August 2010 Archives

And so he set out plotting to bomb a Bronx synagogue -- because, after all, the Qur'an says that the Jews are the worst enemies of the Muslims (5:82). More on this story. "NY temple plot jury hears suspect rant about Jews," by Tom Hays for Associated Press, August 30:

NEW YORK (AP) -- A man accused of plotting to bomb New York synagogues and shoot down military planes ranted against Jews and mused about "taking down" targets in the United States, according to audio tapes played Monday at his federal trial.

The tapes were secretly recorded by a paid informant testifying against James Cromitie and three other men who were arrested in 2009 on their way to the synagogues.

The informant, Shahed Hussain, met Cromitie in 2008 after being sent by the FBI to infiltrate a Newburgh, N.Y., mosque....

A mosque? But...but...wasn't it teaching peace and tolerance?

"Muslims want to take the U.S. down," Cromitie says on one tape played for the jury. "Believe me, we can do it with our regular Muslims here."

Cromitie also bemoans American military ventures in the Middle East.

"What do we do to make it stop?" he says. "We start taking things down here, you understand?"

He adds: "I will kill 10 million (Jews) before I kill one Muslim."

Cromitie, 43, and three men recruited as lookouts - Onta Williams, 34, David Williams, 29, and Laguerre Payen, 28 - have pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction and conspiracy to acquire and use anti-aircraft missiles to kill U.S. officers and employees.

Prosecutors allege that with Hussain's encouragement, the men hatched the scheme to blow up two synagogues in the Bronx with remote-control bombs. They also wanted to use surface-to-air missiles to shoot down planes at the Air National Guard base in Newburgh, a city north of New York City.

The men obtained what they thought were explosives and a missile system but were actually inert devices supplied by the FBI, prosecutors said. They were arrested on May 20, 2009, when they went to the synagogues to plant the fake bombs.

The defense claims the men were entrapped by Hussain, a 53-year-old Pakistani immigrant who helped the FBI make hundreds of hours of video and audio tapes of the defendants that are the centerpiece of the case.

Of course! Wouldn't anyone, when enticed, start rattling on about killing Jews? Apparently that is the idea that the defense wants the court to buy.

On tape, Hussain advises Cromitie that to be a good Muslim, he can't kill out of anger toward Jews. However, he says, dying for "the cause" of Islam is righteous.

"It must be in jihad," he says.

How long will the political elites ignore the will of the people? "Poll: Most NYers want developers to move mosque," from AP, August 31:

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- A new poll finds 71 percent of New Yorkers want the developers of an Islamic center and mosque near ground zero to voluntarily move the project.

The Quinnipiac (KWIHN'-uh-pee-ak) University poll released Tuesday finds the same amount of New Yorkers want Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to investigate funding of the project....

The poll finds 53 percent of registered voters feel the Muslim developers shouldn't be allowed to build two blocks from ground zero. About the same percentage of voters say they have a right to....

Please join Pamela Geller and me for our rally against the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero on September 11, at 3PM at Park Place and West Broadway in lower Manhattan.

Speakers will include 9/11 family members, former U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton (via video statement); Dutch freedom fighter Geert Wilders (LIVE!); journalist Andrew Breitbart (either live or via video stream); NY Senate candidate Gary Berntsen; war hero and NC Congressional candidate Ilario Pantano; nationally syndicated conservative talk show host Mike Gallagher; actress and activist Susan Olsen (Cindy Brady on TV's Brady Bunch); NY Congressional candidate and 9/11 first responder Michael Grimm; Muslim Iranian activist Ray Kafi; Coptic Christian activist Joseph Nassralla; Jordan Sekulow of the ACLJ, other freedom fighters and proud Americans.

September 11 is a solemn day, and rally will be as solemn as the occasion warrants. We will begin with a brief memorial service for the victims of the 9/11 jihad attack. A rabbi and a minister will offer prayers for the victims' families and for our nation.

Some have criticized our decision to hold the rally on September 11 itself. But when we saw that Daisy Khan, one of the leaders of the Park 51/Cordoba Initiative group that is behind the mosque, said that they intended to break ground for the Ground Zero mosque on September 11, 2011, we believed that it was important for us to reclaim the date of September 11 from these deceptive Islamic supremacists. We determined to take a stand to help ensure that that date will forever stand as an occasion of American mourning and American resolve -- not as a commemoration of an Islamic jihad victory.

As befits a solemn rally on a date that should stand forever as a symbol of America's determination to defend freedom and justice, we urge all those planning to attend not to bring inflammatory signs. These can and will be used by the Leftist tools of Islamic supremacism in the media to smear our rally as a gathering of racists and hatemongers. Remember why we are there: to stand for those who fell on that terrible day, and to declare that no victory mosque will deface the site where they fell. Your signs, if you choose to bring any at all, should be positive affirmations of American values, free of obscenities, epithets, gratuitous insults, racial references, and the like. Do not by your signs, your words, or your actions dishonor the dead and give ammunition to the enemies of freedom.

Join us. And when you do, keep in mind where we are, and why we are there.

Our expenses for this are enormous. The staging and video screen for the speakers who will be joining us remotely costs over $12,000 alone. We also have to hire a large number of security guards: our speakers need to be guarded from the proponents of "tolerance" and "multiculturalism." Both of us have received recent, specific death threats from the supporters of the "moderate" Ground Zero mosque. And we need people patrolling through the crowd, ejecting plants and agitators trying to create an incident that the Leftist media can exploit to tar opponents of the mosque as racists and bigots. We need money for posters, fliers, press releases, food and lodging for speakers, and more.

It's a massive undertaking, and we need your help. Our total expenses for this rally could exceed $50,000. Politico is answering Nancy Pelosi's authoritarian, un-American call to investigate opponents of the mosque, and is nosing around our finances -- all they'll discover is that we have no huge donations, and are relying on the support of free Americans to make this rally a reality. Please consider giving $100. If we could find just 500 people who could each give that amount, we would be able to meet most or all of our expenses. If you can't give $100, please give what you can and what you think this cause warrants. Donations to Jihad Watch will be devoted to the mosque rally, and are tax-deductible.

Make your tax-deductible donation here. Supporters from outside the United States can donate through Paypal.

Thank you for your stand for liberty.

But deep down they really, really want peace. "Four killed as terrorists open fire near Kiryat Arba," by Yaakov Katz for the Jerusalem Post, August 31:

Victims, shot while driving, include 2 men, 2 women, one reportedly pregnant; attack comes before Netanyahu and Abbas set to meet in Washington for peace talks.

Four Israelis were killed Tuesday night in a devastating shooting attack in the West Bank believed to have been aimed at torpedoing the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks set to kick off on Wednesday in Washington DC.

The four, from the settlement of Beit Hagai, were driving near the entrance of Kiryat Arba when they came under heavy gunfire. The IDF was investigating two possibilities - that Palestinian terrorists had laid an ambush alongside the road or that the shots were fired from a passing car....

The four were two couples - one aged 25 and the other 40. One of the woman was pregnant. According to eyewitness reports, the terrorists succeeded in hitting the passengers in their initial fire but then approached the car and shot them [sic] occupants at close range....

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

Gaddafi invited Europe to accept Islam yesterday. Now he has asked it to pay the jizya. Will he follow through with the third option as well?

"Gaddafi: Europe will 'turn black' unless EU pays Libya £4bn a year," by Nick Squires in the Telegraph, August 31 (thanks to Lazybuddha):

Col Muammar Gaddafi has warned that Europe runs the risk of turning "black" unless the EU pays Libya at least €5 billion (£4.1 billion) a year to block the arrival of illegal immigrants from Africa.

His remarks, made during a controversial three day visit to Italy, were condemned as "unacceptable blackmail" by Italian MPs, who likened the demand to the protection money that mafia gangs demand from businesses....

Jizya is a much more apt analogy.

A month after the Hamas-linked Islamic supremacist hate group CAIR tried to intimidate the FBI into apologizing for inviting me to speak in Virginia some time ago, Politico noticed the story and asked the FBI about it. The FBI, which is on to CAIR, wouldn't throw the wolves any red meat.

"FBI defends invitation to Islam critic," by Ben Smith at Politico, August 31:

The FBI is defending its invitation to a prominent critic of Islam in America, who is also one of the leaders of the fight to stop a downtown Manhattan mosque and Islamic Center.

The Council on American Islamic Relations complained late last month that Robert Spencer, who runs the Jihad Watch site and is co-founder of Stop the Islamization of America, had spoken to the Tidewater Joint Terrorism Task Force, a combination of state, federal, and local law enforcement centered in Norfolk, Virginia. 

Spencer, along with his confrontational stand toward the New York project, has long been at odds with Muslim leaders for alleging  links between American Muslim leaders and extremism. He has also been a critic of the religion of Islam itself, suggesting that the historical Mohammed, for instance, did not exist, and that the portrayal of him in the Qaran [sic] is of a "con man."

Highly compressed and tendentious. A fictional con man? This is what happens when ideologically biased reporters in a hurry try to summarize positions they don't understand.

"Our nation's law enforcement personnel should not receive training from the head of a hate group that seeks to demonize Islam and to prevent American Muslims from exercising their rights as citizens," said CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, who also noted that Spencer and blogger Pamela Geller recently published a book subtitled, "The Obama Administration's War on America."

But the chief division for the Norfolk FBI field office, Phil Mann, defended the invitation to Spencer.

"We invite speakers who represent a variety of viewpoints and the special agent in charge of the Norfolk office has invited local Muslim leaders to speak to his staff.  That doesn’t mean we enodrse [sic] our [sic] adopt the view of any particular speaker," Mann said. "Broad knowledge is essential for us to better understand and respond to the threats that we face. Knowledge also helps us defeat ignorance and strengthen relationships with the diverse communites that we serve."  [...]

Spencer responded to a question about CAIR's attack with a link to his own press release on the matter, dismissing CAIR as a "hate group" and citing praise of his work from prominent conservatives. 

Smith doesn't tell his readers, of course, that CAIR operatives have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Nor does he mention that CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case. Or that several of its former officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. Or that two of its other officials have made Islamic supremacist statements. Nor does he mention that CAIR also was involved in the Flying Imams' intimidation suit against the passengers who reported their suspicious behavior.

CAIR's attempt to intimidate the FBI and JTTF and dictate their choice of speakers contained numerous false charges, defamation, distortions, and outright lies about me, SIOA, and Pamela Geller.

CAIR has a long record of duplicity and deception. Although it has received millions of dollars in donations from foreign Islamic entities, it has not registered as a foreign agent as required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), despite spreading Islamic supremacist propaganda within the United States.

Although it presents itself as a civil rights group, CAIR actually has numerous links to Islamic supremacist and jihad groups. CAIR founders Omar Ahmad and Niwad Awad (who still serves as CAIR's executive director) were present at a Hamas planning meeting in Philadelphia in 1993 where they and other Hamas operatives conspired to raise funds for Hamas and to promote jihad in the Middle East. CAIR has steadfastly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups.

Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror:

* Ghassan Elashi, founder of CAIR's Texas chapter, in 2009 received a 65-year prison sentence for funneling over $12 million from the Islamic charity known as the Holy Land Foundation to the jihad terrorist group Hamas, which is responsible for murdering hundreds of Israeli civilians
* Mousa Abu Marzook, a former CAIR official, was in 1995 designated by the U.S. government in 1995 as a "terrorist and Hamas leader." He now is a Hamas leader in Syria.
* Randall Royer, CAIR's former civil rights coordinator, in 2004 began serving a 20-year prison sentence for aiding al-Qaida and the Taliban against American troops in Afghanistan and recruiting for Lashkar e-Taiba, the jihadist group responsible for the 2008 Mumbai jihad massacres.
* Bassem Khafagi, CAIR's former community relations director, was arrested for involvement with the Islamic Assembly of North America, which was linked to al-Qaida. After pleading guilty to visa and bank fraud charges, Khafagi was deported.
* Rabih Haddad, a former CAIR fundraiser, was deported for his work with the Global Relief Foundation (which he co-founded), a terror-financing organization.

In 1998 Omar Ahmad, CAIR's co-founder and longtime Board Chairman, said: "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth."

After he received unwelcome publicity as a result of this statement, Ahmad denied saying it, several years after the fact. However, the original reporter, Lisa Gardiner of the Fremont Argus, stands by her story.

CAIR's spokesman Ibrahim Hooper once said: "I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future."

So I asked Smith why he didn't tell his readers any of this. He responded by saying that he already had told his readers about CAIR, just yesterday, in fact -- and directed me to this piece, which, as you'll see, says nothing about CAIR's Hamas ties or anything else, but instead actually touts CAIR, weirdly, as an "alternative" to Hamas. Smith explained in an email to me: "I understand that you're asking me why I didn't restate the entire case against CAIR, and their response, your response to them, and so on, in my blog item. This is a complaint of a form I get five or ten times a day. I write a blog, and mostly take little bites of stories. I was writing a small item about your appearance -- and your prominence around the mosque issue, and your stance toward obama [sic], make that of modest interest to me, and to readers in general I think, beyond the context of CAIR's complaint -- to speak to the FBI. There are a lot of things I don't write every day, and the history and controversies around CAIR were, indeed, among them."

Every day, or any day. Par for the course for the mainstream media.

Compassion. "90-year-old Saudi to get 100 lashes," from Emirates 24/7, August 31 (thanks to Twostellas):

A 90-year-old Saudi man will be lashed 100 times with the whip after he was convicted of smashing the windscreen of a judge's car to retaliate against a previous verdict against him, a local newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The court in the central town of Taif found the old man guilty of damaging the judge's car while he was preaching at a local mosque during open-air Friday prayers, Sahafaonline Arabic language paper said.

The man told court that he had done so in reprisal for an earlier sentence against him by the judge, the paper said. "The court sentenced the man to 100 lashes and seven days in prison," it added.

This is a political statement as much as a religious one, since Islam has and always has had a political character. Another take on this story. "Europe should convert to Islam: Gaddafi," from AFP, August 31:

ROME: Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi's visit to Rome to mark the second anniversary of a friendship treaty with former coloniser Italy stumbled into controversy on Monday after he said Europe should convert to Islam.

Gaddafi made the comments on Sunday during a lecture to a group of 500 young women hired and paid by an agency to attend his lecture.

"Islam should become the religion of all of Europe," one of the women quoted Gaddafi as saying in the Italian press.

The agency paid the women, mainly students who hire themselves out for advertising of publicity events, 70 or 80 euros (90 or 100 dollars) to attend and said it would not pay girls who gave their names to the press.

It also told them to dress conservatively for the lectures.

About 200 women on Monday gathered at the Libyan cultural centre in Rome to attend a second lecture.

One of the women present said that Gaddafi had said at the gathering that "women are more respected in Libya than in the West" and offered assistance in finding Libyan husbands.

"Islam is the last religion and if we are to have a single faith then it has to be in Mohammed," he said, according to the participant....

In Human Events this morning, I explore what might be behind Bloomberg's spurious claim of the moral high ground in the debate over the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero:

[...] And in the spring of 2009, Bloomberg opened a news bureau in Abu Dhabi, joining its existing offices not only in Dubai, but in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. And Bloomberg Chairman and Managing Director Peter T. Grauer announced plans to expand Dubai operations still more: "Central to our growth strategy is the doubling of staff strength in Dubai office, our 10th regional hub, from 48 to 100 people within a year.... We will be investing not just in more people but also in infrastructure to support clients in the region."

Grauer revealed that while Bloomberg was taking a bath worldwide, business was booming in the Middle East: "Despite the difficulties faced by the financial sector in the economic turmoil, our terminal sales in the region grew by 2% in the past nine months, when globally we faced a major setback." Khaleej Times reported that "the New York-based company has drawn up a five-year plan that will see it achieving a two-fold increase in revenue from the Middle East region by 2014."

Imagine how quickly that revenue stream would dry up if Bloomberg sided with the people whom Rauf and other leaders of the Ground Zero mosque initiative are busy smearing as "Islamophobes" and "bigots." When his company is doing poorly worldwide except in the Middle East, it couldn't have been hard for Bloomberg to see on which side his bread was buttered.

Business decisions are business decisions. But if Bloomberg was making a business decision when he came out so strongly in favor of the mega-mosque, he would have been more honest, and admirable, if he had just said so. He might even have retained some respectability if he had simply said that his business commitments in the Middle East made for a conflict of interest, and recused himself from the debate over the Ground Zero mega-mosque. But that conflict of interest does make his moral dudgeon over the mosque opponents appear hollow and hypocritical. It isn't easy to be a saint, and it's even harder when the material rewards for striking a saintly pose are as ample as they are for Saint Bloomberg of Brookline.

There is more.

Said one lawmaker: "If I went to Tripoli to demand that Libyans convert to Christianity, what are the odds that I would return in one piece?"

More on this story. "Italians attack Muammar Gaddafi over Islam comments," by Nick Squires for the Telegraph, August 30:

Italians have reacted with indignation after Muammar Gaddafi lectured 200 young actresses and models on the superiority of Islam, a day after saying that Europeans should all become Muslim.

Silvio Berlusconi's increasingly close relationship with Col Gaddafi is becoming a source of embarrassment for the Italian prime minister, according to opposition MPs and even members of the government.

On Monday, the Libyan leader recruited the women through a modelling agency to join him and Mr Berlusconi, in viewing a photography exhibition at a Rome cultural institute which traced historical links between the two countries.

Telling them that Islam was the "ultimate religion", Gaddafi insisted that "if you want to believe in a single faith then it must be that of Mohammed," according to one of the women who sat through the lecture.

Afterwards the two leaders were due to attend a cavalry school to watch a display of riding involving 30 thoroughbred Berber horses imported specially from Libya, followed by a state dinner.

On Sunday night, during an encounter with 500 young women hired by the same agency, Col Gaddafi handed out copies of the Koran and told them that Europe should convert to Islam.

"If I went to Tripoli to demand that Libyans convert to Christianity, what are the odds that I would return in one piece?" said Rocco Buttiglione, the president of a centre-Right Catholic party, the UDC.

Italy was becoming a "Disneyland"-style theme park for Gaddafi's "senile vanities", said Fare Futuro, a political foundation linked to Gianfranco Fini, a senior government power broker with whom Mr Berlusconi recently had a dramatic falling out.

Rosy Bindi, an MP from the main opposition party, said that the spectacle of hundreds of Italian women being bussed in at Col Gaddafi's whim was a "humiliating violation" of their dignity.

And mighty creepy.

Who's vetting the former inmates for security risks, or jihadist indoctrination while in prison? Or would that also be Islamophobic?

"Muslim extremists plotting to paralyze rail networks during London Olympics," from Asian News International, August 30 (thanks to Twostellas):

London, Aug 30 : Terrorist outfits are plotting a rail mayhem to coincide with the London 2012 Olympics, it has been revealed.

Muslim prisoners are getting calls from terrorist masterminds instructing them to do Trackwork courses so that they use a prison-training scheme to sabotage train networks from the inside, reports the Daily Star.

It has been reported that the jailed extremists are joining NVQ courses run by the training firm Trackwork, which is backed by Network Rail.

They are expected to use their qualification to land jobs maintaining Britain''s railways after their release.

Within a period of six months in 2007, 500 ex-cons started rail jobs and 400 stuck with them.

A 39-year-old inmate, who has been released from Lindholme Prison, claims they see it as a perfect way to infiltrate the system and mount a terror attack.

"Many prisoners have mobile phones. And in the 14 months I was inside I heard six Muslims getting calls from terrorist masterminds instructing them to do Trackwork courses," the paper quoted the inmate as saying.

"I heard the 2012 Olympics talked about. I didn''t hear anything about blowing up trains, but I did hear of plans to halt the network. They thought bringing the network to a standstill would cause more devastation than actually killing people," he added.

The Network Rail said providing jobs to the released inmates was the biggest factor in stopping them re-offending and costing taxpayers billions.

On September 11, 2010, we're going to stand for America.

Don't spit in our face and tell us it's raining. Over seventy percent of Americans oppose the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero. We oppose it because it is an insult, an offense to the memories of those who were killed in the name of Islam at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. We oppose it because it will be understood all over the Islamic world as a victory mosque marking that heinous mass-murder nine years ago. And we oppose it because the mosque leaders have an ever-lengthening record of dishonesty -- dishonesty about their intentions, their funding, their support for jihad terrorism, and more.

We oppose the mega-mosque because we believe in the freedom of speech, which the Ground Zero mosque Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has called for restricting. We stand for the freedom of conscience and the equality of rights of all people before the law, which the Sharia that Rauf defends and propagates would deny to free people.

A giant mosque looking down at the cemetery of Ground Zero from the location of a building that was partially destroyed in the 9/11 Islamic jihad attack on America is wrong. It is indecent. The Burlington Coat Factory building, severely damaged when part of one of the 9/11 planes crashed through its roof, is Ground Zero.

On June 6, we organized a protest against the mega-mosque that was attended by 8,000 to 10,000 people. And now we're inviting you to join us again on September 11 at 3PM, at the corner of Park Place and West Broadway in lower Manhattan. We chose September 11 because reports have indicated that the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and Daisy Khan said that they would break ground on the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks: September 11, 2011.

We will honor the victims and all Americans, and fill Ground Zero with patriots. We will begin with a brief memorial service honoring the victims, and are not starting our rally until the morning memorial services for the victims are concluded.

Our rally will be on September 11 at 3PM in lower Manhattan, at the corner of Park Place and West Broadway.

Speakers will include 9/11 family members, former U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton; Dutch freedom fighter Geert Wilders (LIVE!); journalist Andrew Breitbart (either live or via video stream); NY Senate candidate Gary Berntsen; war hero and NC Congressional candidate Ilario Pantano; actress and activist Susan Olsen (Cindy Brady on TV's Brady Bunch); NY Congressional candidate and 9/11 first responder Michael Grimm; Coptic Christian activist Joseph Nassralla; a spokesman for the ACLJ, and other freedom fighters and proud Americans.

Our expenses for this are enormous. The staging and video screen for the speakers who will be joining us remotely costs over $12,000 alone. We also have to hire a large number of security guards: our speakers need to be guarded from the proponents of "tolerance" and "multiculturalism." Both of us have received recent, specific death threats from the supporters of the "moderate" Ground Zero mosque. And we need people patrolling through the crowd, ejecting plants and agitators trying to create an incident that the Leftist media can exploit to tar opponents of the mosque as racists and bigots. We need money for posters, fliers, press releases, food and lodging for speakers, and more.

