March 2012 Archives

This is yet another example of the cultural and societal initiatives I wrote about at length in my 2008 book Stealth Jihad: Muslims demand special accommodation for Islamic law and practice, and reinforce the principle that wherever Islamic law and practice and American law and practice conflict, American law and practice has to give way. It also establishes special privileges for Muslims, in accord with their status in Islamic law.

"Sign at Wegmans draws attention," by Ray Levato for WHEC.com, March 30 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

It’s a first for Wegmans in this area. They’ve put up a sign asking customers buying pork or alcohol not to use a particular checkout line when a Muslim teenager is on duty as the cashier.

The sign went up a week ago at their Lyell Avenue store.

Wegmans says they haven’t gotten any in store complaints and Wegmans was very upfront about the cashier. They just wouldn’t allow us in the store to talk with her or customers.

Spokeswoman Jo Natale says the cashier is a teenaged girl who wears a head covering. She told her supervisor she was uncomfortable handling those items because of religious reasons. So the store manager who had experience with this type of situation outside of Rochester decided to put up a small sign whenever the girl was at the checkout counter.

It says, “If your order contains pork or alcohol product, we respectfully ask that you choose another lane.”

Wegmans also says the girl has been coached what to say if customers ask why. People News10NBC spoke with outside the Lyell Avenue Wegmans store said they were okay with it and one even knows Christians who don’t like the idea of serving alcohol.

But Christians who don’t like the idea of serving alcohol just get another job. They don't demand that their workplace change the way it does business in order to accommodate them.

Bernard Thomas said, “I feel like if they’re going to hire her and she’s got to have the job, why shouldn’t we respect her. Just go to another cashier.”

Why hire her if she won't do the job the way everyone else does it? There are no jobs in Rochester that wouldn't involve handling pork and alcohol?

Darlene Hucko said, “I would respect her beliefs and go to the next line if I had alcohol. Levato said, “You think that’s okay.” Hucko said, “I think it is okay.”...

I don't. This amounts to discrimination against non-Muslim customers -- they have one less checkout line, longer waits, etc. The civil rights movement was fought to establish equality of access to services for all Americans. This is a perversion of it.

Islam forbids unmarried people of the opposite sex to mix unchaperoned.

Will the Islamophobia never end? "Boy, girl killed in Afghan acid attack 'over friendship,'" from AFP, March 31 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

GHAZNI — A 12-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy have been killed in an acid attack in Afghanistan, an official said Saturday, with witnesses claiming it was because of their friendship in what is an ultra-conservative country.

Note to AFP: conservatives, even "ultra-conservatives," don't murder children for their friendships.

The bodies were discovered on Friday in wasteland in the Esfandi area of Ghazni province in south central Afghanistan, provincial police chief Zorawar Zahid told AFP.

"Their bodies and faces were burnt by acid," he said.

The police chief said officers were investigating the motive for the attack, but witnesses who found the bodies told AFP the two were probably killed because of their friendship.

No one has claimed the bodies, which are still in Ghazni hospital, police said....

Of course not. They "dishonored" their families.

On December last year, a 17-year-old Afghan girl and her family were sprayed with acid, apparently after rejecting a marriage proposal. The girl, Mumtaz, was seriously injured when several masked gunmen broke into her home in the northern city of Kunduz and sprayed acid in her face.

Why not? Do you think they would have hesitated to prosecute if a "right wing extremist" had threatened to blow up the White House? "Obama Administration Won’t Prosecute Saudi It Claims Threatened to ‘Blow Up White House,’" by Edwin Mora for CNS News, March 29 (thanks to Barbara):

(CNSNews.com) - The Obama administration says it will not prosecute a Saudi Arabian national who the administration claimed in congressional testimony entered the United States on a student visa and then was arrested after threatening to blow up the White House.

On March 6, top officials from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security in both written and verbal testimony that DHS had arrested a Saudi national who was “threatening to blow up the White House and the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission to the United States.”

A U.S. anti-terrorism law--18 U.S.C. 113B--says that a “person who, without lawful authority, uses, threatens, or attempts or conspires to use, a weapon of mass destruction … (3) against any property that is owned, leased or used by the United States or by any department or agency of the United States, whether the property is within or outside of the United States; or 4) against any property within the United States that is owned, leased, or used by a foreign government, shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life, and if death results, shall be punished by death or imprisoned for any term of years or for life.”

The statute says “the term ‘weapon of mass destruction’ means … any destructive device as defined in section 921 of this title.” Section 921 says: “The term ‘destructive device’ means— (A) any explosive, incendiary, or poison gas—(i) bomb, (ii) grenade, (iii) rocket having a propellant charge of more than four ounces, (iv) missile having an explosive or incendiary charge of more than one-quarter ounce, (v) mine, or (vi) device similar to any of the devices described in the preceding clauses.”

In a written statement provided to CNSNews.com, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the DHS division responsible for enforcing the immigration law inside U.S. territory, said it has had the Saudi national in custody since Jan. 10 and that he is undergoing deportation proceedings. The statement said that “federal and local authorities declined criminal prosecution.”

The March 6 congressional hearing at which the DHS officials said this Saudi national had threatened to blow up the White House was called to examine why the U.S. government had allowed Moroccan national Amine El Khalifi to live illegally in the United States for 13 years before he was arrested while allegedly attempting to commit a suicide bombing at the U.S. Capitol. The ICE officials who testified cited the January arrest of a Saudi national who they said had threatened to blow up the White House as evidence of ICE’s effectiveness in tracking foreign nationals whose visas had expired or been revoked.

The two DHS officials who testified were John Cohen, DHS’s deputy counterterrorism coordinator, and Peter Edge, the deputy executive associate director for investigations at ICE.

“More recently in January 2012, ICE Special Agents from the Washington, D.C. office arrested a Saudi Arabian national who was admitted as an F-1 nonimmigrant student and violated the terms and conditions of his admission,” Cohen and Edge said in written testimony they jointly submitted to the committee. “The individual was referred for investigation after his status was terminated in SEVIS for failure to maintain student status, as well as for possessing several indicators of national security concerns, including threatening to blow up the White House and the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission to the United States.”

Edge told the committee about the Saudi national in his verbal testimony before the committee.

“In January 2012, for example,” Edge testified, “ICE special agents from our Washington, D.C., office arrested a Saudi Arabian national who was admitted as an F-1 nonimmigrant student and violated the term and condition of his admission."

“The individual,” Edge said, “was referred for investigation after his status was terminated in SEVIS [Student and Exchange Visitor Information System] for failure to maintain student status as well as for possessing several indicators of national security concerns, including threatening to blow up the White House and the Saudi Arabian cultural mission to the United States.”

SEVIS is an Internet-based system created by DHS to house information about people who come to the United States on student visas.

After Cohen and Edge testified in the subcommittee, CNSNews.com asked ICE a series of questions about the Saudi national the two officials said had threatened to blow up the White House: Has he, or will he, be charged with any crime? Is the individual in custody or has he been removed? Where and what was he studying? How long has he been in the United States?

ICE initially responded by directing CNSNews.com to the local police department of Fairfax County, Va., saying that it was handling the investigation.

Fairfax County Police Spokeswoman Shelley Broderick confirmed that her department carried out an investigation of the Saudi national, but said that the police department could not provide any information about him because he had never been charged by them. Broderick added that federal authorities, not local ones, would be responsible for any terrorism-related charges....

When asked if an individual who threatens to blow up the White House can be prosecuted by federal authorities, a Department of Justice spokesman said in an e-mail, “Whether or not such a case would or could be charged in federal [court] depends entirely on the evidence available to investigators and prosecutors, the underlying facts/circumstances of the matter, and the law.”

“That's all I have for you,” said the Justice Department spokesman.

According to the report of the 9-11 Commission, one of the Sept. 11
hijackers, Hani Hanjour, was a Saudi Arabian national who was admitted to the U.S. on a student visa.

Willy Brigitte is a convert to Islam who misunderstands his new, peaceful faith. "Militant who targeted Australian nuclear plant held in France," from Australia Network News, March 30 (thanks to Kenneth):

A man convicted five years ago of planning an attack on an Australian nuclear plant is said to be one of the suspected militants held for questioning after a series of raids across France.

A police source in Paris told Reuters news agency that Willy Brigitte, a French Muslim convert, was arrested on Friday at his home in a suburb of the French capital.

Authorities found no weapons, but seized his computer and a mobile phone.

Brigitte was deported from Australia to France in 2003 after he breached his tourist visa.

In 2007, a French court convicted him of plotting an attack against the Lucas Heights nuclear research facility in Sydney's south-west and sentenced him to nine years in jail, with six years non-parole.

It's not yet clear why he was free when arrested on Friday.

Indeed.

The Obama Administration continues its war against the truth about Islam and jihad. If any of this material was really inaccurate, then certainly it should have been removed. One wonders, however, who was judging its accuracy -- was it Muslim Brotherhood-linked operatives intent on whitewashing uncomfortable truths about Islam? Or was it an informed and patriotic analyst? And removing material deemed "offensive to Muslims" is unconscionable, especially since Islamic supremacist anti-freedom groups such as the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations find offensive any and all anti-terror material that is accurate at all about the source of the jihad threat.

"At FBI, 876 pages of agent training material related to Muslims found offensive or inaccurate," by Pete Yost for the Associated Press, March 30 (thanks to all who sent this in):

WASHINGTON (AP) — An FBI review of agent training material critical of Islam uncovered 876 offensive or inaccurate pages that had been used in 392 presentations, including a PowerPoint slide that said the bureau can sometimes bend or suspend the law.

The bureau has not released the material, but Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois described a few pages of it in a letter asking FBI Director Robert Mueller to institute five changes so that inappropriate FBI training on Islam doesn't happen again. On Friday, the FBI confirmed the number of inaccurate or offensive pages and presentations.

The bureau also said the documents that are either offensive or inaccurate have been taken out of training presentations.

Every trainer was identified and interviewed by an FBI inspection team and the team determined that the problems were performance-related — poor judgment or inadequate training — rather than intentional misconduct, said FBI spokesman Michael Kortan.

As a result, instructors were counseled and in some cases removed from training positions.

Durbin said he's disturbed that the FBI doesn't plan to produce a written report on the six-month review. He said he wants the agents who received the bad training to be retained.

It began last September after the online publication Wired.com reported that the FBI had discontinued a lecture in which the instructor told agent trainees in Virginia that the more devout a Muslim is, the more likely he is to be violent. The analyst subsequently gave a similar lecture at an FBI-sponsored public-private partnership in New York City.

Kortan declined to address the issue of retraining.

Out of 160,000 pages of training material reviewed, just 876 pages — less than 1 percent — were "inconsistent with the FBI's core values," said Kortan. "We strongly disagree that the analysts being trained were led to believe that we actually bend or suspend the law in any way. The one reference used in the slide was poorly described."...

Durbin is out for blood, and Stalinist reeducation:

Durbin's letter said he wants the FBI to turn over the offending training material to the Senate Judiciary Committee and wants unclassified versions of the material to be released to the public; wants instructors responsible for the inappropriate training reassigned; and wants to retrain agents who received the bad training. Durbin also wants the bureau to undertake a review of FBI intelligence analyses of Islam, American-Muslims and Arab-Americans; and wants a detailed training curriculum on Islam that has been approved by experts on Islam.

Earlier this month, the FBI posted on its website a set of training principles which said that training must emphasize that religious expression, protest activity and the espousing of ideological beliefs "are constitutionally protected activities that must not be equated with terrorism or criminality" in the absence of other information about such offenses.

Delivered in mosques all over the nation's capital city, this sermon was based on Qur'an 5:82, which says that the Jews will be the worst enemies of Muslims. It's noteworthy that this sermon was delivered in Malaysia, half a world away from Israel: clearly the Malaysian enmity for Jews is based on Islam, not on political considerations. "In Friday sermon, JAWI tells Muslims Jews are No. 1 enemy," by Shannon Teoh for the Malaysian Insider, March 30:

KUALA LUMPUR, March 30 — The Federal Territories’ official sermon today told Muslims Jews are their main enemy as proven by their ego and murderous acts.

The Friday sermon, delivered at lunchtime in mosques across the capital city, said Muslims must “free your brethren in Palestine from the grasp of Zionist rule and economic siege by donating money, food, medicine and whatever is suitable.”

“Firstly, Muslims must understand Jews are the main enemy to Muslims as proven by their egotistical behaviour and murders performed by them,” said the sermon prepared by the Federal Territory Islamic Affairs Department (JAWI).

It called on “community leaders and NGOs to intensify activities that increase awareness and understanding to the public about the importance of al-Quds (Jerusalem),” referring to the city that is sacred to Jews, Muslims and also Christians.

“The honour of al-Quds and the al-Aqsa mosque must be defended by all Muslims as it is holy land that is blessed,” the sermon added.

Malaysia’s relations with Israel hit the headlines after Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was quoted by the Wall Street Journal in January as saying that he supported “all efforts to protect the security of the state of Israel.”

His statement drew immediate fire from Umno and its media, forcing the opposition leader to clarify that he was referring to a “two-state solution”, and that his support was also contingent on Israel respecting the aspirations of Palestinians.

Following the report, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad accused the PKR de facto leader of being a Jewish sympathiser and a leader who disregarded the plight of the Palestinians.

The former prime minister also alleged that the US and Israel were conspiring to cause a regime change in Malaysia through a “puppet government” to be led by his former deputy.

But Anwar shot back, saying that unlike Dr Mahathir he had never met any Israeli leaders.

Muslim-majority Malaysia is a staunch supporter of Palestine and has no diplomatic ties with Israel.

Muslim politicians have long vied for support from Malays by denouncing what they say are inhumane acts of aggression by Israel towards its neighbour.

Anwar has previously been attacked as a supporter of the Zionist movement due to his interaction with prominent Jewish figures in the West.

Horror of horrors.

It is good to see Italy upholding the principle that all those within its borders are subject to the same law. That principle is eroding in Western states today, under pressure from Sharia advocates. "Supreme court sentences non-Italian father for child abuse," from ANSA, March 30 (thanks to all who sent this in):

(ANSA) - Rome, March 30 - The Italian Supreme Court on Friday upheld a sentence for abuse and aggravated assault by a Moroccan father against his 12-year-old daughter.

Defense lawyers maintained that the father, who allegedly beat his daughter with a broom handle for "corrective" purposes after she could not properly recite the Koran, did so because of "cultural" reasons and should be given a lighter sentence accordingly.

The judge dismissed the defense's argument, calling the treatment "violent and unjustifiable" whether from Italian nationals or foreigners.

We have seen several reports about Muslim support for the Jew-killing jihad murderer Merah. We have not seen any reports about Muslims speaking out against him and against Islamic antisemitism in general. Yet the official government and media narrative is that only a tiny minority of extremist Muslims are violent, and most other Muslims abhor their actions. Stories like these show up the hollowness of that dogma.

"In Toulouse suburb, 'scooter killer' is 'one of us,'" by Nicholas Vinocur for Reuters, March 30:

(Reuters) - In the neighborhood where Mohamed Merah grew up, and was last seen joking with friends days after he had killed three French soldiers in a pair of shootings, the message to outsiders is clear: he was one of our own, no matter what he did.

The self-styled Islamist militant tore a wound in France's fragile sense of community when he gunned down the soldiers, sons of North African immigrant families like his own, and then a rabbi and three Jewish children - all in the name of al Qaeda.

For days, Toulouse lived in fear of the "scooter killer".

France reeled at the worst such attacks since a bombing campaign involving another young son of Algerian parents from another rough provincial suburb, Khaled Kelkal from Lyon, killed eight people in 1995. President Nicolas Sarkozy put his re-election campaign on hold to call for unity. Tens of thousands of people marched silently in memory of the victims.

But in Les Izards, the 1960s housing project where Merah, 23, felt most at home, the reaction to his rampage has been one of anxious defiance of outsiders trying to peer into what seems like a closed world, cut off from elegant downtown Toulouse by its poverty, by crime and, locals say, by racial discrimination.

"I'm going to tell you one thing: he was a kid from this neighborhood and we support his family no matter what people say on TV," said one middle-aged mother of Algerian origin who said she had known Merah when he was a child in Les Izards.

Typical of others in the area of low-rise blocks and tidy squares a 15-minute metro ride north of the city centre, she did not want to be named when speaking up for the man who was, briefly, public enemy No. 1: "He was one of ours," she said. "And we will never be sure of what really happened."...

Several residents of Les Izards, in illustrating that sense of confrontation with the French state, alleged that on the day Merah was killed, police cars drove through the neighborhood honking car horns in the manner of jubilant sports fans.

"If we don't want to produce more Mohamed Merahs," Makongo warned, "We are going to have to work a lot harder to reach these kids through dialogue - and find them jobs."

Yes, it is all our fault, and up to us to fix the problem. Islamic antisemitism? Pah!

AFDI/SIOA Calls for Congressional Inquiry on Obama's Sabotage of Israel's Defense Against Iran

NEW YORK, March 30, 2012 / Christian Newswire/ -- A prominent national human rights organization is calling for Congress to open an inquiry into allegations that Barack Obama has leaked information to the press in order to pressure Israel into not defending itself against Iran's nuclear program.

he American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) and its Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) program deplored reports that Obama was moving to prevent Israel from acting in its own defense. ABC News reported Thursday: "Two reports today about Iran's nuclear program and the possibility of an Israeli military strike have analysts in Israel accusing the Obama administration leaking information to pressure Israel not to bomb Iran and for Iran to reach a compromise in upcoming nuclear talks."

AFDI/SIOA Executive Director Pamela Geller said in a statement: "Obama's policies compromise American security. Iran is clearly a threat to America. They have been at war with us since 1979. Israel was willing to do the heavy lifting because our reckless and feckless president was too weak, too compromised. But to betray an ally like this? This leak is part of an ongoing campaign to thwart Israeli defense strategy against the Iranian genocidal threat."

AFDI/SIOA Associate Director Robert Spencer: "We call on patriotic members of Congress who respect Israel as America's most reliable ally in the Middle East to launch an immediate full-scale investigation into Obama's efforts to undermine Israel's security, and the larger implications of those efforts for our own national security."

They're not sure which ones, but they know it involved Misunderstanders of the Religion of Peace. "Three deadly explosions hit Yala in southern Thailand, officials say," from the BBC, March 31 (thanks to A):

At least eight people have been killed in three explosions in the southern Thai province of Yala, officials say.

Yala Governor Dejrat Simsiri said the blasts occurred over 10 minutes at around midday (06:00 BST) in the commercial district of Yala city.

He said two of the bombs were hidden in motorcycles and the third in a car.

Thailand's three southern-most provinces have been plagued by bomb attacks and shootings since 2004, when a separatist campaign reignited.

"We are not sure which group of suspected Muslim insurgents were behind this but we are looking," Mr Dejrat said.

The Associated Press and Reuters news agencies put the death toll from Saturday's bombings at eight, with around 70 wounded. AFP quoted a nurse in the emergency unit of Yala provincial hospital as saying nine people had died.

"There are nine dead now and 112 injured people sent to our hospital," the hospital worker told AFP.
Map of Thailand

Thai police told AFP a policeman had also been injured in a separate motorcycle attack in Mae Lan in neighbouring Pattani province.

Thai officials said another explosion on Saturday - at a hotel in the city of Hat Yai, Songkhla province - was due to a gas leak and unrelated to the attacks, Associated Press reported.

More than 4,300 people have been killed in the violence in southern Thailand. As of 2011, the Thai army had 60,000 forces stationed in the region to tackle the insurgency.

Thailand annexed the three provinces - Narathiwat, Yala and Pattani - in 1902, but the majority of people there are Muslim and speak a Malay dialect, in contrast with the Buddhists in the rest of the country who speak Thai.

Critics accuse the government of failing to address the grievances of these residents.

Of course. It's always the other guy's fault.

In the thirteenth century the Ismaili Shi'ite Hashishin (حشّاشين), or Assassins, got their name from their practice of using hashish before setting out on jihad missions to assassinate Sunni leaders. The modern Shi'ites running Iran seem to have found in them an inspiration and model. "Exclusive: Secret Iran 'Terror' Squad Unmasked," by Sam Kiley for Sky News, March 30 (thanks to Kenneth):

Intelligence agencies are searching for members of a secret Iranian network of assassins under orders to attack Jewish, Israeli and Western targets in Turkey.

According to intelligence sources, the organisation behind the attack is known as Unit 400, a secret part of the al Quds Brigade, which falls under the direct command of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Leader.

"Unit 400 of the Qods Force has been developing in the last few months a standing operating procedure for carrying out an attack in Turkey against western targets as well as Israeli and Jewish. It is our firm assessment that these procedures are in a very advanced stage, and that the intention is to act on the plans very soon," an intelligence source told Sky News.

There is also evidence that Unit 400 has been given instructions to carry out more frequent and more daring 'terror' attacks around the world as a demonstration of 'Iran's asymmetric power' - in the face of the growing threat of Israeli or American air strikes on its alleged nuclear weapons programme, the sources said.

The sources named a senior officer in Unit 400 as being a key Iranian agent who "has been working up plans for potential attacks in European countries".

Israel and the United States have repeatedly said that Iran would not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. Israel's Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has also warned that the window for launching military strikes to destroy it is closing fast.

Intelligence services in the West and Middle East, where Iran is treated with deep suspicion for its support of Syria, may have an interest in painting Iran in a poor light and associating it with international terrorism as a means of building the case for military intervention against its alleged weapons programme.

But it is equally likely that intelligence organisations want to warn their political masters of the dangers of backing an attack against Tehran, which has made no secret of its plans to carry out revenge operations.

"Unit 400 is a top-secret "special ops" unit within the elite overseas wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force (IRGC-QF). It plans and carries out terror attacks on external targets, and provides material support to foreign militia groups, at the direct behest of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. This is in accordance with the regime's core strategic considerations about how best to challenge perceived enemies in Israel and the west - through asymmetric warfare - and to cope with mounting international pressure over its nuclear programme," a secret study by a foreign intelligence agency said....

Reuters photo caption: "Masked special forces police escort a member of the Islamist community under heavy guard in Coueron, near Nantes, March 30, 2012." Islamist community?

They had rifles and were apparently preparing for more jihad in France. "French police arrests 19 people in a bid to crackdown suspected Islamists," by Charles Sicurani and Nicolas Gaudichet for Agence France-Presse, March 30 (thanks to all who sent this in):

PARIS — French police swooped down on suspected Islamist networks Friday, arresting 19 people as President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed a crackdown would continue after an extremist gunman's killing spree.

The arrests took place in several cities including Toulouse, where Mohamed Merah was shot dead by police last week after a series of cold-blooded shootings in southwestern France that left seven dead.

Sarkozy said the arrests targeted "radical Islam" and that the trauma in France after the shootings in Toulouse and Montauban was somewhat like that felt in the United States after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"What must be understood is that the trauma of Montauban and Toulouse is profound for our country, a little — I don't want to compare the horrors — a little like the trauma that followed in the United States and in New York after the September 11, 2001 attacks," he told Europe 1 radio....

The operation "is not linked only to Toulouse, it's on all of French territory, is linked with a form of radical Islam and is in full accordance with the law," Sarkozy said....

"We have some extremely precise questions to ask a certain number of people and what happened this morning will continue," said Sarkozy, in the thick of a heated campaign for France's two-round April-May presidential election.

"There will be other operations that will continue and will also allow us to expel from our national territory a certain number of people," he added.

Sarkozy also defended France's decision this week to bar some Muslim preachers from entering the country, saying: "We don't want people who advocate values contrary to the republic to be invited to our territory."

Police sources said the raids were "not directly linked" to the Toulouse shootings but targeted at extremists networks.

Police said Kalashnikov assault rifles and other weapons were seized during the raids.

Among those arrested was Mohammed Achamlane, the head of a suspected extremist group called Forsane Alizza, the sources said, with three Kalashnikovs, a Glock pistol and a grenade were seized from his home....

The Jihad News Network's hateful propaganda has its effect. "'Terror attack inspired by Al-Jazeera,'" by Aviad Glickman for Ynet News, March 29 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The Jerusalem District Prosecution indicted 18-year-old Mohammed Shuman, from Beit Hanina, for the attempted murder of an Israeli soldier in Jerusalem in early March.

Shuman stabbed 19-year-old Yehudit Aharon in her chest and hand on Jerusalem's Light Rail.

Shuman fled the scene and was later arrested at the Qalandiya checkpoint. He admitted to the stabbing.

According to the indictment, Shuman left his home that day en route to school, where he was supposed to take a religious class test, carrying a pocket knife.

The State alleged that upon arriving in school, Shuman decided to skip the test, left school ground and boarded the light rail, where he spotted Aharon.

According to the prosecution, Shuman – an avid viewer of Al-Jazeera, Al-Quds and Al-Manar TV stations – was frustrated by what he perceived as the unfair treatment of Palestinians in IDF checkpoints, and especially in Qalandiya, decided to kill the soldier....

There is simply no way to screen these guys out. Islam teaches jihad against infidels and counts as enemies those who collaborate with the infidel as well. This whole mission in Afghanistan is a fool's errand, and these kinds of incidents are going to keep happening. "Afghan police officer kills 9 comrades," from CNN, March 30 (thanks to Block Ness):

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- An Afghan police officer shot and killed nine other officers in southeast Afghanistan on Thursday night, authorities said.

The incident occurred in Paktika province, a spokesman for the provincial governor said. Two police officers were arrested, and another, believed to be part of the attack, fled, the spokesman said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack and said in a statement that the officer who fired the shots was actually a Taliban fighter.

The shooter was a member of the Afghan Local Police force, International Security Assistance Force spokesman Maj. Joe Buccino said in a statement.

Buccino described the officer as a "rogue" and said the attack was not preceded by any signs of trouble....

This year, a third, or 16, of the 46 American service members killed in Afghanistan have died at the hands of Afghan security forces, including Monday when a man alleged to be a local Afghan police officer killed an American service member in eastern Afghanistan.

Gen. John Allen, the commander of the NATO-led force, said officials are working on a new procedure to check the background of Afghans who sign up to join the security services....

I'm sure it will work great.

To restore their community's "dignity," doncha know.

And yet no one ever, ever calls out the apologists for murder and terror and the claimants of Muslim victimhood for their sanctioning of evil.

Video courtesy Blazing Cat Fur, via Pamela Geller.

You guessed it. Will the Islamophobia never end? "Iran Threatens Church with Bombing," by Joseph DeCaro for Worthy News, March 30 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

TEHRAN, IRAN (Worthy News)– Another church in Tehran was ordered to cease holding services in Farsi, the Iranian national language, otherwise it could be "bombed".

According to Barnabas Aid, ministers from an Iranian interior department dealing with interfaith matters served notice to the Armenian Anglican Church, unofficially threatening that if the order is ignored, the church will be bombed “as happens in Iraq every day”.

This latest threat comes after both Emmanuel Protestant and St. Peter Evangelical churches were ordered to stop holding services in Farsi on Fridays, which falls on the weekend in Iran where Sunday is just another work day.

"It now seems likely that the Islamic authorities have imagined that with this new restriction they will somehow hold back the rapid, and evidently extremely worrying, spread of Christianity amongst the people under their yoke," according to a report by the Farsi Christian News Network.

Iranian security agents have been arresting Christians in a country-wide crackdown since Christmas.

They've changed the name now, but the substance is the same. They're not concerned about Muslims committing violent jihad in the name of Islam. No, a far greater threat is that of Christians proselytizing Muslims. Islamic Tolerance Alert from modern, moderate Malaysia: "Malaysia in religious row over 'threat of Christianity,'" from AFP, March 29 (thanks to Wimpy):

KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysian state religious and education officials have changed the title of a seminar on "the threat of Christianity" following outrage from non-Muslims in the multiethnic country.

Southern Johor state education officials faced criticism over the school teachers' seminar to be held Saturday that was titled: "Strengthening the faith, the dangers of liberalism and pluralism and the threat of Christianity towards Muslims."

The furore over the title follows allegations of Christian proselytisation in the Muslim-majority country after religious police raided a Methodist church event last August fearing Muslims were being converted.

State lawmaker Maulizan Bujang told the Bernama news agency the reference to Christianity would be removed from the title, saying: "The seminar aims to strengthen the faith of Muslims and it does not need to be politicised by any party that claims it (the seminar) is a threat to other religions."

But co-organisers from the state religious department said the seminar's content would remain the same.

"The seminar is part of the right of Muslims to defend the faith of its practitioners from any action which may lead to apostasy. It is our responsibility," an official told Bernama.

Defend in what way? By violence?

Opposition leaders say the ruling coalition, which is expected to announce national polls this year, is trying to woo back Malay support by using fear of other religions, after a swing vote saw the government lose control of a third of parliamentary seats and four states in 2008 polls.

Reverend Hermen Shastri, general secretary of the Council of Churches of Malaysia, said the government had to take a stand against the seminar.

"Of course we are disappointed, it derails the whole idea of harmony and mutual respect and understanding each other," he told AFP.

Malaysia has largely avoided overt religious conflict in recent decades but tensions have simmered since a court ruling in late 2009 lifted a government ban on the use of "Allah" as a translation for "God" in Malay-language bibles.

The ban had been in place for years but enforcement only began in 2008 out of fear the word could encourage Muslims to convert.

The 2009 ruling triggered a series of attacks on Christian places of worship using Molotov cocktails, rocks and paint....

My inbox is full today of cc's of emails sent to Kramer Levin, the law firm that bowed to pressure from the Islamic supremacist anti-free speech group, the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and canceled the MEF event they were hosting and at which I was scheduled to speak on April 18. Details here -- primarily Hamas-linked CAIR is terrified of and wants to suppress my forthcoming book, Did Muhammad Exist? An Inquiry Into Islam's Obscure Origins.

I am moved by the eloquent, passionate defenses of freedom that so many people have written, and thank you for them. In response, Kramer Levin has raised the drawbridges and filled the moats with alligators. Their Director of Diversity, Lauren Tapper, has been contacted by at least two journalists to ask her about the firm's unwillingness to allow for intellectual diversity; she has refused to speak to either one. Nor is she taking any calls. One journalist cc'd me on this note to Tapper:

Dear Ms Tapper,

I am on deadline for an article I am writing on your capitulation to Islamic supremacists at Hamas-linked CAIR. We were interested in your lack of diversity of intellectual thought and how you reconcile that with your position in the company.

Further, can we deduce that Kramer Levin supports the sharia and the prohibition on free speech made plain in your cancellation of the scholar Robert Spencer?

If you have not already, please take a stand for free inquiry and the freedom of expression against Islamic supremacist intimidation, thuggery and censorship. Email Kramer Levin's Executive Director Nicholas Tortorella at ntortorella@kramerlevin.com and politely and firmly let him know the truth about Hamas-linked CAIR and the importance of free discourse. Also: please call 212.715.9100 or fax: 212.715.8000 and send polite but firm comments to Kramer Levin's Director of Diversity, Lauren Tapper. E-Mail: ltapper@kramerlevin.com COPY TO: cauguste@kramerlevin.com, jmaier@kramerlevin.com, jrochon@kramerlevin.com, dcho@kramerlevin.com, nsimon@kramerlevin.com, mdunn@kramerlevin.com.

Thanks again to Pamela Geller for tracking down these email addresses and phone numbers.

UPDATE: Ah, now it begins to make sense. Look at the first comment below. An excerpt: "Mr. [Eric A.] Tirschwell leads a team of Kramer Levin associates in representing several Uighurs, a persecuted Muslim minority group from western China, who were wrongfully imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay. In October 2008, the team won a historic ruling ordering immediate release into the United States of the firm's detainee clients. While the appeal of that ruling was pending, three of Kramer Levin's clients were released to freedom in Palau."

I was interviewed last night about the situation of Egypt's Christians: "The Plight of Egypt's Coptic Christians," by Wolff Bachner for The Inquisitr, March 29:

Most of us in the West have little knowledge of what life is like for Christians in the Muslim world. Take for example, the Coptic Christians, who were once the dominant religious group in Egypt. Previously the mainstay of their nation, Copts are now living as an oppressed minority, denied religious freedom and equal status in Egyptian life. The Copts are routinely denied meaningful employment and may not hold positions in the Egyptian Civil Service. Copts are refused permission to build new churches and even a request to renovate a church that is badly in need of repair can lead to an outbreak of severe Muslim violence against the Copts. Recently, there have even been calls for a return to collecting Jizya from the Copts, a tax that the Qur’an instructs Muslims to charge to all Dhimmis (non-Muslims) whenever Muslims are in power.

To give our readers an accurate picture of the situation in Egypt, we asked Raymond Ibrahim to answer several questions about the Coptic Christians. Raymond is the son of Coptic Christian parents who were born in Egypt and he has first hand knowledge about Coptic life under Islam. Raymond is a highly respected Middle East and Islam specialist, a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum. A widely published author, best known for The Al Qaeda Reader (Doubleday, 2007), he guest lectures at universities, including the National Defense Intelligence College. Raymond also briefs governmental agencies, such as U.S. Strategic Command and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Among other media, he has appeared on Inquisitr.com, MSNBC, Fox News, C-SPAN, PBS, Reuters, Al-Jazeera, CBN, and NPR. Raymond is fluent in Arabic and he has studied the Qur’an and many ancient Islamic historical documents in the original language. You can find Raymond’s latest writings at http://www.raymondibrahim.com.

Here is our interview with Raymond Ibrahim:

1. Who are the Coptic Christians and what is their history?

Raymond Ibrahim:

The Copts are the indigenous inhabitants of Egypt, before the Arab/Muslim invasion around 641 A.D.. The the word “Copt” simply means “Egyptian”; however, because all Egyptians were Christian in the 7th century—Egypt was a major Christian center, so much so that Alexandria vied with Rome over ecclesiastical leadership—“Copt” also became synonymous with “Christian.” In short, the word Copt is similar to the word Jew: both words convey a people and a religion. Tradition teaches that St. Mark, author of the Gospel of the same name, proselytized the pagan Egyptians of the 1st century; by approximately the 3rd century, Christianity was the dominant religion; and by the 7th century when Islam burst into Egypt, Christianity was the religion.

I was scheduled to speak on April 18 at a Middle East Forum event to be held at the law offices of Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel (Kramer Levin) in New York City, about my forthcoming book, Did Muhammad Exist? An Inquiry Into Islam's Obscure Origins. But the Islamic supremacist thugs at the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) found out about the event and pressured Kramer Levin to cancel it, in keeping with their nationwide campaign to demonize and silence all those who speak the truth about the global jihad and Islamic supremacism. Hamas-linked CAIR operatives will not meet me in debate, cannot refute what I say, and so they resort to this intimidation and pressure to keep the truth from being heard.

Kramer Levin, meanwhile, took the cowardly way out and set yet another bad precedent in allowing these Islamic supremacists to control the discourse and prevent free people from speaking the truth. Kramer Levin Executive Director Nicholas J. Tortorella wrote this to Hamas-linked CAIR:

From time to time we receive requests from not for profit or community organizations to use our conference rooms for meetings or other events. While we permit our facilities to be used occasionally for these purposes, Kramer Levin can take no responsibility for the content of these events and in no way endorses any opinions that may be expressed during them. In this instance, we were not aware of the controversy surrounding the speaker at the April 18th event. Now having been alerted to the situation, we have withdrawn permission for the event to take place at our offices.

Let Kramer Levin know that it is more controversial for them to cave to a Hamas-linked Islamic supremacist hate group. Email Tortorella at ntortorella@kramerlevin.com and politely and firmly let him know the truth about Hamas-linked CAIR and the importance of free discourse. Hamas-linked CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case -- so named by the Justice Department. CAIR operatives have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. CAIR's cofounder and longtime Board chairman (Omar Ahmad), as well as its chief spokesman (Ibrahim Hooper), have made Islamic supremacist statements. Its California chapter distributed posters telling Muslims not to talk to the FBI.

This is not an organization that any American firm should be bowing to.

Also: please call 212.715.9100 or fax: 212.715.8000 and send polite but firm comments to Kramer Levin's Director of Diversity, Lauren Tapper. E-Mail: ltapper@kramerlevin.com COPY TO: cauguste@kramerlevin.com, jmaier@kramerlevin.com, jrochon@kramerlevin.com, dcho@kramerlevin.com, nsimon@kramerlevin.com, mdunn@kramerlevin.com.

Thanks to Pamela Geller for tracking down these email addresses and phone numbers.

We all remember the international uproar that erupted when, during a clash between police and protesters in Egypt, the former beat and partially stripped to her bra a female protester (subsequently known as the “Blue Bra Woman”).

An older video which purports to show an Egyptian officer ordering a woman to take off all her clothes, is even worse, sparking debate anew. For the stripping is not a product of haste, blind-rage, or chaos—as apologists for the Blue Bra Woman incident argue—but deliberate, methodical, and sadistic.

According to a new report appearing yesterday on El Bashayer, Mohsin Bahsani, president of an Egyptian organization called Legal Assistance for Human Rights, has brought this video to the spotlight, saying he is preparing to submit a formal complaint to the Attorney General, asking for legal action to be taken, including identifying the perpetrators.

The video was earlier aired on the popular Egyptian program “90 Minutes” (click here; clip appears from around minute 1:45 to minute 4). It appears to be taped inside an apartment, where a man, dressed like an officer, threatens and slaps a woman around, bullying her to take off all her clothes. He constantly commands her to “strip,” and orders the others in the room to keep the door closed.

First he gives her a hard, swift slap across the face when she refuses to take off her top; then she takes it off but he orders her to take her bra off as well. After protesting, she complies, but then covers her face for shame, all while sopping; he yells at her not to cover her face and gives her another hard slap. Then he resumes ordering her to continue stripping, i.e., take her pants—and presumably underwear, based on precedent—off. The video soon cuts off.

The focus of 90 Minutes was whether this video is authentic and whether it can be proven that the man is a police officer. One of the guests, a journalist, seemed sure, pointing out that the man was wearing a holster with a gun in it (in Egypt, only officers are permitted to carry firearms). Likewise, the woman initially objected to being forced to strip naked, arguing “Are you going to drag me outside naked?” implying that she was being arrested and taken into custody; and towards the end the man, while ordering her to continue stripping, threatens her by saying, “Okay, off we go to the ministry [of justice],” again, implying he is an officer making an arrest.

The one main oddity of the video is that, towards the end of the clip, someone in the apartment leaps in front of the camera making a goofy face. Though one might argue that this takes away from the seriousness, and thus authenticity, of the situation, in fact, the counter argument can be made—that the jumping fool actually further demonstrates the authenticity of the video: If those making the tape were intentionally trying to frame Egypt’s police force—which the host of 90 Minutes offered as a possibility—surely they would not compromise their efforts by such a silly stunt in front of the camera.

A more likely interpretation is that the man is, in fact, an officer, who is at the apartment of friends or family, where he is doing them a “favor”— abusing his authority, “flexing his muscle” as it were, against this woman whom his buddies, for whatever reason, have targeted as needing to be threatened, shaken down, and shamed—all while some in the apartment goof around, apparently because such spectacles are not out of the ordinary.

Incidentally, this video was taken when Hosni Mubarak was in power, before the Revolution—a reminder that, brutality by authority figures in Islamic Egypt is not a product of this or that regime, but of culture; a reminder that the beating and stripping of the Blue-Bra woman, which caused much international outrage, may well be the tip of the iceberg.

Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum

If this story is true, and it may not be, it would not be surprising. It would be in line with everything else Obama has said and done to demonstrate his opposition to Israel doing much of anything to defend itself against the global jihad. "'Azerbaijan allows Israel to use its air bases near Iran border,'" from Israel Hayom, March 29 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

Foreign Policy quotes U.S. diplomats as saying “We’re now watching what Israel is doing in Azerbaijan. And we’re not happy about it” • A series of quiet political and military understandings have won Israel access to these air bases, senior U.S. sources explain.

Senior American diplomats and military intelligence officers have told Foreign Policy magazine that the United States now believes that Israel has been granted access to air bases in Azerbaijan, which shares a border with Iran. “The Israelis have bought an airfield,” a senior official told Foreign Policy in early February, “and the airfield is called Azerbaijan.”...

Israel’s ties with Azerbaijan, a Muslim country that became independent with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, have grown as its once-strong strategic relationship with another Iranian neighbor, Turkey, has deteriorated. For Israeli intelligence, there is also a possible added benefit from Azerbaijan: its significant cross-border contacts and trade with Iran’s large ethnic Azeri community.

Speaking to Foreign Policy, one of the U.S. sources said, “We’re watching what Iran does closely. But we’re now watching what Israel is doing in Azerbaijan. And we’re not happy about it.”

The Azeri military - based on a report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Military Balance 2011 and brought forth by Foreign Policy - has four abandoned, Soviet-era airfields that could be made available to the Israelis, as well as four air bases for its own planes....

Former CENTCOM Commander Gen. Joe Hoar explained Israel’s calculations regarding a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities to Foreign Policy by saying, “They save themselves 800 miles of fuel. That doesn’t guarantee that Israel will attack Iran, but it certainly makes it more doable.”

Israel’s motivation for using Azeri air bases could be about more than simply saving fuel in a possible attack on Iran, it could be because, according to the report, one senior U.S. military intelligence officer described Israel’s mid-air refueling capabilities as “pretty minimal,” adding, “They’re just not very good at it.”...

One former CIA analyst told Foreign Policy that the U.S. had its doubts that Israel would launch an attack from Azerbaijan, describing it as “just too chancy, politically.” The source didn’t rule out the option that Israel could use Azeri airfields for “follow-on or recovery operations,” but added, “Of course, if they do that, it widens the conflict, and complicates it. It’s extremely dangerous.”

Two weeks ago security services in Azerbaijan arrested 22 people they say were hired by Iran to carry out terrorist attacks against the U.S. and Israeli embassies as well as Western-linked groups and companies....

Jihad and Islamic antisemitism in New York City in 1994. "Killer: Jews my target," by Larry Celona in the New York Post, March 26 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The livery driver whose two-gun attack on a group of Hasidic students on the Brooklyn Bridge shocked the city 18 years ago has finally admitted that he targeted them because they were Jewish, The Post has learned.

Rashid Baz was convicted in 1995 of murdering Yeshiva student Ari Halberstam, 16, and trying to kill more than a dozen others in a van with a hail of bullets he fired on a Manhattan approach to the bridge on March 1, 1994.

Baz initially told cops he opened fire because of a traffic dispute. But in 2007 Baz finally confessed that he targeted his victims, tailing their van for about two miles before the shooting, an admission that had never been made public until now.

Since Baz is already serving a minimum of 141 years in state prison, authorities believe there is no reason to pursue hate-crime or other new charges, law-enforcement sources said.

Detectives never believed Baz’s traffic-dispute defense but discounted the widely spread rumors that he was part of a terror-linked conspiracy.

During a five-week trial, Baz’s lawyer claimed the shooter suffered serious trauma while growing up during the Lebanese civil war and was suffering from post- traumatic stress disorder at the time of the slaying.

But in his confession years later, Baz said he first saw the van outside the Manhattan Eye and Ear Infirmary, on East 14th Street, where Lubavitcher spiritual leader Rabbi Menachem Schneerson was undergoing minor surgery.

He said he followed the van and targeted the occupants because of an earlier West Bank attack by Israeli settlers on Muslims. Asked if he would have shot at a van of black or Latino people, he told the investigators, “No, I only shot them because they were Jewish.”

Baz fired two guns, blowing out one of the windows of his blue Chevrolet. Then he drove calmly back to his car-service headquarters in Brooklyn and told co-workers he had shot up the van for no particular reason....

And Obama and others in the U.S. want to help them, which is just another way to cut our own throat. "Islamists find foothold in Syria revolt," by Erika Solomon for Reuters, March 29:

(Reuters) - Sheikh Abu Abdullah Zahed, a Lebanese Muslim cleric with influence amongst radical youth, is part of a growing effort to push the uprising in Syria towards militant Islam.

Hardline Sunni Muslims in Lebanon are maneuvering for influence over Syrians across the border who have spent the last year fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad.

"At first Syrians called on the West and NATO. Now they are calling on God," said Zahed, sitting in his library, where black Islamic flags hang on the walls....

"We don't want to accidentally wind up supporting extremist groups," said Joseph Holliday, of the Institute for the Study of War, in Washington.

Uh, yeah. But we've already done so in Egypt and Libya, so why not go for the hat trick?

"The fundamental question is: What happens in the future? And does our involvement make this turn better or worse?"

Some activists are already uneasy about a series of car bombs that hit Syria's two main cities. An unknown group called Al-Nusra Front claimed the attacks on a website that posts messages from many al Qaeda branches.

"There is a growing radical presence inside Syria and I think they were behind the bombings. I'm afraid controlling them could be a losing battle," said an activist. He asked not to be named for fear of angering fellow opposition members, who are reluctant to discuss potential radical infiltration.

STEREOTYPED BY BEARDS

Zahed, a Lebanese sheikh with a long beard and a leather jacket over his blue robe, sits in front of shelves of gold embossed religious books. He offers the Islamic flags that hang behind him to people who join anti-Assad protests in his hometown of Tripoli.

"At first no one raised anything other than the Syrian flag. Now some are raising the Islamic flag," Zahed said.

Assad has long raised the specter of Islamic extremism and says "terrorists" are behind Syria's bloody uprising.

Activists say they lead a grassroots, inclusive movement but are unfairly stereotyped because many of them are religious.

"I want a pluralistic state that is democratic and belongs to everyone. Why are people so afraid? Yes, our revolution has Salafists, we have Islamists. Everyone is participating in the revolution," said a Syrian activist in Tripoli who calls himself al-Shami, which means "the Syrian".

He tugs on his brown, bushy beard: "Do we have to shave our beards so people don't feel threatened? We're not terrorists."...

