August 2009 Archives

Obama's strange new respect comes home to roost. "Iraq Ministry Bombers Were Freed by US," from Agence France-Presse, August 31 (thanks to DFS):

The suicide bombers who killed 95 people in devastating attacks at Iraqi government ministries on August 19 were recently released from U.S. custody, a senior interior ministry official said on Sunday.

The truck bombings in Baghdad also wounded 600 people in what was the worst day of violence to hit the country for 18 months, dealing a major blow to the nation's security efforts in the wake of a major pullout of U.S. troops.

"The suicide bomber who blew himself up at the ministry of foreign affairs was released three months ago from Camp Bucca," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity, referring to the U.S. jail near Basra.

"The suicide bomber who blew himself up outside the ministry of finance was also released a few months ago from the same jail."

Since the start of this year 5,236 prisoners have been released from U.S. custody and 1,179 detainees handed over to the government of Iraq, according to figures released on Sunday.

Less than 9,000 prisoners are still in American-run prisons.

"We have no proof that a former detainee was involved in the bombings," a U.S. army spokesman told AFP.

"The government of Iraq is still investigating the attacks, and it would be inappropriate for us to speculate as to who may have been involved while the investigation is ongoing."

The interior ministry official, however, told AFP that 14 suspects had been arrested in the wake of the attacks and that the truck bombs were prepared in southern Baghdad.

"The vast majority of them were released in recent months from Camp Bucca," he said, noting that all of the suspects were from Nineveh and Salaheddin provinces.

"Each of them had a precise role. One was responsible for buying the trucks. One was in charge of making sure they could enter Baghdad. One made sure that the explosives were packed on the trucks and others were the suicide bombers."

The dhimmis, or non-Muslim subjects of the Islamic state, according to a manual of Islamic law endorsed by Al-Azhar University in Cairo as reflective of Sunni orthodoxy, "are obliged to comply with Islamic rules that pertain to the safety and indemnity of life, reputation, and property." Among these Islamic rules: they "are forbidden to build new churches" ('Umdat al-Salik o11.5).

"Building a Church is a 'Sin' Against God, Says Egyptian Muslim Council," by Mary Abdelmassih for AINA, August 31:

Cairo (AINA) -- A controversial Fatwa (Islamic edict) prohibiting the construction of new churches in Egypt has provoked considerable discussion and spiraled into a crisis, involving the Fatwa Council, Al-Azhar Grand Sheikh, Christian and Muslim religious personalities, and the media. It was also reported on 8/26/2009 that the jurists who issued the Fatwa are under investigation on orders of the Grand Mufti and the Justice Minister.

The Fatwa (Arabic) in question was issued by the Al-Azhar affiliated "Dar el-Eftta" -- Fatwa Council for Islamic interpretations of laws in Islam. It stated "the will of a Muslim towards building a Church is a sin against God, just as if he left his inheritance towards building a nightclub, a gambling casino, or building a barn for rearing pigs, cats or dogs."

It was issued in response to an inquiry sent to the Fatwa Council by Dr. Naguib Gabraeel, President of the Egyptian Union Human Rights Organization (EUHRO), asking its opinion as to what he read in an article written by a prominent writer about what was stated in a textbook taught to third year students, Muslims and Christians, at the Faculty of Law, Cairo University, on Inheritance and execution of wills. Gabraeel's inquiry pertained specifically to a quotation from the textbook "it is forbidden for a person to donate money for what would lead to sin, such as donating in his will money towards build a church, a nightclub, a gambling casino, towards promoting the alcohol industry or for building a barn for rearing pigs, cats or dogs." He went on to inquire "So what is the Shari'a position to what was mentioned especially concerning the will of a Muslim to donate for the building of a church or a monk's cell? If the answer is prohibition, aren't these houses where the name of God is mentioned? Is not Christianity a recognized religion according to the Egyptian constitution? There are also a lot of wealthy Copts and Coptic businessmen who donate towards the building of mosques."

The Fatwa Council replied affirming the correctness of what came in the textbook and issued a Fatwa on September 10, 2008 (document number 1809), which is also published on its official website.

To highlight the reason for this "sin" the Fatwa went on to state: "Salvation in the Christian religion is the belief in Jesus as Lord, where Muslims fundamentally disagree on it. Muslims believe that Issa [Jesus in Arabic] peace be upon him, is a slave of Allah and His Messenger, and that Allah is one. He begets not and He is not begotten and there is none like unto Him. So if it is seen that one sect has deviated from this absolute Monotheism, then according to that person's own religion he is forbidden to donate for the erection of buildings where Allah is not worshiped alone."

According to Mohammed el-Maghrabbi, deputy chief of the Faculty of Law, and author of the controversial textbook, what he wrote is a principle agreed upon by all Islamic jurists. He added that a will, if devoted by a Christian for building a Church, is forbidden and sinful and is considered in Islam as separation from God. So it is also illegal if a non-Muslim wills his inheritance towards building a Church or a Synagogue.

This Fatwa has shocked many as it classified churches with nightclub, gambling casinos, and places for rearing pigs and dogs, which are considered 'unclean' animals according to Islam and Muslims.

Christians were angered and considered it a clear and explicit insult to all Christians. The renowned theologian Reverend Abdelmassih Bassit, Professor at the Coptic Orthodox Clerical Institute, called it "a shocking Fatwa."

Gabraeel called on the government and Al-Azhar to state their position clearly on the building of churches, as well as prayer meetings held in premises even if they were 'unlicensed' as churches.

On August 19, 2009, a delegation from EUHRO, headed by Dr. Gabraeel, paid a visit to Al-Azhar Grand Sheikh Mohamed Sayed Tantawi, who said that the Fatwa was wrong and untrue and that Muslims can make voluntary contributions to build churches, as a church is a house for "worshiping and tolerance" and that "Shari'a does not prevent Muslims from donating to the building of a church, as it is his free money. He also affirmed that Al-Azhar does not object to the "unified law for building places of worship."

Tantawi added that building churches should be left to the Christians and Muslims are not allowed according to Shari'a to interfere in other faiths, "because religion, faith and what a person believes in is a relationship between him and his God." He also called on the Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa to hold the five jurists who issued the Fatwa accountable.

Reactions to Tantawi's statements resulted in a crisis in the Islamic circles. Most Muslim leaders criticized him publicly and supported the Fatwa "as being issued by people qualified in Islamic Shari'a law" or "a Muslim should not donate to the building of a church when Christians do not believe in the religion of Mohammed, or him being a prophet."

Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa gave the excuse that he never ratified the Fatwa. Nevertheless, his answer was not convincing as it was an official Fatwa issued by the authority headed by him, stamped and signed by five of the Council's jurists. He failed to give an opinion about it.

Less than 24 hours after the EUHRO visit, Grand Sheikh Tantawi backtracked on his statements saying it was a misunderstanding on the part of the EUHRO delegation and the newspapers. He commented that what he meant was for non-Muslims to donate in their wills for church building and reaffirmed that it is forbidden for a person to donate money for the construction of "sinful" places, such as bars and nightclubs....

Rifqa Bary's lawyer John Stemberger just held a press conference and released these two pdfs. One is Rifqa's own statement, and the other details the jihadist ties of the Noor Islamic Center in Columbus, Ohio, the mosque of Rifqa's parents. I was on the conference call, and heard Stemberger make the case that Rifqa's parents attend a mosque with multiple links to jihadists, thus lending credence to her claim that she would be in grave danger if returned to their custody. Rifqa's own affidavit underscores this. Pamela has a transcription over at Atlas Shrugs:

15. I became a Christian on Friday, November 18, 2005 at the Korean United Methodist Church in Columbus, Ohio;

16. I hid my Christian faith from my parents as best as I could and had to sneak around to attend Christian campus meetings, I also hid my Bible at home in various locations;

17. In about 2007 my father discovered a copy of a book entitled the "Purpose Driven Life" by Rick Warren that I hid in my bedroom. My father had a serious talk with me about the importance of retaining the Islamic blood line in my family but I did not tell him about my conversion;

18. In June of 2009 my father confronted me with several questions about whether I had become a Christian, whether I was baptized, if I was going to church. Out of fear I remained silent;

19. Then my father told me that he received numerous emails and phone calls from the leaders of the Noor Center community who informed him that he needed to deal with this matter immediately;

20. In a fit of anger that I had never seen before in my life, he picked up my lap top, waived it over my head as if to strike me with it and said "if you have this Jesus in your heart, you are dead to me! You are no longer my daughter." I continued to remain silent and then he said to me even more angry then before, I will kill you! Tell me the truth!"

21. On July 17, 2009, my mother confronted me about another Christian book she discovered that I hid in my bedroom. She had just spoken with my father was on the phone who was out of town. She was very upset, in tears, and almost grieving and told me I was going to have to be sent back to Sri Lanka to be dealt with.

Read it all. Pamela also has audio of the press conference, which is remarkable for the exceedingly contentious and leading questions asked by the assembled "journalists." Don't miss it.

This is, of course, how Islamic groups in the U.S. have reacted to every act of violence and every threat that any Muslim has issued in recent years: they've raised fears of a non-existent "backlash" and claimed they're being persecuted, rather than address the root causes of the violence and brutality within their own community. And the bemused, befuddled multiculturalists in the mainstream media go along with it happily, every time.

The Orlando Sentinel has been engaging in a full-scale campaign to discredit Rifqa Bary and her defenders. Pamela Geller skewered a few of their recent propaganda pieces here, here, and here. And here's the Sentinel's latest fresh steaming pile of Rifqa coverage:

"Muslims fear runaway girl's case will fuel religious hatred," by Jeff Kunerth for the Orlando Sentinel, August 31 (thanks to Larry):

From the sidelines, the Muslim community watches the saga of Fathima Rifqa Bary with sadness and weariness.

What looks to many Muslims like a family squabble between Muslim parents in Columbus, Ohio, and their runaway daughter in Orlando has become something of a new crusade by evangelical Christians.

Forget about Rifqa's charge that her father threatened to kill her. This was all provoked by the media's favorite whipping boy, "evangelical Christians."

The frustration for many Muslims in Central Florida is that the accusations of one teenage girl who says she fears her father would kill her for becoming a Christian has become a wholesale distortion of their religion.

"We feel frustrated because this is a family problem of a certain family, and the way it has been portrayed is defaming Islam and giving a way, way negative picture of our religion," said Imam Tariq Rasheed, director of the Islamic Center of Orlando.

See how it works? Father threatens to kill girl, in full accord with Islamic law regarding apostates. Girl flees, and reports what her father said. And suddenly this becomes an act of "defaming Islam." Even if Rifqa's father didn't actually threaten her, there is nothing in the least unbelievable about the charge that he did, in light of the many killings of apostates and threats to their lives that take place frequently in the Islamic world.

Yet if you speak of this, you're "defaming Islam" -- a clever ploy to try to deflect attention away from the killings for apostasy, and from the father's alleged threat, and onto Muslims as being victimized by coverage of all this.

And now the Sentinel explains it all for you, letting Islamic spokesmen correct the alleged errors of Rifqa's defenders:

In their advocacy of the 17-year-old girl, her defenders contend that Bary's fears of being beaten or killed because she converted to Christianity are real. The fundamentalists lobbying the state to allow Bary to remain in Florida cite instances of "honor killings" where women and girls who have shamed their families have been killed.

"There is a significant population, a growing population, of extremist Muslims who take the Quran quite literally and apply it as they have on this case," said Bary's attorney John Stemberger. "My concern is she is literally a dead girl if she is sent back to Ohio. It's only a matter of time until she disappears into the night."

Quran vs. law

Such a contention is a blatant misrepresentation of Islam, Rasheed said.

"There is not a single verse in the holy Quran that stops a person from exercising the freedom of choosing his or her religion. There is nothing about a punishment if you change your religion," Rasheed said.

Ultimately, even if what Stemberger says were a "blatant misrepresentation of Islam," which it is not, it is irrelevant. For Rifqa's father may have threatened her even if to have done so would have violated the tenets of Islam. The assumption that Mohamed Bary, or anyone, must always and in every instance act in accord with the tenets of his religion is absurd. Rifqa Bary could be in danger from her father whatever Islam teaches. Rasheed is essentially arguing that Islam doesn't teach death for apostasy, and therefore Rifqa is not in danger.

But of course, Rasheed is also lying. The death penalty for apostasy is rooted in two Qur'anic verses, 2:217 and 4:89. Here is 2:217:

They ask thee concerning fighting in the Prohibited Month. Say: "Fighting therein is a grave (offence); but graver is it in the sight of Allah to prevent access to the path of Allah, to deny Him, to prevent access to the Sacred Mosque, and drive out its members." Tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter. Nor will they cease fighting you until they turn you back from your faith if they can. And if any of you turn back from their faith and die in unbelief, their works will bear no fruit in this life and in the Hereafter; they will be companions of the Fire and will abide therein.

What does it mean that the works of those who "turn back from their faith and die in unbelief" will "bear no fruit in this life" as well as in the next? Let's go for an answer to the Tafsir al-Qurtubi, a classic and thoroughly mainstream exegesis of the Qur'an. About 2:217, Qurtubi says this:

Scholars disagree about whether or not apostates are asked to repent. One group say that they are asked to repent and, if they do not, they are killed. Some say they are given an hour and others a month. Others say that they are asked to repent three times, and that is the view of Malik. Al-Hasan said they are asked a hundred times. It is also said that they are killed without being asked to repent.

Did you notice one option that Qurtubi never mentions? That's right: he never says anything like "some say the apostate should not be killed." The only point of contention seems to be how long the Muslim must wait before he kills the apostate.

Meanwhile, 4:89 says this:

They but wish that ye should reject Faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing (as they). But take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah (from what is forbidden). But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them; and (in any case) take no friends or helpers from their ranks.

Thus those who have fled from what is forbidden, i.e., embraced Islam, should be killed if they "turn renegades." The Tafsir al-Jalalayn, another venerable and respected commentary on the Qur'an, explains that a Muslim should not trust these people "until they emigrate in the way of God, a proper emigration that would confirm their belief" -- that is, if they leave their homes to join up with the Muslims. "Then, if they turn away, and remain upon their ways, take them, as captives, and slay them wherever you find them." Here again, no attempt is made, in this Qur'an commentary or any of those that Muslims revere as trustworthy, to explain that this does not actually mean that one should kill the "renegade."

And of course Rasheed speak only about the Qur'an. He never mentions, although he surely must know, that Muhammad said "Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him," and that this statement in the Hadith (in which it appears several times) became the foundation for the unanimous verdict of all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence: the apostate must be killed.

The article continues:

Though there are Muslim nations where "honor killings" are condoned, it is not for leaving Islam, said Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons, assistant professor of religion at the University of Florida. Non-Muslims often confuse "honor killings" with a provision in ancient Islamic law that calls for capital punishment for Muslims who leave the religion. But that law is applied by a court, not by individuals or family members, as is the custom with "honor killings," which usually involve adultery or fornication by unmarried women.

"They assume the law and the Quran are synonymous, and they are not," Simmons said. "The Quran is not a law book."

No, but there is Islamic law, and a manual of Islamic law certified by Al-Azhar as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy says that "retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right." However, "not subject to retaliation" is "a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring's offspring." ('Umdat al-Salik o1.1-2).

In other words, someone who kills his child incurs no legal penalty under Islamic law. In accord with this, in 2003 the Jordanian Parliament voted down on Islamic grounds a provision designed to stiffen penalties for honor killings. Al-Jazeera reported that "Islamists and conservatives said the laws violated religious traditions and would destroy families and values."

Fathima Rifqa Bary herself may be confused about the difference between capital punishment under Islamic law and honor killings, Simmons said.

Not all Muslim countries operate under Islamic law and not all Muslim countries permit honor killings — just as not all states in America have the death penalty. Sri Lanka, where Bary's parents are from, does not use Islamic law in its judicial system, Simmons said.

So what? Are we to believe that because Sri Lanka doesn't follow Islamic law, that therefore the Barys don't follow it either?

'Islamophobia'

The custody battle between Christian evangelicals in Florida and her Muslim parents in Ohio comes at the same time an evangelical church in Gainesville posted a sign that said "Islam is of the Devil" on its property. Several children were sent home the first week of school for wearing T-shirts with that message.

Both cases — equating Islam with evil and contending that Muslims who convert to Christianity will be killed — feed into what Simmons calls "Islamophobia."

Where did anyone get the idea that "Muslims who convert to Christianity will be killed"? Was it really from greasy Islamophobes? Or might it have been from the Muslims who insisted on exactly that (see all my links above)?

"This plays into an irrational sense of fear among people who aren't familiar with the tenets of the faith," she said.

The portrayal of violent Muslims who want to kill their daughter and devoted evangelical Christians who want only to save the soul of a innocent child only perpetuates stereotypes of both Muslims and Christians, said Claudia Schippert, associate professor of humanities at the University of Central Florida.

"What is shameful in this entire ordeal is the way in which those who should know better, and who profess quite different values otherwise, are willing to repeat stereotypes and fuel fires of ignorance and violence," she said of the Christians at the center of this controversy.

On Aug. 21, Muslims began their monthlong observance of Ramadan. During Ramadan, Muslims turn inward away from the distractions of the everyday world that, these days, include the tug-of-war over a teenage girl who has placed their religion on trial.

"With other communities, when an individual does something, it's that individual," Rasheed said. "When it's a Muslim, it's Islam that is the motivating factor."

And why might that be?

"The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam." -- Osama bin Laden, October 6, 2002

"We ask to be near to God, we fight you and destroy you and terrorize you. The Jihad in god's cause is a great duty in our religion." -- the 9/11 plotters, December 2008

And so on. In other words, people see Islam as "the motivating factor" in Islamic violence because its perpetrators say that it was the motivating factor.

UPDATE: It has just come to my attention that school officials say Heather Lawrence lied about this incident (thanks to Sanjay). The larger questions remain.

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"But whether standing up or not, this issue's not about the pledge of allegiance or anything else. This is about bullying and it's about discrimination." So says Ahmed Bedier, who knows a bit about bullying himself.

And he's right: this case is about bullying. But who is doing the bullying, and who is being bullied?

"Patriotism or prejudice? Teen suspended for criticizing Muslim student," by Elizabeth Dinh for ABC Action News (Tampa Bay), August 31 (thanks to herr Oyal):

SPRING HILL, FL -- While showing off her JROTC uniform, 16-year-old Heather Lawrence told us joining the Army is her next big goal, to follow in the footsteps of her father and grandfather.

"Our flag represents everything that our country is," she said.

The teen says an issue over the American flag is why she was written up and handed a five-day suspension from Springstead High School this week for criticizing a Muslim student. Heather says the other girl was sitting down during the Pledge of Allegiance.

"You know, I made a not-so-kind remark, and I do sincerely apologize for referring to the thing on her head because that had nothing to do with it." Heather told us, "But I told her, 'Why don't she act like she's proud to be an American?'"

Despite the open apology to the girl, who wears a hijab, the President of the Tampa/Hillsborough County Human Rights Council says Heather's actions were harmful and the school was right for taking action.

"But whether standing up or not, this issue's not about the pledge of allegiance or anything else." Council President Ahmed Bedier said. "This is about bullying and it's about discrimination."

Bedier says the Muslim student's family contacted him and claims she did stand up for the pledge....

Dhimmitude:

The Muslim student walked away from Heather's confrontation. A school staff member then reported the incident....

“’The problem here, however, is that when it comes to Islamic jihadists, virtually anything short of full capitulation is perceived as arrogant, uncaring or insulting. Any resistance to the jihad agenda is immediately cast as a grievous insult that must be redressed’"

You are partially right, but the mistake you keep making is that these outreach efforts are targeted at Jihadists. They're not, they're targeted at the Muslim world where America's reputation has taken a hit following such stupidity as destroying a secular state (Iraq) which acted as a buffer against religious extremism.

"And because the Qur'an teaches Muslims to distrust Infidels, as they are the "most vile of created beings" (98:6) and will never be satisfied until the Muslims discard Islam (2:120). One is not take them as friends or protectors (3:28; 5:51)."

Here, your reductionist approach, while convenient for the average jwatcher is off the mark. Look first at Afghan perceptions of America which were quite good following the invasion, these started to dip in 2005 when much that was promised to Afghanistan did not materialize (in part because many resources were diverted to Iraq). Second, the situation in the north is different than in the south. This is because the south is Pashtun while the North is a mix of Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks etc. perceptions of America are different depending on whether you're a pashtun or not. These people have read the same Koran but react differently to Americans because they are not the same as AQ. -- from a poster critical of Robert Spencer’s comments on Admiral Mullen here

The poster begins with an astonishing take on the invasion of Iraq. He claims that “America's reputation has taken a hit following such stupidity as destroying a secular state (Iraq) which acted as a buffer against religious extremism.”

That statement deserves scrutiny. America’s “reputation” among Muslims has not “taken a hit” because the Americans never did, and never could, stand high in the opinion of any Muslims who take Islam seriously -- and whose contempt and hostility, and sometimes murderous hatred, for non-Muslims has its source in the texts and tenets and attitudes of Islam. It is true that Sunni Arabs are enraged that the Americans replaced Saddam Hussein, but that is not, as the poster claims, because Iraq was a “secular state” and they longed for that “secular” state to remain. Why would the likes of Saudi Arabia regret the passing of a “secular state” in the Middle East? I have explained at tedious length before that the soi-disant “secularism” of the only two Ba’athist regimes -- those in Syria and Iraq -- was skin-deep. In fact, it was merely the camouflage used to disguise, and make palatable, in the case of Syria, a despotism run of, by, and for the Alawites (who make up only 12% of the population). In the case of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, it provided cover for a Sunni Arab despotism, when the Sunni Arabs constitute less than 20% of the population.

The real reason the Sunni Arabs were furious with the United States for its invasion of Iraq was that that invasion, and the subsequent toppling of Saddam Hussein and his entire regime, meant that power had been irrevocably transferred from the Sunni to the Shi’a Arabs in Iraq. That, for Sunni Arabs, is intolerable in and of itself. But it becomes still more infuriating at a time when the Islamic Republic of Iran, a Shi’a state, makes claims to be the most aggressive Muslim state in the Lesser Jihad against Israel and the Greater Jihad against the camp of Infidels and in particular the perceived leader of that camp, the Great Satan, the United States. (For Iranians, however, historical resentments will also give pride of place, surprising to those unfamiliar with the Iranian bestiary, to Great Britain.)

Sure, as soon as you apologize for jihad

"It should be a clear, public and unconditional apology for the offence and harm caused by their newspaper," Yamani said.

I think that he and the Organization of the Islamic Conference and other Muslim groups and spokesmen should issue a clear, public, and unconditional apology for the Muslims who murdered and rioted because of...a cartoon.

"Saudi lawyer seeks apology over Danish Mohammed row," from AFP, August 30 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

COPENHAGEN - A Saudi lawyer has demanded a public apology from a number of Danish dailies that reprinted a controversial cartoon of Prophet Mohammed in February 2008, Danish media reported on Sunday.

The lawyer, identified as Faisal A.Z. Yamani from Jeddah, sent an email to the newspapers that republished the drawing first printed in 2005 and demanded that they print an apology by the end of September, Danish news agency Ritzau reported.

"It should be a clear, public and unconditional apology for the offence and harm caused by their newspaper," Yamani wrote, demanding that the statement appear in the first three pages of the newspaper and in four languages, Danish, French, English and Arabic.

The caricature features Prophet Mohammed's head with a turban designed to look like a bomb with a lit fuse.

It was one of 12 cartoons first published in a Danish newspaper in 2005 and which sparked violent protests across the Muslim world in early 2006.

It was reprinted in mid-February 2008 by some 17 newspapers after Danish police foiled an alleged plot to kill the cartoonist, again triggering angry reactions in numerous Muslim countries.

They were angry, mind you, over the reprinting of the Motoon, not over the plot to kill the cartoonist.

And of course, the thuggery is ever present:

Yamani suggested in the email that Danish interests in the Middle East could suffer if an apology was not forthcoming....

My ninth and newest book, The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran, will be out September 21 from Regnery Publishing.

Here are some advance reviews of the new book:

"Robert Spencer incarnates intellectual courage when, all over the world, governments, intellectuals, churches, universities and media crawl under a hegemonic Universal Caliphate‘s New Order. His achievement in the battle for the survival of free speech and dignity of man will remain as a fundamental monument to the love of, and the self-sacrifice for, liberty. In our epoch of intellectual jihadism, this honest book is essential to understand the challenges of the twenty-first century.” — Bat Ye'or, author of Eurabia; The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam; and Islam and Dhimmitude

"Unlike most of today’s self-styled experts, Robert Spencer won’t tell you that ‘slay the idolaters wherever you find them’ really means ‘love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.’ In The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran, Spencer shows once again that he is America’s most informed, fearless, and compelling voice on modern jihadism, insisting that we come to grips with the words behind the ideology that fuels international terror.” — Andrew C. McCarthy, senior fellow at the National Review Institute and author of Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad.

"Meticulous, comprehensive, indispensable. ‘I read the Koran so you don’t have to,’ Spencer writes—but even for those of us who have read the Koran, this is a richly illuminating work.” — Bruce Bawer, author of Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom and While Europe Slept.

More coming!

There may have been, uh, dry runs for this sort of thing.

"Saudi tightens security to protect oil plants," from GulfNews, August 31 (thanks to Iraq the Model):

KHOBAR, Saudi Arabia: Saudi Arabia has tightened security at oil facilities after the country's anti-terror chief, Deputy Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, escaped a suicide attack, guards at Abqaiq, the world's biggest oil processing plant, said yesterday....

Al Qaeda, meanwhile, claimed responsibility for the suicide attack and said that the bomber, Abdullah Hassan Taleh Al Asiri, had managed to pass security checkpoints and board a private aircraft, Site Intelligence said yesterday.

A statement posted on jihadist forums by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula said Al Asiri passed through checkpoints at Najran airport, near the Yemeni border, and Jeddah airport, the US monitoring service said.

He then boarded Prince Mohammed's private jet with his explosives, according to the statement, which said he finally blew himself up amongst the prince's guards. The site also published a picture of Asiri.

Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV said Asiri was a 23-year-old Saudi whose brother Ibrahim was also on the wanted list.

It said the attacker concealed the explosives in his anus, allowing him to evade detection.

The network also quoted an expert as saying that the method of concealment aimed the blast away from the target, while blowing the bomber to bits....

"Rev. Lorenz is then quoted in a local television station report saying that if a Muslim leaves his religion and does not return to Islam in a couple of days, then he must be killed. He claims that someone showed him the verse. There is no such verse, Rev. Lorenz. In every faith, apostasy is shunned but ultimate judgment is left to God, not people." -- Salam al-Marayati

"A Muslim’s conversion to Christianity is not a crime punishable by death under Islamic law." -- M. Cherif Bassiouni

"It becomes really difficult, in light of this information, to persuasively argue that Islamic Law should permit a death penalty for apostasy." -- Ali Eteraz

Uh huh.

Some will say There he goes again, criticizing genuine reformers instead of supporting them.

In reality, I would wholeheartedly support any genuine Muslim reformer. It seems to me that there are two ways to tell a reformer from a deceiver:

1. A reformer will acknowledge the existence of the doctrine that he believes needs reforming, rather than deny its existence. So a reformer will admit that the schools of Islamic jurisprudence unanimously teach the death penalty for apostasy, and will say that that needs to be changed, rather than claiming that Islamic law doesn't mandate death for apostates.

2. A reformer will address those who hold the doctrine he rejects, and try to convince them of its falsity, rather than address those who simply point out that the disputed doctrine is held. So a reformer on Islamic apostasy law will devote his efforts to convincing his fellow Muslims that the law should be changed, rather than spending all his time convincing gullible non-Muslims that there is no death penalty for apostasy in the first place.

Al-Marayati fails on both counts.

Bassiouni has been good on #2, as he did write to the government of Afghanistan in defense of Abdul Rahman, the convert from Islam to Christianity who was arrested and was in fear for his life a few years ago. But he has equivocated and contradicted himself regarding #1, and refused to address or correct the contradiction.

Eteraz, who like al-Marayati and Bassiouni is yet another charming and gracious fellow, comes close on #1, but I've never seen him do anything about #2.

"Somalia: Christian Shot Dead Near Kenya Border: Muslim extremists kill convert from Islam they were monitoring," from Compass Direct, August 22 (thanks to Report on Arrakis):

NAIROBI, Kenya, August 22 (Compass Direct News) – Muslim extremists seeking evidence that a Somali man had converted from Islam to Christianity shot him dead Tuesday morning (Aug. 18) near the Somali border with Kenya, according to underground Christians in the war-torn nation.

Al Shabaab rebels killed 41-year-old Ahmed Matan in Bulahawa, Somalia, according to Abdikadir Abdi Ismael, a former leader of a secret Christian fellowship in Somalia to which Matan belonged. Matan had been a member of the underground church since 2001.

The early morning shooting comes at a time when Islamist groups led by al Shabaab are hunting down converts to Christianity as they seek to establish sharia (Islamic law) throughout Somalia.

Ismael, who fled the area in 2005, said he received a telephone call from Matan two weeks ago in which the convert told him that monitoring by the Islamic extremists kept him from leaving his home and carrying out his small-trade business across the border in Mandera, in eastern Kenya.

“I am afraid for my life – the al Shabaab want to get a proof that I follow the Christian faith,” Matan told Ismael. “They have not been seeing me in the mosque and seem to have realized that I am not part of them.”

Ismael subsequently learned from a member of the underground church who requested anonymity that on Aug. 18 Matan was shot dead as he was about to enter Mandera with a donkey carrying goods for sale such as sugar, batteries and shampoo. He was a father of three, his last child just 3 months old....

Ismael was visibly shaken by the death of his close friend.

“We have been going through difficult times because of choosing to follow Christianity,” Ismael told Compass. “We have lost everything. We even lack words to share our feelings. I have been always on the run from one refugee camp to another. The Muslims have issued a fatwa on me.”...

Yesterday, when I posted this particularly entertaining bit of hate mail, some people asked me to post more. Well, even though there are some regular hate emailers whose emails I never even see, since their messages are programmed to go directly into the Trash file, I still receive plenty -- so here is the Question of the Day from a curious reader in London:

DEAR SIR WHY ARE YOU AND ALL OTHER JEWISH MEN S UGLY WHILE YOUR WOMEN ARE PRITTY

Once again we see the fixation with Jews -- the worst enemies of the Muslims according to Qur'an 5:82. The possibility that the jihad and Islamic supremacism might have aroused some resistance among others (who are standing with the Jews against these things today) doesn't enter their minds.

Medvedev refers to the jihadists' "unorthodox views on Islam," indicating that like his counterparts in the West, he believes that Islam is a Religion of Peace™. Yet the relative peacefulness of the Islam in the Caucasus was a product of cultural accommodation, not theological reform. Medvedev would no doubt be quite surprised -- as surprised as, say, Gordon Brown would be -- to learn that all the mainstream sects and schools of jurisprudence teach warfare against unbelievers in order to subjugate them as inferiors under the rule of Islamic law. "Medvedev turns to Muslim clerics to counter radicals," by Denis Dyomkin for Reuters, August 28 (thanks to Natalie):

SOCHI, Russia, Aug 28 (Reuters) - President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday urged Russia's top Muslim clerics to join forces to stop radical Islamist groups wooing young people in the turbulent North Caucasus.

He proposed a Muslim television channel and controls on access to Islamic education abroad as ways of tackling Islamist insurgency in the region....

A wave of suicide bomb attacks and armed assaults on police and security forces in Chechnya and next-door Ingushetia and Dagestan has marked the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in Russia's North Caucasus....

Medvedev backed the idea of confronting radical Islamist propaganda but he indicated the options were limited.

"We cannot force people to give up Internet or close these sites," he said, proposing such alternatives as a television channel to promote mainstream Islam.

"We need to think about finding a channel which would offer teaching and comprehensive explanation of Islam that is traditional for our country," he said without elaborating.

Medvedev also proposed stronger control over young people returning to Russia after studying Islam abroad. Mainstream clerics say many Islamic schools in Arab countries spread radical teachings.

"There indeed must be control," Medvedev said. "Unfortunately these people are returning ... (and) bring back unorthodox views on Islam," he said....

Salam al-Marayati of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, a thoroughly unpleasant character with whom I have appeared on many radio shows (on which he invariably likens me to Osama bin Laden, although I have never flown any planes into buildings, beheaded anyone, or exhorted anyone to do so), attacks Rifqa Bary, the seventeen-year-old girl who converted from Islam to Christianity and fled from her home and father after he threatened to kill her (as she explains here), and her supporters in a contemptuous, dishonest, condescending and arrogant piece at the Huffington Post, "Rifqa, the Reverand [sic] and Apostasy" (August 18).

Hugh Fitzgerald has already weighed in on this utterly contemptible article, but I have a few things to add.

Al-Marayati is intent on impugning Rifqa's own testimony in favor of her father's protestations that he does not intend to kill her -- and indeed, it is her word against his, and the only price we will have to pay if al-Marayati turns out to be wrong is a murdered teenage girl. To support his case, al-Marayati makes essentially two points, both encapsulated in this sentence: "Mohamed Bary allowed his daughter to become a cheerleader and says she can practice any faith she wants -- clearly, he is not a fundamentalist."

His first point is thus that Mohamed Bary, by allowing his daughter to prance around in skimpy cheerleader costumes, clearly was not the sort to insist on the finer points of Islamic law like the death penalty for apostasy (which al-Marayati implies does not exist anyway, so it's hard to see why it would be a feature of "fundamentalism" in the first place). However, honor killing victims in the West have invariably been girls who have been Westernized, adopting Western non-Muslim mores to the growing dismay of their male relatives. Al-Marayati's point is that if Mohamed Bary were a "fundamentalist," he would not have allowed Rifqa to become Westernized in the first place. Real life, however, is not always that simple. Honor killing victims like Amina and Sarah Said in Texas and Aqsa Parvez in Canada appear to been quite Westernized for a considerable period before their relationships with their fathers reached a tipping point, and they were murdered. Rifqa Bary fled before that could happen, but the fact that she was a hijab-less cheerleader indicates nothing. Pamela Geller explains further in responding to the same claim from Mike Thomas of the Orlando Sentinel:

Victims are generally beautiful, Westernized, and dressed in a manner that perhaps Thomas would term "provocative." Muslim girls who live in the West lead two lives. Amina and Sarah Said, allegedly murdered by their father in Texas on New Year's Day 2008 for having non-Muslim boyfriends, were honor students, star athletes, soccer players, tennis players, etc. Rifqa was the same way in Ohio before she fled. These girls led double lives. The murder always happens when the family sees they have lost control of the child.

Al-Marayati's second point is that, contrary to Rifqa's own claim, the Qur'an says nothing about killing apostates:

She claims that her parents "love God more than me" and therefore have to perform an honor killing on her. She argues "it's in the Quran". No it's not, sweet little Rifqa. It's not in the Quran. Whoever told you that is either ignorant or a liar. You should look it up yourself before claiming it's in the Quran.

Rev. Lorenz is then quoted in a local television station report saying that if a Muslim leaves his religion and does not return to Islam in a couple of days, then he must be killed. He claims that someone showed him the verse. There is no such verse, Rev. Lorenz. In every faith, apostasy is shunned but ultimate judgment is left to God, not people.

Two things are being confused here: honor killing and the death penalty for apostasy. Honor killing is not discussed directly in the Qur'an, although it is given strong implicit support by 18:74, 80-81, when the mysterious figure known in Islamic tradition as Khidr, traveling with the prophet Moses, kills a young man Moses terms "innocent" (18:74). Khidr explains: "And as for the lad, his parents were believers and we feared lest he should oppress them by rebellion and disbelief. So we desired that their Lord would give them in exchange (a son) better in purity (of conduct) and closer in affection." The young man is murdered because he is an unbeliever, so that his parents may be given a believing child in exchange. (Why the unbelieving son has to be killed before the believing son can be given to them is not explained.) Thus the precedent is set: a child who is an unbeliever is killed for his unbelief.

The death penalty for apostasy is found more directly in the Qur'an -- Islamic authorities generally root it in two Qur'anic verses, 2:217 and 4:89, as Hugh has noted. Here is 2:217:

They ask thee concerning fighting in the Prohibited Month. Say: "Fighting therein is a grave (offence); but graver is it in the sight of Allah to prevent access to the path of Allah, to deny Him, to prevent access to the Sacred Mosque, and drive out its members." Tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter. Nor will they cease fighting you until they turn you back from your faith if they can. And if any of you turn back from their faith and die in unbelief, their works will bear no fruit in this life and in the Hereafter; they will be companions of the Fire and will abide therein.

What does it mean that the works of those who "turn back from their faith and die in unbelief" will "bear no fruit in this life" as well as in the next? Let's go for an answer to the Tafsir al-Qurtubi, a classic and thoroughly mainstream exegesis of the Qur'an. About 2:217, Qurtubi says this:

Scholars disagree about whether or not apostates are asked to repent. One group say that they are asked to repent and, if they do not, they are killed. Some say they are given an hour and others a month. Others say that they are asked to repent three times, and that is the view of Malik. Al-Hasan said they are asked a hundred times. It is also said that they are killed without being asked to repent.

Did you notice one option that Qurtubi never mentions? That's right: he never says anything like "some say the apostate should not be killed." The only point of contention seems to be how long the Muslim must wait before he kills the apostate.

Meanwhile, 4:89 says this:

They but wish that ye should reject Faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing (as they). But take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah (from what is forbidden). But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them; and (in any case) take no friends or helpers from their ranks.

Thus those who have fled from what is forbidden, i.e., embraced Islam, should be killed if they "turn renegades." The Tafsir al-Jalalayn, another venerable and respected commentary on the Qur'an, explains that a Muslim should not trust these people "until they emigrate in the way of God, a proper emigration that would confirm their belief" -- that is, if they leave their homes to join up with the Muslims. "Then, if they turn away, and remain upon their ways, take them, as captives, and slay them wherever you find them." Here again, no attempt is made, in this Qur'an commentary or any of those that Muslims revere as trustworthy, to explain that this does not actually mean that one should kill the "renegade."

And of course al-Marayati focuses narrowly on Rifqa's statement about the Qur'an. He never mentions, although he surely must know, that Muhammad said "Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him," and that this statement in the Hadith (in which it appears several times) became the foundation for the unanimous verdict of all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence: the apostate must be killed.

That he does not mention this key point is just one indication that as a witness to Islamic teaching on this (and other) matters, Salam al-Marayati is not to be trusted.

"In an exercise of intellectual honesty it would have been appropriate to link to Salam Al-Marayati's entire column instead of selecting one quote then launch into a rant. It would have been even more appropriate if Al-Marayati's latest column on Rifqa Bary, your most recent 'Let's-Save-the-Muslim-Teen-Girl-From-the-Bloodthirsty-Muslims' poster child (Mmm, it's always teen girls, isn't it?), was included." -- from a Jihad Watch poster here.

If what I had selected to discuss had been a passage ripped out of a context that endowed it with a meaning different from what it so clearly is, then this charge might, just might, have some validity. But the passage in question, that I chose to hold up for inspection, was not ripped out of such a context. It was, in fact, a perfect example of an attempt to deceive Infidel readers, the readers at the Huffington Post for whom Al-Marayati has such contempt. For he assumes they not only do not know, but will remain so permanently incurious as not to be moved to find out, the relevant contents of the Islamic texts -- Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira -- and the rulings of Muslim jurisconsults. His attempt to wrap-Islam-in-the-flag-of-American-patriotism is absurd, for in Islam Believers are inculcated with the clear idea that they owe their allegiance, their sole allegiance, to Islam, and to fellow members of the Umma.

By Muslim I mean the many True Believers, and not the handful of those who are merely "cultural Muslims" -- that is, those who no longer accept the faith, and refuse to believe much of it, but nonetheless, for obvious reasons (fear or filial piety), do not declare that falling-away. You cannot be a True Muslim and a true patriot who is loyal to the legal and political institutions of whatever Infidel nation-state you happen to live in. You may describe yourself as working for the "betterment" (ah, what a word for Salam Al-Marayati, or whoever helps him with his prose, to use) of that nation-state, but that must mean, if you take Islam to heart (and Salam Al-Marayati certainly does), that you will work to make America a place where Infidel ways, and Infidel obstacles to the spread of Islam -- including the Constitution of the United States, which the spirit and the letter of Shari'a flatly contradict -- are swept aside.

For another example of such a contradiction, at a transnational level, compare carefully the individual rights that are guaranteed -- freedom of speech, freedom of conscience -- in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with the "Islamic" version that was concocted in order to offer the world a version that seems to suggest that Muslims, too, believe in similar guarantees. But the Cairo Declaration, as any careful comparison of the two documents will show, substitutes for the most important guarantees of individual rights other, collective rights, and only those that conform to the Shari'a. That means that the most important parts of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are, in the Cairo version, now screamingly absent.

So he murdered a few Infidels. Who cares?

Lockerbie Bomber Update: "Lockerbie bomber 'set free for oil,'" by Jason Allardyce for The Sunday Times, August 30 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

The British government decided it was “in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom” to make Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, eligible for return to Libya, leaked ministerial letters reveal.

Gordon Brown’s government made the decision after discussions between Libya and BP over a multi-million-pound oil exploration deal had hit difficulties. These were resolved soon afterwards.

The letters were sent two years ago by Jack Straw, the justice secretary, to Kenny MacAskill, his counterpart in Scotland, who has been widely criticised for taking the formal decision to permit Megrahi’s release.

The correspondence makes it plain that the key decision to include Megrahi in a deal with Libya to allow prisoners to return home was, in fact, taken in London for British national interests....

Short-term short-sighted ones, however, that will ultimately cause Britain great harm.

A choice morsel from this morning's Hate Mail Bag. What is he on about? He is referring to the passages in the Qur'an in which Allah curses Jews and transforms them into monkeys and pigs (2:62-65; 5:59-60; 7:166).

Feel the compassion, feel the mercy:

are you from the tribe that the all mighty turned into monkeys & pigs? if so was your father the monkey and your mother the pig? or the other way round?

you got to admit though that no one on earth has achieved what the holy prophet has achieved?

Oh, I readily admit that!

23 families have been forced to move out of an apartment complex because of one other family, identified only as "Lebanese," that subjected them to "harassment, violence and threats" on a "daily basis," including their children "throwing rocks and spitting at other families in the building’s playground area. When they were told to stop, their parents came down to the playground armed with knives and clubs."

Elisabeth Dreijer Sørensen, a representative of the 23 families, recounts: "Yes, I got a red cross on my door. And later we learned what it means - that we are infidels, and that we're on the death list."

This "Lebanese" family must no doubt be Maronite!

"Denmark: 'All the Danes and Jews must die,'" from Islam In Europe, August 27:

The family in question is Lebanese. There's no mention of their faith, but what do the Jews have to do with this?

More on this story in the Copenhagen Post (in English). The family has meanwhile been moved to a different place in the municipality, out in the countryside, where the nearest neighbor is 200-300 meters away. It's not the first time the family has been moved. The mayor says it's a shame that this Lebanese family is ruining it for all the other well-integrated immigrants in the municipality (DA).

Danish blog Uriasposten presents a transcript of an interview on Danish broadcaster DR. I bring here just a bit of it:

Mads Steffensen, DR host: They had to listen to words and phrases such as racist, whore [..] all the Danes must die, all the Danes and Jews must die. The residents of Belvederevej in Helsingør feel that they live in a war-zone, it's a life of violence, threats and vandalism. There are two blocks, 23 families, and in one apartment there's a Lebanese family.

(..)

Mads Steffensen: The day after the family got a termination notice in a case, which anyways hasn't concluded yet, then you got a greeting, where you live.

Elisabeth Dreijer Sørensen, resident's representative: Yes, I got a red cross on my door. And later we learned what it means - that we are infidels, and that we're on the death list. Yes, the vandalism didn't stop there, because also three cars were scratched, and all four tires were punctured, after they got their notice. But though they've received their notice, they still have three months...

“Executive Director Salam Al-Marayati is the newest blogger for the popular website The Huffington Post. Here is an excerpt from his first blog: ‘As Muslims, when we take an oath of citizenship or allegiance, it is tantamount to making an oath with God: “And be true to your bond with God whenever you bind yourselves by a pledge, and do not break [your] oaths after having [freely] confirmed them and having called upon God to be witness to your good faith: behold, God knows all that you do.” - Quran 16:91. As Muslim Americans, when we take the oath of allegiance to America witnessed by our families and our friends (and now DHS), we must remain true to our word. It is an Islamic obligation to defend what we are taking an oath to, namely the constitution of the United States of America. That does not equate with supporting the policies of the government. Patriotism is not waving the flag or using it to intimidate others; patriotism is love of country, and when we as Muslim Americans see a danger to our country, such as terrorism or xenophobia, or policies that hurt the image and interests of the United States, it is our American and Islamic responsibility to change toward the betterment of America….’” -- From the Huffington Post, which apparently will now regularly include articles by Salam Al-Marayati of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (see the announcement here)

This is the purest taqiyya, or kitman, or combination of both.

Islam teaches -- inculcates, rather -- the notion that Muslims do not owe any allegiance to non-Muslims, not to their countries, not to their institutions, legal and political, not to anything. Within Islam -- uniquely, among world religions -- such a doctrine has arisen, and has been elaborated, and has been written about, one that is based on both the letter and spirit of the Qur'an and on the example of Muhammad, the Model of Conduct (uswa hasana), the Perfect Man (al-insan al-kamil). See the assurances given the Meccans in the Treaty of Al-Hudaibiyya.

