August 2007 Archives

An, er, explosive revelation about Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed: "Indicted USF Student has Terror Past in Egypt," from the Investigative Project on Terrorism :

Two Egyptian students enrolled at the University of South Florida have been indicted for carrying explosive materials across states lines. One of the defendants also is charged with teaching the other how to use them for violent reasons.

Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed, 24, an engineering graduate student and teaching assistant at the Tampa-based university, faces terrorism charges for teaching and demonstrating how to use the explosives.

According to officials familiar with the case, Mohamed has been arrested previously in Egypt on terrorism-related charges. He is said to have produced an Internet video showing how to build a remote-controlled car bomb.

Mohamed and Youssef Samir Megahed, 21, also an engineering student, were stopped for speeding Aug. 4 in Goose Creek, S.C., where they have been held on state charges. Police found pipe bombs in their car near a Navy base in South Carolina where enemy combatants have been held. They have been held in a South Carolina jail while the FBI continued to investigate whether there was a terrorism link.

Read it all.

It's a time-honored technique, hallowed by successful use by Hizballah and others. Honest Ibe Hooper should give these folks a stern talking-to.

"Muslims Battle Buddhists in Thailand's Troubled South," by Jürgen Kremb in SpiegelOnline (thanks to all who sent this in):

Tuwnedaniya Tuwaemaengae, 24, insists that he has nothing to do with the rebels. Although he is a chemistry student in Bangkok, he says that the Islamic revolution is currently more important to him than his studies. He organized a demonstration a few weeks ago which brought the provincial capital Pattani to a standstill. Now he is taking journalists on a tour of a village where soldiers allegedly committed atrocities against Muslims.

The villagers line up along the road to greet their visitors. The region in Narathiwat province is part of the "red zone" where the rebels collect taxes from the villagers to fund their insurgency. In the house of the local imam, villagers tell the story of an army raid and the murder of two young Muslim men. They point to two fresh grave mounds as evidence. But there is not a single bullet hole in the mosque, which villagers claim came under Thai army fire for several minutes.

CAIR will have a statement as soon as Ahmed Bedier finds out what he's allowed to say. Goose Creek Jihad Update: "Fla. students face explosives indictment," by Lara Jakes Jordan for Associated Press (thanks to all who sent this in):

WASHINGTON - Two Egyptian students at the University of South Florida were indicted Friday for carrying explosive materials across states lines and one of them was charged with teaching the other how to use them for violent reasons.

Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed, 24, an engineering graduate student and teaching assistant at the Tampa-based university, faces terrorism charges for teaching and demonstrating how to use the explosives.

He and Youssef Samir Megahed, 21, an engineering student, were stopped for speeding in Goose Creek, S.C., on Aug. 4, where they have been held on state charges.

In the wake of the jihad attacks that killed 30 people in Hyderabad, Muslims are irked once again -- but not by Muslims perpetrating such attacks. No, what has really upset them are police visits to madrassas. "Hyderabad cops visit madrassas, kick off a row," from IBNLive (thanks to all who sent this in):

New Delhi/ Hyderabad: The Hyderabad police have ruffled feathers by visiting madrassas while investigating the August 25 twin bomb blasts in the city.

Sources tell CNN-IBN the police are searching for a man called named Mujibur Rahman but authorities refused to comment if he is a suspect in their investigation.

The police have asked madrassas to supply information on their students and teachers and their source of funding. Police teams, since August 25, have visited at least 10 madrassas including the Jamia Islamia Darul Uloom in Shivrampalli and Jami Anwar Ul Huda in Kishanbagh.

The police investigation has upset the Deeni Madrasa Board, the top organ of all madrassas in Andhra Pradesh. The board has objected to the police visits, and is meeting Chief Minister Y S Rajashekhar Reddy in the evening to register its protest.

“Madrassas is an educational institution; it is open to all. Raiding a madrassas in the dead of night will send wrong signals and create communal frenzy,” Moulana Khalid Saifullah Rahmani, general secretary of the Deeni Madarsa Board, told the Deccan Chronicle newspaper.

Wrong signal? Where should they look for clues to the bombing, then? In Hindu temples? And what about this "communal frenzy"? Is that a threat?

Yes, but relax. "This had nothing to do with terrorism," said Deputy Federal Public Defender Guy Iversen. Maghloubi's attorney said that in his own nutty, marvelous, winsome way, his client was trying "to actually try and help a rapprochement between the U.S. and Iran" by helping a foe of the Thug-In-Chief. But is any opponent of the pint-sized Mad Mahdist a friend of the United States? That, unfortunately, is not so clear.

"Man pleads guilty to plot to sell weapons to Iran," by Greg Krikorian for the Los Angeles Times (thanks to Mackie):

A West Hills man has pleaded guilty to an audacious plan to buy as many as 100,000 Uzis in the United States and sell them to officials in Iran's government.

Under a plea agreement reached this week, Seyed Mostafa Maghloubi, 49, acknowledged that he tried to obtain submachine guns and night vision goggles and ship them to Iran, in violation of U.S. laws prohibiting such transactions.

According to the plea agreement, Maghloubi's plan dated to at least October 2005 when he approached an unidentified individual and said he was interested in buying the weapons and goggles.

The individual, who was identified only as a cooperating witness for the government, brokered a meeting between Maghloubi and an undercover Los Angeles police detective who Maghloubi believed was an arms dealer.

[...]

The discussions eventually led to Maghloubi taking delivery of three fully automatic Uzis and one pair of night vision goggles.

At all times, the plea agreement says, Maghloubi -- who was born in Iran and is a naturalized U.S. citizen -- sought to deliver the military equipment to a faction within Iran's government that is aligned with a former president who is a political foe of the country's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

In that light, Maghloubi's attorney said, his client was trying "to actually try and help a rapprochement between the U.S. and Iran."

"This had nothing to do with terrorism," Deputy Federal Public Defender Guy Iversen said.

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office had no comment on the plea agreement.

Anti-dhimmitude in Congress. "Republicans slam Islamic Society convention," by Audrey Hudson for the Washington Times (thanks to all who sent this in):

Republican lawmakers are urging the Justice Department not to participate in a convention held by the Islamic Society of North America — a group named as an unindicted co-conspirator in an ongoing terrorism-financing case.

In a letter to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Reps. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and Sue Myrick of North Carolina called the Justice Department's involvement a "grave mistake."

"In light of the threat that our nation ... is currently facing from radical jihadists, and because of the president's commitment to fighting the war on terror on all fronts, we believe it is a grave mistake to provide legitimacy to an organization with extremist origins, leadership and a radical agenda," the lawmakers said.

Rep. Peter T. King, New York Republican and ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he agrees that Justice officials should not attend the conference.

"It is absolute insanity for the federal government, especially the Department of Justice, to be giving any credibility at all to a group like the ISNA, which has such strong links to Islamic extremism," Mr. King said.

Yes.

And to hell with free speech. A New Order is coming to Europe, and the Swedes are on board.

"Sweden 'regrets' Prophet cartoon," from the BBC (thanks to all who sent this in):

Sweden's embassy in Pakistan has expressed regret over the publication of a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad in a Swedish newspaper.

Pakistan had complained about the cartoon, which depicted the head of the Prophet on the body of a dog.

Sweden's government said it regretted any hurt but could not apologise as it was not responsible for the drawing and could not prevent its publication....

The new drawing depicting the Prophet's head on the body of a dog was published in the Swedish newspaper Nerikes Allehanda on Sunday.

The cartoon's creator, Lars Vilks, told the Associated Press news agency the drawing was art.

"I'm not against Islam. Everybody knows that," he is quoted as saying.

The publication prompted the Iranian government to complain to Swedish diplomats earlier this week....

A Swedish foreign ministry spokeswoman said the government had "expressed regret that the publication of the cartoons had hurt the feelings of Muslims".

"We can't apologise for the cartoons because we did not publish them," spokeswoman Sofia Karlberg told the BBC News website.

Ms Karlberg said the government could not influence the publication of such cartoons because of rules concerning media freedom in the country....

The Pakistani foreign ministry expressed sorrow at what it described as a growing tendency "among some Europeans to mix the freedom of expression with an outright and deliberate insult to 1.3 billion Muslims worldwide".

"Such acts deeply undermine the efforts of those who seek to promote respect and understanding among religions and civilisations," a foreign ministry statement said.

According to the Pakistani statement, the Swedish diplomat had said his government "fully shared the views of the Muslim community and termed the publication as unfortunate"....

A Swedish Islamic centre has planned a demonstration outside the paper's offices in the town of Orebro, the AP news agency says.

An umbrella body representing 57 Muslim nations, the Organisation of Islamic Conference, condemned the latest cartoon and urged the Swedish government to punish those responsible.

The chairman of the body also urged Muslims to remain calm and exercise restraint.

Good luck with that.

Here is yet another example of the heavily Islamic character of jihadist appeals. Note the emphasis on the ideological aspect of the jihad, and the denial that the movement has any dependence upon charismatic personalities or even upon Al-Qaeda itself: the authors are confident that Muslims can become jihadists simply by studying the Qur'an and Sunnah.

Yet we are told again and again that the people who write things like this actually misunderstand Islam. It would be refreshing if someone who believed that supplied some evidence for this view -- not evidence that would convince gullible Westerners that Islam is peaceful, but evidence which would blunt the force of appeals like this within the Islamic world.

"On Islamist Websites: How to Join Al-Qaeda, Form a Jihad Cell, and Select a Western Target – '[Is] Assassinating the American Ambassador... Difficult For Someone Who Has Already Crushed America in His Home?,'" from MEMRI:

On August 26, Islamist websites posted an item titled "How to Join Al-Qaeda." It is not clear when the item was written; it was produced by the website Al-Thabitoun 'Ala Al-'Ahd, which is affiliated with Al-Qaeda in Egypt and is currently inactive.

[...]

"You feel that you want to carry a weapon, fight, and kill the occupiers, and that it is our duty to call for jihad as much as to call for prayer... All that is required is a firm personal decision to fulfill this obligation, and participation in jihad and the resistance...

"Do you really have to meet Osama bin Laden in person in order to become a jihad fighter? Do you have to be recognized by Al-Qaeda as one of its members to become a jihad fighter? If Al-Qaeda commanders should be killed, would the jihad be eliminated? What would you do if Al-Qaeda did not exist today? How is Osama bin Laden different from you? - [yet] he managed to establish the world jihad organization. Who provided training to Osama bin Laden and Abdallah 'Azzam when they went to Afghanistan to become the first Arab jihad fighters?

"The answers to these questions are the following: I don't have to meet Osama bin Laden to become a jihad fighter. Moreover, there is no need to meet even one jihad fighter to become one. Neither do I need recognition from Al-Qaeda...

"As the first step, imagine that Al-Qaeda does not exist and that you are interested [in waging] jihad - what would you do in this case?... If you know any young people - whether one, two, or more - in your area, mosque, or university who are as dedicated and enthusiastic about jihad as you are, come to an understanding with them, and together form a cell whose objective is to help Islam and only Islam...

"At first, your cell should have no more than five members, all absolutely trustworthy... The cell must have a commander and a shura council... The commander must clearly realize that he is Osama bin Laden to the cell members...

"Each cell should have a source of funding... When you have several members, you will [surely] find the funds for your cell... Then you should buy weapons, make plans, brainstorm, plot your plans, monitor your enemy's important objectives, and study its moves. Set a goal; for example, assassinating the American ambassador - is it so difficult? Is it [indeed] difficult for someone who has already crushed America in her home?

"What is the difference between you and the hero of the New York attack, Muhammad Atta, who planned an action which even today shakes the world every time it is mentioned? Assassinating the ambassador takes no more than a gun and a bullet. One could disguise oneself as a peddler in order to tail [the target], which shouldn't cost a lot of money...

"The cells must maintain contact among themselves, but by no means in a direct or conventional way. The contact must be spiritual: What will unite you is the love of Islam and the motto "There is no God but Allah." Even if the contact between [your] cell and the rest is indirect, it will be close... You must meet once a month... You must not meet in the same place twice... Personal meetings with a small number of people [must take place] once a week...

Surprise, surprise. From WorldNetDaily.com (thanks to all who sent this in):

WASHINGTON – United Nations forces moved into Kosovo in 1999 to "stop genocide."

But, according to a blistering new report from the American Council for Kosovo, U.N. troops have aided and abetted the deliberate, systematic and nearly complete ethnic cleansing of the mostly Christian Serb population by mostly Muslim ethnic Albanians.

"Every facet of the way of life of the Serbs of Kosovo is threatened by the new reality established since June 1999 under KFOR (the NATO Kosovo Force) and the U.N. and therefore the very existence of the Serbs there is threatened," says the report "Hiding Genocide in Kosovo."

"All kinds of persecution using all types of methods have been adopted," the report says. "Throughout the territory of Kosovo, the Serbs have been persecuted, a persecution that is happening on their own territory, in their own country. They are denied basic human rights and are not equal to their Muslim counterparts under the law. Even though the Serbs were the main targets, they were not the only ones. Consider the situation of the Croats who now number less than 500, or the Roma who have been banished to the edges of the Serb enclaves by persistent terrorization, or the Gorani, Slavic Muslims, who reside in the south west tip of Kosovo in the mountains and whose numbers dwindle every year."

Read it all.

Of course. Who else? From The Local (thanks to Davida):

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that "Zionists" were behind a cartoon in Swedish newspaper Nerikes Allehanda, which depicted the head of the Prophet Mohammed on a dog's body. The drawing sparked an official protest by Tehran to Stockholm.

"They do not want the Swedish government to be a friend of other nations. I strongly believe they are behind it (the cartoon). They thrive on conflict and war," he said.

Not like Mahmoud.

"Zionists are people without any religion," Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly predicted that Israel is doomed to disappear, told a news conference in Tehran.

"They are lying about being Jewish because religion means brotherhood, friendship and respecting other divine religions," he said.

"They are an organised minority who have infiltrated the world. They are not even a 10,000-strong organisation," he said.

"Anywhere they are found there is war. Anywhere where there is war they are behind it," Ahmadinejad added.

Which will, of course, only encourage more hostage-taking. "Taliban was paid $2.46m for hostages," from AAP (thanks to JE):

SOUTH Korea paid $A2.46 million to Taliban extremists in Afghanistan to secure the release of 19 hostages.

Citing unidentified sources in Afghanistan, a Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun said Afghan mediators persuaded South Korea's ambassador in Kabul that there was no other way to end the six-week kidnap ordeal.

"Two million dollars were paid to release all 19 people," an Afghan mediator was quoted as telling the influential Japanese daily.

The Asahi Shimbun said both a South Korean official and a Taliban spokesman contacted by the newspaper denied any payment.

The Taliban, who earlier killed two of the hostages, freed the 19 Christian aid workers this week after South Korea promised to withdraw its military from Afghanistan as planned and ban missionary groups from the Islamic country.

South Korean officials have not commented on whether a payment was made to any party to help secure the release.

Question: When is a professor not a teacher but a propagandist?

Answer: When he forces your intellectual hand, constraining you by means subtle or open to accept his point of view on a given issue. A genuine academic does not think for his students, but trains and equips them to do so. He is not afraid of, nor does he discourage, open disagreement with his points of view, for he is not trying to compel his students to reach certain predetermined conclusions, but rather to give them the means to evaluate competing ideas on their own, and to be able to sift truth from falsehood.

Your professor, Carl Ernst, William R. Kenan, Jr., Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, I am sorry to say, is not a teacher. He is a propagandist. He is not trying to train you to think, but to enlist you as a member of his ideological cadre. Yes, this is a harsh statement, but unlike Dr. Ernst, I support assertions I make with evidence. Here is the evidence.

1. In the syllabus for his course, "Introduction to Islamic Civilization," Religious Studies 180, he recommends that you visit this site, Jihad Watch, as well as the site of the Chick Tract comic books.

The effect for which this is designed should be obvious -- as obvious as if I had, in a course I was teaching, assigned various academic works and then said, "For next week, read Carl Ernst's Following Muhammad and/or watch the Bugs Bunny feature 'Hassan Chop.'" Jihad Watch is a news and commentary site about global jihad activity. Every assertion we make here is from news sources (usually from wire services) or verifiable from Islamic texts. Chick Tracts are comic books reflecting a paranoid, conspiracy-minded view of the world and purveying numerous falsehoods, such as the idea that the Vatican cooked up Islam as part of its fiendish scheme to control the world. By equating Jihad Watch and Chick Tracts, Dr. Ernst is manipulating you into thinking they're two species of the same thing.

Now, probably Dr. Ernst does think that: that we are paranoid conspiracy mongers here, or something near to that. But note that he doesn't offer you any evidence for this view at all. He just puts the two sites in proximity, and lets the juxtaposition do the work.

This is manipulation, not education.

2. Dr. Ernst offers, as evidence that I am not to be trusted as a source on Islam, this page, "Notes on the Ideological Patrons of an Islamophobe, Robert Spencer." Note, in the first place, the characterization "Islamophobe." No evidence is offered for it. Nothing from my books, nothing from this website, nothing at all. His use of this word is, again, manipulative and without substance, designed to propagandize rather than convince, much less to equip one to make his own judgment.

In reality, in my books and articles, and at this site, I explore the elements of Islam that jihadists use to justify their violent acts and make recruits among peaceful Muslims. This is not "Islamophobia," this is the only reliable path to Islamic reform, since you can't reform what you won't admit needs reforming. Terror attacks in the name of Islam, justified by Islamic texts, take place on a virtually daily basis around the globe -- and each one shows anew how desperately needed is this exploration and rethinking of the Islamic texts. But Dr. Ernst is not engaged in that effort, and he is not bothering to explain what he thinks is wrong with the way I'm going about it. He's just throwing smear-words.

Note also that in the document, he doesn't offer a single example of anything I say that is inaccurate. Instead, he expects you to dismiss me because he doesn't like my publishers. This is an example of the logical fallacy of appealing to authority: he is suggesting that his own publishers (such as Shambhala) are more prestigious than those of his critics, and that therefore he is to be believed over them. Argumentum ad verecundiam and ad hominem attacks are two sides of the same worthless coin.

I have invited Dr. Ernst to debate, pointing out that he could thereby show me up as wrong and end my influence -- which he obviously regards as baneful, and which extends to a great many people, as I have written two bestselling books and several others that did quite well. But he has declined, despite the obvious ease with which he no doubt thinks he could dispatch me in a debate about Muhammad and the influence of early (and Qur'anic) Islam on today's jihad violence. Instead, he persists in using me as a slide, as Exhibit A of "Islamophobia" in his classes, while declining to substantiate a single one of his assertions. Well, this time the Exhibit is talking back from the slide.

This is no professor. This is a propagandist, and a shallow one at that.

UPDATE: I posted this as an example of the dishonest propaganda that passes for education far too often in universities these days. Carl Ernst, however, is no worse and no better than a host of others. I ask that you please not write to him, or to the President of the University of North Carolina. It will do no good, and -- if your letter is intemperate -- only confirm their prejudices. There is no point in writing to either one, as this situation goes far beyond these two men, and will not change without a major transformation within American universities in general.

UPDATE 9/2: Carl Ernst demonstrates anew his commitment to genuine academic inquiry

UPDATE 9/4: Hugh Fitzgerald offers Carl Ernst's students a recommended reading list.

The HLF trial, in which CAIR is heavily implicated, continues with some eye-opening revelations. "Prosecutors say Muslim charity in Texas got appeal to help fund holy war," from The Associated Press (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

DALLAS: An unknown Islamist militant appealed to a Texas-based Muslim charity for money to help fund a jihad, or holy war, against Israel, according to a letter that surfaced in the terrorist-financing trial of the charity's leaders.

Other letters appeared to thank the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development for helping the children of martyrs — suicide bombers, prosecutors implied.

The letters were among thousands of pages of documents that prosecutors claim show financial dealings between Holy Land, which was shut down in December 2001, and groups controlled by Hamas, the Palestinian militant group the U.S. government considers a terrorist organization.

Five former leaders of Holy Land are on trial in federal district court on charges of raising more than $12 million for Hamas, conspiracy and money laundering. They could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted.

Defense lawyers, who will begin making their case on Tuesday, have said the men gave humanitarian aid to schools, orphanages and hospitals in Palestinian areas of Israel but denied helping Hamas....

The most inflammatory document introduced by prosecutors was an unsigned, handwritten letter in Arabic from the Islamic Relief Committee, which the U.S. government contends is part of Hamas' network of social organization in Gaza and the West Bank. The unknown author told leaders of Holy Land that Palestinians were happy to see fighters carrying out attacks on Jews.

"Jihad in Palestine is different from any other Jihad; the meaning of killing a Jew for the liberation of Palestine cannot be compared to any Jihad on earth," the author wrote.

The letter implored supporters to "provide us with what helps Weapons, weapons, our brothers."

FBI agent Lara Burns testified that the letter was seized in a 2004 raid at the Virginia home of Ismail Elbarrasse, who served with some of the Holy Land officials on a group of U.S. supporters of the Palestinian cause.

Another letter, from 2000, was a thank-you note from the Islamic Society in Palestine, a group the U.S. government alleges is controlled by Hamas. A group official, Sheikh Ahmad Mohamed Bahr, thanked Holy Land for helping "the children of the martyrs, the wounded, the injured, and the needy."

Other documents appeared to indicate that Holy Land gave money to Hamas officials and fighters whom Israel deported to Lebanon in the early 1990s....

Unconstitutional. "School to provide Muslim students with foot baths," by Andrea Billups for the Washington Times (thanks to all who sent this in):

DEARBORN, Mich. — Plans to construct two foot-washing stations continue at the University of Michigan at Dearborn amid concerns that such action would constitute an establishment of religion by the public university.

The 8,700-student school near Detroit, which begins fall classes Tuesday, came under criticism in June when it announced that it would spend about $25,000 on the two foot-washing areas that were requested as an accommodation by a Muslim Student Association's task force. The foot baths come while the state is in a budget crisis and tuition and fees have risen at all of the state's public universities, up 7.9 percent at the Dearborn campus alone.

Data from a study of entering freshmen suggest that about 10 percent of students at the university are Muslim, and many have in the past used bathroom sinks for the foot washing, called an ablution, which Islam requires as a purity ritual before its five-times-daily prayers.

The cleansing practice prompted concerns from other students and administrators that it was not only unsanitary but also created a safety hazard by making the lavatory floors wet. The new foot-washing stations, built at ground level, are part of a renovation project at two locations on campus and will be paid for with money from the school's general fund.

The foot baths, while benefiting Muslim students, are open for use by all students and will be located in two new unisex bathrooms that will be renovated on campus.

The university, in a statement posted on its Web site, said the foot baths reflect a "strong commitment to a pluralistic society" and "a reflection of our values of respect, tolerance and safe accommodation of student needs."

Tom Burnett Sr. is publicly backing Alec Rawls’s claim that the planned Flight 93 Memorial is riddled with Islamic and terrorist memorializing elements. Mr. Burnett is refusing to allow Tom Jr.’s name to be used in the memorial, and is calling for a Congressional investigation.

Alec’s latest post shows how easy it is to verify the factual accuracy of his claims: the Mecca-orientation of the giant crescent, the 44 glass blocks on the flight path (matching the number of passengers, crew, and terrorists), the placement of the 9/11 date in the exact position of the star on an Islamic crescent and Star flag, and more.

Yes, why bother? After all, Islam is a religion of peace!

"Plan for Terror Screening of Aid Groups Cut Drastically," by Walter Pincus for the Washington Post:

The Bush administration has decided to sharply scale back its plan to screen U.S. foreign aid contractors around the globe for potential terrorism connections, deciding instead to begin with a pilot program involving aid recipients in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip before expanding it worldwide.

The decision, announced Tuesday at a meeting of U.S. officials and representatives of nonprofit groups, was made after lawmakers and several large aid organizations said that the global screening requirements were onerous and unwarranted. An official of the U.S. Agency for International Development had earlier promised to defer the program, which initially was to have taken effect Monday.

The global screening program, initially described in a July 17 Federal Register notice, would have required that all nongovernmental organizations seeking funds from the agency provide detailed information about key personnel, including phone numbers, birth dates and e-mail addresses.

That information was to have been reviewed by intelligence and law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, to ensure that there were no connections with individuals or groups associated with terrorism or threats to national security. It would have affected thousands of individuals in nonprofit groups, charities, religious organizations, colleges, universities and private corporations.

At the presentation Tuesday, USAID officials said they would initially carry out a "pilot vetting program" with recipients of grants and contracts in the West Bank and Gaza, according to materials presented at the meeting and made available to The Post by a contractor organization on the condition that it not be identified.

LAHORE: 9/11 has brought Americans closer to Islam, since the Americans started studying Islam after the bloody attacks and realised that Islam was a peaceful religion, said Walter Russell Mead on Saturday. -- Pakistan Daily Times

It is common for Muslim reporters, and Muslim newspapers, to misreport what a visiting semi-dignitary said, in order to make it conform even more closely to what Muslims would have him say. Walter Russell Mead may have said this -- he has said foolish things before, and also unfoolish things -- but one has, from this short report, no way of knowing exactly what he said, what modifying phrases he may have added. There are no quotes, and we do not have the transcript. Or do we?

A greater problem, however, is not that of the farrago of nonsense that is reported in the Muslim press on this and many other occasions. It is, rather, the way in which visiting firemen in Muslim countries, out of an insensate desire to ingratiate themselves, may modify their views to win over their audience, and still worse, start to believe what they had felt compelled to say. This is due to three things.

I found this at a website supposedly devoted to sport: www.pakpassion.net. The list is an inspiring blend of mass-murderers and mass-media sports stars. The arithmetic needs work.

top 5 famous muslims of all time

1) Mohamed Ali- the greatest boxer of all time [float like a butterfly sting like a bee]

2) Osama Bin Laden - not none for the best of reasons but is suposed to be a terrorist mastermind. Fights for Al-Quaida

3) Zinedine Zidane- one of the greatest footballers ever comes from an algerian backgroung great footballer

4) Tupac Shakur- best rapper of all time not sure if he is muslim or not but it did say he is on a website

4) Sadam Hussain- Once again not known for the best of reasons but use to be presindent i think of iraq.

5) Imran khan- great cricketing allrounder great captain lead pakistan to world cup glory

i no there are other famous muslims who invented thing but these are mine
what do you guys think it will be good to see your top 5!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"We are fortunate that radicalization seems to have less appeal in the U.S. than in other parts of the world," he said, "but we do not believe that America is immune to homegrown terrorism."-- from this article

This statement, variants of which are made so often with such self-assurance, needs to be examined. We are often told that "Muslims in America are different" or "the situation in America is different from that in Western Europe." (At least this concedes that there is a "problem" with Muslims in Western Europe.) Why? Oh, because Muslims in America are so very "different" because they are so well-off: so many engineers, so many computer programmers, that sort of thing. In other words, something about the American Dream, defined entirely in terms of economic wellbeing, but having nothing to do with the legal and political institutions of the United States that help to explain not only that economic wellbeing, but all the other things, far more important than mere bank accounts, that make America America.

Implicit in this view -- "radicalization has less appeal in America " -- is the by-now thoroughly discredited notion, which keeps coming in by the rhetorical back door, that "poverty" causes what is demurely called "radicalization." But that is not so. "Mike" Hawash was an Intel engineer, with an American wife, and Little-League playing children, and a salary of $360,000 a year. Yet he was prepared, having rediscovered and deepened his faith in Islam, to go off -- after 9/11 -- to Afghanistan to kill Americans.

There is a controversy surrounding the work of the philologist of Syriac (that is, the Aramaic used in and around Edessa), Christoph Luxenberg. He suggests that the best way to clear up the approximately 20% of the Qur'an that does not make sense, or that contains a meaning that is only guessed at, is to posit an Ur-text, in Aramaic, or rather in Syriac, a text that begins as a Christian lectionary.

Muslims have done what they can to ignore the book and to try to get it ignored by others. But among those Western students of the early Qur'an -- and there are not many qualified to review Luxenberg's book, for they would need to have a native or near-native command of Arabic as well as his command of Aramaic -- some have been greatly impressed. Others have been less impressed at first but have begun to come round, others less impressed and refusing to come round. When it comes to such matters, fear plays a part -- that is, outright physical fear, but also, and from the most surprising sources, simply a fear of antagonizing one's Muslim colleagues. It is an absurd situation.

"The memo's writer, Mohamed Akram, wrote that members of the Brotherhood 'must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within.'" -- from this article

Cut-and-paste. Print as many copies as you wish. Email others.

Home: Refrigerator (that magnet again). Wallet. Glove compartment.

Outside: Distribute to friends, family, colleagues at work, that person in the check-out line at the supermarket or the dry-cleaners or the Post Office with whom you deliberately strike up a conversation about Islam.

Keep it up. Don't stop.

And there is more to do with this. Much more. Don't merely put that up on your refrigerator door or bulletin-board. Don't merely have it at hand when you are engaging others in conversation, or to give out to acquaintances and colleagues, always as evidentiary accompaniment to, and not in lieu of, coherent argument.

A Jihad Watch reader recently wrote: “You don't want them in the UK. And they don't want you in Iraq, Afghanistan. They don't want your diplomatic double standards over Palestine, Somalia, Darfur, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc...If you want to be left alone, leave others alone.”

Yes, one can partly agree with this. The West should remove itself from Iraq and from Afghanistan, and never try to engage in such a baseless "bringing freedom to ordinary moms and dads" bit of nonsense again. And it should cease the transfer, from Infidels to Believers, of all that wealth, including more than $60 billion to Egypt from the United States alone, and $27.5 billion, if one includes debt relief, to Pakistan by the United States since 2001 alone. The disguised Jizyah of foreign aid to Muslim states that do not have oil does not change the attitudes and atmospherics of Muslim states, attitudes and atmospherics that flow naturally from the tenets, that are derived naturally from the immutable canonical texts of Islam -- Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira. The fiasco of Tarbaby Iraq, which has cost the United States $880 billion, more than the total cost of all the wars, save World War II, ever fought by the United States, should be clear.

And it should be clear that the large-scale presence of Muslims in the Bilad al-Kufr, the Lands of the Infidels, has created a situation which, both for the indigenous Infidels, and for non-Muslim immigrants as well, is much more unpleasant, expensive, and physically dangerous than would be the case without that large-scale presence. Once that is clearly understood, sensible measures -- beginning with a halt to Muslim migration, and intelligent ways to reverse current trends, can be undertaken. One has only to look around -- for Americans, say, to see what has happened in England or France, or the British to see what has happened in the Netherlands, or the Italians to look at Malmo or Rotterdam, or the Americans, who have the advantage of seeing what has happened and is happening in Western Europe -- to understand this problem.

Joining Iran, which is already in an uproar. From The Local (thanks to Fjordman):

Pakistan has added its voice to that of Iran in condemning the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in newspaper Nerikes Allehanda.

The Swedish Chargé d'Affaires in Islamabad was called to the Pakistani Foreign Office on Thursday for a dressing down by a government official. The move comes several days after a Swedish diplomat in Teheran was summoned by the government there to face a similar protest.

In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Pakistan condemned the publication "in the strongest terms."

"Regrettably, the tendency among some Europeans to mix the freedom of expression with an outright and deliberate insult to 1.3 billion Muslims in the world is on the rise," the statement said.

Insults are part of free expression, pal. If anything that anyone takes as an insult is ruled out of public discourse, hardly anything will be left. (For I myself find your remarks insulting.) And if the freedom to ridicule Islam goes out the window, so does free inquiry into the elements of Islam that jihadists are using to encourage people to wage war against non-Muslims, for doubtless you will find that equally offensive and insulting. Muslims will then become a privileged, protected class, immune from all questioning. And that's what you want, isn't it?

They want DNA and hair samples, which may indicate suspicion that Mohamed and Megahed were involved in other cases beyond this one.

An update on the Goose Creek Jihad story. "Jury Wants DNA, Hair Samples In USF Case," by Elaine Silvestrini for the Tampa Tribune (thanks to Michelle Malkin):

TAMPA - A federal grand jury in Tampa is asking for DNA and hair samples from a University of South Florida student jailed four weeks ago in South Carolina on explosives charges, his attorney said.

Andrew Savage said in a phone interview Wednesday night that he had no indication why the samples were being sought from his client, Youssef Megahed.

The news came as the grand jury heard testimony Wednesday from people who have connections to Megahed and Ahmed Mohamed, another USF student arrested at the same time.

Accompanied by attorneys, at least three people entered the grand jury area of the U.S. District courthouse on North Florida Avenue in downtown Tampa. They were the owner of a home where Mohamed planned to rent a room, the landlord's son and a Muslim community spokesman. All three later declined to comment to a reporter.

Megahed and Mohamed, were pulled over for speeding in South Carolina on Aug. 4 about seven miles from the Goose Creek Naval Weapons Station, which houses a military prison for enemy combatants.

The men were charged with possession of an incendiary or explosive device, based in part on items found in the trunk of their car, authorities said. Mohamed said they were carrying fireworks.

One week later, on Aug. 11, the FBI searched a home at 12402 Pampas Place in Tampa that is owned by Noor and Ana Salhab. Authorities said the search was related to the case involving the students.

[...]

Federal court records show that Salhab leased the house in the early 1990s to World and Islam Studies Enterprise, a think tank run by Sami Al-Arian, the former USF professor accused of funding Palestinian terrorist organizations....

Not just accused. He pled guilty.

Also appearing before the grand jury Wednesday was Ahmed Bedier, who has been a spokesman for the Megahed family. Bedier is executive director of the Tampa chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations and a frequent media spokesman for Muslims and Islamic causes.

He was accompanied by attorney Lyann Goudie and appeared to be in the grand jury area for about an hour.

Bedier declined to answer questions about his testimony, saying he wanted to check with the national headquarters of CAIR about what he was allowed to say.

Yes, Ahmed, check with them to see if you're allowed to tell the truth today, or if that isn't done on Thursdays.

"An example of unethical journalism that benefits extremist Muslims..."

By Kevin Mooney for CNSNews.com:

(CNSNews.com) - A conflict of interest involving the radical Nation of Islam and the Washington, D.C., affiliate of the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) is an example of unethical journalism that benefits extremist Muslims, according to a national security expert and a Hollywood filmmaker.

Martyn Burke, director of documentary films at ABG Films, and Frank Gaffney, president of the conservative Center for Security Policy, produced a documentary for a PBS series - "America at a Crossroads" - that focused on Muslims in America, Europe, and Canada who speak out against Islamist extremists.

Their documentary, "Islam versus Islamists: Voices from the Muslim Center," was, after a protracted battle, rejected in April by WETA, the PBS affiliate in Washington, D.C.

The film is going to air on an Oregon PBS affiliate this month, and some other affiliates may run it as well. However, it is now known that PBS had an unedited version of the film reviewed by the radical Nation of Islam prior to PBS's decision to cancel the documentary.

The Nation of Islam (NOI) and its long-time leader Rev. Louis Farrakhan have a history of espousing racism and anti-Semitism. Farrakhan stepped down as NOI's leader in 2006 for health reasons.

PBS's decision to pass the film to NOI for review was a serious "breach of journalistic ethics," said Burke.

"Is there anyone who understands that no functioning journalist - or network, or publication can ever allow this kind of outrageous action?" Burke wrote in an e-mail to PBS officials.

"This utterly undermines any journalistic independence. ... It virtually hands the story to the subject and allows them to become an active party in shaping it. That is advertising, not journalism. Is that not obvious?" he added.

Yes, it is obvious.

No, I am not saying that the Musharraf government supports jihad activity against Christians. But certainly many minor officials and police do, and that is why this appeal for help is unlikely to translate into any genuine action.

"Pakistan: Christian group asks govt. for protection," from AKI (thanks to Twostellas):

Quetta, 30 August (AKI/DAWN) - The Christian Action Committee, in the restive south-western Pakistani province of Baluchistan, has asked the government to provide security at churches.

They have also demanded the arrest of all the people who attacked a church in the provincial capital Quetta on 26 August.

The members of the committee held a demonstration outside the Quetta Press Club on Tuesday.

They condemned the attack and alleged that those involved had used abusive language and insulted the women in the church.

The committee’s chairman Asif John said that on 26 August about 30 people came to the church in the city and injured the worshippers.

He said the police was informed and some people were arrested. However, a majority of them escaped. He urged the government to deploy police near the churches.

Ibrahim Hooper, call your office: clearly Surayud Chulanont is a racist Islamophobe.

"Thai PM says peace talks fruitless in Muslim south," from AP (thanks to Twostellas):

BANGKOK (AFP) - Thai Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont said Wednesday that separatists fighting in Muslim-majority provinces have refused to take up his offer to launch peace talks.

"As of now, there has been no progress on starting negotiations, because that would require the agreement of both sides. So there are no talks for now," he told reporters.

"My government is still adhering a policy of non-violence, but cooperation from the people is crucial," he said.

Since Surayud took office following a military coup last year, he has made a series of peace gestures to the militants fighting along the southern border with Malaysia.

But the violence has only escalated since the coup, and the government has deployed thousands more troops and paramilitary forces to the region.

Of course, about the Islamization of Europe itself, Thielemans has nothing to say, because he doesn't recognize its implications, because he has swallowed the PC nonsense about Islam being a religion of peace with no particular political character.

"Brussels court upholds ban on anti-Islam protest planned for Sept. 11," from The Associated Press (thanks to all who sent this in):

BRUSSELS, Belgium: An appeals court has upheld the ban of an anti-Islam protest planned for Sept. 11 in Belgium's capital, six years after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

The organizers — an alliance of Europeans opposed to the "Islamization" of Europe — failed to prove the ban causes them "irreparable damage," the Council of State, an administrative appeals court, ruled late Wednesday.

Brussels Mayor Freddy Thielemans banned the demonstration Aug. 9 fearing it would disturb public order and calling the Stop Islamization of Europe alliance an inflammatory group.

In a secular democracy "it cannot be that women and men are ... suspected of having committed the worst crimes" simply because they are Muslims, said Thielemans.

Since 2001, Thielemans has approved more than 3,500 demonstrations in the Belgian capital and banned six, including the one of SIOE which calls itself "an alliance of people across Europe with the single aim of preventing Islam becoming a dominant political force in Europe."

The Left won't dare touch this issue; to do so would burn their multiculturalist fingertips. And of course, there are many, many fearless conservative anti-PC types -- and most of the leading ones -- who quail in fear when they see me coming, and don't have the necessities, as Al Campanis might have said, or the intestinal fortitude, to discuss the issues relating to the global jihad and how to defeat it as I set them out, perhaps for fear of appearing to be less than 100% multicultural, or of arousing the ire of some unindicted co-conspirator or other, resulting in their even more fearful and spineless bosses canning their shows.

However, there are also many, many radio talk show hosts who are not so cowardly. I have discussed issues relating to my book Religion of Peace? and above all, why this book is a necessary contribution to the defense against Islamic supremacism, on dozens of shows since the book first came out, and here are three more.

All times PDT:

8:20 AM The Right Balance

8:30 AM Muscle Head Revolution WMCA

11:00 AM Schiffer Report WHK and Righttalk.com

News of escalating jihad violence in Ingushetia, though sandwiched between anecdotes and political speculation that tend to de-emphasize the jihadist aspect of the story. "Violence escalates in turbulent Russian region," from Reuters:

ALI-YURT, Russia (Reuters) - Petimat Tatriyeva was woken up [sic] one morning late last month by shouts and banging coming from the courtyard of her home.

She said it was a raid by Russian security forces. "About 15 men ... burst into the yard. One of them put a machine gun to my forehead. They said: 'Where are the men? We'll count to ten, then throw a grenade into the house'," she told Reuters.

"When my 15-year-old son woke up, they threw themselves at him and beat him up," she said. "They beat my husband on the kidneys and pressed their fingers into his eyes."

Tatriyeva and her family live in Ingushetia, a mainly Muslim republic where for more than a decade Moscow's forces have been fighting a low-level military campaign against armed Islamist militants linked to separatists in neighboring Chechnya.

But things are getting worse. In response to an escalation in attacks by insurgents, Moscow in late July sent in an additional 2,500 interior ministry troops, almost tripling the number of special forces in Ingushetia.

The escalation in violence shows that seven years after President Vladimir Putin came to power on a pledge to "wipe out" the insurgency in Russia's North Caucasus region that includes Chechnya and Ingushetia, the rebels are not beaten.

In Chechnya, attacks have grown rare, but the problems appear to have shifted next door.

Some people in Ingushetia draw parallels with Chechnya eight years ago. Then, after a lull in the fighting that had already dragged on for six years, troops were sent back in to respond to a wave of rebel attacks. That unleashed a new war.

Now in Ingushetia, reports emerge almost daily of gun battles or ambushes on police vehicles.

This summer the insurgents have killed an aide to Murat Zyazikov, the region's pro-Moscow president, and launched an audacious attack on an army base. Last week a Russian soldier was killed in an attack on a column of troops.

In July, the rebels murdered an ethnic Russia schoolteacher, Lyudmila Terekhina, and two of her children. A bomb went off in the cemetery as she was being buried, wounding several mourners.

In Ingushetia's capital, Nazran, armored personnel carriers drive through the streets. Roadblocks check the documents of everyone entering the city.

[...]

Nazran resident Idris Khamkhoyev said heavy-handed police operations were causing bitterness among the local population.

"They (Russian security forces) are rampant and answer to no one," he said. "They are exacerbating the situation and we now fear a repetition of the Chechen problem."

Sounds like the jihadists aren't helping, either.

