April 2009 Archives

In Human Events today, I discuss the momentous first hundred days. And I expect that we ain't seen nothin' yet.

“To the Muslim world,” said Barack Obama in his Inaugural Address, “we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.” After 100 days, how’s that going?

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad summed it up best, responding contemptuously to Obama’s offer to sit down to talk without preconditions and taunting Obama for his impotence: “We say to you that you yourselves know that you are today in a position of weakness. Your hands are empty, and you can no longer promote your affairs from a position of strength.”

Ahmadinejad is also turning Obama’s campaign promise against him. When Obama indicated that he wouldn’t impose preconditions on negotiations with Iran, the Iranian saw an opening. Now, he’s apparently demanding preconditions for the talks by pressuring Obama for concessions on the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Yet Petraeus was quick to add that "we've heard it all before" from the Pakistanis. "Petraeus: Next Two Weeks Critical to Pakistan's Survival," by James Rosen for Fox News, April 30:

Gen. David Petraeus said he is looking for concrete action by the Pakistani government to destroy the Taliban in the next two weeks before determining the United States' next course of action.

Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. Central Command, has told U.S. officials the next two weeks are critical to determining whether the Pakistani government will survive, FOX News has learned.

"The Pakistanis have run out of excuses" and are "finally getting serious" about combating the threat from Taliban and Al Qaeda extremists operating out of Northwest Pakistan, the general added.

But Petraeus also said wearily that "we've heard it all before" from the Pakistanis and he is looking to see concrete action by the government to destroy the Taliban in the next two weeks before determining the United States' next course of action, which is presently set on propping up the Pakistani government and military with counterinsurgency training and foreign aid.

Petraeus made these assessment in talks with lawmakers and Obama administration officials this week, according to individuals familiar with the discussions.

They said Petraeus and senior administration officials believe the Pakistani army, led by Chief of Staff Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, is "superior" to the civilian government, led by President Ali Zardari, and could conceivably survive even if Zardari's government falls to the Taliban.

American officials have watched with anxiety as Taliban fighters advanced earlier this month to within 70 miles of the capital city of Islamabad. In recent days, the Pakistani army has sought to reverse that tide, retaking control over strategic points in the district of Buner even as the Taliban struck back by kidnapping scores of police and paramilitary troops...

Coming to your neighborhood: the jihad

They told him these guys were dangerous jihadists, and Obama doesn't seem to care. They're coming to your neighborhood whether you or the FBI or DHS like it or not. Relax. What could go wrong?

An update on this story. "BREAKING: White House Overrides FBI and DHS on Gitmo Release," by Jed Babbin for Human Events, April 30 (thanks to Islam In Action):

Moving quickly to release Chinese Uighur terrorists into the United States, Obama administration officials have -- for the second time -- overridden objections of federal agencies responsible for national security.

The first time -- as I reported on April 20 -- the White House overrode the inter-agency panel it created from all the national security agencies to review all the cases of the Guantanamo Bay prisoners. That panel found that the seventeen Uighurs -- members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement captured at an al-Queda training camp in Pakistan -- were too dangerous to release in the United States.

Now -- according to a federal agency source who requested anonymity -- the White House has also overridden opposition to the release from both the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.

Beginning yesterday and continuing today, Obama administration officials are briefing key members of Congress on the release, which may happen as early as next week. There apparently has been no decision on where the Uighurs will be turned loose. Earlier reports suggested they could be released in Alexandria, Virginia or Washington, D.C.

How about put them up in the White House?

Not quite as "zealous" as Britain's Muslims, 61% of which want sharia, but a start. "Denmark: 18% of Muslims want to see Sharia law implemented," from Islam in Europe, April 30:

Close to a fifth of Muslims in Denmark want to see Sharia law implemented in Denmark. A study conducted by analysis institute Capacent for DR news shows that 18% of Muslims in Denmark declare they 'agree' or 'completely agree' with the statement: "Sharia law should be integrated into Danish law".

Sharia legislation is several hundred years old and built on principles from the Koan and report of the Prophet Muhammad's life.

But the notion of what sharia is, is interpreted very different by Muslims round the world.

In countries like Sudan, Nigeria and Iran sharia law means that adultery or stealing can lead to cutting off of hands or whipping. At the same time, there are laws which considerably place women worse off than men, which means that women can be refused the right to a divorce.

In several Western countries, some Sharia law is implemented. Here in Denmark it's possible to receive a so-called sharia-loan without interest, and in Great Britain there are so-called sharia councils which can solve private conflicts between Muslims.

Not even Ron-Paulians or Glenn-Beckites. Islamic jihadists again, oddly enough.

"German cell planned September 11 anniversary attacks," from Expatica, April 30 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

Duesseldorf -- Four suspected Islamic militants on trial for plotting to kill Americans in Germany discussed carrying out bombings on the sixth anniversary of 9/11, police said Wednesday.

Giving evidence in court a week into the trial, the chief police investigator Ralph K. said the three Germans and a Turk were overheard by police discussing September 11, 2007 as a possible date for an attack.

They were also issued with emailed orders "to finish the job" by leaders of the Islamic Jihadic Union in Pakistan, an extremist group linked to Al-Qaeda, shortly before police captured three of them on September 4, 2007, he said.

And just one day before their arrest, when police caught them with enough equipment to make explosives 100 times more powerful than those used in the 2005 London bombings, the leaders told them to act within three weeks, he said.

Two of the suspects, Fritz Gelowicz and Daniel Schneider, are German converts to Islam, while Attila Selek -- arrested later in Turkey -- is a German of Turkish origin. The fourth is Adem Yilmaz, a Turkish national....

Gelowicz and Schneider are German converts to Islam? But -- but -- I thought this was a racial issue, and resistance to jihad was just racism!

Yet another Islamic cleric defends the jihadist perspective.

Yesterday I received an email from a student in England who wished to dispute what he characterized as my "claim that Islamist terrorism is justified in Islam and properly represents an element in the Islamic tradition of Jihad (whether expansionist or non-expansionist)." He referred to "the prohibition of terrorism as a tactic in Islam" and more.

Our discussions are continuing; but I do wish he would be able to convince his fellow Muslims, especially Misunderstanders of Islam such as this Islamic cleric who, after all, should know better, that their views on jihad violence and Islamic supremacism are all wrong.

Unfortunately, however, even if he were to demonstrate that what I am saying about jihad is wrong, wrong, wrong, and I don't think he would ever be able to do that, there would still be imams all over the world like this one, believing in all this Wrong Islam. When Muslims such as the young man who wrote to me begin to direct their attention to them rather than to me, we might begin to get somewhere. But...I won't be holding my breath.

"Terrorism: Algeria, Imam Imprisoned for Defending Terrorism," from ANSAmed, April 30 (thanks to Insubria):

(ANSAmed) - ALGIERS, APRIL 30 - An Algerian imam has been sentenced to two years in prison for defending terrorist practices. The sentence was handed down by the court in Boumerdes, in Cabilia (50km east of Algiers), which is one of the areas worst-hit by attacks from Islamist armed groups. The Algerian press reports that the imam was arrested in 2008 as he tried to make contact with a member of the terrorist group, who had in fact been killed a week earlier by security forces. Mosques in the country - which in the 1990s formed a favourite pulpit for fundamentalists to incite revolt and violence against the state - are now under heavy surveillance.

In Algeria they know that mosques need to be placed under surveillance. Very interesting. Has CAIR decried Algerian "Islamophobia"?

A press release I just received about this event:

MUSLIM, JEWISH, CHRISTIAN, HINDU, SIKH, BUDDHIST, HUMAN RIGHTS LEADERS TO RALLY FOR DEFEAT OF RADICAL ISLAM

MUSLIM DARFUR LEADER, ESCAPED JIHAD SLAVE, VICTIMS OF TERROR FROM INDIA, U.S. AND ISRAEL TO ADDRESS MASS RALLY

EVENT WILL HONOR U.S. DEFENDERS AGAINST TERROR, 911 FAMILIES AND FIRST RESPONDERS

New York , New York , April 30, 2009 -- A former Muslim terrorist will speak out for human rights and against radical Islam at mass rally in Manhattan's Times Square this Sunday at noon.

Tawfik Hamid, former member of the Jemaah Islamiya terror group, will join Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Christian, Jewish and other Muslim leaders and organizations to call for defeat of radical Islam and heighten awareness about the danger radical Islam poses to human rights across the globe.

The "Rally for Human Rights and Freedom," sponsored by the Human Rights Coalition Against Radical Islam (HRCARI) and a new rainbow coalition of dozens of diverse partner organizations, will feature a special ceremony to honor the US Military, Homeland Security, police, firefighters, emergency workers and others who have defended the United States from terror.

Peter Gadiel of the 9/11 Families, who lost his son on of the 9/11, will be present, as will a retired NYC police officer who lost his son-in-law on 9/11.

The May 3rd event will mark the kick-off event for a new grassroots global action network that is taking on the fight against radical Islam. A HRCARI spokesperson notes, “As part of this initiative, we intend to educate elected officials to help prevent the spread of Shariah Islamic law. We will work to publicize the threat of radical Islamic terrorist groups and their allies, and endeavor to protect the right to freedom of religion, and freedom of speech in the face of those who seek to silence advocates of human rights against the threat of radical Islam.”

HRCARI believes that radical Islam is a worldwide threat against commonly accepted human rights and is the most urgent topic of our generation.

A preliminary list of speakers will be distributed shortly. The HRCARI rally coalition (list in formation) includes: 911 Families for a Secure America; ACT for America, Long Island and Manhattan; AIR -- Alliance for Interfaith Resistance; Aish Center; American Coptic Union; Americans for a Safe Israel; Alliance of Iranian Women; AMCHA-Coalition for Jewish Concerns; American Center for Democracy; Americans for Peace & Tolerance; Arabs for Israel; Artists4Israel; Atlas Shrugs; Chinese Community Relations Council; Coalition for Israel; Damanga (Darfur Muslim organization); The David Project; Fordham University School of Law's National Security and Law Society; Foundation Nepalese; Gathering of Eagles-NY; Global Movement Against Radical Islam; Hasbara Fellowships; Hindu Human Rights Watch; Indian American Intellectuals Forum; International Foundation of Bangladeshi Hindus; Iraq the Model; Israpundit; Jewish Action Alliance; Jihad Watch; Mothers Against Terrorism; Muslims Against Sharia; Namdhari Sikh Foundation; R.E.A.L. - Responsible for Equality and Liberty; Sikh Recognition Trust; Snapped Shot; StandWithUS; Sudan Freedom Walk; Women United: Code Red; Zionist Organization of America.

But it denies discriminating against him. It looks as if the hospital paid just to make this suit go away, which may make sense for them in the short term, but -- particularly given their non-admission of any discrimination -- sets a precedent that will make it more difficult in the future for non-Muslim businesses and workplaces to refuse the demands of Muslim employees for special accommodation, no matter how unreasonable those demands may be. In my book Stealth Jihad last year I detailed many such demands, and this settlement only ensures that there will be many more to come.

"Religious discrimination case settled with hospital," by Janell Ross in The Tennessean, April 30 (thanks to Rosine):

Southern Hills Medical Center in Nashville has agreed to pay a former employee $70,000 in damages after denying him time off to make a pilgrimage to Mecca but admitted no wrongdoing when it settled the religious discrimination case on Monday.

In late 2007, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed suit on behalf of Wali Telwar, a Muslim former Southern Hills medical technician who lives in Nashville.

He asked to visit Mecca

The hospital refused to allow Telwar to use just over 20 days of accumulated vacation time to take a trip to Mecca. Every Muslim is required to make the hajj — a pilgrimage to the Saudi Arabian birthplace of the Islamic religion and its prophet — in their lifetime.

Telwar, who had worked at the hospital for three years, also claimed he was told that if he insisted on attending the hajj he would have to quit his job and reapply when he returned.

Telwar resigned, according to the suit. When he returned, Southern Hills did not rehire him. The hospital hired three other medical technicians.

Southern Hills released a statement from CEO Tom Ozburn late Wednesday:

"As noted in the consent decree, we deny that we discriminated in any way against Mr. Telwar," Ozburn said in the statement. "We have reached a settlement with the EEOC to close this matter.

"Southern Hills is committed to providing an inclusive work environment where everyone is treated with fairness, dignity, and respect."

At the time the suit was filed, Southern Hills Marketing Director Karen Baker declined to comment on the details but said the hospital did not discriminate against Telwar and intended to defend its position vigorously.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sought court costs, unspecified back pay and other damages from the hospital. When the case was settled Monday, the hospital denied any wrongdoing and did not agree to pay Telwar's legal costs.

But the hospital did agree to pay Telwar $70,000 in damages, to eliminate any reference to the discrimination claim in Telwar's personnel file and to offer a neutral reference to any future employers.

Other terms

Under the terms of the settlement agreement the hospital is barred from refusing to reasonably accommodate the sincerely held religious beliefs of any employee. The prohibition extends to the scheduling of vacation time and retaliating against any employee who has requested accommodation for a religious belief.

The hospital is also required to alter its policy manual within 90 days to provide instructions to employees about accommodating religious beliefs and must educate its employees and management about what constitutes religious discrimination.

The hospital must also generate two reports over the next 23 months detailing what requests for religious accommodation are made by employees, what accommodations were made and if no accommodation was made it must explain why.

Hey, kids, if you're looking for me, I'll be playing the soprano saxophone on the sidewalk outside Madison Square Garden. Drop a buck in my case, will ya?

"West Has Already Won War with Islam, Says Leading Geopolitical Analyst," by Aaron Task in Newsmakers, April 30 (thanks to Freckles):

With the Taliban on the march in Pakistan, Osama bin Laden still unaccounted for, attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq rising again and Afghanistan a quagmire, it would seem the war against jihadist Islam is only accelerating in intensity.

But what if it's already all over but the shouting?

"It is debatable whether the U.S. has actually won the U.S.-jihadist war - but it has certainly achieved its strategic goals," - preventing another 9/11 and avoiding jihadist uprising in the Arab world, George Friedman, founder of STRATFOR, writes in his latest book The Next 100 Years. "The U.S. has succeeded, not so much in winning the war as in preventing the Islamists from winning and, from a geopolitical perspective, that is good enough."

Friedman expands up this theory in the accompany video, where we discuss the following:

* What he calls the "fundamental weakness" of the Muslim world.
* The likely endgame in Afghanistan, where he says the U.S. "cannot win."
* The potential for a jihadist uprising in Turkey, which Friedman sees as one of the great regional powers of the 21st Century.
* The likelihood of Pakistan falling into Taliban control, if it hasn't already.
* The "real" meaning of Iran's rhetorical threats.
* Whether Bin Laden is better captured and put on trial, dead, or alive and isolated. And whether Al Qaeda is still able to carry out major terrorist attacks today.

Here is Geert Wilders's April 28 statement at a joint press conference with Lord Malcolm Pearson, in response to CAIR's attack on Florida House of Representatives Majority Leader Rep. Adam Hasner (thanks to Patrick Poole):

Freedom of expression is under attack. That is the theme I am addressing here in America this week as part of the Free Speech Summit being held in Florida under the sponsorship of the Florida Security Council. And it is clear that a serious discussion of the threats to our freedoms in the West cannot come too soon.

For example, my friend Rep. Adam Hasner, the majority leader of the Florida House of Representatives was attacked in a press release issued by the national office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on Monday for daring to appear at a private event with me this past weekend. Because of that appearance, CAIR is demanding that Rep. Hasner step down or be removed from his position.

This attack on a friend and fellow legislator is of grave concern to me. CAIR’s assault on Rep. Hasner strikes at the very heart of our most basic freedoms. In fact, it is but the latest episode in that organization’s long-running and determined effort to silence its critics. Indeed, CAIR seeks to suppress all those who dare to challenge the theo-political-legal program that authoritative Islam calls “Shariah.” In so doing, they are seeking to impose what amount to Shariah blasphemy codes.

It is especially important to note that Adam Hasner is not only being attacked for comments he made that are deemed offensive by those who seek to impose Shariah in America. His career is now being threatened for comments made by others in his presence – in this case, by me. Thus the Islamists are infringing not only on this country’s constitutionally protected freedom of expression but also freedom of association.

If a high-ranking public official – elected by the people and appointed to his leadership position by his peers – cannot speak honestly and openly about his concerns, and do so in places and the company of his choosing, without fear of suppression or other retribution, who among us is safe?

But he stopped short of banning child marriage or the practice of selling daughters into marriage. How could he ban child marriage when Muhammad, the prophet of Islam and the "excellent example of conduct" (Qur'an 33:21), married Aisha when she was six and consummated the marriage when she was nine (and he was 54)?

An update on this story. "Young Saudi girl's marriage ended," from the BBC, April 30 (thanks to LGF2):

Media reports say an arranged marriage between a Saudi girl aged eight and a man in his 50s has been annulled, in a case attracting worldwide criticism.

The Saudi Gazette says the divorce was agreed in an out-of-court settlement after a judge rejected two attempts to grant the girl a divorce.

The case prompted Saudi officials to say it would start regulating the marriages of young girls.

Rights groups say some Saudi families marry off young daughters for money.

The judge who first heard the case in the town of Unaiza refused to end the marriage at the request of the girl's mother, but he stipulated the groom could not have sex with the girl until she reached puberty....

Earlier this year, the country's highest religious authority, the Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Shaikh, said it was not against Islamic law to marry off girls who are 15 and younger.

On 15 April, after this case generated considerable negative publicity, Justice Minister Muhammad Issa said he wanted to put an end to the "arbitrary" way in which parents and guardians could marry off their young daughters.

However, he he did not say that the practice would be banned.

Reality offends them.

Raymond just wrote in to remind me that BMI has been following a consistent pattern of dhimmitude, asking flight attendants to walk behind men and wear Muslim garb while in Saudi Arabia, and forbidding staff from taking Bibles and Christian items into Saudi Arabia.

"BMI airline wipes Israel off the map," from the Jerusalem Post, April 30 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Cheap British carrier BMI, which launched lines flying to Tel Aviv in March, deleted Israel from electronic maps presented to passengers on its flights so as not to offend Islam, Army Radio reported Thursday afternoon.

However, the orientation of Mecca, the direction to which Muslim face when they pray, is shown on the electronic screens. In the electronic maps presented on BMI flights to Tel Aviv, neither Israel nor any of its cities are marked, except for Haifa, which is spelled 'Khefa,' a transliteration of the Arab name of the city as it was called before 1948.

BMI operates many lines to Muslim destinations and presents the 'Mecca Compass' as a service to its many Muslim passengers. The company flies from England to Syria, Lebanon and Iran, among other destinations in the Middle East....

The company said in response that two planes flying to Tel Aviv were originally intended to arrive in Arab countries and therefore the map was tailored to the passengers and showed mainly sites holy to Muslims.

A "logistic failure" caused the map to be presented on the flight to Tel Aviv, a company statement said, adding that it will be removed from the Tel-Aviv bound planes. The company was making every effort not to hurt passengers' feelings by adopting a nonpolitical position, the statement added.

Uh huh.

Kamala, who raised important (and still unanswered) questions in his superb review of Sumbul Ali-Karamali's The Muslim Next Door: The Qur'an, the Media, and that Veil thing, now examines Reza Aslan's How to Win a Cosmic War.

Here is Kamala's take on Aslan's most egregious (and melodramatic) falsehood -- that a one day trip to Israel turned Mohammad Siddique Khan into a terrorist. This is particularly timely since Waheed Ali was just convicted of going to terrorist training camp with Khan almost 2 years before that.

No self-respecting Islamic apologist can leave out the Israeli/Palestinian dispute as one of the "legitimate grievances" that must be addressed to stem the influence of the global Jihadists; Aslan readily obliges. He even shows off his creative writing chops by weaving the narrative of Israeli oppression into the frightening growth of Jihadist influence in Europe as well. To pull this story off, the only casualty is the truth:

Mohammad Siddique Khan was the ringleader of the 7/7 subway and bus suicide attacks in Britain that left more than fifty dead and injured more than 700. Khan was of Pakistani descent but born and raised in England. In the Aslan fantasy, he was a "soft-spoken," "well-adjusted, well-integrated, well-educated youth worker," and a dedicated "husband and father," up until one "decisive moment." On his way back from completing "the Hajj pilgrimage with his wife and a couple of close friends," Khan made a "last minute detour" to Israel, where Khan "witnessed with his own eyes the unbearable weight of degradation carried by a people in no control of their own lives, in no control even of their movements."

As Khan passed through a crossing into Palestinian territory, he

saw an old Palestinian man, a native of this dry patch of land, being manhandled by a nervous young soldier... A second soldier, sweating and timorous and just as young as the first, held a rifle barrel against the old man's chest... The old man lowered his head. He was used to this. He did not speak as the soldier rummaged through his belongings. Khan stood by, also saying nothing. But the old man's shame burned hot in his cheeks... in that fateful moment, [Khan's] identify was altered. He was no longer British. He was no longer Pakistani. His sense of self could not be contained by either nationalist designation. He was simply a Muslim... On his way back to Beeston, the mild-mannered youth worker shocked his companions by suddenly proclaiming his new identity and, with it, his murderous intention. (p. 52)

As Aslan writes, "there can be little doubt" that Khan's short trip Israel was the "pivot in his journey" that took him from being the well-adjusted/well-integrated/well-educated/soft-spoken/mild-mannered/dedicated-husband-and-father to the "radical Jihadist bent on mass murder."

If this tale sounds far-fetched--that taking a single trip to Israel and witnessing one old man get "humiliated" would turn a perfectly sane European family man into a nut-job terrorist committed to killing his fellow citizens and himself--well, that's because it is.

Khan visited Israel for one day in February, 2003. Almost two years earlier, in the summer of 2001, a British Muslim named Waheed Ali says he flew to Pakistan with Khan, where they were driven to a Taliban camp on the border with Kashmir, where they learned to shoot rifles. Khan and Ali wanted to go fight on the frontline in Bagram, where the Taliban was fighting the Northern Alliance, but they were deemed too inexperienced to participate. (Ali was just sentenced to prison for conspiracy to attend a terrorist camp.)

As one would expect, Khan's turn to radical Islam came even earlier. According to an article based on an interview with Khan's brother, Khan became interested in Wahhabism in the mid-90s, and "in 1999, it seems that Siddique began to consider the step from Wahhabi fundamentalism to a form of jihadism actively committed to violence."

So much for the "Palestinian Humiliation Theory."

Be sure to read it all.

Further evidence that the wholly unnecessary Egyptian order to eliminate the country of all swine is based on assuaging Muslim paranoia regarding "unclean pigs" at the expense of creating (more) economic hardships for Christians. More on this story. "Egyptian Christians riot after swine flu cull," by Philippe Naughton for the Times Online, April 29:

Egyptian leaders ordered the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of pigs today to help protect against swine flu, prompting angry protests from the poor Christian farmers who feed their animals with a country's food scraps. The decision was also criticised as a "real mistake" by a senior UN food expert.

The Arab world's most populous nation has been been badly hit by the H5N1 bird flu virus in recent years and the move to cull up to 400,000 pigs - seen by Muslims as unclean animals - was designed to calm fears of an impending pandemic.

But it left Egypt's large Coptic Christian minority up in arms, especially the slum-dwelling "Zebaleen" rubbish collectors who rely on the hogs for their livelihood. Scores of them blocked the streets and stoned the vehicles of Health Ministry workers as they arrived to carry out the government's order at pig farms on the outskirts of Cario this afternoon.

“Our pigs are healthy. They are our capital and they have no diseases,” said Adel Ishak, who feeds his pigs from the rubbish he collects in Manshiet Nasser, northeast of Cairo.

"We remind Hosni Mubarak that we are all Egyptians. Where does he want us to go?” added 46-year-old Gergis Faris, another pig farmer. “We are uneducated people, just living day by day and trying to make a living, and now if our pigs are taken from us without compensation, how are we supposed to live?”[...]

Joseph Domenech, chief veterinary office with the UN Food and Agriculture Officer in Rome, said the Egyptian order was "a real mistake".

"There is no reason to do that. It’s not a swine influenza, it’s a human influenza,” he said.

Craving unsatisfied

The UAE joins Egypt. Since swine flu is not spread by eating pork, this banning seems to be simply an instrument of Islamization and a means to harass non-Muslims.

"UAE bans pork imports to combat swine flu," from Reuters, April 30 (thanks to James):

DUBAI (Reuters) - The United Arab Emirates has banned the import of pork products as a precautionary measure against the spread of swine flu, a senior health policy official said Thursday.

Several countries have banned pork imports though the World Health Organization says swine flu is not spread by eating pork.

Pork products already on sale in supermarkets around most of the seven-member UAE federation would not be taken off the shelves, Mohmoud Fikree told Reuters in a phone interview, but the ban on new imports was open-ended.

"The ban will remain indefinitely, until we get a new decision from the ministry," Fikree said.

An economy ministry spokesman told Reuters that hotels had also been banned from serving pork products, but that the market for pig meat in the UAE was small, since it is a Muslim country where restrictions on the sale of pork products already apply....

"Obama will want to show Iran, Syria and radical Muslims that the United States could pressure Israel on a strategic level."

If Israel falls, the jihad will not end. It will, in fact, be emboldened as never before, and focus with new energy and confidence upon Europe and elsewhere. If Israel falls, the United States will be in greater peril from the Islamic jihad than ever before.

"Israeli intel warns Netanyahu on Obama policy: 'We have become an obstacle,'" from the World Tribune, April 24 (thanks to Shirley):

TEL AVIV — A classified assessment relayed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Obama and his senior advisers would incrementally diminish U.S. strategic cooperation with Israel developed over the last 20 years.

"Obama wants to make friends with our worst enemies and until now the worst enemies of the United States," an Israeli source familiar with the intelligence assessment said.

"Under this policy, we are more than irrelevant. We have become an obstacle."...

Israeli sources said the administration would reject Israel intelligence on such threats as Iran and Syria while advancing the Obama agenda to reconcile with the two states, both listed as state sponsor of terrorism by the U.S. State Dept.

On April 20, Israeli military intelligence commander Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin warned the Cabinet that Obama was prepared to allow Iran to retain its capability to assemble nuclear weapons and support Hamas and Hizbullah.

"Obama wants to advance the peace process in the direction of realistic discussions with extremist elements," Yadlin said.

The Israeli intelligence assessment envisioned that Obama would maintain his reconciliation policy with Iran and Syria through at least 2010. The sources said the assessment determined that Obama was convinced that such a policy would enable a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Obama will want to show Iran, Syria and radical Muslims that the United States could pressure Israel on a strategic level," the source said. "The pressure has already begun and will intensify throughout the next year or two."...