No, but you're pro-Sharia Islamic supremacists, in favor of a legal system that institutionalizes oppression of women and non-Muslims.

When night falls on the border, dancing Syrian protesters set tires ablaze and fly their colorful independence flag. But as the flames grow higher and the night wears on, they are overtaken by young men whose black banners emblazoned in white Arabic script declare: "There is no God but God."

Members of this hardline, austere brand of Islam say they are drawn to the revolt because their religion says they should aid the oppressed....

"I try to speak at protests and some sheikh comes up and takes over. These protests are for the people not the sheikhs. Then we are all accused of being Salafists and sectarians," shouts Musaab in Wadi Khaled, a farming village on the mountainous border with Syria.

Salafists say they are gaining followers because they offer food and money to refugees as well as supplying many doctors and clinics that treat wounded Syrians smuggled into Lebanon.

"The state has fallen short in terms of helping the Syrians but we are happy for it. People who come here for help will leave with more Islamic thinking," said the cleric Zahed.

"CALL US TO JIHAD"

Some Islamists are struggling to prove that their conservative views do not make them militants who can't work with foreign powers.

The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, the largest and most organized opposition group abroad, includes followers from many Islamic backgrounds. It is in Turkey this week meeting with foreign powers along with secular and minority leaders.

The group has set out a platform for a future Syria that is democratic and pluralistic. But it has yet to convince minority groups who are wary of the balance of power and fear Islamists will change their tone if the uprising succeeds.

But activists in Syria say it is that radicals next door that have some activists worried. They point to calls for jihad, or holy war, by some protesters.

"If the Syrians call us to jihad we will do it, God willing. The UN can call it international terrorism or whatever they want," said Sheikh Salem al-Rifai at his Tripoli mosque, as crowds of men filed out from afternoon prayers.

Minor Syrian clerics have already called jihad but many Syrian sheikhs are wary and appear to be holding off an irrevocable escalation that would allow in foreign fighters.

There are already reports of Iraqi, Libyan and Lebanese fighters entering Syria and activists say they may be motivated by Sunni sectarian loyalties.

Many Lebanese and Syrian Sunnis harbor deep resentment against Alawites and the Assad government for bloody crackdowns in both countries, particularly the late president Hafez al-Assad's crushing of a 1982 Islamist revolt in Hama. His forces razed parts of the city and killed more than 10,000.

One man's view that is eagerly awaited is exiled Adnan Arour, an influential cleric who has said Alawites loyal to Assad should be "ground into dog meat".

Last month he hinted he was close to "ringing the bell" of jihad but wanted to see more solidarity among the rebels first....

The poor lambs. No doubt they were driven to it by Islamophobia. "Suspected Islamists bomb Nigerian police station," from SAPA, March 29 (thanks to Twostellas):

Kano - Suspected members of Islamist group Boko Haram bombed a police station in northeastern Nigeria late on Wednesday, setting it ablaze in the latest of scores of such attacks, police said.

Gunmen stormed the station in the town of Damagun in Yobe state, though it was unclear if there were casualties.

“A group of suspected members of Boko Haram attacked the Damagun police station, where they detonated explosives that set the station on fire,” Yobe police spokesman Gbagesin Toyin told AFP.

“We are yet to ascertain if there were any casualties,” he added.

One resident said what appeared to be a large crowd of attackers were shouting “Allahu Akbar” as they stormed the building.

Another resident said the gunmen engaged the police in a shootout before hurling explosives into the station.

“They have burnt down the police station and shut down the highway... Everybody is indoors,” the resident said.

Meanwhile two gunmen shot dead a police inspector in Maiduguri, in neighbouring Borno state, a police spokesman said.

He was killed while shopping in the city's Gamboru market, Borno state police spokesman Samuel Tizhe said....

A long overdue step. The list includes Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the most prominent Muslim cleric in the world. In January 2009, during a Friday sermon broadcast on Al-Jazeera, he prayed that Allah would kill all the Jews: “Oh Allah, take this oppressive, Jewish, Zionist band of people. Oh Allah, do not spare a single one of them. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them, down to the very last one.” He also declared: “Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by [Adolf] Hitler.”

"France bars Muslim clerics from entering France," by Thomas Adamson for the Associated Press, March 29 (thanks to Maxwell):

PARIS (AP) — France has barred a group of Muslim clerics, including one of the most prominent voices in Sunni Islam, from entering the country to attend a conference.

France's foreign ministry said Thursday the clerics were invited by the French Islamic Union to speak at a congress in Le Bourget near Paris from April 6-9.

One of those barred, the Egyptian-born Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, says he refuses to come to France.

The ban also includes other high-profile Muslim clerics of Palestinian, Egyptian and Saudi origin.

The foreign ministry said in a statement that "these people call for hatred and violence and seriously violate the principles of the Republic, and in the current context, seriously risk disrupting public order."

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said earlier this week that these figures would not be "welcome" as their views are incompatible with French values....

Al-Qaradawi is widely respected throughout the Middle East and has a popular weekly TV show on Islamic law on the Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera.

But because of his suspected extremist links, the 86-year-old cleric has been banned from the United States and was prevented from traveling to Britain to seek medical treatment in 2008 on grounds he supports terrorism....

The French are denying this now, but Merah does seem to have told an agent that he had some tips for her, but was actually going to kill her. It wouldn't be surprising at all if Merah had been giving information to French intelligence agents. After all, before his murders he was a moderate, right? And the French are no better than any other Western country in even making an attempt to distinguish "extremists" from "moderates" -- like everyone else, they just assume that all Muslims are moderate, without even bothering to define exactly what that term means.

"Was Islamist gunman Mohamed Merah an informant for French spies?," by Alastair Jamieson for MSNBC, March 29 (thanks to Kenneth):

Mohamed Merah, the gunman who killed seven people including three Jewish children, may have been an informant for France's intelligence services, according to reports that raise further questions about whether authorities missed chances to prevent the attacks....

Bernard Squarcini, head of the agency, was quoted by French newspaper Le Monde as saying Merah asked for a local DCRI agent by name while he was holed-up in the apartment surrounded by police.

Squarcini told Le Monde that Merah shocked the female agent by saying: "Anyway, I was going to call you to say I had some tip-offs for you, but actually I was going to [kill] you.”

Merah, who told police he had been inspired to commit his attacks by al-Qaida, used the French word "fumer", which means "to smoke," which is a slang term that also means to "murder" or "waste."

Squarcini’s remarks to Le Monde were reported in other French media, including Liberation and Le Figaro.

'Not trivial'

Yves Bonnet, former head of an intelligence agency that was merged with DCRI in 2008, told Toulouse newspaper La Dépêche du Midi that it was significant that Merah appeared to have a regular contact at the DCRI. “Having a contact is not totally innocent,” he told the newspaper. “This is not trivial.”

Italian newspaper Il Foglio said Merah’s trip to Israel and Afghanistan in September 2010 was made with the knowledge of the French foreign secret service, the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure. However, London's Independent newspaper quoted a spokesman for the agency as dismissing that report as "grotesque".

Squarcini has since insisted Merah was not helping authorities, telling Liberation the gunman was not "an informer for the DCRI or any other French or foreign services."...

As Muslims in Toulouse claim victim status by whining about backlash, Mohamed Merah's father is going them one better, having the gall to claim that his son was murdered and that he isn't even sure he committed the murders (for which young Merah actually claimed responsibility). It is a recurring pattern: any time a Muslim commits a jihad atrocity, other Muslims work hard to shift the blame and responsibility upon non-Muslims. Every time.

An update on this story. "Father of Islamist gunman sues French police," from AFP, March 29 (thanks to Twostellas):

ALGIERS, France (AFP) — The father of an Islamist gunman, branded a "monster" after he boasted of killing seven people in southern France, is suing a crack French police unit over his son's death as the family prepares for a funeral in Algeria.

The body of 23-year-old Mohamed Merah, a Frenchman of Algerian descent, was due to arrive in Algeria yesterday, a family member told AFP.

He was shot dead by French police on March 22 after a lengthy stand-off followed by an exchange of gunfire at his Toulouse apartment.

The body "will be accompanied by the mother and a sister of the deceased", a relative said, adding the corpse would first be washed in France, according to Muslim custom, before being buried in the Medea region, south of Algiers....

If he is being buried according to Islamic ritual, clearly his mass murders do not place him outside the pale of the Muslim community.

Algerian lawyer Zahia Mokhtari told AFP Wednesday she had been hired by the dead man's father, Mohamed Benalal Merah, to press charges against French police for shooting him dead.

"Mr Merah thinks that his son was murdered. He has asked us to file a complaint against the French security services," she said. "We will begin the procedure once the burial is completed."...

Merah's father insisted Wednesday he would not "shut up" after saying he wanted to sue over the death of his son.

The comment, reported in an Algerian Arab-language daily newspaper, came after French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe reacted angrily to the threat of a legal challenge.

"If I were the father of such a monster, I would shut my mouth in shame," Juppe said.

In an interview to France 24 later Wednesday, Merah's father said: "If my son was really behind the killings, it was not good.

"If he has really committed these crimes and killed innocent people, he was wrong," he said, insisting: "If it was really him."

"If he was pushed to commit these acts by other people, it was wrong. He was blinded", by them, the father said.

When police surrounded Merah's Toulouse apartment last week, the gunman fought off an initial assault and then, in a conversation with a police negotiator, claimed responsibility for the attacks....

We see it again and again: every time there is a jihad attack or a foiled jihad plot, the mainstream media focuses attention on the poor victimized Muslims, publishing story after story about a backlash against innocent Muslims that never actually materializes, and thereby attempting to shift focus away from jihad mass murder and onto the Muslims as victims, needing special protection and deserving to be exempt from especial scrutiny. In other words, we're the real victims here, so lay off the counterterror investigations.

Does anyone fall for this nonsense anymore? Oh, yes, they certainly do. That's why the New York Times and other mainstream media outlet keep churning this nonsense out by the pound.

"After Killings in France, Muslims Fear a Culture of Diversity Is at Risk," by Scott Sayare for the New York Times, March 27 (thanks to Ron):

TOULOUSE, France — As near to the Spanish border as it is to the Mediterranean, this sunny red-brick city has long been known as a place of welcome and diversity, far removed from the divisive politics of Paris. In contrast to much of the French south, the far right, with its virulent anti-immigrant stance, has little presence here. Nor does radical Islam.

Toulouse is by no means without racism, anti-Semitism, crime or the deep social segregation that marks many French cities, but with a culture shaped by successive waves of immigration, it is described by its inhabitants as a place of particular tolerance....

So while Muslims across France speak of feeling vilified, this city has largely been spared the tensions that surround Islam. “It is true that from time to time we are subjected to hateful political discourse,” said Mohamed Tataï, the imam at the mosque El Nour in Empalot, a poor neighborhood. It is effectively imported from outside the city, though, he said, often around election time. “Afterwards, we’re able to return to calm once again.”

There are concerns, though, that Mohammed Merah may have changed that.

The seven brutal killings carried out this month by Mr. Merah — a 23-year-old son of Toulouse, and a professed jihadi — occurred during a divisive presidential race that had already turned toward questions of immigration and Islam. Even though investigators say Mr. Merah was effectively a lone, self-radicalized extremist, his violent ideology fits closely with some French stereotypes of Islam, and Muslims here fear that the tensions brought on by the murders may prove more lasting.

“All of this does not correspond at all with what Toulouse is,” Pierre Cohen, the mayor, said of the killings. But “we’ve just come out of a very tense period,” he said. “Unfortunately, this risk exists.”

Already, a false rumor has spread through the city, Mr. Cohen said, suggesting that Muslims were organizing a demonstration in defense of Mr. Merah.

“There will be a ‘before’ and an ‘after,’ ” said Yassin Elmu’min, 23, a round-faced young man with blue eyes and short hair slicked into tight curls. Typically, Mr. Elmu’min said, there is “dialogue” between cultures in Toulouse, and Muslims are treated well. But he and other Muslims, many living in the poor suburbs outside downtown Toulouse, said they had already begun to detect nervous gazes that were uncharacteristic of this city.

“Someone had the nerve to ask me, ‘Do you agree with what he did?’ ” Mr. Elmu’min said, exasperated. President Nicolas Sarkozy called for the rejection of “easy falsehoods” about Muslims last week, after Mr. Merah was killed by police commandos, Mr. Elmu’min said. “The ‘easy falsehoods’ are already here,” he lamented.

A friend, Abd’allah, 19, dressed in a cream-colored djellaba beneath a hooded sweatshirt, said, “We’re the victims in the story.” He declined to give his full name, saying he feared trouble from the French authorities.

Despite Mr. Sarkozy’s recent appeals for tolerance, many Muslims say he has done much to stigmatize them, pointing often to a 2010 law banning the Islamic full veil, or niqab, and to a debate on “the national identity.”

Marine Le Pen, the presidential candidate for the far-right National Front, has been vociferous in her response to the killings.

“What happened is not the matter of one man’s madness; what happened is the beginning of the forward march of green fascism in our country,” Ms. Le Pen said on Sunday, referring to radical Islam. “How many Mohammed Merahs are there in the boats, the planes that arrive each day in France, full of immigrants?”

Muslim leaders have denounced such attempts to exploit the killings politically. In a statement shortly after Mr. Merah’s death last week, Mohammed Moussaoui, the president of the French Council for the Muslim Faith, asked that the term “Islamism” be abandoned because it “feeds the confusion between Islam and terrorism and brings suffering to millions of Muslims who feel it important to defend the dignity of their faith and their religion.”

Ironic: in America the term "Islamism" is used by those who want to obfuscate the connection between Islam and terrorism, and specifically the ways in which Islamic jihadists use the texts and teachings of Islam to recruit and motivate terrorists.

In Toulouse, Mr. Elmu’min and his friend had come from Friday Prayer at the Mosque of Mirail Toulouse, a sprawling makeshift prayer space in a temporary building at the edge of a mall parking lot, beneath the elevated railroad tracks at the terminus of Line A of the Métro.

Mamadou Daffé, the Malian-born imam at the mosque, said he had never been the target of so much as a racist remark in Toulouse.

What race is Islam again?

“None, none at all,” Mr. Daffé said. “Maybe this is surprising, but so be it.”

Mr. Daffé, who makes his living as a pharmacological researcher, describes himself as a moderate Muslim, a proponent of “local Islam” who preaches in French.

But in his address to the hundreds of men who gathered at the mosque on Friday — some in white djellabas, thick beards and skullcaps, but most in jeans, suit coats or leather jackets — he spoke angrily of the “injustices” being wrought against Muslims in France, especially after the killings.

Politicians have called for restraint, Mr. Daffé said, but those same politicians have long stoked the very hate they now say they must smother. He called upon the faithful to be exemplary in their behavior, though.

“We are responsible for the image that’s been given to Islam, this beautiful religion,” he said. With the murders, which Mr. Merah said he committed in the name of Islam, “God has tested us,” Mr. Daffé said.

His fellow cleric, Mr. Tataï, has led a project to build a grand mosque in Toulouse. A decade ago, local authorities were opposed, Mr. Tataï recalled, but gradually warmed to the notion. The domed, multistory ocher building, at the edge of the Empalot neighborhood, adjacent to the highway, is now almost complete. (Uncharacteristically, the mosque will be open to the non-Muslim public, outside hours of prayer.)

“Of course there is the fear that there will be backlash from the black week we’ve just lived through,” Mr. Tataï said.

He added, “This is a test of the good will and wisdom of the wise.” He remains optimistic.

It is amazing to discover at this late date that there was anywhere in Afghanistan where American troops were not allowed to carry weapons. And there still may be -- it is unclear from this AP story. Such a policy is a consequence of the politically correct fictions about Islam being a religion of peace that prevail in Washington, and have prevailed for years now. The idea is that we will show our good faith to the Afghans by allowing our troops to be unarmed in government buildings. Will Afghan jihadis see that as a sign of weakness and take advantage of it? Of course not!

How many more Americans must die before this idiotic line of thought is abandoned in all its manifestations, not just this one?

Note also that the wretched dhimmi Allen, who videotaped a groveling, embarrassing apology to the "noble people of Afghanistan" after the Qur'an burnings a few weeks ago, is touting the measures that Afghan troops are taking to keep us safe as well. Pull my other leg, Allen. On the other hand, he probably believes and trusts the Afghans in this, as in all things.

"New security for US troops in Afghanistan to guard against Afghan insider threats," from Associated Press, March 29:

U.S. troops in Afghanistan now have far-reaching new protections against rogue killers among their Afghan allies, including assigned "guardian angels," fellow troops who will watch over them as they sleep.

Marine Gen. John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, ordered the added protections in recent weeks to guard against insider threats, according to a senior military official. They come in the wake of 16 attacks on U.S. and coalition forces by Afghans that now represent nearly one-fifth of all combat deaths this year....

In several Afghan ministries, Americans are now allowed to carry weapons. And they have been instructed to rearrange their office desks there to face the door, so they can see who is coming in, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the orders.

Two U.S. military officers working in the Afghan Interior Ministry, one of the most heavily guarded ministry buildings in Kabul, were gunned down at their desks on Feb. 25. While Allen did not detail the new measures in a briefing earlier this week, he acknowledged that changes had been made....

Navy Capt. John Kirby, a spokesman for Allen, said the general "ordered commanders to take appropriate steps to protect his troops, prudent steps that make sense to our Afghan partners as well. But he also made it clear that we weren't coming to all stop, that the work must continue, and that we couldn't let the partnership itself become a casualty of war."

U.S. commanders and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta say the killings do not represent a trend, and they say that fewer than half of the killings have been by Afghans associated with the Taliban.

Instead, Allen said, these types of attacks come with fighting an insurgency and happened in Iraq and Vietnam. The enemy, he said, will do what it can to disrupt efforts to train and grow a nation's indigenous security force.

Still, the recent increase in Afghans gunning down troops they are serving with reflects increased tensions between Afghanistan and the U.S. just as the American-led coalition force escalates efforts to train Afghans to take over their own security so that most NATO forces can leave by the end of 2014.

Officials insist the killings have not hampered the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. But they come at a time when new, small advisory teams are heading into Afghanistan to enhance the training program, requiring them to work closely with Afghan military units.

So far this year, 16 NATO service members have been shot and killed by Afghan soldiers and policemen or militants disguised in their uniforms, according to an Associated Press tally. That equals 18 percent of the 84 foreign troops killed this year in Afghanistan. Of the approximately 80 NATO service members killed since 2007 by Afghan security forces, more than 75 percent were in the past two years....

Allen noted that the Afghans also have taken some similar steps to provide guards for their own forces.

The Afghans also have inserted their own intelligence officers into their units to help try to ferret out possible insurgents or rogue soldiers. And, since the ministry shooting, the Afghans have taken a number of steps to increase building security in the ministries and to improve the vetting of their workers.

"They are helping the troops to understand how to recognize radicalization or the emergence of extremism in some of those, in individuals who may in fact be suspect," Allen said.

He noted that there have also been some arrests by Afghan forces when they identified possible attackers within their ranks.

Accepted

Rejected

The New York City Metropolitan Transit Authority accepted the pro-jihad ad at the top, but rejected our AFDI ad, pictured below it. Pamela Geller has the details here. We are suing on free speech grounds. David Yerushalmi, Robert Muise, Pamela Geller and I will be in court in New York next Tuesday, April 3, to argue our case.

The issues will include what is the meaning of jihad, along with typical First Amendment issues applicable here: how do they decide what is versus what is not "demeaning" -- as they termed our ad? Where do they draw the line? What objective policy do they follow?

It should be interesting. Our team will be drilling only one witness, Jeffrey Rosen of MTA, who purportedly makes these decisions.

Pamela Geller has more details here.

This kind of thing happens because in the eyes of many Muslims, the worst offense is to go against another Muslim. The community must hang together, no matter what, no matter who gets hurt. The same ethos prevails when it comes to jihad, which is one reason why we see so few Muslims standing up against jihad terror and Islamic supremacism. Even those who disapprove of these things tend to keep quiet.

"Nottingham Imam jailed for sex attack on two boys," from the Nottingham Post, March 28 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

AN IMAM who sexually assaulted two boys has been jailed for three years.

Yazeid Osama Aqqad, 24, of Alfreton Road, Radford, touched one boy when he was sitting on his lap on two occasions and abused another boy after inviting him to sit on his lap.

The mother of the two boys has been "vilified" by the Muslim community for reporting the assaults, Nottingham Crown Court heard.

She has been subjected to "a number of unpleasant incidents" including an episode at her home and damage to her car, Sarah Knight, prosecuting, said.

The mother told the court she felt the acts were aimed at encouraging her to withdraw the allegations because in the eyes of the Muslim community, she had committed a sin....

A Muslim woman, Shaima Alwadi, has been brutally murdered in California. A note was left next to the body, saying, "go back to your country you terrorist." This has led Islamic supremacist smear merchants and their tools to blame -- who else? -- Pamela Geller and me for Alwadi's murder, so desperate are they to silence our message of truth.

This has happened before, and doubtless will again. The most notorious example, of course, was when an international chorus of media and Islamic supremacists blamed Geller and me for murders in Norway that were carried about by a man who wanted to aid Hamas and ally with jihad groups. Then they were even prepared to blame us for a murder in New Jersey that turned out to be a love triangle that the killer -- in a move that may be illuminating for the Shaima Alwadi case -- tried to frame as an anti-Muslim hate crime. Not only did we receive a tweet from a Muslim blaming us for the murder, but also a well-placed source told me that Hooper was “salivating and waiting to jump all over” the murder story. “They are waiting to blame you for everything.”

Indeed. And not waiting, but just going ahead and doing it anyway, facts be damned. So now the Islamic supremacist Boy Reza Aslan, who is callous enough to make bets about the murders of Jewish schoolchildren, has turned from blaming us for the jihad murders in Toulouse to blaming us for the murder of Shaima Alwadi, adding a veiled threat in as he does so:

Other Islamic supremacists have piled on, using the same talking points, as has Antiwar.com writer Justin Raimondo, ever eager to do the bidding of his Islamic supremacist masters:

Murder, murder everywhere – in Afghanistan, where a rampaging US soldier killed 16 Afghan civilians, half of them children, and in a quiet Southern California suburb, where Shaima’s 17-year-old daughter found her mother on the floor, her brains bashed in, next to a note that echoed the slogans shouted by Robert Spencer, David Horowitz, Pamela Geller, Rep. King, Rep. Royce, Rep. Miller, Newt Gingrich, and all the rest of the Republican haters and militarists.

They all have Shaima’s blood on their hands. What’s ugly is that, lacking any moral instinct, they aren’t even trying to wash it off. They feel no more remorse for the death of an innocent woman than a hawk feels after it has killed a rabbit. This is where a decade of constant warfare, and – arguably – the modern trend toward moral relativism and nihilism, has led us.

Never mind that I have been consistently on record against the Wilsonian adventures of those Raimondo calls "militarists" since March 2003; since when have the facts ever troubled Justin Raimondo in mid-screed? In fact, no one in this whole new orgy of demonization of Pamela Geller and me is much interested in the facts. Take, for example, this that came in after I responded to Aslan's tweet above by pointing out that Muslim men are by far the most common killers of Muslim women:

Well, maybe since we spoke out for Aasiya Hassan; or Aqsa Parvez, who had been consigned to oblivion by her family until Pamela Geller decided to get her a headstone; or Fatima Abdallah; or Amina and Sarah Said; or Jessica Mokdad; or so many others.

When has Reza Aslan or Justin Raimondo or anyone else in their camp ever shown any concern at all for the plight of those Muslim women or others like them?

That's right, the correct answer is never. They're too busy trying to frame us for murder to spend any time helping out Muslim women in trouble.

Meanwhile, the questions multiply about the Shaima Alwadi case. Hamas-linked CAIR and others are trumpeting it as a hate crime, but there is evidence that it is something else altogether. Pamela Geller has the information here. In this video at 1:35, a neighbor says the glass in the house was broken out, not in -- yet the claim is that the "Islamophobic" intruder broke the glass in and entered the house.

Then there is the very odd behavior of the daughter who says she was sleeping upstairs at 11:15 Wednesday morning, and slept through the "Islamophobe" breaking the glass and beating her mother to death. Look at the house -- it is not that large. It is impossible to break glass without making noise, and didn't Shaima scream at the sight of the intruder? The girl, meanwhile, seems like nothing more than a bad actor, holding a dry tissue to her face and pretending to cry, and accomplishing nothing beyond appearing to be oddly unaffected by the brutal murder of her mother:

And finally there is this al-Arabiya report, in which the family demonstrates detailed knowledge of a murder for which there is supposed to be no witness. How do they know the exact sequence of the blows? How do they have so much precise information about exactly how it was done?

There are other questions as well. Pamela Geller has more here.

Shaima Alwadi deserves justice. She deserves better than to be used by Islamic supremacists and their useful idiots as the centerpiece of a campaign of vilification and character assassination against defenders of freedom. She deserves to have her killer found and prosecuted. Instead of using her to defame and scapegoat the defenders of Muslim women, Islamic supremacists should demonstrate that they have some scintilla of concern for Muslim women as well, and join us in calling for justice for Shaima Alwadi.

"Mike" and "Steve" are suspected of laundering their drug money through their Austin, Texas clubs and sending it over to the jihad in Lebanon. "Investigators link nightclub owner, associates to drug deals, militant Islamic group, homicide case," by Gary Dinges and Patrick George for the American-Statesman, March 28 (thanks to Twostellas):

Drug deals. Weapons purchases. Ties to a prison gang and a militant Islamic group and even a potential link to an unsolved homicide.

That was the list of allegations federal officials laid out against an Austin nightclub owner and nine of his associates in a dramatic hearing Tuesday.

Arrested last week on money laundering and drug charges, Yassine Enterprises owner Hussein Ali "Mike" Yassine, his brother, Mohammed Ali "Steve" Yassine, and eight others appeared in federal court and heard more details about the cases against them.

Mike Yassine, who owns eight Austin nightclubs, and the other suspects in the case face a variety of charges. Some are accused of cocaine distribution, purchases of guns to be used during drug deals and money laundering dating back to 2007.

Officials linked one suspect to the Texas Syndicate prison gang. They also said thousands of dollars were transferred to a Yassine relative in Lebanon who is reportedly connected to the militant group Hezbollah, considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. government.

Prosecutors for the first time also revealed that Mike Yassine is a "person of interest" in a case being investigated by the Austin Police Department's homicide cold case unit. Austin police declined to provide additional details Tuesday, including the name of the alleged victim.

Mike Yassine might have also threatened witnesses, officials said, and is being investigated as part of a sexual assault case....

Also charged in the case are Marisse Marthe "Madi" Ruales, Karim Faiq, Alejandro "Cueta" Melendrez, Edgar Orsini, Nizar "Nino" Hakiki, Amar Thabet Araf and Sami Derder, all Central Texas residents who authorities say have various levels of involvement with the purported crimes.

During raids on the suspects' homes and businesses last week, investigators said they seized more than 400 boxes of evidence.

They also report finding $200,000 in cash in a safe at the Yassine Enterprises offices on West Fourth Street, as well as cashier's checks totaling $45,000 made out to a member of the Yassine family in Lebanon. That man is associated with Hezbollah, IRS agent James Neff testified.

The searches also turned up a bogus University of Texas diploma with Mike Yassine's name, prosecutors said.

The American-Statesman has learned that businesses linked to Mike Yassine currently owe almost $600,000 in state sales and mixed-beverage taxes. His bank accounts have been frozen by the state comptroller's office, his attorney said in court.

Yassine Enterprises, owns eight Austin bars: Pure, Spill, Kiss & Fly, Treasure Island, Hyde, Fuel, Malaia and Roial. They've remained closed since last week's arrests and, officials said, will likely remain that way for the foreseeable future after the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission obtained a court order that blocks all eight nightclubs from selling or serving alcohol....

Investigators testified that Mike Yassine told the informant, who posed as a drug dealer — and whose accounts have driven much of the case — that he wanted to launder $200,000 to $1 million in narcotics money through his clubs. The informant's name was not released....

Excusing death threats by referring to Islamic principles doesn't work in Norway.

JihadWatch posted about Mullah Krekar back in February 2012 when the trial started. Translated from Danish by Nicolai Sennels, Jyllandsposten March 26: "Five years in prison for radical Islamist":

The militant Islamist Mullah Krekar is sentenced to five years in prison by Oslo City Court for making death threats to ministers and other named persons in Norway.

The 55-year-old Mullah Krekar, whose real name is Najmuddin Faraj Ahmad, is founder of the Islamist Kurdish group Ansar al-Islam. He has lived in Norway since 1991 and has regularly been at loggerheads with the Norwegian authorities.

The district court found him guilty of making death threats, and for having encouraged terrorist activities against known Norwegians.

Mullah Krekar comes from Iraq. One of the four people he made death threats against is the leader of the party Højre (Conservatives), Erna Solberg.

As Attorney General she signed a deportation order in 2003 against Krekar, who at that time was considered to be a threat to Norway's domestic security.

Krekar, who is on the UN and U.S. terrorist lists, however, has never been expelled from Norway. The reason is that Norwegian law does not permit deportation to a country where the person's safety is not guaranteed, or where the person will be facing death penalty.

Krekar is also guilty of making death threats against three named Iraqis in Norway who have burned parts of the Koran or otherwise offended Muslims or their religion.

Mullah Krekar appealed the sentence. He acknowledges that he has made death threats, but claims that he merely referred to 'Islamic principles'. Besides the five years in prison, Krekar was also ordered to pay 100,000 Norwegian Kroner in compensation to the three Kurds that he threatened to kill.

Mullah Krekar was also accused of incitement to kill American soldiers in Iraq. The district court acquitted him, however, on that particular indictment.

In "Jew-killing jihadist now a hero" in WND today, Pamela Geller spotlights the mainstream media's denial of the obvious after the Toulouse jihad murders at a Jewish school, and the horrific lionizing of the murderer:

The self-avowed “Islamic warrior” Mohamed Merah, who opened fire on a Jewish school in France and slaughtered Jewish children and a rabbi in cold blood, was no “lone wolf,” as the mainstream media initially insisted. His brother has been charged with complicity in his murders, and his mother refused to urge him to surrender when police asked her to do so during the 31-hour standoff before he was killed. But even worse, his cold-blooded murders are winning him sympathy from Muslims and leftist useful idiots around the world.

Will the Muslim community in France, famous for its rampages and car burnings, decry Mohamed Merah’s murderous deeds and Islamic Jew-hatred in general? Don’t bet on it. Millions of Muslims worldwide share Mohamed Merah’s genocidal inclinations. The hatred of Israel is commanded in Islam. The very existence of Israel is offensive to practicing Muslims. That should be no surprise, since the Quran, which calls the Jews the worst enemies of the Muslims (5:82), commands that Muslims wage war against them (9:29). A hadith adds that Muhammad said: “The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say, ‘O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him’” (Bukhari 4.52.177).

Mohamed Merah was no lone jihadist. There is an army of millions. Monstrous. Even the “peaceful” people on the “humanitarian” flotilla that confronted the IDF in summer 2010 was chanting a genocidal war cry invoking Muhammad’s massacre of Jews at the Khybar oasis in Arabia: “Khybar, Khybar, O Jews, the army of Muhammad shall return.”

So it was no surprise when Agence France-Presse reported Friday: “Facebook on Thursday removed a page that paid homage to the young Frenchman who died in a shootout with police after killing seven people, officials said.” “Frenchman”? He was a Muslim who would almost certainly have denied being French at all. “The page,” AFP stated, “which bore a picture of the self-proclaimed al-Qaida militant and was titled ‘Homage to Mohamed Merah,’ was ‘liked’ by more than 1,800 people before it was removed just hours after it appeared, they said. Many visitors left comments that were hostile to the police or favorable to Islamic extremism.”

More proof that Merah was no “lone gunman,” but a representative of the hopes and desires of far more Muslims than the mainstream media are willing to admit, came when scores of young Muslims gathered in Toulouse to honor Merah’s memory. (If that doesn’t sound like much, remember that a recent demonstration of “moderate Muslims” drew only 36, despite receiving enthusiastic international publicity.)

At the pro-Merah demonstration, a woman wearing a burqa said: “What we ask today is that we stop demonizing Mohamed, that’s it, he died.” She paid lip service to Merah’s victims: “We share the pain and suffering of the families because it is the same pain for us here.” But then she excused his murders: “I think what influenced him is what he had seen in his many travels. He could not manage all that. He was still a teenager in his head, despite his 23 years.”

Most teenagers, even those who are just teenagers in their heads, don’t massacre Jews while screaming “Allahu akbar.” This is jihad. This is Islamic Jew-hatred, prescribed and commanded by the Quran. This demonstration reveals the enemy within our own borders and shores. Imagine marching for this cold-blooded killer (in a cloth coffin, aka a burqa, no less). This is the most anti-human ideology on the face of the earth, and it is winning over entire nations and regions across the world.

Merah is winning over non-Muslim anti-Semites as well. The Daily Mail reported that “in disturbing scenes at Gustave Flaubert High School in Rouen, Normandy, Lorraine Collin, 56, described the 23-year-old who murdered seven including three children as himself being the ‘victim of an unhappy childhood.’”...

Read it all.

As Pamela Geller observes, "It appears that the jihadist Hicheur was working on a big bang theory of his own." A uniquely Islamic one.

"French scientist in terror trial," from Big Pond News, March 28 (thanks to David):

A Franco-Algerian nuclear scientist goes on trial on Thursday for allegedly plotting terror attacks in France, where an Islamist's killing spree has already overshadowed the presidential campaign.

A week after police shot dead Franco-Algerian Mohamed Merah for killing seven people in and around Toulouse, Adlene Hicheur goes on trial charged with criminal association as part of a terrorist enterprise.

French police arrested Hicheur, a researcher studying the universe's birth - the Big Bang - at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), in October 2009 after intercepting emails he wrote.

Following his arrest at his parents' home near CERN, which lies on the Franco-Swiss border northwest of Geneva, police discovered a trove of al-Qaeda and Islamic militant literature.

France's DCRI domestic intelligence agency's suspicions were raised following a statement from al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) that was sent to President Nicolas Sarkozy's Elysee Palace in early 2008.

Police carried out surveillance on several email accounts including Hicheur's and his exchanges with Mustapha Debchi, an alleged AQIM representative living in Algeria.

On March 1, 2009, Hicheur wrote an email to Debchi saying he would 'propose ... possible objectives in Europe and particularly in France'.

On March 10, he continued: 'Concerning the matter of objectives, they differ depending on the different results sought after the hits. For example: if it's about punishing the state because of its military activities in Muslim countries - Afghanistan - then it should be a purely military objective. For example: the air base at Karan Jefrier near Annecy in France. This base trains troops and sends them to Afghanistan.'

Hicheur was referring to a French military base at Cran-Gevrier, close to CERN.

In June 2009, Debchi asked Hicheur: 'Don't beat around the bush: are you prepared to work in a unit becoming active in France?'

Hicheur replied on June 6: 'Concerning your proposal, the answer is of course YES but there are a few observations: ... if your proposal relates to a precise strategy - such as working in the heart of the main enemy's house and emptying its blood of strength - then I should revise the plan that I've prepared.'

Magistrates investigating the case said the exchanges 'crossed the line of simple debate of political or religious ideas to enter the sphere of terrorist violence'.

They say the accused 'knowingly agreed with Mustapha Debchi to set up an operational cell ready to carry out terrorist acts in Europe and in France'....

Can We Talk About This? No. More dhimmitude from the BBC, and yet another Free Speech Death Watch Alert from Old Europe: "BBC refuses to screen play about Islamic threat to freedom of speech," by Tim Walker, from the Telegraph, March 28 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Although the BBC was willing to disregard protests from Christians who considered its decision to broadcast Jerry Springer: The Opera as an affront, Mark Thompson, its outgoing director-general, is more wary of giving airtime to Can We Talk About This?, the National Theatre’s examination of how Islam is curtailing freedom of speech.

Lloyd Newson, the director of the DV8 physical theatre company which staged the new work, challenged Thompson to screen his production during a platform discussion at the theatre.

He pointed out that Jerry Springer: The Opera was a lot more controversial because it was a “satire”, whereas his work, consisting of a series of comments and factual statements set to dance, is “a factual piece”.

Thompson’s spokesman tells me: “We are currently working with the National on various ideas. There are currently no plans to broadcast Can We Talk About This?, but this is not due to the play’s content or themes.”

In the past, Thompson has conceded that there is “a growing nervousness about discussion about Islam”. He claimed that because Muslims were a religious minority in Britain, and also often from ethnic minorities, their faith should be given different coverage to that of more established groups....

Dhimmi coward.

Eurabia's new export: mujahedin. "Report: Islamists Recruited Fighters in Nice," from Israel National News, March 27 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

French police discovered an Islamist network, four months ago in Nice, which recruited 30 Muslim youth to fight coalition forces in Afghanistan, according to a Tuesday-morning report by Kol Yisrael government radio.

Arrested in the case was Omar Diabi, a Muslim preacher born in Senegal, who was a member of an organization that was banned at the beginning of the month. Mohammad Merah, who murdered seven people in the Toulouse area - including a teacher and four children at the Otzar Hatorah synagogue, was a member of the organization, as was his brother, who is under investigation in the case.

"Islam will return to Europe as a conqueror and victor..." -- Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi

Once again, a human rights activist is punished for repeating what Muslims say without any fear of penalty of any kind. The court ruled: "The complaint against the named person is: He allegedly spread by means of data storage writings that incited to hatred against a religious group, to violence and arbitrary measures against them, hurting their human dignity; so that they might be abused, maliciously despised and libeled." (Thanks to Uwe)

It is not "incitement to hatred" to tell the truth about any individual or group, or to report accurately about their activities. It is simply reality. It only becomes actual "incitement to hatred" if one calls for violence against that group, or even for hatred of that group, instead of simply defense of freedom and human rights. Michael Mannheimer, whom I had the honor of meeting when I spoke in Germany last summer, has never called for hatred or violence. He has simply told the truth, which so few have the courage to tell.

Free Speech Death Watch Alert: "Penalty Fine Against Michael Mannheimer," from Politically Incorrect, March 27 (thanks to David):

On February 14, 2012, Michael Mannheimer received a penalty fine from the Heilbronn district court in the degree of 50 days at 50 euros per day (2,500 euros). The basis for the fine was Mannheimer’s criticism of Islam, especially his claim that Islam is working on taking over and islamizing Europe. In addition to this, his evidence that Islam is striving for world power and his conclusion that Qur’an and Sharia are irreconcilable with the Constitution. Mannheimer’s publicized call for public resistance from April 8th of last year where he invoked Article 20 Section 4 of the Constitution....

Donations can be made for Michael Mannheimer under the following account:

Michael Mannheimer
Stadtsparkasse München
Account (Konto): 18135731
Bank Routing Number (BLZ): 70150000

International Bank Account Number (IBAN): DE94 7015 0000 0018 1357 31
Bank Identifier Code (BIC): SSKMDEMMXXX

Remember: "youths" is mainstream media code for Islamic supremacist thugs in France. Does anyone in France have the courage to stand up against Islamic antisemitism in that country? Pamela Geller points out: "This 12-year-old Jewish boy was beaten near the city's Ozar Hatorah school, part of the same educational network as the Toulouse school that was the site of the deadly jihadist shooting attack last week."

"Boy beaten near Paris Jewish school amid tensions," by Thomas Adamson for the Associated Press, March 27 (thanks to Ted):

PARIS (AP) — A 12-year-old boy was beaten outside his Jewish school in Paris by youths reciting anti-Semitic slogans, school officials said, amid high security and tensions in France following killings of Jewish children and a rabbi last week.

The boy did not suffer serious injuries.

Both the school shooting and this week's beating involved the Ozar Hatorah network of Jewish schools.

Emotions have been raw in France, especially within the half-million-strong Jewish community, since a gunman shot a rabbi and his two sons, 3 and 5 years old, and the 8-year-old daughter of the principal of the Ozar Hatorah School in the southern city of Toulouse on March 19.

A radical Muslim gunman named Mohamed Merah claimed responsibility for that attack and killing three French paratroopers, before he was shot to death by police.

The 12-year-old boy was hit and punched in the back of his head Monday afternoon as he left the Ozar Hatorah School in southeast Paris, the school's human resources director, Katia Normal, said Tuesday. She said the aggressors were two boys a couple of years older than the victim who recited anti-Semitic slogans.

It happened about 100 meters from the entrance and therefore out of sight of the police officers guarding the school.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered security increased at Jewish and Muslim schools and synagogues after last week's shooting....

Why Muslim schools? Who is beating up Muslim children?

Jean-Paul Amoyelle, president of the Ozar Hatorah network in France, lamented Monday's beating.

"There was a feeling of solidarity for our schools after this drama (in Toulouse)," he told The Associated Press. "Now I fear that this has provoked a hostile reaction, shown by the attitude of these boys who called him dirty Jew and beat him up."

"The Muslim Brotherhood will have a significant role to play in post-Mubarak Egypt. And that is good thing." -- Reza Aslan

"Egypt secularists pull out of constituent assembly," from AFP, March 28 (thanks to all who sent this in):

CAIRO — Liberal and leftist parties have pulled out of a panel drafting Egypt's new constitution, they announced on Tuesday, accusing Islamists of monopolising the process to deliver its post-revolution charter.

The withdrawals from the panel will call its legitimacy into question, pushing the struggle between Islamists and secularists over the issue to crisis point.

"We announce our rejection of the way the constituent assembly was formed," Ahmed Said, the head of the liberal Free Egyptians party, told reporters.

Last week, the Islamist-dominated parliament voted for the panel to be made up of 50 lawmakers from the upper and lower houses of parliament, and 50 public figures.

But liberals argued that such a high proportion of legislators gave Islamists -- who control nearly three quarters of parliament-- too much control of the constitution.
...

With the current make-up, "the constitution will be drafted by political Islam... We refuse to betray the trust of the people," he said....

The Muslim Brotherhood and the ultra-conservative Salafist Al-Nur party together went on to dominate both houses of parliament in recent parliamentary elections, sparking fears among secularists and the Coptic minority of restrictions on freedoms....

The Muslim Brotherhood's political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, has been pressuring the military to sack the cabinet -- which it accuses of stalling the revolution -- and to appoint an FJP-led government....

As Leftists in the West continue to vilify counter-jihadists as "fascists" and "neo-Nazis," it's useful to remember that the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, lived in Berlin during World War II, made broadcasts for the Nazis, and raised up a Muslim SS division in Bosnia, home of this new movement. Real Nazis have always had an affinity for Islamic jihadists and supremacists, and vice versa. "Jews Vilified by Bosnian-Muslim Neo-Nazi Group," from Algemeiner, March 27 (thanks to George):

A new Bosnian Neo-Nazi group, the Bosanski Pokret Nacionalnog Ponosa (Bosnian National Pride Movement), is increasingly championing anti-Semitism in the country. Ninety-five percent of its members are Muslim.

“The Jews have immense influence throughout the world—in [the domains of] politics, economy, culture, and religion,” the group writes on its website. “Freedom of speech is granted to a handful of ‘privileged’ politicians, journalists and functionaries that are puppets of the Zionist mechanism.”

According to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), this group reveres the alliance between Muslims and Nazis during World War II. Bosnia now bans Neo-Nazi groups, as do many other European nations in the wake of the Holocaust.

I hope the relatives of the people Muhammad Merah murdered sue Benanel Merah for fathering the evil jihadist monster who murdered their loved ones.

Islamic Chutzpah Alert: "Toulouse gunman’s father threatens to sue French state," by Tony Todd for France24, March 27 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The father of Toulouse gunman Mohamed Merah on Tuesday said he planned to take the French state to court – for killing his son and failing to take him alive.

Benanel Merah told FRANCE 24 that police besieging his son’s Toulouse flat “could have used sleep-inducing gas and taken him like a baby.”

“Why were they so hasty?” he asked. “Why did they kill him? He could have been sentenced to many years in prison or even a life sentence. There is no death penalty in France.”

Earlier, Merah told reporters that he would “hire the biggest named lawyers and work for the rest of my life to pay their costs - I will sue France for having killed my son.”...

I tried to tell you. "We will insist on applying Sharia in Egypt, Islamist MP says," from al-Arabiya, March 27 (thanks to Ashraf):

Egypt’s Construction and Development Party (CDP) “won’t give up the application of the Sharia [Islamic law]” in Egypt, an Egyptian MP representing the party told an Egyptian daily on Monday. CDP is the political party of Egypt’s al-Jamaa al-Islamiya.

Hani Nour Eddin said that his party “will defend the second article of the (1971) constitution,” which stipulates that the principles of Sharia are the main source of legislation in the country, Egypt’s al-Masry al-Youm quoted him as saying.

Nour Eddin said that there is no disagreement among Egyptian political powers over the second article of the constitution, adding that his party is open to suggestions that are in accordance with the principles of Sharia.

CDP has finalized a draft of the constitution to be introduced during the constituent assembly meetings, Nour Eddin said, adding that legal experts have contributed to the draft that the Shura Council of the group and its party leaders have made.

“We will respect all other points of view with the aim of drafting a constitution that embraces all Egyptians,” Nour Eddin added.

This "respect" for the Copts will equal dhimmitude.

Al-Jamaa al-Islamiya engaged in armed confrontations with the government security forces in the 1990s, aiming to depose the Mubarak regime and establish an Islamic state. However, in the late 1990s, the group announced it would abandon its violent, jihadist ideology, and apologized for previous attacks that had killed hundreds of people.

“There is coordination between CDP, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) and the Salafi Nour Party to reach a united vision shared with all political trends that goes also with the culture and identity of society,” he told the Egyptian daily.

