -– I’m assuming she was a Muslim -– and I thought to myself, “Is she my enemy?” Looking at the reaction to my last column, there’s a whole bunch of people whose default position is to believe so –- and maybe they’re right. In their minds, “Islam is the enemy. We’re at war. She shouldn’t be here.” It’s that simple to them.

I suppose there are some people that simple, but most I expect are able to distinguish between the ideology and the individuals who may or may not fully subscribe to it.

After a brief Platonic interlude, Mr Pastore continues:

As Americans, we believe in the free exercise of religion, including Islam -- but this belief is not reciprocal.

Hmmm.

So, how do we deal with tolerating a religion that is itself intolerant of us? Ought we to pride ourselves on our tolerance and eagerly embrace their intolerance even if it leads to our own destruction? Or, perhaps we ought to abandon our First Amendment and be intolerant of Islam while tolerating only those “acceptable” religions that we decide are “peaceful”? Or, should we intolerantly force them to abandon their religion and embrace a “moderate” replacement that we approve of?

[...]

See, the problem is, Christianity teaches the Golden Rule while Islam doesn’t. The Koran teaches that every Muslim is superior to every non-Muslim and that men are superior to women. A Muslim may treat a Jew, a Buddhist, or a Christian with respect, but they will never be considered equals, for they are dhimmis, a near-slave status in Muslim teaching. This is the fundamental reason why Islam is incompatible with democracy and thereby the West.

The plot thickens!

In Islam, the world is divided into the world of believers, dar al Islam, and that of unbelievers, dar al harb. Islam is not merely at war with the West, it is at war with the world. No authority is higher than the infallible divine law contained in the closed canon of the Koran. Sharia law trumps all other claims to divine law, all natural law, and all positive law. No Muslim can be under any authority other than sharia law. To do so is to render oneself apostate and deserving of death. Reason itself is unable to inquire into the morality of the divine law. This is why the concepts of state, citizen, nation, pluralism and tolerance are alien to Islam. It is also why perhaps there is no more clear instance of the reformer’s di-lemma in all of history. To reform one must question, and to question is forbidden.

[...]

The challenge of the West to live peaceably with Islam is made perhaps impossible by both the historical record and simply by looking around today. What do nearly all the problem spots around the world have in common? What dominant Muslim country has anything approaching real human rights? Where are the Muslim denunciations of violence, terrorism, genocide, and slavery coming from the many mosques, universities, newspapers and capitols throughout the Muslim world? For that matter, where are the condemnations of these things coming from the American Muslim community? There are over one billion Muslims on this planet and their collective silence on these evils is deafening and threatening. What are we non-Muslims to think, other than that the vast majority of Muslims must either support if not tolerate such things? Perhaps “moderate” Islam is merely a Western fiction created to avoid addressing the unavoidable and inevitable reality of civilizational incompatibility.

The loudest and most clear message we non-Muslims hear from the Muslim world is “Convert, submit to Dhimmitude, or die.” Come to think of it, I’m not hearing any other message. And that is what is so deeply troubling.

Well! Quite a turnaround. I see Mr Pastore's rating has gone from two- to four-out-of-five. Not bad.

Somali Jihad Update. By Guled Mohamed and Sahal Abdulle for Reuters:

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - A wave of pre-dawn mortar attacks pounded Mogadishu and killed at least 16 people on Tuesday in one of the most brutal bombardments since an Islamist movement was forced out of the Somali capital last month.

The hilltop presidential palace, Villa Somalia, and the coastal city's defense headquarters were among the targets hit in attacks that struck many quarters of Mogadishu and sent hundreds of residents fleeing to outlying towns.

"They showered us with rockets and a mortar also hit the compound. Luckily no one was hurt," said a government soldier who was in Villa Somalia during the attack but declined to be named for fear of reprisal.

"Our troops and those from our ally Ethiopia were forced to fire heavy artillery," he told Reuters. "We had to retaliate. These elements are being paid to cause all this destruction."

A spate of near-daily attacks have challenged the government's effort to impose security on the city recaptured in December by government forces and their Ethiopian allies from Islamists who controlled it for six months.