Read it all.

Picture an American professor receiving an award from Adolf Hitler in 1938. Then picture this. Diana West has the details:

The little guy (above) is A-jad, Iranian thug-in-chief, and he's congratulating an American professor named Robert G. Morrison of Bowdoin College for having written Islam and Science: The Intellectual Career of Nizam al-Din al-Nisaburi, which, it seems, was chosen by Iran as a 2009 International Book of the Year in Islamic Studies.

Diana has much more. Read it all.

Morrison joins the illustrious Carl Ernst in receiving a prize from the Thug-In-Chief.

Note how AP considers and breezily dismisses the possibility that these jihadists might be fighting to establish an Islamic state. But are they suffering from discrimination? Hardly -- the Thai government is even considering giving them Sharia.

"10 killed by suspected insurgents in Thailand," by Sumeth Panpetch for AP, April 28 (thanks to Pamela):

PATTANI, Thailand (AP) — Suspected Muslim insurgents killed ten civilians in a flurry of attacks in the insurgency-plagued southern Thailand, the army said Tuesday, the fifth anniversary of a bloody assault by security forces against militants at a mosque.

In the deadliest incident, at least six gunmen in a pickup truck stormed into a house in Yala province late Monday, opening fire on a Muslim family of five, army spokesman Col. Parinya Chaidilok said. Four people were killed.

Parinya says two Muslim rubber plantation workers were later found dead in the compound of a nearby mosque. Thai security officials blamed Islamic insurgents bent on stirring up communal tension between Buddhists and Muslims.

The incidents came ahead of the fifth anniversary of the April 28, 2004, assault on the Krue Se mosque by Thai security forces, in which 32 insurgents were killed.

Other clashes the same day between Muslims and government forces resulted in the deaths of a total of 107 people at the hands of security forces, turning the mosque attack into a symbol of the heavy-handed tactics of Thai authorities....

In the latest attack, a Buddhist government official was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting Tuesday in Pattani, Parinya said. In a separate incident Monday evening, gunmen fatally shot a Muslim who served as a government-hired security volunteer in Yala province.

Another Muslim man was killed in a drive-by shooting in the same province Monday evening.

In another district of Yala province, suspected militants fatally shot a Buddhist rubber plantation worker Tuesday.

Insurgent attacks — which include drive-by shootings and bombings — are believed intended to frighten Buddhist residents into leaving the area. They also target Muslims who they believe have collaborated with the government, including soldiers, police, informants and civilians.

The identity and precise goals of the insurgents have never been publicly declared, and responsibility is rarely claimed for attacks. They pursue an ill-defined agenda that sometimes seems to call for an Islamic state separate from Buddhist-dominated Thailand, but is mostly a reaction to a history of discrimination.

Southern Muslims have long complained of discrimination, especial in educational and job opportunities, in Buddhist-dominated Thailand.

And AFP notices, instead of following the usual practice of blaming "youths" or "immigrants."

"Dutch signs point to gay sex seekers," from AFP, April 29 (thanks to Jessica):

A park near Amsterdam has unveiled information signs pointing out spots where officials say gay men are known to have sex, so visitors are not taken by surprise....

Ms Koffijberg said that while having sex in public was against the law, the park has been used for this purpose for so long that it has become "gedoog", a Dutch word for tolerating unwanted behaviour....

There had been recent complaints of gay bashing in the Slotervaart area, populated by a large group of immigrants of Muslim origin, with reports of robberies and violence against gay men in De Oeverlanden park.

Or else "things may go out of control." Can't have that.

Monumental Chutzpah Alert: "Kasab's demands: Perfume, toothpaste & stroll outside cell," from the Times of India, April 29 (thanks to Block Ness):

MUMBAI: Prime accused in Mumbai terror attack case Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab has asked for perfume, toothpaste and newspaper besides permission to walk in the corridor outside his cell....

In a letter to his lawyer Abbas Kazmi, Kasab requested him to seek approval of the court for these articles and also permission to walk in the verandah outside his cell....

In the letter, Kasab said, " Janab Abbas Kazmi Sahab, I need a few things urgently. These are Urdu Times newspaper, a perfume bottle and a toothpaste. Also please seek court's direction to police asking them to deposit the amount, seized from my possession, in my jail account.

In the letter Kasab pleaded, " Ho sake to hamein kuch der ghumne ke liye barrack ke saamne wale varandeh mein chhod diya jaye. Iske liye unko fikra karne ki zaroorat nahin ." (If possible I should be allowed to walk in the verandah outside my cell. For this, the security personnel need not worry because the barrack is enclosed on all the four sides).

"Staying in one room, I am getting mentally sick. It should not happen that in future things may go out of control," Kasab said in the letter....

Mohamad Shnewer "told the judge that he talked like a jihadist, but didn't have what it takes to be one." However, it does seem that he was plotting to become one.

Why wasn't Honest Ibe Hooper of CAIR or someone like him on the scene to explain to Shnewer that jihad is an interior spiritual struggle, and that Muslims have no reason to plot to attack the United States, since Islam is fully compatible with secular democracy?

More on this story. "4th plotter in Fort Dix case gets life sentence," from AP, April 29 (thanks to Block Ness):

CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) -- A federal judge in New Jersey has sentenced a fourth man to spend the rest of his life in prison for plotting to kill military personnel at Fort Dix.

Twenty-four-year-old cab driver Mohamad Shnewer (SHNOO'-er) of Cherry Hill was heard repeatedly on tapes made by an FBI informant talking about attacking the United States.

Shnewer told the judge that he talked like a jihadist, but didn't have what it takes to be one.

The judge called him the "epicenter of the conspiracy" and sentenced him to life plus 30 years in prison....

Training for a follow-up jihad attack down the road. "Britain Jails 2 Men Linked to 2005 Suicide Bombers," from AP, April 29 (thanks to all who sent this in):

LONDON (AP) -- Two men cleared of helping to plot the 2005 suicide bombings in London have each been sentenced to seven years in prison on charges connected to terrorism training.

Judge Peter Gross sentenced Waheed Ali and Mohammed Shakil on Wednesday after a jury found them guilty of conspiracy to attend a terrorist training camp....

"Those who harm God and His Messenger — God has cursed them in this world and in the hereafter, and has prepared for them a humiliating punishment." Hey, thanks for the kindly and tolerant welcome, fellas! Of course, they're still seething over the Pope's words at Regensburg a few years ago. And insults, as petulant and silly as they make them look, are better than bombs.

"Muslim Hard-Liners Upset by Pope's Upcoming Visit to Nazareth," from FoxNews, April 29 (thanks to Twostellas):

NAZARETH, Israel — A banner across the main square in Jesus' boyhood town condemns those who insult Islam's Prophet Muhammad — a message by Muslim hard-liners for Pope Benedict XVI during his pilgrimage to the Holy Land next month.

The pontiff may have to tread carefully with his visit to Nazareth. Many Muslims are still angry over a 2006 speech in which Benedict quoted a medieval text depicting the prophet as violent.

Even some Christians are nervous that Benedict could stir up trouble for them. They worry that if he says anything contentious about Islam again, Muslims might lash out.

In a sane world, sane people would be calling upon the Muslims to grow up, not the Pope to walk on eggshells around them.

"He must know that every word he will utter will have an impact on Christian Palestinians and religious relations," said Naim Ateek, an Anglican reverend and director of Sabeel, an ecumenical Palestinian Christian group that includes Catholics.

The banner was put up by followers of Nazem Abu Salim, a radical Muslim preacher, right next to the Church of the Annunciation, where tradition says the Angel Gabriel told Mary she would give birth to Jesus.

It is there for the pope, Abu Salim said. "He is not welcome here."

The banner — clearly visible from the church, which Benedict is to visit — trumpets a verse from the Quran declaring, "Those who harm God and His Messenger — God has cursed them in this world and in the hereafter, and has prepared for them a humiliating punishment."

Municipal official Suheil Diab wouldn't say if the banner, along with a small sign in English with the verse, would be removed before the pope arrives May 14.

Benedict plans to meet with Muslim leaders, though not Abu Salim, throughout his May 8-15 tour of the Holy Land, which includes stops in Jordan, the West Bank, Jerusalem and Nazareth, one of Israel's largest Arab cities.

Islamic leaders in Israel are divided over the visit.

One of the leading Muslim groups in Israel, the Northern Islamic Movement, is calling for a boycott of meetings unless Benedict apologizes for his 2006 remarks, said a spokesman, Zahi Nujeidat. The movement, which has not been invited to meet with the pontiff, can marshal thousands of supporters, but has not yet decided whether to stage protests.

Other Muslim clerics said they would sit down with Benedict but ask for an apology. One of those is Sheik Taysir Tamimi, a leading cleric in the Palestinian Authority, which has welcomed the pope's trip.

Muslims are a growing and increasingly assertive majority in Nazareth, which is 70 percent Muslim but has a communist mayor from the city's Christian community.

A decade ago, brawls erupted over Muslim attempts to build a mosque beside the Church of the Annunciation. The project was eventually thwarted. What remains is a stone-paved square and a small mosque, headed by Abu Salim....

Benedict's 2006 speech citing obscure medieval text that characterized some of Muhammad's teachings as "evil and inhuman" sparked protests in the West Bank and Gaza — though not in Israel. Attackers fired guns and threw firebombs at Palestinian churches.

Benedict later said the text did not reflect his views, but many Muslims believe he did not apologize properly....

Benedict should use his visit to censure Israel over Gaza and the lack of progress in reaching peace with the Palestinians, said Ateek, the Anglican reverend.

"If the pope is brave enough to do that, people will respect him more," Ateek said.

Islamochristians like Ateek, Islamic jihadists, and Leftists would respect him more. He doesn't need that kind of respect.

Literally, swine this time -- not that group of infidels regularly conflated with them in Islamic scriptures. Even though the U.N. insists Egypt's pigs are harmless, as a "precautionary" measure, the government has called for their eradication, possibly as many as 400,000. After all, as the following report reveals, "Egypt's 80-million population consists mainly of Muslims, whose religion forbids them from eating pork, as well as an estimated six to 10 percent Christian Copts who may eat pig meat": In other words, since Muslims won't be affected, only Christians, might as well call for this extreme, and wholly unnecessary, measure. Besides, it makes for good PR with Egypt's more "radical" segments.

"Egypt MPs seek 'immediate death' for nation's pigs," from AFP, April 29:

CAIRO (AFP) — Egypt's lower house of parliament called on Tuesday for the nation's 250,000 [other estimates are as high as 400,000] pigs to be killed immediately because of fears over the spread of swine flu, state news agency MENA reported.

"The People's Assembly urged the government to immediately start culling pigs and not to relocate pig-breeding farms away from residential areas for fear of the spread of swine flu," MENA said.

Egypt's 80-million population consists mainly of Muslims, whose religion forbids them from eating pork, as well as an estimated six to 10 percent Christian Copts who may eat pig meat...

As Islam's prophet lived and preached, so war is deceit. Just another reminder of how futile the "Swat deal" -- supposed peace in exchange for sharia -- is; something the U.S. government should keep in mind as it prepares to hand over one billion dollars to Pakistan. "Taliban deceived govt, staged withdrawal drama: ISPR," from the Daily Times, April 29:

MINGORA/ISLAMABAD: Security forces backed by warplanes and helicopter gunships launched a new operation in Buner district near the Swat valley on Tuesday, bombing suspected Taliban hideouts in Kalil, Shera Turf, and Kandao areas.[...]

Nearly 300 Taliban entered Buner from April 2 to 4 and began to terrorise the locals, in violation of the Swat deal, Gen Abbas said. “The government warned the militants but they refused to listen and staged only a symbolic withdrawal. They [sic] government was left with no option expect to use force,” he said.

According to several news agencies, he said it would take up to a week to clear an estimated 500 Taliban from Buner...

Talking about the recent female/child suicide attack in Iraq, this op-ed notes that, "This sort of act would have been worth a worldwide banner headline a decade ago. But now, it's just another demented Islamist senselessly slaughtering fellow Muslims. With her kid. Yawn." Indeed, contrast this indifference with the sort of media attention a Christian female/child suicide combo -- justifying their actions via Christianity -- would receive.

"Mommy blows up with toddler — this has got to be a new low for militant Islam," by Jonathan Kay for the National Post, April 28:

Having spent this morning catching up on my weekend reading, I came across this Page 4 article from Friday's New York Times. Here's the lead paragraph: "BAGHDAD — At least 80 people died and 120 others were injured Thursday in three bombings, one by a female suicide bomber in Baghdad who, Iraqi officials said, held a young child’s hand as she set off her explosives among a group of women and children receiving emergency food aid."

Even putting aside our baseline revulsion at terrorism, there are three especially hideous things that jump out from this:

1) A mother deliberately taking her (presumed) child with her as she immolates herself. For all the hundreds of suicide bombings that Iraq has already witnessed, this has got to be a first.

2) This was a line for food aid. Islamists have gone from attacking U.S. soldiers, to attacking Iraqi soldiers, to attacking police stations, to attacking the religious ceremonies of rival sects — on down the line of nihilism until, now, they are reduced to blowing up hungry people seeking sustenance.

3) This hideous crime was played on page four of The New York Times. And a quick scan of other media suggests it got similar B-rate treatment elsewhere. This sort of act would have been worth a worldwide banner headline a decade ago. But now, it's just another demented Islamist senselessly slaughtering fellow Muslims. With her kid. Yawn.

Says a lot about the world we live in, doesn't it?

Considering Pakistan's duplicitous nature, the U.S. giving it a billion dollars gives whole new meaning to the jihadis', most notably bin Laden's, predictions that the U.S. will bleed itself dry in the war against jihad. More on this story.

"US readies $1bn gift for Pak," from Times of India, April 29:

WASHINGTON: The Obama administration and the Democrat-controlled US Congress are rushing to get a billion-dollar emergency aid package for Pakistan gift-wrapped before President Asif Ali Zardari’s visit to Washington DC next week despite warnings from many quarters, including a Bhutto scion, against any freebies.

Prompted by the administration and its Special Representative to Af-Pak Richard Holbrooke, who will testify before Congress on Wednesday and Thursday, lawmakers are expected to take up the matter as early as next week, according to Congressional sources.

While many lawmakers are supportive of a well-deliberated and conditional aid to Pakistan, some influential Senators, notably John Kerry, prefer a less stringent approach that gives Washington and Islamabad enough leeway to coordinate an anti-extremist policy without it being hamstrung by tight Congressional oversight. Although Kerry and the administration would prefer a substantial package of aid, reluctance on part of chary House members could see the immediate package whittled down to around $ 400 million.

Preparatory to action in this regard in Washington, Pakistan claims to have launched an all-out assault against the Taliban elements who had encroached into the country’s settled areas including Buner, an episode that raised alarm in the west about the extremist’ presence only 60 miles from Islamabad.

There have been no first-hand accounts of the fighting or pictures, but the wires are full of stories about the Pakistani army pushback amid dire warnings to the Taliban to back off.

Not everyone is convinced of Pakistan's bonafides in this regard. Islamabad’s action – and motive -- is being questioned by many critics who feel it is mere window-dressing to extract aid during the Zardari visit and the Pakistan army’s heart is not committed to fighting what some believe is its reserve force.

Among those opposing unconditional US aid to Pakistan is Fatima Bhutto, niece of the assassinated former prime minister, who wrote a scathing op-ed this week in an online journal lashing out against Islamabad’s abject surrender to the Taliban.

''It’s phenomenally silly to give that kind of money to a president who, before becoming president, was facing corruption cases in Switzerland, Spain, and England,'' Bhutto, who is studied at New York’s Columbia University, wrote. ''It’s also dangerous.''
''No amount of money, especially in the hands of a famously corrupt government, is going to help Pakistan stave off terror, especially when said government seems more than willing to capitulate to the militants they’re supposed to be using that money to save the world from,'' Bhutto said...

Which is why one of the most famous Egyptian TV personalities very openly decried the fact that "We [Egyptians] have a major problem on our hands." "Egypt Ex-Muslim And Husband In Hiding; Violence Kills Two," from Worthy News, April 28:

CAIRO, EGYPT (Worthy News) -- An ex-Muslim who converted to Christianity and her Christian husband were in hiding Tuesday, April 28, amid threats from family members and police, the latest in a series of attacks against Coptic Christians this month, in which at least two people were killed, several sources said.

Egyptian police detained Raheal Henen Mussa, formally known as Samr Mohamed Hansen, April 13, apparently for converting to Christianity and marrying a Coptic Christian man, identified as Sarwat George Ryiad, said the Voice of the Copts organization.

"Ryiad was arrested...on her way home from work. Raheal worked in a hair dressing salon in Cairo," the group added in comments monitored by Worthy News.

Mussa’s family took her from police custody on Sunday, April 19, but she escaped from them on Tuesday, 21, in Cairo and fled with her husband, Christians said.

MORE INCIDENTS

This is not the first time a convert has been targetted, Voice of the Copts, added. "Last December the Voice of the Copts had reported the story of a woman named Martha who was arrested at the Cairo airport while attempting to flee Egypt."

News of threats against Mussa came on the heels of reports that four Muslim gunmen opened fire on a group of Coptic Christians as they were leaving church in the southern Egyptian governorate of Menya, killing two and wouding one.

The incident took place on Saturday night, April 18, as Coptic Christians were celebrating Easter in a church vigil. Coptic and Orthodox Christians marked Easter on Sunday, April 19, a week later than their Catholic and Protestant counterparts.

Copts account for about 10 percent of Egypt's 80 million population.

"They say they want us to stay, but they don't mean it. If they mean it, then they would protect us more."

More on this story. "Iraqi Christians Shaken By Slayings," from AINA, April 28:

Among the side effects of the war in Iraq is the deteriorating safety condition of the Christians in that country. The overthrow of Sadaam [sic] Husein unfortunately created a power vacuum has been filled by Muslims whose interpretation of Islam is dangerous to both political dissent and to religious minorities....

Is there an interpretation of Islam that is at once mainstream, authoritative, and hospitable to political dissent and religious minorities? If you know of such a sect or school, please send me details of it at director[at]jihadwatch.org.

The killings took place in Kirkuk, a city about 190 miles from Baghdad that is riddled with ethnic divisions and hostilities. In a country that is at a crossroads between democracy and theocracy, the future of Christians, Yazidis, Mandaeans and other minorities is uncertain.

No one has claimed responsibility for the killings, although some have pointed to Al Qaeda as a possible culprit in the anti Christian terrorism. Because nothing was taken in any of the killings, religious hatred is suspected as a motive.

Many Christians fear that a sudden and complete pullout by the Americans from Iraq would lead to wholesale slaughter of Christians. AINA News reports as follows of the widespread concern in Iraq's Christian community.

"We know if America leaves they will come and kill us. They think we have something to do with them and they think we have money. The Iraqi government is happy if all Christians leave. They say they want us to stay, but they don't mean it. If they mean it, then they would protect us more," says Masoud Gallozi.

Many are distrustful of the promises of the Obama administration AINA reports as follows of the reaction in America's Chaldean community.

"Chaldeans in America are frustrated over President Obama's handling of the Middle East issues. "There were many Chaldeans fooled into believing the new administration would pressure the Iraqi government to get serious about properly protecting Chaldeans. These Chaldeans sent an e-mail of a letter by Obama and his people showing he was concerned. It was just another lie from this man. A lie that is leaving our people vulnerable. Those who supported him are partly to blame," a frustrated James Selmu declares."

The perceived wealth of Iraq's Christian community combined with their small numbers makes the Chaldeans an easy target. The community has a presence in Iraq predating the arrival of Islam by centuries. Their language and culture is a living link to the beginnings of Christianity. The demise of this ancient community would be not only a moral failure but a loss to the world as well.

"Strongest among men in enmity to the believers wilt thou find the Jews and Pagans..." (Qur'an 5:82)

"Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews." -- Sahih Muslim 6985

"Gang on Trial For Torturing French Jew to Death," from Reuters, April 29 (thanks to Bill):

PARIS (Reuters) - A self-proclaimed "gang of barbarians" accused of kidnapping a young Jewish man in a Paris suburb, torturing him for 24 days and killing him went on trial Wednesday.

The death of Ilan Halimi, 23, in 2006 horrified France and came to symbolize a rise in anti-Semitic violence in its poor, multi-ethnic suburbs.

The leader of the "barbarians," Youssouf Fofana, smirked at Halimi's relatives and shouted "Allahu akbar!" ("God is Greatest!" in Arabic) at them as he entered the courtroom.

Bearded and wearing a white tracksuit, Fofana gave his identity during formal questioning by the judge as "Arabs African revolt barbarian salafist army."

The 28-year-old said he was born on February 13, 2006, in Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois, the date and place of Halimi's death.

During his time in detention, Fofana, a young French man of Ivorian origin, has bombarded the magistrates investigating the case with letters full of anti-Semitic insults....

Here is Geert Wilders's acceptance speech for the Freedom Award he was given by the Florida Security Council in Miami on April 27:

Thank you very much. Thank you for inviting me and thank you US border police for allowing me to enter this country. These are dramatic times. Europe might be very well on its way to destruction. We are now witnessing the largest influx in human history. This is endangering our heritage, our freedom, our prosperity and our culture. I wish I had come to a place they call the sunshine state with better news, but it would be unwise to deny the situation is gloomy.

It might take a while to have you understand the situation we are in now. Maybe you as Americans still think of Europe as a place with great culture, and a profound way of looking at things. Maybe you see immigration as something that is inherently good for a country, as it contributed so much to the United States.

The Europe you know from a tourist visit or from the story of your grandparents is on the verge of collapsing. We are now witnessing profound changes that will forever alter Europe’s destiny and might send the continent in what Ronald Reagan once called ‘a thousand years of darkness’.

The take-over of Europe is part of the global fight of Islam for world domination. Islam is not a religion. It is a political ideology. Islam’s heart lies in the Koran. The Koran is a book that calls for hatred, violence, murder, terrorism, war and submission. The Koran calls upon Muslims to kill non-Muslims. The Koran describes Jews as monkeys and pigs. Churchill compared the Koran to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

The core of the problem with the Koran is twofold. First, the commands in the Koran are not limited by place or time, they apply for all time, to all Muslims. Second, the Koran is Allah’s personal word. That leaves no room for interpretation. Therefore, there is no such thing as a moderate Islam. Of course, there are many moderate Muslims, but there is no moderate Islam. As the Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan once put it, “There is no moderate Islam, Islam is Islam.”

"From Fairfax To Richmond, 'The Jihad Way?,'" by Marc Fisher in his Washington Post blog, April 29 (thanks to James):

Esam Omeish's campaign web site is fairly typical for a candidate for state delegate. The big issues for his Fairfax County district are traffic congestion, growth issues and public education.

But Omeish, who is running for the Democratic nomination in the 35th district, covering an area from Vienna west to Monument and Leehigh, is no ordinary candidate. He's a surgeon with a classic immigrant success story, having arrived in this country as a young boy who spoke no English, yet rose up through the Fairfax school system to attend Georgetown University.

And Omeish is also a Muslim fundamentalist rabble-rouser whose videotaped rants urging crowds of demonstrators to adopt "the jihad way" led to his resignation from Virginia's state Commission on Immigration just 24 hours or so after Gov. Tim Kaine appointed him to the panel last fall.

Oddly enough, Omeish's campaign site somehow manages not to mention any of his activities on behalf of his brethren in the Middle East. But the evidence is all over the web. Here's the full speech Omeish gave at a Jerusalem Day rally in December, 2000, in which he says that "We, the Muslims of the Washington metropolitan area, are here today in sub-freezing temperatures to tell our brothers and sisters in Palestine that you have learned the way, that you have known that the jihad way is the way to liberate your land. And we by standing here today... we are telling them that we are with you, we are supporting you, and we will do everything that we can, insha'allah, to help your cause."

Here's another speech, from a rally in front of the Israeli embassy, also in 2000, in which Omeish said "We need to congratulate our brothers and sisters in Palestine for their bravery, for their giving up their lives.... They have spearheaded the effort to bring victory upon the believers in Palestine."

A candidate who speaks with great pride and zest to an audience of fellow Muslims about people "giving up their lives..for the sake of the Muslim honor" should also be someone who happily delivers the same message to the Virginia voters he hopes will choose him for public office. But there is not a word in Omeish's campaign literature about this great passion of his life.

After these video recordings were revealed and Omeish stepped down from his appointment to the immigration commission, he said he never promoted violence and accused his critics of perpetrating a "smear campaign." Cheering on "the jihad way" "was related to giving support to people who are under occupation and who are under severe conditions of repression," Omeish said at the time. "It was not a call for violence. It was never any condoning of terrorism or any violent acts."...

Of course. Read it all. Is a call to jihad when spoken by a Muslim in a Western country and noticed by the media ever a call to violence? I don't think so.

Qazi Hussain Ahmad must be a Misunderstander of Islam: he seems to have gotten the idea somewhere that Islam, and specifically the Qur'an and Sunnah, entail a rejection of Western-style democratic pluralism, and the imposition of Sharia. Oh, Qazi, you Islamophobe!

"Qazi Hussain Ahmad, Former Emir of Pakistan's Jamaat-e-Islami: 'The Dawn of an Islamic Revolution is Around the Corner; This is the Era of a Global Muslim Renaissance – As Slavery's Shackles Are Breaking and the Enemies of Islam Are On the Retreat,'" from MEMRI, April 28 (thanks to James):

Qazi Hussain Ahmad, until recently the Emir of Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan, a religious-political party in Pakistan, recently wrote an article that was published by the Pakistani daily The News. In it, he argued that since Pakistan's creation in 1947, the majority of Pakistanis have wanted an Islamic system of government in the country. [...]

Tiny Minority of Extremists™ Update:

"The complete Islamization of Pakistan has been the genuine and long-standing demand of the overwhelming majority of Pakistanis.

"This demand surfaced as soon as the inception of the country [in 1947], since the driving force behind the Pakistan movement was the need for a separate country for Muslims where they could protect and practice their Islamic ideology.

"Consequently, the mounting public pressure led the Constituent Assembly to pass the Objectives Resolution, making a sacred covenant with the people of Pakistan that the Koran and Sunnah will be the guiding principles of the constitution, legislation and policy-making of this land of the pure.

"The British-trained establishment, including the civil and military bureaucracy, were, however, averse to the idea of Islamization and wanted to faithfully preserve the British system and the Anglo-Saxon system of government, besides the laws formulated by the colonial masters for subjects. Those people considered themselves the legitimate successors of the British colonial rulers, and aspired to step into their masters' shoes to enjoy the same powers and privileges exclusively reserved for the privileged class of British officers colonizing the subcontinent for over 200 years. [...]

