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It happened again on Wednesday, December 9, 2009, less than a month after the incident aboard AirTran Flight 297. United Airlines Flight 227, scheduled to depart Denver International Airport at 1:50 pm Wednesday for Los Angeles was disrupted when several passengers who were described as Middle Eastern in appearance, confirmed by this investigator to be a group of Muslims traveling together, were removed from that aircraft due to suspicious behavior that originated in the terminal and continued to the airplane.

LONDON (Reuters) -- Counterterrorism detectives said they had arrested five men in early morning raids today in northwest England. They were being held on suspicion of committing terrorism offenses including inciting an act of terrorism overseas. Police said the suspects, aged 21, 26, 27, 52, and 62, were detained after swoops at homes in Manchester and Bolton, and at a hotel near London's Heathrow Airport. The properties were now being searched.

The Army psychiatrist accused of the Fort Hood massacre apparently acted alone and without outside direction in the attack, investigative officials said Monday evening. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan will be charged by the U.S. military rather than in a civilian court, they said. Although investigative officials portrayed Hasan as a lone wolf, the investigators and a U.S. official disclosed that Hasan communicated 10 to 20 times with a radical imam overseas who in the past came under scrutiny for possible links to terror groups. The investigative officials said the communications began last year and continued into this year and "were...

DETROIT – Federal authorities say a leader of what they describe as a nationwide radical Sunni Islam group has been fatally shot during an FBI raid in the Detroit area. The U.S. attorney's office in Detroit says Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah refused to surrender during an FBI raid Wednesday and was killed in an exchange of gunfire. ..conspiracy to commit several federal crimes, including illegal possession and sale of firearms and theft from interstate shipments.

A 36-year-old Richfield man charged with making terroristic threats during an argument with another man in Wright County has been arrested at O'Hare Airport after skipping out before his trial was to begin this month, authorities in Minnesota said today. Ismail Alqawasmi remains in custody after his arrest at 8 p.m. Thursday, the Wright County Sheriff's Office said. The Chicago-Sun Times reported that Alqawasmi flew into the United States from Amman, Jordan, on Royal Jordanian airlines and a customs official conducting a name check found the warrant on a law enforcement data base, according to police. Alqawasmi was searched and...

A settlement has been reached in the "Flying Imams" federal lawsuit that was filed by six Muslim men who claim they were falsely arrested on a US Airways jet in the Twin Cities three years ago because of their religious and ethnic backgrounds. According to federal court records, a settlement was reached Monday and filed with the court today. A clerk for U.S. Magistrate Judge Arthur Boylan would not comment on a settlement and instead referred questions to attorneys. A New York attorney for the imams Omar Mohammedi, said this afternoon that settlement is "satisfactory to the plaintiffs." Mohammedi added...

Homeland Security: Despite overwhelming support in and out of Congress, legal protection for airline passengers who report suspicious behavior is being blocked by Democratic leaders. Wasn't one 9/11 enough for them? Were it not for the courage and sacrifice of the passengers of United Flight 93 who forced their plane into a Pennsylvania field, many in Congress might not be here today, with a gaping hole where the U.S. Capitol still stands. We wonder if this fact is appreciated by those trying to block final passage of the so-called "John Doe" provision protecting from legal action those who report suspicious...

U.S. District Judge Ann Montgomery cleared the way for their lawsuit to go to August trial. They claim their rights were violated when they were removed from their flight in the Twin Cities.

French anti-terror magistrates wrapped up an investigation into four Islamists who may have helped British shoe bomber Richard Reid in France. Le Parisien reports the suspects include the head of a Paris mosque, the leader of a Pakistani community and two other men. Reid spent several days in Paris before boarding a Miami-bound plane in December 2001 with explosives stuffed in his sneakers. Last year, Reid was sentenced to life in prison by a U.S. court for trying to blow up the flight. One of the French suspects, Imam Kamel Lakhram, reportedly acknowledged to French authorities Reid had slept at...

The four men charged with plotting to blow up two New York synagogues and shoot down military planes converted to Islam while behind bars, a place terror experts say is a cauldron for Islamic radicalism. James Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen were said by friends and family to have become Muslims while in prison, where they began on a path toward terrorist violence that law enforcement officials say is part of a troubling trend in America. "Prisons can play a critical role in both triggering and reinforcing the radicalization process," read a landmark 2007 report from the...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – The Saudi king on Saturday dismissed the chief of the religious police and a cleric who condoned killing the owners of TV networks that broadcast "immoral" content, signaling an effort to weaken the country's hard-line Sunni establishment. The shake-up — King Abdullah's first since coming to power in August 2005 — included the appointment of a female deputy minister, the highest government position a Saudi woman has attained. snip Khashoggi said Faisal has been working behind the scenes on plans to reform education. After the Sept. 11 attacks, carried out by 19 Arabs, including 15 Saudis,...