Democracy on the march! Remember: Obama is considering aiding the forces who are responsible for this. "'Ethnic Cleansing of Christians' in Syria; 50,000 Flee," by Stefan J. Bos for Worthy News, March 27 (thanks to Kenneth):

DAMASCUS, SYRIA (Worthy News)– Islamic militants with ties to terror group al-Qaida have launched the "ethnic cleansing of minority Christians" in Syria, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee the embattled Syrian city of Homs and other areas, aid workers confirmed Tuesday, March 27.

At least 90 percent of Christians living in Homs have fled after "fanatics" forced them to leave their homes, said Dutch aid group 'Kerk in Nood', or Church in Need.

It added that the exodus of 50,000 people mainly took place in the last six weeks. "They have fled to villages and in the mountains, sometimes as far as 50 kilometers from their homes. We have reports that Islamists 'cleansed' the Homs areas of Hamidiya en Bustan al-Diwan without giving them the opportunity to anything with them," the group told Worthy News in a statement.

Kerk in Nood said it has already made available some 80,000 euro ($107,000) for supporting the most vulnerable families, including survivors of a car bomb near a church in the city of Aleppo, that authorities claimed killed at least two people and injured 30 others.

Aid workers said the attack happened near the Franciscan Church of St. Bonaventure in the area....

"As attacks continue, Syria could experience the same fate as Iraq where the number of Christians living there has been reduced from as many as 1.4 million at the end of the 1980s to less than 300,000 now."...

He is a "collection of contradictions," says the WaPo. He "presides over a campaign that has killed thousands of Islamist militants and angered millions of Muslims, but he is himself a convert to Islam." He converted to Islam to get married (Islamic law forbids a Muslim woman to marry a non-Muslim man) and "is not demonstrably observant," but "he is known to clutch a strand of prayer beads."

It is impossible to tell from this how serious he is about Islam. The Washington Post, of course, follows the mainstream media line that Islam is a Religion of Peace that has been hijacked by a tiny minority of extremists, and so takes for granted that "Roger" has no loyalty issues, and proffers the drone campaign and the killing of bin Laden as proof. There is no exploration in the Post article of the implications of Roger's believing in the same religion that jihadists point to as inspiring and motivating their hatred of America and desire to war against it. There is no questioning him about the contradiction, or apparent contradiction, between his drone strikes and campaign against bin Laden, and his Islamic faith. No one thinks to ask him or dares ask him if he differs with bin Laden in tactics only, but not in overall goal. Everyone takes for granted that because Islam is a Religion of Peace, Roger's beliefs and values should not be subject to any scrutiny of any kind. His loyalty is beyond question. Even to ask Roger how his understanding of Islam differs from that of the Islamic jihadists against whom he is conducting a kind of war would be "Islamophobic."

The question is this: some might liken Roger to a top American official joining the Nazi Party during World War II. Others would liken Roger to a top American official marrying a German immigrant during World War II, and coming under unjust suspicion as a result. German Americans, of course, could oppose and fight against National Socialism unequivocally, without any lingering allegiance to it; Muslims who profess to reject and abhor Islamic terrorism, however, still profess belief in a book and a prophet that have inspired Islamic violence and supremacism worldwide, even among believers who have no institutional connection to al-Qaeda or any other jihad group.

Whatever the truth may be in Roger's particular case, there is no doubt of one thing: if Islamic supremacists wanted to subvert the U.S. defense against jihad terror, they couldn't do it more easily than by turning someone in a position like Roger's. The worst part of this story is that no one is even examining that as a possibility, for to do so would go against all the dogmas and pieties of the Washington establishment.

"At CIA, a convert to Islam leads the terrorism hunt," by Greg Miller in the Washington Post, March 24:

For every cloud of smoke that follows a CIA drone strike in Pakistan, dozens of smaller plumes can be traced to a gaunt figure standing in a courtyard near the center of the agency’s Langley campus in Virginia.

The man with the nicotine habit is in his late 50s, with stubble on his face and the dark-suited wardrobe of an undertaker. As chief of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center for the past six years, he has functioned in a funereal capacity for al-Qaeda.

Roger, which is the first name of his cover identity, may be the most consequential but least visible national security official in Washington — the principal architect of the CIA’s drone campaign and the leader of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. In many ways, he has also been the driving force of the Obama administration’s embrace of targeted killing as a centerpiece of its counterterrorism efforts.

Colleagues describe Roger as a collection of contradictions. A chain-smoker who spends countless hours on a treadmill. Notoriously surly yet able to win over enough support from subordinates and bosses to hold on to his job. He presides over a campaign that has killed thousands of Islamist militants and angered millions of Muslims, but he is himself a convert to Islam....

He also married a Muslim woman he met abroad, prompting his conversion to Islam. Colleagues said he doesn’t shy away from mentioning his religion but is not demonstrably observant. There is no prayer rug in his office, officials said, although he is known to clutch a strand of prayer beads....

Along the way, he has clashed with high-ranking figures, including David H. Petraeus, the U.S. military commander in Iraq and Afghanistan, who at times objected to the CIA’s more pessimistic assessments of those wars. Former CIA officials said the two had to patch over their differences when Petraeus became CIA director.

“No officer in the agency has been more relentless, focused, or committed to the fight against al-Qaeda than has the chief of the Counterterrorism Center,” Petraeus said in a statement provided to The Post....

Given his attention to operational detail, Roger is seen by some as culpable for one of the agency’s most tragic events — the deaths of seven CIA employees at the hands of a suicide bomber who was invited to a meeting at a CIA base in Khost, Afghanistan, in December 2009.

An internal review concluded that the assailant, a Jordanian double-agent who promised breakthrough intelligence on al-Qaeda leaders, had not been fully vetted, and it cited failures of “management oversight.” But neither Roger nor other senior officers were mentioned by name....

‘A new flavor of activity’

But current and former senior U.S. intelligence officials said it is no accident that Roger’s tenure has coincided with a remarkably rapid disintegration of al-Qaeda — and the killing of bin Laden last year.

When Michael V. Hayden became CIA director in May 2006, Roger began laying the groundwork for an escalation of the drone campaign. Over a period of months, the CTC chief used regular meetings with the director to make the case that intermittent strikes were allowing al-Qaeda to recover and would never destroy the threat....

At Atlas Shrugs yesterday I explored the difference between virtue and fear, in connection with Islamic morality:

As I wrote last week, Muslim and non-Muslim analysts often tell us that Muslims hate the West for its decadence, its immorality, its lasciviousness, which they contrast unfavorably with the supposed morality and uprightness of the Islamic world. Often this boils down to a Muslim critique of Western “freedom,” especially as Bush and Obama pursued military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan ostensibly to bring Western-style freedom to those countries.

In line with that, the Mufti of Australia, Sheikh Taj al-Din al-Hilali, once complained that “Australian law guarantees freedoms up to a crazy level.” Yet genuine freedom is an indispensable prerequisite for any cultivation of real virtue. Even the post-Christian West makes it more possible to be virtuous than the apparently much more straitlaced Islamic world. With its stonings, amputations, death penalties for an array of offenses including apostasy, Islam has created not a framework in which people can become genuinely good, but an empire of fear. People don’t dare step out of line, not out of an authentic understanding that the path of moral and ethical uprightness is preferable to the alternative, much less out of love for God or a real desire to please him, but because they are afraid of what would happen to them if they did depart from Islam’s vision of morality.

Certainly the same critique can be leveled to some degree against societies that were more Christian than our present one, and this is not to say that society has no right or responsibility to legislate against immoral activity. Still, were people unable to choose to do evil, their choosing of the good would not be a manifestation of virtue, but merely of fear and the power of coercion. Those who have no choice but to be good demonstrate nothing about whether their beliefs enable or inspire them to choose the good when they could just as easily not do so.

Islam does not see virtue this way. Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini once thundered: “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 is more.

"Palestinian man convicted in Germany of supporting al-Qaida," from the Associated Press, March 22:

BERLIN — A German court has convicted a 26-year-old stateless man of Palestinian origin of supporting al-Qaida and sentenced him to five years in prison.

The dapd news agency reported that the Koblenz state court found Hussam S., whose full name wasn’t provided in accordance with German privacy laws, guilty Thursday of two counts of supporting a terrorist organization and gave him the maximum sentence.

The defendant, who was born in Syria and moved to Germany in 1990, posted videos, audio and texts on the Internet praising jihad, or holy war.

Among other things, he published seven videos of attacks and beheadings by several Islamist groups from September 2007 to December 2009 and posted 78 online messages trying to recruit members for al-Qaida and other terror groups.

I tried to tell you. "Egyptian Cleric Muhammad Hussein Yaaqub Calls for the Implementation of Islamic Punishments in Egypt: Execution, Crucifixion, and the Amputation of Opposite Hands and Feet," from MEMRI, March 16:

Following are excerpts from an interview with Egyptian cleric Muhammad Hussein Yaaqub, which aired on Al-Nas TV on March 16, 2012 :

Hussein Yaaqub : My brothers, how are we to deal with bullying? First thing by means of religion, by restoring religion to people's lives. To the lives of people and to the life of the Islamic nation… The shari'a must be exalted.

The Islamic punishment of hiraba must be implemented. The Koran says: "Those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive to spread corruption in the land…" If someone robs people of their money, it is as if he fought our Lord and His Messenger. Hiraba applies to a highway robber. A robber who stops someone in the street and says: "Give me your purse" is fighting Allah and His Messenger. If he stops someone in the street and says: "Give me your car," he is fighting Allah and His Messenger.

The punishment for all this is called hiraba, and it is applied to someone who fights Allah and His Messenger. Anybody who attacks a home, a shop, a bank, a factory, or anything… When an armed gang enters a place in order to take things by force, they are fighting Allah and His Messenger.

The [hiraba] punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and who strive to spread corruption in the land, is for them to be executed, or to be crucified, or to have their hand and foot chopped off on opposite sides, or to be banished from the land. The implementation of this punishment will guarantee security.

He is referring to Qur'an 5:33: "This is the recompense of those who fight against God and His Messenger, and hasten about the earth, to do corruption there: they shall be slaughtered, or crucified, or their hands and feet shall alternately be struck off; or they shall be banished from the land. That is a degradation for them in this world; and in the world to come awaits them a mighty chastisement."

No one will pay any attention to this. But just imagine if this were a Christian cleric saying it was permissible to kill Muslim women and children. Imagine if it were any kind of non-Muslim cleric saying it was permissible to kill anyone. But when it comes to Muslims, people are so used to Muslim clerics calling for murder that they don't even stop to notice. The real problem is "Islamophobia," doncha know.

"Syrian Cleric Sheik Muhammad Badi' Moussa: We Ruled It Is Permissible to Kill 'Alawite Women and Children, but Advised the Free Syrian Army to Warn 'Alawites before Raiding Their Villages," from MEMRI, March 14:

Following are excerpts from an interview with Syrian cleric Sheik Muhammad Badi' Moussa, which aired on Al-Hekma TV on March 14, 2012 :

Interviewer : Is it permissible to kill 'Alawites – their women and their children – in retaliation for their actions?

Muhammad Badi' Moussa : Yes, my brother. We have issued a communiqué to the 'Alawites, in which we gave them a strong warning, which may be the last. Our brothers in the Free Syrian Army sent queries to scholars in exile, asking whether they were allowed to raid 'Alawite villages, like the Zahra, Eqrima, and Nuzha suburbs of Homs. […]

[The 'Alawites] know that they are a minority in our country, and that all the sects hate them and want to get rid of them. It is not in their best interest to follow the regime.

Here is the video of one of my speeches in Colorado last week, at Faith Bible Chapel. Pamela Geller and I spoke last Thursday in Denver to a crowd of over 1,800 as well as at Colorado Christian University, and on Friday to a standing room only crowd in Colorado Springs. The crowds were enthusiastic and eager to defend freedom. Pamela Geller's speech is here.

So what else is new? In FrontPage this morning:

A book discovered in a Toronto Islamic bookstore is causing an Internet uproar: A Gift for the Muslim Couple by the Islamic scholar Hazrat Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi advises Muslim men that “it might be necessary to restrain” their wives “with strength or even to threaten” them. It says that a Muslim wife is forbidden to leave her husband’s house “without his permission,” and that she has a responsibility to “fulfil his desires.” If she disobeys, he may “beat [her] by hand or stick” or “pull (her) by the ears,” but should “refrain from beating her excessively.” The only surprising thing about all this is that this book surprises anyone.

Nonetheless, the uproar is understandable, since so many Muslim authorities assure us that there is no sanction for wife-beating in Islam. “There is no basis in Islamic theology to support domestic abuse of any kind,” declared Qanta A. Ahmed, author of In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor’s Journey in the Saudi Kingdom, in May 2009. However, the Qur’an tells men to beat their disobedient wives after first warning them and then sending them to sleep in separate beds – a punishment that suggests that the Koran regards women as sexually insatiable and needing to be kept under control (4:34). This is, of course, an extremely controversial verse, so it is worth noting how several translators render the key word here, waidriboohunna.

Pickthall: “and scourge them”

Yusuf Ali: “(And last) beat them (lightly)”

Al-Hilali/Khan: “(and last) beat them (lightly, if it is useful)”

Shakir: “and beat them”

Sher Ali: “and chastise them”

Khalifa: “then you may (as a last alternative) beat them”

Arberry: “and beat them”

Rodwell: “and scourge them”

Sale: “and chastise them”

Asad: “then beat them”

Dawood: “and beat them”

This would not even be a point of controversy were it not for the fact that Muslim feminist Laleh Bakhtiar, in a new translation that has received wide publicity, translates it as “go away from them.” In light of this unanimity among the translators, both Muslim and non-Muslim, this seems difficult to sustain – it is hard to believe that all of these authorities on Qur’anic Arabic, spanning several centuries, got the passage wrong until Bakhtiar.

Still, her impulse to mitigate the brute force of this verse is understandable, as many Muslims today regard this verse with acute embarrassment. The convert from Judaism and Islamic scholar Mohammed Asad adduces numerous traditions in which Muhammad “forbade the beating of any woman,” concluding that wife-beating is “barely permissible, and should preferably be avoided.”

Unfortunately, however, this is not a unanimous view. Sheikh Syed Mahmud Allusi in his Qur’anic commentary Ruhul Ma’ani gives four reasons that a man may beat his wife: “if she refuses to beautify herself for him,” if she refuses sex when he asks for it, if she refuses to pray or perform ritual ablutions, and “if she goes out of the house without a valid excuse.”

What’s more, the propriety of wife-beating is reinforced in the hadith. Western apologists for Islam like to point to a hadith in which Muhammad held up a toothbrush in response to a question from his followers about the proper implement to use to beat one’s wife (he was brushing his teeth when they approached him). In practice, however, Muhammad himself didn’t always counsel such gentleness, and the early Muslims didn’t practice it. His favorite wife, Aisha, said it herself: “I have not seen any woman suffering as much as the believing women.” Muhammad was once told that “women have become emboldened towards their husbands,” whereupon he “gave permission to beat them.” He was unhappy with the women who complained, not with their husbands who beat them.

Also, Aisha reports that Muhammad struck her – and remember, Muhammad’s example is normative for Muslims, since he is an “excellent example of conduct” (33:21). Once he went out at night after he thought she was asleep, and she followed him surreptitiously. Muhammad saw her, and, as Aisha recounts: “He struck me on the chest which caused me pain, and then said: Did you think that Allah and His Apostle would deal unjustly with you?”

There is more.

Of course this is not really a misunderstanding at all. Muhammad owned slaves, and the Qur’an takes the existence of slavery for granted, even as it enjoins the freeing of slaves under certain circumstances, such as the breaking of an oath: “Allah will not call you to account for what is futile in your oaths, but He will call you to account for your deliberate oaths: for expiation, feed ten indigent persons, on a scale of the average for the food of your families; or clothe them; or give a slave his freedom” (5:89).

But while the freeing of a slave or two here and there is encouraged, the institution itself is never questioned. The Qur’an even gives a man permission to have sexual relations with his slave girls as well as with his wives: “The believers must (eventually) win through, those who humble themselves in their prayers; who avoid vain talk; who are active in deeds of charity; who abstain from sex, except with those joined to them in the marriage bond, or (the captives) whom their right hands possess, for (in their case) they are free from blame…” (23:1-6). A Muslim is not to have sexual relations with a woman who is married to someone else – except a slave girl: “And all married women (are forbidden unto you) save those (captives) whom your right hands possess. It is a decree of Allah for you” (4:24).

Slavery is still practiced more or less openly today in Sudan and Mauritania, and there is evidence that slavery still continues beneath the surface in some majority-Muslim countries as well -- notably Saudi Arabia, the home of Dr. Saud Al-Fanisan, which only abolished slavery in 1962, Yemen and Oman, both of which ended legal slavery in 1970, and Niger, which didn’t abolish slavery until 2004. In Niger, the ban is widely ignored, and according to a Nigerian study, as many as one million people remain in bondage there.

"Dr. Saud Al-Fanisan, Former Dean of Islamic Law at a Saudi University: Islamic Law Permits the Possession of Slaves," from MEMRI, March 16:

Following are excerpts from a statement by Dr. Saud Al-Fanisan, former dean of Islamic law at Imam Muhammad Bin Saud Islamic University, Saudi Arabia, which aired on Al-Risala TV on March 16, 2012 :

Dr. Saud Al-Fanisan : Allah permitted the purchase and sale of slaves. Slaves are the property of their owners. This is slavery in the shari'a, yet a slave enjoys a great deal of freedom. The only thing he is deprived of is the right to own [himself]. That's it. He enjoys freedom of thought, freedom of belief, the freedom to work, the right to deny [Islam], and the right to command good and forbid evil. A slave enjoys all these liberties, so how can it be claimed that there is no freedom [in Islam]?

Part 2 of this video.

The popularity of Hitler in Turkey and Egypt indicates the pervasiveness of Islamic antisemitism and its affinity for mass-murder and genocide. This is yet another indication of the rapid de-secularization and re-Islamization of Turkey. "Turkish TV Ad Features Hitler to Sell Shampoo," from Spiegel, March 26 (thanks to all who sent this in):

A Turkish TV commercial has sparked international criticism for featuring Adolf Hitler to praise the virtues of a "hundred percent men's shampoo." Critics have called it "repulsive," but it follows a controversial trend among firms to sell their wares with supposedly humorous references to Hitler and the Nazi era.

A Turkish cosmetics company is under fire for featuring Adolf Hitler in a television advert for men's shampoo, but it continues to run on the country's state television network despite widespread outrage.

The 12-second commercial shows black-and-white footage of Hitler delivering an impassioned speech, dubbed with a high-pitched voice screaming the following words in clipped Turkish:

"Why are you using woman's shampoo if you're not wearing a woman's dress? Now there's the hundred percent men's shampoo Biomen. A real man uses Biomen."

Media reports said that Turkish state television has so far declined to remove the commercial, despite criticism from Jewish groups in Turkey and abroad. The US-based Anti-Defamation League released a statement saying it was "repulsed" at the commercial.

"The use of images of the violently anti-Semitic dictator who was responsible for the mass murder of 6 million Jews and millions of others in the Holocaust to sell shampoo is a disgusting and deplorable marketing ploy," Abraham Foxman, the ADL's national director, said in a statement.

"It is an insult to the memory of those who perished in the Holocaust, those who survived, and those who fought to defeat the Nazis. This video is just the latest example of the use of Holocaust imagery in some countries to sell commercial products, which has contributed to the trivialization of and desensitization to the unparalleled horrors of the Holocaust," it continued.

"There can never be any justifiable purpose for using the images of Hitler, Nazis or any other depiction of the Nazi killing machine to sell products or services."...

There is a new post up at Liberated from Shakila, the ex-Muslim who writes from a Muslim country. In it, she responds to Islamic supremacist trolls who insist that she does not exist, that she is a fictional character of my creation. I myself wouldn't respond to that sort of nonsense, but then again, I ain't her.

Will the Afghan government pay the U.K. $46,000 each for these two soldiers? Of course not. There is no penalty in Islamic law for a Muslim who kills a non-Muslim. Infidels don't get blood money. Time To Get Out of Afghanistan Update: "Afghan soldier kills 2 U.K. troops on NATO base," from AP, March 26:

(AP) KABUL, Afghanistan - An Afghan soldier shot and killed two British troops Monday at a NATO coalition base in southern Afghanistan before being gunned down by international forces, officials said.

The attack was the latest in a string of so-called "green on blue" attacks in which Afghan security forces have turned their guns on their international colleagues or mentors. Such attacks have become increasingly common over the past year, particularly since the burning of Korans at a U.S. base in February.

Fifteen NATO service members, including eight Americans, have been killed by Afghan security officials or militants disguised in their uniforms so far this year....

Ghulam Farooq Parwani, deputy commander of the Afghan National Army in Helmand, said the shooter was from the eastern Nangarhar province and had been in the army for four years. The Afghan soldier arrived at the gate of the base in an army vehicle. He was able to get close to the British troops by claiming that he had been assigned to provide security for a delegation of government officials from Kabul who were visiting the base Monday, according to Parwani.

"He got close to the foreign troops — three or four meters — and he opened fire," Parwani said. "Then the foreign troops killed him."

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi said the shooter was an Afghan soldier who was in close contact with insurgents and had notified the Taliban of his planned attack before carrying it out.

Since 2007, Afghan security forces have killed more than 75 NATO service members and wounded more than 110 others, according to the Pentagon. More than 75 percent of the attacks have occurred in the past two years....

Six American troops were killed in what were believed to be revenge attacks for the burning of the Korans, although it is impossible to know the exact motive because most the shooters were killed in the incidents.

On March 1, two U.S. troops were killed by two Afghan soldiers and an accomplice on a joint U.S.-Afghan base in Zhari district of Kandahar province in the south.

On Feb. 25, two U.S. military advisers were found dead with shots to the back of the head inside the Afghan Interior Ministry in Kabul.

Two U.S. troops were killed Feb. 23 by an Afghan soldier during an anti-Western protest in Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan over the Koran burning.

The U.S. apologized for the burning, saying the Islamic texts were mistakenly sent to a garbage burn pit Feb. 20 at Bagram Air Field, north of Kabul. But the incident raised what had been simmering animosity toward outsiders to a full boil. Deadly protests raged around the nation for six days — the most visible example of a deep-seated resentment bred by what Afghans view is a general lack of respect for their culture and religion.

In "No, Hasan and Bales Are Not Equivalent" in the American Thinker, March 25, Winfield Myers explains why Islamic supremacist academic propagandist Omid Safi's moral equivalence between jihadist Nidal Malik Hasan and Army Sgt. Robert Bales is simply a smokescreen to obscure the reality of jihad.

Oh, and by the way, Omid, my man, threatening people with death is a felony. If you are going to continue to claim that I threatened you and your family, I challenge you to have me arrested. But you won't, of course, because you're lying and you know that you're lying.

Earlier this week, Omid Safi, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, used his blog "What Would Muhammad Do" at the Religion News Service to claim a moral equivalency between Ft. Hood jihadist Major Nidal Malik Hasan and U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales.  "When Americans Kill vs. When Muslims Kill" is a morally repugnant attempt to claim a double standard in the way Americans react to mass murder. In this, Safi echoes the party line of the Middle East studies establishment, which blames the West for the region's political and technological backwardness while largely ignoring its systemic social problems, from the subservient roles of women to the glorification of terrorism.

Rather than proving his claim, however, Safi highlights what he attempts to deny -- that the double standard in Americans' treatment of Muslims leads Americans to turn a blind eye toward Islamic radicals while condemning non-Muslims harshly. Willful blindness, not bigotry, is the hallmark of the contemporary West's treatment of Islamic radicalism.

He writes:

When Americans kill, it is portrayed as an aberration, an act of a tormented and troubled individual. When Muslims kill, it is covered as a signal of a communal, global genocidal tendency.

And:

In short, the assumption that [sic] when we Americans kill, it is an aberration from our good nature. Even if the act is abominable, it is said to be purely an individual act totally disconnected from any larger institutional or political context. However, when Muslims kill, it is a sign of a world-wide, evil ideology of jihad and terrorism.

Hasan, a psychiatrist who slaughtered thirteen fellow soldiers while shouting "Allahu Akbar" ("God is great"), psychologically abused his patients -- weary, sometimes mentally fragile Iraq War veterans seeking medical treatment. He condemned their service to their country, attempted to convert some to Islam, and told an Army captain that she was an infidel who would be "ripped to shreds" and would "burn in hell" because she was not a Muslim. His file reveals years of unprofessional, highly aggressive behavior toward Army personnel driven by his desire to carry out jihad -- holy war -- against Americans. Private business cards found in his apartment after his arrest stated that he was an "SoA (SWT)," an acronym found on jihadist websites that stands for "soldier of Allah" and "Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala," or "Glory to God."

Yet, in spite of a mountain of evidence against Hasan, official government reactions to his murderous rampage and to other actions by radical Islamists reveal anything but bigotry against Muslims:

• The official Department of Defense report on the murder of the thirteen servicemen at Fort Hood does not mention Hasan by name, nor does it mention the words "jihad" or "Muslim," while "Islam" occurs only in a reference footnote.
• U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder refused to state that radical Islam played any role in the Fort Hood shooting or the attempted bombing of Times Square in New York City in 2009.
• Federal officials regularly resort to euphemisms, including "overseas contingency operation," "a campaign against extremists who wish to do us harm," and "countering violent extremism" to describe America's wars against radical Islamists and terror-sponsoring nations.

That Hasan got away with his actions without being expelled from the Army, if not prosecuted, is testimony to the West's pusillanimity in the face of radical Islam and its apologists, not its bigotry against them....

Safi has a long history of defending radical Islamists and smearing his critics, all while posing as a progressive Muslim fighting for justice. From classroom assignments in which scholars with whom he disagrees are labeled "Islamophobes" to charging falsely that Robert Spencer threatened to kill him, Safi lashes out at those who would expose his efforts to shill for Islamists. In his latest
apologia for terrorists, he insults the professionalism of the American military, the decency of the American people, and the truth.

In the American Thinker I go over what is a drearily repeating pattern after every jihad attack:

Every time a Muslim commits murder in the name of Islam, the denial begins again: Western leaders and the mainstream media tie themselves into knots trying to explain what happened without making any reference to its guiding motivation.

Last week was no different: Muhammad Merah was a self-styled "Islamic warrior" who killed a rabbi and several children at a Jewish day school in Toulouse, France, in an attack that the international media widely reported initially as having been perpetrated by a neo-Nazi. When it became clear that Merah was actually a jihadist, the predictable denial began: French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that the attack had nothing to do with Islam, and the call echoed worldwide not to allow the murders to harm French "pluralism."

In fact, however, Muhammad Merah's murders had everything to do with Islam: he claimed affiliation with al-Qaeda and may have trained with the Taliban, both of which are explicitly and ostentatiously Muslim groups that justify all their actions by reference to the Qur'an and Sunnah. He claimed to be a mujahid, which is a warrior of jihad, which is an Islamic theological and legal concept. He killed Muslim soldiers who fought in the infidel military -- something that only someone who considered one's loyalty to the umma to trump all other loyalties would have done.

Indeed, so grounded is Merah's massacre in Islam that it is virtually inconceivable that he would have carried it out had he not been a Muslim. And so Sarkozy is, like every other leader in the Western world today, whistling in the dark, trying to pretend that there is no problem when there is a huge problem, and basing the future of his nation on the fantasy that the overwhelming majority of Muslims in France do not believe the same things Muhammad Merah believed....

There is more.

Eric Allen Bell vs. Nadir Ahmed: "Is Islam Inherently Violent?" from Eric Allen Bell on Vimeo.

From the video description:

Islamic Scholar, Nadir Ahmed, challenged writer and film maker Eric Allen Bell to a debate. The mutually agreed upon topic was "Is Islam Inherently Violent?"

This video is at times very shocking as you will see first hand how Islamic Scholars not only admit that the Prophet Muhammed did in fact have sex with a 9 year old girl, but their defense for this type of pedophilia is that it was "consensual".

On the execrable Ahmed, see here. Islamic supremacists generally tend to be arrogant, chest-thumping, empty-headed clowns who heap insults on their opponents, refuse to address their arguments except with invective, and then go away claiming victory. In a field crowded with creeps contending for the prize, including such "luminaries" as Reza Aslan, Caner K. Dagli, "Danios of Loonwatch" and Moustafa Zayed, Nadir Ahmed stands out as the most vacuous, the most intellectually bereft, and the most fiendishly puerile and prone to twelve-year-old level abuse.

"This week’s Glazov Gang hosted a discussion on the heinous Jihadi crime in Toulouse and it escalated into an acrimonious verbal brawl. Our guests were Rob Nelson, former Fox News talk show host, Doris Montrose, President of Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Mark Tapson, Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center...."

One consistent hallmark of abusive laws is that they lend themselves to new abuses limited only by a spiteful imagination (see also: Pakistan's blasphemy law). "Saudi man divorces wife over loudspeaker at mall," from Bikya Masr, March 23 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

CAIRO: A Saudi husband used a loudspeaker to divorce his wife at a busy shopping mall after seeing her take a note from another man bearing his phone number.

This, according to the Saudi Arabic language quotidian, Kabar.

The husband was with his wife and three children at the mall when he went his own way into a men’s clothes shop.

“When he left that shop, he saw a man giving his wife a note bearing his phone number…she accepted the paper and put it inside her bag,”

The newspaper did not mention where the mall is located.

“He then used the mall’s loudspeaker to shout divorce words against his wife although she was with her three children.”

Even the cast of Mallrats might think that's taking it too far.

"They chanted: 'We will never forget you Ahmed Yassin,' naming an Islamist Palestinian Hamas leader assassinated by the Israelis in 2004."

And so they support Hamas' aim of destroying Israel. "Moroccan Islamists flex muscles in Rabat march," by Souhail Karam for Reuters, March 25:

RABAT (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Moroccans staged a pro-Palestinian march in Rabat on Sunday in a show of force organized by an Islamist group seen as the main opposition to Morocco's monarchy. A Reuters reporter in the Moroccan capital said at least 40,000 people joined the march called by Al-Adl Wal Ihsan (Justice and Spirituality). A senior police officer put the number at 11,000 while organizers said 100,000 had turned out.

We have the real numbers here. It was eleventeen and two-thirds bazillion.

It was Al-Adl's first march since December when it pulled out of pro-democracy protests, inspired by Arab uprisings elsewhere and aimed at forcing the Arab world's longest-serving dynasty to become a constitutional monarchy.

Morocco has not had a revolution of the kind seen in Egypt, Libya or Tunisia. King Mohammed is still firmly in charge after he offered to trim his powers and allowed moderate Islamists to lead the government after their Justice and Development Party (PJD) won an election in November.

Ali Anouzla, a political analyst and editor of Lakome.com news portal, said Al-Adl sought to send a message to Moroccan authorities that they remained a force to reckoned with, even after withdrawing from the pro-democracy protest movement.

"Al-Adl's withdrawal from the February 20 Movement has tremendously reduced pressure on the PJD. With this march, Al-Adl is trying to make a comeback and sends a message to skeptics who raised doubt about its support base," Anouzla said.

While the protests of the February 20 Movement lost much of their momentum after Al-Adl's withdrawal, unrest over poverty, corruption and unemployment still erupts, sometimes violently.

Al-Adl is seen as Morocco's biggest and best-organized Islamist group. It is active mostly in universities and in helping the poor, but is banned from politics due to what is seen as its hostile rhetoric towards the monarchy.

Hassan Bennajeh, an Al-Adl wal Ihsan spokesman, said Sunday's march was to mark Land Day, when Palestinians recall 1976 protests over Israeli expropriation of Arab-owned land.

"We have always been active on issues that touch the heart of Moroccans. While we protest here in support of Palestine, members of our group continue to be persecuted and jailed by authorities for their activism on local issues," he said.

"Everybody knows that the Moroccan regime supports normalization with Israel and has helped thousands of Moroccan Jews to migrate to and populate Israel," Bennajeh added.

Morocco has been a discreet broker between Israel and Arab countries and established low-key diplomatic ties with the Jewish state in 1994. In 2000, Rabat froze ties with Israel after violence intensified in the Israeli-occupied territories.

The marchers carried Palestinian flags, balloons in the flag's black, red, white and green, and placards that read "Palestinians are resisting while Arab regimes are haggling".

They chanted: "The people want the liberation of Palestine" and "We will never forget you Ahmed Yassin", naming an Islamist Palestinian Hamas leader assassinated by the Israelis in 2004.

And at an "Islamist" demonstration...

Most of the protesters appeared to be Islamists, with women wearing headscarves and marching separately from men.

April Fools Day is coming up. It might be a hoot to tell King Abdullah the exact story that is going on here, but reversing the roles of non-Muslims and Muslims. Tell him that Saudi men and women are stuck working in slave-like conditions and prohibited to publicly express their faith, and the ranking cleric in Country X called for the destruction of all the mosques. Right around the time steam billows out of his ears in indignation, tell him it's actually Christians living that way in his kingdom. April Fool!

Bring your running shoes.

Shockingly, though, we've heard nary a peep from the King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue in Vienna. "Non-Muslim Filipino expats in Saudi Arabia told to be cautious," by Gilbert P. Felongco for Gulf News, March 25 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

Manila: A migrant watchgroup urged Filipinos in Saudi Arabia to be more cautious in expressing their faith after the country's most influential Islamic scholar issued a fatwa against religious structures in the Arab Peninsula. In a statement, John Leonard Monterona, Migrante-Middle East regional coordinator, said it is understandable why a religious leader of a kingdom hosting a large population of migrant workers would issue such a restriction on the exercise of religion other than Islam.

Why should Saudi Arabia be exempt from reciprocating the same rights it expects for Muslims anywhere in the world?

He said that Saudi Arabia is not just any other country hosting a large Muslim population but is considered as the centre of the Islamic faith.

But Muslims can not only visit Rome, but live there. The lack of reciprocity by the Saudis is taken for granted and endlessly excused:

"Saudi Arabia is an Islamic state. It is where the two Holy Mosques are located," Monterona said, referring to the Masjid Al Haram in Makkah and the Masjid Al Nabawi.

As noted here in a 2010 story about the ISI's "urging on" of the Taliban, "it's all fun and games for Pakistan's ruling elite until the jihadists who found sanctuary on the western frontier are breaking down the gates in Islamabad." "Taliban warn Pakistan lawmakers over NATO supplies," by Ishtiaq Mahsud for the Associated Press, March 25:

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (AP) — The Taliban on Sunday threatened to attack Pakistani lawmakers and their families if they support allowing NATO to resume shipping supplies through the country to troops in neighboring Afghanistan.

Pakistan closed its Afghan border crossings to NATO in November in retaliation for American airstrikes that accidentally killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. Pakistan's parliament is scheduled to begin debate Monday on a revised relationship with the U.S. that could lead to the border being reopened.

Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan accused Pakistani officials of acting like slaves for the U.S. and said allowing NATO supplies to resume would be "shameful and unacceptable."

"These parliamentarians must know that in such case, none of them will be safe in their homes," Ahsan told The Associated Press. "We will start attacking all the parliamentarians and their families."

Ahsan also said militants would "publicly slaughter" drivers ferrying NATO supplies.
The U.S. is eager to get the supplies moving again because it has had to spend much more money shipping goods by an alternative route that runs through Central Asia.

The supply line through Pakistan will also be key to trucking out equipment as the U.S. seeks to withdraw most of its combat forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

Pakistan would also benefit from patching up relations because it needs U.S. assistance to help keep its struggling economy afloat. The U.S. has given Pakistan billions of dollars in aid since 2001 to enlist its support in fighting Islamist militants, but the relationship has been plagued by mistrust....

We have leverage that we are not currently using to fight for minimum standards of human rights in Pakistan.

Not unlike a similar case of bias that has arisen at Bikya Masr, this report talks out of both sides of its proverbial mouth, abruptly shifting the focus to women who say they have "found love."

It is not enough that a Pakistani journalist quoted below says he has spoken to a few women and thus offers anecdotal evidence as the rule. It is a well known practice in abductions and forced marriages in Pakistan to coerce statements from the women and girls under duress, and even to compel them to sign documents or appear in court to state that they converted of their own free will.

More on this story. "Pakistan minister claims 100 women forced to convert to Islam," by Joseph Mayton for Bikya Masr, March 24 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

MUMBAI: A Pakistani minister has claimed that 100 non-Muslim women, predominantly Hindu, have been forced to convert to Islam in the country in recent months. Minister for National Harmony Akram Masih Gill, a Christian, said that if true, the practice went counter to all things established by Islam as the faith prohibits forced conversion.

Islamic law itself is rife with means of coercion to convert (see also: Qur'an 9:29). Where the line is between persuasion and compulsion is but an academic exercise to those who wield power.

“We will seek a religious decree from the Council of Islamic Ideology and a ruling by the Federal Shariah Court on the issue before introducing the required law,” Gill told The Express Tribune newspaper.

The draft of the proposed law is likely to be tabled in Parliament after the passage of the budget in June.

Gill said he was unsure about the exact number of forced conversions in the absence of accurate data, but believed that the “figure of such cases is about 100″.

But journalists in Pakistan say that many of the conversions are likely do to religious restrictions on marriage.

Kamal Javaid, a local reporter in Karachi, told Bikyamasr.com that “many of the women I have spoken with say they found love and that their families were against the marriage to a Muslim man, so they converted and ran off with him.

“This is not to say that all are this way, but we must always be weary of groups pointing to a large number like this without facts being investigated.”

Parliamentarians from minority communities have recommended that the federal government introduce legislation to check forced conversions, he said.

The minister’s remarks came against the backdrop of an order issued by the Supreme Court, directing authorities in southern Sindh province to produce three Hindu women, who were allegedly forcibly converted, in court on March 26.

Backing Javaid’s assertion, however, two of the women – Rinkle Kumari and Lata Kumari – have claimed in lower courts that they voluntarily converted to Islam and married Muslim men.

The issue of conversion has been a tenuous topic in recent months in Pakistan after reports of religiously induced violence and crimes have become more commonplace.

Earlier coverage observed that Merah had "been surprised: he thought he'd be able to continue his offensive and carry on with the killings and it's clear that he hadn't prepared anything (in the event of a siege)."

With any luck, his hubris and lack of preparation may lead to the untangling of a larger web of jihadists. "Toulouse gunman Mohammed Merah had links to Islamic extremists in Britain," by Peter Allen for the Daily Mail, March 24:

The Al Qaeda gunman who shot dead seven people in France was in touch with British Islamic extremists as recently as last year, security sources in Paris said yesterday.

Mohammed Merah, 23, who was killed when police commandos stormed his flat in Toulouse last week, is said to have met UK-based jihadists on a visit to Afghanistan. His codename – ‘Youssef Toulouse’ – was passed to British security agents. [...]

Merah’s brother Abdelkader, 29, and his 30-year-old wife, who has not been named, face charges of ‘conspiracy to commit terrorist acts’.

Abdelkader has now been charged. His girlfriend, who is reportedly not legally his wife under French law, but only according to an Islamic ceremony, is apparently off the hook for the moment.

Abdelkader has boasted of feeling ‘very proud’ of his brother, who killed three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi and three paratroopers.

Merah had been tracked by French authorities since he broke out of an Afghan prison in 2008. He worked as a mechanic in France, but returned to the Middle East to train with the Taliban. He is thought to have gone to Pakistan in 2010 and reached the Afghan capital Kabul that November. He was picked up by US security agents and sent back to France.

Detectives believe Merah and his brother, an international terrorist suspect, were involved in two Islamist organisations, Forsane Alizza (The Knights of Pride) and Al Qaeda splinter group Jund al-Khilafah.

And what goeth before a fall, again? Oh, yes.

A security source in Paris said: ‘Not only were members of these groups in touch with British jihadists while in Europe, they would also have met them in Afghanistan.’

One of the groups was formed with the aim of targeting Western interests in Europe and sending recruits to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It was a ‘structured organisation’ that maintained links with similar networks in Britain, the source said. In 2009 several of its members were found guilty of terror-related offences....

"Many scholars and people are now demanding his execution."

That may be about as close to democracy as Saudi Arabia gets: giving the people what they want, at least when it's death. "Another Twitter user accused of apostasy in Saudi Arabia," from Emirates 24-7, March 25:

An Arab man in Saudi Arabia is accused of offending Islam and its Prophet Mohammed (Peace Be Upon Him) in remarks on his Twitter page, the second man to be charged with apostasy in the Gulf Kingdom.

Hundreds of Twitter users joined hands in demanding the arrest of Mohammed Salama on apostasy charges as was the case of Hamza Kashgari who is in jail for offending the Prophet (PBUH) in comments on his Twitter page.

“Mohammed Salama has followed the same path followed by Hamza Kashgari,” the Saudi Arabic language daily Sabq said without specifying his nationality.

It said Salama had just cancelled his page from Twitter for fear of arrest but added he had been sacked from work at a dairy company in Saudi Arabia.

The paper, which carried part of Salama’s remarks, said he claimed the Prophet (pbuh) had once tried to commit a suicide because he doubted the Koran.

It also quoted Salama as saying on Twitter : “If God gives chances but does not forget, then why He forgot Israel and did not give chances to Gaddafi.”

The paper also said Salama believed that God “will let us enjoy liquor, usury and sorcery in Paradise after we were deprived of them in life.”

It added: “Hundreds of Twitter users are demanding the arrest and trial of Salama for insulting Islam, the Prophet (PBUH) and God as was the case with Kashgari.”

Kashgari, 23, fled to Malaysia in February after king Abdullah ordered his arrest over his Twitter article considered as anti-Islam.

He was later handed over to Saudi authorities, who said he would be tried on apostasy charges.

Speculation mounted that Kashgari could be executed following statements by a senior Saudi Muslim cleric that the writer would be sentenced to death for apostasy. Kashgari was reported last week to have repented at court but there was no official word whether this would lead to his release.

Sheikh Saleh bin Fowzan Al Fowzan, a member of the 7-man supreme committee of scholars in Saudi Arabia, said it has been established in Islam that anyone who insults God or the Prophet should be killed.

“Repenting will not work…any man who insults God or our Prophet (PBUH) should be killed,” he said. “But we should first verify that this man (Kashgari) did insult Prophet Mohammed in his article on Twitter. If verified, then he must be killed. Many scholars and people are now demanding his execution.”

Abdelkader Merah Update. "Preliminary charges filed against gunman's brother," from the Associated Press, March 25:

A Frenchman suspected of helping his brother plot attacks against Jewish schoolchildren and paratroopers was handed preliminary murder and terrorism charges Sunday.

But Abdelkader Merah denied any role in the attacks. Investigators looking into France’s worst terror attacks in years believe Merah helped his brother Mohamed prepare the killings, and are investigating whether they were linked to an international network of extremists or worked on their own.

Abdelkader’s lawyer said he feels like “a scapegoat.”

But he has said he is proud of his brother's actions.

Since then, attention has focused on his older brother Abdelkader Merah, who was handed preliminary charges on Sunday of complicity to murder and theft, and involvement in a terrorist enterprise, prosecutors said. Detained last week, he will remain in custody pending further investigation.

Preliminary charges under French law mean there is strong reason to believe a crime was committed, but allow magistrates more time to investigate.

Authorities suspect Abdelkader had a role in acquiring his younger brother’s arsenal and financing his trips to Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East. Mohamed Merah claimed allegiance to al-Qaida and told police he traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan for training.

Abdelkader was questioned several years ago about alleged links to a network sending Toulouse-area youths to Iraq, but no action was brought against him at the time.

Prosecutor Francois Molins said the inquiry is also looking at anyone else who could have been involved in planning the attacks.

The brother’s girlfriend, Yamina Mesbah, was held, then released early Sunday without being charged. The Merah brothers’ mother was released Friday night.

The girlfriend denied any involvement in what happened and said she was shocked by the killings, her lawyer Guy Debuisson said, adding that Abdelkader Merah appeared to have led a double life.

“This woman was unaware of anything about her husband’s accessory, complementary or secret life,” the lawyer said. The couple married according to Muslim custom in 2006, but did not undergo the civil ceremony required in France for a marriage to be recognized.

Abdelkader Merah took five or six long trips to Egypt, ostensibly to study Arabic literature, and his girlfriend joined him on two or three, the lawyer said.

During questioning by police, the lawyer said, Mesbah learned that Merah had had other motivations for his trip to Egypt and “a life that led him toward an extremely intense ... fundamentalism.”

“The question to ask today is if Mohamed was the only one that was indoctrinated. Was it just him or are there others?”.... Debuisson asked.

There's more where Mohamed Merah came from. Much is made below of the fact that Merah did not appear religious, and was seen in a nightclub. But it is nothing new for jihadists to make an effort to appear non-religious (see also: Lesson 8 of the "Al-Qaeda playbook"), or to indulge in what they please not only to blend in, but with the assumption that "martyrdom" will cancel out their sins. Mohammed Atta, one will recall, was said to drink like a pickled fish, and the 9/11 hijackers and Nidal Hasan visited strip clubs.

"Dozens of Frenchmen being trained by Taliban: Pakistani officials," by Dera Ismail Khan for the Associated Press, March 24:

Dozens of French Muslims are training with the Taliban in northwestern Pakistan, raising fears of future attacks following the shooting deaths of seven people in southern France allegedly by a man who spent time in the region, Pakistani intelligence officials said Saturday.

Authorities are investigating whether Mohamed Merah, the Frenchman of Algerian descent who is suspected of killing three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi and three French paratroopers in Toulouse this month, was among the training group, the officials said.

Merah was killed in a dramatic gunfight with police Thursday after a 32-hour standoff at his Toulouse apartment. The 23-year-old former auto body worker traveled twice to Afghanistan in 2010 and to Pakistan in 2011, and said he trained with al-Qaeda in the Pakistani militant stronghold of Waziristan.

Approximately 85 Frenchmen have been training with the Pakistani Taliban in the North Waziristan tribal area for the past three years, according to the intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. Most of the men have dual nationality with France and North African countries.

