Abu Sayyaf Claims Responsibility for Ferry Blast

Fox News reports that the Muslim extremist group Abu Sayyaf claimed responsibility Sunday for a ferry explosion and fire that killed at least two people, though 180 more were missing, according to a radio report.

MARIVELES, Philippines — The Muslim extremist group Abu Sayyaf claimed responsibility Sunday for a ferry explosion and fire that killed at least two people, though 180 more were missing, according to a radio report.

The Radio Mindanao Network said Abu Sayyaf spokesman Abu Sulaiman claimed Friday's explosion was revenge for government attacks in the southern Mindanao area. Abu Sayyaf has often called the radio network in the past.

Fire raced through the Superferry 14 on Friday shortly after it left Manila for central and southern islands, killing one person and injuring 12 others. Witnesses reported a powerful explosion that sparked an inferno.

The fire occurred the same day that two alleged Abu Sayyaf members were convicted of kidnapping an American in 2000 and another was arraigned in a separate mass abduction.

Remember that American kidnapping? No? You're in good company. But Abu Sayyaf has kidnapped and even killed other Americans in the Philippines as well.
Before 9/11, Americans tended to slough off overseas terrorist attacks on Americans, our embassies, and even our soldiers, sailors and Marines. Such attacks were merely passing outrages somewhere out there beyond our borders, and indifference allowed our enemy to thrive and grow. With the War on Terror slipping steadily in the polls as an important issue to voters, that is something to think about.

Israel arrests Palestinian youths for planning suicide attack over West Bank barrier

Becoming a reality?

A 13-year-old would-be suicide bomber. From AP:

Israeli security forces arrested three Palestinian youths who planned to carry out a suicide attack out of anger over Israel's West Bank barrier, relatives said Sunday.

The youths, ages 13 and 14, were among the youngest ever arrested for planning suicide attacks. Parents of one of the boys expressed outraged that militant groups had taken to drafting young boys to carry out suicide attacks.

Most suicide bombers have been in their 20s. The youngest was 16 years old.

The army did not immediately comment.

Mohammed Abu Mahsen said his 13-year-old son, Tarek, along with his friends, Jaffer Hussein, 13, and Ibrahim Suafta, 14, left a letter saying they planned to carry out a shooting attack at an Israeli military checkpoint or army base, he said.

The 13-year-olds claimed to be members of Islamic Jihad, while Suafta said he belonged to the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a militant group linked to Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, family members said. The boys were arrested last Thursday.

"I want to carry out an attack against (Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon's fence. This fence, we will blow it up also, the Islamic Jihad youth movement," Tarek wrote in the letter.

"We want you to give out candies and don't cry for us and hold a big demonstration," he added, referring to traditional salutes given to "martyrs" who die for the Palestinian cause.

Jihad in Cambodia

Hambali

Hambali, who has been involved in many Asian terrorist adventures, has been charged in Cambodia. From AP, with thanks to Nicolei:

Asia's top terror suspect, Hambali, and eight other alleged Muslim militants were charged yesterday with attempted murder in an unspecified terrorist plot to bomb targets in Cambodia.

A Cambodian court levelled the charges against Hambali and three others in absentia midway through the trial of five men who were arrested last year for allegedly training terrorists and planning attacks in the country.

Though the five were originally charged with terrorism, Judge Ya Sokhan changed the charge to 'attempted premeditated murder with the goal of terrorism' after a defence attorney argued that Cambodia had no anti-terrorism law.

The five men were ordered to remain in detention pending a new trial. No date was set.

In another surprising twist, the judge said Hambali and three others - identified only as Ibrahim, Zaid and Zakariya - faced the same charges.

It was the first time their names were mentioned in connection with the case.

Prosecutor Yet Chakriya told the court that all the suspects were 'plotting a plan to cause explosion, destruction of property and human life' in Cambodia.

He did not elaborate, and officials would not give details about the alleged plot.

The attempted murder charge carries a life imprisonment sentence - the same as the earlier terrorism charge. . . .

Hambali, an Indonesian whose real name is Riduan Isamuddin, is said to be a key leader of the Jemaah Islamiah, Al-Qaeda's South-east Asian arm. He is believed to have spent several months in Cambodia last year and reportedly used the country as a staging ground from which to launch regional terror attacks. He was arrested in Thailand last August and is now in US custody.

It was not immediately clear where Ibrahim, Zaid and Zakariya were or what they were accused of doing.

The suspects present in court yesterday were Esam Mohammed Khidr Ali of Egypt, Abdul Azi Haji Chiming and Muhammad Yalaludin Mading of Thailand and Sman Ismael of Cambodia. Another Egyptian, Rousha Yasser, 33, also known as Yasser Elsayed Mohamed, is a fugitive.

Their trial stemmed from their membership of the Umm Al-Qura group, which operated a Saudi-funded Islamic school outside Phnom Penh.

Prosecutors accused them of using the school as a cover for training terrorists and planning attacks against Western interests in Cambodia.

Jihad can be offensive or defensive

This Pakistan Times op-ed by Yamin Zakaria contains familiar moral equivalency arguments, but it is notable for what it says about the meaning of jihad. It's a bit different from the sanitized version offered by Muslim spokesmen in the West. (Thanks to Twostellas.)

Jihad can be both defensive and offensive, preferably by the Islamic state. At times, the distinction between the two modes of operation is blurred, depending on the political and military situation. At present it may be academic to discuss offensive Jihad, as the Islamic state does not exist in the world today. In addition the Muslims are facing an onslaught in their own lands, but nevertheless, it is worth examining it briefly to clarify some of the misconceptions.

Offensive Jihad

The Islamic state reserves the right to use military force against foreign states that engage in persecuting Muslims or, preventing the spread of Islam within their lands. Note, in principle there is no concept of forceful conversion of non-Muslims to Islam. Even today, there are non-Muslims in most of the majority Muslim countries.

Note that jihad should "preferably" be waged by the Islamic state — evidently, under some conditions others can wage it as well. Also, Zakaria's point about forced conversion is absolutely true: forced conversion is against Islamic law. Under Islamic law, which is not fully enforced in most majority Muslim states today, non-Muslims are allowed to live in Islamic states as inferior dhimmis.

In any case, this understanding of jihad is used by radical Muslims worldwide today to justify their actions.

Pakistani official: schools play vital role in promoting Islam

Brushing aside abundant evidence that Islamic schools in Pakistan have become training grounds for terrorists, Pakistani Information Minister Rashid Ahmed defended the schools (madaras) as vital for the safeguarding of Islam. Oh, and don't worry about nukes. Pakistan's "nuclear assets are in safe hands." From NNI, with thanks to Twostellas:

Minister for Information and Broadcasting Sheikh Rashid Ahmed has lauded the role of Madaras in the promotion of Islam.

Addressing an International Peace and Martyrs Conference at Jamia Sirajia Nazamia here Friday, he said that most of the Madaras are play real role in the service of Islam, but one or two have to be restructured and government has evolved a strategy to safeguard the Islam and the country.

He said that our nuclear assets are in the safe hands and we will not hesitate to play the historical role if Pakistan faces any danger. . . .

He rejected the impression that Pakistan is a terrorist country and its Madaras are promoting terrorism and said that our Madaras are the biggest NGOs, they are not promoting terrorism, but work to safe guard Islam.

September 11 is God's work: Mufti

More damaging words and implausible explanations from Sheikh Al-Hilali. From Smh.com.au, with thanks to LGF:

The powerful leader of Australia's 300,000 Muslims, Sheik Taj el-Din Al Hilaly, has praised the September 11 terrorist attacks as "God's work".

The controversial Mufti also appears to have lent support to Arab suicide bombers in an inflammatory sermon during a Middle East lecture tour.

Sheik Al Hilaly, who is based at the Lakemba mosque, last week vehemently denied that he called for a jihad against Israel in one of his sermons. But a translation of a sermon, delivered at the Sidon mosque in Lebanon and obtained by The Sun-Herald, is littered with references to Arab martyrs and Americans being punished by God.

Sheik Al Hilaly spoke of an "Islamic revolution", and told his audience not to be surprised if one day a muezzin called out "Allah is Great!" from the "top of the White House".

"September 11 is God's work against oppressors," he said. "Some of the things that happen in the world cannot be explained; a civilian airplane whose secrets cannot be explained, if we ask its pilot who reached his objective without error: 'Who led your steps?'

"Or if we ask the giant that fell: 'Who humiliated you?' Or if we ask the president: 'Who made you cry?' God is the answer."

Declaring there was a "war on infidels" around the world, the Mufti praised the boy who, "despite his mother's objections", went to war to become a martyr.

Bemoaning the lack of "real men" in the Arab world, he said the "true boy" was one who told his mother not to cry for him if he died. The boy who cried: "Oh mother, jihad has been imposed on me and I want to become a martyr [was a son of Islam]." The boy would cry to his mother: "Oh mother, I'm going with a stone in my hand to become a martyr."

After seeking clarification from Sheik Al Hilaly in Egypt, his spokesman, Keysar Trad, said the Mufti had taken bits from poems, which he often incorporated into his sermons.

The September 11 reference meant that "evil can reach everywhere and everything", and the power of terrorism should not be belittled. Stating that September 11 was God's work against oppressors meant "people only do these things when they feel oppressed".

He denied the Mufti had supported suicide bombers, saying the "boy with a stone" could not possibly mean that.

A week ago, the Australian Federal Police decided against investigating the Mufti's overseas activities.

US troops to silence terror threats in Africa

The war on terror is expanding into Africa. From AP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

The United States is scaling up its military presence in Africa as concern mounts over terrorist threats - both immediate and future - on the continent, the deputy head of American forces in Europe said Friday.

"The threat is not weakening, it is growing," Air Force Gen. Charles Wald said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from Luanda, Angola. "We can't just sit back and let it grow."

The focus on Africa is part of major restructuring as U.S. forces in Europe reposition for the war against terror. . . .

European Command is not looking to station large concentrations of troops on the continent, Wald said. But it intends to make its presence felt through joint exercises, training initiatives and other exchanges.

U.S. forces have also negotiated access to a number of sites, including air strips in Angola and Gabon, that can be used for stopovers, refueling, or to position troops and equipment.

Wald said this will allow U.S. forces to respond with light, mobile troops - whether for peacekeeping, crisis response or a specific terrorist threat.

"We're actually going to get more capability with less force because of our ability to move around fast," he said.

Key to the effort is supporting the development of regional security groups, im-proving the capabilities of African police and soldiers, and building relationships with governments and militaries, Wald said. . . .

Wald's trip includes stops in regional military powers Nigeria and South Africa; oil-rich Angola, Gabon, Sao Tome and Principe; and Algeria and Niger, whose vast desert expanses are seen as a potential haven for terrorists.

At the same time, U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Kohler, the European Command's point man on planning for force reconfiguration, has been visiting the Saharan nations of Mauritania, Mali and Niger.

Israeli couple dead in ambush

More civilians murdered in the jihad in Israel. From the New York Post, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

A young Israeli couple driving on the road between two West Bank cities were shot to death last night in a drive-by ambush by suspected Palestinian terrorists, Israeli authorities said.

The unidentified husband and wife, believed to be in their late 20s, were traveling between Hebron and Beersheba when their car came under fire.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility from any Palestinian faction.

The violence came during in a week of escalating tensions as Palestinians fiercely protested Israel's construction of the West Bank barrier.

Israel considers the controversial barrier, which is one-fourth completed, as a protection against Palestinian homicide bombers, while Palestinians claim it is nothing more than a land grab.

In the Gaza Strip yesterday, a bicycle-riding Palestinian homicide bomber blew himself up near a military jeep outside the Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom.

There were no other casualties, the army said.

The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.

Earlier, in Jerusalem, Israeli police clashed with stone-throwing Palestinians in a square outside the al-Aqsa mosque, one of Islam's holiest sites.

Israeli police spokesman Gil Kleiman said officers fired rubber bullets and tossed stun grenades after hundreds of Palestinians tried to stone worshippers standing below the compound at the Western Wall, the most sacred site of Jewish prayer.

Saudis on alert for Al Qaida attack on oil facilities

Would Al-Qaeda be short-sighted enough to destroy the ultimate source of worldwide funding for jihad? From the World Tribune, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

Saudi Arabia has bolstered its forces in the Eastern Province after an alert of an Al Qaida attack on the kingdom's oil fields and nearby Shi'ite communities.

Saudi opposition sources said Riyad has reinforced National Guard troops and has constructed barriers around the regional capital of Qatif. The sources said the main concern is that Al Qaida would launch a suicide car bombing in the city.

So far, Saudi authorities have closed off sections of the Shi'ite-populated city of Qatif. Police also banned cars to the Al Qalaa section of that city.

The Al Qaida threat comes amid an effort by the state-owned Saudi Aramco to increase oil production at Qatif, Middle East Newsline reported. The effort has been plagued by safety difficulties because of the proximity of the oil fields to Shi'ite communities.

Saudi opposition sources said Al Qaida has been encouraged by Saudi clerics to launch attacks on the Shi'ite minority amid demands for equal rights with the Sunni majority. They said ruling clerics in Saudi Arabia have been concerned that the destruction of the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein would result in a Shi'ite-dominated Iraq that would encourage separatism in Saudi Arabia.

Al Qaida has already issued several fatwas, or religious rulings, that encourage violence against Sh'ites. On Jan. 14, Sheik Salman Al Odeh, a pro-Al Qaida Saudi cleric, termed Shi'ites infidels and enemies. Another pro-Al Qaida cleric, Sheik Safar Al Hawali, warned the Shi'ites that they would be massacred while others called for the removal of Shi'ites from all government positions.

Paris pizza jihad

Two pizzeria workers have been arrested in Paris. From AP:

Anti-terrorism judges placed two Paris pizzeria workers under investigation Friday in a probe into radical Islamic training camps set up in France during the 1990s, judicial officials said.

Mustapha Boussaffa of Tunisia and Hazdine Sayeh, a French-Algerian, were being investigated for "criminal association with a terrorist enterprise," the officials said on condition of anonymity. In France, being placed under investigation is one step short of formal charges.

Boussaffa ran a pizzeria that is believed to have become a meeting place for radical Muslims and Sayeh worked there, the officials said.

The men, who are both about 30, were taken into custody Tuesday in the Paris region during the investigation into a network of Islamic radicals that once ran training camps for new recruits, the officials said. One camp was set up in the late 1990s in the Fontainebleau forest south of Paris.

The men are believed to have played only marginal roles in the case, the officials said.

The wider probe focuses on the death of anti-Taliban military commander Ahmed Shah Massood in Afghanistan. The anti-terrorism judges are looking into an alleged support network for Massood's killers.

Massood was slain Sept. 9, 2001, in northern Afghanistan, two days before the terror attacks in the United States, by two men posing as journalists.

Willie Virgile Brigitte, a French man extradited from Australia in October, is believed to be at the heart of the case. He is suspected of running false passports to Massood's assassins.

Brigitte organized the survival training lessons in Fontainebleau and spent months in al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to French judicial officials.

Muslim Missionaries Recruiting Africans For Holy War

A lot of people complain about Christian missionaries, but I have never heard of them doing military recruiting. This is just another example of activities going on in mosques that must be halted if terrorism is ever going to end. From AP:

Muslim missionaries from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Pakistan have been visiting mosques in East Africa to recruit young men for holy war.

Moderate Muslim leaders say the part-time preachers go from mosque to mosque spouting sermons of hate, then offer young men a chance to wage holy war in Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan.

A moderate Muslim leader in Tanzania says most older clerics try to warn their congregations that the extremists distort Islam.

Most people in Zanzibar follow a mystical form of Sufi Islam, which emphasizes peace and harmony, so they tend to reject the missionaries' fiery rhetoric.

But the missionaries appeal to a frustrated minority who believe Islam is at war.

Muslim FBI Agent reinstated

Gamal Abdel-Hafiz, the FBI agent who allegedly refused to tape a fellow Muslim, has been reinstated. Did he really refuse to tape a Muslim? He says he was misunderstood. From MSNBC, with thanks to LGF:

Overturning the action of its senior disciplinary officer, the FBI has reinstated a high-profile Muslim agent who had been fired last year amid a swirl of controversy over allegations of conflicting loyalties in the war on terrorism, NEWSWEEK has learned. . . .

But congressional aides noted that it comes at a time when the bureau is under fire for its failure to recruit more Muslim and Arabic-speaking agents. The move also comes barely two months after Abdel-Hafiz filed a lawsuit against a current and former FBI agent, as well as ABC News for making statements in a December 2002 broadcast that left viewers with the impression he was a “sympathizer to terrorism and other religious fanatics.”

Until only a few years ago, Abdel-Hafiz had been one of the bureau’s prized counterterrorism assets, winning promotions and commendations for his work on such cases as the bombings of the Khobar Towers military barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1996 and the Navy destroyer USS Cole off the coast of Yemen in October 2000.

Promoted to the post of deputy legal attaché in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in February 2001, Abdel-Hafiz was a pivotal figure in the investigation into the September 11 terror attacks. He also extracted a crucial confession that led to the arrest of the so-called Lackawanna 6—six Buffalo, N.Y.-area men who had attended an Al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan, a case that has been publicly touted by top Justice Department officials as one of the Bush administration’s biggest successes in the war on terrorism. “You couldn’t ask for a better job by an FBI agent,” Paul Moskal, the FBI spokesman in Buffalo, told NEWSWEEK last fall about Abdel-Hafiz’s work on the Lackawanna 6 case.

But Abdel-Hafiz’s career turned sour in the fall of 2002, when a fellow FBI agent in Chicago, Robert Wright, accused him of refusing to cooperate in an earlier 1999 case targeting fundraising by the militant Palestinian group Hamas. Wright claimed that Abdel-Hafiz, who was then assigned to the bureau’s Dallas field office, had refused his request that he wear a hidden wire in a meeting with a suspect in the case on the grounds that “a Muslim does not record another Muslim.” Abdel-Hafiz has insisted that his comment was misunderstood and that his reluctance to wear the wire stemmed from his concerns that it could undermine his effectiveness in the Muslim community and jeopardize his family if word got out that he had done so. In any case, Abdel-Hafiz pointed out that his supervisor at the time, Danny Defenbaugh, then the special agent in charge of the Dallas office, made the final decision that Abdel-Hafiz should not wear a wire in the Hamas investigation.

Wright’s allegations, first made at a Washington press conference and later repeated in his December 2002 interview with the ABC News show “Primetime Live,” led to increased scrutiny of Abdel-Hafiz’s work in Riyadh. By then, Abdel-Hafiz’s chief supervisor, Wilfred Rattigan, had converted to Islam. When both Abdel-Hafiz and Rattigan flew off to Mecca for the hajj, a top FBI official in Washington complained and an auditing team was dispatched to review the office’s work. During the course of the audit, Abdel-Hafiz told NEWSWEEK, the chief inspector from headquarters concluded that there was too much “clutter” in the office and ordered the “shredding” of over 2,000 documents related to the September 11 terror investigations. Although most of the documents were duplicated in the FBI’s computers, a small number were not, according to Abdel-Hafiz. These consisted of between 50 and 100 letters written by Saudi security officials responding to FBI requests for information about terror suspects. When the FBI was forced to ask the Saudis for new copies of the letters, the Saudis—who were being severely criticized in Congress for failure to cooperate on terrorism cases—complained to senior U.S. officials.

Nigerian jihad continues

This "Muslim-Christian violence" is rather predictably one-sided. From AP, with thanks to Peter Rockas:

Suspected Muslim militants armed with guns and bows and arrows killed at least 48 people in an attack on a farming village in central Nigeria. Most of the victims died as they sought refuge in a church, police said. The latest bout of Muslim-Christian violence in the region occurred Tuesday night in Yelwa, a mainly Christian town in Nigeria's Plateau State, police commissioner Innocent Ilozuoke said.

Army and police reinforcements helped restore calm, Ilozuoke told a news conference Wednesday in Jos, the state capital.

The killings appeared to be the latest retaliatory attack in a sporadic conflict that has rocked the central region since an outburst of sectarian violence in 2001, pitting Christians against Muslims in once-peaceful Jos. In the initial outburst in Jos more than 1,000 people died in one week.

Since then, several hundreds more have died as rival Muslim-Christian militias attacked isolated villages and towns.

Dawood Ibrahim: "India's Osama"

Is terrorism really the last desperate resort of the poor? Dawood Ibrahim has 430 million dollars. From Asia Times, with thanks to Jean-Luc:

While all attention is focused on Osama bin Laden and his cohorts allegedly cornered in western Pakistan, in India there is an equal amount of interest in the one man who is wanted just as desperately - Dawood Ibrahim. . . .

The hunt for Dawood is taking place following Pakistan's realization that flushing out terrorists and jihadi elements has become a necessity for its own survival. Pakistan has currently amassed 20,000 troops along the Afghanistan border for what is being believed to be a decisive battle against bin Laden and al-Qaeda militants. But what might be more than a coincidence is that Pakistan's sudden willingness to flush out Dawood comes amid reports in the Indian media that a timely tip-off by the Indian intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) helped foil a third assassination plot against Musharraf. Two abortive attempts have been reported in the past few months. There is, however, no doubt in anyone's mind that Dawood is indisputably the number one criminal wanted by India, and what has rankled is that he has for long used Pakistan as a base. . . .

It is the nature of the crimes attributed to Dawood that place him at the top of India's most wanted wish list. The son of a police constable, he is the prime suspect in masterminding a series of bomb blasts that occurred in a single day in 1993 in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), the financial heart of India, killing 260 people and injuring 1,000. . . .

It is estimated that in Mumbai alone, Dawood and his family own assets worth US$430 million. This includes several buildings at prime locations such as Colaba, Crawford Market, Bhendi Bazar, Bandra, Oshiwara and Versova. Many of these are benami (fictitious names), which makes it difficult to seize them. The family has several builders, stockbrokers and jewelers fronting for it. Apart from this, Dawood has vast business interests in the hospitality industry in the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Australia and India. Several shopping malls in the West and Australia are also reportedly owned by the family. Dawood has also allegedly began operating an airline from a Central Asian republic.

"Chicks with Bombs"

The New York Post (as if you couldn't tell from the headline) reviews a new book about female suicide bombers, Barbara Victor's Army of Roses (Rodale Press). (Thanks to Jeffrey Imm.)

The Israeli occupation, Victor finds, does not fully explain Palestinian terrorism. Rather, its roots lie in the "culture of death" that Palestinian leaders have promoted. Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been at the forefront of fusing martyrdom with patriotism. The popularity of these groups prompted Yasser Arafat to authorize his own al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade to engage in terrorism and in 2002, Arafat began calling for the recruitment of women as Shihada (female martyrs) to create "an army of roses that will crush Israeli tanks."

Not to be outdone, Hamas, normally religiously conservative, issued a fatwa permitting women to become suicide bombers. . . .

This book explodes the myth that Palestinian terrorism would cease if Israel's occupation ended. Terrorism now functions in Palestinian society in ways that are independent of Israel.

The lesson is that peace will necessarily require a sea change within Palestinian society, one that, unfortunately, shows little sign of occurring.

"I wanted to be a martyr and kill Israeli soldiers"

She will try again, and kill even children. From the Telegraph:

A woman suicide bomber arrested by Israeli forces as she prepared to blow up a Tel Aviv bus station vowed yesterday to carry out a successful "martyr attack" as soon as she is freed from jail. "Yes, I will do it again if I can," said Obeida Khalil, 27. "When I put the suicide explosives belt on I felt very happy, very content. I was angry when they caught me because I was not able to be a martyr.

"I wanted to be the first female martyr and to kill as many Israeli soldiers as possible. I chose the bus station because my brother blew himself up there."

There have been seven female Palestinian suicide bombers. Two of them alone have claimed 25 lives. Another 24 bombers, including Khalil, have been stopped before they could strike.

Speaking to The Telegraph in her cell in HaSharon prison near Netanya, Khalil, a member of Islamic Jihad from the village of Beit Wazan, near Nablus, said she had been pushed to act because of the Israeli occupation and the "murder" of her fiance.

"Four days before our wedding, he went up on the roof and he was shot dead by an Israeli helicopter. If we had been married, then I would have had children. I would have done other things for the jihad besides being a martyr.

"But before he died we had discussed being martyrs by blowing ourselves up together. With the help of God, we said, maybe both of us would do it and then we would be together forever."

Khalil is one of 74 female Palestinian prisoners kept in a special wing at HaSharon. It is divided between prisoners linked to Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement in one segregated group and Hamas and Islamic Jihad inmates in the other. They are kept locked up 21 hours a day in tiny shared cells and allowed three hours exercise in the wing's central yard. One prisoner had a baby and will be allowed to keep him until he is two.

Kaiera Sa'idi, 26, serving a life sentence for driving a suicide bomber, said she knew what she was doing might mean she would never see her four children again. "But I felt it was my duty and I believe God will take care of them."

Most of Khalil's time is spent reading the Koran, doing needlework and preparing what she feels she must do when released. Arrested 20 months ago, Khalil is serving a five-year sentence. Relatives are not allowed to visit because several family members have been suicide bombers.

Her mother, she said, understood why she wanted to kill herself. "Every Muslim wants to be a martyr. It was in me before I was born. The Israelis took my land and our state was conquered.

"People in Europe do not understand us but if they lived in Palestine they wouldn't ask questions about why we do what we do."

Although Khalil wanted to blow up soldiers in her planned attack in Tel Aviv she said it was legitimate to kill Jewish children because one day they would serve in the Israeli army.

Terror suspects arrested in Italy

Milan's Duomo: possibly a target

Several imams have been arrested on suspicions of terror plotting in Italy. The spectacle of religious teachers being arrested for this kind of activity has become so commonplace as to escape notice. But it points up vividly the problem that Muslims face globally: radicalism is coming from those who should be most familiar with the supposedly peaceful teachings of the religion. Global reform is needed, but it is not at all on the horizon. From the BBC, with thanks to Jean-Luc.

Italian police have arrested three North Africans suspected of plotting to bomb Milan's metro and a cathedral in the north of the country. Arrest warrants had been issued for five men from Morocco and Tunisia, who served as Muslim religious leaders in the city of Cremona.

The suspected cell members are under investigation for conspiracy to commit "international terrorism". . . .

The crackdown targeted an alleged cell linked to a mosque in the city of Cremona.

Investigators believe the men planned to blow up the Milan metro stop below the cathedral in December 2002 and also to bomb the Cremona cathedral.

"The subversive cells have maintained themselves over time, working out of the mosque of Cremona and led by the successive imams," Brescia's attorney general said.

Another ex-imam of the Cremona mosque was arrested last October, after being accused by Morocco of links to the suicide bombings in Casablanca that killed 45 people in May.

A blueprint for jihad, or a red herring?

Gulf News thinks that the notorious Zarqawi letter is a forgery, for some interesting reasons.

The London-based daily Al Hayat recently published a letter allegedly written by Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, America's most sought after man in Iraq due to his connections with Al Qaida.

The US has placed a reward of $10 million on his capture.

If true, the letter provides invaluable insight into the workings of a terrorist's mind. Its publication has stirred much debate and received wide condemnation - as well as scepticism - from Arab writers and intellectuals.

Some analysts have expressed doubt over the letter's authenticity, since all of Al Qaida's content is marked by optimism for future actions and plans.

This particular letter, according to critics, more or less harbours pessimism as it repeatedly mentions how all doors are being shut in the face of the mujahideen. The contents of the letter are highly inflammatory and full of religious overtones.

Gulf News publishes this letter to give the reader some understanding of the writer's perspective, and it should be read in this context.

The letter, according to the website Elaph, was found on a man - captured by Kurdish troops - who they claim was a close confidante-cum-messenger of Al Zarqawi. The man captured was en route to delivering the letter to his supporters in Iraq.

The Jordanian Al Zarqawi was sentenced in absentia in 2000 by a Jordanian court to 15 years in prison for his role in plotting to carry out a series of attacks against Western interests in Jordan.

The US State Department last year also labelled Al Zarqawi as one of the most senior Al Qaida leaders with close ties with Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al Zawahiri.

Addressed to 'two brothers', a reference that is assumed to be made to bin Laden and Al Zawahri, the letter maps out in detail the agenda for the coming four months in carrying out attacks against the Americans. It calls for turning Iraq into a new battlefield against the Americans.

It further details the ethnic break-up of Iraqi society, describing each group in detail, whether they are supporters of Al Qaida or not, and how they are to be treated accordingly.

Gulf News has translated excerpts of the controversial letter.

Unjust West ganging up on Islam: Megawati

Megawati (AFP)

The US and its allies are behaving with "exceptional injustice" toward Muslim countries, says Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri. From Smh.com.au, with thanks to Jean-Luc:

Mrs Megawati sought to contrast the way Indonesia had used the law to find and prosecute its terrorists with the "unilateral" US-led invasion of Iraq. The remarks opened an international conference of Islamic scholars, which her government partly funded.

"It may be due to either coincidence or intention, but an exceptional injustice is apparent in the attitude and action of big countries towards countries [whose] major populations are Muslims," she told 300 delegates from Islamic universities and governments around the world.

Indonesia, she said, had the right idea:

Indonesia was a genuinely moderate Muslim society that used the justice system to oppose terrorism, such as the bombings in Bali, she said. "The nation resolutely repudiates and legally prosecutes those perpetrating acts of violence against others, despite their conviction that those are religious acts."

Hmm. What about the light treatment meted out to Abu Bakar Bashir?

Megawati was also exercised about France:

Although France had staunchly opposed the Iraqi invasion, she said it was guilty of perpetrating a "far smaller" injustice towards Muslims by its recent move to restrict women and girls from wearing the Islamic head scarf.

Such discriminatory acts would be seen as test cases in Muslim countries to judge whether "those big countries are serious in practising the human rights they have preached to the whole world since the past 20th century".

What tests, if any, meanwhile, would Muslim countries themselves have to take regarding human rights? Megawati did have a few comments:

But she also criticised Islamic society and said it too needed to change and present "a more peaceful facade". She urged Islamic leaders to become more open to ideas and technological advances in the West that were leaving Islamic societies behind.

"Islamic scholars need to formulate and develop a socio-religious conception that is more open, more inclusive, which provides space to the pluralism of mankind that is so diverse."

Indonesia's 40 million strong Islamic group Nahdlatul Ulama organised the meeting with government help to redress the "stigmatisation of Islam as a religion that accommodates acts of violence", a conference document said.

If Nahdlatul Ulama really wants to do that, it will have to address jihad ideology. I doubt that was on the agenda.

Islamic teacher jailed for hiding Bali bomber

Until Muslim groups worldwide face up to the involvement of "Islamic teachers" in terrorist acts, and do something to prevent it, military actions will not win a decisive or lasting victory in the war on terror. From Reuters:

An Indonesian court on Wednesday sentenced an Islamic teacher, believed to have been a leader of the most feared militant group in South-east Asia, to three years in jail for hiding one of the Bali bombers.

Abu Rusydan, who is believed by authorities to have taken over cleric Abu Bakar Bashir's role as leader of the shadowy Jemaah Islamiah (JI) group six months before the deadly 2002 Bali bombings, was found guilty of involvement in acts of terror.

Prosecutors had asked for nine years in jail for Rusydan.

"The defendant has been proven guilty of purposely carrying out acts of terror by giving leeway to a terror suspect and hiding information on a terror crime," Judge Machmud Rochimi told the South Jakarta court.

About 200 supporters of the 43-year-old Central Java religious teacher chanted "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest) after the verdict was read out and punched their fists in the air.

Rusydan was charged with hiding Mukhlas, top controller of the Bali blast operation, while he was on the run from the police.

Prosecutors had told the court Rusydan led a meeting a few days after the blast that killed 202 people and a participant heard Mukhlas say "the perpetrators of the Bali bombings were us".

Prosecutors say Rusydan became JI caretaker after Bashir took over leadership of the Indonesian Mujahidin Council, a hardline Islamic group advocating full implementation of Islamic sharia law in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country.

Rusydan has admitted he led the meeting and helped Bashir but has denied he had anything to do with a terror organisation.

About 30 people, including many accused of being JI members, have been convicted for their role in the Bali attacks, the worst since the September 11 strikes on the United States.

Three, including Mukhlas, have been sentenced to death.

A separate Jakarta court in September found Bashir guilty of treason and sentenced him to four years, but said accusations he was JI's chief were unproven. A higher court later acquitted Bashir of treason and reduced his jail term to three years.

Terror attack in Britain 'inevitable'

So said British Home Secretary David Blunkett, who also had some choice words for opponents of anti-terror measures. From the Australian, with thanks to Nicolei:

A TERRORIST attack in Britain was inevitable, British Home Secretary David Blunkett said.

Security measures alone were not sufficient to stop the threat, he said. Asked if such an attack was a question of "when, not if", Blunkett told BBC television: "Yes, it's the view that's been expressed by the head of the (home) security service", Eliza Manningham-Buller.

Blunkett said that a suicide attack was "the most likely" scenario in Britain, which has been a staunch supporter of the US in its so-called war on terror.

Blunkett told the BBC that Prime Minister Tony Blair "and I have confirmed that whatever we do - and we are doing everything we can - we can't guarantee and nor should we pretend to that we can protect ourselves forever by security alone.

"But we can do a damn good job if we enable the security services to be able to apprehend people before rather than after they have committed the act," Blunkett said, adding: "In this country the threat is extremely real."

His comments came the day before he was due to publish a controversial paper setting out possible options for introducing tough new counter-terrorism laws in Britain.

The proposed measures were expected to feature radical proposals such as lowering the standard of proof in terrorist-linked court cases and introducing secret trials heard by security-vetted judges.

The plans have been fiercely criticised by human rights campaigners.

But Blunkett argued that Britain now faced a threat different from that of attacks carried out by Northern Ireland paramilitary groups during decades of violence in the British-ruled province.

"Whatever they (such groups) did, and it was horrendous, they actually always tried to save their own lives."

But they were not "as terrorism is from Al-Qaeda and the network around it, geared up to suicide bombers who can take our lives at any time in ways that we never perceived before.

"So prevention rather than simply prosecution and punishment have to be the way forward. Because prosecution and punishment to a terrorist who is prepared to take his or her own life as well as everyone else's is a meaningless concept."

Blunkett said that the document he was to unveil today "explains more of how al-Qaeda cells organise and operate".

"Without this information, we cannot have an informed debate about how to balance our security with our rights," he said in an interview with Britain's domestic Press Association.

Blunkett called for a debate to produce solutions to the international terrorist threat, a step he admitted risked attracting the derision of his political opponents.

"I am fed up with what little debate we have in this country being dictated by the campaigners and lawyers who only say how rights are being damaged rather than come up with some solutions. In short, I want answers and ideas, not just brickbats."

Blunkett added: "I live with constant, never-ending worry day and night about the threat we face and whether we are doing everything we can to make this country as safe as possible."

The Home Secretary was also expected to unveil details of a 50-per-cent expansion of Britain's home security service, known as MI5, which is to hire 1000 new staff to counter the threat of terrorism.

Tenet: al-Qaida Weakened, Extremism Isn't

I have long argued that the worldwide jihadist movement is not restricted to any single organization. Now, after virtually everything has been blamed on Al-Qaeda for awhile, this is being acknowledged. From AP, with thanks to EPG:

Al-Qaida is damaged seriously, but it has spread its radical agenda to other groups that now pose the leading threat to the United States, CIA Director George Tenet and other intelligence chiefs said.

Tenet described a terrorist organization lacking central leadership and squeezed financially. Al-Qaida remains determined to attack U.S. interests, however, and still is capable of carrying out assaults on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001, he said Tuesday.

In addition, dozens of smaller Islamic extremist organizations with ties to al-Qaida have emerged, in places like Libya, Iraq and Uzbekistan, to constitute the next wave of terrorist threats, Tenet told the Senate Intelligence Committee in an annual public session on national security threats.

"The steady growth of Osama bin Laden's anti-American sentiment through the wider Sunni extremist movement and the broad dissemination of al-Qaida's destructive expertise ensure that a serious threat will remain for the foreseeable future, with or without al-Qaida in the picture," Tenet said.

At Tuesday's politically charged hearing, given recent debate over the intelligence community's prewar assessments on Iraq's weapons, Tenet and other officials walked gingerly through questions on the intelligence agencies' cooperation and effectiveness. They touched on instability in countries from Haiti to Afghanistan, although Iraq dominated much of the discussion.

On Iraq, Vice Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said allies of deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein are thought to be responsible for most anti-U.S. attacks. Foreign fighters, including those from al-Qaida, have carried out some of the most significant attacks and may be behind the high-casualty suicide bombings largely against Iraqi targets, he said.

"Left unchecked," Jacoby said, "Iraq has the potential to serve as a training ground for the next generation of terrorists."

Further, many in the country's Sunni minority, which prospered during Saddam's Baath party control, have yet to decide whether to support the U.S. coalition or the resistance, Jacoby said. "The key factors in this decision are stability and a future that presents viable alternatives to the Baathists or Islamists," he said.

Largely ignoring an appeal from the committee chairman, Pat Roberts, R-Kan., to focus on current threats, Republican and Democratic lawmakers questioned the intelligence chiefs about intelligence mistakes before the Sept. 11 attacks and the war in Iraq. The agencies' performance in those crises has called into question the reliability of intelligence and the Bush administration's pre-emptive strike doctrine.

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, asked Tenet how, since a National Security Strategy promulgated in September 2002 set up a strategy of pre-emption, Bush and other administration officials used words like "grave and gathering threat" to describe the level of Saddam's danger to the United States. International law traditionally requires that a threat be "imminent" before a nation can defend against it.

"If it wasn't an imminent threat in your mind, how would you have characterized or assessed the threat?" Snowe asked.

Tenet said intelligence analysts were "quite worried " about surprise attacks and what they didn't know, given Saddam's history of deception. Estimates also indicated he had biological and chemical weapons, and other programs. "Whether it stands up or it doesn't stand up over the course of time is something we're going to look at quite carefully," he said.

"People voted to authorize the use of force based on what we read in these reports," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. "It's a pretty bitter pill to swallow, particularly with a pre-emptive war."

After the hearing, Roberts told reporters that "everybody would have some second thoughts" about the rationalization for war, but he believes that Saddam posed a national security threat, "in some ways even more dangerous" than expected, due to the deterioration of his leadership.

Also at the hearing:

-Tenet said officials have uncovered plans to recruit pilots and evade security measures in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Europe. In the last year, officials also have seen an increase in threats from more sophisticated chemical, biological and radiological weapons. They've learned of widely disseminated instructions for an improvised chemical weapon, he said.

-When asked if the country is safer today than a year ago, Tenet, Jacoby and FBI Director Robert Mueller all said yes. Mueller later cautioned that threats may be more significant because of the decentralization that followed the undoing of many terrorist leaders and their sanctuaries in Afghanistan. He said the country is safer, however, because of government protection.

-Tenet rejected suggestions that the CIA did not follow up on a 1999 German intelligence tip about one of the Sept. 11 hijackers, a first name and a phone number. "You got a name, named Joe, and here's the phone number," Tenet said. "We didn't have enough, but we didn't sit around."

-Tenet praised "great cooperation" from Muslim leaders, including Pakistani Gen. President Pervez Musharraf, who "remains a courageous and indispensable ally who has become the target of assassins for the help he's given us."

Israel Says Hizballah Pays Bonus For Suicide Bomb Victims

The more civilians are killed in those buses and restaurants, the better Hizballah likes it. From the Dow Jones Newswire, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

Hezbollah is paying bonuses for each person Palestinian suicide bombers kill, the head of Israel's parliamentary defense and foreign affairs committee said Tuesday.

Committee chairman Yuval Steinitz told Dow Jones Newswires that the Lebanese guerrilla group is rewarding the cell organizers for each victim of suicide bombers.

Steinitz confirmed an Israel radio report citing the head of the Shin Bet security
service, Avi Dichter, who appeared before the committee earlier Tuesday, saying Hezbollah was making the payments. The Iranian-backed Hezbollah has been helping to finance attacks carried out by groups affiliated with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement since the Palestinian uprising against Israel broke out nearly 3 1/2 years ago.

But more recently, Hezbollah has begun paying individual terror cells a "bonus" of several hundred dollars for each individual victim killed, Steinitz said.

Hezbollah refused to comment on the report.

Steinitz said Israel is unsure how much money in total the Lebanese guerrilla group has paid to finance uprising-related terror activity.

Palestinian militants didn't immediately comment on the report, but have previously said that Hezbollah has said the payment depends on the size of the attack, although there is no fixed scale for victims.

The militants have said they get monthly payments from Hezbollah for basics such as ammunition and cellular phone cards, as well as larger lump sums of tens of thousands of dollars for individual attacks.

Israel and Hezbollah have been bitter enemies since Israeli troops occupied southern Lebanon more than two decades ago. Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, and a Jan. 29 prisoner swap that also led to the release of 400 Palestinians from Israeli prisoners, haven't reduced the tensions.

Bounty payments for acts of terrorism are a familiar item on the Mideast landscape. Two years ago, then-Iraqi president Saddam Hussein began paying $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers, more than doubling previous payments of $10,000.

Israel also accuses Saudi Arabia of sponsoring Palestinian terror through payments to Islamic charities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Saudi Arabia says the money is used for humanitarian purposes only.

A spokesman for the Al Aqsa martyrs' brigade, a militant group loosely affiliated with Arafat, later denied they were getting bonuses for killing more people.

Said Abu Mujahed: "Hezbollah is supporting the Al Aqsa brigades and the intifada financially as the Jews all over the world are supporting Israel. They are supporting us on the basis that they are Arabs and Muslims and they are supporting their brothers in resisting the occupation."

However, he said they weren't getting a lot of money from Hezbollah. "We get just enough to survive and struggle."

11th issue of "Voice of Jihad" released

Wage jihad, fight the Crusaders, topple the apostates of the House of Saud -- that's right, it's a new issue of the Al-Qaeda magazine "Voice of Jihad." From the SITE Institute, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

The 11th issue of the al-Qaeda biweekly “Sawt al-Jihad” [Voice of Jihad] online magazine has been released. In this issue, we find three main points of emphasis:

This issue places great emphasis on propaganda, especially through the internet. Time and again, the magazine states that one of the great successes of the mujahideen in the past year was managing to spread their ideas and mobilize public support, despite the Saudi regime’s effort to stop them. In this context, the new Al-Qaeda video entitled “Badr Al-Riyadh” is referred to at length, with great emphasis on its impact. This video, we learn, has set the stage for a new phase, in which people will move from passively supporting the mujahideen to actively joining them in their holy war against the infidels.

As is characteristic of the magazine, we find the usual rhetoric calling on all Muslims to “fight the crusaders” in Saudi Arabia and in Iraq and to sacrifice themselves as martyrs for this holy cause.

The magazine continuously reemphasizes its clear, unambiguous hate-filled stand against the Saudi royal family ruling Saudi Arabia. They are presented as traitors who are collaborating with the “crusaders,” and must be dealt with accordingly.

Propaganda

In an article summarizing the achievements of the mujahideen, the “most prominent victory” at this stage is ascribed to the mujahideen’s ability to “prove the truth of their belief.” The article goes on to explain that “this theoretical and theological war stands in the center of the current struggle.”

This statement sheds some light on the mujahideen’s view of their main objectives over the past months. Performing attacks against western targets was important, but the main objective had been that of mobilizing public support and gaining grass root legitimacy among the Muslims, despite the “vicious campaign against the mujahideen which has been carried out lately” by the “renegade regime.”

Crowning these informative efforts was the video, “Badr Al-Riyadh.” “This video had a great impact on the tyrants of the Peninsula, it baffled them, it destroyed everything they had done… Months, and even years of organized deceit went to waste in a mere 90 minutes.”

Furthermore, this movie, we are told, has set the stage for a new phase, in which the mujahideen will move from gaining public support to mobilizing it for the holy war: “God willing, this will be the start of a new phase, the most prominent characteristic of which will be the movement of the jihad firebrand into the midst of the people.” Instead of only passively sympathizing with mujahideen, people will move to “giving all possible support to the mujahideen, standing by them with heart and soul, with prayers and by urging sons to become time bombs and heroic commandos against the crusaders and their allies…”.