The death toll climbed throughout the day on Tuesday as more reports came in from across the chaotic capital, with witnesses and officials putting the total at 16 -- all of them civilians.

[...]

Deputy Defense Minister Salad Ali Jelle accused Islamist remnants of paying the gunmen in the impoverished city where jobs are scarce and being a hired gun has long been one of the steadiest sources of employment for young men.

"The insurgents are paying $100 a day to whoever fires rockets and mortars at the government and people," he said.

Chemical warfare. "Scores choke in poison gas attack," from CNN:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A cloud of deadly toxic gas engulfed an Iraqi town Tuesday, killing six people and leaving dozens of others choking on fumes after a tanker carrying chlorine exploded outside a restaurant.

An Iraqi Interior Ministry officials said the blast in the town of Taji, 12 miles (20 km) north of Baghdad, was caused by a bomb on board the tanker.

There were contrasting figures on the casualty toll. Baghdad security plan spokesman Gen. Qassim Atta told state-run al-Iraqiya TV that five people died in the blast and 148 were poisoned by the gas.

By Julie A. Varughese in the Norwich Bulletin:

NORWICH -- Sami Ahmed, who left Pakistan for the United States in 1983, began a Friday night Muslim prayer meeting at his house in Greeneville five years ago. At the time, three or four people attended the meetings. Now, between 30 and 40 Muslims meet weekly at his house.

"It seems like it is growing," Ahmed said of the practice of Islam in the region. Ahmed, who owns Sunshine Farms convenience store on Central Avenue, said Islam is the faith of his upbringing in Pakistan.

Indeed, Islam, the fastest-growing religion in the United States, is having its own, small growth spurt in Eastern Connecticut, fueled partly by foreign-born residents who have moved here for jobs at the regions' two casinos and who continue to practice the faith of their native lands.

A lecture being held Thursday night at Quinebaug Valley Community College in Danielson is intended to educate residents about Islam, which gained a reputation as a religion of extremists, misogynists and terrorists after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Because of that, Muslims in the United States have faced discrimination and violent attacks against them.

Violent attacks?

But that hasn't stopped non-Muslims in the region and the nation from converting to the 1,400-year-old religion, which traces its roots to Christianity and Judaism.

Between 250 and 500 Muslims live in Norwich, New London and Groton, according to local estimates. The Islamic Center of New London in Groton has about 100 members.

Hamza Collins, director of civil rights for the Council for American-Islamic Relations chapter in New London and an African-American who converted to Islam, said the increase in the Muslim population is due to a combination of conversions and migrations.

He said many white women, Hispanics and African-Americans have converted to Islam in recent years. But he said no numbers are kept on the phenomenon.

Muslims believe Islam, which means submission to God, was revealed to humanity by the Prophet Muhammad.

From Baptist to Muslim

Jabril Cain of Montville, formerly a Baptist, converted to Islam in January 2006.

"I've been a Christian for all my life and it was something that didn't quite make sense to me," he said.

Cain also said his conversion has sparked a few negative reactions, but he tries to combat them with education.

"There's a lot of ignorance. That's what I run into," Cain said. "Islam ... it's all part of the same cloth (as Judaism and Christianity). We regard Jesus as importantly as Christianity does."

Uh, no.

"The perception is wrong about Islam ... that (Muslims) have to carry guns and kill people. We're asking people to understand each other, so we can live in peace," he said.

Muneer Fareed, secretary general of the Islamic Society of North America, which is based in Indiana, said, anecdotally, there are more Muslim immigrants than converts in the United States.

He said no statistics are available because the U.S. Census does not gather information on religious affiliations.

Maybe they ought to start.

Monty Santiago, a Groton resident who converted to Islam 10 years ago, said he chose Islam to fill a void in his life. He said his Puerto Rican relatives thought he had gone crazy at first.

At first?

"You don't see too many Puerto Rican Muslims," Santiago joked. "If it makes me happy, it makes them happy."

Muhammed Khokhar, a Quaker Hill resident who immigrated from Pakistan two years ago, said he sometimes encounters racism, but tries to be patient with the perpetrators, whom he calls "illiterate people."

"Illiterate people," which is to say those who might have the read Quran, Sahih Bukhari, or the Sira.