The Frenchmen operate under the name Jihad-e-Islami and are being trained to use explosives and other weapons at camps near the town of Miran Shah and in the Datta Khel area, the officials said. They are led by a French commander who goes by the name Abu Tarek. Five of the men returned to France in January 2011 to find new recruits, according to the officials. It's unclear whether Merah was among that group.

A senior French official close to the investigation into the shootings told The Associated Press on Friday that despite Merah's claims of al-Qaedalinks, there was no sign he had “trained or been in contact with organized groups or jihadists.”

A militant commander, Ahmed Marwat, claimed in a phone call with the AP on Saturday that Merah was affiliated with the Pakistani Taliban in Waziristan, but provided no details. Marwat said he was part of the Jundullah wing of the Pakistani Taliban.

The claim could not be independently verified.

The Pakistani Taliban, which is closely allied with al-Qaeda, has carried out hundreds of attacks in Pakistan over the past several years that have killed thousands of people. Taliban leaders say they want to oust the U.S.-backed government and install a hardline Islamist regime. They also have international jihadi ambitions and trained the Pakistani-American who tried to detonate a car bomb in New York City's Times Square in 2010.

The main sanctuary for the Pakistani Taliban is the restive tribal region along the Afghan border, especially North and South Waziristan. Despite a large military offensive in South Waziristan in 2009, the government has very little control over the area.

Western officials have been concerned for years about Muslim militants with European citizenship visiting northwestern Pakistan, possibly training for missions that could include terror attacks in Europe where they would act as “lone wolves” or on the orders of others. In 2010 alone, dozens were believed to be there.

Hang on, now. Subscribers to the Euphemism of the Month Club will know the preferred term is now "self starters." Stamp out lupophobia!

Merah told police during the standoff that he was trained “by a single person” when he was in Waziristan, not in a training center, so as not to be singled out because he spoke French,” the director of the DCRI intelligence service, Bernard Squarcini, told the Le Monde newspaper.

Merah was questioned by French intelligence officers last November after his second trip to Afghanistan, and was cooperative and provided a USB key with tourist-like photos of his trip, the French official close to the investigation told the AP.

While he was under surveillance last year, Merah was never seen contacting any radicals and went to nightclubs, not mosques, the official said. People who knew him confirmed that he was at a nightclub in recent weeks.

Merah told negotiators during the police standoff that he was able to buy a large arsenal of weapons thanks to years of petty theft, the official said.

In a prior report, Mohamed Merah's brother Abdelkader said "I am very proud of my brother. I regret nothing for him and approve of what he did."

This development barely begins to unravel the trail of money and contacts that made it possible for Mohamed, who was on welfare, to travel extensively and amass weapons, but it is a start. "French gunman's brother suspected of complicity," from Reuters, March 25:

PARIS (Reuters) - French authorities have ordered the brother of an al Qaeda-inspired killer to be detained on suspicion of complicity in his sibling's assassination of three Jewish children, a rabbi and three soldiers.

The Paris public prosecutor's office said preliminary inquiries had produced enough material to justify detaining Abdelkader Merah while he was investigated on multiple counts.

Abdelkader, 29, was arrested at dawn on Wednesday as elite police laid siege to the Toulouse apartment of his brother Mohamed, a French citizen of Algerian extraction.
Mohamed Merah was killed in a shootout after confessing to shooting four soldiers, three Jewish children and a rabbi in three separate incidents in and around the southwestern city this month.

Three of the soldiers are dead and the fourth is alive but in a critical condition.

The killings shocked France and the world a month from a presidential election where conservative Nicolas Sarkozy is fighting an uphill battle for re-election.

Merah does not appear to have acted as part of a fundamentalist network [really? - ed], but police are trying to establish whether he was swayed or given practical help by his brother, who was known to security services for helping smuggle Jihadist militants into Iraq in 2007.

"Police inquiries have produced serious and matching pointers that suggest his (Abdelkader's) participation as accomplice in crimes relating to a terrorist enterprise is plausible," the Paris public prosecutor's office said in a statement.

It listed the suspected offences as complicity in assassination and in robbery, and colluding with criminals planning terrorist enterprises. In France it may take months or years before a trial is ordered or the case dropped.

At another recent rally, we saw some signs of self-delusion about what they would be getting under Sharia. Many others, however, know exactly what they want to impose on the country. "Thousands rally in Tunis to demand Islamic law," from Agence France-Presse, March 25:

At least 8,000 Islamists staged a mass demonstration in central Tunis on Sunday in the latest show of force to demand the adoption of Islamic law in the north African country.

"The people want an Islamic state", "the people want sharia (Islamic law)," chanted the protesters, whose number was estimated by a police officer on site at between 8,000 and 10,000.

Tunisia's moderate Islamist leaders, who took power following last year's ouster of strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali after a popular uprising, are under pressure to adopt sharia law in the new constitution.

Demonstrators also condemned as "an unacceptable crime" and a "provocative act" the desecration of the Koran and religious sites in incidents in Tunisia last week.

Copies of the Muslim holy book were found torn in a mosque in the southeastern town of Ben Guerdane and eggs splattered on its walls while in Tunis, the Star of David was daubed on the walls of a mosque used as a base for Salafist rallies.

One can't help but speculate about a false flag operation, given what a strategic disaster it would be. In any case, it is all too likely to be used against Tunisia's vulnerable Jewish population at some point, as an excuse for collective punishment.

Abdullah el-Faisal Update. This report is from earlier in the month, but still merits attention. "Exile hate preacher’s web rants," by Simon Hughes for The Sun, March 13:

Sinister Abdullah el-Faisal broadcasts his wicked gospel live to the UK over the internet six nights a week.

Misnomer of the month: neither Gospel nor "good news."

His rants from 4,500 miles away in his native Jamaica are also recorded and available online.

Faisal, 48, is known to be recruiting fanatics whose real identities and locations are shielded from authorities by code names.

He also urges the setting up of a network of secret mosques where extremist views can be voiced.

Faisal is banned from Britain following his deportation after a seven-year prison sentence for soliciting murder.

Last night his rants from Jamaica — visited last week by Prince Harry — triggered demands for Foreign Secretary William Hague to intervene.

Among those radicalised by Faisal is English-born 7/7 bomber's widow Samantha Lewthwaite, allegedly now wanted in Kenya over a terror plot. Faisal also has ties to notorious preachers Abu Hamza and Abu Qatada.

More than 40 of his followers have been given code names beginning with the prefix AT — indicating his website Authentic Tawheed — followed by a number.

In one broadcast he advocated jihad, or holy war, saying it was his followers' duty to "conquer nations".

Last night senior Tory MP Patrick Mercer said: "He should be closed down."

Similar to a question posed last week: can something be newsworthy, and yet entirely expected?

A democracy is only as good as the values that inform its participants. Much also depends on who is allowed to participate in the first place. An update on this story. "Islamists are majority on Egypt constitution panel," from the Associated Press, March 25:

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's Islamists make up a sizable majority of a 100-member panel tasked with drafting a new constitution, according to a list of names published Sunday by the country's official news agency.

The list reinforces fears by secular and liberal Egyptians that the Islamists dominating parliament will pack the panel with supporters and ignore minority concerns.

Of the 50 lawmakers selected by parliament's two chambers to sit on the panel, 37 are Islamists. The other 50, also selected by lawmakers, are public figures who include enough Islamists to give them a comfortable overall majority in the panel.

A handful of Christians and women were selected and there were only a few names from the revolutionary movement behind last year's ouster of longtime authoritarian leader Hosni Mubarak.

The new constitution will determine the balance of power between Egypt's previously all-powerful president and parliament, and define the country's future identity, including the role of religion and minority rights.

With so much at stake, the question of who should sit on the panel has sparked fierce debate in Egypt. Liberal lawmakers say a permanent constitution should not be written only by those who won a majority in a single election.

Some Islamists had previously indicated that they would seek to write the constitution by "consensus," but doubts among secular and liberal Egyptians increased last week after parliament's two chambers jointly decided to allocate half of the panel's seats to its own members, three-quarters of whom are Islamist.

Half of those are from the Muslim Brotherhood, who have until now been vague about what they want the constitution to include. But another quarter of parliament are Salafi ultraconservatives, many of whom have called for the constitution to reflect hardline interpretations of Islamic Sharia law.

Not only to reflect Sharia, but to be solely dependent on it.

The country's most prominent democracy advocate, Mohamed ElBaradei, was not included in the panel, a glaring omission of a figure whose vocal opposition to Mubarak's regime in the year prior to its overthrow injected energy into the youth groups that eventually engineered last year's uprising. They perceive the omission of ElBaradei and the failure to give the revolutionaries more than a token representation on the panel as the latest move by the Islamists and the ruling generals who took over from Mubarak to further sideline them following their poor showing in parliamentary elections swept by the better-organized Islamists.

The Islamic principle of qisas, or retaliation, allows for blood money (diyya) to be paid by the perpetrator to the relatives of the deceased in cases of accidental death or even murder. This is part of Islamic law and suffices as punishment for the murder if the relatives of the deceased agree.

Thus now that this money has been paid, the matter is settled as far as Sharia is concerned, and there should be no further protests or agitation over this. About that we shall see, but it is a bad precedent in any case for the U.S. to abide by Sharia in this regard. However, that precedent has already been set so many times that one more is not going to change things significantly.

"Afghan massacre: Kandahar families given compensation," from the BBC, March 25 (thanks to John):

Afghan families who lost relatives in the Kandahar massacre have been paid compensation by the US military.

They received $46,000 (£29,000) for each person killed and $10,000 (£6,300) for each person injured, Afghan officials and tribal elders said.

US staff sergeant Robert Bales was charged on Friday with 17 counts of premeditated murder.

Meanwhile, eight Afghan police officers and an Isaf foreign soldier have been killed by a bomb in Kandahar province....

Will anyone pay blood money for them?

Family members were informed of the payouts at a meeting with personnel from the US military and the Nato-led ISAF forces at the offices of Kandahar's governor.

"We were invited by the foreign and Afghan officials in Panjwai yesterday and they said this money is an assistance from [US President] Obama," Haji Jan Agha, who said he lost his cousins, told Reuters on Sunday.

Compensation payments by foreign forces in Afghanistan are often made in cases of the deaths of civilians.

Compensation is traditionally offered in Afghanistan in a bid to soften anger among a victim's family and also as a gesture of good faith and healing.

Some tribes, however, refuse to take part, seeing cash payment for a life as a disgraceful act, and preferring to take revenge....

An active and well-connected jihadist. "France's Jihadist Shooter Was No Lone Wolf: Mohamed Merah was practically a prince in violent extremist circles," by Jytte Klausen in the Wall Street Journal, March 25 (thanks to Bob):

Mohamed Merah, the Frenchman who assassinated three French paratroopers of North African background and then launched a terrible attack on a Jewish school—murdering a teacher, his two young sons and an 8-year-old girl—claimed to act for al Qaeda. Skeptics have dismissed the claim, saying al Qaeda barely functions anymore. But Merah was no "lone wolf" and did indeed bear the imprint of al Qaeda.

Young and alienated, Merah had served two years in a juvenile prison for robbery. Was he rejected by French society because of his Algerian background? "He snapped," say friends. After prison, he was completely cut off from reality, said his lawyer.

In fact, Merah was practically a prince in French jihadist circles. His mother is married to the father of Sabri Essid, a leading member of the Toulouse radical milieu who was captured in Syria in 2006. Essid and another Frenchman were running an al Qaeda safe house in Syria for fighters going to Iraq. In a 2009 trial that came to be known in the press as "Brothers for Iraq," they and six others were convicted in France of conspiracy for terrorist purposes. Essid was sentenced in 2009 to five years imprisonment.

Family contacts could have been instrumental in setting up Merah's jihadist contacts and facilitating his travels to South Asia. Le Monde reports that the Pakistani Taliban and the Uzbek Islamic Movement trained Merah to become a killer. In 2010, he was captured in Afghanistan (reportedly by Afghan forces) and handed over to the French government, yet French media report that he was able to return to Northwest Pakistan in 2011.

The French police have confirmed that Merah was under periodic surveillance in recent months. That he slipped through and was able to carry out his attacks will become a source of criticism and self-recrimination on the part of the generally efficient French police. It certainly suggests that he had help from a network.

In executing his attacks, Merah did everything by the jihadist textbook. He made sure he would die a martyr's death that would be witnessed on television screens around the world. He murdered with a video camera strapped to his body, making him star and director of his own epic. He told journalists his videos would soon be uploaded. In the attack at the Jewish school Monday morning, Merah held a little girl by her hair while he paused to reload his gun. He then shot her. In a recording found in his apartment he tells another victim, a soldier: "You kill my brothers, I kill you." This is theater.

The Internet was his friend. "I have changed my life . . . on video," said one of his last tweets (in French) during the siege. His account ID featured a black knight on a horse holding high the flag of jihad.

He signed that last tweet "Mohamed Merah-Forsane Alizza." Forsane Alizza, or "Knights of Glory," is a France-based jihadist media organization that was banned in January by French authorities after they discovered members preparing to train in armed combat. The ban made little difference, as content was uploaded to new sites. A website using the Forsane Alizza alias is still active—and registered with a domain name registrar and Web hosting company based in the state of Washington....

Why not? Unless she was in sympathy with what he did and wanted him to continue his jihad. Oh, and where did he get the money for all those weapons? "Lawyer: Mother of French Islamist gunman released without charge; brother remains in custody," by Raphael Satter for The Associated Press, March 24 (thanks to Kenneth):

PARIS - Authorities investigating France's deadly shooting rampage have released the mother of the Islamist fanatic blamed for the killings but were questioning his older brother to determine whether he served as an accomplice, officials said Saturday.

Police are trying to determine whether 23-year-old Mohamed Merah had any help in carrying out the execution-style murders of seven people that have shocked France and refocused attention on the threat of radical Muslim terrorists. Police say there is evidence to suggest that his brother worked as an assistant.

Merah's brother, Abdelkader, was flown to Paris for further questioning Saturday, along with his girlfriend, but a lawyer for Merah's mother, 55-year-old Zoulhika Aziri, said she had been released without charge. Jean-Yves Gougnaud told reporters in the southern French city of Toulouse that Aziri's world had been "turned upside down."

"She is devastated," he told reporters after her release. "At no time could she have imagined that her son was the one who did it."

Aziri was freed late Friday from a police station in Toulouse, a judicial official said on condition of anonymity because the information wasn't cleared for public release.

Mohamed Merah, who claimed allegiance to al-Qaida, died in a hail of gunfire Thursday after a dramatic 32-hour standoff with police at his apartment in Toulouse. At one point, police brought his mother to the scene, but she refused to urge her son to surrender, officials said.

Merah had filmed himself carrying out attacks in southern France that began March 11 and killed three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi and three French paratroopers with close-range shots to the head, prosecutors say. Another Jewish student and a paratrooper were wounded, and five police officers were injured trying to dislodge Merah from the apartment.

The killings stunned France and upended the campaign for presidential elections starting next month. President Nicolas Sarkozy held an emergency meeting with his prime minister and top security and intelligence officials Saturday.

Key questions include how Merah, described by French intelligence boss Ange Mancini as "a little failure from the suburbs," was able to amass an arsenal of weapons — including an Uzi sub-machinegun — and rent a car, despite having no clear source of income....

Robert Spencer and Peter Boyles

Craig Silverman, Pamela Geller, Dan Caplis, Robert Spencer

Pamela Geller and I spoke Thursday in Denver to a crowd of over 1,000 and on Friday to a standing room only crowd in Colorado Springs (above). We also went to the KHOW studios in Denver on Thursday afternoon for the Caplis and Silverman show, and I returned to KHOW Friday morning for nearly an hour and a half on the Peter Boyles show.

I am frequently on Peter's show but it was great to meet him in person for the first time, and to have so much time for a wide-ranging conversation. You can find the podcast here and here; I come in around 45 minutes in to the first hour.

The people we met in Colorado were avid to hear the truth. People know they're being lied to by the government and the mainstream media, and are increasingly unwilling to stand for it.

Forced marriages are in fact rape by proxy: "In a forced marriage, the girl is coerced into an involuntary and often lifelong sexual relationship. Therefore, every single act of intercourse in that 'marriage' actually constitutes rape." And that is just sickening -- or more precisely: islamonauseating.

A new law was supposed to stop that, but it seems that sharia and accommodating Muslim traditions is more important. Translated from the Danish by Nicolai Sennels, Ekstrabladet March 22: "Three arrested for forced marriage":

When three people Thursday are presented in court in Copenhagen it might very well be the first time that a new law will be used.

'- It is not decided yet, but it is very likely,' says prosecutor Erik Hjelm.

The woman has explained to the police how three of her family members wanted to marry her off to a man from her home country.

The three are now arrested, accused of having confined the woman against her will.

The family, however, feels that the woman has already been married to the man, apparently because there has already been an engagement party.

The Criminal Code was amended a few years ago, so that the paragraph on illegal coercion was reinforced, if the case involves forced marriage. This means that people forcing others to marry can go to jail for up to four years.

Primary school has a tremendous effect on our culture, since it is here that future generations are taught all the basics of our language, culture and values. Children in that age are very open -- and therefore also very vulnerable -- and we should be careful with what we teach them. Having a full time job as a school psychologist, I see on a daily basis that children are very much influenced by what they learn, especially in the early grades.

Just a personal anecdote: I went to a school with the journalist Morten Vestergaard, who wrote the article below. And I participated in a debate on our national state tv-channel DR with Lise Egholm, principal at Rådmandsgade Skole, who is mentioned in the article. I ended the debate with Lise Egholm with this comment: "Up to now there have been no examples in history or anywhere in the world of Muslim culture being able to integrate into other cultures, and it does not seem to be happening in Denmark, either."

Translated from the Danish by Nicolai Sennels, Jyllands-Posten March 20: "Islam on the table in first grade":

Several school leaders believe it is natural to introduce students to other religions.

A number of schools to whom Jyllands-Posten has spoken say that they are beginning to introduce other religions, especially Islam, already in the first grade, although according to Ministry of Education pupils only have to learn about Christianity up until and including 6th grade. Danish schoolchildren should no longer just hear stories from the Bible and on the subject of Christianity in the early grades.

Principal Rani Hørlyck from Søndervang Aarhus School says: 'It's not about pandering to children with a different faith than Christianity. We focus on the individual children, and 80 percent of our pupils have Muslim backgrounds. They are thrilled that they can use their own experience,' she says.

Involving other religions

Many other principals, including Lise Egholm from Rådmandsgade Skole and Peter Aksten from Nørrebro Park School in Copenhagen, share Hørlyck's view.

John Rydahl, chairman of the Religion Teachers, believes that it is common to teach other religions in the early grades nowadays. He points out that in recent years several textbooks for primary school teaching both about Christianity and other religions have been published.

The Minister of Education, Christine Antorini (Social Democrats), does not mind that schools teach religions other than Christianity in the early classes, as long as they follow the required curriculum, which includes that children in primary school hear stories from the Bible and know Christian hymns.

Sceptical

Morten Thomsen Højsgaard, General Secretary of the Bible Society, is skeptical. He emphasizes that schools must first and foremost ensure that students get to know about Christianity.

Several schools, including Ellekærskolen in Aarhus, stick to the Bible in primary school.

'For us it is important to keep in mind that we are a normal Danish school. We are not a special school for Muslim children in Bispehaven (Muslim dominated area in Aarhus),' says Bispehaven School's educational leader, Christian Wibe.

Many of us today ask the question of whether war between Iran and Israel will begin.

And related questions as well. Will there will be a land operation, or all will the Israelis conduct an air attack upon Iran, bombing its nuclear facilities?

Will this conflict be the beginning of the third world war, or it will it be only between these two states?

Will the USA support Israel in a war against Iran? What position will Russia, Turkey, the European Union, and the Islamic world take?

Or perhaps will Mahmoud Ahmadinejad listen to the U.S. president, come round and suspend nuclear activities?

While we ask all these and other questions, actually war has already begun.

It is not a war on the scale of the First or the Second World War, or even "Desert Storm," or like the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. But war has already begun.

The Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin has said: "The death of a single person is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic." Yes, it is "insignificant" today that rockets fall on Israeli cities. Yes, and as anti-Semitism gains in strength, there will be more "tragedies."

Many leaders of the world's states and the international organizations are trying to make politicians out of terrorists, carrying on negotiations with them, and even offering them financial assistance. They don't want to admit the fact that war has already begun some time ago.

Perhaps human reason doesn't want to recognize it, but it is a fact. Certainly, it is difficult to realize and believe that in the 21st century there is one religion, some countries, some political and spiritual leaders, and many and many millions of followers who all think the same way. Islamic totalitarianism increasingly takes root in the consciousness of people around the world.

If the Ayatollahs of Iran and President Ahmadinejad can escape punishment for their statements that Israel is the cancerous tumor of the Middle East and should be cut out, the Prime Minister of Turkey, Erdogan, is simply angel with wings. It turns out that if you don't participate in a stoning, but just stand and watch approvingly, you are already a good person.

The Foreign Affairs Commissioner of the European Union, Catherine Ashton, thinks that the murder of children in Toulouse is comparable to the actions of an army defending Israel in Gaza. It turns out that a murderous attack and self-defense; rape and love; an arson and the cultivation of a fire for warming; the holding of a person against his will and a person serving time in prison for committing a crime are all one and the same.

All this readying of business for the statistician to which Stalin referred shows how totalitarian thinking and fear eradicate human values within us, and takes over our minds.

Islamic totalitarianism, and total fear enslave our minds. They change our nature from within. But in any form of totalitarianism, there is no place for liberty and morality.

"Police and prosecutors said the 29-year-old is a radical Islamist and that traces of what could be an explosive material were found in his car."

He's apparently proud his brother chased down an 8-year-old girl, grabbed her by the hair, and shot her in the head. Such intrepid, manly mujahedin. And Mohamed Merah met his desperate end jumping out the window to flee from police after hours of cowering in the bathroom, an amateur surrounded by professionals.

Jihadists target civilians because they don't often do so well when they have to fight like men. "French gunman's brother 'proud' of what 'school slayer' did," from Agence France-Presse and Newscore, March 24 (thanks to Search4Truth):

TOULOUSE, France -- The older brother of the Toulouse gunman who killed seven people in France said he was "proud" of Mohammed Merah's actions, police said Saturday.

Abdelkader Merah admitted being present when the scooter used in the killings was stolen, even though he claimed he knew nothing of his brother's criminal intentions.

He and his girlfriend were taken into custody after his brother was killed trying to shoot his way out of an apartment following a 32-hour police siege.

The 23-year-old had murdered three Jewish children, a trainee rabbi and three soldiers in three separate gun attacks between Mar. 11 and Mar. 19 in the southwestern French city, shocking the country in the buildup to a presidential election.

Abdelkader Merah and his girlfriend were being transferred from Toulouse to Paris on Saturday for questioning by anti-terrorist police, a source close to the investigation said.

Police and prosecutors said the 29-year-old is a radical Islamist and that traces of what could be an explosive material were found in his car.

He and his girlfriend will be questioned at the anti-terrorist police headquarters in the Paris suburb of Levallois-Perret. Under French law, they could be held until Sunday, after which they would have to be taken before a judge in the French capital.

Mohammed Merah was alone when he carried out the killings, but there has been speculation that he had accomplices or logistical help. Investigators said he apparently lived beyond his limited means....

He was reportedly on welfare.

Are all of these people "misunderstanding" Qur'an 4:34 because they read American and European blogs and not the work of the HuffPo Tafsir Bureau? No.

The semantic gymnastics of apologists notwithstanding, at the end of the day, Qur'an 4:34 says what it says, and it says, in Arabic and in numerous translations made by sincere and devout Muslims, that men can beat women from whom they fear disobedience. And so Muslims clearly continue to apply Qur'an 4:34 according to what it says, and denial of what it says does nothing to stop the violence against so many women whose suffering the word games only serve to enable and prolong.

Even in Canada. "Book tells Muslim men how to beat and control their wives," by Terry Davidson for the QMI Agency, March 23:

TORONTO - A local bookstore has “sold out” of a controversial marriage guide that advises Muslim men on how to beat their wives.

The 160-page book, published by Idara Impex in New Delhi, India, is written by Hazrat Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi, who’s described in the book’s foreword as a “prolific writer on almost every topic of Islamic learning.”

The store’s manager, who didn’t give his name, said the book had been sold out for some time, and the store’s owner, whom the manager identified as Shamim Ahmad, refused to comment for the story.

It wasn’t clear whether the shop has ordered more copies of the book, but it’s available at online Islamic bookstores and even through eBay.

In the book’s opening pages, it is written that “it might be necessary to restrain her with strength or even to threaten her.”

Later, its author advises that “the husband should treat the wife with kindness and love, even if she tends to be stupid and slow sometimes.”

Page 45 contains the rights of the husband, which include his wife’s inability to leave “his house without his permission,” and that his wife must “fulfil his desires” and “not allow herself to be untidy ... but should beautify herself for him ... ”

In terms of physical punishment, the book advises that a husband may scold her, “beat by hand or stick,” withhold money from her or “pull (her) by the ears,” but should “refrain from beating her excessively.”...

Any beating is an excessive beating.

Eric Brazau says he was flipping through the marriage guide while in the bookstore around a month ago.

Brazau bought it out of curiosity but was taken aback when he found dozens of chapters and passages giving Muslim husbands advice on controlling, restraining, scolding and beating their wives.

“At first, I thought that it is incredible that this kind of thing can be found in Canada,” said Brazau. “And then I thought, radical Islam is not coming to Canada, it is already here.”

If there are going to be jihadists, may they be as dumb as possible, like the sympathizers here who may have put themselves on the radar screen of law enforcement, depending on the nature of their comments. "Facebook removes page paying homage to Toulouse killer," from Agence France-Presse, March 23 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

AFP - Facebook on Thursday removed a page that paid homage to the young Frenchman who died in a shootout with police after killing seven people, officials said.

French interior ministry officials said the ministry had asked the social networking site to remove the page that went up shortly after Mohamed Merah was killed earlier Thursday in Toulouse.

The page, which bore a picture of the self-proclaimed Al-Qaeda militant and was titled "Homage to Mohamed Merah", was consulted by more than 500 people before it was removed just hours after it appeared, they said.

Many visitors left comments that were hostile to the police or favourable to Islamic extremism.

"The city's large Jewish population and international significance as a terror target made it ripe for a strike by either Iran or Hizbollah."

The NBC correspondent who called Hizballah a "resistance group" will be so happy to know they might be busy "resisting" New York. Just like they once "resisted" Buenos Aires. And how they "resisted" the occupation of Rafik Hariri's body by, well, Rafik Hariri. "Iran 'carried out surveillance of New York City'," by Rosa Prince for the Telegraph, March 22 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

A senior New York police official disclosed that at least 13 suspects with ties to the Iranian government had been questioned by authorities in the last seven years after conducting surveillance of possible attack sites.

Mitchell Silber, the New York Police Department's director of intelligence analysis, said the city's large Jewish population and international significance as a terror target made it ripe for a strike by either Iran or Hizbollah, the Lebanon-based militant group it sometimes uses as a proxy.

Testifying before the House of Representative's Homeland Security Committee, he said the suspects included six people on a sightseeing cruise who were taking photographs and film of well-known New York landmarks such as the Brooklyn Bridge in 2005.

And in September 2010, federal air marshals detained four people taking pictures and films at a heliport in the city.

During questioning, all 13 people admitted that they were associated with the Iranian government, but they were ultimately released without charge.

Can something be both newsworthy, and yet, nothing new? This story appears to be just that. More on Pakistan's unaccountable state mafia. "ISI continues to aid Haqqanis, Taliban, claims US general," from Pakistan Today, March 24 (thanks to Kenneth):

WASHINGTON - The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) continues to maintain ties with the Taliban and the Haqqani network, the top commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan has told American lawmakers, as a senior US official said the US and Pakistan will resume talks on the possible reopening of supply routes to Afghanistan after Islamabad completes its probe into an airstrike that killed 24 of its soldiers.

“I have not, sir,” International Security Assistance Force commander Gen John Allen said when asked by Senator John McCain: “Have you seen any change in the ISI relationship with the Taliban and the Haqqani network?” McCain said the corruption issue in the Karzai government and the Pakistani sanctuary and ISI assistance to the Taliban were the major challenges to success in Afghanistan. Allen agreed with his assessment.
Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in terms of progress in reconciliation talks much would depend on countering the cross-border threat from the insurgents having safe havens on Pakistan’s territory, including dealing with the threat from the Haqqani network.

“And much is going to depend on the Karzai government improving the delivery of services and economic development, taking on corruption and providing increased transparency and on the conduct of credible provincial and national elections,” he added. McCain asked the Pakistan Army to understand that continued support to the Taliban was a losing bet. “The strategic partnership would make clear to the Taliban that they cannot wait us out and win on the battlefield, thus fostering real reconciliation on favourable terms to the Afghan government and to us,” he said.

Whatever happens in Afghanistan, the Pakistanis also run the risk of losing Pakistan.

James N Miller, the acting undersecretary of defence for policy, said success in Afghanistan depended on support from neighbours, particularly Pakistan. “Like Afghanistan’s other neighbours, Pakistan has legitimate interests that must be understood and addressed. And Pakistan also has responsibilities.”

Separately, Marc Grossman, US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, said he respected the work of a Pakistani parliamentary commission, which recommended on Monday that Pakistan should demand an unconditional apology from the US before the routes are reopened. It also called for an end to American drone attacks inside Pakistan.

Once Pakistan’s government has the commission’s recommendations, “we’ll then be in a conversation with the government of Pakistan about how to go forward,” Grossman said in response to a question about the possible reopening of the supply routes.

On Friday, Grossman briefed a meeting of NATO’s governing body, the North Atlantic Council, which consists of the ambassadors of all 28 member states.

The message that sends is that his prayer time is more valuable than a non-Muslim's life, even when a prompt response to an emergency is an essential function of his job.

"Woman died after Muslim nurse refused to help as he was praying," from the Telegraph, March 23 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Alzheimer's sufferer Dorothy Griffiths, 87, was found sitting down after staff heard a bang and a carer went to the office for help to lift her.

But agency nurse Abdul Bhutto, who was in charge, said they would have to wait.

Carer Zoe Shaw told the Sheffield hearing: "It took between five and ten minutes because he was praying upstairs in the office on his prayer mat. A staff member told me we had to wait for him to finish."

An ambulance was not called for nearly four hours after Mrs Griffiths fell from bed and cut her head and suffered a gash to her hip at the privately-run Valley Park Nursing Home in Wombwell, near Barnsley.

She died later in hospital. Mr Bhutto failed to appear at the inquest and a summons had to be issued for him to attend the resumed hearing later in the year.

Assistant deputy coroner Donald Coutts-Wood said he had contacted him during a recess and he denied being the duty nurse that night and said he had been there on a course.

Mrs Griffiths, the widow of former Barnsley footballer Steve Griffiths, who used to live in Wombwell, had been a resident at the home since 2009 and died last November.

She was put to bed at 9.45pm on October 24 and checked checked every two hours, according to Zoe Shaw.

The old lady was using the toilet at 4am and Mrs Shaw went to an office to fill in paperwork.

She said Mrs Griffiths was not prone to falls and was not considered "at risk".

She and another carer found her on the floor and Mrs Shaw went to get help from Mr Bhutto. He was the most senior nurse on night duty at the home, run by the Mimosa Healthcare Group, because the senior carer was unable to work havning [sic[ been on duty for six of the previous seven nights.

When Mr Bhutto arrived he checked the pensioner's limbs, took her blood presssure and pulse while she was still on the floor and told the carers to put her back into bed.

But instead Mrs Shaw, worried that she might fall again, washed the old lady, dressed her and took her to the office while she carried on filling forms.

At about 5.45am she took her to the lounge and said she was "talking fine" and walking around.

But at breakfast-time when the residents were being offered a cup of tea Mrs Griffiths was found unresponsive and an ambulance was called at about 7.30am.

Mrs Shaw, who broke down and wept in the witness box, said she would have called an ambulance immediately after the fall but had only since discovered that staff could override a nurses' decision.

Speaking after the inquest was adjourned Dorothy's daughter Jean David, 61, said: "We are quite upset that Mr Bhutto hadn't appeared and we are having to come here again particularly as my brother is having to come up from Staffordshire. We would like it to have been done and dusted but we can't leave it without his evidence."

This is the monster that some teacher in Paris wanted to hold a moment of silence for.

According to the report below, he was also on welfare. "Horror movies: France terror fiend posted girl’s execution," by Chuck Bennet for the New York Post, March 23:

The Muslim fanatic who killed seven people in France was so proud of his unspeakably evil work that he uploaded sickening video to the Internet showing him executing a helpless, terrified 8-year-old girl, officials said.

Mohammed Merah is seen yanking Myriam Monsenego by her hair — then firing a bullet into her head while he holds her.

Officials believe Merah strapped on a camera before each murder and posted the videos on jihadi Web sites, where he believed they would inspire other al Qaeda wannabes.

Myriam was slain outside a Jewish school in Toulouse, where Merah also killed a rabbi and the rabbi’s two young sons.

Merah’s earlier victims were French paratroopers.

Before shooting one soldier, Merah proclaimed, “You kill my brothers; I kill you!” — a reference to France’s military presence in Afghanistan.

Four days later, when he shot two more soldiers, Merah shouted, “Allahu akbar.”
He was killed yesterday after a 32-hour standoff at an apartment building where he was holed up.

“Merah suddenly burst out of the bathroom where he was hiding, armed and firing at police at an extremely fast rate, so fast that it was like automatic-weapon fire,” said French prosecutor Francois Molins.

“He was attacking at police. He continued to move forward, armed and firing, jumping from the balcony until he was mortally hit by return fire.”

Meanwhile, new details emerged about Merah’s 2010 capture in Afghanistan — and the failure of both French and American officials to detain him.

Merah was grabbed by Afghan security forces in Kandahar and turned over to the US Army. The United States “put him on the first plane to France,’’ Molins said.
Pentagon spokesman Lt Col. Todd Breasseale said: “The Kandahari police picked him up a matter of years ago. They detained him. The mechanics by which he was returned to France, we are continuing to investigate.”

Someone, though, was smart enough to report the 23-year-old Algerian-born French citizen to the Department of Homeland Security, which added his name to the “no fly’’ list.
Upon his return to France, he was interviewed by intelligence officials, who released him.

Merah stockpiled weapons and tried to enlist other Muslims by showing snuff videos of jihadis’ murderous work.

All the while, Merah, a petty criminal on welfare, was ostensibly under surveillance by French intelligence....

Most of the students walked out. "'French teacher asked minute's silence for Merah'," from the Jerusalem Post, March 23:

France's education minister called for disciplinary proceedings against a teacher in the north of France on Friday, after she allegedly asked her students to observe a moment's silence for serial killer Mohamed Merah, the man who gunned down three children and a rabbi in front of Jewish school in Toulouse earlier this week.

Students in the the French English teacher's class in Rouen wrote to their principal that she had called the serial killer a "victim," and said his links to al-Qaida were fabricated by the media and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, according to AFP.

The teacher's request prompted most of the students to empty out of the classroom, though some stayed behind to "try to understand what she was talking about," AFP reported according to their letter.

French Education Minister Luc Chatel has called for the teacher to be suspended for her request, which was made the day after police shot Merah dead in the south of France after he went on a killing spree.

And if you're keeping score on currently preferred terminology: "We prefer the term self-starting over lone wolf," the official told the AP on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of his work.

Stamp out lupophobia now! "APNewsBreak: Europe faces jihadist threat, from the Associated Press, March 23 (thanks to Kenneth):

With France's deadly attacks, Islamic terror has apparently struck once more in the heart of Europe _ and authorities say there's a dangerous twist: the emergence of homegrown extremists operating independent of any known networks, making them hard to track and stop.

"We have a different kind of jihadist threat emerging and it's getting stronger," Europol chief Rob Wainwright told The Associated Press in an exclusive telephone interview from The Hague. "It is much more decentralized and harder to track."

France's motorcycle gunman traumatized a nation heading into presidential elections and spread fears across the continent that the specter of al-Qaida was once again threatening daily life.

Mohamed Merah, a 23-year-old Frenchman of Algerian descent, sowed his terror over the course of a week, killing paratroopers, Jewish children and a rabbi. He died Thursday in a shootout after police raided the Toulouse apartment where he had been holed up.
Wainwright warned that Europe faces a tough challenge ahead.

Combating individuals acting in apparent isolation, he said, will take smarter measures in monitoring the Internet, better intelligence and international cooperation in counterterrorism efforts.

And he conceded that there were limits to what law enforcement officials can do. "We can't police the Internet," he said.

Other European terror authorities echoed that view, saying that apprehending suspicious individuals with no clear connections to terrorist networks is legally problematic.

"We have one law for war, one law for peace, but we don't have a law for the current situation," said Alain Chouet, a former intelligence director at France's DGSE spy agency.

"If we stopped (Merah) three weeks ago, what would people have said? 'Why are you stopping him? What did he do?'"

German officials expressed the same frustration in the case of Arid Uka, a Kosovo Albanian who gunned down two American airmen and wounded two others last year at the Frankfurt airport before being captured. Aside from illegally acquiring a handgun, the 22-year-old, who was convicted last month, had committed no crime until he shot his first victim in the back of the head.

"A group preparing an attack with bombs or other instruments is running the danger of being detected," said a high-ranking German intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

"A single person or a group of two, they have a greater chance of not being observed by security forces or getting tracked by police _ it is very hard to find individuals like this and stop them from acting."

Some experts believe that al-Qaida's new strategy is, in fact, to stop acting like a network.

Encouraging individuals to carry out terrorist attacks, without organizing them in cells, has become integral to the terrorist organization's modus operandi, said Noman Benotman, a former jihadist with links to al-Qaida and who now works for the London-based Quilliam Foundation.

"They are part of the overall al-Qaida strategy, and they are part of the instructions _ or suggestions, if you will _ for groups and individuals seeking guidance or inspiration," he said.

Benotman, who maintains contact with the jihadist community, said that since the death of Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida's strategy has evolved to include more individual attacks, rather than the heavily choreographed and expensive operations seen in the Sept. 11 attacks or the London suicide bombings in 2005.

The German intelligence official noted that al-Qaida theorist Abu Musab al-Suri published a book about 10 years ago putting forth the strategy of "leaderless resistance." The official said that with Internet propaganda, "you don't need any teacher or some other person any more to push people toward these actions."

Wainwright also sees al-Qaida's hidden influence in the France attacks.

"He was acting in line with al-Qaida inspired tactics, and although it may not have been closely coordinated, it was certainly al-Qaida inspired," he said.

Wainwright said Merah lacked the professionalism of terrorists of the past. He said the
gunman seemed divided between wanting to increase his death toll and publicizing his acts by filming his deeds and bragging about them.

"It is very telling that he filmed his exploits," he said. "Still, in spite of the mistakes, he managed to carry out significant damage. ... That is the challenge for us."

A British security official said the key to targeting this brand of individualized terror was figuring out whether people were simply thinking extremist thoughts or would truly turn violent.

"We prefer the term self-starting over lone wolf," the official told the AP on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of his work.

Muhammad said: "I will expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula and will not leave any but Muslim." - Sahih Muslim 19.4366.

An update on this story. "Europe bishops slam Saudi fatwa against Gulf churches," by Tom Heneghan for Reuters, March 23:

PARIS, March 23 (Reuters) - Christian bishops in Germany, Austria and Russia have sharply criticised Saudi Arabia's top religious official after reports that he issued a fatwa saying all churches on the Arabian Peninsula should be destroyed.

In separate statements on Friday, the Roman Catholic bishops in Germany and Austria slammed the ruling by Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al al-Shaikh as an unacceptable denial of human rights to millions of foreign workers in the Gulf region.

Archbishop Mark of Yegoryevsk, head of the Russian Orthodox department for churches abroad, called the fatwa "alarming" in a statement on Tuesday. Such blunt criticism from mainstream Christian leaders of their Muslim counterparts is very rare.

Christian websites have reported Sheikh Abdulaziz, one of the most influential religious leaders in the Muslim world, issued the fatwa last week in response to a Kuwaiti lawmaker who asked if Kuwait could ban church construction in Kuwait.

Citing Arab-language media reports, they say the sheikh ruled that further church building should be banned and existing Christian houses of worship should be destroyed.

Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, chairman of the German Bishops Conference, said the mufti "shows no respect for the religious freedom and free co-existence of religions", especially all the foreign labourers who made its economy work.

"It would be a slap in the face to these people if the few churches available to them were to be taken away," he said.

At least 3.5 million Christians live in the Gulf Arab region. They are mostly Catholic workers from India and the Philippines, but also Western expatriates of all denominations.

Saudi Arabia bans all non-Muslim houses of prayer, forcing Christians there to risk arrest by praying in private homes.

There are churches for Christian minorities in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and Yemen. The bishops conference in Austria, where Saudi King Abdullah plans to open a controversial centre for interfaith dialogue, demanded an official explanation from Riyadh.

"How could the grand mufti issue a fatwa of such importance behind the back of his king?" they asked. "We see a contradiction between the dialogue being practiced, the efforts of the king and those of his top mufti."

Indeed. Different audiences, different messages. What's the word from the King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue in Vienna?

In Moscow, Archbishop Mark told the Interfax news agency he hoped that Saudi Arabia's neighbours "will be surprised by the calls made by this sheikh and ignore them".

The Catholic Church has urged Muslim states in recent years to give Christian minorities in their countries the same freedom of religion that Muslims enjoy in Western countries.

There are few Orthodox Christians in the Gulf region, but the Moscow Patriarchate - which was mostly silent during the decades of Soviet communism that ended in 1991 - has become increasingly vocal in defending the rights of Christians around
the world.

Bishop Paul Hinder, who oversees Catholic churches in the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Yeman, told Catholic news agency KNA that the fatwa had not been widely publicised in Saudi Arabia. "What is worrying is that such statements have influence in part of the population," he said.

At the end of the day, Joel Shrum was a non-Muslim, and an American. That is all the excuse al-Qaeda would need, but they are likely seeking further support in the population by pandering to existing animosity and suspicions. An update on this story. "Al Qaeda claims it killed American in Yemen," by Hakeem Almasmari for CNN, March 20:

Sanaa, Yemen (CNN) -- Gunmen fatally shot an American teacher in the Yemeni province of Taiz on Sunday, two defense ministry officials said.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the terror network's affiliate in Yemen, claimed responsibility for the killing.

In a text message sent to Yemeni media outlets, the group said the victim was spreading Christianity, calling him one of the biggest missionaries in the country.

But the International Training and Development Center said the victim, whom it identified as "Joel S.," was not a missionary.

"He was an American development worker who had been working in Yemen with his wife and two children since 2010," when he began working for the education center, it said.

"Unfortunately Joel S. has been accused of being a part of a proselytizing campaign, but the staff of ITDC, which consists of Muslims, Christians and other religions working together, has continually focused on human development, skill transfer and community development," the center said. "Joel S. was a very professional employee who highly respected the Islamic religion."

"Respect" may not be enough. There is also Muhammad's pledge to consider: "I will expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula and will not leave any but Muslim." - Sahih Muslim 19.4366.

Authorities have not said who killed the teacher. The head of security in the province, Mohamed Saidi, identified him as Joel Shrum.

The U.S. Embassy in the capital, Sanaa, said it had heard reports of an American death and was investigating. It did not confirm that an American had been killed. [...]

In Sunday's attack, two men on a motorcycle fired eight shots at the teacher, who was on his way to work at a Swedish language center in the provincial capital, the defense ministry officials said.

"We are investigating the killing as this is the first of its kind against a western national in Taiz," one of the defense officials said. Neither wanted to be named because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

As a former government minister observes below, it seems highly doubtful that Merah was paying his own way through the past few years: "too many arms, too many trips, too much money."

"Toulouse shooting: Killer was on U.S. 'no-fly' list," from the Telegraph, March 22:

Nationwide relief greeted the news that no police fatalities had been incurred in eliminating Mohammed Merah, 23, wanted in the killings of three French paratroopers, a rabbi and three children ages 4, 5, and 7 shot outside a Jewish school in Toulouse.

But the authorities faced growing criticism that it should have prevented a killing spree by a known fundamentalist who was the US no-fly list and had attended an al-Qaeda training camp.

Jund al-Khilafah, an al-Qaeda front organisation claimed responsibility the shootings in a statement posted on jihadist websites.

"On ... March 19th, our brother Yousef the Frenchman carried out an operation that shook the foundations of the Zionist Crusaders ... and filled their hearts with terror," it wrote.

"We claim responsibility for these operations," it went on, adding that Israel's "crimes ... will not go unpunished."

Mr Merah admitted responsibility for the shootings during long talks with negotiators, expressing no remorse other than he had not killed more people.

The scooter-driving gunman filmed all his murders with a mini-camera, and can be heard shouting "Alluha [sic] Akbar" and "You killed my brothers, I kill you" in two of the shootings.

He told authorities he had been trained by Al-Qaeda on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Claude Guéant, the Interior minister admitted that he had been under surveillance "for several years", adding he had never "shown any sign of preparing criminal acts" at the outset of the seige.

Increasingly damning evidence suggested France was aware Mr Mehar posed a threat.
French intelligence had previously alerted security services in Spain that Mr Merah was planning to travel to the Costa Brava to attend a meeting of Islamist activists, suggesting they considered him dangerous.

The warning said that he was probably on his way to attend a suspected Salafist congress.

The prosecutor said that he had been arrested by Afghan police in 2010 in Kandahar and handed over to US army troops, who put him on a flight back to France – a claim US military did not confirm on Thursday.

