April 2011 Archives

No state would be contemplating anti-Sharia laws were it not for Sharia's political and supremacist aspects, and its elements that are at variance with Constitutional freedoms -- notably, its denial of the freedom of speech and the freedom of conscience, and of equality of rights for women and non-Muslims. But it is doubtful in the extreme that the Obama Justice Department will give the anti-Sharia side a fair hearing. It will rule that such laws violate religious freedom, without considering Sharia's political aspects in any way.

"U.S. Attorney: Feds Could Challenge Missouri Anti-Sharia Legislation," by John H. Tucker for the Riverfront Times, April 29 (thanks to Creeping Sharia):

​U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri Richard Callahan visited the Islamic Foundation of Greater St. Louis last night to address the fears and frustrations of Muslim Americans who worry they are being racially profiled and wiretapped -- and to assure them that the Missouri Legislature's attempts to ban Sharia law from being considered in state courts here could face Constitutional challenges.

Seated in front of a large Muslim audience during a town hall-style meeting at the Ballwin mosque, Callahan anchored a panel that included fellow federal attorneys (one of whom was Muslim American), as well as three members of the FBI.

The tenor of the night was polite and respectful, but several members of the crowd expressed anger over what they perceive to be rising trends of Islamophobia in America over the past couple years, citing people burning the Koran and communities banning mosques as examples.

"There is a worse kind of Muslim hatred recently," said Adil Imdad, one of the event's organizers. "Especially in the last two years, Islamophobia and fear-mongering have been spreading like wildfire, and it's causing a lot of stress for our youth."

Funny thing, Imdad: jihad terrorism and Islamic supremacism are causing non-Muslim Americans a lot of stress.

The problem is now hitting a little closer to home, said Imdad, pointing to three bills currently circulating through the state legislature that seek to limit Sharia law (Islamic law) in Missouri courts. Sharia law could come into play in rulings considering child custody or prisoner rights for Muslims. As we've reported, the bills have become a source of controversy.

Callahan responded by hinting that, should anti-Sharia legislation get passed by the Missouri Legislature, it could be overturned by the federal courts. "The Department of Justice has a good history of challenging laws passed by state legislatures," he said. "If some laws are passed, I think you will see challenges by the federal government on the constitutionality of them."...

Zia Faruqui, the Muslim American attorney on the panel, spoke to the crowd using several Arabic phrases, encouraging them to avoid hiding. He defended the justice system, citing 50 prosecutions in recent years against people charged with anti-Muslim crimes.

"I think it's a solution in search of a problem," said North Carolina State Representative Joe Hackney in response to that state's proposed anti-Sharia law. Well, Hackney, here is your problem.

"Will Calls for Distribution 'According to Islamic Laws and Sharia'; Pennsylvania Court Gives Twice as Much to Each Son as to Each Daughter," by Eugene Volokh at The Volokh Conspiracy, April 29 (thanks to Ron):

That seems to be what happened in Alkhafaji v. TIAA-CREF Individual and Instit. Services LLC, 2010 WL 1435056 (Pa. Ct. Com. Pl. Jan. 14, 2010), which is now on appeal. I’m posting about this now because the briefs were just posted on Westlaw, and confirm the details of the will, as well as giving some extra perspective on the disputes related to what Sharia law provides in such situations.

Prof. Abbass Alkhafaji died, and left a will that apparently said, in relevant part,

(4) About my pension, the beneficiaries are all my biological kids and my current wife, ... after reducing all costs associated with the house.... [The] rest of the pension, if any left, should be divided according to Islamic Laws and Sharia....

(9) In case I have additional monetary benefits from my job, such as life insurance, 401K, 403B or any other retirement funds that I am not aware of, Allah as my witness, They should be divided, after costs associated with the payment of those funds according to Islamic Laws and “Sharia.”

The trial court entered an order that concluded with, “(1) TIAA-CREF Individual and Institutional Services LLC, shall make distribution of the pension accounts of the TIAA-CREF certificates ... to the decedent’s surviving spouse, ... in accordance with decedent’s last will and testament dated July 17, 2007, and to his biological children, ... in accordance of the law of Sharia, mainly [sic], one-eighth share to the surviving spouse, ... and thereafter, the remaining balance to be divided, two shares each to the six male children, and one share each to the [two] female children.”

Now if Prof. Alkhafaji had specified in his will that he was leaving a 1/8 share to his wife, and then 1/8 to each of his sons and 1/16 to each of his daughters, that would be fine, regardless of whether his motivation was religious or secular. [...] People are free to discriminate based on sex, religion, race, and so on in their wills, including in their gifts to their children.

But apparently the will had no such specific provision; rather, it called for distribution under religious law. This raises two questions:

(1) May a court interpret a will — or a contract, deed, trust instrument, or what have you — that calls for the application of religious law (whether Islamic law, Jewish law, canon law, or any other religious law)? Or does the Establishment Clause preclude courts from deciding what, say, Islamic law actually requires, at least if there’s a controversy between the parties about what the “true” interpretation of the religious law should be? [...]

Here’s my tentative answer to question (1), based on an earlier post: I think courts must refuse to interpret religious terms of wills and other such documents, because of what I call the No Religious Decisions strand of Establishment Clause caselaw. Here’s a very brief summary of that strand: In a long line of cases (such as Presbyterian Church in the United States v. Mary Elizabeth Blue Hull Memorial Presbyterian Church (1969)), the Supreme Court held that secular courts may not resolve religious questions, such as which rival church group most closely follows orthodox church teachings. Some states had rules, borrowed from English law, under which the more orthodox group would get to keep the church property, presumably on the theory that this would be more in keeping with what was intended by past donors to the church. But the Court held that such rules may not constitutionally be applied by civil courts...

Ale-Habib: Playing the victim card

This is, as I've explained here many, many times, an attempt to impose Sharia restrictions on the freedom of speech upon the West. If Ale-Habib really wants to stamp out "Islamophobia," he needs to stamp out Islamic jihad terrorism, Islamic supremacism, stealth jihad creeping Sharia initiatives, and the like, and "Islamophobia" will disappear. He probably knows this, and yet he retails this victimhood narrative -- which in itself indicates what his real agenda really is: the stifling of all criticism of Islam in the West, including all accurate reporting about how jihadists use Islamic texts and teachings to justify violence. That in turn will pave the way for the unimpeded advance of Sharia in the West.

"Iran Urges UN Action against Spread of Islamophobia in West," from the Fars News Agency, April 29:

TEHRAN (FNA)- A senior Iranian diplomat lashed out at growing trend of insults to Islam in the West, and called on the United Nations to take proper measures to confront the spread of Islamophobia in the western societies.

Iran's Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations Eshaq Ale-Habib called on the UN and its Committee on Information to take practical steps to promote "religious tolerance" and to counter the growing Islamophobic trend in the West, and to stop the desecration of Islam.

Ale-Habib also condemned the recent act of burning Islam's holy book, the Quran, by an extremist US pastor, and said the incident runs counter to the UN's efforts to promote "religious tolerance and mutual respect between religions and cultures."

He further slammed Western media for their bias against developing countries as well as their monopolistic control over global information and communications technology.

"This is unfortunate that, by using their modern and exclusive communications technology, some developed countries are constantly distorting the realities and fabricating events… especially with regard to developing countries," Ale-Habib told the UN's Committee on Information on Thursday.

"Developing countries have been hindered by the unfair… duplicitous and exclusive approach of the [Western] media," he added.

The Iranian diplomat urged the international community to promote "fair" media coverage of world events and called for essential steps to promote equal access to information and communications technology.

"We encourage the UN's information department to play an effective role in establishing a new order of information and global communications based on the free and balanced flow of information," Ale-Habib noted.

Here is a bracing alternative to the soothing and deceptive explanations of Sharia that Islamic supremacists and Useful Idiots are offering these days to counter anti-Sharia measures in various states. Yameen Rasheed is writing for the Maldives, but Sharia isn't different there from what it is in the U.S.

"Comment: Shariah not a solution," by Yameen Rasheed in Minivan News, April 30:

Yesterday, the Adhaalath party organised a large rally at the tsunami monument in Male’, to demand the implementation of Islamic Shariah in the Maldives.

The party was joined by “hundreds” of pseudo-religious NGOs whi [sic] lent their collective voice to the clamour for Shariah, supposedly an antidote to ‘murder, violent assaults, robbery, rape and drug abuse’ in the country.

“The whole nation is threatened and institutions have failed,” the party said in a statement. The ‘only solution’, according to large banners put up across Male’, is Islamic Shariah.

What the Adhaalath Party and its friends fail to mention here is that by ‘Islamic Shariah’, they’re referring to a single interpretation of Shariah suitable to their rigid world-view – a minority opinion among the world’s many Muslim schools of thought that all hold different views of Shariah.

Actually, wherever there has been a Sharia state, Sharia has taken much the same form -- the form that Yameen Rasheed characterizes as a "minority opinion." There is no view of Sharia that doesn't involve oppression of women and non-Muslims, death for apostasy, stoning for adultery, amputation for theft, etc.

Lady Injustice

One common criticism of clergy-controlled Shariah is the perceived injustice towards women. While these concerns are often met with heated denial, they’re also backed up by cold statistics.

In 2009, then Minivan News Editor, Mariyam Omidi, wrote a damning report highlighting the strong gender discrepancy in the meting out of punishment for ‘fornication’ in the Maldives. According to government statistics cited in the report, out of 184 people sentenced to lashing for ‘fornication’ under Shariah law, 146 were women.

Following his verdict in June 2005, a judge in the criminal court, helpfully offered his opinion that women were ‘deceptive creatures’ according to the scriptures.

Almost exactly two years later, another judge ruled that the gang-rape of a 12 year old girl by four axe-wielding men who’d broken in through her bedroom window, was ‘consensual sex’, because the child didn’t scream audibly enough.

Last week, Mukhtar Mai, a woman who was gang-raped and dragged out naked in front of 200 higher-caste men in her village in Pakistan, had her hopes dashed when the courts upheld a ruling by semi-literate, tribal judges against her.

Given these realities, and a long series of cases where Muslim women have been punished for the crime of getting raped, one awaits an answer from the proponents of Sharia as to why a woman should ever step into their courts expecting justice.

Judge, Jury and Executioner

In Islamic Shariah, there is no jury, no defense lawyers, no prosecutors, no pre-trial discovery process, no courts of appeal, no cross-examination of witnesses, no legal precedents, and perhaps most damaging of all, little room for modern evidence.

Former State Minister of Islamic Affairs, Mohamed Shaheem Ali Saeed, while graciously acknowledging the validity of long established forensic methods of DNA profiling, stated that such evidence could only be used as ‘supplementary’ evidence, presumably while relying primarily on eye-witness testimonies, as practised in Arabia 1400 years ago.

Furthermore, due to the lack of separation of powers in Islamic Shariah, the Mullah is literally the judge, jury and executioner on whose shaky whims the mortal life of the accused rests.

Coupled with the severe lack of capable judges, this is often a recipe for disaster....

There is much more. Read it all.

"The mastermind of the massacre is 31 year old Fernando Pepi, a former student of the Islamic State University (Uin)..." A former student of the Islamic State University? And he misunderstands Islam so profoundly? How is this possible?

"Jakarta: extremist group recruits students to target Christians and introduce shariah," by Mathias Hariyadi for AsiaNews, April 30 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

Jakarta (AsiaNews) - An emerging Islamic terrorist group recruits followers among university students and, through brainwashing, prepares them for suicide bombings or bomb attacks against sensitive targets, including Christian churches. It has been confirmed by the Indonesian police that the former separatist movement "NII or Negara Islam Indonesia" - the Islamic state Indonesia - has now turned into an extremist group in the network of terror. It recently orchestrated an attack on a Protestant church that only by accident, did not result in a bloodbath.

The acronym NII in the decades has become the symbol of the Muslim separatist struggle, which aims to impose Islamic law - Shariah - in Indonesia and introduce a full range of behaviors, lifestyles and patterns derived from the Arabic culture such as the beard, jilbab or the burqa. Today it has changed the face, becoming involved in the fundamentalist terror network, its leaders have adopted techniques like brainwashing to recruit young people in universities and train them to carry out attacks or bombings.

Police spokesman Amar Boy Rafly reports that the NII terrorist group arose five years ago and promotes the recruitment in schools, propagating an extremist vision of Islam. Among the objectives of the recent attack on the Christ Church Cathedral - a modern, luxurious building - at Gading Serpong, in the city of Tangerang, Banten province, about 20 km west of Jakarta. The mastermind of the massacre is 31 year old Fernando Pepi, a former student of the Islamic State University (Uin) and originally from West Java. The police stopped him on April 27 last, with his wife and seven other members of the NII....

We are constantly lectured in the West about how genuine Islam fosters peace, harmony, and societal stability. Then there are stories like this one, for which the learned analysts simply have no explanation. Why does a group that seeks to undermine society call itself Islamic? The true answer, of course, is that Islam is political, and that the members of the Islamic Movement of Kyrgyzstan consider it part of their responsibility before Allah to undermine infidel jahili society in order to pave the way for the imposition of Sharia. The same thing is happening in the West, and yet Western authorities cannot or will not believe it or take action against it.

"Kyrgyz Security Service Warns Of Secret Islamic Terror Group," from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, April 30:

BISHKEK -- Kyrgyzstan's National Committee for State Security (UKMK) head told parliament that an underground organization called the Islamic Movement of Kyrgyzstan (IMK) has been established, RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service reports.

UKMK Chairman Keneshbek Duishobaev said the IMK's major goal is to undermine social, political, and economic stability in the country.

Duishobaev told parliament earlier today he has information that about 300-400 Kyrgyz citizens are currently undergoing training at terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

And the Western response to this madness is to call for restrictions on the freedom of expression, instead of calling these people out for their violent irrationality. "Police break up Muslim rally threatening to burn church in eastern Pakistan, say officials," from The Associated Press, April 30:

LAHORE, Pakistan — Officials say police have broken up an angry mob threatening to burn a church after the alleged burning of a Qur’an in eastern Pakistan.

Saeed Wahla, administrator of Gujranwala city, said the police on Saturday charged 300 protesters that were marching toward a church, infuriated over rumours that Qurans had been burned by Christians.

Nabil Awan, another local official, said a burned copy of Qur’an was found Saturday, while two weeks earler a couple burned pages from the holy book had turned up....

Over the years at Jihad Watch we have seen many times how Islamic supremacists rewrite both history and contemporary reality in order to absolve Islam of any wrongdoing. Some of these efforts have been quite successful -- notably, the whitewashing of medieval Muslim Spain. In this piece, our friend Raymond Ibrahim examines another.

"Were Conquered Christians Really Liberated Muslims?," by Raymond Ibrahim in FrontPageMagazine.com (via RaymondIbrahim.com), April 24:

Imagine if a top American historian appeared on the MSM insisting that the only reason Europeans conquered the Americas was to "defend" the Native Americans—who somehow had adopted Christianity centuries before Jesus was born—from being persecuted by heathen tribes.

While that would create a maelstrom of outrage and derision in the West, in the Arab world—where some think bewitched animals work as infidel operatives—such absurdities regularly pass for "truth."

Consider the case of Fadel Soliman, a celebrated Sharia expert and Arab media darling. Director of the Bridges Foundation—which teaches Muslims "how to present Islam" to non-Muslims—Soliman also lectures at Western universities, churches, and governmental agencies, including the U.S. Dept. of Defense.

His new Arabic book, Copts: Muslims Before Muhammad, which he has been promoting all over the media, including al-Jazeera, asserts that, at the time of the Muslim conquest of Egypt (c. 640), the vast majority of Egyptians were not, as history has long taught, Christians, but rather prototypical Muslims, or muwahidin, who were actually being oppressed by Christians: hence, the Muslim conquest of Egypt was really about "liberating" fellow Muslims. Soliman's evidence is that the Arian sect, which rejected the claim that Jesus was coequal with God, was present in 4^th century Egypt. Therefore, according to Soliman, the indigenous Egyptians were practicing "proto-Islam" hundreds of years before it was founded in the 7^th century.

As with much of modern academia's approach to Islam, this thesis is based on pure fiction. While the Arians were pronounced heretics at the Council of Nicea (325) for their interpretation of the Trinity, they nonetheless accepted all of Christianity's core tenets—including original sin, crucifixion, resurrection, and salvation—all of which directly contradict Islam's teachings. What an imaginative stretch, then, for Soliman to portray the Arians as prototypical Muslims, simply because they did not believe Jesus was coequal with God (a standard that would make many people today "Muslims").

Needless to say, no historian has ever suggested that Muslims invaded Egypt to liberate "proto-Muslims." Rather, the Muslim historians who wrote our primary sources on Islam, candidly and refreshingly present the conquests as they were—conquests, for the glory and empowerment of Islam and its followers at the expense of unbelieving infidels....

Read it all.

Caucasian contribution to the funding of jihad
by Joseph “Soso” Zaalishvili

Anyone who thinks that jihad is a just war that simply begins one day, he is profoundly mistaken.

Jihad involves the teaching of Islam, the spiritual state of the Mujahedeen, and even more importantly, a lot of money.

I want to present one of the schemes for the financing of jihad which is well tested in the Caucasus.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992, economic crisis reigned in the Caucasus. The population of the North Caucasus regions of Russia (Chechnya, Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, and Ingushetia) and the new states (Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan) needed new jobs and economic stability.

Jihadists have always considered the Caucasus their territory, and actively began economic expansion to help the people of the Caucasus in the development of small businesses.

Citizens of Azerbaijan, Dagestan, Chechnya and other Muslim parts of the Caucasus received goods produced in Arab countries and Pakistan as practically free, as gifts.

A senior official of Chechen jihadist intelligence explained the origin of these items: these products were zakat (Islamic assistance to the needy). Goods sold in the Caucasus funded jihad in the Caucasus.

According to him, in the jihadist movement, there are special economic groups whose responsibilities include the establishment of business relations with the authorities of countries. So it was in Azerbaijan and Georgia. The jihadists fed the people with cheap products and earned money to continue the jihad.

In the Christian republics of the Caucasus, such as Georgia and Armenia, the jihadists are trying to establish business relationships with the law enforcement authorities of these republics, as serious business in post-Soviet republics is invested in the representatives of the power structures.

This scheme of funding jihad has been successfully operating today.

A significant portion of financial assistance that Georgia receives from the United States is spent on the purchase of household goods and food products manufactured in Islamic countries such as Iran, Turkey, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc.

Georgian armed forces take part in anti-terror operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and the Georgian nation is proud of it, while the government is encouraging economic relations with Iran.

If the international community does not treat seriously the issue of the financing of jihad in this way, the economy of the Caucasian republics so reaches out to the financial interests of the jihadists that they will lobby their political interests, and serious signs of this already exist in Georgia. There is a visa-free regime including Iran, Turkey and the North Caucasus, while in Georgia there is no official list of terrorist organizations, such as Al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, the Caucasian Imamate, etc. In Georgia, they are not officially considered terrorist organizations.

It is good to see that there are a growing number of such bills all over the country. They will always be challenged by claims that they infringe upon Muslims' religious liberties. But they wouldn't exist at all, of course, were it not for the political and authoritarian aspects of Sharia. Backers of such bills need to familiarize themselves with those aspects and be ready to answer those challenges. "Bill would ban courts from using 'foreign law,'" by Michael Biesecker for the News & Observer, April 29:

RALEIGH -- A group of Republican legislators is backing a measure that would make it illegal for judges to consider "foreign law" when making rulings in North Carolina's courts.

Though the federal and state constitutions already guarantee the supremacy of U.S. law in domestic cases, primary sponsor Rep. George Cleveland said he is concerned that Shariah law could gain a foothold in American communities with sizable Muslim populations.

House Bill 640 makes no mention of the Islamic legal code. But Cleveland said Shariah would be defined as a "foreign law" under his bill, and therefore banned from North Carolina's courtrooms if the legislation he proposes is approved.

"It's to ensure that any individual in this state does not have to worry about being taken advantage of by foreign laws," said Cleveland, a retired Marine who lives in Jacksonville. "It's barring any international law. If Shariah law tries to be enforced in the state, yeah, it would do it."

Uncertain of effect

Critics of the bill said that the broadly worded legislation could have unintended consequences, such as impeding international businesses or invalidating overseas marriages or adoptions.

Rooted in the teachings of the Quran, Shariah governs the conduct of an observant Muslim's life, from when to pray to how animals should be slaughtered for meat. It is also the basis for the legal codes in some Middle Eastern and south Asian countries.

Asked to provide real-world examples of the scenario his bill seeks to remedy -- cases where foreign laws infringed on the constitutional rights of American citizens in U.S. courts -- Cleveland said he did not know of any....

Rep. Joe Hackney, the House Democratic leader, said Republicans are wasting time attacking an issue that doesn't exist.

"I think it's a solution in search of a problem," said Hackney, a lawyer from Chapel Hill [Chapel Hill: that figures -- RS]....

Oh, no worries, Hackney. The problem will present itself to you soon enough.

It's Friday afternoon, and you know what that means. This time the Islamic supremacists were protesting against their murderous brethren who attacked a church in Alexandria on New Year's Eve, killing 21 -- weren't they? Oddly enough, no; rather, they were enraged over the Copts' supposedly holding two women who converted to Islam. All the abductions and forced conversions to Islam of Coptic women never drew them to protest, either. "Islamists protest outside Coptic Church in Cairo," from AFP, April 29 (thanks to Twostellas):

CAIRO - ABOUT 2,000 hardline Islamists protested on Friday outside the Coptic Church's headquarters in Cairo to demand the release of two women they allege are being held after converting to Islam.

The protesters, who belonged to the puritanical Salafi sect, marched on St Mark's Cathedral from a mosque after Friday prayers to demand the release of Wafa Constantine and Camellia Shehata, the wives of two priests. The church denies the women converted to Islam.

The Salafis have held regular protests over the case in the past year, but they have usually been smaller in number.

Their cause was eventually picked up by an Al-Qaeda-linked group in Iraq that massacred dozens of Christians in a Baghdad church in November 2010 and vowed more attacks until the two women are freed.

Two months later, a suicide bomber killed more than 20 Copts after a New Year's Eve mass in the Egyptian coastal city of Alexandria.

The Coptic Church has reportedly convened a synod in response to the growing assertiveness of Salafis, who have increased their political presence in Egypt since a popular revolt toppled president Hosni Mubarak in February [I tried to tell you -- RS]. Copts, who account for about 10 percent of the country's 80 million people, complain of discrimination. They have been the targets of fairly regular sectarian attacks. -- AFP

Profiling! Hate! Islamophobia! "Germany Arrests 3 Al Qaeda Suspects," from the Associated Press, April 29 (thanks to PRCS):

BERLIN – German police on Friday arrested three suspected members of the Al Qaeda terrorist organization who officials say posed a "concrete and imminent danger" to the nation.

Authorities did not say whether the three had planned specific targets and offered few details, but security officials said that all three suspects were of Moroccan origin. They also said that two were arrested were in the western German city of Duesseldorf and one in nearby Bochum. The arrests were based on suspicion they were planning a terror attack, they said.

The arrests "succeeded in averting a concrete and imminent danger, presented by international terrorism," German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said in a statement. They showed "Germany remains a target of international terrorists."...

[A U.S. official said:] "There have been five disrupted plots in Europe during the past four years -- including a credible plot in Germany in 2007 -- all of which demonstrate Pakistan-based Al Qaeda's steadfast intent to attack the US and our allies."...

Germany raised its security posture in November after receiving information from its own and foreign intelligence services that led authorities to believe a sleeper cell of some 20 to 25 people may have been planning an attack inside the country or in another European nation.

Around the same time Germany also received information from U.S. sources that an attack similar to that in Mumbai in Nov. 2008 that killed 166 may be planned for Germany, the official said. Later, Germany received information on possible attacks at Christmas or New Year's....

“You were born free so don’t let a tyrant enslave you.” Yes. Instead, let Sharia enslave you.

"Muslim Brotherhood Behind Syria‘s New ’Day of Rage,’" by Jonathon M. Seidl for AP, April 29 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

BEIRUT (AP) — The banned Muslim Brotherhood urged Syrians to take to the streets on Friday as activists called for a “Day of Rage” against President Bashar Assad’s regime, which has stepped up its deadly crackdown on protesters by unleashing the army along with snipers and tanks.

The government warned against holding any demonstrations. Syrian state television said the Interior Ministry has not approved any “march, demonstration or sit-in” and that such rallies seek only to harm Syria’s security and stability.

Activists in Syria are planning nationwide protests following Muslim prayers in solidarity with more than 50 people killed in the last week alone in Daraa, a southern city at the heart of the revolt.

Since the uprising in Syria began in mid-March, inspired by revolts across the Arab world, more than 450 people have been killed nationwide, activists say.

Friday’s statement by the Muslim Brotherhood was the first time the outlawed group has openly encouraged the protests in Syria. The Brotherhood was crushed by Assad’s father, Hafez, after staging an uprising against his regime in 1982.

“You were born free so don’t let a tyrant enslave you,” said the statement, issued by the Brotherhood’s exiled leadership....

Could this be a Catholic vs. Pentecostal Crusade Update? Or might Misunderstanders of the Religion of Peace be more likely to have a hand in this? Hmmm, which could it be?

"Indonesia: Java Pentecostal church firebombed," from AKI, April 29 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

Jakarta, 29 April (AKI/Jakarta Post) - Amid the massive police crackdown on terrorism, a Pentecostal church in Sleman, Yogyakarta, was targetted in a firebomb attack early on Friday morning.

Two molotov cocktails were hurled at the church on the island of Java by assailants riding a motorcycle, eyewitnesses said Friday, as reported by tribunnews.com.

The incident took place at 1 am local time.

"Eyewitnesses who live opposite the church said the church was cordoned off by police [following the attack],” church priest Rev. Nico Lomboan said.

“No deaths or injuries were reported.”

But fear not: the flowering secular democracy will be just great for Christians in Egypt. And if you believe that, I've got some lovely riverfront property I'd like to talk to you about. "Panel blacklists Egypt for religious oppression," by Ashish Kumar Sen for The Washington Times, April 28 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Egypt systematically oppresses Christians and minority Muslim sects, according to a congressional commission that placed a key U.S. ally in the Arab world on a blacklist of nations that routinely abuse religious liberties.

Egypt, for the first time, was designated a “country of particular concern” for the “systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom,” the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said in its annual report released Thursday.

The independent, bipartisan commission also noted that President Obama has failed to add any country it cited for religious intolerance to a separate blacklist maintained by the State Department.

Countries on the State Department list face some level of economic sanctions.

“There is a problem with the failure to cite countries, and then a failure to take action when countries are cited,” commission Chairman Leonard Leo told The Washington Times.

The commission reported on 28 countries with severe religious strife, citing 14 as the most serious abusers. The commission included 11 on a lower-level “watch list” of nations with lesser degrees of religious persecution and three others where conditions are closely monitored.

Some countries were cited for official persecution of religious minorities or a failure to prosecute suspects arrested for religiously motivated crimes. The commission blamed blasphemy laws in some Muslim countries for religious violence.

Egypt, which receives about $1.5 billion a year in U.S. aid, was the only country moved from the watch list to the blacklist of countries of “particular concern” in this year’s report.

The commission noted that attacks on religious minorities, especially against Orthodox Christians, called Copts, “remained high,” even after the anti-government uprisings that toppled authoritarian President Hosni Mubarak in February. Egypt’s Christians make up 10 percent of the population of 82 million.

"Orthodox Christians, called Copts" is not quite accurate. Orthodox Christians who accept the Council of Chalcedon -- i.e., Greeks, Russians, etc. -- are not the majority of Copts. The main body of Copts, led by Pope Shenouda, are commonly called Coptic Orthodox but actually reject Chalcedon, or at least did so historically, and are not in communion with the groups usually called Orthodox.

“In the case of Egypt, instances of severe religious freedom violations engaged in or tolerated by the government have increased dramatically … with violence, including murder, escalating against Coptic Christians and other religious minorities,” Mr. Leo said....

What? A mosque? A house of peace? Didn't the Vast Majority of Peaceful Muslims at the Al Sunnah Al Nabawiah mosque rise up and tell these al-Qaeda recruiters that they were Misunderstanding the Religion of Peace?

"WikiLeaks: Montreal mosque 'is a top Al Qaeda recruiting zone,'" from the Daily Mail, April 27 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

A mosque in Montreal has been ranked in the world’s top nine Al Qaeda recruiting zones and linked to a terror cell planning attacks on Los Angeles airport, new released documents claim.

The WikiLeaks files, written by U.S. military chiefs, list the Al Sunnah Al Nabawiah mosque among nine houses of prayer worldwide considered as a place ‘Al Qaeda members were recruited, facilitated or trained’.

The leaked ‘Matrix of Threat’ documents, designed in the early days of the Guantanamo detention centre to assist intelligence officials, rank the Canadian mosque alongside sites in Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The Al Sunnah Al Nabawiah Mosque in Montreal is considered by the U.S. military to be among places where 'known al-Qaeda members were recruited.'

The mosque, which was also linked to the September 11 attacks, is the only Islamic prayer house in North America listed as a threat in the leaked report.

The classified documents claim the mosque’s former Imam and current Guantanamo inmate, Mohamedou Ould Salahi, was the leader of the Canadian-based Al Qaeda cell.

The Mauritanian man arrived in Montreal from Germany in November 1999 but left Canada after police began to question him about ties to Ahmed Ressam, the so-called ‘Millennium Bomber’ who planned to attack Los Angeles airport and other U.S. targets.

Ressam, an Algerian who lived in Montreal, was arrested at the U.S.-Canada border carrying explosives before he could execute the ‘Millennium plot’.

According to the documents, Salahi met with Ressam four days after arriving in Montreal and had prior knowledge of the plot as well as contact with the extremists planning the attack....

The brutal, opportunistic sexual assault of Lara Logan -- an inconvenient incident in the feel-good story the mainstream media desperately wanted the Egyptian revolution to be -- is for many Westerners an introduction to the deplorable treatment and constant harassment of native as well as foreign women in Egypt. And as we have seen, the practice persists due to the mentality that women are possessions of men and do not belong in public, and, crucially, the ability to blame the victim for supposedly falling short of Islamic strictures on dress and behavior, as commenters on an Arab News story on harassment openly and stridently did here.

The burden is placed almost entirely on the woman to avoid "provoking" harassment, or worse. That is not the stuff modern, stable democracies are made of, not only because of the lack of equality, but because self government in a society cannot survive without the government of the self on the individual level: no excuses, no displacement of responsibility.

An update on this story. "CBS Reporter Recounts a ‘Merciless’ Assault," by Brian Stelter for the New York Times, April 28 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Lara Logan thought she was going to die in Tahrir Square when she was sexually assaulted by a mob on the night that Hosni Mubarak’s government fell in Cairo.

Ms. Logan, a CBS News correspondent, was in the square preparing a report for “60 Minutes” on Feb. 11 when the celebratory mood suddenly turned threatening. She was ripped away from her producer and bodyguard by a group of men who tore at her clothes and groped and beat her body. “For an extended period of time, they raped me with their hands,” Ms. Logan said in an interview with The New York Times. She estimated that the attack involved 200 to 300 men.

Ms. Logan, who returned to work this month, is expected to speak at length about the assault on the CBS News program “60 Minutes” on Sunday night.

Her experience in Cairo underscored the fact that female journalists often face a different kind of violence. While other forms of physical violence affecting journalists are widely covered — the traumatic brain injury ’suffered by the ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff in Iraq in 2006 was a front-page story at that time — sexual threats against women are rarely talked about within journalistic circles or in the news media. [...]

Until now the only public comment about the assault came four days after it took place, when Ms. Logan was still in the hospital. She and Mr. Fager drafted a short statement that she had “suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating.”

That statement, Ms. Logan said, “didn’t leave me to carry the burden alone, like my dirty little secret, something that I had to be ashamed of.”

The assault happened the day that Ms. Logan returned to Cairo, having left a week earlier after being detained and interrogated by Egyptian forces. “The city was on fire with celebration” over Mr. Mubarak’s exit, she said, comparing it to a Super Bowl party. She and a camera crew traversed Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the celebrations, interviewing Egyptians and posing for photographs with people who wanted to be seen with an American journalist.

“There was a moment that everything went wrong,” she recalled.

As the cameraman, Richard Butler, was swapping out a battery, Egyptian colleagues who were accompanying the camera crew heard men nearby talking about wanting to take Ms. Logan’s pants off. She said: “Our local people with us said, ‘We’ve gotta get out of here.’ That was literally the moment the mob set on me.”

Mr. Butler, Ms. Logan’s producer, Max McClellan, and two locally hired drivers were “helpless,” Mr. Fager said, “because the mob was just so powerful.” A bodyguard who had been hired to accompany the team was able to stay with Ms. Logan for a brief period of time. “For Max to see the bodyguard come out of the pile without her, that was one of the worst parts,” Mr. Fager said. He said Ms. Logan “described how her hand was sore for days after — and the she realized it was from holding on so tight” to the bodyguard’s hand.

They estimated that they were separated from her for about 25 minutes.

“My clothes were torn to pieces,” Ms. Logan said.

She declined to go into more detail about the assault but said: “What really struck me was how merciless they were. They really enjoyed my pain and suffering. It incited them to more violence.”

After being rescued by a group of civilians and Egyptian soldiers, she was swiftly flown back to the United States. “She was quite traumatized, as you can imagine, for a period of time,” Mr. Fager said. Ms. Logan said she decided almost immediately that she would speak out about sexual violence both on behalf of other journalists and on behalf of “millions of voiceless women who are subjected to attacks like this and worse.” ...

Where national security is concerned, this case is about as disturbing as they come: "the San Antonio News-Express reported in March that federal officials believed Dhakane helped 'violent jihadists' from East Africa sneak through Mexico and into Texas." Equally alarming is how lightly Dhakane is apparently getting off here, not only for importing jihadists into the country, but for his treatment of the underage girl he dragged along with him.

An update on this story. "Somali arrested near Texas-Mexico border sentenced to 10 years for lying about terrorism links," by Will Weissert for the Associated Press, April 29 (thanks to Twostellas):

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — A federal judge sentenced a Somali man to 10 years in prison for failing to acknowledge ties to two global terrorist groups after he was arrested near the Texas-Mexico border in 2008, the U.S. Justice Department said Thursday night.

Ahmed Muhammed Dhakane, 25, prompted the Department of Homeland Security to issue an alert in May 2010 asking Houston-area authorities to be on the lookout for a suspected member of al-Shabaabp [sic], an al-Qaida ally based in Somalia. That warning came when two new charges of lying on a U.S. asylum application were filed against Dhakane, who had been arrested on immigration charges in Brownsville, across the Rio Grande from Matamoros, Mexico, in March 2008.

Dhakane pleaded guilty on Nov. 2 to two counts of lying on his asylum application, and the Justice Department said in a statement that he failed to acknowledge he had been a member of, or associated with, al-Barakat and Al-Ittihad Al-Islami, from prior to Sept. 11, 2001, until January 2003.

Al-Barakat is a financial transfer network; Al-Ittihad al-Islami, or the Islamic Union, wants to impose Islamic law in Somalia. Both are on the U.S. Treasury Department's list of global terrorist groups with links to al-Qaida, according to the indictment against Dhakane.

"Supervised release": Where?

U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez in San Antonio sentenced Dhakane to 10 years behind bars, and ordered that he be placed under supervised release for three years after completing his prison term.

The Justice Department said Dhakane also provided false information concerning his entry into the United States when he claimed he and his wife traveled from Somalia to Mexico via Russia, Cuba, Costa Rica and Guatemala. Instead, the statement said, from June 2006 until March 2008, Dhakane resided in Brazil where he participated in — and later ran — a large-scale human smuggling enterprise

Dhakane also lied about his traveling partner, a minor he claimed was his wife. The Justice Department said she was actually a smuggling client, that the pair were never married, and that Dhakane repeatedly raped and eventually impregnated her prior to traveling to the U.S. He also threatened to have her killed if she told authorities he had raped her, and that they were never married, according to the statement.

Citing a Justice Department memo and other documents it obtained, the San Antonio News-Express reported in March that federal officials believed Dhakane helped "violent jihadists" from East Africa sneak through Mexico and into Texas.

And where are they now?

Despite his pleading guilty to making false statements while under oath in the immigration proceedings, Dhakane has denied that he smuggled potential terrorists into the U.S., and also says he never helped groups accused of funding terrorism.

Priorities: A government that minds citizens' business on this level -- as Sharia does -- is using resources it could be employing on something more constructive, and it is using public money to do so. It is easier to look busy and productive by making an example of a hapless sixty-something couple than tackling more complex social and economic issues; it is a path of least resistance and encourages a lazy, slow-moving, but ostensibly pious government. Moreover, it affords local authorities a cheap rush of power and the opportunity for state-sanctioned voyeurism, inviting all manner of absurdities and abuse.

It is just one way in which Sharia is simply bad government. "Elderly pair pay the price for khalwat," from The Star, April 29 (thanks to Twostellas):

Their age did not stop a couple in Kangar from living in sin together.

Following a tip-off, an anti-vice squad raided the love nest of the elderly man and woman and booked them for committing khalwat (close proximity) early this year, Harian Metro reported.

On Wednesday, the Kangar Syariah High Court fined 66-year-old Salleh Nayan RM2,200, in default three months' jail, for committing the offence with his 60-year-old partner Azizah Saad.

"Syariah" = Sharia.

Judge Azeman Omar fined her RM2,000 or two months' jail.

The duo had committed the offence at a house in Kampung Permatang Pauh, Simpang Empat, at about 2.25am on Jan 17.

They had initially refused to open the door when anti-vice officers from the Perlis Islamic Affairs Department raided the house.

What a terrifying concept, so casually dropped into the report there.

Prosecutor Fakhrurrazi Mahdzir told the court that the duo were alone in the house until the wee hours of the morning, raising suspicions that the situation could have led to zina (illicit sex).

He said they must be punished to serve as a deterrent to others.

Pleading for a lower penalty, Salleh said he was not capable of working, suffered from diabetes and high blood pressure and had repented.

Will Muslims worldwide protest this desecration of the mosque? What do you think?

Sunni-Shi'ite Jihad Update: "10 killed in Iraq mosque suicide attack," by Ali al-Tuwaijri for AFP, April 28 (thanks to Twostellas):

A suicide bomber killed 10 people as he blew himself up inside a Shiite mosque in central Iraq on Thursday, as nationwide violence left 16 dead, including senior police and army officers....

In Thursday's deadliest attack, a suicide attacker detonated his payload amid a crowd of worshippers inside the Imam al-Hussein mosque in Baladruz, around 75 kilometres (50 miles) northeast of Baghdad, according to a colonel in the provincial security command.

At least 10 people were killed in the attack, according to the colonel and a doctor in Baladruz hospital, both of whom declined to be identified....

The Islamic State of Iraq, Al-Qaeda's front group in the country, posted a statement on the Internet jihadist forum Honein last week, claiming to have carried out 62 "operations" between the start of March and April 5.

Will the Islamophobia never end? "Anti-Christian violence in Punjab, young woman raped, Protestant pastor attacked," from AsiaNews, April 28 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

Lahore (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Anti-Christian violence continues in Pakistan, after Easter was celebrated in memory of Shahbaz Bhatti, the country’s Minority Affairs minister assassinated in March. Yesterday, an extremist group ambushed a Protestant clergyman travelling with his family, seriously wounding his 24-year-old son. A few days ago, a young Christian woman was abducted and raped over several days by a man claiming to be a police officer. After she was let go, he fled without leaving a trace.

Two members of Tehreek-e-Ghazi Bin Shaheed (TGBS), an extremist Muslim group, attacked a Protestant clergyman and his family. The incident occurred near the town of Hamza, near Lahore (Punjab). The pastor’s 24-year-old son sustained serious injuries. The clergyman himself had received threats and demands for money a few weeks earlier.

Rev Ashraf Paul, 55, and his family were driving down Ferozepur Road. At one point, two men on motorbikes intercepted the vehicle, firing at the clergyman’s car, which was hit at least five times. His 24-year-old son, Sarfaz, was critically wounded....

Allah guarantees Paradise to those who "kill and are killed" for him (Qur'an 9:111).

"Blast kills 14 in Marrakesh cafe," from AFP, April 28 (thanks to Block Ness):

MARRAKESH, Morocco (AFP) – A powerful blast ripped through a cafe in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh on Thursday, killing 11 foreigners and three Moroccans in what authorities suspect was the work of a suicide bomber.

"According to the information I have, it could have been perpetrated by a suicide bomber," an official in the regional governor's office told AFP.

"We found nails in one of the bodies," added the official, who was in a hospital where some of the bodies were taken.

And an interior ministry official said that indications pointed to a terror attack on the Argana cafe in the main square of Marrakesh, a favourite haunt of foreign tourists.

But there were contradictory reports on exactly how the blast occurred.

One witness who was inside the cafe but escaped unscathed said: "An individual entered, ordered an orange juice and a few minutes later blew himself up."

But another witness, quoted by several Moroccan radio stations, said the bomber dropped a suitcase and immediately walked out of the cafe....

Last January, Moroccan Interior Minister Taib Cherkaoui said 27 suspected terrorists recently arrested in the country's south had ties to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), an Al-Qaeda-linked regional offshoot, and to Europe-based. [sic] ...

Cherkaoui then said the network had planned bank robberies in Casablanca and Rabat "to finance its terrorist actions."

And his ministry said the network was led by "a Moroccan national who is a member of AQIM and who wanted to create a rear base in the country for terror attacks."

Hamas-linked CAIR and the quisling ACLU were trying to compromise FBI anti-terror efforts in southern California and advance their Muslim victimhood narrative (which is designed to deflect attention away from the jihad and Islamic supremacism), but Judge Cormac J. Carney denied the foxes access to the henhouse. "Federal judge rules Muslims can't see FBI files," by Amy Taxin for the Associated Press, April 28 (thanks to all who sent this in):

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) -- A federal judge ruled Wednesday that a group of Muslim activists and organizations cannot review additional records of FBI inquiries into their activities but berated the government for misleading the court about the existence of the files.

U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney said six Muslim groups and five individuals who sued in 2007 to gain access to records they believed the FBI was keeping do not have a right to much of the information because of national security concerns.

The ruling came amid a nearly five-year battle by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Muslim activists to obtain files they believe would show the FBI has been unlawfully targeting Muslims in Southern California. [...]

Shakeel Syed, executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, was disappointed in the ruling.

He said he feels the need to constantly look over his shoulder, especially now that the court has confirmed the government has been keeping files on the plaintiffs that will not be revealed.

"I know that I am under surveillance, I just want to know the reasons for that and I want to know whether that is warranted or not, I want to know if it is legal or not," Syed said.

The case is one of several that highlight widespread concern among Muslim-Americans that the FBI has been spying on them.

Such concerns were heightened in 2009 when an FBI agent testified in court that an informant had been planted at an Islamic Center in Orange County. The informant provided information about the brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden's bodyguard, who was arrested on charges of lying on his citizenship application. The government later dropped the charges.

In 2007, the Muslim activists and organizations, including the Islamic Shura Council and Council on American-Islamic Relations, sued the FBI alleging the agency failed to turn over records they had requested a year earlier related to their own activities....

The road that carries death
by Joseph "Soso" Zaalishvili

By the end of the First Jihad (1994-96) in the Chechen Republic, the Islamic authorities and the leaders of the Chechen Mujahedeen actively began to talk about the construction of a so-called "Road of Life," which was to unite Chechnya and Georgia.

At that time (the beginning of 1996), no one thought that the road construction would begin in 1997. In summer 1996, Russia signed the Khasavyurt agreement with the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. Wealthy sponsors of Jihad began to prepare their sinister plans for the Islamization of the Caucasus region.

Fate has granted me the chance to meet and interview many prominent emirs and Chechen mujahedeen. Many of them occupy the highest positions in the government of Ichkeria.

Aslan Maskhadov told me about the plan to build a "Road of Life," which was to provide a corridor for the receipt of ammunition and mujahedeen in case of a continuation of the Jihad in the northern Caucasus.

I had personal meetings with the emirs who had personally engaged in the construction of this road, such as Shamil Basayev, Turpal Ali Atgiriev, and Ruslan Gelayev, who at various times oversaw this project. I learned that the construction of this road was funded by a "High Arab,” who has incredible authority among the Chechen Mujahedeen, and is a close friend of Amir Khattab: Osama bin Laden.