Another Norquist protege. Article is at FrontPage.

When I debate Dinesh D'Souza at CPAC next week, Suhail Khan will be the moderator. Should be interesting.

Kudos and thanks to the Emory Wheel for actually printing this. Now watch for the firestorm. I predict right now that none of the responses will deal with the fact that this letter is made up largely of quotations from Islamic sources, except possibly to claim (falsely) that these sources are "marginal" and that no Muslims pay attention to them. However, while the claim will be made that my quotations are "cherry-picked," "out of context," and so on, no actual documentary evidence will be offered that the schools of Islamic jurisprudence do not actually teach warfare against and the subjugation of unbelievers. No such evidence can be offered, because they do teach this.

"A Bestselling Author Offers a Different Definition of Jihad," from The Emory Wheel.

Background here and here.

This report corroborates the account in a Newsweek article last December of a twelve-man team training in Pakistan to stage attacks in Western countries. Apparently, there is more than one such team. "Qaeda camps in Pakistan to train operatives: US official," by Jim Mannion for AFP:

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Al-Qaeda is believed to have established compounds inside Pakistan to train small groups of operatives for possible attacks in the West, a US official said.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the compounds had been detected over the past year in a semi-autonomous tribal area along the mountainous border with Afghanistan.

The compounds are "not big ones. These are small," the official told AFP. "They are not like the big camps that they had seen in Afghanistan previously."

But they were being used to train groups of 10 to 20 people at a time for what were believed to be operations in the West, particularly in Western Europe, the official said.

The Pakistani ambassador to the United States, Mahmud Ali Durrani, played down the developments.

"There may be an odd place. And when we find out we take it out. We have done that recently," he said in an interview with CNN. "But saying they have reestablished themselves, and there are a lot of compounds, and they have rejuvenated. That is incorrect."

The compounds suggest that Al-Qaeda, once seen as having been reduced to a largely inspirational role in an increasingly dispersed, decentralized international jihadist movement, is rebuilding its capacity to mount international operations.

The US government is concerned about a stream of Muslims with British passports traveling between Europe and Pakistan as a source of recruits for Al-Qaeda operations, the US official said.

Also known as the "Al-Qaeda Pipeline."

In the intelligence community's most recent public threat assessment, former director of national intelligence John Negroponte told Congress January 11 that Al-Qaeda's core elements continue to plot attacks against the United States and other targets.

"And they continue to maintain active connections and relationships that radiate outward from their leaders' secure hideout in Pakistan to affiliates throughout the Middle East, northern Africa and Europe," he said.

A sharp increase and timeliness of public messages by Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda's number two, is among the indications that the group has reconstituted its command and control over networks of operatives, the official said.

"That's part of his command and control -- how he communicates," the official said.

The New York Times, which first reported the new developments, said the compounds were operated under the loose command of groups of Arab, Pakistani and Afghan militants allied with Al-Qaeda.

According to the Times, with cited US analysts, they receive guidance from their commanders and Zawahri. Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden appeared to have little direct involvement, the Times said.

[...]

Incidentally, a report in today's Telegraph does suggest bin Laden is increasingly back in control, though it was said he had not been for a while. The AFP article continues:

The Times said intense debate within the administration failed to resolve a dilemma over what to do.

Some in the Pentagon advocate air strikes on the camps and while others in the State Department worry that too much pressure will undermine the government of President Pervez Musharraf.

With allegations that Iran and Libya are backing the rebels. "Clashes in Yemen kill more than 100," by Ahmed al-Haj for AP:

SAN'A, Yemen - Ongoing clashes between the Yemeni army and followers of a Shiite rebel leader in the north of the country have killed more than 100 people in the past five days, military officials said Monday.

About 90 of the dead were in the Yemeni army, including six killed on Monday, an army official said.

Government forces have fired artillery bombardments over the areas where followers of Abdel-Malek al-Hawthi are believed to be hiding out in Saada, about 112 miles north of the capital San'a, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Close to 200 army and police officers have been killed in clashes in recent weeks.

There are no official statistics on rebels casualties, but tribal officials have estimated that more than 100 have been killed since the clashes broke out in late January.

