Subscribe AboutRUTHFULLY YOURS
Main
NATIONAL NEWS USA
HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE BEEN KILLED BY JIHAD IN THE PAST TWO MONTHS?
How Many People Have Been Killed by Islamofascists in the Past 2 Months?
by David Horowitz
List of Islamic Terror Attacks For the Past 2 Months
Date Country City Killed Injured Description
2009.12.24 Afghanistan Paktika 2 0 Two civilians are murdered by Jihadi roadside bombers.
2009.12.24 Pakistan Rawalpindi 1 2 A 6-year-old girl is dismembered by a suicide bomber.
2009.12.24 Iraq Kirkuk 4 0 Four Iraqis are gunned down by suspected al-Qaeda militants.
2009.12.24 Iraq Hilla 25 105 A crowded bus station is the target of Sunni bombers, who leave twenty-five Iraqis dead and nearly one hundred more in agony.
2009.12.24 Afghanistan Kandahar 8 3 A Shahid suicide bomber on a horse car murders eight innocent people.
2009.12.24 Israel Einav 1 0 An Israeli father of seven is shot to death in his car by Palestinian terrorists.
2009.12.24 Pakistan Peshawar 4 24 A suicide bomber detonates near a Christian school, killing four others.
2009.12.24 Somalia Mogadishu 6 25 Six civilians are killed during an attack by Hizb al-Islam fundamentalists.
2009.12.24 Iraq Baghdad 12 53 Jihadis murder a dozen mourners when they bomb two separate funerals.
2009.12.23 Iraq Baghdad 5 46 Sunni bombers murder five Shia pilgrims in three separate attacks.
2009.12.23 Afghanistan Helmand 3 5 Three innocents are cut down by a Taliban bomb planted on a bicylce.
2009.12.23 Iraq Mosul 2 0 A bomb placed near an ancient Christian church kills two people.
2009.12.23 Afghanistan Helmand 3 4 Three civilians are killed when fundamentalists detonate a bomb at a bazaar.
2009.12.23 Afghanistan Spin Boldak 2 3 Talibanis take down two civilians with a roadside bomb.
2009.12.22 India Pampore 2 1 Hizbul Mujahideen militants shoot two local cops to death.
2009.12.22 Iraq Iskandariya 1 4 A civilian dies from shrapnel injures after Jihadis detonate a bomb on a minibus.
2009.12.22 Pakistan Peshawar 3 16 A woman is among three people at a press club blown to bits by a Shahid suicide bomber.
2009.12.22 Thailand Pattani 1 1 Islamic gunmen fire into a family home, killing a 3-year-old girl and seriously injuring her sister.
2009.12.22 Thailand Pattani 1 0 A 37-year-old father is shot full of holes by Muslim militants after dropping his children off at school.
2009.12.21 Iraq Tal Afar 4 5 A Fedayeen suicide bomber takes out four Iraqis.
2009.12.21 Somalia Mogadishu 5 0 Five Somalis near a minibus are murdered by al-Shabaab bombers.
2009.12.21 Yemen Abyan 2 9 al-Qaeda militants booby-trap an area with explosives, killing two civilians.
2009.12.20 Iraq Mosul 2 0 Mujahideen gun down two local cops.
2009.12.20 Somalia Mogadishu 1 3 One Somali is killed in a mortar attack by Islamic militia.
2009.12.19 Pakistan Poonch 1 2 An Indian border guard is shot by a Muslim sniper from Pakistan.
2009.12.19 Iraq Mosul 3 1 Jihadi gunmen take down three Iraqis in separate attacks.
2009.12.19 Thailand Narathiwat 3 2 Three Buddhists are incinerated when Muslim insurgents blow up a gas tank next to their truck.
2009.12.18 Iraq Sulaimaniyah 1 0 A civilian is gunned down on his doorstep by Muslim terrorists.
2009.12.18 India Pulwama 2 0 Two people are dragged from their homes and murdered by Mujahideen. One has his throat slit.
2009.12.18 Pakistan Lower Dir 15 28 Children are among fifteen people blown to bits a mosque by a Shahid suicide bomber.
2009.12.18 Somalia Mogadishu 2 4 Two civilians are killed when a mortar fired by suspected Islamic militia strikes a house.
2009.12.18 Pakistan Haripur 3 0 A man and his wife are among three killed in their home by suspected Islamic hardliners.
2009.12.17 Thailand Yala 2 0 A 2-year-old girl is gunned down along with her father by Holy Warriors.
2009.12.17 Afghanistan Kandahar 7 3 Five women are among seven people murdered by Taliban roadside bombers.
2009.12.17 Iraq Mosul 1 0 A 30-year-old Christian man is shot to death in cold blood by Mujahideen.
2009.12.17 Ingushetia Nazran 2 24 Children are among the casualties of a suicide bombing. A separate shooting leaves two dead.
2009.12.17 Iraq Baghdad 1 10 A pedestrian is killed by a roadside bomb.
2009.12.17 Pakistan Bara Tehsil 3 5 Three security force personnel are murdered in Taliban ambushes.
2009.12.16 Afghanistan Herat 4 0 Four local cops are slaughtered by a Taliban roadside blast.
2009.12.16 Iraq Baghdad 2 5 Sunni bombers take down two Iraqis riding on a bus.
2009.12.16 Pakistan Khyber 4 27 Fundamentalists throw grenades into a music concert, killing at least four people.
2009.12.16 Thailand Yala 3 0 Three men are shot to death in separate shooting attacks by Islamic insurgents.
2009.12.15 Pakistan Dera Ghazi Khan 33 60 Thirty-three shoppers at an outdoor market are blown apart by a Fedayeen suicide car bomber.
2009.12.15 Afghanistan Kabul 7 44 A suicide car bomber takes out seven people standing outside a hotel.
2009.12.15 Afghanistan Gardez 5 0 Five people are blown to bits by Jihadi bombers.
2009.12.15 Afghanistan Helmand 2 0 Two British soldiers are killed by a suicide bomber as they are walking down a street.
2009.12.15 Iraq Mosul 2 0 A woman is among two people incinerated by a thermal bomb.
2009.12.15 India Shopian 1 0 A 21-year-old woman is gunned down in front of her family by Islamic militants.
2009.12.15 Somalia Bossasso 3 8 Suspected Islamists blow up a pick-up full of local soldiers, killing three.
2009.12.15 Iraq Nineveh 3 0 Muslim radicals throw grenades into a police patrol, brutally killing three Iraqis.
2009.12.15 Iraq Mosul 4 40 Four Christians are killed when Islamic bombers target a church and Christian school.
2009.12.14 Thailand Pattani 1 0 A 37-year-old woman is slashed to death by Muslim radicals.
2009.12.14 Afghanistan Lashkar Gah 16 0 Sixteen police officers are killed in two terror attacks by Sunni fundamentalists.
2009.12.14 Thailand Pattani 2 0 Two men are shot to death by Islamic militants, one in his home, the other at a barber shop.
2009.12.14 Iraq Balad Ruz 22 29 A female suicide bomber ends the lives of nearly two-dozen innocent people in a residential area.
2009.12.14 Iraq al-Manari 4 0 A man and his family are murdered in their home by suspected al-Qaeda.
2009.12.14 Iraq Baghdad 13 33 Jihadi bombers take down thirteen Iraqis with successive blasts.
2009.12.14 Thailand Narathiwat 1 0 Muslims gun down a 38-year-old Buddhist.
2009.12.13 Iraq Mosul 2 21 A Fedayeen suicide bomber murders two young police recruits.
2009.12.13 Thailand Pattani 2 0 Two civilians are shot to death by Islamic militants in separate attacks.
2009.12.13 Iraq Fallujah 2 15 Islamic bombers manage to kill two Iraqis with a roadside blast.
2009.12.13 Somalia Afgoye 1 0 A 48-year-old man is pelted to death with stones by Hezb al-Islam for adultery.
2009.12.12 Iraq Khalis 1 2 A farmer is shot to death by Islamic militants.
2009.12.12 Iraq Kirkuk 3 4 An IED attack leaves three Iraqis dead.
2009.12.11 Afghanistan Paktika 5 15 Five people are blown to bits by a Shahid suicide bomber.
2009.12.11 Iraq Baghdad 1 3 Jihadis plant a bomb under a family car, killing the father and injuring three relatives.
2009.12.11 Iraq Yusufiyah 6 21 A car bomb near a shop takes out six Iraqis.
2009.12.10 Thailand Narathiwat 3 8 Three Buddhist women are torn to shreds by a remote-controlled bomb planted on a motorcycle outside a restaurant.
2009.12.09 Thailand Yala 1 17 A series of bombs rocks several neighborhoods. A bomb disposal technician is killed.
2009.12.09 Iraq Baghdad 4 11 Two streetsweepers are among four Iraqis murdered by Islamic bombers in attacks on a library and minibus.
2009.12.09 Iraq Mosul 2 0 Two Christian brothers are kidnapped and shot to death by Muslim terrorists.
2009.12.09 Thailand Pattani 1 0 A civilian is shot to death in his car by Muslim militants.
2009.12.08 Pal. Auth. Jerash 1 0 A man stabs his 30-year-old sister to death over suspected immoral behavior.
2009.12.08 Iraq Baghdad 127 448 Five car bombs, one outside a fine arts center, leave at least one-hundred and twenty Iraqis dead and nearly five hundred more in agony.
2009.12.08 Pakistan Multan 12 20 A dozen Pakistanis are blown to bits by Taliban bombers.
2009.12.07 Iraq Tarmiyah 8 0 Six Iraqis are gunned down by al-Qaeda. Two more bodies are discovered in Kirkuk.
2009.12.07 Thailand Pattani 1 4 A pro-government cleric is gunned down by Islamic separatists.
2009.12.07 Pakistan Lahore 50 150 At least fifty people are incinerated by twin bombings at a crowded marketplace.
2009.12.07 Thailand Narathiwat 2 11 A Buddhist man and woman are murdered by Muslim bombers at a busy market.
2009.12.07 Iraq Baghdad 8 40 Seven children are among eight dead when Sunni radicals bomb a Shia school.
2009.12.07 Pakistan Peshawar 11 45 Eleven people at a courthouse are blown to bits by a Fedayeen suicide bomber.
2009.12.07 Iraq Tarmiyah 1 4 A woman is blown murdered in her home by Mujahid bombers.
2009.12.07 Pakistan Karachi 1 0 A Shia leader is shot to death by Sunni rivals.
2009.12.07 India Baramulla 1 0 Muslim terrorists gun down a political worker outside his home.
2009.12.06 Iraq Abu Ghraib 4 0 Four local police manning a checkpoint are machine-gunned to death at point-blank range.
2009.12.06 Somalia Bosaso 1 0 A cleric is assassinated by suspected Islamic militia.
2009.12.06 Pakistan Bajaur 2 2 The Taliban murder two tribesmen outside a mosque.
2009.12.05 Philippines Jolo 1 12 One person is killed when suspected Abu Sayyaf militants set off a bomb.
2009.12.05 Iraq Mosul 5 1 Mujahideen shoot five people to death including a mother and an elderly civilian.
2009.12.04 Pakistan Rawalpindi 40 86 Seventeen children at a mosque are among nearly forty people cut down in a barbaric shooting and bombing attack by Sunni hardliners.
2009.12.04 Jordan Amman 1 0 A 34-year-old woman, nine months pregnant, is stabbed to death by her brother over alleged adultery.
2009.12.04 India Srinagar 0 0 Al-Nasireen gunmen assassinate a political leader outside his home.
2009.12.04 Pakistan Mohmand Agency 6 13 Mujahideen bombers take out six members of a wedding party traveling in a mini-bus.
2009.12.04 Iraq Tuz Khormato 1 0 An ethnic minority member is gunned down in his home by Islamic terrorists.
2009.12.04 Dagestan Khasavyurt 2 7 A civilian having lunch at a cafe is among two people murdered by Muslim terrorists in separate attacks.
2009.12.03 Iraq Tikrit 11 15 A Fedayeen suicide bomber blows himself up at a packed market, taking eleven innocents with him.
2009.12.03 Somalia Mogadishu 22 46 Doctors and students are among twenty-two people blown to bits at a medical school graduation by a Shahid.
2009.12.03 Iraq Baghdad 1 6 Mujahideen blow up a civilian at a market.
2009.12.03 Ingushetia Malgobek 1 0 A government official is assassinated by Islamic militants.
2009.12.03 Thailand Pattani 3 0 A 17-year-old boy is among three members of a family brutally gunned down in their home by Islamic separatists.
2009.12.03 Pakistan Karol 1 0 A Christian man is shot to death by Muslims after refusing to ‘embrace’ Islam.
2009.12.02 Iraq Baghdad 1 0 A civilian is gunned down in a sectarian attack at a cafe.
2009.12.02 Pakistan Islamabad 2 11 A young man straps explosives to his body and detonates at the entrance of a naval complex, killing two security guards.
2009.12.01 Somalia Bosasso 2 25 Suspected hardliners toss a grenade into a movie theater, leaving two patrons dead from shrapnel injury.
2009.12.01 Pakistan Swat 1 0 Islamic fundamentalists murder the head of a local peace committee.
2009.12.01 Pakistan Orakzai 3 0 Three tribal leaders are assassinated by Sunni terrorists.
2009.12.01 Pakistan Swat 1 13 A teen suicide bomber murders a lawmaker inside his home.
2009.11.30 Thailand Pattani 1 0 A man is shot to death inside his home by Islamic radicals.
2009.11.30 Iraq Mosul 1 3 Muslim gunmen ambush a car carrying a family from a religious minority. The father is killed. Two women and a child are injured.
2009.11.29 Iraq Ghalbiyah 1 2 Suspected al-Qaeda bombers take down another Iraqi.
2009.11.29 Pakistan Kohat 33 65 At least thirty people celebrating a holiday are blown to bits when a suicide car bomber plows into a crowded market.
2009.11.29 Afghanistan Nimroz 6 2 Six Afghan police officers are murdered in cold blood by a Talibani disguised as one of them.
2009.11.28 Somalia Baladweyn 2 1 Two clerics are assassinated by Hizbul-Islam gunmen outside a mosque.
2009.11.28 India Bhopal 3 0 Three people are gunned down in an ambush by a SIMI terrorist.
2009.11.27 Pakistan Bajaur 1 3 A tribal leader is assassinated by Taliban bombers at a mosque.
2009.11.27 Pal. Auth. Gaza 1 0 A woman is strangled with a wet towel by her family members to restore their ‘honor’.
2009.11.27 Russia Bologoye 26 96 Twenty-six passengers are killed when suspected Chechan terrorists derail a train with a bomb.
2009.11.27 Afghanistan Farah 3 0 Three Afghanis are taken out by a Fedayeen suicide bomber.
2009.11.26 Dagestan Makhachkala 1 0 A police officer is gunned down by Muslim militants.
2009.11.26 Thailand Yala 1 0 Islamists shoot a 62-year-old civilian to death as he is riding a motorbike.
2009.11.26 Iraq Iskandariya 2 28 Children are among the casualites when Sunni radicals set off a bomb at a crowded marketplace.
2009.11.26 Iraq Yousifiya 2 10 Jihadis explode a car bomb at a bus stop, killing two Iraqis.
2009.11.25 Yemen San’a 1 0 al-Qaeda posts a video of the torture and gruesome execution of a 41-year-old intelligence officer.
2009.11.25 Iraq Karbala 5 36 Five people are murdered by a brutal double bombing at a restaurant.
2009.11.25 Iraq Tarmiya 6 0 A married couple and two daughters are among six innocents slain in a sectarian home invasion.
2009.11.25 Somalia Mogadishu 1 1 A civilian is killed when Jihadis throw a grenade into the street.
2009.11.25 Iraq Mosul 3 1 Islamist bombers take out three Iraqi cops.
2009.11.25 Thailand Narathiwat 1 0 Islamic gunmen murder a 47-year-old man as he is returning home from a tea shop.
2009.11.24 Iraq Baghdad 2 0 Two Sunni imams are assassinated in separate bomb attacks.
2009.11.24 Afghanistan Khost 4 0 Two women are among four civilians shot to death at point-blank range by Mujahideen.
2009.11.24 Afghanistan Khost 5 3 Four children are blown to bits when Islamic fundamentalists set off a roadside bomb next to a family vehicle.
2009.11.24 Pakistan Bajaur 3 4 Two children are among three members of a family killed when suspected Mujahid rocket their home.
2009.11.24 Thailand Pattani 2 0 Two young men are shot to death by Muslim militants in separate attacks.
2009.11.22 Somalia Afmadow 2 0 At least two civilians are killed in the crossfire when rival Islamist groups clash.
2009.11.22 Afghanistan Spin Boldak 5 0 All five passengers in a police vehicle are ripped to shreds by a Sunni bomb.
2009.11.22 Iraq Garma 7 5 Sunnis bomb a checkpoint, killing seven Iraqis.
2009.11.22 Afghanistan Helmand 3 2 Taliban radicals take out three local security personnel in a roadside attack.
2009.11.22 Iraq Mosul 1 4 A child is incinerated in a thermal bomb attack by Muslim terrorists.
2009.11.22 Afghanistan Landikotal 6 10 The Taliban mortar a crowded bazaar, killing at least six civilians.
2009.11.22 Thailand Pattani 1 0 A female Buddhist teacher is gunned down in front of her home by Islamic militants.
2009.11.21 Iraq Mosul 1 0 A school teacher is assassinated by Muslim gunmen.
2009.11.21 Saudi Arabia Jebel Rumayh 3 3 Shiite radicals infiltrate the border and kill three Saudi soldiers.
2009.11.21 Pakistan North Waziristan 4 0 Four security officers are killed in a rocket attack by Taliban fundamentalists.
2009.11.21 Philippines Surallah 1 0 A 5-year-old girl is killed when Muslim rebels fire on a group of soldiers.
2009.11.20 Afghanistan Farah 16 25 A suicide bomber on a motorcycle detonates in the middle of a packed market, slaughtering about sixteen shoppers.
2009.11.20 Iraq Mosul 3 5 Three Iraqis are blown apart by a roadside bomb.
2009.11.20 Pakistan Peshawar 3 7 Jihadis take out three policmen with a shrapnel bomb.
2009.11.20 Pakistan Karachi 1 1 A Sunni is shot to death by sectarian rivals.
2009.11.19 Thailand Pattani 1 0 A 35-year-old Buddhist university employee is gunned down by Islamists.
2009.11.19 Thailand Pattani 1 0 Muslims shoot a 32-year-old Buddhist construction worker to death as he is travelling to pick up his children.
