Al-Arian jurors deliberate for ninth day; judge denies mistrial

Al-Arian walk watch: I think the Rumpled Academic is very close to walking, and thereby handing the jihadists and their fellow travelers in the U.S. a decisive victory. Why? Well, if the jury can't make a decision in nine days, I don't think a conviction is imminent. On the other hand, maybe I will be proven wrong: the fact that the defense is still angling for a mistrial may indicate that they don't think good news is in the offing. From AP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

TAMPA, Fla. - As jurors in the terrorism conspiracy trial of former University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian deliberated for a ninth day Wednesday, the judge denied a defense motion for a mistrial filed last week.

The motion by attorneys for Al-Arian and three co-defendants stemmed from jurors inadvertently seeing the results of a reader's poll printed in the Tampa Tribune Nov. 17. The poll showed that 87 percent of the readers who responded thought the jury would convict Al-Arian of being a key figure in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Although the poll was not cut out of newspapers provided to jurors as other articles about the trial have been, U.S. District Judge James S. Moody Jr. said in an order that he didn't think the exposure "created unfair prejudice" to the defendants.

The jury of six men and six women is deciding whether Al-Arian and the others are guilty of raising money to support the mission of the PIJ, a terrorist group blamed for hundreds of deaths in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The Muslim Brotherhood's "Project"

Scott Burgess at the Daily Ablution (thanks to LGF) has some extraordinarily important information (here and here) about a recently discovered document that contains "an outline for a strategy - most likely drawn up by the Muslim Brotherhood - to combine jihad, surveillance, infiltration and propaganda (among other techniques) in order to 'establish the reign of Allah throughout in the world' via the creation of the Caliphate and its subsequent dominance."

A few introductory highlights:

This report presents a global vision of a worldwide strategy for Islamic policy [or "political Islam"]. Local Islamic policies will be drawn up in the different regions in accordance with its guidelines. It acts, first of all, to define the points of departure of that policy, then to set up the components and the most important procedures linked to each point of departure; finally we suggest several missions, by way of example only, may Allah protect us.

The following are the principal points of departure of this policy:

[...]

Point of Departure 5: To be used to establish an Islamic State; parallel, progressive efforts targeted at controlling the local centres of power through institutional action.

Point of Departure 6: To work with loyalty alongside Islamic groups and institutions in multiple areas to agree on common ground, in order to "cooperate on the points of agreement and set aside the points of disagreement".

Point of Departure 7: To accept the principle of temporary cooperation between Islamic movements and nationalist movements in the broad sphere and on common ground such as the struggle against colonialism, preaching and the Jewish state, without however having to form alliances. This will require, on the other hand, limited contacts between certain leaders, on a case by case basis, as long as these contacts do not violate the [shariah?] law. Nevertheless, one must not give them allegiance or take them into confidence, bearing in mind that the Islamic movement must be the origin of the initiatives and orientations taken.

Point of Departure 8: To master the art of the possible on a temporary basis without abusing the basic principles, bearing in mind that Allah's teachings always apply. One must order the suitable and forbid that which is not, always providing a documented opinion [? "Il faut ordonner le convenable et interdire le blâmable, tout en donnant un avis documenté"]. But we should not look for confrontation with our adversaries, at the local or the global scale, which would be disproportionate and could lead to attacks against the dawa or its disciples.
Point of Departure 9: To construct a permanent force of the Islamic dawa and support movements engaged in jihad across the Muslim world, to varying degrees and insofar as possible.

[...]

Point of Departure 11: To adopt the Palestinian cause as part of a worldwide Islamic plan, with the policy plan and by means of jihad, since it acts as the keystone of the renaissance of the Arab world today.

I believe I just articulated that 11th point in reverse. Read it all.

Washington state Muslim: Walter Mitty jihadist, or the real thing?

He's got an "active fantasy life." Involving real guns. "Sentencing puzzle: family man or radical Muslim?," from AP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

TACOMA, Wash. -- Is Zaid Mu'min a mainstream Muslim with "an active fantasy life" or a radical preparing for holy war? Nearly five hours of testimony failed to clear up the mystery.

In the end, U.S. District Judge Ronald B. Leighton went with the sentence government lawyers proposed, four years and nine months in prison for being a felon in possession of guns.

"Clearly this case represents a picture in contrasts," Leighton said Tuesday. "I don't know who the real Mr. Mu'min is."...

Assistant U.S. attorney William H. Redkey Jr. recommended the low end of the standard range after Mu'min pleaded guilty in April to being a felon in possession of guns, asserting that prison time was justified because Mu'min hung out in a south Seattle barber shop where radical Muslims talked "jihad smack."

Federal agents raided Mu'min's house on Nov. 18, 2004, as part of an investigation by the Seattle Joint Terrorism Task Force and found an AK-47 rifle with a scope, a Ruger .22-caliber pistol, a Glock .45-caliber pistol, a Browning .38-caliber pistol, a CIA manual on explosives, an Army sniper manual and instruction booklets on urban combat and the use of poisons to kill.

Mu'min's wife Jacquelynn said the guns were hers.

Mu'min told the judge he was just curious about different reading materials and used some of the tactical guides in his work teaching children how to keep themselves safe.

"I don't find or conclude that Mr. Mu'min is a terrorist or someone with terrorist leanings," Leighton said. But he added that Mu'min's explanations about the reading material and the guns "didn't resonate" with him.

Peter Coleman, 44, a government informant who admitted to the court that he committed robberies and assaults to support "a jihad movement," testified that he met Mu'min at the barbershop and learned that Mu'min was providing violent literature to the shop owner and giving martial arts-type jihad readiness training in a Seattle apartment complex.

However, under High's questioning, Coleman said he had never seen Mu'min provide jihad training, didn't know Mu'min provided any literature and didn't know why Mu'min was there.

Mu'min, who converted to Islam in prison in the early 1990s, told the judge, "I am an American. I am not a terrorist. I just happen to be a Muslim." He didn't deny talking to men in the barbershop but said it was while he waited for his Arabic instructor to arrive to teach a class in the shopping complex.

Redkey told the judge Mu'min was either a radical Muslim preparing for jihad, a mainstream Muslim with idle fantasies or a "sleeper" terrorist.

"I'm inclined to think he's got an active fantasy life," Redkey said. "My view is that 57 months in prison will be enough to find out who the real Mr. Mu'min is, and to deter others from indulging in active fantasies."

Ten dead, 21 seriously hurt in Bangladesh's first suicide bombings

Bangladesh jihad escalating. From AFP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

CHITTAGONG, Bangladesh (AFP) - Ten people were killed and 21 badly injured in what police said were Bangladesh's first suicide bombings and the latest in a string of attacks by Islamic extremists.

The government and police accused the hardline Jamayetul Mujahideen, which wants to introduce strict Islamic law in the Muslim-majority democracy, of staging the attacks targeting the legal system.

"Jamayetul Mujahideen is using Islam's name to kill people. The government has taken a hard stand and will now take an even harder stand," Prime Minister Khaleda Zia said during a visit to the south.

"This is the first suicide attack in Bangladesh," national police chief Abdul Kaiyum said after the blasts in the southeastern port city of Chittagong and in Gazipur near the capital Dhaka.

"These were powerful homemade bombs. It seems Jamayetul Mujahideen have stepped up their attacks after we arrested many of their members."

Hizballah Rising

Brigitte Gabriel traces the resurgence of Hizballah in "Hezbollah Rising" in FrontPage:

Hezbollah - the organization that America failed to deal with back in 1983 after it blew up Marines in Lebanon - is now flexing its political muscle, positioning itself to take control over South Lebanon and parts of the Bekaa Valley beside the juncture of Syria and Israel’s northern border. And it is in these very territories that Hezbollah now trains the Syrian and al-Qaida terrorists who flood daily into Iraq.

Our enemies are strengthening, networking and uniting for our destruction, and Hezbollah has emerged as one of the major arteries that fuels the terror that threatens Israel and the West. With the attention of most Americans focused on the insurgency in Iraq and the rhetorical warfare being waged in the halls of the U.S. Congress, Hezbollah’s bombardment and invasion of northern Israel last week went almost unnoticed.

For six hours, mortar shells and Katyusha rockets rained down all along the Israel-Lebanon border and down into the Galilee, driving thousands of Israelis back down into their bomb shelters. Five Hezbollah raiders were killed and more than a dozen IDF soldiers were injured. To the extent that any Americans even heard about it, it was mostly dismissed as just another flare-up of the Israeli/Arab conflict. Most Americans think Hezbollah is a domestic Lebanese problem, or a problem for the Israelis. This is a critical and dangerous mistake. Everything that Hezbollah does is intended to eventually harm the United States.

The stage was set with the recent unilateral Gaza withdrawal and the American pressured decision to cede security control over the Rafah border with Egypt, which the Arabs look at as contemptible weakness. In short, radical jihadists sense this vulnerability and attack. The West needs to wake up to what is coming our way.

Hezbollah is a real danger to the region as it is backed fully by Iran who is bent on “wiping the Jewish State of Israel off the map," as Iranian terror President Ahmadinejad has said not once but twice in recent weeks. Iran now has Russian built spy satellites, long distance Shehab III missiles that can reach Israel and Europe with real chemical, biological or nuclear WMD’s. Its population is teeming with tens of thousands of potential suicide bombing martyrs who can fill Hezbollah's ranks.

In addition, Syria harbors a desire to wreak revenge on Israel for the shame of having lost territory in several wars. It also wants to stick its thumb in the eye of the U.S. who are conducting counter-terrorism actions against terrorists who are using Syria as a base of operations. Bashar Assad is under tremendous international pressure because of Syrian involvement in the assassination of Rafik Hariri. Therefore Syria is supporting Hezbollah in its attacks on Israel. Assad believes that by supporting Hezbollah in its attacks on Israel and al Qaeda in Iraq, he can help to rally the support of the Arab world and deflect attention from the Hariri investigation.

Hezbollah receives over $650 million annually in cash from Iran. It earns another $650 million from phone card monopolies and controls the Internet traffic in Lebanon. Hezbollah is rumored to earn an estimated $300 million annually in brokering drug deals in the region. All told, according to reliable sources, it has an annual war-chest of over $1.6 billion, more than enough to fund terrorism and build up a hidden store of tens of thousands of Katyusha rockets and arms in mountain bunkers in the Bekaa Valley. The PLO armed itself with Soviet assistance in the 70's, but the Israelis were able to neutralize much of this threat. With such unbridled access and money, Hezbollah can arm itself for another generation of death.

Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and al Qaeda see only weakness - a weakness arising from Israel’s vulnerability after the Gaza withdrawal and last week’s border crossing fiasco pushed by Condi Rice and the Arabists in the U.S. State Department. They also are pumped up because they see anti-war activists such as Cindy Sheehan and members of Congress in an uproar demanding an early exit in Iraq.

Sensing Israel and the U.S. on the run, they naturally pounce not only because of the prospect of American forces leaving the region, but also because of possible change in party control in Israel’s Knesset next March. Now, will the world, especially the U.S., do what is right by its best ally and military defense force in the Middle East? The terrorists are watching our consistency and conviction waiting for their opportunity to strike.

Norway staging post for terrorists

Fruits of Multiculturalism Update from Aftenposten, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

The Norwegian Police Security Service (PST) has other persons linked to the 2004 terrorist attack in Madrid and recent terrorism arrests in Italy under surveillance.

The PST believes that Norway is used by 'freelance' terrorists as a place to lie low and plan activities, newspaper VG reports.

By using false identities and convincing cover stories these persons can stay hidden in Norway for long periods, posing as asylum seekers, tourists, or by arranging unfounded family reunions.

Egyptian police detain 1,610 Muslim Brotherhood members

It looks as if Mubarak isn't going to be saguine about the Ikhwan's electoral gains. From Reuters, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

CAIRO - Egyptian police have detained 1,610 members of the Muslim Brotherhood in the two days before the last stage of voting in parliamentary elections, a Brotherhood spokesman said on Wednesday.

Most of the detentions were in provinces which will vote on Thursday, said Brotherhood spokesman Mohamed Osama. A statement on the arrest of 71 leaders in Dakahlia province said the aim was to thwart the Brotherhood’s election campaign.

British police arrest man in probe into suspected terrorist plots

The article doesn't say so, but it is of course probable that he is an Anglican, since as we all know Christianity is just as prone to violence as Islam. From AFP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

LONDON - British police said on Wednesday they have arrested a man as part of an investigation into suspected plans to buy weapons for international terrorist attacks.

The 28-year-old was detained on Tuesday morning near a service station off the M25 motorway in South Mimms, Hertfordshire, north west of London.

“The man has been arrested in connection with an ongoing enquiry into the suspected attempted procurement of weapons linked to international terrorism,” London’s Metropolitan Police said in a statement.

“The arrest was made following an intelligence-led investigation involving police and the security service,” it added.

Iraq: Christian hostages called 'spies'

In reality, they're not spies; they're collaborators. From the Washington Times, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

BAGHDAD -- Al Jazeera television yesterday aired a video of four aid workers kidnapped over the weekend, apparently being held by a previously unknown terrorist group called the "Swords of Righteousness."

The four -- two Canadians, an American and a Briton, members of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) -- sat with their backs against a wall, and looked calm.

A taped statement by the terrorists accused the four of being "spies of the occupying forces." Previous hostages charged with being spies have been beheaded or shot.

EU cannot enforce security at Rafah

Condoleeza Rice compelled the Israelis to give control of the Egypt-Gaza border to the Palestinians, and in the last few days there have been numerous self-congratulatory articles about the "freedom" the Palestinians have felt while crossing to and from Egypt without elaborate security checks. But Israel's main objection to giving up control of the crossing -- that jihad terrorists and war materiel would be able to cross unhindered -- has not been addressed. And the exclusion of the EU from the process takes away just one more check against that eventuality. From Middle East Newsline, with thanks to Gabrielle Goldwater:

TEL AVIV [MENL] -- The European Union has been denied enforcement authority at the Palestinian Authority terminal along the Egypt-Gaza border.

An agreement for the operation of the Rafah border crossing has limited the role of EU personnel to monitoring. Under a Nov. 23 accord, released on Monday by the privately-owned Independent Media Review & Analysis, the EU would not have the authority to either detain suspicious people or confiscate baggage at Rafah....

The accord said an EU monitor could require a PA security officer to re-examine baggage or vehicles deemed suspicious.

But the EU monitor could not order PA officers to block the passage of either suspicious people or baggage. The accord said that an EU monitor unhappy with the performance of PA security officers could register a complaint with their commanders.

Spencer: Fallaci: Warrior in the Cause of Human Freedom

Monday morning there was snow, ice, fog, flooding, locusts, flaming frogs, pestilence, sword, you name it here in Secure Undisclosed Locationville, and the planes weren't running. So I took the world's longest taxicab ride through several states so as not to miss what may have been the last public appearance of one of the heroes of our age, Oriana Fallaci. Then, after finding to my surprise that The City That Never Sleeps does so sleep and that a cup of coffee would be hard to come by, I holed up in a hotel room and wrote this report until 6:30AM Tuesday morning. Here it is, with apologies for any sleep-deprived delirium contained therein, from FrontPage:

“We are gathered here tonight,” announced David Horowitz, “to honor a warrior in the cause of human freedom.”

Oriana Fallaci, who received the Center for the Study of Popular Culture’s Annie Taylor Award in New York Monday evening, has been a warrior for human freedom ever since she joined the anti-fascist resistance in 1944, at age fourteen. For over six decades, she has fought against those she has labeled “the bastards who decide our lives,” opposing all forms of tyranny and oppression, from Mussolini and Hitler to Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. She amassed a fearsome reputation as an interviewer, recounting of Ariel Sharon: “‘I know you’ve come to add another scalp to your necklace,’ he murmured almost with sadness when I went to interview him in 1982.” Other scalps on her necklace include that of Henry Kissinger, who termed his interview with Fallaci “the most disastrous conversation I ever had with any member of the press.” While interviewing the Ayatollah Khomeini, Fallaci called him a “tyrant” and tore off the chador she had had to wear in order to be admitted to his presence. According to Daniel Pipes in his introduction of Fallaci Monday night, she is also apparently one of the few who ever made the irascible old man laugh.

Today, at seventy-five years old, Fallaci still stands for freedom. She is suffering from cancer. She stated with her usual directness at the Taylor Awards ceremony: “I shall not last long.” But she has dedicated the four years since 9/11 to trying to awaken her native Italy, Europe and the world to the magnitude global jihad threat, which most analysts continue, whether from willful blindness, ignorance, or a misplaced strategic imperative, to misapprehend. Pipes noted that “she has her differences with the President. When he says that Islam a ‘religion of peace,’ she has said, ‘each time he says it on TV? I’m there alone, and I watch it and say, “Shut up! Shut up, Bush!” But he doesn’t listen to me.’”

And it isn’t, of course, just Bush. Fallaci spoke fervently Monday evening about how Western nations are selling their own homelands and culture to their mortal enemies. “We seem to live in real democracies,” she said, “but we really live in weak democracies ruled by despotism and fear.” Western elites – government and media – are paralyzed by fear, afraid to speak out against the life-destroying aspects of the Sharia law that Islamic jihadists want to impose on the rest of the world. The risk of offending Muslims is, in their calculus, apparently greater than the risk of national or civilizational suicide. Alexis de Tocqueville, according to Fallaci, explained that in dictatorial regimes, despotism strikes the body: the dissenter is tortured into silence. But in democratic regimes that have succumbed to corruption, despotism ignores the body and strikes at the soul. One is not tortured for dissent; instead, one is discredited for it. To affirm the patent fact that Islam is not a religion of peace today renders one “unelectable,” or “bigoted,” or beyond the bounds of what is fit to print. In despotic democratic regimes, Fallaci observed, everything can be spread except truth.

That is indeed the present-day situation. Most of the liberal and conservative mainstream not only will not feature trenchant criticisms like Fallaci’s of the violent and supremacist impulse within Islam; they will not even discuss them. Those who, like Fallaci, speak the truth about the motives and goals of the jihadists are vilified and marginalized, while the purveyors of comforting half-truths, distortions and lies fill the nation’s airwaves and newsprint. Fallaci herself faces the most frivolous of frivolous lawsuits in Italy for defamation of Islam; a Muslim group tried to have banned her searing, passionate response to 9/11, The Rage and the Pride.

Why does all this happen? In her speech Fallaci explained that it was to a great degree because “truth inspires fear.” When one hears the truth, one can only be silent or join the cause. It is a call to a personal revolution, an upheaval, a departure – perhaps forever – from a life of ease and comfort. So most will prefer not to hear the truth -- in no small part because of the difficulty of living up to it. Yet the real heroes, she said, are “those who raise their voices against anathemas and persecution,” while most succumb -- “and with their silence give their approval to the civil death of those who spoke out.”

“This,” Fallaci declared, “is what I have experienced the last four years.” She described how, since 9/11, the whole of Europe has become a “Niagara Falls of McCarthyism” – with the new Grand Inquisitors of the Left persecuting and victimizing all others. “In Europe, we too have our Ward Churchills, our Noam Chomskys, our Michael Moores, our Lewis Farrakhans.” And they are doing immense damage to the unity, will and cultural identity of the people. In Europe as in America, the new thought police ban Christmas observances to avoid offending Muslims; history is rewritten to depict Islam as having built a civilization of peace and mercy (regardless of the preponderance of evidence to the contrary), while Europe’s own Judeo-Christian civilization is regarded as “a spark of a cigarette – gone.” A spent force. In Leftist-controlled municipalities, police stand idly by while Muslim hooligans demonstrate their contempt for European society and culture by urinating upon and otherwise desecrating churches. Fallaci: “This is considered ‘freedom of expression’ – unless the offense is committed against Muslims.”

Meanwhile, the “religion of peace” myth and other falsehoods that interfere with our ability to defend ourselves are propagated aggressively by elected officials, the media, the Hollywood elite, and the justice system. Defenders of freedom are stripped of credibility and denied the means to get their message across. Or if they do get it across, they are not believed. “I really feel as a Cassandra,” said Fallaci, “or as one of the forgotten anti-fascists.” Yet she wears the Left’s attacks with defiant pride. “Since I wrote the trilogy (La Rabbia e l’Orgoglio (The Rage and the Pride), La Forza della Ragione (The Force of Reason), and L’Apocalisse (The Apocalypse), my real medals are the insults I get from the new McCarthyists.”

Fallaci told the audience that she faced three years in prison in Italy if convicted in her trial for hate speech. “But can hate be prosecuted by law? It is a sentiment. It is a natural part of life. Like love, it cannot be proscribed by a legal code. It can be judged, but only on the basis of ethics and morality. If I have the right to love, then I have the right to hate also.”

Hate? “Yes, I do hate the bin Ladens and the Zarqawis. I do hate the bastards who burn churches in Europe. I hate the Chomskys and Moores and Farrakhans who sell us to the enemy. I hate them as I used to hate Mussolini and Hitler. For the cause of freedom, this is my sacrosanct right.”

