Jihad Watch - TRIBUTE - www.JihadWatch.org

November 1, 2009

For years I have been insisting that the United States is being played for a patsy (or a dhimmi) by the Pakistanis, and the revelation last year that much of the money we gave them to fight terror was funneled to the terrorists themselves only confirmed that.

Now they are saying that they will defeat the Taliban within six weeks. Jeffrey Imm, however, has performed an extraordinary service by showing that the Pakistanis have been making this kind of promise for years. And what exactly do we have to show for it?

He does so with a simple list of links:

Pakistan: Taliban Defeated by Mid-December 2009 http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/11/01/world/main5483270.shtml

-- May 18, 2009: Pakistan will defeat Taliban and ensure peace: PM http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/world/05/18/09/pakistan-will-defeat-taliban-and-ensure-peace-pm

-- February 25, 2009: Pakistan vows to 'defeat terror' with Obama http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/pakistan-vows-to-defeat-terror-with-obama-20090225-8hiy.html

-- September 4, 2008: Pakistan's Zardari vows to work with US, defeat Taliban http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/04/2355925.htm

-- August 10, 2007: Musharraf vows to fight extremism http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/08/12/pakistan.jirga/?iref=newssearch

-- March 18, 2007: Bhutto - Taliban must be defeated in Pakistan this year http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\03\19\story_19-3-2007_pg3_1 http://www.pakistantimes.net/2007/03/18/top6.htm

-- November 20, 2006: Pak president calls for multiple measures to defeat Taliban http://english.people.com.cn/200611/20/eng20061120_323224.html

-- September 15, 2005: Musharraf offers to fence in Taliban http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/musharraf-offers-to-fence-in-taliban/2005/09/13/1126377316418.html

-- August 14, 2005: Pakistan's leaders vow to defeat terrorism http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-08-14-pakistan_x.htm

-- August 24, 2004: Pakistan Vows to Stop Taliban http://nytimes.com/2004/08/24/international/asia/24stan.html?hp

-- December 29, 2003: Pakistan toughens on militants http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1229/p07s01-wosc.htm

-- February 11, 2002: Captures Point to Pakistan As Taliban Hiding Place http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/2-11-2002-11430.asp

-- October 1, 2001: Taliban's days numbered: Musharraf http://www.expressindia.com/news/fullstory.php?newsid=2973

-- September 16, 2001: Pakistan to Demand Taliban Give Up Bin Laden http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,34440,00.html

Yes, but this time they really, really mean it!

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An announcement from Atlas Shrugs:

Pamela Geller in co-operation with Robert Spencer and Dr. Andrew Bostom are organizing a Rally for Rifqa on the day of her dependency hearing in support of the reinstatement of Rifqa's rights and freedom of religion. Some of the warriors coming to our rally.........

Simon Deng - ex-slave from Sudan

Nonie Darwish - Executive Director, Former Muslims United

James Lafferty - chairman of the Virginia Anti-Sharia Task Force

Joyce Kaufman - Talk Show Radio Host

Jamal Jivanjee - apostate, Pastor and Rifqa's friend

Honor killing victims' family members

Rifqa Bary's civil rights are being violated. She is being held prisoner: no phone, no internet no public school .........house arrest in accord with sharia law. Female apostates are imprisoned until they recant.

Ohio is practicing sharia law. Where are Rifqa's civil rights? Where is her freedom of religion? Why isn't Obama fighting for her right to NOT wear the hijab?

Her parents, here illegally from Sri Lanka, perjured themselves repeatedly and abused Rifqa for years. They are devout Muslims. The punishment for apostasy in Islam is death. Why can't Rifqa choose her own attorney? She is up against an array of legal talent and her parents have changed lawyers as frequently as toddlers change diapers. PLEASE JOIN ATLAS SHRUGS, JIHAD WATCH, DR. BOSTOM

A RALLY FOR RIFQA'S CIVIL RIGHTS ON THE DAY OF HER NEXT HEARING NOVEMBER 16TH FRANKLIN COUNTY JUVENILE COURT Franklin County courthouse Franklin County juvenile court 4th floor 373 S. High street Columbus, Ohio 43215 Time to be determined Phone: 614.462.4411, Franklin County Juvenile Court clerk

THERE WILL BE SPEAKERS, FELLOW APOSTATES FROM ISLAM, INTERNATIONAL LAWYERS FIGHTING BLASPHEMY LAWS AND DEFENDING FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE AGE OF JIHAD. I IMPLORE YOU TO STAND WITH THIS GIRL. SHE REPRESENTS AMERICA IN THE FIGHT AGAINST ENCROACHING SHARIA LAW.

Check Atlas for details as trial draws closer ......

SPEAKERS TO BE ANNOUNCED! WORLD'S LEADING VOICES ON APOSTASY FREEDOM OF RELIGION HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS FAMILY MEMBER OF HONOR KILLING VICTIMS

More details to come.

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An update on the expanding aspirations of al-Shabaab. The story below notes how al-Shabaab has somehow "mutated" from a "nationalist" movement to an international jihadist organization, with rhetoric indistinguishable from that of al-Qaeda.

This is easier to explain than CNN may think, or want to believe. First, the fundamental goal of jihad is the imposition of Islamic law. Various jihadist conflicts around the world are but local expressions of a global goal: Think jihad globally, wage jihad locally, one might say. And al-Shabaab's rhetoric does not match al-Qaeda's because al-Qaeda invented it. No, they and the other jihadist movements have a common source of incitement in the Quran and ahadith.

"Somali group with al Qaeda ties threatens Israel," by Mohamed Amiin Adow for CNN, November 1:

(CNN) -- A militant Islamist group associated with al Qaeda has for the first time threatened to attack Israel, far from its normal base of operations in Somalia.
Al-Shabab, which is fighting to control the east African country, accused Israel of "starting to destroy" the Al Aqsa mosque, where standoffs have taken place recently between Israeli police and Palestinians. The mosque is part of the complex that Jews call the Temple Mount and Muslims call Haram al-Sharif.
"The Jews started to destroy parts of the holy mosque of Al Aqsa and they routinely kill our Palestinian brothers, so we are committed to defend our Palestinian brothers," said Mukhtar Robow Abu Mansur, a prominent Al-Shabab commander.
His threat was part of a series of fiery sermons delivered after Friday prayers in Baidoa in southwest Somalia. Al-Shabab controls the region, which is part of a country that has been without an effective national government for nearly 20 years.
Other leaders of the group also threatened Israel, the first time the group is known to have done so.
"We will transfer and expand our fighting in the Middle East so we can defend Al Aqsa mosque from the Israelis," Al-Shabab commander Abdifatah Aweys Abu Hamza said in Mogadishu, the Somali capital.
He is apparently the leader of a new Al-Shabab armed group calling themselves "Mujahedin Al Aqsa," or "Al Aqsa Holy Warriors," which they said is assigned to attack Israel.
It is not clear whether Al-Shabab has the capacity to carry out its threats against Israel.
But Rashid Abdi of the International Crisis Group warned that the group should be taken seriously.
"We should not underestimate the capacity of Al-Shabab," he said. "This is a deadly organization, a formidable foe."
Abdi said the group had been mutating from a nationalist group into a terrorist organization more like al Qaeda, which was behind the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
"If you look at the rhetoric and language and if you look at the Web sites, if you hear their preachers or their scholars speak, it is completely indistinguishable from al Qaeda leaders," Abdi said.
The group has also become more vicious in Somalia, a local human rights expert said.
"The most gruesome and gross violations of human rights are committed by Al-Shabab," activist Hassan Shire Sheikh said. "They have also instilled fear. They just shoot, they kill, they maim and they lash."
The group also threatened African neighbors on Friday, including Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya, Eritrea, Ghana, Sudan and Uganda. They have in the past threatened African nations that provide peacekeeping troops to the war-torn country.

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"America and Islam...share common principles - principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings." -- Barack Obama, Cairo, June 4, 2009

"Copts expressed their fear over leaflets entitled 'These have to Die!' which are being distributed to all Muslims in Dairout and neighborhoods, enticing them to 'burn, vandalize and clean the country of these evil immoral infidels.'"

Islamic Tolerance Alert: "Egyptian Christians Fear More Muslim Violence," by Mary Abdelmassih for AINA, November 1:

Egypt (AINA) -- Egyptian security forces have intensified their presence in the Upper Egyptian town of Dairout, in anticipation of a recurrence of Muslim violence against Christians. Copts expressed their fear over leaflets entitled "These have to Die!" which are being distributed to all Muslims in Dairout and neighborhoods, enticing them to "burn, vandalize and clean the country of these evil immoral infidels."

Reports from Dairout, 313 km south of Cairo, confirm that Christian Copts are afraid to leave their homes and have stayed indoors since violence against them erupted on October 24, 2009. This collective punishment of Copts was caused by an illicit sexual relationship between a Muslim girl, Hagger Hassouna, and the Christian Romany Farouk Attallah. It was rumored that he sent videos of them intimately together to cell phones in Dairout before fleeing. This prompted the Hassouna family to kill his father, Farouk Attallah, on October 19, 2009, in revenge. Four of the Hassouna killers were detained by prosecution, leading to Muslim riots against the Copts (AINA 10-27-2009) .

According to Wagih Yacoub of the Middle East Christian Assosiation (MECA), Muslim-owned businesses are now displaying stickers with 'Allah Akbar' (Allah is Great) to differentiate between them and Coptic-owned businesses, as a form of pre-planning for a forthcoming wave of Muslim violence.

Handwritten leaflets (Arabic) have been circulated among Muslims in Dairout for the last two days; they call on Muslims to unite to take revenge for their religion and honor, claiming that Hagger Hassouna is innocent and that she was forced into vice, and "all Jews and Christians should come to learn that Muslim honor is precious." The fliers state that Muslims are the masters of the world since beginning of times until the present day, and entices them to "burn and vandalize and clean the country of the evil immoral infidels."

It also calls on Muslims to take revenge for the "rings of prostitution" which are the churches and in particular the church in the village of Ezbet Hanna. Those specifically named to be killed are Reverend Pavlos of the Church of the Virgin Mary, Coptic lawyer Gamal Youssef, two brothers who own an optometry practice, and a Copt who owns a beauty saloon and photography shop.

Muslims are asked to die for their honor and they will be rewarded with eternal paradise. "Do not say it is a matter of just a girl, no, it is a public and a serious issue, it is the biggest issue, it is Islam's issue." A transcript of the the leaflet (in Arabic) is published on Copts United website....

Read it all.

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"When an adult male is taken captive, the caliph considers the interests ... (of Islam and the Muslims) and decides between the prisoner's death, slavery, release without paying anything, or ransoming himself in exchange for money or for a Muslim captive held by the enemy." -- 'Umdat al-Salik, o9.14

An update on this story. "Kidnappers demand $2M for Irish priest hostage," from the Manila Times, November 1 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

ZAMBOANGA CITY: Kidnappers holding an elderly Irish missioner hostage have released a video of their captive and demanded $2 million for his release.

The video, a copy of which was seen by a local journalist in Pagadian City on Saturday, showed 79-year-old Father Michael Sinnott holding a copy of the October 22 issue of a Manila newspaper as proof of life.

"My kidnappers are led by Commander Abu Jayad. They are asking $2million as ransom money," the priest said while standing in front of a white background in a forested area.

"We are living in the open, in difficult circumstances. I am still in good health even if I do not have the full medicines."

Sinnott is being held the boundary of Lanao del Sur and Lanao del Norte provinces in northern Mindanao....

Eid Kabalu, a spokesman for the MILF rebels, said, "We are not aware of the video. Until now we have no proof of life. We have no photos or video of Father Sinnott, but if there is such a video, well that's good and a proof that Father Sinnot is alive," he said....

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For what may be the first time ever, a mainstream media outlet discusses the phenomenon of Islamic honor killings with a modicum of accuracy: "Muslim unrest hits US homes," by Maureen Callahan for the New York Post, November 1:

In what may be the first recorded instance of a Muslim wife attempting to murder her husband for not being pious enough, a Staten Island woman was charged this week with attempted murder, assault and criminal possession of a weapon. Rabia Sarwar, a 37-year-old Muslim, said she did it because her husband, a 41-year-old Pakistani native, enjoyed booze and pork and wanted her to dress in revealing clothes. (She held fabric over her face and threw a shawl over her head before leaving court on Thursday.)

