December 2009 Archives

For a jihadist, nothing says "Happy New Year" like a few drive-by shootings! "Six killed in new attacks in Thai south: police," from AFP, December 31 (thanks to Maxwell):

PATTANI, Thailand -- Suspected Islamist militants killed two soldiers and four civilians in drive-by shootings in the latest violence to rock Thailand's insurgency-hit south, police said Thursday.

More than 4,000 people have been killed and thousands more wounded since a separatist rebellion erupted nearly six years ago in Thailand's troubled provinces bordering Malaysia.

Two members of the rangers security force and a Buddhist civilian were killed Thursday in a drive-by shooting in Narathiwat province by suspected insurgents who also took the troops' assault rifles, police said.

Gunmen on motorbikes shot dead a 42-year-old villager as he drove home in neighbouring Pattani province, also on Thursday, said police.

On Wednesday, motorbike-riding attackers killed a 49-year-old assistant to a village chief in Pattani at a local tea shop, police said.

An hour later a district chief aged 45 was shot dead by gunmen in a pick-up truck while he was driving home from a meeting in Pattani. The shooting also injured two villagers....

And once again Muslim authorities refused to act against the Islamic supremacists. Islamic Tolerance Alert: "Church screening of 'Jesus' film attacked in Pakistan," from The Christian Messenger, December 29 (thanks to Winoceros):

AS many as 50 Muslim villagers armed with clubs and axes recently attacked a showing of the 'Jesus' film near Sargodha, Pakistan, injuring three part-time evangelists and four Christians in attendance.

Two of the evangelists were said to be seriously injured. The Muslim hardliners also damaged a movie projector, burned reels of the film and absconded with the public address system and donations from Christian viewers in Chak village, about 10 kilometers northeast of Sargodha.

Officers at the Saddr police station refused to register a case against the Muslim assailants, sources said....

The evangelists said a Muslim cleric instigated the Muslim villagers, who were armed with clubs, spades and axes.

Clearly this Muslim cleric was a Misunderstander of the Religion of Peace and Tolerance™.

Megachurch Pastor Rick Warren Asks for Urgent Donations

"With 10 percent of our church family out of work due to the recession, our expenses in caring for our community in 2009 rose dramatically while our income stagnated," says Rick Warren.

Say, Rick, if you're that hard up, why don't you ask your pals the Saudis for some cash?

Rick Warren to address Hamas-linked, Muslim Brotherhood-linked unindicted co-conspirators

Rick Warren in Inauguration prayer: "You are the compassionate, the merciful one..."

Prominent evangelical pastor Rick Warren not sure what he apologized to Muslims for

Purpose-driven dhimmitude

They reject "any literature except the Koran," recalling the immortal phrase attributed to the Caliph Umar (but probably apocryphal), on the occasion of the burning of the library of Alexandria: "If the book agree with the Koran, they are superfluous. If they disagree with the Koran, they are heretical."

"70 dead in clashes in northern Nigeria: Morgue," from AFP, December 30 (thanks to Pamela):

BAUCHI: Dozens more bodies were recovered after violent clashes between security forces and Islamists in northern Nigeria, bringing the death toll to around 70, a count at a hospital morgue showed on Wednesday.

An AFP reporter listed 42 bodies on the floor of the morgue in the city of Bauchi, all with bullet or machete wounds. Another 25 bodies, mostly young people including minors, had been placed in cold storage rooms.

A morgue employee told AFP "the bodies were brought in on Monday" after clashes erupted in Bauchi between suspected members of a radical Islamist sect and security forces.

Police late Monday said 38 people died in the fighting, including three members of the security forces.

Police forces across Africa's most populous country have been placed on high alert in the aftermath of the clashes as part of a bid to forestall further violence.

The Kala-Kato sect, also known as Maitatsine, has been present in several Muslim-dominated states in northern Nigeria for decades.

It led religious uprisings in 1980 and 1992 which claimed thousands of lives in the northern cities of Kano and Yola.

The number of its followers is not known but estimated to run into several thousands....

The Kala-Kato sect rejects modernity, including Western-style education and medicine. It bans television and radio in its members' homes and rejects any literature except the Koran....

Opposing jihad is racism

Of course, we know that all Albanian Muslims are modern, moderate and secular, and so this guy doubtless had some other motive. And maybe he did. But it must be admitted that there is an unusually high correlation between Islamic faith and people who just seem to "snap" and commit random acts of violence. "Finland Mall Rampage: Gunman's Body Found," from SkyNews, December 31:

Police have found the body of a gunman who killed five people in a city near the Finnish capital of Helsinki.

Ibrahim Shkupolli shot dead three men and a woman at a shopping centre in Espoo.

Officers also found the body of a woman in a nearby flat.

It is understood she was the 43-year-old killer's partner and worked at the Sello centre.

Police could not say whether she was killed before or after the gun rampage.

Officers later found the gunman's body.

Shkupolli had a criminal record for firearms offences and was thought to have used a 9mm handgun in the attacks.

Emergency services were called to the mall after shots were heard soon after 10am local time.

Reports said a lone gunman dressed in black had walked through the mall randomly firing at shoppers....

This is the group that held a conference attended by the Flight 253 jihadist.

"Houston-based group hawked Al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki's cds even after Ft. Hood massacre, Undie-bomber attended their "Ilmfest" conference," from The Jawa Report, December 31:

What a small world it is when it comes to domestic terror. CNN reported yesterday that NWA Flight 253 Undie-bomber Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab attended the 16-day "Ilmfest" in Houston sponsored by the Al Maghrib Institute in August 2008 and two other Al Maghrib seminars in London before that (HT: JihadWatch). Al Maghrib trots out Yasir Qadhi to claim he's shocked, SHOCKED! to see a terrorist associated with their organization (except, oops!, so was convicted terrorist Daniel Maldonado).

But we can report exclusively at the Jawa Report that Qadhi's Houston-based Ilmquest was selling more than a dozen different CD sets by none other than Al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki as recently as last month. Ilmquest continued to hawk Awlaki's wares even after the Ft. Hood massacre, but scrubbed any mention of Awlaki from their site as soon as he was connected to the Ft. Hood incident. Ah, but thanks to Google cache, they couldn't hide all the evidence. A screenshot of Ilmquest's Awlaki offerings is below the fold.

You can find that at Jawa.

Yes, these fine moderate Muslims just happen to be selling CD sets of an Al-Qaeda cleric, and a would-be terrorist attends their events on two different continents and just happens to end up meeting that same Al-Qaeda cleric in Yemen. Will these random coincidences never stop!!!!????

And CNN informs us that Yasir Qadhi was a featured speaker at the U.S. Counter-Radicalization Strategy conference organized by the National Counterterrorism Center in the summer of 2008. The same NCTC that epicly failed to connect the dots on AbdulMutallab.

OK, we're all going to die.

(Ilmquest's Awlaki offerings below the fold, click for a larger image, and thanks to Howie for the graphic magic.)

UPDATE: OK, I can't resist. Here's is the NCTC's "moderate" de-radicalization expert Yasir Qadhi preaching Holocaust denial:

Read it all!

Rocket launcher? Check. Jihadist writings? Check. But no worries -- the Feds found no ties to terrorism!

Keystone Kops Alert from Houston: "Rocket Launcher Found In Apartment: No Charges Filed," from Click2Houston.com, December 31 (thanks to Rich):

HOUSTON -- Police went to a southwest Houston apartment to break up a disturbance but ended up finding something else, KPRC Local 2 reported Wednesday.

A woman called police on Monday and said a man was forcing his way into her apartment in the 5300 block of Elm Street.

When officers went inside, they found something that made them concerned enough to call the bomb squad.

They found an AT-4 shoulder-mounted rocket launcher. It can shoot a missile nearly 1,000 feet through buildings and tanks.

"It gives infantrymen the advantage with an ultra-light weapon that can stop vehicles, armored vehicles as well as main battle tanks and fortifications," said Oscar Saldivar of Top Brass Military and Tactical on the North Freeway.

That type of rocket launcher has been used in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The renter of the apartment didn't want to talk to KPRC Local 2.

"This is my house," the woman said. " Get away from here. I don't want to talk to nobody."

The woman did tell police that the rocket launcher belonged to Nabilaye I. Yansane, someone whom she allowed to store items at her apartment.

Police records show that she didn't want Yansane at her apartment, so she called them.

According to court documents, officers also found Jihadist writings that allegedly belonged to Yansane. The woman didn't want to talk to KPRC Local 2 about that, either.

"I don't know," she said. "You'll have to ask the police."

Yansane was charged with criminal trespassing and pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to three days in jail, which he has already served. No charges related to the rocket launcher or writings were filed.

"Other people could have had access to the apartment, so maybe if a rocket launcher was located there, as is stated in the offense report, maybe it belonged to somebody else," attorney Garl Polland said.

Prosecutors said there are no state charges for having the unarmed launcher or possessing Jihadist writings, unless they contain some type of threat.

The former director of Houston's FBI office said rocket launchers can be dangerous if they're in the wrong hands.

No kidding, really?

"I don't know any other use for those weapons except in combat," Don Clark said. "I've had them in combat, used them in combat. That's what they are used for."

Houston police said they did a thorough investigation and did not find any ties to terrorists or a terrorist network.

What a relief!

Those Christian extremists again, no doubt. "Molotov Cocktail Found In Downtown Parking Garage," from CBS3.com, December 30 (thanks to Pamela):

PHILADELPHIA (CBS 3) ― Philadelphia Police are investigating the discovery of a Molotov cocktail along with anti-Israeli books inside a Center City parking garage.

The discovery was made at about 2:00 p.m. Wednesday inside a garage located at Callowhill and N. 16th Streets. The garage is in close proximity to the office of the Department of Homeland Security and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices.

Police initially responded to a report of a man sleeping next to a suspicious device in the office of the parking garage.

"Before the police arrived, the male left the property. He left behind a Molotov cocktail and literature," Captain Dennis Wilson explained.

Investigators said the man left behind anti-Israel/pro-Palestinian books and documentation, along with an Arabic dictionary....

Captain Wilson said they know exactly who the individual is because he left behind his laptop and his identification....

So far, no arrests have been made.

Why not, if you know who the dude is?

Until just before he embarked upon his great jihad. "Yemen: Visa of Nigerian Would-Be-Bomber Expired," from AP, December 31:

SAN'A, Yemen (AP) -- The Nigerian suspected in the attempted attack on a U.S. airliner had stayed on in Yemen illegally after his visa expired three months ago and should have been stopped by authorities from leaving the country, Yemeni security officials said Thursday.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab spent time in Yemen on two occasions before the attempted Christmas Day attack on a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight.

Yemeni officials said Abdulmutallab's student visa for Yemen, where he studied Arabic at a local language institute, was valid from Aug. 4 to Sept. 21.

After his visa expired, the 23-year-old stayed on in Yemen until the first week in December, they said, but his whereabouts in the country is unknown....

''We arranged a taxi to take him to the airport on Sept. 21 and we said goodbye,'' school director Muhammad al-Anisi told The Associated Press. ''Our responsibility toward him ended that day.''...

Of course. No one has any responsibility for this guy.

"A 'warning' to force the mass exodus of Christians."

"Christian student kidnapped by Islamic group in Mosul," from Asia News, December 30 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

Mosul (AsiaNews) - A Christian girl was kidnapped by an Islamic group while at university. The girl, Sarah Edmond Youhanna, attended the first year of the faculty of education at the University of Mosul. The kidnapping occurred on 28 December. The kidnappers had telephoned the family of the girl and said they were members of an Islamic group. The police have opened an investigation and arrested some students. The event has spread an atmosphere of panic among the many Christian girls who attend the university. In the past, Islamist groups have attacked Christian college girls throwing acid on them because they were wearing makeup or not wearing the veil. Over the past two months in Mosul four churches and a convent of Dominican nuns have been targeted in attacks, several Christian and Muslim homes have been destroyed. Five Christians have been murdered, others are victims of kidnappings. According to the Christian authorities such attacks are targeted and are part of a project of "ethnic cleansing" against the Christian community throughout Iraq.

AsiaNews sources in a city confirm that all these attacks and kidnappings are a "warning" to force the mass exodus of Christians. "The families who have fled to the north, Kurdistan - has confirmed the source - have no work, nor life perspectives. The Christian community is destined to die. "

Thwarting a supremacist power play by the increasingly Islamic government. The government insulted its own constituents' intelligence by claiming that The Herald's use of "Allah" (as has been used in Arabic-speaking lands well before Islam) would confuse Muslims. Of course, the true meaning of the gesture was to portray the non-Muslims' claim to authentic worship of the one, true deity as invalid or tainted. Yes, Qur'an 29:46 says "Our Allah and your Allah is One, and unto Him we surrender," but it is a one-way line of discourse, in a manner in which a non-Muslim would be prohibited under Islamic law from preaching to a Muslim.

An update on this story. "Malaysia court rules right to use the word 'Allah' ," from Agence France-Presse, December 31 (thanks to Twostellas):

KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia's high court ruled Thursday that a Catholic paper had the right to use the word "Allah" after a long-running dispute between the government and the weekly in the Muslim-majority nation.

The ruling overturns the government's controversial threat to cancel The Herald's annual publishing permit.

"The applicant has the constitutional right to use the word 'Allah'," Judge Lau Bee Lan told a packed courtroom, declaring the government's ban on the paper's use of the word "illegal, null and void".

The weekly used the word "Allah" as a translation for "God" in its Malay-language section but the government argued "Allah" should be used only by Muslims.

Lau said the home ministry, which licenses all newspapers in the country, had taken into account "irrelevant considerations" when making the paper's publishing permit conditional on it not using the word.

She said it had shown no evidence that the use of the word by Christians was "a threat to national security".

The Herald's editor, Father Lawrence Andrew, said he was pleased with the decision and the paper would use the word 'Allah' in its upcoming Sunday edition.

"This also means that... the Christian faith can now continue to freely use the word 'Allah'... without any interference from the authorities," he added.

Government lawyers have not yet decided whether to appeal the ruling.

The Herald is printed in four languages, with a circulation of 14,000 copies a week in a country with about 850,000 Catholics.

The court case was among a string of religious disputes that have erupted in recent years, straining relations between Muslim Malays and minority ethnic Chinese and Indians who fear the country is being "Islamised". ....

The reason this keeps happening is, of course, the shared goal among jihadist movements to impose Islamic law. Pakistan raid kills 'Arab, Sudan fighters'," from Agence France-Presse, December 31 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

AFP - Pakistan commandos raided a private hospital before dawn in a Taliban stronghold near the Afghan border Thursday, killing four foreign militants and a woman, officials said.

Troops laid siege to the private clinic in Wana, the main town of South Waziristan, at 2:00am (2100 GMT) sparking gun battles until around 7:00am (0200 GMT), local administration and intelligence officials said.

A security official said the raid followed a tip off that wounded militants were brought to the hospital from Sherwangi, a Taliban-dominated area where Pakistan has been pressing a major offensive.

"Commandos and security forces raided the hospital. Militants fired on the troops and in the gunfight, which lasted more than four hours, four militants and a woman were killed, while 22 others were arrested," said the official.

"One soldier was also injured. The three dead militants appear to be Arabs and one of Sudanese origin," the official added.

The identity of the woman was not initially clear, the official said.

An intelligence official and a local administrator confirmed the raid and deaths of four foreign militants, but said their identities were not immediately clear. The intelligence official said 27 suspects were arrested.

South Waziristan is part of Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal belt on the Afghan border that Washington has branded the most dangerous region in the world and a chief sanctuary of Al-Qaeda plotting attacks on the West.

And he still ended up becoming a Misunderstander of Islam! "Terror suspect attended 2008 Islamic 'knowledge fest' in Houston," from CNN, December 30:

(CNN) -- The man accused of trying to blow up a U.S.-bound airliner on Christmas Day attended an Islamic "Knowledge Fest" in Houston, Texas, in 2008, according to one of the organizers of the event.

Yasir Qadhi, who was an instructor at "Ilm Fest," said the 16-day conference organized by the Al Maghrib Institute was a series of courses and workshops to teach young Muslims "the nuts and bolts of Islam."

Suspect Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab attended some of the classes that Qadhi taught during the event, which ran from August 1 to 17, 2008.

"He was a very quiet individual, tight-lipped and shy, and he did not ask a single question during the discussions," Qadhi said in an exclusive interview with CNN. "He barely interacted with the other students at the conference."

AbdulMutallab was not a visible presence during the conference and did not attend all the sessions, recalled Qadhi.

Qadhi recalls speaking to AbdulMutallab and remembers that he was "very reserved in his responses."

AbdulMutallab also attended two seminars organized by the Al Maghrib Institute in London in the months before the event in Houston, Qadhi said.

One of the events was on the life of the Prophet Mohammed, and the other course was on the first chapter of the Koran.

"This was mainstream Islamic stuff," said Qadhi....

Qadhi, of New Haven, Connecticut, has been involved in de-radicalization efforts in the United States and was a leading participant in the U.S. Counter-Radicalization Strategy conference organized by the National Counterterrorism Center in the summer of 2008.

"It's ironic that he came to us," said Qadhi of AbdulMutallab....

In "Europe's looming demise" in the Washington Times today, Pamela Geller discusses a little-noticed initiative that could open the floodgates for jihad in Europe:

Come Jan. 1, 2010, a disastrous and suicidal pact called the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (Europe/Mediterranean) goes into effect with little fanfare or examination. It boggles the mind that such a consequential and seismic cultural shift could be mandated and put into play without so much as a murmur from the mainstream media.

Why should Americans care about this? Americans have to care because this global gobbledygook is coming to our shores, thanks to our globalist president.

The European human rights group called Stop the Islamization of Europe (SIOE) has been working tirelessly to expose the mass Muslim immigration plan of the Euro-Med Partnership....

The goal of the Euro-Mediterranean cooperation is to create a new Greater European Union encompassing both Europe and North Africa, with the Mediterranean Sea becoming a domestic Eurabian sea. The goal is to establish a "comprehensive political partnership," including a "free trade area and economic integration"; "considerably more money for the partners" (that is, more European money flowing into North Africa); and "cultural partnership" - that is, importation of Islamic culture into post-Christian Europe.

According to the SIOE, in the Euro-Med plan "Europe is to be islamized. Democracy, Christianity, European culture and Europeans are to be driven out of Europe. Fifty million North Africans from Muslim countries are to be imported into the EU."

Skeptical? It's already happening. The British newspaper the Daily Express reported in October 2008 on "a controversial taxpayer-funded 'job centre' " that opened in Mali at that time as "just the first step towards promoting 'free movement of people in Africa and the EU.' Brussels economists claim Britain and other EU states will 'need' 56 million immigrant workers between them by 2050 to make up for the 'demographic decline' due to falling birthrates and rising death rates across Europe."

To offset this decline, a "blue card" system is to be created that will allow card holders to travel freely within the European Union and have full rights to work - as well as the full right to collect welfare benefits.

A Muslim population from Africa moving freely into Europe threatens America. On Christmas Day, a Nigerian Muslim flew from Amsterdam to Detroit and tried to explode a bomb on the plane - after he was allowed to board the plane without a passport. The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership will make jihad attacks like this one all the easier....

Like so many European Union initiatives, much of the EuroMed Partnership is shrouded in secrecy. For example, it's not clear what will happen, if anything, on January 1, 2010 that isn't happening already. The official website shows a thriving concern. And contrary to reports I've received that this initiative has stalled or has met widespread opposition from Arab states, the EuroMed initiative seems to be galloping along now: this ANSAmed index shows -- just in the last year -- EuroMed activities involving numerous European entities in Gaza, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, and elsewhere. The official EuroMed website lists these as the "countries concerned" -- showing a rather idiosyncratic idea of what constitutes the Mediterranean area: Albania, Algeria, Bosnia & Herzegovinia, Croatia, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, "Occupied Palestinian Territories," Syria, Tunisia, and Turkey.

The EuroMed effort is proceeding quickly. ANSAmed reported on December 4 that "the Euro-Mediterranean Regional and Local Assembly (ARLEM) has been created. Representatives of regional and local bodies in the Euro-Mediterranean area have in fact decided to meet for the first time in Barcelona, on January 21." Nor do they plan just to get acquainted: one undated but recent ANSAmed piece announces a summit meeting in Brussels of trade ministers from 43 countries in the Mediterranean area, and states: "The final objective is to adopt a road map of concrete actions that will intensify the region's economic integration and launch trade and investments, to achieve a common area of free trade with a long-term horizon beyond 2010."

That common area of free trade will, as Pamela discusses, allow for easy passage from Muslim North Africa and the Middle East into Europe -- with nary an effort made to prevent jihadists from coming into Europe. And once safely in Europe, it will not be hard for them to come to America. As Pamela points out, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, arriving in Detroit from Amsterdam on Christmas Day, could be just the first of many. And the ones who come after him may have been enabled to do so by the Euro-Med Partnership.

"And when this new front of Jihad starts in Yemen it might become the single most important front of Jihad in the world." "U.S. Probes Cleric's Tie to Jetliner Bomb Plot," by Evan Perez, Margaret Coker, and Siobhan Gorman for the Wall Street Journal, December 31 (thanks to Maxwell):

WASHINGTON -- Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American-born Yemeni cleric who has surfaced in multiple terror probes, is emerging as a central part of the Christmas Day airline bomber investigation, as authorities focus attention on a network of extremists in Yemen who may have helped radicalize the young Nigerian accused in the failed plot. [...]

Mr. Awlaki has rocketed to prominence this year because of his role as Internet-based spiritual guide aiding the radicalization of a new generation of Islamist extremists.

Mr. Awlaki was in contact with an Army psychiatrist charged in a shooting spree last month at Fort Hood Army base in Texas.

Mr. Awlaki was among the targets in recent attacks by Yemeni security forces, with U.S. support, against al Qaeda operations in Yemen. Family members have dismissed initial reports that he was killed and his whereabouts are unknown.

Part of Mr. Awlaki's appeal, say U.S. officials and terrorism experts, is his ability to act as a bridge between the predominantly Arab leaders of al Qaeda and willing potential jihadists in the West.

He preached at a mosque in Northern Virginia until 2002, when he left the U.S. to spend time building a following in the U.K., before returning to Yemen in 2004.

He has communicated with potential recruits through Internet Web sites and social-networking sites such as Facebook.

On his own blog, Mr. Awlaki wrote in October that Yemen was about to become a key player in global jihad. "And when this new front of Jihad starts in Yemen it might become the single most important front of Jihad in the world."...

He sure found an interesting, if not novel, way to do that. As noted earlier today, every Muslim group that ever had anything to do with the Flight 253 jihadist is trying to make sure that no one gets the idea that he was "radicalized" among them. Islamic school officials in Houston are scratching their heads, not sure whether or not he attended the school. And in Nigeria, they've never seen al-Qaeda and are all moderates. At his London mosque, they're shocked! Shocked! And now in Yemen, they're shocked as well.

"Devout student showed no extremist side," by Andrew England in the Financial Times, December 30 (thanks to James):

[...] For about a month until the end of September, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian accused of trying to destroy a passenger jet over Detroit, was a student at Sana'a Institute for Arabic Language.

Students are asking how a man they knew as a friendly colleague could be at the centre of a failed terrorism plot. The man described by students as "nice", if a shade introverted, was hailed as a "martyrdom-seeking brother" by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Yemeni-based group that has claimed responsibility for the failed attack.

"This man was here studying Arabic. He did not have a bad idea about anyone, American or British," says Ahmed Mujab, a teacher at the institute. "There was nothing strange about him."

Matthew Salmon, a Canadian who shared a student apartment with the Nigerian for just more than two weeks, says he was devout but gave no indication of being an extremist.

"He was passionate about his faith," says Mr Salmon, adding that his message was to bring "peace and brotherhood to the world through Islam".

Mr Abdulmutallab, who had also spent a year at the institute from 2004 to 2005, was "amiable and forgettable at the same time", someone who regularly attended prayers but stayed in his room when at home.

When the pair discussed religion, Mr Abdulmutallab would encourage his Canadian colleague to think about joining him at the mosque....

Mr Abdulmutallab was in Yemen from August until early December, according to officials. "It was a shock when we all found out," says Mr Salmon, adding that students felt a sense of "fear that we had lived with someone who is willing to do that"....

How, oh how could it have happened?

Obama believes essentially the same thing: that the jihad is a response to various actions of the West, which if we stop doing, all will be well. In line with this assumption, Paul apparently thinks that the Flight 253 jihad attack was a response to U.S. airstrikes in Yemen. However, according to an unnamed source in the White House quoted by Jake Tapper at ABC News (thanks to Benedict), the Flight 253 jihadist had set his plot in motion before the airstrike. And it certainly seems that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had his mind on jihad for years.

Also, the idea that occupation causes terrorism ignores, as always, the fact that the jihadists may hate us for reasons of their own, arising from their own belief system and ideology, and not dependent upon our actions at all. Oh, and who is occupying Yemen again?

(Video thanks to all who sent it in.)

Just another day in Afghanistan. When more troops arrive there, this may slack off for awhile. Then, when the circumstances are right, it will pick up again. "Afghanistan suicide bombing kills 8 American civilians," by Paul Richter for the Los Angeles Times, December 30 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Reporting from Washington - Eight American civilians were killed today when a lone suicide bomber struck a U.S. base in eastern Afghanistan, U.S. officials said.

The attack, which took place at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khowst province, also injured an undisclosed number of civilians, the officials said. No military personnel from U.S. or North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces were killed or injured in the attack, they said....

Every Muslim group that ever had anything to do with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is trying to make sure that no one gets the idea that he learned jihad from them. School officials are not sure whether or not the Flight 253 jihadist went to an Islamic school in Houston. And in Nigeria, they've never seen al-Qaeda and are all moderates. And now we hear the same thing from his London mosque.

"London Mosque 'Appalled' By Terrorist Attack," from the Daily Express, December 29 (thanks to Twostellas):

THE mosque that Abdulmutallab was reported to have visited in Britain distanced itself from the terrorist attack yesterday....

Mosque secretary Ayub Khan said: "The mosque condemns in the strongest possible terms the alleged attempt to blow up a transatlantic airliner in the USA."

He added that the mosque "is appalled that it should be associated with such heinous acts".

However, he said the public mosque was visited by 20,000 people a year and so "cannot comment on whether this individual came".

Abdulmutallab studied mechanical engineering at University College London from 2005 to 2008.

Last night, a college spokesman said that "quietly spoken" Abdulmutallab "never gave his tutors any cause for concern".

Qur'an 4:34: "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."

No matter how apologists attempt to spin the beatings as a last resort (as if it would be acceptable then), the bottom line is that Allah says a man can hit the women under his control. These are the consequences of the letter and spirit of the law.

"Report: 77% of Gaza women face violence," by Rachel Kliger for The Media Line, December 29 (thanks to Don):

The vast majority of women in Gaza face violence of varying types, a new survey has found.

The study, by the Gaza-based Palestinian Women's Information and Media Center, found that violence against women in Gaza has increased since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in the June 2007 coup and Israel subsequently imposed restrictions on the coastal enclave.

The study found that 77.1% of Gazan women have experienced violence of various sorts, with almost half experiencing violence of more than one type.

A quarter of the women said they do not feel safe in their own homes because of violence and more than a third said they were unable to fight back as they had more urgent priorities to deal with.

7% of the women surveyed said they had encountered verbal violence, 71% mental violence, 52% physical violence and more than 14% sexual violence.

"I think the levels [of violence] are higher than they were in the Gaza Strip in previous years and compared to other countries, the rates are certainly higher," Huda Hamouda, Director of the PWIC told The Media Line. "It's hard to imagine a family living in dignity when seven family members are living on less than three dollars a day."

"Many say they suffer from disrespect and deprecation," Hamouda said. "There's also domestic violence, which is committed by relatives such as the father, the brother or the husband."

Even this, Hamouda tries to pin on Israel. But it wasn't Israel who put verse 4:34 in the Qur'an; there are also similar statistics for domestic abuse elsewhere in the Muslim world. Did Israel do that, too?

School officials are not sure whether or not the Flight 253 jihadist went to an Islamic school in Houston. And in Nigeria, they've never seen al-Qaeda anywhere, no sir, nowhere. Nobody here but us moderates!

Everyone, in other words, is trying to make sure that no one gets the idea that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab learned jihad anywhere near them. "Nigeria: No Al-Qaeda in Country - Islamic Scholars," by Abbas Jimoh for the Daily Trust, December 29 (thanks to James):

Some Islamic scholars in Nigeria yesterday dismissed allegations that Al Qaeda exists in Nigeria following the alleged attempt by 23 year-old Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, to bomb a United States passenger plane on Christmas day.

The scholars, who spoke to Daily Trust in separate interviews, said Nigerians are not terrorists, even as they urged the relevant security agencies to investigate the matter dispassionately.

Malam Abdulfattah Adeyemi, an Abuja-based Islamic Scholar, said, "I want to say confidently that there is no connection between the accused and any religious group in Nigeria. We are a nation that is focused. We are at the phase of rebranding and trying to move the nation forward."

"Rebranding," eh? Does Adeyemi mean by that that they're going to knock off the church-burnings and murdering of Christians?

On Farouk Umaru Mutallab's involvement, Adeyemi said: "We cannot say for sure what is responsible for the problem, but I will suggest that the matter should be thoroughly investigated and people should avoid passing comments that will bring disgrace to the nation and should equally refrained from wrongfully pointing accusing fingers to anyone when investigations have not been carried out or concluded."

Dr Taofik Abdulazeez, the Imam of University of Abuja said Nigerians should take the news with extreme caution and asked the authorities not to rush into actions without sufficient information.

He said, "There may be a connection between extreme economic prosperity of some people and extreme poverty of some and certain tendency such as violence and other tendencies such as this may not be located among the poor...."

How's that again?

Funny how he thinks political dissent equals rejection of Islam. You'd almost think Islam was somehow political. "Iranian Cleric Calls Opposition 'Enemies of God,'" from VOA News, December 29 (thanks to James):

An Iranian cleric close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei says the country's opposition leaders are "enemies of God" who could be executed according to Islamic law.

The statement by Ayatollah Abbas Vaez Tabasi came Tuesday as opposition groups reported the arrests of more activists following Sunday's anti-government protests that left eight people dead.

At least 20 high-profile opposition figures or their associates have been detained since Sunday.

Among them are the brother-in-law of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi and the sister of Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi. Dubai TV also says its reporter in Tehran has been missing since Sunday....

Actually they're -- you guessed it! -- whining about a possible "backlash." This whole article is absurd, however, since Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab did not try to blow up Flight 253 because he was Nigerian, but because he was Muslim and believed it his religious duty to wage war against Infidels. But apparently the Times was tired of writing about fears of a backlash against Muslims when one never materializes, and so they gave a new twist to an old story angle by worrying about a backlash against Nigerians instead. The Muslim angle does come in, but not until late in the story.

"'Shocked' Nigerians in U.S. Express Fears of Guilt by Association After Arrest," by Mary M. Chapman for the New York Times, December 29 (thanks to Bill):

DETROIT -- When news broke on Christmas Day that a young Nigerian man had been arrested in a thwarted terrorist attack aboard a jetliner bound for the airport here, Joseph Ajiri, a Nigerian-born entrepreneur who lives in the suburb of Oak Park, was tucking into steaming servings of foofoo, moi-moi and other traditional Nigerian dishes with about a dozen friends and relatives.

Edwin Dyke, founder of the Nigerian Foundation of Michigan, said, "This isn't like our people."

"We just had some people here for Christmas dinner, then all of a sudden this comes on TV," Mr. Ajiri said. "It was regretful that he was Nigerian, but that didn't make us any more angry. We were all very happy that the explosion didn't take place, that he wasn't successful."...

"We want to tell Homeland Security and the federal government that we are sorry about what happened," Dr. Dyke said, "that this isn't like our people, that we believe this is an isolated incident but that we will keep our ears open."...

Salewa Ola, a Nigerian who founded the Detroit-based United African Community Organization, emphasized that the plane attack was "not what our community stands for."

"We are shocked and embarrassed," Dr. Ola said. "This has given all of us a black eye."

Relatives have said that Mr. Abdulmutallab, who is from a Muslim family, was particularly devout, even as a child.

But that tells us nothing, eh?

Twenty percent of Nigerians living in Michigan are Muslim, Dr. Dyke said. But Kamol Bello, a Detroit resident who is a Nigerian Muslim and has lived in the United States for 20 years, was quick to disassociate the religion from what occurred on Flight 253 on Christmas Day.

"A truly religious person would not do that," Mr. Bello said, adding that Muslims he knew did not think Mr. Abdulmutallab "is Muslim or Christian because no true religion teaches" someone to ignite an explosive aboard a plane.

"That's just crazy ideology," Mr. Bello said.

All right, Mr. Bello. Then how did Abdulmutallab, a devout Muslim since childhood, misunderstand Islam so drastically? And what are you doing to prevent such misunderstandings in the future?

Nothing -- just worrying about a phantom backlash:

Even so, Mr. Ajiri and several other Nigerians living in and around Detroit said they expected prejudicial fallout from the attack and from an incident on the same flight two days later in which a Nigerian man spent a long time in the plane's lavatory, arousing the suspicion of fellow passengers, flight attendants and an air marshal and setting off security alerts as the plane landed. It turned out that the man had simply been ill.

"Profiling? When you look at 9/11 and what happened with the Arabic community, we cannot expect anything different," Mr. Ajiri said. "It is just unfortunate that one individual is going to ruin reputations for the rest of the Nigerians. When we travel now, the system will make us pay, and I don't feel good about it."...

Lekan Oguntoyinbo, a Nigerian who used to live in Detroit and now lives in Columbia, Mo., said Mr. Abdulmutallab's nationality would heighten suspicions of all Nigerians.

"Nigerians have had a horrible reputation with the authorities of this country for importing drugs and for things like Internet fraud," said Mr. Oguntoyinbo, an assistant professor of journalism at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Mo. "I think this incident on Christmas not only makes us incredibly more suspect, but also positions Nigerians as enemies of the state. When you're trying to blow up a plane, the dynamics of perception change a great deal."...

No kidding, really?

They're just not sure, you see. They have so very many students. But don't worry: even if Abdulmutallab did attend a class or two there, they teach about "reclaiming Islam from jihadists, focusing specifically on the issue of preventing terrorism." So he could not, repeat, could not, have learned his jihadism in Houston. Got that?

If that is so, then Shaykh Waleed Basyouni should have no problem releasing his books and curricula for public inspection...right?

"Houston school checking possible link to terror suspect," by Susan Carroll and Mary Flood for the Houston Chronicle, December 29 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

A leader of a Houston Islamic educational institution said Tuesday that the organization is investigating a report that the Nigerian man accused of trying to bomb an airliner on Christmas Day attended classes here last year.

Shaykh Waleed Basyouni, vice president for the AlMaghrib Institute in Houston and imam of the Clear Lake Islamic Center, said he has asked staffers to look into a report that 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had attended classes in Houston during a trip to the U.S....

A Houston FBI spokeswoman had no comment on whether the suspect may have attended an Islamic class in Houston in 2008.

As word spread that Abdulmutallab might have attended the institute, Basyouni asked for patience as members of the staff comb through class rolls, saying "we have a very, very large student body."

And apparently no computers.

The international institute is a nonprofit that teaches Islamic studies. It has a student body totaling more than 20,000, Basyouni said, and conducts seminars in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom.

Many classes are held over double weekends, which could account for a stay in Houston of two weeks in August 2008....

Basyouni said the institute teaches students to protect and care for their countries, and to "be a good citizen." He said he recently lectured on reclaiming Islam from jihadists, focusing specifically on the issue of preventing terrorism.

"It's just sad to see people so radicalized to that extent," he said....

Yes, so very sad, Basyouni!

Evidence of a coordinated plan? "Officials: Somali Tried to Board Flight With Explosives Last Month," from AP, December 30 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

MOGADISHU, Somalia -- A man tried to board a commercial airliner in Mogadishu last month carrying powdered chemicals, liquid and a syringe that could have caused an explosion in a case bearing chilling similarities to the terrorist plot to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner, officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The Somali man -- whose name has not yet been released -- was arrested by African Union peacekeeping troops before the Nov. 13 Daallo Airlines flight took off. It had been scheduled to travel from Mogadishu to the northern Somali city of Hargeisa, then to Djibouti and Dubai. A Somali police spokesman, Abdulahi Hassan Barise, said the suspect is in Somali custody.

"We don't know whether he's linked with al-Qaida or other foreign organizations, but his actions were the acts of a terrorist. We caught him red-handed," said Barise....

Here are three photos from the "Gaza Freedom March" in Toronto on December 27. The top one, of the chappie with the flag of the jihad terrorist group Hizballah, comes from Shalom Life, where in "Hizbollah Flag in Downtown Toronto," Jonathan Dahoah Halevi (translation by Elad Benari) gives a useful account of the demonstration.

The other two photos come from Lumpy, Grumpy and Frumpy, where there are many more. The two here show pro-Palestinian demonstrators giving the Nazi salute, and Blazing Cat Fur explains the significance of the second one:

Something caught my eye in one of her photos which I posted below, notice the "flag staff", it reads "Palestine House". I guess Nazi Ideology is part of the curriculum taught in their " language instruction and lebensraum immigrant settlement programs". You know, the ones your taxes pay for.

This is taken from NGO Monitor's submission to the CPCCA posted below.

•Palestine House Educational (PHE) (Mississauga, Ontario): PHE received $747,314 from the Canadian government in 2008-9 for language instruction ; and Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) has two agreements totaling over $3 million through 2010 for language instruction and immigrant settlement.

There is more. Read it all. Also, the great Shaidle was there.

David Yerushalmi charts one aspect of "the baneful work of...Western imams and their infidel advisers in business suits."

"Shariah finance: The deadly Jihadist weapon with a dollar sign," by David Yerushalmi in the Washington Examiner, December 30:

News of the recent financial meltdown of Dubai World -- a quasi-sovereign global concern that owns 77 percent of the international port manager DP World and the single largest real estate developer in Dubai known for its palm-tree shaped luxury residential developments -- raced from the business pages to the headlines of the front pages in a matter of days.

Since the first reports on Thanksgiving, the Wall Street Journal and just about every other major media outlet reported extensively on the worldwide implications of this latest financial shock wave.

What makes this story more than simply one of a massive real estate investment company gone bad is the double-edged sword so prevalent in the chase for oil-based Middle East wealth: Sovereign wealth funds and Shariah-compliant finance.

Beginning in the 1970s with the Carter-era oil embargo and accelerating during the post-9/11 $100+ oil price spikes, Persian Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates' wealthiest city-state of Abu Dhabi have been awash in liquidity. And, these trillion-dollar cash reserves are controlled in every case by the respective royal families, typically in sovereign or quasi-sovereign wealth funds.

Another phenomenon that followed the great oil rush of the post-9/11 era was the promotion and aggressive exportation of the Muslim Brotherhood doctrine of SCF.

The concept of SCF was articulated by men like Sayyid Qutb of Egypt and Abul Ala Maududi of Pakistan in the mid-20th century, both of whom argued for a Jihad against Westernization, and the creation of Islamic polities that would ultimately join in a hegemonic worldwide caliphate. The goal was that of establishing Shariah not merely as the supreme law of the land, but as the supreme law of the world.

In the post-9/11 era, Western imams and their infidel advisers in business suits speaking the queen's English have understood that given the global Jihad's reliance on the dictates of Shariah to murder apostates and to terrorize the infidels into submission, SCF must be attired in a kind of progressive Western garb to attract the attention of the financial centers in London, Hong Kong and New York.

So it was that SCF became known as "ethical investing" and Western and Muslim financiers began lecturing the world that the fraud and abuse of the financial markets, such as the Enron debacle and more recently the subprime securitization meltdown, were all driven by the desire for forbidden gain through interest and gambling.

They told us that SCF was based not on forbidden interest and speculative paper assets, but profits through equity participation and sound investing in real assets.

Dubai World, a company wholly owned by the Dubai sovereign has funded itself through debt to the tune of $60 billion. The Dubai debt now in default just happens to be SCF bonds, or "sukuk."

These bonds pay interest just like their forbidden cousins in the Western markets, but the interest is put into a black box of Shariah-created fictions and "special purpose vehicles" to keep the forbidden interest off the books.

What we now see as a real estate bubble collapse in Dubai is no different and no more or less ethical than any other financial failure. But, what makes this collapse so problematic is precisely what makes SCF and sovereign wealth funds so dangerous....

Read it all.

The Cold War was an attempt, using every means possible, by the United States and its allies in North America and Western Europe, along with other countries that had their own reasons for joining in, to prevent the expansion of Soviet power through military means or through other means, including the spread of the ideology of Communism. That Cold War began after World War II, even though from the earliest days of the Bolsheviks it had always been clear to some that Soviet Communism was inherently expansionist, totalitarian, and aggressive, and lasted until the time of Gorbachev, when the rulers of the Soviet Union conceded that on its own terms Communism had not delivered the goods, had failed. Then Yeltsin, in almost a stupor, allowed most of the Soviet "republics" to leave the Soviet Union, thus putting an end to the Soviet Empire and reducing it to "nash dom" -- that is, the House of Russia and, as English estate agents like to say, messuage.

The two sides to the Cold War -- an economic and propagandistic component, and a military component -- can both be seen in the two developments that mark it at the beginning. In the late 1940s, the American government conceived and implemented a plan to revive the broken economies of the war-ravaged countries of Western Europe, and to do so with a transfer of economic aid, much of it administered by Americans on the spot, and technical know-how. It was understood that the appeal of Communism was very strong. In the late 1940s and 1950s the Communists formed the largest political group in both France and Italy, and that both improvements in the local economies and a propaganda war would be necessary. The aid flowed, and the economies slowly revived. And at the same time, there was targeted aid to certain newspapers (such as Der Monat in West Germany) and to political parties (such as the Christian Democrats in Italy) known to oppose the Communists. The Soviet Communists were not idle. Their theme was "peace" -- which was opposed only by those war-profiteering capitalists who needed interminable conflict to keep churning out and using up their weaponry, while the Soviet Union, with that mild-mannered shy and retiring, earnestly pacifist Lover of Peace Joseph Stalin as its benevolent, twinkly-eyed leader, was so much for peace that it would set up the World Peace Council to organize festivals, usually but not always in Helsinki, with propaganda posters by the leftist likes of Picasso (who during the war and Nazi Occupation of Paris had not lifted a finger to save the life of his "godchild" Max Jacob from death at Drancy, and thought nothing of inviting German officers into his studio on Quai des Grands Augustins to see his latest works, and they would bring him steaks and other luxuries available only to the Germans).