Before the second Jihad in the Northern Caucasus in 1999, Chechens finished the road's journey to the borders of Georgia, but the Georgian government and President Shevardnadze, under pressure from Georgian society, froze plans to build the road from the Georgian side.

In meetings with me, Chechen emirs repeatedly talked about their plans for the Islamization of the Caucasus. In their view, this road would help not only Chechens, but after the victory of Jihad in the Caucasus, it would serve as a corridor for the mujahedeen in Turkey and Iran.

In their view, the real enemy of Islam is not Russia and the citizens of this country, but Israel and the Zionists. And the goal? To create a single Islamic state -- a Caliphate.

In 1998, a source told me that a "High Arab" (Osama Bin Laden) came to the Urus-Martan (Chechnya region) and took 10 Stingers to local jihadists as a gift.

I was kidnapped by Mujahedeen because of an article published in the Georgian newspaper about their plans in the Caucasus.

I carefully observed the actions of supporters of Jihad in the Caucasus. Many of them were destroyed in the fighting. There were new Emirs and representatives of al-Qaida.

In 2011, Georgia's new president, Mikhail Saakashvili, began a visa-free policy with the North Caucasus, Iran and Turkey. I immediately thought of the so-called "Road of Life" and what the Mujahedeen had told me about the Jihad against Israel.

In addition, over the last year, Georgia's relations with its longtime ally of Israel have very much soured. Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili openly invited Ahmadinejad for an official visit to Tbilisi.

The visa-free policy allows the Mujahedeen to move through the territory of Georgia and into Turkey and Iran without problems. For example, before the introduction of visa-free travel, I met with several Pakistanis who had Pakistani passports issued in the Pakistani consulate in Kazakhstan, where the personal numbers were recorded by hand. It is interesting that on their passports, they were born January 1, 1972, 1973 and 1974. They had a used car dealership 50 meters from the main entrance to the American Embassy in Georgia. A bomb exploded near the embassy. Fortunately, only a fence collapsed and no one was hurt. One year after the incident, Georgian authorities have announced that it was a terrorist attack, arranged by Russian special services. Recently, I accidentally met one of these Pakistanis. He has already become a citizen of Georgia.

Since 2010, Georgia has sold Iran more than a million sheep. I understand that it is very profitable to sell a sheep, which in Georgia is worth about 50 dollars but can be sold to Iran for 350-400 dollars, but it is not clear why the Iranians are paying the price, when Iran itself is a major exporter of sheep meat.

Georgia has supported "Iran's peaceful nuclear program." Most of the household and agricultural products imported to Georgia come from Turkey and Iran.

In conclusion, I can say that the plan for the Caucasus and the international jihadists's intention to use Georgia as a corridor, or a "road that carries death," is already in progress at present, and worse yet, nearing completion.

There is a "reluctance to co-operate with the police on the part of some universities that did not want to be seen to be 'spying' on their students'," but there is also a reluctance to acknowledge the content of Islamic texts and traditions, including the Qur'an itself, in the first place. "University campuses are 'hotbeds of Islamic extremism'," by Duncan Gardham for the Telegraph, April 28 (thanks to JG):

Islamic fundamentalism is being allowed to flourish at universities, endangering national security, MPs and peers said yesterday.

Academics are turning a blind eye to radicals because they do not want to spy on students, a report claimed.

Despite "damning evidence" of a serious problem, little progress had been made in tackling the unsustainable situation, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Homeland Security said.

They urged the Government to tackle the issue on campuses with "utmost urgency".

Such extremism "endangers our security at home and has international implications that are serious enough to threaten our alliance relationships", said the group, which includes the former home secretary Lord Reid.

Secret files obtained by The Daily Telegraph and WikiLeaks disclosed this week that at least 35 terrorists held at Guantánamo Bay were indoctrinated by extremists in Britain.

The leaked documents, written by senior US military commanders, illustrated how Britain effectively became a crucible of terrorism over the course of two decades.

The parliamentary group was set up two years ago to carry out research into homeland security issues.

Its inaugural report comes after a separate inquiry by the umbrella organisation for universities earlier this year said animal rights extremists posed a greater problem than Islamist radicals.

Universities UK, which represents vice-chancellors, said it could do very little about extremism on campus. Instead it issued new guidance on the importance of freedom of speech. Their report followed the attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a former student at University College London, to blow himself up using a bomb in his underpants as a flight came in to land at Detroit on Christmas Day, 2009.

Abdulmutallab, an engineering student, was the Islamic Society president from 2006 to 2007.

The parliamentarians' report said Britain's homeland security strategy failed to address in sufficient detail how to tackle the threat of extremism at universities, how to strengthen businesses' ability to deal with a terrorist attack and how to ensure security over the internet.

The report said some universities and colleges had become sites where extremist religion and radicalism could flourish "beyond the sight of academics".

They also noted that there was a "reluctance to co-operate with the police on the part of some universities that did not want to be seen to be 'spying' on their students"....

We'll see how long this lasts, of course. This BBC report speculates: "it will end the bitter hostility between the two sides and remove a significant barrier to the Palestinian campaign for statehood."

No, the re-incorporation of an entity with the stated purpose of destroying Israel into a Palestinian government does nothing -- or ought to do nothing -- to advance a Palestinian state.

Where else would this be tolerated? Suppose a chunk of Belgium demanded international recognition as a state while broadcasting the explicit intention of destroying the Netherlands as an entity, taking it over, and slaughtering and subjugating the Dutch, all the while lobbing rockets over the border. Ridiculous, isn't it? But double standards abound.

"Palestinian rivals Fatah and Hamas 'agree to end rift'," from BBC News, April 27:

The Fatah party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas, which governs Gaza, have agreed a reconciliation deal, officials say.

Under the Egyptian-brokered deal, an interim government will be formed and a date fixed for elections.

The groups have been divided for more than four years, with Hamas in power in Gaza and Fatah running the West Bank.

Israel immediately said that the Palestinian Authority could not have peace with both Hamas and Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: "I hope the Palestinian Authority will make the right choice - peace with Israel."

Hamas has carried out bombings and rocket attacks against Israel for years and does not recognise its right to exist.

The US responded to the news by saying that any Palestinian unity government would have to renounce violence and recognise Israel.

Thousands of Palestinians protested in Gaza this month, calling for reconciliation.

The protests were inspired by uprisings elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa.

The split between Fatah and Hamas occurred when violence erupted a year after Hamas won Palestinian elections in 2006. Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007.

The BBC's Jonathan Head in Cairo says that if the deal goes ahead, it will end the bitter hostility between the two sides and remove a significant barrier to the Palestinian campaign for statehood.

But he says there are many difficult issues to resolve - such as how the two factions will share security, how Gaza and the West Bank, separated by Israeli territory, will be governed, and whether the international donors will be willing to recognise Hamas.

Signing ceremony

At a news conference in Cairo, Fatah delegation head Azzam al-Ahmad said: "We are proud that we now possess the national will to end our divisions so we can end the occupation of Palestine... the last occupation in history."

How about, say, Cyprus?

Hamas's deputy leader, Moussa Abu Marzouk, said: "Our rift gave the occupation a chance. Today we turn a new page."...

Here it is via MarketWatch:

NEW YORK, April 28, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- A prominent national human rights and advocacy organization has vowed to fight against the advertising group Clear Channel's inconsistent rejection of its pro-Israel advertisements in Seattle after accepting ads from an anti-Israel hate group.

The antisemitic group, Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign, is running ads that read, "Equal Rights for Palestinians: Stop funding the Israeli military." Seattle Metro had initially rejected these ads, but then reversed itself and accepted the ads. American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) Executive Director Pamela Geller then submitted ads to Clear Channel in Seattle depicting Muslim/Nazi collaboration during World War II, with the caption, "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man." Another depicted various atrocities of the jihad terrorist group Hamas, with the caption, "One billion dollars to Hamas - your tax dollars at work."

However, after AFDI submitted its pro-Israel human rights ad to Clear Channel, the president of Clear Channel informed Geller that AFDI's ad had been "rejected due to community standards."

Dave Duffy, Senior Account Executivefor Clear Channel Outdoor - Seattle, justified Clear Channel's decision in an email to Geller: "The issue with the design was both the tone in the ad, along with the photos.The political ad currently on the street is not an incitement to violence against the Jewish people, and any ad depicting violence towards any group or individual would rightly be rejected.For that same reason, copy that describes another group or individual negatively, or shows any imagery that is violent, either explicit or implied would be rejected."

Geller, however, pointed out in a statement that the Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign's ads "clearly constitute an incitement to violence against Jews. How is cutting military aid to Israel not an incitement to violence against them? With no aid and no military, Israel cannot defend itself, and is vulnerable to attack by its Muslim neighbors. Itis also an incitement in the sense that the ad is a direct attempt to break a bond of friendship between the Israel and the United States, and that also renders Israel to attack."

By contrast, AFDI's ads did not constitute any incitement to violence against any group, but merely collected photos of actual events. Geller added: "They cannot pick their hate and they cannot pick their politics. Clear Channel, in an act of abject submission, accepted and ran the anti-Israel ads that Seattle Metro had previously rejected for Seattle buses. But instead of standing up for the free speech standards of excellence that they pretended to adhere to when they accepted the Jew-hatred ads, they refused our human rights ad that advocated standing up for civilized men."

"Every Jewish business," Geller said, "or any business that believes in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness should pull their business from Clear Channel. They are advancing jihad."

Geller announced that AFDI would initiate legal action against Clear Channel and seek a temporary injunction enjoining the organization to run AFDI's ads.

Freedom-lovers can contribute to these legal proceedings and to the pro-Israel human rights ad campaign via Paypal to writeatlas@aol.com or director@jihadwatch.org. They can also write, politely and respectfully, to Olivia Lippens of Clear Channel Outdoor to protest this inconsistency: 3601 6th Avenue S, Seattle, WA 98134-2212. Call (206) 682-3833.

AFDI is one of America's foremost organizations defending human rights, religious liberty, and the freedom of speech against Islamic supremacist intimidation and attempts to bring elements of Sharia to the United States.

Join the Facebook page of AFDI's subsidiary, Stop Islamization of America here.

For more information, contact Pamela Geller at writeatlas@aol.com.

SOURCE American Freedom Defense Initiative

Of course Islam is an economic solution, because in the Qur'an, obedience to Allah brings prosperity. So if Egypt is suffering economic woes, it is because it is not Islamic enough. And if Egypt does become an Islamic state and still doesn't prosper, the Jews are always there to blame.

"Brotherhood leader: Islam is the answer to price hikes," from Almasry Alyoum, April 27:

A Muslim Brotherhood member presented Islam as an economic solution during a conference in Daqahlia Governorate Tuesday.

Talaat al-Shennawy, head of the Brotherhood's Daqahlia office, said Egypt could curb price increases by following God's rules.

Shennawy said the greatness of Islam lies in it being a comprehensive religion that embraces all fields of life.

As-Shennawy better be careful: saying something like that in America gets you a swift charge of "Islamophobia" from Islamic supremacists trying to deceive the public into thinking that Islam has no political dimension.

He said people should apply all Islamic orders rather than just the ones they like.

In apparent conflicting messages, the Brotherhood said during another conference in Minya that it does not want religion to govern the state.

"The Brotherhood will opt for a civilian state and is seeking a strong parliament, as well as municipal councils free of bribery and nepotism, that can address citizens' needs," said Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie....

Bridge for sale!

And there is no indication that this isn't still going on. "Being too PC led us to shelter terrorists, says ex-minister," by Martin Bentham in the London Evening Standard, April 27 (thanks to John):

A former Labour minister admitted today that political correctness had led Britain to offer shelter to violent extremists.

Kim Howells, a former Foreign Office minister, said Tony Blair's government and other administrations had been afraid to criticise the conduct of radical preachers and others because they feared being accused of racism.

He said the policy had been pursued even though there was plenty of intelligence about the "evil" intent of such extremists and that it was only reversed after the 7/7 bombings. Mr Howells also said that he had been unable to find a single imam willing to say publicly that suicide bombers would go to hell. He further criticised a reluctance in Muslim communities to condemn the "murderous actions" of terrorists.

His comments came as a leaked diplomatic cable, published today by WikiLeaks, revealed Britain had been warned years before the London bombings to stop giving asylum to "very dangerous" terrorists.

The cable, sent by a former military attaché to the Algerian embassy in Washington on July 12 2005, told US diplomats that Britain had allowed extremists to raise money for terrorist causes.

"Did the English consider the risks of allowing Londonistan to develop?" the cable states. "The British thought that sheltering terrorists was a good solution, but they did not realise that one can never align oneself with the devil, and they did precisely that for years and years."...

Indeed.

Soft jihadist

For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of murdering infidels.

"Al-Qaeda leader put jihad before a sex life," by Holly Watt in the Telegraph, April 26 (thanks to all who sent this in):

One of the most senior members of al-Qaeda held at Guantánamo took injections “to promote impotence” to avoid being “distracted” by women, according to evidence uncovered by investigators.

Abd al-Rahim Hussein Muhammad Abdah al-Nashiri, a Saudi Arabian, was said to have reported directly to Osama bin Laden. His interrogators reported: “Detainee is so dedicated to jihad that he reportedly received injections to promote impotence and recommended the injections to others.”

He received the injections “so more time could be spent on jihad – rather than being distracted by women”.

According to the notes, al-Nashiri was allegedly “the senior operative” in the attack on USS Cole, an American destroyer, in October 2000. Seventeen US sailors were killed in the suicide attack in a Yemeni port, while dozens were injured....

It is stories like this that make the smooth deceptions of Muslim spokesmen such as Salam al-Marayati, M. Cherif Bassiouni, and Ali Eteraz so dangerous. They assure us that Islam has no death penalty for apostasy, despite Muhammad's words, "Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him." Credulous officials, like these British authorities, believe these deceivers and others like them, and people like Ahmed Faizi end up getting killed for their credulity.

"Afghan Christians to be deported despite death fears," by Sam Jones in the Guardian, April 26 (thanks to International Christian Concern):

Two Afghan asylum seekers, who say they fear they will be killed for being Christian if they are returned home, are to be deported to Kabulon Wednesday.

Ahmed Faizi, 29, has been on a hunger strike at the Harmondsworth immigration removal centre near Heathrow for six days.

According to friends, Faizi – who has a cross tattooed on his right arm – is convinced that he will be killed if forced to return to Afghanistan. He told a friend: "If the Taliban don't execute me for being a Christian, my family will."

His friend said that Faizi was physically weak and worried that the recent burning of a Koran in the US would make Afghanistan even more hostile to Christian converts.

"He told me that if he goes back, people will kill him and it's much better if he dies here."

His fellow deportee, Ali Hussani, expressed similar fears. "They will kill me for being Christian," he said. "There are only Muslims there."...

Come on in and make yourselves at home, fellows. What could possibly go wrong?

Notice the grievance-mongering. Assad Ullah is situating any potential attack within the Islamic theological framework of defensive jihad.

"Muslim group claims royal wedding is legitimate terror target," by Victoria Ward in the Telegraph, April 27 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The royal wedding is a “legitimate target” for a terrorist attack because of Britain’s foreign policy and the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, a radical Islamic group has claimed.

Muslims Against Crusades, which had its application to protest on Friday turned down by police, yesterday urged Muslims to stay away from central London when Prince William marries Kate Middleton and to avoid all means of public transport due to the heightened risk of an attack.

Assad Ullah, leader of the extremist campaign group, insisted that it had no “inside knowledge” but was simply repeating security fears that have already been widely reported.

“There is a legitimate Islam opinion that those who have been attacked have the right to retaliate,” he said.

"To those against whom war is made, permission is given to fight), because they are wronged; and verily, Allah is most powerful for their aid." -- Qur'an 22:39

“British foreign policy is causing this kind of feeling and increasing the instability in this country. We do not advocate violence but can see how they made themselves a legitimate target for others.”

Announcing that the group had abandoned its plans to protest against the wedding, group spokesman Abu Abbas said: “We urge all Muslims to stay away from the royal wedding, not only because of the drinking, drug taking and sexual promiscuity but because of the likelihood of an attack by the Mujahideen.

"We urge all Muslims to stay away from public places and all public transport, trains, buses and tubes around central London.”...

Abbas said: "The killing of Muslims, the raping of Muslim women and the imprisonment of Muslims are increasing the instability in this country.

"We will not be participating and demonstrating, we are withdrawing our souls due to the risk of an attack. We believe it is highly likely, it is a prime target.

“Many people feel that they have been oppressed and have a score to settle with the Royal Family. We can see why they see them as a legitimate target.”

As the group accused the Royal Family of being responsible for war crimes, onlookers shouted: “You're all on benefits anyway” and “Long live the Queen”.

One of the Muslims retorted: "You paid for this camera, you pay for my benefits, you're basically my slave."...

Indeed. That's how the jizya works.

Police said they had no other option but to rearrest them -- for otherwise, Muslims would run amok and murder even more innocent people. "Pakistani Christians Held After Blasphemy Riots," by Success Kanayo Uchime for AllVoices, April 26:

It has been reported that two Christians from Punjab, Pakistan are in protective custody after blasphemy accusations against them sparked violent riots.

Release International, an United Kingdom (U.K) (www.releaseinternational.org) based Christian advocacy group which stated this said a furious mob began attacking Christian homes in Aziz Colony, Gujranwala, after a father and son accused of burning the Koran were released by police.

It noted that Police said they had no option but to re-arrest Pastor Mushtaq Gill and his son, Farrukh, to avert further violence.

In statement a Release partner the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS) said the attacks, on April 15, prompted hundreds of Christians in the area to flee their homes, fearing a repeat of the attack on Gojra, also in Punjab, in August 2009. “Seven Christians were killed in the Gojra raid, which was also prompted by blasphemy allegations.”

It observed that Pastor Mushtaq is a teacher at the Christian Technical Training Centre of Gujranwala; Farrukh works for a bank. CLAAS reports that the pair was falsely accused about four months ago when burnt pages of the Koran were found near their house.

Quoting Compass Direct news service, it said that since the riots, the police have charged the pair under Pakistan's blasphemy laws and are holding them at an undisclosed location. Police said that a case was registered for the Christians' own safety....

It's enough to Instill confidence in intelligence services everywhere: the BND, the German intelligence agency, is apparently monitoring Jihad Watch as an "Islamic internet site." Or perhaps it is the UK tabloid The Sun that is getting this all wrong; one of the purported Jihad Watch comments The Sun quotes, "She needs to be very careful...," is indeed in this thread about Sila Sahin, but the other, "She must pay," is not. In any case, either The Sun or the BND or both missed the obvious thrust of this site, and the fact that the commenters were sympathetic to Sila Sahin.

"Fanatics' fury at Muslim Playgirl," by Allan Hall in The Sun, April 27 (thanks to Robert):

A MUSLIM actress has caused a storm by posing naked for Playboy.

Sila Sahin has been branded a "whore" and a "western slut" after appearing topless on the cover of the German edition of the men's magazine.

And Islamic fanatics have posted threatening internet messages.

Sila, raised in Germany by conservative Turkish parents, says she fears being "spat at" and "shamed".

Her parents are said to have reacted with "horror" at the 12-page coverage, and her mother has apparently cut off all contact. [...]

But Islamic internet sites are being monitored by the BND - the German intelligence agency - after threats were posted about her "shaming Muslim womanhood" and "prostituting herself for money".

One poster on the Jihad Watch website wrote: "She needs to be very careful..." Another simply said: "She must pay."

A kebab shop owner, asked on German TV what he would do if Sila were his daughter, replied: "I would kill her. I really mean that. That doesn't fit with my culture."...

Patrick Poole reported here a couple of weeks ago that this had happened. Now Holder has confirmed it, although he is still blaming Bush. But didn't the Obama administration come in promising change, not slavish adherence to Bush-era policies?

Here is the case against Ahmad.

"Holder: DOJ nixed CAIR leader's prosecution," by Josh Gerstein in Politico, April 26 (thanks to Patrick Poole):

Attorney General Eric Holder confirmed Tuesday that on his watch the Justice Department decided not to prosecute a key leader of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. However, confirming a report last week on this blog--Holder noted that Bush-era officials also made an earlier decision not to proceed with the case.

"The decision that was reached in this administration was the same that was reached in the Bush administration--a determination made that for a variety of reasons, looking at the facts and the law, a prosecution would not be appropriate. A review was done of that decision in this administration and the conclusion was reached that that earlier decision was an appropriate one," Holder said in response to a question at a wide-ranging briefing for reporters.

Holder said the "decision wasn’t necessarily about CAIR as it was about a guy, an individual." The attorney general did not name the person in question. However, in a letter to Holder earlier this month, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King (R-N.Y.) said the decision pertained to CAIR co-founder Omar Ahmad and came over the objection of Dallas-based federal prosecutors handling the investigation....

Holder told reporters Tuesday that the recent decision to decline prosecution was made by "career folks looking at the evidence." However, a Justice Department spokesman clarified moments later that the decision was made by senior officials who are not career, but political appointees. Pajamas Media has reported the decision was made by the former head of the National Security Division, David Kris....

CNN's current headline tells us: "Man opens fire." They've only left themselves one more level of politically correct vagueness: "person opens fire." "Afghan official: Man opens fire on Americans in Kabul; 6 dead," by Nick Paton Walsh for CNN, April 27:

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- At least six American service members were killed Wednesday when a man opened fire on troops and a "gunfight" ensued at an airport in the Afghan capital, military officials said.

A NATO official backed off earlier reports that eight coalition service members and a contractor were killed, saying that the alliance could only confirm six International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops were killed. It did not disclose their nationalities.

The incident -- which occurred at the Afghan national air force compound at North Kabul International Airport -- stems from an argument between an Afghan pilot and an international colleague, officials said.

"A 50-year-old man opened fire at armed U.S. military soldiers inside the airport after an argument between them turned serious," said Col. Baha Dur, chief of public relations for the Afghan National Army at Kabul military airport.

NATO said the confrontation took place at 10:25 a.m. at North Kabul International Airport, where a quick reaction force responded to a "small arms fire incident." The airport is home to NATO Air Training Command Afghanistan.

An ISAF spokesman said the incident was "still ongoing."

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the shooting, saying a man named Azizullah was responsible.

"One suicide attacker ... managed to attack an Afghan military unit and has managed to kill many Afghan and international soldiers," said Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid.

The Taliban said the man killed nine foreigners and five Afghans before being killed by the Afghan army.

"All I can tell you now is that we had worked hard on this plan for a long time," Mujahid told CNN.

NATO denied the Taliban claim.

"We do not know why it started but there is no indication that a suicide bomber was involved and there are no reports that someone managed to get into the base to do this," an ISAF statement said.

The Taliban has claimed responsibility for previous conflicts between NATO service members and members of the Afghan military. CNN could not independently verify the group's claims.

Violence between Afghan forces and NATO troops is a matter of extreme concern for NATO officials, and it is growing in frequency.

There have been 36 NATO deaths in the past two years attributed to attacks by people perceived to be Afghan soldiers or police. Officials fear that the increasing frequency of the attacks could undermine trust between NATO troops and the Afghans they are [sic] working hard to prepare so they can eventually take over security in the country....

One might almost get the idea that the Religion of Tolerance has something against non-Muslims proselytizing. Naaah, couldn't be. These guys must just be Misunderstanders of Islam. "Four Ethiopian Muslims Beat Evangelist To Death, Assault His Pregnant Wife," from International Christian Concern, April 26 (thanks to AINA):

Washington, D.C. (April 26, 2011)–International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that on April 21 four Muslims beat an evangelist to death and assaulted his pregnant wife in Worabe, Ethiopia, an area that is 97% Muslim.

The Muslims lured Evangelist Abraham Abera from Kale Hiwot Church at 9:30 p.m. telling him that his friend was sick and needed immediate attention. Abraham left with the men; they turned on him and began to beat him with rods. The minister’s pregnant wife, Birtukan, saw the men attack her husband and ran to intervene, but the Muslims beat her as well.

In using deception to lure Abraham to his death, these Muslims were imitating Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, who once took offense to Ka'b bin Al-Ashraf, a poet who had mocked him, and asked his followers: "Who is willing to kill Ka'b bin Al-Ashraf who has hurt Allah and His Apostle?" One of the Muslims, Muhammad bin Maslama answered, "O Allah's Apostle! Would you like that I kill him?" When Muhammad said that he would, Muhammad bin Maslama said, "Then allow me to say a (false) thing (i.e. to deceive Kab)." Muhammad responded: "You may say it." Muhammad bin Maslama duly lied to Ka'b, luring him into his trap, and murdered him. (Bukhari, volume 5, book 59, number 369)

Abraham died on the spot and his wife, who sustained a severe head injury, was left unconscious in the street. She was found and taken to a hospital in Butajira, where she regained consciousness on April 22nd and was able to recount the details of the attack.

Birtukan spoke with an ICC source and said she knew two of the attackers. She said as the Muslims were beating her and her husband, they told them, “You (Christians) are growing in number in our area. You are spreading your message (the gospel). We will destroy you.”...

Of course they did. An update on this story. "Afghanistan: Taliban 'had inside help' for jailbreak," from BBC News, April 26:

Afghanistan's justice minister has said the 488 inmates who escaped from Kandahar's main prison through a tunnel must have had inside help.

Habibullah Ghaleb told President Hamid Karzai that much of the blame for the Taliban-led breakout lay with local security forces and foreign troops.

Mr Ghaleb said the house where the 360m-long tunnel began was searched 10 weeks ago but nothing was reported.

Only 71 prisoners have been recaptured since a manhunt was launched on Monday.

The governor of Sarposa jail, Gen Ghulam Dastgir, said many of the escapees were likely to have fled to safe havens in neighbouring Pakistan.

The Taliban said 541 prisoners had escaped through the tunnel, and that 106 of them were commanders - four of them former provincial chiefs. 'Big blow'

The political wing of the jail, where the 1m (3ft) wide tunnel emerged on Sunday night, was like a compound, Gen Dastgir said, with prisoners free to move between cells and no locks on individual doors.

But Mr Ghaleb said there had been failings: the inmates of each cell should not have been able to access the room where the tunnel began, he said, while the "big convoy" of vehicles used to move the prisoners from the house should have been spotted from the prison.

"The mass escape of the prisoners from one tunnel indicates inside help and facilitation from the prison," he said in an initial report.

Mohammad Abdullah, one of the inmates at Sarposa who the Taliban claimed had helped organise the escape, said "friends" had managed to obtain copies of the keys to the cells beforehand, suggesting collusion by the guards.

Mr Ghaleb also criticised Canadian and US troops who have been responsible for security improvements to the prison. He asked how they had failed to notice the tunnel was being dug underneath their feet....

How much did they trust the word of Afghan authorities about the prison?

Firouzabadi: The sneer of cold command

In other words, play the dhimmi, curtail the freedom of speech, abandon Israel, or you will lose your oil and will not survive. "Iran warns Obama over Qur'an burning," from Iran's Press TV, April 25:

A top Iranian military commander has called on US President Barack Obama to distance himself from those who perpetrated the recent acts desecration against the Holy Qur'an.

“Western states must pay respect to Muslims' holy book, the Qur'an, as much as they show interest in maintaining strong ties with Middle Eastern countries and their oil,” Fars News Agency quoted Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Hassan Firouzabadi as saying on Monday.

“Obama should distance himself from the desecrators of the Qur'an,” he added....

The senior Iranian military commander also touched on the recent popular uprisings in the region and said, “Through this uprising and the [Islamic] Awakening movement, regional nations will soon gain independence and self-esteem.”

Obama and American elites must cut back on military and security budget, and stop sending US taxpayer money to support Israel if they want to give the US administration and nation a chance to survive, Maj. Gen. Firouzabadi said.

“Obama and his aides must make the right decision before it gets too late,” he concluded.

Threat noted. Unlikely, however, that Obama has noted it.

This story vividly illustrates the bankruptcy of the common claim that jihadis are simply reacting to provocations from the U.S., Israel, or other Western entities. If that were so, there would be no reason whatsoever for jihad activity in Uzbekistan. "US Issues Uzbekistan Travel Warning," from VOA News, April 26:

The U.S. State Department has warned American citizens in Uzbekistan of the potential for terrorist attacks or localized civil disturbances, and urged them to exercise caution.

In a statement, it said the government is continuing to receive information that shows terrorist groups could be planning attacks against U.S. interests in Uzbekistan.

Among the groups mentioned in the release are the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, al-Qaida, the Islamic Jihad Union, and the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement.

The groups have expressed anti-American sentiments and attacked U.S. government interests, including the U.S. embassy in Tashkent. In the past, these groups also have carried out kidnappings, assassinations, and suicide bombings....

A particularly galling orgy of Muslim claiming of victimhood in order to deflect attention away from the global jihad and Islamic supremacism. "Torturing the Truth at Duke Divinity," by Jay Schalin in the American Thinker, April 24:

Should we automatically accept -- at face value -- Duke University's first Muslim chaplain, Abdullah Antepli, as part of an emerging loyal, moderate American Islam, simply because he insists that we do so?

Perhaps not, when all his words and associations are taken into account.  He seems eager to join hands with others -- Muslim, Christian, and secular -- who express animosity toward this country and Western societies in general.  And at one recent event, he attacked the citizens of his adopted country for their failure to blindly assume Muslim immigrants mean them well.

"Being a Muslim in the United States is another form of torture, a psychological torture, an emotional torture, and it's just getting worse," he declared at the "Toward a Moral Consensus against Torture" conference at Duke University on March 25-26.  The conference attracted approximately 100 left-wing academics, theologians, and members of the local activist community for some old-fashioned America-bashing.

Antepli revealed that this so-called "torture" is not the result of overt acts directed at him, but comes from his perception that many Americans are antagonistic to Muslims and expect Muslims "to prove our loyalty to this land."  Such demands to "prove that we belong" stem from a "great level of arrogance," he added.

Antepli's condemnation of America did not stop there.  He claimed that our government's use of torture (if that is what we have indeed been doing) is merely a "symptom of a larger pathological issue."  American society, he contended, has been suffering from a "psychological, spiritual, moral disease." No mention was made about how Islamic societies compare in this regard.  If America is a "sick" society -- and Islamic societies are healthy -- then why are Muslims flocking to our shores in large numbers?

Antepli was joined at the torture conference by keynote speaker Ingrid Mattson.  She is the director and dominant figure in Islamic Studies at Hartford Seminary, where Antepli received his master's degree (and where he continues to be a doctoral candidate).  Given the small size of the faculty in that program, her prominence, and their common interests, it is hard to imagine that she had no influence on him. If so, what an influence she would be, for she has gained national notoriety as a defender of some of Islam's unsavory aspects. She was recently dubbed by the New York Times as "perhaps the most noticed figure among American Muslim women."  She is the former president of the Islamic Society of North America, which was named by the U.S. Justice Department as an unindicted co-conspirator in a case involving a charity that funneled money to Hamas.  Many sources say the ISNA is a front for the Muslim Brotherhood, the wellspring of terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Al Qaeda....

Read it all.

By all means, then, let's end the U.S. presence there. "Iraqi religious authority says presence of U.S. troops on Iraqi soil 'haram,'" from Aswat al-Iraq, April 26 (thanks to Nicholas):

BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: The Iraqi Shiite Religious Authority, Kadhim al-Husseiny al-Haery, has considered the extension of the U.S. troops presence in Iraq, after the end of their period at the end of the current year as “haram” (religiously forbidden).

“The Religious Authority, Kadhim al-Husseiny al-Haery considers the presence of the American troops in Iraq after the end of their period as “haram” - (religiously forbidden),” a statement by Haery’s office in the Shiite holy city of Najaf said.

Al-Haery is a prominent Shiite religious authority and one of the most outstanding religious and political leaders in Iraq, presently based in the Iranian Shiite religious city of Qum.

He is also one of the most outstanding students of the Islamic Authority, Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr, and has had a strong relationship with the Shiite Authority, Mohammed Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr, who had instructed his religious successors to follow three authorities after him, with Al-Haery one of the three.

A particularly witless example of the Leftist/Islamic convergence. "Europeans Blame Israel for Murders Committed by Islamists," by Benjamin Weinthal for the Weekly Standard, April 26 (thanks to Jack):

Berlin—Many European reactions to the recent murders by radical Islamists of pro- Palestinian Israeli filmmaker Juliano Mer-Khamis and Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni replicate the typical recurrence of the same: Shift the blame to Israel in an a priori fashion without delving into existing empirical evidence.

Take the example of Inge Höger, a Left Party member of the German Bundestag, who blamed both executions on the Israeli government. Relying on German taxpayer funds to pay for her Left Party website, she said:

The question one must pose is: Who profits from this terrible crime? First of all, now two of the activists most ‘dangerous’ for Israel, because they were the most engaged, well known and noted, are eliminated. The murders of Vittorio and Juliano could also be a means of dealing a serious blow to the international solidarity movement – especially given the upcoming second flotilla and the fact that international activists still won’t let themselves be prevented from going to Palestine.

[...] Radical Salafists were responsible for Arrigoni's murder in the Gaza Strip. And it is widely believed that hardcore Islamists also killed Mer-Khamis in Jenin.....

I tried to tell you. "Most Egyptians want Quran as source of laws: Poll," from AP, April 26 (thanks to Elias):

CAIRO: A poll conducted by a US-based center has shown that a majority of Egyptians believe laws in their country should follow the teachings of Islam's holy book, the Quran.

The survey reflects a shift toward religious conservatism. It also shows Egyptians are open to the inclusion of religious parties in a future government, although only 31% of them sympathize with Muslim fundamentalists....

It overshadows an Islamic shrine. And who needs reconciliation with those kuffar Armenians, anyway? Islamization of Turkey Update: "Turkey begins dismantling monument," from AP, April 26 (thanks to Block Ness):

Workers have begun dismantling a giant sculpture meant to promote reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia....

The hulking monument had been criticized in Turkey because it overshadows an Islamic shrine in the area. During a visit to the site in January, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called it a "freak," prompting moves by local officials to have it removed.

This story is best read in tandem with the Telegraph editorial posted here earlier, detailing how Britain and other European countries are funding their own destruction. "WikiLeaks: Guantánamo Bay terrorists radicalised in London to attack Western targets," from the Telegraph, April 26:

Abu Qatada and Abu Hamza, two preachers who lived off state benefits after claiming asylum, are identified by the American authorities as the key recruiters responsible for sending dozens of extremists from throughout the world to Pakistan and Afghanistan via London mosques.

The leaked WikiLeaks documents, written by senior US military commanders at Guantánamo Bay, illustrate how, for two decades, Britain effectively became a crucible of terrorism, with dozens of extremists, home-grown and from abroad, radicalised here.

Finsbury Park mosque, in north London, is described as a “haven” for extremists. United States intelligence officials concluded the mosque served as “an attack planning and propaganda production base”.

The files will raise questions over why the Government and security services failed to take action sooner to tackle the capital’s reputation as a staging post for terrorism, which became so established that the city was termed “Londonistan”.

The documents show that at least 35 detainees at Guantánamo had passed through Britain before being sent to fight against Allied forces in Afghanistan. This is thought to be more than from any other Western nation.

Of those, 18 were originally from abroad. The other 17 were British nationals or citizens granted residency here after claiming asylum, who were indoctrinated before being sent to terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.

The Government has paid millions of pounds in compensation and benefits to people regarded as highly dangerous by the US authorities.

Qatada, who was paid compensation under human rights laws for being “unfairly detained”, is described as “the most successful recruiter in Europe” and a “focal point for extremist fundraising [and] recruitment”. Hamza is accused of encouraging “his followers to murder non-Muslims”.

Four mosques in London and an Islamic centre are highlighted as places where young Muslim men were radicalised and turned into potential terrorists. Finsbury Park mosque “served to facilitate and training of recruits,” note the files, adding that it was “a haven for Islamic extremists from Morocco and Algeria.” [...]

Now, the key role that Britain and British-based preachers played in the lives of many of the Guantánamo detainees can be disclosed.

British intelligence services also provided information, including lists of suspected extremists seized from raids on Islamic centres, to the US military as it interrogated detainees. The information was passed on despite the Government publicly condemning the use of torture at Guantánamo. The leaked documents also reveal that:

• Sixteen detainees sent back to Britain are regarded as “high risk” by the US authorities and are liable to plan attacks against the West. However, they have been paid a reported £1 million each in compensation by the Government. For the first time, details of their alleged extremist activities, including travelling to Afghanistan to fight against British troops, are disclosed [...]

The top-secret documents show how Muslim men travelled to European countries such as France, from where they obtained fake EU passports. They then crossed the channel to take advantage of Britain’s generous asylum system.[...]

According to one document, Finsbury Park mosque was “a key transit facility for the movement of North African and other extremists in London to and from al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan”....

Read it all.

And Islamic law's prohibition on building or repairing new churches adds an additional complication, which those already inspired enough to burn churches are likely to enforce. "60+ Churches Burned in Nigerian Muslim Stronghold," by Ethan Cole for Fox News, April 25 (thanks to Twostellas):

More than 60 churches were burned and thousands of Christian-owned homes destroyed in Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north after the recent election of incumbent Christian president Goodluck Jonathan, according to the Christian persecution watchdog group Open Doors.

Riots broke out Monday after the preliminary results of Saturday's vote were announced. Jonathan, who was sworn in as president in May 2010, was announced president over his Muslim opponent Muhammadu Buhari. [...]

Muslims complained that the vote tallies were rigged, but independent observers described the election as the fairest in decades.

Buhari was not even close to winning, receiving about 12 million votes to Jonathan's 22 million. But as President Jonathan has noted, the post-election violence was "not spontaneous," but rather suggests a large number of Muslims in the north who saw the loss coming and were poised and ready to cut loose the moment results were announced. If they cannot advance Islamic law through the ballot box, there's always the old-fashioned way.

An unsurprising update on this story. One prior report did offer the interesting detail that some protests "also included Christians who object to the governor on the basis that Christian leaders often fail to adequately defend their cause because they feel compelled to side with Muslims in sectarian disputes to demonstrate good intentions. They cited the previous Christian governor, who they say was a 'complete failure,' according to one priest who joined the protests and asked not to be identified for security reasons."

Nonetheless, it is clear which group's demands the government is moving to satisfy. "Christian governor with Mubarak ties suspended," from Middle East Online, April 25 (thanks to Twostellas):

CAIRO - Egypt's premier suspended a Christian governor linked to the ousted Mubarak regime after his appointment sparked protests in restive Qena province, state news agency MENA reported on Monday.

Prime Minister Essam Sharaf ordered Emad Mikhail suspended for three months in a bid to contain anger in Qena, a region of central Egypt with a history of sectarian clashes, MENA said.

Note the false sense of reciprocity and equal "sectarian" participation throughout this story. We see a lot of that.

Mikhail is to replaced temporarily by his deputy, Magued Abdel Karim, the agency said, adding that the premier called for calm in Qena and a return to business as usual.

Thousands of angry protesters, both Muslims and Christian Copts, have rallied in Qena over the past 12 days against the appointment of Mikhail -- a senior police officer under the regime of ousted president Hosni Mubarak.

It was Muslims who blocked highways and threatened to kill Mikhail, all the while demanding an Islamic state. Note also the detail above about why the Christians came out to protest.

The incidents raised fears of widespread sectarian unrest in Qena where Muslim-Christian ties are fragile.

Egypt's Christians, who make up around 10 percent of the 80-million population, have been the target of several attacks and repeatedly accused the authorities of systematic discrimination.

Also included in this editorial is the fact that Anjem Choudary receives £25,000 a year in benefits. Are they afraid taking it away might "radicalize" him? No, that ship has sailed.

As noted below, European welfare states were designed on the assumption of a cultural unity and set of values wherein people considered themselves a part of the broader society, wanted to contribute to that society (as opposed to subjugating it), and lived in monogamous family units. It did not count on a population growth artificially spiked by unrestrained immigration. It did not count on a growing imbalance of producers and consumers of resources made worse by the native population's acquired distaste for reproducing, the influx of populations expecting to be supported, and spun further out of control by the unwillingness by the establishment to stand up to taxpayer-funded polygamy, and to demand that the able-bodied work to support themselves. That includes old "Andy" Choudary.

Saul Bellows' "Good Intentions Paving Company" has found a booming business in Europe, which is funding its own economic and civilizational collapse, and still trying to solve the problem by throwing more money at it. "Why does Britain have an Islamist problem while America doesn't? Answer: the welfare state," by Ed West for the Telegraph, April 26 (thanks to Twostellas):

London was the global headquarters of Islamic terrorism in the years before and after 9/11. This fact wasn’t exactly a closely guarded secret, but the WikiLeaks Guantánamo Bay files shed interesting new light on the American perspective. (I especially like the detail that the US government suspected the BBC of being a “possible propaganda media network” for al-Qaeda after a BBC phone number was found on a terrorist. What do they mean “possible”? Have they not listened to Radio 4?)

London became the world terrorist hub partly because the country had a long tradition of shielding dissenters of all stripes; because it had a very unintrusive state compared to its European neighbours (no ID cards); and because of Britain’s historic links with many Arab countries. But there was another reason, and this is central to the reason why Europe has an Islamist problem and the United States doesn’t – the welfare state. Welfare is intimately linked to the failure of western European countries to integrate their Muslim populations, and explains why Britain has such a problem with Islamism.

Look at the two figures named by US intelligence as responsible for recruiting dozens of terrorists, Abu Qatada and Abu Hamza. Qatada, a Jordanian preacher and advisor to shoe bomber Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui, the 9/11 plotter, was expelled from Kuwait for supporting the Iraqi invasion, then claimed asylum in Britain on the grounds of religious persecution. We granted it, naturally. Come in!

While spending his time raising money for the destruction of the West (he was once caught with £170,000 in cash, including £850 on an envelope with the less-than-enigmatic words “For the Mujahedin in Chechnya” on the front), he was happy to receive £400 a week in government benefits – £322 for housing and £70 for disability.

Abu Hamza, the hook-handed Yemeni, was a phenomenal sponger. His London house cost taxpayers £2400 a month, and at one point he was receiving over £500 a month for incapacity benefits while his wife received an additional £1300 a month. Abu Hamza even sued the government for extra benefits.

Always taking the Euro-moral high ground, the British had refused to extradite Hamza to his native Yemen in 1999 because it had the death penalty; he then went on to radicalise the 7/7 bombers, so that 52 innocent people died in the place of one guilty man.

Cursing the kuffar with their mouths full:

In fact the one thing religious extremists in Britain and Europe almost all have in common is their willingness to take money from the kuffir. Another tabloid regular, “Tottenham Ayatolla” Omar Bakri, sponged £275,000 in welfare, including a £31,000 Ford Galaxy people carrier to ferry around his seven children. And between them the July 21 bombers, who were admitted into Britain as refugees from war-torn east Africa, received £500,000 in welfare payments before repaying the British people by trying (and failing) to murder lots of innocents (who were only saved because the mastermind of the plots had been through the British state education system and so was incapable of doings the sums necessary to make a bomb).

Then there is Anjem Choudary, co-founder of the outlawed Al- Muhajiroun movement, and a qualified solicitor although he has never worked as one, who receives £25,000 a year in benefits. As Douglas Murray once pointed out, this is £10,000 more than a soldier in Afghanistan is paid: “It’s probably not the first time in history where one side has paid its enemies and its own men, but it’s probably the first war in history where somebody has paid its enemies better than its own men.”

Everywhere in Britain Islamism is taxpayer-funded, the welfare system helping to fill idle young minds with poison, and fuelling a sense of resentment amongst (often emotionally fragile) second-generation immigrants.

One only has to look at America’s experience with Islam to see how welfare and diversity do not mix. EU Muslims are over six and a half times more likely, proportionately, to be arrested for terrorist offences than American Muslims. In surveys well over two thirds of American Muslims said they believed they can make it in America with hard work, a higher proportion than Americans generally, reflecting their belief in the American Dream.

Fewer than half think themselves Muslims first and Americans second, compared to 81 per cent in Britain. Yet America is, by any measurable standards, far more “Islamophobic” than Britain, with far more public criticism and mockery of that religion. In place of the American Dream, Britain has the European Nightmare, a welfare system that disincentives assimilation and breeds resentment.

Welfare states were designed for fairy [sic] ancient, largely homogenous European countries in the retirement stage of civilisation; but combined with open borders, as Milton Friedman predicted, welfare is unsustainable, socially divisive and potentially dangerous. The Americans have every right to despair at the strange, self-destructive behaviour of their ally.

I tried to tell you. "Poll: Over half of Egypt wants end to Israel peace," by Paul Schemm for AP, April 25 (thanks to Nichole):

CAIRO (AP) - More than half of all Egyptians would like to see the 1979 peace treaty with Israel annulled, according to results of a poll conducted by the U.S.-based Pew Research Center released Monday.