In Moscow, some observers see other parallels with Chechnya. The start of the second Chechen war helped the then little-known Putin show off his credentials as a tough politician. It was a factor in his victory in the 2000 presidential election.

[...]

"In theory, the new deterioration of the situation in the Caucasus could be used to raise the profile of the successor, or as a pretext for calling off the election completely," said New Times, a Russian-language news magazine.

Joanna Chandler reports at FrontPage on the notorious Al-Durah hoax:

Introduction

On September 12, 2007, Philippe Karsenty of Paris will present his appeal of a judgment for defamation rendered in favor of Charles Enderlin, Jerusalem Bureau Chief for France 2, the television station responsible for airing the Mohamed Al Durah hoax which was adopted, at birth, as official informatiom in nearly every corner of the world. Karsenty, editor of Media-Ratings, www.m-r.fr, an internet service that monitors the French media, questioned Enderlin’s veracity and challenged him to explain obvious defects and inconsistencies in the Al Durah story. Initially, the Israeli government had taken responsibility for the boy’s death, but later concluded that it had reliable evidence that the case was a fraud. Daniel Seaman, Director of Israel’s Government Press Office, openly calls the alleged “murder” of Al Durah a hoax. France 2 is holding 27 minutes of raw footage of the incident, which could resolve the controversy once and for all. But it refuses to release the tapes. The trial court, finding in favor of Enderlin, disregarded the evidence Karsenty presented. Instead, the judge relied on a two-year old letter from former French President, Jacques Chirac, that did not refer to the Al Durah incident at all, but simply complimented Enderlin as a journalist. Politics aside, the evidence stands on its own. Reminiscent of the Dreyfus Affair that occurred more than 100 years earlier, few have stepped forward to assist Karsenty in rebutting this lie—a lie with sufficient currency to defame every Jew alive in the world today. It is not really Karsenty, the individual, who is on trial, but the State of Israel and the Jewish people—for a staged “murder” that the world chose to accept as true. Seven years after the supposed “crime,” the lie persists as if it had a life of its own. But, the real crime, the crime that did, in fact, occur and for which no one has been charged, nor punished, is the crime of defaming Israel and the Jews—a crime that has unleashed murder and terrorism in its wake and that has compromised the integrity of every journalist and public servant who has ever chosen to report the hoax as true. Some did so, deliberately, and without shame. Some disobeyed their conscience and chose convenience over honor. Still others went along with the hoax out of slothfulness, simply failing to exercise the diligence required of their profession. None can be excused for acting in good faith because the evidence was, and is, clear and unambiguous—impossible to ignore. Moreover, the evidence is substantive and overwhelming. The fact that the Al Dura story is a hoax is apparent to anyone who cares to cast a critical eye on the unedited, raw footage of the incident that has so far become available.

This is the world we live in today: the jihadists have created a climate of fear and suspicion. They have successfully "struck terror into the hearts of the enemies" (Qur'an 8:60) and don't have to do a thing to perpetuate that feeling of terror all over. If these Arabic-speaking passengers had been ordered off the plane, a lawsuit would no doubt ensue that would make the Flying Imams look like Zionist Crusaders; as it is, if the identity of the "traveler with a child" who "elected to get off the plane" comes to be known, watch for him or her to be excoriated as a racist.

Meanwhile, what can be done about this? For one thing, if Muslim advocacy groups in America became much more energetic in genuine anti-terror efforts, instead of spending their time complaining about anti-terror efforts and supporting initiatives such as the Flying Imams lawsuit, with its chilling effect on passengers reporting suspicious behavior, the fears of many would be assuaged.

"Passenger dispute delays American Airlines flight overnight," by Debbi Farr Baker for the San Diego Union-Tribune:

SAN DIEGO – A conflict between passengers at Lindbergh Field Tuesday night caused the overnight delay of an American Airlines flight headed to Chicago.

Flight 590 was scheduled to depart at 11 p.m. for Chicago O'Hare International Airport but was rescheduled for Wednesday at 10:15 a.m. after some kind of dispute among customers started at the gate and continued onto the plane, said American Airlines spokesman Tim Wagner.

While Wagner said it is the airlines policy not to disclose any information about their passengers, televised reports claimed that the incident involved a group of six to seven Iraqi Americans and another passenger who was apparently uncomfortable that the men were speaking in Arabic.

The jet left the gate at 11:14 p.m. but did not take off and instead returned at 11:26 p.m. after a traveler with a child elected to get off the plane, Wagner said.

The airport's 11:30 p.m. curfew then prevented the plane from taking off, Wagner said.

Chutzpah. "Hezbollah to file lawsuits against Israel for damage caused in war," by Yoav Stern for Haaretz :

Hezbollah is planning to file a host of lawsuits against Israel over the damages it caused during the Second Lebanon War. Lebanese individuals with dual citizenship will file the suits in the countries where they hold citizenship.

Attorney Ibrahim Awada, who heads Hezbollah's legal department, revealed the plan last week on a Syrian television program devoted to "Zionist crimes against Lebanon." He said that each plaintiff will hire a lawyer in the country where he files suit, and Hezbollah will pay the lawyers' fees.

The Lebanese government began mulling lawsuits against Israel immediately after the war ended last summer, but was stymied by the fact that United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the war, blamed Hezbollah, rather than Israel, for its outbreak. The government therefore set up a legal committee to explore more limited options, such as suits specifically over Israel's use of cluster bombs and destruction of infrastructure.

However, Hezbollah was furious that the government has so far done nothing, and therefore decided to launch its own lawsuit blitz, using private individuals.

Feel the love.

"London editor prays for nuclear attack on Israel," by Jonny Paul for the Jerusalem Post (thanks to Jcom):

The editor of an Arabic daily newspaper published in London said in an interview on Lebanese television that he would dance in Trafalgar Square if Iranian missiles hit Israel.

Talking about Iran's nuclear capability on ANB Lebanese television on June 27, Abd Al-Bari Atwan, editor-in-chief of Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper, said, "If the Iranian missiles strike Israel, by Allah, I will go to Trafalgar Square and dance with delight."

In the interview, Bari Atwan was asked if he thought there is a process of détente [vis-à-vis Iran] and an American-Iranian inclination to reach a deal on Iran's nuclear ambitions.

"If there is a deal, it will be at the expense of the Arabs and if there is a war, it will also be at the expense of the Arabs," he responded. "I'm sad to say that we have no backbone now. If Iran reaches a deal with the Americans, what will be the bottom line? That Iran will have a nuclear program, and even if it does not manufacture nuclear weapons in the next 5-10 years, it will do so later."

Yep.

Oakland's Marriott employs security personnel from an outfit with ties to Your Black Muslim Bakery. Feel safer?

"Your Black Muslim Hotel: Marriott still employs security firm with Black Muslim Bakery ties," by Robert Gammon in East Bay Express (thanks to WriterMom):

Over the past decade, more than a hundred thousand visitors have strolled into the Oakland Marriott Hotel and convention center, where among the first faces they encountered were those of well-dressed young men sporting bow ties. These men are the hotel's private security officers, who also happen to be members of the Black Muslim clan believed responsible for the assassination of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey.

Even after Bailey's brazen murder just a few blocks from the hotel on August 2, the Black Muslims remained at the Marriott, roaming its giant lobby and each of its 21 floors. Marriott spokesman Chris Daly said that in addition to providing security for hotel guests and the city's main convention center, the men "even perform bellhop duty if need be."

When asked why an international company with $12.2 billion in sales last year would continue to employ kin of the late Yusuf Bey, disgraced patriarch and founder of Your Black Muslim Bakery, Daly argued that the security firm is entirely separate from the bakery. Nineteen-year-old bakery handyman Devaughndre Broussard has been charged with Bailey's murder, and Broussard's attorney has indicated that bakery CEO Yusuf Bey IV was the likely mastermind.

THE Austrian right-wing firebrand Joerg Haider said yesterday he plans to change building laws to prevent mosques and minarets being erected in his home province of Carinthia. -- from this article

Jorg Haider is akin to, but worse than Le Pen. He is one of those Austrians who drove the late Thomas Bernhard to maddened distraction, the kind who claim that Austrians were the "first victims" of Hitler (forgetting those cheering crowds, that delight at Anschluss). He exhibits every sign of antisemitism except, perhaps, that exhibited by the BBC World Service and The Guardian and Robert Fisk -- that is, not quite so systematically vicious when it comes to the state of Israel.

Haider, by the way, owes his considerable wealth to a fluke. In 1938, someone fleeing Austria had to give up his castle in Carinthia (it's the title of an old book: "A Castle in Carinthia"), selling it , out of desperation, for a song to Jorg Haider's uncle, who then left that bit of booty, when he died, to his nice heel-clicking nephew. Many fortunes in Europe were made that way. Why, the book and antiques trade in Austria and Germany has been living off such goods -- see the sale of Kafka's library, which he left to his sisters who were murdered in Nazi death camps, and ask just how that library came into the possession or this or that antikvariat or auction house, and multiply that by tens of thousands of examples. Oh, there was money to be made, and there still is.

Apparently Al-Sadr is feeling the heat for the mosque attacks in Karbala. "Iraqi Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr Suspends Mahdi Army Activities," from AP (thanks to Mackie):

BAGHDAD — Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered a six-month suspension of activities by his Mahdi Army militia in order to reorganize the force, an aide said Wednesday.

The aide, Sheik Hazim al-Araji, said on Iraqi state television that the goal was to "rehabilitate" the organization, which has reportedly broken into factions, some of which the U.S. maintains are trained and supplied by Iran.

"We declare the freezing of the Mahdi Army without exception in order to rehabilitate it in a way that will safeguard its ideological image within a maximum period of six months starting from the day this statement is issued," al-Araji said, reading from a statement by al-Sadr.

The order was issued after two days of bloody clashes in the Shiite holy city of Karbala that claimed at least 52 lives. Iraqi security officials blamed Mahdi militiamen for attacking mosque guards, some of whom are linked to the rival Badr Brigade militia.

A spokesman for al-Sadr, Ahmed al-Shaibani, denied the Mahdi Army was involved in the Karbala fighting. Al-Sadr called for an independent inquiry into the clashes and urged his supporters to cooperate with the authorities "to calm the situation down," al-Shaibani said.

"Islamophobia" is a trumped-up term. "Islamophobia" would not exist at all were there not Muslims all over the world committing acts of violence and justifying them by reference to Islamic teaching. That is the cause of "Islamophobia," 100%. If Muslims want to cure "Islamophobia," they should work to end that violence and reform the elements of Islamic teaching that incite it. Instead, as we see here, they prefer to indulge in finger-pointing.

"Muslim awards coming," by Mark Dunn in the Herald Sun (thanks to Knitted Eyebrows):

A VICTORIAN mosque plans to bestow awards on Australians they believe are Islamophobes -- politicians, community leaders or media identities they categorise as hostile to Muslims.

The Brunswick-based Ahlus Sunnah wal Jamaah Association has unveiled what it calls its annual "Islamophobia Award for the worst Islamophobes in Australia".

Likely to be near the top on the group's list of nominees is Pauline Hanson, who has come under fire from the mosque and other Muslims for her recent call for a "moratorium on any more Muslims coming into Australia".

Mosque leader Sheik Mohammed Omran, who teaches a fundamentalist minority form of Islam, has previously been questioned about his views on international jihad but he has condemned terrorism in Australia.

The Australian award follows a similar initiative in Britain where the Islamic Human Rights Commission imposed its Annual Islamophobia Awards on politicians including Australian Prime Minister John Howard, then British PM Tony Blair and US President George W. Bush.

Are they rioting over the Hyderabad jihad attacks? Outraged at this hijacking of their peaceful religion? No, they are rioting over the apparently accidental deaths of four Muslims. "Taj Mahal closed to tourists after India riots," from Reuters (thanks to Twostellas):

Police closed the Taj Mahal and placed parts of Agra city under curfew after Indian Muslims burned trucks and battled police to protest the deaths of four community members hit by a lorry.

The accident occurred around dawn in Agra when the men were returning after marking "Shab-e-Barat", or the "night of forgiveness or atonement", when Muslims pray for the dead.

Angry crowds set fire to 11 trucks, including the one involved in the accident, said state police officer Brij Lal.

"With curfew imposed in six police circles of Agra, the area in and around Taj Mahal is also completely shut to public as a precautionary measure," Lal said.

Television footage showed smoke billowing over one neighbourhood, young Muslims clashing with police and a line of trucks burning fiercely.

"They are hurling bricks at police sent to stop the violence in one area but the situation is coming under control as our people are on the job," Lal added.

Have I left a comment at your website? Almost certainly not. I barely have time to leave comments at this one. I did comment at a site a few weeks ago, at the invitation of a friend, and can't remember the time before that that I commented on any site besides this one.

However, someone is using my name and linking to this site, leaving comments purporting to be by me at other sites. These comments are, as you may imagine, abusive and absurd, designed to bring me and this site into disrepute.

Note here again: the opponents of Jihad Watch cannot, and do not, bring forth even one single example of anything I have written that is false. Instead, they resort to lies and smears -- just look at the comments fields of the Derbyshire/Spencer exchanges at Pajamas Media, and the recently published CAIR farrago.

Their desperation is showing.

But the bottom line is this: if you see "Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch" commenting at some weblog, it almost certainly isn't I. If you have any doubt, ask me.

"We are working for a Caliphate from Morocco to Indonesia and from Khazakhstan to Saudi Arabia." Hmmm. On my map Denmark doesn't fall between Morocco and Indonesia or between Kazakhstan and Saudi Arabia. Unless you go the other way, I suppose.

"Islamic group incites war on West," from The Copenhagen Post (thanks to all who sent this in):

Controversial Islamic organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir celebrated its annual congress in Copenhagen on Sunday with words of anger against Jews and the West, reported daily free newspaper Nyhedsavisen.

Nearly 600 Muslims attended the meeting at KB Hallen in the city’s enclave of Frederiksberg, where religious leaders spoke of the rise of an new Islamic Caliphate and the fall of Western powers.

‘The Caliphate can arrive in an hour, two months or two years from now,’ said Fadi Abdullatif, Hizb ut-Tahrir’s president, who owns a previous conviction for publicly urging his members to kill Jews. ‘We are working for a Caliphate from Morocco to Indonesia and from Khazakhstan to Saudi Arabia.’

The union of nations under a common Islamic law could be created by force if necessary, according to another of Hizb ut Tahrir’s leaders, Atta bin Khalil. Khalil also told those in attendance to ‘continue their state of war against the Jewish nation’.

A third speaker at the congress, Emir Shamil, said that ‘heads may roll’ in the recreation of the Caliphate.

Jamie Glazov interviews the dreaded Jihad Watch Director at FrontPage:

Frontpage Interview's guest today is Robert Spencer, a scholar of Islamic history, theology, and law and the director of Jihad Watch. He is the author of seven books, eight monographs, and hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism, including the New York Times Bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Religion of Peace?.

FP: Robert Spencer, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.

Spencer: Thanks, Jamie. I am a great admirer of your work and it is always good to talk with you.

FP: Likewise sir.

What inspired you to write this book?

Spencer: For six years now, almost invariably when I would talk about the elements of Islam that jihadists use to justify violence and make recruits among peaceful Muslims, people would respond by referring to violence in the Bible and the sins of Christianity. Over time I came to see that the all-pervasive sense of guilt and self-hatred that blankets the West in this age of the dominance of multiculturalism is the single greatest obstacle keeping us from meeting the ideological challenge that the jihadists present. Insofar as Westerners are ashamed of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and so many are, they will not defend it.

This is not a matter of faith. Whether or not one is Jewish or Christian, Judeo-Christian civilization has given the world numerous ideas of human rights that the jihadists directly challenge: freedom of conscience, the equality of dignity of men and women, equality of rights before the law for all, and more. Islamic Sharia offers a radically different model of society. We in the West need to recognize this and stand up for our own civilization, culture, and heritage. If we are too paralyzed by guilt and consumed with self-hatred to defend our own civilization, we certainly won't keep it.

FP: Ok, so let's build on these themes. Can you talk a bit about why the lib-Left wages war on Christianity and keeps quiet about Islam? This is a pathology in the context of Islamic jihadists being the real threat to free societies.

I'll be on Mike Gallagher's nationally syndicated radio show this morning at 7:34 AM PDT to discuss my new book War and Peace -- oh, no wait, scratch that. My new book is Religion of Peace?.

Of course, he has said this before. Many learned statesmen in Washington and Western Europe will no doubt strenuously disagree, but I'm just not altogether sure this fellow is trustworthy.

"Ahmadinejad says his country now a 'nuclear Iran,'" from AP (thanks to Looney Tunes):

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reiterated Tuesday that Teheran has achieved full proficiency in the nuclear fuel cycle and warned the West that dialogue and friendship - not threats - were the right way to deal with Iran.

Right. HE makes the threats. WE respond with calls for dialogue. Didn't you read the script?

"Today, Iran is a nuclear Iran," Ahmadinejad told a press conference in Teheran. "That means, it fully possesses the whole nuclear fuel cycle."

Ahmadinejad, however, said his country was committed to a "peaceful path" in pursuing its controversial nuclear program.

More Shi'ite-Shi'ite Jihad -- and undoubtedly still more to come. By Robert H. Reid for the Associated Press:

BAGHDAD - Fighting erupted Tuesday between rival Shiite militias in Karbala during a religious festival, claiming 51 lives and forcing officials to abort the celebrations and order up to 1 million Shiite pilgrims to leave the southern city.

Security officials said Mahdi Army gunmen loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al- Sadr fired on guards around two shrines protected by the Badr Brigade, the armed wing of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.

Residents of Karbala contacted by telephone said snipers were firing on Iraqi security forces from rooftops. Explosions and the rattle of automatic weapons fire could be heard during telephone calls to reporters in the city 50 miles south of Baghdad.

In addition to the deaths, security officials said at least 247 people were wounded, including women and children.

The clashes appeared to be part of a power struggle among Shiite groups in the sect's southern Iraqi heartland, which includes the bulk of the country's vast oil wealth.

It's naturally a little hard to achieve stable self-government -- which requires restraint and compromise -- when everyone professes a divine mandate to take everything by force.

Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said entrances and exits to Karbala "have been secured and more forces are on the way from other provinces." Officials said buses were sent to evacuate pilgrims from the city, which includes some of the world's most sacred Shiite shrines.

Gunfights also broke out Tuesday between Mahdi militiamen and followers of the Supreme Council in at least two Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad, police said. And extra police took up positions in the center of another Shiite city, Diwaniyah, after gunmen fired on a mosque associated with the Supreme Council, police said.

The trouble started in Karbala late Monday as tens of thousands of Shiites were streaming into the city for the Shabaniyah festival marking the birth of Mohammed al-Mahdi, the 12th and last Shiite imam who disappeared in the 9th century. Devout Shiites believe he will return to Earth to restore peace and harmony.

Scuffles broke out between police and pilgrims as the crowd tried to push through the security checkpoints near the Imam al-Hussein mosque, the focal point of the celebrations. At least five people were killed, police said.

Early Tuesday, crowds of angry pilgrims chanting religious slogans surged through the streets, attacking police and mosque guards, witnesses said. Two ambulances were set ablaze, sending a huge column of black smoke over the city.

Islam respects women. Islam prevents women from being made into mere sex objects. Islam provides for the "portable seclusion" of the burqah. In Islam there is no decadence, no exploitation, as there is in the cruel and intolerable West. If anything at all is ever to be found inhumane in the treatment or status of women in Muslim societies, even if those societies are suffused with Islam and its attitudes, that has nothing to do with Islam. See Shirin Ebadi. See Fatima Mernissi. See Leila Ahmad. See Leila Abu-Lughod. No, whatever bad things happen to women within Muslim societies has nothing to do with Islam but only with "cultural practices" that -- let us all repeat again -- have n-o-t-h-i-n-g to do with Islam.

Got that?

The main immigration of Lebanese, entirely Christian, arrived here between roughly 1880 and 1940. They came because Western pressure on the Ottoman government, while it led theoretically to a formal improvement in the legal treatment of non-Muslims in the Ottoman domains, in fact caused great unease among Muslims. The massacre of the Maronites in Damascus in 1860 was one such manifestation. Those Lebanese who arrived, whose papers might describe them as "Syrians" or even as "Turcos," were in fact refugees from Islam and the encroachments of Islam, even if they did not talk of it that way, but were simply seen as economic migrants from the Ottoman Empire.

And in recent decades other Christians have arrived from Lebanon, both Maronites (most keenly aware that they are Arabic-using but not Arabs) and the slightly different case of Greek Orthodox Christians. Some of them are more willing to assume that the imposed use of the Arabic language means that they must -- as Muslim Arabs insist -- think of themselves as "Arabs" and, as "Arabs," naturally identify with the chief gift and identifying characteristic of the Arabs, Islam, even if they are not Believers themselves. They must adopt the views and promote the agenda of Muslim Arabs in order to fit in or to be tolerated.

The coinage of the term "Islamophobia" is an exercise in blaming the victim. If Muslims want to end "Islamophobia" instantaneously, here's how:

1. Focus your indignation on Muslims committing violent acts in the name of Islam, not on non-Muslims reporting on those acts.
2. Renounce definitively not just "terrorism," but any intention to replace the U.S. Constitution (or the constitutions of any non-Muslim state) with Sharia even by peaceful means.
3. Teach Muslims the imperative of coexisting peacefully as equals with non-Muslims on an indefinite basis.
4. Begin comprehensive international programs in mosques all over the world to teach against the ideas of violent jihad and Islamic supremacism.
5. Actively work with Western law enforcement officials to identify and apprehend jihadists within Western Muslim communities.

Do those five things, and voila! "Islamophobia" will vanish. No UN program needed.

"Muslim Nations Want 'Islamophobia' on Anti-Racism Meeting's Agenda," by Patrick Goodenough for the CNSNews.com (thanks to WriterMom):

(CNSNews.com) - "Islamophobia" and the defamation of Islam are the most conspicuous forms of racism and intolerance today, and a global U.N. conference on racism planned for 2009 should come up with practical solutions to deal with them, an Islamic bloc representative told a preparatory meeting in Geneva Monday.

The 2009 meeting is intended to review a U.N. conference on racism, held in Durban, South Africa, just days before 9/11, but the 56-nation Organization for the Islamic Conference (OIC) wants Islam to be high on the agenda.

"The world since 2001 has not remained static and witnessed new forms of racism and racial discrimination," Pakistan's representative to the U.N., Masood Khan, said at a meeting of the planning body, or "prepcom bureau," according to prepared remarks.

Speaking on behalf of the OIC, Khan told the meeting that "there has been a stark rise in hate crimes, discrimination, racial profiling and intolerance against Muslims in many countries."

A little while ago I received this email from a jihadist crowing about the impending collapse of secularism in Turkey:

another great day for Islam, once again you lose Spencer how bad must you now feel? you kept dreaming that Islam would no longe exist in turkey but the turks have shown they want Islam and love Islam contrary to what you claimed and thought....

face it robert, your losing this battle and war, unlike christians Muslims love their faith and will never turn on it like you christians turn on christianity and become secular atheists.

oh well another victory for Islam, and another loss for its enemies........ :)

In fact I am shedding no tears, and in reality never "claimed and thought" anything other than that there was widespread support for Sharia in Turkey. The demise of Turkish secularism, which in any case was only marginally less monstrous than Sharia in its treatment of non-Muslims, was inevitable, given the nature of political Islam. Were policymakers and analysts not besotted with D'Souzaite fantasies, they wouldn't be surprised either.

But in any case, I wouldn't give up even if there were no one left at all. No matter what, I am not going to submit.

Here is Derbyshire's response to my response to his review of my book Religion of Peace?.

And here, also from Pajamas, is my final response. Hearty thanks to John Derbyshire for this exchange, which I have enjoyed immensely. I hope he has also.

John Derbyshire wishes I had read his review of my book Religion of Peace? “more carefully,” since he now contends that he did not say – as I had characterized him as saying — that “Christianity and Islam are ‘equally likely to incite violence.’”

I ask Mr. Derbyshire’s indulgence if I mistook his statement in his review that “God’s instructions to us through Mohammed are no more or less likely to make us better or worse than his instructions through Christ” as meaning that God’s instructions to us through Mohammed are no more or less likely to make us better or worse than his instructions through Christ. It was on that that I based my own summary of what I took to be his view: that Christianity and Islam are “equally likely to incite violence.” Looking at his words again, I still think it’s reasonable to conclude that that’s what they mean.

Rabbi Aryeh Spero reviews my book Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't at Human Events:

Robert Spencer has done it again. Religion of Peace? is the fifth in a series of meticulously researched and analyzed books he has written regarding the major issue of our day -- the dangerous challenge of Islam to the West. He is absolutely correct in underscoring the religious impulse behind Islam’s latest push to sublimate the West. But a secularized West seems to its own peril unwilling to acknowledge this religious component as the engine behind the hard and soft jihad coming our way.

This is a swift read written in a fluid manner reflective of a thinker who has long thought about the points he makes. The book is not weighed down by ponderous sentences, though Spencer’s ideas are deeply reasoned.

"Now say 'How high?,' Nouri, come on, 'How high?' When I tell you to jump, that's what I want to hear, capisce?"

Little did Noah Feldman and his ilk realize that when they so fervently propounded blue-thumbed Iraqi democracy, that the apparent Shi'ite enthusiasm for Jeffersonianism would come to this. "President Ahmadinejad Says Iran Ready to Fill Power Vacuum in Iraq," from AP (thanks to all who sent this in):

TEHRAN, Iran — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned Tuesday that a power vacuum is imminent in Iraq and said that Iran was ready to help fill the gap.

"The political power of the occupiers is collapsing rapidly," Ahmadinejad said at a press conference in Tehran, referring to U.S. troops in Iraq. "Soon, we will see a huge power vacuum in the region. Of course, we are prepared to fill the gap, with the help of neighbors and regional friends like Saudi Arabia, and with the help of the Iraqi nation."

Yes, watch for him to get very chummy with the Saudis.

Muslim- and Arab-American leaders are upset that the FBI didn't consult them — as it has done in other instances — before releasing the photos on the Internet and to news organizations. […] "We need to get some type of apology from them and figure out how to get back to where we were," said Rita Zawaideh, head of the Arab-American Community Coalition. -- from this article

"As it [the FBI] has done in other instances"!

Why has the FBI ever consulted, for one minute, with "Muslim and Arab-American groups" on its standard procedures? Releasing pictures of those who are sought for past or likely future criminal activity is routine, and is a most successful method, proven to work. Just look at how many of those publicized by John Walsh on "America's Most Wanted" have been subsequently seen by viewers and reported to the police. It is idiotic for police methods to change.

The sole purpose of the Flying Imams’ lawsuit is to intimidate the pilots and crews of planes. And it would have included passengers, but the effect on an angry public, quite capable of identifying with those passengers, was deemed to be too dangerous for the "image" of Islam. That image is sinking fast in any case, with each new outrage, and this lawsuit is one of those outrages.

But here there is a question of money. Who should pay the costs of defending such a lawsuit? Should it be U.S. Airways alone? If what the pilots and crew did was in the interests of all passengers on all flights -- and clearly it was -- and if those Muslims who are attempting to intimidate them are also attempting to intimidate the pilots and the crews (and the passengers, even if the "John Doe" part of the lawsuit was prudently dropped at the last minute), then it is all pilots, and all crews, and all passengers, in the United States who should be paying for the defense of those particular pilots, that particular crew.

I have posed the questions so many times before.

But here they are again:

1) Should a "victory" in Iraq be defined as anything other than an outcome which will definitely leave the Camp of Islamic Jihad weakened?

2) If the answer to #1 is, as I hope it will be, "No," then why is it better to prevent the sectarian fissures within Iraq between Sunnis and Shi'a? These fissures are not limited to Iraq. They can be observed in a half-dozen countries, and what's more, they have the ability to set Sunni regimes against the Shi'a who stand to inherit The Land of the Two Rivers, that is, Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia, of course, was the center for 500 years of the Abbasid Caliphate. For the first hundred it was centered in Samarra, and for the remaining four hundred in Baghdad, madinat al-salaam, the fabled city of Haroun al-Rashid. It will also set those Sunni regimes against the Shi'a in their midst, or, to put it another way, they will not be willing to allow the "Persian" Shi'a, those "Rafidite dogs," to inherit that part of the Arab land that is considered to be the place where its (much exaggerated) "glorious history" was made, and where its capital city, "glorious" Baghdad, was the center of that history.

ISLAMABAD, Aug 21: Federal Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr Sher Afgan Niazi on Tuesday stunned both the treasury and opposition senators when he roundly criticised the foreign policy, describing it as one of appeasement at the cost of national interests, sovereignty and honour….

Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal’s Prof Khurshid Ahmed immediately stood up to endorse most of the views expressed by the minister, and welcomed the “change of heart,” describing it as part of the change that had taken place in the wake of the July 20 landmark Supreme Court judgment....

Dr Niazi said in his speech that the key role Pakistan played in bringing about the downfall of the former Soviet Union was a blunder. It resulted in the emergence of a unipolar world and gave the US a licence to attack any country it wished, he said.

He said that American presidential candidates’ statements threatening Pakistan’s internal security were a reflection of the jaundiced thinking of US leaders who had forgotten lessons of history and the glorious past of Muslims.

Lashing out at the recent US law attaching strings to financial assistance to Pakistan, Dr Niazi described it as insulting and demanded that “we must return and refuse to accept such assistance”.

He said the country should learn to stand on its own feet by rejecting all foreign assistance as a proud Muslim nation....

The minister said that events which followed the 9/11 incident proved that it was the brainchild of Jews. He said that according to holy Quran, Jews and Christians could never be friends of Muslims.... -– from this article

The Pakistani minister, and many other Muslims, who simultaneously accuse "the Jews" or "the American Crusaders" of staging the 9.11.2001 attacks, and also express great delight at those very attacks, demonstrate how, all over the Dar al-Islam, the capacity for reason and logic is impaired.

The credulous acceptance of a Total System, with its Complete Regulation of Life and Explanation of the Universe (at no extra cost), the belief that one should never question Allah, and that one should never dare to recognize the contradictions in the Qur'an itself (but be satisfied with "naskh" or "abrogation"), and that one should never notice the 20% of the text that makes no real sense (see Christoph Luxenberg on that 20% that makes no sense), the ability to believe one thing and its opposite at the same time, or to find behind every failure of Muslim states and societies not the real reason for that failure, but the machinations of Infidels, the alacrity with which every crazy charge against those Infidels becomes deeply and truly believed, the incapacity for any degree of skepticism or lonely critical thought, the willingness to subject oneself to, or enroll oneself in, some collectivist enterprise, as if fearful of remaining an individual and eager for instruction and direction at every turn so as to be relieved of the need for thought or independent moral judgment -- all this characterizes Islam.

And one example of the sheer craziness that Islam encourages is that of the Pakistani minister above. But it is really no different with any of those who refuse to think for themselves and smilingly, brightly, like the young Muslim woman on the Islam segment of Christiane Amanpour's dreadfully misleading CNN thing, tell us how happy they are to return to the full faith. By the full faith, of course, they mean those Rules To Live By which make it all so very simple, don't they, if we all wish to be simpletons in our existence, and to take a seventh-century Arab-language Guide, fabricated out of many strands -- the pagan Arab lore, the bits and pieces of characters and stories lifted and distorted from Judaism and Christianity -- as the lodestar of our lives. It then becomes, supposedly, applicable for all time, despite the fact that it is merely a Guide to Seventh-Century Arabian Life. Its relevance and application are held to be eternal.

Those who are still capable of thought will be the most offended, to the precise degree that they are capable of that thought. About others, though, I'm not so sure. Some may like the idea of being zombies, directed in what they dress and eat and think and do, every single step of the way. Some may find it positively comforting.

LAHORE: The US State Department is launching what it says will be the first comprehensive public diplomacy effort targeting children, hoping to shape the views of Muslim youths ages 8 to 14 with a series of summer camps and enrichment programs designed to counter negative images of the US, The Boston Globe reported on Monday.

The report said the new initiative was the brainchild of Karen Hughes, a confidante of President Bush who has become the most powerful public-diplomacy czar in decades. Hughes has argued forcefully that the US government must reach out to children younger than age 14, a population the State Department has largely neglected because they are too young for traditional exchange programmes….

As a test of her idea, Hughes asked embassies in 14 Islamic countries this summer to come up with pilot programmes for that age bracket, and spent nearly $1 million on projects that involved about 6,000 youths and hundreds of local partnering organisations. Participants included more than 2,000 girls in Turkey who attended a basketball camp and 80 children from rural schools in Malaysia who learned about Thomas Jefferson and other US heroes on an American-style camping trip with embassy staff and families.

But the programmes also carry risks in nations with virulent anti-American sentiments, which are where most of the programmes are aimed. For example, 41 Iraqi students learned about baseball and the English language for three days this summer in Baghdad. A photo of the group meeting with US Ambassador Ryan Crocker hangs on the door of Hughes’s office at the State Department -- but it cannot be publicly released for fear that the children may be harmed by terrorists. -- from this article

How will 6,000 children, playing basketball and doing crafts, or 60,000 children, or 600,000 children, or 6 million, doing the same, all paid for by the long-suffering American taxpayer in a program that is called the "brainchild" -- presumably adopted -- of Karen Hughes, overcome what they or other children will constantly be fed from the Qur'an, the Hadith, the Sira?

What will be accomplished by giving Muslim children memories of nice camps paid for by nice Americans, with pictures of July Fourth picnics, and cowboys in Wyoming, and lobstermen in Maine -- you know, the kind of thing that the karen-hughses of this world think might be just the ticket to make Muslims "like us -- because they are just like us." (I made it up, it's not her idiotic slogan, but it just as well might be)?

Mission accomplished...for the hostage takers.

"Taleban 'agree to free hostages,'" from the BBC (thanks to Davida):

Taleban fighters have agreed to release 19 South Korean hostages held for more than five weeks in Afghanistan, the South Korean president's office says.

Spokesman Cheon Ho-seon said the agreement was reached on condition that Seoul withdrew its troops as scheduled from Afghanistan by the year's end.

The Taleban kidnapped 23 South Korean Christian charity workers from Ghazni province on 19 July.

They subsequently killed two male hostages, and released two women.

[...]

Mr Cheon also said South Korea had agreed to a ban on its nationals' Christian missionary work in the country.

And if they're living in sin, don't even get him started about you.

But note well: this is the appeal jihadists make to their fellow Muslims all over the world, and it has proven to be quite effective. Secular Muslims have never mounted an effective comeback.

"Indonesians live in sin: Bashir," from Agence France-Presse (thanks to Davida):

INDONESIAN Muslims are living in sin as long as they fail to implement Islamic law across the world's fourth largest nation, hardline cleric Abu Bakar Bashir said today.

"As long as we live in a secular state, Indonesian Muslims continue living in sin," the Muslim leader told some 200 participants attending a seminar on Islam and democracy.

Bashir heads the Indonesian Council of Mujahedin, an umbrella organisation advocating the implementation of Islamic or sharia law across Indonesia.

The Government permitted Aceh province to begin implementing Islamic law, and that was to pacify demands for independence. Some districts have also passed strict Islamic bylaws.

Bashir said that sharia was a non-negotiable matter and "we cannot act in a soft way in order to implement Islamic law".

"The Muslim community has an obligation to struggle to make a drastic change in support of Islamic law implementation," he said, without specifying how they should do this.

As long as the country did not adopt sharia, Muslims had to follow it in their personal lives, as well as in their groups, he added....

AFP tells us:

More than 90 per cent of Indonesia's 232 million people are Muslims, but most follow a more moderate version of Islam.

Whew! Glad to hear that. How long will it last?

"Amanpour's Apologia" from Investor's Business Daily is an excellent analysis of Christiane Amanpour's recent CNN travesty. This is just the kind of moral equivalence I take on in my book Religion of Peace?.

Global Jihad: CNN's chief apologist for Islam, Christiane Amanpour, has gone too far this time. Not content to just whitewash jihad, she says Jews and Christians are terrorists, too.

According to her new three-part series, "God's Warriors," militant Islamists are really no different than right-wing Christians or Jews. So who are we in the West to judge?

Of course, it's cultural relativism — and journalism — at its worst. What's stunning is the lack of evidence Amanpour provides to support her case.

That CNN would give her six prime-time hours to peddle such tendentious trash to a public still under real threat from Islamic terror speaks volumes about the network's agenda.

The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America slammed the series as "one of the most grossly distorted programs" ever aired on mainstream American TV.

CAMERA was being kind. Amanpour's premise that Christianity and Judaism have spawned just as many terrorists as Islam is absurd on its face.

To be sure, not all Muslims are terrorists. But the vast majority of terrorists are Muslim, or at least claim to be Muslim. Almost all international terror is carried out, falsely or not, in the name of Islam. The data are simply overwhelming.

In contrast, history has produced only a handful of fanatics who commit violence in the name of Christianity or Judaism. Those who do are summarily arrested and punished.

They aren't held up as martyrs. There are no U.S. posters celebrating abortion clinic bombers, or Israeli history books canonizing Jewish settlers who attack Palestinians.

But Amanpour, an Iranian immigrant whose father is a Muslim, wants to change that reality.

She and her Islamic apologist pal Karen Armstrong — a "scholar" she returns to throughout her "documentary" — sugar-coat jihad as inner struggle against sin and not warfare. If you want militancy, they argue, look no further than fundamentalist Christians.

Read it all, and see also "Christiane vs. Christians and Jews" by the estimable Dr. Phyllis Chesler.

Still more fantasy-based analysis. (Thanks to Paul.)

Is Gul really a former Islamist?

We shall see, and soon.

It would be interesting to know how exactly this Al-Qaeda Qur'an has been "revised." After all, the original contains enough exhortations to violence as it is.

"Slay the unbelievers wherever you find them" is, of course, sura 9:5. What can you possibly add to that to intensify it? Before breaking out that old wheeze that I am "taking it out of context," please consult my Qur'an blog for plenty of evidence that this verse is by no means alone.

Maybe Al-Qaeda is distributing Saudi Qur'ans that have commentary embedded within the translated text, in parentheses. Much was made of these a few years ago, because one of the glosses added in "like the Jews and Christians" into sura 1, the Fatiha, where it asks Allah not to allow the one praying to be among those who have earned his anger or gone astray. But this was comforting only to those who wanted to believe that the book's overall message was peaceful, and that Al-Qaeda and the Saudis were adding in the material that was inciting Islamic jihad violence. Alas, that is not the case. Even without these glosses in the Fatiha, in the Qur'an the Jews have earned Allah’s anger by rejecting Muhammad (2:87-90), and the Christians have gone astray by holding to the divinity of Christ (5:72).

"Al Qaida clerics distributing revised editions of Koran," from the World Tribune (thanks to Jcom):

ABU DHABI — Qatar has banned the import and distribution of unauthorized Korans.

Officials said the Islamic Affairs Ministry has ordered mosques and clerics to use only Korans and other Islamic text approved by the government, Middle East Newsline reported. They said Al Qaida-aligned clerics have employed Korans revised to promote the doctrine of Islamic war against the West.

"This is one of several measures by the ministry to ensure that no copies of the Koran that contains mistakes would be circulated in the country," Mohammed Bin Hamad Ajlan Al Kuwari, director of inspections at the ministry, said.

But the only evidence we get in this piece of how these Qur'ans have been altered is that some parts have been not added, as the Book of Peace crowd might expect, but removed:

Officials acknowledged that Korans revised by Al Qaida-aligned clerics have been distributed in Qatar. They said some of chapters in the Islamic text were removed....

An American Expat in Southeast Asia (thanks to LHM) says that the Indonesian translation of Barak Obama's book changes the title from The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming The American Dream, which has a perfectly straightforward translation, to Assault Hope: From Jakarta to the White House. American Expat says this has connotations, for Indonesians, of jihad.

I have no way of knowing how accurate this is. If anyone knows Bahasa Indonesia, please weigh in with your thoughts. And of course, if it is true, it reflects not on Barak Obama but on Indonesian attitudes -- indicating that they may be hoping, as I speculated here, that he will become America's first Muslim President (as Clinton was famously America's first black President).

What do you think?

The Guirard/Waller school would have us believe that if we pretend Jihad is not Jihad, but rather, as the Saudis keep pushing them to believe and disseminate, "hiraba," that all manner of things shall be well.

For, the Al-Saud whisper to us, we have had remarkable success in re-educating our own local Al-Qaada members. Why, just as soon as we manage to convince them that what Al Qaeda does here is called properly not "Jihad" but "hiraba," why, they are ready to see the error of their past ways.

But the Army is warning that it will not allow secularism to die quietly. "Gul set for Turkish president," from AFP (thanks to JE):

Abdullah Gul is set to become Turkey's first Islamist head of state as he is expected to become the president of the secular republic today.

Foreign Minister Gul, 56, is all but certain to secure victory in Tuesday's third round of voting in which the winner needs a simple majority of 276 votes in the 550-member parliament.

The ruling Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) is expected to easily overcome that barrier with its 340 seats, after falling short of the two-thirds majority required to elect the president in the first two rounds of voting last week.

Mr Gul's election will be a major victory for the Islamist-rooted AKP and is expected top end months of political tension with secularist forces, which blocked the minister's first bid for the presidency in April on grounds of his Islamist roots.

Opponents charge that the AKP, the moderate off-shoot of a banned Islamist party, has a secret agenda to replace Turkey's secular order with an Iranian-style regime and will have a free hand to implement its plan with Mr Gul at the presidency.