Along with Peace, the other great theme of Soviet propaganda was Colonialism, An End To. Since the main colonial powers were Great Britain and France, the most important allies of the United States, taking the side of all those seeking to be independent -- ready or not, and no matter what the outcome -- was a way to profitably exploit what was seen, too easily, as on-the-side-of-the-angels decolonialism. Furthermore, this was said to be the Side of History. The "winds of change" were blowing, said Harold Macmillan, and no one could stop it. It was not the Soviet Marxists who were the only determinists. Though a grouping of countries in Africa and Asia and Latin America became known as the Non-Aligned, those Non-Aligned, in solemn conclave assembled at Bandung or elsewhere, always seemed to pass resolutions against the West for its supposed machinations. But the machinations that counted were those of the Soviets and their collaborators, who manipulated these gatherings for their own ends. The Non-Aligned never seemed to worry about the Soviet Union, or about the new and unfamiliar kind of "colonialism" (therefore not recognized as such) that the Soviets practiced in Eastern Europe.

Over at Weasel Zippers Momma asks: "When will our President stand up for the rights of Christians all around the world?" Good question. I wonder if he will be able to stop praising Islam long enough even to consider doing such a thing. "Family flees 'horrific' abuse: Given asylum in Canada after couple's daughter was raped as toddler in Pakistan," by Tom Godfrey for the Toronto Sun, December 29 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

A seven-year-old Pakistani girl and her family have been given asylum in Canada after reports the child was raped and left to die when her Christian father refused to convert to Islam.

The identities of Baby Neeha and her family are being protected by immigration officials, said human rights lawyer Chantal Desloges and One Free World International, a church that was instrumental in getting the family here.

The family arrived in Canada on Dec. 12 after a three-year battle by organizers to spirit them out of danger in Pakistan....

Church founder Rev. Majed El Shafie said the family of seven have been hiding from extremists in Pakistan for about three years.

Baby Neeha, at the age of 21/2, was raped by the son of her father's employer and left to die by the roadside, he said. No one was arrested for the crime.

"These horrific events took place because her father, who was Christian, refused to give in to pressure from his Muslim employer to convert to Islam," El Shafie said.

The family went underground in Pakistan to hide from Muslim extremists who were seeking revenge for their non-conversion, he said.

"The family has lived for years in hiding and in constant fear of being discovered by the employer's family or Islamic extremists," El Shafie said. "We are thrilled that she's finally in Canada."...

Canada's Immigration Minister, Jason Kenney, issued a special "ministerial permit" to get the family out of Pakistan, because there were "significant difficulties" involved in getting them out of that lovely, tolerant place.

Funny how that keeps happening. "Al-Qaeda 'groomed Abdulmutallab in London'," by Sean O'Neill and Giles Whitell for Times Online, December 30 (thanks to Kris):

The Christmas Day airline bomb plot suspect organised a conference under the banner "War on Terror Week" as he immersed himself in radical politics while a student in London, The Times has learnt.

This story does not address the possibility that Abdulmutallab could have encountered "extremism" indigenous to Nigeria, or that anyone but al-Qaeda could be the source of his interest in violent acts of jihad.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, a former president of the Islamic Society at University College London, advertised speakers including political figures, human rights lawyers and former Guantánamo detainees.

One lecture, Jihad v Terrorism, was billed as "a lecture on the Islamic position with respect to jihad".

It is worth noting amid Abdulmutallab's involvement in events like this that he had sought advice on when it is permissible to deceive non-Muslims.

Security sources are concerned that the picture emerging of his undergraduate years suggests that he was recruited by al-Qaeda in London. Security sources said that Islamist radicalisation was rife on university campuses, especially in London, and that college authorities had "a patchy record in facing up to the problem". Previous anti-terrorist inquiries have uncovered evidence of extremists using political meetings and religious study circles to identify potential recruits.

It emerged last night that Mr Abdulmutallab featured on the periphery of one counterterrorism intelligence operation in Britain. US intelligence authorities are also looking at conversations between him and at least one al-Qaeda member.

The event he organised took place in January 2007 and included talks on Guantánamo Bay, the alleged torture of prisoners and the War on Terror.

He is the fourth president of a London student Islamic society to face terrorist charges in three years. One is facing a retrial on charges that he was involved in the 2006 liquid bomb plot to blow up airliners. Two others have been convicted of terrorist offences since 2007.

Death coaching:

Mr Abdulmutallab left UCL last year. The Times has learnt that his attempt to renew his student visa in May this year was based on an application to study "life coaching" at a non-existent college. That visa refusal may have saved Britain from an attack. His terrorist training took a new turn in August when he moved to Yemen, ostensibly to study Arabic, and was schooled by al-Qaeda there...

Most of the stories that have gone out about Abdulmutallab's Internet postings focused on what a lonely fellow he was. This little tidbit about the great Islamic empire has not been as widely reported. "My jihad fantasy.. Muslims will win and rule the world - UMAR ABDULMUTALLAB," by Andrew Gregory for the Mirror, December 30 (thanks to James):

Failed suicide bomber Umar Abdulmutallab spelt out his nightmare vision of a world ruled by fanatical Islamic hardliners in a series of rambling internet rants.

In one, he said: "I won't go into too much details about my fantasy, but basically they are jihad fantasies.

"I imagine how the great jihad will take place, how the muslims will win (Allah willing) and rule the whole world and establish the greatest empire once again."...

If the nuclear program is just for the peaceful generation of electricity, why all the secrecy, in this case and across the board? "Intel Report: Iran Looking to Smuggle Raw Uranium," from the Associated Press, December 29:

VIENNA -- Iran is close to clinching a deal to clandestinely import 1,350 tons of purified uranium ore from Kazakhstan, according to an intelligence report obtained by The Associated Press on Tuesday. Diplomats said the assessment was heightening international concern about Tehran's nuclear activities.

Such a purified uranium ore deal would be significant because Tehran appears to be running out of the material, which it needs to feed its uranium enrichment program.

The report was drawn up by a member nation of the International Atomic Energy agency and provided to the AP on condition of that the country not be identified because of the confidential nature of the information.

Such imports are banned by the U.N. Security Council.

In New York, Burkina Faso's U.N. Ambassador Michel Kafando, a co-chair of the Security Council's Iran sanctions committee, referred questions Tuesday about a potential deal between Iran and Kazakhstan to his sanctions adviser, Zongo Saidou.

Saidou told the AP that, as far as he knew, none of the U.N.'s member nations have alerted the committee about any such allegations. "We don't have any official information yet regarding this kind of exchange between the two countries," Saidou said. "I don't have any information; I don't have any proof."

A senior U.N. official said the agency was aware of the intelligence report's assessment but could not yet draw conclusions. He demanded anonymity for discussing confidential information. A Western diplomat from a member of the IAEA's 35-nation board said the report was causing "concern" among countries that have seen it and generating "intelligence chatter." The diplomat also requested anonymity for discussing intelligence information.

A two-page summary of the report obtained by the AP said deal could be completed within weeks. It said Tehran was willing to pay $450 million, or close to 315 million euros, for the shipment.

The price is high because of the secret nature of the deal and due to Iran's commitment to keep secret the elements supplying the material," said the summary. An official of the country that drew up the report said "elements" referred to state employees acting on their own without approval of the Kazakh government.

After-hours calls put in to offices of Kazatomprom, the Kazak state uranium company, in Kazakhstan and Moscow, were not answered Tuesday. Iranian nuclear officials also did not pick up their telephones.

Purified ore, or uranium oxide, is processed into a uranium gas, which is then spun and re-spun to varying degrees of enrichment. Low enriched uranium is used for nuclear fuel, and upper-end high enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.

Iran is under three sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions for refusing to freeze its enrichment program and related activities that could be used to make nuclear weapons.

Tehran denies such aspirations, saying it wants to enrich only to fuel an envisaged network of power reactors.

The phrase "letter-writing campaigns to Rifqa publicized on blogs that malign Islam" is doubtless a reference to Pamela Geller's initiative to have Christmas cards sent to Rifqa -- but complaining about "blogs that malign Islam" sells a lot better than saying straight out, as they did before, that they're trying to seize this poor girl's Christmas cards.

Nonetheless, the initiative is just as insidious -- and, not coincidentally, in alignment with Sharia provisions calling for the isolation of female apostates from Islam. After all, this is still a marginally free country, isn't it? Why should Rifqa not be allowed to receive communications from people who have been encouraged to write to her on "blogs that malign Islam"? And remember that by "maligning Islam" in this context, what is meant is telling the truth about Islam's doctrines of violence and supremacism. But even if people writing to Rifqa really are maligning Islam, is that now illegal in the U.S.? Maligning Christianity is not illegal. Maligning Judaism is not illegal. Would Rifqa be allowed to receive letters that malign those religions? Is the person screening her mail going to hold up letters that she thinks malign Islam? On what grounds?

Pamela has trenchant and important observations on this here.

"Guardian to review Rifqa's mail: Attorneys in dependency case reach common ground on a few matters," by Meredith "Hijab" Heagney for the Columbus Dispatch, December 25 (thanks to Pamela):

Attorneys for Fathima Rifqa Bary and her parents haven't agreed on much, but they have settled a couple of small matters in the case of the 17-year-old runaway.

They have agreed that all mail to Rifqa from people who aren't relatives will be reviewed by her guardian ad litem, the attorney appointed by the court to represent her interests, to "ensure that no inappropriate messages are forwarded to Ms. Bary."

They also have agreed that Rifqa cannot have any contact with Blake Lorenz, Beverly Lorenz or Brian Williams until her counselor determines whether it would be in her best interest.

The Lorenzes are pastors in Florida whom Rifqa stayed with when she ran away. Authorities have said that Williams, an evangelical in his 20s who baptized Rifqa, drove her to the Greyhound bus station in Columbus when she ran away from home in July.

Rifqa, a New Albany High School student, said she left her Northeast Side home because her father, Mohamed Bary, threatened to kill her for converting from Islam to Christianity. Mr. Bary denies the accusation, and authorities in Ohio and Florida have found that she was not in danger.

A dependency case to determine where Rifqa should live is making its way through Franklin County Juvenile Court, where the attorneys frequently file motions on minute details of Rifqa's life and activities.

For instance, Omar Tarazi, the attorney for Mr. Bary and his wife, Aysha, had asked that third-party messages to Rifqa be reviewed by Franklin County Children Services, which has custody of the girl. He was concerned about letter-writing campaigns to Rifqa publicized on blogs that malign Islam.

That resulted in the agreement to have her guardian look at them. The magistrate's order says "incoming mail" but does not specify whether that includes e-mail.

The two sides also have argued over whether Rifqa's counselor should be a woman. Rifqa's attorneys, Kort Gatterdam and Angela Lloyd, have accused the Barys of forcing Rifqa to submit to Islam by making her see a male counselor, because she was raised in a male-dominated home.

Tarazi disputed that, saying Gatterdam and Lloyd file documents "containing baseless assertions that would be characterized as nothing more than religious and cultural bigotry."...

Unlikely at best. Rifqa's attorneys have steadfastly ignored the apostasy issue -- and substantially weakened their case by doing so.

Here's one for Ralph and Dinesh now, given new relevance by the Flight 253 underwear jihadist. (Thanks to Weasel Zippers.)

Ralph Peters, call your office: "a rotten core of American extremists" is out to make it harder for moderate Muslims again, just as you warned us in 2006 that they would do. That's right, Ralph, "right-wing extremists bent on discrediting honorable conservatism" are "insisting that Islam can never reform, that the violent conquest and subjugation of unbelievers is the faith's primary agenda - and, when you read between the lines, that all Muslims are evil and subhuman."

And this time, Ralph, the nasty right-wing extremist is writing right in your own New York Post. He claims that "our insistence that 'Islam's a religion of peace' would have been cold comfort to the family members of those passengers had the bomb detonated as planned." He even goes so far as to say: "We proclaim that the terrorists 'don't represent Islam.' OK, whom do they represent? The Franciscans? We don't get to decide what's Islam and what isn't. Muslims do. And far too many of them approve of violent jihad." In a frenzy of what you have called "self-important net-dweller hate-porn," he makes the outrageous claim that "we're not just fighting men but a plague of faith."

Get him, Colonel! Get that bigot! His name is...wait for it...Ralph Peters.

It looks as if reality has caught up to yet another self-righteous Islam-Is-A-Religion-of-Peacer.

Now, when I pointed out a similar shift by the equally befuddled Dinesh D'Souza, some admonished me to be more gracious, to welcome the former miscreant into the fold of those telling the truth, and to portray their change as a growth in knowledge and perceptiveness rather than a craven flip-flop. And certainly I am ready to disregard the vicious personal invective both Peters and D'Souza have sent my way -- these are not personal issues, and I understand how being proven wrong so spectacularly can cause some to lash out.

The problem is that guys like this want to have it both ways. In private and in some public settings they say that they know there's a problem with Islamic doctrine; in other public settings they say that Islam is a Religion of Peace™ and that the Bible is just as likely as the Qur'an to inspire violence, etc. I will happily debate either Peters or D'Souza on these issues, anytime, anywhere. But I'm not going to give them three cheers for stating the obvious several years too late, and only when it is so painfully obvious that it cannot any longer be ignored or obfuscated.

He was charged for threatening to blow up local businesses in the name of jihad -- two days after he was released on $100 bond after being picked up with a butcher knife and making the same threat. An update on this story. "Man charged with terrorism: Wanted to blow up businesses," by Chris Conley for the Commercial Appeal, December 29 (thanks to Virgil):

...Mohamed Ibrahim, 35, is charged with commission of a terrorist act, false reporting and disorderly conduct. He is in the Shelby County Jail on a $50,000 bond....

Friday afternoon, Memphis police dispatchers issued an alert that a man driving a black Chrysler PT Cruiser had threatened to "blow up the business" at 300 Poplar, a BP gas station....

After Ibrahim was arrested and placed in a police cruiser, he began cursing police and attempting to kick out the windows, according to the charges. Officers subdued him with pepper spray.

Police determined that Ibrahim had earlier that day made threats to blow up seven other businesses around town, according to the charges....

An FBI agent called to the scene recovered three cassette tapes described as "Islamic" in a police affidavit, and took the GPS from the vehicle.

Court records show that Ibrahim had been arrested two days earlier with a 10-inch butcher knife concealed in his jacket sleeve and charged with unlawful possession of a weapon. He was released on $100 bond.

That day, Ibrahim had threatened other businesses and "stated he was a Muslim, and wanted to start jihad here in Memphis," according to the weapon charge.

He was going to get seven years of Sharia study in Yemen for free. Who was paying? "U.S. plane bomber wanted to study sharia in Yemen," from Reuters, December 29 (thanks to all who sent this in):

ABUJA (Reuters) - A Nigerian man charged with trying to blow up a U.S. airliner told his parents he wanted to study Islamic sharia law in Yemen shortly before cutting off contact with them, the Nigerian government said on Tuesday.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, had been studying for a masters degree in Dubai when he told his parents he was going to Yemen to study Arabic for a few weeks, Nigerian Information Minister Dora Akunyili told reporters in the capital Abuja.

"After a few weeks he now sent a message to the parents that he wanted to stay back and study sharia for seven years and the father said no, you can't do that," Akunyili said.

"The father said they were not ready to send him school fees or money for upkeep, that he should go back to Dubai and complete his masters. (But Abdulmutallab) said he was going to get everything free," she said....

"(This report) confirms what we have been saying, that the boy did not have backing from here," Akunyili said.

"The boy was not enlisted in Nigeria, was not trained in Nigeria, was not supported by Nigerians, not even by his parents," Akunyili said....

And those Misinterpreters are so numerous and influential!

"Mr. Nice Guy: Eric Holder Jr. on investigating torture, closing Guantánamo ... and a certain former vice president," by Daniel Klaidman for Snoozeweek, December 21 (thanks to Charles):

What we've seen in the recent past, I think, is an indication of one of the things that we're going to have to be most concerned about in the future, this self-radicalization of American citizens or people who reside in the United States. They have too often come under the influence of people who have misinterpreted Islam.

Maybe the Attorney General will clue us in on where we can find the correct interpretation. But I won't be holding my breath.

On December 24, the Arab American News published a piece called "Minaret ban indicates evolving fascism" by Ali Moossavi, in which Moossavi, with a Charles-Johnsonish flair for defamation, characterized those concerned about the Islamization of Europe as neofascists. Predictably, Moossavi paid no attention to the fact that there is no similar reaction in Europe against Hindus, Sikhs, or other immigrant communities. Moossavi doesn't consider, of course, the fact that many young Muslims in Europe identify publicly with the global jihad and against Western ideals of freedom and democracy.

Roy Brown of the International Humanist and Ethical Union responded with this letter to the Arab American News:

Mr Moossavi has completely failed to understand the reasons for the Swiss vote in favour of a ban on the construction of minarets. The call for a referendum was certainly provocative and the Swiss People's Party, the SVP, is certainly on the right of Swiss politics. But the SVP does not have the level of support which on its own would have brought them victory in the referendum.

The Swiss in general are a tolerant, liberal people, and are not racists. But living as they do in the heart of Europe, they can hardly be unaware of what is happening around them. The vote was quite simply a reaction to the ever more shrill demands of Europe's Islamic leaders for special rights and special treatment. Examples are legion: special areas set aside in the workplace for prayers - in company time; demands for an alternative system of justice based on sharia law for the settlement of family disputes that would deny women equal treatment; and the fact that while not all Muslims are terrorists, most terrorists we have seen in Europe recently have been Muslims.

The Swiss were also provoked by a recent call by Muammar Gaddafi for Switzerland to be broken up because the Geneva police had had the temerity to arrest his son for beating a servant, followed by the unjustified arrest of two Swiss businessmen in Libya in retaliation.

Most of all, however, the Swiss have been provoked by the failure of Europe's Muslims to play by the rules; to enter into debate about the merits and demerits of Islam, but instead to take to the streets, banners screaming for the overthrow of democracy and freedom, at every insult to Islam, real or perceived.

The other reason for the success of the vote was that it does not infringe the right of Muslims to practice their religion. It was merely symbolic. Muslims are completely free to build mosques and worship in them as they please without any interference. It is no hardship not to have a minaret. To put this into perspective it should be compared with the plight of the Christians in Iraq and Egypt who face daily violence, with priests being murdered, churches burnt and worshipers harassed.

No, Mr Moossavi, this was not racism or fascism, it was a protest vote and a wake up call to Europe's Muslims to lower the tone.

Roy W Brown
Lausanne, Switzerland

Our old friend Raymond Ibrahim peels back some doubletalk. "Shameless Islamist Doublespeak Rages On: To English audiences, jihadists talk of ending oppression; to Arabic ones, they talk of oppressing the infidel," by Raymond Ibrahim in Pajamas Media, December 24:

"Al-Qaeda's Zawahiri Accuses Obama of Trying to 'Enslave' Arab World." So reads the headline of a recent Fox News report, which goes on to quote Zawahiri saying things such as "Obama's policy is nothing but another cycle in the Crusader and Zionist campaign to enslave and humiliate us, and to occupy our land and steal our wealth."

Two years earlier, Zawahiri was even more dramatic. Then he implored "blacks in America, people of color, American Indians, Hispanics, and all the weak and oppressed in North and South America, in Africa and Asia, and all over the world, to know that when we wage jihad in Allah's path, we aren't waging jihad to lift oppression from Muslims only; we are waging jihad ... to lift oppression from all mankind. ... This is why I want every oppressed one on the face of the earth to know that our victory over America and the Crusading West -- with Allah's permission -- is a victory for them, because they shall be freed from the most powerful tyrannical force in the history of mankind."

Unfortunately for al-Qaeda, its very own words -- the Arabic ones directed at fellow Muslims which Westerners rarely see or read -- unequivocally contradict its repeated attempts to portray itself as an organization out to spread Robin Hood-style justice and equanimity vis-à-vis a tyrannical U.S. For in these Arabic treatises, al-Qaeda makes it perfectly clear that, short of submitting to Islamic hegemony, the non-Muslim world is the enemy, ipso facto.

Yet doublespeak is definitely not the sole province of al-Qaeda; the decades-long Arab-Israeli conflict has furnished the world with some of the most flagrant examples of Islamist doublespeak -- emanating from such players as Arafat, the PLO, and Hamas. Hezbollah offers a recent example:

According to Reuters, the terrorist organization's newly revised manifesto "tones down Islamist rhetoric but maintains a tough line against Israel and the United States. The new manifesto drops reference to an Islamic republic in Lebanon, which has a substantial Christian population, confirming changes to Hezbollah thinking about the need to respect Lebanon's diversity."

In fact, this "new" manifesto has been hailed as a progressive step forward for the terrorist organization: an AFP headline tells us that "Hezbollah strikes softer tone in second manifesto: [according to] analysts," such as one Paul Salem, head of the Beirut-based Carnegie Middle East Center, who asserts that the "manifesto is reassuring as it shows Hezbollah's integration with Lebanese political life."...

Read it all.

How did a Misunderstander of Islam gain such a position?

And meanwhile, Yemen seizes the opportunity to beg for handouts. "'Hundreds of al-Qaeda militants planning attacks from Yemen,'" by Joanna Sugden for the Times Online, December 29:

Hundreds of al-Qaeda militants are planning terror attacks from Yemen, the country's Foreign Minister said today.

Abu Bakr al-Qirbi appealed for more help from the international community to help to train and equip counter-terrorist forces.

His plea came after an al-Qaeda group based in Yemen claimed responsibility for the failed Christmas Day airliner bomb plot.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, alleged to be behind the attempt to blow up an American-bound aircraft, spent time in Yemen with al-Qaeda and was in the country only days before the failed attack.

Dr al-Qirbi said: "Of course there are a number of al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen and some of their leaders. We realise this danger.

"They may actually plan attacks like the one we have just had in Detroit. There are maybe hundreds of them -- 200, 300."

Dr al-Qirbi said it was the "responsibility" of countries with strong intelligence capabilities to warn states such as Yemen about the movements of terror suspects. [...]

Mr Abdulmutallab's former tutors at University College London, where he was a student between 2005 and 2008, described him as "well-mannered, quietly spoken, polite and able" and said that he never gave any cause for concern. He was president of the institution's Islamic society between 2006 and 2007....

This should surprise no one, although it cannot be explained by the conventional and dominant analysis. In that view, the hearts and minds of Afghan soldiers would be won, and they would not turn on their allies. No one in Washington is examining the jihad doctrine that would actually make this incident immediately understandable. "Afghanistan: Two Italian soldiers shot," from ANSA, December 29 (thanks to Insubria):

Rome, December 29 - Two Italian soldiers were slightly injured in Afghanistan Tuesday when an Afghan soldier taking part in an allied operation opened fire, killing one American soldier, the defense ministry reported here.

The incident was said to have taken place in Bala Morghab, in the western province of Herat, while members of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), together with Afghan army regulars, were unloading a supply helicopter.

The injured Italians were treated for their wounds by medics on hand and returned to duty, the defense ministry said. The Afghan soldier who shot the Italians and killed the American, and was himself injured when ISAF force returned fire, was arrested, according to reports from Afghanistan....

This WaPo weeper tries to paint the Flight 253 jihadist as a poor, lonely boy, but what comes through loud and clear is that he was a very serious and devout Muslim. How is it that someone so committed to Islam could have misunderstood Islam so thoroughly as to think he had a religious duty to murder unbelievers. "In online posts apparently by Detroit suspect, religious ideals collide," by Philip Rucker and Julie Tate for the Washington Post, December 29 (thanks to Undaunted):

The 23-year-old Nigerian man accused of the attempted Christmas Day bombing of an American airliner apparently turned to the Internet for counseling and companionship, writing in an online forum that he was "lonely" and had "never found a true Muslim friend."

"I have no one to speak too [sic]," read a posting from January 2005, when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was attending boarding school. "No one to consult, no one to support me and I feel depressed and lonely. I do not know what to do. And then I think this loneliness leads me to other problems."

The Washington Post reviewed 300 online postings under the name "farouk1986" (a combination of Abdulmutallab's middle name and birth year). The postings mused openly about love and marriage, his college ambitions and angst over standardized testing, as well as his inner struggle as a devout Muslim between liberalism and extremism. In often-intimate writings, posted between 2005 and 2007, he sought friends online, through Facebook and in Islamic chat rooms: "My name is Umar but you can call me Farouk." He often invited readers to "have your say" and once wrote, "May Allah reward you for reading and reward you more for helping." [...]

Fabrizio Cavallo Marincola, 22, who studied with Abdulmutallab at University College London, said Abdulmutallab graduated in May 2008 and showed no signs of radicalization or of links to al-Qaeda. "He always did the bare minimum of work," Marincola said of his classmate, who he said was nicknamed "Biggie."

"When we were studying, he always would go off to pray," Marincola continued. "He was pretty quiet and didn't socialize much or have a girlfriend that I knew of."

As a student at the British boarding school in Togo, Farouk1986 wrote that he was lonely because there were few other Muslims. "I'm active, I socialise with everybody around me, no conflicts, I laugh and joke but not excessively," he wrote in one posting seeking counseling from online peers. "I will describe myself as very ambitious and determined, especially in the deen. I strive to live my daily live [sic] according to the quran and sunnah to the best of my ability. I do almost everything, sports, TV, books . . . (of course trying not to cross the limits in the deen)." The deen is a religious way of life....

Actually, the deen is the religion. He is saying that he does everything within the limits of what is allowed in Islam.

In his January 2005 posting about his loneliness, Farouk1986 wrote about the tension between his desires and his religious duty of "lowering the gaze" in the presence of women. "The Prophet (S) advised young men to fast if they can't get married but it has not been helping me much and I seriously don't want to wait for years before I get married," he wrote....

He also wrote of his "dilemma between liberalism and extremism" as a Muslim. "The Prophet (S) said religion is easy and anyone who tries to overburden themselves will find it hard and will not be able to continue," he wrote in 2005. "So anytime I relax, I deviate sometimes and then when I strive hard, I get tired of what I am doing i.e. memorising the quran, etc. How should one put the balance right?"

In December 2005, Farouk1986 wrote that his parents were visiting him in London and that he was torn about whether he could eat meat with them. "I am of the view meat not slaughtered by Muslims . . . is haram [forbidden] for consumption unless necessary," he wrote. "My parents are of the view as foreigners, we are allowed to . . . eat any meat. It occured [sic] to me I should not be eating with my parents as they use meat I consider haram. But I fear this might cause division and other complicated family problems."

He pleaded: "Please respond as quickly as possible as my tactic has been to eat outside and not at home till I get an answer."

Abdulmutallab, the youngest of 16 children and the son of the second of his father's two wives, was raised at the family home in Kaduna, a city in Nigeria's Muslim-dominated north. At boarding school, Farouk was easygoing and studious, earning the sobriquet "Alfa," a local term for Muslim clerics, because of his penchant for preaching Islam to colleagues, according to family members.

"Farouk was a devoted Muslim who took his religion seriously and was committed to his studies," said an uncle. "He was such a brilliant boy and nobody in the family had the slightest thought he could do something as insane as this."

Although Farouk hardly ever stayed in Nigeria and would visit only for holidays, family members and neighbors on Ahman Pategi Street in the rich Unguwar Sarki neighborhood in Kaduna also said he was easygoing and passionate about Islam. "He was of course a very religious, polite and studious fellow," said a cousin, "but it was unthinkable that he would do anything close to attempting to bomb a plane."

Moral equivalence alert: when was the last time a Muslim preacher was expelled from a Western country for proselytizing? "Morocco: Five Foreign Evangelists Expelled," from ANSAmed, December 29 (thanks to Insubria):

(ANSAmed) - RABAT, DECEMBER 29 - Five Evangelist foreigners (two South Africans, two Swiss and one Guatemalan) have been expelled from Morocco accused of "unauthorised gathering and evangelist proselytism". Twelve Moroccans who were taking part in the meeting were arrested and eventually released after being questioned. The order of expulsion was issued by the Prefecture of Oujda (in the country's north-east). Last March, fiver missionaries (four Spaniards and one German) were expelled accused of "gathering with Moroccan citizens living abroad for the purpose of proselytism".(ANSAmed)

In the lead story in Human Events today, I discuss the abject failure of our national approach to counterterror:

The chief lesson of the attempted jihad attack on Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day is that our entire anti-terror strategy is a huge and abject failure. Of course, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano would beg to differ, as she has said that the stopping of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempt to set off an explosive on the airplane showed that "the system worked" and "everything happened that should have."

The "system worked"? So the "system" now involves hoping that other passengers will tackle the jihadist? After all, a passenger on Flight 253, Jasper Schuringa, subdued Abdulmutallab. The "system" now relies on all of the jihadis' detonators failing, as did Abdulmutallab's? Napolitano's optimism was based on an appalling disconnect from reality that in saner times would result in her dismissal. Barack Obama, by contrast, would be more likely to issue her a commendation, if he weren't too busy golfing and shooting hoops during his Hawaii vacation.

In contrast to Napolitano's fantasies, Flight 253 revealed a massive failure not only of airline security procedures, but also of the larger strategy that America and the West has been pursuing against jihad terrorism.

As for airline security procedures, Abdulmutallab was able to get on the airplane without a passport, and with ingredients for an explosive that would have destroyed the plane and killed everyone in it. TSA officials are busy tightening security procedures with new Abdulmutallab-inspired rules such as forcing passengers to stay in their seats for the last hour of the flight, but these new measures will do nothing to prevent another attack. One thing we have seen over the years since 9/11 is that airport security is always one step behind the jihadists: after jihadist Richard Reid attempted to set off a bomb hidden in his shoes, we all have to take off our shoes and send them through security scanners. After a group of jihadists tried to sneak onto planes explosive chemicals hidden in drink bottles, we can't carry drinks through airport security terminals. Because Abdulmutallab attempted his jihad attack just before the plane landed, now we can't get up during the last hour of the flight. The one thing that the TSA should have learned, but hasn't, is that next time the jihadists will do something else, not just repeat what they did before. And even if every passenger were given a full body cavity search, they will find some way to get around it. But attempt a new approach based on sensible profiling? The TSA would rather fold up shop altogether....

Read it all.

But no, Islamic "radicalization" couldn't happen within Nigeria. "Religious mayhem claims 30 in Bauchi," by Ali Garba for the Guardian (Nigeria), December 28:

No fewer than 30 persons, including four soldiers from the 33 Field Artillery Brigade, Bauchi, may have been killed in a fresh clash between members of an Islamic sect called kala-kato and security personnel in the Zango area of Bauchi Metropolis in the early hours of yesterday.

The kala-kato (which means "he has said") sect claims to be an off shoot of the original Maitatsine sect of the 1980s.

Among the victims who died were 15 children between the ages of three and seven.

A cripple, Yusufa Abba, was said to have been slaughtered like a ram by the sect members.

A number of houses in Zango were set on fire by members of the sect who went on rampage demanding the release of their leader arrested by the authorities.

Affected, was Gambo Nabarasi whose house opposite the sect's enclave in Zango area was burnt down completely. When The Guardian visited the Federal Low-cost House Estate, which is near the scene of the clash, sound of gunshot exchange between security personnel and the members of the sect still rent the air. [...]

About four innocent children who fell victims were burnt when their parents' house was set ablaze by the rampaging sect members.

According to an eyewitness, Ibrahim, who is one of the neighbours to the sect members, said that the residents started to sense trouble early yesterday when the preacher of the sect embarked on a sermon insulting other Moslem sects.

Ibrahim said that the preacher called other sects infidels.

"I live at the Zango Main Road but this street is called Saidawa. I was at the open preaching of the sect yesterday night (Sunday) and this morning (Monday) when the preacher questioned the rationale behind the killing of the dreaded Boko Haram members when all the sect members were preaching against is reality," he said.

He added: "One of the listeners challenged the preacher and he was dealt with there while another who called on the people to leave the venue of the preaching was killed instantly and before we knew what was happening, the sect members had taken to the street burning down people's houses and maiming others. It is very unfortunate this is happening again in Bauchi," Ibrahim said. [...]

This will be the third religious crisis in Bauchi this year including the dreaded Boko Haram in June which claimed many lives and property.

Sunni-Shi'ite Jihad Update. "Pakistan: Riots erupt in Karachi after deadly bomb attack," from AdnKronos International, December 28:

Karachi, 28 Dec. (AKI) - By Syed Saleem Shahzad - Riots erupted in the Pakistani port city of Karachi on Monday when a suicide attack killed at least 20 people and injured another 60 during a Shia Muslim procession to mark the Ashura festival. It was the third and largest attack on a Shia congregation in Pakistan in the past three days.

Hundreds of people had been part of the procession at the time of the bomb attack.

Immediately after the explosion, marchers turned their anger on security forces and emergency workers.

Pakistan's security forces had been on high alert as Shia Muslims marked the holy month of Muharram or Ashura.

Shia Muslims began firing shots in the air and closed shops late Sunday when a bomb was planted near a small mourning procession in the centre of the southern city of Karachi, which is the largest industrial and the financial centre of the country.

Thousands of Shia faithful expressed their rage across the city after the latest attack on the largest mourning procession as it travelled on the city's main artery, M.A. Jinnah Road, towards the largest Shia mourning centre, Husainya Iraniya.

Some started firing weapons in the air and set a market alight on the southern side of the city.

The market appeared to have been targeted because it belongs to Pashtun traders who are often branded as Taliban.

There were fears late in the day that the riots would spread across the city as young people took to the streets.

The attack on the mourning processions in Karachi began on Saturday when a bomb was planted in a car at the central district of the city.

On Sunday eight people were killed when a suicide bomber attacked a Shia march in Pakistan-administered Kashmir....

Gitmo recidivism comes back to bite us directly. "Two al Qaeda Leaders Behind Northwest Flight 253 Terror Plot Were Released by U.S.: Former Guantanamo Prisoners Believed Behind Northwest Airlines Bomb Plot; Sent to Saudi Arabia in 2007," by Brian Ross, Anna Schecter and Joseph Rhee for ABC News, December 28 (thanks to Awake):

Two of the four leaders allegedly behind the al Qaeda plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines passenger jet over Detroit were released by the U.S. from the Guantanamo prison in November, 2007, according to American officials and Department of Defense documents. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the Northwest bombing in a Monday statement that vowed more attacks on Americans.

American officials agreed to send the two terrorists from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia where they entered into an "art therapy rehabilitation program" and were set free, according to U.S. and Saudi officials.

An "art therapy rehabilitation program." Yes, you read that right.

Guantanamo prisoner #333, Muhamad Attik al-Harbi, and prisoner #372, Said Ali Shari, were sent to Saudi Arabia on Nov. 9, 2007, according to the Defense Department log of detainees who were released from American custody. Al-Harbi has since changed his name to Muhamad al-Awfi.

Both Saudi nationals have since emerged in leadership roles in Yemen, according to U.S. officials and the men's own statements on al Qaeda propaganda tapes.

Both of the former Guantanamo detainees are described as military commanders and appear on a January, 2009 video along with the man described as the top leader of al Qaeda in Yemen, Abu Basir Naser al-Wahishi, formerly Osama bin Laden's personal secretary.

In its Monday statement claiming responsibility for the Northwest bombing, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula called bombing suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab a "hero" and a "martyr" and lauded him for beating U.S. intelligence.

The two-page written claim included a photo of Abdulmutallab and boasted of Al Qaeda's success in designing "advanced explosive packages" that can pass through airport screening undetected.

The statement also asks for attacks upon Americans in the Arabian peninsula, and promises further attacks on the American people.

The suspected bomber, 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, told FBI agents he was trained for his Christmas Day mission in Yemen by top leaders of al Qaeda who provided him with the explosive materials.

"The so-called rehabilitation programs are a joke," a U.S. diplomat said in describing the Saudi efforts with released Guantanamo detainees.

Saudi officials concede its program has had its "failures" but insist that, overall, the effort has helped return potential terrorists to a meaningful life....

I.e., jihad.

Here's a twist on the Poverty Causes Terrorism myth: "We the children of the masses in this country, we don't know anything about terrorism because our parents are poor." In other words, this guy believes you have to be rich to become an Islamic jihadist. "Nigeria bomber's home town blames foreign schooling," from Reuters, December 27 (thanks to all who sent this in):

FUNTUA, Nigeria (Reuters) - For residents in his home town, it was Umar Abdulmutallab's foreign education, not his roots in Muslim northern Nigeria, that radicalized him and led him to try to blow up a U.S. passenger plane.

The 23-year-old London-educated Nigerian was charged on Saturday in the United States with trying to blow up Northwest Airlines flight 253 as it approached Detroit from Amsterdam on Christmas Day with almost 300 people on board.

The son of a highly respected banker, Abdulmutallab's actions shocked Nigeria's wealthy elite and residents in his family's predominantly Muslim northern hometown of Funtua.

"Everyone knew the Mutallabs and the father is honest, generous, helpful and above all a prominent banker. I cannot see why his son should be involved in this act," Funtua resident Ibrahim Bello, 65, said, close to the Mutallab family home.

Like other elders from the community, Bello said Abdulmutallab's schooling abroad meant he had been brought up outside the customs of northern Nigeria, a region with a history of moderate Sufi Islam.

"My only advice to the elite is to allow their children to mingle with the children of the masses so that he will have some of the traditional morals and values that (the elder) Mutallab himself enjoyed," Bello told Reuters....

Abdulmutallab is from a privileged background in Africa's most populous nation, where most of an estimated 140 million people live on under $2 a day.

His father, Umaru Mutallab, retired earlier this month as chairman of First Bank, the country's oldest, after a distinguished career in finance....

Abdulmutallab was educated at the British School in Lome, Togo -- a boarding school mostly serving expatriates and students from around West Africa -- before studying engineering at University College London (UCL), where he is believed to have lived in a multi-million dollar city-center apartment.

One friend who knew him in London said he kept himself to himself and always wore a skullcap, rare among young Nigerian Muslims who usually wear such caps only on religious occasions.

Nigeria's This Day newspaper said he had been given the nickname "Alfa" -- a local term for an Islamic scholar -- while at school in Togo, for his preaching to other students.

He also made two trips to Yemen during his student days for short Arabic and Islamic courses, according to a family friend....

Clashes between security forces and a radical Islamic sect called Boko Haram -- which wanted a wider adoption of sharia (Islamic law) -- killed hundreds of people in the northern Nigerian city of Maiduguri in July.

But Islamic jurisprudence in Nigeria is based on the moderate Maliki school of Sunni Islam and Boko Haram's ideology is dismissed by the country's Muslim leaders and most believers.

Young Muslims who grew up in Funtua insist it was Abdulmutallab's life overseas, which they view as alien, not Nigerian Islam that gave rise to his extremist views.

"We the children of the masses in this country, we don't know anything about terrorism because our parents are poor. They don't have the money to take us abroad," said 25-year old student and Funtua resident Usman Mati.

"Transcript of Obama remarks on airline security and terror watch lists," from the Washington Post, December 28 (thanks to Christopher):

[...] A full investigation has been launched into this attempted act of terrorism, and we will not rest until we find all who were involved and hold them accountable. [...]

...while steadfastly ignoring the beliefs an motives of all concerned, regardless of what those beliefs and motives might reveal about the jihadists' future plans and how they can be stopped.

Finally, the American people should remain vigilant, but also be confident. Those plotting against us seek not only to undermine our security, but also the open society and the values that we cherish as Americans. This incident, like several that have preceded it, demonstrates that an alert and courageous citizenry are far more resilient than an isolated extremist....

They could have flagged his visa -- twice. "U.S. Failed to Catch Suspect's Active Visa: Exclusive: 2 State Dept. Checks Before Alleged Terror Attack Didn't Discover Abdulmutallab had Active Visa Allowing Entry," by Armen Keteyian for CBS News, December 28 (thanks to Benedict):

CBS News has learned the State Department system designed to keep track of active U.S. visas twice failed to reveal Nigerian terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had been issued an active visa allowing him multiple entries into the United States.

According to a law enforcement source, the first failure came on Nov. 19, 2009, the very same day Abdulmutallab father's, Dr. Umaru Mutallab, a prominent banking official in Nigeria, expressed deep concern to officials at the U.S. Embassy in Abjua, Nigeria, that his 23-year-old son had fallen under the influence of "religious extremists" in Yemen.

The second failure to flag an active visa belonging to Abdulmuttalab occurred the very next day in Washington, after Mutallab's concerns were forwarded to officials there. It was only after the Christmas Day terror attack in Detroit that U.S. officials learned that Abdulmuttalab had been issued a visa by the U.S. Embassy in London valid from June 16, 2008, through June 12, 2010.

"There's a Mecca that Muslims should visit, and the mecca of jihad that is London."

"Was Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab radicalized in London?," by Robert Marquand and Ben Quinn in the Christian Science Monitor, December 28 (thanks to James):

For young Muslims especially, London is a city like no other. It is a mecca for jobs and education and provides freedom from the prying eyes of family back home. The grand metropolis also beckons as a bastion of religious freedom and as a refuge from corrupt home country politics....

That was the world that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab - the young Nigerian accused of seeking to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas -immersed himself in as a student between 2005 and 2008, when the petri dish of political Islam in London was stirring strongly.

For at least a decade sub-cultures of radical thought that promote borderless Islam and an uncompromising return to Sharia law have flourished in Great Britain's capital - despite some reportedly effective efforts to tamp down extremist views, and despite worries among moderate London Muslims about the trend.

"There are basically two meccas," argues Egyptian-born Mamoun Fandy of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "There's a Mecca that Muslims should visit, and the mecca of jihad that is London."...

The availability of every kind of message Islam has to offer is part of the London scene. Most mosques have easy byways for students to meet and learn a more intense Koranic view; groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir, which seeks a return to early Islam with all Muslim states under one ruler, post members around mosques on Friday. They offer cards with phone numbers and invitations to study groups that discuss jihad. One of their common Friday hangouts is an East London mosque that Abdulmutallab allegedly attended.