Last week, members of the Yemen Supreme Defense Council voiced concerns, saying the Shiite rebels were receiving funds and assistance from outside countries, according to one of the council's members.

The member, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, did not name the countries. But state-owned newspapers have reported that the government suspects Iran and Libya are backing the rebellion.

[...]

The rebels are part of a Shiite Muslim group known as "The Young Faithful Believers" that accuses the government of being corrupt and too close to the West.

Yemen, the ancestral land of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, has largely allied itself with the United States in the war on terror.

The government has been fighting the rebels since June 2004 when rebel Shiite cleric Hussein Badr Eddin al-Hawthi — the brother of the current leader — led his forces in an uprising.

"Some of these spies could be waitresses or even janitors at hotels acting as ... undercover agents for our religious department." Maxwell Smart joins the religious police (minus Agent 99). Sharia Alert from AP:

Religious police in a Malaysian state plan to deploy spies working as waiters or janitors in hotels to stop activities the authorities consider immoral, including sex between unmarried people, a news report said Tuesday.

The spies, known in the Malay language as "mat skoding," would tip off the Islamic police department about alleged immoral activities in the northeastern state of Terengganu, The Star newspaper reported.

Terengganu and neighboring Kelantan are two of Malaysia's most conservative states.

"Some of these spies could be waitresses or even janitors at hotels acting as ... undercover agents for our religious department," Rosol Wahid, the chairman of a state Islamic welfare committee, was quoted as saying.

Rosol said the spies would largely look for unmarried couples committing "khalwat," or "close proximity," a crime under Islamic law in Malaysia akin to adultery. It applies to unchaperoned meetings between men and women.

Those found guilty of khalwat can be jailed for up to two months under Islamic laws, which do not apply to non-Muslims.

The spies would be given rewards for each tip they provide, Rosol told The Star. Rosol could not be immediately reached because of a public holiday.

Rosol said the spies were needed because "accurate details are required for the enforcement officers to act, otherwise they would be pouncing on married couples," The Star reported.

He said the spies would keep watch in parks and secluded areas to nab dating couples intending to engage in sex.

The Terengganu state official's comments do not necessarily reflect common sentiment in Malaysia, a predominantly Muslim nation of 26 million people.

Earlier this month, the top Islamic leader of another state, Perlis, urged Islamic authorities to stop rewarding public tip-offs on Muslim couples who behave immorally, saying it was against Islamic teachings because it encouraged invasion of privacy.

Still, khalwat convictions are common in the country. In one of the most famous cases, a 21-year-old Malaysian Muslim woman was fined 1,200 ringgit (US$333; €278) last year after she was caught by the moral police in an Argentine soccer player's bedroom.

In October, Islamic officials stormed the home of a retired American couple living on a Malaysian island resort on suspicion of khalwat. The incident embarrassed Malaysia, which is seeking to woo tourists and persuade expatriates to set up second homes in the country.

It is not clear why the couple, who are not Muslims, were targeted.

Jamal Badawi's group is upset with Congressman Virgil Goode, evidently because he told the truth about jihadist aspirations. One might have thought that Badawi, as a prominent moderate Muslim, would stand with Goode in opposition to Islamic supremacism. No such luck. "Group Wants Congressman Virgil Goode to Explain Comments About Muslims," from FoxNews:

WASHINGTON — A Muslim group said Monday it had invited Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Va., to expand on biting remarks he made last week during debate on a House resolution disapproving of President Bush's decision to send more than 21,000 U.S. troops into Iraq.

The Muslim American Public Affairs Council has "extended this invitation to Congressman Goode to give him a venue to explain his recent comments about Muslims and Islam," MAPAC Executive Director Marc Conaghan said in a statement. MAPAC also asked Goode to share a dialogue with Jamal Badawi, an Islamic and comparative religion scholar.

Goode's position on the invitation wasn't clear Monday evening. Phone calls to Goode's office went unanswered. Most government offices were closed on Monday for observation of the President's Day holiday.

MAPAC, based in Raleigh, N.C., also did not immediately return messages seeking further comment.

Goode's remarks recently have raised eyebrows among U.S. Muslim groups.