It's a massive undertaking, and we need your help. Our total expenses for this rally could exceed $50,000. Politico is answering Nancy Pelosi's authoritarian, un-American call to investigate opponents of the mosque, and is nosing around our finances -- all they'll discover is that we have no huge donations, and are relying on the support of free Americans to make this rally a reality. Please consider giving $100. If we could find just 500 people who could each give that amount, we would be able to meet most or all of our expenses. If you can't give $100, please give what you can and what you think this cause warrants. Donations to Jihad Watch will be devoted to the mosque rally, and are tax-deductible.

Make your tax-deductible donation here.

Thank you for your stand for liberty.

Yours in defense of freedom,
Pamela Geller
Robert Spencer

A very revealing AP puff piece on the horrors that "moderate" Muslims are supposedly experiencing in America today. "NYC mosque debate will shape American Islam," by Rachel Zoll for AP, August 29 (thanks to all who sent this in):

NEW YORK - Adnan Zulfiqar, a graduate student, former U.S. Senate aide and American-born son of Pakistani immigrants, will soon give the first khutbah, or sermon, of the fall semester at the University of Pennsylvania. His topic has presented itself in the daily headlines and blog posts over the disputed mosque near ground zero.

What else could he choose, he says, after a summer remembered not for its reasoned debate, but for epithets, smears, even violence?

And whose fault is that, exactly? Mosque supporters have consistently smeared mosque opponents as racists, bigots, hatemongers, "Islamophobes" -- the usual array of charges levied at those who are leading the fight to raise awareness of the jihad and Islamic supremacism, but it was a new thing to see these charges levied promiscuously at the 70% of Americans who oppose the mosque.

As he writes, Zulfiqar frets over the potential fallout and what he and other Muslim leaders can do about it. Will young Muslims conclude they are second-class citizens in the U.S. now and always?

No one, of course, is saying the Muslims are or should be second-class citizens in the U.S. We have raised legitimate questions about the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf's support for Sharia and Hamas, and about the symbolism of the Ground Zero mosque as a triumphal mosque. None of this has anything to do with Muslims being second-class citizens. It is simply asking that they accord to non-Muslims the consideration and respect that they demand for themselves. It is asking that they not engage in activity that amounts to sedition, in working to replace the Constitution with a system of laws that would deny basic liberties, and asking law enforcement and government authorities to be cognizant of the nature of Sharia and how it is at variance with those liberties.

"They're already struggling to balance, `I'm American, I'm Muslim,' and their ethnic heritage. It's very disconcerting," said Zulfiqar, 32, who worked for former U.S. Sen. Max Cleland, a Georgia Democrat, and now serves Penn's campus ministry. "A controversy like this can make them radical or become more conservative in how they look at things or how they fit into the American picture."...

Threat noted. But why would it do that? Islamic supremacists and Leftists know: no matter how much they lie about the words, deeds, and positions on various questions of mosque opponents, and no matter how much they defame and smear them, those who oppose the mosque are never, never going to strap bombs on themselves and blow themselves up at the next hand-wringing meeting about "Islamophobia." In other words, some people, no matter how hard you push them, never become "radicalized." Why is it that adherents of the Religion of Peace who supposedly reject the version of Islam of Al-Qaeda and its ilk as a twisting and hijacking of their peaceful religion might nevertheless adopt that version of Islam as their own if they believe that some people are being mean to them?

Eboo Patel, an American Muslim leader and founder of Interfaith Youth Core, a Chicago nonprofit that promotes community service and religious pluralism, said Muslims are unfortunately experiencing what all immigrant groups endured in the U.S. before they were fully accepted as American. Brandeis University historian Jonathan D. Sarna has noted that Jews faced a similar backlash into the 1800s when they tried to build synagogues, which were once banned in New York....

Yes, yes, of course. You may recall from the histories of those days that Jews in New York loudly proclaimed that they were there to take over, and numerous Jews in New York engaged in terror plotting. You remember the Fort Hood jihad shooting, the Arkansas recruiting center jihad shooting, the Christmas underwear bomb jihad attempt, the Times Square jihad car bomb attempt, the Fort Dix jihad plot, the North Carolina jihad plot, the Seattle jihad shooting, the JFK Airport jihad plot, and on and on. No, wait! Those weren't plots by 19th-century Jews in New York, but by 21st-century Muslims all over the U.S.! My mistake!

And no, the point is not that all Muslims in America are responsible for these and other jihad plots. The point is that when the Ground Zero imam and so many other Muslim leaders support Sharia, refuse to condemn Hamas and/or other jihad terror groups, and are manifestly dishonest, it makes the demand that Americans assume that they are different from the Muslims who were responsible for those jihad plots seem like sheer bullying, and a refusal to engage the legitimate concerns that people have about Sharia and the intentions of the Ground Zero mosque organizers.

Patel believes American Muslims are on the same difficult but inevitable path toward integration.

"I'm not saying this is going to be happy," Patel said. "But I'm extremely optimistic."

Yet, the overwhelming feeling is that the controversy has caused widespread damage that will linger for years.

No, all the jihad terror, all the supremacist declarations, all the lies and all the smears have caused widespread damage that will linger for years. And the Muslim advocacy groups behind the lies and smears, such as CAIR, just don't care about that damage -- because they can turn around after causing it and exploit any resulting "backlash" to reinforce their claim to privileged victim status.

American Muslim leaders say the furor has emboldened opposition groups to resist new mosques around the country, at a time when there aren't enough mosques or Islamic schools to serve the community....

Actually there are large mosques being built all over, for Muslim communities that have neither the numbers nor the money to sustain them. And that, too, raises questions that if you dare to ask, you're accused of "Islamophobia."

U.S. Muslims who have championed democracy and religious tolerance question what they've accomplished. If the "extremist" label can be hung on someone as apparently liberal as the imam at the center of the outcry, Feisal Abdul Rauf, then any Muslim could come under attack. Feisal supports women's rights, human rights and interfaith outreach.

Oh, and Hamas.

"The joke is on moderate Muslims," said Muqtedar Khan, a University of Delaware political scientist and author of "American Muslims, Bridging Faith and Freedom." "What's the point if you're going to be treated the same way as a radical? If I get into trouble are they going to treat me like I'm a supporter of al-Qaeda?"...

What's the point? Did he really ask that? How about this for a point: Muslims should not support Al-Qaeda because of human decency. Because of respect for human life. Because of the importance of human rights. Because the "radicals" are perpetrating great evil, murdering innocent people and working for the subjugation of women and non-Muslims, and the extinguishing of the freedom of speech and the freedom of conscience. And apparently all that is just fine with Muqtedar Khan, if you make him angry.

That's "moderation"?

Last Wednesday evening I debated Daveed Gartenstein-Ross of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies on Crane Durham's Nothing But Truth show. The debate topic was "Is Islam a religion of peace," and the debate centered upon the nature and existence of moderate Islam.

You can find a podcast of the debate here. It was a civil debate, albeit characterized by some sharp disagreements, and I note its civility with surprise and gratitude to Daveed and Crane.

I say that the civility came as a surprise to me because I'm so used to the Leftist/Islamic supremacist tactic of demonizing their opposition. Just the previous night, at an event in Washington, D.C., where Pamela Geller and I discussed our book The Post-American Presidency, during the question-and-answer period a man angrily demanded to know why I was lying about Islam, and persistently tried to shout me down as I explained, with copious specific references to the Qur'an and Hadith, as well as to numerous Islamic scholars, that I wasn't lying at all.

This is what they do -- and the recent and relentless media campaign against both Pamela and me is an example of it. There is no more discussion, no more give-and-take of ideas -- instead, Leftists and Islamic supremacists resort time and time again to their time-tested weapons of defamation, ridicule, and libel. It only manifests their utter intellectual bankruptcy, and if they think they're going to intimidate me into stopping what I'm doing (since they know that their demonization could inspire their more bloody-minded coreligionists to action), they're in for a surprise. However, they should be on notice: I am not going to give sanction in any way to their lies and smears. The truth will continue to come out here, as long as I am breathing.

And yet in a fine Orwellian twist, only opponents of people like Cromitie, a convert to and Misunderstander of the Religion of Peace, are called "hatemongers" and "bigots." Of course, they will say that it is because we tar all Muslims with the crimes of people like Cromitie, and pretend that they are all just like him. But of course this is a false charge. What they want to divert attention away from is the fact that people like Cromitie are motivated in their Jew-hatred by passages of the Qur'an such as the one that says that Jews are the worst enemies of the Muslims (5:82). They don't want you to know the roots within Islamic texts and teachings of jihad violence and Islamic supremacism, and so they claim that those who call attention to those roots are motivated by hatred and bigotry, and hope that the ignorant will believe that the roots of that violence and supremacism are elsewhere -- specifically in the sins of the West -- and that only "hatemongers" say otherwise.

"Plot suspect 'hated Jews,'" by Bruce Golding for the New York Post, August 28 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

The alleged ringleader in a plot to blow up two Riverdale synagogues "hated Jews and Jewish people," a government informant testified today.

Muslim convert James Cromitie also "hated the American soldiers and the American government," Shahed Hussain said.

"He was full of hate against those subjects," the Pakistani immigrant said in Manhattan federal court....

Gratitude. "Norway 'bomb plot' underscores al-Qaida pitfalls," by Ian Macdougall for Associated Press, August 29 (thanks to all who sent this in):

OSLO, Norway - When police arrested a suspected al-Qaida cell in Norway last month they turned up the makings of a bomb lab tucked away in a nondescript Oslo apartment building.

An Associated Press investigation shows that authorities learned early on about the alleged cell by intercepting e-mails from an al-Qaida operative in Pakistan and -- thanks to those early warnings -- were able to secretly replace a key bomb-making ingredient with a harmless liquid when one of the suspects ordered it at an Oslo pharmacy.

Officials say the suspected plot against this quiet Nordic country was one of three planned attacks on the West hatched in the rugged mountains of northwest Pakistan by some of al-Qaida's most senior leaders. The other plots targeted the bustling New York subway and a shopping mall in Manchester, England....

The Norwegian plot's undoing, and that of its sibling plots in the U.S. and Britain, casts light on the potential pitfalls of al-Qaida's changing tactics in the decade since the massive, highly organized Sept. 11 attacks. In recent years, al-Qaida has grown increasingly decentralized and nimble, relying on amateurs to recruit local cells and carry out smaller-level attacks without extensive planning and hands-on training.

While such plots are harder to detect, they are also harder to manage -- and the slack remote control they often require leaves greater room for operational error and sloppy tradecraft.

All three plots were thwarted after suspected operatives exchanged e-mails -- sometimes poorly coded ones -- in and out of Pakistan.

Authorities say the ringleader of the Norwegian plot is 39-year-old Mikael Davud, an Uighur who came to Norway in 1999 as part of a U.N. refugee program and then became a Norwegian citizen eight years later. Uighurs, a largely Muslim ethnic group in China, claim oppression at the hands of authorities there.

Davud was arrested July 8 along with suspected accomplices Shawan Sadek Saeed Bujak Bujak, a 37-year-old Iraqi Kurd, and a 31-year-old Uzbek national, David Jakobsen. Both are permanent residents of Norway.

The trio denies any connection to terrorist groups....

Fiction? We'll see

As the stealth jihad becomes more obvious, my 2008 book Stealth Jihad is starting to look prescient to many who dismissed this threat at the time the book came out. And Newsweek, which famously called for surrender to the jihad back in March 2009, can't have that. "The Misinformants: What 'stealth jihad' doesn't mean," by Lisa Miller for Newsweek, August 28:

Here is the latest semantic assault from the party that brought you "Islamo-facism" (circa 2005) and "Axis of Evil" (2002). The term "stealth jihad" is suddenly voguish among politically ambitious right wingers who see President Obama's approach to terrorism as insufficient. If it sounds like a phrase from a military-fantasy summer blockbuster, that's on purpose: in its cartoonish bad-guy foreignness, "stealth jihad" attempts to make the terrorist threat broader and thus more nefarious than it already is. The only thing scarier than an invisible, homicidal, suicidal enemy with a taste for world domination is one who's sneaking up on you. In the words of former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich at a July speech at the American Enterprise Institute, "stealth jihad" is an effort "to replace Western civilization with a radical imposition of Sharia."

The term wasn't Gingrich's invention. It's the title of a two-year-old book by Robert Spencer, whose hyperventilating antiterror blog, Jihad Watch, is cited and circulated widely on the far right.

"Hyperventilating" is good. You see, folks, there isn't really any threat. There really isn't any stealth jihad, or jihad at all. Those who think that there is are just hyperventilating. Of course, among the hyperventilators who imagine an aspiration and effort among Muslims in America to subvert Constitutional freedoms and impose elements of Sharia are these:

"We reject the U.N., reject America, reject all law and order. Don't lobby Congress or protest because we don't recognize Congress. The only relationship you should have with America is to topple it. . . . Eventually there will be a Muslim in the White House dictating the laws of Shariah." -- Muhammad Faheed, Muslim Students Association meeting, Queensborough Community College, 2003

"Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth." -- CAIR cofounder and longtime Board chairman Omar Ahmad, 1998 (denial noted and full story explained at link)

"I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future." -- CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper, 1993

"If only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate." -- prominent American Muslim leader Siraj Wahhaj, 2002

But the recent vicious debate over the proposed community center and mosque near Ground Zero gives Gingrich an excuse to use "stealth jihad" and its variants frequently--not just at the AEI but in an interview with this magazine. (In an essay on the conservative Web site Human Events, he referred instead to "creeping sharia.") Gingrich's like-minded peers have seized on the language, too. "Muslim Brotherhood operatives, like [Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the center's founder and leader] are extremely skilled at obscuring ... their true agenda," said Frank Gaffney, founder of the Center for Security Policy, on FOX's Glenn Beck show. "It's part of the stealth jihad."

Words matter, and if you say them often enough and with enough authority, they start to sound true--even if they're not. Abdul Rauf, for instance, has no affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood and is an "operative" (another nefarious word) only in the sense that running a small, progressive interfaith nonprofit is an "operation."

Actually, on the copyright page of Rauf's book What's Right with Islam, it declares: "This edition was made possible through a joint effort of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) and the office of Interfaith and Community Alliance of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Funding for this project was provided by IIIT." Both IIIT and ISNA are known to be Muslim Brotherhood groups. ISNA is an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation jihad terror funding case involving Hamas, which describes itself as the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine. And Rauf also refuses to denounce Hamas. So maybe he has no affiliation with the Brotherhood, but he hasn't shunned links with it, either.

As for his "stealth jihad," it's virtually impossible to imagine how such an event would--logistically--occur. Would the construction of an Islamic prayer site near Ground Zero inevitably lead American women to wake up one morning and find themselves veiled and confined to their homes? "The term is ever-so-slightly goofy," says Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguist at the University of California, Berkeley. The paranoia conveyed by "stealth jihad" brings to mind the anticommunist campaigns of Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, Nunberg adds. Just as McCarthyites imagined a communist behind every lamppost, the word "stealth" conflates all Muslims with terrorists. In a stealth campaign you never know who your friends are.

Also, simply put, foreign words freak people out. "Jihad" and "Sharia" reinforce the sense among Americans that Muslims in general have an unfathomable world view. During World War II, formerly obscure words like "hara-kiri" and "kamikaze," which suggested the "warlike ferocity" of the Japanese, became common parlance, Nunberg says. "There was this sense of being confronted with this hostile, alien culture." The Japanese were "literally demonized," he says....

Actually, there is nothing unfathomable about Sharia, or about the imperative to introduce elements of Sharia into American life. And unless and until Muslim groups in America renounce all aspects of Sharia that are at variance with Constitutional principles and freedoms, and do so in deed, not just in word, then to be concerned that they might be acting to bring Sharia here -- when that's exactly what they say they're doing -- is not paranoia or demonization. It is a concern for and defense of the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, equality of rights for women, and other things that Newsweek just might miss once they're gone.

You remember all those Jewish and Catholic terror attacks. "New York imam: Politics behind mosque opposition," by Brian Murphy for Associated Press, August 29 (thanks to all who sent this in):

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- The imam spearheading a proposed Islamic center near the site of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York believes the fierce opposition is closely linked to the U.S. elections in November, according to comments published Monday.

"There is no doubt that the election season has had a major impact upon the nature of the discourse," Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf was quoted by the Abu Dhabi-based newspaper The National in an interview as part of his State Department-funded trip in the Gulf....

Some Republicans running for midterm elections around the United States have used the project as a campaign issue after national conservatives Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin announced their opposition. Kevin Calvey, a Republican running for Congress in Oklahoma, said the Muslim leaders associated with the mosque "are clearly terrorist sympathizers."...

AP doesn't mention, of course, that Rauf has refused to denounce Hamas.

Rauf compared the current struggles facing American Muslims to past religious-based prejudices and attacks against other groups, including Jews and Roman Catholic immigrants.

"And this is why it is important, the issue of radicalism is a threat to all of us," he was quoted as saying. "We have radicals in the Muslim world and we have radicals in the other faith traditions as well."

He said extremists from all faiths "feed off each other and need each other to sustain themselves."

"So we need right now to combat the radical voices. That's the only way we can win this struggle, and establish a peaceful world order, which is what everybody wants and everybody needs," he told the newspaper....

A follow-up to this video (thanks to all who sent this in).

American listeners might take issue with the comments about the First Amendment at 0:37. After all, we know who the dhimmis and useful idiots are because they keep talking, and are free to keep digging a deeper hole for their own credibility. What is most important is that we also remain free to continue calling them out on it. As ever, though, Condell's commentary is passionate, articulate, wide-ranging, and hard-hitting.

Shockingly, Silent Sharif isn't talking about this, either.

More on this story, in which Gamal lost his cool when the imam interviewed below invited the press to a mosque fundraiser. That imam grasps the fact that it's bad for business; is Gamal in too far over his head to care anymore? "Visiting Imam Advises Mosque Developer to Speak," by Linda Schmidt for MyFoxNewYork, August 29 (thanks to D.C. Watson):

MYFOXNY.COM - The imam who presided over a prayer service at the location of a planned Islamic center near Ground Zero says it is not in anyone's best interest for developer Sharif el-Gamal to keep quiet about the project.

Imam Abdallah Adhami says he advised el-Gamal to talk to reporters and to be open about the mosque project and its funding. So far, el-Gamal continues to refuse.

Originally, reporters were invited to attend a prayer service at the Park51 site Friday by the visiting imam. But el-Gamal denied access.

He has hired a pubic [sic] relations adviser, Lawrence Kopp, to do his talking for him, but Kopp isn't talking either -- at least for now. On Friday, Kopp declined an interview with Fox 5.

Meanwhile, el-Gamal released a statement saying "Americans should know that all funding for Park51 will be rigorously vetted by government agencies such as the U.S. Treasury Department."

He is getting support from hip hop mogul Russell Simmons, who has said the mosque should be built. His apartment directly overlooks Ground Zero and artwork in his windows stands for "We Should Co-Exist."

It's probably safe to assume Russell Simmons knows nothing about Sharia, and how it structures "co-existence" between Muslims and non-Muslims.

As for el-Gamal's other real estate holdings, the Buildings Department says an apartment building in Washington Heights has 13 violations and that he owes $21,000 in fines.

The imam also said that el-Gamal raised $10,000 in 15 minutes during Friday's prayer service.

...Again. Once was bizarre enough, but then again, the man is a qualified authority on bizarre behavior. "Gadhafi gives lesson on Islam to young Italians," by Nicole Winfield for the Associated Press, August 29 (thanks to all who sent this in):

ROME -- Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi gave a lesson on Islam and copies of the Quran to a few hundred young Italian women Sunday as he arrived in Rome for his fourth visit in a year.

It was the second time the Libyan leader -- who travels with female bodyguards and fancies himself a self-styled feminist -- had staged such an event for Italian women, who were recruited by a modeling agency and paid an undisclosed sum to attend.

Hope he didn't try to lecture on hairstyling. Anyway, what kind of modeling agency organizes this sort of thing?

Michela, who asked that her last name not be used, told Associated Press Television News that three of the participants converted to Islam on the spot.

Incredibly naïve, or the Gadhafian equivalent to "random" infomercial audience members?

"It was a really beautiful meeting and went very well," she said. "He is very easygoing and he gave us a copy of the Quran. Three girls converted themselves to Islam during the ceremony. It was a beautiful event."

Other participants, though, identifying themselves as Roman Catholics in this overwhelmingly Catholic country, said Gadhafi had urged others to convert and had dismissed Christianity as unimportant.

Last time, he told them: "Convert to Islam. Jesus was sent to the Jews, not for you. Mohammed, on the other hand, was sent for all human beings."

Never you mind that bit about "Go and make disciples of all nations" (Mt. 28:19). Gadhafi doesn't seem to think that's important.

Between 200 and 500 young women attended, arriving 10 buses at the Libyan ambassador's residence just as Gadhafi's plane was landing at Rome's Ciampino airport at the start of a two-day visit.

The visit, amid steadily improving business ties between Libya and its former colonial ruler, also marks the second anniversary of a friendship treaty in which Italy agreed to pay Libya $5 billion as compensation for its 30-year occupation, which ended in 1943.

Remember, this group could qualify for taxpayer-supported public financing. Looks like they need to pony up a little taxpayer support of their own.

Still more on this story. "Mosque big owes 224G tax," by Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein for the New York Post, August 29 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The mosque developers are tax deadbeats.

Sharif El-Gamal, the leading organizer behind the mosque and community center near Ground Zero, owes $224,270.77 in back property tax on the site, city records show.

El-Gamal's company, 45 Park Place Partners, failed to pay its half-yearly bills in January and July, according to the city Finance Department.

The delinquency is a possible violation of El-Gamal's lease with Con Edison, which owns half of the proposed building site on Park Place. El-Gamal owns the other half but must pay taxes on the entire parcel.

The lease agreement, obtained by The Post, specifies that El-Gamal's company pay taxes on the property and submit receipts to Con Ed.

The utility said it would have to review any possible lease violations.

The late taxes are the latest wrinkle in the controversial plan to put the 15-story mosque near the World Trade Center site.

Before any building can go forward, the developers also must get approval from the MTA because the 2 and 3 subway lines run under a portion of the Park Place property, The Post has learned.

El-Gamal's spokesperson insisted to The Post that the taxes had been paid and that the "subway lines do not pose a problem."