"I've felt for a long time that if radical Sharia law comes to the rest of the world it will start on the streets of London," says a Pakistani expert on militant Islam who asked not to be identified. "Too many clerics today, even moderate ones, don't talk on Muslim life in a secular state. Young Muslims are smart, raised as British citizens. If they come from abroad, many have great hope and are often disillusioned. They live between worlds, in the cracks. When they go home to their families they are often more radical than their friends."...

Agence France-Presse cited family members' claims that Abdulmutallab was a quiet individual who was "radicalized" during his stint in London. The London daily Independent quoted a school friend: "He always did the bare minimum of work and would just show up to classes" and "he always would go off to pray," said Fabrizio Cavallo Marincola. "He was pretty quiet and didn't socialise much or have a girlfriend that I knew of. (...) You would never imagine him pulling off something like this."

Critics of lax border security in the UK point out that more than 42,000 British student visas were issued to Pakistani students between 2004 and 2007 but it was only in 2009 that applications have been checked against an expanded set of terrorist watch lists. A concern is that student visas are being secured to study at educational institutions which don't exist.

The Pakistani analyst, who has close ties to London mosques, argues that nearly every Pakistani radical he knows in London has gone through a "night club" phase. They try out a "clubbing life" that is ultimately unsatisfying. "They try to experience something like a dream of life in the west. About a year later they show up in the mosque, grow beards and are 'good Muslims,'" he says.

And the peaceful Muslims whose peaceful religion has putatively been hijacked have no effective rejoinder to their claim to be "good Muslims" when they turn to jihad violence and Islamic supremacism.

Many Muslims in the UK complain of the "double standards" of Western policies, particularly as regards the Middle East. British Palestinian Muslims have complained, for example, that when British Jews go to Israel and fight for the Israeli army, they come home as praiseworthy heroes; but when Palestinians go to fight or aid the local struggle, they come home and are considered terrorists.

Uh, yeah. Maybe if the British Jews had been blowing people up on buses or in restaurants, this might be different.

In July, a determination in London that Al Qaeda threats have diminished lowered the terrorist threat level from severe to substantial, and relaxed measures such as 'stop and search' powers. Britain has spent heavily on reconciliation projects - sponsoring 'moderate' preachers - aimed at stemming the influence of Islamist messages over young British Muslims. UK campuses remain in the frontline of struggle to prevent the radicalization of students although the British government continues to resist calls to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir, accused of attempting to infiltrate Muslim student societies.

Confirming what the evidence has indicated so far. Note the claim that this attack was in retaliation for recent strikes in Yemen. It seems much more likely that this was in the works for quite some time, and the attack would have taken place on Christmas in any event. Jihadists will find any convenient grievance to claim as cause for "revenge," though claiming such a fast turnaround is also an attempt to amplify the appearance of the group's operational power. "Al Qaeda claims responsibility for failed terror attack," from CNN, December 28:

Romulus, Michigan (CNN) -- Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility for the attempted Christmas Day terrorist attack on a plane about to land in the U.S., saying it was in retaliation for alleged U.S. strikes on Yemeni soil.

A suspect, Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab, is being held for allegedly trying to blow up the flight carrying 300 passengers.

A preliminary FBI analysis found that the device AbdulMutallab allegedly carried aboard the flight from Amsterdam, Netherlands, to Detroit, Michigan, contained the explosive pentaerythritol tetranitrate, known as PETN.

The amount of explosive involved was sufficient to blow a hole in the side of the aircraft, a source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN Sunday.

Authorities have focused their investigation on how AbdulMutallab, 23, allegedly smuggled the explosives aboard the flight and who might have helped him.

Backpedaling a bit:

"We're ascertaining why it was that he was not flagged in a more specific way when he purchased his ticket, given the information that we think was available, allegedly was available," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told CNN's "American Morning" Monday. ...

Oh, the humanity! I can hardly stand to look at these photos of the suffering people in Gaza. Behold the fruit (ahem) of the evil Zionist oppression!

Israel Matzav has the photos, and many more.

UPDATE: The original source of the photos is the excellent Tom Gross Media site (scroll down), which I highly recommend visiting regularly.

Not that this has anything to do with Islam! "Abdulmutallab: More Like Me In Yemen: Accused Northwest Bomber Says More Bombers On the Way; Al Qaeda Promises to Hit Americans," by Brian Ross and Richard Esposito for ABC News, December 28 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

American officials have cause to worry there may be more al Qaeda-trained young men in Yemen planning to bring down American jets.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, charged with the attempted Christmas Day bombing of Northwest Airlines flight 253, told FBI agents there were more just like him in Yemen who would strike soon.

And in a tape released four days before the attempted destruction of the Detroit-bound Northwest plane, the leader of al Qaeda in Yemen boasted of what was planned for Americans, saying, "We are carrying a bomb to hit the enemies of God."...

Yazid was the killer of Hussein, the son of Ali, whose death the Shi'ites lament on Ashura. That the Iranian crowds would be chanting this suggests that this is a Shi'ite vs. Shi'ite affair -- Sharia adherents battling other Sharia adherents and jockeying for the mantle of Islamic purity. Given Iran's flirtation with secularism under the Shah, it's possible that if Obama had come out strongly in favor of the protesters from the beginning, this could have gone in a different direction -- but that is yet another missed opportunity for him. "Aides to Iran's Opposition Leaders Said to Be Arrested," by Robert F. Worth and Nazila Fathi for the New York Times, December 29:

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- The Iranian authorities arrested a number of opposition figures on Monday in the wake of violent protests a day earlier, Web sites reported, including three top aides to the opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi and Ibrahim Yazdi, leader of the banned Iran Freedom Movement....

"What has happened to this religious system that it orders the killing of innocent people during the holy day of Ashura?" Mr. Karroubi said in a statement, according to the opposition Jaras Web site....

On Sunday, thick crowds marched down a central avenue in Tehran, defying official warnings of a harsh crackdown on protests as they chanted "death to Khamenei," referring to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has expressed growing intolerance for political dissent in the country....

Protests and clashes also broke out in the cities of Isfahan, Mashhad, Shiraz, Arak, Tabriz, Najafabad, Babol, Ardebil and Orumieh, opposition Web sites said....

The White House condemned what it called the "unjust suppression" of civilians by the Iranian government on Sunday.

"Hope and history are on the side of those who peacefully seek their universal rights, and so is the United States," said Mike Hammer, a spokesman for the National Security Council....

"This is the month of blood, Yazid will fall," the protesters shouted, equating Ayatollah Khamenei with Yazid, the ruler who ordered Imam Hussein's killing....

"Ashura is a very symbolic day in our culture, and it revives the notion that the innocents were killed by a villain," said Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, a former member of the Iranian Parliament who is a visiting scholar at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. "Killing people on Ashura shows how far Khamenei is willing to go to suppress the protests."...

Pamela has extensive coverage here and here.

Since apparently nothing was found on these guys, this one has already become a pretext for CAIR cries of "Islamophobia." In CAIR's "American Muslim News Briefs" was an item entitled "AIR: Plane Incidents in Ariz., Mich. Raise Profiling Concerns." It noted that "in Arizona, two 'Middle Eastern' men were removed from a US Airways flight in Phoenix and questioned by the FBI after another passenger overheard the men speaking in a foreign language. The men were questioned and released." CAIR spokesman Ibrahim "Honest Ibe" Hooper says: "While everyone supports robust airline security measures [yeah, surrre -- ed.], racial and religious profiling are in fact counterproductive and can lead to a climate of insecurity and fear."

Here is what Honest Ibe could have and should have said: "Since everyone supports robust airline security measures, we call upon American Muslims to cooperate fully with airline security procedures and to accept being inconvenienced in the effort to prevent another Islamic jihad terror attack."

Feel free to crib from my work, Ibe.

"TSA: 2 passengers detained after flight to Phoenix," from AP, December 27 (thanks to all who sent this in):

PHOENIX - Two men thought to have been acting suspicious aboard a flight bound for Phoenix were detained and questioned by federal anti-terrorism authorities before they were released, the FBI said Sunday.

Transportation Security Administration officials said passengers aboard U.S. Airways Flight 192 from Orlando, Fla., on Saturday night reported that two men, described as Middle Eastern, were acting strangely and talking loudly to each other in a foreign language.

A nearby passenger also observed one of men watching what appeared to be footage of a suicide bombing, but was actually a scene from the 2007 movie "The Kingdom." The man also got up from his seat while the seat belt warning sign was still lit, FBI spokesman Manuel Johnson said.

"The totality of those three occurrences led this passenger to believe this was suspicious," he said....

Now wait a minute. What happened to all those signs in airports everywhere, warning people not to joke about security issues, and that such jokes will be taken seriously? If the plane was already in flight at the time Abdulmutallab said this, the flight attendant should at least have made sure that he was closely watched and guarded for the duration of the flight -- by other passengers if no one else was on hand to do the job.

"Bomber was on US watch list," by Angela Montefinise for the New York Post, December 28 (thanks to Trotsky):

[...] He was read the charges at a hearing, where he appeared smiling in a medical gown and a wheelchair.

Several key details came to light yesterday:

* Al Qaeda operatives in Yemen sewed into Abdulmutallab's underwear a condom filled with three ounces of a nitroglycerin-like compound after he spent a month training with the terror organization, sources told ABC News.

"One flight attendant asked him what he had had in his pocket, and he replied, 'Explosive device,' " according to the Justice Department.

* Abdulmutallab was added to the 550,000 suspects on a watch list kept by the US National Counterterrorism Center in November and had been on government radar for months. Yet there wasn't enough negative information about him to put him on the no-fly list.

* His father, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, a prominent Nigerian banker who retired recently, reportedly contacted the US Embassy there about six months ago to inform authorities about his son's increasingly extreme behavior.

* Michigan Rep. Peter Hoekstra, the senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said he believes Abdulmutallab is linked to radical US-born Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi, a mentor to the US Army psychiatrist who gunned down 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, last month.

* Abdulmutallab -- who boarded a flight in Nigeria to Amsterdam, and then transferred to Northwest Flight 253 to Detroit -- did not go through full-body scans at either airport, and it's unclear how he was screened as a transferring passenger in Amsterdam....

Could it be that sympathetic security officials made sure he got through?

For years I have pointed out that there have been no protests in the Islamic world against those who have supposedly hijacked their religion, except when the jihadis kill other Muslims. There have been protests against cartoons of Muhammad, and statements of the Pope, but not against the jihadists. So this one bears watching. It will be very interesting to see what kind of crowd gathers there.

"Protest planned to tell world: Islam is peaceful," by Eric D. Lawrence for the Detroit Free Press, December 28:

The organizers of a Dearborn-area group on Facebook are calling for Muslims to protest against the actions of a Nigerian man accused of trying to attack a Northwest Airlines flight en route to Detroit Metro Airport on Friday.

Majed Moughni, a Dearborn attorney, said Sunday afternoon that Muslims need to let the world know that those who would commit terrorism do not represent Islam.

"It's very frustrating to know that these guys are using Islam and committing terror," he said. "Islam stands for peace."

His Facebook group, Dearborn Area Community Members, is calling for local Muslims to hold a protest during the scheduled Jan. 8 hearing in U.S. District Court in Detroit for Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The 23-year-old was charged Saturday with trying to detonate an explosive device on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Friday. He told federal authorities he was acting on orders from Al Qaeda.

Information about the protest is being posted on the group's Facebook page: "Please bring your signs, and American flags: theme: 'NOT IN THE NAME OF ISLAM,' " according to one post.

Fatme Nemer, 24, a Dearborn resident and member of the Facebook group, agreed that the time had come to protest against terrorism....

Yes, eight years and 15,000 jihad attacks after 9/11, maybe now is the time.

They might get the idea that it's all right to eat pork, you see. Characteristic anger and intransigence in this Sharia Alert from modern, moderate Malaysia: "Malaysia - Anger over pork mixed with Halal meat," from Meat Trade News Daily, December 27 (thanks to Walter):

A Malaysian government-backed campaign to popularise a well-known ethnic Chinese soup by making a version that avoids pork and fulfills Islamic dietary rules sparked criticism by activists who fear it will confuse Muslims.

According to The Jakarta Post, a halal version of "bak kut teh," a herbal broth traditionally made with pork ribs, was introduced at a Tourism Ministry food fair last weekend to promote local cuisine. The new version contains chicken, seafood or vegetables instead of pork, which Islam prohibits.

However, some Muslims object to the use of "bak kut teh" to identify the revamped recipe, saying the name is synonymous with pork among people in Muslim-majority Malaysia and neighboring Singapore, where the dish is beloved by the ethnic Chinese community.
"Bak kut teh" means "meat bone tea" in a Chinese dialect, but the meat is generally understood to be pork.

"This will cause misunderstanding among the public. It might even lead some Muslims to wonder whether it is all right to eat pork," said Ma'mor Osman, secretary general of the Malaysian Muslim Consumers Association.

The association plans to send a complaint to the Tourism Ministry, urging it to find a new name for the halal version, Ma'mor told The Associated Press.

The Department of Islamic Development, a government group that oversees Islamic policies, reportedly said it won't allow the dish to be formally certified as halal if it continues to be named "bak kut teh."

Islamic authorities are worried that Muslims will wrongly assume that the soup's pork version is suitable for consumption, the department's deputy director, Lokman Abdul Rahman, told the Utusan Malaysia newspaper....

Part of the money is earmarked to fight "extremism" -- although how this will be spent will be interesting, given that the British authorities have no clue about what exactly constitutes "extremism," and are failing miserably at countering it in Britain itself. "Britain to send £50m to Palestine," by Donald Macintyre in The Independent, December 28 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

Britain yesterday marked the first anniversary of Israel's military onslaught on Gaza by announcing a £50m aid package for Palestinians, including backing for what it called "a drive against extremism" among the territory's young people.

The move came 24 hours after Israeli forces killed six Palestinians - three of them Gaza civilians - in one of the conflict's deadliest days since the three-week offensive that began with massive aerial bombing of Hamas targets a year ago yesterday....

Once again the mainstream media fails to note how Hamas launches attacks from civilian areas in order to draw retaliatory fire it can portray as wanton targeting of civilians.

The British aid is in part intended to alleviate that crisis. The bulk of the money will go to budget support for the moderate-led Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah. But £7m has been earmarked to help war-stricken Gazans in the winter. Another £5m will pay for 562 teachers in UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) schools in the area....

In Front Page for the 28th, a survey of the massive failure demonstrated by Flight 253:

An attempted jihad attack on Christmas Day has revealed that Americans are much more vulnerable to such attacks than most have believed - while government officials whistle in the dark. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old son of a wealthy Nigerian banker, tried to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 just before it landed in Detroit. In response, Barack Obama chose not to cut short his golfing vacation in Hawaii; the White House announced that he would "likely" have something to say about this latest attempted jihad attack on U.S. soil "in the next few days." Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was ebullient, maintaining that "the system worked" and "everything happened that should have."

Unless the "system" consisted of relying on passengers to tackle jihadists (as Jasper Schuringa, the Dutch passenger on Flight 253, subdued Abdulmutallab), and trusting that jihadis' detonators will malfunction (as did Abdulmutallab's), Napolitano's statement couldn't possibly be farther from the truth. In reality, nothing worked. Nothing at all, both in terms of security procedures for individual air passengers, and in terms of the larger strategy for dealing with jihad terrorism.

All the stupid and humiliating airport security procedures, all the little baggies for toothpaste and shampoo, all the padding through the security scanner in stocking feet, didn't work. Abdulmutallab was able to board the plane with the makings of a bomb that would have destroyed the aircraft and killed everyone in it. The Transportation Security Administration has scrambled since Christmas Day to stiffen security procedures, but its effort is foredoomed: jihadis study these procedures carefully, always searching for ways to circumvent them. And such ways exist, even if every passenger were subjected to a full body cavity search - bomb ingredients can be separated and combined mid-flight, or spirited onboard in ways as yet unimagined by the most visionary TSA official.

Abdulmutallib was also on a terror watch list, although that fact, and the fact that he had been known to anti-terror officials for several years, did not prevent him from boarding Flight 253 - showing that such lists and even official scrutiny are as useless as taking off your shoes in the airport security line. What's more, the jihadi's father warned American officials about his son, who was being watched already. And still nothing was done to keep him from boarding the plane....

Read it all.

And where is he now? "Flight 253 passenger: Sharp-dressed man aided terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab onto plane without passport (MLive.com exclusive)," by Sheena Harrison for MLive.com, December 26 (thanks to Puneet):

A Michigan man who was aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 says he witnessed Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab trying to board the plane in Amsterdam without a passport.

Kurt Haskell of Newport, Mich., who posted an earlier comment about his experience, talked exclusively with MLive.com and confirmed he was on the flight by sending a picture of his boarding pass. He and his wife, Lori, were returning from a safari in Uganda when they boarded the NWA flight on Friday.

Haskell said he and his wife were sitting on the ground near their boarding gate in Amsterdam, which is when they saw Mutallab approach the gate with an unidentified man.

Kurt and Lori Haskell are attorneys with Haskell Law Firm in Taylor. Their expertise includes bankruptcy, family law and estate planning.

While Mutallab was poorly dressed, his friend was dressed in an expensive suit, Haskell said. He says the suited man asked ticket agents whether Mutallab could board without a passport. "The guy said, 'He's from Sudan and we do this all the time.'"

Mutallab is Nigerian. Haskell believes the man may have been trying to garner sympathy for Mutallab's lack of documents by portraying him as a Sudanese refugee.

The ticket agent referred Mutallab and his companion to her manager down the hall, and Haskell didn't see Mutallab again until after he allegedly tried to detonate an explosive on the plane....

Now he is free on $100 bond. Clearly this far-seeing and right-thinking judge understands that Islam is a Religion of Peace™, and that therefore this man only intended to butcher his sinful inclinations, as part of his inner spiritual struggle to conform his life to the will of Allah.

And now that he is out, is anyone paying any attention to how his inner spiritual struggle is going? Or is this another Misunderstander of Islam that we're only going to hear about again if he misunderstands jihad at the expense of the life of an Infidel or two?

"Memphis Man Arrested: Accused of Making Bomb Threats & Threatening to Start 'Holy War,'" from MyEyewitnessNews.com, December 25 (thanks to Pamela):

MEMPHIS, TN - Tonight, Mohamed Ibrahim is out after posting $100 bond. Earlier in the day, he was arrested after police say he walked into several Memphis businesses and threatened to blow them up.

Court records show Ibrahim was also telling people he was Muslim, and wanted to start a jihad, or holy war, in Memphis.

Police say when they arrested him, he had a butcher knife hidden in one of his jacket sleeves.

UPDATE: In a sudden outburst of common sense, Mohamed Ibrahim's bail amount seems to have been changed to $50,000. (Pamela has court docs and info).

Abdulmutallab could be just the beginning, if this report is accurate. "25 Brits in jet bomb plots," by Anthony France and Alex West for The Sun, December 27 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

COPS fear that 25 British-born Muslims are plotting to bomb Western airliners.

The fanatics, in five groups, are now training at secret terror camps in Yemen.

It was there London-educated Umar Abdulmutallab, 23, prepared for his Christmas Day bid to blow up a US jet.

The British extremists in Yemen are in their early 20s and from Bradford, Luton and Leytonstone, East London.

They are due to return to the UK early in 2010 and will then await internet instructions from al-Qaeda on when to strike.

A Scotland Yard source said: "The great fear is Abdulmutallab is the first of many ready to attack planes and kill tens of thousands.

"We know there are four or five radicalised British Muslim cells in the Yemen.

"They are due back within months when they will be under constant surveillance."

The 25 suspects, of Pakistani and Somali descent, were radicalised in UK mosques.

Uh, how'd that happen? I thought they were all serenely moderate.

Small jihadi world. "Abdulmutallab, A Banker's Son Turned Muslim Radical: Accused Northwest Bomber's Emails Tell of Desire to Go to Yemen," by Richard Esposito and Brian Ross for ABC News, December 27 (thanks to James):

Northwest Airlines bombing suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old son of a wealthy Nigerian banker, became so politically extreme his own father reported him to U.S. authorities.

More than 100 chat room posts traced to his e-mail account by ABC News show the course of his radicalization.

"I think this is the threat, the primary threat that we have to worry about now," said Richard Clarke, ABC News consultant and former counterterrorism czar. "People who've been radicalized in the United States, in Western Europe, people who have been radicalized long distance on the internet."...

He wrote of being lonely and sought friends on-line. "Can you be my friend?" he wrote. "I get lonely sometimes because I have never found a true Muslim friend."

Then later, he wrote of joining protests against the war in Iraq, asking "when is lying allowed to deceive the enemy?" Still later he wrote of heading to Yemen.

Isn't that odd. When I have written about Islam teaching that lying is allowed to deceive the enemy, I get called an "Islamophobe." I guess Abdulmutallab must be an "Islamophobe" as well.

"The Obama administration has been admitting lately, that Yemen is the new Afghanistan," said Clarke. "It is the new sanctuary. The new al Qaeda base, where people from around the world, who want to be trained are sent. No longer to Afghanistan, but to Yemen."

Awlaki Connection?

Investigators believe Abdulmutallab was connected to al Qaeda by the same radical Yemeni cleric, American-born Anwar Awlaki, who is linked to American Army Major Nidal Hasan, accused of opening fire at Fort Hood in November.

"It appears that just like with Major Hasan, Awlaki played a role in this," said Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich, ranking minority member of the House Intelligence Committee. "All roads point back to Yemen, they point back to Awlaki, I think it is a pretty deadly combination."...

Abdulmutallab was put on a terror watch list but his visa to visit the U.S., issued in 2008, was not revoked, nor was he put on the no fly list.

Said Rep. Hoekstra, "He should have been at the top of the no fly list."...

Uh, yeah.

Busy man

Priorities, priorities. "Obama 'Likely' to Speak About Flight 253," by Yunji de Nies for ABC News, December 27 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

White House sources tell ABC News the President will "likely" speak publicly about the alleged attempted terrorist attack on Flight 253 in the next few days. The President is on vacation in his native state of Hawaii - he has received regularly briefings on the incident and called for increased security for air travel, along with a full review of the terror watch list procedures. The White House is adamant that the President is actively engaged on the incident behind the scenes, receiving regular updates as information comes in. While on vacation Mr. Obama does not keep a public schedule, but he did spend much of the day golfing on Saturday and is spending Sunday with his family at the beach. He has been criticized because he has yet to address the American people directly....

Some jihadists consider no non-Muslim to be innocent. Thus when a Muslim spokesman says that Islam condemns the killing of innocent people, he hasn't necessarily said anything that would render un-Islamic a jihad attack like the one attempted on Flight 253. But Free Press reporter Niraj Warikoo, who has been covering Muslim activities in the Detroit area for years and giving Muslim spokesmen a free pass on such questions, acts true to form in this piece.

"Nigerian-American Muslims held convention during attack attempt," by Niraj Warikoo for the Detroit Free Press, December 27 (thanks to James):

Hundreds of Nigerian-American Muslims from across the U.S. -- including some from metro Detroit -- had gathered this weekend in Boston, Massachusetts for their annual gathering. It's considered the biggest meeting of Nigerian Muslims in the U.S.

But in the middle of five-day convention came breaking news -- a Nigerian Muslim man attempted a terrorist attack on a Northwest plane descending into Detroit.

The participants were horrified and scrambled to put out a press release strongly condemning the incident, said leaders of the 9th annual national convention of the National Council of Nigerian Muslim Organizations, which ended today.

"It was hard news to take," Muyideen Ibiyemi, chairman of the board of trustees of the National Council, told the Free Press today. "It took us aback."

But Ibiyemi, of Providence, Rhode Island, said the incident has only made him and other Nigerian-American Muslims more committed to spreading the true [sic] of Islam, which he said was about peace and harmony. The focus of the convention this year was about maintaining Islamic traditions among Nigerian Muslims.

"There is no room in the Quran for this type of thing," Ibiyemi said of the attempted terrorist attack by a 23-year-old Nigerian man who is Muslim. "There is no room in Islam for killing innocent people."...

Meanwhile, Ibiyemi said that he and others in his community will continue to preach the correct message of Islam.

"There is no extremism in this religion," he said. "The Prophet, peace be upon him," was not an extremist.

"The tenets of Islam are to respect the laws of the country," Ibiyemi added. "We want to let the world know we won't associate" with terrorism.

Meanwhile, the unindicted co-conspirator CAIR, also true to form, is attempting to shift the focus of attention away from the Islamic doctrines that lead to such attacks and on to Muslims as victims, based on the chimerical threat of a "backlash":

Dawud Walid, head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said today that "we're concerned about any security threats."

But he said he's also concerned about profiling of innocent people based on ethnicity and religion, citing today's case in Detroit and a reported case in Arizona where men speaking Arabic were pulled off a plane.

"There may be a climate of fear and hysteria" that could result in the profiling of ethnic minorities, he said. There is an "increased anxiety about people's perceived ethnicities," Walid said.

Imam Kazeem Agboola, a Nigerian-American Muslim who heads the Muslim Community Center-Detroit, said that "some will call us names, but there's nothing we can do about it." His congregation is predominantly Nigerian.

"We'll be fine," he added. "We'll be fine."

Of course you will.

Nothing worked. All the stupid and humiliating airport security procedures, all the little baggies for toothpaste and shampoo, all the padding through the security scanner in stocking feet, didn't work. All the concerted efforts by the State Department and DHS to ignore the jihad doctrine and reach out to people they deemed to be "moderate Muslims" didn't work. All the aid programs based on the assumption that poverty caused terrorism and that money for schools and roads and hospitals would win over Muslim hearts and minds didn't work. For an affluent and educated Muslim was able to bring explosive materials onto a plane, and the only thing that kept him from committing mass murder was his own ineptitude and the valor of other passengers on the plane.

What's more, the jihadi's father warned American officials about his son, who was being watched already. And still nothing was done to keep him from boarding the plane.

As far as the DHS and Janet Napolitano are concerned, the incident is a massive and unmitigated disaster, showing the complete and abject failure of their anti-terror policies across the board. But rather than have the decency to admit the truth, the DHS chief is putting on a brave face and pretending that up is down and down is up. "Homeland security head: The security system worked," from AP, December 27 (thanks to Mackie):

(AP) -- WASHINGTON - Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says investigators did not have enough information to keep a terror suspect from boarding a flight bound for Detroit and that the system worked as it should have.

The father of the man accused of attempting to blow up the jetliner told U.S. officials in Nigeria he was concerned about his son's extreme religious views. However, Napolitano says there was no specific information to place Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on a no-fly list....

Pamela has video.

Is the Pope Catholic? Not necessarily. Abdulmutallab came to be known as "the Pope" because he was obviously and sincerely pious. And that same piety -- beliefs that flowed from the same wellsprings -- led him to attempt mass murder on Christmas Day. But even now the mainstream media and government spokesmen will not tell you that. "Bomb Suspect's Classmates Called Him 'The Pope,'" from AP, December 27:

[...] One of Abdulmutallab's former teacher said he was shocked to hear the news. He said on Sunday that Abdulmutallab was so well-respected in high school that classmates nicknamed him "the Pope."

But Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab also showed signs of inflexibility, said Michael Rimmer, a Briton who taught history at the British International School in Lome, Togo.

He said that, in a 2001 discussion about the Taliban in Afghanistan, Abdulmutallab was the only one to defend their actions -- something he attributed at the time to a desire to play the devil's advocate.

He also noted that during a school trip to London, Abdulmutallab became upset when the teacher took students to a pub and said it wasn't right to be in a place where alcohol was being served.

Rimmer said that overall, his impression of Abdulmutallab had been an extremely positive one -- noting in particular an incident in which the youngster chose to give 50 pounds to an orphanage rather than spend it on souvenirs in London.

"At one stage, his nickname was 'The Pope,'" Rimmer said. "In one way it's totally unsuitable because he's Muslim, but he did have this saintly aura.

"In all the time I taught him we never had cross words," Rimmer said from London in a telephone interview. "Somewhere along the line he must have met some sort of fanatics, and they must have turned his mind."

Rimmer described the institution -- an elite college preparatory school in the West African country, attended by children of diplomats and wealthy Africans -- as "lovely, lovely environment" where Christians often joined in Islamic feasts and some of the best Christmas carolers were Muslims.

Abdulmutallab showed no signs of intolerance toward other students, Rimmer said, explaining that "lots of his mates were Christians."...

"We now issue 370,000 student visas a year - almost the entire population of Bristol or Manchester - yet hardly any of the applicants ever see hide nor hair of an Immigration Officer."

An update on this story. "Terror plot raises questions over student visas," by Martin Evans for the Telegraph, December 27:

The latest airline bomb plot by a terrorist with British connections raises serious questions about the UK's controversial student visa system.

Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, who comes from a wealthy family in Nigeria, was already showing signs of extremist views when he was granted a visa to study mechanical engineering at University College London in 2005.

After completing his studies in 2008 he travelled to the Middle East before applying to return to the UK in May for another six month course.

However, his request was refused by officials from the UK Borders Agency as he was attempting to enrol on a course being offered by an institution on the Government's list of bogus colleges.

Despite the fact his entry was barred, questions still remain over the system which has seen more than one and a half million visas granted to overseas students during the last eight years.

Earlier this year a report by the Home Affairs Select Committee criticised the Government for failing to deal adequately with the explosion in bogus colleges springing up across the UK.

Keith Vaz, chairman of the committee said: "The government must restrict the term college to prevent any premises above a fish and chip shop from being able to claim it is a reputed educational institution."

It is feared tens of thousands of foreign nationals have gained entry to Britain illegally under the scheme, with many avoiding detection and never leaving.

In March tighter restrictions were introduced cutting the number of institutions allowed to recruit students from outside the UK.

But critics believe the new points based register has done little to close the system's gaping loopholes.

Around 3,000 educational institutions across the UK have been granted licenses under the points based system but there are only 62 officials employed to vet the colleges and their 13,500 employees. [...]

MPs have welcomed efforts to improve the system, but in their report expressed concern that inspectors were giving notice to colleges before visits.

Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migrationwatch has also been deeply critical of the system which he said provided a "gaping hole" in our immigration system.

He said: "We now issue 370,000 student visas a year - almost the entire population of Bristol or Manchester - yet hardly any of the applicants ever see hide nor hair of an Immigration Officer."

There is also widespread concern that many legitimate universities and colleges are providing fertile recruiting grounds for radical Islamic preachers and banned groups.

Radicalisation among students has been a problem since the 1990s, with many of those involved in terror plots being highly educated graduates.

Three of the July 7 bombers attended university as did most of the gang which planned a fertiliser bomb attack on the Bluewater shopping centre and the Ministry of Sound nightclub.

Ahmed Omar Sheikh, convicted of the kidnap and murder of the journalist Daniel Pearl, was a former student at London School of Economics, and Waseem Mughal, convicted of running a website for al-Qaeda in Iraq, was a former biochemistry student at Leicester University.

Mughal was a member of the university Islamic society, and the fertiliser bomber Jawad Akbar attended Islamic society meetings at Brunel University, while Yassin Nassari, convicted of smuggling plans for a Qassam rocket into Britain, was president of the University of Westminster's Islamic society at its Harrow campus in Northwest London. [...]

A recent study by the Centre for Social Cohesion found that a third of Muslim university students believed killing in the name of religion could be justified.

The disturbing findings of the survey also found a large proportion were in favour of the introduction of Sharia law in the UK.

Following publication of the report, its co-author Hannah Stuart said: "Students in higher education are the future leaders of their communities yet significant numbers of them appear to hold beliefs which contravene liberal, democratic values.

"In addition there are signs of growing religious segregation on campus. These results are deeply embarrassing for those who have said that there is no extremism in British universities."

"Body bomb," of course, is putting it politely, as al-Qaeda increasingly resorts to underwear and suppository bombs to evade security. Similarly, the criminal complaint against Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab provides the following information:

... In general, those individuals who were on the flight and who were able to see Abdulmutallab report that prior to the incident, Abdulmutallab went to the bathroom for approximately twenty minutes. Upon returning to his seat, Abdulmutallab stated that his stomach was upset, and he pulled a blanket over himself. Passengers then heard popping noises similar to firecrackers, smelled an odor, and some observed Abdulmutallab's pants leg and the wall of the airplane on fire. Passengers and crew then subdued Abdulmutallab and used blankets and fire extinguishers to put out the flames. One flight attendant stated that she asked Abdulmutallab what he had in his pocket, and he replied "explosive device." A passenger stated that he observed Abdulmutallab holding what appeared to be a partially melted syringe, which was smoking....

Time may tell what was going on during those 20 minutes that Abdulmutallab disappeared, but the characteristics of the bomb's transport and design certainly appear to strengthen the case for a Yemeni connection.

"U.S. Eyes Yemen Al-Qaida Tie to Terror Suspect," by Robert Windrem for MSNBC, December 26:

U.S. agencies are looking into whether al-Qaida extremists in Yemen directed Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and provided him with the explosives used in the failed bombing of Northwest Flight 253, senior administration officials tell NBC News.

They are also examining a possible link to an attempted assassination of a Saudi government official last August that used the same explosive, PETN, or pentaerythritol tetranitrate.

Abdulmutallab had visited Yemen in the past few months, say officials. Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is a Yemen-based offshoot of al-Qaida.

Abdulmutallab's increasingly radical leanings and anti-western rhetoric caused his family to alert the U.S. Embassy in the Nigerian capital of Abuja of their concerns, although it's not clear when they did so.

He was added to a terrorism watch list, say officials, but not to the no-fly list. The larger terrorism watch list contains more than 500,000 names, while the no-fly list has some 4,000 names. [...]

Of particular interest to U.S. officials, beyond Abdulmutallab's travels to Yemen, is a thwarted attack on the head of Saudi Arabia's counterterrorism effort and an October article on the use of small amounts of explosives, authored by the Yemen al-Qaida group's leader.

In the former incident, a suicide bomber hid PETN in his underwear, detonating it when greeting Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, head of Saudi counterterrorism, last Aug. 28.

The man, who had claimed he was turning himself in, died in the attack. Bin Nayef, a U.S. ally, suffered burns to his hands. Cultural taboos prevented a search in that part of the terrorist's body. Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility for the attack.

'War is a Trick'

That was followed by an article published two months later in Sada al-Malahim, the group's online magazine. In the article, "War is a Trick," the group's leader, Abu Basir al-Wuhayshi, advised would-be al-Qaida members to use small amounts of explosives to kill "apostates" and Western nationals, including on passenger aircraft and in airports.

The title should sound familiar. It was Muhammad himself who said "War is deceit."

According to a translation proved by NBC counterterrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann, al-Wuhayshi wrote: "You do not need to sacrifice huge efforts, or large amounts of money, to make 10 grams of explosives, or more or less ... make it [the material] in the shape of a grenade to throw, or [an explosive] to time, or ignite it from a distance, or a martyrdom belt ... and bomb with it any tyrant, or intelligence forces den, or a prince, or a minister, or a crusader wherever you find them, and also in airports in the western crusade countries that participated in the war against Muslims; or on their planes, or in their residential complexes or their subways."

Al-Wuhayshi pointed to the attempted assassination of bin Nayef as an example of how to carry out such attacks....

Said the al-Shabaab spokesman: "The Mujahideens have realized their grip on all southern regions in Somalia and in the near future we hope to govern all Somalia under the holy Quran rule."

Indeed, that is the aim of all jihad: the imposition of Islamic law. And should al-Shabaab prevail in the remainder of the country (even excluding Somaliland and Puntland) they will certainly aim to "defend" their regime by posing an increasing threat to the security and territorial integrity of Somalia's neighbors. After all, as the apologists have noted, "defensive" jihad can be waged even without a caliph; indeed, that's not much of a deterrent to jihad.

All that's needed is an excuse. "Al-Shabaab Seize Islands Near Kenya," by Shafii Mohyaddin Abokar for Newstime Africa, December 26:

The Al-qaeda inspired Al-shabasb militants in Somalia have on seized five islands near the Kenyan coast, the group's spokesman in the southern Jubba regions told reporters on Wednesday. Spokesman Sheik Hassan Yaqub Ali said that the Mujahideens have peacefully taken the five islands including Raskamboni and Kudha both two important hideouts early on Wednesday morning.

"We arrived here to implement the Islamic law, and this is kind of extending our rule into more lands in Somalia" the militant spokesman added during a press conference in the Raskamboni Island on Wednesday. "The Mujahideens have realized their grip on all southern regions in Somalia and in the near future we hope to govern all Somalia under the holy Quran rule" he stated.

Some interesting journalistic license:

This foolish doctrine based on Islamic Sharia law has not been embraced by Muslims in the wider Islamic world as most of them see this fundamentalist Islamic translation of Sharia law as the Muslim extremists' way of strangling the peaceful teachings of the Quran. Sharia law does not seem to have any place in contemporary Islamic lifestyle because of the terror, brutality and consistent human rights abuses associated with it.

The Islands were formerly controlled by another Islamist rebel group Hezbal Islam which was driven out of the southern Jubba regions after clashes with Al-shabab which the United States accuses of being Alqaed's proxy in the horn of Africa.

Last week the Kenyan government closed its border with Somalia after it deployed hundreds of its military troops along the 600KM border-line as militants were advancing to the Kenyan side of the border.

An update on this story. "Islamists claim killing of Russian priest," from Agence France-Presse, December 26:

MOSCOW -- An Islamist militant group based in Russia's North Caucases [sic] has claimed the killing last month of an Orthodox priest who was an outspoken critic of Islam.

"One of our brothers who has never been to the Caucases took up the oath of (former independent Chechen president Doku Umarov) and expressed his desire to execute the damned Sysoyev," said a statement on the Kavkazcenter.com website.

Daniil Sysoyev, 35, was killed on November 20 when masked gunman walked into Saint Thomas's church in southern Moscow and shot him four times.

Doku Umarov emerged as the leader of the remaining active rebel movements in the North Caucases in 2007 and is considered enemy number one in the region by Russian authorities.

The statement on the Kavkazcenter.com website, which is often used by militants, accused Sysoyev of writing several pamphlets insulting Islam.

It warned "those in the future who defame Islam and insult the religion of Allah will suffer the fate as Sysoyev."

Sysoyev, who was criticised by Muslim organisations for his statements on Islam, had reportedly contacted Russian security services several times over threats.

Authorities have also uncovered a connection with the Fort Hood jihadist's imam, Anwar al-Awlaki. "Officials: Only A Failed Detonator Saved Northwest Flight," by Brian Ross and Richard Esposito for ABC News, December 26:

Officials now say tragedy was only averted on Northwest flight 253 because a makeshift detonator failed to work properly.

Bomb experts say there was more than enough explosive to bring down the Northwest jet, which had nearly 300 people aboard, had the detonator not failed, and the nation's outdated airport screening machines may need to be upgraded.

"We've known for a long time that this is possible," said Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism czar and ABC News consultant, "and that we really have to replace our scanning devices with more modern systems."

Clarke said full body scans were needed, "but they're expensive and they're intrusive. They invade people's privacy."

Al Qaeda, said Clarke, is aware of this vulnerability in the U.S. airport security system. "They know that this is a weakness and an Achilles' heel in our airport security system and this is the second time they've tried it." [...]

According to investigators, the bomb on Northwest flight 253, which was en route from Amsterdam to Detroit when suspect Farouk Umar Abdulmutallab allegedly detonated it, contained more than 80 grams of PETN. The material was allegedly sewn into Abdulmutallab's underwear, and was not detected by airport security.

The bomb was built and the plot organized, say U.S. officials, by al Qaeda leaders in Yemen, just north of the capital city of Sanaa.

Authorities say the 23-year-old suspect spent months in Yemen being trained for the Christmas Day suicide mission.

Investigators believe Abdulmutallab was connected to al Qaeda by the same radical imam, American-born Anwar Awlaki, who is linked to the American Army major accused of opening fire at Fort Hood in November.

According to investigators, the bomb used yesterday was built in Yemen by a top al Qaeda bomb maker. [...]

Abdulmutallab, who flew from Nigeria to Amsterdam and then Detroit, was taken into custody at the Detroit airport and was interviewed by authorities there. He was then taken to an area hospital to be treated for burns.

Abdulmutallab was on a terrorism watch list, but not on a no-fly list. Said Clarke, "So once again, we have the U.S. government, as in the case of the Fort Hood attacks, knowing about someone, knowing that they were suspicious, but that information didn't get to the right people in time."

Remember the adage at the end of the old G.I. Joe cartoons that "knowing is half the battle?" Somewhere in the remaining half is "keep the guy with the bomb off the plane." "Official: U.S. Knew for 2 Years Suspect Could Have Terror Ties," from FoxNews, December 26:

An official briefed on the foiled attack on a Detroit airliner says the U.S. has known for at least two years that the suspect could have terrorist ties.

The official said that the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, has been on a list that includes people with known or suspected contact or ties to a terrorist or terrorist organization.

The intelligence database that Mutallab is part of is described as containing people who have "loose ties or links to extremists," Fox News has learned. Any person in this database is someone who as of yet rises to threat level of no-fly lists or other more serious screenings.

Multiple law enforcement officials identified Mutallab as a Nigerian national who was reportedly an engineering student at London's University College.

On Saturday, police in the U.K. were searching a number of locations in connection to the suspect, while authorities met with a Nigerian banker that may be the father of the suspect.

Former bank official Alhaji Umaru Mutallab says he traveled from his home in the Nigeria's Muslim-dominated north to meet officials in Abuja, the capital. The elder Mutallab says his son left London to travel, though he did not know where to....

Because nothing says Religion of Peace and Tolerance like blowing up a nuclear plant -- and doing so in obedience to violent directives from that religion's holy book and central prophet.

"'US suspects planned to target Chashma nuclear plant,'" from the Daily Times, December 26 (thanks to Kris):

LAHORE/ISLAMABAD: The five US nationals arrested from Sargodha on suspicion of planning terrorist attacks in the country, revealed on Friday that they intended to attack the Chashma Nuclear Power Plant and other important installations in the country, a private TV channel reported. Sargodha Cantonment Station House Officer Amir Sherazi said the terrorists disclosed their plans during interrogation. Meanwhile, Reuters reported that police had won more time from a court to interrogate the five Americans, who are suspected of using the Internet to contact militants.