What’s more, Fallaci pointed out that Europe’s hate speech laws never seem to be used against the “professional haters, who hate me much more than I hate them”: the Muslims who hate as part of their ideology. While Fallaci faces three years in prison in Italy, “any Muslim can unhook a crucifix from a wall in a school or hospital and throw it into the garbage,” with little fear of consequences. Also unprosecuted, she said, were those responsible for a vile little publication entitled Islam Punishes Oriana Fallaci, which urges Muslims to kill her, invoking five Qur’anic passages about “perverse women.” In Italy Fallaci must be guarded around the clock; but no effort has been made to bring those who threatened her to justice.

Yet for all the isolation and the verbal abuse to which her enemies have subjected her, Fallaci remains indomitable – and has found an unlikely ally in Pope Benedict XVI, whom she warmly praised Monday night. Fallaci, who identified herself as an atheist (a “Catholic atheist”), was the first individual granted a private audience with the new Pope. She stated that the Islamic challenge had opened up a void in the West that only spirituality could fill – “unless the Church also misses its appointment with history. But I don’t think it will.”

Despite these warm words for the Pope and the ancient institution he heads, however, Fallaci announced that at the risk of disappointing many of her hearers, “I am not a conservative. I don’t sympathize with the Right more than I do with the Left. I cannot b associated with the Right or with the Left.” Why not? Because, she said, both Right and Left have been guilty of the “abuse of democracy, demagogic egalitarianism, denial of merit, tyranny of the majority, and lack of self-discipline” that are sapping the strength of Europe today. “Europe’s Islamic invasion has been backed by the Left, yes. But it would never have reached the point it has if the Right had not been complicit.”

Another indication of that complicity was, according to Fallaci, the American Right’s support for the entry of Turkey into the European Union – which both Fallaci and her friend in the Vatican oppose. “European citizens do not want Turkey in our home. Condoleeza Rice should stop exercising realpolitik at our expense.” And in America, she asked why the Right was so complacent before Leftist outrages such as the ongoing war against Christmas, the removal of the Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama courthouse, the amending of the noise ordinance to allow for the Muslim call to prayer over loudspeakers (but not church bells) in Hamtramck, Michigan, and others. Why, she asked, was Ward Churchill not fired for calling the 9/11 victims “Little Eichmanns,” while Michael Graham was fired for suggesting that Islam might have something to do with present-day terrorism?

This, Fallaci concluded, is the war we are really fighting. “I do not see Islamic terrorism as the main weapon of the war that the sons of Allah have unleashed upon us. It is the bloodiest, but not the most pernicious or catastrophic aspect of this war.” Far more dangerous to the West in the long run is unrestricted Muslim immigration, which already has brought at least 25 million Muslims to Europe (not counting, Fallaci said, the huge numbers of illegal aliens). That number will double by 2016 and, as Bernard Lewis and others have predicted, almost certainly create a Muslim Europe by 2100.

Yet all this immigration has not been accompanied by integration and assimilation – not because of European racism, but by the Muslims’ own choice. Fallaci noted that many other groups have assimilated into European societies, but Muslims have not. “They don even care to learn our language. They only obey the rules and laws of Sharia.” They do not want to learn European ways; rather, “they want to impose on us their own habits and way of life. They have no intention of integrating with us. On the contrary, they demand that we integrate with them.” Today’s Islamic expansionism, therefore, does not need the armies and fleets with which the Ottoman Empire once terrorized Europe. It only needs the immigrants, whom short-sighted politicians and befuddled multiculturalists continue to welcome. Fallaci said that Europeans – French, Dutch, Germans, English, Italians – are about to reach the status of the Comanches, Cherokees, and Sioux: “We will end up on their reservation.” She noted that some Muslim spokesmen, confident of their imminent supremacy, already refer to non-Muslim Europeans as “indigenous people” or “aboriginals.”

What to do about all this? Establish dialogue with Muslim leaders? Try to strengthen moderate Islam? Fallaci was dismissive of both options. Muslims have no intention of entering into genuine dialogue with non-Muslims, she said, and “I do not believe in moderate Islam. What moderate Islam? Is it enough not to cut heads off? Moderate Islam is another invention of ours.” Adopting Western dress, she said, was easy; adopting Western values was not.

Then Fallaci threw down the gauntlet to the multicultural, politically correct, and fearful. “There is not,” she asserted, “good Islam or bad Islam. There is just Islam. And Islam is the Qur’an. And the Qur’an is the Mein Kampf of this movement. The Qur’an demands the annihilation or subjugation of the other, and wants to substitute totalitarianism for democracy. Read it over, that Mein Kampf. In whatever version, you will find that all the evil that the sons of Allah commit against themselves and against others is in it.” As jarring as such language is to contemporary sensibilities, Fallaci here made a statement of fact that can be verified or disproved. And indeed: Islamic terrorists such as Osama bin Laden, Zarqawi, and others have never hesitated to quote the Qur’an copiously to justify their actions. It remains for those who identify themselves as moderate Muslims to convince violent Muslims that they are misusing the Qur’an – if indeed they are – and should lay down their arms. They have had no notable success in this so far.

Fallaci’s a voice of rare courage. “I am not as young and energetic as you are,” she told the crowd Monday night. “I am hopelessly ill. I shall not last long.” When she is gone, we may hope – for all our sakes – that many others will be ready to step into the breach and speak the truth as she did, whatever the cost, as she did. As Oriana Fallaci so memorably demonstrated in her address on receiving the Annie Taylor Award, nothing less than our civilization itself is at stake.

Belgian woman, convert to Islam, ID'd as Iraqi suicide bomber

Welcome to Europe's future -- as a source for jihadist recruits. We now have the first European female suicide bomber. And apparently her Muslim husband put her up to this, since evidently he "organized her trip." "Female Belgian suicide bomber hit Baghdad," from UPI, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

BRUSSELS, Nov. 29 (UPI) -- A woman who carried out a suicide attack in Iraq two weeks ago was identified Tuesday as the first European female suicide bomber.

The Belgian anti-terrorism unit has confirmed that the woman was a Belgian citizen who converted to Islam after her marriage to a Muslim fundamentalist, news service RTL reported Tuesday.

American military forces identified the woman at a combat scene in Baghdad. She was carrying recently issued Belgian identity papers which revealed she had traveled via Turkey. There are no traces of her radical husband who is believed to have organized her trip.

Fitzgerald: Shi'a Islam and reality

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses some prevailing misperceptions of Shi'ite Islam, and their sources:

The "typical representatives" of "Shi'a Islam" known to the editors of My Weekly Standard, and to the U.S. Government, have included such highly typical Shi'a (just the kind you find in SCIRI and DAWA and Moqtada al-Sadr's ranks, or the ranks of Hezbollah, or of the basiji) as these: Fouad Ajami, a Lebanese Shi'a who has been in the United States for 3-4 decades; Kanan Makiya, scion of a well-to-do Iraqi family, who has been out of Iraq for 2-3 decades; Ahmad Chalabi, scion of a very well-to-do Iraqi family who has been in the West for nearly fifty years; and Rend al-Rahim Francke, an American citizen since 1987, out of the Middle East for the past 30 years at least, a graduate of the Sorbonne and the University of Cambridge.

Ah yes, quite a collection of "representative" and "typical" Shi'a. That is why Reuel Gerecht and company can complacently place their hopes and dreams on the Shi'a without bothering too much about the Islamic Republic of Iran, taqiyya, or the fact that in Iraq it is (for some paradoxically) the Sunni Ba'athists who are in fact are less eager to return to the full-court press of Islam than the party leaders of DAWA and SCIRI -- although they are now forced to accept aid from non-Iraqi Sunni Muslims who want even more Islam than do the Shi'a, and hate the Shi'a for being "Rafidite dogs" (i.e. Infidels of the worst kind).

Shi'a Islam is as dangerous to Infidels as Sunni Islam. The belief that it is not is simply one more mechanism for holding out hope that it's not Islam, it's just this brand of Islam, which can be "extremist" or "radical" Islam (carefully undefined) or "Wahhabi" Islam or "Wahhabi Salafist" Islam, or "islamofascism" --just season to taste. But Infidels show up on that list of Unclean Things that Shi'a clerics keep. Khomeini and his successors, and assorted ayatollahs and hojatols, are not fans of Infidels. How could they be? Sunni and Shi'a alike read the same Qur'an, with the same bloodcurdling passages. They read (largely) the same Hadith and take as their model the same Muhammad, his life spelled out in the same Sira. Their paths diverged in 661 A.D., after Muhammad had been dead for nearly 30 years. The fury, the rage, the persecution, the warfare -- all that is based on Ali and Hussein, and a whole subsequent mythology, or theology, that has nothing to do with a lessening of hatred for Infidels.

Too many in the West have learned about Shi'a Islam, or think they have learned, by being charmed by charmers. Those charmers still will not describe Islam as the source of the Muslim world's permanent intellectual disarray, its tendency to despotism, its inshallah-fatalism (a substitute for work and entrepreneurial activity), its mistreatment of women and minorities. They simply cannot bring themselves to utter a public word about Islam except, at times, to claim to be freethinkers (as Kanan Makiya has) and then, in the next moment, to become angrily defensive if it is sensed that Islam itself is being attacked.

Extraordinary. The psychology of the "moderate" Muslim, the unobservant and worldly and practically "Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only" Muslim who nonetheless cannot bear to consider that Islam itself is the problem, is what creates such an abyss between those who have seen their way clear -- the real apostates, such as Ibn Warraq -- and those who just can't, just won't. The value of those who just can’t, to us, the Infidels, is therefore, from here on out, far more limited than we have allowed ourselves, heretofore, to believe. We have been content merely with the fact that Fouad Ajami and Kanan Makiya and Azar Nafisi are good guys (or girls), who saw right through and exposed Edward Said. But they just can't go along the same path with us any longer. Their refusal to analyze Islam limits them.

That's it. It was nice while it lasted. But now the Infidel world has to find its guides to Islam not from the most presentable, plausible, friendly, articulate, unobservant, Western-educated, and entirely unrepresentative Muslims, whether Sunni or Shi'a, but from the defectors from Islam -- just as was done with defectors from Communism, and not the nicest, kindest, most plausible party members, during the Cold War.

A change. A big and necessary change. We were led astray in Iraq. We were prevented from seeing that Islam, the spread of Islam, and the islamization of Europe with or without terrorism, is the problem.

That mistake must not continue to be made. It will be cruel to some to regard them warily, and to take their views as Muslims with assorted grains of sea salt. But there is at stake here something much more important than the hurt feelings of those very nice quasi-Muslims. Much more important.