Look at the false equivalences: “terrorism or xenophobia,” with the first referring to real acts of terror by Muslims, following promptings that are found in the texts of Islam (see the Qur’an, see the Hadith, passim) and the “xenophobia” in question merely being, in this case, not “hatred of foreigners” but, of course, the fear and suspicion of those who are adherents of Islam, a fear and suspicion that are entirely rational, and that are felt most by those who have taken the most time to inform themselves about the texts and tenets and history of Islam.

But...but...they sincerely want peace!

"IAF strikes Gaza smuggling tunnel after Qassam attack," from Haaretz, August 30 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Israel Air Force planes struck a tunnel in the northern Gaza Strip early Sunday, after Palestinian militants in Gaza fired a Qassam rocket into the western Negev early Saturday.

The rocket hit an open area in the Sdot Negev regional council.

The Palestinian Maan news agency reported on Saturday that the Israel Defense Force fired artillery rounds at gunmen at the central Gaza Strip. No injuries were reported.

The IDF said in response that no such attack took place.

According to the report, the IDF also opened machine-gun fire from vehicles stationed on the border toward nearby central Gaza homes.

The Qassam, fired at around 6 A.M., was one of several military incidents along Israel's boarder with Gaza, coming after months of relative calm.

On Tuesday, Gaza militants fired two mortar shells at the western Negev, which landed near an Israel Defense Forces base...

"I want you to arrange a meeting with the heads of the Five Families. This war stops now."

Oh, the Sunnis hate the Shi'ites,
And the Iranians hate the Saudis,
And the Syrians hate the Iraqis,
And everybody hates the Jews.

But during National Umma Week, National Umma Week,
It's National Everyone-smile-at-one-another-while-our-hearts-curse-them-umma Week.
Be nice to Nasbis and Rafidite dogs who
Are inferior to you.
It's only for a week, so have no fear.
Be grateful that it doesn't last all year!

(Apologies to Tom Lehrer)

"Iran calls for regional meeting on Iraq security," from Reuters, August 29 (thanks to all who sent this in):

BAGHDAD, Aug 29 (Reuters) - The Iranian foreign minister on Saturday called for Iraq's neighbours to hold a meeting to discuss Iraqi security after Baghdad accused Syria of harbouring the planners of two massive bomb attacks.

Separately, Turkey's foreign minister is to visit Iraq and Syria on Monday to try to soothe relations between the two.

Since 2003, tensions -- prone to flare-ups since around the time Saddam came to power in 1979 -- have centred on charges from Iraq's U.S.-backed government that Syria, estranged from Washington, has allowed insurgents to stream into Iraq.

Iraqi politicians have also lashed out at Saudi Arabia for inciting Sunni Islamist insurgents, a charge the kingdom denies. And while Baghdad's relations with Tehran are cordial, the U.S. military complains that Iran arms and trains Shi'ite militia.

Meanwhile, Iraq's relations with Kuwait to the south are strained as Baghdad chafes at Kuwait's insistence it continue to pay billions of dollars in reparations for former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion.

Relations with western neighbour Jordan have been on the mend, and ties with Turkey have taken a noticeable turn for the better in the past year.

"We hope to get the cooperation and approval of all neighbouring countries for this meeting," Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told reporters through a translator during a visit to Iraq.

There have been several regional meetings on the conflict in Iraq since the U.S.-led ouster of Saddam in 2003, but Iraq's ties with its neighbours are fragile.

Iraqi officials frequently blame neighbouring countries for the violence that continues to rock the country more than six years after the U.S.-led invasion.

"Maintaining security and stability in Iraq, or losing it, has a direct impact on all of Iraq's neighbouring countries," Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said in a statement.

While sectarian slaughter between majority Shi'ites and once dominant Sunnis in Iraq has subsided, bombings attributed to Sunni Islamist groups such as al Qaeda continue as U.S. forces begin to gradually withdraw ahead of an end-2011 deadline. Many in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam which follows a strict brand of the Sunni faith called Wahhabism, see Persian Iran, a Shi'ite Muslim country, as their arch enemy.

Clerics of Saudi Arabia's official hardline school of Islam view Shi'ites as heretics and the government fears Iraq is becoming a satellite of Shi'ite power Iran....

Will the Islamophobia never end?

"Taliban kidnap Christians in Waziristan," from the Pakistan Christian Post, August 29 :

Peshawar: August 27, 2009. (PCP) The Taliban of Pakistan have kidnapped 8 Christians in South Waziristan according to reports released by political agent of Waziristan Agency.

The Christian were traveling in a truck from North Waziristan to South Waziristan when Taliban stopped them few miles away from Razmak, where they were living from decades.

The Christian, Hindus and Sikhs have left tribal area when Taliban imposed protection tax on minorities in January 2009. The Sikhs and Christians were allowed to stay in tribal area after paying ’Jizia” but majority left Taliban controlled FATA and migrated to other parts of Pakistan. The Sikhs and Hindus decided to go to India which brought Protection Tax issue in media.

The recent abduction of 8 Christians have created wave of fear among their relatives living in Punjab and NWFP. There was abduction of 7 Christian from a Church in vicinity of Peshawar University but they were released by Taliban Commander Mangal Shah with a deal from government after two days....

Now this will be interesting. Right now Wilders is playing offense: "The PVV leader wants Verhagen to summon the Saudi Arabian ambassador to express his repugnance." But expect the cascade of protests and condemnations -- from both Muslims and dhimmis -- to begin soon. Still, however, this puts those who will condemn Wilders in a peculiar position. If they take issue with his characterization of Muhammad, they will either be excusing the Muslim prophet's marriage to a six-year-old and declining to condemn those Muslims who imitate their prophet by taking child brides, or, if they say that Muhammad didn't actually marry a child, they're in the position of denying evidence that is in the sources Muslims consider most reliable. Yet as this incident with the 80-year-old and his 10-year-old bride demonstrates ("my marriage is not against Shariah," said the codger), many Muslims take that evidence quite seriously.

"Wilders Compares Prophet Mohammed to Pig," from NIS News, August 28 (thanks to Ebonystone):

THE HAGUE, 28/08/09 - Party for Freedom (PVV) leader Geert Wilders has seized on a news report from Saudi Arabia for peppery written questions to the cabinet. In these, he compares the Islamic prophet Mohammed to a pig.

Wilders has requested clarification from Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen on a marriage in Saudi Arabia between an 80 year old man and a 10 year old child. The child had run away from her elderly husband, but was brought back to him by her father, the English-language website Arab News reports based on a Saudi newspaper.

Wilders asks the minister if he shares the view that "this man is behaving like a pig, just like the barbarous Prophet Mohammed, who married the six year old girl Aisha." The PVV leader wants Verhagen to summon the Saudi Arabian ambassador to express his repugnance.

Part One is here, Part Two here, Part Three here, Part Four here, and Part Five here.

On August 21, 2009, in the middle of a morning in the middle of a war (allusion-hunters welcome), The Times, that of New York, had an article that ought to have startled. It began thus:

U.S. Officials Get a Taste of Pakistanis’ Anger at America By HELENE COOPER

KARACHI, Pakistan — Judith A. McHale was expecting a contentious session with Ansar Abbasi, a Pakistani journalist known for his harsh criticism of American foreign policy, when she sat down for a one-on-one meeting with him in a hotel conference room in Islamabad on Monday. She got that, and a little bit more.

After Ms. McHale, the Obama administration’s new under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, gave her initial polite presentation about building bridges between America and the Muslim world, Mr. Abbasi thanked her politely for meeting with him. Then he told her that he hated her.

“ ‘You should know that we hate all Americans,’ ” Ms. McHale said Mr. Abbasi told her. “ ‘From the bottom of our souls, we hate you.’ ”

Let’s stop right there.

Ansar Abbasi is not some marginal figure, some crank without a following. You can find out all you need to know about him online. He even has his own website. He’s a journalist, and he has seen a little of the outside, non-Muslim world, having received an education at home at private schools that still retain the influence of their non-Muslim founders. (Muslim elites tend to send their own children to schools run by non-Muslims, such as Baghdad College, formerly run by Jesuits from Boston College, and Victoria College (in Egypt), run by Anglicans, and schools run by nuns for girls. And of course there is the American School in Kuwait City, and so on round the Muslim world.

If they are sufficiently lucky, some of those students manage to study or even live in the West. But the amazing thing is that, while they obscurely recognize -- as Ansar Abbasi does -- that things are ordered far better, in every way, in the Western world, they tend to treat this as merely a matter of money (although the Muslims have received twelve trillion dollars since 1973 alone) or of “modern technology.” But why has no “modern technology” -- not one whit -- come from the Muslim lands? Why has nothing at all of cultural significance come from the Muslim lands in the last millennium -- that is, ever since the non-Muslim peoples who had been conquered had been reduced in influence as, usually, in numbers too? They seem never to consider if, just perhaps, the failures of the Muslim lands -- political, economic, social, intellectual, and moral failures -- are perhaps explained best by reference to Islam itself.

As M. Cherif Bassiouni, Distinguished Research Professor of Law Emeritus and President Emeritus, International Human Rights Law Institute, DePaul University, will tell you, you're a greasy Islamophobe if you think that Islamic law prescribes the death penalty for apostates. Anyone who thinks that must simply be "hate-mongering." In reality, as M. Cherif Bassiouni, Distinguished Research Professor of Law Emeritus and President Emeritus, International Human Rights Law Institute, DePaul University, will tell you, "a Muslim’s conversion to Christianity" -- or, presumably, to anything else -- "is not a crime punishable by death under Islamic law."

Great. The only problem is that large numbers of Muslims around the world don't seem to have gotten the message, and seem instead to agree with those greasy Islamophobes.

"Chechen rebels put fatwa on separatist leader living in London for abandoning Islam," from the Daily Mail, August 25 (thanks to Alexandre):

Chechen rebels have today called for prominent separatist leader Akhmed Zakayev to be killed, saying he has abandoned Islam.

Zakayev, who lives in London, represents the moderate wing of the separatist movement and has clashed with radical Islamic insurgents in Russia's southern republic of Chechnya.

An Islamic rebel website said Zakayav had recognised the authority of Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed leader of the region.

'Public remarks show that he (Zakayev) has fallen away from Islam,' the website said, adding that Doku Umarov, Chechnya's most wanted separatist leader, was behind the order.

'The court has ruled that the killing of this apostate is a duty for Muslims.' It did not say what court had issued the ruling....

Dear Leader sends Ahmadinejad a care package. "‘N Korean arms for Iran’ seized by UAE," by Simon Kerr and Harvey Morris for the Financial Times, August 28 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The United Arab Emirates has seized a ship secretly carrying embargoed North Korean arms to Iran, say diplomats. [...]

The UAE reported the seizure to the UN sanctions committee responsible for vetting the implementation of measures, including an arms embargo, imposed against North Korea under Security Council resolution 1874, according to diplomats in New York. The committee, chaired by Turkey, has made no formal announcement about the case.

A UN diplomat whose country is represented on the sanctions committee said the UAE reported the ship was carrying 10 containers of weapons and related items, including rocket-propelled grenades and ammunition. He said the consignment had been ordered by Iran’s TSS, a company said to be linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and previously subject to international bans on importing weapons-related items.

The vessel, identified by diplomats as the Bahamian-flagged ANL-Australia, has been allowed to leave the UAE after being seized some weeks ago. Diplomats said it was the UAE’s responsibility to dispose of the cargo of weapons found on board. The UN sanctions committee has written to the Iranian and North Korean governments pointing out that the shipment puts them in violation of UN resolution 1874. [...]

The UAE is a hub for goods moving in and out of Iran. Western powers have pressed for greater co-operation from UAE authorities to track shipments and monitor Iranian finances. They have also closed some companies that have been involved in allegedly exporting dual-use materials that could be used for nuclear technology or explosive devices found in Afghanistan and Iraq.

While most focus is on dual-use technology, diplomats said the clampdown on public dissent after Iran’s contested elections had also raised concerns about supplies of arms to state-linked militias.

Odd statement of cause and effect. They certainly should have been concerned about the weapons reaching the Revolutionary Guards and Basijis, as well as Hamas and Hizballah, well before that.

The UAE, a US ally, is also worried about Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Indeed. Even the IAEA is coming around on the idea of "military dimensions" to Iran's nuclear program. But will it make anyone move more quickly to halt the program?

Because, you see, after billions to Pakistan, billions to Egypt, billions here and there and everywhere, we haven't been doing enough to show Muslim countries that we are their friends.

"Military chief seeks new plan to woo Muslims," by Thom Shanker for the New York Times (via MSNBC), August 28 (thanks to all who sent this in):

WASHINGTON - The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has written a searing critique of government efforts at “strategic communication” with the Muslim world, saying that no amount of public relations will establish credibility if American behavior overseas is perceived as arrogant, uncaring or insulting.

The problem here, however, is that when it comes to Islamic jihadists, virtually anything short of full capitulation is perceived as arrogant, uncaring or insulting. Any resistance to the jihad agenda is immediately cast as a grievous insult that must be redressed.

The critique by the chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, comes as the United States is widely believed to be losing ground in the war of ideas against extremist Islamist ideology. The issue is particularly relevant as the Obama administration orders fresh efforts to counter militant propaganda, part of its broader strategy to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“To put it simply, we need to worry a lot less about how to communicate our actions and much more about what our actions communicate,” Admiral Mullen wrote in the critique, an essay to be published Friday by Joint Force Quarterly, an official military journal.

“I would argue that most strategic communication problems are not communication problems at all,” he wrote. “They are policy and execution problems. Each time we fail to live up to our values or don’t follow up on a promise, we look more and more like the arrogant Americans the enemy claims we are.”...

Maybe. But unfortunately the Admiral, like virtually everyone else in Washington on both sides of the aisle, assumes that the jihadists are merely reacting to actions by the United States. The possibility that they may hate us for reasons of their own that have nothing to do with what we have done or can do doesn't seem to enter anyone's mind. Yet it is precisely that possibility that is suggested again and again by a close examination of the belief system of the jihadists themselves. They believe that they are commanded to fight against us because we are Infidels. If we are arrogant or inconsistent in living up to our own values, that makes for good grievance propaganad fodder, but it is not the root cause of the conflict itself.

He also challenged a popular perception that Al Qaeda operates from primitive hide-outs and still wins the propaganda war against the United States. “The problem isn’t that we are bad at communicating or being outdone by men in caves,” Admiral Mullen wrote. “Most of them aren’t even in caves. The Taliban and Al Qaeda live largely among the people. They intimidate and control and communicate from within, not from the sidelines.”

Soldiers are fighting to suppress the Taliban and win over the Afghan people as President Barack Obama deepens American involvement in Afghanistan.

American messages to counter extremist information campaigns “lack credibility, because we haven’t invested enough in building trust and relationships, and we haven’t always delivered on promises,” he wrote.

And because the Qur'an teaches Muslims to distrust Infidels, as they are the "most vile of created beings" (98:6) and will never be satisfied until the Muslims discard Islam (2:120). One is not take them as friends or protectors (3:28; 5:51).

As a guide, Admiral Mullen cited American efforts at rebuilding Europe after World War II and then containing communism as examples of successes that did not depend on opinion polls or strategic communication plans. He cited more recent military relief missions after natural disasters as continuing that style of successful American efforts overseas.

“That’s the essence of good communication: having the right intent up front and letting our actions speak for themselves,” Admiral Mullen wrote. “We shouldn’t care if people don’t like us. That isn’t the goal. The goal is credibility. And we earn that over time.”...

Yet we have spent billions on Marshall-Plan-like projects in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and they still don't like us. The South African mufti Ebrahim Desai put paid to any good that hearts-and-minds efforts might do a few years ago when he said: "In simple the Kuffaar [unbelievers] can never be trusted for any possible good they do. They have their own interest at heart.”

Mullen says we have to become "better listeners," but I'll bet he isn't listening to that, or taking it into account in any way.

Admiral Mullen did not single out specific government communications programs for criticism, but wrote that “there has been a certain arrogance to our ‘strat comm’ efforts.” He wrote that “good communications runs both ways.”

“It’s not about telling our story,” he stated. “We must also be better listeners.”

The Muslim community “is a subtle world we don’t fully — and don’t always attempt to — understand,” he wrote. “Only through a shared appreciation of the people’s culture, needs and hopes for the future can we hope ourselves to supplant the extremist narrative.”...

I'm all for efforts to understand. But I wonder if he will follow through with them even if they begin to take him to places he doesn't want to go.

What a surprise!

"Pakistan: No Military Campaign Against the Taliban," by Bobby Ghosh for Time, August 28 (thanks to John):

Despite strenuous entreaties by top U.S. officials, Pakistan has abandoned plans to mount a military offensive against the terrorist group responsible for a two-year campaign of suicide bombings across the country. Although the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has been in disarray since an Aug. 5 missile strike from a CIA-operated drone killed its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani military has concluded that a ground attack on its strongholds in South Waziristan would be too difficult....

It's for incisive work of this kind that the learned analysts make the big bucks. "Report: Iran nuclear program may have 'military dimensions,'" by Yossi Melman for Haaretz, August 28 (thanks to Alexandre):

A new report commissioned by the International Atomic Energy Agency says that Iran's nuclear energy program may contain "military dimensions."

In other words, the report states that Iran may be working towards acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. The report was issued just prior to the annual meeting of IAEA member states which is scheduled to convene next month in Vienna.

The report alleges that Iran is refusing the agency's repeated requests for explanations and documentation over its past nuclear activities. Tehran's non-compliance has raised suspicions that it is aiming to attain nuclear weapons.

It has become evident that Iran has confirmed, albeit implicitly, that it carried out experiments in order to test the process known as "detonation," a key stage in the development of nuclear weapons.

In addition, it refused to comment on other activities related to its nuclear program, including "weaponization," one of the final phases in manufacturing nuclear weapons in which fissionable material is installed into the bomb....

This will air Saturday, August 29 at 7PM EDT. From C-Span (thanks to Bill):

The Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam is Subverting America without Guns or Bombs

Robert Spencer

About the Program

From Young America's Foundation's 31st Annual National Conservative Student Conference held in Washington, DC, a talk by Robert Spencer, author of "Stealth Jihad." Includes audience Q&A.

About the Authors

Robert Spencer

Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch (jihadwatch.org), is the author many books [sic], including the "The Truth About Muhammad" and "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam."

"The war in the tribal areas and Swat is an integral part of the crusade on Muslims across the world." Not that his appeal has anything to do with Islam.

"Qaeda's Zawahri calls for Pakistani jihad," from Reuters, August 28 (thanks to all who sent this in):

DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda's second-in-command on Friday accused the United States of leading a crusade to turn Pakistan into a divided nation and urged Pakistanis to join in a jihad to resist.

The tape from Ayman al-Zawahri, the second this month, comes after Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a U.S. missile strike on Aug. 5....

"The war in the tribal areas and Swat is an integral part of the crusade on Muslims across the world," Zawahri said in the tape posted on an al Qaeda-linked website.

In the 22-minute video address entitled "Path of Doom" he reiterates comments made in July calling for Pakistanis to wage war against the American "crusaders" and the Pakistani army.

"There is no honour for us except through Jihad," Zawahri said.

"People of Pakistan ... back the jihad and mujahideen with your persons, wealth, opinion, expertise, information and prayers and by exhorting others to help them and preach their message."...

Part One is here, Part Two here, Part Three here, and Part Four here.

Gates spent his speech -- see here -- ignoring the nature of what Muslims learn about Infidels: Americans are Infidels, and the United States is the military leader of the Infidel camp, the Camp that begins, but does not end, with the West. Gates said that the hostility Pakistanis had for the U.S. -- expressed in the survey that found that “64 percent” of Pakistanis saw the United States as an enemy” -- was disturbing but not “surprising.”

Pakistan, pace Gates, is not right to mistrust Americans. But Pakistanis do distrust Americans, even though we have done so much, given so much, to Pakistan, and even though we have ignored over many decades a history of meretriciousness from a recipient of a great deal of aid. Pakistan is considered an "ally" -- yet against the U.S. it has maintained a level and duration of meretriciousness that is possibly without parallel in recent American history. Pakistanis mistrust and will always mistrust Americans because Pakistanis are Muslims, and we are Infidels. They are taught, they are inculcated, in a massive brainwashing that begins very early in childhood and never lets up in societies and states suffused with Islam, to believe that Infidels are always in league with Shaytan (Satan), are the permanent enemies of Muslims, and must be regarded as such. Infidels are the enemies of Muslims in what is a state of permanent war between Believers and Infidels. No Muslim should be fooled by acts of seeming kindness on the part of Infidels. If they are kind, it is only, you see, for deceitful reasons, including the desire to eventually win away Muslims from the only true faith, the Deen that matters, Islam itself.

In 1929 Jews in Hebron were living on land they had "occupied" for 3,000 years. "Remembering the Hebron Massacre: Until 1929, Jews had lived in the city for three millennia," by Jerold S. Auerbach in the Wall Street Journal, August 27 (thanks to Dan):

[...] On Aug. 23-24, 1929, the Jewish community of Hebron was exiled following a horrific pogrom. The tragedy is known as Tarpat, an acronym for its date in the Hebrew calendar.

Until 1929, Jews had lived in Hebron for three millennia. There, according to Jewish tradition, Abraham purchased the cave of Machpelah to bury Sarah. It was the first parcel of land owned by the Jewish people in their promised land. Ever since, religious Jews revered Hebron as the burial site of their matriarchs and patriarchs. Conquered, massacred and expelled over the centuries, Jews always returned to this sacred place.

After 1267, under Muslim rule, no Jews were permitted to pray inside the magnificent enclosure, built by King Herod in the 1st century, that still surrounds the burial caves. But following the expulsion of Jews from Spain at the end of the 15th century, a small group of religious Jews rebuilt a community of study and prayer in Hebron.

In August 1929, that community was suddenly and brutally attacked. Incited by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem—who claimed that Jews were endangering Muslim holy sites on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem—Arab rioters swept through Palestine. In Hebron, the carnage was horrendous.

It began on Friday afternoon when Arabs attacked Jews with clubs and murdered a yeshiva student. The next morning, joined by local villagers, Arabs swarmed through Hebron screaming "Kill the Jews." They broke into the home of Eliezer Dan Slonim, where many Jews had gathered for safety. There they wielded knives and axes to murder 22 innocents. In the Anglo-Palestine Bank, where 23 corpses were discovered, blood covered the tile floor. That day, three children under the age of five were murdered. Teenage girls, their mothers and grandmothers were raped and killed. Rabbis and their students were castrated before they were slain. A surviving yeshiva student recounted that he "had seen greater horrors than Dante in hell."

When the slaughter finally subsided, 67 Jews had been murdered. Three days later, British soldiers evacuated 484 survivors, including 153 children, to Jerusalem. The butchery in Hebron, Zionist and religious officials alleged, was "without equal in the history of the country since the destruction of the Temple." Sir Walter Shaw, chairman of an exhaustive British royal investigation, concluded that "unspeakable atrocities" had occurred. [...]

Hebron Jews are relentlessly vilified as fanatics who illegally occupy someone else's land. As religious Zionists, they are the militant Jewish settlers whom legions of Jewish and non-Jewish critics love to hate. It is seldom noticed that their most serious transgression—settlement in the biblical land of Israel—is the definition of Zionism: the return of Jews to their historic homeland.

The strange thing about this case is that self-proclaimed anti-jihadists who have no trouble recognizing Palestinian "Paliwood" War-Is-Deceit propaganda designed to advance the jihad cause by manufacturing Israeli atrocities, and who even recognize fauxtography generated by the Palestinians, Iran, and others for the same purpose, refuse even to consider the possibility that Muslims could have carried out any deceptive atrocity-manufacturing in the Balkans. Indeed, some even charge that anyone who thinks that Balkan Islamic jihadists carried out any deception at all must be secretly a sympathizer of this genocide-that-never-was.

But that, of course, is a common tactic of both Leftists and jihadists: if you can't refute 'em, defame 'em.

"Srebrenica: More Myth Than Massacre," by Caleb Posner, August 25:

As the saying goes, history is written by the winners. And when it comes to the former Yugoslav peoples, that can readily be described as everybody but the Serbs. So it is unsurprising then that they have been vilified throughout the West, labeled as war criminals and butchers whose unmitigated xenophobia caused the collapse of a great multi-ethnic state and the bloodiest set of wars Europe had witnessed in a half century. Yet much as Joe Biden and other Serbophobic politicians who called for the repeated bombing of Serbia during the Wars of Yugoslav Secession might believe that summary to be accurate, the facts simply do not lend themselves to such a conclusion. This may be no better demonstrated than by looking at Srebrenica, which has long been Exhibit A in the court of world opinion in the case against the Serbs.

Officially, the story goes that around 8000 innocent Bosnian Muslims were, without any provocation, slaughtered indiscriminately by genocidal Serbs with revanchist aims, who were unmoved by the civilian status of their victims, or that the area they attacked was to be a safe haven managed by the unbiased and above reproach United Nations. As far as making a case for the bloody violence the Western allies would unleash on the Serbs, that did the job rather well, as it played to the sympathies of the emotionally-driven masses. Of course, with respect to capturing the truth, the governmental line is rather inadequate.

So what exactly is the truth? Alexander Dorin, a Swiss researcher who just recently sent his book “Srebrenica – The History of Salon Racism” to print in German (Serb and English translations are planned in the future) said in an interview that, “After 14 years of investigating events that took place in Srebrenica in 1995 I can attest there was no genocide over Muslims in that enclave — the myth about the massacre of Muslims was invented by the late Bosnian Muslim war leader Alija Izetbegović and then-U.S. president Bill Clinton.” Questionable as that allegation may sound to many, it is important to recall that the United States actively armed Izetbegović and his ragtag jihadist army during the war, applied pressure on Tudjman’s secessionist Croat government to cease his involvement in the Herzeg-Bosnia land theft, and sought actively to create a Bosniak state where one had not traditionally existed (for the land falls within the bounds of historic Serbia). Much of this, especially the sale of arms, was documented heavily even by the liberal American media at the time. And indeed, once the other factual inaccuracies become apparent, it seems quite evident that there was not a Srebrenica massacre, but rather a military engagement that, like many US operations, involved some inadvertant civilian casualties, that has been mythologized to give political cover to the warmongers that led us into battle on intelligence information more questionable than any ever utilized by the Bush administration.

For instance, the real number of dead bodies uncovered was closer to 2000. Some 3000 names of alleged victims were alive enough to vote in the 1996 elections. And many other dead bodies were found to be from previous gun battles or from non-violent ends more than a decade before the event in question. Still unaddressed though is guilt. Among the 2000 dead discovered were a very large number of soldiers who, under the leadership of jihadist Naser Orić killed some 3000 Serbian civilians beforehand. That raises perhaps the most important point: Srebrenica was not a purposeful slaughter of innocent civilians, but an effort by Serb forces to save the lives of their countrymen from an enemy army that had already spilled ample blood, and which was cowardly seeking refuge in protected civilian areas that were supposed to be unarmed, and therefore demilitarized....

Read it all.

A vile game -- and if they win, their prize could be a dead girl. "Rifqa's Apostasy," by Pamela Geller in Human Events, August 28:

[...] The Orlando Sentinel is busy propagating the statements of Rifqa Bary’s devout Muslim family and the family’s lawyers. CAIR, according to the Jawa Report blog, has “instructed supporters to circulate rumors that Rifqa had been carousing with infidel boys and engaged in acts of immorality.” But it looks awfully bad to keep going after a little girl. So they’re also blaming the American people’s alleged “ignorance of Islam.”

Ahmed M. Rehab, executive director of CAIR, wrote to the Sentinel complaining about the “public’s ignorance of Islamic history, culture and contemporary affairs,” and charging that “Rifqa’s parents are judged not by who they are but by what the pundits say they are."

Does Rehab, whose CAIR organization was in 2007 named an un-indicted co-conspirator in a terrorism funding case, mention the death threat to Rifqa? Or the death penalty for apostasy in Islam? Does he discuss Rifqa’s fears, or the danger Rifqa is in? No. It’s all about “nuance,” “perception,” and “1,400 years of solid civilization by Muslims from China to Spain.” He even says that “7 million American Muslims live among their neighbors in this country as proud, upright citizens,” wildly inflating the Muslim population in the U.S. and ignoring terror activity that has been documented among Muslims here.

And that is only the beginning. Now, a larger context comes into play. Those who question the violent teachings of Muhammad are being painted with the “racist” brush. The objective is to smear those who dare speak the truth and validate, with scholarship and historic evidence, Rifqa Bary’s claims.

On Monday the Daily Kos, the largest left-wing blog on the Internet, went after “anti-Muslim” blogs and pundits. Robert Spencer, best selling author of nine books (his latest is The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran, ) and renowned scholar on Islam, exposed Kos’s intellectually dishonest argument.

Responding to Kos’ charges of “hate,” Spencer said: “It is not ‘hate’ to report accurately on how Islamic jihadists use Islamic texts and teachings to justify violence against non-Muslims. Nor is it ‘anti-Muslim’ to do so. If the Kos gang is interested in actual ‘hate,’ they should write about those who kill unbelievers and oppress women in the name of Sharia. It is not ‘hate’ to defend the equality of rights of women with men, freedom of speech, and other rights that are denied under Sharia.”

It is no accident that Kos decided to do a counter jihad smear Monday. You can’t attack a little girl every day and rally supporters. So now it’s time to take down her defenders. Time magazine is trying to do this as well: “Not surprisingly, Rifqa is turning into a cause célèbre. Conservative websites often accused of anti-Muslim agendas, such as the Jawa Report, Atlas Shrugs and WorldNetDaily, have been lighting up over the Rifqa fight. No doubt conservative and anti-U.S. Muslim [sic] will eventually step into the media frenzy.”

Saving a life a young girl’s life is now a “cause célèbre,” which the Times people seem to use as a pejorative. But it must be for all who value freedom....

Yes, it is. Read it all.

Imagine the headline, the international outcry, the outrage, the riots, the panels on "Islamophobia" all over MSNBC -- but relax. None of that will happen. No one will much notice this. But it is useful to keep in mind as a contrast to the cultural elites' quite welcoming attitude toward Islam, despite the jihad and Islamic supremacism. Or maybe because of them.

Live Free Or Not Alert: "Court orders Christian child into government education: 10-year-old's 'vigorous' defense of her faith condemned by judge," by Bob Unruh for World Net Daily, August 28 (thanks to Salt and Light Blog):

A 10-year-old homeschool girl described as "well liked, social and interactive with her peers, academically promising and intellectually at or superior to grade level" has been told by a New Hampshire court official to attend a government school because she was too "vigorous" in defense of her Christian faith.

The decision from Marital Master Michael Garner reasoned that the girl's "vigorous defense of her religious beliefs to [her] counselor suggests strongly that she has not had the opportunity to seriously consider any other point of view."

The recommendation was approved by Judge Lucinda V. Sadler, but it is being challenged by attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund, who said it was "a step too far" for any court.

The ADF confirmed today it has filed motions with the court seeking reconsideration of the order and a stay of the decision sending the 10-year-old student in government-run schools in Meredith, N.H....

Act of war -- unnoticed. "Somali pirates fire at U.S. helicopter, Navy says," by Mike Mount for CNN, August 27 (thanks to Tee Cee):

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Pirates holding a Taiwanese-flagged ship off the coast of Somalia fired on a U.S. Navy helicopter Wednesday as the aircraft monitored the ship, the Navy said.

The helicopter was not struck and all crew members were safe after the incident, the Navy said in a news release....

Somali pirates hijacked the M/V Win Far on April 6. Navy officials said the vessel is being used as a "mother ship," or a floating base, to launch attacks on other ships, including the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama. The Alabama was targeted by pirates in an April hijacking that ended with U.S. Navy snipers shooting dead three pirates who were holding the captain of the ship hostage.

According to the Navy's news release Thursday, the flight crew on the SH-60 helicopter "noticed activity" on the ship but could not determine if the pirates had fired at them.

When the helicopter returned to the USS Chancellorsville, a review of its infrared camera showed the aircraft was fired on.

The helicopter did not return fire, according to the release....

The India World Report (thanks to Looney Tunes) notes a glaring double standard in the Paper of Record:

"2 killings stoke Kashmir rage at Indian force" is a story New York times printed on front page headline and continued to page 6 taking three-fourth of it.

From the political point of view even the Pakistani administration or terrorists could not expect better. Just one example of how wily is the report - "India and Pakistan have fought two wars over Kashmir " - this is half truth. Without twist it should read "Pakistan attacked India two times "..each word is crafted against India. However in this article i am just keeping the subject limited to fate of women.

Two women were raped and murdered, which is reprehensible and justice to be served. This two unfortunate deaths made national headlines, paralysed the towns for 50 days by strikes and placed suspension of police personnel and whole state is in a boiling point. Such major protests somehow prove the rarity of such incidents and the full-blown media reports show. The concern of the people and media. So much so it made a headline in nytimes.

Appended below specifics of some recent cases of rape, rape & murder, abduction, & conversion to Islam that happened in Bangladesh ;

Name place date

district
Anguri Biswas Razoir 2. 7. 09 Madaripur
Radharani Halder Shariatpur 27. 6. 09 Dhaka
Koli Goswami Nandail 13. 6. 09 Mymensingh
Mohana Mondal Bangnna 2. 8. 09 Dhaka

unlike those two unfortunate women in kashmir they got very little coverage in media and the living rape victims have become a laughing stock to the majority muslim people. They are far from any sort of justice. On the contrary, the victims and their family members are under constant threat. Such henious crime against women in bangladesh went unreported in world media or even in the indian media. Whereas the death of two kashmiri muslim women caused ripples in the world to get the headline in ny times.

Details of the fates of all four women follow. Read it all.

Mike Tyson, yet another Misunderstander of Islam -- the great statement comes at 1:32. (Thanks to LGF2.)

Ah, the exquisite complexity of Islam eludes yet another Muslim, Kadir T., who somehow gets the Islamophobic idea that he has a religious responsibility to wage war against unbelievers. Will the Islamophobia never end?

"Germany arrests suspect in plot to attack U.S. targets," from CNN, August 28 (thanks to James):

BERLIN, Germany (CNN) -- German federal prosecutors said Friday they have arrested a man suspected of helping a terrorist cell that allegedly plotted attacks against U.S. troops in Germany.

The U.S. military's Ramstein Air Base is believed to be one of the targets for plotters.

The prosecutor's office identified the man only as "Kadir T.," and said he is a German of Turkish origin.

He is suspected of acquiring a video camera and night-vision equipment for the Islamic Jihad Union group, prosecutors said. The items were allegedly shipped to Waziristan in Pakistan, prosecutors added.

Four men trained by the Islamic Jihad Union are currently on trial in Germany for allegedly plotting attacks against U.S installations in Germany. They are known as the "Sauerland Group."

Three of the men -- two Germans and a Turk -- were arrested in September 2007. They were mixing a massive amount of explosive materials that could have resulted in a strong blast, bigger than the attacks in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005, authorities said.

Fritz Gelowicz, Martin Schneider, and Adem Yilmaz are charged with membership in foreign and domestic terrorist groups, preparation of explosives, plotting to murder and plotting to commit a crime using explosives, the court said.

Schneider is also accused of attempted murder, the court said.

The fourth person, identified in German media reports as Attila Selek, is a German citizen of Turkish descent....

Z Street is a new Jewish advocacy organization; it has already shown courage and vision by supporting Rifqa Bary, the girl who converted from Islam to Christianity and now says she is fighting for her life by fleeing from her family after her father threatened to kill her.

THE MEDIA ISN’T INTERESTED WHEN MUSLIM PARENTS MAKE CREDIBLE DEATH THREATS AGAINST THEIR TEENAGE CONVERT TO CHRISTIANITY, BUT THEY ‘RELIGIOUSLY’ CONDEMN PRAYER IN SCHOOL AND OTHER NON-MUSLIM RELIGIOUS EXPRESSIONS

On Thursday, September 3, Florida Circuit judge Daniel Dawson will decide whether a 17 year old girl can practice her chosen religion in a safe environment, or if she will be shipped back to her family where she faces imminent danger and possibly murder.

Z STREET, a new Zionist organization committed to opposing terrorism and oppressive Muslim law, stands behind this teenager and supports her decision to both choose her own religion and to choose freedom from harm, even - especially - from her own family.

Rifqa Bary chose to clandestinely practice Christianity approximately four years ago. She kept her religious choice private because she knew her parents, strict Muslims who attend a local mosque just outside of Columbus, Ohio, would never permit her to leave Islam. A former scholar at her parents’ radical mosque, a Hamas cleric, was eventually banned from the United States. Columbus is a suspected nucleus of al Qaeda activity in the United States.

Mosque members informed Rifqa’s parents about her Christianity. Bruises on her arms and other parental abuse - including death threats - led Rifqa to flee her home and run to the security of a church in Florida. While in Florida, Rifqa filed a legal petition to remain there and not be shipped back to Ohio.

Much of this story’s (relatively scarce) media attention has prominently mentioned that the church leader from whom Rifqa sought refuge is an evangelical Christian. Reverand Blake Lorenz was accused by Rifqa’s father of kidnapping and brainwashing his daughter. Lorenz’s church has been called a “fringe cult.”

“The media’s willingness to publicize smears against conservative Christianity, while failing to focus on the centuries-long dictates of Islam which demands converts be killed and which honors those killers, usually family members, is appalling,” said Z STREET co-founder Lori Lowenthal Marcus.

The choice of the Florida court on September 3 is to allow Rifqa to freely and safely practice her chosen religion, or condemn her to return to her family who are strict adherents of a religion that officially considers it an honor for a family member to kill an apostate - someone who chooses a religion other than Islam.

Rifqa recognizes the immensity of the court’s decision: “I want to worship Jesus freely, that’s what I want. I don’t want to die.”

The press has largely ignored this life and death decision which pits Muslim parents against their teenage daughter who chose Christianity over Islam. Islam dictates the parents’ actions - let’s hope judicial sagacity and respect for human life guide the judge’s. And that the love of our country’s First Amendment and respect for International human rights guides the press.

Mad as heck, by golly, and going to court

It's all the same jihad, after all.

Still, there is a verse in the Qur'an that says "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" (9:111). There is no verse that says "they fight in His cause, and sue and are sued."

"Young Afghan freed from Gitmo to take US to court," from PressTV, August 27 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

The young Afghan Guantanamo detainee who has been recently released from the notorious detention facility intends to sue Washington over his "illegal detention".

The detainee's lawyer said Thursday Mohammed Jawad would sue the US government for holding him behind bars for seven years "without charges".

Jawad, 12 at the time of his detention in 2002, arrived in his hometown earlier this week after he was freed when American judges ruled that he had been coerced into confessing to a crime against US soldiers.

According to the US government account, the detainee had hurled a grenade at a US vehicle in the Afghan capital of Kabul that left injured two American soldiers and their interpreter.

The judge who ordered him released said the government's case was an "outrage" and "full of holes."

Jawad has maintained his innocence and described the case against him as fabricated. "I was an innocent child when they put me in prison."

His lawyers and family members say sleep deprivation and beatings were among the methods of torture he received at Guantanamo....

As long as he didn't get the dreaded...prolonged diapering!

Do you suffer from this malady that is the worst form of terrorism?

Take this simple test. Consult your local Reeducation Camp Supervisor to discuss results. And don't worry. There is a cure. You, too, can learn to love Big Brother.

"Are You An Islamophobe?," by Phyllis Chesler in Pajamas Media, August 26:

Are you an Islamophobe? Here is a simple test.

Lorna Saltzman’s Test

Do you favor equal rights and treatment of women and men?

Do you oppose stoning of women accused of adultery?

Do you favor mandatory education of girls everywhere?

Do you oppose slavery and child prostitution?

Do you support complete freedom of expression and the press?

Do you support the right of an individual to worship in her chosen religion?

Do you oppose government- and mosque-supported anti-Semitic publications, radio, TV and textbooks?

Do you oppose the wearing of burqas in public places, schools and courts?

Do you oppose segregation of the sexes in public places and houses of worship?

Do you oppose the death penalty for non-Muslims and Muslims who convert to another religion?

Do you oppose “honor” killings?

Do you oppose female genital mutilation?

Do you oppose forced sexual relations?

Do you oppose discrimination against homosexuals?

Do you support the right to criticize religion?

Do you oppose polygamy?

Do you oppose child marriage, forced or otherwise?

Do you oppose the quranic mandate to kill non-Muslims and apostates?

Do you oppose the addition of sharia courts to your country’s legal system?

Do you disagree with the quran which asserts the superiority of Islam to all other religions?

If you answered most or all of these affirmatively, you are a vile Islamophobe and deserve to be beheaded as the quran instructs.

If you answered one third or more of them affirmatively, you are a borderline Islamophobe and need to receive brainwashing to become a full-fledged dhimmi.

If you answered a quarter or fewer affirmatively, you need a few private lessons in dhimmitude to scrub yourself clean of those remnants of Islamophobia.

If you answered affirmatively to NONE of these, Congratulations! You are a worthy observant (radical–PC addition) Muslim and have a bright future vilifying Jews, torturing women or, inshallah, becoming a suicide bomber.”

Thank you Lorna for laying it all out.

FYI: Lorna Saltzman has been a environmental writer, lecturer and organizer since the early 1970s and was a candidate for the US Green Party’s presidential nomination in 2004. Her articles on evolution, energy, Green politics and secularism can be found on her website:
www.lornasalzman.com

Not surprisingly, authorities have done nothing. Islamic Tolerance Alert. "Bangladesh: Muslims threaten Catholic women of Dewtola village," by William Gomes for AsiaNews, August 27:

Dhaka (AsiaNews) - Catholic women of the village of Dewtola can no longer go to mass because of continual threats from local Muslims. For the past several weeks tensions have been mounting around the parish of St. Francis Xavier in Golla, Nawabgonj district.

Michael Gomes, a local Catholic leader, tells AsiaNews that "defenceless women and children are being intimidated. Most of the men of the village have emigrated to Europe or moved to Dhaka to find work”.

The threats originate from disputes over the village market where many stalls are run by some of the more than 3 thousand 700 Christians living in the area. Muslim traders want to take possession of them and have already on several occasions tried to use force to expel the non Muslim owners.

Incidents like this arise from the sense of self-importance and entitlement fueled by Qur'anic diatribes against unbelievers (see, in particular: 3:110, 5:59-60, 98:6) and enshrined in the tenets of Sharia.

Already in 2006, for the same reason, a crowd of 200 people attacked the Catholic faithful as they were going to church and destroyed some of their stalls at the market. "Now the climate is back to being that of three years ago - says Gomes - we live in a situation of deep insecurity and despite having alerted the local authorities nothing has happened."

The story is further complicated by the private interest of local politicians. Gomes says that "the local union leader is linked to the Muslims and says that the market can not be the exclusive property of Christians”.

But why? What makes them think they're going to have any inmates who adhere to the Religion of Peace™? Expect the Muslim Council of Britain to take this prison to task for its "Islamophobia" for anticipating that it will have any Muslim inmates at all.

Absurd Britannia Update: "Prison spends £17,000 on footbaths and toilets for Muslims," from the Telegraph, August 27 (thanks to Lazy Buddha):

A prison spent £17,000 on special toilets for foreigners and footbaths for Muslims.

Figures obtained from the Ministry of Justice under the Freedom of Information Act show that the money was spent on two footbaths, a "squat" toilet and a shower area at Canterbury Prison in Kent, which only holds foreign nationals awaiting deportation and has 92 Muslim inmates.

Footbaths are often used by Muslims as they are required to wash their feet before prayer. However, the area is not exclusive to Muslims and can be used by all inmates.

What a relief! I'm sure many grime-footed inmates will want to avail themselves of this boon!

The expenditure was condemned by the TaxPayers' Alliance.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive, said: "It's ridiculous that we are spending so much money on prisoners who should have been deported, rather than kept here as a burden on innocent taxpayers.

"Making basic provision for people's needs is one thing, but there is no reason at all why there should be special toilets installed. If prison doesn't have the perfect toilet facilities for you, then you shouldn't have committed a crime, it isn't meant to be nice."...

Uh, yeah.

The board also stressed no complaints have been received of non-Muslims being denied access to the area.

This is ridiculous. Why would they want to be there in the first place?

Other measures have been taken to accommodate the prison's global population, including a multi-faith area allowing all inmates to practise their religion. Muslim prisoners are permitted one hour's use every Friday for prayers.

Islamic prayer timetables are provided, the Koran is available on request and an Imam is employed for 18 hours a week to carry out generic work and faith duties.

I hope Israel will fund new road signs in Iowa written in Arabic and Hebrew -- no English.

"The development is seen as part of the preparation for a future Palestinian state" -- and yet the aftermath of the Gaza withdrawal only indicates that such a state will simply become a base for more jihad attacks against Israel. But just as the learned analysts didn't care about setting up a Shi'ite satellite of Iran in Iraq, so now they don't care about destroying America's best ally in the Middle East.

"US funding new West Bank road signs written in Arabic and English," from the Jerusalem Post, August 27 (thanks to James):

New road signs in Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank will be in Arabic and English, without Hebrew, a US official said Thursday.

Mindy Masonis, spokeswoman for the US Consulate in Jerusalem, said the new signs will be part of a larger program aimed at improving conditions in the West Bank. The development is seen as part of the preparation for a future Palestinian state.

Masonis said no signs are being taken down, but the new ones in the Palestinian areas will be in Arabic and English. The sign project accounts for about $175,000 of a three-year, $20 million U.S. aid project to improve services in the West Bank....