Last week, Goode said the nonbinding resolution would provide "comfort and encourage the radical Muslims who want to destroy our country." He also said Islamic jihadists want U.S. currency to say "In Muhammad We Trust," with an Islamic flag flying over the White House and U.S. Capitol.

I can't imagine why Badawi would be upset about this. Jihadists have already made pictures of the Islamic flag flying over the White House:

Thai Jihad Update. 49 bombings, shootings, and arson attacks overnight, and Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont is still talking about winning "hearts and minds." "Thailand warns of more 'terrorist' attacks," by Boonradom Chitradon for AFP:

BANGKOK (AFP) - Islamic separatists could stage more "terrorist" attacks, Thailand has warned, after nine people were killed in overnight strikes as many Thais began celebrating the Lunar New Year.

Thailand's army chief of staff said the insurgents, who have battled the government for three years in Muslim-majority provinces of southern Thailand, could try to stage new attacks during upcoming Buddhist holidays.

"The violence may increase, and it will be the same kind of terrorist tactics," General Montri Sangkasap told reporters Monday after an emergency security meeting in Bangkok.

Thailand's junta chief, General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, and Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont had summoned military and security chiefs over the attacks that killed nine and wounded 44.

Surayud insisted that no more troops were needed in the region, and said that instead he would pursue his "hearts and minds" campaign to win over the area's residents to the government side.

"Our work now needs to focus on building cooperation between government officials and the people, to get rid of their apprehension of authorities," Surayud said.

The insurgents staged some 49 bombings, shootings and arson attacks late Sunday and early Monday, targeting mainly homes and businesses owned by Buddhists or ethnic Chinese, army officials said.

Three people were killed in shootings and six others in bombings in the 12 hours of violence, the officials told AFP. A total of 44 people were injured, they added.

On Monday evening, four more people were injured when militants staged two more shootings and a bombing in Yala province, police said.

"They want to frighten Buddhists and ethnic Chinese living there so that they will leave the region," army spokesman Colonel Acar Tiproch said.

Montri said officials believed the attacks were timed to coincide with the Lunar New Year holiday observed by many ethnic Chinese in Thailand.

Of course, this year's Lunar New Year also marks the start of the Year of the Pig.

"The violence happened because it was a holiday period when there were many people celebrating. We have to be careful during the next religious festivals," especially during important Buddhist celebrations in March and April," Montri said.

Here is a terrific video by Anti-CAIR at YouTube (thanks to News4U). Catch it before YouTube deletes it.

Last night, Jihad Watch reader Eric sent me a link to a story in Qatar's The Peninsula, featuring remarks by Ahmed Younis, the former national director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). Eric included the piece in his email, but I clicked on the link, read the story at The Peninsula site, and decided to put it up in the morning.

However, this morning it is gone. The link Eric sent goes to a blank page at The Peninsula site, and the story is not referenced anywhere else on that site. A Google search turns up a link to the article, complete with a photo of Younis, but the link leads to the same blank page.

Why did The Peninsula remove the story? I can only speculate, but I doubt it was because Younis repeats the common defamation of Daniel Pipes, Steve Emerson, David Horowitz and me as "anti-Islamic." I think it is more likely because Younis, a prominent moderate leader, is here seen speaking about the "Jewish lobby" and discussing the "national identity" of Muslims in the U.S. -- a national identity that is apparently not American.

Anyway, many thanks to Eric for including the piece in his email, enabling me to bring it to you:

Doha • There are elements in the US fuelling “Islamophobia” who have strong influence in the media, politics and other fields, according to Ahmed Younis, former national director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, a leading American civil society organisation.

Talking to The Peninsula on the sidelines of the US-Islamic World Forum, Younis said, the anti-Islamic propaganda being carried out by such elements is not provoked by ignorance about Islam and can not be tackled by entering into a dialogue with them. “Muslims can counter such elements only by stressing their national identity and trying to influence the American public opinion. They should become 100 per cent American and at the same time 100 per cent Muslims,” said Younis.

The Jewish lobby is just one faction influencing the American public opinion. There are other groups which are more hostile to Islam and Muslims. Robert Spencer, Stephen Emerson, Daniel Pipes and David Horowitz are some of the prominent figures heading the anti-Islamic campaign in the US, he added.