"The entire debate that Islam should not be the system of governance in the country was the thinking paradigm of those who are mental slaves to Western culture and averse to the Islamic ideology. It is an undeniable fact that Muslims from the length and breadth of the subcontinent strove for the creation of Pakistan, and rendered sacrifices that are matchless in human history. The proponents of the baseless argument that not Islam but economic reasons were the basis of the Pakistan movement have no answer as to why the Muslims of [Indian states such as] UP, CP, Calcutta, Madras and Bombay, etc., endeavored for Pakistan despite knowing that their areas would not be part of Pakistan.

"Evidently, they were striving for the realization of the dream of a separate homeland for Muslims, to enable them practice Islam freely under the system governed by the Koran and Sunnah. [...]

"Pakistan is not just any state based on geographical entities. It is the embodiment of a definite ideology and religion. As the Father of the Nation, Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, put it: Pakistan came into being the very day the first Muslim set foot on the subcontinent. Pakistan is a result of the Two-Nation Theory [i.e. that Muslims and Hindus cannot live together] that clearly spells out that the life of Muslims is governed by the Islamic system based on the Koran and Sunnah. Until we harmonize our lives, economy, society, Constitution and legal system with Islam, our society will continue to suffer from internal strife and friction.

"Those who believe that Pakistan can be secularized by separating the Islamic system from its state are suffering from a serious fallacy. What they conveniently ignore in their bias against Islamic codes is that Islamization of the country is not just the demand of what they call some extremists but is the strong desire of an overwhelming majority of the people, millions of whom are ready to sacrifice their lives to achieve this objective, like those who laid down their lives in the Pakistan Movement.

"Though this majority is under the strong shackles of a tiny minority of Western slaves, the dawn of an Islamic revolution is round the corner. This is the era of a global Muslim renaissance as slavery's shackles are breaking and the enemies of Islam are on the retreat after the huge fortresses of their military and economic might are coming down under the pure resistance and sacrifices of the believers." [...]

"Regarding the argument that promoting Islam would enrage Washington and the West, we would become isolated, and be dubbed as fundamentalists, etc., it must be kept in mind that alienating Islam will negate our existence and disintegrate the country. Islam is the basis of Pakistan, since it was created for Islam and not on the basis of some homeland."

"Promoting Islam would enrage Washington"? But...isn't Islam a Religion of Peace™ that is fully compatible with democracy?

Evidently no one at the Qur'an study sessions ever stopped and said, "Wait a minute! This passage of the Qur'an teaches us to be peaceful and not to make war against unbelievers!"

Inside a jihad training camp in...Oregon.

"In conspiracy trial, dark tale emerges of jihad training," by Mike Carter for the Seattle Times, April 29 (thanks to James):

NEW YORK — Speaking publicly for the first time, former Seattle resident James Ujaama testified Tuesday about his efforts in 1999 to create a terrorist training camp in rural Oregon for would-be jihad warriors wishing to take up the fight against the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance in Afghanistan.

Among the instructors would be Oussama Kassir, a Swedish jihadist who once bragged he had been a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden.

Ujaama, appearing thin and graying and dressed in oversized prison overalls, took the witness stand in the terrorism conspiracy trial of Kassir, who is accused of traveling from London to the barren ranch in Bly, Ore., to help set up the training camp.

Ujaama is a key prosecution witness in Kassir's federal trial, having already pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges. He told the U.S. District Court jury in Manhattan that he hopes to get a "significant reduction" in his sentence in exchange for his testimony against Kassir. He faces up to 30 years.

"The best shrapnel"

Several other former and current Seattle witnesses also testified that they met Kassir and another man, Harroon Aswat, either at the Bly property or at the now-defunct Masjid Dar-us-Salaam mosque in Seattle's Central Area where the men stayed for about two months in the fall of 1999. Their testimony paints a darker portrait of those events than previously acknowledged by authorities or those involved.

They stayed in the mosque. But of course it is highly offensive to Muslims to suggest that there could be any reason for the FBI to be paying attention to anything going on in mosques.

Nathan Bishop, now 29 and living in Bahrain, was a member of the Masjid Dar-us-Salaam mosque in 1999, when he went by the name Abu Sufian. He said he attended a meeting at the Central Area apartment of another member in late 1999, where Kassir, flanked by Aswat, said he had come to the U.S. "to plan attacks [and] ... destroy."

"He said people are going to get hurt and people are going to die and that some of us would become martyrs," said Bishop, who testified that Ujaama was not at that meeting.

Still, he said, nearly a dozen people were there — most young, black Muslims — and Kassir told them that if they didn't want to be involved, now was the time to get up and leave.

"Nobody walked out," Bishop said.

Nobody thought that what was being said was incompatible with the true, peaceful Islam?

At another meeting at the mosque — after Kassir had shown them how to field-strip an AK-47 automatic rifle — Bishop said the topic of suicide bombers came up. Kassir "said suicide operations are acceptable."

"He said human bones are the best shrapnel," Bishop said.

Horses and jihad

Ujaama took the stand late in the afternoon and was walked through his conversion to Islam in the late 1980s and how he gravitated to Muslim preacher Abu Hamza al-Masri through a series of other increasingly radical Islamic preachers.

Abu Hamza is serving a seven-year sentence in Britain for inciting his followers to kill nonbelievers and has been indicted in the U.S. on 11 charges related to the planned development of the Bly site and for sending cash and volunteers to support al-Qaida and the Taliban. [...]

After visiting the 360-acre hardscrabble-and-hills ranch in Oregon in 1999, Ujaama sent a fax to Abu Hamza from a Kinko's in Tukwila. Ujaama, who has been described in testimony as a "businessman" and a "wheeler-dealer," started the fax off with a flier to distribute to Muslims at the Finsbury Park mosque, considered a hotbed of radical Islam in the Britain and Western Europe.

The flier for the camp promised firearms training and lessons in hand-to-hand combat, horse riding and archery, as well as Quran study sessions, all for about 600 British pounds, or about $878 U.S. There they would learn tactics to fight the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance in Afghanistan.

Ujaama also suggested that Abu Hamza himself eventually come to the property "as an attraction."...

Samir Khan is at it again, and no one seems to care. One wonders what the reaction might have been if a young man in North Carolina had been publishing information crowing about American losses, praying for God to destroy America, and openly supporting Hitler in 1942.

"The Swine Flu: Allah’s curse upon America," from The Ignored Puzzle Pieces of Knowledge, April 27 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

Everything comes from Allah.

Anyone who disbelieves in that statement is not a Muslim.

Anyone with eyes can clearly see that this new disease is a curse from Allah upon America. The Mujahideen and those who support them continue to ask Allah to destroy America. Allah responded. Today, they are being destroyed military, economically, and now they are being destroyed with a new disease that is spreading fast. May Allah protect the Muslims in the West from this disease and may this disease reach all the enemies of Allah so that the American Government can no longer move a finger against the Ummah! [...]

The people of the world should start realizing that the prohibition of pork in Islam has more benefits than harm. Islam is the only way out for success in both worlds.

In addition, Americans need to start realizing that their Government is fighting Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala in this bogus ‘war on terrorism’. The lesson of the day: if you fight Allah, Allah will terminate you in both worlds.

By the way, according to al-Jazeera, this flu has also reached Israel!

I ask my Rabb [Lord] to continue punishing America, her allies and Israel in ways we never expected.

Odd: these jihadists were from the Balkans, where everyone knows that all Muslims are moderate, and anyone who thinks that there is jihadist activity going on is merely a genocidal Serbian sympathizer. Perhaps these guys are Serbs in disguise, no?

Fort Dix Jihad Update. "Three convicted in Fort Dix terror plot sentenced to life in prison," by Joseph Ryan in The Star-Ledger, April 28 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

A federal judge today sentenced three Muslim immigrants from South Jersey to life in prison for plotting to attack Fort Dix, saying radical ideology and hatred for America drove their plot to kill United States soldiers.

Gee, which radical ideology was involved?

The men, brothers from the Balkens [sic], were among five defendants convicted in December of conspiring to target the Burlington County military base in a crime prosecutors said was inspired by al Qaeda and proved homegrown jihadists were plotting inside America.

"Nothing has a greater impact on society than the crime of terrorism," U.S. District Judge Robert Kugler said before delivering the sentences in a heavily-guarded courtroom in Camden, crowded with government officials, reporters and the men's relatives.

The defendants - Dritan, Eljvir, and Shain Duka - sat quietly during the most of hearing, wearing dark-green prison jumpsuits and thick beards. Before being sentenced, they each delivered rambling statements -- lasting nearly 25 minutes -- saying the prosecution was riddled with lies.

"Me and my brothers are innocent," Eljvir Duka said....

Of course.

Let's get ready to rumble!

The following article gives several reasons as to why Muslims are upset -- it's offensive to Muslims and Christians, it creates "intolerance," it is "incendiary," and so forth. Yet, towards the end, we get the following solitary sentence which probably most sums up Muslim ire: "Islamic law generally opposes physical depictions of the prophet." Even though the game designers "offered a 'censored' option which blocks out the face of Muhammad," that's not good enough.

"Jesus vs. Mohammed? Video Game Upsets Islamic Group," from Fox News, April 28:

CAIRO —
An influential Islamic group branded an online video game depicting religious figures fighting each other as offensive to Muslims and Christians and successfully demanded Tuesday that it be taken offline.

In the game "Faith Fighter," caricatures of Jesus, the Prophet Muhammad, Buddha, God and the Hindu god Ganesh fight each other against a backdrop of burning buildings.

God attacks with bolts of lighting and pillars of fire while the turbaned Muhammad can summon a burning black meteorite.

The Saudi-based Organization of the Islamic Conference, which represents most Muslim nations, said it should be removed from the Internet.

"The computer game was incendiary in its content and offensive to Muslims and Christians. ... The game would serve no other purpose than to incite intolerance," an OIC statement said.

Game designer Molleindustria told the Associated Press the game, which had been around for more than a year and played millions of times, was misunderstood, but had been removed.

"This was meant to be a game against intolerance and against the one-way Islamophobic satire of the Danish Muhammad cartoons," Molleindustria said in an e-mail message. "So if a respectable organization didn't understand the irony and the message, we failed."

Islamic law generally opposes physical depictions of the prophet.

When a Danish newspaper in 2005 printed 12 cartoons showing negative portrayals of Muhammad, Muslims around the world were enraged.

Deadly protests erupted from Morocco to Indonesia, with rioters torching Danish and other Western diplomatic missions. Some Muslim countries boycotted Danish products.

The style of the game, with characters jumping, kicking and knocking each other out, mimics the martial-arts arcade games popular in the 1980s and 1990s.[...]

However, the authors of the game did offer a "censored" option, which blocks out the face of Muhammad...

Muhammad said: "If a husband calls his wife to his bed [i.e. to have sexual relation] and she refuses and causes him to sleep in anger, the angels will curse her till morning." -- Bukhari 4.54.460

And: "By him in Whose Hand lies my life, a woman can not carry out the right of her Lord, till she carries out the right of her husband. And if he asks her to surrender herself [to him for sexual intercourse] she should not refuse him even if she is on a camel's saddle." -- Ibn Majah 1854

But international pressure can get results.

An update on this story. "Afghan's Karzai says will amend controversial law," from Reuters, April 27 (thanks to all who sent this in):

KABUL (Reuters) – Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Monday the Justice Ministry was amending a controversial law which contains harsh provisions on women that critics have called a step back toward Taliban-era controls.

The law, which applies to Shi'ite Muslims who make up about 15 percent of Afghanistan's population, requires women to satisfy their husbands' sexual desires. Opponents say this could be used to justify marital rape.

Other controversial passages require wives to get permission when leaving the home unless for employment, education or medical reasons, and allow a man to order his wife to wear make-up.

Karzai said the law would be changed to bring it in line with the constitution, which guarantees equal rights for women, and international treaties the country has signed.

"The law is under review and amendments will take place," Karzai told a news conference with visiting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

"I assure you that the laws of Afghanistan will be in complete harmony with the constitution of Afghanistan, and the human rights that we have adhered to in our constitution and in the principles of the international treaties," he added....

That's hardly reassuring, given that Karzai evidently saw no contradiction between the Afghan Constitution and the prosecution of Abdul Rahman for apostasy.

It is by now fairly clear that the truth and Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs have little, if anything, to do with one another, but it did seem as if one further response was in order at this time.

Charles "Fake But Accurate" Johnson has been thoroughly discredited -- he has posted fauxtography and claimed its fakery didn't matter; charged that anti-Nazi books were Nazi books and that a documentary was actually a collection of Hitler Youth songs; and retailed outright lies. Yet now he has decided to try to stop the bleeding by declaring victory and going home. He is claiming (paste in the link to get around his block) that I am not going to speak at the Cologne conference because of this witless farrago. Actually, if I were in the habit of being led around by this self-important lying puffball, I would be busy denouncing every prominent conservative (he has so far denounced Beck, Coulter, Hannity, Limbaugh, Palin, Jindal, Fox News, and counting) and inveighing against the evils of creationism.

In reality, I am not going to Cologne for reasons that are not of public concern. Considerable confusion arose when the Pro-Köln group posted notice that I was going and did not correct it even after I told them I was still considering the situation — but that was not something within my control. (See here for Pajamas Media's take on Pro-Köln.)

As for his other charges in his last few obsessive postings about this matter, most — such as that I threatened him with physical violence — are ludicrous beyond comment.

I have been consistent in my calls to defend the rule of law, the equality of rights of all before the law, and the non-establishment of religion as stipulated by the First Amendment. I do not support, have never supported, and never will support any racist, fascist, or neo-Nazi groups. Johnson’s frenzied claims to the contrary are fabrications.

The "Merry Men" of Sharia

"Its systematic. The Taliban move into an area, they use local existing resentments. They often go in with the guise of being Robin Hoods. They scare away some local thieves, they impose very, very quick justice, very harsh justice, and initially in some places they are even welcomed." Yet, unlike the English Robin Hood, these (sharia) justice seekers forbid women from appearing in public, throw acid on school-girls, and regularly persecute Christians: So the "Robin Hood" analogy may not be wholly accurate.

"Taliban push Robin Hood image in Pakistan," by Ivan Watson for CNN, April 27:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- In radio broadcasts and sermons, Taliban militants have been promoting themselves as Islamic Robin Hoods, defending Pakistan's rural poor from a ruling elite that they describe as corrupt and oppressive.

That message has been resonating throughout the Pakistani countryside, where the culture is deeply conservative and the people are desperately poor.[...]

Across this overwhelmingly Muslim country, there is widespread hope that adopting a strict code of law based on the Koran will transform a society where corruption is rampant and where at least a quarter of the population lives under the poverty line.

Enforcement of sharia law is the platform the Taliban have been using to justify recent land-grabs, such as last week's armed occupation of the district of Buner, some 60 miles from the Pakistani capital.[...]

"Its systematic. The Taliban move into an area, they use local existing resentments. They often go in with the guise of being Robin Hoods," said Amnesty International representative Sam Zarifi. "They scare away some local thieves, they impose very, very quick justice, very harsh justice, and initially in some places they are even welcomed."[...]

"We love the Taliban," announced one Pashtun farmer who asked not to be named. He called the militants heroes.[...]

But if farmer Babar Hussein has his way, Taliban justice would mean taking away freedoms from Pakistani women, like the right to have a driver's license.

"Women should not even come out of their houses. That's against Islam" he said, while complaining about the un-Islamic fashions he saw women wearing in Islamabad.

When Taliban militants overran Buner last week, they told women to stay indoors, warned men to stop shaving their beards, and threatened shopkeepers who sold movies and music.

In Pakistan's rural society, male strangers are not even supposed look at local women. And yet, some farmers enjoy blaring Bollywood music and even dancing on trailers full of hay, while driving their gaudily-decorated tractors.

If the Taliban's rural revolt succeeds, it could bring silence to the Pakistani countryside.

In other words, nothing left will be "merry."

"[A]fter firing on the crowd, Taliban fighters went through Christian houses, ransacked them and burned one down. He said they also burned Bibles and beat women on the street. Reports of two execution-style killings of Christians could not be verified." More on this story. "Pakistan: Taiban-inspired attacks hit Chrisians," from Compass Direct News, April 27:

Armed militants fire into crowd, seriously injuring three; jizye tax imposed in Orakzai.

ISTANBUL, April 27 (Compass Direct News) – As Taliban control hits pockets of Pakistan and threatens the nation’s stability, Christians worry their province could be the next to fall under Islamic law. Violence on Tuesday night and Wednesday (April 21-22) near the port city of Karachi – some 1,000 kilometers (nearly 700 miles) from the Swat Valley, where the government officially allowed the Taliban to establish Islamic law this month – heightened fears.

As members of a congregation erased pro-Taliban graffiti on their church in Taiser town, near Karachi, armed men intervened to stop them. Soon 30-40 others arrived as support and began to fire indiscriminately at the crowd; among those seriously injured were three Christians, including a child, according to a report by advocacy group Minorities Concern of Pakistan.

Policemen and military forces arrested seven suspects and recovered an arms cache of semi-automatic pistols and a Kalashnikov assault rifle. A legal advocacy worker told Compass that police stood by as a Taliban-assembled mob attacked the Christians. “The Christians do not have guns, they do not have weapons, but only a little bit of property and the few things in their houses,” said Sohail Johnson, chief coordinator of Sharing Life Ministry Pakistan.

A representative of the Muttahida Quami Movement regional party told Compass that after firing on the crowd, Taliban fighters went through Christian houses, ransacked them and burned one down. He said they also burned Bibles and beat women on the street. Reports of two execution-style killings of Christians could not be verified.

More on this story. "Archbishop calls killing of Iraqi Christians act of terrorism," from Gulf News, April 27:

Kirkuk: A Christian leader in Kirkuk is calling the murder of three Christians there an act of terrorism.

Chaldean Archbishop Louis Sako said on Monday that the victims were killed by "terrorists".

On Sunday gunmen waged separate attacks on two Christian homes in Kirkuk, killing the three.

Police Lt. Col. Anwar Qadir said authorities believe the attacks were linked to Al Qaida in Iraq to spark sectarian clashes.

"Police said they had made no arrests and did not know who was responsible." Those wacky, anonymous "miscreants" must be at it again. "Girls collapse after suspected poison attack on Afghan school," by Ben Farmer in Kabul for the Telegraph, April 27:

Dozens of girls collapsed and needed hospital attention after a suspected airborne chemical attack on a school in northern Afghanistan.

Five teachers and 40 pupils were overcome by fumes during a school ceremony in the capital of northern Parwan province.

Afghan officials said they were awaiting the results of blood tests to determine what had happened, but there were unconfirmed local reports a bottle had been thrown into the playground beforehand.

Dr Abdullah Fahim, a spokesman for the public health ministry, said: "For the time being, it seems to be airborne poisoning. But it's not confirmed yet what the actual reason is."

One teacher at Sadiqi Padshah School in Charikar, who did not wish to be named, said the whole school had been standing in the playground listening to staff speeches when students began to collapse.

"We didn't know what was happening, all the children just went down and we took them to hospital." Victims were treated for severe headaches and streaming eyes after the attack on Sunday morning, 40 miles north of Kabul, but the provincial governor said all had made a full recovery.

Police said they had made no arrests and did not know who was responsible. While the growth of the Afghan school system is seen as one of the successes of the past seven years, Taliban-led insurgents opposed to the central government or girls' education continue to attack schools and teachers.

In 2008, there were 292 attacks on schools, with 92 people killed and 169 injured.

Last year in the southern city of Kandahar, men on motorbikes threw acid in the faces of girls walking to school.

However, Parwan, a Tajik-dominated province immediately north of Kabul, is considered relatively safe, with little Taliban activity.

Apparently not any more.

Islamic antisemitism, rooted in many Qur'anic injunctions, notably the charge that the Muslims' worst enemies will be the Jews (Qur'an 5:82), comes to Britain.

"Labour Party embroiled in race row after candidate told she was 'too white and Jewish' to be selected," by Emily Andrews in the Daily Mail, April 27 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The Labour Party has become embroiled in a race row after a prospective female councillor was allegedly told she was 'too white and Jewish' to be selected.

Elaina Cohen claims that Labour councillor Mahmood Hussain said he would not support her application for an inner-city ward because 'my Muslim members don't want you because you are Jewish'.

Mrs Cohen, 50, has made an official complaint about the alleged remarks made by Mr Hussain, a Muslim and former lord mayor of Birmingham.

She said: 'I am shocked and upset that a member of the Labour Party in this day and age could even think something like that, let alone say it.

'People should not be allowed to make racist comments like that. If someone in the party feels I cannot represent them because of my colour or religion, that's ridiculous.

'I felt particularly aggrieved because I have worked across all sections of the community, particularly with the Muslim section, and have been on official visits to Pakistan.'

Mrs Cohen had applied to stand as a Labour councillor for the Birmingham ward of East Handsworth and Lozells, which has a high Asian and Afro-Caribbean population.

As one of Labour's safest seats on Tory-led Birmingham city council, the final candidate would be almost certain of victory at the June 4 by-election.

But when Mrs Cohen telephoned 57-year-old Mr Hussain for his support, she was astonished to be told that she was too 'white and Jewish' to be considered.

Lorraine Briscoe, who runs a local community association, was sitting next to Mrs Cohen when the conversation took place on speakerphone last Tuesday.

'I was disgusted that a councillor could make comments like that in 2009,' she said.

'He told her, "They will not vote for someone who is white and Jewish. My Muslim members don't want you because you are Jewish".

'Elaina then asked him if he had talked to his Muslim members about it and he said, "I don't want to talk about it with you" and hung up....

Mr Hussain said yesterday: 'I would not make those sort of comments. The allegations are not true.'

Recognizing Israel as a Jewish state poses temporal and religious problems for Abbas & Co.: Acknowledging and accepting Israel's Jewish identity disqualifies Muslims' future claims on the land for negotiation, armed conflict, the claim to a "right of return," and so forth. Doing so would also acknowledge the historical identity of the region as a Jewish homeland (as opposed to the revisionist story of the allegedly "uncorrupted" followers of a proto-Muslim Abraham). Lastly, it accepts something other than Islamic law as legitimate, which is out of step with the fundamental reason for waging jihad: Imposing Islamic dominion and law.

"Mideast: Abbas refuses to recognise Israel as Jewish state," from Adnkronos International, April 27:

Ramallah, 27 April (AKI) - Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on Monday dismissed calls by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to recognise Israel as a Jewish state. He also said a halt to Israel's continuing expansion of illegal Jewish settlements inside the West Bank was a prerequisite for resuming peace talks.

"A Jewish state, what is that supposed to mean?," said Abbas, quoted by Israeli media. "You can call yourselves as you like, but I don't accept it and I say so publicly."

He also said it was not his job to define or name the Israeli state.

"Name yourself, it's not my business. Name yourself the Hebrew Socialist Republic. All I know is that there is the state of Israel, in the borders of 1967, not one centimetre more, not one centimetre less. Anything else, I do not accept."

Many observers believe the so called 'green line' – the pre-1967 Six-Day War ceasefire line between Israel and Jordan – should be the basis for an international border between Israel and the West Bank in the creation of a future Palestinian state.

Israeli daily Haaretz said last week that Netanyahu wanted to impose the precondition of recognition of Israel as a Jewish state in order to resume peace negotiations.

However, it is believed such recognition would block the Palestinians demand for the "right of return" of millions of refugees who fled or were expelled by Jewish forces, during the establishment of Israel in 1948 and subsequent wars. The refugees are now scattered throughout the Middle East.

Israel's hardline foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman said last Thursday that the right of return is not up for discussion....

And it should not be, unless the right of return for descendants of Jews expelled from Medina and countless other non-Muslims expelled from present-day Muslim lands is also on the table.

"The way in which they were attacked looks like an execution. Nothing was stolen from the homes."

"Kirkuk: commando brigade attacks two Christian families, three killed," from AsiaNews, April 27:

Kirkuk (AsiaNews) - Iraqi Christians are again in the sights of the Islamic fundamentalists. At 7:30 yesterday evening in Kirkuk, an armed commando brigade stormed two Christian homes, killing three people in cold blood. Yussef Saba, an employee of the Northern Oil Company, was killed in the first attack; the brigade also wounded two relatives of the victim, Bassel and Samer, who do not seem to have been seriously injured. Seven minutes later, the group broke into a second house, killing two women: Munna Dauod and Susan Latif.

The funeral for the victims was held today in the cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Kirkuk, and was celebrated by Louis Sako, the archbishop of the diocese. The prelate emphasizes that "the entire community of Kirkuk" participated in the funeral: "the authorities were present" at the ceremony, in addition to ordinary citizens, as well as "many representatives of the Muslim community," who demonstrated "their repugnance" for the new violence. The prelate condemns the terrorist attacks, which are aimed solely at "creating confusion" in the city, and "fostering a climate of fear" among Christians.

Adnan Abdullah, an Iraqi police official, explains that the attacks "took place a short distance from each other." Solidarity with the Christian community is being expressed by Iraqi vice president Adel Abdul Mahdi, a Shiite Muslim, who calls upon Christians "not to leave the country," and asks the international community for "help and protection" against the extremists.

"Investigators are maintaining strict confidentiality on the proceedings," says an anonymous source for AsiaNews, and nothing has emerged "about the motives behind the attack." "The families did not have any special problems," the source continues, "and the way in which they were attacked looks like an execution. Nothing was stolen from the homes." According to the source, the Iraqi Christian community is "again in the crosshairs of the Islamic fundamentalists," who are planning and carrying out "premeditated attacks."

From Kirkuk, they explain that the families were already the victims of an attack, on the evening of Sunday, April 19. Exactly one week before yesterday's deadly raid. "It is a murder with a confessional backdrop," the source concludes, "in order to send a warning to the Christian community in Iraq."

The FBI has finally stopped working, at least for the moment, with the unindicted co-conspirators of CAIR, and so the Detroit News throws them this helpful puff piece.

"FBI limits work with Muslim civil rights group amid dispute: Some vow to stop cooperating with agency amid dispute," by Gregg Krupa for The Detroit News, April 27 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The FBI has suspended much of its work with the nation's largest civil rights organization for Muslims after cooperating for years on the training of agents and outreach to Muslims.

A host of Muslim and Arab organizations have threatened to stop cooperating with the FBI until the dispute over the Council on American Islamic Relations is resolved.