Our good friend and former Jihad Watch writer Raymond Ibrahim appears on Al-Jazeera in these two clips, discussing how Islamic charitable contributions often end up in the hands of Islamic jihadists. And Raymond, with his fine beard, is looking a bit like a guy who ought himself to get carefully searched in an airport!

Only in the 29th paragraph of this story (I haven't reprinted them all here), when Sharia is mentioned, do we learn that this child marriage had anything to with Islam. Yet only when that is acknowledged and confronted will there be any chance for such girls, for only by confronting the root cause can the practice ever be successfully challenged.

"The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with 'Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death)." -- Bukhari 7.62.88

Nujood Ali Update. "Child bride's nightmare after divorce," by Paula Newton for CNN, August 27 (thanks to all who sent this in):

[...] Nujood is very different from the girl we first met nearly two years ago. Then, there was no doubt the 10-year-old was every inch a child. She was the very portrait of innocence: A shy smile, a playful nature and a whimsical giggle.

That picture was very much at odds with the brutal story of abuse she endured as a child bride who fought for a divorce and is now still fighting.

Nujood says she remains relieved and gratified that her act of defiance -- which led to appearances at awards shows and on TV -- had paid off.

The story was supposed to end with the divorce and an innocent but determined girl allowed to fully embrace the childhood she fought so hard to keep.

Instead, there has been no fairytale ending for Nujood....

"I was happy I got divorced but I'm sad about the way it turned out after I went on television," she said adding that she feels like an outcast even among her family and friends.

Nujood was pulled out of school in early 2008 and married off by her own parents to a man she says was old and ugly. And yet, as a wife, Nujood was spared nothing.

"I didn't want to sleep with him but he forced me to, he hit me, insulted me" said Nujood. She said being married and living as a wife at such a young age was sheer torture.

"He hit me."

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

Nujood described how she was beaten and raped and how, after just a few weeks of marriage, she turned to her family to try to escape the arrangement. But her parents told her they could not protect her, that she belonged to her husband now and had to accept her fate.

CNN tried to obtain comment from Nujood's husband and his family but they declined.

Nujood's parents, like many others in Yemen, struck a social bargain. More than half of all young Yemeni girls are married off before the age of 18, many times to older men, some with more than one wife.

It means the girls are no longer a financial or moral burden to their parents. But Nujood's parents say they did not expect Nujood's new husband to demand sex from his child bride.

To escape, Nujood hailed a taxi -- for the first time in her life -- to get across town to the central courthouse where she sat on a bench and demanded to see a judge.

After several hours, a judge finally went to see her. "And he asked me, 'what do you want' and I said 'I want a divorce' and he said 'you're married?' And I said 'yes.'" says Nujood.

Nujood's father and husband were arrested until the divorce hearing, and Nujood was put in the care of Nasser.

Indeed, it seems the judge had heard enough of the abuse to agree with Nujood that she should get her divorce.

But based on the principles of Shariah law, her husband was compensated, not prosecuted. Nujood was ordered to pay him more than $200 -- a huge amount in a country where the United Nations Development Programme says 15.7 percent of the population lives on less than $1 a day....

Yet another Which-Side-Is-Obama-On Alert: "Release the Terrorist, Investigate the CIA," by Andy McCarthy at The Corner, August 27:

The Wall Street Jounral [sic] has a terrific editorial this morning on how valuable the CIA interrogation program was in uncovering life-saving intelligence. My favorite paragraph was this one, which gets into the terrorist the mainstream press doesn't want to talk about, Binyam Mohammed (see my column on him, here):

The most revealing portion of the IG report documents the program's results. The CIA's "detention and interrogation of terrorists has provided intelligence that has enabled the identification and apprehension of other terrorists and warned of terrorist plots planned for the United States and around the world." That included the identification of Jose Padilla and Binyam Muhammed, who planned to detonate a dirty bomb, and the arrest of previously unknown members of an al Qaeda cell in Karachi, Pakistan, designated to pilot an aircraft attack in the U.S. The information also made the CIA aware of plots to attack the U.S. consulate in Karachi, hijack aircraft to fly into Heathrow, loosen track spikes to derail a U.S. train, blow up U.S. gas stations, fly an airplane into a California building, and cut the lines of suspension bridges in New York.

Though the Journal does not get into it, Binyam Mohammed was released outright by the Obama administration in February. He is now living freely in England. That's our new counterterrorism approach: Release the terrorist who planned mass-murder attacks against U.S. cities but investigate the CIA agents who prevented mass-murder attacks against U.S. cities....

"That is why we must do everything we can to support her and other Muslim girls in danger of honor killing, by building shelters, creating an underground railroad, and supporting their attempts to be free."

In "An Underground Railroad for a Muslim Girl" at FrontPage today (thanks to Ruth King), Jamie Glazov interviews Pamela Geller of AtlasShrugs.com, who has indefatigably investigated the Rifqa Bary case (see her article in the Washington Times today) and called upon all lovers of freedom to defend this poor girl.

FP: The liberal and feminist Left is once again shamelessly silent, not coming to the defense of Fathima Bary. Give us some of your thoughts on this silence.

Geller: I am profoundly anti-feminist because it is a phony movement. It is rooted in Marxism-Leninism, and does not genuinely represent women. It clings to its dogma of multiculturalism, and embraces the leftist ideology du jour, which in our own day is Islam.

They are frauds and liars. High minded leftopathic feminists cloak themselves in self- righteousness and scorn genuine feminists like Sarah Palin. These women call themselves feminists and stand on the mall in DC, righteous in their indignation in defense of late term abortion and the right to kill viable babies (btw, I am pro-choice -- early that is), while turning the other cheek in the face of Islam's misogyny. Rifqa Bary's case is just the latest example of this myopia.

But other people are taking up the slack. Thank goodness for brave, courageous leaders like Florida House majority leader Adam Hasner. Hasner issued a statement in defense of Rifqa Bary. No feminist did.

No surprise there. See, for example, my article in FrontPage, "Feminists Betray Muslim Women," on how the feminist writer Laura Briggs justifies the oppression of Muslim women. See also "Two Women Stoned: Feminists Mum," by David Horowitz, Janet Levy and me; "A Response to Feminists on the Violent Oppression of Women in Islam," by David Horowitz and me; and my article "The Conservative Vanguard of the Feminist Movement" in National Review.

FP: How can we better help Muslim women in our own society who face this oppression?

Geller: By standing up to honor killers, by calling an honor killing an honor killing, and ending the mainstream media's covering up for the Islamic roots of the practice.

When Muslim girls like Rifqa Bary, the most courageous girl in America, see what happened to Amina and Sarah Said, Aqsa Parvez, and so many others, they're forced to live out their sentence in their homemade concentration camps, because they see that there is no escape. If the West will not stand up for its values, its own unalienable rights, then these girls have no chance.

Do you have any idea how many Muslim girls are watching, and watching very closely, the case of Rifqa Bary? She represents their hope of freedom. That's why the Islamists want to kill her. If she succeeds, she will give other Muslim girls hope. That is why we must do everything we can to support her and other Muslim girls in danger of honor killing, by building shelters, creating an underground railroad, and supporting their attempts to be free.

Read it all.

My new book, The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran, is coming September 21 from Regnery Publishing.

What they're saying about the new book:

"Unlike most of today’s self-styled experts, Robert Spencer won’t tell you that ‘slay the idolaters wherever you find them’ really means ‘love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.’ In The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran, Spencer shows once again that he is America’s most informed, fearless, and compelling voice on modern jihadism, insisting that we come to grips with the words behind the ideology that fuels international terror.” — Andrew C. McCarthy, senior fellow at the National Review Institute and author of Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad.

"Meticulous, comprehensive, indispensable. ‘I read the Koran so you don’t have to,’ Spencer writes—but even for those of us who have read the Koran, this is a richly illuminating work.” — Bruce Bawer, author of Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom and While Europe Slept.

More to come!

No surprise here. According to Islamic law, dhimmis are forbidden to "ring church bells or display crosses," as well as to "recite the Torah or Evangel aloud, or make public display of their funerals and feastdays" ('Umdat al-Salik o11.5).

The only surprise is that anyone is surprised, or that they think this is a feature of "Talibanization," and not of Sharia itself whenever it is fully applied.

"Germ of Talibanization in Marawi and Sulu," an editorial in the Manila Times, August 24 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

[...] That is why many Filipinos were shocked to learn from a privileges speech of Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Piumentel Jr., the untiring advocate of federalism (out of concern for the Muslim Filipinos), that in Marawi City and Sulu province it is forbidden to display the cross—the symbol of Christianity—at the top or frontage of buildings, including church spires.

Christians are also proscribed from singing religious hymns. This makes it impossible for Catholics to hold sung High Masses and Protestants to melodiously exclaim their joy at the blessings of Amazing Grace.

Is intolerance toward Christian symbols and hymns in Marawi and Sulu the specter of Talibanization rearing its ugly head? Some Marawi City people are proud of their city being the Philippines’ “lone Islamic City.” They exult over trycyles there that proclaim their being the “Gift of Allah” and not of Jesus. [...]

In "British Lion Muzzled," the featured article at Human Events today, I tell some stories from my recent trip to London -- stories about how Britain is succumbing to Islamic supremacism:

[...] Unrecognized inside the mosques we were able to enter, I was warmly received as a potential convert and laden with books and pamphlets explaining the wonders of Islam -- including, courtesy the Finsbury Park Mosque, a copy of the Koran with illuminating commentary: “The purpose for which the Muslims are required to fight,” we’re told, “is not, as one might think, to compel the unbelievers into embracing Islam.”

Feel better? Don’t. “Rather, its purpose is to put an end to the suzerainty of the unbelievers so that the latter are unable to rule over people. The authority to rule should only be vested in those who follow the Truth Faith; unbelievers who do not follow this True Faith should live in a state of subordination.” So much for liberty and justice for all.

The current state of Britain came most clearly into focus, however, not when we visited the mosques, but when we tried to have dinner. I had an illuminating dinner with a group including the notable British author and freedom fighter Douglas Murray that turned out to offer a bracing introduction to British dhimmitude: the dinner had to be moved at the last minute since the proprietors of the George Restaurant in the aptly-named Isle of Dogs district of London didn’t like us discussing jihad and Islamization on the premises. This was despite the fact that the dinner had been planned to be on-camera and had been cleared with the George in advance.

In fact, when I returned to the George the next night with the producers of the film, we were not allowed entry because the previous night we had been discussing jihad and Islamic supremacism.

Were the proprietors of the George Restaurant hard-line Leftists who viewed jihadists as their allies in the struggle against American imperialism? Or were they frightened by the prospect of the local Muslims, who live in that area in considerable numbers, exacting revenge against the place for daring to host a meeting of the Resistance?

Most likely they were afraid of their own government, which frowns upon those who question the wisdom or viability of the multicultural paradise they are intent upon creating. For when we finally tried to assemble in another place a roundtable of concerned British citizens to discuss the problem of the Islamization of Britain, one by one the British participants dropped out. If they appeared on camera, we were told, the government could and probably would threaten their livelihood.

If the British government makes the stakes too high for its own people to speak publicly against the policies that have brought into Britain thousands of people intent upon destroying the British state and imposing Islamic law, then all is nearly lost.

It’s no wonder that British citizens are turning to noxious racist parties like the BNP: the elites have abandoned them. This is a time for the British people to summon untapped resources of courage, and for the British government to recover its vision. Otherwise all will be lost, and soon.

Read it all.

And why wouldn't everything be smooth? -- except, of course, for the non-Muslims who are inconvenienced and feel discriminated against by the preferential treatment that the J. B. Swift company is giving to its Muslim employees. But those non-Muslims don't dare speak up now. The writing is on the wall. Equality of rights and equality of treatment? Pah! Those are the shibboleths of yesterday's men! Today, we speak of multiculturalism, which means that all cultures are equal, except that some are more equal than others!

"'Everything is smooth', Muslim says of plant working conditions this Ramadan," by Chris Casey for the Greeley Tribune, August 26 (thanks to John):

Muslim workers are on bended knee in prayer. Company officials are on their toes.

The result: A ruckus-free Ramadan.

So far, anyway.

“Everything is smooth now and people are happy and the company is happy,” said Asad Abdi, vice president of the East Africa Community Center in Greeley.

Abdi and Graen Isse, another East Africa Community leader, visited the JBS USA plant on Monday, the first work day of Ramadan, to see how things went at sundown.

That's when Muslims break their daily fast and pause for evening prayers.

“Everyone was saying ‘happy Ramadan, happy Ramadan,'” isse said. “It was very welcoming.”

The company had even put out dates, food customarily eaten to break the fast, for the workers. The Muslims were allowed to leave production lines in shifts and go to prayer rooms — one for men, another for women — for 10-minute breaks.

“The people were working together on the line. They're covering for each other,” Abdi said. “When one person goes to pray, the other covers his place. … If (JBS) knew it would be this easy they wouldn't have had the problems before.”

Last September, things were much different.

Indeed they were.

Part One is here, Part Two here, and Part Three here.

Iraq will turn out to be entirely ungrateful to the Americans. Everything that happens there will show that, when the Shi’a refuse to give away any their power, and the Sunnis refuse to acquiesce in the shift of power from them to the once-despised Shi’a, and both Sunni Arabs and Shi’a Arabs agree only on the need to suppress the claims of the non-Arab Kurds. The Kurds are non-Arabs, and therefore, of course, inferior to the Arabs. The Arabs will deny their claim to autonomy or even to an independence that the Kurds certainly deserve, certainly have earned (ask the American troops who were in Iraq, and who relied always on the Kurds, and never on the Arabs). Yet a Kurdish independent state, if handled rightly, could be a useful tool in weakening both Syria and Iran and, even more importantly, could be a symbol -- to Berbers in Morocco and Algeria for example, or to Muslim black Africans in Darfur -- of a non-Arab Muslim people throwing off the Arab yoke.

Of course the Iraqi Sunnis will blame America, and demand that the Americans remain to “protect them” from the Shi’a. And some of the Shi’a will claim that everything that goes wrong -- the electricity, the water, the oifields, even for god’s sake the goddam decline in date production -- was somehow the fault of the Americans. Of course Iraq will not be made to work. Much of its educated class -- the doctors and engineers and teachers -- were Christians, and the Christians have mostly left. They won’t come back, not now that Saddam Hussein is gone. Saddam kept the mosques and mullahs under a tight reign -- not because he loved Christians but because he used the camouflage of secular Ba’athism to hide the fact of his Sunni, even what might be called his Tikriti, despotism. Now both the Sunnis and the Shi’a, those whom the Christians (e.g. Donny George, former head of the Baghdad Museum) call “the turbans,” have been free to harass the Christians. It makes perfect sense for Arabic-speaking Christians, both Assyrians and Chaldeans, to leave and not come back -- and that has indeed affected the wellbeing of all Iraqis.

Iraq will again turn out to be, sooner or later, exactly what Winston Churchill declared Mesopotamia to be back in the 1920s -- an “ungrateful volcano.”

Why? Well, for example, "under the new law women are no longer required to obey their husbands, instead husbands and wives owe each other loyalty and protection." Oh, and a minimum age of 18 for marriage, which would contradict Muhammad's example -- a "beautiful pattern of conduct," per Qur'an 33:21.

"Mali women's rights bill blocked," by Martin Vogl for BBC News, August 27:

The president of Mali has announced that he is not going to sign the country's new family law, instead returning it to parliament for review.

Muslim groups have been protesting against the law, which gives greater rights to women, ever since parliament adopted it at the start of the month.

President Amadou Toumani Toure said he was sending the law back for the sake of national unity.

Muslim leaders have called the law the work of the devil and against Islam.

More than 90% of Mali's population is Muslim.

Some of the provisions that have proved controversial give more rights to women.

There is no mention in this article of possible criminalization of female genital mutilation, which is rampant in Mali.

For example, under the new law women are no longer required to obey their husbands, instead husbands and wives owe each other loyalty and protection.

Women get greater inheritance rights, and the minimum age for girls to marry in most circumstances is raised to 18.

One of the other key points Muslims have objected to is the fact that marriage is defined as a secular institution.

Tens of thousands have turned out at protests in Bamako in recent weeks and there have been other demonstrations against the law across the country.

It is a political defeat for President Toure, who was a strong backer of the new law.

It has only been the continuing angry protests by Muslim groups that have forced him to send the law back to parliament.

In his statement on national television the president was forced to admit that the population is yet to be convinced by the new code.

"After extensive consultations with the various state institutions, with civil society, with the religious community and the legal profession, I have taken this decision to send the family code for a second reading to ensure calm and a peaceful society, and to obtain the support and understanding of our fellow citizens."

Throwing women under the bus for the sake of stability? Sounds like Afghanistan.

It was clear from his speech that the president also thinks there has been a lot of false information circulating about the code and the government will no doubt also try to address this in the coming weeks.

The head of Mali's High Islamic Council says he was pleased with the president's decision.

Women's groups are heartbroken - they have been trying for more than 10 years to get the law changed.

And yet he, too, missed the memo about Islam as a "religion of peace." Or he just plain "misunderstood" it. Funny how that keeps happening. "Mohamad Jibril, 'mastermind' of the attacks on Jakarta hotels, arrested," by Mathias Hariyadi for Asia News, August 26:

Jakarta (AsiaNews) - Indonesian security forces have arrested Mohamad Jibril, who is suspected of having masterminded the massacres in Marriott and Ritz Carlton Hotel on 17 July in Jakarta. The arrest was carried out yesterday while the man - also known as Muhamad Ricky Ardhan - was travelling to the house of his father in Pamulang in the regency of South Tangerang, a suburb of the capital.

Police spokesman, inspector Sukarnan Nanan, has not clarified the details of the arrest, carried out by an unidentified commando. "We are awaiting further details about the operation – he added - before we can talk to the press."

Jibril is director of an information portal Arahman.com, a point of reference for the local Islamic community. He apparently has two birth certificates, which bear different places and times. According to the first he was born in the province of South Borneo December 3, 1979, in the second he was born in East Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara province, on 28 May 1989. The police spokesman added that "he is suspected of collecting funds from abroad" to finance the Islamic extremist movement.

Ar-rahman: "The beneficient," or compassionate, or most gracious. As in Bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim (In the name of Allah, the beneficient, the merciful), and hence, one of the 99 names of Allah. Also the title of Sura 55.

Last July it was the site Arahman.com that published the vindication of the attacks on hotels in the capital, behind which there is the hand of the Malaysian terrorist Noordin Moh Top. Fachri Mohamad, one of the closest collaborators of Jibril, denies any wrongdoing, insisting that it is "an baseless accusation to say that it is Jibril behind the bombings”. He adds that the arrest was "an attempt to politicize Islam" and stop the "propaganda [sic!] via the internet" of faith. [...]

A visit to Arahman.com indicates the site is no longer operational.

Investigators have also revealed the name of a Saudi citizen, accused of funding the bomb attacks in Jakarta. This is Mohammad Ali Abdillah, who has lived for a time in a city of the province of West Java, the same city where Ibrohim Boim, or the "florist", the perpetrator of the attacks on the hotels, was born. The funds arrived in Indonesia in June, through the Middle East.

Was he planning to...take a trip to Sri Lanka?

Rifqa Bary Update: "'Apostate' girl's father," by Pamela Geller in the Washington Times, August 27:

[...] Rifqa's parents, Mohamed and Aysha Bary, signed affidavits declaring themselves indigent. That's why the Florida court appointed a lawyer for the father and a lawyer for the mother. Both their lawyers are being paid by the taxpayers of Florida. Worse still, Aysha and Mohamed Bary's lawyer asked the court for more money at Rifqa's custody hearing last Friday, so that they could wage a campaign to get Rifqa back home -- a campaign involving depositions, legal documents, filings, etc.

Yet in a Dun and Bradstreet report filed by Mr. Bary himself for his business, Bary Gems, he states his business does $237,561 yearly. Mrs. Bary makes high-end bridal gowns (that income may be off the books, but she works every day). It would appear she works for Custom Bridal Veil -- a company owned by a Risana Bary, who works with Mr. Bary at Bary Gems. Risana is apparently Mohamed's wife -- but why is she listed under different names in different places? The questions regarding their honesty are inevitable.

Bary Gems offers some high-ticket items. You can get a genuine blue sapphire for a mere $2,900. And if Mr. Bary dissolved the business in early July, where are the proceeds? Where is the inventory? The Barys owned a gem import business. If they liquidated, they must have had some inventory or orders or cash on hand.

The Barys live in a very affluent neighborhood in Westerville, Ohio, in a house they rent. They're not buying because pious Muslims aren't supposed to take on mortgages -- that would involve usury, and is forbidden in the Koran. [...]

In mid-July her mother went through Rifqa's private things and found her journal. It was then revealed to her mother that Rifqa was a practicing Christian. Mrs. Bary called her husband and alerted him that Rifqa was still practicing Christianity in secret.

Mr. Bary cut his business trip short to return home immediately while Mrs. Bary packed the family's bags to go back to Sri Lanka. Whether Rifqa would have been honor murdered before or after they returned to Sri Lanka is known only to the Barys.

It was very clear that Rifqa's father planned to flee the country with his threatened daughter. According to very recent documentation, Mr. Bary dissolved his business on July 29 -- after Rifqa ran for her life (fearing an honor killing for her apostasy) and was discovered in Florida....

Read it all.

"I was not motivated by a hate for Canada. I am not a lunatic who is hell-bent on the destruction of western civilization."

All right. But are you a thoughtful, devout mujahid who is hell-bent on the destruction of western civilization?

"'Toronto 18' member guilty in bomb plot made 'huge mistake,'" by Trevor Pritchard for the Canadian Press, August 26 (thanks to Block Ness):

BRAMPTON -- The Mississauga man who took part in a conspiracy to blow up prominent landmarks in Toronto's downtown told court yesterday he made "a huge mistake" as his lawyer asked for a two-year prison term for his client.

Saad Khalid, 23, told a Brampton courtroom he accepted responsibility for his role in the domestic terror plot to detonate bombs outside the Toronto Stock Exchange and CSIS headquarters, as well as an unnamed Ontario military base, in 2006.

"NOT A LUNATIC"

Khalid said he wanted people to know his true motives: his "disagreement" with Canada's foreign policy, specifically Afghanistan.

"I was not motivated by a hate for Canada," Khalid read from a prepared speech. "I am not a lunatic who is hell-bent on the destruction of western civilization."

Khalid was arrested in June 2006 while unloading what he and fellow alleged conspirators believed was two tonnes of ammonium nitrate, according to an uncontested statement of facts entered earlier.

One of the members of the so-called Toronto 18, Khalid pleaded guilty in May to one count of participating in a terror plot with the intention of causing an explosion....

Was this an act of abject dhimmitude, not of compassion for a dying man?

"Medical advice on Libyan bomber 'in doubt,'" by David Maddox for The Scotsman, August 26 (thanks to Awake):

JUSTICE secretary Kenny MacAskill was last night under pressure to reveal more details of the medical evidence that led to the release of the Lockerbie bomber, after it emerged that only one doctor was willing to say Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi had less than three months to live.

Labour and Conservative politicians have demanded the Scottish Government publish details of the doctor's expertise and qualifications, amid suggestions he or she may not have been a prostate cancer expert.

The parties have also raised questions over whether the doctor was employed by the Libyan government or Megrahi's legal team, which could have influenced the judgment.

The evidence provided by the doctor is crucial as compassionate release under Scots law requires that a prisoner has less than three months to live....

“My marriage is not against Shariah," insisted the randy codger.

"The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with 'Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death)." -- Bukhari 7.62.88

"Child bride turned over to 80-year-old husband," from Arab News, August 26 (thanks to all who sent this in):

AL-LAITH: A 10-year-old bride was returned last Sunday to her 80-year-old husband by her father who discovered her at the home of her aunt with whom she has been hiding for around 10 days.

A local newspaper said the husband, who denies he is 80 in spite of claims by the girl’s family, accused the aunt of meddling in his affairs. “My marriage is not against Shariah. It included the elements of acceptance and response by the father of the bride,” he said.

He added that he had been engaged to his wife’s elder sister and that this broke off as she wanted to continue with her education. “In light of this, her father offered his younger daughter. I was allowed to have a look at her according to Shariah and found her acceptable,” he said.

Maatouq Al-Abdullah, a member of the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR), said there is no system in place regulating the marriage of young girls, something that he said results in adverse psychological, health and social effects.

“Such marriages are considered a gross violation of charters on the rights of children, which the Kingdom has signed and which set the age of adulthood at 18,” he added.

The mentality underlying honor killing is that even a victim of rape is to blame, for she has sullied the family's honor by engaging in sexual immorality. The fact that it was forced upon her makes no difference at all.

Think this is only something that greasy Islamophobes say?

Think again. We have seen a Muslim rape victim ostracized in India; the charging of a rape victim in Pakistan with adultery; Islamic clerics in Pakistan opposing attempts to end the equating of rape with adultery; a rape victim marrying her attacker in order to avoid being shunned; another rape victim converting to Islam in order to marry her attacker for the same reason; the sentencing of a victim of gang rape in Saudi Arabia to 200 lashes; the sentencing of another victim of gang-rape, a pregnant woman, to 100 lashes; the stoning of a rape victim in Somalia; nine-year-old rape victims in Iran rejected by their families and living on the streets; a Muslim rape victim in India ordered by Islamic clerics to leave her husband; a rape victim in Jordan murdered by her uncle to cleanse the family's honor; and on and on.

And so this poor fellow, having imbibed these attitudes, is raped in prison, and the first thing he thinks is that he, not his attacker, is a "sinner."

"Iran: Officials blame alleged rape victim for his own jailhouse attack," from the Los Angeles Times, August 24 (thanks to James):

Iranian officials interviewed an alleged victim of jailhouse rape at the hands of security personnel. But instead of consoling him, they asked him embarrassing questions and blamed him for the violence.

They said it was the young man's own fault for protesting the results of Iran's June 12 presidential elections, according to a fresh account of the alleged rape published on the website of a prominent reformist politician.

"I asked them why I and others were raped in prison," the young man says he asked two interrogators and a judge who had agreed to hear his story, according to the website of former parliamentary speaker Mehdi Karroubi.

One of the three replied, "'When the supreme leader confirmed the election result, everyone should have recognized it."...

He said he was at first humiliated by the experience and suicidal, but was consoled by Karroubi, a cleric, who helped him regain his composure and self-esteem.

"He devoted himself like a psychiatrist to me to convince me that I was innocent," he said, according to the account. "He cited religious examples, and I was finally convinced that when someone is raped with his hands and feet tied is not a sinner and is on the contrary an oppressed."...

Part One is here, and Part Two is here.

We did not “walk away” from Pakistan. The government, that is, the military who essentially have always held power in Pakistan, took and took whatever aid they could cajole out of the Americans, and then always came back for more. They took whatever economic aid they could as well, and that economic aid allowed the “failed state” -- always on the brink of bankruptcy -- of Pakistan to nonetheless not only quietly arrange for stealing nuclear secrets from the West, but pay the enormous costs of the nuclear weapons program that led to the building not of one but of dozens of “Islamic bombs,” as they were proudly called, and not only in Pakistan.

The United States did not “walk away” from Pakistan once the Soviet army had left Afghanistan. The country of Afghanistan was taken over by the Taliban, who were formed by, trained by, supported by, the government of Pakistan. Pakistan also helped the Taliban get back to Afghanistan and seize power once the Soviets had left, and to make that country a hell for its citizens, or for all but those who were the most fanatical Muslims, and to make it a haven for “the Arabs” who arrived, and set up their Al Qaeda camps, and treated the local Afghanis with such contumely. There was no reason at all for the Americans not to “walk away” from Pakistan, for Pakistan completely betrayed the Americans and its own solemn undertakings to them in this case, and then in the case of the long-term betrayal of promise after promise made to the Americans.

King: "You're talking about threatening to kill a guy, threatening to attack his family, threatening to use an electric drill on him — but never doing it. You have that on the one hand — and on the other you have the [interrogator's] attempt to prevent thousands of Americans from being killed" by Islamic jihadists.

Another, and particularly apt, Which-Side-Is-Obama-On Update: "King on Holder: 'You wonder which side they’re on,'" by Ben Smith at Politico, August 25 (thanks to Benedict):

A "furious" Rep. Peter King, the hawkish, maverick Long Island Republican, blasted a "disgraceful" Eric Holder for opening an investigation of CIA interrogators and chided his own party for what he described as a weak response to the move in an interview just now with POLITICO.

"It’s bulls***. It’s disgraceful. You wonder which side they’re on," he said of the attorney general's move, which he described as a "declaration of war against the CIA, and against common sense."

"It’s a total breach of faith, and either the president is intentionally caving to the left wing of his party or he’s lost control of his administration," said King, the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Homeland Security and a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence.

King, channeling both the sense of outrage and of political opportunity felt in parts of the GOP, defended in detail the interrogation practices — threats to kill a detainee's family, and or to kill a detainee with a power drill — detailed in a CIA inspector general report released yesterday.

"You're talking about threatening to kill a guy, threatening to attack his family, threatening to use an electric drill on him — but never doing it," King said. "You have that on the one hand — and on the other you have the [interrogator's] attempt to prevent thousands of Americans from being killed."...

"Why is it OK to waterboard someone, which causes physical pain, but not threaten someone and not cause pain?" he asked, warning of a "chilling" effect on future CIA behavior.

"You will have thousands of lives that will be lost, and the blood will be on Eric Holder's hands," he said....

"They’ve declared war on the CIA. We should resist and fight back as hard as we can," he said. "It should be a scorched earth policy. ... This isn't just another policy. This goes to the heart of our national defense. We should do whatever we have to do."

Multiculturalism will soon be bringing this kind of fun to the U.S.

"Burqa-clad man armed with gun and axe steals £150,000 designer watches," from the Daily Mail, August 26 (thanks to Dionysios):

Police are searching for a burqa-clad man who helped steal designer watches worth £150,000 in an armed robbery yesterday.

The man and two accomplices, armed with a handgun and an axe, burst into Michael Jones Jewellers on the High Street in Banbury, Oxfordshire, at about 2.20pm.

They threatened four members of staff, a man and three women, with their weapons before making off with Rolex, Cartier and Breitling watches....

The incident is the latest in a spate of 'burqa robberies' where thieves conceal their identity with the full-body garment typically worn by Muslim women....

What? There are no hospitals in Baghdad? Well, Baghdad is a war zone, of course, so maybe he just felt more comfortable going to a calmer place. But do you think a Sunni leader would have opted for Tehran?

Iraq Will Be A Colony of Iran Update: "Iraq Shiite leader Hakim dies in Tehran hospital," by Farhad Pouladi for AFP, August 26 (thanks to James):

TEHRAN — The leader of Iraq's largest Shiite party, Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, died in a Tehran hospital on Wednesday aged 60 after a long battle with lung cancer, five months ahead of key parliamentary elections.

"He died a few minutes ago after battling cancer for 28 months," his son Mohsen Hakim told AFP. He and his brother Ammar had been at their father's bedside.

Hakim, a cleric who helped establish an opposition movement in exile in Iran in 1982 to battle Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime, returned to Iraq after the US-led invasion of 2003.

His Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council swept Shiite areas in first provincial elections after the invasion but in new elections this January the party suffered major losses to the rival list of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki....

The mother says she never told the Swedish "journalist" that her son's organs had been stolen. And the jihadist's brother says that the family has no evidence that his organs were stolen. But living in the West Bank as they do, even they are starting to believe it.

Aftonbladet Blood Libel Update: "Palestinian family: We didn't say organs taken," by Khaled Abu Toameh in the Jerusalem Post, August 25 (thanks to Benedict):

The family and relatives of Bilal Ahmed Ghanem, the Palestinian at the center of the organ-theft story in the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet, said on Monday that they didn't know if the accusations were true or not.

The family lives in the tiny village of Imatin in the northern West Bank. Ghanem, 19, was killed by IDF soldiers during the first intifada on May 13, 1992.

He was a Fatah activist who was wanted by the IDF for his involvement in violence.

His mother, Sadeeka, said he was shot by an IDF sniper as he walked out of his home. "The bullets hit him directly in the heart," she said.

Ghanem's younger brother, Jalal, said he could not confirm the allegations made by the Swedish newspaper that his brother's organs had been stolen.

"I don't know if this is true," he said. "We don't have any evidence to support this."

Jalal said his brother was evacuated by the IDF in a helicopter and delivered to the family only a few days later.

The mother denied that she had told any foreign journalist that her son's organs had been stolen.

However, she said that now she does not rule out the possibility that Israel was harvesting organs of Palestinians....

Ibrahim Ghanem, a relative of Bilal, said that the family never told the Swedish photographer that Israel had stolen organs from the dead man's body.

"Maybe the journalist reached that conclusion on the basis of the stitches he saw on the body," he said. "But as far as the family is concerned, we don't know if organs were removed from the body because we never performed our own autopsy. All we know is that Bilal's teeth were missing."...

Well, I hate to say I told you so, but...

June 27, 2006: "Of course, Ahmadinejad may be jumping the gun a bit as far as that is concerned, but he is certainly doing all he can to bring into being a Shi'ite client state in Iraq."

September 13, 2006: "Here we see looming in Iraq the Shi'ite client state of Iran that the U.S. has unwittingly helped put into place with its short-sighted democracy project."

October 31, 2006: "Is al-Maliki on the road to creating the Shi'ite client state that the Iranians have been trying to foster in Iraq for quite some time now?"

February 11, 2007: "Iran continues its efforts to create a Shi'ite client state in Iraq."

June 10, 2008: "Or are U.S. troops the main obstacle to Iraq's becoming a full-fledged client state of Iran?"

November 12, 2008: "Very soon now the President of the United States and the President of Iran will sit down, without preconditions, and hash this out, and clear everything up before Iraq turns fully into the Shi'ite client state that the Iranians covet."

July 1, 2009: "Their goal of creating a Shi'ite client state is closer than ever to being realized."

July 30, 2009: "Was this what we have been fighting for in Iraq all these years? An Iranian Shi'ite client state in Baghdad?"

Looks like it. But of course, the learned analysts knew better.

"Behind the Carnage in Baghdad," by David Ignatius in the Washington Post, August 25 (thanks to Kamala):

As security deteriorates in Baghdad, there's a new cause for worry: The head of the U.S.-trained Iraqi National Intelligence Service (INIS) has quit in a long-running quarrel with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki -- depriving that country of a key leader in the fight against sectarian terrorism.

Gen. Mohammed Shahwani, the head of Iraqi intelligence since 2004, resigned this month because of what he viewed as Maliki's attempts to undermine his service and allow Iranian spies to operate freely. The CIA, which has worked closely with Shahwani since he went into exile in the 1990s and has spent hundreds of millions of dollars training the INIS, was apparently caught by surprise by his departure.

The chaotic conditions in Iraq that triggered Shahwani's resignation are illustrated by several recent events -- each of which suggests that without the backstop of U.S. support, Iraqi authorities are now desperately vulnerable to pressure, especially from neighboring Iran....

Iran's links with Maliki are so close, said this Iraqi intelligence source, that the prime minister uses an Iranian jet with an Iranian crew for his official travel. The Iranians are said to have sent Maliki an offer to help his Dawa Party win at least 49 seats in January's parliamentary elections if Maliki will make changes in his government that Iran wants....

Should the Americans try to restore order? The top Iraqi intelligence source answered sadly that it was probably wiser to "stay out of it and be safe." When pressed about what his country would look like in five years, absent American help, he answered bluntly: "Iraq will be a colony of Iran."

Embarrassingly abject dhimmitude from the man who just days ago was saying that the Koran had "no ethical dimension," was "a depressing book," and was "very one-dimensional," and who even suggested that Muhammad was schizophrenic. If someone wrote that about the Bible and Jesus today, he would be invited to all the best dinner parties and maybe get a nice foundation grant. But say it about the Koran, and unless you have a bit of spine you will soon be bowing and scraping just like this, in the face of the stealth jihadist smear and intimidation machine:

"Sebastian Faulks: The book I really can't put down," by Sebastian Faulks in the Telegraph, August 24:

[...] When, with some excitement, I first read the Koran last year as research for my novel, I confess that I was disappointed by it. Raised as a child on the exciting stories of the Old Testament and inspired by the revolutionary teachings of the New, I had, perhaps naively, expected something comparable. The Koran has lovely passages, some of which inspire my character Farooq in the novel, but I did find it, from a literary point of view, repetitive.

As for whether it is ethically less developed than the New Testament, a Muslim friend put it to me like this: "You must compare like with like. Compare it to the Old Testament."

That is a fair point. I fully accept that the ethical dimension of modern Islam has been provided by generations of scholars and thinkers over many centuries; it was perhaps too much to expect to find it embedded from the word "Go" – to expect, in other words, that the Koran would be two books, two testaments, in one.

While we Judaeo-Christians can take a lot of verbal rough-and-tumble about our human-written scriptures, I know that to Muslims the Koran is different; it is by definition beyond criticism. And if anything I said or was quoted as saying (not always the same thing) offended any Muslim sensibility, I do apologise – and without reservation.

It was never my intention to offend my Muslim friends or readers, and if you read my novel I think you will see how I have shown the positive effects of the Koran on a kind and typical Muslim family. The family son, Hassan, falls in with bad men and is misled. I can't tell you without spoiling the story whether goodness prevails; but if it does, it is considerably due to the love of his devout parents....

Of course, the Prophet Mohammed was the most prodigious of all voice-hearers, and as Inayat Bunglawala, of the Muslim Council of Britain, noted yesterday, he has often been accused of being "possessed". Sometimes the words of the Koran do have a slightly ranting rhythm to them – though this may be due to the translation, and Arabic has a different natural intonation from English.

But to me the idea that anyone could have achieved what the Prophet achieved in military and political – let alone religious – terms while suffering from an acute illness of any kind seems completely absurd. I believe that only a healthy and lucid person could have achieved what he did – and I am very happy to make that belief clear....

Oh, it's crystal clear.

Interesting title, also: "The book I really can't put down." I doubt he means that he finds the Koran so gripping that he can't stop reading it. He means he can't denigrate it. He can't put it down. Even if he wants to. Because he is afraid of the consequences -- either death threats or the opprobrium of polite society that routinely denigrates Christianity but finds Islamorealism "bigoted," or both.

What's that? It isn't going to Hamas? See here and here.

Suicidal Short-Sightedness Update: "UNRWA assistance to Palestinian refugees from Iraq," from ReliefWeb, August 23:

Damascus, 23 August 2009 - The United States Government has contributed US$957,000 toward the Agency's cash assistance programme for Palestinian Iraqi refugees in Damascus, and US$266,000 to complete the reconstruction of the UNRWA Community Development Centre in Yarmouk Camp.

Receiving the generous donation, Dr. Stefania Pace-Shanklin, Acting Deputy Director of UNRWA Affairs in Syria, expressed UNRWA's gratitude. She said, "The U.S. Government is a long-standing supporter of UNRWA and this contribution is further evidence of their commitment to enhancing the human development of Palestinian refugees in Syria. This on-going partnership between UNRWA and the United States enables us to continue investing in projects that improve the lives of Palestine refugees".

The community development centre will cater for 135,700 Palestine refugees, including the most vulnerable groups such as women, the disabled, and Palestinian refugees from Iraq. The centre, supervised by a team of committed volunteers, will focus its energy on providing training to job seekers, implementing income-generation projects, and supporting initiatives targeting the well-being of young people. The cash assistance component will allow UNRWA to continue its relief programme for 2010-2011 that targets the poorest Palestinian Iraqi families. The programme started in November 2007 with funding from UNHCR.

The United States is UNRWA's largest bilateral donor. So far in 2009, the U.S. Government has provided US$186 million to UNRWA's programmes in the region.

But all those Arab states full of jihadists? No problem!

They Sincerely Want Peace Update: "A Jewish state threatens all humanity: Official PA news agency," by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook for Palestinian Media Watch, August 10 (thanks to all who sent this in):

While Israel demands that the PA recognize Israel as a Jewish state, the official Palestinian Authority news agency has responded with a vicious anti-Semitic article stating that a Jewish state (literally "Jewishness of a state") is by definition inherently racist and endangers all humanity.

The PA is accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing of Arabs and Palestinians, and says this policy of the "Jewish state" endangers global security.

In addition, the political editor of the WAFA news agency writes that Israel is waging a war "aimed at eradicating Palestinians, with slogans first, then by practice." He says that Israel aims to eliminate "everything related to Arabism" and replace it with a "racist state" based on Judaism.

He calls upon the international community, which has already banished other racist regimes, to stop the development of this "theocratic regime."

The following is the full article by the political editor of WAFA:

"The Jewish State, or People, or Land is a synonym of the black nightmare of Racism. It is a war waged on us; a new war aimed at eradicating Palestinians, with slogans first, then by practice. Such a practice is the most dangerous in this land's history; Exile, or 'Transfer' and eliminating everything related to the Arabism of this homeland, which has witnessed years of organized transfer of its people. Are we now witnessing our complete, final expulsion?

"We still do not understand, and we have not learned the lesson. We merely repeat our reactions, and every time they escalate their actions, we respond as they [Israelis] want us to respond. Protest alone will not change or influence things, because it is devoid of roots and flows not from a united people, but rather from streams, groups and divided parties... fighting for government that is not worthy of being called government. We are still under occupation; we are still ruled, in every aspect of life: livelihoods, sovereignty, and decision....

"If we do not wake up, perhaps we will be outside of our homeland and without residence.

"The Jewish State is clear in its objectives, even implementation and application. It means eliminating 20 per cent of the Jewish entity's citizens; Arabs and Palestinians. It probably means forcing them out; transferring them.

"Those who are calling for the Jewishness of 'the State' are performing a political act... whose fundamental aim is the complete closure of the right of return. And it is not only the right of return that is being rejected here: Also prohibited is the remaining of the Palestinians who are upon their lands and forbidden houses in the Galilee and in the Triangle and in the Negev and in Jerusalem, as a 'first stage,' and in every place where there are Palestinians.

"In terms of all this, should we expect that they are deliberately trying to violate the inalienable right of return, considered a priority on the negotiations agenda, by the United Nations and its Security Council?

"A Jewish state endangers not only Palestinians, but also the Arab World, and the global security. It is a call for legitimizing a racist entity, built on pure ethnic and theocratic criteria. They apparently think that they are a race, and they want a racist state! All of this doesn't end with the Palestinian issue; it becomes a general [international] matter, which raises the question:

"Will the present international system, with its modernity and development, and after banishing the racist entities, allow the development of a theocratic regime, successor of racist regimes that have disappeared, where anyone who does not recognize it cannot live there?"

[WAFA News Agency, July 27, 2009]

More suicidal short-sightedness. Here is Kadyrov justifying honor killings. "Putin dashes to Chechnya, shows support for Kadyrov," by Dmitry Solovyov for Reuters, August 25 :

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Vladimir Putin visited Russia's restive Chechnya region on Monday, showing support for a local leader accused by rights groups of abuses and demonstrating Moscow's presence in a mainly Muslim region racked by violence.

Central Russian channels showed Prime Minister Putin and Kremlin-backed regional chief Ramzan Kadyrov alighting from a military helicopter at Tsentoroi, the Kadyrov clan's home village in the southeastern Chechen foothills.

Putin launched a second war to crush Chechen rebels in 1999 that gained him widespread popularity and propelled him to the highest office. Violence has flared again in the past months, with attacks by militants seeking an Islamist state in the north Caucasus spreading to neighbouring Dagestan and Ingushetia.

Surrounded by heavily armed guards in camouflage and with sub-machineguns at the ready, the two men laid a basket of red and white roses at the tombstone of Kadyrov's father, Akhmad, who was killed in a bomb blast in 2004.

"It is thanks to this courageous man that the war ended. He gave his life for Russia and Chechnya," a sombre Putin said, to a roar of helicopter gunships patrolling the area.

Kadyrov faces strong criticism from human rights bodies after kidnappings and killings of human rights and charity activists in Chechnya. He denies any link to killings....

M. Cherif Bassiouni, Distinguished Professor Of Etc., writes as follows:

"It is my position that the application of the death penalty for apostasy, meaning a conversion to another faith or a loss of faith, should under no circumstances be subject to criminal sanctions, let alone the death penalty."

This statement, if read as written, is a declaration by M. Cherif Bassiouni, Distinguished Prof., Etc., that the "application of the death penalty for apostasy" should "under no circumstances be subject to criminal sanctions" -- meaning, if Muslims carry out a death sentence on apostates from Islam, those Muslims who follow what M. Cherif Bassiouni, Dist. Etc., agrees is the unanimous view of the four schools of Sunni Jurisprudence, they should not be punished, least of all be subject "to the death penalty."

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking he did not really write that, that I have misunderstood. No, I don't think so.

And the main point remains: Islam, the Four Main Schools of Sunni Jurisprudence, prescribe the death penalty for apostates. The fact that M. Cherif Bassiouni, D. Etc. does not agree means nothing, changes nothing about the beliefs of more than a billion people, and M. Cherif Bassiouni knows this. He is substituting his wish, his veiled velleities, for the reality of Islamic doctrine. This he is not entitled to do. This cuts no ice in the Muslim world, and it should come as no relief whatsoever to worried non-Muslims.

After my recent exchange with M. Cherif Bassiouni, Distinguished Research Professor of Law Emeritus and President Emeritus, International Human Rights Law Institute, DePaul University (see here and here), Jihad Watch reader David initiated the following exchange with the august professor. Did he address David's concerns and answer his questions honestly and adequately? You be the judge.