Hardline secularists are also irritated by the fact that Mr Gul's wife wears the Islamic headscarf, which they see as a symbol of defiance of the secular system.

'Threat to secular structure'

The head of the Turkish army, which played a major role in blocking Mr Gul's first run for the presidency, on Monday warned of "centres of evil" seeking to undermine the country's constitutional regime.

"Our nation has been watching the behaviour... centres of evil who are trying to systematically erode the country's secular structure," Yasar Buyukanit said in a written message Monday, which made no mention of Tuesday's parliamentary vote.

The army will not "be deterred by such attacks," he said.

"The Turkish Armed Forces will not make any concessions ... in its duty of guarding the Turkish Republic, a secular and social state based on the rule of law," Mr Buyukanit added.

The pediatrician Dr. Mohammad Rasool didn't get the memo. Doesn't he know that poverty causes terrorism?

"Dr arrested for suspected links with Al-Qaeda movement," from Online News (thanks to Gabrielle Goldwater):

CHAKANDRA: Security agencies in a raid at the residence of the house of prominent doctor here have recovered 6 suicide jackets and explosive materials.

Security agencies early Monday morning raided the house of child specialist Dr Mohammad Rasool and arrested him along with his wife and son and recovered 6 suicide jackets and explosive materials from his house.

The security agencies had received information that Al-Qaeda leader Mohammad Yousaf was residing at the Doctor’s house. However he fled prior to the raid.

The stated goals for "victory in Iraq" make no sense. Should the goal of Americans and other Infidels be to create a functioning state (with cigars passed around for the final birth of a happy, healthy, baby boy, after such a difficult pregnancy)? In any case this is impossible, with Allawi or Jaafari or Maliki or anyone at all, given that Islam itself is what prevents compromises and encourages continued aggression between Sunni and Shi'a. Both have taken from Islam the lesson that there can only be, after any conflict, only two possible conditions: that of Victor and that of Vanquished.

"Victory in Iraq" properly defined means a situation that justifies the expenditure of some $880 billion dollars (including in that figure the lifetime cost of care for the wounded veterans, and other expenses not yet factored in even by those, such as General MacCaffrey, who are critics of the war but inattentive to the real cost). That is more than the cost of all the wars, save World War II, that the United States has ever fought, in 2007 dollars. It must also justify the deaths of 3,700 soldiers and the severe wounding of 25,000. Bush's notion that the outcome of a unified Iraq is a better one for the United States than one in which Sunnis and Shi'a, at one level or another, continue to fight, is unfounded. Who knows? Who can predict exactly how they will or will not handle one another once the Americans leave? What's more, who can say what will happen when co-religionists on both sides line up behind their fellows in Iraq? That means primarily Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and the Sunnis cheerfully waved off by the Alawite rulers of Syria, on the Sunni side, and on the Shi'a side, the grim Islamic Republic of Iran, with its Al Quds Revolutionary Guards, and of course its handmaidens in Hizballah, whom all kinds of sensible people in Lebanon would love to see stream off as volunteers, screaming their devotion to Allah, to Iraq to defend their own faith from those terrible Sunnis.

Rome, 21 August (AKI) - Italy's Foreign Ministry has instructed the country's embassy in Cairo to monitor closely the plight of an Egyptian man, Mohammed Hegazi, who has received death threats following his conversion from Islam to Christianity. -- from this article

This is thanks to a handful of people -- to Oriana Fallaci, and more recently, to the writings and appearances on the RAI of the fearless Magdi Allam. Allam was born and raised in Egypt by parents who called themselves Muslims, were quietly pious, and sent him to Christian schools. Then he left Egypt for Italy, where he received his higher -- in all senses -- education, in and out of university, married an Italian girl, and now is a vice-director, I believe, of the Corriere della Sera. He appears frequently on the RAI (the state-owned television, of which there are three variants, Rai Uno, Rai Due, Rai Tre).

Magdi Allam has written several important books. Two are directly about Islam. The first is "Vincere La Paura" (Conquering Fear), a book which includes a "Lettera aperta a Oriana Fallaci" (in which Allam takes issue with her sweeping dismissal of Islam -- I think he does so wrongly) and a more convincing "Lettera aperta a Tariq Ramadan." Magdi Allam knows Ramadan, and from what he comes, perfectly, and dismembers him before your very eyes.

Wearing a burqa, evidently.

This is more evidence of the international character of the jihad, belying claims that various jihads around the world are merely local insurgencies.

"Russian man arrested in Afghanistan over terrorism suspicions," from ITAR-TASS (thanks to Twostellas):

ISLAMABAD, August 28 (Itar-Tass) -- A Russian citizen has been arrested in Afghanistan as a suspected associate of terrorists, the Iranian hews agency IRNA reported on Monday.

It said the man identified as Andrei, who professes Islam, and two citizens of Afghanistan had been arrested in the province of Paktia near the border with Pakistan.

A representatives of the Paktia authorities said they had been arrested after about 500 kilograms of explosives had been found in their automobile.

The Russian man allegedly told police he had entered Afghanistan from Pakistan after trips to Egypt, Turkey, and Iran. He planned to travel to Tajikistan from Afghanistan and then to Russia.

According to police, all three men were wearing women’s clothes.

Discussing the book Religion of Peace? and, you know, whatever. Tomorrow's schedule:

All times PDT:

3:35 AM Michael Graham Show WTKK

6:40 AM KZIM Morning Meeting

7:05 AM The Francene Show WHAS

9:00 AM Dennis Miller Show

1:00 PM George Putnam Show

Why more Muslims don't speak out forthrightly against the jihadists. From AP:

A suicide bomber detonated an explosives belt among worshippers at evening prayers Monday in Fallujah, killing nine people, including the mosque preacher who had been an outspoken opponent of al-Qaida, police said....

The main target was beliebed to be the preacher Abdul Sattar al-Jumaili, whose two sons were also killed. Al-Jumaili had returned to Fallujah from Syria the day before. Police said he often visited Syria because he was on an al-Qaida death list.

What have they been fighting up to now? "Pakistan’s Islamist press calls for jihad," by Praveen Swami for The Hindu:

NEW DELHI: Pakistan’s Islamist media published a series of explicit calls for violence against India in the six weeks before the Hyderabad bombings — a development that analysts believe reflects the weakening of General Pervez Musharraf’s regime, and raises fears of a renewed wave of terror strikes.

In an editorial published in the Jamaat-e-Islami-affiliated Daily Jasarat’s August 19 Friday supplement, the newspaper demanded that the “slogan of jihad should reverberate in every nook and corner of Pakistan. If Pakistan allows jihadis to infiltrate into India then Kashmir could be liberated in six months.”

“Within a couple of years,” the newspaper asserted, “the rest of the territories of India could be conquered as well, and we can regain our lost glory. We can bring back the era of Mughal rule. We can once again subjugate the Hindus like our forefathers.”

Yet so many, in India and the West, continue to delude themselves that this subjugation is not part of the jihadist agenda.

If history teaches anything, it teaches that self delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly. -- Ronald Reagan

No kidding. "Turkey military: Secularism under attack," by Christopher Torchia for the Associated Press:

ISTANBUL, Turkey - Turkey's military issued a stern warning on Monday about the threat to secularism on the eve of an expected triumph of the Islamic-oriented government: the election of a loyal — and devout — president.

There were no signs that the military planned to disrupt Parliament's vote on Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, but the statement describing "the centers of evil" arrayed against secular Turkey was a reminder of its past interventions to enforce the separation of mosque and state. This time, the military is dealing with a government that renewed its mandate in a resounding election victory in July and an emboldened prime minister who has urged the generals to stay out of politics.

Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, chief of the military, said in a note on the military's Web site: "Our nation has been watching the behavior of those separatists who can't embrace Turkey's unitary nature and centers of evil that systematically try to corrode the secular nature of the Turkish Republic."

The military often condemns separatist rebels who have been fighting for decades in the predominantly Kurdish region of southeast Turkey. But the potent reference to "centers of evil" and the timing of the announcement just before the presidential election suggested the conflict over the role of Islam in politics was its immediate concern.

The military, which has ousted four civilian governments since 1960, said its statement was issued to mark the 85th anniversary on Aug. 30 of a military victory that was crucial for the establishment of modern Turkey.

Gul, whose earlier bid to win election as president was blocked by the secular establishment because of concerns about his background in political Islam, was expected to win the post on Tuesday. He has pledged to uphold secular principles enshrined in the constitution, and to use his contacts in foreign capitals to promote Turkey's role on the international stage.

The military-backed secular establishment, however, fears Gul is so loyal to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that he would not use the presidency's veto powers as a traditional check on the government. The secular incumbent, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, vigorously used his authority to block the promotion of officials deemed to have Islamic leanings.

"Nefarious plans to ruin Turkey's secular and democratic nature emerge in different forms everyday," Buyukanit said in his statement. "The military will, just as it has so far, keep its determination to guard social, democratic and secular Turkey."

"War is deceit" - Muhammad (Bukhari 4.52.267)

By Chris Brummitt for the Associated Press:

KABUL, Afghanistan - The U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan accused Taliban militants Monday of falsely reporting civilian casualties to discredit Afghan and international forces. Six insurgents and two foreign soldiers, meanwhile, were killed in fresh fighting.

The U.S.-led coalition made the claim Monday after Afghan elders alleged that up to 18 civilians were killed late Sunday by coalition troops in Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold.

Capt. Vanessa R. Bowman, a coalition spokeswoman, said credible intelligence suggested the claims were fabricated as part of a propaganda war. "The insurgents continue to follow their pattern of falsely reporting civilian casualties," she said.

NATO-led forces, whose operations in Helmand are being supported by U.S.-led coalition troops and aircraft, insist that no noncombatants were killed in the fighting. The claims could not be independently verified due to the remoteness of the area where the clash took place.

Reports of civilian casualties at the hands of foreign forces are highly sensitive in Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly deplored such deaths, saying they undermine efforts to win the trust of the people.

Sunni-Shi'ite Jihad Update. "Extremists target Iraqi Shiite pilgrims," by David Rising for the Associated Press:

BAGHDAD - A sniper killed a Shiite pilgrim on a Baghdad bridge Monday while another was killed and six injured in other attacks as tens of thousands of faithful made their way to the southern city of Karbala for a major religious commemoration.

[...]

Iraqi security forces have mounted a major operation to protect Shiite pilgrims. Sunni religious extremists, including al-Qaida in Iraq, have launched massive and deadly attacks against pilgrims during Shiite celebrations in the past.

Despite the security measures, one pilgrim was shot on Baghdad's Jadiriyah bridge and gunmen hiding in an orchard south of the capital opened fire on another group, killing one and injuring three others.

Three more pilgrims were injured when gunmen blasted them in a drive-by shooting in southwestern Baghdad and police prevented another attack, defusing two roadside bombs planted along the route to Karbala in Musayyib, about 40 miles south of Baghdad, officials said.

More than a million Shiites from throughout the world were expected to converge on the Shiite holy city for the celebrations, which reach their high point late Tuesday and early Wednesday. The Shabaniyah festival marks the birth of Mohammed al-Mahdi, the 12th and last Shiite imam who disappeared in the 9th century.

"The women are not used to playing in hijab. I am very glad that the women tried it and it was fine. What is most important is the music." Is it really?

"German orchestra in Iran on landmark visit," from AFP (thanks to Morgaan Sinclair):

A German orchestra arrived in Tehran on Monday, defying increasing political tensions to give the first performances in Iran by a full Western classical ensemble since the Islamic revolution in 1979.

The Osnabrueck Symphony Orchestra from northwestern Germany will play works by Beethoven, Brahms and Elgar in Tehran this week following a successful visit by the Tehran Symphony Orchestra to their town last year.

The German orchestra, whose female players will have to wear Islamic headscarves to obey Iran's dress code, will be boosted by six Iranian musicians for the concerts.

The orchestra's directors were at pains to emphasise their visit would not stray into politics and was purely aimed at increasing cultural understanding between Iran and the West.

"My wish is to show the peoples of both our countries that there is no need to fear one another and it is a great pleasure to get to know one another," said the director of Osnabrueck's summer festival, Michael Dreyer.

"I hope that it will be increasingly normal to have cultural exchanges between Iran and Germany and the Western world," he told reporters after arriving in Tehran.

Dreyer said he had rejected a request by three German MPs to join the tour in order to keep the trip focused on music and not politics. The trip has been fully coordinated with Iran's ministry of culture and Islamic guidance....

The German orchestra brushed off the constraint of giving the concerts with their female players wearing Islamic headscarves, saying they had worn the garments during rehearsals in Germany in preparation.

"The women are not used to playing in hijab. I am very glad that the women tried it and it was fine. What is most important is the music," said conductor Hermann Baeumer.

"Captain Vanessa Bowman said the military had been unaware of the sensitivity of the issue." Indeed. There is so much about Islam and jihad about which they are unaware. And is that really excusable given today's world climate? An update on this story.

By Hamid Shalizi for Reuters (thanks to JE):

THE US military in Afghanistan has expressed regret over a campaign aimed at winning hearts and minds but which offended scores of Muslims when it dropped dozens of soccer balls bearing the name of Allah and the prophet Mohammed from helicopters.

The idea of kicking something bearing their names is considered deeply offensive to Muslims.

"This ball ... carries a message with it which, like an atom bomb, can cause carnage and insecurity in all parts of Afghanistan,'' a leading Afghan newspaper, Cheragh, said today.

US troops on Friday dropped dozens of free footballs for soccer-mad Afghan children from helicopters in an area of southeastern Afghanistan, all marked with flags of various countries.

But the balls depicted the Saudi Arabian flag, which features the Islamic declaration of faith and includes the names of Allah and the prophet Mohammed.

Fawad Ahmad, a shopkeeper in Kabul, said: "Americans themselves create insecurity by ignoring religious sensitivity, it is against Islam."

A spokeswoman for the US military in Afghanistan said the ball distribution was part of a goodwill humanitarian aid mission ... for the enjoyment of Afghan children''.

Captain Vanessa Bowman said the military had been unaware of the sensitivity of the issue.

"We do regret any disturbances caused,'' she said today.

What madness has overtaken us? "U.S. sponsors Islamic convention," by Audrey Hudson in the Washington Times (thanks to all who sent this in):

The Justice Department is co-sponsoring a convention held by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) — an unindicted co-conspirator in an ongoing federal terrorist funding case — a move that is raising concerns among the Justice's rank and file.

Justice lawyers have objected to the affiliation with ISNA, fearing it will undermine the case against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development in Dallas.

"There is outrage among lawyers that the Department of Justice is funding a group named as a co-conspirator in a terrorist financing case," said a Justice lawyer who spoke to The Washington Times on the condition of anonymity.

According to an e-mail from Susana Lorenzo-Giguere, acting deputy chief of the Voting Rights Division, the sponsorship will involve sending government lawyers to man a booth for the Labor Day weekend event in Illinois.

Holy Land, the IAP, and CAIR: all working for the same goal. "Muslim charity trial may shed new light on terror aid," by David Koenig for Associated Press (thanks to all who sent this in):

DALLAS — Prosecutors have produced scores of documents, audio and videotapes, and intercepted phone calls in their attempt to prove that a Muslim charity based in a suburban Dallas office park was actually a fundraising arm of Middle Eastern terrorists.

Much of the evidence has surfaced before in books, newspaper articles and previous trials. But those who track terror-financing say the document haul from the trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development has also produced new information.

They say the documents shed light on a web of related organizations of militant Palestinian supporters in the United States, some of whom saw their goal as destroying Western civilization.

The 1991 bylaws of a group called the Palestine Committee say it was created to be the highest authority on "work for the Palestinian cause on the American front." The committee was led by Mousa Abu Marzook, later deported to Jordan and labeled a terrorist by the U.S. government.

The committee oversaw a number of former and current Muslim organizations in the United States.

One was Holy Land, which was shut down in December 2001 and is accused of being a fundraising front for Hamas. Five of its former leaders are on trial in Dallas, charged with sending more than $12 million in illegal aid to Hamas.

Another was the Islamic Association for Palestine, which closed in 2004 after a federal judge found it and then-defunct Holy Land liable in the killing of an American teenager in Israel by Hamas gunmen.

And a third was the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, which has emerged as a leading advocacy group for American Muslims.

For the first time, evidence in the case put CAIR's founder, Nihad Awad, at a Philadelphia meeting of alleged Hamas supporters that was secretly watched and recorded by the FBI.

The groups had overlapping rosters of leaders. Documents introduced by prosecutors in the Holy Land trial list several of the charity's leaders as officials in the Islamic Association for Palestine....

"It's clear these groups grew out of an effort to carry out a specific strategy in the United States," Farah said. "It's in their own words, it's a political infiltration that worked for 40 years."

Parvez Ahmed, chairman of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, denied that his group or its current or former leaders had any ties to Hamas.

"That's one of those urban legends about CAIR," he said. "It's fed by the right-wing, pro-Israeli blogosphere."

Gee, thanks, Parvez. But here again, one wonders how the right-wing, pro-Israeli blogosphere was able to forge all these documents and bring them to the attention of the HLF prosecutors. I thought Dan Rather was the go-to guy for forgeries, and I doubt he'd be helpful in this case.

Here again, all the CAIR spokesman does is smear the truth-tellers, rather than deal with the evidence.

Ahmed said the Philadelphia gathering attended by CAIR's founder "was an open meeting of Palestinian activists who came together to discuss the Olso peace accords and their struggle to gain a homeland."...

One of the documents is a memo about the goals for the U.S. organization of the U.S. faction of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose members included some of the Holy Land leaders now on trial.

The memo's writer, Mohamed Akram, wrote that members of the Brotherhood "must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within."

Hmmm. Let's see. What might be one effective way to do that? How about by vilifying and smearing as a "bigot" anyone who tells the truth about Islamic jihad and tries to defend Western civilization? And by going so far as to bring suit against people who dare to try to keep terrorists off airplanes? All the while gaining the ear of government, law enforcement, and media by claiming the mantle of civil rights victimhood?

A workable strategy, to be sure. And one that has been fantastically effective.

Verses 17-28 of Sura 4, “Women,” continues with various regulations for marriage and the treatment of women. Verses 17-18 continue the call to repentance in v. 16 by warning that Allah will only accept repentance from those who sinned out of ignorance, and will not look kindly upon deathbed changes of heart. Then v. 19 forbids the inheriting of women against their will, and enjoins men not to treat them harshly in order to get them to forfeit part or all of their dowry – “unless they be guilty of flagrant lewdness.” Aisha, Muhammad’s favorite wife, recounts according to Mishkat al-Masabih that Muhammad said: “The best of you is he who is best towards his wife, and I am the best towards my wives.”

Verses 20-21 continue with these exhortations toward just treatment, telling men that if they have decided to “exchange one wife for another,” they must not take back the dowry they have given to the wife who is to be discarded. Verses 22-25 prohibit marriage with various women who are related by blood or marriage.

V. 23 refers to “foster mothers,” or more literally “mothers who suckled you,” as being among those with whom marriage is forbidden. Men and women who are not related are forbidden by Islamic law to be alone together, but a man and a woman who are forbidden to marry each other – i.e., who are related in some way – can be alone together. Once a woman came to Muhammad and told him that her husband, Abu Hadhaifa, was angry because a freed slave of his, a young man who had reached puberty, “enters our house freely.” Muhammad told her: “Suckle him and you would become unlawful for him, and (the rankling) which Abu Hudhaifa feels in his heart will disappear.” The woman later reported that it worked: “So I suckled him, and what (was there) in the heart of Abu Hudhaifa disappeared.” This directive gained worldwide attention recently when a cleric at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, the most respected authority in Sunni Islam, recommended that this could solve a problem in the workplace: a man could be alone with, and work with, a woman with whom he was not related, if the woman suckled the man and thereby became his foster mother. After the story got out and Al-Azhar was subjected to international ridicule, the lecturer who recommended this was suspended. Left unaddressed, however, was the root of his recommendation in the words of Muhammad himself.

Multiculturalism trumps feminism. "Cautious criticism: A Growing Number Of Activists Are Hesitant To Decry Female Genital Mutilation," by Zosia Bielski in the National Post (thanks to all who sent this in):

Academia's fixation on cultural sensitivity is changing the debate around female genital mutilation, with a growing number of professors and women's rights activists becoming hesitant to condemn the practice.

Where feminists rallied against the operation from the pages of Ms. magazine in the 1970s, today's critics are infinitely more cautious, with most suggesting that the Western world butt out until Muslim African communities are ready to reconsider what they are doing to their daughters.

The shift in attitudes about the practice-- which in the worst of cases involves the carving out of a woman's clitoris and inner labia and can cause lifelong urinary tract infections, sterility and even death -- comes at a time when high-profile victims of the operation such as writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali and model Waris Dirie, both Somalis, have launched very public campaigns against the practice.

The issue is so explosive, it has two names -- female genital mutilation, or FGM, to those most vociferously opposed to the practice; and female genital cutting, or FGC, to those in the less-condemning camp.

The latter includes the chair of anthropology at the University of Toronto, who has written a new book on the subject. Although not prepared to defend what she calls FGC, Janice Boddy defends women who undergo the operation and want the practice to continue in future generations.

"There are good reasons within the society for the operation to continue, but these are cultural reasons. They are not scientific ones," says Prof. Boddy, author of Civilizing Women: British Crusades in Colonial Sudan.

Working through British and Sudanese archives, she looks at the history of FGC in that country, particularly European colonial interactions with the practice, from British nurses attempting to re-educate Sudanese midwives in the 1920s, to the country's outlawing of the practice in 1946 amid Western pressure.

"It isn't a happy situation by any means. I wouldn't want it to continue. But I think that up until this point, the West has not been particularly helpful in the way that it's gone about trying to assist in the eradication," Prof. Boddy says.

Of course, it's the West's fault. What isn't?

The BBC didn't see fit to take note of the new occupants until the 9th paragraph of this story. "Troops withdraw from Basra base," from the BBC (thanks to John):

British forces have withdrawn from a base in Basra they shared with Iraqi police - the first step in a plan to move out all troops based in the city.

Another 500 troops will now pull back from Saddam Hussein's former palace, their only remaining base in the city....

Then follow many details, and finally Paragraph Nine:

The British military spokesman in Basra has dismissed reports that Shia militia men from the Mahdi Army took over the base after British forces passed control to Iraqi police last night.

Witnesses told the Associated Press the Mahdi Army emptied the building taking generators, computers, furniture and even cars.

Major Michael Shearer told the BBC News website that officers from the Multi-National Force spoke to the local Iraqi Army commander who "assured us that the PJCC is under his control and being efficiently run by the Iraqi Army. He also stated that all the equipment remains within the PJCC".

An MoD spokesman said there was a green Shia flag flying on the building, but not the black flag associated with the Mahdi Army....

An update on this story. " Boy Confesses to Assaulting Ex-Muslim Jami," from NIS News (thanks to John):

THE HAGUE, 25/08/07 - A 17 year old boy on Friday confessed to assaulting Ehsan Jami.

The teenager from Leidschendam stated to an investigating judge that he beat and kicked Jami on 4 August. He was however released because the judge did not find the assault serious enough to justify an extension of his pre-trial custody.

Police arrested the 17 year old Muslim on Thursday based on statements provided by Jami. He said three boys attacked him. The other two are still being sought....

Note also the last line of the piece:

Various media had suggested in the past weeks that Jami may have invented the assaults.

Typical. If you speak out against the violations of human rights codified by Islamic Sharia, and against the Islamic Supremacist ideology in general, prepare to have your life threatened and your character assassinated.

Islamic Tolerance Alert: more on the persecution of Christians in Iraq. By Sahar Al-Haideri in the Miami Herald (thanks to Elias):

MOSUL, Iraq -- They have been threatened because of their religious faith, their distinctive clothing and their success in business. They have been killed because of a Danish cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammad.

Many have sought safety by fleeing to the countryside, north to Kurdish-controlled territory or abroad to Syria.

They have seen their churches bombed, their clergy murdered and community members threatened with kidnappings.

The Christians of Mosul, once a substantial and predominantly middle-class community, have suffered the same fate as most other Iraqi citizens.

Christians are hardly the only religious minority under attack, as witnessed by this week's coordinating bombings against members of the Yazidis community, which left more than 250 dead.

But their religious faith has made them especially vulnerable in a city where the rule of law is non-existent and Islamic militant intimidate and kill with impunity.

''Life has become difficult in Mosul,'' said Ilham Sabah, a Christian attorney who conceals her faith by wearing a veil. ``The militants threaten Christian women; they set them on fire or kill them if they refuse to wear Islamic dress as Muslim women do.

''We only have one choice, and that is to flee Mosul and the hell created by the militants,'' she said.

"I did not desert the force because I feared death, but I was not sure whether the fighting in tribal district Waziristan was Islamic or not." This is yet another indication of the fact that Al-Qaeda and other jihadists are not repudiated by all too many other Muslims. It also shows why the jihadist appeal to peaceful Muslims on the basis of Islamic purity meets with such success.

"Scores of Pak soldiers desert forces," from the Times of India (thanks to all who sent this in):

ISLAMABAD: Scores of Pakistani soldiers have deserted the security forces deployed in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, mainly because they were not sure whether fighting against their 'own people' was morally right, media reports said on Saturday.

"I did not desert the force because I feared death, but I was not sure whether the fighting in tribal district Waziristan was Islamic or not," a soldier from paramilitary Frontier Corps told the Daily Times.

The man, who recently refused to serve in tribal areas, claimed the same question was haunting many other soldiers and the confusion was stopping them from "putting up a tough fight" against the Taliban and Al-Qaida elements in the area. Pro-Taliban militiamen pulled out of peace treaties with the government after troops stormed the Lal Masjid in the capital on July 10, and launched a series of raids on security forces.

He confirmed the desertions but insisted these should be ignored as "insignificant incidents”. "Small-scale desertion takes place in any force and in any country for one reason or another," Arshad told the newspaper.

However, six soldiers from only one suburb of Peshawar, the capital of North-West Frontier Province, have deserted the Frontier Corps. The force is the first line of defence of around 90,000 troops deployed along the country’s western border against militants launching attacks at international forces in Afghanistan.

The "blasphemous ball," May 2006 version

I predicted that this ball would cause trouble in May 2006, although the one pictured in the May 2006 story differs slightly from the one pictured in this BBC story: the Israeli flag pictured near the Saudi flag on the May 2006 ball seems to have been removed. But that, as this story shows, has not calmed hair-trigger tempers.

By Alastair Leithead for the BBC (thanks to all who sent this in):

A demonstration has been held in south- east Afghanistan accusing US troops of insulting Islam after they distributed footballs bearing the name of Allah.

The balls showed the Saudi Arabian flag which features the Koranic declaration of faith.

The US military said the idea had been to give something for Afghan children to enjoy and they did not realise it would cause offence.

The footballs were dropped from a helicopter in Khost province.

Some displayed flags from countries all over the world, including Saudi Arabia, which features the shahada, one of the five pillars of Islam - the declaration of faith.

The words, which include the name of Allah, are revered, and Muslims are very sensitive about where and how they can be used.

As Charles at LGF says: “Sensitive,” in this case, being defined as “prone to murderous rage.”

Radio interviews for the book Religion of Peace? are winding down now, but there will still be a few tomorrow and this coming week. Tomorrow's schedule:

All times PDT:

6:00 AM Wake Up Call WFTW

7:10 AM Bill Meyer KMED

7:50 AM The Right Balance

8:00 AM Mornings on the Dove KDOV

9:00 AM Mike Rosen Show KOA

11:00 AM Point of View with Kerby Anderson (USA Radio Network)

12:00 PM The Flip Side Rightalk Radio

5:00 PM Frank Pastore Show KKLA

5:35 PM: Michael Reagan Show

"Hamas' new cartoon hero," from the Associated Press:

After killing off its Mickey Mouse look-alike, Hamas has turned to another Disney character - televising a cartoon with a "Lion King" wannabe to portray the Islamic group's victory in the Gaza Strip over the Fatah movement.

The cartoon depicts Fatah members as sneaky rats, brandishing guns and being showered with U.S. dollars, while Hamas is portrayed as a confident, calm lion that resembles Simba in the 1994 Walt Disney Co. Movie "The Lion King."

The five-minute video, titled "A message to the criminal gangs in the occupied West Bank," is the second production of the Hamas-run al-Aqsa TV enlisting a famous Disney character.

In May, Hamas TV used a Mickey Mouse knockoff to preach Islamic domination to children. After an uproar among Israelis and Palestinians, that character was killed off and his weekly show replaced.

Hazem Sharawi, an executive with Hamas TV, said the cartoon of the lion vanquishing the rats was broadcast Thursday but quickly pulled off the air for revisions. He said it was "flashed" For one day to counter what he called anti-Hamas propaganda coming from Fatah in the West Bank.

The cartoon also was posted on the website of the Middle East Media Research Institute, a Washington-based group that monitors the Arabic media.

'Viewers loved it'

The piece shows rats trampling over Gaza, burning houses, stepping over homes, uprooting trees, firing at mosques and desecrating the Quran, Islam's holy book.

Their leader is clearly a portrayal of Fatah's former Gaza strongman, Mohammed Dahlan, who has fled Gaza. Wearing a tie and smoking a cigar, the chief rat grabs a microphone and tells the crowd: "Move back and let Hamas shoot me." Dahlan made that comment during the showdown with Hamas, and his voice is dubbed into the scene.

Throughout the video, the lion silently watches the rats, preparing his claws and shaking his mane. When he pounces, the rats flee in terror as he knocks them about with his claws. Injured and limping rats then say: "Off to the West Bank."

"Shahid is reported to be in Karachi..." Now that's interesting. I'm sure our Friend and Ally Pakistan will be very helpful in this matter.

"HuJI behind blasts in Hyderabad: Centre," from PTI (thanks to all who sent this in):

NEW DELHI: Central security agencies on Saturday night said that banned Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islami militant outfit of Bangladesh was possibly behind the twin blast in Hyderabad in which 30 people were killed.

Sources in New Delhi said that there could be similarities between the explosives used in Mecca Masjid blast in Hyderabad in May this year and tonight's explosion.

It was suspected that Shahid and Bilal, who were the masterminds of the Meacca Masjid blast, were also behind tonight's explosion.

Shahid is reported to be in Karachi and is instrumental in bringing people for arms training from Hyderabad.

From Iranian Press TV:

A bomb hidden under a bench in front of a food shop killed one person and wounded 10 others in Thailand's restive Muslim south.

The remote-controlled device exploded Saturday, while Buddhist Thais were waiting to give food to monks in the town of Pattani in one of three southernmost provinces where more than 2,500 people have been killed in violence since 2004 police said.

Two civilians were seriously wounded while the shop owner was killed.

The other wounded included monks and soldiers escorting them.

Nobody claims responsibility for the daily gun or bomb attacks in the far south, annexed by predominately Buddhist Thailand a century ago.

Eighty percent of the local population are Muslim, ethnic Malay and do not speak Thai as a first language.

Any bets on who did this? Congregationalists? Zarathustrians? Overzealous Jehovah Witnesses?

That's for sure -- oh, wait, that's not what he meant.

From the Pakistan Daily Times:

LAHORE: 9/11 has brought Americans closer to Islam, since the Americans started studying Islam after the bloody attacks and realised that Islam was a peaceful religion, said Walter Russell Mead on Saturday.

Mr Mead, who has never learned the meaning of the term "irony," spent the next twenty minutes insisting that his comment was serious.

The US foreign policy expert and Henry Kissinger Senior Fellow for the US Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations was speaking at Jamia Ashrafia on ‘The Influence of Religion on the US Foreign Policy’.

The good ol' CFR: "Making the world safe for jihad."

Osama was not a true leader of Islam and his acts were against the teachings of Islam, he said. Mead said as far as war on terror was concerned, the American Muslims were not a problem, but a solution, since they could act as a bridge between Islam and West. Answering a question regarding the US support for military regime, he said there was not true democracy in Pakistan and the United States wanted to see Pakistan a truly democratic Muslim state with better socio-economic conditions. Religion was never a controversial issue in the world and religious education was being given everywhere, including the US, Mead said.

What planet was this talk given on? "Religion was never a controversial issue"? You can't make this stuff up.

"Fla. Televangelist Loses Show After Muslims Complain," from WFTV:

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- A Christian televangelist who harshly criticizes Islam and other religions said Friday that his late-night program is being pulled off the air because of pressure from a Muslim group.

Earlier this month, officials from the Council on American Islamic Relations wrote a letter to the TV station's owners asking for an investigation of the show it broadcasts, "Live Prayer with Bill Keller."

In a May 2 broadcast, the televangelist said Islam was a "1,400-year-old lie from the pits of hell" and called the Prophet Mohammed a "murdering pedophile." He also called the Koran a "book of fables and a book of lies."

None of what is quoted rises to the level of incitement to violence or other illegal activity. Additionally, network officials should ask themselves what sort of precedent they are setting, and if they would now forbid strongly worded criticisms of any religion.

Council officials asked for equal air time for Florida Muslims to counter Keller's comments, but never got the chance.

The hourlong show, which airs nightly at 1 a.m., is broadcast on WTOG-TV, a CBS-owned station that airs the CW network locally. WTOG station manager Laura Caruso said the decision to end Keller's contract was a programming one, made by station executives and the televangelist.

But after speaking with CBS executives, the Islamic group claimed credit for Keller's demise. His last broadcast will be Aug. 31.

"They really based their decision upon our letter," said Ramzy Kilic, the group's civil rights coordinator. "They really did not know that Bill Keller was involved with this kind of anti-Muslim rhetoric."

Keller said his "Bible-based" message hasn't changed in the five years the program has aired.

"(CAIR) intimidated the folks in New York, and the folks in New York caved in," Keller said.

Keller said he is starting a new morning TV show on another Tampa Bay area station that will debut Sept. 3.

"It's been floated around as a general idea without anybody giving very careful thought to what it really means."

Deux-Rivisme rides again. By Nicole Itano for the Christian Science Monitor:

Athens - The deep blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea connect three continents and 21 countries with a combined population of more than 400 million. But can this vast and diverse region – with Christians, Muslims, and Jews; Africans, Europeans, and Arabs – operate as a coherent political entity?

No.

That's the idea that French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been touting in his first three months in office. Launching his presidency with big ideas, he's proposed the creation of a "Mediterranean Union" to address common regional issues such as immigration, terrorism, environmental degradation, and economic development. Despite its hazy outlines, the plan appears to be gathering momentum on opposite sides of the sea.

But many observers familiar with the nuts and bolts of Euro-Mediterranean relations are skeptical that such a grouping could function on the grand scale Sarkozy seems to be suggesting.

Yes.

"It's been floated around as a general idea without anybody giving very careful thought to what it really means," says Richard Youngs, director of the democratization program at FRIDE, a Madrid-based think thank. "If this does reflect a genuine desire on the part of the new French government to reengage itself in Mediterranean issues, that's welcome. But it requires some careful thought."

[...]

For European countries like France and Spain – which are increasingly feeling the effects of North African poverty and political insecurity – the idea of a new regional grouping for the Mediterranean is attractive precisely because it may offer a forum for tackling the diverse region's many problems. Egypt, Tunisia, and Spain have attached at least tentative support to the idea in recent months, despite the absence of any concrete suggestions from France as to how exactly such an entity would work.

Indeed, for many political analysts in the region, Sarkozy's nascent idea creates more questions than answers: Would it be a supranational organization like the EU with the power to set national laws or merely an institutionalized forum for discussion? And how would it interact with the existing regional organizations – such as the EU, African Union, and Union of the Arab Maghreb – to which its potential members already belong?

"The risk," says Dr. Youngs, "is of simply adding another initiative that merely confuses the picture even more."

The idea of a Mediterranean Union has been around for at least a decade. But the energetic French president has breathed new life into the concept as he's jetted around the region meeting with area leaders in what many analysts see as an attempt to boost France's role as a leader in international relations.

Sarkozy discussed it during meetings with his counterparts in Tunisia and Algeria in a July tour of the Maghreb, talked it up during a working dinner in Slovenia with foreign ministers of EU Mediterranean states, and advertised it during a joint press conference earlier this month with Egypt's Hosni Mubarak.

[...]

Dorothée Schmid, a researcher on Mediterranean issues at the French Institute for International Relations, says French diplomats are working to formulate a more concrete proposal that is likely to be made public sometime in the fall. A Mediterranean project, she suggested, may be a centerpiece of France's presidency of the EU in the second half of 2008.

But she warned that the political climate in the region now may be less conducive to cooperation than in the past, due to increased security issues and heightened international tensions between the Arab world and the West.

Ultimately, too, she says, states must ask themselves whether the Mediterranean is itself a region, or a meeting point between them.

"Is the Mediterranean a region in economic terms, in cultural terms – in any way except for the geographical aspect?" asks Ms. Schmid. "The legitimacy of a Mediterranean frame is quite dubious, I think. Especially on political grounds."

An update on this story. " Officials: Deadly blasts in southern India were acts of terror," from CNN:

NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- The death toll continued to rise in southern India, where two blasts Saturday night killed at least 41 people in Hyderabad in what authorities are calling terrorists attacks.

More than 60 people were wounded, several critically, police said.

But the carnage could have been worse.

Authorities also found explosives at 16 other locations in and near Hyderabad, said Y.S.R. Reddy, chief minister of Andhra Pradesh state.

Security was beefed up at the airport and railroads after police said the almost simultaneous blasts were coordinated attacks.

"This is definitely terrorist activity," Reddy said, urging everyone to stay calm. He scheduled a Cabinet meeting Sunday morning to discuss the incidents.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh issued a statement expressing deep concern over the violence.

One explosion, suspected to have been a bomb, occurred as a laser music show was to begin at an outdoor auditorium in Lumbini Park after 7:30 p.m. (10 a.m. ET).

About 500 people were in the audience when the blast ripped through the middle row of seats, Reddy said.

"A senior police official said the explosives used in the twin blasts on Saturday were similar to the one used by terrorists in the Mecca Masjid blasts in May this year."

"30 killed, 60 wounded as terror strikes Hyderabad," from PTI (thanks to all who sent this in):

HYDERABAD: In a major terror strike, at least 30 persons were killed and about 60 injured in two powerful near-simultaneous blasts at a crowded park and a popular eating joint in Hyderabad on Saturday evening.

Twenty four people died when an explosion ripped through Gokul Chat Shop at Kothi locality at around 7.50 pm, Andhra Pradesh Home Minister K Jana Reddy told reporters.

In another blast five minutes earlier at a place five kilometres away, six persons perished in a blast in an auditorium in Lumbini Amusement Park near the state secretariat in the heart of the city when a laser show was on, he said.

Reddy said about 500 people were in the auditorium at the time of the incident.

The blast ripped through the middle row of the auditorium when the show had just begun.

So powerful was the blast that some of bodies were flung into the air and scattered over the area....

Reddy said that "according to preliminary reports, it was a terrorist act".

A senior police official said the explosives used in the twin blasts on Saturday were similar to the one used by terrorists in the Mecca Masjid blasts in May this year....

As has been amply illustrated over the years here at Jihad Watch, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have a particular clue about the nature of the global jihad and what to do about it, and there has been much too much politics as usual, and craven partisanship such as is exhibited here, when there really needs to be a new political alignment and a sober reappraisal of our international and domestic policies. "Clinton: Terrorist attack would help GOP," by Alexander Mooney for CNN:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- She says she is the Democrat best equipped to fight terrorists, but White House hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton told New Hampshire voters Thursday that another attack on the United States would likely help Republican candidates at the polls.

Sen. Hillary Clinton said the Republicans would benefit politically if a terrorist attack occurred before the '08 vote.

"It's a horrible prospect to ask yourself, 'What if? What if?' " Clinton, a New York Democrat, told a house party in Concord, according to the New York Post and The Associated Press and confirmed by her campaign.

"But, if certain things happen between now and the election, particularly with respect to terrorism, that will automatically give the Republicans an advantage again, no matter how badly they have mishandled it, no matter how much more dangerous they have made the world."

Clinton added that if such a scenario occurred, she is the best Democratic presidential candidate "to deal with that."

Clinton was in the crucial early voting state Thursday to unveil her health care plan.

A Clinton spokesman, Isaac Baker, told CNN "Sen. Clinton was making clear that she has the strength and experience to keep the country safe."

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Connecticut, who is also competing for the Democratic nomination, issued a statement Friday afternoon calling Clinton's remark "tasteless."

"Frankly, I find it tasteless to discuss political implications when talking about a potential terrorist attack on the United States," he said.

...and tells us to go back to sleep, since Jews, Christians, and Muslims got along swimmingly in medieval Muslim Spain, and therefore there is no clash of civilizations today.

Exhibit A, apparently, will be the Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides, a resident of this paradisial Al-Andalus. You can find in my book Religion of Peace? some quotations from Maimonides' actual writings that I doubt will make it into this documentary, in which Maimonides complains of the brutality of the Muslims toward the Jews. As soon as I get close enough to a copy of the book I'll post them.

UPDATE 8/27: The passages from Maimonides and other useful material has been posted in the comments field below.

I am on the road right now and am unable to post pictures, but you can see all the forbidden strips at HotAir, and I will post them later.