And his father warned the U.S. about him. Also, who paid for the $4 million apartment he lived in? And why was he nicknamed "Islamic scholar" when he was so obviously a Misunderstander of the Religion of Peace™?

"Father of Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, Nigerian terror suspect in Flight 253 attack, warned U.S.," by Samuel Goldsmith for the New York Daily News, December 26 (thanks to Kamala):

The terror suspect who tried to blow up a Detroit-bound plane is the son of a Nigerian banker who alerted U.S. authorities to his "extreme religious views" months ago, it was reported Saturday.

The father, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, a former minister and chairman of First Bank in Nigeria, is shocked that his son was even was allowed to fly to the U.S., family members told the Nigerian newspaper This Day.

The dad was meeting with security officials to discuss his son, identified as Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, 23.

The younger Mutallab was not on any no-fly list when he flew from Nigeria to Detroit through Amsterdam, Rep. Pete King (R-L.I.) told the Daily News....

The suspect boarded the Airbus 330 - carrying 278 passengers and 11 crew members - in Amsterdam after arriving on a flight from Lagos.

He told authorities he got the explosives in Yemen and received orders from Al Qaeda operatives to detonate the device on a plane over U.S. soil, officials said.

He is an engineering student at the University College in London. His last-known address near the school is a $4 million apartment in Central London. Police were searching there Saturday morning.

This Day reported that the suspect has been known for extremist religious views since high school at the British International School in Lome, Togo.

"At the secondary school, he was known for preaching about Islam to his schoolmates and he was popularly called 'Alfa,' a local coinage for Islamic scholar," This Day reported.

But what about non-Muslims? "Reviving the spirit of Islam: Thousands gather to pray, talk about faith in secular world," by Debra Black for the Toronto Star, December 26 (thanks to Josephine):

Close to 17,000 Muslims came to Metro Toronto's Convention Centre on Friday - Christmas Day - to learn about their religion and being a Muslim in a modern world....

It was all part of a three-day convention "Reviving the Islamic Spirit," an annual conference with its roots in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attack. It is designed, organizers say, as a way to help young Muslims understand their faith in a North American context.

As the conference opened, men and women, young and old, parents with young babies in strollers and teens flooded one of the conference halls to hear Imam Johari Abdul Malik, one of the 20 scheduled speakers and Muslim scholars.

"It is my hope that by attending this conference you will leave better than you come," Imam Johari Abdul Malik told the crowd. "You and I must struggle to understand the Qur'an in our context. Islam can only be practised in the world we live in.

"Maybe it's time to save the ship to say that I am going to take an oath to be non-violent," he said, speaking of the widespread violence in the world by Muslims against other Muslims.

"And that I refuse as a Muslim to kill another Muslim and also as a Muslim to defend the rights of others." He added that he thought Islam should not be practised as it was 10 centuries ago.

At the bazaar, about 150 stalls were open. A prayer area was sectioned off behind the stalls.

The message conference organizers wanted participants to take home was that they must find a way to practise their religion in a broader, secular, democratic society.

It is about "living the ideas of being a Muslim and being true to your faith but as part of a broader society," said Nadir Shirazi, one of the organizers of the conference and the CEO of a diversity training company. "We are, after all, part of a broader community of Canadians."

Conference organizers also want to inspire Muslims to spread a peaceful face of Islam to the world, said Shirazi. Toward that aim, they have brought in a diverse group of speakers and scholars, including Yusuf Islam - known to many who grew up in the 1960s as musician Cat Stevens - and the comedy troupe Allah Made Me Funny....

Jasper Schuringa explains how he subdued Islamic jihadist Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab on a flight to Detroit yesterday. "Terror hero: I didn't hesitate," by Tom Liddy for the New York Post, December 26 (thanks to James):

A Dutch airline passenger told The Post how he leapt into action when an alleged Muslim terrorist tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner packed with 300 people just moments before landing.

Chaos erupted as alleged terrorist Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, 23, tried to set off a sophisticated explosive device strapped to his body.

"Suddenly, we hear a bang. It sounded like a firecracker went off," said Jasper Schuringa, a film director who was traveling to the US to visit friends.

"When [it] went off, everybody panicked ... Then someone screamed, 'Fire! Fire!'"

Schuringa, sitting in seat 20J, in the right-most section of the Airbus 330, looked to his left. "I saw smoke rising from a seat ... I didn't hesitate. I just jumped," he said....

Read it all.

That is, like dhimmis. Imagine the global outrage if the shoe were on the other foot, and Muslims were so restricted. "Vatican's top cleric in Arabia walks a thin line," by Barbara Surk for the Associated Press, December 25:

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates -- The Vatican's top cleric in the heart of Muslim Arabia tends to a flock of 2 million Christians spread around six desert nations. But he has to do it quietly: Most of them must still pray in secret and are forbidden to display crosses and other symbols of their faith.

From his base in the emirate of Abu Dhabi on the Persian Gulf, Archbishop Paul Hinder travels the Arabian Peninsula, even slipping in and out of Saudi Arabia - the birthplace of Islam, where restrictions on Christians are the toughest.

An earlier, more extensive interview with Hinder can be found here.

"We are tolerated, but not popular here," Hinder said in an interview in the archbishop's living quarters inside a Christian compound in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.

He spoke wearing the traditional hooded robe of his Capuchin order. The white garb blends in just fine with the Arab robes worn by men in the region, so he wears it in public - but without a cross around his neck or the belt of three knots that also mark the order.

"People here know who I am, although I never wear a cross when I go outside out of respect for local conditions," said Hinter, a Swiss citizen.

Still, he says, there are signs of slow change, even in Saudi Arabia, where small groups who in the past would have been punished or deported if caught practicing the Christian services are now left in peace to pray privately.

The UAE and the neighboring Gulf nations of Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman have taken greater steps. They have allowed churches to be built on land donated by the countries' rulers, though there are no outward signs that the buildings are houses of worship. [...]

The following paragraph fails to question why there are "no indigenous Christians" in the Gulf nations:

With no indigenous Christians, Gulf nations have long been the toughest in the Middle East in restricting Christian and other non-Muslim religious practices, though they rarely cross the line into outright persecution. In other Arab nations, Christians practice openly - though in Egypt, with the largest Christian minority, they often complain of discrimination at the hands of the Muslim majority.

Hinter said he is careful not to do anything that could be construed as proselytizing or seeking conversions - a major taboo in Islam.

Hinter, who has been in his post for seven years, says members of his flock are tested in areas beyond religion, particularly exploitation by their employers and fear of losing their jobs in the recession. Some are not allowed to attend a church service at all by their employers, who often strictly control the lives of their maids, gardeners, cooks, drivers and nannies.

"Their struggles are enormous," Hinder said. "They are often exploited and sometimes treated as human beings of second class." [...]

The biggest congregation - about 1.4 million Christians - live and work in Saudi Arabia, which is home of Islam's holiest cities, Mecca and Medina, and is ruled under the strict version of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism. Hard-core Wahhabis vehemently resist any practice of Christianity or other religions in what they see as the heartland of Islam.

Only some truly hard-core, intolerant boor would go for that, right? Well....

"I will expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula and will not leave any but Muslim" (Muhammad, Sahih Muslim 19.4366).

Hinder travels there several times a year, but only as a private citizen, not as an archbishop.

Bibles and crucifixes - and all non-Muslim religious symbols - are illegal and are confiscated at the border. The low-key Christian services that do take place cannot be led by ordained priests, so Catholics cannot attend a Mass or confess their sins.

Still, Hinter said conditions improved somewhat after Saudi King Abdullah visited the Vatican in 2007 and met with Pope Benedict XVI.

Christians now can gather in private houses in small groups for prayer, led by an unordained "community leader," he said.

"The climate is changing, but that does not mean there will be churches in Saudi Arabia tomorrow," he said.

MEMRI video (thanks to Pamela).

It's in the Qur'an:

"And (remember, O Children of Israel) when We made a covenant with you and caused the mount to tower above you, (saying): Hold fast that which We have given you, and remember that which is therein, that ye may ward off (evil). Then, even after that, ye turned away, and if it had not been for the grace of Allah and His mercy ye had been among the losers. And ye know of those of you who broke the Sabbath, how We said unto them: Be ye apes, despised and hated!" (2:63-65)

"Say: 'O people of the Book! Do ye disapprove of us for no other reason than that we believe in Allah, and the revelation that hath come to us and that which came before (us), and (perhaps) that most of you are rebellious and disobedient?' Say: 'Shall I point out to you something much worse than this, (as judged) by the treatment it received from Allah? those who incurred the curse of Allah and His wrath, those of whom some He transformed into apes and swine, those who worshipped evil;- these are (many times) worse in rank, and far more astray from the even path!'" (5:59-60)

"When in their insolence they transgressed (all) prohibitions, We said to them: 'Be ye apes, despised and rejected.'" (7:166)

The well-known Hamas propagandist, the "Palestinian" Arab Azzam al-Tamimi, has recently denounced the Swiss for their vote, one overwhelming in favor of banning minarets, on a program beamed out by Al-Jazeeera. Azzam al-Tamimi is quite a figure in London, where he used to be -- just a few years ago -- a respected commentator on Middle Eastern, especially Arab-Israeli matters. In the United States too, he was allowed, a few years ago, in the guise of that same respected commentator and analyst, to contribute a "My Turn" column to Newsweek, no doubt his piece being vetted and approved by the disturbingly skull-faced Fareed al-Zakaria. Zakaria has been such a sly apologist on the matter of Islam, though he himself, in his own ostentatious behavior, is reassuringly "moderate" (you know, with a love of wine, and that sort of thing, that can so mislead). You can see, for your first viewing, the Al-Jazeera interview with Al-Tamimi here.

Al-Tamimi's performance is telling, and deserves to be seen. One hopes that his, and similar denunciations, will be played and played in Switzerland and all over Europe, so that the next time there is a vote, the well-informed will not constitute 58%, but 98% of the vote. Al-Tamimi mingles real fury and illogic with, at times, a voice barely under control, but meant to indicate that he, Azzam al-Tamimi, is being logical. He begins by maintaining that while the "Swiss elites" were intelligently against the ban, the ignorant Swiss people themselves, devoid of intelligence, were for it. Or rather, while the Swiss "elites" were against the ban, it was those "neo-Nazis" whose "neo-Nazi" followers, according to Al-Tamimi in his Al-Jazeera interview, were "behind the Swiss minaret ban." Except that a few seconds later he decides that it was really the "Zionists" who were behind the ban, but don't worry, in a Hegelian synthesis of the thesis ("neo-Nazis" were behind it) and the antithesis ("Zionists" were behind it), he offers his own synthesis: the "neo-Nazis" and the "Zionists," naturally, have no trouble working hand in glove.

He says it's because of its "history and its cultural orientation." That is true, but those things are true because of the deep roots of Islam in the country, leading most people there to want Afghanistan to be a Sharia state. "Guttenberg: Afghan democracy impossible," from The Local, December 26 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

Germany's beleaguered defence minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg has said the West should abandon hopes of creating a democracy in Afghanistan.

Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg told the Sunday edition of the tabloid Bild newspaper that Afghanistan was simply not suited to democracy, and that any realistic government in the country had to include the Taliban.

"I have long since become convinced that because of its history and its cultural orientation Afghanistan is not suited to being a model democracy, measured by our standards," said Guttenberg, who has come under intense pressure over his ministry's public relations disaster following a deadly air strike in Kunduz in which up to 142 people were killed....

"We have to ask ourselves which of the insurgents represent a serious threat to the international community, and which are concerned with Afghan questions," Guttenberg said. "The question of human rights has to be addressed here, without ignoring the cultures that have developed in Afghanistan."

But he warned, "Negotiations and the inclusion of the Taliban should of course not be started without conditions. It would be unacceptable if universally acknowledged human rights were simply suspended."

Well, don't hold your breath, Guttenberg.

Demonstrating a perhaps Hitlerian ability to avoid destruction even when in its close proximity. An update on this story. "Radical cleric is said to be alive after Yemen airstrikes," from AP, December 26 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Sana, Yemen - A U.S.-born radical cleric is alive after reports he may have been killed in a Yemeni airstrike against a suspected Al Qaeda hide-out, friends and relatives said Friday.

The government said it targeted a meeting of high-level Al Qaeda operatives in Thursday's airstrike in the remote province of Shabwa. It claimed that at least 30 militants were killed, possibly including Anwar al Awlaki, a radical cleric who has been linked to the accused gunman in last month's attack at the Ft. Hood military base in Texas.

On Friday, a friend of the cleric, Abu Bakr al Awlaki, said he was not among those killed. He refused to say if the cleric was attending the meeting....

This is potentially significant, due to the highly plausible double meaning of the "ceremony" as an act of jihad, as well as for jihadists' common habit of referring to an upcoming attack as a "wedding." At the very least, it would behoove authorities to ask for more details before granting a visa, and restrict the interval for which it is valid.

"Man Attempts to Set Off Explosives on Detroit-Bound Airplane," by Richard Esposito and Scott Mayerowitz for ABC News, December 25:

[...] The suspect was identified as Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, who according to federal documents is an engineering student at University College of London.

He was flying from Nigeria to the United States for a religious ceremony, according to his entry visa, which was issued June 16, 2008 and was good until June 12, 2010.

The government had no immediate plans after the incident to raise the threat level, a federal government source said.

The suspect had been in a law enforcement-intelligence database but was not on the government's no-fly list, according to a law enforcement official. [...]

The suspect told authorities that he had explosive powder taped to his leg and used a syringe of chemicals to mix with the powder that was to cause explosion. This is of concert because it is a method of mixing that is consistent with terror techniques. [...]

UPDATE, 8:47pm PST: ABC News has since revised their report from religious "ceremony" to "seminar." In any event, the fact remains that the visa was strikingly generous, and authorities did not ask enough questions about the "religious" nature of the suspect's trip.

Profiling! Islamophobia! No, wait... More on this story. "Passenger Lights Explosive on Delta Flight," from CBS News, December 25:

A Northwest Airlines passenger landing in Detroit on Friday tried to blow up the flight but the explosive device failed, two U.S. national security officials said.

The passenger, who was traveling on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam, was not identified. He was being questioned Friday evening, according to one of the officials, both of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing.

The Delta/Northwest confusion stems from an ongoing consolidation following the merger of the two companies in 2008.

The motive of the Christmas Day attack was not immediately clear.

"He appears to have had some kind of incendiary device he tried to ignite," said one of the U.S. officials.

A senior law enforcement source speaking to CBS News has identified the suspect as Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23.

After the plane landed at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, the suspect lit and set off what were at first described as fireworks or firecrackers but may have been another type of explosive. The explosive apparently lit the lower part of the suspect's body. He was immediately subdued and restrained and was later transported to a hospital burn unit.

Two other people suffered minor injuries.

The suspect has told federal investigators that he was sent by al Qaeda. He claims he picked up the explosive material in Yemen and was instructed to set it off on board an airplane. Those claims could not immediately be verified.

The suspect was on a U.S. government watch list of people with suspected terrorist ties. He is still being questioned.

"This does not strike us as having the earmarks of any kind of well-planned or well-orchestrated attack," a senior security official told CBS News.

That all remains to be seen. But a case of Sudden Jihad Syndrome certainly isn't reassuring.

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

In a 24 December Press Release the U.S. affiliate of Christian Solidarity International (CSI) urged President Obama to send a Christmas Message of Hope to the Persecuted Christians of Iraq. Last year, on Human Rights Day (10 December 2008), the AWE, the WUPJ and the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) sent an Urgent Appeal to UN High Commissioner Navi Pillay, with copies to three UN Special Rapporteurs and two other UN authorities, regarding the tragic plight of Iraq's ancient Christian communities. No response was received, although the situation in Iraq has worsened considerably. Today, on Christmas Day, a second 'Appeal' was sent by us to the High Commissioner and copies will be posted tomorrow to all those listed at the end of our Appeal below.

ASSOCIATION FOR WORLD EDUCATION
INTERNATIONAL HUMANIST AND ETHICAL UNION
WORLD UNION FOR PROGRESSIVE JUDAISM

CHRISTMAS DAY APPEAL
To the High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay for the Christians of Iraq

25 December 2009

Your Excellency,

Last year, on the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we appealed to you on the tragic situation of the Christians in Iraq, making available a detailed 15-page Report ("Terror Reigns over Mosul Christians") and a press release by Christian Solidarity International (CSI), with copies sent to those Special Rapporteurs and others listed below.

The above-mentioned CSI report drew particular attention to the fast-deteriorating human rights situation in the Mosul area where half of the roughly 25,000 Christians had fled after a well-organized terror campaign targeting Christians in September-October 2008. Although some have returned, the situation has worsened in general for Christian and other minorities.

In December 2009, five bombs in Baghdad killed 123 people and injured another 500, while three bomb explosions damaged churches and killed six people in Mosul. Since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003, over 500 Christians, including bishops and priests, have been killed and 59 churches bombed. These acts of terror, combined with kidnappings, death threats, discriminatory jizya-dhimmi extortions and non-violent anti-Christian social discrimination have prompted nearly half of Iraq's one million Christians to flee the country and seek refuge abroad. Many of those who remain in Iraq are internally displaced. Other Iraqi non-Muslim minorities experience similar persecution. "This Christmas, many Iraqi churches will yet again stand empty and forlorn because church attendance carries with it the risk of losing one's life. The inability of the faithful to celebrate Christmas without fear from jihad-terror reflects the crisis of survival facing Iraq's ancient Christian community." (CSI press release, 24 December 2009)

On Christmas Day, we again call for renewed efforts on the part of the entire UN system to monitor, to mediate and to facilitate reconciliation among the ethnic-religious communities of Iraq - and to combat religious intolerance. We urge a rapid deployment of larger numbers of human rights monitors and appeal to you and your office to take the necessary measures to fully protect the right to freedom of religion or belief of the Christian communities in Iraq.

Respectfully,

René V.L. Wadlow David G. Littman Roy W. Brown

Representatives to the United Nations Office in Geneva
Association for World Education: Case Postale 205, 1196 Gland, Switzerland
International Humanist and Ethical Union: 1 Gower St, London WC1E 6HD, UK.
World Union for Progressive Judaism: c/o Beith-Gil - 12, Quai du Seujet - 1201 Genève
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
cc. Ms. Asma Jahangir, SR: Freedom of religion & belief; Mr. Githu Muigai, SR: Racism & Intolerance Mr. James Anaya, SR: HRts & fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples; Ms. Gay J. Mc Dougall, Ind. Exp. minority issues; Pr. Walter Kälin, Rep. of UN Sec.-Gen.: HR of internally displaced persons.

Merry Christmas, kuffar. "Passenger Ignites Explosive on Delta Flight, Al Qaeda Connection Reported," from Fox News, December 25 (thanks to Keith):

A male passenger reportedly linked to terrorist organization al-Qaeda ignited a powdery substance prior to landing on a Delta Airlines flight to Detroit Friday. The suspect is believed to be Nigerian, Fox News reported.

Several people were hurt and one person was admitted to the University of Michigan Medical Center at Ann Arbor, hospital spokeswoman Tracy Justice said. An emergency was declared aboard the flight, operated as Northwest flight 253, according to a Federal Aviation Administration spokesperson.

The suspect, who suffered second-degree burns, told federal investigators he was directed by al-Qaeda, though authorities are questioning the veracity of that statement, ABC reported. A federal situational awareness bulletin noted that the explosive was acquired in Yemen with instructions as to when it should be used, ABC said....

From Switzerland comes this contemporary political statement that is also an intimation of future Eurabian Christmases (thanks to Islam In Europe).

My Human Events column today chronicles an unmerry Christmas in Iraq and other Muslim countries:

Christians in the Iraqi city have opted not to celebrate Christmas this year, since Ashura, a major Shi'ite day of mourning, falls on the same day. So out of "respect" for the local Shi'ites, Chaldean Catholic Bishop Imad Al Banna asked all Christians in Basra not to engage in any public celebration of Christmas, and not even to entertain guests or show any joy in the day.

Would Shi'ites curtail one of their celebrations to show similar "respect" to the Christians? Would they mute their joy on Eid al-Fitr if it began on Good Friday? And what would happen to these Christians if they failed to show this "respect"?

Meanwhile, Christians are still streaming out of Iraq in such large numbers that the ancient Christian community is on the verge of extinction. Islamic jihadists last week attacked churches and Christian schools in Mosul, with forty people killed in bomb attacks and random Christians targeted for violence on the streets. This is after jihadist violence late last year killed forty and drove 12,000 Christians from the area. "It is terrible," one Mosul Christian told the Times of London: : "Most of the Christians are staying at home, or when they go out they watch their backs." A member of another religious minority, the Yazidis, who lives in a Christian village remarked: "You cannot live in Mosul. Every day you find Christians being killed. Very few are still going to church. The women have to wear hijabs. They send someone first in a car to check if there is someone outside the church."

And in Egypt, Christian Solidarity International and the Coptic Foundation for Human Rights released a new report detailing rampant abuse of Christian women by Muslims: "Cases of abduction, forced conversion and marriage are usually accompanied by acts of violence which include rape, beatings, deprivation of food and other forms of physical and mental abuse." John Eibner of Christian Solidarity International wrote a letter to Barack Obama about the treatment of Christian women, asking him to speak out and noting: "Trafficking of Christian women in Egypt is not a new phenomenon....But this problem has now reached boiling point within Egypt's Coptic community, which views it as symptomatic of a much broader pattern of religious persecution." But Obama, busy courting the good will of the Islamic world, is unlikely to say anything. And meanwhile, the State Department's 2009 report on international religious freedom noted that the Egyptian government often turns a blind eye to crimes committed against Copts -- and government officials have on occasion even participated in those crimes.

The Christians in Turkey are facing a similarly somber Christmas. "We are treated," said the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, "as citizens of second class. We don't feel that we enjoy our full rights as Turkish citizens." Yet "we prefer to stay here, even crucified sometimes."...

Read it all.

The Byzantine icon above is the work of the 16th-century iconographer Theophanes the Cretan. There are many things that are un-Islamic about it:

1. It is an image of human beings, which violates the traditional Islamic prohibition of images;

2. It depicts Jesus not as a Muslim prophet but as the incarnate Son of God (his halo reads ο ων, the One Who Is, a title of divinity derived from the name of God that God gives to Moses in Exodus 3:14), in violation of the oft-repeated Qur'anic injunction that Allah has no Son (4:171; 9:30; 25:2; 39:4; 72:3; etc. etc.);

3. In line with #2, it depicts what Muslims would consider to be idolatry, as the holy child's mother kneels and adores him;

4. In the beam or spear coming from heaven down to the child in the cradle, it depicts the activity of the Divine in the world, assuming the doctrine of the Trinity, which is rejected somewhat imprecisely in Qur'an 4:171 and 5:116;

5. The cradle resembles a casket, foreshadowing the redemptive death of Christ, which is denied in Qur'an 4:157.

Now, whether you are a Christian or not, whether or not you believe all or any of these things, the question that is before us this Christmas and every Christmas these days is whether or not people should be allowed to believe these things if they think they are true. Nowhere in the Islamic world today do people who believe these things enjoy full equality of rights with Muslims. In Pakistan, Iraq, Egypt and elsewhere Christians are frequently victimized because, as I have tried to show above, some of their core beliefs are considered blasphemous in authoritative Islam.

And that assumption of blasphemy, since Islam is a political program as well as a set of religious beliefs, does not allow for live-and-let live tolerance of those with whom one disagrees. The blasphemers and those who insult Islam must be subjugated under the rule of the Muslims. We see this agenda being articulated every day; we see Christians and others victimized by it every day; and we see the world largely yawning and indifferent as all this goes on.

This Christmas, remember that the Islamic supremacist program has you on its list. You may not be a Christian. You may not be a Jew. You may not be a Hindu. But the jihad is universal. You are on the list.

So this Christmas, may all of us whose conversion, subjugation, or death is envisioned by the adherents of Sharia stand together. Let us stand together as Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, secularists, what have you, and stand up against those who would kill us or subject us to institutionalized discrimination because they find our beliefs offensive.

For be assured: if we do not stand together, they will prevail. And if they do, and all the rich expressions of the human spirit, from Theophanes the Cretan to the fashioners of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, from Aristotle to Oriana, will be trampled into the mud, destroyed, exploded, ruined, effaced. We will all be the poorer. Our children will be the poorer.

Merry Christmas to all Christian Jihad Watchers who celebrate the Feast on this day.

"Extremists are putting the republic to the test by promoting a practice that they know is contrary to the basic principles of our country." And those "extremists" have plenty of enablers who can't fathom what the problem is with the dehumanizing symbol of segregation and subjugation (spun as "elevation" in classic Orwellian fashion) that the face veil is.

An update on this story. "France proposes ban on Islamic veils," from Deutsche Welle, December 23:

France's ruling party, the conservative Union Pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP), says it plans to present a bill to parliament in January, which would ban full Islamic veils in all public places. The bill is to be presented in the first two weeks of next month, just before the conclusions of a French parliamentary inquiry on the burqa and niqab are published.

Jean-Francois Cope, the parliamentary party leader of the UMP, said the measure was meant to defend France from extremists.

"There are principles at stake: Extremists are putting the republic to the test by promoting a practice that they know is contrary to the basic principles of our country," he said.

Veils "not welcome" in France

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said that veils that hide women's faces in public are "not welcome" in France. Most politicians say they would like to see the results of the parliamentary inquiry on the veils before they decide on the need for a law.

According to French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux, about 1,900 women in France wear full Islamic veils. Hortefeux has said that applications for French citizenship or residence by burqa wearing women, along with their husbands, should be "systematically" refused. However, reports by French intelligence services put the number of women wearing burqas at "fewer than 400."

In the Paris newspaper Le Figaro, Cope said that the move was "a law of liberation" and not a ban.

A complete ban on Islamic veils could be met with legal obstacles, in the same way the Swiss ban on minarets was challenged by the European Court of Human Rights. The French government has already been accused of racism with regard to its campaign to discuss national identity....

And which race is Islam again?

Osama bin Laden and innumerable other Islamic jihadists have already made this connection, but that's fine. It's only "objectionable" when a non-Muslim does it.

"Chidambaram equates Jihad with terrorism," from TCN News, December 25:

New Delhi: In an address to Intelligence Bureau, Home Minister P. Chidambaram equated Jihad with terrorism and said that its objective is war against unbelievers.

Chidambaram uttered highly objectionable statements against Jihad addressing IB officers in Delhi while delivering 22nd Intelligence Bureau Centenary Endowment Lecture on Wedenesday in Delhi.

He said that Jihad is a kind of war that emerged after the end of Cold War in 1989.

He's only about 1370 years off on that one.

He termed Jihad as "a war or struggle against unbelievers" completely distorting the meaning of Islamic principle of Jihad. Home minister added that Jihad is waged by a number of groups that owe their allegiance to Islam and said that "Jihad employs terror as an instrument to achieve its objectives" which is "directed against all" and usually claims innocent people as its victims.

In defining jihad, a Shafi'i manual of Islamic law endorsed by the most prestigious institution in Sunni Islam, Al-Azhar University in Cairo, says that the leader of the Muslims "makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians...until they become Muslim or else pay the non-Muslim poll tax," and cites Koran 9:29 in support of this idea: "Fight those who do not believe in Allah and the Last Day and who forbid not what Allah and His messenger have forbidden-who do not practice the religion of truth, being of those who have been given the Book-until they pay the poll tax out of hand and are humbled." ('Umdat al-Salik o9.8)

Curiously, Chidambaram made a distinction between Crusades and Jihad terming the former as "a conventional war" while Jihad uses terrorism as instrument to overthrow the established authority.

Giving sole credit to Jihad for inventing terrorism, Chidambaram who is responsible for security and peace in all of India, said that the tactics of the jihadis have been copies by militants belonging to other groups including Hindu militants. He did not identify the Hindu groups....

"Giving sole credit to Jihad for inventing terrorism..." That would be asinine, if he really did that. But the idea that jihad as warfare against unbelievers is an offensive coinage of "Islamophobes" is a manipulative fiction that by now should be familiar to Jihad Watch readers.

In The American Thinker today, Pamela Geller chronicles the ongoing CAIR machinations and chicanery in the Rifqa Bary apostasy case:

There is a war of attrition going on in the Rifqa Bary case. Rifqa is the girl who converted from Islam to Christianity and fled from her family in fear for her life -- and the Islamic machine is attempting to wear her down, grind her down by constant mental abuse. The persecution is so obvious, and yet so mundane that no one seems to take notice. The banality of evil.

Some sources say that a Muslim psychiatrist was assigned to Rifqa while she was in Florida, where she fled from her Ohio home (now she has been returned to Ohio, where she is in foster care.) How cruel and inhuman. And Omar Tarazi, the CAIR-linked lawyer for Rifqa's parents, asked the court to hold her in contempt to force her to attend counseling sessions with a Muslim counselor. The counselor that her parents were demanding she see also filed an affidavit in support of Rifqa being held in contempt. Psychological abuse, that's what that was.

The Barys' lawyer had also demanded that all the Christmas cards sent to Rifqa in the Christmas card campaign for Rifqa that I originated at my website AtlasShrugs.com be banned and seized. Rifqa has received hundreds, perhaps thousands of cards -- and the Islamic machine saw every one of them as a threat. They wanted Rifqa isolated from everyone except those who will break down her resistance and run roughshod over her conscience and her religious freedom. The judge ruled against them on that one Tuesday. But the fact that it was even an issue was the real issue.

The Barys, in league with the Islamic machine, are now prosecuting their pious, straight-A honor student daughter on a fallacious charge of "waywardness." Further, they hope to prosecute any friend of Rifqa who helped her. Why? Because she converted out of Islam. The pastor who took Rifqa in and provided her shelter when he fled to Florida is constantly being threatened by CAIR-appointed attorneys with some trumped-up charge. Why? Clearly to discourage anyone from helping apostates escape Islam.

The latest warning is that Brian Williams, a missionary and the pastor in Ohio who baptized Rifqa, may very well be arrested. He was, at one time, a big brother to her -- unlike her actual brother Rilvan Bary. Rifqa has made no secret about not wanting to see her brother and has repeatedly refused, and with good reason. Rilvan Bary is a hooligan who in October leaked her whereabouts to a Muslim stalker-blogger. Rilvan gave the address of Rifqa's Florida foster family to San Francisco-based Islamic blogger Davi Barker, who then bragged at his blog that he knew Rifqa's present location and issued this veiled threat: "I'll tell you one thing reader... if she's not safe in Ohio, she's not safe in Florida."

No one involved in Rifqa's case in Florida or Ohio took note of this threat, or of Rilvan's role in it. But Brian Williams and the Florida pastor who took Rifqa in may very well be arrested; they have been so warned. Making this even more ironic is the fact that Rilvan Bary has been arrested -- for underage drinking -- and brags in lurid language about his sexual prowess on his Facebook, MySpace, Windows Live pages. Typical of Islamic misogyny, misplaced priorities and encouragement of the worst behavior in males is the fact that Mohamed Bary was enraged by his daughter's conversion to Christianity, but seems to have had nothing to say about his son's sleazy sexual trolling on the Internet....

Read it all.

Islamic Tolerance Alert: Already left homeless by a Muslim rampage in August that saw eight Christians burned alive, the remaining Christians of Gojra cannot celebrate Christmas without looking over their shoulders. "Pakistan Christians celebrate Christmas in fear," by Elena Becatoros for the Associated Press, December 24:

GOJRA, Pakistan - No Christmas decorations brighten the tent camp sheltering Christians left homeless by the worst violence against minorities in Pakistan this year. Instead, there is a pervasive sense of fear.

The Christians have received cell phone text messages warning them to expect a "special Christmas present," they say, and are terrified of their tents being torched or their church services being bombed.

"Last year I celebrated Christmas full of joy," said Irfan Masih, cradling his young son among the canvas shelters and open ditches of the camp. But now "the fear that we may again be attacked is in our hearts.

"They are threatening us, (saying) 'We will again attack you and will not let you out of homes, we will burn you inside this time,'" he said.

It was the fires that most traumatized Gojra's Christian Colony, a neighborhood in the heart of this Punjabi city about 220 miles (354 kilometers) southwest of Islamabad. In early August, hundreds of Muslims rampaged through the dirt streets, looting and torching homes as panicked residents tried to flee and thick black smoke rose into the air.

Eight Christians died -- seven of them from one family trapped in a burning home.

"We are going to celebrate Christmas in sorrow because the whole family is hurt by this," said Almas Hameed, whose father was shot dead during the riots. His wife, two of his children and members of his brother's family all burned to death.

The attack, which officials said was incited by a banned radical Islamist group Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, followed rumors that Christians had torn pages of a Quran, an act considered sacrilegious by Muslims. The ensuing carnage drew condemnation from the Pope and Pakistan's prime minister, and highlighted how religious extremism has left the country's minority groups increasingly vulnerable.

Christians -- Protestants and Catholics among them -- make up less than 5 percent of Muslim-majority Pakistan's 175 million people.

Christians say more than 100 homes were burned and looted in Gojra and the nearby village of Korian. While many homes have been rebuilt using state money, dozens of families are still living in tents, waiting for construction on their houses to finish.

Both those who have moved back into their homes and the ones still in the camp say they are still regularly threatened -- phone calls telling them to stop pressing for those responsible to be convicted, or else; armed men turning up at their homes; text messages on their cell phones promising a "special Christmas present;" rocks thrown at the tents in the night.

"When we sleep at night the fear never leaves our heart," said Safia Riaz, a 30-year-old whose father died of a heart attack during the riots. The violence "has stuck in our minds. Tension remains -- God forbid that it will happen again."

Strict security was being put into place during Christmas, said police officer Mohammed Tahir of the Faisalabad regional police headquarters, who rejected claims that authorities were unable to protect the minority.

Security has been ramped up across the country anyway, as this year Christmas falls during the Islamic month of Muharram, which is often marred by bombings and fighting between Pakistan's Sunni Muslims and its Shiite minority.

But Gojra's Christians have little faith in the police, who were accused of standing by during the worst of August's violence.

"The police already didn't save us before," said Ashar Faras, a 33-year-old who works as a chef in an Islamabad guesthouse....

It isn't a crime in Pakistan to wage jihad. But the Pakistani court, perhaps mindful of all those American billions (not that anything could really jeopardize them), punted. "Pak court rejects asylum petition for 5 American Muslims," from the Press Trust of India, December 24 (thanks to James):

LAHORE: A Pakistani court today dismissed a petition seeking asylum in the name of 'holy war' for five American Muslim youths recently arrested in the country for allegedly planning terror attacks, saying that it was not the duty of the judiciary to define 'jihad'.

The Lahore High Court dismissed the petition filed by Khalid Khwaja, a former Inter-Services Intelligence official now associated with a rights organisation.

In his petition, Khwaja had contended that the youths came to Pakistan for 'jihad' (holy war) and since this was not a crime, their detention is illegal.

Lahore High Court Chief Justice Khwaja Mohammad Sharif, who heard the petition, observed that it was not the duty of the court to define 'jihad'. The judge did not comment further and dismissed the petition.

Khwaja also asked the court to direct authorities to grant the youths asylum in Pakistan as the US administration might "not spare them"....

Remember that we heard many times that Osama bin Laden was dead, and that Adam Gadahn was dead, only to see them pop up again, so take this one with a grain of salt. "Yemen says Fort Hood-linked imam may be dead," for Reuters, December 24 (thanks to Patrick Poole):

SANAA (Reuters) - A Yemeni air raid may have killed the top two leaders of al Qaeda's regional branch on Thursday, and an American Muslim preacher linked to the man who shot dead 13 people at a U.S. army base may also have died, a Yemeni security official said.

Nasser al-Wahayshi, the Yemeni leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and his Saudi deputy, Saeed al-Shehri, were believed to be among 30 militants killed in the dawn operation in the eastern province of Shabwa, said the official, who asked not to be identified.

U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki may also have died in the air strike which targeted a meeting of militants planning attacks on Yemeni and foreign oil and economic targets, he said.

If all the deaths are confirmed, the air strike would appear to have struck a severe blow against AQAP, seen as the most dangerous regional offshoot of Osama bin Laden's network.

"Anwar al-Awlaki is suspected to be dead," the official said of the cleric who was on the run in Yemen, where he was on the government's most-wanted list of terrorist suspects.

According to U.S. officials, the U.S. army psychiatrist who ran amok at the Fort Hood army base in Texas on November 5 had contacts with Awlaki....

Nothing has changed, except for the new generation of victims. Note also the state's adherence in practice to Sharia guidelines rather than civil law, and al Azhar University's affirmation of Aisha's age at marriage as a precedent -- something apologists adamantly deny to Western audiences. "Forced Islamization of Christian Girls Supported By Egyptian State," by Mary Abdelmassih for the Assyrian International News Agency, December 23:

Cairo (AINA) -- The phenomenon of abduction, rape and forced Islamization of Christian girls in Egypt was shown for the first time on the Christian TV channel "Life TV", which broadcasts from outside Egypt and has nearly 60 million Arab-speaking viewers in Egypt and around the world.

The testimonies of the victims and their families came as a shock to many, including Egyptian Christians, since this issue is taboo for the Egyptian media, "Our role is to expose those behind those crimes," said Rasheed El Maghreby, the program's moderator.

The program was aired in mid-November 2009, and interviewed Mr. Magdi Khalil, an authority on Coptic affairs who has made a complete field study on forced Islamization of Christian minors in Egypt. Mr Khalil explained that this phenomenon in its present form is nearly 40 years old, and most of these conversion crimes, with a few isolated exceptions, are carried out by organized Islamization gangs or "Islamization Mafia", a termed coined by him, which are fully funded by the state and supported by State Security.

"Those highly organized gangs carry out systematic planning," says Khalil. "Besides violent forced abductions, other devious means include allurement, deception, psychological pressure, financial temptation, emotional relationships ending in rape and photographs taken to blackmail the victims into conversion, and spreading fear in the hearts of their families. They turn the minor into a broken, humble, and submissive person who drifts along a road which would have been impossible for her to take under normal circumstances or in an atmosphere of family or legal protection, and of her own free will."

The TV program aired three cases of victims throwing light on the complete disadvantage of the affected families in front of the "Islamization mafia", in view of the complete lack of support, if not collusion, of the authorities. [...]

Another incident was described by a villager who said that his daughter, who was less than 16-years-old, was abducted as she went to the nearby grocery store. When he reported the matter to the police, he was told he was causing 'sectarian strife.' He said: "I asked to see my daughter just for 10 minutes, but they refused. I was detained at the police station until the officer received a phone call that my daughter was taken away." He said that the police forced him to leave the village. "My daughter returned to the village 3 days after I left. They have taken my home by force and now my daughter lives in it with her Muslim husband....

Video of victims' testimony can be found at AINA's site, linked above.

"This is thuggery. As long as it is for the benefit of Islam, all authorities join together as if it is an 'armed invasion.' Sharia over the law and Islam over the nation," said Khalil.

The latest fraud mentioned on the TV program is that Muslim gangs who dress as Coptic priests, offer a car lift to Christian girls and then abduct them. "The Coptic Church has warned its congregation against letting any unknown person dressed as a priest into their homes or accepting a lift," said Khalil.

Several international organizations have criticized Egypt regarding forced Islamization of minors, among which is the International Religious Freedom report from 2005 to 2009, the Helsinki Commission Report of November 9th, 2006, Human Rights Watch Report of November 12th, 2007, and on November 10th, 2009, Christian Solidarity International issued a report quoting 25 cases of forced Islamization of minors.

H.H. Pope Shenouda protested as far back as December 17th, 1976, during a conference held in Alexandria, saying: "There is a practice to convert Coptic girls to embrace Islam and marry them under terror to Muslim husbands." He demanded that the abducted girls be returned to their families.

Sheikh Fawzy al-Zafzaf, former head of the Azhar committee for inter-religious dialogue told Al-Destoor Newspaper on November 17th, 2009, that he did not deny the existence of cases of abduction and forced Islamization of Coptic girls in Egypt. He called on the government to intervene to stop such acts by imposing just penalties on people who commit them.

Pope Shenouda warned during a lecture on March 17, 2004 that he received thousands of letters of abduction of Christian girls through certain Islamic store chains which lure them away by being told they won a prize and have to go to an upper floor in the building to collect it.

"Christian activists who work in cases of abductions and forced Islamization have a good idea about who the organizations, State Security officers and businessmen supporting the Islamization gangs," he explained. [...]

Despite the existence of laws in Egypt setting the minimum age of conversion to Islam at 21, as well as legally forbidding marriage of a girl younger than 18 without the consent of her parent or guardian, "we still find fatwas (religious edicts) being issued to justify those criminal acts," says Khalil.

The Chairman of the Al-Azhar Fatwa Committee, Sheikh Abdulah Mogawer, talking to Al-Arabya-net justified the marriage of two underage Christian girls (15 and 17 when abducted) by saying that they accept Islamization at the age of 16 . "According to Sharia, the main criteria for marriage to be valid is for the girl to reach puberty and is not tied to a specific age. Aisha married [consummated] the Prophet at the age of 9. Some girls might reach puberty at 14 or 15 years old, depending on her physical growth," said Mogawer.

Not to mention the churches that have been attacked outright. Islamic Tolerance Alert. "Hundreds to worship outside churches amid tight security," by Yuli Tri Suwarni and Suherdjoko for the Jakarta Post, December 24:

Fifteen police officers backed up by soldiers and local residents will guard every church across West Java during Christmas celebrations to prevent possible attacks, police said.

Dozens of churches in the province have closed since 2004 after being stormed or attacked by hard-line Muslim mobs. In 2000, militants bombed churches across the archipelago on Christmas Eve.

This week in Bandung, West Java, many Christians won't be able to celebrate Christmas in a church because they were denied permits to build their places of worship.

West Java Church Federation (BKSG) leader John Simon Timorason said Wednesday the biggest obstacle was applying for a building permit to build a church, so local Christians eventually opted to hold Christmas prayers in shopping malls, hotels, restaurants, shops and homes.