The jihadist, back from Yemen I have learned from a well-placed source that Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, who killed one soldier and wounded another at a a Little Rock military recruiting center today, and who faces charges of terrorism as well as first-degree murder, has recently returned from Yemen, where he studied jihad with an Islamic scholar there. Apparently the Islamic scholar under whom this American convert to Islam studied was yet another misunderstander of Islam's true, peaceful teachings. More on this as it develops.

A Muslim think tank has found some UK Imams discriminate against women when enforcing Islamic Sharia law. Scholars at the Centre for Islamic Pluralism interviewed 90 Muslims in London, the West Midlands, Lancashire and West Yorkshire. They found some women did not get fair hearings in forced marriage, arranged marriage and domestic violence matters. It comes after an NHS doctor was freed in Bangladesh following claims she was being held there for a forced marriage. Sharia law governs every aspect of a Muslim's life, and Imams or scholars give out rulings on how to live by God's wishes. Some mosques...

SOME Muslim imams condone rape and domestic violence within marriage, exploitation of women, welfare fraud and polygamy, a report has found. The report was based on a study commissioned and funded by the former coalition government and produced by the Islamic Welfare Council of Victoria, Fairfax newspapers report. The report, presented on yesterday at a National Centre for Excellence in Islamic Studies conference at the University of Melbourne, alleged that some Victorian imams: * Apply Sharia law only where it benefits men; * Hinder police investigations of domestic violence claims; and * Knowingly perform polygamous marriages, which allow a second...

YINCHUAN, June 23 (Xinhua) -- At a tiny courtyard mosque in China's most populous Muslim region, Jin Meihua leads other women in prayer and chants. Every day, the 44-year-old dons a black robe and violet scarf and preaches to dozens of women at the Little White Mosque in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous region, where most of the country's Islam-faith Hui ethnic minority live. Jin has a routine life. "Except attending funerals, I always stay in the mosque, teaching the female Muslims Islamic scriptures." She is a female imam or "ahong," pronounced ah-hung, from the Persian word "akhund" for "the...

Lawyers for six Muslim prayer leaders removed from a US Airways jet at Twin Cities International Airport in 2006 told a federal magistrate Monday that they want the airline to divulge 10 years' worth of discrimination complaints so they could compare the airline's behavior before and after the September 2001 terrorist attacks. Attorneys representing the airline argued they should have to turn over just three years' worth of such data. The reason, said one: 9/11 changed everything. "The bottom line is we're in a post-9/11 world," US Airways attorney Dane Jaques told U.S. Magistrate Arthur Boylan. "Procedures changed. The world...

The government is to sponsor a theological board of leading imams and Muslim women in an attempt to refute the ideology of violent extremists. The committee, to be announced this week, will issue pronouncements on areas such as wearing the hijab and the treatment of wives and is part of a government strategy to counter radicalism. It will rule on interpretation of the Koran and promote the moderate strain of Islam practised by most British Muslims. It will also comment on controversial issues affecting Muslims living in Britain, including whether or not they should serve in the armed forces. Its...

Summary: If the limits to growth analysis of our predicament is correct we have no choice but to undertake radical changes in lifestyles, values, the geography of our settlements and especially change to a different economy. We must move to The Simpler Way. The required alternative society must involve far lower rates of per capita resource consumption and environmental damage. This must mean materially simpler lifestyles, in highly self-sufficient and cooperative communities, within an economy that is not driven by market forces and profit and that does not grow over time. The Simpler Way would not involve hardship or giving...

One of two outspoken Muslim clerics scheduled to speak at St. Cloud State University this week is unable to attend, the school said today. The clerics were booked as part of St. Cloud's Islam Awareness Week, which started Monday. Siraj Wahhaj was supposed to speak Thursday on the topic "What is Jihad?" The school was unaware of a reason for his inability to participate. Wahhaj was also scheduled to speak to other college student groups in the state this week. His appearance at the University of Minnesota has also been canceled, said Lolla Mohammed Nur, a U student organizer. Wahhaj,...

The Swedish government is to set up an inquiry to look into the possibility of using state funds to provide training programmes for imams. Muslim religious representatives should be able to benefit from Swedish tax kronor in the same way as Christian priests and ministers, according to Minster for Higher Education and Research Lars Leijonborg. The former Liberal Party leader also believes that the move will help stem the development of radical Islam in Sweden. "It has been suggested that radical Muslims from Saudi Arabia are offering to provide imams for free, and a lack of money means that moderate...