According to this article about the video, between three and four hundred thousand people downloaded the movie from the internet in less than five days, parts of the video were broadcast by various TV news channels, and the video was also copied “in great numbers” on video cassettes and distributed all over Saudi Arabia.

Fighting the Crusaders

Opening the new Hijra year 1425, the 11th issue of the magazine begins with a summary of the “great events in the land of the two holy Mosques [Saudi Arabia],” in which “The mujahideen brigades set out to fight the crusaders and launch painful attacks against them…giving them a taste of what the Muslims are being subjected to everywhere by the criminal infidels, be it in Palestine, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Iraq, or Kashmir.” The article describes and glorifies the two attacks that were carried out in the past year against western targets in Riyadh—the attack on the residential compounds in May and the attack on the Mahyah residential complex in November. The magazine stresses that despite their small number, “the quality of these attacks, as well as their actual and media impact, was great, creating havoc in the calculations of the crusaders and of their collaborators in the region.”

In subsequent articles our attention is directed to the great power the Mujahideen have accumulated in the past year, managing “to establish training camps…, accumulate weapons, missiles, new equipment, and multiply the number of cells…; truly, they have become a country within a country!”

Characteristically, we also find fervent calls upon the Muslims to join this holy war: “We will bring our ardently desired Ummah back to the times of glory and honor…We will continue on this path until Allah will bring this about, or until we die…We will put all our efforts into fighting the crusaders, in order to raise the flag of the religion, so that the holy law of Allah, the Creator of the Worlds, may rule…O, Muslims, perform your duty! Persist, persevere, and fight. Place your trust in Allah, so that you may be successful.”

Stand against Saudi Royal Family

It is impossible to overlook the hate-filled position held by the magazine against the Saudi regime, in general, and the Saudi royal family, in particular. In fact, such is its contempt for the regime that the magazine consistently abstains from referring to the family by its name, instead degradingly calling it “Al-Salul,” meaning “the infiltrated family.” The magazine further attacks the royal family, stating, “the collaborating governments of the [Arab] Peninsula have rendered logistical support to the crusading American army in its fight against Iraq” and are still continuing to do so.

The issue maintains that the way to handle a situation in which a country has been occupied and is being employed as a base for launching operations against Islam is clear. This country must be fought, “together with all who collaborate with it.” Throughout the magazine, the Saudi government continues to be denounced in the context of aiding the Americans, arresting holy warriors, launching media campaigns against them, and doing all in their power to stand in their way.

Bin Laden Lieutenant Taunts Bush on Tape

Al-Qaeda is still full of threats and murder — oh, and they're not too happy about France and that headscarf thing, either. From AP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

Audiotapes purported to be from Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant aired on Arabic TV stations Tuesday, one taunting President Bush and threatening more attacks on the United States, the second criticizing France's decision to ban Islamic headscarves in schools.

Portions of separate audiotapes attributed to Ayman al-Zawahri were broadcast a few hours apart on Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera, competing pan-Arab satellite channels based in the Persian Gulf. Officials at both stations said they had aired only excerpts judged newsworthy. The two stations said they had received different tapes.

In Al-Jazeera's tape, the voice believed to be that of al-Zawahri challenged Bush's claim to have liberated Iraq and indicated al-Qaida is still running operations from Afghanistan.

"We remind Bush that situation is not stable in Afghanistan, or else how do we wage, with God's support and might, our attacks on your troops and agents. ... How do we send our messages that challenge you and reveal your lies," the tape said.

"We remind Bush that he didn't destroy two-thirds of Al-Qaida. On the contrary, thanks be to God, al-Qaida is still in the holy war battleground raising the banner of Islam in the face of the Zionist-Crusader campaign against the Islamic community," it added.

In his State of the Union address in January, Bush said "nearly two-thirds" of al-Qaida's known leaders had been captured or killed.

"Bush, fortify your targets, tighten your defense, intensify your security measures," the voice warned, "because the fighting Islamic community — which sent you New York and Washington battalions — has decided to send you one battalion after the other, carrying death and seeking heaven."

The audiotape aired by Dubai-based al-Arabiya also criticized France's decision to ban religious symbols in public buildings, including headscarves worn by Muslim women. The law is expected to go before the French Senate early next month, where little opposition exists.

"The decision of the French president to issue a law to prevent Muslim girls from covering their heads in schools is another example of the Crusader's envy, which Westerners have against Muslims," the voice said in Al-Arabiya's tape. "This envy boils in their hearts and overflows in their chests and they pass it on to the generations."

Both stations identified the voice on their tapes as that of al-Zawahri, and both said they had received the material on Tuesday. Officials at both stations spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Al-Arabiya official said his station's analysts believed the voice to be al-Zawahri's and that the station believed it was authentic primarily because of the source from which it received the tape, which he would not disclose. The Al-Jazeera official said only that his station had received the material over telephone lines and that al-Zawahri's voice was familiar to his staff.

The voice on both tapes sounded identical. The tone and rhetoric were familiar from previous videotapes and audiotapes also believed to be from al-Zawahri, though it was not possible to independently confirm the speaker's identity.

Al-Zawahri, an Egyptian-born physician, is thought to be in hiding along with bin Laden in the mountains somewhere along the rugged border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The tapes come at a time when Pakistani forces backed by helicopters were searching villages in a remote border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan where bin Laden and Taliban suspects are believed to be hiding. The fugitives were believed to have taken refuge among tribes.

The voice on Al-Arabiya's tape singled out Egypt's foremost religious leader, Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, the grand sheik of Al-Azhar, calling his support of the French decision "a scandal."

Tantawi issued an edict early this year asking Muslim women living in France to comply with French laws on religious symbols. His first remarks defending the ban were made Dec. 30, so the tape would have been made sometime after that.

The French decision has sparked protests across the Islamic world.

A French Foreign Ministry official, responding to the tape, reiterated Tuesday his country's position that the law is meant to protect the country's secular foundations and is not directed at Muslims or any particular religion.

Al-Qaida is blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States. Tapes by the group have focused on the wars with the Americans and their allies in Afghanistan and Iraq. France has strongly opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

The last time a videotape of al-Zawahri was released on Arab television was in September. It showed the bearded, turbaned cleric climbing down a craggy mountainside with bin Laden.

C.I.A. was given data on 9/11 hijacker in 1999

The CIA had a chance in 1999 — and blew it. From the New York Times:

American investigators were given the first name and telephone number of one of the Sept. 11 hijackers two and a half years before the attacks on New York and Washington, but the United States appears to have failed to pursue the lead aggressively, American and German officials say.

The information — the earliest known signal that the United States received about any of the hijackers — has now become an important element of an independent commission's investigation into the events of Sept. 11, 2001, officials said Monday. It is considered particularly significant because it may have represented a missed opportunity for American officials to penetrate the Qaeda terror cell in Germany that was at the heart of the plot. And it came roughly 16 months before the hijacker showed up at flight schools in the United States.

In March 1999, German intelligence officials gave the Central Intelligence Agency the first name and telephone number of Marwan al-Shehhi, and asked the Americans to track him.

The name and phone number in the United Arab Emirates had been obtained by the Germans by monitoring the telephone of Mohamed Heidar Zammar, an Islamic militant in Hamburg who was closely linked to the important Qaeda plotters who ultimately mastermined the Sept. 11 attacks, German officials said.

After the Germans passed the information on to the C.I.A., they did not hear from the Americans about the matter until after Sept. 11, a senior German intelligence official said.

"There was no response" at the time, the official said. After receiving the tip, the C.I.A. decided that "Marwan" was probably an associate of Osama bin Laden, but never tracked him down, American officials say.

The Germans considered the information on Mr. Shehhi particularly valuable, and the commission is keenly interested in why it apparently did not lead to greater scrutiny of him.

The information concerning Mr. Shehhi, the man who took over the controls of United Airlines Flight 175, which flew into the south tower of the World Trade Center, came months earlier than well-documented tips about other hijackers, including two who were discovered to have attended a meeting of militants in Malaysia in January 2000.

The independent commission investigating the attacks has received information on the 1999 Shehhi tip, and is actively investigating the issue, said Philip Zelikow, executive director of the commission.

American intelligence officials and others involved with the matter say they are uncertain whether Mr. Shehhi's phone was ever monitored.

An American official said: "The Germans did give us the name `Marwan' and a phone number, but we were unable to come up with anything. It was an unlisted phone number in the U.A.E., which he was known to use."

The incident is of particular importance because Mr. Shehhi was a crucial member of the Qaeda cell in Hamburg at the heart of the Sept. 11 plot. Close surveillance of Mr. Shehhi in 1999 might have led investigators to other plot leaders, including Mohammed Atta, who was Mr. Shehhi's roommate. A native of the United Arab Emirates, Mr. Shehhi moved to Germany in 1996 and was almost inseparable from Mr. Atta in their time there. Both men attended the wedding of a fellow Muslim at a radical mosque in Hamburg in October 1999 — an event considered an important gathering for the Sept. 11 hijacking teams just as the plotting was getting under way. American and European authorities say that Mr. Shehhi was actively involved in the planning and logistics of the Sept. 11 plot.

"The Hamburg cell is very important" to the investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Zelikow said. The intelligence on Mr. Shehhi "is an issue that's obviously of importance to us, and we're investigating it," he added.

Asked whether American intelligence officials gave sufficient attention to the information about Mr. Shehhi, Mr. Zelikow said, "We haven't reached any conclusions."

The joint Congressional inquiry that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks was told about the matter by the C.I.A., but only a small part of the information was declassified and made public in the panel's final report in December 2002, several officials said. The public report mentioned only that the C.I.A. had received Mr. Shehhi's first name, but made no mention that the agency had also obtained his telephone number.

Officials involved with the work of the joint Congressional investigation made it clear that the publication of a more complete version of the story was the subject of a declassification dispute with the C.I.A. A former official involved with the Congressional inquiry acknowledged that having a telephone number for one of the hijackers was far more significant than simply having a first name.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the C.I.A., F.B.I. and other government agencies have been heavily criticized for failing to put together fragmentary pieces of information they received from a wide array of sources in order to predict or prevent the terrorist plot. The joint Congressional panel that investigated the attacks concluded that American authorities "missed opportunities to disrupt the Sept. 11 plot by denying entry to or detaining would-be hijackers; to at least try to unravel the plot through surveillance and other investigative work within the United States; and finally, to generate a heightened state of alert and thus harden the homeland against attack."

Until now, the most highly scrutinized failure has related to the C.I.A.'s handling of information about a meeting of extremists in Malaysia in January 2000 that involved two of the men who would become hijackers, Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaq Alhazmi. Although the C.I.A. identified the two men as suspected extremists, the agency did not request that they be placed on the government's watch lists to keep them out of the United States until late August 2001. By that time, they were both already in the country. In addition, while the two men lived in San Diego, their landlord was an F.B.I. informant, but the bureau did not learn of their terrorist links from the informant.

But unlike the leads to Mr. Midhar and Mr. Alhazmi in San Diego, the earlier information about Mr. Shehhi could have taken investigators to the core of the Qaeda cell at a time when the plot was probably in its formative stages. According to testimony in Germany in December in a criminal case related to the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Shehhi was one of only four members of the Hamburg cell who knew about the attacks beforehand.

Mr. Shehhi and Mr. Atta traveled to Afghanistan in 2000 to train at a Qaeda camp with several other Sept. 11 plotters. And after returning to Germany, Mr. Shehhi made an ominous reference to the World Trade Center to a Hamburg librarian, saying: "There will be thousands of dead. You will all think of me," German authorities said.

Soon after, Mr. Shehhi, Mr. Atta and another plotter, Ziad al-Jarrah, began e-mailing several dozen American flight schools from Germany to inquire about enrollment, and they arrived in the United States later in 2000 to begin flight training.

US Muslim power broker's ties to terror suspects

Kenneth Timmerman in Insight has valuable background on Khaled Saffuri, a man whose influence has reached to the White House:

The rise of Khaled Saffuri to political prominence within the U.S. Muslim community has all the ingredients of a Horatio Alger success story. Brought up as a stateless exile in Kuwait, Saffuri came to America as a student in 1982, went to college in San Diego, and soon gravitated into the world of Muslim activism.

A talented fund-raiser and behind-the-scenes power broker, Saffuri built bridges to politicians in both parties by generously contributing to their election campaigns, from California libertarian Rep. Dana Rohrabacher in the GOP to Rep. Cynthia McKinney, the hard-left Georgia Democrat. He has worked to get President Bill Clinton to intervene in Bosnia. He has taken members of Congress on trips to Arab countries. He has lobbied hard but quietly against pro-Israel legislation. In 1998, along with Republican activist Grover Norquist, Saffuri established the Islamic Institute in Washington with the stated purpose of promoting free-market ideals in the Muslim world and of bringing American Muslims into the Republican Party.

Recognition of his role came with a thunderclap during the 2000 presidential campaign, when Karl Rove named him the Bush campaign's point man for Muslim outreach. With George W. Bush in the White House, Khaled Saffuri had arrived.

By all accounts, Saffuri put his new prominence to use, promoting the friends who had helped him achieve his newfound status and advocating for the issues about which they cared. One by one, he introduced them to President Bush and his entourage. With Saffuri frequently smiling in the background, they proudly posed for campaign photographs and, later, attended White House events.

Now, however, some of the very people Saffuri introduced to Bush and Rove are in federal prison on terrorism-related charges. Others have been expelled from the country. Still other former colleagues and donors have become subjects of a massive federal probe into U.S. funding of terrorist organizations that is code-named Operation Greenquest.

In a series of interviews with Insight over the course of more than two years, Saffuri and his supporters claim he has been given a bum rap by critics who point to the alleged terrorist ties as a reason why the White House should distance itself from Saffuri and his friends.

Norquist, the conservative fund-raiser and antipork president of Americans for Tax Reform, insists that any attempt to tie Saffuri to terrorist supporters is "guilt by association." Those who make such accusations, Norquist tells reporters, are "racists and bigots."

But Saffuri's ties to radical Islamists and apologists for terror are neither superficial nor coincidental. An Insight investigation has uncovered a consistent pattern of fund-raising and influence operations in which Saffuri played a prominent role side by side with Abdurahman Alamoudi, a well-known Muslim activist who was Saffuri's employer at the American Muslim Council (AMC). Alamoudi was arrested last September on charges of illegally taking cash payments from the government of Libya in exchange for lobbying the Bush administration to lift sanctions against the Qaddafi regime.

Alamoudi also was one of the leaders of a vast network of Hamas supporters operating across the United States under the guise of American Muslim activist groups.

At a rally in front of the White House on Oct. 28, 2000, Alamoudi told the audience that reports he was a supporter of Hamas were accurate. "Anybody support this Hamas here? Anybody's [sic] is a supporter of Hamas here? Anybody's [sic] is a supporter of Hamas here? Hear that Bill Clinton? We are all supporters of Hamas! Allah akbar [God is great]! I wish to add here I am also a supporter of Hezbollah!"

On June 2, 2000, the U.S.-based al-Zaitounah newspaper interviewed Alamoudi in English on his pro-Hamas activities at the AMC. "Our position with regard to the peace process is well-known," he said. "We are the ones who went to the White House and defended what is called Hamas." According to the Jerusalem Post, Alamoudi attended a leadership conference in Beirut in January 2001 along with top leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda. These and other Alamoudi actions and statements were cited by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Brett Gentrup in a September 2003 affidavit in support of Alamoudi's arrest.

Saffuri tells Insight that Alamoudi won praise from American Jewish leaders for his work on Bosnia in the 1990s. "I have a letter from 1997 from the AJC [American Jewish Committee] to Alamoudi and cc'd [copied] to me," he says. Saffuri promised to send Insight a copy of the letter, but an aide later reported he was unable to locate it. Officials at the AJC could find no trace of such a letter either. Saffuri also told Insight that the AJC "joined" the American Task Force on Bosnia, which AJC officials say is untrue.

"The only time Jewish organizations did something - not really together - but in coordination with Muslim groups were demonstrations against the genocide in Bosnia," says Yehudit Bartsky, an aide to AJC President David Harris. But that cooperation evaporated in 1994, once statements by Alamoudi and other Muslim leaders condemning the Oslo agreements became public. "Everybody was shocked to see they were opposed to Oslo, which all the Jewish organizations supported at the time," she says. After the horrific spate of suicide bombings in 1996, which the AMC and other Muslim organizations refused to condemn, those ties - such as they were - evaporated. "So 1997 would be really late," Bartsky adds.

Saffuri tells Insight that the suicide bombings used by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas and others is "a condemned tactic. It's horrible, it's wrong, it's un-Islamic, it's unethical, because you're targeting innocent civilians."

Saffuri claims he broke with Alamoudi "after a year-and-a-half of bickering and arguing." But the arguments weren't over Alamoudi's support for suicide bombing, but over the latter's demand for a strict Islamic lifestyle in the office. "When I came, I was the first one to hire women without cover," Saffuri says. "Most people would hire from the mosque. I told him this was wrong. I hired peoples with skills. I ended up leaving because I couldn't work with that style of work."

Another key Saffuri ally, Sami Amin al-Arian, was arrested on Feb. 20, 2003, by federal agents in Tampa, Fla., because of his alleged ties to Palestinian terrorists. Like Saffuri, al-Arian is a Palestinian who came to this country from Kuwait. He was the subject of a long-standing criminal investigation because of the leadership role he allegedly played in Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a group that has claimed responsibility for the murder of hundreds of Israelis and more than a dozen Americans, and that raises money for terror in the United States [see "Controversial Professor Arrested in Florida on Terrorism Charges," posted March 4, 2003, at Insight Online].

Al-Arian was one of a group of Muslim leaders who met with President Bush in the White House in May 2001 as part of White House outreach to the Muslim community. The person who helped set up that meeting and who chose the participants was Khaled Saffuri, White House officials tell Insight.

Federal prosecutors now believe al-Arian was a founder of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and that the organization actually was created in the United States by Muslim immigrants in the 1980s who used America's lax immigration laws and strong civil-liberties protections to shield them from federal law-enforcement investigations.

The federal indictment against al-Arian alleges that he used his position as a professor at the University of South Florida to gain visas for terrorists to enter the United States. It also alleges that he transferred cash into overseas accounts that were used for the planning or support of terrorist operations that killed Americans. All through the 1990s, Saffuri worked together with al-Arian and Alamoudi to prevent the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) from using secret evidence in deportation hearings, as the INS was seeking to deport top leaders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas. During the 2000 election campaign, Saffuri's chief effort was to get the Bush campaign to support the repeal of secret evidence, a position Bush publicly adopted in his final debate with Al Gore.

After the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, the use of secret evidence was expanded under the USA PATRIOT Act. Saffuri and his friends lobbied heavily against the new law and now are trying to get it repealed. They have won support from key conservatives such as Norquist and former congressman Bob Barr of Georgia. Many conservatives and libertarians are made nervous by what they regard as a slippery slope.

Far more disturbing to national-security analysts are Saffuri's long-standing ties to Jamal Barzinji, an Iraqi who heads a network of investment companies and nonprofit groups that have been targeted by the Greenquest task force investigating terrorist-related fund raising. Barzinji's Marjac group of investment companies and the various charities he heads share office space, accountants and interlocking boards. They sometimes are referred to by federal prosecutors as "555 Grove Street," an address they used in suburban Herndon, Va. Money financing the 555 Grove Street network has been traced back to big-name Saudi investors.

Organizations operating out of Barzinji's offices included the International Islamic Relief Organization, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), and al-Haramain, all of which have been blacklisted by the U.S. Treasury Department because of their ties to al-Qaeda. Until the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the head of the WAMY office in Herndon was Abdullah bin Laden, younger brother of the Saudi terrorist who heads al-Qaeda. All of these groups were raided and their files seized by the Greenquest task force on March 20, 2002. Alamoudi's residence also was searched during that raid.

A lawyer representing Barzinji and his corporate network, Nancy Luqu, insists that her clients have not been charged with any crime. But a previously sealed affidavit that lays out the government's motives for the massive raid alleges that Barzinji and his Safa Group companies were "suspected of providing material support to terrorists, money laundering, and tax evasion through the use of a variety of for-profit companies and ostensible charitable entities under their control, most of which are located at 555 Grove Street, Herndon, Virginia."

Saffuri acknowledged to Insight that both Barzinji and Alamoudi provided $20,000 checks to help him and Norquist establish the Islamic Institute in 1998.

While not denying his friendship and business relationships with Alamoudi, al-Arian or Barzinji, Saffuri tells Insight he was unaware of their alleged terror ties. "What do I have to do with that?" Saffuri exclaims. "I guarantee you, there are people you worked for in your lifetime who later did something wrong. I didn't know they were involved in [activities] that were under investigation." However, none of the three ever sought to disguise their support for Palestinian terror groups, speaking often at public rallies and private conferences in praise of the terrorists.

Saffuri says he first met Barzinji in 1988 but only met Alamoudi three years later, even though Alamoudi was Barzinji's top aide at the time. "In 1990 and 1991, George Bush Senior was meeting with them, and he was taking advice from them on how to deal with Iraq. You know, when I looked from the outside, I saw them meeting with the president and said, 'Wow, that's impressive.' Seeing those people going inside and outside the White House, that gave them legitimacy. So for me to come and work with them five years later, I should not be suspicious of anything they do," Saffuri says.

In his efforts to distance himself from Alamoudi, Saffuri claims he went to work for him at the AMC in 1995 but left some 18 months later after the two had a falling out. But documents uncovered during Insight's investigation show that Saffuri had been working for Alamoudi since at least 1993 and stayed with him until May 1998.

In April 1993, Saffuri was employed as executive director of the American Task Force for Bosnia, a registered charitable organization that was lobbying Congress and the Clinton White House to get the United States to intervene militarily on behalf of the Bosnian Muslim population, then under siege by Bosnian Serbs. The organization listed its headquarters as 1212 New York Ave. N.W., Suite 400, in Washington - the headquarters of the American Muslim Council, then headed by Alamoudi.

At the time, Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization actively was recruiting and training Arab fighters to fight alongside the Bosnian Muslims. Bosnia had become the focus of the worldwide "jihad" after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989.

Saffuri says he frequently went to Bosnia for trips lasting four to five weeks at a time during this period. After returning to Washington from Bosnia in April 1993, he says, he was asked by Alamoudi to serve as the treasurer of a newly formed political-action committee (PAC), National Muslims for a Better America (NMBA).

In filings with the Federal Election Commission, which Insight reviewed, the new group listed its address as 1212 New York Ave. N.W., Suite 400 - the headquarters of the AMC. Saffuri did not explain why he would "take orders" from Alamoudi in 1993 to become treasurer of the new PAC if he didn't start working for Alamoudi until 1995.

While it was never a major lobbying force, NMBA is significant because its donor list includes a stunningly high proportion of individuals who have been publicly identified as leaders of terrorist groups, or have been arrested, expelled or currently are under investigation for allegedly raising funds for terrorist organizations. Among the contributors to Saffuri's AMC-sponsored PAC:

Hisham al-Talib, who lists his employer alternately as the SAAR Foundation and Marjac Investment Group, both controlled by Barzinji and raided by Greenquest on March 20, 2002.

Muhammad Ashraf, "an officer and/or director of Safa Group companies including Sterling Investment Group, Sterling Charitable Gift Fund and York Foundation," according to the government's affidavit in support of the raid. Ashraf's residence at 12528 Rock Ridge Road in Herndon also was searched during the March 2002 raid.

Mohammad Jaglit, a SAAR Foundation director considered by federal investigators to be a key figure in the terror-support networks. The affidavit cites Jaglit as "an active supporter of [Sami] al-Arian and [Palestinian Islamic Jihad], both ideologically and financially" and notes that letters accompanying checks he sent to al-Arian from the SAAR Foundation instructed al-Arian "not to disclose the contribution publicly or to the media." Jaglit's residence also was raided.

Yaquib Mirza, a Pakistani national considered by authorities to be the financial wizard of the Safa/SAAR network, who appears as the accountant for scores of Barzinji companies.

Basheer Nafi, identified in the affidavit as the "U.S. agent of PIJ [Palestinian Islamic Jihad]." Nafi, a 50-year-old Ph.D., was deported from the United States in 1996 for visa violations, according to government sources. According to a government indictment, he "was a member and founder of PIJ" while he was working with al-Arian and PIJ leader Ramadan Abdallah Shallah at the World Islamic Studies Enterprise (WISE) in Florida, now identified by federal prosecutors as a front for Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Iqbal Unus, a director of Safa Group companies "including Child Development Foundation," whose Herndon residence was raided.

Other donors to Saffuri's PAC whose houses or offices were raided by Greenquest, say federal authorities, include Wael al-Khairo, Ahmad al-Shaer, Ahmad Khatib and Ali Abuzakook - all Barzinji employees - as well as Mohammad Salim Attia, Hibba Abugideiri and Hussam Osman, who worked for the Saudi-funded International Institute of Islamic Thought, and Fakri Barzinji, Altogether, say federal authorities, Saffuri raised slightly more than $28,000 for the AMC-sponsored PAC and distributed it to members of Congress including Rohrabacher and Democrats McKinney, David Bonior and John Conyers of Michigan, James Traficant of Ohio, Peter DeFazio of Oregon, and Nick Rahall of West Virginia.

What united all the recipients, who ranged from far-left Democrats to libertarians, was their support for Palestinian causes and their hostility to the state of Israel.

During the entire period that the AMC's PAC operated, from 1993-98, Saffuri was listed as its treasurer. He signed all the papers, say authorities, and made all the reports to the FEC. And yet, Saffuri insists he had nothing to do with the PAC. "If these guys gave checks to Alamoudi [for NMBA], it doesn't mean much," Saffuri says now. "I was an employee of his. He asked me to do it. I did what he asked me to do. In the end, he was paying the check."

Of the 40 donors to the PAC, the documents show, nearly half have been arrested or are under investigation for terrorist ties.

"Look, I work with people who also do wonderful things," Saffuri says when asked about the terrorist ties of NMBA donors. "Look at Abduwahab [al-Kebsi]," Saffuri's assistant at the Islamic Institute. "Abdu is doing a project to promote democracy for the National Endowment for Democracy in Iraq. Another staff member of the institute is working for the Department of Homeland Security. Another staffer is working for USAID [U.S. Agency for International Development]. If there was one shred of evidence that we were a security risk, they would be talking to me, not you. I am invited to meet with [FBI Director Robert] Mueller at the FBI, on average, every six months. I think if there is a problem with me, I wouldn't be at these meetings."

When asked by Wall Street Journal reporter Glenn Simpson if he thought radical Muslim groups such as the friends and associates of Khaled Saffuri were exercising "undue influence" at the White House, Karl Rove simply shrugged and replied, "No."

As evidence of Saffuri's ties to three prominent terrorist suspects deepens, say alarmed conservatives, those blanket denials may look to be increasingly hollow.

Voice of Palestine Honors Rather Than Condemns Bus Bomber

The official PA radio is contradicting official condemnation of the latest bus bombing. From IMRA:

Voice of Palestine Radio (VOP) (that is run by the PA and under the tight control of Yasser Arafat) referred to the man who committed the bombing of the bus in Jerusalem yesterday as a martyr ("shahid") in their news programs. They treated him royally both yesterday and today.

Shahid is an honorary term given to someone who dies in battle. It is not conferred to a criminal. If the act was considered a criminal act then he would not be termed a martyr "shahid".

It should also be noted that the pro forma condemnation broadcast in Arabic on VOP never said anything against the person who carried out the attack itself. Instead the "condemnation" explained the act - blaming it on Israel and voicing concern regarding its timing.

It is also noteworthy that yesterday's bombing was repeatedly described on VOP as "an explosive operation" without any negative terminology associated
with it. In sharp contrast, the announcement of the demolition of the "martyr's house" by the IDF was termed "barbaric" with VOP urging Palestinians to come out of their houses to show resistance to the "racist Israeli threats".

At 6:00 PM last night, right before the main evening news program last night, PA TV broadcast film clips openly encouraging attacks against Israelis. For example, they ran a clip of a small child no older than 6 - 7 years old singing to himself "by stone or by knife I will attack the enemy".

The clip was several minutes long and this chorus was repeated many times. The clip demonstrates that the PA is actively encouraging attacks - even by youths.

Alleged traitor's Saudi influence

Joel Mowbray has more insight on the Ryan Anderson case. From the Jewish World Review, with thanks to Nicolei:

To those who worry about the extremism that Saudi influence can foster here in the United States, the joint Muslim community at Washington State University and the University of Idaho — just nine miles apart — might provide a classic case study.

It also happened to be the home of detained National Guardsman Ryan Anderson, aka Amir Talhah, when he converted to Islam five years ago.

Anderson, who was nabbed while allegedly trying to pass secret information on to al Qaeda through an Internet chat room, graduated from Washington State University in 2002. Though the strength of his ties to the local Muslim community is unclear, there is no denying that it could have provided the perfect breeding ground for a radical Islamist.

And perhaps not coincidentally, there is a strong Saudi influence.

Last year, the FBI made several arrests while investigating alleged terror activity in Pullman, Washington (home to WSU) and Moscow, Idaho (home to UI). Because of the close proximity and the relative small numbers of Muslim residents (fewer than 200 total), the two towns have essentially a single Muslim community, according to many local Muslims.

Four people total were arrested. Two were affiliated with WSU and two with UI. Three were arrested as material witnesses and have since been released.

Still at large, though, is Saudi national Abdullah Aljughaiman, who was a lecturer at UI and received his religious training King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Investigators have been unable even to speak with him, however, because he is most likely in Saudi Arabia, where he's off-limits to U.S. authorities.

At the probe's center was Sami Omar al-Hussayen, a graduate student and computer whiz at UI who was also seen as a leader in the local Muslim community. The Saudi national, who goes to trial this spring, is charged with visa fraud, making false statements, and providing material support of terrorism.

The terrorism charge does not seem to have adversely affected al-Hussayen's popularity in the local Muslim community. Several Muslims in the Pullman-Moscow area contacted by phone spoke favorably of the alleged abettor of terrorism. One who had attended the preliminary hearings opined, "The evidence against him doesn't seem that strong."

In addition to allegedly designing web sites for two radical sheikhs with direct contact with Osama bin Laden, al-Hussayen is charged with handling financial and administrative functions for supposed charities that allegedly supported terrorism.

The most chilling part of the indictment, though, is a section describing an e-mail group managed and edited solely by al-Hussayen, in which an appeal was made for information from Muslims in the U.S. military that would aid terrorist attacks on American personnel, including the murder of a "specifically identified high-ranking American military official."

Although the charges do not tie the Saudi national to 9/11, some evidence surrounding al-Hussayen is troubling. Reportedly found on his computer hard drive were thousands of photos of the World Trade Center, both before and after September 11.

Then there's the family connection.

According to court documents, al-Hussayen's uncle traveled to the U.S. from Saudi Arabia and "stayed in the same hotel in the Herndon, Va., area as three of the Sept. 11 hijackers of Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon."

Though northern Idaho or eastern Washington might seem like a strange destination for students from the Middle East, roughly one-half of the Muslims in Moscow, Idaho and one-fourth in Pullman, Washington are Saudis, according to estimates of several local Muslims.

The Saudi ties appear to be longstanding. When the mosque at WSU was built in the late 1970's, most of the funding came from the Gulf — principally from Saudi Arabia — according to a longtime Muslim resident in the area.

What remains uncertain at this point is what role the local Muslim community had in impacting Anderson's Islamic development. Several local sources claim he was a member of the Muslim Students Association, whose national organization was Saudi-created and funded. (Al-Hussayen was president of Idaho's MSA chapter.)

Several members of Washington State's MSA deny that Anderson was an active member, however, including past MSA president Irshad Altheimer. Altheimer said that he accompanied Anderson to mosque services for a month during Ramadan in 2000, but that he never saw much of the now-detained National Guardsman after that.

Investigators are not ruling out a connection to the local Muslim community in eastern Washington and northern Idaho. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Boise, Idaho said that no ties have yet been found, but quickly added, "Our investigation is still ongoing."

Pakistani, US Troops Intensify Bin Laden Search

Now comes a report that the hunt is continuing and intensifying. From the Dow Jones Newswires, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

U.S. spy chief George Tenet made a secret visit to Islamabad last week as American and Pakistani troops began a major operation to hunt for Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda fugitives believed to be hiding along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, U.S. and Pakistani officials said.

The director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency met with senior Pakistani military and intelligence officials as Pakistan's leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, started deploying thousands of his nation's troops into the semi-autonomous tribal region of Waziristan. The territory has become a sanctuary for al Qaeda fighters who fled Afghanistan after the U.S. toppled the Taliban regime in 2001.

U.S. troops are searching for al Qaeda leaders inside Afghanistan. Pakistani officials have said the operation on their side of the border with Afghanistan will be the biggest yet to hunt for Mr. bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders. But Pakistani officials have denied some media reports that American troops would be participating in the offensive inside Pakistani territory.

Taliban claim responsibility for fatal attack on American reconstruction team

The Taliban is attempting to keep the jihad alive in Afghanistan by murdering construction workers. The focus on non-combatants accord with the provisions of Islamic law that forbid killing them unless they are considered to be aiding the war effort. This is used to justify bombings on buses in Israel, and by Osama for his attacks in the U.S. From the Guardian:

An Australian helicopter pilot was killed and a British security officer seriously injured in southern Afghanistan yesterday after their team, working for an American construction company, was attacked by a gunman. An American woman employed to build cottage hospitals was also seriously injured in the attack, while another Briton, a security guard, was unharmed, a US diplomat in Kabul said yesterday.

The diplomat said the helicopter belonged to the Louis Berger Group, an American company carrying out road-building and other construction projects in southern Afghanistan, where the remnants of the former Taliban regime and other Islamic extremist groups are active.

Mullah Mohamed Omar, the Taliban's fugitive leader, has pronounced death penalties on anybody, Afghan or foreign, working to support the government of Hamid Karzai.

Khalid Pashtoon, a spokesman for the government of Kandahar province, where the attack occurred, said the team of four foreigners and an Afghan interpreter were inspecting a school in a remote village about 40 miles south-west of the province's capital, Kandahar.

After inspecting the school, the team boarded the helicopter, which was then attacked by a man with a Kalashnikov rifle. He fled after killing the pilot and injuring two other foreigners.

"The helicopter had not taken off when it was attacked," said Mr Pashtoon.

Abdul Samad, a man claiming to speak for the Taliban, told the Associated Press news agency that the militia was responsible for the attack.

American troops, more than 10,000 of whom are stationed in Afghanistan, airlifted the wounded to Kandahar airbase, where they were being treated, the diplomat in Kabul said.

Louis Berger group has been awarded some of the most lucrative reconstruction contracts in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban two years ago.

This includes a $250m (£135m) contract to resurface one of the country's main roads, which runs from Kabul to Kandahar, but the project has been blighted by the Taliban's frequent kidnapping of foreign and Afghan workers.

More than 550 people have died in an insurgency blamed on the militia in less than seven months, and Taliban fighters have vowed to step up the campaign in the run-up to democratic elections in June.

New jihadist tape from Iraq

The world is gradually waking up to the fact that Al-Qaeda is far from the only radical Islamic group out there. This new tape takes responsibility for several recent bombings in Iraq, and purports to come from a "new" terror group, Ansar Al-Sunnah. "A key purpose of the video is for propaganda — to attract recruits and raise money. 'The tape shows a more sophisticated organization that is thinking well beyond the roadside bombings of tomorrow'" says an analyst. From MSNBC:

On Feb. 1, two suicide bombers simultaneously destroyed two Kurdish party headquarters in Irbil, Iraq. More than 100 people were killed.

On Nov. 20, a truck bomb in Kirkuk killed five.

On Sept. 9, there was another deadly suicide car bombing in Irbil — this time at U.S. intelligence headquarters.

All the violence is claimed to be the work of a new terror group named Ansar al Sunnah, which U.S. intelligence believes is trying to unite all Islamic militants in Iraq.

A tape now circulating on the Internet attempts to put the group on the map — showing terrorists preparing for suicide missions. “We will hit the American forces!” one militant proclaimed through a translator.

According to terrorism expert Ben Venzke of Intelcenter, “This is the first time we’ve seen them actually put a face on the current series of attacks that are occurring in Iraq.”

Based on their dialect, most of the terrorist fighters appear to come from outside Iraq. At least two are seemingly from Saudi Arabia.

Their goal? One translator’s voice on the tape says, “The goal is not only to get rid of the occupiers of Iraq, but to establish an Islamic state.”

One sequence displays the identity cards of Spaniards and Canadians whom the group claims to have killed, including Spanish intelligence officers ambushed on a highway near Baghdad.

A key purpose of the video is for propaganda — to attract recruits and raise money.

“The tape shows a more sophisticated organization that is thinking well beyond the roadside bombings of tomorrow,” Venzke added.

Senior U.S. officials say this group is a threat and its claims are credible. They say the group’s propaganda has actually helped U.S. forces figure out who’s doing what and who’s to blame for much of the violence.

Global bomb-making network

More on the global reach of radical Islam, from the New York Times. (Thanks to Filtrat.)

Government forensic investigators examining how terrorists manufacture improvised explosives have found indications of a global bomb-making network, and have concluded that Islamic militant bomb builders have used the same designs for car bombs in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, government officials said this week.

"Linkages have been made in devices that have been used in different continents," said one forensic expert involved in the intelligence effort. "We know that we have the same bomb maker, or different bomb makers are using the same instructions."

The previously undisclosed intelligence operation has expanded on studies of past cases like investigations of the thwarted shoe-bomb attack aboard a Paris to Miami flight in December 2001. In a test, detonation of a similar bomb on a grounded aircraft blew a 2 feet by 2 feet in the fuselage — a potentially catastrophic event aboard a pressurized plane in flight.

In another example of the investigators' work, bomb analysts have collected fragments from hundreds of improvised devices detonated in attacks in Iraq, including large car and truck bombings and smaller assaults using explosives packed in empty artillery shells and even concrete blocks. That project has led to a better understanding of the devices and to efforts to provide commanders in Iraq with faster countermeasures to help protect American troops.

But there are many questions still unanswered about who is behind various bombings, including some of the major suicide bombing attacks in Iraq. Intelligence analysts have said they believe that Al Qaeda has been weakened by the campaign against terrorism and lacks a central command, as well as financial and recruiting structures. But the bomb investigations suggest that the terrorist network still may be disseminating bomb-making skills to a generation of militants who have fanned out around the world.

Many bomb makers may have learned how to make improvised explosives in the 1990's at Osama bin Laden's training camps in Afghanistan, and the methods taught there may now be showing up elsewhere.

Intelligence analysts did not say there was evidence of a single controlling entity behind the construction of the larger car and truck bombs often used in the most deadly attacks, although they suggested that there might not be many people with the technical skills to build larger bombs.

Suicide bomber kills 7 in Jerusalem

From CNN:

A suicide bomber on Sunday killed at least seven passengers on a crowded bus in Jerusalem at the height of rush hour, according to police in the city and Israeli ambulance services.

Jerusalem police spokesman Gil Kleiman said the suicide bomber also died in the terrorist attack, which wounded more than 50 people, 11 of them seriously.

The blast happened in West Jerusalem about 8:30 a.m. (1:30 a.m. ET) on Sunday, the first day of Israel's working week.

Video showed the number 14 bus with its windows blown out and its interior mangled, as rescue workers removed the wounded and remains from the vehicle.

One of the people killed in the attack was an 18-year-old high school student identified by the Jerusalem daily Haaretz as Lior Azulai, a pupil at the Gymnasia Rehavia. Nine other students at the school were wounded in the blast, Haaretz reported.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades -- the military offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement -- claimed responsibility for the blast in a statement.

The group said the attack was in response to a February 11 Israeli military incursion into Gaza, in which 12 Palestinians were killed in gunbattles. The Israeli Army said the Palestinians were all armed, and that its forces were fighting the terrorist infrastructure. Palestinians say many of the killed were civilians.

Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks against Israeli civilians and military targets, and is designated by the U.S. State Department as a foreign terrorist organization.

Video games attract young to Hizballah

There are several jihadist video games out there. I wrote of a children's version a couple of years ago. This from the Telegraph, with thanks to EPG:

Perching on the edge of a chair in a darkened room in Beirut, seven-year-old Hassan el Zein takes aim with his pistol and pumps three bullets into the forehead of Ariel Sharon.

He leaves the Israeli prime minister for dead and moves into the next room, swiftly dispatching Shaul Mofaz, the defence minister of "the Zionist enemy", with a commando knife. Twenty more points.

"May Allah's blessings and peace be upon you," flashes across the screen in Arabic as stirring martial music urges Hassan on. An Israeli special forces soldier is blown up by a hand grenade.

Welcome to Champions computer arcade in Beirut's southern suburbs, the urban stronghold of Hizbollah, Lebanon's self-styled "Islamic resistance fighters" and the heroes of young Shi'ite Muslims such as Hassan.

This is the Haret Hreik district, Hizbollah's heartland. Behind the stacks of fruit and vegetables at the grocer's is a portrait of Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the group's leader, wielding a Kalashnikov. Along the main road is a mosque with a Hizbollah-run hospital built around it.

Inside Champions, Hizbollah flags hang from the ceiling and there are pictures of Nasrallah and Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, the group's spiritual inspiration, in the entrance. The game is called "Special Forces" and has been produced by the Hizbollah Internet Bureau. Hassan and his friend Ali Dikmak, also seven, are eagerly awaiting an updated version that will feature more advanced weapons.

Although it is not as technologically advanced as some American products, Ali says it is his favourite because it shows Arabs can be strong. "I don't like Israelis and I want to shoot them because they're bombing us and they're bombing the Palestinians. I want to shoot them in real life as well. In this game the Israelis don't win - the resistance always wins."

Hassan Jomass, 21, who is helping out in the arcade, explained the purpose of the game. "It serves a certain goal. It's not just for fun. It's a way to teach the youngsters to know their enemy better and be patriotic."

Hizbollah recognised, he argued, that American games could corrupt the Lebanese youth. "Look," he said, pointing at a child playing Command and Conquer Generals at another console.

"This is even showing Arabs as terrorists."

Sure enough, the game's Global Liberation Army, an Arab guerrilla force, is described as preferring "underhand and sneaky tactics to defeat its enemies" while US forces "utilise high-tech weaponry and skill".

Hizbollah, which means Party of God, was founded in 1982 by young graduates of Shi'ite seminaries in Iran who were intent on taking Khomeni's revolution to Lebanon, then in the throes of a bloody civil war.

Believed by intelligence agencies to have been behind the 1980s kidnappings of people such as John McCarthy and Terry Waite, the group was also responsible for the killing of 241 American marines in a 1983 suicide bombing. Since then, Hizbollah has established itself as a social and political, as well as military, force in Lebanon. Its popularity surged when Israeli forces withdrew from the south of the country in 2000.

Although it aspires to an Islamic state, Hizbollah is happy to work with Lebanon's secular government - which sanctions it as the "resistance" against Israel - and use western inventions such as computer games to help to spread its revolutionary message. But many women in the southern suburbs do not wear the veil and close to Champions there is even a shop that sells sexy lingerie.

A beauty shop called Beckham features a huge faded photograph of the Real Madrid star. Such pragmatism and concentration on social programmes has helped Hizbollah quietly to increase its influence.

With the backing of Iran and Syria, it hopes in time to extend its fight throughout the Islamic world.

Brigitte recants Aussie bomb plot claim

Which Brigitte is to be believed? From The Australian, with thanks to Jean-Luc:

SUSPECTED French terrorist Willie Brigitte has retracted statements about his knowledge of a possible bomb plot in Australia, according to French judicial sources.

In his first detailed interrogation by investigating magistrate judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere about his activities in Australia, Brigitte went back on his initial statements made in October to officers of the French counter-espionage service, the DST.

At the closed-door hearing this week, Brigitte said the Pakistani national in Sydney who uses the alias Abu Hamza, who is at the centre of Australian investigations into an alleged foiled terrorist plot, had never told him about an explosives expert coming to Sydney.