El-Gamal plans to tear down the two buildings on the Park Place site, which housed a Burlington Coat Factory store but have been empty since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when one was damaged.

The Post revealed this month that El-Gamal owned only half the site. Gamal purchased the lease to the Con Ed property for $700,000 last year when he bought the other building on the site for $4.8 million.

He has told Con Ed he wants to buy the building at 49-51 Park Place, which Con Ed is appraising to determine fair market value.

El-Gamal insisted to The Post that the lease permitted him to demolish the property at any time.

But the lease agreement says El-Gamal must provide Con Ed with a copy of a financing commitment or other proof that money is available to "cover the estimated cost of demolition of the building and construction of the new building."

The thuggish, in-your-face aspect of the desire to build a mosque at Ground Zero has by now been amply documented: belying their claims to be building it only to affect reconciliation and peace, mosque leaders have smeared all opponents of the mosque as racists and bigots and refused all entreaties to put their mosque elsewhere.

And the thuggishness goes way back, apparently. The waiter-turned-millionaire developer (a transformation not yet satisfactorily explained) Sharif El-Gamal has said that "when you beat up someone physically you get exercise & stress relief," and it appears he spoke from experience. And the questions about his finances grow more urgent.

More on this story. "Park51 developer Sharif El-Gamal has a history of run-ins with the law," by James Fanelli in the New York Daily News, August 28 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

Years before his latest real-estate project ignited an uproar, Sharif El-Gamal racked up at least seven run-ins with the law, including a bust for patronizing a prostitute. "I regret many things that I did in my youth. I have not always led a perfect life," El-Gamal, 37, said in a statement to the Daily News.

His most recent arrest was for a Sept. 10, 2005, assault on a barber who sublet a Manhattan apartment from El-Gamal's brother, Sammy.

The brothers and another man went to the apartment that afternoon to retrieve back rent from Mark Vassiliev, criminal and civil court records show.

El-Gamal allegedly cursed at Vassiliev, called him the Arabic curse word "sharmouta" and punched him in the face, breaking his nose and cheekbones.

When he was arrested, El-Gamal denied he socked Vassiliev, but conceded, "[Vassiliev's] face could have run into my hand," court papers say.

"I am in real estate. I'm rich. Why would I do this? Why would I jeopardize my career? I'm not a thug," he told cops.

Really?

He was charged with misdemeanor assault and harassment. Charges were dropped in 2007 after Vassiliev sued.

El-Gamal eventually settled the civil case for $15,000 - and the 2008 negotiations provided a glimpse into his finances.

Vassiliev's lawyer, Erik L. Gray, said there was no indication El-Gamal had assets beyond a $1.1 million upper West Side pad he owned with his wife.

Even after El-Gamal inked the deal, he was slow to pay and the matter ended up in mediation - where his lawyer, Marshall Isaacs, told Gray there were money problems.

"He had told me [El-Gamal] was struggling financially and was having trouble coming up with the payment," Gray said. "It was based on the fact that he was in real estate and the real estate market was depressed."

El-Gamal agreed to fork over $1,360 in interest and fees but paid up in installments, Gray said.

If his 2008 cries of poverty were genuine, El-Gamal experienced a dramatic reversal of fortune a year later, scoring a $39 million mortgage to buy a W. 27th St. commercial building.

He had a partner, Egyptian-born businessman Hisham Elzanaty, who co-signed the loan. Elzanaty denied to discuss his dealings with El-Gamal.

In a deposition for the Vassiliev suit, El-Gamal testified he worked as a waiter from 1997 to 2001 when he "moved onto greener pastures."

In 2002, he became a commercial real estate broker and started his own company, Soho Properties, a year later.

El-Gamal began amassing a property portfolio in 2007, snatching up and managing apartment buildings in Harlem and Washington Heights.

He bought the property where he plans to build a $100 million Islamic cultural center, two blocks from Ground Zero, for nearly $5 million in July 2009.

The son of a bank executive, El-Gamal has said he turned to Islam after 9/11 and that his religious awakening followed a troubled youth.

He pleaded guilty in 1994, 1998 and 1999 to disorderly conduct in Manhattan....

The thug who lost his cool yesterday, snapping at the press and acting as if he had something to hide, apparently has a lot to hide.

Why would the Ground Zero mosque proponents employ what is, by all appearances, the worst possible man to conduct a supposedly open and transparent fundraising process? Obviously, it should call their sincerity into question. "No Answers from Developer of Mosque Near Ground Zero," by Charles Leaf for Fox NewYork, August 25:

MYFOXNY.COM - While Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf has dominated headlines about the proposed cultural center and mosque near Ground Zero in lower Manhattan, developer Sharif el-Gamal, 37, is actually the central figure behind the project.

Yet just a few years ago, el-Gamal was waiting tables in some fancy Manhattan restaurants.

Naturally, we wanted to talk to Sharif el-Gamal to learn more about the man and his plans, but apparently he didn't want to meet us. We made repeated requests for a sit down interview with him, left him multiple voice mail messages and he never returned any of our calls. We even went to his office and talked to colleagues, but we were turned away. He left us with no choice: We had to go find him.

El-Gamal is an American Muslim reportedly born to a Polish mother and an Egyptian father. He was raised in Brooklyn.

Today, el-Gamal's company, Soho Properties, owns the building where arguably the most controversial mosque in the world will be built. He bought the old Burlington Coat Factory building at 45 Park Place, two blocks from the World Trade Center site, for $4.8 million in cash in 2009.

We asked him where he got the money to put down on the property, but he stayed silent when we approached him.

His newfound notoriety was an extraordinary leap from his not-too-distant days as a waiter at Serafina, a trendy Upper East Side eatery, and at Michael's, an upscale celebrity-filled restaurant packed with a veritable who's who in media.

El-Gamal's former restaurant bosses and co-workers told Fox 5 that the young and opportunistic el-Gamal thrived on the buzz from bumping elbows with marquee names and relished the opportunity to schmooze the high dollar clientele.

"Customers would come in and ask for him, he had his regulars," said Cosmo Sammarone, a Serafina waiter.

El-Gamal left Serafina in 2002 and started selling real estate. But in just a year, he went from broker to business owner and launched his own real estate company, Soho Properties, in 2003. Records show he is the president and chief executive officer.

A long-time associate of his says el-Gamal isn't quite who he seems to be. The associate asked Fox 5 to protect his identity because he fears retribution.

"I was pretty much in shock when I saw him on the news as the developer," the associate said. "What I can say about Sharif is nothing good.

He said el-Gamal liked living in the fast lane, meeting celebrities in the restaurants were he worked, and partying with them at nightclubs.

"Very persuasive, master manipulator," he said of el-Gamal.

Today, el-Gamal's holdings included at least four buildings in Manhattan, including the site near Ground Zero, one in Chelsea, and two residential buildings in Washington Heights, where tenants seem to like him.

Records show el-Gamal bought the Washington Heights properties in 2007 for a little less than $3 million each.

Ken Brandman, president of N.Y. Commercial Real Estate Services, knows el-Gamal well. He, too, was a bit surprised to hear el-Gamal is the developer in the mosque near Ground Zero.

"I don't think he has a lot of money," Brandman said. "I'm sure he didn't buy it with his own money."

Soho Properties bought the site for the mosque for $4.8 million in cash. Just four months later, with Manhattan's real estate market collapsed, el-Gamal made an even bigger deal.

With credit super tight, and prices plummeting, he paid $45 million for a 12-story commercial building in Chelsea that sold three years earlier for $31 million.

"It seems like a lot of pay in a downturn, considering it went for considerably less during the boom," said Stuart Elliott, the editor of Real Deal magazine.

El-Gamal, the waiter turned mogul, plunked down another $5 million as down payment on the Chelsea building.

"Something's up with that deal," Ken Brandman said. "Unless someone gave him a lot of money, or he won the lottery, than somebody else put up the money."

Fox 5 News has learned that el-Gamal did have help from a man named Hisham Elzanaty. Mortgage documents show that Elzanaty is the guarantor on the $39 million loan el-Gamal's company secured to buy the building....

This is why they have to fabricate them. Remember: the thuggish Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has actually trumpeted fake anti-Muslim hate crimes in the past, in order to use them to score political points. They did this again just weeks ago in Georgia.

CAIR, an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas funding case, has claimed that "anti-Muslim hate crimes" have risen sharply in the U.S. since 9/11. In fact, the rate of such crimes has actually dropped. CAIR knows well that victimhood is big business: insofar as they can claim protected victim status for Muslims in the U.S., they can deflect unwanted scrutiny and any critical examination of how jihadists use Islamic texts and teachings to justify violence and supremacism.

That's most likely why CAIR and others have not hesitated to stoop even to fabricating "hate crimes." They want and need hate crimes against Muslims, because they can use them as weapons to intimidate people into remaining silent about the jihad threat.

"FBI data: Hate crimes against Muslims rare," by Michael Doyle in the Sacramento Bee, August 28 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

WASHINGTON -- Hate crimes directed against Muslims remain relatively rare, notwithstanding the notoriety gained by incidents such as recent vandalism at the Madera Islamic Center.

Jews, lesbians, gay men and Caucasians, among others, are all more frequently the target of hate crimes, FBI records show. Reported anti-Muslim crimes have declined over recent years, though they still exceed what occurred prior to the 9-11 terrorist attacks.

"We see hate crimes generally go in spurts, and are often in relation to international or domestic events," Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Friday.

In 2008, 105 hate crime incidents against Muslims were reported nationwide. There were 10 times as many incidents that were recorded as anti-Jewish during the same year, the most recent for which figures are available....

And El-Gamal loses his cool, which seems to happen an awful lot, in a pattern going back many years.

Gamal was apparently caught off-guard here, and clearly acted as though he had something to hide. "Mosque Meeting in Disarray," by Sumathi Reddy for the Wall Street Journal, August 28 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The developer of the proposed mosque and cultural center near Ground Zero began fund raising for the controversial project Friday, collecting $10,000 in pledges following a well-attended prayer service at the downtown site.

"We've established a not-for-profit entity as of this week and as of now we are able to start fund raising and start collecting money on behalf of the project," said Sharif El-Gamal, head of SoHo Properties, following Friday's service.

The abrupt fund-raising effort followed religious services Friday and came at the end of a muddled event that drew a media mob, police officers and sign-wielding protesters and supporters to the site.

Mr. El-Gamal pleaded with the worshipers leaving the Park51 center for funds for the $100 million project. "Who's going to be the first person that's going to pledge 5,000 dollars? Don't be shy," he intoned. Invoking Muslims' holy fasting month of Ramadan, he added, "This is the month of giving."

As hands went up, he continued, sprinkling in Arabic phrases in his pleas. "We have real-estate taxes, we have electricity, we have inspections," he said. "We haven't even bought this building yet. We need everybody's help in what we're trying to do."

Mr. El-Gamal also urged members to volunteer their time if they couldn't offer money, saying different advisory committees would be announced on the website in coming days.

"I know nobody's going out to lunch after this so we can talk about it," he said. "Let's talk about it until we get 10,000 dollars." Within five minutes, he had raised $10,000 in promised funds. It was unclear if or when he was collecting the money. He advised everyone leaving the service to not talk to any media.

Oz Sultan, who handles media relations for Park51, said the center's fund-raising strategy would be developed within 45 to 60 days.

Imam Abdallah Adhami, a religious legal adviser and founder of the Sakeenah Foundation, was invited to preside over Friday's services at Park51. Representatives for Mr. Adhami had invited the press to attend the service. But Mr. El-Gamal and a representative for Mr. Adhami openly clashed as Mr. El-Gamal said he didn't want the media there.

There's a spectacular start to transparent fundraising.

"She does not work here," the developer told security officers at the mosque, referring to Mr. Adhami's representative.

"We feel betrayed about what's happened here," a news anchor said to Mr. El-Gamal.

"We feel very betrayed about what's happening in the press," he snapped back.

In a statement, Park51 apologized for the confusion at Friday's prayer service, saying the group normally allows visiting imams to invite one or two media members but that an outside consultant for Mr. Adhami had sent the invitation to a larger group.

Mr. Adhami said he consulted with Mr. El-Gamal last week and that this was his first visit to the mosque. "There's a serious disconnect among the various people involved," he said. "That's clear to anybody."

Mr. Adhami also indicated that fund raising after a religious service didn't appear appropriate to him. "It's not very dignified," he said.

Where Park51 will get the funds to construct a mosque and massive community center has become an issued raised by some elected officials.

Park51's partner, the Cordoba Initiative, has said that they haven't yet raised any money for the center but wouldn't rule out accepting foreign funds. The organizers have also insisted that they won't accept money from anyone with anti-American views or agendas and would be careful about which donations they can accept.

No worries: they say they'll be careful!

As if you didn't already know you have a personal stake in the outcome of this project. Imagine, as a New York taxpayer, a piece of your daily labor being appropriated to enable its construction.

When developers get a break that's made possible with public money -- say, for a football stadium -- there is rightful scrutiny of the merits of the project, and no one is branded a football-phobe. When a developer goes into a neighborhood, acting aggressively and without regard to the concerns of residents, part of the population affected by developer's plans will often organize to challenge it. And no one gets called a developer-phobe. In these regards, the project has gotten a free pass in some circles because it is a mosque.

It should not get a pass on public money. "Ground Zero Muslim center may get public financing," from Reuters, August 28 (thanks to all who sent this in):

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Muslim center planned near the site of the World Trade Center attack could qualify for tax-free financing, a spokesman for City Comptroller John Liu said on Friday, and Liu is willing to consider approving the public subsidy.

It's not near Ground Zero. It was struck in the attack, by part of an instrument of the attack -- a hijacked plane. If this site had nothing to do with Ground Zero, why would Rauf & Co. be so hell-bent on planting a flag in it?

Of course, we know that's exactly the reason. And as Frank Gaffney pointed out, even Rauf had called it the "Ground Zero mosque."

The Democratic comptroller's spokesman, Scott Sieber, said Liu supported the project. The center has sparked an intense debate over U.S. religious freedoms and the sanctity of the Trade Center site, where nearly 3,000 perished in the September 11, 2001 attack.

"If it turns out to be financially feasible and if they can demonstrate an ability to pay off the bonds and comply with the laws concerning tax-exempt financing, we'd certainly consider it," Sieber told Reuters.

Spokesmen for Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Governor David Paterson and the Islamic center and were not immediately available.

The proposed center, two blocks from the Trade Center site in lower Manhattan, has caused a split between people who lost relatives and friends in the attack, as well as conservative politicians, and those who support the project. Among those who support it are the mayor, civic and religious groups, and some families of victims.

The mosque's backers hope to raise a total of $70 million in tax-exempt debt to build the center, according to the New York Times. Tax laws allow such funding for religiously affiliated non-profits if they can prove the facility will benefit the general public and their religious activities are funded separately.

The bonds could be issued through a local development corporation created for this purpose, experts said.

The Islamic center would have to repay the bonds, which likely would be less expensive than taxable debt.

New York City's Industrial Development Authority could not issue debt for the center because the state civic facilities law, which governed this type of financing for non-profits, was allowed to expire about two years ago.

Quoth Muhammad: "War is deceit." "Insurgents attack 2 bases in east Afghanistan," by Rahim Faiez for the Associated Press, August 28:

KABUL, Afghanistan - Insurgents wearing U.S. Army uniforms launched pre-dawn attacks Saturday on a major NATO base in eastern Afghanistan and a nearby camp where seven CIA employees were killed last year in a suicide bombing. NATO said there were no coalition casualties and the attacks were repelled.

Meanwhile, Afghanistan's presidential office condemned U.S. media reports that Afghan government officials have received payments from the CIA in return for information.

A former U.S. official told The Associated Press on Friday that the CIA has paid members of the Afghan government to track various factions within it. The practice has raised concerns at a time when the United States is pressing Afghan officials to make the government less corrupt.

The New York Times reported the agency is paying Mohammed Zia Salehi, the chief of administration for Afghanistan's National Security Council, for information. The Washington Post also had the report on Friday.

NATO said at least 21 insurgents were killed -- including four who were wearing suicide vests -- and five captured in Saturday's coordinated attacks.

Afghanistan's Interior Ministry put the insurgent death toll in the attacks at 24, with five captured and no casualties on the police side. The Defense Ministry said two Afghan soldiers were killed and three wounded in the fighting.

The assaults on the sprawling Forward Operating Base Salerno in Khost province and nearby Camp Chapman came around 3 a.m., just as area residents were rising for early morning prayers.

The area, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) southeast of Kabul near the border with Pakistan, is a hotbed of activity by the Taliban and other insurgent groups, including the December attack on Chapman that killed four CIA officers and three contracted security guards.

In recent months similar attacks have been launched against U.S. bases at Bagram, Jalalabad and Kandahar.

Afghan police said about 50 insurgents attacked using rifles, heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons, but had been repelled.

After being driven away from the bases, the insurgents approached the nearby offices of the governor and provincial police headquarters but were driven off, said Khost provincial police Chief Abdul Hakim Ishaqzai.

"Given the size of the enemy's force, this could have been a major catastrophe for Khost. Luckily we prevented it," he said.

Small arms fire continued through the morning, while NATO helicopters patrolled overhead.

NATO said two insurgents had managed to breach Salerno's perimeter, but were observed cutting the fence and killed immediately.

Dead insurgents were seen wearing camouflage jackets and pants seemingly identical to those warn by U.S. Army soldiers....

"Politicians from the ruling coalition cite radical imams, polygamy and failure to uphold women's rights by Muslims immigrants as obstacles to recognising Islam as an official religion in Italy."

All eminently reasonable concerns. Meanwhile, the standard response from "moderates" would be to insist these issues have nothing to do with Islam, but are in fact "cultural," despite the fact that, oddly enough, these same "cultural" issues and interest in waging jihad are found in locales far removed from one another.

So, the "radical imams" couldn't possibly be observing the commands and actions of Muhammad, or the teachings of the Qur'an.

Polygamy? Well, it doesn't really happen, except when it does. And the women? They love it, honest!

Failure to uphold women's rights? Why, Islam elevates women! Just try to overlook things like wife-beating (Qur'an 4:34: yes, it really says to beat them), a woman's testimony being equal to half that of a man (Qur'an 2:282), and child marriage after the example of Muhammad's marriage to Aisha, just to name a few.

But, the cleric interviewed below insists this is unfair. After all, look at all of the Islamic states affording the same recognition (as equals, not as dhimmis) and access to resources to Jews, Christians, Hindus... Oh, wait... "Italy: Islam denied income tax revenue," from AdnKronos International, August 27:

Rome, 27 August (AKI) - Mosques in Italy will not receive a share of income tax revenue the Italian government allocates to religious faiths each year. Hindu and Buddhist temples, Greek Orthodox churches and Jehovah's Witnesses will be eligible for the funds, according to a bill approved by the Italian cabinet in May and still must be approved by parliament.

Until now, the government had earmarked 8 percent of income tax revenue for Italy's established churches. The great majority of these funds go to the Catholic Church, although if they wish, individual tax payers may elect to give the money to charities and cultural projects instead.

The head of COREIS, one of Italy's largest Muslim groups, Yahya Pallavicini, said he was bitter that Islam had been denied the revenue from Italian income tax.

"Work should be begun on legally recognising those moderate Muslims who have for years shown themselves to be reliable interlocutors who are free of and [sic] fundamentalist ideology," he said.

Islam is not an established religion in Italy and there is only one official mosque in the country, Rome's Grand Mosque. Politicians from the ruling coalition cite radical imams, polygamy and failure to uphold women's rights by Muslims immigrants as obstacles to recognising Islam as an official religion in Italy.

Until now, only the Catholic Church, Judaism and other established churches including Lutherans, Evangelists, Waldensians and 7th-day Adventists have received the income tax revenue from the Itallain government.

There are between one million and 1.5 million Muslims in Italy and 130 mosques linked the Muslim umbrella organisation UCOII across the country.

Western education, that is. Islamic education, fine. "Nigeria killings raise fears of Muslim sect's return," from The Associated Press, August 27 (thanks to Twostellas):

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria -- The targeted killing of three police officers in northern Nigeria has investigators worried a radical Muslim sect may be making a violent comeback.

Two state police commissioners told reporters late Thursday that they suspect members of the Boko Haram sect committed the shootings....

Boko Haram -- which means "Western education is sacrilege" -- attacked police stations in July 2009, sparking a violent military and police crackdown. More than 700 died.

How is it that they attended this mosque, and so were apparently reasonably observant Muslims, and yet misunderstood Islam so as to think it had something to do with terrorism? Were they influenced by anything they heard at this mosque? What is being taught at this mosque? Does anyone know? Does anyone care? "Two terror suspects worshipped at Montreal mosque," by Brian Daly for the QMI Agency, August 27:

MONTREAL -- Terror suspects Misbahuddin Ahmed and Khurram Sher were arrested in Ottawa and London, Ont., this week in an alleged plot to bomb Canadian targets, but their origins can be traced to the Montreal area where they worshipped together and worked in the health-care field.

Both attended the same south shore mosque in Brossard, south of Montreal. They worked at Montreal hospitals, Sher as a pathologist and Ahmed as an x-ray technician. They even played on the same Muslim ball-hockey team....

Foudil Selmoune, the imam at the Islamic Community Centre south of Montreal, says the men were peaceful, non-violent and involved in their communities.

Sher once travelled to Pakistan to help victims of a devastating earthquake, and he participated in humanitarian fundraising events in Montreal.

A former McGill classmate, who didn't want to be identified, tells QMI Agency that Sher was a calm man who showed no signs of radicalization at school.

"It's a huge surprise," he said. "I never would have expected this. I can't believe that a calm guy like that could plan such violent acts."

He must be a decent fellow.

What a surprise: the group dedicated in its own words to "eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within" has connections to the "moderate" Ground Zero mosque. "Mosque's Saudi Patron," from Investor's Business Daily, August 26:

Islamofascism: New dots are emerging from the probe into who's behind the Ground Zero mosque, and the radical Muslim Brotherhood is coming into view.

While a couple of U.S. nonprofits -- the Cordoba Initiative and its sister, the American Society for Muslim Advancement -- are coordinating the New York project, they hardly give the full picture. A Saudi charity has sunk more than $300,000 into ASMA. It's called the Kingdom Foundation -- headed by Alwaleed bin Talal, the Saudi prince whose 9/11 relief check was rejected after he blamed the attacks on U.S. foreign policy.