Attempts to reform British mosques and win back a “lost generation” of young Muslims are being undermined by the poor quality of home-trained imams, a leading Islamic scholar says. Musharraf Hussain, a government adviser on mosques, said that most of the country’s Islamic seminaries were producing “unemployable” graduates who were incapable of challenging the sense of alienation that led some Muslims towards violent extremism. His concerns were voiced as it emerged that a rift is opening between the Government and four Muslim organisations over moves to introduce national guidelines for Britain’s 1,350 mosques. The initiative aims to make mosques more...

The secret war On the North-West Frontier, soldiers are trying to tighten the noose around bin Laden's forces. But in Europe and America, there is no clear enemy to fight - yet every expert knows that a terrorist atrocity is coming Mark Townsend in Tangier, John Hooper in Madrid, Greg Bearup in Peshawar, Paul Harris in Washington, Peter Beaumont in Baghdad, Antony Barnett, Martin Bright, Jason Burke and Nick Pelham in London Sunday March 21, 2004 The Observer There were shadows in the rocks. As the 12 US Special Forces soldiers arrived at a remote mountain region in eastern Afghanistan...

A federal judge has ruled that a lawsuit filed by a group of imams against US Airways and a Minneapolis airport can proceed. U.S. District Judge Ann Montgomery said in a 41-page opinion late yesterday that the imams, who say they were discriminated against when they were removed from a flight last year, have a plausible claim that their constitutional rights may have been violated. The imams "have adequately stated a claim" that airport police may have "seized plaintiffs in violation of their Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures," Judge Montgomery ruled.

The Netherlands, one reads, has come to accept that magistrates require a generous range of motion to prevent radical clerics from "exercising their profession." But empowering judges will clearly not suffice to promote the "integration" of imams, or to groom a crop of clerics attuned to Western values. So while lawmakers across the Continent consider means to douse inflammatory speech and detain troublemakers "constitutionally," it's time again to consider l'exception française.France, far from those "Cheese-eating surrender monkeys" depicted in "The Simpsons," has distinguished itself (since the Paris terror bombings of 1986, especially) as a nation uniquely disposed to trample toes...

The Paris Grand Mosque and the city's Catholic university are teaming up to offer university education for imams to promote moderate Islam and help integrate foreign-born Muslim prayer leaders in France. The privately-run Catholic Institute of Paris will launch a two-semester course on French politics, law and secularism in January for future imams studying Islamic theology at the Grand Mosque, officials of both institutions told Reuters. France has tried for several years to boost imam training. The Sorbonne and public university in Paris declined to take on the task because they said it violated the legal separation of church and...

The Pakistani authorities have confirmed the American findings that the imams of three mosques arrested on November 15 in Boston happen to be the close relatives of the founder of the deadly Lashkar-e-Toiba, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, who now heads the Jamaatul Daawa. Pakistani interior ministry sources said that the three Boston-based imams — Hafiz Muhammad Hannan Hafiz Muhammad Masood and Hafiz Mohammad Hamid — are close relatives of Hafiz Muhammad Saeed. The sources said they have informed the American authorities that while Hafiz Muhammad Masood and Hafiz Hamid happen to be the real brother of Saeed, Hafiz Muhammad Hannan is...

Flying Lying Imams' conspiracy theories The Garbage "holiness", Muslim Mullahs' despicable industry of "conspiracy theories" on the Islamic attack of September 11, 2001 This is the story of 'flying Imams', no, not that one in which they've managed to put fears into ordinary passengers with "holy-Islamic" Pro bloodthirsty Bin-Laden statements, that the "moderate" terrorists organizations' front goup: CAIR tried to "defend" afterwards. This is about [though the same type of] imams that are in the line of how to commit the crime upon crime, after the Islamic murdering innocent people on 9/11/2001, how to add yet another Islamic crime,...

A group of Muslim imams today dropped all charges in a federal lawsuit levied against "John Doe" airline passengers for reporting the men's suspicious behavior that led to their removal from a U.S. Airways flight last year.

Should citizens -- acting in good faith to report suspicious activity -- be subjected to lawsuits by Islamic activists? Democrats think so. Last week, they attempted to strip away the “John Doe” provision from the new Homeland Security Department legislation. For now, they have failed. Reps. Peter King (R-NY) and Steven Pearce’s (R.-NM) “John Doe” amendment was crafted after a group of Muslim activists filed a lawsuit against U.S. Airways and the undisclosed passengers who complained about abnormal behavior that resulted in the now-infamous flying imams’ removal from the plane on November 20, 2006. The King-Pearce amendment, which creates a...