The poll highlights the deep unpopularity of the three-decade-old treaty, which is central to U.S. policy in the region and was scrupulously adhered to by former President Hosni Mubarak, until his Feb. 11 ouster....

According to the poll results, only 36 percent of Egyptians are in favor of maintaining the treaty, compared with 54 percent who would like to see it scrapped....

Opinions varied according to income, with 60 percent of lower income Egyptians supporting the treaty's cancellation while only 45 percent of the wealthier classes thinking it should be done away with.

Only 40 percent of Egyptians with a college education felt the treaty should be scrapped, as well....

AP clearly wants you to think that Islamic antisemitism is restricted to the poor and ignorant. If only it were so.

In Human Events this morning I discuss the free speech showdown in Michigan:

On Good Friday in Dearborn, Mich., the notorious Koran-burning pastor Terry Jones was jailed and fined for the crime of refusing to pay a so-called “peace bond” to cover the costs of extra police protection for Jones’ planned demonstration outside the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn. Judge Mark Somers also ordered Jones to stay away from the massive Dearborn mosque for three years.

This is a restriction on the freedom of speech and the freedom of expression that Islamic supremacists are certainly going to try to use in the future to press for even more.

Jones was only in jail briefly, and the fine was a symbolic one dollar, but clearly Dearborn authorities see him as a threat to public order. Why? Was Jones threatening to burn down the mosque, using copies of the Koran as kindling? Did he threaten the Dearborn Muslims—or Muslims anywhere else? Did he strap a suicide vest to himself and detonate it in a crowd of infidels? Did he plant explosives in his underwear and try to blow up an airliner in mid-flight? Did he load a car with explosives and try to explode it on a crowded night in Times Square? Did he murder 13 Americans while shooting “Allahu Akbar” at Fort Hood? Did he murder an American serviceman outside a military recruiting center in Little Rock for Allah and Islam? [...]

Commentator Pamela Geller points out Dearborn’s soft bigotry of low expectations: "The city of Dearborn's position is that Muslims are so violent and irrational that they won't be able to control themselves if Jones holds a protest? And he has to pay for damages? Why wouldn't the marauding Muslim hordes pay the damages if they are doing the damage? And if they get violent, why aren't they in jail?"

Indeed. the New York Times reported that “Robert Sedler, a constitutional law professor at Wayne State University, said the United States Supreme Court has ruled that it is the police’s job to protect speakers at such events, and said it is unconstitutional to require protesters to post a bond for police protection.”

Yet it has been done now, and the precedent set that a man has been arrested, jailed, and fined for the Orwellian crime of planning to hold a politically incorrect protest. Whatever one may think of Terry Jones and his book-burning (and I am not a fan of book-burning myself), every free citizen should be supporting his right to protest in Michigan. Muslims should not be immune from criticism and protest in America any more than anyone else is. To restrict Jones’ right to protest in front of a mosque is to send the signal that violent intimidation works, and that those who killed people in Afghanistan because of Jones’ Koran-burning have achieved their ultimate goal: to make Islam immune from criticism because every potential critic will be afraid to speak out.

That is the road to tyranny. And now we have embarked on it.

There is more.

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.

"The Case Against Omar Ahmad," from IPT News, April 25:

Reports that the Department of Justice declined a request to prosecute a Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) official last year have left many, including U.S. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., wondering what factors DOJ officials considered. A new IPT memo addresses a different question. Why did Texas prosecutors make the request to prosecute Ahmad in the first place?

CAIR co-founder Omar Ahmad served as a senior executive in the Palestine Committee, an umbrella organization of U.S.-based Hamas support groups, FBI recordings and internal documents show. Ahmad worked closely with Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) officials and served as president of the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) for two years. Both HLF, convicted in 2008 of funneling millions of dollars to Hamas, and IAP, a U.S. Hamas propaganda arm, were identified in court documents as the Palestine Committee's primary components.

Prosecutors say the groups worked to support Hamas both politically and financially. Exhibits introduced during the 2008 HLF trial supported that conclusion. Yet, Ahmad continued to work with HLF even after Hamas' 1995 designation.

Among the findings in the IPT report showing Ahmad's Palestine Committee leadership:

• Almost five years after CAIR's formation, in a 1999 phone call with HLF executive Shukri Abu Baker, Ahmad advocated on behalf of an HLF official named Mohammed El-Mezain. Though Ahmad was not an HLF official, he negotiated the amount HLF would pay El-Mezain for fundraising trips he had made over several years. Ahmad was serving as CAIR's national chairman at this time.
• Also in 1999, Ahmad was recorded speaking with HLF official Haitham Maghawri regarding tens of thousands of dollars Shukri Abu Baker had promised Ahmad for a project. Maghawri, one of the HLF defendants, never stood trial because he fled the country before the government could file the 2004 indictment.
• In February 1994, Ahmad called for a teleconference during which he attempted to resolve a fundraising dispute between Hamas activist Abdelhaleem Al Ashqar and the Holy Land Foundation. Hamas operatives Jamil Hamami and Mohamed Siam later discussed Ahmad's suggestions during a meeting with Ashqar in Mississippi. The dispute was only fully resolved once Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzook intervened on HLF's behalf.
• Ahmad planned, convened and moderated an October 1993 meeting of the Palestine Committee in Philadelphia where members discussed ways to "derail" a U.S.-led peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians. The group knew that their Hamas support was problematic. They agreed to reference the group as sister "Samah" [Hamas spelled backward] and warned each other that the U.S. had proposed legislation that would designate Hamas as a terror organization.
• Under Ahmad's watch, CAIR received $10,000 from HLF and solicited donations on HLF's behalf several times after Hamas' designation.

These examples illustrate Ahmad's authority over the committee and leverage in making HLF decisions. Internal Palestine Committee documents also affirm that Ahmad served as a committee executive....

Read it all.

But who cares? What could go wrong? "Detainees Transferred Or Freed Despite 'High Risk,'" by Tom Gjelten, Dina Temple-Raston and Margot Williams for NPR, April 25 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

An NPR investigation of secret military documents from the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay details the system used to assess how dangerous the detainees would be if released.

More than 160 of the prisoners released or transferred from the Guantanamo detention camp under Presidents Bush and Obama had previously been judged as "likely to pose a threat to the U.S." The decision to release or transfer these detainees, despite their former classification as "high risk," contradicted the Pentagon's own recommendation that prisoners in this category should remain in detention....

The large number of detainees who were transferred or released from Guantanamo despite their "high risk" assessment is nonetheless striking. Of 600 detainees known to have been transferred out of Guantanamo since 2002, at least 160 were previously in the high-risk category. The repatriation of more high-risk detainees appears likely.

The Obama administration has not yet named the 89 current Guantanamo detainees it says are due to be transferred, but only about 40 of those still in detention at the camp were assessed as "medium" or "low" security risks as of early 2009, according to the investigation by NPR and The New York Times. Some risk assessments have since been revised. The Obama administration carried out a new review of all Guantanamo detainees after it took office in January 2009, and those reports are not included in the documents reviewed by NPR.

Among the "high risk" detainees who have been transferred from Guantanamo since 2002, NPR and the Times have identified at least a dozen who have returned to terrorism or otherwise reassociated with al-Qaida, including two Saudis who became leaders of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula....

As if this hadn't been obvious for years. And what about all the other useful idiots in the mainstream media? "WikiLeaks: Leaked files accuse BBC of being part of a 'possible propaganda media network,'" by Christopher Hope for the Telegraph, April 25 (thanks to Alan of England):

The BBC is accused of being part of a “possible propaganda media network” for Al Qaeda, according to the leaked US files on the Guantanamo detainees.

The files, obtained by the WikiLeaks website and passed to The Daily Telegraph, disclose that a phone number of someone at the BBC was found in the phone books and phones of a number of extremists seized by US forces.

A detainee assessment, dated 21 April 2007, states: "The London, United Kingdom (UK), phone number 0044 207 XXX XXXX was discovered in numerous seized phone books and phones associated with extremist-linked individuals.

“The number is associated with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).” Analysis by The Daily Telegraph suggests the number is one for Bush House, home of the BBC World Service.

The assessment continues that US forces uncovered many “extremist links” to this number, suggesting that extremists could have made contact with BBC employees who were sympathetic to extremists or had information on “ACM [anti-Coalition Militia] operations”.

It says: “(Analyst Note: Numerous extremist links to this BBC number indicates a possible propaganda media network connection. Network analysis might provide leads to individuals with either sympathetic ties to extremists or possibly possessing information on ACM operations.)”...

Fantasy-based policymaking aids and abets those who will to destroy us. "Wikileaks: British aid budget funded key aide to al-Qaeda," by Holly Watt in the Telegraph, April 25 (thanks to Alan of England):

An Afghan politician identified as a key aide to al-Qaeda terrorists was funded by the British aid budget, according to documents released by WikiLeaks.

Mullan Haji Rohullah, who was subsequently transported to Guantánamo, was paid more than £300,000 of British taxpayers’ money to eradicate his poppy crops. But he instead allegedly supported al-Qaeda and helped terrorists escape allied forces — while continuing to act as a major drugs trafficker.

The revelation raises new questions over the payment and monitoring of international aid in Afghanistan in the aftermath of the invasion in 2001.

The international development budget, which has recently been embroiled in controversy over the appropriateness of some expenditure, is one of the only areas of the British public sector which is not facing cuts under the Coalition.

Farming poppies for opium was a major source of income to the Taliban, with heroin being trafficked around the world. Rohullah, who was based in Konar province, met the British ambassador in Afghanistan to discuss the eradication scheme and agreed that farmers in the area would receive $250 (£152) an acre to stop growing poppies.

Rohullah is also linked to British intelligence services in the Guantánamo files.

However, according to the documents, “it appears detainee [Rohullah] was not only receiving money from selling poppies when he claimed he was prohibiting them from being grown in Konar province, but he was also receiving financial aid from the British”.

War is deceit, kuffar!

Using development funding, the British apparently gave $6 million (£3.6  million) to a close associate of Rohullah, of which $3.5 million was distributed to tribal leaders.

Rohullah, who was arrested in 2002 but has since been released, was also allegedly “linked to plots to kill leaders within the interim Afghanistan government”.

The files alleged that the “detainee had a tremendous negative impact on the people of the Kunar province”.

The “important politician” had previously travelled to Britain and met Abu Qatada, the radical cleric.

After Rohullah, 49, was arrested, his supporters held meetings to plan attacks on Americans.

The supporters discussed either suicide attacks against the US or capturing Americans “to hold as hostages for use in bartering” for Rohullah’s release.

According to the US WikiLeaks documents, Rohullah “had dealings with the United Kingdom and the Pakistani ISID [Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate].”

“He supposedly was in support of the Afghan Interim Administration,” state the files, but allegedly he was "really conducting operations that undermined the transition process.”...

These Western diplomats are such easy marks.

This is, mind you, a Pakistani government agency. Pakistani Double Game Update: "Guantanamo documents name Pakistan ISI as al Qaeda associate," by Chris Allbritton for Reuters, April 25 (thanks to all who sent this in):

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – The U.S. military classified Pakistan's top spy agency as a terrorist support entity in 2007 and used association with it as a justification to detain prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, according to leaked documents published on Sunday that are sure to further alienate Pakistan.

One document (http://link.reuters.com/tyn29r), given to The New York Times, say detainees who associated with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate "may have provided support to al-Qaida or the Taliban, or engaged in hostilities against US or Coalition forces."

The ISI, along with al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah and Iranian intelligence, are among 32 groups on the list of "associated forces," which also includes Egypt's Islamic Jihad, headed by al Qaeda deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The document defines an "associate force" as "militant forces and organizations with which al-Qaida, the al-Qaida network, or the Taliban has an established working, supportive, or beneficiary relationship for the achievement of common goals."...

Shameful. An update on this story. "Barak condemns Nablus shooting; orders IDF probe," by Yaakov Lappin and Tovah Lazaroff for the Jerusalem Post, April 24 (thanks to Pajamas Media):

Defense Minister Ehud Barak strongly condemned the murder of Ben Yosef Livnat and the injury of four others in the Nablus shooting attack early Sunday morning and said that no lack of security coordination can justify the opening of fire at innocent people.

Barak ordered the IDF to investigate the incident and demanded that the Palestinian Authority investigate the shooting swiftly and take all the necessary steps against the shooter.

One Israeli worshiper was killed and four were wounded in Nablus early Sunday morning after their vehicle was shot at by a Palestinian Authority policeman as the group was exiting the city from prayer services held at Joseph's Tomb. Magen David Adom said one person was in serious condition, one in moderate condition and two others in light condition....

MK Danny Danon (Likud) called on the US to reconsider its funding of the Palestinian security forces, as well as the training exercises that it does with them. He passed this request on to Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Chairman of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee.

"As a true friend of Israel, we expect that the objective of this training would be to ensure Israeli security and not to kill its citizens," he said.

One would think.

Democracy on the march. The jihadis are engaging in more wishful thinking than reality, says Meleagrou-Hitchens. But it is an open question right now as to which one is indulging in more wishful thinking: al-Qaeda or Meleagrou-Hitchens. "Libya ripe for jihad's rallying cries," by Sally Neighbour for The Australian, April 26:

AS the military and humanitarian quagmire in Libya deepens, a clarion call has gone out to followers of the global jihadist movement in the West.

"Who wants to join the mujahidin? The gates of jihad are open in Libya!" declares a message posted on a pro al-Qa'ida internet forum monitored by Western analysts.

The message - and countless others like it - has set off alarms in counter-terrorism circles in the West, as al-Qa'ida and its allies move to exploit the foment in the Arab world, seizing on the conflict in Libya as a new cause celebre for Islamic militants. And as yesterday's WikiLeaks release shows, al-Qa'ida suspects freed from Guantanamo Bay are at work in Libya.

A report from the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation says internet jihadists are portraying Libya as the newest front in the global jihad against the West, in a policy dictated by al-Qa'ida's top leaders.

"Senior leadership figures, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, have given a number of sermons concentrating almost solely on Libya and portraying it as the most fertile ground for their global movement," says the report's author, Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, a research fellow at ICSR. He says Zawahiri's call has been echoed on English-language jihadist forums.

"The Western Salafi-jihadi movement is attempting to take ownership of the rebellion on behalf of the global jihad, and is portraying anti-Gaddafi forces as mujahidin, while also encouraging Western Muslims to do all they can to reach the country and take part in a supposed jihad."

The ICSR has monitored a stream of communications on al-Qa'ida run and backed websites and forums since the Arab spring began. A typical post says: "My brothers and sisters, we are facing a global change, Alhamdulillah [praise God]! We will see this uprising continuing in all Muslim countries and soon we will see the banner of Allah everywhere!"

The forums are full of news of the exploits of jihadist fighters who have joined "Islamic battalions" in Libya under names such as the Thunderbolt Battalion and the Islamic Army of Benghazi, and so-called exclusive pictures of fighters purporting to be mujahidin on the front lines, accompanied by messages urging new recruits to join them. They provide directions on how best to travel to Libya, along with this incentive: "The market of paradise has opened and the hoor al ayn [virgins promised to martyrs] are waiting."...

Another post says: "The only thing we can do at this moment is pray for the brothers and await the official declaration of an Islamic emirate in Libya."...

"The Salafi brothers in Benghazi have declared the Islamic emirate of Libya. The brothers have captured military tanks, Hummers, heavy-medium-light machine guns," the commentator reports.

Jihadist ideologues whose posts have been monitored praise the purity of the uprising in Libya compared with other manifestations of the Arab spring, such as in Egypt, which they deride for being secular and pro-democracy.

One post notes "the great thing about this revolution is that the people are only raising the banner of truth and shouting takbeer [God is great], and nobody shouts the name of a secular-democratic party"....

A participant on one forum commented: "I really need some clarification on the current situation in Libya. We see images from kufr [non-Muslim] news sources that the Libyans are requesting help from the kufr against Gaddafi. Could someone please confirm that the mujahidin in Libya are on the straight path."

Forum leaders have reassured participants on this score, essentially arguing the end - achieving an Islamic state - will justify the means. They liken the situation in Libya to that in Afghanistan in the 1990s, when a range of alliances was forged between rival factions in order to oust the Soviet army, before the Taliban eventually took power. "[In Afghanistan] we had Sunnis, nationalists, Ikhwanis [Muslim Brotherhood], Sufi, Shi'ites and other groups fighting shoulder to shoulder against the Russians.

"What happened after the war? We witnessed a civil war between the groups. The Taliban succeeded in taking 90 per cent of Afghanistan. They declared the Islamic emirate and implemented the Sharia. I think that the same thing will happen in Libya."

The mainstream Libyan rebel movement has been eager to distance itself from the Islamists who are trying to muscle in on their rebellion. On March 30, the Libyan Interim Transitional National Council issued a statement intended to allay Western fears about an Islamist takeover, stressing its "commitment to the implementation of the relevant Security Council resolutions on counter-terrorism [and] sanctions concerning al-Qa'ida and the Taliban".

The ICSR believes the jihadists' propaganda is more wishful thinking than reality. "Their claims are unconvincing and there are notable discrepancies between their interpretation of events and the facts on the ground," Meleagrou-Hitchens reports.

He says despite the rallying cries, there is little concrete evidence of a strong al-Qa'ida presence or serious Islamist activity among the rebels, and their Transitional National Council is "clearly not an al-Qa'ida aligned movement"....

The conventional wisdom on the Islamist forums, according to ICSR, is that "there is enough of a Salafi-jihadi presence to ensure that once Gaddafi is overthrown, Libya will begin to move toward transforming into an Islamic state governed by Sharia".

One forum leader warns that declaring an Islamic emirate in Libya would prompt a Western invasion, and stresses instead that they should build up their military forces, "educate the people" on the need for an Islamic state, "and then declare the emirate, with weapons, economy and a people ready to fight for Allah."

A Western invasion against an Islamic emirate in Libya? Pshaw. Who would call for that? Obama? Cameron?

Arrested for something he had not done -- not a crime he didn't commit, mind you, but a crime that no one committed, and something that, if it had been done, isn't even a crime at all. Except under Islamic law, that is. An update on this story. "Terry Jones says he'll sue over his arrest," by Oralandar Brand-Williams and Mark Hicks for The Detroit News, April 25:

The controversy over Florida pastor Terry Jones is unlikely to end anytime soon.

He said he plans to file a lawsuit against the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office and other government offices in connection with his arrest Friday following a jury trial that found he was likely to create a "breach of the peace" for plans to protest outside the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn.

And he still vows to conduct his protest, but it will be Friday outside Dearborn City Hall.

"We invite every American who still believes in the freedom and rights that our Constitution guarantees to come and stand with us," Jones said Sunday.

The controversial Quran-burning pastor said he is working with the Ann Arbor-based Thomas More Law Center because "we were arrested for something we had not done."

Jones' case is unique, said Richard Thompson, the center's president and chief counsel. "There are legal experts and commentators from all sides of the political spectrum who agree that what happened to Pastor Jones was a violation of the First Amendment."

Constitutional law expert Robert Sedler said he is glad Jones is challenging the "bizarre" ruling by 19th District Judge Mark Somers requiring Jones to post a "peace bond," jailing him for refusing and ordering him to stay away from the mosque for three years — all before Jones held the demonstration.

"The Supreme Court says you cannot deny a permit because of the message," said Sedler, a Wayne State University Law School professor. "The U.S. Constitution supersedes everything, which is why this is so bizarre."

At the trial, prosecutors cited an imam's remark that some see burning a Quran as worth 1,000 lives to explain why violence might erupt.

Imam Hassan Al-Qazwini, whom prosecutors were quoting about the Quran burning, said while safety concerns were legitimate, he was referring to reaction abroad. "I had no concerns at all that our community would react violently," he said....

Even if that is true, the responsibility for what people do abroad lies with them, not with Terry Jones.

"Today Masjids are razed and Qur'ans are burnt by those who claim they respect and defend Islam and Qur'an...the heinous act is not acceptable at all."

Sunni-Shi'ite Jihad Update: "Grand Ayatollah Golpaigani Slams Sacrilegious Acts in Bahrain," from the Ahlul Bayt News Agency, April 25:

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Grand Ayatollah Lotfollah Safi Golpaigani has condemned burning Quran and demolishing Masjids by Al-Khalifa Regime and Saudi forces.

“Today Masjids are razed and Qur'ans are burnt by those who claim they respect and defend Islam and Qur'an,” the Grand Ayatollah said, adding that "the heinous act is not acceptable at all."

The senior Shia Cleric called these sacrilegious acts rare in the history and underlined,” those who claim to have defended Qur'an now are rebelling against Islam.”

“These groups are following what the American Pastor [Terry Jones] did and are committing the same sacrilegious act which is too rare in the history,” the Grand Ayatollah underscored.

“Al-Khalifa Regime and Saudi ruler sold out their humanity and today they show the world their real nature and no doubt they will pay for their wrong-doings.”...

Probably not him

Was he trying to join the jihad in Libya? Or was he actually planning to fly the plane into some landmark? Or is he actually a Kazakh Methodist driven by Christian extremism, and this has nothing to do with jihad at all? Time will tell -- or at least it will if the mainstream media allows enough information about this to dribble out. "Man overpowered trying to hijack Alitalia flight," from Reuters, April 24 (thanks to D.C. Watson):

ROME (Reuters) – A man with a knife tried to hijack an Alitalia flight from Paris to Rome Sunday night, demanding it be flown to Libya, but was quickly overpowered and arrested when the plane landed, officials and witnesses said.

Witnesses said the man put a small knife to the throat of a female flight attendant and held her for a few minutes.

"The man grabbed the stewardess from behind her back and pointed the knife. She was in difficulty and tried to turn around," a passenger named Sofia told reporters....

Italian media said police had identified the man as a 48-year-old citizen of Kazakhstan who worked in Paris.

A statement from Alitalia airlines said the man had "assaulted a flight attendant and asked that the plane be taken to Tripoli."...

I tried to tell you. "Egypt in Flux: A young pacifist versus the Egyptian army," by Oren Kessler for the Jerusalem Post, April 22:

Hopes that post-Hosni Mubarak Egypt would be a beacon of free speech suffered a blow last week when the country’s ruling military council sentenced a well-known blogger to three years in prison. Maikel Nabil Sanad is many things that set him apart in his native country: an atheist of Coptic origin, a pacifist, and – in a country where “normalization” is often a dirty word – unabashedly pro- Israel.

Detained March 30, Sanad was given a quick show trial without his lawyers present and convicted of “insulting the military establishment” and “spreading false information.” The information he posted on his blog – on the army’s use of violence against protesters and its torture of detainees – had already been widely publicized by human rights groups like Amnesty International.

Sanad is a 25-year-old unemployed veterinarian from Asyut, a Nile-side city in Egypt’s interior near Gamal Abdel Nasser’s home village. Sanad’s blog, “Son of Ra,” can be viewed in English, Arabic and Hebrew (the last of which the blogger was studying prior to his incarceration). Reader comments in English and Hebrew gush with appreciation for the blogger’s liberal, conciliatory ideals. Those in Arabic are almost uniformly pejorative.

IN OCTOBER, Sanad announced he would refuse to serve his mandatory military service.

“Recruitment goes against my conscience,” he wrote. “I don’t want to point a weapon at a young Israeli, recruited into obligatory service, defending his state’s right to exist. I think obligatory service is a form of slavery, and I have worked for years for my freedom.”

The next week he gave an interview to the Ynet news site on how he came to be, in his own words, Egypt’s “only” pro-Israel activist.

“From a young age I read a lot about the Israeli-Arab conflict. I understood the Arab media hid facts that support Israel,” he said. “I tried to contact Israeli activists and started asking them questions, such as, ‘Is it true that Israel is a militaristic state?’ or, ‘Is it true that Israel wants to expand and reach the Nile?’... Many Arabs living in Israel told me how they are really treated and how much they prefer living in Israel above any Arab state.”

He added that “if the Palestinians had a democratic leadership, everything would be solved. Take the war on Gaza for example – Hamas started it. They refused to hold elections in Gaza and took control of the regime. They planned a dictatorial and fundamentalist regime. They refused to speak to Israel, fired rockets at it and caused it to defend itself.”...

Jihadists have a knack for a few things. There's deceit, there's the beheadings, targeting of civilians, and tunnels. They sure can dig tunnels, those jihadi grunts who have found themselves on the hook for "shovel jihad" rather than to slay and be slain in Allah's cause for the promise of paradise (Qur'an 9:111) just now. Sure, it beats "toilet jihad," but then again, toilets are likely to be few and far between.

Here, the 320-meter tunnel "took several months" to dig. And certainly, we've only seen the tip of the iceberg on what sort of help they had from inside the prison in this staggering, but predictable failure of security.

"Senior Taliban, hundreds freed in Afghan jailbreak," from Reuters, April 25:

REUTERS - Insurgents tunnelled into the main jail in Afghanistan’s volatile Kandahar province on Monday, freeing hundreds of prisoners, including many Taliban commanders, a serious setback for U.S. forces who hope to start withdrawing in coming months.

Tooryalai Wesa, the governor of Kandahar province, said a total of 478 prisoners managed to escape due to “negligence” of Afghan security forces. He said the start of the tunnel had been traced to a house near the prison.

The prison, which is supposed to be one of the country’s most secure, sits on the outskirts of Kandahar city and holds both captured insurgents and criminal prisoners.

The Taliban, in its own statement, said that 541 prisoners escaped through an extensive tunnel that took months to construct, and were later moved in vehicles to safer locations.

“Mujahideen started digging a 320-meter tunnel to the prison from the south side, which was completed after a five-month period, bypassing enemy check posts and (the) Kandahar-Kabul main highway leading directly to the political prison,” the Taliban statement said.

The Taliban said the carefully-targeted tunnel was completed late on Sunday night, with hundreds of insurgents escaping over a four-and-a-half hour period immediately afterwards.

The brazen jailbreak comes months before the start of a transfer of security responsibilities from foreign to Afghan forces in several areas as part of the eventual withdrawal of the U.S-led troops from the country.

Under the transition programme, Afghan forces will begin by taking over from foreign troops in a few areas, but should have control of the whole country by the end of 2014.

Kandahar, the spiritual birthplace of the Taliban, is not among the areas listed for the transition of forces in the first stage.

“It is a major setback for the foreign and Afghan troops who have claimed gains against the insurgents recently,” said Waheed Mujhda, a Kabul-based expert on the Taliban.

Mujhda said it was impossible to dig a tunnel and free more than 500 prisoners without the collaboration of guards.

“It is either a case of the jailers being financially motivated and being bribed or a case of them being politically motivated,” he said....

Or religiously motivated. He forgot that one.

Misunderstanders of Islam think they have to defend Islam with murder. Where did they get such a crazy idea? And when will Honest Ibe Hooper and Boy Reza Aslan explain to Boko Haram how they're getting the Religion of Peace™ all wrong, wrong, wrong?

"Hotel blast in northeast Nigeria kills 2; 8 hurt," by Njadvara Musa for the Associated Press, April 25:

An explosion at a hotel killed two people and wounded eight others in northeastern Nigeria only days before the state's gubernatorial election, police said Monday. There was no immediate claim of responsibility but the blast came as a radical Muslim sect vowed to keep up its fight.

Police chief Mike Zuokumor said the blast went off Sunday evening in Maiduguri, a town that has been wracked by violence related to a radical Islamic sect. The group known as Boko Haram had released a statement earlier Sunday defending its deadly attacks on police and religious leaders.

"All the people that we are killing, including ward heads, politicians, the police and the army have erred, because they are associating themselves with the government in its effort to arrest our Muslim brothers and sabotage Islam," the group said in its statement released Sunday....

I tried to tell you. "Christians flee from coming Shariah law: Muslim overthrow of African nations leaves Copts terrified," by Michael Carl for WorldNetDaily, April 23 (thanks to Assad Elepty):

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood says they want to institute Shariah law, while intelligence sources report al-Qaida is now staging attacks in the nation, prompting Egypt's Coptic Christians to believe that they'll soon be driven from their homeland.

International Christian Concern's Aidan Clay says the Copts' attitude has gone from uncertainty to fear. That fear is driving many Coptic Christians to try to leave Egypt.

"A report from a very prominent Coptic says he's getting hundreds of calls a week from Coptic Christians who are trying to get out of the country," Clay told WND in an interview. "That's an extremely sad thing considering we're seeing that throughout the Middle East. We're seeing the quick removal of ancient Christian communities. Egypt has the highest Christian population of any country and a very old Christian church there."

Clay places responsibility for the growing pressure to the growing influence of the Muslim Brotherhood.

"The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic groups are gaining a lot of political influence," Clay explained. "Actually the Muslim Brotherhood is really the only organized Islamic group forming a political party.

"So really, there is a fear that the Muslim Brotherhood could take power. It's the same with the Salafis. They're now saying they're willing to run for Parliament," Clay added....

The International Christian Concern analyst was referring to a recent report on Vatican Radio that said the long-restricted Salafist group is planning to form a political party and run candidates for Egypt's Parliament.

"In the past, Mubarak had a very hard hand on these extreme, fundamentalist, ultra-conservative groups. They were not allowed to run for government in any way," Clay commented. "But the Muslim Brotherhood had some influence and were able to get some votes."

Clay says that even though the groups were kept under control, they've long had the Christians in their "sights."

"These were the groups responsible for the major terrorist attacks against the Christians. They may even be responsible for the New Year's Eve attack against the church in Alexandria," Clay asserted. "Mubarak of course blamed an outside al-Qaeda group for the attack. The Copts don't buy that; they think it was it was an excuse by Mubarak to not to have to deal with the turmoil inside of Egypt."

The issue for Copts, as Clay explains, is that both of these groups have promised some form of Islamic government, which would put restrictions on the Christians in Egypt....

Read it all.

An editorial in the Washington Examiner, "Libya, Syria expose Obama's foreign policy incoherence," April 24 (thanks to David), accuses Barack Obama of inconsistency:

Teddy Roosevelt famously talked softly but carried a big stick. President Obama does the opposite: He talks big but carries a stick that is steadily getting softer. And sometimes he doesn't say or do anything at all, which is the worst possible situation. Consider Obama's declaration that Libya's Moammar Gadhafi "must go." But after making a clear statement of aggressive intent, Obama refused to apply sufficient U.S. military power to make the dictator's departure a reality. [...]

Meanwhile, the situation in Syria has become a nightmare, with the security forces of dictator Bashar al-Assad slaughtering protesters in the streets. Nearly 300 protestors have now been killed, with a flood of grisly amateur videos of the clashes exhibiting the horrendous lethality of modern sniper weaponry. Obama's response has been virtual silence and inaction. Yes, he condemned the shooting of protestors, but, as the Washington Post pointed out in calling his response "shameful," none of the usual diplomatic actions have been taken to put pressure on Assad. Since Syria is Iran's closest ally, Obama's silence on the Syrian crisis chillingly recalls his utter lack of interest in aiding Iran's democratic protesters two years ago. [...]

And that's the key to understanding why Obama is not being inconsistent. The Assad regime in Syria has for years been essentially a client state of Iran, and Hamas and Hizballah have headquarters in Damascus. So here we see the golden thread. Obama has favored the protesters where what would follow would be an Islamic state, but has been much less enthusiastic when the protesters are acting against the interests of an Islamic state; specifically, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Will the Islamophobia never end?

"7 wounded in bombing outside Baghdad church: Iraqi Christians have faced a recent wave of violence," by Saad Abdul-Kadir for The Associated Press, April 24 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

BAGHDAD — An Iraqi police official says seven people have been wounded by a roadside bomb outside the entrance of a Baghdad church.

The official says the blast took place Sunday just yards (meters) from the Sacred Heart Church in Baghdad's Karradah neighborhood. Shrapnel from the bomb struck the outside of the building....

Four policemen and three civilian bystanders were wounded.

Iraqi Christians have faced a recent wave of violence, including an attack last year against a Baghdad church that killed 68 people....

In November 2009, Pakistan’s foreign minister, Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi, said that the Taliban is being routed along the Afghanistan border. “The operation so far has been very successful,” he revealed. “The resistance that we were expecting initially did not come with the same swiftness we were expecting.”

AP reported that “Pakistan’s armed forces hope to rout Taliban militants in the rugged mountainous region along the border with Afghanistan before winter sets in by late December.” That's late December 2009. Qureshi said that Pakistan’s armed forces have the Taliban “on the run. They are in retreat and there is disarray over there.”

In May 2009, Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani said that the Pakistani military was just about to wrap up its offensive against the Taliban: “The operation against the terrorists is progressing very successfully and those who destroyed the peace of the nation are fleeing in disguise,” he said confidently. Only mop-up operations remained: “Troops will remain in the region until peace is ensured and all the displaced people return home.”

In late February 2009, Qureshi declared that “Pakistan is willing to work with the American administration to fight extremism and terrorism. We are determined to defeat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.” That was five months after Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, declared: “I will work to defeat the domestic Taliban insurgency and to ensure that Pakistani territory is not used to launch terrorist attacks on our neighbors or on NATO forces in Afghanistan.”

Musharraf in November 2006 hotly denied that Pakistan was not doing everything it could to stop the Taliban and other terrorist elements. “We have suffered casualties. We have suffered about 600 dead. Now if you think that we are suffering dead by not doing any thing, or not doing enough, then we are not seeing reality.” That came fourteen months after Musharraf offered to erect a fence between Pakistan and Afghanistan in order to put an end to charges that Pakistani officials were aiding the Taliban rather than fighting against it.

In August 2005, Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said: “We will fight a war against this danger to protect our independence and we will defeat it at every level.” In August 2004, Musharraf vowed that he would not let jihadists from Pakistan cross into Afghanistan and attempt to disrupt the elections there.

Asked if the Taliban’s days were numbered, Musharraf said, “It appears so” -- on October 1, 2001.

Why do the Pakistanis keep claiming that the defeat of the Islamic jihadists is imminent? Because it keeps the checks coming from Washington.

Here's the latest: "Pakistan army: We have broken terrorists' backbone," from AP, April 24:

ISLAMABAD - PAKISTAN'S army chief [General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani] said on Saturday that his forces have broken the 'backbone' of Islamist militants in the country in an apparent attempt to counter American criticism over the country's campaign against extremism....

Hours after the statement, a suicide bomber on foot detonated his explosives alongside a convoy of Pakistani soldiers and elders from an anti-Taleban militia in the town of Salarzai in the Bajur tribal region....

The military in late 2009 had declared victory over insurgents in the area. Mr Rabbi said the army, paramilitary commanders and government officials met before the attack with the militia elders to discuss ways of keeping militants from infiltrating the area from various neighbouring regions and Afghanistan.

In a televised address to the cadets at a Pakistan Military Academy in the north-western town of Kakool, General Kayani praised the role of his soldiers in fighting extremists.

'In the war against terrorism, our officers and soldiers have made great sacrifices and have achieved tremendous successes,' he said. '(The) terrorists' backbone had been broken.' General Kayani in recent weeks has also visited tribal areas near the Afghan border to boost the morale of troops deployed there to fight the Taleban, who often target security forces and government officials.

Somebody! Maybe militant Rotarians.

Dhimmis -- primarily Jews and Christians under the "protection" of the Islamic state -- are "forbidden to...recite the Torah or Evangel aloud, or make public display of their funerals and feastdays" ('Umdat al-Salik, o11.5(6)).

"Low-key Easter preparations for Pakistan's Christians," by Kamran Haider for Reuters, April 24:

GOJRA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Christians in the small Pakistani town of Gojra are making low-key preparations for Easter this year.

Residents of the neighbourhood, known as Christian Colony, in the town in Punjab province, are haunted by memories of a 2009 attack by a Muslim mob in which seven members of a family were killed and dozens of houses torched.

A few days before Easter, which Christians believe marks the resurrection of Jesus Christ three days after his crucifixion, bare-foot children played cricket in the town's dusty alleys while some men chatted on a bench under a tree.

"If we celebrate it with a fanfare, we fear somebody might get annoyed and attack us," said Khalid Anjum, 45, the owner of a small snooker hall.

The only sign of the approach of Easter was a few young men rehearsing hymns in St. Mary's Catholic Church....

The independent Human Rights Commission said at least 100 people from minority communities were killed in 2010. The bloodiest attack was on Ahmadis, a sect that mainstream Muslims consider heretical, when 86 people were killed.

This year, the liberal Muslim governor of Punjab province, Salman Taseer, and Christian Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti, were killed in separate shootings for speaking out against a blasphemy law aimed at defending Islam.

Under the law, anyone who speaks ill of Islam and the Prophet Mohammad commits a crime and faces the death penalty but human rights activists say the law's vague wording has led to its misuse, often against members of minority religions.

Whose prophet?

Compounding a climate of fear, Islamist militants, angered by Pakistan's alliance with the United States since 2001, have carried periodic attacks on minorities as part of a campaign to destabilise the state.

"FEAR IN THEIR HEARTS"

In Gojra's Christian Colony, the level of fear has increased since the sentencing Monday of a Muslim to death for shooting dead two Christians who had been accused of blasphemy.

Rather then welcoming what some people might see as justice, Christians fear that if the sentence is carried out, it will only mean more trouble for them.

"Things will only get worse. If one is punished, someone else will stand up to take revenge for him," said housewife Shahida Kashif.

"My kids still get scared whenever there's a small disturbance. They says 'mother, they've come. They'll set fire to our houses again'. They still have fear in their hearts," she said, referring to memories of the 2009 riot.

"Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah and your enemies..." -- Qur'an 8:60

A mob of about 1,000 Muslims, incensed by rumours that a Christian had desecrated the Koran, rampaged through the neighborhood, firing guns and throwing petrol bombs.

Hameed Pannum Khan was shot dead and six members of his family, including two women and two children, were burnt to death when their hut was torched....

"It was crazy, they were shooting to kill."

And yet the world will continue to condemn Israel and portray the Palestinians as victims. "Witness: Shooters yell Allahu Akbar," by Yair Altman for Ynet News, April 24 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

A group of Breslov Hassidim's regular twilight visit to Palestinian controlled Joseph's Tomb in Nablus came to a tragically violent end Sunday: According to one of the Breslovers, Palestinian police officers fired at the convoy as they were on their way in to the Tomb.

The fire continued as they drove out, killing Ben-Yosef Livnat, a 24 year-old father of four from Jerusalem and the nephew of Minister Limor Livnat, and injuring five others.

Military, Palestinians investigating shooting of Israelis near Joseph's Tomb. Initial details suggest event was security incident....

One of the Breslovers who was in the second car in the convoy and was lightly wounded told Ynet: "We arrived at the tomb like on many occasions in the past. Near the tomb we saw a spikes chain. One of the guys jumped out of the car and moved it aside.

"At this point a uniformed Palestinian police officer with a Kalashnikov in a jeep woke his colleagues up and they started firing into the air…I was in the front seat. We started driving fast in the direction of the tomb; we got out of the vehicles and kissed the tomb.

"When we got back to the vehicles the police shot at the vehicles, they were screaming 'Allahu Akbar'. It was crazy, they were shooting to kill. I screamed at the driver to drive out of there quickly. When we got to Har Bracha we attended to the wounded."...

And not just in Egypt. Jihad Watch reader Coptic, who sent in this story, writes: "Please note that the translation the newspaper did is very very deceitful. El Shater actually said to control the world, and take over the world, but the newspaper translated it 'to become world leaders.'") Arabic text here."Brotherhood leader: Preparing for an Islamic government," from Almasry Alyoum, April 23 (thanks to Coptic)

The role of the Muslim Brotherhood is to mobilize the nation to establish a way of life based on Islam, said its Deputy Supreme Guide Khairat al-Shater.

Speaking at a conference in Alexandria two days ago, Shater further said that the group is preparing to initiate an Islamic government to achieve progress based on Islamic principles, and that its objective is to establish an Islamic state and become world leaders.

Pointing out that no Sunni state currently has a regime with Islamic references, he urged Muslim scholars to contribute an workable, comprehensive, civilized Islamic model....

The Qur'an says three times that Allah transformed Jews into apes and pigs: 2:62-65; 5:59-60; and 7:166. In the link inside this piece is yet more evidence that, contrary to the bland protestations of "moderate" spokesmen in the U.S., all too many Muslims apply those hateful passages to Jews today. And the main story is even worse, as it shows Palestinian Christians manifesting such a thoroughly dhimmi mentality that they have adopted this usage, even though there is nothing remotely like this in Christianity.

"PA daily: 'Jews, Jews! Your holiday [Passover] is the Holiday of Apes,'" by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook for Palestinian Media Watch, April 24:

An article in the official PA daily newspaper claims that Palestinian Christian youth perform a spring march in the streets that includes the chant: "Jews, Jews! Your holiday [Passover] is the Holiday of Apes." (See PMW web site for examples of the Palestinian Authority referring to Jews as "apes and pigs.") He writes that these "meaningful messages" are in response to Israel's security measures in Jerusalem during the holiday of Passover: [...]

He describes youth chanting that the Jewish holiday of Passover is the "Holiday of the Apes":

"The spring carnival has retained its [Palestinian] flavor in towns such as Bethlehem, Beit Sahour and Ramallah... with the demonstrations of the Scouts, songs, dances, and popular Palestinian hymns about Christian-Islamic unity and internal Christian unity. These hymns carry meaningful messages, in response to the Israeli prohibition [to enter Jerusalem], as seen in the calls of the youth who lead the procession of light, waving swords and not caring if anyone accuses them of anti-Semitism: ... 'Our master, Jesus, the Messiah, the Messiah redeemed us, with his blood he bought us, and today we are joyous while the Jews are sad,' and, 'Jews, Jews! Your holiday is the Holiday of the Apes, while our holiday is the Holiday of the Messiah.'"
[PA TV (Fatah), April 11, 2011]

I wish a joyous and beautiful Paschal season to all those who are celebrating the Resurrection of Christ tonight.

In the year since I last extended Paschal greetings to Christian Jihad Watch readers, we have seen a sharp increase both in the Muslim persecution of Christians worldwide and in Muslims in the West claiming victimhood in order to deflect attention away from the global jihad and Islamic supremacism. The contrast, for anyone who is paying attention, is piquant: Muslims acting in the name of Allah murder Christians in Iraq, Egypt, Pakistan and elsewhere, and then complain in Western countries about things like not being able to wear hijab in violation of some company's policy, or about someone saying rude things to them in a supermarket, and the like.

Whether you are a Christian or a believer in any other religion or no religion at all, this should concern you, and in fact does concern you. The victimhood game is part of a larger strategy. And so is the persecution of Christians, and the violence against Jews in Israel, and against unbelievers of various creeds and belief-systems worldwide. They are both part of a larger war that the Ayatollah Khomeini memorably articulated:

Islam makes it incumbent on all adult males, provided they are not disabled or incapacitated, to prepare themselves for the conquest of countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country in the world. . . . But those who study Islamic Holy War will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world. . . . Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless. Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! Does this mean that Muslims should sit back until they are devoured by [the unbelievers]? Islam says: Kill them, put them to the sword and scatter [their armies]…. Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for the Holy Warriors! There are hundreds of other [Qur'anic] psalms and Hadiths [sayings of the Prophet] urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all this mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.

With tonight beginning the celebration of Pascha, Easter, for Christians the Feast of Feasts, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, it is illuminating to contrast the spirit of Khomeini's famous remarks with the Paschal Homily of St. John Chrysostom, which will be read tonight in Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic churches. (A side note: I am not intending this as a blanket endorsement of everything Chrysostom ever said -- in fact, I discussed some of his more problematic utterances at length in my book Religion of Peace?.)

If anything explains why Muslims are victimizing Christians throughout the world, and not the other way around, it is the difference between Khomeini's words and Chrysostom's. Khomeini's repudiation of the "foolish souls" who reject Islamic jihad warfare manifests an understanding of Islam that looks with resentment and hatred at non-Muslims and wills to conquer and subjugate and kill them.

Chrysostom's homily, by contrast, is expansive, generous, open-hearted, and otherworldly. And above all, it is hopeful. Death is robbed of its sting. Evil does not prevail forever. As the days get darker and freedom gets more precarious in the West, and Islamic supremacists (who revere Khomeini) grow ever bolder in the West, it is a good message for non-Christians as well as Christians: the boot on the face does not and cannot prevail indefinitely. Blades of grass inevitably grow through the concrete. Khomeini says that "whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword" and that "people cannot be made obedient except with the sword," but ultimately people grow weary of being terrorized and throw off the tyrant's chains. The human spirit cannot be enslaved indefinitely. And so even in these difficult days, there is hope: every time the Islamic supremacists advance, they simultaneously retreat, because more and more people wake up to what they're doing and to the need to resist.