According to his initial statements, Brigitte said the explosives expert might have been a Chechen named Abou Salah, whom he met in a training camp in Pakistan.

Brigitte also denied all statements French police say were made by his Australian wife, Melanie Brown, who was detained and questioned recently by French authorities before visiting her husband in a Paris prison.

The judicial sources said that in his latest interrogation by Judge Bruguiere, Brigitte claimed he spoke to Ms Brown about the US-Australian spy base at Pine Gap only because he and his wife were both ex-service personnel.

In contradiction to his wife's testimony, he claimed he did not receive a mysterious visitor every morning with whom he surfed the internet.

He said that, unlike Ms Brown's reported testimony, he had never burnt his passport with his Pakistani visa; he said he simply lost it. He was just burning papers on which were written prayers and religious phrases in the name of Allah.

Jihad and Musharraf

M. A. Niazi in HiPakistan contributes a complex theological argument about whether or not Pakistan's President Musharraf has been speaking correctly about jihad. In the course of the article he makes a number of statements that are revealing in that he seems to assume that his readers will take them for granted. One is that jihad involves "weapons, and intent to kill." Another is that suicide bombing is jihad martyrdom, as declared by Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi of Cairo's prestigious Al-Azhar University.

Jihad (with weapons, and intent to kill) is an obligatory duty (farz). It can be either farz kifaya (in which the participation of some fulfills the duty of all) or farz ain (in which all have to participate). It is a farz ain when it falls within a certain distance of one's home, or if the Amir [the ruler of an Islamic state] or his duly appointed subordinate has ordered a general mobilisation, and a farz kifaya when the jihad is elsewhere. An Amir may call for volunteers either for a jihad beyond the borders of the Islamic state, but it is a moot point whether he can forbid anyone from going abroad to participate in a jihad elsewhere. Actually, the traditional Sharia does not account for borders, though it recognises the possibility of different subordinate Amirs administering different territories independently, and owing a token allegiance to a single Caliph. Therefore, even if one assumes that Musharraf is indeed an Islamic ruler within the context of Sharia, his right to order people not to participate in a jihad outside the territory under his control is dubious.

In other words, he has no right on Islamic grounds to prevent Pakistanis from leaving Pakistan to join Al-Qaeda or other radical Muslim groups in other countries.

It should be noted that the entire analysis above is based on a traditional view, which is no longer tenable because there is no Khilafat, not even in name. The Caliphate abolished by Mustafa Kemal in 1924 was a poor battered thing anyway, far, far removed from the original concept, but it still provided a legal, or rather sharai cover of sorts. Obviously, there is a need for ijtihad [new interpretation of the sacred texts] on the issue.

One clever way of avoiding ijtihad is to re-establish the Caliphate.

That is exactly what Osama and other radicals want to do, for precisely these reasons.

This would immediately restore the Islamic system to its correct footing. Theologically, in fact, it is still the only feasible solution, but there are political difficulties in its path too numerous to discuss. This solution has been proposed by a number of groups. In Pakistan, the most eminent is Dr Israr Ahmed's Tanzeem Islami, while the Hizbut Tahrir has recently set up a branch here. The Hizb is an interesting organisation, for it does not consist of sister parties (such as the Jamaat Islami in India, Pakistan, Kashmir and Bangladesh, which are separate and independent parties), but claims to be one single party spread throughout the Muslim world.

However, there is a practical difficulty. The Kashmiris, the Afghans, the Iraqis, the Palestinians and the Chechens cannot wait for Dr Israr or the Hizb to establish the Caliphate. They are faced with oppression and foreign occupation right now. They have no option but to engage in jihad, by whatever means available. This is why the Grand Mufti of Al-Azhar (no firebrand, but enlightened and moderate enough to support the Frnech headscarf ban) has issued a fatwa declaring suicide bombings not just a valid means of jihad, but its highest form. In fact, this is the only formal fatwa holding the field on this issue. Though many Muslims have condemned suicide bombings as suicide, no scholar has issued a prohibitory fatwa. And these jihads are a farz kifaya for Muslims outside these areas.

Note well: no scholar has issued a prohibitory fatwa [ruling] against suicide attacks.

Noose Tightening around Bin Laden?

This weekend a number of sources have been reporting a stepped up hunt for Osama bin Laden. Word from Pakistan is that they have soldiers combing the mountains. Word from London is that Osama is surrounded. Word from The Washington Post is that we are, of course, to blame.

UPDATE: U.S., Pakistan Deny They're Closing in on Osama

"To me all the Jews are soldiers and I want to kill them."

Skynews has a chilling look inside the mind of a female suicide bomber:

In the terrorist wing of Israel's Hasharon Prison, Obaydeh Khalil sat in her tiny cell and spoke calmly of murder.

"I wanted to kill as many of them as possible," she said. "To me all the Jews are soldiers and I want to kill them."

Obaydeh was just days away from carrying out a devastating suicide bombing when she was arrested by the Israeli security forces.

She is one of a frightening new breed of female militants who are prepared to die and kill for the Palestinian cause.

Adjusting her veil, the placid 27-year-old told me she had no reservations about targeting civilians. She was even prepared to kill children.

"If I had got to my target and there were kids there I would still have done it," she said. "I knew I would still go to heaven even if I killed children."

Case Dismissed Against Alleged Jihad Group Member

The Washington Post reports that a member of a Virginia jihad group was acquitted. It seems that among other things he dozed off at a key meeting.
Those who doubt the relevance of the Kashmir conflict to the war on terror should be reminded that one of the key features of the war is a new kind of enemy: a loosely affiliated network of jihad warriors eager to go wherever the fight for radical Islam takes them. Today Kashmir, tomorrow — perhaps right here at home.

A federal judge yesterday threw out the case against a member of an alleged Virginia jihad network, ruling that prosecutors had failed to present any evidence that the man was involved in a conspiracy to train for jihadist combat abroad.

U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema said that although Caliph Basha Ibn Abdur-Raheem subscribed to a "radical form of Islam" and played paintball in the Virginia countryside, there was no evidence that he was training for jihad. Prosecutors contend, and several witnesses have testified, that the paintball games played by the network of 11 men simulated warfare.

"He is an ordinary run-of-the-mill paintball player. . . . Paintball by itself is not an illegal enterprise. Many people do participate in paintball,'' said Brinkema, who noted that Abdur-Raheem had attended meetings of alleged co-conspirators but had dozed off at a key one.

Although Brinkema also dismissed various counts against the other three men on trial in Alexandria, she refused to drop the most serious charges, that some of them trained with a foreign terrorist group and that one had conspired to support al Qaeda and the Taliban.

U.S. freezes accounts of Saudi charity

This group had been spreading its message in American prisons, mosques, and Islamic schools. From the Washington Post, with thanks to EPG:

The Treasury Department ordered banks yesterday to freeze the accounts of the Oregon and Missouri branches of a large Saudi charity that U.S. officials say has been used to finance the al Qaeda terrorist network around the world.

FBI and Internal Revenue Service agents searched a home in Ashland, Ore., that is the U.S. headquarters for the charity, the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation. The search is part of an investigation into allegations that the Oregon branch was involved in money laundering and income tax and currency-reporting violations, Treasury officials said.

Over the past two years, U.S. and Saudi authorities have intensified a joint crackdown on al-Haramain offices around the globe after concluding that they had funneled money, personnel and equipment to al Qaeda. Branches in Bosnia and Somalia were shuttered in 2002, and last December others were closed in Indonesia, Kenya, Tanzania and Pakistan.

U.S. officials continue to investigate the foundation's headquarters in Saudi Arabia. Several weeks ago al-Haramain's chief, Aqeel al-Aqeel, was fired by top Saudi clerical authorities amid growing suspicions about his role at the charity.

Lawrence Matasar, an attorney for the al-Haramain office in Oregon, said charity officials in that state are cooperating with the government in the investigation. "We believe no crimes have been committed," he said.

Al-Haramain's headquarters in Saudi Arabia launched its Oregon office in 1997 by funding the work of an Ashland landscaper, Pete Seda, who had been sending Korans to prison inmates. The two people now mainly under investigation are Seda and Soliman Albuthe, a Saudi citizen who also helped run the Oregon organization.

Officials are investigating numerous financial transactions involving Albuthe and Seda, also known as Pirouz Sedaghaty, including allegations of transporting large sums of undeclared traveler's checks across U.S. borders. Under U.S. law, anyone transporting $10,000 or more in or out of the country must declare it to customs agents.

Agents are looking into $131,000 that was wired by a man in London to the Oregon foundation, which then dispatched Albuthe to transport the funds by traveler's checks to Saudi Arabia. The transaction was not properly reported to U.S. authorities, according to an affidavit filed in court in Oregon. The funds were ultimately destined for Muslim fighters or refugees in Chechnya, it said.

The affidavit also disclosed that a federal grand jury has been investigating al-Haramain's U.S. operations.

The U.S. branch of the charity has mainly distributed Islamic books and videos to Americans, and also helped establish a mosque in Springfield, Mo., with more than $370,000 provided by the Saudi headquarters.

One of the top leaders of that mosque was Kamran Bokhari, a student at Southwest Missouri State University, who was also the U.S. representative of a radical London-based group called al-Mujahiroun, which supports al Qaeda, according to the Site Institute, a terrorism research group.

It's no secret that Al-Muhajiroun supports Al-Qaeda. They're quite open about it.

Greenberg: Radical Islam tops list of U.S. enemies

Common sense from Dan Greenberg in the MetroWest Daily News (thanks to Nicolei):

It has become almost impossible to have a detached discussion -- one that takes historical considerations into account -- about the war on terror, and the position of Iraq in the context of that war. Here, I would like to do my best to contribute to such a discussion.

Let's begin with some basic facts. First, for some time now, radical Islam has engaged in a brutal war on Western culture, seeking to eliminate all vestiges of that culture within the Muslim world and to undermine its existence in the Western world. This is a no-holds-barred attack, governed by none of the so-called "rules of war" that supposedly civilized nations claim to have put in place. There are no distinctions made between belligerents and non-belligerents; any and every person in the West is a target, apparently including even Muslims who live in the West or are at peace with the West.

Second, there is no single coordinated command structure to radical Islam. New terror groups form, old groups disband, but all have a common goal, and all applaud each other's successes and support each other's efforts. They try to infiltrate official Islamic governmental structures and, where this does not succeed, they gain cover and support through the threat of violence.

Third, these groups use a broad range of tactics and strategies to achieve their goals. They employ unfettered physical violence; they take advantage of people's greed in order to purchase their weapons and influence; and they use normal diplomatic means to insert themselves into international power politics.

Fourth, these groups gain succor from willing supporters and unwitting fellow-travelers in all countries, who aid them in achieving their goals.

Finally, the radical Islamists have gained strength and momentum in more recent years, thanks to the increasing availability of sophisticated weapons having far greater destructive power than any before. With each passing year, it has become easier to create or purchase weapons that can disable planes and tanks, that can spread disease and toxic chemicals, and even those that can create a nuclear disaster, either in the form of "dirty bombs" or in the more sinister form of atomic warheads.

For years, the terrorists have been refining their tactics and preparing for ever more destructive operations. Israel has been a fertile proving ground for them, and continues to be. Throughout the world, they have experimented with hijacking and destruction of planes and ships, bombing embassies and military bases, and individual assassinations of opponents.

Sept. 11, 2001 was distinguished from other days only in that it was a clear, unambiguous declaration of global war, just as Dec. 7, 1941 differed from preceding days and years in that it made Japanese intentions of world conquest manifest to everyone.

We are dealing with an insidious, cruel enemy that has spread its tentacles throughout the world. We are also dealing with particular places that are havens for these terrorists. It took no genius to identify Afghanistan as one such place, and the operation to neutralize that haven has indeed eliminated it as a safe base from which terrorists could operate unmolested.

Iraq was a much more insidious focal point, because in that country, the ambitions of a monstrous dictator coincided with those of the terrorists. Saddam Hussein was open about his intention to dominate the entire Middle East -- a new Babylonian empire, in his eyes -- and control Western access to its major source of energy, oil.

Using his own vast resources, he converted his plans into action, first by trying to conquer Iran, another major supplier of oil, and then, when that did not succeed, by turning south to conquer Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. In the process, he supported radical terrorists operating against other governments in the Middle East, including Israel, and operating against the West in general.

He was assiduous in developing or obtaining every dangerous weapon known to man. He was the first Muslim ruler to develop a program for atomic weapons, which the Israelis were intelligent enough to hamper by destroying his main nuclear reactor 20 years ago. He developed chemical and biological weapons that he perfected by using them against his own people, and then against the Iranians.

When he was defeated in Kuwait by a wide coalition of powers, including many Muslim governments who felt threatened by him, he continued with his development programs throughout the 1990s, openly defiant of agreements he had made and repeated demands made by the United Nations Security Council.

To say that this regime was not a direct menace to the United States and to world stability in general is to bury one's head firmly in the sand. Perhaps we shouldn't have gone to war against the Japanese after Pearl Harbor, but only sought to find and prosecute in a court of law the bombardiers who dropped their bombs and torpedoes on the American ships. Indeed, why did we fight the Axis powers -- Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary -- at all? All they did was make a paper declaration of war on us in 1941; they didn't actually attack any American troops or cities.

Notice that I am not talking about Saddam Hussein being a "bad person." I am not even addressing the question of whether one should use military force to rid the world of horrendous mass murderers, of whom he ranks as one of the worst in history. We don't seem to have reached any sort of consensus on that question.

We certainly didn't go to war against Hitler or Stalin when they slaughtered their own people, or against the Hutus in Rwanda (or any of the other mutually murderous tribes in Burundi and the Congo). We intervened in the Balkans, ostensibly to prevent further "ethnic cleansing," but that reason was hardly plausible; the numbers involved there were far from comparable to those that were killed in other places, even during the same years.

No, the world has not decided that mass murderers have to be eliminated, nor have we in this country reached that point.

But we are certainly clear that we will do everything necessary to defend ourselves against declared enemies who have taken overt actions that threaten our safety and security. Radical Islam is top on the list, and Iraq was far and away the most dangerous and menacing official government that actively promoted the same belligerent goals.

Security review again delays Muslim chaplain's hearing

Continued strange goings-on in the Yee case. From the Miami Herald:

For the fifth time, the Army on Tuesday delayed the pretrial hearing for a Muslim chaplain accused of mishandling classified information at the U.S. terror prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The Southern Command in Miami said Capt. James ''Youseff'' Yee's hearing at Fort Benning, Ga., will resume March 10 -- not today, as previously announced. Prosecutors sought the delay because the military has not completed a security review of potentially classified documents in the case, Southcom said.

Yee's civilian attorney responded that the government should drop its case, which began with the West Point graduate's arrest Sept. 11 in Jacksonville.

'I don't know what takes so long about completing this classification review, but it certainly supports our position that there is no `there' there,'' said Yee's civilian defense attorney, Eugene Fidell.

``Whatever else you can say about the downward trajectory of this case, this latest delay affords the government time to take a hard look at whether the time has come to pull the plug.''

Early in the case, investigators told Yee's Army attorney to prepare for an espionage trial. No capital crime charges were ever leveled. Yee, 35, is accused of mishandling classified material, adultery and downloading pornography onto his government computer, crimes that could carry a maximum 13-year sentence.

The latest delay, announced late Tuesday, was the fifth blamed on confusion over the classification of documents.

Army Col. David McWilliams, a Southcom spokesman, also disclosed a delay in another Guantánamo case -- hearings against Army Col. Jackie Duane Farr, 58, also slated to open today at Fort Gordon, Ga.

Charged Nov. 29 with making a false statement and failure to obey an order, Farr is the most senior military official caught up in last year's crackdown on mishandling of intelligence by soldiers and civilians working at Guantánamo.

Unlike Yee, who was confined for 76 days at a Navy brig, Farr was allowed to continue working as an Army officer at Guantánamo pending his investigation. Conviction on his charges could bring a seven-year jail sentence.

Musharraf urges end to jihad culture

Musharraf's anti-jihad jihad: too late?

What's this? Pakistan's Musharraf has called upon his countrymen to stop "loving Allah above everything else and resisting worldly temptations"? Well, not exactly. He has denounced the jihadi culture, and he, his hearers, and the rest of the world know what he meant: the culture of violence and murder that justifies itself by the traditional Muslim concept of jihad -- that is, warfare against unbelievers, as it has been understood by Muslims since the seventh century. From the BBC:

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has warned religious and political parties against promoting the culture of jihad, or holy war.

He said foreign nationals would not be allowed to use Pakistani territory to carry out militant activities in the region.

Speaking at a conference of several hundred clerics and religious scholars in Islamabad, the president said only by eliminating religious extremism can the growing perception about Pakistan being an intolerant society be changed.

Pakistan has arrested more than 500 al-Qaeda suspects who fled Afghanistan in the wake of US-led attacks that ousted the hardline Taleban regime in late 2001.

The president's hard-hitting and candid remarks about militancy and Islamic extremism in front of so many clerics left little doubt that the Pakistani military leader means business.

Intolerant society

His real targets were the relatively small number of militant groups that had been involved in sectarian violence within the country and were encouraging trouble in nearby countries like Afghanistan.

President Musharraf said a handful of extremists have taken the entire country hostage and were directly responsible for the growing perception in the world about Pakistan being an intolerant society.

They had been targeting religious minorities in the country, he said, and were spreading the culture of jihad in neighbouring states.

President Musharraf said there was no room for jihadi culture in the country and no individual or political party would be allowed to preach violence in the name of religion.

He said the tribesmen in the country's border region with Afghanistan have been warned against giving shelter to foreign militants and the armed forces have been instructed to take strict action against those using Pakistani territory to create trouble in neighbouring countries.

President Musharraf said even though Pakistan regards the ongoing insurgency in Indian administered Kashmir as a freedom struggle, it would like to resolve the outstanding dispute with India through the recently started peace process.

He described the elimination of extremism from the country as his biggest challenge and asked the religious scholars to support him in his mission to create a culture of tolerance in Pakistan.

Witness: Terror Group Asked Defendant to Perform Mission in U.S.

Those Virginia paintballers hoped to strike in the U.S. From AP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

Testimony in the case of a Maryland man charged with trying to join the Taliban and fight U.S. troops indicates that he was asked by members of a militant Islamic group to perform a special mission inside the United States.

Yong Ki Kwon testified for the prosecution against Masoud Khan yesterday in Alexandria, Virginia.

Khan is being tried for conspiracy to levy war against the United States and conspiracy to support Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network. Three other defendants face lesser conspiracy and firearms charges. Prosecutors allege the group used paintball games near Fredericksburg in the summers of 2000 and 2001 to prepare for holy war against India and other nations with whom the United States is at peace.

Kwon testified that the exact nature of Khan's mission was never fully explained -- but that it involved gathering information, sending e-mails and spreading propoganda.

Kwon also testified that he and Khan went to Pakistan after the September eleventh terror attacks to train with a group seeking to drive India from the disputed Kashmir region. The group is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. government.

Ryan Anderson Charged With Trying to Aid Al Qaeda

From Fox:

Spc. Ryan G. Anderson, a National Guardsman accused of trying to aid the Al Qaeda terror network, has been formally charged, the Army said. Anderson, 26, a Muslim convert, was arrested last week after U.S. officials discovered he allegedly tried to give military data to Al Qaeda. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

According to the charging documents, Anderson disclosed information about U.S. troop strength, movements, equipment, tactics, weapons systems and methods of killing soldiers to U.S. military personnel he believed were members of the terror network. He also allegedly shared sketches of tanks and a CD with copies of his identification documents.

He was charged Feb. 12 — the day of his arrest — with three counts involving attempts to supply intelligence to the enemy, but that information was not made public until Wednesday, Army spokesman Lt. Col. Stephen Barger said.

In each count, Anderson was accused of "attempting to provide intelligence to the enemy" by disclosing information or making contact with U.S. military personnel.

Attempts to aid the enemy can be punished by death, according to the Uniform Military Code.

The charges did not allege that Anderson ever actually passed information to real Al Qaeda members.

Anderson, 26, of Lynnwood, is a tank crew member from the Fort Lewis-based 81st Armor Brigade. The 2002 Washington State University graduate converted to Islam in college. He joined the Guard on May 15, 2002, Barger said.

Barger refused to say whether the investigation was continuing or whether others might be involved. He also refused to discuss how Anderson's activities came to the Army's attention or how the Army set up the sting that led to his arrest. Anderson is being held at Fort Lewis.

In the first count, Anderson, also known as "Amir Abdul Rashid," is alleged to have attempted to provide information about U.S. Army troop strength, movements, equipment, tactics and weapons systems, as well as methods of killing U.S. Army personnel and vulnerabilities of Army weapons systems and equipment.

Anderson is also alleged to have communicated by "oral, written and electronic communication" to the supposed "terrorists" that "I wish to meet with you, I share your cause, I wish to continue contact through conversations and personal meetings."

The second charge alleges Anderson passed sketches of the M1A1 and M1A2 tanks, as well as a computer disc with such personal ID's as his passport photo, weapons card and military ID card.

The last charge alleges he "wrongfully and dishonorably" provided information on Army troop strength, movements and equipment.

A military defense lawyer has been appointed for Anderson, but Barger refused to identify the lawyer. Any questions for the lawyer have to be passed along through Army spokesmen, Barger said, adding that neither Anderson nor his lawyer had any statement to make Wednesday.

The alleged conduct occurred between Jan. 17 and Feb. 10, the documents indicated.

Anderson complained in a November 2002 letter to the Herald of Everett about bigotry in the United States.

"In my three years as an observant Muslim, I've encountered nothing but kindness, patience, courtesy and understanding from them," he wrote. "On the other hand, I have experienced bigotry, hatred and mindless rage from so-called `educated thinkers' here in the U.S."

Anderson's arrest last week shocked his hometown of Everett, Wash.

Jennifer Seratte, who went to high school with Anderson in Everett, told Fox News last week she was shocked when she heard of her friend's arrest. Seratte said she did not know that Anderson had converted to Islam.

"He'd always been pro-Christianity and pro-American" in school, Seratte said.

But another acquaintance of Anderson remembers him differently.

The arrest is "shocking, but it's not too shocking, knowing how Ryan is," said Nathan Knopp, a high school friend.

"He was always a paramilitary type of guy, really into military weaponry," Knopp told The Everett Herald last Thursday. "Ryan's kind of a weird type of guy who made up a lot of stories that seemed really far-fetched."

Former U.S. government news analyst: "Open the locked gates of Jihad"

Dr. 'Azzam Al-Tamimi was, according to MEMRI, "a media monitor and news analyst at the U.S. government's Foreign Broadcast Information Service" from 1980 to 1985. He has also served as "a researcher for The Center for the Study of Democracy at Westminster University." He is a respected figure worldwide who is frequently asked to lecture on Islamic topics.

But some of his statements are not what one might expect from a U.S. government news analyst:

Al-Tamimi describes himself as a "sympathiser and supporter" of Hamas. "I know some of the senior figures in Hamas," he said. "Some were my friends, my classmates..." [3]

Palestinian political scientist Muhammad Muslih, however, defines Al-Tamimi in a study on Hamas's foreign policy as "a Hamas member." [4]

On Jihad and Suicide/Martyrdom Operations

In an article titled 'A Stroll in Hell ' published in early 1997, Al-Tamimi called upon the Arabs to open "the locked gates of Jihad:"

"... Don't they [the Arabs] understand that no might is more powerful than the might of Allah... ? Open the locked gates of Jihad to those who want to act for the sake of Allah, and unite the bridle of those who yearn for the gardens of eternity [i.e. Paradise]... Then they will see that the Jews who came from the corners of the earth dreaming of the promised paradise will go back to where they came from..." [5]

In an article titled 'Hizbullah's Gift to Palestine' published in mid-2000, Al-Tamimi explained the religious roots of suicide/martyrdom operations:

"A person that chooses, and comes forward willingly, to die by exploding himself in the face of his oppressors is neither desperate nor hopeless. Almost in every case... the Israelis are dealing with individuals who are most hopeful. They are aspiring to what they alone seem to have known with certainty to be the truth. To them, the eventual destiny of their short trip to Tel Aviv, Netanya, or other Zionist-infested Palestinian towns is eternal life in a world of divine bliss..." [6]

In an Internet chat forum in early 2003, Al-Tamimi expanded on the roots of suicide/martyrdom operations:

"... For us Muslims, martyrdom is not the end of things, but the beginning of the most wonderful of things. In the next life one is in an everlasting bliss, while in this life those after him continue to receive inspiration from him... The blood of martyrs provides nourishment and sustenance for those who continue the struggle. The cause will always be stronger when more sacrifices are offered. This is what the Israelis do not understand and will probably never understand...

"Every martyr that the Palestinians offer is a gain and not a loss, for he or she is alive and their blood provides constant inspiration for many generations to come. Eventually, it is the Israelis who will lose, for they did not come from Europe and other places around the world to die in Palestine. They came to live, and what sort of a life are they living…? Allah tells us in the Qur'an very clearly that if we suffer, they suffer too, but the difference is that we have something to hope for from our Lord and they have not..." [7]

Asked his opinion regarding Islamic scholars, especially from Saudi Arabia, who say that Palestinians are not allowed to blow themselves up because it is suicide, Al-Tamimi replied:

"This is their opinion, which happens to contradict the opinions of all the other scholars around the Muslim world. If we assume that their intentions are good, their understanding of what these operations are about is definitely skewed. Some people suspected that their fatwas [sic] are tailored to suit the political circumstances of the country in which they live. Allah knows best." [8]

In his article 'Hizbullah's Gift to Palestine'in mid-2000, Al-Tamimi draws upon the early Islamic ethos of martyrdom and refers to its religious roots, explaining why the Palestinians will be victorious like Hizbullah, Hamas, and the Islamic Jihad. He refers to the early Islamic traditions regarding the Battle of Al-Qadisiya (637), in which the Muslim commander Khaled Ibn Al-Walid faced the vastly greater Persian army commanded by Persian leader Kisra (Khusro). Khaled Ibn Al-Walid sent the Persian commander a letter on behalf of his leader, the First Caliph Abu Bakr telling him, "I have come to you with a people who love death as much as you love life." This message is one of the main tenets of the Islamist terrorist organizations, and is used frequently on various fronts of Jihad. [9]

"Like the Lebanese, the Palestinians were prepared to continue the struggle despite the clear imbalance of power. Like Hizbullah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad had the ability to recruit fighters whose love for death in the cause of regaining their people's rights exceeded the Israelis' love for a life of security, safety and comfort..." [10]

In an article titled 'Palestinian Islamist Azzam Al-Tamimi Defines Hamas, PLO Differences and Calls for Dialogue With Both' published in late 1998, Al-Tamimi explained that suicide/martyrdom operations are the cheapest weapon the Palestinians can use:

"As far as the military effort is concerned, it does not require much funding. What do you need, really? What sort of weapons does Hamas use? It's the human being. The courage of one man. It is the most valuable of resources. As for some of the operations, the suicidal operations, they require volunteers but the cost in money is near zero. The bomb-making technique is available to everybody. It's on the Internet and the material is available in any corner shop that sells fertilizers. Therefore there's no big deal, really. If you want to do something, you do it. Israel has no defense against Hamas..." [11]

In an article titled 'The Nature and Rationale of Hamas' published in mid-2000. Al-Tamimi explained that Hamas perceives its struggle as an 'act of worship' to be rewarded by Allah: "Islam is Hamas' ideological frame of reference... Such an outlook renders struggle a religious duty, not a nationalist or patriotic one. In other words, defending the land and honor of the Muslims is an act of worship for which God rewards a struggler in the form of victory in this life and eternity in Gardens of Eden in the life after death..." [12]

In an interview titled 'David versus Goliath' on Al-Jazeera television in October 2003, Al-Tamimi described the Hamas tactic of using human bombs:

"Don't forget, in the long-term the outcome of this conflict isn't about how many Palestinians die, it is about how many Israelis die. The Israelis can't fight or match the willingness of the Palestinian people to sacrifice their lives." [13]

On September 11 and the Taliban Regime

In an interview with the Spanish daily La Vanguardia titled 'I Admire the Taliban, They Are Courageous' in late 2001, Al-Tamimi claimed that the September 11 attacks brought joy to the Arab world. He begins by assuring the interviewer that "everyone" in the Arab world cheered upon seeing the Twin Towers fall. "Excuse me," says the interviewer, "did you understand my question?" Al-Tamimi: "In the Arab and Muslim countries, everyone jumped for joy. That's what you asked me, isn't it?" [14]

In an article titled "America's 'Crusade,'" published in late 2001, Al-Tamimi said that U.S. foreign policy was responsible to some extent for the September 11 attacks:

"The United States of America and some of its allies in Europe are not liked in many parts of the Muslim world because of their foreign policies and what is seen as their imperialist attitude... It is undeniable that the calamity that struck the United States on September 11 may have been a source of joy for some Muslims whose hatred for America prevents them from recognizing the savagery and inhumanity of this attack.

"U.S. policy makers may not be oblivious to this fact. They probably know, only too well, that if Muslims were actually responsible for the catastrophe, it is U.S. foreign policy that breeds and provokes such elements that are willing to go as far as killing themselves to inflict pain and humiliation on the United States. The leader of world democracy and protector of international law and human rights is seen by many Muslims in the Middle East, South Asia and North Africa as supporting dictatorships and military junta that resist political reform..." [15]

On Democracy and Human Rights in The U.S. and Iran

In an article titled 'The Seculars and Despotism' published in late 1997, Al-Tamimi alleges that Iran and Sudan have the greatest civil liberties in the Arab world:

"Even if the regimes in Iran and Sudan have failed until now to observe the aspirations of many among the Muslims in presenting an accepted model for the Islamic regime, they still hold a much higher level of liberties, which surpasses those which are allowed in societies that are ruled by the desiccation regimes such as Tunis and Algiers.

"For instance, the women in these two countries [i.e. Iran and Sudan] enjoy liberties that the Tunisian woman does not enjoy, for the [Tunisian woman might] be arrested and brought to trial under the accusation of covering her head in public places, not to mention her deprivation of education and work if she only reveals signs of piety or if she is affiliated to a family that is known to have Islamic activists.

"Freedom in Tunis and other countries that are ruled by the democracy advocates is allowed only to those who display loyalty towards the regime even though this regime is imposed upon the people with iron and fire, and whoever propounds something... that is contradicted to the regime's positions... his fate is removal, expulsion, imprisonment or assassination... The Iranian regime has... advanced in great strides in its transition towards democracy … even though such a transition is not simple in a country that most of its inhabitants embrace [a religious] school [of faith], which is not prone... to openness and condescension of political authorities to the people... [This regime] is more inclined towards the transition into democracy and displays a greater measure of respect for the people's will than those secular elites that do not care of anything besides the peel-like imitation of the West..." [16]

In an article titled 'The U.S. – A New Member in the Club of the Backward [Peoples]' published in early 1997, Al-Tamimi claims that the U.S. has become backward in its approach to human rights:

"The U.S. has become a country very backward in human rights and in ensuring civil liberties... The U.S. boasts, with unprecedented impudence, that it is a pioneer of human rights and fertile ground for the growth of democracy, as it strikes with a sword [of democracy and human rights] at anyone it wants to educate, such as Libya, Iraq, Sudan, and Iran." [17]

On the War on Iraq

While participating in a panel discussion on Al-Jazeera television in early 2002, Al-Tamimi identified 'clear signs' that Bush will "drown" as Pharaoh "drowned:"

To the question: "Could we infer from this analysis [of the situation in Afghanistan] that it is the beginning of the end of a superpower like the U.S....?" Al-Tamimi replied:

"There is an American blackout on whatever happens in Afghanistan. I think that had not the U.S. been in such a plight it would not have prepared its apparatus to invade Iraq... Concerning the end and the beginning of the end – there are many clear signs. From the religious perspective I can tell that whoever claims to be Lord of all the Lords of the universe is about to [drown] the same way Pharaoh drowned in the sea. Pharaoh said: 'I am your Lord' and drowned and now George Bush says: 'I am your Lord' and he is going to drown and drown his country with him..." [18]

On Non-Muslims' Status Under Islamic Rule
In an article titled 'Wishful Thinking' published in late 1997, Al-Tamimi explains Hamas' doctrine on the status of non-Muslims under Islamic rule:

"The Muslims' stand in relation to the Jews does not differ from their [the Muslims'] stand in relation to the Christians... They deserve their rights and [have] their duties, if they want to live under the Muslims' protection." [19]

In an article titled 'Jews and Muslims in the Post-Israel Era' published in mid-1999, Al-Tamimi says that under Muslim rule, Jews will live in accordance with Qur'anic precepts:

"But, what about the Jews? How will they be perceived by the Arabs and the Muslims? How are they going to be treated? How will the Qur'anic text referring to them be interpreted? Will they, after all, have a place in our region and in our culture, or are we going to annul their right to the Covenant guaranteed to them by God and His Messenger?

"Preparation for the post-Israel era should now begin. This would have to include a revision and elimination of false concepts that make no distinction between Jews and Zionists. The first is a bearer of Jewish faith and if not involved in aggression against the Muslims is entitled to the right of Covenant. The second is a bearer of a settler colonial enterprise, an aggressor that should be resisted and deterred." [20]

In an article titled 'Reflection in Memory of the 50th Anniversary of the Ravishing of Palestine' published in early 1998, Al-Tamimi suggested that Germany or the U.S. should grant the Jews a state within their own territories:

"If the Westerners as a whole – and the Germans in particular – are immersed in feelings of guilt because of what they have perpetrated against the Jews, isn't it a just thing that they will act together to expiate for their sins by granting the Jews a national homeland in central Europe, for instance, within one of the German states? Or, why will not the U.S., the Zionist father through adoption, grant [the Jews] one out of its more than fifty states..?" [21]

On the Middle East Peace Process

In a late 1998 interview with The Washington Reporttitled 'Palestinian Islamist Azzam Al-Tamimi Defines Hamas-PLO Differences and Calls for Dialogue With Both,' Al-Tamimi defined armed resistance as the norm and the Oslo peace agreement as the aberration:

"Until now, Hamas has not felt the time has come to wage a full-scale war against Israel. It will take place when the Muslims and Arabs join forces... We have the right to resist... The same justification for resistance had - prior to the emergence of Hamas in December 1987 - been endorsed by the Arab League, the Islamic Conference Organization, the Non-Aligned Movement and the United Nations. Armed resistance is not an aberration from the norm. The Oslo agreement between the PLO and Israel is the aberration. Hamas … is a constant reminder to the Palestinian people that the Zionist project is doomed." [22]

In his 1997 article titled 'Wishful Thinking' Al-Tamimi claimed that peace negotiations with Israel should focus on dismantling it, and said that otherwise, the flag of Jihad will keep flying:

"The same way in past days the Muslims have distinguished between the Arab Christians who were living in the [Middle East] region... and those who came from the West carrying with them the Cross [i.e. the Crusaders]... so they distinguish between the Jews who used to live in the Muslim countries, and still do, and the Zionist invaders who came from the West carrying with them the Hexagon as their flag to carry out a new colonial scheme...

"This thing distinguishes the Islamic plan of treating with the Zionist entity: It is totally unacceptable to coexist with this entity and to acknowledge its legitimate right to exist. If it is inescapable, and negotiations with [the Zionist entity] must take place, then the negotiations with its authorities [should focus on] the measures to dismantle and eliminate [this Zionist entity].

"Either they [i.e. the Israelis] accept the disappearance of their project in a peaceful way... or the flag of the Jihad in sake of Allah will remain fluttering on high until Allah permits the change of the balance of power in favor of the Muslims and then the Zionist entity will disappear the same way the Crusader entity was eliminated before..." [23]

In his article 'Hizbullah's Gift to Palestine' published in mid-2000, Al-Tamimi described the Oslo agreements as backstabbing for the Palestinian struggle:

"... Unlike the case of Lebanon, the Palestinian struggle was stabbed in the back and betrayed from within. Israel was presented with a golden opportunity by the ailing, corrupt, and bankrupt PLO leadership. As a result of the 1993 Oslo agreement between the PLO and Israel, the task of securing Israel against Palestinian reprisals has been undertaken by the forty thousand or so policemen and security agents recruited by the Israeli-sponsored Palestinian Authority (PA). The PA deserves credit, and has indeed been credited by the Israelis, for doing an excellent job hunting down resistance members of both Hamas and Islamic Jihad, murdering them, incarcerating them, or handing them over to Israel. It is also credited for opening the doors wide open before Israel to establish relations with other Arab countries and with so many nations around the world...

"The PA has turned to be nothing but a new Israeli agency of collaborators little different from the disintegrating South Lebanese Lahd's army of collaborators... In the fate of Lahd's army, Arafat and some of his lieutenants may have seen the end of their unholy enterprise..." [24]

In his article 'Booming Insanity' published in mid-2001, Al-Tamimi claimed that the Palestinians see the light at the end of the tunnel through sacrifice, not peace:

"It is definitely true that the majority of the Palestinians, irrespective of their factional affiliation, are fed up with the peace process. They can now see light in the tunnel not through peace-making but through the sacrifices of the intifada." [25]

In an article titled 'Winning the Battle of Arguments' published in late 2002, Al-Tamimi defined the two-state solution and one-state solution as equally inadvisable:

"It does not help the Palestinians or their cause to propose a final solution. What really matters is to convince the world of the sinister nature of Zionism and of the right of the Palestinians to resist. How it will all end depends on the generation that will witness the end and on the circumstances in which the end is reached. The recent "Justice for Palestine" conference in Johannesburg showed beyond doubt that an increasing number of politicians and journalists have come to the conclusion that Zionism, by its very nature, is unviable in the long term.

"Some of those who professed such an opinion had, for a long time, been supporters of a two-state solution. They now affirm that they had been deluded but have now been disillusioned about the true nature of Israel, a Zionist, racist, and fascist State. It is equally inadvisable to speak of a one-state solution, even a Palestinian state solution. What the discourse should focus on is that occupation must end and that Zionism is evil and should, just as apartheid was, be dismantled..." [26]

In an interview with The Jakarta Post titled 'Palestine's Suffering and the Misery of Yasser Arafat,' published in mid-2001, Al-Tamimi claimed that Israel's withdrawal to the 1967 borders will quell the conflict only temporarily:

"In the short term, only full Israeli withdrawal from all the areas occupied in 1967 and total evacuation of all Jewish settlements built in this area, may bring some peace – for a while – to the region. However, in the long term, Israel has no future, and the Jews who support Israel and Zionism, and especially those who have chosen to migrate to Palestine to occupy the lands and homes of the Palestinians, should reconsider their positions. Eventually, Palestine will return to the Muslims as it did after more than a century of occupation by the Crusaders about 10 centuries ago."

When during the interview Al-Tamimi was asked about other Muslim communities' contribution to the Palestinian struggle, he replied:

"The Zionist project is an imperialist project directed against Islam and the Muslims in the first place. Palestine is holy to all Muslims and does not belong to the Palestinians nor to the Arabs. Therefore, Muslims around the world have a religious duty to stand up to aggression and oppression and to do all they can to liberate this dear Muslim land. Until it is possible for Muslims to participate directly in the Jihad of liberation, they can pray for their brothers and sisters in Palestine so that Allah may provide them with courage and steadfastness and the willingness to sacrifice more and more." [27]

In his article titled 'The Dream (Nightmare) of Zionism in Palestine,' published in late 2003, Al-Tamimi stated his belief that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot be solved through territorial compromise:

"Uninformed individuals may be tempted to believe that the problem in the Middle East... is the result of a religious conflict between Muslims and Jews. Those influenced by... the media will also be under the illusion that this problem is of a territorial nature and can best be resolved by the two conflicting parties agreeing to share everything and anything: land, water, peace and security. Both assumptions are wrong..." [28]

In his article titled 'The Nature and Rationale of Hamas' published in mid-2000, Al-Tamimi claimed that the suggestion that Hamas' armed struggle undermines the peace process is erroneous:

"The Oslo agreement between the PLO and Israel represents an aberration, or deviation, from what hitherto had been a unified Palestinian position vis-à-vis the Israeli occupation of Palestine... Hamas exercised armed struggle long before the Madrid Conference and the Oslo Agreement. Therefore, it would be erroneous to suggest that the continuation of such resistance be aimed at undermining or derailing the peace process..." [29]

In the same article, Al-Tamimi said the Hamas will continue to communicate with Israel through weapons until the entire land of Palestine is liberated:

"[According to] the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas)... founder and leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin … the prospect of the movement initiating, or accepting, dialogue with Israel is non-existent at present... In Sheikh Yassin's own words: There can be no dialogue between a party that is strong and oppressive and another that is weak and oppressed. There can be no dialogue except after the elimination of oppression. We will continue to communicate with Israel using the same weapon it has been using against us, the rifle... We shall continue to communicate with it using the same method until the entire land of Palestine, and not only a part of it, is liberated..." [30]

In his article titled 'No Peace, More Blood' published in late 2003, Al-Tamimi glorifies Fatah's military wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades:

"Mahmoud Abbas [Abu Mazen] did not take long to realize the impossibility of his mission: in as much as Arafat was 'un-marginable' [i.e. 'unmarginalizable'] – Hamas was 'un-dismantlable,' so the Road Map was bound to fail...

"... Palestine is part of the Arab and Islamic land that fell to colonial control following the liquidation of the Ottoman caliphate, and Israel is a colonial military outpost that sought to solve Europe's own Jewish problem and perpetuate colonial authority in the heart of the Muslim homeland. The Palestinians who are victims of the game of the powerful have every legitimate right to struggle through all legitimate means available to them in order to regain their freedom and homeland.

"In this sense, the frame of reference of Hamas is no different from what the Vietnamese freedom fighters, the African National Congress strugglers against apartheid, or the French resistance against the Nazi occupation of France would have taken to be their frame of reference.

"However, for quite some time, Hamas could not express its frame of reference in a language that the world could identify with. Its own charter, which had long been forgotten by its own members and leaders, continues to be quoted by its detractors within Zionist circles to associate it with antisemitism, a charge that is a contradiction in terms since most Palestinians are Arabs and therefore confirmed Semites." [31]

In an article titled 'Nine Hundred Years and Two Crusades' published in late 1999, Al-Tamimi predicts that the Zionist enterprise will last 88 years, just like the Crusader invasion:

"On the morning of Friday, 23 Sha'ban 492 H (July 15, 1099 C.E.), Jerusalem was raped by an estimated 1 million Crusaders who came all the way from Europe to allegedly liberate local Christians from Islamic oppression. Jerusalem was consequently turned into a blood pool. Between 60,000 and 70,000 Muslims and Jews were butchered. This was the ultimate conquest of a trail of blood that extended for thousands of miles. Nine hundred years later, Jerusalem finds itself once again in bondage. The invading crusade this time does not hoist the cross but rather the Star of David. The similarities are striking.

"Both campaigns originated in Europe, both used religion to justify aggression and butchery, and both were in essence motivated by purely mundane (secular) rather than religious considerations. In both cases, too, it was the weakness and disunity of the Muslims that contributed to the success of the invaders...

"In some ways, the 12th century awakening resembles today's Islamic awakening. In some other ways, the liberation of Jerusalem after 88 years of European occupation promises an imminent end to modern-day Zionist occupation of the first Qiblah [direction of prayer – i.e. Jerusalem]. In less than 40 years from now, this vision may just prove to be true." [32]

In his article 'Wishful Thinking' published in late 1997, Al-Tamimi claimed that coexistence with the Zionist entity is totally unacceptable:

"Ever since Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, the founder of Islamic Resistance Movement – Hamas – was released [from the Israeli prison] there are statements that are published on his behalf that say that he has accepted the Oslo Agreements...

In his 1998 Washington Report interview, Al-Tamimi defined Hamas as the most democratic movement in the Arab World:

"[Hamas] is more democratic than any of the secular movements in the Arab world. Our leadership is elected. The executive bodies - those who lead the movement and are in charge of the various institutions – are all chosen democratically... "

During a speech at an October 2000 conference of solidarity with the Intifada, held in Vienna, Tamimi "attacked the European solution to the Jewish problem and the [encouragement] of Jewish immigration to Palestine." Tamimi mused: "Why shouldn't they give the Jews half of Austria or part of Germany, or perhaps cast them into one of the far-flung corners of the U.S.?" He also stated, "There is no other way than for the Jews to leave our land."

