DUBAI - A recent Saudi court ruling sentencing a woman to six months in jail and 200 lashes despite being gang-raped highlights the injustice faced by women in the ultra-conservative kingdom, women rights activists said

‘Sure, there is injustice against women in courts. It is a bitter situation that Saudi women have to endure,’ Saudi activist Wajiha Al Hweider said on Thursday, after the court ruling received widespread publicity.

‘The kingdom is in an embarrassing position. King (Abdullah) should step in and stop this farce,’ Hweider told AFP, adding that the judicial system, which is based on Islamic law, should be reformed.

Despite being raped by seven men who kidnapped her with a male companion at knife-point, the 19-year-old woman was sentenced in November 2006 to 90 lashes.

The judge sentenced her for being in a car with a man who was not her relative, a taboo in the ultra-conservative desert kingdom.

‘The judge does not have a written law. It is a matter of luck. You are lucky if the judge is a moderate and fears God,’ said Hweider, an outspoken US-educated activist who leads a group of women demanding the right to drive.

Hatoon Al Fassi, a history lecturer at King Saud university in Riyadh and another women rights activist, agreed that women suffer from the lack of written laws, which subjects rulings to the discretion of judges.

‘It all depends on the reasoning of the judge,’ she told AFP.

‘It is good that the case has taken an international dimension. It is shameful that such a case could have stayed unspoken of... This is a ruling that has treated the victim as a culprit,’ she said.

‘Such logic is so distant from Islam. It is the result of a male-chauvinist reasoning,’ she charged.

Oh really?

Hweider highlighted the humiliation faced by women inside the courtroom, saying that a judge, who is always a clergyman, addresses only her male guardian.

‘The woman does not have the right to represent herself in a court. She enters the court covered entirely in black. Some judges do not even allow her to speak,’ she said.

She pointed out cases of forgery where men took women to court to impersonate others only to make false claims. ‘It helped some men in stripping their sisters of inheritance, for example,’ she said.

A male guardian, who could be the woman’s father, brother, husband, uncle, son, grandfather or grandson, literally controls her life.

‘A woman is treated always as a minor and as a second-class citizen. She needs a male guardian,’ Fassi said.

She pointed out that she even needs her male guardian to obtain her identity card or passport and that women are not allowed to enter government departments.

‘Here, the son is the male guardian of his mother if she is a widow or divorced. She would need his written approval for anything... She has no value,’ said Hweider.

Although she acknowledges that some Saudi women have been successful in some professions, she said that a woman ‘would lose everything if the male guardian decided that she had to stay home.’

‘And for a Saudi judge, I am part of the property of my male guardian,’ she lamented.

AP -BAGHDAD - Gunmen in Baghdad snatched 10 Sunni and Shiite tribal sheiks from their cars Sunday as they were heading home to Diyala province after talks with the government on fighting al-Qaida, and at least one was later found shot to death.The bold daylight kidnapping came as the top U.S. commander in Iraq said the threat from the terror network has been "significantly reduced" in the capital.

The two cars carrying the sheiks — seven Sunnis and three Shiites — were ambushed in Baghdad's predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Shaab at about 3:30 p.m., police officials said.

The sheiks were returning to Diyala province after attending a meeting with the Shiite-dominated government's adviser for tribal affairs to discuss coordinating efforts against al-Qaida in Iraq, police and a relative said.

Police found the bullet-riddled body of one of the Sunni sheiks, Mishaan Hilan, about 50 yards away from where the ambush took place, an officer said, adding that the victim was identified after his cell phone was found on him.

A relative of one of the abducted Shiite sheiks blamed Sunni extremists and said the attackers picked a Shiite neighborhood to "create strife between Shiite and Sunni tribes that have united against al-Qaida in the area."

But, Jassim Zeidan al-Anbaqi said, "this will not happen."

The well-planned attack was the latest to target anti-al-Qaida tribal leaders and other officials in an apparent bid to intimidate them from joining the U.S.-sponsored grass roots strategy that the military says has contributed to a recent drop in violence.

Could it be Al Qaeda? SURE

Could it be some Shia militia like the Badr looking to MAKE IT APPEAR to be the Sunnis? SURE

Could it be Maliki trying to keep the kettle at a boil for his Iranian masters? SURE

BASRA, Iraq (AFP) - Police in Basra have detained 267 foreign "criminals" as Iraq's second city witnessed clashes between Shiite militiamen and security forces, officials said on Thursday. The city's police chief Jalil Khalil Shuail said the police detained 267 foreigners from Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran who "infiltrated into Basra and committed crimes."

On Wednesday, Suhail himself escaped an assassination attempt by gunmen who fired on him as he took a tour of a local market. One of his guards was killed in the shooting.

The defence ministry, meanwhile, said there had been clashes between militiamen loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and police in recent days.

Why is Sadr around? Why do we have a CIA?

Ministry spokesman Major General Mohammed al-Askari said the violence was "simple and the security situation in Basra was under control."

Translation ..."We are going to simply kill the bad guys"?

"The incidents reported were tackled by our security forces, both the army and the police," he said.

Basra has remained in the grips of a turf war between rival Shiite militias since British troops pulled out of the city in September.

About 5,250 British troops are now stationed at Basra airport, outside the city.

Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown said earlier this month that Britain would cut these numbers by more than half to 2,500 from early next year.

The troops based at Basra airport are mostly engaged in training Iraqi army and police units, the new guardians of the city.

MAYBE..just MAYBE the Shia in souther Iraq are not so enamored of the Iranians as we imagine. They are arabs. Iranians are not.

Iran threatens counterstrike at Israel with 600-missile arsenal

Iran has prepared a vast intermediate-range missile arsenal for an attack on Israel and U.S. targets throughout the Middle East. Iranian military sources said Teheran has amassed an arsenal of 600 Shihab-3 and -4 missiles, with a range of up to 2,000 kilometers.

"A key target will be Israel's nuclear site at Dimona," a military source said.

Iran missile test in 2004 [ZOOM].

The sources said Teheran has deployed its arsenal in both western and northern Iran. They said much of the arsenal has been directed toward Israel and could destroy the Jewish state in a first strike.

Iran's missile arsenal has been tested several times. In January 2007, Teheran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps conducted a massive missile exercise that demonstrated its capability to fire more than 100 missiles in a single salvo.

Capt. Mohammed Rostami, a member of the Iranian Center for Military Studies, said Iran has developed an arsenal that does not depend on Western suppliers. Rostami said Iran has developed an advanced command and control system that could ensure the launch of 600 Shihab-3 and -4 missiles within a minute.

The first salvo, Rostami said, would be followed by others as mobile launchers concealed by the huge Iranian mountains in the north and west of the country. He did not rule out that Iran would install nonconventional weapons in missile warheads.

Another terrible, shocking, surprise ...salafist freaks working with khomeinist freaks to kill americasn and jews wherever they are found, and plunder their goods.... and achieve a world without zionism, McDonald's, commercials or humor
 

GERTZ - WASHINGTON — The U.S. intelligence community has determined that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has been working with Al Qaida leaders in Iran to plan attacks against the United States.

They said that from virtual house arrest in 2004, Iran has enabled the son of Al Qaida chief Osama Bin Laden and other top agents to plan operations and policy.

"Al Qaida's leadership has been coopted by Iran and constitutes an option for a major strike either in the Middle East or even the United States," an official said. "We always suspected some Al Qaida cooperation with Iran, but this is bigger than ever."

Officials said Al Qaida's leadership council, led by Saad Bin Laden, the son of the movement's founder, convenes nearly monthly in Iran. They said senior operatives arrive for meetings from Afghanistan and Pakistan as Teheran supplies Al Qaida with weapons and facilitates the flow of operatives to neighboring Iraq.

DUH, gee, I was told they hated each other and would never work together. 

After a heart attack, it's a risk every time I read the man's words. Responsible editors need to recognize this threat to me and eliminate his words permanently as a risk to a small, endangered minority, in a rural area.