As Bryan Preston says there, we see in this "the creep of dhimmitude over the US media." He immediately goes on to say that that is over-dramatic, but I don't think so. After all, what other group enjoys this kind of solicitude from newspaper editors? Whether it is from fear or from an anxiety not to offend what they perceive as a victim class, it is still a voluntary restriction that newspapers do not take for other groups. It is another step toward placing a particular group beyond criticism, critical scrutiny, serious questioning -- at a time when members of that group harbor dreams of subjugating the rest of us.

UPDATE 8/27: Panel finally added, not because it's in the least funny, but in solidarity with sane public discourse that is not cowed or intimidated into silence.

Gee, your hair smells like the Great Satan! "Western-style barbers get the chop in Iran," by Robert Tait for The Guardian:

Police in Tehran have closed two dozen barber shops and hairdressers in a fortnight in the latest phase of a "morals" crackdown aimed at enforcing Islamic dress codes among young Iranians.

The businesses were shut after being identified as purveyors of decadent "western" culture.

Eleven women's hair-stylists were told to stop trading for offering customers' tattoos. Tattooed eyebrows - in which the hair is shaved and replaced with elaborate patterns - are popular amongst many young Iranian women.

One women's salon was shut when authorities discovered one of its employees was a man, a crime under Iran's Islamic laws.

A further 13 barbers were closed for giving customers excessively eye-catching haircuts and plucking men's eyebrows. Many young Iranian men wear their hair in a gelled-up bouffant that would look outlandish even in some western countries.

The closures were imposed by Amaken-e Omoomi, a police body for regulating businesses such as shops, restaurants and hotels, after it inspected more than 730 hairdressers in Tehran.

[...]

Men arrested in the patrols have been forced to identify their barbers and get fresh haircuts. They have then had to return to police stations for officers to decide whether their hairstyles are acceptable.

Mohammad Ali Najafi, head of Amaken-e Omoomi, told Fars news agency that police officers would accompany trade inspectors in future visits to barbers and hairdressers. Those breaking the law would be closed immediately, he said.

An update on this story. Very little is said about the cultural, let alone religious, reasons the neighbors might not aid a woman in obvious danger. The Somali advocacy spokesman offered the excuse that the largely Somali neighbors were afraid of the police due to past experiences in their home country, but one could still call 911, report the crime, and remain anonymous.

"Hallway rape suspect charged; he denies attack," by Mara H. Gottfried for the Pioneer Press:

Although police say as many as 10 people witnessed a sexual assault in a St. Paul hallway, the suspect said he has no memory of what happened.

Rage Ibrahim, 25, said he blacked out from drinking too much alcohol. But he said he wouldn't have committed rape.

"I'm so upset because of the situation I'm in," Ibrahim said, crying as he headed to the Ramsey County jail on Thursday to turn himself in. "I've got a mom, I've got a sister. I wouldn't rape anyone."

Surveillance video from a Highwood-area apartment hallway makes it clear that a sexual assault happened Tuesday, St. Paul police Cmdr. Shari Gray said.

Prosecutors charged Ibrahim, of St. Paul, on Thursday with first- and third- degree criminal sexual conduct.

[...]

The "bystander effect" might explain why people didn't help, psychologists say. Members of groups who witness a crime, versus one or two individuals, are less likely to intervene, because they don't feel individually responsible for what's happening, studies have found.

The culture of many people who live in the apartment building also could have influenced witnesses' behavior, said Omar Jamal, executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in St. Paul. A large number of Afton View apartment residents are Somalis, who tend to mistrust and fear the police, Jamal said.

"The only system they know (from Somalia) is a military, totalitarian government that tortures and executes people," he said. "Their understanding is a system that oppresses and that kills. People have no rights. They are used to keeping quiet and not saying anything."

[...]

Someone called 911 at 2:43 a.m. and reported two drunken people in the hallway. As a result, police classified the call as a disturbance and assigned it the department's lowest priority number for response.

Officers arrived at 3:25 a.m. and found Ibrahim and the woman in the hallway.

If police had known a violent crime was in progress, the call would have been classified as a Priority 2, rather than a Priority 4, said Tom Walsh, a police spokesman.

Priority 1 is reserved for reports of officers down, he said.

[...]

When police arrived, they found Ibrahim and the woman in the hallway, both half-dressed and with scratches on their faces, the criminal complaint said. Officers overheard the woman say she just wanted to die.

According to the complaint:

Ibrahim told police they were drunk and the woman was his girlfriend. Gray said the two were not boyfriend and girlfriend.

The woman told police Ibrahim had drugged and raped her. She said she had gone to a friend's apartment and that a man she knew by the nickname Gomay was there. Ibrahim later told police he is known as Gomay.

After drinking during the evening, the woman said, she began to leave. Gomay tried to stop her by repeatedly punching and slapping her as he attempted to rape her. She said Gomay was trying to kill her.

Paramedics took the woman to Regions Hospital in St. Paul for a sexual assault exam, which found semen on her body. In addition, the woman suffered numerous scratches, cuts and bruises on her legs, face and shoulder.

Police arrested Ibrahim at the scene. He was held in the jail until early Thursday, then released when the 48-hour window prosecutors had to charge him expired. Prosecutors charged him later in the morning, and an arrest warrant was issued. Ibrahim turned himself in early Thursday evening.

[...]

He and a friend picked up the woman Monday night and went to the friend's Winthrop Street apartment, he said. Ibrahim, who said he cleans planes for a living, said he and the woman drank two bottles of gin between them.

Despite the woman's contention Ibrahim drugged her, he said he "absolutely" had not.

Read it all.

Seattle Muslims in a Full Court Victimization Press: "We need to get some type of apology from them and figure out how to get back to where we were." The FBI agents shouldn't apologize for doing their jobs and trying to protect people. Gomez is right: "people in those communities have to get over this sensitivity toward feeling victimized." And instead of resenting anti-terror efforts, some cooperation with them would be most welcome.

An update on this story.

"FBI's release of ferry passenger photos resented," by Lornet Turnbull, Janet Tu and Mike Carter for the Seattle Times (thanks to all who sent this in):

For Arabs and Muslims across the Puget Sound area, a rise in the nation's threat level or a bombing halfway around the world often can mark a period of unease.

In the years since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, leaders in that community say incidents of profiling and harassment have ebbed and flowed — increasing when Muslims are linked to news of the day.

Now the FBI's release of photographs of two men of unknown origin, who the agency says were observed acting suspiciously aboard as many as six different Washington ferry routes in recent weeks, is creating new worries in the community.

Muslim- and Arab-American leaders are upset that the FBI didn't consult them — as it has done in other instances — before releasing the photos on the Internet and to news organizations. They worry that the action may fracture the relationship the agency and the community have carefully built.

The FBI has stressed that the release of the photos is a rare move, taken only after it had exhausted other efforts to identify the men. The agency also has said the men's actions could be innocuous, but it needs to question them.

The photos were snapped by a ferry captain last month after crew members alerted him to suspicious activity. The men seemed inordinately interested in the operation of the vessel, took photographs of the interiors of the boats and went into areas tourists and commuters don't normally go, the FBI has said. The agency has received many tips but has not yet found the men.

Dozens of Muslims and Arabs have complained to community leaders about the photographs. The fallout has led to a meeting planned today between Muslim- and Arab-American community leaders and law-enforcement officials.

"We need to get some type of apology from them and figure out how to get back to where we were," said Rita Zawaideh, head of the Arab-American Community Coalition....

Zawaideh said she met with FBI officials about the August incident three days before the agency released the photos of the two men. But the FBI didn't bring up that subject.

"Why not ask us then and we would have had a way to ask people in the community," she said.

Gomez said the agency needs to address certain sensitive issues, but "people in those communities have to get over this sensitivity toward feeling victimized."

Many passengers have been stopped and questioned recently, as the ferry system has stepped up security once the FBI concluded the men might be watching the system. The stops are based on activities, not skin color, Gomez said.

Two days ago, a Seattle Times photographer, who is white, was stopped and questioned after taking photographs near the Mukilteo ferry terminal.

The FBI didn't take the photos of the two men to the Arab- and Muslim-American community because the agency doesn't know if the men are Middle Eastern, Gomez added.

"That seems potentially prejudicial to me, and in some ways worse than simply putting [the photos] out the way we did," Gomez said. "It is not us saying these guys look Middle Eastern."

Zawaideh countered: "They're not saying these men are Arabs, but insinuating they are."

How on earth are they doing that, Zawaideh? They released pictures and said these men were acting suspiciously as reported by many people on several ferries. If they had instead gone to Muslim leaders and asked them for help, as you yourself suggest above, then they would have been announcing in a public way that these guys were Muslims. And I expect if they had approached Muslim leaders with these photos, the leaders would have been outraged, outraged, that the FBI was assuming that the men were Muslims. It's a no-win situation.

This all comes at a time when some local Muslim and Arab-American leaders say they've seen a new spike in discrimination complaints....

Both Zawaideh and S. Arsalan Bukhari, president of the Seattle chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), say their organizations have been receiving more reports lately involving allegations of discrimination.

Bukhari said he's heard of delays at the border, as well as cases of people being asked questions at the airport and searched so thoroughly they missed their flights.

I'd live with it if it happened to me, Arsalan. Better than getting blown up. At least for some of us.

"Iran on anti-racism committee," by Yaakov Lappin for YNet News:

Despite its numerous calls for Israel's destruction, and repeated denials of the Holocaust, Iran has been selected by the United Nations for a leading position in a committee that will plan the 2009 UN World Conference against Racism.

The planning committee, which will meet for the first time in Geneva on August 27, will be made up of an inner circle of 20 UN member-states, to be headed by Libya.

The decision to include Iran in the committee has been slammed by UN watchdogs. "As a UN spokesperson against racism, Iran will invert totally the message and mission of the United Nations," Anne Bayefsky, senior editor of the New York-based Eye on the UN, said in a press release.

"Iran is now poised to wrap itself in a UN flag as a lead agent of the next global conference against racism, Durban II," she added, referring to the 2001 UN conference on racism held in Durban, South Africa, which saw unprecedented levels of anti-Zionist rhetoric and calls for Israel's destruction.

Speaking to Ynetnews, Bayefsky said that "the leading exponents of anti-Semitism, whether directed at Jews individually or the Jewish people and its state generally, continue to be provided a global platform at the UN. This is but one example of a broader phenomenon."

"Eye on the UN has found that in 2006 the UN system as a whole directed the most condemnations for human rights abuses against specific states - first towards Israel and fourth towards the United States. Iran was lower down on the list of UN human rights concerns," Bayefsky said, adding: "And yet the US taxpayer continues to pay a quarter of the bill for activities which demonize Americans and Israelis on a global scale."

A spokesperson for the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights confirmed to Ynetnews that "Iran is one of 20 States who are members of the bureau of the Preparatory Committee," but added that "Iran does not occupy a leading role.”

When asked how a state which openly denies the Holocaust could find itself in such a role, the spokesperson said: "The Preparatory Committee is an inter-governmental body, meaning States were chosen freely to sit on the Prep-Com. It is the Member-States who decide."

'UN body hijacked again'

Bayefsky explained that the structure of the UN's Human Rights Council has effectively been taken over by the countries of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), allowing Iran and Libya access to key roles.

"The states were selected by the UN Human Rights Council and the Council is controlled by the Organization of the Islamic Conference. The majority of seats on the Council are held by the African and Asian regional groups and the OIC has a majority of seats on each of these groups. Western states do not have the votes to block this outrage and it is another example of the hijacking that has occurred of the UN's lead human rights agency," she said.

Hmm. One assumes Arab supremacist imperialism in places like Darfur probably won't be a high priority.

Reacting to the statements of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of the Geneva-Based UN Watch organization, said that the UN had failed to explain how Iran had ended up on the planning council.

A jihadist component to the strife in Sri Lanka. "Jihad armed men on the rampage in the East," from Asian Tribune:

Colombo, 23 (Asiantribune.com): Jihad armed group has suddenly gone berserk killing recently two Tamils in the East.

On the last 20 August, according to reports, Jihad armed men have killed, Jeyaraj (29 years old), a three-wheeler driver, at Jinna Nagar, a suburb located at the Third Mile Post, three km north of Trincomalee Town.

Also on the same day, Jihad gunmen killed Thiyagachandran (54 years old) at Valaichchenai, who is the brother of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Batticaloa parliamentarian S. Jeyananthamoorthy.

In a statement, Eelam Revolutionary Organization (EROS) revealed that they have lost one of its members known within EROS as "Gerald" otherwise known as Jeyaraj, who EROS claims was shot and killed on the evening of 20 August at Jinna Nagar in Trincomalee by a man identified as "Nizam" who is affiliated to a group calling themselves the "Jihad" – a armed group mainly of the Muslims in the Eastern Province.

The Jihad armed group have been in existence since 1985 and known to have targeted political opponents and civilians in the past, however this is the first time the Jihad group who are based in parts of Trincomalee, Amparai and Batticaloa have begun to [target] Tamils from the East.

Sources in the East told the Asian Tribune that since of late, [Jihad members] claiming themselves as holy warriors of Islam, has started functioning in the East and are involved in resettling Muslims in Oddamaavadi and in the adjacent villages.

Sources told Asian Tribune that Jihad armed group works very closely with some Muslim Government Ministers from the East. Also it was revealed that Jihad and some Muslim Ministers have taken steps to bring in Muslim internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and making arrangements to settle them from Welikantha to Oddamaavadi with the view to carve out that region as a separate Muslim district.

The attack occurred in an apartment hallway and lasted over an hour. While the report does not make clear the background of the witnesses, their reaction, or lack thereof, seems culturally inconsistent with American behavior.

Additionally, while the executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center spoke on the alleged perpetrator's behalf, and claimed the police report "does not show 'the truth of what happened that night,'" what are they doing for the victim?

"Cops: Tape Shows at Least 10 Witnesses Ignoring Minnesota Woman's Cries for Help During Sexual Assault," from the Associated Press:

ST. PAUL, Minn. — A security video from an apartment hallway shows at least 10 witnesses ignored a woman's cries for help for more than an hour as a man beat and sexually assaulted her, prosecutors in Minnesota said.

The surveillance video clearly showed men and women looking out their apartment doors or starting to walk down the hallway before retreating as the woman was assaulted for nearly 90 minutes, police spokesman Tom Walsh said.

Police said they responded to a call of drunken behavior and found Somali immigrant Rage Ibrahim, 25, and a woman lying unconscious in the hallway early Tuesday. The woman's clothing had been pulled up and she had fresh scratches on her face and blood on her thigh, according to the criminal complaint.

Ibrahim says he is innocent and that the incident was a misunderstanding, according to Omar Jamal, the executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center, who spoke on Ibrahim's behalf.

Ibrahim was charged with several counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, prosecutors said.

Walsh said police were shocked by the behavior of the bystanders.

The best outcome from this incident (along with the successful prosecution of the attacker) would be a larger inquiry into the welfare of women in the Somali immigrant community, from domestic violence to genital mutilation.

"(The video) shows one person looking out of her door probably three times," Walsh said. "It shows another person walking up, observing what's going on, then turning and putting up the hood of his sweatshirt."

At one point, the 26-year-old woman knocked on a door, yelling for the occupants to call police. A man inside that apartment told police he did not open the door or look out, but said he did call police — although they have no record of his call, according to court documents.

Minnesota law makes it a petty misdemeanor to not give reasonable help to a person in danger of "grave physical harm."

Walsh said it is unlikely police would pursue charges against witnesses in this case because authorities would have to show that witnesses knew the woman was in extreme danger.

Jamal said Ibrahim went into the hallway after the woman because he thought she was too drunk to drive. They struggled over car keys, and "he is saying there was a huge misunderstanding," Jamal said, adding that the police report does not show "the truth of what happened that night."

"He did not rape her," Jamal said.

"Any changes could be a problem for other workers because supervisors at the plant determine breaks within allotted times, not the workers themselves."

An update on this story. "Swift offers partial accommodation for Muslim prayers," by Oskar Garcia for the Associated Press:

OMAHA — Meatpacking plant officials accused of discriminating against dozens of Somali Muslim workers have offered to tweak break times to help accommodate the workers’ prayer demands.

If the dozens of Muslim workers and Swift & Co. can agree on details, a solution could defuse the dispute that started earlier this year when 120 workers at the Grand Island plant abruptly quit because they weren’t allowed to pray at sunset.

Many say they were fired, quit or were verbally and physically harassed over the issue, and some have complained to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission about the way they were treated.

In a letter to lawyers representing the workers, Swift said it could eliminate some breaktime conflicts, and offered to negotiate more scheduling flexibility with the union to allow more prayer time if the workers agreed to the proposal.

Advocates for the workers said Thursday that they were encouraged by the proposal, but said they would not accept a solution that did not accommodate the prayers for the whole year.

“We’ll continue negotiations with the company and hopefully we’ll come out with a solution that everybody can deal with,” said Rima Kapitan, a lawyer for the Council on American-Islamic Relations who is representing the workers in the dispute. “We’re certainly not going to accept their proposals at their face.”

The five to 10-minute prayer, known as the maghrib, must be done within a 45-minute window around sunset, according to Muslim rules. Workers at the Grand Island plant say they quit, were fired or were verbally harassed over the issue.

[...]

But a lawyer for Swift said in a letter it would be possible to make prayer accommodations for most, but not all of the entire year. The Council on American-Islamic Relations provided a copy of the letter to The Associated Press.

“Swift concludes that it can potentially accommodate the maghrib prayer under the existing labor agreement, except on the following dates: Feb. 15 through March 8 (commencement of Daylight Savings Time), and May 23 through Aug. 1,” Swift attorney Donald Selzer wrote in the letter dated Aug. 20.

The company also offered to go to union representatives to negotiate lengthening the dinner break window if the workers agreed to the proposal. Lengthening the window would mean fewer days when prayers could not be accommodated, Swift said.

But the president of the local United Food and Commercial Workers Union said Thursday that changing the breaks might not be feasible for other workers in the plant.

“I don’t know that I can agree to that because I have 1,700 other people to worry about,” said Dan Hoppes, Local 22 union president. “I have to look and see what they’ve got in mind.”

Any changes could be a problem for other workers because supervisors at the plant determine breaks within allotted times, not the workers themselves.

Hoppes said he wouldn’t have a problem if the company allowed individual workers to take breaks.

“But that’s simply not the case,” Hoppes said. “That’s the problem with the breaks is they have to be uniform.”

Some good news in an update on this story, and Ehsan Jami's police protection will continue at the current level. "Police arrest suspected attacker of Islam critic," from Deutsche Presse-Agentur:

Amsterdam - The Hague police on Thursday announced they had arrested one of the three suspected attackers of Islam critic Ehsan Jami. A police spokeswoman said the arrest could be made thanks to the detailed description Jami gave of the 17-year-old young man.

Jami recently founded a committee for former Muslims, saying it was necessary to overcome what he called "persistent taboos" in Muslim society about leaving the faith.

Including, of course, the threat of death, per Muhammad's own orders: "Baddala deenahu, faqtuluhu" -- "if anyone changes his religion, kill him ( Bukhari vol. 9, bk. 84, no. 57)."

He is also a member of the city council for the Labour Party in Leidschendam- Voorburg near the Hague.

Jami told police the attacker was someone he had seen in his neighbourhood several times in recent months.

Iranian born Jami received extra personal protection early August after being attacked for the third time by Muslim youths.

He lives in a secret location and receives police protection around the clock. He has not appeared in public since he was last attacked almost four weeks ago.

The attacks followed after Jami referred to the Muslim Prophet Mohammed as a "horrible man" in several interviews and said he wanted to start a debate about domestic violence and human rights in Islam.

The police said efforts would continue to arrest the other two alleged attackers.

In the meantime, police protection for Jami will remain unchanged.

“Mohammed said that as Muslims we should commit Jihad.” It ain't the Scotland of Robert Burns anymore.

"Student trained in terror in Capital," from The Scotsman (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

A STUDENT facing terrorism charges spoke of attending “training groups” in Edinburgh, a court heard today.

Mohammed Atif Siddique, 21, also told a fellow student how he wanted to be a suicide bomber, blow up Glasgow and that he had met Osama bin Laden.

He is facing five charges including possessing, collecting and distributing terrorist propaganda and providing instructional material for bomb making.
Siddique, from Alva in Clackmannanshire, denies all the charges.

At the High Court in Glasgow, Razia Hussain said the accused made a series of claims while they were studying computing at Glasgow Metropolitan College.

The 22-year-old told the court that Siddique would access non work related websites in class every time he had an opportunity.

Questioned by Crown counsel Brian McConnachie QC about what the websites displayed, she replied: “People getting blown up, people who were dead, armies and explosions.

“Mohammed used to explain to me about these sites, about people getting blown up.

“How this is right and should be done because we are Muslims.
“Mohammed said that as Muslims we should commit Jihad.”

Asked by Mr McConnachie what Jihad meant she answered: “To go and blow yourself up.”

Ms Hussain told the court that one image showed a dead man with a smile on his face.

She added: “Mohammed said this was because he had committed Jihad and God was going to be happy.

“He said he wanted to be one as well – a suicide bomber.”

“How many times did he say that?” Mr McConnachie asked.
“A few times,” she replied.

Siddique also denies causing a breach of the peace by threatening to become a suicide bomber and saying he was a member of the terror network al Qaida, as well as showing images of suicide bombers and beheadings.

Ms Hussain also told the court that the accused claimed to have met Osama bin Laden and was visiting or planning to visit “training groups” in Edinburgh or Stirling.

Islamic Tolerance and Little Aisha Alerts: "Two Christian girls of 11 and 16 kidnapped, converted to Islam and forced to marry," by Qaiser Felix for Asia News (thanks to Nicolei):

Faisalabad (AsiaNews) – Two Christian girls, little more than children, were kidnapped from their families recently, forcibly converted to Islam and then married off to strangers. Both of the kidnaps took place in Faisalabad, the third largest city in Pakistan, and both were completely ignored by the police. The phenomenon is not a new one however, underlined numerous human rights activist, but it is dangerously on the increase.

On August 5 Muhammad Adnan, a Muslim from Zulfiqar colony Faisalabad and his sister kidnapped Zunaira, an eleven years old Christian girl from her home in Warispura. After the kidnap, they forced her to convert to Islam and marry her kidnaper Muhammad.

The small girl’s mother, Abida, told AsiaNews: “When I was roaming in streets in search of my daughter two Muslim men of the area told me that they saw Adnan and his sister taking my daughter”. Abida decided to go to the kidnapper’s house, from which however she is thrown out. Returning home, she was contacted by two men who revealed the kidnappers identity and offer to act as negotiators for her daughters release in exchange for money.

Here, from Pajamas Media, is my response to John Derbyshire's brightly written review of my book Religion of Peace?.

John Derbyshire seems to think that since, in his view, Islam and Christianity are equally preposterous, they are equally likely to incite violence: “Mohammed’s flying through the air to Jerusalem on a white steed is no more preposterous than the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception; and so, God’s instructions to us through Mohammed are no more or less likely to make us better or worse than his instructions through Christ.”

Huh? “And so”? One thing is unbelievable, and so is another, and therefore they’re of equal moral value? Come now. I myself find National Socialism no more preposterous than Shakerism – does that mean that National Socialism is no more or less likely to make us better or worse than Shakerism? Does Derbyshire really want to get behind the idea that if something doesn’t ring true to him, it is therefore benign, or at least no more or less benign than some other farrago? I don’t think he does, even as he calls the whole exercise “infantile,” since he also says that he finds my “brief against Islam” to be “persuasive.”

Derbyshire’s review, while marvelously written and delightful to read, is full of inconsistencies. I don’t see how he could possibly find what I reveal about Islam to be “persuasive” if at the same time he thinks that Islamic and Christian doctrine are equally likely to inspire their adherents to commit acts of brutality, since the contrary assertion, as he himself notes, is a major point of my book. He also wonders whether “an equally learned Islamic scholar, bent on making the opposite case, might not produce equally persuasive points, to be then rebutted by Spencer, who would be re-rebutted by the Islamist…” I would welcome such a rebuttal, by the way, unless it were characterized by the torrents of abuse and sly deceptions and diversions that usually come to me from Islamic spokesmen in America, but the point is that while Derbyshire says he is persuaded, he evidently still suspects that I am just engaging in some kind of rhetorical sleight of hand.

They still show no sign of caring that what they're doing will make air travel much easier for jihadists to terrorize.

"Imams drop lawsuit against 'Doe' passengers," by Audrey Hudson in the Washington Times:

A federal court yesterday accepted a request by a group of Muslim imams to drop all claims in a federal lawsuit against unspecified "John Doe" passengers for reporting the men's suspicious behavior, which led to their removal from a US Airways flight last year.

The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court of Minnesota was amended to "hereby dismiss possible defendants 'John Does' as set forth in ... the first amended complaint as parties from this action," said the notice of dismissal. The lawsuit still targets US Airways and Minneapolis airport workers.

Hold the noisemakers. "Not all 'John Does' out of imams' sights," from GreensPiece:

The news that Omar Mohammedi of New York and Frederick Goetz of Minneapolis, attorneys for the notorious “Flying Imams,” have limited the scope of the latter group’s jihad intimidation lawsuit is a positive development – but let no one suppose that this means they have stopped gunning for all of the “John Does” that reported the imams’ suspicious activity on U.S. Airways Flight 300 on Nov. 20, 2006. For their filing only dismisses “possible defendants ‘John Does’ as set forth in paragraphs 21 and 22 of the First Amended Complaint as parties from this action.” Omitted from it is paragraph 20 of said complaint, which reads:

“20. Defendant Flight Attendants and Desk Agents ‘John Does’ were at all times relevant to the events mentioned herein employees and/or agents of Defendant U.S. Airways and were acting within the scope of their employment on U.S. Airways Flight 300 on November 20, 2006 and subsequent U.S. Airways flights on November 20-21, 2006.”

Thus, the imams and their litigious henchmen are still trying to cow into silence individual airline workers who, their humble pay grade notwithstanding, had, if anything, more of a duty to report suspicious activity than did the passengers for whose safety they were responsible.

There's more at GreensPiece, with links. Read it all.

Pirouz Sedaghaty Update. "Feds want Oregon Islamic charity figure held," by William McCall for the Associated Press:

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) - A missing passport and questions about whether he supports radical Islamic doctrine will keep the co-founder of a defunct Islamic charity in jail at least another two weeks after he voluntarily returned to face tax fraud and conspiracy charges.

Pirouz Sedaghaty, 49, also known as Pete Seda, left the country in 2003 during an investigation that resulted in a federal grand jury indictment in February 2005, accusing him of helping to smuggle $150,000 out of the country to aid Muslim fighters in Chechnya.

He returned exactly one week ago, on the same day that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was hearing arguments about warrantless wiretapping of the U.S. chapter of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation that Sedaghaty co-founded in the Southern Oregon town of Ashland in 1997.

Sedaghaty pleaded not guilty to the tax and conspiracy charges last week, and asked to be released pending trial.

But the U.S. Attorney's office asked that he be held in custody, arguing he is a flight risk, leading to a lengthy detention hearing on Wednesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Coffin.

The judge said he was being asked to decide whether religious beliefs could be the basis for keeping a person in jail, comparing it to whether a devout Christian opposed to abortion posed a danger to the community if he or she believed abortion should be prevented by any means possible, including violence.

"Under those circumstances it's appropriate to ask if a person believes in using violent means," Coffin said, adding that he did not want "to take on the role of censor."

Coffin said he expected to decide at the next hearing, in two weeks, whether to order Sedaghaty to remain in custody until trial or grant a conditional release.

Chris Cardani, the assistant U.S. Attorney handling the case, argued that Sedaghaty promoted a radical version of Islam based in Saudi Arabia known as Wahabbism, making him a danger because he could incite radical followers to acts of violence - even though he did not believe that Sedaghaty himself posed a danger.

"Are you telling me that you think he is a Trojan horse?" Coffin asked Cardani.

"Perhaps," Cardani replied.

He noted that Sedaghaty, a U.S. citizen who was born in Iran, had returned to the United States on a duplicate U.S. passport, and had not surrendered his Iranian passport until he appeared in court Wednesday.

Cardani said that raised suspicions about where Sedaghaty had traveled the past four years, noting he had lived in Syria, Iran and the United Arab Emirates at different times.

Cardani said Sedaghaty offered no explanation about how he supported himself, noting he had trouble finding work and apparently had to live on less than $80,000 from the sale of a house in Ashland for more than four years.

[...]

Matasar also called an expert witness, As'ad AbuKhalil, a California State University, Stanislaus, professor who disputed the government's claim that Sedaghaty supported radical Islamic doctrine.

AbuKhalil said Saudi wealth is used to promote Wahabbism worldwide by funding mosques and charities, and distributing a Saudi version of the Quran called the "nobel Quran" that has a more militant interpretation of its teachings.

That's "noble," and the Qur'an is often referred to as the "Noble Qur'an" (including at USC's Muslim Student Association Qur'an site) or "Qur'an Sharif." And the text of the scriptures (always accompanied by the Arabic version, of course) is the same in any event, any accompanying commentary notwithstanding.

Muslims seeking to perform charity work - one of the five pillars of Islam - often are forced to accept Saudi money in order to pay for buildings or supplies, and distribute the Saudi version of the Quran because it is typically the only free version available.

Forced? Or just not inclined to look elsewhere?

"The Saudis have been proven to have misused some of these charities for their own nefarious purposes," AbuKhalil said.

But a witness for the government, author Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a former Al- Haramain worker in Ashland, said the charity promoted radical Islamic doctrine by distributing the "noble Quran" to U.S. prison inmates.

He noted that version supports violent jihad, or holy war, although he said that Sedaghaty had been upset by the embassy bombings and the link to militant Muslims.

But the jihad's still on, of course. "Al Qaeda Maghreb says member behind Algeria attack," from Reuters:

ALGIERS, Aug 22 (Reuters) - Al Qaeda's north Africa wing said one of its fighters was behind a bomb attack on a former senior Islamist rebel in Algeria but said the assault was carried out without the approval of the group's leadership.

Al Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb said it had not planned to target Mustapha Kertali, a founder of the banned Salvation Islamic Front (FIS) and once a leading member of its armed wing, as he was not involved in attacking its fighters.

Kertali was seriously wounded on Aug. 14 when a bomb exploded under his car as he drove away from a mosque in the town of Larbaa, 30 km (18 miles) south of Algiers.

"One of our soldiers targeted Mustapha Kertali without consulting the leadership and getting its approval," the group said in a statement posted on an Islamist Web site.

"The bombing ... which we have not ordered and took place without our knowledge, is a mistake and we assume its repercussions before God and our Muslim nation."

Kertali surrendered to authorities in 2000 under an amnesty. He supported another amnesty for rebels that President Abdelaziz Bouteflika issued last year as part of a wider national reconciliation plan to draw a line under the bloodshed.

"We do not see any reason for targeting this type of people who abandon jihad under the pretext of a truce and reconciliation unless there is evidence of his involvement in the war and the killing of mujahideen," the statement added.

[...]

Experts estimate several hundred guerrillas are still fighting in pockets of territory east of Algiers and in parts of the desert south.

Security experts say most belong to Maghreb al Qaeda, previously known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC).

Al Qaeda's north Africa wing said in a statement posted on the Internet last month that it was planning a violent campaign against "infidels" and government forces in the Maghreb region. It urged Muslims to stay away from possible targets.

"Invariably, survivors said it was their kader, or destiny, to meet such an end."

"When wrong boyfriends or clothes lead daughters to kill themselves," by Helena Smith for The Guardian:

Nuran Uca never made it to 61 Aydin Arslan Street. If she had gone to the colourful two-storey building, climbed its narrow stairwell, walked down a corridor and sat in the plump brown armchair that so many other women had used, she might be alive today. There, with counsellors from the Kam-er support group, she could have talked about the "crime" of falling in love with a man she could never marry.

Instead, on June 14 the Kurdish woman succumbed to the phenomenon that is claiming lives in this Kurdish area of south-east Anatolia: she hanged herself in the bathroom of her home.

"She was just 25 but it was especially tragic because both were teachers, educated people," said Remziye Tural at Kam-er, the women's organisation that has become a lifeline in Turkey's poor south-east for those who face death because of a perception of dishonour. "She was modern and wore tight clothes - which is why his family rejected her.

She was banned by her parents from seeing or speaking to him, and then they stopped her leaving the house. In the end the pressure was too much."

[...]

Invariably, survivors said it was their kader, or destiny, to meet such an end.

But women's groups and human rights advocates believe the suicides are tantamount to murder. Stories have emerged of girls as young as 12 being locked in rooms for days with rope, poison or a pistol.

"There's a lot of evidence to suggest that these are, in fact, 'honour killings' passed off as suicides - that these girls are being forced to take their own lives," said Aytekin Sir, a psychiatrist who has studied the practice. There is no evidence that Nuran Uca's family forced their daughter to kill herself.

Last year, Yakin Erturk, a special UN envoy, arrived at the same conclusion, saying "honour suicides" had clearly begun to replace "honour killings", with the deaths increasingly being disguised as accidents.

Death sentences

For a long time the potent forces of fear and shame in the communities stopped young women visiting the Kam-er centre on Aydin Arlsan Street. But recently at least four girls a day have gone there, often in fear of death sentences issued by their fathers and brothers for infractions perceived to have brought shame on their families.

Nearly one-fifth of those who walked through the doors of the organisation since it started up in 1997 complained of threats from their families. Some had received text messages on their mobile phones saying typically: "You have blackened our name. Kill yourself or we will kill you."

According to Vildan Aycicek, at the organisation's headquarters in the city of Diyarbakir, west of Batman: "Women apply to us when they think they cannot survive the violence any longer. Most are illiterate and don't know their legal rights. If they do, they have no idea how to use them."

There had, she said, been cases of Kurdish and Turkish women calling Kam-er's hotline from Britain and other countries saying they also feared for their lives. Worldwide, the numbers of "honour killings" are notoriously difficult to estimate. But in Turkey the vengeful practice is cited by academics as the cause of death for hundreds of women each year - far above the official annual figure of 70. Sometimes adultery, or a woman's desire for divorce, prompts an all-male "family council" to order a killing.

But the list of "offences" is long: rape, incest, pregnancy brought on by both, a girl ringing into a radio chat show, exchanging eye contact with a boy or wearing a skimpy shirt. Sometimes accusations are no more than rumours.

One villager near Diyarbakir explained the attitude of his home area. "Without rules you have chaos," said Seyikan Arslan. "If my sister or my mother made a mistake we [men] would have to make it right. They would have to pay to cleanse our honour."

[...]

The culture clash has played a large part in exacerbating tensions within families and particularly between patriarchal fathers and their female offspring. "Migration is behind the big rise in honour and suicide killings," said Dr Sir, whose research found that support for the deaths far outstripped other popular penalties such as a woman having her nose sliced off or head shaved.

[...]

Ironically, the suicides have also been blamed on Turkey's efforts to stop "honour crimes". With Ankara's reforming Islamic-rooted government determined to enter the EU, it has toughened laws against the killings. Lenient sentences for those who cite provocation as a mitigating factor are no longer possible. So, to save men from a life in prison, experts believe families are instead forcing women to kill themselves.

[...]

Absent from the campaign in Batman has been the mayor, Huseyin Kalkan, who was awarded damages by DC Comics after a lawsuit over the use of his town's name for the superhero Batman. That money, activists point out, could be used to save women like Nuran Uca.

Friend and Ally Alert: "Minister blasts pro-US foreign policy," from Dawn (thanks to South Asian):

ISLAMABAD, Aug 21: Federal Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr Sher Afgan Niazi on Tuesday stunned both the treasury and opposition senators when he roundly criticised the foreign policy, describing it as one of appeasement at the cost of national interests, sovereignty and honour.

He also condemned recently-passed US legislation and the derogatory statements about Pakistan made by some American presidential candidates.

Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal’s Prof Khurshid Ahmed immediately stood up to endorse most of the views expressed by the minister, and welcomed the “change of heart,” describing it as part of the change that had taken place in the wake of the July 20 landmark Supreme Court judgment....

Dr Niazi said in his speech that the key role Pakistan played in bringing about the downfall of the former Soviet Union was a blunder. It resulted in the emergence of a unipolar world and gave the US a licence to attack any country it wished, he said.

He said that American presidential candidates’ statements threatening Pakistan’s internal security were a reflection of the jaundiced thinking of US leaders who had forgotten lessons of history and the glorious past of Muslims.

Lashing out at the recent US law attaching strings to financial assistance to Pakistan, Dr Niazi described it as insulting and demanded that “we must return and refuse to accept such assistance”.

Hey, that's a good idea, Dr. Niazi.

He said the country should learn to stand on its own feet by rejecting all foreign assistance as a proud Muslim nation....

The minister said that events which followed the 9/11 incident proved that it was the brainchild of Jews. He said that according to holy Quran, Jews and Christians could never be friends of Muslims....

If Dr. Niazi said that on an American radio show in the presence of someone like Ibrahim Hooper or Salam Al-Marayati, he would be roundly denounced as a racist Islamophobe. Do you even know Arabic, Dr. Niazi? Where did you get your degree in Islamic studies? Well?

But if Dr. Niazi were on his toes, he might be ready with these Qur'an passages:

"Never will the Jews or the Christians be satisfied with thee unless thou follow their form of religion." (2:120)

"O ye who believe! take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors: They are but friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them (for friendship) is of them. Verily Allah guideth not a people unjust." (5:51)

"Keep up the dawah and the psychological warfare," an Islamic jihadist in the U.S. Navy was told by one of his handlers a few years back. The jihadists know well the value of psychological warfare -- they know this is a way they can destroy their enemies, and they don't hesitate.

By Matthew Hickley for the Daily Mail :

Taliban fanatics have been making "hate calls" to the UK homes and relatives of soldiers serving in Afghanistan.

Senior commanders believe they get the numbers either by monitoring troops' mobile phone calls or from staff at Afghan phone companies.

The wife of one RAF officer was told: "You'll never see your husband alive - we have just killed him."

It was some hours before officials could confirm that her husband was still safe and well. All troops serving in southern Afghanistan have now been banned from carrying mobile phones.

Soldiers in Iraq can keep their phones but have been warned to keep their use to a minimum.

A senior Army source said the use of mobile phones by troops presented "a huge security problem".

It was feared the Taliban had access to both telephone numbers and the content of conversations.

Not that there is a dominant culture that has a right to express itself. Oh, no. "Muslims want ban on Easter eggs," from Expatica (thanks to Diana West):

ANTWERP – "If headscarves are banned for employees who work at the desk at city services in order to guarantee neutrality of services, then we demand that no Christmas trees be set up in city buildings and that no Easter eggs be given out." Antwerp trade union representative Badia Miri said this on Wednesday in the Gazet van Antwerpen.

Miri is one of the seven Muslim women who were forced to remove their headscarves if they wanted to continue working at the desk. Three of the seven staff members of the city of Antwerp who wore headscarves agreed to stop wearing one. Different positions - not involving contact with the public - were found for the others. No one was dismissed. There is still opposition to the dress code however, which came into effect in March. The seven Muslim women are now urging that "neutrality of service provision be actually enforced."

"The Antwerp city government says that neutrality is endangered if staff wear a cross or headscarf," says Miri. "But in our experience action has only been taken against the Muslim women. If the city government is really concerned about neutrality, then Christmas trees and Easter eggs should no longer be allowed at work. We are asking that a contact point be set up to report all violations of the dress code."

The Thug-In-Chief is still breathing threats and murder. From AFP (thanks to Writer Mom):

TEHRAN (AFP)---Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday described Israel as "the flag of Satan" and said the Jewish state was destined to fall apart, the official IRNA news agency reported.

"The Zionist regime is the flag bearer of violation and occupation and this regime is the flag of Satan," Ahmadinejad told an international religious conference in Tehran.

"It is not unlikely that this regime be on the path to dissolution and deterioration when the philosophy behind its creation and survival is invalid," he said.

Here is a review of an essential new book that lays bare the jihadists' motivations and goals in their own words: Raymond Ibrahim's The Al-Qaeda Reader. There is no way we can resist and contain the jihadists, and stave off the Islamization of the West, without understanding how they recruit, the power of their appeal in the Islamic world, and the ways they explain what they are doing and why. This books cuts through the PC nonsense that still dominates the public discourse in the West and illuminates all that like no other book ever has.

"In Their Own Words: Newly translated writings of the al Qaeda leadership," by Bruce Thornton at VDH's Private Papers:

Given that war, as both Sun Tzu and Mohammed preached, is deception, it behooves us to understand accurately the enemy’s motivations and not be fooled by his deceiving propaganda. Yet in the current war against Islamic jihad, the West has stubbornly refused to take seriously what the jihadists tell us, believing instead what Thucydides called the “pretexts” with which an enemy rationalizes his aggression. Osama bin Laden and his theorist Aymin al Zawahiri in particular have provided us with numerous texts outlining the Islamic foundations of their war against the West. A few of these pronouncements and manifestoes have long been available, but now thanks to Raymond Ibrahim’s The Al Qaeda Reader, writings previously unavailable in English can be studied and analyzed. Such study will provide powerful evidence that contrary to the deceptions of apologists and the naïve delusions of some Westerners, the bases of the jihadists’ actions lie squarely within Islamic tradition, not in the alleged Western crimes against Islam.

Fluent in Arabic and trained as a historian in the ancient Middle East, Ibrahim is currently a technician in the Library of Congress’ Near East Section, where he discovered al Qaeda documents that had not been translated into English. He has organized these writings into two sections: theology, writings intended for fellow Muslims that ground al Qaeda’s war against the West in the traditional Islamic doctrine of jihad; and propaganda, writings meant for Westerners that cast bin Laden’s war as a just response to the depredations of Western powers.