While the Sarwar case is sensational by dint of the role-reversal and the method of attempted murder (throat-slitting), it's also pedestrian: Over the past two years, there have been about a dozen attempted or successful honor killings committed in the US.

Last week in Arizona, an Iraqi-born man tried to kill his 20-year-old daughter because she wanted out of her arranged marriage; he escaped.

In July, a 17-year-old named Rifqa Bary ran away from home because, she said, her Muslim family would literally kill her for converting to Christianity. (She has been ordered by a Florida court to return to her home state of Ohio, where she will appear before another judge.)

So: Why is there such a recent spate of honor killings in America? What does it mean when a woman tries to exact the same vengeance that's been wreaked upon her gender by men for centuries?

"This is not a reverse honor-killing -- it's martyrdom," says Islamic apostate and activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, herself the target of death threats. "It's a ticket for heaven for her, to clear her books. The only exception that's made for a wife or daughter to disobey her husband or father is if he forces her to do something that's un-Islamic. This is a message to other Muslims: 'This man is defying God. What am I supposed to do?'"

"The vast majority of honor killings do appear to be cases where there is some attempt to violate or leave [Muslim] cultural norms," says David Bryan Cook, associate professor of religious studies at Rice University. "They've been going on in the US and Britain for a number of years, but in the recent past they've gotten a lot more publicity."...

Some believe that the sheer vastness of the US has kept such incidents largely off the radar. "We've not been seeing it yet because our country's so big," says Amil Imani, who was born in Iran but raised in the US, and is the founder of Former Muslims United.

He points to the recent killing of a radical imam in Michigan, who hoped to carve out a separate Islamist state in the Midwest, as evidence that America has more to worry about than it may be aware. "Look at what is going on in England, which is almost identical to our culture," he says. "Stealth jihad is happening in America before our eyes."

Does Hirsi agree with this assessment?

"Oh yes, oh yes," she says.

"Believe me. Yes. The kind of American Muslim you're seeing now is changing -- not because America is changing, but because the world is. Someone from Pakistan is coming here not for freedom, but to escape a horrible situation. [Once here], they are being radicalized."

Imani also believes that the fear and loathing of the West tends to be a generational thing; kids born and raised in America by Muslim immigrants tend to reject such orthodoxy, while older Muslims embrace it.

"In the privacy of their home, Muslim parents will call every American woman a prostitute, every man corrupt," Imani says. "People who are 20 and over, who have lived in Muslim countries -- they cannot handle American culture. This case is very new, very rare. But you haven't seen anything yet."

No doubt about that.

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But, didn't the smiling apologist quote Qur'an 29:46? That's the verse that says: "And argue not with the People of the Scripture unless it be in (a way) that is better, save with such of them as do wrong; and say: We believe in that which hath been revealed unto us and revealed unto you; our Allah and your Allah is One, and unto Him we surrender."

However, that line of discourse is intended for use in Islamic proselytizing, or dawah. Just as seeking new believers is a one-way street under Islamic law, it would be forbidden for a non-Muslim to employ this argument under Sharia, since the underlying message of the verse is: "We worship your deity, too, but you're doing it wrong."

An update on this story. " Bibles seized as Malaysia minorities fear fundamentalism,? by Saeed Ahmed for CNN, October 29 (thanks to all who sent this in):

(CNN) -- Authorities in Malaysia have seized more than 20,000 Bibles in recent months because they refer to God as "Allah," Christian leaders said Thursday.
The seizures have fed fears among minority groups, which see signs of encroaching Islamic fundamentalism in the predominantly Muslim but multi-racial country.
"There is a growing sense of Islamic assertion, yes," said the Rev. Hermen Shastri, general-secretary of the Council of Churches of Malaysia. "There is some concern."
The Bibles were written in the country's official language, Malay -- in which the word for God is "Allah," as it is in Arabic.
However, Malaysia's government says the word is exclusive to Islam.
Its use in Christian publications is likely to confuse Muslims and draw them to Christianity, the government says. So it has banned use of the word in Christian literature.
"Malay has borrowed from Arabic, just as it has from Sanskrit and Portuguese," Shastri said. "We have maintained the community has the right to use the word.
"But I think this has ignited a cause in the Muslim communities, who are interpreting it as a siege on Islamic beliefs."
A Home Ministry official directed requests for comment to the ministry's Publications and Quran Text Control Department, which enforces the ban. An employee there redirected calls to a spokeswoman, who in turn asked CNN to call the Home Ministry back. Calls to other departments were similarly redirected.
A Roman Catholic weekly newspaper, The Herald, is challenging the ban in court after the government threatened to revoke its license for using the word in its Malay edition. Hearings on the case have gone on for two years.
"We quote it as it is. We cannot change the text of the Scripture," Herald editor Father Lawrence Andrew told CNN last year. "I cannot be the editor of the Bible."...
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October 31, 2009

Ayatollah Mohammad Imami-Kashani says that the Islamic Republic of Iran is founded upon Islam. So this bloody and repressive regime is an example of what Islamic law brings to a country? Surely then the Ayatollah Mohammad Imami-Kashani must be a misunderstander of Islam! For if Iran really were built upon Islam, it would be peaceful and tolerant, not genocide-minded, threatening, authoritarian, and violent -- right? Right?

"Cleric warns of plots against Islamic establishment," from the Tehran Times, October 31:

A leading Iranian cleric has warned against the enemy's plots to damage the Islamic establishment and called for proper counter measures to be taken.

""We must identify where the enemy seeks to penetrate the Islamic establishment and then counter it,"" said Tehran's Interim Friday Prayers Leader Ayatollah Mohammad Imami-Kashani.

He touched upon Iran's great achievements in different fields saying, ""We must realize that aside from enemy media outlets, the rest of the world supports the Islamic and scientific movements in Iran.""

""When science is founded upon faith and Islam, no one will be able to stop it,"" added the cleric.

""History has shown that the Islamic civilization, which incorporates science, faith and effort, was taking over the world, when certain parties stepped in and laid claim to the achievements of Muslims. They proclaimed themselves as the owners of the world and enslaved Muslim countries,"" he said.

Those darn Zionists. That little sliver that comprises Israel is a splinter in the foot of the Islamic world, hobbling it when otherwise it would be "taking over the world"!

""The Islamic establishment and the Islamic Republic is an establishment built upon the foundation of Islam...and it has made achievements,"" he added.

Ayatollah Kashani, who serves as a member of the Assembly of Experts, went on ot say that ""it is a pity to see that the rapidly-developing Islamic civilization, which the world has its eyes on, questioned.""

""Criticism that is intended to help make progress is good, but views that are expressed to belittle (the) others are not acceptable in any way.""

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Actually they were calling for "justice," by which they mean that the shooting of Luqman Abdullah was an act of injustice. They're trying to shift attention away from the jihadist violence allegedly being plotted at the Masjid al-Haqq, and onto the supposed excess of the FBI reaction. "Muslims call for justice at funeral for lslamic leader," by Niraj Warikoo for the Detroit Free Press, October 31 (thanks to James):

Muslim leaders called for justice today at the funeral of Luqman Ameen Abdullah, the Islamic leader killed by FBI agents this week during a shootout in Dearborn.''We are looking for justice,'' said Imam Mohammed Elahi of the Islamic House of Wisdom to a packed crowd that spilled outside. ''The closest road to Allah is justice. May Allah bless his soul.'' Elahi said.

''Allah Akbar,'' God is great, the packed crowd said at times during the funeral.The casket of Abdullah is now on its way to a cemetery in Canton.

Ameen was the head of a separate mosque, Masjid Al-Haqq, which consisted primarily of African-American Muslims, say federal authorities. They maintain in a criminal complaint that Abduallh [sic] was a violent extremist who urged attacks on police and called for an offensive jihad that would overthrow the U.S. government and establish Islamic rule.

But family, friends, and Muslims cast doubts on the claims, saying that Abdullah was a generous, modest man who helped the poor, tried to better lives through Islam, and was a respected imam. Abdullah took part in local and national Muslim groups, including the Muslim Alliance in North America, MANA. He was on MANA's advisory board and was sometimes seen at meetings with local imams....

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Do you think this sympathetic article would have been written this way about a Christian church whose pastor was killed in a gun battle with the FBI? "Slain mosque leader mourned," by Charlie LeDuff for The Detroit News, October 31 (thanks to James):

Detroit -- The brotherhood of the Masjid Al-Haqq mosque gathered for Friday prayers on the city's west side, the first time they had convened since their spiritual leader was shot dead in a gunbattle with the FBI.

The leader, Luqman Ameen Abdullah, 53, was killed Wednesday at a Dearborn warehouse as he was being arrested in connection with a host of charges, including conspiracy, receipt of stolen goods and firearm offenses.

The federal authorities claim Abdullah was the head of a radical jihadist organization intent on carving out an Islamic state within the United States through violent means.

Eleven men face charges. The complaint said many of the men were ex-convicts who were introduced to Islam in prison.

"That's true that 90 percent of the brothers here have been locked up or had contact with the criminal justice system," said Jamil Ibn Rafael smoking a cigarette out front before 2 p.m. prayers began. "But there's so much confusion in the ghetto. They snatch a man up, put him away and dump him back in the ghetto. He feels hopeless. He needs something to organize his life. We want our own life. But we ain't no jihadist overthrow organization."

Rafael did two separate stints in prison. It was at Jackson State Penitentiary where Rafael said he was first introduced to Islam and eventually the mosque.

Abdullah, too, was an ex-convict known as Christopher Thomas until he found Islam in prison and became an acolyte of Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, better known as H. Rap Brown, a former leader of the Black Panthers who is serving live a life sentence for the killing of two police officers....

"Are there some people in this mosque involved in criminal activity?" Rafael asked. "Yeah, probably. There are criminals in every organization. That don't make you public enemy No. 1. I'll tell you what, there's a lot of paranoia around here. I still think there's one or two snitches in here."

The Masjid Al-Haqq mosque has 120 members, exposed walls and electrical boxes with no switches.

Omar Regan, one of Abdullah's 12 children, returned from South Central Los Angeles, where he leads a mosque, on Friday to wash his father's body and anoint his feet with oil in preparation for burial today.

"How can you be what they say you are when you don't got nothing," Regan told the weeping congregants. "They forgot about the 'hood. The suburbs are OK, but they forgot about the 'hood. They forgot about you and so we all, my Muslim brothers, have to take care of each other."

"They call us radicals. They call us terrorists. We don't care what they say about us because they don't care about what's good."

And with that, two people stood to accept conversion to Islam.

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This AFP story departs from ordinary mainstream media practice by actually identifying the Thai jihadists as "Islamic," and adds a final paragraph that is, well, killer: more than 3900 people (but apparently fewer than 4000), it says, have been killed "in shootings, bomb blasts, beheadings and crucifixions" since the jihad in Thailand began in 2004.

Beheadings? Crucifixions? Those who insist that this is simply a nationalist insurgency with an Islamic character that is only incidental should take note: no other group around the world besides Islamic jihadists is practicing "beheadings and crucifixions" with any regularity in 2009. And why are "beheadings and crucifixions," both of which one might be forgiven for thinking of as relics of a distant and barbaric past, happening in Thailand at all?

Why, because Islamic jihadists -- contrary to the prevailing wisdom of the learned analysts -- read and follow the Koran.

"The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter..." -- Koran 5:33

"Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks..." -- Koran 47:4

But of course this is the element of understanding the actions of the Islamic jihadists that we are forbidden to explore in the public square. "Two killed, four wounded in Thai south," from Agence France-Presse, October 31 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

SUSPECTED Islamic insurgents shot and killed two people and wounded three others in a bomb blast in Thailand's troubled Muslim-majority south, police said.

Gunmen broke into a house in Yala province and shot dead a 16-year-old Buddhist girl, also wounding her 29-year-old husband, they said....

More than 3900 people have died in shootings, bomb blasts, beheadings and crucifixions since a separatist insurgency erupted in Thailand's southern provinces bordering Malaysia in January 2004.

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October 30, 2009

Here is yet another variation on the honor killing theme, coming hot on the heels of the New York woman who tried to kill her husband because he was insufficiently Muslim. In this variation (thanks to Block Ness), a Muslim from Afghanistan beats his brother to death for repeating an insulting remark about his wife. Police are calling it an honor killing. I'm not sure it qualifies as such under Islamic law in the way that the killing of a child by a parent does, but the usage itself is interesting. The FBI applied the label to the murders of Amina and Sarah Said by their father, but then withdrew it. Perhaps the politically correct niceties are now being discarded? That's extremely unlikely -- but this is nonetheless an interesting classification.