When questioned last November by French intelligence about his foreign journeys, Mr Mehar managed to palm off agents with photos, saying he had been on a "tourist trip".
His older brother, Abdelukar, 29, currently under arrest, had been in 2007 implicated in a Jihad network in Iraq but never charged.

Socialist Jean-Pierre Chevenement, a former defence and interior minister, said the killings were "a warning for services in charge of anti-terrorism", and questioned whether Mr Mehar was a "lone wolf", saying "too many arms, too many trips, too much money"....

These numbers are from the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. So, are they "racists," or are they "Islamophobes" for pointing out that unpleasant fact?

The elephant in the room continues to be Qur'an 4:34, which despite the best efforts of the HuffPo Tafsir Bureau and other apologists to assure us otherwise, approves in letter and in spirit the idea of resorting to violence to assert control over supposedly "disobedient" women.

Resistance to legislation protecting women from domestic violence continues to invoke Islam and Sharia and employ the usual threats and emotional blackmail about the collapse of society, rising divorce rates, and so forth.

Therein lies an assumption that is incompatible with the building of a free and democratic society: that there can either be a reign of terror in the home with fearful subservience, or licentiousness. If the home and family are taken to be the most fundamental building block of society, that clearly bodes ill for human rights in general.

"Nearly 1,000 Pakistani women ‘killed for honor’," from Agence France-Presse, March 22:

At least 943 Pakistani women and girls were murdered last year for allegedly defaming their family’s honor, the country’s leading human rights group said Thursday.

The statistics highlight the growing scale of violence suffered by many women in conservative Muslim Pakistan, where they are frequently treated as second-class citizens and there is no law against domestic violence.

Despite progress on better protecting women’s rights, activists say the government needs to do more to prosecute murderers in cases largely dismissed by police as private, family affairs.

“At least 943 women were killed in the name of honor, of which 93 were minors,” wrote the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in its annual report.

Seven Christian and two Hindu women were among the victims, it said.

Out of nearly 1000. It is predictable that minorities may take on some characteristics of the broader culture, but that in no way "proves" a lack of correlation with Islamic teachings. Indeed, 91 percent of honor killings worldwide occur in Muslim communities.

The Commission reported 791 “honor killings” in 2010.

Around 595 of the women killed in 2011 were accused of having “illicit relations” and 219 of marrying without permission.

Some victims were raped or gang raped before being killed, the Commission said. Most of the women were killed by their brothers and husbands.

Only 20 of 943 killed were reported to have been provided medical aid before they died, the Commission wrote.

Despite the rising number of reported killings, activists have praised parliament for passing laws aimed at strengthening women’s protection against abuses.

Rights groups say the government should do more to ensure that women subjected to violence, harassment and discrimination have effective access to justice.

Access only means so much if the police and judiciary side with the attackers.

Jihad causes poverty: a successful plot would threaten to tank the tourism industry, and would have repercussions for the entire economy and nation. More on this story. "Bali attack plot shows Indonesia terror threat evolving," by Olivia Rondonuwu and Stuart Grudgings for Reuters, March 22:

(Reuters) - A foiled plot by suspected Islamic militants to attack and bomb targets in Bali, including a bar popular with tourists, marks an escalation of the violent threat in Indonesia as authorities race to stay ahead of rapidly evolving armed groups. Five men were shot dead in police raids on Sunday on the island where nightclub bombings in 2002 killed 202 people - mostly foreign tourists - and forced the world's largest Muslim country to confront violent Islamist groups on its soil.

Pictures of a villa where some of the men were shot dead, showing pools of blood on the floor of a garden hut, starkly illustrated the return of violence to the mostly Hindu island where militants last launched deadly bomb attacks in 2005.

Ansyaad Mbai, head of Indonesia's National Counter Terrorism Agency, said the men had plans to bomb targets on the island, including the beach-front "La Vida Loca" bar. Police initially said the suspects were planning armed raids on money changers, jewellers and the bar, partly to raise money for future attacks.

"This group was planning not only armed attacks against those targets but also bombings," Mbai said.

"At this stage we could not be sure of the scale but high or low, bombs are dangerous, especially in Bali. The impact would be huge," he added.

Attacks in recent years have mostly been small-scale, but the latest plot suggests terror groups may be trying to raise their profile at a time when Indonesia's economy is booming and it aims to play a bigger role on the world stage....

They had to agree in principle, or risk being shut out of the Olympics. But this can still find many ways of not happening.

There are only a few months before the London Olympics, and since Saudi Arabia has never had the intention of fielding female athletes, they have not actively trained female athletes for international competition. Above all, at any moment, Sharia and accompanying standards of gender segregation, "modesty," and so forth may be invoked to squash the whole deal, or at least make matters as difficult as possible.

An update on this story. "For the first time Saudi female athletes at the Olympics," from Asia News, March 21:

Riyadh (AsiaNews / Agencies) - For the first time in the history of the Olympics, women athletes from Saudi Arabia may be able to compete in London, reports the influential and usually well informed Al-Hayat, according to which a decision in this regard has been made by the Interior minister and Crown Prince of the Kingdom, Nayef bin Abdulaziz,.

The newspaper says, Nayef has given his consent for participation in sports that "meet the standards of decency and as long as the women do not contradict Islamic law."

The announcement comes at a time when King Abdullah is committed to achieve a slow but gradual modernization of the culture of his country. Significantly, yesterday pro-government Arab News published an editorial entitled "Saudi women are in urgent need of equal rights."...

It is unlikely to be groundbreaking, however. As one commenter on the editorial noted, Arab News largely caters to an expat audience. It is also published in English, further limiting its audience.

Maybe he was scouting out targets in his rage and hate against those whom the Qur'an designates as the worst enemies of the Muslims (5:82). "Report: Toulouse Terrorist Visited Israel," by Elad Benari for Israel National News, March 23:

Mohammed Merah, the terrorist who murdered seven people, including a rabbi and three young children, and who was killed by French security forces in Toulouse, visited Israel several years ago, it was reported Thursday.

Channel 10 News reported that the reason for Merah’s visit to Israel is not entirely clear, but it is believed he came to gather intelligence for his attack.

The Channel 10 report was based on a comment made by an American officer serving in Afghanistan to the French newspaper Le Monde. The officer told the newspaper that Merah’s passport had been stamped with entry to and exit from Israel.

However, the National Immigration Authority said on Thursday evening that an initial investigation found that Merah never visited Israel. Kol Yisrael radio reported that the National Immigration Authority said that the terrorist's name, as published in the media, was not found in the list of arrivals to Israel. The authority added that it is continuing to investigate the matter.

Channel 10 noted that there are conflicting reports about whether Merah was identified as an Al-Qaeda activist before 2010, which is when he allegedly visited Israel. The report noted that if he was indeed suspected to be an Al-Qaeda terrorist, then Israeli procedure would have called for him to be interrogated at the airport and to undergo a thorough security check.

It is unknown whether Merah was indeed interrogated or checked, the report said. The Israel Security Agency refused to comment on the issue and said that it was still being review reviewed....

Merah reportedly died when he was shot in the head as he leapt from his window trying to escape the oncoming police.

Sheikh Yassir al-Burhami, an influential leader in Egypt’s Salafi party—which won some 25% of the nation’s votes, second only to the Muslim Brotherhood—just issued a fatwa banning any participation in Mother’s Day, which is celebrated March 21st in Egypt.

According to Ahl Al-Quran, the context is as follows: A man wrote on Burhami’s website saying that his mother is in need of house furnishings, and his sister wanted him to contribute by helping to purchase the necessities, which they would present as a gift to their mother on Mother’s Day. The man refused, saying “I refuse to participate in anything that involves disobeying Allah”—celebrating Mother’s Day, a Western import, is seen as a sin according to Sharia, which specifically commands Muslims not to imitate the traditions of the infidels—adding that he would pay the money asked of him next month.

His question to Burhami: Which is the sin? Making his mother sad, but obeying Allah, or making his mother happy, but disobeying Allah?

Burhami’s response: “You may purchase these things on a different occasion, such as Eid al-Fitr or al-Adha [Islamic holidays], or on no occasion, like you did [by agreeing to pay next month]. However, it is forbidden to participate in the celebration [Mother’s Day], even if it saddens your mother.”

Actually -- you guessed it -- it cautioned against "Islamophobia." Yet again a Muslim group claims victim status after a jihad attack, instead of making any genuine effort to prevent the next one. This obviously gives the lie to their claims of moderation and their entire public posture, but no one seems to notice or care. "Extremist suspect upends French presidential race," by Elaine Ganley for the Associated Press, March 22 (thanks to all who sent this in):

..."Muslims like Jews, Jews like Muslims, and condemn all confusion that might be made between the international political situation in the Middle East and the monstrous act that ... has horrified all French," the Grand Rabbi of France Gilles Bernheim said Wednesday after meeting with Muslim leaders and Sarkozy.

"Muslims like Jews, Jews like Muslims"? Bernheim sounds as if he's quoting Barney the Dinosaur. I wonder if he has ever read Qur'an 5:82, which designates the Jews as the worst enemies of the Muslims.

Mohammed Moussaoui, president of the CFCM, an umbrella group for French Muslims, said what the suspect has done "is the very negation of ... Islam," on the France-2 TV network.

The powerful fundamentalist Muslim organization UOIF asked all citizens "not to succumb to the panic of stigmatizing Muslims, which feeds Islamophobia."

Muslims stigmatize themselves by committing massacres like Merah's in the name of Islam. Then they further stigmatize themselves by whining about "backlash" and "Islamophobia" after those massacres, instead of doing anything sincere to prevent them. Muslims have no one but themselves to blame for any actual "Islamophobia."

Forsane Alizza is a telling indication of how the stealth jihadists who promote the Muslim Brotherhood-coined concept of "Islamophobia" are working hand-in-glove with violent jihadists. "French killings refocus fears on 'solo' acts of terror," by Paul Cruickshank and Tim Lister for CNN, March 21:

...What is unclear is when and how Merah was radicalized, whether online or through membership of a radical Islamist group in Europe. Gueant said Wednesday that Merah became radicalized amid a small salafist group in Toulouse and had connections to a group called Forsane Alizza ("Knights of Pride"). But there is no evidence that any of its members was involved in or aware of his plans.

Forsane Alizza was outlawed in January by the French government, which alleged that it was a terrorist organization training members "for armed combat." For its part, the group said its mission was to fight Islamophobia and has said it will contest the government's decision.

But its website used militant language such as calling for "soldiers" to defend Muslim women. And while there is no evidence that Forsane Alizza has been involved in acts of violence, it has certainly promoted the threatening rhetoric of others, glorifying Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed last year.

One member suggested that the right-wing Swiss politician Oskar Freysinger deserved a "bullet in the forehead." Freysinger has campaigned against permitting minarets on mosques in Switzerland.

Forsane Alizza also seems to be tied to a group called the Force de Défense Musulmane sur Internet, which campaigns to have Islamophobic material removed from websites.

Forsane Alizza appears to have been strongest in Paris and the central French city of Limoges, where several of its members were arrested in 2010 after invading a McDonald's restaurant and shouting anti-Semitic slogans. The group has also protested a French law banning women from wearing a full veil in public places and posted a number of well-produced videos of its protests in French cities....

Jihad -- you know. It's a venerable Methodist concept. And the Qur'an? That's just an old cookbook. For we all know that Muhammad Merah's bloody massacre had nothing to do with Islam, right? "French shooting suspect was recruiting boys for jihad: report," by Paul Koring for the Globe and Mail, March 22 (thanks to Twostellas):

French police were warned nearly two years ago that Mohammed Merah, the Islamic radical suspected of murdering Jewish children and French soldiers, was recruiting boys for jihad – or holy war – according to Le Télégramme, a French newspaper.

The mother of a 15-year-old boy lured by Mr. Merah to his apartment where he was shown videos of beheadings, given a Koran and al-Qaeda indoctrination materials said she twice filed complaints with the police.

In an interview published by Le Télégramme, the woman identified only by a pseudonym Aisha, who said she lived in the same neighbourhood as Mr. Merah, blamed the police for failing to take her warnings seriously.

“I am appalled. It took all these people [to be] killed for Mohammed Merah [to be] finally stopped,” she said. “The police knew all about the danger of this individual and his radicalism.”

She said her son was forced to watch “unspeakable” videos of women being executed with shots to the head as well as beheadings.

“In his apartment, there was a huge Koran in his living room and several large swords hanging on the wall,” Aisha said....

Muhammad Merah called himself an "Islamic warrior," but Mohammed Moussaoui asserts that he actually misunderstood the religion to which he had dedicated his life and for which he was fighting. So what is Mohammed Moussaoui doing in mosques in France to make sure that more Muslims there don't misunderstand Islam in the same way that Muhammad Merah did? In fact, no Muslim community in any Western country has any such program or activity -- nothing at all to fight in mosques and madrassas against this disturbingly pervasive understanding of Islam that they insist is in error.

One can only conclude that they don't do anything serious against this understanding of Islam because they don't really think it "contradicts Islam" at all. Western authorities should act accordingly. But they won't, of course. They will take Mohammed Moussaoui's words at face value and go away confirmed in their complacency.

"French shooter's acts contradict Islam: Muslim leader," from Expatica, March 21 (thanks to Inexion):

France's top Muslim leader said Wednesday that a besieged suspected Islamist who claims to have carried out a string of shootings to avenge Palestinian children had acted against Islam.

"These acts are in total contradiction with the foundations of this religion," said the head of the French Muslim Council, Mohammed Moussaoui. "France's Muslims are offended by this claim of belonging to this religion."

Muhammad Merah himself is responsible for such a claim, but Moussaoui's words here are consistent with the general tendency of Muslim leaders to pretend that the connection between Islam and jihad violence is being made by non-Muslim analysts, not by the jihadists themselves.

Moussaoui and Richard Prasquier, the head of France's main Jewish organisation, the CRIF, were to meet Wednesday with President Nicolas Sarkozy as the siege outside the shooter's apartment continued in the southwestern city of Toulouse.

The joint meeting shows "an important thing," Prasquier said, "that it is absolutely impossible to confuse this person and the Islamist, jihadist, al-Qaedist movement that he represents, with Islam in France, which is a religion like any other."

"There are French Muslims among this man's enemies," he said, adding that nonetheless: "We must avoid all complacency with regard to these movements, which represent a true danger to our republic."

Sounds as if you're quite complacent already, Prasquier. The "French Muslims among this man's enemies" were fighting for France, aligning themselves with the infidel -- something forbidden in the Qur'an (3:28, 5:51, etc.). Not just Muhammad Merah, but many other Muslims in France take those verses seriously today.

Muhammad Merah's murders had everything to do with Islam: he claimed affiliation with al-Qaeda and may have trained with the Taliban, both of which are explicitly and ostentatiously Muslim groups that justify all their actions by reference to the Qur'an and Sunnah. He claimed to be a mujahid, which is a warrior of jihad, which is an Islamic theological and legal concept. He killed Muslim soldiers who fought in the infidel military -- something that only someone who considered one's loyalty to the umma to trump all other loyalties would have done. So grounded is Merah's massacre in Islam that it is virtually inconceivable that he would have carried it out had he not been a Muslim. And so Sarkozy is, like every other leader in the West, whistling in the dark, trying to pretend that there is no problem when there is a huge problem, and basing the future of his nation on the fantasy that the overwhelming majority of Muslims in France do not believe the same things Muhammad Merah believed.

Meanwhile, he says he is going to make habitually visiting jihadi websites a crime, which would land me in the bastille fairly quickly. I hope that French law enforcement will not just go on the visiting of such websites alone, but will combine that with other factors to make an intelligent assessment of Muslims who may be plotting jihad murder. In any case, as long as Sarkozy and the French establishment continues in denial about the nature, source and magnitude of the threat, monitoring websites may stop a few jihad attacks, but it will do nothing to stop the Islamization of French society by gradual capitulation to Sharia demands. The hijab ban was one step to prevent that, but Sarkozy is going to have to be prepared to be much more "implacable in defending our values" than he has been up to now, if he is really serious about doing so.

From "Toulouse siege: live" in the Telegraph, March 22 (thanks to David):

12.44 President Nicolas Sarkozy warned that those who visit extemist [sic] websites will be severely punished:

Quote France has shown its indignation and grit but has not allowed anger to take over.

The Muslim faith has nothing to do with the insane acts of this man. Before targeting Jewish children, he targeted other Muslims.

We must be implacable in defending our values. We will not allow this ideology to affect us.

From now on, any person who habitually consults websites that advocate terrorism or that call for hatred and violence will be punished by the law.

France will not tolerate forced recruitment or ideological indoctrination on its soil.

"You're what the French call Les Incompetents" - Home Alone

One might call what we'll see next the Jihadist Recycling Program: France will almost certainly now have to deal with calls for revenge for Merah's death, after Merah himself had his own concocted excuses for revenge. It is the jihadists' renewable resource, such that they can always find an excuse for violence. "France suspect dead after resisting assault: police source," from Agence France-Presse, March 22:

The alleged Al-Qaeda militant believed responsible for a killing spree is dead, a police source said Thursday, after he resisted a raid on his besieged home in southern France.

Three police were wounded in the assault, one "fairly seriously", with journalists able to hear sustained gunfire from at least two weapons as police entered the flat in Toulouse where Mohamed Merah was holed up.

Mohammed Merah appears to have escaped in this prison break orchestrated by the Taliban. He then melted back into French society, until he decided to make another move. That will surely be the subject of investigations to come. "French shooting suspect was under surveillance," from Reuters, March 21:

REUTERS - For Mohamed Merah, the Frenchman suspected of killing four Jews and three Muslim soldiers in southwestern France, the road to radicalisation ran from Toulouse to Kandahar in Afghanistan.

Merah, 24, who was holed up in a suburban Toulouse apartment on Wednesday, besieged by police commandos from the elite RAID unit, claimed affiliation with al Qaeda and said he wanted to avenge Palestinian children, French Interior Minister Claude Gueant said.

The suspect, a French citizen of Algerian origin, had been under surveillance by France's domestic intelligence service for several years after being identified in Afghanistan. But he led a normal life of soccer and night clubbing, according to friends and neighbours who had no idea that he had been in Afghanistan.

Merah had a police record for several minor offences, some involving violence, Gueant told reporters, "but there was no evidence that he was planning such criminal actions."

As police psychologists tried to talk him into surrendering peacefully, Merah gave the same impression of calm determination and self-control as the gunman on a scooter recorded by security cameras at the Ozer Hatorah Jewish school in Toulouse on Monday.

"With the RAID negotiators, he explained a lot about his itinerary," Gueant said.
"His radicalisation took place in a Salafist ideological group and seems to have been firmed up by two journeys he made to Afghanistan and Pakistan."

During one of those trips, Merah was arrested in Kandahar and sentenced to three years in prison for planting bombs in the province but escaped in a mass Taliban jail break in 2008, the director of Kandahar prison told Reuters.

Ghulam Faruq said Merah was detained by Afghan security services on Dec. 19, 2007. Afghan intelligence officials passed on his identity to their French counterparts, a security source said.

Trained with Taliban?

The daily Le Monde said Merah had trained with Pakistani Taliban fighters in a border tribal zone before being sent into southwestern Afghanistan to fight against NATO forces supporting the Kabul government.

French troops are part of that NATO operation, which may explain why the first victims of the gunman's killing spree were serving paratroopers killed in Toulouse on March 11 and Montauban on March 15.

French intelligence sources said about 30 French fighters trained by the Taliban were believed to have taken part in attacks on Western forces in Afghanistan.

Gueant said the Salafist group to which Merah belonged had no official name and had never given any indication of turning to criminal activity. Police were still trying to determine whether the gunman acted alone or as part of a group. [...]

Merah's profile is typical of hundreds of second- or third-generation French immigrants from North Africa who have travelled to Afghanistan or Pakistan over the last two decades attracted by militant Islamist groups, security officials say. [...]

On his return to Toulouse, Merah led a normal life.

Cedric Lambert, 46, father of an upstairs neighbour, said Merah was friendly and had helped them about 10 months ago to carry a heavy sofa upstairs.

"He was extremely normal," Lambert said....

So, remember when the Toulouse jihadist said he would surrender yesterday? Well, so much for that. These tactics certainly seem familiar: enter into negotiations to buy time, do the opposite of what one pledged, say one has changed one's mind, resume negotiations, bluster a lot, lather, rinse, repeat. Authorities say they have had no contact with him overnight, and there are reports trickling in again that a police operation may be underway.

This, again, may be disinformation in the event that Merah is following media reports on a phone, as may have been the case with yesterday's deceptive blasts and announcement of a raid. That may also have been the case with the "neo-Nazi" reporting angle: perhaps authorities wanted Merah to believe they were completely off his trail. We will not know for sure until Merah is brought out of the building.

From the Guardian's live blog (thanks to WhupTDue):

10.34am: Police are telling France Info that Merah is resisiting the officers. One of its reporters says gunfire coming from more than one place, suggesting a possible firefight.

10.32am: Angelique is now hearing "what sounds like v heavy machine gunfire, lengthy and ongoing ..."

10.30am: "Volley of shots heard and bigger blasts, ongoing," says Angelique.

10.28am: Angelique reports hearing a volley of gunshots.

10.25am: According to TF1, Merah is in the bathroom of his flat. Apparently police are breaking down the walls one-by-one to get to him but are taking a "slow approach"

10.20am: Police are in the flat and are proceeding "step-by-step", a police source tells Le Figaro. They still don't know whether Merah is dead or alive as he hasn't shown himself.

10.16am: Barcelona's La Vanguardia is reporting that French police told Spain that Merah was believed to be attending a jihadist meeting in Girona in 2011. The Guardia Civil looked into the tip but were unable to confirm the presence of the suspect, the paper says.

10.08am: French media have footage of the blown-out windows of Merah's flat — apparently as a result of the blasts. Unconfirmed reports suggest that Raid officers are already in the flat.

10.05am: Police sources are saying "the siege is coming to an end", but it's hard to get much more information as journalists at the scene are being kept behind a security barrier a little way from the block of flats.

10.03am: The assault is under way, reports Le Figaro. Raid commandos may already be in the flat. One of the paper's reporters says three fire engines and a GIPN van are at the scene. Looks as though we could be close to a conclusion after more than 30 hours ...

9.56am: While we wait to see what the three explosions might signify, here's some expert commentary.

Frédéric Gallois, a former commander of the French armed forces' special operation outfit, the GIGN (National Gendarmerie Intervention Group) has been talking to France Info about the siege.

If this individual has stopped talking, it doesn't mean he's dead. He might have decided to slip back into another confrontational phase with the police. He's been surprised: he thought he'd be able to continue his offensive and carry on with the killings and it's clear that he hadn't prepared anything (in the event of a siege)."

In the end, the boasting jihadist is an amateur and a coward. Once again, the jihadists don't often do so well when they have to fight like men.

What about bunnies? "Zawahiri urges Afghans to rise against ‘Crusader pigs’," from Al Arabiya, March 22 (thanks to Kenneth):

Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri urged Afghans to rise up against “Crusader pigs” in an audio message on Wednesday, after he referred to the burning of the Quran by U.S. soldiers last month.

Zawahiri also made reference to an online video in which U.S. Marines were shown in an online video urinating on the corpses of Taliban militants in January.

The message, which the U.S.-based SITE Intelligence Group said was posted on extremist forums, mentioned a series of scandals in Afghanistan that have sent U.S.-Afghan tensions soaring.

But the message made no reference to a massacre of 16 Afghan civilians by a U.S. soldier in southern Afghanistan earlier this month, which has further complicated relations between Washington and Kabul and prompted calls for an accelerated withdrawal of foreign forces.

“Allah disclosed the Americans through the tape that appeared on the Internet showing the Crusader pigs of the Marines as they urinated on the body of an Afghan mujahed, may the vast mercy of Allah be upon him,” Zawahiri said in Arabic in his audio speech, according to a SITE translation.

“This is their view towards other people in general and the Muslims in particular, and this is their way of treating us.”

The Marine video set off a military investigation amid concerns it would be used as a recruiting tool by Afghan insurgents.

Appealing to Afghans’ pride, Zawahiri asked how they will respond when their children ask what they did to those who insulted the Quran, mocked the Prophet Mohammed, killed their fellow countrymen and urinated on their bodies.

The al-Qaeda chief said the proper response would be to join the insurgency led by the Taliban and al-Qaeda against foreign troops.

“O honorable, strong Afghan, the path is now clear and the way is shown, so either you stand under the banner of Islam as a mujahed and a helper to the mujahedeen with your hand, tongue, opinion, money and heart, or you will face the humiliation of the world and the shame of the hereafter,” he said.

“You saw with your own eyes how the Crusaders look at you and what your value is to them.

Last month, Somalia’s militant group al-Shabaab joined ranks with al-Qaeda, Zawahiri announced in a video message posted on jihadist forums.

“Today, I have glad tidings for the Muslim ummah (nation) that will please the believers and disturb the disbelievers, which is the joining of the al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen Movement in Somalia to Qaedat al-Jihad to support the jihadi unity against the Zionist-Crusader campaign and their assistants amongst the treacherous agent rulers,” said a bespectacled Zawahri in the video.

“The jihadist movement is with the grace of Allah, growing and spreading within its Muslim nation despite facing the fiercest crusade campaign in history by the West,” said Zawahiri in the video released by al-Qaeda’s media arm As-Sahab.

Image source.

Actually, that has been the case for quite some time, as documented by Human Rights Watch and others. It is another example of the pattern in which wherever Sharia experiences a resurgence, tolerance decreases and harassment increases. "Chechnya's Islamic revival is becoming less voluntary," from USA Today, March 21 (thanks to Kenneth):

SERZHEN-YURT, Chechnya – Seda Makhagieva, 15, had to fight to wear the hijab, a scarf that some Muslims say must be worn by women and older girls. [...]

Half of the girls in Seda's ninth-grade class in the Chechen village of Serzhen-Yurt near the Chechen capital, Grozny, now wear the hijab, a sharp break from local tradition. In past generations, married women in Chechnya covered their hair with a small, triangle-shaped scarf as a sign of respect and modesty.

But these girls are part of a new trend in the republic that has seen two wars in the past few decades and a rise in adherence to the kinds of codes promoted by fundamentalist Muslims. Some Muslims are fighting against it. [...]

Many Chechens welcome the Islamic revival after nearly two decades of vicious war against Russian troops in which an estimated 200,000 Chechens were killed. For the younger Chechens, Islam is becoming the cornerstone of identity, replacing horrors they saw as refugees living in tents and abandoned supermarkets in neighboring republics of Dagestan and Ingushetia.

"This generation lost its childhood to war," said Imam Yasrayel Ayubov of Serzhen-Yurt, which has nine mosques for its 5,000 residents. "Their education was interrupted, and they grew up overnight. Yet when it comes to Islam, young people are far more educated and observant than the previous generation."

Since his appointment by the Kremlin in 2007, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, 35, has aggressively sought to present Chechnya as Russia's new up-and-coming Muslim region. His government has embarked on an aggressive campaign to promote Islam and to strengthen Chechen traditions.

Throughout the republic, dozens of mosques and Islamic institutions are sprouting, while local TV stations are increasing the volume of programming devoted to Chechnya's Islamic identity.

"Chechnya is now actively positioning itself not only as a relatively autonomous part of Russia but also as a Muslim center," said Russian analyst Nikolai Petrov of Carnegie Moscow Center.

Despite the separation of church and state under Russian law, Chechen schools must now promote Islam. There are prayer rooms in just about every school and a strict dress code, forcing all schoolgirls to cover their heads in school. Many are unhappy over the decree.

Well, it certainly seems safe to say church and state are separate.

"I don't understand the point of it. Nothing changes if you just cover your head at school," said Khadizhad Barshigova, 14, who likes to listen to pop music and watch American comedies.

The process of Islamization was voluntary in the beginning. Women who wore a headscarf were rewarded with a prize. Now all women and girls, regardless of their religion, must observe Islamic dress code by wearing a head covering, long sleeves, and skirts below the knee in public schools and government buildings. Those who refuse become targets.

Human Rights Watch released a report last year documenting a spate of attacks on women without head coverings. The females reported being harassed, some physically harmed for not observing the Islamic dress code.

Alcohol is now all but banned, and authorities encourage taking multiple wives. Gender-segregated hair salons and gyms are becoming the norm. Many Muslims here object to what they call an improper interpretation of Islamic law.

"Not everyone reacted well," said teacher Malika Taramova, 20. "There are now rumors that all teachers will have to wear a hijab. My parents told me they'd make me quit work if that happened."

Inside the gym at Seda's high school, a group of boys dribble a basketball as four girls dressed in long flowing skirts with their heads wrapped in scarves stare at them blankly from the sidelines.

"Girls, don't just stand there," shouts Vakha Dzhamarzaev, the school's gym coach. "Go, go."

Seda and three other girls giggle as they ditch another gym class for an hour of gossip.
"It's getting harder to teach them," Dzhamarzaev said. "The girls won't wear their gym uniforms because they feel uncomfortable around the boys. This was never the case before."...

They will invoke Sharia to disobey other rules. That is not a good precedent.

Pamela Geller speaks to the ZOA Philadelphia last Monday, in remarks that are especially a propos now, in the wake of the jihadist massacre at a Jewish day school in Toulouse, France.

We see it again and again: every time there is a jihad attack or a foiled jihad plot, the mainstream media focuses attention on the poor victimized...Muslims, churning out story after story about a backlash that never actually materializes, and thereby attempting to shift focus away from jihad mass murder and onto the Muslims as victims, needing special protection and deserving to be exempt from especial scrutiny.

Does anyone fall for this nonsense anymore? Oh, yes, they certainly do.

"French Muslims fear post-Toulouse repercussions," from EuroNews, March 21 (thanks to Answering Muslims):

France’s five-million strong Islamic community fears it may be subject to repercussions after it emerged the main suspect in the killing of seven people – including three young children – was Muslim.

In Toulouse itself, the message was one of tolerance.

“There are issues between Arabs and Jews,” said one man. “That’s not good. On earth we’re the same race.”

“Whatever you are, Jewish, Muslim, Arab or anything else, we are all the same blood,” added another.

Many Muslims already feel they are all viewed as potential extremists. In Paris one felt the media had focused on the wrong aspect of the killings.

“What shocked me most was that the victims were children,” he said. “But the media is putting the spotlight more on the fact it concerns Jews and Muslims or for example that a Muslim killed an Arab.”

Another added: “It’s true that tolerance regarding Islam is already greatly reduced. And what’s happening in Toulouse is inevitably going to raise fears.”

A joint appeal by the Jewish and Islamic communities for tolerance has been issued but plans for a joint rally on Sunday have been cancelled.

France 24 and other news organizations initially reported the assault had begun on Merah's apartment. Later reports, including those from the BBC, portray the blasts that had occurred as psy-ops, perhaps to startle him into making a move. Merah may well also be following the news coverage, and law enforcement may be employing disinformation for that reason.

Merah is an amateur, now surrounded by professionals. "Blasts at scene of Toulouse gunman siege," from BBC News, March 21:

Three explosions have been heard at a block of flats in the French city of Toulouse where a man suspected of killing seven people has been holed up since Wednesday morning.

The interior ministry could not confirm an assault on the flat had begun.

The blasts were accompanied by flashes of orange light.

Mohammed Merah, 23, is suspected of killing four people at a Jewish school last Monday and three soldiers in two attacks last week.

The blasts sent shockwaves around the quiet residential streets around the building, reports the BBC's Christian Fraser in Toulouse.

Earlier, deputy mayor Jean-Pierre Havrin told local media that "negotiations have finished and the assault has begun".

However, sources from the French interior ministry have since been quoted as saying said this was beginning of an operation to put pressure on Merah.

"They [the blasts] were moves to intimidate the gunman who seems to have changed his mind and does not want to surrender," interior ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told Reuters.

Police had been negotiating with Merah but had not convinced him to surrender.

Police surrounded Merah's block after two officers were shot at when they tried to get into his flat early on Wednesday morning.

Officials say he is heavily armed with a Kalashnikov high-velocity rifle, a mini-Uzi 9mm machine pistol, several handguns and possibly grenades.

Street lights had been switched off in the vicinity of the building on Wednesday evening.

The five-storey block of flats has been evacuated, and police also moved residents from nearby buildings.

Elsewhere in the city, police are hunting for accomplices and have detained several members of Merah's family.....

Jihadists don't lack for three things: bloodlust, excuses for "revenge," and hubris. "Toulouse siege gunman 'planned another attack'," from France 24, March 21:

REUTERS - A besieged gunman suspected of shooting dead seven people in the name of al Qaeda boasted to police on Wednesday he had brought France to its knees and said his only regret was not having been able to carry out his plans for more killings.

In an unfolding drama that has riveted France, about 300 police, some in body armour, cordoned off a five-storey building in a suburb of Toulouse where the 24-year-old Muslim shooter, identified as Mohamed Merah, is holed up.

Authorities said the gunman, a French citizen of Algerian origin, had been to Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he claimed to have received training from al Qaeda.

Merah told police negotiators he had killed three French soldiers last week and four people at a Jewish school in Toulouse on Monday to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children and because of the French army’s involvement in Afghanistan.

“He has no regrets, except not having more time to kill more people and he boasts that he has brought France to its knees,” Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins, part of the anti-terrorist unit leading the investigation, told a news conference.

The gunman, who filmed his killings with a small camera, had already identified another soldier and two police officers he wished to kill, Molins said. The gunman had repeated promises to surrender this evening to members of the elite RAID unit surrounding the house, which had been evacuated of its other residents.

“He has explained that he is not suicidal, that he does not have the soul of a martyr and that he prefers to kill but to stay alive himself,” Molins said. [...]

Gueant said Merah had contacted the first soldier he attacked on the pretext of wanting to buy his motorcycle.

Investigators identified the IP address he used - that of his mother - because he was already under surveillance for radical Islamist beliefs.

“We knew, and that is why he was under surveillance, that he had travelled to Afghanistan and Pakistan,” the minister said.

Merah’s telephone was tapped from Monday and with the help of other information the police decided to raid his house. Merah has a criminal record in France, Gueant said, but nothing indicating such an attack was possible.

A police source told Reuters that investigators had also received a tipoff from a scooter repair shop in Toulouse where the gunman asked to change the colour of the Yamaha scooter used to flee the shootings and to remove a GPS tracker device.

A group of young men from Merah’s neighbourhood described him as a polite man of slight build who liked football and motorbikes and did not seem particularly religious.

“He isn’t the big bearded guy that you can imagine, you know the cliche,” said Kamal, who declined to give his family name. “When you know a person well you just can’t believe they could have done something like this.”...

Another "decent fellow."

Yesterday at a conference, Dr. Abd al-Mun‘im Abu al-Futuh—the most popular presidential candidate in Egypt and a leading Muslim Brotherhood figure—declared that “Islam must be upheld and Sharia must be applied; nor shall we permit the methods of the former regime—imprisoning our sons simply because they are committed to religion [Islam] and because they go and pray at mosques—to ever return again.”

To the average Western reader, this smacks of religious freedom—until one realizes why the former regime, and all secular Arab regimes, are wary of those Muslims “committed to religion,” who “pray at mosques”: the more zealous they are of Islam’s teachings, the more likely they are to espouse violence, even terror (under the banner of “jihad”), the more likely they are to target anyone and everyone who stands in their way, including the “near enemy” (the state, if it is secular), the “far enemy” (the Western infidel), and everyone in between (“dhimmi” minorities such as Egypt’s Christian Copts).

The stealth Islamic supremacist Boy Reza Aslan was avid to blame me for the jihadist murders of Jews in France -- yet another one in a long series of Reza's howlingly wrong analyses. Yet somehow I doubt the Left will excoriate him for his "rush to judgment." Aslan, of course, is a "moderate Muslim," of the kind we should cultivate and be glad are our friends, and the jihadist in France who murdered adults and children at a Jewish day school in Toulouse is an "extremist Muslim" who twists and hijacks the peaceful teachings of his religion, right? And never the twain shall meet, right?

Wrong. For some time now at Jihad Watch I have been warning about the danger of false "moderates," their deceptive but unmistakable rhetoric, their refusal to condemn or work against in any effective way their "extremist" brethren, despite their violence. I have documented numerous instances of hateful and supremacist language from "moderate Muslims" such as Aslan, as well as in the conduct and speech of their followers. The Islam of moderates like Reza Aslan is the same as that of the genocidal Jew-haters of Hamas, Hizballah, and the Iranian mullahcracy.

Aslan is a Board member of the president of the George Soros-funded National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a powerful Iranian lobbying group in Washington, and a foremost enemy of Israel and purveyor of Palestinian jihadist propaganda. Arash Irandoost of the Pro-Democracy Movement of Iran calls NIAC chief Trita Parsi "an intellectually dishonest regime apologist and an unofficial and unregistered lobbyist for the Iranian regime." According to Irandoost, "Trita Parsi contributes to the regime's agenda and serves the interests of those in power in the Islamic Republic of Iran, not the Iranians, nor the Iranian-Americans."

And the Progressive American-Iranian Committee says that when NIAC received funding for various projects from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), "NIAC's projects were approved and welcomed by the Iranian regime." NIAC coordinated its work inside Iran with Hamyaran, a "government initiated agency incepted [sic], initiated, founded and managed by the Iranian regime." NIAC even lobbied the U.S. Congress to "stop appropriating funds for independent democratic movements and NGOs that were not under Hamyaran or regime's control."

It is no surprise in light of Aslan's NIAC connection that he has tried to pass off Iran's genocidally-minded President Ahmadinejad as a liberal reformer. He has called on the U.S. Government to negotiate with Ahmadinejad himself, who has repeatedly crowed about the imminent demise of the "Zionist regime," as well as with the genocidally antisemitic jihad group Hamas.

Aslan has even praised the viciously and murderously Jew-hating jihad terror group Hizballah as "the most dynamic political and social organization in Lebanon," as well as the Jew-hating, women-hating, kuffar-hating Muslim Brotherhood, which is dedicated in its own words to "eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within." Aslan wrote: "The Muslim Brotherhood will have a significant role to play in post-Mubarak Egypt. And that is good thing." Now that the new parliament in Egypt has declared Israel its "number one enemy," we see what Reza Aslan has been applauding, and aiding and abetting with his numerous anti-Israel screeds.

The murders in France and Reza Aslan's poisonous anti-Israel rhetoric are two sides of the same coin, stemming from the same Islamic beliefs that they both share. The murders point up vividly the danger of false "moderates."

So he was rooting for the Toulouse killer to be someone he could blame me for -- as if I could conceivably have inspired someone who murdered Jews. It is actually Reza Aslan and Muhammad Merah who are clearly on the same "team."

UPDATE: Pamela Geller says, "The same ideology that Reza Aslan stumps for, promotes, advances to our schoolchildren, the media, and our overall culture, is that of the French jihadist. One and the same. Is Reza speaking at your kids' school? Print out these screenshots and this post and take them to the university president and administrators, and demand that the invitation be rescinded or that equal time be given to freedom activists such as Spencer, Geller, Ibn Warraq, Darwish, et al."

Among journalists it is seen as a scandal that the media at first glance believed a Muslim Jihadist group was behind the Norwegian mass murder on June 22, 2011. Will they also consider it a scandal that they thought Nazis were behind the Toulouse serial killings and apologize for their rush to judgment? Anyway, I do not blame them for thinking that it could have been Nazis, since they have so much in common with the followers of the Quran. Both groups hate Jews and want to take over the world by violent means -- by any means necessary, actually. Thanks to the award winning blog Uriasposten.net "The Toulouse man is a 'French Anders Breivik', says TV2 News - in spite of 100 percent Mohammed factor":

From the Danish media, March 21st 2012:

BT news paper: After three attacks in France: Hunting nazi-soldiers

BT news paper: Neo-nazi suspected for massacre. The executioners (Bødlerne?)

Ekstrabladet news paper: Hunting a French Breivik. An isolated extremist's revenge against society - the killer thinks he is God, says criminologist

Jyllands-Posten news paper: Europe's extreme Right shoots back. While most of Europe have been talking about Muslim terror, the extreme Right has quietly build up a hate that several times resulted in killings

TV 2 national tv channel: Looking for the killer among Right wing extremists

Not "Zionists," but "Jews."

The more excuses he piles on, the clearer it is that it is not ultimately about any of them. This, again, is about supremacism and antisemitism.

Provided they can be objective, members of a civilization are often best placed to critique that civilization. The following article, which recently made the rounds on various Arabic websites, is a good example of honest criticism of the Islamic world, by one of its own. Accordingly, I translated it over at Stonegate Institute (via RaymondIbrahim.com). Written by the late Dr. Ahmad al-Baghdadi (died 2010)—one of Kuwait's best known liberal activists and scholars (he held a PhD in the philosophy of Islamic thought and taught political science)—the article recounts how Islamic civilization is the eighth, and greatest, wonder of the world. We quickly discover this is not a compliment, as the article highlights some singularly troubling aspects of the Islamic world, from a liberal—in this sense, "rational"—point of view. For the record, Ahmad al-Baghdadi is not the first Muslim to portray Islamic culture as a fantastic anachronism that has outstayed its welcome; the prophet of Islam himself, Muhammad, made a similar prophesy in a canonical hadith: "Verily, Islam started as something strange, and it will again revert to being strange, just as it began, and it will recede between the two mosques [Mecca and Medina, birthplace of Islam] just as the serpent slithers back into its hole" (Sahih Muslim 1:271). Al-Baghdadi's article follows:

As we know, the wonders of the world are seven; but there is an eighth “Wonder -of-Wonders” not counted among the seven: this is the “Muslim nation [umma].” I specifically did not say the “Islamic [or Islamist] nation,” for within this Muslim nation are wondrous matters not witnessed by any other nation since Allah Almighty created Adam. Here are some of these wonders:

1. It is the only nation that believes it is in the right—in every way—while all others are wrong;
2. The only nation that exonerates or lightens the punishment of an indicted criminal if he is Muslim and has learned some Quranic verses;
3. The only nation where a cleric evades indictment for inciting murder if he describes one of his adversaries as “an apostate”;
4. The only nation that does not penalize a murderer if he kills “an apostate”;
5. The only nation that shows leniency and assuages punishments for the “honor killing” of a sister or a wife;
6. The only nation whose holy book [Quran] starts with the word “read” [iqra’] and yet it is among the least nations that reads books, if any at all;
7. The only nation that still uses the word “infidel” [kafir] against those who oppose its clerics or religious groups;
8. The only nation where the ruling of a fatwa [religious edict] upstages the ruling of the law—and yet it brags about being a nation that upholds the “rule of law”;
9. The only nation that does not contribute to the modern era—not even by producing a tooth brush—and yet brags about its extinct civilization.
10. The only nation that insults and condemns the West—yet lives as a parasite relying on the West in every way.

Major media outlets say Muhammad Merah has not been arrested, but says he will surrender "this afternoon." The excuse is familiar and predictable, as pretexts for revenge are a renewable resource for jihadists. There will always be a grievance, there will always be an excuse for more bloodshed, and there will always be an excuse for collective punishment of people who had nothing to do with the grievance except for some concocted guilt by association.

And no amount of bloodshed will ever be enough; for the jihadists, there can always be more. Ultimately, it is not about this or that excuse du jour. They will never say, "Okay, fine. That's enough revenge," because that is not what it is about. This is about supremacism and antisemitism.

First: "LIVE: Police say besieged gunman to surrender today," from France 24, March 21:

French police are negotiating with a man suspected of killing three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi and three paratroopers in south-western France. Officials say the 24-year-old has claimed links to al Qaeda and said he wanted to "take revenge for Palestinian children" killed in the Middle East. [...]

Police laying siege to the home of the chief suspect in the recent killings of seven people in south-western France say the 24-year-old gunman has agreed to surrender later today.

More: "French gunman to give himself up 'this afternoon'," from Reuters and the Jerusalem Post, March 21:

TOULOUSE, France - A gunman, suspected of killing three children and a rabbi at a Jewish school in the name of al-Qaida, said on Wednesday he would hand himself over to police after an hours-long siege in which he wounded three officers. The suspect was named as Muhammad Merah, aged 24, AFP reported.

About 300 police, some in bullet-proof body armor, cordoned off an area surrounding an apartment in a Toulouse neighborhood in southwestern France, where the 24-year-old Muslim man was holed up. Shots were heard in the early hours of the morning, and police said three officers had been slightly wounded.

Interior Minister Claude Gueant said the gunman was a French citizen of Algerian origin who had been to Pakistan and Afghanistan and had shot dead the four in revenge for French military involvement abroad. He is also suspected by authorities of killing three soldiers of North African origin last week.

"He said ... he will turn himself in this afternoon," Gueant told BFM television, adding the man had thrown a Colt 45 pistol from the house in exchange for a "communication device".

He still has an Uzi machine gun, a Kalashnikov assault rifle and other weapons, the minister said. [...]

French Interior Minister Gueant said earlier the gunman wanted revenge "for the Palestinian children and he also wanted to attack the French army because of its foreign intervention".

"He claims to be a mujahideen and to belong to al-Qaida," he told journalists in Toulouse.

Gueant did not say how they had tracked the man down, but that police were talking to his brother at a separate location in connection with the killings.

France's Europe 1 radio said he had been picked up by Pakistani intelligence services in Afghanistan's Kandahar and his details had been sent to the French security services. It gave no date.

But the demons' money sure seems to spend nicely, doesn't it? "Gulf Widens Between U.S. and a More Volatile Karzai," by Rod Nordland, Alissa J. Rubin, and Matthew Rosenberg for the New York Times, March 17:

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Americans in Afghanistan are “demons.”

They claim they burned Korans by mistake, but really those were “Satanic acts that will never be forgiven by apologies.”

The massacre of 16 Afghan children, women and men by an American soldier “was not the first incident, indeed it was the 100th, the 200th and 500th incident.”