The issue, which is playing out amid large Muslim and Arab populations in Metro Detroit and nationally, is eroding relations between Muslims and law enforcement, Muslim leaders say. FBI officials also express concern about the impact on those relationships, which both consider integral to protecting national security and civil rights.

"The FBI has had to limit its formal contact with CAIR field offices until certain issues are addressed by CAIR's national headquarters," said Assistant FBI Director John Miller, concerning action that was taken, but not announced, last autumn. "CAIR's leadership is aware of this. Beyond that, we have no further comment."

Officials of CAIR, which has 35 field offices in 19 states, say they have not been informed of the concerns. But at a trial in Dallas last year of a major Muslim charity, the prosecution presented evidence that two CAIR officials participated in a 1993 meeting about how to represent Hamas in the United States.

Establishing CAIR may have resulted from that effort, an FBI agent suggested in her testimony. And CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case, a designation it has contested in court.

While FBI officials would not say publicly why it has ended most cooperation with CAIR, privately they say the FBI would be hard-pressed to explain why it would continue to engage as a partner an organization with two leaders who attended such a meeting.

CAIR officials deny the organization is a front for Hamas, or that it was organized as a result of the conversation the FBI recorded in Philadelphia. Meanwhile, President Bill Clinton did not designate Hamas as a terrorist organization until 1995.

"Our work has been overwhelmingly based upon issues directly affecting Muslims, from giving diversity trainings, empowering Muslims through civic engagement trainings and in taking discrimination cases," said Dawud Walid, the executive director of CAIR-Michigan. "Probably not even 1 percent of CAIR's work in the past 15 years has been related to the grievances of Palestinians. This does not reflect the work of an alleged front group for people in the Gaza Strip." [...]

Unless, of course, it is working for a larger agenda. After all, the Charter of the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, says that the Movement's "extent in place is anywhere that there are Muslims who embrace Islam as their way of life everywhere in the globe. This being so, it extends to the depth of the earth and reaches out to the heaven."

Meanwhile, the FBI said it will continue to review civil rights complaints filed by CAIR.

Even the trumped-up ones?

This is fueled by the fact that the Qur'an teaches that the chief enemies of the Muslims will be the Jews (5:82). Tiny Minority of Extremists Update: "When hatemongering is common currency," by Barbara Crook in the Ottawa Citizen, April 27 (thanks to Block Ness):

The world reacted with outrage at the speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the Durban Review Conference on Racism in Geneva. European countries stormed out of his talk and released an array of statements condemning his words.

But the real problem is not that an Ahmadinejad exists, or that he proudly and vociferously spews hatred against Jews and blames Zionism for the world's evils. The problem is that his views are anything but unique in the Muslim world.

Tragically, it seems that western leaders are using Ahmadinejad as their radical Islamic whipping boy in order to content themselves that they are doing all they can to fight growing radical Islamic racism, its calls for a world without Israel and genocide of Jews, and its espousal of Holocaust denial.

In reality, the strong media and government reactions to Ahmadinejad's hate promotion serve only to highlight their hypocrisy in ignoring the same ideology when it's expressed by Arab leaders who have succeeded in making the western world's list of "good guys."

Saudi King Abdullah -- whom president George W. Bush kissed and to whom President Barack Obama bowed earlier this month -- has blamed Israel for terror attacks in Saudi Arabia: "We can be certain that Zionism is behind everything ... I don't say 100 per cent, but 95 per cent." (Saudi 1 Television, May 2, 2004)

Grade 9 children in Saudi Arabia are taught that "the hour (of judgment) will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, until the Jew hides behind rocks and trees, until the rocks or the trees say, 'O Muslim! O servant of God! There is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him!"

Earlier this year, the head of the Department of Islamic Studies at Saud University pronounced that "Jews are the enemies of Allah." Dr. Walid Al-Rashudi also prayed for the extermination of all Jews: "Kill them one by one and don't leave even one." (Al-Aqsa (Hamas) TV, Jan. 12, 2009)

It is the very existence of the Jews, not their actions or even their Zionism, that fuels the rhetoric of many Islamic political and religious leaders.

"If the Jews left Palestine to us, would we start loving them? Of course not ... They are enemies not because they occupied Palestine. They would have been enemies even if they did not occupy a thing," said Egyptian cleric Muhammad Hussein Ya'qoub. "... You must believe that we will fight, defeat, and annihilate them, until not a single Jew remains on the face of the Earth." (Al-Rahma TV (Egypt), Jan. 17, 2009)

Is this any different from Ahmadinejad's calls for a world without Israel?...

Read it all.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas jihad terror funding case, and an organization that has had several of its officials convicted of various terrorism-related offenses, as well as one whose co-founder and principal spokesman have made Islamic supremacist statements, is now demanding that an American politician be punished for exercising his right to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly -- in co-hosting an event featuring Geert Wilders, the Dutch Parliamentarian who has aroused CAIR's ire by speaking truthfully about Islamic jihad violence and supremacism.

"CAIR: Hasner must step down," by Adam Smith in the St. Petersburg Times TampaBay.com "The Buzz" Blog, April 26 (thanks to Pamela, who has more details, including CAIR's press release):

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called on GOP leaders to demand that Rep. Adam Hasner step down from his leadership post for co-hosting a Florida "Free Speech Summit" criticized as an anti-Islam event. Featured speaker Dutch politician Geert Wilders reportedly said: “ Islam is not a religion. Islam is a totalitarian political ideologue. Islam heart lies at the Qur'an, and the Qur'an is a book that calls for hatred, that calls for violence, for murder, for terrorism, for war, and submission…We should stop pretending that Islam is a religion... the right to religious freedom should not apply to Islam .”

Hasner is defiant:

Hasner responded: "I am not going to allow the right to free speech [to] be stifled by a group like CAIR that has legally documented ties to the Muslim Brotherhood - a radical organization that is on record as stating they want to destroy America from within thru the imposition of Sharia law."

Step down? Hardly. Hasner ought to run for President!

“It is unconscionable that a top leader of an American state legislature would host a gathering at which the faith of millions of Americans is denigrated and their rights denied,” said CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper . “Republican Party leaders in Florida and nationwide must demand that Representative Hasner step down from his leadership post because of his support for Geert Wilders and his Nazi-like message.”...

Yeah, yeah, CAIR and its stooges among "conservative" bloggers love to tar every freedom fighter as a Nazi, but the only real Jew-hating, totalitarian, genocidal force in the world today of any power and significance is the Islamic jihad.

Pamela Geller is also speaking at the Florida Free Speech Summit. She has the text of Wilders's talk here, with video here, along with video of an excellent address by Lord Pearson at the same event here.

That's been rather obvious all along. And now that their advance into Buner has been halted for the moment, the peace deal has reach the end of its useful life, in accordance with Islamic tradition, of buying the Taliban time at a moment of weakness: "Truces are permissible, not obligatory....Interests that justify making a truce are such things as Muslim weakness because of lack of numbers or materiel, or the hope of an enemy becoming Muslim..." - Umdat al-Salik, o9.16

"Taliban: Peace pact with Pakistan is 'worthless'," by Zarar Khan for the Associated Press, April 27:

ISLAMABAD – Taliban militants said Monday their peace deal with the Pakistani government was "worthless" after authorities deployed helicopters and artillery against hide-outs of Islamist guerrillas seeking to extend their grip along the Afghan border.

A collapse of the pact would likely please Obama administration officials pressing Islamabad hard for more robust action against extremists threatening Pakistan's stability and U.S. and NATO troops in neighboring Afghanistan. [...]

The government agreed in February to impose Islamic law in Swat and surrounding districts that make up Malakand Division if the Taliban there would end their violent campaign in the one-time tourist haven.

In recent days, Taliban forces from Swat began entering Buner, a neighboring district just 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the Pakistani capital.

American officials have described the pact as a capitulation and urged Pakistani leaders to switch their security focus from traditional foe India to violent extremists inside their borders. [...]

A spokesman for the Taliban in their Swat Valley stronghold denounced the operation as a violation of the pact and said their fighters were on alert and waiting to see if a hard-line cleric who mediated the deal pronounced it dead.

"The agreements with the Pakistan government are worthless because Pakistani rulers are acting to please Americans," Muslim Khan, spokesman for Taliban militants in the Swat Valley, told The Associated Press.

A spokesman for Sufi Muhammad said the cleric was trapped in his home in the same area of Lower Dir attacked by troops Friday and that his supporters have been unable to contact him.

"We will not hold any talks until the operation ends," spokesman Amir Izzat Khan said.

Umar , the Pakistani Taliban spokesman, said the militants would agree to talks about the situation in Dir, but only if the military operation is halted.

"We were living peacefully in Dir," Umar said. "Nothing warranted the operation."

Dianne Feinstein, head of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, said Sunday that the recent Taliban advance in Buner — and the lack of a robust military response — suggested Pakistan was "in very deep trouble."...

A roundup of just a few of the highlights since January 20:

• Obama's DHS quietly dropped the term “war on terror.” Janet Napolitano even went so far as to say that she preferred to refer not to acts of “terrorism” but to “man-caused disasters.”
• Obama named Los Angeles Times columnist Rosa Brooks as an adviser to the undersecretary of Defense for policy; Brooks is venomously anti-Israel and once wrote that al-Qaeda was “little more than an obscure group of extremist thugs,” and that the Bush Administration had only imagined that it was a “vast global threat.”
• Obama has tabbed Harold Koh to become the legal adviser for the State Department. Koh has said that he had no objection to Sharia being applied to “an appropriate case” in the United States.
• Obama invited the head of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, a 56-nation body that has declared its intention to compel the United Nations to criminalize all criticism of Islam, to the White House.
• Obama has declared his determination to open negotiations with “moderate elements” of the Taliban, despite the fact that no such people have ever been found.
• Obama has declared his determination to close Guantanamo, despite the fact that over 60 former Gitmo detainees have returned to the jihad.

And now this.

"Report: Obama wants aid to go to PA even if Hamas joins government," from Haaretz, April 27 (thanks to Vaughan):

The Obama administration has asked Congress to amend U.S. law to enable the Palestinians to receive federal aid even if it forms a unity coalition with Hamas, the L.A. Times reported on Monday.

Hamas, which seized control of the Gaza Strip from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' forces in a bloody 2007 coup, has been deemed a terrorist organization by the U.S. and therefore cannot not legally receive U.S. government aid.

The U.S. has presented an $830.4-billion emergency spending bill, comprising funding for its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill would also allocate $840 million to the Palestinian Authority and for reconstruction in the Gaza Strip following Israel's three-week offensive there earlier this year.

Because none of the Gaza aid can legally reach Hamas, it will be difficult to ensure its delivery to the coastal territory.

The U.S. has refused to grant aid to Hamas unless the group agrees to recognize Israel, renounce violence and agreeing to follow past accords secured between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

The administration's request for the minor changes to aid measures is unlikely to come into fruition, as no concrete plans are yet underway for a Palestinian unity government. Reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah have been ongoing, but have so far yielded no results.

Still, the move has stirred controversy among pro-Israel U.S. officials, according to the L.A. Times.

Republican Representative Mark Steven Kirk told Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at a House hearing last week that the proposal was tantamount to supporting a government with "only has a few Nazis in it," the L.A. Times said....

Exactly.

"Her letter of dismissal said it was 'proportionate' to ask female employees to walk behind men out of respect for Saudi culture." More dhimmitude from the same airline. "BMI told stewardess to wear Muslim robe," by Jon Ungoed-Thomas for Times Online, April 26:

A BRITISH air stewardess was sacked for refusing to fly to Saudi Arabia after she was ordered to wear a traditional Islamic robe and walk behind male colleagues.

Lisa Ashton, a £15,000-a-year stewardess with BMI, was told that in public areas in Saudi Arabia she was required to wear a black robe, known as an abaya. This covers everything but the face, feet and hands. She was told to follow her male colleagues, irrespective of rank.

Ashton, 37, who was worried about security in the country, refused to fly there, claiming the instructions were discriminatory. She was sacked last April.

“It’s not the law that you have to walk behind men in Saudi Arabia, or that you have to wear an abaya, and I’m not going to be treated as a second-class citizen,” Ashton said last week.

“It’s outrageous. I’m a proud Englishwoman and I don’t want these restrictions placed on myself.”

Saudi experts and companies that recruit women to work in the country say it is a “myth” that western women are required to walk behind men. There is no requirement for them to wear the abaya in public, though many do.[...]

A BMI document circulated to staff who might travel to Saudi Arabia stated: “It is expected that female crew members will walk behind their male counterparts in public areas such as airports no matter what rank.”

Staff were also given abayas and were required to put them on when leaving the aircraft. Ashton, a practising Christian, was advised by union officials that it was considered a part of the uniform and she could face disciplinary action if she did not wear it.

Ashton said she did not want to fly to Saudi Arabia, but wished to continue flying long-haul routes. The firm said she could transfer to short-haul flights but that would have meant a pay cut of about 20%. She declined to switch to short-haul flights.

On June 13, 2007, she was told she was rostered for a flight from London to Saudi Arabia and refused to go. She was dismissed for refusing to fly and for making it clear she would not travel to Saudi Arabia.

Her letter of dismissal said it was “proportionate” to ask female employees to walk behind men out of respect for Saudi culture. BMI has also defended its decision to require female staff to wear abayas.[...]

Since leaving BMI, Ashton has embarked on a musical career. She said one of her first songs, Shame, Shame, Shame, performed by the band Looby, was inspired by the airline.

Just another misunderstood jihadi preacher

Though he is Osama bin Laden's "spiritual representative in Europe," the jihadi kidnappers insist he is being "unjustly" held: as if kidnappers know the first thing about justice or injustice in the first place. "Free hate cleric or hostage dies," from Metro.Co.UK, April 26:

Islamic militants have threatened to kill a British hostage unless Gordon Brown releases a suspected terrorist from prison.

The African group said in an online statement that it will execute the tourist, snatched earlier this year, if Abu Qatada is not freed within three weeks.

"We demand that Britain release Sheikh Abu Qatada, who is unjustly (held), for the release of its British citizen. We give it 20 days as of the issuance of this statement.

'When this period expires the mujahideen will kill the hostage," the message read.

Radical preacher Abu Qatada, said to be in charge of al-Qaeda's European arm, was jailed in 2002 accused of having links with militant groups but was released in 2005.

The 48-year-old was re-arrested and is pending deportation to Jordan where he faces life in prison.

It is believed the Briton was kidnapped by gunmen in Mali near the border with Niger on January 22...

You never know. Maybe this 64-year-old priest and his 73-year-old wife were involved in something unsavory and dangerous, and paid the price. But Islamic jihadists have attacked Christians in Sulawesi many times in the past, and the couple had deep wounds to their necks -- recalling the Qur'an's directive to "strike at the necks" of unbelievers (47:4).

"Christian priest, wife killed in eastern Indonesia," from AP, April 27 (thanks to Dionysios):

A Christian priest and his wife were stabbed to death in a region of eastern Indonesia that has been wracked by sectarian violence in the past, police said Monday.

The bodies of Frans Koagow, 64, and his wife, Femy Kumendong, 73, were discovered by their grandson in the priest's home on Sulawesi island over the weekend with deep wounds to their heads and necks, said local police chief Aridan Roero.

Authorities have yet to determine a motive, he said, and no suspects have been named....

Comments by David G. Littman, NGO Representative of the Association for World Education (AWE) and World Union for Progressive Judaism (WUPJ) to the UN:

Two weeks ago, I concluded my comments on Iran’s Stealth Jihad at a UN Meeting with a prediction:

What more need be said? One thing, perhaps: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is scheduled to address Durban II at the Palais des Nations. It may help him to get elected, but it certainly won’t provide the Durban Review Conference with the aura of respectability that it is desperately hoping to achieve. Sadly, once again, I am reminded of Frankenstein on his trek across Lake Geneva up to the North Pole.

* * * * *

Never could I have imagined that he would out-Herod Herod, even out-Boris Boris Karloff in his classic movie role of Frankenstein. No need to recount more of what happened, ad nauseam – but two last snippets from the miscellaneous media coverage worldwide gives an interesting UN insight. Firstly, the conclusion of High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay’s final press conference on April 24, from the official verbatim transcript press release, titled: “UN human rights chief slams disinformation”. It gives her frank personal viewpoint:

"He [Imran Waheed] went on: 'There is only one solution to the occupation of Muslim lands, one solution to the cries of the widows and the orphans, one solution to avenge the death of the elderly and the children ... fight in the way of Allah those who fight you. Al-Jihad.' A leaflet available on the group's international website, dated Jan 19 2009, criticises the governments of Muslim countries which have attended peace summits as "shameful". '"Instead, it was their duty to eliminate the state of Jews that has usurped Palestine,' it added.” -- from this story

He -- Imran Waheed -- is correct. The good Muslim, the Muslim who takes Islam seriously, must fight what he calls the “occupation of Muslim lands”. Those who will do their duty and “fight in the way of Allah” -- Jihad fi sabil Allah -- must fight this fight forever, until final victory. Such people cannot be bought off by Western aid. Nor will they stop fighting “in the way of Allah,” except perhaps temporarily, to pocket the prize and then to take the time to build their forces for the next assault, through military or other means, on the Infidels.

The archbishop of Canterbury's predictions on sharia law's "inevitability" in the U.K. keep coming closer to fruition. "EU judges want Sharia law applied in British courts," from the Daily Mail, April 26:

Judges could be forced to bow to Sharia law in some divorce cases heard in Britain.

An EU plan calls for family courts across Europe to hear cases using the laws of whichever country the couple involved have close links to.

That could mean a court in England handling a case within the French legal framework, or even applying the laws of Saudi Arabia to a husband and wife living in Britain...

And "no government department wants to take responsibility for the issue, lest they be attacked by conservative Islamic clerics, many of whom oppose sports activities for women." More on this story. "Gyms for Saudi women face shut-down," from Middle East Online, April 26:

Report dozens of women-only gyms face closure because there is no regulatory authority for them.

RIYADH - Increasingly popular sports clubs and gyms for women in Saudi Arabia face shut-down because the government only licenses men's clubs, a Saudi newspaper reported on Sunday.

Dozens of privately-established women-only gyms around the country, which strictly separates men and women outside family venues, could be closed because there is no regulatory authority for them, the Arab News said.

While the General Presidency for Sport and Youth Welfare has the authority over men's gyms, it has not been allowed to regulate those for women, according to the report.

That means that the women's gyms springing up in major cities are unlicensed and illegal, according to the report.

Female Saudi fitness fans frequently complain of the lack of places to exercise outside the home, since they cannot go to men's clubs.

Saudi Arabia's conservative brand of Islam strictly forbids the mixing of unrelated members of the opposite sex, and women in the presence of men not from their families must remain completely covered in the black abaya shroud.

Some investors have opened women-only gyms calling them beauty salons or, in one case, a "natural treatment clinic," Arab News said.

Lawyer Abdulaziz al-Qasim told the newspaper that no government department wants to take responsibility for the issue, lest they be attacked by conservative Islamic clerics, many of whom oppose sports activities for women.

The result, he said, is a move by the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs to shut down the existing gyms.

"It's clear that one department is now taking the decision to put an end to the increasing number of unlicensed clubs," he said.

Islamic Tolerance Alert, and an update on this story. Not surprisingly, this article blames Israel for supposed acts of retribution perpetrated on Yemen's Jews.

That's odd. Don't the apologists like to tell us it's not Judaism that so many modern-day Muslims are against, but Zionism? (Note how politically quiet and acquiescent the Yemeni Jews are for fear of their safety, not unlike the Jews of Iran.) On the other hand, there was no State of Israel for Muhammad to blame for his persecution of Jews. Just the imperative to create an infidel-free Arabian peninsula by any means necessary (Sahih Bukhari 19.4366). "Yemen's Jews uneasy as Muslim hostility grows," by Hamza Hendawi for the Associated Press, April 26:

KHARIF, Yemen -- In this village in northern Yemen, where a kosher butcher slaughters chickens and the school bus carries young boys in side curls along a dirt track to their Hebrew studies, one of the oldest Jewish communities in the Arab world is fighting for its survival.

Yemen's Jews, here and elsewhere in the country, are thought to have roots dating back nearly 3,000 years to King Solomon. The community used to number 60,000 but shrank dramatically when most left for the newborn state of Israel.

Those remaining, variously estimated to number 250 to 400, are feeling new and sometimes violent pressure from Yemeni Muslims, lately inflamed by Israel's fierce offensive against Hamas militants in Gaza that cost over 1,000 Palestinian lives.

They face a Yemeni government that is ambivalent -- publicly supportive but also lax in keeping its promises -- in an Arab world where Islamic extremism and hostility to minorities are generally on the rise.

"There is hardly a mosque sermon that's free of bigotry. The government's own political rhetoric marginalizes the Jews, and civil society is too weak to protect them," says Mansour Hayel, a Muslim Yemeni and human rights activist who is an expert on Yemen's Jewry.

"The government's policies are to blame for the suffering of the Jews," he says.

The pressures have long existed. But an Associated Press reporter who traveled recently to the rarely visited north and interviewed Jews, Muslim tribal sheiks, rights activists and lawyers in Yemen's capital of San'a, heard complaints that the frequency of harassment -- including a murder and the pelting of homes with rocks -- has markedly increased.

The testimony was particularly striking because Jews in Arab lands often refrain from airing grievances, lest they antagonize the government and provoke Muslim militants.

Yemen's government says it is trying to stop the harassment. President Ali Abdullah Saleh has proposed that the 45 Jewish families in the farming communities of Kharif and the nearby town of Raydah in Omran province be moved 50 miles southeast to San'a, where they can be better protected. He has offered them free plots of land to build homes.

Here comes a shocker. Read this sitting down:

But the government has taken no concrete steps since presidential aides first spoke of the offer late last year.

For 18 Jewish families who moved to San'a in 2007 from Saada, another northern province, things have not gone well. They fled fighting between troops and rebels, during which some Jewish homes were ransacked and ancient books destroyed. Now they live in cramped apartments under tight guard, entirely dependent on small government handouts. [...]

In Kharif, Yahya Yaish Al-Qedeimi has a long list of complaints about how he and his fellow Jews are treated: harassment in the market, stones thrown at the school bus, insults from villagers walking past his house.

When Saddam Hussein was executed, "they pelted our house with rocks," he said. [...]

Read it all.

Islamic Tolerance Alert. But why didn't they demand the jizya? And why are these fanatical adherents of Islam and proponents of the imposition of Islamic law so thoroughly clueless about what we are constantly told is the true, peaceful nature of Islam? Why are Islam's foremost Misunderstanders almost invariably the most devout and dedicated believers?

And why won't the mainstream media even allow such questions to be discussed?

Final thought: just imagine what might happen if these people take control in Islamabad and gain control of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal.

A update on this story. "Taliban Attack, Kill Christians in Pakistan Town," by Ethan Cole for the Christian Post, April 26 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

Masked Taliban militants attacked and killed at least one Christian and injured dozens of others this past week in a Christian colony in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, according to local media.

Irfan Masih, 11, was shot execution style by the Taliban and died in the hospital, the government of Sindh province confirmed, according to Pakistan Christian Post on Friday. Meanwhile, Imran Masih and Qadoos Masih, who were also shot, are in critical condition in the hospital.

More than 100 Taliban militants with machine guns had reportedly attacked the Christian colony in Taiser town on April 21. A few days prior to the attack, the group had chalked threats on local churches and on Christian homes in the town, insisting that Christian residents convert to Islam. Residents of Taiser are overwhelmingly Muslim.

When the Christians saw the threats, they organized a demonstration to call on authorities to protect their community. The police, however, refused to send officers or guards for the church.

Hmmm. Why not?

A few days later, the Taliban came to Taiser and dragged Christians out of their homes at gunpoint. According to Pakistan Christian Post, the gunmen shouted, “You infidels have to convert to Islam or die. Why did you clean off the warnings we chalked on your church and the doors of your houses? How dare you stage a procession against the Taliban?”

In total, three churches were burned down along with dozens of Christian owned shops.

Dr. Nazir Bhatti, president of the Pakistan Christian Congress, said an attacked [sic] by the Taliban had been feared for months but no preventative action was taken.

He said the attack on Christians is “a warning bell” for the Sindh government and warned that the Taliban is planning to expand Shariah, or Islamic law, in Karachi. The Christian colony, he added, was the “first victim” of the group’s goal....

"I always knew my man Nouri would carry my water for me"

The Iraqi Democracy Project, which I thought was doomed even before it started, was always liable to create a Shi'ite client state for the benefit of Iran, since the Shi'ites have the numbers on their side in Iraq. The whole thing was predicated on a misapprehension of the importance within Islam of the imperative to impose Sharia. Now, in any case, the Shi'ites and Iran are clearly in the driver's seat.

"Iraq: US raid 'crime' that breaks security pact," by Brian Murphy for AP, April 26 (thanks to Maxwell):

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq's prime minister denounced a deadly U.S. raid on Sunday as a "crime" that violated the security pact with Washington and demanded American commanders hand over those responsible to face possible trial in Iraqi courts.

The U.S. military, however, strongly denied that it overstepped its bounds and said it notified Iraqi authorities in advance — in accordance with the rules that took effect this year governing U.S. battlefield conduct.

The pre-dawn raid in the southern Shiite city of Kut ended with at least one women dead after being caught in gunfire and six suspects arrested for alleged links to Shiite militia factions....

The fallout marks the most serious test of the security pact so far and could bring new strains during a critical transition period....

A statement from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki — in his role as commander general of Iraqi forces — called the raid a "violation of the security pact."

He asked the U.S. military "to release the detainees and hand over those responsible for this crime to the courts," according to an Iraqi security official who read the statement to The Associated Press.

The cascade of protests and questions began just hours after the sweep into Kut, which the U.S. military said targeted suspected backers of Shiite militias believed to have links to Iran.

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered at the mosque in Kut, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad, to decry the American action and demand an investigation....

This is to be expected considering that "many of Somalia's Christians have come to the faith from Islam, so they're Muslim-background believers," also known as apostates, such as this Somali man who was beheaded for converting to Christianity.

"Somalia - land of pirates, land of persecution," by Allie Martin for One News Now, April 20:

While Somalia has made headlines recently for its pirates who cause havoc on the high seas, there are also tough times for Christians in the African nation.

For years, Somalia has been devastated by war, drought, flooding, famine, and terror attacks. The country has no government, constitution, or any legal provision for the protection of religious freedom.