He noted that after 9/11, the American Muslim organisations have become more vocal and active. More Americans are now interested to learn about Islam and many of them are being attracted to the religion. Currently there are six to eight million Muslims in the US, of whom about 40 per cent are the indigenous black Americans, while the remaining comprise immigrant Muslims from South Asian countries ( 35 per cent) and the Middle East (22 per cent).

A recent development among the American Muslim community is the Sunni-Shi’ite differences, which have come to the fore as a fall out the conflicts in Iraq. This can prove extremely harmful to the community if their leaders do not find ways to handle it, said Younis.

“Arabisation of the Islamic identity” is one of the major challenges facing the Muslim community in the US, he remarked. “We have been importing Imams from the Arab world. Obviously these Imams are not able to properly communicate with native Americans. Now we are setting up religious schools to produce American Imams,” he said. Younis noted that American foreign policies, especially those concerning the Middle East remain as a major obstacle before creating a better understanding of Islam among the American population.

An update on this story. "Saudi wants Dutch MP apology for Islam offence: paper," from Reuters, with thanks to Raw:

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia wants an apology from a Dutch politician who said Muslims should "tear out half the Koran" if they wanted to live in his country and has asked the Dutch government to intervene, a Saudi newspaper said on Sunday.

The Dutch government, which said it did not agree with the remarks made by populist anti-immigration politician Geert Wilders, confirmed that foreign ministry officials held informal talks last week with the Saudi embassy in The Hague.

"It (the embassy) appealed to the appropriate authorities on the need for Wilders' insulting statements to be withdrawn and an apology given to Muslims," the Saudi newspaper al-Watan reported.

"The embassy has demanded that the Dutch side put an end to such statements and actions."

Wilders said in an interview published last week that Muslims should throw away half their holy book if they wanted to stay in the Netherlands and that he would chase Islam's Prophet Mohammad out of the country if he were alive today.

"Our minister is not happy with Wilders' remarks," a Dutch foreign ministry spokesman said.

"It is not the point of view of the Dutch government. Wilders is a parliamentarian, it is his right to express himself," the spokesman added.

At least for now.

Dialogue with the devil (as well as with religious leaders in Tehran, Qom, and Isfahan). That will fix things right up. "U.S. Christians Visit Iran's Top Leaders to Defuse Tension," by Ethan Cole in the Christian Post, with thanks to John:

U.S. Christian leaders are visiting Iran’s top political and religious leaders this week in hope of relieving tension between the United States and Iran.

A delegation of 13 Christian leaders from the Mennonite, Quaker, Episcopal, Catholic and United Methodist churches as well as representatives from the National Council of Churches, Pax Christi and Sojourners/Call to Renewal are visiting Iran from Feb. 17-25.

The group will dialogue with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former president Mohammad Khatami, women serving in the Iranian parliament as well as Iran’s Muslim and Christian leaders.

“Our primary goal is to engage in dialogue with a variety of Iranians,” said Ron Flaming, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) international program director, in a statement.

The delegation will spend most of its time with religious leaders in Tehran, Qom and Isfahan. Delegates will meet with Iranian Evangelical Protestant leaders, the Archbishop of the Armenian Orthodox Church in Iran, and Muslim religious leaders in the religious city of Qom.

Tension is escalating between the United States and the Iranian government over issues such as the country’s nuclear plans, its denial of the holocaust, and its human rights violations.

Currently, the two countries are not communicating directly with one another.

“We are making this trip hoping it will encourage both governments to step back from a course that will lead to conflict and suffering,” said Mary Ellen McNish of American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), an international social justice organization, in a statement.

Basri's story does not add up: He mentions desiring revenge against Christians following a sectatian clash in 2001, but, according to the article, did not take an oath of secrecy and join the al Qaeda-affiliated Jemaah Islamiyah until 2003. "Terror suspects: Al Qaeda brainwashed us," from CNN:

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- Basri sports a crude tattoo of Mickey Mouse on his wrist and spent his youth drinking alcohol and jamming to Nirvana songs in a rock band.

He was never religious, and even now struggles to remember verses from the Quran, Islam's holy book.