2009.11.19 Russia Moscow 1 1 An anti-Islam priest is assassinated in his own church by a suspected Muslim gunman.
2009.11.19 Pakistan Karachi 1 0 A Shiite cleric is gunned down by sectarian rivals.
2009.11.19 Pakistan Orakzai 2 0 A policeman and his elderly father a shot to death by Taliban militants.
2009.11.19 Pakistan Peshawar 19 50 Nineteen innocents are incinerated in a suicide bomb attack on a courthouse.
2009.11.19 Afghanistan Oruzgan 10 13 A Shahid suicide car bomber takes out ten civilians along a city street.
2009.11.17 Iraq Baghdad 2 6 A Jihad bomb kills two Iraqis.
2009.11.17 Thailand Pattani 1 0 A Holy Warrior on a motorbike guns down a school bus driver through his side window.
2009.11.17 Somalia Eelboon 1 0 A 29-year-old woman is planted in the ground and pelted to death with stones over adulterous sex.
2009.11.17 Afghanistan Kunduz 4 0 Taliban hardliners murder four guards at a security firm.
2009.11.17 Afghanistan Helmand 2 0 Two Afghan civilians are killed in a roadside attack by Sunni terrorists.
2009.11.16 India Kupwara 2 0 Pakistani infiltrators attack an Indian security patrol, killing two members.
2009.11.16 India Samba 2 0 Mujahideen kill a border policeman and his driver with a landmine.
2009.11.16 Iraq Kirkuk 6 17 Six people are blown to bits by Islamic car bombers.
2009.11.16 Iraq al-Saadan 13 0 al-Qaeda militants kidnap and execute thirteen Sunni Iraqis.
2009.11.16 Afghanistan Tagab 14 38 Religious extremists rocket a market, killing at least fourteen people.
2009.11.16 Pakistan Peshawar 4 43 A Fedayeen suicide bomb blast outside a shop leaves at least four dead.
2009.11.15 Iraq Mosul 1 5 Jihadi bombers take out a 12-year-old child.
2009.11.15 Pakistan Bajaur 1 0 An anti-Taliban tribal leader is murdered and his home destroyed.
2009.11.14 Thailand Narathiwat 2 0 Two men are murdered by Muslim gunmen at a wood processing plant.
2009.11.14 Pakistan Peshawar 15 25 Four children and a woman are among fifteen innocents blown to bits by a sucide bomber.
2009.11.14 Somalia Mogadishu 5 11 At least five civilians are killed during a mortar attack by Islamic milita.
2009.11.14 Iraq Mosul 1 0 A 16-year-old Christian boy is gunned down outside his home by suspected radicals.
2009.11.14 Somalia Mogadishu 1 0 A 23-year-old Christian convert is kidnapped by Islamists and executed with two shots to the head.
2009.11.13 Pakistan Bannu 6 27 Six people lose their lives to a suicide car bomber.
2009.11.13 Thailand Yala 1 0 An 18-year-old is shot to death in a Religion of Peace drive-by attack.
2009.11.13 Afghanistan Kabul 2 4 A Taliban blast leaves at least two Afghans dead.
2009.11.13 Iraq Baghdad 2 0 A policeman and his brother are murdered by Islamic gunmen.
2009.11.13 Iraq Mosul 1 0 A young man is kidnapped and shot in the head by terrorists.
2009.11.13 Afghanistan Kabul 4 0 Two civilians and three soldiers are killed in separate roadside bombings by religious fundamentalists.
2009.11.13 Pakistan Peshawar 10 55 A Shahid suicide truck bomber takes out ten at a government building.
2009.11.12 Iraq Baghdad 1 0 A female high school teacher is shot to death by Muslim terrorists.
2009.11.12 Afghanistan Nangarhar 2 2 Two children are blown to bits by Islamic bombers.
2009.11.12 Pakistan Peshawar 1 0 An Iranian official is gunned down in a sectarian attack blamed on a Sunni group.
2009.11.12 Pakistan Hangu 2 6 Taliban extremists detonate explosives outside a home, killing at least two residents.
2009.11.12 Iraq Mosul 3 0 Three civilians are killed in separate Mujahid shooting attacks, including a teenager.
2009.11.12 Thailand Pattani 2 0 Muslim radicals gun down a older Buddhist couple at a rice mill.
2009.11.11 Afghanistan Zabul 2 3 Two civilians are blown to bits by a Fedayeen suicide bomber.
2009.11.11 Somalia Puntland 2 0 A judge and a lawmaker are assassinated by suspected al-Shabaab militants in separate incidents.
2009.11.11 Pakistan Mohmand 10 14 Two local soldiers, kidnapped and beheaded, are among ten murdered by Taliban Islamists in two attacks.
2009.11.10 Iraq Balad 2 2 Two policemen are cut down in an urban ambush by Sunni gunmen.
2009.11.10 Pakistan Peshawar 34 104 Thirty-four people are blown to bits by a Shahid car bomber along a crowded city street lined with shops. Women and children are among the dead.
2009.11.10 Thailand Narathiwat 1 0 Islamists murder a man as he is walking outside his home.
2009.11.10 Thailand Pattani 1 0 A villager is gunned down by Muslim militants.
2009.11.10 Iran Tehran 1 0 The Islamic Republic of Iran assassinates a doctor who exposed torture by poisoning his salad.
2009.11.10 Afghanistan Paktika 2 13 The Taliban fire a rocket into a home, killing two residents.
2009.11.09 Algeria Tarah 2 5 Fundamentalists set off a bomb that kills five local soldiers.
2009.11.09 Pakistan Bajaur 3 1 Three local soldiers are murdered in two Mujahideen bombing and shooting attacks.
2009.11.09 Iraq Kut 1 0 A young woman is the victim of an honor killing by her brother.
2009.11.09 Philippines Jolo 1 0 Abu Sayyaf militants cut the head off of a Christian school principal and leave it in a paper bag at a gas station.
2009.11.09 Thailand Yala 1 1 A young Buddhist man collecting plants is brutally ambushed and killed by Religion of Peace advocates.
2009.11.09 Pakistan Peshawar 3 5 A woman and a rickshaw driver are among three people blown up by a Shahid suicide bomber.
2009.11.09 Thailand Narathiwat 1 0 Islamists shoot and kill a 53-year-old riding home on his motorcycle.
2009.11.08 Somalia Hodon 2 8 Two civilians are killed during an attack by Islamic militia.
2009.11.08 Pakistan Mattani 12 36 A Fedayeen suicide bomber strikes a packed market, blasting at least a dozen innocents to death.
2009.11.08 Iraq Kirkuk 1 0 Mujahideen gun down an oil company worker.
2009.11.08 Thailand Pattani 2 3 A young man eating in a restaurant is among two people killed in separate Mujahid shootings.
2009.11.08 India Rajouri 2 1 A man and his wife are murdered in their home by intruding Islamic gunmen.
2009.11.08 Iraq Kut 1 0 A young woman is kidnapped, bound and shot to death by Muslim terrorists.
2009.11.07 Afghanistan Helmand 3 0 Religious extremists blow up a vehicle carrying local soldiers, killing three.
2009.11.07 Yemen Al Khubah 4 36 Shiite rebels reportedly shell a residential area, killing four women from the same family.
2009.11.07 Pakistan Hangu 3 2 Islamic hardliners attack a local military base with rockets, killing three.
2009.11.07 Iraq Abu Ghraib 1 3 An al-Qaeda bombing leaves one dead.
2009.11.06 Iraq Rashad 1 0 Suspected al-Qaeda gunmen take down an Iraqi.
2009.11.06 Somalia Merca 1 0 A 33-year-old man is brutally stoned to death for adultery. The execution takes about seven minutes.
2009.11.06 Iraq Baqubah 1 1 Sunni fundamentalists shoot a barber to death.
2009.11.06 Pakistan Hangu 1 4 A policeman is gunned down by Islamic terrorists.
2009.11.05 Philippines Zamboanga 2 8 Two people are killed when suspected Islamists fire into a commuter bus.
2009.11.05 USA Ft. Hood, TX 13 31 A Muslim psychiatrist yelling ‘Allah Akbar’ murders thirteen unarmed U.S. soldiers on their base in Texas, including a pregnant woman.
2009.11.04 Pakistan Bajaur 2 2 Two female schoolteachers are brutally shot to death by Taliban extremists.
2009.11.03 Yemen Hadramut 8 0 al-Qadea militants open fire on a vehicle, machine-gunning eight people to death.
2009.11.03 Afghanistan Helmand 5 8 A Taliban gunmen disguised as a policeman suddenly opens fire at a police base, killing five British soldiers in cold blood.
2009.11.03 Saudi Arabia Jazan 1 11 Islamic rebels gun down a security officer “with the support and assistance of Allah.”
2009.11.03 Iraq Abu Ghraib 3 0 Mujahid bombers wipe out a family of three, including a girl.
2009.11.03 Thailand Pattani 2 0 Two Buddhist truck drivers are brutally slain and then burned by Religion of Peace extremists.
2009.11.02 Thailand Yala 2 0 Two men riding in a pickup truck are shot to death by a terrorist disguised in a burka.
2009.11.02 Pakistan Rawalpindi 36 63 Fundamentalists set off a massive bomb near a line of people outside a bank, putting down at least thirty-five.
2009.11.02 Iraq Khanaqin 2 0 A man and his son are gunned down by Muslim terrorists.
2009.11.02 Thailand Narathiwat 1 0 Islamists break into a house and murder a villager.
2009.11.02 USA Glendale, AZ 1 1 A woman dies from injuries suffered when her father runs her down with a car for being too ‘Westernized.’
2009.11.02 Thailand Pattani 2 0 Two security personnel are gunned down by Muslim rebels in separate attacks.
2009.11.02 Pakistan Lahore 0 25 Twenty-five people are injured when a suicide bomber detonates along a city street.
2009.11.02 Thailand Yala 2 0 Two men are killed in a Religion of Peace drive-by.
2009.11.01 Somalia Lascanood 5 4 Suspected Shabaab radicals blow up a car with five people inside.
2009.11.01 Philippines Banisilan 1 2 Moro Islamists ambush a car carrying civilians, shooting at least one to death.
2009.11.01 Iraq Mussayab 9 38 Jihadis rig a bicycle with explosives, then set it off in a market, killing at least nine innocents.
2009.11.01 Iraq Ramadi 3 5 A Fedayeen suicide bomber takes down three Iraqis.
2009.11.01 India Srinagar 2 0 Islamists murder two traffic cops in a hit-and-run surprise attack at an intersection.
2009.11.01 Iraq Karbala 3 15 Terrorists plant a bomb on a bus that leaves three people dead.
2009.11.01 Dagestan Bavtugai 1 0 A local mosque official is assassinated by extremists.
2009.10.31 Pakistan Bara 7 12 Lashkar-e-Islam members use a roadside bomber to murder seven security personnel.
2009.10.31 Philippines Sulu 1 4 Moro Islamists open fire on a passing patrol, killing at least one.
2009.10.31 Pakistan Khyber 2 7 Sunni hardliners blow up a girls’ school and mortar a residential neighborhood, killing two civilians.
2009.10.31 Thailand Yala 1 0 Islamists kidnap a local man, handcuff him, then shoot him in the head.
2009.10.30 Thailand Yala 1 1 A Buddhist woman is brutally shot to death, and her husband is seriously injured, by Muslim radicals.
2009.10.30 Iraq Tikrit 1 0 A young man has his throat slashed by Sunni militants.
2009.10.30 Afghanistan Nangarhar 9 0 All nine civilians riding in a taxi are slaughtered by Taliban bombers.
2009.10.30 Pakistan Pir Sarhandi Goth 1 0 An older homosexual man is pulled from his home and beaten to death by a Muslim mob.
2009.10.30 Iraq Baghdad 1 3 Mujahideen bombers murder a government official.
2009.10.29 Iraq Mosul 3 1 Sunni gunmen murder three Iraqi policemen at point-blank range.
2009.10.29 Afghanistan Kandahar 4 0 A child is among four Afghan civilians torn to pieces by an Islamist bomb.
2009.10.29 Iraq Baquba 1 2 A civilian is taken out by a Fedayeen suicide bomber outside a hospital.
2009.10.28 Thailand Pattani 2 0 Two civilians are gunned down in separate Muslim drive-bys.
2009.10.28 Pakistan Peshawar 117 200 Over one-hundred people – mostly women and children – are blown to bits by a massive car bomb blast at a busy market.
2009.10.28 Thailand Pattani 1 0 Muslim radicals shoot a Buddhist motorcycle shop owner to death, then set fire to his body.
2009.10.28 Afghanistan Kabul 9 9 Mujahideen force their way into a UN guesthouse, where they murder nine people, including six international workers.
2009.10.28 Iraq Mosul 3 5 Mujahideen kill three civilians with a roadside bomb.
2009.10.28 Thailand Pattani 1 0 A 78-year-old Buddhist man is shot off his motorbike by Muslim terrorists.
2009.10.28 Iraq Baghdad 3 4 Three women sitting on a minibus are blown to bits by Islamic bombers.
2009.10.27 Iraq Baiji 1 0 Terrorists attack a bomb to a car which kills an 11-year-old boy trying to remove it.
2009.10.27 Pakistan Mohmand 2 3 Religious extremists attack a police post, killing two officers.
2009.10.27 Pakistan Bajaur 1 0 Taliban radicals shoot a man to death while he is sitting in his shop.
2009.10.27 Iraq Tikrit 2 0 Jihadis blow up an oil tanker, killing the two drivers.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Christian suffering today under Islam
#
# Christians in Lands across Middle East Face Uncertainty - Richard Spencer, Samer al-Atrush, and Rob Crilly
The region that was Christianity's birthplace is witnessing an unprecedented modern-day exodus. Bethlehem's resident Christians have dwindled from four-fifths of the population since the Second World War to just a quarter today. In the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, Christian shops have been firebombed. In Egypt, a string of businesses owned by Coptic Christians were burned down in riots in the southern province of Qena last month. "Copts are in a continuous state of fear," said the diocesan bishop, Anba Kirillos.
In Iraq, as many 600,000 of its once million-strong Christian community have fled abroad since 2003, while hundreds of thousands more have moved to safer areas in the north, abandoning once thriving Christian communities in Mosul, Baghdad and Basra. Across the Middle East, a Christian population that stood at 20% a century ago has now sunk to under 5%. (Telegraph-UK)
See also Iraq Christians Fear Extinction - Alice Fordham
Last week 100 Christian leaders and politicians of all religions held an emergency meeting just before fresh violence broke out in the northern city of Mosul, with attacks on churches and Christian schools. On Tuesday a baby was killed and 40 people, including schoolchildren, were injured in three simultaneous bombings. (Times-UK)
# Christians in Lands across Middle East Face Uncertainty - Richard Spencer, Samer al-Atrush, and Rob Crilly
The region that was Christianity's birthplace is witnessing an unprecedented modern-day exodus. Bethlehem's resident Christians have dwindled from four-fifths of the population since the Second World War to just a quarter today. In the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, Christian shops have been firebombed. In Egypt, a string of businesses owned by Coptic Christians were burned down in riots in the southern province of Qena last month. "Copts are in a continuous state of fear," said the diocesan bishop, Anba Kirillos.
In Iraq, as many 600,000 of its once million-strong Christian community have fled abroad since 2003, while hundreds of thousands more have moved to safer areas in the north, abandoning once thriving Christian communities in Mosul, Baghdad and Basra. Across the Middle East, a Christian population that stood at 20% a century ago has now sunk to under 5%. (Telegraph-UK)
See also Iraq Christians Fear Extinction - Alice Fordham
Last week 100 Christian leaders and politicians of all religions held an emergency meeting just before fresh violence broke out in the northern city of Mosul, with attacks on churches and Christian schools. On Tuesday a baby was killed and 40 people, including schoolchildren, were injured in three simultaneous bombings. (Times-UK)
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
how many times will Israel?
ut when it comes to the Palestinians and Israelis we are dealing with a
sizable population of Arabs who keep demanding more and more from Israel
while offering the same currency recognize Israel, if only. How many more times will Israel grant more autonomy, cede land, and shrink already indefensible borders
for the virtual promise of peace? (The check has bounced a few times already.)
It seems pretty much indisputable. There are Arabs like Hamas and Hizbollah that simply want to destroy Israel. No negotiation, no concessions, NADA. There are the so called moderates like Fatah (the terrorists who will kill you but they won't rip out your liver and show it to the press) who want a two state solution A Palestinian State and a Jewish State that they intend on destroying. And then there are some Arabs who realize that Arabs truly need to live alongside the Jewish State in peace.. but that group is essential Batel Shishim and they have no political voice.
So exactly what can Israel offer now that Ehud Barack didn't offer at Camp David? And who is it on the other side who can negotiate in good faith? Hamas? A P.A. president who says he's not running again? There's nobody to talk to, and even if there's someone who would like to talk, there's nobody who can guarantee any concessions made by Palestinians. As Netanyahu has said, give and take we give and they take.
sizable population of Arabs who keep demanding more and more from Israel
while offering the same currency recognize Israel, if only. How many more times will Israel grant more autonomy, cede land, and shrink already indefensible borders
for the virtual promise of peace? (The check has bounced a few times already.)
It seems pretty much indisputable. There are Arabs like Hamas and Hizbollah that simply want to destroy Israel. No negotiation, no concessions, NADA. There are the so called moderates like Fatah (the terrorists who will kill you but they won't rip out your liver and show it to the press) who want a two state solution A Palestinian State and a Jewish State that they intend on destroying. And then there are some Arabs who realize that Arabs truly need to live alongside the Jewish State in peace.. but that group is essential Batel Shishim and they have no political voice.
So exactly what can Israel offer now that Ehud Barack didn't offer at Camp David? And who is it on the other side who can negotiate in good faith? Hamas? A P.A. president who says he's not running again? There's nobody to talk to, and even if there's someone who would like to talk, there's nobody who can guarantee any concessions made by Palestinians. As Netanyahu has said, give and take we give and they take.
MORE KILLINGS Dec 22
Suicide bomber kills 3 near NW Pakistan press club
AP
*
Suicide attack targets Pakistan press club: police AFP/File – Pakistani policemen inspect a bomb blast site in Peshawar in November 2009. A suicide bomber attacked …
By RIAZ KHAN, Associated Press Writer Riaz Khan, Associated Press Writer – 45 mins ago
PESHAWAR, Pakistan – A suicide bomber detonated his explosives outside a press club in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Tuesday, killing three people and wounding 17 in an attack that comes at a time of growing violence and political turmoil in Pakistan.