Jerry Dykstra with Open Doors USA explains that Christians in the east African country are easy targets. Although ten believers were murdered there last year, Dykstra says inroads are being made for the gospel.

"We need to praise the Lord for that," Dykstra shares. "Many of Somalia's Christians have come to the faith from Islam, so they're Muslim-background believers."

Somalia is 99 percent Muslim, with 4,000 to 5,000 Christians. It ranks fifth on Open Doors' current "World Watch List" of nations persecuting Christian believers, and is one of two African nations among the ten worst persecuting nations.

Probably led by those many al-Qaeda members Yemen recently released. "Saudi Officials' Fears: Al-Qaeda Planning to Attack Saudi Arabia from Yemen," by Sahar Al-Sharjabi for the Yemen Post, April 26 (thanks to Jeffrey Imm):

A British newspaper quoted General Mansoor Al-Turki, the spokesman for the Saudi Ministry of Interior, as speaking about his fears regarding Al-Qaeda. The Financial newspaper wrote that Saudi Arabian officials fear that Al-Qaeda is planning to attack their country from Yemen that they could not do that from inside.

Al-Qaeda has changed its name to 'Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula' to bring together the extremist Saudis those [who] ran away from their country and the armed Yemenis the newspaper reported...

In other words, stop it with the demands to root out Talibani terrorism, and just pay up already. "Stop lecturing, help us, Pakistan tells West," from Times of India, April 26:

NEW YORK: Pakistan's ambassador to the US Hussain Haqqani has urged the international community to help Pakistan in its efforts to prevent the Talibanisation of the country's Swat and Buner regions instead of giving lectures, the Online news agency reported.

"We have shared our concerns with the US and do not want Talibanisation in Pakistan at all", Haqqani said.[...]

"Most of the Pakistanis are moderate and will not allow militants to impose Sharia (Islamic laws).

"We admit Taliban pose great threat to Pakistanis, and Pakistanis are Muslims and wanted implementation of their religion, but neither we believe in flogging of girls nor locking up women inside homes," he said in an interview on Saturday.

He added that the majority of the people rejected the Taliban lifestyle and the areas where the Taliban influence still existed was due to the local environment.

The ambassador strongly rejected the impression (by Western countries) that Taliban will occupy Pakistan, saying, "we have one million strong army and our institutions are strong, and we are not a failed state".

To which a Pakistani minister asserts, "The Taliban have exposed their real face by killing innocent children." His point, apparently, is that by killing children, the Taliban have proven that they are behaving un-Islamicly: after all, did the prophet himself not say that women and children should not be killed (only enslaved)? Yet, when jihadis asked Muhammad if it was permissible to attack infidel villages indiscriminately even if women and children were there, he flatly said, "They are from among them," which jurists have long defined as meaning, if women and children are killed during the jihad, they are merely collateral damage, and the jihadis are exonerated. More on this story. "Children Blown Up By Bomb In A Football," from Sky News, April 26:

Sixteen children have been killed in explosions in Pakistan over the weekend - 12 of them while playing with a football which contained a bomb.

The blasts were in the northwest region where violence has increased as Taliban fighters extend their reach.

The football explosion happened in a village in the mountains of Lower Dir. The children, five of them girls, found the ball as they were returning from school. Seven victims belonged to the same family.

Pakistan's Interior Ministry chief, Rehman Malik, blamed the Taliban saying: "The Taliban have exposed their real face by killing innocent children."...

For years many people have pointed out that most music is contrary to traditional Islamic law. For this they have been called "Islamophobic." The Taliban must be Islamophobic as well.

Here is a glimpse into the West's future if it continues to accommodate Sharia: "Taliban shave men for listening to music," from Agence France-Presse, April 26 (thanks to JE):

TALIBAN militants in northwest Buner district shaved the heads and moustaches of four Pakistani men as punishment for listening to music, one of the men said.

Buner has been subject to huge US concern after hundreds of Taliban fighters advanced into the area from the neighbouring Swat, where the hardliners fought a brutal, nearly two-year insurgency to enforce Islamic law.

"I was with three other friends in my car, listening to music when armed Taliban stopped us and, after smashing cassettes and the cassette player, they shaved half our heads and moustaches,'' he said.

"The Taliban also beat us and asked us not to listen to music ever again,'' said the terrified man.

Local police said they had no information about the incident.

The victim said neither he nor his friends lodged a complaint with police, as this would have been "useless.''

"It might have annoyed the Taliban further and I fear for my life,'' the man said.

Residents in Mingora, the main town in Swat, said Taliban posters had been put up in streets and markets ordering women not to go shopping.

The posters had appeared after the Taliban's controversial agreement with the government to enforce Islamic law in the region.

"We will take action against women who go out shopping in the markets and any shopkeeper seen dealing with women shoppers will be dealt with severely,'' read the poster from the Swat branch of Tehreek-e-Taliban....

It seems that he was recruited via grievance-mongering, the likes of which jihadists employ frequently and in multiple contexts. But when he got to Kashmir, he didn't see any oppression, and thus decided there was no need for jihad.

This is predicated upon some core theological assumptions. If a Muslim land is attacked, defensive jihad becomes fard ayn, or incumbent upon every individual Muslim. Offensive jihad, in contrast, can in Sunni Islam only lawfully be called by the caliph, and there has been no caliph since 1924. Hence all jihads today are cast in defensive terms -- partly also because in the jihadist mythology, unbelievers are always operating in bad faith and seeking to oppress and impede the Muslims: this is the role they play again and again in the Qur'an.

So anyway, when Syed Moinullah Shah saw that the grievance propaganda was just that -- propaganda -- he wanted to go back. Would that all jihadists were so perceptive, and so honest.

"No need of Jihad, says an arrested Pakistani militant," from the Press Trust Of India, April 25 (thanks to James):

A Pakistani militant arrested by Army today said there is no need of Jihad in Kashmir as contrary to what he has been told in Pakistan, Kashmiris are not facing any oppression.

Syed Moinullah Shah, cadre of the Pakistan based Hizbul Mujahideen who was part of the group of 31 militants who crossed over the LoC recently said that after seeing the conditions of Kashmiri Muslims he wanted to go back rather than carry on with “jihad.”

“I was told by Kashmiris who come there (Pakistan) that they are being tortured by the Indian Army. Their houses have also been taken away besides not being allowed to do the namaaz. They also said their women were being raped,” Shah who was presented before the media said.

Shah who underwent an intensive training in Pak-occupied Kashmir, said,“When I came here, I did not see any kind of torture. Everybody was busy doing their own work. I felt their [sic] was no need of jihad in Kashmir and hence wanted to go back.”...

Tedious, yes, but necessary. Jihad news will resume shortly; those who don't want to read this, pleas skip it rather than writing to tell me not to post it. I am not going to let this man's reckless smears go unanswered. The Internet is such, and his waning influence is still such, that they could cause great harm if simply ignored.

First, from here (paste the link into your address bar and it will work):

This morning we have another case of classic misdirection from the Eurofascist-supporting twins, Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller; they’ve both posted long ad hominem screeds attacking me for “falling for fauxtography.”

In reality, I do not support any Eurofascists. Nor did my original post contain any ad hominem attacks. See for yourself here.

Both of them are screaming about the “fauxtography,” to divert your attention from the fascist connections of these people — which, you may notice, they don’t dispute.

An outright lie. Two of my three original points were devoted to disputing exactly that. Again, see for yourself.

Meanwhile, I am not going to the Cologne conference, contrary to Johnson's claims; still, however, he is trying to defame me with it. From here is the claim that I am "defending" Manfred Rouhs of Pro-Köln, whom Johnson claims is a Nazi, because I posted his pro-Israel statement here. (You know you're in Johnson's Bizarro world when posting a pro-Israel statement gets you accused of being a Nazi.) Rouhs, says Johnson, is a Nazi who sells Nazi literature at his website -- and therefore I must be a crypto-Nazi, right? (Buckley's sage advice to Gore Vidal comes to mind at this point.)

Anyway, about Rouhs's book selection at his website: Rouhs sells material, as you can see, by the noted neo-Nazis Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Samuel Huntington, Norman Finkelstein, and Clausewitz.

Ah, but all that is just a cover for the Nazi literature that he sells, that Charles has found, right?

Nope. A European source tells me this:

Germany has very strict laws which ban the sale of Nazi material. Even reprints of historic issues of the Nazi newspaper Voelkischer Beobachter are forbidden. See here:

The Bavarian Finance Ministry announced Thursday that it will file a complaint against the magazine Zeitungszeugen over its decision to reprint the Nazi newspaper Völkischer Beobachter in its second issue. [...] Zeitungszeugen -- the name consists of the German words for "newspaper" and "witnesses" -- is a new magazine published in Germany by the British historian and publisher Peter McGee which plans to reprint newspapers from the years 1933-1945 in chronological order as a historical resource. The newspaper pages are included as separate facsimiles in the magazine, which also features historical analysis and expert commentary on the material. As well as the controversial Nazi newspapers, the magazine [...] is reprinting newspapers from all parts of the political spectrum, including communist and social democratic papers.

Does Rouhs violate the law? Apparently not.

Here it says that the German Interior Ministry, which at first had listed Nation24 as a "far right publication", removed N24 from that list after a talk with Rouhs.

You will also see that LGF's evidence for Rouhs selling Nazi literature is a book about Rudolf Hess. When you take a closer look at the cover of the book you will see that it has a foreword by Golo Mann.

Golo Mann was a well-known German OPPONENT of the Nazis, whom the Nazis stripped of his German citizenship and who fought with the Allies AGAINST Hitler. See here.

So, tell me: How can this book be "Nazi literature"? Has Golo Mann overnight become a Nazi?

It makes me think of Johnson's allegation that Dewinter was a Nazi because at a book fair he browsed through a book with pictures of SS officers. The "SS officers" were Belgian King Leopold III with Belgian generals.

And now, back to the jihad.

UPDATE: Coincidence? Or...neo-Nazi plot???

The jihad against the education of girls continues. ""The children had found the bomb outside a girls' primary school in Luqman Banda village of Lower Dir town."

"Children killed in Pakistan bomb blast," from AFP, April 25 (thanks to James):

At least four children have been killed in a bomb explosion in north-west Pakistan, officials say.

"The children had found the bomb outside a girls' primary school in Luqman Banda village of Lower Dir town," local police official Sultan Mehmood said.

The gender and ages of the children were not immediately known.

"We have sent police officials to the site to collect more information including the type of bomb," Mr Mehmood said.

He added: "According to preliminary information the explosion took place while the children were even unable to ascertain that it was a bomb".

Islam is the most democratic religion, says Albright. Yet in 1400 years of Islamic history, there has only been one democracy: Turkey.

Albright says that Turkey is a "perfect example" of how Islam is democratic. But let's look at the record. In the aftermath of World War I, Mustafa Kemal, who called himself Ataturk, or Father of the Turks, established the first secular government in a Muslim society, leading the Sheikh who famously visited Osama bin Laden on video in 2001 to refer to “infidels like the Turks.” Ataturk declared that “the civilized world is far ahead of us. We have no choice but to catch up. It is time to stop nonsense, such as ‘should we or should we not wear hats?’ We shall adopt hats along with all other works of Western civilization. Uncivilized people are doomed to be trodden under the feet of civilized people.”

Hats were more than just a symbol: because of their brims, they interfered with the prostrations that were and are an essential element of Islamic prayer. By outlawing turbans and mandating hats, Ataturk was striking at the very heart of Turkish Islamic society. Within a relatively brief period the great Islamic empire that had been the seat of the caliphate and the lodestar of the Muslim world became a Western-style modern state. The unity of the polity was based on racial, not religious grounds (resulting in the murder and exile of millions of Armenians and a not inconsiderable number of Greeks, who fared marginally better even as dhimmis, at least until they were deemed to have violated the terms of the dhimma, than they did under the nationalistic and secular Turkish government).

Ataturk accomplished this transformation by abolishing the caliphate, restricting political Islam and other expressions of Islam, including Islamic marriages, and letting mosques and Islamic shrines fall into disrepair. He worked hard to diminish the place of Islam in Turkish society.

Isn’t this the dream of moderate, Western-influenced and Western-friendly Muslims and their non-Muslim patrons? Ataturk labored to erect a truly Jeffersonian wall of separation between mosque and state. If the notion of a modernized, secularized Islam really has any viability, it should show in Turkey, its principal research and development project.

But there was resistance to Ataturk’s program in Turkey virtually from the beginning. Scholar Paul Dumont notes that “the expeditious secularization imposed on the country by Mustafa Kemal and his entourage created a shock wave through the country which has not yet died out.”

Opposition to Kemalism, as secular rule in Turkey came to be known, was fundamentally religious. Rank-and-file Turks, according to Ataturk’s biographer Andrew Mango, believed that “misery was the fruit of impiety, prosperity the reward of obedience to the law of Islam.”

Religious uprisings have been a feature of the Turkish secular state virtually since its inception, and those desiring to restore Islam to centrality in public life have made steady gains. By the 1950s, says Farah, the secular authorities “found it prudent henceforth to play up to Islamic loyalties and allow the ulama and other religious leaders a freer hand.” That hand has been growing even freer ever since.

Even Albright, while she was Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, expressed her displeasure with the “drift of Turkey away from secularism.”

"Albright Praises Obama's Efforts to Engage Muslim World," by Mohamed Elshinnawi for VOA News, April 24 (thanks to James):

"There is no doubt in my mind that Muslim countries can be democracies," Albright says. "Turkey is a perfect example of that. It is very evident, and, actually, in my study of religions, in many ways Islam is maybe the most democratic religion because there is nobody between you and God. So I do not think that is something that can be used as reason not to have Muslim democracies."

"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued." -- Qur'an 9:29

"When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them. [...] If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah's help and fight them." -- Muhammad (Sahih Muslim 4294)

Some Sikhs have left because of this demand for jizya (here, jazia). Others cannot. "History's Hostages: Held to a huge ransom by the Taliban, NWFP's Sikhs have nowhere to go," by Behroz Khan for the May 4 issue of Outlook India (thanks to Sr. Soph):

Jazia and Sikhs

* In Orakzai, Taliban have imposed a sum of Rs 12 million as jazia on Sikhs
* Contrary to media reports, the amount is not paid yet. Sikh families remain in the custody of Taliban.
* In medieval times, jazia was levied on non-Muslims in an Islamic state
* Those who paid jazia could follow their religion, provided protection
* Since Muslims paid zakat or alms for the poor to the state, which was spent on welfare, non-Muslims had to contribute their share through jazia
* But jazia was unpopular. Akbar removed it; Aurangzeb reimposed it.

[...] Kalyan Singh refused to shift out from what he saw as his ancestral home, believing he was safe living among the Orakzai tribals. But then, a fortnight ago, Hakimullah descended on the Ferozkhel valley and ordered members of the Sikh community, including women, to gather in an open area. They were told they were now in the custody of Taliban, and that they must pay jazia (a religious tax imposed on non-Muslims living under Islamic rule in the medieval times) or convert to Islam.

The soldiers of the Islamic emirate then picked up Kalyan Singh, tortured him in custody for 10 long days even as negotiations for the amount to be paid as jazia kept apace. Herjeet Singh, a local Sikh, quotes an eyewitness to say, "The militants convened a shura of their own and passed the verdict that Sikhs should pay Rs 100 million as jazia. Our elders pleaded that poor members of the community have no means to raise such a huge amount." Herjeet is among those who sneaked out of Orakzai before jazia was imposed.

The Sikh community’s plea prompted further talks, with the Taliban scaling down their initial demand to Rs 40 million, ultimately agreeing to Rs 12 million as the jazia, a source told Outlook. Kalyan Singh was then set free and asked to raise the demanded amount. His and 50 other families were held hostage. They were warned that any attempts to escape would lead to the slaying of men and conversion of children and womenfolk to Islam. "This is unheard of. Our forefathers lived among the Pashtuns for centuries and were never subjected to such humiliation and barbarism," laments Herjeet Singh.

Kalyan, these days, is in Peshawar, persuading the Sikh community here to somehow raise the whopping amount. Sources say he has managed to collect Rs 3.5 million. Only when Rs 12 million is paid fully will the Sikhs in Ferozkhel be set free, provided protection and allowed to practise their religion.

Read it all.

Veering toward civil war in Copenhagen. Pamela has video, plus two illuminating interviews with the head of the International Free Press Society, Lars Hedegaard, about the deteriorating situation in Denmark.

And AFP in this article continues, not unexpectedly, to frame this issue in racial terms. Yet non-white non-Muslims have settled into Europe with little or no strife; it only seems to be Muslim "immigrant youths" who get embroiled in "racial" violence in Europe.

As I've said many times, the struggle against the global jihad and Islamic supremacism is not a racial issue. It is not "racist" to oppose a violent and supremacist doctrine and ideology that would institutionalize discrimination against women and non-believers, and extinguish the freedom of speech and freedom of conscience. The sooner the authorities in Copenhagen and elsewhere realize that, the better chance they will have of resisting the jihadist onslaught.

"'Quiet' Copenhagen cracks down on deadly gang war," from AFP, April 25:

COPENHAGEN (AFP) — A grenade tossed into a cafe, gunfire in the street, dead bodies splayed on the pavement, residents living in fear -- all sounds out of sync with the medieval cobbled streets and copper roofs of the Danish capital.

But a bloody gang war between bikers and youths of immigrant origin has shattered Copenhagen's customary calm and jolted officials to boost action against violence that has left three dead and 17 wounded in seven months. [...]

The battle over drug sales, revenge and wounded honour pits Hells Angels bikers and their offshoot called AK81 against gangs of mainly second and third-generation immigrant youths.

The long-simmering conflict exploded into full-blown war last August, after a 19-year-old man of Turkish origin named Osam Nuri Dogan, who was armed and wearing a bullet-proof vest, was executed on the street.

His body was riddled with 25 bullets in front of a Copenhagen pizza parlour.

A member of AK81 suspected of the killing was arrested but quickly released for lack of evidence.

Since then, violent acts of retaliation have become almost a daily occurrence in the capital -- and raised concern of fueling anti-immigrant sentiment in a country long skeptical of Muslims where tightening immigration has been the cornerstone of government policy.

Early Friday, an unknown assailant launched a grenade at a packed cafe patronized by bikers in Christiania, Copenhagen's giant squat and repair of free spirits and marginals since the 1970s. Four were wounded, including a 22-year-old man whose cheek was ripped out by the blast. "It was an odious attack... and a miracle that no one was killed," a city deputy police commissioner, Boris Jensen, told AFP.

It came a week after another attack in Christiania in which an AK81 member shot and seriously wounded a 30-year-old man in the stomach. Tabloids said it was gangs settling scores but police, again, would not confirm this.

The majority of attacks -- including one Wednesday in which police said "two men on a motorcycle" shot and wounded a 29-year-old man of Egyptian-Eritrean descent -- have occurred in the heavily immigrant Noerrebro neighborhood.

The sound of gunfire there has become all too common but residents were shocked out of complacency two months ago when three separate shootings in as many days killed two people with no links to gangs and wounded four others.[...]

Some fear the gang violence could fan racial hostility, as a March 11 YouGov Zapera poll showed that 74 percent of Danes felt "immigrants" were primarily responsible for the gang wars.

"This is no longer just a conflict about money and power but ... between those who feel profound hatred towards 'immigrants' and those who feel the same way towards 'racists'," Michael Hviid Jacobsen, a criminologist at the University of Aalborg, told AFP.

And this "explains the ease with which the two sides have been recruiting," he said.

Jacobsen partly blames politicians and the media, saying they tend to use the term "immigrant" for anti-biker gang members even though most are Danish-born from families who immigrated two or three generations ago.

Others point the finger at police.

"The police only focus on the darkies as if we were responsible for everything," Hassan, a Noerrebro teenager who refused to give his last name, told AFP.

Police roundly reject the accusation.

"It's absurd. We don't discriminate," said chief police inspector Larsen. "We are also putting pressure on the bikers, searching them too....

Pakistanis are shocked -- shocked! -- by this footage, but as ever, few will follow through to the conclusion that sharia is the problem. We're told time and again, where sharia has motivated a savage act that makes global headlines, that the tenets of the law have been misunderstood, improperly implemented, or suffused with cultural baggage (and they don't mean from the Hijaz in the 7th century). The fact that sharia is so prone to such alleged "abuse" should be the first of many signs that the system is defective -- to say nothing of the letter of the law. It's only further downhill from there.

"Taliban gunmen shooting couple dead for adultery caught on camera," by Saeed Shah for the Telegraph, April 25:

Taliban gunmen have been filmed executing a surprised couple whom they repeatedly shot for the alleged crime of adultery.

Their deaths were squalid, riddled with bullets in a field near their home by Taliban gunmen as the execution was captured on a mobile telephone.

The Telegraph has the video at the link provided above.

In footage which is being watched with horror by Pakistanis, the couple try to flee when they realise what is about to happen. But a gunman casually shoots the man and then the woman in the back with a burst of gunfire, leaving them bleeding in the dirt.

Moments later, when others in the execution party shout out that they are still alive, he returns to coldly finish them with a few more rounds.

Their "crime" was an alleged affair in their remote mountain village controlled by militants in an area that was only recently under the government's sway. It was the kind of barbarity that has become increasingly familiar across Pakistan as the Taliban tide has spread.

But this time, with black-turbaned gunmen almost at the gates of Islamabad, the rare footage has shown urban Pakistanis what could now await them....

Yet when confronted by the police, mom and dad initially denied being Muslim in the first place -- a classic case of taqiyya, according to Koran 16:106: "Any one who, after accepting faith in Allah, utters Unbelief,- except under compulsion, his heart remaining firm in Faith - but such as open their breast to Unbelief, on them is Wrath from Allah, and theirs will be a dreadful Penalty."

"France: Parents arrested for violently preventing their children from Westernizing," from Islam in Europe, April 24:

It started off as a simple runaway case. Monday, around 1pm in Meximieux, two sisters aged 15 and 18, of Turkish origin, were reported missing.

The Meximieux police found their [sic] two hours later, but their investigation did not end there. They discovered that the two sisters were regularly subjected to violence by their parents, who did not accept their wish not to live according to their very rigorous life principles.

Fundamentalist Muslims, the parents do not tolerate seeing them in Western clothing, visiting friends, or pursuing their studies. They were also forbidden to watch French television.

The parents initially denied even the simple practice of religion, but later admitted to the facts and violence.

They will be tried by the court for violence by a person of authority towards a minor.

Of course! Really, who else could have pulled these attacks off besides the Zionists and their Crusader henchmen?

"Khamenei: US, Israel behind Iraq attacks," from Al-Bawaba, April 25 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Saturday issued a message expressing his condolences to the Iranian nation on the terrorist operations in Iraq which killed or wounded hundreds of civilians including tens of Iranians. According to IRNA, the Iranian leader referred to the US as the main accused of the terrorist operations in Iraq, saying the US forces, under the false pretext of fight against terrorism have occupied the Islamic Iraq.

“The main accused in this crime and other crimes are the US security and military forces that have occupied an Islamic state under the pretext of campaign against terrorism and have killed or wounded tens of thousands of people so far and have intensified insecurity there,” his message reiterated.

Khamenei noted in his message that Washington is the root cause of all terrorist operations in Iraq, stressing that the US and Israeli intelligence services are the primary accused ones in those regards. "Iran expects the Iraqi government to seriously counter such crimes and fully provide the security of the pilgrims of the holy sites in that country," he emphasized.

Twelve Pakistani "students" plot to terrorize Britain; the latter arrests and then releases them but admonishes Pakistan; and the latter -- which poses a "mortal threat" to the world -- is "shocked," just "shocked." "More on this story.

"Pakistan anger at UK terror 'slurs'," by Vikram Dodd for the Guardian, April 25 (thanks to Jeffrey Imm):

Britain was yesterday plunged into a new diplomatic row with Pakistan over the arrests of 12 people accused of plotting bombing attacks on northern England.

All were this week released without charge, but a top Pakistani diplomat in London has said that Gordon Brown's statements after the arrests a fortnight ago were shocking and had helped extremists.

In an interview with the Guardian, Asif Durrani, Pakistan's deputy high commissioner to London, said Britain appeared vindictive against Pakistani nationals and said claims that Islamabad was soft on terror were slurs.

Brown's statements were taken by Pakistan as a public accusation that it was not doing enough to help the UK's fight against terrorism. Ten of those accused were Pakistani nationals who entered Britain on student visas, one is believed to be Afghani, and another is a British national granted sanctuary here after claiming persecution by the Taliban.

Durrani, a diplomat for 23 years with previous postings in Kabul and the United Nations, said: "Pointing a finger towards Pakistan was shocking for us ... it was uncalled for and shocking."...

"Be careful what you sow," admonishes Hillary.Yet how is the U.S. responsible for the more important fact that 75% of the Pakistani people are eager to implement sharia -- a move which, among other things, would lead to a perpetual state of hostilities between Pakistan ("land of the pure") and the U.S. (infidels)? Either way, it's time the Obama administration dropped the pseudo-history lessons -- specifically, interpreting all of today's problems as products of earlier administrations -- and just deal with the facts. Sure, it's a challenge; but shouldn't those who aspire to be political leaders -- such as being president of the U.S. -- expect such challenges?

"US harvesting what it sowed, says Hillary," from the Daily Times, April 25:

LAHORE: The United States is partly responsible for the present mess as it virtually abandoned Pakistan after the Soviets left Afghanistan, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Friday. “There is a very strong argument, which is: It was not a bad investment to end the Soviet Union, but let’s be careful what we sow, because we will harvest. So we then left Pakistan. We said, okay, fine, you deal with the Stingers that we have left all over your country. You deal with the mines that are along the border. And by the way, we do not want to have anything to do with you,” she told a Congressional committee hearing.

To which the U.N. notes, "No cause or grievance can justify such reprehensible acts." More on this story. "Female suicide attackers kill 58 near Baghdad shrine," by Salam Faraj for AFP, April 24:

BAGHDAD (AFP) – Two female suicide bombers struck a major Shiite shrine in Baghdad, killing at least 58 people amid a brutal spike of attacks nine weeks before US troops are to withdraw from Iraqi cities.

At least 140 people were killed within 24 hours as suicide attackers targeted areas packed with civilians in Baghdad and a restaurant filled with Iranian pilgrims northeast of the capital.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon condemned the "appalling" suicide bombings in Iraq on Thursday and Friday, saying their intention was to reignite violence in the country.

"The secretary general condemns the appalling suicide bombings since yesterday in Baghdad and Diyala, which reportedly killed at least 140 people including a large number of visiting Iranian pilgrims," Ban's office said in a statement Friday.