Iran president had ‘religious vision’ during UN speech

The Thug-In-Chief of Iran imagines himself as an emissary of an apparently equally bullying deity. From Financial Times via Regime Change Iran, with thanks to Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi:

A leading website in Iran has published a transcript and video recording of President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad claiming to have felt “a light” while addressing world leaders at the United Nations in New York in September. Baztab.com – a website linked to Mohsen Rezaei, former commander of the Revolutionary Guards – said the recording was made in a meeting between the president and Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi-Amoli, one of Iran’s leading Shia Muslim clerics.

According to the transcript, Mr Ahmadi-Nejad said someone present at the UN, possibly from his entourage, subsequently told him: “When you began with the words ‘In the name of God’… I saw a light coming, surrounding you and protecting you to the end [of the speech].” Mr Ahmadi-Nejad said he sensed a similar presence.

“I felt it myself, too, that suddenly the atmosphere changed and for 27-28 minutes the leaders could not blink,” the transcript continues. “I am not exaggerating…because I was looking. All the leaders were puzzled, as if a hand held them and made them sit. They had their eyes and ears open for the message from the Islamic Republic.”

Natan Sharansky and Robert Spencer

I am on the left, and the great human rights defender Natan Sharansky is on the right, in Jerusalem, November 20, 2005.

And what are the two books Sharansky is holding?

Jurors' Religion Issue in Moussaoui Trial

I wonder if they will be making sure that every juror believes that Islam is a religion of peace. From AP, with thanks to Sheik Yer'mami:

WASHINGTON - Federal prosecutors want to know the religious beliefs and practices of potential jurors who will decide whether the only person charged in the United States in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks receives the death penalty or life in prison.

In a court filing Monday, the prosecutors listed 89 questions, many with multiple parts, designed to discern the views that prospective jurors have about Islam, the death penalty, the U.S. government and the defendant, Zacarias Moussaoui, 37, a French citizen of Moroccan descent.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema will decide which questions will be asked. She already has decided that 500 potential jurors will be summoned to the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Va., on Feb. 6 to begin what is expected to be a month-long jury selection process.

Spencer: Israel, Front Line of the Global Jihad

In FrontPage this morning I expand upon my initial observations on my recent trip to Israel:

Israel has become the world’s new South Africa: the villain du jour, the universal oppressor, the whipping-boy of the United Nations. Its foes have even applied the South African concept of apartheid to its policies. The global Left eagerly propagates the view that Israel, which has been repeatedly attacked by its neighbors, is by virtue of its very existence actually an aggressor state. The only free Western-style democracy in the Middle East (with the increasingly shaky exception of Turkey on the northern margins of the area) has received more world opprobrium than the brutal regimes of Assad, Ahmadinejad, and even the lamented (at least by Ramsey Clark) Saddam Hussein.

Boosters of the Palestinian cause routinely refer to Israelis and their supporters as Nazis. In January 2005, Iqbal Sacranie of the Muslim Council of Britain reached the apex of moral equivalence. He announced that his group would boycott a commemoration of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp: “we have now expressed our unwillingness to attend the ceremony because it excludes ongoing genocide and human rights abuses around the world and in the occupied territories of Palestine.”

Yet although Muslim spokesmen such as Sacranie, the international Left, and many others -- including some of the Arabic-speaking Christians with whom I am in daily contact -- believe fervently that Israel is the aggressor against an innocent and aggrieved Palestinian people, and that the conflict is wholly and solely about “stolen land,” the facts are otherwise. In reality, Israel is at the front line of the global jihad movement. Ever since the State of Israel was founded in 1948, and even before, it has faced jihadist opposition from groups adamant in their determination to destroy it utterly. Yet I expect that a poll of Americans would find only a tiny minority would affirm that Israel faces the same foe, with the same ideology, as the one the United States has faced since 9/11.

I was recently offered, and immediately seized, an opportunity to see for myself. Last week, I had the chance to:

• Explore the Muslim Quarter and other sections of Jerusalem’s Old City, the world’s holiest place and largest tourist trap. The ancient streets are barely passable, crowded as they are with tiny shops (all holding pretty much the same inventory, with a few minor variations) in which canny Muslim entrepreneurs sell Christian religious articles to eager Western visitors (“And because I love you like a brother, and see that you appreciate the finer things, I will give you a special price…”). One told me how happy he was to see tourists again, after years of intifada had driven them away.

• Visit and pray at the Western Wall, site of so much human longing.

• Peer into Syria from an Israeli bunker on the Golan Heights. The mountainous Golan is breathtakingly beautiful, although that beauty is broken here and there by the remnants of the 1967 and 1973 wars: bullet-riddled bunkers, rusted hulks of war machines. But most of this has been cleared away, for Israel has no room to spare; virtually every inch of land right up to the present border with Syria is cultivated. In stark contrast sits the Syrian ghost town of Quneitra, which the Syrians have left abandoned as a monument to Israeli atrocities ever since the Israelis withdrew from it in 1974. The international media has swallowed this tall tale as well, despite abundant evidence that Quneitra was in ruins before the Israelis ever got there.

• Travel by bulletproof bus through the West Bank, and inspect the security fence.

• Sleep (fitfully) in a Bedouin tent in the desert, and savor the stark magnificence of the rocky, mountainous landscape.

• Walk through the 700-year-old streets of Safed, modern-day home of, among other things, a notable artistic quarter. In this I was not too far from where Hizb’Allah rockets fell – unprovoked, as was noted even by the United Nations -- a few days later near Kiryat Shmona and Metulla.

• Stroll around modern Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

I also had the honor of meeting the Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Jerusalem, Shlomo Moshe Amar, and Soviet dissident and heroic human rights activist Natan Sharansky. In the course of Sharansky’s moving address he noted that Israel had again and again aided Christians -- at their own request -- against Islamic violence and injustice, most notably when the Church of the Nativity was occupied by jihadists in 2002. Yet international Christian leaders, he said, have not responded with similar gestures toward Israel. This is unfortunate in the extreme both for Israel and for Palestinian Christians: those Christians are going to be in for a rude surprise when the Islamic state so many of them are abetting actually takes power, and they find life more difficult for them than it was in Israel. Christians in the Middle East are in a virtually impossible position (which is why they are streaming out of the area). If the support the Islamic agenda, they are signing their own return to the second-class status of the dhimma, as mandated by the traditional Islamic law that jihadists are bent on restoring. If they support Israel, they risk being targeted by the jihadists, who surround them on all sides.

I met a couple who had recently been evacuated by the Israeli government from their West Bank “settlement,” where they had lived and worked for twelve years, and endured daily gunfire from Palestinians since the Al-Aqsa intifada began in September 2000. I met an American who now lives and works on a kibbutz in the Golan Heights, cultivating land just across the Syrian border, in defiance of the danger involved. Like so many other Israelis all over the country, he must carry a gun at all times. I photographed a large, confidently imposing, and clearly thriving mosque near my hotel in Tel Aviv, the very existence of which stands as poignant refutation of the charge that Muslims are oppressed in Israel -- especially in light of the glaring non-existence of synagogues in Muslim lands and the precarious existence of churches in them.

Israel is a country at war, a country under siege. Everywhere I went, even into a shopping mall in Tel Aviv, armed guards stood at the entry, searching everyone. Many Israelis with whom I spoke discussed the weariness of the people after decades and decades of war. They said that many, and maybe even a majority, are willing to cut any deal, even one involving giving up half of Jerusalem, in order to buy a peace that they themselves acknowledge will last only a few years.

Yet the game is by no means over. At the same time, there is a tremendous spirit among the people. I saw the greenhouses and agricultural projects making the desert bloom, and the determination of so many not to be intimidated, not to bow in the face of jihad violence. Long may they prosper.

Israel stands virtually alone in the world not only because of lingering antisemitism, but because Palestinian Arabs and their allies have succeeded in convincing opinion-makers that their land was taken illegitimately by Israel, and that they are oppressed there. The facts are otherwise, as I have discussed in a previous article here. The state was established legitimately and with the approval of the United Nations, and even the “occupied territories” were obtained according to what have been universally recognized throughout history as the rules of war. (Or should the United States give up the “occupied territories” of California, Texas, and other Western states? Should Russia withdraw from its “occupied territories” in Königsberg, eastern Finland and eastern Poland? Should Muslims across North Africa, the Middle East, Iran, India and Southeast Asia withdraw from those “occupied territories” back to Arabia?)

While I am sympathetic to genuine Palestinian Arab refugees, and with my friends from Ramallah and Jenin, I can’t help but notice the role of the neighboring Arab states in exacerbating and prolonging the refugee problem for political reasons that are ultimately rooted in the jihad ideology. I can’t help but notice that I was able to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Mount Tabor, and other Christian holy sites in Israel, which mean a great deal to me personally, while Bethlehem, under Palestinian Authority control, has become a dangerous place from which Christians are fleeing as quickly as they can. I can’t help but notice that there was no call to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza between 1948 and 1967, when those territories were under Jordanian and Egyptian control respectively -- despite the alleged difference of nationality between Palestinians and Jordanians and Egyptians.

Ultimately, if the nations of the world are interested in defending universal human rights and the equality of dignity of all people, they need to stand with Israel. Misdiagnosis of the problem -- that is, the unwillingness or inability of Western governments to acknowledge the motives and goals of the jihadists who want above all to destroy them -- has largely prevented this.

Yet as Benjamin Franklin said long ago in a far different context, we must all hang together, or we will most assuredly all hang separately.

Stockholm Mosque Calls for Exterminating Jews

Meet the new Europe, same as the old Europe. Note that this call was not just for destroying the Jewish State and rendering the Jews dhimmis. It was for killing them -- probably because they would be considered kuffar harbi: unbelievers at war with Islam.

And this cassette, containing the call, was not sold furtively by some greasy multi-pierced skinhead who would repulse all those who love home and family. This cassette was sold in a mosque in Stockholm, Sweden. And it was sold without any reported uprising from the Vast Majority of Moderate Muslims in that mosque, protesting against the demonization, vilification, and calls to murder their fellow People of the Book, for whom they have so much respect, the Jews. Instead, mosquegoers apparently let it all pass, perhaps due to long years of conditioning about the evil qualities of the Jews as shown in the Qur'an.

From Israel National News, with thanks to Twostellas:

(IsraelNN.com) Swedish Radio News (SRN) reported today that a Stockholm mosque is selling cassettes calling for a genocidal holy war against the Jews. According to SRN, the cover of one of the cassettes shows a picture of the Statue of Liberty draped in a burning American flag.

Sales of cassettes promoting genocide are illegal in Sweden. A spokesman for the mosque blamed volunteers for stocking the mosque bookstore with the cassettes.

Of course, we knew nothing, we never saw it before, etc. etc. etc.