From (MODERATE?) MUSLIMS SPEAK OUT : 

One of the most important things for all people to remember in these difficult times is that there are more compatibilities than differences among the major religions – at least concerning treatment of one another as individuals.

Gulp, sure all the jews and christians and hindus and buddhists claim their treatment of others are the result of the revealed, perfect immutable words of God. 

In some Islamic societies, women are relegated by official religious laws to subservient positions in society where they must remain veiled, cannot operate an automobile or compete with men for a job, and often receive inferior if any education. In other more secular nations of the same faith, all of these restrictions are absent.

You mean like Pakistan where the MMA now wins every election by landslides on a RELIGIOUS basis?

Within predominantly Christian societies, civil laws usually provide for equal treatment of women, while religious organizations are often the primary source of discrimination, which provides a justification for similar inequities within the secular world.

Surprise ! While I am no admirer of James Dobson (to say the least) I have to admit that it's news to me that christian wives are relegated to "similar inequities" to license-less, chador and burqqa clad ladies not allowed out without suitable male guardianship from the consciousless walking penises crowding the streets.

Why does this stupid, naive, dangerous, and foolish man vex me so ... I feel like Ahab, charging the 1st mate to go on ..'BECAuSE HE TASKS ME STARRBUCK, HE TASKS ME....'

Jimmy Carter has NO PLACE at this table.

Build HOMES, Jimmy, You are meant for that fulfillment and are supreme at it. We NEED you to help people in that way. BUILD HOMES!

Hamas infiltrating Fatah security agencies in West Bank

RAMALLAH — The Palestinian Authority has concluded that Hamas is and has been recruiting Fatah officials in the West Bank.
PA officials said Hamas has infiltrated major security agencies loyal to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in an attempt to expand its influence. Hamas has agents in the lower and middle levels of security officers in such agencies as the Preventive Security Apparatus, civil police and National Security Forces in the West Bank.
"Hamas is doing in the West Bank what it did in the Gaza Strip," an official said. "It has infiltrated the ranks of most of the security agencies and has obtained an excellent intelligence picture."
The officials said they could not rule out that some senior Fatah officials who escaped from the Gaza Strip included Hamas double agents. Hamas has sought to use the captured Fatah infrastructure in the Gaza Strip to undermine the Abbas regime in the West Bank.

U.S. approves contacts with Muslim Brotherhood: 'Region is going Islam'

WASHINGTON World Tribune — The Bush administration has been quietly engaging the Muslim Brotherhood movement.

Officials said the State Department has approved a policy that would enable U.S. diplomats to meet and coordinate with Brotherhood leaders in Egypt, Iraq, Syria and other Arab states. They said the program would first be restricted to elected officials from the Brotherhood and eventually be extended to their political chiefs.

"The region is going Islam," an official said. "We see this in nearly every country in the Middle East. We either understand it and engage with it or find ourselves completely out of the picture."

MORONS, we live in Dar al Harb, and according to the MB, we make up laws out of our own heads instead of following god's ..WE ARE OUT OF THE PICTURE. We are the ESSENCE of what they want to rid the world of. The rest is salad dressing. Why is this difficult to comprehend?

The Brotherhood has been regarded as the inspiration for Muslim movements throughout the Arab world. The organization, founded in Egypt, spread through Saudi financing and has served as the inspiration for Al Qaida.

Many Arab countries have banned the Brotherhood. But in Egypt, a party composed of Brotherhood members has won 20 percent of the seats in the National Assembly and plays a major role in domestic policy.

In 2007, officials said, the State Department was quietly fostering ties with the Brotherhood. U.S. embassy staffers in Cairo have attended sessions led by parliamentarians from the Brotherhood and invited the Islamists to official receptions.

Egypt: Fatwa allows breast-feeding among adults

Jerusalem Post -Al-Azhar University, one of Sunni Islam's most prestigious institutions, ordered one of its clerics Monday to face a disciplinary panel after he issued a controversial decree allowing adults to breast-feed. Ezzat Attiya had issued a fatwa, or religious edict, saying adult men could breast-feed from female work colleagues as a way to avoid breaking Islamic rules that forbid men and women from being alone together. In Islamic tradition, breast-feeding establishes a degree of maternal relation, even if a woman nurses a child who is not biologically hers. It means the child could not marry the nursing woman's biological children. Attiya - the head of Al-Azhar's Department of Hadith, or teachings of the Prophet Muhammad - insisted the same would apply with adults. He argued that if a man nursed from a co-worker, it would establish a family bond between them and allow the two to work side-by-side without raising suspicion of an illicit sexual relation.

Iron Dome and the unrecognized threat?

Successive Israeli governments have ignored the Palestinian missile and weapons tunnel threat despite thousands of attacks, an official report found. A report by Israel's State Comptroller determined that governments waited at least five years to respond to the Palestinian missile threat.

The report said more than 6,000 missiles, rockets and mortars had been fired against Israeli targets until January 2007, when the government awarded a contract to develop a defense system.

The Iron Dome prototype by the state-owned Rafael, Israel Armament Development Authority is expected to take at least two years to complete. The Rafael design bested several other proposals, including that of a U.S.-origin laser weapon.

The report said the Israeli military failed to draft a strategy to combat rocket and missile strikes. After several years of Palestinian attacks, the military ordered rocket defense system prototypes without determining requirements or conducting sufficient field trials, the comptroller said. From 2001 through 2006, 4,584 mortars and 1,914 rockets were fired against Israeli targets, the military said.

More than 1,200 missiles and rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip since the Israeli withdrawal in September 2005.

The military identified a missile threat from the Gaza Strip in 2001, the report said, but the chief of staff waited until 2004 to study the threat, and by the end of 2005 had failed to draft strategy.

WTF? 

The Pushtun are the enemy of the people of the USA.

Pro-Pakistan tribal leader 'would shelter Bin Laden'

WANA, Pakistan (AFP) - A pro-government tribal leader hailed by Pakistan for expelling foreign militants from a troubled frontier region said Friday he would protect Osama bin Laden if he sought shelter with him.

Mullah Mohammad Nazir told a rare press conference in Wana, the main town in South Waziristan tribal district, that he had never met the Al-Qaeda chief but would help him in line with local traditions.

"Bin Laden has never come to this area but if he comes here and seeks our protection then according to tribal laws and customs we will protect him," the 32-year-old former Taliban commander said.

"Our traditions and customs demand that we support the oppressed," added Nazir, who was flanked by heavily-armed gunmen.

Also that all jews should die and Crusaders along with them, probably even if you pay the tax. So sorry.

We are all just so surprised to hear this !

Teachers drop the Holocaust to avoid offending Muslims

Schools are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, a Governmentbacked study has revealed.

It found some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial.

The moral and physical cowardice, and the falling from the sprirt of those who stood alone against the nazis is one of the most overwhelmingly DISGUSTING historical abdications of freedom in all of HISTORY.

The Palestinian connection

I'm not sure which is more apt for this piece of monumentally galactically moronic foreign relations, the horses ass, or Claude Rains, shocked.

Here's something Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would prefer that Americans not know as she tours the Middle East to promote Arab support for the pro-Western government in Iraq.

Palestinians connected or sponsored by Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip are playing major roles in the Sunni insurgency in Iraq.

So, while Rice has been urging Congress to release money to the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority and promise the establishment of a Palestinian state, members of that movement have been facilitating the killing of Americans and Iraqis in suicide bombings in Baghdad. These Palestinians, themselves, are financed by Saudi Arabia and other so-called U.S. allies in the Gulf region.

Take Mahmoud Hamed Kamal Al Mathi, a Palestinian identified as the financier of the Al Qaida network. Al Mathi, also known as Abu Qatada the Palestinian, was captured by Iraqi troops on March 17 in central Baghdad.

Islamic Jihad: Rice's visit means to campaign strike against Iran

A senior Islamic Jihad leader said on Saturday that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to the Middle East that starts today, meant to rally support for attacking Iran or Hezbollah.