Bin Talal is a major financier of Muslim Brotherhood fronts in the U.S. His foundation is run by Saudi hijabi Muna Abu Sulayman, who appears on ASMA's Web site as one of its "Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow."

"Her work," according to her official bio, "focuses on increasing understanding between Islam and the West through establishment of academic centers and programs, both in the Middle East and the United States."

Sulayman, who spends much of her time in the U.S., happens to be the daughter of Dr. AbdulHamid Abu Sulayman, "one of the most important figures in the history of the global Muslim Brotherhood," according to the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report.

So? The Egypt-based Brotherhood is the parent of Hamas and al-Qaida and the source of most of the jihadi ideology and related terror throughout the world today. Citing its secret U.S. archives, prosecutors say the Brotherhood has a plan to "destroy" America "from within," and is using its agents and front groups in the U.S. to carry out that strategy. Like the mafia, it's highly organized, and uses shells and cutouts to launder money....

This odd one came through Facebook. This "secret supporter" of mine is going to encourage Muslims to attack and stab me. Of course, the overheated rhetoric of Hamas-linked CAIR and other Islamic supremacists is directly responsible for this and a similar message Pamela Geller received from the same person.

Contrary to this message, we do not conceivably have responsibility for actions we don't condone. The idea that we do share any responsibility at all for the actions of any nutjob who may oppose the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero is actually a rather transparent attempt to marginalize and silence us. CAIR representatives like Zead Ramadan, on the other hand, know full well that when they charge us with "hatred" and vilify us in such lurid terms, they're inciting their more bloody-minded coreligionists.

Abdulaziz Sudani 27 August 2010 at 20:13 Subject: Keep up the good work

To everyones knowledge, recently an innocent muslim taxi driver was brutally assulted. The motive of the attacker was a deep hatred for islam and muslims. The story is available on the net for all to read. Personally I do not hold this young man resposible for his actions. I myself look to the roots of events. My analysis is that people Like Pamela Gellar and Robert spencer are the driving factors in generating fanatics like the one who carried out the assult on the taxi driver. I believe crimes should be punished. I am not calling on muslims to harm the young man but I am encouring muslims to retalite my attacking the roots of this ideology of hate; Pamela gellar and Robert spencer. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth etc. I have launched my campaign in the hope that Pamela Gellar and her aid Robert will suffer similar consequences to that of the taxi driver. In the coming months I will intensify my efforts in hope that someone will respond. I believe 24 hour security etc will not spare the likes of Pamela and Richard.

I am sure you have heard threats like this before and I believe you will hear many more in the near future. Keep up the good work and don't be put of. Always be on gaurd as these fanatics can strike at anytime. I am well aware that you know their nature and thinking pattern in great detail. Take care.

From a wellwisher and secret supporter
Stay Safe

Educated, well off, respected in the community. Decent fellows. Then, if poverty and lack of education didn't cause their jihad, there must be something else. And gee, this is always so awkward: if those factors can't explain it, there must be something else.

Something else, something else... ill-fitting shoes? Radio station renege on its promise of "less talk, more rock?" It could be anything, but, of course, Islamic texts and teachings!

An update on this story. "Update: Terror suspects respected members of community," by Ian MacLeod and Andrew Seymour for the Ottawa Citizen, August 27 (thanks to Jake):

OTTAWA -- The profiles of three alleged Islamist extremists whom police say posed "a real and serious threat" to Ottawa and national security are at odds with the notion that terrorists exist on the margins of society. Two of the accused men are professionals -- a doctor (and father of three) and an x-ray technician.

The third studied to be an electrical engineer. All are apparently intellectually mature individuals rooted in Canadian life. One even appeared on the reality program Canadian Idol. While much is still to be learned about them, poverty, deprivation and social alienation do not appear to have been part their alleged descent to homicidal hatred.

Yet it is that very ordinariness that has police and security experts concerned. How are they to spot potential terrorists before it's too late? In this case, police say the arrests thwarted possible terror bombings around Ottawa and against Canadian troops in Afghanistan. "This group posed a real and serious threat to the citizens of National Capital Region and Canada's national security," RCMP Chief Supt. Serge Therriault, head of criminal operations for the capital region, told an Ottawa news conference Thursday.

He said an RCMP-led national security investigation employing about 100 joint-forces officers for the past year was forced to move on the suspects this week to prevent "financial support" going to international terrorists for weapons to attack western coalition forces.

Raids on two west Ottawa addresses Wednesday uncovered more than 50 circuit boards police believe were intended to remotely trigger detonators for improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Also seized was what police described as a "vast quantity" of schematics, videos, drawings, instruction books and electronic components for IEDs. Investigators believe the suspects are part of a domestic terrorist group with links to international terrorism. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service was the first to begin investigating the individuals, though no details have been released.

"There are certain individuals in Canada who have adopted an ideology inspired by international terrorist groups who promote heinous violence to achieve their goals," CSIS Assistant Director Raymond Boisvert told the packed news conference. "This case reiterates the serious nature of this threat, which can result in tragic consequences if left unchecked." The spy agency at some point alerted the Mounties, who assigned the "Project Samossa" file to the Ottawa-based Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, one of four across the country dedicated to combating threats to the country. RCMP in British Columbia, Manitoba, Quebec and other parts of Ontario assisted. The alleged plot was in its early planning stages and "months" away from being operationally viable, Therriault said. "There remained, throughout, a varied degree of imminence to the threat, whether they were going to conduct an attack or not and how it was going to be done," he said.

It is not clear even whether specific Ottawa targets had been selected. "Because the plot was located here it was always a concern that targets were potentially located in this area," he said, adding more details will come out in court. With all of its political, diplomatic and other important national symbols, many undefended, Ottawa is a target-rich environment. The Internet, meanwhile, allows easy "electronic scouting" -- pictures, maps, histories and satellite images -- of many sites....

And certainly they've seen enough jihad to detect a pattern or two. But when we say it, we're Islamophobes. Or in the mind of Daisy Khan, "metastasized antisemites!"

"Somalia fears key Ramadan dates will bring more attacks," from the Mail & Guardian, August 27 (thanks to Twostellas):

Mogadishu's battered civilian population is bracing itself for further fierce fighting, with Islamist rebels expected to step up attacks on government-allied forces and African Union peacekeepers towards the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

More than 70 people have died in the Somali capital since the start of the week, when the al-Shabaab militia declared a new "massive, final" war on the government. Among the victims were 33 people, including six MPs, who were killed in a massacre by al-Shabaab militants at a hotel on Tuesday.

Residents near the frontlines took advantage of a brief lull in fighting on Thursday to escape to safer areas or out of the city, ahead of an expected resumption in clashes.

"Everyone is very afraid of what is going to happen in the next few days," said Bashir Yusuf Osman, manager of the Peace hotel in Mogadishu, in a telephone interview. "People believe that there is no way to stop this fighting."

Amid the heaviest clashes in the battle-scarred city for about six months, the rebels have captured ground from government troops and their allied militias on several fronts. Six thousand African Union peacekeepers have however managed to protect the presidential palace and other important locations, such as the airport and seaport. The presence of the Ugandan and Burundian soldiers is likely to ensure that the fragile transitional federal government (TFG) survives the latest onslaught, according to Somalia analysts.

But security experts advising humanitarian organisations working in the country have warned that the rebels, who killed 73 people in suicide bombings in Uganda last month, could attempt further "spectacular attacks" to coincide with two important dates in the Ramadan calendar. The first is Saturday, the 17th day of the fast, a celebration of an important Muslim victory over unbelievers in the seventh century. Monday is the anniversary of the Prophet Muhammad's conquest of Mecca....

Just like that time Jesus led an army to slay his unbelieving enemies-- no, wait...

And for good measure, Mail & Guardian: whose prophet?

It's just plain bad for business to have non-believers, who are the vilest of creatures per Qur'an 98:6 -- the Qur'an being Allah's own words to a believing Muslim -- engaged in acts of mercy. Folks might stop and reconsider whether they're really so vile. Can't have that; no "good Samaritans" need apply.

It must stick in the Taliban's craw that Western, non-Islamic nations are bearing the brunt of demonstrating compassion and charity to Pakistanis in need, while the wealthy Islamic states of the Gulf have indeed been a day late and a dinar short.

But, jihadist priorities are jihadist priorities, and Islamic supremacism must come before all else, and the compassion and mercy of Islamic rule once again fails to perform as advertised. "Pakistani Taliban hint at attacks on aid workers," by Rasool Dawar for the Associated Press, August 26:

MIR ALI, Pakistan - The Taliban hinted Thursday they may launch attacks against foreigners helping Pakistan respond to the worst floods in the country's history, saying their presence was "unacceptable." The U.N. said it would not be deterred by violent threats.

The militant group has attacked aid workers in the country before, and an outbreak of violence could complicate a relief effort that has already struggled to reach the 8 million people who are in need of emergency assistance.

Pakistani Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq claimed the U.S. and other countries that have pledged support are not really focused on providing aid to flood victims but had other motives he did not specify.

"Behind the scenes they have certain intentions, but on the face they are talking of relief and help," Tariq told The Associated Press by telephone from an undisclosed location. "No relief is reaching the affected people, and when the victims are not receiving help, then this horde of foreigners is not acceptable to us at all."

By "certain intentions," he almost definitely means proselytizing, which the Taliban are quick to allege, and have already killed for. But aid workers need not utter a word to potentially provoke second thoughts about the sheer, unabashed evil the Qur'an attributes to non-believers.

He strongly hinted that the militants could resort to violence, saying "when we say something is unacceptable to us, one can draw one's own conclusion."

No kidding.

U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes said the U.N. remained committed to helping flood victims in Pakistan.

"We will obviously take these threats seriously as we did before, and take appropriate precautions, but we will not be deterred from doing what we believe we need to do which is help the people of Pakistan ... who have been affected by the flood," he told a news conference at U.N. headquarters in New York.

Holmes noted that the Pakistani Taliban carried out a suicide attack against the office of the U.N.'s World Food Program in Islamabad last October, killing five staffers, and in March, militants attacked the offices of World Vision, a U.S.-based Christian aid group helping earthquake survivors in northwestern Pakistan, killing six Pakistani employees.

He said U.N. security experts will be working with U.N. agencies and international organizations "to assess what the risks are and to minimize them."

U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Washington is also taking the threat of attacks by militants seriously.

"We have information of the potential targeting of foreign relief workers in Pakistan, as well as government ministries," Crowley told reporters in Washington, adding, "It just underscores the bankrupt vision that these extremists have and we are conscious of that threat."...

But the question likely to be considered above Crowley's pay-grade is this: Whence the hatred of unbelievers?

Jihad Watch is continuing to experience a sharp rise in readership, as you can see from the graph above. When Jihad Watch reader James sent me this comparison, I was shocked, since Hot Air, of course, is a very, very well-traveled site. Click on the graph to enlarge it and go to the Site Analytics Compete.com site -- or just note that the blue line is Jihad Watch and the green line is Hot Air.

The rise in readership here at Jihad Watch indicates that there is growing dissatisfaction among the American people about the quality of reporting they're getting on jihad issues from mainstream media sources. When Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews feature a spokesman for a Hamas-linked Muslim Brotherhood front group, without notifying their viewers about the unsavory ties of the spokesman they're featuring, and when they allow that spokesman to defame Americans who are trying to defend Constitutional freedoms and generally accepted principles of human rights, more and more people are realizing that these people are not journalists, but propagandists, and propagandists of the worst sort.

So they are turning away, in droves. And they are coming here, where the truth is told, fully and honestly and without obfuscation. With over three million unique visitors and counting, August 2010 has been our biggest month ever -- topping last month, which was our biggest month ever up to that point.

Welcome to all new readers, and once again: Jihad Watch is a news and commentary site that brings you information about the global jihad effort that the mainstream media largely misreports or ignores altogether. Jihad Watch is a non-sectarian site committed solely to the defense of human rights -- the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, the equality of rights of women -- against Islamization and the denial of those human rights entailed under Sharia. We hold firmly to the wisdom of the non-establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution, and to the principles enshrined in the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights (which is not to say we hold to the statist assumptions underlying that document).

Jihad Watch welcomes all people -- Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, sincere Muslims of conscience -- who recognize the threat to freedom that Islamic supremacism constitutes, and are determined to resist it. Comments are open and unmoderated, although offensive comments may be removed if we see them. Comments that are racist, genocidal, advocating vigilantism, etc., are unwelcome. Remember that when you write here you're not talking to your friends in your living room, but to an avid audience of predators looking for ammunition to use against the cause of liberty.

And above all, never give up, never give in.

Of course, so did the prophet of Islam: "Ibn Mughaffal reported: The Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) ordered killing of the dogs, and then said: What about them, i. e. about other dogs? and then granted concession (to keep) the dog for hunting and the dog for (the security) of the herd, and said: When the dog licks the utensil, wash it seven times, and rub it with earth the eighth time." -- Sahih Muslim 551

Note also that just as unclean as dogs are unbelievers.

Sharia Alert from the Islamic Republic of Iran: "Iran bans pet ads, brands dogs 'unclean,'" from NewsCore, August 27 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

IRAN today banned all advertisements in the country for pets, pet shops, pet food and other pet products, claiming that people's love for their dogs and cats may lead to "evil outcomes".

The edict, announced by Iran's powerful Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, is based on a fatwa issued by Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi, 86, a hardliner who lives in Iran's holy city of Qom.

Declaring dogs in particular to be unclean under Sharia, he condemned Iranian dog owners for "blindly imitating the West" and warned that their infatuation would lead to "evil outcomes", according to the state-run Mehr news agency.

"Many people in the West love their dogs more than their wives and children," the Grand Ayatollah declared....

So what is being done now to make sure that no more prisoners are "radicalized" while incarcerated? What's that? Nothing at all, you say? To do something effective about it would be "Islamophobic," you say? Well, then, by all means cease and desist! Death before political incorrectness! "Britain faces new terror wave," by Duncan Gardham for the Telegraph, August 27 (thanks to Kris):

Britain faces a new wave of home grown terrorists as 800 radicalised Islamist prisoners are released from jail, a leading security expert warns.

Michael Clarke, a former government adviser and the head of the Royal United Services Institute, says he believes the security services could struggle to cope with a new generation of extremists seeking to carry out "lone wolf" attacks.

In a report published today, Prof Clarke says that, over the next five to 10 years, about 800 prisoners - in jail for non-terrorism offences - are due to be released on to the streets having been radicalised in jail.

They will be joined by convicted terrorists serving short sentences who, once freed, are likely to be just as committed to the cause of jihad as before they were jailed, the report claims.

Prof Clarke, who advised Gordon Brown as a member of the National Security Forum and is a visiting professor at King's College London, warns that this "new wave" will pose a significant challenge to the security services responsible for identifying and monitoring them.

While previous al-Qaeda tactics involved so-called "spectacular" attacks, the report warns that the terrorist group's leaders, such as Yemeni preacher and US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, are encouraging individuals to launch less sophisticated but equally deadly attacks on crowded places.

Their targets have also changed from concentrating on aircraft to including attacks on trains, hotels and sporting events. The report will serve as a stark reminder to the Government and public that the threat from Islamist terrorism remains severe, even though there has not been a fatal attack on British soil since 2005.

The current government threat level stands at "severe", indicating a terrorist attack is considered "highly likely". The level was raised from "substantial" in January....

No doubt these relief organizations are acting this way because they're enraged by the "Islamophobia" kicked up by opponents of the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero. If it weren't for all that "Islamophobia," the lion would lie down with the lamb, Obama and Sarah Palin would run on the same ticket, and Pakistani Muslims and Pakistani Christians would lock arms and march confidently together toward that glorious neo-Andalusian future in which Islamic tolerance and peacefulness finally would be able to hold sway unimpeded by Zionists and the modern-day Jim Jones. "Pakistani Christians face aid discrimination: Vatican," from AFP, August 26 (thanks to all who sent this in):

VATICAN CITY: Christians affected by the devastating floods in Pakistan face "systematic discrimination" in the distribution of aid, the news agency of a Vatican missionary body reported Thursday.

The Fides news agency, a branch of the Vatican's Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, said aid was handled either by Muslim relief organisations or by government officials close to fundamentalists.

Both discriminated against Christians and other minorities in distributing aid essential to survival, it said.

About 200,000 Christian refugees in the Punjab province and about 600,000 Christians and Hindus in the Sindh province are affected by the phenomenon, Fides said, citing NGO sources on the ground.

"The Christian refugees are often ignored. They are purposely not identified and registered. Thus, they are automatically excluded from any health care or food, as they supposedly do not exist," said a local NGO worker cited by Fides....

Desperate to destroy me, hoping that if they do so they will be able to lie to the American people unimpeded, Zead Ramadan and the boys in the back room at Hamas-linked CAIR are pumping out the Big Lie that I am a modern-day Jim Jones -- despite my lack of a cult, a cult following, designer sunglasses, and Kool-Aid. If anyone is offering the Kool-Aid, it is Hamas-linked CAIR and Ramadan himself, when he terms "ridiculous" the idea that the Ground Zero mega-mosque is a "victory mosque."

Let's do a quick survey. How many victory mosques are there in the Islamic world? How many mosques are either built on the cherished sites of conquered peoples, or converted from the houses of worship of the religions of those conquered peoples? Many thousands. The Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque stand on the site of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. The Umayyad mosque in Damascus and the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul were once great cathedrals. There are thousands of Hindu temples that were destroyed all over India, and mosques built on their sites. Zoroastrian temples in Persia were converted to mosques, as were churches and synagogues in the Middle East and North Africa. And in every one of these thousands of examples, the mosques were intended to be an expression of Islam's victory and superiority over the religion of the conquered people.

Meanwhile, how many "mosques of reconciliation" have been built at the site of Islamic jihad attacks? How many mosques have gone up where these jihads took place, in order to reach out in peace to unbelievers, and offer them dialogue in an atmosphere of mutual respect? Why, none. Not a single one. Nowhere. Ever.

But if you don't believe that the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero is going to be the first one of these reconciliation mosques, and that Muslims all over the world will understand it as such, and that it will stand for peaceful coexistance as equals with the kuffar, despite the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf's support for Sharia, which denies equality of rights to non-Muslims, and despite the incredible contempt mosque leaders have shown for the sensitivities of 9/11 family members and others who see this mosque as anything but a gesture of healing and reconciliation, then you're a bigot, a hater, a racist.

Drink your Kool-Aid, folks. Zead Ramadan of Hamas-linked CAIR is serving it on the house. Drink it up and go back for more.

Sounds as if Mochammad Achwan is some kind of Islamophobe. "Terrorist vows war on Indonesian police," from AFP, August 27:

A convicted terrorist who took over the leadership of an Indonesian Islamist group after the arrest of patriarch Abu Bakar Bashir vowed on Friday to wage violent jihad against the police.

Mochammad Achwan has been named leader of Jamaah Ansharut Tauhid (JAT), a radical Islamist group, to replace Bashir after the firebrand 78-year-old cleric was arrested this month for allegedly financing a terrorist organisation.

A shoemaker turned Islamist militant, Achwan was convicted for the bombing of the iconic Borobudur Buddhist temple in Java in 1985 and an attempted bombing of Bali's famous Kuta tourist beach in 1986.

He spent 15 years in jail before being pardoned in 1999 and released in 2000, but says he has no intention of giving up his Muslim "obligation" to wage violent jihad ("holy war") for the introduction of Islamic or sharia law.

"Why would I give up the fight after all these years? It's an obligation for all Muslims to fully apply the sharia. I'm here to make sure that happens," Achwan said in an interview with The Jakarta Post.

He said violence was permissible for all Muslims who had the right training, and rejected democracy in Indonesia, the biggest Muslim-majority country in the world.

"We have actually been under physical attack from the police's anti-terror squad Detachment 88. Those who can fight back are permitted to use violence as long as they have the necessary resources and capabilities," he said....

"For those who do not yet have the necessary resources to wage violent confrontation, they should wait and remain patient as their time will come. The battle still has a long way to go," Achwan said.

Zead Ramadan of Hamas-linked CAIR yucks it up with sycophantic pseudo-journalist Mark Jacobson of New York Magazine

You know you must be on the right track when Hamas-linked CAIR is frantically trying to keep people from reading what you say. But in doing so, they just show people where they can find the truth. Zead Ramadan, the top dog of the New York chapter of Hamas-linked CAIR, said this to Keith Olbermann on MSNBC:

RAMADAN: No, these are pathetic excuses for the hatred and the fearmongering that's been, you know, spewed over the area, you got to stop the Islamization of America with Robert Spencer , who's basically our modern day Jim Jones . And he's poisoning people over the Internet . And, unfortunately, these people who think they're on his side, he's throwing him under the bus. And they're making these ridiculous comments and they're going out there and they're attacking Muslims . In Brooklyn , just a couple of months ago, there was a Bangladeshi man on a construction -- he was a construction worker on a break from lunch and he was approached by three teens. And they asked him, are you a Muslim? And he said, yes, and they said go back to your bleeping country . Then they attacked him. And the man was in a coma.

It's a funny thing: Islamic jihadists, avowed Islamic jihadists operating explicitly in the name of Islam and jihad, took down the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. But Hamas-linked CAIR's line, and the line of so many others, is that Islam and Muslims had nothing to do with 9/11, and anyone who suggests otherwise is an Islamophobic racist bigot. Yet Hamas-linked CAIR ops like Zead Ramadan have no compunction about linking me to incidents that I was not involved with and are against everything I have ever advocated. Tarring me with responsibility for incidents I had nothing to do with is fine; pointing out the very real connection between Islam and Muslims and 9/11 is "hateful."

You must be able to see through the game they're playing. Ramadan and his unsavory ilk are trying to claim victim status for Muslims so as to divert attention away from the increasingly dodgy statements and connections of the Ground Zero mega-mosque imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, and from the ongoing incidents of Islamic jihad violence worldwide. Ramadan is also trying to pretend that the opposition to the Ground Zero mega-mosque is all because of me (as others have done with Pamela Geller recently) -- and thus if they destroy me, or Pamela, they think they will have neutralized and discredited the opposition to the mosque. He gives us too much credit, and doesn't seem to realize that the seventy percent of Americans who oppose the mosques are tired of being smeared as racists and bigots by duplicitous thugs from groups that are linked to jihad terror up to their eyeballs and yet are still given a free pass by dhimmi pseudo-journalists like Keith Olbermann.

It's also noteworthy that Ramadan goes after me here, even though Pamela has been quite vocal against them on numerous television shows -- likely because if they keep going after a woman, it looks bad.