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Note the egregious, completely gratuitous attack on Rifqa Bary and defense of Islam at the end of this story. The mainstream media continues to feel itself compelled to run interference for Muslims as a group whenever a Muslim behaves badly -- a courtesy they never accord to other groups. An update on this story.

"Muslim Father Arrested for Running Over 'Westernized' Daughter: Cops Capture Iraqi Immigrant Accused of Attempted Honor Killing," by Sarah Netter for ABC News, October 30 (thanks to Paul):

A 10-day manhunt ended when police arrested an Iraqi immigrant accused of running over his 20-year-old daughter to punish her for becoming "too Westernized" and rebuffing the conservative ways he valued.

Faleh Hassan Almaleki, 48, fled from Peoria, Ariz on Oct. 20. He was arrested by U.S. Marshalls in Atalanta when he arrived at the airport there, according to the Associated Press.

His daugher Noor Faleh Almaleki, 20, remains hospitalized in critical condition after her father hit the young woman and her boyfriend's mother with his Jeep Cherokee on Oct. 20 in the parking lot of theDepartment of Economic Development in Peoria.

Noor Faleh Almaleki is in "life-threatening condition," Peoria Police spokesman Mike Tellef told ABCNews.com last week soon after the incident.

Her boyfriend's mother, 43-year-old Amal Edan Khalaf, is also still hospitalized, but with non-life threatening injuries. "It occurred because her not following traditional family values. We've been told that by everybody," Tellef said. "He felt she was becoming too westernized and he didn't like that."...

"Traditional family values." As if Noor Almaleki were a wayward Methodist. And of course, Christian fathers run down their daughters regularly for not following "traditional family values," don't they? What's that? They don't? What are you, some kind of Islamophobe?

Noor Almaleki had backed out of an arranged marriage about a year ago, police learned, and had been living with Khalaf and her son in a nearby town.

Tellef said the young woman dressed in American clothing and was wearing typical Western attire when she was struck....

Honor Killings Unfairly Cast Negative Light on Islam

The notion of an honor killing -- Muslim men murdering female relatives for dishonoring the family by violating Islamic tenets -- made the news over the summer when 17-year-old Rifqa Bary ran away from her parents in Ohio and turned up in the Florida home of Christian pastors Blake and Beverly Lorenz. Rafqa Barry claimed that her Muslim father had threatened to kill her for converting to Christianity.

Rifqa made tearful television appearance, crying on the Lorenzes shoulders, describing how she had to sneak around to attend church.

"They have to kill me because I'm a Christian. It's an honor [killing]. If they love me more than God, then they have to kill me," she told ABC's Orlando affiliate WFTV last month.

Blake Lorenz pointed to other honor killings, including the January 2008 murders of two Texas sisters who were believed to have been murdered by their Muslim father in a religion-fueld rage.

But Rifqa's father, Mohamed Bary, denied the accusation and said that while he preferred his daughter be a Muslim, she was free to practice whatever religion she chose.

"I don't believe my daughter would say this," Bary told "Good Morning America." "She's completely being coached -- I mean trained, influenced by these people. It's so sad."

A Florida judge this month said he planned to send Rifqa back to Ohio after determining there was no evidence that her life was in danger.

Why is this in this article? And what is the evidence that anyone who investigated the threat to Rifqa even knew what to look for in terms of evidence that her life was in danger? As Pamela Geller shows here, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement was outstandingly clueless when interviewing Rifqa.

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Pious

Sheikh Naseem sounds like an abusive husband, but the main problem the wife had was that he wasn't an observant Muslim. And her solution to that was to cut his throat. Why is it that this sort of solution to impiety only ever seems to occur to Muslims? "New Brighton wife tried to kill husband over Muslim principles, cops allege," by John M. Annese for SILive.com, October 29 (thanks to all who sent this in):

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A 37-year-old wife from New Brighton tried to slit her husband's throat as he slept because he was not the devout Muslim she believed she married, and pressured her to eat pork and drink alcohol, authorities allege.

In a rambling, four-page handwritten confession, Rabia Sarwar laid out the "mental and emotional cruelty" that led to her trying to kill her husband, Susan Wagner High School teacher Sheikh Naseem, early yesterday morning, a law enforcement source said.

"I tried my best to cut his throat," Ms. Sarwar admitted, according to court papers. Except Naseem woke up during the attempt, and took the knife from her, authorities said.

According to Ms. Sarwar's attorney, Joseph Licitra, Naseem "was a cruel person, he preyed on her."

The day before the incident, "he literally threatened to have her parents mutilated," Licitra said.

The way the law enforcement source describes it, Ms. Sarwar, who is Pakistani, told investigators that Naseem, who is half-Pakistani, had presented himself as a devout Muslim before the two had wed five months ago.

But after the marriage, she discovered more about him, she told investigators -- before meeting her, he had only dated non-Muslims, and he considered Salman Rushdie to be one of his favorite authors....

Ms. Sarwar also told investigators that Naseem pressured her into doing things that were against her religious beliefs.

"He made her do stuff that she didn't like to do -- eating pork, drinking alcohol, wearing short clothes. She did all of that to make him happy," the source said.

At about 3 a.m. yesterday, inside the couple's 80 St. Mark's Place apartment, Ms. Sarwar "snapped," the source said, cutting his neck, right cheek and right hand.

In an interview with the Post, Naseem said his wife was having a hard time adjusting to American culture....

No kidding, really?

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In reality, they're complaining about the "demonizing" of Muslims. What did you expect?

"African-American Muslims question leader's death," by Niraj Warikoo for the Detroit Free Press, October 29:

The death of Luqman Ameen Abdullah - the Muslim leader shot dead Wednesday by FBI agents after he allegedly first opened fire - was mourned and criticized today by some African-American Muslims in metro Detroit and across the U.S.

And religious experts say his death was the first time the U.S. government has killed a religious leader since the 1993 death of David Koresh at the Branch Davidian ranch in Waco, Texas.

"This tragic shooting raises deep concerns regarding the use of lethal force by law enforcement agents," the Muslim Alliance in North America said in a statement today about Abdullah. "We urge law enforcement and the media not to take undo advantage of this tragedy in order to demonize ... African American Muslims in particular."

Abdullah was on an advisory board for the Muslim Alliance, and he often met with local imams, said local Muslims....

In its statement, the Muslim Alliance said, "Luqman was a representative of the Detroit Muslim community to the "National Ummah" and the general assembly (Shura) of the Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA)."

In the complaint, federal authorities described Abdullah as a radical Sunni fundamentalist who advocated violence to establish Islamic rule.

"America must fall," he said at one point, according to the criminal complaint.

But the Alliance said the "reference to the 'Ummah' as a 'nation-wide radical fundamentalist Sunni group consisting primarily of African-Americans' is an offensive mischaracterization."

David Nu'Man of Detroit said he knew Abdullah, describing him as a "good humanitarian."

"He helped youth," Nu'Man said, adding that he was a very giving person. "He would help feed the homeless."...

Oh, well then, he must not have been a jihadist.

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ClintonHeadscarf.jpg Challenging them on Al-Qaeda, but not on women's rights

But of course the Pakistani authorities say they're doing all they can. As they did all through the years in which they were funneling American anti-terror money to the jihadists they were supposed to be fighting. "Clinton Challenges Pakistanis on Al Qaeda," by Mark Landler in the New York Times, October 29 (thanks to all who sent this in):

LAHORE, Pakistan -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, on a visit meant to improve relations with Pakistan, strongly suggested Thursday that some Pakistani officials bore responsibility for allowing terrorists from Al Qaeda to operate from safe havens along this country's frontier.

"I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are, and couldn't get to them if they really wanted to," she said to a group of Pakistani journalists on her second day here. "Maybe that's the case; maybe they're not gettable. I don't know."

It is extremely rare for an official of Mrs. Clinton's rank to say publicly what American politicians and intelligence officials have said in more guarded ways for years. The remarks upset her hosts, who have seen hundreds of soldiers and civilians killed as Pakistan has taken on a widening campaign against militant groups that have threatened the country from its tribal areas.

But her skeptical comments also gave voice to the longtime frustration of American officials with what they see as the Pakistani government's lack of resolve in rooting out not only Al Qaeda, but also the Taliban leadership based in Quetta, and a host of militant groups that use the border region to stage attacks on American and NATO forces in Afghanistan....

Mrs. Clinton's comments were prominently played on Pakistani news channels, and government officials rejected her assertion.

"If we knew where Al Qaeda's leaders were, or if we had meaningful intelligence on their whereabouts shared with us, we would act against them," said a senior official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on this issue....

Despite heightened security concerns, Mrs. Clinton stuck to her schedule, traveling to Lahore to meet opposition leaders and tour the majestic Badshahi Mosque, as thousands of police officers lined the route of her motorcade, shutting down the center of this city of 10 million....

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Luqman Abdullah.jpg

Another jihad arrest, and more non-cooperation from Muslim leaders. My column in Front Page this morning:

Luqman Ameen Abdullah, the imam of Detroit's Masjid Al-Haqq (Mosque of Truth), was killed Wednesday in a shootout with FBI agents. The agents were trying to arrest him on charges of conspiracy, receipt of stolen goods, firearms offenses and more. Agents also arrested eight mosque members; then Thursday, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police caught Abdullah's son, Mujahid Carswell. Two other accused jihadists also fled, and have not yet been found.

According to the indictment, in his mosque in Detroit Luqman Abdullah was preaching "offensive jihad" and the establishment of a Sharia state in North America. This sovereign Isamic state would be ruled by Islamic law - and by the apparent godfather of Abdullah's movement, Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin. Al-Amin is the former Black Panther and convert to Islam who gained fame under the name H. Rap Brown. Al-Amin is now serving a life sentence for murdering two police officers, while his disciples, like Luqman Abdullah, carry on the message he articulated so memorably in the 1960s: "If America don't come around, we're gonna burn it down."

In the spirit of his mentor, Abdullah has told his flock: "America must fall." He has encouraged the Muslims in his mosque to support Hizballah, the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. He exhorted them to bestir themselves to pious deeds: "We should be figuring out how to fight the Kuffar" - that is, unbelievers. "We got to take out the U.S. government. The U.S. government is nothing but Kuffars." Among the unbelievers were FBI agents, about whom Abdullah declared: "Deal with them, deal with them the way, the way they supposed to be dealt with.... It's not that complicated, man....If they are coming to get me I'll just strap a bomb on and blow up everybody." A law enforcement official wrote in an affidavit that "Abdullah and his followers have trained regularly in the use of firearms, and continue to train in martial arts and sword fighting" - in accord with Abdullah's dictum that every Muslim believer should "have a weapon and should not be scared to use their weapon when needed."

Abdullah found justification for all this in the Islamic holy book, the Qur'an, which he said "justified stealing, robbing and other illegal acts, as long as they profit Islam."

One would think that Muslim spokesmen in America would be anxious to prove their moderate bona fides by repudiating Abdullah, praising the efforts of law enforcement officials, and announcing new measures to teach against the understanding of Islam that prevailed at the Masjid al-Haqq and to shore up the moderate Islam that politically correct orthodoxy insists prevails in all mosques in America in the first place. But no such luck. Instead, they praised Abdullah and excoriated law enforcement.

Dawud Walid of the Michigan branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) reinforced CAIR's image as an unsavory group with numerous ties to terror - an image newly reinforced by numerous revelations in the explosive new book Muslim Mafia -- as he tried to paint a very different picture of Abdullah: "I know him as a respected imam in the Muslim community." He emphasized the Masjid al-Haqq's charitable activities, perhaps forgetting that Nazi Germany (and Hamas, and Hizballah) ran social programs as well, and thus their existence is no indication that the one operating them is in every sense benign.

According to the Detroit Free Press, Walid said that a group of imams were going to meet with the head of Detroit's FBI office, Andrew Arena, to complain, about "linking the weapons and smuggling charges to the Muslim faith" - as if the FBI, rather than Luqman Abdullah, had done this. Arena probably won't need much convincing: he has already asserted, without explanation, that Abdullah taught "a very hybrid radical ideology - one mainstream Muslims "would not recognize." For his part, Walid also warned that the death of Abdullah and the arrests of other Masjid al-Haqq would anger Muslims and make them even more suspicious of law enforcement than they already are: "As much as our president says nice, flowery things about Muslims and Islam in Cairo or Istanbul, these types of stories just erode that."