"We think this visit comes as part of preparations for war targeting Iran or Hezbollah... and maybe to strike an Arab country, " Khaled al-Batsh of the Islamic Jihad told reporters in Gaza.

Rice began a four-day tour to the region where she will meet with Egyptian, Jordanian, Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

 

Egyptian Press Criticizes the Muslim Brotherhood's Infiltration of Egypt's Education System

Recent investigative articles in the Egyptian press have exposed the infiltration of Muslim Brotherhood elements into the country's education system, and have shown how they are directly influencing school curricula. Coptic Christian columnist Sameh Fawzi has written several articles criticizing these curricula, saying that they distort the pupils' perception of history, disregard the role of Christian (i.e. Coptic) Egyptians, and encourage religious intolerance.

The following are excerpts from Fawzi's articles and from one of the investigative pieces.

"the mosque has been transformed from a place of worship… into a venue for recruitment and training for war."

 STOP THE TEACHERS, SAVE THE WORLD

In Saudi Arabia, 79 per cent had an “unfavourable view” of the US.

Gallup’s Centre for Muslim Studies in New York carried out surveys of 10,000 Muslims in ten predominantly Muslim countries. One finding was that the wealthier and better-educated the Muslim was, the more likely he was to be radicalised.

The surveys were carried out in 2005 and 2006. Along with an earlier Gallup survey in nine other countries in 2001, they represent the views of more than 90 per cent of the world’s Muslims. A further 1,500 Muslims in London, Paris and Berlin are involved in a separate poll to be published in April.

Excuse while I express a lack of shock.

But...... The findings come in a climate of growing mistrust between Islam and the West. Another recent survey in the US found that 39 per cent of Americans felt some prejudice towards Muslims.

What does that mean? Defined how? By who?

And then come the truly incredible findings.....

See if there's a way you can rectify how these things can fit in one set of values. 

• The Gallup findings indicate that, in terms of spiritual values and the emphasis on the family and the future, Americans have more in common with Muslims than they do with their Western counterparts in Europe.

• A large number of Muslims supported the Western ideal of democratic government. Fifty per cent of radicals supported democracy, compared with 35 per cent of moderates.

• Religion was found to have little to do with radicalisation or antipathy towards Western culture. Muslims were condemnatory of promiscuity and a sense of moral decay. What they admired most was liberty, its democratic system, technology and freedom of speech.

• While there was widespread support for Sharia, or Islamic law, only a minority wanted religious leaders to be making laws. Most women in the predominantly Muslim countries believed that Sharia should be the source of a nation’s laws, but they strongly believed in equal rights for women.

   

  

 HUH?

A little bit back I pointed to a Zogby Poll of arab lands (Egypt, UAE, Qatar, etc) which showed the most despised leader to be Bush, and the most liked leader to be Hassan Nasrallah of Hizbollah.

Today one of the leading foreign policy columnists of the Washington Post, Mr. David Ignatius, does so as well, in a fashion so revelatory of the stupid nature of the smart, elite, and useless that it is a moment causing involuntary intake of breath.

He claims, unsurprisingly that US Foreign Policy is in the ditch in the Middle East. That is a statement of fact. Behind the fact, the reason he sees for this is that we have not pleased our allies. Our allies being the Al Sabah of Kuwait, the owners of Al Jazeera in Qatar, Mubarak, and the Al Saud ...these 'allies' of ours are disgusted, but Ignatius says cheer on one man especially and who is that man?

Chris Kojm.

Mr. Kojm....well....

To get out of the ditch, America must change its Iraq policy, soon. That doesn't mean pulling out of Iraq quickly, as many Democrats in Washington seem to favor. I found few people here who thought a quick American pullout made sense. But it does mean shifting the American focus -- so that we are talking with Iraq's neighbors, and negotiating with the Iraqis a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops. Tellingly, the one American who got loud, sustained applause here was Chris Kojm, a senior adviser on the Baker-Hamilton report. 

Of course we all know that the ISG's premise was that the major part of progress in the middle east was to be to push Israel to agree to arab demands, al put forth in one chapter..and...

According to several advisers, the staffers who wrote the chapter in question were Edward Djerejian, a former ambassador to Syria and Israel with close ties to Baker, and Christopher Kojm, a former aide to Hamilton who held senior positions in the State Department and the 9/11 Commission.

Ignatius goes on ...

And my friend Rami Khouri, who is one of most balanced journalists in the Arab world, warned that a broad popular front is emerging to challenge American hegemony. Iraq "discredits what America tries to do in the Mideast,'' he said. Khouri explained that Arabs admire Hezbollah because it represents "the end of docility, the end of acquiescence.''

I have an unpleasant flash for Mr. Ignatius and Mr. Khouri, this poll whose MAIN result you failed to publish, that Hassan ("Better that all the Jews gather in Israel it will save us the trouble of going after them on a world wide basis") Nasrallah is the most admired man in the middle east demonstrates that we have nothing posssible to gain in the middle east in the present situation EXCEPT maintaining normal business relations. This is the best of all worlds we can hope for unless the USA acts to change the status quo...

AS WE SHOULD

AS A REVOLUTIONARY NATION 

Arab states trained Al-Qaeda men to fight in Somalia

MIDDLE EASTERN countries secretly armed and supported suspected Al-Qaeda recruits in the failed state of Somalia in a direct challenge to western interests in east Africa, according to a United Nations report.

Hundreds of Islamist fighters were flown, with Eritrean assistance, from Somalia to Syria and Libya for military training. Others were taken to Lebanon to fight with Hezbollah, the report to the UN security council has revealed.

UN investigators also detailed military aid given to the Islamists by Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Arab states friendly to the West. Iran also supplied 125 shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, 80 of which arrived by sea in dhows and the rest by air.

A clandestine operation to smuggle the fighters out of Somalia began in July last year.

 Imagine my freaking surprise.

Gee, I guess someone forgot to tell them that Sunni and Shia murderers are not allowed to work together to try and kill my family. Will someone please get the message out to these poor fellows?

You can take your pick of news stories but they all mean one thing....

We are following the same path, and the results will be a REAL disaster far worse than any number of casualties among our armed forces

Just read this. While I don't think victory is around the corner, tactically Mr. Barnes is right in his description of the path we are on.

However, while many americans want us out, what do we believe will be the result?

From Gertz..

New Skyshield system destroys enemy missiles with cloud of tungsten submunitions

TEL AVIV — Lockheed Martin is developing its Skyshield air defense system for protection against missiles and rockets.

The development is focused on an interceptor that forms a cloud of submunitions to destroy incoming enemy projectiles. In the company's latest newsletter, Lockheed Martin reported the development of a surface-to-air munition to destroy incoming short-range rockets, artillery shells and mortars. The December 2006 Newsline newsletter reported that in static tests the munitions were successful in penetrating and exploding the warhead of Kassam-class, short-range missiles and Katyusha-class rockets of the type that have been aimed at Israel in recent months.

"The test rockets were precise copies of the original," the company said.

Skyshield, also designed to destroy enemy helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles, involves two 35-mm cannons and tracking radar. The radar can detect and track small projectiles.

The system can fire 1,000 radar-guided shells per minute, the company said. The warhead is called Advanced Hit Efficiency and Destruction. Each AHEAD shell contains 152 submunitions made of tungsten, capable of penetrating an incoming missile, rocket or mortar shell.

Lockheed Martin said the bomblets emitted toward their target form a lethal cloud that either destroys the incoming missile or diverts its path. The company said Skyshield does not produce collateral damage.

"The small tungsten projectiles lose their speed quite quickly when they pass the target, and in their final speed the components do not harm people," the newsletter said.

Lockheed Martin has used an unidentified special material for the AHEAD shell designed to penetrate incoming projectiles.

The company has proposed delivery of the first enhanced Skyshield to Israel this year. The system reportedly costs around $15 million.