Iran officials said to have met, discussed nukes

1938 update from AP, with thanks to Mackie:

VIENNA, Austria — Top Iranian officials met less than two months ago to weigh whether to restart their country's uranium enrichment program -- a possible pathway to nuclear arms, according to a confidential report cited by diplomats Friday.

The diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, referred to a report being circulated among the 35-board members of the International Atomic Energy Agency citing an Iranian government source on his country's plans for enrichment.

The four-page report cited the Iranian Foreign Ministry source as saying chief Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani met with members of the country's nuclear negotiating team in late October to discuss the timing of resuming the enrichment program, one of the envoys told The Associated Press.

"It wasn't a particular suggestion that they were ready to do it anytime soon," the diplomat said. Still, he said the meeting was yet another indication that the Iranians were intent on keeping control of the enrichment process -- at least before the prospect was floated several weeks ago of new negotiations with key European powers meant to keep the technology out of their hands.

Jihad Watch: Left or Right?

I haven't wanted to do this, but I have been requested now to do so, as there is an ongoing partisan rumble in the comments field that detracts from what we are trying to do here as much as do the intemperate comments CAIR tried to hang me with (although I didn't write them) and the jihad apologists who also drop in from time to time.

The present conflict revolves around the assumption that because Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald's positions are not recognizably or currently of the "Right," they must be of the "Left." Or that if someone, anyone, is not part of the One, he must be part of the Other.

Beyond the question of Hugh's sense of direction, some are -- and have been for months -- continuing to try to make this site a forum for partisan wrangling, despite bans, threats to ban, mild entreaties, etc. This is as if I had set up a tent in which I could speak my mind, and others set themselves up at its entrance, pushing their own agendas. This is not a matter of free speech -- it is all happening on my nickel only.

In any case, please try to read without prejudice. Both Hugh and I -- Hugh much more eloquently and persistently than I -- have argued that the jihad threat demands a breaking and reconstruction of paradigms. The threat does not come from the "Left" or the "Right," and those hoary old methods of distinguishing the Good Guys from the Bad are now causing more confusion than illumination, more harm than good, more heat than light. They are not helpful. They are getting in the way.

Kerry was clueless. He wanted to give nuclear fuel to Iran. In saying that I must be a Republican, right? Bush is clueless. He continues to allow us to be dependent on the Saudis without making any move to free us from them. In saying that I must be a Democrat, right?

In March 2003, just before Operation Iraqi Freedom began, I wrote an article criticizing as unrealistic the President's plan to bring democracy to the Middle East. I have linked to it here many times. Alas, it seems to have been taken down, but here is a cached link.

I based my argument on the nature of Islam and the Sharia, saying that it was unlikely that Muslims in large numbers were going to forsake what they saw as the law of God for law based on human consensus.

Hugh has expanded on this point in many, many columns. Some have asked if I agree with them. I find the question astounding (which is why I have so far not answered it), since I gave him his position on the Board of this organization of which I am the founder, and I edit and post his columns myself. But from what I have seen, Hugh's position has been persistently misunderstood and misrepresented by those who cannot see out of the old Left/Right box.

Is the idea that the democratization of Iraq is the wrong way to go about defeating the global jihad a "liberal" position, since liberals oppose the ongoing Iraqi adventure for utterly different reasons? Only if your worldview is irremediably bipolar. Why? Speaking for myself, note that my March 2003 article touches on none of the contemporary Leftist concerns: no body counts, no quagmires, none of it. The war, you'll recall, hadn't even started when I wrote it. Yet it is not foursquare with the Republican program. Also, I have criticized Bush and Rice, and allowed them to be criticized in articles here, quite harshly for their persistent misapprehension of the problem we face.

So is all this "Leftist" or "Rightist"? If you answer one or the other, you're not paying attention. Is it possible? Could it be? Might a third alternative be possible -- even desirable? Might our survival as a nation and a civilization demand some new, courageous thinking, and a recognition that all -- all -- our parties and factions are threatened by this thing, threatened mortally, and that none of them -- none -- have yet come to grips with the implications of that? And that since none of them have done so, it is manifestly time for some new formulations?

Other issues? I refuse to discuss them. Are we going to argue about tax rates while the barbarians fly airplanes into our strongholds and use our own tolerance and good will to subvert us from within?

This is not to say, finally, that both sides are equivalent. While I have criticized Bush and Rice, I do believe that at this point the Right is generally less sold out to the jihad than the Left. This opinion is based on evidence, not emotion, and I make no apologies for it. The fact that my publishers are all of "the Right" is one indication of its being correct. I also devoted an entire chapter of my book Onward Muslim Soldiers to this fact. It was called "Everybody must get stoned: the strange alliance between radical Islam and the post-1960s Left." If, however, the Left began to see that its pet causes are mortally threatened by the jihad, and hence the value of defending Western civilization, no one would be happier than I.

Of course, all this will not sit well with partisans of either stripe. My negative reference to the Left in the above paragraph will no doubt soon induce some regular commentators to declaim, yet again, about the depredations of Bush, which supposedly outweigh 1,000 Leftist appeasers and fifth columnists. The fact that I have noted those depredations on many occasions will never be good enough.

All in all, Left, Right, and center, I am going to continue resisting the jihad, in the name of the equality of dignity of all people -- including the non-Muslims and women who would lose that equality in the Sharia states the jihadists want to establish.

And I ask you all to mute your partisanship and try to think of ways we can beat this thing instead of ways we can beat each other. Neither side of the American political divide has been or is perfect on this issue. So what? It is not time for recriminations. It is time for survival.

Bin Laden WMD chief once lived in Canada

Not that this should make anyone rethink the marvelous open borders of Western countries. Oh, no. That would be a violation of the natural human right everyone has to enter a modern Western pluralistic state, even if he wants to subvert it from within.

"Bin Laden WMD chief once lived in B.C.," from the National Post, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Osama bin Laden's chief weapons of mass destruction broker is a former resident of a Vancouver suburb, a Federal Court judge disclosed yesterday in ruling on a related case.

In a 105-page decision handed down in Ottawa, Judge Eleanor Dawson said Canadian intelligence investigators had determined that Mubarak Al Duri, an Iraqi, had once lived in Richmond, B.C.

The ruling does not say when Al Duri, whom the judge said was "reported to be Osama bin Laden's principal procurement agent for weapons of mass destruction," had lived in Canada.

But she said Al Duri had associated with Toronto-based terror suspect Mohamed Mahjoub after December, 1995, and may have also associated with terrorist Essam Marzouk, who lived in B.C. until 1998.

President Fitzgerald's State of the Union Address

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald, ever ready to be helpful, offers a State of the Union Speech to the President, should he decide to reconfigure America's military posture to bring it more into line with the realities of the global jihad:

Leaving Iraq does not have to be accompanied by defeatist rhetoric, or by any language that will give the jihadists grounds to claim victory in the words of the President himself. Let's put it into a State of the Union Speech:

"Today is an important day in the history of America's war to make the world safer for freedom. In Iraq, the American people can be proud of their soldiers. In three weeks they took down a tyrant who had murdered hundreds of thousands of his fellow Iraqis, a man who had been in power for a quarter-century, and whose regime seemed prepared to rule for another quarter-century. And we did far more than remove a regime. Our soldiers built schools and hospitals. They helped build water-treatment plants, and build or rebuild electricity grids. We cleared, with our allies the British, Iraq's port of Umm Qasr. We did this, we did that. Here is the list of just some of the things our soldiers and civilians in Iraq managed to do (here the President can fill out his speech with some more details about American accomplishments in Iraq, ad libitum).

"And we did more. We trained, to Western standards, from a standing start, the new 'Iraqi' forces, the army and the police. And we realize now that not only are the Iraqis ready to stand on their own, but that -- every opinion poll tells us-- they want to stand on their own. From the support offered by the Iraqi delegation at the Arab League, to every opinion poll among Iraqi Arabs, it is clear that it makes sense for us to leave now. No matter how much we have accomplished, we are still seen, in a sense, as outsiders, and we must be sensitive to local opinion. For if we are not, we would risk, the Iraqis would risk, undoing all that has been done. We entered Iraq in order to enable the 'Iraqis' to stand on their own feet. It is time now for them to do so.

"All of us can agree that it makes far more sense, now that the second set of elections is complete, to allow the 'Iraqis' to arrive at the compromises among themselves that only they can make. Of course we wish them well, and of course we hope now that their fellow Arab and Muslim countries will certainly cancel whatever remaining debt is owed to them, and certainly lend them money against future oil revenues, given all that those Arab and Muslim states have. We have done what we can. We can do no more. Our presence, we conclude, might now lead to the very reverse of what we hope the Iraqis themselves will have the good sense to achieve -- a stable 'Iraq,' in which the compromises that make democracies work will take place.

"Oh, there are the nay-sayers. There are those who keep telling us that Islam and democracy, Islam and respect for minorities, Islam and respect for women and non-Muslims, cannot coexist. Well, we know that isn't true. We know that the 'Iraqi people' will prove that to be untrue. We have great faith in the 'Iraqi people.' We are sure that they are ready to stand on their own, and to defeat the terrorists who would deny them their chance at democracy. From those blue thumbs held proudly in the air last January, to all the careful effort that went into crafting, and then holding a referendum to approve, a Constitution, right to the December elections held just a month ago, Iraq has defied the nay-sayers.

"Well, obviously we have been there a long time. For some of us, far too long. No doubt there are some 'Iraqis' who would wish us to stay for much longer. But we cannot. It isn't good for them, and it isn't good for us. That is why, in my State of the Union message today, I am announcing the withdrawal, by August 1, 2006, of all American troops, and in collaboration with our Coalition allies, of all other foreign troops as well from Iraq. Should a need arise, in a particular region, for special assistance, and such assistance is deemed in the national interest of the United States, requests for such aid will be carefully considered. But we removed a tyrant, and the tyrant's regime -- and he sits now in Baghdad, tried by his fellow Iraqis. It is a splendid moment for democracy, for the United States and for Iraq.

"Goodnight, and God Bless America."

Something like that. The speech above took about 2 minutes to compose. With a staff of ten presidential speechwriters, it shouldn't take the White House more than a week.

Bangladesh: one killed in bomb attack; A-Q threat to blow up US, EU missions

Bangladesh jihad update. "One killed in Chuadanga bomb attack: Threat to blow up US, EU missions, kill SC judges," from The New Nation, with thanks to Nicolei:

Embassies of the USA and the European Union, including the UK in Dhaka received e-mail threat yesterday that members of the Al-Qaida would blow those [sic] up.

An e-mail was sent by one Manik Hossain to the UK Embassy from Faridganj, in Chandpur. The sender identified himself as a member of the Asia Al- Qaida suicide squad....

Meanwhile, in the capital outlawed Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) has threatened to kill Supreme Court judges and lawyers for what it said delivering judgement after taking bribes.