1. David to M. Cherif Bassiouni:

I read with interest Spencer's report of your exchange on the Islamic penalty for apostasy and your characterization of his scholarship. I am sure I speak for many when I urge you to accept his challenge to debate. I yearn to be disabused of what I now understand to be the mindboggling basic premise of Islam, to wit, the imposition by physical force of a world wide calliphate governed by Sharia law. I believe I also speak for many when I say I would love to believe that Islam does not prescribe this kind of supremacist theocracy. Please help me correct my thinking about the nature of Islam by engaging in debate with Spencer either in person or by published written communications.

2. David to M. Cherif Bassiouni:

You were probably inundated with email as a result of your now public exchange with Mr Spencer so even though I will to be brief I appreciate that a personal response is unlikely. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to follow up my earlier plea from a curious onlooker ( see below). Here is what struck me after reviewing your recent reply to Spencer.

1. You wrote: " Usually persons who have extremist views are beyond the reach of reason, good sense, and good faith."

Is that really grounds to abandon the effort to reason with any and all people who hold opposing points of view even if you think they are extremist? I hope you agree it isn't. Even you must admit that Spencer is not a kook. Your refusal to debate on fundamental Islamic beliefs is disheartening to those like me who day in and day out read about the barbaric terrorism conducted in the name of Islam and desire to learn how this relates to the true nature of Islam.

2. You wrote: "I don’t know what you are up to, why you are doing it, and for whose benefit, but everything I read tells me there is something wrong in conducting such an extremist campaign against Islam and Muslims. What is that intended to accomplish other than radicalization and polarization? Is that in the best interests of relations between Americans who have different faith-belief systems? Is that intended to arouse anti-Islamicism in America for certain political purposes? If any of these are the case then whatever I or anyone else may have to say to you will not have much effect."

Okay, you concede you are not a polemicist, so you are entitled to some leeway in a debate, but if everything you read at jihadwatch.org tells you there is something wrong in what Spencer has written, then why don't you simply identify how it/he is wrong? That was the hope I expressed in my earlier note - that you would say something to disabuse me of my current negative view of Islam. The one and only area in which you did argue specific issues - your defense of his attack on you vis a vis the death penalty for apostasy - is altogether unconvincing (to put it charitably). Sadly, I am left to surmise that you would not be able to dispute Spencer's general views on the true nature of Islam.

3. You wrote: "To the best of my knowledge, I don’t know of any organization having a campaign similar to yours aimed at discrediting a major religion and its followers."

Holy cow! I find this statement incredible especially in view of your noble work with the UN and US State Dept as a special consultant on anti-terrorism. I am not a religious person, but I was born into an American Jewish family so notwithstanding my belief that the god of all three people of the book is nothing more than a make believe friend for grown ups, is it not a fact that Al Qaida prescribes it is the duty of every good Muslim to kill me wherever I am found, behind a rock or otherwise, certainly for as long as non-believers remain in Mecca and/or America supports the state of Israel? What about Hamas, Hezbollah and all the other bedfellows of Al Qaida located throughout the world who not only insist on the elimination of the state of Israel, but all Jews as well? Or does jihadi killing by such organizations not count as discrediting?

It saddens me that you can not help me overcome my current negative views of Islam and the people who practice that belief system. Is there a web site you can recommend where I might be able to educate myself. I sincerely want to learn that Spencer is intellectually dishonest in his description of Islam.

3. M. Cherif Bassiouni to David:

Thank you for your two emails. Because of their concerned tone, I extend to you the courtesy which you deserve, in the following reply.

For reasons which I described in my letter to Mr. Spencer, I do not wish to engage in a debate with him.

As to the question of apostasy, from my perspective, there is not much to debate with anyone other than Muslim scholars who take a different position. In such an event it would be my goal to try to convince them of the merits of my position and thus to make them change their views.

I take the position that a sound interpretation of the Shar’ia leads to the conclusion that apostasy is not a crime punishable on earth and certainly not punishable by the death penalty, unless apostasy is defined as high treason (and has the legal elements of that crime), in which case it would be punishable by death. Almost every country in the world has a law or statute to that effect. We do in the U.S in Title 18 United States Code and in the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

The mere fact that a person changes his or her religion is not, in my opinion and in the opinion of other contemporary scholars, a crime, let alone a crime punishable by death. Admittedly this was not an interpretation given to apostasy after the death of the Prophet. I and others believe it is incorrect. Just as an example, during the days of the Prophet, one of the Muslim converts who went to Abyssinia, by the name of Jahsh, converted to Christianity there and continued to live with the Abyssinian Christians as well as with the small community of Muslim immigrants. The Prophet never repudiated Jahsh nor declared him to be a criminal. In fact, there was never a case in the practice of the Prophet (the Sunnah) in which the concept of had for apostasy was applied to someone who simply changed his mind on being a Muslim, preferring instead another one of the two other Abrahamic faiths.

Judaism, Christianity and Islam all have their fundamentalists who interpret holy scriptures in a literal way and who, as a result, come up with interpretations that are either inconsistent with the higher values of their faith-belief systems and/or with contemporary secular human rights standards.

My concern with Mr. Spencer, jihadwatch, and his other writing and speakings, is that it has become a campaign against Islam and that, is my opinion, is reprehensible.

4. David to M. Cherif Bassiouni:

Thank you for your email concerning Islamic law on the penalty for apostasy. I have to confess I am more confused than ever, especially why you opine that Mr Spencer's jihadwatch and his analyses of Islamic law constitute a reprehensible campaign against Islam since you seem to agree with him on the immorality of current Islamic law and you, yourself, wish to reform it.

In the process of setting forth your personal view of what the law should be you admit that, in fact, current Islamic authorities uniformly prescribe the death penalty for apostasy. Don't you agree that any belief system that prescribes death for apostasy rightfully deserves to be condemned? In my unscholarly view, condemnation and derision seem entirely appropriate for a belief system so despicably unethical as to maintain this immoral anachronism as one of it core beliefs.

Your parenthetical qualification of the no death for apostasy rule is inapposite. However apostasy might have been defined in the 7th century no modern definition includes any element of treason as that word is ordinarily defined. Islam is not a nation state with geographical borders. We are talking about religious beliefs, not about betraying one's country. To the extent you attempt to ameliorate the immorality of current Islamic law by drawing historical parallels between apostasy and treason you come across as an apologist for the unethical state of Islamic law, not as a would be reformer.

I agree with you that all religious fundamentalists are, more or less, nutcases who engage mostly in anachronistic thinking that is "inconsistent with the higher values of their faith-belief systems and/or with contemporary secular human rights standards." Unfortunately, the inmates seem to be running all the Islamic institutions. They all appear to be fundamentalists in that (a) they believe their religion is the only correct religion, (b) all "non-believers" must either convert, pay jyzziah, or be slain so that (c) the entire world consists of a single supremacist theocracy governed by Sharia law. Now if you could get your coreligionists to change Islamic law on that score I could overlook some of the other issues like womens' rights.

You have a steep road ahead of you, Mr Bassiouni. If you are sincere in your efforts to lead a reformation in Islamic Law, I suggest you might want to join forces with Mr Spencer rather than mischaracterize his scholarly analysis of the Koran, hadiths, and current schools of Islamic law as simply a reprehensible campaign against Islam. Good luck in your attempts at reformation.

5. M. Cherif Bassiouni to David:

I do not agree that current Islamic law is immoral. My position, and that of many others, is that certain interpretations of it are erroneous, and that is a big difference.

It is my position that the application of the death penalty for apostasy, meaning a conversion to another faith or a loss of faith, should under no circumstances be subject to criminal sanctions, let alone the death penalty. The key point of your position, Mr. Spencer’s, and others, is that because there is an erroneous interpretation of some aspect of the religion, you can then label the entire “belief system so despicably unethical as to maintain this immoral anachronism as one of it [sic] core beliefs.” You would be surprised as to how many similar anachronistic positions are held by believers of Judaism, Christianity, and other faith systems. One does not condemn an entire faith because of some positions which are, as you put it, “anachronistic,” and as I would put it, “incompatible” with fundamental values in Islam.

What I object to in the position of Mr. Spencer and others, including what I read in your email, is an effort to attack Islam as a whole and to denigrate it because of some either extreme or unacceptable views. If that were the case, then each religion and faith system would attract similar attacks and that, too, is not in the spirit of any religion.

Trusting that this answers your question. No reply is necessary, as I think we have run full circle on this issue.

Leftist/Jihadist Alliance Update: "LoonWatch Explores the Underworld of Anti-Muslim Blogging," by Devon Moore at the Daily Kos, August 24:

The anti-Muslim blogosphere is a cesspool of some of the most vile hatred and misinformation on the internet.

It is not "hate" to report accurately on how Islamic jihadists use Islamic texts and teachings to justify violence against non-Muslims. Nor is it "anti-Muslim" to do so. If the Kos gang is interested in actual "hate," they should write about those who kill unbelievers and oppress women in the name of Sharia. It is not "hate" to defend the equality of rights of women with men, freedom of speech, and other rights that are denied under Sharia.

The anti-Muslims cover a wide spectrum though most can be found slithering in the Right-Wing. They range from academics such as Daniel Pipes, self-declared scholars like Robert Spencer and his JihadWatch, to open racists such as.... Pamela Geller and the blog Gates of Vienna.

"Open racists"? When the Left can't argue (which is most of the time), they smear and lie. Geller is a freedom fighters, a warrior for human rights. Only to a Leftist would that be "racist." She is not an open racist or closet racist or any kind of racist.

It should be noted that the anti-Muslim blogosphere is not a monolith, they come from various, mostly conservative backgrounds but are only united by a hatred of Islam and Muslims. So it is no surprise that this bloc has in the past turned on one another. The most glaring feud being the one between Charles Johnson (Little Green Footballs) and JihadWatch's Robert Spencer; a feud that broke out over whether or not the anti-Muslims should join forces with European neo-fascists.

Just for the record, the "feud" did not break out over "whether or not the anti-Muslims should join forces with European neo-fascists." It broke out over a couple of weblinks. No one was or is saying that anti-jihadists (which is not the same thing as "anti-Muslims") should join forces with European neo-fascists. The question was whether one could find wanting Johnson's "proof" that certain groups were actually neo-fascist without in turn being defamed as a neo-fascist and racist by Johnson. The answer turned out to be no. But the issue here was never whether anyone should ally with genuine European neo-fascists. Of course no one should.

Various websites have taken up the task of chronicling the exploits and breaking down the hate of the anti-Muslim blogosphere. There is Islamophobia-Watch, Islamophobia.org, and a few others though none seem to be as organized, or updated as their opponents. However, LoonWatch, a site that I have been following since I learned about it over 3 months ago and which I have featured as an editor of the Islam page on Topix is one site that gives the anti-Muslims a run for their money.

For one, they aren't defensive, instead they satirize and poke fun at the lunacy that is Islamophobia such as: blaming every negative piece of news from the Middle East on Islam, calls for nuking Mekka, the stereotypes of the subjugation of covered women, evil Muslim cells lurking around the corner, leftists colluding with Muslim terrorists, etc.

They "satirize and poke fun." In other words, they can't answer the arguments presented (not that I do the things enumerated above in the first place). It's straight out of the Left's playbook. As Alinsky put it in Rules for Radicals, "RULE 5: 'Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.' There is no defense. It's irrational. It's infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions."

Sorry, no concessions from me.

UPDATE: Infidels Are Cool weighs in.

And of course the answer is, Neverrrr!!!!!!

Our great old friend Raymond Ibrahim, who graced this site with his incisive and illuminating posts last year, responds to a clueless critic in "When Will Westerners Stop Westernizing Islamic Concepts?" at Middle East Quarterly, August 25:

Recently, Cathy Lynn Grossman of USA Today wrote an article about Muslim zakat, wherein I was referenced as a "critic of Islam." She then followed up with another article titled "Critic questions the aims and ends of Islamic charity," dedicated to examining my views on zakat.

While I appreciate Ms. Grossman's initiative, what especially interests me is that her response exemplifies the problems originally highlighted in my article, "The Dark Side of Zakat: Islamic Charity in Context," which Ms. Grossman takes to task.

I had written: "From what American schoolchildren are being taught by their teachers to what Americans are being told by their presidents, concepts unique to Islam are nowadays almost always 'Westernized.'… [T]his phenomenon has resulted in epistemic (and thus endemic) failures, crippling Americans from objectively understanding some of Islam's more troublesome doctrines."

It is, therefore, a bit ironic that Ms. Grossman's entire article is a testimony to this phenomenon. For starters, even though I indicated Muslims are actually forbidden from bestowing zakat onto non-Muslims, her opening sentence stubbornly describes zakat as a "mandate to be charitable." Surely "charity" that discriminates according to religion cannot be deemed all that "charitable," a word that, in a Western context, is connotative of universal beneficence.

Ms. Grossman is also decided that Muslims engaged in that timeless Islamic phrase fi sabil Allah—most literally, "the path of Allah"—include "anyone from seminary students to imams to missionaries"; conversely, I supposedly read it "as a straight pipeline to violent jihadists."

Fair enough. Unfortunately, however, when it comes to the significance of Islamic terminology, neither her opinion nor mine matters much; how Islam's authoritative schools of jurisprudence (specifically, the four madhahib) have interpreted fi sabil Allah is all that matters. And Islam's juridical rulings are such that fi sabil Allah is synonymous with the concept of violent jihad.

For example, in its section on zakat, the Arabic-English edition of the standard legal text, 'Umdat as-Salik, translates fi sabil Allah as "those fighting for Allah." Next to the index entry for fi sabil Allah, it simply says "see jihad."

The following zakat-related anecdote from Islamic history is further illuminating: After Muhammad's death in 632, several Arab tribes, while still identifying themselves as Muslims, refused to pay zakat, much of which was being used to fund ongoing military operations. Abu Bakr, the first "righteous" caliph, responded by launching the Apostasy Wars, which claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Arabs. In this context, neither the uses of zakat, nor Abu Bakr's murderous response, seem very "charitable." (Whoever heard of killing people for not being "charitable" enough?)

As a result, the same canon of Islamic law (the Sharia) that unequivocally forbids Muslims from giving zakat (financial assistance) to non-Muslims, advocates giving it to what we call "jihadists." This is a simple fact, played over and over again—not my opinion, nor something that is "open to interpretation."

Ms. Grossman's concluding questions are further indicative of the widespread tendency to recast Muslim concepts into Western terms. She asks the reader: "Do you think believers may support those 'in the path of Allah' in a religious sense, just as Christians might support missionaries evangelizing for Christ? Or do you read that as code for nefarious purposes?"

Aside from the fact that—alas, and once again—what any of us "think" is totally irrelevant, these questions demonstrate the all too common inability to transcend one's own culturally-ingrained notions of right and wrong, ascribing to them a universal pedigree. For just as Ms. Grossman's Western sensibilities inform her that zakat, which has to do with giving money, must always be "charitable," so too do they inform her that funding violence, jihadi or otherwise, must always be "nefarious."

Yet she may be surprised to discover that men such as Osama bin Laden actually see their jihad—yes, with all the death and destruction entailed—as an act of altruism, as an ugly means to a beneficent end (see Koran 2:216), that is, the establishment of Islamic law across the world (which is, incidentally, another Muslim duty). One of the most renowned Muslim clerics and hero of modern day jihadists, Ibn Taymiyya, has written at great length describing jihad as the ultimate expression of "love." And, at any rate, it seems a safe bet that most Muslims will be inclined to adhere to his opinions, i.e., his fatwas, as opposed to Ms. Grossman's casual thoughts on the matter....

It's excellent. Read it all.

My ninth book, The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran, will be available September 22 from Regnery Publishing. (Get info on the first eight here -- make room on your bookshelf, Zawahiri!)

Here is what it says on the back cover:

What does the Koran really say?

It may be the most controversial book in the world. Some see it as a paean to peace, others call it a violent mandate for worldwide Islamic supremacy.

How can one book lead to such dramatically different conclusions? The truth is, not many Westerners know what’s in the Koran, since so few have actually read it—even among the legions of politicians, diplomats, analysts, and editorial writers who vehemently insist that the Koran preaches tolerance.

Now, New York Times bestselling author Robert Spencer unveils the mysteries lying behind this powerful book, guiding readers through the controversies surrounding the Koran’s origins and its most contentious passages. Stripping out the obsolete debates, Spencer focuses on the Koran’s decrees toward Jews, Christians, and other Infidels, explaining how they were viewed in Muhammad’s time, what they’ve supposedly done wrong, and most important, what the Koran has in store for them.

And here is an impression from a reader who received an advance copy. I'll be bringing you more of these over the next few days.

"Meticulous, comprehensive, indispensable. ‘I read the Koran so you don’t have to,’ Spencer writes—but even for those of us who have read the Koran, this is a richly illuminating work.” — Bruce Bawer, author of Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom and While Europe Slept.

The New York Times backhandedly notices that Leftist feminists have failed utterly to speak up for the rights of women in the Islamic world, and that only "conservatives" are doing so. "The Feminist Hawks," by Virginia Heffernan for the New York Times, August 19 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Hawkish sites that have taken up feminism include Little Green Footballs, Jihad Watch and Horowitz’s FrontPage Magazine. On a recent day, the home page of the last featured reports of female prisoners being raped in Iran; prepubescent girls getting married in Gaza; and a possible honor killing by an immigrant in New York. This material is expected to help seal Horowitz’s general case for the war on terror, though he has not yet changed the name of his cause to, say, the war on misogyny.

Well, two out of three ain't bad for the Times. It can't be bothered, after all, to look too closely at those awful "conservatives" and see what they're really about. But despite her error about the third site, Virginia Heffernan is quite right about Jihad Watch and my colleague David Horowitz: we have taken feminists to task more than once not only for their failure to stand up for Muslim women, but for their active excuse-making for the oppression of those women.

See, for example, my article in FrontPage, "Feminists Betray Muslim Women," on how the feminist writer Laura Briggs justifies the oppression of Muslim women.

See also "Two Women Stoned: Feminists Mum," by David Horowitz, Janet Levy and me; "A Response to Feminists on the Violent Oppression of Women in Islam," by David Horowitz and me; and my article "The Conservative Vanguard of the Feminist Movement" in National Review.

Other articles I've written in FrontPage on issues revolving around women's rights in Islam include "Covering Up the Plight of Muslim Women"; "There Must Be Violence Against Women"; "Muhammad Mended His Own Clothes!"; Open Season on Muslim Women"; "Women Are Treated Better in Islam?."

Also there are my articles in Human Events, "Unveiled Women and 'Uncovered Meat'"; "Media Ignore Abuses of Women in Islam."

I also coauthored the monograph "The Violent Oppression of Women in Islam" (available as a pdf here) with my friend Phyllis Chesler, who weighs in on the Times's ridiculous piece here.

In any case, it is very much a war on misogyny, and I am happy to take up the Times's snark and declare that war, here and now. It's a war against those who think they have a divine right to beat women (cf. Qur'an 4:34), and to devalue their testimony as if they're deficient intellectually (cf. Qur'an 2:282), and to treat them as commodities, even allowing for sex with slave girls (cf. Qur'an 4:3).

Is it "hawkish" to stand against such things? Then I am proud to be a hawk.

Democracy on the march. "Afghan vote: 225 claims of irregularities lodged," from Dawn, August 23:

KABUL: Around 225 allegations of irregularities in Afghanistan's elections have been lodged with a complaints investigator, some of which could affect the results, the body said Sunday.

The charges include tampering with ballot boxes for Thursday's presidential and provincial council elections, as well as intimidation of voters, Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) chairman Grant Kippen told reporters.

Others related to violence, failures of supposedly indelible ink meant to prevent people from voting twice and interference in polling, he said....

'We are aware of significant complaints of voting irregularities in provinces that were affected by violence on polling day,' Kippen said, adding that these included the southern province of Kandahar, a Taliban stronghold.

The AP's election coverage emphasizes U.S. fears that less than credible results will sabotage possibilities for a clear winner to invigorate the Afghan economy and confront corruption, drug trafficking, and the Taliban. These all are noble goals, but will the U.S. or the new Afghan administration (after the election is sorted) confront the underlying ideologies -- including those flying under the banner of Islam -- that contribute to or enable corruption, trafficking, economic squalor, and the Taliban?

Also from Dawn:

The US special envoy to Afghanistan said allegations of vote rigging and fraud are to be expected, but observers should wait for the official complaints process to run its course before judging the vote's legitimacy.

'We have disputed elections in the United States. There may be some questions here. That wouldn't surprise me at all. I expect it,' Richard Holbrooke told AP Television News in the western city of Herat. 'But let's not get out ahead of the situation.'

Fine. Let's not get out ahead of the situation. But let's also drop the absurd moral equivalence. On one side, we have controversies surrounding chads, campaign supporters waiving signs at proper distances from polls, and meticulous recounts.

On the other side we have allegations of ballot rigging and stuffing, threats to cut off noses and ears of voters, more threats against female potential voters, and the cutting off of the fingers of at least two women who did vote.

Holbrooke said the US government would wait for rulings from Afghanistan's monitoring bodies – the Independent Election Commission and the Electoral Complaints Commission – before trying to judge the legitimacy of the vote. 'The United States and the international community will respect the process set up by Afghanistan itself,' Holbrooke said. He has been in Afghanistan observing the vote, following a trip to Pakistan last week.

Read it all.

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

Aftonbladet Blood Libel Update. "Stockholm's rabbi: Large Muslim population intimidates local Jews," by Matthew Wagner for the Jerusalem Post, August 24 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

The strong Muslim presence in Stockholm makes the Jewish community there apprehensive about taking a public stand against the recent article in the Aftonbladet tabloid reporting Palestinian claims that IDF soldiers stole body organs from Palestinians, Rabbi Isak Nachman, the spiritual leader of two Orthodox synagogues in the Swedish capital, said on Sunday.

"We want to combat this type of thing, but some Jews here are afraid - there are between 400,000 and 500,000 Muslims out of a population of about nine million," said Nachman, a member of the Rabbinical Centre of Europe.

"There is definitely anxiety and tension, especially at times when Israel is involved in a military operation, like Cast Lead," he said.

Nachman added, however, that there was not a threatening feeling on the streets of Stockholm as a result of the article in Aftonbladet. "I walk around with a kippa and the Chabad rabbi here wears his hat. Muslims don't live in the large Jewish neighborhoods."...

Stockholm's rabbi said that he was particularly disappointed with Sweden's intelligentsia. "There are plenty of educated people who know about the history of blood libels and have remained quiet," he said, adding that this non-action was in line with Sweden's neutral stance during World War II....

Why 9/11? Why not any other of 364 possible days? "Obama's Plan to Desecrate 9/11," by Matthew Vadum in the American Spectator, August 24 (thanks to Christopher):

The Obama White House is behind a cynical, coldly calculated political effort to erase the meaning of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks from the American psyche and convert Sept. 11 into a day of leftist celebration and statist idolatry.

This effort to reshape the American psyche has nothing to do with healing the nation and everything to do with easing the nation along in the ongoing radical transformation of America that President Obama promised during last year's election campaign. The president signed into law a measure in April that designated Sept. 11 as a National Day of Service, but it's not likely many lawmakers thought this meant that day was going to be turned into a celebration of ethanol, carbon emission controls, and radical community organizing....

On the Aug. 11 call, Yearwood and other leaders kept saying repeatedly that they wanted 9/11 to be used for something "positive," "forward-leaning," and "productive," said a source with knowledge of the teleconference.

The plan is to turn a "day of fear" that helps Republicans into a day of activism called the National Day of Service that helps the left. In other words, nihilistic liberals are planning to drain 9/11 of all meaning.

"They think it needs to be taken back from the right," said the source. "They're taking that day and they're breaking it because it gives Republicans an advantage. To them, that day is a fearful day."...

And of course, there is nothing to be fearful about. The war on terror is over!

"Dino Amor Pareja, the leader of the Rajah Solaiman Movement, a group of Christians who had converted to become Islamic militants..."

Who converted him? Under what influences did he convert? Why did he so misunderstand his brand new peaceful religion?

I keep asking such questions whenever stories come up of converts to Islam being involved in jihad activity, and they come up often. In asking these questions, I am calling the bluff of the mainstream media and the Islamic groups in the West, who insist that we must believe that Islam is a Religion of Peace on pain of charges of "bigotry" and "Islamophobia." And I will keep on calling that bluff until everyone sees through the fog of deception still blankets the West courtesy those Islamic groups and their allies in the media. If Islam is a Religion of Peace, and only "Islamophobes" see it in any other way, why do so many converts to Islam keep getting it so terribly, terribly wrong? And if Islam is not a Religion of Peace, why is so much domestic and foreign policy in the U.S. and Europe based on the assumption that it is and always will be?

"Head of Filipino 'terror' group arrested: police," from AFP, August 25 (thanks to James):

MANILA — Police said Tuesday they had arrested the head of a group of Islamist militants behind a deadly bombing in the Philippines capital, who also plotted attacks against US targets.

Dino Amor Pareja, the leader of the Rajah Solaiman Movement, a group of Christians who had converted to become Islamic militants, was captured at his hideout in the southern city of Marawi on Friday, national police chief Edgardo Verzosa told a news conference.

Verzosa said the US Department of Defense had offered a 90,000-dollar reward for information leading to the arrest of the suspect. An unnamed informant received a separate 500,000-peso (10,000-dollar) reward for the arrest, he added.

The police chief described Pareja as a skilled bomb-maker who was trained by Dulmatin and Umar Patek, both Jemaah Islamiyah militants who fled Indonesia to the Philippines to escape prosecution for the deadly 2002 Bali bombings.

Also known as Khalil Pareja, Abu Jihad and Al-Luzoni, the suspect is to stand trial in connection with a 2005 bombing in Manila's financial district that claimed three lives.

He will also be tried for a second blast in the southern port of Zamboanga that wounded 26 people, and a 2005 attack on a Philippine army detachment that left 10 soldiers dead.

The same year Pareja took part in a "failed bombing operation" codenamed "Big Bang" that targeted Manila establishments frequented by Americans and other foreigners, Verzosa said....

"Big Bang," eh? Whew -- at least he isn't a creationist!

(Part One is here.)

Does Robert Gates think it would have been better not to have expressed anger, or otherwise have shown Pakistan that there were limits to the kind of behavior of which it had been guilty for decades? When Congress passed the Pressler Amendment (named after Larry Pressler, of Harvard, Oxford, and the U.S. Senate), it showed itself, not for the first time, and not for the last, more sensible than our executive branch when it comes to dealing with tyrannies. Think of what Senator Henry Jackson accomplished, for example, with the Jackson-Vanik Amendment. Congress continues to do so today when it confronts the Obama Administration on its cruel and stupid policy toward Israel.

For the Obama Administration, not knowing where to put its feet and hands, is trying to curry favor with this or that state full of Muslims by pressuring Israel. It thus reveals that instead of doing anything to bring to an end its incoherent and wasteful policy toward Muslim states, it is continuing that policy. Yet that policy is based on a refusal to grasp the meaning and menace of Islam. Thus Obama continues the Bush Administration’s naïve and stupid policy of trying to diminish, or prevent, a widening of the ethnic and sectarian fissures in Iraq (and there are some similar fissures in Afghanistan), rather than identifying, welcoming, and exploiting those fissures in order to divide and demoralize the Camp of Islam and Jihad. No, in the end it will be Congress that will prevent a failed policy that, inherited from Bush, is being continued by the Obama Administration, with the main change being that the Americans have moved from one theatre in the Muslim Multiplex to another, some one thousand miles to the East -- that is, from Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Oh, it’s a very big Multiplex.

And there is one more change: the Obama Administration is full of people who do not understand that the war on Israel has no end, and there is no one-state or two-state or n-state “solution” because that war, a Lesser Jihad, will forever be conducted, by whatever means prove effective and available. It has no end, and there is no “solution” to that Lesser Jihad, as there is no “solution” to the worldwide Jihad being waged, in various ways, not all of them through violence, by Muslims against non-Muslims. But the very idea of thinking that everything is a “problem” to which there must be a “solution” is a typically American notion, one that is naïve and dangerous, and that obscures the need for cunning, patience, ruthlessness, and above all, knowledge of how the enemy pursues its goals, and how the forces on one’s own side allow themselves to be fooled, or to be confused, or to constantly misconstrue what is often -- in fact -- utterly obvious. Was it Churchill who once commented on the failure of so many to see “the obvious”?

Just imagine this: "JBS has created two chapels for Christian workers inside the plant — one for Roman Catholics and one for Protestants. Also, the company has installed holy water fonts for Roman Catholics that allow workers to anoint themselves with holy water, which is custom on entering the chapel."

Imagine what the outcry would be.

But this -- this is fine!

Stealth Jihad at Swift Update: "JBS, Muslims vow harmony," by Chris Casey in the Greeley Tribune, August 21 (thanks to John):

Just a day before the beginning of Ramadan, the holy month of fast and prayer for Muslims, talks between meatplant workers, union representatives and company officials continued in earnest.

The objective: Avoid a repeat of the showdown at sundown that flared at JBS USA meatpacking plants in Greeley and Grand Island, Neb., last September.

During Ramadan, Muslims don't eat or drink during daylight hours. They break their daily fast after sunset prayers.

Miscommunication about how to handle the religious practices resulted in more than 100 Muslim workers — mostly Somalis, but also other East African refugees who've moved to Greeley in recent years — being fired last September for walking off production lines.

Graen Isse, a Somali who helps operate the East Africa Community Center in Greeley, said he thinks conflicts will be avoided this year.

“We have good communication with the company,” he said. “I don't think it's going to happen. Before, there was no communication at all. The key is communication.”

Unlike last year at this time, JBS has created two prayer rooms for Muslim workers inside the plant — one for men and one for women. Also, the company has installed stations in restrooms that allow workers to thoroughly wash, which is custom before prayers.

Still, some Muslims on the B shift, which runs from late afternoon to late evening and runs into prayers at sundown, have requested a monthlong switch to the daytime A shift to avoid conflicts, Isse said.

“I don't think they're going to move 400 workers to A shift,” Isse said of JBS. “It's hard for them to do.”...

Yes, but now that Swift is in "How high?" mode, so now is the time to press for that.

In "Media Distorts Facts of Threatened Muslim Girl Story" at Newsmax (August 24), Pamela Geller shows how the mainstream media has tried to stack the deck against Rifqa Bary from the beginning:

The Aug. 21 ruling that allowed Rifqa Bary, the teenager who converted from Islam to Christianity and fled from her Muslim family in fear for her life, to stay in Florida rather than return to her parents, was unexpected. The media shills and Islamic machinery in the United States never expected that Rifqa and the people would prevail upon the powers that be in Florida. So now they are in overdrive.

One egregious example is an almost incomprehensible, misogynist column in the Orlando Sentinel. It is so inaccurate, so misinformed, and so dangerous, that if Rifqa Bary is harmed, “columnist” Mike Thomas could rightly be charged with incitement to violent honor killing. Thomas got nothing right. Not one detail. Further, at no point did he consider Rifqa’s testimony. At no point did he consider the consequences of Rifqa’s testimony. At no point did he consider the risk to Rifqa’s life. [...]

Thomas observes that Rifqa was a cheerleader and says: “Somehow I can’t imagine a Muslim extremist allowing his daughter to wear short skirts and shake pompoms in front of a crowd of infidels.”

Thomas knows nothing of honor killings in the West. Victims are generally beautiful, Westernized, and dressed in a manner that perhaps Thomas would term “provocative.” Muslim girls who live in the West lead two lives. Amina and Sarah Said, allegedly murdered by their father in Texas on New Year’s Day 2008 for having non-Muslim boyfriends, were honor students, star athletes, soccer players, tennis players, etc. Rifqa was the same way in Ohio before she fled. These girls led double lives. The murder always happens when the family sees they have lost control of the child. In the case of Amina and Sarah, the girls ran away. The mother lured them back, and they were both dead less than 24 hours later. Canadian honor killing victim Aqsa Parvez also left her home and was staying with friends when she too was lured back, only to be murdered, allegedly by her father, for refusing to wear the Islamic headscarf.

The fathers cleanse the family of the dishonor of their daughter’s un-Islamic behavior. But Thomas also adds: “I could go through the Old Testament and cherry-pick any number of quotes demanding death for nonbelievers, nonvirgin brides and blasphemers. No Christian I know endorses that, yet it seems every Muslim abides by the darker writings in the faith.” But what difference does that make? Christian and Jews are not killing their daughters and wives to restore their honor. Muslims are.

Most outrageously of all, Thomas decries an “anti-Muslim” bias in the media coverage of Rifqa’s case. In fact, there was an anti-Christian bias. The mainstream media vilified the good Christians who provided sanctuary to Rifqa, who sought only to escape her father’s threat to kill her. The media reported only the parents’ Islamist narrative — giving Rifqa’s story no air time or ink. They repeated the lies over and over again. Folks had to go to YouTube to hear Rifqa in her own words. Why didn’t one media outlet have on an expert or scholar on apostasy in Islam? Why wasn’t Ibn Warraq or Wafa Sultan called? Robert Spencer was nowhere to be seen. Fox called on political pundits and others to explain Rifqa’s case, and they got it wrong. The only responsible expert who weighed in was Frank Gaffney. [...]

Rifqa Bary is the highest value target in America. She should be under 24-hour guard. And she should be given a fair shake in the media.

Read it all.

The canary in the mineshaft. "Stay of Execution," by Frank Gaffney, Jr. at the Center for Security Policy, August 24:

The image of a man convicted of killing 270 Americans and other innocent civilians receiving a hero's welcome last week at an airport in Libya was at once appalling and infuriating. Unless something permanent is done in the near future, however, the culture that promotes such behavior may soon be exulting over the "honor killing" of a young woman in America.

The young woman in question is Rifqa Bary, a seventeen-year-old from a family of Sri Lankan expatriates who are part of a Muslim community near Columbus, Ohio that is dominated by the Noor Islamic Cultural Center. This mosque is renowned for its adherence to the brutally intolerant and repressive theo-political-religious program authoritative Islam calls Shariah. In fact, counter-terrorism expert Patrick Poole has described the Noor Center as "the premier source of Islamic extremism" in Central Ohio.

According to Shariah, it is impermissible to leave the faith: Those who convert have engaged in "apostasy," a capital offense. As Ms. Bary says she embraced Christianity four years ago, she is-- in the words of Tom Trento, a formidable anti-Shariah activist who runs the Florida Security Council-- "Dead Girl Walking."

Pamela Geller's terrific web site, AtlasShrugs, reports that Rifqa Bary was brutalized by family members even before they discovered that she had converted. But when the family learned, apparently from others associated with the Noor mosque, that the girl was an apostate, she says her father erupted: "If you have this Jesus in your heart, you're dead to me. You're not my daughter. I will kill you." [...]

What is clear at this point, though, is that Rifqa Bary has received but a stay-- perhaps literally-- of execution. It is a safe bet that the court will be subjected in the coming days to a counter-campaign by her parents' friends and supporters. Already, according to blogger Dr. Rusty Shakelford, a source who infiltrated a strategy session convened by the Muslim Brotherhood associated Council on American Islamic Relations reported that CAIR "handed out copies of [a recent] Orlando Sentinel article [that was critical of Ms. Bary] and want supporters to push the meme that Christians have brainwashed and abducted this gullible teenage girl. They have also instructed supporters to circulate rumors that Rifqa had been carousing with infidel boys and engaged in acts of immorality. [This CAIR strategy takes the focus off the near-universal Islamic legal precepts and Quranic injunctions that demand death for apostates and impugns the character of the innocent girl at the center of this controversy who appears to be in genuine fear for her life if she is returned to her parents.]"

Let us be clear: Rifqa Bary is a proverbial "canary in the mineshaft," a warning to all of us that toxic Shariah is leeching into America. Every effort must be made to ensure that her freedoms-- and, inevitably, ours-- are permanently protected against this deadly assault.

Yes.

Why this was a bad idea. "Failing to learn the Lockerbie lesson," by Laura Rosen Cohen in the National Post, August 24 (thanks to Kathy Shaidle):

[...] The release of the Abdel Basset al-Megrahi indicates to the jihadist world that their scorn for our lifestyle, for our Western values and freedoms is justifiable. Their insistence that our societies are decadent, morally inverted places are perhaps not without merit. If we do not punish the murderers of our own precious children, families and friends, if we do not extinguish the lives of the terrorists, or even incarcerate them, why should they think otherwise? Moreover, if we as a society, voluntarily send these messages of impotence and self-defeat to our enemies, why on earth do we deserve any of our remaining freedoms?

What case can be made for a society that annuls the value of its own citizens’ life and enables their murderers to live freely?

Let the Scottish example be a lesson to us all: the barbarians are at the gate. Instead of reinforcing the walls, we’ve just given them an extra set of keys and told them to make themselves at home. Inevitably, they will.

Over my dead body. Which is just the way they want it, of course!

Jews are stealing organs from Palestinian children and selling them, aren't they? After all, the Swedish paper Aftonbladet said so.

The only problem is, they made it up. Or repeated jihadist propaganda.

"Aftonbladet editor admits: No evidence," from the Jerusalem Post, August 24 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet, which caused a media stir in recent days with an article claiming IDF soldiers were harvesting organs from Palestinians, published an editorial on Monday denying Israeli claims.

"I'm not a Nazi," Aftonbladet editor Jan Helin wrote. "I'm not anti-Semitic."

No kidding, really?

Instead, he described himself as "a responsible editor who gave the green light to an article because it raises a few questions." He did note, however, that the paper had no evidence that such horrific practices were being carried out.

On Sunday, Aftonbladet published a follow-up article, defending the offending report written by freelance journalist Donald Bostrom. The second article maintained that the organ-harvesting matter "should be investigated, either to stop the relentless Palestinian rumors, or, if the rumors prove to be true, stop the trade in body parts."

That's a significant retreat, you'll notice, from claiming that it was actually happening.

And yet Bostrum and Helin will probably still continue to enjoy a reputation as responsible journalists.

He's right. Want proof? It's coming in my new book, The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran, which will be available September 22 from Regnery Publishing.

More on this story, now pulled. "Sebastian Faulks: Koran has ‘no ethics,’" from the Sunday Times, August 23:

THE bestselling author Sebastian Faulks has courted controversy by saying the Koran has “no ethical dimension”.

In an interview with today’s Sunday Times Magazine, he added that the Islamic holy scripture was “a depressing book”, was “very one-dimensional” and unlike the Christian New Testament had “no new plan for life”.

Faulks was speaking in advance of the publication of his novel, A Week in December....

“Jesus, unlike Muhammad, had interesting things to say,” Faulks said.

“He proposed a revolutionary way of looking at the world: love your neighbour; love your enemy; the meek shall inherit the earth. Muhammad had nothing to say to the world other than, ‘If you don’t believe in God you will burn for ever’.”

Criticism of the Koran is regarded as blasphemous by Muslims.

No kidding, really?

Seriously, most of the world is walking on eggshells in front of Muslims now, but why, if someone dislikes a book, dislikes its message, should he be afraid or ashamed to say so? Critics of Christianity and the message of the New Testament are legion, and they are neither threatened with death nor smeared as hatemongers. Ideas are ideas. Some are good and some are bad. It is not an act of hate for someone to say that he thinks one set of ideas is not inspiring, or interesting, or morally illuminating. It is done all time, about all kinds of ideas. Only when it comes to the Koran, and to Islam in general, does this evaluation of ideas become some kind of a moral failing, and is classified as an evil act.

The Religion of the Notoriously Thin-Skinned strikes again. There Is No Fun In Islam* Update: "Malaysian Islamic party urges Ramadan ban on concert," from AFP, August 24 (thanks to James):

KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysia's conservative Islamic party on Monday called for Danish band Michael Learns to Rock to be banned from performing next month, saying it was an insult to Muslims during Ramadan.

Note to AFP: "conservatives" don't generally call for the banning of music concerts or consider them insults, whenever they may happen to be held.

The Pan-Malaysian Islamic party (PAS) has campaigned against several foreign performers, and in 2007 threatened protests which forced US singer Beyonce to scrap a planned concert in Malaysia.

"We are opposing this concert because holding it does not respect Muslims as it is the fasting month of Ramadan, a time for holiness and cleanliness," PAS youth wing chief Nasrudin Hassan Tantawi told AFP.

"It is an insult to Islam for the government to allow such a concert to take place and we urge all groups to follow our lead in demanding the concert be banned," he said.

The "Michael Learns to Rock -- Eternity Tour 2009" is set to take place at the Genting Highlands resort north of the capital Kuala Lumpur on September 5, according to promoter Star Planet's website.

A spokesman for the company was not immediately available for comment.

Nasrudin said his party would consider "taking action" if the government did not stop the performance but did not specify what form that would take....

No worries. Probably he has in mind just a bit of Interior Spiritual Struggle.

* The Ayatollah Khomeini said that. He must have been some kind of an Islamophobe.

We've received a number of emails pointing out that the link to the Telegraph article featured in yesterday's story about Sebastian Faulks' negative characterization of Muhammad and the Qur'an has disappeared. The link is indeed dead, and a search on "Faulks" at the Telegraph's site yields no replacement link, but only the link to the same article that no longer exists.

Curious, ain't it? Meanwhile, the story is widespread elsewhere in the British press, and we'll continue to cover it as developments warrant.

WASHINGTON: The Pakistani mistrust over US intentions has ‘some legitimacy’ since the United States has walked away from that country twice in the last three decades, says US Defence Secretary Robert Gates.

At a briefing at the Pentagon on Thursday afternoon, Mr Gates conceded that the US needed time to ‘rebuild trust’ with the Pakistani people and to convince them ‘that we are a long-term friend and ally.’

Mr Gates described as disturbing, but not surprising, the results of a survey that only 9 per cent of Pakistanis saw the United States as a partner while 64 per cent looked at it as an enemy.

‘First of all, one of the reasons that the Pakistanis have concerns about us is that we walked away from them twice,’ Mr Gates said. ‘We walked away from them after the Soviets left Afghanistan, and we walked away from them through the 1990s, because of the Pressler amendment.’

Because of such policy changes, Mr Gates said, ‘our military-to-military relations were significantly interrupted’.

Further commenting on the opinion survey, the US defence secretary observed: ‘The Pakistanis probably — and with some legitimacy —question how long are we prepared to stay there? Is the only reason we’re interested in working with the Pakistanis is the war in Afghanistan? Or do we value Pakistan as a partner and an ally independent of the war in Afghanistan?’

Mr Gates then assured the Pakistani people that ‘the latter is the case’ and that the US had a long-term commitment to their country. ‘And I think that the bills on the Hill (the US Congress), to provide multi-year economic assistance to Pakistan, manifest that.’ -- from Dawn, Pakistan’s leading English-language newspaper

This speech by Gates deserves to be widely read and pondered. But not because it is an admirable and intelligent exposition. No, it deserves to be widely read and pondered because it expresses an ignorance and an amazing and perhaps willful misunderstanding of American-Pakistani relations over the past fifty years. In someone who has held as many important positions in Washington as Robert Gates, and who is now the Secretary of Defense at a time when American aid of all kinds has been pouring into Pakistan (some of it hard to discern because it does not show up in the budget as aid), and a tripling of some aid is now being pushed by this Administration, such ignorance and such misunderstanding is unacceptable, intolerable. It ought to be grounds for his dismissal.

But it won’t be, because Gates’ misreading of Pakistan, and his forgetting the most obvious things in the American-Pakistani relationship, are -- that misreading and that forgetting -- characteristic of the Obama Administration’s understanding of relations between this country and a great many Muslim countries. Those countries include not only Pakistan, but “our ally” Saudi Arabia and our “staunch ally” Egypt.

And the explanation for Gates’ folly also explains the larger folly. It helps to explain why American troops are very likely going to continue to remain in Afghanistan, and vast amounts of American aid will continue to be lavished on both Afghanistan and Pakistan when the results of that aid can only be more corruption, more resentment at the Infidel donor of such aid, and in many cases, the diversion of such aid to things that will increase local hostility to Infidels and the ability to inflict damage on those Infidels. The more Afghan villages have electricity, the more likely they will then get televisions and computers that spread the word both of Islam and of militant Islam. American aid helped pay for and even made possible the development (beginning with theft) and then the subsequent production, of nuclear weapons by Pakistan.

Oh, really?

“Bigamy is against the ‘letter and spirit’ of Islam, Indian judge rules,” by Dean Nelson in The Telegraph, August 7:

Bigamy among India's Muslims is against the "letter and spirit" of true Islam, the country's law commission has ruled. The ruling, by one of the country's senior judges, has provoked a wave of anxiety throughout India's secular establishment which has until now been content to let its 150 million Muslims live according to its own system of "personal law".

“Personal law” like this and this? Surely India’s “secular establishment” is aware that the letter and spirit of Islam is fully compatible with democratic values such as equal rights for all regardless of gender or religious affiliation, criminal codes and punishments proportional to the crime, and Jihad as interior spiritual struggle against vice, or waged violently only for defensive purposes.

While bigamy has also been practiced by Hindus, it is more common among Muslims who believed they are justified in taking up to four wives.

"If ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly with the orphans, marry women of your choice, two or three or four; but if ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one, or (a captive) that your right hands possess, that will be more suitable, to prevent you from doing injustice" (The Qur'an, Surah An-Nisa 4:3)

The practice has been widely criticised in a number of court judgments as "cruel", while one judge said there was no difference between a "second wife and a concubine". Justice A.R Lakshmanan, the law commission chairman, and two other panelists, said: "Traditional understanding of Muslim law on bigamy is gravely faulty and conflicts with true Islamic law in letter and spirit."