Israel eyes Arrow-THAAD linkup

Thugs to USA - let's talk...
If you want to escape without massive slaughter in Iraq the price is:
Lebanon goes to Hizballah
Free Hand to Syria
Iran gets nukes
Israel is handcuffed in all its dealings, and goes on the problem country list..
and the leader of the Baker Botts legal firm (which also REPRESENTS SAUDI ARABIA AGAINST AMERICANS CITIZENS FOR $$) is hired to create the response to reality:

Just a look at a few points...we will return here I am certain.....

Syria set its price for cooperating with the US in Iraq when it murdered Gemayel. That is, in addition to pressuring Israel to give up the Golan Heights, the US will be expected to accept the reassertion of Syrian/Iranian control over all of Lebanon through a new government controlled by Hizbullah and its allies which will replace the Saniora government. The fall of the Saniora government will also spell the demise of the Hariri murder tribunal. Iran and Syria also demand that the US abandon its policy of regime change in both countries.

Another similarity between Israel's retreat from Gaza and northern Samaria last year, its withdrawal from south Lebanon in 2000, and the proposed US retreat from Iraq today are the obvious consequences of such a retreat for the US, the region and the world. Far from bringing peace and stability, as the champions of the withdrawal policy mindlessly claim, a retreat will cause more war, more instability and more suffering in Iraq, in the region and throughout the world.

But I can tell you what it is not about. Not about Israel, not about Iraq, not about Afghanistan. They are mere excuses. Algerian Muslim fundamentalists murdered 150,000 other Algerian Muslims, sometimes slitting the throats of children in front of their parents. Are you seriously telling me that this was because of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians or American foreign policy?"

From the National Post of Canada:

Dr. Tawfik Hamid doesn't tell people where he lives. Not the street, not the city, not even the country. It's safer that way. It's only the letters of testimony from some of the highest intelligence officers in the Western world that enable him to move freely. This medical doctor, author and activist once was a member of Egypt's Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya (Arabic for "the Islamic Group"), a banned terrorist organization. He was trained under Ayman al-Zawahiri, the bearded jihadi who appears in Bin Laden's videos, telling the world that Islamic violence will stop only once we all become Muslims.

He's a disarmingly gentle and courteous man. But he's determined to tell a complacent North America what he knows about fundamentalist Muslim imperialism.

"Yes, 'imperialism,' " he tells me. "The deliberate and determined expansion of militant Islam and its attempt to triumph not only in the Islamic world but in Europe and North America. Pure ideology. Muslim terrorists kill and slaughter not because of what they experience but because of what they believe."

Hamid drank in the message of Jihadism while at medical school in Cairo, and devoted himself to the cause. His group began meeting in a small room. Then a larger one. Then a Mosque reserved for followers of al-Zawahiri. By the time Hamid left the movement, its members were intimidating other students who were unsympathetic.

He is now 45 years old, and has had many years to reflect on why he was willing to die and kill for his religion. "The first thing you have to understand is that it has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with poverty or lack of education," he says. "I was from a middle-class family and my parents were not religious. Hardly anyone in the movement at university came from a background that was different from mine.

Boston -2 local imams arrested in alleged visa scheme

Now why would they do that?

By Yvonne Abraham and Raja Mishra, Globe Staff | November 16, 2006

Federal immigration agents arrested imams from two Boston-area mosques yesterday on charges they were involved in a scheme that provided religious worker visas to immigrants who used them to enter the United States and work instead as gas station attendants, truck drivers, and factory laborers.

Hafiz Abdul Hannan , imam , or leader, of the Islamic Society of Greater Lowell in Chelmsford, and Muhammed Masood , imam of the Islamic Center of New England in Sharon, were among 33 people taken into custody nationwide after a multi-year investigation led by agents in Boston and New York, said Paula Grenier , a spokeswoman for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"This was a nationwide religious worker visa fraud scheme designed to help illegal aliens," said Grenier. "These people had to be solely engaged in religious employment, and in many cases were not."

Under the Religious Worker Program, started in 1990, churches, synagogues, and mosques can ask the government to approve visas for foreigners to fill vacant positions. Several thousand visas are issued each year that permit immigrants to enter the United States exclusively for religious employment. To obtain the visa, immigrants must have religious training and experience in their native country. Once here, they are not allowed to hold secular jobs. The religious worker permits can ultimately lead to green cards, or permanent residency.

Under the scheme, described by federal authorities yesterday, the immigrants, who were mostly Pakistani, paid a fee to US religious organizations, which then sponsored them for the visas. Federal immigration officials believe that abuse of the program is widespread: an August 2005 audit found signs of fraud in more than 30 percent of applications.

Some of those arrested did legitimate religious work, but had filed false paperwork to win their own visas, or once here, to sponsor others, said Grenier. Because the investigation is ongoing, she would not say whether the imams are alleged to have sponsored the visas for others or violated their own visas by working secular jobs.

Steyn yesterday:

The incoming speaker says Iraq is not a war to be won but a problem to be solved. The incoming defense secretary belongs to a commission charged with doing just that. A nostalgic boomer columnist in the Boston Globe argues that honor requires the United States to "accept defeat," as it did in Vietnam.

Didn't work out so swell for the natives, but to hell with them.

What does it mean when the world's hyperpower, responsible for 40 percent of the planet's military spending, decides that it cannot withstand a guerrilla war with historically low casualties against a ragbag of local insurgents and imported terrorists? You can call it "redeployment" or "exit strategy" or "peace with honor" but, by the time it's announced on al-Jazeera, you can pretty much bet that whatever official euphemism was agreed on back in Washington will have been lost in translation. Likewise, when it's announced on "Good Morning Pyongyang" and the Khartoum Network and, come to that, the BBC.

For the rest of the world, the Iraq war isn't about Iraq; it's about America, and American will.

Hassan Abbassi, Professor of Strategy at the Islamic Republic's Revolutionary Guard Corps Universityand, according to Tehran sources, the principal foreign policy voice in President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration.:

To hear Mr. Abbasi tell it the entire recent history of the U.S. could be narrated with the help of the image of "the last helicopter."
It was that image in Saigon that concluded the Vietnam War under Gerald Ford. Jimmy Carter had five helicopters fleeing from the Iranian desert, leaving behind the charred corpses of eight American soldiers. Under Ronald Reagan the helicopters carried the corpses of 241 Marines murdered in their sleep in a Hezbollah suicide attack. Under the first President Bush, the helicopter flew from Safwan, in southern Iraq, with Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf aboard, leaving behind Saddam Hussein's generals, who could not believe why they had been allowed live to fight their domestic foes, and America, another day. Bill Clinton's helicopter was a Black Hawk, downed in Mogadishu and delivering 16 American soldiers into the hands of a murderous crowd.

According to this theory, President George W. Bush is an "aberration," a leader out of sync with his nation's character and no more than a brief nightmare for those who oppose the creation of an "American Middle East." Messrs. Abbasi and Ahmadinejad have concluded that there will be no helicopter as long as George W. Bush is in the White House. But they believe that whoever succeeds him, Democrat or Republican, will revive the helicopter image to extricate the U.S. from a complex situation that few Americans appear to understand.

It goes on,....

Saudi rulers locked in power struggle over response to Iran threat

Against the backdrop of the NoKo's UN ambassador lunching with the Iranian UN ambassador every day last week, followed by the story of the new Arab nations group (Egypt, KSA, UAE, Morocco, and Algeria) to rapidly explore nuclear technology (gee, ya think the IAEA coming up with a stand to shut down Iran and NoKo would have been wise?) we have this piece of hilarity, viewed from any angle.

Saudi leaders cannot decide whether Iran is more of a threat than is Israel.

Saudi King Abdullah believes that Iran represents the greatest threat to the Gulf Arab kingdom and must be fought at any cost. The king regards Iran as intent on taking over the Sunni oil sheikdoms in the region, with Saudi Arabia being the biggest prize.

Abdullah sees Iran's leadership as intent on forming a Shi'ite arc that would dominate the Middle East and destroy the Sunni world. Already, Iran has in his view effectively taken over Iraq, Lebanon and Syria while making serious inroads in such countries as Bahrain, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority.