Meanwhile, one person was killed and five others were injured in a bomb attack at Alamdanga in Chuadanga district and three other journalists received death threats from JMB in Barisal yesterday.

Philippines: converts to Islam helping jihadists, slipping by cops

Why do converts to Islam turn to violent jihad? Because they are misled by jihadists, or because they approach the Qur'an and Hadith without cultural baggage, and see its demands clearly? The Western world assumes the former. But on what evidence? Is this a safe assumption? Might not this matter bear investigation by authorities? Or would that violate multiculturalist dogma? "In Philippines, watchful eye on converts: Most are peaceful, but some former Christians help Islamic terrorists, slipping by police," from the Christian Science Monitor, with thanks to Nicolei:

MANILA, PHILIPPINES – Four years ago, Joey Ledesma went home and told his mother, a devout Roman Catholic, that he had "returned" to Islam.

Her reaction was shock and anger; they argued and fought. In the room where he prayed, she stuck pictures of the Virgin Mary to the wall facing Mecca. A cousin asked him, "Why are you acting so crazy? You're one of us."

Mr. Ledesma, who now calls himself Yousuf, has since separated from his Catholic wife after a tug-of-war over the religious upbringing of their young son.

As his family ties frayed, Ledesma found a stronger sense of community and purpose at the mosque. In particular, he bonded with other converts, known as 'Balik Islam,' or returnees to Islam. Their shared belief is that Filipinos were originally Muslims before Spanish colonizers imposed Catholicism, so they are returning to their faith.

Lesdesma is one of an estimated 200,000 Filipinos who have converted to Islam since the 1970s, joining about 4 million Muslims from the southern Philippines who are ethnically different from the heavily Christianized areas. At first, their numbers were too small to attract much notice from authorities. That is, until Philippine security forces began focusing on the role of Muslim converts in extremist violence.

What they found was a disturbing pattern: Islamic insurgents were using cells of militant converts as terrorist operatives to strike targets in Manila. Police say a detained Balik Islam militant has confessed to planting a bomb on a ferry that killed more than 100 people in February 2004. Other detainees are linked to a foiled truck bombing in Manila that targeted the US Embassy, say officials.

Investigators say that Islamic converts can evade ethnic profiling by police, opening up a new front for groups like Abu Sayyaf that are being squeezed by US-aided military offensives in the south. "This tactical alliance [between southern insurgents and Islamic converts] will emerge to challenge the government in new ways," warns Rodolfo Mendoza, a senior police official who tracks Islamic militants.

Read it all.

Reformers work to rid 'diet of hate' from Muslim textbooks

How far will they go? From AP, with thanks to Nicolei:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Page after page, self-appointed hate hunters underline passages in Pakistani schoolbooks.

They flag hard-edged Muslim views toward other faiths, such as those describing past efforts by Hindus and Christians to ''erase'' Muslims. They note sections that speak of martyrdom and the duty to battle perceived religious enemies.

So I guess they block out Qur'an 9:29, which commands that Muslims make war against Jews and Christians: "Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued."

I guess they will block out scores of ahadith supporting this passage as well.

''We are fighting for the future of Islam. Children are sometimes being force-fed a diet of hate, anger and intolerance,'' said Ahmad Salim, leader of a campaign to push Pakistan's education system to remove what activists consider extreme language and images from the curriculum....

In Jordan -- the target of triple suicide blasts Nov. 9 claimed by al-Qaida -- another overhaul is expected in next year's textbooks, part of a process that includes making clear distinctions between terrorism and what that nation sees as legitimate struggles, such as the Palestinian intifada, or uprising. Even Saudi Arabia has started to rewrite its highly conservative lessons after worries they were encouraging home-grown radicals.

Much of the concern among reformers is how students learn about jihad, or holy war -- a concept that encompasses all acts on behalf of Islam. It's clear some textbooks pay homage -- directly or indirectly -- to violence.

'Blood gladdens my soul'

''Recognize the importance of jihad in every sphere of life,'' say the curriculum guidelines for Pakistan's elementary schools. Critics claim the message is often interpreted in malignant ways: strong denunciations of Pakistan's historical Hindu rivals in India or sympathy for Islamic guerrillas in Kashmir and elsewhere.

In a Palestinian seventh-grade Arabic language book, a protest poem called "The Martyr" includes the lines: ''And the flow of blood gladdens my soul. ... And who asks for a noble death, here it is.''

The Palestinians' 11th grade Islamic Culture book has dozens of appeals for Islamic solidarity to confront ''enemies'' such as Israel, its allies and Western culture. ''The Islamic nation needs to spread the spirit of jihad and the love of self-sacrifice [martyrdom] among its sons,'' reads one passage.

So I guess Qur'an 9:111 will have to go also: "Allah hath purchased of the believers their persons and their goods; for theirs (in return) is the garden (of Paradise): they fight in His cause, and slay and are slain..."

And if we're red-lining passages that inculcate love for death, Qur'an 62:6 will have to be nixed: "Say (O Muhammad): O ye who are Jews! If ye claim that ye are favoured of Allah apart from (all) mankind, then long for death if ye are truthful."

Etc. etc. etc.

Charity cash for Palestinian poor was siphoned to suicide bombers

This is what the great human rights activists of the Western world are supporting. This is where Palestinian Christians have placed their hope. All on a culture of dishonesty and murder. From The Independent, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

Millions of pounds donated by British and other European charities to help the Palestinian poor were unwittingly diverted to fund terror and support the families of suicide bombers, Israeli prosecutors claimed yesterday.

Ahmed Salatna, 43, a Hamas activist from the West Bank town of Jenin, was remanded in custody by a military court charged with distributing €9m (£6.2m) for such purposes over the past nine years. The recipients are alleged to have included the family of a young man who blew himself up at the Sbarro pizza restaurant in Jerusalem in August 2001, killing 15 people and wounding 107. Hamas and Islamic Jihad acknowledged responsibility.

The charge sheet names two British charities, Human Appeal International and Interpal. Human Appeal is a broadly based fundraising organisation, currently helping victims of the Pakistani earthquake. Interpal describes itself as "a non-political, non-profit-making charity that focuses solely on the provision of relief and development aid to the poor and needy of Palestine". No one was available for comment at its London office yesterday. Other charities mentioned were the French CBST, the Italian ABSPT and the Al-Aqsa Foundation, which operates in Austria, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden.

Mr Salatna, who has directed an Islamic charity in Jenin since Israel released him in 1996 after serving three years for Hamas activity, was arrested in September. Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman, said Mr Salatna directly transferred the European funds to Hamas cells, suicide bombers and their families.

Mr Rosenfeld said: "Jenin is known as the capital of the suicide bombers. There is no doubt in police minds that Mr Salatna's arrest will be a major blow to those who rely on economic support from Hamas in order to carry out terrorist acts and to give their families financial backing."

A friendly reminder

A series of emails I have received lately suggests to me that many of you don't know that Jihad Watch is not one, but two weblogs.

The other is called Dhimmi Watch. It covers the oppression of non-Muslims in Islamic societies, as mandated by Sharia law, as well as the oppression of women, since Sharia also mandates that, and the supine willingness of American academics and media types to parrot jihadist propaganda and whitewash Islamic teachings that inspire violence.

It too is updated daily. Find it here.

Yemen executes Muslim cleric

From the AFP:

A hardline Muslim cleric has been executed by firing squad in Yemen after being convicted of the murder three years ago of an official in the opposition socialist party.

Ali Ahmed Jarallah was executed on Sunday in the courtyard of the main Sanaa prison in the presence of his family, judges and lawyers, judicial sources said, after President Ali Abdallah Saleh upheld the death penalty against him.

Jarallah, an imam or prayer leader at a mosque in Sanaa, was convicted of the murder in 2002 of Jarallah Omar, the deputy leader of the Yemeni Socialist Party, and his sentence was upheld by an appeals court in April.

Jarallah said in a confession in July 2003 that he had acted alone in shooting Omar at a party conference in Sanaa the previous year.

He claimed that the killing was part of a jihad, or holy war, against converts to Christianity and infidels.

Six other people were jailed for between three and 10 years for belonging to a gang that the cleric allegedly created to murder socialists, Arab nationalists and converts to Christianity.

Jarallah had been a member of Yemen's Islamist Al-Islah Party, but quit the movement shortly before the killing, complaining that it had gone soft on Westerners and minority Islamic sects.

Back in the fold

Is this the future of Europe once Turkey is allowed to join the "elite" club? From Iran Focus:

London, Nov. 27 – Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki will travel on Wednesday to Turkey, a country that once expelled him for his involvement in terrorism when he was the Islamic Republic’s ambassador to Ankara.

Mottaki, 52, has been accused of involvement in a series of terrorist attacks in Turkey in the late 1980s, according to Iranian exiles and defectors from the theocratic regime.

Turkish authorities had asked him to leave the country in 1989, when he was Iran’s ambassador in Ankara, after his role in several terrorist incidents in Turkey became known.

Abolhassan Mojtahedzadeh, chairman of the Brussels-based Association of Victims of the Iranian Regime’s Terrorism, said his group was consulting Turkish lawyers to find legal avenues to have Mottaki arrested in Turkey.

Mojtahedzadeh himself was abducted in Istanbul in 1988 and taken to the Iranian consulate, where he was tortured. Several days later, Turkish police miraculously found him in the boot of an official Iranian embassy vehicle only a few kilometres from the Iranian border, as Tehran’s diplomats were trying to smuggle him to Iran.

According to Simon Bailey of the London-based Gulf Intelligence Monitor, Ankara’s decision to host Mottaki will not help the government’s image as it tries to prove its democratic credentials to be admitted to the European Union.

“Ankara has been taking a very lenient approach to Iran’s excesses”, Bailey said. “Turkish police arrested an Iranian man, Masoud Amiri, in Istanbul back in July, because there was an international arrest warrant for him over his role in the bombing of the Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires in 1994. But when Iran made some threatening gestures, the Turks let him go”.

Mottaki is a former Deputy Foreign Minister and served as Iran’s ambassador to Japan.

As a radical Islamist in his student days in India’s Bangalore University, Mottaki was a fervent supporter of Ayatollah Khomeini. He returned to Iran during the revolution and joined the ranks of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) soon after the fall of the Shah’s regime in 1979. After taking part in the bloody campaign against Kurdish dissidents, Mottaki moved to the Foreign Ministry, where for some time he was the IRGC liaison officer.