People are angry at Muslims and suspicious of them because of Pamela Geller and me? Has it ever occurred to Zead Ramadan that people may be angry at Muslims and suspicious of them because of...Osama bin Laden? Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood jihadist? Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square jihadist? Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas underwear jihadist? Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, who murdered a soldier at a Little Rock Army recruiting center? Adam Gadahn? John Walker Lindh? 9/11? The London jihad bombings? The Madrid jihad bombings? The Mumbai jihad bombings? The Beslan jihad massacres? The Bali jihad bombings? The thousands of jihad attacks that have taken place around the world since 9/11? Not to mention the arrogance and dishonesty of "peaceful" Islamic spokesmen like the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, his unctuous and glaringly insincere wife Daisy Khan, Honest Ibe Hooper, and Zead Ramadan himself? And so many others.

Anyway, who is more like Jim Jones, a mass-murdering cult leader? Me, or Zead Ramadan of Hamas-linked CAIR? CAIR operatives have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Olbermann appears unfazed by the fact that CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case. Several of its former officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. Two of its other officials have made Islamic supremacist statements. CAIR also was involved in the Flying Imams' intimidation suit against the passengers who reported their suspicious behavior.

In contrast to all that, have I ever advocated violence against innocent Muslims, as Hamas has crowed about its attacks on Israeli civilians? No, quite the contrary. Have I ever advocated contravention of any Constitutional principles in favor of authoritarian rule, as Hamas-linked CAIR's Ibrahim Hooper and Omar Ahmad have done when they said they'd like to see the U.S. have an Islamic government, i.e., one ruled by Sharia, which denies the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, and the equality of rights of women and non-Muslims? No, I have not.

Zead Ramadan can bloviate, lie, and defame and the ridiculous Olbermann will nod and thank him. But Americans can see through him. And that's why his smears are getting wilder. It's a sign of his desperation. He knows his evil, seditious game is almost up, and the day is fast approaching when the only one he will still be able to fool is Keith Olbermann.

In "Is Newt Gingrich Wrong to Talk About Sharia?" in Pajamas Media (via RaymondIbrahim.com), August 24, our friend Raymond Ibrahim discusses whether Sharia, as Lee Smith recently characterized it, is a "hopelessly abstract concept":

In a recent article appearing in Tablet, Lee Smith takes former House speaker Newt Gingrich to task for the latter's focus on sharia (i.e., Islamic law). The thrust of Smith's argument is that sharia is a "hopelessly abstract concept" and "a highly idealized version of reality that has little basis in fact"; that sharia is "a catchall phrase for legal principles that have rarely, if ever, existed in actual Muslim societies"; and that "the notion that something called 'sharia' was widely imposed throughout the lands of Islam is an Orientalist fantasy."

My first observation is -- even if all these charges were perfectly true -- so? It hardly matters what sharia really is; all that matters is what today's Muslims believe it is. And a great many believe sharia is tangible and codified, and that it can, and should, be implemented in society. More to the point, telling the apostate or adulteress -- who are regularly executed "according to sharia"-- that they are really being murdered by "principles that have rarely, if ever, existed in actual Muslim societies," is hardly reassuring.

Smith does acknowledge Islam's famous draconian punishments; he just prefers to call them hudud, and limits them to "Islamist outfits like the Taliban." Similarly, Smith offers a blitz tour on Islamic jurisprudence -- including the Hanbali, Hanafi, Maliki, and Shafi'i madhahib, the differences between usuli and akhbari, fiqh, ijma, 'aql, qiyas, and ahkam sultaniyya -- even as the reader wonders how these concepts are relevant to the discussion at hand: Islam in America, from a national security context....

Read it all.

Daisy Khan says they have nothing in the bank. So where do they have it? "The Tangled Web of the GZM Imam's Organizations Raises Questions," from IPT News, August 26:

The backers of the Ground Zero Mosque have virtually no money, one of the group's leaders says, and plan to create another nonprofit organization that would further complicate the already labyrinthine financial network surrounding the project.

Daisy Khan, one of the leaders of the project, told supporters over the weekend that the mosques organizers have "nothing in the bank" for their effort. Khan said there is no money and that she doesn't know of anything that has been raised.

Tracing the money going to the two nonprofit groups led by Khan and her husband and partner in the mosque project, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, requires a world map.

Federal tax records show Rauf and Khan direct the two groups supporting the mosque project - the Cordoba Initiative and the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA). Those two organizations, along with Soho Properties, which owns the site of the proposed mosque and community center, are coordinating the project.

However, federal tax records show the Cordoba Initiative has not listed contributions from at least two charitable foundations that have supported its activities. In another case, a foundation gave money to Cordoba's sister group, the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA), that was supposed to go to Cordoba; that money was also not listed in Cordoba's tax records.

Cordoba has failed to list almost $100,000 in charitable donations since 2007, federal tax records show.

Between 2006 and 2008, Cordoba's charitable tax filings with the IRS show a total of $31,668 in gross receipts. However, tax filings from two charities that have donated to Cordoba or ASMA show more than $130,000 to donations to Cordoba during that time....

Hmmm. And there is much more. Read it all.

Clearly the judges were "Islamophobic"

Maybe losing Canadian Idol drove him to seek revenge upon the kuffar. "Third terror suspect was 'Canadian Idol' contestant," by Michelle Shephard and Richard J. Brennan for the Toronto Star, August 26 (thanks to Dave):

OTTAWA--A third terrorism suspect- one who moonwalked across a Montreal stage during an audition for Canadian Idol - was detained early Thursday, the Star has learned.

Khuram Sher was arrested as part of an RCMP national security investigation, as police continue to investigate a possible cell allegedly plotting to attack targets at home.

Sher told judges on the popular reality show in 2008 that he hailed from Pakistan and was a fan of "hockey, music and acting."

He sings an off-tune rendition of Avril Lavigne's "Complicated" with - as the show's website describes - some "nifty" dance moves.

"Have you ever thought of being a comedian?" asks one of the judges of the 26-year-old.

Another remarks: "The dance moves were good, the singing, bad."

One source close to the investigation said Sher was actually a Canadian-born physician and graduate of McGill University - quite a different persona from goofy contestant wearing a traditional Pakistani shalwar kameez and pakul hat as he performs robot dance moves and a Michael Jackson moonwalk....

A physician. No doubt driven to jihad terrorism by his desperate poverty.

"'Bigot' slashes Muslim cabby," says the New York Post. "Rider Asks if Cabby Is Muslim, Then Stabs Him," says the New York Times.

That was enough for the Islamic supremacists and their Leftist dhimmi tools. Libelblogger and CAIR tool Charles Johnson's vile sycophants at Little Green Footballs were quick to blame Pamela Geller and me. And the Muslim Brotherhood went full-frontal with their hatemongering and defamation at their English-language Ikhwanweb site, with a photo of the cabbie who was attacked and the headline "Pamela, Robert .. Congrats!!"

There was just one problem with all this: the attacker was a Leftist employee of an organization that has gone on record as favoring the mosque. So whatever may have been his motivation in attacking this cab driver, one thing that almost certainly wasn't motivating him was rage over the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero.

And even if he were motivated by rage against the mosque, what would that have to do with us? Absolutely nothing. We are working on peaceful protests against the mosque, and trying to raise awareness among the American people about who is behind this effort and what its significance is. We have never advocated or condoned any violence or vigilantism -- unlike the mosque's own leader Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who refuses to condemn the bloodthirsty jihad terror group Hamas. We are not responsible by any conceivable stretch of the imagination for everything any given opponent of the mosque does.

So what is going on here? Remember: the thuggish Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has actually trumpeted fake anti-Muslim hate crimes in the past, in order to use them to score political points. They did this again just weeks ago in Georgia.

CAIR, an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas funding case, has claimed that "anti-Muslim hate crimes" have risen sharply in the U.S. since 9/11. In fact, the rate of such crimes has actually dropped. CAIR knows well that victimhood is big business: insofar as they can claim protected victim status for Muslims in the U.S., they can deflect unwanted scrutiny and any critical examination of how jihadists use Islamic texts and teachings to justify violence and supremacism.

That's most likely why CAIR and others have not hesitated to stoop even to fabricating "hate crimes." They want and need hate crimes against Muslims, because they can use them as weapons to intimidate people into remaining silent about the jihad threat.

Was this attack on a Muslim cab driver in New York yet another faked hate crime designed to tar opponents of Islamic supremacism as bigoted people who are fomenting hate? It cannot be ruled out. I hope that New York investigators are honest enough and brave enough to say so if that turns out to be the case.

"The first Muslim ambassador to the United States, from Tunisia, was hosted by President Jefferson, who arranged a sunset dinner for his guest because it was Ramadan --- making it the first known iftar at the White House, more than 200 years ago." -- Barack Obama, speaking on August 14, 2010, at the "Annual Iftar Dinner" at the White House

Really? Is that what happened? Was there a "first known iftar at the White House" given by none other than President Thomas Jefferson for the "first Muslim ambassador to the United States"? That's what Barack Obama and his dutiful speechwriters told the Muslims in attendance at the 2010 "Annual Iftar Dinner," knowing full well that the remarks would be published for all to see. Apparently Obama, and those who wrote this speech for him, and others who vetted it, find nothing wrong with attempting to convince Americans, as part of their policy of trying to win Muslim hearts and Muslim minds, that American history itself can be rewritten. A little insidious nunc pro tunc backdating, to rewrite American history. And that rewrite of American history has the goal of convincing Americans, in order to please Muslims, that the United States and Islam, that Americans and Muslims, go way back.

As Obama so unforgettably put it in his Cairo Speech (possibly the most inaccurate, the most cavalier about historical truth, of any speech by any President in American history):

It's hard to imagine Time ever asking this in regard to Christianity in public life, in any country. No, this, they ask, because French secularism keeps butting heads with Islam. Never mind the screaming double standard. Some belief systems, after all, are "more equal than others."

Do they pepper in other examples? Yes. But would this article have been written if not for the demands of Islam on French society? Unlikely. "Are the French Taking Secularism Too Far?" from Time, August 23:

For most of the 105 years it's been in force, France's secularity law has endeavored to segregate private religious belief from the strictly agnostic sphere of public life -- usually without too much friction. But that relative harmony has given way to tension and conflict in recent years, as secularists have turned their attention to the spreading influence of Islam, now France's second largest faith.

Whereas secularism -- or laïcité -- traditionally sought to create a wall between religious expression and the public domain, critics claim its defenders have become far more militant. In some cases, that's creating a zero-sum showdown in which France's secularists, who dominate public life and debate, are exhibiting a quasi-evangelical zeal in imposing the values of laïcité on the private observance of religious minorities, particularly Muslims. [...]

Private observance? You'd think the French were going into people's homes and raiding the niqab drawer. No, this debate is about the imposition of Islamic law and sensibilities on public life. Anyway, for good measure, Time throws in a link inviting readers to:

(See pictures of Muslim modernity.)

The most controversial example of secularism's evolution is the pending French law to ban full-body coverings like the burqa and niqab, whose final passage is expected in October. But that headline-grabbing measure (which will affect only an estimated 370 to 2,000 women) was preceded by the 2004 prohibition of headscarves being worn by Muslim women in public schools. More recently, pundits, bloggers and others have entered a loud public debate over whether the serving of halal beef by fast-food outlets is also a violation of laïcité. Meanwhile, militants of extreme right- and left-wing groups have banded together under the banner of secularity to stage public gatherings in which attendants eat pork sausage and sip wine -- an attempt, organizers say, to send Muslims the message that their religion won't be tolerated within the tableau of French daily life.

A gross mischaracterization and oversimplification. See prior coverage of those events here and here.

That leads us to another fun Time sidebar:

(See pictures of what people eat around the world.) [...]

Later, as the article winds up for the big finish, one must question again whether this article would have been written, or if Diallo's organization would be so miffed, for the sake of anything other than Islam:

To some observers, such protests sound a lot like secular fundamentalism. "As secularists become more militant, their arguments have gotten less rational and have begun to ring with the righteous conviction you usually associate with religious forces they oppose," says Rokhaya Diallo, founder of Les Indivisibles, an association that celebrates the diversity of modern France. "My perception of secularity has always been one of protection, of the state and society defending individuals and minority religions from coercion. Now we frequently see the opposite at work."

But wait...

(See pictures of Paris expanding.)

Okay, now!

Both Diallo and secularism expert Baubérot attribute the trend to rising secularist concern about the spread of Islam's influence. That feeling, Diallo laments, has led "people from politicians to ordinary citizens to recognize secularity as an alibi to express increasingly Islamophobic attitudes." Baubérot says this is mostly a reaction to France's wider worries about where its society is headed -- so it uses the tradition of secularity to respond to what it regards as the challenge posed by Islam. Only time will tell whether France can establish with Islam the happy balance it generally maintains with other faiths -- or whether laïcité will become synonymous with the state's interference in how Muslims practice their faith....

Whether Muslims can practice their faith is not at issue -- all five pillars are eminently untouched. What is at issue is Islam's ability to impose itself and its strictures onto French life and society, including the practice of full veiling, and the imposition of halal meat on people who didn't ask for it. The article speaks of France's "happy balance" with other beliefs, but Islamic laws demand so much more in the way of accommodation.

As the great non-Frenchman Oliver Wendell Holmes once said: "Your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose."

Big surprise. "Another 'Moderate' GZ Mosque Supporter Can't Bring Himself to Call Hamas a Terrorist Organization," by the peerless Andrew C. McCarthy at National Review, August 25:

Last night, I was on David Asman's Fox Business Channel show, Scoreboard, debating Imam Dawoud Kringle of the New York State prison system, a GZ mosque supporter. Imam Kringle, who seems like a nice enough fellow, reeled off the usual talking points about how Islam forbids terrorism and, therefore, if someone commits an act of terrorism that act is, by definition, un-Islamic.

Then came the moment of truth: the very simple question, "Is Hamas a terrorist organization?" Have a look at the YouTube clip below. Like his friend Imam Feisal Rauf, Imam Kringle won't answer the question. I pressed him, pointing out that it is a very simple question. And it is: Quite apart from the fact that Hamas is formally designated as a terrorist organization under U.S. law, Hamas's own charter makes abundantly clear -- indeed, wears like a badge of honor -- that Hamas exists solely for the purpose of driving Israel out of Palestine by violent jihad. Yet the imam cannot bring himself to say Hamas is a terrorist organization....

Read it all.

On June 6, Pamela Geller and I organized a protest against the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero that was attended by 8,000 to 10,000 people to stop the 911 mega mosque. And now we're inviting you to join us again on September 11 at 3PM, at the corner of Park Place and West Broadway in lower Manhattan.

A giant mosque looking down at the cemetery of Ground Zero from the location of a building that was partially destroyed in the 9/11 Islamic jihad attack on America is wrong. It is indecent. The Burlington Coat Factory building is Ground Zero.

We chose September 11 because reports have indicated that the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and Daisy Khan said that they would break ground on the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks: September 11, 2011.

We will honor the victims and all Americans, and fill Ground Zero with patriots on September 11.

We are beginning with a brief memorial service honoring the victims, and are not beginning our rally until the morning memorial services for the victims are concluded.

Speakers will include 9/11 family members, former U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton; Dutch freedom fighter Geert Wilders (LIVE!); journalist Andrew Breitbart (either live or via video stream); NY Senate candidate Gary Bernsten; war hero and NC Congressional candidate Ilario Pantano; radio host Steve Malzberg; actress and activist Susan Olsen (Cindy Brady on TV's Brady Bunch); NY Congressional candidate and 9/11 first responder Michael Grimm; Coptic Christian activist Joseph Nassralla; a spokesman for the ACLJ, and others.

Steve Dansby, singer of Rita Jones' song "Salt In the Wound," will be performing that iconic tune live.

Hosting the rally are Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer of FDI/SIOA.

For transport, rides and caravan information, go here.

This has been going on longer than Obama has been in office. Has its Constitutionality ever been challenged? If not, why not? "US funds restoration of global Islamic sites," from AP, August 24 (thanks to Ted):

WASHINGTON - The good will tour of the Middle East by the imam behind the proposed mosque near ground zero is just part of the U.S. government's efforts to reach out to the Muslim world.

This year, the Obama administration will spend nearly $6 million to restore 63 historic and cultural sites, including mosques and minarets, in 55 nations, according to State Department documents.

Under a program established by Congress in 2001, the department will fund at least five projects in as many countries at a cost of more than $271,000.

The contributions include $76,135 for the 16th century Grand Mosque in Tongxin, China, and $67,500 for the 18th century Golden Mosque in Lahore, Pakistan. An additional $62,169 will be spent on restoring a 19th century minaret in Mauritania's ancient city of Tichitt; $50,437 for the Sundarwala Burj, a 16th century Islamic Monument in New Delhi, and $15,450 to restore the 18th century Gobarau Minaret in Katsina, Nigeria.

The amount spent on mosque restoration projects is a fraction of the total in the 2010 Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation, which also will fund projects to restore Christian and Buddhist sites as well as museums, forts and palaces....

More mosques than churches. More on that soon.

In a review of The Crisis of Islamic Civilization by Ali A. Allawi in Middle East Quarterly, Spring 2010 (via RaymondIbrahim.com), our keen-eyed former Jihad Watch colleague Raymond Ibrahim discusses the reality of Islam's vaunted "Golden Age," and some contemporary implications:

Allawi, who at various times was Iraqi minister of trade, minister of defense, and minister of finance following Saddam Hussein's overthrow, ends his book with a plausible conclusion--that, by nature, Islamic civilization must either subsume or be subsumed--but only after long swathes of tangents, contradictions, and loaded assumptions.

As for the latter, Islam's purported golden age plagues Allawi, evinced by his obsession over "what went wrong?" He flatly rejects any answer that even remotely involves Islam per se as "patently absurd," arguing that Islamic civilization was at the vanguard of human progress in the medieval era. Of course, the oft-repeated and (overly-dramatized) question of "what went wrong?" is moot. It falsely assumes that if Islamic civilization was at the vanguard of progress in the medieval era, it should be so now.

Begrudging the West's meteoric rise, this position ultimately implies that Islam's birthright was somehow usurped. Yet just because Muslims refined the astrolabe--which, as with most Muslim accomplishments, was in the service of Islam (to fix prayer times), something even the most radical Muslim happily permits--does not mean Islam was destined to split the atom. Nothing went wrong. This becomes clear when one ceases comparing Islam to the West--ceases comparing apples with oranges--and compares Islam to itself, appreciating the many constants.

Numerous pages are devoted to exploring the thoughts of progressive Islamic thinkers, only to reveal their aberrancy vis-à-vis Shari'a norms and thus their failure to resonate with the Muslim masses. Indeed, Shari'a is the insurmountable wall, the dead-end that repeatedly foils Allawi's strategies or sophistries by his own implicit demonstrations.

Apologetics abound: Allawi minimizes the Islamic conquests; he trivializes the issue of blasphemy and apostasy charges, blaming the Western media for "sensationalizing" them; he portrays the dhimmi-status (existence as a subjugated religious minority) as something almost admirable; and there is a curious chapter questioning the West's apparently overdeveloped notions of human rights: "Muslims must themselves decide what human rights mean in Islam."...

Read it all.

Now this is rich. Here's our old friend Raymond Ibrahim at Pajamas Media (via RaymondIbrahim.com), August 19, with a new twist on the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero:

In a recent article, I argued that the Ground Zero mosque is counterproductive to Islam. The following day, on August 5^th, the Egyptian newspaper Al Masry Al Youm reported that none other than Al Azhar -- one of Sunni Islam's most authoritative institutions -- agrees. My translation of the relevant excerpt follows:

A number of Al Azhar ulema expressed their opposition to building a mosque near [where] the events of September 11 [occurred], convinced that it is "a conspiracy to confirm a clear connection between the strikes of September [11] and Islam." Dr. 'Abd al-Mu'ti Bayumi, a member of the Islamic Research Academy [of Al Azhar] told Al Masry Al Youm that he rejects the building of any mosque in this area [Ground Zero], because the "devious mentality" desires to connect these events [of 9/11] with Islam, though he maintains that Islam is innocent of this accusation. Instead, it is a "Zionist conspiracy," which many are making use of to harm the religion. Likewise, Dr. Amna Nazir, professor of doctrine and philosophy at Al Azhar, expressed her rejection that a mosque be built near the World Trade Center, saying: "Building a mosque on this rubble indicates bad intention -- even if we wished to shut our eyes, close our minds, and insist on good will. I hope it is a sincere step, and not a new conspiracy against Islam and Muslims."

Aside from the hackneyed "Zionist conspiracy" charge, Al Azhar has it right: from negative media attention to subliminal associations with the 9/11 strikes, the "9/11 mosque" has great potential to backfire on Islam. Many other Muslims agree. That Al Azhar has labeled it a "Zionist conspiracy"-- an appellation usually reserved for especially heinous charges attributed to fellow Muslims, such as the strikes of 9/11 -- is indicative of how absurd the mosque project must appear to them.

Lest Al Azhar be accused of feigning disapproval, bear in mind that its reaction is not a product of sensitivity to, or the desire to peacefully coexist with, the United States (which would be suspect). Indeed, Dr. Bayumi is an open advocate of suicidal jihad: "I say in all honesty that we recruit the people of Islam, and instill in them the spirit of the true Jihad, which is death for the sake of Allah, for the sake of our faith, and of the Al-Aqsa Mosque."

Now, here's the question: if Al Azhar scholars are fully aware of how detrimental the erection of a 9/11 mosque can be, why are American Muslims (such as of the Cordoba Initiative) still relentlessly pursuing it?...

Good question. Read it all.

"Christian buildings often constructed on sites of destroyed native temples in order to symbolize and emphasize the substitution of one religion by the other." That certainly happened in Christian history, but it happened much more frequently in Islamic history -- as with the Ground Zero mega-mosque today. "HS test 'slams' Christianity, lauds Islam," by Yoav Gonen in the New York Post, August 24:

State testmakers played favorites when quizzing high-schoolers on world religions -- giving Islam and Buddhism the kid-gloves treatment while socking it to Christianity, critics say.

Teachers complain that the reading selections from the Regents exam in global history and geography given last week featured glowing passages pertaining to Muslim society but much more critical essay excerpts on the subject of Christianity....

The most troubling passage came from Daniel Roselle's "A World History: A Cultural Approach," observers said.