As a result, Abdullah wants to form an alliance with Israel and Jordan to prevent a Shi'ite takeover. The king's idea is for the three countries to cooperate against Iran both on its home court as well as in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. The United States could be counted upon to support such an alliance.

Online Fatwas Incite Young Muslims to Jihad

Wow, what next? 'Radical imams quoting Muhammad and Qutb incite young muslims on fridays?'

In an article in the Saudi daily Al-Riyadh, columnist Fares bin Hazam reports that both preachers in mosques and online propaganda are inciting young Muslims to wage jihad. [1] An interview with a young Muslim who went to fight in Afghanistan, also in Al-Riyadh, provides first-hand testimony confirming this claim.

The following are excerpts from the article and the interview:

Saudi Columnist: Preachers in Mosques Urge Worshipers to Join the Jihad in Iraq and Afghanistan

Bin Hazam writes in his article: "The business with Afghanistan will never end as long as the 'duty of jihad' continues to live in [our] society, in mosques, in Friday [sermons], and on the Internet...

"After the fall of the Taliban and the subsequent Guantanamo crisis... there was increasing talk about the need to investigate our youth's growing [inclination] towards jihad, and about the need to search for the reasons that motivate them to go to Afghanistan and to other countries...

"The call to investigate these reasons is despicable; it is a tasteless joke. [One might think] that the reasons are unknown, that we are not aware of our situation [and need to conduct an] investigation in order to discover why [our young people] went forth and are still going forth [to wage jihad]... The reasons are obvious. Many of us know them, and there is no need for a scientific study or for any other [kind of study] to reveal them...

"Since the causes are known, do we lack courage to deal with [this problem]? [I believe that] we do. Our lack of courage has been apparent ever since we invented the excuse of 'external [influences],' and began to toy with it and wave it at every opportunity. I do not know where these [external influences] come from, since it was we who sent our young men [to Afghanistan] in the first place, before we ever heard of [these influences] that allegedly come [from outside].

"Some preachers, [namely] those who fear the censor, deceive him by being implicit in their incitement to [wage] jihad in Iraq or Afghanistan. They speak in their sermons about the merits of jihad without mentioning a particular region. They speak in general terms that can be applied to any location, even to our [own] country. During the prayer, the details start to pour in thick and fast: first, [a call to wage jihad] in Palestine, [which serve as] a smokescreen, and then [calls for jihad] in Afghanistan, Iraq and Chechnya, and finally... the call 'oh Allah, grant them victory everywhere!' 'Everywhere' includes our [own] country... and we say 'amen' after the preacher calls [upon Allah] to help the mujahideen in our [own] country..."

Qassams hit town after five days of calm, one lands near bus. Resident: 'It's a disgrace that the IDF does nothing', another two Qassams land near kibbutzim in area

Despite the IDF's intense activity in the Gaza Strip, the firing if Qassam rockets toward Israel continues. Two Qassams were fired at the town of Sderot Thursday morning. One rocket landed in town, while the other fell in an open field outside of Sderot. Residents reported of a particularly loud explosion. No injuries or damage were reported in the strike.

Another two Qassam rockets fired from the northern Gaza Strip landed near the Gabim and Nir Am kibbutzim, police said.

A facility used to store agricultural produce was damaged but no one was injured.

The rocket that hit inside Sderot landed nearby a bus that was driving local residents to a trip in the north. One of the passengers told Ynet: "We were about to pick up one of the families when we heard a loud blast. The rocket landed about 50 meters from the bus. Panic broke out inside the bus, there were families with children there."

He added that the bus driver, who is not a Sderot resident, was terrified. "He told me, 'I've been through wars and only now do I realize the reality you live in'."

annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnddddddddddddddddddddd.....

Lies, lies all lies
Saudi Arabia's grand mufti: Pope's comments lies

Saudi Arabia's highest religious authority, Grand Mufti Abdul-Aziz al-Sheik, said in remarks published Saturday that the pope's comments on Islam were "all lies."

"These are all lies. The prophet (Muhammad), peace be upon him, came as a mercy to the world," the daily al-Riyadh newspaper quoted al-Sheik as saying.

He said the pontiff's remarks showed reconciliation between religions was impossible. Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah !!!!!

"Everybody should know by now that all claims about religions' reconciliation have just been proven to be lies in reality," al-Sheik said. "How can they think of reconciliation while insulting Islam and the prophet?"

British Muslim leaders meeting with government representatives to discuss ways of combating extremism are calling for the establishment of Islamic law (shari'a) to govern Muslims' family life.

Too funny for words.

"We told her if you give us religious rights, we will be in a better position to convince [Muslim] young people that they are being treated equally along with other citizens," said Syed Aziz Pasha, secretary general of the Union of Muslim Organizations of the U.K. and Ireland.

Pasha was among some 30 Muslim leaders, described as moderates, who met with Ruth Kelly, the minister responsible for communities, amid raging debate in the country over what to do about the terror threat.

The government is appealing to Muslim figures to work harder to prevent extremist views from taking root in their communities, particularly among young people.

The campaign was accelerated after the July 2005 London bombings, and given new urgency in recent days after police discovered what they said was a conspiracy to blow up U.S.-bound aircraft, killing thousands of air passengers and crew.

As of Tuesday, police were holding 24 suspects, all reported to be Muslims.

'If you give the means to erode your culture, then we won't have to convince our young people not to blow the &%#$ out of you, old chap, which we all know won't work at any rate, right?'

Muslims criticise naming of plot suspects

LONDON (Reuters) - Muslims criticised the government on Friday for publishing the names of 19 men who police sources say are under arrest for allegedly plotting to blow up passenger planes bound for the United States.

The government instructed the Bank of England to publish the names on its Web site on Thursday, just hours after police arrested 24 people in connection with the suspected plot. Police have not named the 24 but a police source confirmed they include the 19 named by the central bank. Although the bank did not give the addresses of the 19, it listed their dates of birth and the areas where they live.

The bank's action is unusual. Normally, authorities do not publish the names of suspects until they have been formally charged and identified by the police.

But the government defended the move, saying it was essential to ensure the assets of the 19 were frozen.

"The Treasury has informed us that this is a normal procedure," Home Secretary John Reid told a news conference.

"When people's assets are frozen, the names are published, and this, the Treasury tells us, is part of the obligation of ensuring that people cannot deal with such individuals in the transfer of assets."

Some Muslim groups said the move was unnecessary and could hamper the suspects' chance of a fair trial if they are eventually charged in connection with the plot.

A New Hub for Terrorism?

While the United States dithers, a growing Islamic fundamentalist movement linked to al-Qaeda and Pakistani intelligence agencies is steadily converting the strategically located nation of Bangladesh into a new regional hub for terrorist operations that reach into India and Southeast Asia.

With 147 million people, largely Muslim Bangladesh has substantial Hindu and Christian minorities and is nominally a secular democracy. But the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) struck a Faustian bargain with the fundamentalist party Jamaat-e-Islami five years ago in order to win power.

In return for the votes in Parliament needed to form a coalition government, Prime Minister Khaleda Zia has looked the other way as the Jamaat has systematically filled sensitive civil service, police, intelligence and military posts with its sympathizers, who have in turn looked the other way as Jamaat-sponsored guerrilla squads patterned after the Taliban have operated with increasing impunity in many rural and urban areas.

To the dismay of her business supporters, the prime minister gave the coveted post of industries minister to Matiur Rahman Nizami, a high-ranking Jamaat official who has helped promote the growth of a Jamaat economic empire that embraces banking, insurance, trucking, pharmaceutical manufacturing, department stores, newspapers and TV stations. A study last year by a leading Bangladeshi economist showed that the "fundamentalist sector of the economy" earns annual profits of some $1.2 billion.