They are angered (angered!), increasingly angered, because they know they can't continue to advance under cover of darkness. People are on to them. The fact that at least fourteen states have in the last few months begun considering anti-Sharia laws is a sign of this, and one that could not have been predicted just two or three years ago. The enemies of freedom are being exposed, and will soon be cast down, and they know it. They will lash out more furiously than ever as this effort is being completed, but it has begun.

And so here is St. John Chrysostom's homily:

Let all pious men rejoice and all lovers of God rejoice in the splendor of this feast; let the wise servants blissfully enter into the joy of their Lord, let those who have borne the burden of Lent now receive their pay, and those who have toiled since the first hour, let them now receive their due reward; let any who came after the third hour be grateful to join in the feast, and those who may have come after the sixth, let them not be afraid of being too late, for the Lord is gracious and He receives the last even as the first.

He gives rest to him who comes on the eleventh hour as well as to him who has toiled since the first: yes, He has pity on the last and he serves the first; He rewards the one and is generous to the other; He repays the deed and praises the effort.

Come, all of you: enter into the joy of your Lord. You the first and you the last, receive alike your reward; you rich and you poor, dance together; you sober and you weaklings, celebrate the day; you who have kept the Fast and you who have not, rejoice today.

The table is richly laden; enjoy its royal banquet. The calf is a fatted one; let no one go away hungry. All of you enjoy the banquet of faith; all of you receive the riches of His goodness. Let no one grieve over his poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed; let no one weep over his sins, for pardon has shone from the grave; let no one fear death, for the death of our Savior has set us free. He has destroyed it by enduring it; He has despoiled Hades by going down into its kingdom; He has angered it by allowing it to taste of His flesh.

When Isaiah foresaw all this, he cried out: "O Hades, you have been angered by encountering Him in the nether world." Hades is angered because it is frustrated. It is angered because it has been mocked. It is angered because it has been destroyed. It is angered because it has been reduced to naught. It is angered because it is now captive. It seized a body, and lo! It discovered God. It seized earth, and behold! It encountered heaven. It seized the visible, and was overcome by the invisible.

"O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?" Christ is risen, and you are abolished! Christ is risen and the demons are cast down! Christ is risen and the angels rejoice! Christ is risen and life is freed! Christ is risen and the tomb is emptied of its dead! For Christ, being risen from the dead, has become the leader and reviver of those who had fallen asleep. To Him be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen.

That's Qur'an 3:85. And this is not at all the first time similar banners have been hung to intimidate Christians in Nazareth.

When Muslims "care to send the very best" message of hatred and intolerance to the kuffar, quoting chapter and verse serves to remind that Islam holds that these words came from the mouth of Allah himself. And those who submit to the Qur'an's deity will act accordingly. "Christians in the Middle East: Harder to Bear," by David Gardner for the Financial Times, April 23:

In a square in Nazareth, right below the Basilica of the Annunciation, a Koranic verse warns that "whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted of him, and in the Hereafter he will be one of the losers". Yet it is the spectre of losing in the here-and-now that most haunts the dwindling number of adherents to Christianity in the land of its birthplace.

In the hometown of Jesus, where it all began two millennia ago, Christians feel under siege. This fear is not limited to Nazareth or the Holy Land. Across the Arab world, Christians ask whether they are an endangered species: threatened by Islamist radicals; forced by limited opportunities at home to seek new lives abroad; accused of complicity in the schemes of foreign predators; and now menaced by the wave of revolution ripping through the region -- which some fear could uncover the submerged hard-wiring of sectarianism.

Two massacres, at the church of Our Lady of Salvation in Baghdad last October and at a Coptic church in Alexandria on New Year's day, have reinforced this sense of a modern persecution aimed at emptying Arab lands of Christians, who number perhaps 15m among 300m Muslims.

"We are in a new era of persecution of Christians," says Rifa't Bader, a Jordanian Catholic priest whose congregation is now mainly made up of refugees from jihadist savagery in Iraq. "We are victims of things we are not responsible for, whether the Israeli occupation [of Palestinian land] or American policy in the Middle East, especially [the occupation of] Iraq".

Iraq is a case apart. Following the Anglo-American invasion of 2003, indigenous Assyrian Christians, mostly Chaldean, have endured a backlash that has reduced their numbers from close to 1m to about 400,000. One refugee in Amman, a 66-year-old chemistry professor who gives his name as Abu Sinan, says: "In my country, 1,400 years of co-existence and common endeavour with Muslims disintegrated in just five years." To Arab Christians around the region, this was a tragedy foretold.

Riah Abu el-Assal, a Palestinian and former Anglican bishop of Jerusalem, says one month before the invasion he personally warned Tony Blair, British prime minister of the time, that "you will be responsible for emptying Iraq, the homeland of Abraham, of Christians". After almost 2,000 years, Iraqi Christians now openly contemplate extinction. Some of their prelates even counsel flight.

Maher, 24, used to guard churches from attack in his formerly mixed Baghdad neighbourhood of al-Jadriya, where he says only five Christian families remain. He is now waiting in Amman to join the survivors from his family in the US. "Eventually my choice became simple: whether or not to stay alive," he says.

But if Iraqi Christians scent apocalypse, their Arab co-religionists elsewhere have started to feel vulnerable in the lands of their forefathers -- even if some are exhilarated by the current chain of uprisings bringing a fresh vision of freedom and democracy.

In Egypt, the resolutely anti-sectarian Tahrir Square revolution was followed by riots between Copts (reckoned to amount to about 10 per cent of Egyptians) and Muslims, raising suspicions that elements from the deposed regime of Hosni Mubarak were trying to widen a cleft between the two communities.

To say nothing of the Islamic elements cut loose in society in the aftermath of the revolution.

In Jordan, the Christian minority has prospered under the protective wing of the Hashemite monarchy, owning or running about one-third of the economy although they form less than 3 per cent of the population. Gathering resentment against corruption and economic hardship could threaten its position, as well as that of King Abdullah.

In Syria, where Christians make up some 10 per cent of the population, they are closely aligned with the regime of Bashar al-Assad -- essentially rule by the Alawite minority exercised from behind the facade of the Ba'ath party. "Their fear is that if the regime falls to the Sunni majority, they will be put up against the same wall as the Alawites," says one close observer of Syria in Beirut.

The Assad regime has enforced religious tolerance. Syrians, having seen sectarian demons uncaged in Iraq and before that Lebanon, worry about a new Balkans-in-the-sands now the regime faces unprecedented dissent. Raymond Moussalli, a Syrian and Chaldean priest in Amman, whispering through a sung mass in Aramaic -- the language of Christ still spoken by a few Syrians -- says: "If sectarianism enters into the Syrian equation the whole region will explode, especially Jordan and Lebanon."...

The worst-case scenario for Christians could also be a "be careful what you wish for" moment for the region's Muslims:

Christians -- as well as Jews -- helped the rise of Islamic civilisation by plugging it into the Hellenist legacy. In its decline, they were custodians of this heritage and of the Arabic language. It was Christians who disproportionately drove the "Arab awakening" of the 19th and 20th centuries, not just through a new Arabist politics but in education, publishing, medicine and science. [...]

... [The] spectre of an eastern Mediterranean empty of Christians is still haunting for many, not just because it would uproot a 2,000-year-old heritage but because it would burn the bridges between east and west.

"The beauty of this land is that it is a mosaic," says Bishop Abu el-Assal in Nazareth. "If the Christians leave, what will be left of that? The Middle East represents the intermingling of civilisation and the three Abrahamic faiths. If that finally goes, this will cease to be Terra Santa; it will be a museum."

And it will only be a "museum" until someone comes along to shatter the remaining evidence of jahiliyya and sweep up the shards.

You can't make this stuff up: "Philips, who was born in Jamaica and raised in Canada, spoke in Frankfurt earlier this week on the subject 'Islam, the Misunderstood Religion'."

"Islamist preacher ordered to leave Germany," from Deutsche Presse-Agentur, April 21 (thanks to Josephine):

A radical Muslim preacher has been ordered by German authorities to depart the country immediately. The move comes after he attended an Islamist rally in Frankfurt that took place despite the objections of city leaders.

Citing security concerns, the authorities said if he doesn’t depart on his own, he could be arrested and forcibly deported.

Philips, who was born in Jamaica and raised in Canada, spoke in Frankfurt earlier this week on the subject “Islam, the Misunderstood Religion” alongside German Islamist preacher Pierre Vogel – who authorities have no way to deport – after a court allowed the event over the objections of Frankfurt officials.

Arid Uka, the 21-year-old Kosovar who has admitted to killing two US airmen in Frankfurt in March, is thought to have established contact to radical Islamist preachers including Vogel before the shooting.

Police said up to 1,500 people, separated by gender, attended the rally, where Philips appeared as a surprise guest. The 64-year-old has been on a tour of sorts around Europe, recently surfacing in Denmark.

Although Philips has failed to deliver extremist messages during his European appearances, he’s attracted plenty of protesters, including 500 in Frankfurt.

Philips, who runs an online university has attracted the ire of officials for his previously inflammatory messages and alleged links to Muslim extremists.

He is alleged to have preached that homosexuals should received the death penalty, although in Frankfurt he said he doesn’t hate gays at all.

Yeah, uh, nothing personal. Just capital punishment under Sharia.

In previous interviews he has also accused Western governments of oppressing him by falsely associating him with terrorism.

Jailed for planning a protest? How was that even possible in America? For refusing to pay a "peace bond"? Wouldn't the responsibility for any disturbance be upon those who decided to react to whatever Jones was doing by causing the disturbance? Pamela Geller says it here: "The city of Dearborn's position is that Muslims are so violent and irrational that they won't be able to control themselves if Jones holds a protest? And he has to pay for damages? Why wouldn't the marauding Muslim hordes pay the damages if they are doing the damage? And if they get violent, why aren't they in jail?"

She also points out the inconsistency, here: "Terry Jones was sent to jail in Michigan over a planned protest outside the largest Islamic Center in the U.S. I have seen the most vile displays of subversion, anti-Americanism, Jew-hatred and violence at anti-war rallies during the Bush years. No one said boo. It's free speech. The KKK marches, no one says boo, it's free speech. Monsters protest military funerals, it's free speech. Nazis in Skokie? A-OK. But Islamic jihadis launch the most brutal and bloody attack on America on September 11, 2001, and we haven't stopped apologizing. And now we have turned over our soul, the heart of our freedom."

More on this story. "Pastor Is Jailed in Michigan Over Planned March at Mosque," from the Associated Press, April 22 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) — A Florida pastor at the center of a Koran-burning controversy was jailed briefly for refusing to pay what the authorities called a “peace bond” for a planned demonstration outside a mosque.

The pastor, Terry Jones, whose remarks against Muslims have inflamed anti-Western sentiment in Afghanistan, said he refused to pay the $1 bond because doing so would violate his freedom of speech. He was released from jail hours later after paying the $1....

The bond also prohibited Mr. Jones from going to the mosque or the adjacent property for three years.

Robert Sedler, a constitutional law professor at Wayne State University, said the United States Supreme Court has ruled that it is the police’s job to protect speakers at such events and said it is unconstitutional to require protesters to post a bond for police protection.

A Koran burning in March at Mr. Jones’s church in Gainesville, Fla., caused protests in Afghanistan that killed more than a dozen people. The Wayne County prosecutor, Kym Worthy, said fears that Mr. Jones could incite violent counterprotests led them to court.

Mr. Jones represented himself and told the jury that the mosque, one of the largest in the country, was chosen because his protest was against “a radical element of Islam.”

“All we want to do is walk, demonstrate, protest on an area that already belongs to you, to the city,” he said. “We are not accusing this mosque. We are not accusing the people of Dearborn. We are not accusing all Muslims.”

Red County has the details:

Frequent FOX News Contributors Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer to Visit Tampa Bay on May 1st By Dr. Richard Swier (Scribe) on April 21st, 2011

Frequent FOX News Contributors Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer to Visit Tampa Bay, Premiere Film, Report on Ground Zero Mosque and the World Trade Center 9/11 Memorial.

Pamela Geller, leading opponent of the Ground Zero Mosque, Editor/Publisher of the widely popular and award-winning website www.AtlasShrugs.com and Robert Spencer, New York Times bestselling author of nine books on Islam and jihad who has led seminars on those subjects for the US Army, the FBI, and the US intelligence community, and Director of www.JihadWatch.org, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, will screen and discuss their new documentary:

The Ground Zero Mosque: Second Wave of the 9/11 Attacks

Pamela and Robert will report the latest on the Ground Zero Mosque and the WTC 9/11 Memorial, which plans to honor the 19 jihadists and demean the memories and remains of the 9/11 victims and the first responders who lost their lives that day.

Sunday, May 1

Muvico Baywalk 20 & IMAX

151 2nd Avenue North

St. Petersburg, FL 33701

1:30 pm

Tickets cost $10 at the door or $9 online at http://groundzeromovieflorida.eventbrite.com. You may contact groundzeromovieflorida@gmail.com for additional information.

The message Dearborn authorities are sending? Intimidation through the threat of violence works. In this case, even the ACLU is having none of it, and has argued for Jones' constitutional protections under the First Amendment to be acknowledged and upheld.

Making exceptions against the right of free speech sets a disastrous precedent, which one may fully expect Islamic groups in America to manipulate in the future. An update on this story. "Detroit mosque protest barred by court," by Bernie Woodall for Reuters, April 22 (thanks to JCB):

DEARBORN, Michigan (Reuters) – A controversial Florida pastor was briefly jailed and released on Friday after a Michigan court determined that his planned protest outside a mosque was likely to provoke violence and ordered him to stay away.

Terry Jones, 59, was sent to county jail after he declined to pay a $1 bond as ordered by Judge Mark Somers, who also ordered him to stay away from the Islamic Center of America for three years.

But about an hour later, police said Jones and a supporter, Wayne Sapp, were released from custody after the token $1 bond was paid.

Both Jones and Sapp were had initially refusing to meet the terms of a "peace bond" set by Somers in protest.

A six-person jury in the Dearborn, Michigan court ruled earlier on Friday that their planned protest outside the largest mosque in the United States was "likely to breech [sic] the peace" in a suburb of Detroit with a large Muslim American population.

The one-day jury trial on the planned protest by Jones was streamed live on the Internet and attracted widespread notice for pitting free speech on a highly charged issue against concerns about public safety.

Jones, 59, is the leader of a tiny, fringe fundamentalist church in Gainesville, Florida, who has an unknown until he courted publicity and controversy by burning the Koran as part of what he describes as a campaign against "radical Islam."

The American Civil Liberties Union petitioned unsuccessfully for the case against Jones to be thrown out.

An ACLU spokeswoman said Dearborn officials had violated free speech protections of the Constitution and given more publicity to a divisive and fringe figure by trying to bar his protest.

"We vehemently disagree with Mr. Jones and his cohorts. However, this is a complete abuse of the court process and all those involved should be ashamed," said ACLU spokeswoman Rana Elmir.

She added: "I believe that Rev. Jones came to Dearborn for his 15 minutes of fame and the judge and prosecutors have now effectively given him hours of that."

The Qur'an burning initially passed very quietly in the U.S., and would be forgotten as old news by now except for the murderous rampages that then erupted in the Islamic world (no thanks to Afghan president Hamid Karzai), which, once again, burned far more Qur'ans than Jones and Sapp.

Jones had asked for a permit to stage a protest on Good Friday on public land across from the mosque.

City officials said the mosque and four nearby churches were expected to be crowded with several thousand worshipers at that time.

Dearborn police had denied Jones's request and asked him to protest instead in a "free speech zone" in front of one of the city buildings.

But Jones, who represented himself in court on Friday, argued that violated his free speech rights.

"The First Amendment is only valid if it allows us to say what other people may not like," Jones told jurors. "Otherwise, we do not need the First Amendment."

Police had estimated that it would cost over $46,000 to protect Jones and a handful of supporters from violence if they had protested outside the mosque.

Prosecutors had asked for bond for both Jones and Sapp to be set at $25,000.

Speaking of bad precedents:

Somers said he would consider lifting his three-year ban on visits to the mosque and nearby property by Jones and Sapp if the leaders of the Dearborn mosque asked him to do so in the future...

Surely, Islamic apologists in the West will get right on the line to this guy and explain that, no, Muhammad's youngest wife, Aisha, was 16, 18, didn't know how old she was, was only "nine" in Galapagos tortoise-years, or whatever other excuse they might cook up.

The problem? Islamic texts and traditions say otherwise, and Muslims follow them. Indeed, the heart of the problem is this: Muhammad married a child. The example of Muhammad, "a beautiful pattern of conduct" according to Qur'an 33:21, cannot be set aside, or standards he set "updated," lest one imply Muhammad made a mistake. That would not only insult Muhammad (things seem to become flammable when that happens) but go against the Qur'an's endorsement of him, and therefore Allah's.

That is why child marriage persists in the Islamic world, from Nigeria to Yemen to Indonesia:

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

"Islamist leader threatens of waging Jihad," from Weekly Blitz, April 20 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

Notorious pro-Taliban Islamist clergy in Bangladesh, Mufti Fazlul Haque Amini has threatened to wage jihad in the country if the government will pass any law banning child marriage.

He said, two hundred thousand Jihadists of his group are ready to 'sacrifice' lives if any such law, which goes against "Koran and Sunnah" will be passed by the current government in the country.

He says it:

Mufti Amini said, "Banning child marriage will cause challenging the marriage of the holy prophet of Islam, who also married minor Ayesha, when she was just eight years old".

He said, "The new law initiated by the current government will put the moral character of the prophet into controversy and challenge."

Fazlul Haque Amini further said, "Islam permits child marriage and it will not be tolerated if any ruler will ever try to touch this issue in the name of giving more rights to women."

It may be mentioned here that, current government in Bangladesh has taken several measures in ensuring better rights to the women thus treating child marriage as severe offense. It also recommends equal distribution of properties amongst male and female inherits. In contrary, Islamic Sharia law gives lesser rights to women as far as inheritance is concerned. It also allows men to marry any infant girl child. It may be mentioned here that, such law is prevalent in most of the Islamic republics, while in Iran, even forceful sexual relations with the married infant is allowed. A large segment of Muslim scholars and secularist individuals term this as mere perversion.

But child marriage remains A-OK.

In Bangladesh, especially in the rural areas, child marriage is very regular phenomenon, where hundreds of child mothers die due to lack of medical facilities as well as for pre-mature pregnancy. There are even cases of deaths of child wives being virtually raped by their husbands. Child marriage is prevalent in rural Bangladesh both amongst the Muslim and non-Muslim families.

Several weeks back, Islamist clergy Mufti Fazlul Haque Amini and Moulana Rezaul Karim launched a movement of 'combating anti-Islam actions' by the government in Bangladesh. Since then, hundreds and thousands of followers of these fanatic leaders are active in various forms of demonstrations around the country. It is also reported in media that, minor boys in the Koranic Madrassas were forced join most of the anti-government demonstrations of these leaders. According to unofficial statistics, there are roughly 9 million students attending various madrassas in Bangladesh.

Mutfti [sic] Fazlul Haque Amini is branded as a 'political tout' in Bangladesh, who is virtually making millions by selling Jihadist notion amongst the people. He is under payroll of various Islamist groups including Pakistani intelligence agency ISI. Amini maintains closer ties with Al-Qaeda, Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, Lashkar-e-Toiba and militant outfits inside Kashmir. He also is actively involved in recruiting local youths for participating in 'Jihad' in Kashmir, Palestine and other places in the world.

Both Mufti Fazlul Haque Amini and Moulana Rezaul Karim are known for their extreme opinion against United States, Israel and the West. They also patronize various activities against these nations, as well as provide support and logistics to anti-Semitic forces in Bangladesh.

Reveling in gore for their bloodthirsty god. More on this story. "Militants wanted to film, broadcast Indonesian church attack, police say," by Niniek Karmini for The Associated Press, April 22:

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Islamic militants involved in a plot to bomb an Indonesian church ahead of Easter celebrations wanted to film and broadcast the inferno, which would have occurred as thousands of people were arriving for services, police said Friday.

The plot, uncovered Thursday, has put the nation in a state of high alert with hundreds of thousands of police deployed at churches, 20,000 in the capital alone.

Maj. Gen. Anton Bachrul Alam, spokesman for the national police, said the 19 suspects who led authorities to bombs planted beneath a gas pipeline near the Christ Cathedral Church just outside of Jakarta did not appear to be part of any large, existing terrorist organization....

"They wanted to make a movie and then broadcast it ... that was the plan," he said....

In recent months, militants have shifted their focus.

In seeking to carve out a Muslim state, their main enemies now are security forces who have spearheaded the anti-terror fight, the country's moderate Muslim leaders, members of "deviant" sects, and Christians.

Individual "jihadis" and small cells with little or no directive from larger terror groups have attacked police posts, sent mail bombs and carried out the country's first suicide bombing at a mosque....

The bombs, safely diffused after a painstaking 10 hours on Thursday, had been rigged to go off at 9 a.m. Friday, just as services at the 3,000-seat Catholic church were beginning.

Worshippers were not deterred, filing into the targeted Christ Cathedral Church in Serpong and others nationwide on Friday.

"If we didn't come today ... the terrorists would just be laughing happily," said Grace Lianawati, who was accompanied by her family.

"We're just grateful that the government foiled this plot," she added. "Just imagine how bad it could have been."...

Not hard to imagine. And the jihadis will keep trying to supply us with examples.

An ever-deteriorating situation for Christians in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. "In the 'Rome of Pakistan,' Christians say they fear speaking out, worry about the future," by Nahal Toosi for The Associated Press, April 22:

KHUSHPUR, Pakistan — A church bell, not a mosque loudspeaker, calls people to prayer along the dung-lined streets and inside the crumbling houses of this village. The body of Pakistan's most recent Christian martyr is buried in its graveyard.

Khushpur is almost entirely Catholic, and for decades it has been an oasis for Christians in a nation where 95 per cent of people are Muslim and Islamist extremism is spreading. The village has produced so many priests and nuns that some call it the "Rome of Pakistan."

But Islamist militants' recent murder of federal minister Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian son of the village targeted for opposing Pakistan's harsh blasphemy laws, has rattled the peace. As they prepare to observe Easter, many of the 5,300 villagers say Pakistan's Christians face more pressure than ever.

"You live with fear," said Rose Dominic, 45, a math teacher. "You can't express yourself."...

Khushpur has risen to prominence among Pakistan's Christian villages partly because of its reputation for producing "martyrs."

One of them was Bishop John Joseph, a human rights activist who shot himself in 1998 to protest the same blasphemy laws Bhatti wanted to change. The laws impose the death penalty for insulting Islam, and rights groups say they are frequently used to persecute religious minorities or settle personal disputes.

Joseph's body is buried in the nearby city of Faisalabad, but his bloody clothes were interred in the graveyard in Khushpur under a large marble slab. Just a few meters away is Bhatti's grave, topped with a cross bearing his picture, and still topped with fresh flowers daily.

Bhatti led the ministry for minorities, and what little political power Pakistan's Christians had was almost entirely vested in him. Fliers left at the scene of his March 2 murder in Islamabad were signed by Taliban and al-Qaida militants who said they targeted Bhatti because of the blasphemy issue.

The mention of Bhatti's name still brings tears in Khushpur, where one woman said people loved him more than their own sons.

"People feel and people think their hope died," said Father Anjum Nazir, the parish priest. "If he is killed, what will be security for other people?"...

Indeed.

A rare victory for common sense and the freedom of expression, and a setback for those who are endeavoring to compel the U.S. to enforce Sharia provisions.

An update on this story. "Transit worker fired for burning pages of Qur’an gets job back, plus pain and suffering fees," from The Associated Press, April 22:

NEWARK, N.J. — The New Jersey Transit employee fired for publicly burning pages of the Qur’an on the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks last year is getting his job back.

A settlement obtained by The Star-Ledger Newark shows Derek Fenton will receive $25,000 for pain and suffering when he resumes his $86,110-a-year job. He'll also receive back pay equal to $331.20 for every day since his firing on Sept. 13, 2010....

They reject hate, eh? So does the Wasatch Presbyterian Church reject the hatred for Christianity that is actually in the book they're giving away? And if they're "not afraid of truth," today is a good day to echo Pontius Pilate's question: What is truth? Is it the Christianity they're supposed to be dedicated to preaching, or is it the Qur'an's explicit rejection of central tenets of that Christian faith?

The Qur'an teaches that:

Christians have forgotten part of the divine revelations they received: "From those, too, who call themselves Christians, We did take a covenant, but they forgot a good part of the message that was sent them: so we estranged them, with enmity and hatred between the one and the other, to the day of judgment. And soon will Allah show them what it is they have done." -- Qur'an 5:14

Jesus is not the Son of God: "O People of the Scripture! Do not exaggerate in your religion nor utter aught concerning Allah save the truth. The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only a messenger of Allah, and His word which He conveyed unto Mary, and a spirit from Him. So believe in Allah and His messengers, and say not "Three" - Cease! (it is) better for you! - Allah is only One Allah. Far is it removed from His Transcendent Majesty that He should have a son. His is all that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth. And Allah is sufficient as Defender." -- Qur'an 4:171

"It is not befitting to (the majesty of) Allah that He should beget a son. Glory be to Him! when He determines a matter, He only says to it, 'Be,' and it is." -- Qur'an 19:35

Those who believe that Jesus is God's Son are accursed: "The Jews call 'Uzair a son of Allah, and the Christians call Christ the son of Allah. That is a saying from their mouth; (in this) they but imitate what the unbelievers of old used to say. Allah's curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the Truth! " -- Qur'an 9:30

Jesus was not crucified: "And because of their saying: We slew the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, Allah's messenger - they slew him not nor crucified him, but it appeared so unto them; and lo! those who disagree concerning it are in doubt thereof; they have no knowledge thereof save pursuit of a conjecture; they slew him not for certain." -- Qur'an 4:157

"SLC church rejects hate, distributes Islam’s holy book," by Kristen Moulton for The Salt Lake Tribune, April 21 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

Leaders of a Presbyterian congregation in Salt Lake City have an answer to the Florida pastor with a penchant for burning the Quran.

Wasatch Presbyterian Church is giving Islam’s holy book away for free.

“Sometimes, it’s hard to know how to push back against the lunatic fringe,” said Russell Fericks, a member of the session, or governing board, of the 350-member church on the city’s east side.

So when the new pastor, the Rev. Scott Dalgarno, asked the board last week to join him in opening their wallets, the reaction was swift.

The leaders put up $600 before the meeting was over and ordered dozens of copies of an Oxford Press edition of the Quran several days ago. The books will be available as early as Monday at King’s English Bookshop, each with a bookmark bearing these words: “This book was donated by the leaders of Wasatch Presbyterian Church, who are not afraid of truth wherever it can be found.”

The idea, Fericks said, “was simple. It was creative. It was courageous in the sense of saying, ‘We’re not afraid of the truth.’

“You don’t have to let the nincompoops of the world control all the message,” he said.

Terry Jones, the Gainesville, Fla., pastor who backed down from his threat to torch the Quran last fall, nonetheless supervised burning of the book at his church on March 20.

The mainstream media in Florida deliberately ignored the stunt, but when word leaked out — and Jones videos were posted on the Internet — riots erupted in Afghanistan, killing 20 and injuring dozens more.

It was the kind of violent reaction in the Muslim world that the nation’s leaders had predicted last fall when Jones first made his threats.

The pastor has been unapologetic about his role in triggering the violence, and he was in a Dearborn, Mich., courtroom on Thursday, arguing for his right to protest outside a mosque during Friday’s prayers....

How odd. Islamic scholars such as Salam al-Marayati, M. Cherif Bassiouni, and Ali Eteraz assure us that Islam has no death penalty for apostasy, despite Muhammad's words, "Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him." Misunderstanders of this Islamic tolerance of apostasy appear to be so numerous that Maher El-Gohary is seeking asylum in France, as he is not safe in Egypt or Syria.

"Egyptian Convert Flees Potential Dangers in Syria," from Compass Direct News, April 21:

ISTANBUL, April 21 (CDN) — A father and daughter who fled Egypt to Syria after spending two and a half years in hiding for becoming Christians have arrived in France and yesterday applied for asylum there, human rights advocates said.

Maher Ahmad El-Mo’otahssem Bellah El-Gohary, 58, had become the target of Islamic ill will in Egypt after he tried to change the religious affiliation on his national identification card from Muslim to Christian. He and his daughter, 17-year-old Dina Mo’otahssem, arrived in Paris from Syria on March 30 after having fled to Damascus on Feb. 22 in the wake of the revolution in Egypt that deposed then-President Hosni Mubarak.

The Jan. 25-Feb. 11 protests in Egypt also weakened the Ministry of the Interior, an agency that had harassed El-Gohary and prevented him from leaving the country.

El-Gohary had fled to Syria because it was both the fastest and the easiest way to get out of Egypt, but he said he also feared Islamic opposition to converts in Syria and growing political unrest in Damascus.

“When we got to the French embassy in Syria, we were so scared because of what was happening in Syria at the time,” he said....

The court upheld a lower court's ruling based on "lack of evidence," though it has not issued its own detailed ruling yet. The rulers of the Islamic republic tread lightly in defending women's rights, knowing any particularly vigorous defense could be construed as "un-Islamic," and all the more so if it intrudes in any way on Islam's bizarre standards for establishing that a rape has occurred. Indeed, Sharia has overshadowed this case from the beginning.

Anything short of four male witnesses can be a "lack of evidence," and the victim, Mukhtaran Mai, notes below that the police did not even take her seriously enough to record her statements correctly in the first place. And of course, such a supposed "lack of evidence" by Islamic standards leaves open the opportunity to blame the woman (or in so many cases, the girl), and do away with her.

Women's rights are bad for business. Mukhtaran Mai is bad for business. They are so very inconvenient. And so they have both been thrown under the bus, even as the world watches. "Pakistan: Acquittals in Mukhtaran Mai gang rape case," from BBC News, April 21:

Five of six men charged over a village council-sanctioned gang rape in Pakistan have been acquitted by the Supreme Court.

The court upheld the decision of a lower court, which included commuting the death penalty of the sixth man to life imprisonment.

How long before he is paroled, pardoned, or released on some other excuse?

The victim, Mukhataran Mai, hit world headlines after speaking out about her ordeal in 2002. She has since become an icon for women's rights in Pakistan.

She said she now feared for her life.

Mukhtaran Mai was her clear and unambiguous self when she spoke minutes after the verdict, the BBC's Shoaib Hasan in Pakistan said.

"The police never even recorded my own statements correctly," she said.

"I don't have any more faith in the courts. I have put my faith in God's judgement now. I don't know what the legal procedure is, but my faith [in the system] is gone.

"Yes, there is a threat to me and my family. There is a threat of death, and even of the same thing happening again. Anything can happen."

Ali Dayan Hasan of the US-based Human Rights Watch said the verdict sent a "very bad signal" across Pakistani society.

"It suggests women can be abused and even raped with impunity and those perpetrating such crimes can walk," he told the BBC.

That's the idea.

The Supreme Court ordered the five men's immediate release - but it is not clear if they have been freed yet.

The court has yet to issue a detailed judgement. But the Lahore High Court - whose decision was upheld - had put the blame on a lack of evidence....

Christians "do not feel safe." "Easter cancelled in Syria," by Richard Spencer in the Telegraph, April 21 (thanks to AINA):

Good Friday and other Easter processions and festivals have been cancelled across Syria as street unrest boils over into violence.

The country's Christian population has been forced to abandon its usually colourful and exuberant commemorations because of the number of "martyrs" who have died and the "bad situation", a senior church official told The Daily Telegraph.

The whole country is braced for a wave of protests on Friday, despite an announcement that President Bashir al-Assad had signed a decree lifting the 48-year state of emergency, a key demand.

Government promises of reform combined with violence by armed plain-clothes security forces have only served to bolster the opposition, who are planning more demonstrations after regular Muslim Friday prayers.

But today these will clash with Good Friday services, which would normally see processions and public gatherings by Syria's Christian minority, estimated at between 1-2 million, or around five per cent of the population.

"We are not receiving official congratulations," Bishop Philoxenos Mattias, Assistant to the Syriac Orthodox Church Patriarchate in Damascus, the country's biggest Christian denomination, said.

"All of the Syrian churches have decided this together because of the bad situation and because of the martyrs who have died in recent days, out of respect for them."

He said services would still take place inside the churches, but all street processions and public music performances had been cancelled. "We decided to postpone them till next year," he added.

Normally streets in the Christian quarters of Damascus and other cities would see parades by uniformed marching bands and choirboys and even re-enactments of the Crucifixion.

One nun, speaking from her monastery but asking not to be identified, said Christians were afraid even to come to church.

"They do not feel safe," she said. "There aren't going to be any celebrations, but just prayers inside church. On Palm Sunday we cancelled the celebrations too."...

Proving that dhimmi cluelessness is bipartisan. He shows no indication of knowing the reasons why I have argued that aiding the Libyan rebels aids the global jihad. "McCain Lauds Anti-Qaddafi Forces During Libya Visit," from Associated Press, April 22 (thanks to Mackie):

BENGHAZI, Libya -- U.S. Sen. John McCain, one of the strongest proponents in Congress of the American military intervention in Libya, said Friday that Libyan rebels fighting Muammar Qaddafi's troops are his heroes.

The top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee made the remark after arriving in Benghazi, a city that has been the opposition capital in the rebel-held eastern Libya.

McCain said he was in Benghazi "to get an on the ground assessment of the situation" and planned to meet with the rebel National Transition Council, the de-facto government in the eastern half of the country, and members of the rebel military.

"They are my heroes," McCain said of the rebels as he walked out of a local hotel in Benghazi. He was traveling in an armored Mercedes jeep and had a security detail. A few Libyans waved American flags as his vehicle drove past....

It seems doubtful, however, that the OIC-led UN will pay any heed. "Israel: New Gaza flotilla has ties to Hamas, terrorist organizations," from Haaretz, April 21 (thanks to Block Ness):

Israel warned the United Nations Security Council on Thursday not to allow a new flotilla to sail to Gaza, saying that the flotilla organizers had "ties to Hamas and other terrorist organizations."

Another flotilla to Gaza is being planned for May, one year after Israel's deadly raid on the aid flotilla that sailed from Turkey. The new flotilla being planned is larger than the last one, with 15 ships that will transport over 1,000 people in an attempt to break Israel's naval blockade on the Strip.

While speaking to the UN on Thursday, Israel's UN Ambassador Meron Reuben said, "Numerous participants engaged in the planning of this flotilla have made very troubling statements expressing their willingness to become martyrs in this effort," Reuben said.

Flotilla organizers aim at "political provocation and not to advance any humanitarian goal," Reuben said.

He said Israel is determined to enforce the naval blockade of Gaza and "stop additional terrorists from infiltrating the area."...

Whatever you may think of Terry Jones and Qur'an-burning, this is a freedom of speech issue. If Terry Jones can be denied his right to protest peacefully because of the fear of violence from Muslims, the Islamic supremacists are already in charge and controlling the agenda. And that is, of course, their goal. There has already been a great deal of silliness about this case -- the mayor of Dearborn issued an open letter to Jones invoking the existence of a pork products factory and strip joints within city limits to prove that Dearborn was not implementing Islamic law. But no one is saying that Dearborn is a Sharia-ruled entity on par with Saudi Arabia and Iran. The issue is whether or not Terry Jones's freedom of expression is being infringed in order to placate Muslims in accord with Islamic law. And obviously it is.

He should not, meanwhile, pay the bond for the extra police. The Mayor of Dearborn should be affirming and defending the freedom of expression and not making him shoulder the expense himself.

"Terry Jones won't pay bond; jury to weigh protest," by Oralandar Brand-Williams for The Detroit News, April 21:

Dearborn — A Quran-burning pastor will face a trial this afternoon, after refusing to pay a bond ordered by a judge for his planned Good Friday protest of the Islamic Center of North America.

Terry Jones' decision came after Judge Mark Somers of 19th District Court in Dearborn ruled that prosecutors proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Jones' planned demonstration on a small median outside the Ford Road mosque could breach the peace.

"I'm not surprised," by the ruling, Jones said.

He opted for the trial after Somers said he could either pay the unspecified bond or face trial.

Somers began impaneling a jury this afternoon.

The ruling puts into question Jones' demonstration, which has sparked arguments about the line between free speech and public safety. Prosecutors have sought the unspecified bond — Jones said it was up to $100,000 — for extra police in fear of a riot.

The hearing comes a day after Dearborn city officials denied Jones a permit to protest on public land near the mosque citing public safety concerns. They say he could face arrest if he carries through the protest. Before the hearing, Jones — who wore a leather jacket and jeans — said he planned to proceed with the demonstration despite the permitting issues or peace bond.

"This will not stop us," Jones said before the hearing that began at 3 p.m.

The courtroom was packed mostly with journalists and a few spectators including Richard Fournier. The Redford Township resident said he supports the minister's right to free speech but thinks he is misguided.

"He's just grandstanding to get attention," said Fournier.

Outside the court, a handful of protestors gathered against Jones. One held a sign reading, "Racist Terry Jones Get out of Town."

The issue is also being watched very closely by the ACLU of Michigan, which planned to have a representative in the courtroom today. The organization wants to make sure Jones' First Amendment rights are not being violated, said ACLU of Michigan spokeswoman Rana Elmir....

Well, that's a welcome turnabout for the ACLU.

Indeed it wasn't, on many levels. As with the rampages in Afghanistan and Pakistan that used the Qur'an burning in Florida as a pretext (which, ironically, wound up burning untold numbers of Qur'ans in the process), the inclination toward violence was already there, waiting for another excuse to make a show of force and abuse non-Muslims. And as with those "protests," we have seen that even the flimsiest of pretexts will do. If it is not one excuse du jour, it might be the next day's "provocation" or "humiliation."

These incidents would not happen -- and would not keep happening -- if not for an able and willing populace, and pre-existing hatred and intolerance of non-Muslims.

Here, of course, there is another angle. It is quite reasonable for President Jonathan to surmise that many Muslims in the north were poised and ready to let loose once the votes were counted. The election results show the Muslim candidate didn't stand a chance, but that didn't matter: if the Muslims could win the election, Islamic law could advance that way. If they lost, they would attempt to advance Islamic law the old fashioned way, demanding concessions through violence and threats.

"Nigeria election: President Goodluck Jonathan accuses," from BBC News, April 21:

The BBC's Abdullahi Kaura Abubakar in Kaduna: "Political violence soon turned into a religious issue"

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has said that the violence in the country that followed his re-election "was not a spontaneous reaction".

Tens of thousands of people have fled their homes because of the violence, says the Red Cross.

"I don't want to accuse anybody but we believe that people must be behind this," Mr Jonathan told CNN.

Poll runner-up Muhammadu Buhari denies instigating the "sad, unfortunate and totally unwarranted" events.

Nigeria is divided by rivalry between the predominantly Muslim north and the mainly Christian south, which also have cultural, ethnic and linguistic differences - so much so that the presidency has often alternated between people who come from each of the two halves of the country, in an attempt to keep the peace.

Riots broke out in the north after Mr Jonathan, a southerner, emerged as the winner of the presidential poll. A civil rights group says the unrest has left more than 200 dead, while hundreds of arrests have been made.

Gen Buhari has said the Nigerian election commission's computers were programmed to disadvantage his party in some parts of Nigeria.

But he urged his supporters to refrain from attacks, saying: "It is wrong for you to allow miscreants to infiltrate your ranks and perpetrate such dastardly acts as the mindless destruction of worship places.

"Needless to say, this act is worse than the rigging of the elections."

Umar Marigar of the Red Cross told the BBC on Wednesday that the number of displaced people had trebled in the last day - from 16,000 to 48,000, mainly in the north.

But he said that, in the southern state of Anambra, 8,400 people had sought refuge at the Onitsha military barracks because they feared reprisal attacks against northerners.

He added: ''The violent protests turn from political into ethno-religious crisis. As such, people might like to engage in retaliatory attacks. This is what we are always afraid of." [...]

Mr Jonathan was declared winner of Saturday's presidential poll, with the electoral commission saying he received about 57% of the vote with 22.5 million votes to General Buhari's 12.2 million votes.

International observers have said the election was reasonably free and fair.

But don't be concerned: most Indonesians "practice a moderate form of the faith." "Big bomb found near Indonesia church; 19 arrested," by Ali Kotarumalos for the Associated Press, April 21 (thanks to Block Ness):

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- Terror suspects arrested Thursday led police to a 150-kilogram (330-pound) bomb buried beneath a gas pipeline near a church just outside Indonesia's capital, officials said.

Senior security minister Djoko Suyanto said he believed Islamic militants had been plotting an attack ahead of Easter celebrations, and the U.S. embassy urged Americans to be vigilant.

"The army and police are under high alert," he told reporters, adding that troops would be deployed at churches and other strategic locations. "We want to guarantee safety."...

In recent months, small bands of militants hoping to turn the secular nation of 237 million into an Islamic state have shifted their focus to local "enemies."

They've gone after police, members of a minority Islamic sect deemed "deviant," Christians and moderate Muslim leaders.

National Police Chief Gen. Timur Pradopo said the 19 suspects were arrested Thursday, including six accused in a series of mail bombs sent last month to liberal Muslim activists and a former anti-terror chief.

Four people were wounded in the parcel bombings, none seriously.

The arrested men eventually led police to the gas pipeline 100 meters (yards) from a Catholic church large enough to hold 3,000 people in Serpong, where they found the massive, high explosive bomb.

Suyanto said he believed the militants had been planning to disrupt Good Friday celebrations....

Ninety percent of Indonesians are Muslim, though most practice a moderate form of the faith and abhor violence. A small, extremist fringe has become more vocal, and violent, in recent years.

It would be refreshing if AP, or anyone, would explain how this "moderate form of the faith" deals with the Qur'an's many exhortations to violence. That no one ever does so is telling.

I wrote here this morning that these protests are happening "because Islamic law forbids non-Muslims to hold authority over Muslims." And now comes direct confirmation that this is exactly why Muslims are protesting in Qena.

Egypt to Confront Muslim Protests Against Christian Governor," by Mariam Fam for Bloomberg, April 20:

Egypt’s cabinet asked the interior minister to “confront acts that violate the law” in the southern province of Qena, where protesters, some blocking a railway line, are demanding the resignation of a Christian governor....

“A non-Muslim should not rule over Muslims,” Mohammed Hamza, a 29-year-old who has been participating in the demonstrations, said in a telephone interview from Qena. “This guy could be shot at if he shows up here.”

Some Christians also took part in the protests against Mikhail’s appointment because they were unhappy with the policies of Mikhail’s predecessor, also a Christian, Hamza said.

Protesters have said they object to Mikhail’s appointment because he is a former senior police officer and they want a civilian governor.

Christians make up an estimated 10 percent of Egypt’s population. Recent protests contrast a generally peaceful coexistence between Christians and the Muslim majority.

Yeah, "generally peaceful." Except for the occasional jihad attack, such as the the jihad-martyrdom suicide bombing that murdered twenty-two people and wounded eighty more at a church in Alexandria on New Year’s Eve. And the ongoing harassment of and discrimination against individual Christians. But you won't hear about that from the mainstream media.

A vote for freedom. Nonetheless, watch for the utterly predictable cries of victimization, and misrepresentation of Sharia as private religious law that entails no conflict whatsoever with Constitutional principles. Yet Hamas-linked CAIR and others who claim this can point to no Sharia state in the history of the world that did not implement Islamic law as a political system that involved restrictions on the freedom of speech and the freedom of conscience and denial of basic rights to women and non-Muslims.

"Missouri House votes to ban Sharia law," by Jason Hancock for the Post-Dispatch, April 20:

JEFFERSON CITY • A bill prohibiting state courts from using or recognizing Sharia law passed the Missouri House Wednesday on a 102-51 vote.

The legislation, which was sponsored by state Rep. Paul Curtman, R-Pacific, bans Missouri courts from utilizing foreign law or legal code in any ruling. Although it never specifically mentions the words “Sharia” or “Islam," Wednesday’s debate focused almost exclusively on Sharia law, which is the religious law of Islam.

“This bill is not all about Sharia Law,” Curtman said. "It’s Sharia Law, French law, Dutch law or anything else.”