Meanwhile, the Muslim Alliance of North America, of which Abdullah was a member, complained about the shootout in a statement: "This tragic shooting raises deep concerns regarding the use of lethal force by law enforcement agents. We urge law enforcement and the media not to take undo advantage of this tragedy in order to demonize ... African American Muslims in particular."

These kinds of statements fall into a pattern that has played out many times before. An Islamic jihadist plots murder and mayhem, explicitly justifying it all by reference to Islamic texts and teachings. Then putatively moderate Muslims, instead of support law enforcement efforts, criticize them and complain about Muslims being victimized and Islam being unfairly linked to terrorism. Generally this is followed by the spectacle of media and law enforcement officials bending over backwards to make sure that no one gets the impression that Islam had anything to do with the bloody plots that the arrested parties were planning.

The problem with this pattern is that no one involved is doing anything to keep the story of Luqman Abdullah and the Masjid al-Haqq from being repeated in other mosques in the United States in the future. No one is challenging the Muslim community here to clean its own house and stop the dissembling and finger-pointing. No one is speaking openly and honestly about what the Qur'an really says, and what the implications are of that fact. No one, in short, is doing much of anything to ensure that Luqman Abdullah, one of the first clergymen in the United States to be killed in a shootout with the FBI, is not just the first of many.

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Sharia Alert: A system such as Sharia, with insufficient (or mostly absent) limitations on power, lends itself to even more imaginative abuses than are explicitly stated in the letter of the law. "Somali women beaten for violating Islamic law, officials say," by Mohammed Amiin Adow for CNN, October 29:

(CNN) -- Militants who control parts of Somalia's capital city are beating women in broad daylight for violating their radical brand of Islamic law, according to local officials and witnesses in Mogadishu.
"Just today, Al-Shabaab dispatched men with whips to the streets around Bakara market and they are flogging any woman who is found not wearing socks," according to a female maize trader at the Mogadishu market, who spoke Thursday.
She did not want to be named for security reasons.
In the past two days, more than 130 people, including women who were not wearing headscarves and men chewing dried khat leaves, have been detained for violating Al-Shabaab's interpretation of sharia, or Islamic law, according to witnesses and officials.
Hooded Al-Shabaab gunmen rounded up 50 women on Wednesday from Mogadishu's Bakara market for not wearing the veil that is required for women under some interpretations of Islamic law, according to the maize trader.
"Most of these women were vegetable traders, so they are poor and can't afford to buy veils for 600,000 shillings [about $23 U.S.]," she said.
She said she saw more women being detained Thursday.
Another 80 Somali civilians were detained in the southwestern town of Luuq, near the Kenyan and Ethiopian border, "because they turned deaf ear to orders we imposed on the town," said the local Al-Shabaab commander Sheikh Hussien al-Iraqi.
Al-Shabaab is considered a terrorist organization by the United States because of its ties to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
It has been imposing stricter rules on Somali civilians living in the areas it controls.
Earlier this month, Al-Shabaab militants whipped women for wearing bras in an area of northern Mogadishu that they control, shocking residents who have been besieged by the ongoing insurgency. The militants believe the female undergarments are a deception to men.
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October 29, 2009

The egregiously pro-jihad and anti-Israel Goldstone Report turns out to have been initiated by the Organization of the Islamic Conference -- which explains why it was egregiously pro-jihad and anti-Israel. The OIC, don't forget, is the chief foe of the freedom of speech around the world today, and is making a concerted effort to criminalize any honest discussion of the Islamic motives and goals of the Islamic jihadists. The winners, if they succeed, would only be those same jihadists. As with the Goldstone Report. "'OIC initiated Goldstone inquiry,'" from Al-Jazeera, October 28 (thanks to David Littman):
Established in 1969 to safeguard global Muslim interests, the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) is the second largest inter-governmental body after the UN. In its 40-year history, the OIC has worked with the UN and others to settle conflicts and disputes, particularly among its member states. While the preamble to the OIC's charter holds that Islam "is a strong factor for rapprochement and solidarity between peoples", conflicts continue to rage in many parts of the Muslim world. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the secretary-general of the OIC, says the organisation has gained prominence in recent years as a trusted mediator in conflicts involving the Muslim world and was the "initiator" of a UN war crimes inquiry in Gaza. Al Jazeera's Firas al-Atraqchi spoke with Ihsanoglu on the sidelines of the seventh annual Doha Conference on Interfaith Dialogue. Al Jazeera: The UN's Goldstone report has been in the headlines in the past few weeks - not without controversy - and has brought to light the conduct of the Israelis and Hamas during the war on Gaza earlier in the year. Does the OIC see this as a step forward in recognising what transpired during that war and in bringing the plight of the Palestinians to the fore on an international scale? Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu: Let me first start by completing the story of the history of the Goldstone report. What I would like to put on record is that the OIC was the initiator of this process. On January 3, during the attacks on Gaza, we convened the executive committee of the OIC on a ministerial level. It was decided that the OIC group in Geneva should ask the Human Rights Council to convene and consider the possibility of sending a fact-finding mission to Gaza. The OIC was instrumental in getting through this resolution and thanks to the good offices of Ms Pilay, the UN high commissioner, that she formed this fact-finding mission headed by Judge Goldstone. On October 8, I visited Geneva and had a meeting with OIC ambassadors and the high commissioner. We revived the process again and the Goldstone report has been approved by the rights council. Now as for the prospects of the Goldstone report, I think the first thing to mention here is that the acceptance and approval of the report by the UN's human rights council is itself testimony of the world's public opinion about what happened in Gaza. This report has certain operative paragraphs which aim to determine who is responsible for the massacres and destruction - illegally and in flagrant violation of humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of war. I think now the OIC and the international community should work hand-in-hand to implement the proposals made in the Goldstone report. You said the OIC initiated the process that led to the Goldstone report. Were you surprised then that the Palestinian Authority asked for the council's vote on the report to be delayed? This was a big surprise for us - an unhappy and sad surprise. I was in Washington DC at the time meeting with the media, think tanks and I was meeting with Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, when news of this broke. We did not expect that, but I am glad that we eventually managed to revive it and get it adopted by the human rights council. Will the council's adoption of the Goldstone report impact the way Israelis conduct war after hundreds of Palestinian civilians were killed during the war on Gaza? The Israelis already understood the importance of the impact of this report and that is why you find them leading a very strong campaign to impede the Goldstone report....
Uh, the fact that it is full of lies helps.
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Yet another stealth jihad attempt to compel non-Muslims to change their behavior to accommodate Muslim sensibilities. "Spotted Piglet Hiccups: Boozy Breslin Clashes With Mosque," by Meredith Bryan for the New York Observer, October 27 (thanks to Ed):

The much-hyped, soon-to-open Breslin restaurant, situated in the 12-story Ace Hotel on Broadway and 29th, is giving members of the Masjid Ar-Rahman mosque across the street some agita. "Five times a day, there's a hundred cabs on the street--the good news is you can always get a cab," co-owner Ken Friedman told the Transom the other evening. He said some mosque visitors "object to seeing people drink alcohol."

After the recent FergusStock, a festival during which famed British chef Fergus Henderson cooked whole pigs for a rapt crowd of New York chefs and foodies, Mr. Friedman said the mosque's leaders called a meeting with the hotel. "They said, 'Can you move the bar?'" he said. "And I laughed. And the guy said, 'Oh, you think that's funny?' And I said, 'Yeah, that is funny, that is really funny, because we're not going to move the bar just because you discovered we're serving booze.' Can you name one restaurant in New York that doesn't serve booze?"

Mr. Friedman and his partner, Spotted Pig chef April Bloomfield, did agree to nix plans for a dive bar in a townhouse next door, but as for the restaurant, "I said, 'This is the United States of America and we'll do whatever the f**k we want.'"

At least for now.

He said the mosque had suggested it couldn't control the behavior of "a few bad eggs"; i.e., "we could get a brick through our window." Mr. Friedman said he made the police aware of this threat.

A volunteer at the mosque returning a call from the Transom said that a law forbids serving liquor within 200 feet of a place of worship and that "not more than 200 feet is between the mosque and the bar." To which Andrew Zobler, the hotel's developer, responded: "The law is clear that in order for that to apply it has to be an exclusively dedicated house of worship, and at their space they have both residences and a restaurant, so basically, because of those uses the law allowed there to be a bar within 200 feet. Everyone was aware of that when the liquor license was granted." He added: "Out of neighborliness and respect we've voluntarily acquiesced to covering the window with a curtain." [...]

When the Transom visited, the "doily curtain" covering had not yet arrived, and paper has been taped to the windows to shield the mosque's worshipers from the sight of a gay wedding over the weekend. "They can threaten, but they can't really stop us," Mr. Friedman said.

Oh, they might think of some way.

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"Abdullah beat children with sticks at his Detroit mosque, the complaint claimed, and was trained with his followers in the use of firearms, martial arts and swords." Imagine the national media frenzy if that sentence were about a Catholic priest or an evangelical pastor. But this story will get media notice only because Abdullah was killed -- and much of it will probably center on questions of whether the shooting constitutes "Islamophobia."

Detroit Jihad Update. "Son of Radical Islam Leader Killed in FBI Shootout Caught in Canada," from FoxNews, October 29 (thanks to Mackie):

One of three people sought by the FBI was captured in Canada Thursday and two were still on the loose after a federal raid and deadly shooting of a radical Islam leader whose goal authorities say was to take down the U.S. government.

Federal authorities in Detroit said the son of 53-year-old Luqman Ameen Abdullah, who was killed in Wednesday night's shootout with FBI agents, was arrested across the border in Windsor, Ontario.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police took 30-year-old Mujahid Carswell, who was considered armed and dangerous, into custody Thursday. No other details were released.

Carswell was among 11 people charged Wednesday in a criminal complaint in federal court in Detroit.

Andrew Arena, the head of the FBI office in Detroit, says the men follow "a very hybrid radical ideology" that mainstream Muslims "would not recognize."

It would be interesting to see him explain the differences. But probably this statement arises either from ignorance or from a desire to provide some politically correct cover.

Two were still at large: 30-year-old Yassir Ali Khan of Warren and Ontario, and 33-year-old Mohammad Philistine of Ontario.

Abdullah was killed in a gunbattle in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn as federal agents tried to arrest him on a number of charges including conspiracy to sell stolen goods and the illegal possession and sale of firearms.

Abdullah repeatedly told followers that the U.S. government was their enemy and they should be willing to fight the FBI, even if it meant death, according to the criminal complaint against him.

"You cannot have a nonviolent revolution," Luqman Ameen Abdullah said, according to a 2008 conversation secretly recorded by a confidential FBI source.

Abdullah was killed Wednesday at a warehouse in Dearborn, where agents were attempting to arrest him. FBI spokeswoman Sandra Berchtold said Abdullah refused to surrender, fired a weapon and was killed by gunfire from agents.

He was one of 11 people named in a criminal complaint after a two-year investigation.

Among the others charged with Abdullah and in custody were a state prison inmate, the U.S. attorney's office said....

Abdullah beat children with sticks at his Detroit mosque, the complaint claimed, and was trained with his followers in the use of firearms, martial arts and swords.

Neither Abdullah nor his co-defendants were charged with terrorism. But he was "advocating and encouraging his followers to commit violent acts against the United States," FBI agent Gary Leone wrote in an affidavit filed with the complaint.

The FBI said Abdullah, also known as Christopher Thomas, was an imam, or prayer leader, of a radical group named Ummah whose primary mission is to establish an Islamic state within the U.S.

Abdullah told followers that it was their "duty to oppose the FBI and the government and it does not matter if they die" and to "simply shoot a cop in the head" if they wanted the officer's bulletproof vest, Leon wrote.

The affidavit also said bombs, guns and even the recipe for TNT were among Abdullah's regular topics with his allies. Group members and former members said they were "willing to do anything Abdullah instructs and/or preaches, even including criminal conduct and acts of violence," the FBI agent wrote.

He and his followers were American born, mostly African-American converts to Islam....