Good news indeed. Does Justice Lakshmanan provide decisive evidence of this conflict via the letter and spirit of the Qur'an, the life and teachings of Muhammad, the schools of Islamic Jurisprudence, historical precedent, and rulings from respected (even if minority view) scholars so that good Muslims and misunderstanders of Islam can take note and act accordingly?

"It is generally believed that under Muslim law, a husband has an unfettered right to marry again even where his earlier marriage is continuing. "On a closer examination of the relevant provisions of the Koran and other sources of Islamic law, this does not seem to be true," the report said.

Great, but please demonstrate and document how this does not seem to be true.

They said they had submitted their report to the government but stopped short of recommending legal reform because they feared it would cause an "unhealthy controversy" among religious leaders who opposed change.

What could be unhealthy such about reform which not only advances issues significant to gender rights and equality, but also “the ‘true letter and spirit’ of Islam?”

Their concerns were born out by Muslim scholars, who said Islam provided for polygamy on the condition that the man is able to care for each wife financially and honour her physically.

"Polygamy is not mandatory in Islam but there is a provision for taking more than one wife. This provision is bound by pre-conditions that the man has to do justice to all his legal wives both physically as well as economically," said Professor Akhtarul Wasey, Head of Islamic Studies at Delhi's Jamia Millia Islamia University.

The Christian Century, perhaps the most popular bi-weekly periodical in liberal Protestant Christianity, during the recent unrest in Iran proposed the first of many steps for rapprochement with that country. Since these views are widespread, this piece is worth revisiting. “Soccer diplomacy,” by the Century editors in Christian Century, July 28:

Iran is a young country: the median age is about 26. Young Iranians, who are connected to the outside world through the Internet and satellite TV, made their presence known in the streets as they protested the outcome of Iran's presidential election. Their campaign against what they view as a rigged election is perhaps the first protest movement driven by cell phones and the electronic messaging system known as Twitter.

Iranian protesters aren’t the only ones utilizing technology.

It would be a mistake, however, to think that the protests rallied only the young. They attracted a broad cross-section of the population, including professionals, especially in urban areas. It would also be a mistake to interpret the protests as a sign of pro-Western or pro-American sentiment. The uprising represents a renewal of the hopes and dreams for freedom and openness that fueled the Islamic revolution of 1979—a revolution that was manipulated by the Ayatollah Khomeini and turned out badly for most Iranians, except for the conservatives who now run the country.

Hopes and dreams for freedom and openness? “Manipulated” by Khomeini? The Iranian quagmire couldn’t be related to rigorously enforced strictures from mainstream Shi’a Islam, could it? If not for sinister “conservatives” (whose Christian, Jewish, secular, and other counterparts strangely fail to display similar draconian measures crushing dissent), Iran would be a veritable Islamic Shangri-la, rivaling the most glorious mythical accounts of Al-Andalus.

And now, the obligatory American foreign policy rebuke:

Since Iran has a justifiable suspicion of intervention by outsiders, especially by the U.S and since Iran's supreme leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei, and reelected president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would like nothing better than to blame internal dissent on outside meddling, President Obama had to speak carefully about events, while voicing concerns about the violent repression of the protesters. It would be unwise for the U.S. to squander the current opportunity to engage Iran, as President Obama has signaled he intends to do—and to some extent has already done. Some analysts think the time is especially ripe for such engagement. The drawdown of U.S. military presence in Iraq, the electoral victory of pro-Western forces in Lebanon, and the U.S. move to engage with Syria all put pressure on Iran to be more receptive to diplomatic overtures.

OK, but what is the evidence this “pressure” is having the desired effect?

What is needed, in addition to political diplomacy, is something like the "ping-pong diplomacy," or cultural exchanges, that the Nixon administration used to engage China in the 1970s. (Given that Iranians are fervent about soccer, perhaps the approach should be called soccer diplomacy.)…

Will Iran be more open than these Islamic Indonesian bombers were with “Christian players” on the UK soccer team?

The Century should be commended for creatively seeking engagement with Iranians on friendly turf. But to whatever extent “soccer diplomacy” is successful at an individual or team level, policymakers must consider the multiple implications in this final admonition:

Through deeper political and cultural exchanges, Americans and Iranians may cultivate what theologian Miroslav Volf calls the necessary capacity for "double vision": the ability not only to see others from our own perspective but also to see the others as they see themselves—and to see ourselves as the others see us.

Given how Ahmadinejad and others who hold power in Iran see themselves and others, this is timely advice indeed.

Free Speech Death Watch Update in Modern, Moderate Malaysia: “Reckless bloggers can be prosecuted,” by R.S.N. Murali in The Malaysian Star, August 18:

KUALA TERENGGANU: Bloggers who incite hatred or harp on sensitive issues like race and religion in their postings can be prosecuted for sedition, said Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein.

He said the Government would put in place a mechanism to monitor and prevent seditious content from being displayed on blogs.

While squelching free expression and written political dissent on any issue merits the ire of human rights advocates everywhere, one also wonders how consistently these vague but rhetorically charged accusations will be applied. Will bloggers who criticize Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, secularism, or less popular strands of Islam experience the same indictment as those who address or challenge reigning ideologies?

“The proposed mechanism will not only protect Islam or the Malays but all Malaysians,” he said after attending a state Umno gathering at Batu Burok here yesterday.

Hishammuddin said issues relating to the monarchy, race or religion were sensitive in a plural society like Malaysia and there must be some laws to prevent seditious postings on the Internet.

In what sense is a society “plural” if it actively targets frank discussion of sensitive issues? Such smacks of the ever-prescient repartee concerning the Soviet era:

American: In America, we are free to criticize our president.
Soviet: In Russia, we are free to criticize your president too!

“In the past we didn’t have such problems but with the advent of cyberspace, such seditious postings could probably hurt the feelings of certain communities,” he said.

What about the feelings of bloggers and other dissenters whose freedoms are threatened? Do their feelings not deserve consideration as well?

Hishammuddin delivering his speech during the launch of the Umno leadership programme in Kuala Terengganu Monday.

Hishammuddin said the proposed move was not meant to clamp down or censor the Internet…

Of course not!

… but to maintain the peace and harmony among the people in the country.

“There are a few irresponsible bloggers; I’m not saying all have the tendency to post sensitive issues.

“There should be some boundaries when posting in blogs. Irresponsible bloggers can cause disunity and derail the Malaysia concept,” he said.

And the Malaysian concept is…?

Recently I got an email from one of the most revered and hallowed academic institutions in America, offering help. Intrigued by the prospect that the Middle East Studies Association (or MESA Nostra, as Hugh calls it) may not have the stranglehold on the academic study of Islam and jihad that it endeavors to have, of course I followed up.

Benjamin Green remembers reading about Islam as a boy, perhaps for the first time in a "Kid's World Almanac of Records and Facts," where Islam was said to align closely with Judaism and Christianity. His interest was intensified in graduate school after encountering an otherwise congenial and pleasant American Shi'ite who expressed a desire that, if he had the courage and opportunity, he would kill Salman Rushdie.

This otherwise friendly gentleman followed up with "wouldn't you do the same to someone who insulted the Virgin Mary?" Benjamin responded that Jesus taught him to love and pray for his critics rather than killing them. This encounter helped open Benjamin's eyes to what might obvious to some -- that the content of one's beliefs has practical implications. Different beliefs can lead to vastly different results with potentially devastating consequences.

After teaching religion at the college and university level for several years, Benjamin re-donned his student cap to pursue advanced studies in Islam at one of the world's top universities. He began following Jihad Watch, he tells me, after reading books by our old friend Gregory M. Davis and by me, and he says that he "was attracted to Robert's attempt at 'Islamo-realism.'"

Benjamin is interested in Islam both theoretically and practically, addressing its full range of teaching and practices: good, the bad, and the ugly. He thus supports Islamic reform, including the right of Muslims to abandon Islam without reprisal, and honest and frank engagement with tough issues.

And so I am now pleased to introduce Benjamin Green, a scholar of religion who has taught multiple classes in his field at the university level. An attempted practitioner of Islamo-realism, Benjamin is presently pursuing advanced studies relating to Islam at a place that would surprise you if I named it, and whose officials would be surprised, unpleasantly so, by Benjamin's new side gig. Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Background on Al-Awlaki: He was actually born in New Mexico, but is now based in Yemen, following his own preaching that Muslims should leave the sinful U.S. and its wicked democratic process. But he is not any sort of isolationist, having also declared: "We will implement the rule of Allah on earth by the tip of the sword whether the masses like it or not."

"Islamist preacher banned from addressing fundraiser," by Jamie Doward for the Observer, August 24 (thanks to Virgil):

An Islamist preacher has been banned from addressing a major British fundraising event amid claims he backs attacks on UK troops and supports terrorist organisations linked to Al Qaeda.

The revelation that Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemen-based preacher accused of advocating violent jihad, was due to speak via video link at Kensington town hall later this month, has raised fears public buildings are being used for extremism. A spokesman for Kensington and Chelsea council said: "Some of the views expressed by Mr al-Awlaki in the past are not appropriate for broadcast in [council] premises."

The council banned al-Awlaki from speaking only after politicians and anti-extremist groups raised concerns about his appearance at the Cage Prisoners event, which will raise money for Muslims held in Guantánamo Bay.

Could a fundraiser for persecuted Christians go forward on analogous premises in an Islamic country?

Sharia Alert: "The few who came to school wearing jeans were warned that they would be expelled if they did not wear jilbabs."

"The jilbab or expulsion," by Khaled Abu Toameh for the Jerusalem Post, August 24:

Hamas has instructed schoolgirls in the Gaza Strip to wear the jilbab (Islamic long-sleeved dress) and head scarves or face being expelled from school.

The movement has also banned girls from wearing jeans at school.

The latest order follows a similar directive that was issued earlier this month by a local judge requiring all female lawyers who appear in the Gaza Strip's courts to wear the hijab (Islamic head scarf).

The cases are seen in the context of Hamas's efforts to enforce strict Islamic laws throughout the Strip.

Until a few years ago, many Gazan schools endorsed jeans or trousers as an official uniform for girls. But since Hamas seized full control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007, schools have come under intense pressure to force girls to dress in accordance with Islamic rules.

A source in the Hamas-controlled Education Ministry said that his ministry's policy was to allow each school administration to decide on the type of clothes students should wear.

According to the source, the ministry decided this year to exempt all students from wearing school uniforms due to the financial crisis in the Gaza Strip.

"Headmasters and headmistresses have been given a green light to decide on what type of clothes the students should wear," the source said. "In many schools, the administrations, in coordination with the families, decided to impose hijabs and jilbabs on girls."

A veteran journalist in the Gaza Strip said that most girls who returned to schools that reopened on Sunday were seen dressed in traditional Islamic clothes.

He noted, for instance, that at the Maghazi Girls Secondary School in the center of the Gaza Strip, "about 95 percent" of the girls showed up wearing jilbabs.

"The few who came to school wearing jeans were warned that they would be expelled if they did not wear jilbabs," the journalist told The Jerusalem Post....

This story is one to watch, given the past reactions and incidents resulting from publications like Rushdie's Satanic Verses, the Danish Muhammad cartoons, The Jewel of Medina (dreadful, but it wasn't literary critics who firebombed the publishing house), and others. "Sebastian Faulks risks Muslim anger after calling Koran the 'rantings of a schizophrenic'," by Lucy Cockcroft for the Telegraph, August 23:

He said the Islamic holy scripture was a "one-dimensional book" that has little literary value, and added that when compared with the Bible its message seemed "barren".

Faulks, who is known for his meticulous research, has recently read a translation of the Koran to help him write his latest novel, A Week in December, to be published in September.

Unlike his previous historical works, such as Birdsong and Charlotte Gray, his new offering is set in contemporary London.

The cast of characters include the wife of Britain's youngest MP, a female Tube driver, a hedge fund manager and a Glasgow-born Islamic terrorist recruit named Hassan al Rashid.

It was during research for al Rashid that he began delving into the Koran, which Muslims believe to be divine guidance passed to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel.

In an interview with The Sunday Times Magazine, Faulks said: "It's a depressing book. It really is. It's just the rantings of a schizophrenic. It's very one-dimensional, and people talk about the beauty of the Arabic and so on, but the English translation I read was, from a literary point of view, very disappointing." [...]

"With the Koran there are no stories. And it has no ethical dimension like the New Testament, no new plan for life."

And in a move that is likely to anger many Muslims, he calls into question the worth of Muhammad.

"Jesus, unlike Muhammad, had interesting things to say. He proposed a revolutionary way of looking at the world: love you neighbour, love your enemy, be kind to people, the meek shall inherit the Earth. Muhammad had nothing to say to the world other than, 'If you don't believe in God you will burn forever.'"

Ajmal Masroor, an imam and spokesman for the Islamic Society for Britain, says he does not recognise Faulks' description of the Koran.

"I could list thousands of scholars, politicians and academics who have given nothing but amazing praise for the Koran, and I am talking about non-Muslims. Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi and Bill Clinton to name just a few.

Jefferson reported to John Jay:

The ambassador answered us that [the right] was founded on the Laws of the Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have answered their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.

And let's be thorough, and not forget John Quincy Adams or Winston Churchill. The article continues:

"I actually find his comments amusing, not offensive. They sound like the braying of someone who is rather resentful and un-objective, I would like to be able to sit down and have an informed debate about the Koran with him."

He said Faulks' statement runs the risk of stirring religious hatred against Muslims.

"Attacks on Islam are nothing new, but the danger is this will have a "drip, drip" effect.

"People don't seem to understand the consequences of saying things like this could be quite severe. History tells us it can encourage hatred."

Inayat Bunglawala, from the Muslim Council of Britain, said Faulks' view of the Koran was "blinkered".

"The Prophet Muhammad has had many detractors both during his own time and later on who described him as a 'madman' or 'possessed by an evil spirit' and so forth in an effort to drown out his beautiful message," he added.

"Sebastian Faulks should perhaps draw a lesson from the fact that those detractors are all now long forgotten, whereas the Prophet is remembered with love and admiration."...

It always helps when you have a bunch of your detractors whacked. Just ask Asma bint Marwan. Or Abu 'Afak. Or Ka’b bin Ashraf.

"Peshawar is a frequent target." "Three dead in Pakistan city suicide blast: police," from Agence France-Presse, August 23:

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Three passers-by were killed and 15 injured Sunday in a suicide bombing in Pakistan’s northwest city of Peshawar triggered by an apparent feud between rival militant groups, police said.

The attacker blew himself up outside the home of a brother of Mubeen Afridi, spokesman for Taleban-linked extremist group Ansar-ul-Islam, who was killed in a remote-controlled blast on Saturday night.

Sunday’s blast struck the residential neighbourhood of Momin in the centre of Peshawar, a hub of militant activity.

‘There was a man who came in Momin town and opened fire on a house,’ senior Peshawar police official Sefwat Ghayour told AFP.

‘There was retaliatory fire from the house, and in the cross-fire, the suicide bomber blew himself up. In the suicide blast, two ladies and one man were killed and 15 are injured. Among the 15 injured, four are children.’

Police officials said that the dead and injured were passers-by, with no one in the targeted home killed.

Afridi was killed along with his driver on Saturday when a remote-controlled bomb exploded in a car in Peshawar. [...]

Peshawar is a frequent target, with at least nine people killed in a suicide attack on the five-star Pearl Continental hotel in early June....

More of the same in the jihad against Thailand. "Soldiers killed in south Thailand," from BBC News, August 23:

Two soldiers have been shot dead and three people injured in a gun attack on an army checkpoint in south Thailand.

The pre-dawn attack, near the southern border of Narathiwat province, has been blamed on Islamist insurgents.

At least 10 rebels are reported to have opened fire on the checkpoint before fleeing in pickup trucks. [...]

Insurgents usually target people they perceive to be collaborating with the Bangkok government - using bomb blasts, beheadings and shootings.

They have also tried to force Buddhist residents from the area, with the aim of ultimately establishing a separate Islamic state.

Quoth Ali, the rightful successor to Muhammad according to the Shi'ites:

"O' ye peoples! Women are deficient in Faith, deficient in shares and deficient in intelligence. As regards the deficiency in their Faith, it is their abstention from prayers and fasting during their menstrual period. As regards deficiency in their intelligence it is because the evidence of two women is equal to that of one man. As for the deficiency of their shares that is because of their share in inheritance being half of men. So beware of the evils of women. Be on your guard even from those of them who are (reportedly) good. Do not obey them even in good things so that they may not attract you to evils." - The Peak of Eloquence, sermon 80.

On the Sunni side of the street (sorry), this quotation is in accord with Bukhari 1.6.301:

The women asked, "O Allah's Apostle! What is deficient in our intelligence and religion?" He said, "Is not the evidence of two women equal to the witness of one man?" They replied in the affirmative. He said, "This is the deficiency in her intelligence. Isn't it true that a woman can neither pray nor fast during her menses?" The women replied in the affirmative. He said, "This is the deficiency in her religion."

"Iran Islamists object to women ministers," from Agence France-Presse, August 24:

Iran's conservative clerics have objected to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's decision to include three women in his new cabinet, a report said on Saturday, dealing a blow to the hardliner's bid to secure parliament's nod for his ministerial line-up.

Ahmadinejad named Sousan Keshvaraz, Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi and Fatemeh Ajorlou as his ministers respectively of education, health, and welfare and social security in his 21-member cabinet.

"Although it is a new idea to choose women as ministers, there are religious doubts over the abilities of women when it comes to management. This should be considered by the government," Mohammad Taghi Rahbar, the head of the clerics' faction in the 290-member conservative-dominated Iranian parliament was quoted as saying by the conservative daily Tehran Emrouz.

He said the faction will seek the opinion of the country's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the issue.

Ahmadinejad's proposed cabinet, which boasts 11 new names including the three women, will face a vote of confidence on August 30.

Rahbar said leading Iranian clerics such as Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi and Grand Ayatollah Lotfollah Safi Golpayghani too wanted Ahmadinejad to reconsider his decision regarding the three women.

The nomination of females to the cabinet marks a first in the 30-year history of the Islamic republic, although in 1997 then reformist president Mohammad Khatami appointed two women among his vice presidents.

In recent years Iranian women have outnumbered men in universities but they still account for only around 15 percent of the official work force.

Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, women have been banned from becoming judges and suffer from legal inequalities with men in marriage, divorce and inheritance.

Defending his decision in a television address on Thursday, Ahmadinejad said the three women were chosen after "close examination."

"I am against belittling women. We have to carve out the way," he said.

Tehran Emrouz said that Ayatollah Yousef Tabatabai, the Friday prayer leader of the central city of Isfahan, was also opposed to the decision.

"We hope what the president said about the women ministers is not recognised by parliament," he said.

The objection against women ministers is the latest sign of the tough battle facing Ahmadinejad in securing the parliament's approval for all the names on his cabinet list.

Internationally, he has come under fire from Argentina for nominating Ahmad Vahidi as his defence minister.

In 2007, Interpol distributed to its 187 member countries an Argentine warrant for the arrest of Vahidi, who is wanted in connection with a 1994 anti-Jewish bombing in Buenos Aires which killed 85 people.

The president has already been shaken by the massive street protests against his June re-election, which the opposition movement claims was rigged.

Ahmadinejad further came under fire from his own hardline supporters after he appointed his close relative Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie as his first deputy and refused to sack him despite an order to do so from Khamenei.

Iranian hardliners have not forgiven Rahim Mashaie for his comment made last year that Iran was a friend of the Israeli people.

Iranian media reported Saturday that Rahim Mashaie has been banned from public office for two months for breaching administrative rules.

Iran's conservative wing has also criticised Ahmadinejad for selecting inexperienced officials as ministers in the new cabinet, with many accusing him of choosing those who completely "submit" themselves to him.

"The president wants to be the ruler in sensitive ministries of intelligence, interior, culture, oil and foreign. So he has introduced people whose major quality is that they are yes-men," prominent MP Ali Motahari was quoted as saying by Jomhuri Eslami newspaper.

Cleric Hossein Mousavi Tabrizi, who heads a reformist group of Qom seminary scholars, has backed the nomination of women ministers, reformist daily Aftab-e Yazd reported.

"Women have the capability to execute different social activities, including as ministers and in my opinion if women are wise and learned, they can become judges, and even sources of emulation," Tabrizi said.

The women who lost their index fingers were not part of an isolated incident by far, but of a much broader pattern of intimidation. "Intimidation and Fraud Observed in Afghan Election," by Carlotta Gal for the New York Times, August 22:

KABUL, Afghanistan — Reports of fraud and intimidation in Afghanistan’s presidential election continued to mount Saturday, with anecdotal but widespread accounts of ballot-box stuffing, a lack of impartiality among election workers and voters casting ballots for others.

A particular concern was the notably low turnout of women, who election observer organizations said were disproportionately affected by the violence and intimidation. [...]

The reported problems also included voter intimidation, by the Taliban and also by some powerful candidates, in particular local candidates running for provincial council seats. Voter turnout appeared to be low, especially in the volatile south where the Taliban is strongest.

But women voters seemed to have faced disproportionate obstacles, election observer groups said.

Hundreds of polling stations for women (stations throughout the country were segregated to keep men and women from publicly mingling) did not even open in some areas where Taliban influence is high, but women also suffered discrimination and intimidation in some places in central and northern Afghanistan. Female candidates received threats and were largely ignored in news coverage of the elections, the observers said.

“The disproportionate effects of poor security conditions, widespread cultural opposition to women in public life and a number of attacks clearly aimed at deterring women’s activities all created significant obstacles,” the European Union observer mission said in its preliminary statement on Saturday.

Women are already restricted by the conservative culture in many parts of rural Afghanistan, but the growing instability has further consolidated the opinions of many families and communities that it is not appropriate for women to be active outside the home, the statement said.

At least 650 women’s polling centers planned did not open on the day, according to Free and Fair Elections in Afghanistan, known as FEFA, the largest Afghan observer organization. In the southern province of Oruzgan, of the 36 centers for women that were planned, only 6 opened, said Nader Naderi, director of FEFA. In certain polling centers in the south and southeast of the country almost no women voted, according to the National Democratic Institute, an American-financed group that promotes democracy abroad.

The insecurity also led to greater proxy voting, in which male family members vote for the women, further robbing women of their rights, observers said.

Women received almost no coverage in news reporting, and topics concerning women’s rights were virtually never featured in news coverage of the electoral campaign, the European Union mission said.

A lack of female staff members forced the election commission to use men, which deterred women from voting in areas, the National Democratic Institute said. A lack of women in the Election Complaints Commission, and the location and attitude of some of its staff members, also made it difficult for some people, particularly women, to make use of the complaints process....

And why would they think that? Because they would be following the orders of Muhammad himself: "If anyone changes his religion, kill him" (Bukhari 9.84.57).

Here is a brief account of the life of Peter El-Gohary since converting, and since the Egyptian court denied his right to be legally recognized as a Christian. "A Christian on the run in Egypt," by Jeffrey Fleishman for the Los Angeles Times, August 22:

Reporting from Alexandria, Egypt - It is a clear day along the coast, but in a bungalow off the beach, Maher El Gohary sits behind a locked door with an open Bible and a crystal cross, suspicious of every voice and sandal scraping past outside.

He and his daughter, Dina, live like refugees, switching apartments every few months, not wanting to get close to neighbors. Gohary's life has been threatened, his dogs have been killed, and it's been suggested that he's insane or possessed by spirits.

He is a man this Muslim nation cannot fathom: a convert to Christianity.

"Islam is the only thing Egyptians are 150% sure of. If you reject Islam, you shake their belief and you are an apostate, an infidel," he says. "I can see in the eyes of Muslims how much my conversion has really hurt them."

Egypt's Coptic Christians, who represent about 10% of the population, have a history that veers from coexistence to violence with the Muslim majority. Bloody clashes recently erupted between Copts and Muslims over land disputes and restrictions on churches.

But converts, such as Gohary, are even more unsettling. Islamists believe that Muslims who forsake their religion should be punished by death.

Gohary wants to be called Peter and refuses to yield. He has filed a lawsuit asking an Egyptian court to officially recognize him as a Copt by changing the denomination on his national ID card from Muslim to Christian. The court ruled against him in June, finding that Gohary's baptism documents from the Coptic Orthodox Church were "legally invalid." The verdict is on appeal.

The case highlights the religious and political complexities that drive modern Egypt. The nation often seems at battle with itself as it attempts to balance the ideals of a democracy with laws steeped in Islamic principles.

Freedom of religion is guaranteed in the constitution, but fatwas and religious edicts from clerics subject converts from Islam to persecution and threats. The government treads uneasily, not wanting to anger religious conservatives who stubbornly guard Islam's grip on society.

Converts such as Gohary "should be killed by authorities," says Abdul Aziz Zakareya, a cleric and former professor at Al Azhar University. "Public conversions can lead to very dangerous consequences. The spreading of a phenomenon like this in a Muslim society can cause many unwanted results and tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims."

A tall man in blue shorts and rimless glasses, Gohary, 56, looks as if he is ready to walk the beach. But he and Dina have just moved to the three-room bungalow. Their suitcases are still packed; the only thing hanging on the walls is a clothesline. Listening for noises outside, Gohary speaks of how years earlier the teachings of Jesus, especially parables on forgiveness and loving your enemy, changed his life.

"In Islam, if you steal your hands are cut off, but in Christianity you can be forgiven," he says. "This compassion is what attracted me." [...]

Gohary is reportedly the second Egyptian Muslim convert to Christianity who has tried unsuccessfully to have his religious identity officially changed. The first, Mohammed Ahmed Hegazy, went into hiding after his home was set ablaze. Religious statistics in Egypt are often manipulated and unreliable; estimates on converts to Christianity range from several thousand to hundreds of thousands.

Early this year, the courts showed a degree of religious tolerance by ruling that members of the minority Bahai faith could be issued ID cards that didn't identify them by religion. They previously had the option of only Muslim, Christian or Jew. Gohary's lawyer, Nabil Ghobrial, says judges are more hostile toward converts and are ignoring the law and ruling on "their personal religious beliefs."

Says Gohary: "I'm not so much afraid of the government anymore. It's conservative Muslims who worry me. Some of them believe whoever kills me is rewarded. When I go to court, I'm surrounded by police protection."...

As I noted here, I am still in England and have been working all week with work on a documentary on the Islamization of Europe -- the one I mentioned here.

It has been an interesting week on a number of levels. I had a most illuminating dinner with a group including Douglas Murray that offered a bracing introduction to British dhimmitude: we had to move our dinner at the last minute since the proprietors of the George Restaurant didn't like us discussing jihad and Islamization on the premises. In fact, when I returned to the George the next night with the producers of the film, we were not allowed entry because the previous night we had been discussing jihad and Islamic supremacism. That's the George Restaurant, 114 Glengall Grove, Isle of Dogs, London, E14 3ND, telephone number 020 7987 2954.

When not getting bounced out of pubs, the intrepid Jason Campbell of the Christian Action Network and I took strolls into a few mosques: the North London Central Mosque, aka the Finsbury Park Mosque, old haunt of the one-eyed, hook-handed jihadi Abu Hamza; the expansive and prosperous Islamic Cultural Centre on Baker Street; the likewise large (and rapidly expanding) East London Mosque and London Muslim Centre; and the Stockwell Green Muslim Centre, where teenagers are recruited for jihad. Had a few interesting conversations with folks inside those mosques. We also went by the Masjid-e-Ilyas near the site of the 2012 Olympics -- where Muslims want to build the largest mosque in Europe, capable of holding 70,000 people. But we were not allowed in.

Photos to come!

From our You-Can't-Make-This-Stuff-Up depertment: "An overdraft? That'll be £200 at Lloyds TSB (but only £15 if you're a Muslim)," by Arthur Martin for the Daily Mail, August 22 (thanks to Kenny):

Many Lloyds TSB customers are being hit with charges of up to £200 a month if they go into the red - while Muslims who use the bank are only being charged £15.

The part-nationalised bank has been accused of religious discrimination over the disparity between overdraft charges on its standard current account and its Islamic account.

The Islamic account was set up by the high street bank to attract Muslim customers by allowing them to keep faithful to their religion.

Sharia law does not permit the payment of interest so the 'typical' Islamic account at Lloyds TSB has been set up without an overdraft facility.

No interest is charged on Islamic accounts, while customers with a normal account are hit with charges of up to £200

Other rules: No interest is charged on Islamic accounts, while customers with a normal account are hit with charges of up to £200

If a Muslim customer who has insufficient funds in the account tries to make a payment, it is blocked and a 'return item fee' is charged.

However, on some Islamic accounts such a payment is authorised and an 'unplanned overdraft fee' of £15 is then levied.

The bank says this is a management fee, not a payment of interest, so does not contradict Sharia law.

Meanwhile, customers with standard current accounts who go into the red by at least £100 without authorisation are hit with an 'unplanned overdraft fee' of £20 a day for a maximum of ten days. This could mean a customer has to pay £200 in one month.

The Islamic account is available to all customers at Lloyds TSB. In theory, anyone who does not need a permanent overdraft facility could switch to this account to avoid being hit by interest charges for going into the red.

The disparity between the two accounts emerged after the bank sent its customers a booklet this month explaining its charges.

Whoops.

Graham Milne, a customer and chartered accountant from Norham, Northumberland, said difference in fees was tantamount to 'religious discrimination'.

He added: 'This means that all the non-Islamic account holders are subsidising those with such an account. It strikes me as something which is bordering on illegal.

'One cannot help feeling the organisation is bending over backwards to help Muslims to the detriment of everybody else.

"You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward." -- James Thurber

'The man in the street would say this is a form of theft. Whether you call it a management fee or an interest fee, it makes no odds because they mean the same thing.'...

Read it all.

I am still in England and have been very busy this week with work on the documentary on the Islamization of Europe that I mentioned here. And so I have missed all the excitement as the news broke yesterday that Rifqa Bary, who says that her father threatened to kill her after she converted from Islam to Christianity, will not be sent back to Ohio -- as Marisol noted here.

Many many thanks to all Jihad Watch readers who contacted Florida Governor Crist and other officials on Rifqa's behalf. You folks are the heroes of this piece.

Pamela at Atlas Shrugs has done extraordinary work on Rifqa's case. She has been closely involved with the case and broke details on Rifqa's story that no one else had. She has the latest on it here -- another hearing is set for September 3, so Rifqa is not out of the woods yet. I'll be keeping you posted, and watch Atlas Shrugs for updates.

The advancement of human rights in Islamic countries is perennially blocked by Sharia. It's promoters argue that, sure, it allows for human rights, but all the "rights" one is allowed -- supposedly by divine fiat -- are spelled out in Sharia. Stories like this show the obvious limitations on Sharia's respect for human rights by modern standards, and should serve as a cautionary tale for the West. "Amman accused by Islamists of "destroying the family," from Ennehar Online, August 22:

AMMAN- The Jordanian authorities are facing a hardening of the Islamists, who accuse them of having seriously damaged the families of the country in recognizing new rights to women, including freedom of movement.

To these Islamists, a wife is at home instead, with her husband or his family members, and any attempt to change this situation constitutes a flagrant violation of family values.

The government decision approved by King Abdullah II, to lift its reservations on paragraph 4 of Article 15 of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, has had therefore the effect of a thunderclap.

This paragraph, taken from a text signed by Jordan in 1980 and ratified in 1992, stipulates that "States Parties shall accord to men and women the same rights with regard to legislation on the right of movement and the freedom to choose their residence and domicile".

By removing its reservations on this point, "the government has violated the constitution and the country's religion, Islam. It should be fired", denounced to the AFP Chief of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hammam Said.

"Giving a woman the right to leave the domicile of her husband and move where she wants, will destroy their families," he tried.

The Board of fatwas of Jordan, an authority that issues religious rulings, has also expressed its disapproval.

"Anything that contradicts the Sharia in the Convention (UN) is prohibited. A woman should not live and work as she wants because this would eliminate the sense of the word family, according to the Sharia," he said in a statement....

Another demonstration of the urgent need for energy independence -- as much as possible, as soon as possible. Imagine the moral compromises and foreign policy blunders that would not be up for discussion without the economic blackmail made possible by the current global demand for oil and gas.

"What Role Did Oil Play in the Decision to Release Lockerbie Bomber?" by Vivienne Walt for Time, August 22 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Was it an oil deal? Convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi flew home from a Scottish prison on Thursday, freed by the Scottish government on compassionate grounds because doctors say Megrahi's cancer will kill him within three months. But was that the real reason? Could Britain have traded Megrahi in return for lucrative deals with the energy-rich North African nation?

British officials strongly deny any such arrangement with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. But on Friday, Libya watchers and oil analysts said they believed that the decision to free the only person convicted in the 1988 Pan Am Airlines bombing was connected to British investment interests. "It [Megrahi's release] was a matter of when, not if," says Molly Tarhuni, manager of the international security program at the London-based think tank Chatham House. "It's a very strong possibility" that a deal was struck, she says. "There are benefits to Britain having done it. This was the last in a long chain of deals."

That possibility is fueling a political row in London. Conservative Party leader David Cameron wrote to Prime Minister Gordon Brown Friday saying that "the public are entitled to know what you think of the decision to release Megrahi," which Cameron called "the product of some completely nonsensical thinking." Britain's Foreign Office ordered Buckingham Palace to reconsider a scheduled trade visit to Tripoli next month by Prince Andrew, according to the London Evening Standard. Much of the outrage was sparked by the jubilation in Libya after Megrahi's arrival. Foreign Secretary David Miliband told BBC Radio on Friday that "the sight of a mass murderer getting a hero's welcome in Tripoli is deeply upsetting."

And despite official British assertions that they had nothing to do with the decision, Gaddafi's son Seif al-Islam Gaddafi - his father's likely successor - said the British government was central to freeing Megrahi. "This is a courageous and unforgettable stance from the British and Scottish governments," Seif Gaddafi said in a statement published on the web site of the Gaddafi Development Foundation, which he heads. He also thanked "our friends in the U.K. government who had an important role to play to reach this happy end."

Megrahi was freed after serving only eight years of a life sentence for 270 counts of murder. U.S. officials had pleaded with Britain and Scottish officials in recent weeks to block his release, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Thursday that she was bitterly disappointed that he had been freed. There was also strong criticism from family members of some of the victims; 259 passengers were killed when a bomb exploded mid-air aboard the doomed aircraft over Lockerbie, Scotland, and 11 others who were on the ground died from falling debris.

Some oil analysts and Libya watchers on Friday said they suspected that British officials had tacitly made it known to Libyan officials that they would not object to Scotland releasing Megrahi - even if they stopped short of reassuring Libya that he would be freed. Scotland's Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill insists he made the decision alone, after meeting with Clinton and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, and holding a video conference with U.S. relatives. But the BBC reported last week that British business minister Peter Mandelson had held a brief conversation earlier this month with Seif Gaddafi, when the two men met on the Greek island of Corfu, where they were both vacationing. Mandelson's staff said the politician made no assurance of Megrahi's release. Still, says Mohammed-Ali Zainy, senior economist at the Center for Global Energy Studies in London, "There can be no dispute that this strengthens the relationship between Britain and Libya."

Libya sits atop massive energy reserves, much of which have languished through decades of sanctions. The British oil company BP last year estimated Libya's proven reserves at about 41.5 billion barrels of high-grade oil, and about 1.49 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, which makes it the 10th biggest oil and gas reserves in the world....

The Pakistani Taliban moves closer to resuming business as usual: threatening life and liberty. "Taliban appoints successor to militant chief Mehsud," from Agence France-Presse, August 22:

AFP - The Pakistan Taliban have appointed a successor to their feared leader believed to have been killed in a US missile strike, a militant commander said Saturday.

American and Pakistani officials believe Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Baitullah Mehsud was killed earlier this month in a missile attack by US drone aircraft in the lawless South Waziristan tribal district bordering Afghanistan.

Taliban commanders say Mehsud survived but is seriously ill.

TTP deputy and battle-hardened former teacher Maulvi Faqir Mohammad, who announced on Wednesday that he had taken over as acting chief of the group, said a Taliban shura, or council, had made the appointment.

"A Taliban shura has unanimously appointed Hakimullah Mehsud as successor to Baitullah Mehsud," he told AFP by telephone.

"The shura meeting continued for two days and was attended by 22 members," he said.

Residents and intelligence officials in Khar, the main town of Bajaur tribal district, the base of Mohammad, said the militant leader relayed the news of Hakimullah's appointment on his illegal FM radio station.

"The shura has appointed Hakimullah as successor to Baitullah Mehsud. The shura earlier had nominated me as the acting chief but now I will be again deputy chief," an intelligence official quoted Mohammad as saying over the radio.

"I shall continue to be ameer (chief) of TTP in Bajaur," Mohammad said.

Pakistani intelligence officials say TTP spokesman Maulvi Omar, who was arrested this month, has confirmed that Mehsud was killed in a CIA strike on his father-in-law's house on August 5.

"Baitullah is alive but he is seriously sick," Mohammad said, adding: "God forbid if Baitullah is dead, Hakimullah will be his successor."

Hakimullah is considered as close aide of Mehsud, and a powerful commander who operates from the Orakzai tribal district, where US drones have conducted several missile strikes....

Women voters: Can't have that in Taliban country. "Monitors: Taliban cut off fingers of Afghan voters," from CNN, August 22:

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Making good on a threat of election day violence, the Taliban sliced off the index fingers of at least two people in Kandahar province, according to a vote monitoring group.

After they cast their ballots, the fingers of Afghan voters are stained with ink to prevent them from voting multiple times. The fingers of the two women in Kandahar, a stronghold of the Taliban, were cut off because they voted, said Nader Naderi of the Free and Fair Election Foundation.

The Taliban had vowed to disrupt Thursday's election and the risk was too great for some Afghans to venture out, especially in the southern provinces that form the heartland of the radical Islamist group....

A few observations: First, whether or not Israel has the bomb is immaterial. After repeated drubbings by Israel in conflicts with conventional weapons, other nations in the region would naturally search for any advantage they can get. Nuclear capability of any kind is a source of leverage, a flexing of muscle.

On to the Iranian aspect: The ongoing coddling of Iran with regard to its nuclear program is leading to an arms race with a sectarian twist: There will be pressure to answer a Shi'ite bomb in the Gulf region with a Sunni bomb.

An arms race would be bad enough among stable states run by rational people. Both the Saudi and Iranian regimes ultimately rule by force, and therein lies an inherent instability. Add to it factions within the regimes -- military, clerics, Saudi royals or the civilian political establishment in Iran -- and the myriad official and unofficial channels for funneling weapons to groups like Hamas, Hizballah, and Islamic Jihad, and the potential for disaster from a nuclear race in the Gulf quickly snowballs. Nonetheless, the Saudi program is officially described as being "not of concern" below. Not now, at least.

"'Saudi Arabia planning nuclear plant'," by Herb Keinon and Yaakov Katz for the Jerusalem Post, August 20:

With the world seemingly unable to stop Iran's nuclear march, other countries in the region are now pushing forward with their own plans to build nuclear power plants.

The Saudi newspaper Al-Watan reported on Thursday that the Saudi minister of water and electricity, Abdullah al-Hosain, said the kingdom was working on plans for its first nuclear power plant. The US inked civil nuclear power deals with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates last year.

Israel had no official response to the Saudi minister's announcement.

Over the last two years, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, the UAE, Yemen, Morocco, Libya, Jordan and Egypt have all indicated an interest in developing nuclear programs, with Israeli officials saying, off the record, that if these countries did not want the programs now for their military capabilities, they wanted the technology in place to keep "other options open" if Iran were to develop a bomb. [...]

"The Saudis are genuinely scared of what will happen if Iran turns nuclear," one official said. "This is part of their response."

On the other hand, the officials said that Saudi Arabia's nuclear program was not of concern at the moment for Israel since the project was being established jointly with the United States and in the framework of International Atomic Energy Agency regulations.

Israeli defense officials have warned for several years that one potential outcome of Iran's success in defying the international community and establishing a nuclear program would be that other countries in the Middle East would follow suit.

Thanks to EC:

Thank you for contacting Governor Charlie Crist and sharing your concerns about Ms. Fathima (Rifqa) Bary. The Governor asked that I respond on his behalf.

Governor Crist is committed to protecting Ms. Bary's health, safety and welfare. Governor Crist directed the Secretary of the Department of Children and Families, George Sheldon, to petition the court for placement in shelter and custody under the Florida Department of Children and Family Services (Department). As a result, the court placed Ms. Bary in protective custody and she has been placed in a licensed foster care home under the supervision of the Department.

The Secretary of the Department of Children and Family Services and the Governor's General Counsel will be at today's court hearing. Please be assured Governor Crist will make a decision that is in the best interests of and ensures the continued health, safety and welfare of Ms. Rifqa Bary.

Thank you again for taking the time to contact Governor Crist.

Sincerely,

Warren Davis

Office of Citizen Services

The next hearing for Rifqa is September 3. Below is contact information for Florida authorities:

Governor Charlie Crist:
Phone Calls to (850) 488-7146
Fax letters to (850) 487-0801
or Email him at Charlie.Crist@MyFlorida.com

The Florida Department of Children and Families
George H. Sheldon, Secretary
1317 Winewood Blvd.
Building 1, Room 202
Tallahassee, Florida
Fax: (850) 922-2993

More here.

Public pressure works. The next hurdle: September 3. "Runaway Christian Convert to Stay in Florida for Now, Judge Rules," from Fox News, August 21:

A 17-year-old runaway who claims she fled her Muslim family's home in Ohio because she feared becoming the victim of an "honor killing" will stay in Florida — temporarily — a judge ruled Friday.

Rifqa Bary, a Christian convert whose parents are Muslim immigrants from Sri Lanka, will remain in foster care in Florida until another hearing is held Sept. 3.

Rifqa fled to Florida after her parents, Mohamed and Aysha Bary, learned that she was baptized earlier this year without their knowledge. The parents reported her missing to Columbus, Ohio, Police on July 19. Weeks later, using cell phone and computer records, police tracked the girl to the Rev. Blake Lorenz, pastor of the Orlando-based Global Revolution Church.

Florida's Gov. Charlie Crist weighed in on the mater Friday with the following statement: "I am grateful to Circuit Judge Daniel Dawson for his decision to grant Fathima Rifqa Bary the right to remain in Florida. ... We will continue to fight to protect Rifqa's safety and wellbeing as we move forward."

Only Israel has been willing to curb Hizballah's advance. Not the UN, and not Lebanon itself. With the double standards that have long been in place, Israel is vilified for doing what the putatively sovereign state to the north and international "peacekeepers" simply won't. "Hezbollah Readies for War as UN Peacekeepers Can Only Observe," by Daniel Williams for Bloomberg, August 21 (thanks to Sr Soph):

Aug. 21 (Bloomberg) -- In a Lebanese village 10 miles west of the Israeli border, black-capped Hezbollah militiamen stand guard in front of a suspected weapons cache.

Even though they are unarmed, their presence deters United Nations peacekeepers from approaching the house in Khirbet Silim, preventing the UN troops from fulfilling their mission, which is to stop Hezbollah from rearming.

“The UN can’t just come around here and go into people’s houses,” said Rassan Salim, a municipal official in the village and a Hezbollah militia member. “Our weapons are to defend Lebanon.”

Hezbollah’s efforts to stockpile arms became obvious on July 14 when weapons hidden in a house in the village blew up, according to officials from the UN Interim Force in Lebanon. Four days later, peacekeepers looking for arms tried to raid the house the militiamen now guard, about a kilometer from the one that exploded. Villagers stoned the soldiers, injuring 14, and blocked the incursion.

Hezbollah, which has the backing of Iran and Syria, is rebuilding its force in the south, undaunted by its loss in Lebanon’s June elections, in which a pro-U.S. coalition won a parliamentary majority. The peacekeepers’ stay in south Lebanon expires on Aug. 31 and the UN Security Council must decide whether to extend it without change or authorize them to impose the weapons ban by force even without the support of the Lebanese army. [...]

After the fighting ended, the Security Council passed a resolution prohibiting “weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese state.” The peacekeepers were deployed to keep south Lebanon free of Hezbollah’s militia and arms, a role they have to perform with the cooperation of the Lebanese army.

The Lebanese military can’t disarm Hezbollah, said Elias Hanna, a former Lebanese army general and political science professor at Beirut’s Notre Dame University. “Half the army is Shiite and will not fight Shiites,” he said.

The military sat out the 2006 conflict. Prime Minister- designate Saad Hariri has said Hezbollah’s disarmament will be subject to a “national dialogue.”

Timur Goksel, a former spokesman for the peacekeepers, said the problem is that the UN operates under passive rules that depend on the host country’s consent.

“In the south, Hezbollah, not the government of Lebanon, is the real host,” he said.

40,000 Rockets

Israel is also violating the UN resolution with daily air surveillance flights over Lebanon, according to Andrea Tenenti, the peacekeepers’ spokesman.

Not at all equivalent. One is a sovereign state defending its borders against a terrorist state-within-a-state. One is conducting surveillance, while the latter stockpiles arms in civilian areas to manufacture casualties.

Israeli Defense MinisterEhud Barak told Army Radio on Aug. 4 that Hezbollah has stockpiled more than 40,000 rockets and “if there is a conflict on our northern border, we will use all necessary force.” [...]

Analysts in Beirut say Hezbollah is buttressing its defenses based on part-time village units supplemented by full- time militiamen who operate anti-tank weapons and inaccurate short-range rockets. The group is gathering Russian-made SA-8 radar guided anti-aircraft missiles and SA-18 shoulder-fired missiles for use against helicopters, said Saad-Ghorayeb. Hezbollah plans to send commandoes into Israel and obtain long- range missiles to hit towns south of Haifa, she added.