Since the beginning of 2009, numerous states have considered proposals to ban Sharia. During last year's elections, Oklahoma voters passed a referendum banning state courts from considering international or Islamic law. However, it was later blocked by a federal judge who said that the law was unconstitutional.

Legislation similar to Curtman’s was introduced in the Missouri Senate by Republican Brian Nieves but has yet to gain traction. The House bill picked up momentum earlier this session when House Speaker Steve Tilley threw his support behind it, saying “the laws of this country should trump any other laws regarding the citizens of our country within our borders."

Speaking in opposition to the measure, State Rep. Jamilah Nasheed, D-St. Louis, said she’d like to help educate Curtman on Sharia law.

“I truly believe you think you’re doing the right thing,” she said while talking to Curtman on the House floor, later adding: “I don’t think that you have ill intentions, so I would encourage you to become familiar with Sharia Law. I’d really like to sit down with you and we can study together and come to a better understanding of what Sharia Law is, how it works and what it does.”...

I'm all for that.

New BFF's: "the resurrection of the Silk Road." Islamization of Turkey Update: "Turkey, Iran open new border gate, declare ‘eternal friendship,’" from Today's Zaman, April 18 (thanks to Joshua):

Iranian and Turkish officials opened a new border crossing over the weekend, as the Turkish side highlighted the presence of a friendship for eternity between the peoples of the two countries.

The new crossing, between Kapıköy in eastern Anatolia's Van province and Iran's West Azerbaijan province, was inaugurated on Saturday by Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and his Iranian counterpart, Ali Akbar Salehi. The Kapıköy-Razi border gate issue has always been on the agenda of talks between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in recent years, Davutoğlu said in his speech delivered at the inauguration ceremony.

“The fundamental principle we have applied in foreign policy for eight years is deepening friendships, intensifying and growing fraternity. This is why we have a ‘zero problem policy.’ This is why we said border gates are not walls for us, but doors of fraternity. We said we will make all doors with our neighbors, particularly with Iran, doors of friendship and fraternity,” Davutoğlu was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency. “We said that in this way, let siblings meet, mingle with each other; and let the fraternity which comes from the depths of history be transferred to the future generations. These principles have come true with the opening of Kapıköy,” Davutoğlu said.

The Turkish minister announced that a fourth crossing between Esendere, Hakkari and Sero, Orumeyeh, would be opened in June and that the Maku crossing will follow. A fifth will follow at Dilucu, Iğdır, in the coming months, Davutoğlu added. “In this way, all doors between Iran and Turkey will be opened. In this way historical friendships will solidify and will be transferred on to future generations,” he said, calling on both Iranians and Turks to use these border gates to mingle with one another.

“Our prime minister has set a target of $30 billion” in annual trade with Iran, he also said. “That is why we are opening this border crossing. We are declaring to the world that Turkey and Iran will remain friends for eternity. The Peoples of Van and Hoy will live as neighbors and siblings for eternity, he added. “Let our gate be the door that opens hearts and minds.” For his part, Salehi said the opening of the new border gates will help the development of border areas and the welfare of its residents. “This border is a symbol of peace and friendship and the resurrection of the Silk Road, which for centuries played an important role in making the economy of the region flourish,” Salehi was quoted as saying by Iranian media, as he reiterated the common goal of increasing the trade volume to $30 billion.

Somehow these two "Muslim extremists" got the crazy idea that a Muslim who converted to Christianity should be killed. You would almost get the idea that Islam has a death penalty for apostasy, and that Muhammad's dictum "If anyone changes his religion, kill him" was actually taken seriously among Muslims. It sure is good that there are so many kindly and learned Muslim experts like Salam al-Marayati, M. Cherif Bassiouni, and Ali Eteraz who assure us that it isn't so. I am confident that they are on their way to Somalia now to explain to Al-Shabaab members that if they think apostates from Islam should be killed, they are Misunderstanding Islam.

"New Christian Convert from Islam Murdered in Somalia," from Compass Direct News, April 20:

NAIROBI, Kenya, April 20 (CDN) — Two Muslim extremists in Somalia on Monday (April 18) murdered a member of a secret Christian community in Lower Shabele region as part of a campaign to rid the country of Christianity, sources said. An area source told Compass two al Shabaab militants shot 21-year-old Hassan Adawe Adan in Shalambod town after entering his house at 7:30 p.m.

“Two al Shabaab members dragged him out of his house, and after 10 minutes they fired several shots on him,” said an area source who requested anonymity. “He then died immediately.”

The militants then shouted “Allahu Akbar [God is greater]” before fleeing, he said.

Adan, single and living with his Muslim family, was said to have converted to Christianity several months ago. Area Christians said they suspected someone had informed the Islamic militants of his conversion. One source said that a relative who belonged to al Shabaab had told Adan’s mother that he suspected her son was a Christian.

“This incident is making other converts live in extreme fear, as the militants always keep an open eye to anyone professing the Christian faith,” the source said....

I tried to tell you. "Tunisia: Country Fears Spread Of Fundamentalism," from ANSAmed, April 20 (thanks to Insubria):

(ANSAmed) - TUNIS, APRIL 20 - Tunisia is fighting a political and ideological battle at the same time, about the State's secularity. Everybody seems to agree on the issue, at least in words, but there are some hardly visible developments that are reason for concern.

It doesn't take much to get the attention and to worry most Tunisians - and not only the young people - who thought that everything would change for the better after the 'Jasmine revolution'. But now that [sic] are faced with the potential explosion of a form of Islam that does not seem to be moderate at all, with which the religious parties are flirting while they are making preparations for a long electoral season.

A young man from the outskirts who created a group of other young people around him, speaking a language drenched in piety is even seen as a potential threat in the eyes of the entire country. The person in question is the self-proclaimed 'emir el Muminin'', meaning ''prince of believers'', who is active in the Ras Jedir region, nowadays well-known for its border crossing where hundreds of thousands of refugees from Libya entered the country, with all problems caused by this situation, including security and public order issues.

People fear that the 'prince' wants to establish an emirate in this place, in Ben Gardane. It started a few days ago, when an artist who performed for the refugees to make them forget about their suffering for a while, was approached by a group of young bearded men. These men reproached the artist, saying that he should not try to make these people smile with all the suffering in the camps. It could have ended there, if these young men had not said that they had a leader, for whom the title 'emir' had been chosen.

In Arabic 'emir' means commander, but the term has a different meaning in religious context, particularly if taken together with the term ''el Munimin'', the idea of a caliph and a caliphate. The problem in the eyes of many people is not the name of this group however, but its actions, especially in the early stages of the humanitarian emergency caused by the Libyan crisis. The members of the group, Ahl El Ber wal Khayriya -Kafilet Ennasr (''People of justice and charity - The caravan of victory''), have set up a formidable organisation, supplying meals to 600 refugees per day.

That is a lot, considering that - at least on paper - they are only boys who have decided to set up a (so far unknown) organisation of volunteers. This form of assistance has awoken the interest of hundreds of refugees. Now people in Tunisia fear that this situation, with desperate and disillusioned people, could be a fertile ground for fundamentalism. (ANSAmed).

In FrontPage for Thursday I discuss the latest manifestation of the march toward Sharia in Egypt:

In the new modern, moderate, secular, democratic Egypt of the Arab Spring, Muslims in Qena are enraged and protesting because a Christian governor has been appointed for them. It was yet another indication that the Egypt that will emerge from this season of revolution and upheaval is much more likely to be an Islamic state than a secular democracy, no matter how much the mainstream media fantasizes about the latter.

The protests have been vehement, if not violent. Reuters reported Sunday that “thousands rallied outside the governor’s office in Qena and prevented employees from entering, blocked highways leading to the town and sat on a railway line into the province demanding that the appointment of Emad Mikhail be reversed.” A local resident added: “They started out by camping at the local government’s office. Then they set up a tent on the railroad tracks. They also tried to block the road and stopped buses to separate men and women passengers.” And “tensions were so high that the local Christian residents had to stay inside and couldn’t go to church to celebrate Palm Sunday.”

Reuters suggested that the protesters were angry about government corruption, claiming that the protesters were outraged because the last Christian governor in the area “left a negative impression of Christian officials,” but AP let the cat out of the bag on Monday when it noted that “many” of the protesters were “from the ultraconservative Salafi trend of Islam.”

For the mainstream media, one is “ultraconservative” for adhering to Islamic law and wanting to impose it on others, and likewise “ultraconservative” for resisting the imposition of that law. But anyway, why would “ultraconservative” Islamic supremacists be outraged over a Christian governor? Because Islamic law forbids non-Muslims to hold authority over Muslims. This is in accord with the Qur’anic command that Muslims fight the People of the Book – the Qur’an’s term for primarily Jews and Christians, until they “feel themselves subdued” (9:29)....

There is more.

“We left our homes for fear of attacks from the mobs,” said a Christian woman in Kano. "Jonathan rival rejects vote result as thousands flee Nigeria unrest," from the Daily Nation, April 20 (thanks to Twostellas):

The Muslim opposition candidate in Nigeria’s presidential polls rejected the results today but urged calm after deadly post-election riots, amid a rush to help nearly 40,000 displaced.

Authorities say many were killed in the violence, which saw corpses burnt beyond recognition and bodies reportedly thrown into wells, but have refused to give a toll, saying it could spark reprisals and would be inaccurate.

There were reports of fresh clashes in the northern state of Kaduna overnight, with a community leader telling local radio “the killing was unbelievable and the destruction is colossal.”

One government official, explaining authorities’ reluctance to release an overall death toll from since the vote on Saturday, said, “I wouldn’t like to use the term massacre... some places it was terrible.”

Curfews and military patrols appeared to have brought an uneasy calm to many areas Wednesday as the thousands who fled their homes in fear took refuge at police and military barracks, sleeping in the open under trees.

The Red Cross said it had counted around 410 people wounded in the violence that began sporadically in the country’s mainly Muslim north before spreading to some 14 states on Monday. [...]

Authorities have however argued that the rioting was not based on religion or ethnicity but was instigated by those unhappy with the victory of incumbent Goodluck Jonathan, a southern Christian.

And why were they angry with Jonathan's victory? Because he is a southern Christian, and they are northern Muslims who are enraged that he succeeded a Muslim and that a Muslim is not in power:

Jonathan took over in May 2010 following the death of his predecessor Umaru Yar’Adua, a northern Muslim who had not finished his first term, prompting bitterness in the north over its loss of power.

In the most intense rioting Monday, mobs roamed the streets with machetes and clubs, pulling people out of cars and setting homes on fire. Reprisal attacks intensified the situation.

For fear of attacks

In the main northern city of Kano, a Christian woman taking refuge at a police station said she had fled through back alleys with her three children after she saw smoke and heard shouting.

“We left our homes for fear of attacks from the mobs,” said Mary Okechukwu, 36. “Many have gone back to their homes, but ... I will not risk my life and that of my children.”...

Aiding the jihad. "Obama To Give Libyan Rebels $25 Mln In Aid, But No Weapons," from AGI, April 20 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

(AGI) Washington - Obama plans to provide Libya's rebels with up to $25 million's worth of aid, but not weapons. The U.S. President plans to provide the Libyan rebels in Benghazi with up to $25 million in urgent aid, explicitly excluding weapons....

Admiral Mullen says that the ISI has a long-standing relationship with the Haqqani network," and it has only been four and a half years since the British accused the ISI of having ties to al-Qaeda, so you have to admire Mullen for being quick on the draw.

"US accuses Pakistan over militant links," by Zarar Khan for the Associated Press, April 20 (thanks to JCB):

ISLAMABAD – The top U.S. military officer accused Pakistan's spy agency on Wednesday of links to a powerful militant faction fighting in Afghanistan, and said that relationship was at the "heart" of tensions between Islamabad and Washington.

The comments by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are a sign that the U.S. is not stepping down in a bruising dispute with Pakistan in recent months that has threatened their vital if often uneasy alliance in the campaign against militants.

Mullen, who is visiting Pakistan, made the comments to local Geo TV in an interview ahead of a meeting with Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. The two men reportedly enjoy a good relationship, but Mullen said he would bring up the issue of the militant Haqqani network with him in talks about tensions between the two countries.

"Where I am not soft is on the heart of that discussion which is the Haqqani network very specifically," he said. "The Haqqani network very specifically facilitates and supports the Taliban who move in to Afghanistan to kill Americans."

"The ISI has a long-standing relationship with the Haqqani network, that doesn't mean everybody in the ISI but it's there ... I believe over time that has got to change," he said.

A spokesman for the spy agency, known by its acronym ISI, declined comment....

The bill doesn't even mention Sharia, but Muslims are still enraged. "Muslims rally at Tennessee Capitol to protest legislation," by Chas Sisk for The Tennessean via WBIR.com, April 20 (thanks to CJN):

Several hundred Muslims thronged the state Capitol on Tuesday in protest of legislation that they say takes aim at their religious beliefs, calling on the bill to be defeated.

Muslims from across the state - many wearing traditional skullcaps and headscarves - packed a committee room and corridors to hear testimony on a bill that supporters say would help Tennessee stop terrorist plots but opponents believe singles out Muslims who adhere to Islamic law.

They urged lawmakers to withdraw the bill, or at least to delay it until it can be rewritten so that groups labeled as terrorist organizations can protest the designation before they are forced to shut down.

"These are issues for any group," said Nadeem Siddiqi, a native Knoxville resident who traveled to Nashville to speak against the bill. "The United States of America is known for its freedoms, known for due process, known for a fair system, and to be able to have a few individuals in a state of panic create this kind of risk to civil society is just inappropriate."

The gathering, which was put together by mosques and Muslim civic groups around the state, comes in response to legislation that originally criticized Shariah, the basic set of Muslim religious laws governing everything from warfare and criminal punishments to prayer preparations and family matters.

The first version of the bill, which was written by an Arizona organization critical of Islam, labeled Shariah "a legal-political-military doctrine and system" that requires its followers to support the overthrow of the United States government. Several Muslims who turned out Tuesday said that is a distortion.

Then they should point to any place on earth where Sharia has ever been implemented where it wasn't "a legal-political-military doctrine and system." But they don't do this, because they can't.

"People have this idea that Shariah is just chopping people's hands, but Shariah is a way of life for us," said Arshia Shah, a lawyer originally from Britain who now lives in Sparta and came to the Capitol with her husband and two daughters. "It's prayer. It's how we deal with our spouses. And to tell people that they can't practice this - that they're doing something wrong - is a great concern."

Notice that she didn't say that Sharia didn't involve chopping people's hands. How could she, when the Qur'an says, "As for the thief, both male and female, cut off their hands. It is the reward of their own deeds, an exemplary punishment from Allah. Allah is Mighty, Wise." (5:38)

And what exactly does Sharia say about "how we deal with our spouses"?

"Good women are obedient....As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them." -- Qur'an 4:34

"Circumcision is obligatory (O: for both men and women. For men it consists of removing the prepuce from the penis, and for women, removing the prepuce (Ar. bazr) of the clitoris (n: not the clitoris itself, as some mistakenly assert). (A: Hanbalis hold that circumcision of women is not obligatory but sunna, while Hanafis consider it a mere courtesy to the husband.)" -- 'Umdat al-Salik e4.3

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

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

The bill has since been amended to remove all references to Shariah and Islam.

What is left is legislation, known formally as the Material Support to Designated Entities Act, that would let the governor and the state attorney general label groups as terrorist organizations.

Once designated, a group's financial assets could be frozen and its contributors could face criminal penalties.

The bill's sponsors, House Speaker Pro Tempore Judd Matheny, R-Tullahoma, and state Sen. Bill Ketron, R-Murfreesboro, say the bill gives Tennessee law enforcement agencies the ability to disrupt terrorist plots. They also say it could be used to disrupt street gangs and neo-Nazi groups, as well as terrorist organizations....

"We're proud of being in Tennessee," said Rashed Fakhouddin, an outreach volunteer with the Islamic Center. "We want Tennessee to be a shining image all across the country. Bills like this just make us look like we're witch-hunting Muslims."...

And why is it "witch-hunting Muslims" to disrupt terrorist organizations?

Opponents also derided the legislation's origins. The original bill was drafted by the Society of Americans for National Existence, an organization that they characterized as a hate group.

"If a bill was written by the KKK, would you consider it even if it was amended?" Sabina Mohyuddin, a youth coordinator at the Islamic Center of Nashville, asked the committee....

This is just a smear without any substance -- but it shows the usefulness of these "hate group" designations.

Muslims Against Crusades wanted to protest; their application was denied. But they will almost certainly be in the area anyway, and the EDL is planning to counter-protest. The police, meanwhile, are scouring the Westminster Abbey area for explosives. If there are any there, of course, it isn't because of the EDL.

"Royal wedding: Muslim group's Abbey protest blocked," from the BBC, April 19:

Scotland Yard says it has rejected an application by a radical Islamist group to protest outside Westminster Abbey on royal wedding day.

The group, Muslims against Crusades, was behind a poppy-burning protest on Armistice Day.

Officers said talks were continuing on whether protests at other nearby locations would also be blocked.

The English Defence League had said it would hold a counter- demonstration if permission were granted.

Five thousand police officers will be on duty on the day.

Assistant Commissioner Lynne Owens said that negotiations with the groups were "on-going", but pledged that the wedding would not be disrupted.

She said there would be 70-80 close protection teams for VIPs on the day, 29 April.

Police have already begun searching central London for explosives.
Scouring route

Officers are scouring every inch of the route to Westminster Abbey, while dogs have also been checking bins and lamp-posts for bombs....

Paradise is guaranteed in the Qur'an to those who "kill and are killed" for Allah (9:111), so can any "moderate Muslim" explain how the Taliban is misinterpreting the Book of Peace in this regard?

"Revelations of a failed teenager suicide bomber," from Radio Australia News, April 20:

A teenage would-be suicide bomber who survived his failed attack has spoken about his experience.

The 14-year-old gave unprecedented insight into the motivations of suicide bombers, who tend to be young males.

The boy was seriously injured after his suicide vest failed to properly explode outside a shrine in Pakistan's Punjab province.

He says he was recruited by the Taliban, which promised him paradise after he died.

"Taliban used to stop us as we went to school and told us there was no point studying," he said.

"They said nothing's better than paradise and you can earn that by killing non-believers."

"They prayed all the time and read the Koran so I thought they were good people."

"My heart told me to go and train with them."

Liaquat Ali Khan teaches commercial law, arbitration and international law at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas. He argues here that Muslims should petition Congress to outlaw the burning of the Qur'an because doing so incites violence -- in contrast to the burning of the American flag, which, he says, the Supreme Court declined to outlaw because "no disturbance of the peace actually occurred or threatened to occur."

And so here we have a vivid example of how the stealth jihad and the violent jihad go hand-in-hand, support each other, and are two aspects of the same effort. Muslims go crazy and kill innocent people over a burned Qur'an, and their useful idiots in the mainstream media blame the Qur'an-burner instead of the Muslims who behaved violently and irrationally. Then a smooth and rational voice -- a law professor -- says that because burning the Qur'an leads to violence, it must be outlawed.

The whole thing is based on a false premise: that someone who burns a Qur'an is responsible for the violent actions of someone protesting the burning of the Qur'an. That is not remotely true. Just the other day a Muslim woman wrote that a couple of my books should be burned; making fun of the conventional wisdom on who bears the responsibility for Qur'an-burning, I said that if she did burn my books and I killed some people after that, the blood would be on her hands. And that is just as absurd as saying that the freedom of expression should be limited because some people react violently at some forms of freedom of expression. They should be called to behave rationally and responsibility, rather than restricting the freedom of expression, which is a free society's foremost defense against tyranny.

But restricting the freedom of expression regarding Islam is a foremost Sharia objective, and is being pushed aggressively today by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and its minions. That is the agenda that this calm law professor, Liaquat Ali Khan, is serving.

"Petitioning Congress on Qur’an Burning," by Liaquat Ali Khan in MWC News, April 19:

[...] In the language of law, Qur'an burning would be an expressive conduct. The First Amendment is generous in protecting oral and written word. It is less so with respect to expressive conduct. The First Amendment shelters expressive conduct if it does not threaten to disturb the peace. The United States Supreme Court declined to outlaw the burning of an American flag because, "no disturbance of the peace actually occurred or threatened to occur."

The flag precedent does not apply because Qur'an burning is an expressive conduct that incites actual violence. So far Qur'an burning has produced instantaneous violence outside the United States. Given the presence of a growing population of American Muslims, Qur'an burning threatens domestic peace. Media and blog invectives may have forced Justice Stephen Breyer to retract his otherwise sound intuition that the First Amendment would not protect Qur'an burning.

Invoking their constitutional right, American Muslims should petition the United States Congress for a redress of grievances. They must demand constitutionally sound legislation that outlaws desecrations of the Qur'an. For Congress, such legislation will demonstrate to American Muslims that the United States is prepared to break away from the medieval custom of assaulting the dignity of the Qur'an. It will also send a powerful message to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, and the entire Muslim world, that the U.S. is neither Islamophobic, nor anti-Islamic, a move that can undermine terrorist threats to homeland security.

To their credit, Western European nations have adopted anti-hate statutes, which would proscribe burning of the Qur'an. A few days ago, the British government arrested a Welsh politician who allegedly burned a copy of the Qur'an. The British government has also banned Pastor Jones from entering the United Kingdom.

So what is a pious Muslim supposed to do with his worn-out copy of the Qur'an? Traditionally these have been burned, but that is a highly charged practice these days. And obviously you can't give them to the paper mill to be recycled. "Three Afghans held for disrespecting Qur’an," from the Gulf Times, April 19 (thanks to Twostellas):

Three people have been arrested as officials probe claims that a paper mill in Afghanistan recycled copies of the Holy Qur’an into toilet paper, the attorney general’s office said yesterday. Around 1,000 angry demonstrators, some throwing stones, held a protest on Monday at the mill on the outskirts of Kabul, leaving the building partially destroyed. Copies of the Qur’an were found inside the factory, Kabul police spokesman Hashmat Stanikzai said, adding that no-one was injured in the protest. “The attorney general’s office and Kabul police have jointly tasked a delegation to investigate the alleged disrespect to our holy book in that factory,” a spokesman said.

In "The Silent Extermination of Iraq's 'Christian Dogs,'" our friend Raymond Ibrahim in FrontPage (via RaymondIbrahim.com), April 19, discusses the rapid deterioration of the situation of Christians in Iraq -- while the world yawns:

Last week an Iraqi Muslim scholar issued a fatwa that, among other barbarities, asserts that "it is permissible to spill the blood of Iraqi Christians." Inciting as the fatwa is, it is also redundant. While last October's Baghdad church attack which killed some sixty Christians is widely known—actually receiving some MSM coverage—the fact is, Christian life in Iraq has been a living hell ever since U.S. forces ousted the late Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Among other atrocities, beheading and crucifying Christians are not irregular occurrences; messages saying "you Christian dogs, leave or die," are typical. Islamists see the church as an "obscene nest of pagans" and threaten to "exterminate Iraqi Christians." John Eibner, CEO of Christian Solidarity International, summarized the situation well in a recent letter to President Obama:

The threat of extermination is not empty. Since the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime, more than half the country's Christian population has been forced by targeted violence to seek refuge abroad or to live away from their homes as internally displaced people. According to the Hammurabi Human Rights Organization, over 700 Christians, including bishops and priests, have been killed and 61 churches have been bombed. Seven years after the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Catholic Archbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk reports: "He who is not a Muslim in Iraq is a second-class citizen. Often it is necessary to convert or emigrate, otherwise one risks being killed." This anti-Christian violence is sustained by a widespread culture of Muslim supremacism that extends far beyond those who pull the triggers and detonate the bombs.

Read it all.

A press release from Anti-CAIR:

Rep. King Demands Answers; Ibrahim Hooper Complains

On April 18, The House Committee on Homeland Security issued a press release detailing Rep. King’s call for answers from the Department Of Justice regarding non-prosecution of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and CAIR co-founder Omar Ahmad in the notorious Holy Land Foundation trial.

Specifically, Rep. King wants to know why the DOJ has given CAIR, founder Omar Ahmad, and other unindicted co-conspirators such as the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), among others, a “free pass” considering the ample evidence against them presented at the Holy Land trial.

Previously, CAIR, and other unindicted co-conspirators, had asked the court to strike them from the unindicted co-conspirator list in both August 2007 and June 2008.  Judge Solis declined CAIR, ISNA, and NAIT’s (among others) petition based on sufficient evidence showing links between these groups and the terrorist group Hamas.  Hamas is well-known for engaging in very low risk suicide bombings against Israeli targets, among other cowardly acts that are the hallmark of Islamist terrorist groups.

Predictably, CAIR’s Ibrahim Hooper described Rep. King’s letter as “an obvious attempt at political payback for criticism of the anti-Muslim bias in Mr. King’s recent hearing…It is sad the Representative King’s personal vendetta against the American Muslim community has led him to become a mouthpiece for anti-Islam hate sites.”

The evidence of CAIR's creation and support for Hamas is vast, clear, and overwhelming. It is worth noting that Ibrahim Hooper has not demanded proof that CAIR and its founders engaged in terrorist or terrorist supporting activities. CAIR and Omar Ahmad's guilt is so obvious that CAIR's only choice is to deny and make counter accusations.

If Ibrahim Hooper and CAIR hold any evidence, however slim, that CAIR is not guilty of the acts accused, CAIR should file a lawsuit to have its “good name” cleared.

However, we all know how well that worked out for CAIR last time.

Care to respond, Mr. Hooper?

Andrew Whitehead
Director
Anti-CAIR
ajwhitehead@anti-cair-net.org
www.anti-cair-net.org

Because they establish Muslims as a special, privileged class in society. Meanwhile, in Nashville, Muslims are claiming victim status over a proposed anti-Sharia law. The supporters of this law should bring in Pastor Umaru Mulinde to testify about what Sharia actually does to a society. "Uganda People News: Pastor petitions parliament over Sharia laws," from ugpulse.com, April 19:

Pastor Umaru Mulinde of Life Gospel Church in Namasuba has asked Parliament to remove the Islamic Sharia Laws (Kadhi Courts) in the constitution.

The pastor says the constitution favors Islam than other religions because other religions have not been given platform in the constitution.

In his petition addressed to the Speaker of Parliament Edward Sekandi, Mulinde says the special treatment given to Islam creates divisionism with other religions, which may cause problems like those in Nigeria and Sudan.

However, Sekandi says that Christians particularly the Pentecostal churches should learn to coexist with Muslims otherwise amending the constitution to the pastor’s favor may cause more problems....

Indeed. It will likely cause Muslims to become angry, and you know what that means.

Piety. "Young Imam Season 2: Who will win the corpse washing competition?," from the estimable Blazing Cat Fur, April 19 (thanks to Multisync):

"The prime-time show features contestants in sharp-looking black suits who are judged on a variety of tasks including reciting Koranic verses, washing corpses, slaughtering sheep according to Muslim rules and counselling promiscuous young Muslim couples."

I am not making this up.

"Records show he played a significant role in a coalition of groups assembled to help Hamas politically and financially in America." Note also his "ready agreement to deceive Americans about the group's true objectives" -- that is, the objectives of the jihad charity the Holy Land Foundation, which was shut down for funneling money to Hamas.

More on this story. "Why Was CAIR Founder Spared?," from IPT News, April 19:

Department of Justice officials declined a request last year to prosecute Omar Ahmad, a co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), on Hamas-support charges emanating from the successful prosecution of a Texas charity.

Now U.S. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, is asking Attorney General Eric Holder to explain why. King's letter, released Monday, follows a report from Patrick Poole last week that senior Department of Justice officials in March 2010 turned down a request from prosecutors in Dallas to bring the case.

"Who made the final decision not to prosecute?" King asked in his letter. "Who, if anyone, from the Executive Office of the President, consulted with, advised, or otherwise communicated with the Department of Justice" on the issue?

Ahmad and CAIR were among hundreds of unindicted co-conspirators in the terror-financing trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF). In 2008, a federal jury in Dallas convicted HLF and five former officials on 108 counts related to illegal Hamas support.

If additional charges were to be brought, it is logical that Ahmad would be among the targets. Records show he played a significant role in a coalition of groups assembled to help Hamas politically and financially in America. That group, called the Palestine Committee, gathered in Philadelphia in 1993 to discuss ways to "derail" U.S.-brokered peace accords between Israelis and Palestinians.

FBI wiretaps show that Ahmad was one of three people on a telephone call to decide who would attend the Philadelphia meeting. Though he was not a part of HLF, records show the charity paid for Ahmad's travel to the Philadelphia meeting.

He called that meeting to order and led much of its discussion, including his ready agreement to deceive Americans about the group's true objectives....

Read it all.

It is so inconvenient when news events contradict one's taqiyya. "'Islam seeks maintaining world peace,'" from the AhlulBayt News Agency, April 18:

(AhlulBayt News Agency) - Iran's Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance highlights the Islamic Republic of Iran as a manifest of religious tolerance and fraternity between Shia and Sunni saying Islam is the religion which seeks maintaining peace in the world.

In the presser held on the sideline of the spring meeting of the World Bank Group in Washington, Seyyed Shamseddin Husseini was questioned about the long time opposition between Shia and Sunni and his proposal to alleviate the tension.

Iranian Minister of Economic Affair and Finance said, "Islamic Republic of Iran is a good example of the countries where Shia and Sunni have been living in peace for hundreds of years in peace."

"The commonalities of Shia and Sunni is so much that they have to be highlighted especially when some pour out their problems on Islam by setting Qur'an on fire," said the official, pointing to the Florida church Terry Jones Qur'an burning which angered world muslims. ...

Whoops: "Iranian Sunni protesters killed in clashes with security forces," by Saeed Kamali Dehghan in the Guardian, April 18 (thanks to Twostellas):

At least 12 people who are believed to belong to Iran's Sunni minority have been killed in clashes between security forces and anti-government protesters in the south-western city of Ahwaz since Friday.

On Monday, Shirin Ebadi, Iran's Nobel peace prize laureate, wrote a letter to the UN high commissioner for human rights, in which she said "more than 12" Sunni protesters had been killed in Iran's oil-rich province of Khuzestan, home to many Arabic-speaking Sunni Iranians.

According to Ebadi, hundreds of people in Ahwaz had gathered for a peaceful demonstration against the Islamic regime's discrimination towards its Sunni minority.

"During these clashes, more than 12 people were killed, around 20 injured and tens of protesters have been arrested," Ebadi wrote in her letter.

She criticised Iran's treatment of the Sunnis and said: "In the 32 years' history of the Islamic Revolution, Arabic-speaking Iranians have suffered from inequality and an extensive discrimination."...

Democracy on the march!

I tried to tell you: "Top Egyptian Islamist in Tehran talks: The presidential candidate Magdy Hussein meets with Iran FM," from AFP, April 18 (thanks to Twostellas):

An Egyptian Islamist and a long-time opponent of the regime of ousted President Hosni Mubarak has held talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, the official IRNA news agency reported on Monday.

Magdi Hussein, Secretary General of Egypt's Islamist Labour Party (Al-Amal), recently announced his intention to run for the presidential election later this year.

In the meeting, Salehi stressed "the need to preserve solidarity and alertness of civilised Egyptian people until the final triumph", in reference to the popular movement that led to the fall of Mubarak, IRNA said.

Al-Amal has been banned until now.

Salehi also emphasised "the determination and the willingness of both countries to establish strong and lasting relationships".

"Islamic Revolution of Iran is promising for Islamic unity," Hussein said, underscoring "the establishment of strong relations between the two nations and governments of Iran and Egypt".

Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil al-Arabi, appointed after the ouster of Mubarak, said earlier this month that Cairo was ready to open a "new page" with the Islamic republic.
But days later al-Arabi said: "The stability and Arabhood of the Arab Gulf countries is a red line against which Egypt rejects any trespass," siding with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations who accuse the Shiite majority Iran in meddling in their affairs.

Iran broke off diplomatic relations with Egypt in 1980 after the Islamic revolution, in protest against the recognition of Israel by Cairo....

This article, like all mainstream media articles, commits the error I discussed here: of thinking that when it comes to Muslims, "one is either an 'extremist' or a 'moderate,' with an entirely unsupported assumption made that a Muslim who is not in al-Qaeda and may even disapprove of it must therefore necessarily also embrace secular, pluralistic, democratic principles. The possibility that Muslims may favor Sharia—including all of its repressive elements, its denial of the freedom of speech and the freedom of conscience, its oppression of women, and the rest—without supporting terrorism or being a member of a terrorist group never seems to occur to them."

I tried to tell you: "Libya rebels raise concern about Islamic extremism," from AP, April 19:

AJDABIYA, Libya (AP) — Abdel-Moneim Mokhtar was ambushed and killed by Moammar Gadhafi's troops last week on a dusty road in eastern Libya — the end of a journey that saw him fight as a jihadi in Afghanistan and then return home where he died alongside NATO-backed rebels trying to oust the longtime authoritarian leader.

In describing Mokhtar's death on Friday, Gadhafi's government said he was a member of al-Qaida — part of an ongoing attempt to link the rebels to Osama bin Laden's group. Four years ago, al-Qaida said it had allied itself with the Libyan Islamic Fighters Group — of which Mokhtar was a top military commander.

Two days before he was killed, Mokhtar denied any connection between his group and al-Qaida, telling The Associated Press in an interview: "We only fought to free Libya."

"We realized that Gadhafi is a killer and imprisoned people, so we had to fight him," said Mokhtar, one of a handful of rebel battalion commanders who led more than 150 rebels in eastern Libya.

The question of Islamic fundamentalists among the rebels is one of the murkier issues for Western nations who are aiding the anti-Gadhafi forces with airstrikes and must decide how deeply to get involved in the fight. Some countries, including the U.S., have been wary — partly out of concern over possible extremists among the rebels.

NATO's top commander, U.S. Navy Adm. James Stavridis, told Congress last month that officials had seen "flickers" of possible al-Qaida and Hezbollah involvement with rebel forces. But he said there was no evidence of significant numbers within the opposition leadership.

Spokesman Mustafa Gheriani of the opposition council in Benghazi said any extremists among the fighters are exceptions and that ensuring democracy is the only way to combat them.

Mokhtar, 41, of the northwestern town of Sabratha, arrived in Afghanistan at age 20 in 1990 when the mujahedeen were fighting the puppet regime installed by the Soviets before they withdrew after a decade-long war.

He fought for three years in the fields and mountains of Khost and Kandahar provinces under Jalaluddin Haqqani — a prominent commander who was backed by the U.S. during the Soviet war but has now become one of its fiercest enemies in Afghanistan.

At least 500 Libyans went to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets, according to The Jamestown Foundation, a U.S.-based think tank, but Mokhtar said there aren't many fighting with the rebels now. Many like Mokhtar who returned home were arrested or killed by Gadhafi when they announced the creation of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group in the mid-1990s to challenge his rule.

Mokhtar became one of the LIFG's top three military commanders, said Anes Sharif, another member of the group who has known him for almost two decades....

Sharif, who was part of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group's political division and has been working with the rebels as well, said years of experience have convinced them that most Libyans don't want to live under a strict Islamic regime. But he did believe that politicians with conservative Islamic views will attract the most support in Libya.

"The West needs to understand that there is a difference between Islamic culture and radicalization," Sharif said....

"In an environment where everybody is respected and is allowed to carry out their religion without fear of being tortured, arrested or killed, there is no extremism," said Sharif....

I can't endorse Sila Sahin's action, but I just hope she doesn't get killed. Non-Muslim women in the West who do this sort of thing to break free from the restrictions of their childhood risk alienation from their families, but generally their lives are not in danger. However, given the Islamic cultural toleration of honor killing, which continues to be ignored in the West, the same cannot be said of Muslim women like Sila Sahin.

"'I wanted to be free': Muslim model upsets family by posing nude for Playboy cover," by Deborah Arthurs in the Daily Mail, April 19 (thanks to Twostellas):

Sila Sahin, a 25-year-old Turkish German living in Berlin, had until now been regarded as a glowing example of how a modern Muslim girl should behave in a multicultural society. [...]

Posing provocatively on the cover of German Playboy magazine with one breast exposed, Sila Sahin is apparently sending a clear and deliberate message to her conservative Turkish family.

'I did it because I wanted to be free at last,' she said. 'These photographs are a liberation from the restrictions of my childhood.'

Her family have, unsurprisingly, reacted with horror, and her mother has cut off all contact with the actress.

'My mother is still angry. It will be even more difficult with my grandparents, my aunts and my uncles,' she said on the website devoted to her television soap.

Because he suspected her of infidelity. This happened in 2006, but is just coming to trial now for some reason.

Of course, this story makes no mention of Islam. Said Biyard is just a "Somali man." And generally whenever an honor killing takes place in North America or Europe, the mainstream media tells us that honor killing is a cultural practice that has nothing to do with Islam -- despite several facts indicating the contrary. It is no accident or coincidence that Muslims commit 91 percent of honor killings worldwide. A manual of Islamic law certified as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy by Al-Azhar University, the most respected authority in Sunni Islam, says that "retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right." However, "not subject to retaliation" is "a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring's offspring." ('Umdat al-Salik o1.1-2). In other words, someone who kills his child incurs no legal penalty under Islamic law.

Syria in 2009 scrapped a law limiting the length of sentences for honor killings, but "the new law says a man can still benefit from extenuating circumstances in crimes of passion or honour 'provided he serves a prison term of no less than two years in the case of killing.'" And in 2003 the Jordanian Parliament voted down on Islamic grounds a provision designed to stiffen penalties for honor killings. Al-Jazeera reported that "Islamists and conservatives said the laws violated religious traditions and would destroy families and values."

Nonetheless, the media drumbeat is constant: honor killings have nothing to do with Islam. And as long as that continues, we will see more and more murders like this one.

"Police describe grisly scene in Somali man's trial in deaths of his children," by Jason Riley in the Courier-Journal, April 18 (thanks to Twostellas):

Louisville Metro Police officers described in court on Monday a grisly scene when they walked into the home of Said Biyad's family on Oct. 6, 2006, with a trail of blood starting in the hallway and leading to bedrooms with his four children lying dead, their throats cut.

“He left them laying in pools of their own blood,” Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Christie Foster said in her opening statement about Biyad, whose murder trial began on Monday in Jefferson Circuit Court.

Foster told Judge James Shake that Biyad “brutally” killed his four children — Goshany, Khadija, Fatuma and Sidi Ali, ages 2 through 8 — and raped and assaulted his wife before turning himself in at police headquarters and admitting what he had done.

Detective Brenda Wescott testified that three of the children were found in one room, with the youngest apparently trying to put her thumb in her mouth before she died. The other child was found in a separate room in bed, partially covered in blankets.

Wescott, who had to compose herself once during her testimony, said she arrived at the scene to find a veteran officer looking “shell-shocked.”...

Defense attorney Mike Lemke said in his openings to Shake that they believe Biyad is mentally ill and will offer expert testimony that he is a paranoid schizophrenic.

Lemke said Biyad has for years believed people were trying to kill him and get his money, and that he was a multimillionaire celebrity.

He said this trial will show “clear evidence of a person who is mentally ill” and provide a “peek into a brain that does not function in a normal way.”...

The first witness for the prosecution, Officer James Clark, said Biyad was sitting calmly in the lobby of the police station on Seventh and Jefferson streets, his hands crossed, when he first met him.

Biyad “kept saying he had done very bad things,” Clark said.

Clark testified that Biyad told his story, in broken English, “matter-of-factly.”

Biyad told police he had slit the throats of his children, making a motion by sweeping his hand across his neck, and believed they were dead. He said his wife, Fatuma Amir, may also be dead. Amir was beaten and raped, but survived.

Clark said Biyad was angry because he believed his wife was cheating on him and he was asked to pay money to the elders to have a relationship with her.

Biyad allegedly raped his wife and beat her with a hammer before she was able to lock herself in a room.

Biyad said he then went to the rooms of each of his children, cutting their throats, before throwing the knife in a garbage can, according to court documents.

When Officer Krissy Hagan went to the home, she said she heard Amir crying inside.

“A sob I won't forget,” she said.

Biyad is not facing the death penalty through an agreement between defense and prosecutors and the maximum sentence he faces is life in prison.

What kind of agreement?

The Muslim revulsion for dogs comes from Muhammad: "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

And from the Shi'ite side of the divide, which pertains more specifically to this story, here is a contemporary voice -- Iraq's Ayatollah Sistani:

The following ten things are essentially najis [unclean]:

1. Urine
2. Faeces
3. Semen
4. Dead body
5. Blood
6. Dog
7. Pig
8. Kafir [unbeliever -- i.e., non-Muslims]
9. Alcoholic liquors
10. The sweat of an animal who persistently eats najasat [unclean things].

Sharia Alert from the Islamic Republic of Iran: "The Latest Enemies of Iran: Dogs and Their Owners," by Azadeh Moaveni in Time Magazine, April 19:

For much of the past decade, the Iranian government has tolerated what it considers a particularly depraved and un-Islamic vice: the keeping of pet dogs.

During periodic crackdowns, police have confiscated dogs from their owners right off the street; and state media has lectured Iranians on the diseases spread by canines. The cleric Gholamreza Hassani, from the city of Urmia, has been satirized for his sermons railing against "short-legged" and "holdable" dogs. But as with the policing of many other practices (like imbibing alcoholic drinks) that are deemed impure by the mullahs but perfectly fine to many Iranians, the state has eventually relaxed and let dog lovers be....

Those days of tacit acceptance may soon be over, however. Lawmakers in Tehran have recently proposed a bill in parliament that would criminalize dog ownership, formally enshrining its punishment within the country's Islamic penal code. The bill warns that that in addition to posing public health hazards, the popularity of dog ownership "also poses a cultural problem, a blind imitation of the vulgar culture of the West." The proposed legislation for the first time outlines specific punishments for "the walking and keeping" of "impure and dangerous animals," a definition that could feasibly include cats but for the time being seems targeted at dogs. The law would see the offending animal confiscated, the leveling of a $100-to-$500 fine on the owner, but leaves the fate of confiscated dogs uncertain. "Considering the several thousand dogs [that are kept] in Tehran alone, the problem arises as to what is going to happen to these animals," Hooman Malekpour, a veterinarian in Tehran, said to the BBC's Persian service. If passed, the law would ultimately energize police and volunteer militias to enforce the ban systematically.

In past years, animal-rights activists in Iran have persuasively argued that sporadic campaigns against dog ownership are politically motivated and unlawful, since the prohibition surfaces in neither the country's civil laws nor its Islamic criminal codes. But if Iran's laws were silent for decades on the question of dogs, that is because the animals — in the capacity of pet — were as irrelevant to daily life as dinosaurs. Islam, by custom, considers dogs najes, or unclean, and for the past century cultural mores kept dog ownership down to minuscule numbers. In rural areas, dogs have traditionally aided shepherds and farmers, but as Iranians got urbanized in the past century, their dogs did not come along. In cities, aristocrats kept dogs for hunting and French-speaking dowagers kept lap dogs for company, but the vast majority of traditional Iranians, following the advice of the clergy, were leery of dogs and considered them best avoided....

In a word, yes. Despite the protestations of Secretary of State Clinton and others, these developments are not a "hijacking" of the revolution, but a reflection of the actual values of so many hoped-for "moderates," including James Clapper's "largely secular" Muslim Brotherhood (short for, in many Washington minds, the Largely Secular But Slightly Muslim And We Promise Only In a Good Way Brotherhood).

Why are they surprised in D.C.? Because they have been willfully blind to any suggestion that the increased influence of Islamic law could possibly end badly. In this case, the Muslim Brotherhood has already stated its opposition to women and Copts as president of Egypt. We will see a trickle-down effect of that precedent as the powers-that-be who intend to impose Sharia fill in the blanks regarding what else the women and kuffar can't have, as they see fit: for the same reasons they can't be president, why bother with letting them be governor? Mayor? And so on into local councils, businesses, and daily human interaction.

"Women's rights group condemns recent governor appointments," by Safaa Abdoun for Daily News Egypt, April 18 (thanks to Twostellas):

CAIRO: The Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights (ECWR) condemned the recent reshuffling and appointment of new governors in Egypt that excluded women, describing it as “disappointing and contradictory to the principles of citizenship, justice and equality.”

In a press statement, ECWR said that the recent appointments contradict the principles of the January 25 Revolution; the revolution where women participated effectively in all its phases and stood side by side with their male counterparts.

“The Egyptian Center for Women's Rights is worried that this exclusion may be intentional with the pretext that now is not the convenient time to talk about women’s rights,” the statement read.