He said more than 60 percent of the 1,920 churches in West Java were built without permits because of difficulties in obtaining permits. Only 15 percent of churches have permanent buildings and have permits.

"We face difficulties obtaining permits. Those equipped with permits, such as the churches in Purwakarta, Bekasi and Depok, had their permits revoked due to pressure from intolerant groups," Simon told The Jakarta Post.

Last year, 77 families from the Pasundan Christian Church in Dayeuhkolot, Bandung, who were holding prayers at their preacher's house were evicted by a mob.

Church caretaker Ranto Gunawan Simamora said, fearing violence, they had to hold mass in a chapel at the Immanuel Hospital on Jl. Kopo, Bandung.

West Java Police chief Insp. Gen. Timur Pradopo said more than 10,000 personnel would provide security for Christmas mass in churches and other locations throughout the province.

Timur said the police would also secure public places, such as shopping malls, hotels and tourist sites as part of Operation Lilin-Lodaya that starts Dec. 24 and runs for 10 days....

What do these pols think? That these clerics have some vision of Islam that differs radically from that of Ahmadinejad? On what grounds do they think that, other than the wishful thinking that is rampant in the West?

"Denmark: Muslim leaders criticized for meeting Ahmadinejad," from AFP, December 23 (thanks to Maxwell):

Several politicians in Denmark have criticized local Muslim clerics for meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the sidelines of the climate conference in Copenhagen.

"They should have at least distanced themselves from a regime that imprisons its citizens and punishes students for being homosexuals," said Martin Henriksen, a spokesperson for the Danish People's Party. (AFP)

Yeah, they should've.

DEFEATING JIHADI TERRORISM
by Dr. Babu Suseelan

Recent media reports indicate imminent Mumbai type Jihadi attack in major cities of the world. Nowhere is the tension and fear from Jihadi attack more evident than in major cities of New York, London, Zurich, Madrid, Rome, Mumbai and New Delhi.

Since Jihadis have an exclusive patent for terrorism, citizens are worried, fearful and scared. Jihadi terrorists could strike at any moment at any city at any time at their choice. No democratic country is safe from Islamists who are dead against democracy, modernism, coexistence, religious tolerance, and secularism. Islamists who fight against infidels and the modern civilization in the name of Islamic past fight with modern weapons of every kind against innocent people without fear, guilt, or shame.

In this context, citizens are traumatized and they are changing their behavior, life style and their hopes for a peaceful life are shattered. What can one do to feel safe again in our own country? Secular political leaders and security officials warn us against terrorist attacks. They only dimly aware of who the people behind terrorism are, and why they are terrorizing us and the motivating ideology of these terrorists. The lack of their clarity and deliberate failure to inform the public about terrorists and their deadly ideology make us more anxious and cautious.

It is time for citizens to study the ideology behind those who terrorize us. What makes these terrorists make us tremble and unable to make us live for our dreams and on our faith? The greatest shame is that why our liberal politicians and leftist intellectuals and pro-Islamist media are silent on Jihadi terrorism. Their silence or open support for Jihadi terrorists with phony root cause theories is deceptive. Why these deceptive politicians and liberal intellectuals fail to stand up and fight for our constitution, liberty, life and values? Why are they colluding with our tormenters? Why are they not demanding that hatred from the Koran be expunged? By colluding with Jihadis and keeping silence on their deadly ideology, they put our life at risk.

It is difficult for citizens who want to live in peace to swallow Jihadi hatred and their death defying criminal acts. Our values, freedom, life as well as our civilization hang in the balance. We cannot depend on phony secularists and leftist intellectuals to save us. Their views are quite pathetic. They are not going to guide us or ready to provide us any solution. Marxist intellectuals and bogus secularists have become a tool in the hands of Islamic terrorists in advancing their political agenda and Islamo fascism in which the terrorism is perpetuated.

What Should One Do?

What should one do? Citizens are part of the solution. Despite the fact that Jihadi terrorist assault on our country, individuals are reluctant to take realistic responses. It is a paradox. People have acquired "banner blindness", "denial", apathy and indifference. After many jihadi terrorist attacks, people are habituated to terrorism. Jihadis kill innocent people; destroy our property and spread hatred and fear. But citizens have become inoculated against the terrorists. And these habituated citizens who are inoculated and who are hiding behind a thick wall of denial no longer react.

It is time for us to get out of the sand and fight the great fight. The crooks, the degenerates and bogus secularists who run away from freedom and responsibility are ripping our value system, our freedom and our future.

Commonsense suggests that citizens have the right to identify people trying to ferment violence, spread hatred and terror in our country. With unlimited petro dollars, Jihadi terrorists are gathered to oppress us, terrorize us, scare us, and impose the tyranny of Islam.

Time has come that the public should take appropriate action. Jihadis are trying to instill fear in us. If we are united and stand up, we will become more powerful and Jihadis cannot put us in psychological trauma. We can fight back with determination. A strong determined assault on Islamists will preclude them to undermine the sense of our security and disrupt our everyday life.

We cannot prevail tomorrow; live in peace and tranquility without courageous action today. If we don't meet the challenges today with strength, will power and determination, our future will be at stake. By acting today against our enemies who are willing to die for their past, we are choosing our future and the future of children and our grand children yet to be born. Let us stand together and make our country great, preserve our freedom and security.

Probably Methodist extremists. "Militants kill Indian policemen in Kashmir," from the BBC, December 23 (thanks to Maxwell):

Suspected militants have killed two policemen in Indian-administered Kashmir, the police said.

A third policeman was injured in the attack which happened in Pampore township, south of the summer capital, Srinagar, the police added.

No militant group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

Separatist violence has declined sharply in Indian-administered Kashmir in the past few years, though sporadic incidents happen, correspondents say.

Police said Tuesday afternoon's incident happened when the militants fired at a police patrol.

The three injured policemen were taken to the hospital, where two of them died of their injuries....

Interestingly, Libya was the lone "no" vote. "Eritrea Sanctioned Over Somalia Terrorism Concern (Update1)," by Bill Varner for Bloomberg, December 23:

Dec. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Eritrean government and military leaders accused of being allied with al-Qaeda-linked terrorists in a bid to topple Somalia's transitional government became the target of United Nations sanctions today.

The UN Security Council voted 13-1 to ban the travel and freeze the assets of Eritreans designated by a committee of the 15-nation panel. The measure imposes an arms embargo on Eritrea, authorizes inspection of cargo going to or from the country on the Red Sea, and demands that it settle a border dispute with Djibouti.

Libya was the only nation to vote against the resolution, which was drafted by Uganda. China abstained from the vote.

Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, said the resolution was meant to halt Eritrean "assistance to violent elements in Somalia who are working to overthrow the government." She said the Obama administration would continue diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict.

"We have sought to encourage quietly the government of Eritrea to take the steps it claims it intends to take but it will not take and has not taken," Rice told reporters after the vote. "We do not see this as the door closing on Eritrea but, on the contrary, as another opportunity for Eritrea to play a more responsible and constructive role in the region." [...]

Eritrean Denials

Eritrea's ambassador to the UN denied his government supports the groups and said the U.S. pressured the Security Council to impose the sanctions.

"The Security Council has passed a shameful resolution," Ambassador Araya Desta said. "It is based on fabricated lies concocted by the Ethiopian regime and the U.S. administration. We haven't done anything."

U.S.-backed Ethiopian troops invaded Somalia in December 2006, ousting the Islamic Courts Union government that had briefly captured southern Somalia. They withdrew in January.

Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki told the Washington Post before the UN vote that sanctions would be "regrettable" if they are "meant to blackmail or intimidate Eritrea."

But remember, this has nothing -- nothing -- to do with Islam, if you believe Army brass and, of course, Obama himself. That willful blindness has shown itself to be the root of the failures in intelligence (in more than one sense of the word) that led to this attack. "Fort Hood: Hasan Asked Awlaki If It Was Okay to Kill American Soldiers," by Mark Schone for ABC News, December 23:

In an interview published on Al Jazeera's Web site, radical Muslim cleric Anwar al Awlaki says that Maj. Nidal Hasan, charged with killing 13 in last month's Fort Hood massacre, asked for guidance about killing American military personnel in his very first e-mail.

Awlaki claims that Hasan initiated the e-mail correspondence with a message on Dec. 17, 2008. "He was asking about killing U.S. soldiers and officers," said Awlaki. "His question was is it legitimate [under Islamic law]."

The Al Jazeera questioner asks for confirmation that Hasan forwarded this query nearly a year before the shooting.

"Yes," responds Awlaki. "I am astonished. Where was American intelligence that claimed once that it can read any car plate number anywhere in the world?" [...]

That much is true. It can't "read" what it refuses to see.

In the interview, Awlaki does not say whether he okayed the attack, but restates his support for the deed. Just after the Fort Hood shootings, Awlaki posted on a message on his Web site praising the shooter. In the interview, he calls it "a heroic action."

"The operation had a military target inside America, and there's no dispute about that," said Awlaki, adding that the soldiers killed "were prepared and equipped to fight and kill oppressed Muslims."

Asked why he supports a man who "betrayed his American homeland," Awlaki says that religion trumps country. "Working in the American military to kill Muslims is a betrayal to Islam," said Awlaki.

Awlaki, however, denies recruiting Hasan to commit violence. "Yes, I played a role in guiding his ideology, but nothing beyond that," said Awlaki.

Awlaki then suggests that the American government is trying to cover up its security failure by preventing the publication of the e-mails.

However, the Taliban didn't invent it. Prominent elements of this "dress code" far predate their movement. "Somali militants enforce Taliban-style dress code," from the Associated Press, December 23:

MOGADISHU, Somalia -- Residents of a southern Somali town say Islamists are enforcing a Taliban-style dress code.

And the sign says, long-haired freaky people need not apply:

Kismayo resident Abdulahi Omar Dhere says members of the al-Shabab insurgent group are targeting young men who have long hair, no beards and wear Western-style trousers below the ankle.

The demands regarding pants are from Muhammad's own instructions and example -- the example in all things for all time per Qur'an 33:21. Muhammad did not care for trailing lower garments, saying "The part of an Izar which hangs below the ankles is in the Fire" (Sahih Bukhari 7.72.678).

As for beards, among other things, Muhammad said "Act against the polytheists, trim closely the moustache and grow [the] beard" (Sahih Muslim 2.500).

Dhere said Wednesday that Islamists are publicly cutting off parts of trousers that violate the order and giving haircuts to anyone with long hair. The group has ordered men to grow beards and shave mustaches.

Al-Shabab has already banned movie theaters, musical ringtones and dancing at weddings -- echoing rules ones imposed by the Taliban when they ruled most of Afghanistan in the late 1990s, though the group didn't oppose long hair.

Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics,
And the Catholics hate the Protestants,
And the Hindus hate the Muslims,
And everybody hates the Jews. -- Tom Lehrer

"Iran speaker says Israel opposes Tehran-Cairo ties," from WashingtonTV, December 23 (thanks to James):

Washington, 23 December (WashingtonTV)--Iran's parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, on Wednesday played down any differences between the Islamic Republic and Egypt and reiterated Tehran's opposition to arch-enemy Israel.

Speaking in Tehran at the end of a three-day visit to Egypt, Larijani accused Israel of opposing cooperation between Tehran and Cairo.

"Although there are differences of opinions in some areas among Islamic countries, the point is that the main enemy is the Zionist regime," he said, according to the official ISNA news agency.

Relations between Iran and Egypt have soured over disputes on a number of regional and international issues, including Israel's three-week offensive in the Gaza Strip last January.

Cairo has accused Tehran of trying to dominate the region through its alliances with the Palestinian militant group, Hamas, and Lebanon's Hezbollah.

Egypt and Jordan are the only Arab states to have a peace treaty with Israel.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran's strategy is to use all the forces of the world of Islam and to generate general participation in combating the Zionist regime," Larijani told reporters in Tehran....

Barack Obama believes it necessary to coo and flatter and fawn over these thugs, so why not Nora Shourd? If Hitler kidnapped three Americans in 1938, would everyone be rushing to proclaim how much they respected Germany's ancient and noble civilization?

An update on this story. "Mom of US hiker in Iran pleads to supreme leader," by Patrick Condon for AP, December 18:

MINNEAPOLIS -- The mother of one of three American hikers jailed in Iran appealed to the Islamic Republic's supreme leader on Friday to release her daughter and her friends for the holidays, according to a new video.

It's been almost five months since the three were taken captive in Iran for allegedly straying across the country's border and almost two months since their families have had any word on their condition.

"Sarah, Shane and Josh are good people," Nora Shourd of Oakland, Calif., said in the video posted on a Web site dedicated to freeing the three. "They meant no harm to the Islamic Republic of Iran and respect your ancient and noble civilization. If they entered Iran, it was an innocent mistake."

The families have previously pleaded for their release to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but Friday's video was the first public outreach to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is Iran's highest-ranking political and religious authority.

"We're saying it's the holidays, please be compassionate and send them home," Shourd told The Associated Press on Thursday....

David Swindle reviews my book The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran in FrontPage this morning:

Few would consider Robert Spencer, author and prominent scholar of Islam, to be a radical.

Spencer's politics fit snuggly within the mainstream of conservative thought. He appears regularly at both Human Events and FrontPage Magazine. His books are published by the stalwart conservative press Regnery.

His rhetoric and demeanor are hardly radical either. Read his books and you'll find sly, witty humor to complement his often depressing subject matter. His talks are no different. He presents a friendly demeanor....

So in what manner is Spencer possessed of the Radical Spirit?

To understand this we need to understand what it means to be radical. The first definition of the term (coming from its etymology) sums it up: "Arising from or going to a root or source."

Thus Spencer's radicalism soon becomes clear to those familiar with his books and his essential blog, JihadWatch. His principle project is this: to go to the root of understanding Islam. To strip away the obfuscations of the Left and alleged "moderate" Islamist apologists and to really demonstrate just what this religion is all about.

And so his newest book, The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran is in a sense his most radical work yet. In the past Spencer has hit numerous Islam-related topics. Last year's Stealth Jihad looked at how many Islamists have shifted tactics from violence to quiet subversion. Previous books focused on Muhammad and the differences between Islam and Christianity.

Now he examines the Koran itself. In twelve accessible chapters - each interspersed with sidebars and quotes in Idiot's Guide fashion - Spencer gives a crash course on the Koran's origins, its interpretation and its contents. He explains how the book was assembled and why it's so difficult to understand. (It's not even written chronologically!) He also shows how pervasively anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, misogynistic, intolerant, and violent attitudes are embedded within this book revered by more than a billion people....

Read it all.

Gonna hurl

Caught out, he engages in a little "war is deceit" action. "Atomic bomb allegations 'make us puke,' Ahmadinejad says (Roundup)," from Deutsche Presse Agentur, December 22 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

Tehran - Allegations that Iran is seeking to make atomic bombs 'make us ... just puke,' President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday.

'These constant allegations against Iran have become an unfunny joke and make us and our nation just puke,' Ahmadinejad said in a speech in Shiraz in southern Iran.

'If we wanted to make an atomic bomb, then we would have been courageous enough to say that we were doing it,' the president said in the speech, carried live by the news network Khabar.

He added that Iran was engaged only in a peaceful nuclear programme and would not allow any country, 'neither the United States nor the US servants,' to interfere in Iran's internal affairs and deprive it of its legitimate nuclear rights.

'If they come up with documents [regarding secret Iranian military programmes], we do not even look at them, and if they make deadlines [for making concessions in the nuclear dispute], then we in return will make deadlines for them to correct their policies,' the president said.

Ahmadinejad was mainly referring to documents disclosed last week by the Times newspaper claiming Tehran was working on a four-year plan to make a nuclear bomb.

The president and the Foreign Ministry had rejected the report, saying the documents were fabricated....

Uh huh. And we should take this genocidal thug's word for it, and go back to sleep.

"These targeted attacks testify to the 'ethnic cleansing' in act against the Christian community throughout Iraq."

"Mosul attacks on two Christian churches, three dead and several injured," from AsiaNews, December 23 :

Mosul (AsiaNews) - Two separate bombs struck this morning in Mosul, the Chaldean church of St. George and Syriac Orthodox Church of St. Thomas. The death toll so far is of three dead - a Chaldean Christian and two Muslims - and several wounded. Louis Sako, archbishop of Kirkuk, speaks to AsiaNews of a "disturbing message" ahead of Christmas, keeping tensions high as well as fear of further violence in northern Iraq.

Sources for AsiaNews in Mosul confirm that "the situation for Christians continues to worsen, given that the Christians buildings are again being targeted by terrorists. The two churches hit are two old buildings, of great historical and cultural value".

In the attack on the church of Saint George three people were killed: a Chaldean Christian and two Muslims, others were injured. Local witnesses report that the explosion was caused by "a cart of vegetables, filled with bombs." From the initial reconstruction, it seems that the target of the attack was a police barracks in the district of Khazraj. In the last six weeks in Mosul four churches and a convent of Dominican nuns have been attacked. The explosions were caused by car bombs producing serious damage to buildings and adjacent homes, Christian and Muslim. Five Christians have been murdered and others have become victims of kidnapping for ransom. These targeted attacks testify to the "ethnic cleansing" in act against the Christian community throughout Iraq.

Louis Sako, archbishop of Kirkuk, believes today attacks are yet another "disturbing message" to two days before Christmas...

Yet the world's hypocrisy about Israel's security fence will no doubt continue.

"Mideast: Gaza, Hundreds Protest Against Egyptian Wall," from ANSAmed, December 21 (thanks to Insubria):

(ANSAmed) - GAZA, DECEMBER 21 - Today in Rafah (south of Gaza) some 700 people joined a demonstration staged in this portion of Palestinian territory controlled by Hamas Islamic radicals to protest against the underground steel barrier planned by Egypt along the only section of the Gaza Strip border that is foreign to Israel. The protesters gathered in front of the so-called Saladins Door, near the Egyptian border, but not in front of the main Rafah pass. The crowd included local residents, local Hamas activists and even one of the movements spokespersons who arrived from Gaza City, Sami Abu Zahri, who requested a halt to work in progress and the dismantling of the section of the barrier that has already been built. During the gathering people chanted slogans inviting Egypt not to choke the people of Gaza and to help the Palestinian people, while others carried signs saying Stop the siege or Enough walls and invoked Arab solidarity. Hamas security, present in force, however avoided any excessive approach to the border and incidents of any kind. The barrier, which was created with the help of American technicians, represents Cairòs reply to the problem of underground tunnels which allow the passage of vital goods to the Gaza Strip (which has been under an almost total Israeli blockade since Hamas rose to power in 2007) in addition to weapons, militiamen and illegal aliens. According to reports referred in recent days by the BBC and by Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the project estimates a total final length of 10 kilometres for 30 metres of depth. Initially denied, the start of work was later confirmed by Cairo sources, which claimed Egypt's right to control its borders. And they blamed Hamas intransigence for the failed agreement (where Egypt acted as middleman) over inter-Palestinian reconciliation, which is considered as one of the reasons behind the ongoing blockade of the Gaza Strip.(ANSAmed).

Threatened by girls with books. "Taliban blow up Pakistan girls school: official," from Agence France-Presse, December 23:

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) - The Taliban blew up a girls' school in Pakistan's Khyber district, where troops are fighting against militants in the tribal region bordering Afghanistan, an official said Wednesday.

Militants detonated explosives overnight at the government-run school in Bazgarah town, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of Peshawar, capital of the violence-plagued North West Frontier Province.

"The building had 21 rooms. All have been completely demolished," local administration chief Shafeerullah Wazir told AFP by telephone.

There were no casualties because the property was empty at the time.

"Taliban and their local allies are responsible. They are destroying educational institutions to avenge the military operation against their hideouts in the area," said Wazir.

"This was the ninth educational institution blown up in Khyber over the past six weeks," he added.

Islamist militants opposed to co-education and subscribers to sharia law have destroyed hundreds of schools, mostly for girls, in northwest Pakistan in recent years....

"American intelligence officials suspect Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence military spy agency uses [Siraj Haqqani] for its interests in Afghanistan."

A particularly obvious example of Pakistan's ongoing double game. "Pakistan nixes going after Taliban," from UPI, December 22:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Dec. 22 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama's administration has spared no effort to publicly laud the vital role of Pakistan for the success of its Afghanistan strategy, but what is happening behind the scene tells a different story.

Pakistan, going by recent reports, is making no secret of its resentment of U.S. policy, which in essence wants its military to do more to crack down on the Taliban and other militants using its territory as sanctuaries to launch attacks against U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

That was in evidence last week when the Pakistani military refused to go along with a U.S. demand it go after Taliban commander Siraj Haqqani, who uses his North Waziristan hideout in Pakistan to plan attacks by his warriors across the border.

The Pakistani military argued it is already heavily involved in a counterinsurgency campaign in South Waziristan and that its resources cannot be further extended into North Waziristan. But the criticism against Pakistan is that its two-month old South Waziristan campaign has only targeted domestic militants who threaten the country's security and not against the Afghan Taliban using its territory as sanctuaries. The offensive also has only helped many of the militant leaders to escape to North Waziristan and other areas.

A senior Pakistani security official told The Times of London any confrontation with Haqqani could create more problems for the army and that "we cannot fight on so many fronts."

The Obama administration wants Pakistan, set to receive $1.5 billion of U.S. civilian aid a year for five years, to dismantle the Taliban sanctuaries in return for a long-term strategic bilateral partnership.

U.S. officials also say that besides Haqqani, top Taliban leaders including Mullah Mohammed Omar are using Quetta, capital of Pakistan's Baluchistan province, as their base, and that the United States may decide to go after these militants on its own through expanded Predator drone strikes if Pakistan doesn't cooperate.

As for Haqqani, The Times of London reported, American intelligence officials suspect Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence military spy agency uses him for its interests in Afghanistan.

A New York Times report, quoting officials, said Pakistanis feel the U.S. demand would go against the need to position their country in Afghanistan in any regional rearrangement that might involve its main rival India as well as Russia, China and Iran once America begins to draw down its troops starting in July 2011 under the Obama strategy. In that scenario, the support of Haqqani and his fighters who control substantial regions of Afghanistan would be vital....

Three elements of this story are of particular interest regarding the subversion of British law for Sharia: The first is the persistence of child marriage, which was made not only acceptable but commendable in Islam (Qur'an 33:21) by Muhammad's own example. The second is the obvious disregard for the force of non-Islamic law when a practice is permissible under Sharia, and the third is the attitude toward women as property whose rights are limited by the authority of men over them, which permeates Islamic texts and teachings (see, for example, Qur'an 4:34).

Despite the nature of the crime, the light sentences issued in response demonstrate a lack of seriousness in making clear that British law remains the law of the land -- especially for the sake of the most vulnerable members of society, like the pre-teen girl in this case. "Man urged son to rape cousin, 12," from BBC News, December 22 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The 54-year-old organised a sham Muslim ceremony between his son, then 16, and the girl at his home in Woolwich, south-east London, in March last year.

At Wood Green Crown Court the boy got an 18-month supervision order for rape.

The fathers of the boy and girl were both jailed for three years for inciting a child to engage in sexual activity following an illegal marriage.

The boy's mother, 54, was given a 12-month jail term, suspended for two years, for the same offence.

She was also ordered to do 200 hours of community service.

The case came to light when the mother of the girl, who objected to the arranged "marriage", told police about it.

Scotland Yard child abuse detectives then discovered several relatives of the boy had urged him to rape his cousin.

In a statement, the girl's mother said: "What happened to my daughter was a nightmare. These convictions will help us move on."

Speaking after the case, Det Insp Noel McHugh, who led the investigation, called it a "really awful crime".

He said: "This has been an exceptionally challenging investigation and we are grateful to all those who assisted with the case and ensured the convictions.

"The offences are incomprehensible and the victim is a truly brave girl who suffered at the hands of those who should have offered her protection."...

These are the kinds of laws that the Organization of the Islamic Conference is working to bring to the West. "Egypt court upholds 4-year sentence for blogger," from Reuters, December 22:

CAIRO (Reuters) - An Egyptian court confirmed the four-year jail sentence imposed on an Egyptian student blogger for posting writings critical of Islam and the government, the state news agency MENA said.

Blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman, then 22, was arrested in 2006 and charged with publishing opinions aimed at disturbing public order, insulting the head of state and defaming Islam. He was expelled from al-Azhar University, Egypt's most prestigious seat of Islamic learning.

Suleiman will spend only one year in jail as he has already spent three years in detention since his arrest....

Striking back against journalistic bias? "Suicide Bomber in Pakistan Kills 3 at Peshawar Press Club," from VOA News, December 22 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Pakistani officials say three people have been killed and 17 others wounded in a suicide bombing outside a press club in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

Authorities say a policeman stopped the bomber at the gate of the press club Tuesday and tried to search him, at which point the bomber detonated his explosives. The blast killed the officer, a press club accountant and a woman....

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has ranked Pakistan as the fourth deadliest country in the world for journalists this year, behind the Philippines, Somalia and Iraq....

In most other countries, it's the journalists who are deadly for everyone else -- except, of course, hard Leftists and jihadis.

Treason. "Detained U.S. Nationals In Pakistan Say No Regrets On Planning Jihad Against U.S. Forces, Affirm: 'Martyrdom Is Our Aim; We Will Get Martyrdom If We Are Hanged,'" from MEMRI, December 22 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The five U.S. nationals detained recently by the Pakistani security forces have said that they do not regret planning attacks in connection with jihad against the U.S. forces in Afghanistan, according to a Pashtu-language newspaper....

"Martyrdom is our aim. We will get martyrdom if we are hanged [executed]," Usman Anwar, a police investigative officer, quoted the detained U.S. nationals as saying, according to a report in the Pashtu-language newspaper Wrazpanra Wahdat.

Ramy Zamzam, one of the detained U.S. nationals, told interrogators that they had planned to obtain martyrdom but we did not succeed, adding that they do not regret organizing their plan for jihad....

In the days after the Fort Hood jihad attack, we noted here just a few of the blizzard of backlash stories that ran in the mainstream media, and I wrote that there would be no backlash. And there has not been. Americans are decent people who do not victimize random innocents. But the Islamic advocacy groups in the U.S. need to maintain their victim status for political reasons -- it is they who want and need a backlash, and they who are responsible for all the mainstream media handwringing over something that never happened or was even likely to happen.

"The Myth of the Anti-Muslim Backlash: Hysteria hasn't swept the country since the Ft. Hood terrorist attack," by Gary Bauer in The Weekly Standard, December 22 (thanks to Maxwell):

Backlash: a strong or violent reaction, as to some social or political change.

It has been more than a month since U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly murdered 14 people and wounded 30 others at Fort Hood military base in Texas. And while we were led to believe that the rampage by Hasan, who is Muslim, would provoke a strong and violent reaction against Arab and Muslim Americans, a backlash has been conspicuous only by its absence.

In fact, in the immediate aftermath of each of the dozen attacks by Muslim Americans since 9-11, the conversation has been dominated by predictions of inevitable violence toward Muslims by bigoted Americans unable to control their rage. And each time a backlash has been virtually nonexistent. Our journalistic and political elites have become terrorism's unwitting domestic enablers, perceiving religion-based violence where there is none, while ignoring it where it is widespread and intensifying.

After Hasan's terrorist attack, an Associated Press headline read, "Another attack leaves U.S. Muslims fearing backlash." A Christian Science Monitor story was titled, "Fort Hood Shootings: US Muslims feel new heat."

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano declared: "We object to, and do not believe, that anti-Muslim sentiment should emanate from this." And U.S. Army Chief of Staff George Casey said, "I'm concerned that this increased speculation [about Hasan's motives] could cause a backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers. And I've asked our Army leaders to be on the lookout for that. ... as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that's worse."

But the data show that America's more than two million Muslims have little to fear from their fellow citizens. According to crime statistics compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the number of hate crimes against Muslim Americans increased in the immediate aftermath of 9-11. But it declined precipitously after that, and has remained low ever since.

Of 6,832 religion-based hate crimes reported between 2002 and 2006, 4,627, or 68 percent, were committed not against Muslims but against Jews, while 744, or 11 percent, were committed against Muslims. In 2007 there were 1,477 reported offenses motivated by religious bias. Again, 68 percent were committed against Jews, and only 9 percent against Muslims. Reported hate crimes against Catholics and Protestants accounted for 8.4 percent.

And recently-released FBI statistics for 2008 show that 65.7 percent of religion-motivated hate crimes were anti-Jewish, 8.4 percent anti-Christian and 7.7 percent anti-Islamic. That means there were 1,013 cases of hate crimes motivated by anti-Semitism in 2008, the highest number of hate crimes against Jews reported since 2001. There were just 105 reported cases of anti-Islamic hate crimes.

Don't believe the FBI's statistics? Data compiled by Muslim lobby groups paint a similar picture. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee Research Institute's 2003-2007 Report on Hate Crimes and Discrimination Against Arab Americans found "The rate of violent hate crimes against Arab Americans continued to decline from the immediate post 9-11 surge, to a level somewhat but not dramatically increased over that seen in the five years leading up to the 2001 attacks." A 2008 survey by Human Rights First called Violence Against Muslims found only two assaults based on anti-Muslim sentiment in 2007 and 2008, no incidents under "violent backlash to terrorist and other attacks" and just one incident under "attacks on places of worship and cemeteries."

Almost all of the "backlash" against Muslims following acts of Islamic domestic terrorism has consisted of acerbic blog posts, tightened restrictions at mosques and enhanced airport security....

Read it all.

It's not too late: you can still send Rifqa a Christmas card, and the CAIR Grinches have failed to prevent her from receiving them. Pamela has the address here.

"Magistrate rules that runaway doesn't have to sit down with parents," by Meredith "Hijab" Heagney for the Columbus Dispatch, December 22 (thanks to Pamela, who has more details here).

The magistrate in the Rifqa Bary case ruled today that the 17-year-old who ran away from her Columbus home in July does not have to sit down for mediation with her parents.

There were several issues resolved today at the hearing in Franklin County Juvenile Court, including:

* Mediation. Magistrate Mary Goodrich said issues now being discussed would best be resolved with individual counseling instead of group mediation.

That could be a bad break for Rifqa, if she is forced to see a Muslim counselor, as she has been pressured to do.

* Third-party messages. Bary's parents don't want her to receive any cards or letters directly, and had filed a motion that any messages first go to Franklin County Children Services. Omar Tarazi, the family's attorney, withdrew that motion today.

He should never have filed it. A CAIR lawyer trying to withhold Christmas cards from a little girl could be more damaging in the long run to this unsavory group than its unindicted co-conspirator status in a Hamas terror funding case.

* Rifqa's mental health. Assistant County Prosecutor Chris Julian said that a counselor was trying to determine whether 17-year-old, whose full name is Fathima Rifqa Bary, has post-traumatic stress disorder.

What? Post-traumatic stress disorder? Is just anyone and everyone getting that these days?

In July, Rifqa ran away and moved in with two pastors -- a married couple -- in Orlando, Fla., whom she had met on the Internet.

Rifqa said her father, Mohamed Bary, had threatened to kill her for leaving Islam -- the family religion -- for Christianity.

Authorities in Florida and Ohio could find no credible threat to her safety, and she returned to Franklin County on Oct. 27 and has been living in a foster home....

Authorities in Florida and Ohio wouldn't know a credible threat to her safety if a man were holding a scimitar to her neck.

Faleh Hassan Almaleki is clearly a Misunderstander of Islam, and did not get the memo about how Islam condemns and forbids honor killing.

An update on this story. "Man charged with murder in 'honor killing': Almaleki accused of running over daughter," by Dustin Gardiner for The Arizona Republic, December 22 :

An Iraqi immigrant accused of slaying his daughter in an "honor killing" has been charged with first-degree murder and could face the death penalty, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas said Monday.

Faleh Hassan Almaleki, 48, of Glendale, is accused of using his Jeep Cherokee to run over his daughter, 20-year-old Noor Almaleki, and another woman in a Peoria parking lot on Oct. 20. His daughter died of her injuries.

Almaleki was reportedly furious with his daughter for becoming "too Westernized," police said.

Prosecutors have labeled Noor Almaleki's death an "honor killing," saying the elder Almaleki killed his daughter because she dishonored the family by not following traditional Iraqi or Muslim values.

She reportedly married a man in Iraq and returned to Arizona to live with a boyfriend and his mother in Surprise.

Thomas announced Almaleki was also being charged with attempted first-degree murder in the attack on his daughter's friend, Amal Khalaf, 43. Khalaf is the boyfriend's mother and is expected to recover from her injuries, police said....

"By his own admission, this was an intentional act, and the reason was that his daughter had brought shame on him and his family," Low said. "This was an attempt at an honor killing."...

But...but...I thought all the Muslims in Bosnia were moderate, peaceful, and pro-American! "Bosnia court charges Muslim group for 'terrorism,'" from Reuters, December 22 (thanks to Maxwell):

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - Bosnia's state court indicted a group of radical Muslims on Tuesday on charges of terrorism and arms trafficking, saying they had planned to destabilise the country.

A total of five people were charged with being in the group which, the court said, "purchased and possessed weapons, explosive and various products suitable for making improvised explosive devices."...

"All of this was prepared in order to carry out an attack on one of the identified objects ... with the aim to seriously intimidate the citizens and destabilise the fundamental political, constitutional, economic and social structures of Bosnia and Herzegovina," it said.

Evidently these Muslims misunderstood Islam to be directing them to make war on non-Muslims:

The court did not name the possible targets but local media reported the group had planned to attack a Catholic cathedral in Sarajevo and a monastery in the central town of Fojnica.

Some media also said the group might have planned attacks on the international peace force deployed in Bosnia as well as on Bosnia's own armed forces, whose units are expected to join international troops in Afghanistan next year.

Some members of the group were arrested last year but released due to lack of evidence. Media said they were members of the fundamentalist Wahabbi branch of Islam, which has in recent years attracted young Bosnian Muslims.

Many foreign Islamic fighters or mujahideen arrived in Bosnia during the 1992-95 war to fight along Bosnian Muslims against Serbs and Croats. Most of them have left the Balkan country under U.S. pressure but some have remained.

Will the Islamophobia never end? "Pakistan Muslim Extremists Kill Christian; Injure Evangelists," from Worthy News, December 22 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

SARGODHA, PAKISTAN (Worthy News)-- Christians on Tuesday, December 22, were mourning a Christian man who was shot dead by Muslim extremists while other believers recovered from injuries after an apparent Muslim attack on an evangelistic meeting showing the Jesus Film in Pakistan's tense Punjab province.

Patras Masih was shot because he refused to recant his faith in Christ, and died from gunshot wounds on December 3 in Karol village, his family said.

Local said Masih had received an ultimatum after being falsely accused of killing a Muslim, identified as Anees Mahammad.

He was told he would not be killed if he abandoned Christianity and "embrace Islam."

However, "My son bravely refused to recant Christianity and clung to Christ," said the man's father, Gulzar Masih, his voice trembling. After his son refused to recite the Islamic conversion creed, three Muslims known locally sprayed bullets at his chest, killing him instantly, Masih said....

"We ordained therein for them: 'Life for life, eye for eye, nose or nose, ear for ear, tooth for tooth, and wounds equal for equal.' But if any one remits the retaliation by way of charity, it is an act of atonement for himself. And if any fail to judge by (the light of) what Allah hath revealed, they are (No better than) wrong-doers." -- Qur'an 5:45

Sharia Alert from Pakistan: "Pakistan court orders ears and noses to be cut off," from BBC News, December 22 (thanks to all who sent this in):

A Pakistani court has ordered that two men have their ears and noses cut off, as punishment for doing the same to a woman who refused to marry one of them.

The two brothers were found guilty of kidnapping 20-year-old Fazeelat Bibi, one of their cousins, in September.

The judge in Lahore also sentenced them to life in prison.

Sentence was passed on Monday under a rarely invoked Islamic law dating from the 1980s. In the past similar sentences have been revoked on appeal.

'Eye for an eye'

Government prosecutor Ehtisham Qadir said the punishment had been awarded in accordance with the Islamic principle of "an eye for an eye".

Sher Mohammad and Amanat abducted Fazeelat Bibi as she returned home from work at a brick kiln in the Raiwind area of Lahore, the court heard.

"They put a noose around her neck, and then cut off her ears and nose," Mr Qadir told the BBC.

Three alleged accomplices are still being sought by police.

The crime was committed after Fazeelat Bibi's parents refused to give her hand in marriage to Sher Mohammad, Mr Qadir said.

Islamic laws were introduced in Pakistan during the military regime of General Ziaul Haq in the 1980s....

The worst part of this is not even the flagrant attempt to claim victim status for this vile killer, although that is spectacularly bad enough. The worst part is that the Qur'an is what drove him to commit these crimes in the first place -- as he himself bore witness in his infamous Power Point presentation and by passing out Qur'ans on the morning of the massacre -- and yet his claim here will be treated as a simple rights issue, with his "right" to pray and recite Qur'an restored in haste. No one will mention, or even consider, the possibility that to do this is reinforce his jihadist mindset -- a mindset that should not be rewarded or reinforced after he murdered thirteen people because of it.

"Defense cites rights violation," by Guillermo Contreras for the Express-News, December 21 (thanks to Yid with Lid):

The lead lawyer for Fort Hood shooting suspect Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan said Monday that he believes the Army is violating Hasan's religious rights because it prohibited him from praying from the Quran in Arabic with a relative.

Attorney John P. Galligan said he learned that police guarding Hasan at Brooke Army Medical Center cut short a phone conversation Hasan was having with one of his brothers on Friday because Hasan was not speaking in English.

"Police at the hospital refused to let him pray, in Arabic, from the Quran with his brother," Galligan said. "I think it's illegal and a violation of his religious rights."

Hasan practices Islam, a religion whose followers hold that Jumu'ah (Friday) prayers are one of its most strongly affirmed duties.

No kidding -- Islam? Really? I thought he was a Methodist.

While the world lauds the late Montazeri for his opposition to the mullahcracy, it is useful to remember that he held what are mainstream -- not extremist -- Shi'ite views about unbelievers. "Montazeri's Limited Tolerance of Non-Muslims," by Jamsheed K. Choksy in (of all places) the Huffington Post, December 21:

[...] Following long-standing Shiite attitudes toward non-Muslims, Iran's revolutionary leader Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini once declared that "the following eleven are unclean: first urine, second feces, third semen, fourth corpses, fifth blood, sixth dogs, seventh pigs, eighth non-Muslims, ninth wine, tenth beer, and eleventh the sweat of a camel which has consumed impure food." Khomeini had gone on to add, "every aspect of a non-Muslim is unclean."

Yes Montazeri, once cast aside by the revolutionary elites, did become a fierce critic of the theocratic regime. As the years went by, he also was more open to extending additional rights beyond those of medieval-like dhimmi or protected status to non-Muslims in Iran. However, he did not sway from the orthodox Shiite perception that non-Muslims are impure. He merely suggested that any non-Muslim could make himself or herself "pure through chaste, Muslim-like, behavior."

Montazeri's comments on members of other faiths may seem more tolerant than ones by Khomeini or other ayatollahs like Ahmad Jannati who compared non-Muslims to "animals roaming the Earth and engaging in corruption." Yet the religious minorities in Iran see little theological difference and only a marginal pragmatism among the various Shiite views. Montazeri's opinion was characterized by one Iranian Christian clergyman as "rubbing salt into our wounds."...

Once again, as the Ayatollah Khomeini said, There is no fun in Islam. "Aceh Sharia forbids Chinese dance of the lions," by Mathias Hariyadi from AsiaNews, December 21 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

Jakarta (AsiaNews) - Indonesians of Chinese descent are in revolt against the decision of the Religious Affairs Office of Aceh, which has banned the popular barongsay (the dance of the lions, ed) during the commemorations of the fifth anniversary of the tsunami. The authorities explain that it is clearly extraneous to local culture and they want to "maintain religious harmony." The descendants of the Chinese replicate by describing the decision as "ridiculous".

Kim, an Indonesian of Chinese descent in North Jakarta, speaks of a "ridiculous and shameful" decision, in open violation of the five basic principles (the Pancasila) that "ensure full respect for cultural diversity." They are the five pillars of secular nationalism, on which the country has built its history since independence in 1945. "The decision to ban the barongsay - he adds - humiliates the various ethnic groups in Indonesia, including the Chinese people of Aceh."...

A. Rahman TB, an official of the Religious Affairs Office of Aceh - the most fundamentalist province of the country, where Islamic law is in force - justifies the decision stressing that the dance "has never been represented before" and the desire to maintain" religious harmony among the Muslims of Aceh and other ethnic groups in the province".

"It's stupid" replies Martini, a woman of Chinese origin who lives in Jakarta, based on "completely unfounded reasons". The Chinese community states that the barongsay has"no religious character", but is only a" cultural show ". Finally they add that they received all necessary permits from local authorities, including a police permit....

All the swimsuits and suicide belts might have been interesting to see, but it ain't happening. There is, after all, no fun in Islam (the Ayatollah Khomeini said that).

Sharia Alert: "Mideast: West Bank; Miss Palestine Pageant Cancelled," from ANSAmed, December 21 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

(ANSAmed) - RAMALLAH, DECEMBER 21 - The 2009 Miss Palestine pageant, scheduled to take place on December 26 under the aegis of the local administration of Ramallah, on the West Bank, has been postponed indefinitely, the MAAN press agency reports today. Muslim groups had called the competition an "offence to traditional values" and to women's decency. The decision was announced by the governor of the city upon orders of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), which opted for an indefinite delay - in practice a cancellation - to avoid disputes and protests. The Ramallah governorate, in a statement quoted by MAAN, announced that "according to the requirements of the public interest, we decided to freeze and delay indefinitely the coronation of Miss Palestine 2009 that was scheduled to be held on December 26 in Ramallah". The statement said the decision was made out of respect for the anniversary of the onset of the Israeli war on Gaza - Operation 'Cast Lead' - which will be marked on Sunday, December 27. The operation ended on January 18 with a death toll of around 1,400 Palestinians. This anniversary was apparently no problem when scheduling the event, and it is probably not the real cause for its cancellation. MAAN underlined the heavy criticism that has rained down on the PNA - and its officials of the ministry of culture who were to help judge the contest - from the side of the Muslim clergy and Muslim politicians. (ANSAmed).