Ban, it added, "is particularly dismayed by reports that one of the bombers was a woman accompanied by a five-year-old child. No cause or grievance can justify such reprehensible acts."...

The Obama Administration seems to be playing a double game of its own: reaching out to jihadists in Iran and Afghanistan, while being ready to stop them in Pakistan. "Does Pakistan's Taliban Surge Raise a Nuclear Threat?," by Mark Thompson for Time, April 24 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

......The prospect of turmoil in Pakistan sends shivers up the spines of those U.S. officials charged with keeping tabs on foreign nuclear weapons. Pakistan is thought to possess about 100 — the U.S. isn't sure of the total, and may not know where all of them are. Still, if Pakistan collapses, the U.S. military is primed to enter the country and secure as many of those weapons as it can, according to U.S. officials.

"The proposal would have denied nonprofit tax status and prohibited grants to groups in Minnesota that help alleged terrorists or pirates." Sounds like a good idea to me.

"Minn. Won't Penalize Group in Somali Piracy Case," from AP, April 24 (thanks to Block Ness):

[...] House Minority Leader Marty Seifert was aiming his proposal at the nonprofit Somali Justice Advocacy Center in St. Paul. The organization has assisted the family of a Somali teenager held in New York in connection with the recent hostage-taking of ship captain Richard Phillips.

The proposal would have denied nonprofit tax status and prohibited grants to groups in Minnesota that help alleged terrorists or pirates. It was ruled out of order Friday when Seifert tried to attach it to a public safety bill.

Then it should be re-introduced in another manner.

Why not? Why must so many feel it necessary to aid and abet this brazen denial of a jihad-related genocide? The denial of the Armenian Genocide is of a piece with the self-serving mythology that Islamic apologists have created about tolerant, multicultural Muslim Spain, the tolerant Ottoman Empire, and much more. Western non-Muslims who buy into these myths should do the necessary legwork to inform themselves of the truth.

"Obama brands Armenian killings `great atrocities,'" by Desmond Butler and Ben Feller for Associated Press, April 24 (thanks to Pamela):

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama on Friday refrained from branding the massacre of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians in Turkey a "genocide," breaking a campaign promise while contending his views about the 20th century slaughter had not changed.

The phrasing of Obama's written statement attracted heightened scrutiny because of the sensitivity of the issue and because the two countries are nearing a historic reconciliation after years of tension. The Obama administration is wary of disturbing that settlement.

Marking the grim anniversary of the start of the killings, the president referred to them as "one of the great atrocities of the 20th century."

"I have consistently stated my own view of what occurred in 1915, and my view of that history has not changed," Obama said. "My interest remains the achievement of a full, frank and just acknowledgment of the facts."

Uh huh.

But deep down they really, really want peace. "Joseph's Tomb compound vandalized: Worshippers arriving at compound to hold prayer service shocked to discover smashed headstones, swastika graffiti," by Efrat Weiss for Ynet News, April 23 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Hundreds of Jewish worshipers who arrived at Joseph's Tomb in the West Bank city of Nablus overnight were stunned to find the compound severely vandalized – yet again. Israel pulled its forces out of the compound in October 2000. The IDF disallowed Jewish worshippers from entering it for a long period of time due to security concerns; and deserted, it has been burnt down and defaced many times. December of 2008 saw Joseph Tomb's restored and the military began allowing worshippers to visit it once more, but always at night and under heavy military guard, for their own safety.

Wednesday night's visit was approved by the proper military authorities and the IDF provided the worshippers with an escort.

The group which entered the compound was made up of some 500 people. Upon entering the tomb they found it had been defaced – the headstone smashed and swastikas sprayed on the walls, as well as graffiti of a blood-dripping sward over a Star of David, and another "trampled" by a boot.

Some reported seeing visible boot prints all over the compounds, which they claim are consistent with the Palestinian police standard issue boots. [...]

Yossi Dagan, of Homesh First, added that "if Jews were to even to consider inflicting one-tenth of this horror on a tomb of an Arab sheik, the entire world would get up on its hind legs and protest. What's absurd is that we are to blame, since even the Oslo Accords place the tomb under our responsibility."

The photo Johnson ran

The real photo

Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, in his attempt to portray the German anti-jihad group Pro-Köln as neo-Nazi and to smear me in the process (paste in the link to get around his block), has fallen for the same Photoshop techniques that he has unmasked when Leftists and jihadists use them in the mainstream media.

The top photo shows Vlaams Belang's Filip Dewinter with Pro-Köln's Markus Beisicht in front of what appears to be a neo-Nazi demonstration. (Actually the banners are from Antifa, Antifascistische Aktion, a violent Leftist group.) That's the photo Johnson ran. The only problem? It's a fake. The second photo is the real one: Dewinter and Beisicht on the roof of the Flemish Parliament in Brussels.

How much can you trust Charles Johnson's information? Here are just a few things he has gotten wrong:

1. I have not committed to speak in Cologne.

2. Manfred Rouhs, a Pro-Köln member of the city council, is not a neo-Nazi. Here is a statement from Rouhs:

"Our growing reputation in the middle of society has also made grow the hatred of dhimmi parties and left wing groups against Pro-Köln. We are democratic patriots, strictly defending our constitution and the freedom of speech and expression.

We are also against the danger of Islamization, which includes the political fight for our Judeo-Christian heritage. We defend our Jewish people against the growing antisemitism of Muslim immigrants in Germany. We also know that in the Near East conflict the State of Israel is confronted with a much more powerful hatred and antisemitism from the Arab states. In this situation all democrats have to support the right to exist and the right to self-defense for the State of Israel, which is an outpost in the conflict with the Islamist threat. Our sympathies as a German civil rights group in this case are clear -- although as a regional anti-Islamization group we naturally do not make an active foreign policy.

Our main objective is the political opposition against the Islamization of Cologne and the mass immigration of Muslims to Germany and our home-state North Rhine-Westphalia. For this we are campaigning with our friends from all over Germany, Europe and the USA."

3. Markus Wiener of Pro-Köln sends this information:

The German Neonazi-Szene attacked Pro-Köln as "Zionists" and "men of the system." The prominent German neo-Nazi party NPD attacked Pro-Köln also, declaring the group to be their "main enemy." Pro-Köln has no neo-Nazis in leading positions or even as members. The real neo-Nazis in Germany hate them because of their positive relationship to Jews, Western immigrants, democracy and human rights. Examples here and here. Pro-Köln has many Jewish members, including one of its officers, Michael Kucherov.

How much can you trust Charles Johnson's information? About as much as you can trust that top photo.

In case the faked photo disappears down the LGF memory hole, no worries: here's a screenshot.

Oh, and Mr. Johnson, that Perez Hilton microphone photo? It's a fake too.

UPDATE: Johnson the fauxtography expert is claiming that he can't tell which picture is the original, despite the fact that it looks as if someone took a bite out of Dewinter's right shoulder in the photo he ran. And he claims that it doesn't matter that his photo was faked. This is essentially saying that his Photoshopped picture is fake but accurate. Charles Johnson has become Dan Rather.

SECOND UPDATE: Michelle Malkin found Johnson's spectacular fauxtography flameout Buzzworthy. Thanks, Michelle!

THIRD UPDATE: Johnson threatens Michelle Malkin over her link above. Can decent people still stand by this disingenuous thug? I don't see how.

FOURTH UPDATE: The utterly discredited Johnson, desperate to make some of his Nazi libel against me stick, grasps at straws in a bookstore. Just one problem: Johnson's "neo-Nazi bookstore" sells Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore, as well as Samuel Huntington and Norman Finkelstein. Imagine how surprised Chomsky and Moore will be when they find out they are neo-Nazis!

Why does anyone still believe this scurrilous lying creep? He is reading tea leaves to support erroneous judgments he has made, instead of admitting he was wrong, and I ask you: what reveals more about a person? Is it what he actually says and does, or who he stands with in photos, who other people get to appear in videos with him, and what is carried in a bookstore? Borders carries Mein Kampf; is Borders therefore Nazi? If Charles Johnson really thinks I am a neo-Nazi sympathizer or a racist, let him produce even one line that I have written to support such a view. Otherwise every person of good will should see his relentless and unprincipled smear campaign for what it is.

FIFTH UPDATE: Just to be completely clear: contrary to Johnson's claims, I will not be attending this conference in Cologne.

More on the impact of the Taliban's advance into and non-withdrawal from Buner. "Fear grips Pakistan district despite Taliban ‘retreat’," from Agence France-Presse, April 25:

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - ‘I have resigned. I will never go to my job as I don’t want my parents to be sent my body,’ said a woman in a northwest Pakistan district from which the Taliban claimed to have withdrawn.

The woman, who called herself only Hafsa, said she worked for a charity until the Taliban advanced into Buner, just 100 kilometres (62 miles) from Islamabad, from the neighbouring district of Swat, which was torn apart by a nearly two-year Islamist insurgency.

Fear and uncertainty reigned in Buner on Saturday despite what the hardline movement trumpeted as a withdrawal to Swat—just the other side of the mountains—to shore up a deal to enforce Islamic law there.

‘People are scared,’ said local resident Nisar Khan.

‘We used to see women going to their offices before the Taliban arrived in the area, but today they did not go to their jobs,’ he added.

‘Shops are open and there are no signs of armed Taliban patrolling streets in Buner but people face uncertainty and fear that they may come back,’ Khan told AFP by telephone from the district.

People were reluctant to go to markets and other public places, as women stayed away from their workplaces and girl students stayed at home on the morning after the pull back, witnesses said.

The government deployed up to 300 extra paramilitary police to secure Buner but Taliban elements were still present, local police said.

Banners, which were strung up in Buner town after the Taliban moved in telling women not to go to markets, still flapped in the wind Saturday, said one resident, on condition of anonymity.

Jam Sher Khan, who works for a local non-governmental organisation, said the Taliban had forcefully occupied his office in Buner.

‘Now they have left but our office is still locked and we will not resume duty until authorities provide us security,’ he said.

A Taliban commander said after his men entered Buner that they would set up strict Islamic sharia courts, as they have done in Swat.

Both Buner and Swat fall within Malakand, a district of some three million people in North West Frontier Province where President Asif Ali Zardari has ratified an agreement to enforce sharia law in exchange for peace.

‘Female staff in my office as well as schools and colleges did not turn up today,’ said deputy district education officer, Mohammad Sahib.

Some people were grateful that the threat of a military operation to flush out the Taliban had been averted—at least for now....

An update on this story. "Pakistan Taliban 're-enters' Buner," from Al Jazeera, April 25 (thanks to Alex):

Pakistani Taliban fighters are reportedly re-entering Buner, hours after they pulled back from the district just 100km away from the capital Islamabad.

Hoda Abdel Hamid, Al Jazeera's correspondent reporting from Pakistan, said there were reports of about 100 Taliban fighters heading back to Buner from the neighbouring Swat valley on Friday evening.

Earlier during the day, the Taliban had appeared to withdraw from the district, a day after its fighters clashed with regional forces, leaving one policemen dead.

"Our leader has ordered that Taliban should immediately be called back from Buner," Muslim Khan, a Pakistan Taliban spokesman, had said.

The group's move into Buner had alarmed the Pakistan government over what the Taliban's future intentions might be.

Well... duh.

Army assurance

Meanwhile, General Ashfaq Kayani, Pakistan's army chief, has sought to dispel doubts that the country's armed forces were reluctant to take on the fighters.

The army "will not allow the militants to dictate terms to the government or impose their way of life on the civil society of Pakistan", he said in a statement after a meeting of high-level military commanders on Friday.

Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistani president, ratified a deal in April to put Malakand - home to about three million people in northwest Pakistan, including the district of Buner - under sharia, or Islamic law, as part of efforts to end a Taliban revolt.

Critics who attacked the Swat deal on the grounds that the government "capitulation" would only embolden the Taliban, have said that the fighters' entry into Buner vindicates their fears.

Indeed. Another report confirms that "local" Taliban remain in Buner. Note the Taliban's pledge not to "exhibit" their weapons. It's not exactly disarmament. "Taliban ‘leave’ Pakistan district, US warns of attacks," from Agence France-Presse, April 25:

[...] Officials confirmed the Taliban “withdrawal” but said local Taliban remained in Buner. Neither did the Taliban show any sign of lessening their grip on neighbouring Swat, a former tourist resort plunged into brutal insurgency.

“I do not know the exact number of my men who left the area but they all boarded in 15 vehicles to return to Swat,” said Muslim Khan, the main Taliban spokesman in the area who presented the ”withdrawal” as a goodwill gesture.

“We have withdrawn from Buner to show our commitment to make the peace deal a success,” Khan said referring to a controversial agreement to enforce Islamic law in part of northwest Pakistan in exchange for an end to fighting in Swat.

He did not disclose how many “local Taliban” remained in Buner. [...]

The Taliban has shown no sign of disarming as demanded by the government.

“We will not exhibit arms as part of the deal. But our government should stop its policy of appeasing the US,” the Taliban spokesman said. [...]

Actually, it was Sunnis killing Shi'ites. But never fear -- those right-wing Christian extremists are sure to do something, sometime!

The renewed jihad in Iraq continues. "Suicide bombs kill scores in Baghdad: At least 60 die near Shia shrine following arrest of suspected al-Qaida in Iraq leader," by Martin Chulov in The Guardian, April 24 (thanks to James):

At least 60 people were killed and more than 125 injured this morning when two suicide bombers detonated explosive vests near the most important Shia Muslim shrine in Baghdad.

The attacks came 24 hours after a volley of explosions killed more than 80 people in Iraq's deadliest day in months, and raised fears of a fresh wave of sectarian violence following a period of relative calm.

Today's attack targeted Shia worshippers at the gates of the tomb of Imam Mousa al-Kazim, an important Shia saint, in the district of Khadimiya. At least 25 of the victims were Iranian pilgrims.

A police official told Associated Press that the bombers struck shortly before the start of Friday prayers as worshippers streamed into the mosque. It was the deadliest single incident in Iraq since 63 people died in a lorry bomb blast in Baghdad on 17 June last year....

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas jihad terror funding case, and an organization that has seen several of its officials convicted on various terrorism-related charges, has once again gone to its favorite useful idiot, Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, for talking points on how to defame me.

The background is this: I was invited to speak in Cologne, Germany, by the group Pro-Köln. Johnson, who sees neo-Nazis hiding under his bed and behind the shrubbery, showed himself in top form, and immediately decided that this group must be neo-Nazi as well -- despite the fact that real neo-Nazis despise and repudiate them for their pro-Israel stance. Stacy McCain wrote sensibly about this today.

In reality, I would never be associated with any actual racists or neo-Nazis, but Johnson in his reckless efforts to destroy those whom he has decided are his enemies has made so many false allegations that it is difficult to sort out the truth. In this case, I have not confirmed that I will be attending, and am looking into the group and the people involved, but Johnson jumped the gun and said I had confirmed (you'll have to paste in the link; juvenile Johnson has blocked links from this site) -- and CAIR was off to the races.

CAIR and Charles Johnson have demonstrated again and again that they are not interested in truth and accuracy, but only in character assassination and defamation of their perceived "enemies." It's interesting, also, that they increasingly have the same enemies. How proud Charles Johnson must be, to see his defamatory material once again picked up by a Hamas-linked group! This is getting to be a regular gig, eh, Charles? Maybe you can start drawing a nice regular check from the National Islamic Bank in Gaza!

This could end up being a very costly lab experiment. More on this story: "U.S. plans to accept several Chinese Muslims from Guantanamo: The Uighurs would be the first detainees from the prison to settle in America. Challenges are expected from China and within the U.S.," by Julian E. Barnes in the Los Angeles Times, April 24 (thanks to Randall):

Reporting from Washington -- The Obama administration is preparing to admit into the United States as many as seven Chinese Muslims who have been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay in the first release of any of the detainees into this country, according to current and former U.S. officials.

Their release is seen as a crucial step to plans, announced by President Obama during his first week in office, to close the prison and relocate the detainees. Administration officials also believe that settling some of them in American communities will set an example, helping to persuade other nations to accept Guantanamo detainees too.

But the decision to release the Chinese Muslims, known as Uighurs, is not final and faces challenges from within the government, as well as likely public opposition. Among government agencies, the Homeland Security Department has registered concerns about the plan.

The move would also incense Chinese officials, who consider the Uighurs domestic terrorists and want those held at Guantanamo handed over for investigation. U.S. officials no longer consider the Chinese Muslims to be enemy combatants and fear they would be mistreated in China.

This is all about protecting them, you see.

There are 17 Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gers) at Guantanamo. A U.S. official familiar with the discussions over their release said that as many as seven could be resettled in the U.S., possibly in two or more small groups.

Officials have not said where in the United States they might live. But many Uighur immigrants from China live in Washington's Virginia suburbs, and advocates have urged that the detainees be resettled near people who speak their language and are familiar with their customs. [...]

The Uighurs were sent to Guantanamo in 2002 after being captured in Pakistan. Before that, they had gravitated to Afghanistan, where they received firearms training at a camp apparently run by a Uighur separatist.

Some former U.S. officials have said government information indicates that the Uighurs may pose a danger if released. But other officials and human rights organizations insist they pose no threat to Americans.

"It is kind of hard to tell other countries you would like them to accept some of these guys from Guantanamo if you are not willing to accept them," said the U.S. official, who described the internal discussions on condition of anonymity.

The release is a slap in the face to Beijing, which has requested that the Uighur prisoners be repatriated to China to stand trial for separatist activities. In their testimony before the Guantanamo tribunal, the Uighurs admitted that their purpose in going to Afghanistan was to receive military training to fight Chinese rule over Xinjiang.

"If these people are terrorists, they should be punished. If they are not terrorists, the United States should apologize to China for holding them so long and make compensation," said Zhang Jiadong, an expert in terrorism at Fudan University's Center for American Studies. Zhang said, however, that he did not expect the Chinese government to retaliate because it was already widely anticipated in Beijing that the United States would not return the Uighurs to China.

"The [Chinese] foreign ministry will criticize the decision, but there is nothing they can do about it. We're used to the United States being tough with us," Zhang said.

In captivity, the Uighurs filed suit to win their freedom. A U.S. district court in 2008 ordered their release. The decision, appealed by the Bush administration, was overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Lawyers for the Uighurs appealed to the Supreme Court.

U.S. officials did not detail what supervision the Uighurs might receive once they are living on their own. But they said the Uighurs would be allowed to live freely.

So apparently they will have little or no supervision.

In 2006, the U.S. released five Uighurs into Albania. After pressure from Beijing, which also urged other countries with Uighur communities not to accept the released detainees, Albania declined to take any more.

The Uighurs oppose the Chinese government but do not consider the U.S. government a direct enemy. Still, many of the Uighurs hold strict views of what is permitted under Islam.

What, O Los Angeles Times, does their strict Islam have to do with whether or not they consider the U.S. government to be an enemy? Oh, do explain!

Within the prison, Uighurs are not considered a grave threat and are allowed greater freedom, such as television privileges, than other detainees.

But the TV privileges underscored potential difficulties to come, according to one current and one former U.S. official. Not long after being granted access to TV, some of the Uighurs were watching a soccer game. When a woman with bare arms was shown on the screen, one of the group grabbed the television and threw it to the ground, according to the officials.

Piety.

Since then, officials at Guantanamo have bolted down the TVs and shown pre-taped programs, editing out any images they thought Uighurs might find offensive....

Torture camp!

Sabin Willett, a lawyer for some of the Uighurs in Guantanamo, argued that his clients should be set free immediately. But he said officials should make sure that the Uighurs have some measure of protection from people who might mistakenly consider them a threat.

"I fear political opponents of the Obama administration will try to sow fear and paranoia about the Uighurs," Willett said. "Once America gets a look at our clients, all this mythology will fall away, and America will feel ashamed at the fact they were in prison so long."

Well, maybe it is all about fear and paranoia, and maybe it isn't. Finding out may, as stated above, be costly.

U.S. officials have supported Chinese Uighurs who have sought asylum to remain here but are opposed to elements of the Uighur movement. Earlier this week, the Treasury Department froze the assets of a Uighur leader, Abdul Haq. Haq's Eastern Turkestan Islamic Party advocates secession from China and creation of an independent state.

A Sharia state.

In a statement, the Treasury Department focused on a threat by Haq to attack the 2008 Olympic Games in China, and cited his party's support for Al Qaeda. There have been no allegations that the Guantanamo detainees have been affiliated with Haq.

Human rights advocates read the move against Haq as a diplomatic olive branch to Beijing to blunt the fallout from releasing the Uighurs into the U.S.

Willett, the detainees' attorney, said that of the five former Uighur prisoners released to Albania, four are still there and one has moved to Sweden.

"They have been living peacefully for three years," Willett said.

Oh, well, then!

Progress. Sharia Alert from modern, moderate Malaysia: "Malaysia will add more teeth to sharia courts," from the Times of India, April 25 (thanks to Block Ness):

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian government is planning to empower the sharia courts in the country to make it more effective, so as to change the perception that penalties imposed under the law were far too light, reports said.

Of course! How terrible it would be if people had that impression!

Minister in the PM’s Department Datuk Jamil Khir Baharom said along with measures to empower the sharia courts, efforts would also focus on enhancing effectiveness of religious enforcement agencies.

“The main focus of these efforts was to ensure that the implementation of whipping as a punishment under shariah would be carried out flawlessly,” the minister said on Thursday.

Nothing worse than a flawed whipping.

Recruiting followers and suicide bombers. "He was, in a very real sense, Hezbollah's man in New York City."

"6 years in prison for airing Hezbollah TV in NYC," by Larry Neumeister for Associated Press, April 23 (thanks to Block Ness):

NEW YORK (AP) -- A Pakistani immigrant described by prosecutors as "Hezbollah's man in New York City" was sentenced Thursday to nearly six years in prison for airing the militant group's television station.

U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman handed down a sentence of five years and nine months to Javed Iqbal, who had pleaded guilty in December to providing aid to a terrorist organization.

Iqbal, 45, admitted as part of a plea agreement that he used satellite dishes on his Staten Island home to distribute broadcasts of Al Manar, the TV station of the Lebanon-based Hezbollah, which has been fighting Israel since the early 1980s and has been branded by the U.S. government as a terrorist group.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Snyder said Iqbal recruited Al Manar, even traveling to "the belly of the beast, South Beirut," to meet with its general manager.

"He was, in a very real sense, Hezbollah's man in New York City," Snyder said.

Snyder said Iqbal bought special satellite equipment to allow Al Manar to provide 24-hour programming from November 2005 through May 2006 so Hezbollah could use it to recruit followers and suicide bombers. Prosecutors said Iqbal's business was paid $28,000 monthly for at least five months for airing the station to its North American customers....

What could go wrong? There are only "five to seven" prisoners to be released here, according to this report. They couldn't do any harm, now, could they?

Well, as Jed Babbin explains here, "reviewing the Uighurs detention, the inter-agency panel found that they weren’t the ignorant, innocent goatherds the White House believed them to be. The committee determined they were too dangerous to release because they were members of the ETIM terrorist group, the “East Turkistan Islamic Movement,” and because their presence at the al-Qaeda training camp was no accident. There is now no ETIM terrorist cell in the United States: there will be one if these Uighurs are released into the United States."

The ChiComs have warned other countries not to take them.

Change!

"Chinese Muslim inmates at Guantanamo Bay prison to be freed in U.S.: Move is 1st release of any of the detainees into this country," from the Chicago Tribune, April 24 (thanks to Ray):

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is preparing to free into the United States Chinese Muslims being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the first release of any of the detainees into this country, according to current and former U.S. officials....

However, the decision to release them is not final and faces challenges within the government as well as likely public opposition.

No kidding, really?

First, not only does sharia condemn (to death) the apostate, but Muslim women cannot wed infidel men (though the reverse is permissible since a subdued wife's religion is moot); second, the Egyptian constitution clearly states that "sharia is the basis for legislation." Result? Inhuman abuses of this nature on a regular basis:

"Egypt: Convert arrested for marrying Christian," from Compass Direct News, April 23:

Couple goes into hiding as police place Islamic law over Egyptian penal code.

ISTANBUL, April 23 (Compass Direct News) – Christian convert Raheal Henen Mussa and her Coptic husband are hiding from police and her Muslim family for violating an article of Islamic law (sharia) that doesn’t exist in the Egyptian penal code. Police arrested Mussa, 22, on April 13 for marrying Sarwat George Ryiad in a customary marriage (zawag al ‘urfi), an unregistered form of matrimony in Egypt made without witnesses.

Mussa’s family took her from police custody on Sunday (April 19), but she escaped from them on Tuesday (April 21). She and her husband fled Cairo and are in hiding. According to a strict interpretation of sharia, Muslim women are not permitted to marry non-Muslim men, although the opposite is allowed, and Article 2 of the Egyptian Constitution stipulates that sharia is the basis for legislation.

The two have not committed a crime according to Egyptian law since they didn’t seek official marriage status, but police and Mussa’s family are pursuing them because they violated Islamic law, advocacy groups say. “They have not violated the law, but the family and the police are applying their own unwritten law,” said Helmy Guirguis, president of the U.K. Coptic Association.

"The Abu Sayyaf rebels have been blamed for some of the worst terrorist attacks and high-profile kidnappings in the Philippines. They have beheaded hostages, including an American tourist abducted in 2001, when authorities failed to meet their demands." Typical jihadi behavior, past and present. An update on this story. "Troops clash with Muslim militants holding Red Cross hostage," from Earth Times, April 23:

Manila - Government troops clashed with Muslim militants holding captive an Italian Red Cross worker on a southern Philippine island, a military spokesman said Thursday. Brigadier General Gaudencio Rosales said the fighting erupted Wednesday when Muslim Abu Sayyaf rebels tried to break out of a cordon set up by government forces in Talipao town on Jolo island, 1,000 kilometres south of Manila.

The clash occurred as government troops launched operations to rescue Eugenio Vagni, an Italian employee of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), who has been held captive by the guerrillas for more than three months.

Governor Abdusakur Tan, head of the committee handling the hostage crisis, ordered the rescue operations Wednesday amid reports Vagni was suffering form a hernia injury and was in need of immediate medical attention.[...]

Vagni was abducted along with fellow ICRC workers Swiss Andreas Notter and Filipino Mary Jean Lacaba on January 15 after they visited the Jolo provincial jail to oversee a water and sanitation project.

The rebels freed Lacaba on April 2 and Notter on April 17.

Notter has returned to his homeland on Tuesday, while Lacaba has been with her family in the southern city of Davao since her release.