The documents in the first section make a sustained, coherent argument for offensive jihad based on the Koran, the Hadith (the traditions of the words and deeds of Mohammed), and the Ulema (past and present scholars of Islam). Indeed, as Ibrahim notes, “Zawahiri’s writings especially are grounded in Islam’s roots of jurisprudence; in fact, of the many thousands of words translated here from his three treatises, well more than half are direct quotations from the Koran the Sunna [words, habits, and practices] of Mohammed, and the consensus and conclusions of the Ulema.” This extensive grounding weakens the “highjacking” charge apologists use to explain Islamic jihad. On the contrary, al Qaeda’s arguments are unexceptionally traditional — which is why, of course, millions of Muslims accept them.

In these writings addressed to fellow Muslims, bin Laden and Zawahiri argue against the notion of “moderate” Islam; the compatibility of Sharia (laws governing Islamic society) with democracy; the idea of accommodation with the enemy; and the prohibition against killing women and children. In other words, they meticulously attack as distortions of Islam all the popular assertions about Islam’s nature promulgated by apologists, Westernized Muslims, and even many Christians. As bin Laden himself writes in “Moderate Islam Is a Prostration to the West” — a letter written to the Saudi theologians who in 2002 publicly advocated coexistence with the West — such moderation necessitates the adoption of Western values: “They [the Saudi theologians] first acknowledge their [Westerners’] values and ideologies in their entirety, while shying away from evoking the truth valued by the Religion [Islam] and its foundations.” Even the notion of “co-existence” is a Western idea contrary to Islam: “As if one of the foundations of our religion is how to coexist with infidels!” Quite the contrary: the traditions and foundations of Islam urge believers to “wage war against the infidels and the hypocrites, and be ruthless against them” (Koran 66:9), a verse Zawahiri quotes along with the commentary of al Qurtubi, 13th-century author of a 20-volume exegesis of the Koran: “There is but one theme — and that is zeal for the religion of Allah. He commands the waging of Jihad against the infidel by use of sword, sound sermons, and the summons to Allah.”

So too with other Western notions such as tolerance and “dialogue,” which bin Laden correctly asserts are “built on Western conceptions, which themselves rest upon the most loathsome, secular principles.” Indeed, bin Laden has a strong case, for he appeals for evidence to the life and practices of Mohammed and his companions — along with the Koran the Muslim’s guide to every aspect of life — and asks sarcastically, “What evidence is there for Muslims for this [dialogue and shared understanding]? What did the Prophet, the companions after him, and the righteous forebears do? Did they wage jihad against the infidels, attacking them all over the earth, in order to place them under the suzerainty of Islam in great humility and submission? Or did they send messages to discover ‘shared understandings’ between themselves and the infidels in order that they may reach an understanding whereby universal peace, security, and natural relations would spread — in such a satanic manner as this?”

History shows that bin Laden has the better understanding of Islam than do Western apologists; as Ibrahim summarizes the argument, “‘radical’ Islam is Islam — without exception.” In this same vein, Zawahiri argues in his “Loyalty and Enmity” that the only relationship one can have with the infidel is enmity. Zawahiri buttresses this argument with numerous quotations from Islamic theology, the most important coming from the Koran 60:4: “‘We disown you and the idols which you worship besides Allah. We renounce you: enmity and hate shall reign between us until you believe in Allah alone.’” On this authority comes the necessity to wage jihad against the infidel.

Perhaps the most important document in Ibrahim’s collection is Zawahiri’s “Jihad, Martyrdom, and the Killing of Innocents.” For years, we have been told that terrorism is un-Islamic because Islam forbids suicide and the killing of non-combatants. Zawahiri, however, teases out from Islamic tradition a perfectly rational and coherent argument in support of terrorism and suicide bombings.

Zawahiri starts by repeating Islam’s acceptance of deception in war as justified, thus legitimizing suicide bombings, which are deceptive by nature. Next, he builds his argument on selected hadiths, which as Ibrahim notes requires some interpretive stretching. Zawahiri gets around this difficulty by resorting to analogy, “a legitimate tool of Islamic jurisprudence,” as Ibrahim reminds us. Zawahiri focuses on intention, why the Muslim kills himself, not who kills him: “Thus the deciding factor in all these situations is one and the same: the intention — is it to service Islam [martyrdom] or is it out of depression and [despair]?” As for killing women and children, Mohammed himself provides a precedent during the siege of Ta’if, where he used catapults. The Prophet’s response to the question of killing women and children, which of course catapult missiles would do perforce, was “They [women and children] are from among them [infidels].” Again, the ultimate intention is the key: referring to al Shafi’ and the Hanbalis, two schools of Islamic jurisprudence, Zawahiri argues that it is permissible “to bombard the idolators even if Muslims and those who are cautioned against killing are intermingled with them as long as there is a need or an obligation for Muslims to do so, or if not striking leads to a delay of the jihad.”

Zawahiri’s reasoning in defense of suicide bombing may be ultimately unconvincing to many Muslims, or unsustainable by more careful exegesis. But the mere fact that such a case can be made — something impossible to do in the Christian, or Hebraic, or Hindu, or Buddhist traditions — and that millions of faithful Muslims accept the case, speaks volumes about the “religion of peace.”

[...]

These leftist bromides appear over and over in subsequent speeches and manifestoes, and testify to bin Laden’s shrewd recognition of the West’s Achilles heel: the appeasing proclivities of its elite intellectuals who, riddled with self-loathing guilt, are incapable of defending their way of life and its highest goods.

[...]

The Al Qaeda Reader, simply by letting our enemies speak in their own voices, explodes the popular delusion that Western crimes and policies are responsible for the “distortion” of Islam that al Qaeda represents. As Ibrahim writes, “This volume of translations, taken as whole, prove once and for all that, despite the propaganda of Al Qaeda and its sympathizers, Radical Islam’s war with the West is not finite and limited to political grievances — real or imagined — but is existential, transcending time and space and deeply rooted in faith.” This means that the fight will be long and hard, that leaving Iraq or creating a Palestinian state will not buy peace, and that the side that accurately understands its enemy and has confidence in its own beliefs will ultimately triumph. Thanks to Raymond Ibrahim’s The Al Qaeda Reader, we have the means for achieving that understanding.

"'I would like to say to the American people that Islam forbids killing innocent people,' said the seemingly deprogrammed al-Shayea through an interpreter."

"Seemingly deprogrammed" is good. Al-Shayea, like so many others, doesn't bother telling us whom he considers innocent. Unfortunately, some jihadists have said that no non-Muslims are innocent. For Al-Shayea to be truly "deprogrammed," he would need to be specific about non-Muslims being innocent.

From FoxNews (thanks to all who sent this in):

WASHINGTON — A new program in Saudi Arabia is offering young terrorists rehabilitation from a life of violence in the name of jihad. A Saudi government-sanctioned program to try to reverse the terrorist way of thinking has already begun to help some participants who have survived their own crimes.

Ahmed al-Shayea, for instance, is recovering not only from being a member of Al Qaeda, but from the burns over most of his body and missing fingers that are the result of an attack he carried out three years ago in Baghdad.

Al-Shayea is the among the newest members to join hundreds of other Islamic fighters, including detainees released from Guantanamo Bay, at a halfway house located on the outskirts of the provincial capital of Al Janderea.

"I would like to say to the American people that Islam forbids killing innocent people," said the seemingly deprogrammed al-Shayea through an interpreter.

Al-Shayea had dreamed of being a suicide bomber like the ones he saw in Al Qaeda propaganda videos. He was unemployed, 19 years old and lured to Baghdad by a school friend. He nearly blew himself up while driving a tanker filled with explosives outside the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad. The attack killed nine Iraqis.

He ratted out his Al Qaeda handlers, including the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who had flown al-Shayea and 23 other Saudis to Damascus, provided them safe houses in Syria and then smuggled them into Iraq.

"No doubt, they used me as a tool to kill innocent people," he said of his handlers.

Iraqi Muslims, Al-Shayea? Or non-Muslims?

Al-Shayea and other inmates say the Internet is much to blame for their indoctrination. Twenty-year-old Saddam Saleh said he got his fatwa, the religious edict that serves as marching orders, from a questionable cleric who he found over the Internet.

"That is what caused all this problem that I am in right now," he said.

The former jihadists are given a second chance through the three-year-old program sponsored by the Saudi interior ministry. During their recovery, the men stay in a rehabilitation center that looks more like a spa than a halfway house. The Saudi facility maintains a pool, a library, a volleyball court, gardens and other leisurely quarters.

Similar government-sponsored pilot programs are also being tried in Egypt and Yemen.

The staff uses art therapy, sports and reading to rehabilitate the "students" through a "12-step program." Among their lessons is a new education about Islam.

"We tell them that they should give the right picture of Islam. They should not kill or bomb or do anything against Islam," said Dr. Ahmad Hamad Jilan of the Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs.

Jilan and other instructors teach the inhabitants that jihad should not be waged against any non-Muslims with whom an Islamic nation has a truce or peace treaty. Jihad must also be approved, he said, by the state and by one's parents....

This leaves intact the possibility of jihad -- religious-based warfare -- against non-Muslims with whom there is no treaty, as long as it is approved by the state.

The halfway houses are designed to show the West as much as anyone that they are taking the problem seriously. So far, the effort is trickling down.

But is it really addressing the real problem?

Islamic Tolerance Alert: "Priest: Pakistan Short on Religious Freedom," from Zenit (thanks to John):

LAHORE, Pakistan, AUG. 21, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Christians in Pakistan still face persecution for their faith, despite the Pakistani founding father's dream of religious freedom, said Father Emmanuel Asi....

Father Asi, the chairman of the Theological Institute for Laity in Lahore and secretary of the Catholic Bible Commission of Pakistan, spoke with the group Aid to the Church in Need on that day.

Christians make up only 1.5% of the 167 million Pakistanis. According to Father Asi, they are often treated as second-class citizens, denied basic human rights and victimized by social discrimination and political oppression.

Father Asi contended that the vision of Ali Jinnah, the "father of the Pakistani nation" has been "darkened." Jinnah dreamed of a country in which all citizens were equal and, regardless of their religious faith, lived above all as free Pakistani citizens, the priest stated.

In reality, Father Asi said, religiously motivated aggression can "at any time" bring about "every imaginable kind of problem" for Christians.

Here is yet another indication of the deeply ingrained mendacity of the Council on American Islamic Relations.

In "CAIR’s Reputation and Incredibly Fluctuating Membership Roll," the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) notes that in CAIR's amicus brief in the Holy Land Foundation terror charity trial, CAIR complains:

This negative reaction by the American public can be seen in the decline of membership rates and donations resulting from the government’s publicizing of CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator.

Yet just two months ago, CAIR claimed just the opposite, in the words of cofounder Nihad Awad:

Our membership is increasing steadily, as is our donor base, annual budget, and attendance at CAIR events around the country promoting interfaith understanding and respect for civil liberties.

So which is it, Nihad? Is your membership and donor base increasing steadily, or declining? Will you and your colleagues just say anything if you believe it is to your advantage? Can you explain, in the light of self-contradictions like this, why any government or media organization should accord your group any credibility at all?

"They had more than the average interest in the working parts of the ferry, the layout of the ferry, the size of it -- more than you would see in normal passenger."

"FBI searching for two suspicious ferry passengers," by Chris Ingalls for KING 5 News (thanks to all who sent this in):

SEATTLE – The FBI is asking for the public's help to identify two men who have been seen acting suspiciously aboard Washington State ferries recently.

The FBI released a bulletin late Monday, including photographs of the two men. One of the photos shows the men side-by-side and the other is a solo shot of one of them. They were snapped by a ferry employee who thought the pair acted suspiciously.

"They had more than the average interest in the working parts of the ferry, the layout of the ferry, the size of it -- more than you would see in normal passenger," said FBI spokesperson Robbie Burroughs.

The FBI says the men were seen on more then one ferry and more than one run over the past several weeks. They were also taking photos of parts of the boat, which the agents won't reveal, but that apparently aroused the suspicions of passengers and crew alike.

The FBI says the men had an unusual interest in the layout and workings of the ferries.

"We got several different reports of this, these same gentlemen," said Burroughs. "We've attempted through law enforcement means to identify and locate them and we've been unsuccessful."

So now, the FBI wants to hear from anyone who knows or has seen these men, and it wants passengers to keep an eye peeled.

What would happen if we heeded the Left’s claim that there is no terror threat? From FrontPage (news links in the original):

Abdullah Al-Muhajir, also known as Jose Padilla, was convicted on Thursday of supporting terrorist activity and, according to Associated Press, “conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim people overseas.” At the Leftist website Daily Kos, Padilla was hailed as an “American Martyr to ‘War on Terror,’” and his trial was compared to the witch hysteria: “As was the case during the witch trials of yesteryear, only the socially unpopular, the mentally ill, and the politically dangerous end up at the end of a noose or in yet another bonfire of political vanity.” The barely literate posting went on to complain that the case against Padilla “hinged on one piece of papar [sic]: an application with his fingerprints.” No mention was made of the fact that this “one piece of papar” happened to be an Al-Qaeda application.

The Kos entry was just one small example of the Left’s tendency to see virtually all defensive efforts against the global jihad as manifestations of an encroaching Bushitler police state. Michael Moore said it a few years ago: “There is no terror threat in this country. This is a lie. It’s the biggest lie we have been told.” This has become conventional wisdom on the Left, coalescing neatly with a notable solicitude toward Islamic jihadists: one notorious example was radical feminist lawyer Lynne Stewart who became a water-carrier for the blind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, now in prison for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The activities of various members of the “nonviolent” International Solidarity Movement have given rise to numerous questions about its ties to violent jihadists.

Here is a podcast of one of the most fun interviews I've ever done: an hour yesterday with the fearless, peerless Pamela of the excellent Atlas Shrugs site, and a goodly number of incisive and interesting callers.

Discussing the book Religion of Peace? and whatever else I may be asked to discuss.

All times PDT:

5:00 AM NewsTalk 800 WVHU

5:35 AM John Pendleton Show WBOB

8:00 AM True North Radio

9:00 AM Podcast with Fausta (Blogtalk Radio)

4:20 PM Deace in the Afternoon WHO

As I noted here, the lengthy hit piece on me that the Council on American Islamic Relations recently linked to is frankly absurd, and virtually every assertion it makes about who I am, what I am doing, and what I am trying to accomplish is false -- although it is so far out that it is good for a few laughs. It would be unworthy of serious comment had not CAIR picked it up, leading some otherwise sane commentators to take at least some of its claims at face value.

So now Glen Reinsford of the excellent site TheReligionofPeace.com has very kindly taken it upon himself to write a detailed reply, "Spinning Spencer: An Analysis of the CAIR-Endorsed 'Exposé' of Robert Spencer." Reinsford demonstrates, just in case anyone has any doubt, how much of a transparent farrago this "exposé" is, and thus also how desperate and frightened CAIR has shown itself to be by posting it.

Thanks, Glen.

Audrey Hudson reports in the Washington Times about CAIR's ongoing attempts to be taken off the unindicted co-conspirator list. CAIR is crying "Islamophobia" at the highest levels now, claiming that the disclosure of the unindicted co-conspirator designation was "the vindictive attempt of the government to smear a group which has been critical of the government's actions in aggressively and selectively prosecuting Muslim groups or persons."

So you see, if the government would just stop prosecuting Muslims, and drop CAIR's unindicted co-conspirator status, everything would be hunky dory -- except for the nettlesome fact that Islamic jihadists would have a more or less free hand. Isn't it funny how so many of CAIR's initiatives seem to end up with exactly that result -- most notoriously the Flying Imams' suit against air passengers who reported their suspicious behavior. But CAIR is evidently more concerned about the imams' hurt feelings than about the safety of both Muslim and non-Muslim air passengers from Islamic terror attacks on airplanes. If CAIR is truly a moderate group, it is at very least a singularly inept one. These guys are veritable Keystone Moderates.

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) says it is suffering from a decline in membership and fundraising and blames the Justice Department for listing it as an unindicted co-conspirator in a case involving a charity accused of terrorist ties.

CAIR is asking a federal judge to strike it as one of the more than 300 Muslim groups listed as unindicted co-conspirators in the government's case against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, which is currently on trial in Dallas.

"The public naming of CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator has impeded its ability to collect donations as possible donors either do not want to give to them because they think they are a 'terrorist' organization or are too scared to give to them because of the possible legal ramifications of donating money to a 'terrorist" organization," CAIR said in an amicus curiae brief filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

The brief cites reporting by The Washington Times about the organization's declining membership — coverage that CAIR had previously denounced as a "hit piece."

The Justice Department shut down the Holy Land Foundation and in 2004 indicted several of its top officers who are accused of raising $36 million from 1995 through 2001 for organizations and persons linked with Hamas, designated as a terrorist organization by the Clinton administration in 1995. The foundation raised $12.4 million after the designation that made such fundraising illegal, prosecutors say.

The 42-count federal indictment accused the foundation's officers of conspiracy, providing support to terrorists, money-laundering and income-tax evasion.

On May 29, the Justice Department made public a list naming 307 unindicted co-conspirators — including CAIR — in the case now being tried in the Dallas courtroom of U.S. District Judge A. Joe Fish.

"The name of CAIR has been smeared by association with a criminal case that ostensibly involves the charitable funding of a 'terrorist' group," said the brief filed last week.

The brief says federal prosecutors had no legitimate governmental interest in publicly releasing the names of CAIR and other unindicted co-conspirators. "Instead, the disclosure is the vindictive attempt of the government to smear a group which has been critical of the government's actions in aggressively and selectively prosecuting Muslim groups or persons," CAIR told the court.

Intifada: the Palestinian "resistance," targeting innocent civilians and celebrating that targeting. Deborah Almontaser was disingenuous in explaining the meaning of the word, and defended it, and was rightly excoriated for doing so. But now Muslim groups are claiming that in getting heat for defending jihad terrorism she was a victim of -- you guessed it -- "racism" and "bigotry."

As if it is "racist" to stand up for human decency and the civilization that is menaced by the Islamic jihadists.

From Newsday (thanks to James):

NEW YORK - Supporters of an Arabic-themed academy are calling for the reinstatement of the public school's founding principal, who resigned amid a frenzy of negative publicity after she defended the word "intifada" on T-shirts.

About 200 people demonstrated in support of the Khalil Gibran International Academy on Monday night, gathering in front of the city's Department of Education.

They carried signs that read "NYC needs multi-cultural education" and "The Torah and the Koran both teach peace." Many were Muslims themselves, while others were Jewish.

They shared outrage over the political flaying that led Deborah Almontaser, the founding principal, to resign earlier this month.

"I thought this was not just an attack on her as an Arab, as a Muslim, but this was an attack on our community as a whole," said Sara Said Alkhulaidi, originally from Yemen, but now living in Brooklyn.

Almonteser had defended the use of the word "intifada," an Arabic term commonly used to refer to the Palestinian uprising against Israel, by Arab Women Active in Art and Media on T-shirts. The term, literally translated, meant "shaking off," Almonteser said, while asserting that she didn't think violence was suggested by the T-shirts.

But that response only helped to infuriate critics of the school.

They kept the volume of their rhetoric high on Monday, with critics warning students could be "indoctrinated" with radical Islamic beliefs.

State Assemblyman Dov Hikind said the school's children could be "indoctrinated" and warned in a statement that "establishment of an Arab school is a misguided and dangerous idea."

"It will not, as suggested, be a hope for peace; it is a blueprint for anti-Israel and anti-U.S. extremism," he said, adding that the school has been endorsed by "radical" groups.

Supporters called such statements "racist."

"Unless we all send a clear message that racist comments associating Arabic language and culture with terrorism will not be tolerated, we will continue to hear them again and again," the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee and other community groups said in a statement in support of the academy.

Sure. And as long as we tolerate the smearing of opposition to jihad mass murder and Islamic supremacism as "racism," we are going to see the race card again and again.

Religious imperialism: "They have taken over our temple, claiming it as their own. They have stopped us from entering the premises for the past two months."

"Muslims take over gurdwara in Lahore," from Rediff (thanks to Twostellas):

An 18th century Sikh temple at Naulakha Bazaar in Lahore has been taken over by a Muslim group, which has replaced the gurdwara's religious symbols with Islamic slogans, a Pakistani daily reported Tuesday.

"They have taken over our temple, claiming it as their own. They have stopped us from entering the premises for the past two months," the Daily Times quoted Dr Mampal Singh, a representative of the Sikh community, as saying.

He also claimed that the Evacuee Trust Property Board -- which controls the Bhai Taro Singh Jee gurdwara -- was supporting the intruders on their claim and not taking any action against them.

"We have written to ETPB on July 8 for the restoration of the temple to us and the officials told us they would act on the application within a month. But they haven't done anything yet and the intruders are tightening their grip on our worship place," Dr Singh said.

The endless cycle of revenge continues. But only one side wants to make peace -- although the other will happily take advantage. From Xinhua (thanks to Twostellas):

GAZA, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Al-Qassam Brigades, armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), said on Tuesday that its militants fired 25 mortar shells at Israeli posts on Gaza-Israeli borders.

In leaflets, the group said that five mortar shells were fired at Kerem Shalom Crossing southeast Gaza Strip while 12 othermortar shells landed at the military post of Kiss, east of central Gaza Strip.

The group said in another leaflet that six more mortar shells were fired at another Israeli army post, east of Kahn Younis town in southern Gaza Strip.

Israeli Radio also reported that several homemade mortar shells were fired from several parts of central and southern Gaza Strip at Israeli army posts on the borders between Israel and the Gaza enclave. No injuries or damages were reported.

Hamas said that the mortar attacks came as a revenge for killing six of its militants in an air strike on Monday east of al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza Strip.

At Pajamas Media today, John Derbyshire reviews my new book Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't. Not unexpectedly, he doesn't like it, but his review is so well-written that it is superbly entertaining even though I disagree with it. It is such a welcome departure from the heaps of abuse and po-faced dishonesty that usually greet my books, that I keep reading it and rereading it with delight. I laughed out loud at the part about Roger Cardinal Mahoney and Abu Ayyub Al-Masri. Don't miss it.

I'll be writing a serious, po-faced reply to this review, and the Pajamas people have kindly agreed to post it. Maybe John D. and I can enjoy that rarest of creatures nowadays: a civilized dialogue between people who disagree.

Oh, and John, dagnabbit, it's "Qur'an," not "Qu'ran."

Meanwhile, also at Pajamas is a video of Richard Miniter interviewing me awhile back, about this new book and other things. For some arcane technical reason, or maybe just my witless Luddism, I cannot view this interview; let me know what you think.

Friend and Ally Alert. By Salman Masood and Carlotta Gall for the IHT :

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: The release after three years of imprisonment of a Pakistani man accused of aiding Al Qaeda has dismayed U.S. officials.

Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, 28, was released without charge and turned up at his home in Karachi on Monday, his lawyer, Babar Awan, said. Khan was part of a group of people being held without charge in Pakistan and whose cases came before the Supreme Court on Monday.

Naheeda Mahboob Elahi, deputy attorney general of Pakistan, was asked about Khan's whereabouts by the court and said he had already been released. Awan said his office later reached Khan's family, who confirmed that he had arrived home. Awan said he had not yet spoken to his client.

Khan was arrested in Lahore International Airport in July 2004 during a joint Pakistani-British operation. Soon after his arrest, the authorities in Pakistan and the United States said they had found files on his computer that led to the raising of the terrorism alert level in the United States.

The authorities said the files included surveillance information on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Washington, the Citigroup Tower and New York Stock Exchange in New York and the Prudential Building in Newark, New Jersey.

"I believe the only way is to expose the Muslims to different cultures, different thoughts, different belief systems," said Dr Sultan, who is completing her first book, The Escaped Prisoner: When Allah is a Monster. -- from this article

Here is one of those details: those who are in a position to do so must work first to educate Infidels, so that a sufficient number of them in positions of power clearly understand the texts, tenets, attitudes, atmospherics of Islam. They must also be brought to understand why it is that efforts at appeasement and "integration" of Muslims into societies whose basic principles are flatly contradicted by Islam will fail.

And then, beyond the political and journalistic groups, and beyond those who are to protect and instruct us, there are ever-widening groups of citizens. These must make sure that in every encounter with Muslims, their new knowledge, and new implacable attitude, are not hidden from view, but self-confidently displayed.

Christiane Amanpour has at least one parent who was part of what one would have hoped to describe as the intelligent secular ancien regime. They were the people pushed out by Khomeini and his epigones, and therefore, one would have thought, comprehending the nature of Islam. Well, it turns out that not everyone who has fled Iran quite has that necessary understanding. Some like to pretend that Khomeini is a sport, when the real sport was the Shah and his father, in their de-emphasis on Islam, their emphasis on the pre-Islamic past of Iran, and their willingness to limit the power of the mullahs -- and, above all, to give the non-Muslims of Iran, the Christians, Jews, and Baha'is, reasonable security and even something akin to legal equality.

But Amanpour does not realize that. Nor, in her aggressive climb through the media ranks, has she stopped to study Islam. She has not stopped to find out what happened to the Zoroastrians or what happens to them in Iran today. She has not stopped to find out why, even in the 20th century, a Jew could be killed for going out in the rain (where a drop might ricochet off him and hit an innocent Muslim with this raindrop of najis-ness, thus contaminating him).

"Another example of how the ease of modern communications makes the spread of jihad easy also, for now jihadists can penetrate into areas of the Muslim world where the jihad ideology had lain dormant for considerable periods." -- from Robert Spencer's comment on this article

Technological advances made by Infidels, but then appropriated by Muslims, allow the latter to disseminate not some made-up texts, but the actual texts of Islam, those that pertain most directly to the Jihad. That includes those texts about the Jihad using the instrument of qitaal, or combat. This is the version that Infidels have no trouble describing as "terrorism" and that for many Muslims is perfectly licit, given both their quite narrow definition of Infidel "civilians" and their willingness to describe suicide bombers as not really committing suicide (which is not licit in Islam) but merely as conducting combat operations that may very likely lead to their death. The Jihad, so central to Islam, manages to justify a great deal.

But technology, remember, is made more readily available where there is enough prosperity for television sets, or cassette players, or for towers to be built. Or for an Internet message to get through -- that requires access to the Internet. In other words, the poorest villagers, in the most remote places, leading their hardscrabble existence, are the least likely to be a problem. But as soon as the wonders of modern (Infidel) technology arrive, things change.

This is what all Western states should be doing. From AKI (thanks to all who sent this in):

Rome, 21 August (AKI) - Italy's Foreign Ministry has instructed the country's embassy in Cairo to monitor closely the plight of an Egyptian man, Mohammed Hegazi, who has received death threats following his conversion from Islam to Christianity.

Hegazi, a journalist and political activist, is in hiding together with his wife Katarina, who is four months pregnant.

Hegazi's case "would not be taken lightly", Italian deputy foreign minister Ugo Intini was quoted as saying by Milan- based daily Corriere della Sera on Tuesday.

"We will act, so as to defend human rights and freedom of religion", Intini said.

Another example of how the ease of modern communications makes the spread of jihad easy also, for now jihadists can penetrate into areas of the Muslim world where the jihad ideology had lain dormant for considerable periods. "Philippines militants turn to YouTube," from the Sydney Morning Herald (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

Al-Qaeda-linked extremists in the Philippines have turned to the wildly popular Internet video-sharing website YouTube in an apparent attempt to raise cash and recruits, the military said Tuesday.

For the first time, two video clips from the Abu Sayyaf group, responsible for some of the worst terror attacks in the Philippines, have been posted on the site.

Military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Bartolome Bacarro said the clips were taken from a one-hour video that was distributed throughout the Arabic-speaking jihadist community.

He said the speakers used Arabic apparently to appeal to wealthy would-be benefactors from the Middle East.

The armed forces, which is mounting a bloody major offensive against Abu Sayyaf strongholds on the southern islands of Jolo and Basilan, dismissed the YouTube posting as an "act of desperation."

Discussing the book Religion of Peace? and related matters.

All times PDT:

4:34 AM KCMO Morning Show with Chris Stigall

5:00 AM Peter Boyles Show KHOW

6:00 AM George Khoury Show WMEL

7:00 AM Martha Zoller Show WDUN

7:30 AM Jeff Schiffman WSBA

9:00 AM Atlas on the Air

1:00 PM Politics of Money KCEO

1:35 PM Open Forum with Marc Bernier WNDB

3:00 PM Viewpoints WTKF

The closest this latest exercise in half-measures comes to getting at the heart of the matter is the project organizer's noting that "some got really confused when you put jihad next to it. Jihad has got a sacred context, so things that were unacceptable became acceptable." He adds, "We had to dig down to defuse the misconception," but he doesn't say how. And aiming to "defuse" (poor word choice) "misconceptions" still dances around the fact that the jihad doctrine is the problem in that it prescribes open-ended warfare against non-believers.

And pretending jihad violence is really something else (say, hirabah) does not change the fact that its perpetrators are motivated by and directly cite Islamic teachings on jihad. Anything short of engaging those texts is window-dressing. And if they don't engage those texts, others will, and not necessarily to discourage jihad.

By Jane Perlez for the New York Times:

BRADFORD, England -- At the Jamia Mosque on Victor Street in this racially and religiously tense town, Idris Watts, a teacher and convert to Islam, tackled a seemingly mundane subject with a dozen teenage boys: why it is better to have a job than to be unemployed.

[...]

The back and forth represented something new in Britain’s mosques: a government-financed effort to teach basic citizenship issues in a special curriculum intended to reach students who might be vulnerable to Islamic extremism.

In the long haul, the British government hopes that such civics classes, which use the Koran to answer questions about daily life, will replace the often tedious and sometimes hard-core religious lessons taught in many mosques across the land. Often, these lessons emphasize rote learning of the Koran and are taught by imams who were born in Pakistan and speak little English and have little contact with British society.

Written by a Bradford teacher, Sajid Hussain, 34, who holds a degree from Oxford, the new curriculum is being taught in some religious classes here in a city that is increasingly segregated between South Asians and whites. The pilot effort in Bradford has the backing and the financing from the Labor government as part of a hearts-and-minds campaign that it hopes will eventually spread to other cities and help better integrate the country’s mainstream Muslims into British culture. Approximately two million Muslims, mostly of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin, live in Britain.

Since four British Muslim suicide bombers attacked the London transit system in July 2005 and two other major terrorist plots were uncovered last year that British Muslim men were suspected of planning, British officials have been struggling with how to isolate the extremist Muslim minority from the moderate majority.

The new prime minister, Gordon Brown, said at his first news conference last month that he wanted to demonstrate the "importance we attach to nonviolence" and "the importance we attach to the dignity of each individual," and in the process make unpalatable the "extreme message of those who practice violence and would maim and murder citizens on British soil."

"The question for us is, how we can separate those extremists from the moderate mainstream majority?" he said.

One of the virtues of the curriculum in Bradford in applying Mr. Brown’s vision, according to his aides, is that it is taught by forward-leaning imams and is based on matching messages from the Koran to everyday life in Britain. The Labor government has been particularly concerned because, in part through its involvement in the Iraq war, it lacks credibility with many British Muslims.

An estimated 100,000 school-age Muslim children attend religious classes held at mosques in Britain daily, generally after regular school hours, said Jane Houghton, a spokeswoman for the Department of Communities and Local Government. "The impact this teaching could have is quite considerable," she said.

But as much as the government likes the curriculum, it has faced opposition from some Muslims.

Why, asked Nuzhat Ali, the women’s coordinator of the Islamic Society of Britain in Bradford, should Muslim children be singled out for civics lessons?

"One of our primary concerns is: why the Muslim community again?" Mrs. Ali said. "Extremism is a problem in all communities, especially among the British National Party," she said, referring to a right-wing party that has articulated white supremacist views. "The issue of terror and extremism needs to be addressed across the board rather than saying: ‘Here, Muslims, go into your corner and have your curriculum.’ "

Red herring. Even if BNP members had killed dozens of people in train and bus bombings, that wouldn't tell us anything about Islam. And they haven't, while Muslims have.

Some of the specifics of the curriculum met with disapproval, too.

In lesson plans provided to imams by Mr. Hussain, the teachers were asked to pose questions to their students based on recent events in Britain.

In one example, the students were to be asked what they would do if a friend bought a large quantity of fertilizer and announced he planned to build a bomb out of it. The question was based on the evidence in a recent trial in London in which five Muslim men were found guilty of buying fertilizer, storing it and planning to use it for a terrorist attack.

[...]

After a heated meeting with the critics in Bradford, Mr. Hussain, who said he had submitted the curriculum to a vetting panel of half a dozen Muslim scholars, agreed to remove the examples from the curriculum. "They were perhaps a little too frontal," he said.

But the important point, Mr. Hussain said, was to show Muslim students that their religion provided some answers to issues they confronted every day.

They understand that it’s wrong to go out and commit suicide bombings," Mr. Hussain said. "But some got really confused when you put jihad next to it. Jihad has got a sacred context, so things that were unacceptable became acceptable. We had to dig down to defuse the misconception."

Read it all.

"...in an apparent bid to create a climate of intimidation while sending out uncompromising signals to the West." Hmmm. How interesting that we have Islamic groups in the United States also that are trying, in a vastly different way, to create a climate of intimidation. From the Mail & Guardian (thanks to IG):

Iran has hanged up to 30 people in the past month amid a clampdown prompted by alleged United States-backed plots to topple the regime, the British Observer newspaper has revealed.

Many executions have been carried out in public in an apparent bid to create a climate of intimidation while sending out uncompromising signals to the West. Opposition sources say at least three of the dead were political activists, contradicting government insistence that it is targeting "thugs" and dangerous criminals.

The executions have coincided with a crackdown on student activists and academics accused of trying to foment a "soft revolution' with US support.

The most high-profile recent executions involved Majid Kavousifar (28) and his nephew, Hossein Kavousifar (24), hanged for the murder of a hard-line judge, Hassan Moghaddas, a man notorious for jailing political dissidents. They were hanged from cranes and hoisted high above one of Tehran's busiest thoroughfares.

Elashi was a founding board member of CAIR-Texas.

"Defendant scolded over outburst during Holy Land trial," by Jason Trahan for The Dallas Morning News (thanks to LGF):

U.S. District Judge A. Joe Fish threatened to bar one of the Holy Land trial defendants from the courtroom Monday after he shouted in frustration as the courtroom was clearing for a mid-morning break.

It wasn’t immediately clear what Ghassan Elashi, the Holy Land Foundation’s former board chairman, said after the judge had left and the jury was exiting, but he yelled and pointed as court security guards escorted him to a holding cell. During breaks and at night, Mr. Elashi goes back into federal custody to serve time on a previous sentence.

Judge Fish addressed the outburst after jurors left the courtroom for their lunch break.

“It was reported to me during the last recess, although I didn’t hear it myself, as the jury was leaving the courtroom, there was an outburst from Ghassan Elashi,” Judge Fish said. “It was reported to me that [Mr. Elashi said] ‘This trial is an extension of a Zionist conspiracy,’ or something to that effect. I just need to tell Mr. Elashi, and what I’m saying to him applies to all the defendants, we can’t have outbursts like that that will disrupt the trial.”

He said federal law allows defendants to sit in on their own trials, but “it can be waived” if there are disruptions....

At the time of the outburst, the courtroom was cleared of spectators as an Israeli government agent known by the pseudonym “Avi” was being cross examined. Holy Land supporters and members of the media were listening in through an audio feed in an overflow courtroom.

Khalil Meek, president of the Muslim Legal Fund of America, spoke to the defendants after Mr. Elashi’s outburst. He said that they told him that what triggered the incident was the judge’s decision not to allow into evidence a document that showed the Israeli government appeared to sanction some of the work by one of the Palestinian charity committees Holy Land is accused of illegally funding.

Just as my book Religion of Peace? confronts this very notion. Ms. Amanpour, I am available to provide for you an alternative view.

"CNN explores religious fundamentalism," by David Bauder for AP (thanks to all who sent this in):

NEW YORK - Christiane Amanpour's work on the documentary series "God's Warriors" took her directly to intersections of extreme religious and secular thinking.

She watched, fascinated, as demonstrators in San Francisco accused teenagers in the fundamentalist Christian group BattleCry of intolerance in a clash of two cultures that will probably never understand each other.

Understanding is what Amanpour is trying to promote in "God's Warriors," which takes up six prime-time hours on CNN this week. The series on religious fundamentalism among Christians, Muslims and Jews airs in three parts, 9 p.m. EDT Tuesday through Thursday.

[...]

"I'm not interested in drumming up false fears, or falsely allaying fears," CNN's chief international correspondent told The Associated Press by phone from France, where she added last-minute touches to the series. "I just want people to know what's going on."

Amanpour traveled extensively over eight months to work on the series. The trips to Amanpour's native Iran are most fascinating. She explored the ancient roots of the conflict between Shiites and Sunnis, and talked with one of the country's most accomplished female politicians about how Muslim women are treated.

Another segment tried to explain why so many devout Muslims are willing to give their lives to a cause.

"To the West, martyrdom has a really bad connotation because of suicide bombers who call themselves martyrs," she said. "Really, martyrdom is actually something that historically was quite noble, because it was about standing up and rejecting tyranny, rejecting injustice and rejecting oppression and, if necessary, dying for that."...

This is true in both Christianity and Islam. Amanpour fails to point out, however, that in Islam, but not in Christianity, a martyr is someone who kills for Allah, and is killed in the process (cf. Qur'an 9:111). One might forgive "the West" for getting this "bad connotation" in the face of the Islamic scriptural jihadists use to justify suicide attacks.

"I did come away with a sense that we — or those people who don't want to see religion in politics and culture — if we don't look into it and see what is going on, we're in danger of missing it and not be able to react to it properly," she said.

Ain't it the truth, Ms. Amanpour?

Amanpour was one of the last reporters to talk to the Rev. Jerry Falwell. She interviewed him a week before he died about the legacy of the Moral Majority, the organization that thrust evangelical Christians onto the political stage.

The segment on Christians explores BattleCry in some depth, digging at the roots of an organization that fights against some of the cruder elements of popular culture and urges teenagers to be chaste. In noting how girls at some BattleCry events are encouraged to wear long dresses, Amanpour asks the group's leader how it is different from the Taliban.

Well, uh, Ms. Amanpour, one might note the absence of AK-47s, the lack of opposition to the education of girls, the absence of burqas, the absence of divine sanction for wife-beating, and sundry other things. Unless you're too blinded by political correctness to notice, as is evidently the case.

In a non-judgmental way, she visits a family that is home-schooling its children and explores the influence of Evangelicals on the courts.

Homeschooling is evil too? Sheesh. Over 9,000 terror attacks committed in the name of Islam since 9/11, and Christiane Amanpour is spending her time demonizing homeschoolers.

Lights going out in modern, moderate Malaysia. "Islam’s war on sin dims bright lights in a nation torn between cultures," by Nick Meo in the TimesOnline (thanks to all who sent this in):

Over a drink of green coconut at what used to be called the Passionate Love Beach until his Islamist party came to power and scrapped the name, state minister Takiyuddin Hassan outlines the victories in the war on sin.

To the south, in Kuala Lumpur, the capital, celebrations are starting for Malaysia’s 50th year as an independent state. Its proud achievements are modern universities, a buoyant economy and a respected place in the world as a moderate Islamic nation.

Mr Hassan’s party boasts a different set of achievements: banning mini-skirts, chastising unmarried couples and renaming Kota Bharu’s favourite beauty spot. They also closed down nightclubs, banned nearly all bars except a few Chinese restaurants, where no Muslims are allowed, and refused to let a proposed cinema open unless there were separate sections for men and women.

[...]

As it celebrates 50 years of independence on August 31, Malaysia is once again debating just how Islamic it should be. Older Malays bemoan a younger generation that has become puritanical, self-righteously declining to attend social functions where alcohol is served. Headscarves, rare 20 years ago, are worn by almost all Malay women now, although often in combination with tight jeans.

[...]

Some fear that assertive Islam threatens to upset the delicate balance between the 60 per cent Malay Muslim majority and the nonMuslim ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities, which have managed to coexist, sometimes uneasily, since the troubled birth of the country in 1957, at a time of civil war and ethnic tension....

Ronnie Liu, of the Democratic Action Party, said: “Socialising between Malays and the other ethnic groups is much rarer than it used to be. You go into coffee shops and restaurants now and they no longer cater to an ethnic mix of customers. It wasn’t like that before.” Some nonMuslim Chinese and Indians feel increasingly treated like second-class citizens. They complain, usually privately, that Islamic religious schools are much better funded than theirs and that a system of affirmative action favours Malays when it comes to university places.

Islam has always had a prominent place. It is the official religion of Malaysia and the Constitution states that anyone born Malay is Muslim.

The debate over the parameters of its role, an old argument in Malaysia, was given a new outing when Najib Razak, the Deputy Prime Minister, broke a taboo to declare that the nation was an Islamic one. He said: “We have never been secular because being secular by Western definition means separation of the Islamic principles in the way we govern the country.”

The Council of Churches of Malaysia afterwards accused him of stirring up racial tension.

Minority religions are particularly worried about a series of apostasy rulings. Chinese or Indians who want to marry a Malay must convert to Islam, causing great problems if they divorce or are widowed and want to return to the religion of their birth.

In a notorious case this year a Malay woman called Lina Joy attempted to have Malaysia’s courts recognise her conversion to Christianity, but failed and was hounded and fled into hiding. Some hardliners have even called for the execution of apostates.