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"Moreover, freedom in America is indivisible from the freedom to practice one's religion. That is why there is a mosque in every state in our union, and over 1,200 mosques within our borders. That's why the United States government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab and to punish those who would deny it." -- Barack Obama, Cairo, June 4, 2009

But what about the rights of women like this one -- the right not to wear the hijab? Who is standing up for them?

"BREAKING NEWS: Somalia Militants Kill Christian Woman For Refusing To Wear Veil," by BosNewsLife, October 28 (thanks to Nissan Ratzlav-Katz):

MOGADISHU, SOMALIA (BosNewsLife)-- Islamic militants have shot and killed a Somali Christian woman because she declined to wear a veil as prescribed by Muslim custom, Christians said in comments monitored by BosNewsLife Wednesday, October 28.

Members of the Suna Waljameca group killed Amina Muse Ali, 45, on October 19 in her home in Galkayo, in Somalia's autonomous Puntland region, said Compass Direct News, a well-informed Christian news agency.

Ali had told Christian leaders that she had received several threats from members of Suna Waljameca for not wearing a veil, symbolic of adherence to Islam, Christians said. She had said members of the group had long monitored her movements because they suspected she was a Christian.

Ali, an orphan and unmarried, in 1997 joined the Somali Christian Brothers' Organization, a movement also known as the Somali Community-Based Organization. She had been an active member of the underground church in the Lower Juba region, Compass Direct News reported.

She earlier worked with the Belgian contingent of United Nations Operations in Somalia as a translator and played a key role as a translator during a peace conference aimed at bringing together warring clans in the lower Juba region.

OCTOBER WARNINGS

Christians said Ali had warned in early October that her life was in danger. "My life is in danger. I am warned of dire consequences if I continue to live without putting on the veil. I need prayers from the fellowship," she reportedly said....

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Saying of agents: "Deal with them, deal with them the way, the way they supposed to be dealt with. ... It's not that complicated, man." Unlike, apparently, the doctrine of Islamic jihad which, according to all the mainstream authorities, he has gotten wrong, wrong, wrong, despite being an imam and teacher of Islam. More on this story. "A look at group's alleged targets," by Niraj Warikoo for the Detroit Free Press, October 29 (thanks to James):

[...] "Luqman Abdullah calls his followers to an offensive jihad," the indictment says.

Here are some of his alleged targets, according to the 43-page indictment.

# In November 2008, Abdullah talked with an undercover agent about a doctor captured in Afghanistan who had been wanted by the FBI. Abdullah then talked about jihad and going after what he called "super agents." "Trail them, follow them, know where they house is at. ... Deal with them, deal with them the way, the way they supposed to be dealt with. ... It's not that complicated, man. ...You got hundreds of agents right down there off of, off of Michigan" Avenue. The reference was to the FBI's Detroit office. [...]

# "Abdullah informed" an undercover agent "that a member of his community in Detroit had shot police officers."

# He referred to Washington as a possible target.

More from here (thanks to Axel) -- and look who is defending Luqman Abdullah:

The FBI said Abdullah, also known as Christopher Thomas, was an imam, or prayer leader, of a radical group named Ummah whose primary mission is to establish an Islamic state within the U.S.

Abdullah told followers that it was their "duty to oppose the FBI and the government and it does not matter if they die" and to "simply shoot a cop in the head" if they wanted the officer's bulletproof vest, Leone wrote.

The affidavit also said bombs, guns and even the recipe for TNT were among Abdullah's regular topics with his allies. Group members and former members said they were "willing to do anything Abdullah instructs and/or preaches, even including criminal conduct and acts of violence," the FBI agent wrote.

But that description doesn't match what Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' Michigan chapter, said he knew of Abdullah.

"He would open up the mosque to homeless people. He used to run a soup kitchen and feed indigent people," Walid said. "I knew nothing of him that was related to any nefarious or criminal behavior."

Walid said Abdullah had a wife and children. A phone number for the family had been disconnected.

Ummah believes that a separate Islamic state in the U.S. would be controlled by Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rap Brown, who is serving a life sentence in a federal prison in Colorado for shooting two police officers in Georgia in 2000, Leone said.

Al-Amin, a veteran of the black power movement, started the group after he converted to Islam in prison....

Abdullah's mosque is in a brick duplex on a residential street in Detroit. A sign on the door in English and Arabic reads, in part, "There is no God but Allah." The mosque was located elsewhere in the city until the property was lost in January because of unpaid taxes.

When the eviction took place, a search turned up empty shell casings and large holes in the concrete wall of a "shooting range," Leone said....

The FBI built its case over two years with the help of confidential sources close to Abdullah who recorded conversations and participated in undercover operations involving the sale of furs, laptop computers, televisions, energy drinks and power tools.

Abdullah received at least 20 percent of any profit and claimed the "Prophet Muhammad said that it is okay to participate in theft; as long as that person prays, they are in a good state," Leone wrote in the affidavit.

"And know that whatever ye take as spoils of war, lo! a fifth thereof is for Allah, and for the messenger and for the kinsman (who hath need) and orphans and the needy and the wayfarer..." -- Koran 8:41

Imad Hamad, regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Dearborn, said the FBI briefed him about the arrests.

"We know that this is not something to be projected as something against Muslims," Hamad said.

Yep. That's what it's always about, eh, Hamad? Not -- "We're going to teach against these ideas to try to make sure this doesn't happen again." Just more spurious claiming of victim status.

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The arrests "[seem] to confirm what many people have suspected - that the security forces are susceptible to infiltration by insurgents or are just not up to the job."

"Police arrested over Iraq bombing," from BBC News, October 29:

Iraq has arrested more than 60 security force members, including 11 senior officers over Sunday's twin suicide bombing in the capital Baghdad.
Those arrested include the commanders of 15 checkpoints near to where the attacks took place.
The attack in which more than 150 people were killed and 500 injured was the deadliest in Baghdad for two years.
Correspondents say the scale of the bombings raised new questions over the competence of Iraqi security forces.
The BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse in Baghdad says it is not clear whether those arrested are accused of negligence or collusion.
However, he added, it seems to confirm what many people have suspected - that the security forces are susceptible to infiltration by insurgents or are just not up to the job.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said in a BBC interview that he wanted the UN to investigate external interference, accusing Syria of providing a safe haven for the bombers, which Damascus has denied.
A militant group linked to al-Qaeda, Islamic State of Iraq, said on Tuesday that it had carried out the attacks in a claim that could not be independently verified....
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In Human Events this morning I discuss yet another strange new initiative in that land of strange new initiatives, the UN:

That they have broken up several major jihad plots in recent weeks is a tribute to American intelligence gathering and law enforcement. To them must go the credit for the fact that the U.S. is not this week picking up the pieces after another major terror attack.

Yet just as Islamic terrorists appear to be ramping up their efforts within the United States, at the UN a new report recommends not the strengthening, but the repeal of counterterrorism laws.

In a bizarre report to the UN Human Rights Council, ostensibly on counterrorism but actually more intent on social engineering, a Finnish law professor who is a special rapporteur to the UNHRC, Martin Scheinin, examines what he calls the "complex relationship between gender equality and countering terrorism."

What does working for "gender equality" have to do with resisting Islamic jihad terrorism? Nothing whatsoever, but Scheinin is determined to change that. He calls on UN member states to "abandon the 'war paradigm'" and instead "enshrine the principles of gender-equality and non-discrimination in the design and implementation of all counter-terrorism measures." He demanded that the American "war on terror" be "actually responsive to the concerns of women, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex individuals in local contexts." Instead, apparently, of actually defending Americans from terrorists.

Scheinin also recommended that laws designed to interdict the financing of terror groups be relaxed. Why? To make sure that "safe and effective channels for funding" were available for "organizations devoted to gender equality." He advocated the repeal of "restrictive immigration controls" that penalize "transgender persons whose personal appearance and data are subject to change." What does that have to do with terrorism? Why, some jihadists have escaped detection by donning burqas -- and Scheinin wants to make that easier. He says that to "focus attention on male bombers who may be dressing as females to avoid scrutiny" runs the risk of making "transgender persons...susceptible to increased harassment and suspicion."

It would be laughable that any of this would appear in a United Nations report on counterterrorism -- if only it weren't true. Scheinin's recommendations obviously stem from the assumption that actual terrorism is a fiction, a construct of governments he considers reactionary (principally, no doubt, the administration of George W. Bush). Unfortunately, one group that doesn't appear to have gotten the message are the Islamic jihadists themselves.

Before the UNHRC follows Scheinin's recommendations to discard counterterrorism laws in the name of political correctness, it should consider some recent developments in the United States.

Just last week, for example, a Muslim in Boston, Tarek Mehanna, was arrested for plotting to massacre American civilians in a shopping mall, as well as to murder to "members of the executive branch" that law enforcement officials declined to identify.

In recent weeks there have been other plots as well: two Muslims, including an imam, were arrested for their alleged roles in an elaborate plot involving numerous other Muslims in New York City and Denver, who were evidently planning a major jihad attack at a sports stadium. Another Islamic jihadist, Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, was arrested after placing an inert car bomb at a 60-story office tower in downtown Dallas. Yet another jihadist, an American convert calling himself Talib Islam, was arrested for plotting to blow up the Paul Findley Federal Building in Springfield, Illinois.

It would be difficult to find a comparable period since 9/11 in which so many plots have been uncovered around the same time -- and this makes Scheinin's recommendations all the more grotesque. Is this really time to "abandon the 'war paradigm'"? This is a time, on the contrary, to refine and expand that "war paradigm," to take into account all the many ways in which Islamic supremacists are attempting to bring elements of Islamic law into Western societies - including those that have no connection to actual terrorism. But the many recent foiled terror plots indicates that the United Nations, if it treats Scheinin's report seriously at all, is suffering from a severe disconnection from reality.

That disconnect is nothing new, really, when it comes to the United Nations. But in this case even more than usual, lives are at stake.

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October 28, 2009

"The case involves the Joint Terrorism Task Force and prosecutors from the national security unit of the U.S. Attorney's Office." Nonetheless, stand by for outrage and cries of victimhood from Islamic groups, regardless of what the evidence against this imam contains. "Leader of Detroit mosque killed, 11 charged in FBI raids," by Paul Egan for the Detroit News, October 28:

Detroit -- The leader of a Detroit mosque was shot and killed Wednesday during a series of FBI raids that resulted in charges against 11 and the death of an FBI dog.
At least six of those charged were in federal custody late Wednesday afternoon.
The case involves the Joint Terrorism Task Force and prosecutors from the national security unit of the U.S. Attorney's Office.
A complaint filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Detroit names Luqman Ameen Abullah, imam of the Masjid Al-Haqq mosque in Detroit, as "a highly placed leader of a nationwide radical fundamentalist Sunni group." He was killed in the raid, according to a joint statement by federal officials.
More than three people were arrested on charges including conspiracy to commit federal crimes, receipt of stolen goods, providing firearms to felons and changing vehicle identification numbers, said Special Agent Sandra Berchtold, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Detroit. Berchtold also confirmed that an FBI dog was shot and killed in one of the raids.
The operation involved locations in Detroit and Dearborn.
Yellow police tape was put up outside a trucking and warehouse firm on Miller Road just north of Michigan Avenue, and a Dearborn police car was parked outside.
Another site involved in the raids was on Tireman near Interstate 96 on the city's west side.
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It's unclear at this point whether they are Islamic jihadists or just useful idiots. "'Hezbollah' dad tried to help thugs," by Kati Cornell and Joe Mollica for the New York Post, October 28 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Two men -- including a married father of two from Queens -- were hit with federal terrorism charges yesterday for trying to provide weapons, ammunition and vehicles to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, prosecutors said.

Patrick Nayyar, 45, of Flushing -- who is being held without bail -- and his alleged accomplice, Conrad Mulholland, 43, who is still at large, were indicted in Manhattan for conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist organization.

The men are accused of supplying a Colt handgun, hollow-point bullets and a pickup truck to an FBI informant who said he worked for the terrorist organization, according to court papers.

In a series of meetings from July through September, the suspects allegedly made a deal to sell the informant additional guns, vehicles, bulletproof vests and night-vision goggles.

According to court papers, the weapons changed hands in Nayyar's mother's apartment, which is in his building.

On Aug. 3, Nayyar -- an illegal immigrant from India who was denied citizenship in 2006 for undisclosed reasons -- directed his mother to bring a gun from her bedroom to show the informant, who was wearing a wire.

The woman left the room and returned with a black handgun, according to court papers.