Militants have perpetrated a string of attacks in the country's northwest in revenge for an army offensive in the lawless tribal area of South Waziristan, the Pakistani Taliban's main stronghold. But many militants are believed to have fled to North Waziristan since the campaign began in mid-October.
AP
*
Suicide attack targets Pakistan press club: police AFP/File – Pakistani policemen inspect a bomb blast site in Peshawar in November 2009. A suicide bomber attacked …
By RIAZ KHAN, Associated Press Writer Riaz Khan, Associated Press Writer – 45 mins ago
PESHAWAR, Pakistan – A suicide bomber detonated his explosives outside a press club in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Tuesday, killing three people and wounding 17 in an attack that comes at a time of growing violence and political turmoil in Pakistan.
Militants have perpetrated a string of attacks in the country's northwest in revenge for an army offensive in the lawless tribal area of South Waziristan, the Pakistani Taliban's main stronghold. But many militants are believed to have fled to North Waziristan since the campaign began in mid-October.
NYT Time to stop Iran
Politicus
Next Stage on Iran Could Hold Real Peril
By JOHN VINOCUR
Published: December 21, 2009
LONDON — A little less than a month ago, one of the officials developing the allies’ strategy to halt Iran’s drive to make a nuclear weapon described their governments’ discomfort about soon having to move beyond attempts to engage the mullahs.
The diplomat’s remarks, quoted in a European newspaper, hardly created a stir, perhaps because they reflect an obvious truth: months of outstretched Western hands have brought nothing in return from Tehran.
“Sometimes one might perhaps have to accept the answer’s no when the answer’s no,” the official said, according to the press account.
“But we don’t want to acknowledge that the answer’s no, because we are afraid of the consequences.”
That’s a hard-edged but reasonable judgment, because the consequences for the United States and its allies demand new levels of resolve that are not without danger.
The consequences also require a tone of confrontation involving tougher sanctions and, considering the sanctions’ high potential for failure, follow-up efforts to contain and deter Iran as it moves closer to a nuclear weapon.
That new approach might be widened over weeks and months to come to include more direct support for the opposition to the mullahs on Tehran’s streets, and open consideration (or private threats) of a military option.
Until now, compared with Afghanistan, these issues have been far from center-stage among the allies’ international security concerns.
But their discussion can’t be avoided when the West’s end-of-year deadline passes for Iran to have said yes to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s best offer: a proposal to have its low enriched uranium exported for enrichment in quantities that would limit, for a time, the Iranian capacity to make a bomb.
As an issue, Afghanistan is now politically circumscribed by new troop reinforcements and a fairly specific time frame for their success that leaves an evaluation until at least the end of 2010.
Concern over Iran, however, is in an accelerating mode without any positive endgame in sight.
Allied intelligence agencies are now weighing the authenticity of suspected Iranian documents, apparently dating from 2007, that describe a four-year plan to test a neutron initiator, a device that creates a nuclear bomb’s explosion.
The plan’s validation could represent conclusive proof that Iranian denials it is building nukes are false.
Next Stage on Iran Could Hold Real Peril
By JOHN VINOCUR
Published: December 21, 2009
LONDON — A little less than a month ago, one of the officials developing the allies’ strategy to halt Iran’s drive to make a nuclear weapon described their governments’ discomfort about soon having to move beyond attempts to engage the mullahs.
The diplomat’s remarks, quoted in a European newspaper, hardly created a stir, perhaps because they reflect an obvious truth: months of outstretched Western hands have brought nothing in return from Tehran.
“Sometimes one might perhaps have to accept the answer’s no when the answer’s no,” the official said, according to the press account.
“But we don’t want to acknowledge that the answer’s no, because we are afraid of the consequences.”
That’s a hard-edged but reasonable judgment, because the consequences for the United States and its allies demand new levels of resolve that are not without danger.
The consequences also require a tone of confrontation involving tougher sanctions and, considering the sanctions’ high potential for failure, follow-up efforts to contain and deter Iran as it moves closer to a nuclear weapon.
That new approach might be widened over weeks and months to come to include more direct support for the opposition to the mullahs on Tehran’s streets, and open consideration (or private threats) of a military option.
Until now, compared with Afghanistan, these issues have been far from center-stage among the allies’ international security concerns.
But their discussion can’t be avoided when the West’s end-of-year deadline passes for Iran to have said yes to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s best offer: a proposal to have its low enriched uranium exported for enrichment in quantities that would limit, for a time, the Iranian capacity to make a bomb.
As an issue, Afghanistan is now politically circumscribed by new troop reinforcements and a fairly specific time frame for their success that leaves an evaluation until at least the end of 2010.
Concern over Iran, however, is in an accelerating mode without any positive endgame in sight.
Allied intelligence agencies are now weighing the authenticity of suspected Iranian documents, apparently dating from 2007, that describe a four-year plan to test a neutron initiator, a device that creates a nuclear bomb’s explosion.
The plan’s validation could represent conclusive proof that Iranian denials it is building nukes are false.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
somali bomber from denamrk bbc dec 10
A suicide bomber who killed at least 22 people at a graduation in Somalia was brought up in Denmark, officials say.
Somali Information Minister Dahir Gelle told the BBC that the bomber's parents, who live in Copenhagen, identified their son's body from photographs.
Reports say he left Somalia when he was a child and spent 20 years in Denmark, before returning to Somalia last year.
He reportedly joined the hard-line Islamist group al-Shabab - although they have previously denied the attack.
Al-Shabab and other radical Islamist groups control much of the country.
I had to step over their bodies to get out - people were screaming: 'Is it a bomb? Is it a bomb?'
Mohammed Olad Hassan
BBC reporter
Bomb attack: 'Light turned to dark'
The Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) also says the bomber was from Denmark, according to local media.
The Copenhagen Post quoted PET as saying the man was in his 20s and was "a Somali citizen who had residence in Denmark".
Somali Information Minister Dahir Gelle told the BBC that the bomber's parents, who live in Copenhagen, identified their son's body from photographs.
Reports say he left Somalia when he was a child and spent 20 years in Denmark, before returning to Somalia last year.
He reportedly joined the hard-line Islamist group al-Shabab - although they have previously denied the attack.
Al-Shabab and other radical Islamist groups control much of the country.
I had to step over their bodies to get out - people were screaming: 'Is it a bomb? Is it a bomb?'
Mohammed Olad Hassan
BBC reporter
Bomb attack: 'Light turned to dark'
The Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) also says the bomber was from Denmark, according to local media.
The Copenhagen Post quoted PET as saying the man was in his 20s and was "a Somali citizen who had residence in Denmark".
American muslim student kills Prof because of book
On Friday December 5, Professor Richard Antoun of the New York State
University in Binghampton was stabbed to death by Abdul Salam Al-Zahrani, a
graduate student at the university. He received his PhD from Harvard
in 1963; He was the
author of a book on Understanding Fundamentalism: Christian, Islamic and
Jewish Movements;
When confronted with such violence, more often than not, both public
authorities and some religious leaders deny that a religious motive was
involved in the violence. The prosecutor of Broome County, New York has
denied that there was a "religious or ethnic" motive for the killing. Public
authorities have done the same in any number of other cases and did so
initially with Major Hasan at Fort Hood, until the evidence became too
overwhelming.
One of the reasons Muslims attack scholars and intellectuals, sometimes with
homicidal acts and at other times by legal stratagems, is to strike fear
into those who have the learning and the communication skills necessary to
examine the whole question of Islam and the other religions honestly and
with accurate information.
This is not because I think
all Muslims are terrorists, but because there is no way of knowing who are
the terrorists until they strike. Unfortunately, the situation has become much worse since 9/11 and
the Second Intifada.
University in Binghampton was stabbed to death by Abdul Salam Al-Zahrani, a
graduate student at the university. He received his PhD from Harvard
in 1963; He was the
author of a book on Understanding Fundamentalism: Christian, Islamic and
Jewish Movements;
When confronted with such violence, more often than not, both public
authorities and some religious leaders deny that a religious motive was
involved in the violence. The prosecutor of Broome County, New York has
denied that there was a "religious or ethnic" motive for the killing. Public
authorities have done the same in any number of other cases and did so
initially with Major Hasan at Fort Hood, until the evidence became too
overwhelming.
One of the reasons Muslims attack scholars and intellectuals, sometimes with
homicidal acts and at other times by legal stratagems, is to strike fear
into those who have the learning and the communication skills necessary to
examine the whole question of Islam and the other religions honestly and
with accurate information.
This is not because I think
all Muslims are terrorists, but because there is no way of knowing who are
the terrorists until they strike. Unfortunately, the situation has become much worse since 9/11 and
the Second Intifada.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Nov 8 More killing after killing
Coordinated blasts hit Baghdad; kill at least 127
By BRIAN MURPHY, Associated Press Writer Brian Murphy, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 48 mins ago
BAGHDAD – A series of coordinated attacks struck Baghdad Tuesday, including two suicide car bombers and another vehicle that blew up near government sites. At least 127 were killed and hundreds wounded in the worst wave of violence in the capital in more than a month, authorities said.
A total of five attacks, which also included a suicide car bomb on a police patrol, showed the ability of insurgents to strike high-profile targets in the heart of Baghdad and marked the third time since August that government buildings were targeted with multiple blasts that killed more than 100 people.
The bombings reinforced concerns about shortcomings in Iraqi security as U.S. forces plan their withdrawal, and parliament held an emergency session with many lawmakers demanding answers for apparent security lapses.
Iraq's military spokesman blamed the carnage on an alliance of al-Qaida in Iraq and members of Saddam Hussein's banned Baath Party.
By BRIAN MURPHY, Associated Press Writer Brian Murphy, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 48 mins ago
BAGHDAD – A series of coordinated attacks struck Baghdad Tuesday, including two suicide car bombers and another vehicle that blew up near government sites. At least 127 were killed and hundreds wounded in the worst wave of violence in the capital in more than a month, authorities said.
A total of five attacks, which also included a suicide car bomb on a police patrol, showed the ability of insurgents to strike high-profile targets in the heart of Baghdad and marked the third time since August that government buildings were targeted with multiple blasts that killed more than 100 people.
The bombings reinforced concerns about shortcomings in Iraqi security as U.S. forces plan their withdrawal, and parliament held an emergency session with many lawmakers demanding answers for apparent security lapses.
Iraq's military spokesman blamed the carnage on an alliance of al-Qaida in Iraq and members of Saddam Hussein's banned Baath Party.
U.S. sees homegrown Muslim extremism as rising threat
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-us-radicalization7-2009dec07,0,3941551.story
latimes.com
U.S. sees homegrown Muslim extremism as rising threat
This may have been the most dangerous year since 9/11, anti-terrorism experts say.
By Sebastian Rotella
December 7, 2009
Reporting from Washington
The Obama administration, grappling with a spate of recent Islamic terrorism cases on U.S. soil, has concluded that the country confronts a rising threat from homegrown extremism.
Anti-terrorism officials and experts see signs of accelerated radicalization among American Muslims, driven by a wave of English-language online propaganda and reflected in aspiring fighters' trips to hot spots such as Pakistan and Somalia.
Europe had been the front line, the target of successive attacks and major plots, while the U.S. remained relatively calm. But the number, variety and scale of recent U.S. cases suggest 2009 has been the most dangerous year domestically since 2001, anti-terrorism experts said:
* There were major arrests of Americans accused of plotting with Al Qaeda and its allies, including an Afghan American charged in a New York bomb plot described as the most serious threat in this country since the Sept. 11 attacks.
* Authorities tracked other extremism suspects joining foreign networks, including Somali Americans going to the battlegrounds of their ancestral homeland and an Albanian American from Brooklyn who was arrested in Kosovo.
* The FBI rounded up homegrown terrorism suspects in Dallas, Detroit and Raleigh, N.C., saying that it had broken up plots targeting a synagogue, government buildings and military facilities.
Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano issued her strongest public comments yet on the homegrown threat.
"We've seen an increased number of arrests here in the U.S. of individuals suspected of plotting terrorist attacks, or supporting terror groups abroad such as Al Qaeda," Napolitano said in a speech in New York. "Home-based terrorism is here. And, like violent extremism abroad, it will be part of the threat picture that we must now confront."
Officials acknowledged that her tone had changed, though they said terrorism has been her focus since becoming Homeland Security chief.
In some of the 2009 cases, extremist leanings are suspected but motives are not known.
Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan -- accused of killing 13 people in a Ft. Hood, Texas, shooting rampage last month -- has apparently suffered emotional problems. But in interviews, officials and experts have also raised his Muslim beliefs as an alleged motive.
A previous attack on the U.S. military, a shooting in June by an American convert who killed a soldier and wounded another at an Arkansas recruiting center, was apparently a case of a lone wolf radicalized in Yemen, according to Homeland Security officials.
"You are seeing the full spectrum of the threats you face in terrorism," former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said.
"Radicalization is clearly happening in the U.S.," said Mitchell Silber, director of analysis for the Intelligence Division of the New York Police Department. "In years past, you couldn't say that about the U.S. You could say it about Europe."
Europe has suffered a militant onslaught: transport bombings in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005, an assassination in the Netherlands in 2004, and close calls such as the fiery failed attack on the Glasgow airport in 2007.
Hard borders have helped the U.S. ward off the threat. But experts also said that Islamic radicalization is more widespread in Europe. Crime, alienation and extremism roil Muslim immigrant communities in places like tiny Denmark and the vast slums of France.
In contrast, American Muslims are wealthier, better educated and better integrated because the United States does a good job of absorbing immigrants and fostering tolerance, experts said. During the last decade, Americans have been a rare presence in the Al Qaeda-connected camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan that have trained hundreds of Westerners and thousands of recruits from Muslim-majority nations.
Nonetheless, recent investigations have run across Americans suspected of being operatives of Al Qaeda and its allies who were trained overseas and, in several cases, allegedly conspired with top terrorism bosses. They include a convert from Long Island, N.Y, who was captured in Pakistan late last year; a Chicago businessman accused of scouting foreign targets for a Pakistani network; and at least 15 Somali American youths from Minneapolis who returned to fight in their ancestral homeland.
"A larger trend has emerged that is not surprising, but is disturbing," Chertoff said. "You are beginning to see the fruits of the pipeline that Al Qaeda built to train Westerners and send them back to their homelands. . . . This underscores the central significance of disrupting the pipeline at its source."
A campaign of U.S. airstrikes launched last year has pounded Al Qaeda hide-outs in Pakistan. But the flow of trainees gathered momentum in 2007 when Pakistani security forces ceded turf to militant groups, officials said. The suspect in the New York plot, Najibullah Zazi, and the Long Island convert, Bryant Neal Vinas, allegedly met in Pakistan in 2008 and discussed attacks on U.S. targets with Al Qaeda chiefs.
Vinas and Zazi are the first Americans to be accused of joining Al Qaeda in several years.
Meanwhile, Silber said in recent congressional testimony: "There have been a half-dozen cases of individuals who, instead of traveling abroad to carry out violence, have elected to attempt to do it here. This is substantially greater than what we have seen in the past, and may reflect an emerging pattern."
Some feel radicalization in the United States has been worse than authorities thought for some time.
"People focused on the idea that we're different, we're better at integrating Muslims than Europe is," said Zeyno Baran, a scholar at the Hudson Institute, a think tank in Washington. "But there's radicalization -- especially among converts [and] newcomers, such as the Somali case shows. I think young U.S. Muslims today are as prone to radicalization as Muslims in Europe."
In proportion to population, extremism still appears less intense in the United States. But the Internet functions as the global engine of extremism. Websites expose Americans to a wave of slick, English-language propaganda from ideologues such as Anwar Awlaki, the Yemeni American described as a spiritual guide for the accused Ft. Hood shooter and other Westerners.
And socioeconomic success will not necessarily prevent Americans' radicalization. Studies suggest that a quest for identity and the bonding process among small groups often drive militants more than personal hardship does.
"The profile in Europe is in general quite different [from U.S. extremists]: more working-class or even underclass," said a European intelligence official who requested anonymity for security reasons. "But it's a bit simplistic to make assumptions. We have seen everything in Europe -- educated people, doctors involved in terrorism. The underclass argument is not enough."
The Obama administration began the year with gestures to the Muslim world. President Obama promised to shut down the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and made a historic speech in Cairo.
The Homeland Security Department leads the administration's counter-radicalization effort. The Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, which works with Muslim leaders, held summit meetings with Somali communities this year in Minnesota and Ohio, said David Heyman, assistant Homeland Security secretary for policy.
But that office still lacks a director, critics point out, and the department has yet to fill other key posts as well.
"We don't do enough about fostering a counter-narrative," said Matthew Levitt, a former anti-terrorism official for the Treasury Department now with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "Competing for space with the radicalizers and challenging their radical ideologies is the key."
In contrast to the heightened extremist activity in the United States, Europe has remained relatively calm this year. But the West needs to keep up its guard on both sides of the Atlantic, said Farhad Khosrokhavar, an Iranian French scholar who interviewed jailed extremists for his book "Inside Jihadism."
"You can be middle-class and have bright prospects but become a jihadist," he said. "We have to broaden the analysis. This idea of American exceptionalism, the comparison with Europe, should not blind us to the fact that we are going toward a broader participation in jihad."
latimes.com
U.S. sees homegrown Muslim extremism as rising threat
This may have been the most dangerous year since 9/11, anti-terrorism experts say.
By Sebastian Rotella
December 7, 2009
Reporting from Washington
The Obama administration, grappling with a spate of recent Islamic terrorism cases on U.S. soil, has concluded that the country confronts a rising threat from homegrown extremism.
Anti-terrorism officials and experts see signs of accelerated radicalization among American Muslims, driven by a wave of English-language online propaganda and reflected in aspiring fighters' trips to hot spots such as Pakistan and Somalia.
Europe had been the front line, the target of successive attacks and major plots, while the U.S. remained relatively calm. But the number, variety and scale of recent U.S. cases suggest 2009 has been the most dangerous year domestically since 2001, anti-terrorism experts said:
* There were major arrests of Americans accused of plotting with Al Qaeda and its allies, including an Afghan American charged in a New York bomb plot described as the most serious threat in this country since the Sept. 11 attacks.