Every state has a religious department with Saudi-style moral enforcers and nowhere are they more active than in Kota Bharu, a city of mosques along a muddy river that bustles during the day but falls silent at nightfall.

Unmarried couples found sharing hotel rooms are hunted down by the enforcers. Couples caught sitting too close together on park benches are fined 2,000 ringgit (£285) in the city’s shariah court under a provision called khalwat ” loosely translated as “close proximity”. Couples have been forced into marriage after being caught together and moral enforcers sometimes pick on foreigners.

NonMuslims as well as Malays also sometimes fall foul of the enforcers in Kuala Lumpur and elsewhere and there are claims that instead of being paragons of Islamic virtue the enforcers are prone to bribery and have recruited vigilantes into their ranks.

In Kota Bharu the enforcers declined to speak to The Times. Mr Hassan explained: “They are worried about being made to look like fools. It could damage the image of Islam if their work is portrayed in the wrong light.”

Nurhayati Kaprawi, of Sisters in Islam, a group that has spoken out against khalwatand the enforcers, said that many of their raids followed anonymous tip-offs. She said that they frequently terrorised people by barging into homes in the middle of the night.

Ms Kaprawi said: “They say they want to implement Islam but the truth is they are really smearing Islam. If they are not stopped they really could become like the Taleban.”

Smearing it how, Ms. Kaprawi? Do explain. Please.

Keith Ellison can't understand how Muslims could read the Qur'an and get the idea that it incites violence. That's interesting, since clearly there are many Muslims around the world who read the same Qur'an and do think that it incites violence. It would be good of Ellison to confront this more explicitly and offer some refutation, whether written by him or by someone else, of the jihadist view. I would be most happy to host it here and discuss it.

"Muslim congressman ends Israel trip," by Herb Keinon for The Jerusalem Post (thanks to all who sent this in):

As the first Muslim member of the US Congress, Minnesota's Keith Ellison realizes that every step he takes regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict will be closely scrutinized by both American Muslims and Jews.

[...]

In fact, Ellison left Israel on Saturday after a six day-visit as part of a Democratic congressional delegation brought here by the American Israel Education Foundation, an independent, nonprofit charitable organization affiliated with the America Israel Public Affairs Committee. This was Ellison's second visit here since he was elected just nine months ago.

[...]

As to whether he felt he had a greater sensitivity to the Arab perspective than other congressmen, he said, "I know Islam, I know the religion, I read the Koran every day. When I went to the [Aksa] Mosque, it wasn't just a tourist site for me, it was a holy site. I felt the affinity for it."

But what he doesn't understand, Ellison said emphatically, were those - he called them "crazies" - who read the same Koran he did and came away with a license to murder.

"The murderers and the extremists are into something I don't know about," he said. "I don't know how they read what they read and come out with what they do. They wouldn't consider me a Muslim because I'm American, because I believe in the unity of people and that we are all on the planet to work together."

"The people who did 9/11 are hostile to everyone, and in fact if you are not the type of Muslim they want you to be, they would be happy to kill you too," Ellison said. "I am not a Muslim in their eyes because I am for tolerance and inclusion, and they don't want an Islam that is inclusive."

In saying that, Wafa Sultan, the hero of Al-Jazeera, refers to Qur'an 9:111, which promises Paradise to those who "kill and are killed" for Allah.

"Warning to West on 'evil of Islam,'" by Richard Kerbaj for The Australian (thanks to Sheik Yermami):

THE West was still underestimating the evil of Islam, an influential Muslim thinker has warned, insisting that Australia and the US have been duped into believing there is a difference between the religion's moderate and radical interpretations.

On a two-week "under the radar" visit to Australia, Syrian-born Wafa Sultan secretly met both sides of federal politics and Jewish community leaders, warning them that all Muslims needed to be closely monitored in the West.

In an interview with The Australian, Dr Sultan -- who shot to recognition last year following an interview on al-Jazeera television in which she attacked Islam and the prophet Mohammed -- said Muslims were "brainwashed" from an early age to believe Western values were evil and that the world would one day come under the control of Sharia law.

The US-based psychiatrist -- who has two fatwas (religious rulings) issued against her to be killed -- warned that Muslims would continue to exploit freedom of speech in the West to spread their "hate" and attack their adopted countries, until the Western mind grasped the magnitude of the Islamic threat.

"You're fighting someone who is willing to die," Dr Sultan told The Australian in an Arabic and English interview. "So you have to understand this mentality and find ways to face it. (As a Muslim) your mission on this earth is to fight for Islam and to kill or to be killed. You're here for only a short life and once you kill a kafir, or a non-believer, soon you're going to be united with your God."

Dr Sultan, who was brought to Australia by a group called Multi-Net comprised of Jews and Christians, met senior politicians, including Attorney-General Philip Ruddock, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and Labor deputy leader Julia Gillard.

[...]

"That's why the West has to monitor the majority of Muslims because you don't know when they're ready to be activated. Because they share the same basic belief, that's the problem," said the 50-year-old, who was last year featured in Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

[...]

But while she considered the prophet Mohammed "evil" and said the Koran needed to be destroyed because it advocated violence against non-believers, Dr Sultan struggled to articulate her vision for Muslims, whom she said she was trying to liberate from the shackles of their beliefs.

"I believe the only way is to expose the Muslims to different cultures, different thoughts, different belief systems," said Dr Sultan, who is completing her first book, The Escaped Prisoner: When Allah is a Monster.

"Muslims have been hostages of their own belief systems for 1400 years. There is no way we can keep the Koran."

Feel the love.

From Kamangir (thanks to Marvin).

UPDATE: Jihad Watch reader John tells me this photo dates from 1981. If so, my apologies, but of course little has changed in the attitudes of the Islamic regime in Iran since then. If anyone has more details about this photo, please let me know.

Sura 4, “Women,” is another Medinan sura, containing laws for the conduct of women and Islamic family life.

V. 1 says that Allah created men and women from a “single soul.” Many Muslims in the West have pointed to this verse as evidence that Islam recognizes the full human dignity of women. Ayatollah Murtada Mutahhari says that “other religions also have referred to this question, but it is the Qur’an alone which in a number of verses expressly says that woman has been created of the species of man, and both man and woman have the same innate character.” He then quotes 4:1. The “single soul” from which mankind was created was Adam’s, and while the Biblical story of Eve’s creation from Adam’s rib is not repeated here, Muhammad refers to it in a hadith that suggests that while men and women may have the same “innate character,” that doesn’t mean they are equal in dignity, for women are…crooked: “Woman has been created from a rib and will in no way be straightened for you; so if you wish to benefit by her, benefit by her while crookedness remains in her. And if you attempt to straighten her, you will break her, and breaking her is divorcing her.”

V. 3 is the basis for Islamic polygamy, allowing a man to take as many as four wives, as long as he believes he is able to “deal justly” with all of them. For according to the Mishkat Al-Masabih, Muhammad said: “The person who has two wives, but is not just between them, shall appear on the Day of Judgment in such a condition that one half of his body will be collapsing.” But of course, justice in these circumstances is in the eye of the beholder. Ibn Kathir says this the requirement to deal justly with one’s wives is no big deal, since treating them justly isn’t the same as treating them equally: “it is not obligatory to treat them equally, rather it is recommended. So if one does so, that is good, and if not, there is no harm on him.”

This just in: Islamic terror group drops plans for a real-life terror attack to avoid offending non-Muslims. No, wait, scratch that...

From the Daily Mail (thanks to all who sent this in):

The BBC has dropped plans to show a fictional terror attack in an episode of Casualty to avoid offending Muslims.

The first show of the hospital drama's new series was to have featured a storyline about an explosion caused by Islamic extremists.

Now the bomb will be set off by animal rights campaigners instead.

...unless they also complain, in which case the bomb will no doubt be set off by fundamentalist Christians.

A search on "Hizb ut Tahrir" at YouTube yields abundant examples of HuT propaganda. "Islamist propaganda on YouTube," by Natalie O'Brien for The Australian:

THE hardline Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir has started posting professionally produced propaganda video clips on YouTube.

The clips, some lasting almost 10 minutes, posted on the internet video-sharing site depict Muslims being attacked by Western forces and asks "for how much longer?"

Produced by the group's Malaysian branch, the clips call on Muslims to "arise and shake off the dust" of European colonialism and show members marching in support of Palestinians to the commentary "O armies of the Muslim world, we wait for your help".

US intelligence analyst Madeleine Gruen has warned that the younger generation's pioneering spirit has made Hizb ut-Tahrir one of the world's most innovative extremist groups.

[...]

Hizb ut-Tahrir has been banned in Europe, China and countries in the Middle East including Saudi Arabia.

However, it remains active in Britain and Australia, promoting the idea of an international caliphate, or Muslim government, to run countries with a majority Muslim population under sharia law.

Only Muslim-majority countries? Then, why is it active in Britain and Australia, among other places?

Barry Rubin, a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, says the group has been banned in the Middle East because people there understand the dangers, but is allowed to continue operating in the West because its governments fail to appreciate the group prepares people mentally for terrorism.

Professor Rubin, also the director of Israel's Global Research for International Affairs Centre, has called on the Australian Government to outlaw the group.

Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock has said the status of Hizb ut-Tahrir is under constant review, but said last week the threshold test for banning an organisation was the involvement in or advocacy of terrorism.

Ms Gruen says that five years ago most Western observers considered Hizb ut-Tahrir's goal of overthrowing governments to replace them with a caliph was unrealistic and unlikely to resonate with Western Muslims.

How about now?

The group used to have a presence in about 40 countries but that has now grown to 45.

She argues the group's membersip has swelled and several branches, including Australia's, have become large enough to move from their "covert gestational phase to a publicly active stage".

Islamic Tolerance Alert. More on this story from Compass Direct:

ISTANBUL, August 16 (Compass Direct News) – Christians and Hindus in northern Pakistan have received dozens of letters threatening them with death if they refuse to become Muslims, church sources and a police official said yesterday.

Police continued to provide security around churches and temples this week, even as Christians received new deadlines for converting to Islam.

Though the original August 10 deadline for conversion has passed, Peshawar’s minorities continue to live in fear, canceling church activities and skipping services, a Catholic priest said.

“Embrace Islam and become Muslims … otherwise, after next Friday, August 10, your colony will be ruined,” read more than a dozen identical letters collected by the Church of Pakistan (COP) in Peshawar, 150 kilometers (93 miles) west of Islamabad.

A spokesman for COP, Pakistan’s largest Protestant body, said that on August 7 some of the threatening letters had been thrown into the courtyards of Christian and Hindu homes in Peshawar’s Kohati, Interior City and Cantonment districts. Different letters were mailed to Peshawar’s Catholic and Protestant churches.

“All in all, we were able to collect only 15 of the letters from the community,” said Ashar Dean, assistant director of communications for COP’s Peshawar diocese.

Explaining that they were delivered to neighborhoods heavily populated by minority families living in small houses around a common courtyard, Dean said that the letters probably reached more than 100 Christians and Hindus.

A separate letter mailed to COP diocesan priest Joseph John threatened suicide attacks against churches.

“Our mosques and children are being martyred at American orders,” read the letter. “Therefore the churches will also be wiped out from the face of the earth.”

Another example of how fantasy-based policymaking just doesn't work.

"Terrorists: Amnesty shamnesty! We prefer human slaughter: Militant leader says organization granted 'free pass' by Olmert won't disarm," by Aaron Klein for WorldNetDaily.com (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

JAFFA, Israel – The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group will not disarm or cease attacks on the Jewish state in spite of an amnesty agreement forged with Israel last month in which top Brigades members pledged to turn in their weapons and refrain from attacks, a senior Brigades leader told WND.

"We respect our leaders but will keep fighting until Israel withdraws completely from the West Bank. We are the resistance. We will keep fighting and never give up our weapons until Israel withdraws," said Ayad Frehat, a Brigades leader in the West Bank city of Jenin.

"Whenever the Israeli army acts in the West Bank, we will fight side-by-side with our brothers from the other resistance movements," Frehat told WND.

Frehat is on a list of Brigades members presented to Israel for amnesty consideration.

Last month, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert granted amnesty to 178 members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the declared "military wing" of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah's organization, in exchange for pledges not to engage in terrorist activity.

The Brigades, along with Islamic Jihad, has taken responsibility for every suicide bombing in Israel the past three years. The amnesty agreement reportedly was made as an Israeli gesture to Abbas' and to bolster Fatah against Hamas in the West Bank.

Israel issued documents for the 178 Fatah fugitives to sign, pledging their resignation from any so-called paramilitary organizations. The wanted militants – who comprise much of the senior Brigades leadership – also were required to turn in their weapons, spend a week in a PA holding area and restrict their movements to the area in which they reside for three months. After that, they would be allowed to move freely throughout the West Bank.

Another "We know what they are doing and it needs to stop" Alert. (And if they don't stop, when will someone stop them?) "U.S. forces tracking Iranians in Iraq," by Kim Gamel for the Associated Press:

BAGHDAD - American forces are tracking about 50 members of an elite Iranian force who have crossed the border into southern Iraq to train Shiite militia fighters, a top U.S. general said Sunday. The French foreign minister, meanwhile, arrived in Baghdad on a groundbreaking visit after years of icy relations with the United States over Iraq.

[...]

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, whose command includes the volatile southern rim of Baghdad and districts to the south, said his troops are tracking about 50 members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps in their area -- the first detailed allegation that Iranians have been training fighters within Iraq's borders.

"We know they're here and we target them as well," he said, citing intelligence reports as evidence of their presence.

He declined to be more specific and said no Iranian forces have been arrested in his territory.

"We've got about 50 of those," he said, referring to the Iranian forces. "They go back and forth. There's a porous border."

The military has stepped up allegations against Iran in recent weeks, saying it supplies militants with arms and training to attack U.S. forces.

Iran denies the allegations and says it supports efforts to stop the violence.

[...]

Lynch, whose mission is to block the flow of weapons and fighters into the Baghdad area, said Sunni and Shiite extremists have become increasingly aggressive this month, trying to influence the debate in Washington before a pivotal progress report on Iraq.

He singled out the Shiite extremists as being behind rising attacks using armor-piercing explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, which he said were largely assembled in Iraq from parts smuggled in from Iran. He also noted a marked increase in Iranian-rockets that have been increasingly effective against U.S. bases.

There has been an overall decrease in attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces, as well as civilians, south of Baghdad, but 46 percent of those were being carried out by Shiite extremists, Lynch said.

"The real difference now is we've got to spend as much time fighting the Shia extremists as Sunni extremists," he said.

In the 1960s Sayyid Qutb in Egypt wrote that both capitalism and socialism had failed and that Islam was ready to assume a role of world leadership. Now Khatami explains how this is in full swing.

From IRNA (thanks to James):

Head of the International Center for Dialogue of Civilizations Mohammad Khatami said on Saturday that failure of the socialist and nationalist movements have led world people to embrace Islam.

He said in his statement to the Thirteenth Seminar of Baran Foundation that despite the fact that followers of different religions live in the Middle East, the region has assumed an Islamic identity in the course of history.

"Nevertheless, the resistance to aggression on the Middle East territories by foreign forces to forge dominance over the region has served to found such an Islamic identity."

He said that colonialism has actually faced with the wall of Islamic identity in the Middle East.

"Though the Islamic identity can go in parallel with the positive aspects of the Western civilization, Western politicians do not accept any dispute due to their selfishness, especially when their interests are challenged."

He said that the self-esteemed Western politicians see themselves entitled to stir up Islamophobia and violence against Muslims, so Islam has been exposed to damages owing the Western and Zionist campaigns.

Not that Islam has done anything to provoke negative reactions. Not that Muslims have committed any violence of their own in the name of Islam. Oh, no.

Latest from the inner spiritual struggle in the Philippines.

From VOA News:

Philippine military officials say 16 troops and about 30 Muslim extremists have been killed in clashes in the southern Philippines.

[...]

The fighting was one of the bloodiest clashes on Basilan since 14 marines were killed in an ambush last month.

The United States considers Abu Sayyaf a terrorist group with ties to the radical Jemaah Islamiyah organization. Philippine forces have been on the offensive against Abu Sayyaf since 2005, fighting primarily on Jolo.

The al-Qaida-linked group is blamed for several deadly attacks in the Philippines, including a 2004 bombing that gutted a ferry and killed 116 people.

The latest nuttiness from DC. As reported by AP in the IHT:

BOISE, Idaho: U.S. Representative Bill Sali has apologized to a Muslim colleague for remarks suggesting the United States' founders never intended for Muslims to serve in the U.S. Congress.

In the interview with the Christian-based American Family News Network, Sali referred to Representative Keith Ellison, who last fall became the first Muslim elected to Congress.

In the Aug. 8 report, Sali also questioned the wisdom of Senate leaders, who last month invited a Hindu clergyman to give the morning prayer.

"We have not only a Hindu prayer being offered in the Senate, we have a Muslim member of the House of Representatives now," Sali is quoted as saying on the network's Web site. "Those are changes, and they are not what was envisioned by the Founding Fathers."

The comments sparked criticism from liberal bloggers. A former Idaho Democratic congressman called for Sali to either apologize or resign.

Sali responded days later, sending Ellison an e-mail explaining he meant no offense.

So are we to understand that Muslim congressmen and Hindu prayers in the Capitol were envisioned by the Founding Fathers? That Washington and Adams -- those two great enthusiasts of eastern spirituality and tandoori chicken -- longed for the day when a Hindu prayer would open the Senate? That Jefferson, who sent the navy in to wipe out the (Muslim) Barbary Pirates, hoped for a Muslim in the House of Representatives?

Ellison is traveling outside the country, but his spokesman said the congressman typically does not take such remarks personally.

"We will take Bill Sali at his word," Rick Jauert said Friday. "That would be in keeping with Keith's turn-the-other-cheek mentality. He figures if someone has a bad day, chooses their words poorly, we'll give them the benefit of the doubt."

I am trying to come up with some devastatingly funny remark about the "turn-the-other-cheek" line -- but it's too late in the evening. I'll leave that for the comments. At the very least, it must take home this week's JW award for Preposterous Irony.

"Obviously we wish it hadn't occurred in the first place," said Ibrahim Hooper, of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, based in Washington D.C. "But we think he did the right thing. We hope he will have learned a little more about the American Muslim community and will be more sensitive about his comments in the future."

Ibrahim Hooper. The gift that just keeps on giving.

By Diana Muir in the Washington [bleep]:

Salman Rushdie, Thomas Friedman, Nicholas Kristof and Mansour al-Nogaidan are among the well-intentioned people who have called for an Islamic Reformation. They should be careful what they wish for.

[...]

The Reformation was a time of intense focus on God and what He requires of people. As a movement, it was enthusiastic, narrow and far from tolerant. It and the Counter-Reformation brought two centuries of repression, war and massacre to the West. It's unlikely that anyone who lived through it would consider wishing a Reformation on Muslims.

[...]

Like the followers of Martin Luther and John Calvin, Islamic reformers reject the interpretations of generations of scholars in favor of seeking the word of God directly in scripture. [...]

As Luther put it: Sola scriptura (Scripture alone).

This is heady stuff. The conviction of having the Word direct from God can empower individuals to rebuke, to command and even to kill in His name. Protestant determination to follow the word of God straight from the Bible was accompanied by a desire to purify Christianity by emulating the beliefs and practices of the early church. Hassan al Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood; Sayyid Qutb, a leading Muslim Brotherhood thinker; and Ibn Wahab, the founder of modern Salafi, or Wahhabist, Islam, call upon Muslims to return to the uncorrupted beliefs and practices of early Islam and to become as pure as Salafis, or the first three generations of Muslims. To become, as it were, Puritans.

Muir makes some interesting points here. First, the hope for an Islamic "reformation," even if it followed the form of the Christian Reformation, would hardly prove a walk in the park. Second, a Muslim reformation of sorts is very much underway already thanks to the Salafis and individuals like Qutb and Al Banna -- though this is hardly the shortcut to enlightenment that naive Westerners would understand "reformation" to mean.

Western pundits have debated whether Arabs who voted for Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood in the Palestinian and Egyptian parliamentary elections were voting for the Islamist religious program or voting against corruption. Surely it was a two-for-one deal. To vote for the Muslim Brotherhood or Hamas is to vote against corruption and for returning to the purity of the days of the prophet Muhammad. This was a compelling idea when preached by Calvin. It is compelling still.

There are, of course, differences between the Protestant and Islamic reformations. In Islam today it is usually radical reformers who have reached first for the sword. In the European Reformation, things became tense when a determined minority demanded reform, but in general it was those church and state officials who held power who first resorted to violence.

Like others before her -- and, one confidently predicts, many yet to come -- Muir starts off well but then glances off the central point. Still, for the [bleep], she comes pretty close.

While the Christian Reformation and the Islamic one both subscribe to sola scriptura (though it is important to note that all schools of Islamic orthodoxy accept the literal, unalterable, and supreme authority of the Quran), the one critical difference -- which Muir, and, it seems, everybody else -- fails to mention is just what are the differences in content between the Christian and Islamic scriptures. No one wants to talk about the violent injunctions in the Quran or the bloody precedents set by Muhammad -- as compared to the commands of Christ to love, forgive, and turn the other cheek and his example of preferring an ignominious death to resisting his tormentors. I think somebody wrote something on this recently?

In the near term, though, the Islamic Reformation will divide Muslim society as the Reformation divided Europe. A fervent minority in many countries is already pressing for narrow interpretations on issues such as veiling, whether to listen to music and replacing secular laws with religious codes. As we have seen in Europe and more recently in Afghanistan, Muslim Puritans are likely to take over communities where they are far from being the majority. Meanwhile, the majority has yet to construct an effective ideological defense of moderation.

This last remark begs the question: Why has there been such a lack of "an effective ideological defense of moderation"? During the Christian Reformation, there was a very robust conservative defense mounted by the Roman Catholic Church -- which persists to this day. So where are the "moderates" in Islam today? Why have they not appeared? Precisely because Islam is not "moderate." "Moderate" (as in mainstream), orthodox Islam is a violent, political program with world conquest as its aim. Until the actual content of Islam is brought forth into the light of day, commentators such as Muir will continue to scratch their heads in bafflement as to why the Muslim "moderates" can't get their act together.

"We are Muslims," said the hijackers, according to Suzan Fraser for Associated Press .

And the Times of India says they claimed to be members of Al-Qaeda also:

ISTANBUL: Hijackers claiming to have bombs and to be members of Al-Qaida on Saturday hijacked a Turkish passenger plane heading from northern Cyprus to Istanbul.

The hijackers had asked that the plane be diverted to Iran or Syria but the pilots landed the plane at Antalya airport, near the Mediterranean coast, said Tuncay Doganer, CEO of the private Atlas-Jet airline company.

Most of the passengers managed to escape from the rear exit of the plane while the hijackers were releasing the women from the front exit, one passenger told private NTV television.

I am pleased to announce that my weekly Jihad Watch Blogging the Qur'an series is now being translated into German, courtesy the good people at Islam-deutschland.info. Almost all the existing segments are now available in German here.

Oh, and you can find them in English here.

And Ahmadinejad is an expert on Satan. From AP (thanks to Darcy):

TEHRAN, Iran (AP)-- Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday that Israel was the standard bearer of Satan and the Jewish state would soon fall apart, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported Saturday.

The agency quoted Ahmadinejad as he spoke at a religious conference and did not elaborate on what he meant by Satan. Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, however, Iran has regularly referred to the United States as ''the Great Satan.''

''The Zionist regime is the standard bearer of invasion, occupation and Satan,'' he said, predicting Israel's eventual demise. ''When the philosophy behind the establishment of a regime is in question, it is not unlikely that it will find itself on a course of decline and dissolution.''

UK TV provides a forum for Islamic supremacism and the delegitimization of Christianity: "TV airing for Islam's story of Christ," by Riazat Butt in The Guardian (thanks to LGF):

There was no manger, Christ is not the Messiah, and the crucifixion never happened. A forthcoming ITV documentary will portray Jesus as Muslims see him.

With the Koran as a main source and drawing on interviews with scholars and historians, the Muslim Jesus explores how Islam honours Christ as a prophet but not as the son of God. According to the Koran the crucifixion was a divine illusion. Instead of dying on the cross, Jesus was rescued by angels and raised to heaven.

The one-hour special, commissioned and narrated by Melvyn Bragg, is thought to be the first time the subject has been dealt with on British television. Lord Bragg said: "I was fascinated by the idea ... Jesus was such a prominent figure in Islam but most people don't know that."

[...]

However, Patrick Sookhdeo, an Anglican canon and spokesman for the Barnabas Fund, which works with persecuted Christians, accused broadcasters of double standards. Mr Sookhdeo, who was born a Muslim and converted to Christianity in 1969, said: "How would the Muslim community respond if ITV made a programme challenging Muhammad as the last prophet?"

The Koran's denial of Jesus's divinity was "unacceptable". "On the last day the Koran says Jesus will destroy all the crosses. How can we praise that?"

The Brussels Journal (thanks to The One Who Must Not Be Named) has the details:

This Demo Is NOT Being Banned

Organizers of Brussels Anti-Sharia Demo Appeal against Ban

"Islam in America before Columbus" by Hisham Zoubeir appears this week in the Muslim Weekly (thanks to all who sent this in), but actually it has been making the rounds for years, and can be found on many Islamic sites.

Zoubeir claims that there is archaeological and linguistic evidence for a pre-Columbian Muslim presence in North America. I don't know of any scholarly refutation of the claims he makes, and for all I know they could be true, although they recall Khrushchev-era Soviet propaganda about how the Russians actually were the first people to do just about everything.

Zoubeir's article may seem to many to be simply an exercise in chauvinistic overreaching until one realizes that to some Muslims who take his claims seriously, America is now Muslim land -- and Islamic law stipulates that Muslims possess by right any land that once formed part of the House of Islam; this is a key element of the claims to Israel and Spain put forward by Hamas, Al-Qaeda, and others. Chauvinistic overreaching, yes, but quite possibly with a political agenda.

Witless for the Prosecution Alert: the FBI has issued a statement in the Mohamed and Megahed case saying that "there is the possibility that the publicly reported allegations involving the students may be proven to be false." Now of course the only reason why anyone thinks that they did have pipe bombs is because authorities said they did: "They admitted to having what they said were fireworks. Based on the officer's judgment at hand, based on what he had seen, we judged it to be other than fireworks," Berkeley County Sheriff Wayne DeWitt said.

Of course, Sheriff Wayne DeWitt ain't the FBI, but no one should have said anything if he wasn't sure, and the FBI should have challenged DeWitt's statement when he made it if it wasn't accurate. If these two young men didn't have pipe bombs or bomb-making material after all, the authorities have defamed Mohamed and Megahed. If they did, why this weaselly cautionary statement? The stakes are too high for this kind of bungling in terror cases.

"FBI's caution puzzles experts," by Abbie Vansickle for the St. Petersburg Times (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

TAMPA - For days after the arrest of two University of South Florida students accused of having pipe bombs, the FBI remained silent.

On Wednesday, the agency released a statement telling the public it's possible there's no merit to the accusations against Youssef Megahed, 21, and Ahmed A. Mohamed, 26. Both were arrested Aug. 4 in Goose Creek, S.C., on charges of possession of explosives.

"The FBI would like to remind everyone that this is an ongoing investigation and there is the possibility that the publicly reported allegations involving the students may be proven to be false," it read.

An FBI spokesman said the agency is still investigating, that it released the statement only because there's so much interest in the case, and it wants to be fair.

"We're just making a request for everybody to be very objective at this time, very neutral," said Special Agent Dave Couvertier.

But local legal experts say there's likely more to it.

"That is a highly unusual statement from the FBI," said Tampa lawyer John Fitzgibbons, a former federal prosecutor.

Other legal experts agreed, but no one knew what to make of it.

"Well, who knows what that means?" said Ed Page, a lawyer who has experience in Tampa and Washington, D.C. "Perhaps the initial assessment that the trunk contained pipe bombs was inaccurate. That's a weird statement, I've got to tell you, to be coming out of the FBI."

Fitzgibbons saw two scenarios. First, the FBI may not have a strong case against the students. Second, the Department of Justice may require a statement of that sort in its communication with the media.

What the heck is an "unlimited cash reward"? Is the Imam Syed Mohammed Noorur Rahman Barkati going to give the killer of Taslima Nasreen all the money in the world? Meanwhile, he demands that she be deported and threatens to set up a roadblock in front of her home.

And why all the threats and terrorizing? Because she "exposed Indian Muslims to ridicule and contempt" and defamed "Islam and the Prophet." It doesn't seem to occur to the Imam Syed Mohammed Noorur Rahman Barkati that he might deal more effectively with whatever threat to Islam he thinks is coming from Taslima Nasreen by refuting what she says, or at least debating her and making his case while she makes hers.

But in India as in the United States, Muslim spokesmen who take umbrage at statements by non-believers don't seem interested in debating their opponents and taking the opportunity to demonstrate the truth of what they're saying and the falsity of what their opposition is saying. Instead, in a manifestation of utter intellectual bankruptcy, they resort to threats. Legal threats instead of death threats here -- for now at least.

An update on this story. From Rediff.com (thanks to all who sent this in):

Charging her with defaming Islam and the Prophet, an Imam in Kolkata on Friday declared "unlimited reward" on the head of Taslima Nasreen, the controversial Bangladeshi writer. Taslima was attacked in Hyderabad last week.

Speaking at a rally after the Friday prayers, Syed Mohammed Noorur Rahman Barkati, imam of the Tipu Sultan Shahi Masjid, also demanded that the writer be deported from the country in a month.

"If our demand is not met, there will be an unlimited cash reward for whosoever kills her. The United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre and the Left Front government in the state will be responsible for the consequences," he told the gathering at Esplanade, in Kolkata.

'If you harbour Taslima and Rushdie in India, then drive away all the Muslims from this country,' a banner at the rally said.

Alleging that Taslima had exposed Indian Muslims to ridicule and contempt, the imam threatened to organise a road block in front of the writer's residence in Kolkata after the month of Ramzan.

More brutality in Egypt. Another case of female genital mutilation. This time the victim is suffering from severe bleeding and is currently in a coma.

"Egyptian woman held after near-fatal female circumcision," from AFP:

CAIRO - Egyptian police are holding a woman who conducted a near-fatal circumcision on a young girl, a widely-condemned practice the authorities are trying to stamp out, the press reported Friday.

The victim, Naglaa Khamis, went into a coma and suffered severe hemorrhaging after the removal of part of her genitals, but was saved after being taken to hospital by her parents.

Police took the woman who carried out the mutilation in Minya, south of Cairo, into custody.

The health ministry said, last week, that a law to toughen penalties against female circumcision will be put to parliament when it reconvenes in the autumn, after two young girls died during such operations in recent months.

Until the parliament returns from its holiday, look for the brutality to continue. Anyone in Egypt ever hear of an emergency session?

People found guilty of carrying out female circumcision currently risk up to three years in prison and, in June, health minister Hatem Al Gabali issued a decree banning every doctor and member of the medical profession from performing the procedure.

Now the neighbors are performing the ghastly deed themselves.

The practice, which affects both Muslim and Christian women in Egypt, was banned in 1997, but doctors were allowed to operate "in exceptional cases."

Female circumcision can cause death through hemorrhaging, and later complications during childbirth. It also carries risks of infection, urinary tract problems, and mental trauma.

Religious leaders, usually silent on taboos relating to female sexuality, have also started to speak out against the practice, which many Egyptians believe is a duty under Islam and Christianity.

What could possibly justify such brutality?

Crossposted from The American Israeli Patriot.

A true professional takes pride in his work, as it is a true reflection of his very being. Iran's IRGC is no exception; they are true professionals of the terror trade.

"US effort to include IRGC among terror organs a pride for Guards- Khatami," from IRNA:

Provisional Friday Prayer Leader of Tehran said here Friday the US decision to include the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in the list of international terrorist organizations is another golden page in the IRGC's history. Ayatollah Seyyed Ahmad Khatami added, "As in the nuclear case, the Iranian nation and government would never leave alone their revolutionary offsprings."

Two leading US dailies, the Washington Post and the New York Times reported in their Wednesday edition about US officials intention to survey adding the name of Iran's Revolutionary Guards to the list of the international organs involved in terrorist acts.

He said, "The IRGC has truly shined well during the 28-year history of the Islamic Republic of Iran, both in confronting foreign enemies and foiling domestic plots."

Khatami said, "Among the prides of the IRGC we can refer to the late founder of the Islamic Republic's words about the Guard Corps, where he said he was pleased with the IRGC, and that he would never think negatively about them.

He added, "The late Imam also said that there would have been no Islamic Republic of Iran if there were no IRGC; I love the IRGC very dearly; My entire hope lies in IRGC's conduct;" and "There is nothing in the records of the IRGC, save serving Islam."

Ayatollah Khatami said, "Therefore, the US State Department's decision to include IRGC in its list of world terror organs is merely another golden point in the records of IRGC pride.

Crossposted from The American Israeli Patriot.

It's 1967 all over again. Russia is arming the Syrians; which almost certainly means that it is supplying Iran and Hizballah as well. Put another log on the fire.

"Russia begins delivery of air defence system to Syria – report," from Thomson Financial:

MOSCOW (Thomson Financial) - Russia has begun delivery of modern air defence units to Syria while rejecting speculation that some of the weapons could be forwarded secretly to Iran, a newspaper reported on Friday.

'The first part of the delivery to Syria has started,' the centrist daily Nezavissimaya Gazeta reported, quoting information from a domestic military information agency.

A spokesman for Russia's arms export agency Rosoboronexport, contacted by Agence France-Presse, declined to comment on the newspaper report.

The report acknowledged that the delivery of the weapons, the Pantsyr-S1E self-propelled short-range missile air defence system, was particularly sensitive in light of Israeli claims last year that Russian arms sold to Syria had ended up in the hands of militant group Hezbollah.

In May, the London-based arms specialist magazine Jane's Defence Weekly reported that Syria had agreed to send Iran at least 10 of the Pantsyr units.

That report was categorically denied by a range of top Russian officials including First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov.

Crossposted from The American Israeli Patriot.

Wife to husband: please marry another woman! Man Bites Dog Alert from MEMRITV:

Following is an interview with Hiyam Darbak, who founded an Egyptian association for the promotion of polygamy, which aired on MBC TV on November 28, 2006:

Interviewer: How did you come up with the idea of founding the "One Wife is Not Enough" association?

Hiyam Darbak: I came up with the idea because of the new statistics in society - the rising rates of women who never married, divorced women, and widows in Arab countries, such as Iraq and Palestine, and in Islamic countries where there are wars and so on. Women without men have become a phenomenon in society, and they constitute time bombs in society – especially the millions of women who never married. There are armies of women who never married in Arab society. This also poses a danger to the morality of society.

[...]

Interviewer: You expect the wife to agree to share her husband with another woman?

Hiyam Darbak: Why not?

Interviewer: Are you married?

Hiyam Darbak: Yes.

Interviewer: Is your husband married to another woman?

Hiyam Darbak: I suggest this to him every month.

Interviewer: So he refuses?

Hiyam Darbak: He refuses because I am sufficiently cultured to keep him to myself....

Apparently, in his view, to make the world safe for white underwear.

"Saudi Cleric Muhammad Al-Munajid: Western 'Beasts' Use Colored Underwear to Conceal Their Filth," from MEMRITV:

Following are excerpts from an interview with Saudi cleric Muhammad Al-Munajid, which aired on Iqra TV on July 26, 2007:

Sheik Muhammad Al-Munajid: This is a nation of monotheism, and this is the Islam that Allah wants to spread throughout the world, and to rule the land it its entirety. Allah wants this. He sent down the Koran and the hadith for that purpose.

[...]

Humanity can have no happiness without Islam. Humanity can enjoy no goodness, unless the sun of monotheism, the Koran, and the Sunna shines upon it. The world without the sun of the divine revelation is a place of eternal darkness, as we can see today – a world of frustration, collapse, injustice, arbitrariness, and wrongdoing. The world today is a jungle – a world of barbarism of all kinds. People in many parts of the world are not happy, because they do not walk in the path of Allah.

[...]

There are rules of shari'a in everything. We have counted almost 70 rules about how to urinate and defecate. In contrast, how do those beasts in the West answer the call of nature? They stand in front of other people, in toilets at airports and other public places. They do not care about covering their private parts. Even their underwear is colored and not white, so it can conceal all that filth. We are a nation that has long known the meaning of cleanliness, what to do when nature calls, and what the rules of hygiene are. The others, to this day, live like beasts. To this day, many of them are not circumcised, even though the World Health Organization has advised to circumcise people as a treatment for AIDS, because it has been scientifically proven that circumcised people are less susceptible to AIDS, and are less likely to spread it than uncircumcised people.

There will be many, of course, who despite this and all the other evidence will continue to insist that deep down they want peace. "Players become Israeli-killing mujahideen in new Hezbollah computer game," from the Daily Mail (thanks to all who sent this in):

Raid Israel to capture soldiers, battle tanks in the valleys of south Lebanon and launch Katyusha rockets at Israeli towns - a new Hezbollah computer game puts players on the frontline of war with the Jewish state.

"Special Force 2" is based on last year's 34-day conflict between the Lebanese guerrilla group and Israel.

It was launched yesterday at a special exhibit south of Beirut by Hezbollah legislator Hussein Haj Hassan.

"It is not only a game, it is an education and culture and it is part of the confrontation because the American and the Western companies created games featuring us as terrorists and it is widespread on the market. This achievement is an addition to the tools of resistance and confrontation," said Hassan.

Of course it was. An update on this story. "Channel 4 TV complaint 'politically motivated,'" from the Telegraph (thanks to D):

The police decision to complain to Ofcom about a controversial Channel 4 documentary raises "serious questions about media freedom", the Tories said yesterday.

West Midlands Police claimed that the broadcaster spliced together extracts from speeches by Islamic preachers to distort their view for the documentary Undercover Mosque.

Paul Goodman, the shadow community cohesion minister, has written to Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, saying the decision caused "widespread concern" and warned that it could encourage extremists.

Mr Goodman wrote: "This decision raises serious questions about media freedom in Britain, and about whether public authorities tasked with upholding the rule of law are now, as a matter of policy, giving special assistance to those who seek to undermine the rule of law, and the pluralist, liberal, democratic culture which both underpins it and guarantees community cohesion.

"As you know, the decision has caused widespread concern.

"It's hard to avoid the conclusion that this is a politically motivated referral, driven by the mistaken belief that the best means of dealing with separatist extremists is to appease them.

"If so, this referral is likely to encourage extremists, discourage moderates, damage public confidence in the CPS and West Midlands Police, compromise media freedom and undermine the Government's stated community cohesion policy."

Sharia Alert from Iran, via MEMRI's blog (thanks to Writer Mom):

The commander of the Intelligence Police for Public Security Affairs in Gilan province in northern Iran, Yadollah Hosseini, has announced the arrest by security forces of 3,925 women in the province, under the country's campaign to enforce the Islamic dress code.

He added that legal proceedings against 2,077 of them were underway, and that warnings had been issued to 25,214 women.

Source: Baztab, Iran, August 15, 2007

Even his lawyer has received death threats, just for working on the case. From ChristiansUnite (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

A Christian convert from Islam, Mohammed Ahmed Hegazy (24), brought a case against Egypt's interior ministry for rejecting his application to replace Islam with Christianity on his personal identification papers on August 2.

According to an August 8 report from Compass Direct, he went into hiding after his lawyer, Mamdouh Nakhla, withdrew from the case on August 7. Nakhla claimed his decision to drop Hegazy's case was made in the interest of "national unity" and said that he did not want to offend Muslims or "provoke public opinion."

However, it is suspected that Nakhla's decision was made out of fear for his life since he has received death threats from Muslims clerics who demand that he withdraw from Hegazy's case. Muslims also filed a reactionary lawsuit against him on charges of causing secretarian strife and baptizing Muslims.

Ongoing threats and attacks from the national media have forced Hegazy to remain underground during his search for a new lawyer....

More persecution of Christians in Pakistan. By Qaiser Felix for AsiaNews (thanks to Svemirko):

Lahore (AsiaNews) – Two men were arrested, on August 7 for shooting dead a Christian from Rani Ke Minar village in Sheikhupura district in the Punjab province of Pakistan. Both of the suspects are Muslim. Speaking to AsiaNews Aneeka Maria, lawyer for the victims family warns: “Sadiq Masih, 45, was murdered on July 30 by some land lords. The post-mortem has proved that he died because of bullets wounds”.

Aneeka Maria works for the Centre for Legal Aid, Assistance and Settlement of Lahore (CLAAS); she visited the village the day after the murder, where Masih and his family served the land lord for ten years but one year ago gave up working for him because of his cruel behaviour towards Christians. But the torture continued and the landlord, known as Chaudhri, unjustly dragged Masih’s two children - Khalid (14) and Basharat (17) – into a homicide case, set up by the same local landlords. Currently the two children are being held in prison.

Thus Aneeka Maria recounts, Masih refused to return to work. Chaudhri’s family responded with a series of death threats which Masih never took seriously. But in the late afternoon of July 30th, the Chaudrhi’s erupted into his home and shot him. During the attacks Mashi’s eldest son was seriously wounded and is currently in hospital. The boy’s life is still in danger: the Chaudhris seek to kill him, because he reported them to the police and is an eye witness in the case. The entire village is now being pressed by these cruel land lords: the Chaudhri have threatened to kill anyone who helps the Masih family to organise the funeral. So much so that CLAAS has been forced to provide security to the villagers of Rani Ke Minar.