Such harsh talk may sound as if it comes from the Taliban, but those are all remarks either made personally by the United States’ increasingly hostile ally here, President Hamid Karzai, or issued by his office in recent days and weeks.

The strongest such outburst came Friday. “Let’s pray for God to rescue us from these two demons,” Mr. Karzai said, apparently holding back tears at a meeting with relatives of the massacre victims, and clearly referring to the United States and the Taliban in the same breath. “There are two demons in our country now.”

Ever since the Koran-burning episode on Feb. 20 and its violent aftermath, the relationship between the two governments has lurched from one crisis to another. American officials have scrambled to run damage control, with President Obama expressing a personal apology for the Koran burning, as well as regrets about the massacre, while calling Mr. Karzai twice in the past week.

The White House went to lengths last week to depict Mr. Karzai’s call for Americans to hand over control a year earlier, by 2013, as no change in policy — only to have Mr. Karzai pointedly insist the next day that it was. The Americans fret that Mr. Karzai is making a difficult job almost impossible, with demands they often see as unreasonable; Mr. Karzai worries that the Americans seek to undermine him, and may yet abandon his country and him, once again, to their fate.

The Koran burnings brought these differences into sharp relief, and led to a rupture in trust some view as irreparable. After an American unit at Bagram Air Base inadvertently burned Korans, embassy officials were deeply worried about an investigation conducted by the country’s Ulema Council, its highest religious body.

The council’s pronouncements, however, are closely controlled by Mr. Karzai’s office — they are even issued by the presidential palace — and American officials were assured by senior members on the president’s staff that the council’s report would be tough but not incendiary.

“We were ready to get knocked a bit,” said an American official who asked not to be identified to preserve his relationship with Afghan officials. “We messed up pretty badly.”

The original draft, in fact, was relatively moderate, American and Afghan officials said. But at the last minute more hard-line elements of Mr. Karzai’s staff weighed in, and the joint statement finally issued by the Ulema Council and the palace used language like “Satanic act” and “unforgivable, wild and inhuman” about the book burnings, and “justifiable emotion” in regard to the violent reaction, which claimed the lives of at least 29 Afghans and 6 Americans....

Video thanks to David.

Islamic antisemitism boils over, as a Muslim vents his hatred and rage upon those whom the Qur'an designates as the worst enemies of the Muslims (5:82). "Toulouse shooting suspect is jihadist for al Qaeda," from the Independent, March 21 (thanks to David):

FRENCH police are engaged in a stand-off with a self-proclaimed al Qaeda jihadist, suspected of killing three children, a teacher and three soldiers, after swooping on his home in France in an early morning raid.

Armed police exchanged shots with the man after descending on the house in Toulouse at 3am. His brother was arrested at a separate location.

The 24-year-old told police he was a jihadist for al Qaeda seeking revenge for Palestinian children and French military postings overseas.

He is a French citizen of North African descent and has been named locally as Mohamed.

Police confirmed that he has spent time in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

His home at a five story apartment block at 17 Rue Sergent Vigne in the Cote Pavee district of Toulouse, just three kilometres from the school where a Rabbi and three children were shot dead on Monday.

It is understood that police tracked him down after receiving a tip-off from a scooter dealer who he contacted last week asking for advice on customising his vehicle.

Police are concerned that he may have explosives and that he will blow up the building, in the Cote Pavee residential district, if they storm it.

Two police officers were injured as the operation got underway this morning.

"He claims to be a mujahideen and to belong to al Qaeda," Claude Gueant, the French interior minister told journalists at the scene of the siege. "He wanted revenge for the Palestinian children and he also wanted to take revenge on the French army because of its foreign interventions."

He wanted revenge for fictional atrocities, trumped up by the Palestinian propaganda machine.

The area surrounding the house was cordoned off by police officers wearing full body armour and helmets, thought to be members of France's special weapons squad RAID.

The suspect's mother was also brought to the scene.

"She was asked to make contact with her son, to reason with him, but she did not want to, saying she had little influence on him," Mr Gueant said. "This person has made trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan in the past ... and says he belongs to Al-Qaeda and says he wanted to avenge Palestinian children and to attack the French army."...

To Egypt, that is. My column in FrontPage this morning:

Egypt’s parliament, which is dominated by two pro-Sharia Islamic supremacist groups, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists, voted unanimously last Monday to expel Israel’s ambassador to Egypt, and signaled that the Camp David Accords would soon be a thing of the past: Egypt, the parliamentarians declared, would “never” be Israel’s ally. In fact, Israel was Egypt’s “number one enemy.” And how did Barack Obama respond to this egregious trampling upon the agreement that has kept an uneasy peace between Israel and Egypt for thirty years? By announcing a resumption of military aid to Egypt.

From the beginning of the “Arab Spring,” I said repeatedly that it was not a democracy movement, as the Western press was claiming, but an Islamic supremacist takeover that would result in the creation of Sharia states that would be far more hostile to the U.S. and Israel than the Arab nationalist regimes they were supplanting. This assessment was greeted with the usual scorn: the Islamic supremacist media machine charged “Islamophobia,” on Fox Juan Williams said I was “fearmongering,” and the usual suspects made the usual ad hominem attacks. Yet everything that has happened since then has shown that the “Arab Spring” is indeed an Islamic supremacist winter, ushering in repressive Sharia regimes with the enthusiastic blessing of Barack Obama.

Yet even as Egypt’s Islamic supremacists rattle their sabers, their spokesmen, allies and useful idiots in the American mainstream media continue to peddle their soothing lies. The Islamic supremacist and adolescent mudslinger Reza Aslan was at West Virginia University last week speaking about the developments in the Middle East, and heaping more steaming piles of what he calls analysis on the hapless marks in his audience. “Believe it or not,” Aslan said, and anyone with eyes in his head will opt for “not,” “the greatest single aspiration in the region at this moment is to achieve democracy.” Slyly implying that those who have cast doubts on this alleged wonderful flowering of democracy are motivated by racism, he continued: “It does not matter where you pray or what skin color you were born with; democracy is a fundamental right of life.” He also, according to the report on his talk in the campus paper, “aimed to debunk that the Arab Spring is an Islamic takeover. This myth is simply an American paradox due to the primary belief that we live in a secular country that easily separates church and state, he said.” Ah yes, of course. “There is not much difference between us and them,” Aslan said. “These groups now have the opportunity to come out of the mosque and to market ideas and see how they can come to life in reality.”

Yes, “there is not much difference between us and them.” After all, we all want to cover women in burqas and enslave them to their husbands, brutalize and terrorize non-Muslims, murder apostates from Islam, and extinguish the freedom of speech, don’t we? And apparently one way these Egyptian parliamentarians hope to “come to life in reality” is by crucifying people and amputating their limbs. Yet as always, it doesn’t matter how outstandingly wrong and deceptive politically correct spokesmen are. It doesn’t matter that none of their predictions ever come true, or that everything they said was nothing to be concerned about turns out to be a matter of major concern. There is never any accountability for them at all — that a clown like Reza Aslan gets invited to speak at any university at all, while those who are consistently correct are demonized and marginalized, is a measure of how debased and politicized American academia and the public square in general have become.

Aslan also complained in January that “pundits and politicians are already ringing the alarm bells. The common refrain you hear in the US: The Middle East is being overrun with religious radicals bent on oppressing women and destroying Israel. That is nonsense, of course. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that political Islam will be a force in the new, democratic Middle East. And that is a good thing.” His comment on Egypt’s designation of Israel as its “number one enemy” was not recorded, but Aslan is no stupider or more malevolent than many other mainstream media and government spokesmen who assured us that the “Arab Spring” would bring a new flowering of freedom to the Middle East and North Africa. And chief among these was Barack Obama himself.

There is more.

A chip off the old block of C-4. "Yemen cleric’s son calls for jihad," by Chiara Onassis for Bikya Masr, March 20:

SANA’A: Mohamed Abdel-Mageed al-Zindany, the son of Yemen’s Sheikh Abdel-Mageed al-Zindani, a prominent cleric and powerful tribal leader, called on his fellow Yemenis to raise the flag of Islam and wage war on the American infidels, starting with US ambassador to Yemen, Gerard Feierstein.

In a fiery verbal attack against the ambassador, al-Zindani slammed American’s interference in Yemen, accusing the Pentagon of “meddling” with the country’s internal affairs to better pursue its own agenda in the region.

Al-Zindani seems to be now stepping in his father’s footsteps as he rises against what he calls American imperialism. Sheikh Zindani, who famously figures on America’s most wanted terror list, was indicted last year by President Ali Abdullah Saleh and an arrest warrant was issued against his person.

The government has thus far failed to enact the order, with officials from al-Islah, the country’s Islamic political faction warning that they would oppose any move against one of its leaders. Heading the Islahis, Sheikh Zindani is a force to be reckoned with, and an estimated thousands hardened fighters under his direct command.

"The senior source also claimed that Islamic Jihad continued to fire rockets at Israel even after the recent cease-fire was announced because the Iranians pressured that organization, and the popular resistance groups, to continue acting against Israel."

The interest in sovereignty is curiously selective. Here, the jihadist groups are letting themselves be bullied by Iranians. "Israeli official: Iranian military experts operating in Gaza, Sinai," by Avi Issacharoff for Haaretz, March 19:

Iranian military experts are active in the Gaza Strip and in Sinai, according to a high-ranking official in Jerusalem. The official said the Iranians entered the areas via Sudan and Egypt, and added that some of the rocket-launching systems in Gaza were manufactured under Iranian supervision.

The senior source also claimed that Islamic Jihad continued to fire rockets at Israel even after the recent cease-fire was announced because the Iranians pressured that organization, and the popular resistance groups, to continue acting against Israel.

Israel has agreed to all requests by Egypt to step up its own army's activity in the Sinai desert, but the official said no significant military operations have been carried out recently.

Several terror groups are now at large in Sinai, the source explained: local Bedouin, who are adopting the ideology of the Global Jihad; groups supported by Iran, who are trying to recruit and train militants not only in Sinai but throughout Egypt; and Palestinian organizations. Joining them are Global Jihad militants from Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and Saudi Arabia, said the official, adding that Israel and Egypt have a common interest in combating these terrorist elements.

He explained that "many Palestinian organizations use the Sinai peninsula as a convenient area for activity," and added that Libya has meanwhile been transformed into a huge arms depot, from which weapons are transferred to Egypt and then the Gaza Strip.

Damascus has become irrelevant as far as Hamas is concerned, the official continued, after Egyptian Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi criticized Syrian President Bashar Assad, and after Damascus and Tehran demanded that Hamas' politburo chief Khaled Meshal support the Syrian regime. Meshal refused to do so and left Damascus; his deputy, Moussa Abu Marzouk chose to reside in Cairo, and other senior Hamas officials such as Emad al-Alami, went to Gaza, Qatar or Lebanon.

The official stressed that Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh's visit to Tehran did not help resolve the differences between Hamas and Iran, which cut off funding to the Islamic movement. Hamas is now trying to raise money from the Arab Gulf states and Turkey.

Lately senior Palestinian Authorities have blamed Iran for sabotaging talks between Hamas and Fatah, which have recently reached a stalemate. The Israeli official claims that Meshal's agreement that PA President Mahmoud Abbas will serve as head of a national unity government angered Abu Marzouk, Haniyeh and Mahmoud Al-Zahar - causing certain elements within Hamas' leadership to openly revolt agains Meshal....

We've been hearing a lot about Ancar Dine lately. Here is more. "Armed Islamist group claims control in northeast Mali," from Agence France-Presse, March 20:

An Islamist group led by a Tuareg rebel fighting for autonomy in northern Mali claimed control Tuesday of the country's vast northeast, while also vowing to free dozens of prisoners.

"Thanks to God, we have (the region) under our control," the group Ancar Dine said in a statement sent to AFP. "Our soldiers of God occupy the towns of Tinezawaten, Tessalit, Aguelhok, and we will soon have other victories.

"Whoever doesn't agree must leave our territory," the group added, saying also that it would free, then expel from the area, at least 110 civilian and military prisoners it claimed to be holding.

Malian government officials provided no immediate comment on the claim.

The area said to be under Ancar Dine control is a sprawling swath of desert in the poor sub-Saharan country, close to the Algerian border.

Ancar Dine, 'Defenders of Islam' in Arabic, was created by Iyad Ag Ghaly, one of the most prominent figures of a Tuareg rebellion in the 1990s.

He is thought to have links with a branch of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, a splinter group which is led by his cousin Hamada Ag Hama.

Ancar Dine wants the imposition of Sharia, or Islamic law, across Mali.

Tuareg rebels -- many of whom recently returned from fighting for fallen Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi after his death -- in mid-January struck up their decades-old battle for autonomy for their nomadic desert tribe.

Ancar Dine said it had contacted members of the Islamic High Council of Mali to come to the region to collect the prisoners. An official from the council confirmed he had received a message from Ancar Dine.

The council is acting as an intermediary between Ancar Dine and the government.
The United Nations has said tens of thousands of people have been displaced by fighting between Tuareg rebels and the army.

Up until now, mosques in Copenhagen have been placed in existing and often anonymous buildings. Many of them are called 'basement mosques'. But it seems that the money has now begun flowing, and that the Muslim voters finally made politicians see the positive in granting them rights to build their Islamic control centers. Remember that Muhammad used mosques as a base of operations for conquest of the surrounding areas, and that it is a well-established historical practice in Islam to build large mosques as an assertion of Muslim presence, power and supremacy.

Four new mosques on their way in Copenhagen: Rovsingegade, Vibevej, Dortheavej and Amager (probably Njalsgade, where some people back in 2006 poured pig's blood on the ground in an obviously unsuccessful attempt to prevent the construction of the mosque). Three of them (Rovsingegade, Vibevej, Dortheavej) will be in Nørrebro.

More JW articles about Nørrebro: "Danish ghetto: pay 1,800 dollars for being 'black and Christian'", "Danish Muslim ghettos: Nine times higher crime rate, hostility towards the surrounding community", "Denmark: 1,000 police officers in coordinated crackdown on Muslim gangs", "Denmark: Islamic group seeks to introduce 'Sharia zones' in Copenhagen", "Denmark: Police arrest man who urged terror groups to kidnap Danes for use as bargaining chips to force release of terror suspects".

Translated from Danish by Nicolai Sennels, Jyllands-Posten March 19: "Mosque with minaret at Nørrebro":

Denmark's first mosque with a minaret is very likely to stand in Nørrebro in Copenhagen.

Denmark's first minaret will stand at Nørrebro. The Danish Islamic Council is building the mosque at Rovsingsgade. The mosque will be a discreet building with a dome and a 20 meter high tower, designed by architect Metin Aydin.

The mosque will be equipped with a 20-meter high minaret -- a slender tower, whose primary task is to call the faithful to prayer -- and will be build on the corner of Rovsingsgade and Vingelodden at outer Nørrebro.

The building plans are confirmed by the Copenhagen City Center for Urban Design, which has also had open debates with the mosque's future neighbours, according to local media 2200N.dk.

Sculpture

The residents will not be disturbed by sounds from the minaret, since it will not be used to call to prayer, but is intended as a sculpture.

Thus it seems that the already planned construction of a mosque with two minarets at Vibevej (2 km from Rovsingegade), a little further south in the Copenhagen Northwest district, will be overtaken.

Here existing buildings are already demolished and the land is thus being made ready for mosque construction, writes the Nørrebro internet newspaper.

Discrete building

But even though the mosque in Nørrebro is yet in the final stages of planning, it could be finished first -- in just a few months -- since it will partially be located in existing buildings.

Behind the building of the mosque is the Danish Islamic Council, which plans a discreet building with a dome -- and the characteristic minaret.

Earlier plans for mosque building attracted much attention, but in this case a design that will make construction relatively discreet is chosen.

'The building's purpose and its appearance can be accommodated into the municipality's local building plan that's already in the area, but the tower requires dispensation from the local plan,' says architect Jens Jacob Bier Call, Centre for Urban Design at Copenhagen, to 2200N.dk.

'It is a building which has modern Nordic style in itself, so it is not entirely Islamic, and I think that it looks nice, he says.'

The planned mosque at Vibevej, Copenhagen

Translated from Danish by Nicolai Sennels, Jyllands-Posten March 19: "Nørrebro is where Denmark's first mosque with a minaret will be - but without the call to prayer":

In addition to the mosque on Vibevej in the Northwest district there are also plans to build a mosque at Dortheavej, close to the new youth center (the Antifacists' headquarters), 2200N.dk has heard. However, here the group behind the construction is still in the initial planning phase. Also, the City Council of Copenhagen agreed in 2011 that there will be construction of a mosque on Amager (another part of Copenhagen).

Ahmad Wali Siddiqui is quite a severe Misunderstander of Islam, since we all know that Sharia is a perfectly benign thing, completely compatible with the U.S. Constitution and absolutely nothing like the hellish legal code that oppresses women and non-Muslims (the few that remain) in Afghanistan. And we all know, on pain of charges of "Islamophobia," that jihad is an interior spiritual struggle, or, at best, a struggle for self-defense, and has nothing to do with terrorism. Somehow Ahmad Wali Siddiqui misunderstood all this, and even more unbelievable, he apparently found quite a few Muslims who were entirely in sync with his point of view. What a shock! How will the learned analysts explain this? Mr. Esposito? Mr. Ernst? Anyone? Anyone?

"Terror suspect went to Afghanistan to fight jihad," by Claudia Isabel Rittel for the Associated Press, March 20:

KOBLENZ, Germany (AP) — A German-Afghan man whose information prompted terrorism warnings across Europe in 2010 told a court Tuesday he traveled to the Afghan border region with the intention of fighting there, not of returning home to carry out attacks.

Ahmad Wali Siddiqui told the Koblenz state court in the second day of his trial that he and a group of others bought iPhones, Sony laptops and other electronics on credit in Germany, then sold them on eBay to fund their 2009 trip to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"We wanted to fly there to live life according to (Islam's) Sharia law and fight jihad," he said, using the Arabic word for holy war. "We didn't want to ever return."

The 37-year-old faces a possible 10-year sentence, if convicted of membership in a terrorist organization....

Though he never specifically admitted to being a member of either terrorist group, he told the court he had gone to the region with the intention of joining al-Qaida but first encountered two German-speaking members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, so went with them instead.

He did acknowledge, however, he also knew exactly what the IMU was.

"Naturally we knew that this was a jihad group, nothing else," he said. "They make propaganda and fight against Americans."....

Ironically, they also work for Iran's PressTV. You can't make this stuff up. "Misrata Brigade snatch two journalists, detain them in "cramped" bunker in Tripoli, accuse the two men of being Israeli spies, BBC reports," from the Jerusalem Post, March 20 (thanks to Karl):

Two journalists from the UK were snatched by a Libyan militia after members of the group mistook the Welsh language for Hebrew, the BBC reported on Tuesday.

Gareth Montgomery-Johnson and Nicholas Davies-Jones were taken in Tripoli last month, after the Misrata Brigade accused them of being Israeli spies.

"They thought this was Hebrew and we were Israeli spies," Montgomery-Johnson told the BBC, referring to a bandage with Welsh writing.

The two journalists work for Iran's official Press TV.

Montgomery-Johnson explained that his father, a nurse, had given him bandages to take to Libya. Those bandages contained Welsh writing which confused the Libyan militants, who thought it was Hebrew.

According to Davies-Jones, the two were snatched by the band of men, some of whom were armed, and were held in a bunker in central Tripoli.

Montgomery-Johnson described their quarters to the BBC as "cramped."

Members of the militia apprehended the journalists' filming equipment from their hotel in order to scan the material.

Faraj al-Swehli, commander of a Misrata brigade, accused the two men shortly after their detainment of entering Libya illegally, and accused them of being spies, the BBC reported.

Members of the militia produced the bandage as evidence of the men's affiliation with Israel, claiming the field dressing is similar to ones used by the IDF.

Both the Libyan transitional government and the British embassy got to work negotiating the two journalist's release after their capture, but were turned down by the Misrata Brigade.

The two were handed over to the Libyan Interior Ministry on March 14, and were flown back to the UK on Monday, according to the report.

The remaining Christians in Iraq are a tiny, embattled community. That they continue to be targeted demonstrates that these bombers are working along the lines of traditional jihad doctrine, mandating warfare against and the subjugation of unbelievers.

"Series of attacks in Iraq, dozens of dead. Church of St Mathew in Baghdad targeted,' from Asia News, March 20 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

Baghdad (AsiaNews) - The Syrian Orthodox Church of St. Matthew, in Baghdad, is one of the objectives targeted by Iraqi extremists, who this morning carried out a series of attacks across the country to coincide with the ninth anniversary of the U.S. invasion - March 20, 2003 - to overthrow Saddam Hussein Nasser. Church sources in Iraq asking for anonymity for safety reasons, told AsiaNews, that the two guards were killed in the attack, while five others were injured. Meanwhile, the provisional toll from the bomb attacks - in more than 20 explosions - in the capital, in Kirkuk, in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, and Hillah in Mahmoudiya is at least 39 dead and 200 wounded.

AsiaNews sources in Iraq confirm "at least the 20 explosions" in different areas of the country, including the bombing of the church of St. Matthew, which "caused the death of two guards and wounded five other people." At present it is unclear if the place of Christian worship was the real target of the extremist. In Kirkuk, a city 300 km north of the capital, there were "three blasts that caused about 10 deaths and more than 40 wounded" in a neighborhood where the attackers "have targeted a police station."

Reports speak of 13 other deaths and fifty wounded in Karbala, the Shiite holy city, where two car bombs exploded. More attacks were reported in Hillah, Latifuyah and other areas of Iraq, although currently there is no official news....

The attackers, said the source, want to strike at key events and "we expect more attacks in the coming hours and days to come." Violence in Iraq "is not finished."

It never is.

Join the Jamie Glazov Show tonight, March 20, at 8-9 pm Pacific (11-12 pm EST) on Blog Talk Radio. This week Jamie is hosting The Great Debate on Islam.

Islamic supremacists generally tend to be arrogant, chest-thumping, empty-headed clowns who heap insults on their opponents, refuse to address their arguments except with invective, and then go away claiming victory. In a field crowded with creeps contending for the prize, including such "luminaries" as Reza Aslan, Caner K. Dagli, "Danios of Loonwatch" and Moustafa Zayed, Nadir Ahmed stands out as the most vacuous, the most intellectually bereft, and the most fiendishly puerile and prone to twelve-year-old level abuse.

And so grab some popcorn and pull up a chair tonight when Nadir Ahmed debates Eric Allen Bell, the former regular blogger for the “Daily Kos” who was banned from that site for telling the truth about Islam. Don’t miss him also in action on Frontpage’s television program, The Glazov Gang.

I might drop by myself as well, just to hear Ahmed writhe under the bright light of the truth.

To listen to the program, click here.

Or go to: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/radio-jihad/2012/03/21/the-jamie-glazov-show

Call in # is: (347) 857-1380.

Thought experiment: when was the last time you heard of a Christian cleric saying that killing anyone for any reason was every Christian's duty? When was the last time you heard a Jewish rabbi call for Jews to kill anyone? A Hindu? A Buddhist? We report here at Jihad Watch with mind-numbing frequency about Muslim clerics calling for blood and death, and no one bats an eye. It is the soft bigotry of low expectations. Stop the Islamophobia: hold Muslim clerics to the same standard as all other clerics!

"Egyptian cleric issues death fatwa against Al Assad," by Ramadan Al Sherbini for Gulf News, March 16 (thanks to Wimpy):

Cairo: Egypt's prominent Muslim cleric Safwat Hejazi has said that the killing of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad is a duty for every Muslim.

"He who has the chance to kill Al Assad and does not do this is a sinner," Hejazi told a rally held in Cairo in support of a popular revolt against Al Assad's rule.

"Hadn't I been a known face, I would have gone myself and killed him," added Hejazi, who had a high profile during an uprising that forced long-serving Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to step down last year.

Hejazi added that his anti-Al-Assad fatwa (a religious edict) has been echoed by many Muslim clerics....

So many Misunderstanders of Islam even among clerics! How does this happen?

What course? What is the objective? What would victory look like? Is victory even a goal? Freedom certainly isn't -- we've already overseen the adoption of a Sharia Constitution. Is the goal to defeat the Taliban? No, Biden said the Taliban were not the enemy. Is the goal to establish a stable parliamentary democracy? That will never happen in a million years. No amount of American money, no show of American good will, no outpouring of American blood will ever turn Afghanistan into New Jersey. Enough already: Time to Get Out of Afghanistan.

"Allen: U.S. to stay the course in Afghanistan," by Lolita C. Baldor for The Associated Press, March 19:

WASHINGTON — The U.S. must stick to its strategy in Afghanistan, including the planned withdrawal calendar, over the next several months despite recent setbacks that have tested America’s relations with the Afghans, the top U.S. commander for the war is telling Congress.

Gen. John Allen is heading to Capitol Hill Tuesday for the first time since the Koran burnings and last week’s shooting spree by a U.S. soldier inflamed anti-American sentiment in Afghanistan. The incidents spawned attacks against U.S. forces and prompted Afghan leaders to demand that American troops pull out of local villages and rural areas.

The upheaval has fueled Congressional opposition to the war, insuring that Allen will face lawmakers who are bitterly divided and increasingly skeptical of the administration’s strategy.

In frank testimony prepared for delivery to the House Armed Services Committee Tuesday, Allen argues that while the last few months “have been trying,” the coalition and its Afghan allies have made progress and degraded the insurgency.

“This campaign has been long. It has been difficult, and it has been costly. There have been setbacks, to be sure, we’re experiencing them now, and there will be more setbacks ahead,” Allen says. “I wish I could tell you that this war was simple, and that progress could be easily measured. But that’s not the way of counterinsurgencies.”...

I recently reported about the 18-year-old Yusef Al-Abed, who was stabbed to death as he and twenty of his armed Turkish and Arab friends attacked a collapsed German man: "Berlin: 'tense armed calm' after German killed Muslim in self-defence". The German, known as Sven N., is to be acquitted, since he clearly acted in self-defence against the twenty Muslims, who were armed with knives and daggers. While Sven N. is recovering from having his skull fractured during the attack, tensions rise in the neighbourhood of Neukölln, Berlin, as 'anti-German insults' and talk about 'burning down the neighbourhood' and 'riots' is spreading in the Muslim dominated area.

Even though the German journalists only report bits and pieces of the story and one has to piece several articles together to get the full picture, they allow small and very interesting bits of information slip through -- often buried deep inside the articles. The above-mentioned article ended with this quote: "'Arab family clans appear regularly in hospitals and schools in order to make ruckus over trifles.' Mostly in groups, usually armed.'"

Another article, "'How did it come to this?'" ends like this, clearly showing the role of their prophet and their women: "'I do not know what will we do when we get hold of the offender.' At this moment the sound words of the preacher Ferid Heider are a fitting response: 'Think about it! How did it come to this?' he calls out with a sad voice: 'Dear brothers and sisters in Islam, we do not want our youth to fight, we are too small in this area for that. We want a youth who acts according to our prophet's advice. We have to show what kind of religion Islam is.' In the end, the women are also allowed to put flowers at the grave."

In the article below, a Muslim tells us that 'This is a separate universe with its own laws'.

Translated from German by Nicolai Sennels, Der Tagesspiegel March 8: "Knife attack in Neukölln: Police foresee revenge":

After the fatal knife attack on an 18-year-old adolescent in Neukölln, there is talk of retaliation. Police officers visit families in the neighborhood and meeting places to talk about the release of the alleged offender.

It is an explosive mixture. Grief and anger determine the atmosphere in the neighborhood around the so-called "White Settlement" (Muslim ghetto) in Neukölln. In the new neighborhood, young people are using the word 'revenge' when talking about the fatal knife attack on 18-year-old Yusef El-A. 'I can guarantee one hundred percent that this will have a sequel. This is a separate universe with its own laws,' says Burak K. as he describes the tense situation. Burak K. has lived in the neighbourhood his whole life and he knew Yusef by sight.

Everybody in the neighborhood talks about Yusef -- and about the perpetrator, whom the police will release on Tuesday (March 13th 2012).

The alleged stabber Sven N. (34) already confessed the attack to the police. After the hearings, however, no arrest warrant was issued, because the prosecutor believes that he acted in self-defense. Investigators know that not many understand this in this neighborhood -- and apparently responded immediately. 'We know there is a threat," says police spokesman Stefan Redlich. Therefore officials are talking with the families of the victim and at the locals' meeting places. The officials are not ordinary police, but professionals whose working area is integration and migration. They see themselves as a 'link' between police and immigrant organizations. 'We have explained them what actually happened and made an effort to explain German laws -- for example, what is self-defense,' says Redlich. Our experience is that it is important to influence situations like these at a very early stage in neighborhoods like these, to avoid rumors 'that could lead to an emotionally charged situation.' Whether Sven N. will be need protection by the police -- and how -- is still not clear. Currently the 34-year-old is admitted to a clinic because of his fractured skull. He got his injuries during the attack. His condition had deteriorated during the interrogations.

On Sunday Sven N. and his friend, Oliver H. (39), rushed to stop a fight (Turks and Arabs were fighting over who should get a football that had flown over a fence) in the neighbourhood. It ended in a deadly confrontation in front of Oliver's house at the Fritzi-Massary-road: A group of about 20 young people had armed themselves and flocked in front of the house and challenged the two men. Without alerting the police, Sven N. then went outside with a kitchen knife -- according to investigators and witnesses in order to calm the situation. Unsuccessful. According to Sven N., he was attacked by several of the young people -- and out of fear for his life, he used his knife against Yusef El-A. and thereby stabbed the latter in the heart.

Background, including the Times' letter explaining their stance (i.e., trying to explain away their capitulation to the prospect of threats and violence), here.

Egypt’s parliament, which is dominated by two pro-Sharia Islamic supremacist groups, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists, voted unanimously last Monday to expel Israel’s ambassador to Egypt, and signaled that the Camp David Accords would soon be a thing of the past: Egypt, the parliamentarians declared, would “never” be Israel’s ally. In fact, Israel was Egypt’s “number one enemy.” And how did Barack Obama respond to this egregious trampling upon the agreement that has kept an uneasy peace between Israel and Egypt for thirty years? By announcing a resumption of military aid to Egypt.

From the beginning of the “Arab Spring,” I said repeatedly that it was not a democracy movement, as the Western press was claiming, but an Islamic supremacist takeover that would result in the creation of Sharia states that would be far more hostile to the U.S. and Israel than the Arab nationalist regimes they were supplanting. This assessment was greeted with the usual scorn: the Islamic supremacist media machine charged “Islamophobia,” on Fox Juan Williams said I was “fearmongering,” and the usual suspects made the usual ad hominem attacks. Yet everything that has happened since then has shown that the “Arab Spring” is indeed an Islamic supremacist winter, ushering in repressive Sharia regimes with the enthusiastic blessing of Barack Obama.

Yet even as Egypt’s Islamic supremacists rattle their sabers, their spokesmen, allies and useful idiots in the American mainstream media continue to peddle their soothing lies. The Islamic supremacist and adolescent mudslinger Reza Aslan was at West Virginia University last week speaking about the developments in the Middle East, and heaping more steaming piles of what he calls analysis on the hapless marks in his audience. “Believe it or not,” Aslan said, and anyone with eyes in his head will opt for “not,” “the greatest single aspiration in the region at this moment is to achieve democracy.” Slyly implying that those who have cast doubts on this alleged wonderful flowering of democracy are motivated by racism, he continued: “It does not matter where you pray or what skin color you were born with; democracy is a fundamental right of life.” He also, according to the report on his talk in the campus paper, “aimed to debunk that the Arab Spring is an Islamic takeover. This myth is simply an American paradox due to the primary belief that we live in a secular country that easily separates church and state, he said.” Ah yes, of course. “There is not much difference between us and them,” Aslan said. “These groups now have the opportunity to come out of the mosque and to market ideas and see how they can come to life in reality.”

Yes, “there is not much difference between us and them.” After all, we all want to cover women in burqas and enslave them to their husbands, brutalize and terrorize non-Muslims, murder apostates from Islam, and extinguish the freedom of speech, don't we? And apparently one way these Egyptian parliamentarians hope to “come to life in reality” is by crucifying people and amputating their limbs. Yet as always, it doesn't matter how outstandingly wrong and deceptive politically correct spokesmen are. It doesn't matter that none of their predictions ever come true, or that everything they said was nothing to be concerned about turns out to be a matter of major concern. There is never any accountability for them at all -- that a clown like Reza Aslan gets invited to speak at any university at all, while those who are consistently correct are demonized and marginalized, is a measure of how debased and politicized American academia and the public square in general have become.

Aslan also complained in January that “pundits and politicians are already ringing the alarm bells. The common refrain you hear in the US: The Middle East is being overrun with religious radicals bent on oppressing women and destroying Israel. That is nonsense, of course. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that political Islam will be a force in the new, democratic Middle East. And that is a good thing.” His comment on Egypt’s designation of Israel as its “number one enemy” was not recorded, but Aslan is no stupider or more malevolent than many other mainstream media and government spokesmen who assured us that the “Arab Spring” would bring a new flowering of freedom to the Middle East and North Africa. And chief among these was Barack Obama himself.

Speaking about the Libyan revolution in March, Barack Obama hailed “the rights of peaceful assembly, free speech, and the ability of the Libyan people to determine their own destiny,” and also praised “the peaceful transition to democracy in both Tunisia and in Egypt.” Now, as Egypt rushes headlong toward becoming a Sharia state and going to war with Israel, Obama is giving his blessing to the anti-Israel, anti-America forces he is largely responsible for unleashing.

Obama’s abandonment of the undeniably repulsive Mubarak regime paved the way for the ascendancy of the forces now in control in Egypt. Mubarak and his predecessors Anwar Sadat and Gamel Abdel Nasser kept a lid on the Muslim Brotherhood and other forces of Islamic fanaticism for decades. Now that they are gone, it is unlikely that the peace that Sadat concluded with Israel back in the 1970s will long survive.

According to a new poll conducted by the Pew Research Center, 54% of Egyptians want to scrap the Camp David accords that have kept an uneasy peace with Israel since 1979—in yet another blow to the credibility of Obama and all the analysts and commentators who assured the American people that the Egyptian uprising heralded the dawn of a new, secular democracy there. A significant percentage of Egyptians manifest a deeply ingrained Islamic anti-Semitism that leads them to hate Israel—and the Camp David accords—for religious reasons that are embedded within Islam, not political ones that may be susceptible to negotiation, compromise, or even rational consideration.

The resumption of military aid shows that Barack Obama doesn’t seem to mind that hostility one bit. A state can designate Israel its number one enemy and still receive military aid from the United States – military aid that it is almost certain to use against our putative allies in the Middle East, the Israelis.

Obama’s hostility to Israel runs throughout his administration. If he is reelected, and Egypt goes to war with Israel, it is not even certain that the United States would fight on Israel’s side.

"U.S. funding for Egyptian military to resume, senior administration officials say," by William Wan for the Washington Post, March 16 (thanks to Jamie):

The Obama administration intends to resume funding for Egypt’s military, despite congressional restrictions and objections from human rights and democracy advocates.

For months, the money for Egypt — more than $1.5 billion, with the bulk earmarked for the military — has been withheld amid that country’s crackdown on pro-democracy groups, including several U.S.-based organizations with close ties to political parties in Washington.

A law passed by Congress in December forbids funding unless the State Department certifies that Egypt is making progress on basic freedoms and human rights.

But Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is close to announcing plans to bypass those restrictions on national security grounds, according to senior administration officials and others who have been briefed on the deliberations but were not authorized to speak publicly. The administration believes failure to provide the funds would risk worsening already fraying ties with Egypt’s leaders, most notably the Egyptian military, which still controls the country....

National security grounds? It's now in our national security interests for Egypt to go to war with Israel?

Ninety-one percent of honor-killings worldwide occur in Muslim communities, though the religious demographics have mostly been sidestepped in reporting on this story. As usual, Qur'an 4:34 is the elephant in the room, because it validates in letter and spirit the idea of using violence to "control" supposedly disobedient women.

"'Honour' violence is acceptable, say one in five young British Asians," by Leon Watson for the Daily Mail, March 19 (thanks to all who sent this in):

A large number of young British Asians support violence against women who 'dishonour' their families, a Panorama investigation will claim today.

The hard-hitting BBC documentary reveals more than two thirds of Asians between the ages of 16 and 34 say communities should live according to 'honour' or 'izzat'.

Research carried out for the show found nearly one in five – 18 per cent – said certain acts thought to shame families were justification for violence.

The possible reasons included disobeying a father, marrying someone unacceptable or wanting to end a marriage.

Honour-related violence can include acid attacks, abduction, mutilations, beatings, and death. But 94 per cent of those questioned said there was 'never a justification' for murder.

BBC1's Panorama programme on honour killings will be screened tonight at 8.30pm.

A study of police data by the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation recorded over 2,800 honour crimes a year.

Nazir Afzal, lead prosecutor on the crimes for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: 'We don't know the true figure of honour killings. It's anything between 10 and 12 a year in this country.'

Jasvinder Sanghera, of the charity Karma Nirvana, set up a helpline for women at risk. It receives around 500 calls a month but she says this is the tip of the iceberg.

Of 500 Asians interviewed for the Panorama poll, 75 per cent of young men and 63 per cent of young women said families should live according to 'honour'.

In 2006, Banaz Mahmod, from Mitcham, south London, was strangled on the orders of her father and uncle because they thought her boyfriend was unsuitable.

Cousins Mohammed Saleh Ali and Omar hussain, both 28, were jailed for a minimum of 22 and 21 years respectively for the honour killing of the 20-year-old Iraqi Kurd.

The victim's father Mahmod Mahmod and uncle Ari Mahmod were jailed for life at the Old Bailey in 2007.

A Home Office spokesman said: 'We are determined to end honour violence.'

Even in Australia. "Petrol-bomb attack on religious group," by Adam Cooper for the Sydney Morning Herald, March 19 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

A petrol-bomb attack on a community centre has prompted fears among Melbourne’s Alevi population they could be targeted with more violence on religious grounds.

Glass bottles containing petrol and set alight were thrown at the front and rear doors of the Alevi Community Council of Australia centre in North Coburg overnight.

No one was inside the centre at the time of the incident, but a centre spokeswoman said the building’s rear door was badly burnt.

Surmeli Aydogan, the council’s community liaison officer, said the centre’s users were also concerned to find notes pinned to the fence threatening Alevis on religious grounds unless they "testified" that Allah was the only god to be worshipped.

Ms Aydogan said the centre had previously received threatening phone calls, but had dismissed them as pranks. However, she said the attack with petrol bombs had left the council's members shaken.

Alevi is a branch of the Sufi order of Shia Islam.

"We're worried this might happen again, and what if this happens when people are here? That's our main concern," she said.

"We're concerned about that as well because we have a youth group here, we have young children here, we have elderly groups. There are people at the centre every single day. It’s a cultural centre, so we do cultural things like reading poetry and dance and so forth."

Ms Aydogan said the attack had stirred painful memories for some of the city’s Alevi population, many of whom moved to Australia after years of oppression in Turkey.

"We’re an oppressed group and we’ve been denied our rights in Turkey, but we live in Australia," she said.

"We’re Australian Alevis now and this sort of thing happening here brings back memories, particularly for our elderly, of what they went through."

Fawkner police confirmed detectives were investigating the incident.

And the government? "They are not serious in addressing the grievances of minorities."

The central and provincial governments are sending the signal that no one cares, thereby rewarding the attackers, and ensuring there will be more of the same behavior. "Abduction cases, forced conversions frighten Hindus," by Shehzad Baloch for the Express Tribune, March 19 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

QUETTA: Forced conversions to Islam and increasing incidents of kidnapping have instilled a deep sense of insecurity among the Hindu community in Balochistan, said Minister for Human Rights and Minority Affairs Basant Lal Gulshan. As many as four girls and three boys of the Hindu community forcibly converted to Islam in 2011. “At least 50 Hindu families have migrated from Quetta alone,” Gulshan told The Express Tribune. “The families migrated to rural Balochistan and Sindh because their rights were not safeguarded in Quetta.”

The minister claimed that investigations have not begun in the conversion cases reported in Loralai, Chaman and Sibi.

He criticised the Balochistan government for its lack of interest on minority rights and said: “I took up the issue with Chief Minister Aslam Raisani and also discussed it on the provincial assembly floor, but they are not serious in addressing the grievances of minorities.”

He added that at least 25 people of his community have been kidnapped for ransom this year. “There were 55 cases last year and we are witnessing a sharp rise this year.”

Dr Rajesh Kumar, a pharmacist, was kidnapped in broad daylight from outside the Bolan Medical College Complex in Quetta approximately one and half month ago. His whereabouts are still unknown.

According to a rough estimate, around 200,000 Hindus reside in different parts of Balochistan and most of them are either businessmen or traders. “Criminals consider Hindus an easy target for earning money.”

Gulshan assured that as a member of the provincial cabinet, he will continue to raise his voice for his community, regardless of his reservations being ignored. “My colleagues in the cabinet often say that this is not happening only with Hindus and that Muslims are being kidnapped as well. In some way, they justify the abductions.”

In a statement, the Human Rights Organisation of Pakistan (Balochistan chapter) expressed strong concern over the kidnapping of Hindus and urged the government to curb this menace. The kidnapped pharmacist was also a member of the HRCP. They organisation has blamed influential people for the kidnappings.

This report observes that the government's policy really does appear to be to try to refuse to acknowledge the extent of situation in order to keep the peace, except that Boko Haram is ensuring there is not much peace to keep. Jihad, not peace, is the beneficiary of this approach. "As violence reigns, some flee north Nigeria," by Jon Gambrell for the Associated Press, March 19:

NNEWI, Nigeria (AP) — A town hall meeting called by Christians to discuss funeral arrangements turned into a bloodbath in northern Nigeria when members of a radical Islamist sect opened fire with assault rifles.

At least 20 members of the Igbo ethnic group died in that attack Jan. 6. More attacks have followed, targeting the largest Christian group living across Nigeria's Muslim north.

Many Igbos are now fleeing the north, even as state officials and others downplay the exodus, likely out of fear of sparking retaliatory violence.

Or, the government could get off the sidelines. Silence or civil war, both with an absentee government, need not be the only options.

The Igbo are one of the three dominant ethnic groups in Nigeria. Based in Nigeria's eastern states, the Igbo became largely Catholic after being colonized by the British.

Many became successful traders who spread throughout Nigeria. In the country's Muslim north, Igbo traders often dominate car parts sales and other markets.

That often leaves Igbo traders the most exposed during ethnic and religious violence that has routinely gripped Nigeria since independence from Britain in 1960.

"We're everywhere there's a clash between any two groups of people because we're a people who live all over the place," said Maja Emeka Umeh, the spokesman of Anambra state in Nigeria's east. "They end up killing our people."

A failed 1966 coup, led primarily by Igbo army officers, sparked violence targeting Igbo people throughout Nigeria's Muslim north. About 10,000 people died in the resulting riots and many fled back to eastern Nigeria ahead of secessionist leader Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu declaring the region and much of Nigeria's oil-producing southern delta its own nation.

Most recently, the Igbo have been targeted by the Boko Haram Islamist sect, which has killed more than 360 people this year alone, according to an Associated Press count. In a message to journalists at the start of the year, the sect threatened to begin killing Christians living in the nation's north.

The attacks came soon after. People have been fleeing, with many taking buses to other parts of Nigeria. In Nnewi, a city in the south, attendance for Masses at St. Michael De Archangel noticeably rose from those who had returned, the Rev. Michael Onyekachukwu said.

The total number of displaced people is difficult to come by. While Nigerian Red Cross officials acknowledge Igbos fled the north, they declined to offer specific figures. Government officials also downplayed the number of those fleeing, saying many had returned to the north....

According to Hamas' charter, the group is "one of the wings of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine." The Ikhwan's rise has been a game-changer for Hamas, and is already causing a shift in its alliances, notably with respect to and Iran and Syria. "Hamas clinging to Gaza as unity remains elusive," by Karin Laub and Mohammed Daraghmeh for the Associated Press, March 19:

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Efforts to reunify the Palestinians behind one leadership appear to have hit a dead end: Hamas leaders ruling the Gaza Strip have concluded that subordinating themselves to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas would be wasting a golden opportunity offered by the Arab Spring.

The thinking, as revealed in interviews with top Hamas officials, is that the regional rise of political Islam in the wake of the past year's uprisings means this is the time for their Islamic militant group to dominate.

As part of that hard line, some say Gaza — abandoned by Israeli settlers and soldiers in 2005 — should steer Palestinian politics instead of the West Bank, where Israel holds far more sway.

"We want the West Bank to come under the Gaza umbrella, simply because Gaza is liberated, and the government there is elected," said a top Hamas official, referring to 2006 parliamentary elections that produced a short-lived Hamas-led government in the West Bank and Gaza. After Hamas' violent takeover of Gaza in 2007, the Western-backed Abbas dismissed that government and appointed his own in the West Bank.

A unity deal brokered by Qatar last month was to end five years of separate governments — Hamas in Gaza and Abbas in the West Bank. Under the agreement,
Abbas is to lead an interim government of independent technocrats for several months, until elections. As interim prime minister, he would regain at least a measure of control in Gaza.

The top Hamas leader in exile, Khaled Mashaal, signed the deal without consulting with the movement, pitting him against much of the Hamas leadership in Gaza.

It was part of Mashaal's attempt to steer Hamas away from longtime patrons Iran and Syria and closer to Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, which markets a more tolerant Islam and has urged Hamas to moderate. Mashaal's pledge to Abbas last month to halt violence is part of that shift.

While the Brotherhood has urged Mashaal to make concessions for the sake of reconciliation, Gaza's Hamas leaders believe they shouldn't be asked to share control at a time when their movement is finally breaking out of its isolation.