Nayyar -- a contractor who also worked as the super at his building -- handed the weapon to the informant, along with a box of ammunition that was marked "For Law Enforcement Use Only, Not for Retail Sale," the feds charge.

Two days later, the informant returned to the apartment and paid him $1,000.

Nayyar, who was picked up at his home on Sept. 24, was initially charged in Brooklyn federal court with a lesser count of illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition.

That charge was dismissed on Monday.

Yesterday, he was arraigned on the new charges in Manhattan federal court, pleading not guilty to five counts of providing material support to a terrorist organization, making contributions to Hezbollah and illegal possession of a weapon.

He faces 80 years in prison if convicted.

"I know he dealt with suspicious people, but he's not a terrorist," said Nayyar's mom, Sushila, 75, who was not charged in the case.

"He's a hard worker who was disturbed by the death of his father [in 2008]."...

Oh, well, that explains it.

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Sharia Alert, as Aceh weighs in on a currently active discussion in Islamic jurisprudence: whether women can wear pants. Sudan relented on a flogging sentence after intense international scrutiny, while Egypt's Mufti Ali Gomaa said pants are permissible, as long as they are "modest." Muhammad, for his part, "cursed the effeminate men and those women who assume the similitude (manners) of men. He also said, 'Turn them out of your houses'." (Bukhari 8.82.820).

The introduction of Sharia in Aceh was accompanied by the usual promises of moderation, but any Sharia starts a society on a slippery slope toward more of it, for three reasons: First, legal codes that are said to be the product of divine fiat do not lend themselves to compartmentalization or limitations on power. The second is the scope of Islamic law as a "total system" with something to say about every element of life. The third and most troubling is the mandate within Islam to impose Islamic rule by all means (Qur'an 8:39), especially while violence is not only acceptable, but glorified in the Qur'an and the example of Muhammad. This is how Aceh finds itself in the middle of a high-stakes debate on pants.

"Indonesia: Women banned from wearing trousers and jeans," from Adnkronos International, October 28:

Banda Aceh, 28 October (AKI/The Jakarta Post) - Women wearing jeans and other trousers in Indonesia's West Aceh will now face Islamic Sharia police, as will clothes vendors selling slacks for women. West Aceh Regent Ramli M.S. issued the controversial regulation on Tuesday.
Those found wearing tight trousers, such as jeans, will have them cut by Sharia police, and will be forced to wear loose-fitting attire.
"We have issued the regulation to further enforce Islamic Sharia (law) granted by the central government," Ramli told Indonesian daily The Jakarta Post by phone on Tuesday.
To anticipate the huge number of slacks to be cut by police during raids, the West Aceh regency administration has prepared around 7,000 long skirts, which will be provided for free to those caught wearing trousers.
According to Ramli, the new regulation will be effective as of 1 January, 2010.
The regulation also prohibits clothes vendors in the regency from selling slacks or jeans to women.
To implement the regulation, the West Aceh administration will issue an order for Sharia police to conduct raids and patrols in every district in the regency.
The raids will mainly target the regency capital of Meulaboh.
Ramli said he was positive the policy would spark some protest among residents across Aceh, especially in West Aceh.
However, he said he would insist on enforcing the regulation despite possible protests. Although it has yet to be implemented, women in Meulaboh have voiced objection to the ban.
As women, they slammed the regulation as discriminatory, saying it violated their right to freedom of expression.
"I'm surprised the mentality of the Aceh leader is so old-fashioned and primitive.
"There are many other things the administration should handle rather than regulating what women in the province should wear," said a medical worker in Meulaboh, Lola Amalia.
She said the West Aceh administration may have suffered from the euphoria of Islamic Sharia without thinking about the reality of people's conditions.
"I doubt the regulation is the wish of the West Aceh community at large. One of the regent's tricks is to seek sensation," said Lola.
Lola said she was confident the regulation would not be implemented effectively in Aceh society, adding that in principle she had no qualms about wearing clothing regarded as appropriate and in accordance with Islamic Sharia.
However, she said she was unaware which type kind of clothing the administration regarded as appropriate for women in West Aceh to wear.
"It will not be possible for the government to force every woman in West Aceh to wear long skirts.
"Not all women like to wear such clothing," said Lola.
Ramli previously issued a regulation prohibiting government agencies from serving members of the public who wore "un-Islamic" clothing, such as tight jeans and slacks, to government offices.
Aceh is the only province in Indonesia that strictly enforces Islamic Sharia law, a move that was implemented to suppress the separatist movement in the mainly Muslim region.
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The mysterious raid on the halal meatpacking plant, which I noted here last week, turns out to be connected to this plot to kill the Danish Motoonist Kurt Westergaard -- "the Mickey Mouse Project." "Two Chicago men charged in terror scheme," by Natasha Korecki for the Chicago Sun Times, October 28 (thanks to Pamela):

When FBI agents at O'Hare arrested David Headley en route to Pakistan earlier this month on charges he plotted to kill a newspaper cartoonist in Denmark, authorities say he held an additional airline reservation - to Copenhagen.

He was to depart Thursday.

Headley's friend, Tahawwur Hussain Rana, who shared an extreme hatred for cartoons that depicted the prophet Mohammed, arranged for the flight, authorities said.

Any depiction of the prophet, even a favorable one, is forbidden by Islamic law as likely to lead to idolatry.

The Chicago men, who knew each other from a military school in Pakistan, on Tuesday were accused of an international plot dubbed "The Mickey Mouse Project" that since late 2008 included scheming with others to "commit terrorist acts against overseas targets," according to federal criminal complaints made public in Chicago.

The North Side men are accused of plotting to target employees of the Danish newspaper Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, which published cartoons of the prophet Mohammed in 2005, sparking violent riots across the Muslim world.

The most controversial of the 12 cartoons depicted Mohammed wearing a bomb with a lit fuse as a turban. That cartoon was drawn by Kurt Westergaard, 78 - who was targeted for assassination, authorities said.

But Headley's phone calls were wiretapped and his e-mails were under FBI review. When he tried to board his Pakistan-bound O'Hare flight Oct. 3, the FBI arrested him.

Headley, 49, then confessed to agents about the plot, authorities said. He was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit terrorist acts involving murder and maiming outside the United States and one count of conspiracy to provide material support to the alleged overseas terrorism conspiracy.

Rana, 48, a native of Pakistan and a Canadian citizen, was arrested Oct. 18 at his West Rogers Park home. He was charged with providing material support to a foreign terrorism conspiracy that involved Headley.

In October 2008, Headley used his birth name, Daood Gilani -which he changed in 2006 to avoid suspicion while traveling - when posting a message to a Yahoo group called "abdalians," authorities said.

"Everything is not a joke . . . We are not rehearsing a skit on Saturday Night Live," Headley said in the posting. "Call me old-fashioned, but I feel disposed towards violence for the offending parties."...

Headley told agents the plot recently focused on Westergaard and the paper's cultural editor, Flemming Rose, "whom Headley felt were directly responsible for the cartoons," the criminal complaint states.

He also allegedly told agents he was trained by a terrorist organization called Lashkar-e-Taiba, according to his criminal complaint.

Authorities say Headley reported to Ilyas Kashmiri, the operational chief of what the FBI describes as a Pakistani-based terrorist organization with links to al-Qaida, according to the complaint. Headley was headed to Pakistan to report to Kashmiri when the FBI foiled his plans, according to charges.

When he was arrested, FBI agents found a memory stick on him that contained 10 surveillance videos, including footage of the newspaper office and Danish military barracks, the complaint said....

Rana owns several businesses, including First World Immigration Services, which has offices on Devon Avenue in Chicago, New York and Toronto, as well as a meat-processing plant in Kinsman. That plant is used to slaughter goats and sheep per Muslim religious requirements.

Extensive means were used to carry out a search warrant of the plant earlier this month. Witnesses said about 100 agents were on the scene. Helicopters, trucks and SUVs could be seen in front of the building during the raid....

Mickey Motoon thanks to Henrik.

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"It was the ninth reported attack on Israel from Lebanese territory since the end of fighting between Israel and the south-Lebanon-based Hezbollah in 2006." "Israel shows restraint after latest rocket from southern Lebanon," by David Harris for Xinhua, October 29:

JERUSALEM, Oct. 28 (Xinhua) -- Israel responded with limited fire towards the source of a rocket launched from southern Lebanon on Tuesday night. It was the ninth reported attack on Israel from Lebanese territory since the end of fighting between Israel and the south-Lebanon-based Hezbollah in 2006.

Four additional Katyusha rockets were found on Wednesday close to Tuesday's launch site. The discovery was made by a joint tour of officers from the Lebanese army and the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, according to Lebanese and Israeli media reports.

Analysts are now wondering for how long Israel will show restraint in the face of these attacks for which no one claims responsibility.

ATTACK CONDEMNED

Lebanese Caretaker Prime Minister Fouad Siniora criticized the initial strike from Lebanon and Israel's immediate response, which was reported to have damaged a couple of nearby homes.

Israel lodged a formal complaint about the fire with the UN, while the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued a statement saying "the IDF considers the Lebanese government and military responsible for the prevention of such attacks."

While no one claimed responsibility, the incident took place as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a report which included a demand that Hezbollah be stripped of its arms in accordance with UN resolutions.

"The threats posed by the existence of militias outside the control of the state, especially Hezbollah's vast paramilitary infrastructure, cannot be overstated," Ban said in the document.

Ban also condemned Israel's overflights of Lebanese airspace. Israel says such surveillance missions will continue as long as it feels there is a threat from Lebanese territory....

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As noted here many times, such a law would criminalize all honest exploration of the Islamic motives and goals of the jihadis, thereby rendering us defenseless against them. What is odd here is that the Christian Science Monitor says that the U.S. is opposing this initiative. That is good news if it is true, but if it is true, why did the U.S. cosponsor with Egypt a UN Human Rights Council resolution calling for criminalization of incitement to religious hatred?

"Islamic countries push a global 'blasphemy' law," from the Christian Science Monitor, October 28:

Remember the Danish "Muhammad cartoons" that set off riots by offended Muslims more than three years ago? The debate pitted freedom of press and speech against notions of freedom from insult of one's religion. It rages still - but now in a forum with international legal implications.

For years, Islamic nations have succeeded in passing "blasphemy" resolutions at the United Nations (in the General Assembly and in its human rights body). The measures call on states to limit religiously offensive language or speech. No one wants their beliefs ridiculed, but the freedom to disagree over faith is what allows for the free practice of religion. The resolutions are misguided, but also only symbolic, because they're nonbinding.

Symbolism no longer satisfies the sponsor of these resolutions - the Organization of the Islamic Council. Under the leadership of Pakistan, the 57-nation OIC wants to give the religious antidefamation idea legal teeth by making it part of an international convention, or legally binding treaty. Members of the UN Human Rights Council are passionately debating that idea in Geneva this week.

The United States under Barack Obama recently joined the UNHRC, maligned for years as the mouthpiece for countries that are themselves flagrant human rights abusers. A "new" council formed in 2006. President Obama's hope is that as an engaged member, the US can further reform - and its own interests. This case will test his theory.

Consider the wording put forth by Pakistan, written on behalf of the OIC. It proposes "legal prohibition of publication of material that negatively stereotypes, insults or uses offensive language" on matters regarded by religious followers as "sacred or inherent to their dignity as human beings."

This gives broad latitude to governments to decide what's offensive. Countries such as Pakistan already have national blasphemy laws, but a global treaty would give them international cover to suppress minority religious groups with the excuse that these groups offend mainstream beliefs.

And what about unpopular, even "insulting" dissenters within a majority religion - such as women who seek to interpret Islamic sharia law so that they may gain more rights?

Besides, international treaties are meant to protect the rights of people, not ideas. A legal defense of dignity - how a person is viewed - is not on par with a defense of a person's inherent identity and rights. And treaties already aim to protect individuals from discrimination and violence based on religion.

As a newcomer to the Human Rights Council, the US is vigorously arguing against the OIC's latest push, as are European countries. They may not get very far in changing minds in the governments of Egypt or Saudi Arabia. But human rights advocates such as Freedom House and the US Commission on International Religious Freedom say Latin American and sub-Saharan African countries could be persuaded to resist the OIC's push....

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The photo above is from a protest in Istanbul. Note the flag following the coffin, featuring the swastika and the Star of David. What does demonizing Israel have to do with this case? Why, nothing -- but it is all part of the larger jihad against the West.