Taliban charm offensive: another Misunderstander of Islam reads Qur'an 9:111 and fails to notice that Islam forbids suicide. From Reuters (thanks to JE):

A SUICIDE bomber killed an Afghan district chief and three of his family members today in their home in the southern city of Kandahar, witnesses and a police said.

Khairuddin Kaka, the district chief for Zerai, one of his teenage daughters and two of his sons were killed when the bomber blew explosives attached to his body, they said.

"The bomber knocked at the door of Kaka's house and blew himself up after the door was opened," said a policeman who witnessed the attack.

And betrays, of course, abysmal ignorance of the jihad ideology and Islamic supremacism. By Jonny Paul for the Jerusalem Post (thanks to Kemaste):

An Israeli scholar has firmly rejected comments by controversial UK Liberal Democrat politician Jenny Tonge, who recently accused Israel of driving the Palestinians to their current impoverished situation and claimed that this issue was being used to fuel Islamic extremism.

"Ever since 1948, Palestine has been used as a battle cry and a propaganda weapon for Islamists worldwide," she said in a speech in the House of Lords last month. "I have witnessed this in some African countries and, more recently, in Bangladesh. Palestine is what the West does to Muslims. That is the message. The Palestinians have been brought to their knees. A cultured and well-educated society with high skill levels has been reduced to a Third-World country. The statistics are there for all to see."

Tonge also alleged that the IDF was disrupting school exams in Nablus, resulting in a generation of illiterate and unskilled Palestinians.

"Even education is being destroyed as children are terrorized by raids on their schools," she said, claiming that the products of such a system would be "capable of very little except low-wage labor. The economy cannot be rebuilt unless Israel changes its policies."

But Dr. Jonathan Spyer, research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, disputed such assertions, which he said betrayed an "appalling ignorance of Islamist movements. Radical Islam is a political idea, some of whose proponents use the method of terrorism. This idea sees world events as shaped by a struggle between the forces of authentic Islam, and those of the non-believers. It uses a long list of supposed Muslim grievances as a way to mobilize support," he told The Jerusalem Post.

He noted that al-Qaida had been formed to overthrow the Saudi Arabian government in opposition to the US presence there in the 1990s. "Al-Qaida hardly mentioned the Palestinian issue prior to 2001."

"The idea that this trans-national idea, which feeds off many local issues, is somehow 'traceable' to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and would be settled by the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel - an outcome which the Islamists in any case reject - is an absurd one. It's used by people like Tonge in order to hold Israel to blame for radical Islam's war in the West."

In my new book Religion of Peace?, I tell the story of a bumper-sticker war that broke out in Cairo a few years ago. When Coptic Christians began putting the Christian fish symbol, long popular with American evangelicals, on their cars, Muslims responded with their own bumper stickers depicting sharks. An Egyptian Muslim explained: "The Christians had the fish so we responded with the shark. If they want to portray themselves as weak fishes, okay. We are the strongest.”

So look at the ad for Al-Jazeera mobile, above. On the right there is a shark about to swallow a fish in a plastic bag. Now of course maybe this image is meant only to refer to the freshness of the news one gets from Al-Jazeera, as fresh as the goldfish the shark is about to enjoy. But it reminded Conservative Book Club Editor Elizabeth Kantor of the above story, and some other people as well. What do you think?

In CAIR's Amicus Curiae brief to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division, in the Holy Land Foundation terror charity case, CAIR complains about anti-jihad blogs' reporting on its being named an unindicted co-conspirator in the case: World Net Daily (which is not actually a weblog), the Counterterrorism Blog, Militant Islam Monitor and Little Green Footballs.

What, no Jihad Watch? Ibrahim, you disappoint me.

CORRECTION: Jihad Watch reader Shiloh points out below that Jihad Watch is mentioned on page 9 of the brief. My faith in Ibrahim Hooper is restored.

How about the "Taliban Bowl" or the "Osama Cup"? The US taxpayer continues to fund the jihad.

"Soccer tournament named for 'Bat Mitzvah attack' terrorist," by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook for Palestinian Media Watch:

The Palestinian Authority (PA) continues to glorify terrorists and to present them as role models for children.

In a school in Tulkarem (West Bank) this week, a soccer tournament was named after Ziyad Da’as. Da’as planned the attack in which a gunman opened fire with an M-16 rifle at a Bat Mitzvah in Hadera in January 2002, killing six and wounding 30. He was also behind the kidnapping and murder of two Israelis in Tulkarem in 2001. Da’as, a Fatah-Tanzim city commander, was killed by Israel in August 2002.

Significantly, the article indicated that the tournament took place in a Palestinian school and that the school administration was thanked "for providing the means for its success." Some Western governments have recently renewed funding of the Palestinian Authority, including its educational infrastructures, based on the assumption that schools are involved in positive education.

It should also be noted that in reporting the story, the PA daily glorified the terrorist as “one of the brave people of the Palestinian resistance." The daily Al Hayat Al Jadida is owned by the Palestinian Authority, and is therefore indirectly funded by Western money.

Da’as plans an attack at a religious celebration in the honor of a 12 year old girl and he is referred to as “one of the brave people of the Palestinian resistance."

Does this represent the educational values of a society that wants to make peace? Are these are the people that the US is hell bent on giving a state? Are these the "peace partners" that Condi Rice and George Bush are shoving down the Israeli throat?

When you take a look your next payroll stub, keep in mind where some of your federal tax deduction is going. You may have helped sponsor this event.

Crossposted from The American Israeli Patriot.

More suspicious incidents. By Rebecca Lopez for WFAA:

DALLAS - Police are on high alert as the Holy Land Foundation trial continues in downtown Dallas.

The trial is centered around terrorism and The Holy Land Foundation, who is accused of funneling money to terrorist organizations. The department has a command post near the federal courthouse to watch for suspicious people.

"We evaluate continually everyday, and will be during the trial," said Deputy Chief Vince Golbeck, Dallas Police Department.

Several recent incidents prompted the Dallas Police Department and federal authorities to beef up security in some areas. Last week, police received information about a suspicious man who appeared to be Middle Eastern and was said to have been spotted checking out a TXU plant near downtown two days in a row.

"We are staying alert on those particular properties," Golbeck said.

Also, police said the lead U.S. attorney in the case, Jim Jacks, had his car vandalized at his home in North Dallas. However, there were also other cars in the neighborhood vandalized as well. But as a precaution, the U.S. Marshall's Office has stepped up security at Jacks' home.

Police said many of the tips are not terror related, but are checking everything, leaving nothing to chance.

"The majority of these things we are going to be very conservative, very thorough to track down any kind of intel that comes to us like that," Golbeck said.

Not that this will change anything. And anyone who is actually shocked by it is believing too much mainstream media propaganda. "Abbas Seeks Unity With Hamas, Breaking Promise to US Congressmen," by Ezra HaLevi for Israel National News (thanks to all who sent this in):

(IsraelNN.com) Just days after promising US lawmakers that his Fatah movement would not reconcile with Hamas, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is inviting the Islamist movement to kiss and make up.

Abbas called on Hamas to “return to national unity” following his meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso Wednesday. "The split that happened as a result of Hamas's coup is temporary and will be removed," Abbas said. Hamas welcomed Abbas’s statements and invited him to negotiations in Gaza.

Tomorrow I'm scheduled to discuss my new book Religion of Peace? on these shows:

All times PDT:

4:15 AM Troy Neff Morning Show WCWA

6:00 AM Chris DiBello Show WNNJ

7:35 AM Kirby Wilbur KVI

8:00 AM Charles Goyette Show KFNX

9:00 AM Bloggers' Conference

10:00 AM Spirit Morning Show KVSS

10:35 AM Bob Dutko Show WMUZ

12:05 PM Jeff Katz Show WBT

3:00 PM Viewpoints WTKF

They might have thought of the difficulty it would cause them before conspiring. But if they succeed in intimidating the Justice Department into taking them off the list, they will have won a major victory.

"Muslim Groups Oppose a List of ‘Co-Conspirators,’" by Neil MacFarquhar for the New Duranty Times, aka the New York Times:

Two prominent Muslim American organizations took steps yesterday to reverse what they called a Justice Department effort to smear the entire Muslim community by naming some of its largest organizations as unindicted co-conspirators in a Texas terrorism trial.

The National Association of Muslim Lawyers, which is not named, sent a letter to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales objecting to the list, which it said breached the department’s own guidelines against releasing the names of unindicted co-conspirators and did not serve any clear law enforcement purpose.

The letter, also signed by the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys, said the “overreaching list” of more than 300 organizations and individuals would further cripple charitable donations to Muslim organizations and could ratchet up the discrimination faced by American Muslims since the Sept. 11 attacks.

In addition, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, which is on the list, announced that it would file a brief today asking Judge A. Joe Fish of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas to remove its name and all others from the list.

The brief, a copy of which was released yesterday, says the list furthers a pattern of the “demonization of all things Muslim” that has unrolled in the United States since 2001.

“Most people don’t understand what an unindicted co-conspirator is,” said Parvez Ahmed, CAIR’s board chairman, adding that the release of the list prompted death threats and hate mail against the council. “They think that being related to a terrorism case means we are terrorists.”

No, it means being related to a terrorism case.

This message, with the subject line "yo punk," came in this morning:

check out

www.jewwatch.com

you m----- f------ c--- s------ son of a hundred million fathers. you know damn well that jesus and moses taught islam but your just anothr racist

Feel the love.

Guilty. "Padilla Is Convicted in Terrorism Case," by Curt Anderson for Associated Press:

MIAMI (AP) - Jose Padilla was convicted of federal terrorism support charges Thursday after being held for 3 1/2 years as an enemy combatant in a case that came to symbolize the Bush administration's zeal to stop homegrown terror.

The Chicago native was once accused of being part of an al-Qaida plot to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in the U.S., but those allegations were not part of his trial with two co-defendants.

Padilla, Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi face life in prison because they were convicted of conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim people overseas. All three were also convicted of two terrorism material support counts that carry potential 15-year sentences each.

U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke set a Dec. 5 sentencing date for all three defendants.

The three were accused of being part of a North American support cell that provided supplies, money and recruits to groups of Islamic extremists. The defense contended they were just trying to help persecuted Muslims in war zones with relief and humanitarian aid.

[...]

Padilla had lived in South Florida in the 1990s and was supposedly recruited by Hassoun at a Broward County mosque to become a mujahedeen fighter.

The key piece of physical evidence was a five-page form Padilla supposedly filled out in July 2000 to attend an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan, which would link the other two defendants as well to Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization.

The form, recovered by the CIA in 2001 in Afghanistan, contains seven of Padilla's fingerprints and several other personal identifiers, such as his birthdate and abilities to speak Spanish, English and Arabic.

Padilla's lawyers insisted the form was far from conclusive and denied that he was a "star recruit," as prosecutors claimed, of the support cell intending to become a terrorist. Padilla's attorneys said he traveled to Egypt in September 1998 to learn Islam more deeply and become fluent in Arabic.

Are the Flying Imams suing the passengers who reported their suspicious behavior, or aren't they? Perhaps Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR, which supports this suit (the Imams' attorney was as of 2006 a leader of CAIR-NY), could clear this up for us, if he can take time out from defaming me long enough to look into it. A Flying Imams Update from the indefatigable Audrey Hudson at the Washington Times:

A legal squabble in a lawsuit brought by Muslim imam passengers is escalating among lawyers over the question of who is being sued over their removal from a flight last year.

"John Doe" passengers are named as parties in the litigation for reporting suspicious behavior of the six men, which led to their removal from the flight. Employees of U.S. Airways and a Minneapolis airport are also targets of the lawsuit now proceeding through a federal court.

One of the attorneys representing the six Muslim men says they do not intend to pursue the passengers in litigation, but the Becket Fund, which is aiding the defendants in the case, says "John Doe" passengers remain listed as a party to the lawsuit and are still targets of the litigation.

Frederick J. Goetz, the imams' attorney in Minnesota, said the passengers are no longer included in the lawsuit, and referenced a footnote in one motion of several he filed on Aug. 2. The footnote says, "Plaintiffs also agree to strike paragraphs 21 and 22 of the first amended complaint and the dismissal of the parties named therein" — the paragraphs that identify unknown "John Doe" passengers who reported some of the imams' activities to flight attendants.

"The issue is moot. I don't know why [the Becket Fund] is grandstanding," Mr. Goetz told The Washington Times.

Pat Hogan, a spokesman for the airport, said its attorneys have not been alerted that the passengers have been released from the lawsuit filed on March 12.

Islam is an all-encompassing belief-system. It is quite different from those other monotheisms which, for obvious reasons while they are still a small group in the West, Muslims like to have "so very much" in common -- that "three abrahamic faiths" pitch that once went over well, but nowadays appears to attract only the most muddle-headed or those who, while supposedly being Christian or Jewish clergymen, have brought their art of self-preening or cravenness to such a level that they become Defenders of the Faith, that Faith being Islam.

But Infidels can no longer be stopped. Once they begin to realize that the texts of Islam are not hermetic, and can be studied, they will study them. Once they realize that a knowledge of classical Arabic is not essential to learning about Islam, not least because 80% of the world's Muslims know not a bit of Arabic, classical or otherwise, and that even many Arabs have difficulty understanding classical Arabic and certainly the text of the Qur'an (see Christoph Luxenberg on the 20% of the Qur'an that is inexplicable, in his view, until one recognizes an Ur-text of Syriac -- that is, the Aramaic of Edessa), they will dare to open them. So Infidels are now free to read the immutable texts of Islam -- Qur'an, hadith, and Sira -- read, and reread, and study with growing understanding, but not necessarily growing delight or pleasure. They can find out about the interpretative doctrine of "naskh" or "abrogation," by which -- as in the common law -- the texts deemed later cancel out, or abrogate, the texts deemed to have been set down earlier. And those later texts, presumably from the "Medinan" period of Muhammad's existence, are far harsher than the softer, "Meccan" verses from the period when Islam was still weak.

Anti-dhimmitude in British Columbia -- but only so far. By Brian Hutchinson for the National Post:

VANCOUVER - A blind man denied service from a Muslim taxi driver for "religious reasons" has been awarded $2,500, the result of a B.C. Human Rights Tribunal discrimination settlement reached on Friday and made public yesterday.

Bruce Gilmour estimates that Vancouver taxi drivers have passed him over "a hundred times, maybe 150 times" since he acquired his first guide dog in 1984. But an incident one evening last year with North Shore Taxi Ltd. was "the straw that broke the camel's back."

It was cold outside, and raining. Mr. Gilmour was attempting to return home after spending time with two friends at a West Vancouver coffee shop. The trio had just spent an active weekend at Whistler; Mr. Gilmour remains an avid skier despite being blinded in a 1977 car accident.

A taxi was called. On arrival, the driver would not allow Mr. Gilmour's golden retriever, Arden, into the car. An argument ensued and the cabbie then drove off, without his two passengers.

Mr. Gilmour complained to North Shore Taxi the next day.

He was told that the driver's Muslim faith prohibits him from associating with dogs, hence his refusal to provide service.

It was the first time Mr. Gilmour had ever heard such an excuse, and he said it made his blood boil....

Mr. Gilmour decided to fight back. He hired a lawyer, himself a Muslim, and filed a formal complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal, alleging discrimination.

Taxi driver Behzad Saidy and North Shore Taxi applied to have the complaint dismissed. Mr. Saidy filed a statement from a Muslim cleric, claiming that "Islam holds some restrictions toward certain animals, including dogs." The statement did not elaborate, and the tribunal denied the application to dismiss the discrimination complaint.

Mr. Gilmour consulted with his cleric. Imam Syed Jaffri leads the Az-zahraa Islamic Centre in Richmond, a Vancouver suburb. He "spent long hours on this," Mr. Gilmour said. "He provided an unbiased interpretation of the Koran that indicated there is nothing saying that one must refuse service to another person because of the fear of contamination by a dog."

On the other hand, Muslims who come into contact with dog saliva or dog hair are required to repeat their daily ablutions, washing their face, arms, hands, and feet, according to an expert in Islam whom the Vancouver Province interviewed last year.

The tribunal was to hear Mr. Gilmour's case on Monday; however, a settlement was reached last week with Mr. Saidy and his taxi company. "The parties have agreed to resolve Mr. Gilmour's complaint by balancing the rights of persons with seeing-eye dogs to obtain taxi service with the rights of Muslims to follow their religion," the settlement reads.

In the future, North Shore Taxi drivers with an "honest religious belief (Muslim) which precludes them from transporting certified guide dogs" must still respond to calls from blind people such as Mr. Gilmour. But they may ask their dispatch operators to send "the next available cab" to cover the service request.

"US Lutherans consider Israel boycott," by Haviv Rettig for the Jerusalem Post:

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), which has almost five million members in the US, took a step toward a partial boycott of Israeli goods at its 2007 Churchwide Assembly in Chicago last week.

On Saturday, the assembly, the church's top legislative authority, passed a resolution calling to work toward a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and urging investment in the Palestinian Authority.

Ignorance upon ignorance, demonstrated in so many assumptions: First, there is the idea that the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority is a more moderate party to deal with than Hamas in anything other than its current public face and choice of tactics. Next is the notion that creating a Palestinian state will make Israel more secure, and do away with jihadists' motivation to attack unbelievers. Additionally, there is the assumption that investment in the Palestinian Authority will go to constructive, peaceful projects. And there are certainly more.

Then, there are the questions no one thought to ask: What will happen to the remaining Christians in a Palestinian state? Does the ECLA accept the principle of dhimmitude for that population? Have they heard of dhimmitude? Again, one could go on indefinitely.

The assembly then urged "consideration of refusing to buy goods or invest in activities taking place in Israeli settlements, and a review of other economic options," according to Bishop Christopher Epting, the presiding bishop's deputy for ecumenical and interfaith relations," according to the Episcopal Life Online Web site.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's own news service did not provide information on the content of that motion.

According to the Pondering Pastor blog, Saturday's debate on the resolution picked "up with an amendment to call upon the ELCA to underscore the call for economic initiatives by this church and its members in the ['Peace not Walls'] campaign. Such initiatives, in consultation with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land could include purchasing of products [from] Palestinian providers and exploration of the feasibility of refusing to buy products produced in Israeli settlements. Also to be explored is the entire investment activity by this church."

The amendment passed by a vote of 385 to 368.

The assembly rejected a call for divestiture from Israel.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center blasted what it called the "mixed message" of the assembly - rejecting divestiture but "studying" a boycott.

"This marks the first time a mainline American Protestant church has moved toward a possible boycott of Israel," said the center's Associate Dean Rabbi Abraham Cooper. "While we note that the ELCA delegates have now joined the Presbyterian Church (USA) in explicitly rejecting divesting from companies doing business with Israel, they have decided to embrace one of the anti-Israel tactics adopted by United Kingdom trade unions and others in Europe. ELCA delegates would have made a stronger contribution to the quest for peace and justice in the Holy Land had they also raised the ransacking of Christian places of worship and [the] recent forced conversion of a Christian professor in Gaza, as well as the unrelenting targeting of Israeli civilian communities by Palestinian Kassam rockets."

As far as one can tell from this article, there is not that much useful information in this report, except for a restatement of possible outward signs of radicalization among Muslims living in the West. But the article then takes a contradictory turn as the report shifts its focus to how easy it is for jihadists to blend in when they choose to do so (as the al-Qaeda playbook suggests).

This, along with the assumption that the Internet is the source of "radicalizing" material, implies a limited set of tools for understanding the jihad ideology, for outward appearance and Internet habits are only the tip of an iceberg they still dare not examine for connections to Islamic texts and teachings older than the Internet or al-Qaeda.

"NYPD warns of homegrown terror threat," by Tom Hays for the Associated Press:

NEW YORK - They preferred bookstores or hookah bars to mosques. They stopped listening to pop music and instead surfed Web sites promoting radical Islam. They threw away their baseball caps and grew beards.

There are many reasons they may seem to eschew mosque attendance. For one, they may congregate privately.

New York Police Department intelligence analysts have concluded those were some of the telltale signs of homegrown terrorists in the making -- a mounting threat as grave as that from established terrorist groups like al-Qaida.

An NYPD report released Wednesday warns of a "radicalization" process in which young men -- otherwise unremarkable legal immigrants from the Middle East -- grow disillusioned with life in America and adopt a philosophy that puts them on the path to jihad.

"Hopefully, the better we're informed about this process, the more likely we'll be to detect and disrupt it," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said while presenting the findings at a briefing of private security executives at police headquarters.

The findings drew swift criticism from Arab-American civil rights groups, which accused the NYPD of stereotyping and of contradicting recent federal warnings that the chief terrorism threat remains foreign.

In a statement, Department of Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said federal authorities "appreciate efforts to better understand the phenomenon of radicalization."

"We are fortunate that radicalization seems to have less appeal in the U.S. than in other parts of the world," he said, "but we do not believe that America is immune to homegrown terrorism."

The FBI declined to comment.

Police officials said the study is based on an analysis of a series of domestic plots thwarted since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, including those in Lackawanna; Portland, Ore.; and Virginia. It was prepared by senior analysts with the NYPD Intelligence Division who traveled to Hamburg, Germany; Madrid; and other overseas spots to confer with authorities about similar cases.

The report found that homegrown terrorists often were indoctrinated in local "radicalization incubators" that are "rife with extremist rhetoric."

Instead of mosques, those places were more likely to be "cafes, cab driver hangouts, flop houses, prisons, student associations, non-governmental organizations, hookah bars, butcher shops and bookstores," the report says.

The Internet also provides "the wandering mind of the conflicted young Muslim or potential convert with direct access to unfiltered radical and extremist ideology."

The report warns that potential terrorists are difficult for law enforcers to detect because they blend in well with society. It also argues that more intelligence gathering is needed to thwart potential terror plots at their earliest stages.

Potential homegrown terrorists "are not on the law enforcement radar," the study says. "Most have never been arrested or involved in any kind of legal trouble."

They "look, act, talk and walk like everyone around them," the study adds. "In the early stages of their radicalization, these individuals rarely travel, are not participating in any kind of militant activity, yet they are slowly building the mind-set, intention and commitment to conduct jihad."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations accused the NYPD analysts of distorting the innocent behavior of observant Muslims.

"Is Islamic attire or giving up bad habits ... now to be regarded as suspicious behavior?" asked the group's chairman, Parvez Ahmed.

Here, Ahmed and CAIR unwittingly offer a stronger affirmation of the fact that jihadists are devout Muslims than anything mentioned above about baseball caps, beards, and music.

"In a situation where infidels and their crooks are ruling the world, it is the prime duty of all the Muslims to take arms and crush those who are bent upon crushing the Muslims throughout the world."

By Isambard Wilkinson and Ashraf Ali for the Telegraph (thanks to Davida):

The Taliban has published its first military field manual detailing how to spring ambushes, run spies and conduct an insurgency against coalition forces in Afghanistan.

At 144 pages, Military Teachings - for the Preparation of Mujahideen, is a minutely detailed "how to" book on subjects ranging from tactics and weapons to building training camps and spycraft.

The guide, which is similar in its aims to British and American military field manuals, was obtained by The Daily Telegraph from a source in Pakistan who claimed to be close to the Taliban. Its cover bears the image of two crossed swords and the Koran, the arms of the Taliban's ousted government of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

The Qur'an? But don't they know they're hijacking that book of peace?

The book, written in the Pashto language, "will soon be made available to the commanders in Afghanistan as well as its adjacent tribal areas in Pakistan", the source said. He added that copies of the manual had been circulated to the Pakistani tribal area of Bajaur. Its publication highlights the extent of the Taliban's revival six years after it was deposed by a US-led invasion.

"This is the first of its kind and shows a significant level of organisation," said Brigadier Mahmood Shah, a retired military intelligence officer who was in charge of security in the tribal areas.

Brig Shah said "soft" Pakistani government policy towards the pro-Taliban militants had allowed them to flourish in the lawless ethnic Pashtun tribal areas that straddle the Afghan-Pakistani border....

Its preface sets out the Taliban's justification for war: "In a situation where infidels and their crooks are ruling the world, it is the prime duty of all the Muslims to take arms and crush those who are bent upon crushing the Muslims throughout the world.

"This is the best time to take on the usurpers and occupants of our holy land. They should be killed, slaughtered and destroyed."

It sets out to convince women and children to join the Taliban with verses from the Koran.

"In this situation the children are not bound to seek the permission of their parents; a woman should go to jihad without the permission of her husband, a slave without the permission of his master, a student without the permission of his teacher, could go to jihad. And this is totally applicable in the prevailing situation where the infidels have occupied the land of the Muslims in Afghanistan," it states.

This is in accord with the Islamic legal principle that if a Muslim land is attacked, defensive jihad becomes fard ayn, or obligatory on every believer. Then the manual disposes of the contention that jihad can only legimately be called by the state authority. This is the kind of argument that Islamic spokesmen in the West never address -- and by ignoring it, demonstrate how little they actually do to resist the jihad ideology.

It addresses the question of prosecuting jihad without one's ruler's permission, making a veiled reference to Pakistan's president, Gen Pervez Musharraf, and the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai. "Islam does not allow a person, group or an entity to announce jihad, without the permission of the ruler of the day (Khalifa)." However, it states "if a Khalifa is a puppet of the infidels, then there is no need to seek his permission for jihad."

The manual also plays on the heightened Pashtun sense of virility. "Jihad is a man's job. Those lacking qualities of being a man cannot do jihad."

Military students are advised to run spy networks drawn from political prisoners, "criminals, especially murderers", beggars, hairdressers and "international visitors - players, filmmakers, artists etc".

"Is it fair to slaughter enemy spies?" it asks. The answer it gives, perhaps unsurprisingly, is yes.

Legal intimidation fails again. "Charity Drops Suit Against Terrorism Analyst," by Josh Gerstein in the New York Sun (thanks to Davida):

A children's charity that funnels money to Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon, Kinder USA, has dropped a libel suit it brought against a prominent terrorism analyst who suggested that the group was funding a terrorist organization, Hamas.

In April, Kinder USA, formally known as Kids in Need of Development, Education, and Relief, Inc., sued Matthew Levitt over a brief passage about the group in his book, "Hamas: Politics, Charity and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad."

The suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, also named the book's publisher, Yale University Press, and Mr. Levitt's employer from 2001 to 2005, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

On Tuesday, Kinder USA moved to withdraw the case with prejudice, meaning it cannot be refiled.

"I conducted three years of careful research for Hamas, and the book was the subject of academic peer review," Mr. Levitt said in a statement issued yesterday by the Washington Institute, which he returned to this year after a stint as a top Treasury Department official. "I am pleased that this suit has been dismissed with prejudice, vindicating my free speech rights."

In the passage that led to the suit, Mr. Levitt wrote: "Even after the closure of the Holy Land Foundation in 2001, other America-based charities continue to fund Hamas. One organization that has appeared to rise out of the ashes of the HLFRD is Kinder USA."

[...]

"We view this early, voluntary, and full dismissal as a complete victory," the executive director of the Washington Institute, Robert Satloff, said. The defendants said no payments or promises were made to Kinder USA. Mr. Levitt, a former terrorism analyst for the FBI, lectures widely on terrorism financing issues. Last month, he testified at a criminal trial in which federal prosecutors have accused officers of the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation of being a front for Hamas.

He allegedly hid them when applying for a job at...Andrews Air Force Base.

By Dan Morse for the Washington Post (thanks to all who sent this in):

On April 19, 2005, Darrick Jackson completed an application to work as a private security guard at an entrance gate to Andrews Air Force Base.

"Have you ever used or been known by another name?" he was asked in the second of 20 queries.

"No," Jackson answered.

He got the job.

Federal prosecutors now allege that Jackson intentionally withheld his Muslim name, Abdul-Jalil Mohammad, to conceal a connection to a controversial imam in Southeast Washington. Jackson, 37, who is no longer in the civilian job, has been charged with making a false statement, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

In a pretrial hearing scheduled for today, prosecutors are expected to argue that they should be permitted to present evidence at trial that they say links Jackson to extremist views. The evidence includes speeches in which the imam wishes for the U.S. government's collapse, essays posted on Jackson's MuslimSpace Web page and a mosque directory listing Jackson as the head of security.

But Jackson's lawyers say he thought it was a question about maiden names. Why he thinks an interviewer would ask him is maiden name is left unexplained:

Jackson's attorneys argue that he believed the question applied to maiden names for female applicants and that the omission was at worst an innocent mistake. They say that Jackson has never advocated violence toward the United States, that his religious and political views are irrelevant to the case and that airing them before a jury would deprive him of his right to a fair trial.

"In these times in our country, the mere suggestion that a defendant may be a terrorist sympathizer is extraordinarily prejudicial," John Chamble, one of Jackson's attorneys, wrote in a court filing last month.

of course is, Chamble.

In addition, the defense alleges that authorities built the case to goad Jackson into giving up information on the imam, who claimed in an interview that the FBI has been watching him for four decades....

Abdul Alim Musa, 62, is the outspoken imam at the mosque, Masjid al-Islam. In public statements, Musa has called Jews cowards, denounced the United States as the most criminal government in the world and lauded suicide bombers as heroes. He has praised Hezbollah and Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, and advocated the creation of an Islamic state in the United States by 2050.

Tomorrow, before an important evening appointment with Mr. Gin and Mr. Tonic, I'll be discussing my new book Religion of Peace? on these radio programs:

All times PDT:

4:00 AM Bill Bennett's Morning In America (nationally syndicated)

4:30 AM Steve Kane WWNN

5:00 AM 1440 KEYS Morning Show

6:15 AM Fox's Morning Blend KOLE

7:05 AM Lee Rogers and Melanie Morgan KSFO

7:40 AM Progressive News Weekly with Jimmy Andruszkewicz

8:00 AM Tom Marr WCBM

8:33 AM Greg Allen The Right Balance

1:00 PM Janet Parshall's America (syndicated)

2:44 PM Drive Time with Roy Brassfield WKCT

CAIR is so bent on defaming me that it has resorted to lying about me on national television, endorsing ludicrous libelous screeds full of fevered fictions fashioned by felons, and siccing its lawyers (who also defamed me) on a group that dared to have me speak even before I had said a word.

And now we have this from CAIR's "American Muslim News Briefs" for today. In it, CAIR asks me some questions. Unlike Ibrahim Hooper, who hung up on me when I tried to ask him questions, I will answer them:

ROBERT SPENCER'S WEBSITE SUPPORTS EXPULSION OF EUROPE'S MUSLIMS - TOP http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/017779.php

QUESTIONS FOR ROBERT SPENCER:

1. IS IT 'JIHAD WATCH' OR 'DER STÜRMER'?

It's Jihad Watch.

2. WHO IS THE MYSTERIOUS 'HUGH FITZGERALD'?

Vice President of the Jihad Watch Board and Jihad Watch columnist.

3. DOES ROBERT SPENCER CALL FOR A SIMILAR EXPULSION OF U.S. MUSLIMS?

Since Hugh Fitzgerald did not call for the expulsion of all European Muslims, but only raises the question of what is to be done about -- as you can see from the excerpt below -- "jihadists and Sharia supremacists," the question itself is manipulative and leading, rather like "When did you stop beating your wife?" Hugh hasn't done what they say he has, so I can hardly do something "similar." In any case, no, I don't support the expulsion of U.S. Muslims.

Here is the excerpt CAIR quotes from Hugh's article:

In 1970 there were 15,000 Muslims in the Netherlands. There are now one million. They are causing now, and they have caused, a situation for the indigenous Dutch (and of course for other, but non-Muslim immigrants, such as Vietnamese Buddhists, Hindus from India and even Indonesia, and Chinese of Confucian or Christian or other persuasion) that is far more unpleasant, expensive, and physically dangerous than it would be without that quite unwelcome, quite unnecessary, and deeply dangerous Muslim presence. That presence is one that the Muslims themselves recognize as being one behind what they are taught to regard, and most do regard, as enemy lines, the lines of the Infidels.

Those countries such as Denmark and the Netherlands that pride themselves on their easygoing tolerance ought to realize that it is a false tolerance, even a diseased tolerance, to continue to tolerate in one's midst a permanent danger to real -- i.e., Western -- tolerance. Western tolerance is based on the Western enshrinement of individual rights. That does not include tolerating those who cling tenaciously to a doubly totalitarian Belief System, that offers a Complete Regulation of Life, and a geopolitical plan that justifies, by any instruments available and effective (and not merely qitaal, or combat, or its variant "terrorism"), the removal of all obstacles to the spread and dominance of Islam everywhere, and everywhere a situation where Muslims rule.

Benes and Masaryk were wise, tolerant, advanced statesmen, two who belonged to an older and better educated generation. They had no hesitation in implementing the Benes Decree(s) of 1946, and in banishing the Sudeten Germans who had proved to be such a threat. For them, for the Czechs, Germany lay prostrate, but they were not about to take another chance. And no one at the time, and no one since, has thought what the Czechs then did was immoral -- save for a handful of German revanchists and those who have a particular soft-spot, one that deserves to be examined, for the treatment of Germans after the war.

Why should the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, and the other countries of Europe not recognize a similar permanent danger in their midst, in the presence of jihadists and Sharia supremacists? And if Germany was prostrate in 1946, the world of Islam is hardly prostrate today. Rather, it feels itself stronger than ever, thanks to that ten trillion dollars in OPEC money received since 1973, along with all the aid, a disguised Jizyah, that is received, almost as tribute, by Muslim states and nascent statelets that have no oil or gas, but are able to count on the foreign aid that the Infidels provide.

Study the threats, and the intelligent response to recognized threats, in the not-so-distant past.

And now, since CAIR is asking questions, I have a few questions for CAIR:

1. Hugh wrote that the presence of jihadists and Sharia supremacists was a danger to non-Muslims in Europe, and that in recent memory a Western government had used expulsions without genocide or international opprobrium. This was presented in the manner of question, not a recommendation -- he nowhere says about the Benes Decree, "Let us do as they did." Does CAIR want jihadists and Sharia supremacists to remain in Europe? If so, for what purpose? Does CAIR wish to state on the record that a nation has no right under any circumstances to expel those whom it has determined are a risk to national security?

2. Hugh wrote that European countries should recognize the danger of jihadists and Sharia supremacists in their midst. But CAIR mischaracterized this in its Defamation Brief as a call to expel all Muslims from Europe. Is CAIR then saying that all Muslims are jihadists and Sharia supremacists?

3. Hugh referred to the Benes Decree, which was a post-World War II step by the government of Czechoslovakia to expel ethnic Germans from the country, as part of attempts to ensure that there would be no recrudescence of the Nazi exploitation of those ethnic Germans -- which had led under Hitler to the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia and the loss of its sovereignty. The Benes Decree was not protested or condemned by anyone -- not the UN, not the US, not the Soviets. Is CAIR thus putting itself on record as opposing postwar anti-Nazi efforts by the Czech government? And if so, isn't that ironic in light of CAIR's defamatory attempt to link Jihad Watch to the Nazis, above?

4. The expulsion of large numbers of people for national security reasons, and large-scale population exchanges, have numerous historical precedents. The Benes Decree was just one of many post-World War II dislocations of peoples. Another was the massive population exchange of Hindus and Muslims that accompanied the creation of what are today known as Pakistan and Bangladesh. Does CAIR oppose the creation of Pakistan and Bangladesh? Does CAIR oppose the later expulsion, in all cases for stated reasons of national security, of 400,000 Palestinians by Kuwait, more Palestinians by Libya, and one million Yemenis by Saudi Arabia? Does CAIR believe that the UN and international human rights bodies were wrong not to oppose or condemn most of these large-scale measures?

Then there were the expulsion of Egyptians by Iraq; the expulsion of Moroccans by Algeria and Algerians by Morocco; the expulsion of Egyptians (as well as the already mentioned Palestinians) by Libya when Libya and Egypt were at loggerheads; and any number of smaller, unreported expulsions. Arabs have behaved this way toward non-Arab Muslims, moving them about at a government's whim, and subjecting them to pressures that would cause them to leave the country. Look at what happened to the non-Arab Kurds of Iraq, about whom not a single Arab Muslim state or spokesman uttered a syllable of sympathy. Look at the mass murder of the black African -- i.e., non-Arab -- Muslims of Darfur, with, again, not a syllable of sympathy. Not a single expression of horror by the Arab League or any Arab state or Muslim Arab group. Would CAIR care to make such an expression?

5. What is the exact nature of CAIR's relationship with the terrorist group Hamas? Is there active collaboration between the two organizations? What did Ibrahim Hooper mean when he said that CAIR doesn't support Hamas and Hizballah publicly? Does CAIR support them privately? What is the nature of this support? Does this have anything to do with CAIR officials' repeated refusal to condemn Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups?

That should do it for now. Once you get those done, Ibrahim, feel free to ask me more questions, and I will cheerfully answer them. I may also have a few more for you.

With Esam Omeish of the Muslim American Society.

Listen here.

(Thanks to Bryan Preston.)

You've heard about the murder of Chauncey Bailey, and some recent incidents of nonviolent intimidation. You probably haven't heard about the author who was shouted down at a reading in New York City for daring to affirm the reality of the Armenian genocide. You probably haven't heard about the UN genocide exhibit that was censored for mentioning the same thing.

Political Mavens has the details (thanks to Hal).

I was just on the Laura Ingraham Show with Dr. Esam Omeish, President of the Muslim American Society. Toward the end of the show, after I had quoted (with citations) a few Qur'an verses, Ingraham asked Omeish, "Is Spencer misquoting the Qur'an?" Omeish said no, I wasn't. (I'll see if I can get hold of an mp3 of the whole thing.)

Now, this is extraordinary, especially coming on the heels of CAIR's false and defamatory charges against me. Will Ibrahim Hooper call Omeish in for a friendly heart-to-heart? Better yet, will American Muslim advocacy groups actually begin to formulate new ways for Muslims to understand the passages I quoted and others, so as to stymie jihadist use of these passages to gain recruits and justify their actions among peaceful Muslims?

I won't be holding my breath.

After she was assaulted by thuggish Islamic "scholars." From the CBC (thanks to WriterMom):

Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen will face criminal charges in India after being accused of stirring up religious enmity.

The charges come after Nasreen was attacked at a publication party because of opposition to a translation of her latest book, Shodh, in Hyderabad last week. Several lawmakers and members of a conservative Muslim political party threw flowers and other items at her and called for her death.

They threw flowers, eh? They threw a leather case at her and threatened her with a chair. And yes, flowers.

Nasreen, author of Wild Wind and Shame, is an exile from her native Bangladesh because of a fatwa against her and a threat by the government to lay charges stemming from her writing.

She lived in Sweden and France for several years, but moved to India in 2002.

In articles and books, she writes about the poor treatment of Hindus in mostly Muslim Bangladesh, and rape and mistreatment of women in Muslim societies. A police official in Hyderabad said Nasreen had been charged with "hurting Muslim feelings," according to Agence France Presse.

Under Indian law, promoting "disharmony or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill will" between religious groups is punishable by up to three years in jail.

In identification fraud schemes and more. "U.S. agents accused of aiding Islamist scheme," by Sara Carter for the Washington Times (thanks to Alan):

A criminal investigations report says several U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services employees are accused of aiding Islamic extremists with identification fraud and of exploiting the visa system for personal gain.

The confidential 2006 USCIS report said that despite the severity of the potential security breaches, most are not investigated "due to lack of resources" in the agency's internal affairs department.

"Two District Adjudications Officers are allegedly involved with known (redacted) Islam terrorist members," said the internal document obtained by The Washington Times.

The group "was responsible for numerous robberies and used the heist money to fund terrorist activities. The District Adjudications Officers made numerous DHS database queries to track (Alien)-File movement and check on the applicants' status for (redacted) members and associates."

According to the document, other potential security failures include reports that:

Employees are sharing detailed information on internal security measures with people outside the agency.

A Lebanese citizen bribed an immigration officer with airline tickets for visa benefits.

A USCIS officer in Harlington, Texas, sold immigration documents for $10,000 to as many as 20 people.

A USCIS employee, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal, said many of the complaints in the multipage document are as many as three years old.

"Terrorists need immigration documents to embed in our society and work here without raising alarm bells," said the employee.

"Whether through bribing an immigration officer, an employee with the department of motor vehicles, or utilizing highly effective counterfeit documents produced by the Mexican drug cartels. They are always looking for that documentation to live amongst us."...

Last week, The Times disclosed a confidential DEA report substantiating the link between Islamic extremists and Mexican drug cartels. The 2005 DEA report states that Middle Eastern operatives, in U.S. sleeper cells, are working in conjunction with the cartels to fund terrorist organizations overseas. Several lawmakers promised congressional hearings based on the information disclosed in the DEA documents.

The DEA report also stated that Middle Eastern extremists living in the U.S. — who speak Spanish, Arabic and Hebrew fluently — are posing as Hispanic nationals.

USCIS Director Emilio Gonzalez in March told Congress that he could not establish how many terror suspects or persons of special interest have been granted immigration benefits....

1938 Alert: "Iranian Unit to Be Labeled 'Terrorist': U.S. Moving Against Revolutionary Guard," by Robin Wright for the Washington Post (thanks to all who sent this in):

The United States has decided to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, the country's 125,000-strong elite military branch, as a "specially designated global terrorist," according to U.S. officials, a move that allows Washington to target the group's business operations and finances.