* Authorities tracked other extremism suspects joining foreign networks, including Somali Americans going to the battlegrounds of their ancestral homeland and an Albanian American from Brooklyn who was arrested in Kosovo.
* The FBI rounded up homegrown terrorism suspects in Dallas, Detroit and Raleigh, N.C., saying that it had broken up plots targeting a synagogue, government buildings and military facilities.
Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano issued her strongest public comments yet on the homegrown threat.
"We've seen an increased number of arrests here in the U.S. of individuals suspected of plotting terrorist attacks, or supporting terror groups abroad such as Al Qaeda," Napolitano said in a speech in New York. "Home-based terrorism is here. And, like violent extremism abroad, it will be part of the threat picture that we must now confront."
Officials acknowledged that her tone had changed, though they said terrorism has been her focus since becoming Homeland Security chief.
In some of the 2009 cases, extremist leanings are suspected but motives are not known.
Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan -- accused of killing 13 people in a Ft. Hood, Texas, shooting rampage last month -- has apparently suffered emotional problems. But in interviews, officials and experts have also raised his Muslim beliefs as an alleged motive.
A previous attack on the U.S. military, a shooting in June by an American convert who killed a soldier and wounded another at an Arkansas recruiting center, was apparently a case of a lone wolf radicalized in Yemen, according to Homeland Security officials.
"You are seeing the full spectrum of the threats you face in terrorism," former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said.
"Radicalization is clearly happening in the U.S.," said Mitchell Silber, director of analysis for the Intelligence Division of the New York Police Department. "In years past, you couldn't say that about the U.S. You could say it about Europe."
Europe has suffered a militant onslaught: transport bombings in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005, an assassination in the Netherlands in 2004, and close calls such as the fiery failed attack on the Glasgow airport in 2007.
Hard borders have helped the U.S. ward off the threat. But experts also said that Islamic radicalization is more widespread in Europe. Crime, alienation and extremism roil Muslim immigrant communities in places like tiny Denmark and the vast slums of France.
In contrast, American Muslims are wealthier, better educated and better integrated because the United States does a good job of absorbing immigrants and fostering tolerance, experts said. During the last decade, Americans have been a rare presence in the Al Qaeda-connected camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan that have trained hundreds of Westerners and thousands of recruits from Muslim-majority nations.
Nonetheless, recent investigations have run across Americans suspected of being operatives of Al Qaeda and its allies who were trained overseas and, in several cases, allegedly conspired with top terrorism bosses. They include a convert from Long Island, N.Y, who was captured in Pakistan late last year; a Chicago businessman accused of scouting foreign targets for a Pakistani network; and at least 15 Somali American youths from Minneapolis who returned to fight in their ancestral homeland.
"A larger trend has emerged that is not surprising, but is disturbing," Chertoff said. "You are beginning to see the fruits of the pipeline that Al Qaeda built to train Westerners and send them back to their homelands. . . . This underscores the central significance of disrupting the pipeline at its source."
A campaign of U.S. airstrikes launched last year has pounded Al Qaeda hide-outs in Pakistan. But the flow of trainees gathered momentum in 2007 when Pakistani security forces ceded turf to militant groups, officials said. The suspect in the New York plot, Najibullah Zazi, and the Long Island convert, Bryant Neal Vinas, allegedly met in Pakistan in 2008 and discussed attacks on U.S. targets with Al Qaeda chiefs.
Vinas and Zazi are the first Americans to be accused of joining Al Qaeda in several years.
Meanwhile, Silber said in recent congressional testimony: "There have been a half-dozen cases of individuals who, instead of traveling abroad to carry out violence, have elected to attempt to do it here. This is substantially greater than what we have seen in the past, and may reflect an emerging pattern."
Some feel radicalization in the United States has been worse than authorities thought for some time.
"People focused on the idea that we're different, we're better at integrating Muslims than Europe is," said Zeyno Baran, a scholar at the Hudson Institute, a think tank in Washington. "But there's radicalization -- especially among converts [and] newcomers, such as the Somali case shows. I think young U.S. Muslims today are as prone to radicalization as Muslims in Europe."
In proportion to population, extremism still appears less intense in the United States. But the Internet functions as the global engine of extremism. Websites expose Americans to a wave of slick, English-language propaganda from ideologues such as Anwar Awlaki, the Yemeni American described as a spiritual guide for the accused Ft. Hood shooter and other Westerners.
And socioeconomic success will not necessarily prevent Americans' radicalization. Studies suggest that a quest for identity and the bonding process among small groups often drive militants more than personal hardship does.
"The profile in Europe is in general quite different [from U.S. extremists]: more working-class or even underclass," said a European intelligence official who requested anonymity for security reasons. "But it's a bit simplistic to make assumptions. We have seen everything in Europe -- educated people, doctors involved in terrorism. The underclass argument is not enough."
The Obama administration began the year with gestures to the Muslim world. President Obama promised to shut down the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and made a historic speech in Cairo.
The Homeland Security Department leads the administration's counter-radicalization effort. The Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, which works with Muslim leaders, held summit meetings with Somali communities this year in Minnesota and Ohio, said David Heyman, assistant Homeland Security secretary for policy.
But that office still lacks a director, critics point out, and the department has yet to fill other key posts as well.
"We don't do enough about fostering a counter-narrative," said Matthew Levitt, a former anti-terrorism official for the Treasury Department now with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "Competing for space with the radicalizers and challenging their radical ideologies is the key."
In contrast to the heightened extremist activity in the United States, Europe has remained relatively calm this year. But the West needs to keep up its guard on both sides of the Atlantic, said Farhad Khosrokhavar, an Iranian French scholar who interviewed jailed extremists for his book "Inside Jihadism."
"You can be middle-class and have bright prospects but become a jihadist," he said. "We have to broaden the analysis. This idea of American exceptionalism, the comparison with Europe, should not blind us to the fact that we are going toward a broader participation in jihad."
Hezbollah must disarm
Lawmakers to Clinton: Urge Hezbollah disarmament
By Anath Hartmann · December 3, 2009
WASHINGTON (JTA) –Thirty-one members of the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Thursday calling on the Obama administration to work toward disarming Hezbollah and clearing southern Lebanon of Iranian-sent weapons.
Led by Reps. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), the bipartisan group asked Clinton to ensure greater accountability from the United Nations in enforcing Resolution 1701. The measure calls for the disarmament of Hezbollah, more U.N. troops in southern Lebanon and the deployment of Lebanese soldiers there.
Hezbollah has rearmed since its 2006 military campaign against Israel, when Israeli forced cleared southern Lebanon of Hezbollah’s Iranian weapon cache, according to various news reports.
“In light of the clear violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions, we ask what actions the Administration is taking to ensure the U.N. addresses these violations,” the letter reads. “We must seek to support stronger multilateral efforts to disarm Hezbollah and clear Southern Lebanon of Iranian weapons.”
The letter notes that the Obama administration has requested more than $200 million for UNIFIL and $100 million in military assistance for the government of Lebanon, then argues: "For that much money, American taxpayers deserve to see results."
http://jta.org/news/article/ 2009/12/03/1009525/lawmakers- to-clinton-urge-hezbollah- disarmament
By Anath Hartmann · December 3, 2009
WASHINGTON (JTA) –Thirty-one members of the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Thursday calling on the Obama administration to work toward disarming Hezbollah and clearing southern Lebanon of Iranian-sent weapons.
Led by Reps. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), the bipartisan group asked Clinton to ensure greater accountability from the United Nations in enforcing Resolution 1701. The measure calls for the disarmament of Hezbollah, more U.N. troops in southern Lebanon and the deployment of Lebanese soldiers there.
Hezbollah has rearmed since its 2006 military campaign against Israel, when Israeli forced cleared southern Lebanon of Hezbollah’s Iranian weapon cache, according to various news reports.
“In light of the clear violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions, we ask what actions the Administration is taking to ensure the U.N. addresses these violations,” the letter reads. “We must seek to support stronger multilateral efforts to disarm Hezbollah and clear Southern Lebanon of Iranian weapons.”
The letter notes that the Obama administration has requested more than $200 million for UNIFIL and $100 million in military assistance for the government of Lebanon, then argues: "For that much money, American taxpayers deserve to see results."
http://jta.org/news/article/ 2009/12/03/1009525/lawmakers- to-clinton-urge-hezbollah- disarmament
Sunday, December 6, 2009
don't offend Moslems while they destroy us here
Toxic classrooms, Confronting anti-Semitism in our high schools, Barbara Kay, National Post
Barbara Kay: Toxic classrooms
Posted: November 30, 2009, 10:00 AM by NP Editor
http://www.nationalpost.com/_assets/blog_heads/barbarakay.jpgWhat follows is an edited excerpt from testimony delivered at a hearing of the Canadian Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-Semitism this month.
My attention has been drawn to the disturbing phenomenon of overt Jew hatred in high schools, especially those with high populations of students from countries where Jew hatred is officially sanctioned in the law of their countries of origin.
As a case in point I offer one particularly disturbing story, because I believe it points to wider issues of concern for the educational system and for our society. It involves a Jewish teacher in an Ontario French high school whose name I cannot reveal because she fears physical retaliation.
"Miriam" had taught in French language schools in the 1970s and 1980s in schools with large Lebanese Christian populations without incurring any anti-Semitism. In her current career she works amicably with Muslims. A child of Holocaust survivors, Miriam is demonstrably neither racist nor anti-Muslim.
In 2001 Miriam started teaching at a school largely populated by children of refugees, mainly from Djibouti and Eritrea , countries where there are no Jews but where hatred of Jews is deeply entrenched in the culture.
During the academic year of 2002-2003 Miriam started to encounter anti-Semitic taunts from students, such as "Does someone see a Jew here, someone smell a Jew? It stinks here." When she reported this and similar insults to the principal, the principal did not follow up. Indeed, the principal seemed more concerned about the students' sensibilities than hers.
The principal instructed teachers not to offend their Muslim students; they were not to look students in the eye, they were not to gesture with the forefinger to bid them approach and they were not to interfere with male students who were physically aggressive to male teachers.
During the invasion of Iraq , moments of silence were held in the classroom. Cultural presentations involved only Muslim culture and no Canadian content. Students were allowed to leave assembly during the playing of the national anthem.
The crisis of this story occurred when Miriam admonished a student for wearing a Walkman in class. The student screamed at her: "I don't have to listen to you; you are not a person, you are nothing, you do not exist as a person." When Miriam demanded he accompany her to the principal's office, the student followed her down the hall yelling, "Don't speak to me, don't look at me, you are not human, you are a Jew."
Although the student was ultimately suspended for 10 days, his parents expressed puzzlement about the punishment since, they patiently explained, the teacher was after all Jewish. They complained about the severity of the punishment to the school board.
There were no sensitivity courses laid on for the students or the parents. When, over her objections, the offending student and another guilty of the same offence were returned to Miriam's class, she decided she could no longer work under such circumstances. She contacted the Hate Crime Unit of the local police and reported everything.
The School board treated Miriam as the source of the problem and asked her to retire. A top litigator told Miriam she had an excellent case for a lawsuit but fearing for her family's safety under the glare of publicity, she decided not to sue.
Lest you assume Miriam was paranoid or Islamophobic or that this was an isolated case of a few bad apples: In 2004, the year Miriam left, a full 60 out of 75 francophone teachers asked for a transfer, not because of anti-Semitism but because of anti-Westernism, a growing discomfort in other areas for which anti-Semitism is the proverbial canary in the mine. French-Canadian children had already stopped enrolling and as I understand it, the school is now virtually all-Muslim, including the teachers and principal.
There are many immigrants entering Canada from countries where overt Jew hatred is endemic to the culture and even officially sanctioned in law. When they arrive here, it is somehow assumed they will absorb Canadian values, but they don't and their toxic attitudes persist. Instead of confronting their bigotry, this principal and the school board chose not to apply long-standing normative codes of behaviour and human rights law.
An instinctive political correctness set in. Out of fear of being labeled racist or Islamophobic those in charge stifled their commitment to professional ethics and behaviour codes reflecting Canadian standards of pluralism and respect.
Imagine a reverse situation. Imagine if the aggressors and bigots were heritage Canadians harassing a Muslim teacher with these hateful words. It would have been a cause celebre and the media would have called for an investigative inquiry into the origins of the serious social problem represented by these racialized students and their families.
If preventative measures are not taken, if it is not made clear in no uncertain terms through education and persuasive push-back in this school and all schools where there are critical masses of students arriving from countries drenched in anti-Semitism, Jew hatred will metastasize in those cultural communities that consider it a norm, increasing exponentially.
There are many such schools in Britain and Europe where the atmosphere is so strained and hostile to anyone but Islamic kinship groups that they are simply no-go fiefdoms -Islamic mini-societies within the larger culture. We mustn't think that can't happen here, because it can. It is happening already.
bkay@videotron.ca
Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/11/30/barbara-kay-toxic-classrooms.aspx#ixzz0YNTxAr69
The New Financial Post Stock Market Challenge starts in October. You could WIN your share of $60,000 in prizing. Register NOW
What is incredible is that Barbara Kay wrote a similar report in February and the situation still remains – it is time that the public took a strong stand on this issue – please use your voice and speak out.
Barbara Kay: A lesson for schools in Surrey and Ottawa -- aggression works
Posted: February 10, 2009, 9:38 AM by Jonathan Kay
Barbara Kay, Full Comment
In a story out of Surrey, England February 6th, an angry headteacher is suing "gutless" education honchos for 100,000 pounds because they failed to support her against Muslim school bullies. The bullies were not children in the school yard, but a group of Muslim governors, appointed in 2003, that plaintiff Erica Connor claims took control of regular board meetings and pushed for a more religious agenda, including pressure on her to link up with the local mosque in order to focus on Muslim worship. When she resisted, she was labelled "racist and Islamophobic." Rather than support her, her superiors branded her as "unresponsive to the needs of the faith community." Connor says she is so depressed at having been made a "helpless scapegoat," she may never work again.
Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/02/10/barbara-kay-a-tale-of-two-cities-school-administrations-in-surrey-england-and-ottawa-canada-allow-schoolteachers-to-be-scapegoated-in-the-name-of-multiculturalism.aspx#ixzz0YNUnLGHy
Barbara Kay: Toxic classrooms
Posted: November 30, 2009, 10:00 AM by NP Editor
http://www.nationalpost.com/_assets/blog_heads/barbarakay.jpgWhat follows is an edited excerpt from testimony delivered at a hearing of the Canadian Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-Semitism this month.
My attention has been drawn to the disturbing phenomenon of overt Jew hatred in high schools, especially those with high populations of students from countries where Jew hatred is officially sanctioned in the law of their countries of origin.
As a case in point I offer one particularly disturbing story, because I believe it points to wider issues of concern for the educational system and for our society. It involves a Jewish teacher in an Ontario French high school whose name I cannot reveal because she fears physical retaliation.
"Miriam" had taught in French language schools in the 1970s and 1980s in schools with large Lebanese Christian populations without incurring any anti-Semitism. In her current career she works amicably with Muslims. A child of Holocaust survivors, Miriam is demonstrably neither racist nor anti-Muslim.
In 2001 Miriam started teaching at a school largely populated by children of refugees, mainly from Djibouti and Eritrea , countries where there are no Jews but where hatred of Jews is deeply entrenched in the culture.
During the academic year of 2002-2003 Miriam started to encounter anti-Semitic taunts from students, such as "Does someone see a Jew here, someone smell a Jew? It stinks here." When she reported this and similar insults to the principal, the principal did not follow up. Indeed, the principal seemed more concerned about the students' sensibilities than hers.
The principal instructed teachers not to offend their Muslim students; they were not to look students in the eye, they were not to gesture with the forefinger to bid them approach and they were not to interfere with male students who were physically aggressive to male teachers.
During the invasion of Iraq , moments of silence were held in the classroom. Cultural presentations involved only Muslim culture and no Canadian content. Students were allowed to leave assembly during the playing of the national anthem.
The crisis of this story occurred when Miriam admonished a student for wearing a Walkman in class. The student screamed at her: "I don't have to listen to you; you are not a person, you are nothing, you do not exist as a person." When Miriam demanded he accompany her to the principal's office, the student followed her down the hall yelling, "Don't speak to me, don't look at me, you are not human, you are a Jew."
Although the student was ultimately suspended for 10 days, his parents expressed puzzlement about the punishment since, they patiently explained, the teacher was after all Jewish. They complained about the severity of the punishment to the school board.
There were no sensitivity courses laid on for the students or the parents. When, over her objections, the offending student and another guilty of the same offence were returned to Miriam's class, she decided she could no longer work under such circumstances. She contacted the Hate Crime Unit of the local police and reported everything.
The School board treated Miriam as the source of the problem and asked her to retire. A top litigator told Miriam she had an excellent case for a lawsuit but fearing for her family's safety under the glare of publicity, she decided not to sue.
Lest you assume Miriam was paranoid or Islamophobic or that this was an isolated case of a few bad apples: In 2004, the year Miriam left, a full 60 out of 75 francophone teachers asked for a transfer, not because of anti-Semitism but because of anti-Westernism, a growing discomfort in other areas for which anti-Semitism is the proverbial canary in the mine. French-Canadian children had already stopped enrolling and as I understand it, the school is now virtually all-Muslim, including the teachers and principal.
There are many immigrants entering Canada from countries where overt Jew hatred is endemic to the culture and even officially sanctioned in law. When they arrive here, it is somehow assumed they will absorb Canadian values, but they don't and their toxic attitudes persist. Instead of confronting their bigotry, this principal and the school board chose not to apply long-standing normative codes of behaviour and human rights law.
An instinctive political correctness set in. Out of fear of being labeled racist or Islamophobic those in charge stifled their commitment to professional ethics and behaviour codes reflecting Canadian standards of pluralism and respect.
Imagine a reverse situation. Imagine if the aggressors and bigots were heritage Canadians harassing a Muslim teacher with these hateful words. It would have been a cause celebre and the media would have called for an investigative inquiry into the origins of the serious social problem represented by these racialized students and their families.
If preventative measures are not taken, if it is not made clear in no uncertain terms through education and persuasive push-back in this school and all schools where there are critical masses of students arriving from countries drenched in anti-Semitism, Jew hatred will metastasize in those cultural communities that consider it a norm, increasing exponentially.