In response to an article in the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonotthat stated, "We [the Israelis] are defending our existence with all our might, and behind us is only the sea..." Tamimi told the conference: "Yes, behind them is only the sea, and either they get on boats to return from whence they came, or they will drown in the sea. This is Israel's bitter end..." [33]

On Islamic Shari'a Law and Disciplining Wives

In a report on a Cambridge University panel discussion titled 'Is Islam a Threat to the West?' Al-Tamimi described how Muslim women ask their husbands to beat them:

"On Thursday, January 23, 2003 the Cambridge Union (Cambridge University, England) was packed with several hundred students for a controversial event entitled 'Is Islam a Threat to the West?'... Things got more interesting when the issue of Shari'ah law came up... Even Dr. Al-Tamimi spoke of the need to adapt and contextualise. Those in the audience who had studied Islam wondered if this kind of smokescreen would distract the audience from seeing the real issues — but then the most amazing thing happened.

"A member of the audience asked a question concerning the rights of women under Islam. Under Shari'ah, of course, they are treated as inferiors – morally, physically, spiritually and legally. She connected this issue with Surah 4:34 which speaks of the right of husbands to beat their wives, and asked the panel to discuss the implications of this... Dr. Al-Tamimi gave the most incredible answer, an answer that swung the whole mood of the house... Engaging in an impromptu exegesis of 4:34, Dr. Al-Tamimi firstly said that beating was the last in a series of three steps that husbands could use to 'discipline' errant wives (a ripple of concern swept the audience at this point), so to concentrate on beating alone was to miss that. But Dr. Al-Tamimi also said that he was regularly surprised why this verse was such a concern to Westerners since he knew of many Arab women who regularly asked their husbands to beat them…!" [34]

* Adam Pashut is a Research Fellow at MEMRI.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Institute of Islamic Political Thought, http://www.ii-pt.com/web/advisors.htm.

[2] See MEMRI Special Dispatch 542, July 24, 2003, 'Al-Qaradhawi Speaks In Favor of Suicide Operations at an Islamic Conference in Sweden.'

[3] The Guardian (London), December 21, 2002. Jeevan Vasagar, 'Palestinian Radical was Guest of U.S. Ambassador.'

[4] Council on Foreign Relations, Muhammad Muslih, 'The Foreign Policy of the Hamas,'

'A Weblog of Asides, Commentary, and Analysis from Martin Kramer,' http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/2002_09_26.htm.

[5] Institute of Islamic Political Thought, February 1997, Dr. 'Azzam Al-Tamimi, 'A Stroll in Hell.'

[6] Palestine Times, June 2000, Dr. 'Azzam Al-Tamimi, 'Hizbullah's Gift to Palestine.'

[7] Islam Online, March 11, 2003, 'The Future of Intifada: Did Military Action Have Positive/Negative Impact on the Palestinian Cause?'

[8] Ibid.

[9] For example, the Chechen commander reiterated it when his group took over the theater in Moscow in 2002.

[10] Palestine Times, June 2000, Dr. 'Azzam Al-Tamimi, 'Hizbullah's Gift to Palestine.'

[11] Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 1998, Grace Halsell, 'Palestinian Islamist Azzam Al-Tamimi Defines Hamas, PLO Differences and Calls for Dialogue With Both,' pp. 23-24.

[12] Dawn (Pakistan), April 30, 2000, Dr. 'Azzam Al-Tamimi, 'The Nature and Rationale of Hamas.'

[13] Al-Jazeera (Qatar), October 2, 2003, 'David versus Goliath.'

[14] La Vanguardia (Spain), November 11, 2001, 'I Admire the Taliban, They Are Courageous'.

[15] Palestine Times, October, 2001, Dr. 'Azzam Al-Tamimi, 'America's Crusade.'

[16] Institute of Islamic Political Thought, October 1997, Dr. 'Azzam Al-Tamimi, 'The Seculars and Despotism.'

[17] Institute of Islamic Political Thought, February 1997, Dr. 'Azzam Al-Tamimi, 'The United States – a New Member in the Club of the Backward [Peoples].'

[18] Al-Jazeera Television, February 22, 2002, '[Osama] bin Laden's Last Message.'

[19] Institute of Islamic Political Thought, October 1997, Dr. 'Azzam Al-Tamimi, 'Wishful Thinking.'

[20] Palestine Times, July 1999, Dr. 'Azzam Al-Tamimi, 'Jews and Muslims in the Post-Israel Era.'

[21] Institute of Islamic Political Thought, March 1998, Dr. 'Azzam Al-Tamimi, 'Reflection in Memory of the 50th Anniversary of the Ravishing of Palestine.'

[22] Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 1998, Grace Halsell, 'Palestinian Islamist Azzam Al-Tamimi Defines Hamas, PLO Differences and Calls for Dialogue With Both,' pp. 23-24.

[23] Institute of Islamic Political Thought, October 1997, Dr. 'Azzam Al-Tamimi, 'Wishful Thinking.'

[24] Palestine Times, June 2000, Dr. 'Azzam Al-Tamimi, 'Hizbullah's Gift to Palestine.'

[25] Palestine Times, July 2001, Dr. 'Azzam Al-Tamimi, 'Booming Insanity.'

[26] Palestine Times, October 2002, Dr. 'Azzam Al-Tamimi, 'Winning the Battle of Arguments.'

[27] Jakarta Post (Indonesia), June 7, 2001, 'Palestine's Suffering and the Misery of Yasser Arafat.'

[28] The Sunday Observer (Sri Lanka), November 30, 2003, Dr. Azzam Al-Tamimi, 'The Dream (Nightmare) of Zionism in Palestine.'

[29] Dawn (Pakistan), April 30, 2000, Dr. 'Azzam Al-Tamimi, 'The Nature and Rationale of Hamas.'

[30] Ibid.

[31] The New Nation (Bangladesh), November 29, 2003, Dr. Azzam Al-Tamimi, 'No Peace, More Blood.'

[32] Palestine Times, August 1999, Dr. 'Azzam Al-Tamimi, 'Nine Hundred Years and Two Crusades.'

[33] Al-Ayyam (Palestinian Authority), October 30, 2000.

[34] Andy Bannister, 'Is Islam a threat to the West?'

Thanks to Jeffrey Imm for the link.

Pakistan: "It's almost impossible for them to curb these jihadis. The jihadi establishment has become too big"

This article chronicles the jihad activities of Hafiz Saeed and his Lashkar-e-Taiba organization in Pakistan, which threatens to derail the India/Pakistan peace process before it really starts. From KRT Wire:

Alighting swiftly from a smoky windowed minibus on the edge of a small park in central Islamabad, the man blamed by India for orchestrating the 2001 suicide attack against India's parliament seemed anxious to avoid attracting too much attention.

Hafiz Saeed, founder of the outlawed Lashkar-e-Taiba organization and a member of Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front for Jihad, had come to town to address a gathering to mourn the death of a militant fighter killed in Kashmir.

He must have been aware that another, highly significant meeting was taking place in Islamabad that day, one that made his presence in the capital a matter of acute political sensitivity.

Just an hour earlier, Indian and Pakistani diplomats meeting nearby had proclaimed the successful conclusion of their first round of peace talks, talks made possible in part by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's solemn promise to put an end to the activities of the extremists waging war against India in Kashmir.

But despite Saeed's attempts at discretion, there was no way to hide the gathering of 500 or so solemn, heavily bearded men who had assembled alongside one of Islamabad's smartest shopping centers to hear him speak. Brightly colored carpets were strewn around the grass, and banners were strung up around the park extolling the virtues of the "jihad" being waged against Indian rule in Kashmir. "Beat the infidels so harshly that they run away," said one.

Denouncing Musharraf's support for the United States in its proclaimed war against terrorism, Saeed told his supporters that the jihad for Kashmir "will continue until Kashmir is free."

"The time is near when all these oppressors will be crushed by this jihad," he promised.

The public appearance of such a prominent extremist, just as India and Pakistan were announcing their agreement on a new "road map for peace," underscored the difficulties that lie ahead, not only for the fledgling peace process but also for Musharraf's efforts to crack down on extremists.

Government officials said they did not know Saeed was planning to address the ceremony and that no snub to India was intended. It was the 2001 terrorist attack on India's parliament in New Delhi, attributed to Lashkar-e-Taiba, that provoked India to threaten war with Pakistan, triggering worldwide fears that a nuclear conflict was imminent.

"I'm surprised," said Pakistan's Information Minister Sheik Rashid Ahmed, when told about the gathering. "They are not allowed to be active. They are banned from doing these things."

Yet despite Musharraf's promise to India's Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in January that he will "take to task any extremist here of whatever shape and color," Saeed remains very much active in Pakistan.

Red bearded and portly, he is a veteran of the anti-Soviet Afghan war who frequented the same mujahedeen camp as bin Laden in the 1980s. He founded Lashkar-e-Taiba, or Army of the Pure, in the early 1990s, reportedly with bin Laden's help, and in 1998 the group joined bin Laden's International Islamic Front for Jihad Against Crusaders and Jews.

Lashkar-e-Taiba was banned in Pakistan in 2002 and has been designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. Saeed was arrested by Pakistani authorities in January 2002 but was freed 10 months later.

Pakistani officials say they have no grounds to charge him because he is officially no longer the head of Lashkar-e-Taiba. Two weeks before the group was banned, Saeed formed a new organization, the Jamaat ul Dawa, a device employed by several of the extremist groups outlawed by Musharraf that enabled them to continue operating.

In recent months he has been crossing the country, speaking in mosques, addressing gatherings such as the one held in Islamabad and raising funds for the "jihad" against India in Kashmir.

But to all intents and purposes, Jamaat ul Dawa is the same organization as Lashkar-e-Taiba, said Arif Jamal, a Lahore-based expert on Islamic militancy. "It's all the same people," he said.

In November, Musharraf placed Jamaat ul Dawa on a terrorist "watch list," which means it isn't allowed to hold public meetings or raise funds.

But police who paused to watch Saeed speak in the park said that religious gatherings such as this one, held to mourn a dead fighter, do not require the permission of the authorities.

India has made its continued participation in the peace talks contingent on Musharraf's efforts to crack down on groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba.

But the two assassination attempts in December suggested Musharraf's own life is in danger from the militant organizations he has vowed to crush, and Jamal said he doubted the government would ever succeed in denting the influence of groups such as Saeed's.

"It's almost impossible for them to curb these jihadis," he said. "The jihadi establishment has become too big."

The Jihad World War

Stephen J. Kohn in Arutz Sheva states plainly and courageously some obvious truths that are all too widely ignored these days: "This is the time for collective wisdom and judgment to declare that any manifestation and glorification of The Jihad World War must be fought, unceasingly and aggressively. To lose this war may indeed mean the end of civilization as we have known it, and perhaps the deprivation of immeasurable others who would otherwise have the opportunity to experience it."

It is uncomfortable linking together events that put us all at risk anywhere on our planet, but ignoring them is far worse. And "all" is not Jews or Russians or Australians or Americans — it is all of the developed nations and all that want to develop. It is all civilization as we know it that is at risk. It is also Iraqis who want to change over to a democratic society.

What is at risk is the preservation and promotion of rights that have emerged as a standard of behavior over millennia, as well as perhaps our survival. The rights of freedom, of equality, of tolerance, of the ability to think freely and act within limits of decency – whether defined by traditional religious values or common sense. At risk is our ability to wake in the morning and return in the evening without fear that our lives will be taken from us by the blind ferocity of those who hate the advances in civilization and all those, including fellow Moslems, who do not share their views.

When we hear that a leading Pakistani nuclear scientist has spread his knowledge to other governments, with malice and greed his objectives, the wise recognize that it is essential to initiate, to continue and to combat this scourge. The ignorant can bury the fear with the acceptance of an alien philosophy. But we will be burying the bodies of those whose deaths have been caused by an inability to face the reality of a war now underway.

It is hard to think of a common enemy that can chase us, relentlessly, but this enemy exists, and we have been too polite in defining its dimensions and potential horrors. It has been abetted by a blind Western mentality of know-nothingness, which justifies the death of innocents when it meets seemingly loftier goals. Goals not built of tolerance, but of blindness. Not of acceptance, but naivete. Not of enlightenment, but irresponsibility.

It is hard to hear of subway trains being blown up in Moscow, buses in Jerusalem, nightclubs in Bali, the Twin Towers in New York, American embassies in Africa, houses in the Philippines, or Iraqis in Baghdad and threats of future attack that seem to be unending. It should be hard to ignore the common links between them. It should be hard to ignore them because these assaults on humanity all have two - all too clear - common elements.

Firstly, in almost all cases, they are aimed at innocent civilians whose only common characteristic is that they fall into some ethnic group other than that of the Moslem terrorists that set off the bombs. It is racism at its most profound level.

Secondly, increasingly, there are links between the terrorists and a number of countries that allow them to operate with growing freedom, explicitly or implicitly. It is "non-collusive collusion" — the independence of the groups, but their shared goals joining them together – to create a lethal force that we cannot ignore.

The link to Moslem terrorism joins all of this together. While Moslem terrorists spread, with glee, the fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the reality is that the Moslem nations act as a bloc in encouraging and propagating hate and violence, not only of Jews, not only of Western civilization, but of all that stands in their way. The Moslem nations assembled in Kuala Lumpur recently applauded wildly as the outgoing prime minister of Malaysia unleashed a torrent of anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism. The Moslem nations, collectively, voted to challenge an antiterrorist barrier to prevent Moslems from killing Jews (and Israeli Moslems as well). The Moslem nations appear to evaluate the events of the world not based on what many of us had assumed were commonly accepted and collective standards of decency, but rather based on the impact of these events on themselves alone. A separation from the group of truly civilized nations.

Yet, this was the theme of the counterfeit anti-Semitic tract, still widely quoted – that Jews act collectively and without regard for any other loyalties. In this environment, no matter what the Jews give up in Israel or the Americans do for political correctness, the beast called terrorism will never be mollified. The counterfeit Protocols, prepared in the 19th century to describe how Jews ruled the world, increasingly sounds like today's reality. But it is not the Jews who have written the protocols of the contemporary world, but the deeds of Moslem terrorists that reflect a more sinister, destructive and collective view of the world.

That quislings in the modern world have become a propaganda arm of these terrorists is pathetic, since the Moslem terrorists' views are so against the liberal view of the core Rights of Mankind. Those same individuals in the West who protest wildly on issues such as capital punishment, animal rights or women's rights, ignore the desecration of human life that has become the hallmark of Moslem terrorism. It is a sickness, whose cause is unfathomable. The arguments in the United States and United Kingdom regarding whether a terrorist dictator willing to kill his fellow citizens - and those anywhere in the world - earned the destruction of his terror machine are cynical and so colored by domestic political issues that their absurdity is manifest.

The time has come for Moslem nations to choose their path openly. Some have, but all too silently; some are increasingly realizing the risks we collectively face, recognizing now that the terrorist bombs can as easily explode in Riyadh as in Tel Aviv. Others, near outlaw states and gangs of thugs, need to be branded and treated as such, without any form of succor.

There can be no equivocation, rationalization or justification for blind hate and terrorism. There can be no pretending that Jews or Americans or Russians or Frenchman or anyone deserves to be blown up. There can be civilized debate. There can be arguing, but there cannot be a license to murder the innocent.

The opening skirmishes of this war have long since occurred. Some nations have taken a stand, others equivocate, and yet others, sometimes surreptitiously, support the hatred and death. We must stop pretending and start recognizing reality, and fighting The Jihad World War without equivocation.

This is the time for collective wisdom and judgment to declare that any manifestation and glorification of The Jihad World War must be fought, unceasingly and aggressively. To lose this war may indeed mean the end of civilization as we have known it, and perhaps the deprivation of immeasurable others who would otherwise have the opportunity to experience it.

Spencer on The Real Terrorist Enemy

Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer's new article, "Jihad: The Real Terrorist Enemy," is available today at FrontPage. The title refers to the continued lack of clarity coming from Washington about just who America is fighting in the war on terror, and how this is causing domestic and international damage to the anti-terror effort — damage that could easily be avoided.

The Islamic Bomb

Bernard-Henri Levy writes in Opinion Journal (thanks to Jeffrey Imm) that Pakistan "--in the shelter of its alliance with an America that is decidedly not counting inconsistencies--could furnish al Qaeda with the means to take the ultimate step of its jihad." Indeed, it may already have done so.

We observed the Abdul Qadeer Khan affair, the incredible story of this Pakistani nuclear scientist who delivered over 15 years--freely and with impunity--his most sensitive secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea. Then we learned that President Musharraf in person, after an interview from which little or nothing has been divulged, ended up granting Khan his "pardon." Case closed? End of story? That's what the American administration, falling oddly in step with the official Pakistani doctrine, would have us believe. But knowing something of the case--and being the first French observer, to my knowledge, to have tried to alert public opinion to the extreme gravity of the situation--I believe that we are only at the very beginning this story.

Far from ending on Sept. 11, 2001--the day, we are told, on which "the world changed"--this terrifying nuclear traffic continued until well after: A last trip to Pyongyang, his thirteenth, was made in June 2002 by the good doctor Khan; not to mention the ship inspected last August in the Mediterranean, transporting elements of a future nuclear plant to Libya. The eyes of the world, emulating the eyes of America, were fixed on Baghdad, while the tentacles of nuclear proliferation were being extended from Karachi.

We will soon learn that far from being the overexcited, but in the end isolated, "Dr. Strangelove" that most of the press has described, Khan was at the center of an immense network, an incredibly dense web. There were Dubai front companies, meetings in Casablanca and Istanbul with Iranian colleagues, complicities in Germany and Holland, Malaysian and Philippine agents, and detours through Sri Lanka, with Chinese and London connections--a world of crime and dirty war that the West, mired in a big game that is beginning to get ahead of it, has so blithely allowed to develop.

We will find that, since Pakistan is steered by the iron hand of its secret service and its army, it is inconceivable that Khan operated alone without orders or cover. We will understand more precisely that we cannot repeat without contradiction that, on the one hand, the Pakistani nuclear arsenal is under control, and that not a warhead can budge without the authorities' knowledge, and, on the other, that Khan was acting alone, working on his own account, with no official connivance. To put it simply and disconcertingly: Pakistan's nuclear weapons need to be secured. They cannot--will not--be secured by Pakistan alone.

We will come back to Gen. Musharraf--and Pakistan being what it is, we will come back also to other generals and ex-generals, such as Mirza Aslam Beg and Jehangir Karamat, both former army chiefs of staff. But we must not shift our gaze from the president himself, whose knowledge of Khan's dark machinations no one in Islamabad doubts, and who, at the very moment of his confounding, celebrated Khan once more as a "hero." What does Khan know of what Gen. Musharraf knows? And what does Khan's daughter, Dina, who announced in London that she has suitcases of compromising files, know?

And at last, sooner or later, we will come to the real secret: that of al Qaeda; and of Khan's links to Lashkar-e-Toiba, the fundamentalist terrorist group at the heart of al Qaeda; and the fact that this "mad scientist" is first of all mad about God, a fanatical Islamist who in his heart and soul believes that the bomb of which he is the father should belong, if not to the Umma itself, at least to its avant-garde, as incarnated by al Qaeda. So let us not shrink from measuring the probability of a nightmare scenario: to wit, a Pakistani state which--in the shelter of its alliance with an America that is decidedly not counting inconsistencies--could furnish al Qaeda with the means to take the ultimate step of its jihad.

How much time will it take for all this to be said? How much longer will Islamabad's masquerade endure? Next month the American Congress will vote on the question of three billion dollars in aid to Pakistan: Will this aspect of things be taken into account? Will demands be made, at last, in exchange for this aid, for inspections of Pakistani sites, as well as the installation of a double-key system--a system that some of us here in Europe have been calling for?
These are just a few elements I offer--as part of a debate that has scarcely begun.

Witness: Defendant in Virginia jihad trial trained with terror group

They weren't just playing paintball. Note also that they were recruited based on an Islamic religious appeal, right in Virginia. From AP:

Just weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, three Americans spent a month on a remote Pakistani mountaintop, training with a militant Islamic group, AK-47 assault rifles and anti-aircraft guns and hoping to eventually fight in Afghanistan against U.S. troops, one of the men testified Tuesday.

Khwaja Mahmood Hasan described the scene during the trial of four members of what prosecutors call a Virginia-based "jihad network."

Hasan testified that he and the other two Americans _ Yong Ki Kwon and Masoud Khan _ left the training camp run by a Pakistani militant group called Lashkar-e-Taiba only after it became apparent that they would not be able to cross the border into Afghanistan and fight alongside the Taliban.

"We started hearing reports from the BBC that the war was coming to a quick end," Hasan testified, recalling his time at the mountaintop camp called ibn Masood. He said Taliban leader Mullah Omar was no longer calling for Muslims to come to Afghanistan's aid.

Khan, of Gaithersburg, Md., is one of the four defendants on trial and faces the most serious charges, including conspiracy to levy war against the United States and conspiracy to provide material support to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.

Three other defendants face lesser conspiracy and firearms charges; prosecutors allege the group used paintball games near Fredericksburg in the summers of 2000 and 2001 to prepare for holy war against India and other nations with whom the United States is at peace.

Hasan and Kwon, who trained with Khan at the Lashkar camp, have already pleaded guilty to firearms and conspiracy charges and been sentenced to 11 years in prison. Both agreed to testify for the government as part of their plea agreements and could have their sentences reduced for their cooperation.

Khan's lawyers said in opening statements last week that their client, who was born in Pakistan, traveled to that country primarily to take care of family affairs and that his visit to Lashkar camps was simply a way to fulfill his Islamic duties of learning self-defense.

Yeah, that's it. Just as a hot war was breaking out between the U.S. and an Islamic regime, he decided to join up with forces allied with that regime to learn a little self-defense. But the fact that they were fighting the U.S. was no doubt purely coincidental.

Hasan said the three spent five weeks at three different camps run by Lashkar, which was designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government in December 2001.

He said the group learned to use weapons including AK-47s, handguns and rocket-propelled grenades. They took turns firing an anti-aircraft gun at the side of a mountain.

Their first trip to the camp was thwarted by a government checkpoint, because Kwon's Korean nationality drew suspicion. They made it to the camp a second time when they were personally escorted by Lashkar's leader.

While at the camp, they once had to hide from Pakistani intelligence officers who swept through the camp looking for foreigners.

"They took us and hid us on the side of a mountain" for several hours when the when the intelligence officers made their sweep, Hasan said.

Hasan, a northern Virginia resident and graduate of Marymount University in Arlington, said he and the others trained in a group of 12 to 15 along with British and Saudi citizens.

Hasan said he decided to fight for the Taliban after a Sept. 16, 2001, meeting in Fairfax, Va., in which a Muslim scholar named Ali al-Tamimi told members of the paintball group that Islam required them to defend the Taliban against the imminent U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.

The group viewed Lashkar as a means to obtain the training necessary to join Taliban fighters.

"I knew they (Lashkar) could get us to Afghanistan," Hasan said.

Also on Tuesday, an expert in paintball games testified for the defense that 8.7 million Americans play the sport.

Jessica Sparks, editor of Paintball magazine, said it is common for paintball players to learn basic tactics like providing cover fire and how to advance in formation.

Prosecutors have said such tactics are evidence the group was engaging in military training.

Pakistan arrests Pearl murder suspect

The jihadis who killed Daniel Pearl seem to have been caught. From Reuters, with thanks to Nicolei:

Pakistani police have arrested two Islamic militants, including one suspected of involvement in the kidnap and killing of U.S. reporter Daniel Pearl, an officer says.

The two men, Sajid Jabbar and Mohammad Athar, were arrested in an overnight raid in the port city of Karachi and belong to the outlawed Lashkar-e-Jhangvi group, Fayyaz Leghari, chief of the investigation branch of Karachi police, told Reuters.

Another senior officer, who did not want to be identified, said Jabbar was suspected of involvement in the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Pearl in 2002 as well as several other militant attacks.

"He carries a reward of 500,000 rupees on his head," the officer said.

He said Jabbar was a close associate of Asif Ramzi, another suspect in the murder of Pearl, who blew himself up while making bombs in Karachi in December 2002.

Leghari said Jabbar and Athar were suspected of planning fresh attacks in Karachi. "We have seized a huge amount of weapons and explosives from their possession," he said.

Athar was the chief of the Sindh provincial wing of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and wanted for at least 10 separate terror attacks, including sending parcel bombs to senior police officers.

"Their arrest is a big success for the police and a blow to the terrorists," Leghari said.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has ties with the Taliban regime which formerly ruled Afghanistan and the al Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden, is also blamed for a May 2002 suicide bombing in Karachi in which 11 French technicians and three Pakistanis were killed.

Pearl was kidnapped and murdered in Karachi in early 2002 while researching a story on Islamic militants against a backdrop of the September 11 attacks on the United States.

A British-born militant, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, better known as Sheikh Omar, was sentenced to death in July 2002 for masterminding his murder. Omar has denied the charge and lodged an appeal.

A security fence — to keep jihadists in

Israel and Saudi Arabia have security fences to try to keep jihad terrorists out. Now Thailand is building one to keep them in. From Reuters, with thanks to Nicolei:

Thailand will build security fences along part of its 650-km (400-mile) border with Malaysia to try to stop militant Muslims escaping after attacking Thai forces, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said on Tuesday.

The army would build the fences across suspected escape routes used by militants in predominantly Buddhist Thailand's largely Muslim south, where a new wave of violence began last month when gunmen raided an army base, he said.

"We will focus on areas with cross-border smuggling problems which are not too many. We don't have to build fences all along the entire 600-km border," Thaksin told reporters in Bangkok.

A massive security operation has failed to catch the gunmen who stole more than 100 weapons, mostly M-16 assault rifles, in the attack, or the people who set ablaze 21 state schools in an operation officials believe was a diversion.

Since then, several Buddhist monks and police and civil servants of both religions have been killed by machete-wielding raiders or gunmen.

Some officials believe those behind the attacks may have links to Jemaah Islamiah, widely regarded as the Southeast Asian branch of al Qaeda.

In the latest border incident last Saturday, two people were shot dead in the southern province of Narathiwat province while Thaksin was talking to officials about how to halt the violence.

Police believe the attackers were connected to apparently resurgent separatist groups in a region that is home to most of Thailand's six million Muslims, almost 10 percent of the population. The attackers fled after the ambush.

'Hate preacher' loses his appeal

El-Faisal

He was just interpreting the Qur'an, says Sheikh Abdullah el-Faisal. From the BBC, with thanks to Nicolei:

A Muslim cleric jailed for urging followers to kill non-believers, Jews, Hindus and Americans has lost an appeal against his conviction. Sheikh Abdullah el-Faisal was jailed for nine years last March for soliciting murder and using threatening and insulting words in taped lectures.

On Tuesday, the Court of Appeal, while upholding the conviction, reduced his sentence to seven years.

The 39-year-old had preached at Brixton mosque in south London.

El-faisal's trial was the first prosecution of a Muslim cleric in England.

When he was originally sentenced the Common Serjeant of London, Peter Beaumont, told him: "Instead of being a calming force you fanned the flames of hostility."

Koran interpretations

The judge also recommended el-faisal, of Stratford, east London, serve at least half his sentence before being deported.

The Jamaican convert to Islam told young British Muslims they would be rewarded with 72 virgins in paradise if they died in a holy war.

He was sentenced to seven years on three charges of soliciting the murder of non-believers, Jews, Hindus and Americans in his speeches.

And he was sentenced to an additional two years on charges of using insulting words and distributing tapes of insulting words.

During his trial he argued he was interpreting and updating the words of the Koran, the Islamic holy book.

Interesting defense. Did he think that if he could convince the Court that his hatred and incitement to murder was religious instruction, he would get a pass?

Mufti of Australia: this was Muslim land

Before shrimp on the barbee, Foster's Lager, and Crocodile Dundee, evidently there was the burqa, the book, and the Prophet. MEMRI is reporting that the Mufti of Australia and New Zealand, Taj Al-Din Hamed Abdallah Al-Hilali, is claiming that Australia was originally Muslim land, settled by Afghans. The Aborigines are their descendants:

"The strange thing was that when our muezzin [who accompanied Sheikh Al-Hilali on his visit to Alice Springs] stood up to call for prayer, the old people of the town came out, and so did men and youths, and they looked different than the black Aborigines. They were a mixture of Afghan and Aborigine, as a result of marriages of Afghan men and Aborigine women. When the muezzin called 'Allahu Akbar,' they said, 'We have heard this song from our ancestors...' When they asked us 'What is this song you are singing?' we told them that this was an announcement of prayer time. When we asked them their names, they answered John, or Steve, but their names ended with Saraj Al-Din, Abdallah, or Muhammad..."

This sort of thing may just seem silly, or even cute, until one realizes that to anyone who takes the Sheikh's claim seriously, Australia is now Muslim land. Islamic law stipulates that Muslims possess by right any land that once formed part of the House of Islam; this is a key element of the claim to Israel put forward by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The same claim has been advanced, by the way, for America.

Al-Hilali, meanwhile, has already endorsed violent jihad in other contexts:

Following a meeting with Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, Sheikh Al-Hilali said: "I blessed Hizbullah for liberating the prisoners and the bones of the Shahids and I praised it and its sacrifice. Hizbullah has become a model for all the Mujahideen in the world... Most of the Australian people do not support the policy of the Australian government, which has placed Hizbullah on the terror list out of submission to the U.S., and the Australian prime minister will pay the price for this in the next elections..." . . .

"We are proud of the Islamic resistance in Palestine, Lebanon, Kashmir, and everywhere in the world that seeks to achieve its legitimate rights in accordance with the international resolutions, the human rights conventions, and the U.N. resolutions...

"We are also proud of the Islamic resistance that liberated southern Lebanon, led by Hizbullah, the legitimate Lebanese national movement, that forced the Israeli occupation army to withdraw from southern Lebanon, dragging trails of disappointment and shame behind it.

"We are also proud of what Hamas and the Islamic Jihad are both doing in the occupied territories. We support the resistance and support, with all our might, the martyrdom operations carried out by the Palestinian liberation movements, operations that are a legitimate act against the cruel occupation, according to all international norms and conventions.

"Also, whoever carries out a martyrdom [operation] is a pure Shahid and one of the men of Paradise. Moreover, he stands at the head of the Shahids."

That is, of course, a suicide bombing.

Al-Hilali also memorably dubbed Bush, Blair, and Australian PM John Howard the "axis of evil." But who is really behind it all? One guess:

Sheikh Al-Hilali said on another occasion: "The media all over the world are controlled by Zionist fingers, particularly the Western media, and that includes Australia, in which the media are under Zionist hegemony. But in Australia, which unlike the West and the U.S. is multicultural, the media are less racist in their enmity to Muslims and Islam. This is evidenced by the fact that we won the last media battle in Australia and succeeded in forcing the Australian people to treat us with respect. We have not suffered from persecution or disrespect to the same extent that Islamic communities in Western countries and in America have suffered."

ADDENDUM: Susan has referred me to two particularly egregious examples of Islamic mythmaking about a pre-Columbian Muslim America. Go here and click on "History."

UPDATE: After being condemned by the Australian Prime Minister and many others, Hilali is denying he called for jihad at all. No one seems concerned about his claim that Australia was originally Muslim. (Thanks to Kevin and Jean-Luc.)

U.S.: Canada is terrorist haven

Canada has become a place where terrorists congregate. From the Globe and Mail, with thanks to Jean-Luc:

Canada has been branded a "favoured destination for terrorists and international criminals" by the research arm of the U.S. Congress.

Generous constitutional freedoms, weak law enforcement and lightly patrolled borders have made the country an inviting place for dangerous extremists to set up shop, says a new report by the Library of Congress in Washington.

"Canada has played a significant role as a base for both transnational criminal activity and terrorist activity," the report says.

The report, titled Nations Hospitable to Organized Crime and Terrorism, was completed in October by the congressional library's federal research division under an arrangement with the Central Intelligence, Crime and Narcotics Center. . . .

Numerous other countries, including leading industrialized nations like Britain, France and Germany, are also critiqued in the 234-page report, along with the likes of Algeria, Indonesia and Russia.

But only a handful of jurisdictions in the Western Hemisphere — Canada, Colombia, Mexico and the notorious tri-border region of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay — are the focus of attention.

The report highlights the case of Ahmed Ressam, the Algerian-born Montrealer caught trying to slip across the border in 1999 to bomb Los Angeles International Airport. While planning the attack, Mr. Ressam supplemented his welfare payments by stealing cash and credit cards.

U.S. general says clear terrorist threat exists in East Africa

"A clear terrorist threat still exists in East Africa, and greater military co-operation is needed to defeat it, a top U.S. general warned Monday during a visit to Ethiopia." This from AP, with thanks to Jean-Luc.

Gen. John Abizaid, whose Central Command is responsible for Afghanistan, Iraq and East Africa, said closer "military and intelligence co-operation" is needed between East African governments to prevent extremist groups like al-Qaida from gaining an "ideological foothold" in the region.

"The threat is clear, but the threat can be deterred and can be defeated," he told journalists in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

"This terrorist threat knows no boundary, and when we operate only on a nation-state basis we will be unable to really get at the heart of the terrorist problem, which is transnational."

Abizaid cited Somalia - which has had no central government since 1990 - as a potential trouble spot in the region.

"We know the terrorists gravitate toward ungoverned spaces, and these are areas where they look for the opportunities to gain recruits, establish safe-havens and move money," he said. "We certainly have indications to believe that people associated with these groups operate in and around areas such as Somalia."

Media alerts Aussies to terror suspect

Good thing they read the papers down at the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). From the Sydney Morning Herald, with thanks to Jean-Luc:

Australia's intelligence agency first became aware of a Somalian man - who is alleged to have links to terrorist financing organisations, is being prosecuted in the US and had visited Australia five times since 2000 - only after reading a media report about him last month.

ASIO's director-general, Dennis Richardson, told a Senate estimates hearing yesterday this was "not surprising" because the man, 41-year-old Omar Mohamed, was not on any terrorist database or movement alert list and his prosecution in the US was for immigration fraud.

Then where did the media get their info about him?

The fraud charges relate to Mohamed's failure to reveal on his US citizenship application that the Western Somali Relief Agency, of which he is president, received funds from Global Relief Foundation, a group listed in the US as a terrorist organisation.

Mr Richardson told the hearing that Mohamed visited Australia between December 2000 and December 2003. Since the media report, Mohamed's movements have been the subject of an ASIO investigation.

"They are of some interest, not in terms of fund-raising, but they are of some interest in terms of getting a better handle on the relationships he may or may not have had in Australia," Mr Richardson said.

Pakistan's "terror economy": 6.6% of its GDP

According to the Strategic Foresight Group of Mumbai, the tiny minority of extremists is doing big business in Pakistan. From the Times of India, with thanks to Jean-Luc:

Pakistan's "terror-economy" accounts for Rs 264 billion, or 6.6 per cent, of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), a Mumbai-based think tank said in a report Monday.

Pakistan's "conflict economy" accounts for more than 10 per cent of its GDP, the report contended.

In what it described as a "comprehensive assessment of the cost of conflict between India and Pakistan", the Strategic Foresight Group said it had not only taken into account military expenditure and loss of trade, but also factors like economic costs, socio-political damage, diplomatic costs, human costs and even the "implications of the nuking of Mumbai and Karachi".

In the forward to the study, conducted by Ilmas Futehally and Semu Bhatt, former Pakistani foreign secretary Niaz Naik said: "It is the first time that we have such all encompassing information and analysis in one place on the implications of adversarial relations between India and Pakistan."

Excerpts from the report, released here Monday did not refer to the basis on which it had predicated its conclusions.

Some of the main observations of the report:

[. . .]

* Pakistan's GTP (gross terror-economy product) is Rs 264 billion or 6.6 percent of its GDP.

* Pakistan's Conflict Economy is more than 10 percent of GDP. The Conflict Economy includes GTP and military expenditure.

* Kashmir's GTP is estimated to be Rs 3.5 billion.

* Pakistan's jehadi forces are expected to increase from 200,000 at present to 300,000 at the end of the decade and the army from 620,000 at present to 646,000 at the end of the decade.

Mowbray on Ryan Anderson's Islam

I was uneasy when I read Lt. Col. Stephen Barger's reply to questions about Ryan Anderson's religion, and Joel Mowbray puts his finger on why:

When asked if recently “detained” National Guard soldier Ryan Anderson—who allegedly tried to pass on sensitive information to al Qaeda—was a Muslim, the unit spokesman, Lt. Col. Stephen Barger replied, “Religious preferences are an individual right and responsibility, and I really can’t get into it.”

On one level, of course, Barger is right. Sadly, however, Anderson’s religion may be the only prism through which his alleged behavior can be understood.

Various media reports have pegged Anderson as a convert to Islam. Why is this significant?

Because if he had converted to Buddhism or Hindu, for example, he almost certainly would not have not been caught up in a sting operation that found him trying to deliver to al Qaeda closely-guarded details about vulnerabilities and capabilities of armed tanks and Humvees.

This is obviously not to suggest that Muslims cannot be trusted or that, as a group, they should be viewed with suspicion. But it is just as true that Anderson’s reported conversion to Islam cannot be ignored.

We call our struggle against al Qaeda and the rest of the worldwide terror network the “War on Terror.” But to al Qaeda and its ilk, it is not a “war.” It is a Jihad.

In a Jihad, where the terrorists unite under the rallying cry of defeating the Infidels in the name of Islam, the most likely—if not the only—people to betray America in order to help the enemy are going to be Muslim.

That group of Muslims willing to commit horrific acts is certainly tiny, but a tiny number of Benedict Arnolds is all al Qaeda needs to wreak enormous havoc.

And as anyone who knows folks who have converted to any religion can attest, the converts often become, for lack of a better expression, hard-core. “Hard-core” indeed sounds harsh, as most passionate converts are devout in the best sense. Yet from the likes of John Walker Lindh and Jose Padilla, converts can become among the most radical.

Should Anderson have been denied the opportunity to serve his country because he is a convert to Islam? Of course not. But just as we give psych exams and various personality tests to soldiers, thorough examination of Islamic converts—at the least—would not seem to be such a bad idea. And for people working in sensitive positions, then rigorous screening would seem to be nothing if not prudent.

Some would undoubtedly scream “profiling.” But it is precisely because of “profiling” that authorities might be inclined to focus more on Arabs, meaning al Qaeda is more likely to prefer Muslims who are not Arabs.

As we witnessed with Asan Akbar, the Muslim Army Sergeant who killed two and wounded 14 of his fellow soldiers last year in Kuwait, it only takes one soldier to harm many innocents. And if he hadn’t been such a coward—he was found hiding in a bunker—he probably could have murdered many more Americans.

Questions of profiling aside, however, specific facts about Anderson should have prompted investigation long ago. The 26-year-old attended Washington State University, which the FBI believes has been a base of operations for people affiliated with al Qaeda.

Throughout 2002 and 2003, federal authorities probed a possible terror cell operating out Pullman, Washington (home of WSU) and the University of Idaho campus, which is just nine miles away in Moscow, Idaho. At least two current or former WSU students have been arrested.

Others were also arrested, including former Idaho football player Abdullah al-Kidd (born Lavoni T. Kidd), who was nabbed at Dulles International Airport, just outside of Washington, D.C., holding a first-class, one-way ticket to Saudi Arabia.

The man reportedly at the center of the investigation, Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, allegedly helped design website for radical Islamic sheikhs who had direct ties to Osama bin Laden and he also allegedly had on his computer hard drive thousands of photos of the World Trade Center, both before and after 9/11.

According to court documents, al-Hussayen’s uncle traveled to the U.S. from Saudi Arabia and “stayed in the same hotel in the Herndon, Va., area as three of the Sept. 11 hijackers of Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon.”

Graduating in 2002, Anderson attended WSU—where he converted to Islam—as the alleged terror activity was ongoing. The question investigators must not be shy about asking is: how did Anderson’s Islamic experience at WSU help shape him?

ADDENDUM: A fuller explanation by Bassam M. Madany.

This piece by Bassam Madany explains more fully why Barger's lack of interest in Anderson's religion is unwise: "Islam is More Than a Religion."

On several occasions when trying to explain the true nature of Islam, I have emphasized the fact that this faith is much more than a religion. Unfortunately, due to the ignorance that prevails in North America about the history and tenets of Islam, our culture is incapable of grasping this reality.

Early in February 2004, the case of Ryan Anderson, a convert to Islam, came to my attention. It was alleged that he had tried to get in touch with representatives of Al-Qaeda. When a newsman asked “if recently ‘detained’ National Guard soldier Ryan Anderson—who allegedly tried to pass on sensitive information to al Qaeda—was a Muslim, the unit spokesman, Lt. Col. Stephen Barger replied, “Religious preferences are an individual right and responsibility, and I really can’t get into it.”

It is not my intention to meddle with U.S. Army regulations that deal with a soldier who was involved in unlawful activities. However, my concern is to analyze the statement that “Religious preferences are an individual right and responsibility, and I really can’t get into it.” Certainly, such words would be relevant had the recruit been of the Christian, or Jewish, or Buddhist, or Hindu faith. Unfortunately, they don’t apply to a convert to Islam. Both ancient and contemporaneous history teaches us that Muslims carry with their faith a political baggage. Whether it was political correctness, or plain ignorance of Islam that dictated the response of the army officer, I am not sure. Anyhow, his claim that a “religious preference” (when it was a specifically Islamic one) had no relevance to the case must not be left unchallenged.

So, here again, I find myself revisiting my thesis: Islam Is More Than a Religion.
Islam is one of the major world religions, however, unlike the other world faiths, Islam is more than religion. This fact escapes the average American since he, or she, understands religion as a set of beliefs and a code of ethics that govern the life of individuals and their families. Unlike Europeans, North Americans, have had very little experience with Islam and Muslims. During the modern era, several European nations colonized large areas of the Muslim world, thus gaining a direct knowledge of Islam. During the early and late Middle Ages, it was Muslims who colonized several European countries. The Arab-Islamic conquest of Spain began in 710, and lasted until 1492! Most of Central and Eastern Europe came under Islamic rule for hundreds of years. The first American military encounter with Muslims occurred soon after independence. The pirates of Tripoli terrorized maritime trade in the Mediterranean, so the U.S. Navy had to deal with them. Then, early in the 19th century, American missionaries entered several Middle East provinces of the Ottoman Turkish Empire. They built schools and hospitals, and played a big role in the renaissance of Arab culture. As a result of their presence, national Protestant churches were also formed.

It was after World War II that the United States got very involved in the Muslim world. Oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia in the 1930s, and U.S. oil companies were the first to develop and market it. When the French and British pulled out of the area in the aftermath of World War II, it was the United Sates that sought to fill the vacuum.

Now, in the aftermath of 9/11/2001, we need to fully realize that Islam is much more than a religion. A leading expert on the history of the Arabs and of Islam was the late Lebanese-American Philip Hitti, who taught at Princeton University for almost fifty years. His book, Islam: a Way of Life has three parts. Part One, Islam As Religion; Part II, Islam As State; and Part III, Islam As Culture.
This development of Islam into a “way of life,” is rooted in its specific history, a history that is inextricably wedded to its founder, Muhammad. Born in Mecca in 570 AD, he began preaching the absolute unity of God at the age of forty. In 622, he migrated with his some of his followers to Medina. There, he acted both as Prophet and Statesman. By 632, the year of his death, he had conquered Mecca, and gained the submission of the warring tribes of Arabia. His successors, the Caliphs, began the conquests of the Persian and Byzantine Empires. By 732, the new Arab-Islamic Empire stretched from Spain to India!
After the Mongolian invasion of the Middle East, and the fall of Baghdad in 1252, the newly Islamized Turks took over the cause of Islam and continued its conquests. In 1453, they brought an end to the Byzantine Empire when they overran Constantinople, and changed its name to Istanbul. The Ottoman Turks colonized vast territories of Central and Eastern Europe. They laid their first siege of Vienna in 1529, only twelve years after Martin Luther began the Reformation! Had the Turks succeeded to conquer Austria, the history of the West would have been radically different!