The passage reads: "Wherever they went, the Moslems [sic] brought with them their love of art, beauty and learning. From about the eighth to the eleventh century, their culture was superior in many ways to that of western Christendom."

Meanwhile, an excerpt listing the common procedures used by Christian friars to introduce the religion in Latin America stated that "idols, temples and other material evidences of paganism [were] destroyed," and "Christian buildings [were] often constructed on sites of destroyed native temples" -- and built with free Indian labor, to boot....

The Muslim reading:

* "Wherever they went, the Moslems [sic] brought with them their love of art, beauty and learning. From about the eighth to the eleventh century, their culture was superior in many ways to that of western Christendom.

* "Some of the finest centers of Moslem life were established in Spain. In Cordova, the streets were solidly paved, while at the same time in Paris people waded ankle-deep in mud after a rain. Cordovan public lamps lighted roads for as far as ten miles; yet seven hundred years later there was still not a single public lamp in London!"

Source: Daniel Roselle, A World History: A Cultural Approach

The Christian reading:
Common Procedures used by Friars in Converting Areas in Spanish America:

* "Idols, temples and other material evidences of paganism destroyed."

* "Christian buildings often constructed on sites of destroyed native temples in order to symbolize and emphasize the substitution of one religion by the other."

* "Indians supplied construction labor without receiving payment."

* "In a converted community, services and fiestas were regularly held in the church building."

Source: Based on information from Charles Gibson, Spain in America

No doubt they're enraged over the opposition to the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero. That's why Muslims like Reza Aslan are seething with anger these days, isn't it? Or is it over the Israeli incursion into Gaza? No, that was last year's outrage. Have you noticed -- as I have often pointed out -- that the pretexts always shift, but the anger, and the resultant jihad, are constant? "Police arrest 4 in bomb attack in China's restive Muslim far west," from Associated Press, August 25 (thanks to Twostellas):

BEIJING (AP) -- Police have arrested four suspects in a deadly bomb attack on police auxiliary forces last week, a government spokeswoman said Wednesday, in the latest violence in China's restive Muslim far west.

The four were part of a "violent gang of six people" responsible for the attack in the city of Aksu, said Hou Hanmin, government spokeswoman in Xinjiang, China's Central Asian buffer province where Aksu is located.

In the attack last Thursday, the assailants drove a three-wheeled motorized vehicle into a crowd of people and then set off explosives. Eight people died, including two attackers and members of a civilian police auxiliary force, Hou said.

She and a report by the state-run Xinhua News Agency did not ascribe a motive. But Xinjiang has been beset by ethnic conflict and a sometimes-violent separatist movement by Uighurs, a largely Muslim ethnic group that sees Xinjiang as its homeland. Many Uighurs resent the Han Chinese majority as interlopers....

The renowned "moderate" Imam of the Ground Zero mega-mosque is suffering from some cracks in his facade of moderation. Pamela Geller broke the story here: among many other incendiary statements, Rauf said, "We tend to forget, in the West, that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al Qaida has on its hands of innocent non Muslims." But the State Department, which is using taxpayer money to send this pro-Sharia, anti-free speech Imam on a tour of the Middle East, doesn't care. "State Department 'Aware' of Ground Zero Mosque Imam's Controversial Remarks," by Jake Gibson for FoxNews, August 24 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

WASHINGTON - State Department officials say they are aware of the controversial remarks Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf made in 2005. Rauf is the Imam of the controversial so-called Ground Zero mosque and is presently on a State Department funded outreach tour of Middle Eastern countries.

During a 2005 conference in Australia, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf compared the United States to Al Qaeda and said, "We tend to forget, in the West, that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than Al Qaeda has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims."

Rauf made the comments while speaking at the Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Center during a question and answer session, as part of what sponsors say was a dialogue to improve relations between America and the Muslim world.

Rauf added, "You remember that the U.S. led sanctions against Iraq led to the death of over half a million Iraqi children. This has been documented by the United Nations."

"We are aware of those remarks," said State Department Spokesman P.J. Crowley. "I would just caution any of you that choose to write on this that once again you have a case where a blogger has pulled out one passage from a very lengthy speech, if you read the entire speech, you will discover exactly why we think he is rightfully participating in this international speaking tour."...

Crowley is lying, of course. Pamela Geller published the whole speech here.

Yet more jihad against schoolgirls in Afghanistan. "Afghan girls fall ill after apparent gas poisoning," from Reuters, August 25 (thanks to all who sent this in):

KABUL (Reuters) - About 40 schoolgirls became ill and were taken to hospital after a suspected gas poisoning in the Afghan capital Wednesday, another apparent attack by hardline Islamists opposed to female education.

The Taliban banned education for girls during their Afghan rule from 1996-2001, but have condemned similar attacks in the past. They have, however, set fire to dozens of schools, threatened teachers and even attacked schoolgirls in rural areas.

Wednesday's incident followed a similar pattern to other recent attacks at girls' schools involving an airborne substance which officials said could be some form of gas....

The Afghan government, however, did not suggest who may have been responsible for the apparent attack.

My guess would be Tim McVeigh.

That explains it.

Details here (thanks to Pamela Geller).

Alican T., Fatih K, and Filiz G. Ah yes, names redolent of old Bavaria. Doubtless these "Germans" do not have and never did have any allegiance to Germany. Eurabia Update: "3 Germans face terrorism charges linked to radical Islamic groups," from The Associated Press, August 25:

BERLIN -- German prosecutors say they have charged two men and a woman with supporting radical Islamic terror groups.

Prosecutors announced Wednesday that they charged two men, identified as 21-year-old Alican T. and 31-year-old Fatih K, and a woman, 28-year-old Filiz G., with supporting various terrorist organizations.

They say the three German citizens allegedly supported the radical Islamic Jihad Union and the German Taliban Mujahideen.

Alican T. and Filiz G. are also accused of recruiting members for al-Qaida and spreading propaganda material online....

What do Afghan police recruiters do to guard against increasing Taliban infiltration? Why, nothing, of course. Since there is no clear difference between the Afghan police and the Taliban in terms of their understanding of Islam, despite the near-universal assumption in the West that the Islam of the Taliban is a "hijacked" version held only by a Tiny Minority of Extremists, and since the Taliban infiltrators can deceive their enemies anyway, in accord with the principle of "war is deceit," this kind of thing is going to keep happening.

In any case, the scene of a jihadist murdering two dhimmi soldiers during a "mentoring session" is a grim parable that neatly encapsulates the entire U.S./NATO adventure in Afghanistan. "Afghan police recruit kills 2 Spanish officers," by Christopher Bodeen for Associated Press, August 25 (thanks to Bill):

KABUL, Afghanistan - An Afghan police recruit opened fire on Spanish trainers early Wednesday, killing two of them along with their interpreter.

The recruit was subsequently shot and killed by Spanish officers who had been conducting a police training course at their base in Badghis province, Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said.

The officers were members of the Civil Guards, a paramilitary unit that falls under the command of the Interior Ministry.

The motive for the shooting wasn't known, although it bore the hallmarks of earlier attacks by Taliban fighters and their sympathizers who have taken advantage of a recruiting drive to infiltrate the Afghan security forces.

NATO confirmed the deaths and said they came during a "mentoring session" between its forces and the Afghan police....

Majid Khan Shkib, a member of the provincial council, said there were suspicions that Taliban fighters active in the remote area had infiltrated the local police force -- an increasingly common tactic among the insurgents.

Following the officer's shooting, hundreds of angry men gathered outside the walls of the Spanish camp, chanting religious slogans and hurling stones. Several members of the crowd were taken to a local hospital, but it wasn't clear how they had been injured....

Angry Methodists, no doubt.

Our SIOA campaign defending victims of honor killing ran its course in Chicago, but the false story went around yesterday that the ads had been pulled. "Yellow Cab Will Stop Running Anti-Islam Ads," said the Huffington Post, August 24, and explained:

Pamela Geller, who has been dubbed the "Queen of Muslim Bashers" and leads the "Stop the Islamization of America" movement, claimed the ads were directed toward Muslim women wanting to leave Islam--but ended up offending both cab drivers and passengers.

It's offensive to try to raise awareness about honor killings, so as to try to end the practice, you see. It makes one "Queen of the Muslim Bashers." The victims? Pah! To speak up for them is "anti-Islam"!

But in any case, the story is false. Here is a message my SIOA colleague Pamela Geller received from Verifone Media, the company that we dealt with to buy the ad space on the Chicago taxicabs:

Pamela,

Your end date for the Chicago campaign was July 28th 2010 (please review the contracts). There are currently still 3 tops with your ad on them in Chicago, however those are being taken down tomorrow. If anything, your campaign has received a longer run than it was supposed to, and his article about them being "pulled" is completely false. On another note, your ad's were on independent taxi owners cars and never on Yellow Taxi (the name of the company is yellow taxi) cars, although the vehicle might have been yellow. It appears this reporter is trying to create a story.

Let me know if you need anything else.

Jeffrey Weiss

VeriFone Media Solutions

A reporter trying to create a story? Why, it's unheard of!

Pamela has much more here.

"Canny operative"

"Muhammad Comes to Manhattan" by Mark Jacobson in New York Magazine, August 22, is just the sort of piece you'd expect from an ignorant Leftist journalist/propagandist who has his reservations about the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero, but his kneejerk cultural Leftism won't let him express them. So in this lengthy article he does his best to whitewash the unsavory thug developer Sharif El-Gamal and to make Pamela Geller and me look silly (although he had me laughing when he described me as "a canny operative who likely has the inside track on the State Department's Middle East affairs desk should the tea party win the White House in 2012").

Nonetheless, he does quote me at some length, and people who bother to check will see that what I'm saying is true. And people will know also that Sharif El-Gamal is lying, although Mark Jacobson doesn't bother to shed any light on the fact. Here is El-Gamal in Jacobson's article, pretending that the Ground Zero mosque location is just a coincidence, with nothing to do with Ground Zero:

"Listen," said El-Gamal, "do you have any clue how the Manhattan real-estate market works, what is involved? People seem to think that we picked that building to make some kind of point. But that is simply insane. This is New York; no matter who you are, you just don't choose a building, move in, and take over. Do you know how many places I looked at? I looked at Chambers Street. I looked at Vesey Street, Broadway, Greenwich Street, Warren Street, Murray Street. Maybe half a dozen more, I can't even remember now. It was only after all that that Park Place came up. Even then, it was the most grueling negotiation of my life. So many times I told myself, Wow, this just isn't worth it. One minute the deal was on, eight months later it was off. The whole thing almost drove me nuts."

But didn't he think twice before buying a building so close to ground zero? Didn't he suspect that he was putting himself at the center of a hornets' nest?

"No," said El-Gamal, who was born at Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn and, after some world travels in the company of his father, a Chemical Bank executive, attended New Hyde Park High School in Nassau County. "It never entered my mind," he said. "Not for a second."

Alas for the poor millionaire developer! He is caught out! Here is Daisy Khan on the location of the mega-mosque:

I think the building came to us, which goes to show that there is a symbolism there, and that there's a divine hand in it. That it's so close to the tragedy, that its close proximity is very symbolic for the fact that we really want to reverse what happened on 9/11.

And here from a New York Times article (now scrubbed of these statements about the mosque, interestingly enough) is the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf on the mosque location:

"New York is the capital of the world, and this location close to 9/11 is iconic," said the 61-year-old cleric, who is known for being a longtime critic of radical Islam. Being in a building "where a piece of the wreckage fell," he added, "sends the opposite statement to what happened on 9/11 ... We want to push back against the extremists."

So which is it, folks? Is the planned location of the mega-mosque just a coincidence, or a direct and conscious statement about 9/11? Shouldn't you have gotten your stories straight before you went to the media -- even the lapdog media like Mark Jacobson?

Remember this the next time you hear about Muslim prisoners or college students demanding halal food. Remember: in Muslim countries, non-Muslims must conform to Islamic norms. In non-Muslim countries, however, non-Muslims must conform to Islamic norms. Get the picture? "Protests erupt as Hindus are served beef in flood camps," from the Press Trust of India, August 24 (thanks to G.S.):

ISLAMABAD: Hundreds of minority Hindus rendered homeless by the devastating floods in Pakistan were served beef by authorities at a relief camp in Karachi, triggering protest from the community members.

The Hindus belonging to the Baagri and Waghari nomadic tribes, who numbered around 600, are among 4,000 flood victims of different faiths living in the relief camp in Lyari area.

"We are Hindus and consumption of beef is prohibited in our religion but we were given beef, which is unacceptable," Mohan Baagri, a Hindu living at the camp, said. Several women with traditional tattoos on their faces and wearing 'lehengas' left the camp with their children and demanded that they be shifted elsewhere.

Following the protest, officials of the minority affairs ministry of Sindh province rushed to the camp and intervened to resolve the issue.

"It was a misunderstanding. The food was for the residents of the camp but the authorities were not aware of their faith. However, we have made arrangements and they will now be given rations so they can cook their own food," said Dara Kazi, personal assistant to provincial minority affairs minister Mohan Mal Kohistani....

Civil rights. Sure. Just not for the victims of Islamic supremacism.

Our great friend the ace illustrator Bosch Fawstin explains here.

Not too long ago Christopher Hitchens wrote that opposition to the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero was just bigotry and racism -- the whole tired laundry list of Leftist cliches. But now he is deeply confused, for he has discovered that the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is not as "moderate" as the cappuccino bomb-throwers he hangs around with led him to believe. "A Test of Tolerance: The 'Ground Zero mosque' debate is about tolerance--and a whole lot more," by Christopher Hitchens at Slate, August 23 (thanks to Benedict):

Two weeks ago, I wrote that the arguments against the construction of the Cordoba Initiative center in lower Manhattan were so stupid and demagogic as to be beneath notice. [...]

From the beginning, though, I pointed out that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf was no great bargain and that his Cordoba Initiative was full of euphemisms about Islamic jihad and Islamic theocracy. I mentioned his sinister belief that the United States was partially responsible for the assault on the World Trade Center and his refusal to take a position on the racist Hamas dictatorship in Gaza. The more one reads through his statements, the more alarming it gets. For example, here is Rauf's editorial on the upheaval that followed the brutal hijacking of the Iranian elections in 2009. Regarding President Obama, he advised that:

He should say his administration respects many of the guiding principles of the 1979 revolution--to establish a government that expresses the will of the people; a just government, based on the idea of Vilayet-i-faquih, that establishes the rule of law.

Coyly untranslated here (perhaps for "outreach" purposes), Vilayet-i-faquih is the special term promulgated by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to describe the idea that all of Iranian society is under the permanent stewardship (sometimes rendered as guardianship) of the mullahs. Under this dispensation, "the will of the people" is a meaningless expression, because "the people" are the wards and children of the clergy. It is the justification for a clerical supreme leader, whose rule is impervious to elections and who can pick and choose the candidates and, if it comes to that, the results. It is extremely controversial within Shiite Islam. (Grand Ayatollah Sistani in Iraq, for example, does not endorse it.) As for those numerous Iranians who are not Shiites, it reminds them yet again that they are not considered to be real citizens of the Islamic Republic.

I do not find myself reassured by the fact that Imam Rauf publicly endorses the most extreme and repressive version of Muslim theocracy. The letterhead of the statement, incidentally, describes him as the Cordoba Initiative's "Founder and Visionary." Why does that not delight me, either?

Emboldened by the crass nature of the opposition to the center, its defenders have started to talk as if it represented no problem at all and as if the question were solely one of religious tolerance. It would be nice if this were true. But tolerance is one of the first and most awkward questions raised by any examination of Islamism. We are wrong to talk as if the only subject was that of terrorism. As Western Europe has already found to its cost, local Muslim leaders have a habit, once they feel strong enough, of making demands of the most intolerant kind. Sometimes it will be calls for censorship of anything "offensive" to Islam. Sometimes it will be demands for sexual segregation in schools and swimming pools. The script is becoming a very familiar one. And those who make such demands are of course usually quite careful to avoid any association with violence. They merely hint that, if their demands are not taken seriously, there just might be a teeny smidgeon of violence from some other unnamed quarter ...

As for the gorgeous mosaic of religious pluralism, it's easy enough to find mosque Web sites and DVDs that peddle the most disgusting attacks on Jews, Hindus, Christians, unbelievers, and other Muslims--to say nothing of insane diatribes about women and homosexuals. This is why the fake term Islamophobia is so dangerous: It insinuates that any reservations about Islam must ipso facto be "phobic." A phobia is an irrational fear or dislike. Islamic preaching very often manifests precisely this feature, which is why suspicion of it is by no means irrational.

From my window, I can see the beautiful minaret of the Washington, D.C., mosque on Massachusetts Avenue. It is situated at the heart of the capital city's diplomatic quarter, and it is where President Bush went immediately after 9/11 to make his gesture toward the "religion of peace." A short while ago, the wife of a new ambassador told me that she had been taking her dog for a walk when a bearded man accosted her and brusquely warned her not to take the animal so close to the sacred precincts. Muslim cabdrivers in other American cities have already refused to take passengers with "unclean" canines....

And much, much more of that kind of intolerance is to come, courtesy the idea of "tolerance" that prevails among the addled multiculturalist elite.

You don't want to get Reza Aslan angry. "European Islamophobia Finds A Home In The U.S.," by Reza Aslan for NPR, August 23 (thanks to Anne Crockett):

[...] No matter what your feelings are about the proposed community center, there can be little doubt that Islamophobia is on the rise in America.

A Washington Post poll released last year found that nearly half of Americans -- 48 percent -- have an unfavorable view of Islam. That's nine points higher than in the months after the Sept. 11 attacks. A new national survey by the Pew Research Center found that 30 percent of those who disapprove of President Obama's job performance believe he is Muslim.

Note the snake oil that Aslan is peddling. He pretends that Americans have some irrational hatred of Islam, and hopes that as he wrings his hands about "Islamophobia" that his enlightened NPR readers will not remember the Fort Hood jihadist who murdered thirteen people, or the Christmas underwear jihadist that almost took down another airliner, or the Mumbai jihad, or the London jihad, or the Madrid jihad, or the Bali jihad, or so many, many other jihads around the world since 9/11. He wants you to think that Americans have an unfavorable view of Islam that stems from irrational hatred, from bigotry and racism.

And he isn't even concerned that some readers will see through his game and view him with greater suspicion and reserve once they do, because even that he will turn around to his own advantage in that parlor game ever-popular among Muslims in America, The Quest for Privileged Victim Status.

What's more disturbing is that anti-Muslim sentiment seems to have gone mainstream, with fringe groups like Stop Islamization of America -- which is behind many of the protests in lower Manhattan and has been participating in similar anti-Muslim rallies across the country -- suddenly receiving regular air time on mainstream media outlets.

Stop Islamization of America is actually an affiliate of a European organization called Stop Islamization of Europe, an anti-Muslim hate group whose motto is "Racism is the lowest form of human stupidity, but Islamophobia is the height of common sense."

Actually SIOA hasn't adopted that slogan precisely because it can be misused by used car salesmen like Aslan, but its actual meaning should be clear to anyone who is not playing Gotcha or trying to portray freedom fighters in the worst possible light. SIOE is emphasizing that the resistance to Islamization is not racism, as is commonly charged, since the Islamic supremacist political ideology is not a race, and it is saying that concern about the advance of Sharia imperatives in the West is not an irrational fear, but a genuine concern for the preservation of European freedoms.

The connection between the two organizations is telling.

In Europe, the passage of laws curtailing the rights and freedoms of Muslims and the success of avowedly anti-Islam political parties have led to a sense of marginalization and disenfranchisement among Europe's Muslim communities. That in turn has led to what I believe is a sharp increase in radicalization among Europe's young Muslims.

So "radicalization" is a response to attempts to preserve European cultural identity and genuine pluralism. Got it. What specific laws curtailing the rights and freedoms of Muslims were passed in London before the July 7, 2005 jihad bombings, Mr. Aslan? What specific laws curtailing the rights and freedoms of Muslims were passed in Madrid before the March 11, 2004 jihad bombings, Mr. Aslan?

[...] The fear is that this may lead to the same kind of radicalization among Muslim youth in the U.S. that we've seen in Europe. It has already played into the hands of al-Qaida, which has for years been trying to convince American Muslims that the unfettered religious freedoms they enjoy is a mirage -- that the U.S. will eventually turn against its Muslim citizens.

Are we in danger of proving al-Qaida right?

I am a liberal, progressive, secularized American Muslim. But when I see that bigotry against my faith -- my very identity -- has become so commonplace in America that it is shaping into a wedge issue for the midterm elections, I can barely control my anger.

I can't imagine how the next generation of American Muslim youth will react to such provocations. I pray that we never find out.

Threat noted, Mr. Aslan. But instead of tossing veiled threats onto the cappuccino-stained pages of National Public Radio, shouldn't you, sterling moderate that you are, be working among those young Muslims to counter their tendencies to "radicalization"?

But of course, to do so would be to acknowledge that "radicalization" proceeds from wellsprings within the Islamic community itself, instead of as a response to provocation from without -- and that would contradict Aslan's entire victimhood narrative.

"In their neighborhoods, state authority holds no [s]way. Muslims are the ones who decide. The consequence: violence, vandalism, burning automobiles, attacks against police, firemen and paramedics." Eurabia Update: "Whoever Kills A Police Officer Enters Paradise," from Politically Incorrect, August 20 (thanks to Fjordman):

This statement is on the wall in the Göteborg suburb Hisingen. It is not randomly painted there, rather it is part of a program. In this video, young Muslims say that the police "should not play Allah." In their neighborhoods, state authority holds no way. Muslims are the ones who decide. The consequence: violence, vandalism, burning automobiles, attacks against police, firemen and paramedics.

This TV report from Swedish television was broadcast back last spring. But the conditions described therein are good examples of the developments in all of Europe...

There is much more. Read it all.

In "Inventing Moderate Islam" at National Review, August 24, Andrew McCarthy skewers the general tendency to dismiss as "Islamophobia" statements by non-Muslim analysts that are taken for granted as true when they're made by Muslim leaders:

'Secularism can never enjoy a general acceptance in an Islamic society." The writer was not one of those sulfurous Islamophobes decried by CAIR and the professional Left. Quite the opposite: It was Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood's spiritual guide and a favorite of the Saudi royal family. He made this assertion in his book, How the Imported Solutions Disastrously Affected Our Ummah, an excerpt of which was published by the Saudi Gazette just a couple of months ago.