Mottaki was appointed Iran’s ambassador to Turkey in 1985 and it was during his tenure in Ankara that the Revolutionary Guard-turned-diplomat became involved in a number of terror attacks and assassinations of dissidents, according to Iranian opposition figures and defectors. In the 1980s and the early 1990s, at least 50 Iranian dissidents were kidnapped or assassinated in Turkey by Iranian secret agents often working closely with diplomats from Iran’s embassy and consulates.

Dissent in the camp

According to this report from the AP, all is not going well for Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

TEHRAN, Iran - Critics say the 1980s-style radicalism of ultraconservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is hurting Iran at home and abroad - to the point that even his natural allies in parliament have rejected his three choices to run the all-important oil ministry.

The Islamic hard-liner appears undeterred, but pragmatists in the ruling hierarchy are growing restless and looking for ways to contain him.

``Ahmadinejad's behavior has annoyed many fellow conservatives. That he doesn't like to consult with anybody outside his small circle of old friends is a reality,'' said Ghodratollah Rahmani, a conservative writer.

``He doesn't consult even with knowledgeable people in his own camp.''

Even extremists within the hard-line camp want Ahmadinejad to be more responsive to their advice.

``If he doesn't want to hear no for a fourth time, he has to consult with people outside his circle of friends,'' said Mohammad Nabi Habibi, leader of the Islamic Coalition Society.

Since taking office in August, Ahmadinejad has jettisoned Iran's moderation in foreign policy and pursued a purge in the government, replacing pragmatic veterans with former military commanders and inexperienced religious hard-liners.

The former Tehran mayor's aim is to install a new generation of rulers who will revive the radical fundamentalist goals pursued in the 1980s under the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, father of the 1979 revolution that toppled Iran's pro-Western shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

All pragmatists, including those seeking better ties with the West, have either lost their posts or likely will lose them soon, pushing the government toward an ever more radical stance in the already volatile Middle East and in the international dispute over Iran's nuclear program, which the United States believes is seeking to build weapons.

Read it all.

Bangladesh: Bomb panic at city high school

On the heels of a crippling nationwide general strike waged by opposition groups determined to oust the ruling Islamist-allied government comes this high school bomb scare out of Dhaka. From The New Nation:

The students and teachers of city’s Khilgaon High School panicked Sunday afternoon at sight of a bomb-like device set under the table of the assistant headmistress in the teachers’ common room.

School sources said a guardian first saw an envelop, which contained a bunch of handwritten letters, lying at a corner of the guardians’ waiting-room at about 1:15PM.

Out of curiosity she picked one letter out of the open envelop that cautioned that a number of time bombs were planted at different places in the school, including the room of the assistant headmistress.

“If Islamic education as per the Quran and Hadith was not introduced in the school within two days, the bombs would be detonated with remote-control,” says the note of warning and ultimatum from the banned Islamic outfit Harkatul Jihad, Khilgaon unit.

Witnesses said the discovery sent all in the sprawling campus into panic, during the rush after the end of one-shift examination and the entry of examinees for the second-shift exam.

After a hectic search, a container wrapped with a red tape and fitted to circuit, batteries and wires was found under the table of Aloka Ghosh, the assistant headmistress. A small tin-pot—like one that holds explosives for a time bomb—was also set to the device.

Headmaster Jasimuddin Bhuiyan claimed it as a “hoax”, saying that someone did it “to create panic among the students and guardians”.

Certainly, the good headmaster must be aware that the "someone" who perpetrated this "hoax" was not joking. Or is he?

Linking Islam to terror 'will divide civilisations'

Memo to Osama bin Laden, Al-Zarqawi, Abu Bakar Bashir, Omar Bakri, Abu Hamza, Fawaz Damra, Abdul Salam Mohammed Zoud, etc. etc. etc.: stop associating Islam with terror. Bahrain doesn't like it.

What's that? Bahrain's Al-Mousawi was telling Europeans and other Westerners, not jihadist Muslims, to stop associating Islam with terror? Oh, of course. How could it be otherwise? What are you, some kind of Islamophobe? From the GulfNews, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

Manama : Bahrain yesterday warned that associating Islam with terrorism would be a devastating blow to humanity and would deepen the abyss between civilisations.

"Islam is a tolerant and peaceful religion and it is the identity of many nations and peoples. Associating this religion with terrorism amounts to accusing whole nations of supporting it and, eventually, playing into the hands of radicals and extremists. Such a stance is a grave mistake that annihilates understanding between peoples," Shura (upper) Council Chairman Dr Faisal Al Mousawi said at the opening of the international conference in Manama between Bahrain's parliament and the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats.

"History has indicated that terrorism has used false ideologies and misused religious creeds to explain and perpetuate itself. We need to highlight that terrorism is not linked to religion and must not be associated with any particular civilisation, culture or traditions," Al Mousawi said.

Muslim Brotherhood builds Egyptian Parliamentary bloc

The Muslim Brotherhood (Al-Ikhwan al-Muslimoon) was the first modern Islamic terrorist organization. Founded in 1928, it is the the direct forefather of both Hamas and Al-Qaeda. In its Egyptian homeland it has had a checkered history -- and is at present banned. Through it all, its goal has always remained the same: to reestablish Sharia rule in Egypt and elsewhere, whether by peaceful or violent means. And now, despite the best efforts of the Mubarak regime (which, like the Nasser and Sadat regimes before it, has tried to keep the Ikhwan at bay with a combination of force and concessions) to limit its influence, it is gaining strength in Egypt -- through elections.

Tiny Minority of Extremists Update: "Islamists Build Egyptian Parliamentary Bloc," from Reuters, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

CAIRO (Reuters) - The Muslim Brotherhood built its strength in Egypt's parliament this weekend, winning 29 seats in elections despite restrictions on voting and arrests of its supporters, official results showed on Sunday.

The Islamist group has now won 76 seats -- more than five times the number it held in the outgoing chamber. About a third of parliament's 444 elected places have still to be decided.

The officially banned Brotherhood is contesting only a third of the seats, not posing a challenge to control over parliament by the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), which won 75 places in voting on Saturday, bringing its total to about 195.

But the Brotherhood's wins have shown the weight of political Islam as the strongest opposition force in Egypt and caught the government and NDP off guard.

The authorities have curbed leeway given to the Islamists in the early stages of voting. Police restricted voting and detained 860 of the Brotherhood's activists on Saturday -- the fourth of six days of legislative elections.

Riot police cordoned off polling stations in Brotherhood strongholds, either preventing anybody from voting or allowing only a trickle of people to cast ballots.

``The aim was to prevent voters from reaching the ballot boxes and to affect the result,'' Brotherhood deputy leader Mohamed Habib told Reuters. ``But with perseverance the people and the Brotherhood were able to overcome the barriers.''

Teheran 'secretly trains' Chechens to fight in Russia

Here's one for the neocons who support the Chechen jihad because they prefer to see it as a plucky group of independence fighters poking the big bad Russian bear in the eye: welcome to your alliance with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Of course, the Russians themselves need to wake up, too. Across the board, the governing elites and media elites in non-Muslim countries need to realize that while they are playing at pseudo-sophisticated analyses of global conflicts, mostly involving economic and sociological perspectives and solutions, the jihadists see the world only as divided between Muslims and non-Muslims (including, possibly, those they regard as heretical pseudo-Muslims).

The sooner the non-Muslim nations reconfigure their defense postures accordingly, ruling out alliances with states like Iran (alliances which have many precedents and have usually been disastrous, as I establish in my book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)), the more effective those defense postures will be.

From the Telegraph, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Iran is secretly training Chechen rebels in sophisticated terror techniques to enable them to carry out more effective attacks against Russian forces, the Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

Teams of Chechen fighters are being trained at the Revolutionary Guards' Imam Ali training camp, located close to Tajrish Square in Teheran, according to Western intelligence reports.

In addition to receiving training in the latest terror techniques, the Chechen volunteers undergo ideological and political instruction by hardline Iranian mullahs at Qom.

The disclosure that Iran is training Chechen rebels will not go down well in Moscow, which regards itself as a close ally of the Iranian regime.

Russia has sided with Iran in the diplomatic stand-off over Teheran's controversial nuclear programme.

France: Extremism on the rise while intertwining with foreign terror groups

While government officials bicker amongst themselves on how to appease blatant rioters, an insidious infiltration is quietly occurring right under the authorities' noses. From the Los Angeles Times:

PARIS — Employees set up clandestine prayer areas on the grounds of the Euro Disney resort.

Workers for a cargo firm at Charles de Gaulle airport praise the Sept. 11 attacks.

A Brinks technician is charged with pulling off a million-dollar heist for a Moroccan terrorist group allegedly led by his brother. Female converts to Islam operate a day-care center that authorities eventually shut down because of its religious radicalism.

As France grapples with the rise of Islamic extremism abroad and at home, the line between legitimate religious expression and extremist subversion can be blurry. But a recent study by a think tank here paints a picture of rising fundamentalism in the workplace, ranging from proselytizing to pressure tactics to criminal activities.

In companies such as supermarket chains in immigrant-heavy areas, for instance, militant recruiters cause workplace tensions by imposing fundamentalist ideas on co-workers and pressuring managers to boycott certain products, the study says.

On a more sinister level, the study asserts that Islamic networks are trying to establish a presence in firms involved in sectors such as security, cargo, armored cars, courier services and transportation. Once they gain a foothold, operatives raise funds for militants via theft, embezzlement and robbery, the study alleges.

"Parallel to these sect-like risks, the spread of criminal practices has been detected in the heart of companies [with] two goals: crime using Islam as a pretext; and in addition, local financing of terrorism," concludes the study by the Center for Intelligence Research in Paris.

The report was issued before the recent riots that spread arson and violence nationwide and focused attention on France's immigrant neighborhoods, which are predominantly Muslim. Although intelligence officials detected only a few cases of extremists inciting unrest, authorities worry that the tense urban climate strengthens the hand of hard-core Islamic networks.

French anti-terrorism officials agree with some of the findings of the study of the private sector, though they say parts of the report exaggerate or simplify a complex issue. In any case, the concern is justified in a wider context, officials say: Extremism is rising in France, home to Europe's largest Muslim community, and intertwining with a foreign threat.

Recent arrests reveal that France has been targeted by an alliance teaming Abu Musab Zarqawi, leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, with an Algerian-dominated network, said a senior French law enforcement official, who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons.

Zarqawi operatives in Lebanon taught bomb-making to accused militants from the network who were arrested here, including French converts, the official said.

That underscores a development on the home front: a "significant increase" in converts, including women, said a French intelligence official, who also asked not to be identified.

There is much more so please read it all.

Iraq seizes booby-trapped toys

Yes, yes, it is they who are the aggrieved and oppressed. I keep forgetting. From SA, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Baghdad - The Iraqi army said on Thursday it had seized a number of booby-trapped children's dolls, accusing insurgents of using the explosive-filled toys to target children.