Here is the apotheosis of the Islamic tendency to treat women as commodities -- a tendency with deep roots in the Qur'an and Sunnah.

"Girl sold in open auction," by Sikander Khoso for The Nation, December 13 (thanks to Silvester):

JACOBABAD - A 20-year-old girl was auctioned at village Badani Bhutto of Taluka Kashmore in consideration of Rs2,70,000 on Saturday.

Azizan, daughter of late Allah Bux Bhutto, was divorced on the allegation of Karo-kari some time back. She is stated to be mother of two children and was residing with her brother who held the open auction for her 'sale' at village Badani Bhutto.

A large number of villagers showed interest in the auction that started with Rs50,000 and ended at Rs270,000. Bilawal Bhutto, 50, of the same village purchased her for the said amount. Initially he paid Rs210,000 for the girl.

Maulana Azizullah Bhutto performed their nikah [marriage] later.

It is irony of the situation that no one condemned the inhuman act. The groom will take the bride to his house after paying the rest of the amount. The auction money was distributed equally among all the brothers of the girl.

Why is it that the most avowedly Islamic parties seem to be made up of Misunderstanders of the Religion of Peace and Tolerance?

"Study finds Islamist parties least concerned with human rights," by Hani Hazaimeh for the Jordan Times, December 21 (thanks to Twostellas):

AMMAN - The Kingdom's Islamist parties are the least concerned with human rights among other political parties in the country, according to a study revealed on Sunday.

The study, which was conducted by the National Centre for Human Rights (NCHR), categorised the country's 15 political parties into four groups - Islamists, nationalists, leftists and moderates....

Barakat said the study classified human rights into four sub-categories: equality; civil and political rights; economic, social and cultural rights; and any relevant articles in the parties' charters concerned with human rights in general.

The 102-page study showed that Islamic parties' charters made the least mention of equality, accounting for only 13.64 per cent of all references to equality in party charters. In comparison, moderate parties accounted for 33.64 per cent of such references.

According to the study, which was compiled through direct questionnaires and interviews with the founders of each party, Islamic parties' charters focus more heavily on socio-economic, cultural, civil and political rights, as well as on power sharing.

All parties' charters call for freedom of expression, the study noted, while 13 out of 15, or all except one Islamist and one nationalist party, mention the right to a fair trial.

Barakat explained that the founding documents of leftist and Islamic parties do not include any references to the right to life, freedom of movement or freedom from torture and cruel treatment, whereas moderate and nationalist parties stress these rights in their agendas....

In "America's Survival is At Stake" at Townhall, December 21, Roger Chapin discusses Obama's supine response to Iran's nuclear threat:

Never before in our history has an American president, deliberately and by design, risked our very survival to a maniacal enemy power sworn to remove America from the world. Yet from all appearances, this is exactly what Obama is doing by failing to vigorously oppose Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons. But in spite of the fact that over 60% of the public favors militarily destroying Iran's nuclear facilities, there's nary a word of protest from the Republicans in opposition. They're so paranoid about being labeled warmongers, they have shamefully abdicated their own national security responsibilities, just as John McCain did during his presidential run.

Obama is weakening rather than strengthening our missile defenses. That's how seriously this Administration takes the Iranian threat....

Read it all.

Would Shi'ites curtail one of their celebrations to show similar "respect" to the Christians? Would they mute their joy on Eid al-Fitr if it began on Good Friday? What do you think? And what would happen to these Christians if they failed to show this "respect"?

"No Christmas celebrations in Basra," from Alsumaria, December 21 (thanks to Nicholas):

Christians in Basra decided not to celebrate Christmas explicitly as it coincides this year with a sad memorial for Shiite who commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Al Hussain and his brother Al Abbas in Karbala. Bishop Imad Al Banna, the head of Chaldeans Bishops in Basra called on all Christian brethren not to display their joy, not to publicly celebrate the feast of the Nativity or entertaining guests at home to show our respect vis-à-vis Shiites, on the occasion of Muharram, said the statement issued Sunday. The Shiites, according to the lunar calendar, commemorate this year the mourning of Ashura (the 10th of the month of Muharram) the next weekend when Christmas falls on Friday. Meanwhile, bishop of Baghdad Shlimoune Wardouni said that this concerned only Basra.

But it is still very high. "OIC Slams 'Demonic' Portrayal of Islam, But Support for Religious 'Defamation' Measures Continues to Erode," by Patrick Goodenough for CNS News, December 21:

(CNSNews.com) - An Islamic-led campaign against religious "defamation" has taken another blow the United Nations, where support among member states has dropped to a new low amid escalating concerns that defamation resolutions endanger non-Muslims in Islamic societies and harm freedom of expression.

While much of the world's attention was focused on Copenhagen late last week, the U.N. General Assembly passed a range of human rights-related resolutions. For critics of the world body and its Human Rights Council, the results were mixed.

The latest in a string of religious defamation resolutions considered by the General Assembly and human rights bodies over the past decade saw more countries than ever oppose the measure.

The resolution passed by 80 votes to 61 against, with 42 countries abstaining. The result is the worst ever for the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) member states and their allies, many of them not free democracies. It marks a continuing decline since 2007, when in the wake of the Mohammed newspaper cartoon furor a similar resolution passed by a vote of 108-51, with 25 abstentions.

Not only has the number of countries opposing the move climbed (see graph), but several member states in the developing world have moved from supporting the resolutions to abstaining.

Ten countries in Latin America and the Asia-Pacific moved from abstaining in 2008 to opposing the OIC resolution this year - Chile, Mexico, Uruguay, Panama, St. Lucia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor, Vanuatu, Nauru and Tonga.

Another five states which supported the resolution last year abstained this time - Honduras, Jamaica, Bahamas, Antigua and Barbuda and Lesotho.

Moving in the other direction, Liberia, Cape Verde and Belize abstained this year, having opposed the OIC resolution in 2008; and Congo moved from abstaining last year, to supporting the resolution this time.

The OIC argues that Islam and its teachings, symbols and prophetic figures are being denigrated by non-Muslims as a result of ignorance, fear and prejudice.

But critics charge that the OIC is trying to shield Islam, Islamic practices and clerics from legitimate examination, noting that it is in some Islamic countries themselves that non-Muslim beliefs and activities are proscribed....

Although the resolutions are non-binding, they are taking place in conjunction with a separate OIC-led push to have an existing, legally-binding anti-racism treaty, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), amended to cover speech deemed as religiously defamatory.

In a letter written to member states ahead of the vote, Angela Wu, international law director of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty - a leading opponent of the resolutions - argued that the measures "provide international support for domestic blasphemy laws that have been used by oppressive regimes to silence, rather than protect, vulnerable minorities and dissenters."

Wu contested the very concept of religious defamation, saying the human rights law systems is meant to protect individuals, not ideas or religions.

Yep.

Last month.

A new and insidious form of the courtroom jihad. Why is a group that is considered a terrorist organization in Britain able to operate so freely in that country?

"Hamas helping British lawyers target Israel," by Con Coughlin in the Telegraph, December 21 (thanks to Inexion):

Activists from Hamas, the Palestinian group, have been helping British lawyers bring war crimes prosecutions against Israeli officials in London.

The group, considered a terrorist organisation in Britain, is believed to have provided information which helped sympathisers secure an arrest warrant against Tzipi Livni, Israel's former Foreign Minister at Westminster Magistrates Court earlier this month.

Mrs Livni, who was a cabinet minister during last year's Israeli military offensive in Gaza, was forced to cancel a trip to London last week.

A major diplomatic incident was averted only after Mrs Livni, who is now Israel's opposition leader, was alerted to the warrant and pulled out of a speaking engagement at the last minute.

It has now emerged that a committee set up by the Hamas government was providing information to help pro-Palestinian lawyers investigating alleged war crimes.

Diya al-Madhun, the judge who heads the committee, said: "We provide documents, reports and evidence of crimes to all international bodies aiding the Palestinian people in bringing Israeli civilian and military leaders to trial and issuing warrants for their arrest.

"We have provided a group of independent lawyers in Britain with documents, information and evidence concerning war crimes committed by Israeli political and military leaders, including Livni."

He added however that the foreign lawyers acted independently and were not hired by the Islamist Palestinian group.

Hamas is considered a terrorist organisation by Britain, Israel, the US and the EU, but it is seen by its supporters as a legitimate resistance movement....

An update on this story. "Chicagoan Said to Have Helped Terrorists Target Nuclear Plant," by Richard Esposito and Brian Ross for ABC News, December 20 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

The Chicago man charged with helping plot the terror attacks one year ago in Mumbai also photographed and conducted surveillance of a nuclear weapons fuel plant in Tromboy, India, according to Indian and U.S. law enforcement authorities.

The authorities say David Headley was sent to Tromboy, a northwest suburb of Mumbai, by his handlers in the terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, an affiliate of al Qaeda.

The Bhabha Atomic Research Center in Tromboy is capable of producing 66 pounds of plutonium a year for four the country's nuclear weapons, according to David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security.

"You would have had one helluva international crisis if they had taken control of the facility and caused some kind of accident with a serious release of radioactive material," said Albright.

"There have always been questions about India's nuclear security and because it's located on the water and not far from Mumbai, it would be a logical target," added Albright.

Headley is accused by federal authorities of conducting the pre-operational surveillance of the Mumbai hotels that were stormed by Lashkar-e-Taiba gunmen last November 26. [...]

The Pakistani-born American citizen travelled to Mumbai five times between 2006 and 2008, posing as an American Jew with a new video camera, according to U.S. officials.

Spot the inaccuracy:

Headley's role in the planning of a possible attack on the nuclear facility came to light after the FBI arrested him in connection with the hotel attacks and another planned attack on a Danish newspaper which had published cartoons mocking Allah. [...]

The impact of such an attack would depend on the quality of the attacking force and their objective, said Lt. Steve Margolis of the Los Angeles Police Department, the former head of the department's anti-terror unit.

"It depends on what they were trying to achieve. Were they intending immediate panic, were they intending creating a loss of confidence in India's nuclear program? Were they looking for potential release / exposure?," said Margolis....

But here's the good news: the clock is "now running." No word on which time zone this discussion is in, though, relative to Iran's progress. "Iran running out clock on US: Mullen," from Agence France-Presse, December 20:

The top U.S. military officer said Sunday he does not assume Iran's brief seizure of an Iraqi oil well is part of an orchestrated plan in Tehran to threaten its neighbors.

Adm. Mike Mullen also said he's worried about "the clock now running" on the Obama administration's efforts at trying to keep the lines of communication open with Iran. The administration had given a rough deadline of the end of 2009 for Iran to respond to an offer of engagement and show that it would allay world concerns about its nuclear program.

Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, supports that offer, and has said any military strike on Iran, whether by Israel or the U.S., should be a last resort.

Washington and others worry that Iran's program is intended to develop nuclear weapon. Iran says its work is peaceful and designed to generate electricity but has defied international demands to prove it is not trying to build an atomic bomb.

The administration is now beginning a push to get international support for additional penalties against Iran as a result, and Mullen suggested he thinks that backing was there.

"I think signals are very clearly in the air that another set of sanctions, another resolution, that that's coming," he said.

"I grow increasingly concerned that the Iranians have been non-responsive. I've said for a long time we don't need another conflict in that part of the world," he said. "I'm not predicting that would happen, but I think they've got to get to a position where they are a constructive force and not a destabilizing force."

The administration is concerned about Iran's refusal to carry through on a tentative deal struck in October that called for Iran to ship the majority of its low-enriched uranium out of the country in exchange for fuel to run a research reactor.

The deal was seen by the U.S. and its negotiating partners as a step toward building confidence in Iran's claim that its nuclear program is designed entirely to generate power, not weapons.

The administration also stepped up the momentum toward sanctions after the revelation in September that Iran was secretly building a second uranium-enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom.

Mullen, who spoke to reporters while flying from Germany back to the U.S., said the oil well incident adds to his concerns about Iran's intentions toward neighboring Iraq and the rest of the world.

"I worry a great deal about ... Iran and destabilizing as opposed to stabilizing," he said.

"And I worry about, you know, the clock now running on the dialogue and the engagement and sort of, where are we if that doesn't finish well? And certainly recent indications are ... they're not very responsive."

Meanwhile in Washington, senior Obama adviser David Axelrod said time was running out for Iran to cooperate.

"The international community is going to have to deal with that if they don't change their minds," he said. "I think that the world is united and is willing to take additional steps if the Iranians don't turn around. ... Plainly, there are going to be consequences if they don't turn around."

Republican Sen. John McCain said the administration should act on its own to punish Iran and demonstrate support for Iranian dissidents.

"The president should stand up for the people who are demonstrating and risking their very lives on behalf of freedom on the streets of Tehran," he said. "Let's make it very clear we are with these people who are struggling for freedom as we always have."

Axelrod spoke on ABC's "This Week," while McCain appeared on "Fox News Sunday."

Before, that is, he saw the possible financial rewards of playing the Islamic victim game. But this time, it backfired. An update on this story. "Muslim police chef defeated in 'bacon roll' tribunal faces £75,000 legal bill," by Tom Harper in the Daily Mail, December 20:

A Muslim chef who lost a claim of religious discrimination against Scotland Yard after complaining he was forced to cook sausages and bacon faces a legal bill of more than £75,000.

Hasanali Khoja accused the Metropolitan Police of failing to consider his Islamic beliefs when he was asked to handle pork products as a catering manager at a police station.

The £23,000-a-year chef claimed suggestions by his bosses that he should wear gloves and use tongs left him 'stressed and humiliated'. Muslims are banned from eating pork under Islamic law.

But Mr Khoja, 62, lost his claim in May after a police employee told an employment tribunal how she saw Mr Khoja eat bacon rolls and sausages.

The Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) has now won a ruling ordering Mr Khoja to pay its costs, which total at least £76,200. In its costs claim, the Met said Mr Khoja 'knew that he had asked for a bacon roll two or three times for personal consumption before bringing his claim and throughout the conduct of his claim'.

'The fact that he had knowingly come into contact with pork products before bringing the claim shows that the claim had no reasonable prospect of success from the outset.'...

Mr Khoja, who sits on a Foods Standards Agency advisory committee on Muslim issues, decided to take action after Scotland Yard chiefs placed him on unpaid leave for a year after his refusal to work with pork....

But his case fell apart when another caterer, Mary Boakye, told the court she served him bacon rolls 'two or three' times at the Met canteen at Heathrow in West London.

When she told him she was surprised because his religion banned him from eating pork, Mr Khoja allegedly replied: 'I eat them once in a while.'

Another chef said he saw Mr Khoja once happily eat a sausage dish and told the court 'he was not as strict as some Muslims'.

Judge Southam also heard how Mr Khoja had made 'wild and baseless' allegations about a human resource manager, allegedly making racial facial gestures....

"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

But deep down, they really, really want peace! "Sheik Tells Children the Story of Palestinian Female Suicide Bomber Wafa Idris, Concluding: Allah Willing, We Will All Become Like Wafa Idris," from MEMRI TV, December 1 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

Following are excerpts from a TV children's show, in which children learn about Palestinian suicide bomber Wafa Idris. The show aired on Al-Quds TV on December 1, 2009.

TV Host: There used to be a girl, who was a student at medical school. She lived in a refugee camp called Al-Am'ari. the Al-Am'ari camp, my dear children, is located near the city of Ramallah in occupied Palestine.

[...]

[Wafa Idris] went to the commander of the resistance, and asked to carry out a martyrdom operation. What, a girl carrying out a martyrdom operation?! She said: I want to carry out a martyrdom operation, just like any young man in the resistance. Obviously, the commander hesitated at first, because this was the first time such a thing happened. Since the beginning of the Intifada, no Palestinian girl had carried out a martyrdom operation. But Wafa insisted, until she managed to convince the commander that the Zionists would not pay attention to a girl. Usually, they only inspect the young men. So the commander agreed. In light of her determination, courage, and persistence - he agreed.

[...]

Second boy: Wasn't Wafa afraid among the occupiers? Didn't she hesitate?

TV Host: Of course not. She wasn't afraid, and she did not hesitate, because she placed Allah between her eyes and in her heart. She would always remember Allah and would crush her fear. If fear wanted to come near her calm and peaceful heart, she would get ready to enter Paradise, knowing that she would be among the living, who are sustained [by God]. Who are they? The martyrs.

[...]

Wafa fulfilled her wish by successfully carrying out her martyrdom operation. The result was that she killed an Israeli soldier and wounded about a hundred. Why was Wafa martyred? So that the flower of the homeland would not wither.

[...]

Third boy: When was she martyred?

TV Host: Wafa Idris was martyred on Sunday, January 27, 2002. She has become a role model for any Palestinian girl who harbors the spirit of self-sacrifice, national sentiment, and love of death for the sake of Allah and in defense of the homeland.

Young girl: I want to become a doctor like Wafa, so that I can help the wounded.

TV Host: Allah willing, we will all become like Wafa Idris. We will treat the wounded, and Allah will grant us martyrdom.

Bartholomew: Crucified

The Patriarch speaks the truth about the mistreatment of Christians in Turkey -- a cultural hangover of the dhimma -- and the Turks, true to form, would rather shut him up than deal with the problem. They have followed the same pattern with the Armenian genocide. "Turkey slams orthodox chief's crucifixion remark," from AFP, December 19 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

ANKARA (AFP) Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Saturday criticized as unacceptable remarks by the spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians that he feels "crucified" and "second class" living in Turkey.

"We regard the use of the crucifixion simile as extremely unfortunate.... I would like to see this as an undesired slip of the tongue," Davutoglu told reporters here when asked about Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I's comments in an interview with US television network CBS.

"We cannot accept comparisons that we do not deserve," the minister added.

He rejected criticism that the Islamist-rooted government in Turkey was discriminating between its citizens on religious grounds.

"If Patriarch Bartholomew I has complaints on this issue, he can convey them to relevant authorities who will do whatever is necessary," he said.

In an excerpt from the interview, which will be broadcast in full on CBS on Sunday, Bartholomew I says that the tiny Greek minority in Turkey is not treated equally.

"We are treated... as citizens of second class. We don't feel that we enjoy our full rights as Turkish citizens," says the patriarch, who represents the world's 250 million Orthodox Christians.

He ruled out the option of leaving Turkey. "This is the continuation of Jerusalem and for us it is equally holy and sacred land. We prefer to stay here, even crucified sometimes," the patriarch adds.

The CBS website quotes Bartholomew I as saying that the Turkish government "would be happy to see the Patriarchate extinguished or moving abroad, but our belief is that it will never happen."...

Though Ankara does not interfere with the patriarchate's religious functions, it withholds recognition of Bartholomew's ecumenical title, treating him only as the spiritual leader of some 2,000 Orthodox Greeks still living in the country.

Turkish authorities also keep closed a theological school on an island off Istanbul, depriving the church of a means to train clergy.

Chatter is increasing among the Misunderstanders of Islam. "Police expect Mumbai-style terror attack on City of London," by David Leppard for The Sunday Times, December 20 (thanks to Alan of England):

Scotland Yard has warned businesses in London to expect a Mumbai-style attack on the capital.

In a briefing in the City of London 12 days ago, a senior detective from SO15, the Metropolitan police counter-terrorism command, said: "Mumbai is coming to London."

The detective said companies should anticipate a shooting and hostage-taking raid "involving a small number of gunmen with handguns and improvised explosive devices"....

"Before, there has been speculation. Now we are getting what appears to be a definite plot to carry out a firearms attack on London," he said....

Security sources said concerns had been raised by "chatter" on a prominent jihadist website two weeks ago.

One contributor suggested fighters could use automatic weapons to strike places such as nightclubs, sporting venues and Jewish centres.

In an online discussion hosted on December 2, another contributor invited suggestions for carrying out "guerrilla warfare" and proposed "a group of mujaheddin raid police stations and fire at them".

Another said: "Make sure that all those at the location are of age, that there are no children and so on. Insist on the locations and times where no Muslims or children are to be expected.

"If machine guns are available, and explosive and expertise for [explosives] are not available, this is a good way ... The [Mumbai] operation is the ideal scenario for operations you are talking about."

A third contributor said targets should be "chosen in a studied manner".

He added: "In general, targeting economic joints and intelligence centres if possible has priority over police stations."...

So they can return to jihad. "Six Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo Bay to be repatriated," by Peter Finn, Sudarsan Raghavan and Julie Tate for the Washington Post, December 18 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

The Obama administration is planning to repatriate six Yemenis held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a transfer that could be a prelude to the release of dozens more detainees to Yemen, according to sources with independent knowledge of the matter.

The release is a significant first step toward dealing with the largest group of detainees at the prison -- there are currently 97 Yemenis there -- and toward meeting President Obama's goal of closing the facility.

But Yemen's security problems and lack of resources have spawned fears about its ability to monitor and rehabilitate returnees. Critics of the administration charge that returning detainees to Yemen, a country where al-Qaeda is believed to be thriving, is tantamount to returning terrorists to the battlefield....

Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.), a critic of the administration policy on Guantanamo, said Yemeni detainees pose a particular risk because of the instability of their home country.

"Stop. These men are dangerous," Wolf said when asked about the transfer. "I believe they will be involved in terrorism that will cost American lives."...

Probably.

The great Steve Emerson of the Investigative Project and I at the David Horowitz Freedom Center's Restoration Weekend last month. Just because I like the picture. (And thanks to Glenn for it.)

Axis of Evil Update: Kim Jong Il throws in his lot with the Somali jihadis, via the Sudanese jihadis. "N.Korean Arms Cache 'Bound for Sudan,'" from the Chosun Ilbo, December 16 (thanks to Maxwell):

A Georgian cargo plane carrying North Korean weapons that was intercepted in Thailand last Saturday was bound for Sudan, reports say. Christian LeMiere, the editor of Jane's Intelligence Weekly, told AP on Tuesday that the aviation path of the plane suggested it was heading to Sudan, where they might have been handed over to armed groups in Somalia through Chad and Eritrea.

Siemon Wezeman of the Arms Transfers Project of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, agreed, telling AP that the "types of arms found in the aircraft -- used to add firepower against planes and tanks in the arsenal of government forces -- were typical of those used by insurgent movements, and raised suspicion they could be headed for an African rebel group."...

"Islamophobia," a recent and politically manipulative coinage, is now a crime against humanity. Yet unique among crimes against humanity, it is within the power of its victims to end, or at least to curtail so severely as to make it virtually nonexistent. Here are five ways Muslims can end "Islamophobia":

1. Focus their indignation on Muslims committing violent acts in the name of Islam, not on non-Muslims reporting on those acts.
2. Renounce definitively not just "terrorism," but any intention to replace the U.S. Constitution (or the constitutions of any non-Muslim state) with Sharia even by peaceful means. In line with this, clarify what is meant by their condemnations of the killing of innocent people by stating unequivocally that American and Israeli civilians are innocent people.
3. Teach Muslims the imperative of coexisting peacefully as equals with non-Muslims on an indefinite basis, rather than working toward impose Sharia upon those non-Muslims.
4. Begin comprehensive international programs in mosques all over the world to teach against the ideas of violent jihad and Islamic supremacism.
5. Actively work with Western law enforcement officials to identify and apprehend jihadists within Western Muslim communities.

"Erdoğan: Islamophobia crime against humanity," from Today's Zaman, December 18 (thanks to Maxwell):

Islamophobia is a crime against humanity just like anti-Semitism, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said, while calling on the international community for recognition of this crime.

Is "Islamophobia" really like anti-Semitism? Let's see. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a forgery. Jews really don't have a secret plan to control the world. Is concern about Islamic supremacism similarly trumped up? Or does Islam include a political manifestation that teaches world domination?

Don't take my word for it. Let's go to Majid Khadduri, an Iraqi scholar of Islamic law of international renown. In his book War and Peace in the Law of Islam, which was published in 1955 and remains one of the most lucid and illuminating works on the subject, Khadduri says this about jihad:

The state which is regarded as the instrument for universalizing a certain religion must perforce be an ever expanding state. The Islamic state, whose principal function was to put God's law into practice, sought to establish Islam as the dominant reigning ideology over the entire world....The jihad was therefore employed as an instrument for both the universalization of religion and the establishment of an imperial world state. (P. 51)

Don't believe Khadduri? Very well. How about Imran Ahsan Khan Nyazee, Assistant Professor on the Faculty of Shari'ah and Law of the International Islamic University in Islamabad. In his 1994 book The Methodology of Ijtihad, he quotes the twelfth century Maliki jurist Ibn Rushd: "Muslim jurists agreed that the purpose of fighting with the People of the Book...is one of two things: it is either their conversion to Islam or the payment of jizyah." Nyazee concludes: "This leaves no doubt that the primary goal of the Muslim community, in the eyes of its jurists, is to spread the word of Allah through jihad, and the option of poll-tax [jizya] is to be exercised only after subjugation" of non-Muslims.

Don't believe Nyazee, either? How about Iran's Thug-In-Chief Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Of course, he is no Islamic scholar, but he is a devout Muslim, and he learned Islam not from greasy Islamophobes but from...Islamic scholars. And he has said: "Have no doubt... Allah willing, Islam will conquer what? It will conquer all the mountain tops of the world."

Don't believe Ahmadinejad? How about a Shafi'i manual of Islamic law endorsed by the most prestigious institution in Sunni Islam, Al-Azhar University in Cairo? It says that the leader of the Muslims "makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians...until they become Muslim or else pay the non-Muslim poll tax," and cites Koran 9:29 in support of this idea: "Fight those who do not believe in Allah and the Last Day and who forbid not what Allah and His messenger have forbidden-who do not practice the religion of truth, being of those who have been given the Book-until they pay the poll tax out of hand and are humbled." ('Umdat al-Salik o9.8)

Is concern about this imperialist imperative really "Islamophobia," akin to the lurid fictions that underlay anti-Semitism? No. Anyone who believes in freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and legal equality for all people should be concerned about this Islamic imperative, which would deny all three, and more besides.

Erdoğan's remarks came at a meeting with Syrian media held earlier this week, the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported. The meeting was apparently held on the occasion of an upcoming official visit by Erdoğan to Damascus, which is scheduled for Tuesday.

"Islam means peace, and it cannot tolerate terrorism. We reject all attempts to link Islam with terrorism," Erdoğan was quoted as saying by SANA. The agency noted that Erdoğan also called on the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the Arab League and all concerned parties to present a unified front to help end Islamophobia.

Of course, he is not referring to Muslims who link Islam with terrorism by justifying acts of terrorism with reference to Islamic teachings.

How many articles have we seen saying that since 9/11?

How many more do you think we will see before the government and media elites start to get a clue? (I think the answer to that one is that they will never get a clue.)

Why does no one put two and two together and ever come up with a coherent explanation of why we haven't seen Muslims do this, even after all these years?

This present call to that great unicorn, the Muslims actively opposed to jihadist violence and supremacism, to make itself known comes from "Muslims, take a strong stand against terrorism worldwide," by Basit H. Ghori in the Florida Times-Union, December 17.

It is indeed high time, and long past high time, but moderate American Muslims are too busy giving us the finger or looking to Hamas-linked groups for leadership to set about doing the work that needs to be done.

Sorry, ladies

A woman's place is in the home, not killing kuffar. "Wife of Qaeda number 2 urges women not to join jihad," from AFP, December 17 (thanks to all who sent this in):

DUBAI -- The wife of Al-Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has appealed to Muslim women not to join the jihad themselves but to support their menfolk in holy war, US monitoring groups said on Thursday.

In a letter released by Al-Qaeda's media arm As-Sahab entitled "A Message to the Muslim Sisters," Omayma Hassan Ahmed Mohammed Hassan also called on the female faithful to resist Western pressure to shun the hijab, or headscarf, the monitors said.

The SITE group said that Zawahiri's wife discouraged women from pursuing an active role in fighting, calling on them instead to support their husbands and male mujahedeen, and properly rear their children....

...to be good mujahedin themselves. The boys, anyway.

That'll show us.

And of course, for many, it will. There are so many cowards in the West, who would rather give up all their principles than suffer any inconvenience or face any threat.

"Turks Threaten to Kill Priest over Swiss Minaret Decision," from Compass Direct News, December 15 (thanks to all who sent this in):

ISTANBUL, December 15 (CDN) -- In response to a Swiss vote banning the construction of new mosque minarets, a group of Muslims this month went into a church building in eastern Turkey and threatened to kill a priest unless he tore down its bell tower, according to an advocacy group.

Three Muslims on Dec. 4 entered the Meryem Ana Church, a Syriac Orthodox church in Diyarbakir, and confronted the Rev. Yusuf Akbulut. They told him that unless the bell tower was destroyed in one week, they would kill him.

"If Switzerland is demolishing our minarets, we will demolish your bell towers too," one of the men told Akbulut.

The threats came in reaction to a Nov. 29 referendum in Switzerland in which 57 percent voted in favor of banning the construction of new minarets in the country. Swiss lawmakers must now change the national constitution to reflect the referendum, a process that should take more than a year.

The Swiss ban, widely viewed around the world as a breach of religious freedom, is likely to face legal challenges in Switzerland and in the European Court of Human Rights....

Here's the latest from anti-jihad cartoonist Bosch Fawstin. Click the image to enlarge.

Interesting jihadist/FARC connection. "US arrests three Africans in 'al-Qaeda cocaine sting,'" from the BBC, December 19 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

A court in the US has for the first time charged suspected members of al-Qaeda with plotting to traffic cocaine in order to fund terrorism.

The three suspects, who are believed to be from Mali, were extradited to New York from Ghana.

They were arrested this week in an operation involving informants posing as Colombian leftist rebels.

The suspects allegedly offered al-Qaeda protection for moving cocaine from West Africa through the Sahara to Spain.

They arrived in the US on Friday and were ordered to be held without bail after a brief court appearance. They did not enter pleas to charges of narco-terrorism conspiracy and conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, US officials said....

The US authorities say the men are associates of al-Qaeda's North African branch and had told US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) informants that al-Qaeda could protect major shipments of cocaine in the region, driving the drugs by lorry through the Sahara desert.

All in their 30s, the suspects were named as Oumar Issa, Harouna Toure and Idriss Abelrahman.

Unsealed court papers say Mr Toure and Mr Abelrahman at one point claimed the profits from the drug business would "go to their people to support the fight for 'the cause'".

The DEA infiltrated the group by using informants posing as supporters of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or Farc.

In particular, the DEA used a French-speaking informant posing as "a Lebanese radical committed to opposing the interests of the United States, Israel, and, more broadly, the West and its ideals", court papers say.

The informant claimed in secretly taped conversations that the Farc were looking for a secure means of smuggling drugs through western and northern Africa on the way to Europe. ...

How can young Muslims learn Islam's true message of peace, and not be bamboozled by the myriad Muslim Misunderstanders of Islam who lurk on the Internet? Laurel Bowman of the VOA (an organization that should know better) goes for an answer to Nihad Awad of the Hamas-linked unindicted co-conspirator CAIR. "Muslim Leaders Grapple with How to Protect Their Youth," by Laurel Bowman for the Voice of America, December 18:

At one of the largest mosques in the United States, Muslim leaders are trying to create a safe haven for young people to learn Islam's lessons about peace. But can those leaders protect their youth from the doubts that lurk within them? Muslim leaders renewed efforts following the arrest of five American Muslims in Pakistan who allegedly tried to join terrorist groups using the Internet.

It's a battle of bodies and for minds on this basketball court just outside Washington. It's Tuesday night at the Adams Center, one of the largest mosques in the U.S. The young people here are hard at play, and the Muslim elders are hard at work trying to keep them engaged in positive activities. [...]

"Many of young people are vulnerable to being preyed on," said Nihad Awad of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR. Awad helped broker talks between the FBI and the families of the young men arrested in Pakistan. He says Muslim leaders had already started looking at dangers on the Internet before the men went missing.

"On the Internet, the other side is trying to exploit people's feelings, and they give them instructions on how to do wrong things and we have to give (them) tools and manuals also on how to stay cool and level-headed and stay reasoned and don't get yourself and others in trouble," Awad said.

At the Adams Center that discussion has started too.

"We are telling parents, 'Hey this is what was available on the Internet, this is what your kids are able to do and some basic tips on if you want to increase security this is how you can do it," Ahmad stated.

What's most important, says Ahmad, is keeping young people in the game of peaceful resolution, what he calls a true teaching of Islam.

What exactly are they teaching to show these young people that the jihadists are misusing Islamic texts and teachings? Not surprisingly, this article doesn't say.

The joke's on you, Infidels

That true image of Islam is apparently one of supremacism and conquest, since Ahmadinejad himself has said: "Have no doubt... Allah willing, Islam will conquer what? It will conquer all the mountain tops of the world."

"Iran - President asks Muslims to introduce true image of Islam to world people," from ISRIA, December 19:

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the spirit of seeking God and justice has been revived in today world, stressing that Muslims worldwide are duty bound to correctly introduce Islam to the world nations.

In a meeting with members of Islamic groups residing in Denmark on Friday, the Iranian top diplomat said Islam was the hard core of all sciences and human values, stressing that the holy religion of Islam was capable of offering all the truth and facts needed to attain a sublime life.

He said the only way for salvation of mankind at present juncture was reliance on the religious and divine values and stressed that all those who were seeking other ways to bring prosperity for man were absolutely misled.

To a question by one of the participants in the meeting about the US military attack against Iran, the president said: "This is in fact our question from Americans: Why you are so eager to attack Iran or the region and why do you impose the Zionist regime on the region which is at the very heart of the Islamic world?...

Projection Alert:

He said this was because the Americans were after sowing discord among Muslims, noting that all the stories they revealed merely aimed at labeling certain groups of people as victims of the oppressive acts in an attempt to pave the way for occupation of Palestine, all of which being certainly a colonial and hegemonic objective.

Ahmadinejad said all those programs were worked out to ultimately gain dominance over the Middle East.

He also noted that after the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran under the leadership of the Late Imam Khomeini there came an overwhelming spirit of Islamic revival in the Islamic world which invoked people to fight oppressors.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that wrath of the hegemonic powers was due to Islam's revival....

Still waiting for those who Understand Islam Correctly, such as Honest Ibe Hooper, Brave Ahmed Rehab, etc. etc. etc., to explain how exactly this avowedly devout Muslim Ahmadinejad is Misunderstanding Islam.

But deep down, they really, really, want peace! "Israel's Peace Offering Met By Fatah's Push For War," by David Bedein in the Philadelphia Bulletin, December 19:

Jerusalem - In an article never before run in the Arabic language publication Asharq Al-Awsat, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon called on the Arab world to accept Israel's hand extended in peace.

The headline read, "An open letter to the Arab world." Mr. Ayalon called on the Arab world to step forward and to join Israel "to repel the extremist and destructive forces in the Middle East, first and foremost Iran."

"Iran, the sponsors of terrorists and environmental and climate problems are the issues that threaten the Arab world and Israel as one. Now is the time to look ahead and to create a better future for all residents of the region."...

However, over the past week, senior Palestinian Authority officials launched the "National Conference for Strengthening Popular Activity" in Ramallah.

During that conference, the Palestinian leadership examined ways of renewing "uprising," a third "Intifada," armed rebellion against Israel.

"In practice, at issue is the execution of resolutions that were passed by the Fatah Conference that was held of late in Bethlehem, in which a strategic decision was made to continue the resistance to Israel," said senior Fatah officials....

In Cairo last June, Barack Obama vowed to defend the rights of women who wanted to wear hijab in the West. Since he presumably said this in the interests of protecting religious freedom, will he now denounce this activity in Somalia -- in the interests of protecting religious freedom?

"Somali Islamist rebels force men to grow beards," by Ibrahim Mohamed and Abdi Guled for Reuters, December 19 (thanks to DS):

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somalia's Islamist al Shabaab rebels on Saturday ordered men to grow long beards, shave their moustaches and wear their trousers above the ankle.

It is the first time in the lawless Horn of Africa country that the insurgents, who seek impose a strict form of Islamic sharia law, have focused on men's appearance, having previously ordered women to cover their entire bodies, and banned bras.

"We are ordering all men in Kismayu not to shave or trim their beards, but shave the moustache," Sheikh Ibrahim Garweyn, a senior Al Shabaab official for the public awareness in the southern Somali port town, told reporters on Saturday.

"We will never accept to see men with long beards and moustaches together. They have three days to follow the order."

The group, which Washington says is an al Qaeda proxy, has already banned musical ringtones, dancing at weddings and playing or watching soccer.

Al Shabaab has carried out executions, floggings and amputations to enforce its rulings, mainly Kismayu....

A holly jihadi Christmas in Iraq

Amid relentless persecution by Islamic supremacists -- while the world looks the other way and whines about Swiss minarets and Geert Wilders. "Amid the carols and decorations, Iraq Christians fear extinction," from The Times, December 19 (thanks to Kris):

[...] Behind the tinsel and carols lies a fear that Christians in Iraq are a community under threat of extinction. Proportionally more Christians are leaving Iraq than any other group.

Last week 100 Christian leaders and politicians of all religions held an emergency meeting just before fresh violence broke out in the northern city of Mosul, with attacks on churches and Christian schools. On Tuesday a baby was killed and 40 people, including schoolchildren, were injured in three simultaneous bombings. Two days ago a Christian man was shot dead as he travelled to work.

"It is terrible," said Fadi, 26, an electricity worker from Mosul who asked that his real name not be used. "Most of the Christians are staying at home, or when they go out they watch their backs." In late 2008, killings of Christians in Mosul by insurgent groups left 40 dead and 12,000 fleeing their homes. Fadi reeled off a string of recent, smaller-scale attacks against Christians, fearful that the same level of violence would return.

Christians in Kirkuk, also in the north, have been kidnapped in recent months and as tension increases before elections they fear the attacks will multiply.

Some blame the attacks on insurgents, including al-Qaeda, who are still active in Mosul, while others accuse Kurdish or Arab factions fighting over territory. Although they differ on who is responsible, almost everyone responds by fleeing. Gorgis Mettis, from the Yazidi ethnic minority, lives in Bartella, a Christian-dominated village near Mosul, and said that after a week of violence, many Christian families were seeking refuge in his town. "You cannot live in Mosul," he said. "Every day you find Christians being killed." He estimated that since 2003 three quarters of Christians had left Mosul, historically the centre of the ancient Chaldo-Assyrian Christianity practised in Iraq. "Very few are still going to church. The women have to wear hijabs. They send someone first in a car to check if there is someone outside the church," he said....

The women have to wear hijabs. In Cairo last June, Barack Obama vowed to defend the rights of women who wanted to wear hijab in the West. Will he speak up for the rights of women in the Islamic world who do not want to wear hijab?

I won't be holding my breath.

The other day I was asked by an email correspondent to comment on a recent piece by David C. Engerman that appeared in "Foreign Policy." Engerman's piece is both unremarkable and remarkable at the same time. It may be called "unremarkable" though the word seems somehow churlish when used about it, because - as we shall see - the piece is also, in these great times, even more "remarkable" than it is "unremarkable."

But we can begin by noting that, looked at in one way, it is "unremarkable" because its gist is simple and, one might think, obvious: that the American government should do today, with the threat it currently is attempting to deal with, just as it did during the Cold War. And what did Americans do in the Cold War, daddy?, you may well ask. The answer is: just about everything. But in order to have the ability, and will, to do just about everything, the American government, which had treated Soviet Russia as an ally during World War II, had to put away that temporary (and justified) alliance, and begin to get a more reasonable idea of what the Soviet Union was all about. Two decades of warnings from Russian émigrés had done little. The Comintern had been most effective in blunting Western opposition, and then along came Mr. Hitler with his crazed invasion of the Soviet Union, his greatest error of tactics and timing, and the Soviet Union was, in the American view, off to the races as our ally.

But then came the peace, or the haggling over what the post-war settlement would look like. Franklin Roosevelt was not quite as suspicious as Churchill of the Soviets, and unfortunately it required acts of obvious aggression - the Red Army entering, and not leaving, the countries of Eastern and Central Europe - for the Americans to finally get the point. But once they got the point, there was no further wavering on this side of the Atlantic, among those who were in the government, being our leaders and not merely "taking a leadership role." During the 1930s there had been a series of defectors from the Soviet Union, given little attention, but after World War II new defectors, some even from the KGB, appeared in the West, and they were joined by large numbers of people who had, in the turmoil of the war and post-war periods, managed to escape from the new satellite nations or, in some cases, from the Soviet Union itself. And some of these people had even fled Europe just before the war, one step ahead of the Nazis and, as it turned out, two steps ahead of the Communists who would follow the Nazis. Such names as Richard Pipes, Adam Ulam, Czeslaw Milosz, Leopold Labedz, come to mind.

Many of these people found work in universities, or like Labedz, went to work editing magazines devoted to the scholarly study of the Communist bloc. And the Americans already benefited from a group of diplomats - beginning but not ending with George Kennan - of those who had been posted to the Soviet Union, knew Russian and were not fooled in the least by Soviet propaganda.

While one peaceful Muslim gives us the finger, Tom Bevan at RealClearPolitics dismantles the hopeless New York Times dhimmi Thomas Friedman's ignorant and misplaced optimism: "Waiting in Vain for the Islamic Reformation," December 16:

Tom Friedman, hopeless optimist:

Let's not fool ourselves. Whatever threat the real Afghanistan poses to U.S. national security, the "Virtual Afghanistan" now poses just as big a threat. The Virtual Afghanistan is the network of hundreds of jihadist Web sites that inspire, train, educate and recruit young Muslims to engage in jihad against America and the West. Whatever surge we do in the real Afghanistan has no chance of being a self-sustaining success, unless there is a parallel surge -- by Arab and Muslim political and religious leaders -- against those who promote violent jihadism on the ground in Muslim lands and online in the Virtual Afghanistan.

Note to Tom: don't hold your breath. We're now eight years removed from 9/11, and the only thing the last 3,016 days have taught us is that there is no Islamic reformation coming any time soon, no budding civil war from which moderate Islam will emerge victorious.

As an aside, it certainly doesn't help matters that despite nearly a decade peppered with additional acts of terrorism by Islamic fundamentalists, much of the media and the liberal intellectual elite of the Western world (among them, Mr. Friedman himself) continue to cling to a doctrine of political correctness that prevents the kind of unvarnished dialogue the matter requires. One need look no further than the terrorist attack at Fort Hood last month for a good example of what I'm talking about. [...]