In a test of wills, it increasingly appears that the Gazans will prevail since implementing a unity deal would require their cooperation on the ground.

"The Doha understanding is frozen now," said Azzam al-Ahmed, Abbas' point man in talks with Hamas. "It's in the refrigerator because Hamas in Gaza is against it and won't allow its implementation."
Neither side has moved toward implementing the deal since it was signed.

That may partly be due to Abbas' own reservations about an alliance with the Islamic militants, which could cost him Western backing. Aides have said Abbas wants to keep his options open until after the U.S. presidential election in November, hoping a second-term President Barack Obama, freed from domestic constraints, will push hard for a deal on Palestinian statehood.

On the other hand, Hamas figures opposing the Qatar deal say the movement should not make any decisions before the Egyptian presidential election in late May. The Brotherhood is the strongest political force in Egypt, and the presidential ballot could translate that growing influence into real power....

Hamas-linked CAIR constantly insists that Muslims in the U.S. are moderate, don't subscribe to the elements of Islamic law that conflict with the U.S. Constitution, and reject and abhor Islamic terrorism. So did Khafagi change his mind about "moderate Islam" when he went back to Egypt? Or does he think Islam should be moderate in the U.S. but not in Egypt? Or maybe he and others who are still in Hamas-linked CAIR really aren't as moderate as they'd like the foolish kuffar to assume? I confidently await the imminent explanation from Honest Ibe Hooper, clearing all this up!

Also, he says he was an "Islamist" when he came to America. Did Hamas-linked CAIR know that when they hired him?

More on this story. Egyptian Presidential Candidate and Former CAIR Official Bassem Khafagy: 'I Never Loved the US, the Infidel Country," from MEMRI, March 14:

Following are excerpts from an interview with Egyptian presidential candidate Bassem Khafagy, which aired on Al-Hekma TV on March 14, 2012:...

Interviewer : We are now hearing of billions being invested in Egypt by Iran. Do you accept such financial aid or investment in the economy of Egypt?

Bassem Khafagy : I will first examine if there are – and I'm sure there are – ulterior motives, which undermine Egypt's national security. I will not allow any threat to Egypt's national security for the sake of billions, regardless of their source – be it the Zionist entity or anyone else. I want investments in Egypt to come from friends of Egypt. Any party that wants to declare its friendship with Egypt is welcome.

Interviewer : The US, for example?

Bassem Khafagy : The US has never declared its friendship with Egypt. It declared its friendship with Mubarak. But its entire conduct… Whoever finances and supports my main enemy in the region is no friend of mine.

[…]

When I first went to America – like many Islamists who went there – I loved Islamic preaching there. I loved the place I lived in, but I never loved the US, the infidel country.

[…]

I wrote in my article that the US constitutes a criminal element in this world. All my writings in recent years explain the unacceptable Western subjugation enterprise. I discussed the RAND report, which was read by most of the Muslim world's elite. I was the first to write about this report and the first to translate it into Arabic. I was the first to expose the notion of "moderate Islam," which is used as a means to canonize a "non-Islamic Islam." I don't know why they call it "moderation." This "moderation" means violation [of the laws] of Islam.

Pope Shenouda, may his memory be eternal, "generated sectarian strife." The Muslims who burned down churches and terrorized Christians, they didn't generate any sectarian strife. Oh, no. "Egyptian Cleric Wagdi Ghoneim Praises Allah for the Death of Pope Shenouda III: 'May Allah Exact Revenge from Him in the Hellfire,'" from MEMRI, March 18:

Following are excerpts from a statement by Egyptian cleric Wagdi Ghoneim, which was posted on the Internet on March 18, 2012 :

Praise be to Allah. With the grace of Allah, the head of unbelief and polytheism, known as Shenouda, died yesterday, may Allah exact revenge from him. God's worshippers and the trees and the animals were all relieved by his death. Egypt is relieved by his [death], because he generated sectarian strife.

[…]

This dead accursed criminal, known as Shenouda, was told that the Koran says, in Surat Al-Maida: "And [beware the day] when Allah will say: Oh Jesus, Son of Mary, did you say to the people: Take me and my mother as gods beside Allah?" [Shenouda] said: "We don't take Christ and his mother as gods beside Allah. He Is God."

The truth is that he was very clear in his enmity to Islam. When the Muslim Brothers would chant their slogan: "The Koran is our constitution," he would respond: "The New Testament is our constitution." When they would say: "Death for the sake of Allah is our highest aspiration," he would say: "Death for the sake of Christ is our highest aspiration."

Note the lies and projection:

He used to say that Egypt was under Muslim occupation. He demanded to abolish the Islamic shari'a and turn Egypt into a Coptic state. […]

Are we supposed to send condolences or be sad about someone like this? We should be happy that he died. Let him go to Hell. May Allah exact revenge from him in the Hellfire – from him and from all those who follow his path....

Even the prophet of Islam misunderstands its peaceful teachings. "Egyptian Cleric Salem Abu Al-Futouh: The Prophet Muhammad Foretold the Islamic Conquest of Rome," from MEMRI, December 30, 2011:

Following are excerpts from an address by Egyptian cleric Salem Abu Al-Futouh, which aired on Al-Nas TV on December 30, 2011.

Salem Abu Al-Futouh : The Prophet Muhammad told us that Islam would spread. He told us about the Islamic conquest of Constantinople - Turkey of today - and indeed, it was conquered. He also told us about the conquest of Rome, which is Italy. People find this strange. "How can we conquer Italy?" they say. "We are too weak." You should consider the number of Muslims in that great Christian center - another person converts to Islam every day. Check on the Internet how many people want to convert to Islam in the very heart of that papal center of Christianity, on their own turf.

Brothers and sisters, Islam spread by means of the power of Allah, because it is the religion of Truth. When a Westerner whose heart is not filled with the hatred of Islam, someone who has not been raised on the hatred of Islam, begins to contemplate all the religions, he finds no other religion that respects human rights, and is in keeping with equality, justice, freedom, and democracy....

"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

In Islam, Muhammad is the supreme example of conduct (cf. Qur'an 33:21). Thus he is exemplary even in his marriage to a child: Muslims take this seriously and imitate Muhammad in this. Article 1041 of the Civil Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran states that girls can be engaged before the age of nine, and married at nine: "Marriage before puberty (nine full lunar years for girls) is prohibited. Marriage contracted before reaching puberty with the permission of the guardian is valid provided that the interests of the ward are duly observed."

The Ayatollah Khomeini himself married a ten-year-old girl when he was twenty-eight. Khomeini called marriage to a prepubescent girl "a divine blessing," and advised the faithful: "Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house."

Sharia Alert from the Islamic Republic of Iran: "At least 716 girls under the age of ten married off in Iran since 2009," from Persian2English, March 14 (thanks to Nicolai Sennels):

Persian2English – Farshid Yazdani, a member of the Association for the Defense of Children’s Rights, has raised the flag on the increasing rate of the marriage of girls under the age of 10 in Iran. He stated that in 2009, 449 girls under the age of 10 were married off. The number increased to 716 cases in 2011.

Yazdani added that the number of marriages for girls under 15 years of age has increased from 33,383 in 2006 to 35,931 in 2007, 37,996 in 2008, and 43,459 last year (please note that the dates are approximate as the statistics were given according to the Iranian calendar, which begins at the start of the Persian New Year).

According to Yazdani, the rate of marriages of girls under the age of 15 has had a 45% increase compared to marriages in other age brackets. He added that these figures are based on the statistics released by Iran’s Civil Registrations Office, and they should set off alarms for social activists and policy makers.

Translation by Siavosh Jalili for Persian2English
Persian Source: Hamshahri Online

Shakila, the ex-Muslim writing from a Muslim country, is back with a new post at her Liberated blog.

Hello, my dear friends. It has been indeed a very long time since I posted something on my blog. I guess I have been very busy elsewhere. Yeah, yeah you guys would want to know what else could be more important than my blog. Well, let me just say that I have met someone really really special and he has been the center of my attention lately. In fact, I tried writing several times but just could not get past the writer's block. I guess this is what love does to you. Though I cannot say for sure it's really love, but yes, I am totally besotted with him. I had often wondered why I am still single and why did I always end up meeting the wrong guy, in fact it was more like a pattern. The same kind of guy and the same kind of problems, so obviously it always ended on more or less the same note. But this time things have been different because this time the gentleman in question is not a Muslim. This is precisely why I am actually happy in a relationship and I don't go around saying "I hate men. All men are bastards." Because he is different, he is not like a typical man because he is not a male chauvinist Muslim man.

There is much more.

A "beacon of Islam"! Will this new Islamic London leave even Saudi Arabia in the dust, outstripping even the Kingdom of the Two Holy Places in stonings, amputations, beheadings of apostates and kuffar harbi, as well of those who mention something "impermissible" about Muhammad or Islam?

Livingstone also promised to "make your life a bit easier financially," i.e., the jizya will flow.

"Ken Livingstone: I will make London a beacon of Islam," by Andrew Gilligan in the Telegraph, March 19 (thanks to all who sent this in):

...Ken Livingstone has promised to turn London into a “beacon” for the words of the Prophet Mohammed in a sermon at one of the capital’s most controversial mosques.

Mr Livingstone, Labour’s candidate for mayor of London, pledged to “educate the mass of Londoners” in Islam, saying: “That will help to cement our city as a beacon that demonstrates the meaning of the words of the Prophet.” Mr Livingstone described Mohammed’s words in his last sermon as “an agenda for all humanity.”

He praised the Prophet’s last sermon, telling his audience: “I want to spend the next four years making sure that every non-Muslim in London knows and understands [its] words and message.” He also promised to “make your life a bit easier financially.”

Mr Livingstone was speaking at last Friday’s Jummah prayer at the North London Central Mosque, also known as Finsbury Park Mosque, formerly controlled by the terrorist recruiter Abu Hamza.

Hamza was removed in 2003 but the mosque is now controlled by an Islamist organisation, the Muslim Association of Britain, which has been linked to the banned terror group, Hamas. A man who has acted as spokesman for the current leadership, Azzam Tamimi, is on record as supporting suicide bombings. One of the mosque’s current directors, Mohammed Sawalha, is described by the BBC as a former senior figure in Hamas who “is said to have masterminded much of Hamas’s political and military strategy” from his post in London.

In 2009 Mr Sawalha also signed the Istanbul Declaration which calls for attacks against the allies of Israel, which include the UK. The British Government interpreted it as calling for attacks on British troops.

In 2010, the Labour MP Khalid Mahmood, a Muslim moderate, resigned from the mosque’s board of trustees and reported it to the Charity Commission, accusing the mosque of forging his signature on key legal documents.

Mr Livingstone has been dogged by allegations of links to Islamic fundamentalism. In 2010, in the London borough of Tower Hamlets, he campaigned against his own party’s candidate to back a controversial independent politician, Lutfur Rahman, sacked by Labour for his links to a Muslim extremist group, the Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE).

During his mayoralty, Mr Livingstone’s London Development Agency channelled hundreds of thousands of pounds to the East London Mosque in Tower Hamlets, controlled by the IFE, even though senior LDA managers strongly opposed the grant. In return, IFE activists campaigned strongly for him at the 2008 mayoral elections, boasting that they "got out the vote" for Mr Livingstone and achieving dramatic swings to him in their east London heartland.

Mr Livingstone also gave thousands of pounds of public money to the Muslim Welfare House, a charity closely associated with the Finsbury Park Mosque, which signed an open letter backing his re-election campaign in 2008....

Over at Stonegate Institute (via RaymondIbrahim.com), I list last month's atrocities, the overwhelming majority of which never made it to the mainstream media. The introduction of the report follows

Half of Iraq's indigenous Christians are gone due to the unleashed forces of jihad, many of them fleeing to nearby Syria; yet, as the Assad regime comes under attack by al-Qaeda and others, the jihad now seeps into Syria, where Christians are experiencing a level of persecution unprecedented in the nation's modern history. Likewise, some 100,000 Christian Copts have fled their native Egypt since the overthrow of the Mubarak regime; and in northern regions of Nigeria, where the jihadi group Boko Haram has been slaughtering Christians, up to 95 % of the Christian population has fled.

Meanwhile, the "big news" concerning the Muslim world in the month of February—the news that flooded the mainstream media and had U.S. politicians, beginning with President Obama, flustered, angry, and full of regret—was that copies of the Koran in Afghanistan were burned by U.S. soldiers because imprisoned Muslim inmates were using them "to facilitate extremist communications."

Categorized by theme, February's batch of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed in alphabetical order by country, not severity....

But wait -- the mainstream media, government officials, and Muslim spokesmen in the West constantly tell us that bin Laden twisted and hijacked Islam, distorting its true, peaceful teachings. How could an "introspective Muslim scholar who argued his points by using sayings of the prophet Muhammad" do that? Why do so many other "introspective Muslim scholars" misunderstand Islam in exactly the same way?

"A lion in winter," by David Ignatius for the Washington Post, March 18 (thanks to David):

...This was the lion in winter: Bin Laden was hidden in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, pacing in his courtyard, watching television, dictating messages to his wives. He was at once a worldly man, trying to run a global terror network, and an introspective Muslim scholar who argued his points by using sayings of the prophet Muhammad or citing battles waged by the prophet’s associates....

At Atlas Shrugs this morning I discuss Islam's moral critique of the West:

They hate us because we’re pigs. No, not the apes and pigs into which Allah transforms the Sabbath-breaking Jews in the Qur’an (2:62-66; 5:59-60; 7:166), but pigs as in…dogs. Wolves. Immoral, lecherous, lustful, fornicating creeps. Western immorality is a frequent feature of the Islamic critique of the contemporary West, as well as a target for the morality police of Sharia states. In the summer of 2009 Iranian authorities even published a list of hairstyles that were acceptably moral and Islamic, as opposed to “decadent” Western imports, among which were the ponytail and the mullet.

That same Western decadence is also a frequent preoccupation of Islamic jihadists. In December 2010, a Muslim named Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly set off explosives on a street in Stockholm that was crowded with Christmas shoppers, killing himself and injuring two others. His wife, who was herself later arrested for helping plan the attack, explained that Abdulwahab “disliked the decadent side of society here.”

Even some non-Muslim writers echo this critique. Dinesh D’Souza argued in his 2007 farrago The Enemy At Home that Islamic jihadists were largely motivated by rage at the West’s “social and moral corruption,” and asserted that “the Muslims who hate us the most are the ones who have encountered Western decadence, either in the West or in their own countries.”

The Catholic writer Peter Kreeft even calls upon Christians to learn from Muslims “the absoluteness of the moral laws and of the demand to be just and charitable.”

Yet writers like Kreeft and D’Souza never seem to examine the actual content of Islamic morality to see what exactly in Islam constitutes being “just and charitable.” And while Islamic supremacists rail against Western decadence, few realize that what they offer as an alternative is hardly the vision of moral uprightness that many assume. A few years ago President George W. Bush declared that we were fighting for “moms and dads in Iraq.” He might more accurately have said “moms and moms and moms and moms and dads in Iraq,” for his assumption that the Western model of the nuclear family would also be a universal in the Islamic world was not borne out either by Islamic law or the facts on the ground.

The moral universe of Islam is, indeed, radically different from the Judeo-Christian one. I have just completed a book, Not Peace But A Sword, which explores these differences in depth, but one telling incident recorded in a diary a century ago sums up a great deal of the key differences.

There is more.

As far as I know, our pacifist, ungrateful Leftist Government has still not expressed its gratitude to American politicians, nor to the American troops and their families. Personally, I think the threat will continue to grow, but definitely not as fast as it would have if the USA had spent its military budget on welfare. Translated from the Danish by Nicolai Sennels, Jyllandsposten March 17th 2012 "Signs of decrease in terror threat":

For the first time there are signs that the terrorist threat against Denmark may decrease, the Danish Defence Intelligence has assessed.

After more than a decade with an increasing and consistently high terror threat against Denmark, intelligence information for the first time suggests that the threat against Denmark may fall within a few years. Denmark is still among the highest priorities in the world among terrorists, but especially America's systematic struggle against the terrorist network Al Qaeda may have eased the pressure on Denmark, the Danish Defence's Intelligence Service, FE (Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste), says.

'There is no doubt that Al Qaida's senior leadership in Pakistan is under considerable pressure and that Al Qaeda does not operate as it did just a few years ago,' says Thomas Ahrenkiel, Chief of FE.

'Our assessment is that it will make the terrorist threat more decentralized, so that terror will mainly happen in local regions -- as we see in Somalia and Yemen. Eventually it may give a more diffuse and less focused threat against Denmark,' he says.

The FE-chief speaks of a five-year horizon, but will not be surprised if Denmark will be able to lower the threat against itself earlier than that.

However, there are several other factors that might affect the terror threat: Will the so-called homegrowns -- people brought up in Europe with a foreign background -- develop extreme views and try to carry out attacks, and what role will the militant extremists in the Middle East have after the Arab Spring?' asks Ahrenkiel.

Putting different German sources together (here, here, here, here, here and here) it seems that this is what happened:

In Neukölln, Berlin, a group of young Turks got into a fight amongst each other because they could not agree on who should retrieve a ball that had flown across a fence. Two Germans, Sven N. H. and Oliver H., passed by and tried to stop the fight. The Turks turned their anger on the two Germans, and Sven received a fist blow. The two Germans reacted by beating up the Turks. Some of the Turks called their cousins, who rushed to the place armed with knives. Even more Turks arrived, and Sven and Oliver had to flee to Oliver's house. The Turks knew where Oliver lived, and armed with knives and daggers, they arrived at his house and started throwing things at the house and shouting threats at the two Germans. Oliver fled through the garden, but Sven chose to stay. An adult Turk yelled to Sven that the young Turks outside the door just wanted to talk. As Sven came out, the Turkish group started beating him up, and Sven tried to flee down the street. Sven fell, and the pack of Turks attacked their fallen enemy. Sven stabbed Yousef Al-Abed (18) with a kitchen knife, and Yusef died. Sven was admitted to the hospital with skull fractures. The state prosecutor said that Sven was acting in self-defence and that Yusef was among the most aggressive of the attacking Muslims.

3,000 Allahu-akhbaring Muslims attended the funeral of Yusef and thereby transformed Neukölln into something out of the Gaza Strip:

Translated from German, Berliner-Zeitung, March 17: "Tense calm in Neukölln"

After the death of 18-year-old Yusef, the prosecutor has now issued a notice that Yusef evidently belonged to the more aggressive of the group of young, armed Arabs and Turks that attacked the collapsed Sven N. Now the fear of riots has increased in Neukölln (Berlin).

A few candles forming five letters, 'Yusef,' lie behind the flowers, letters, prayers, and photos. They remind us of the death of 18-year-old Yusef El-A., who died in a knife fight. A 34-year-old German named Sven N. allegedly stabbed him. This was two weeks ago. People still put flowers on Fritzi-Massary-street in Neukölln. Two girls from the neighborhood were just there. Otherwise, you hardly see any people on the street. It's so quiet you can hear the wind.

But underneath, there is a growing fear that the situation might lead to major conflicts. Last week, the prosecutor issued a notice that Yusef was probably one of the most aggressive in the group of about 20 young, armed Arabs and Turks that attacked the collapsed Sven N. So far, Yusef has been considered a victim who had stumbled into the fight by accident. The family El-A. found the prosecutor's notice hard to believe. The family does not live near the crime scene, but in the so-called white settlement in Neukölln. Many immigrants live here, almost one in two comes from the state. The local authorities have specialized in conflict resolution; there are courses for conflict mediators, street educators, mediators, and community helpers. They do not seem very successful. Yousef himself was until recently also active as a conflict mediator. The mother is a former participant in the integration project know as City Mothers.

Every day, young friends of Yusef gather in the living room of Yusef's parents. As strict religious Muslims, they have a duty to seek out the relatives of a dead Muslim brother. They exchange news, talk about what they can do. Many are suspicious of the German authorities. 'Yousef's friends are completely devastated because he is suddenly portrayed in a negative way. This will surely lead to trouble,' friends of the family say. On Facebook, friends threaten with wild anti-German insults and with vengeance. The family on the one hand wants there to be no riots, but on the other hand they fear that the name of their son will be dragged through the mud. 'The investigation is not finished yet, so why do they publish things like this?' a cousin asks. The situation is currently 'calm but tense'. The young people are just waiting for a sign from Yusef's father and they will burn down the neighborhood, they say.

Yusef's father's prudence has until now prevented riots. 3,000 Muslims from all over the city came to the funeral. It was the largest Muslim burial. The heated atmosphere was more reminiscent of the Gaza Strip than of Neukölln. The father talked in the mosque and he even showed up with the police at the youth club, where Yusef used to go. 'It is together that we have succeeded in calming emotions a bit,' says a spokesman from the police.

But the danger is not over. What if Sven N. is acquitted? The Neukölln Integration Commissioner Arnold Mengelkoch is worried that the Salafist mosques will use the situation in their propaganda. Yusef was a regular in the Al-Nur Mosque, which is observed by the German Intelligence. The propaganda will have great effect among the unemployed between 14 and 24 years old, says Mengelkoch.

The psychologist Kazim Erdogan, who has been debating with Arab-Turkish fathers, has observed that religious Muslims want to interfere. 'This we must not allow.' He is concerned about the increasing influence of religion among the youth. There are at least 20 mosques in Neukölln, maybe even 32.

For Mengelkoch, the case of Yusef is a problem for Neukölln. 'Arab family clans appear regularly in hospitals and schools in order to make ruckus over trifles.' Mostly in groups, usually armed. For Yusef it was fatal.'

Wait 'til he finds out the meat dress wasn't halal. "Lady Gaga's Jakarta Concert Is Haram, Declares MUI Chairman," by Anita Rachman & Arientha Primanita for the Jakarta Globe, March 18:

A high-ranking member of Indonesia’s highest Islamic authority has urged Muslims not to attend Lady Gaga’s upcoming concert in Jakarta, declaring that the pop star known for her sexy and controversial outfits was forbidden under Islamic law.

“[The concert is] intended to destroy the nation’s morality,” said Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI) chairman Cholil Ridwan, who added that he had never watched the singer perform and only heard of her “reputation” second-hand.

He urged Lady Gaga fans to return their tickets for the June 3 concert at Gelora Bung Karno and ask for a refund.

More than 25,000 tickets to the Jakarta leg of Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way Ball” tour were sold in less than two hours on March 10, the first day the tickets were available.

Cholil took exception with Lady Gaga’s revealing outfits and sexualized dance moves, claiming that a female dangdut singer who wore similar costumes would also be haram.

But he claimed Lady Gaga was worse. "She is from the West, and she often shows her aurat [private parts of the body] when performing," Cholil said.

While he was aware that many Western singers have already performed in Indonesia, Cholil said maybe it was time to put an end to these "cultural attacks."

He worried that this kind of performance would only encourage young Muslims in the country to do the same. But he added that watching the concert was still the call of Indonesia's Muslim youth.

But another MUI chairman, Slamet Effendi Yusuf, said Cholil’s words were only his personal opinion. The organization has not issued a haram fatwa, a move that would require all MUI chairmen to reach a consensus.

Personally, Slamet said, he had no problem with young Muslims seeing Lady Gaga’s concert.

“I am sure they know what is good and bad,” he said. “However, I hope Lady Gaga can also wear a proper [dress] in her show.”

The imam of Istiqlal Mosque, Ali Mustafa Yaqub, on the other hand, said that while Lady Gaga herself was not haram, watching a barely clothed woman perform was. “Perform naked only in front of your husband,” he said....

They are setting a precedent that will quickly come back to haunt them. An update on this story. "Libyan police too scared to arrest cemetery vandals despite capturing three who desecrated graves," from the Daily Mail, March 17:

Police in Libya captured three members of an armed mob that desecrated British war graves in Benghazi – but released them after a few hours because they were ‘too dangerous’.

The extremists, who admitted smashing the gravestones with sledgehammers, belong to an Islamist militia with links to Al Qaeda.

During questioning, police were so nervous they made the men wear blindfolds so they would not be able to identify their interrogators.

‘We had no option but to release them, even though they admitted criminal damage,’ a senior officer told The Mail on Sunday.

‘We have no control over these men, they are too dangerous, they have more weapons. We have arrested members of this brigade in the past and their fellow fighters raided the police station to get them out.’

To worldwide outrage, this newspaper revealed two weeks ago that 150 memorials were systematically overturned, many of them shattered, while a sandstone cross was smashed.

It happened at a cemetery outside Benghazi, the headquarters of anti-Gaddafi forces during last year’s revolution.

Many of the servicemen buried there were members of the 7th Armoured Division, the Desert Rats, who helped turn the tide of the war in North Africa against Rommel’s forces between 1941 and 1943.

This newspaper has discovered that those responsible are members of a Salifist sect called the Rafallah al-Sahaty Brigade that follows an ultra-purist interpretation of Islam.

It wasn't about the Qur'an burnings. It was about the crosses and the graves.

Soldier Sanad Albeidi, who filmed the desecration, said: ‘I realised they were from the Rafallah al-Sahaty. 'I knew it would be too dangerous to try to stop them. I thought they might be going to dig up some bodies so I filmed them to get evidence.

A reasonable concern. They have already dug up graves.

‘I posted my film on YouTube so the world could see the damage these men were doing, and the insult to British war heroes.’

"It was possible the group had been planning to carry out attacks on Thursday, the eve of Nyepi, or the annual Day of Silence marking Bali's Hindu New Year."

"Indonesia police shoot dead suspected militants in Bali: media," from Reuters, March 18:

(Reuters) - Indonesian counter-terrorism police have shot dead five men suspected of planning a series of attacks on the resort island of Bali, scene of a night-club bombing in 2002 which killed about 200 people, media reported on Monday. Police counter-terror unit Detachment 88 stormed two separate addresses on Bali, in the capital Denpasar and at a hotel in Sanur, on Sunday night, Australian media said, quoting Australian Associated Press (AAP).

Three men were killed at the hotel in Sanur, an area popular with foreign tourists, and two at the Denpasar location.

AAP quoted police as saying the raids had been linked and that those killed had resisted arrest or tried to escape.

Firearms and ammunition were recovered from both addresses, but Bali Police spokesman Hariadi declined to say if any explosives had been discovered.

AAP quoted another senior police officer as saying, on condition of anonymity, that it was possible the group had been planning to carry out attacks on Thursday, the eve of Nyepi, or the annual Day of Silence marking Bali's Hindu New Year.

Balinese traditionally hold large parades on the eve of Nyepi, which also draw large numbers of tourists, AAP said.

The killings follow the start of a trial last month of an Islamic militant accused of making the bombs used in the 2002 Bali nightclub attack, many of the Australians.

Umar Patek, who was captured in the same Pakistan town where U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden, is also accused of mixing chemicals for 13 bombs that detonated in five churches in Jakarta on Christmas Eve, 2000, and killed around 15 people.
Security officials say he belonged to the banned Jemaah Islamiah group linked to al Qaeda.

The Bali bombs were a watershed for Indonesia, which has the world's largest Muslim population, forcing the secular state to confront the presence of violent militants on its soil.

... which it still does somewhat selectively. It is generally more serious about jihadists with international connections than with homegrown thugs who target non-Muslims (see also: the Ahmadi lynchings, and the mayor of Bogor).

Ever get the feeling you're just being used? "Israeli leftist activists: We are being sexually harassed in the West Bank," from Haaretz, March 18 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

The activist sent the letter to her friends at Anarchists Against the Wall, in which she wrote of the incidents of sexual harassment she had experienced in Kfar a-Dik, a West Bank village where the organization holds protests in support of the Palestinians from time to time.

This correspondence, along with other testimonies obtained by Haaretz, tells of a wider phenomenon of sexual harassment and assault of Israeli and foreign protesters in the West Bank. In the past two years, at least six incidents were recorded in the West Bank and East Jerusalem: two in Sheikh Jarrah, four more in the Mount Hebron area, in Masra, in Kfar a-Dik, and an alleged case of attempted rape in Umm Salmona, near Bethlehem, that was revealed in Haaretz.

Recently, a special forum was started by a group of women from leftist groups for the purpose of dealing and monitoring such incidents. “The objective is to learn the subject,” says one of the group’s members. “We want to develop tools and guidelines for creating an environment with fewer cases of harassment.”

Protesters were asked to dress in a way that was considerate

The popular protests of Israeli and foreign leftist activists alongside Palestinians had already began in the middle of the previous decade, but had become more popular in recent years. The protests in Bil’in and Sheikh Jarrah have become points of pilgrimage for activists on the left from Israel and abroad, who join the Palestinians in protest every Friday, when these protest usually take place. In Sheikh Jarrah the protest began when Palestinians were evicted from their homes that were returned to their Israeli owners by court order. In other organization, activists help Palestinians under constant harassment of settlers in places such as south Mount Hebron.

The joint activity of Israeli leftist activists on one side and local Palestinians on the other has created rare cases of cooperation in this time of conflict. But at the same time, complaints of sexual harassment by Palestinians started to emerge. In April 2010, an American peace activist filed a complaint against a Palestinian, charging he had tried to rape her. The suspect was later freed when the activist withdrew her complaint.

Hanna Beit Halachmi, a longtime leftist feminist activist, says the outcry began in the spring of 2010, when the organization Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity, issued a message requesting that the female activists arrive to the protests dressed in a manner that is considerate toward the residents.

The statement created a rift between the organization's female activists and male activists who said their response was exaggerated. Soon after, the activists began holding meetings in which they discussed, among other issues, the issue of sexual harassment.

Alongside the struggle against the sexual harassment, the female activists have criticized the responses of their Israeli associates. The ire of many of the activists in the past and in the present is directed at their associates in the left who, according to them, are belittling the significance of the harassments, all in the name of “the opposition to the occupation.”...

The elephant in the room is Qur'an 4:34, and somehow, once again, people in the Muslim world are following what it says, and not some fanciful rationalization from the HuffPo Tafsir Bureau. That tactic is nothing new, of course, but helping to perpetuate the real and ongoing suffering of untold numbers of women by turning a blind eye to the texts that endorse domestic violence seems to be a price the apologists are willing to pay.

"‘50% Pakistan urban women get beaten by their husbands’," from Asian News International, March 17 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

Fifty percent of women in Pakistan’s urban areas admit that their husbands beat them, a 2009 US State Department report on Pakistan has revealed.

In 2009, efforts were in progress to come out with a new domestic violence law in Pakistan. A private bill on domestic violence had been passed in the National Assembly in 2009, which required approval by the Pakistani Senate.

However, the Council of Islamic Ideology’s (CII) warning that a law against domestic violence will ‘push up divorce rates’ coupled with Mohammad Khan Sheerani’s objections (of the JUI-F), led to a deferment of the hearing in the Senate. Since then the government has not paid much attention to the matter and the bill has lapsed, The Express Tribune reports.

It appears that due to a fault within our social structure, even urban women not only tend to have a high tolerance for domestic violence, but also are often at the forefront of inflicting pain on other women.

The attack destroyed some windows, but what is worse than this particular incident is that it may not be the last. As this report notes, the getaway vehicle yielded more information on the church and other planning documents. Like the Yasmin Church in Bogor, it has been "put on the map," so to speak, for harassment and persecution. "West Java: gun attack on Protestant church, attackers arrested," by Mathias Hariyadi for Asia News, March 18:

Jakarta (AsiaNews) - The two alleged perpetrators of the attack on a Protestant church in Indramayu - city of West Java, about 120 km east of Jakarta - late morning yesterday were arrested within a few hours of the attack in Bandung. So far the police have not released the identities of two men known only by their initials who are in their 30s. One of the accused, according to leaked information from the investigations, is a native of Bandung, while the place of origin of his accomplice has not yet been ascertained.

Sitompul Martin, West Java police spokesman, confirmed the arrest, adding that investigators are looking into the motive behind the attack. Local sources confirm that they saw the pair of men wandering around noon yesterday near the main building of the Protestant church Gereja Kristen Indonesia (Gki, better known as Yasmin Church), the two opened fire, apparently using air guns loaded with lead bullets.

A part of the church windows were destroyed, but the complex did not suffer other serious damage. It seems that the authors of the attack were driving a luxury VW Caravelle minivan that only wealthy people can buy.

The church of Indramayu Gki overlooks the main street of the city, connecting the capital Jakarta with all the towns on the eastern island of Java. Investigators have seized some documents from the vehicle used for the attack, which include among others a map of the place of Christian worship, and some "important" targets located in different cities on the archipelago.

In Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, religious freedom is protected by the state, but there are attacks against Christian targets or violations to the free practice of religion. The most famous case in recent months regards the faithful of the Yasmin Church in Bogor, the center of a bitter feud with the local mayor who - despite a Supreme Court ruling - refuses to grant freedom of worship.

There is no reliable freedom of worship because there is no reciprocal freedom of religion. While the letter of the law still says otherwise, backdoor enforcement of Sharia through the use (or disregard) of existing laws increasingly paves a one-way street for Islam.

In the American Thinker this morning I explain why:

The Afghan mission is imploding, and the Obama administration is covering for Islamic jihadists. Last week, Marine officials revealed that a Marine killed on February 1 in what the Pentagon called "combat operations" at the time was actually murdered by a jihadist in the Afghan army. The cover-up of this latest jihad attack from a supposed ally is emblematic of a failed mission. It is long past time to end the mission in Afghanistan.

Hamid Karzai has said that he wants Afghan forces to take control of the nation's security in 2013, not 2014 as American officials are planning. Karzai is a scoundrel, but he is right about this, albeit for the wrong reasons. This mission is foredoomed. There is no clearly defined goal, and in any case, any goal worth reaching is impossible to achieve. There is no bringing democracy or humane values to a sharia state, and in any case, we already gave the Karzai regime a sharia constitution, so we aren't really even trying to do anything effective for women or non-Muslims or the freedom of speech or the freedom of conscience. We're fighting against an enemy that the vice president of the United States says is not an enemy, and that our client president of Afghanistan threatens to join. How long is this madness going to continue?

In ten years, American troops (through no fault of their own, although the same cannot be said of their superiors) have accomplished little or nothing in terms of establishing a stable and democratic government in Afghanistan. This is true despite the loss of thousands of lives of noble and courageous American military personnel who deserved better from those in command, and the wanton waste of billions of dollars. The Taliban is still a potent force -- so strong that both Karzai and Obama have made overtures to it. The Taliban's claim of Islamic authenticity strongly resonates with the Afghan people and provides an ever-renewable wellspring of material, financial, and moral support for these vicious thugs as they bomb girls' schools, music stores, and other outcroppings of jahiliyya -- the infidels' society of ignorance.

The Taliban are thoroughly repulsive and reprehensible, but Karzai's regime is little better. Two American administrations have spoken about bringing democracy and freedom to Afghanistan, and yet neither has been able or willing to face the fact that the foremost obstacle to those goals is Islam, which respects neither....

There is more.

Here is an extraordinarily informative ABN special on Islamic honor killing. It is essential viewing from beginning to end, but be sure to catch Darwin Jiles, friend of honor killing victim Jessica Mokdad. Jiles comes in around the one hour, 32 minute mark, and explodes the claims from some members of Jessica's family, that her murder was not an honor killing. Pamela Geller has a transcription of Jiles's revelations:

Jiles: I’d just like to say first and foremost, David, I’d just like to say thank you, Pamela, for being able to host this conference in honor of Jessica, from someone who actually knew her, who actually she confided in and who heard her cry, who actually witnessed the actual fear that she lived in. I just want to say thank you for that….

Jessica was a very beautiful person inside and out. She was definitely someone who really wanted to basically discover God for herself. She was someone who wanted to have liberties, like every other young lady that is born in America outside of the traditions of Islam are able to do, to pursue her own happiness and to pursue her own dreams. And I can say for sure, of knowing her, of hearing the issues that she actually faced on both sides of her family, she was very conflicted, and she lived in fear of even her life possibly ending up in this situation that happened, with her being murdered in cold blood….

She had disputes on both sides. And the very most disturbing thing that I’ve witnessed is the stepmother Cassandra pretty much parading everything as if, like, she was just her daughter, like they had this good relationship, this wasn’t an Islamic thing, when I witnessed Cassandra personally being wrapped up in her head covering as well whenever she would be out in public, and Jessica would wear it when she was with her family, and when she wasn’t with her family, she let it be very known that she didn’t want to wear it, that she did not want to be a part of this forced Islamic religion. She was very clear with that to me. And so Cassandra really is portraying a false picture. And Pamela has every right to place the conference to be named after Jessica in regards to this, because it was Islam that caused her death.

She was considered a rebel, from her mom’s – both sides of her family. From her mom and stepdad to her biological father and also the stepmother. The stepmother, Cassandra, is only a few years older than Jessica, so there was a very much conflict between the two. A lot of competition. Jessica felt she was jealous of her. She felt as if she could not be her mother. Because she was a peer of hers. And so when you have that type of turmoil on both sides, she was trapped. She didn’t have anyone, and this is where I came into play, of meeting her, and I’ve known her for close to two years now, of being in her life, when she lived in Grand Blanc, when she left for Milwaukee, and even when she came back.

Q: So you knew her – so originally she lived in Michigan, then she moved away, and then she came back. Do you have any idea why she moved away in the first place?

Jiles: From what she expressed to me, was that there was conflicts at home with her stepmother and her biological father. She was actually starting to date a Caucasian male, and it was some issues revolving around that, and there was problems at home. There was serious problems, and she felt the need, I guess, to express these things to me, this is not made up, this is not something that I’m just creating. From the time I met her, this was probably ninety percent of what she talked about to me. And being a person who more so felt her bondage, I listened.

And make sure you register for our Jessica Mokdad Human Rights Conference on honor killings on April 29th in Dearborn, Michigan. Register here.

Translated by Nicolai Sennels from the Danish Free Speech Society's internet magazine sappho.dk, March 14th 2012. "Death threats – it's something you get used to":

He is on al-Qaeda's death list and in his garden the Swedish security police is keeping watch around the clock. Despite all this, the Swedish artist Lars Vilks accepts his destiny with equanimity. Sappho.dk has visited the man who refused to go underground.

It is Friday afternoon in early March. The sun shines and the car glides slowly through the flat countryside of Skåne in southern Sweden.

I am going to visit Lars Vilks. The man who enraged Muslims because he drew a picture of their prophet as a dog.

I have a lot to ask him. What is it like to be on al-Qaeda's hit list and have a security detail in your garden? Has he had any regrets after publishing his drawings in 2007?

"Lars Vilks, Artist"

But first I need to find him. And that is surprisingly easy.

The Swedish Yellow Pages make no attempt to hide his address: "Lars Vilks, Artist" it says loud and clear, followed by city, street name and number. If you want the GPS coordinates, you can also get them.

So I am now driving along Brunnbyvägen outside Nyhamnsläge – a tiny village north of Helsingborg.

Neighbors are far between and besides empty fields there is little to see. It is difficult to understand why al-Qaeda has marked this place on their maps.

On the right-hand side of the road an isolated house comes into view. I turn into a small dirt road that leads up to the house.

The guards in the garden

As soon as I leave the paved road, I spot him – a big security guard in uniform who is writing down my license plate number. A camper is parked behind him. That is where the guard and his colleagues sleep and eat. For they protect Vilks around the clock.

The camper and its permanent occupants are the Swedish government's response to the growing threats against the controversial man from Skåne.

I get out of the car, say hello to the guard and hear footsteps behind me. To my astonishment, a huge, silver-gray Saab is suddenly parked behind my car. I have no idea where it came from. I neither saw nor heard it coming.

The two men in the car turn out to be from the Swedish security police, Säpo.

They are friendly and obliging and ask to see my ID. They also ask for details about my appointment. How long do I expect it will take? Have I met Lars before? Etc.

A familiar face?

My answers appear satisfactory and one of the men tells me to follow him. We wade through what can best be described as a puddle and reach a ramshackle house.

The Säpo officer walks up a flight of stairs leading to the front door. He knocks, and after a brief moment, Lars Vilks appears.

He is wearing blue jeans, a sweater and heavy black sunglasses. His gray hair sticks out in all directions and looks like something that has long been in need of a comb. Other than that the 65-year-old artist looks healthy and agile.

"Is that a familiar face?" asks the Säpo officer and points at me.

"It certainly is," answers Vilks and invites me inside.

Home and workshop

On closer inspection of Vilks' house, it turns out that he fully lives up to the image of the eccentric artist living happily in the midst of chaos and rarely tidying up. In addition to that he is a bachelor.

As a result the small house is crammed with books, drawings and paintings. Books lie in heaps on the floor and are stacked in bookshelves along the walls. Not to mention brushes and tubes of paint in all colors. I understand that the house serves as both home and workshop.

It is in this room under the low-hanging crystal chandelier with its crooked lampshades that Vilks produces his traffic circle dogs – the very drawings of the Prophet that radically changed his life.

I bend down to take off my muddy boots.

"There's no need," says Vilks. "It's not very clean here."

So I find a vacant corner in the living room's well-worn sofa. Vilks sits down on a kitchen chair and declares himself ready to be interviewed.

Welcome to my creation!

Actually, it should not surprise me now that I've read a bit about Vilks' concept of art.

Still I am a bit surprised when halfway through our conversation he points out that I am now an official part of his artistic creation, i.e. his drawing of the prophet dog that got the ball rolling.

The drawing is only a small part of his gesamtkunstwerk, he explains.

All those who have responded to the drawing are also included. And now I am sitting here and interviewing him about it. Consequently, I have become a part of his work just like those who have tried to kill him and the security guards outside. We are all in the same boat – we are all a part of Vilks' work.

Art for freedom

It sounds as if you planned it all from the start. Did you anticipate this development?

"No, absolutely not," laughs Vilks. "Coincidences have played a role."

"Many have made such drawings before me – without creating much of a stir. My drawing was not even intended for publication in a newspaper. I really thought that it could be kept within the safe environment of the art world."

Are you proud of your creation?

"I won't say that I'm proud. But I think it's an interesting work. With very few artistic effects I've managed to create a piece of art that expresses the essence of multiculturalism versus free speech. Through my art I have always worked for greater freedom – including freedom of expression – so I am very pleased."

Had to flee from Tensta

Since the publication of his drawings back in 2007, threats against him have multiplied. He has been physically attacked during lectures and two Muslim immigrants have tried to kill him by setting fire to his house.

Not to mention a number of people arrested by the security service before they could implement their assassination plans.

The latest episode took place on March 1st 2012, when Vilks was to attend a lecture. The event took place in the art hall in Tensta – a suburb of Stockholm with many immigrants. It only took moments before Lars Vilks was recognized.

Several times a bunch of angry young men entered the art hall in an attempt to get hold of him. More young men flocked outside. Eventually Vilks' security guards evacuated him.

Stockholm bomber was the last straw

But is was back in 2010 that the Intelligence Service took the decision to provide their compatriot with guards around the clock. It was just after a suicide bomber had blown himself up in central Stockholm.

The bomber left a recorded threat to the Swedish people mentioning Lars Vilks.

Two additional episodes had made the threat against Vilks very clear.

In a speech the Iranian President had expressed his desire to see Vilks sent off to a place of no return and al-Qaeda in Iraq had issued fatwa promising a reward of $ 150,000 to whoever would slit the Swede's throat.

This made the Intelligence Service respond.

All will be well

What is it like to live with death threats and security guards round the clock?

"The threats are of course a relatively new experience. But you can actually learn to live with them. Those who threaten rarely make good on their threats."

"Besides, I'm quite optimistic by nature. I believe that all will be well if you keep your cool and think strategically. However, it is clear that some practical things have become more difficult. It's hard to improvise with security guards in tow, so things must be planned in advance."

Do you regret that you ever put pen to paper?

"No, I have no regrets. One shouldn't think like that. As an artist one must accept the consequences of one's actions. History is full of artists whose fate was far worse than mine."

Refused to go underground

But the security situation is not only cumbersome for Vilks, it is also costly for the Swedish state, which was why the Security Service had preferred a different solution.

"They wanted me to change identity and go underground. But I didn't find that realistic. As an artist and lecturer I cannot be anonymous. It would be too high a price to pay.
"In the beginning I had a hide-away, where I could stay nights. But that became too unpractical, so now I sleep here, surrounded by alarms and all kinds of electronic hardware."

The alarm systems that Säpo has installed are not quite infallible, says Vilks. Now and again they are triggered because some cat or other animal has entered the premises.

Artist with an axe

Clearly Lars Vilks is not the type that would overdramatize his situation. But when the alarm goes off and he lies asleep on the first floor, he admits that thoughts go through his head. "One cannot help speculating if one should go downstairs to see what's up," he says with a grin.

To make the decision a little easier, he always has a big axe by his side – even as we sit here talking.

"It has a good swing," he says, and demonstrates how it is done."

Good news and bad news

What do you think your life will look like in five years?

"It's hard to say but I do not think they will manage to kill me. Today, terrorism is based largely on amateurs. When they tried to burn down my house, they set fire to themselves, etc. On the other hand they have become less predictable," says Vilks and look out the window.

"You could say that there is good news and bad news about the future."

Art goes on

In any case, he intends to go on expanding his creation.

He proved that the other day, when his lecture at the University of Karlstad was interrupted. A group of Muslim men started shouting threats and throwing eggs.

One of the eggs survived the flight and Vilks took it home as a souvenir and wants to show it to me.

"Here it is," he shouts from his small kitchen. A moment later he produces it. It has been emptied of content and been embellished with a fine little drawing of Muhammad.

You continue where you left off?

"Yes."

The interview is drawing to a close because a journalism student from Gothenburg has announced his arrival. He would also like to learn more about the world according to Vilks. For now, however, it is the student that is being questioned by the guards outside. Has he met Vilks before? How long does he expect the interview will take?

The young man probably does not know yet. But he has already become a part of Vilks' work."

Get your copy of Lars Vilks' world famous picture 
of Muhammad in the traffic circle – and support Lars Vilks and free speech.