“In the next war, Hezbollah will want to use counter- offensive methods,” she said. “Hezbollah is setting the bar high for itself.”...

Eurabia Alert: The ringleaders evidently began their "journey of radicalization" in Bonn. "Anti-German Jihadist videos flood internet," from The Local, August 21:

With just over a month to go before Germany's general election, daily newspaper Die Welt reported on Friday that an unprecedented number of Islamist videos encouraging holy war against the country have flooded the internet.

Most recently, two Moroccan brothers from Bonn have appeared in terrorist propaganda videos online. The two men, 27-year-old Mounir Chouka and 24-year-old Yassin Chouka, are thought to be currently in hiding on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The brothers have produced several videos for the terrorist organisation the Islamic Jihadist Union dressed in military outfits and white robes, but the latest is the first in which they show their faces, the newspaper reported. The are part of growing trend of online Islamist threats intended to encourage Germany to pull its troops out of Afghanistan.

Preaching under the names Abu Adam and Abu Ibrahim since the start of the year, the brothers attack the infidel American and European occupation forces in Muslim nations. They speak in German with Turkish and Albanian subtitles.

“Come and die an honourable death,” proclaims Mounir, encouraging his German Islamist brothers and sisters. Yassin Chouka then encourages all German Muslims to swear allegiance to the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Omar.

Jihadists in Afghanistan would “delight to stand in a hail of bullets from NATO or under German Tornado planes,” his brother adds.

That suggests a new campaign title for NATO: "Operation Okey-Dokey."

According to the paper, the brothers are known to have come from the suburb of Kessenich in Bonn, taking a journey of radicalisation that led them to the Hindu Kush mountain range on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

However, in the majority of cases, the real names of German Muslims in such videos remain unknown. Most choose pseudonyms such as “Abu Abdullah,” “Ahmad” or “Commander Mohammed,” reported the newspaper. The latter of these is seen in one video to announce “Ich bin kein Berliner,” in a sarcastic reference to John F. Kennedy's famous declaration of solidarity with the residents of West Berlin....

Ich bin kein Berliner: Alternatively, "I am not a jelly donut"?

Finding new ways to blend in. "At least four policemen killed in multiple suicide blasts," from Reuters, August 21:

REUTERS - Suicide bombers on bicycles killed at least four policemen in the capital of Russia's mainly Muslim region of Chechnya on Friday, Russian news agencies reported.

"In all cases the suicide bombings were carried out by terrorists on bicycles," Interfax news agency reported, quoting a spokesman for the local prosecutor's office.

A Reuters witness heard two blasts. News agencies reported as many as five explosions.

ITAR-TASS news agency said all the attacks took place within an hour of each other.

Emergency Ministry and police officials contacted by Reuters said they were unable to confirm how many people had been killed.

The number of violent attacks, often blamed on Islamist rebels, has soared in recent months in Chechnya and the neighbouring regions of Dagestan and Ingushetia.

Remember Newsweek's spurious "Koran in the toilet" story, and the outrage and murder it touched off? There is almost certainly going to be no similar outcry from Muslims about this story -- which provides yet more evidence of the fact that that outrage was trumped up in the first place, politically motivated, and designed to try to intimidate the West into making various concessions. This incident has no such potential value, and thus will drop into the memory hole with no jihadists noting or remembering it.

"Indonesian Smugglers 'Hid Heroin In Koran,'" from SkyNews, August 20 (thanks to Paul):

A man and his mother-in-law have been arrested for attempting to smuggle thousands of pounds worth of heroin concealed within a copy of the Koran.

Heroin bags were found hidden in the pages of the Koran

Custom officials at Jakarta's international airport seized the book, the religious text of Islam, as it arrived by DHL express mail delivery from Cambodia on Tuesday.

Their suspicions were raised when a routine X-ray of the parcel exposed a series of holes in the book.

A closer inspection revealed 60 grams of heroin secreted in four small plastic bags near its front and back covers.

Police valued the hoard at 600 million rupiah, or £35,000....

Maman Sulaeman, head of customs at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, said an Indonesian man was arrested soon after the discovery.

"He claimed that he was just a courier and that he did not know the contents of the package," Mr Sulaeman said....

All the better to make Somalia even more joyless: "There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious." -- Ayatollah Khomeini

"Islamist Militants Restrict Somali Wedding Celebrations," from VOA News, August 20:

In a typical Somali wedding, women wear brightly colored gowns, gold jewelry and elaborate hairstyles. They dance with men to the tunes of Somali love songs, performed by a vocalist and a pianist.

But in recent months, traditional wedding celebrations have been banned. Islamist groups have seized control in several parts of Somalia and say the restrictions are in line with the teachings of Islam.

Music and dancing are no longer allowed. The groups say Islam forbids the mingling of women and men. Somali Islamist militants carry their weapons as they patrol the streets of northern Mogadishu

“Allah Mighty and Majestic sent me as a guidance and mercy to believers and commanded me to do away with musical instruments, flutes, strings, crucifixes, and the affair of the pre-Islamic period of ignorance.” - Muhammad

Convoys carrying family and friends of the couple have also been banned. The Islamists allow only three cars at a wedding and check to make sure the vehicles are carrying only the immediate families of the couple.

Islamist militant groups are adamant about imposing Islamic Sharia law in Somalia and banning any form of entertainment they deem to be un-Islamic.

No dancing, no music

Hussein Yusuf Anabore a long time wedding planner remembers how weddings used to be elaborate.

“After the bride has been picked up convoys of cars blaring Somali music would escort her to the wedding venue. Extended family members and participants would clap and cheer, with everyone dancing and mingling. These days, people just conduct prayer services, and dancing is not permitted," Anabore laments.

Some of the areas’ bachelors favor the restrictions. They say the changes will completely eliminate unnecessary expenses. Even the women admit the restrictions favor the men.

For those residing in the cities of Marka and Kismayo, where hard-line Islamist groups are in control, the change is hard to embrace. Many are disheartened, especially over no longer being allowed to film the weddings. They say they intend to be married only once, and the rules deprive them of being able to record a memorable moment in their lives.

Dr. Wafa Sultan, who famously spoke the truth to a Muslim cleric on Al-Jazeera, is a Syrian-born certified psychiatrist, human rights activist, and author of the forthcoming book A God That Hates. Here, she speaks out about the Rifqa Bary case.

Unfortunately Rifqa Bary’s case highlights the danger of creeping Jihad in the Western world. This is not only because of the imminent danger the teenage girl may face right here in the US, had the court decided to have her return to her parents’ home, but also because of the mainstream media’s weak response to the severity of this case. Regrettably, the lack of interest by the media in covering her case comes at the expense of the public’s responsibility to learn the truth about Islam’s detrimental Sharia (Islamic Law) tenets.

I was born and raised as a Muslim in Syria. I practiced Islam for thirty years of my life. Now I am a known human rights activist striving to save our future Muslim generations from the impact of the violent, hateful Islamic doctrines embedded in the Sharia. My life is also threatened, not only by my own extended family, but by countless men who consider themselves devout Muslims. Under Sharia, if a Muslim leaves Islam or converts to another religion he / she is an “apostate,” to be killed. Under Sharia every Muslim has the right to kill such an apostate without any questions asked.

After hearing the story of Rifqa Bary I urge well meaning American citizens to take action and keep this innocent girl out of her family’s reach. There are all kinds of reasons to believe that she will be harmed both emotionally and physically, or worse—be killed—once her family has charge of her. Our Western court system must be educated on Islamic apostasy laws to understand Rifqa Bary’s predicament, and the plight of all those like her who choose to leave Islam.

I therefore implore our court authorities who are involved in this case: take notice and listen to individuals like myself. Keeping Rifqa protected and away from her family is the proper way to go both legally and morally.

Adding insult to injury. "Terminally ill Lockerbie bomber lands in Libya," from CNN, August 20:

GREENOCK, Scotland (CNN) -- The man convicted of murdering 270 people by blowing up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, two decades ago received a boisterous welcome when he landed in his native Libya on Thursday.

Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, suffering from terminal prostate cancer, was freed from prison in Scotland, with Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill citing compassionate grounds for the release and saying al Megrahi was "going home to die."

A large crowd, waving flags and honking horns, greeted al Megrahi at the military airport in Tripoli.

The 57-year-old has three months to live, according to Scottish authorities [...]

Al Megrahi issued a statement that his attorney Tony Kelly read to reporters. In it, al Megrahi said the families of the Lockerbie victims "have my sincere sympathy for their unimaginable loss." [...]

Bert Ammerman, whose brother died in the bombing, called al Megrahi's release "ludicrous."

"First of all, he got his compassionate release when he got life imprisonment and not capital punishment, which Scotland doesn't have," Ammerman told CNN. He should have remained in prison, then after his death, his body could have been returned to Libya, he said....

"And because she was 'already so disfigured from the stabbing and beating that she would hate me for the rest of her life,' he got into his car and ran over her body several times."

"Muslim man sentenced to life in jail after killing his German-born wife because she was 'too independent'," by Allan Hall for the Daily Mail, August 20 (thanks to Lazy Buddha):

A Muslim asylum seeker has been sentenced to life in prison after killing his German-born wife because she was 'too independent', a court in Germany heard today.

The 27-year-old Kurdish man, identified only as Onder B, was found guilty today of stabbing his wife in the eyes, beating her with a billiard cue and then running over her in his car.

His mother-in-law had once told him to be 'strict' with her strong-willed daughter, Mujde - who was also Onder's cousin.

On New Year's Eve 2008 he stabbed his 18-year-old wife Mujde 46 times and beat her with a billiard cue.

And because she was 'already so disfigured from the stabbing and beating that she would hate me for the rest of her life,' he got into his car and ran over her body several times.

Bielefeld District Court judge Jutta Albert convicted him on a charge of murder arising from base motives, and one of cruelty, because the defend ant stabbed his wife in both eyeballs while she was still alive.

He stabbed her so hard in the head with a fruit knife that the blade broke off in her skull.

The case has pulled into sharp focus the cultural differences between Western values and the estimated three million Muslim immigrants living and working in Germany.

Bielefeld District Court judge Jutta Albert clashed repeatedly this week with family members of both victim and defendant as details of the horrific case unfolded.

'One more remark from you and you'll be removed!' she told the victim’s mother. 'Do you think you can behave here as if you were in a Turkish bazaar?'

The killer arrived in Germany as an asylum seeker, in 2001. He was 19 and Mujde was 11 at the time.

He married a Turkish woman 10 years his senior, but the couple soon separated.

He returned home to Turkey in 2003, where he performed his mandatory military service, coming back Germany in 2006.

Under a deal between their families a marriage was 'arranged' between him and Mujde, in which he then viewed her, according to prosecutors, 'as his property'....

Energy independence. Now. Here's one sure instance where poverty didn't cause terrorism. Islamic supremacist ideologues with too much money to throw around did, and often do. "Indonesia: Terror attacks 'funded from Middle East'," from AdnKronos International, August 20:

Jakarta, 20 August (AKI/Jakarta Post) - Funding for a string of terrorist attacks in Indonesia, including last month's twin hotel bombings in Jakarta, has come from the Middle East, local police have claimed.

Police confirmed in Jakarta on Wednesday they had detained a Saudi Arabian national suspected of trafficking cash funds to fugitive terror suspect Noordin Mohamed Top and Jemaah Islamiyah, the terrorist group believed to be the regional arm of Al-Qaeda.

Malaysian-born Noordin Mohamed Top was a key figure behind the 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings in Indonesia and remains one of Asia's most wanted fugitives.

Insp. Gen. (ret) Ansyaad Mbai, a senior counter-terrorism official, said the money for key attacks in Indonesia could have originated from personal or charitable sources in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia.

“The problem is that the money was not transferred via banks. This has happened in Indonesia and other countries [in the past] and it makes it difficult to trace the source,” Ansyaad said.

“They [terrorists] understand the government could freeze any money if it was transferred through the banking system. Therefore they use couriers to channel the funds.”

While information on suspected foreign sources of funding is rare, Ansyaad said Indonesian officials had been aware of the involvement of overseas donors from the Middle East since the bomb attacks in Bali in 2002 and those against the Marriott hotel in 2003.

Indonesian police are intensifying their efforts to trace the money used to fund the 17 July attacks on the Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels that killed nine people and wounded more than 50....

He's "going home to die" in the company of family, friends, and well-wishers. His victims were not so fortunate.

An update on this story. "Terminally ill Lockerbie bomber released," from CNN, August 20:

(CNN) -- Convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi is to be released and allowed to return to Libya on compassionate grounds, Scotland's justice minister said Thursday.

Al Megrahi, 57, is suffering from terminal prostate cancer. He is serving a life sentence for bombing Pan Am Flight 103 over the town of Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people.

Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill told a news conference in Edinburgh the prisoner was "going home to die" and could be released within an hour of the announcement.

"Our justice system demands that judgment be imposed but compassion available," MacAskill said. "Our beliefs dictate that justice be served but mercy be shown."

The Pan Am flight exploded December 21, 1988, as it flew over Scotland on its way from London to New York. All 259 people aboard the plane died, along with 11 Scots on the ground.

A Scottish court ruled in 2003 that al Megrahi must serve at least 27 years of his sentence before becoming eligible for parole. Al Megrahi first appealed the conviction in 2002 and lost.

Families of the Lockerbie victims have been divided on whether al Megrahi should be ever be released.

The United States has made clear to the British government and others that it believes al Megrahi should spend the rest of his time in jail. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called MacAskill last week to stress the U.S. opposition to an early release....

Adopting the world view of the enemy. In "Cartoon Jihad Continues" in Human Events today, I explain how Yale University Press has unwittingly taken on the jihadist world view.

A much-needed new book is coming from Yale University Press: The Cartoons That Shook the World by Jytte Klausen, a professor of politics at Brandeis University. It discusses the cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad that were published in the largest newspaper in Denmark, Jyllands-Posten, late in 2005, touching off murderous rage from Muslims around the world.

Such a book could be a useful exploration of the free speech issues that the cartoon controversy raised. And it has already shed new light on the Islamic challenge to free speech represented by the response to the cartoons, even before it has been published.

But it has done so in a way that neither Jytte Klausen nor Yale University Press intends.

For Yale University Press, according to the New York Times, checked with twenty-four “diplomats and experts on Islam and counterterrorism,” as well as other authorities, and they all made the same recommendation: this book about the Muhammad cartoons should not actually include the Muhammad cartoons. John Donatich, the director of Yale University Press, explained that “the cartoons are freely available on the Internet and can be accurately described in words,” and thus “reprinting them could be interpreted easily as gratuitous.” He said he had “never blinked” when publishing controversial material before, but “when it came between that and blood on my hands, there was no question.”

Blood on his hands? Really? While it may seem laudable to want to protect Yale University Press staff and employees from violent reprisals by Islamic jihadists, in fact Yale University Press’s position represents a capitulation of astonishing proportions. He is demonstrating that threats of violence work, and that Western non-Muslims will not stand up and defend the principle of free speech against Islamic supremacist intimidation....

Even worse, when Donatich speaks of blood on his hands, he shows that he has, in a pathetic manifestation of intellectual Stockholm Syndrome, adopted the world view of the violent Muslim foes of free speech around the world. For what if the decision had been made that The Cartoons That Shook the World would reproduce the cartoons? Would that really have been “gratuitous”? Of course not. It would have been precisely appropriate to the book at hand. And what if Islamic supremacist thugs murdered more innocent people because of the book? Would that blood have been on the hands of John Donatich or Jytte Klausen? Only in the eyes of the Islamic supremacists themselves. But not in reality. For if someone flies into a murderous rage because of a perfectly reasonable action, the reasonable actor does not thereby become responsible.

If I meet someone who says that he will kill a person every time I step on a crack in the sidewalk, I do not thereby become responsible for the deaths of those people he murders as a result. And if I began to behave as if I were indeed responsible in such a case, I would only be feeding the psychosis of the killer....

Read it all.

We have seen this appropriation of other traditions many times in the past -- indeed, the Qur'an's depiction of the Biblical prophets as Muslim prophets indicates that this kind of appropriation is foundational in Islam: "Abraham was not a Jew, nor yet a Christian; but he was an upright man [Muslim hanif] who had surrendered (to Allah), and he was not of the idolaters" -- Qur'an 3:67

In verses 65-68 of the Qur'an's sura 3, Allah rebukes the Jews and Christians for arguing over something about which they “have no knowledge” (v. 66): the religion of Abraham. The Patriarch couldn’t have been a Jew or a Christian, says v. 65, because “the Torah and the Gospel were not revealed till after him.” In reality, he was a Muslim hanif (حَنِيفًا مُّسْلِمً) (v. 67) – as the Tafsir al-Jalalayn explains: “Abraham in truth was not a Jew, neither a Christian, but he was a Muslim, professing the Oneness of God, and a hanīf, who inclined away from all other religions towards the upright one; and he was never of the idolaters.” What’s more, Muhammad and the Muslims are “the nearest of kin to Abraham,” as Ibn Kathir says: “This Ayah [verse] means, ‘The people who have the most right to be followers of Ibrahim are those who followed his religion and this Prophet, Muhammad, and his Companions…”

"Palestinian prof: No Jewish ties to Western Wall: Latest Islamic figure to deny documented archeological history," by Aaron Klein for WorldNetDaily, August 19:

JERUSALEM – The Jews have no historical connection to Jerusalem or the Western Wall, declared a Palestinian Authority lecturer on official PA television.

"[The Jews have] no historical roots. This is political terminology to win the hearts and the support of the Zionists in Europe, so they would emigrate and come to Palestine. Nothing more!" stated Shamekh Alawneh, a lecturer in modern history at Al-Quds Open University.

"The [Jews'] goal in giving the name 'Wailing Wall' to this [Western] Wall is political," continued Alawneh, speaking on a PA television program called "Jerusalem – History and Culture."

"The Jewish Zionists had no choice but to invent an excuse [about Jerusalem] to spread among the Zionists or the Jews in Europe, to connect to something concrete from the past about Jerusalem. They made false claims and called the 'Al-Burak Wall' the 'Wailing Wall," Alawneh said.

His remarks were translated from Arabic by Palestinian Media Watch.

Alawneh was the latest PA-connected official to deny the Jewish historical connection to Jerusalem and the Western Wall, which are intimately tied to Judaism. Islam largely did not consider the area holy or important until the late 19th century....

Nonie Darwish, an ex-Muslim and author of the superb book on Sharia, Cruel and Usual Punishment, comments on the Rifqa Bary case: "Former Muslims need protection now from the US government and court system. We need protection from Sharia Islamic Law."

In spite of the clear danger to the life of Muslims who leave Islam, both the legal system and mainstream media still don’t get it. The most recent case in the US of the 17-year old girl, Rifqa Bary, is an example. US courts need proof (even though it is clearly stated in Islamic law books) that Islamic Law condemn apostates to death and encourage any Muslim on the street, even family members, to kill them. Western media does not seem to be interested in the topic. That is the same media that dedicates weeks of valuable air time to ridiculous claims of human rights violations only to certain privileged groups in America.

Ms. Bary, Muslim convert to Christianity, had good instincts when she realized the great danger to her life and escaped from her home in Ohio and sought protection from the Christian community in Orlando Florida. If she had not escaped, she could have been yet another statistic of Muslims killed for leaving Islam.

I will keep writing articles and books on the topic of Muslim Law, Sharia, until
the West fully understand that threat to their way of life and that Islamic Sharia and democracy cannot co-exist. The following are some laws on apostasy in mainstream Sharia books:
1- Apostates are to be given three days to repent and return to Islam. If s/he refuses, s/he is immediately killed. All Sharia books agree unanimously on this point. (Hanafi law in general, Shafi’i law f1.3, Hanbali law (from Al Mughni), Maliki law and Codified Islamic law).
2- It is obligarory for the califph to ask him to repent and return to Islam. If he does, it is accepted from him, but if he refuses, he is immediately killed.
3- There is no indemnity for killing an apostate (O: or any expiation, since it is killing someone who deserves to die)
4- Testimony of apostates is not admissible.
5- An apostate does not inherit from Muslim parents.
6- Marriage of an apostate is immediately dissolved if the spouse is and remains Muslim.

The above laws have kept Muslims enslaved inside the iron curtain of the Islamic State under penalty of death for 1400 years and counting. Laws encouraging the killing of non-Mulims, especially those who left Islam, also extend to non-Muslim nations and not just individuals. According to Sharia, non-Muslim nations are invited to convert to Islam and if they refuse a jihad war must begin. The commandment to wage violent wars against non-Muslim countries was given a pretty name by Sharia; jihad became a sacred duty for every Muslim head of State and individual.

It is astounding how many Muslims have been desensitized to feeling of any sympathy or guilt toward murdered victims of apostasy laws and jihad. In Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc, the majority of the population believe that apostates must be killed and that jihad against non-Muslim countries a badge of honor. I do not want to see the same desensitization happen in the West, but the silence of Western media is deafening.

The US government must protect its citizens not only from the terrorism of jihad, but also from Islamic Laws condemning Muslims to death and encouraging vigilante street justice.

How can a former Muslim like Rifqa, or like myself, live in peace in America when there are neighborhood mosques reading scriptures, to their believers telling them to kill Muslims who left the religion?. Even if 10% of Muslims in America follow Sharia as it is taught, we are in trouble. Muslim scriptures such as the Sahih hadith by Mohammad 9:50 states: “No Umma (a member of the Muslim community) should be killed for killing a Kaffir (an infidel). . . Whoever changes his Islamic religion, kill him.”

There is no peace for the apostate, not even in the West. The above threat is real and will increase exponentially with the growth of the Muslim population and those who demand Sharia as a religious right. No religion should give the right to its followers to kill others, period.

Former Muslims need protection now from the US government and court system. We need protection from Sharia Islamic Law.

An appalling update on this story. "Father Wants Public Caning for Malaysian Woman Who Drank Beer," by Ranjeetha Pakiam for Bloomberg, August 20:

Aug. 20 (Bloomberg) -- The caning of a Malaysian mother for drinking a beer should be conducted in public if it is meant to set an example to fellow Muslims, her father said, days before the punishment is set to be carried out in a closed prison.

Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, 32, faces six strokes of the cane after a Shariah court found the former model guilty of breaking a law that forbids all Muslims, including foreign visitors, from drinking alcohol. After deciding not to appeal, she may become the first woman to be caned in Malaysia.

The Shariah court in the eastern state of Pahang allowed 14 days from sentencing on July 20 for Kartika to appeal. After she declined, the court fixed Aug. 24 to 30 for the Prisons Department to conduct the sentence, said Mohamad Isa Abd Ralip, president of the Syariah Lawyers Association of Malaysia.

Kartika will be held for a week at the women’s prison in Kajang outside Kuala Lumpur, a decision that has puzzled her father, Shukarno Abdul Muttalib.

“As a Muslim, I agree with her punishment, but I don’t agree that it should be done in jail, she is not a prisoner,” Shukarno, 60, told Bloomberg in an interview. “If the authorities want to use this as an example, then the caning should be done in public in Pahang.”

Here's some twisted logic:

The businessman said it was embarrassing for his daughter to be brought to prison where criminals are held. If there was no alternative, Shukarno said he would ask the authorities to allow him and the media to attend the caning to ensure transparency....

An update on this story. "Swimming pool's dress code for non-Muslims is scrapped," by Neil Millard for the Evening Standard, August 17:

A London council has backtracked on rules forcing swimmers to cover up at a public pool to avoid offending Muslims.

Croydon council has removed the guidelines from its website after being criticised for barring non-Muslims if they refused to comply with the dress code.

They were put in place for weekend swimming sessions for Muslims at Thornton Heath Leisure Centre despite a general ban on wearing T-shirts in the pool.

The council's online statement read: "During special Muslim sessions, male costumes must cover the body from the navel to the knee and females must be covered from the neck to the ankles and wrists."

Croydon Mosque and Islamic Centre praised the rules but said it would never have asked for them.

Trustee Shuaib Yusaf said: "If it was designated as a Muslim session to encourage Muslim women to come along, to that extent I could see a degree of merit in it."

Here's a thought. A lot of new Islamic centers have appeared in the U.K. Shouldn't they take up the cause of providing Sharia-compliant recreational facilities?

Malcolm Wicks, Labour MP for Croydon North, said asking non-Muslims to dress up to swim was not fair: "I just hope some common sense can prevail here."

That'd be nice.

A government spokeswoman said: "The role of the internet in radicalisation is an area of concern." The role of canonical Islamic texts... not so much.

"Sick fanatics cheer body bags," by Padraic Flanagan and John Ingham for the Daily Express, August 19 (thanks to Sr Soph):

British Muslim fanatics sparked fresh fury last night by praising Taliban “heroes” for sending our troops back from Afghanistan in body bags.

Dozens of homegrown “jihadis” have posted website messages cheering last weekend’s carnage in Helmand province that saw Britain’s death toll rise to 204 soldiers.

Last night there were calls by senior politicians for the Home Office to crack down on the hate-filled rants that will distress even further the relatives of troops who gave their lives fighting the Taliban.

The shameful website involved stoked up hatred as it emerged that one of two soldiers killed trying to save their mortally wounded commander had recently got married before deploying to Afghanistan.

The commander had got engaged while home on leave in June.

The tragedies were revealed yesterday as the Ministry of Defence named the three soldiers, all from 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, who died on Sunday.

The gloating jihadi website, Islamic Awakening, is a forum for Islamic extremism, prompting a slew of vile attacks on the efforts of British troops to rescue Afghanistan from the grip of fundamentalists.

As soon as Western policymakers pin down who the "moderates" are -- the Shi'ite family law that just went into effect is another reminder of that problem.

The first messages were posted within minutes of the news of the latest outrage in Helmand on Sunday.

“Isma’eel”, said: “Man, they really are dropping like flies over there lol [laugh out loud].”

Another, calling himself “AbuJunayd”, said: “Inshallah [God-willing] the more the kuffs [non-Muslims] deploy, the more the bros will send em back in body bags, or crutches or with serious psychological problems.”

“Waziri” said: “By command of Allah, the invading forces will be forced to withdraw humiliated and defeated by a group of men who between them do not possess even one transport helicopter.”

“Noorah”, said: “They are really getting whooped. Don’t know how they think they can win.”

Senior Tory MP Patrick Mercer, chairman of the Commons counter-terrorism committee and a former Army officer, said: “It’s deeply distasteful and clearly the last thing that relatives of the dead want to see or hear.”

Last night the Daily Express informed the Office for Security and Counter Terrorism at the Home Office of the website’s content.

A spokeswoman said: “The role of the internet in radicalisation is an area of concern to Government.”

Fatah. You know, the "moderate" guys. "Head of Fatah Militia in Lebanon Munir Al-Maqdah: Fatah Does Not Recognize Israel; Israel Will Be Removed from Palestine," from MEMRI, August 17 (thanks to Sr Soph):

Following are excerpts from an interview with Munir Al-Maqdah, head of the "Armed Struggle" Fatah militia in Lebanon, which aired on Al-Quds TV (Lebanon) on August 17, 2009.

Munir Al-Maqdah: The Fatah convention ratified the unwavering Palestinian principles, upon which all the Palestinian forces agreed during the Al-Aqsa Intifada. The convention did not deviate from these principles, and President [Abbas] talked about them yesterday at his press conference. He made these principles perfectly clear. He talked about an independent Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, and stressed Resolution 194, pertaining to the right of the Palestinian refugees to return to their lands and to their homes.

During the convention, he talked about the resistance as well. We heard the word "resistance," and we interpreted it as armed struggle and armed resistance, although others might interpret it as political resistance and so on. I would like to say that the resistance is in trusted hands. The Fatah resistance will continue to be the spearhead of the struggle, and Fatah will remain in a constant state of revolution, serving as the flame of the armed struggle, until Palestine is liberated and the refugees return to their lands and their homes.

[...]

The political platform and constitution of Fatah do not recognize the so-called State of Israel, let alone the Jewishness of this state. We do not recognize that artificial entity, the state of Israel, which sooner or later will be removed from the land of Palestine, Allah willing.

[...]

Set the time frame for us, and we guarantee that just like the settlements in the Gaza Strip were wiped out, the settlements in the West Bank will be wiped out through resistance.

[...]

Interviewer: You have ties with the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, even within Palestine.

Munir Al-Maqdah: Definitely. During the Al-Aqsa Intifada, it was me who provided the Brigades with money and weapons. I was among the founders of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade in Palestine.

Interviewer: Do you still have ties with the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades?

Munir Al-Maqdah: I have good relations with all the cadres of Fatah and the Al-Aqsa Brigades in Palestine, and I am in constant contact with them.

[...]

I have no relations whatsoever with Hizbullah. I respect Hizbullah and its resistance, but I have no political or organizational relations with them.

Interviewer: Perhaps these days, the relations with Hizubllah are maintained by General Sultan Abu Al-Einein? There were almost weekly meetings that were made public by the media.

Munir Al-Maqdah: He has positive relations with Hizbullah, and they hold constant meetings. I haven't had any meetings with Hizbullah for a long time now, but I respect this resistance, and I always say that whenever there is aggression against Lebanon, our weapons will be at the service of the resistance and of the Lebanese army in defense of Lebanon. As Palestinians, we must be on the frontline whenever there is aggression against sister Lebanon.

Interviewer: That is why you have your weapon right next to you. You have an RPG-7 there, but without the grenade. When will you load the grenade?

Munir Al-Maqdah: I consider this weapon to be the ornament of our houses. As long as a Palestinian refugee is not on his land and in his home... We should keep this weapon until the Palestinian people return to their lands and homes, and in the event of any aggression against Lebanon, we will be on the frontline, like we always have....

But what serious assurance does he have that Pakistan is no longer playing its double game? Are all the players of that game gone from the high levels of the Pakistani government?

"U.S. general in Pakistan for talks on equipment," by Adam Entous for Reuters, August 19:

ISLAMABAD, Aug 19 (Reuters) - U.S. General David Petraeus and Pakistan military leaders would discuss on Wednesday expediting delivery of U.S. equipment to Pakistan so it can expand its offensive against Taliban militants, U.S. officials said.

With U.S. troop strength growing in Afghanistan, the United States wants Pakistan to eradicate Islamist militant enclaves on its side of the border and prevent Taliban fighters from crossing into Afghanistan.

The Pakistani army has been battling militants in parts of the northwest for months but a commander said on Tuesday the army was short of equipment, including Cobra attack helicopters, needed for a large-scale ground operation.

"It is part of a substantial effort to strengthen U.S.-Pakistani military cooperation," U.S. envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, told Reuters, referring to the Patraeus visit.

Holbrooke said on Tuesday that Washington was trying to expedite delivery of equipment requested by the Pakistani army, including helicopters and parts.

Pakistan's request for equipment would "come up for sure" in talks between Petraeus and senior Pakistani military officials, Holbrooke said....

"The rattan cane to be used on Kartika would be lighter than the one used on men, and its purpose was to 'educate' rather than punish."

A moderate caning in modern, moderate Malaysia. An "educational" one, to boot. The ability of Sharia's apologists to outdo Orwell himself never ceases to amaze. "Muslim model becomes first woman in Malaysia to be caned after being caught drinking a beer," from the Daily Mail, August 19 (thanks to all who sent this in):

A Muslim part-time model will become the first woman to be caned in Malaysia after pleading guilty to drinking beer, a prosecutor said today.

An Islamic court ordered that Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, 32, be lashed six times with a rattan cane after she was caught drinking alcohol in a raid on a hotel night club in eastern Pahang state last year.

Prosecutor Saiful Idham Sahimi said Kartika will be the first woman to be caned under Islamic law after she chose not to appeal the sentence.

He said: 'This is the first case in Malaysia. ... It is a good punishment because under Islamic law a person who drinks commits a serious offense.'

Yesterday the court set a one-week period starting next Monday for the sentence to be carried out in a woman's prison, Saiful said. Prison authorities will decide when to cane her during that period.

He said Kartika will remain in prison during that time and will be released 'as soon as possible' after the caning is carried out.

Saiful said the rattan cane to be used on Kartika would be lighter than the one used on men, and its purpose was to 'educate' rather than punish.

Caning, administered on the buttocks, breaks the skin and leaves permanent scars. Kartika said earlier that she wanted authorities to cane her as soon as possible so she can resume her life with her husband and children.

Some politicians and women's rights activists have criticized the penalty as too harsh.

Muslims, who make up about two-thirds of Malaysia's 28 million people, are governed by Islamic courts in all civilian and Islamic matters.

Most alcohol offenders are fined, but the crime also carries a three-year prison term and caning.

Actually, I am in England, having arrived this morning via transatlantic kayak from Jihad Watch headquarters in Secure Undisclosed Locationville. I'll be working this week on a documentary about the Islamization of the U.K. and Europe with the Christian Action Network, producers of the documentary Homegrown Jihad.

I'll be posting as much as time permits, and will try to work in a few observations about the local scene.

The bombings targeted Iraqi government ministries, demonstrating again that the only casus belli needed for violent jihad is "occupation" by an insufficiently pious government -- even a Muslim one, in spite of the fact that prime minister Nouri al-Maliki called the U.S. pullback a "great victory" against "foreign occupiers."

"75 killed, 310 injured in Baghdad attacks," from CNN, August 19:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Bombings rocked Baghdad killing 75 people and wounding 310 others, making Wednesday one of the deadliest days since the U.S. handed over security of the country to Iraqis.

In total there were six explosions within an hour, Iraq's Interior Ministry officials said.

In one attack, a truck bomb explosion partly damaged the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building. Another occurred outside the building of Ministry of Finance.

A roadside bomb exploded on Kifa Street in central Baghdad. Another bomb exploded in the Salhiya neighborhood and two more exploded in eastern Baghdad's Beirut Square, officials said.

In yet another attack, two mortars were fired into the Green Zone, the heavily fortified area in Baghdad that houses the U.S. Embassy and many government ministries.

The 4-square-mile area served as a refuge for Westerners for six years. The United States relinquished security control to the Iraqis earlier this year.

Iraqi Security Forces arrested two people in western Baghdad believed to be connected to the bombings, an official with the Iraqi army told CNN.

The two suspects were driving in a car rigged with explosives before they were arrested, the official said. The two suspects were believed to be al Qaeda in Iraq senior leaders, the official said....

"As a general proposition, democracy in Pakistan is fragile enough now that negotiating with people that some on the democratic side of the Pakistani spectrum would think themselves are terrorists strikes me as fairly risky."

That's an understatement, Mr. Bolton.

"Obama reaches out to Islamist parties in Pakistan," by Adam Entous for Reuters, August 19 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) U.S. President Barack Obama has started reaching out to some of Pakistan's most fervent Islamist and anti-American parties, including one that helped give rise to the Taliban, trying to improve Washington's image in the nuclear-armed state.

Obama's special envoy, Richard Holbrooke, is initiating dialogue between the United States and religious parties previous administrations had largely shunned, both sides said.

"The purpose is to broaden the base of American relations in Pakistan beyond the relatively narrow circle of leaders Washington has previously dealt with," explained Vali Nasr, senior adviser to Holbrooke.

John Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during the Bush presidency, questioned Holbrooke's timing for trying to engage Taliban sympathizers on the eve of elections in neighboring Afghanistan, where U.S. forces are battling the hardline Islamic group.

"As a general proposition, democracy in Pakistan is fragile enough now that negotiating with people that some on the democratic side of the Pakistani spectrum would think themselves are terrorists strikes me as fairly risky," Bolton said.

"What we ought to be doing is making sure that our ties with the military are strong because the gravest risk is radical penetration of the military."

Meanwhile, predictably enough, this outreach has only made the jihadists more demanding:

At one of this week's sessions, Liaqat Baloch, a top member of the religious, right-wing Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) party, told Holbrooke he welcomed the new administration's public change in tone toward Muslims around the world.

But Baloch said he was disturbed to see "no change in practice" in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where Obama has stepped up military operations against the Taliban on both sides of the border.

Holbrooke invited Jamaat-e-Islami, whom some U.S. officials compare to the banned Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, to visit the heavily guarded American embassy compound in Islamabad, seeking to dispel long-running rumors that thousands of U.S. Marines would be based there.

"NEW ERA"

Holbrooke rejected the party's complaints about a Western "assault" on Islam, saying "that could not be further from the truth" with Obama, who has roots in the religion, now in the White House.

Fazl-ur-Rehman, whose Jamiat-e-ulema-e-Islam party was active in rousing support for the Taliban in 1990s, also got an audience with Holbrooke and his team.

Rehman denies al Qaeda's responsibility for the September 11, 2001, attacks, and once warned that if U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan, no American in Pakistan would be safe.

In more recent years, however, Rehman's relationship with the Taliban has grown uneasy, and he has publicly supported negotiations between the U.S.-backed government in Kabul and the Islamist group.

"His hands aren't exactly clean," Lisa Curtis of the Heritage Foundation said of Rehman. "He is associated with the Taliban."...

What a surprise!

Philippines Jihad Update. In the past, the MILF brass have blamed incidents like this on "renegades." They sure seem to have a lot of them. "Philippines: Troops clash with gunmen in south," from AdnKronos International, August 19:

Manila, 19 August (AKI) - Philippine troops have clashed with about 30 gunmen who took over a remote islet near resorts popular with foreign tourists, killing at least seven and capturing two others, officials said on Wednesday. The gunmen were believed to be Muslim separatists from the Moro National Liberation Front.

A man wanted on charges of illegal possession of firearms led the group that seized a mosque on Mantangule islet in the southern part of Palawan Island at the weekend, taking hostages and extorting money from terrified residents, said navy spokesman Lt. Col. Edgard Arevalo.

The gunmen refused to surrender during talks over the past few days, and marines aboard navy vessels landed on shore early Wednesday, triggering clashes with the gunmen, Arevalo said.

Seven gunmen were killed, two were captured and a marine was wounded, he said.

About 2,000 residents had fled since Saturday to Balabac Island in the strait that separates the Philippines from Malaysia.

"We've entered the villages they occupied but fighting is still going on," Arevalo said. "We've taken over their positions and they're running away."...

The Afghan government's response: A media blackout on reports of attacks, continuing their none-too-stellar record where transparency is concerned. Among other things, the attacks are a reminder that the resurgence of the Taliban is partly of the Karzai government's own making due to its refusal over the years to deal with the Taliban's cash crop, opium. "Afghanistan: Taliban launch violent attack in Kabul," from AdnKronos International, August 19:

Kabul, 19 August (AKI) - There was fresh violence in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Wednesday on the eve of the country's presidential election. Armed gunmen took over in a bank building in the Afghan capital in what the Taliban said was an attack on a government target, but police said was a robbery gone wrong.

Explosions and gunfire were heard as soldiers fought insurgents who raided the bank a few hundred metres from the presidential compound, killing three people.

Afghan security forces were seen carrying what appeared to be two bodies from the scene.

A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for what it said was an attack by five of its fighters, wearing suicide vests.

On Tuesday, more than 20 people were killed in attacks across the country, including a suicide blast in Kabul.

Afghanistan has ordered Western and domestic media to impose a blackout on coverage of violence during Thursday's polls, saying it did not want Afghans to be frightened away from the voting....

Tiny Minority of Extremists Alert, both for the bombers and the external sources of funding described below. "Indonesia: Up to 450 'recruited by Islamist terrorist'," from AdnKronos International and the Jakarta Post, August 18 (thanks to Sr Soph):

Jakarta, 18 August (AKI/Jakarta Post) - Indonesia's most wanted terrorist, Noordin M. Top, and his Islamist group, Jemaah Islamiyah, have recruited and trained nearly 450 members for bombing operations since 2000, according to senior police.

Top is now believed to have escaped after initially being reported killed in a recent raid.

National police spokesman Insp. Gen. Nanan Soekarna said that Noordin and JI, believed to be the regional arm of global terrorist network Al-Qaeda, had provided training in bomb manufacture, weapons handling, combat skills, recruitment techniques and suicide bombing to new recruits from across the archipelago.

“We can base these figures from [information provided by] members we have arrested and from those who have served time in jail. We have arrested and brought many of them to trial, while we continue trying to track down others,” he said.

Nanan said programs to rehabilitate and monitor convicted terrorists were weak.

He said since around 200 had been released from prison since 2002, authorities were afraid that many would rejoin their former terror networks and radical sympathisers.

Nanan said links between suspects thought responsible for the 2004 Australian Embassy attack and the recent J.W. Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotel bombings was testament to how the legal system had failed to deter future terrorist activity.

Air Setiawan and Eko Joko Sarjono, suspects in the 2004 bombing, blew themselves up in last month's attacks in Jakarta that left nine dead and more than 50 injured.

The fact that both these bombers were teenagers also showed that extremists were able to appeal to young Muslims and convince them to commit mass murder, he said.

Nanan said JI was able to draw on hundreds of potential supporters due to ongoing conflicts in Poso and Ambon.

A number of intelligence experts claim the terrorist network is still receiving significant funding from both local and international donors.

“They [donors] keep sending large amounts of money to the country, most of which is unfortunately sent via courier and thus very difficult to trace and stop,” Mardigu, a terrorist expert, said in Jakarta on Monday.

Usually the couriers enter the country through Dumai and Batam, he said, both regions located within a half hour of Singapore and Malaysia....

A new twist on the Qur'anically prescribed requirement of four witnesses (4:15, 24:4, 24:6, and 24:13) to "prove" a sexual offense. So many aspects of Sharia, including this one, are illogical and unjust when followed conventionally, but as such, they also provide ample opportunities for additional, imaginative forms of abuse by corrupt, unaccountable authorities.

"Iran's Mousavi says government agents raped detainees," from Reuters, August 18:

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi accused "establishment agents" of raping and abusing detainees imprisoned after Iran's June presidential vote and urged the powerful clerics to do their duty and speak out.

"They (authorities) asked those who were abused and raped in prisons, to present four witnesses (to prove their claim)... Those who committed the crimes were the establishment's agents," Mousavi said in a letter to reformist leader Mehdi Karoubi, the reformist mowjcamp.com website reported.

"They were threatening detainees to keep silent ... it is not possible to appease the suppressed people by using money and force," Mousavi said.

In a forthright declaration that puts the Islamic republic's influential top clerics on the spot, Mousavi demanded that they step in and pass judgment on a growing political scandal....

Another "moderate" falls from grace: "The sources at Rotterdam city hall said the board of council executives and the mayor feel Ramadan has lost credibility as an adviser on integration issues."

"Rotterdam fires Tariq Ramadan over Iranian TV show," by Mark Hoogstad for NRC Handelsblad, August 18 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The Rotterdam city government wants to break ties with the Muslim philosopher Tariq Ramadan, sources at city hall say.

Ramadan (46) has been an adviser on integration for the city of Rotterdam for two years. Recently, he has come under criticism because he hosts a weekly talk show on the Iranian TV station PressTV, which is financed by the Tehran regime.

The sources at Rotterdam city hall said the board of council executives and the mayor feel Ramadan has lost credibility as an adviser on integration issues. The decision was expected to be made official after a 2 p.m. board meeting on Tuesday.

Rotterdam hired the Egyptian-Swiss theologist to help 'bridge the divide' between the Muslim and non-Muslim communities. The city government also funds Ramadan's chair at the Erasmus University, where he has been a visiting professor of Identity and Citizenship since 2007.

Ramadan, whose principal message is that Islam and European culture do not have to be at odds, is a controversial figure. He already came under fire in the Netherlands in April because of statements that were allegedly homophobic and misogynistic. ...

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb Update. It is the Mauritanian government's designation as "apostates" that makes them lawful targets for slaughter. What policymakers the world over fail to grasp is that the death penalty for apostasy is not the invention of al-Qaeda or other supposed "misunderstanders" of Islam, but comes from Muhammad himself -- hence its persistence, whether it is aimed at groups or individuals. "Al Qaeda claim French embassy bombing in Mauritania," from Reuters, August 18 (thanks to Sr Soph):

DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda's North Africa wing said on Tuesday it was responsible for a suicide bombing at the French embassy in Mauritania earlier this month that injured three people.

The bombing on August 8 in Nouakchott came three days after Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who overthrew the Islamic state's first freely elected leader last year, was sworn in as president, promising to make the fight against al Qaeda a priority.

The bomber, named as Abu Obeida Musa al-Basri, was from Nouakchott, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) said on a website used by al Qaeda-linked organisations.

"This operation came in reaction to the hostility of the Crusaders -- led by France -- and their apostate agents against Islam and its people," the group said in the statement, which was accompanied by images depicting Basri posing with weapons in the desert.

France condemned the bombing and vowed to fight groups committing such attacks. Those injured included two embassy guards, according to France's Foreign Ministry.

The normally peaceful former French colony has seen an upturn in violence in recent months. France has said it would help Mauritania in its fight against the violence.

Why Hamas crushed a rival jihadist group -- as I said here, "Hamas can now tell gullible Western officials that it is fighting against 'extremism'!"

"Jihadi Public Relations," by Walid Phares in Human Events, August 18 (thanks to JRH):

How far will terrorists go to cloak themselves in legitimacy? Last week’s action in the Gaza Strip, now governed by the terrorist network Hamas, is a good example.

Hamas’ attack against the Jund Ansar Allah (JAA, “The Soldiers or the Partisans of Allah”), a Jihadist group inside Gaza, was intended to provide the Palestinian Islamist organization a pass to become a “mainstream” movement, acceptable internationally as a partner in peace negotiations with Israel. [...]

By now, the “Jund” has been crushed, its Mosque seized and its survivors pursued.

But what are lessons we need to learn from this pool of piranhas, where big Jihadi fish eat little Jihadi fish?