The Bush administration has chosen to move against the Revolutionary Guard Corps because of what U.S. officials have described as its growing involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as its support for extremists throughout the Middle East, the sources said. The decision follows congressional pressure on the administration to toughen its stance against Tehran, as well as U.S. frustration with the ineffectiveness of U.N. resolutions against Iran's nuclear program, officials said.

The designation of the Revolutionary Guard will be made under Executive Order 13224, which President Bush signed two weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to obstruct terrorist funding. It authorizes the United States to identify individuals, businesses, charities and extremist groups engaged in terrorist activities. The Revolutionary Guard would be the first national military branch included on the list, U.S. officials said -- a highly unusual move because it is part of a government, rather than a typical non-state terrorist organization.

The order allows the United States to block the assets of terrorists and to disrupt operations by foreign businesses that "provide support, services or assistance to, or otherwise associate with, terrorists."

At 8:15 AM PDT today I'm scheduled to debate Esam Omeish of the Muslim American Society on the Laura Ingraham Show, which I have done before, so I thought that some might find this report illuminating -- the MAS is a Muslim Brotherhood entity, and the Muslim Brotherhood is the direct forefather of Hamas and Al-Qaeda, as well as a leading proponent of the Islamic supremacist, pro-Sharia imperative.

"Muslim Brotherhood Phonebook Confirms that MAS is Brotherhood's Baby," by The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT):

As the terror-support trial of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) continued today, FBI agent Lara Burns testified that a phonebook found at the home of Ismail Elbarrasse - un-indicted co-conspirator and former assistant to HAMAS leader Musa Abu Marzook - listed the names and numbers of the Muslim Brotherhood leadership in the United States. On the first page of the phonebook under the title “Members of the Board of Directors” were fifteen names. Among those names are Ahmad Elkadi, Jamal Badawi, and Omar Soubani: the founding incorporators of the Muslim American Society (MAS).

This evidence confirms Counterterrorism Blog contributor Matthew Levitt’s expert testimony that MAS is the representative of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States, and is substantiated by a 2003 Chicago Tribune article that outlined the history of MAS.

Ahmad Elkadi, who told the Chicago Tribune that he was the leader of the Brotherhood in the U.S. from 1984-1994, worked with Mohammed Mahdi Akef, head of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood since 2003, to advocate for the founding of MAS. According to the Tribune report, Akef and Elkadi pushed for more openness for the Muslim Brotherhood through MAS. Akef himself “says he helped found MAS by lobbying for the change during trips to the U.S.”

In fact, MAS does not deny its Muslim Brotherhood foundations. In 2004, then-Secretary General of MAS Shaker Elsayed stated to the Tribune that “Ikhwan [Brotherhood] members founded MAS…” Elsayed even went so far as to admit that about 45 percent of MAS’s active members belong to the Brotherhood. Federal officials have confirmed this, noting continued ties between MAS and the Muslim Brotherhood.

A senior Muslim Brotherhood official in Cairo, Mohamed Habib, seems to explain MAS’ motivations for espousing Brotherhood ideology while simultaneously distancing itself from the movement that birthed it: “I don’t want to say MAS is a [Brotherhood] entity. This causes some security inconveniences for them in a post-Sept. 11 world.”

Yes indeed.

Here Daniel Pipes notes that "Esam Omeish, the president of the Muslim American Society, acknowledges that MAS has been influenced by the 'moderate school of thought prevalent in the Muslim Brotherhood' and makes no effort to refute the article's premise that MAS has in mind 'the goal of an Islamic state.'"

A few useful observations about the folly of supporting a Palestinian state. Will he be added to the worldwide effigy-burning schedule? "US candidate Giuliani warns on Palestinian state," from Agence France-Presse:

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Republican 2008 White House front-runner Rudolph Giuliani warned Tuesday it was not in the interest of the United States to help create a Palestinian state that would "support terrorism."

In an article in the journal Foreign Affairs, the former New York mayor also said too much emphasis had been placed on Israeli-Palestinian peace talks which he said just brought up the same issues "again and again."

[...]

He argued that the problem for Palestinians since the Islamist movement Hamas won parliamentary elections last year, was not a "lack of statehood" but good governance.

Not to mention the widely divergent standards of "good governance" enshrined in Sharia and Western civil law.

"Too much emphasis has been placed on brokering negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians -- negotiations that bring up the same issues again and again," he wrote.

"It is not in the interests of the United States, at a time when it is being threatened by Islamist terrorists, to assist the creation of another state that will support terrorism," Giuliani wrote.

"Al Qaeda seeks high impact from Western recruits," from Reuters:

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain is stepping up counter-terrorism cooperation with countries in South Asia and Africa to thwart al Qaeda attempts to train Britons overseas and send them back home to commit attacks, a senior official said.

The aim is to counter a perceived al Qaeda preference for deploying Western volunteers on their home soil, even when they have trained abroad or volunteered for foreign theatres such as Pakistan, Somalia or Iraq.

The source said British authorities are now working with a number of countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Bangladesh to keep tabs on suspected militants planning to pick up training abroad and then apply it back home.

One hopes this undertaking might implement some lessons learned from recent American data-sharing with Pakistan.

While officials refuse to name the African countries involved, analysts and media reports have cited South Africa as a popular transit point between Britain and South Asia.

Security analyst Kurt Shillinger said the country's liberal laws, sizeable Muslim minority, English-language Islamic seminaries and strong communications and transport links made it an attractive location where militants could lie low while raising funds or obtaining false passports for onward travel.

"It's easy to get in here, it's easy to find receptive communities," said Shillinger, who heads the security and terrorism research project at the South African Institute of International Affairs.

[...]

"Pakistan is probably always going to feature most strongly as a destination, certainly for as long as core al Qaeda appear to be situated in the tribal areas of Pakistan and, for historical reasons, we have a large British Pakistani population and every year there's perfectly legitimate travel to Pakistan by thousands and thousands of people," said one security source.

But other countries are also of concern, the source added, citing Somalia as one where militants have issued an "open invitation" to Muslims to come and gain jihadist experience.

[...]

And British sources say they are also worried about the possible training of recruits in camps run by al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the network's new North African arm.

British and other European officials increasingly believe that Westerners who train abroad and volunteer to fight in foreign conflict zones are being encouraged instead to return home to plan attacks, instead of blowing themselves up in "just another suicide bombing" in Iraq or Afghanistan.

"For al Qaeda it makes little sense to waste European passport-holders in the Iraqi terror arena" when they could use Arab volunteers instead, a European intelligence source said.

"It certainly makes more sense in al Qaeda's eyes, when it has second- or third-generation immigrants with the right to live in Europe, to deploy them there rather than burn them up in attacks in Iraq."

Does RealWebHost know what they are hosting? From MEMRI (thanks to all who sent this in):

The popular Islamist-jihadist forum www.alhesbah.org, hosted by RealWebHost in Texas, U.S., recently posted an anonymously written document from 2003 titled "The Excellent Summary of the Rules of the Art of Kidnapping Americans." The 60-page guide describes each stage of the kidnapping, explaining how to select the target and then how to follow him, seize him, transport him to a safe location, and hold him there, as well as how to conduct negotiations. The guide also explains how to execute the hostage should negotiations fail.

The following are the details:

The guide begins by enumerating goals that a kidnapping can achieve, including the release of prisoners, extraction of information from the hostage, weakening the enemy's morale and creating deterrence, raising international awareness of conflicts in which the kidnappers' organization is involved, blackmailing the enemy for money, and generating anti-government sentiment in the hostage's country of origin.

In the section dealing with selecting a target, the guide recommends choosing someone of importance to the enemy (such as a high-ranking military officer or a prominent businessman). However, he should not be a physically strong person who can put up significant resistance. In order to ensure that the operation goes smoothly, it is recommended that he be knocked out with tranquilizers.

[...]

The last section of the guide deals with the demands stage, and states that after stipulating their demands and setting a deadline, the kidnappers must conduct negotiations using a mobile phone registered under a false name, or else a pay phone (a different one for each call). The guide also explains that if it becomes necessary to execute the hostage, this is best done by hanging or poisoning rather than by shooting. This is because soldiers regard death by shooting as an honorable death, and because shooting leaves considerable bloodstains at the scene.

Replacing Intifada Debbie Almontaser. Does this mean that suddenly all the troubling aspects of this school will magically disappear? Of course not. Danielle Salzberg is just window dressing.

"Orthodox educator to head controversial NYC Arabic school," by Michael Lando for the Jerusalem Post (thanks to all who sent this in):

An Arabic language public school set to open in Brooklyn on September 4 is on its second principal before even opening its doors.

Experienced educator Danielle Salzberg, who grew up Orthodox, was appointed as the school's interim principal late Monday, following last week's abrupt resignation of the school's founder, Debbi Almontaser.

Khalil Gibran International Academy, named after a Lebanese-American poet and intended to emphasize Arabic language and culture, has been mired in controversy since it was first announced in February. Critics are concerned the school will become a hotbed for Islamic extremism, despite assurances from the Department of Education that the school will not teach religion....

Criticism of the school, which has three rabbis on its advisory board, reached a high last week over Almontaser's failure to condemn T-shirts printed by the group Arab Women Active in Art and Media, that read "Intifada NYC." Almonaster sits on the board of the Saba Association of American Yeminis, which shares office space with the organization that made the T-shirts.

The shirts were first revealed on the Web site of Stop the Madrassa Coalition, an unidentified group that has been campaigning to shut down the school.

Almontaser told the New York Post last week that the shirts were not endorsements of violence, but "an opportunity for girls to express that they are part of New York City society." She later apologized, saying she regretted "minimizing the word's historical associations."

Intifada Debbie says she resigned because of those awful Islamophobes:

Almontaser resigned shortly thereafter, saying she was doing so out of concern for the future of the school. The "intolerant and hateful tone" used by critics of the school "has come to frighten some of the parents and incoming parents," she wrote in a letter of resignation, as reported in the New York Sun. "I have grown increasingly concerned that these few outsiders will disrupt the community of learning when the Academy opens its doors on September 4. Therefore, I have decided to step aside ...."

[...]

Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who has been at the forefront of the campaign to shut down the school, is not assuaged by the choice of principals. Salzberg's Orthodox background has not persuaded Hikind, who represents an Orthodox district of Brooklyn, to step back from his criticism.

"Some of our worst enemies are Jews," said Hikind. "The principal being Jewish hardly gives me comfort." Learning Arabic is necessary, but can be done within the context of other public schools, said Hikind, who will continue to try to convince the administration to "chuck the whole thing."

When will an American politician dare to say this? Officials should proclaim a moratorium on all visa applications from Muslim countries and on all applications from Muslims coming from other places also, since there is no reliable way for American authorities to distinguish jihadists and potential jihadists from peaceful Muslims. Because this is not a racial issue, these restrictions should not apply to Christians and other non-Muslim citizens of those countries, although all should be subjected to reasonable scrutiny. Those who claim that such a measure is “Islamophobic” should be prepared to provide a workable way for immigration officials to distinguish jihadists from peaceful Muslims, or, if they cannot do so, should not impede basic steps the U.S. should take to protect itself. And Muslims entering from anywhere -- Britain, France -- should be questioned as to their adherence to Sharia and Islamic supremacism. This is not because anyone will expect honest answers, but so that answers proven false by the applicant’s subsequent activity can become grounds for deportation.

"Hanson to oppose Islamic immigration," from AAP (thanks to Davida):

RIGHT-wing firebrand Pauline Hanson says she will run on similar policies to those that won her international notoriety a decade ago when she vies for a Queensland Senate seat at the upcoming election.

The main difference will be that this time the former fish and chip shop owner, who claims credit for forcing the Howard Government to adopt a harder line on immigration controls, will target Muslims.

"We need to have a look at our immigration levels and I'd like to have a look at putting a moratorium on any more Muslims coming into Australia," she said today.

"Appa [the person threatening to kill Geert Wilders in unambiguous terms], who says he represents a large group of Muslims youth in disadvantaged neighbourhoods..." -- from this article

Why do we have this bit of irrelevant information passed on to us by the writer of the article above?

Who cares if Appa, the would-be killer, thinks or doesn't think that he "represents a large group of Muslim youth in disadvantaged neighborhoods"? What does that have to do with his death threat, made in a small country where in recent years not one but two people known for bravely defying Muslim bullying were killed? One was killed with a gun by a simpleton, van der Graaf, who was persuaded by others that Pim Fortuyn was attacking the most "helpless" members of Dutch society -- i.e., Muslims. The second was killed by Mohammed B.(ouyeri), to whom Appa alludes by referring to a "Mohammed C." who may come along to finish off Geert Wilders.

Dhimmitude in Scotland. Will ye no act like a man and not a poor wee mouse? "Doctors Give In To Muslims," by Tom Fullerton for the Daily Express (thanks to all who sent this in):

DOCTORS and health workers have been banned from eating lunch at their desks - in case it offends their Muslim colleagues.

Health chiefs believe the sight of food will upset Muslim workers when they are celebrating the religious festival Ramadan.

The lunch trolley is also to be wheeled out of bounds as the 30-day fast begins next month.

But staff and politicians branded the move political correctness gone mad and warned that it was a step too far.

Bill Aitken, the Scottish Conservative justice spokesman, said: “This advice, well-meaning as it may be, is total nonsense.

“It is the sort of thing that can stir up resentment rather than result in good relations.”

of course, Bill.

Jihad against the Yazidis. "Suicide truck bombers strike members of ancient religious sect in northwestern Iraq; dozens killed," from The Associated Press :

BAGHDAD: Three suicide truck bombers hit members of an ancient religious sect in northwestern Iraq, killing at least 20 people and wounding 70, police said.

All the blasts occurred about 8 p.m. in two residential areas primarily inhabited by Yazidis near the town of Qahataniya, 120 kilometers (75 miles) west of Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, police and city officials said.

Several shops were set ablaze and apartment buildings were destroyed by the powerful explosions.

[...]

Nobody claimed responsibility for the attacks. But they bore the hallmark of al-Qaida in Iraq, which has been regrouping in the north of the country after being driven from safe havens in Anbar and Diyala provinces.

Yazidis — a primarily Kurdish sect that worships an angel figure considered to be the devil by some Muslims and Christians — have been the frequent target of violence in northern Iraq, particularly in areas surrounding Mosul, 360 kilometers (225 miles) northwest of Baghdad.

The stoning death in April of a Yazidi teenager who had recently converted to Islam after she fell in love with a Muslim and ran off with him appears to have triggered some of the worst attacks. Police said 18-year-old Duaa Khalil Aswad was killed by relatives who disapproved of the match.

A grainy video showing gruesome scenes of the woman's killing was later distributed on Iraqi Web sites, but its authenticity could not be independently verified.

Two weeks later, gunmen shot and killed 23 Yazidis execution-style after stopping their bus and separating out followers of other faiths after checking their identification cards in what was believed to have been retaliation for the woman's death.

The bodies of two Yazidi men who had been stoned to death also turned up in the morgue in the northern city of Kirkuk on Tuesday, six days after they had been kidnapped while they were en route to Baghdad to sell olives, police said.

Police Brig. Gen. Sarhat Qadir and a Sunni tribal leader said Akbar Hassan, 38, and Ayad Khadir, 50, had been kidnapped by al-Qaida-linked insurgents who took them to the predominantly Sunni village of al-Saeeda and ordered the residents to stone them because they were "infidels." The villagers refused, so the insurgents killed the men themselves, Qadir said.

Sheik Ismael al-Hadidi, a Sunni tribal leader in Kirkuk, said about 40 gunmen had distributed fliers signed by the al-Qaida front group the Islamic State of Iraq in the village saying that the killing of the two Yazidi men was in retaliation for the killing of the Yazidi woman in April.

The bodies were left outside for 24 hours before being buried because the villagers were afraid of the gunmen. But some villagers later told al-Hadidi, who informed the family of the slain men, who lived near Mosul.

"By this savage act, the insurgents wanted to win the support and the sympathy of the Sunni residents of al-Saeeda village, but the Sunni villagers' refusal to participate in the stoning shows that those insurgents have failed and they are unpopular," al-Hadidi said.

Relatives traveled to Kirkuk but were afraid to go to the village, so five police cars were sent to retrieve the bodies, al-Hadidi said.

"This is a criminal act carried out by cowards who want to exploit the story of the slain Yazidi woman," one of them, 44-year-old Sami Benda, said. "The two men killed were only peasants who were planning to sell their crops in Baghdad, they have nothing to do with political and religious disputes. We are still paying the price of a foolish, wrong act conducted by small number of Yazidis who stoned the woman."

Discussing, all day tomorrow, my new book Religion of Peace? and related matters.

I'll have lozenges at the ready.

All times PDT:

5:10 AM Mark Larson Show XETE

5:30 AM Front Page with Chad Bresson (WCDR syndicated)

6:10 AM Allman and Crane in the Morning (nationally syndicated)

7:07 AM Mickelson in the Morning WHO

7:30 AM Lynn Woolley Show (nationally syndicated)

8:15 AM Laura Ingraham Show (nationally syndicated) with Dr. Esam Omeish of the Muslim American Society

9:20 AM Vicki McKenna Show WISN

10:00 AM Bill Handel KFI

11:00 AM The Wilkow Majority (Sirius)

1:00 PM Fox Across America with Spencer Hughes (nationally syndicated)

2:00 PM Michael Medved Show Salem Radio Network

4:30 PM Georgene Rice Show KPDQ

5:00 PM Clash Radio (internet)

5:30 PM Michael Reagan Show (nationally syndicated)

7:00 PM The Roth Show (nationally syndicated)

Link: sevenload.com

This morning, talkin' 'bout my new book Religion of Peace? for a few minutes with Brian Kilmeade and Lauren Green.

(Thanks to Bryan Preston for the technical help.)

This story seems to be gone from Radio Netherlands, where it originated. If that turns out to be because it is inauthentic, I will take it down also. But I suspect it is just because of high traffic; Jihad Watch reader Ana has sent me the Free Republic link, and it rings true from what I know of dhimmi bishops:

Breda - The Dutch Roman Catholic bishop Tiny Muskens is urging the faithful of all religions to call God Allah in order to foster mutual understanding. The bishop of the city of Breda says God does not mind what he is called and points out that Allah is the Arabic word for God. The bishop, who is retiring in a few weeks, added he did not expect his ideas to find immediate acceptance. He expects it could take 100 or 200 years. Bishop Muskens has previously defied the Vatican by calling for the acceptance of married priests and the use of condoms against aids. He has also said that those who are poor may steal bread.

What a melodious name the Bishop has. Tiiiiiiny Muskens in Breda / Makes me happy, makes me -- hmmm. What rhymes with Breda? Anyway, I expect that the Bishop is right: if things keep going the way they're going now, in another 100 or 200 years almost everyone in the Netherlands will be referring to God as "Allah." But they won't be Christians.

Make no mistake: this is not just an expression of piety. It is a political statement, a statement of Islamic supremacism, and of the will to wage war until Islamic Sharia is imposed over the whole world. "President: Rule of Islam only way for salvation of mankind," from the Islamic Republic News Agency (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said here Tuesday that rule of Islam on mankind is the only way for salvation of human beings.

"There is no truth on earth but monotheism and following tenets of Islam and there is no way for salvation of mankind but rule of Islam over mankind," said Ahmadinejad in a meeting with Afghan Sunni and Shiite ulama at Iranian Embassy in Kabul.

President Ahmadinejad said nations are today distancing themselves from culture of materialism and selfishness and look for a new way for their prosperity, that is the path of Islam.

He said that the world is on verge of a great upheaval and ulama at this juncture shoulder a heavy responsibility that is introducing genuine Islam as it is.

"Nations today have no haven but religion," the Iranian president announced, cautioning Muslim nations against enemies' divisive plots.

He said, "All of us have the duty to resist the enemy by closing our ranks."
He said that the Iranian nation today feels more than ever the need to stand beside the Afghan nation.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran has kindly received their Afghan brothers and will continue to do so in future. Minor issues will cannot affect Iran's policies on Afghanistan," he added.

The president said Islam belongs to all generations and Muslims should get ready for global mission of Islam.

Anti-dhimmitude in North Rhine-Westphalia. This is still a long way from saying what must be said, which is that immigrants should adopt the societal norms of the host society, but it is one positive step. "Court upholds headscarf ban for Muslim teachers," from Deutsche Presse-Agentur (thanks to Ana):

Dusseldorf (dpa) - A court in Germany's most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia upheld a ban Tuesday on Muslim female teachers wearing headscarves in schools.

Wearing a headscarf violated a state regulation against religious symbols in public schools, the administrative court in the western city of Dusseldorf ruled.

The case was brought by a 52-year-old secondary school teacher, who said she would appeal Tuesday's ruling.

Authorities in North Rhine-Westphalia imposed a ban on headscarves in June 2006.

A study in indoctrination. By Dion Nissenbaum for McClatchy Newspapers:

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Saraa Barhoum picked at the buttons on her pink bellbottom jeans as she twisted on a chair inside the bustling new Hamas television headquarters. The afternoon light bounced off the sparkly outlines of butterflies on her frilly top, and a colorful hijab framed her 11-year-old face.

Saraa wants to be a doctor. If she can't, the young star of Hamas television's best-known children's show said, she'd be proud to become a martyr. Saraa says little Jewish girls should be forced from their homes in Israel so that Palestinians can return to their land.

With the show's producer helpfully offering written tips during an interview, Saraa didn't get into how she hopes to die for her cause, be it suicide bombing, fighting the Israeli military or some other way. She carefully sidestepped any suggestion that she's subtly calling for the destruction of Israel .

"Israel says that we are terrorists," Saraa said minutes before an interview with her was interrupted by an errant Israeli airstrike that slammed into an apartment building on the adjacent block. "But they are the ones that must stop their attacks against us and our kids."

Saraa is the sweet face of "Tomorrow's Pioneers," a weekly, hour-long Hamas television children's show best known for bringing the world a militant Mickey Mouse look-alike and then having him killed off by an Israeli interrogator.

With her jarring mix of innocent charm and militant rhetoric, Saraa is at the center of the militant Islamist group's increasingly sophisticated campaign to become the dominant force in Palestinian politics.

[...]

Since it went on the air last year in the Gaza Strip , the Hamas -funded al Aqsa television has gained momentum and expanded its audience to include the West Bank.

Taking a lead from Hezbollah's al Manar television station in Beirut , Hamas is using al Aqsa to promote its agenda and challenge its rivals, in this case Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his fractured Fatah allies.

[...]

The station, which operates with a license from the Palestinian Authority, also features religious lessons, cartoons, advice shows and militant music videos. One video hailed a female suicide bomber whose young daughter vows to follow her mother's example.

"Tomorrow's Pioneers" sparked an international furor in April when it began featuring Farfour, the Mickey Mouse look-alike who sounded more like Iran's firebrand President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than a Disney character.

Mustafa Barghouti, then serving as the Palestinian Authority's information minister, called the show a "mistaken approach" to helping Palestinians and tried unsuccessfully to force the show off the year.

The Israeli government and activists who monitor Palestinian programming accused Hamas of poisoning the minds of young children with the show.

After two months, Farfour was beaten to death on the show by an Israeli interrogator. Nahoul, a larger-than-life bee, is now carrying his message.

"A lot of people in Palestine have died as martyrs, and lots of Palestinians hope to be martyrs," Saraa said of Farfour's demise. "This is one of the ends."

Asked if she hoped one day to be a martyr, Saraa instinctively nodded her head.

"Of course," Saraa said. "It's something to be proud of. Every Palestinian citizen hopes to be a martyr."

Saraa helps deliver similar messages to Palestinian children from a Hamas TV set filled with colorful numbers and pictures of kittens. During the show, Saraa fields calls from Palestinian children who warble songs about Islam, liberating Jerusalem and finding answers in the barrel of a machine gun.The show has provided new fodder for Israeli activists, who say that Saraa is the true face of Hamas , an extremist group that's using an innocent front to conceal its real agenda.

[...]

Hamas television officials defend the show, saying it's designed to help young children connect with their country and their God.

Read it all.

An update on this story. According to the Malaysian government, Islam Hadhari, or "Civilizational Islam" is a ten-point program "consistent with the tenets of Islam and focused on enhancing the quality of life," and though it is presented as progressive, it does not seem to address the Bumiputra system of preferential treatment for Muslim Malays, the government's unwillingness to recognize the conversions of ex-Muslims, and other injustices.

Still, the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party is none too pleased. "Rep: PAS has issued fatwa against Islam Hadhari," from The Star:

KUALA TERENGGANU: PAS has issued a fatwa (religious edict) to punish those practising and preaching Islam Hadhari, deeming them infidels.

State Islam Hadhari and Welfare Committee chairman Datuk Rosol Wahid, replying to a question by Alias Abdullah (BN - Alor Limbat), said the fatwa was issued by a young PAS leader and his declaration was disseminated in a series of gatherings to the masses.

"We have all the necessary evidence in the form of recordings and written material to substantiate the fatwa issued by PAS," the state executive councillor said.

He urged the religious department to investigate and act against the PAS leader who issued this fatwa.

Rosol said the religious department had also identified 84 mosques that had been misused by PAS leaders to preach their version of safeguarding Islam.

"They hurl all of kind of accusations and lies in their bid to disunite Muslims," he added.

The assembly continues today.

"During interrogation security agents accused the man of converting from Islam to Christianity, a practice banned under Iran's strict theocratic laws."

Islamic Tolerance Alert, from Iran Focus:

Tehran, Iran, Aug. 13 - Iranian authorities in Tehran lashed a man on his back earlier this year for having a bible in his car, an Iranian Christian group said in a report on its website on Friday.

The man was only identified by the initials A. Sh.

On 5 May, the man, driving his vehicle, was involved in a road accident with a car belonging to security guards for a government official in Tehran.

A bible and a video [about] Jesus Christ were found in the man's possession upon inspection of his vehicle by the state security forces (SSF).

A. Sh. admitted to being Christian, prompting the security agents to beat him up, the report said. He was arrested and taken to a holding cell in Detention Centre 102.

During interrogation security agents accused the man of converting from Islam to Christianity, a practice banned under Iran's strict theocratic laws.

He was subsequently subjected to lashes on the back and underwent physical and psychological torture, the report added.

Two disturbing photos are posted alongside this article at the Iran Focus link above.

He was released two days later after his family made bail.

"Raising the possibility of another showdown with secular factions, including the military."

"Islamist again seeks Turkish presidency," by Selcan Hacaoglu for the Associated Press:

ANKARA, Turkey - Turkey's Islamic-oriented ruling party decided Monday to renominate the religious-leaning foreign minister for president, raising the possibility of another showdown with secular factions, including the military.

When Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan proposed Abdullah Gul as his party's candidate earlier this year, opposition groups accused Gul of wanting to scrap the secular traditions of this predominantly Muslim but officially secular nation.

Opposition lawmakers boycotted the previous presidential voting in parliament, leading Turkey's top court to annul the balloting for lack of the required quorum and causing early elections that were won by Erdogan's party last month.

[...]

The candidacy signals that Erdogan's party apparently bowed to pressure from its grass-roots supporters to challenge secular circles.

Gul's earlier nomination alarmed the military-backed, secular establishment, which accused the government of seeking a lock on power so it could impose Islamic ways unchecked.

Although the presidency is largely ceremonial, the post has the power to veto legislative bills and government appointments.

The current president, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, has often frustrated Erdogan's government by blocking its initiatives, such as vetoing a newly passed constitutional amendment in June that would have allowed the people -- rather than legislators -- to elect the president.

Erdogan's party won a majority of parliament seats in the July 22 election, but it did not secure the two-thirds needed to approve a presidential candidate on its own during the first two rounds of voting.

[...]

"It is not appropriate to have a president who has problems with the founding philosophy of the Turkish Republic," said Deniz Baykal, leader of the main opposition party, the pro-secular Republican People's Party.

Onur Oymen, a senior member of the Republican People's Party, said Gul's candidacy is a serious threat to the secular principles of Turkey. "Gul's candidacy is not expected to contribute to peace and stability in the country," he told private NTV television.

Only the bomber was injured. "Islamist attempts suicide attack in Morocco," from Reuters:

RABAT (Reuters) - A suspected radical Islamist tried to blow up himself near a bus carrying tourists in the Moroccan city of Meknes on Monday but he detonated the gas cylinder he was carrying before reaching it, police sources said.

"The gas cylinder exploded some metres (yards) from the bus and badly injured the attacker," said one police source.

Another source said authorities suspected the bomber was a member of the radical Islamist Jihadia group.

Police sources said the failed suicide attack came after anti-terrorism police stepped up a crackdown on radical Islamists in the past six months, arresting scores of suspected jihadists.

"That crackdown move put terrorists on the defensive and destabilised their plots and forced them to commit acts of despair like this one," a third source added.

Of course, it's hard to tell despair from optimism when suicide attacks are standard procedure.

[...]

In June, Morocco raised its security alert to the [maximum] level, suggesting an attack was imminent.

James Ujaama Update. "Man pleads guilty to terror camp charges," by Larry Neumeister for the Associated Press:

NEW YORK -- An American credited with playing a key part in a probe of an Oregon terror training camp pleaded guilty to terrorism charges Monday, admitting his role after his violation of a plea agreement let the government bring more serious charges against him.

James Ujaama, a Muslim convert from Seattle, said he tried to set up the camp in Bly, Ore., in 1999 and notified a radical Islamic cleric in Britain that he and others were stockpiling weapons and ammunition in the United States.

He also admitted that between June 2000 and Dec. 19, 2001, he tried to raise money and provide other help to terrorists in Afghanistan.

Ujaama's lawyer, Peter Offenbecher, declined to comment.

The plea in U.S. District Court in Manhattan to conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and providing material support or resources to terrorists exposed Ujaama, 41, to a potential prison sentence of up to 30 years.

U.S. District Judge John F. Keenan set sentencing for Dec. 12.

Ujaama was once a prized government cooperator. He pleaded guilty in April 2003 in Seattle to lesser charges of conspiring to provide cash, computers and fighters to the Taliban. He served two years in prison and agreed to cooperate with terrorism investigations until 2013.

Federal officials have called Ujaama's help crucial in the 2004 indictment of Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri on charges of trying to establish the training camp and providing aid to al-Qaida.

Al-Masri was arrested in England on a U.S. extradition warrant but has since been sentenced to seven years in jail there for inciting followers to kill non-Muslims. Also charged in the terror-camp case are Haroon Rashid Aswat, who is being held in England, and Oussama Kassir, who is being held in the Czech Republic.

Ujaama was returned to prison in February for violating parole by traveling to Belize with a fake Mexican passport.

Ujaama said Monday he fled because he did not want to testify in a case in federal court in Manhattan pending against al-Masri.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Barbara Jacobs Rothstein in Seattle found he had violated his 2003 plea agreement, an action that permitted the federal government to restore terrorism charges against him.

The indictment said that while in Bly, Kassir and others discussed a plan to kill truck drivers traveling through Oregon and then steal their cargo for money and goods to support the training camp. It said Kassir and Aswat tried to train others on how to make bombs and poisons.

Oregon authorities have said the Bly camp never materialized beyond a dozen people taking target practice.

More evdence from the Holy Land Foundation trial linking CAIR to the jihad terrorists of Hamas. By The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT):

As the trial for the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) continues, the mountain of evidence presented by prosecutors demonstrates, in detail, the existence of a grand Muslim Brotherhood network in the United States dating back to the 1960s. A segment of this network, the self-designated “Palestine Committee,” sought to financially, politically, and morally support the efforts of HAMAS to destroy the “Zionist enemy.”

One exhibit – the Palestine Committee’s 1991 bylaws - reveals a web of key organizations tied to the Committee that were tasked with promoting HAMAS’ agenda, each in a particular field. Six groups were listed, the most prominent being HLF, the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), and the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR).

What has so far gone unnoticed, though, is one last organization on this list that the Committee hoped to establish in the future. As stated in the bylaws, this organization would handle “issues relating to political work and foreign relations”:

It is a committee which operates through the Association [IAP] for now. It is hoped that it will become an official organization for political work and its headquarters will be in Washington, God’s willing. It represents the political aspect to support the cause politically on the American front.

An organization headquartered in Washington, DC, tasked with political activism, born out of the IAP? Maybe a vague reference at first glance, but growing evidence points to the identity of the mystery organization listed in the bylaws as the youngest in the family of HAMAS front groups founded on American soil.

Fast forward to July 30, 1994, just weeks after the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) was founded. A Palestine Committee meeting agenda lists several issues to be discussed, including a review of the reports of the “working organizations.” Listed among these organizations right beside HLF, IAP, and UASR – all members of the Palestine Committee as listed in the bylaws – is the word “CAIR."

The same CAIR that is headquartered in Washington, and whose co-founders - executive director Nihad Awad and chairman emeritus Omar Ahmad - served as president and public relations director, respectively, of the IAP.

...about the new book Religion of Peace?.

Video here.

Geert Wilders is not taking violent intimidation lying down. "Wilders presses charges against rapper," from Expatica (thanks to Davlon):

THE HAGUE - Geert Wilders is going to press charges as soon as possible against rapper Appa, who said in De Pers on Friday that he would not be bothered if someone "put a bullet in [Wilders'] head."

A spokesperson for Wilders' Freedom Party PVV announced the party leader's intention to take the matter to court on Friday.

Appa, who says he represents a large group of Muslims youth in disadvantaged neighbourhoods, says in De Pers: "If I ever meet Wilders, he's mine. I swear to you, I'll take him on. And there are more people who feel the same way. People shouldn't be surprised if a Mohammed C. springs up soon. If someone were to put a bullet in his head, I wouldn't mind."

Barbarian thugs like this are the future of the Netherlands unless Wilders and others like him are successful in resisting them.

How long will it last in the West? And if I were in India, could I file charges against people who hurt my sentiments?

"Hyderabad police lodge case against Taslima Nasreen," by Syed Amin Jafri for Rediff.com (thanks to Looney Tunes):

Hyderabad City Police have booked a case against controversial Bangladesh writer Taslima Nasreen for hurting the religious sentiments of Muslims. The Police have also sought the clearance from a court to file a case against Majlis-e-Ittehaadul Muslimeen floor leader in Assembly Akbaruddin Owaisi for allegedly holding out threats to Taslima Nasreen if she visits Hyderabad again.

On Thursday, the city police had arrested three MIM legislators for their bid to attack Taslima Nasreen when she was in the city to release a Telugu translation of her controversial novel "Shodh."

After the unsavoury incident, the police escorted Taslima Nasreen to the Hyderabad airport from where she took the flight to Kolkata.

The police had booked a case against MIM MLAs and other activists under sections 147 and 18 (rioting with deadly weapons), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 427 (mischief causing damage to property), 452 (trespass after preparation for hurt, assault and wrongful restraint), and 506 (criminal intimidation) of Indian Penal Code read with section 149 of Criminal Procedure Code. Sections 147, 148 and 506 of IPC are non-bailable offences.

On the same day, MIM floor leader Akbaruddin Owaisi had filed a complaint against Taslima Nasreen, alleging that she had hurt the sentiments of Muslim community with her writings and speeches against Islam, including Holy Prophet Mohammed.

Based on his complaint, the City Police booked a case against Taslima Nasreen under section 153 (A) of IPC for "promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language etc and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony." The case is under investigation.

Elizabeth Kantor, editor of the Conservative Book Club and author of the superb Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature, writes about my new book Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't.

We're proud to be offering Robert Spencer's Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is -- and Islam Isn't as a Main Selection of the Conservative Book Club. This is the book all of us have been waiting for.

By "all of us," I mean:

1) The host of folks annoyed and frustrated by the flood of anti-Christian bestsellers that have been pouring off the presses for the last two years, from Sam Harris' condescending Letter to a Christian Nation to Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything; plus

2) Everyone who's ever shouted at a television screen or argued back to the editorial page when a commentator made Christian "fundamentalists" out to be the moral equivalents of the Islamists who brutalized the women of Afghanistan and murdered 3,000 civilians on 9/11; as well as

3) The many fans of Robert Spencer's previous bestselling books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and The Truth about Muhammad; and finally,

4) Robert Spencer's personal friends, who've been waiting for years for him to write a book about the Christian faith, because they know something about what that faith means to him.

The first three categories add up to a large proportion of the Conservative Book Club membership, and I belong in all four. Robert Spencer is an old and dear friend of mine; in the 1980s we were both students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I studied English literature (with the last generation of English professors who saw studying and teaching literature as their job). Spencer was working toward an M.A. in religious studies and, in his off hours, engaging in lively intellectual exchanges with the Muslims on campus.

In his previous books, Robert Spencer set forth an exhaustively documented case about the danger in which we now stand from Islamic jihad -- and the ultimate source of that jihad in the founding documents of Islam and the life of its Prophet. In Religion of Peace? he answers the objection he hears over and over again, as he travels the country warning about the dangers of jihad and encroaching Islamic law. (Believe it or not, sharia is making headway not just in Asia and Africa, but in Europe and Canada as well). Yes, Spencer's interlocutors may admit, the Koran does include exhortations that inspire believers to violence, and Muslims do want to impose their religious law on other people. But, they add, so does the Bible, and so do Christians.

Religion of Peace? blows this nonsense out of the water. The book begins with an up-close look at the cultural cringe that too many Westerners have learned from their "multicultural" (i.e., West-bashing) educations. Spencer tells the fascinating story of one American college student, "Rachel," who was so ashamed of her own culture that her professor, an American Indian, was moved to quote a Cheyenne proverb: "A nation is never conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground," and to ask, "Who had conquered Rachel's people? What had led her to disrespect them?"

From there, Spencer goes on to dismantle the case for moral equivalence between Christianity and Islam, taking on each piece of supposed evidence that Christianity is a source of violence, prejudice, and oppression. He exposes the multiple absurdities of the "theocracy" scare books and shows that the violent passages in the Bible have never justified or inspired violence as the Koran most certainly has (and continues to do). He sets the record straight on the "dominion" movement among American Protestants, on Christian anti-Semitism, on Timothy McVeigh (he was an atheist, not a Christian), on the Catholic Church and Galileo, on "patriarchal" oppression in the West, on the Inquisition and the Crusades. Along the way, he gives us shocking glimpses of the gulf between the Christian and the Islamic mind: When Christians in Cairo began putting fish bumper stickers on their cars in 2003, Muslims responded by putting shark bumper stickers on theirs. ("If they want to portray themselves as weak fishes, okay," explained an Egyptian Muslim. "We are the strongest." No empty boast in a country where Christians suffer continual harassment, punctuated by violent persecution.) Spencer also makes a moving argument that Christianity is the indispensable source of the freedom and dignity we enjoy. Finally, he appeals to everyone who doesn't want fall prey to the jihad to rally around the banner of the Judeo-Christian civilization of the West.

The question the reader is left with, at the end of this powerful book, is whether there's still time. Is there still a chance for us to do as Spencer suggests -- for all of us, not only Christians and Jews, but also atheists and peaceable Muslims -- to put aside our disagreements, face the jihadist threat, and rally around the freedom that's the legacy of Christianity, but that non-Christians in the West also enjoy? Or is it too late for that?

If it is -- if, in the end, we come not just to a clash of cultures, but to the clash of religions that the jihadists are bent on forcing -- then the implication of this book is that peaceful Christians will face violent Muslims with the weapons Christians have always used: patience, reason, love even of our enemies, willingness to die (not to kill) to spread the gospel. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of Christians. But the possibility that Christian martyrs might ultimately defeat jihad by means of the heroic suffering by which Christian martyrs defeated Roman paganism is not a prospect to which any of us can look forward with equanimity.

Downing Street looks to increase the Tiny Minority of Extremists in Britain by five. "Guantanamo Five could be 'a terrorist threat to Britain'," from the Evening Standard:

Five Guantanamo Bay inmates that ministers want to bring to Britain are "extremely dangerous" with close ties to Al Qaeda, the Pentagon has warned.

US officials disclosed details days after Gordon Brown's surprise decision to call for their release.

None of the men is a British national but were all legally resident in the UK before they were detained and taken to the notorious US detention camp.

America is still considering the request but Sandra Hodgkinson, who is in charge of US detention policy, warned that the five might try to carry out terror attacks if they were freed.

Reading from newly declassified files, she alleged that Shaker Aamer, 38, a Saudi national granted leave to remain in Britain, had been living in Afghanistan funded by Osama Bin Laden and working as his translator.

She said that Jamil el-Banna, 44, a Jordanian, had a "long-term association" with Iraqi terror chief al-Zarqawi, who was responsible for the murder of Briton Ken Bigley.

El-Banna came to Britain in 1994 and was granted asylum in 2000.

In 2003 he left London and was captured in the Gambia trying to board an aircraft with equipment which resembled a homemade electronic device.

A third suspect, Omar Deghayes, 37, a Libyan, was described as a "jihadi veteran" of the Bosnian war.

Lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, who represents the men, dismissed the allegations as "a blatant attempt to smear my clients".

The other two men are Binyam Mohamed, who lived in Kensington, west London, and had applied for asylum from Ethiopia, and Abdennour Sameur, a refugee from Algeria who lived in Bournemouth.

A Foreign Office source indicated that the Government was prepared for "long and complex negotiations with the US", adding: "Clearly the US would not release them and the UK would not be requesting their return if they were a risk to international or national security."

But the Conservatives challenged Home Secretary Jacqui Smith to explain how she would ensure the men caused no harm.

A Home Office spokesman said national security was Miss Smith's "foremost concern" but that the request still stood.