Again, the incredibly arrogant assumption that something WE DO will stop armed dawa, and salafi qutbites. There is nothing we can do except KILL THEM. I'd prefer not to until compulsory

When Qassams first flew out of Gaza, it became obvious that Israel would, via artillery, create a no man's land so that any attempted launch would be exposed.

The response was longer range Qassam's and bigger artillery cleared buffer zones.
I predicted this would go on, until like Monty Python's Knight at the bridge, there would be a flattened Gaza which would be uninhabited, but HAMAS would declare a victory from among the million tents in the egyptian desert, if Israel was going to solve the problem via buffer zones.

And now Israel announces a buffer zone to be occupied b ythe IDF which MIGHT protect a bit better the northern Haifa /Qiryat Shemona areas from the shortest ranged and most inaccurate of Hizballah missiles.

Insufficient forces used to obliterate the enemy's ability to rain destruction on your own people.
Insufficient determination displayed to deter the enemy over 6 years.
Insufficient aircraft used in combat air patrols to kill the katyusha launching crews
Insufficient technical means to spot the launch points by direct fire, and determine storage areas.
Insufficient political determination in the combat zone ..." They said that once the civilians had been told to leave the town, the army should have regarded Bint Jbail as a battlefield and destroyed any home where Hezbollah guerrillas were suspected of hiding." -- from the combat arm, the IDF

Nothing quite compares with the Islamic "thinkers" society ..a triple oxymoron

In the past of this world war has ended slavery, fascism and other evils. These horrors have ended because civilized men recognizing the futility of avoiding what cannot be avoided, undertook horror to end worse.

And so now, the forces which are only the cat's paws of apocalyptic belief that the end of the world is a good, and that horror visited on jewish people thru history is justifiable, have made a mistake. The same mistake that such forces have always made of free peoples.

It doesn't matter.
This had to happen.
All of the players in the middle east from Morocco to Pakistan would, to put it mildly, prefer to see Israel dead. Most of them insist on it. All of them certainly teach that it would be good. Sooner or later the students of such racism and hate grow up, teach others, and cannot understand when others look at them as verminous bigots.

They
just
don't
get
it
and
they
never
will

From MEMRI:

Exiled British Islamist Sheikh Omar bin Bakri in Beirut: We Will See the Banner of Islam 'Flying Over Big Ben and the British Parliament'

Sheikh Omar bin Bakri, Syrian-born British Islamist and former leader of the Islamist "Al-Muhajirun" organization in Britain, whose activities in Britain were stopped in October 2005, now resides in Beirut. In an interview, Sheikh Omar bin Bakri told the London daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat that he would not consider returning to Britain until it "repealed its terrorist laws through which it terrorizes peaceful Muslims in Britain" and that "loyal Muslims in Britain will one day turn it, with Allah's help, into 'Islamistan.'" He also repeated statements he had made in 2001 about the "banner of Islam" flying over British landmarks and government buildings. [1]

The following are excerpts from the interview: [2]

Question: "Do you still stand by your previous fatwas, and in particular the one forbidding the handing over of information concerning terrorists?"

Omar Bakri: "The handing over of information concerning Muslims - whether they are those who fight jihad for the sake of Allah or just plain Muslims - to the British or American police or to any other infidel or apostate security force [i.e. those of Arab or Muslim states], is a forbidden act according to the shari'a. This is one of the severe forms of heresy that removes one from the [fold of the] religion [of Islam]. This is because this is a kind of aid to the infidels against the Muslims, and Allah said: 'Whosoever among you befriends them, he is [like] one of them [Koran 5:51].'"

Landmark al Qaeda trial collapses

Judge: 'Islamic Sharia law permits jihad against occupiers'

SAN'A, Yemen (AP) -- The trial of 19 alleged al Qaeda members had been designed to showcase how serious Yemen was in the fight against terror. But the Islamic militants, accused of plotting to assassinate Westerners and blow up a hotel frequented by Americans, were all acquitted for lack of proof, the presiding judge ruled Saturday.

Prosecutors had failed to provide "adequate evidence that the defendants were plotting attacks against foreigners or planning to assassinate Americans in Yemen," the verdict said.

Critics say the decision points to the Yemeni president's bid to win the radical Islamic vote ahead of elections in September.

Several of the defendants did confess to having been in Iraq to fight U.S. troops there and had Iraqi stamps on their passport, the court heard. "But this does not violate [Yemeni] law," the judge said.

"Islamic Sharia law permits jihad against occupiers," he said.

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration has confirmed that Saudi financiers are backing the new regime with ties to Al Qaida that has taken power in Somalia.

Officials said the so-called Islamic Courts Union, headed by an Al Qaida commander wanted by the United States, has garnered most of its foreign support from Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
"I don't want to say the Saudi government is supporting any particular [Islamic] court," Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer said. "But I do know that there is money coming in from Saudi Arabia."

Exsqueeze me? 'I don't want to say that very little at best is different today in KSA than in 2000, 1900, 1800, or 650AD, but, it seems that the salafi freaks still only want to achieve ONE THING with the money they are pumping out of the ground from the Al Saud family gas concession.' How does that sound instead?

Hamas's military wing, Izzadin al-Kassam announced in a press conference in Beit Lahiya Saturday evening that its fighters "have defeated the Israeli army."

IDF troops began pulling out of northern Gaza late Friday night and Saturday morning following military operations there.

During the press conference, the masked Hamas operatives also presented army-issued identification cards belonging to IDF troops.

The cards were apparently left behind accidentally by the soldiers due to the intense fighting there.

The Hamas-led Palestinian government called for a cease-fire in its violent two-week standoff with Israel but stopped short Saturday of offering to release an Israeli soldier held by Hamas militants. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rejected the proposal by Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. Olmert will not agree to a truce until Hamas releases the soldier, officials in Olmert's office said.

Well, well, well.
Perhaps those who think ONE FINE DAY HAMAS will practical know something. Of course, when weak it is always permissible for a HUDNA.

Earlier, an Israeli Cabinet minister said Israel hopes the fighting, which has killed more than 40 Palestinians and an Israeli soldier, eventually will lead to a broader cease-fire deal.

In fighting Saturday, Israeli troops exchanged fire with Palestinian gunmen, and army bulldozers searched for militants' tunnels near Gaza City. In northern Gaza, tanks pulled out of the town of Beit Lahiya, leaving a wide swath of destruction after trying to carve out a buffer zone against rockets there.

Israel's two-week military campaign, prompted by the abduction of Cpl. Gilad Shalit has put the Hamas government under growing pressure. Israel has arrested several Palestinian Cabinet ministers and Hamas lawmakers.

Moderate muslims? Sure, but they have be APOSTATES. Otherwise the Quran and Hadiths are a complete conscience subsitution set

Islam or death

I read Le Roy Barnett's letter ("Muslims, speak up," June 26) about Muslims' opinion on Abdul Rahman's conversion to Christianity.

Islam is not only a religion, it is a complete way of life. Islam guides Muslims from birth to grave. The Quran and prophet Muhammad's words and practical application of Quran in life cannot be changed.

Islam is a guide for humanity, for all times, until the day of judgment. It is forbidden in Islam to convert to any other religion. The penalty is death. There is no disagreement about it.

Pity our paper of the same name....while the NYT regards our own govt as more dangerous then the killers of the Islamic KKK, the TIme of London serves the greater good.

Sunday Times reporter Ali Hussain spent six weeks in Beeston, where three of the 7/7 bombers came from. He found an enclosed community, rife with conspiracy theories

The rich smell of Indian spices wafted along the road. Voices babbled in Urdu and Sylheti, a Bangladeshi dialect that my own family speak. Thick-bearded men in robes strolled the streets and youngsters wore their jeans rolled above the ankle after leaving the mosque, as Muslim custom requires.

I felt both at home and in a foreign land. This could almost be an Asian city, I thought, rather than Beeston, the suburb of Leeds where two of the July 7 bombers had lived.

I had come to gauge the mood of the community after the 7/7 attacks, which struck London a year ago this week. The world I knew as a British Muslim sprang from cosmopolitan roots, and I wanted to discover what the people of this more insular community really felt about the bombers and western culture.