There are many such schools in Britain and Europe where the atmosphere is so strained and hostile to anyone but Islamic kinship groups that they are simply no-go fiefdoms -Islamic mini-societies within the larger culture. We mustn't think that can't happen here, because it can. It is happening already.
bkay@videotron.ca
Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/11/30/barbara-kay-toxic-classrooms.aspx#ixzz0YNTxAr69
The New Financial Post Stock Market Challenge starts in October. You could WIN your share of $60,000 in prizing. Register NOW
What is incredible is that Barbara Kay wrote a similar report in February and the situation still remains – it is time that the public took a strong stand on this issue – please use your voice and speak out.
Barbara Kay: A lesson for schools in Surrey and Ottawa -- aggression works
Posted: February 10, 2009, 9:38 AM by Jonathan Kay
Barbara Kay, Full Comment
In a story out of Surrey, England February 6th, an angry headteacher is suing "gutless" education honchos for 100,000 pounds because they failed to support her against Muslim school bullies. The bullies were not children in the school yard, but a group of Muslim governors, appointed in 2003, that plaintiff Erica Connor claims took control of regular board meetings and pushed for a more religious agenda, including pressure on her to link up with the local mosque in order to focus on Muslim worship. When she resisted, she was labelled "racist and Islamophobic." Rather than support her, her superiors branded her as "unresponsive to the needs of the faith community." Connor says she is so depressed at having been made a "helpless scapegoat," she may never work again.
Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/02/10/barbara-kay-a-tale-of-two-cities-school-administrations-in-surrey-england-and-ottawa-canada-allow-schoolteachers-to-be-scapegoated-in-the-name-of-multiculturalism.aspx#ixzz0YNUnLGHy
Friday, December 4, 2009
Bomber kills anti-Taliban lawmaker in Pakistan WSJ Dec 1
Bomber kills anti-Taliban lawmaker in Pakistan
By KIM GAMEL (AP) – 3 days ago
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan's Supreme Court said Tuesday it has taken up petitions challenging the amnesty from graft charges enjoyed by the president and many key allies, paving the way for political turmoil even as the U.S. presses the government to focus on fighting militants near the Afghan border.
Highlighting the dangers, a suicide bomber killed an anti-Taliban lawmaker Tuesday in the northwestern Swat Valley — the latest in a series of suicide attacks in recent weeks in response to an army offensive into a militant stronghold close to the Afghan border.
By KIM GAMEL (AP) – 3 days ago
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan's Supreme Court said Tuesday it has taken up petitions challenging the amnesty from graft charges enjoyed by the president and many key allies, paving the way for political turmoil even as the U.S. presses the government to focus on fighting militants near the Afghan border.
Highlighting the dangers, a suicide bomber killed an anti-Taliban lawmaker Tuesday in the northwestern Swat Valley — the latest in a series of suicide attacks in recent weeks in response to an army offensive into a militant stronghold close to the Afghan border.
Iran could build 168 nuks a year
500,000 Iranian Centrifuges
Tehran ups the ante again as diplomacy goes nowhere.
*
Mohamed ElBaradei caps his contentious and ultimately failed 12-year stint as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency today, having spent many years enabling Iran's nuclear bids only to condemn them in his final days in office. Mr. ElBaradei combined his rebuke of Iran with his familiar calls for more negotiation, but we'll take his belated realism about Iran as his tacit admission that Dick Cheney and John Bolton have been right all along. Let's hope the education of the Obama Administration doesn't take as long.
As if to underscore the point, yesterday the Iranian government ordered up 10 additional uranium enrichment plants on the scale of its already operational facility in Natanz, which has a planned capacity of 54,000 centrifuges. That could mean an eventual total of more than 500,000 centrifuges, or enough to enrich about 160 bombs worth of uranium each year. Whether it can ever do that is an open question, but it does give a sense of the scale of the regime's ambitions.
Tehran ups the ante again as diplomacy goes nowhere.
*
Mohamed ElBaradei caps his contentious and ultimately failed 12-year stint as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency today, having spent many years enabling Iran's nuclear bids only to condemn them in his final days in office. Mr. ElBaradei combined his rebuke of Iran with his familiar calls for more negotiation, but we'll take his belated realism about Iran as his tacit admission that Dick Cheney and John Bolton have been right all along. Let's hope the education of the Obama Administration doesn't take as long.
As if to underscore the point, yesterday the Iranian government ordered up 10 additional uranium enrichment plants on the scale of its already operational facility in Natanz, which has a planned capacity of 54,000 centrifuges. That could mean an eventual total of more than 500,000 centrifuges, or enough to enrich about 160 bombs worth of uranium each year. Whether it can ever do that is an open question, but it does give a sense of the scale of the regime's ambitions.
Swiss see the danger of some Muslim immigrants
* EUROPE NEWS
* NOVEMBER 30, 2009
Swiss Ban Minarets in Controversial Vote
Referendum Highlights Conflict Over Culture, Integration; Result 'Isn't Worthy of Switzerland,' Says One Muslim Leader
By DEBORAH BALL and NICHOLAS BIRCH
ZURICH -- Swiss voters Sunday approved a ban on the construction of new minarets on mosques, defying appeals from the government to reject the proposal and raising the specter of a new round of tensions in Europe concerning the role of Islam on the Continent.
The vote highlights the persistent conflict over the integration of Europe's growing Muslim population into civil society. Earlier this month, France considered whether to bar Muslim women from wearing full-face veils, sparking a heated debate in which one French politician described burqas, the head-to-toe veils worn by some very devout Muslim women, as "walking coffins." The government issued a recommendation against wearing burqas, but stopped short of an outright ban.
European governments also have struggled in recent years with popular opposition to the construction of mosques, as well as with a backlash to the murder of a filmmaker in the Netherlands by a Muslim extremist, and the reaction in some Muslim countries to the publication in Danish newspapers of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.
* NOVEMBER 30, 2009
Swiss Ban Minarets in Controversial Vote
Referendum Highlights Conflict Over Culture, Integration; Result 'Isn't Worthy of Switzerland,' Says One Muslim Leader
By DEBORAH BALL and NICHOLAS BIRCH
ZURICH -- Swiss voters Sunday approved a ban on the construction of new minarets on mosques, defying appeals from the government to reject the proposal and raising the specter of a new round of tensions in Europe concerning the role of Islam on the Continent.
The vote highlights the persistent conflict over the integration of Europe's growing Muslim population into civil society. Earlier this month, France considered whether to bar Muslim women from wearing full-face veils, sparking a heated debate in which one French politician described burqas, the head-to-toe veils worn by some very devout Muslim women, as "walking coffins." The government issued a recommendation against wearing burqas, but stopped short of an outright ban.
European governments also have struggled in recent years with popular opposition to the construction of mosques, as well as with a backlash to the murder of a filmmaker in the Netherlands by a Muslim extremist, and the reaction in some Muslim countries to the publication in Danish newspapers of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
blowing up graduation ceremonies
Up to 19 dead after suicide bomb attack in Somalia
AP
Deadly hotel blast in Somalia Play Video Reuters – Deadly hotel blast in Somalia
* A wounded is being assisted after the explosion in Mogadishu, Somalia, AP – A wounded is being assisted after the explosion in Mogadishu, Somalia, Thursday, Dec. 3, 2009. Police …
By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN, Associated Press Writer Mohamed Olad Hassan, Associated Press Writer – 41 mins ago
MOGADISHU, Somalia – A male suicide bomber dressed as a woman attacked a graduation ceremony Thursday in a small part of the capital still under government control, killing up to 19 people, including three Cabinet ministers, doctors and medical students.
The attack was a severe blow to a country long battered by war and underscored the government's tenuous hold on even a small area of Mogadishu. African Union peacekeeping troops protecting the government wage near daily battles with Islamic militants who hold much of central and southern Somalia and act so brazenly in the capital that they carry out public executions.
AP
Deadly hotel blast in Somalia Play Video Reuters – Deadly hotel blast in Somalia
* A wounded is being assisted after the explosion in Mogadishu, Somalia, AP – A wounded is being assisted after the explosion in Mogadishu, Somalia, Thursday, Dec. 3, 2009. Police …
By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN, Associated Press Writer Mohamed Olad Hassan, Associated Press Writer – 41 mins ago
MOGADISHU, Somalia – A male suicide bomber dressed as a woman attacked a graduation ceremony Thursday in a small part of the capital still under government control, killing up to 19 people, including three Cabinet ministers, doctors and medical students.
The attack was a severe blow to a country long battered by war and underscored the government's tenuous hold on even a small area of Mogadishu. African Union peacekeeping troops protecting the government wage near daily battles with Islamic militants who hold much of central and southern Somalia and act so brazenly in the capital that they carry out public executions.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Iran moves closer to bomb
500,000 Iranian Centrifuges (Gee... a Nobel Peace Prize winner who has enabled Iran-imagine that!)
Tehran ups the ante again as diplomacy goes nowhere.
Mohamed ElBaradei caps his contentious and ultimately failed 12-year stint as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency today, having spent many years enabling Iran's nuclear bids only to condemn them in his final days in office. Mr. ElBaradei combined his rebuke of Iran with his familiar calls for more negotiation, but we'll take his belated realism about Iran as his tacit admission that Dick Cheney and John Bolton have been right all along. Let's hope the education of the Obama Administration doesn't take as long.
As if to underscore the point, yesterday the Iranian government ordered up 10 additional uranium enrichment plants on the scale of its already operational facility in Natanz, which has a planned capacity of 54,000 centrifuges. That could mean an eventual total of more than 500,000 centrifuges, or enough to enrich about 160 bombs worth of uranium each year. Whether it can ever do that is an open question, but it does give a sense of the scale of the regime's ambitions.
The decision is also a reminder of how unchastened Iran has been by President Obama's revelation in September that Iran had been building a secret 3,000 centrifuge facility near the city of Qom. The IAEA's governing board finally got around on Friday to rebuking Iran for that deception, a vote the Administration trumpeted because both Russia and China voted with the United States. But perhaps only within the Obama Administration can a symbolic gesture by the IAEA be considered a diplomatic triumph.
"Time is running out for Iran to address the international community's growing concerns about its nuclear program," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said yesterday, but the West has said this many times before. Earlier this year, Mr. Obama said Iran had a deadline of September.
The regime scoffed at Mr. Obama after he delivered a conciliating message for the Persian New Year in March, scoffed again after he mildly criticized its post-election crackdown and killing spree in June (following days of silence), and scoffed a third time by rejecting the West's offer last month to enrich Iran's uranium for it. Yet the Administration insists the enrichment deal is still Iran's for the taking. "A few years ago [the West] said we had to completely stop all our nuclear activities," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said last month. "Now look where we are today."
Those are the words of a man who believes he has Mr. Obama's number. And until the President, his advisers and the Europeans realize that only punitive sanctions or military strikes will force it to reconsider its nuclear ambitions, an emboldened Islamic Republic will continue to march confidently toward a bomb over the wreckage of Mohamed ElBaradei's—and Barack Obama's—best intentions.
Tehran ups the ante again as diplomacy goes nowhere.
Mohamed ElBaradei caps his contentious and ultimately failed 12-year stint as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency today, having spent many years enabling Iran's nuclear bids only to condemn them in his final days in office. Mr. ElBaradei combined his rebuke of Iran with his familiar calls for more negotiation, but we'll take his belated realism about Iran as his tacit admission that Dick Cheney and John Bolton have been right all along. Let's hope the education of the Obama Administration doesn't take as long.
As if to underscore the point, yesterday the Iranian government ordered up 10 additional uranium enrichment plants on the scale of its already operational facility in Natanz, which has a planned capacity of 54,000 centrifuges. That could mean an eventual total of more than 500,000 centrifuges, or enough to enrich about 160 bombs worth of uranium each year. Whether it can ever do that is an open question, but it does give a sense of the scale of the regime's ambitions.
The decision is also a reminder of how unchastened Iran has been by President Obama's revelation in September that Iran had been building a secret 3,000 centrifuge facility near the city of Qom. The IAEA's governing board finally got around on Friday to rebuking Iran for that deception, a vote the Administration trumpeted because both Russia and China voted with the United States. But perhaps only within the Obama Administration can a symbolic gesture by the IAEA be considered a diplomatic triumph.
"Time is running out for Iran to address the international community's growing concerns about its nuclear program," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said yesterday, but the West has said this many times before. Earlier this year, Mr. Obama said Iran had a deadline of September.
The regime scoffed at Mr. Obama after he delivered a conciliating message for the Persian New Year in March, scoffed again after he mildly criticized its post-election crackdown and killing spree in June (following days of silence), and scoffed a third time by rejecting the West's offer last month to enrich Iran's uranium for it. Yet the Administration insists the enrichment deal is still Iran's for the taking. "A few years ago [the West] said we had to completely stop all our nuclear activities," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said last month. "Now look where we are today."
Those are the words of a man who believes he has Mr. Obama's number. And until the President, his advisers and the Europeans realize that only punitive sanctions or military strikes will force it to reconsider its nuclear ambitions, an emboldened Islamic Republic will continue to march confidently toward a bomb over the wreckage of Mohamed ElBaradei's—and Barack Obama's—best intentions.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Recruiting terrorists in the US
Charges Link U.S. Recruits to Somalia .ArticleComments (7)more in World ».EmailPrinter
FriendlyShare:
facebook ↓ More.
.StumbleUponDiggTwitterYahoo! BuzzFarkRedditLinkedIndel.icio.usMySpaceSave This ↓ More.
. Text .By EVAN PEREZ
Federal prosecutors charged eight men with recruiting U.S. immigrants from Somalia to join an Islamist insurgency there.
According to court documents unsealed Monday, the men organized a network in the U.S. that enlisted and financed about 20 young men, mostly from the large Somali community in Minneapolis, to become fighters with the al-Shabaab group, which is designated a terrorist organization by U.S. authorities.
Five of the recruits have been killed in fighting in Somalia, including at least one believed to have carried out the first suicide bombing by an American, according to U.S. officials.
The investigation is among several recently that raised concerns over the recruitment of U.S. Muslims by radical groups. Officials previously viewed the threat in the U.S. as lesser than in Europe, which has a large disaffected immigrant Muslim population.
"The national-security implications are serious," said Ralph Boelter, special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Minneapolis office. "This is the closest thing we've seen to" the homegrown terrorism recruitment seen in the U.K.
Somali community leaders say the recruits appear to have been motivated by Ethiopia's invasion of Somalia three years ago and the recruits' desire to help the Islamist group oust foreigners.
Those charged include Cabdulaahi Ahmed Faarax and Abdiweli Yassin Isse, legal U.S. residents. An FBI affidavit filed in the case alleges that Mr. Faarax and others met at a Minneapolis mosque and at a private home in 2007 and that Mr. Faarax claimed to have fought in the war and encouraged other men to join the fight in Somalia. Mr. Isse, prosecutors alleged, described plans for a "jihad" against Ethiopians and raised money for airplane tickets under the guise of sending young men to Saudi Arabia to study the Quran. Both men left the U.S. via the Mexican border near San Diego and are at large outside the U.S., authorities said.
Also charged is Mahamud Said Omar, a Somali and legal U.S. resident, who was arrested earlier this month in the Netherlands for allegedly providing financial assistance to terrorists. Prosecutors have requested Mr. Omar's extradition.
FriendlyShare:
facebook ↓ More.
.StumbleUponDiggTwitterYahoo! BuzzFarkRedditLinkedIndel.icio.usMySpaceSave This ↓ More.
. Text .By EVAN PEREZ
Federal prosecutors charged eight men with recruiting U.S. immigrants from Somalia to join an Islamist insurgency there.
According to court documents unsealed Monday, the men organized a network in the U.S. that enlisted and financed about 20 young men, mostly from the large Somali community in Minneapolis, to become fighters with the al-Shabaab group, which is designated a terrorist organization by U.S. authorities.
Five of the recruits have been killed in fighting in Somalia, including at least one believed to have carried out the first suicide bombing by an American, according to U.S. officials.
The investigation is among several recently that raised concerns over the recruitment of U.S. Muslims by radical groups. Officials previously viewed the threat in the U.S. as lesser than in Europe, which has a large disaffected immigrant Muslim population.
"The national-security implications are serious," said Ralph Boelter, special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Minneapolis office. "This is the closest thing we've seen to" the homegrown terrorism recruitment seen in the U.K.
Somali community leaders say the recruits appear to have been motivated by Ethiopia's invasion of Somalia three years ago and the recruits' desire to help the Islamist group oust foreigners.
Those charged include Cabdulaahi Ahmed Faarax and Abdiweli Yassin Isse, legal U.S. residents. An FBI affidavit filed in the case alleges that Mr. Faarax and others met at a Minneapolis mosque and at a private home in 2007 and that Mr. Faarax claimed to have fought in the war and encouraged other men to join the fight in Somalia. Mr. Isse, prosecutors alleged, described plans for a "jihad" against Ethiopians and raised money for airplane tickets under the guise of sending young men to Saudi Arabia to study the Quran. Both men left the U.S. via the Mexican border near San Diego and are at large outside the U.S., authorities said.
Also charged is Mahamud Said Omar, a Somali and legal U.S. resident, who was arrested earlier this month in the Netherlands for allegedly providing financial assistance to terrorists. Prosecutors have requested Mr. Omar's extradition.
Mumbai militants one year later
A Year After Mumbai Attack, Militants Thrive
(http://article.wn.com) By MATTHEW ROSENBERG ISLAMABAD -- The Islamist militant group behind the deadly attack in Mumbai one year ago remains a potent force determined to strike India and the West, and a source of acrimony between South Asia's nuclear-armed rivals, say officials and members of the militant faction. Indian officials and experts say at least six new plots against Mumbai by the Pakistan-based group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, have been disrupted in the 12 months since 10 gunmen wrought three days of havoc on India's financial capital, killing 166 people. View Full Image Associated Press A soldier takes cover outside the burning Taj hotel in Mumbai on Nov. 27, 2008, one of the sites targeted during the three-day...
(http://article.wn.com) By MATTHEW ROSENBERG ISLAMABAD -- The Islamist militant group behind the deadly attack in Mumbai one year ago remains a potent force determined to strike India and the West, and a source of acrimony between South Asia's nuclear-armed rivals, say officials and members of the militant faction. Indian officials and experts say at least six new plots against Mumbai by the Pakistan-based group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, have been disrupted in the 12 months since 10 gunmen wrought three days of havoc on India's financial capital, killing 166 people. View Full Image Associated Press A soldier takes cover outside the burning Taj hotel in Mumbai on Nov. 27, 2008, one of the sites targeted during the three-day...