This was Qaradawi the "progressive" Muslim intellectual, much loved by Georgetown University's burgeoning Islamic-studies programs. Like Harvard, Georgetown has been purchased into submission by tens of millions of Saudi petrodollars. In its resulting ardor to put Americans at ease about Islam, the university somehow manages to look beyond Qaradawi's fatwas calling for the killing of American troops in Iraq and for suicide bombings in Israel. Qaradawi, they tell us, is a "moderate." In fact, as Robert Spencer quips, if you were to say Islam and secularism cannot co-exist, John Esposito, Georgetown's apologist-in-chief, would call you an Islamophobe; but when Qaradawi says it, no problem -- according to Esposito, he's a "reformist."

And he's not just any reformist. Another Qaradawi fan, Feisal Rauf, the similarly "moderate" imam behind the Ground Zero mosque project, tells us Qaradawi is also "the most well-known legal authority in the whole Muslim world today."...

Read it all.

In Human Events this morning I discuss Nancy Pelosi's recent call to investigate those who oppose her political stance on the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero, and her lapdog, Politico's wannabe tough-guy reporter Kenneth P. Vogel:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently warned darkly about the planned mega-mosque at Ground Zero: "There is a concerted effort to make this a political issue by some." She added her voice to "those who have called for looking into how is this opposition to the mosque being funded."

After being barraged with questions by those incredulous that she was calling for an investigation not of the shady funding of the mega-mosque itself, but of its opponents--thereby continuing on a path toward criminalizing political dissent that Obama and the people around him have a disturbing tendency to favor--Pelosi dug in her high heels. She did grant that "there is a need for transparency about who is funding the effort to build this Islamic center," although she called for no investigation. Instead, she reiterated her call to investigate those who dissented from her political line: "At the same time, we should also ask who is funding the attacks against the construction of the center."

Will Pelosi investigate Howard Dean and Harry Reid, now that they have come out against the mosque at Ground Zero?

Pelosi doesn't seem to care where the $100 million to build the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero is coming from, despite the fact that the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has reversed himself without explanation about whether or not he will be receiving foreign funding, saying in the U.S. that the funds to build the mosque would come from Muslims in America, and saying in the Arabic-language media that Muslim countries worldwide would be contributing to building the mosque. But that is all just fine with Pelosi. What she wants to know is where Pamela Geller and I got $9,000 to run an ad against the mosque on New York City buses.

Welcome to Obama's America, in which political opposition to the pet projects of the elites can get you investigated and who knows what else. Well, come and get me, Nancy. Do your worst.

And ready to do Pelosi's worst was Kenneth P. Vogel of Politico, who called me Thursday evening to ask me a series of questions about donations to our efforts against the Ground Zero mega-mosque. Vogel grew increasingly hostile and belligerent when I declined to answer, and seemed desperate to position himself as a two-bit TV cop. He even snarled at me at one point, "Look, you can make this hard, or you can make this easy." Apparently he has been watching too many reruns of "Hill Street Blues." Without question, Ken, let's do this the hard way....

Colin Powell and others have made much of the Muslims who have served with distinction. But this young man is basing his refusal to fight against other Muslims on the Qur'an and Islamic law. It would be refreshing to see a comprehensive refutation of his views by the American Muslim advocacy groups that dismiss as "Islamophobia" any suggestion that there is any difficulty in reconciling one's obligations as an American soldier, or American citizen, and one's obligations as a knowledgeable and committed Muslim. Will Honest Ibe Hooper or Brave Ahmed Rehab step up to the plate on this one?

"Muslim soldier with 101st Airborne says he won't go if deployed," by Kristin M. Hall for AP, August 24:

NASHVILLE -- A U.S. Army soldier wants to leave the military service as a conscientious objector based on his beliefs as a Muslim, but he says he's concerned he may be deployed to Afghanistan anyway.

Pfc. Naser Abdo, a 20-year-old infantryman assigned to the 101st Airborne Division, said Monday that if the military orders him to deploy, he will refuse to go despite the fact that it may result in a military charge against him....

Abdo said when he joined the Army more than a year ago, he initially felt he could be a soldier and a Muslim at the same time. But he said he now believes Islamic standards would prohibit his service in the U.S. Army in any war.

According to documents provided to The Associated Press, Abdo cited Islamic scholars and verses from the Quran as reasons for his decision to ask for separation from the Army.

"I realized through further reflection that God did not give legitimacy to the war in Afghanistan, Iraq or any war the U.S. Army would conceivably participate in," he wrote.

He also said he was harassed during basic training because of his religion, including hearing insulting comments about Islam and Muslims. He said that at times, he hasn't been able to make his daily prayers because of his military service....

A crime against my neighbor in Algeria. June 1986
by Kahina

Sara was 20, just finished her first year of collage in Batna. She was in love with a boy from school. But as her father had arranged a marriage for her with a Muslim man. Sara was to be married as soon as she turned 20 to this man who was 53 years old. His wife had died giving birth at home.

Her mother, still holding on in secret to their Jewish roots, would tell Sara of her ancestors, the Chawi Berbers of Numidia.

The day came for the marriage of Sara to General Djbar. Sara was preparing herself in her room, crying the whole time. Her mother was tormented that she had no say in her daughter's marriage or life because Sara's father had already arranged the marriage.

Sara's mother went down to start to prepare the henna for the festival. Sara packed her bags and jumped out the window. She ran to our house, where I would transport her to Constantine. I drove so fast, I felt like my heart was going to explode. We met her lover in the center of the city, where he had gotten papers for him and Sara saying they were married in order to get Sara into Tunis and then into France. They papers were forged, but were the only way we could get her out safe.

I drove home so that no one would miss me. It was a good 3 hour drive back to the mountains of Aures. Once I arrived everyone questioned me. I used the excuse that I went to get a gift. They saw the gift in the auto and did not question me any more.

But then I heard screaming coming from Sara's house. Everyone went to see what happened. We found Sara's mother black with bruises on her face and arms. Her husband had beaten her because Sara was gone. How was he going to explain this to the family and the man whom she was to marry? It was a disgrace to his honor.

Sara's brother started to ask around. They found out from a friend that Sara was with her lover from school. With the help of the police and military, they found Sara and her lover in the hotel that night in Constantine. Her father wrapped the rope around her neck and killed her. Her lover was shot for being in the same room with her while not married.

All of this went unreported. They held the funeral 3 days later and buried her a month later.

Sara's father killed his wife on the suspicion that she was the one who helped Sara escape. He did this to clear his family's name in the society.

I would never be the same again. It was the first time I would witness a honor killing, at the age of 16. I feared also for my well being.

Sara

I dream of a place where poets can sing their minds and hearts
and the songs of love are in all hearts....

Sara sang her song this night while the ground was still thirsty with blood....

I do not believe in peace anymore while bullets still rape the innocent of this night...

A demand for respect: "We demand you remove the crosses off the façades of your pharmacies and to respect our religion." Islamic Tolerance Alert from modern, moderate Morocco: "Moroccan pharmacies threatened over cross symbols," by Naoufel Cherkaoui for Magharebia, August 23 (thanks to Ray):

A recent web post warned Moroccan businesses against displaying signs in the shape of the cross.

A self-proclaimed "lover of al-Qaeda and Jihad" has given Moroccan pharmacy owners one month to remove cross symbols from storefronts or else face beheading.

"In 2009, crusade France lured owners of pharmacies with financial benefits and discounts in medications in return for placing the green cross along the green crescent," said a letter published in late July by several online forums. "We demand you remove the crosses off the façades of your pharmacies and to respect our religion," the web threat continued.

"Forewarned is forearmed," the unnamed writer said. "We give you and those who work with you an interval of one month to return to your true nature and nation."

The deadline expires August 28th....

Get the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf over there to set them straight. "Somali militants storm hotel, 31 reported dead," by Ibrahim Mohamed for Reuters, August 24 (thanks to all who sent this in):

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Insurgents in army uniforms stormed a hotel in the Somali capital Mogadishu frequented by government officials on Tuesday, killing at least 31 people including legislators, the government said.

The hardline al Shabaab Islamists who have been fighting for three years to oust the fragile Western-backed "transitional government," and control most of the city, claimed the attack.

The Information Ministry said the 31 dead included six members of parliament and five government security personnel.

"The blood of the dead is leaking out of the hotel," said Information Minister Abdirahman Osman....

Why is everyone so sure that the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is a "moderate"? Because he says he is, silly, and why on earth should we doubt him? But he also says other things. Pamela Geller has an exclusive on the shocking details plus audio of Rauf's statements. Speaking in Australia in 2005, Rauf said these things and more:

"We tend to forget, in the West, that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al Qaida has on its hands of innocent non Muslims. You may remember that the US-led sanctions against Iraq led to the death of over half a million Iraqi children. This has been documented by the United Nations. And when Madeleine Albright, who has become a friend of mine over the last couple of years, when she was Secretary of State and was asked whether this was worth it, said it was worth it."

Pamela Geller notes: "No mention of the 270 million victims of over a millennium of jihadi wars, land appropriations, cultural annihilation and enslavement. No mention of the recent slaughter by Muslims of Christians, Hindus, Jews, non-believers in Indonesia, Thailand, Ethiopia, Somalia, Philippines, Lebanon, Israel, Russia, China................ no candor, no criticism of Islam."

There is a great deal more, and it is damning. Be sure to read it all, and listen to the audio.

"Unrest ... caused by Muslim rebels seeking secession from predominantly Buddhist Thailand."

And what would happen if the proverbial Coyote ever caught the Roadrunner? Would there be peace, and would life then go on? It's much more likely the "rebels" seeking their own country to run would proceed to turn violently on one another over the implementation of Islamic law and the consequent legitimacy of any government.

This conflict is underway in Afghanistan, it is in somewhat early stages Bosnia as Saudi-inspired jihadists gain strength and support, and it has been raging in Somalia for years. Funny how that keeps happening. "Two killed, five wounded in Thai south unrest," from Reuters, August 23 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

YALA, Thailand - Suspected Muslim insurgents shot dead two people and wounded five others in three separate attacks in the space of one day in Thailand's restive south, police said on Monday.

The incidents all took place between Sunday night and Monday morning in Pattani, one of three provinces plagued by six years of bloody unrest, believed to be caused by Muslim rebels seeking secession from predominantly Buddhist Thailand.

A Muslim man, formerly a local politician, was shot dead and a village chief wounded when unknown gunmen opened fire as they drove a pickup truck to morning prayers on Monday, police said.

In another attack on Monday, a Buddhist couple were shot and wounded on their way to work at a construction site.

The previous night, a Muslim village official was shot dead in front of a school by mystery assailants, police Lietenant Mana Naktang said. Two bystanders were also wounded.

More than 4,000 people have been killed since a decades-old rebellion resurfaced in 2004 in the mainly Muslim provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat, which border Malaysia.

No group has claimed responsibility for the violence, for which there has so far been no known evidence of links to foreign militant networks.

Except ideology.

The attacks have ranged from drive-by shootings and sabotage to bombings and beheadings. Targets are usually Buddhists and Muslims associated with the Thai state, such as police, soldiers, government officials and teachers.

Once again it was Islamic jihadists, misunderstanding their peaceful religion. One wonders how many thousands of such stories are going to come across the transom before the learned analysts and the mainstream media begin to question their assumptions. And the answer is: no number of such stories will be sufficient, because their dogmas (Islam is a Religion of Peace that has been Hijacked by a Tiny Minority of Extremists, "Islamophobia" is a twin "extremism" paralleling "Islamic extremism," etc.) aren't based on evidence in the first place. "Blast kills at least 15 in Pakistan mosque," from Reuters, August 23 (thanks to all who sent this in):

WANA, Pakistan (Reuters) - A blast inside a mosque in Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal region on the Afghan border killed at least 15 people on Monday, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

Taliban insurgents, who have carried out similar bombings, have been keeping a low profile during Pakistan's flood crisis, which has overwhelmed the government.

"Apparently it was a suicide attack and Maulana Noor Mohammad was the target," said an intelligence official in Wana, referring to a pro-government cleric....

If you're looking to bolster your "moderate" credentials for public consumption, including in your project a founder of what has arguably been the single most problematic mosque in America is probably a bad idea. Probably.

"Ground Zero mosque modeled after notorious 9/11 mosque?" from WorldNetDaily, August 22:

The New York imam behind the Ground Zero mosque has struck a partnership with the founder of the so-called 9/11 mosque in the Washington suburbs that gave aid and comfort to some of the 9/11 hijackers, WND has learned.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf counts the lead trustee of the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center among partners in his Cordoba Initiative, which features a 13-story mosque and a "cultural center" for his project to bring shariah, or Islamic law, to America.

Now, now, it's "Park 51" now, which is apparently meant less to sound like a triumphalist mega-mosque, and more like it would blast techno at all hours for spiky-haired hipsters in skinny jeans.

Families of 9/11 victims oppose construction of the proposed site so close to Ground Zero.

Jamal Barzinji, one of the founders of the radical Muslim Brotherhood in America, also founded Dar al-Hijrah in Falls Church, Va., which is run by the pro-jihad Brotherhood. The mosque has been tied to numerous terrorism plots, including the 9/11 attacks.

In December 2008, the Brotherhood's U.S. think tank -- the International Institute of Islamic Thought, or IIIT - hosted Rauf. During their meeting, IIIT's leadership, including Barzinji, "pledged cooperation and support" for Rauf's project, according to this screenshot of the description of the event from IIIT's scrubbed Web archives.

Rauf's partner Barzinji is a founder and director of IIIT, which is under active federal investigation for funneling funds to Palestinian terrorists. Its Herndon, Va., offices were raided by federal agents after 9/11.

The U.S. government has accused Barzinji of being "closely associated" with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas and other terrorist organizations. He has not been charged with a crime, however.

Barzinji personally authorized the development of Dar al-Hijrah, according to Fairfax County, Va., property records obtained by investigative journalist Paul Sperry, author of "Infiltration" and "Muslim Mafia."

Records also show the North American Islamic Trust, a recently named unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terror-financing case in U.S. history, holds the deed to the radical mosque. Barzinji is listed as a NAIT trustee on the document, and his signature appears on the deed.

In November 2008, Barzinji personally chaired a meeting at IIIT's Herndon headquarters to launch an abridged edition of Rauf's book, "What's Right with Islam Is What's Right with America," in which he calls for the establishment of a parallel system of justice in America run by Islamic jurists. Barzinji's brother's printing company published the digest.

Rauf's partnership with Barzinji and IIIT worries critics of the Ground Zero mosque in New York, who fear it will attract the kind of dubious foreign sponsorship and terrorist elements associated with Dar al-Hijrah.

Built in 1991 with $5 million from the Saudi Embassy, Dar al-Hijrah employed Imam Anwar Awlaki as its prayer leader from 2000 to 2002. Awlaki, aka Aulaqi, counseled two of the 9/11 hijackers in closed-door meetings, and is believed to have played a central role in the plot. The fugitive al-Qaida leader is now hiding in Yemen.

He also radicalized Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, Christmas Day airline bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and, most recently, Times Square car bomber Faisal Shahzad.

The U.S. last month designated Awlaki a "key leader of al-Qaida" and froze his assets.

"Anwar al-Aulaqi is extraordinarily dangerous," said Stuart Levey, Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. "He has involved himself in every aspect of the supply chain of terrorism -- fundraising for terrorist groups, recruiting and training operatives, and planning and ordering attacks on innocents."

Dar al-Hijrah's leadership is closely tied to the radical Muslim Brotherhood, a worldwide jihadist movement....

There is more.

"International Burn a Koran Day" does a grave disservice to the cause of spreading awareness about Islamic teachings and the threat that Sharia poses to our way of life. It is a gift to Islamic groups who would so dearly love to portray all of us who criticize and question Islamic teachings (and triumphalist mosques) as frothing reactionaries.

Of all imagery to appropriate from the past century, that of book-burning is utterly disastrous, inviting comparisons with the Nazis' famous roundup of banned books, and creating an opening for Heinrich Heine's famous admonition: "Where one burns books, one will soon burn people."

The most substantive means of framing the conflict between Western values and Islamic law are productive, not destructive: Artwork, satire, commentary and criticism, to name a few.

Awareness is a mightier weapon than a bonfire.

As such, it would be better to read aloud from the Qur'an for all to hear of its hatred and subjugation of non-believers, the second-class status of women, cruel and unusual punishments, and open-ended calls to warfare in order to impose Islamic law.

Nonetheless, while Islamic advocacy groups are likely squealing with glee at such a free shot at playing the victim, at least one set of jihadists couldn't contain themselves: "Islamic Radicals Threaten Suicide Bombings Against Gainesville Church," by Adam Kirk for WOKV, August 23:

[...] One jihadist website vowed to conduct suicide bombings in Florida to avenge the Koran burning, while others predicted an increase in terrorist recruits as a result of such actions.

"By Allah, the wars are heated and you Americans are the ones who...enflamed it," says one such posting. "By Allah you will be the first to taste its flames." ...

This seems to be the case that never goes away, as authorities continue to charge accomplices and Misunderstanders of Islam. "German man faces terrorism charges in US plot," from the Associated Press, August 23:

BERLIN -- German prosecutors say they have charged a man with membership in a group that plotted to attack U.S. targets in the European country.

Prosecutors announced Monday the man identified only as Salih S. was charged Aug. 12 with supporting a terrorist organization and membership in a terrorist organization.

They say the German citizen is alleged to be a member of the radical Islamic Jihad Union who trained at a terrorist camp in Pakistan. He was first arrested in 2008 in Turkey and extradited in July.

Salih S. is accused of procuring GPS devices, night vision goggles and other items for Adem Yilmaz

Yilmaz was convicted with three others earlier this year of plotting a thwarted attack that a judge said could have killed large numbers of U.S. soldiers and civilians.

Yet another pseudo-journalist propagandist gets it wrong, perhaps willfully. Pamela Geller and I are organizing a rally against the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero on September 11. Details here. Speakers will include family members of 9/11 victims, Ambassador John Bolton, Dutch freedom fighter Geert Wilders (LIVE!), journalist Andrew Breitbart (either live or via video stream), NY Senate candidate Gary Bernsten, war hero and NC Congressional candidate Ilario Pantano, radio host Steve Malzberg, Michael Grimm, a candidate for Congress from New York's 13th district and a 9/11 first responder, a spokesman for the ACLJ, and others. For ride and caravan information, see here.

Preparations are in full swing for that, but earlier this evening the hard-Left pseudo-journalist Max Blumenthal got confused, or decided to confuse the issue, and sent out this tweet:

MaxBlumenthal: Pam Geller's pogromists harass, nearly assault black man mistaken as Muslim@Ground Zero rally. http://bit.ly/aN5Tkm

For the record, neither Pamela Geller nor I were at this clearly poorly organized and ill-conceived protest yesterday. Neither of us had anything to do with organizing it or planning it in any way. Geller declares:

Max Blumenthal, notorious Jew hater, is lying, slandering and making up racist propaganda against me again. I have no idea what this rally is. I have no idea who these people are. I have no idea who organized this rally. Clearly, whoever organized this was careless, unprepared, shooting from the hip and harmful to the cause of freedom and compassion. I wasn't even in the state, nor did I know anything about this half-assed effort. Check this out.

Worse still, the media, which never covered the big rally on June 6th is all over this ill-conceived botched mess of a protest that is being played in the media as "competing rallies" with a pro-mosque rally. Who organized this anti-mosque protest? Sharif El-Gamal?

This was very badly done, considering that the idea of two competing rallies flies in the face of reality -- 70% of the American people oppose the mosque. The narrative, as a result of this circus, is that the two sides are equivalent in size. And this is the angle being broadcast on an endless loop on all the media channels.

For Blumenthal, apparently, all foes of the mosque look alike -- or maybe it's just all Pamela Geller's fault no matter what, and if the facts don't fit, do what ever Leftist journalist does: make it up.

Of course, Islam knows not a thing about the hatred of Jews. Except for passages like the ones found below (linked from pro-Islamic sources), including:

Qur'an 4:46, which says Allah has cursed the Jews for their disbelief.

Qur'an 5:41, which says the Jews love a lie.

Qur'an 5:51, which commands: "O ye who believe! take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors: They are but friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them (for friendship) is of them. Verily Allah guideth not a people unjust."

Qur'an 5:64, which says Jews' goal is mischief/corruption in the land. See 5:33 for the penalty for that.

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

Qur'an 9:30, which castigates the Jews for extolling Ezra as the son of Allah (what?).

Then there's the good old ahadith. Sahih (i.e., sound, or reliable in the Sunni tradition) Bukhari 4.52.177: "Allah's Apostle said, "The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. "O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him."

Bottom line: Is Daisy Khan accusing us of hating Muslims as much as Allah hates Jews?

Of course, Khan & Co. know this is not about hate. Accusations of hatred are a cheap shot, and a desperate shot aimed at stopping substantive discussions. But we won't stop asking questions and demanding answers.

Anyway, you will want to read this one sitting down. "Islamic center leader says site is not moving," from Politico, August 22 (thanks to E H):

Daisy Khan, one of the leading organizers behind the mosque and Islamic community center near ground zero in New York City, said Sunday that moving the project to another location is not currently on the table.

"Right now it's not, until we consult with all our stakeholders," Khan told ABC News' "This Week with Christiane Amanpour." She appeared on the program with Rabbi Joy Levitt, executive director of the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan and an adviser on the project.

Khan said she believed the project would be built.

"Of course, it has to go ahead," she said. "There's so much at stake."

Asked if America was "Islamophobic," Khan responded that it's like "metastasized anti-Semitism."

"It's not even Islamophobia, it's beyond Islamophobia -- it's hate of Muslims," she said. "And we are deeply concerned."

No, it isn't, Daisy:

"I let no man drag me down so low as to make me hate him." - Booker T. Washington

Far be it from the Associated Press, or in fairness, any mainstream news wire service, to portray anything contained in Islamic texts in a negative light. Here, rather, experts suppose that the Somali jihadists see that the Afghan Taliban had success with its tactics both in taking over the seat of government in 1996, and in maintaining a long-running jihad of asymmetrical warfare against NATO forces. This, they reason, is why the Somalis have apparently copied them.

But we know better. Armed jihad to impose Sharia law is not the Taliban's invention. It is the basis and the unifying factor of all jihad. Nor are the violations of human rights and dignity that are contained in Sharia the invention of the Taliban, the Iranian mullahs, the Wahhabis, and so forth. Most of the cruel practices mentioned below come "chapter and verse" from the Qur'an, with the remainder rooted in the ahadith deemed "sound" and "reliable" in the Sunni tradition.