Preach in English, Muslim peer tells imams By Tom Harper, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 11:57pm BST 21/07/2007 Mosques should be banned from recruiting foreign preachers unless they speak excellent English, according to a senior Muslim politician. Inayat Bunglawala called the plan 'completely unworkable' In an attempt to tackle Islamic extremism, Lord Ahmed of Rotherham called for imams from overseas who apply to preach in Britain to undergo strict language and "Britishness" tests in their countries of origin. Those who refused would be denied entry to the UK. The peer also called for non-English speaking imams already in Britain to be...

Congress fails to adopt lawsuit guards WASHINGTON, July 20 (UPI) -- Protection from lawsuits for wrongly reporting suspicious behavior has failed to pass the U.S. Congress. The legislation was inspired by a suit brought by a group of Muslim imams who were removed from a U.S. Airways flight to Phoenix before it left Minneapolis last November, The Washington Times reported. Some passengers on the plane said they had seen the imams, behaving suspiciously by praying together before boarding. The imams, who were allowed to leave after several hours of FBI questioning, sued the airline, the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Airports Commission...

A Muslim cleric has claimed to have been tortured with electric shocks, left in a cell where rats crawled on him and threatened with rape after he was allegedly kidnapped from a Milan street by CIA agents three years ago.The claims of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, appeared in an affidavit provided to Milan prosecutors investigating his alleged abduction in February 2003, the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported yesterday. Prosecutors say that the cleric, who was formerly suspected of links to terrorism, was driven to the Aviano military air base and flown via Germany to...

Religious organizations are raising an unholy ruckus over proposed changes in religious worker visa regulations that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services says would reduce rampant fraud in the program, reports The Washington Post: [R]eligious organizations that increasingly serve immigrant populations cite a need to bring in workers with the spiritual, cultural and linguistic expertise to serve them.Religious worker visas are used to bring in Catholic nuns, Hebrew teachers, Muslim imams and Baptist church administrators, among other workers. In 2006, more than 11,000 of the visas were issued, most to natives of Korea, Israel and India.Religious organizations say no other...

US Airways is asking a court to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a group of Muslim imams, saying the airline followed government guidelines when it removed the men from a flight because of suspicious behavior. The response to the lawsuit, filed March 12 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, says the airline "is required to adhere to the main points of the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) Common Strategy regarding security threats in the aviation context."

A Chicago expert and others say a cultural rift is forming between U.S.-born Muslims and foreign imams brought into the country to lead services at mosques. Although foreign imams lead 85 percent of non-African-American mosques in the United States, many in the younger generation of Muslims have a difficult time connecting with the religious leaders, The Christian Science Monitor reported Thursday. "There is a strong feeling that not just the immigrant imams but also the first generation often can't relate very well to the society around them," said Umar Abd-Allah, chairman of Nawawi, a Chicago-based group that aims to provide...

The Swedish government is ready to invest in the education of imams. But Muslim organizations must first reach agreement regarding their needs, said Education Minister Lars Leijonborg when the issue was discussed in parliament on Tuesday. Leijonborg's approach was criticized however by Social Democrat member of parliament Luciano Astudillo, who argued that the time for waiting was over. He felt that a third level institution should immediately be given the task of setting a curriculum based on consultation with Muslim interest groups. There are around 400,000 Muslims living in Sweden, ranging from the wholly secular to the most devout. According...

A London-based Muslim cleric was arrested by anti-terrorist officers on Monday amid allegations that he urged Muslims to kill Jews and non-believers, police sources said. Abdullah el-Faisal, 38, was seized by Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch officers in a dawn raid at his home in east London on Monday. Born in Jamaica and a convert to Islam, he had been touring Britain urging followers to kill Jews and non-believers, police said. Members of parliament had called for action to be taken against the cleric after it was reported that video tapes carrying his message were on sale in Islamic bookshops in ...

During a terror raid in Manchester, England, British police officers searched an Al Qaeda member's home and discovered a manual outlining terrorists' tactics for jihad. The manual, available through the Department of Justice's Archive, is particularly interesting in its behind-the-scenes revelations about how terrorists gather intelligence about their enemy and conduct espionage in the enemy's camp. The manual offers by-example reconnaissance tactics, citing spies doing fieldwork in such diverse situations as the Tel Aviv airport in the 1970's and a British post office during World War I. My favorite is the episode involving ancient Roman spies who got the better...