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Philippines Nov 24
Death Toll Rises in Philippine Massacre
The death toll in one of the Philippines' worst cases of election violence rose to at least 46 people, and President Arroyo declared a state of emergency to give security forces a freer hand in tracking down the gunmen...The southern Philippines has been a hot-bed of violence for decades and has served as a staging and training ground for al-Qaeda-linked terrorists in the region. It's also home to long-running Muslim and Communist insurgencies, and the few large cities there are separated by large tracts of land where clan leaders intermittently battle each other for political power. The national government in Manila has long run programs to help organize clan leaders to limit the Muslim and Communist rebels and it has also allowed local governments and police forces to tap militias to contain the insurgencies, in some cases providing arms.
The death toll in one of the Philippines' worst cases of election violence rose to at least 46 people, and President Arroyo declared a state of emergency to give security forces a freer hand in tracking down the gunmen...The southern Philippines has been a hot-bed of violence for decades and has served as a staging and training ground for al-Qaeda-linked terrorists in the region. It's also home to long-running Muslim and Communist insurgencies, and the few large cities there are separated by large tracts of land where clan leaders intermittently battle each other for political power. The national government in Manila has long run programs to help organize clan leaders to limit the Muslim and Communist rebels and it has also allowed local governments and police forces to tap militias to contain the insurgencies, in some cases providing arms.
A Year After Mumbai Attack, Militants Thrive more in India
A Year After Mumbai Attack, Militants Thrive .ArticleComments (74)more in India . Text .By MATTHEW ROSENBERG
ISLAMABAD -- The Islamist militant group behind the deadly attack in Mumbai one year ago remains a potent force determined to strike India and the West, and a source of acrimony between South Asia's nuclear-armed rivals, say officials and members of the militant faction.
Indian officials and experts say at least six new plots against Mumbai by the Pakistan-based group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, have been disrupted in the 12 months since 10 gunmen wrought three days of havoc on India's financial capital, killing 166 people.
View Full Image
Associated Press
A soldier takes cover outside the burning Taj hotel in Mumbai on Nov. 27, 2008, one of the sites targeted during the three-day terrorist siege.
.Lashkar's infiltration of India's part of Kashmir is again on the upswing, the officials say; and a U.S. citizen with alleged ties to Lashkar was recently arrested in Chicago, evidence of the group's reach, U.S. officials say.
"Our aims are the same today as they were 10 years ago," said a man who identified himself as a former Lashkar militant now working with its charity arm. "We are waging war on the enemies of Islam."
ISLAMABAD -- The Islamist militant group behind the deadly attack in Mumbai one year ago remains a potent force determined to strike India and the West, and a source of acrimony between South Asia's nuclear-armed rivals, say officials and members of the militant faction.
Indian officials and experts say at least six new plots against Mumbai by the Pakistan-based group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, have been disrupted in the 12 months since 10 gunmen wrought three days of havoc on India's financial capital, killing 166 people.
View Full Image
Associated Press
A soldier takes cover outside the burning Taj hotel in Mumbai on Nov. 27, 2008, one of the sites targeted during the three-day terrorist siege.
.Lashkar's infiltration of India's part of Kashmir is again on the upswing, the officials say; and a U.S. citizen with alleged ties to Lashkar was recently arrested in Chicago, evidence of the group's reach, U.S. officials say.
"Our aims are the same today as they were 10 years ago," said a man who identified himself as a former Lashkar militant now working with its charity arm. "We are waging war on the enemies of Islam."
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Maybe a unliterally declared country id good, then israel can blow them to smithereens when they act up
In-Depth Issues:
The Implications of Long-Range Hamas Rockets - Jeffrey White (Washington Institute for Near East Policy)
The IDF recently monitored Hamas' launch of a 60-km-range Iranian rocket from Gaza into the Mediterranean Sea.
A rocket with such a range can reach the southern outskirts of Tel Aviv as well as targets across much of southern Israel.
According to Amos Yadlin, IDF director of military intelligence, Hamas now has "dozens" of rockets with a 60-km range.
Hamas' new rocket capabilities must also be seen in the context of Hizbullah's acquisition of rockets with a 300-km range. In a possible two-front war, this means that most of Israel, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, would be within rocket range.
From Israel's standpoint, the threats to its large population centers will likely make the government more willing to deal decisively with a revamped threat from Hamas. This would probably mean a comprehensive air and ground offensive throughout Gaza - one that would far exceed the scope of last winter's Gaza operation.
The writer is a defense fellow at The Washington Institute.
The Implications of Long-Range Hamas Rockets - Jeffrey White (Washington Institute for Near East Policy)
The IDF recently monitored Hamas' launch of a 60-km-range Iranian rocket from Gaza into the Mediterranean Sea.
A rocket with such a range can reach the southern outskirts of Tel Aviv as well as targets across much of southern Israel.
According to Amos Yadlin, IDF director of military intelligence, Hamas now has "dozens" of rockets with a 60-km range.
Hamas' new rocket capabilities must also be seen in the context of Hizbullah's acquisition of rockets with a 300-km range. In a possible two-front war, this means that most of Israel, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, would be within rocket range.
From Israel's standpoint, the threats to its large population centers will likely make the government more willing to deal decisively with a revamped threat from Hamas. This would probably mean a comprehensive air and ground offensive throughout Gaza - one that would far exceed the scope of last winter's Gaza operation.
The writer is a defense fellow at The Washington Institute.
These people can't have a country-they are pirates
Gaza Charity Offers $1.4M for Capture of IDF Soldiers - Diaa Hadid (AP)
A Gaza charity headed by Hamas' Interior Minister Fathi Hamad on Wednesday offered $1.4 million to any Arab citizen of Israel who abducts an Israeli soldier.
The Waad group offered the bounty in an e-mail sent to Palestinian media.
A Gaza charity headed by Hamas' Interior Minister Fathi Hamad on Wednesday offered $1.4 million to any Arab citizen of Israel who abducts an Israeli soldier.
The Waad group offered the bounty in an e-mail sent to Palestinian media.
Hassan bigger worry than KSM
If it accomplished nothing else, the Obama administration's announcement last Friday to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in lower Manhattan blew the Nidal Hasan murders out of the news. The KSM fiasco deserves all the attention it gets. What Hasan represents, however, is a more immediate concern.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is an old-school jihadi. They sit in far-off redoubts, assembling terror teams of foreign nationals who now must figure out how to get themselves and their plot inside the U.S. Not impossible, but harder than before 9/11.
Hasan is new school. He is what's known as a homegrown terrorist. Virtually all the Islamic terrorist plots thwarted here in recent years were homegrown, not designed from afar by a KSM.
Najibullah Zazi, the Colorado airport-shuttle driver arrested in New York this September and charged with conspiring to detonate bombs, came to the U.S. in 1999.
The Fort Dix Six, convicted in December of conspiring to attack U.S. military personnel, were mainly ethnic Albanians whose family came to New Jersey in the 1980s.
Zakaria Amara, the leader of the Toronto 18, who were planning to blow up skyscrapers in Canada, was born in a Toronto suburb.
In testimony to Congress in September, the director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, Mike Leiter, said the Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab includes "dozens of recruits from the Unites States," mostly ethnic Somalis.
How do individuals sitting in Colorado, New Jersey, Toronto or Texas suddenly transform into mass murderers for jihad? Most of the time, they become radicalized by spending vast amounts of time viewing violent Islamic Web sites run from abroad.
Two years ago, Lawrence Sanchez of the New York City Police Department's intelligence division told the Senate Homeland Security Committee that the Internet is "the most significant factor in the radicalization that is occurring in America." Mr. Sanchez described this process as "self-imposed brainwashing."
In New York Times reporter David Rohde's account of his captivity by the Taliban, he wrote that "watching jihadi videos" was his guards' favorite pastime. He describes them as "little more than grimly repetitive snuff films" of executions.
***
If you sit in the United States and watch this stuff 'round the clock—self-brainwashing—it is fully protected activity. It qualifies as "speech," protected by the panoply of First Amendment law. These protections exist nowhere else in the world.
The biggest controversy surrounding Maj. Hasan is that the Army knew about his radical Islamic sympathies, from the Walter Reed lecture and the monitored emails to the English-speaking, American-born Yemeni imam Anwar Awlaki, whose Facebook page, with a reported 4,800 "friends," is depicted nearby.
The argument is that the Army should have mustered him out of the service and thereby avoided the 13 murders. Really? After kicking him out of the Army, there was no probable cause for authorities to surveil a civilian Nidal Hasan. In time he as easily could have killed 13 Americans in a suburban Texas mall.
Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, as the judge presiding over the 1995 trial of the "blind sheikh," Omar Abdel Rahman, for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, had to instruct the jury that the sheikh's violent, "holy war" sermons at New York mosques were legal, protected activity (he was convicted of conspiracy).
There is a mosque in Manhattan at 96th Street and Lexington Avenue, on whose sidewalk one can hear adherents spouting support for violence against the U.S. That, too, is protected.
A violent ideology is just an ideology, and that is protected speech. It requires acts to put in motion aggressive surveillance, such as wiretapping.
I think the Hasan case shows this is wrong, or at least too dangerous. First Amendment law has never dealt with a widely distributed ideology that has as its raison d'être the mass murder of Americans and destruction of American property.
For now this is the way it is: Future Hasans can get jacked up all day on kill-the-Americans Web sites, and we have to wait until they put in motion a conspiracy like Fort Dix or the Colorado jihadists. Or until they start shooting.
Politics is the only recourse.
This is what the political fight was through the Bush years—fights over the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretaps of conversations between U.S. citizens and foreign suspects, using the SWIFT financial data system to track terrorist transfers (or, with KSM, military tribunals versus civil courts). The argument against these policies was that "our values" require that judges review and approve virtually all such activity.
The problem with this view is that "our values" were already protected to an unprecedented degree. Raising the bar higher is asking too much of the people assigned to catch all these self-radicalizing jihadists.
The Democrats have cast their lot with tighter restrictions. The past six years and a presidential campaign proved that. In the wake of Hasan's 13 dead people, revisiting the limits of our vulnerability has to be on the table in next year's congressional elections, and then a presidential election.
About Daniel Henninger
Daniel Henninger is deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page. Mr. Henninger joined Dow Jones in 1971 as a staff writer for the National Observer
Write to henninger@wsj.com
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is an old-school jihadi. They sit in far-off redoubts, assembling terror teams of foreign nationals who now must figure out how to get themselves and their plot inside the U.S. Not impossible, but harder than before 9/11.
Hasan is new school. He is what's known as a homegrown terrorist. Virtually all the Islamic terrorist plots thwarted here in recent years were homegrown, not designed from afar by a KSM.
Najibullah Zazi, the Colorado airport-shuttle driver arrested in New York this September and charged with conspiring to detonate bombs, came to the U.S. in 1999.
The Fort Dix Six, convicted in December of conspiring to attack U.S. military personnel, were mainly ethnic Albanians whose family came to New Jersey in the 1980s.
Zakaria Amara, the leader of the Toronto 18, who were planning to blow up skyscrapers in Canada, was born in a Toronto suburb.
In testimony to Congress in September, the director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, Mike Leiter, said the Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab includes "dozens of recruits from the Unites States," mostly ethnic Somalis.
How do individuals sitting in Colorado, New Jersey, Toronto or Texas suddenly transform into mass murderers for jihad? Most of the time, they become radicalized by spending vast amounts of time viewing violent Islamic Web sites run from abroad.
Two years ago, Lawrence Sanchez of the New York City Police Department's intelligence division told the Senate Homeland Security Committee that the Internet is "the most significant factor in the radicalization that is occurring in America." Mr. Sanchez described this process as "self-imposed brainwashing."
In New York Times reporter David Rohde's account of his captivity by the Taliban, he wrote that "watching jihadi videos" was his guards' favorite pastime. He describes them as "little more than grimly repetitive snuff films" of executions.
***
If you sit in the United States and watch this stuff 'round the clock—self-brainwashing—it is fully protected activity. It qualifies as "speech," protected by the panoply of First Amendment law. These protections exist nowhere else in the world.
The biggest controversy surrounding Maj. Hasan is that the Army knew about his radical Islamic sympathies, from the Walter Reed lecture and the monitored emails to the English-speaking, American-born Yemeni imam Anwar Awlaki, whose Facebook page, with a reported 4,800 "friends," is depicted nearby.
The argument is that the Army should have mustered him out of the service and thereby avoided the 13 murders. Really? After kicking him out of the Army, there was no probable cause for authorities to surveil a civilian Nidal Hasan. In time he as easily could have killed 13 Americans in a suburban Texas mall.
Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, as the judge presiding over the 1995 trial of the "blind sheikh," Omar Abdel Rahman, for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, had to instruct the jury that the sheikh's violent, "holy war" sermons at New York mosques were legal, protected activity (he was convicted of conspiracy).
There is a mosque in Manhattan at 96th Street and Lexington Avenue, on whose sidewalk one can hear adherents spouting support for violence against the U.S. That, too, is protected.
A violent ideology is just an ideology, and that is protected speech. It requires acts to put in motion aggressive surveillance, such as wiretapping.
I think the Hasan case shows this is wrong, or at least too dangerous. First Amendment law has never dealt with a widely distributed ideology that has as its raison d'être the mass murder of Americans and destruction of American property.
For now this is the way it is: Future Hasans can get jacked up all day on kill-the-Americans Web sites, and we have to wait until they put in motion a conspiracy like Fort Dix or the Colorado jihadists. Or until they start shooting.
Politics is the only recourse.
This is what the political fight was through the Bush years—fights over the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretaps of conversations between U.S. citizens and foreign suspects, using the SWIFT financial data system to track terrorist transfers (or, with KSM, military tribunals versus civil courts). The argument against these policies was that "our values" require that judges review and approve virtually all such activity.
The problem with this view is that "our values" were already protected to an unprecedented degree. Raising the bar higher is asking too much of the people assigned to catch all these self-radicalizing jihadists.
The Democrats have cast their lot with tighter restrictions. The past six years and a presidential campaign proved that. In the wake of Hasan's 13 dead people, revisiting the limits of our vulnerability has to be on the table in next year's congressional elections, and then a presidential election.
About Daniel Henninger
Daniel Henninger is deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page. Mr. Henninger joined Dow Jones in 1971 as a staff writer for the National Observer
Write to henninger@wsj.com
Obama, Arab terrorists and Chicago ties
The Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago (CIOGC) is considered a mainstream organization. Its affiliate mosque, the Bridgeview Mosque, has been under FBI surveillance for over a decade, and Osama bin Laden’s spiritual mentor, Abdullah Azzam, actually visited it as part of a national recruiting tour in the 1980s. Nabil al-Marabh, a suspected planner in 9/11, attended Bridgeview. The mosque’s foundation was linked to the Holy Land Foundation. Mohammed Saleh, another member, was the first American citizen to make the FBI terror list. The mosque itself is owned by the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) — headquartered in Indiana, but funded by Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia. Siraj Wahhaj, a former NAIT board member, is listed as an indicted co-conspirator in a 1995 plot to blow up New York landmarks, and he served as a character witness for the “blind sheik.”
In February 2004, the Chicago Tribune investigated the radical anti-Americanism running through CIOGC and its tributaries (”Hard-liners won battle for Bridgeview Mosque“). At the time, then-state Senator Barack Obama was pushing a bill for free and reduced health care for the uninsured. On March 29, 2004, the Chicago Defender announced: “SEIU, ACORN hail Obama’s health bill.” Also at the time, Crucial Inc. — the lucrative concession business at O’Hare International Airport owned by the 77-year-old son of the late Elijah Muhammed — was stripped of its minority business certification.
After grossing $16 million in its first four years at the airport, it was revealed that Syrian-born Arab Tony Rezko was the actual owner and Herbert Muhammed had only served as a front so Crucial Inc. could qualify for Chicago’s minority set-aside program — which directs large contracts to companies owned by women, blacks, or Hispanics.
That year also marked the creation of then-Governor Rod Blagojevich’s new Illinois Finance Authority board, which dissolved five state bonding agencies into one. Ali Ata, former president of the Chicago chapter of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee — and a friend of Rezko — was appointed as director after donating $60,000 to the governor. Ata held no finance experience and left the post in March 2005 following alleged wrongdoings.
This came less than two years after Obama helped pass Public Act 93-0041, which extended the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Association (IFHPA), terminated all existing board members, reduced the board membership from 15 to 9, and gave priority to board members with ties to ethnic and minority communities.
Health Care, Chicago-Style
Behold, the swamp of Chicago health care and Obama's central role in cultivating it.
Advocate Health Care is the largest health system in Illinois. Dr. Imad Almanaseer — head of pathology at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital, a friend of Rezko’s, and part of Rezko’s bloc of five installed on the IFHPA board (which controls all development and expansion of hospitals in the state) — testified under immunity at Rezko’s trial. He admitted that he was handed index cards by Thomas Beck, the chairman of IFHPA, with voting instructions from Rezko prior to votes. Almanaseer also testified that he is a business partner and investor of Rezko’s.
In February 2004, William McNary endorsed Obama in the Communist Party (CPUSA) newspaper the Weekly World. “Obama will be a strong voice in Washington on behalf of working families,” wrote McNary. Obama had worked for McNary in the mid-1990s, registering 100,000 votes for Citizen Action/Illinois — the local branch of US Action, both of which William McNary headed. According to McNary, Obama also collaborated with United Power for Action and Justice (UPAJ) to expand children’s health insurance in Illinois. “Barack was not just willing to meet with community-based groups, not only to be a good vote for us, but he also strategized with us to help move our position forward,” McNary told David Moberg in his 2007 piece “Obama’s Third Way.” McNary is also a member of the Radical Black Congress and was the keynote speaker for the CPUSA 2002 annual fundraiser. The left-wing blog Talking Points Memo described McNary as “one of Obama’s personal friends and long-time supporters — someone Obama went to when considering his run for senate and for president.”
Monsignor John Egan lived just long enough to see his lifelong dream, the UPAJ, open its doors. The $2.6 million dollars in seed money for UPAJ came from Catholic organizations. Egan envisioned UPAJ as a reorganized Metro IAF — the Chicago chapter of Saul Alinsky’s Industrial Arts Foundation. Cardinal Bernadin announced the gift at a 1995 press conference.
There was outrage in the Catholic community over the role that both the Bernadine Center for Theology and Ministry and the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) played in UPAJ. CCHD’s annual budget of $18 million funded UPAJ activities. UPAJ’s stated top priorities - Health care for all and fostering relationships with Muslim communities. UPAJ affiliates include the Muslim Student Association, the Lutheran School of Theology, Anshe Shalom B’Nai Israel, Trinity United Church of Christ (Mr. Obama’s Chicago church) and Father Pfleger’s St. Sabina church.