No one was wounded in the attack, despite the fact that the rocket hit a school in a populated area in the south of the city. Children playing soccer outside the ORT-Ronson High School on Rehov Ben Zvi were thrown back by the force of the explosion, witnesses reported, but were unharmed. The school suffered some damage.

Despite an IDF incursion into northern Gaza, a Kassam rocket landed Tuesday night for the first time in the heart of Ashkelon, sending the city's 120,000 residents into a state of fear that their city would be bombarded by rockets like Sderot has since the disengagement last summer.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert termed the Kassam attack a "grave escalation" for which Hamas is responsible and for which there will be far-reaching ramifications.

Olmert's comments came at the annual July 4th celebration held at the residency of the US ambassador to Israel in Herzliya Pituach.

"Tonight a grave escalation took place when a Kassam landed in a school in our southern town. This is a peerless and grave escalation in the terrorist war for which Hamas, which is in control of the Palestinian government, is responsible," Olmert said.

He said there will be significant ramifications for this "criminal attempt" to strike at Israeli citizens. He said Hamas would be the first to be hit.

You have to be kidding me, right?

Target any white person: the chilling guidelines for Bali suicide bombers

Any white person is a target. Avoid hotels because they are too well protected. Carry the bombs in small knapsacks to avoid suspicion. And don't worry about your escape route because you will become a "martyr".

These guidelines for suicide bombers were found on a computer captured by Indonesian police during a raid in November, and are believed to have been written by the British-educated bomb-maker Azahari Husin, who died during the attack.

Azahari, in his mid-40s when he died, studied for a doctorate at the University of Reading, and was a leading Malaysian member of Jemaah Islamiah, the South East Asian terrorist group that has close ties to al-Qa'eda.

Azahari, nicknamed the Demolition Man by Malaysian newspapers, earned a Phd in property valuation at Reading and was an associate professor at the Malaysian Technology University. But in 1998 he took a sabbatical after falling under the influence of a radical preacher, and then trained in explosives with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Azahari had been the prime suspect in a campaign of bombings against western targets including two attacks on the tourist resorts of Bali in 2002 and 2005, killing 202 and 20 people respectively.

The 34-page document on his computer set out the meticulous planning and execution for the second Bali attack, including a minute-by-minute timetable culminating with the triple suicide bombing on Oct 1. The blasts were set for 7.34pm when the restaurants would be full, and the entry read: "Allahu Akbar" (God is great).

If this is not the worst case for Islam, I can't imagine what would be. All we need is Chris Farley yelling "Kill whitey"

For those who have eulogized Al Qaida, here's some disturbing news: The commander of the Islamic militia that took control of the capital of Somalia is an Al Qaida fugitive.

Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, believed to be 64, is no stranger to the U.S. intelligence community. Aweys is on the State Department list of Al Qaida operatives. He has been named the leader of the Conservative Council of Islamic Courts, the new ruler of Mogadishu and intent on capturing the rest of Somalia.

"Somalia is a Muslim nation, and its people are also Muslim, 100 percent. Therefore, any government we agree on would be based on the holy Quran and the teachings of our Prophet Muhammad," Aweys told the Associated Press in a telephone interview, his first comments to the media since being named head of the Islamic militia Saturday.

The three Palestinian militant groups that captured an Israeli soldier gave Israel until Tuesday morning to release Palestinian prisoners or "pay the consequences."

The statement, which was faxed to news agencies on Monday, did not say what those consequences would be.

Cpl. Gilad Shalit, 19, was captured June 25 in a cross-border raid by militants linked to the Palestinians' ruling Hamas party, the Popular Resistance Committees and the Army of Islam. The last two groups have ties to Hamas.

I don't think we have to imagine

Meanwhile, Hamas's armed wing, Izaddin al-Kassam, on Sunday threatened to attack infrastructure facilities inside Israel, including schools, hospitals and universities

Ahmed Bahar, deputy speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said that the soldier would not be handed back unless Israel accepted the conditions of the captors. "These are the conditions of all the Palestinians, including the families of prisoners and martyrs," he said.

Bahar said Israel's dilemma is that it is facing only two scenarios either to suffer humiliation by accepting the conditions or to launch a military operation that could result in the death of the soldier.

Gee, I wonder what that would mean?

Tents in the desert for 1.3 million?

Haniyeh orders end to Qassam fire

Hamas stopped firing Qassam rockets at Israel yesterday, after

Israel warned that it would attack Hamas leaders

. In response to Hamas' restraint, the Israel Defense Forces will not attack Hamas targets as long as it does not renew terror attacks.

Yeah I find it hard to believe as well

School Ties Link Alleged Plotters Arrested Canadians Had Bonded at Clubs and on Soccer Fields

By Doug Struck Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, June 11, 2006; Page A16

TORONTO -- They were school pals. One is 15. Most are just out of high school, some still in. The 17 boys and men whom Canadian police are calling "homegrown terrorists" forged their bonds in student clubs and on school soccer fields, chatted on the Internet, and urged each other to be heroes for their faith.

The arrests last weekend left many Canadians pondering how a country proud of its diverse culture and political moderation could spawn such an apparent interest in violence. Especially by people so young.

Sorry, I was wrong, it wasn't the milk, it was soccer, no - it was high school spirit

What started as boasts and youthful rhetoric crystallized into action, the government says. The youths ordered $4,000 worth of ingredients for a bomb, built a detonator and cased out targets for a two-pronged attack that would take hostages on Parliament Hill in Ottawa while setting off bombs in Toronto, prosecutors contend.

Huh?

Hamas Military Wing Calls Off Israel Truce

Oh, right.

Just imagine if Tom Coburn was the mouthpiece for some Dobsonian-Robertsonian-Falwellian religiously pure waqf based group of god freaks so malevolent their acts were utterly amoral, and that the 'armed factions' ran around making policy right out of their own heads as dictated by their version of a deity. Tom Delay in a balaclava and St. George's cross on his chest?

That wouldn't resemble anarchy would it?

AP- Hamas militants called off a truce with Israel on Friday after a barrage of Israeli artillery shells tore into Palestinians at a beachside picnic in the Gaza Strip, killing seven civilians.

The declaration raised the prospect of a new wave of bloodshed. Hamas militants suspended a campaign of deadly suicide attacks on Israelis with a February 2005 cease-fire, and have largely stuck to the truce. The Islamic group now leads the Palestinian government.

LIES OF THE MSM

The only way I can describe this is ... PRECIOUS
"Mom, are we terrorists?'"

Several members of a suspected terrorist ring prayed daily at a storefront mosque in a middle-class city west of Toronto but never spoke of hurting others, one of their prayer leaders said.

"I will say that they were steadfast, religious people. There's no doubt about it. But here we always preach peace and moderation," Qamrul Khanson, an imam at the one-room Al-Rahman Islamic Center for Islamic Education, said Sunday. The 40-50 Muslim families who worship at the mosque were astonished, he said, to learn that police had arrested 12 adults, ages 19 to 43, and five suspects younger than 18 on Friday and Saturday, charging them with plotting an attack in southern Ontario. Two Americans who met with the suspects also are in custody.

The group had acquired three tons of ammonium nitrate _ three times the amount used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, said assistant Royal Canadian Mounted Police commissioner Mike McDonell. The bombing of the Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995, killed 168 people and injured more than 800.

The fertilizer can be mixed with fuel oil or other ingredients to make a bomb.

Officials said the operation involved some 400 intelligence and law- enforcement officers and was the largest counterterrorism operation in Canada since the nation's Anti-Terrorism Act was adopted after the Sept. 11 attacks. The Toronto Star reported that the investigation began in 2004 with the monitoring of Internet chat rooms.

Muslim leader condemns extremism

A leading Sunni Islamic cleric spoke out against religious extremism and encouraged Singapore's Muslims to work with other races and religions for the good of their nation, a local newspaper reported Friday.