Yet until his arrest this month, the 30-year-old was one of Indonesia's most wanted Islamic militants.

He was accused in the beheadings of three Christian girls and a string of other attacks on Sulawesi island, a key terror front in the world's most populous Muslim nation.

In interviews with The Associated Press, Basri and four other militants detained with him said they were uneducated men, seeking to avenge relatives killed in a Muslim-Christian conflict six years ago.

They said they were brainwashed by members of the al Qaeda linked Southeast Asian terror network Jemaah Islamiyah.

"I was like buffalo with a ring though my nose," Basri said in the interview, which was arranged by police officers who were present through most of it. "If I was pulled, I had no choice but to follow."

[...]

Police say Basri has formally confessed to taking part in the school girl attack in late 2005, including personally beheading one of the three girls as they walked to school along a quiet jungle path overlooking the town of Poso.

Basri and the other suspects said they evaded arrest for years, learning weapons handling and bomb-making skills from revered Jemaah Islamiyah instructors who either fought or trained in Afghanistan or the southern Philippines -- another Southeast Asian terror hotspot just a short boat journey from Sulawesi.

The crackdown on Sulawesi that netted Basri saw more than 20 suspected Islamic militants killed or arrested -- including several Jemaah Islamiyah ringleaders. But police warn that several more escaped and have likely traveled to the country's main island of Java.

Basri repeated his confession to the AP, describing in detail its planning and execution.

"The preachers told us it was a form of worship," he said. "They said, 'The Christians cut of the heads of Muslim girls in the war, so know it is payback time."'

[...]

Basri claimed he was sorry "not just from my mouth but from deep in my heart."

But he nevertheless joked and laughed as he described how it took two swipes of his machete to lop the head off one of the girls.

[...]

Several Arab and Spanish al Qaeda members spent time in the province, handing out weapons and instructing Indonesian fighters at a coastal camp, according to Gen. Abdullah Hendropriyono, the intelligence agency's head at the time.

"It is a fact that al Qaeda took these people to Poso in 2001," he said after showing a reporter video footage of terror training seized from an Arab fighter at the time. "They wanted to create a religious war."

Basri, who goes by a single name, said he did not take part in those training sessions, but was nevertheless a frontline fighter in the war, describing how he saw several relatives killed.

[...]

Basri and the other men described how they took an oath of secrecy with Jemaah Islamiyah teachers in 2003 before joining them for weekly indoctrination lessons that were wholly focused on the need for jihad, or holy war, against unbelievers.

In 2005, he and other militants took shooting lessons on a boat at sea, he said.

"These men did not pray or fast, they were gangsters seized upon by these preachers, who told them what they were doing was good, legal and justified by Allah," said Nasir Abbas, a former Jemaah Islamiyah leader in Sulawesi who has since turned police informant.

Paul Belien at The Brussels Journal (thanks to C.) reports on more European cultural surrender:

The Amsterdam authorities have announced that a large cross, which was removed from in front of a supermosque that is currently being built in a western suburb of the city, will be put back in its original place once the construction works are over in a few years’ time.

Last week we reported on the decision of the Amsterdam borough of De Baarsjes to permanently remove the white cross which served as a memorial to the Second World War. The cross, with the inscription “Aan hen die vielen” (To those who fell), was situated in front of a place where a huge mosque – the Westermoskee – is currently being built. The cross was removed for the building works, but the authorities decided they would not put it back afterwards and would replace it by a “neutral” memorial, at the price of 50,000 euro.

According to the authorities the cross was offensive to the Muslim and Jewish communities, who had objected to the cross as a war memorial. “The cross is seen as a reference to Christianity. I can understand this,” the local (Christian-Democrat) councillor, Jan Voetberg, said.

However, news of the decision led to an outcry, which prompted the local council to renege on its decision. The local council was swamped with protests from all across the country. While the Pakistani, Moroccan and Turkish communities had, indeed, asked for the removal of the memorial, the Jewish community said it had never objected to the cross. On the contrary. Bloeme Evers, an Auschwitz survivor, said he was shocked by the demand. Three years ago a war remembrance ceremony at the memorial was disrupted by Moroccan youths shouting anti-Jewish slogans....

Just another day in Eurabia.