In other words, they are not merely "cultural" or "tribal" practices, but the Qur'an has elevated them to the status of Allah's own commands. And that completes the picture the mainstream media cannot show in full, providing the reason why these practices are so entrenched in Islamic societies.

"Somali rebels increasingly resemble Taliban: floggings, music bans and possible al-Qaida links," by Jason Straziuso and Mohamed Olad Hassan for the Associated Press, August 22:

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) -- Men are forced to grow beards. Women can't leave home without a male relative. Music, movies and watching sports on TV are banned. Limbs are chopped off as punishment, and executions by stoning have become a public spectacle.

There are other texts that duplicate these prescriptions and elaborate upon them, but these are a useful starting place:

Growing beards: Sahih (i.e., "sound," "reliable") Muslim 2.498-501: Muhammad commanded it. Per Qur'an 33:21, Muhammad is the supreme example of conduct.

Women's rights: 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."

Muhammad's hostilty to music: See the Hadith Qudsi, ahadith in which Muhammad is said to transmit the commands of Allah.

Amputation: Qur'an 5:33 (waging war on Allah, spreading corruption in the land), and 5:38 (theft).

Flogging for adultery: Qur'an 24:2.

Stoning for adultery: Sahih Bukhari 8.82.816, which describes the verses of Rajam (verses about stoning) somehow going missing from the Qur'an, but affirms that Muhammad carried out stonings.

Somalia is looking more and more like Afghanistan under the Taliban -- two rugged countries 2,000 miles apart, each lacking a central government, each with a hard-line Islamist militia that cows the public into submission.

Al-Shabab in Somalia and the Taliban in Afghanistan -- their tactics increasingly mirror each other. Those tactics worked for the Taliban until the U.S. invasion overthrew it in 2001, and now they are making a comeback. Meanwhile, al-Shabab has gained control over large swaths of this arid Horn of Africa country.

In the latest adoption of tactics long used by the Afghan militants, al-Shabab is ordering households in southern Somalia to contribute a boy to the militants' ranks. Childless families have to pay al-Shabab $50 a month. That's Somalia's per capita income.

An al-Shabab commander attributed the shared tactics and ideology to the fact that both groups follow a strict form of Islam.

Indeed, and to the uninitiated, the fact that the two groups, thousands of miles removed from one another, have managed to "misunderstand" Islam so similarly, must seem remarkable.

"One more thing we deeply share is the hatred of infidels," the commander, Abu Dayib, told The Associated Press.

Some experts say the similarities are no accident.

"Al-Shabab is copying exactly whatever the Taliban was doing in the late 1990s, because they think the strategies the Taliban employed in Afghanistan were successful," said Vahid Mujdeh, the Afghan author of a book on the Taliban. "There is no doubt that the Taliban are like heroes for al-Shabab."...

But there is, obviously, so much more to it than that.

The mainstream media is making a big deal about the supposed "demonizing" of participants in the Ground Zero mosque project, and of the "backlash" that could result from supposedly dangerous talk, by which they mean criticism of the mosque, its backers, and of the agenda behind the whole affair that's plowed into Lower Manhattan on a steamroller named "Tolerance."

Meanwhile, in Muslim nations, open incitement against unbelievers leads directly to attacks on religious minorities, and the world yawns. "Muslim Cleric Calls for Jihad, Copts Attacked," by Joseph C. deCaro for Worthy News, August 21:

SHIMI, EGYPT (Worthy News)-- During Friday prayers, Imam Sheikh Tobah called for jihad against all Christians living in the Egyptian village of Shimi.

Christian Copts were assaulted over the next two days; 11 were hospitalized and many Copt youths were arrested.

The assaults began only hours after the Imam's incitement. Security forces took the first Copt victims to a police station where they were pressured into accepting "reconciliation" with their attackers, but no Muslims were arrested.

The apologist spin writes itself: Local Muslims promoting reconciliation with their neighbors!

"I was told by the security authorities that for the sake of the Holy month of Ramadan, everyone ought to make peace," said Reverend Ezra Nageh. (But) "I was against reconciliation, because I know that the culprits know that they can assault Copts, and in the end, it will boil down to Copts giving up all their rights with the reconciliation sessions."

The next day, Muslims again attacked the houses of the Copts; they beat the inhabitants and also any Copts found in the fields.

"We are forced into reconciliation and in less than 24 hours, we are assaulted again," said Ghali Tawfik, one of the Copt victims.

"They have humiliated us," said Maher Amin. "We were beaten and we could not do anything about it. We are weak and helpless and have to accept reconciliation. They will next come to our homes and rape our women, and we will not be able to do anything about it."

After Police released the Copt victims who were initially detained at the station, they then arrested three Copt youths on old charges and transferred them to (Egyptian) State Security, but Ezra said State Security is employing an old trick: detaining innocent Copts and fabricating crimes against them in order to force the church into accepting reconciliation.

"They attack us today and force reconciliation on us," said Ezra. "Are they waiting for us to be killed tomorrow and then they would think about the rule of law?"

Just in the past few days, the wealthy Gulf states and the Organization of the Islamic Conference have come fashionably late to the party after weeks of leaving aid groups, international media, and other people Allah hates for asking too many questions (Sahih Bukhari 2.24.555) wondering what the holdup was. Note in particular, at the summary linked above, the fabulous bonanza from Kuwait, of an astronomical $5 million dollars.

Non-Muslim nations continue to bear the brunt of demonstrating the compassion and generosity that the petrodollar-glutted Gulf nations won't. Meanwhile, in Pakistan: aid from non-Muslims? Bring it on! Send more! (Well, maybe not you, India.) Aid to non-Muslims? If you're lucky. And it's not the first time Muslims in Pakistan have attempted to coerce non-Muslims to convert by blackmailing them with hunger and the withholding of life's most basic essentials.

Quid pro quo, kuffar. "The politics of relief: Aliens in their own land," by Abdul Manan for the Express Tribune, August 18 (thanks to GS):

The government and local clerics refused to shelter around 500 flood-affected families belonging to the Ahmadiya community in South Punjab's relief camps. Not only that, the government also did not send relief goods to the flood-hit areas belonging to the Ahmadiya community, The Express Tribune has learnt during a visit to the devastated Punjab districts of Muzaffargarh, Dera Ghazi Khan and Rajanpur.

For its part, the government claims that all relief goods are being distributed among survivors without discrimination. And that all survivors have been sheltered in relief camps without distinction. The flood-devastated families from the Ahmadiya community have strongly criticised the government's "discriminatory attitude" even at a time when the entire country is reeling from the ravages of the worst flooding in living memory.

Of the 500 Ahmadi families, 350 belong to DG Khan, 60 to Muzaffargarh and 65 to Rajanpur district. According to Ahmadiya community leaders, over 2,500 members of their community have been displaced and are now living with their relatives while some of them have left for Rabwah, the community's headquarters.

Aziz Ahmad Khan, a local leader of flood victims from the Ahmadiya community in DG Khan, told The Express Tribune that all members of his family have complained of discrimination in DG Khan. He said 200 families from Basti Rindan and Basti Sohrani, 60 from Chah Ismaeel Wala, three from Rakh Mor Jangi, 18 from Ghazi Ghat and 12 from Jhakar Imam Shah of Ahmadpur. Khan alleged that 200 families, who have been displaced from Basti Rindan and Basti Sohrani by flooding, took shelter in a state-run school at Jhok Utra but within days the local administration forced them to leave the school. He said the local administration later told them that people from the surrounding areas did not want the Ahmadis in the relief camp. And that the administration could not allow them to stay at the camp as it could create a law and order situation....

Pakistan apparently found itself sufficiently embarrassed, at least in this case, for putting its jihad against India ahead of the suffering of its people.

This situation proves once again that the greatest vehicle for modification of human rights violations in the Muslim world -- albeit on a case by case basis, because most regimes would not willingly reform Sharia-based legal systems in a meaningful way -- is outside scrutiny and embarrassment over practices that are bad for business. Just ask the Saudi whose best hope of not getting his spine deliberately severed by doctors (hey, Hippocrates was a dirty infidel) is most likely the moral outrage and pressure of the non-Muslim world.

And that level of scrutiny requires a free press of the kind that would shrivel and die under Sharia, or under the gradual, incremental bowing to Islamic "sensitivities."

"Pakistan accepts flood aid money from rival India," from the Christian Science Monitor, August 20:

Pakistan has accepted an offer of $5 million of flood aid from neighbor and longtime rival India, in a move that could spark a political backlash at home.

In an interview with Indian news channel NDTV, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi described the offer of aid, made last week, as a "very welcome initiative" which the government of Pakistan has agreed to accept, after taking some time to decide.

But it would have been better to say "thanks, but no thanks," according to Liaqat Baloch, secretary general of Pakistan's second-largest religious party, the Jamaat-e-Islami.

"Pakistan has many disputes with India, with reference to Kashmir, and the Indian Army engaging in brutality in occupied Kashmir," he says. "In the past, when Pakistan tried to support India after their natural disasters, India never accepted. Therefore it would be better if [our government] refused the aid with a big thank you."

Al Khidmet foundation, Jamaat-e-Islami's charitable wing, has been one of the most visible aid organizations in the flood-affected areas.

The two countries have made efforts in recent months to repair bilateral relations, which took a plunge following the 2008 Mumbai attacks. India blames those attacks on Pakistan-backed militants. The two countries have fought three full-scale wars, most recently in 1999.

The United States had urged Pakistan to accept India's offer of aid earlier this week. When Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called his Pakistani counterpart to offer his condolences following the worst natural disaster in Pakistan's history, it was an event widely reported in the Pakistan media.

"In such times of natural disasters, all of South Asia should rise to the occasion and extend every possible help to the people of Pakistan affected by the tragedy," Mr. Singh said, according to a statement released by his office.

According to Badar Alam, editor of Pakistan's Herald magazine, the amount of aid pledged is "symbolic, but its effect is immense. It's a good confidence building measure between the two countries."

But, he warns, Pakistan's religious parties will try to spin the move "as a sign of weakness."

"They will see it as a capitulation to India, that our own government is so weak we have been forced to accept help from the historic enemy," says Mr. Alam....

You used to be part of India until you severed yourselves from it. Wouldn't that make you your own worst enemy? You have to admit, it works on a number of levels.

"Ambassador of death?" The Islamic Republic of Iran already has plenty of those. The next question: what did they reverse-engineer (a la Iran's indigenous fighter jet, appearing in so many ways to be a glorified F-5), or whose short-sighted help did they have in the design process?

"Iran unveils 'ambassador of death' bomber," from MSNBC, August 22:

TEHRAN, Iran -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Sunday inaugurated the country's first domestically built long-range unmanned bomber aircraft, calling it an "ambassador of death" to Iran's enemies.

Speaking to a group of officials, Ahmadinejad said, "The jet, as well as being an ambassador of death for the enemies of humanity, has a main message of peace and friendship."

And death. Can't forget the death.

The goal of the aircraft is to "keep the enemy paralyzed in its bases," he said, adding that the jet is for deterrence and defensive purposes.

The president championed the country's military self-sufficiency program and said it will continue "until the enemies of humanity lose hope of ever attacking the Iranian nation."

The 4-meter-long unmanned plane, dubbed the Karrar, or striker, in Farsi, was inaugurated on the national day for the country's defense industry in a ceremony aired live on state TV.

No details were provided on the craft's capabilities.

In a speech at the unveiling ceremony, Ahmadinejad said Iran should seek the ability to make pre-emptive strikes against a perceived threat, although he said it would never strike first.

Odd to see an unveiling in Iran that doesn't involve someone getting arrested. Anyway, it's not as if manufacturing a grievance as casus belli would be difficult for the conspiracy-minded Islamic Republic.

How many in Somalia, and in this Somali neighborhood, never thought it would get this bad? How many more deluded themselves that Sharia, once implemented, wouldn't include any of the nastier practices?

Those who dismiss concerns about Islamization in the West are also those who would insist it could never really get so bad. The problem is, it does, and we have witnessed locales like Bosnia, Chechnya, and even Britain in the era of Sharia courts suddenly surprised at the number and power of the "extremists." "In Kenya's capital, Somali immigrant neighborhood is incubator for jihad," by Sudarsan Raghavan for the Washington Post, August 22:

NAIROBI -- Behind the blue gates of his Islamic school in Nairobi's Eastleigh neighborhood, Ahmed Awil cannot escape his country's civil war.

Schools and mosques where extremist views are taught are reshaping this Somali immigrant community that for years has lived peacefully in the capital of this predominantly Christian country. Moderate imams now compete with hard-line preachers pushing a strict interpretation of Islam. Bookstores sell anti-Western literature. Residents speak fearfully of militant spies, and children like Ahmed are taught to praise al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda-linked militia, for waging jihad in Somalia against the U.S.-backed government.

"My teachers tell us al-Shabab is fighting for our religion and for our country," said Ahmed, a skinny 11-year-old who fled Somalia after al-Shabab fighters slaughtered his neighbor and tried to recruit him. "Sometimes they ask us if we would like to go there and fight."

Eastleigh, a run-down enclave where tens of thousands of Somalis live, has become an incubator for Islamic extremism, Kenyan officials and community leaders say. It has also emerged as a micro-battlefield in the war on terrorism, attracting American funds.

"What most worries me is that this extremist ideology will continue to grow," said Dualle Abdi Malik, the director of Fathu Rahman, a moderate Islamic school. "We have to confront it before it is too late."

Somali immigrant communities across the Horn of Africa and Yemen have come under greater scrutiny since twin bombings last month targeted World Cup soccer fans in the Ugandan capital of Kampala. Al-Shabab asserted responsibility for the attacks, its first major international operation since it rose to power several years ago in Somalia.

Members of al-Shabab, which in Arabic means "The Youth," and other Somali militants freely travel to Nairobi to raise funds, recruit and treat wounded fighters, according to U.N. and Kenyan security officials. Somali-American jihadists have met contacts in Eastleigh before heading to Somalia to fight with al-Shabab.

"Eastleigh is a copy of Mogadishu," said Mohamed Omar Dalha, Somalia's social affairs minister, referring to the Somali capital. "Everything that happens in Mogadishu happens in Eastleigh, except the fighting."

Fertile ground for radicals

At the al-Huda Islamic bookshop, a closet-sized stall nestled near one of Eastleigh's radical mosques, several youths browsed the fare on a recent day. Koranic tomes pack the shelves. Recordings of lectures and debates that glorify the neighborhood's radical Somali preachers are sold openly.

"Our religion calls on us to kill everyone who does not believe in Allah and his Prophet Muhammed deeply," Abdulrahman Abdullahi, a black-clad imam, declares in one DVD. [...]

What kind of inflammatory literature would endorse such an open-ended call for violence against non-believers? Oh, wait:

Qur'an 9:5: "So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them; surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful."

At the Ansaaru primary school, where Awil attends classes, boys and girls study biology, chemistry and geography. In religion class, they are taught that it is every Muslim's duty to "liberate" Jerusalem and its sacred al-Aqsa mosque, Awil and three other students said.

Sometimes, the students said, the teachers show them video clips of jihadists fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia.

"They tell us that al-Shabab hates Western countries like America," said Zakeria Omar, 11, a student. "And that it is all right to cut the throats of every citizen of these countries."...

Call him Inshallah-Indicted, perhaps. An update on this story. "Jihadist blogger thought to be creator of Al Qaeda website could be indicted on terrorism charges," by Meena Hartenstein for the New York Daily News, August 18:

A jihadist blogger accused of running an online how-to guide for Al Qaeda could be charged with terrorism very soon, sources say.

A federal grand jury has started reviewing evidence against Samir Khan, a 24-year-old who ran a militant Islamic website out of his parents' basement, and is now suspected of being behind the Al Qaeda magazine Inspire, NPR reports.

Inspire, a 67-page mag published online in June, slapped snappy titles on terrorist advice columns like "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom" and ran items like a packing guide for what to take on a jihad trip.

It instantly attracted FBI attention, and intelligence agents noted eerie similarities between Inspire and Khan's own blog, "Inshallahshaheed" which translates to "A martyr if God wills."

"There were choices in content and how it was created that echoed what Samir Khan had done with his blog several years back," a federal source said when the site surfaced.

Khan, who neighbors haven't seen in months, is said to have flown to Yemen in October. Last summer he told people at his local mosque that he was moving to teach English and learn Arabic, NPR reports.

Shortly after he left, Inspire popped up.

Authorities are now investigating if Khan actually left to join a terrorist group targeting Americans. They think he was recruited by Anwar al-Awlaki, the U.S.-born radical cleric who has been connected to the Fort Hood shootings and the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a plane headed to Detroit.

Intelligence officials believe Khan accepted an invitation from al-Awlaki to come to Yemen.

The grand jury is now deliberating whether there is enough evidence to charge Khan with "material support to a terrorist organization and conspiracy to commit murder overseas," sources close to the case told NPR....

Nothing to see here! Sit back, have some Muhammad conspiracy chocolate, and don't ask which seminar Kumar went to, who he is, who he met with while he was here, where he got his literature, or why he was so nervous. "Airport Weapon Arrest Reveals Jihadist Books," by Stephen Dean for Click2Houston, August 20:

HOUSTON -- A traveler from India has been arrested on a weapons charge at Bush Intercontinental Airport, and police said the man was carrying extremist books that refer to "jihad" and "infidels," Local 2 Investigates reported Friday.

"He had a ton of books," said one law enforcement official involved in the lunch-hour arrest.

The man also had a large amount of cash and a portable computer storage device capable of holding documents and data, officials said.

Police identify the passenger as Vijay Kumar, a resident of Mumbai, India.

He has been booked into a Houston jail on charges of possession of a prohibited weapon after brass knuckles were found in his checked luggage.

Law enforcement officials involved in the arrest said that Kumar was pulled out of the Terminal E security screening line for a closer look after TSA behavioral detection officers noticed he was sweating and fidgeting.

Officers said they then found the brass knuckles, as well as several books and diagrams in his carry-on luggage, including one book titled, "New Voices of Islam," and another espionage publication called "Spycraft."

Officers said many of the books were written in Arabic, but they did notice English publications that refer to "jihad" and "infidels." They also found diagrams that purport to describe U.S. military weaponry, according to law enforcement officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

FBI agents were called to the screening area where Kumar was being arrested. Agents are trying to determine the contents of a flash drive, or thumb drive, that was confiscated as he was arrested.

"It definitely raised our concerns," said one law enforcement official who was involved in the arrest. "Not your everyday passenger would have this sort of stuff, and it definitely poses a concern for anyone involved in airport security."

The incident raised an even higher security alert at Intercontinental Airport Terminal E for a short while because alarms sounded to indicate that explosive residue had been detected by a swab that was run over the passenger's bag.

The swab originally indicated that TATP (a homemade explosive) residue was present on the man's bag. A second and third test came up negative, so the first test was being treated as a false alarm.

Airport officials said other passengers were not affected by the incident, as most of the activity happened in a private screening area away from the Terminal E checkpoints.

Houston Police Department Criminal Intelligence Division officers are digging further into Kumar's background. They are being assisted by FBI agents.

Investigators said that Kumar claimed he was in Houston for some sort of "Islamic seminar."

It wouldn't be the first time an Islamic seminar in Houston drew some serious "misunderstanders."

In addition to the publications, thumb drive, and the brass knuckles confiscated by police, investigators said that Kumar had a large amount of cash that had not been declared to Customs officials as part of his travel.

Investigators told KPRC Local 2 Investigates that at least $8,000 in U.S. bills were found, along with thousands of dollars in a foreign currency. Federal law requires passengers to declare any time they are traveling with $10,000 or more, and officers point out there was no such declaration in this case.

A Justice Department official said it was not clear whether a federal hold would be placed on Kumar, which would allow him to be jailed longer while he is investigated further.

The weapons count could normally mean a quick release from jail after a fairly low bond is posted, but a federal hold would allow him to remain in custody as federal agents search for any potential terrorism ties or reason for concern.

UPDATE, August 25: As further information has come out, a few clarifications are in order. First, as should be obvious, this Vijay Kumar and the congressional candidate from Tennessee are not the same person. Second, the one who was arrested in the Houston airport described himself as non-Muslim, and working on a book. One However, the system worked in Houston: red flags were raised (behavior, brass knuckles, jihadist literature) and caught, though one hopes that was not part of the research for the book.

There, there. You're not going to get obliterated today; it's just later on where things could get a little dicey. You've got at least 12 months, so it all depends on if you're a glass-half-full or glass-half-empty kind of person, you see.

Seriously, though, whatever the timetable, is there any political will left to ensure the Islamic Republic of Iran never reaches the next milestone -- its first bomb test? An update on this story. "Iran '12 months from nuclear weapon' US warns as Bushehr reactor started," from the Telegraph, August 21:

The US sought to reassure Israel that Iran is still a year away from building a nuclear weapon, as Iran's leadership hailed the fuelling of its first nuclear power plant on Saturday.

Right. Just try not to think of the idea that the "dying" Lockerbie bomber could, theoretically, outlive your country as you know it, with the current word being that he could make it at least another two years.

Iranian television showed live pictures of Iran's nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi and his Russian counterpart watching a fuel rod assembly being prepared for insertion into the reactor at Bushehr.

"Despite all the pressures, sanctions and hardships imposed by Western nations, we are now witnessing the start-up of the largest symbol of Iran's peaceful nuclear activities," Mr Salehi told a news conference afterwards. He described the plant as "a symbol of Iranian resistance and patience".

The plant, built with Russian help, is expected to begin producing electricity in the next few weeks.

Also known in Moscow as Operation Really, We're 100% Sure This Won't Come Back to Bite Us.

Iran is suspected of wanting to build nuclear weapons. Successfully operating a nuclear reactor will be seen by many in the Middle East and wider afield as a significant step forward for its nuclear industry towards that goal.

Israel has often warned that it cannot live with a nuclear-armed Iran, and there are still fears that Israel could launch a pre-emptive military strike on Iran which could ignite war across the Middle East, although bombing an operative reactor could release deadly radioactivity.

As John Bolton warned about earlier this week in the report linked above.

Gary Samore, President Obama's adviser on nuclear issues, tried to ease tensions among Israeli officials by telling the New York Times that the process of converting nuclear material into a weapon that worked would take at least 12 months.