1. According to many commentators on al Jazeera, Hamas chose to finish up the “Jund” as a maneuver to lure the West in general -- Great Britain and the United States in particular -- into “engaging” the organization, lifting its name from terror lists and adding it to the peace process between the Palestinians and Israel. Hamas spokespersons rushed to say “we too are fighting the extremists, the terrorists as you are fighting them and pursuing al Qaeda,” which resonates greatly in Western ears, especially with the Obama administration and the Brown government: Soon enough sympathizing journalists, apologist academics and even diplomats and envoys will be citing the “glorious” deeds of Hamas as evidence of fight “against terrorism.”

The U.S. narrative lately has been underlining that there is no war against “Global Jihadsim” but a “war against al Qaeda” only. So those in the business of Jihad, including Hamas, Hezbollah, and a plethora of other groups, can make their credential known to the West by slapping some local, little al Qaeda boys, and claiming a green card to the world of “accepted Jihadists.”...

Read it all.

"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 41.6985

Part of the Washington/Patterson jihad plot. "Man sentenced for role in plot to kill Jews, attack military bases," by Rachanee Srisavasdi for the The Orange County Register, August 18 (thanks to Block Ness):

SANTA ANA – A man was sentenced to 70 months in prison today for his role in a domestic terrorism plot to wage war on the United States by attacking Jewish synagogues and military bases.

Hammad Riaz Samana is the fourth member of Jami'yyat Ul-Islam Is-Shaheeh, or JIS, a prison-founded group that wanted to make a political statement that also had plans to attack the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles and El Al Israel Airlines at the Los Angeles International Airport.

Samana was 21 when he was charged in the case in July 2005, along with the cell's mastermind, Kevin James, and members Levar Haley Washington and Gregory Patterson.

The group committed armed robberies of 11 gas stations, including two in Fullerton, to buy weapons and gear for the attacks. Authorities said gas stations were chosen as targets because of the symbolism of the oil.

Samana had a smaller role in the plot, and conducted computer research on the terrorism targets, and was the getaway driver for one of the armed robberies, according to U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney at today's sentencing hearing....

Washington is serving 264 months in prison, while James was sentenced to 192 months and Patterson was sentenced to 151 months, Carney said.

But Samana warranted a lighter sentence because he suffered from mental health issues, the judge said. Samana suffered from schizophrenia at the time of the crime.

"In light of Samana's mental health issues at the time of the offense, such a disparity is warranted and justified,'' Carney said....

Daniel Pipes ably skewers the latest iteration of Fantasy-Based Policymaking in Washington. "Counterterrorism in Obama's Washington," by Daniel Pipes in FrontPageMagazine.com, August 18:

Barack Obama's assistant for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, John O. Brennan, conveniently outlined the administration's present and future policy mistakes in a speech on August 6, "A New Approach for Safeguarding Americans." [...]

Most fundamentally, Brennan calls for appeasing terrorists: "Even as we condemn and oppose the illegitimate tactics used by terrorists, we need to acknowledge and address the legitimate needs and grievances of ordinary people those terrorists claim to represent." Which legitimate needs and grievances, one wonders, does he think Al-Qaeda represents?

Brennan carefully delineates a two-fold threat, one being "Al-Qaida and its allies" and the other "violent extremism." But the former, self-evidently, is a subset of the latter. This elementary mistake undermines his entire analysis.

He also rejects any connection between "violent extremism" and Islam: "Using the legitimate term jihad, which means to purify oneself or to wage a holy struggle for a moral goal, risks giving these murderers the religious legitimacy they desperately seek but in no way deserve. Worse, it risks reinforcing the idea that the United States is somehow at war with Islam itself."...

And that, of course, is a policy misstep that we have discussed many times here. Pipes cites these two Jihad Watch posts. There are many more.

Read it all.

Both were accused of theft; the Christian woman was dragged naked through the police station. The Muslim woman was not touched.

"Pregnant Christian Dragged Naked Through Pakistani Police Station," from International Christian Concern via AINA, August 17:

Washington -- International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that a pregnant Christian woman miscarried on July 26 after police beat her and dragged her naked through their police station in the Gujrat District of Punjab, Pakistan. Police had arrested her and a Muslim woman after their employer accused them of theft, but police did not even touch the Muslim woman.

The woman, Farzana Bibi, worked as a maid in the house of a wealthy Muslim. During a wedding held at the house, some jewelry was stolen from some of the landlord's female relatives. The police were called, and when they arrived at the scene they arrested two maids: Farzana and a Muslim woman named Rehana. Nazir Masih, Farzana's husband, said, "Police registered a fake theft case against my wife and Rehana without any proof."

Nazir went on to say that the police tortured his wife even though she told them she was pregnant. He told ICC, "Sub-Inspector Zulfiqar and Assistant Sub-Inspector Akhter subjected her to intense torture. They stripped off her clothes and dragged her naked around the compound of Cantonment Area Police Station in Kharian. They humiliated and tortured my wife, but did not do anything to Rehana." [...]

Jeremy Sewall, ICC's Advocacy Director, said, "While we were not able to confirm whether Farzana was innocent of robbing her employers, it is absolutely unacceptable for police to humiliate her and abuse her so severely that she lost her child. The fact that the Muslim woman accused of the same thing was at least treated like a human being just proves again that if you are not a Muslim in Pakistan, you have no rights. The government should go beyond suspending the two officers guilty of this crime and try them for manslaughter."

CBN's Erick Stakelbeck and Daveed Gartenstein-Ross of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies went down to North Carolina to find out more about accused Tarheel jihadist Daniel Boyd. Here is what they found. "CBN News Uncovers New Details about Alleged North Carolina Terrorist Ringleader," by Erick Stakelbeck of CBN News, August 18:

How Much Did the Local Muslim Community Know About Boyd?

This is the key question. We know that Boyd apparently split from his local mosque because its views were not extreme enough. We also know that at least one man who frequented the mosque had concerns about Boyd’s views—concerns which he says were ignored.

I spoke at length, off the record, to a Muslim who is very plugged in to Raleigh’s Islamic community. This Muslim gave a troubling portrait of Boyd, saying that he spoke "openly" and frequently among fellow Muslims about the need to wage violent jihad. The source described Boyd’s views as “very strong,” particularly concerning the U.S. troop presence in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Israeli/Palestinian issue. Boyd was a “charismatic” figure, according to the source, and his experience in the Afghan jihad in the late 1980’s and early 90’s gave him “street cred” among young, impressionable Muslims. Like the neighborhood kids, young Muslims gravitated towards Boyd and looked up to him—especially those from dysfunctional backgrounds. Some of the young men who were indicted along with Boyd reportedly fit this description.

Boyd talked about his Afghanistan experiences “all the time” and was very social. “He liked to talk,” the source said. Whereas Boyd’s neighbors expressed shock at his arrest, the Muslim source—who knew Boyd’s theological views and passion for jihad well-- said that “it is hard to argue with anything that is in that indictment.” [...]

In short, the radical Islamist, pro-jihad worldview of Daniel Boyd was no secret among Raleigh’s Muslims. He wore it on his sleeve. Boyd’s views led to theological arguments with some Muslims who disagreed with them. But at the end of the day, according to my source, American Muslim communities are very insular and all too often have a “code of silence” when it comes to their own. It is unclear whether a local Muslim or Muslims assisted authorities in the Boyd investigation. I suspect that was the case, and if true, that is obviously a very positive thing. But the fact remains that Boyd was able to build an eight-member terror cell that was allegedly training for attacks overseas and quite possibly on U.S soil as well. And Raleigh’s Muslims can’t say they were not warned. The signs were certainly there when it came to Daniel Boyd.

There is much more. Read it all.

Why does the State Department consider it necessary to do this? Do they really believe that these kinds of programs will somehow mitigate the force of the jihad against the United States?

"Obama's State Department Submits to Islam," by Pamela Geller in The American Thinker, August 18:

[...] The State Department's Ramadan programs are wide-ranging. "On August 10," the cable continues, "America.gov will publish a ‘Multicultural Ramadan' feature. American Muslims trace their ancestry to more than 80 countries and the feature will highlight the richness of these various cultural traditions through the lens of Ramadan and Eid. Content will include essays by young Muslims who are part of Eboo Patel's Interfaith Youth Core (IYC). Contact: Alexandra Abboud (AbboudAM@state.gov)."

There's more! The Bureau of International Information Programs "will publish three articles for Ramadan 2009 addressing the concept of an Islam in America 'brand'; advocacy (civic and political) of the Muslim American community; and community innovation/community building. The writer will contact Muslim American experts in each of these fields. These articles will be available on America.gov in English, Arabic, and Persian."

The main publication is Being Muslim In America: "Conceived as IIP's flagship print publication on the rich and varied experiences of the nation's growing Muslim population, this lavishly illustrated new book links the Muslim-American experience to those of other American racial, religious, and immigrant groups as they moved into the American ‘mainstream.'"

Can you imagine every Embassy and consulate putting up a Menorah and having some Rabbis as speakers via a webcast?

Can you imagine if we had the Stations of the Cross put on the walls of all of our embassies, consulates, and other posts, as well as the many Department of State buildings across the country, including C Street?

Why aren't priests, pastors, etc. invited during Christmas to give blessings or talk about Christianity in the United States?

Can you imagine if the Buddha were revered and we had some monks coming to do a meditation session with all of the officers of each embassy, consulate, etc.?

Can we get printed and distributed Hare Krishna posters for all of our posts, so as to reach massive audiences?

Read it all.

Ancient blood libel revived as a rhetorical weapon against Israel. The Swedish-language article, ”Våra söner plundras på sina organ,” (Our sons' organs are being plundered) is in Aftonbladet here. Thanks to Ted Ekeroth for sending this in -- Ted also kindly sent in the Google translation, which is below. If any human being, meanwhile, can translate this and send it in, I will replace this mechanized gabble. Ted notes that "the article is written by the left-wing radical and Israel-hater Donald Boström, and he is given the title of 'journalist.'"

"The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with 'Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death)." -- Bukhari 7.62.88

After the Palestinians have trampled upon every agreement they have ever signed, and have boasted about doing so before Arabic-speaking audiences, Mubarak has the breathtaking chutzpah to demand Israeli concessions and pretend that the Israelis are the intransigent party. But of course, this is what gets results, again and again.

"Mideast: Arabs want Israeli concessions, says Mubarak," from AKI, August 17 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

Washington, 17 August (AKI) - Arab states will not normalise ties with Israel until a formal peace deal is signed with the Palestinians, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak said on Monday. In an interview with the Egyptian daily Ah-Ahram, Mubarak said the experience of 1991's Madrid peace conference had discouraged Arab states from further normalising ties without reciprocal gestures from Israel.

The interview was cited by the Palestinian news service, Maan, as Mubarak was due to arrive in Washington on Monday.

Mubarak was slated to meet key US government officials, including secretary of state Hillary Clinton, before his first White House visit in five years....

Pamela Geller has been in touch with someone who is very close to Rifqa Bary, and has some chilling new revelations:

On several occasions friends of Rifqa would bring her down to the school counselor because of bruises on her legs and her arms, beatings suffered at the hands of her father and brother (sounds like Islam Said). The middle school, in a serious dereliction of duty, did not report these beatings to child welfare services. Beatings were random, violent, unprovoked. Take, for example, when Rifqa and her father Mohammad were driving in the car. He would force her to wear the hijab, which she hated. In her discomfort she would slouch down, embarrassed, and her father would haul off and sock her in the face so that she never forgot to sit up straight in her costume. The beatings were regular and so much a part of the landscape of Rifqa's life, she became inured to them, just like Amina and Sarah and Aqsa and every "honor" victim.

There is much more -- including Islamic supremacism at the Barys' home mosque in Ohio. Read it all. And please contact the Governor of Florida and ask him to make sure that Rifqa Bary is not sent back to her parents in Ohio, and that the Department of Children & Families (DCF) keeps custody of her.

People can also call George Sheldon, Secretary of the DCF:

Contact Governor Charlie Crist today:
Phone Calls to (850) 488-7146
Fax letters to (850) 487-0801
or Email him at Charlie.Crist@MyFlorida.com

The Florida Department of Children and Families

George H. Sheldon, Secretary
1317 Winewood Blvd.
Building 1, Room 202
Tallahassee, Florida
Fax: (850) 922-2993

The article notes: "Strict Sharia law drastically reduces the rights of women, allows polygamy for men, forbids marrying non-Muslims and sanctions cruel penalties including stoning."

Strict or lax, partial or comprehensive, the implementation of any Sharia is a slippery slope leading to still more of it. Islamic piety becomes a political bargaining chip, and any alleged lack of it becomes a liability that can destabilize a state: Supremacist, theocratic systems do not lend themselves to compartmentalization, and after all, the aim of jihad itself is to impose Islamic law. As such, any Sharia sets a precedent for a steady creep of more of it, as has been seen in Britain. For that matter, we have also seen in Britain that even supposedly "mild" Sharia poses problems with respect to equal treatment under the law, due to Sharia's inherent defects in that regard.

Transfer that situation to Bosnia, with its history and its own supply of resident jihadists, and the potential for disaster multiplies exponentially.

"Bosnia: Muslim spiritual leader urges more Sharia law," from AdnKronos International, August 17:

Sarajevo, 17 August (AKI) – Bosnia’s Muslim spiritual leader, Reiss-ul-Ulema Mustafa Ceric, has drawn strong criticism from moderate Muslims and from Bosnian Serbs, after he called for Islamic Sharia law to be incorporated into the Bosnian constitution.

Ceric made the controversial suggestion when he conducted Bosnia's first Sharia mass wedding on Saturday in the central city of Zenica. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi reportedly paid for the weddings for the 20 couples and some 500 guests.

“In this exceptional place, in the exceptional city of Zenica, we are witnessing a magnificent event,” Ceric said. “I hope this is only the beginning and that we will have many such occasions in the years to come,” he added.

Ceric is no stranger to controversy, and his pronouncements often trigger a heated reaction.

In May, while visiting a Muslim community in Serbia’s Muslim-majority Sandzak region bordering Montenegro, Ceric said "no force could separate" Muslims in Serbia from those in Bosnia, which he has described as a homeland for Muslims.

Strict Sharia law drastically reduces the rights of women, allows polygamy for men, forbids marrying non-Muslims and sanctions cruel penalties including stoning.

Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik reacted angrily to Ceric's remarks, saying he was deliberately ignoring the presence of Serbs and Croats in Muslim-majority Bosnia.

Serbs are mainly Orthdox while Croats are Catholic Christians.

Ceric’s pronouncement concealed a Muslim drive to dominate the whole country, Dodik claimed....

Please contact the Governor of Florida and ask him to make sure that Rifqa Bary is not sent back to her parents in Ohio, and that the Department of Children & Families (DCF) keeps custody of her.

People can also call George Sheldon, Secretary of the DCF:

Contact Governor Charlie Crist today:
Phone Calls to (850) 488-7146
Fax letters to (850) 487-0801
or Email him at Charlie.Crist@MyFlorida.com

The Florida Department of Children and Families

George H. Sheldon, Secretary
1317 Winewood Blvd.
Building 1, Room 202
Tallahassee, Florida
Fax: (850) 922-2993

Some points you may find helpful:

1. Mohamed Bary and his wife appear to be devout, observant Muslims -- Mrs. Bary, after all, has her head covered in the photo of them that is circulating. That indicates that they respect at least some, if not all, Islamic laws. Mohamed Bary is asking us, by claiming that he has no problem with his daughter being a Christian, to believe that he rejects Islamic law in this particular area. Yet there is no indication that they reject Islamic law in any other way.
2. Apostasy is a capital crime according to all the Islamic schools of jurisprudence, so that it is not unreasonable to believe that devout Muslims would object to the conversion to Christianity of their daughter, and desire her death.
3. Other Muslim fathers, as Pamela points out here, have appeared to be credible, gentle fellows as they lured their wayward daughters back home -- after they had run away in fear for their lives. And then once they were back home, they murdered them.

In light of those facts, the court would be foolish in the extreme, when it convenes again on August 21, to expose Rifqa Bary to risk. There is no doubt that this would not be done in other child welfare cases -- any reasonable suspicion that the child could be in physical danger is acted upon immediately, and the child removed from the home. For what conceivable reason should this case be different?

(Thanks to Pamela.)

From jihadists living in Britain. "Al-Qaeda warns of 'spectacular attacks' on UK," from ExpressIndia, August 17 (thanks to all who sent this in):

In an astounding revelation, Al-Qaeda extremists have claimed that home-grown terrorists are plotting to attack targets in Britain.

According to reports, in an internet magazine read by thousands of Islamic extremists Al-Qaeda has labeled Britain and Europe as a bigger enemy than the United States.

It further says that the strikes are being planned by terrorists living in Britain and others overseas, and warns of “spectacular attacks”, 'The Sun' reports.

The site is promoted by supporters of deported hate preacher Abdullah al-Faisal who was booted out of Britain after serving a jail sentence for being found guilty of three charges of soliciting the murder of Jews, Americans, and Hindus, and two charges of using threatening words to stir up racial hatred.

Dhimmitude on a technicality. "'Terrorism' barred at trial of three Yemeni men," by Gary Craig for the Rochester Democrat-Chronicle, August 17 (thanks to T.):

Three Yemeni men once accused of a willingness to support the terrorist-linked Hezbollah organization are now being tried in federal court in a case in which neither terrorism nor Hezbollah are likely to be mentioned.

Instead, the trial, expected to last six weeks, is focused on whether the men illegally transferred money overseas.

On trial are Yehia Ali Ahmed Alomari, 28, Mohamed Al Huraibi, 52, and Saleh Mohamed Taher Saeed, 30.

Authorities allege that the three men, caught in a sting operation, agreed to illegally transport more than $100,000 to overseas accounts in the Middle East. Prosecutors have claimed that an undercover agent told the men that Hezbollah would control the money.

U.S. District Judge Charles Siragusa has ruled however that, because the actual criminal charges the men confront are about money-laundering and not terrorist-related, prosecutors cannot mention Hezbollah or terrorism at the trial. The May 2008 indictment of the three men, in fact, makes no mention of terrorism or Hezbollah....

Was Rifqa Bary, who converted to Christianity and fled her Muslim home, saying her father told her he would kill her, brainwashed? Is she really just a wayward teenager covering up for her indiscretions?

More on the Rifqa Bary case. "Dad Claims Brainwashing As Muslim Girl Fears He’ll Kill Her," by Pamela Geller at Newsmax, August 17:

Rifqa Bary says she ran to Florida to save her life: “I was threatened by my dad.” She says that her father told her, “If you have this Jesus in your heart, you’re dead to me. You’re not my daughter. I will kill you.” But now her father is trying to regain custody of Rifqa, and he and the Islamic Society of Central Florida say she has been “kidnapped” and “brainwashed” by a “cult,” and that she’s a “rebel,” a “troubled teen.”

Well, which is it?

“This is a cult group who kidnapped my daughter and took her away,” claims Mohamed Bary, Rifqa’s father.

She hitchhiked to the bus station and took a Greyhound from Ohio to Florida. How is that a kidnapping?

Brainwashed by a cult? Which is the cult? Is it the group that silently approves of the murder of a daughter who shames her family by not wearing the proper head dress (like Aqsa Parvez), or by wanting live a free life (like Hatin Sürücü), or by dating the wrong boy (like Amina and Sarah Said), or by choosing another religion (like Rifqa Bary)? Or is it the group that offers sanctuary to a poor threatened girl?

Rifqa Bary’s father is also claiming that she was “brainwashed” by the pastor of the Global Revolution church in Orlando. Pastor Blake Lorenz denies that, saying, “she has been a Christian for four years, long before we ever met her.”

Let’s look at the facts.

Rifqa’s MySpace page, to which she last logged in two years ago, shows that she had already converted by then. Rifqa told Lorenz she converted four years ago; her MySpace page is evidence that she was a Christian at least by 2007.

There is more evidence on that same MySpace page. Rifqa chose a “Christian layout” and says that her favorite movie was “A Walk to Remember” — a good Christian flick. The movie is about a pastor’s daughter, a good Christian girl who changes the life of a popular but rebellious teenage boy through her indomitable spirit, purity, and goodness. Reviewer Jeffrey Overstreet said in Christianity Today: “The main character is portrayed as a Christian without being psychopathic or holier-than-thou.”

Further, under Rifqa’s favorite book, there is a small icon of a page from the Bible. The passage highlighted? Love is patient. Notice how it’s all done cryptically, as if she is hiding. “My Savior is JC,” she writes — JC, of course, is Jesus Christ. The movie is a Christian movie. The book is the Bible. And Rifqa wrote all this in 2007....

Read it all.

The infectious charm of the jihad, and the winning, well-reasoned arguments of the proponents of Sharia, shine through in this.

"Taliban’s latest threat: cutting off noses and ears to anyone who dares voting," from Asia News, August 17 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

Kabul (AsiaNews/Agencies) – The latest threats issued by the Taliban to disrupt next Thursday’s presidential election include “suicide attacks against polling stations” and cutting off “noses and ears of those who vote”, this according to leaflets left in the southern part of the country, but also to a lesser extent in Kabul. Equally attacks have been stepped up against the military but especially the civilian population.

“We are using new tactics targeting election centres,” Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi said....

We have seen this again and again -- the Holy Land Foundation being only the highest profile of many jihad charities. Now our old friend Raymond Ibrahim explains why this keeps happening, and will keep happening. "Why Muslim Charities Fund the Jihad," by Raymond Ibrahim for Pajamas Media, August 15:

From what American schoolchildren are being taught by their teachers to what Americans are being told by their presidents, concepts unique to Islam are nowadays almost always “Westernized.” Whether the product of naivety, arrogance, or downright disingenuousness, this phenomenon has resulted in epistemic (and thus endemic) failures, crippling Americans from objectively understanding some of Islam’s more troublesome doctrines.

A typical seventh-grade textbook, for instance, teaches that “jihad represents the human struggle to overcome difficulties and do things that are pleasing to God. Muslims strive to respond positively to personal difficulties as well as worldly challenges. For instance, they might work to be better people, reform society, or correct injustice.”

Strictly speaking, this is by and large true. However, by not explaining what it means to be “better people, reform society, or correct injustice” — from a distinctly Islamic, as opposed to Western, perspective — the textbook abandons students to fall back on their own (misleading) interpretations.

Yet the facts remain: In Islam, killing certain “evil-doers,” such as apostates or homosexuals, is a way of “correcting injustice”; overthrowing manmade constitutional orders (such as the United States) and replacing them with Sharia mandates, and subjugating women and non-Muslims, are ways of “reforming society.” Those enforcing all this are, in fact, “better people” — indeed, according to the Koran (3:110), they are “the best of peoples, evolved for mankind, enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong,” that is, ruling according to Sharia law.

So it is with the Muslim concept of zakat, a word often rendered into English as “charity.” But is that all zakat is — mere Muslim benevolence by way of feeding and clothing the destitute of the world, as the word “charity” all too often connotes?

Be sure to read it all.

Again and again we see that the glowing respect that Muslim spokesmen in the West claim that Islam has for Christianity and Judaism doesn't seem to translate into any meaningful behavior to stop the persecution of the remaining Christians and Jews in the Islamic world.

"Iran: Authorities Tighten Grip On Christians As Unrest Roils," from Compass Direct, August 11 (thanks to Pamela):

LOS ANGELES, August 11 (Compass Direct News) – Amid a violent crackdown on protestors and a purge of opponents within the Iranian government, more than 30 Christians were arrested in the last two weeks near Tehran and in the northern city of Rasht.

Two waves of arrests near Tehran happened within days of each other, and while most of those detained – all converts from Islam – were held just a day for questioning, a total of eight Christians still remain in prison.

On July 31 police raided a special Christian meeting 25 kilometers (15 miles) north of Tehran in the village of Amameh in the area of Fashan. A Compass source said about 24 Christians, all converts from Islam, had gathered in a private home. In the afternoon police squads in both plain clothes and uniform raided and arrested everyone present.

“Many people stormed the villa, and in the same day they took everything,” said the source, a Christian Iranian who requested anonymity.

All present were taken by private car to their residences, where police took all their passports, documents, cash, CDs, computers and mobile phones, and from there to the police station.

“There were many cars so they could take each person with a car to their house from the meeting,” said the source. “Think of how many cars were there to arrest them. And they took all their books, PCs, CDs mobile phones, everything.”

While most of them were released the same evening, seven of them – Shahnam Behjatollah, and six others identified only as Shaheen, Maryam, Mobinaa, Mehdi, Ashraf and Nariman – all remain in detention in an unknown location. They have no contact with their family members.

Police have questioned each of their families and told them to prepare to pay bail. In the case of Behjatollah, for whom police had a warrant, authorities showed his family the official order for his arrest and told them they “knew all about him,” according to the source. Behjatollah is 34 years old, married and has a 6-year-old daughter.

The second wave of arrests of some of the same Christians near Tehran took place on Friday (Aug. 7).

“They brought the released members for interrogation to the secret police again, to get more information about their movements,” said the source.

In Rasht, a total of eight Christians belonging to the same network were arrested on July 29 and 30 in two separate rounds of arrest. Seven were released, while one, a male, remains in the city’s prison. Compass sources were unable to comment on the conditions of their arrest....

“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

"Suicide truck bomber kills 20 in Russia's Ingushetia," by Said Tsarnayev for Reuters, August 17 (thanks to Dionysios):

NAZRAN, Russia, Aug 17 (Reuters) - A suicide bomber rammed a truckload of explosives into the local police headquarters in Russia's Ingushetia region on Monday killing 20 people, the deadliest attack in the North Caucasus region since 2005.

A wave of attacks against police and politicians blamed on Islamist insurgents in the mainly Muslim North Caucasus are undermining the Kremlin's control of its southern flank.

A yellow truck exploded at the gates of the main police station in Nazran, Ingushetia's largest city, as police officers lined up at the start of their day.

The number of wounded has risen to 118 people, Interfax reported, citing the emergencies ministry.

A police spokesman previously said 74 had been wounded....

"This is a big blow to the Kremlin," said Tatyana Lokshina, an activist with Human Rights Watch who travels regularly to the region. "The number of attacks has been growing for a while, but I can't remember one as brazen as this."...

M. Cherif Bassiouni, Distinguished Research Professor of Law Emeritus and President Emeritus, International Human Rights Law Institute, DePaul University, is not as bad as some. He does, after all, acknowledge that for more than a millennium, the four schools of Sunni jurisprudence have recognized that death is a suitable punishment for apostasy -- from Islam, bien entendu, the Only True Religion.

Apostates from other faiths, to Islam, have been encouraged, not least by the constant threat of death. See K. S. Lal, among other historians, for what happened to tens of millions of Hindus under Muslim rule. Apostates from other faiths have also been encouraged by the threat of force, or the fate of being forced to endure conditions of life that, over time, many Christians and Jews and -- as honorary members of the Ahl al-Kitab -- Zoroastrians, escaped in the only way they could, by converting to Islam. Why, M. Cherif Bassiouni, presumably of Moroccan (Berber) descent, should perhaps begin to ponder -- why not? -- about the conditions that caused Berbers to become Islamized (and a great many to be arabized as well, forcibly or otherwise) in what had been a Christianized North Africa. Monica, the mother of St. Augustine, he of Hippo, was a Berber. This took place after the Arabs invaded, bringing or rather imposing “the gift of Islam” (as Azar Nafisi ironically puts it in some of her public readings and talks).

But M. Cherif Bassiouni, Distinguished Research Professor of Law Emeritus and President Emeritus, International Human Rights Law Institute, DePaul University, is illogical in pretending that his own personal opposition to death for apostates from Islam somehow modifies or weakens the fact that Islam itself teaches and inculcates (for the teaching is not so much teaching as repeated, and quite effective, brainwashing, from cradle to grave) the notion that those who leave Islam, and especially those who do not leave quietly but openly give voice to their apostasy, are to be treated as traitors, as defectors from the Army of Islam.

He did it for 27 bucks. "Egypt: Infibulation On 11 Year-Old, 1st Charges Brought," from ANSAmed, August 14 (thanks to Insubria):

(ANSAmed) - ROME, AUGUST 14 - An Egyptian man has been charged with practicing female circumcision on an 11 year-old girl, reports the website of TV station Al Arabiya today. Ahmed Gad al-Karim, 69 year-old, is the first person to be tried for this type of procedure since an Egyptian law came into effect which treats all types of female genital mutilation as a crime. The law, which was passed in 2008, was fiercely criticised by the Islamic Brotherhood and by supporters of the Egyptian parliament, who maintained that they supported the practice as "conforming to Sharia law (Islamic law) and protecting the chastity of women". However, the Islamic Institution responsible for religious opinion (Dar al-Iftaa) responded by saying that female genital mutilation is not part of the Islamic culture.

"Circumcision is obligatory (O: for both men and women. For men it consists of removing the prepuce from the penis, and for women, removing the prepuce (Ar. bazr) of the clitoris (n: not the clitoris itself, as some mistakenly assert). (A: Hanbalis hold that circumcision of women is not obligatory but sunna, while Hanafis consider it a mere courtesy to the husband.)" -- 'Umdat al-Salik e4.3

What is 'Umdat al-Salik? Cairo's prestigious and influential Al-Azhar University certifies that it "conforms to the practice and faith of the orthodox Sunni Community (Ahl al-Sunna was al-Jama'a)."

Ahmed Gad al-Karim is accused of practicing infibulation after requests by the girl's family. He was paid USD 27, according to investigators, for performing the operation, and used a standard scalpel during the operation. The girl was admitted to the local hospital in Minya, 600 km south of Cairo immediately afterwards, fighting for her life. "The Government must protect Egyptian women so that they can grow up in a healthy environment" said Cairòs Public Prosecutor. "Despite the Egyptian law against female genital mutilation, many women all over Egypt still undergo this kind of operation". Female genital mutilation in all its forms, including the most serious, like infibulation, is practiced in Egypt and in the other 27 African nations, both by Muslims and Christians, and contrary to popular belief it has no religious basis. (ANSAmed).

How's that again? It has no religious basis?

Then why is a manual of Islamic law endorsed by the foremost institution in Sunni Islam say that "circumcision" is "obligatory" for women as well as men?

And as always, the world yawns. Yet just consider the international publicity, and outcry, this would provoke if the perpetrators and victims were reversed.

"3 pastors killed, 20 churches demolished in Nigeria violence," from the Baptist Press, August 13 (thanks to DFS):

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (BP)--Twelve Christians, including three pastors, were killed and 20 churches were demolished in Nigeria amid escalating religiously motivated violence, prompting a call for government intervention.

Conflicts between Christians and Muslims have gone largely unchecked by the Nigerian government, and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom this year placed the African nation on its list of "countries of particular concern."

International Christian Concern, a U.S.-based human rights group, is asking people to sign a petition calling on Nigerian officials to bring perpetrators to justice and work to prevent further attacks. The petition is accessible at persecution.org/suffering/petitions. ICC also is asking concerned citizens to contact the Nigerian Embassy in Washington at 202-986-8400.

In a report Aug. 6, ICC said the attacks that occurred July 26 in Maiduguri were instigated by Boko Haram, a group that opposes Western education and fights to impose sharia law throughout Nigeria, including areas that are largely Christian.

Sabo Yakubu, a husband, father of seven and pastor of a Church of Christ congregation, was hacked to death by a machete, ICC said. Also killed were Sylvester Akpan, pastor of National Evangelical Mission, and George Orji, pastor of Good News of Christ Church.

"Mohammed Yusuf, the Islamic sect leader who initially said their targets were government property and security agencies, later changed and started setting ablaze churches and killing pastors who had nothing to do with their activities," Yuguda Zubagai Ndurvuwa, chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria, said in a statement reported by ICC....

This may be an "amended" version of the law, but coerced sex is non-consensual sex. Apologists for Islam in the West often extol the religion's supposed emphasis on "family values," or at least, the outward appearance of stability of the family. But if family life is the basis for how a society functions, it is no surprise that, with family values like this, Afghan society and others across the Islamic world are suffused with tyranny and corruption.

More on this story. "Row over Afghan wife-starving law," by Sarah Rainsford for BBC News, August 16:

An Afghan bill allowing a husband to starve his wife if she refuses to have sex has been published in the official gazette and become law.

The original bill caused outrage earlier this year, forcing Afghan President Hamid Karzai to withdraw it.

But critics say the amended version of the law remains highly repressive.

They accuse Mr Karzai of selling out Afghan women for the sake of conservative Shia support at next week's presidential election.

The law governs family life for Afghanistan's Shia minority.

Sexual demands

The original version obliged Shia women to have sex with their husbands every four days at a minimum, and it effectively condoned rape by removing the need for consent to sex within marriage.

Western leaders and Afghan women's groups were united in condemning an apparent reversal of key freedoms won by women after the fall of the Taliban.

Now an amended version of the same bill has passed quietly into law with the apparent approval of President Karzai.

Just ahead of this Thursday's Afghan presidential election, human rights groups suggest the timing is no accident.

"There was a review process - Karzai came under huge pressure from all over the world to amend this law, but many of the most oppressive laws remain," Rachel Reid, the Human Rights Watch representative in Kabul, told the BBC.

"What matters more to Karzai is the support of fundamentalists and hardliners here in Afghanistan whose support he thinks he needs in the elections."

Women's groups say its new wording still violates the principle of equality that is enshrined in their constitution.

It allows a man to withhold food from his wife if she refuses his sexual demands; a woman must get her husband's permission to work; and fathers and grandfathers are given exclusive custody of children.

Submitting to segregation is not encouraging "integration." Not into British society, at least. "Swimmers are told to wear burkinis," by Patrick Sawer for the Telegraph, August 15:

Under the rules, swimmers – including non-Muslims – are barred from entering the pool in normal swimming attire.

Instead they are told that they must comply with the "modest" code of dress required by Islamic custom, with women covered from the neck to the ankles and men, who swim separately, covered from the navel to the knees.

The phenomenon runs counter to developments in France, where last week a woman was evicted from a public pool for wearing a burkini – the headscarf, tunic and trouser outfit which allows Muslim women to preserve their modesty in the water.

The 35-year-old, named only as Carole, is threatening legal action after she was told by pool officials in Emerainville, east of Paris, that she could not wear the outfit on hygiene grounds.

But across the UK municipal pools are holding swimming sessions specifically aimed at Muslims, in some case imposing strict dress codes.

Croydon council in south London runs separate one-and-a half-hour swimming sessions for Muslim men and women every Saturday and Sunday at Thornton Heath Leisure Centre.

Swimmers were told last week on the centre's website that "during special Muslim sessions male costumes must cover the body from the navel to the knee and females must be covered from the neck to the ankles and wrists".

There are similar rules at Scunthorpe Leisure Centre, in North Lincolnshire, where "users must follow the required dress code for this session (T-shirts and shorts/leggings that cover below the knee)".

In Glasgow, a men-only swimming session is organised by a local mosque group at North Woodside Leisure Centre, at which swimmers must be covered from navel to knee.

At a women-only class organised by a Muslim teacher at Blackbird Leys Swimming Pool, Oxford, to encourage Muslim women to learn to swim, most participants wear "modest" outfits although normal costumes are permitted.

The dress codes have provoked an angry reaction among critics who say they encourage division and resentment between Muslims and non-Muslims, putting strain on social cohesion.

Ian Cawsey, the Labour MP for the North Lincolnshire constituency of Brigg and Goole, said: "Of course swimming pools have basic codes of dress but it should not go beyond that.

"I don't think that in a local authority pool I should have to wear a particular type of clothes for the benefit of someone else. That's not integration or cohesion."

Labour MP Anne Cryer, whose Keighley, West Yorkshire constituency has a large number of Muslims, said: "Unfortunately this kind of thing has a negative impact on community relations.

"It's seen as yet another demand for special treatment. I can't see why special clothing is needed for what is a single-sex session."

Muslim swimming sessions are also held at a number of state schools around the country. At Loxford School in Ilford, east London, a local Muslim group organises weekly sessions for Muslim men, with the warning that "it is compulsory for the body to be covered between the navel and the knees.

"Anyone not adhering to the dress code or rules within the pool will not be allowed to swim".

The practice of holding special Muslim swimming sessions has led to non-Muslims being turned away.

David Toube, 39 and his five year old son Harry were last year refused entry to Clissold Leisure Centre, in Hackney, east London, after being told the Sunday morning swimming session was for Muslim men only.

Council officials later said staff had made a mistake and both Mr Toube, a corporate lawyer, and his son should have been admitted.

After discovering the rules at Thornton Heath one Croydon resident, 34-year-old Alex Craig, said: "I think it is preposterous that a council should be encouraging this type of segregation over municipal facilities.

"Surely if Muslims want to swim then they should just turn up with their modest swimwear at the same time as everyone else."

Douglas Murray, director of the Centre for Social Cohesion, last night condemned the practice. He said: "This kind of thing is extremely divisive.

"Non-Muslims see these extremist demands as an example of Muslims wanting things to fit into their lifestyle, when there aren't similar things organised for Hindus, Buddhists or Jews.

"It also puts moderate Muslims in an awkward position as it suggests, wrongly, that they are not devout enough, simply because they choose not to cover themselves in a shroud in a pool."...

And that's the aim of Islamic law. More on this story. "Kenyan Christians and Muslims clash over courts in constitutional review," from Ecumenical News International, August 16 (thanks to Alan):

Christians in Kenya say Islamic courts are not necessary but some unnamed Muslims in the east African country have been quoted as saying if such institutions are not in the constitution, they could break away and form their own state - writes Fredrick Nzwili.

Last week representatives of the two different faiths engaged in a shouting match in the coastal city of Mombasa.

They were putting their views to a group of experts at a hearing where a group of Muslims insisted that Islamic courts, known locally as Kadhis, should be included in a new constitution.

"The courts are not necessary since the current constitution gives individuals the right to religious preferences and worship," Anglican Bishop Julius Kalu of Mombasa said, while presenting views to the Committee of Experts on the Constitution Review.

Church leaders have since 1991, when Kenya started a debate on writing a new constitution, protested against including the Islamic courts in the basic law. Currently one section of the constitution provides for a Chief Kadhi and Kadhi Courts, and gives them powers to decide on personal legal issues between Muslims.

Sheikh Khalifa Mohammed, who chairs the Council of Islamic Preachers of Kenya, called for tolerance from other religions in Kenya where Muslims make up about 10 percent of the 39 million people, while Christians are close to 80 percent.

This is a second attempt to write a new constitution for Kenya, but church leaders argue includingthe Islamic courts would contradict the principles that underpin the country's legal system and that stress the separation of State and religion.

Pentecostal churches said in a statement, "It would also mean one religion has been elevated above others."

Muslim leaders have stepped up calls for inclusion of the courts in the new laws, stating the matter is not negotiable.

"If they think we are few, we are ready to break way from the country," an unnamed Muslim leader was quoted as saying on 28 July in Mombasa, Kenya's second largest city, where most of the inhabitants are Muslims.

The leaders said the followers of Islamic faith had specific needs that could only be addressed by their courts.

Muslim scholars argue that it was only after Christian missionaries accepted to allow and respect the courts that they were allowed to evangelise in the East African coastal strip.

"The courts will deal with marriage, divorce and inheritance among the Muslims, which have nothing to do with Christians," said Sheikh Mukhtar Khitamy, of the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims. "We will defend the presence of the courts in the constitution by all means."

According to the prior article linked above, Khitamy doesn't have his story straight. The local courts have handled marriage, divorce, and inheritance for years. The new proposals include expanded powers concerning commercial and civil disputes, and elevating the courts to the national level.

This group declared "total jihad" against the Nigerian state on August 9.

"Nigerian police raid Islamic sect, detain hundreds," by Joy Simon for Reuters, August 16 (thanks to all who sent this in):

MINNA, Nigeria (Reuters) - Police in the western Nigerian state of Niger have raided an Islamic community and detained hundreds of men, weeks after an uprising by a radical sect killed almost 800 in the remote northeast.

Niger state police commissioner Mike Zuokumor said officers backed by reinforcements from the capital Abuja had surrounded the compound of the Darul Islam community on the edge of the town of Mokwa early on Saturday.

"We received a series of reports about the activities of the sect from neighboring communities, the local government and the emirate (traditional leader)," Zuokumor said.

"Some of them were expressing apprehension concerning the activities of the group and it is our duty to ensure law and order among the citizens of the state," he said.

Local journalists said around 600 men, some thought to be from the countries of Niger and Chad, were taken to a nearby school for questioning by police and immigration officers. As many as 3,000 people were believed to live in the community.
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Zuokumor said police had received reports that Darul Islam was forcibly holding women to be the wives of sect members. The arrests were peaceful and no shots were fired.

The leader of the sect, Amrul Bashir Abdullahi, originally from the northern state of Kano, told reporters he had lived in Mokwa for 17 years and denied that his movement was radically opposed to Western education.

"We are not against Western education as we are being accused, but we have our own belief which is not in any way an infringement of the state authorities," he said after being detained.

Abdullahi said he had decided to start the Darul Islam group in isolation from the wider community in order to escape social ills such as "corruption, drunkenness and prostitution."...

Pamela evaluates the evidence with a very revealing look at Rifqa's Myspace page.

Rifqa, you may recall, is the 17-year-old girl who converted from Islam to Christianity, and who says she was then threatened with death by her father. She has fled to Florida from her home in Ohio, but will probably be sent back to Ohio soon by clueless dhimmi law enforcement officials.

Rifqa Bary tells her story in her own words here.

The man who has been emailing me death threats over the last few days from IP address 196.201.207.17 has written this morning in defense of M. Cherif Bassiouni, Distinguished Research Professor of Law Emeritus and President Emeritus, International Human Rights Law Institute, DePaul University, who took issue with my quoting his false statements about Islamic apostasy law:

I 100% agree with what Mr Cherif has written to you. He is right, you are Extremist and islamophobic. you are hate-filled person and as far as I know you have the roots to be a ZION who are the most islam hated people.

go to hell.

It's ironic that Bassiouni accuses me of incitement, and yet it is his invective-laden rhetoric that is echoed by a murderous thug, who obviously finds it simpatico.

Hopefully, we have restored the combox to its original Movable Type format where you login with a TypePad account to post a comment. If you experience issues, please describe them for me at jihadwatchtech@gmail.com and I will follow up.

Thanks again for your patience. — Tech Admin

Hamas can now tell gullible Western officials that it is fighting against "extremism"!

Out-Heroding Herod Update: "Leader of Al-Qaida Inspired Group in Gaza Killed," by VOA News, August 15:

The leader of an al-Qaida-inspired Palestinian group in Gaza is dead following a gunbattle that killed 22 people and wounded more than 120.

Hamas officials said Saturday hardline cleric Abdel-Latif Moussa - the leader of Jund Ansar Allah ("Soldiers of the Followers of God") was killed in an explosion Saturday morning. It was not immediately clear if the blast was set off by Hamas forces or militants holed up inside Moussa's home.

On Friday, Moussa declared Gaza an Islamic emirate and called for the implementation of strict Sharia (Islamic) law in a challenge to Hamas, which rules Gaza.

Hamas security forces then engaged in an hours-long battle at a mosque in the southern town of Rafah to put down the uprising....

Jund Ansar Allah is one of a handful of small, extremist groups that have criticized Hamas for its cease-fire with Israel, and demanded the imposition of a strict form of Islam in Gaza.

Although Hamas is an Islamist movement, observers say its focus on Palestinian nationalism sets it apart from al-Qaida's goals of broad religious war....

M. Cherif Bassiouni, Distinguished Research Professor of Law Emeritus and President Emeritus, International Human Rights Law Institute, DePaul University, has responded to my email posted here with the 1,000-word email that follows. You will note that nowhere in it does he resolve the contradiction in his statements about Islamic apostasy law that I asked him about in my email to him. I'll address that in more detail below.

Dear Mr. Spencer,

Thank you for your email of 8/13/09 in response to mine. You had asked for permission to print my letter, but you went ahead and did it without my permission so, obviously, you are no longer seeking my permission.

After looking at your website, I was quite surprised to see how much hate, venom and misunderstanding you are fostering. Through my 45-year career in International Criminal Law and Human Rights I have regrettably, all too often, seen the harmful consequences of what you manage to engender. Goebbels and others in Nazi Germany brought about anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, the war in the former Yugoslavia (1991-95) had many religious undertones between Serb-Orthodox and Catholic-Croats, whose religious animosity producing violence goes back to 1915, and then, we have Christian-Catholic Hutus killing between 500,000 and 800,000 of their co-religionist Tutsis in Rwanda. It all started the same way, and all too few people spoke up against it. Having investigated war crimes in the former Yugoslavia for the United Nations, monitored human rights in Afghanistan also for the U.N., and done work in Iraq, funded by the U.S. government, I can tell you in all three arenas of conflict how pernicious religious hatred and misunderstanding is. That is why I speak up against your hate-mongering.

I don’t know if this communication will have any moderating effects on your anti-Islam and Anti-Muslim stances. Usually persons who have extremist views are beyond the reach of reason, good sense, and good faith. They are too imbued with their own self-righteous views and are all too often blinded by their hatred or animosity towards others to act in ways that most people consider reasonable and decent.

Mr. Spencer, I am not a polemicist. If you find out about me through public sources, you will discover that I have spent my life fighting for what is right, even at the risk of my own life in many situations. Hate-mongering, incitation to hate, various forms of religious, ethnic, national intolerances have, in my experience, only produced violence and harmful results. I don’t know what you are up to, why you are doing it, and for whose benefit, but everything I read tells me there is something wrong in conducting such an extremist campaign against Islam and Muslims. What is that intended to accomplish other than radicalization and polarization? Is that in the best interests of relations between Americans who have different faith-belief systems? Is that intended to arouse anti-Islamicism in America for certain political purposes? If any of these are the case then whatever I or anyone else may have to say to you will not have much effect. By the grace of God, I continue to believe in the best in human beings, and I hope that the best in you, and those who follow you, will prevail over the worst that is reflected in the work that you are doing.