The Abu Sayyaf rebels have been blamed for some of the worst terrorist attacks and high-profile kidnappings in the Philippines. They have beheaded hostages, including an American tourist abducted in 2001, when authorities failed to meet their demands.

Muslim women don't want to have half-naked men around them. Fair enough; many non-Muslim women would agree. However, is this just a matter of universal sexual mores (irrespective of religion), or is it, once again, the desire to be true to Islamic law? According to Daniel Pipes, "[R]ather than instill internalized ethical principles [Western notion of sexual responsibility], Islam establishes physical boundaries to keep the sexes apart and punishes transgressions harshly.... Resistance to Western influences has less to do with morality than with fears of unleashed forces that would destroy Islamicate society" (In the Path of God, 181).

"Netherlands: Muslim orgs want separate rooms in hospitals," from Islam in Europe, April 24:

Muslim organizations in Breda (Netherlands) insist on separate rooms for men and women at Amphia Hospital. "Many Muslim women don't think it's nice based on religious conviction to have a half-naked man in the bed next to them," says Driss Siraji, who spoke with the hospital on behalf of the Immigrant Council and the Aarahman mosque.[...]

Sirajij says that he often meets women who want to be cared in a separate room. "Not in emergency cases, but by regular admission." In 2006 there were plans to build a Muslim hospital in Rotterdam, but nothing came of it yet.

Amphia, who also has a branch in Oosterhout, will soon appoint a Muslims chaplain for the first time. This is after urging from the same Islamic organizations. Other hospitals already have such chaplains in service.

Why were they closed in the first place? "Because they were considered outside a law governing religious practice." Or, as this earlier JW story makes clear, they were outside a law which was meant to "restrict the practice of religions other than Islam, and reinforce Islam's constitutional status as the state religion."

"Algeria: Christian churches reopen," from Adnkronos, April 23:

Algiers, 23 April (AKI) - Twenty-two Christian churches closed by Algerian authorities last year have reopened. According to a report in the Algerian daily, Ech-Chourouk citing an American Christian group called Open Doors, the protestant churches were among 26 churches shut down in 2006 because they were considered outside a law governing religious practice.

Based on the newspaper report published on Thursday, it seems that the 22 churches have obtained the permits required by Algerian authorities for Christian worship.

In recent months many politicians and Muslim religious leaders have criticised the activities of Christian missionaries in Algeria, stressing the opening of new evangelical churches, particularly in the area of Cabilia.

Several French and American religious groups have recently been accused of pressing Algerians to convert to Christianity in exchange for help to emigrate elsewhere.

Because Islam "is a religion that calls for love, tolerance, and civilized coexistence," you see. Yet they once again seem to be less concerned about the Muslims who clearly aren't interested in love, tolerance, and civilized coexistence -- and explain why they aren't using Islamic texts and teachings -- than they are in the unbelievers who have the bad taste to notice.

"Terrorism, Islam are different -- Arab League," from KUNA, April 24 (thanks to Twostellas):

VIENNA, April 24 (KUNA) -- The Arab League called for differentiating between terrorism and Islam, which is a religion that calls for love, tolerance, and civilized coexistence.

Arab League Secretary General's Advisor for Legal Affairs Mohammad Ridhwan Bin Khadhra, at the 18th meeting of the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ) held here, said that the killing of civilians was rejected by religions and international conventions.

Yes. But what about this? And this? Why don't Islamic spokesmen who claim to be moderate ever address such statements?

He said it was important to combat terrorism, deal with its reasons, and differentiate between it and people's right to fight invaders and external aggression.

In other words, the West must abandon Israel.

He called for holding an international conference under the supervision of the UN, or a special UN General Assembly meeting on terrorism, and urged the international community to approve the UN draft agreement on the issue....

The way the UN is now, such a conference would criminalize any discussion of Islamic jihad in connection with terrorism.

But deep down, they really, really, want peace! "Al-Mujahideen Brigades call for unity, promise to continue Jihad," from Ma'an News Agency, April 24 (thanks to James):

Gaza – Ma’an – The Fatah-affiliated Al-Mujahideen Brigades called all the Palestinian factions to unite and solve all issues preventing national unity during a commemoration ceremony in Gaza City Thursday.

Marking the second anniversary of the Israeli assassination of brigades’ leader Omar Abu Shri’a the group gathered supporters in the Rashad Ash-Shawwa area of central Gaza City. In speeches during the event leaders called on rival parties and military groups to prepare the coming generations to be more united for a better future.

The brigades promised their late general and all Palestinians who sacrificed their lives that they would remain committed to Jihad and resistance, but that they would also work to ensure unity in an effort to strengthen the Palestinian position.

Another week, another Donors' Conference. This time, it's Somalia. Somalia, described -- does anyone know what this phrase that has come into fashion really means? -- as a "failed state." And these "failed states" -- which all happen to be Muslim states -- have to be propped up, and propped up, and propped up, it seems, by money from non-Muslim states, non-Muslim taxpayers. Because, you see, it is the absence of money that causes these states to be "failed states." And any Muslim state will become a "failed state," apparently, if it lacks the unmerited manna of oil-and-gas revenues (the Muslim members of OPEC have received more than twelve trillion dollars since 1973 alone), or if it is not given all kinds of special benefits and enormous injections of Infidel aid.

Regarding that aid, see Pakistan, see Egypt, see Jordan, and, of course, see the Favorite Charity of Everyone, apparently, the local Arab shock troops of the Lesser Jihad against Israel, the soi-disant "Palestinians" -- who, as a separate people, were founded round about late 1967, a few months after the Six-Day War ended, and it was time to take a different propagandistic tack.

Reconciler

In 2007 I wrote this in the Journal of International Security Affairs: "Aweys, who became the [Islamic Courts Union] group’s leader around the same time it began to gain significant power in Somalia, struck an explicitly anti-American posture and spoke of the Islamic Courts’ effort to take control of Somalia as part of the global jihad, vowing to fight America and its allies 'everywhere, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Sudan.'”

And now he is back.

"Sheikh Aweys returns to Somalia to 'reconcile Islamist factions,'" from Garowe Online, April 23 (thanks to James):

MOGADISHU, Somalia Apr 23 (Garowe Online) - The leading opposition figure in Somalia returned to the country on Thursday after spending more than two years exiled in Eritrea, Radio Garowe reports.

Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the former legislative head of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), arrived on a private plane at No.50 airstrip in Lower Shabelle region.

He was accompanied by a seven-member delegation from the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS), an Islamist-led opposition group that divided into two camps months before ex-ICU executive chief Sheikh Sharif Ahmed became President of Somalia.

"I will meet with anyone concerned about Somalia and my trip [to Somalia] is not influenced by foreign countries," Sheikh Aweys told Qatar-based Al Jazeera TV, although he did not specify whether he plans to meet with President Sheikh Sharif.

Sheikh Ismail Haji Addow, a senior member of ARS-Eritrea, told reporters that Sheikh Aweys would meet with meet with different sections of society in Mogadishu to promote reconciliation among Islamist factions.

"We [ARS-Eritrea] have moved back to Mogadishu, but we will keep an office in Eritrea," Sheikh Addow said, while underscoring that Sheikh Aweys' main task would be to reconcile factions within the muqawama, or the resistance movement that became popular during the Ethiopian army's two-year intervention in south-central Somalia....

Sheikh Aweys fled Mogadishu in Jan. 2007 as Ethiopian troops backing then-Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf's interim government entered the capital and dislodged the ICU from power.

The ICU fractured into different factions and began a bloody guerrilla war, known locally as the muqawama.

Some ICU factions later joined the Somali government, but the hardliners like Al Shabaab and Hizbul Islam – to which Sheikh Aweys and the ARS-Eritrea faction is a member – have rejected to recognize the government....

More signs of escalation as Pakistan continues its deterioration into a failed state -- a failed state with nuclear weapons. "Taliban attack Christians in Karachi," by Qaiser Felix for AsiaNews, April 23:

Karachi (AsiaNews) – Armed men yesterday attacked a group of Christians in Taiser Town, near Karachi. They set ablaze six Christian houses and injured three Christians, including an 11-year-old boy, who is in critical condition in the hospital, Fr Richard D’Souza told AsiaNews.. Taiser Town, which is home to about 750 Christian families including 300 Catholic families, is part of the Parish of St Jude in the Archdiocese of Karachi.

Two police officials, who spoke to AsiaNews on condition of anonymity, said that Qudoos Masih, one of the people injured in the incident, filed an initial report at the Sarjani Town police against unknown persons.

The police confirmed that seven suspects were arrested with heavy weapons on them. Police is still conducting its investigation and does not know who is behind the violence.

A policeman said that only three Christians were injured, including a minor who is in critical conditions. A Muslim from the group of attackers was also hurt.

Fr Pervez Khalid, assistant parish priest at St Jude’s Parish Church, told AsiaNews that no one was killed in the attack but that six people had gunshot wounds.

The situation is now under control, he added. Rangers and police and were patrolling the streets. Still people are very scared and dare not go out, especially after police advised them to stay in-door.

Father D’Souza, parish priest at St Jude’s, visited the area where the attack took place. There, he saw graffiti on the walls of the area’s two churches, saying ‘Taliban zindabad’ (Live long Taliban), ‘Islam zindabad’ (Live long Islam), ‘Christians Islam qabol karo’ (Christians, convert to Islam)....

No worries: once they take over Pakistan, Obama will sit down and talk with them without preconditions, and straighten everything out. "Taliban turn children into live bombs," from the Daily Times, April 23 (thanks to Jeffrey Imm):

TANK: Haneef Mehsud was a normal teenager who spent most of his time hanging out with friends and playing cricket before he was recruited by the Taliban and turned into a suicide bomber. Less than a month after his 17th birthday in late 2008, Haneef killed two soldiers when he rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into an army convoy on a road not far from his home in Pekai, a hamlet in the militancy-plagued South Waziristan.

“We tried to stop him when he visited his family two weeks before the attack and informed us that he was soon going to embrace martyrdom,” Haneef’s father, Ghazi Mehsud, told DPI.

Ghazi moved to the neighbouring district of Tank in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), to save his second teenage son from the influence of his fellow tribesman and local warlord Baitullah Mehsud, who he blames for Haneef’s recruitment and death.

But hundreds more children are still undergoing brainwashing at dozens of ‘suicide nurseries’ run by the ethnic Pashtun Taliban commander. Mehsud, in his 30s, has emerged as the most dangerous Taliban commander in Pakistan in recent years. He heads Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, an umbrella group for around a dozen Taliban outfits and has close links with Al Qaeda. The notorious commander is believed to have been behind several dozen suicide bombings across the country, including the one that killed former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in late 2007.

During the Bhutto case investigations, the authorities detained Aitzaz Shah, 15, in NWFP. Shah told the investigators that he was deployed as the “backup bomber” for Bhutto’s assassination by Mehsud’s men.

According to the DPI report, in January 2008, during a short offensive, the military discovered a suicide nursery in the Spinkai area of South Waziristan.

Four months later, the military showed reporters video footage of a classroom where a masked teacher taught children how to carry out a suicide attack. The children, sitting in rows, were wearing white headbands inscribed with Quranic verses. Maj Gen Athar Abbas, the army’s chief spokesman, said that soldiers had rounded up over 50 boys who were undergoing suicide attack training....

Many of you have written to me saying I should ignore Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs and his relentless smear and libel campaign against me and others who are defending the freedom of speech and equality of rights of all people against the global jihad and Islamic supremacism.

It would be good to ignore him, but unfortunately, although his readership is plummeting, he still commands a sizable audience, and many people (who of course must not have been paying close attention) still think he is fighting against the jihadists -- when in reality he is only engaging in relentless defamation of those he dislikes. And since that defamation spreads far and wide, it must be opposed.

Today he is once again attacking Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs, whom he clearly fears a great deal (inasmuch as she tells the truth about him), along with Paul Belien and me for being invited to speak at an anti-Islamization conference by the group Pro-Köln. Pro-Köln, he says, is a neo-Nazi group, and he has a photo of some guy who is not involved with Pro-Köln but is wearing a Hitler-style overcoat to prove it. And if Pamela, Paul and I are speaking there, well, we must be Nazis too, right?

In reality, the fact that we were invited to speak indicates in itself that Pro-Köln is not a neo-Nazi group. We are known to be pro-Israel, and if I go I would speak in defense of Israel and against neo-Nazism, Holocaust denial, etc. Outside of Charles Johnson's fantasies, no one has ever actually seen a pro-Israel neo-Nazi. Racist parties such as the BNP and antisemites such as Jean Marie LePen's National Front are not welcome and have not been invited.

Moreover, as John Rosenthal reported in Pajamas Media last year, the German intelligence service in Hamburg has found that real German neo-Nazis despise Pro-Köln because it is...pro-Israel.

And finally, this whole line of inquiry is absurd. The idea that if someone speaks somewhere, he must therefore hold all the same views that the other speakers hold, is not worthy of serious consideration. Question for Charles Johnson: as he well knows, since I met with him at the time, I once spoke at the same event at which the featured speaker was none other than Hillary Clinton. Does that make her a neo-Nazi as well? (Or does it make me a Leftist and a socialist?) After all, she spoke on a bill with someone who once spoke on another bill with someone who was accused of being in the same room with someone who was once photographed at a funeral with someone who...

For that matter, is Johnson a neo-Nazi as well, since he met with me then also? Of course not -- because after all, he renounces all neofascism, race supremacism, etc., right? He sure does. And so do I.

It is astounding that otherwise reasonable people fall for his sort of "analysis."

Apparently the President will stop at nothing to please the mullahs. "US wants Iran hostage suit tossed out," from The Associated Press, April 22 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

The Obama administration has asked a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit against Iran filed by Americans held hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran 30 years ago.

The request comes in a $6.6 billion class-action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington. Fifty-two American diplomats and military officials were held captive for more than a year at the end of Jimmy Carter's presidency by a group of Islamist students who supported the Iranian revolution.

The hostages were released on Jan. 20, 1981, just minutes after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as the new president.

In court papers filed Tuesday night without any announcement, the Justice Department argued that the agreement to release the hostages, known as the Algiers Accords, precluded lawsuits against Iran.

A similar lawsuit brought by the Iranian hostages was dismissed in 2000 after the government successfully argued it was banned by the Algiers Accords. The hostages argue that legislation passed by Congress last year and signed into law by President George W. Bush gives them the right to bring private lawsuits.

But the Justice Department argued that the law does not mention the Algiers Accords, much less explicitly repeal them....

Astounding. Obama's Justice Department didn't have to intervene in this. The fact that it did indicates that not stepping on Iranian toes is a very, very high priority for Obama.

Tuesday I had the honor of speaking at a Hudson Institute luncheon in New York City; other speakers in this Hudson NY luncheon event series this spring include Elie Wiesel, Amir Taheri, Michael Barone, Henry Kissinger, Antonin Scalia, Karl Rove, and Mortimer Zuckerman. (Imagine the guilt-by-association games you could play with a list like that!) I spoke about intimidation, a little-noted but highly successful jihadist tactic these days.

And this coming Monday evening I'll be speaking at American University in Washington, DC, where I expect the usual warm reception I get from today's crop of serious, dedicated, and well-informed university students. I'll post a full report here.

Imagine if you will, a nuclear-armed jihadist regime in Islamabad. It's enough to turn even Hillary Clinton against Sharia rule. An update on this story. "Pakistan troops rush to Taliban-infiltrated area: NATO truck base also attacked; Clinton urges Islamabad to focus on threat," from MSNBC, April 23 (thanks to DJR):

ISLAMABAD - Gunmen attacked a Pakistani paramilitary force sent to a Taliban-infiltrated district just 60 miles from the capital Thursday, killing a police officer and feeding growing doubts about the government's peace deal with extremists in the area.

A meeting between Taliban representatives and tribal elders ended with the militants making some concessions but no pledge to withdraw from Buner, where they have established bases since crossing over from their stronghold in the neighboring Swat Valley.

Militants also attacked a NATO truck terminal in the outskirts of Peshawar, the capital of the restive North-West Frontier Province, burning vehicles and sending a very visual message of their presence.

Swat's Taliban appear to be emboldened after their bloody, two-year campaign in the valley led the government to agree to a peace accord that imposes Islamic law in a wide swath of the northwest bordering Afghanistan. [...]

Militants have made no secret of their desire to see Islamic law imposed across the country, and as they edge closer to Islamabad, unease about the peace deal is growing in Pakistan and in the West. The U.S. is especially concerned because it considers stability in Pakistan — and rooting out its militant sanctuaries — critical to success in the Afghan war.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told American lawmakers in an unusually blunt statement Wednesday that Pakistan's leaders were "basically abdicating to the Taliban." On Thursday, however, she said the Pakistani government appeared increasingly aware of the threat. [...]

As reports filtered out about Taliban fighters moving into Buner — that they were patrolling roads, broadcasting radio sermons and ordering barbers to stop shaving beards — the government sent six platoons from the paramilitary Frontier Constabulary to the district this week. [...]

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani insisted no group would be allowed to challenge the authority of the government, but a few lawmakers — including some who initially backed the peace deal with the Swat Taliban — said the administration had to do more to contain extremists. [...]

No kidding, really?

"If the Taliban continue their advances at the current pace they will soon be knocking at the doors of Islamabad," added Fazl-ur-Rehman, head of the Jamiat-e-ulema-e-Islam, the country's largest Islamic party. [...]

Analysts said Buner is a wake-up call for a Pakistani government that has often seemed weak-willed in dealing with insurgents. But, they said, Islamabad is not in danger now.

"The military is going to be the major impediment" to taking the capital, said Hasan Askari-Rizvi, a leading political analyst. Still, he said, sympathizers in the capital could use the Buner advance as a rallying cry to cause unrest. [...]

A Taliban leader who goes by the name "Commander Khalil" said the militants agreed to stop patrolling in Buner, though they would keep armed guards in their vehicles.

"We are here peacefully preaching for Sharia (Islamic law). We don't want to fight," Khalil told an Associated Press reporter by phone. [...]

According to officials, the Taliban have established a base in the village of Sultanwas and set up positions in the nearby hills. Residents say they have been broadcasting sermons by radio about Islam and warning barbers to stop shaving men's beards. [...]

Not that this has anything to do with Islam.

"I think the Pakistani government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and the extremists," Clinton told lawmakers in a hearing Wednesday in Washington. But on Thursday she added that she thought Islamabad was beginning to recognize the severity of the threat posed by militants.

On Wednesday, Clinton said the Obama administration is working to convince Pakistan that its traditional focus on India as a threat has to shift to the Islamic extremists.

"Changing paradigms and mindsets is not easy, but I do believe there is an increasing awareness of not just the Pakistani government but the Pakistani people that this insurgency coming closer and closer to major cities does pose such a threat," the secretary of state said. [...]

Changing paradigms and mindsets is indeed not easy. Pakistan as a jihadist, Sharia state might actually awaken some people to the reality of the global jihad -- that is, if the world survives long enough.

As we have long noted here, in a state like Afghanistan, the proponents of Sharia will never accept a democratic republic -- it's Islamic law or war. So what exactly are U.S. forces going to accomplish there?

"Let Afghanistan Go," by Diana West, April 23 (thanks to Paul):

[...] Don't get me wrong: If killing small bands of Taliban is in the best interest of the United States, I'm for it. But I do not believe it is -- and certainly not as part of the grand strategy conceived first by the Bush administration and now expanded by the Obama administration to turn Afghanistan into a state capable of warding off what is daintily known as "extremism," but is, in fact, bona-fide jihad to advance Sharia (Islamic law). Anybody remember Sisyphus? Well, trying to transform Afghanistan into an anti-jihad, anti-Sharia player -- let alone functional nation -- is like trying to roll Sisyphus' rock up the hill.

This is not to suggest that there is no war or enemies to fight, which is what both the Left and the Paleo-Right will say; there most certainly are. But sinking all possible men, materiel and bureaucracy into Afghanistan, as the Obama people and most conservatives favor, to try to bring a corrupt Islamic culture into working modernity while simultaneously fighting Taliban and wading deep into treacherous Pakistani wars is no way to victory -- at least not to U.S. victory. On the contrary, it is the best way to bleed and further degrade U.S. military capabilities. Indeed, if I were a jihad chieftain, I couldn't imagine a better strategy than to entrap tens of thousands of America's very best young men in an open-ended war of mortal hide-and-seek in the North West Frontier.

I decided to ask someone with real military experience how we could fend off jihad without further digging ourselves into Central Asia. I called up retired Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely, one of the few top military leaders who talks on the record, to ask for his strategy recommendation for Afghanistan.

"Basically, let it go," he said.

Find out why. Read it all.

Contempt of court. Meanwhile, however, instead of simply dismissing Adem Yilmaz as an "extremist," it would be refreshing if Islamic spokesmen in the West would publicly call upon Muslims to respect and obey Infidel laws. It would be even better if they began to call upon Muslims in the West to renounce, now and forever, any intention of bringing Sharia here and replacing republican, secular government with it. But I won't be holding my breath.

"Judge Disciplines Accused in Terror Trial," from AP, April 23 (thanks to all who sent this in):

DUESSELDORF, Germany (AP) -- A judge ordered disciplinary measures for contempt of court against an Islamic terrorist suspect who went on trial Thursday with three co-defendants on charges of plotting attacks on American targets in Germany.

Adem Yilmaz, 30, refused to stand up during the swearing-in of a translator as the trial opened Wednesday, telling the court: ''I only stand up for Allah.'' He also refused to stand when the judges entered the courtroom on both Wednesday and Thursday.

Judge Ottmar Breidling ordered two weeks' detention for Yilmaz that will be added to any possible sentence, calling his actions ''provocative disrespect'' of the court.

Yilmaz, a Turkish citizen, is being tried along with another Turk and two Germans on charges of plotting to attack U.S. and other targets in Germany ahead of an October 2007 vote by the German parliament on extending German troops' stay in Afghanistan....

Prosecutors allege that the group planned car bomb attacks on sites such as pubs, discos and airports, and considered targets in cities including Frankfurt, Dortmund, Duesseldorf, Cologne, Stuttgart, Munich and Ramstein -- where the U.S. military has a large air base -- with the aim of killing ''as many people as possible.''

All the suspects are accused of being members of the radical Islamic Jihad Union, an offshoot of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. They face charges including membership in a terrorist organization and conspiracy to commit murder....

Piety: "Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of Paradise): they fight in His cause, and slay and are slain..." -- Qur'an 9:111.

"Iraqi officials say suicide bombs kill 78," by Chelsea J. Carter for Associated Press, April 23 (thanks to James):

BAGHDAD – Suicide bombers struck a humanitarian aid distribution point and a crowded restaurant in separate attacks Thursday in Iraq, killing at least 78 people in the deadliest day of violence to strike the country this year....

The latest attacks came as Iraqi security officials said they captured one of the most wanted leaders of the al-Qaida-linked Sunni insurgency, an arrest that could deliver a significant blow to an intensified campaign of attacks.

The officials identified the arrested man as Abu Omar al-Baghdadi who's believed to lead the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group of Sunni militant factions that is believed dominated by Al-Qaida in Iraq. However in the past, Iraqi officials have reported al-Baghdadi's arrest or killing, only to later say they were wrong. The U.S. military has even said al-Baghdadi could be a fictitious character used to give an Iraqi face to an organization dominated by foreign al-Qaida fighters....

In Baghdad, a suicide bomber blew himself up among a group of Iraqis collecting humanitarian aid in a mainly Shiite area, killing at least 31 people, the Iraqi military said.

The attacker struck as police were distributing Iraqi Red Crescent food parcels in the central neighborhood of Karradah, the main Baghdad military spokesman said....

Some police were among the 31 people killed and 51 people were wounded, the military said.

North of Baghdad, a suicide bomber killed 47 people, including Iranian pilgrims, in a crowded restaurant, said Iraqi and U.S. military officials....

Tony Blair is still dogmatically convinced that the Islamic jihadists are hijacking and twisting the true, peaceful Islam, and he shows no awareness of the classic theological and legal teachings that they can and do draw upon to justify their actions and make recruits among their fellow Muslims, but what he says here about the need to combat the ideology, and the ideological kinship among disparate jihad groups, is spot on.

Not that there aren't other major problems with what he says here -- see below.

"Tony Blair calls on world to wage war on militant Islam," by Ruth Gledhill for the Times Online, April 23 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

[...] In an address last night to a forum on religion and politics in Chicago, Mr Blair said that the world today faced a struggle posed by "an extreme and misguided form of Islam", which threatened the majority of Muslims as well as non-Muslims.

"Our job is simple: it is to support and partner those Muslims who believe deeply in Islam but also who believe in peaceful co-existence, in taking on and defeating the extremists who don't." [...]

It would have been good of Mr. Blair to supply some names at this point, since there are so many who have the reputation of being moderate but are not in fact interested in "peaceful co-existence," and the possibility of deception is so great. But no such luck.

"The case for the doctrine I advocated ten years ago remains as strong now as it was then," he said, arguing that there was a link between the murders in Mumbai, the terror attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan, the attempts to destabilise countries such as Yemen, and the training camps of insurgents in Somalia.

"It is not one movement. There is no defined command and control. But there is a shared ideology. There are many links criss-crossing the map of Jihadist extremism. And there are elements in the leadership of a major country, namely Iran, that can support and succour its practitioners."

Defending the Obama Administration's attempts to engage with Iran, Mr Blair said: "The Iranian Government should not be able to claim that we have refused the opportunity for constructive dialogue, and the stature and importance of such an ancient and extraordinary civilisation means that as a nation, Iran should command respect and be accorded its proper place in the world's affairs." I hope this engagement succeeds.

They will claim that no matter what. Blair seems oblivious to how Obama's hardline appeasement stance seems to have emboldened the mullahs and the Thug-In-Chief.

He argued that the purpose of such engagement should be clear and was about more than preventing Iran acquiring nuclear weapons capability. "It is to put a stop to the Iranian regime's policy of de-stabilisation and support of terrorism."

Listing the conflicts across the world, from Israel through Iraq to the Philippines and Algeria, he said: 'It is time to wrench ourselves out of a state of denial. There is one major factor in common. In each conflict there are those deeply engaged in it, who argue that they are fighting in the true name of Islam."

Mr Blair said that the doctrinal roots of extremism could be traced back to the period in the late 19th and early 20th century where modernising and moderate clerics and thinkers were slowly but surely pushed aside by the hard-line dogma of those, whose cultural and theological credentials were often dubious, but whose appeal lay in the simplicity of the message that Islam had lost its way and departed from the "true faith".