Sheik Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi, the grand sheik of Egypt's Al-Azhar, one of the most powerful Islamic institutions in the Middle East, is on a three-day visit to Singapore. He has met with government officials and addressed a group of about 50 Malay-Muslim leaders on Thursday.

In those comments, Tantawi condemned religious radicalism and terrorism as "evil" and reiterated that Islam espouses tolerance and moderation, according to The Straits Times newspaper.

Such virtues "should lead us away from blind fanaticism and hatred because Islam considers all human beings to have come from one mother and father," he was quoted as saying.

In the past few days we have all been treated to a back and forth apparently from the the Canadian Post and Amir Taheri about Iran and the badges for non muslims.

Alexandra has a really thing Beautiful with regard to this, but the incontrovertible history of both Islam and Iran are that such actions are the fact of both.

For instance from Bostom to whom we owe much:
Eight Years in Asia and Africa-From 1846-1855 (Hanover, l859), pp.
211-13:
Item 4: "Under the pretext of their being unclean, they are treated with the
greatest severity, and should they enter a street, inhabited by Mussulmans, they
are pelted by the boys and mob with stones and dirt."; Item 5: "For the same
reason they are forbidden to go out when it rains; for it is said the rain would
wash dirt off them, which would sully the feet of the Mussulmans."
Also see item 1 of Hamadan's 1892 regulations, twenty-two in total, for its Jews, from a letter by S. Somekh, published in The Alliance Ismelite Universale, October, 27, 1892, translated and reproduced in D. G. Littman, "Jews under
Muslim Rule: The Case of Persia," Weiner Libraiy Bulletin 32 (1979): 7-8:
The Jews are forbidden to leave their houses when it rains or snows [to prevent
the impurity of the Jews being transmitted to the Shiite Muslims].
Regarding this condition, as well as the other twenty-one conditions, Somekh writes, The latter [i.e., the Jews] have a choice between automatic acceptance, conversion to Islam, or their annihilation. Some who live from hand to mouth have consented to these humiliating and cruel conditions through fear, without offering
resistance; thirty of the most prominent members of the community were surprised in the telegraph office, where they had gone to telegraph their grievances to Teheran. They were compelled to embrace the Muslim faith to escape from certain death. But the majority is in hiding and does not dare to venture into the streets.', [p. 71]

We see here the conditions making the existance of the badge a convienience for muslims.

Where would be without MEMRI...how come it take s MEMRI to alert us instead of a Columbus paper? Columbus is a US City of more than a million.... HERE is who this guy is.

THIS IS A FARCE...

Dr. Salah Sultan is president of the American Center for Islamic Research (ACIR), a non-profit organization registered in Ohio and located in Columbus. On his website, he asserts that the main purpose of the ACIR is to "serve Allah (God) in the best way possible through the principles laid out in the Quran and Sunnah," to address misconceptions and extremism, to build bridges with non-Muslims, and to provide fatwas. [1]

Dr. Sultan, who has been called "one of America's most noted Muslim scholars," [2] is signatory to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) 2005 fatwa against terrorism, [3] and is a former professor and president of the Islamic AmericanUniversity in Michigan. [4] He is president of the American Institute for Religious and Cultural Studies, and active in the European Council for Fatwa and Research (headed by Islamist sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi [5] whom he calls "our great scholar" [6] );the Fiqh Council of North America; and the International Association of Muslim Scholars. [7] He previously served on the board of directors of Islamic AmericanUniversity, and on the Muslim American Society Board of Trustees. [8] Dr. Sultan's resume states that he also serves on the board of trustees of the International Union for Muslim Scholars, and is a member of the Council of Indian Scholars and of the Association of Scholars in Germany. [9]

According to his website, [10] Sultan is an elected member of the Shura Board of the recently founded International Association of Muslim Scholars in London (IAMS), and has written over 20 books, including Muslim Participation in the American Elections. [11]

Sultan lectures frequently at the Islamic Society of Greater Columbus, on topics such as the priorities of Islamic work in the U.S. and the role of Muslim men and women in the U.S. [12] According to a calendar on Dr. Sultan's webpage, over the past year he has lectured in Washington, D.C.; New Jersey; Detroit; Dallas; San Diego; Montreal; Cairo; Kuwait; Bahrain; Qatar; and Jeddah, Medina, and Mecca in Saudi Arabia. He has also spoken at the MAS Youth Center Convention Center in Queens and Brooklyn, New York; the Bronx Muslim Center in Bronx, New York; the Union of Imams Minneapolis in Minnesota; the Omar bin Khatab Mosque and the Bethel Road Mosque in Columbus, Ohio; the Al-Huda and ICB Mosque in Boston; the Dearborn Mosque in Dearborn, Michigan; the Islamic Fiqh Council of India in New Delhi; and the European Council for Islamic Rulings and Research in Istanbul. [13]

According to his online resume, Sultan's "vision" is: "To live happily. To die as a martyr." [14]

Sultan currently attends Columbus State Community College in Ohio; previously, he worked at the Islamic Center of Greater Worcester in Massachusetts and at the Islamic Open University in Washington, D.C. [15]

On May 17, 2006, Dr. Sultan appeared on the Saudi Prince Walid bin Talal-owned Al-Risala TV channel. [16] In his appearance on Al-Risala TV, Dr. Sultan praised Yemenite sheikh Dr. Al-Zindani, who has been categorized by the U.S. government as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" because of his loyalty to Osama bin Laden and his support of Al-Qaeda. [17] According to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Al-Zindani "has a long history of working with bin Laden, notably serving as one of his spiritual leaders. In this leadership capacity, he has been able to influence and support many terrorist causes, including actively recruiting for Al-Qaeda training camps." [18]

Meanwhile ....(Gertz, excepted, sub required)

Abdullah has designated Hamas a key threat to Jordan, which includes a Palestinian majority. Abdullah is a fighter and he realizes that if he doesn't stop Hamas now, he won't see his children take over the monarchy.

"What some members of Hamas did against Jordanian national security by smuggling weapons and explosives into Jordan will not affect whatsoever the historic relationship with the Palestinian brothers," Abdullah said. "It will not stop Jordan from pursuing its national role toward them leading to their full rights, foremost of which is the establishment of an independent Palestinian state."

Abdullah was being typically generous. But his security and intelligence services have been working overtime to track the Hamas threat. Hamas, included on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations, has been feeding on the Palestinian majority to win support for an eventual Islamic takeover of the kingdom. Hamas's strength is in the 11 Palestinian refugee camps, where anti-monarchial feelings run high.

"There has been a significant increase in monitoring of the refugee camps in Jordan," a Western diplomatic source said. "There have been frequent, if unreported, raids as well as arrests. Tension is high."

Knowing americans would never do nothing and let some execrable murderer, or murder conspiracist die by his own hand, prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, staged a fake suicide to attempt to murder the guards entering in order to save a murderer's wasted life.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ten Guantanamo prisoners lured U.S. guards into a cell with a staged suicide attempt, then attacked them with light fixtures, fan blades and other improvised weapons while guards fired rubber balls and used a grenade launcher to subdue them, U.S. officials said on Friday. The officials called Thursday's clash the most intense outbreak of violence at the jail for foreign terrorism suspects at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since it opened in January 2002.

Six prisoners were treated for "minor injuries" and none of the U.S. guards was seriously hurt after the fight pitting 10 inmates against 10 U.S. guards, the officials said. The fight ended only after guards blasted detainees five times with a 12 gauge shotgun shooting rubber balls and used a grenade launcher that shot a blunt rubber object, officials said.

Can you imagine?

PARIS (Agence France-Presse) -- They are highly motivated, battle-hardened, mobile -- and therefore, dangerous. And the return of Europe's jihadists from Iraq is giving the Continent's intelligence services nightmares.

As far back as October, Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr warned that intercepted correspondence between Abu Musab Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, and other figures in the movement had revealed a decision to send large numbers of Islamist volunteers back to their countries of origin to wage holy war.