I firmly believe that there is one God who has created one humankind and that we are all members of the same human family. This God, who is the beginning and end of everything, the One described in the First Commandment contained in the Hebrew bible and the Old Testament is, in my opinion, the same God described in the Qur’ān. All three Abrahamic faiths, as well as other belief systems, conceive of a single humankind, making us all brothers and sisters in this humanity. There is no superior or inferior human being and certainly it is against any belief in God and moral/ethical values to dehumanize a person or demonize a person for his/her beliefs or otherwise. History has always demonstrated that when that occurs, it is the beginning of the rationalization for genocide and crimes against humanity.

To the best of my knowledge, I don’t know of any organization having a campaign similar to yours aimed at discrediting a major religion and its followers. Consequently there is something unique in what you are doing and in your mission, which not only sets it apart from established inter-religious practices, but which also calls into question the motives, purposes and goals of such an undertaking. Fortunately there is only you and your group in the world doing such a thing and, hopefully, you will not be able to do much harm to your fellow human beings, whether in this country or elsewhere.

As to your invitation to a debate, I have never engaged in oral debates, particularly when it clearly appears from both your website and your publications that the goal would not be to obtain a better understanding of whatever the issue may be.

Concerning the merits of the issue of apostasy, Islamic law has a long history and it is rather complex. In the course of 14 centuries there have been many differences among scholars as to almost every aspect of law, theology and religious practices. Similar differences exist in Judaism and Christianity as well as other faith-belief systems. Different cultures also see things in different ways. And, in time, many perspectives change.

My views on apostasy have been made public since 1983, in the U.S., and in the Muslim world. They include my understanding that apostasy in the days of the Prophet meant, essentially, high treason in the equivalent modern significance. There were different views on the matter between the late 7th and 12th centuries. Since then, Ijtihad, which means making the effort to think (much as the word jihad means making an effort) has been stopped by theological fiat. As a result, not much progressive thinking or corrective interpretation has been made to show that the interpretations which took place after the Prophet’s death were not the correct ones. The Qur’ān’s overarching principle enunciated in chapter 2 is that there can be “no compulsion in religion.” That doesn’t make me “deceptive” nor does it make me an “apologist.” These are two terms you have used to describe me, which are defamatory. (Whether you see fit to publish a retraction or apology will demonstrate your good faith.)

In any event, this concludes our written exchange, but I will be glad to meet with you personally whenever you are in Chicago or if our paths cross elsewhere. In order to avoid any further polemic, I will stop with this communication, though I still hope that this message may have a positive effect on you.

Sincerely,
M. Cherif Bassiouni

I responded in haste with this:

Dear Professor Bassiouni:

Your a priori assumption that I am engaged in a campaign of "hate," when I am careful in every respect to be scrupulously accurate in what I write about Islam, forecloses any possibility of fruitful dialogue. It is not "hate" to report accurately on how Islamic jihadists use Islamic texts and teachings to justify violence against non-Muslims, and I think you well know that. If you want actual "hate," go to those who kill unbelievers and oppress women in the name of Sharia. Your efforts would be much more fruitfully directed against them than against me, who am simply trying to defend the equality of rights of women with men, freedom of speech, and other rights denied by traditional Sharia.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

But there are a few more observations that must be made about Professor Bassiouni's extraordinarily abusive, defamatory and arrogant email.

1. "Thank you for your email of 8/13/09 in response to mine. You had asked for permission to print my letter, but you went ahead and did it without my permission so, obviously, you are no longer seeking my permission." Quite so. My emails have been published all over the place -- usually selectively, with key edits -- while I published Professor Bassiouni's in full. When I have protested against this, the email publishers have explained that I am a public figure, and hence my opinions and writings are a matter of public information, and that if I believe what I say in my emails, I should stand by it. Fair enough. No less should be expected of Professor Bassiouni.

2. All the business about my sowing "hate" -- by reporting on how jihadists commit violence and justify violence by pointing to Islamic texts and teachings -- is the same old tired game of defamation that CAIR and others play so often. It is a game of deflection. Imagine someone in 1942 saying that Churchill and Roosevelt were sowing "hate" by pointing out Nazi atrocities. Which side do you think such a person would have been on? It is not fostering "hate" to expose the terrible cost of Islamic law and to call for self-examination and self-criticism among Muslims. But Professor Bassiouni's reaction shows why there is no such self-examination and self-criticism among them.

3. "All three Abrahamic faiths, as well as other belief systems, conceive of a single humankind, making us all brothers and sisters in this humanity. There is no superior or inferior human being and certainly it is against any belief in God and moral/ethical values to dehumanize a person or demonize a person for his/her beliefs or otherwise." Professor Bassiouni is quite right, of course, that there is no superior or inferior human being. Yet Professor Bassioni's own Qur'an teaches that the unbelievers are "the most vile of created beings" (98:6) -- and Muslims around the world act upon that assumption in myriad ways every day. What is he doing to stop them? Anything? Or does he become concerned only when an unbeliever dares to point out that Qur'anic statement, and the manifest fact (just scan Jihad Watch on any given day) that Muslims act upon it?

4. "To the best of my knowledge, I don’t know of any organization having a campaign similar to yours aimed at discrediting a major religion and its followers." Of course, I have no such campaign. If anyone is discrediting Islam, it is the Muslims who -- all in the name of Islam and in accord with Islamic teachings, murder, maim, stone, burn, and threaten others. Once again we see an Islamic spokesman taking umbrage not with those Muslims, but with non-Muslims who dare to point out that it is happening. We have seen this before in the case of Geert Wilders, who was accused of "linking Islam with terrorism" in his film Fitna. The Organization of the Islamic Conference and his other detractors conveniently ignored, of course, that it was the Muslim hate preachers depicted in the film who had made that link, not Wilders.

5. "There were different views on the matter between the late 7th and 12th centuries. Since then, Ijtihad, which means making the effort to think (much as the word jihad means making an effort) has been stopped by theological fiat." How very interesting! In 2007, in discussions with Islamic apologist Ali Eteraz, I was called an ignorant Islamophobe for pointing out that the gate of ijtihad was closed. Will Eteraz now call M. Cherif Bassiouni an ignorant Islamophobe? Time will tell!

6. In the email to Professor Bassiouni that I published here, I pointed out his contradiction in claiming that "a Muslim’s conversion to Christianity is not a crime punishable by death under Islamic law” and then saying: "I and a number of other distinguished Muslim scholars have long criticized the views of the four traditional Sunni schools." Why does he oppose the views of the schools if Islamic law doesn't mandate death for apostasy? In the letter above he clarifies this by saying that "the interpretations which took place after the Prophet’s death were not the correct ones." Very well. That means that the four madhahib -- schools of jurisprudence -- misinterpreted the Qur'an and Muhammad when they codified the death penalty for apostates.

Thus if he had said that "a Muslim's conversion to Christianity is not a crime punishable by death under Islamic law when that law is properly formulated," or that "a Muslim's conversion to Christianity is not a crime punishable by death according to the Qur'an," or even "a Muslim's conversion to Christianity is not a crime punishable by death under Islamic law rightly understood," there would have been no contradiction. But to say that "a Muslim’s conversion to Christianity is not a crime punishable by death under Islamic law” is false and misleading, because Islamic law flows from the schools, and as Bassiouni himself acknowledges, the schools mandate death for apostates.

Thus it was completely reasonable of me to call his statement "deceptive," as Professor Bassiouni has himself indirectly confirmed its deceptiveness in his latest email.

7. "That doesn’t make me 'deceptive' nor does it make me an 'apologist.' These are two terms you have used to describe me, which are defamatory. (Whether you see fit to publish a retraction or apology will demonstrate your good faith.)"

I just explained why his statement was deceptive. As for "apologist," the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the word as "one who speaks or writes in defense of someone or something." It's defamatory to say that he writes in defense of something? Also, for someone to liken me to Josef Goebbels and genocidal African tribesmen, essentially accuse me of inciting to genocide (while ignoring the murderous actions of his coreligionists, performed in the name of his religion), and then claim that it is I who am defaming him is...rich.

My invitation to debate still stands, but as you can see, M. Cherif Bassiouni, despite his immense learning and many honors, is, like his coreligionists at CAIR and elsewhere, unwilling to stand and defend his faith against my alleged attacks upon it. I suspect that that is because he, like Honest Ibe Hooper and Brave Ahmed Rehab at CAIR, knows full well that everything I say about Islam comes not from me but from the mouths of Islamic clerics and the words of Islamic texts, and they can't stand the thought of Infidels discovering that fact.

(Many thanks to Pamela Geller for pointing out some of the elements of my reply here.)

Yet another honor killing, while ignorant American officials doubt the possibility that such a thing could happen in the United States.

In 2003 the Jordanian Parliament voted down on Islamic grounds a provision designed to stiffen penalties for honor killings. Al-Jazeera reported that "Islamists and conservatives said the laws violated religious traditions and would destroy families and values."

"Woman who wed without permission killed," from Agence France-Presse, August 14 (thanks to PRCS):

A MAN has been charged with shooting dead his pregnant sister for marrying without family permission, after luring her to another brother's wedding in a conspiracy with him, police say.

"The 30-year-old suspect shot his 23-year-old pregnant sister, who worked as a nurse, four times in the head and other parts of her body on Wednesday, while she was attending the wedding of another brother," a police spokesman said today.

"The mother of a baby boy got married two years ago without the family's permission after she ran away from home" in Madaba, south of the capital Amman, he said.

Police said that the woman's brothers "agreed to kill her in revenge".

"The men assured their sister that she would not be hurt and lured her to attend the wedding. The suspect killed her there, while her other two brothers severely beat the husband," the source said.

The key suspect has been charged with premeditated murder, and the other two as accessories.

Murder is punishable by the death penalty in Jordan, but in the case of so-called "honour killings", a court usually commutes or reduces sentences, particularly if the victim's family urges leniency.

About 15 to 20 women are murdered each year in Jordan in the name of honour, despite government efforts to fight such crimes. Parliament has refused to reform the penal code to ensure harsher penalties....

The latest from 196.201.207.17:

Subject line: "How long will Spencer Be free":

Spencer is one of World ZION conspirer against ISLAM.

It is not a big deal to deal with SPENCER and I hope in one day he will lick the wounds resulted by his DEEDs.

you hate against Islam will never work since this REligion is ALLAH'Religion.

You are not more than Abu-JAHAL and ABU-LAHAB who did so many things against the Prophet MOHAMED Peace and blessings of Allah be up on Him for EVER. Hate it or Not.

Abu Lahab was Muhammad's uncle, cursed in the Qur'an: "Perish the hands of the Father of Flame [Abu Lahab]! Perish he! No profit to him from all his wealth, and all his gains! Burnt soon will he be in a Fire of Blazing Flame! His wife shall carry the (crackling) wood as fuel! A twisted rope of palm-leaf fibre round her (own) neck!" (111:1-5)

Abu Jahl was another man whom Muhammad considered an enemy. Abu Jahl’s crime? One of his Muslim murderers explained: “I have been informed that he abuses Allah’s Apostle.” When he heard about the murder, Muhammad was concerned not with it, but merely with the proper distribution of the spoils: “Allah’s Apostle asked, ‘Which of you has killed him?’ Each of them said, ‘I have killed him.’ Allah’s Apostle asked, ‘Have you cleaned your swords?’ They said, ‘No.’ He then looked at their swords and said, ‘No doubt, you both have killed him and the spoils of the deceased will be given to Mu’adh bin ‘Amr bin Al-Jamuh,’” who was one of the murderers. (Bukhari 4.53.369)

Mom and Dad

Rifqa Bary says: "And I had a laptop and he took that laptop and waved it in the air and he was about to beat me with it, and he said, 'If you have this Jesus in your heart, you’re dead to me. You’re not my daughter.' And I refused to speak but he said, 'I will kill you. Tell me the truth.' In these words, bad words, cuss words. So I knew that I had to get away."

Her father says: "Whether she is Christian or whatever religion she adopts, that's O.K. Basically, we want our daughter back."

So it's her word against his. Will Mohamed Bary murder his daughter, or bring about her death? Of course there is no way of knowing. But we do know some things:

1. Mohamed Bary and his wife, pictured above, appear to be devout, observant Muslims -- Mrs. Bary, after all, has her head covered, indicating that they respect at least some, if not all, Islamic laws.
2. Apostasy is a capital crime according to all the Islamic schools of jurisprudence, so that it is not unreasonable to believe that devout Muslims would object to the conversion to Christianity of their daughter, and desire her death.
3. Other Muslim fathers, as Pamela points out here, have appeared to be credible, gentle fellows as they lured their wayward daughters back home -- after they had run away in fear for their lives. And then once they were back home, they murdered them.

In light of those facts, the court would be foolish in the extreme, when it convenes again on August 21, to expose Rifqa Bary to risk. There is no doubt that this would not be done in other child welfare cases -- any reasonable suspicion that the child could be in physical danger is acted upon immediately, and the child removed from the home. For what conceivable reason should this case be different?

And the answer, of course, is Islamophobophobia -- the fear of appearing to be "Islamophobic." For that, Rifqa Bary could be sent to her death.

"Father of Muslim teen who converted and fled to Florida: I did not threaten my daughter," by Rene Stutzman and Amy L. Edwards for the Orlando Sentinel, August 13 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The father of an Ohio teenager who ran away to Florida, saying she was afraid her father would kill her for converting from Islam to Christianity, on Thursday said he loves his daughter and wants her to come home.

"Whether she is Christian or whatever religion she adopts, that's O.K," said Mohamed Bary. "Basically, we want our daughter back."

Fathima Rifqa Bary, who turned 17 this week, is currently in foster care. An Orlando judge on Monday ordered her placed with the Florida Department of Children & Families until social workers can figure out where she belongs and if her home in Columbus, Ohio, is safe.

Another hearing is set for Aug. 21....

But her father on Thursday said he never threatened to kill his daughter.

She had a falling out with her mother the night before she disappeared, he said. He was out of town.

Rifqa had gone out without permission, was gone more than three hours, and when she came home, her mother scolded her and told her that because of her behavior, the whole family might have to return to their native Sri Lanka, Mohamed Bary said.

His wife was upset and there were no plans to leave the U.S., Mohamed Bary said, but that apparently frightened his daughter.

His family, Mohamed Bary said, was a normal one. They attended mosque as a family from time to time, he said.

His daughter was an excellent student, a cheerleader in a prestigious school in Columbus who got A's and B's. She wanted to go to college and become a nurse, he said.

"Basically, the last two months, her behavior has changed a lot," he said. "She won't talk to us much."

She began to study the Bible and Christianity, he said. When he discovered that, he encouraged her to study Islam, he said. After that, he said he told her, "You can study whatever you want and decide what is good for you."

The Barys' court-appointed Orlando attorney, Craig McCarthy, Thursday said the girl's parents "didn't do or say anything that would give her a reasonable fear that her dad was going to kill her."

McCarthy also said the girl didn't tell anyone she was frightened while living at home. They reported her missing immediately and didn't know her whereabouts for weeks.

That was a terrible stretch of time, her father said.

Sgt. Jerry Cupp, who heads the missing-persons unit at the Columbus Police Department, said he does not think the girl's father is a threat.

Cupp said the family left Sri Lanka a decade ago so their daughter could be treated for blindness in her right eye.

"All I'm picking up is love for his daughter and he wants her to be safe," he said....

"Equality," of course, can only mean the equal accountability of Muslim men before the law, because Sharia is not designed to provide the same for women or unbelievers. And by their nature, theocracies do not lend themselves to accountability due to the sense of entitlement to rule, and the paternalistic "government knows best" attitude that clerics and politicians can invoke holy writ to support.

Aside from that, two themes in this article are worth noting: The first is that it is the poor implementation of Sharia that is the root of the problem. Sharia's legitimacy cannot be questioned: It is "good" because divine law has to be good (otherwise, one has crafted a deity worthy of being portrayed on screen by John Malkovich), and of course, the deity in charge has the last word on goodness.

In a related vein, there is the unshakeable belief among Muslims in this article-- one that is widely transmitted to naïve multiculturalists in the West -- that the "good" Sharia has to be out there, somewhere. And maybe, if we try it here, this time will be the one that works; that assessment is always subject yet again to the circular reasoning described in the preceding paragraph.

The alternative, and more realistic assessment of the situation in Nigeria is that any implementation of Sharia -- even a supposedly diluted, de-fanged version -- is a slippery slope toward the rest of the package: Theocratic systems do not lend themselves to partial implementation, and despite the fact that its supporters act as though there is nothing inherently wrong with the system, any Sharia is a ticking time bomb for civil rights and liberties -- because after all, the people in power are in agreement that it is "good."

And at the end of the day, power corrupts. So it should be no surprise that Sharia has only shifted around corruption in northern Nigeria rather than solving it.

"In Nigeria, Sharia Fails to Deliver," by Karin Brulliard for the Washington Post, August 12:

KANO, Nigeria -- As military rule ended in Nigeria a decade ago, an Islamic legal system was swept into place on a wave of popular support in the country's desperately poor and mostly Muslim northern states. It has turned out in a way few expected.

The draconian amputation sentences warned of by human rights activists and the religious oppression feared by Christians have mostly not come to pass. But neither has the utopia envisioned by backers of sharia law, who believed politicians' promises that it would end decades of corruption and pillaging by civilian and military rulers. The people are still poor and miserable, residents complain, and politicians are still rich.

Mostly? Some would beg to differ. How much violent intolerance is trivial?

How the battles over sharia play out could have effects beyond Nigeria, a nation pivotal to West Africa's stability and viewed by the United States as key to stopping the spread of religious extremism in Africa. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to discuss the issue with Nigerian leaders on a visit to the country this week.

"People want sharia. But not this kind of sharia," said Ahmad Al-Khanawy, 41, a reed-thin filmmaker, adding that the most visible signs of Islamic law are new censorship rules banning dancing and singing in movies made in Kannywood, as this city's film industry is known. Sharia-promoting politicians, he said, "want to cover their failure by making noise about fighting immorality. That is it."

Nigeria's moderate form of sharia may not have delivered a Muslim revolution, but it has fueled a growing disillusionment that analysts say has weakened public faith in democracy -- and could, if unchecked, spark religious militancy. That prospect was highlighted last month when a radical Islamist sect called Boko Haram attacked security forces in northern Nigeria, triggering violence that killed more than 700 people. The group draws its members from the ranks of frustrated youths.

Hence the slippery slope: Partial Sharia is a foot in the door, creating an opening for the rest of it -- or else.

"Sharia is about justice. Where you have sharia, you have development," said Salisu Saidu, 32, standing amid the leather bags he sells in Kano's labyrinthine market. "Nothing has changed. If one relied on tap water, one would die of thirst. We don't even talk of electricity."

Islam has dominated in this region on the edge of the Sahara for centuries, in a tenuous coexistence with the Christianity that is prevalent in more prosperous southern Nigeria. When Kano and 11 other northern states that had long applied Islamic law to civil cases adopted sharia for criminal matters, clashes broke out between Christians and Muslims. Early on, several sentences of death by stoning for female adulterers -- never carried out -- and the amputation of two men's hands for theft drew international condemnation.

This is a pattern we have seen across the Islamic world. International scrutiny and bad press have a way of causing a temporary softening of Sharia for public consumption.

And the article goes on like this, though with a nod to the oppression of Christians is so blithely dismissed earlier. Read it all.

"The attack occurred at 8:30 in the morning as people were heading to work and was particularly disturbing given the beefed-up security in Kabul ahead of the August 20 presidential and provincial elections..."

"Blast in Kabul kills 7, injures dozens," from CNN, August 15:

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- A suicide car bombing exploded outside the NATO headquarters in Afghanistan early Saturday, killing seven people and injuring 91 just five days before the country holds presidential elections, an Interior Ministry spokesman said

The massive bomb detonated near the main gate of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) headquarters. Among the wounded were several coalition service members, according to ISAF.

The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack, an ISAF spokesman told CNN.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the front-runner in the polls, condemned the bombing.

"The enemies of Afghanistan, through such attacks in the run-up to the elections, want to spread terror among people, but they must know that Afghans are fully aware of the value of the elections and will cast their votes for the sake of security and peace in their country," Karzai said in a statement.

But Ferishta, 21, who like many Afghans gives out only her first name, was deterred.

"After seeing today's events, I have no intention in voting," she said, wearing a blood-soaked shirt and connected to an intravenous drip. "If we are not at peace, why should we vote, who should we vote for?"

One witness at the scene told CNN the explosion left a huge crater and damaged a coalition forces' vehicle. Billowing smoke rose over the city. [...]

The attack occurred at 8:30 in the morning as people were heading to work and was particularly disturbing given the beefed-up security in Kabul ahead of the August 20 presidential and provincial elections, only the second since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001.

The area around the ISAF headquarters is heavily fortified with concrete blast barriers and extra security forces.

Security has been a key concern as Afghans prepare to go to the polls next week. The Taliban has vowed to disrupt the voting....

In other words, violent jihad is still a noble undertaking in the eyes of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) -- just not in Indonesia, not now, while it's bad for business in the wake of last month's hotel bombings. Note also the implied distinction between jihad and "terrorism," which the FPI says it expects the government to keep a lid on for Ramadan.

Never mind that the FPI has done its fair share to spread terror around Indonesia among religious minorities. But Ramadan -- that can't be disturbed, of course. "FPI ready to fight terrorists," by Andi Hajramurni for the Jakarta Post, August 14:

Hard-line Muslim group the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) in eastern part of Indonesia denounced on Friday acts of terrorism and declared their readiness to help fight terror suspects on the run.

Translations of the group's name vary slightly: Sometimes they're the Islamic Defender Front as well.

The group’s leader, Habib Mahmud bin Umar Al Hamid, said terrorism went against Islam, which promotes peace.

He said a terror group would find it difficult to develop if people did not give any room for them to spread their teachings.

“If people are united and support the government, police and military, terrorists will find no opportunity to strike. Therefore we call on people to fight terrorism.”

He said the FPI was against violence and could not accept the use of violence in the name of religion in the country.

“Indonesia is a peaceful country and does not need jihadists anymore. Those who want to fight for Islam can go to the battlefields in Palestine or Iraq.”

He said the FPI expected the government to ensure no violence occurred during Ramadan fasting month, so that Muslims could conduct their religious duties untroubled.

Everyone else, not so much.

Wasting law enforcement money and time -- which is a jihad in its own right.

"Man charged in false terrorism report," from the Chicago Tribune, August 15 (thanks to James):

A Chicago man has been charged with three counts of making false statements for allegedly lying to the FBI about a terrorism plot, federal authorities said Friday.

Uzair Ali Hashmi, 20, a college student, allegedly told FBI agents he had been approached by someone who asked about whether he carried a firearm and about his opinions about a "homegrown jihad," according to a news release from the U.S. attorney's office.

Hashmi also allegedly said he was asked about his knowledge of downtown Chicago and that the person suggested he join "God's military." He also provided the FBI with a fabricated letter with more language about "jihad," according to the release....

Objects of desire

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

"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." -- Muhammad (Bukhari 4.54.460)

"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." -- Muhammad (Ibn Majah 1854)

Won't Sharia in the West be grand?

"Afghanistan passes 'barbaric' law diminishing women's rights: Rehashed legislation allows husbands to deny wives food if they fail to obey sexual demands," by Jon Boone in the Guardian, August 14 (thanks to Block Ness):

Afghanistan has quietly passed a law permitting Shia men to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands' sexual demands, despite international outrage over an earlier version of the legislation which President Hamid Karzai had promised to review.

The new final draft of the legislation also grants guardianship of children exclusively to their fathers and grandfathers, and requires women to get permission from their husbands to work.

"It also effectively allows a rapist to avoid prosecution by paying 'blood money' to a girl who was injured when he raped her," the US charity Human Rights Watch said.

In early April, Barack Obama and Gordon Brown joined an international chorus of condemnation when the Guardian revealed that the earlier version of the law legalised rape within marriage, according to the UN.

Although Karzai appeared to back down, activists say the revised version of the law still contains repressive measures and contradicts the Afghan constitution and international treaties signed by the country.

Islamic law experts and human rights activists say that although the language of the original law has been changed, many of the provisions that alarmed women's rights groups remain, including this one: "Tamkeen is the readiness of the wife to submit to her husband's reasonable sexual enjoyment, and her prohibition from going out of the house, except in extreme circumstances, without her husband's permission. If any of the above provisions are not followed by the wife she is considered disobedient."

The law has been backed by the hardline Shia cleric Ayatollah Mohseni, who is thought to have influence over the voting intentions of some of the country's Shias, which make up around 20% of the population. Karzai has assiduously courted such minority leaders in the run up to next Thursday's election, which is likely to be a close run thing, according to a poll released yesterday....

Israel hit a mosque in Gaza that was being used to store weapons, and the international condemnation was fierce. Somehow I doubt that those who were so angry about that attack on a mosque will be upset about this one at all. More on this story. "Mosque gun battle rages in Gaza," from the BBC, August 14 (thanks to Dupont):

At least six people have been killed and dozens injured in a fierce gun battle in Gaza, emergency services say.

Eyewitnesses say hundreds of Hamas fighters and policemen surrounded then raided a mosque where followers of a radical Islamist cleric were holed up.

They had fired rocket-propelled grenades at the mosque in Rafah, near the Egyptian border, witnesses say.

It is thought that at least 100 supporters of the al-Qaeda-linked group, Jund Ansar Allah, were inside.

Hamas said a grenade fired from the mosque killed one of its fighters. The other fatalities were reported to be gunmen, and a child was also killed.

Fighting pledge

Earlier, during Friday prayers, hundreds of worshippers at Ibn-Taymiyah mosque declared Gaza an "Islamic emirate".

The mosque's imam - Abdul-Latif Moussa - and armed supporters swore to fight to the death rather than hand over authority of the mosque to Hamas.

Jund Ansar Allah (Army of the Helpers of God) gained some prominence two months ago when it staged a failed attack on a border crossing between Gaza and Israel.

The group is very critical of Hamas, which governs Gaza, accusing the Islamist group of not being Islamist enough....

"I would have such a fellow whipped for overdoing Termagant; it out-Herods Herod: pray you, avoid it."

Anyway, I guess now Hamas is officially and undeniably "moderate." Let the jizya flow!

White racism, of course, is utterly wrong and should everywhere be opposed. The question here is whether white racists really constitute a greater threat to Britain than do Islamic jihadists. I am having some trouble remembering what terror attacks white racists have launched recently in the U.K. or anywhere else.

"We’ll ease up on Muslim fanatics," by David Wooding in The Sun, August 10 (thanks to all who sent this in):

LABOUR slammed the brakes on its war against violent extremism yesterday - amid fears it had upset Muslim voters.

Millions spent preventing Asian kids becoming terrorists will now be used to tackle right-wing racists in WHITE areas.

Community cohesion minister Shahid Malik admitted he was softening his stance because Muslims felt stigmatised.

But a former Labour aide called the move a "dangerous dilution" of the Government's counter-terrorism strategy.

Tories branded it a shameless bid to win back Muslim voters who deserted Labour over Iraq and Afghanistan.

More than £45million a year has been spent on measures to prevent Al-Qaeda recruiting young Muslims in the UK.

It included action to break up Islamic ghettos and stop university hate preachers.

But Mr Malik, the first British-born Muslim MP, yesterday unveiled plans to broaden the scope of the campaign.

He announced: "We shall be putting a renewed focus on resisting right-wing racist extremism. We cannot dismiss or underestimate the threat."

Mr Malik told Sky News: "You speak to any Muslim in this country and they are as opposed as you and I are to extremism and terrorism.

"The frustration is they are constantly linked with terrorism as a community as a whole."...

Learned analysts are doubting Rifqa Bary's story -- the teenage girl who says her Muslim father threatened to kill her for converting to Christianity. Here is a similar case that buttresses Rifqa's credibility.

"Crown wants taxi union boss jailed for ‘honour crime,’" by Andrew Seymour for The Ottawa Citizen, August 14 (thanks to Heart of a Lioness):

OTTAWA — Crown prosecutors are seeking to send the head of Ottawa’s taxi union to jail for up to two years, alleging that a campaign of threatening and intimidating behaviour directed toward his daughter after she turned her back on the family’s Muslim beliefs was an honour crime.

Yusef Al Mezel’s threat of an honour killing was designed to “control and dominate” his then-23-year-old daughter, Eman Al Mezel, by suggesting she had brought shame upon her family that would be met with violent consequences, assistant Crown attorney James Cavanagh argued during a sentencing hearing Thursday.

Al Mezel, who pleaded guilty to criminal harassment last September, was trying to deny his daughter “every basic freedom as to how she could live her life,” Cavanagh said, the result of an “underlying notion of patriarchal dominance” based on a “perverted and archaic belief in family honour.”

“When she wouldn’t bend to his will ... he raised the spectre of violence in the name of honour to scare her into complying with his wishes,” said Cavanagh, who urged Ontario Superior Court Justice Lynn Ratushny to sentence the 44-year-old president of the Canadian Autoworkers Local 1688 to 18 to 24 months behind bars.

Al Mezel admitted he repeatedly called, wrote, followed and visited the residences of Eman Al Mezel in July 2007 in an attempt to get his daughter to return home after a violent incident where he pushed her into a flight of stairs and threatened to break her legs and kill her before smashing her computer.

Addressing the court, Al Mezel said hearing the prosecutor’s allegations that he committed an honour crime was like “listening to evil from another world.”

“It is not my world,” Al Mezel told the judge, adding that the Crown’s accusations that he would commit such an act were being cast with a “broad brush” and left him and his reputation tainted with “very ugly paint.”

“What I hear today is something I never lived in, something I never believed in,” he said....

Of course not!

In one of the e-mails, Al Mezel tells his daughter, who was living with a male friend and his family, that they could no longer “hide the problem” from her uncles and cousins and that he could not guarantee the “safety of anyone” if she didn’t return home.

“Eman, you know when everyone hear about, they will react crazy, and no one will care about police or other thing, you know your family,” read the e-mail.

“Please Eman, help to solve it without harm to any one. You should care about the family you live with, you don’t want your uncles and cousins at the door of the apartment, please we don’t need more problems.”

In the message, he wrote of “the Sharaf of the family,” which Eman Al Mezel later explained to police was the belief that because she had run away from home and shed her hijab and Muslim beliefs, she had “shamed and dishonoured her family.” At the time, her father was also arranging to have her married to a Syrian man she didn’t want to marry.

The only way to restore the family’s honour, according to Eman Al Mezel, would have been to kill her, an act usually carried out by the father or uncles.

Court heard Eman Al Mezel and the family she had been staying with were moved out of Ottawa by police over concerns for their safety and have never returned.

Al Mezel insisted he was concerned about a daughter he loves and “absolutely” didn’t mean what he wrote....

Of course not!

Although Hamas is determined to implement Sharia in Gaza, some Muslims there are getting impatient. More on this story. "Pro-Qaeda group declares 'Islamic emirate' in Gaza," by Nidal al-Mughrabi for Reuters, August 14 (thanks to James):

GAZA (Reuters) - Islamist radicals from a Palestinian group called Jund Ansar Allah defied the Hamas rulers of Gaza on Friday by declaring an "Islamic emirate" in the territory and staging a defiant display of arms.

Though the "Warriors of God" rallied only a few hundred men for their planned event at a Gaza mosque, it was the latest challenge to Hamas's nationalist brand of Palestinian Islam by groups espousing a pan-Arab militancy aligned with al Qaeda.

Speaking before weekly prayers Abdel-Latif Moussa -- known to his followers by the al Qaeda-style nom de guerre Abu al-Nour al-Maqdessi -- announced the start of theocratic rule in the Palestinian territories, starting at Rafah where he lives on Gaza's border with Egypt. He vowed to implement Islamic laws.

"We declare the birth of the Islamic Emirate," declared Maqdessi, a heavily-bearded, middle-aged cleric in a red robe who was guarded by four black-clad, masked men with assault rifles. One wore what appeared to be an explosive suicide belt.

An audience of several hundred men filled the mosque with cheers and shouts. Al Qaeda uses the historical term "emirate" to mean clerical rule across the Islamic world.

Ismail Haniyeh, who heads Gaza's Hamas government, denied in his Friday sermon that there were any non-Palestinian gunmen in the territory, as alleged by Israel which charges that veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken up residence.

"Such groups do not exist on the soil of the Gaza Strip ... there are no fighters in Gaza except Gazan fighters," he said.

Such "Zionist propaganda" from Israel was simply an attempt to turn the world against Hamas, he said....

What an opportunity M. Cherif Bassiouni provided. And Robert Spencer was akin to that Robber Baron of the Mauve Decade who proudly explained, “I sees my opportunities, and I took ‘em.”

The amazing exchange between M. Cherif Bassiouni, Distinguished Research Professor of Law Emeritus and President Emeritus, International Human Rights Law Institute, DePaul University, and Robert Spencer would fill any polemicist with envy. Rich in years and honors and worldly acclaim and so on and so forth he may be, but still the not-quite-candid-and-more-than-slightly-confused M. Cherif Bassiouni has just seen his own polemic carefully taken apart, in public (“in the full light of history”), with the resulting parts then held up for examination and silent -- there is no need for sound effects here, the sound can be turned off -- ridicule.

Spencer’s reply to him is unanswerable. He has no answer. He must now remain silent. And if he still has some of his wits about him, he must at this point be truly mortified. For what can he say? He's one of those eminences so used to being an eminence, he can't quite fathom those who do not yield to his (to him) self-evident authority and rank, and who demand of him such things as truthfulness, logic, consistency -- you know, stuff like that. He expects, but in this case did not receive, the accustomed salaam-salaaming of everyone. I could have told him -- I happen to know -- that Robert Spencer is no respecter of parsons. We're in America now, and the Argument From Authority (I'm the famous legal scholar, you have to defer to me) cuts no ice here. The same intellectual standards are required for all. And M. Cherif Bassiouni is clearly no Lauterpacht, or De Visscher, or -- nota bene -- Julius Stone.

As predicted many times here, the jihad is back on in Iraq, now that the Americans are not there in numbers sufficient to keep a lid on it.

"Suicide bombers kill 21 in northern Iraq," by Jamal al-Badrani for Reuters, August 13 (thanks to Maxwell):

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - Two suicide bombers detonated vests packed with explosives in a cafe in a town near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Thursday, killing 21 people, a health official said, the latest attack in a restive region.

There has been a series of high-profile bombings in and around Mosul in the past fortnight and the U.S. military said on Tuesday that a resilient al Qaeda had set off a string of deadly blasts.

Thursday's attack took place in Sinjar, 390 km (240 miles) northwest of Baghdad, a town whose inhabitants are members of a pre-Islamic Kurdish sect called Yazidis who live in northern Iraq and Syria.

An attack on the Yazidi community two years ago was one of the deadliest bomb attacks in Iraq since the start of 2007, killing and wounding nearly 800 people.

Bombings and shootings are reported almost daily in and around Mosul, the capital of the northern province of Nineveh, where insurgents have exploited disputes between Arabs and Kurds over territory and oil to remain effective....

Foreign jihadists in Gaza? A Zionist invention!

"Deposed Hamas PM accuses Israel of incitement against Gaza," from Xinhua, August 14 (thanks to James):

GAZA, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- Ismail Haneya, deposed premier of Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip, accused Israel on Friday of inciting against Gaza by claiming that radical Islamic extremists are active in the enclave.

Haneya denied Israeli reports saying that Arab and foreign Islamic extremists close to the Jihad group managed recently to sneak into the Gaza Strip and carry out military activities in the area.

"(There are) no foreign fanatic organizations or groups in the Gaza Strip that act against the Americans," Haneya said during Friday's prayer at one of the mosques in northern Gaza Strip. "Gaza doesn't need men, it has its own," he added.

Haneya considered the report as "an attempt to bring about an international coalition against Gaza. It also reflects an Israeli standoff in how to deal with the Gaza Strip."...

Professor Bassiouni, call your office! Muslims are Misunderstanding Islam in huge numbers!

The Pew researchers are happy that the Pakistanis are worried about "extremism," but given their attitudes toward traditional Islamic laws regarding apostasy, stoning, and more, it is clear that the Pakistanis surveyed have a very different idea of what constitutes "extremism" from what the Pew folks probably have in mind.

"Pakistani Public Opinion: Growing Concerns about Extremism, Continuing Discontent with U.S.," from the Pew Global Attitudes Project, August 13 (thanks to all who sent this in):

[...] A long-standing concern about Islamic extremism has grown even greater over the past year. No fewer than 69% of the Pakistanis questioned worry that extremists could take control of the country. At the same time, indifference and mixed opinions about both al Qaeda and the Taliban have given way to a strong condemnation of both groups. In 2008, just 33% held a negative view of the Taliban; today, 70% rate it unfavorably. Similarly, the percentage of Pakistanis with an unfavorable opinion of al Qaeda has jumped from 34% to 61% in the last year.

However, growing concern about Islamic extremism has not resulted in an improved view of the United States. Opinions of America and its people remain extremely negative. Barack Obama's global popularity is not evident in Pakistan, and America's image remains as tarnished in that country as it was in the Bush years. Only 22% of Pakistanis think the U.S. takes their interests into account when making foreign policy decisions, essentially unchanged from 21% since 2007. Fully 64% of the public regards the U.S. as an enemy, while only 9% describe it as a partner.

Further, many express serious concerns about the U.S.-led effort to combat terrorism, both globally and in Pakistan specifically. In particular, many who are aware of the drone strikes targeting extremist leaders believe these strikes are causing too many civilian deaths and are being carried out by the U.S. without the consent of the Pakistani government....

Long-running concerns about India are also reflected in the poll. The dispute between Pakistan and India over Kashmir is cited as a major problem facing the country by no fewer than 88%. And growing worries about extremism notwithstanding, more Pakistanis judge India as a very serious threat to the nation (69%) than regard the Taliban (57%) or al Qaeda (41%) as very serious threats. Most Pakistanis see the U.S. as on the wrong side of this issue: by a margin of 54% to 4% the U.S. is seen as favoring India over Pakistan....

One of the ironies in the survey is the extent to which Pakistanis embrace some of the severe laws associated with the Taliban and al Qaeda, even as they reject Islamic extremism and these extremist groups. The new poll finds broad support for harsh punishments: 78% favor death for those who leave Islam; 80% favor whippings and cutting off hands for crimes like theft and robbery; and 83% favor stoning adulterers.

Pakistani public opinion departs significantly from the Taliban on the issues of girls' education and extremist violence. As many as 87% of Pakistanis believe it is equally important for boys and girls to be educated. The poll also finds that support for suicide bombing that targets civilians in defense of Islam remains very low. Only 5% of Pakistani Muslims believe these kinds of attacks can often or sometimes be justified; as recently as 2004 roughly four-in-ten (41%) held this view. Fully 87% now say such attacks can never be justified – the highest percentage among the Muslim publics included in the 2009 survey....

"We support Osama bin Laden, we shall carry out his command in Nigeria until the country is totally Islamised which is according to the wish of Allah."

Statement below is reproduced without correction for spelling or grammar.

Education Is Sin Update: "Boko Haram ressurects [sic], declares total Jihad," from Vanguard, August 14 (thanks to James):

The Islamic sect Boko Haram has declared total Jihad in Nigeria, threatening to Islamise the entire nation by force of war.

In a statement dated August 9, 2009 and made available to Vanguard, the sect whose activities led to the lost of hundreds of lives in northern Nigeria recently declared that their leader Yusuf who was killed in controversial circumstances during the crisis, lives forever.

In what looked like a declaration of war on the rest of the nation, the Boko Haram sect said it will unleash terror in Southern Nigeria this August, beginning with the bombing of Lagos, Ibadan, Enugu to make good its words.

Vanguard reproduces the statement below as issued by Boko Haram.

WE SPEAK AS BOKO HARAM
For the first time since the Killing of Mallam Mohammed Yusuf, our leader, we hereby make the following statements.

1) First of all that Boko Haram does not in any way mean ‘Western Education is A sin’ as the infidel media continue to portray us. Boko Haram actually means ‘Western Civilisation’ is forbidden. The difference is that while the first gives the impression that we are opposed to formal education coming from the West, that is Europe, which is not true, the second affirms our believe in the supremacy of Islamic culture (not Education), for culture is broader, it includes education but not determined by Western Education.

In this case we are talking of Western Ways of life which include: constitutional provision as if relates to, for instance the rights and privileges of Women, the idea of homosexualism, lesbianism, sanctions in cases of terrible crimes like drug trafficking, rape of infants, multi-party democracy in an overwhelmingly Islamic country like Nigeria, blue films, prostitution, drinking beer and alcohol and many others that are opposed to Islamic civilisation.

2) That the Boko Haram is an Islamic Revolution which impact is not limited to Northern Nigeria, in fact, we are spread across all the 36 states in Nigeria, and Boko Haram is just a version of the Al Qaeda which we align with and respect. We support Osama bin Laden, we shall carry out his command in Nigeria until the country is totally Islamised which is according to the wish of Allah.

3) That Mallam Yusuf has not died in vain and he is a martyr. His ideas will live for ever.

4) That Boko Haram lost over 1000 of our Marty members killed by the wicked Nigerian army and police mostly of Southern Nigeria extraction. That the Southern states, especially the infidel Yoruba, Igbon and Ijaw infidels will be our immediate target.

5) That the killing of our leaders in a callous, wicked and malicious manner will not in any way deter us. They have lost their lives in the struggle for Allah.

Having made the following statement we hereby reinstate our demands:
1) That we have started a Jihad in Nigeria which no force on earth can stop. The aim is to Islamise Nigeria and ensure the rule of the majority Muslims in the country. We will teach Nigeria a lesson, a very bitter one.

2) That from the Month of August, we shall carry out series of bombing in Southern and Northern Nigerian cities, beginning with Lagos, Ibadan, Enugu and Port Harcourt. The bombing will not stop until Sharia and Western Civilisation is wiped off from Nigeria. We will not stop until these evil cities are tuned into ashes.

Obviously they mean to say, "The bombing will not stop until Sharia is imposed and Western Civilisation is wiped off from Nigeria."

3) That we shall make the country ungovernable, kill and eliminate irresponsible political leaders of all leanings, hunt and gun down those who oppose the rule of Sharia in Nigeria and ensure that the infidel does not go unpunished.

4) We promise the West and Southern Nigeria, a horrible pastime. We shall focus on these areas which is the devil empire and has been the one encouraging and sponsoring Western Civilisation into the shores of Nigeria.

5) We call on all Northerners in the Islamic States to quit the follower ship of the wicked political parties leading the country, the corrupt, irresponsible, criminal, murderous political leadership, and join the struggle for Islamic Society that will be corruption free, Sodom free, where security will be guaranteed and there will be peace under Islam.

6) That very soon, we shall stir Lagos, the evil city and Nigeria’s South West and South East, in a way no one has ever done before. Al Hakubarah

ITS EITHER YOU ARE FOR US OR AGAINST US

Mallam Sanni Umaru
Acting Leader Boko Haram
Signed: August 09, 2009

Sauna Jihad. "Growing lawlessness and Islamist violence in Dagestan, Chechnya and neighboring Ingushetia are undermining the Kremlin's control of its southern flank." And yet the Kremlin continues to aid the jihad in Iran.

"Seven women shot dead in Russian sauna," for Reuters, August 14 (thanks to Neil):

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Seven women were shot dead in a sauna in Dagestan and, in separate attacks, eight policemen and two separatists were also killed in Russia's northern Caucasus region late on Thursday, police and media said on Friday.

Growing lawlessness and Islamist violence in Dagestan, Chechnya and neighboring Ingushetia are undermining the Kremlin's control of its southern flank.

The attacks are the latest in a sharp upswing in violence against civilians across the region, where a local minister was shot dead in his office earlier this week.

The seven women were shot by rebels at around the same time as separatists attacked and killed four policemen manning a nearby checkpoint in Buinaksk, a town 41 km (25 miles) from local capital Makhachkala.

"At least four died when they attacked the traffic police. Around the same time they entered the sauna and shot seven women," a spokesman for local police said on Friday. He gave no further details....

"Experts: Many young Muslim terrorists spurred by humiliation," by John Blake for CNN, August 13. That’s the unpromising headline, and you already know, or can just imagine, what kinds of nonsense were spouted, and treated with great respect and seriousness, with no attempt to cross-question by an ill-informed reporter who knows too little to be skeptical, and has no idea what questions he should or could be asking -- if he only knew just a bit more.

For the hapless hopeless John Blake fills out his report for CNN with the diagnosis of “experts” -- Muslims and their non-Muslim collaborators -- who carefully avoid the entire subject of what Islam inculcates, of what is in the Qur’an, Hadith, Sira, of how Muslims are taught to view man, and themselves, and the universe, and Infidels. The subject, you see, is why Muslims become Muslim terrorists, and the last thing in the world that any of these “experts” would wish to be brought up is the subject of Islam, of its effect on the minds of men, on the societies, on the states, where Muslims dominate and Islam rules. No, that is simply, in this ludicrous guide to nothing and nowhere that John Blake of CNN has produced, simply not to be discussed. Islam is, you see, the one subject that is strengst verboten, strictly forbidden, defense d’analyser. Don’t lean out of that particular window: E pericoloso sporgersi.