True enough, although those who made this claim could also point to jihads from before the 19th century that operated according to the same core beliefs as those they were advocating.

"The tragedy of this is that the authentic basis of Islam, as laid down in the Koran, is progressive, humanitarian, sees knowledge and scientific advance as a duty, which is why for centuries Islam was the fount of so much invention and innovation. Fundamental Islam is actually the opposite of what the extremists preach," he said.

Even if scientific advance were indeed urged upon Muslims as a duty in the Qur'an, this would say nothing about the jihad and Islamic supremacism that are also taught in the Qur'an. The "extremists," in fact, are not against "knowledge and scientific advance." They are not Amish with AK-47's. They make use, in fact, of the most sophisticated technology in their jihad.

He welcomed President Obama's reaching out to the Muslim world at the start of a new American Administration but warned that it would expose "the delusion of believing that there is any alternative to waging this struggle to its conclusion".

"But the ideology, as a movement within Islam, has to be defeated. It is incompatible not with 'the West' but with any society of open and tolerant people and that in particular means the many open and tolerant Muslims."

He had moved on from believing that the removal of a despotic regime was sufficient to create the condition for progress.

"This battle cannot so easily be won. Because it is based on an ideology and because its roots are deep, so our strategy for victory has to be broader, more comprehensive but also more sharply defined."...

Indeed it does.

Put them out on the streets of Des Moines and Duluth! What could go wrong?

"The Uighurs and the 'Torture' Memos," by my ace editor at Human Events, Jed Babbin, in Human Events, April 20 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

White House lawyers are refusing to accept the findings of an inter-agency committee that the Uighur Chinese Muslims held at Guantanamo Bay are too dangerous to release inside the U.S., according to Pentagon sources familiar with the action.

This action -- coupled with the release of previously top secret legal opinions on harsh interrogation methods -- demonstrates the Obama administration’s willingness to ignore reality.

President Obama’s decision to close the terrorist detention facility (known as “Gitmo” to the military) was made despite Bush administration determinations that there were no realistic alternatives to it.

Gitmo holds three classes of terrorist detainees: first, those that are held for prosecution of terrorist acts such as Khalid Sheik Muhammed; second, those who cannot be prosecuted and will be released or transferred to another country for trial or incarceration; and third, those who cannot be prosecuted (because the information against them is intelligence information inadmissible in court) but who pose such a danger that they cannot be released.

The last category encompasses a large number of the Gitmo detainees. The Supreme Court has held -- in the Hamdan decision -- that “administrative detention” is permissible in time of war.

After Obama’s promise to close Gitmo, the White House ordered an inter-agency review of the status of all the detainees, apparently believing that many of those held would be quickly determined releasable. The committee -- comprised of all the national security agencies -- was tasked to start with what the Obama administration believed to be the easiest case: that of the seventeen Uighurs, Chinese Muslims who were captured at an al-Queda training camp.

The Uighurs sued for release under the Supreme Court’s Boumediene decision, which gave Gitmo prisoners the Constitutional right to habeas corpus. Last October, a federal court ordered their release into the United States, but an appeals court overturned the decision, saying the right to make that determination rested entirely with the president. Since then, Attorney General Eric Holder has said that some of the Gitmo inmates may be released into the United States.

That, apparently, is what the White House plans for the Uighurs and others.

Reviewing the Uighurs detention, the inter-agency panel found that they weren’t the ignorant, innocent goatherds the White House believed them to be. The committee determined they were too dangerous to release because they were members of the ETIM terrorist group, the “East Turkistan Islamic Movement,” and because their presence at the al-Qaeda training camp was no accident. There is now no ETIM terrorist cell in the United States: there will be one if these Uighurs are released into the United States....

Read it all.

"People, we have a major problem on our hands"

A recent episode of the popular Egyptian TV program, “Cairo Today,” reveals how bad the situation has gotten for the Christian Copts of Egypt. The Muslim host, Amr Adib, a very famous TV personality, not just in Egypt but across the Arab world—not to mention vocal critic and nemesis of Fr. Zakaria Botros—in a very honest moment, expressed the severity of the situation.

Among other things, Adib confirmed that Coptic persecutions are more than what the media portrays, i.e., “sectarian conflicts”; that this is a “major problem” and society in its entirety needs to get involved; that this is not a superficial issue, but rather a deep-seated one, festering in the hearts; that weekly mosque sermons exacerbate the situation and lead directly to Coptic persecutions; and that media bosses warn TV hosts to stay clear of this topic.

Regarding this latter point, Amr is to be commended; for, whereas he, a (perhaps nominal) Muslim, spoke truthfully about this, some dhimmi Copts do the exact opposite when on the media.

Due to the importance of this episode, I deemed it relevant enough for translation, which follows (thanks to Victor and Reda for sending me the Cairo Today link).

By way of context, Adib began his tirade after discussing a recent residential quarrel, wherein Copts living in a building wanted the sole Muslim to leave, he refused, and eventually a quarrel erupted leaving the latter dead (for the record, the opposite is the norm). After reporting on this, Adib went on to say:

After this occurrence and during the Friday prayers [khutba], a large group of people [Muslims] came out of the mosque chanting “we will kill them” – and, by the way, this kind of thing happens very often in Alexandria, people erupt out of the mosque slandering and attacking Copts.

Of course, as usual, the same explanations were given—“this was a sectarian conflict, we Muslims and Copts are one people, one nation, we will stand next to each other, these are minor issues,” and so on and so forth.

Now, if you [the viewers, i.e., Egyptians] plan on continuing this way, we have a problem; I mean, if we in Egypt, continue dismissing these occurrences, then we have a major problem on our hands. However, if we want to take this seriously, and examine what’s really going on inside people, what the deal is, then that’s something else.

We’ve spoken about this issue a 100 times, and every time things smooth over; however, the time is nearing when things won’t pass over. I beg you, this is a very important matter; it’s not just about reconciling Gergis with Muhammad [i.e., reconciling any specific Christian to any specific Muslim]. What’s going on internally is something else; the schools, mosques, churches, media, and all of us must get involved—we must figure out what the deal is, what the trigger button is, what makes people go insane.

In other words, what would get an entire mosque to storm out screaming “they will die”? They have nothing to do with this; these mosque people were there to pray. Why are they involving themselves in a residential dispute?

On the other hand, our Christian brethren, what’s it to them that he was the only Muslim in the building, why did they want him to get out?

Anyway, this one passed – but what about the one before it, the one before that, the one that’s to come, and the one after that? What are you going to do?

If you plan on continuing this way, without seriously considering this issue, we have a major problem! I say this because I want to satisfy my conscience, for truly, I am daily torn to pieces when I hear of such things.

People, we are only kidding ourselves; there is a major problem; it must be treated; we must expose its roots. Postponing problems never fixes anything:

There’s a nation called America that is about to collapse. Why? Because it keeps postponing its economic problems until one day everything will come crashing down.

This goes back to the days of Sadat—we kept postponing, minimizing the importance of these clashes, saying they’re minor; then movies would be made portraying Christians and Muslims as best friends. This talk is simply not true. There’s something going on inside Pope Shenouda; there’s something going on inside Sheikh al Azhar.

Open up your hearts and tell us what’s going on! They warn us in this job [media], telling us not to talk about this issue. However, I—because I love this country—have a feeling that what happened in Karmuz is not the last we’ve heard of this, and this isn’t good.

I tell my Muslim brethren, guys, you’re the majority, you’re the ones who must hold off, be patient, lead by example. Our brethren the Copts, because they are the minority, have feelings of insecurity and fear.

Take any Copt to the side, away from the camera, and talk to him. He’ll tell you – “they don’t hire us, this happens to us, in the buses this occurs to us, in these areas they do this to us, we can’t build churches,” and so forth.

We’ve all memorized these complaints by heart; we all know what the Copts’ problems are….

People, we all know what’s going on, we need to openly discuss this, not postpone; it needs to be addressed seriously by all the relevant people to figure out how to solve this problem, how to reform the lessons in Muslim schools, in the Friday preaching in mosques.

Yesterday, I heard the khutba next door [Friday sermon], and the imam of the mosque was an animal; he was saying the worst things about Christians! And, of course, everyone sitting there was simply chanting la illah illa alla [There is no god but Allah, i.e., indicating assent].

I just wanted to go grab him by his throat! Who does he think he is? Does he know more than the prophet, or Abu Bakr, or Omar, or Amr? No, he’s a criminal; I just wanted to grab him by his throat, this man who is inciting the world to tear itself to pieces.

Little does Amr understand, but the sad fact is, yes, this imam knows as much as the aforementioned "pious" Muslims who usurped the Coptic nation and turned its people into subdued dhimmis—hence the festering problem, what is inside the hearts of Pope Shenouda and the Sheikh of Azhar: fear and hesitancy in the former, intolerance and a sense of superiority in the latter.

Cozying up to jihad terrorists -- the outcome of that can in no way be positive.

Washington signals softer tone on Hamas," by Daniel Dombey and Tobias Buck in the Financial Times, April 22 (thanks to Pamela):

Barack Obama's administration is trying to smooth the way for aid to a Palestinian government backed by Hamas in a striking contrast to the policy of George W. Bush, the former president, who sought to bring down any such government.

In a request for more than $800m in US funds for the West Bank and Gaza, the administration has asked Congress to soften rules for granting assistance to the Palestinians, to prevent disruption of aid in the event of a national unity government being formed....

According to legislation passed this year, aid to a power-sharing government including Hamas can only continue if Mr Obama certifies that the militant Islamist organisation has accepted international principles including renouncing violence, abiding by past agreements and recognising Israel's right to exist.

The latest request by the administration would instead require that the president certify "that such [a] government has accepted and is complying with the principles".

That is a much easier test, since Palestinian officials say any coalition agreed by the two parties would not include members of Hamas or its rival Fatah, but instead rely on independent politicians and technocrats.

The US move comes in spite of Israeli arguments that peace would not be advanced by a Palestinian government that included Hamas, which Israel, the US and the European Union all identify as a terrorist organisation....

Meanwhile, Obama has approved a Turkish arms sale to Lebanon, and the Russians, ever eager to aid the global jihad, are giving Lebanon fighter jets for free. Hmmm. I wonder who the Lebanese will use them against? Pamela has details.

She even spoke out against the Sharia deal in Swat. But what will the Obama Administration do about this "mortal threat"? Probably just throw more money at the problem -- a failed policy that nonetheless keeps being tried again and again.

"Hillary says Pak poses ‘mortal threat’ to world," from ExpressIndia, April 23 (thanks to A.P.M.):

Washington -- US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday said nuclear armed Pakistan, wherein Al Qaeda and the Taliban extremists are increasing their influence, poses a "mortal threat" to the world and asked the Pakistani officials as well as people to "speak out" forcefully against the Swat deal.

Good luck with that.

In her first testimony to Congress since her confirmation as the US chief diplomat in January, Clinton said Pakistan, poses a mortal threat to the security and safety of the US and the world.

She asked Pakistani government officials as well as Pakistanis at home and abroad, including in the United States, to "speak out forcefully against a policy (Swat peace accord) that is ceding more and more territory to the insurgents".

"I think that we cannot underscore the seriousness of the existential threat posed to the state of Pakistan by the continuing advances now within hours of Islamabad that are being made by a loosely confederated group of terrorists and others who are seeking the overthrow of the Pakistani state, which is, as we all know, a nuclear-armed state," Clinton asserted.

Briefing the House Foreign Affairs Committee about the foreign policy initiatives of the Obama Administration, she expressed concern that this seriousness was not visible among the Pak leadership.

"I don't hear that kind of outrage or concern coming from enough people that would reverberate back within the highest echelons of the civilian and military leadership of Pakistan," US Secretary of State said....

Fjordman examines an inaccurate and misleading new book:

This text is written in response to the book The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization by Jonathan Lyons, which was published early in 2009. I have made a brief, early review of this book at the Gates of Vienna blog and will expand upon this here. Thematically related to this is John Freely’s Aladdin’s Lamp, which I have also evaluated. I don’t recommend buying either of these books, but Freely’s work is the least bad of the two because he has a better grasp of the history of science than Mr. Lyons does.

Lyons’ work is 200 pages long, Freely’s 255 pages. Neither of them mentions the terms “Jihad” or “dhimmi” even once in their accounts of Islamic culture. This says a great deal about the current intellectual climate. I didn’t notice these words while reading the books and they are not listed in the indexes. The authors certainly don’t devote much time to debating the violent aspects of Islamic expansionism through the Islamically unique institution of Jihad or the fates of the conquered peoples, as documented by Bat Ye’or and others. Is it a coincidence that whatever useful scholarly work that was done in the Middle East happened during the first centuries of the Islamic era, while there were still many non-Muslims living in the region? The question is never debated by these authors, but in my view it deserves to be.

Stephen O’Shea of The Los Angeles Times in a very positive review claims that “Dust will never gather on Jonathan Lyons’ lively new book of medieval history.” I disagree. I consider The House of Wisdom to be a bad case of poor scholarship. The best thing I can say about it is that it is not as bad as God's Crucible by the American historian David Levering Lewis, which I have written about previously. Lewis says in more or less plain words that it would have been better if Islam had conquered all of Europe and wiped out Western civilization. Incidentally, another person who believed this was Adolf Hitler, who lamented the fact that he had to deal with Christianity, with its nonsense about compassion and love, rather than Islam, which would have been a better match for his Nazism. The feeling was apparently mutual, as Adolf Hitler is still a bestselling author in the Islamic world, including in “moderate” Turkey.

Be sure to check out the new blog by Barry Rubin, a friend of Jihad Watch and author of many fine books, including The Truth About Syria: The Rubin Report. There is lots of material of interest there -- notably "Britain's Pro-Hamas Lobby" and "Memo to British Government: Dar al-Harb Isn't Arabic For House of Lords." And many more. Add it to your bloglist!

Actually, oddly enough, the perpetrators were Islamic jihadists. Expect worldwide demonstrations of angry Muslims proclaiming that mosques are holy places that must not be targeted this way.

And then stop for a moment and ask yourself why those demonstrations will not materialize.

"Iraq: Deadly bombing hits Sunni mosque," from AKI, April 23 (thanks to Twostellas):

Dhuluiya, 23 April (AKI) - A suicide bomber blew himself up inside a major mosque north of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, late Wednesday, killing at least five and injuring 15 others .According to the news agency, Voices of Iraq, the attack occurred at a Sunni mosque in Dhuluiya, north of the capital, during evening prayers.

“A suicide bomber wrapped in explosives blew himself up inside al-Khulafaa mosque, the biggest in Dhuluiya, during the Ishaa (night-time) prayer, killing five worshippers and wounding 15 others, according to an initial count,” the source told VOI.

The suicide bomber reportedly mingled with the worshippers before detonating an explosive vest.

The target of the attack was believed to be Mullah Nadhem al-Jubouri, a leader from a local Awakening Council, who was not present at the time of the blast....

In Human Events today, a word about Sharia Finance:

An Iranian newspaper has reported that four American banks have issued formal requests to the Central Bank of Iran to open branches in Iran. Citibank, Goldman Sachs and two others left unnamed plan, according to the report, to establish temporary branches in an Iranian free trade zone if their requests are approved. The newspaper Jaam-e-Jam quoted an unnamed source explaining: “If they can work according to Iran’s banking law, they will be allowed to open branches in Tehran and other cities.”

Is this where the bailout money is going?

It is curious that American banks -- which probably wouldn’t still be in business but for the taxpayers’ largess -- would want to do business in a country where the government holds military parades featuring banners proclaiming “Death to America” and whose President has declared: “I say accomplishment of a world without America and Israel is both possible and feasible.”

A good, and revealing, interview with Flemming Rose, the man behind the infamous "Muhammad-cartoon" incidents. "Muhammad cartoons editor: There's a problem with Muslims in Europe," by Nir Magal for Ynet News, April 22:

Flemming Rose, culture editor of Danish paper that published cartoons of Muslim prophet which led to riots, says clashes were attempt by Muslims to impose Islamic law on non-Muslim countries. He tells Ynet way to fight intolerance is by freedom of expression, not by limiting it.

Flemming Rose, culture editor of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten which published 12 cartoons depicting the Muslim Prophet Muhammad in 2005 that led to an outbreak of riots in the Muslim world in which over 50 people were killed, says he feels no remorse for his decision – but could not give a straight answer as to whether he would do it again.

Rose is currently in Israel as guest of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In an interview with Ynet on Tuesday he said, "If I said I wouldn't do it again, it would send a very bad message to those who committed crimes and intimidations, and would in fact be telling them: If you keep this up, we will do whatever you want.

"If I do say that I would publish the cartoons again, in light of what happened, people will think I am cynical and don't consider the repercussions of my actions. It's like asking a rape victim if she regrets wearing a revealing shirt for a Friday night out."

The crisis that was dubbed "the Muhammad cartoons controversy", broke out in two rounds. The first was in 2006, after Muslim clerics spoke out against the publication of the 12 Muhammad cartoons in Denmark. The second time was in February 2008, after no less than 18 different newspapers published the most famous of the drawings, that depicted the prophet with a bomb in his turban, in response to a foiled attempt on the lives of the illustrators...

Read it all.

Khaaaaannnnn!!!!

He said it. And Muslim Khan also mentioned the need to collect jizya payments from the dhimmis.

"TTP says Osama welcome in Swat: Taliban reject peace accord," from the Daily Times, April 22 (thanks to Block Ness):

MINGORA/LAHORE/NEW DELHI: Swat Taliban have said they are not bound to honour the peace accord between the government and cleric Sufi Muhammad, a private TV channel reported on Tuesday.

According to the channel, they said the NWFP government had signed the deal with Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi, and not with the Taliban.

Taliban sharia: Although there was no official confirmation, Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan issued a direct challenge to the legitimacy of Pakistan’s government in a telephone interview with the CNN, by demanding the imposition of the Taliban’s model of sharia throughout Pakistan and beyond, “even in America”.

Disagree: He also denounced any Pakistanis who disagreed with his interpretation of Islam, calling them “non-Muslims”. He also called for the imposition of jiziya, a tax to be levied on all non-Muslims in Pakistan....

As per Qur'an 9:29.

Warning against "un-Islamic" gyms, what with their "music, [and] semi-naked women"

"The advice is contained in Jihad Recollections, an English language online magazine believed to be published in the United States which openly supports al-Qaeda and contains an article purporting to be written by Osama bin Laden."

"Workout tips for jihad offered by al-Qaeda supporting magazine," by John Bingham for the Telegraph, April 21:

An al-Qaeda-supporting magazine has published workout tips for extremists planning jihad in countries such as Afghanistan.

Complete with photographs of men in white robes with scarves covering their faces performing a variety of squats and sit-ups, it advises supporters to keep in shape so that they can "strike hard" against their enemies.

There is also a warning against visiting "un-Islamic" western gyms including LA Fitness with their "music, semi-naked women, free mixing and the danger of showing off".

And there is advice against using weights because of their unavailability on the front line in places such as Afghanistan.

The advice is contained in Jihad Recollections, an English language online magazine believed to be published in the United States which openly supports al-Qaeda and contains an article purporting to be written by Osama bin Laden.

Jihadists fighting the Americans and the "Nato Crusading Army" – a reference to the international coalition in Afghanistan which includes British forces – are advised to take long walks to strengthen their legs for "carrying weapons and other equipment".

In order to build up arm strength, readers are told to do up to 150 press-ups a day and try to walk on their hands.

There are also diet tips which emphasise eating dates and dry crackers and drinking water, especially during Ramadan.

"Contrary to what many people believe, you really only need about 32 grams of protein, so don't waste your money on expensive protein milkshakes," the writer adds.

He describes it as "un-Islamic" to eat when not hungry simply in order to add weight, as his western fitness instructors had advised him, and claims that he has gained most muscle while fasting.

There's one particularly disturbing aspect to this very likely scenario: “The geographic proximity of Pakistan’s nuclear programme to these sophisticated terrorists and the recent history of illicit transfers of material and know-how pose a unique threat.”

"Next generation of dreaded terrorists will come from Pakistan," from the Daily Times, April 22:

Report says fragile state institutions, weak leadership and inadequate resources limit ability of Islamabad to fight militancy.

LAHORE: If Talibanisation of Pakistan continues at the current pace, the next generation of the world’s most dangerous terrorists will be born, indoctrinated, and trained in Pakistan, the Council on Foreign Relations, an American think tank, warned on Tuesday.

“Today, Al Qaeda’s top leadership is most likely based in Pakistan, along with the top Taliban leaders,” the report – titled From AfPak to PakAf: A Response to the New US Strategy for South Asia – said.[...]

Groups like the banned Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, according to the report, are well resourced and interconnected and some of these appear to retain influence in state institutions and enjoy public sympathy on account of social services.

It says over the past two years, the security environment in Afghanistan and Pakistan has taken a significant turn for the worse destabilising the Pashtun belt in southern and eastern Afghanistan as well as western Pakistan.

“At the same time, a range of other violent actors from Punjabi anti-Indian extremists to Central Asian warlords-operate in the non-Pashtun areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan,” according to the report, adding Pakistan and Afghanistan offer these groups an unusually hospitable environment, one that complicates and magnifies the danger.

The report by Daniel Markey also says that: “The geographic proximity of Pakistan’s nuclear programme to these sophisticated terrorists and the recent history of illicit transfers of material and know-how pose a unique threat.”

The report concludes that fragile state institutions, weak leadership, and inadequate resources limit the ability of Islamabad and Kabul to fight militancy in the near term or to foster moderation.

An update on this story. "Men plotted against UK publisher of Mohammad book," from The Star, April 21:

LONDON (Reuters) - Two men admitted on Tuesday plotting to firebomb the London home of the publisher of a controversial novel about the Prophet Mohammad's child bride.

Ali Beheshti, 41, and Abrar Mirza, 23, were arrested last September after an arson attack on the house in north London where Gibson Square publisher Martin Rynja lived and had an office.

The attack took place shortly before Gibson Square was due to publish "The Jewel of Medina" by journalist Sherry Jones, which traces the life of child bride Aisha from her engagement at the age of six to the prophet's death.

The building suffered minor fire damage after fuel was poured through the letterbox.

Beheshti and Mirza pleaded guilty at Croydon Crown Court in south London to conspiracy to recklessly damage property and endanger life, the Press Association reported.

A charge of arson with intent to endanger life was not pursued and they were remanded in custody for sentencing at a later date.

A third man, taxi driver Abbas Taj, 30, will go on trial next Tuesday charged with conspiracy to damage property with intent to endanger life and arson. He denies the allegations.

Gibson Square bought the rights to the novel after Random House dropped plans to publish it, fearing it could "incite acts of violence".

Jones said her book was respectful to Islam, and Rynja said last October that the novel was not offensive and that he felt its publication was part of a liberal democracy.

Sharia on the march in Pakistan. "Taliban Seize District Near Islamabad," by Zahid Hussain for Associated Press, April 22 (thanks to all who sent this in):

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan's Taliban have seized control of another district in the country's northwest just 70 miles from the capital after consolidating their hold on the Swat valley following a peace deal with the government, according to local government officials and residents.

The latest Taliban advance into the Buner district has spurred fears that the controversial accord, which allowed the militants to enforce Sharia law in Swat, has emboldened them to expand their influence.

No kidding, really?

Militants have been moving into Buner since the Swat peace deal was signed in February. But starting Tuesday night they seized control of the entire district, which has a population of more than one million people, local government officials and residents said. Heavily-armed militants, streaming in from Swat, occupied government offices and set up their own checkposts. Terrified residents fled their homes.

Dozens of hooded fighters carrying rocket launchers and machine guns ransacked the offices of international aid and development agencies working in the district and took away their vehicles. Some employees of the agencies were also briefly taken hostage. The militants set up their headquarters in Buner town after driving out government officials.

The Taliban have banned music and television and stopped women from entering into a popular shrine of a Muslim saint. They are also using mosques to invite local youth to join them. [...]

Not that mosques could play any role in turning young Muslims toward jihad violence and Islamic supremacism, you Islamophobe, you.

The development came after Sufi Mohammed, a radical cleric who played a central role in signing the peace accord called his followers to continue their struggle for the enforcement of Islamic rule in the entire North West Frontier Province.

Addressing a large crowd in Mingora, the main town in Swat on Sunday, Mr. Mohammed declared that there was no room for democracy in Islam. "The Western democracy is infidels and should be rejected by Muslims," he said....

Sufi Mohammed must be an Islamophobe as well.

The absurd and suicidal thirst to appease the jihadists reaches new heights in Britain -- and turns to a betrayal of Israel, as was inevitable. "Britain May Cut Arms to Israel; Hamas to Address Lords," by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu for Israel National News, April 21 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

Britain is warming up to Hamas and blowing chilly winds towards Israel. Its government is considering a ban on arms exports to the Jewish state after legislators had demanded that British weapons parts not be used against Arab terrorists.

Meanwhile, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal is to address the House of Lords via video despite objections by the British government.

But not Geert Wilders. Oh, no. That would have promoted "extremism."

And possibly executed -- in accord with the statement of the chief Islamic cleric of the Palestinian Authority. A But-They-Really-Want-Peace Update: "Palestinian land dealer to be tried for treason," by Ali Waked in Ynet, April 22 (thanks to Pamela):

A special Palestinian tribunal on Tuesday discussed for the first time the sale of lands to Jews by Palestinians, which has made waves in the West since it was first reported by Ynet.

The first person put on trial was a Hebron resident suspected of selling lands to Israelis. The prosecution demanded that he be convicted of treason....

Sources in the Palestinian Authority said that if the man were to be convicted of treason, he would most likely be sentenced to death.

Ynet reported recently that many Palestinians suspected of selling lands to Jews – including Israeli Arabs living in east Jerusalem – were released following Israeli pressure, and that the investigations against them were closed.

Following the report, members of the Fatah faction in the Jewish area began looking for the person who issued the order to end the investigation against those suspect. At the same time, the Palestinians are conducting a media and political war aimed at preventing Israeli associations from purchasing lands and houses in Jerusalem....

Fatah. You know, the "moderates."

The Iranians have just been an all-around class act at Durban II, haven't they? "'Wiesel, you Zionazi!!'," from YNet News, April 21:

Iranian disgrace in Geneva: A member of Iran's official delegation to the UN's anti-racism conference verbally assaulted Shoah survivor and Nobel Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel in Geneva, referring to him as a "Zionazi."

The incident was captured on film by Sergio Wider of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. The video features the Iranian official repeatedly screaming at Wiesel, who chose to remain silent and ignore the reprehensible comments.