The ECWR called on the Supreme Council of Armed Forces and Prime Minister Essam Sharaf’s Cabinet to emphasize the principle of citizenship as “women should be represented equally in all phases of drawing Egypt's future because they play an effective role in society.”

The center also called on them to bear in mind women's fair representation in all leading positions, as well as “take clear action towards women's participation” and towards ensuring women's rights in laws in general and in public positions in particular.

Last week, Sharaf sacked twenty governors including those of Cairo, Giza, Alexandria, Qena, Suez, Menufiya, Assiut and Sharqeya who were removed in response to the demands of opposition groups and political activists, who described them as being “corrupt” and “illegitimate.”

Their newly-appointed replacements were sworn in on Saturday before the head of the ruling SCAF Mohamed Hussein Tantawy.

Political analyst Emad Gad from Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies said that the new governors appointed by the current cabinet and army council are the latest in a series of decisions which continue to sideline sectors of society in the post revolution period, despite the fact that everyone was equally represented during the revolution.

Gad cited the National Dialogue as an example of excluding certain segments of society.

Gad stressed that “without equality we won’t have true democracy” and so all groups have to come together and join forces as they did in the revolution in order to ensure equality during this developmental process since it’s the essence of a free country.

The ECWR compared the exclusive appointment of male governors in Egypt to the case in Tunisia, whose popular revolution had inspired the Egyptian Revolution saying, “When will we follow Tunisia in their progressive vision and their future plan which is based on the principle of citizenship?”

Next question: how long will Tunisia follow its "progressive vision?"

The ECWR explained in its statement that unlike Egypt, Tunsia has appreciated the role women played in the revolution, thus the High Commission issued a decree stipulating that women should constitute half of the members of the National Constituent Assembly in order to achieve the objectives of the revolution, and to continue the political reform and democratic transition.

“Is the Egyptian woman, with her history, not like the Tunisian woman?” the statement asked.

“Is she to be excluded from being appointed as governor and excluded, as she was earlier, from several committees which had been formed during and after the revolution?

The silence on the recent upheaval over the appointment of a Christian governor is noteworthy. They're clearly not touching that, even though it stems from the same source of discrimination.

“Did the Egyptian revolution erupt to take Egyptian women a step backward?”

Many women’s rights activists are concerned that the achievements of women’s rights during the last 30 years may be drowned out because they were associated with former first lady Suzanne Mubarak.

“There is this association between women’s issues and the ousted regime due to the presentation of the former first lady as the advocate for women’s rights, however many activists and members of civil society have been long pushing for rights that were gained during the former regime and many of them were milestones, so let’s not eliminate it all because of this association,” head of ECWR, Nehad Abul Komsan, said at a conference earlier this month.

As we have seen in the case of Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar and many others, any Muslim believer can read the Qur'an and decide that he has a responsibility to wage jihad warfare against unbelievers. There is simply no way to make sure that that will not happen, even if it only happens once in a great while, because of the Qur'an's many plain exhortations to do just that.

More on this story. "Indonesia attack shows 'individual jihad' trend: ICG," from AFP, April 19:

A suicide attack at a mosque in an Indonesian police station last week fits a pattern of "individual jihad" aimed at local targets by small groups of extremists, a think-tank said on Tuesday.

The International Crisis Group (ICG) said a trend was emerging that favoured targeted killings over indiscriminate bombings, local over foreign targets and individual or small group action over more hierarchical organisations.

In a new report entitled "Indonesian Jihadism: Small Groups, Big Plans", the Brussels-based ICG said the two approaches were complementary.

Larger jihadi organisations have the networks and funds to support religious outreach by radicals espousing extremist principles through the media and religious study sessions, the report said.

Groups like regional terror network Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and hardline Islamic group Jemaah Anshorut Tauhid (JAT) are placing greater focus on local "enemies" seen as "oppressors", including the police, Christians and the minority Islamic sect Ahmadiyah....

Local resident Mohammed Syarif, 32, detonated explosives strapped to his body at a mosque inside a police station in Cirebon, West Java province, on Friday as worshippers began their prayers, killing himself instantly and injuring 30 others.

Police are still investigating his motives and links with terror groups. The attack was the first suicide bombing inside a mosque in the world's largest Muslim-majority nation of 240 million people.

Last month, bombs hidden in a hollowed-out books were sent to several addresses including those of liberal Muslim figures and a counter-terrorism official, but no one was killed....

Note how AP never identifies the perpetrators who are rioting, burning people to death, and torching churches. It is obvious since the outrage all stems from the Muslim candidate losing the election, but AP doesn't dare state the obvious. The only time it identifies anyone who does any of the actions in this story is when it can cast Islam in a favorable light: "An armed mob at a bus station also threated another evangelical pastor before a Muslim man nearby spirited him to safety." This is typical mainstream media coverage: Muslims can never be identified as such when they are doing evil in the name of Islam or because of their self-identification as Muslims; their Muslim identity may only be mentioned when they're doing something good or playing the role of victim.

The problem with this, besides the obvious bad faith, is that it misleads the public about the nature of the global jihad and Islamic supremacism. The consequent ignorance leads to complacency and misdiagnosis of the problem, resulting in numerous policy mistakes that only embolden the Islamic supremacists further.

An update on this story. "Charred bodies line road to Nigeria town after riots sweep region after presidential vote," from the Associated Press, April 19 (thanks to Twostellas):

KADUNA, Nigeria — Smoke rose above this city in Nigeria’s Muslim north where rioting broke out again Tuesday after opposition protesters in the region set fire to churches and homes when official results from the national election showed that the Christian incumbent had won the vote.

On the outskirts of Kaduna, burned out minibuses and cars lined the roads, and at least six burned corpses could be seen. Some of the victims also bore machete wounds. Skull caps and sandals were strewn nearby, left behind by those who frantically fled amid the chaos.

Authorities and aid groups have hesitated to release tolls following the riots for fear of inciting reprisal attacks, but the National Emergency Management Agency confirmed there had been fatalties [sic]. The Nigerian Red Cross said Tuesday that nearly 400 people had been wounded....

Supporters of opposition candidate Muhammadu Buhari set fire to homes of ruling party members in several areas across the north. Police said an angry mob also engineered a prison break.

In the northern town of Kano, Rev. Lado Abdu said three churches had been set ablaze by angry demonstrators. An armed mob at a bus station also threated another evangelical pastor before a Muslim man nearby spirited him to safety.

“What brought together religion and politics?” Rev. Habila Sunday said in the local Hausa language. “I want to know why when politics happen do they burn churches?”...

While Christians and Muslims have shared the same soil in the nation for centuries, the election result showing the Christian president’s more than 10 million vote lead over Muslim candidate Muhammadu Buhari spread accusations of rigging in a nation long accustomed to ballot box stuffing.

Jonathan took office last year only after the country’s elected Muslim president died from a lengthy illness before his term ended, and many in the north still believe the ruling party should have put up a Muslim candidate instead in this year’s election. Monday’s violence also was fueled by the economic despair in Nigeria’s arid north....

In Human Events this morning I discuss why anyone concerned about the global jihad against freedom should oppose the U.S. action in Libya:

Barack Obama has committed American lives to building an Islamic state in Libya. In making their case for U.S. intervention in Libya, conservatives who support the action generally acknowledge that the biggest problem with it is what may come after Gaddafi. However, they then dismiss this concern by minimizing the presence of jihadists and Islamic supremacists among the Libyan rebels, and pointing to a U.S. intelligence study that purportedly shows that there is no significant presence of jihadists among the rebels. Unfortunately, that’s not really true.

A recent Los Angeles Times piece describes a “U.S. intelligence-gathering effort that began shortly after anti-Gaddafi forces started seizing towns in eastern Libya last month” as finding nothing to be concerned about: It “has not uncovered a significant presence of Islamic militants among the insurgents.” Coming from an intelligence establishment whose chief, James Clapper, thinks the Muslim Brotherhood is a “largely secular” movement, it’s unclear what value this “U.S. intelligence-gathering effort” really has. For one thing, what would these U.S. intelligence-gatherers take as evidence of “Islamic militancy”? Actual membership in al-Qaeda or another jihad group? That seems to be the implication of the title of the LA Times article: “ U.S. finds no organized al-Qaeda presence in Libya opposition, officials say.” But does the absence of an “organized al-Qaeda presence” mean the absence of people who are pro-Sharia and have Islamic supremacist aspirations? That is unlikely.

In other words, the intelligence-gathering effort likely suffers from the same defect that has marred all U.S. responses to the jihad threat since 9/11 (and before that too): a focus solely on terrorism, with no attention whatsoever paid to efforts to advance the goal of the terrorists (which is the imposition of Sharia upon states where it is not fully enforced) through means other than terrorism. For government analysts, one is either an “extremist” or a “moderate,” with an entirely unsupported assumption made that a Muslim who is not in al-Qaeda and may even disapprove of it must therefore necessarily also embrace secular, pluralistic, democratic principles. The possibility that Muslims may favor Sharia—including all of its repressive elements, its denial of the freedom of speech and the freedom of conscience, its oppression of women, and the rest—without supporting terrorism or being a member of a terrorist group never seems to occur to them.

What’s more, this “small minority” of al-Qaeda fighters among the Libyan rebels is in reality large enough to have attracted the attention of neighboring Algeria. Abdelkader Messahel, Algerian deputy foreign minister, recently expressed concern about “the increasingly noticeable presence of AQIM (Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, al-Qaeda's north African wing) in Libya.” Journalist John Rosenthal recounted that “whereas American officials have been straining to make out ‘flickers’ of intelligence suggesting a jihadist influence in the eastern Libyan rebellion against the rule of Muammar al-Gaddafi,” French journalist Julien Fouchet traveled to Libya, where he “encountered a flagrant jihadist presence and met with participants who talked openly about their dedication to jihad and/or their desire to establish an Islamic state.”...

There is more.

Wishing a sweet Passover to all Jihad Watch readers tonight.

Yes, as always, I mean all of you, and this year more than ever. With Israel on the front lines of the global jihad and more isolated and vilified than ever, it is more necessary than ever for all free people to stand with Israel on those front lines. Stand with Israel for freedom! Stand with Israel for humane values! Stand with Israel and all Jews worldwide!

Chag Pesach sameach! Am Yisroel chai!

Now wait a minute. Iran's Supreme Leader said in February that the Middle East uprisings were (according to al-Jazeera) "the reverberations of Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution." And now the Thug-In-Chief is saying that they're all the West's fault? Khamenei may have to give that boy a good talking-to.

"The West is to blame for regional unrest, Ahmadinejad says," from CNN, April 18 (thanks to Michael):

Tehran, Iran (CNN) -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blamed the West for unrest bubbling throughout the Middle East and North Africa in a speech Monday on Iran's National Army Day.

"They are trying to foment discord in the region. They are trying to cause destruction and provoke wars between nations and governments in order to sell their weapons," Ahmadinejad said in a speech translated into English by state-run Press TV. "They are seeking destruction and a reinforcement of their evil dominance in the region."...

Ahmadinejad also warned of what he said are Western efforts to trigger sectarian strife between Shia and Sunni Muslims, while calling for cooperation between nations in the region....

Actually, the West expended considerable blood and treasure to try to prevent Sunni/Shi'ite strife in Iraq. To no avail, of course.

Patrick Poole revealed several days ago that the DOJ had decided, apparently for political reasons, not to prosecute Omar Ahmad, cofounder and longtime Board Chairman of Hamas-linked CAIR. Now Peter King is demanding answers. I hope he gets them, or failing that, opens an investigation of his own.

"King Demands Answers from Holder on Decision Not to Prosecute CAIR, its Co-Founder, and other Unindicted Co-Conspirators in Holy Land Foundation Case," from the House Committee on Homeland Security, April 18 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

Washington, D.C. (Monday, April 18, 2011) – ­U.S. Rep. Peter T. King (R-NY), Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, has demanded an explanation from Attorney General Eric Holder as to why he decided not to prosecute the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), its co-founder Omar Ahmad, and other named unindicted co-conspirators in the Hamas terror finance case, United States v. Holy Land Foundation. The other unindicted co-conspirators include the Islamic Society of North America and the North American Islamic Trust.

In a letter to Holder, King wrote: “I have been reliably informed that the decision not to seek indictments of the Council on American Islamic Relations (“CAIR”) and its co-founder Omar Ahmad, the Islamic Society of North America (“ISNA”), and the North American Islamic Trust (“NAIT”), was usurped by high-ranking officials at Department of Justice headquarters over the vehement and stated objections of special agents and supervisors of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as the prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Dallas, who had investigated and successfully prosecuted the Holy Land Foundation case. Their opposition to this decision raises serious doubt that the decision not to prosecute was a valid exercise of prosecutorial discretion.”

The signed letter is available at the Committee on Homeland Security website.

The text of the letter sent to Attorney General Holder follows:

April 15, 2011

The Honorable Eric H. Holder, Jr.
Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington D.C. 20530-0001

Re: United States v. Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, et al., 3:04-CR-0240-G.

Dear Attorney General Holder:

I write to inquire about your decision not to prosecute the 246 individuals and organizations, named as unindicted co-conspirators in a Hamas terror finance case, United States v. Holy Land Foundation.

I have been reliably informed that the decision not to seek indictments of the Council on American Islamic Relations (“CAIR”) and its co-founder Omar Ahmad, the Islamic Society of North America (“ISNA”), and the North American Islamic Trust (“NAIT”), was usurped by high-ranking officials at Department of Justice headquarters over the vehement and stated objections of special agents and supervisors of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as the prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Dallas, who had investigated and successfully prosecuted the Holy Land Foundation case. Their opposition to this decision raises serious doubt that the decision not to prosecute was a valid exercise of prosecutorial discretion.

I request that you provide answers to the following questions:

* What are the reasons for the Department’s decisions not to prosecute CAIR, ISNA, NAIT and Mr. Ahmad, who is a CAIR co-founder and former head of the Palestine Committee of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States?

* Who made the final decision not to prosecute? Who, if anyone, from the Executive Office of the President, consulted with, advised, or otherwise communicated with the Department of Justice, in electronic, oral or written form, regarding the Department’s decision to not seek indictments of CAIR, ISNA, NAIT and Mr. Ahmad?

* How does and will the Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation address the potential for CAIR, ISNA, or NAIT to engage in terrorism financing? What policies with regard to those organizations have you implemented to address that threat?

The answers to these questions should provide some explanation for declining a prosecution that is strongly supported by the record from the Holy Land Foundation trial. As you are aware, in a previously sealed Memorandum Opinion Order of July 1, 2009, United States District Judge Jorge A. Solis declined CAIR, ISNA and NAIT’s August 14, 2007 and June 18, 2008 requests to strike their names from the United States Attorney’s list of unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation case. Judge Solis found that the “Government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR, ISNA and NAIT with [the Holy Land Foundation, “HLF”], the Islamic Association for Palestine (“IAP”), and with Hamas.” The Court found that the evidence was “sufficient to show the association of these entities with HLF, IAP, and Hamas. Thus, maintaining the names of the entities on the List is appropriate in light of the evidence proffered by the Government” (citation omitted). At minimum, FBI testimony established that Mr. Ahmad attended a meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in which participants discussed how they could support Hamas, including by raising funds for this terrorist group. NAIT was similarly unsuccessful in its subsequent request to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to have its name removed from the list of co-conspirators.

Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the Department of State since October 9, 1997, and its status was reconfirmed by the most recent annual report of the National Counterterrorism Center, issued April 30, 2010 Hamas shamefully conducts cowardly suicide bombings against civilian targets inside Israel. Hamas also, between 2008 and 2009, conducted 2,614 indiscriminate rocket and mortar attacks upon residential areas in that country, an ally of the United States. According to the State Department, Hamas finances its terrorist activities “through state sponsors of terrorism Iran and Syria, and fundraising networks in the Arabian Peninsula, Europe, the Middle East, [and] the United States” (emphasis added). It raises the most serious question for the Justice Department to decline to even attempt to prosecute individuals and organizations, accused by a US Attorney and found by a federal judge, to have a nexus with fundraising for an organization which conducts terror attacks upon civilians.

I believe that in order to maintain the credibility of the Department, there should be full transparency into the Department’s decision. Please respond to this letter by April 25, 2011. If you have any questions regarding this letter, please contact Kevin Carroll at (202)226-8417.

Sincerely,

PETER T. KING
Chairman

cc: The Honorable Robert S. Mueller III

The violence is "neither ethnic nor religious," and yet the "mobs" and the "protesters" seem to be targeting Christians specifically. "Deadly riots hit north Nigeria as results show Jonathan wins," by Aminu Abubakar for AFP, April 18 (thanks to An Infidel):

Deadly riots erupted across Nigeria's north on Monday as results from presidential elections showed incumbent Goodluck Jonathan had won the contest that reflected deep regional tensions.

Results from all of Nigeria's states announced by the electoral commission showed Jonathan had handily beaten his northern rival, ex-military ruler Muhammadu Buhari. The electoral commission was yet to officially declare him the victor....

Residents reported that a home belonging to Vice President Namadi Sambo was among those set alight in the northern city of Zaria and a mob sought to burn a Christian woman alive in another area.

Churches were also burnt and a prison was raided, with a number of inmates escaping, residents said. Mobs roamed in a number of states, armed with sticks and burning bonfires in the streets.

An unspecified number of people were killed in Kano when homes and shops were attacked, in Gombe when a home was set ablaze and in Kaduna, where mobs had stopped people on the highway.

A spokesman for the national emergency management agency, Yushau Shuaib, confirmed deaths occurred in those incidents, but declined to provide figures out of fears of reprisals....

Police said the rioting had been instigated by those unhappy with the results, saying it was "neither ethnic nor religious." The military made similar comments and warned it was ready to act....

Of course. It's purely coincidental that those unhappy with the results are all Muslims, and their victims Christian.

In Kano on Monday morning, protesters stopped cars and demanded that passengers express support for Buhari.

A mob used wooden planks to beat two people who appeared to be Christians based on their dress, an AFP correspondent said. Bonfires were burned in the streets while schools and shops closed, with smoke rising above the city.

Protests also spread to the tense central Nigerian city of Jos, hit by years of deadly clashes between Christian and Muslim ethnic groups, [sic]

In the town of Potiskum in Yobe state, a resident reported that a mob sought to pin down a Christian woman and burn her with a tyre, but residents put the fire out and took her to hospital....

Jonathan, 53 and a southern Christian, is the first president from the main oil-producing Niger Delta region.

Buhari, a 69-year-old Muslim, has built a reputation as a fighter of corruption, but his "war against indiscipline" during his regime in the 1980s was also accused of outrageous rights abuses.

Shock horror!

The Twelfth Imam disappeared over 1100 years ago, and hasn’t been heard from in over 1,050 years. After his disappearance in 874, the Twelfth Imam communicated through three messengers. In his last communiqué to the world, via one of these messengers in the year 941, this mysterious figure consoled his followers with prophesies regarding his eventual reappearance. The circumstances of that reappearance could, in the hands of Iran’s mad mullahs, visit upon the world calamities of a scale never before seen. And Israel and America will bear the brunt.

“Hearts,” warned Mohammad al-Mahdi, the Twelfth Imam, in his last message, “will become inaccessible to compassion. The earth will be filled with tyranny and violence.” He was speaking of the time of his reappearance, explaining that he would only come back to the world when the evil that Muslims were suffering was at its absolute apex. In this he echoed a Shi’ite tradition of the words of the prophet of Islam himself, Muhammad, who prophesied that the Twelfth Imam would be “the Resurrector” and explained: “He will fill the world with peace and justice as today it is filled with violence and tyranny.”

That violence and tyranny is not incidental to the theology of the Twelfth Imam, which has revenge as its core and essence. The dispute between the majority Sunnis and the Shiat Ali (Party of Ali) began upon the death of Muhammad in 632. The Sunnis contended that the prophet of Islam had made no provision for a successor as political, military, and spiritual leader of the Muslim community, and that therefore the Muslims should choose the best man among them as their leader. The nascent Party of Ali, on the contrary, claimed that Muhammad had designated his son-in-law Ali ibn Abi Talib as his successor, and that the successor of Muhammad had to be a member of the prophet’s household.

What’s more, far from being a mere functionary, this successor would bear some of Muhammad’s prophetic spirit, as well as infallibility in deciding disputed questions. Ali was finally chosen as the fourth caliph in 656, but in 661 was assassinated. Hassan, his eldest son (and successor, as far as the Shi’ites are concerned), was murdered in 670 on the orders of the Sunni caliph Muawiya. Then the Sunni/Shi’ite split became definitive and permanent when Ali’s younger son, Husayn, was killed in the Battle of Karbala in 680.

The Shi’ites were, thus, founded in loss and defeat, and these became the ongoing distinguishing features of Shi’ite history and piety. After the beheading of Husayn, the Shi’ites continued a succession of Imams, members of Muhammad’s household and his prophetic heirs. Each one in turn, over two centuries, was poisoned on orders of the Sunni caliph. According to the traditions of Twelver Shi’ism, the official religion of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the twelfth of these Imams, a boy of five years old, disappeared from sight under mysterious and disputed circumstances in the year 874. After that, he communicated to the world through four agents, the last of whom died in 941. At that point the Twelfth Imam went silent, entering the period of “Great Occultation.”

An unbroken record of setback – but the Shi’ites dreamed of revenge. The Twelfth Imam, they began to teach, would return at a time when the Muslims were oppressed as never before, and suffering worse than ever. The Imam, in the company of Jesus (re-imagined, as in Sunni Islam, as a Muslim prophet), would finally end the horrific persecution of the true believers, taking up arms against their enemies and conquering and Islamizing the world.

This eschatological revenge fantasy would be of no concern to anyone but pious Shi’ites and religious anthropologists were it not for the element of Shi’ite tradition that requires that the earth be “filled with tyranny and violence” before the Twelfth Imam can return. There is no requirement that non-Muslims must be responsible for that violence; Shi’ites filled with religious fervor, like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the mullahs behind him, could hasten the Twelfth Imam’s return and the consummation of all things by, say, launching a nuclear strike against Tel Aviv or some other Infidel outpost, knowing that by doing so they would almost certainly be provoking a retaliatory strike that would subject the Muslims in Iran to more defeat and repression than even the Shi’ites had previously suffered.

That would be enough to bring the Twelfth Imam out of the well where he is said to be hiding. But that is a matter of religious hope and speculation; the devastation that would supposedly lead to his reappearance, however, would be all too real. The two powers that the Iranian mullahs have long designated as the “Great Satan” and the “Little Satan” – America and Israel – would be the only targets of an Iranian attempt to hasten the Twelfth Imam’s coming.

A nuclear strike from Tehran into Israel could kill, estimates say, upwards of twenty million people, completely destroying the Jewish State.

With new video surfacing in Iran claiming that the return of the Twelfth Imam is imminent, it is imperative that America and Israel understand and act upon the implications of these revenge fantasies, based on a sober realization that Iran’s mullahs take the prophesies of the Twelfth Imam very seriously indeed – seriously enough for them to bet the entire world upon them.

"Khamenei Rep: ‘Bahrain Primed To Spur Return of Twelfth Imam,'" by Reza Kahlili for Pajamas Media, April 18 (thanks to David):

During a speech at Tehran University on April 13, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s representative to Iran’s universities, Hojatolislam Ali-Reza Panahian, stressed that the Muslims of Bahrain and elsewhere who are involved in the uprisings have been living under oppression and deserve to be recognized.

He added:

We are one and all duty-bound to incite and encourage the people of Bahrain and other countries of the region; they should resist and know that no drop of blood is fruitless.

He continued with a quote from the Quran [47:4]:

And those who are killed in the cause of Allah — never will he waste their deeds.

That same verse, by the way, contains that famous bit about beheading unbelievers.

Further, he said:

One can say that this is the best opportunity to establish and prove Islam’s legitimacy to the world. And side by side with those oppressed people, it is also the best opportunity to begin setting the stage for the emergence of the Twelfth Imam, our Mahdi. The situation in Bahrain alone could be a catalyst for the United States to strike out on their own and cause the downfall of that straw empire.

Also, those European governments, and that of the Saudis, are much weaker than you imagine. Their houses are nothing more than spider houses. Who do you think stood up to Israel’s oppression? Only a few thousand young and pious Lebanese youths. You are all witness to those events. Until a few years ago, who would have imagined that the government of Israel could be defeated?

And the ruling straw power of the U.S. is also a lie. What kind of power do you think they possess? Don’t believe what you see with the guns; their apparatus and media are not believable. Their movies and advertising are poison and not to be believed. The Quran [17:81] says: “Truth [The Quran or Jihad against polytheists] has come and falsehood [Satan] has vanished. Surely! Falsehood is ever bound to vanish.”

Like all Misunderstanders of Islam, Hojatolislam Ali-Reza Panahian quotes the Qur'an copiously.

The Sharia show trial of Geert Wilders for telling the truth about Islam will continue. His attempt to have the trial judges removed for their obvious bias has failed, but that is no surprise in a proceeding which is in itself a manifestation of a relentless bias. Free Speech Death Watch Update: "Anti-Islam lawmaker's trial on hate speech charges to continue; move to dismiss judges fails," from The Associated Press, April 18:

AMSTERDAM — Appeals judges in a hate speech case against anti-Islam Dutch politician Geert Wilders have rejected a defence motion for trial judges to be dismissed because of alleged bias.

Wilders, leader of the country's third-largest political party, is charged with inciting hatred against Muslims with remarks branding Islam as violent by nature.

His lawyers had argued judges were biased after they declined to press perjury charges against a witness whose testimony contradicted earlier public statements.

An appeals panel said Monday the lower court's ruling was not cause for dismissal....

"Stuff like that really makes me wonder what in the hell are we doing." Me too.

"DOJ Source: Gov’t Muslim ‘Outreach’ Jeopardized Active Terror Investigations," by Patrick Poole at Pajamas Media, April 18 (thanks to David):

The nearly six-hour interview I conducted earlier this year with a top Department of Justice official on the condition of anonymity brought forth a number of revelations about serious problems within the U.S. government’s homeland security and law enforcement community.

Last Thursday, I reported here exclusively at PJM on a DOJ memo dated March 31, 2010, from Assistant Attorney General David Kris to Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler. The memo effectively ended the prosecution of Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) co-founder and Chairman Emeritus Omar Ahmad — in addition to the prosecution of other prominent American Muslim leaders — for helping support the Hamas terrorist organization. This decision, according to my source, was not made based on the overwhelming evidence that had been compiled over the past decade by the U.S. attorney’s office in Dallas, but was made due to potential political embarrassment for the Obama administration and out of fear of inflaming the American Muslim community.

But another troubling claim came out during our interview: “Muslim outreach” programs by U.S. government agencies to terror-tied Islamic groups have directly interfered with ongoing terrorism investigations.

My source began by complaining about the counterproductive nature of such programs:

In all my years working for the U.S. government I have rarely seen anything as mystifying as our outreach to Muslims. Do we really need it? Sure. We need to be reaching out to the Muslim leaders who are working to prevent radicalization, not the ones who are making it happen. But that isn’t what we’re doing.

Instead we’re having countless meetings from the Cabinet level on down with groups and individuals that we know are bad guys and who we’ve repeatedly said in court are actively working to support terrorist groups overseas. We even had [FBI General Counsel] Valerie Caproni meeting regularly with these Hamas guys to get their guidance. What advice do you think they were giving her?

And she knew exactly who she was dealing with. It was the FBI who went into federal court and said that CAIR is Hamas.

But at the same time that FBI agents were testifying in the [Holy Land Foundation] trial that CAIR is a Hamas front there was serious disagreement inside DOJ and the FBI about whether we should continue to work with CAIR or cut them loose. So now we do both.

We say publicly that we don’t have an official relationship, but CAIR still has most of the staff in [Attorney General Eric] Holder and [FBI Director Robert] Mueller’s offices on speed dial. Don’t think for a minute that we stopped dealing with them.

And what exactly is our end game for doing this? Nobody knows. Are we getting anything by reaching out to CAIR? Of course not.

Now think for a minute about what we’re doing in any other context. Thirty years ago we didn’t have government liaisons to the IRA. The FBI doesn’t have an interfaith outreach program to the Mafia. Janet Napolitano doesn’t sit down and have lunch meetings with the Mexican drug cartels. And we don’t appoint members of the Crips and Bloods to our advisory boards on gangs. Well, not yet, at least [laughs].

It sounds really silly when you put it like that, but we have been allowing the bad guys to dictate our national policy on terrorism since the World Trade Center bombing [in 1993]. Let’s not forget that during the Clinton administration we had one of al-Qaeda’s top operatives in America — Abdurahman Alamoudi — organizing iftar dinners at the White House! The same guy who stood beside President Bush right after 9/11. Two years later he’s in prison, but his people are still popping up all over Washington.

Then we had [CAIR Executive Director] Nihad Awad advising Al Gore’s aviation security commission back in the late 90s. We said absolutely nothing even though we had him on our wiretaps five years before at a major Hamas meeting in Philadelphia. Nobody from DOJ or the FBI said a goddamn word because CAIR was advising every single federal agency dealing with terrorism at the time. We wouldn’t have these problems if we had cut them off then and there.

Stuff like that really makes me wonder what in the hell are we doing. I could easily give a dozen more examples going on right now. This bizarre fetish we’ve had about Muslim outreach since 9/11 has even damaged ongoing terrorism investigations and is eventually going to get people killed. I really believe that.

So do I. There is much more. Read it all.

Mohammad Hassan Abu Torabi-Fard is enthusiastic about the Arab Spring outbreak of secularism and democracy all over the Middle East. "The future of Middle East belong to Islam: Iran's first deputer [sic] speaker says the future of Middle East belongs to Islam," from the AhlulBayt News Agency, April 18 (thanks to Twostellas):

(AhlulBayt News Agency) - Iran's First Deputy Speaker of the Majlis (parliament) Hojjat ul-Islam, Mohammad Hassan Abu Torabi-Fard pointed to the role of Iran in the region and said,” Iran is the Superior defensive power in the region.”

Hojjat ul-Islam Abu Torabi-Fard underscored,” Iran got a paradigm of resistance and stability for people in Lebanon and Gaza.”

Iran's First Deputy Speaker of the Majlis (parliament) called the power of defense as an asset for this country and underscored,” the presence of army and Islamic Republic Guard Corps(IRGC) is the result of our superior knowledge and awareness.”

“Today we are the superior power in the region and all the ballances [sic] in our favor,” he underlined....

But this is the same guy whose father said had called him an "infidel." So take this with a grain of salt or two. "Suspected Bomber 'Not a Devout Muslim,' Wife Says," by Farouk Arnaz for the Jakarta Globe, April 18 (thanks to Twostellas):

For Sri Maliha, the questions surrounding her husband’s alleged transformation into a suicide bomber and the consequences of his deadly actions hang as heavy as the soon-to-be-born child in her belly.

Speaking on Sunday, Maliha said it was difficult to accept that her husband had blown himself up in a packed Cirebon mosque last week.

“I hope it is not him. Somehow I believe that he will come home as he had promised me,” she said while fighting back tears.

Police announced on Sunday that DNA testing had confirmed that her husband, 31-year-old Muchamad Syarif, was the bomber and sole fatality in the suicide blast that injured scores.

Maliha, 26, recounted the last time she saw her husband.

“On that day, April 3, before he left, he only said to me, ‘I will go for a while, but I will be by your side and pick you up when you are giving birth,’” she said....

“He was a good husband who sometimes led the prayer as an imam. But he was not a devout Muslim, I guess. He never conducted sunnah fasting or sunnah prayers,” Maliha said, referring to optional fasting and praying.

“He did not graduate from an Islamic boarding school or have a jihad [holy war] book collection. He was just like an ordinary man that socialized with people.”...

Rauf was just in the Washington Post a few weeks ago saying that no Muslims, none, wanted to bring Sharia here. But he behaves differently in other contexts.

Meanwhile, a great deal about the U.S. Muslim Engagement here is not new: Pamela Geller has it in The Post-American Presidency, which I cowrote.

"Obama's faith adviser helped craft 'perfect Islamic state': Shariah project scrubbed from Internet, sought to 'implement' Muslim caliphate," by Aaron Klein for WorldNetDaily, April 17 (thanks to Inexion):

JERUSALEM – Dalia Mogahed, appointed to President Obama's faith advisory council, was a partner in an Islamic project whose stated goal was to "define, interpret and implement the concept of the Islamic State in modern times," WND has learned.

The project was founded and directed by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the controversial Muslim cleric behind the proposed 13-story, $100 million Islamic cultural center and mosque two blocks from Ground Zero in New York City.

Besides her role on the White House Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, Mogahed is also on the advisory council of the Department of Homeland Security. She testified before the Senate on engagement with the Muslim community.

Together with Rauf, Mogahed was a leading voice in the Leadership Group on U.S.-Muslim Engagement, which issued a 153-page recommendation paper, obtained and reviewed by WND, that calls for dialogue with Hamas.

The consensus focused on improving America's relationship with Muslims globally, with many of the recommendations later reportedly being adopted by the Obama administration. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Dennis Ross, Obama's Mideast envoy, also served on the Leadership Group that released the recommendation paper.

The paper specifically called on the U.S. to engage opposition parties in Egypt, including the Muslim Brotherhood. It set the boundaries for dialogue with Hamas if the Islamist terror group renounced violence. Also, the paper called on the U.S. to immediately engage Hamas using intermediaries in hopes of moderating the group.

Mogahed, meanwhile, is a senior analyst and executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, where she led what has been described an unprecedented survey of Muslims worldwide, including in the U.S. and Europe.

The survey was the basis for a 2008 book she co-authored, "Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think."

Mogahed's Gallup survey concluded only 7 percent of the world's Muslims are political radicals and that the majority support democracy.

Other Gallup findings under Mogahed concluded that Muslims and Americans are equally likely to reject attacks on civilians as morally unjustifiable. Large majorities of Muslims would guarantee free speech if it were up to them to write a new constitution, the survey claimed.

'Sister' Mogahed and Shariah Islamic state

WND has learned that Mogahed and the Gallup survey provided key data for Rauf's "Shariah Index Project ," which sought, according to its own mission, to "define, interpret and implement the concept of the Islamic State in modern times."

The project at one time was featured on the website of Rauf's Cordoba Initiative, which is the group behind the so-called Ground Zero mosque. However, after the mosque issue was highlighted in the news media, the Shariah Index Project, a sister project of Cordoba, was scrubbed from Rauf's website.

The website BigPeace.com previously uncovered the scrubbed section of the Cordoba website that detailed the Shari'ah Index Project.

"Imagine: a Perfectly Islamic State," said the deleted section of Cordoba's website.

The website described how Mogahed's Gallup division helped to refine the principals [sic] of the Shariah Index, which was to serve as the basis for the "perfect Islamic state." The website stated representatives from Gallup also joined in a phone conversation to help craft the principles....

"O ye who believe! take not for protectors your fathers and your brothers if they love infidelity above Faith: if any of you do so, they do wrong. Say: If it be that your fathers, your sons, your brothers, your mates, or your kindred; the wealth that ye have gained; the commerce in which ye fear a decline: or the dwellings in which ye delight, are dearer to you than Allah, or His Messenger, or the striving in His cause, then wait until Allah brings about His decision: and Allah guides not the rebellious." -- Qur'an 9:23-24

The mainstream Qur'an commentator Ibn Kathir explains: “Allah commands shunning the disbelievers, even if they are one’s parents or children, and prohibits taking them as supporters if they choose disbelief instead of faith.” Another renowned Islamic authority, Ibn Juzayy, notes that Qur'an 9:24, with its warning that one should value nothing in this life higher than Allah, is “a threat to anyone who prefers his family, property or home to emigration and jihad.” "Emigration" to infidel lands in order to spread Islam, that is.

"Suspected suicide bomber called father infidel," from The Jakarta Post, April 18 (thanks to Twostellas):

Abdul Gafur, father of suspected suicide bomber Muchammad Syarif, said Monday his son had labeled him an infidel.

“When I gave him advice he called me infidel. I told him to pray more, but he said I gave him too much advice, as if heaven was in my hands,” Gafur said Monday, quoted by tribunnews.com.

Gafur said Syarif was known to have been very stubborn in his religious views, especially after he had joined a hardliner group in 2009.

Syarif had also said the Indonesian Criminal Code was mostly inherited from Dutch laws, which was made by “infidels”.

He said the Indonesian Criminal Code should instead be based on Islamic law, since the majority of the Indonesian people were Muslim.

Syarif was the suspected suicide bomber involved in an attack on the Cirebon Police mosque on Friday. He was killed in the explosion, which also injured around 25 people.

Misunderstander of Islam

Yet another convert to Islam misunderstands his new, peaceful religion. "Rapper turned Islamist preacher faces weapons charges," from The Local, April 18 (thanks to Twostellas):

Former Berlin rapper Deso Dogg, who quit music to become a radical Islamic preacher, is facing weapons charges after police raided his home and found ammunition.

A prominent member of the Salafist scene, 35-year-old “Deso Dogg” whose real name is Mamadou C. but is known in Islamist circles as Abou Maleeq, had stashed 16 rounds of ammunition at his home in March 2010....

Mamadou C. has previous convictions on drug charges. As Abou Maleeq, he has repeatedly made the headlines for openly praising violent Jihad, or holy war, and has long been in the sights of German intelligence agencies.

Mamadou C. was born in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg. He was a successful rap artist until last November when he announced he was quitting music to become a preacher.

UPDATE: He got seventy days in prison. (Thanks to Brian of London)

He apparently stole the book from the library and should faces charges for that. But I don't think that burning a book is in itself illegal in Britain. So he is actually facing sentencing for "religiously aggravated harassment." In British Newspeak, that means "doing something offensive to Muslims." It is virtually certain that if he had burned a Bible, he wouldn't be in the fix he is in today. And that makes this a Sharia Alert from the U.K.: "Man faces court for burning Koran," from the Lytham St Annes Express, April 18 (thanks to Twostellas):

A man who burned a Koran in front of city centre shoppers in Carlisle is due to be sentenced.

Andrew Ryan, 32, took out a copy of the holy book from Carlisle library and then set it on fire with a lighter as a crowd gathered to hear his protests.

Police arrested Ryan, of Summerhill, Carlisle, shortly after the lunchtime incident in English Street on January 19.

He pleaded guilty to religiously aggravated harassment and theft at an earlier hearing....

In the new modern, moderate, secular, democratic Egypt of the Arab Spring, Muslims in Qena are enraged and in their third day of protests because a Christian governor has been appointed for them. They say it's because the last Christian governor "left a negative impression of Christian officials," but coincidentally, Islamic law forbids non-Muslims to hold authority over Muslims. I am sure that has nothing, nothing, nothing whatsoever to do with these secular, democratic protests.

I tried to tell you. An update on this story: "Christian governor named in S.Egypt, protests flare," by Dina Zayed and Mohamed Abdellah for Reuters, April 17:

CAIRO (Reuters) - Muslims in southern Egypt protested for a third day on Sunday over the appointment of a Christian governor, saying his predecessor, also a Christian, had failed to solve their problems.

Thousands rallied outside the governor's office in Qena and prevented employees from entering, blocked highways leading to the town and sat on a railway line into the province demanding that the appointment of Emad Mikhail be reversed.

Egypt's interim military rulers, who took control when President Hosni Mubarak was ousted in a popular uprising, selected Mikhail last week as one of several new appointments to replace officials associated with his autocratic regime.

The protesters say Mikhail's predecessor, Magdy Ayoub, failed to stem sectarian violence and address poverty and unemployment, which grew during his tenure. Witnesses say some Coptic Christians joined the protest as well.

"The experience of a Coptic governor has failed. There is no objection to his Coptic identity but the previous governor left a negative impression of Christian officials," Youssef Ragab, a witness in Qena, told Reuters by telephone.

Residents say Ayoub was too weak in enforcing laws to quell rising tension between Muslims and Christians, fearing his background might imply sectarian allegiance.

"The protesters don't want any governor to favour one religious group over the other," Ragab said....

The protest took a more aggressive turn as some radical Salafi Islamists in the crowd demanded a Muslim official, saying "we want it Islamic." Some even threatened to kill Mikhail if he came to his office....

Many of the protesters showed no sign of budging until their demand for a different governor was met.

"We have been in front of the governor's office for three days and we will stay here for another three months or three years," one protester said by telephone.

This is the group that the abysmally clueless James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence described as "largely secular."

I tried to tell you. More on this story. "Brotherhood member stresses Islamic identity of Egypt revolution," from the AhlulBayt News Agency, April 18:

(AhlulBayt News Agency) - Member of Muslim Brotherhood's Guidance Bureau stressed supporting the revolution and adorning Egypt with Islam as the final aim of Muslim Brotherhood. Sa'ad el-Husseini, member of Egypt's largest political group said activities of the group aimed at developing organizations and institutes, supporting the revolution, realization of Islamic Movement and also ornamenting the country with Islam.

He said, "Muslim Brotherhood is trying to lead Egyptian society towards realization of Islamic identity by awakening people." He added that the realization of Islamic society would be a preface for building Islamic government based on freedom, cooperation and justice.

"Our freedom is dependent on our following Islam and inviting people to this religion," he said....

Founded in 1928, Muslim Brotherhood is the leading political organization in Egypt and actually the oldest Islamic political group in the world.

Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer to Visit Tampa Bay, Premiere Film, Report on Ground Zero Mosque and WTC 9/11 Memorial

PAMELA GELLER, leading opponent of the Ground Zero Mosque, Editor/Publisher of the widely popular and award-winning website www.AtlasShrugs.com

and

ROBERT SPENCER, New York Times bestselling author of nine books on Islam and jihad who has led seminars on those subjects for the US Army, the FBI, and the US intelligence community, and Director of www.JihadWatch.org, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, will screen and discuss their new documentary:

The Ground Zero Mosque: Second Wave of the 9/11 Attacks

and report the latest on the Ground Zero Mosque and the WTC 9/11 Memorial, which plans to honor the 19 jihadists and demean the memories and remains of the 9/11 victims and the first responders who lost their lives that day.

Sunday, May 1
Muvico Baywalk 20 & IMAX
151 2nd Avenue North
St. Petersburg, FL 33701
1:30 pm

Tickets cost $10 at the door or $9 online at http://groundzeromovieflorida.eventbrite.com.

You may contact groundzeromovieflorida@gmail.com for additional information.

Following on my publication yesterday of a young U.S.-based Muslim woman's desire to burn my book The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran, Jihad Watch reader Kamala has kindly alerted me to the fact that the same person, Rissa, also wants to burn another one of my books, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). But she will settle for it being placed in the non-fiction section, and I must say, that sounds like a great idea to me. Rissa, I am so pleased that we have found something we can agree on.

Rissa, I will get you a very generous bulk discount on copies of both The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), which you can either burn or place in the non-fiction sections of bookstores anywhere you choose.

And once again: I promise not to go ape and start murdering people at the United Nations or anywhere else if you burn my books (or even if you place them in the non-fiction sections of fine bookstores). But if I did, Rissa, the blood would be on your hands.

Great idea! Now how about a Muslims-only airline -- strictly for the "best of people" (Qur'an 3:110)? "Iran: Tehran announces new 'halal' Islamic internet," from AKI, April 15 (thanks to Nicholas):

(AKI) - Iranian authorities have announced they intend to launch an Islamic internet to counter the influence of the US-dominated World Wide Web.

"Iran will soon create an internet that conforms to Islamic principles, to improve its communication and trade links with the world," the head of economic affairs with the Iranian presidency, told state news agency Irna in an interview.

Ali Aqamohammadi explained that Iran's new network will operate in parallel to the World Wide Web and will replace it in Muslim countries in the region.

"We can describe it as a genuinely 'halal' network aimed at Muslims on a ethical and moral level.

"The aim of this network is to increase Iran and the Farsi language's presence in what has become the most important source of international communication," Aqamohammadi said.

No real surprise here. Nonetheless, this is an illuminating piece, despite hard-Left Politico's predictably contemptuous tone toward Kincaid. "Once shunned, Al-Jazeera has fans in Obama W.H.," by Keach Hagey and Byron Tau in Politico, April 17:

In the halls of American power, the Arab Spring has brought Al-Jazeera in from the cold.

Seven years after then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called the broadcaster’s reporting “vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable” and President George W. Bush joked about bombing it, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised it as “real news” in her recent Senate testimony.

Not only that, her staffers, as well as those of the CIA and the Obama White House, were attending the Congressional Correspondents’ Dinner as Al-Jazeera’s guests.