Also, active in CCIR is Tony Campolo, active with the Sojourner Red Letter Christian movement. He is probably best known for “finding it a real privilege” to minister to Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky impeachment proceedings and for drawing gasps and boos for having the following exchange with Gary Bauer at Wheaton College: “I know this is hard for you to believe, but the enemy is not John Ashcroft. The enemy is Osama bin Laden,” said Bauer. Campolo replied, “I don’t know about that.”
Chicago’s Muslim-centric health care networks range from the Gilead’s Campaign for the Uninsured and the Gilead Outreach and Referral Center (both funded by UPAJ), the Illinois Department of Human Services, the Illinois Department of Public Aid, Advocate Health Care, and the Michael Reese Healthcare Trust. The Michael Reese Health Care Trust funds the Sargent Shriver Center National Center on Poverty Law — which is funded by George Soros, Bill Ayers brother John, SEIU Healthcare, William Daley, the William Daley Charitable Gift Fund, the Illinois Department of Health Care and Family Services, and the Chicago Bar Fund.
The Chicago Bar Fund supports the Illinois Coalition for Immigration and Refugee Rights, the National Immigrant and Justice Center, and, amazingly, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). Gilead’s board of directors includes Anthony Mitchell of Advocate Health Care, Nancy Cross of SEIU Local and Syed Najullah of CIOCG.
Other networks include the Muslim Community Center, the Association of Muslim Health Professionals, the Compassionate Care Network, UMMA Community Clinic, the Islamic Medical Association of North America, and IMAN, which is funded by the Illinois Department of Human Services and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
This excludes the additional $851 million in federal stimulus grants Michele Obama announced on June 29, 2009, to upgrade community health centers because their work “has never been more important.”
Patti Villacorta is an investigative reporter and political research expert
In February 2004, the Chicago Tribune investigated the radical anti-Americanism running through CIOGC and its tributaries (”Hard-liners won battle for Bridgeview Mosque“). At the time, then-state Senator Barack Obama was pushing a bill for free and reduced health care for the uninsured. On March 29, 2004, the Chicago Defender announced: “SEIU, ACORN hail Obama’s health bill.” Also at the time, Crucial Inc. — the lucrative concession business at O’Hare International Airport owned by the 77-year-old son of the late Elijah Muhammed — was stripped of its minority business certification.
After grossing $16 million in its first four years at the airport, it was revealed that Syrian-born Arab Tony Rezko was the actual owner and Herbert Muhammed had only served as a front so Crucial Inc. could qualify for Chicago’s minority set-aside program — which directs large contracts to companies owned by women, blacks, or Hispanics.
That year also marked the creation of then-Governor Rod Blagojevich’s new Illinois Finance Authority board, which dissolved five state bonding agencies into one. Ali Ata, former president of the Chicago chapter of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee — and a friend of Rezko — was appointed as director after donating $60,000 to the governor. Ata held no finance experience and left the post in March 2005 following alleged wrongdoings.
This came less than two years after Obama helped pass Public Act 93-0041, which extended the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Association (IFHPA), terminated all existing board members, reduced the board membership from 15 to 9, and gave priority to board members with ties to ethnic and minority communities.
Health Care, Chicago-Style
Behold, the swamp of Chicago health care and Obama's central role in cultivating it.
Advocate Health Care is the largest health system in Illinois. Dr. Imad Almanaseer — head of pathology at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital, a friend of Rezko’s, and part of Rezko’s bloc of five installed on the IFHPA board (which controls all development and expansion of hospitals in the state) — testified under immunity at Rezko’s trial. He admitted that he was handed index cards by Thomas Beck, the chairman of IFHPA, with voting instructions from Rezko prior to votes. Almanaseer also testified that he is a business partner and investor of Rezko’s.
In February 2004, William McNary endorsed Obama in the Communist Party (CPUSA) newspaper the Weekly World. “Obama will be a strong voice in Washington on behalf of working families,” wrote McNary. Obama had worked for McNary in the mid-1990s, registering 100,000 votes for Citizen Action/Illinois — the local branch of US Action, both of which William McNary headed. According to McNary, Obama also collaborated with United Power for Action and Justice (UPAJ) to expand children’s health insurance in Illinois. “Barack was not just willing to meet with community-based groups, not only to be a good vote for us, but he also strategized with us to help move our position forward,” McNary told David Moberg in his 2007 piece “Obama’s Third Way.” McNary is also a member of the Radical Black Congress and was the keynote speaker for the CPUSA 2002 annual fundraiser. The left-wing blog Talking Points Memo described McNary as “one of Obama’s personal friends and long-time supporters — someone Obama went to when considering his run for senate and for president.”
Monsignor John Egan lived just long enough to see his lifelong dream, the UPAJ, open its doors. The $2.6 million dollars in seed money for UPAJ came from Catholic organizations. Egan envisioned UPAJ as a reorganized Metro IAF — the Chicago chapter of Saul Alinsky’s Industrial Arts Foundation. Cardinal Bernadin announced the gift at a 1995 press conference.
There was outrage in the Catholic community over the role that both the Bernadine Center for Theology and Ministry and the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) played in UPAJ. CCHD’s annual budget of $18 million funded UPAJ activities. UPAJ’s stated top priorities - Health care for all and fostering relationships with Muslim communities. UPAJ affiliates include the Muslim Student Association, the Lutheran School of Theology, Anshe Shalom B’Nai Israel, Trinity United Church of Christ (Mr. Obama’s Chicago church) and Father Pfleger’s St. Sabina church.
Also, active in CCIR is Tony Campolo, active with the Sojourner Red Letter Christian movement. He is probably best known for “finding it a real privilege” to minister to Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky impeachment proceedings and for drawing gasps and boos for having the following exchange with Gary Bauer at Wheaton College: “I know this is hard for you to believe, but the enemy is not John Ashcroft. The enemy is Osama bin Laden,” said Bauer. Campolo replied, “I don’t know about that.”
Chicago’s Muslim-centric health care networks range from the Gilead’s Campaign for the Uninsured and the Gilead Outreach and Referral Center (both funded by UPAJ), the Illinois Department of Human Services, the Illinois Department of Public Aid, Advocate Health Care, and the Michael Reese Healthcare Trust. The Michael Reese Health Care Trust funds the Sargent Shriver Center National Center on Poverty Law — which is funded by George Soros, Bill Ayers brother John, SEIU Healthcare, William Daley, the William Daley Charitable Gift Fund, the Illinois Department of Health Care and Family Services, and the Chicago Bar Fund.
The Chicago Bar Fund supports the Illinois Coalition for Immigration and Refugee Rights, the National Immigrant and Justice Center, and, amazingly, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). Gilead’s board of directors includes Anthony Mitchell of Advocate Health Care, Nancy Cross of SEIU Local and Syed Najullah of CIOCG.
Other networks include the Muslim Community Center, the Association of Muslim Health Professionals, the Compassionate Care Network, UMMA Community Clinic, the Islamic Medical Association of North America, and IMAN, which is funded by the Illinois Department of Human Services and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
This excludes the additional $851 million in federal stimulus grants Michele Obama announced on June 29, 2009, to upgrade community health centers because their work “has never been more important.”
Patti Villacorta is an investigative reporter and political research expert
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
WSJ nov 14-15
Suicide bomb attack targeting Peshawar spy agency kills at least 16
Suicide car bombs tore through security offices in Pakistan on Friday, killing at least 16 people and heavily damaging the Peshawar headquarters of the country's top intelligence agency.
By News Wires (text)
Suicide car bombs tore through security offices in Pakistan on Friday, killing at least 16 people and heavily damaging the Peshawar headquarters of the country's top intelligence agency.
By News Wires (text)
WSJ dangers of trying the terrorrists in NYC
One certain outcome is that an open civilian trial will provide valuable information to terrorists across the world about American methods and intelligence. Precisely because so much other evidence may not be admissable, prosecutors may have to reveal genuine secrets to get a conviction. Osama bin Laden learned a lot from the 1995 prosecution in New York of the "blind cleric" Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman for the first World Trade Center attack. His main tip was that the U.S. considered bin Laden a terrorist co-conspirator, leading him to abandon his hideout in Sudan for Afghanistan.
Terrorists also love a big stage, and none come bigger than New York. Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker, made his civilian trial a spectacle. Not even the best judge can entirely stop KSM and others from doing the same. And Mr. Holder has invited grave and needless security risks by tempting jihadists the world over to strike Manhattan while the trial is in session.
Most Americans, we suspect, can overlook the legal niceties and see this episode through the lens of common sense. Foreign terrorists who wage war on America and everything it stands for have no place sitting in a court of law born of the values they so detest. Mr. Holder has honored mass murder by treating it like any other crime.
Terrorists also love a big stage, and none come bigger than New York. Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker, made his civilian trial a spectacle. Not even the best judge can entirely stop KSM and others from doing the same. And Mr. Holder has invited grave and needless security risks by tempting jihadists the world over to strike Manhattan while the trial is in session.
Most Americans, we suspect, can overlook the legal niceties and see this episode through the lens of common sense. Foreign terrorists who wage war on America and everything it stands for have no place sitting in a court of law born of the values they so detest. Mr. Holder has honored mass murder by treating it like any other crime.
Militants behead school principal in Philippines 09 Nov 2009 08:35:27 GMT
Militants behead school principal in Philippines
09 Nov 2009 08:35:27 GMT
Source: Reuters
MANILA, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Muslim militants beheaded a school principal on a remote southern island in the Philippines after holding him for ransom for three weeks, a marine general said on Monday.
Major-General Ben Dolorfino, commander of military forces in the western part of Mindanao region, said the victim's decapitated head was found at a petrol station in the capital town on Jolo island.
"We were told the school principal was beheaded on Sunday when the negotiations to free him bogged down," Dolorfino said.
09 Nov 2009 08:35:27 GMT
Source: Reuters
MANILA, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Muslim militants beheaded a school principal on a remote southern island in the Philippines after holding him for ransom for three weeks, a marine general said on Monday.
Major-General Ben Dolorfino, commander of military forces in the western part of Mindanao region, said the victim's decapitated head was found at a petrol station in the capital town on Jolo island.
"We were told the school principal was beheaded on Sunday when the negotiations to free him bogged down," Dolorfino said.
Monday, November 16, 2009
J Street Ties to pro Iran group
NIAC and J Street: Lobbying and Lying
NIAC and J Street might seem at first an odd alliance. J Street is "pro-peace, pro-Israel" and NIAC is pro-engagement, pro-Iran. But J Street isn't all that pro-Israel, and NIAC will take any allies it can find in the fight against sanctions, so few and far between are such organizations in Washington. J Street director Jeremy Ben-Ami co-authored an op-ed with NIAC chief Trita Parsi making the (extremely unpopular in the Jewish community) argument against sanctions. J Street invited Parsi to speak at their conference last month. And the two groups have together constructed and embraced a narrative that explains away all the questions about their credibility and legitimacy as the work of the same nefarious right-wing conspiracy.
But follow the money and the tie that binds seems to be George Soros, who provides substantial funding to both groups. Also, Morton Halperin, one of the top men at Soros's Open Society Institute, sits on the boards of both J Street and NIAC. As Ben Smith reported Friday, Soros pays the salary of the NIAC staffer who runs the Campaign for a New Policy on Iran. Documents reveal that J Street participated in the discussions that determined the group's agenda.
And there's another thing the group's have in common: they've both been caught telling their supporters they've taken one position while lobbying behind the scenes for the exact opposite outcome.
Jennifer Rubin notes two examples of this dishonest conduct. J Street declared publicly that it would not lobby against passage of a resolution in the House of Representatives condemning the Goldstone Report. (Neither would J Street support the resolution, of course. The group's position was somewhere between oppose and support.) Yet this blog reported and Morton Halperin has not denied that either he or someone in his office was the author of a letter circulated to members of Congress and signed by Judge Goldstone. J Street, or at least one of its top advisers, was actively lobbying against the resolution and in support of Goldstone.
NIAC gets caught in a similar lie. Eli Lake's Washington Times report details NIAC's campaign to "create a media controversy," in the words of one NIAC staffer, in order to scuttle the appointment of Dennis Ross to oversee Iran policy. NIAC failed, but just last week NIAC put on its website a "Myths and Facts" page to set the record straight about the organization's work:
NIAC is not the only organization that is under attack. In fact, almost every distinguished American policymaker, intellectual and administration official that supports Obama's pro-engagement policy in the Middle East is being targeted. This includes:
* Ambassador Dennis Ross - Currently serving in the U.S. National Security Council...
So after trying to kill Ross's appointment in a secret and perhaps illegal lobbying campaign, the group touts Ross on its website as a "distinguished policy maker" who is the victim of neoconservative smears. Now we know that the smears against Ross were being conceived and directed by the staff at NIAC, and all the while NIAC was playing the victim.
Trita Parsi has charmed his way into the very heart of the "progressive left," and no progressive organization has been more easily or completely charmed than J Street. So what is a "pro-peace, pro-Israel" group doing allying itself so closely with a man who is himself so closely allied with a Holocaust-denying regime that daily threatens the existence of the State of Israel? And why is it that neither organization is able to represent in public the views that they so aggressively promote behind closed doors?
NIAC and J Street might seem at first an odd alliance. J Street is "pro-peace, pro-Israel" and NIAC is pro-engagement, pro-Iran. But J Street isn't all that pro-Israel, and NIAC will take any allies it can find in the fight against sanctions, so few and far between are such organizations in Washington. J Street director Jeremy Ben-Ami co-authored an op-ed with NIAC chief Trita Parsi making the (extremely unpopular in the Jewish community) argument against sanctions. J Street invited Parsi to speak at their conference last month. And the two groups have together constructed and embraced a narrative that explains away all the questions about their credibility and legitimacy as the work of the same nefarious right-wing conspiracy.
But follow the money and the tie that binds seems to be George Soros, who provides substantial funding to both groups. Also, Morton Halperin, one of the top men at Soros's Open Society Institute, sits on the boards of both J Street and NIAC. As Ben Smith reported Friday, Soros pays the salary of the NIAC staffer who runs the Campaign for a New Policy on Iran. Documents reveal that J Street participated in the discussions that determined the group's agenda.
And there's another thing the group's have in common: they've both been caught telling their supporters they've taken one position while lobbying behind the scenes for the exact opposite outcome.
Jennifer Rubin notes two examples of this dishonest conduct. J Street declared publicly that it would not lobby against passage of a resolution in the House of Representatives condemning the Goldstone Report. (Neither would J Street support the resolution, of course. The group's position was somewhere between oppose and support.) Yet this blog reported and Morton Halperin has not denied that either he or someone in his office was the author of a letter circulated to members of Congress and signed by Judge Goldstone. J Street, or at least one of its top advisers, was actively lobbying against the resolution and in support of Goldstone.
NIAC gets caught in a similar lie. Eli Lake's Washington Times report details NIAC's campaign to "create a media controversy," in the words of one NIAC staffer, in order to scuttle the appointment of Dennis Ross to oversee Iran policy. NIAC failed, but just last week NIAC put on its website a "Myths and Facts" page to set the record straight about the organization's work:
NIAC is not the only organization that is under attack. In fact, almost every distinguished American policymaker, intellectual and administration official that supports Obama's pro-engagement policy in the Middle East is being targeted. This includes:
* Ambassador Dennis Ross - Currently serving in the U.S. National Security Council...
So after trying to kill Ross's appointment in a secret and perhaps illegal lobbying campaign, the group touts Ross on its website as a "distinguished policy maker" who is the victim of neoconservative smears. Now we know that the smears against Ross were being conceived and directed by the staff at NIAC, and all the while NIAC was playing the victim.
Trita Parsi has charmed his way into the very heart of the "progressive left," and no progressive organization has been more easily or completely charmed than J Street. So what is a "pro-peace, pro-Israel" group doing allying itself so closely with a man who is himself so closely allied with a Holocaust-denying regime that daily threatens the existence of the State of Israel? And why is it that neither organization is able to represent in public the views that they so aggressively promote behind closed doors?
Sunday, November 15, 2009
David Brooks on hassan Nov 10
There was a national rush to therapy. Hasan was a loner who had trouble finding a wife and socializing with his neighbors.
This response was understandable. It’s important to tamp down vengeful hatreds in moments of passion. But it was also patronizing. Public commentators assumed the air of kindergarten teachers who had to protect their children from thinking certain impermissible and intolerant thoughts. If public commentary wasn’t carefully policed, the assumption seemed to be, then the great mass of unwashed yahoos in Middle America would go off on a racist rampage.
Worse, it absolved Hasan — before the real evidence was in — of his responsibility. He didn’t have the choice to be lonely or unhappy. But he did have a choice over what story to build out of those circumstances. And evidence is now mounting to suggest he chose the extremist War on Islam narrative that so often leads to murderous results.
The conversation in the first few days after the massacre was well intentioned, but it suggested a willful flight from reality. It ignored the fact that the war narrative of the struggle against Islam is the central feature of American foreign policy. It ignored the fact that this narrative can be embraced by a self-radicalizing individual in the U.S. as much as by groups in Tehran, Gaza or Kandahar.
It denied, before the evidence was in, the possibility of evil. It sought to reduce a heinous act to social maladjustment. It wasn’t the reaction of a morally or politically serious nation.
This response was understandable. It’s important to tamp down vengeful hatreds in moments of passion. But it was also patronizing. Public commentators assumed the air of kindergarten teachers who had to protect their children from thinking certain impermissible and intolerant thoughts. If public commentary wasn’t carefully policed, the assumption seemed to be, then the great mass of unwashed yahoos in Middle America would go off on a racist rampage.
Worse, it absolved Hasan — before the real evidence was in — of his responsibility. He didn’t have the choice to be lonely or unhappy. But he did have a choice over what story to build out of those circumstances. And evidence is now mounting to suggest he chose the extremist War on Islam narrative that so often leads to murderous results.
The conversation in the first few days after the massacre was well intentioned, but it suggested a willful flight from reality. It ignored the fact that the war narrative of the struggle against Islam is the central feature of American foreign policy. It ignored the fact that this narrative can be embraced by a self-radicalizing individual in the U.S. as much as by groups in Tehran, Gaza or Kandahar.
It denied, before the evidence was in, the possibility of evil. It sought to reduce a heinous act to social maladjustment. It wasn’t the reaction of a morally or politically serious nation.