The dolls were found in a car, each one containing a grenade or other explosive, said an army statement....

"This is the same type of doll as that handed out on several occasions by US soldiers to children," said government spokesperson Leith Kubba....

Jihadists, including "Hitler," win Palestinian primaries

Barghouti update, Tiny Minority of Extremists alert, and Hitler watch: "Jailed Palestinian Leader Wins Primaries," from AP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Jailed Palestinian uprising leader Marwan Barghouti and other younger activists swept Fatah primaries, signaling a change of generations that could make the corruption-tainted ruling party more attractive to voters in Jan. 25 parliament elections, according to preliminary results released Saturday.

The Barghouti-led "young guard" had long pushed for a greater say, especially after last year's death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who founded Fatah and controlled it four decades....

Barghouti, 46, is seen as a potential successor to Abbas even though he is serving multiple life terms in an Israeli prison for involvement in shooting attacks that killed five Israelis....

"Barghouti was convicted in an Israeli court, a civilian court, I would stress, and sentenced to consecutive life sentences for his involvement in the murder of innocent civilians," said Mark Regev, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman....

Two fugitives from Fatah's violent offshoot, the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, also secured high positions. The Jenin winner, Jamal Abu Rob, who gave himself the nickname "Hitler," is wanted for killing several suspected informers with Israel. The Nablus candidate, Jamal Jumaa, is a leader of Al Aqsa in the West Bank's largest city.

Troops Who Burned Taliban Face Discipline

More PC pandering from the U.S. military -- while no one seems concerned that those who mutilated corpses in Fallujah out of malice, not "hygienic concerns," not only were not punished, but were celebrated as heroes. From AP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Four U.S. soldiers face disciplinary action for burning the bodies of two Taliban rebels, but they will not be charged with crimes because their actions were motivated by hygienic concerns, the military said Saturday.

The military started its inquiry into the incident last month after TV footage showed U.S. soldiers using the cremation to taunt other Islamic militants — an act that sparked outrage in Afghanistan.

Islam bans cremation, and the video images were compared here to photographs of U.S. troops abusing prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

The U.S.-led coalition's operational commander, Maj. Gen. Jason Kamiya, said two junior officers who ordered the bodies burned would be officially reprimanded for showing a lack of cultural and religious understanding, but he said the men were unaware that what they were doing was wrong.

Die in your anger

More demands and tirades are issued forth from the unobstructed mouth of Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. From The Scotsman:

Iran's hard-line president has called for the Bush administration to be tried on war crimes charges related to Iraq and denounced the West for its stance on Iran's controversial nuclear programme.

"You, who have used nuclear weapons against innocent people, who have used uranium ordnance in Iraq should be tried as war criminals in courts," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in an apparent reference to the US.

"Who in the world are you to accuse Iran of suspicious nuclear armed activity?" asked the Iranian president during a nationally televised ceremony marking the 36th anniversary of the establishment of the volunteer Basij paramilitary force.

Speaking of the Basij, Reuters reports,

Thousands of members of Iran’s volunteer militia, the basij, paraded and formed human chains in Iranian cities on Saturday as a show of force against international pressure on Iran’s atomic programme.

In Teheran, some 3,000 basij, clutching automatic rifles and wearing chequered headscarves, paraded before President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and chanted “God is the Greatest”.

Ahmadinejad told them their militia spirit would help thwart foreign powers in an international dispute over Iran’s atomic ambitions.

“Of course the (foreign powers) get angry when they see the power and spirit of the militia now governs our international policy, diplomatic relations and negotiations,” the president said. “In reply to their anger say: Go ahead, be angry but Die in your anger.”

Former Canadian Minister Of Defence Asks Canadian Parliament To Hold Hearings On Relations With Alien "ET" Civilizations

Oh, for pete's sake. Suicide of the West Alert: this guy is worried about "intergalactic war" while the very real problem of Islamic jihadists operating under the radar screen in Canada and other Western countries is ignored or downplayed, and those who point it out are reviled as "bigots." Beam me up, Scotty. A press release:

(PRWEB) - OTTAWA, CANADA (PRWEB) November 24, 2005 -- A former Canadian Minister of Defence and Deputy Prime Minister under Pierre Trudeau has joined forces with three Non-governmental organizations to ask the Parliament of Canada to hold public hearings on Exopolitics -- relations with “ETs.”

By “ETs,” Mr. Hellyer and these organizations mean ethical, advanced extraterrestrial civilizations that may now be visiting Earth.

On September 25, 2005, in a startling speech at the University of Toronto that caught the attention of mainstream newspapers and magazines, Paul Hellyer, Canada’s Defence Minister from 1963-67 under Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Prime Minister Lester Pearson, publicly stated: "UFOs, are as real as the airplanes that fly over your head."

Mr. Hellyer went on to say, "I'm so concerned about what the consequences might be of starting an intergalactic war, that I just think I had to say something."

Iran: Government-run body calls for confrontation with U.S. over Iraq

The Thug-In-Chief of Iran continues to rattle his saber. Note the reference to "pure Islam." How will the West convince Muslims that "American Islam" is preferable to "pure Islam"? This is a question that none of those who like to pretend that peaceful Islam is the real thing wish to confront. "Iran’s radical body calls for confrontation with U.S. over Iraq," from IranFocus, with thanks to Jihad Watch News Editor Eric Schwappach:

Tehran, Iran, Nov. 25 – Radical Islamists allied with hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called this week for Iran to confront United States forces in Iraq.

Ansar-e Hezbollah, an ultra-conservative government-run body fiercely loyal to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wrote in the latest edition of its weekly paper Yatharat al-Hossein that Iran had a religious duty to defend the “occupied lands of Iraq”.

“Our strategy in the occupied lands of Iraq, taking into consideration the efforts by America to take complete control of the country with the second largest oil reserves of the world, make our duties for the region clear in the present circumstances”, the group wrote in its weekly publication.

The group said that the U.S. was introducing “American Islam” in Iraq in place of theocratic Islam, citing recent remarks by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani who visited Iran earlier this week, as a “negative example” of the effects of moderate Islam.

“Based on the teachings of pure Islam and without any moderate posturing, we must oppose deviant currents in this arena and fight off the aggressors in Islamic lands following the teachings of the Quran. Of course, we are ready to carry out the orders of the Supreme Leader as a priority”.

Jihad terrorist leads in early Palestinian vote count

Barghouthi will be running for Fatah -- his chief opposition will come from Hamas. It's the frying pan or the fire. Tiny Minority of Extremists Update: "Jailed man leads in early Fatah vote count," from Reuters, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Jailed Palestinian Marwan Barghouthi was emerging as one of the most popular candidates in a vote called to choose people to run for Fatah in Palestinian elections in January, an official said on Friday.

Barghouthi, who is serving five life terms in jail for attacks against Israel, had a very strong showing in an early count of the vote in the West Bank town of Ramallah where he was running from prison.

Suicide bomber kills 30 near Baghdad

Targeting U.S. troops giving out toys to children. How heroic, how proud are these self-professed "lovers of death." From AP, with thanks to JE:

BAGHDAD -- A suicide car bomber targeted U.S. troops handing out toys to children at a hospital yesterday, killing 30 persons including four police guards, three women and two children, officials said.

Another 35 persons were wounded in the morning attack in Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, said Dawoud al-Taie, the director of the hospital.

Northern Ireland: Algerian guilty of downloading bomb data

An asylum-seeker in Northern Ireland was downloading bombmaking data. Does this give anyone the idea that asylum-seekers should be subjected to greater scrutiny before being allowed to stay in Western countries? Not yet. "Algerian guilty of downloading bomb data," from The Guardian, with thanks to JE:

A 27-year-old Algerian asylum seeker was yesterday found guilty of downloading information on bomb making from the internet in the first trial of an al-Qaida suspect in Northern Ireland's no-jury Diplock courts.

Abbas Boutrab had gathered instructions on how to construct explosives and smuggle them on an aircraft. He also learned how to make a silencer for an M16 or AK assault rifle from metal tubing and rubber door stops.

During the seven-week hearing in Belfast an FBI agent, Donald Schtleben, demonstrated that 25 computer disks found in Boutrab's possession could be used to build a bomb capable of bringing down an aircraft. He suggested the devices could have been disguised inside canisters of baby talcum powder.

American White Supremacist David Duke: My Country Is Also Occupied by the Zionists

I just dipped into my voluminous Hate Mail Bag and picked out this gem:

NAZIS NAZIS NAZIS

Hitler must be very very proud of you. You f**king fat kike.

However, in the real world those who actually admire and strive to emulate Hitler are not opponents of the global jihad, but its allies: witness the Aryan Nations' statement that "Islam is our ally, and the 1500 cults all claiming to be 'Christian' are our opposition." And now David Duke, the famous Louisiana racist, has turned up in Syria to provide more evidence of this.

"American White Supremacist David Duke Addressing Damacus Demonstration in Support of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad: My Country Is Also Occupied by the Zionists," from MEMRITV, with thanks to JE:

Following are excerpts from a speech by American white supremacist David Duke, aired on Syrian TV on November 24, 2005.

[...]

David Duke: It is only in America and around the world, it is only the Zionists who want war rather than peace.

Interpreter: All over the world... In America, and all over the world, it is only the Zionists who want war instead of peace.

David Duke: It hurts my heart to tell you that part of my country is occupied by Zionists, just as part of your country, the Golan Heights, is occupied by Zionists.

Interpreter: It saddens me and it hurts my heart to tell you that parts of my country are occupied, just as parts of your country, namely the occupied Golan, are occupied by the Zionists.

David Duke: The Zionists occupy must of the American media and now control much of American government.

Interpreter: The Zionists control most of the media outlets, and they also control the American government.

David Duke: It is not just the West Bank of Palestine, it is not just the Golan Heights that are occupied by the Zionists, but Washington DC, and New York, and London, and many other capitals in the world.

Interpreter: It is not just the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights that are occupied by the Zionists. Washington DC, New York, London, and other cities and capitals around the world are occupied by the Zionists.

David Duke: Your fight for freedom is the same as our fight for freedom.

Interpreter: Just as the Europeans are fighting for freedom, the Arabs are fighting for freedom.

David Duke: I bring you a message from many Americans, from many people in Britain, and around the Western world. We say in unison: No war for Israel.

Interpreter: I have brought you a message from most of the Western world, from America, from Britain. The message is: No to war, no to Israel.

Duke: No war for Israel!

Crowd chants along with David Duke

David Duke: No war for Israel, no war for Israel, no war for Israel, no war for Israel!

Interpreter: No to a war for the sake of Israel... No to a war for the sake of Israel... No to a war for the sake of Israel...