“They are a really important media entity, and we have a really great relationship with them,” said Dana Shell Smith, the State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for international media engagement, who speaks Arabic and has frequently appeared on the channel. “This administration has empowered those of us who actually do the communicating to be in a close relationship with Al-Jazeera. They understand that the relationship can’t consist of complaining to each other about the differences we have.”...

“The emir of Qatar come by the Oval Office today, and he owns Al-Jazeera basically,” Obama said in remarks recorded by CBS News’s Mark Knoller. “Pretty influential guy. He is a big booster, big promoter of democracy all throughout the Middle East. Reform, reform, reform. You’re seeing it on Al-Jazeera.”...

“It’s like Rip Van Winkle — you wake up and, my God, it’s a different world,” said Tony Burman, Al Jazeera English’s chief strategic adviser for the Americas. “Hosni Mubarak did in 18 days what I thought it would take two years to do.”...

Today, when he visits the White House, officials tell him they watch AJE to monitor the protests, and at the State Department, “when you go down the hallway, you see it on virtually every TV and computer.”...

Students and activists unaffiliated with the channel took up AJE’s campaign for cable and satellite carriage as a kind of political cause, organizing a national call-in day and setting up a Demand Al Jazeera Facebook page.

All of this scares the living daylights out of Cliff Kincaid, director of the Accuracy in Media Center for Investigative Reporting and president of America’s Survival, who organized a “Stop Al Jazeera”conference at the National Press Club in Washington earlier this month.

Kincaid said he organized the event — headlined by Pamela Geller, the blogger best known for breathing life into the so-called ground zero mosque story — in part, to counter the campaign to get AJE wider distribution throughout the U.S. and in part, to put pressure on Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) to include an investigation into Al-Jazeera as part of his House Homeland Security Committee hearings on homegrown Muslim radicalization.

“To Comcast, and other cable and satellite providers, we say, do not expand Al-Jazeera throughout the U.S. Otherwise you will increase the chances of Americans being killed by those manipulated by ‘Jihad TV,’ the terrorist network, and you, Comcast, will have blood on your hands,” Kincaid told an audience of about 30 at the press club.

Kincaid pointed to a statement by Judea Pearl, father of the slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who called Al-Jazeera “the most powerful voice of the Muslim Brotherhood.”...

So far, neither Comcast nor King’s office has gotten back to Kincaid on his requests. A Comcast spokeswoman told POLITICO only, “We do not have a carriage agreement with Al Jazeera English,” though AJE programming does air on Comcast in the Washington market through MHz Networks.

Kincaid said he met with King and Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) seeking an investigation into, among other things, “the activities of foreign propaganda channels Al-Jazeera, Russia Today television and Iranian Press TV on American soil.”...

Even Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.), the one Republican who was willing to speak to his concerns about AJE’s possible expansion in the U.S., framed his fears in the conditional.

“Dr. Broun has misgivings about an increased presence of Al Jazeera English in the United States,” his spokeswoman, Meredith Griffanti, told POLITICO. “If Al Jazeera English hopes to establish itself more so on American soil, it must prove to the United States that their intentions are primarily improving our relations with the Middle East — rather than promoting anti-American rhetoric.”

Al-Jazeera’s brand problems in the U.S. were set in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, when the Arabic channel owned by the Qatari government ran video tapes of Osama bin Laden before anyone else got them, and its critical coverage of the Iraq War made it deeply unpopular with the Pentagon.

By 2005, the Bush administration’s displeasure with Al-Jazeera was so intense that it was straining the U.S.’s relationship with Qatar, an important ally in the region, and Qatari officials were considering selling off the station, The New York Times reported.

That same year, Qatar hired Barbour Griffith & Rogers, the lobbying and public relations firm founded by Haley Barbour, on a $300,000 contract to improve relations with the Bush administration, according to O‘Dwyer’s PR Daily.

A person familiar with the Qatar contact confirmed to POLITICO that BGR and Al-Jazeera have a long-standing relationship, and that the network embarked on a PR push during the latter half of the Bush administration.

“The PR campaign, to a certain degree, was successful,” said Suhail Khan, who served in the White House Office of Public Liaison during the Bush administration. “They just began booking Republican guests.”...

“There has been a switch on the perception of Al Jazeera Arabic, simply because right now, the U.S. and Al Jazeera Arabic are more aligned in backing the democracy movements,” said Marc Lynch, associate professor of political science and international affairs at The George Washington University and blogger at Foreign Policy, who was also at the forum. “It’s not like Al-Jazeera or the U.S. have changed that much. The issues have changed.”

The occupant of the White House has changed.

I tried to tell you. "Muslim Brotherhood Leaders: We Will Implement Sharia Law in Egypt," from Almasry Alyoum via AINA, April 17 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Mahmoud Ezzat, the Muslim Brotherhood's deputy Supreme Guide, said in a forum held in the Cairo district of Imbaba on Thursday that the group wants to establish an Islamic state after it achieves widespread popularity through its Freedom and Justice Party. Meanwhile, Brotherhood leader Saad al-Husseiny, said at the forum that the group aims to apply Islamic legislation and establish Islamic rule. His remarks rattled the leaders of several political parties, who said the statements, which were at odds with the concept of a civil state, would worry liberals.

The Coptic Orthodox Church decided to suspend its dialogue with the group after additional Brotherhood leaders said it was seeking to implement Islamic Sharia and declare Egypt an Islamic state, church sources said. The sources said the Brotherhood is trampling over the principles of equality and citizenship, and that its rhetoric changed after the 25 January revolution to adopt the language of the toppled regime.

Al-Masry Al-Youm has learned that as a result of the controversy, the church abandoned its intention to invite the group's leaders to attend Easter celebrations.

Anba Bassanti, bishop of Helwan and Maasara, gave church head Pope Shenouda III the prerogative to respond and declined to comment on the Brotherhood leaders' remarks.

Meanwhile, Abdel Maseeh Baseet, the pastor of the Church of Saint Marie in Mostorod, said he was unsurprised to hear the statements, which he believes represents the Brotherhood's true intentions. "This way of thinking is rejected both locally and internationally. The world is not ready for a Taliban-style state," he said.

The Coalition of Revolution Youth described the remarks as a step backward, saying it belies the group's previous statements that it will establish a civil state, while Khaled al-Sayyed, a member of the coalition, called on the group to apologize to the nation for the statements.

Mostafa al-Tawil, acting president of the Wafd Party, said the statements are intended to prepare the people for religious rule. He added that Egyptians will respond when they vote in the upcoming elections.

The Nasserist and Democratic Front parties expressed similar positions.

The statements also elicited angry responses from within the group itself. Mohamed Habib, former deputy Supreme Guide, said the timing is wrong for a discussion of these matters.

Brotherhood leader Hamdi Hassan defended the statements, saying they are not new, but that the controversy arises from the inaccuracy of press reports and the improper understanding of Islamic law....

Of course. Nothing is more misunderstood in this world than Islamic law.

Several years ago we saw Islamic supremacist thugs target women who weren't wearing hijab in Iraq. Now this Sharia intimidation has come to London. "'Wear a headscarf or we will kill you': How the 'London Taliban' is targeting women and gays in bid to impose sharia law," from the Daily Mail, April 17 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Women who do not wear headscarves are being threatened with violence and even death by Islamic extremists intent on imposing sharia law on parts of Britain, it was claimed today.

Other targets of the 'Talibanesque thugs', being investigated by police in the Tower Hamlets area of London, include homosexuals.

Stickers have been plastered on public walls stating: 'Gay free zone. Verily Allah is severe in punishment'.

Posters for H&M which feature women in bikinis and a racy poster for a Bollywood film have been defaced.

It is believed Muslim extremists are behind a spate of attacks being investigated by police, according to the Sunday Times.

An Asian woman who works in a pharmacy in east London was told to dress more modestly and wear a veil or the shop would be boycotted.

When she went to the media to talk about the abuse she suffered, a man later entered the pharmacy and told her: 'If you keep doing these things, we are going to kill you'.

The 31-year-old, who is not a practising Muslim, said she has since been told to take holiday by the pharmacy owners and now fears she may lose her job.

She said: 'Why should I wear a hijab (headscarf) or burqa? I haven't done anything wrong.'...

"The Assyrian Genocide: a Product of Ottoman Jihad" is a moving and informative lecture by Sabri Atman, the founder and director of the Assyrian Genocide and Research Center, Seyfo Center. From AINA, April 17:

Ladies and Gentlemen

I belong to the Seyfo Center. 95 years after the genocide, Seyfo or Sepa has become a topical issue in the international arena and it is making headlines. It is now becoming a salient point in international political agendas. Until recently only the Armenian aspect of the genocide was known and most people were not aware that the entire Christian population of the then Ottoman Empire was subjected and suffered under the same genocidal policies of the Young Turks. This is a recognisable difference that I am talking about: it is the recognition and inclusion of the Assyrian and Greek genocide as part of the earlier known Armenian genocide. However, this genocide is yet to be called by its proper name, "Seyfo," in which Western Assyrian dialect it means "the sword."

Seyfo was carried out in a true jihadist strategy, ethnically annihilating all the non-Muslim citizens living under the Ottoman occupation, with the objective of homogenizing Turkey with a notion of creating 'one-Nation' and 'one-Religion.' Most of the victims were killed by swords and it is precisely due to this fact that this genocide is known among our people as "Seyfo." This is how it was known by its victims, and this is how they passed it on to us with their eye-witness accounts which have become part and parcel of our collective memory.

I would also like to iterate certain beliefs of mine to avoid any confusion. My knowledge on the subject, which is the Assyrian Genocide, is after all not unlimited, but I was born in Turkey, Turkish language is one of the ten languages I speak, and I know the Turkish policy very well and the reality of the Turkish state. The Assyrian Genocide was organized by the Ottoman Turks, and this is the reason I speak mostly about Assyrians and Turkey. This is not because my people from Urmi, Iraq and the rest of the world are less important to me. This is absolutely not the case. What is happening to our people in today's Iraq is terrible. I am very grateful for the efforts of the Assyrian Aid Society and similar organizations in providing aid to our people in Iraq and making their voices heard in America and the rest of the civilized world.

Dear Friends,

On September 11th 2001, the world witnessed a severe tragedy in their own backyard. In a very short time all our lives where changed when we saw the monumental World Trade Center buildings destroyed. Nearly three thousand people lost their lives. The scenes of September 11th are still vivid in our memory. The engulfing flames were hellish, the clouds of the buildings collapsing were Hiroshima-like. The images of people jumping out of the 33rd floor are forever disturbing. The idea that people who went to work that day on a normal morning were never going to return to their husbands, wives, and children touched all our hearts. This was a severe and a painful tragedy, which should never be forgotten. As life goes on and close to ten years will have passed, the active memory is still going on. However, there is one consolation for those who lost their relatives and loved ones. They have a resting place for those lost loved ones, which now has been transformed to a memorial of flowers, candles, and pictures, never letting the world forget the tragedy that occurred there. Furthermore, some of those who were responsible for the call of jihad (which means the holy war for Islam) have been punished.

That is, unfortunately, not altogether accurate: in reality, the 9/11 family members are now facing the construction of a memorial seven stories underground that will turn the remains of their loved ones into a tourist attraction. But of course this is not his main point.

We Assyrians as a people have been punished more. Our perfect little world has been changed forever. Our children's history books have been rewritten. We are not in them. The world tragedy that took place ninety-five years ago is not in our history books! Across the globe, in another part of the world, this tragedy's painful consequences are still being felt. The word jihad is a familiar word that is not new to Assyrians, Armenians and Greeks. On November 14, 1914 there was a decision to call for jihad, not different from the decision which was called for on the American public and the people of New York. This decision of jihad was preached and read in all of the mosques, while the world stood still watching. As a result, in 1915 the crime of Genocide was committed in Turkey, against the Christians, namely, the Assyrians, the Armenians, and the Greeks. This was the first large genocide of the 20th century, in which not 3 thousand people perished but more than 2 million young-old, men and women, boys and girls were killed. If you divide the number 2 million by 3 thousand, which is the number of those who lost their lives in New York, you will get the number 666. In other words the tragedy that was suffered by our people in 1915 was 666 times bigger numerically than the tragedy that was experienced in New York. No loss of life large or small should be taken for granted, and all losses should always be remembered. Unfortunately, those who watched our people being massacred 95 years ago continue to stand still. Not enough action has been taken, and Turkey, continues to deny that the crime of genocide was ever committed.

The Assyrian Genocide is the unknown genocide of the 20th century. The tragedy of systematic cleansing by the Ottoman Empire of the Christian minorities living under their occupation included the Assyrians, the Armenians, and the Greeks.

Why do I persist in the task of recognition of the Assyrian Genocide? Many non-Assyrians ask me, "Why do you persist on this cause? The past is the past. Let the dead rest." I say to them, "The Assyrians were killed and displaced during the Genocide; I will never rest until they have received their due justice." Assyrians, like me, are forever tied to our bitter past and the genocide committed upon our people by the Young Turks during the First World War. As Assyrians, it is our responsibility that the descendants of the old Ottoman Empire represented today by modern and "secular" Turkey recognize the atrocities of its past, and ensure that such crimes will never happen again.

In addition, my response to them is, that the past shapes our future and to progress you must learn from the past....

There is much, much more. Be sure to read it all.

The crescent moon is the symbol of Islam because it is forever growing, expanding, on the increase. "Top imam ‘calls for crescent on Russia's crest,’" from Agence France-Presse, April 15 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

A top Muslim cleric called Friday for a crescent moon to be added to Russia's double-headed eagle coat of arms to represent the country's multi-million-strong Muslim population.

"We are asking for one of the heads to be topped with a crescent moon and the other to be topped with a Russian Orthodox cross," Talgat Tadzhuddin told the Moskovskiye Novosti daily in an interview.

"All the crowns on the coat of arms – two on the heads of the eagles and one above them in the middle – are topped by crosses. But Russia has 20 million Muslims. That's 18 percent of the population," he said in an interview.

The imam, who heads the Central Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Russia, a major regional association, said he sent the proposal to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and showed a sketch to President Dmitry Medvedev.

Most of Russia's Muslims live in historically Muslim regions, such as the North Caucasus, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, but there is also a huge swell of immigrants from Muslim ex-Soviet states to large cities....

"Extremist views grew more vociferous as voices for basic human rights and tolerance became more isolated in face of violence and intimidation." Europe, behold your future. "Hindus, Sikhs may face worse times in future: report," from Indian Express, April 15 (thanks to Chris):

Islamabad : The previous year was a bad one for Pakistan's minority communities including Muslims of various sects, Sikhs and Hindus due to threat to their lives by militants, according to a new report which suggested even worse times ahead.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan's report said 418 Muslims of various sects were killed in terror attacks and about 25 per cent of Sikh families in the Orakzai tribal area were forced to leave their homes due to threats from Taliban.

It said 500 Hindu families from Balochistan province migrated to India due to threats to their lives and security.

The "State of Human Rights in 2010" report, which detailed attacks on the minorities, said: "All indications suggest that there are even worse times ahead."

The report said 418 people were killed in violence against different minority Muslim sects while suicide attacks on Muslims injured 628 people, including Shias.

Sikhs living in Pakistan's northwestern areas for centuries had to face trying times after the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan asked them to pay 'jiziya' (a religious tax) or leave the area.

Around 25 of the 102 Sikh families living in Orakzai Agency were forced to flee their homes.

They were able to return after the military carried out an operation against the militants.

A total of 500 Hindu families from Balochistan in southwest Pakistan migrated to India because of threats to their lives and security, the report said.

According to Balochistan's director of the Federal Human Rights Ministry, at least 27 Hindu families from the province had sought asylum in India because of threats, It added.

The minority Ahmedi sect, which was declared non-Muslim through a constitutional amendment in 1974, lost 99 members to faith-based violence, the report said.

The report further said 64 people were charged under the controversial blasphemy law in 2010 and many of them were imprisoned.

A Muslim and two Christian men accused of blasphemy were killed in police custody, it said.

Highlighting the abuses of the rights of minority communities, the report said there had been few positive developments with regard to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

"Extremist views grew more vociferous as voices for basic human rights and tolerance became more isolated in face of violence and intimidation," the report noted....

Moderation. "Muslim Council: women cannot debate wearing veil," by Andrew Gilligan in the Telegraph, April 16 (thanks to Paul):

The body which claims to be the voice of Britain's Muslims has told women that wearing the veil is "not open to debate".

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said that not covering the face is a "shortcoming" and suggested that any Muslims who advocate being uncovered could be guilty of rejecting Islam.

In a statement published on its website the MCB, warns: "We advise all Muslims to exercise extreme caution on this issue, since denying any part of Islam may lead to disbelief.

"Not practising something enjoined by Allah and his Messenger… is a shortcoming. Denying it is much more serious."

The statement quotes from the Koran: "It is not for a believer, man or woman, that they should have any option in their decision when Allah and his Messenger have decreed a matter."...

"There is no case for a French-style ban in the UK and virtually no serious person supports it," said Haras Rafiq, of the moderate Muslim think-tank, Centri.

"But by this statement, effectively suggesting that the veil is an obligation, the MCB have put themselves at the opposite extreme of the spectrum."

The statement is signed by the MCB's then secretary-general, Mohammad Abdul Bari, and his deputy, Daud Abdullah. It was published in the wake of an earlier controversy about the niqab but passed without notice.

It remains available on the MCB website as a statement of policy.

Other signatories of the statement include Imran Waheed, spokesman of the extremist group Hizb ut Tahrir and several other extremists including Haitham al-Haddad, who has denounced music as a "prohibited and fake message of love and peace". All 27 signatories, who describe themselves as "Islamic groups and scholars," are male.

Dr Bari stepped down as secretary-general of the MCB last year, but remains chairman of the hardline East London Mosque, whose chief imam, Abdul Qayum, also signed the statement.

Dr Bari is also a former president of the fundamentalist Islamic Forum of Europe, which controls the mosque and which advocates a sharia state in Europe.

The MCB received significant funding under the previous government and was seen as the main representative voice of Britain's estimated 2.8 million Muslims but has not received any official money since February 2010....

They're with the Communist PFLP, which is, of course, abetting the Palestinian jihad. "IDF: 2 Palestinians arrested in Fogel family massacre," by Yaakov Lappin in the Jerusalem Post, April 17 (thanks to Carl in Jerusalem):

Palestinian youths from Awarta "saw children sleeping in Fogel home," snuck in and stabbed them to death; suspects were affiliated with PFLP terror group, admitted to crime but showed no remorse. Two Palestinian youths from the village of Awarta were arrested in recent days for the brutal slaying of five members of the Fogel family in their Itamar home last month, the IDF and Shin Bet said on Sunday following the lifting of a media ban on the investigation.

The suspects have been named as Hakim Maazan Niad Awad, an 18-year-old high school student, and Amjad Mahmud Fauzi Awad, 19, both from the West Bank village of Awarta, located 2 kilometers south of the settlement of Itamar.

The suspects have confessed to the stabbings and reenacted their acts, security forces said on Sunday. According to Army Radio, they did not express remorse for their crimes.

They are affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLFP) terror group, and received significant assistance from family members and friends after the attack, security forces added.

The suspects planned the stabbings days ahead of time. On the night of March 11, after unsuccessful attempts to obtain firearms from a local PFLP representative in their village, the two set out towards Itamar on foot armed with knives, a wirecutter, and masks to cover their faces.

After a kilometer, they cut a wire fence around Itamar, climbed over a forest and a hilltop, and reached a row of homes.

The suspects at first entered a home adjacent to the Fogel residence, but found that nobody was home. They stole an M-16 rifle from the home, ammunition, and body armor, before walking on.

"They saw children sleeping in the home, and entered the Fogel family residence," the IDF said.

Immediately after entering the home, the youths set their knives on two young brothers sleeping in their beds, 4-year-old Elad and 11-year-old Yoav.

They then entered the parents' bedroom, where they launched a knife attack on Ehud and Ruth Fogel. The parents fought back, attempting to fend off the attackers, but died of their stab wounds during the struggle.

The two then left the house. One of the suspects returned and stabbed the three-month-old baby Hadas to death in her crib.

According to Israel Radio, Amjad said that he was unaware that there were two other children in the house, and that if he knew, he would have stabbed them as well....

Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz on Sunday expressed his condolences once again to the Fogel family after the announcement of the arrests.

Katz told Army Radio, "To those Palestinians who said 'it can't be one of us' [who committed the crime], well it turned out to be one of you."

Jihad Watch reader James sends me this gem from "riss's photos" at Plixi.com. I am thoroughly honored by Rissa's declaration, and invite her to go through with it; in fact, if she would like to burn copies of my book The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran in bulk, I will contact Regnery Publishing on Monday and see if I can get them for her at a special discount rate.

And I promise that if she does torch The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran, whether one copy or many, I will not riot, I will not kill any innocent people (or any guilty ones, for that matter), and I will not demand that her freedom of speech be curtailed. Rissa, you have my solemn word on all that.

Merriam-Webster online has no definition for "Islamophobia"! Why, it's...it's...an obvious case of, uh...what's that word again?

Here's a new job for Ibrahim "Honest Ibe" Hooper and his merry band of thugs at the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations: cry "Islamophobia" until Merriam-Webster picks up the trumped-up, politically manipulative, and substanceless word forthwith. Clearly the absence of a dictionary definition of the word is a sign of the all-pervasiveness of the concept itself, no?

Claire Berlinski writes about how the concept of "Islamophobia" was cooked up by a Muslim Brotherhood front group, the International Institute of Islamic Thought, in order to intimidate the ignorant and politically correct kuffar and make them too frightened to explore the ways in which Islamic jihadists and supremacists use the texts and teachings of Islam to justify violence and subjugation of unbelievers. And of course, among certain groups, it is working wonderfully well.

But Merriam-Webster's lack of a listing shows the newness of this coinage. I expect they'll hop to soon enough.

"War is deceit," Muhammad said, and "the attack came during a meeting between Afghan soldiers and ISAF mentors."

"Uniformed suicide bomber kills 9 at Afghan military base," from CNN, April 16:

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- A suicide bomber wearing an Afghan military uniform killed five foreign soldiers at a military base in eastern Afghanistan, the International Security Assistance Force said Saturday.

Four Afghan soldiers were also killed in the attack, a Defense Ministry spokesman said.

The attack happened at Forward Operating Base Gamberi in Laghman Province and was the worst in some time, the ISAF spokesman said.

He added the attack came during a meeting between Afghan soldiers and ISAF mentors.

The suicide bomber was wearing an Afghan National Army uniform when he detonated the explosives. The blast wounded eight more Afghan soldiers and four interpreters.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mojahed claimed 12 foreign soldiers and four Afghan military service members died in the attack. He said the bomber, Abdul Ghani, "joined the Afghan National Army a month ago in order to kill the invaders."

The ISAF spokesman said he was unable to provide further details about the attack and referred requests for more detailed information to the Afghan Ministry of Defense. The Laghman Province base is controlled by the Afghan National Security Forces, the spokesman said.

Gen. Zaher Azimi, a Ministry of Defense spokesman, said he wouldn't comment on the Taliban spokesman's claim.

Instead of handwringing about "Islamophobia," the UN and the governments of the West should be working toward a ban on Islamic blasphemy laws, on human rights grounds. But that, of course, will never happen as long as the Organization of the Islamic Conference remains in the driver's seat at the UN and no one has the guts to challenge it.

"Punjab, Muslims attack a Christian village," by Jibran Khan for Asia News, April 16 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

Gurjarnwala (AsiaNews) - Hundreds of Muslims attacked the Christian village of Khokarki this morning a few miles from the city of Gujranwala (Punjab), forcing its inhabitants to flee. According to AsiaNews sources, anonymous for security reasons, the attack took place following a dispute between Christian Mushtag gill and some local Muslims, who had accused the man and his son of blasphemy.

Mushtaq, 60, and his son, are accused of having desecrated the Koran. The police arrested them yesterday, after complaints of some Muslims who claim to have found torn pages of the Qu’ran in a bag hidden near the home of two Christians....

On 5 April in Chak Jhumra (Faisalab, Punjab), another Christian, Arif Masih, was arrested by police for allegedly ripping pages of the Qur’an. The Muslim community in the village took the defences of man, who is the victim of a personal vendetta for a matter related to land.

According to data from the National Commission for Justice and Peace of the Catholic Church (NCJP), between 1986 to August 2009 at least 964 people were charged with desecrating the Qur’an or defaming the Prophet Muhammad. Among these, 479 were Muslims, 119 Christians, 340 Ahmadis, 14 Hindus and 10 from other religions. It also provides a pretext for attacks, personal vendettas or extra-judicial killings: 33 in all, carried out by individuals or angry crowds.

War is deceit, Muhammad said. But the Canada Revenue Agency caught up with this shell game. "Former charity funded terror group: federal audit," by Chloé Fedio for The Star, April 15 (thanks to RV):

Nearly $15 million of Canadian charitable donations were sent overseas to groups the taxman has labelled terrorist organizations, according to a federal audit obtained by the Toronto Star.

The audit states that International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy Canada (IRFAN-Canada) used "deceptive fundraising" to support Hamas.

The Canada Revenue Agency announced its decision to revoke the status of the Mississauga-based charity last week. A lawyer for IRFAN-Canada said the charity has appealed the decision.

"Canada Revenue Agency's position is really built on a pillar of sand," said Naseer Syed.

However, a CRA report states that "IRFAN-Canada is an integral part of an international fundraising effort to support Hamas." Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by Canada, the U.S., the European Union and Israel.

Jihadists Without Borders:

IRFAN-Canada created promotional videos that the CRA said "demonize Israel, characterize the Arab-Israeli conflict as a religious war, appeal for all Arab and Muslim nations to join in the struggle against Israel and glorify martyrdom."

But Syed said the CRA overstated the political content.

"As the promotional videos feature the potential recipients of humanitarian aid - the needy families affected by poverty, disease and war - discussing the poverty in Gaza in the immediate postwar period, it is difficult to imagine that the videos would not contain some political content."

The decision to revoke the group's status comes after years of tax audits and litigation over its alleged ties to Hamas. An audit of the charity's 2002 fiscal year found that IRFAN-Canada "maintained partnerships" with organizations that have direct ties to Hamas.

The most recent audit, from Jan. 1, 2005 until Dec. 31, 2009, reveals that IRFAN-Canada gave $14.6 million to 15 organizations that have ties to Hamas.

They include the Gaza Ministry of Health, which the CRA said has been under Hamas control and direction since March 2006. Though Hamas does deliver social and humanitarian services, the CRA said those actions cannot be distinguished from the group's terrorist activities.

It is refreshing to see a Western entity not trying to project an imaginary compartmentalization of operations on a jihad terrorist outfit where there is none. Qur'an 9:60 details the acceptable uses of zakat, or charity, and contrary to Western expectations that charitable groups like the Red Cross are strictly non-combatant, zakat is also earmarked for those "fighting in the cause of Allah."

Syed said the charity helps people in need through local organizations and never knowingly dealt with Hamas.

Wink.

"The charity was trying to send a dialysis machine to Gaza," Syed said. "The issue is, how to you get aid to Palestinians, especially in Gaza? All the parties that we're dealing with are legal in their jurisdictions."

No kidding: Hamas is legal in Gaza.

A United Nations agency credited the charity for donating US$1.2 million for the construction of a new girls' school in the West Bank in 2009.

The CRA said IRFAN-Canada has damaged the integrity of the Canadian charity system. [...]

The audit also found that the charity failed to maintain proper records. The records the charity did provide for the audit period were often an "after-the-fact paper exercise" that showed it distributed $19 million in Canadian funds and $17 million in gifts-in-kind for projects outside Canada during that period.

The audit established that $13 million of the gifts-in-kind were transferred to organization with ties to Hamas.

Stockwell Day raised the charity's alleged link to Hamas in Parliament when he was an opposition MP in 2004. He asked the Liberal government to investigate.

Day referenced a Privy Council report sent to Prime Minister Jean Chretien in 2000 that listed Povrel Jerusalem Fund for Human Services (JFHS) as a Canadian group with links to terrorist organizations.

The audit suggests that JFHS and IRFAN-Canada were consolidated in 2001. under the leadership of Rasem Abdel-Majid. The report states the consolidation was concealed, "leading us to consider the strong possibility that this exercise was intended to circumvent the CRA's refusal to grant JFHS registration as a charity."

Syed said IRFAN-Canada was formed independently and later acquired some assets from JFHS.

Though the IRFAN-Canada is no longer a charity, it still operates as a not-for profit organization.

For the Muslim Brotherhood and kindred spirits, implementing discrimination against women and non-Muslims is not a "hijacking" of the revolution; it's a charter flight. And we're back to Square One: A democracy is only as good as the values that inform its participants.

The most dismal aspect of this story is that anyone is surprised that intolerance and discrimination rooted in Islamic texts and teachings are actually playing a role here. But those are the fruits of fantasy-based policy. "Clinton warns intolerance threatens Arab revolts," by Matthew Lee for the Associated Press, April 15:

BERLIN -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is warning that rising intolerance toward women and religious minorities threatens to hijack democratic transitions around the Arab world and spread violent extremism.

Clinton told an award ceremony in the German capital on Friday that she was disturbed by recent developments in post-revolt Egypt in which women and Coptic Christians were singled out for attacks and abuse. She said such incidents test the unity of pro-democracy demonstrators whose peaceful protests ousted Egypt's authoritarian president and could fracture the reform movement.

Clinton said she feared similar backsliding elsewhere in the Mideast and stressed it was critical for Egyptians and other Arabs whose nations are in the throes of change to resist intolerance and demand that their new leaders embrace open and inclusive governments.

I tried to tell you. Doesn't Mark Giuliano know that only greasy Islamophobes think that these were not wholly secular, pluralistic, democratic revolutions? "FBI Counter-Terror Official: Al Qaeda 'Thrives' After Dictators Fall," by Lee Ferran for ABC News, April 15 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

On the same day reports emerged of a new al Qaeda video that praised the revolutions sweeping the Arab world, one the U.S.'s top counter-terror officials warned the terror organization "thrives" in the political unrest that follows.

"The governments of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen have drastically changed in the last six months," FBI Assistant Director of Counter-Terrorism Mark Giuliano said Thursday. "They are now led by transitional or interim governments, military regimes, or democratic alliances with no established track record on counterterrorism efforts. Al Qaeda thrives in such conditions and countries of weak governance and political instability -- countries in which governments may be sympathetic to their campaign of violence."

Giuliano made the comments at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy just hours before the first reports emerged of the new al Qaeda video, which features separate appearances by al Qaeda's number two commander, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and American-born key commander in al Qaeda in the Arabian Penninsula (AQAP), Anwar al-Awlaki, each praising the recent uprisings. In the hour-plus long video, al-Zawahiri orders Muslims in Egypt to create an Islamic state there and calls for the Arab armies of the Middle East to intervene in Libya to oust dictator Moammar Gadhafi before "Western aid... turns into invasions."

If Guiliano is wary of Islamic militant influence in the uprisings, especially in Libya, he's is not alone. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed her fears the revolt in Libya would be exploited by terror groups at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting in early March....

So why are we aiding them?

An ominous sign of the continued turning of Turkey away from the West and toward the Islamic world. "Syria, Turkey sign security agreement focused," from IKJNews, April 14 (thanks to Joshua):

Syria and Turkey have approved a counter-insurgency accord. Officials said the CI agreement would enhance security cooperation between Ankara and Damascus. They said the accord would focus on the Kurdish Workers Party, which operates in Iraq, Syria and Turkey. "This will formalize procedures that have already been taking place between our two countries," a Turkish official said.

Officials said the CI agreement would pave the way for the extradition of PKK members to either Syria and Turkey. They said several of the Kurdish insurgents captured by Turkey over the last year were identified as Syrian citizens or residents.

Another element of the accord was the establishment of a so-called hotline between the security establishments of Damascus and Ankara. They said one hotline has already been operating between the offices of the military chiefs of both countries....

He showed no remorse. An update on this story. "Almaleki Receives 34-Year Sentence for Murder, Aggravated Assault," from MyFoxPhoenix.com, April 15 (thanks to Block Ness):

PHOENIX - An Iraqi immigrant has been sentenced to 34 1/2 years in an Arizona prison for running over his daughter because she became too Westernized.

Faleh Hassan Almaleki was convicted of second-degree murder in the October 2009 death of his 20-year-old daughter, Noor Almaleki.

A jury also found the 50-year-old guilty of aggravated assault for running over the mother of Noor's boyfriend and two counts of leaving the scene of an accident.

A Maricopa County Superior Court judge told Almaleki that forgiveness is the core of all religion and was struck by his lack of remorse for the killing.

Police say Almaleki slammed his Jeep into his daughter and Amal Khalaf, who lived and was at Friday's sentencing.

Noor was in a coma for two weeks before she died from her injuries.

In court Friday, Almaleki, through a translator, apologized for the pain he caused. "I'm sorry Noor, I apologize for Amal."

Asking for forgiveness, Almaleki told the judge he was sorry for killing his daughter and severely injuring the mother of Noor's boyfriend.

But the judge said he didn't see true remorse and compared the Iraqi immigrant to Saddam Hussein.

Prosecutors say Almaleki ran down his daughter to restore honor to his family, guided by his religious beliefs, but the judge said the purpose of religion is compassion and forgiveness.

He didn't give Almaleki the maximum sentence because he said if Noor was still alive, she would ask for mercy for her father....

Maybe she would, but this still demonstrates a certain hesitation to send a clear signal that honor killing is not going to be tolerated in the West.

Almaleki will not be eligible for parole, meaning he won't be a free man until he's almost 85-years-old.

They accused the shoppers of being "atheists," which was enough to declare them fair game to be physically attacked. "Islamists attack Jordan police with swords, daggers," by Musa Hattar for AFP, April 15:

AMMAN — Islamist protesters armed with swords, daggers and clubs attacked police in the city of Zarqa on Friday, wounding 51 of them, as 32 more suffered from tear gas inhalation, Jordan's police chief said.

Lieutenant General Hussein Majali told a news conference that "51 policemen, including senior officers, were stabbed with knives, beaten with bats or hit with sharp tools, while 32 other policemen were treated for tear gas inhalation."

He said "eight civilians were also hurt when police fired tear gas and tried to stop Islamist Salafist demonstrators from attacking shoppers in Zarqa," adding that 17 protesters were arrested and that police are searching for more.

"It was clear that the demonstrators had plans to clash with police. They carried swords and daggers and were provocative, seeking to drag police into a bloody confrontation."

Earlier, police spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Mohammad Khatib told AFP six officers stabbed in the clashes were "in serious condition."

He said police "had to fire tear gas after a group of Islamist Salafists attacked some citizens... accusing them of being atheists."

The Salafists have been demonstrating for several weeks to demand the release of 90 Islamist prisoners, including Abu Mohammed al-Maqdessi, the one-time mentor of slain Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The dismantling of Iraq's Saddam-era secular society, and the implementation of Islamic law, continues. Sharia Alert from Iraq: "Iraqi MP calls on Parliament to set law on fighting alcohols," from Aswat Al Iraq, April 16 (thanks to Nicholas):

BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: The Legislature for the Iraqi Parliament’s Health Committee, Ammar Tu’ma, has called on the Parliament on Saturday to set a law for fighting alcohols, to be presented with the law on fighting smoking.

“I demand the setting out of a draft-law for fighting alcohols, to be presented with the draft-law for fighting smoking,” Tu’ma said in a statement, copy of which was received by Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

Tu’ma justified his proposal saying that “it coincides with the constitutional article that calls for the protection of the Islamic identity of the Iraqi people.”...

"They claimed that the Christian is a missionary and has violated the law." Islamic Tolerance Alert from modern, moderate Uzbekistan: "Tashkent, punishes those who lend or gift Bibles to children," from Asia News, April 16 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

Tashkent (AsiaNews/F18) - Beatings and a strong penalty for the Christian Baptist Galina Shemetova from Tashkent who gave a Bible "for children" to a colleague. Meanwhile, the fear of the Jasmine Revolution sees authorities to harass three Muslim clerics.

In the summer of 2010 Shemetova gave the book to a colleague while they were at the Tashkent subway. For this she was denounced for "proselytism", which is considered a serious offense.

Later April 1, the woman on, went to hospital for treatment, saying she had an accident at work. A witness told Forum 18 agency that "the underground police hit the woman on the head and dragged her by the hair to their car". The local police, contacted by F18, denies any aggression, but recognizes that they stopped Shemetova who began to "call for help for no reason". They claimed that the Christian is a missionary and has violated the law. "

F18 found that there will be no investigations and recalls that the UN Committee against Torture denounces that violence and torture are "normal" in the country.

Also on 1 April, the Court of Tashkent ordered the Shemenova to pay a fine of 2,486,750 som, amounting to 1015 euro, 50 times the average monthly wage, saying she had made a clear attempt to proselytize.

The incident is not isolated. In the central region of Navoi , theBaptist Church Zarafshan, registered on August 15 decided to allocate 400 thousand som (160 euro) to the local children's home, called "Happiness." After that the Church sent its quarterly financial statement to authorities, on March 12 2011 the police raided its premises and the pastor received a written "warning" from the local prosecutor Khudayberdy Norkobilov for breach of an administrative rule, without any further explanation....

A powerful speech by Jamie Glazov of FrontPage magazine on the double victimization of Muslim women in the West.

The previous governor of Qina was also a Christian, but they're not about to allow any more of those Mubarak-era antics in the brand-spankin'-new, post-revolutionary Egypt. The Salafists leading this protest may yet find friends in high places, as well: The Muslim Brotherhood has already stated its own opposition to women and Copts as candidates for president.

"Conservative Muslims protest against Christian governor in Egypt," from Deutsche Presse-Agentur, April 15 (via MonstersandCritics):

Cairo - Thousands of conservative Muslims protested in the southern Egyptian province of Qina Friday against the appointment of a new Christian governor.

One may be understandably perturbed by the possibly careless use of the word "conservative," as we often see in such reports, as if "conservatism" itself, anywhere and everywhere, must be the root of the problem.

Witnesses said the protesters, mostly observers of the conservative Islamic Salafist movement, threatened to bar Emad Mikhail, the new governor, from entering the province.

The previous governor, whom Mikhail will replace, was also Christian.

Qina has seen sectarian strife in the past. Late last year, dozens of Christians and Muslims were arrested in the province after nearly a dozen homes were burnt in clashes between members of the two religions.

Residents said fighting erupted last year when it was discovered that a Coptic Christian man was dating a Muslim woman from the same southern town.

According to the government, Copts are the largest minority in Egypt, comprising about 10 per cent of the 80.5 million citizens, though Christian groups estimate they have a higher percentage of the population.

The video doesn't lie. The effort to derail Oren's speech is clearly pre-coordinated, and the participants are not only the carefully placed and timed individuals causing disruptions, but the very loud cheering section that responds to each incident. This was a large group effort that required extensive planning in advance. Or conspiring, if you will.

Grasping at straws to keep the case from moving forward, the defendants now object to their case being referred to as the "UCI Muslim Case," which they say indicates "religious bias." One problem: Which student group was found to be behind the disruption, and suspended for a time for their behavior? The Muslim Student Union of the University of California at Irvine. Now, apparently, a simple paraphrase is an indicator of Islamophobia.

An update on this story. "'Irvine 11' plead not guilty to disrupting UCI speech," by Vik Jolly for the OC Register, April 15:

SANTA ANA – Eleven current and former university students pleaded not guilty Friday to misdemeanor charges for disrupting the speech of an Israeli diplomat at UC Irvine last year.

Seven of the so-called "Irvine 11" defendants were present for the arraignment, and each answered "Not guilty, your honor," to the charges. The other four entered their pleas through their defense attorneys.

Last month, the defendants filed a motion asking Orange County Superior Court Judge Peter J. Wilson to remove the Orange County District Attorney's Office from the case, saying prosecutors illegally issued subpoenas and referred to the case internally as the "UCI Muslim Case," a term they say is evidence of "religious bias" against them.

Prosecutors say the defendants have failed, among other things, to support their motion with affidavits from witnesses competent to testify to its facts, and must demonstrate that the "conflict is so severe that it is unlikely" they will receive fair treatment. They add that the defendants' claims of prosecutorial misconduct are unsubstantiated and untrue.

Use of the term "UCI Muslim Case" in the heading in an internal district attorney e-mail does not show bias against Muslims as defendants, prosecutors wrote in their opposition papers.

"The term UCI Muslim is not a disparaging or derogatory term," the opposition papers say.

Wilson set June 17 as the date to hear arguments on the motion to recuse the district attorney from the case. Before that happens, the judge on May 13 will hear arguments and could rule on whether grand jury transcripts from the investigation that led to charges against the students should remain sealed.

As in the past, supporters of the students waited outside the court and stood by defense attorneys, who held a news conference following the afternoon court hearing.

The students were charged in February with conspiring to disrupt a speech, capping the grand jury investigation. The 11 were arrested, cited and released in the Feb. 8, 2010, incident during the UCI talk by Michael Oren, the Israeli Ambassador to the U.S.

One of the defendants has since graduated, while the others are still in school, either at UCI or UC Riverside.

Each is charged with one misdemeanor count of conspiracy to disturb a meeting and one misdemeanor count of the disturbance of a meeting. If convicted, each faces a sentence that could include probation with community service or fines or up to six months in jail.

One of the resolution's sponsors notes that "continued use of the report by the U.N. shows a bias against Israel." It would be an uphill battle to get the U.N. to admit 2 + 2 ≠ 5 when the OIC, which initiated the report, insists it is so. An update on this story. "US Senate wants UN to retract report accusing Israel of war crimes after author backtracks," from the Associated Press, April 15:

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate is calling on the U.N. Human Rights Council to revoke a report that accused Israel of war crimes after the study's author retracted his conclusions.

In a unanimous vote late Thursday, the Senate backed a nonbinding resolution sponsored by Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat, and Republican James Risch. pressing for the council to rescind the report. Richard Goldstone, who wrote the study, has backtracked on his claims.

The Senate resolution also urges Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to deal with the damage to Israel's reputation caused by the report.

Gillibrand said Goldstone's admission of error was not enough to undo the damage and libel against Israel and pressed for the Council to act. Risch said continued use of the report by the U.N. shows a bias against Israel.

Hamid Karzai came out in favor of such a proposal this past December, and Pakistan has expressed its approval in the report below. This sets the stage for the Taliban to follow the model of Hamas and Hizballah, and to seek legitimacy under the guise of allegedly compartmentalized operations.

It also increases the likelihood of fools' errands of "engagement" (so often a euphemism for doing business with thugs) by willing dupes in the West who hope that by dealing with the side of the group they like -- "just" the political wing, they suppose -- they can bolster it enough to split it off from the one they don't, rather than disastrously lending support and credibility to the whole enterprise.

And in this case, the Taliban would have a forward operating base on Europe's doorstep, so much the worse if Turkey is admitted to the EU. "'Turkey in talks to open Taliban office in Istanbul'," from Reuters, April 15:

ANKARA - Turkey is working to open a political office for the Taliban in Istanbul, a close aide to Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was quoted as saying on Friday, the first explicit comments on the plan.

"It's being negotiated right now," Ibrahim Kalin told the Hurriyet daily, adding the office would be located in Turkey's largest city, Istanbul.

Turkey, which has hosted talks aimed at building trust between Pakistan and Afghanistan, has said before that it is open to the establishment of a diplomatic presence for the Taliban to help with talks to end the war in Afghanistan.

A Pakistani official, speaking during a visit by Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari to Ankara on Thursday, told Reuters Pakistan would back such a plan.

Analysts say that any solution to the Afghan conflict would probably require the support of Pakistan.

The proposal first surfaced during a trilateral summit in December between Turkey, Afghanistan and Pakistan in Istanbul, in which Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Kabul would welcome any offer by Turkey meant to facilitate talks with the Taliban.

Afghanistan's former president, Burhanuddin Rabbani, who leads a council charged with starting peace talks with Taliban-led insurgents, held talks with Turkish government officials in Turkey in February.

But Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister who came second behind Hamid Karzai in Afghan presidential elections in 2009, told Hurriyet that opening an office for the Taliban would help "legalize a terrorist organization"....

Selective as it is about who is "innocent" (school buses full of Israeli children are right out), Hamas' moral objection to the killing of Vittorio Arrigoni boils down to "darn it, this was one of our guys." After their initial statement, Hamas has evidently decided upon further deliberation that it is more profitable, however far-fetched, to blame Israel than fellow Muslims. Hence the U-turn in assigning blame.