An objective study of the rise and expansion of Islam points to the fact that it spread primarily through the futuhat, i.e., conquests. In fact, Islam regards wars of conquest, as an essential part of the faith, calling them, Jihad. At this point, I must add that I do not minimize the fact that Islam is a religion, like other religions. It is a theistic religion, teaching that God is both the Creator and the Governor of the world. It has its religious rites and houses of worship, as well as a specific code of ethics. On the other hand, Islam has a political component that is essential for its proper functioning, and the well-being of the community of believers. Muslims must live under “Shari’a,” the Islamic law, and their rulers are expected to enforce it. Since, Islam is religion, politics, and culture in one entity Muslims carry with them the ideal of ultimately establishing an Islamic regime where the rule of Allah takes a concrete shape in the here and now.

As a result of this monolithic view of life, and the theocratic motif that is of the essence of Islam, it has not fostered any sort of societal pluralism among the subject peoples. Islam brought to an end to the existence of the church in North Africa. In the Middle East, the one-time Christian majority has over the years become a small and marginalized minority.

Before the 1950s, Muslims lived in exclusively Islamic countries. As of the middle of the 20th century, millions of Muslims have settled in Western Europe and North America. This is a completely new phenomenon. By now, Muslims have achieved a high degree of visibility, and have begun to demand representation among both governmental and non-governmental institutions. However, they are reluctant to admit that their faith possesses a political core that does not recognize any separation between “church” and state, or religion and politics. When Ryan Anderson, a convert to Islam, espouses a political agenda and begins to act according to its directives, our PC-dominated culture insists that Islam is simply a religious faith. This attitude is extremely short-sighted, and will have serious consequences in all matters that relate to Homeland Security.

Finally, I would like to illustrate my thesis that Islam is much more than a religion, by referring to a study published under the title of, The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam, From Jihad to Dhimmitude. The author, Bat Ye’or, was born in Egypt, and was member of a sizable Jewish community that had lived in that country for more than two millennia. The Jewish population of Egypt dwindled rapidly after the birth of Israel in 1948. Bat Ye’or (a Hebrew name that means, Daughter of the Nile), migrated to France and contributed several works on the topic of “Dhimmis” (Jews and Christian) under Islam.
Professor Jacques Ellul, of the University Of Bordeaux, France, wrote the Foreword to the book. He reminds us that an intrinsic part of the Islamic faith is jihad. While modern Islamic scholars have endeavored to re-define jihad, claiming that it is primarily a “struggle with self,” Jacques Ellul points out that history proves that jihad means primarily, war against non-Muslims.
“But a major, twofold fact transforms the jihad into something quite different from traditional wars… The twofold factor is first the religious nature, then the fact that war has become an institution (and no longer an ‘event’). In Islam, however, jihad is a religious obligation. It forms part of the duties that the believer must fulfill. It is Islam’s normal path to expansion.”

“Hence, the second important specific characteristic is that the jihad is an institution, and not an event, that is to say it is part of the normal functioning of the Muslim world. The conquered populations change status (they become dhimmis), and the shari’a tends to be put into effect integrally, overthrowing the former law of the country. The conquered territories do not simply change ‘owners.’ Rather they are brought into a binding collective (religious) ideology --- with the exception of the dhimmi condition --- and are controlled by a highly perfected administrative machinery.” Pp. 18, 19

Bat Ye’or describes the effects of the institution of Jihad on the native populations in these words:
“In the lands conquered by jihad … the Peoples of the Book formed majorities, among whom the Arabs of the first wave of Islamization and the Turks of the second wave were in the minority. Presumably the complex and little-known processes that transformed those majorities into minorities covered some three or four centuries for each wave of Islamization. By contracting it, the expression ‘religious minorities’ reverses a chronological process that had spread over centuries, whose result --- the minority condition --- is taken as its starting point.” P. 243

To write and speak honestly about the topic of Islam is not easy. It goes against the spirit of multiculturalism and pluralism that pervade our modern Western civilization. We believe in the freedom of religion, and the US Constitution guarantees this freedom to citizens and residents alike. This is a cornerstone of our way of life. But what if a specific religion brings to America a political baggage that is regarded by it adherents as part and parcel of their faith, but which happens to be incompatible with our modus vivendi? Is it wrong to face this reality and discuss it openly, without being charged with racial or religious prejudice? To ignore this subject is tantamount to burying our heads in the sand, and to invite unforeseen troubles in the future.

Australia: terrorist suspect enjoys free rein

From the Sun-Herald, with thanks to Jean-Luc:

A week after a Pakistani-born man was named publicly as a terror suspect he is still free, walking the streets of Sydney.

And it is almost four months since anti-terror forces searched the man's home in south-western Sydney, along with those of six others who were identified as key associates of terror suspect Willy Brigitte, who is in a French jail cell.

But despite accusations that the man, named as Abu Hamza, was part of a group allegedly planning a terror attack in Sydney, police are powerless to put him behind bars.

The Federal Government says it cannot detain him as he has not broken any law.

A spokesman for Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said that while there were "still concerns" about the Sydney group connected with Brigitte, their activities were restricted once they knew they were being watched.

The ABC's Four Corners program filmed Hamza last weekend as he went about his business in Lakemba. The program said Australian authorities were confident Brigitte and Hamza were involved in a terrorist plot.

Hamza has cut off his phone and moved house several times since he came to the attention of ASIO.

His lawyer, Stephen Hopper, said Hamza denies being involved in any terrorist group.

He said Hamza has an explanation for the photos and chemical inquiries that would point to something other than preparing a terrorist strike.

"But I can't discuss any of that as I am restricted in what I can say by the new ASIO laws," Mr Hopper said.

Mr Hopper said Hamza does admit to helping Brigitte settle in Sydney when he arrived here in May 2003, but said he did it as he is obliged to do so under the Muslim custom of helping a traveller.

US lets 'Spanish Taliban' go home to local justice

A Spanish member of the tiny minority of extremists is going home from Gitmo. From the Sydney Morning Herald, with thanks to Jean-Luc:

The sole Spanish prisoner held at the US military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, arrived at an air base near Madrid last night to face charges of belonging to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.

Dubbed "the Spanish Taliban", Hamed Abderrahman Ahmed, a 30-year-old Muslim from the Spanish enclave of Ceuta adjoining northern Morocco, had been held since his capture more than two years ago in Afghanistan.

He arrived at the Torrejon base on a Spanish air force plane with eight police escorts and was met by a judge.

From there he was driven to the country's top court, the Audiencia Nacional in the centre of Madrid, where a forensic doctor was to examine him.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell had said on Wednesday that the Spanish citizen would be repatriated at the request of the Spanish Government.

He was to undergo medical, physical and psychological tests for 10 days before being questioned.

Sources said the public prosecutor would seek jail for Hamed as an alleged member of al-Qaeda.

He is one of 660 prisoners from 42 countries, including 21 Europeans and two Australians, who have been held for more than two years in legal limbo at Guantanamo Bay.

Islamism: Dirty little secrets

Salim Mansur, a professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario, has written an intriguing opinion piece in the Toronto Sun: "Islamism: Dirty little secrets." (Via Mathaba.net, with thanks to Ruth King.) I am not sure that he can sustain his contention that Muslim leaders have discarded the principles of Islam and reduced it to a nationalist entity, since from its beginning Islam has been political and has formed the basis for the laws of nations. But he is absolutely correct about Muslim anti-Semitism, apologies for tyrants, and the suffering that modern-day political Islam has caused for Muslims themselves.

In the latter half of the 20th century, the struggle for Islam's soul turned most bloody and relentlessly continues that way.

The seeds for this were sown in the first half of the last century, when most Arab-Muslim lands were under European rule.

It was then that many Muslim enthusiasts for reconciling traditional Islam with the scientific and democratic values of the modern world embraced the doctrines of nationalism in their most reactionary form, as found in post-1914 Germany.

The result reduced Islam into a nationalist identity for Arabs and Muslims. Many Muslim fundamentalists later incorporated this reactionary nationalism for their own purpose of constructing totalitarian states.

The pernicious effect of such a fusion of nationalism with religion was to empty Islam of its transcendent message of faith in a supreme God as the common ground of unity among all people.

In India, for instance, Islamic nationalism generated the whirlwind of communal carnage in the 1947 partition of the subcontinent. Wounds of that bloody division remain today.

But it was in the Middle East where nationalism fused with Islam into a political ideology - Islamism - whose effects have brought ruin to the region - and beyond.

The dirty secret apologists for this tragedy in North America and elsewhere refuse to address is how Muslims have suffered as a result of Islamism, have been driven from their homes, tortured and killed across the Arab-Muslim world.

There has been no systematic collection of this horrible data over the past five decades, but the numbers run into millions.

It matters little within the larger context of the struggle for Islam's soul whether Muslims have been primarily the victims of tyrannical authority in Muslim majority states, or of Islamists waging battles against corrupt power elites.

No one in the Arab-Muslim world during this period exceeded the bloody-mindedness of Iraq's fallen despot, Saddam Hussein, who blended a Nazi-type nationalism with his version of Islamism into a sheer hell for Iraqis.

The world also witnessed many Islamists and Muslim apologists rallying to Saddam's defence with contorted arguments of anti-imperialism in all of its variations.

The other dirty secret is the continuing victimization of Palestinians by many of their fellow Arabs, and of their being used as pawns in the war of Islamists against Jews and Israel.

Neither Islam, nor Muslims, have any quarrel with Jews and Israel.

The conflict between Palestinian Arabs and Israelis was, and remains, a nationalist contest over land.

This contest could have been avoided, or settled at any time since the full reality of the Holocaust became known, if Arab Muslims in a position to lead had chosen to live by the principles of Islam.

Instead, they opted for the German model of nationalism in opposing Jewish demands for a homeland in historic Palestine.

Amin al-Husayni, the Mufti of Jerusalem, was the leader of the Palestinians during the years between the world wars of the last century.

His embrace of the German fuehrer, Adolf Hitler, during World War II was not a whimsical choice.

Islamists deliberately incorporated the racist doctrine of the Nazis into their thinking and politics, and brazenly propagated anti-Semitic literature as a tool in their war against the Jews and Israel.

Consequently, the damage Islamists have done to the very legitimate grievances of Palestinians is immense.

Moreover, many Muslims, in supporting Palestinian rights without repudiating the rabid anti-Semitism of the Islamists, have contributed to the undermining of Islam as a religion of peace and coexistence and sabotaged their moral authority to speak of justice in Palestine, or elsewhere.

This internal conflict raging among Muslims during the past 50 years was bound to spill over into the outside world with devastating effects on 9/11.

Now America has become involved in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world as never before. Ironically, or by providential design, the future of Islam and of Muslims if they are to be free of the fanaticism of the Islamists, is bound to America's success in this war on terrorism.

Al-Qaida south of the border

More on the jihad in South America, courtesy Donald Rumsfeld. From WND, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

Pentagon officials have confirmed human smuggling rings in Latin America are attempting to sneak al-Qaida operatives into the U.S., information first reported in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin more than a year ago.

In a Defense Department briefing Friday about National Guardsman Ryan Anderson, suspected of trying to give al-Qaida information about U.S. capabilities and weaponry, reporters were also told to expect Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to provide details on two other subjects: Guantanamo Bay prisoners freed only to rejoin al-Qaida and Taliban cells in Afghanistan and al-Qaida's Latin America connection.

No further announcements were forthcoming from the Pentagon, prompting some sources to wonder whether the administration was conflicted over this news – given President Bush's political problems with his illegal-alien amnesty program.

Before the U.S.-led coalition attacked Iraq last year, the U.S. State Department offered congressional testimony that both al-Qaida and the Shiite terrorist group Hezbollah were taking firm hold in "America's backyard."

Mark F. Wong, the State Department's acting coordinator for counterterrorism, told the House International Relations Committee about the threat posed by both groups in Latin America.

Yet, then the matter seems to have been dropped – perhaps for diplomatic reasons, perhaps for political reasons.

But last November, G2 Bulletin reported authorities in Silvio Pettirosi International Airport in Asuncion, the Paraguayan capital, reported the arrival of a growing number of visitors carrying European passports, but undoubtedly appearing to be more Middle Eastern than anything else.

Some of these "Europeans" could not even speak the language of their so-called mother land.

A police officer in touch with a Middle Eastern embassy said he had conducted a review trailing back on the moves of a certain Belgian, with a distinct Vallon name. This Belgian's trip began in Cairo on Egypt Air 203 en route to Milan. From there he continued to London on board a BA 209 flight, which continued to Miami where he boarded American flight 995 to Asuncion.

Details of the suspicious Vallon were passed on to the Paraguayan authorities and then to a number of western embassies and representatives of intelligence agencies. This case, described to G2B by a western diplomat, is a rare example. Due to the devious intricacy of such a trip the Paraguayan authorities cannot be absolutely sure how many of these "Europeans," speaking fluent Arabic, but just basic French, Spanish or English, had entered the country during the last few weeks. However, there was very little doubt most of these visitors went on to find their way to the triple border region where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet. This region, often described as a lawless area, is nicknamed by some intelligence station agents as "The Muslim Triangle meeting zone."

Intelligence experts have been warning since the late 1990s they had noticed a tendency among Islamic terrorists to operate from Paraguay, a landlocked country in the heart of South America, with a territory slightly smaller than California, and with geographic extremes perfect for hiding illegal activities. Information surrounding such activities arrived in the U.S. before 9/11 but failed to sound any alarms. Today dealing with Islamic terrorism in Latin America is still not considered to be of high importance and often even politically incorrect.

G2 Bulletin reported last fall the terrorists using Argentina are organized in active cells around the country with safe houses in neighboring Paraguay. An Argentinean document seen by G2B describes part of the drug-smuggling trail, as well as that of weapons and people. These elaborate trails run through a web of border crossings pointing also to the complex cooperation between various "smuggling experts." These belong to jihadi organizations such as al-Qaida, joining forces with local drug lords, developing and oiling their smuggling mechanism all the way to Mexico aiming ultimately to hit the U.S.

The Argentinean intelligence service assessment, privy among others, to European and Middle Eastern agencies, has reached a significant and grave conclusion, according to G2 Bulletin. It claims since 9/11 and the partial success in the war against terrorism, mainly in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Central Asia, the jihadi pendulum is tilting more and more toward South America. The reason terrorist cells in Paraguay, whether active or dormant, can continue to grow and flourish, is because of widespread corruption in South America.

Immigration is easy. There is a long tradition of harboring criminals. Even Nazi war criminals were welcomed for years.

The lawlessness and disorder in Paraguay, enabled operatives of such terrorist groups as al-Qaida, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas to feel safe, even in the heart of Asuncion. These organizations, and probably more, turned Paraguay into a logistical base, as one local journalist told G2 Bulletin: "It's easy. At this stage our country is not engulfed in a civil war or guerrilla campaign and, therefore, security forces are more prone to financial kickbacks."

At this stage, G2 Bulletin sources say, the growing danger is that of militant Islam penetrating Mexico, a country with an increasing Muslim community, including Muslim converts. Some of them have ties to the Mexican community and to illegal immigrants' smugglers operating in American states bordering Mexico, especially those with connections in the greater Los Angeles area and other major cities.

Anti-terrorism experts say extremist cells tied to Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and al-Qaida network are operating in Argentina, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay and Uruguay. Although cooperation between al-Qaida and Hezbollah has been known for some time, the two groups have formed a much closer relationship since al-Qaida was evicted from its base in Afghanistan, according to G2 Bulletin.

Representatives of the two groups recently met in Lebanon, Paraguay and an unidentified African country.

Both al-Qaida and Hezbollah were active in the common border area of Colombia, Peru and Ecuador, according to an earlier statement of Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage in hearings before the Foreign Appropriations Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, cited in a report from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Further to the south in Latin America, Hezbollah and the terrorist Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) are operating in the tri-border region of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil. The suspected activities of these groups include counterfeiting U.S. currency and drug smuggling, with the area in which they function described as a "haven for Islamic extremists" by the administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Asa Hutchinson, in testimony before the House International Relations Committee.

Egyptian intelligence experts active in combating Muslim militancy in Egypt and aware of the role of Egyptian militants in the ranks of al-Qaida and the Taliban, told G2 Bulletin last year that Islamic terrorists shifted their interest from training pilots in the U.S. to schools in South America, where they can study and train practically without any security agencies on their heels.

In addition, another source al-Qaida also found Latin America to be more hospitable as an environment to build laboratories to manufacture non-conventional weapon systems, primarily biological agents, and for testing their effectiveness.

More recently, al-Qaida has become deeply involved in cocaine and heroine trafficking, arms and uranium smuggling, counterfeiting CDs and DVDs and money-laundering activities in the tri-border region of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. The tri-border region is known as the heart of Islamic activity in Latin America.

Of growing concern to some U.S. officials is the way the terrorists south of the border might use lax immigration standards to slip into the U.S.

Some 6 million people of Muslim descent live in Latin America and there are reports that many indigenous people are converting to Islam.

The terrorists even get some official support in Latin America, according to some sources. As WorldNetDaily reported, a Venezuelan military defector claims President Hugo Chavez developed ties to terrorist groups such as al-Qaida – even providing it with $1 million in cash after Sept. 11, 2001.

Air Force Maj. Juan Diaz Castillo, who was Chavez's pilot, told WorldNetDaily through an interpreter that "the American people should awaken and be aware of the enemy they have just three hours' flight from the United States."

Diaz said he was part of an operation in which Chavez gave $1 million to al-Qaida for relocation costs, shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.

The making of a terrorist: "He told me about paradise, about virgins, about Islam"

More evidence of what most analysts still prefer to ignore: the power of religious appeals in recruiting and motivating terrorists. From Knight-Ridder, with thanks to Nicolei: "Iraqi teen tells how he joined Ansar al Islam."

Young, broke and living in a speck of a town where moss grows on the roofs of mud huts, Rebeen Ali decided to look for his way in the world.

After a few nights of arguing, his father, a local schoolteacher, forbade him to leave the house. But the 14-year-old Ali, tired of his hometown of Halabja, where graveyards are filled with the victims of Saddam Hussein's 1988 chemical attack, started out for the Iranian border, with plans to get construction work in Tehran.

Ali was stopped in Biyara by a checkpoint set up by members of Ansar al Islam, a radical Islamic group that had taken hold in the high reaches of the mountains of northern Iraq. They told him he was in big trouble. Before long, he had joined the group.

Ali's story took place between the summer of 2001 and the winter of 2002, but it's consistent with descriptions of how Ansar recruits, indoctrinates and trains fighters. Indeed, the lack of work and poor living conditions in Iraq, the ready supply of disaffected youth and the seduction of religious fanaticism haven't changed at all.

The Ansar members accused Ali of being a spy, of being an infidel. They shouted at him. They beat him. They threatened to kill him. For two hours, the threats and screams continued.

Then an older man walked in the room and in a calm, kind voice began to speak about Islam.

Trembling and crying, Ali was so shaken that he could hardly make sense of what the imam, or spiritual leader, was saying.

But slowly, the words began to filter through.

"He told me about paradise, about virgins, about Islam," Ali said.

The imam told him that, as a Muslim, Ali was part of a brotherhood that stretched back hundreds of years. He had an important role to play in the world, one that would bring prestige and glory. There were 70 virgins waiting for him in a promised land, a paradise just for him.

The conversation lasted for hours. At the end, Ali was taken to a little room and given some food and a blanket. The next morning, an Ansar official came by and said that while Ali wasn't a prisoner, they wanted to keep him for a few days to make sure he wasn't a spy. Ali was invited to attend religion classes.

Ali spent 15 days going between his little cell and a bare classroom. For the first time in his life, Ali began praying the prescribed five times a day. He had long considered the restrictions of the Muslim world backward and once planned to move to France to study. But now he realized the imam was right - he was a Muslim and had a duty.

Ansar offered to send Ali to training, where he learned about weapons and tactics for two months. He learned how to break down an AK47 and that he should keep his mouth open when firing a rocket-propelled grenade to avoid eardrum damage. He learned how to unscrew the cap of an artillery shell, pack in plastic explosives with two wires attached and then spool the wire to a simple battery that would serve as a detonator.

Ali spent about 11 months as a grunt soldier for Ansar, shooting off mortars and firing with machine guns at positions of fighters for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Some months he was paid $20, others $100.

After a feud about politics - Ali was tired of the fighting and wanted to join a less radical group - he left Ansar in late 2002, a few months before U.S. Special Forces and Kurdish troops drove Ansar from Iraq.

Ali is 16 years old now. He has shaved his beard and grown out his hair. He lives in Halabja with his parents and has found only occasional work as a handyman.

He says he has no regrets about joining Ansar. Would he join again?

Maybe, he said, shrugging his shoulders.

Sudan envoy scorns US Congressmen bid to probe country's involvement in terror

Is the Sudanese government — that is, the National Islamic Front regime that has been perpetrating a genocidal jihad against Sudanese Christians — involved in international terrorism? So charge two Congressmen — but the Sudanese government, evidently well-versed in how to manipulate American public opinion, says they're just right wingers. From the Sudan Tribune:

The deputy head of Sudan's diplomatic mission to the USA, ambassador Abd-al-Baqi Kabir, accused what he called the US "religious right wing" of being behind the message sent last week by two members of the US Congress to the White House.

In the message the two members, Donald M. Payne and Thomas Tancredo, asked the President Bush to open an inquiry on the involvement of some Sudanese officials in the attempt to assassinate Egyptian President Husni Mubarak and the likelihood of their involvement in "international terrorism".

Commenting on the message, and in a statement to the London based Al-Sharq al- Awsat, the Sudanese envoy said: "There is no doubt that the message originates from the well known religious lobby and its member organizations, and that Donald Payne represents the major opposition to the Sudanese government."

The Sudanese ambassador said that "Payne is linked with the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) in the south", led by John Garang.

The envoy added that "Khartoum government is now in talks with the SPLM for this reason and the Sudanese government regards the message as an attempt to put pressure on the Sudanese government".

The ambassador scorned the attempt to link Khartoum with the assassination bid against the Egyptian president during his visit to Addis Ababa in 1995 and pointed out that with regard to this, Khartoum government had already been cleared by both Egypt and the UN.

Terrorists prepared for a long conflict

A revealing Al-Qaeda manual has been found in Pakistan. From UPI:

A terrorist survival information kit, obtained by United Press International, reveals how the Taliban, al Qaeda and their sympathizers are preparing to survive a long and drawn-out U.S.-led war against terrorism. . . .

They show that the Taliban, al Qaeda and other militant groups are well aware of the changes brought about by the U.S.-led war on terrorism and realize they can no longer work openly, even in areas where there is widespread sympathy in the local population.

Documents in the kit repeatedly emphasize the need for Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists to "merge with the masses" and "become indistinguishable" from the rest of the people.

The instructions explain that large terrorist organizations have already divided themselves into three segments.

The first segment is the central command, which is referred to as "markaz" (center), or "nazm" (leadership)."

The second segment is that of small units, and the third and most important is that of individual members who are called "friends" and are warned "not to meet each other unless they must" and "not to communicate with the nazm."

"Merge completely in the environment you live in ... there will be no personal friendship, not even with the members of your own group," the kit advises.

The kit contains pictures of 18 terrorists who are on the FBI's most-wanted list. The first is that of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, followed by his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, and other top al Qaeda operatives.

A caption above the pictures says: "These are mujahideen, not dangerous religious terrorists."

As I explain in Onward Muslim Soldiers and elsewhere, if we do not grasp the distinction they are making here (which radical Muslims often make), we will not fully grasp the nature of the conflict we are in.

The caption refers to a similar list issued recently by the government of Pakistan, which identified the 18 men as "dangerous religious terrorists" and which advised Pakistanis to inform the government if they see or hear anything about them.

An al Qaeda pamphlet in the kit cites a verse from the Koran:

"Those who believed [in God] and migrated and did jihad for Allah's sake and those who sheltered such people and helped them ... indeed, they are the real believers. They will be rewarded [by God]."

A manual begins with a general warning: "Every member will take all necessary precautions in his personal and social life to protect the group and its leadership ... in his personal life, each member shall merge completely with the society he lives in so that he is indistinguishable from other members of the society."

It features instructions for al Qaeda units:
• "If you live in an area where people wear Western dress, you also dress like them ... if the majority in that area has a secular mindset, do not express your religious sentiments."
• "Look closely at the ethnic complexion of your neighborhood ... if the area has a large number of people from Punjab [province in Pakistan], stay away from them because they often spy for intelligence agencies."
• "Don't visit the local mosque regularly. Instead say your prayers at your residence, even the weekly Friday prayer."
• "Know your neighbors but do not make too many friends ... do not travel unless you have to ... do not visit new cities and countries ... never keep illegal objects while traveling ... never carry audio or video cassettes and posters of your group or leader while traveling."

The kit offers tips on using a cell phone:
• "Use a cell phone only when you must and an alternative means of communication is not available ... it is better not to use cell phones at all ... if you must use a cell phone, use the one obtained under fake name and address ... never use a phone provided by your 'nazm' for calling a friend or a relative."

How to use the Internet:
• "For using the Internet, you must go to an Internet cafe ... never use the same Internet cafe again and again ... before leaving the cafe, remove all evidence ... while sending an e-mail, never use the language that could reveal your ideological commitment."

Boy praises Guantanamo jailers

With all the overheated claims (thanks to EPG for the link) that have been made about conditions at Guantanamo, it is refreshing to hear this from an inmate: "We were not like prisoners there. We were not tortured. They didn't tie our hands. And they gave us education." What does this have to do with global jihad? Everything. Naqibullah was not part of the general prisoner population, but nevertheless, he was in Gitmo, at the mercy of the Americans. Maybe it will dawn on at least some people that something is off-kilter when the Great Satan keeps behaving humanely — more humanely than its opponents. From the BBC, with thanks to Elisot:

An Afghan boy has told the BBC he feels no bitterness about being held in the US Guantanamo camp for terror suspects. More than a year after being captured by US troops fighting members of the Taleban and al-Qaeda, Naqibullah, 13, is back home in eastern Afghanistan. He spent much of his time in captivity in Camp Iguana, the children's section of the US detention centre on the tropical island of Cuba. . . .

"I hadn't done anything, but they suspected me because I was standing next to some men who had guns," he said.

"I told them I was innocent. I don't even know how to use a gun." . . .

Unlike most of those in Guantanamo Bay, he was not forced to wear an orange boiler suit, or shackled and hooded.

In fact, apart from the two other boys released with him, he says he saw no other detainees.

He even says he was treated like a guest of the US forces.

"We were not like prisoners there. We were not tortured. They didn't tie our hands. And they gave us education," he said.

There is no bitterness or anger, but the boy learned enough English to make this one demand of the Americans: "I want the Americans to pay me because I was not a criminal. I want them to help me become a doctor." . . .

You might think he would be angry with the Americans. Actually he thinks they have done Naqibullah a favour.

"He has learnt to speak English. He has come back with an education. He knows about things," Gul Mohammed said.

"He behaves better with his sisters and brothers, he shows me more respect, and he has been to big places like Kabul, and the rest of the world."

But it could be difficult for Naqibullah now. As I leave his village, he says: "I want to go to the city."

Al-Qaeda's Japanese Terror Plot

They were planning to strike at the World Cup 2002. From AP:

A senior al Qaeda member told U.S. authorities the group had plans to carry out attacks in Japan during the 2002 World Cup soccer tournament, local media reported yesterday.

U.S. authorities advised Japan of the information, which is believed to have come from the militant Islamic group's third-ranking official, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the daily Sankei newspaper reported, citing anonymous sources. The Kyodo news agency carried a similar report.

The attacks were not carried out because al Qaeda did not have a network in Japan, which hosted the 2002 event jointly with South Korea, according to the paper.

The report said Mohammed was familiar with Japan. During a three-month stay in 1987, he reportedly studied rock-drilling machinery.

Krauthammer: a case for democracy in the Middle East

Because of Islam's unique tradition as a political and social system as well as an individual faith, I have expressed doubts about the viability of democracy in countries where there is significant attachment to the Sharia. But at AEI (thanks to EPG) Charles Krauthammer makes the best possible case for going forward:

Yes, as in Germany and Japan, the undertaking is enormous, ambitious and arrogant. It may yet fail. But we cannot afford not to try. There is not a single, remotely plausible, alternative strategy for attacking the monster behind 9/11. It’s not Osama bin Laden; it is the cauldron of political oppression, religious intolerance, and social ruin in the Arab-Islamic world--oppression transmuted and deflected by regimes with no legitimacy into virulent, murderous anti-Americanism. It’s not one man; it is a condition. It will be nice to find that man and hang him, but that’s the cops-and-robbers law-enforcement model of fighting terrorism that we tried for twenty years and that gave us 9/11. This is war, and in war arresting murderers is nice. But you win by taking territory—and leaving something behind.

Krauthammer's entire analysis is lengthy but well worth reading.

Also worth reading is this piece by David Brooks explaining the importance of working to establish democracy in the Middle East. (Thanks to Fanabba.)

American Muslim Linked to London 'Terror' Cleric Jailed

And what will be done to ensure that James Ujaama doesn't rejoin the worldwide jihad when he is released in July? Are moderate Muslim clerics going to meet with him regularly to explain to him the true peaceful teachings of the Qur'an? Is CAIR going to conduct moderate teach-ins in his prison? Somehow I doubt it. From The Scotsman, with thanks to Nicolei:

James Ujaama, 38, was arrested in July 2002 following an investigation into a Seattle mosque and was indicted for conspiring to set up a terrorist training camp in Bly, Oregon, and using a firearm to further the conspiracy.

The government dropped those charges and filed a superseding complaint alleging that Ujaama brought money, computer equipment and a recruit to Taliban officials in Afghanistan.

Prosecutors let him plead guilty in exchange for his cooperation in terrorism investigations. In particular, they wanted to hear what he knew about London cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri, whose web site Ujaama once ran.

Prosecutors agreed to recommend a sentence of two years in prison – most of which Ujaama has already served. He is due to be released from prison in July.

However, he faces three years of supervised release and must surrender his passport.

Ujaama, born James Earnest Thompson, converted to Islam in the early 1990s and became involved in the now-closed Dar-us-Salaam mosque in Seattle, whose members preached a more extreme version of Islamic teachings.

In 1997, Ujaama left his son and family and moved to London, where he became friends with al-Masri at the Finsbury Park Mosque.

The US State Department has classified al-Masri as a terrorist, and he is wanted in Yemen for his alleged role in the 1998 kidnappings of 16 tourists by the Islamic Army of Aden. Four hostages died during a shootout.

But Ujaama sometimes travelled back to Seattle, and in 1999, federal officials alleged, he joined others in trying to set up a terrorist training camp at a ranch in Bly. He sent al-Masri a fax, investigators have said, proposing the establishment of a camp there, and al-Masri sent two representatives to evaluate the site.

The two were reportedly disappointed that the property had no barracks for troops, and the camp was never developed. One of them was Oussama Kassir, who was arrested at his apartment in Sweden last year and is being held on weapons charges.

Investigators learned of the plot through an informant within the group.

In 2000, Ujaama returned to London and ran al-Masri’s Web site, which advocated jihad, or holy war, against the United States. Later that year, at al-Masri’s bidding, he escorted another man to a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan, Ujaama admitted in his plea agreement.

Ujaama initially contended he brought the computer equipment and money to benefit a girls school in Afghanistan.

Freed from Gitmo, many rejoin Taliban

Here's a "bombshell" from Donald Rumsfeld: terror suspects freed from Guantanamo Bay have been rejoining Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. This is no surprise, really. Two weeks ago we posted a story about the same thing happening in Afghanistan. Why should it be any different at Gitmo? From the New York Daily News, with thanks to Jean-Luc:

Terrorists freed from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay have rejoined Taliban and Al Qaeda cells in Afghanistan, sources tell the Daily News. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is expected to make the bombshell admission today in a speech in Miami, military and political sources said yesterday.

But Rumsfeld's revelation about the few prisoners in Cuba who shouldn't have been let go will be used as justification for indefinitely detaining approximately 650 terror suspects still held there, said one defense official.

The Pentagon chief will argue for greater scrutiny of each detainee, but he'll also "talk about the intent to release more" than the 87 freed to date, the official said.

Pentagon officials have refused to discuss one reported case of a Taliban commander, Mullah Shehzada, who rejoined comrades in Afghanistan after his release from the Guantanamo prison camp in Cuba last October.

Shehzada convinced his interrogators he was an innocent civilian captured by Northern Alliance troops and turned over to the U.S., Time magazine reported late last year.

"[Shehzada] is not the only one," said a source briefed on the speech yesterday. "They're about to be a lot less tight-lipped about it."

Rumsfeld is also expected to reveal that detainees have provided intelligence about human smuggling rings in Latin America aimed at sneaking Al Qaeda thugs into the U.S.

France warns of terrorist attack in Australia this year

More on Willie Brigitte's antics from Channelnewsasia.com, with thanks to Jean-Luc:

The French authorities have warned of a likely terrorist attack in Australia this year, according to the Herald Sun newspaper.

It said the French had confirmed that a terrorist cell in Sydney with plans to launch a devastating attack was broken up after the arrest of French terrorist suspect Willie Brigitte.

But they said a sleeper cell still existed in Australia, which is regarded as "weak" by extremist organisations.

Senior French sources fear the cell is planning a post-Iraq war attack and believe it is linked to little-known groups in the Russian region of Chechnya and the former Soviet state of Georgia.

"An attack in Australia is inevitable. I would not be surprised if something occurred in this year," one senior official was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

Willie Brigitte had admitted that he trained under a Chechen explosives expert, Abu Salah, in a Lashkar-e-Toiba training camp in Pakistan.

Brigitte's wife, Melanie Brown, a former Australian army signaller, was detained and questioned by French authorities last month and has returned to Sydney.

Lashkar-e-Toiba is a highly organised terrorist group and was banned by the Australian government late last year.

Brigitte named Sydney man Abu Hamza as LET's representative in Australia and he claimed during interrogation that Salah had been due to arrive in Australia last year.

"If the UN and Americans do not fulfil the wish of our religious scholars then fatwas will follow"

Will there be democracy in Iraq, or Sharia? Or more jihad? Consider this: "It will be a grave mistake for America and the United Nations to pit themselves in a confrontation with Sayyid Sistani's followers. They will lose greatly if they oppose the Shi'ite religious authorities." An idle threat? Maybe, but the Shi'ites can't simply be wished away. From Reuters, with thanks to Peter Rockas:

Supporters of Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said on Friday an assessment by U.N. officials that elections are not possible before June 30 could stir revolt against their U.S. occupiers.

The United Nations sent a team to Iraq to gauge differences between Washington, which wants to hand over power to Iraqis by mid-year without holding polls first, and the country's majority Shi'ites, led by Sistani, who insist on a democratic election.

U.N. officials in Iraq said on Friday it would not be possible to organize polls before June 30, though they stressed it was important to hold elections as soon as security and technical arrangements permitted.

In Sistani's home town of Najaf, his supporters threatened to rise up if they did not get their way.

"If the United Nations and Americans do not fulfil the wish of our religious scholars then fatwas (religious edicts) will follow," Sheikh Rida Hamdani, a Sistani follower, said.

"At first there will be demonstrations or civil disobedience and finally armed struggle."

"We are all behind Sistani, and Shi'ites all have arms," Hussein Khalifa, a 43-year-old community elder, said.

"The ball is in the United Nation's court...if they do not achieve our goals we will open a front against them. What is this talk that conditions are not ready for elections?...Are the only conditions ready the ones that allow Americans to move about and do what they want freely in Iraq?"

DEMONSTRATIONS

In practice, how Shi'ites react to the U.N. decision will be dictated by the orders from their religious leadership.

When Sistani, a recluse who communicates through aides, made it known he was demanding elections, tens of thousands of Shi'ites came on to the streets to demonstrate peacefully.

The U.N. top envoy in Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, said after meeting Sistani he agreed time was needed to prepare elections, but there has been no official word on whether he would accept a view that elections be delayed beyond June.

If he does, it is likely his followers will do also. If he doesn't, his supporters say violence will follow.

"The Shi'ites represent the majority and they have a strong attachment to their religious leaders, so any fatwa to fight America will be followed by all Shi'ites," said Sheikh Ali Sweidi, a Sistani disciple.

"It will be a grave mistake for America and the United Nations to pit themselves in a confrontation with Sayyid Sistani's followers. They will lose greatly if they oppose the Shi'ite religious authorities."

Shi'ites make up 60 percent of Iraqis, and after years of oppression under Saddam Hussein, who came from the Sunni minority, feel it is time to assert their dominance.

Many supported the U.S. goal of toppling Saddam, but are against the occupation. Some said they thought Washington wanted to delay polls just so it could stay longer in Iraq.

"The elections will not take place because the United Nations and America will keep finding excuses for delaying them...for the Americans if the elections are held there would be no excuse for its troops to stay in Iraq,' Sheikh Hassan al-Naji al -Mussawi said.

Are the elections being delayed because the Sharia supporters will win?

U.S. soldier accused of trying to aid Al-Qaeda

Ryan Anderson

Another American Muslim soldier has been arrested. From AP, with thanks to the many people who sent this to me:

National Guardsman tried to reach al-Qaida operatives through the Internet, offering the group information on U.S. military capabilities and weaponry, defense officials said.

Spc. Ryan G. Anderson, 26, was arrested Thursday, just days before he was to leave for duty in Iraq.

He was being held at Fort Lewis ``pending criminal charges of aiding the enemy by wrongfully attempting to communicate and give intelligence to the al-Qaida terrorist network,'' said Army Lt. Col. Stephen Barger. It was not immediately clear if Anderson had a lawyer.

Anderson, from Lynnwood, was taken into custody without incident as part of a joint investigation by the Army, Department of Justice and the FBI, Barger said.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, defense officials said Anderson signed on to extremist chat rooms and tried to get in touch with al-Qaida operatives. It is unclear how the U.S. government got wind of his alleged offer, but authorities began monitoring his communications, the officials said. It does not appear he transmitted any information to al-Qaida.

He became a Muslim during the last five years, officials said.

Jack Roberts, a neighbor, said he talked to Anderson's wife, Erin, after federal agents left the couple's apartment on Thursday.

``She was pretty damned shocked, as I was,'' Roberts told the Herald of Everett.

Phone messages left by The Associated Press at the couple's apartment were not immediately returned Thursday.

Anderson is a tank crew member from the National Guard's 81st Armor Brigade, a 4,200-member unit set to depart for Iraq. It is the biggest deployment for the Washington Army National Guard since World War II.

Washington State University spokeswoman Charleen Taylor said Anderson was a 2002 graduate with a degree in history. Anderson graduated from high school in Everett in 1995, the Herald reported, and at studied military history with an emphasis on the Middle East at Washington State.

The brigade has been training at Fort Lewis since November. Eighty percent of the soldiers--3,200--are from Washington state, and 1,000 are from guard units in California and Minnesota.

It includes two tank battalions, a mechanized infantry battalion, engineers, support troops, artillery and an intelligence company.

Anderson is the second Muslim soldier with Fort Lewis connections to be accused of wrongdoing related to the war on terror.

Capt. James Yee, 35, a former Fort Lewis chaplain, is accused of mishandling classified information from the U.S. prison for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. Yee ministered to Muslim prisoners there.

There were initial reports that Yee was being investigated as part of an espionage probe, but he was never charged with spying.

Computer firm in Dubai was hub for black market nuke network

From the World Tribune, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

A Dubai-based company in the United Arab Emirates has been cited as the linchpin in the lucrative nuclear weapons black market that has supplied Iran, Libya and North Korea.

The United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency have determined that the UAE company served as the hub for the traffic of nuclear weapons components. Officials said the company coordinated with a range of nuclear suppliers for orders from such countries as Iran, Libya and North Korea.

The Bush administration identified the UAE firm as SMB Computers, a key element in the nuclear weapons black market operated by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. The company was found to have served as a clearinghouse for nuclear components ordered by Iran, Libya and North Korea.

Another UAE company involved in the nuclear black market was Gulf Technical Industries, which worked closely with SMB's Tahir, Middle East Newsline reported. The Dubai-based Gulf Technical, founded by British engineer Peter Griffin, an associate of Khan, contracted with Malaysia's Scomi Group Berhad for the manufacture of centrifuge equipment identified as P-2.

Red Crescent nurse caught aiding terror

At least one angel of mercy didn't have just mercy on her mind. From the Jerusalem Post:

Security forces have arrested a nurse with the Palestinian Red Crescent organization on suspicion of helping terrorists hiding out in Yasser Arafat's Ramallah Mukata headquarters to organize attacks against Israelis.

The woman, arrested Wednesday, was identified as Sadah Said Ahmed Abdullah, 27, from Ramallah, Israel Radio reported. She is divorced, the mother of a child, and is a Jerusalem resident.

During her interrogation, she reportedly admitted helping a senior Fatah Tanzim fugitive and known murderer, Khaled Jamal Shuwish, plan terrorist attacks for the past few months. Shuwish is known to be hiding at the Mukata.

Abdullah was Shuwish's go-between with Hizbullah contacts in Lebanon, who were financing and planning attacks against Israeli targets, according to Israel Radio.

She reportedly told interrogators that Shawaish was planning a suicide bombing against Israelis in the near future.

Israeli security sources said that other Tanzim members were similarly planning attacks, using Arafat's headquarters as their base of operations. The sources said that the Tanzim is preparing terrorist cells with Hizbullah and Iranian financing.

Brooklyn Jihad Money Probe

"The feds suspect a Yemeni diplomat drummed up cash for terror groups during a visit to Brooklyn mosques in 1999, an FBI agent testified yesterday." This from the New York Post.

The allegations against Sheik Abdullah Satar came to light at the trial of Numan Maflahi, who the feds say acted as the diplomat's personal assistant in New York. Maflahi is accused of lying to the FBI.

Authorities watched Satar round-the-clock from the time he landed at JFK Airport Dec. 28, 1999, monitoring his whirlwind tour of mosques.

Satar later flew to Italy, where he gave a speech calling for jihad and met with an al Qaeda operative who has since been convicted of aiding terrorists, FBI agent Brian Murphy testified.

The diplomat was back on the feds' radar last year during an investigation into another Yemeni cleric, Sheik Mohammed Al Hasan Al-Moayad, who is awaiting trial on charges he supplied al Qaeda and Hamas with $20 million collected in Brooklyn.

An FBI informant learned that a sympathizer who was afraid to send money to Al-Moayad after Sept. 11, 2001, was secretly taped saying it would be safer to channel contributions through Satar, whose diplomatic passport reduced the risk of his bags being searched, Murphy testified.

Grilled by the feds on March 4, 2003, Maflahi, 30, denied helping Satar with his fund-raising activities.

Alleged coconspirator testifies at Virginia jihad trial

Some people have pointed to the fact that the Virginia jihad group trained by playing paintball games is evidence of scapegoating: how could they have been serious if they were just playing paintball? Well, yesterday ex-Marine Donald Surratt testified: "I wasn't sure I wanted to keep going. Some people were really serious about this. ... They really wanted to implement the training." It got very serious "after one group member returned from a 2000 trip to Pakistan, where he trained with a militant Islamic group called Lashkar-e-Taiba that has since been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government." From AP:

An ex-Marine who has pleaded guilty to his role in an alleged "Virginia jihad network" testified Wednesday that the group began playing paintball games to learn self-defense, but the games became more intense as some members used the games for military training.

Donald Surratt, 31, of Suitland, Md., said the games became more serious after one group member returned from a 2000 trip to Pakistan, where he trained with a militant Islamic group called Lashkar-e-Taiba that has since been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government.

The group as a whole never discussed using the games as a means to train and join Lashkar, Surratt testified at the trial of four purported group members. But the increasing intensity of the games and their use by some as a training platform for overseas holy war caused him and others to re-evaluate the games' propriety.

"I wasn't sure I wanted to keep going," Surratt said. "Some people were really serious about this. ... They really wanted to implement the training."