To Friedman's point (and mine): this is a battle that has nothing to do with a particular president or policy. It cannot be won or lost (or perhaps even significantly influenced) by anyone or anything outside of the Muslim world. It is a struggle for the soul of the Islamic faith. And for the last eight years, unfortunately, the moderates have barely even shown up for the fight.

Read it all.

It's that time of year again: time to look in again on Farley ak-Muhammad al-Farouk al-Rashid!

This is three weeks old, but I just saw it, and it is worth examining. With Ali Eteraz I have had many exchanges in the past; you can judge for yourself about what they may or may not have revealed. In one of them, he stated feebly that peaceful Muslims should remain silent in the face of jihadist violence and supremacism, claiming that Martin Luther King, Jr., stayed silent in the face of racist oppression.

That was preposterous enough, but now Ali Eteraz has made an even more preposterous move, going from supine passivity to defiance:

"Muslims Should Raise the Other Finger," by Ali Eteraz at True/Slant, November 26 (thanks to James):

During the salat, or prayer, Muslims raise their index finger to bear witness to the oneness of God. In America today, with all the calls for Muslims to condemn every little act of violence committed in the name of their religion, Muslims should start raising up the other finger. The middle one.

There is no need for one Muslim to condemn the crimes of another. Collective responsibility cannot, and should not, be accepted. Where one accepts collective responsibility one opens the door to collective punishment. Are Muslims individuals? Or are they one singular marionette that pirouettes each time its string is pulled?

One of the most egregious acts of kowtowing to the "massa" occurred recently in the aftermath of the Fort Hood shootings. At Huffington Post, Muslim Public Affairs Council's Salam al-Maryati wrote an article directed to Muslim-Americans, extolling them to "amplify our Muslim American identity." No thanks. The only thing I'll amplify is the length of my middle finger. A law-abiding American-Muslim has no need to do anything, one way or the other, when someone with a Muslim sounding name goes off the rail. The reason for this abstention-from-condemnation is not because "Christians don't do it" or "Jews don't do it." It is nothing communal. Rather, it has to do with individual dignity, and individual accountability. We are all, each one of us, responsible for our actions, and liable for our mistakes. The ambit of our accountability cannot be allowed to extend beyond that. Why are the boundaries between one Muslim and another blurred and the individualities fused together? Muslims are not inkblots.

I have been against the notion of Muslims having to condemn this or that for years now, but previously my tone was restrained as I felt that calm persuasion was the right way to go about presenting this position. Not any more. Next time someone asks me to tell them why x or y Muslim murderer is evil I will bear witness in ways that are rated R.

Now in the name of Allah I'm going to go slaughter a turkey.

(As for the turkey bit, remember, this piece came out around Thanksgiving.)

The core assumption Eteraz makes here is that it is an exercise in collective responsibility that diminishes Muslims' individuality if they are asked to condemn Islamic terrorist attacks. After all, Islam is not a monolith, as we are reminded endlessly. So if one Muslim believes that Islam teaches warfare against unbelievers and acts upon that belief, what does that have to do with Ali Eteraz, who presumably eschews such beliefs?

It's a fair question. To what extent does membership in a group make one responsible for all the other members of that group? If one Christian does some evil deed and ascribes it to Christianity, are all Christians everywhere responsible for that?

Well, to a certain extent, yes. They wouldn't rightly share any of the blame for it, but it would be incumbent upon them to show to those who might be concerned about a recurrence of such evil deeds that the way in which the evildoer used Christianity was actually wrong, and condemnable, and that they were working against such a recurrence by teaching against such false beliefs.

The point, in other words, is not collective responsibility at all. To blame all Muslims for the actions of jihadists would be asinine. But to take note of how those jihadists use Islam -- its texts and core teachings -- to justify violence and supremacism and warfare against unbelievers -- and to ask peaceful Muslims what they're doing to combat such teachings within the Muslim community is not asinine at all.

And it is not blaming anyone for anything he didn't do. It is simply to ask someone like Eteraz this: "The jihadis say that they're following the authentic path of Islam. If they're correct, the implications of this would be many and ominous, for it would suggest that all Muslims, if they decided to follow the authentic path of Islam, would become jihadis -- working either by violent or peaceful means to impose Sharia upon non-Muslims. You say you're living out an authentic expression of Islam, and reject all that. Good. What case are you making against the jihadist understanding of Islam within the Muslim community? How are you combating it?"

I don't think these are unreasonable questions. For if Muslims who profess to reject the jihadist understanding of Islam don't fight against it, who will? And if they profess to reject the jihadist understanding of Islam but don't do anything to stop its spread, of what ultimate value is their rejection of it? They may not be responsible for it, but since they profess Islam, shouldn't they feel any responsibility to combat the jihadist claim to represent authentic Islam?

Apparently not. In years of calling for peaceful Muslims to present a viable alternative to the jihadist understanding of Islam, one that will convince Muslims not to take the jihadist path, we have seen numerous vague assertions that the jihadis are violating Islamic teaching; some vague condemnations of "terrorism" and attacks on "innocent civilians" that don't define either term or rule out the jihadist understanding of Islam; some transparently flimsy constructions based on selective Qur'an quoting that will convince ignorant non-Muslims but not a single Muslim; and some "reformist" interpretations of Islam that roll out with much fanfare in the mainstream media but end up being only condemnations of attacks that kill other Muslims or attacks that don't have state authority behind them (which latter point ignores the fact that in Islamic theology defensive jihad is incumbent upon every Muslim, state authority notwithstanding, and all contemporary jihads are presented as defensive).

And now we get the finger.

All right. I wouldn't expect anything else from Ali Eteraz, but I do hope that some people who have been counting upon peaceful Muslims to work against the jihadists within Muslim communities will take careful note.

Ah, now we're getting somewhere: jihad is really an inner spiritual struggle, right? No warfare against unbelievers is involved, right? That's what those who claim this site is "Islamophobic" keep telling us, right?

Not surprisingly, that is not what we get here. Al-Qaradawi has been praised by establishment dhimmi Islamic scholar John Esposito as a champion of a "reformist interpretation of Islam and its relationship to democracy, pluralism and human rights."

He also says that Muslims should obtain nuclear weapons, explaining: "The Koran referred to this, saying: 'Prepare against them what force and steeds of war you can, to strike terror in the hearts of the enemies of Allah and of your own enemies, and others besides them, whom you do not know, but Allah knows.' 'Prepare against them what force and steeds of war you can.'"

That's Qur'an 8:60. And he also prayed that Allah would kill all the Jews: "Oh Allah, take this oppressive, Jewish, Zionist band of people. Oh Allah, do not spare a single one of them. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them, down to the very last one."

And so when this "reformist" turns to jihad, he ain't exactly Gandhi. He blames "Orientalists" for the idea that jihad is holy war to spread Islam, but then goes on to say that Islam can and should be spread by many other means -- something that we have been telling people at this site for years. It should also be borne in mind that spreading Islam is not just a spiritual quest, but a political one, since with Islam will come Sharia, and the institutionalized, legal oppression of women and non-Muslims.

"Ward Off Western Propaganda Against Jihad, Muslims Told," from Bernama, December 19 (thanks to James):

PUTRAJAYA, Dec 19 (Bernama) -- The Western orientalists' propaganda that describes Jihad as a "holy war" to spread Islam across the world should be tackled seriously by all Muslims, World Union of Muslim Ulama chairman Prof Dr Yusuf Abdullah Ali Al-Qaradawi said.

To do so, he said, the Muslims should understand the real concept of Jihad to enable them to ward off the criticisms pertaining to the spread of Islam.

Apart from Jihad, he said the spread of Islam across the modern world could also be done via the Internet and the print and electronic media.

"Islam teaches the Muslims to spread the religion in a wise and proper manner.

"It will be wrong if it is done in the opposite manner. To understand the truth about something, we must also see the comparison," he said when delivering a talk at the "Muhadharah Perdana 2009" programme here on Saturday.

Dr Al-Qaradawi, who is also the chairman of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, said although Jihad was compulsory for all Muslims, Islam had never been spread by using violence.

"Indeed, violence is not the smartest way to spread Islam. The use of swords in war may be necessary to open a new state, but it cannot open human minds," he said..

Tiny Minority of Extremists Alert. And this, too, is rooted in the core texts of Islam. Qur'an 2:195 says:

Spend your wealth for the cause of Allah, and be not cast by your own hands to ruin; and do good. Lo! Allah loveth the beneficent.

And just to drive the point home:

Narrated Abu Wail:

Hudhaifa said, "The Verse:--

"And spend (of your wealth) in the Cause of Allah and do not throw yourselves in destruction," (2.195) was revealed concerning spending in Allah's Cause (i.e. Jihad)." (Sahih Bukhari 6.60.41)

"Funding for jihad troubling, scholar says," from UPI, December 18:

WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- More than 35 percent of Egyptians and Saudis interviewed in a recent survey considered it their duty to back regional mujahedin financially, a scholar notes.

Private polling of Egyptian and Saudi citizens reveals trends regarding the public sentiment toward jihadi groups like al-Qaida.

David Pollock, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the polling shows more than 35 percent of those interviewed considered it "an Islamic duty" to support Islamic fighters around the world.

Pollock adds that while many of the respondents said they did not support al-Qaida, more than 40 percent said they assumed other Muslim communities did support the group's militant message.

He notes that while public support for radical Islam is dwindling, the perception that financial assistance is an obligation is troubling.

This, he says, suggests U.S. policymakers should focus their efforts on Arab funding for jihad as a whole.

Two words: energy independence.

"Taken by itself, the analysis of these data is not sufficient ground for major policy changes, but it should be factored into current discussion of the relevant issues," he writes.

Somehow, Moscow fails to see this trend as the direct threat to its sovereignty that it is. "Muslim revival brings polygamy, camels to Chechnya," by Amie Ferris-Rotman for Reuters, December 16:

GROZNY, Russia (Reuters) - Adam, 52, keeps his three wives in different towns to stop them squabbling, but the white-bearded Chechen adds he might soon take a fourth.

"Chechnya is Muslim, so this is our right as men. They (the wives) spend time together, but do not always see eye to eye," said the soft-spoken pensioner, who only gave his first name.

Hardline Kremlin-backed leader Ramzan Kadyrov is vying with insurgents for authority in a land ravaged by two secessionist wars with Moscow. Each side is claiming Islam as its flag of legitimacy, each reviles the other as criminal and blasphemous.

Wary of the dangers of separatism in a vast country, Moscow watches uneasily as central power yields to Islamic tenets. It must chose what it might see as the lesser of two evils.

It's really just limiting itself to a choice between a faster or slower version of the same thing.

Though polygamy is illegal in Russia, the southern Muslim region of Chechnya encourages the practice, arguing it is allowed by sharia law and the Koran, Islam's holiest book.

By Russian law, Adam is only married to his first wife of 28 years, Zoya, the plump, blue-eyed mother of his three children, with whom he shares a home on the outskirts of the regional capital Grozny.

His "marriages" to the other two -- squirreled away in villages nearby -- were carried out in elaborate celebrations and are recognized by Chechen authorities.

The head of Chechnya's Center for Spiritual-Moral Education, Vakha Khashkanov, set up by Kadyrov a year ago, said Islam should take priority over laws of the Russian constitution.

"If it is allowed in Islam, it is not up for discussion," he told Reuters near Europe's largest mosque, which glistens in central Grozny atop the grounds where the Communist party had its headquarters before the Soviet Union fell in 1991.

"As long as you can feed your wives, and there's equality amongst them, then polygamy is allowed in Chechnya," he added.

Islam is flourishing in Chechnya which, along with its neighbors Dagestan and Ingushetia, is combating an Islamist insurgency which aims to create a Muslim, sharia-based state separate from Russia across the North Caucasus. [...]

Animals are also being used to reintroduce Islam at Chechnya's round-the-clock Muslim television channel, where 60 young bearded men and headscarved women create children's programs in large studios adorned with photos of Mecca.

A bevy of bumble bees joyfully scream "Salam Alaikum" (Peace be with you) upon entering the studio of Ruslan Ismailov, who is making a full-length cartoon on hi-tech Apple computers for the channel, which is called "Put," meaning "The Way" in Russian.

"The bees appeal to children, and they will teach them how to live properly by the Muslim faith," Ismailov said.

Set up two years ago by the state and broadcast to thousands across the North Caucasus, instantly becoming one of the top channels in the region, it also features programs for women on how to keep home and reading of the Koran throughout the night.

"It's no secret what Chechnya has been through," said the channel's general director Adam Shakhidov, sporting a ginger beard and traditional black velvet cap.

"Two wars, the Soviet Union and today's Muslim extremism... it's time to show the true beauty of Sufism and install the basis for sharia," he said.

The 7th-century Pact of Umar forbade the construction of new churches or repair of existing ones. The pact is in the spirit of Qur'an 9:29, which commands that non-Muslims "feel themselves subdued" -- a fundamental reason why incidents such as this are neither new nor isolated.

"A thousand Islamic extremists, including women and children, storm a Church near Jakarta," by Mathias Hariyadi for AsiaNews, December 18:

Jakarta (AsiaNews) - Last night a crowd of angry Muslims, including women and children, attacked the Church of Saint Albert, in Bekasi Regency, about 30 kilometres east of Jakarta. The situation is now under control but the local Catholic community is afraid of an escalation before Christmas.

Kurniadi is a member of the committee charged with the church's construction. He told AsiaNews, "Suddenly, a bunch of bikers arrived in the area where the church stands." They had banners and kerosene tanks. "We don't know why we were attacked," he said.

Kristina Maria Renteana, who was present when the Church was attacked, said, "The mob had about a thousand people," not only men, but "women and children" as well.

Running around in cars and motorbikes is a tradition for Indonesian Muslims during "national celebrations."

Last night was the first day of the Islamic New Year, the start of the month of Muharram. Local sources told AsiaNews, on condition of anonymity, that the "crowd was made of people from Tarumajaya and Babelan", two villages in North Bekasi where Islamic extremists are a majority.

Saint Albert's Church, a chapel that is part of Saint Arnold' Church in Bekasi, was not yet finished. Started on 11 May 2008, it had the required building permit for places of worship and was 80 per cent complete. Workers had finished the walls and the roof. Only ceramic floor tiles had to be laid.

Although not yet finished, it was set to host Christmas Mass for the local Christian community.

Now it is damaged but police and government authorities have urged the parish priest, Fr Joseph Jagadwa, to go ahead with the Mass anyway.

And he wrote in a chat forum that he wanted to see Americans and Jews killed. But...but...I thought Albanian Muslims were all moderate, peaceful, and fiercely loyal to America and the West! "British court jails Albanian on terrorist charges," from JTA, December 18 (thanks to Maxwell):

(JTA) -- A British court jailed an Albanian Muslim for seven years after weapons and Hezbollah manuals were found in his home.

Krena Lusha, 30, from Derby in southeastern England, was sentenced Tuesday after being convicted on terrorist charges, the Jewish Chronicle reported.

Police found gasoline, Hezbollah bomb-building manuals, a suicide bomb belt, a missile, explosives and detonators in his home, the Jewish Chronicle reported.

They found videos of beheadings and bomb attacks on his computer as well as jihadist propaganda. Lusha told an internet chat forum that he wanted to see Americans and Jews killed....

Obama turns his attention to the jihadist "bus station" that is Yemen. "Obama Ordered U.S. Military Strike on Yemen Terrorists," by Brian Ross, Richard Esposito, Matthew Cole, Luis Martinez, and Kirit Radia for ABC News, December 18:

On orders from President Barack Obama, the U.S. military launched cruise missiles early Thursday against two suspected al-Qaeda sites in Yemen, administration officials told ABC News in a report broadcast on ABC World News with Charles Gibson.

One of the targeted sites was a suspected al Qaeda training camp north of the capitol, Sanaa, and the second target was a location where officials said "an imminent attack against a U.S. asset was being planned."

The Yemen attacks by the U.S. military represent a major escalation of the Obama administration's campaign against al Qaeda. [...]

President Obama placed a call after the strikes to "congratulate" the President of Yemen, Ali Abdallah Salih, on his efforts against al Qaeda, according to White House officials. [...]

Along with the two U.S. cruise missile attacks, Yemen security forces carried out raids in three separate locations. As many as 120 people were killed in the three raids, according to reports from Yemen, and opposition leaders said many of the dead were innocent civilians.

American officials said the missile strikes were intended to disrupt a growing threat from the al Qaeda branch in Yemen, which claims to coordinate terror attacks against neighboring Saudi Arabia....

The graffiti was removed with lightning speed and the news report of the incident doesn't say what it said, but rather blames the "far right." Apparently there are forces in the U.K. who don't want people to know that some Muslims crow about how Islam will dominate.

"Vandals deface the town war memorial," by Richard Castle at the Burton Mail, December 18 (thanks to Interested-Participant):

A Royal British Legion boss says vandals have "dishonoured those who have given their lives for our country" by defacing Burton's war memorial. Roy Whenman, vice-chairman of the town's Legion branch, received calls from members saying an extremist message had been written on the statue.

Having been informed at 9.20am, borough council chiefs had cleaned the graffiti from the relic, situated outside Burton College, in Lichfield Street, by 9.40am....

Dennis Fletcher, chairman of East Staffordshire Racial Equality Council, said he suspected someone from the far right was responsible....

Yes, of course, the "far right"! "Islam will dominate" is a common "far right" slogan!

Cyberjihadist thuggery. "Twitter Hacked by 'Iranian Cyber Army,'" from FOXNews, December 18 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Twitter, the popular micro-blogging service, was hacked early Friday morning by a group calling itself the "Iranian Cyber Army."

Users hoping to find their latest tweets were instead greeted by a black screen with a green flag.

Above the flag, in Arabic, read: "Hezbollah is victorious."

On the flag, in red Arabic writing: "Yassin" (an Arabic name written in bold) then in smaller Arabic print "the feast of peace."

Below the flag was more written in Farsi.

In English, the hackers wrote: "This site has been hacked by Iranian Cyber Army. U.S.A think they controlling [sic] and managing internet by their access, but they don't, we control and manage internet by our power so do not try to stimulation (sic) Iranian People To.....
Now Which Country is embargo list? Iran? Usa?
We push them in embargo list ; )
Take care."...

What sweet, loving parents they obviously are. How wonderfully they will treat her if the dhimmi Ohio authorities order her to be returned home.

"Parents of Rifqa Bary ask court to hold her in contempt to force her to attend counseling sessions with Muslim counselor," from The Jawa Report, December 18 (thanks to Pamela, who has more here):

...and the counselor they demand she attend filed an affidavit in support of Rifqa being held in contempt!

The next episode in the legal battle between Muslim-turned-Christian convert Rifqa Bary and her allegedly abusive parents will occur next Tuesday in an Ohio courtroom. As I reported last Friday, one of the issues that will be heard by the court is a motion by the CAIR-appointed attorney to the Bary parents demanding that all Christmas cards sent to Rifqa be banned, and any cards she has already received be seized. On Monday, we provided clear evidence of CAIR's backstage handling of the media in this case.

Another issue next week will be another motion filed by the Bary parents asking the court to hold Rifqa in contempt for refusing to attend counseling sessions with a Muslim counselor. Amazingly, the counselor that the Bary parents are attempting to force her to see filed a affidavit supporting the parents' motion to hold Rifqa in contempt of court. How could this counselor be remotely neutral?

But wait a second - haven't all the media stooges in this case, from Meredith "Hijab" Heagney of the Columbus Dispatch to Michael Kruse of the St. Petersburg Times, insisted that the Bary family intends to respect Rifqa's Christian faith? Haven't these media stooges repeated assurances from the Bary parents that Rifqa has nothing to fear from returning home?...

Her parents have defamed Christians who have attempted to help their daughter flee their abuse; they have filed criminal charges against Rifqa accusing her of being a delinquent; and now they ask the Ohio courts to ban and seize Rifqa's Christmas cards and to force her to see a Muslim counselor that has demonstrated his own partiality. What this long sequence of events clearly shows is that Rifqa Bary has much to fear from being returned to her parents and that they have no intention to honor her personal religious choices....

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

The jizya -- the non-Muslim poll tax -- has throughout Islamic history been the hallmark of the subjugated, second-class status of the "People of the Book" in Muslim lands. This letter distributed in Copenhagen doesn't mention Islam or Muslims, but strongly implies that this is a demand for jizya and submission in this passage: "In our country, we are so familiar to changes, radical changes, so we know what we are talking about. Your part of the world have exploited us for centuries (not you personally though), so in all fairness it would be appropriate if you lend a helping hand."

"Trusselsbreve florerer i Nordsjælland," by Katrine Øgaard Jensen in Jyllands-Posten, December 16, translated in "Jiyza Demands in Copenhagen" at Atlas Shrugs today:

This letter is dated Dec 3rd 2009 and was mailed to all families of Gentofte.

,,For some time we have kept you under our scope. You are blessed with a lovely family and we hope you appreciate this fortune of live, nothing is static. We apologize for the poorly chosen time of approach (Your holy month), and will respectfully keep a distance whilst you and your family enjoys your RR.

Our lives may sometimes turn down a road we didn´t foresee, on some occasions we can change this course, on others we can´t.

Your live is about to take such a turn, and it is up to you if you want to get back on track, entirely up to you, we might add!

In our country, we are so familiar to changes, radical changes, so we know what we are talking about. Your part of the world have exploited us for centuries (not you personally though), so in all fairness it would be appropriate if you lend a helping hand.

For some reason we can´t get your government to take appropriate course of action, hence this solution.

We are civilized people, although you may think otherwise, but in order to be taken seriously, we have to stand by our terms and statements. For this purpose, we have hired ,,local contractors, surprisingly easy in Denmark, who will carry out the more uncivilized part, let´s hope it doesn´t come to that.

In short we request you to deliver 215.000,- Danish Kroner ( can be converted into USD or Pound Sterling), details will follow later on. We will give you 6 weeks from today´s date. The amount will not break you financially, we know, and we never use the same beneficial twice.

Obviously there are certain rules, simple ones.
- Do not share this with anyone or anybody.
- Meet our terms promptly.
If you fail to comply, and we will find out, we will have to initiate the next step, which will be disabling a family member. Second step, if necessary, will be more fatal. There is no room for negotiation or second chance. Once we press the red button, others will take over The people who will carry out this task do not know us and we do not know them. Due to the way they are getting paid, they will perform, trust us!

We hope you will take this seriously, we have nothing to lose.
We will get back to you shortly.

Regards

When the Swiss minaret ban first broke, I noted that minarets were often expressions of Islamic political dominance. Many dismissed this as an "Islamophobic" idea. But now it has been affirmed by Tarek Kahlaoui, assistant professor of Islamic art history and history at Rutgers University -- no doubt a dyed-in-the-wool "Islamophobe." To be sure, Kahlaoui then denies that minarets are assertions of dominance, but only after he has provided examples of their being just that.

"Misunderstanding the minaret," by Tarek Kahlaoui for Arab News, December 12 (thanks to James):

[...] So the more serious discussion is not about one single political statement at one single point in time but about the significance of the minaret throughout time. It is true that Muslims began the tradition of adhan (call to prayer), which is frequently and wrongly seen as the minaret's primary function, even before minarets came into existence. It should be noted here that the Swiss objection does not seem to be primarily focused on the function of prayer calling, for none of the four existing minarets in Switzerland is actually used for that purpose.

But what is perceived now as exclusively Islamic minarets are in fact inherently pre-Islamic, notably Christian. Minarets were introduced in the process of conquest such as in the earliest surviving imperial mosque -- the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus -- in the beginning of the 8th century. Minarets were in this case an appropriation of a Byzantine church's bell towers.

Slowly minarets became one of the elements asserting the grandeur and influence of big mosques financed by the early Islamic states, notably between the 8th and the 10th centuries. The Damascus Mosque's minarets seem to have been imitated later in the 10th century when the rulers of Andalusian Cordoba were aspiring to rival the major Islamic eastern caliphates. The helicoidal 9th century minarets in the mosques of the Abbasid city of Samarra, which are the largest mosques in pre-modern history, seem to have been imitated in Egypt in the same century. Yet minarets were not a constant element. In the eastern Islamic lands, especially within the Persian space, minarets seem to play a minor role. At some point in the 14th century minarets in Iran were simply decorative accessories for huge portals with big domes in the background.

It is probably with the Turkic dynasties, culminating with the Ottomans since the 15th century, that minarets would be equated with Islamic images in the Western European imaginaire. It has been widely reported in the European travelogues that one of the first acts of Ottomans after conquering Constantinople in 1453 was the insertion of a minaret at one of the corners of the Byzantine church of Haghia Sophia. In fact, the Ottomans seemed to have used the minaret as one of the elements to visually appropriate conquered Byzantine churches and convert them to mosques. They tended also to build monumental minarets, sometimes four, in their new mosques....

It thus appears that the historical significance of the minaret was not homogenic. It seems that the dominant tendency, especially within the Muslim diaspora, was the construction of minarets as an act of cultural affiliation and remembrance rather than of expressing dominance. It is utterly simplistic to assign to the minaret the intention of politico-religious conquest, for even in the case of Muslim hard-liners, their specific understanding of one single architectural element is defined by the dominant modern view of their community that is of cultural affiliation and remembrance rather than by their explicit political views....

Arabic-speaking have used the word "Allah" for the God of the Bible since time immemorial. This is simply an assertion of supremacy. "Church cannot challenge 'Allah' ban, says govt counsel," from Bernama, December 14 (thanks to all who sent this in):

KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 14, 2009): The publisher of Herald, the Catholic weekly, cannot challenge the home minister's prohibition on the use of the word "Allah" in its publication, the High Court heard today.

Senior Federal Counsel Datuk Kamaluddin Md Said told the court the home minister had the power to impose such prohibition as condition to be attached to the permit issued under the Printing Presses and Publication Act 1984.

"A permit granted under the act must have a condition. The condition is part and parcel of the permit and it cannot be read separately, and you have no choice but to comply with it," he said.

"Therefore, you cannot challenge the condition imposed by the minister on the permit. You can only challenge if the minister refused to grant a permit."

Kamaluddin said this in his reply to the application for a judicial review filed by the Kuala Lumpur Roman Catholic Church over the prohibition on the use of the word "Allah" in Herald.

He further submitted that the act was one of the legislations to control the freedom of speech and expression as provided for under Article 10 of the Federal Consitution.

On Feb 16, Archbishop Tan Sri Murphy Pakiam, as publisher of Herald, filed an application for a judicial review to seek a declaration that the decision by the home minister was illegal and that the word "Allah" was not exclusive to Islam.

The home ministry had approved Herald's publication permit on Jan 7 with conditions that the usage of the word "Allah" was prohibited and the word "Limited" (Terhad) must be endorsed on its front page, to mean that the Catholic weekly must be circulated only to Christians....

The government gives Islam special status. But after that, tolerance is the watchword! Sharia, of course, does not allow non-Muslims to enjoy equal rights with Muslims.

Sharia Alert from modern, moderate Malaysia: "Islam's Official Status Provides For Special Allocations," from Bernama, December 18 (thanks to Twostellas):

TANJUNG MALIM, Dec 18 (Bernama) -- Sultan of Perak Sultan Azlan Shah on Friday said that Islam's status as the country's official religion as enshrined in the constitution and the position of the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong and Malay state rulers as heads of the religion allows for the Federal Government and State Governments to allocate spending for the matters related to the religion.

He said apart from that the government also had the wisdom to meet the needs of other religions in the country.

"Religious matters are enshrined in the country's Constitution. Article 3 (1) of the Malaysian Constitution sets Islam as the official religion; but other religions can be practised in peace and harmony," he said at a function to commemorate Maal Hijrah 1431 Hijrah at the Perak-state level as well as to officiate the Masjid At-Taqwa at Proton City here.

Also present was the Raja Muda of Perak Raja Dr Nazrin Shah.

Sultan Azlan said the constitution was drafted as an instrument of reference to governance as the country achieved independence and the consitution was not only drafted by Muslims and Malays but was drafted with agreement of various quarters who represented various races and religions.

"The spirit enshrined in Article 3 (1) of the Constitution is recognised by the country. That is why on festivals various cultures and religions are respected to the point that Malaysia has so many public holidays to respect religious and cultural events," he said.

He said the high level of tolerance and understanding displayed by Muslims and Malays as the indigenous people of the land enabled and allowed the fostering of various cultures and religions and this was the basis for Malaysia's strength as a united nation, with political stability, capable of economic growth that was effective and focused.

"Matters related to race, culture, language and religion are sensitive and can easily touch emotions. Such sensitive matters can easily lead to provocation as well as misunderstanding leading up to controversy and confrontation," he said....

Yes, all that misunderstanding can be tough.

Because they are girls. No higher education for girls.

Note also the gratuitous poke at Israel in the first paragraph.

"Rare gender identity defect hits Gaza families," by Ivan Watson for CNN, December 17 (thanks to Dotty):

Gaza City (CNN) -- Two Palestinian teenagers stroll amid the mounds of rubble left by last year's Israeli military offensive, listening to the tinny beat of a Turkish pop song playing on a cell phone.

Nadir Mohammed Saleh and Ahmed Fayiz Abed Rabo are cousins and next-door neighbors. With their gelled hair, buttoned-down shirts and jeans, they look much like any other 16-year-old Palestinian boy. But looks, Ahmed says, can be deceiving.

"Only my appearance, my haircut and clothing, makes me look like a boy," Ahmed says, gesturing with his hands across his face. "Inside, I am like a female. I am a girl."

Until last summer, both Nadir and Ahmed were -- for all intents and purposes -- girls. They wore female headscarves, attended girls' school and even answered to the female first names Navin and Ola.

Both Nadir and Ahmed were born with a rare birth defect called male pseudohermaphrodism.

Deficiency of the hormone 17-B-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (17-B-HSD) during pregnancy left their male reproductive organs deformed and buried deep within their abdomens.

At birth, doctors identified Nadir and Ahmed as girls, because they appeared to have female genitalia.

As a result, they spent the first 16 years of their lives dressing and acting like girls. It was a role that grew increasingly difficult to play, as they hit puberty and their bodies began generating testosterone, resulting in facial hair and increasingly masculine features.

"They used to travel by car to girls' school and back," says Nadir's father Mohammed Sadih Ahmed Saleh. "Because of their facial hair, it was difficult for them to go out into the street. Psychologically they were distressed."

Finally, on June 22, with the support of their families, both Nadir and Ahmed transformed themselves into boys.

"They transferred on the same day," Saleh says. "Clothing, they switched to the other [boys'] school on the same day. They cut their hair on the same day. Both of them helped each other get through this crisis."

There are an unusually high number of male pseudohermaphrodite births in the Gaza neighborhood of Jabalya, where Nadir and Ahmed live.

Dr. Jehad Abudaia, a Canadian-Palestinian pediatrician and urologist practicing in Gaza, says he has diagnosed nearly 80 cases like Nadir's and Ahmed's in the last seven years.

"It is astonishing that we have [so] many cases with this defect, which is very rare all over the world," Abudaia says. He attributes the high frequency of this birth defect to "consanguinity," or in-breeding.

"If you want to go to the root of the problem, this problem runs in families in the genes." Abudaia says. "They want to get married to cousins... they don't go to another family. This is a problem." [...]

Until the sex-change operation is completed, Palestinian officials won't change the gender on their identity cards to "male," thus restricting their access to higher education....

It was Islamic jihadists yet again. Still looking for evidence of the rampant attacks by Christians that will justify the fashionable equivalence. (I know, I know: Tim McVeigh! Lord's Resistance Army! IRA! None of those, of course, were motivated by the texts and teachings of Christianity the way Islamic jihadists, by their own account, are motivated by the texts and teachings of Islam.)

"Pakistan mosque struck by car bomb," from the Irish Sun, December 18 (thanks to Twostellas):

A suicide car bomber has struck near a mosque inside a police compound in northwestern Pakistan in the Lower Dir region.

As he detonated his explosives, ten people, mostly police leaving the mosque after Friday prayers, were killed.

The incident is believed to be the latest in attacks by suspected Taliban militants who are warring with the Pakistani government....

Friday's attack was the second in two weeks against mosques that security forces use for worship.

The blast also wounded another 28 people.

If they did venture out, the could be killed. Islamic Tolerance Alert from the Kingdom of the Two Holy Places: "Crew members stranded in Muslim holy city," from Herald Scotland, December 18 (thanks to Twostellas):

Thirty Flyglobespan crew members are stranded in the Muslim holy city of Medina in Saudi Arabia.

The airline had a contract to carry passengers between Delhi in India and Medina for the Hajj pilgrimage.

Flyglobespan captain Bob Lee revealed that the crew members have been confined to their hotel for at least four days because, as non-Muslims, they are not allowed to move around the city.

He said crew members were unable to get seats on flights out of Medina because of the huge demand.

Capt Lee said 1,000 Flyglobespan passengers from India were also trying to find alternative flights home, adding to the difficulties facing the crew.

Katrina McBride, from Fife, said: "My daughter and a number of other crew who work for Flyglobespan are currently based in Saudi and India - who's looking after them? Who will bring them home, when and how soon?

"We are currently in limited communication with my daughter who is in a state of panic.

"She has already phoned, crying her eyes out worrying about what will happen, who will pay her hotel bill as she been working out there for almost six weeks?"

The PR machine has been very successful in burnishing the image of modern, moderate Morocco. Reality, however, is more in line with Sharia. "Right to religious freedom under fire in Morocco," by Mohamed Amezian for Radio Netherlands, December 9 (thanks to Alexandre):

A group of five foreigners, was arrested last week in Morocco on suspicion of proselytising. The Christian missionaries - two South Africans, two Swiss and one Guatemalan - were expelled from the country for holding "undeclared meetings", said police. This is not the first such incident. Proselytising (attempting to change someone's religious or political beliefs) is a crime in Morocco, even though the constitution guarantees individual freedom.

Mohamad Reda Benkhaldoun, member of parliament for Morocco's main opposition party, says the geopolitical location of Morocco between Africa and Europe makes it accessible to all ideas and movements. However, this regularly leads to friction. In theory, freedom of religion is guaranteed by the constitution and Islamic Sharia laws, but the MP says there are limitations:

"When missionaries proselytise among Moroccans, particularly among young people who have no resistance to certain ideas, the state has an obligation to take the necessary steps to prevent a sort of legal destabilisation of the Islamic faith in Morocco."

Social cohesion

Professor Mohamed Darif has found that Morocco not only penalises missionary zeal, but also has a long history of punishing Moroccan citizens for changing their religious beliefs. In the 1960s and 1980s a number of converts to the Bahá'í faith was convicted. Morocco recently broke off diplomatic relations with Iran because of its alleged "spreading of the Shiite doctrine" among Moroccans. The government denies it wants to limit individual freedoms, and says it only wants to safeguard "social cohesion".

King

Notably, the constitutional guarantee of individual freedoms is negated and contradicted by that same constitution. The king is the "Commander of the faithful". As such, he is the protector of Islam but also of people of other faiths living in Morocco, including Jews and Christians. This means Morocco is not a secular state, as explicitly confirmed by King Mohammed VI (in the Spanish paper El Pais in January 2005). Mohamed Darif, an expert on political Islam, said the king's message was loud and clear:

"Freedom of religion can be openly and fiercely discussed in the framework of a secular state which draws a clear line between religion and politics. However, in a non-secular state the subject is approached with great reserve".

Paradox

Morocco often sends messages of religious tolerance to the West, and a not particularly perceptive tourist travelling through Morocco may arrive at the conclusion that is indeed the case in the country. However, human rights activists, independent journalists and Islamists often face repression under the guise of maintaining the unity of Sunni doctrine, or the prevention of social unrest.

In the past month, a plea for the right to be an atheist seriously embarrassed the Moroccan government. A group of young journalists announced they wanted to hold an 'open' breakfast in a recreational park. The police and security services were quick to intervene. The Moroccan organiser of the event, a young woman working for a French-language magazine was arrested and was deported to France shortly afterwards. She now lives in Paris.

This is an ongoing story. We have chronicled many instances of the persecution of the Copts here. Note that it is "facilitated by the Egyptian government."

"Egyptian Christian women forced to marry, convert to Islam, reports say," by Cindy Ortiz for the Baptist Press, December 14 (thanks to Alexandre):

WASHINGTON (BP)--Coptic Christian women in Egypt are being forced to marry and convert to Islam and that oppression is part of a larger pattern of persecution against Christians facilitated by the Egyptian government, according to two recent reports.

"Cases of abduction, forced conversion and marriage are usually accompanied by acts of violence which include rape, beatings, deprivation of food and other forms of physical and mental abuse," said a new assessment by Christian Solidarity International and the Coptic Foundation for Human Rights.

At the same time, the 2009 U.S. State Department report on international religious freedom noted the Egyptian government fails to prosecute crimes against Copts and even has taken a hand in destroying church property and, in one case, a government official reportedly raped a woman who had converted from Islam to Christianity....

Egyptian sex traffickers entice Coptic Christian women from low-income families by promising an escape from poverty, then force the women into Muslim "marriages" or outright slavery, according to the CSI/CFHR report.

"Such abuse remains covered in a cloak of silence and tacit acceptance, even though it is against the constitutional affirmations of civil rights," the report said....

Since Islam is the "religion of state" in Egypt, conversion to Islam is easy, while returning to Christianity is unacceptable, the HRW report said. The Civil Status Department, which issues national identity cards, sometimes refuses to give Coptic women a new card identifying her as Christian since it is considered apostasy for a Coptic woman to leave Islam, even to return to her religion of origin.

Egyptian law requires every citizen to have an identity card for purposes such as voting, employment and education.

Most of the cases of Coptic women being coerced into marriage are not reported and "observers, including human rights groups, find it extremely difficult to determine whether compulsion was used, as most cases involve a female Copt who converts to Islam when she marries a Muslim male," the State Department report said.

In two examples of coerced conversion, CSI/CFHR reported Nov. 10:

-- An Egyptian woman was raped and beaten since she would not have sex with the man she was forced to marry. The Coptic cross on her wrist was later removed with acid.

-- Another woman was forced to marry a Muslim lawyer and work for him in "slave-like conditions" for five years.

John Eibner, CSI's chief executive officer, urged President Obama in a letter to combat the trafficking of Christian women and girls in Egypt and to make sure the U.S. makes this issue a priority in its relations with Egypt.

"Trafficking of Christian women in Egypt is not a new phenomenon.... But this problem has now reached boiling point within Egypt's Coptic community, which views it as symptomatic of a much broader pattern of religious persecution," Eibner said in his letter.

Indeed.

Compromised. "Penetration Even At The Pentagon: Muslim Spies Setting Muslim Policy," by Paul Sperry for Investors.com, December 17 (thanks to Kim):

The internal threat from Muslim extremists in the military extends to high-level Defense Department aides who have undermined military policy. In fact, one top Muslim adviser pushed out an intelligence analyst who warned of the sudden jihad syndrome that led to the Fort Hood terrorist attack.

An honored guest of the Ramadan dinner at the Pentagon this September was Hesham Islam, who infiltrated the highest echelons of the Ring despite proven ties to U.S. terror front groups and a shady past in his native Egypt.

As senior adviser for international affairs to former deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, Islam ran interference for the Islamic Society of North America and other radical fronts for the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood, the subject of my new book "Muslim Mafia."

For example, Islam persuaded brass to sack a Pentagon analyst, Stephen Coughlin, after he advised cutting off outreach to ISNA, which he accurately ID'd as part of a covert terror-support network in the U.S. -- something the Justice Department recently confirmed in a major terror finance trial.

Islam invited ISNA officials to lunch with the avuncular England, known by insiders as Gullible Gordon, who in turn spoke at ISNA confabs. Islam also helped set up a Pentagon job booth at one recent ISNA convention to recruit Muslim chaplains and linguists.

Most disturbing, Islam met regularly with Saudi and other embassy officials lobbying for the release and repatriation of their citizens held at Gitmo. He in turn advised England, who authorized the release of dozens of Gitmo detainees. Some have resumed terrorist activities.

No one really knew who Islam was when he was promoted -- in fact, the Pentagon removed his bio from its Web site after reporters noted major inconsistencies in it -- yet he was allowed to get inside the office of the Pentagon's No. 2 official.

"In effect," a senior U.S. Army intelligence official told me, "we've got terrorist supporters calling the shots on our policies toward Muslims from the highest levels."

Meanwhile, politically incorrect prophets like Coughlin have been frozen out. After the betrayal at Fort Hood, the military could use his analysis of Islamic doctrine more than ever.

I attended a private briefing by Coughlin in February. In a PowerPoint presentation, he detailed how jihadists use the Quran to justify their actions. Some of his slides matched almost word-for-word Hasan's own PowerPoint slides extolling the virtues of jihad and martyrdom. Both, for instance, quoted from the same Quranic passage known as the "Verse of the Sword."

Eerily, Coughlin predicted Hasan's mind-set. He first began briefing the Pentagon on this jihadist doctrine in 2002. So brass can't say they didn't know....

But they can say they didn't care. Read it all.

Mosheb, the real hater

Mosheb here once again reminds us that the real haters are those who arrayed against Geert Wilders, not Geert Wilders himself, although he is the one who faces trial for inciting hatred. All he did was depict Qur'an-inspired hatred and violence; people like Mosheb glory in that hatred and violence.

"Dutch rapper convicted of threatening lawmaker," from Legal News, December 18 (thanks to James):

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- A Dutch rapper has been convicted of threatening an anti-Islamic lawmaker in a song.

The song by the rapper Mosheb refers to lawmaker Geert Wilders and includes the lyrics, "Geert, this is no joke/Last night I dreamt I hacked off your head."

Rotterdam District Court has sentenced Mosheb to do 80 hours of community service and handed him a two-month suspended prison sentence.

In Friday's ruling the court rejected Mosheb's defense that he was entitled to freedom of expression as an artist.

Wilders did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Wilders faces a trial in January on charges of inciting hatred against Muslims. In the past he has called for the Quran to be banned and compared it to Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf."