Hassan's lecture explaining it was jihad
Why I Murdered 13 American Soldiers at Fort Hood: Nidal Hassan Explains It All to You
By Barry Rubin*
November 14, 2009
http://www.gloria-center.org/Gloria/2009/11/why-i-murdered.html
How do we know that the attack at Fort Hood was an act of Islamist terrorism? Simple, Major Nidal Hassan told us so. You’ve seen reports of a long list of things he did and said along these lines. But what’s most amazing of all is this:
Hassan is the first terrorist in history to give an academic lecture explaining why he was about to attack. Yet that still isn’t enough for too many people—including the president of the United States--to understand that the murderous assault at Fort Hood was a Jihad attack.
It was reported that the audience was shocked and frightened by his lecture. He was supposed to speak on some medical topic yet instead talked on the topic: “The Koranic World View as it Relates to Muslims in the U.S. Military.” All you have to do is look at the 50 Power Point slides and they tell you everything you need to know.
It is quite a good talk. He’s logical and presents his evidence. This is clearly not the work of a mad man or a fool, though there’s still a note of ambiguity in it. He's still working out what to do in his own mind and is trying to figure out if he has a way out other than in effect deserting the U.S. army and becoming a Jihad warrior. Ultimately, he concluded that he could not be a proper Muslim without killing American soldiers. Obviously, other Muslims could reach different conclusions but Hassan strongly grounds himself in Islamic texts.
In a sense, Hassan's lecture was a cry for help: Can anyone show me another way out? Can anyone refute my interpretation of Islam? One Muslim in the audience reportedly tried to do so. But unless these issues are openly discussed and debated--rather than swept under the rug--more people will die.
In fact, I’d recommend that teachers use this lecture in teaching classes on both Islam and Islamist politics. .
Follow along with me and you’ll understand everything.
Hassan deals with three topics: What Islam teaches Muslims, how Muslims view the wars in Afghanistan and Iran, how this might affect Muslims in the U.S. military. [Slide 2] Hassan defines Jihad, showing how silly are the claims that it only means a personal struggle to behave better. It also signifies holy war, of course. [Slide 5].
Now here’s Hassan’s central theme. Muslims cannot fight in an infidel army against other Muslims. And Hassan himself says that it’s getting hard for Muslims in the U.S. military to justify doing so. [Slide 11] Obviously, Hassan was deciding that he couldn’t do so.
He then quotes the Koran extensively to prove the point. Allah will punish anyone who kills a Muslim [Slide 12]. Hassan then gives four examples of Muslim soldiers who broke under the strain. One who killed fellow American soldiers (which Hassan would himself do), one accused of espionage (but was acquitted), one who deserted, and one who refused deployment to Iraq. [Slide 13]
Quoting the Koran, Hassan next provides a number of quotations to show that the believer must obey Allah. If they do, they will enjoy great delights (though he left out the 72 virgins, there’s one quote hinting at pederasty), and if they don’t they will suffer torments of Hell.
Finally, he gets into the heavy stuff. Hassan introduces the concept of “defensive Jihad” which is a core element in radical Islamist thinking and has especially been promoted by Usama bin Ladin and al-Qaida. [Slides 37-39]. If others attack and oppress Muslims, then it is the duty of all Muslims to fight them. September 11 was justified by its perpetrators by saying that the United States had attacked Muslims and therefore it was mandatory to kill Americans in return.
And here is the crux of the matter: Verse 60:08, “Allah forbids you…from dealing kindly and justly” with those who fight Muslims.” [Slide 40]
If Nidal Hassan believed this and would follow it, he must—to be a proper Muslim in his eyes—pick up a gun and join the Jihad, Muslim side. He was not shooting Americans because he caught battle fatigue from American soldiers he treated. Think about it. To have done so, Hassan would have had to sympathize with them, thinking about what it would be like for him if he’d been fighting…Muslims in Iraq or Afghanistan. But that was precisely his problem. He sympathized with the other side.
Being ordered to ship out to one of these countries, Hassan now had to decide: which side are you on? Would he choose the side of Allah and the Muslims, to be rewarded in Heaven? Or would he join with the infidels, to be punished with Hell and to betray his religion? He made his decision.
It is interesting that no Muslim debate has developed over a very simple issue: What if two groups of Muslims are fighting, cannot one side with one group, even if it has non-Muslim allies? After all, Americans are not going to Iraq or Afghanistan simply to “kill Muslims” but to defend Muslims from being killed. The Saudis, Kuwaitis, and Egyptians had no problem with using Western troops to save them from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 1991, for example. The Iraqi and Afghan governments, made up of pious Muslims, do the same thing.
Arab nationalists who are Muslims can take this position more easily. But for Islamists the problem is not some abstraction but knowledge that they are fighting a battle to seize control of all Muslim-majority states and indeed perhaps of the entire world.
The true problem, then, is not that some Muslims help infidels kill Muslims, but that some Muslims help infidels kill Islamists. But Hassan never considered this point, which could be quite persuasive to other Muslims in Western militaries.
So, in his thinking, how might Hassan have escaped from that stark choice? Hassan answers that question. Quoting the Koran, he indicated that if the Americans ended the wars, then that would be okay and no killing would be necessary. [Slide 42]
Another alternative is if the Americans accepted Islam or agreed to become subservient to Muslim rulers (dhimmis) and paid a special tax [Slide 43-44].
The third alternative would be if the Muslim Messiah came, destroyed Christianity as a false religion and set off the post-history utopia. [Slide 45]. He didn’t mention another part of this description, which was the murder of all Jews.
A digression is appropriate here. Hassan, although a Palestinian, has never been quoted as attacking Israel or the Jews. This is one more reminder that this struggle isn’t all just about Israel. But it also tells something important about Hassan which also applies to many Muslim radicals in Europe. Hassan is an American. As such he has no other nationality, neither Palestinian nor Arab. He doesn’t support Hamas or Fatah. But he has a religion that directs his thinking. That’s why he is an Islamist and why he supports a generalized Islamist revolutionary movement, al-Qaida.
As one moderate Muslim from Canada pointed out, the clothes he wore the day before committing his Jihad attack was not (as some sources put it in a silly manner) some martyr or even Arab garb but the clothing of Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is an al-Qaida Jihadi, having changed sides in the War on Terror.
Hassan was no fool or blind fanatic. Indeed, he presents a sophisticated view. For example, he quotes contradictory Quranic verses, one suggesting that all religions can enter Heaven; another that all non-Muslims will go to Hell [Slide 47].
His conclusion takes on tremendous significance in light of what would happen at Fort Hood. He writes:
“If Muslim groups can convince Muslims that they are fighting for God against injustices of the `infidels’; i.e., the enemies of Islam, then Muslims can become a potent adversary ie: suicide bombing, etc.”
And of course, these groups did so convince Hassan. [Slide 48]
Why? Hassan tells us:
“God expects full loyalty. Promises heaven and threatens with Hell. Muslims may seem moderate (compromising) but God is not.” [Slide 49]
And at the very end, he proposes what might have been his own escape route:
"Recommendation: Department of Defense should allow Muslim soldiers the option of being released as `Conscientious objectors’ to increase troop morale and decrease adverse events.” [Slide 50]
If that had existed for Hassan, I think, he would not have killed people. This proposal is worth debating, though it has negative implications too, of course. But then he had other options. He could have resigned his commission, deserted, or refused deployment as a conscientious objector and gone to prison. In fact, Hassan himself cited individuals who had done the last two.
Consequently, Hassan's lecture also tells us why Muslims can choose not to be Jihadists, though this requires ignoring or rationalizing clear, religiously binding commandments in their religion or by being basically secular people of Muslim background. This is the kind of solution found in Christianity and Judaism, of course.
Hassan was too pious and consistent to take this way out. The answer to his personal behavior must be found in a mix of psychological factors and political-religious beliefs. The fact is, however, that he clearly did see himself as a Jihad warrior in the end. The existence of psycological factors in no way negates the importance of religious considerations.
All terrorists have some psychological forces working to make them follow such a path. Yet if not for ideological--and in the case of Islamists, religious--beliefs they never would have become terrorists. In contrast, criminals have psychological factors plus material goals, while mentally ill people who commit crimes are compelled by purely psychogical factors. Hassan does not fit either of those two categories.
Equally, his action cannot be attributed to a "misreading" or "heretical" interpretation of Islam. To read this lecture is to understand how carefully and self-critically he approached the issues. Anything so obviously false or deviant from mainstream Islam would simply not appeal to so many Muslims. Hassan was looking for a way out in the texts and listed the "loopholes" he did find: either the United States must not fight anyone who was a Muslim or it must let him out of the military.
What Hassan neglected was an explanation that lay outside what his strict reading of the Muslim texts would allow him to say: the United States must fight, in general, because the Islamists have been the aggressors. And the United States is actually fighting as allies with one group of (more moderate) Muslims against another (of radical Islamists). Yet the texts always deal with the Muslim community as a united whole (the umma), an interpretation that just doesn't correspond with reality. Indeed and ironically, this view enables Islamists to themselves kill thousands of Muslims all over the world!
The fact that Hassan’s lecture has not been the centerpiece of the whole post-massacre debate is a true example of how impoverished are the “experts,” journalists, and politicians at dealing with these issues. Of course, without exploring the Islamic factor, they're wasting everyone's time. They're also going to be wasting quite a few lives.
*Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books, go to http://www.gloria-center.org
By Barry Rubin*
November 14, 2009
http://www.gloria-center.org/Gloria/2009/11/why-i-murdered.html
How do we know that the attack at Fort Hood was an act of Islamist terrorism? Simple, Major Nidal Hassan told us so. You’ve seen reports of a long list of things he did and said along these lines. But what’s most amazing of all is this:
Hassan is the first terrorist in history to give an academic lecture explaining why he was about to attack. Yet that still isn’t enough for too many people—including the president of the United States--to understand that the murderous assault at Fort Hood was a Jihad attack.
It was reported that the audience was shocked and frightened by his lecture. He was supposed to speak on some medical topic yet instead talked on the topic: “The Koranic World View as it Relates to Muslims in the U.S. Military.” All you have to do is look at the 50 Power Point slides and they tell you everything you need to know.
It is quite a good talk. He’s logical and presents his evidence. This is clearly not the work of a mad man or a fool, though there’s still a note of ambiguity in it. He's still working out what to do in his own mind and is trying to figure out if he has a way out other than in effect deserting the U.S. army and becoming a Jihad warrior. Ultimately, he concluded that he could not be a proper Muslim without killing American soldiers. Obviously, other Muslims could reach different conclusions but Hassan strongly grounds himself in Islamic texts.
In a sense, Hassan's lecture was a cry for help: Can anyone show me another way out? Can anyone refute my interpretation of Islam? One Muslim in the audience reportedly tried to do so. But unless these issues are openly discussed and debated--rather than swept under the rug--more people will die.
In fact, I’d recommend that teachers use this lecture in teaching classes on both Islam and Islamist politics. .
Follow along with me and you’ll understand everything.
Hassan deals with three topics: What Islam teaches Muslims, how Muslims view the wars in Afghanistan and Iran, how this might affect Muslims in the U.S. military. [Slide 2] Hassan defines Jihad, showing how silly are the claims that it only means a personal struggle to behave better. It also signifies holy war, of course. [Slide 5].
Now here’s Hassan’s central theme. Muslims cannot fight in an infidel army against other Muslims. And Hassan himself says that it’s getting hard for Muslims in the U.S. military to justify doing so. [Slide 11] Obviously, Hassan was deciding that he couldn’t do so.
He then quotes the Koran extensively to prove the point. Allah will punish anyone who kills a Muslim [Slide 12]. Hassan then gives four examples of Muslim soldiers who broke under the strain. One who killed fellow American soldiers (which Hassan would himself do), one accused of espionage (but was acquitted), one who deserted, and one who refused deployment to Iraq. [Slide 13]
Quoting the Koran, Hassan next provides a number of quotations to show that the believer must obey Allah. If they do, they will enjoy great delights (though he left out the 72 virgins, there’s one quote hinting at pederasty), and if they don’t they will suffer torments of Hell.
Finally, he gets into the heavy stuff. Hassan introduces the concept of “defensive Jihad” which is a core element in radical Islamist thinking and has especially been promoted by Usama bin Ladin and al-Qaida. [Slides 37-39]. If others attack and oppress Muslims, then it is the duty of all Muslims to fight them. September 11 was justified by its perpetrators by saying that the United States had attacked Muslims and therefore it was mandatory to kill Americans in return.
And here is the crux of the matter: Verse 60:08, “Allah forbids you…from dealing kindly and justly” with those who fight Muslims.” [Slide 40]
If Nidal Hassan believed this and would follow it, he must—to be a proper Muslim in his eyes—pick up a gun and join the Jihad, Muslim side. He was not shooting Americans because he caught battle fatigue from American soldiers he treated. Think about it. To have done so, Hassan would have had to sympathize with them, thinking about what it would be like for him if he’d been fighting…Muslims in Iraq or Afghanistan. But that was precisely his problem. He sympathized with the other side.
Being ordered to ship out to one of these countries, Hassan now had to decide: which side are you on? Would he choose the side of Allah and the Muslims, to be rewarded in Heaven? Or would he join with the infidels, to be punished with Hell and to betray his religion? He made his decision.
It is interesting that no Muslim debate has developed over a very simple issue: What if two groups of Muslims are fighting, cannot one side with one group, even if it has non-Muslim allies? After all, Americans are not going to Iraq or Afghanistan simply to “kill Muslims” but to defend Muslims from being killed. The Saudis, Kuwaitis, and Egyptians had no problem with using Western troops to save them from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 1991, for example. The Iraqi and Afghan governments, made up of pious Muslims, do the same thing.
Arab nationalists who are Muslims can take this position more easily. But for Islamists the problem is not some abstraction but knowledge that they are fighting a battle to seize control of all Muslim-majority states and indeed perhaps of the entire world.
The true problem, then, is not that some Muslims help infidels kill Muslims, but that some Muslims help infidels kill Islamists. But Hassan never considered this point, which could be quite persuasive to other Muslims in Western militaries.
So, in his thinking, how might Hassan have escaped from that stark choice? Hassan answers that question. Quoting the Koran, he indicated that if the Americans ended the wars, then that would be okay and no killing would be necessary. [Slide 42]
Another alternative is if the Americans accepted Islam or agreed to become subservient to Muslim rulers (dhimmis) and paid a special tax [Slide 43-44].
The third alternative would be if the Muslim Messiah came, destroyed Christianity as a false religion and set off the post-history utopia. [Slide 45]. He didn’t mention another part of this description, which was the murder of all Jews.
A digression is appropriate here. Hassan, although a Palestinian, has never been quoted as attacking Israel or the Jews. This is one more reminder that this struggle isn’t all just about Israel. But it also tells something important about Hassan which also applies to many Muslim radicals in Europe. Hassan is an American. As such he has no other nationality, neither Palestinian nor Arab. He doesn’t support Hamas or Fatah. But he has a religion that directs his thinking. That’s why he is an Islamist and why he supports a generalized Islamist revolutionary movement, al-Qaida.
As one moderate Muslim from Canada pointed out, the clothes he wore the day before committing his Jihad attack was not (as some sources put it in a silly manner) some martyr or even Arab garb but the clothing of Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is an al-Qaida Jihadi, having changed sides in the War on Terror.
Hassan was no fool or blind fanatic. Indeed, he presents a sophisticated view. For example, he quotes contradictory Quranic verses, one suggesting that all religions can enter Heaven; another that all non-Muslims will go to Hell [Slide 47].
His conclusion takes on tremendous significance in light of what would happen at Fort Hood. He writes:
“If Muslim groups can convince Muslims that they are fighting for God against injustices of the `infidels’; i.e., the enemies of Islam, then Muslims can become a potent adversary ie: suicide bombing, etc.”
And of course, these groups did so convince Hassan. [Slide 48]
Why? Hassan tells us:
“God expects full loyalty. Promises heaven and threatens with Hell. Muslims may seem moderate (compromising) but God is not.” [Slide 49]
And at the very end, he proposes what might have been his own escape route:
"Recommendation: Department of Defense should allow Muslim soldiers the option of being released as `Conscientious objectors’ to increase troop morale and decrease adverse events.” [Slide 50]
If that had existed for Hassan, I think, he would not have killed people. This proposal is worth debating, though it has negative implications too, of course. But then he had other options. He could have resigned his commission, deserted, or refused deployment as a conscientious objector and gone to prison. In fact, Hassan himself cited individuals who had done the last two.
Consequently, Hassan's lecture also tells us why Muslims can choose not to be Jihadists, though this requires ignoring or rationalizing clear, religiously binding commandments in their religion or by being basically secular people of Muslim background. This is the kind of solution found in Christianity and Judaism, of course.
Hassan was too pious and consistent to take this way out. The answer to his personal behavior must be found in a mix of psychological factors and political-religious beliefs. The fact is, however, that he clearly did see himself as a Jihad warrior in the end. The existence of psycological factors in no way negates the importance of religious considerations.
All terrorists have some psychological forces working to make them follow such a path. Yet if not for ideological--and in the case of Islamists, religious--beliefs they never would have become terrorists. In contrast, criminals have psychological factors plus material goals, while mentally ill people who commit crimes are compelled by purely psychogical factors. Hassan does not fit either of those two categories.
Equally, his action cannot be attributed to a "misreading" or "heretical" interpretation of Islam. To read this lecture is to understand how carefully and self-critically he approached the issues. Anything so obviously false or deviant from mainstream Islam would simply not appeal to so many Muslims. Hassan was looking for a way out in the texts and listed the "loopholes" he did find: either the United States must not fight anyone who was a Muslim or it must let him out of the military.
What Hassan neglected was an explanation that lay outside what his strict reading of the Muslim texts would allow him to say: the United States must fight, in general, because the Islamists have been the aggressors. And the United States is actually fighting as allies with one group of (more moderate) Muslims against another (of radical Islamists). Yet the texts always deal with the Muslim community as a united whole (the umma), an interpretation that just doesn't correspond with reality. Indeed and ironically, this view enables Islamists to themselves kill thousands of Muslims all over the world!
The fact that Hassan’s lecture has not been the centerpiece of the whole post-massacre debate is a true example of how impoverished are the “experts,” journalists, and politicians at dealing with these issues. Of course, without exploring the Islamic factor, they're wasting everyone's time. They're also going to be wasting quite a few lives.
*Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books, go to http://www.gloria-center.org
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