The selectivity of the outrage here is stunning. Alexander Wiens has apparently committed a heinous crime, and he should be punished to the full extent of the law. But to pretend that his crime is a manifestation of some pandemic "Islamophobia" is simply political manipulation. Muslim groups in America and Europe need "hate crimes," because "hate crimes" confer victim status, and victim status confers privilege. Victimhood is big business: insofar as Muslim groups can claim protected victim status for Muslims in the U.S. abd Europe, they can deflect unwanted scrutiny and any critical examination of how jihadists use Islamic texts and teachings to justify violence and supremacism.

That's most likely why CAIR and others have not hesitated to stoop even to fabricating "hate crimes." They want and need hate crimes against Muslims, because they can use them for political points and as weapons to intimidate people into remaining silent about the jihad threat.

But note: while Barack Obama spoke in Cairo about his determination to protect the right of Muslim women in America to wear the hijab, no one is speaking up for the Muslim and non-Muslim women in Islamic countries and in Muslim families in the West who have been threatened or murdered for not wearing the hijab. No one demonstrated for Aqsa Parvez, murdered by her father in Canada for not wearing the headscarf. No one demonstrated for the women killed in Iraq and elsewhere for not wearing it.

The outrage here is selective, and nakedly manipulative.

"German Murder Trial Is Focus Of Anger in Islamic World," from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, October 28 (thanks to James):

It is a story that has gripped both the Muslim and Western worlds.

It began in 2008, in the German city of Dresden, when an Egyptian-born woman, Marwa al-Shirbiny, asked a man to make room for her 3-year-old son on a children's playground swing.

The man, Alexander Wiens, responded by calling al-Shirbiny -- who was wearing an Islamic headscarf at the time -- a "terrorist" and a "slut."

Al-Shirbiny summoned the police, and Wiens was subsequently fined the equivalent of $480 on charges of verbal abuse.

When Wiens attempted to appeal the conviction this July, al-Shirbiny, then pregnant, attended the hearing. As she was leaving the courtroom, the court records charge, Wiens leapt at her and stabbed her 18 times with a kitchen knife.

Her husband, Elwi Ali Okaz, tried to protect her, and also suffered multiple stab wounds.

To make matters worse, in the melee a policeman shot Okaz in the leg, apparently assuming that the Egyptian man was the attacker, rather than the German defendant.

The murder trial of Wiens, a 29-year-old ethnic German born in Russia, began in Dresden October 26 in the same courtroom where the murder took place. The dead woman's husband, Okaz, attended on a pair of crutches.

Ayyub Axel Koehler, the head of Germany's Central Muslim Council, told Reuters before the trial started that Muslims everywhere are intensely interested in this case.

"This trial is getting huge attention in the Muslim world," Koehler said. "There were riots in some Islamic countries because of this murder. So it's up to us Germans to defend our reputation."

Koehler, a convert to Islam, was referring to demonstrations in Egypt and Iran, and Tehran's request for the United Nations to become involved.

He also said that Germany's Muslim community -- the biggest in Europe after France -- has been badly shaken by the affair.

"We're looking at this trial with great anticipation, because our women and girls are obviously scared," he said. "They are already being discriminated against in public and looked down on."

Koehler said Germany's reputation has suffered badly, and that politicians have ignored Islamophobia and its consequences in society....

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A welcome according to time-hallowed local custom. "Car bomb kills 90 in Pakistan as Hillary Clinton visits," by Zeeshan Haider and Andrew Quinn for Reuters, October 28 (thanks to Maxwell):

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - A car bomb ripped through a crowded market killing 90 people in Pakistan's city of Peshawar on Wednesday, just hours after Washington's top diplomat arrived pledging a fresh start in sometimes strained relations.

Wednesday's bomb, the latest urban attack since the army launched a major assault on rural Taliban strongholds two weeks ago, was the deadliest since 2007 when around 140 died at a procession to welcome home former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated just weeks later.

The bomb went off in the busy Peepal Mandi market street in a city that for years served as the headquarters of the Pakistan- and U.S.- backed mujahideen war against the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan.

Although nobody claimed responsibility, suspicion immediately fell on Pakistani Taliban militants who are the target of the army offensive....

Hours after the blast, visiting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a news conference that Washington fully supported Pakistan's battle.

"I want you to know that this fight is not Pakistan's alone," she said.

"So this is our struggle as well and we commend the Pakistani military for their courageous fight and we commit to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Pakistani people in your fight for peace and security."

Sahib Gul, a doctor at Peshawar's main hospital, said the dead from Wednesday's bomb were mostly women and children.

"Several buildings and a mosque have been badly damaged while a fire has engulfed buildings," witness Aqueel-ur-Rehman told Reuters from the market, which mostly deals in groceries and household goods....

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But the UN spokesman says that the UN will continue its good works in Afghanistan, building things for the Taliban to destroy. "Kabul Guesthouse Attack Leaves 6 Dead, Including 5 UN Employees," by James Rupert and Gregory Viscusi for Bloomberg, October 28:

Oct. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Six international workers were killed and nine wounded when insurgents attacked a guesthouse in the Afghan capital, Kabul, where officials are preparing for next month's presidential runoff election.

At least five of the dead worked for the United Nations, UN spokesman Aleem Siddique said by telephone from Kabul, with the identity of the sixth victim still to be established. Gunmen opened fire outside the main gate to the Bakhtar Guesthouse at about 6:30 a.m. local time today and forced their way inside, killing UN workers as they "were running to escape," Siddique said. Afghan security forces killed the three gunmen, he said.

One of the UN employees who died was an American, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul said in a statement. The UN isn't announcing the nationalities of the others until their families have been notified....

Special UN representative Kai Eide said the world body will continue its work in Afghanistan.

"The UN has been in Afghanistan for more than half a century," Eide, a Norwegian diplomat, said in a statement posted on the Web site of the UN Afghan mission. "This attack will not deter the UN from continuing all its work to reconstruct a war-torn country and to build a better future for all Afghans."...

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a telephone call that three militants with suicide vests, grenades and automatic weapons carried out the assault to disrupt preparations for the vote, AP reported.

Militants also fired a rocket, which failed to explode, into the grounds of the luxury Serena Hotel, forcing guests and employees to flee to the basement, AP said....

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Here is a very serious message from Muslim apostate Rifqa Bary's friend Jamal Jivanjee. You may recall that Judge Daniel Dawson in Florida had said that he would not send Rifqa back to Ohio, where she says her father had threatened to kill her for converting from Islam to Christianity, until he received her family's immigration documents. So the father's attorney cut a deal with Rifqa's guardian ad litem, offering to keep Rifqa in foster care until she was 18 -- which would mean she was free from the father she fears so much -- in exchange for dropping questions about the immigration status. But once the contempt of court charge over the immigration issue was dropped, the father's attorney reneged, leaving Rifqa back in Ohio and in imminent danger of being sent home to her family. From there, of course, once media attention died down, it would not be difficult to have her sent back to Sri Lanka to be killed or institutionalized -- and even here she would be subjected to relentless, unstinting pressure to renounce Christianity and proclaim Islam publicly.

Jamal frames this issue in Christian terms, understandably enough, but I cannot emphasize more strongly that this is a human rights issue that should energize every person of conscience of whatever creed or point of view. Will this girl be exposed to mortal danger in order to appease the gods of political correctness? Will she be allowed to exercise her freedom of conscience in the United States of America? Will Sharia provisions -- calling for the indefinite imprisonment and isolation of the female apostate -- be allowed to prevail in this country? Why is Rifqa, alone among the thousands of minors in foster care, be cut off from the outside world entirely, deprived of phone and Internet use? The phone or Internet could save her life. And saving her life seems to be what malevolent forces in the U.S. are doing their best to make impossible.

Here is Jamal's message from Facebook:

To all those who value life,

Please take a few minutes to consider the life of our sister in the faith Rifqa Bary, which is once again in grave jeopardy. On Tuesday October 27'th, Rifqa Bary was handed over to Ohio authorities for placement in foster care in Franklin County. Over the previous weekend, a very unfortunate deal was made by Rifqa's former Florida Guardian Ad Litem, Krista Bartholomew, with Rifqa's parent's attorney David Colley that allowed Rifqa to be transferred back to Ohio. The gist of this (behind the scenes) deal was the following:

1. Because Rifqa's parents are in the U.S. illegally, they refused and defied numerous court orders to produce documents detailing their immigration status. As a result, Rifqa's parents were in danger of being arrested for contempt of court. The Florida judge who had emergency jurisdiction over the case said that even though the jurisdiction is transferred to Ohio, he was not going to release her until they produced the proper documentation that satisfied the court.

Well, in order to have the immigration issue go away for Rifqa's parents, Mohammad Bary's attorney, David Colley, cut a 'behind the scenes' deal in which the Florida court would drop the contempt of court issue regarding their immigration situation in exchange for an assurance that they would leave Rifqa alone and let her stay in foster care for the next 9 months until she is 18. This sounded like it was too good to be true, and it was! As soon as Rifqa was transferred into Ohio custody and the Florida court gave up their emergency jurisdiction over Rifqa and the immigration issue, Rifqa's parents fired their own attorney that made the deal! Simply put, now that Rifqa was in 'favorable' hands in Ohio, all deals are off!

In my opinion, this was all part of a premeditated plan on the part of Rifqa's parents and the organization called C.A.I.R. who has been advising them according to the Florida department of law enforcement report released to the public. They have since hired a Muslim activist attorney named Omar Tarazi that is no doubt influenced by the mafia like C.A.I.R. organization whose sole agenda is to paint a positive picture of Islam in America at any cost. (The slander of the Lorenz family and the slander of 17 year old Rifqa's own character by releasing her prayer journals to the media are perfect examples of how C.A.I.R. ruthlessly operates to accomplish their agenda.)

They completely went back on the agreement that they made to leave Rifqa alone, and I believe they now are planning to continue to pursue to get her back against Rifqa's will. C.A.I.R. wants her silenced both now, and in the future, because they know that Rifqa's story of abuse is common among many Muslim families. Apostasy in Islam is not something they want to shine a light on. They know that as her story gets out there, there will be a massive exodus of Muslims just like her. Indeed, it has already begun!

2. If that was not bad enough, Rifqa went back to a hostile environment in Ohio right away. In an article posted on Saturday October 24'th, three days before her return to Ohio, the Columbus Dispatch reported that Eric Fenner, the executive director of Franklin County Children Services, has said that he has stated that he "has no reason to believe that Rifqa wouldn't be safe with her parents." Remember this is coming from the very person who has charge over protecting her!

Rifqa then arrived back to Ohio on Tuesday October 27'th. Upon her arrival came a new set of restrictions that her parents and Muslim attorneys have been trying to impose on her from the beginning...solitary confinement! While Rifqa was being protected in Florida, they repeatedly tried to separate Rifqa from other Christians that she leaned on for strength and encouragement. Rifqa's Muslim parents have been saying from the beginning that they don't believe that Rifqa became a Christian on her own accord, rather they believe that her real problem is that she has been brain washed by other people through facebook and over the phone.

Immediately upon Rifqa's arrival to Ohio, came new draconian measures to limit her freedom already! Franklin County Juvenile Magistrate Mary Goodrich put these restrictions on Rifqa at the request of the Franklin county children's services agency immediately upon her arrival back to the state of Ohio.

"Bary's use of Facebook was one issue that led to the situation, said Jim Zorn, a children's services attorney, who asked Goodrich to restrict Bary from using the Internet and her cell phone. "What we want to restrict is the other people, the other organizations, the other forces, that have interjected themselves into this case inappropriately, and has caused the additional problems that we've seen," Zorn said.

Zorn's account of Rifqa's situation is absolutely false! Where is he getting his information? It seems as if the Ohio director of children's services in Franklin County is reading right out of the C.A.I.R. and radical Muslim playbook for this case. Facebook did not in any way lead to this situation. What led to this situation was the fact that a very bright and intelligent girl decided to leave Islam and become a Christian. According to numerous passages in the Qur'an and other Islamic scriptures, this is called apostasy and is punishable by death. Like many others all over the world, Rifqa faced this threat of death, or even deportation back to Sri-Lanka by her own family along with pressure from the Columbus Ohio mosque that her family was actively apart of.