Four men--Masoud Khan, Seifullah Chapman, Hammad Abdur-Raheem and Caliph Basha ibn Abdur-Raheem, all U.S. citizens who live in the Washington suburbs--are on trial for conspiracy to aid the Taliban against the United States. Khan faces the most serious charges, including conspiracy to levy war against the United states and conspiracy to provide support to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network.

Surratt said he talked about the games with Hammad Abdur-Raheem, who shared his concerns. But they decided their participation was OK because they they had no plans to engage in holy war.

The government alleges that the men were part of a Virginia jihad network that used paintball games as a means to train and join Lashkar, which is seeking to drive India from the disputed Kashmir region. Engaging in a military expedition against India violates the federal Neutrality Act.

The government further alleges that the group's aims took a hostile turn against the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, alleging that the groups' religious leader told his followers that Islam required them to defend the Taliban against the United States, and that the U.S. military was a legitimate target of holy war.

The defendants contend that the paintball was merely a way for the men to fulfill their religious duties to learn self-defense and that they never intended to fight against the United States.

Surratt, in his testimony, acknowledged that the religious leader, Ali al-Tamimi, recommended fighting alongside the Taliban as the optimal course of action. But if that were not possible, a person could simply leave the United States and live in a Muslim country, or even just pray on behalf of the Taliban to fulfill their obligation.

Terrorists ready for jihad in 40 American states

How extensive are those sleeper cells? This from The Herald, with thanks to Mohamed Ibn Guadi:

Islamic terror commandos are being infiltrated into the US in preparation for "an American jihad" from within, according to intelligence sources.

Dozens of radicals trained in camps in western Pakistan and Kashmir are already believed to have slipped into the country and been absorbed in sleeper cells in unsuspecting Muslim communities as the vanguard of a holy army estimated to be several hundred strong.

An FBI spokesman said al Qaeda and allied organisations were thought to be operating in 40 American states, awaiting orders for terror attacks.

"Sleeper cells" of al Qaeda active in U.S. despite war

More on Al-Qaeda's sleeper cells from the Washington Times, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

Al Qaeda terrorists, operating through "sleeper cells" scattered throughout the United States, continue to recruit new members, assist in the acquisition of safe houses and equipment, conduct pre-attack surveillance and relay messages from terrorist leaders and planners, U.S. law-enforcement authorities said yesterday.

Despite having been degraded by America's ongoing war on terrorism and an aggressive enforcement effort by the FBI, the organization also continues to raise millions of dollars through a vast network of U.S.-based bogus charities and foundations — used to finance, among other things, terrorist training camps abroad, the authorities said.

But U.S. law-enforcement officials and other government agencies declined yesterday to comment specifically on a Tuesday report by The Washington Times that Islamist radicals are being trained at terrorist camps in Pakistan and Kashmir as part of a conspiracy to send hundreds of operatives to sleeper cells in the United States.

U.S. and foreign intelligence and law-enforcement officials said dozens of Islamist extremists had been sent through Europe to Muslim communities in the United States from training camps in the remote regions of western Pakistan and in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

Asked about The Times report, one U.S. official said there is no doubt that training camps for terrorists are operating in Pakistan and Kashmir, but that recent focus of the groups largely has been on internal Pakistani issues. The official would not elaborate, referring further inquiries to the FBI.

"The FBI remains committed to investigating and disrupting terrorist activities in the United States. There is no more important mission," said FBI spokesman Bill Carter, adding that locating al Qaeda members and sympathizers "is our highest priority."

Mr. Carter confirmed that al Qaeda maintains a network of members and associates in dozens of countries, including the United States, but said the FBI had made "significant progress" in disrupting their activities and planning.

Despite denials by the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, the law-enforcement and intelligence officials told The Times that the camps in Pakistan were documented by the Indian government, which said its army had photographs and other evidence that had been turned over to U.S. officials.

That information included satellite photos and communication intercepts showing 60 to 70 camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir as well as in Pakistan.

Law-enforcement authorities said yesterday that al Qaeda members and sympathizers, whose presence in the United States has been documented, are not thought to pose "an imminent threat" but are a significant threat here.

They said al Qaeda terrorists maintain an active network of members and sympathizers in dozens of other countries.

Sen. Jon Kyl, Arizona Republican and chairman of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on terrorism, technology and homeland security, told The Times this week that international terrorist organizations, including al Qaeda, are actively recruiting operatives in the United States in an ongoing scheme to establish sleeper cells nationwide to defeat the country's heightened state of security since the September 11 attacks.

Financed by cash from Saudi Arabia, routed through U.S. mosques and an extensive network of bogus charities and foundations, the terrorist organizations' influence in this country is "more pervasive than people realize" and new members are being recruited to train at camps abroad, Mr. Kyl said.

Last year, Mr. Kyl's subcommittee targeted extremist Muslims in America, those who had become increasingly influential throughout the country — buoyed by foreign state-sponsored doctrines and a wellspring of cash used to recruit and train international terrorists.

Federal law-enforcement authorities think Saudi cash has been a significant source of funding for global terrorism, particularly Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. Part of that effort, the authorities said, also has targeted black Muslims at mosques, prisons and universities in this country who are thought to be sympathetic to Islamist extremism.

Celebrating 9/11 at the FBI

From Paul Sperry at FrontPage, a disquieting glimpse inside the FBI:

When linguist Sibel Dinez Edmonds showed up for her first day of work at the FBI, a week after the 9-11 attacks, she expected to find a somber atmosphere. Instead, she was offered cookies filled with dates from party bowls set out in the room where other Middle Eastern linguists with top-secret security clearance translate terror-related communications.

She knew the dessert is customarily served in the Middle East at weddings, births and other celebrations, and asked what the happy occasion was. To her shock, she was told the Arab linguists were celebrating the terrorist attacks on America, as if they were some joyous event. Right in front of her supervisor, one translator cheered:

"It's about time they got a taste of what they've been giving the Middle East."

She found out later that it was her supervisor's wife who helped organize the office party there at the bureau's Washington field office, just four blocks from the J. Edgar Hoover Building.

"This guy's wife brought the date-filled cookies for the celebration," Edmonds, 33, recalled.

At the time, the supervisor, Mike Feghali, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Beirut, was in charge of the FBI's Turkish and Farsi desks.

But he's been promoted since then, and now also runs the all-important Arabic desk, which is key to intercepting the next al-Qaida plot.

It gets worse.

The language service squad is the front line in the FBI's war on terrorism, collecting all foreign language tips, information and terrorist threats to homeland security. Agents act on what the squad translates and reports. The sooner they get the information, the sooner they can thwart terrorist attacks. Investigators had missed clues to both the 2001 and 1993 World Trade Center attacks because they were buried in a backlog of untranslated wiretaps and documents in Arabic.

Despite the backlog, Feghali told Edmonds and other translators to just let the work pile higher, according to Edmonds. Why? Money. She says Feghali, who has recruited family and friends to work with him at the high-paying language unit, argued that Congress would approve an even bigger budget for it if they could continue to show big backlogs.

"We were told to take long breaks, to slow down translations, and to simply say 'no' to those field agents calling us to beg for speedy translations so that they could go on with their investigations and interrogations of those they had detained," said Edmonds, who was fired without specified cause by the FBI after she reported breaches in security, mistranslations and potential espionage by Middle Eastern colleagues.

She claims Feghali actually tampered with her work to slow her down.

"My supervisor went as far as getting into my work computer and deleting almost completed work so that I had to go back and start all over again," she said.

Edmonds, a Turkish-American who is not a practicing Muslim, made the allegations last month in a 9-page letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

She also claims that Feghali threatened to sue the bureau for racial discrimination, but dropped the suit once the bureau promoted him, says Edmonds and other sources. The FBI, which like the army suffers from a severe shortage of Arabic translators, instated a bureau-wide Muslim-sensitivity training program after 9-11.

Reached by phone at his Maryland home, Feghali was brusque and refused to talk about the allegations.

"I'm not at liberty to discuss this thing, OK?" he said before abruptly hanging up.

The spokesperson for the FBI's Washington field office, Debbie Weierman, did not return repeated phone calls.

Feghali, who holds several foreign language degrees, has been an FBI language specialist for several years. He was a key translator in the government's case against al-Qaida operatives charged in the U.S. embassy bombing in Kenya, and even testified in court.

Sources say he is planning to move back to Lebanon.

A key player in the 9-11 plot and the likely pilot of United Airlines Flight 93, the suicide plane that crashed apparently en route to the U.S. Capitol, was Ziad Samir Jarrah, a Lebanese.

Edmonds has also complained about Feghali and other Middle Eastern translators to the Justice Department inspector general.

And on Wednesday, she is scheduled to give a detailed briefing to members of the 9-11 commission in a secure room here.

She claims terrorist "investigations are being compromised," and has demanded an independent probe of the FBI's language department.

"If there were, and are, persons within the language department that either intentionally prevented translation because of their agendas, or persons who were, and are, not qualified to properly translate, it is likely that terrorist communications prior to 9-11 were missed; and it is likely that current and future terrorist communications will likewise be missed," Edmonds wrote Justice's Inspector General Glenn A. Fine in a Jan. 5 letter. "I have alleged, and the FBI has confirmed (to Senate investigators), that there are in fact such persons in the language department."

Fine still has not released the findings of his internal probe, even though Edmonds first filed her complaint with his office almost two years ago. Speaking for Fine, Justice official Carol Ochoa said the investigation is "still ongoing."

"We are working hard to complete it expeditiously," she said in a Jan. 6 letter to Edmonds.

British Muslim kids told: Be a suicide bomber

Omar Bakri of Britain's radical Al-Muhajiroun, whom I profile in Onward Muslim Soldiers (detailing there his support for violent jihad and suicide bombing), is at it again. From the British Sun tabloid, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

A FANATICAL pal of evil cleric Abu Hamza had told British children as young as ten they must “kill and be killed” for Islam.

Muslim extremist Omar Bakri — speaking in London’s East End — said suicide bombers were assured a place in paradise.

Bakri described such bombings as “self-sacrifice operations”.

An example would be to crash a plane on to 10 Downing Street or the White House, he told a cheering audience of Muslims, including around ten young children.

In one outburst he raged: “You must fight for the way of Allah, for the sake of Allah, to kill first and to be killed.”

Bakri, 44, who has been nicknamed the Tottenham Ayatollah, preached his sick gospel of terrorism at a hall in Bethnal Green.

The full rant was captured by BBC reporter Paul Kenyon — who said: “There’s no doubt he was talking about what it takes to be a suicide bomber.”

The Syrian-born cleric read out a list where terrorist atrocities had been carried out — New York’s Twin Towers, the bombing of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the Bali blast, and the bomb attack on the destroyer USS Cole in Yemen.

And he praised the September 11 bombers as the “Glorious 19 hijackers”.

Bakri — who runs a group dedicated to creating an Islamic state in Britain — is a pal of Hamza, who is facing deportation for preaching hate.

Last night outraged Tory MP Patrick Mercer declared: “Omar Bakri should be locked up. He’s encouraging others to commit crimes in this country and other countries.

“It’s absolutely astounding that these things are being said inside Great Britain today. He’s clearly breaking the law. I’m sure he could probably be accused of treason.

“The fact there are ten-year-olds in the audience, who are vulnerable and highly persuasive, is very worrying”.

Journalist Kenyon, 37, added: “The sense of it was that you must prepare yourselves for glorious deaths as martyrs and that they had a duty to become martyrs if called upon.

“He’s clearly giving them advice on what to do and to have their affairs tidied up before they go. It made my skin crawl.”

Hamas calls for “huge” suicide attacks against Israel

From AFP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

The armed wing of the radical Hamas movement on Wednesday called on its activists to carry out large-scale suicide attacks against Israel in retaliation for a major gunbattle, which left nine Palestinians dead and 35 injured.

“The leadership ... calls on all its fighting cells in Jerusalem, Hebron, Nablus, Bethlehem, Jenin, Tulkarem and Gaza and in all the towns and villages to respond quickly to hit all the enemy positions it can reach with huge martyr operations,” the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement.

Another anti-terror fence

Israel is not the only country building a fence to try to keep terrorists out. An anti-terror fence is also going up in . . . Saudi Arabia. From The Independent, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

Saudi Arabia, one of the most vocal critics in the Arab world of Israel's "security fence" in the West Bank, is quietly emulating the Israeli example by erecting a barrier along its porous border with Yemen.

The barrier is part of a plan to erect what will be an electronic surveillance system along the length of the kingdom's frontiers - land, air and sea. The project, involving fencing and electronic detection equipment, has been in the planning stages for several years. It may cost up to $8.57bn (£4.58bn). Behind the plan is a deep-seated lack of trust in the Yemeni authorities' ability to arrest infiltrators before they make it into Saudi territory.

A Yemeni delegation arrived in Jeddah for emergency talks on the issue yesterday, after submitting an official complaint. Saudi officials have combated drug, alcohol, luxury-goods and arms smuggling across the mountainous and porous border with Yemen for years. And they have paid a high price in their battles with the smugglers.

In 2002, 36 Saudi border guards were killed in Jizan, a southern Saudi border town. The government says the smugglers provide the explosives and weapons used by radical Islamists inside the kingdom, who carried out two suicide attacks against civilian targets last year, killing more than 50 and injuring hundreds.

The perpetrators of earlier terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia, spanning at least a decade, also used explosives from Yemen, state-controlled Saudi media has reported. They include the 1993 attack in the Bahah region, 200 miles south of Jeddah, in which 10 people were killed after a bomb was thrown into a mosque during Friday prayers, and a blast in Riyadh, the capital, in 1995 at an American compound, which killed nine.

Since the bombings on 12 May last year, Saudi border patrols have continued to seize large quantities of weapons and explosives daily - including more than 90,000 rounds of ammunition, grenades, more than 2,000 sticks of dynamite, hundreds of bazookas and more than 1,200 other weapons.

Sa'ada, 25 miles south of the border, has the biggest of Yemen's numerous arms souks. Here an 85mm surface-to-surface missile can be bought for $2,500. Anti-aircraft missiles are no longer on display, but they can still be had for the right price. The row of shops attracts thousands of buyers each day for weapons from China, Russia, Belgium, Spain and even Israel - a country Yemen does not recognise or trade with. There are about 60 million weapons owned by the 20-million strong Yemeni population.

Osama bin Laden's roots straddle both sides of the border. He was born and raised in Saudi Arabia, but has strong ancestral ties to Yemen - a tribal and largely lawless country, where all males past puberty outside the main cities openly bear arms. Yemen remains the place that al-Qa'ida operatives see as home. But Saudi Arabia is the source of ideological inspiration and financial support. Many are products of the Saudi education system, which breeds extremism.

Al-Qa'ida's leader in Yemen, the Saudi-born and educated Mohammed Hamdi al-Ahdal, who was arrested last year, is a case in point. He has revealed under interrogation to Yemeni authorities that Saudis and Yemenis were involved in funding two major terrorist attacks in Yemen - against the USS Cole in October 2000, which killed 17 American sailors, and the French supertanker Limburg in October 2002.

"Hell to the Americans. Hell to the Jews"

"Two large vehicle bombs exploded in central Iraq over a 24-hour period, killing at least 75 Iraqis as many of them were applying for jobs with the new security forces, U.S. and Iraqi officials said early Wednesday." This from the Washington Post.

Jihad was in the air:

By afternoon, soldiers were still lined up near the police station, their guns pointed at men and women who threw rocks and cursed at them. Periodically, one side would charge the other and scuffles would break out.

"There is no God but Allah. America is the enemy of God," the protesters chanted. "Hell to the Americans. Hell to the Jews."

Islamic Zealot's star rises in Chechnya

Here is the charming story of Abu Walid, the Saudi responsible for the subway bombing in Moscow, and how he and others have turned Chechnya into a jihad battleground. From AP, with thanks to Nicolei:

A Saudi-born warrior so zealously Muslim that he is traumatized by even touching nonbelievers has risen to the top echelon of rebels in Chechnya, Russian officials and rebel sources say, a symbol of how a once-secular fight has come under the influence of radical Islam.

To the Russian security services, the rebel commander known as Abu Walid embodies Chechnya's place in the chain of international terrorism -- a connection they stress to win Western support for their military campaign in the southern Russian region.

He has surfaced as a suspect in myriad terrorist attacks in Russia, from the 1999 apartment house bombings that catapulted Russian forces back into Chechnya after they lost the 1994-1996 war to last week's explosion on the Moscow subway.

To the rebels, Abu Walid represents a growing trend toward strict Islamic practices, a tendency reflected in the appointment of a spiritual counselor as co-leader of even the smallest rebel unit.

Abu Walid, who is believed to be about 30 years old, has donned the mantle of Omar Ibn al Khattab, the flamboyant, Saudi-born rebel leader who died in 2002, apparently after being poisoned. Like Khattab, he is said to be second in authority only to Shamil Basayev, a Chechen known for a series of raids and brutal attacks.

An expert in explosives, Abu Walid trained in camps in Afghanistan and fought alongside Muslims in Bosnia before arriving in Chechnya in 1995, according to Russia's Federal Security Service.

Like Khattab, he is a money man for the rebels -- receiving and distributing funds smuggled in from abroad to support the Chechens' fight.

"It's understood that he has money. Since he took over from Khattab, lots of units answer only to him and no one else," said the liaison.

"The [Chechen] military leadership has recognized him," echoed Sergei Ignatchenko, the spokesman for the Federal Security Service, adding that Abu Walid had taken over Khattab's post of military emir.

In November, Al-Jazeera television broadcast fragments of a videotaped statement in which Abu Walid threatened to carry Chechnya's war outside the republic and target military facilities in Russian territories with large Muslim populations. He also defended the use of female suicide bombers, saying the women were seeking revenge for the alleged killing of their husbands and children by Russian forces in Chechnya.

It's one of the few public appearances by the reclusive fighter. Russian security officials and Chechens alike say Abu Walid is far less of a showman than Khattab, who maintained a high profile in part to attract funding from abroad.

But Abu Walid has inspired fear among the Russian military and won the trust of rebel leaders.

The rebels' liaison in southern Russia recalled a telling encounter at one meeting of rebel commanders when Abu Walid -- who adheres to the conservative [that is, radical] Wahhabi strain of Islam -- embraced a journalist, convinced by his beard that he was a good Muslim.

When he learned otherwise, he retreated from the world for two days, praying night and day to cleanse himself after touching an infidel.

But did other Muslims rebuke him for his fanaticism and lack of tolerance? Nope:

That extreme piety, the liaison said, has won supporters. "Lots of young people (in Chechnya) are turning to the Wahhabis. There are lots of battalions under the banner of radical Islam," he said.

Ironically, Abu Walid's star has risen as the role of Arab fighters in Chechnya has decreased. Heightened pressure on international terrorists since Sept. 11, 2001, has severely reduced the flow of foreign funds and mercenaries into Chechnya, and the number of foreign fighters could be anywhere from a couple hundred to just a few dozen, analysts say.

At the same time, there's widespread agreement that Islam is increasingly a motivating factor in what used to be a secular struggle for independence.

"Chechnya used to be on the periphery of the Islamic world. That's no longer true," said Alexei Malashenko, a specialist on Islam at Moscow's Carnegie Center.

"Here's the paradox: They receive less money, they get less help, there are fewer Arabs, but the feeling that they're Muslims ... is stronger."

That sense of Islamic solidarity has filled the ranks of fighters with men from other southern Russian republics. Of the estimated 1,500-2,000 die-hard rebels in the mountains of southern Chechnya, more than half are from neighboring Dagestan, and there are fighters from the Russian republics of Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachayevo-Cherkessiya, as well as from the Central Asian nation of Tajikistan, said Shamil Beno, a former Chechen foreign minister who heads a foundation in Moscow.

He said the role of Abu Walid and other Arabs in Chechnya today was actually minimal.

"What's more important is that the Arabs' mental view of resistance or struggle has begun to predominate," Beno said. "They've naturally played a role in the slipping of the Chechen resistance into terror, which is damaging the resistance."

Al Qaeda Under Pressure for New Strike - Spy Chief

Their recent threats haven't panned out, and Al-Qaeda is feeling the heat. From Reuters:

Al Qaeda is under pressure to strike another "high-value" Western target and may be looking at attacking chemical plants or shooting down planes with surface-to-air missiles, a top German intelligence official said Tuesday.

"A substantial decline in activities in the next couple of years is highly improbable," Rudolf Adam, deputy head of German's BND foreign intelligence agency, told a security conference in Berlin.

"On the contrary, we would feel that pressure is mounting on al Qaeda to reassert its effectiveness and its ability to strike another really big high-value target" in order to remain visible, he said. . . .

Adam said air transport remained a potential target, adding: "The next threat that we observe with great concern is the possibilities of shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, so called MANPADs."

Two such missiles narrowly missed an Israeli airliner taking off from the Kenyan port of Mombasa in November 2002, in an operation attributed to al Qaeda. They have also been used by insurgents in Iraq.

Adam said shipping, tourist sites and supply infrastructure such as oil pipelines, power stations, electricity grids and water supplies remained potentially at risk.

"We have unspecified hints that plans have been made or are still under way to target the chemical industry and chemical infrastructure," he said, without giving details.

Adam also said there was concern that al Qaeda might consider kidnappings -- a tactic it has not previously used -- as a bargaining chip to seek the release of prominent members captured during the U.S.-led war on terror.

"We have some disturbing evidence that kidnappings have been planned," he said.

Adam said the "first generation" of al Qaeda had been badly weakened in the war on terror, but even the capture or killing of its leader Osama bin Laden would leave behind a second generation of fighters, trained in Afghan camps, and a third generation currently being recruited.

"The cancer has already proliferated into innumerable metastases," he said.

Thai minister warns of war with Muslim south

Jihadist activity, as well as retaliation to it, is increasing in Thailand. From the Taipei Times, with thanks to Filtrat:

Tension escalated between Thailand's Buddhist majority and its Muslim minority yesterday as the country's defense minister warned of a bloody war between the two communities.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra traveled to Pattani province in the heart of the Muslim-majority deep south in an attempt to head off a rising tide of violence.

In the latest of a series of attacks, two Muslim men were shot dead by unknown gunmen in separate incidents Sunday night in Yala province, 770km south of Bangkok.

Police said the motive of the killings was unclear but they suspected they might be part of a continuing effort to destabilize the region.

On Sunday the Islamic Central Committee of Thailand, along with Muslim leaders in the southern provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat, announced they were suspending cooperation with central government authorities because of "disgraceful" behavior by Thai soldiers. The Muslim leaders objected to a search of a local ponoh Muslim school in Pattani by about 70 soldiers who were looking for weapons stolen in a raid on a Thai army camp on Jan. 4.

Reacting to Muslim leaders' announcement, Defense Minister Thammarak Issarangkura said the government would not tolerate any kind of rebellion in the south.

Speaking in a radio interview in Bangkok, Thammarak compared the Muslim militancy in the south to the communist insurgency that was widespread in the area in the 1970s.

"During that time, many people died," he said. "Do we want that situation to happen again? The rest of the country won't let the people of these three provinces disrupt the lives of all 59 million people in Thailand. If there's war, a lot of people will be killed in those three provinces."

Like so many judges and officials in the West who have lectured Islamic radicals about their own faith, Thammarak took the rebels to task for violating the tenets of Islam. This widespread behavior is both presumptuous and short-sighted. It fails to recognize that Muslims aren't going to care what a non-Muslim tells them about Islam, and refuses to acknowledge the potency of the religious appeals that radical Muslims are making within the Islamic community worldwide:

Thammarak criticized the Muslim leaders for violating their own religion and the principles of the Koran.

"Their god does not teach this kind of thing," he said.

Police, soldiers, teachers and Buddhist monks have been the targets of shooting and bombing attacks in the past three months, mainly in the five southernmost, Muslim-majority provinces.

Government leaders have attempted to play down the attacks as being the result of local conflicts and banditry. But the rising number of attacks, combined with intelligence reports of Islamic separatist involvement, have forced him to take a more active role in easing tensions.

Thaksin had been scheduled to return to Bangkok yesterday from Phuket but instead traveled to Pattani.

He said he planned to go to Narathiwat later in the day and attempt to meet with local Muslim leaders.

Islamic extremists invade U.S., join sleeper cells

"Islamic radicals are being trained at terrorist camps in Pakistan and Kashmir as part of a conspiracy to send hundreds of operatives to 'sleeper cells' in the United States, according to U.S. and foreign officials." This from the Washington Times:

The intelligence and law-enforcement officials say dozens of Islamic extremists have already been routed through Europe to Muslim communities in the United States, based on secret intelligence data and information from terrorists and others detained by U.S. authorities.

A high-ranking foreign intelligence chief told The Washington Times in an interview last week that this clandestine but aggressive network of training camps "represents a serious threat to the United States, one that cannot be ignored." The official said as many as 400 terrorists have been and are being trained at camps in Pakistan and Kashmir.

U.S. intelligence officials said the camps, located in the remote regions of western Pakistan and in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, are financed in part by various terrorist networks, including al Qaeda, and by sources in Saudi Arabia. ...

Several other camps are being operated by an anti-U.S. Muslim group known as Lashkar-e-Taiba, according to U.S. and foreign intelligence officials. Listed by the State Department in 2001 as a terrorist organization, Lashkar-e-Taiba is the armed wing of the Pakistan-based religious organization Markaz-ud-Dawa-wal-Irshad.

Eleven men, including nine U.S. citizens, were arrested last year in Virginia in what authorities called the "Virginia jihad." The men were accused in a 41-count grand jury indictment of engaging in "holy jihad" to drive India out of the disputed Kashmir territory. Six have since pleaded guilty.

The indictment said some of the men traveled to Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist camps in Pakistan, where they were trained in the use of various weapons, including small arms, machine guns and grenade launchers. The indictment also said the trips occurred both before and after the September 11 attacks.

3 Members of Oregon Terrorist Cell Sentenced

The terror cell in Portland was particularly noteworthy because for years, Mike Hawash had seemed to be a comfortable member of American society. But even he was susceptible to the call of jihad ideology. This just underscores the crying need for honesty and reform from American Muslim groups. From the LA Times, with thanks to Nicolei:

The last three members of the so-called Portland Seven terrorist cell were sentenced Monday for trying to join the Taliban shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.

Palestinian-born Maher "Mike" Hawash, 39, expressed remorse for his actions and pledged loyalty to the United States before he was sentenced to seven years in prison. Two brothers, Ahmed Bilal, 25, and Muhammad Bilal, 23, were sentenced to 10 and eight years, respectively. Neither made a statement.

In the fall of 2002, federal investigators indicted six Portland-area Muslims on charges of conspiring to wage war against the United States. The seventh member of the cell was arrested later.

Hawash — a former software engineer — was the first of the group to plead guilty to a lesser charge of conspiring to help Al Qaeda and the Taliban during the war in Afghanistan. In exchange for a lighter sentence, he became the government's crucial material witness and testified against the others.

"I reiterate my acceptance of full responsibility for this act. I do not blame anyone else," Hawash said in a statement to U.S. District Judge Robert E. Jones.

"This act was done by me in a highly emotional state and was completely out of my character. When the media began to point at Muslims, I couldn't believe it…. I did not believe that the Afghan people had anything to do with this.

"I am still proud to be a U.S. citizen, and I regret my actions," Hawash said. "I wish to ask forgiveness from my family, my friends in this community and the people of the United States."

At the time of his arrest, Hawash was working at Intel Corp. — so well-liked by his colleagues that they began a "Free Mike Hawash" campaign.

"From the beginning, Mr. Hawash has been a mystery to the court," Jones said before handing down the sentence. "How a man of such extreme success could commit this act … I don't know."

Jones concluded by saying he was convinced that Hawash would "never commit a criminal act" again.

The Bilal brothers also pleaded guilty to conspiring to help Al Qaeda and the Taliban and to firearms charges in exchange for dismissing the main charge of conspiracy to wage war against the United States.

Daniel Feiner, the lawyer for Ahmed Bilal, said his client believed he was doing the right thing at the time but later concluded it was wrong and had been preparing to turn himself in when he was arrested.

The younger brother, Muhammad Bilal, was merely following his older brother's lead, according to his lawyer.

Muhammad Bilal's attorney Andrew Bates said: "My client is an ordinary person, 21 years old at the time of this misadventure. Like all 21-year-olds, he was seeking his path."

In November, two other members of the Portland Seven were sentenced to 18 years in prison. Patrice Lumumba Ford, 32, and Jeffrey Leon Battle, 33, had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to levy war against the U.S. Only Ford and Battle refused to cooperate in the investigation.

The only woman in the group, October Martinique Lewis, was sentenced in December to three years in prison after she pleaded guilty to wiring money to help the group. Investigators say the accused ringleader, Habis Abdulla al Saoub, 37, was killed in October during a Pakistani raid of an Al Qaeda encampment.

The seven got to know each other during gatherings at two local mosques: the Masjid As-Sabr in southwestern Portland and the Bilal mosque in nearby Beaverton, Ore.

They came to call themselves "Katibat Al-Mawt," which prosecutors said loosely translated to "squad of death."

Nothing loose about it. That's what it means.

Court documents that depicted the seven as a loose-knit group who studied books and films on jihad and participated in firearms and martial-arts training before the Sept. 11 attacks. Members expressed interest in becoming martyrs.

The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, whose Taliban government supported Osama bin Laden, prompted the six men of the group to join the fight against U.S. forces.

In October 2001, they traveled to China, where they tried several times to cross into Pakistan but failed because of visa problems and heightened Chinese security. Most of the group eventually returned to Portland.

Va. Jihad Case Opens Against Muslim Men

The defense, of course, says that Islam is on trial. From the Washington Post:

Four men on trial for their roles in an alleged Virginia jihad network were caught up in a world of paramilitary training where fighting for Islam was a virtue and America was the enemy, prosecutors said in opening arguments yesterday.

As the trial began in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, prosecutors portrayed the men as militants who prepared for jihad, or holy war, abroad by playing paintball and firing weapons in the Virginia countryside. The men, the government said, exchanged videos that showed al Qaeda training camps and depicted fighters using pictures of former president Bill Clinton for target practice.

"In their world, the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were justified. . . . This is the circle that these people swam in," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg, who criticized the world view of even his own witnesses, themselves former defendants in the case, as "very strange and repellant."

Defense attorneys portrayed the men as devoted Muslims who engaged in military training out of a religious duty to stay in shape and defend themselves against what they perceived as anti-Muslim bias. They called the defendants loyal Americans and criticized the government for making the case about Islam.

"Caliph Abdur-Raheem is not guilty of anything except playing paintball and shooting a gun, as his religious leaders told him was his responsibility to do," said Christopher Amolsch, attorney for defendant Caliph Basha Ibn Abdur-Raheem, who is charged with conspiracy and firearms violations.

The defendants are among 11 men -- all but one from the Washington suburbs -- who originally were indicted in June on weapons counts and charges of training with Lashkar-i-Taiba, a group trying to drive India from Pakistan. The U.S. government has labeled the group a terrorist organization and said the defendants' crimes took place over several years, starting in February 2000. Seven of the men were charged again in September in an updated indictment that accused two of them of conspiring to provide material support to al Qaeda and to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

Six of the men have pleaded guilty, and prosecutors indicated yesterday that their testimony would be key to the trial. . . .

Other defendants now on trial are Hammad Abdur-Raheem (who is not related to Caliph); Seifullah Chapman; and Masoud Ahmad Khan. Chapman and Hammad Abdur-Raheem are charged with firearms violations and conspiracy counts relating to Lashkar-i-Taiba. Khan faces the most serious charges: conspiracies to support al Qaeda and the Taliban and to levy war against the United States.

U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema will decide on the verdicts, because the defendants waived their rights to a jury trial. Defense attorneys said they feared that a Northern Virginia jury could not be fair to Muslim men facing allegations involving terrorism. The final defendant in the case, Sabri Benkahla, is scheduled to go on trial in March. . . .

Bernard Grimm, an attorney for Khan, disputed Kromberg's contentions that the case is not about the men's religion.

"This case is emphatically about Islam," he said, describing it as a faith that "requires you, in fact it is incumbent upon you, to always protect yourself and your family.''

Foreshadowing a likely defense strategy, Grimm criticized the cooperators as having changed their stories.

And he minimized the paintball games, which the defendants acknowledge having played, as "totally innocent."

He compared the games to a softball team that prosecutors might have at their law firm.

Suicide bombers heroes in PA

This Reuters report sheds more light on how tiny the minority of extremists is, at least among Palestinians. (Thanks to Nicolei). It's the story of a print shop in Jenin:

The grimy, dimly-lit shop is one of two in Jenin that print what are known as "martyr" posters, which eulogise Palestinians who have killed or been killed in the conflict with Israel and cover almost every wall in town.

Since the Palestinian uprising began in 2000, they have become a regular feature of life across the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where they even adorn hospitals and classrooms.

Nowhere is this unsettling art form more visible than in Jenin and its refugee quarter, a militant stronghold seething with hostility towards Israel for its crushing military assault in 2002 and numerous raids since.

"If this continues, we will run out of wall space for our martyrs," said Mohammed Abu Hammad, leader of the Jenin cell of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, part of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement. . . .

Israel sees the glorified images of gunmen plastered throughout this poor town of 40,000 as incitement to further attacks, a point some Palestinians readily acknowledge. . . .

A typical poster features a photograph of the grimly staring deceased posing with an assault rifle superimposed against the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem or a picture of Muslims kneeling in prayer. The images are often surrounded by Koranic verses and lavish praise written in Arabic script. . . .

If the dead person is a militant, his faction commissions the work. Al Aqsa is his biggest repeat customer. It picks the photo. The family has no say. When a non-combatant is killed, a coalition of local Islamic charities pays for the print run. . . .

Like many Palestinians, Abu Hamza sees suicide attacks not as terrorism -- as does Israel and much of the international community -- but as resistance to the occupation of Arab land.

In his work, he draws no distinction between suicide bombers who target Israeli civilians, gunmen killed fighting Israeli soldiers and unarmed bystanders shot dead during tank raids.

"Each one is a sacred 'shahid'," Abu Hamza said, using the Arabic word for martyr, defined by Islam as one who dies during "jihad", or holy war, a guarantee of instant entry to paradise.

Hanging on a wall above his printing press is a poster of a former schoolmate who blew himself up in 2001 in a bomb-laden car he and an accomplice tried to crash into a bus.

With ink-stained hands, Abu Hamza waved away the question of whether he felt any sympathy for the 60 people wounded. But he said: "I cried for my friend while I made his poster."

Once a poster goes up, no Palestinian will dare take it down because of fear of how the militants might respond.

Israeli troops raiding the town have left their mark, sometimes daubing Stars of David across pictures of dead gunmen. Wind and rain have also taken a toll.

Mindful of how Israelis regard his work, Abu Hamza, recently married and thinking of having children, keeps his guard up.

Three months ago, soldiers ransacked his shop searching for information on the militant groups he does business with.

They found nothing. "I keep the plates and proofs hidden but within easy reach. You never know when I might need them."

Suicide bomber's lover killed in "accident"

Remember Reem Raiyshi, the suicide bomber and mother of two? Remember how it came out that she had been caught in an affair with a Hamas member and given suicide bombing as an option to save her honor? Well, now the other shoe has dropped: her lover has been killed in an accident. Hamas blames Israel, but has anyone checked with the bomber's cuckolded husband? From the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to Take_the_Train:

Abdel Nasser Abu Shokeh, 37, of Al-Gourej was killed Friday in an explosion believed until now to be a "work accident," that is, a premature explosion that occurred while he was handling explosives meant for use against Israel. But in a report by Israel Radio, Hamas now says his death was a hit by Israel.

Shokeh was believed to be head of Hamas's military wing in Central Gaza. He was also the lover of suicide bomber who blew herself up at the Erez Checkpoint, killing three soldiers and one civilian and leaving behind two children.

After Reem Salah al-Rayashi's husband discovered the affair, her erstwhile lover apparently supplied her with explosives and chose the place where she should kill herself and any Israelis she could take along with her.

Hamas said that an Arab Israeli who had supplied Shokeh with an army uniform gave him a model of Al-Aqsa Mosque as a gift. A few hours later, the model exploded, killing its new owner.

The Erez attack killed St.-Sgt. Tzur Or, Cpl. Andre Kegeles, Border Policeman St.-Sgt. Vladimir Trostinsky, and Gal Shapira.

Al-Qaeda tied to bombings in Iraq

Al-Zarqawi

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Al-Qaeda operative whose message inviting his colleagues to step up operations in Iraq was posted here yesterday, seems to behind at least three major car bombing attacks against Americans and Italians in Iraq. From the New York Times:

Intelligence information, including some gathered in recent weeks, has provided "mounting evidence" to suggest that Mr. Zarqawi was involved in the bombings, including the attacks in August on a Shiite mosque in Najaf and the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, and the attack in November on an Italian police headquarters.

One official cautioned that the evidence stopped short of firm proof about involvement by Mr. Zarqawi. But the official said the intelligence had added significantly to concern about Mr. Zarqawi, who one official said was now "really viewed as the most adept terrorist operative in Iraq, in terms of foreigners planning terrorist activities." . . .

The largest of the three attacks that American officials now say may be linked to Mr. Zarqawi was the Aug. 29 explosion outside a mosque in Najaf, a city holy to Shiite Muslims, which killed more than 85 people, including Ayatollah Muhammad Baqr al-Hakim, one of Iraq's most important Shiite leaders.

The raid on the safe house in Baghdad used by associates of Mr. Zarqawi was said by one American official to have provided valuable new evidence. The items seized included a compact disc that contained the 17-page proposal to senior leaders of Al Qaeda as well as a seven-pound block of cyanide salt, which the officials said could have spread cyanide gas within an enclosed area.

"It's likely that he was involved in at least the three bombings," an American official said of Mr. Zarqawi. The car bomb attacks were three of the most deadly in Iraq since the American invasion last March. Besides the Najaf attack, they included the Aug. 19 bombing of the United Nations headquarters, which killed 23 people, including Sergio Vieira de Mello, the top United Nations envoy in Iraq; and the Nov. 12 attack on the headquarters of Italy's paramilitary police in Nasiriya, which killed more than 30 people, including 19 Italians.

Last fall, American military, intelligence and law enforcement officials said they did not know whether the August bombings were part of a coordinated campaign. At the time, they said they were wrestling with several competing theories about who might be behind them, including the possibility that they were carried out by former members of the Iraqi military or paramilitary forces.

Investigators said at the time that they had not seen a common signature in the bombings, but that the attack at the United Nations headquarters and another on the Jordanian Embassy had used vehicles packed with explosives drawn from old Iraqi military stocks. American officials have not said publicly what kinds of explosives were used in the attacks in Najaf and Nasiriya.

On Monday, senior American officials were careful to describe Mr. Zarqawi as "an associate" of Al Qaeda rather than a member. American military officials say that at least 90 percent of the attacks on United States troops are thought to have been carried out by Iraqi Sunnis opposed to the occupation.

Saudi warlord leads Russian bombers

Remember those Chechen "rebels" who carried out the bomb attack in a Moscow subway last week? I told you at the time that they were radical Muslim jihadists. Now it turns out that they are even led by a Saudi, Abu-al-Walid al-Ghamidi. He draws the same distinction between wanton murder of Muslims (not ok) and wanton murder of non-Muslims (ok) that radical Muslims have made elsewhere -- notably in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. From the Times Online, with thanks to LGF:

A Saudi Islamic militant based in the breakaway republic of Chechnya is suspected of being behind last Friday’s bomb attack on the Moscow metro, which killed 39 people and wounded more than 130.

Abu-al-Walid al-Ghamidi, 36, has been identified by the FSB, the Russian intelligence service, as one of the most powerful figures in the Chechen rebel leadership. As the commander of several hundred Arabs fighting alongside the rebels, he is thought to have been responsible for a wave of suicide bomb attacks that have killed more than 200 people in just over a year.

He is also believed to have been one of the masterminds of the Moscow theatre siege of October 2002, which ended with the deaths of 40 Chechen terrorists and 129 of their hostages.

Walid, a follower of the Wahhabi sect that dominates worship in Saudi Arabia, signalled the determination of Chechen extremists to take their war against the Kremlin to Russian soil when he broadcast a statement from the republic last year on Al-Jazeera, the Arab television network.

“If operations in Chechnya continue they will harm Chechen people, so we have decided to export operations inside Russia,” declared Walid, a bearded man with long black hair who wore a uniform and spoke against the backdrop of a Chechen flag.

“We consider all Russian people warriors because they elected this leadership when it pledged to crush the Chechen people. God willing they will pay for their fight with their blood and their sons.”

The Muslim Student Association and terror

In Onward Muslim Soldiers I quote a speaker at a Muslim Student Association meeting in New York, who said: "The only relationship you should have with America is to topple it." Now the Senate is taking notice. From Accuracy in Academia, with thanks to LGF:

The Senate Finance Committee is investigating non-profit groups to determine whether those organizations might be a source of funding for terrorist activities. Among the groups that the Committee wants Internal Revenue Service records on: the Muslim Student Association (MSA), active on campuses throughout the United States.

"Many of these groups not only enjoy tax-exempt status, but their reputations as charities and foundations often allow them to escape scrutiny, making it easier to hide and move their funds to other groups and individuals who threaten our national security," Senators Chuck Grassley and Max Baucus pointed out in their letter to the IRS.

"Often these groups are nothing more than shell companies for the same small group of people, moving funds from one charity to the next charity to hide the trail," the senators write. "These groups also receive donations from foreign sources, including countries the government has identified as having a significant problem with terrorism." . . .

Nor is this the first time the MSA has come up in a federal investigation. Last February, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents arrested Sami Omar al-Hussayen, a computer science major from the University of Idaho at Moscow. The U.S. Justice Department indictment charged Hussayen with visa fraud and the transfer of large amounts of cash from Iraq to the Islamic Assembly of North America (IANA). Hussayen was head of his university's MSA, according to The Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

The U.S. indictment also connects Hussayen with a tacit endorsement of suicide bombers posted on a web site that he registered. Hussayen, the indictment charges, registered the site exactly one year before the September 11 attacks. The posting, which appeared in June 2001, about three months before the fateful hijackings, was entitled "Provision of Suicide Operations."

Written by a radical Saudi sheikh, the posting read, "the Mujahid must kill himself if he knows that this will lead to killing a great number of the enemies, and that he will not be able to kill them without killing himself first, or demolishing a center vital to the enemy or its military force, and so on."

"This is not possible except by involving the human element in the operation. In this new era, this can be accomplished with the modern means of bombing or bringing down an airplane on an important location that will cause the enemy great losses."

By this standard, of course, 9/11 was a great victory, as it brought down airplanes on two important enemy locations.

The MSA in turn links up to other organizations that are tacitly radical. For example, MSA events frequently feature speakers from the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY). Emerson told a congressional committee that "WAMY's U.S. office was incorporated in Falls Church, Virginia in 1992 by Osama bin Laden's brother, Abdullah bin Laden."

Another terrorism expert, Stephen Schwartz, told Congress that the form of Islam that governs such groups is Wahabism, the official sect in Saudi Arabia. "Shia and other non-Wahabi Muslim community leaders estimate that 80 percent of American mosques are under Wahabi control," Schwarz testified.

I mentioned that eighty percent figure to Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR on an MSNBC show last year and got the predictable reaction. It is good to see that the investigations are continuing despite enormous political pressure.

Iran: mullahs hoping Bush loses

Ma'ariv International reports that "the unfolding political crisis in Iran is intimately linked to the goings-on in Washington. The perception that Bush may be a one-term president is what has emboldened the conservatives [that is, the radical Muslim mullahs who run the present government] in Teheran to make a move on the reformists [that is, pro-democracy forces]. No peace talks between Israel and Syria will take place until it becomes clear how important it is to the White House to uncover the WMD Saddam stashed away in Syria shortly before the balloon went up." (Thanks to "Allah.")

The last thing the Iranian conservatives wanted was to provoke the US. Their ultimate fear was to see Uncle Sam’s boys cross the Euphrates to liberate Iran from a regime only slightly less bestial and inherently much more dangerous than Saddam’s. . . . Moreover the Iranian interest was to see the Shiites become the dominant political force in Baghdad.