Because they can. Who is going to stop them? The UN may wring its hands, but so what? "Iran Forces Occupy Iraqi Oil Well, Border Guard Says (Update1)," by Maher Chmaytelli and Kadhim Ajrash for Bloomberg, December 18:

Dec. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Iranian forces yesterday entered Iraqi territory at dawn and occupied well number 4 in the East Maysan oil field, Border Guard General Zafer Nazmi said.

The Iranian forces positioned tanks around the well, which is in the al-Fakah region, 450 kilometers (280 miles) south of Baghdad. The two neighbors have disputed the border of southeast Iraq for decades.

"They positioned tanks around it and dug trenches," General Nazmi said by phone from Basra. "They are still there, they raised the flag."

East Maysan in southern Iraq is an old oil field that is no longer in production, according to Nazmi. Iraq is the third largest oil producer in the Middle East after Saudi Arabia and Iran....

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

A Human Rights Day Appeal (December 10) from AWE and WUPJ was sent to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Nevanethem Pillay and the UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova, requesting that the United Nations finally condemn the ever-growing Defamation of Judaism and rampant Judeophobia / Antisemitism in the Arab-Muslim Middle East. The covering letter sent to UNESCO's newly-elected Director-General is also provided below, not the handwritten letters to the Sec-Gen. and HCHR, who received it and the documentation by fax ("Judeophobia /Antisemitism: Huge number of hate publications in Damascus" - an oral statement to the Council's Ad Hoc Committee second session on the 'Elaboration of Complementary Standards' - to the Universal Declaration....)

Full copies were emailed to Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion Asma Jahangir, Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression Frank LaRue, Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism Githu Muigai and Acting-Secretary of the Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) Torsten Schackel. The Appeal to all the above-mentioned persons is copied at the end here.

We have been denouncing this ongoing situation at the UN for nearly 25 years to no avail - and since 1971, first under a joint pen-name: [David Littman and Yehoshafat Harkabi] D.F. Green, Arab Theologians on Jews and Israel (English, French, German).

Either the UN senior authorities, Rapporters and institutions will finally act on this grave matter, reminiscent of the 1930s or not, rather concentrating all attention on what is now called 'Islamophobia' - and ignoring both Judeophobia and Christianophobia in the Arab-Muslim world because of pressures from the dominant 57 country OIC bloc. Such a silence would clarify for many of us the situation at the UN, especially the controversial Human Rights Council in Geneva - the 'international community'. Dhimmitude would prevail beyond any doubt, recalling Shakespeare's closing words in Macbeth's mouth:

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

The Director-General of UNESCO
Ms. Irina Bokova
Paris

Dear Madam,

We heartily congratulate you on your election. We sincerely hope that our 'Appeal' will be of some interest to you and that we shall receive a reply when convenient. Our detailed response (and request) of 8 April 2009 sent to UNESCO Assistant Director-General Ahmed Sayyed has, unfortunately, remained unanswered. We feel that the questions we raised on the 2 ISESCO books (re: UNESCO) merit a precise reply.

Yours respectfully,

David G. Littman
Representative of AWE & WUPJ / United Nations - Geneva. Case Postale 205 . 1196 Gland. Suisse
P.S. I have added the English translation of our French oral statement (to the Ad Hoc Committee HRC on 27 Oct. 2009)

Association for World Education
World Union for Progressive Judaism

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon; UNHCHR Nevanethem Pillay
UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova
10 December 2009 Human Rights Day APPEAL
To Condemn Defamation of Judaism / Judeophobia / Antisemitism in the Middle East

On 12 January 2009 we sent you a Public Complaint (and to UN-Geneva Director-General Sergei Ordzhonikidze and the then UNHRC President Martin I. Uhomoibhi) concerning two hate books, published and circulated by ISESCO - Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. They contain venomous attacks against Jews, a general defamation of Judaism - and a symbolic reference to an infamous forgery used by the Nazis. Both books were displayed at an OIC event at the Palais des Nations 'on the occasion of the 60th Anniversary of the UDHR' (19 December 2008).

To support these grave accusations, we provided substantive documentation: An explanatory page regarding the event and background data and six pages of extracts from the two ISESCO books.

[AWE /WUPJ: Defamation of Judaism & Jews by ISESCO (OIC): 60th UDHR Anniversary at the UN (A/HRC//10/29]

The only reply received came from Mr. Ahmed Sayyad, UNESCO Assistant Director-General for External Relations and Cooperation in which he referred us to UNESCO's Constitution, stressing that: "the promotion of dialogue as a means of building peace is at the core of UNESCO's mission." He mentioned other UNESCO decisions, in particular Decision 174 EX/46, adopted in April 2006.

However, he provided no reply on the two books containing much religious and racial hatred against Jews and Judaism, although ISESCO - the cultural wing of the OIC and its 57 UN Member States - has very close ties with UNESCO. A higher standard is to be expected from an international body.

On 30 January 2009 another 'Appeal' was sent in which we providing reliable evidence from an Egyptian TV Channel al-Rahma (Mercy) - allegedly owned by Egyptian Sheikh Muhammad Hassan - which had aired a show on 27 January 2009, featuring Egyptian cleric Amin Al-Ansari commenting on the footage of prisoners being tortured in Dachau, Mauthausen and Belsen, while he declared: "This is what we hope will happen but, Allah willing, at the hand of the Muslims."

On 14 August 2009, we referred to more Egyptian TV testimony of a culture of hate, including the teaching of young children that "Jews are offspring of snakes and vipers". On 12 October 2009, three days before the 12th HRC Special Session on Gaza and the Goldstone Report, Egyptian cleric Amin Al-Ansari again appeared on Al-Rahma TV, declaring that the Prophet Muhammad had announced that: "'Judgment Day will not come before the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them.'" The Muslims will kill the Jews. Be patient. All the trees and all the stones will say: 'Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him." This 'saying' or hadith is article 7 of the genocidal Charter of Hamas, yet it was not even referred to in the Goldstone Gaza Report.

Harsh anti-Zionist, Judeophobic /Antisemitic themes constantly appear in the Syrian media - the latest on Radio Damascus (1 December 2009 at 19:07), once again employing the heinous forgery:

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, stating that: "The Protocols allow for the killing of non-Jewish children..." We provided several other examples in an oral statement to the 2nd session of the Ad Hoc Committee of the HRC (27 October 2009), a French copy of which is attached to this Appeal.

Today's Human Rights Day message by the newly-elected Director-General of UNESCO affirms: "Cultural or any other specificity must be aligned with respect for fundamental freedoms." We ask your Excellencies, individually and collectively, to condemn this culture of hate - of Judeophobia / Antisemitism / Defamation of Judaism - in children and adult books and in all Middle East media. We hope the Special Rapporteurs & UN State Members will start to act on this grave matter in 2010.

* * * * *

David G. Littman: Representative for the AWE & WUPJ to the UNO-Geneva (itea@bluewin.ch)
René L. Wadlow: Main Representative for the AWE to the UNO-Geneva (wadlowz@aol.com)

A History of Astronomy, Part 1
By Fjordman

Note from Fjordman: This text is about the history of astronomy before Islam. I will deal with the history of astronomy after Islam in a separate text. This essay overlaps to a significant extent with my essay The Ancient Greeks and the Invention of Natural Philosophy, to some extent with my histories of astronomy in prehistoric Europe and of the calendar and to a much lesser extent with my history of geology.

In the Fertile Crescent agriculture was gradually established after 10,000 BC, with settlements at the Neolithic town of Jericho near the Dead Sea dating back to 9000 BC. The success of Chatal Huyuk or Çatalhöyük, a large site in Anatolia that existed from ca. 7200 to after 6000 BC, is thought to have resulted from its trade in the volcanic glass known as obsidian.

The greatest change in the history of the Near East and indeed the world came with a people called the Sumerians in southern Mesopotamia, between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. During the Uruk period (ca. 4000 to 3100 BC), the Sumerians are credited with many "firsts" in human history, from the first writing system to the first monumental statues in an urban setting. Their origin is unknown and their language has no proven connection to any other language, living or dead, yet they produced lasting literature such as the Epic of Gilgamesh.

There were other cities or proto-cities in the Fertile Crescent stretching from northern Mesopotamia into northern Syria, Anatolia and western Iran, but Uruk by 3300 BC contained a population of perhaps 40,000-50,000 people, gigantic compared to any other known settlement on the entire planet at that time. The "Uruk Expansion" during the fourth millennium BC spread its cultural influence to neighboring regions. With the growing complexity of society and the ensuing expansion of bureaucracy came the development of a system for recordkeeping which evolved into cuneiform script, the first true writing system.

Uh, I just look like that guy -- yeah, that's it

Claiming torture is a tactic straight out of the al-Qaeda playbook. "Mumbai Attack Suspect Retracts Confession in Court," by Arlene Chang and Eric Bellman for the Wall Street Journal, December 18 (thanks to Visvas):

MUMBAI -- The Pakistani man captured during the Mumbai terrorist attacks last year retracted his confession Friday, saying he had been framed and tortured.

Mohammed Ajmal Kasab told a special court in Mumbai that he arrived in Mumbai well before the attacks with the aim of starting an acting career. Twenty days before the attacks, he said, he was picked up by the police while looking for a hotel and thrown in jail because he is from Pakistan.

He said it was only during the attacks that he was brought out to take the blame as he resembled one of the attackers photographed attacking commuters at a train station with an AK-47. He said he was then tortured into signing a confession. "I have never seen an AK-47 in my life," the 21-year-old told the court. "I saw it only when the police produced it."

Mr. Kasab's claim is the latest twist in his testimony. He had pleaded not guilty when the trial began early this year, then in July told the court he was guilty.

Mr. Kasab is allegedly the only survivor of 10 suspected gunmen in the attacks, which killed more than 160 people. Mr. Kasab is charged with everything from murder and waging war against India, and could face the death penalty, if convicted.

Mr. Kasab was captured during the 60-hour siege of India's financial capital that began Nov. 26, last year. Police say he admitted during multiple interrogations he was one of 10 gunmen trained in Pakistan who traveled together by sea on the terrorist mission. The assailants shot and killed people at Mumbai's top two five-star hotel complexes, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus train station, a Jewish center, a hospital and a restaurant.

Police denied that Mr. Kasab has been framed or tortured. They said they arrested Mr. Kasab in a shootout near Mumbai's Chowpatty Beach. His image has been captured on a surveillance camera at the train station, where he and an accomplice allegedly opened fire with automatic rifles and threw hand grenades, killing commuters.

The public prosecutor in the trial, Ujjwal Nikam, said Mr. Kasab's claims wouldn't change the outcome of the trial. "He is talking rubbish," he said. "His statements today are not going to affect our case in anyway. He is an evil terrorist."...

And one who knows that "war is deceit."

Friend and Ally Update. "Pakistan Reported to Be Harassing U.S. Diplomats," by Jane Perlez and Eric Schmitt for the New York Times, December 16 (thanks to Citizen):

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Parts of the Pakistani military and intelligence services are mounting what American officials here describe as a campaign to harass American diplomats, fraying relations at a critical moment when the Obama administration is demanding more help to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

The campaign includes the refusal to extend or approve visas for more than 100 American officials and the frequent searches of American diplomatic vehicles in major cities, said an American official briefed on the cases.

The problems affected military attachés, C.I.A. officers, development experts, junior level diplomats and others, a senior American diplomat said. As a result, some American aid programs to Pakistan, which President Obama has called a critical ally, are "grinding to a halt," the diplomat said.

American helicopters used by Pakistan to fight militants can no longer be serviced because visas for 14 American mechanics have not been approved, the diplomat said. Reimbursements to Pakistan of nearly $1 billion a year for counterterrorism have been suspended because the last of the American Embassy's five accountants left the country this week after his visa expired.

"There's an incredible disconnect between what they want of us and the fact we can't get the visas," the diplomat said.

Pakistani officials acknowledged the situation but said the menacing atmosphere resulted from American arrogance and provocations, like taking photographs in sensitive areas, and a lack of understanding of how divided Pakistanis were about the alliance with the United States....

Of course. It's always America's fault. Might they hate us for reasons of their own? Preposterous!

There Is No Honor Killing In Islam and Rifqa Bary Is In No Danger Update: "Father found guilty of 'honour killing' of daughter, 15, after she fell in love with man from different branch of Islam," from the Daily Mail, December 17 (thanks to Tziona):

A 'psychotic bully' was today found guilty of the 'honour killing' murder of his teenage daughter almost a decade after she disappeared.

Mehmet Goren killed 15-year-old Tulay after she fell in love with a man from a different branch of Islam.

Goren had once tried to gas his whole family to death and on another occasion to inject his wife Hanim with rat poison.

It was Hanim's courage in speaking up against her husband in court after 30 years of torment that helped convict him of their daughter's murder.

Mehmet killed the teenager because of her doomed 'Romeo and Juliet' romance with a man called Halil Una.

She was besotted with him - but to her father the affair made her a 'worthless commodity' because he could not marry her off for £5,000.

On January 7 1999 the part-time fish and chip shop worker told his eight-year-old son Tuncay to kiss Tulay goodbye as he would never see his sister again.

The body of the schoolgirl - who told a friend she may have been pregnant - has never been found.

Police had become involved in the weeks leading up to the murder when Mehmet beat up Mr Unal, then complained about the relationship to officers and demanded his daughter take a virginity test.

Tulay ran away and told them he had beat her, and that she would rather be taken into care than return home, before being persuaded to go back by her mother....

Mehmet attacked his daughter's boyfriend with a hatchet outside an east London pub 13 days after the murder and in hospital Mr Unal reported her missing....

Allahu akbar! Would you like fries with that, Infidel?

This is the kind of wrongheaded and myopic effort that comes from ignoring the jihad doctrine and ideology of Islamic supremacism, and assuming that Taliban members are waging jihad only because they are poor and have no other options.

"EXCLUSIVE: U.S. tries to thin Taliban with jobs, cash offers," by Sara A. Carter and Nasir Khan for the Washington Times, December 17 (thanks to Undaunted):

The United States and its allies are stepping up efforts to persuade Afghan insurgents to put down their arms by negotiating with representatives of Mullah Mohammed Omar and other Taliban commanders and offering cash and jobs to low-level fighters, according to Pakistani, Middle Eastern and U.S. officials and analysts.

The efforts, coupled with an increased U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, are meant to weaken the insurgency and promote a negotiated end to the region's violence.

"The strategy is to peel away so many fighters" from the insurgent chiefs that they will be left like "floating icebergs and have no one left to command," said Kenneth Katzman, an Afghanistan specialist at the Congressional Research Service.

Several Pakistani, Middle Eastern and U.S. officials said in interviews that Saudi and Pakistani officials, acting with tacit American encouragement, are talking with "second tier" Taliban leaders connected with Mullah Omar. The Washington Times reported recently that Mullah Omar has been hiding in the Pakistani metropolis of Karachi and was brought there with the knowledge of Pakistani intelligence.

"You've got a lot of players involved in the effort," said a U.S. official with knowledge of the talks, "not just within the U.S. government, but foreign partners, too."

The official, who spoke on the condition that he not be named because of the sensitivity of the topic, added: "U.S. intelligence isn't the lead on talking to members of the Afghan Taliban who may be interested in discussing reconciliation. But when it makes sense, the [U.S.] intelligence community is brought in for its expertise, relationships and judgment."

Such meetings were reported to have taken place in the Saudi holy city of Mecca in September 2008, but they continue elsewhere today.

Mr. Katzman said Qayyum Karzai, a brother of the Afghan president, participated in the 2008 talks. He also said there were meetings in January in Saudi Arabia and contacts in the United Arab Emirates....

Eurabia Alert. A message from Jihad Watch reader Dave:

Look at how aggressive these Paris Muslims get with a camera man.

The Muslims have been taking over more and more streets for Friday prayers. They block off roads, put their rugs out on the sidewalk as well as the street, deprive shop owners of business for two and a half hours, deprive residents of the street from entering or leaving their apartments for that time, they act aggressively toward non-muslims and women pedestrians who still try to use the street.

"The situation is very tense. Just last week to Christian brothers were killed and two more were abducted. Where was the local government? And the Central government? Where are the representatives of the ruling parties?"

They're supporting it, of course.

"A policy of 'ethnic cleansing' against Christians under way in Mosul, Mgr Sako says," from AsiaNews, December 16 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

Kirkuk (AsiaNews) - A policy of "ethnic and religious cleansing" is underway in Mosul; in fact, it has worsened as Christmas approaches, Mgr Louis Sako told AsiaNews. For the archbishop of Kirkuk, this means that "security measures must be strengthened or the holiday season". Meanwhile, tensions and fear are palpable in the city, made worse by a new attack against two places of worship, killing one person and wounding 40 more. A Christian source, anonymous for security reasons, said that the "community is destined to die".

In the late morning, a car bomb exploded in front of the Church of the Annunciation in the al- Mohandiseen neighbourhood, damaging walls and windows. The attackers also threw grenades against the nearby Christian school, killing a baby girl and injuring 40 more people, including five high school kids. Saad Younes, father of the 8-day-old child, said that the blast occurred when his daughter and sister-in-law were leaving the nearby hospital.

A second attack targeted the Syro-Catholic Church of the Immaculate in al-Shifaa, a neighbourhood in northern Mosul. An explosive device went off in the street in front of the building's gate. No one was killed or injured.

Yesterday's attacks are the latest episodes in a series of violence against Christian places of worship. On 26 November, terrorists razed to the ground the Church of Saint Ephrem and the Mother House of the Dominican Sisters of Saint Catherine. A source told AsiaNews that most nuns left; only a few have remained but "are afraid of going out".

Such attacks are a "warning" for Christians to leave en masse. Many "families have fled north, into Kurdistan, but are jobless and have no hope for the future. The Christian community is destined to die," the source said.

Mgr Louis Sako shares this concern. For the archbishop of Kirkuk, "ethnic and religious cleansing" is underway in Mosul. The central government and parties are concerned only about the elections, scheduled for 7 March 2010, especially about "sharing the oil"....

"The situation is very tense," Mgr Sako said. "Just last week to Christian brothers were killed and two more were abducted. Where was the local government? And the Central government? Where are the representatives of the ruling parties?" the prelate asked....

Netanyahu and others from the U.K., France, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. "Arab Paper: Iran to target Netanyahu if nuclear sites attacked," from the Jerusalem Post,
December 17 (thanks to Islamo-Nazism):

The Kuwaiti newspaper al-Sayissa reported Wednesday that Iran has urgently summoned either Syrian Vice President Farouk Sharaa or Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem and Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah. They are apparently being called to the Iranian capital to receive orders to be carried out in the event of Iranian nuclear sites being targeted in war, Israel Radio reported.

The newspaper quoted a Gulf state diplomat as saying that Nasrallah will travel to Teheran in the coming days in order to receive his marching-orders.

Iranian opposition organizations in Paris told the newspaper that the Iranian intelligence apparatus has established a bank of targets including political leaders and others, who would be targeted if the Iranian sites are attacked....

Striking a blow against the trade deficit. In Human Events today:

The five young northern Virginia Muslims arrested in Pakistan for trying to join jihadist groups offer an intriguing example of role reversal. Instead of jihad terrorists training in the Middle East to come to the United States, a la Muhammad Atta and co., this group started out in the U.S. and went over there. Nor are they the only examples of America's brisk new export trade in jihadists -- there are also the Somalis who have been streaming home from Minneapolis to join the jihad in their homeland.

Both Somalia and Pakistan have so many jihadis that they have no need to import more, but in both countries right now jihad is a growth industry.

Among the many lingering questions about this case is that of how these five young men fell in with jihad groups in the first place. The local Muslim community professed anguish and puzzlement about how it could have happened. Ashraf Nubani, an attorney for the mosque the five attended, said of their relatives and fellow worshippers: "There's shock and disbelief in these families and in this mosque." Mahdi Bray of the Falls Church-based Muslim American Society, sounded a plaintive note: "We want to know: What did we miss? We saw these kids every day. In hindsight, what could we have done?"

The five frequented an Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) mosque in Alexandria, Virginia, where the youth leader, Mustafa Maryam, insisted: "Our group never talked about politics." Essan Talawi, an imam at the mosque, said that "the teachings of this mosque are the Koran, moderation, tolerance and peaceful interaction with our neighbors and other faiths."

They would have us believe that these young men turned to violent jihad at the same time and spontaneously. But there is every reason to think otherwise.

Talawi may have had in mind a very different idea of "moderation, tolerance and peaceful interaction" from the one that generally prevails in the U.S. According to Steven Emerson's Investigative Project, at ICNA's Annual Conference in 2001, ICNA president Zulfiqar Ali Shah led the crowd in a chant of "our way, our way, is jihad, jihad."...

Read it all.

They were offended that the Christians demanded payment. The subservient class should know its place. "BREAKING NEWS: Pakistan Muslim Employers Poison And Kill Christians, Police Say," by Jawad Mazhar for BosNewsLife, December 16 (thanks to G.S.):

GUJRANWALA, PAKISTAN (BosNewsLife)-- A Christian sanitation worker was struggling for his life Wednesday, December 16, in a hospital of Pakistan's Punjab province after two Christian co-workers already died because Muslim employers apparently poisoned them, police and family confirmed.

The father of the three workers, Yousaf Masih, said the incident happened Monday, December 14, in a banquet and wedding hall where his sons demanded wages owed to them.

Masih said the Muslim managers of the facility were angry that Christians dared to ask for payment.

"My sons were apparently forced to consume some kind of poisoned drink, or a drug...They were left there to die," he said, adding that their bosses also made abusive remarks about Christianity.

Imran Masih, 29, and Irfan Masih, 25, died on the spot at the 'Ferozewala Pul Banquet & Marriage Hall' while their brother 23-year-old Aakash Masih was eventually rushed to hospital by family members, Masih said. "The administration of the banquet and wedding hall did not call a hospital or take them to a hospital -instead they called us after the death of two of our loved ones."...

You knew there would be a catch, didn't you?

"Praying behind imams who endorse terror declared haram," from the Daily Times, December 16 (thanks to Block Ness):

KARACHI: Offering prayers behind any imam who endorses terrorism and suicide attacks on Muslims, mosques, imambargahs, women and children and the country's security forces is declared haram (forbidden in Islam), according to a decree issued by religious scholars on Tuesday. "Suicide bombings and terrorist attacks in Pakistan are haram. Offering namaz behind those religious leaders who support suicide bombings and terrorism in the country is also haram," the decree stated. The decree against the pro-terrorism clerics and religious party leaders came at an Ulema Convention that was held at the Jinnah Ground, under the aegis of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement. The clerics urged unity among the various sects of Islam, saying that all sects should respect each other in the light of the teachings of the holy Quran and the Sunnah of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). MQM chief Altaf Hussain had appealed to scholars to condemn pro-terrorism leaders as well. The MQM chief asked religious scholars to create awareness among the masses about religious extremism. He said their role was crucial in defeating extremism in the country. He said use of force to impose sharia as well as terrorists involved in suicide bombings had defamed Islam across the world.

Here's one for the learned analysts who are sure Sunnis will never work with Shi'ites, and vice versa. "Hamas says will unite with Iran if Israel attacks," from Ynet News, December 15 (thanks to Alexandre):

Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal said on Tuesday that Islamist militant groups would back Iran if the country was attacked by Israel, Iranian state television reported. "All Islamist militant groups will form a united front with Iran against Israel if it attacks Iran," Mashaal told a news conference in Tehran.

"We are all parts of the same body ... We all should fight against the mutual enemy. But how, the leaders will decide based on our capacities."...

Siding with the Saudis against Iran. "'US fighter jets attack Yemeni fighters,'" from PressTV, December 14:

US fighter jets have attacked Yemen's Sa'ada Province, Houthi fighters say. Yemen's Houthi fighters say the US fighter jets have launched 28 attacks on the northwestern province of Sa'ada.

The US has used modern fighter jets and bombers in its offensive against the Yemen fighters, Houthis said in a statement.

According to the statement, the US fighter jets have launched overnight attacks on the Yemeni fighters, Arabic Almenpar website reported.

The development comes as The Daily Telegraph on Sunday reported that the US has sent its special forces to Yemen to train its army.

The reports of the US military intervention in Yemen come as Saudi Arabia is also lending full support to the Yemeni government's crackdown on Yemen's Houthi minority....

Another provocation. I used to call stories like these "1938 Alerts," as if to say that they marked the run-up to a world war. But with the supine Obama in the White House, it is not 1938, and there will be no war -- only surrender without a shot being fired.

"Iran test-fires advanced missile," from the BBC, December 16 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Iran has successfully test-fired an improved version of a medium-range missile, state television has said.

The Sajjil-2 has a longer range than previously-tested missiles which could travel 2,000km (1,243 miles), Iran's Arabic-language TV station announced.

That range would put Israel and US bases in the Gulf within range.

Correspondents say it is not the first time this missile has been tested, but the timing is likely to add to current tension over Iran's nuclear ambitions.

The West says that Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons, a charge Iran denies.

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the missile launch could increase the likelihood of further sanctions on Iran.

They must be quaking in their boots in Tehran!

In FrontPage this morning I discuss the implications of the upcoming Wilders trial:

Free speech goes on trial in the Netherlands on January 20, when Dutch politician Geert Wilders appears before the Amsterdam District Court on charges of having "intentionally offended a group of people, i.e. Muslims, based on their religion," as well as having incited to hatred and discrimination.

What did Wilders do to warrant such charges? He told the truth about the global jihad and Islamic supremacism, and their roots in Islamic texts and teachings, in his film Fitna and elsewhere. But nowadays truth-telling is at such a premium that those who still dare to engage in it are threatened, harassed and prosecuted.

But Wilders is defiant: "On the 20th of January 2010, a political trial will start. I am being prosecuted for my political convictions. The freedom of speech is on the verge of collapsing. If a politician is not allowed to criticise an ideology anymore, this means that we are lost, and it will lead to the end of our freedom. However I remain combative: I am convinced that I will be acquitted."

The very idea of trying someone for offending someone else is absurd - especially when the offended group is known to traffic in the PC multiculturalist coin of wounded feelings, so as to gain the political power that comes from victim status. That the Amsterdam District Court would aid and abet this absurdity and obvious manipulation unmasks the Wilders trial - even before it starts - as what it really is: an attempt by the nation's political elites to silence one of their most formidable critics. The one who has the power to decide what is an actionable offensive statement or prosecutable incitement has the power to control the discourse - and that's what the prosecution of Wilders is all about. If offending someone is a crime, can those who find hate speech laws offensive bring suit against their framers?

The action against Wilders is taking place, moreover, against the backdrop of the 57-government Organization of the Islamic Conference's ongoing efforts at the United Nations to silence speech that they deem critical of Islam -- including "defamation of Islam" that goes under the "pretext" of "freedom of expression, counter terrorism or national security."

If they succeed in doing this, Europeans and Americans will be rendered mute, and thus defenseless, in the face of the advancing jihad and attempt to impose Sharia on the West -- in fact, one of the key elements of the laws for dhimmis, non-Muslims subjugated under Islamic rule, is that they are never critical of Islam, Muhammad, or the Qur'an. Thus this prosecution in Amsterdam not only aids the advance of Sharia in the West, but is itself an element of that advance.

The stakes are so high in the Wilders case also because the OIC has a new, powerful ally as it moves against the freedom of speech. In October the Obama Administration actually co-sponsored an anti-free speech resolution at the United Nations. Approved by the U.N. Human Rights Council, the resolution, cosponsored by the U.S. and Egypt, calls on states to condemn and criminalize "any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence."...

Read it all.

Even in niqabs, they are verbally and physically harassed. This occurs despite the enthusiasm of Naomi Wolf and similar enablers for the supposedly "liberating" aspects of the ironically ostentatious "modesty" of Islamic attire... all of which could arguably be achieved in the West with, say, conventional church-friendly attire, unless one is going for anonymity, or actually seeking attention for being really, really modest.

The problem is, the objectification of women is ultimately in the eye of the beholder, hijab or no hijab, niqab or no niqab. Where the hijab is successfully imposed on a culture, it becomes part of a quid pro quo arrangement to be left alone (and not attacked), and thus becomes in itself the ultimate symbol of objectification, lest a woman be found unworthy of respect or even safety without it, and often with it. (See also: Sheik al-Hilali, and this Egyptian ad.)

All of this goes to show the hijab and its more severe variations are a capitulation to an unjust social order, not a moral achievement, and capitulation encourages the opposite of equal treatment. The best one can hope for is that one's overlords observe the terms of the surrender.

"Harassment across Arab world drives women inside," by Sarah El Deeb for the Associated Press, December 15:

CAIRO - The sexual harassment of women in the streets, schools and work places of the Arab World is driving them to cover up and confine themselves to their homes, said activists at the first-ever regional conference addressing the once taboo topic.

Activists from 17 countries across the region met in Cairo for a two-day conference ending Monday and concluded that harassment was unchecked across the region because laws don't punish it, women don't report it and the authorities ignore it.

The harassment, including groping and verbal abuse, appears to be designed to drive women out of public spaces and seems to happen regardless of what they are wearing, they said.

That's exactly the goal, and it is rooted in Islamic tradition, which calls for a woman not to leave the house unescorted by her husband or a suitable male relative, or without his permission.

Amal Madbouli, who wears the conservative face veil or niqab, told The Associated Press that despite her dress, she is harassed and described how a man came after her in the streets of her neighborhood.

"He hissed at me and kept asking me if I wanted to go with him to a quieter area, and to give him my phone number," said Madbouli, a mother of two. "This is a national security issue. I am a mother, and I want to be reassured when my daughters go out on the streets."

Statistics on harassment in the region have until recently been nonexistent, but a series of studies presented at the conference hinted at the widespread nature of the problem.

As many as 90 percent of Yemeni women say they have been harassed, while in Egypt, out of a sample of 1,000, 83 percent reported being verbally or physically abused.

A study in Lebanon reported that more than 30 percent of women said they had been harassed there.

"We are facing a phenomena that is limiting women's right to move ... and is threatening women's participation in all walks of life," said Nehad Abul Komsan, an Egyptian activist who organized the event with funding from the U.N. and the Swedish development agency....

Read it all.

Fooling the kuffar is easy

When the craven dhimmi Brits freed him for oil, they should have seen this coming a mile off. "Mystery as Lockerbie bomber goes missing from home and hospital," by Martin Fletcher, Tim Reid and Angus Macleod in The Times, December 16 (thanks to Morgaan):

The Lockerbie bomber appeared to have gone missing last night after he could not be reached at his home or in hospital.

Libyan officials could say nothing about the whereabouts of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, and his Scottish monitors could not contact him by telephone. They will try again to speak to him today but if they fail to reach him, the Scottish Government could face a new crisis.

Under the terms of his release from jail, the bomber cannot change his address or leave Tripoli, and must keep in regular communication with East Renfrewshire Council.

Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic and relatives of the 270 people who died in the 1988 bombing expressed anger about al-Megrahi's disappearance. Richard Baker, Labour's justice spokesman in the Scottish Parliament, said the whole affair was turning into a shambles and putting Scotland's reputation at risk. "This flags up just how ludicrous it is that East Renfrewshire Council, a local council thousands of miles away from Libya, is responsible for supervising al-Megrahi's conditions of licence," he said....

Relatives of the victims were furious in August when Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Justice Secretary, released al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds because he was expected to die of prostate cancer within three months.

On Sunday evening The Times called at the bomber's home in suburban Tripoli. A policeman sitting on a plastic chair outside was asked to deliver a message to al-Megrahi. He spoke no English, but indicated that al-Megrahi was not there.

The next day The Times visited the Tripoli Medical Centre where al-Megrahi was treated soon after his return to Libya. The receptionists said that he had left the hospital some time ago.

Back at al-Megrahi's home, there was no sign of activity. One of three security officers sitting in a grey Mercedes car outside said: "They've all gone." He refused to elaborate.

Alerted by The Times, Jonathan Hinds of East Renfrewshire Council tried to telephone al-Megrahi at his home yesterday. He spoke to a Libyan man who said al-Megrahi was too ill to speak to him.

Mr Hinds has called al-Megrahi every other Tuesday since August, and has always been able to speak to him. Yesterday was not one of the regular Tuesdays, so al-Megrahi would not have been expecting a call.

"We will continue to attempt to call Mr Megrahi tomorrow and will then consider the situation," a council spokesman said. If there were grounds for suspecting al-Megrahi was breaching the terms of his release, "we would report that to the Scottish Government and it would be up to them to decide what action to take"....

Even so, Bill Aitken, the Scottish Conservative justice spokesman, called for an immediate investigation. He said: "This is outrageous and there will be intense anger that Britain's biggest mass murderer appears to be able to disappear."...

Uh, yeah.

The Islamic Circle of North America has been named in "a list of our organizations and the organizations of our friends" by the Muslim Brotherhood, which is bent on waging "a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions."

They say they want to encourage dialogue via these billboards. Great. I'll start. The billboard says that Islam is "the way of life of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus & Muhammad." That is a reflection of the Islamic supremacist notion, rooted in the Qur'an (3:67, 5:116, 9:30, etc.), that the Biblical prophets taught Islam, and their messages were corrupted by their followers to create what we know of today as Judaism and Christianity. In this view, Judaism and Christianity have no legitimacy whatsoever: they are renegade, twisted, hijacked versions of the original Islam.

So my question is: How does ICNA hope to encourage dialogue by making a declaration at the outset that Judaism and Christianity are false, renegade religions? Wouldn't it be more likely to encourage dialogue if ICNA, instead of simply trying to convert people to Islam (which is really what this call to "dialogue" is all about), acknowledged the supremacist aspects of some Islamic texts and teachings, and offered a way forward for Muslims that would blunt the potential of those supremacist texts and teachings to incite believers to hatred and violence?

That is always way too much to ask. But if this call to "dialogue" were genuine, it would be merely Step One.

"Billboards going up to promote Islam," by Bob Von Sternberg for the Star Tribune, December 15 (thanks to Block Ness):

Hoping to encourage interfaith dialogue, an Islamic organization will unveil a pair of billboards in Minneapolis this week.

The Minnesota chapter of the Islamic Circle of North America plans to unveil the billboards Friday, the eve of the Islamic New Year.

The billboards will be located along Hiawatha Avenue in south Minneapolis and Central Avenue on the north side.

They are part of a nationwide multimedia campaign that also includes placing posters on buses and subways in other big cities.

The billboards will display a toll-free telephone number where people can get answers to questions about Islam, as well as obtain free copies of the Qur'an and other Islamic literature.

"Got Questions? Get Answers," the billboard states.

In a prepared statement, the campaign's organizers are quoted as saying, "Islam is often a misunderstood religion, leading some to hold bias view of Islam with discrimination and suspicion of Muslims. This ad campaign will provide an opportunity for the people of Twin Cities to take a fresh and positive look at Islam."

What fun they will have in Europe. Sharia Alert from the Kingdom of the Two Holy Places: "Saudi Arabia to flog 75-year-old for breaching sex segregation rules," from the Telegraph, December 15 (thanks to Pamela):

Amnesty International has called on Saudi Arabia to cancel a sentence of 40 lashes handed down against a 75-year-old woman for breaching the kingdom's sex segregation rules.

"The minister of interior (Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz) is reported to have ordered the immediate detention and flogging of a 75-year-old woman, Khamisa Mohammed Sawadi, along with two Saudi Arabian men known only as Fahad and Hadyan," the London-based watchdog said.

"The Saudi Arabian authorities must not carry out the imminent flogging and imprisonment of an elderly woman and two younger men."

Amnesty said all avenues of appeal had now been exhausted in Saudi courts against the trio's March conviction for being in the company of members of the opposite sex who are not close relatives....

And now: heeeeeeeeeeere's...uh...

How lovely Oprah and Katie will look. Sharia Alert from the Kingdom of the Two Holy Places: "Saudi TV presenters break new ground by wearing niqab," by Amani Fikri for the BBC Arabic Service, December 9

Until recently you would never have seen women presenting television programmes dressed from head to toe in the niqab or burqa. But on the Saudi religious channel Awtan TV it has now become the norm.

Female broadcasters at the station are draped in the all-enveloping dresses, which are usually black and also cover their faces.

The work environment too is very different. Male technical assistants do not enter the studio while the women are presenting.

There are more than 60 religious channels across the Middle East. Some allow women to present programmes without being fully covered or dressed in black.

Others have no women presenters at all.

Relationship

Awtan TV decided to take a unique approach. The station was launched in 2008, and last month it set a precedent by allowing women to present, but only on the condition that they wear the niqab....

When a man loves a woman, and a woman, and a woman, and a woman

So much, to Islamic supremacists, is all about image. Sharia Alert from modern, moderate Malaysia: "Malaysian Islamic scholars urged to be polygamists," from AFP, December 11:

KUALA LUMPUR -- The spiritual leader of Malaysia's Islamic party has urged religious scholars to practice polygamy, saying they could rid the practice of its bad reputation, a report said Thursday.

Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, who leads the Pan-Malaysia Islamic Party (PAS) which is part of the opposition alliance, said that ulamas could be model polygamous husbands.

"Normally, when a man likes a beautiful woman, he will take her as his second wife," he said according to the New Straits Times.

"But after they have children, he will divorce the woman. This is the bad image that I meant which should be cleaned up," he said. "Ulama can play an important role in clearing this image."

Nik Aziz said it was important to project a better image of polygamy, "especially in the era of information and communication technology, so that Islamic practices can be emulated by all communities."...

Why not? To disallow them would have been "Islamophobic." "Manchester terror suspects cleared to work as guards," by David Leppard for The Sunday Times, December 13:

Ten members of a suspected Islamist terror cell, said by MI5 to be plotting to blow up a shopping centre and a nightclub in Manchester, had been granted permission by the Home Office to work as security guards in Britain.

The Pakistani students -- who were never charged for lack of evidence -- were arrested over an alleged plot to bomb Britain last Easter. Police believed they had conducted "hostile reconnaissance" of the Arndale and Trafford shopping centres and the Birdcage nightclub.

It has now emerged that in the months before the alleged plot, the men were given licences to work as security guards by the Security Industry Authority (SIA), a Home Office body that regulates the private security industry.

They all passed a vetting programme designed to bar criminals and undesirables from taking up sensitive security posts protecting airports, ports and Whitehall buildings from terrorist attack. When arrested, two of the students were working for a cargo firm which had access to secure areas at Manchester airport....

"Obama's policy is nothing but another cycle in the Crusader and Zionist campaign to enslave and humiliate us, and to occupy our land and steal our wealth."

I think Al-Qaeda's Ed McMahon is wrong about that. Obama is hardly a Zionist, and doesn't seem interested in enslaving or humiliating Muslims -- quite the contrary. But Zawahiri appears rattled by Obama's popularity in the Islamic world, and so indulges heavily in jihad language in response, trying to recall Muslims to their loyalty to Islam. Ultimately, however, Obama's policy of appeasement and concessions will only aid the advance of Zawahiri's jihad, whether or not Zawhiri himself realizes that.

"Al-Qaida No. 2 blasts Obama, US Arab allies," by Salah Nasrawi for AP, December 14:

CAIRO -- Al-Qaida's deputy leader on Monday accused President Barack Obama of deceiving the Arab world and failing to advance Middle East peace talks, and said the militants' struggle against the United States and its allies is "a war between Muslims and infidels."

In a new message posted on the Internet, Ayman Al-Zawahri claimed Obama has brought the region nothing but "blockade and siege" despite efforts to reach out to Arabs.

"Obama's plan, though wrapped in smiles and calls for respect and understanding, aims only to support Israel," al-Zawahri said in a 26-minute audio message.

Osama bin Laden's deputy has been critical of Obama since his election, even releasing a message that referred to the U.S. president as a "house negro," a slur for a black subservient to whites.

"Obama's policy is nothing but another cycle in the Crusader and Zionist campaign to enslave and humiliate us, and to occupy our land and steal our wealth," al-Zawahri said.

The authenticity of the statement could not be independently verified, but it was posted on a Web site commonly used for militant messaging....

He urged Muslims and Palestinians to wage holy war, or jihad, not only in Israel and the Palestinian territories but also beyond those areas, saying there are "ample opportunities elsewhere."

He praised Muslim militants fighting in Pakistan, saying the conflict there was a "war of Muslim dignity and pride" and warned the Palestinians against any negotiations with Israel.

"We should continue jihad to liberate Palestinian land and establish an Islamic state there. We should wage jihad against Jews and all those who support them, whether they are Americans or Westerners," he said....

Yet another Misunderstander of Islam. "Haq convicted on all counts in Jewish Federation shootings," by Jennifer Sullivan and Steve Miletich for the Seattle Times, December 15 (thanks to all who sent this in):

A King County jury this morning found Naveed Haq guilty of eight counts, including aggravated first-degree murder, in the 2006 shootings at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle. The murder verdict carries an automatic life sentence for Haq.

The jury also found Haq guilty of five counts of attempted first-degree murder, one count of unlawful imprisonment and one count of malicious harassment, the state's hate-crime law....

Haq opened fire in the federation offices on July 28, 2006, killing employee Pamela Waechter, 58, and wounding Cheryl Stumbo, Carol Goldman, Dayna Klein, Christina Rexroad and Layla Bush...

The focus of the second trial was Haq's mental state at the time of the attack. The defense did not dispute that Haq carried out the shootings, but argued that he was legally insane at the time.

Haq pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, and the defense produced several mental-health experts who testified that he was mentally ill. Defense attorneys had asked that Haq be sent to a state mental hospital rather than prison.

Prosecutors agreed that Haq has a mental illness, but contended that he was sane when he entered the federation and opened fire.

"He wanted to kill these women," Senior Deputy Prosecutor Erin Ehlert told the jury during her closing argument on Thursday. "He knew exactly what his intent was when he walked in there. He planned this."

Prosecutors also introduced as evidence audio recordings from 10 phone calls Haq placed to his family after his arrest. In the calls, recorded by the King County Jail, Haq told his mother he was "a soldier of Islam."...

The recordings were not introduced during Haq's first trial.

Why not?

On the 911 tape, which the prosecution played for jurors on Oct. 21, the opening day of the trial, Haq said he was tired of the world ignoring the Muslim point of view.

"I don't care if I die," Haq said to the dispatcher. "This is just to make a point."

Point taken.