What crime did Rifqa Bary commit that she would be held with such restrictions from communicating to the outside world? While it is legal for 17 year old girls in this country to have abortions without parental agreement, this 17 year old girl is forbidden to have unrestricted access to her phone or facebook friends of her choosing! Is she under house arrest because she is a Christian? This sounds like Sharia law in Ohio!

Immediate Call to Action:

Before I get into the specifics of how we can help, let me say this about a very common misunderstanding that many Christians have regarding God's sovereignty and fighting for justice. Many of my well meaning brothers and sisters in the church have wondered what the balance is between sitting back, trusting God, and actively fighting for justice. Some have said that because I am fighting for justice in Rifqa's situation, I am taking the situation in my hands and I am not trusting that God is sovereign over this situation. That is ridiculous to say the least. First of all there is a tremendous amount of support in scripture that commands the people of God to not remain silent in the face of injustice, and to speak and defend those who cannot defend themselves. For time's sake, I will not list those passages here. If you need help finding these scriptures along with their proper context, let me know and I'd be glad to help direct you to the appropriate passages.

All actions of justice should come from a heart of prayer first and foremost. It is from this place of prayer and intimacy with the Lord that we will find the courage, specific direction, and strength to understand and actually do what He is calling us to do! While not everyone will be called to do the same thing, the Lord will burden our hearts for the things that burden His heart as well. His sovereign heart and actions are carried out through the church, which is simply people! We cannot separate ourselves from this. We are His body, His hands, His feet, His mouth, etc...

A lack of a proper understanding between God's sovereignty and His heart for justice is what allowed the church to sit passively by in Nazi Germany as Jewish people were slaughtered by the millions while Christians were paralyzed by fear and did nothing. Corrie Ten Boom was an exception to the rule. She was not afraid, and she knew what God had called her to do. There should have been millions of Corrie Ten Booms in Germany at that time. This same cowardice and passivity is also what has allowed over 3000 children to be murdered by abortion each and every day in this nation with little or no outcry in prayer and public against this tragedy. We must get this right! Now with that said, here are some specific things we can do for Rifqa right now:

Since most of Rifqa's Florida support base is cut off from her, and she is now under the care of authorities that do not take the threat to her life seriously, I would like to ask you to help them understand that Rifqa is not alone and that there are many people who will not sit idly by while Rifqa is sent back to her demise. This does make a difference. Rifqa's story must continue to be told for her sake, and for the sake of many others! Feel free to repost this article and pass it along to anyone you would like for the sake of getting the word out.

Please contact Franklin County Children Services, and the Ohio governor's office at the following addresses and let them know that you want Rifqa to be able to have the basic freedoms to communicate to the outside world, and that she needs to be protected from her parents & the radical Islamic community:

Franklin County children services can be reached here: http://www.franklincountyohio.gov/children_services/contact-us.cfm

The Ohio governor's office can be reached here:

http://governor.ohio.gov/Contact/tabid/153/Default.aspx

God bless you for taking a stand, Jamal Jivanjee www.illuminate-us.com

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Or as the great Shaidle puts it, "It's all YOUR fault for being morons, you stupid infidels!"

An update on this story. "Address on niqab not meant to be offensive: Imam," by Charles Lewis in the National Post, October 23 (thanks to Kathy Shaidle):

A Toronto imam said on Friday he did not intend to insult non-Muslims during an address at his mosque on those who want the niqab and burka banned.

Said Rageah, the imam at Toronto's Abu Huraira Centre, said that only someone who did not understand Islam would have come away from last Friday's prayers thinking that anyone at his mosque hated members of other faiths.

He was specifically addressing an article that appeared in the National Post on Thursday in which some critics said the language he used was inflammatory.

Imam Rageah used a prayer last week that, in part, said "Allah destroy them from within themselves, and do not allow them to raise their heads in destroying Islam." And in another part of he asked Allah to "damn the infidels."

Right. Destroy them, damn them, but don't hate them. Got it.

Imam Rageah on Friday said in a brief interview that in both references he was not literally meaning "destroy" but rather to confound or weaken those that would infringe on their rights.

In last week's address, he used the word "kuffar" repeatedly, a word some say is highly derogatory of non-Muslims, especially Christians and Jews....

But on Friday, Imam Rageah said the word is mentioned more than 500 times in the Koran and it would make no sense for Allah to have used a word repeatedly that was so offensive.

"The word has more than one meaning," he said. "It's not always negative but it can be negative. Now if the suggestion is, 'Why don't we avoid the word,' that's an excellent suggestion. But until this issue was raised we didn't think people found the word insulting."

Nonsense. In the Koran, it is always negative. To dismiss this by saying that Allah would not have used an offensive word is simply to demand that non-Muslims accept Islamic perspectives and norms. And that is, of course, what this is all about.

When the word is used negatively, he said, it can apply to Muslims who are liars or non-Muslims who are active enemies of the faith....

Imam Rageah said no one group should try to trample the rights of others. For example, he said no Muslim should ever walk up to someone with multi-coloured hair and say that they object to that person's style.

He acknowledged that many countries, including Muslim countries, restrict free speech, and said it was important that Muslims in Canada exercise their rights by writing to MPs and the media to protest those that would restrict their faith.

So you see, free speech is to be used to strengthen Islam in the West, while it is restricted in Muslim countries in order to...strengthen Islam.

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Video thanks to Politically Incorrect.

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October 27, 2009

Therein lies a fundamental dogma of the modern political discourse: Multiculturalism is good for its own sake. All cultural practices are equally valid, and will not come into conflict with one another if everybody just tries really, really hard to get along. In addition, it is always Western civilization that is singled out for needing improvement or redemption by a self-righteously suicidal pursuit of "diversity." Hence the ridiculous cascade in recent years of accommodations for Sharia law and the whims of Islamic supremacism.

"The outrageous truth slips out: Labour cynically plotted to transform the entire make-up of Britain without telling us," by Melanie Phillips for the Daily Mail, October 26:

So now the cat is well and truly out of the bag. For years, as the number of immigrants to Britain shot up apparently uncontrollably, the question was how exactly this had happened.
Was it through a fit of absent-mindedness or gross incompetence? Or was it not inadvertent at all, but deliberate?
The latter explanation seemed just too outrageous. After all, a deliberate policy of mass immigration would have amounted to nothing less than an attempt to change the very make-up of this country without telling the electorate.
There could not have been a more grave abuse of the entire democratic process. Now, however, we learn that this is exactly what did happen. The Labour government has been engaged upon a deliberate and secret policy of national cultural sabotage.
This astonishing revelation surfaced quite casually last weekend in a newspaper article by one Andrew Neather. He turns out to have been a speech writer for Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett. [...]
And it was he who wrote a landmark speech in September 2000 by the then immigration minister, Barbara Roche, that called for a loosening of immigration controls. But the true scope and purpose of this new policy was actively concealed.
In its 1997 election manifesto, Labour promised 'firm control over immigration' and in 2005 it promised a 'crackdown on abuse'. In 2001, its manifesto merely said that the immigration rules needed to reflect changes to the economy to meet skills shortages.
But all this concealed a monumental shift of policy. For Neather wrote that until 'at least February last year', when a new points-based system was introduced to limit foreign workers in response to increasing uproar, the purpose of the policy Roche ushered in was to open up the UK to mass immigration.
This has been achieved. Some 2.3million migrants have been added to the population since 2001. Since 1997, the number of work permits has quadrupled to 120,000 a year.
Unless policies change, over the next 25 years some seven million more will be added to Britain's population, a rate of growth three times as fast as took place in the Eighties.
Such an increase is simply unsustainable. Britain is already one of the most overcrowded countries in Europe. But now look at the real reason why this policy was introduced, and in secret. The Government's 'driving political purpose', wrote Neather, was 'to make the UK truly multicultural'. [...]
A measure of immigration is indeed good for a country. But this policy was not to enhance British culture and society by broadening the mix. It was to destroy its defining character altogether. [...]

Read it all.

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In "Tingbjerg: one neighborhood's nightmare" at Human Rights Service, October 26, Bruce Bawer gives a glimpse of the kind of thing that will be happening in the United States before too long, unless there is some drastic change in numerous policies:

Few people outside of Denmark have heard of Tingbjerg. It's a residential neighborhood in northwestern Copenhagen. About 6500 people live there, down from about 10,000 in the 1970s. Today the great majority of those residents are Muslims. As the neighborhood has become increasingly Muslim, it's also been increasingly plagued by gang violence, burglaries, car-burnings, vandalism, and other offenses. Over the years, the members of Tingbjerg's non-Muslim minority have come to feel increasingly vulnerable and ill at ease in their community. Many have moved out.

Among the latter is Ulrich Vogel. He is German and gay - and until recently he also happened to be the pastor at Tingbjerg Church. But now, after seventeen years in that position, he's fled - moved out of the church residence, gone underground, taken sick leave, and begun psychological treatment.

Why? Because in recent years Vogel has been the repeated target of crime and harassment by local Muslims. Vogel refused to discuss his situation with Uwe Max Jensen, who reported on the story for sappho.dk on October 6. But Jensen found police reports in local newspapers that describe acts of vandalism at the church on March 26 and August 5 of this year and a break-in at the church residence on August 16. The latter crime involved the destruction and robbery of much of Vogel's personal property, including his computer. And this is apparently only the tip of the iceberg: a member of the church congregation told Jensen that the residence has been broken into "countless" times.

In any case, Vogel has given up. And so, apparently, has the church council: instead of opening up a search for a substitute pastor who's willing to live in the church residence at Tingbjerg, they've decided to sell it.

For days, the rumor circulated that Vogel was tormented by the young Muslims because he's gay. Then, on October 17, Lea Holtze and Jannie Iwankow Søgaard of Kristeligt Dagblad reported that Vogel had broken his silence in order to deny that rumor. No, he insisted: he was tormented not because he's gay but because he's a pastor, and thus "a picture of an institution and a normality that is not welcomed by this group of young people." Vogel also noted, truthfully enough, that he was hardly the only person in the neighborhood who had been victimized by local youth.

"It's a whole neighborhood that's been taken hostage," Vogel said of Tingbjerg, complaining that "one is left to fend for oneself" there because "the police don't do enough." The problems, he said, can't be dismissed as ordinary teenage hijinks: "It feels like pure malice." The pastor recalled that last March, after local youths threw rocks at buses, resulting in a disruption of the public transport system, he spoke out in a local newspaper and on the TV news about the neighborhood's ordeal - an action which, he suggests, may help explain why he appears to have been singled out for repeated victimization....

Read it all.

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The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran
What they’re saying about Robert Spencer
“My comrade-in-arms, my pal, my buddy.” — Oriana Fallaci “Robert Spencer incarnates intellectual courage when, all over the world, governments, intellectuals, churches, universities and media crawl under a hegemonic Universal Caliphate’s New Order. His achievement in the battle for the survival of free speech and dignity of man will remain as a fundamental monument to the love of, and the self-sacrifice for, liberty.” — Bat Ye’or “Robert Spencer is indefatigable. He is keeping up the good fight long after many have already given up. I do not know what we would do without him. I appreciate all the intelligence and courage it takes to keep going despite the appeasement of the West.” — Ibn Warraq “A top American analyst of Islam.” — Daniel Pipes “Over the years, we have become friends, and I have received his assistance on several pieces of legislation I proposed.” — Former Congressman Tom Tancredo “The acclaimed scholar of Islam.” — Frank Gaffney, Center for Security Policy “I am indeed honored to call him my friend.” — Brad Thor, novelist “Robert Spencer is the leading voice of scholarship and reason in a world gone mad. If the West is to be saved, we will owe Robert Spencer an incalculable debt.” — Pamela Geller, Atlas Shrugs “Thank God there’s at least one man with balls left in the West.” — Kathy Shaidle, Five Feet of Fury “Classy, tireless, and wise.” — Debbie Schlussel “I read people like [Mark Steyn] and Bob Spencer and the rest of them, and I say, ‘Boortz, you’re pretending you’re an author. These people really are. They really write some entertaining, some standup stuff.’” — Neal Boortz “Armed with facts and fearlessness, Spencer stands up for Western civilization.” — Michelle Malkin “A hero of the American right.” — Karen Armstrong “Satanic ignoramus.” — Khaleel Mohammed “Zionist Crusader, missionary of hate, counter-Islam consultant.” — Al-Qaeda’s Adam Gadahn, “Azzam the American”
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