The Free Press Society has printed a limited edition of 1000 signed and numbered by the artist. See it here.

In a climate of fear created and perpetuated by Islamic supremacists, all one needs to do in order to be vulnerable to accusations of proselytizing is to be visible in daily life as a non-Muslim. To be involved in charitable or philanthropic work also makes one a competitor: the "vilest of creatures" (Qur'an 98:6) and offspring of "apes and pigs" (Qur'an 2:62-66; 5:59-60; and 7:166) ought not to be seen in a positive light. That would be bad for business. "Militants kill American teacher in Yemen," by Mohammed Ghobari for Reuters, March 17 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

SANAA (Reuters) - Gunmen linked to al Qaeda shot dead an American teacher in Yemen on Sunday for Christian "proselytizing", and officials said government forces had killed a dozen militants in clashes and attacks on their strongholds.

The incidents underscore the challenges facing President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who took office last month after a year of massive protests against his predecessor Ali Abdullah Saleh.

A police source in the city of Taiz said a gunman riding on a motorcycle driven by an accomplice shot the U.S. English language teacher, who was also deputy director of a language school, the Swedish Institute.

Officials from the institute in Taiz, Yemen's commercial hub 200 km (120 miles) south of Sanaa, identified the victim as Joel Shrun and said he was born in 1983.

There was no immediate comment from the U.S. embassy.

The gunmen, who escaped after the attack, were believed to be linked to al Qaeda, the police source said. A group affiliated with the militant network claimed responsibility.

"This operation comes as a response to the campaign of Christian proselytizing that the
West has launched against Muslims," an unidentified person said in a text message to journalists, claiming responsibility on behalf of the al Qaeda-linked Ansar al-Sharia (Partisans of Islamic Law).

The message called Shrun "one of the biggest American proselytizers".

Islamic militants often accuse Western aid groups of covert religious missionary work....

It is not news that the ISI is out of control and unaccountable within Pakistan. But here is an account of how it has been allowed to happen. "An ISI coup in the Pakistan military," by Najam Sethi for the Daily Mail, March 17:

The army was constitutionally mandated to be an arm of the Pakistan state. All the organs of the state, in turn, were supposed to be subservient to the executive of the day.

In time to come, however, the army through the office of the COAS seized the commanding heights of the state, amended the constitution and subordinated other institutions to its own ends.

Thus, even when elected civilians were nominally in office, the COAS ruled the roost in all critical areas of domestic and foreign policy.

But something even more sinister has been transforming the civil-military landscape in recent decades.

This is the creeping consolidation of the ISI through its DG from an arms-length intelligence directorate (Interservices Intelligence Directorate) in the first three decades of independent Pakistan to its metamorphosis in the last three decades as an unaccountable and all-powerful 'deep state within the state' that now controls both military strategy and civilian national security policy.

The unprecedented appointment of a serving DG-ISI as COAS (General Ashfaq Kayani) by President Pervez Musharraf was the first step in this direction.

The second was Kayani's own decision to routinely rotate senior serving ISI officers to positions of control in the army and vice-versa, coupled with his insistence on handpicking the appointment or extension in service of the DG-ISI.

Together, they reflect a cold new reality. The ISI has walked into GHQ and seized control of the military. This is a deeply troubling development because it violates the established order of all militaries in democratic societies that have consciously striven to keep intelligence services at arms length from GHQ because of concerns that soldiers and commanders in the field should not get contaminated by cloak and dagger spooks in unmarked cars and buildings.

That is why Gen Zia kicked DG-ISI Gen Akhtar Abdul Rehman upstairs to Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee in 1977 instead of giving him command of soldiers on the ground. That is why COAS Gen Asif Nawaz reluctantly brought back DGISI Gen Asad Durrani to GHQ in 1992 and sidelined him there in Training and Evaluation Dept, and that is why COAS Gen Abdul Waheed first prematurely retired Gen Durrani from service in 1994 and recommended Chief of Staff Gen Jehangir Karamat as his COAS successor rather than DG-ISI Gen Javed Ashraf Qazi.

That is why the CIA, R&AW, MI6, KGB, MOSSAD etc remain civilian Intel agencies under full civilian control even though soldiers may be seconded to them or head them occasionally. THE ISI's meteoric rise dates back to the 1980s when it was mandated by General Zia to be the official but secret conduit for tens of billions of dollars of arms and funds from the U.S. and Saudi Arabia to be used by the Mujahideen against the Soviets in Afghanistan. [...]

The ISI's silent coup against GHQ is problematic. For starters, it has eroded the credibility and capacity of both the DGISI and COAS. ISI's spectacular failures (Benazir's assassination, Mumbai, Raymond Davis case, missing persons, Memogate, Mehrangate, Abbottabad, Get- Zardari, Saleem Shehzad case) are all GHQ's failures simultaneously no less than GHQ's loss of over 3000 soldiers to the Pakistani Taliban and the terrorist attacks on GHQ and Mehran Navy Base on account of the ISI's failure to formulate a proper strategy to pursue the war against terrorism by distinguishing between friends and foes, allies and liabilities....

KUALA LUMPUR: Effective July 1, the Islamic Development Department (Jakim) will fine and jail food operators who fail to display halal certificate and logo.

Halal hub division director Hakimah Mohd Yusoff said monitoring will be done in cooperation with the Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism Ministry.

"We will visit every premise from March 31 to educate food operators on the need to obtain the halal certificate and not only display the halal logo," she said Friday.

Only halal certificates and halal logos issued by Jakim and the Federal Territory Islamic Religious Department (Jawi) are recognised.

"Halal certificates issued by the private sector are not recognised and operators who display them will be dealt with. This is stipulated under Section 16 of Domestic Trade Act 2011." Hakimah said until February, a total of 1,420 applications for halal certificates had been received. - Bernama

This certificate amounts to yet another thinly-disguised 'jizya' tax, as 80% of Malaysia's food industry is owned and/or operated by non Muslims. Each 'Halal certificate' costs a reported RM1000, which is about 300 U.S. dollars. As each and every food item sold at a restaurant must be 'certified as halal', a Malaysian restaurant could easily be forced to spend up to hundreds of thousands of ringgit to become properly 'halal certified'. There's no telling how much this is going to cost the Malaysian economy, or how many businesses will be forced under. But Malaysian Muslims do have their priorities.

More on this story. The arrangement of "half for us, half for all the rest of you" allows the Islamic parties to go through the motions of seeking input from other parties, but with substantial leverage to say "that's nice," and do what they please.

The Muslim Brotherhood is cast here as the more moderate party for presently appearing unlikely to change the current wording in the constitution which states that Islam is the religion of state and that Sharia is the principal source of legislation. But that is all the blank check they need to do what they will. It also gives them more latitude to bend the rules and go over the heads of certain clerics when it suits them than the "hardliner" proposal to make Islam the only source of legislation. That could tie their hands at some point, and give their rivals an advantage.

The Ikhwan is an Islamic supremacist movement, but it is also a self-serving political entity that has already shown an ample propensity for cronyism and corruption, which it is doing again here by seeking a controlling share of the constitutional panel for the legislatures which it dominates.

"Egypt's Islamists to play key role in constitution," by Aya Batrawy for the Associated Press, March 17:

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's Islamist-dominated parliament on Saturday voted overwhelmingly in favor of ensuring that its own lawmakers make up a large portion of a panel writing the country's first constitution after the ouster of longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak.

Lawmakers at a joint meeting of both houses approved a quota giving lawmakers half of the seats on a 100-member panel that will draft the new constitution.

The remaining 50 panel members will be chosen by parliament, and are likely to be legal experts, academics and Muslim and Christian scholars.

The makeup of the panel has been hotly debated. Islamists, who dominate the newly elected parliament, wanted lawmakers to have a significant role in the panel. But many Christians and liberals had pushed for more outsiders on the constitution writing body.

Amr Hamzawy, a lawmaker from a minority liberal party, said that the quota selected on Saturday is not representative enough of women, youth and other segments of Egyptian society who have little to no representation in parliament.

"What happened today lessens the chance for a wide representation of the country," Hamzawy said, adding that he voted to have only 30 lawmakers on the panel. "I would have liked that there are less members of parliament."

The Muslim Brotherhood, the country's most powerful political party, has promised that the constitution will be inclusive and are not likely to support changing key wording from its current state about the role of Islam in the government. The current language says the state religion is Islam and the principle of Islamic Sharia law is the main source of legislation.

However, some ultraconservative Muslims have called for the article to be changed to read that Islamic law is the only source of legislation — a proposal opposed by liberals and moderate Islamists.

The 678-member newly-elected parliament is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, which controls nearly half of seats in the more powerful lower house. Ultraconservatives from within the Al-Nour party control about a quarter of the seats.

Although ideologically different, together the two parties will appoint a number of members from within their own ranks, giving them a formidable presence on the constitutional panel and a strong voice in the process.

The panel is supposed to be selected by March 24. Once the panel is seated, it will have six months to draft the constitution and then put it to a national referendum.

This development is ironic in light of a recent report that ran at Bikya Masr, which played up women's access to divorce as a reason that was said to attract them to convert from Coptic Christianity to Islam. But as Sharia takes hold in Egypt in greater strength, that may yet turn out to be one more deception, one more strategically stated half truth to gain converts by hook or by crook.

One who converted for the divorce rights under the current, separate personal status laws for Muslims may be sorely disappointed at some point in the future. "Egyptian lawmaker proposes to limit women's right to divorce," from ZeeNews, March 18 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

Cairo: An Egyptian lawmaker has proposed a controversial draft law to limit the legal provisions for women to divorce or separate from their husbands.

Mohamed al-Omda, deputy head of the People's Assembly's Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee, has submitted the draft to cancel a woman's right to divorce (Khula) or separate from her husband, privately-owned Al-Shorouk newspaper reported today.

Khula is the right of a woman in Islam to divorce or separate from her husband.

The term "Khula" is used here somewhat interchangeably in two senses: in the sense in accordance in Sharia, and as an umbrella term for women's access to divorce, even where lawmakers intend to roll back that option for women.

In the bill's explanatory memorandum, Omda said women's right to divorce through courts was granted to satisfy the National Council for Women (NCW), which was chaired by former first lady Suzanne Mubarak, allegedly to save women from persecution in eastern countries.

Sharia has been under siege since then, Omda claimed. In 2000, the parliament issued a law on the regulation of litigation procedures in personal status matters.

The law applied Sharia, in which the woman can obtain a divorce if she returns the financial settlement her husband paid her when they married. If a husband refuses to divorce his wife, the woman has the right to petition a judge in order to obtain to a divorce.

This law applies only to Muslim women as Christian women have a separate personal status law.

In recent months, the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party has launched an attack on laws regulating personal status in the country.

They accuse the NCW of implementing Western strategies to spoil the family and social life in Egypt.

Last week, a number of Islamist MPs criticised the Khula law and the law regulating child custody, saying they contradict Sharia.

Hizballah is not a resistance group. It is a long recognized jihad terrorist organization that was responsible, one might recall, for the 1983 massacre of 241 members of the U.S. Armed Forces. It styles itself as a resistance group against Israel, but Hizballah is ultimately self-serving. It is a parasitic pseudo-state within a state in Lebanon, more heavily armed than the Lebanese army, and the only armed group from the Lebanese Civil War that failed to disarm, in defiance of U.N. Resolution 1559 and recently ignored another call from the U.N. Secretary General to disarm.

Four Hizballah members have been indicted and are wanted by Interpol for the assassination of Rafik Hariri. How did that crime help "resist" something?

In any case, Hizballah is a proxy of Iran and Syria. The loss of a Shi'ite-controlled regime (albeit a heterodox one) would be the loss of a friendly neighbor and benefactor. Even if a Sunni regime continued to make common cause with them against Israel, the relationship would be different. "Why is the resistance group Hezbollah standing beside Syria's dictator?" by Ayman Mohyeldin for NBC News via MSNBC, March 17:

BEIRUT, Lebanon – On a freshly paved road that runs from Baalbak to Ersal in northern Lebanon stands a towering billboard.
On one half of the billboard is Syrian President Bashar Assad, in military uniform. On the other half is a portrait of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese political and paramilitary organization that has been labeled a terrorist group by Washington.

The conflict in neighboring Syria has put Hezbollah, the staunch regional resistance movement, in a tough spot. Despite praising the Arab Spring democracy movement in many other countries, Hezbollah and its leader Nasrallah are standing by the Assad regime, even as it kills thousands of its own people to preserve power.

While Hezbollah supports Assad’s regime, the broader Lebanese population is divided and hesitant to take sides. Nonetheless, there is growing concern that this distance will be increasingly difficult to maintain as the conflict spirals on.

In fact, both pro- and anti-Assad groups have traded accusations that the other is receiving material support from inside Lebanon

Rivals or bedfellows?

On the surface, Assad and Nasrallah appear to be opposites.

Assad is the president of a country that is increasingly isolated in the international community and is widely unpopular on the Arab street. His government is embattled and his grip on power challenged.

Nasrallah, on the other hands, is the head of a popular Lebanese resistance movement and a domestic political force. He enjoys widespread support on the Arab street, particularly for his staunch resistance to Israel and Western imperialism in the region.....

Would someone please hand this correspondent a style manual or something like it?

Allegedly offensive words = life destroyed. The sentence is light years beyond excessive, since Manzarul Haq Shah Jahan should not even be in jail, but one can't help but ask: why did he get life in prison while Asia Bibi was sentenced to hang?

The charge of "blasphemy" flirts perilously with the worship of Muhammad. But honestly:

If you're a Muslim and believe he's gone to his eternal reward, he has other things on his mind.
If you're not a Muslim and believe he's gone to eternal punishment, he has other things on his mind.
If you're not a Muslim and believe he's floating on a cloud in some vague alternate dimension in with your lost keys and socks, he has other things on his mind.
If you're not a Muslim and you believe in reincarnation, he has other things on someone else's mind.
If you're an atheist and believe he's just plain dead, well, none of the above applies.

But Manzarul Haq Shah Jahan must be destroyed! "Court gives life-term to SHO for blaspheming," from Pakistan Today, March 17 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

KASUR - A court on Friday awarded life-imprisonment to Police Station House Officer (SHO) Manzarul Haq Shah Jahan for uttering blasphemous remarks against the Holy Prophet (PBUH).

Additional District and Sessions’ Judge Chaudhry Umar Hayat handout out the verdict on a case registered at the complaint of Muhammad Younis. The complainant had alleged that the then SHO of Raja Jung Police Station had uttered blasphemy in a conversation with him and two other men, Javed Iqbal and Hafiz Shahid, on street crime. Younis had alleged that the SHO called Hafiz a “Maulvi” and used blasphemous words against the Holy Prophet (PBUH). The complainant had added that he was getting the case (No 20/2009) registered at the police station under Section 295-C after discussing the incident with 65 members of a mosque.

A fatwa was also issued by religious scholars of prominent seminaries like Darul Aloom and Jamia Naeemia, Lahore, against the SHO. In his judgement, the judge observed that the offence of blasphemy had been fully proven against the accused, and that he had been found guilty. The judge awarded life imprisonment and a fine of Rs 200,000 in the case, adding that the accused would have to undergo further two years of imprisonment if he failed to pay the fine.

Erdogan's behavior toward Germany alone should disqualify him for that. As this report observes, he has "irked Berlin with his calls to Germany's large ethnic Turkish community not to assimilate." There is also the ongoing denial of the Armenian genocide, and the erosion of secular institutions in Turkey, among other things.

Maybe it's a prize for one-way "tolerance." That, he would deserve. "Turkish PM cancels German trip, protests go ahead," from Reuters, March 17:

BERLIN (Reuters) - Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan cancelled a trip to Germany on Saturday after the death of 12 Turkish soldiers in Afghanistan, but thousands of protesters went ahead with a rally against a decision to award him a tolerance prize.

Erdogan had been due to receive the Steiger Award in the western German town of Bochum but his office said he had called off his trip because of the soldiers' deaths in a NATO helicopter crash near Kabul on Friday.

Despite the cancellation, an estimated 22,000 people from local Alevi, Kurdish and Armenian groups who oppose the policies of Erdogan's AK party joined a pre-planned protest rally in Bochum in the industrial Ruhr region.

"Erdogan - wolf in sheep's clothing," read one banner. "Erdogan, you are and remain an anti-democrat," read another.

"We are foreigners here (in Germany) and in our own land too we are foreigners. We don't know where to go, we Kurds and Alevis," said one protester, Serpil Aydogan.

The Steiger Award association said the award was intended to mark 50 years of German-Turkish friendship.

Before the trip was cancelled, a leading German conservative had criticized the decision to award a prize for tolerance to Erdogan, citing what he called a lack of press freedom and the "suppressing" of religious and ethnic minorities in Turkey.

Alexander Dobrindt, general secretary of the Christian Social Union (CSU), which is part of Chancellor Angela Merkel's centre-right coalition government, said it would be more appropriate to award Erdogan a prize for intolerance.

Erdogan had not been due to meet Merkel during Saturday's trip. On previous visits he has irked Berlin with his calls to Germany's large ethnic Turkish community not to assimilate or forget their roots.

That is not going to stop the bloodshed, but it may redistribute it in favor of their guys: they would rather see a Sunni Islamic state in Damascus than a bunch of semi-secular heathen Alawites. In all likelihood, one thug regime will replace the other, even if they go through the motions of a democratic process (see also: Egypt). But by golly, they'll be the right thugs. "'Diplomat says Saudis are arming Syrian rebels'," from the Jerusalem Post, March 17:

Saudi Arabia is arming Syrian rebels locked in a year-long rebellion against Syrian President Bashar Assad, a senior Arab diplomat told AFP Saturday. Calling the shipments an effort to stop the bloodshed in Syria, the diplomat clarified that "Saudi military equipment is on its way to Jordan to arm the the Free Syrian Army," according to the report.

As opposed to the Expensive Syrian Army.

Also Saturday, an Iraqi government spokesman said his country would not permit Iran to ferry arms to Syria through or over its territory, AFP reported.

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the Iranian ambassador was told "Iraq will not permit the use of its air space or its territory for the transit of any arms cargo to Syria," according to the report.

The United States on Friday said it was in contact with Iraq and encouraging it to ensure no military cargo headed for Syria is transported through Iraqi airspace.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a press briefing that the US was "making the point that any export of arms or related materials from Iran, frankly, to any destination would be a violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1747."

Any arms sent to the President Bashar Assad's regime in Syria, she continued, "would obviously be used in the brutal repression that the regime is exacting on its own people."

At least 27 people were killed and 97 were wounded in two explosions that hit Damascus early Saturday, a Syrian television channel reported.

The explosions killed security force personnel and civilians, state television reported, blaming what it said were terrorists behind the year-long uprising against Assad.

The explosions came two days after the first anniversary of year-long uprising, in which the United Nations says more than 8,000 people have been killed and some 230,000 forced to flee their homes as the violence spreads.

Obama selected Dalia Mogahed as an adviser on the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. She is an open advocate of Sharia, so it's no surprise that she supports the Syrian revolutionaries, who are the same as the other "Arab Spring" revolutionaries: pro-Sharia Islamic supremacists. But for her to characterize Assad as not being able to deliver on "resistance to Israel," besides purveying the Palestinian jihadist canard of Israel aggression, also ignores the fact that Damascus was headquarters for Hamas and other jihad organizations, and Assad pursued a course of consistent hostility to Israel.

But not hostile enough for Obama adviser Dalia Mogahed.

How did the mullahs get the idea that there was anything wrong with Christians converting Muslims? Muslim spokesmen such as Harris Zafar, Mustafa Akyol, Salam al-Marayati, M. Cherif Bassiouni, and Ali Eteraz (among many others) have assured us that Islam doesn't punish apostasy. I expect that Zafar, Akyol, al-Marayati, Bassiouni, and Eteraz will immediately be jetting over to Isfahan to explain to the Muslim mobs that they're getting Islam all wrong, wrong, wrong, and should stop bothering these Christians immediately.

"Iran Detains Dozen Christians In Major City," from BosNewsLife, March 17 (thanks to David):

TEHRAN, IRAN (BosNewsLife)-- At least a dozen devoted Christians from Iran's third largest city remained in jail Saturday, March 17, as part of an attempt by authorities to discourage Muslims and Christian converts to attend church services, Iranian Christians said.

Mohabat News, a news agency of Iranian Christians and activists, said security forces began a new crackdown last month in Isfahan, 340 kilometers (211 miles) south of the capital Tehran.

The agency said security forces detained both leaders and members of churches meeting in buildings, as well as some from underground house churches.

Among the latest known Christian converts detained in the Isfahan area is Fariborz Parsi-nejad, a Christian convert, who was reportedly taken into custody on March 2 while returning home from his work.

"Security authorities raided his home and seized him without explanation," Iranian Christians said....

The crackdown began February 22 when security forces allegedly took at least eight Christians from their homes and work places.

Most of those jailed are members of the St. Paul Anglican church in Isfahan, Christians said. Mohabat News added that among those imprisoned at local prison facilities is Hekmat Salimi, pastor of St. Paul Anglican Church, who converted 30 years ago and authored theological books and Giti Hakimpour, 78, a female pastor at the same church.

Other church members include Shahram Ghaedi, an actor, Maryam Del-Aram, 54, Shahnaz Zarifi, a mother of two and Enayat Jafari, according to rights investigators.

Another Christian, Majid Enayat, was also detained on February 22 at his workplace. He is a member of a house church, and Mohabat reported that prior to his arrest, authorities detained other members of his group....

Where would he get the idea that the peaceful adherents of the Religion of Peace would kill him over a disagreement about Sharia? Why would he assume they would misunderstand Islam in such a way? "US extremist in Somalia fears life in danger," from AFP, March 17 (thanks to Troy):

A US-born Islamist fighter viewed as a key foreign leader within Somalia's Shebab militia allied with Al-Qaeda says he fears his life is now in danger from fellow extremists.

Omar Hamami -- better known as Abu Mansoor al-Amriki -- gave the warning in an undated video posted on several Somali websites and YouTube Saturday.

"To whomever it may reach from the Muslims, from Abu Mansoor al-Amriki, I record this message today because I feel that my life may be endangered by Harakat Shebab al-Mujahideen due to some differences that occurred between us regarding matters of the Shariah (Islamic law) and matters of the strategy," he said, speaking in English.

The bearded Amriki, dressed in a black top and a checkered keffiyeh headscarf, posed in front of the Shebab's black flag and beside an automatic rifle in the minute-long video, but did not confirm his location.

He provided no further details about the threats or differences with other Shebab commanders, who have been battling to topple the weak Western-backed government propped up by over 10,000 African Union troops.

But the Shebab later denied threatening Amriki, expressing surprise at the video.

"We assure our Muslim brothers that #AlAmriki is not endangered by the Mujahideen &our brother still enjoys all the privileges of brotherhood," the group's press office said on its Twitter page, adding that an investigation was underway and that it was verifying the video's authenticity.

In a separate Arabic-language statement, the Shebab said it was "surprised" by Amriki's video, according to SITE, a US-based monitoring group that tracks extremist websites.

"Until the investigations regarding the meaning and motives behind this video are completed, the Shebab al-Mujahideen Movement assures that everything stated in this video it is not true at all, and that the life of the brother is not threatened by the Shebab al-Mujahideen Movement," it said....

Alabama-born Amriki, who has reportedly been based in anarchic Somalia since late 2006 and is wanted by the United States on terror charges, has issued previous videos calling for foreign recruits, including singing rap songs praising jihad.

I tried to tell you. "Egypt Constitution-Writing Committee to Include 50 Lawmakers," by Mariam Fam for Bloomberg, March 17:

Egypt’s Islamist-dominated parliament voted to include 50 of its lawmakers in a 100-member panel tasked with writing a new constitution, with the remainder coming from other institutions.

The results were read by Mohamed Saad el-Katatni, speaker of the lower house of parliament, according to footage of the session posted on the Cabinet’s Facebook page.

“The proposal that has received the most votes is the one stating that 50 percent of the composition of the constituent assembly comes from within parliament and 50 percent from outside parliament, including all institutions, civil society institutions and public personalities,” el-Katatni said.

The makeup of the committee has been the focus of wrangling over the degree of influence Islamist groups will have shaping the constitution. The Muslim Brotherhood’s party alliance makes up the largest bloc in the recently elected parliament, followed by a Salafi alliance. Salafis are followers of an austere interpretation of Islam....

Secular politicians and those concerned that Islamist parliamentarians will dominate the committee have called for the inclusion of members from outside the legislature.

The Brotherhood and its party have tried to assuage such fears. Mohamed Morsi, chairman of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, said in a statement last month that the group is “keen on the participation of all groups, institutions, parties and political and societal forces” in the drafting body....

Louie, this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship

Cementing a new alliance. "Hamas leader meets with Erdoğan in surprise visit," from Today's Zaman, March 16 (thanks to Maxwell):

Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal paid a surprise visit to Ankara for talks on Palestinian reconciliation and the Middle East. Mashaal met with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Friday afternoon.

The meeting reportedly focused mainly on Palestinian reconciliation. “There are positive developments regarding relations between Hamas and Fatah. We will assess these developments,” Erdoğan told reporters, adding that regional issues will also be discussed. Erdoğan's meeting with Mashaal lasted two hours. Also present were Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and Justice and Development Party (AK Party) Deputy Chairman Ömer Çelik.

Reconciliation efforts between the two main Palestinian political factions, Hamas and Fatah, are continuing. The last time the two groups came together for talks was in Cairo last December. They reached a key agreement at the time that saw Hamas admitted into the PLO, the umbrella organization of the Palestinian independence movement. The PLO has engaged in two decades of intermittent peace talks with Israel.

Mashaal’s visit followed a fresh bout of violence that erupted between Israel and Palestinian resistance groups. Last Thursday saw the end of a shaky truce brokered in Egypt in December after Israel attacked the Palestinians. Twenty-five Palestinians were killed in the four days of clashes that ensued.

Prior to the conflict, top Hamas officials sent controversial signals that they would not stay on the sidelines if Israel attacks Iran. On March 7, Iran’s Fars News Agency quoted Mahmoud Zahar, a senior Hamas official in Gaza, as saying that “retaliation with utmost power is the position of Hamas with regard to a Zionist war on Iran.”...

Democracy on the march. Nothing to see here. "Christians expelled from Homs," from Notes on Arab Orthodoxy, March 14 (thanks to Palamas):

From the Syrian secularist website al-Haqiqa. Arabic original here.

For more information about the Islamist makeup of the "Free Syrian Army" from a source generally sympathetic to the rebels, see here.

For an excellent analysis of the bias and misinformation about Syria in American media, see here.

Armed men from the Faruq Brigade have succeeded in expelling most of the Christians of Homs and have seized their homes by force.

Al-Haqiqa has learned from church sources in Homs that the city has been emptied of almost 90% of its Christians. It is expected that a complete "cleansing" of buildings owned by Christians will occur within a matter of days or weeks by armed men from the Wahhabi "Faruq Brigade." A source in the Orthodox metropolitan's office told al-Haqiqa that armed men from the Faruq Brigade went to the homes of the Christians, house by house, in the neighborhoods of Hamidiya and Bustan el-Diwan, informing them that they must immediately leave their homes and the city of Homs. The source revealed that the lastest [sic] attempt to expel Christians by force of arms occured [sic] yesterday. It included Dr. Taleb Mashhour Gharibeh, professor of mathematics at Baath University in Homs, his brother the musician Marwan Mashhour Gharibeh (a musician in Sabah Fakhri's group), both of whom live in the Hamidiya neighborhood, their sister Marie Mashhour Gharibeh, who lives in the Bustan el-Diwan neighborhood, as well as their father and his wife the schoolteacher Maha Habou, who live in the new neighborhood el-Wa'ar. This wave of expulsions also included the residents of a six-story building in Hamidiya, whose residents include eighteen families, almost all of whom are from the village Uyoun el-Wadi.

The church sources said that the armed men informed the owners of the homes before they departed that if they did not leave immediately they would be shot and pictures of their corpses would be sent to al-Jazeera with the message that the government had killed them. The source emphasized that all those who were expelled "were not allowed to take any of their possessions with them, not even extra clothes. Immediately after they left their homes, the buildings were occupied by armed men who considered it 'war-booty from the Christians!'"

It should be noted that the Faruq Brigade is operated by armed elements from al-Qaeda and various Wahhabi groups and it includes mercenaries from Libya and Iraq. Last month they destroyed two churches with rocket fire, burning one and severely damaging the other.

A sad day in an already dark time for Egypt's Christians. There will likely be Islamic supremacist attempts to capitalize on this period of uncertainty and vulnerability within the Coptic Orthodox Church. "Pope of Egypt's Coptic Christian Church dies," by Aya Batrawy for the Associated Press, March 17:

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) — Pope Shenouda III, the patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church who led Egypt's Christian minority for 40 years during a time of increasing tensions with Muslims, has died. He was 88.

The state news agency MENA said Shenouda died Saturday after battling liver and lung problems from several years. A Coptic Church TV station ran a picture of the pope, with a running feed reading, "The Coptic Church prays to God that he rest in peace between the arms of saints."

The patriarch, known in Arabic as Baba Shenouda, headed one of the most ancient churches in the world, which traced it founding to St. Mark, who is said to have brought Christianity to Egypt in the 1st Century during the reign of the Roman emperor Nero.

For Egypt's estimated 10 million Coptic Christians, he was a religious thinker and a charismatic leader, known for his sense of humor — his smiling portrait was hung in many Coptic homes and shops.

Above all, many Copts saw him as the guardian of their minority living amid a majority Muslim population in this country of more than 80 million people.

Shenouda sought to do so by striking a conservative balance. During the rule of President Hosni Mubarak, he gave strong support to his government, while avoiding pressing Coptic demands too vocally in public to prevent a backlash from Muslim conservatives.

After Mubarak's fall a year ago, Christians grew increasingly worried over the rising power of Muslim conservatives. Islamic hard-liners carried out a string of attacks on churches, and their clerics gave increasingly dire warnings that Christians were hoarding weapons and seeking to take over the country. Christian anger over the violence was further stoked when troops harshly put down a Christian protest in Cairo, killing 27 people.

In an unprecedented move aimed at showing unity, leaders from the Muslim Brotherhood along with top generals from the ruling military joined Shenouda for services for Orthodox Christmas in January at Cairo's main cathedral.

"For the first time in the history of the cathedral, it is packed with all types of Islamist leaders in Egypt," Shenouda told the gathering. "They all agree ... on the stability of this country and in loving it, and working for it and to work with the Copts as one hand for the sake of Egypt."

Still, a sector of Christians — particularly among youth who supported the revolution against Mubarak — grew critical of Shenouda, saying his conservative approach was not doing enough to stem what they saw as growing anti-Christian violence and discrimination against their community.

In recent years, the aging patriarch traveled repeatedly to the United States for treatment. Yasser Ghobrial, a physician who worked at a Cairo hospital when the pope was treated there in 2007, said he suffered from prostate cancer that spread to his colon and lungs.

The pope, who rose to his position in 1971, clashed significantly with the government once: In 1981 then-President Anwar Sadat sent him into internal exile in the desert monastery of Wadi Natrun, north of Cairo, after Shenouda accused the government of failing to rein in Muslim extremists. Sadat, who was assassinated later that year by Islamic militants, accused Shenouda of fomenting sectarianism. Mubarak ended Shenouda's exile in 1985, allowing him to return to Cairo.

But the incident illustrated the bind of Egypt's Christians. When they press too hard for more influence, some in the Muslim majority accuse them of causing sectarian splits. Many Copts saw Mubarak as their best protection against Islamic fundamentalists and the Muslim Brotherhood — but at the same time, his government often made concessions to conservative Muslims to keep their support.

During the 1990s, Islamic militants launched a campaign of violence, centered in southern Egypt, targeting foreign tourists, police and Christians until they were put down by a heavy crackdown. Pope Shenouda managed to contain the Coptic community's anger over the killings.

But in the past six years, Muslim-Christian violence has flared repeatedly. On the eve of New Year's 2000, sectarian battles killed 21 Copts and a Muslim in the southern village of el-Kusheh. The northern city of Alexandria twice saw sectarian bloodshed recently — in 2005 when Muslims rioted over an anti-Islamic play put on in a church, and again in early 2006 when Christians rioted over a series of knife attacks at Coptic Christian churches....

As just noted at the end of the posting that precedes this one, "attempts to legislate for the protection of women's rights come up against protestations in the name of Sharia."

Thank you for proving our point. "Indonesia: Islamist groups object to gender equality bill," from AdnKronos International, March 15 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

Jakarta, 15 March (AKI/Jakarta Post) - Six major Indonesian Islamic organizations have voiced objections to the gender fairness and equality bill, saying that some articles may harm Islamic values.

The objections were made during a consultation meeting between the organizations and the House’s religion and social affairs commission.

The criticisms came from the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), the Indonesian Consultative Council for Muslim Women Organizations (BMO-IWI), Aisyiah, Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI), the Islamic Community Party (PUI) and Muslimat NU.

The representatives, who were all women, said that the bill could further violate Islamic law on inheritance sharing, marriage and women’s rights to be a mother and housewife.

They said that the bill’s article 12, for example, which stipulated that every man and woman could freely choose a husband or wife, contradicted Islamic law that suggests the bride and groom be of the same religion.

It seems likely that their larger objection is that women could freely choose their husbands. Islamic law allows Muslim men to marry non-Muslim women, but not the other way around, assuming that the non-Muslim will be subject to the Muslim, and that the household will thus follow the religion of the husband.

Eneng Zubaedah from the MUI said that Islam, as a religion, strictly regulated the proportion of inheritance between a man and a woman, which was two to one.

“We have to realize that it may also contradict the idea behind the bill,” Eneng Zubaedah said.

HTI spokesman Iffah Ainur Rochmah said that gender equality that encouraged women to work would eventually cause more conflicts within marriages.

“In 2009, statistics from Jakarta revealed that the divorce rate of teachers went up mainly because wives had better salaries, and thus felt superior,” she said....

That sounds like a bit of projection of easily wounded pride. It seems they are deflecting responsibility by not finding fault with jealousy, but with "provoking" jealousy by being successful, and by being independent. Of course, the same tactic is frequently employed where anger is concerned.

Again, Pakistan is a major beneficiary of U.S. aid. We have leverage we are not using to defend the most minimal standards of human rights. More on this story. "Minority women in Pakistan face harassment: Study," from the Indo-Asian News Service, March 16 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

Around 74 percent of Pakistani women from minority communities -- Christians and Hindus -- were sexually harassed, while 43 percent faced religious discrimination at workplaces in 2010 and 2011, a study said.

Around 27 percent of minority women faced discrimination in admission to educational institutions and were forced to take Islamic studies for absence of any alternative subject, said National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP) executive director Peter Jacob.

A study titled "Life on the Margins" conducted by the commission with rights activists, media and people from various walks of life has just been released.
The research, based on interviews with minority women, was led by Jennifer Jag Jivan and Jacob and assessed by three prominent minority women, Asiya Nasir, Ernestine C. Pinto and Pushpa Kumari.

Jacob said the study looked into social, political and economic conditions of minority women with a baseline survey conducted in 26 districts of Punjab and Sindh, the two provinces where 95 percent of minorities in the country lived.

As many as 1,000 Hindu and Christian women were interviewed.

The study looked into issues such as legal disparity, laws concerning minorities, religious and gender biases, forced conversions that affected everyday life of minority women.

During the study, it was found that only 47 percent of minority women were educated, lower than the national average -- 57 percent.

He said the living and economic conditions of women, assessed through income, savings, health and education placed minority women on the margins of social and economic development.

Though 55 percent of minority women saw the social environment as conducive to multi-religious living, around 62 percent of respondents were of the view that in the wake of a religious disturbance, a majority of people would not stand with them.

The study while noting the discrimination related to the Constitution of Pakistan, blasphemy laws and education policy, has recommended policy corrections and safeguarding women's rights.

The blasphemy law is inherently abusive and inherently defective; no "reform" can fix an unjust law except repealing it. Attempts to legislate for the protection of women's rights come up against protestations in the name of Sharia.

Surely someone has noticed the Muslim Brotherhood's knack for saying different things to different audiences, particularly where Israel is concerned. "UK doesn’t fear Egypt Islamists, welcomes their respect for peace treaty: British diplomat," by Amer Sultan for Al Ahram Online, March 14:

The British government is not worried about an Islamist government in Egypt and believes such a government would adopt a realistic approach towards Israel, according to a senior UK diplomat.

Islamists are aware that they have to concentrate on fundamental issues, such as education, public sector pay, social inclusivity and public health, according to the diplomat.

“I find that a lot of the people we have been talking to who have got into parliament are well aware that those are the main challenges and if they do not get those right they will never be voted in again,” he added.

The UK has a long history with Egyptian and Arab Islamists, many of whom have been given political refugee status and the right to live permanently on British soil in recent decades. Most of those Islamists have good relations with the UK parliament, academic institutions and UK-based non-governmental organisations.

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood announced its political manifesto during a meeting in London for the first time on 27 October 2007.

The diplomat, who is a member of the team dealing with Egypt at the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), hinted that it is “unfortunate” that secular parties feel aggrieved that Islamists took the lion's share of parliamentary seats after the revolution. “The important thing is to have democracy. In a few years time the electorate will have the chance to vote for another mix of parliamentarians.”

UK policy makers are closely following Islamist statements and policies.

“I am not worried about Islamism. What I look for in a future government or parliament is the ability to take the courageous decisions needed to reform and change some of the distortions which crept into the Egyptian economy in recent decades,” the diplomat asserted. “The fundamental judgment on Islamists in parliament and government has to be based on their performance on the big issues facing the country.”

Ahram Online understands that consultations are underway between Egyptian and UK authorities on training for new parliamentarians. The diplomat refused to comment on those consultations but he confirmed that the UK “can, on demand, provide support for new (Egyptian) MPs.”

He added that some new MPs had expressed interest in how the British Parliament works.

Relations with Israel

“So far all the Islamist political leaders have been impeccable and absolutely one hundred per cent correct in saying 'we are concerned about a domestic agenda, we don’t want any international problems',” the diplomat said.

Islamist presidential candidate Selim El-Awa has said there are "contracts and treaties" between Egypt and Israel, and any dispute between the two states should be resolved by international organisations.

UK and other western countries have praised Islamists for their pledge to respect the treaty with Israel. However, many international law experts in these countries have endorsed calls to review the treaty. They say the Egyptian-Israeli treaty, as other international treaties, has clauses which allow it to be reviewed in a legitimate way.

Some Middle East analysts in the UK warned that the January 25 Revolution which toppled the Mubarak regime could lead to huge changes in Egyptian policies towards the West and Israel....

Hizballah is also set to mess with the rainforest. Where are the environmentalists? "Exclusive: Congo under scrutiny over Hezbollah business links," by Dino Mahtani for Reuters, March 16:

LONDON (Reuters) - Democratic Republic of Congo has awarded lucrative forestry concessions to a company controlled by a Lebanese businessman who also runs a firm subject to sanctions by the United States as a front for Hezbollah.

The 2011 concessions issued by Congo's environment ministry to the Trans-M company, seen by Reuters, could complicate Washington's efforts to curb what it says are the Lebanese militant movement's growing business activities in Africa.

The concessions cover 25-year leases for hundreds of thousands of hectares of rainforest in the central African country, the world's second forest "lung" after the Amazon. The concessions are capable of generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues over 25 years, if fully exploited, forestry experts say.

Trans-M is controlled by businessman Ahmed Tajideen (whose name is also given as
Tajeddine in U.S. Treasury documents). He also runs another company, Congo Futur, which the U.S. government says is a front for Hezbollah. Congo Futur cites sawmilling as one of its businesses.

The U.S. Treasury Department put Congo Futur under targeted sanctions in 2010, saying the firm was part of a network of businesses ultimately controlled by Tajideen's three brothers, Kassim, Husayn and Ali, and that this generated "millions of dollars in funding" for Hezbollah.

The sanctions aim to block U.S. dollar transfers linked to the trio, part of wider U.S. efforts to counter what Washington sees as increasing business activity in Africa by Hezbollah, which it calls "among the most dangerous terrorist groups in the world".

Hezbollah has denied U.S. accusations that it is linked to money-laundering and the international narcotics trade.

Ahmed Tajideen, who is not subject to U.S. Treasury sanctions, says his brothers have no share of Congo Futur or Trans-M and that the companies are neither directly related to each other nor act as front companies for Hezbollah.

"I am the majority shareholder of both companies," Tajideen told Reuters earlier this month.

"I created both companies independently of each other", he said. "My brothers have nothing to do with the companies".

But leaked U.S. diplomatic cables produced in 2000 quote Ahmed Tajideen as saying Congo Futur established Trans-M, which is also described as a "subsidiary" of Congo Futur on the website of Congo's official investment authority, ANAPI.

"The question for the Congolese government is whether they really want to continue doing business with a company that is linked to a terrorist organization?" said a U.S. official who monitors Congo, but asked not to be named.

The vice-president jokes write themselves. But in the end, it was bin Laden who turned out to be "totally unprepared" for the Navy SEALs. "The bin Laden plot to kill President Obama," by David Ignatius for the Washington Post, March 16:

Before his death, Osama bin Laden boldly commanded his network to organize special cells in Afghanistan and Pakistan to attack the aircraft of President Obama and Gen. David H. Petraeus.

“The reason for concentrating on them,” the al-Qaeda leader explained to his top lieutenant, “is that Obama is the head of infidelity and killing him automatically will make [Vice President] Biden take over the presidency. . . . Biden is totally unprepared for that post, which will lead the U.S. into a crisis. As for Petraeus, he is the man of the hour . . . and killing him would alter the war’s path” in Afghanistan.

Administration officials said Friday that the Obama-Petraeus plot was never a serious threat.

The scheme is described in one of the documents taken from bin Laden’s compound by U.S. forces on May 2, the night he was killed. I was given an exclusive look at some of these remarkable documents by a senior administration official. They have been declassified and will be available soon to the public in their original Arabic texts and translations.

The man bin Laden hoped would carry out the attacks on Obama and Petraeus was the Pakistani terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri. “Please ask brother Ilyas to send me the steps he has taken into that work,” bin Laden wrote to his top lieutenant, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman. A month after bin Laden’s death, Kashmiri was killed in a U.S. drone attack.

The plot to target Obama was probably bluster, since al-Qaeda apparently lacked the weapons to shoot down U.S. aircraft. But it’s a chilling reminder that even when he was embattled and in hiding, bin Laden still dreamed of pulling off another spectacular terror attack against the United States.

The terrorist leader urged in a 48-page directive to Atiyah to focus “every effort that could be spent on attacks in America,” instead of operations within Muslim nations. He told Atiyah to “ask the brothers in all regions if they have a brother . . . who can operate in the U.S. [He should be able to] live there, or it should be easy for him to travel there.” [...]

The bin Laden who emerges from these communications is a terrorist CEO in an isolated compound, brooding that his organization has ruined its reputation by killing too many Muslims in its jihad against America. He writes of the many departed “brothers” who have been lost to U.S. drone attacks. But he’s far from the battlefield himself in his hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where he seems to spend considerable time watching television.

The garbled syntax of bin Laden’s communications may result from their being dictated to several of his wives, according to the U.S. analyst. And his rambling laundry list of recommendations illustrates the problems of communicating with subordinates when it could take several months to receive an answer. The al-Qaeda leader had a “great fear of irrelevance,” the analyst believes. [...]

The al-Qaeda brand had become a problem, bin Laden explained, because Obama administration officials “have largely stopped using the phrase ‘the war on terror’ in the context of not wanting to provoke Muslims,” and instead promoted a war against al-Qaeda. The organization’s full name was “Qaeda al-Jihad,” bin Laden noted, but in its shorthand version, “this name reduces the feeling of Muslims that we belong to them.” He proposed 10 alternatives “that would not easily be shortened to a word that does not represent us.” His first recommendation was “Taifat al-tawhid wal-jihad,” or Monotheism and Jihad Group.

It was bad for the al-Qaeda brand name, but al-Qaeda does not have the monopoly on jihad, which bin Laden wanted to emphasize in the new name, surely expecting that was a term the Obama administration would continue to dodge.

Bin Laden told Atiyah that al-Qaeda’s best chance for establishing an Islamic state was Yemen, which he described as the “launching point” for attacks on the Persian Gulf oil states. “Control of these nations means control of the world,” he wrote. But he worried that the push in Yemen would come too soon, and he advised his colleagues to wait three years, if necessary, before making a decisive move. By fighting too hard in Syria in the early 1980s, he noted, the Muslim Brotherhood “lost a generation of men.”

Bin Laden and his aides hoped for big terrorist operations to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001. They also had elaborate media plans. Adam Gadahn, a U.S.-born media adviser, even discussed in a message to his boss what would be the best television outlets for a bin Laden anniversary video.

“It should be sent for example to ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN and maybe PBS and VOA. As for Fox News let her die in her anger,” Gadahn wrote. At another point, he said of the networks: “From a professional point of view, they are all on one level — except [Fox News] channel, which falls into the abyss as you know, and lacks objectivity, too.”

What an unintended boost for Fox, which can now boast that it is al-Qaeda’s least favorite network.

"The interior ministry said on March 8 that it had not recorded any anti-gay or anti-emo killings." So they never happened. So there's nothing to investigate. So shut up. An update on this story. "Iraq must investigate 'emo' killings: rights groups," by Prashant Rao for Agence France-Presse, March 16:

Three major international human rights groups called on Iraqi authorities on Friday to immediately investigate a spate of brutal killings of teenagers widely perceived to be gay.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission said in a joint statement that the attacks, which officials say have killed at least 15 youths, had "created an atmosphere of terror among those who see themselves as potential victims."

But security officials say these accounts are not true and that any violence against the tee