At the same time President Bush seemed assured of a second term. No one, not even the arch reactionary Ayatollah Ahmed Jannati, chairman of the Council of Guardians was willing to risk taking on George W. Bush, who had demonstrated very clearly his willingness to wield a very big stick. The only thing to assure this was to give the appearance that the reformists were, slowly but surely gaining the upper hand.

Events in Washington over the past month changed that perception. The conservatives seem to have decided that Bush could be vulnerable. As a result, they decided to renegotiate their agreement with Khatami, since they believe Iran can afford to get away with presenting a less enlightened image to the world. The result is the current crisis. Supreme leader Khamenei, the leader of the conservative faction, which is between the reactionaries and the reformists, but on the whole tends to side mostly with the former, will not take any decisive step until he has to, meaning until he and his advisors decide what Bush’s chances are. If they decide that his defeat is not a sure thing, the compromise he will arrange will favor the reformists, at least somewhat. If he decides that Iran can take the risk of assuming that Bush will not be reelected, the compromise will, in effect be an ultimatum to the reformists to surrender or else. If he decides to wait and see, he will go along with the reformists’ demand to postpone the election, without necessarily acting to get the Guardians to reinstate the disqualified reformist candidates.

A hint at this was provided last week by foreign ministry spokesperson Reza Asefi, who said that the current row “could seriously impact Teheran’s foreign policy. In Iranian political talk this meant that it might be premature to assume that Bush is a lame duck, and that a premature push for power by the reactionaries could endanger Iran’s recent foreign policy achievements, primarily an informal understanding with the US that Iraq’s Shiites will take control of Iraq when the US departs. . . .

The latter have decided to take out the reformists, having decided that Bush is unlikely to be reelected, and therefore willing to risk US ire, which, as far as they are concerned, will be limited to words if Bush is no longer president. If there is one thing these men do not fear, it’s words. . . .

Teheran’s aim is to see Bush defeated. The thinking in Teheran is that a Democratic president would not have the stomach to go to war in order to save Iraq’s middle class. The result, snap elections won by the Shiites, the formation of a new anti-western Damascus-Baghdad-Teheran axis, armed with a large variety of lethal non conventional weapons,

The Iranians are confident that even if hard evidence of Hezbollah terrorism in Iraq shows up, Bush will not be able to do anything until the elections. However the one potential fly in the ointment the Iranians have so assiduously being concocting is if the Iraqi WMD that have been hidden in the remote corners of the Syrian desert were to be discovered, thus vindicating Bush and all but assuring him of four more years.

This could only happen if either the US invaded, or the regime fell. To ensure neither of these events occur, Iran suggested to Assad that he embark on a peace initiative. For Iran this is a win-win proposition. If the talks eventually fail, they would still have served their purpose, preempting a scenario that could vindicate Bush and assure him reelection. If, by some mischance the talks actually led somewhere, it would be no skin of their nose, since Syria, not Iran would be making the required concessions. In the long run Syria is less important to Iran than Iraq, since unlike Iraq, the majority of Syrians are Sunni Moslems, who intensely dislike the Baath regime dominated by the minority Alawis, who are theologically much closer to the Shiites than to the Sunnis (who unlike the Shiites regard them as heretics). Iran knows it may, and can afford to lose Syria as an ally. It cannot afford to lose Iraq.

Israel and the US however, were not taken for a ride. This means that all options are still open. The current administration is not about to see a virulently anti-western conservative dominated Iran become the ultimate benefactor of the war. American blood was not shed in order to facilitate unprecedented Iranian hegemony over the region. If, in order to prevent such an outcome it becomes imperative to vindicate the Bush administration by proving estimates of Iraqi non-conventional capabilities were essentially correct, then an invasion of Syria cannot be ruled out. The pretext would be either proof of Syrian complicity in allowing Hezbollah to operate in Iraq, or allow Israel to initiate a war with Syria over its support of terrorism.

For this reason Bush is willing to let Sharon make the road map as obsolete as the horse and buggy, despite the blow to his prestige. Both men may need a war with Syria to ensure their political survival, and the world may need it to take out another link in the axis of evil, and to prevent the emergence of an Iranian dominated Damascus-Baghdad-Teheran axis, which would soon become a Islamic regional superpower that could, and probably would pose as much of a threat to the west as it would to Israel.

The higher the probability of the Iranian domestic balance of power being shifted in favor of the ultra-conservatives, the greater the likelihood of a war with Syria becomes.

Jihad in a Paris mosque

Political correctness finds it offensive simply to question the commitment of Muslims in the West to secular principles. But here is evidence straight from a jihadist of the prevalence of radical ideas in one Paris mosque. From the Herald Sun:

A number of Willie Brigitte's associates were killed fighting Coalition forces in Afghanistan or arrested by the US during the war, the suspected terrorist has claimed.

Brigitte, who was deported from Australia in October, told French investigators jihad, or holy way, played a central role in the mosque he and fellow worshippers attended on the outskirts of Paris.

Investigative judge Jean Louis Bruguiere questioned Brigitte about extremist Islamic views preached at the Omar and Abu Bakar mosques in suburban Couronne.

"Yes, that is true, in the teachings given there by Mohamed El Magrebi, the jihad played a major part," Brigitte responded, according to a transcript of his interview aired on ABC's Four Corners last night.

Brigitte said many of his fellow worshippers were subsequently killed in the war on terror.

"Moreover, all those who took part in this teaching have either died in Afghanistan or have been arrested by the Americans because they have been led to that country," Brigitte claimed.

Good. But what is being done to stop these teachings in the mosques?

Al-Zarqawi seeks Al-Qaeda aid in Iraq

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

Al-Qaeda still active in Iraq, although it has suffered a loss of support. But some within Iraq are actively encouraging it. This from the New York Times, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

American officials here have obtained a detailed proposal that they conclude was written by an operative in Iraq to senior leaders of Al Qaeda, asking for help to wage a "sectarian war" in Iraq in the next months.

The Americans say they believe that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian who has long been under scrutiny by the United States for suspected ties to Al Qaeda, wrote the undated 17-page document. Mr. Zarqawi is believed to be operating here in Iraq. . . .

The author offers his services and those of his followers to the recipients of the letter, who American officials contend are Al Qaeda's leaders.

"You noble brothers, leaders of the jihad, we do not consider ourselves people who compete against you, nor would we ever aim to achieve glory for ourselves like you did," the writer says. "So if you agree with it, and are convinced of the idea of killing the perverse sects, we stand ready as an army for you to work under your guidance and yield to your command." . . .

"We were involved in all the martyrdom operations — in terms of overseeing, preparing and planning — that took place in this country," the writer of the document says. "Praise be to Allah, I have completed 25 of these operations, some of them against the Shia and their leaders, the Americans and their military, and the police, the military and the coalition forces."

But the writer details the difficulties that he and his comrades have been experiencing, both in combating American forces and in enlisting supporters. The Americans are an easy target, according to the author, who nonetheless claims to be impressed by the Americans' resolve. After significant losses, he writes, "America, however, has no intention of leaving, no matter how many wounded nor how bloody it becomes."

The Iraqis themselves, the writer says, have not been receptive to taking holy warriors into their homes.

"Many Iraqis would honor you as a guest and give you refuge, for you are a Muslim brother," according to the document. "However, they will not allow you to make their home a base for operations or a safe house."

The writer contends that the American efforts to set up Iraqi security services have succeeded in depriving the insurgents of allies, particularly in a country where kinship networks are extensive.

"The problem is you end up having an army and police connected by lineage, blood and appearance," the document says. "When the Americans withdraw, and they have already started doing that, they get replaced by these agents who are intimately linked to the people of this region."

With some exasperation, the author writes: "We can pack up and leave and look for another land, just like what has happened in so many lands of jihad. Our enemy is growing stronger day after day, and its intelligence information increases.

"By God, this is suffocation!" the writer says.

But there is still time to mount a war against the Shiites, thereby to set off a wider war, he writes, if attacks are well under way before the turnover of sovereignty in June. After that, the writer suggests, any attacks on Shiites will be viewed as Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence that will find little support among the people.

"We have to get to the zero hour in order to openly begin controlling the land by night, and after that by day, God willing," the writer says. "The zero hour needs to be at least four months before the new government gets in place."

That is the timetable, the author concludes, because, after that, "How can we kill their cousins and sons?"

"The Americans will continue to control from their bases, but the sons of this land will be the authority," the letter states. "This is the democracy. We will have no pretexts."

"A war against Muslims"

Britain's Sun tabloid reports some intriguing statements from Muddassar Arani, the lawyer for Abu Hamza, the former imam of the notorious terror-supporting Finsbury Park Mosque. (Thanks to Nicolei.)

Rallying support for her opinions in an interview she claimed: “There is clearly a war that is taking place against Islam.

“That is why our people have to wake up and realise that one day it will be them and not others that this is happening to.

“Once we learn to forget our differences and speak with one voice and realise that we all are viewed as Muslims, we will be able to win this war that is taking place against us Muslims.

“We have to wake up to the fact that this is only the beginning of the war.”

Yet Arani seems well aware of how she can win this alleged war by using the West's own mechanisms of justice:

Home Secretary David Blunkett has revoked [Hamza's] citizenship after a string of vile outbursts.

Yet Mr Blunkett is unable to remove him because of an appeal which Ms Arani — an expert in the minute detail of human rights — has warned will drag endlessly through the courts.

She said: “The appeals process under the immigration laws and, if necessary, before the European Court of Human Rights could take five years, seven years.

“There are going to be quite heavy legal arguments.”

Also:

Ms Arani, who wears the traditional hijab over her head and thick black-rimmed glasses, has admitted using her religion to win cases.

She said: “I have noted that having the Islamic background has helped me have the edge over my opponents, since I am able to use this to my client’s advantage.”

Question for Ms. Arani: if this is a war against Islam, why is her Islamic background an advantage?

Germans Search Mosques in Terror Sweep

Some "clarification of Islamic structures" going on in Germany. This from AP, with thanks to LGF:

Police in Germany's Rhineland-Palatinate state searched dozens of mosques and Islamic organizations Friday, detaining one man, as part of efforts to clamp down on terrorism.

Across the western state, about 150 officers conducted searches that also involved checking the papers of more than 70 people, the state criminal office said in a statement. One man was detained on suspicion of being in the country illegally, it said.

The searches were part of efforts to "further clarify Islamic structures," the statement said.

Most of the searches were in the state capital of Mainz and the city of Worms.

A Jihad warrior in London

Peter Taylor interviews Salim Boukhari, one of the men arrested for plotting a major terrorist attack in 2000. From The Guardian:

Two of the men convicted, Salim Boukhari and Lamine Maroni, were revealed to have been living in England but MI5 and Special Branch knew virtually nothing about them. Both had got under the pre-9/11 radar. Maroni was an Algerian asylum seeker living in Sheffield, housed by a Home Office-sponsored agency called Safe Haven. MI5 had their suspicions about Maroni's address and had local checks made a few weeks before the Frankfurt raid but they drew blanks.

Nothing was known about Boukhari, who was believed to be the ringleader of the cell. It transpired he had come to London from Algeria and lived and worked there on and off for almost 10 years. He had trained as a chef in Twickenham and done security work for Homebase and Safeways in Camden Town. He'd remarried a couple of months before his arrest and left a pregnant wife behind in England. . . .

Boukhari lived for a time in Leyton, east London, and attended the local mosque where he began to make friends. "It was just normal. There were no extremists speaking about Jihad," he said. But, like many young Muslims seeking refuge among their own, he was vulnerable to what Veness describes as "the predatory activities of the terrorists who are seeking to recruit". Some of the mosques were obvious locations for these "predators" - Boukhari also attended Finsbury Park mosque, which he described as "hotter than Leyton". There was talk of Jihad. At least four of its former alumni - including the so-called "shoe bomber" Richard Reid - are now in American custody.

Gradually Boukhari was drawn into these more radical circles, although he insists it was not through Finsbury Park. His new friends showed him propaganda videos of how Muslims around the world were being oppressed. Images of Palestinians being beaten by the Israeli soldiers had a profound effect on him: "To see Palestinians suffering like this, without reason, is hard," he said. "Israel is doing what it likes and no one is trying to stop them. For me, Israel and America are both the same." He also watched videos of the suffering of Muslims at the hands of the Russians in Chechyna. "They've killed thousands of people and it hurts me to see them getting slaughtered like this."

Predictably, the oppression wasn't the only thing that radicalized him. It was also the radicals' use of the religion the Chicago Tribune says "preaches tolerance, non-violence and respect for human life":

Boukhari was now radicalised, fired with the word of the Holy Koran and the obligation to help his Muslim brothers fight the oppression. And he couldn't do that in London. "To help our brothers you have to train and the only country where you could do that was Afghanistan. I wanted to go to Chechyna to fight."

Arab paper: "Al-Qaida has nukes"

Says Cofer Black: "We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that a number of these groups, if they had it, would use it." Now there are reports that they have it. From WND, with thanks to Fanabba:

According to a report in the Arabic newspaper al-Hayat, Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network bought tactical nuclear weapons from Ukraine in 1998.

The report says the terrorists still have the "suitcase nuke" weapons and are storing them in safe places for possible use.

The newspaper said al-Qaida bought the weapons in suitcases in a deal arranged when Ukrainian scientists visited the Afghan city of Kandahar in 1998. The city was then a stronghold of the Taliban movement, which was allied with al-Qaida.

WorldNetDaily first broke the story of al-Qaida's purchase of suitcase nukes Oct. 3, 2002. Paul Williams, an FBI consultant on international terrorism said then bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network purchased 20 suitcase nuclear weapons from former KGB agents in 1998 for $30 million.

His book, "Al Qaeda: Brotherhood of Terror," also says this deal was one of at least three in the last decade in which al-Qaida purchased small nuclear weapons or weapons-grade nuclear uranium.

U.S. Terror Expert Warns of Dirty Bomb

Even though yet another terror threat from radical Muslims has passed its stated deadline with nothing happening, they haven't given up. From AP, with thanks to Nicolei:

Terrorists have the will and some of the expertise to make a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapon, and are "doing everything they can" to acquire the materials, the U.S. State Department's top anti-terror official said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Cofer Black, U.S. ambassador at large for anti-terrorism, told The Associated Press that al-Qaida is still dangerous even though more than two-thirds of its leaders from the time of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks have been killed or arrested.

Speaking at the U.S. ambassador's residence in Jakarta on Saturday, Black said he and other U.S. officials are "killing ourselves" to make sure terrorists don't get a so-called "dirty bomb" or other unconventional weapons, but the threat remains.

"We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that a number of these groups, if they had it, would use it," said Black, who accompanied U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to an Asia Pacific anti-terror summit on the Indonesian island of Bali last week.

Regional Terrorist Groups Pose Growing Threat, Experts Warn

From the New York Times, with thanks to Nicolei:

The landscape of the terrorist threat has shifted, many intelligence officials around the world say, with more than a dozen regional militant Islamic groups showing signs of growing strength and broader ambitions, even as the operational power of Al Qaeda appears diminished.

Some of the militant groups, with roots from Southeast Asia, Central Asia and the Caucasus to North Africa and Europe, are believed to be loosely affiliated with Al Qaeda, the officials say. But other groups follow their own agenda, merely drawing inspiration from Osama bin Laden's periodic taped messages calling for attacks against the United States and its allies, the officials say.

The smaller groups have shown resilience in resisting the efforts against terrorism led by the United States, officials said, by establishing terrorist training camps in Kashmir, the Philippines and West Africa, filling the void left by the destruction of Al Qaeda's camps in Afghanistan. But what is also worrisome to counterterrorism officials is evidence that like Al Qaeda, some of them are setting their sights beyond the regional causes that inspired them.

The Islamic militant organization Ansar al-Islam, for example, has largely fled its base in northern Iraq, and elements of the group have moved to several European countries, where they are believed to be actively recruiting suicide bombers for attacks in Iraq and Europe, officials said.

The mutation of the cells was illustrated in October when the authorities in Australia arrested a Caribbean-born French citizen who they believe was sent by a little-known Pakistani group to scout possible targets for attacks. The group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, was previously thought to be focused only on the struggle of Muslims in Kashmir.

The activity of such organizations is one reason intelligence officials believe that the threat of terrorism against the United States and its allies remains high. But the mobility and murky associations of the groups, most of which were operating before the Sept. 11 attacks, makes it difficult for agents to monitor their communications or follow their money.

Battle for the soul of an Illinois mosque

From the Chicago Tribune comes a fascinating story of how Muslim radicals gained control of a mosque in Bridgeview, Illinois. (Thanks to Bassam Madany and Paul Weyrich.)

There is a great deal to this. It's all worth reading, but here are some highlights:

Among the leaders at the Bridgeview mosque are men who have condemned Western culture, praised Palestinian suicide bombers and encouraged members to view society in stark terms: Muslims against the world. Federal authorities for years have investigated some mosque officials for possible links to terrorism financing, but no criminal charges have been filed.

Mosque leaders deny encouraging militancy and have denounced terrorism, including the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. They shun the fundamentalist label, saying they follow the true form of Islam and others do not. They point out that an elected board sets mosque policy; if the worshipers wanted a more liberal mosque, they would vote for one.

"It's an election, a democratic process," mosque President Oussama Jammal said.

The mosque now attracts thousands of worshipers--most of them Palestinian-Americans--by offering pro-Palestinian sermons, a spiritual refuge and a strict version of Islam. The ultraconservative Saudi Arabian government partially pays the salary of prayer leader Sheik Jamal.

Moderate Muslims still pray at the mosque, but some say conservatives have created an environment that is overly political, too rigid in its interpretation of Islam and resistant to open debate. These members also worry that the Muslim Brotherhood, a controversial group with a violent past, has an undue influence over the mosque. Despite these concerns, the critics largely remain silent, fearful of being called "unIslamic" by mosque leaders.

That is precisely the problem in so many places. The hard-liners can take the Islamic high ground, adducing numerous texts in support of their views. The moderates are thus effectively silenced.

In this story, the moderates who founded the mosque

practiced a form of Islam that allowed Muslims to socialize freely. They viewed their religion as an important part of life, but not all of life. Men and women could mingle. The women wore short sleeves and did not cover their hair. The men sometimes ran liquor stores even though many Muslims believed Islam forbade selling alcohol.

This is why they are on the defensive. When someone comes saying, "Religion should govern all of life," especially in the context of a law-intensive religion like Islam, many Muslims fall susceptible. And soon these "moderate" trappings are swept away.

And where did this Islamic awakening come from? You guessed it:

The 35-year-old Najib, the only Muslim lawyer mosque leaders knew, became the mosque's attorney and helped write its constitution. Other mosque officials fired off telegrams overseas and traveled to the Middle East several times, targeting countries such as Saudi Arabia, which had started giving away its new oil wealth to help spread its rigid form of Islam.

One mosque fundraising brochure warned that Chicago's Muslims were at risk of "melting in the American society, culture and lifestyle." A plea to a Saudi charity asked for money "before it becomes too late and we may lose our children because they are living in an unIslamic society."

Such pleas illustrate the tug of war that faced many mosques in America--between the forces of assimilation and Islamic traditions, between the new country and the old.

The money poured into Bridgeview, more than $1.2 million in all, according to mosque records. Kuwaiti donors gave $369,000. The Saudi government donated $152,000. The religious ministry of the United Arab Emirates contributed $135,000.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which I show in Onward Muslim Soldiers to be the root of modern Islamic terrorism, was also involved.

Then the mosque leaders asked religious authorities in Jordan to send an assistant prayer leader. The authorities sent Masoud Ali Masoud, a 57-year-old Palestinian who worked for Jordan's religious affairs ministry.

He also belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that believed in spreading a strict form of Islam and creating states governed by Islamic law.

The Brotherhood had gained notoriety for repeatedly attempting to overthrow the Egyptian and Syrian governments. It spawned two violent Islamic groups: the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, offshoots created by former Brotherhood members who believed the Brotherhood was not militant enough. And Brotherhood members would go on to form the militant Palestinian group Hamas, designated a terrorist group by the U.S. in 1995.

But the Brotherhood also organized political protests and ran charities, and many supporters, including Masoud, saw the group as a peaceful movement aimed at restoring Islam's greatness in the world. The Brotherhood did not operate openly in America, though its members quietly influenced some Muslim groups.

Soon, mosque leaders--adhering to a strict interpretation of Islam--told the congregation's women to cover their hair and wear looser clothing. During social events, the women were separated from the men.

And today:

Meanwhile, mosque attendance is booming. Friday prayers are so crowded that dozens cannot get inside, forcing them to place their prayer rugs on the front lawn. As many as 2,000 attend Friday prayers. Bridgeview remains one of the most popular of the Chicago area's 50 mosques.

Sheik Jamal and other mosque leaders still pursue a controversial agenda.

In March 2002, the mosque hired a new assistant prayer leader--the same man who had run the local office of an Islamic charity until it was closed by the federal government for alleged terrorism ties. Even a few board members questioned whether he should have been hired so quickly.

At a prayer service last May, Sheik Jamal raised $50,000 for Palestinian activist Sami Al-Arian, a former professor at the University of South Florida who is charged with being the U.S. leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. To rally donors, the sheik called Israel "a foreign, malignant and strange element on the blessed land."

Al-Arian denies the charges against him. Oussama Jammal, the mosque president, defended the fundraising for Al-Arian. "We raised for his legal defense. That's allowed under U.S. law," he said. "If people were against this, they wouldn't have paid."

In December, at an Islamic conference in Chicago, Sheik Jamal said that Muslims should not listen to contemporary music and that women should not travel long distances without chaperones. He also praised Sayyid Qutb, whose writings helped lay the foundation for Muslim Brotherhood beliefs.

The mosque remains so conservative, several former leaders said, because more and more mosque officials are Brotherhood members.

Mosque leaders declined to comment on the Brotherhood, but director Bassam Jody noted that most of the mosque's 24 directors belong to the Muslim American Society--a group with strong ties to the Brotherhood. The mosque vice president runs the society's local chapter.

Security fear as al-Qaeda suspect is held in Belfast

This Observer story on the Al-Qaeda suspect in Belfast reveals that jihadists may be entering Britain through Northern Ireland. (Thanks to Jeffrey Imm).

Jaybe Ofrasio, who has been charged with raising money for Jemaa Islamiya, stands accused of being a senior lieutenant in the al-Qaeda-linked terror group. He and his family have denied they have any connections to the Islamist movement. . . .

The presence of an alleged Islamist terror activist in Northern Ireland has raised fears among the security services on both sides of the Irish border that the island is becoming a convenient 'back door' to the UK.

In Dublin, the Garda Siochana have kept several Islamic radicals under surveillance. A number of Algerian men have been questioned in connection with an investigation into al-Qaeda's financing throughout Western Europe. In October 2002 two Libyans and one Algerian were arrested on charges of fundraising and providing fake passports to al-Qaeda.

Ofrasio was arrested at his house in Hawthorn Street, West Belfast, last Friday. He has been living there since moving from Mindanao in the southern Philippines last July.

Terrorist bid to build bombs in mid-flight

A new strategy. From The Observer, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

Islamic militants have conducted dry runs of a devastating new style of bombing on aircraft flying to Europe, intelligence sources believe. The tactics, which aim to evade aviation security systems by placing only components of explosive devices on passenger jets, allowing militants to assemble them in the air, have been tried out on planes flying between the Middle East, North Africa and Western Europe, security sources say.

Concerns that militants might assemble a bomb or another weapon on board were a key factor in the series of recent cancellations of transatlantic flights. Last weekend British Airways stopped flights from London to Washington and Miami for fear of an attack and Air France also cancelled scheduled flights.

Security agencies are now hunting scores of militants who have been trained in the new tactics. The warning, passed to Western agencies by Middle Eastern intelligence services, is based on interrogations of Islamic militants captured in the Arabian Gulf and is corroborated by intercepted communications between terrorist cells and interviews with prisoners held by the US government at Guantanamo Bay.

Officials in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere are believed to have warned that at least 12dry runs may have been completed and to have said that the terrorists are aiming to try out their plans on flights around the Mediterranean and the Middle East before attempting to bomb a transatlantic route, where security precautions are now very tight. Militants know that individual components are far easier to smuggle through airport security than an assembled bomb.

In May 2002 nearly 100 grammes of pentrite, a plastic explosive used by the alleged shoe bomber Richard Reid, was found hidden in the armrest of a Moroccan jet when it landed in Metz, France. At the time, investigators said they thought it had been put there as a warning. Now French officials suspect the explosives were placed on the jet as a trial of the new tactics. Though some investigators fear they may be the victim of deliberate 'disinformation', officials say that they cannot risk ignoring the warnings.

Man evaded LA airport security; found without ticket or ID in plane bathroom

This is not a story about a jihad incident. But it is one about how much airport security has improved since 9/11. From AP:

A man walked past two security checkpoints at Los Angeles International Airport last month and boarded a plane without a ticket or identification before he was caught hiding inside a bathroom before takeoff, authorities said.

The FBI and Transportation Security Administration are investigating how Kareem Thomas, 19, of Decatur, Ga., was able to make it all the way onto the Atlanta-bound Delta Airlines flight at a time of heightened security at the airport.

FBI investigators are interviewing passengers and crew members of the Jan. 15 flight, and will submit their findings to the U.S. attorney's office for possible prosecution. Delta could be fined or warned for violating federal guidelines, said Larry Fetters, TSA director at the airport.

"Of course it's worrisome that this happened and we need to make sure that it doesn't happen again," Fetters said.

Delta is investigating the incident. The company said it may change security procedures but officials offered no details.

Los Angeles' airport, one of the world's busiest and a previous target of terrorist attacks, was one of eight airports nationwide that remained on high alert even after the national terror threat level was lowered from orange to yellow on Jan. 9.

Authorities said Thomas, who was on probation for a burglary conviction, was not armed and was not a threat to passengers. He was arrested on suspicion of burglary and is being held for violating his parole, said Deputy District Attorney Randi Kaplan. Thomas told authorities he "was trying to go home," Kaplan said.

Thomas' attorney, J. Joseph Modder, declined comment.

As Thomas boarded the plane and locked himself inside a restroom, he was spotted by a passenger who had seen him slip pass metal detectors and gate agents. The passenger told a flight attendant, who knocked on the door demanding to see a boarding pass.

When he didn't comply, airline employees called police, who arrested Thomas and escorted him off the plane.

"Clearly, this was a monumental security screw-up," said passenger John Hall, of Santa Monica. "Here I am, along with all the other passengers, taking off our shoes and waiting in endless lines to board a plane and this guy just strolls past the security net."

Purported al-Qaida video details preparation, execution of Riyadh bombing

This from AP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm and Alyssa Lappen:

A video purported to be from Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network shows Saudi militants planning, training for and carrying out what it claimed was the Nov. 8 bombing of a housing compound for foreigners in the Saudi capital that killed 17 people.

The 90-minute video, viewed on an Islamic Web site by The Associated Press in Dubai, shows a vehicle driving up to what it says is the Muhaya compound in Riyadh before loud explosions and gunfire erupt. That portion is blurry and badly lit, and the building is not visible.

It was not possible to verify the video's authenticity. However, it uses language similar to past statements attributed to al-Qaida, and the training scenes are like those seen in videos of al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan. The Web site that showed the video has released other seemingly credible al-Qaida statements.

In October, an al-Qaida-style recording surfaced on the Internet that included what was described as audio of militants launching May 12 attacks on Western housing compounds in Riyadh that killed 26 people and the nine attackers. Bits of video also were accessible with it, but the only clip allegedly of the assault itself showed a black screen with text identifying gunshot noises as a recording of the start of the attack.

The new video contains excerpts from several of bin Laden's previously broadcast comments, as well as the words of other al-Qaida members and Khattab, a Saudi-born Chechen military leader who was killed by Russian forces in 2002.

Militants are seen training with rocket-propelled grenades and surface-to-air missiles, and in hand-to-hand combat.

The video also showed training courses on bomb-making and displayed detonators, timers and wires. It calls the training camp al-Battar and says it is on the Arabian peninsula.

French jihadi targeted Australian military bases

"Frenchman Willie Brigitte was sent to Australia by Pakistani terrorists and planned to target military bases in Sydney, the French counter-terrorism unit DST alleges." This from News.com.au, with thanks to Nicolei and Jean-Luc.

Brigitte's key contact in Australia was a Pakistani man who was also believed to be part of the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Toiba, DST deputy director Jean-Francois Clair told the Nine Network's Sunday program.

This man, whom Sunday will name, used the Internet to view the layout of army bases and attempted to obtain chemical ingredients for explosives, the program will allege at the weekend.

The program cites the DST dossier on Brigitte compiled since he was deported from Australia in October last year.

"French terror suspect Willie Brigitte was sent to Australia by a Pakistani terrorist organisation and was in the process of considering which military targets the group would attack," Sunday said in a statement.

Pakistan: jihad for Kashmir and nuclear defense

The Islamic radicals in Pakistan have not been pacified by Musharraf's pardon of Abdul Qadeer Khan. They still think he has withdrawn his support not only from the Islamic bomb but from the Kashmir jihad. This from the Daily Times of Pakistan, with thanks to Jean-Luc:

The six-party religious alliance, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) vowed on Thursday to wage jihad not only for Kashmir but also for the protection of Pakistan’s nuclear technology, and it also accused the government and Army of withdrawing their support on both fronts.

“Our rulers as well as the army have withdrawn from the protection of Pakistan’s nuclear assets of Pakistan and now it is the duty of the masses to wage a campaign to maintain nuclear deterrence and help liberate Kashmir from the Indian yoke,” central MMA leader Qazi Hussain Ahmad, announced at a mass rally here on Kashmir Solidarity Day. . . .

Mr Hussain was very critical of the US government and accused it of disarming the country. “It is an effort to disarm Muslim states,” he said. “America never wanted to see any Muslim country become a nuclear power.”

He questioned why the nuclear programmes of India and Israel have not been criticised.

He said the government is paying lip service to the Kashmir cause. “Now the President talks about setting aside the UN resolutions on Kashmir and calls the Kashmir jihad terrorism,” he said. “A stable nuclear Pakistan is necessary to win a war on the Kashmir front.” . . .

Later Mr Hussain initiated a mass signatory campaign against the detention of the nuclear scientists.

Other parties in Pakistan evidently feel the same way. From another Daily Times story, with thanks to Mentat:

Atomic weapons, traditional weapons, a strong army and voluntary mujahideen are obligatory for jihad and the Jamaat ud-Daawa (JD) will continue protecting and arranging these resources for jihad against Hindus, the JD party announced Thursday at a Kashmir Solidarity Day rally.

Around 3,000 people participated in the rally on The Mall, the biggest Kashmir demonstration in the city. The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) also arranged a rally of about 1,500 people, mostly women and children.

JD Ameer Hafiz Muhammad Saeed said the organisation would not allow the government to disregard the sacrifices of Kashmiri mujahideen, and would start a countywide campaign to inform people about “conspiracies against the Kashmir freedom struggle”. “Jihad is the only solution to the Kashmir issue and it was a fact and will remain a fact that jihad will free the Indian Muslims, who are looking to us,” he said. He said no one could stop Pakistani and Indian Muslims when they joined Kashmiris in their struggle against the Indian occupation because it was their “obligatory duty”.

“Muslims throughout the world have a bond of kalma. From Lahore to Srinagar, Kabul to Baghdad, Basra to Chechnya, they are fighting under this kalma, but the infidel world doesn’t like it and describes it as terrorism,” he said.

Mr Saeed said only jihad could guarantee the security of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan and the whole Islamic world. He praised Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan and said he hadn’t committed any crime by transferring nuclear technology to Muslim countries. “He shared the technology for the supremacy of Islam and he acted on the Allah’s command,” Mr Saeed said, describing Dr Khan as a hero. “He is our hero, will remain our hero, and the government can’t undermine his honour under American pressure.”

JD Foreign Affairs Committee head Maulana Abdul Rehman Makki said in his speech that the Western media was linking terrorism with Islam, which were wrong. America, Britain, Israel and India are the biggest terrorists, who are occupying the resources of Muslims countries and violating human rights all over the world. “The media and the (Pakistani) parliament should know that there are 77 commands related to jihad in the Quran. They should follow these and fulfil their religious duty,” he said.

An editorial reprinted in the Daily Times, "Our Meaning of Allah's Army," from Khaled Ahmed's Urdu Press Review declares jihadist principles plainly. (Thanks to Mentat and Nicolei.)

The idea of war under Islam is at the root of our belief. We have many meanings of jihad but one central meaning is fighting in the way of Allah. Many of us think that only defensive war is allowed in Islam and that covert or proxy wars are not permitted. Others think that aggressive war “to remove injustice” is also included. Here we are on interpretive territory. The idea of Islamic war joins us with other Muslims in other countries although this introduces complications into the discussion because nation-states cut into the concept of the “umma” or one transnational supra-nation.

Moscow Train Blast Kills 39, Wounds 130

From AP:

A huge explosion blasted apart a subway car packed with morning rush hour commuters Friday, killing 39 people and wounding more than 130 in what some officials said was a suicide attack on the Russian capital's transport lifeline.

President Vladimir Putin drew a connection between the blast and Chechen rebels whom Russian troops have been fighting for most of the last decade, and said the blast appeared aimed at sowing discord ahead of next month's presidential elections.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, but Chechen insurgents are blamed for a series of suicide bombings in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia. The blast came just three weeks after one of Chechnya's most feared warlords threatened new attacks in Russia.

You would never know it from this story, but these "Chechen rebels" are jihadists. Here is a recent report on the Chechen jihad from a leader of the movement, Abdallah Shamil Abu-Idris (Shamil Basayev).

Canadian accused of suicide bombing

The Canadian citizen who was recently confirmed dead in Pakistan may have died in a suicide bombing against coalition troops. This from WND:

A Canadian family accused of having close ties to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network is in the news again with allegations by the Taliban that another son was involved in a deadly attack on a coalition soldier.

A Taliban spokesman claimed Abdullah Khadr of Toronto was the suicide bomber who killed Canadian Forces Corporal Jamie Murphy in Kabul Jan. 27, the Toronto Globe and Mail reported.

Khadr is the son of Ahmed Saeed Khadr, a Canadian citizen whom the U.S. has accused of having direct ties to bin Laden. He also is the brother of Omar Khadr, who, as WorldNetDaily first reported exclusively, is accused of killing a U.S. Special Forces medic July 28.

Omar Khadr was held by the U.S. in the prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but was released because the U.S. had no charges and believed he no longer was an intelligence asset.

A third brother, Abdurahman Khadr, also was held at Guantanamo. He returned to Canada shortly after his release in October.

Abdurahman Khadr admitted he had been trained at an "al-Qaida-related camp" for three months in 1998, but played down his family's suspected ties to bin Laden. . . .

Abdullah is the eldest of four brothers and the only male member of the family who was not detained or shot as a terrorism suspect, the Toronto paper said yesterday.

Members of his family deny he is a suicide bomber, and Canadian officials believe the Taliban claim could be misinformation.

Members of the Khadr family described Abdullah, 23, as a "good boy" who is stuck in Pakistan and wanting to return to Canada. . . .

Abdullah's grandmother, Fatmah Elsamnah, strongly denied intelligence reports that Abdullah was a commander of a training camp.

"Abdullah was trying to come home, and that's it," she told the Toronto daily. "This news upsets me very much because Abdullah is a good boy and nobody has helped him – even his government."

The Khadr family's relationship with the government was an embarrassment to former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, who once intervened on behalf of the father.

The father was arrested in 1995 in connection with a bomb at the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad – a suicide attack that killed 17. According to the Ottawa Citizen, a Canadian Security Intelligence Service report says Khadr is "alleged to have moved ... money through" Human Concern International, a Canadian relief agency, "from Afghanistan to Pakistan to pay for the operation."

Chretien pressed then-Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto during a trade mission to give Khadr due process in Canada.

Musharraf pardons disgraced nuclear scientist

The jihadist nuclear scientist who shared secrets with rogue states has been pardoned by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. This from AFP:

Pakistan's president said he had pardoned the founder of the country's nuclear programme, who has confessed to leaking nuclear secrets abroad.

"I give him pardon," President Pervez Musharraf told a news conference on Thursday, a day after Abdul Qadeer Khan's dramatic televised confession.

Khan admitted leaking secrets and begged for forgiveness following a lengthy investigation into the alleged transfer of nuclear techology to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

Musharraf called the scientist a "national hero" for bringing the bomb to Pakistan, but said he had made "mistakes".

Responding to a question, he said Pakistan will not share documents with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which passed on the information that launched the investigation.

He also said that Pakistan will not allow the United Nations to inspect its nuclear facilities.

Arab Press: Only Terrorism Will Work

The tiny minority of extremists speaks in the January 16 edition of London's Al-Quds Al-Arabi, as well as in Al-Watan of Oman and Al-Hayat of Saudi Arabia. This from Arutz Sheva, with thanks to Nicolei:

Reacting to last month's repeated news items regarding theoretical Israeli-Syrian negotiations, London's Al-Quds Al-Arabi (January 16) declared that terrorism ("Palestinian armed resistance") is the Arabs' best tool for effective and productive peace negotiations.

This echoed the Omani Al-Watan newspaper of the same day, which reacted to British Prime Minister Tony Blair's remarks to the effect that the peace process would not continue unless Israel received assurances against terrorist operations. "For a start, the resistance against foreign occupation is not terrorism except in the eyes of imperialist countries and others that strive to oppress other people," the Gulf newspaper declared. In fact, the editorial continued, no one has ever proposed to the Arabs in Israel a "viable alternative to blowing themselves up and leaving orphans behind."

Furthermore, the editorial concluded, this is "true for Palestinians, but more so for the Iraqis." . . .

The Saudi-backed Al-Hayat newspaper the same week carried an article that was a paean to the woman suicide bomber who blew herself up at the Erez checkpoint in Gaza, and to the mother of a suicide bomber who fought so that her son would have the chance to die.

As for the Erez attack, the London-based newspaper eulogized: "They will say she went into history, to reserve her people a place in the future. They will add that she lit the way; the first female martyr in the books of Hamas, the first female martyr in the Gaza strip, the first female Palestinian martyr that leaves her children and embraces the nation. The small child will never get tired of the footage Hamas distributed. He will watch it over and over again, as this female holding the rifle, used to hold him in her arms. He will learn by heart what that woman repeated before blowing herself up in the face of occupiers of her nation's soil. She said: 'I have always wanted to be the first female to execute a martyrdom operation in which parts of my body would scatter.'"

The Al-Hayat article went on to relate the tale of Mohamad Fathi Farhat's mother. According to the story, as told by Hamas spokesperson Khaled Mash'al, "she wrote to the leadership of Al-Qassam Battalions, objecting her son's denial of the request to perform a martyrdom operation [suicide bombing]. When the leadership succumbed to her request, the mother got busy with her son's last preparations, and when she found out of his martyrdom, she wore her best clothes to accept congratulations."

Egyptian Government Daily: Suicide Bombings are Legitimate Even if Children Are Killed

MEMRI reports that Al-Masaa, an Egyptian government daily, has justified the murder of children by suicide bombing:

"We have no argument regarding the question of the legitimacy of these operations, because they are considered a powerful weapon used by the Palestinians against an enemy with no morality or religion, [an enemy] who has deadly weapons prohibited by international law, that is not deterred from using them against the defenseless Palestinian people.

"Even if during [a martyrdom operation] civilians or children are killed - the blame does not fall upon the Palestinians, but on those who forced them to turn to this modus operandi.

"Ultimately, we should bless every Palestinian man or woman who goes calmly to carry out a martyrdom operation, in order to receive a reward in the Hereafter, sacrificing her life for her religion and her homeland and knowing that she will never return from this operation."

German court clears 9/11 suspect

Mzoudi

From CNN, with thanks to Nicolei:

A Moroccan man accused of assisting the September 11 hijackers has been cleared by a court in the German city of Hamburg due to a lack of evidence.

Abdel-Ghani Mzoudi was charged with more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder, based on the death toll in the suicide hijackings in the U.S, and being a member of a terrorist organisation, the Hamburg cell of al Qaeda.

The 31-year-old had faced up to 15 years in jail if convicted by the five-judge panel.

The court declared a verdict Thursday despite a last-minute request by lawyers for victims' families to delay it, citing alleged new evidence linked to the case of accused September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui in the United States.

Defense lawyers said Mzoudi had spent time at an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan in 2000 and knew Hamburg cell members while they lived in the city, but denied he was involved in the 9/11 plot.

German prosecutors had expected the acquittal because of a lack of evidence but continued to insist the accused was guilty. They could still appeal against the verdict to a higher court.

"For us it is clear Mzoudi is part of the Islamistic scene in Hamburg," Heino Vahldieck, chief of the Hamburg Federal Criminal Office, told CNN. "He has been part of the scene, he is still part of the scene."

Terror experts are worried the case demonstrates the West is ill equipped to defend itself.

"It is a war. In a war situation you need special laws and al Qaeda finds that it can operate wonderfully well in the democratic free society because they can move about freely and the courts cannot convict them," M. J. Gohel of the Asia Pacific Foundation told CNN.

Lawyers for Mzoudi, who wants to return to study electrical engineering in Hamburg, said before the acquittal his problems would remain whether or not he was freed.

They said he was afraid German authorities could deport him to Morocco where U.S. agents could try to snatch him. Mzoudi is also aware, they say, of rumors that al Qaeda might try to liquidate him to ensure he never talks.

In Germany's other 9/11 case, Mzoudi's friend and fellow-Moroccan Mounir el Motassadeq was sentenced to 15 years in jail by the same Hamburg court last February. He is awaiting a ruling on an appeal.

Still breathing threats and murder

Their last few threats have proved to be empty — in fact, virtually all of their threats have since 9/11. But Al-Qaeda is still playing scare warfare. From the World Tribune:

Al Qaida has again warned of a major strike in the United States.

The Al Qaida warning was relayed via the Tajamu Reform Party of Yemen in a statement proposing terms of reconciliation with the government which has been under pressure to cooperate with the United States in the war on terrorism.

"A major strike, a big event will take place in America soon," the statement said.

In its statement, Al Qaida termed Sanaa as the second most cooperative partner in the U.S.-led war against the Islamic insurgency movement. The group said Pakistan was the chief ally of the United States.

Spencer on losing the war of ideas

"Losing the War of Ideas," a new article by Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer, is available today at FrontPage magazine.com.

Revealed: the nationalities of Guantanamo

Surprise: most of the Al-Qaeda/Taliban prisoners at Guantanamo are Saudis. Others come from nations you might never expect to harbor jihadis. From UPI, with thanks to Jean-Luc:

At least 160 of the 650 detainees acknowledged by the Pentagon being held at the United States military base at Guantanamo, Cuba -- almost a quarter of the total -- are from Saudi Arabia, a special UPI survey can reveal.

In UPI's groundbreaking and detailed breakdown of the nationalities of the detainees, some arrested far from the 2001 battlefield of Afghanistan, the other top nationalities being held are Yemen with 85, Pakistan with 82, Jordan and Egypt, each with 30.

Afghans are the fourth largest nationality with 80 detainees, according to the detailed UPI survey that has now for the first time established the homelands of 95 percent of the total number of prisoners.

One member of the Bahraini royal family is among those detained, according to his lawyer Najeeb al-Nauimi of Doha, Qatar, who was Qatar's 1995-97 justice minister and has power of attorney from the parents of about 70 prisoners.

The Pentagon's own list of nationalities detained at Guantanamo may be flawed. Yemeni officials have told UPI they fear more than twice as many of their citizens are held than the Pentagon count. . . .

Drawing on a wide range of sources, UPI has tentatively determined the nationalities of 619 of Camp Delta's inmates from 38 countries.

Until the U.S. government is more forthcoming with information, the figures below remain incomplete.

Complicating the issue is the sporadic release of a number of detainees; in the wake of last week's release of three teenagers, another 87 detainees have been transferred pending release. In addition, four detained Saudis have been transferred to continue their imprisonment in Saudi Arabia. . . .

The magnitude of the Saudi presence in Camp Delta raises troubling questions about their presence in Afghanistan and whether the U.S. forces succeeded in capturing more than a fraction of those who might have been there.