An update on this story. "Hamas claims Israel killed Italian to stop Gaza flotilla," from the Jerusalem Post, April 15:

Radical Islamic terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip distanced themselves from the kidnapping and murder of Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni, who was found dead early Friday morning in the Strip.

Among the groups who disclaimed the attack was Tawhid wal-Jihad, the al-Qaida-linked group that had initially said it was holding the Italian national and said they would only release him if their own leader, recently arrested by Hamas, was released, Gaza-based newspaper Palestine Today reported.

Hamas also condemned the killing, saying that it was a shameful act, contrary to the tradition of the Palestinian people. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said that the "goal of this depraved band of outlaws was to spread chaos and anarchy in the Gaza Strip, a desperate attempt to strike at the stable security situation."

He added that the kidnapping and murder of Arrigoni was intended to prevent the next flotilla headed to the Gaza Strip, expected to depart next month. Barhoum explained that he believed the murder was meant to dissuade other foreign activists from arriving in the Strip.

Accordingly, Hamas accused Israel of being behind the attack, noting that Arrigoni had often spoken out against Israeli policies in Gaza, going so far as to compare what he called "Israeli crimes against Palestinians" to Nazi crimes. Additionally, he was twice arrested by Israeli authorities.

Security personnel in the Gaza Strip found Arrigoni's body in an abandoned house in the Gaza Strip following his abduction by terrorists, a Hamas official said on Friday.

Two men were arrested and others were being sought in the killing of Vittorio Arrigoni, the Hamas official added.

A Jihadist Salafi group in Gaza aligned with al-Qaida had threatened on Thursday to execute Arrigoni by 5 p.m. local time (2 p.m. GMT) unless their leader, arrested by Hamas last month, was freed.

No riots. No U.N. compounds stormed and staff members hunted down and murdered. No girls' schools vandalized. No mosques burned. No calls for war or death to the country where it happened (and Israel). No collective punishment of Muslims for the actions of one Muslim on the streets of Lahore.

That's how it's done, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Now, you give it a try. "Muslim Desecrates Bible in Pakistan to 'Avenge' Quran Burning," by Asher John for the Christan Post, April 9:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – A 24-year-old Muslim man desecrated the Bible at the gates of Saint Anthony’s Catholic Church in Lahore on Friday in order to “avenge” extremist American preacher Terry Jones’ desecration of the Quran in Florida last month.

Police arrested the man, identified as Akhtar Hussain, a resident of the neighboring district of Kasur, and registered a case against him under Section 295-A of the Pakistan Penal Code.

Section 295-A states: “Whoever, with deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the 'religious feelings of any class of the citizens of Pakistan, by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representations insults the religion or the religious beliefs of that class, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, or with fine, or with both.”

According to police sources, Hussain had first tried to force entry into the church where a large number of Christians were attending a special mass, whereupon security guards at the gates stopped him and asked for identification.

The sources told The Christian Post that the guards denied Hussain entry into the church when he told them his name, and the church administration asked him why he wanted to go into the church. Hussain told them that he wanted to burn the Bible in the church just as Terry Jones and his fellow preacher Wayne Sapp had conducted a trial of the Quran in their church. The Muslim man then suddenly took out the Christian holy book he had hidden inside his clothes and proceeded to tear it apart.

The guards captured Hussain and called the police, who arrested him along with the evidence. Senior police official Umer Saeed said the man was in stable mental condition and had told police investigators he was “taking revenge” from the Christians for setting the Koran on fire. He said he had been “very tense” since he heard the news of the sacrilege and wanted to do something to get even.

Talking to The Christian Post about the incident, Christian leaders and civil society activists condemned the incident, urging tolerance, respect and acceptance for people belonging to all faiths.

Asif Aqeel, director of Lahore-based Christian non-government organization Community Development Initiative, said, “Christians are told to turn the other cheek. They are also told not to take revenge rather pray for their enemies. The act of burning the Quran by Terry Jones and Wayne Sapp has no biblical basis and does not represent the teachings of the Christian faith. The Christians of Pakistan are facing the repercussions of their heinous act.”

He said that Muslims should realize that the act of two individuals should not be considered a collective act of all Christians. “At the same time we would say that no civilized person can imagine to repay these so-called preachers by burning the Bible… we condemn this act as uncivilized and similarly devoid of respect of others,” he said.

Napolean Qayyum, leader of the minorities’ wing of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party, voiced similar sentiments.

“We strongly condemn this incident but we are not going to hold all Muslims responsible for the desecration of our holy book…Christianity preaches forgiveness and love. We are hurt but we will not respond in kind,” he said, adding that he hoped that the effects of the violence in Afghanistan over the Quran burning incident would not spill over into Pakistan.

Dr. Tahira Saleem, chairperson of Shekinah Ministries Pakistan, said Pakistan was increasingly becoming an intolerant society. “We don’t know why our countrymen hold Christians responsible for every action taken in the West,” she said, adding that the entire Christian community had voiced their protest against the incident in Florida “but Friday’s incident shows the resentment in the Muslims.”...

Useful idiot falls prey to warring jihadist factions. "Italian peace activist murdered by Islamist militants in Gaza: Pro-Palestinian activist Vittorio Arrigoni's death follows shooting of Israeli actor Juliano Mer-Khamis in West Bank," by Conal Urquhart in the Guardian, April 15:

An Italian peace activist has become the second non-Palestinian to be murdered in just over a week in the occupied territories.

Vittorio Arrigoni was murdered by the Tawheed and Jihad group, one of several extremist Islamic groups that operate in the Gaza Strip in opposition to the Hamas government. The group abducted Arrigoni in an attempt to force Hamas to release its leader, who was arrested last month.

Arrigoni's death comes just over a week after a gunman shot dead Juliano Mer-Khamis, an Israeli actor who ran a theatre in the West Bank city of Jenin. It is not clear why Mer-Khamis was shot but his views about freedom of expression had generated some opposition in Jenin.

Arrigoni, known as Vik, lived in an apartment that he rented separately from his fellow volunteers for the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). The first anyone knew of his abduction was when video was posted on YouTube in which Arrigoni appeared blindfolded with a bruised face.

The accompanying Arabic text said: "The Italian hostage entered our land only to spread corruption." It described Italy as "the infidel state"....

To "spread corruption" is a capital offense in Islamic law (cf. Qur'an 5:33).

PC Self-Censorship at the American Foreign Policy Council
by Srdja Trifkovic

The decision by Comedy Central, the television channel owned by MTV Networks, to censor an episode of “South Park” that alluded unflatteringly to Muhammad, and the terrifying case of Molly Norris, a cartoonist forced into hiding here in the United States for “insulting the Prophet,” are but two recent examples of how successfully the Muslims have instilled terror into the hearts of American unbelievers (as commanded by the Koran, 8:12). In Europe the situation is even worse, of course, and ranges from the ritual slaughter of Theo van Gogh in Holland and the terrorizing of the Muhammad cartoonist in Denmark to the sorry spectacle of kowtowing to Muslim demands everywhere.

The bacillus of deferring to the sensibilities of Islamist “activists” and their Western abettors has started infecting even those who purport to inform the world about “the nature of the contemporary Islamist threat around the world and on the current activities of radical Islamist movements worldwide.” It is in sorrow rather than anger that I am compelled to present the facts of a recent example.

In early February I was approached by the American Foreign Policy Council to write a 4-5,000 word entry on Bosnia for their World Almanac of Islamism – self-described as “a comprehensive resource designed to track the rise or decline of radical Islam on a national, regional and global level." The article was to be divided into four sections covering some key aspects of the problem. The honorarium offered was a symbolic $500 for a task of this magnitude. I nevertheless accepted because I believed the endeavor eminently worthy of support and the institution behind it reliable to see it through professionally and objectively. I saw the project as a long overdue antidote to John Esposito’s mendacious Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World. I wrote the article (attached at the end) and sent it to the AFPC on April 11.

On the morning of April 12 they called me to say that the editorial board had several concerns about certain turns of phrase and my treatment of some specific points, and indicating that they would be sending me a list of suggested edits shortly. I told them that I would deal with the matter as soon as I get the file. A few hours later, however, they called me to inform me that the Board had just decided not to publish the article at all. No satisfactory explanation was offered.

The cat was soon out of the bag, however; Washington is a small place. On April 14 I learned from two different yet equally reliable sources close to the institution in question that the problem was not with the article but with me. One person on their team had done some background research on me and presented the board with two supposedly incriminating quotes which were deemed so outlandish that they disqualified me as an acceptable author of the Chapter:

1. “Islam is inherently aggressive, racist, violent, and intolerant.”
2. “Islam has been for the past thousand years a gigantic grinder that turns its adherents into intellectual and moral cripples.”

Some rhetorical flourish of the second quote apart, the substance of both statements is elementary to anyone seeking to educate the public about the nature of the threat. If they make their author unpublishable, by the same token many names infinitely more prominent than mine are presumably verboten at the AFPC. De Tocqueville is beyond the pale for writing, “I studied the Koran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad.” Or Winston Churchill for exclaiming, “How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy… No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.” Or Bernard Lewis for stating that “unbelievers, slaves, and women are considered fundamentally inferior to other groups of people under Islamic law.”

In subsequent contacts initiated by the AFPC and ostensibly aimed at finding a mutually acceptable solution to the issue my various suggestions were rejected. On a peripheral note, particularly galling was their offer to pay me the $500 even though the article was not published. It merely added insult to injury.

This whole affair is a paradigmatic case of dhimmitudinal self-censorship at its worst. Its implications are dire and eminently predictable.

An update on this story. Juha Molari condemned Doku Umarov, one of the world's most wanted jihadists, who is believed to be behind numerous attacks on innocent civilians and the bombing of Moscow's Domodedovo Airport. Umarov has also claimed responsibility for the Beslan massacre.

Perhaps Finland has had no Benjamin Franklin to warn its establishment against trading liberty for security, and indeed, they will soon have neither. It is Molari who is being treated as dangerous, as a terrorist. First, he was hauled in for "inciting racial hatred." In this latest development, he has been removed from the priesthood and dismissed from his parish. Now, that's sure to advance the cause of world peace, especially in Chechnya. Yeah. That'll show 'em.

"Finnish pastor defrocked for speaking out against terrorists," from RT, April 14 (thanks to Pokermutt):

A Finnish Priest has been defrocked for openly speaking out against a terrorist website hosted in the country.

­"The Espo chapter of the Lutheran Church of Finland has dismissed Juha Molari as the pastor of the Raseborg Lutheran parish. He has been defrocked and deprived of all means of subsistence," Johan Backman, Finnish human rights activist and the Chairman of the Finnish-Caucasus Friendship Society, told Interfax on Thursday.

Juha Molari had earlier been charged in Helsinki for inciting racial hatred, after he described one of the world's most-wanted criminals as a terrorist. Police questioned pastor Molari after he gave an interview to RT in which he discussed Doku Umarov, the man behind the Moscow Metro and airport bombings.

Later on Thursday, Johan Backman, a Finnish human rights activist and the chairman of the Finnish-Caucasus Friendship Society, told RT that Finland is sheltering terrorists in the country because of very strong lobbying from the political elite and a manipulated public opinion.

“The Finnish ruling elite is protecting the terrorists and terrorist activities on Finnish soil, and they are also trying to change public opinion and to protect the activity of Doku Umarov in Finland,” said Backman. “Our security police tried to close down the web resources of Doku Umarov in 2004, but that was unsuccessful because of lobbying by leading Finnish politicians.”

Russia's number one Chechen terrorist, Umarov, is also high-up on the international most-wanted list.

The Kavkaz-Centre site was the first to publish the terrorist's words on the attacks he has claimed responsibility for – the Beslan school siege; the Nevsky express and Moscow Metro bombings; and most recently, the Domodedovo Airport blast.

The website is banned in Russia, but in Finland the Kavkaz-Centre enjoys quite a comfortable standing not only on the internet, but also in downtown Helsinki.

The priest was the first to openly say this was an outrage, and the reaction was quick to follow.

He got an email, apparently from Dagestan, saying that if he doesn’t “stop the fight against the Kavkaz-Centre, they will cut his head off and his family’s.”

Juha Molari went to the police, but instead ended up being persecuted himself for criticizing a legally operating organization. The police refused to close the website and to open a criminal case following threats against the pastor. They answered that Doku Umarov is the president of a separatist government and a respectable person.

Was Beslan a respectable massacre? Was Domodedovo a respectable bombing?

The message to Christians: You'll condemn what we tell you, and you'll shut up when we tell you, dhimmis. "Multan: threats against Christian nurse for condemning Qur‘an burning and church attacks," by Jibran Khan for Asia News, April 15:

Lahore (AsiaNews) – Pakistan’s Christian community continues to be the object of intimidation and threats as well as abuse and harassment on the workplace. The latest victim is Waris Masih, a male nurse in Multan, a city in Punjab who was assaulted at work for slamming both the burning of a copy of the Qur‘an in Florida (United States) and attacks against churches in Pakistan. Since 20 March, at least seven acts of violence have been perpetrated against Christians and their places of worship, in a country where extremists are riding a wave of interfaith hatred.

"Interfaith" implies a reciprocity that is thoroughly unsubstantiated.

In the past few weeks, health care workers at the Multan Development Authority have been involved in heated arguments. Waris Masih, a Christian male nurse, condemned the burning of the Qur‘an in Florida, but he also condemned attacks against churches in Pakistan. His views led to a furious debate with his colleagues who hailed attacks against Christian places of worship and the desecration of a Bible on 8 April by one Akhtar Hussain, 24, in front of the Saint Anthony’s Catholic Church.

On Tuesday, following another fight with Masih, his boss attacked the Christian health care worker and then threatened him. The next day, a group of fanatics stopped Masih, beat him up and told him to leave town or he would receive exemplary punishment.

After going home, he found out that his family had also been threatened. That night, Masih and his family left and their whereabouts have been unknown for the past two days.

The case of the Christian nurse is the seventh example of recent anti-Christian violence. The escalation started when Rev Wayne Sapp burnt a copy of the Qur‘an under the supervision of Evangelical preacher Terry Jones on 20 March in Florida. Christian leaders in Pakistan and India strongly condemned the action several times because it was carried out by an American who had nothing to do with Pakistani Christians. Nevertheless, the reaction among Muslim fundamentalists was swift; in a few days, they attacked three churches and killed two people.

Similarly, workplace discrimination is commonplace in Pakistan. Last month sanitation workers in Lahore asked for some time off to mark Lent, the way Muslims do during the month of Ramadan. The deputy director of sanitation responded by attacking them and increasing their workload from eight to ten hours. On 9 April, a Lutheran church in Mardan, in Khyber province, was attacked with damages to the building. On one was injured....

Good thing they're spending all that time and money to keep Indonesia "safe" from Christians and Ahmadis, eh? "West Java, for the first time a suicide bomber blows himself up inside a mosque. 28 [wounded]," from AsiaNews, April 15:

Jakarta (AsiaNews) - A suicide bomber blew himself up today at Taka mosque located in the police headquarters in Ciberon (West Java) a town about 300 km from Jakarta. The toll is about 28 wounded, including several policemen. The suicide bombing is the first in the country's history and took place shortly before the usual Friday prayers, while the faithful were gathering inside the building. According to authorities the attack was organized by a group of Islamic terrorists in revenge for the recent anti-terrorism operations carried out by the police.

General Suparna Parto, Chief Inspector of West Java, said the suicide bomber's explosive belt contained nails and other metallic material, and several fragments were found in the bodies of the wounded. According to the general, this system is typical of Islamic extremists in Indonesia.

According to Wawan Purwanto, an expert on intelligence, the attack marks a change of course in Indonesian Islamic terrorism and has shocked the population. "The explosion - he says - has taken place just inside a mosque during prayer." The expert stressed that so far no extremist group had ever attacked a mosque during Friday prayers. Purwanto said that the turnaround has already begun and now the terrorists are targeting other Muslims. "In the past - he says - the targets were symbols of Western power. Now all those who are against them, such as police, may be annihilated."

All they need to do to feel justified in killing fellow Muslims is to declare them apostates, because Muhammad prescribed death as the penalty for apostasy from Islam. And Qur'an 5:51 says that one who turns to unbelievers (specifically Christians and Jews) for friendship "is of them."

In these hours law-enforcement officials are considering increasing the alert status in the most sensitive areas of the country, to prevent new attacks.

“We ask all Muslim leaders to unite against extremist Christians that challenge and insult Islam.” How did they challenge and insult Islam? By printing Malay-language Bibles. More on this story. "Muslim group declares jihad against ‘extremist’ Christians," by Asrul Hadi Abdullah Sani for The Malaysian Insider, April 15 (thanks to solorunner):

KUALA LUMPUR, April 15 — An umbrella coalition of Muslim groups held a protest today and declared bloodshed against ‘extremist’ Christians that insult and ridicule the position of Islam in the country.

The Muslim Organisations in Defence of Islam (Pembela), comprising 20 groups, protested after Friday prayers at the National Mosque against Putrajaya’s release of Malay-language bibles and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s promise to never impound the Alkitab again.

A group of 30 men dressed in white shirts and skullcaps gathered at the main entrance of the mosque after prayers with placards saying “Allah is great! We Ansarullah (helpers of Allah) are watching you!”

Group spokesman Dr Yusri Mohamad said that the Christians are beginning to challenge and dismantle the status and sovereignty of Islam as the state religion.

“Pembela found that statements and actions (by Christian groups) are made to further challenge the sovereignty of Islam. This is not acceptable to Pembela because it implies that there is a larger agenda to be achieved by this group apart from the bible issues alone.

“Pembela believe that despite the bible issue there is a hidden mission to open the Muslim community in Malaysia to apostasy, or at least inject religious pluralism, secularism and extreme-liberalism which can erode the integrity and identity of Muslims in Malaysia,” he said while addressing a crowd of over 50 over a loudhailer.

Yusri also asked Christian groups to stop their confrontational approach and to apologise to Muslims for wounding the community....

“We are also not comfortable with the approach of allowing non-Muslim leaders to become spokesmen for the government and the opposition in this issue because this involves Islam and Muslim leaders must step forward to address this issue.

“We ask all Muslim leaders to unite against extremist Christians that challenge and insult Islam,” he said.

Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia’s (ISMA) secretary-general, Aminuddin Yahaya, added that that country has been soiled by foreign elements.

“Malaysia was tanah melayu, tanah Islam. But when British colonialists came to our land, they also brought Christianity with them.

“We are being taken over by colonialists through their demands once again. We must unite and not compromise with those that insult our religion. We are willing to die for Islam and our country!” he said....

I tried to tell you. "Egyptians Alarmed Over Rise in Influence of Salafis in Post-Mubarak Era," by Abeer Tayel for Al-Arabiya, April 14 (thanks to AINA):

Acts of hard-line vigilantism committed recently in Egypt are fuelling debate and concerns over the role Islamists could play after the departure of President Hosni Mubarak, who suppressed Islamist groups which he saw as a threat to his rule, analysts said.

Salafis were tolerated as a religious group under the former president as a counterweight his top foe, the Muslim Brotherhood group. But they appear to be playing a more political role in the country after the January 25 revolution.

That has alarmed many of the secular and liberal forces in Egypt because of the group's extremist discourse and imposition of sharia (Islamic law.)

Reports of some acts of hard-line vigilantism, which lately dominated the news in Egypt, include an arson attack on the home of a woman deemed of "ill-repute," and a punishment attack which involved a man's ear being cut off.

According to police, one villager was killed and eight others were injured in Fayoum province after fighting broke out when Salafi followers ordered the owner of a liquor store to close. The Salafis have been trying to forcibly impose their strict interpretation of Islam by banning consumption of alcohol.

In the Upper Egypt town of Qalyoub, residents were angered when arsonists set fire to a shrine, widening the scope of a campaign that has echoes of Pakistan. Sunni hardliners have blown up shrines there.

Some people see acts of Islamist vigilantism as a warning sign about the hidden intentions of Salafis of ruling Egypt. [...]

The head of al-Azhar, Egypt's most prestigious seat of Islamic learning, has called for efforts to confront hard-line doctrine. "We'll be up to our knees in blood," Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayyeb warned, as quoted by al-Shorouk newspaper.

The campaign against the shrines has drawn severe criticism from Egypt's Mufti as well. In a Friday sermon, Sheikh Ali Jomaa accused the perpetrators of having a "misinterpretation" of Islam and "causing strife in society."

Some accuse the media of exploiting a handful of cases to scare-mongering: playing on fears of Islamists suppressed by Mr. Mubarak to strengthen the case of conservatives seeking a return to the authoritarian ways of his regime.

"I don't think Salafis have anything to do with the accidents that happened recently in southern Egypt, including the cutting off of a man's ear. You know southerners are all conservative by nature and the story involved an ill-reputed woman, so that's why it happened," Alaa al-Nabarawi, an Islamist writer, told Al Arabiya....

Memo to al-Arabiya and Alaa al-Nabarawi: "conservatives" don't generally cut off the ears of those they dislike.

It sure looks that way. "(PJM Exclusive) Did Obama and Holder Scuttle Terror Finance Prosecutions?," by Patrick Poole at Pajamas Media, April 14 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

During the House Homeland Security hearing last month on the topic of radicalization in the American Muslim community, one exchange between L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca and Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN) concerned the relationship between the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and Hamas terrorist front the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Sheriff Baca told the congressman:

We don’t play around with criminals in my world. If CAIR is an organization that is a quote “criminal organization,” prosecute them. Hold them accountable and bring them to trial.

But according to a high-ranking source within the Department of Justice, who spoke exclusively to Pajamas Media on the condition of anonymity, Sheriff Baca, a long-time supporter of CAIR, was probably already in on the joke.

The joke is that a number of leaders of Islamic organizations (all of whom publicly opposed the King hearings on Muslim radicalization) were about to be indicted on terror finance support charges by the U.S. attorney’s office in Dallas, which had been investigating the case for most of the past decade.

But those indictments were scuttled last year at the direction of top-level political appointees within the Department of Justice (DOJ) — and possibly even the White House.

Included in those indictments was at least one of the co-founders of CAIR, based on “Declination of Prosecution of Omar Ahmad,” a March 31 DOJ legal memo from Assistant Attorney General David Kris to Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler. A second DOJ official familiar with the investigation independently confirmed these details. Omar Ahmad is one of CAIR’s co-founders and its chairman emeritus. He was personally named, along with CAIR itself, as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror finance trial in 2007 and 2008. During the trial FBI Agent Lara Burns testified that both Omar Ahmad and current CAIR executive director Nihad Awad were caught on FBI wiretaps attending a 1993 meeting of Hamas leaders in Philadelphia.

Dean Boyd, public affairs representative for the DOJ National Security Division, declined to provide me a copy of the March 31, 2010, memo dropping the Omar Ahmad prosecution. Directing me to submit a FOIA request, Boyd did say that “as a general rule, internal DOJ deliberation memos spelling out arguments for or against potential prosecution of any particular suspect are not public.”

Pajamas Media will be filing a FOIA request for all the related documents in this case.

According to my source, the chief reason outlined in the DOJ memo declining to prosecute CAIR co-founder Omar Ahmad was the issue of potential jury nullification. The first Holy Land Foundation trial in 2007 ended in a hung jury. When the case was retried in 2008, all five defendants, former executives of the Holy Land Foundation, were convicted on all 108 counts.

But, according to our DOJ source, possible jury nullification was hardly the primary issue in the DOJ’s scuttling of the terror finance prosecutions. “This was a political decision from the get-go,” the source said....

Read it all.

The last death threat I published from this clown brought out a good bit of interesting information from Jihad Watch readers (see the comments field -- and our friend has noticed, as you can see below). I did hear from the FBI also, but they remain largely indifferent; the real work is clearly being done here.

So as I publish this one I ask the tech wizards who uncovered the info last time, and anyone else, to let me know if the individual they found can be positively identified as the sender of these emails; if so, I will publish his name and picture here at Jihad Watch -- not to encourage vigilante action, of course, but so as to show the people who send such threats that they cannot hide behind Internet anonymity. Law enforcement appears largely concerned only with threats made against Islamic supremacists, not against counter-jihadists (compare this story, in which the FBI is right on the case, with this one, in which the Muslim woman who threatened Rep. Peter King and New York State Senator Greg Ball says she has not heard from law enforcement). Therefore we have to fight back on our own, using the tools available.

This guy's IP traces to Djibouti, and he is probably there or in Somalia; with the large numbers of Somalis being imported into the U.S. today, however, he could have friends stateside, and so any information anyone can provide would be much appreciated.

Subject: Todays LOVE Mail

Message: Hey Spencer. I see you are fed up with My right of Freedom of Expression.
I must Express my Views according to the US constitution.

So why are you suffering and crying.

I must express my VIEWs towards you that you are a GAY and you are always and every night Fucked up by someone. I f I am wrong or Right I expressed my VIEWs.

On the OTher hand I have the right to put you Where I want. LIVE or Death.
Wether you trace me Fakely or NOT I am Still on my way.

IP: 196.201.207.191
HOST: 196.201.207.191

Westergaard is no hero of free speech: he has successfully sued Anders Gravers of our sister organization, Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE), for unauthorized use of his Muhammad cartoon in a demonstration. Clearly he hasn't the first foggiest idea of why his cartoon is important, or of what the reaction to it -- including this story -- tells the world about Islam and Islamic supremacism. Nonetheless, Western authorities should be protecting him from this Jordanian action, and from jihadist vigilantes who want to execute sentence on Westergaard themselves.

"Jordan to try Danish artist over Mohammed cartoon," from AFP, April 14 (thanks to Paul):

AMMAN — A Jordanian court will begin this month the trial of Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard over a controversial caricature of the Muslim Prophet Mohammed, but it was unclear if he will attend.

Zakarya Sheikh, spokesman for a group of local media outlets that sued Westergaard in 2008 for depicting Mohammed with a bomb in his turban, said on Thursday the artist and others have been summoned by a magistrates' court in Amman to stand trial on April 25."

A copy of the subpoena obtained by AFP says Westergaard "is accused of the crime of blasphemy."

"These legal measures seek to prevent attempts to insult Islam and incite racial hatred against Muslims worldwide, particularly in Europe," Sheikh told AFP....

What race is Islam again? In any case, Sheikh is at least refreshingly honest: these legal measures are designed to stifle free speech about Islam in the West, and to force the West to adopt Sharia blasphemy provisions.

Westergaard, meanwhile, remains clueless:

He has been quoted in local news reports as saying that he "would like to go to Amman to stand trial. However, what I fear is that I am convicted in advance."

"I wanted to depict the terrorists as if they were taking the Prophet Mohammed as a hostage. I have no problem with Islam but with the terrorists," he said, insisting that he respects Islam but "will not apologise."

MPs have demanded that the government sever ties with Denmark, and Amman has condemned the caricature, warning that it could spark further extremism and harm relations between Denmark and Muslim countries.

If it sparks further "extremism," no one is to blame but the "extremists," and Western authorities should be telling Amman that.

And you may tell yourself: That's really not saying much.

All Pope Benedict XVI did was to call for the protection of Christians in Muslim lands, which is something we're routinely assured Muslims are doing anyway. No one is ever supposed to question that. In this case, however, "protection" would also come without the protection racket of dhimmitude. In other words, "protection" sans the nudge, minus the wink.

The fact that this was too much for al-Azhar, and that they're still in a pious huff about it, speaks volumes. And yet the imam is right about this much: the demand for an apology in response to non-Muslim criticism is all too "normal." An update on this story. "Egypt, Al-Azhar reaffirms opposition to dialogue with Vatican," from Asia News, April 14:

Cairo (AsiaNews) - Al-Azhar will only resume talks with the Holy See after an apology from the Pope, who was accused of criticizing Islam following an attack against the Coptic Cathedral in Alexandria last January 3. As much was revealed in an informal meeting between Ahmed El-Tayeb, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, and Michael Fitzgerald, Vatican ambassador to Cairo. In the meeting, which took place yesterday in Cairo, the Muslim leader said that relations between the two religions are normal, but demands an official apology from the Pope, as a condition to restarting any dialogue between Al-Azhar and the Vatican.

This is the same cleric who complained in January of a "Zionist plot" to defame Islam and divide the Arab world.

"It's not fair to ask the Pope for an apology - says a source, anonymous for safety reasons - because he never insulted Islam, he just asked for the protection of Christians wherever they are, as is his duty." The source points out the dual position held by the authorities of Al-Azhar, which on one hand demand an apology from the Pope, but still want to be seen as the moderate face of Islam. "The Vatican – continues the source - must be firm on its positions and ask the imam of Al-Azhar the reasons for an apology and where the error of the Holy Father lies. Al-Azhar should instead explain why there continues to be violence against Christians in Egypt before it demands excuses".

According to the source, the relationship, viewed as courteous in the past, were in fact ambiguous. "Islamic leaders - he says- have always imposed a dialogue of superficial courtesy with the Church, in this way avoiding discussing or addressing contentious issues and problems encountered between Christianity and Islam. Now the Vatican is aware of the situation and is not afraid to adopt a more firm and rigid stance. "

The Jasmine Revolution and the fall of Mubarak has highlighted the confusion and instability within Egyptian Muslim society, teetering between secular and democratic movements, radical Islam and the risk of a new military regime. According to the source this would in part explain the contradictory attitude of Al-Azhar.

Surely, there are varying schools of thought within al-Azhar, but the situation described above is nothing new, though political upheaval may help bring matters to the surface.

"The Egyptian Muslim world - he says - is currently very divided. At Al-Azhar, there are contrasts between the positions of Ahmed El-Tayeb and other imams with scholars of the university. In turn, Al-Azhar is at odds with members of the Muslim Brotherhood, internally divided between the hard line of the older members and the young reformers. The contrast also exists between the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist movement, who clash on many topics. " The source says that these divisions could clarify the positions and currents within Islam, the result of contradictions within the Koran and the absence of final authority in the Muslim world....

There is no mention of ideology or motivation at all in this report, not even carefully bubble-wrapped in euphemistic language, as we often find it. Just another mysteriously random couple of guys who really like breaking stuff. Nothing to see here. "Pakistan arrests two Frenchmen suspected of terrorism," from Agence France-Presse, April 14:

AFP - Two French nationals suspected of belonging to an international terror group have been arrested by Pakistan's security services, French and Pakistani sources said Thursday.

The two, who were detained several weeks ago, are suspected of being part of the group responsible for the bloody attacks in Bali in 2002 that killed 202 people, the worst terror attack in Indonesia, according to Pakistani security officials, who requested anonymity.

The terror group is allegedly headed by Indonesian Umar Patek, who was himself arrested recently in Pakistan.

France has asked the Pakistani authorities for permission to visit the two detainees, a representative at the French embassy in Islamabad told AFP.

Will they burn themselves in effigy and demand that they be prosecuted? "Afghan mullahs push peaceful protest in wake of Quran-burning violence," by Tom A. Peter for the Christian Science Monitor, April 14 (thanks to Urban Infidel):

As the dust settles in Afghanistan after sustained protest over a Florida pastor's Quran burning, many residents in Kandahar are facing an unpleasant truth: More Qurans were burned in the course of their protests than by Terry Jones.

The demonstrations, which started peacefully, quickly turned violent, killing at least nine people and injuring scores in Kandahar City alone. And as protesters vandalized a girls’ school and set fire to shops, Qurans also inadvertently went up in flames.

“If they burn a shop, there is a Quran in every shop, so this is a big problem,” says Azizullah Aziz, a perfume and soap salesman in Kandahar City. “People don’t know how to protest.”

On Wednesday, the province’s top spiritual leaders moved to address the irony – and promote restraint at a time when passions are running high over the US war effort. They called a shura, or meeting, and told the crowd of several hundred people that gathered in a tent at Kandahar University how to protest in an Islamic manner....

“One person burned the holy Quran in America. This was not good, so we came to speak out and protest, but unfortunately the police fired on us because they did not know what the protest was about,” said Maulavi Mohammed Omar, a prominent mullah in Kandahar. “Why did people burn the shops and markets, and the holy Quran? That is not good.”

Seek elders' advice

Islam does not discourage protests, said the mullahs. But, they said, when something happens that causes concern, citizens must seek the advice of their religious leaders before taking action. They added that any protest should also have clear goals.

“You have to respect what the mullahs say. If they say protest, you have to protest. If they say don’t protest, you can’t protest. They know the Islamic law for when to protest,” said Haji Rahmudeen, head of the Kandahar Business Association, in his address to the crowd....

In addition to imploring citizens to maintain order during protests, the mullahs called on the government to better prepare the police to deal with protesters, ensure that government and international forces respect Islamic and Afghan culture, and stop international forces from conducting night raids, among other demands.

There was much speculation that Wednesday’s event could end in yet another protest. Indeed, all the ingredients were there to stoke the ever-present well of anger over the ongoing foreign presence. During Mr. Omar’s speech, he reminded the crowd that America was still the enemy and its soldiers are “killing our 2-year-old children in our homes.”

At an Afghan demonstration, such remarks would normally be met with shouts from the crowd and calls for “Death to America.” But on Wednesday, the crowd just quietly listened. When the event ended, few people stayed even to socialize as the crowd shuffled out of the tent, returning to their cars or bicycles....

With Eric Bolling subbing for Beck. Zuhdi Jasser was on hand as well.

When the pig's foot was sent to King, Honest Ibe Hooper of Hamas-linked CAIR said it must have been sent by an "anti-Muslim bigot." What do you say now, Ibe?

Longtime Jihad Watch readers will recognize this "Jacquelyn Barnette" as "Jameela," who sent me the threat I posted here, and who has more than once (the last time quite recently) spammed the comments fields here with reams of abusive Islamic triumphalism and hatred toward Jews and Christians -- see, for example, the many comments by "Jacci" on this thread. She wrote here the same sort of thing she wrote to New York State Senator Ball -- here's a sample: "To those blood-thirsty, racist Christian cannibals who will murder Jesus after his Resurrection for the sole purpose of bleeding him out to bath in his blood; I advise you to reconsider your blasphemous and diabolical worship of a murdered Jew and read the Qur’an and discover your 'real' purpose in life is NOT to worship and serve the Jew’s as you do."

More on this story and this story. "Georgia Woman Reportedly Admits to Sending Pig's Foot to Rep. Peter King," from FoxNews.com, April 14 (thanks to Jack):

A Georgia woman reportedly has claimed responsibility for the severed pig's foot that was sent to Rep. Peter King, apparently in protest over the hearing he held on radical Islam.

Jacquelyn Barnette, who described herself as Muslim, told the New York Post she sent King the package, which also contained an anti-Semitic note, this month.

The U.S. Postal Service intercepted the package before it ever reached King's office.

"I thought the letters explain themselves," Barnette told the Post.

Do they ever!

Asked about her comments, King told Fox News she "seems to be a disturbed person."...

You can say that again.

Though the note contained anti-Semitic messages, King is not Jewish. The note also reportedly told King to "kiss my black, Muslim-American a--."

How is it that a sheikh who is issuing fatawa misunderstands the Religion of Peace and Tolerance so thoroughly? "Salafi-Jihadist Sheikh: It Is Permissible to Spill the Blood of the Iraqi Christians – And A Duty to Wage Jihad Against Them," from MEMRI, April 14 (thanks to Nicholas):

On April 11, 2011, a fatwa by Sheikh Al-Khatib Al-Baghdadi regarding Iraq's Christians appeared on the Salafi-jihadi website Minbar Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad. The fatwa came in response to a question submitted by an inquirer calling himself "'Izz Al-Din," who asked whether the Christians in Iraq today were to be considered a legitimate target of jihad, even though they had not been in the past. He pointed out that these Christians were not associated with the Coptic Orthodox denomination or with its criminal imprisonment of Muslim women in Egypt, and that they were even at odds with the Copts.

But Sheikh Al-Khatib Al-Baghdadi replied that Iraqi Christians were indeed legitimate targets of jihad. Full text available to MEMRI subscribers.

Hoping that al-Qaeda has dispatched operatives. But...but...aren't Muslims in Western countries supposed to abide by the law of the land, and only greasy Islamophobes think otherwise?

"Jihadists ‘declare war’ on France over veil ban," from AFP, April 14 (thanks to Block Ness):

NICOSIA: Members of Arabic language jihadist forums have called for war on France over its ban on niqabs, a US-based web service said on Wednesday. The draconian new law, the first to be enforced in Europe, went into effect on Monday. Wearing the niqab or burka, a head-to-toe body covering, is now banned in the street, public gardens, shops and government buildings. In messages on a number of threads, “contributors posted calls to punish France for what was perceived as an anti-Islamic law,” including calls for al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb to “carry out operations to ‘deter’ France.” One exchange on Monday called for “members to declare war against France,” while another expressed hope that “al Qaeda has dispatched operatives to France to attack the country.”

Yet another convert to Islam misunderstands his new, peaceful religion. More on this story. "Man Confesses To ‘Jihad Operation' Murder In Nashville," by Jeff Tang for NewsChannel5.com, April 13:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A former TSU student on trial for murder in Arkansas said he killed a man in East Nashville in 2006.

Abdulhakim Muhammad is accused of killing one Army soldier and wounding another outside a military recruiting station in 2009. He's now confessed to shooting a Nashville man as part of a "Jihad Operation."

The father of Carlos Bledsoe believes his son became an extremist Muslim during his time in Nashville.

Carlos, who changed his name to Abdulhakim Muhammad, is accused of murdering an army private and wounding another in Arkansas two years ago.

But, in a letter to an Arkansas Judge, Muhammad confesses to another murder, an East Nashville man in 2006.

"The letter was sent to us immediately after it was discovered and our cold case detectives will be going to interview him to see how much he knows about the case to see if he was involved," said Metro Police Spokesperson Kristin Mumford.

Muhammad claims he shot the two soldiers to protest the US War in Iraq. In the letter, Muhammad saID [sic] he killed the Nashville man as his first "jihad operation" because he said the victim terrorized elderly Muslims and Muslim women at gunpoint. However, Muhammad leaves out the victim's name and the time of the crime.

"We do have a case that matches some of the particulars but we don't want to go into detail, we don't know his motives. We want him to tell us about the case," Mumford said....

The second accidental jihad in two days. Keep up the good work, fellows!

Premature Detonation Alert: "Gaza fighter died in 'jihad mission,'" from the Ma'an News Agency, April 14:

GAZA CITY (Ma’an) -- The armed wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine said one of the group's fighters was killed Thursday morning, when an explosive device detonated while the young man was on a "jihad mission," a statement said.

It is the second accidental death of a Gaza resistance fighter reported in as many days, following the death of an Al-Qassam brigadesman in Khan Younis on Wednesday.

A DFLP statement said National Resistance Brigades fighter Khader Abu Elbeh, 22, was seriously wounded during an operation west of the Jabaliya area in the northern Gaza Strip and later died of his injuries.

Medical sources in Gaza confirmed that a man was pronounced dead after being seriously wounded by a bomb which exploded, apparently prematurely.

In their statement, the NRB mourned the death of the fighter, saying he was killed while "on a jihad mission," and vowed to continue resistance activities as a "goal and a promise to our nation."

Taking Sharia into their own hands. "Pakistan's blasphemy vigilantes kill exonerated man," by Nick Paton Walsh for CNN, April 14 (thanks to Clark):

Talahore, Pakistan (CNN) -- Mohamed Imran had been accused, jailed, tried and cleared: if anything, society owed him a debt as a man wrongfully accused.

But his crime was blasphemy. He was meant to have said something derogatory about the prophet Mohammed, so in Pakistan justice worked a little differently.

Whose prophet?

Two weeks after he returned to his small patch of farmland on the rustic outskirts of Islamabad, his alleged crime caught up with him.

Two gunmen burst into the shoe shop where he was sat talking to a friend. Imran tried to duck, to seek cover behind the man next to him -- terrified so greatly for his own life that he perhaps forgot about those around him.

But the gunmen found their target and Pakistan's controversial blasphemy laws claimed another victim....

I tried to tell you. "Christians begin to flee Egypt," from Christian News Today, April 14 (thanks to Alexandre):

A growing number of Egypt’s 8-10 million Coptic Christians are looking for a way to get out as Islamists increasingly take advantage of the nationalist revolution that toppled long-standing dictator Hosni Mubarak in February.

Egypt Daily News reported on Tuesday that “lawyers who specialize in working with Coptic Egyptians…say that in the past few weeks they have received hundreds of calls from Copts wanting to leave Egypt.”

“They are insisting on leaving Egypt because the risks of staying here are too great,” Naguib Gabriel, a Coptic human rights lawyer, told Egypt Daily News. “Many Christians are afraid of the future because of the fanatics in the mosques.”

At least 20 Christians have been killed in sectarian violence with Muslims since Mubarak’s ouster. And groups like the Muslim Brotherhood have been taking an increasingly visible role in forming Egypt’s next government.

Coptic leaders have complained that they are being left out of the decision-making process, raising fears that the Egypt of tomorrow will be far less free and democratic than even the Egypt of Mubarak.

I also have heard from Jameela, as you can see here -- and not just that one time but on many other occasions when I didn't publish the emails.

More on this story. "State Sen. Ball targeted with package 'full of hate,'" by Marcela Rojas and Brian Howard in the Poughkeepsie Journal, April 13 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

A suspicious package sent to Sen. Greg Ball containing a stuffed Curious George monkey pinned with Stars of David and a vicious, anti-Semitic and racially charged screed left the Republican undaunted, saying he will continue pushing forward with his agenda on national security....

State police responded at 1:05 p.m. to Ball's office in Albany's Legislative Office Building Tuesday where they said they found the package that also contained a vial with an unknown substance. The Albany Fire Department Hazardous Materials team transported the contents to a Department of Health laboratory for analysis, according to police. An investigation is ongoing.

The letter signed by Jameela Barnette with kind regards accused Ball, a Catholic, of being a Jew-worshipping, Muslim hater.

"Instead of bashing the intellectually superior Muslims, shouldn't a handsome, cannibalized crazy, Christian cracker like yourself be in church chomping on Jew-god corpse and washing it down with Jew-god blood under the pretense of 'Holy Communion,' " the letter stated.

The one-page diatribe went on to talk about the Curious George present, saying ..."the plush monkey/miniature Jew I have gifted you with is an accurate representation of who the Jews are and what you stupid Christians worship."...

"We have no right to be naive." Indeed. "Bosnian Serb leader calls for referendum on scrapping country's top war crimes court," by Irena Knezevic for The Associated Press, April 13 (thanks to George):

The Bosnian Serb leader has accused the international community of helping Muslim Bosniaks create an Islamic state and claims the country's top war crimes court is an illegal institution that demonizes his people.

Milorad Dodik told the Bosnian Serb Parliament Wednesday that the State Court had so far convicted ten times more Serbs than any other ethnicity, and called on lawmakers to approve a referendum for those living in the Bosnian Serb part of the country that will decide whether they should continue to answer to the court....

Dodik claimed Wednesday that the court continues to present Serbs as the sole guilty party in the war, and is thus justifying international efforts to take away Serb autonomy. He accused the international community of helping Muslim Bosniaks create an Islamic state.

"We have no right to be naive," he told the Bosnian Serb Parliament. "The creation of an Islamic state is a project... Unfortunately some of the people representing the international community who sit in Sarajevo and elsewhere in the world for their own reasons support the realization of that Bosniak goal."...

It depends on who you ask. "Destroying One Koran vs. Destroying Many Christians: Which is Worse?," by Raymond Ibrahim at FrontPageMagazine.com (via RaymondIbrahim.com), April 8:

The now infamous Koran burning by Florida pastor Terry Jones has created hysteria in the Muslim world. In Afghanistan alone, some twenty people, including U.N. workers, have been killed and beheaded to screams of "Allahu Akbar!" Western leaders around the globe—including Obama and members of Congress—have unequivocally condemned Jones' actions (without bothering to point out that freedom of expression is a prized American liberty). Many are even blaming the deaths in Afghanistan directly on Jones; Bill O'Reilley [sic] says he has "blood on his hands."

Yet, as Western leaders rush to profess their abhorrence at what one American did to one inanimate book, let's take a quick look at what many Muslims are doing to many living and breathing Christians around the Islamic world—to virtually no media coverage or Western condemnation:

• Afghanistan: A Muslim convert to Christianity was seized and, according to sharia's apostasy laws, awaits execution.
• Bangladesh: A Christian man was arrested for distributing Bibles near Muslims. Since Wednesday, thousands of Muslims have been rioting, injuring dozens—not because of Jones, but in protestation of women's rights.
• Egypt: A Muslim mob burned down another Coptic church and dozens of Christian homes; when Christians protested, the military opened fire on them while crying "Allahu Akbar," killing nine. Another mob