Emphasizing the global metastasizing of terrorism, among the 85 Yemenis is an individual arrested in Sarajevo. . . .

Jordan, a close ally of the U.S. in its war on terror, has 30 of its citizens detained in Camp Delta, as does Egypt. Jordan has worked closely with the U.S. in the initial processing of prisoners, providing both interrogators and interpreters.

Morocco, site of an al-Qaida attack on a synagogue in April 2002 that killed 21 people, has 18 of its nationals in Guantanamo. Algeria, currently in the throes of a violent conflict between Islamists and the government, has 19 prisoners in Camp Delta, six of whom were arrested in Sarajevo.

Kuwait, liberated from Saddam Hussein by Operation Desert Storm in 1991 has 12 citizens in Guantanamo; the Kuwaiti government insists that all of its citizen were involved in charity and relief work. China also has at least 12 its citizens in Guantanamo, although they are all identified as ethnic Uighurs rather than Han Chinese. Next on the list are Tajikistan and Turkey with 11 citizens each. Tajikistan fought a bloody civil war in the aftermath of the collapse of communism in 1991 and fundamentalists maintain a strong presence there. Turkey last November was subjected to al-Qaida bombing attacks in Istanbul, which killed 62 people.

Nine British citizens of Muslim background are in Guantanamo; they have proven to be a political liability for Prime Minister Tony Blair, as calls have been made in Parliament for their repatriation.

Both Tunisia and Russia have eight of their nationals at Camp Delta; a Russian embassy spokesman was careful to point out however that the eight Russian citizens are not ethnic Russians. Rustam Akmerov, Ravil Gumarov, Timur Ishmuradov, Shamil Khadzhiev (originally identified as Almaz Sharipov), Rasul Kudaev, Ravil Mingazov, Ruslan Odigov and Airat Vakhitov are members of Russia's Muslim community. The Russian embassy nonetheless is quietly pursuing negotiations with Washington to extradite its citizens.

France and Bahrain both have seven each of their nationals at Gauntanamo. Highlighting the problems of identification, France only recently discovered its seventh national at Camp Delta. The Bahraini detainees include a member of the royal family.

Kazakhstan has been quietly lobbying Washington for the return of its citizens, as have Australia (2) and Canada (2.) Australian David Hicks is one of the most high profile prisoners in Camp Delta; a convert to Islam, Hicks fought as a jihadi in the Balkans before shipping out to Afghanistan.

There are reportedly at least two Chechens, two Uzbeks and two Syrians in Camp Delta. The Syrian detainees especially interest U.S. intelligence, as one of the four workers at Camp Delta under investigation for possibly aiding the prisoners, Air Force translator Senior Airman Ahmad al-Halabi is accused of trying to pass messages from the prisoners to Syria. There are also two Georgian and two Sudanese nationals in Guantanamo.

Bangladesh, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Iraq, Kenya, Libya, Mauritania, Qatar, Spain and Sweden all have a single citizen in Camp Delta.

UPDATE: I have just learned from an informed source that one of the prisoners at Guantanamo is not just a Saudi, but a Saudi prince.

Jihad in Ireland and the Philippines

This from Gulf Daily News, with thanks to Nicolei:

BELFAST: A Filipino man was arraigned yesterday on charges of aiding Southeast Asian terrorists linked to Al Qaeda. Jaybe Ofrasio, 31, offered no plea in Belfast Crown Court to two counts of making funds and property available over the Internet to a Southeast Asian terrorist group "knowing they would be used for terrorist purposes" sometime between January 1 and October 19, 2003.

Detective Inspector Mark Brown testified that the charges concerned support for Jemaah Islamiyah, a militant group that seeks to create an Islamic state encompassing Indonesia, Malaysia and the southern Philippines.

The US and Australia have accused the group of forging ties with Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terror network and conducting several bombings in Indonesia.

Brown said police had seized telephone and financial records as part of their investigation, which focused on an e-mail sent from Malaysia.

"We conducted a number of searches in Belfast and a number of searches in the Philippines," Brown said. . . .

The couple are originally from Cotabato, in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, where the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front operates.

Terror suspect's wife backs jihad

Melanie Brown

"For Muslims," says Melanie Brown, wife of terror suspect Willie Brigitte, "the jihad is compulsory. It is the struggle . . . the struggle for God." Unfortunately, she doesn't mean the struggle to "resist worldly temptations." This from the Herald Sun, with thanks to Rusty Shackleford:

THE Australian wife of jailed terror suspect Willie Brigitte emerged from a long-awaited prison meeting with her husband to declare her support for jihad.

"One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," said Melanie Brown, quoting a slogan adopted by many supporters of extreme militant groups -- including al-Qaida.

"I may get into trouble saying that . . . but I have heard it a lot, and I agree with it.

"For Muslims, the jihad is compulsory. It is the struggle . . . the struggle for God."

The former Australian soldier also told how her marriage to Brigitte in Sydney was arranged by mutual friends in the fundamentalist Muslim community, because both were keen to wed as the faith decreed.

Ms Brown said she confronted her husband in jail about aspects of his life he had never revealed to her, such as the two former wives and three children he left behind in France when he flew to Australia early last year.

"We did discuss those things. But it's all cool now," she said.

"As far as I understand, he is not married to them now."

Of course, nothing in Islamic law would make it wrong for him to still be married to them.

In her first interview since her life was abruptly and irrevocably changed by Brigitte's arrest in Sydney last October, Ms Brown proclaimed her husband's innocence.

But in the next breath she revealed her strident support for "the jihad", adding that acts of violence could be seen as part of such a struggle.

Meanwhile, another Herald Sun report reveals some of the content of Brown's meetings with Brigitte. (Thanks to Jean-Luc.)

SUSPECTED French terrorist Willie Brigitte tried to get information from his Australian wife about the top-secret spy facility at Pine Gap according to French police sources, it was reported yesterday. . . .

The Australian newspaper said Ms Brown is understood to have told French interrogators that Brigitte questioned her at length about the US-Australian electronic intelligence station at Pine Gap, near Alice Springs.

He asked her if she had ever been inside the base when she was in the Australian Army Signal Corps, whose members are experts in communication intercepts, the newspaper said.

While in the army, Ms Brown was reportedly training in Arabic and performed a tour of duty in East Timor.

The newspaper reported that Brigitte asked her about the transmission systems and the low-frequency electronic transmitting antennae the US had reportedly installed in Pine Gap.

French police sources said Ms Brown insisted she had not revealed any military secrets to Brigitte.

Musharraf knew I was selling secrets, says nuclear scientist

This from The Guardian, with thanks to Nicolei:

The disgraced founder of Pakistan's nuclear programme has informed investigators that he supplied rogue states with nuclear technology with the full knowledge of the country's ruling military elite, including President Pervez Musharraf, a friend of the nuclear scientist was reported as saying yesterday.

Abdul Qadeer Khan has confessed to selling nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea, senior officials said on Monday.

Many analysts and most Pakistanis suspect the government of seeking to pin the blame on Mr Khan for a potentially lucrative trade of which, they say, the country's all-powerful army chiefs must have been aware.

According to an unnamed friend who spoke to the Associated Press, the nuclear scientist last week told government investigators: "What ever I did, it was in the knowledge of the bosses."

New Muslim militant group born to fight Christians

A split has apparently formed in the Indonesian radical Muslim group Jemaah Islamiyah, and the new group is even more fanatical in its determination to wage jihad against non-Muslims — particularly the Christians of Indonesia. This from AsiaNews, with thanks to Nicolei:

The latest analysis report prepared by the Jakarta-based International Crisis Group (ICG) released early this week, stated that a radical new Islamic militia had emerged in the country. The newly established group “Mujahedden Kompak” was formed by hard-liners who split from “Jemaah Islamiyah”, considered to be Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Southeast Asia. The report-analysis, written by ICG’s Chapter Director Sydney Jones, an American expert in Southeast Asian issues, describes the faction.

The Muslim militant group exists in the Central Sulawesi province, and is highly concentrated in the Poso region, where ‘Kompak’, an acronym roughly translated as “Action Committee for Crisis Response”, is responsible for a series of attacks against Christians. Their members are highly trained in international militant camps in Mindanao and Afghanistan. ‘Kompak’ is involved in the Muslim/ Christian conflicts in the Moluccas and aggressively seek new recruits. They are ideologically prepared to launch large-scale deadly attacks. “It suggests a need to revise assessments about the nature and gravity of the terrorist threat in Indonesia," Ms. Jones wrote in the report. "While the shorter-term prospects are somewhat encouraging, there is an underappreciated longer security risk. This organization presents a possible new partner for al-Qaeda.”

Hamas mulls attacking U.S., Canada

Jess Sadick has an interesting paper at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies: "The Globalization of Hamas Terrorism." In it he notes, as has been noted here, that Hamas has plans for America and Canada:

There is evidence that Hamas has discussed attacking targets in the US and Canada and has recruited foreign nationals who could be used to carry out such operations. US policymakers need to understand the threat posed by Hamas' emerging pan-Islamic interpretation of jihad and its perceived role in the global anti-American jihad. In the meantime, Hamas' rhetoric adds to the incitement fueling the jihadist movement worldwide, especially in encouraging young Muslims to go to fight US forces in Iraq.

The full report, which is fascinating, is at the FDD site as a pdf.

Pipes and Spencer slimed by Ibish

Hussein Ibish of the ADC has taken a potshot at Daniel Pipes and Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer in a Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed.

The idea that Islam, and by extension Muslims, are inherently violent and irrational has become commonplace in our culture. . . .

Since 9/11, right-wing evangelical preachers such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, and commentators such as Robert Spencer and Daniel Pipes, have spared no effort to spread fear and hatred of Islam and the growing American Muslim community.

This defamation probably has its greatest parallel in the anti-Semitic ideas that took hold in American culture between the First and Second World Wars. . . .

Violence, extremism and intolerance are universal human failings. They certainly are not particular to any culture or faith.

Pipes and Spencer sent this reply to the Inquirer:

How ironic that in an article purporting to deplore stereotyping and misrepresentation (“Violence is a human, not an Islamic trait,” op-ed, Feb. 1), Hussein Ibish resorts to his own mudslinging – in particular against ourselves.

Mr. Ibish falsely states that we have propagated the idea that “Islam, and by extension Muslims, are inherently violent and irrational.” We challenge him to document such a statement by either of us. Nor is their any more truth to his calumny that either of us has “spread fear and hatred of Islam and the growing American Muslim community.”

Rather what we have done, consistently and repeatedly, is point out the dangers of the totalitarian movement known as radical (or militant) Islam, one which threatens Muslims no less than the rest of humanity.

Mr. Ibish’s defamation also has a darker undercurrent. Whatever Mr. Ibish’s own views may be – and he loudly proclaims himself not to be a supporter of radical Islam – the fact is that in this and his other writings, he waves away the grisly record of radical Islam. Imagine a German in the 1930s dismissing Nazi atrocities, as Ibish writes about radical Islam’s violence, by saying that “violence, extremism and intolerance are universal human failings.”

This pattern has recurred throughout his career. Like the Italian Fascists who ignored Mussolini’s crimes but praised his efficiency in making the trains run on time, Ibish once lauded Hamas (which President Bush calls “one of the deadliest terrorist organizations in the world today”) for “running hospitals and schools and orphanages.”

In his Inquirer op-ed, Mr. Ibish has once again acted as an apologist for the crimes of a brutal totalitarian movement. He thereby makes himself one of its cadres.

In this context, that Mr. Ibish then dares compare our views to those of anti-Semites of the 1930s is a bit rich; and even more so when one realizes that the radical Islam he praises is the main source of anti-Semitism today, one which threatens a new Holocaust against Jews.

All this would be laughable were it not for the respect the media accords this man’s reckless and defamatory statements. We deeply regret that this newspaper has opened its pages to such an extremist as Hussein Ibish.

Daniel Pipes and Robert Spencer

Saudis pledge to adhere to Islamic law

Here is more cold water poured upon the idea that the Saudis are really going to stop supporting terrorist activity. Like most jihadists, they just don't call it that. But adhering to Islamic Sharia law in its fullness means adhering to the call to make war against unbelievers until they convert to Islam or submit to Islamic rule -- what Americans have come to know as the "lesser jihad." This from Gulf News, with thanks to Nicolei:

Saudi Arabia's leaders vowed yesterday not to deviate "an inch" from Islamic Sharia law.

"We in the kingdom are committed to Islamic law in our relations, commitments and decisions... This is our only faith which we would never substitute or deviate from, not even an inch," the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah said in a joint message to pilgrims performing the annual Haj.

"(Islam) rules our domestic and foreign policy and our private and public dealings," they said.

In messages Monday to mark Eid Al Adha, King Fahd and Prince Abdullah also praised US President George W. Bush for leading the war against terror.

"I have been pleased by what you mentioned regarding the lessons that can be learnt by the Islamic nation by the sacrifice of the Prophet Abraham," said King Fahd in a message read on state-owned television.

Failed Suicide Bomber Lost Will to Die

Here is a sign of hope that the love of life that is natural to the human spirit will win out over the bizarre culture of death nurtured by radical Islam (as Maulana Inyadullah of al-Qaeda once put it: "The Americans love Pepsi-Cola, we love death"). From AP:

A Chechen suicide bomber who was arrested after failing to detonate an explosive in a Moscow cafe last summer said in an interview published Tuesday that she had lost her will to die and purposely tried to attract attention to herself.

Zarema Muzhakhoyeva, 23, was detained in July after her strange behavior attracted the attention of security guards at Mon Cafe, a restaurant just off a main avenue leading to the Kremlin. A bomb disposal expert, Maj. Georgy Trofimov, was killed trying to defuse the explosive that she had carried in a bag and left on the sidewalk.

The arrest sent jitters through the Russian capital, still shaken by a double suicide-bombing at a Moscow rock concert five days earlier that killed the two attackers and 14 other people.

Muzhakhoyeva faces charges of terrorism, conspiracy to murder two or more people, and illegal possession and transfer of weapons, the Izvestia daily reported. If convicted, she could spend 25 years in prison.

Muzhakhoyeva told Izvestia that she hopes for acquittal under a law lifting criminal responsibility from people who warn of a terrorist act or its preparation. She described doing her best to attract attention to herself without provoking punishment from the controllers she was sure were following her - and who, she was convinced, could detonate her bomb by remote control.

"Briefly, I decided to surrender with the bomb and hide from everyone in prison - even though they could get me in prison, too," Muzhakhoyeva was quoted as saying. . . .

On the day the cafe attack was planned, the two men drove her to the square in front of St. Basil's Cathedral, at the end of Red Square, and instructed her to flag down a car to get to the cafe. She stared at the driver in the rearview mirror and muttered verses from the Quran, hoping he would turn her in to the police. But he dropped her off at her destination and sped away.

Muzhakhoyeva walked up to the plate glass front of the cafe and stuck out her tongue at men inside, then smirked. A trio of men came out, asked for her passport and asked what was in her bag.

"An explosive," she said. Within minutes, she was in police custody.

New Muslim Brotherhood Leader: Islam Will Invade America and Europe

As I show in Onward Muslim Soldiers, the Muslim Brotherhood was the first modern radical Islamic organization, and most of today's radical groups are linked to it in one way or another. But the Brotherhood itself lives on. MEMRI reports on several recent interviews given recently by its new leader, Muhammad Mahdi Othman 'Akef:

In an interview with the Egyptian pro-Nasserite weekly Al-Arabi, 'Akef spoke about suicide bombing operations: "The Muslim Brotherhood movement condemns all bombings in the independent Arab and Muslim countries. But the bombings in Palestine and Iraq are a [religious] obligation. This is because these two countries are occupied countries, and the occupier must be expelled in every way possible. Thus, the [Muslim Brotherhood] movement supports martyrdom operations in Palestine and Iraq in order to expel the Zionists and the Americans." . . .

'Akef discussed Israeli civilian casualties resulting from Palestinian operations in Israel, telling the Saudi daily Al-Watan: "In Israel, there should be no [differentiation between] a civilian and a member of the military. All are enemies of the Arab homeland and of Islam. They are occupiers and have no right to one handsbreadth of the land of Palestine…

"We should differentiate between Jews and Zionists. The Jews have rights by virtue of their being the People of the Book [Ahl Al-Kitab, according to Islam], provided they are not occupiers. With regard to the Zionists, we will resist them with all our strength."

These rights, of course, are only the second-class status of the dhimmis.

In response to a question by the Egyptian weekly Al-Arabi on "relations with the U.S," 'Akef said: "We have no relations with the U.S. It is a Satan that abuses the region, lacking all morality and law." 'Akef also denied any "secret dialogue between the Americans and the [Muslim] Brotherhood," saying that this is "an unfounded lie."

Interesting. That rumor has circulated in connection with the recent appointment to the University of Notre Dame of Tariq Ramadan, the controversian grandson of the Muslim Brotherhood's founder, Hasan Al-Banna. Evidently it has circulated widely enough to make 'Akef take the trouble to deny it.

'Akef continues:

"The [American] tyranny is long known. In the past, they fought secretly, and now they are fighting openly. There is no logic or law in the world that agrees to their occupation of Iraq [and] before that of Palestine, or to what is happening. Allah is helping Syria, which found no savior. Had the Arab and Muslim countries been united, America and Israel would not have been able to withstand them.

This is why radical Muslims want to restore the caliphate, thus (they hope) restoring the unity of the Muslim world, so that it can fight more effectively against its enemies. 'Akef also exhibits some of the conspiracy paranoia that is so common in the Islamic world these days as a rationalization for defeat:

"I am certain that without the betrayal in Iraq, the Iraqis would have tormented the Americans with all kinds of torments. The American forces would not have remained [in Iraq]. I expect America to collapse soon. The elements of this collapse in America [already] exist, and Allah is the Savior."

'Akef adds a denial of Al-Qaeda responsibility for 9/11:

In response to the question from the Saudi daily Al-Watan, "Don't you think that the September [11, 2001] events are justification of America's [activity] in Afghanistan?" 'Akef said: "This is a false statement, because [America] has no proof. They held no fair trial for those arrested on the charge of the September explosion. All they say is a list of names whom they claim bear the responsibility for the September events. If [the Americans] provided proof of the truth of their version, I would fight together with the Americans and join President Bush in this war."

Regarding the claim that "the Al-Qa'ida organization acknowledged responsibility for these operations in the videocassettes aired on several Arab television channels," 'Akef said: "I do not pay any attention to these films, because they are part of the psychological war between these people [Al-Qa'ida] and the American administration.

"These cassettes came in response to the American operations. Washington must prove by trial that they [Al-Qa'ida] are the ones who carried out the explosions in September."

And on Europe and America:

On the question regarding the effect the veil ban will have on the future of Islam in Europe, 'Akef said: "I have complete faith that Islam will invade Europe and America, because Islam has logic and a mission.

"The Europeans and the Americans will come into the bosom of Islam out of conviction. In 1993, I went to America and I published a book, 'Political Pluralism and the Woman,' that was distributed in the mosque. Thirty [American] women converted immediately to Islam as soon as they read it. These are people who become convinced of the right path – but who will guide them there?"

Pipes: Hizballah's Victory, Israel's Decline

Daniel Pipes explains why the recent 400-for-one prisoner swap between Israel and the Hizballah plays into the hands of international jihadists. (Thanks to LGF.)

When asked in 1787, as the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia came to an end, whether it had created a monarchy or a republic, Benjamin Franklin replied. "A republic, if you can keep it."

His pessimism comes to mind whenever a republic makes a terrible mistake, from the French policy of appeasement toward Germany in the 1930s to the American policy of incrementalism in Vietnam to the South Korean "sunshine policy" now under way.

And Franklin's worry felt newly relevant on Thursday last week, as the state of Israel effected a most extraordinary swap with Hezbollah, one of the world's leading terrorist groups.

In exchange for one rogue Israeli civilian, captured while possibly engaging in dubious transactions, plus the remains of three soldiers, Israel released 429 living terrorists and criminals, including 400 Palestinians, 23 Lebanese, five other Arabs, and one German, as well as 59 corpses.

It comes as little surprise to learn, in the description of the New York Times, that this exchange prompted "a day of national celebration" in Lebanon and a "somber" mood in Israel. Nor is it astonishing to hear the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, describe the present as "not a time of happiness."

Mr. Sharon went on to explain his motives in carrying out the exchange by referring to the relatives of the dead Israeli soldiers: "Three dear families, whose souls knew no rest for the past 40 months, will now be able to unite with their sorrow over a modest grave, and composure as a promise was kept, and a right and moral decision was made despite its heavy price."

In other words, a major decision of state was taken for the sake of bringing small solace to three families. But what are the strategic consequences for Israel of this act of seeming morality?

Some or many of those 429 will again engage in terrorism against Israel, perhaps sparking a whole new campaign of violence. That is what happened once before: In 1985, Reuters explains, the Israeli government "swapped more than 1,100 Palestinians for three missing soldiers. Seven hundred Arabs were allowed to stay in the occupied territories and many later became leaders of the Palestinian uprising that erupted in 1987."

The lopsided deal signals Israel's enemies that they can extract huge benefits by taking even just one civilian Israeli hostage. Itamar Marcus of Palestinian Media Watch has collected many Palestinian statements drawing this conclusion. The military branch of Fatah "emphasized the necessity to follow in the footsteps of the act of Hezbollah, so that all prisoners and detainees will be released." A Hamas leader saw in this deal confirmation that terrorism "is capable of achievements to liberate the land and people." A newspaper hails Hezbollah for opening "a new door of hope for the families of the prisoners, after it was closed during the political solutions between the [Palestinian Authority] and Israel, which did not lead to any practical results."

Israel's reputation and standing undergo severe damage from this signal of demoralization and vulnerability. Listen to Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, on the exchange, seeing in it another proof "that the evil Zionist regime is defeatable by the strong wills and concrete faiths of the Mujahedeen of Islam."

The Sharon government also failed its allies in the global war on terror.

Hostage-taking looks like a more effective tactic than it did a week earlier. If it can win a signal victory for Islamists in Lebanon against Israel, their ideological counterparts are more likely to use it in Iraq against the American government, in Moscow against the Russian government, and in Kashmir against the Indian government. Each terrorist success, however local, has the potential to reverberate internationally.

The moral opprobrium of dealing with terrorists is eroded. If releasing hundreds of terrorists is acceptable for Israel, why not other countries, too?

These many negative consequences raise questions about the morality of this Israeli government action.

In its early decades, Israel's strategic prowess was legendary, transforming a weak country into a regional powerhouse. The past decade has seen the opposite process, whereby that powerhouse reduces itself to a tempting target. That this change is entirely self-induced and achieved through the democratic process makes Benjamin Franklin's prophetic concern all too real.

When will the descent stop? By then, how much damage will have been done?

"All this jaw about jihad": just "tosh"?

Melanie Phillips has kindly alerted me to a Peter Preston piece in the Guardian: "All this jaw about jihad is just tosh," subtitled "It is crazy to confect an image of a world ravaged by violence."

Preston seems to think that the White House created the terror threat, and that they're still at it with the recent grounding of airplanes:

One thing - subconsciously, as we now say in polite society - goes with another. Just like the CIA and George Bush. Finally on the back foot about duff Iraqi dossiers? Can't understand how all those pesky WMD got lost? Then here comes another babble of awful warnings, rubbishing British Airways and Air France schedules (with Continental as an afterthought) but leaving United, American and the rest magically untouched. Does Osama have a frequent flyer deal with BA? Why can't Halliburton run airlines too?

It is all pretty desperate stuff - even by the standards of this White House and the chattering chorus of mystic messages they rely on whenever the political heat turns sweaty. Sure, Baghdad is a bit of a bust. But look what we got on those al-Qaida guys!

Preston touts a new book by Emmanuel Todd, whom he describes as "a distinguished Parisian demographer and historian":

Al-Qaida, Todd concludes, "is a band of mentally disturbed but ingenious terrorists". No more; no less. "It emerged from within a relatively small and circumscribed part of the planet, Saudi Arabia, even if Bin Laden recruited a few Egyptian turncoats and a handful of lost souls from the poor suburbs of western Europe.

"However, America is trying to portray al-Qaida as an omnipresent terrorist threat, as evil as it is widespread - from Bosnia to the Philippines, from Chechnya to Pakistan, from Libya to Yemen - thus legitimising any punitive action it might take anywhere at any time. This elevation of terrorism into a universal force institutionalises a permanent state of war across the globe."

I agree, as should be clear in Onward Muslim Soldiers, that it is unlikely that all Islamic terror activity around the world can be ascribed to Al-Qaeda. But to say that these threats have been manufactured in America to legitimize military activity is just naive, or worse.

Preston goes on, quoting Todd:

We may reasonably worry about places like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, where such change has barely started. "But one can in no way deduce the existence of universal terrorism from the anti-American feelings of the populations of two Muslim countries, both intimately linked to America's power structure. A large part of the Muslim world is already in the process of finding a new peaceful equilibrium." Too much mindless jaw about jihad is tosh. . . .

Where, please, is the evidence of universal threat that underpins this all-justifying "war on terror"?

Preston concludes with a nice rhetorical jab, calling the terror threat "a weapon of mass delusion."

That's neat, and will be quite popular in some circles. But let's look a little more closely. I suppose Preston believes and would have us believe that in the last few days, the CIA or some even more secretive arm of the Bush clan and Halliburton has, besides creating airline scares:

• Produced this British jihadist video;
• Set up some poor stiffs in Italy as Al-Qaeda operatives;
• Paid off a Saudi cleric to pray before millions at the Hajj (which was filled with troops to forestall a terrorist attack): "Oh God, give victory to the mujahedeen (holy warriors) everywhere. . . . Give them victory in Palestine. Oh God, make the Muslims triumphant and destroy their enemies, and make this country and other Muslim countries safe. Oh God, inflict your wrath on the criminal Zionists";
• Staged a bomb attack on an Indonesian cafe in the name of jihad;
• Ordered Norway to keep holding a Muslim leader they want to blame for terrorist attacks in Iraq;
• Forced a Pakistani nuclear scientist to admit that he gave nuclear secrets to Islamic states and rogue regimes;
• Planted jihadist literature in an Australian bookstore and on a radical Muslim website;
• Persuaded the French to announce that they had foiled a plot by Muslim radicals in Mali;
• Claimed that another member of the Al-Qaeda cell that operated in Lackawanna, New York has been caught in Yemen.

Let's see: Britain, France, Italy, Norway, Australia, Pakistan, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Mali, the United States, and Yemen, all involved in various ways in news items having to do with jihadist activity since January 29. I suppose Preston would say that these are all manufactured. No doubt Mossad has a hand in it all as well.

Italy: Five Men Convicted of Aiding Islamic Militants

"A Milan court convicted five North African men of having ties to Al Qaeda and sentenced them to four to eight years each in prison." This from the LA Times, with thanks to Nicolei.

The men were found guilty of links to a cell that sent would-be terrorists to Afghanistan, Tunisia and Algeria, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.

However, they were cleared of charges of aiding and abetting illegal immigration.

The longest sentence went to Abdelkader Mahmoud Es Sayed, an Egyptian who was tried in absentia.

Investigators say the Egyptian may have died fighting in Afghanistan.

Jihad rap from Britain

Steven Emerson, one of the world's most courageous and indefatigable investigators of jihadist activities, has posted at the Investigative Project an English-language rap video, "Dirty Kuffar" — that is, Dirty Unbeliever. (Thanks to Joyce.)

The IP comments:

The video you are about to watch is a rap video designed to inspire people to take up jihad against the West. Posted on a radical Islamic website based out of the United Kingdom, the video is undeniably entertaining, as professionally produced as any video you might see on MTV. Consider the irony: radical fundamentalism, sworn to destroy Western culture and beliefs, uses that culture to market its hate. Paralleling the same deception, the Islamic organization that produced and marketed this video claims to be an Islamic "human rights" group but in reality is a group sworn to support the killing of Jews, Christians and moderate Muslims.

Jihad and the Killing of Non-Muslims

A letter to CNN regarding the article I discussed here, from John Eibner of Christian Solidarity International:

Dear Sir/Madam,

The hopes of many were surely raised seeing a CNN.com headline on the 31st of January declaring: “Top Saudi religious authority condemns terrorists”. But upon further reading, I was disturbed to find that the Grand Mufti Sheik Abdul Aziz al-Sheik was very selective in his condemnation.

This powerful Muslim leader - whose influence extends around the world through Saudi funded institutions and missionary activity - limited his prohibition to the killing of Muslims and those non-Muslims who have been “given sanctuary in Muslim lands”. Presumably he means by the latter those who are defined as dhimmis in Islamic law, in other words Christian and Jews who have submitted to the rule of Islam. Conspicuously absent from the Grand Mufti’s condemnation is the jihad killing of non-Muslims who have not submitted to the rule of Islam, that is to say the kufar or infidels. The Grand Mufti also exempted the possessions of non-Muslims from his injunction against the destruction of property.

Far from breaking new pacific ground in relations with non-Muslims, the Grand Mufti is apparently reiterating the precepts of traditional Islamic law which sanctions the jihad killing of non-Muslim infidels and the confiscation of their property as booty. The Grand Mufti’s threatening words are no comfort to the vast majority of people on this planet, who are non-Muslims living outside Islamic lands.

It would seem that the Grand Mufti’s declamations against the killing of non-Muslims is customarily qualified in this way. A VOA report, dated October 25, 2001, reports the Grand Mufti saying: “those who kill non-Muslims with whom Muslims have treaties [another formulation meaning dhimmis] will never see paradise.” The hidden side of this coin is “those who kill non-Muslims who are not protected by treaties with Muslims may indeed see paradise”.

Another AP report, with a dateline Mina, January 30,2004, confirms the extent to which CNN’s headline misrepresents the views of the Saudi religious establishment. Sheikh Salah al-Taleb is quoted offered the following public prayer before an assembly of 500,000 hajj pilgrims in Mecca’s Grand Mosque and nearby streets:

“Oh God, give victory to the mujahedeen (holy warriors) everywhere. Give them victory in Palestine. Oh God, make the Muslims triumphant and destroy their enemies, and make this country and other Muslim countries safe. Oh God, inflict your wrath on the criminal Zionists.”

Can it be in the public interest to obfuscate the position of influential Islamic leaders on the use of jihad violence against non-Muslims?

Sincerely,
John Eibner

Terror alert is over the top, say sceptics

Unfortunately, this is the kind of debate that can't be conclusively settled except by catching the terrorists red-handed, or by a successful terrorist attack. This from The Advertiser (Australia), with thanks to Jean-Luc:

BRITISH pilots and security experts have accused US intelligence chiefs of "jumping at shadows" as terror alerts grounded more flights yesterday.

British Airways, Air France and Continental Airlines said they had cancelled several trans-Atlantic flights scheduled for yesterday and today, citing security concerns.

Three intelligence officials told the Washington Post the possible threats from al-Qaida included releasing a biological agent such as smallpox or anthrax on a plane so those aboard would spread the infection without knowing it. . . .

Jim McAuslan, leader of the pilots' union Balpa, said he was sceptical whether US security services had discovered a "credible risk".

"We would ask whether terrorists would pick a UK airline," he said.

"UK airline operators have some of the best security in the world."

British security expert Simon Reeve said the intelligence was "tenuous to say the least".

Some within the air industry even suspect the security alerts are commercially inspired. They say US operators benefit from cancelled British flights.

There are suggestions terror suspects are putting flight numbers into communications they believe are being intercepted, simply to cause disruption and anger.

The warnings also come at a time of deep concern about the record of both US and British security services over Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

Sceptics also point to the embarrassing false alarm from the US which led to the emergency grounding of six Air France flights over the Christmas period. The "suspicious" passengers at the centre of the alert turned out to include a child, 5, and an elderly Chinese woman.

The FBI claimed their names were "strikingly similar" to those of people wanted for terrorism.

The latest alert is believed to have been prompted by warnings from an informant to the CIA.

Jihad in an Indonesian cafe

From the Jakarta Post:

A bomb attack on a cafe in the town of Palopo, South Sulawesi, was part of a jihad (holy war) against vice in nightclubs and bars, a key suspect was quoted on Monday by the provincial police as saying.

"That's our preliminary conclusion based on the confession by key suspect Jasmin who was captured yesterday (Sunday)," South Sulawesi Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Andi Nurman Thahir told Antara.

He said Jasmin alias Jamir alias Yamming told investigators that he objected to rampant "sinful activities" in nightclubs and bars, such as prostitution.

Nurman said Jasmin confessed to having bombed the Sampoddo Indah Cafe in Palopo on Jan. 10, killing four people and seriously injuring three others. . . .

Nurman said the police had not yet established which group the 14 suspects belonged to, but said they had once participated in a training camp run by the hard-line Laskar Jihad group in Poso regency, Central Sulawesi.

Norwegian court orders Islamic militant leader held another month

Mullah Krekar, the Islamic radical now in prominent residence in Norway, is in more hot water. This from AP, with thanks to Nicolei:

A Norwegian court Monday ordered the founder of an Islamic group allegedly linked to al-Qaida held for another month while authorities investigate charges against him that include plotting to murder political rivals in northern Iraq.

The ruling against Mullah Krekar, founder of the Ansar el-Islam militant group, comes as an Iraqi Kurd official said he suspected that foreign militants or Ansar el-Islam carried out Sunday's suicide bombings in Iraq that killed at least 67 people.

Krekar, a refugee in Norway since 1991, has been held since being arrested at his Oslo home Jan. 2 on numerous charges, including allegations he plotted the attempted murders of political rivals in northern Iraq between 2000 and 2001.

Ansar al-Islam, a group of Kurds in northern Iraq, is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the United Nations. The group had 600 fighters in northern Iraq before being bombed by U.S. forces and overrun by rival Kurdish militias.

Krekar has said he no longer leads the group, but a Norwegian court last month said it found grounds to suspect he still plays a key role.

In its three-page ruling Monday, the Oslo district court said "the accused, with reasonable grounds, can still be suspected for illegal acts." It gave no details but ordered Krekar held until March 1 with police control of his mail, visits and other contacts.

The United States claims Ansar al-Islam has links to the al-Qaida terror network, an allegation Krekar has repeatedly denied.

He has denied heading Ansar al-Islam, too, although not consistently.

Pakistan Nuke 'Father' Confesses

The latest on Pakistan's nuclear jihad from AP:

The founder of Pakistan's nuclear program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, has admitted he transferred nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea, a Pakistani government official said Monday.

Khan made the confession in a written statement submitted "a couple of days ago" to investigators probing allegations of nuclear proliferation by Pakistan, the official told The Associated Press on condition on anonymity.

The transfers were made during the late 1980s and in the early and mid 1990s, and were motivated by "personal greed and ambition," the official said. . . .

They told journalists that Khan admitted to selling outdated "drawings and machinery" to the three countries to earn money for Pakistan. However, Khan claimed the transfers to Libya and Iran were also motivated by wanting to help other Muslim countries become nuclear powers, said two journalists who attended the briefing.

Al Qaeda was trying to outdo 9/11

This from The Australian, with thanks to Jean-Luc:

TERROR network al-Qaeda was probably planning to "outdo" its September 11 attack on New York, Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said today.

The warning came after as airlines grounded several flights from Europe to the US amid fears of chemical or biological attack on an aircraft.

Over the weekend, British Airways, Air France and Continental Airlines cancelled trans-Atlantic flights, citing security concerns.

Intelligence experts reportedly said possible threats could include the release of a biological agent on a plane so those aboard would spread the infection without knowing it.

Speaking from Boston where he is involved in security talks, Mr Ruddock told Channel 9 that significant progress had been made in decapitating the al-Qaeda leadership.

But he said that success had not stymied al-Qaeda's ambitions to attack Western interests, including Australian interests.

"The belief here, in terms of their preparations, they would be seeking to outdo what they did before," he said.

"I can't comment any more specifically than that, but there is a real and continuing concern about what they might be able to do, which is all the reason we need to be working stronger than ever at dealing with these issues."

South Asia: The End of Jihad?

Is the Kashmir jihad over? This from Newsweek, with thanks to Jean-Luc:

The bitterness was palpable among the more than one dozen hardened jihadi fighters. Veterans of the 14-year guerrilla struggle against Indian control of Kashmir, they had gathered in a cold, dingy room in the Pakistani-administered zone to discuss their narrowing options. Last month's historic agreement struck between Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee posed a near-knockout blow to the militants' hopes of ending India's occupation of the disputed Himalayan territory. In the deal, Musharraf promised to crack down on the militants, ending their cross-border attacks on Indian forces. In turn, Vajpayee agreed to begin unconditional negotiations with Pakistan on the status of Kashmir—a source of tension that has twice led these nuclear-armed rivals to war.

Not all of the guerrillas are ready to lay down their arms. "We will not allow Musharraf to sell out the blood of our martyrs," says Saifullah, a bearded fighter in his early 20s. "We will continue the jihad no matter what." But others seemed resigned to the fact that the fighting may be coming to an end. "We have been betrayed," laments Mohammad Ashfaq, a native of the Kashmiri capital of Srinagar. "We have no choice now but to return to our homes." Ashraq is probably right, given the larger forces pushing the leaders of India and Pakistan toward peace. "It's the beginning of the end of the Kashmir jihad," says Rifaat Hussain, a defense analyst at Islamabad's Quaid-i-Azam University.

Musharraf has promised to curb the jihadis before. But in the past he hedged his bets, ordering only a temporary halt to attacks in the hope that India would reciprocate by sitting down for talks. This time, following two serious assassination attempts last December, one led by a suicide bomber belonging to the outlawed jihadi group Jaish-e-Mohammed, he has more reason than ever to clamp down on his homegrown militants. His tone has become increasingly conciliatory of late. In an interview with NEWSWEEK, he hinted that he was willing to drop Pakistan's longtime demand that a plebiscite be held in Kashmir to determine its status, as long as India was equally forthcoming: "I have been saying we must go beyond stated positions and show flexibility," he said. "But it can't be done unilaterally by Pakistan."

Facing down the jihadis will be no small task: since an indigenous insurrection against Indian rule broke out in Kashmir in 1989, some 10,000 fighters belonging to at least six Pakistan-based guerrilla groups have crossed the border to aid their Kashmiri brothers-in-arms. But already Islamabad has transformed the battleground. The constant Pakistani artillery barrages that once provided cover for the guerrillas' infiltration have ended. The ceasefire along the Line of Control dividing Kashmir has held since December. Pakistani Army units have been given orders not to offer any aid to the militants, and security forces are combing Pakistani cities in search of extremists. Pakistan's generals have even taken the jihadis out of their military playbook: in the event of war, the militants will no longer be counted on as a guerrilla force designed to attack Indian Army units behind the lines. "The Army realizes that the jihad strategy is counterproductive and is determined to reverse course," says retired Pakistani Army general Talat Masood.

From India: Why it’s Islam vs rest of the world

Tavleen Singh at ExpressIndia correctly identifies jihad ideology as the cause of the Islamic world's conflicts with non-Muslims. (Thanks to LGF and Nicolei.)

In Davos this year there was much talk of Islam and its differences with the West. The emphasis was on trying to understand why rather than on dismissing the whole issue as that clash of civilisations Samuel Huntington wrote so prophetically about nearly ten years before 9/11. A whole gamut of Muslim intellectuals were invited to address sessions with subjects as diverse as religion and globalisation, modernity and Islam and the shared roots of Western and Islamic culture. Arab princes spoke, as did professors and scholars from the Islamic world and women in hijab who argued that the West try and understand that democracy and gender issues had different meanings in different cultures. The Grand Mufti of Bosnia was there alongside the former American Archbishop of Canterbury and representing the Indian subcontinent was, ironically, General Pervez Musharraf.

As I watched him expound on his theory that Islam was a peaceful religion that sought only friendship and peace with the world, I found myself wondering why then it had been necessary to break India up for reasons of Islam. But, that is the sort of politically incorrect question nobody asks these days just as we do not ask why the Kashmir Valley’s struggle for autonomy has ended up becoming part of the international jehad against Americans, Jews and Hindus. Political correctness was very much the mood of the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting so many of those who spoke for Islam got away with blaming the West for their woes.

You must understand, they said, that terrorism was not Islamic or Christian but just terrorism. And, you must understand that at the root of what was going on lay unresolved political problems like Palestine and Kashmir. Our friendly, neighbourhood military dictator went so far as to say that because of these unresolved political issues young Muslims had developed a sense of persecution and had begun to believe that the world was against Islam. It was the duty of the West to not just help resolve these political issues fairly but also help solve some of the socio-economic problems of the Islamic world. Then, the world would be at peace once more and we could live without the threat of suicide bombers.

Since this column has never had pretensions of political correctness let me spit it out. It would, in my view, be a terrible mistake to try and understand the causes of Islamic terrorism. And, please let us call it Islamic since nearly every terrorist act in recent years has been committed by Muslims in the name of their so-called jehad. These terrible acts of violence cannot be excused on political grounds. There have always been political disputes and there always will be but the solution is not terrorism. As for ‘‘socio-economic’’ causes we need to remember that none of the hijackers of 9/11 were poor, illiterate or underprivileged. Many of them have abandoned their repressive home countries for comfortable, middle-class lives in Europe and the United States but were so consumed by hatred of the West that they were prepared to die for it.

Moderate Muslims need to ask why just as they need to ask why, despite all their oil, even rich Muslim countries are unable to create just and enlightened societies instead of ones that produce disaffected, desperate youths who are prepared to give their lives to kill innocent people. If the West is such a terrible place and America Satan incarnate then why do so many Muslims choose to migrate to cities like New York and London? Why are they not happy to live bigoted, blinkered lives in Riyadh and Jeddah?

There would be no problem with Islam, no ‘‘clash’’ of any kind, if it would restrict its jehad to its own boundaries. It is precisely because it has chosen to internationalise its ideological and religious battle that there is trouble. Just as young Muslims think their way of life is worth fighting and dying for, so young people who are not Muslim feel their way of life is worth fighting for. And, whether Muslims are prepared to admit it or not modernity does mean questioning ancient religious beliefs and demanding answers. A religion that is based on the belief that the last word or ideology, faith, social mores and law was written fourteen hundred years ago will always find itself in conflict with change. Modernity is in its essence the ability to accept change.

This is the jehad that needs to be fought but it needs to be fought within Islam so that moderate, rational voices can rise above the violence and hatred of the bigots who seem to be the only ones able to speak for Islam.

In Davos we were supposed to have heard the voices of moderate Islam but what we ended up hearing, at session after session, was an endless litany of complaints. It was the fault of the West that Islam was being labelled a terrorist religion, the fault of the West that most Muslim rulers were despots, the fault of the West that political issues had been allowed to fester, the fault of the West that Muslim countries had not progressed economically and the fault of the West that Osama bin Laden had got created. In vain I searched to hear one voice that would admit that there must be something deeply wrong in Islamic societies that they had bred the sort of hatred that created so much senseless violence. Just an explanation, for instance, for why the Buddhas of Bamiyan were smashed to bits without one Islamic country intervening. I did not hear it.

Airline Cancels Washington-Houston Flight

After six transatlantic flights were canceled the other day, now it's a domestic flight. This from AP:

Continental Airlines canceled a Sunday evening flight from Washington to Houston after security concerns were raised by the Homeland Security Department.

Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said Flight 1519 was canceled "due to security concerns and threat reporting about that particular flight."

He added that the federal agency and Continental "worked closely on the matter," but did not give any further details of the threat.

The cancellation came on the heels of announcements Saturday that six international flights scheduled for Sunday and Monday were canceled because of security concerns.

In Houston, Continental spokesman David Messing said the Sunday domestic flight was canceled "because we were unable to get security clearance from the Department of Homeland Security."

Messing said he did not know what security concerns the agency had and that passengers were being booked on other flights.

The flight was scheduled to take off from Dulles International Airport outside Washington at 5:45 p.m. EST and arrive at Bush Intercontinental Airport at 8:10 p.m. CST.

The National Football League's Super Bowl was being played Sunday evening at Reliant Stadium, approximately 27 miles from the airport.

However, a U.S. government official said the flight cancellation was no