Since I last wrote in December about our now infamous local Phoenix "political" imams, the story has developed even further. It is now entering the court system as the next venue for the victimization agenda. While in November I was chagrined by the imams" choice to trumpet to the public their own victimization in the name of all Muslims, now with the filing of their lawsuit, I found it necessary that Muslims who are not of like mind must push back publicly and break down this false assumption of a monolithic American Muslim community. The inappropriateness I expressed about the...

IN NOVEMBER, US Airways kicked six imams off a plane bound for Phoenix from Minneapolis. According to news reports, passengers and crew had become spooked watching some of the imams pray by the gate, then after boarding, saw the imams move around the plane as they spoke in Arabic -- some said the imams spoke of Saddam Hussein, which the imams deny. They said that the imams also and requested seat-belt extenders -- heavy metal objects -- which some feared could be used as weapons. The imams then were questioned and released without being charged. Last month, the imams filed...

The British government on Thursday took a first step toward regulating Muslim religious leaders and mosques, declaring that imams working in government prisons and hospitals would be required to meet certain criteria, including a good grasp of English. In addition, the minister of local government and communities, Ruth Kelly, said the government planned to offer financial benefits to mosques that registered as charities and showed themselves willing to take an anti-radical stand. Speaking at a mosque known as the Muslim Cultural Heritage Center, in Ladbroke Grove, a relatively affluent area of west London, Kelly appeared to take the matter of...

MIDI - WINNIE THE POOH - first version They all acted quite suspiciously...when they'd gotten on the flight Passengers noticed something strange...and what they did wasn't quite right They said their prayers twice...that's once too much...what did those six have in mind CAIR's stepping up and crying foul...hey, CAIR, come and kiss my behind They are the Flying Imams, Flying Imams...were they really trying to get arrested Flying Imams, Flying Imams...what were those guys trying to do They are the Flying Imams, Flying Imams...with this stuff our patience is really tested Flying Imams, Flying Imams...they just got a lawyer...

Why must Democrats constantly defend against charges that they can’t be trusted on issues of national security? Well, consider what went on in the House of Representatives last Wednesday night. Various members of the House majority had just spent 30 minutes in self-praise over the $7.3 billion transportation-security bill, calling it long-overdue relief for millions of Americans. Then Rep. Peter King (R-L.I.) rose to propose an amendment directed at a dangerous new threat to national security. His motion was a response to the “John Doe” lawsuit filed by six “Flying Imams.” Last November, the six were ejected from a US...

Air Security: We've urged Congress to pass a law that protects airlines that kick suspicious passengers off planes from being sued. The House of Representatives has passed legislation that's about halfway there. By a 304-121 vote on Tuesday, the House passed the Rail and Public Transportation Security Act of 2007 with added language that protects passengers who report suspicious activity from lawsuits. The one-sided vote was something of a surprise. We expected more resistance in a House controlled by Democrats who are normally so observant of political correctness and solicitous of the trial bar. Which is not to say that...

House Republicans yesterday surprised Democrats with a procedural vote to protect public-transportation passengers from being sued if they report suspicious activity -- the first step by lawmakers to protect "John Doe" airline travelers already targeted in such a lawsuit. After a heated debate and calls for order, the motion to recommit the Democrats' Rail and Public Transportation Security Act of 2007 back to committee with instructions to add the protective language passed on a vote of 304-121. All 121 of the "no" votes were cast by Democrats, while 199 Republicans and 105 Democrats voted in favor. Republicans said the lawsuit...

CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) was handed a victory of sorts on C-SPAN's Washington Journal call-in show this morning. The subject was the "civil rights" lawsuit CAIR attorneys have filed on behalf of the flying imams, whose highly suspicious actions last November led to their ejection from a US Airways plane prior to takeoff. Open for discussion was this morning's USA Today opinion piece which bared the "chilling effects" of CAIR's effort to obtain the names of passengers who reported the imams' threatening behavior. These on-the-ball citizens, along with many airline employees, have actually been named as "John Doe" defendants...

AUSTRALIA'S high-ranking Islamic clerics have shown they are out of touch with the mainstream by allowing Sheik Taj al-Din al-Hilali to remain as spiritual leader, says Prime Minister John Howard. Mr Howard said today that while the imams had the right to appoint whoever they wanted as mufti, they had shown they were out of touch with mainstream Australia by re-endorsing a man who compared women to uncovered meat. "They're exercising their right, it's not our power or right to appoint religious leaders. But I think they're doing their community damage," Mr Howard said on Sky News. "I remain very...

Australia's imams say they will replace controversial Muslim cleric Sheik Taj Aldin Alhilali later this year with a spiritual leader who is more sensitive to "Australian culture and values". About 60 members of the Australian National Imams Council (ANIC) met on Sunday in the south-western Sydney suburb of Lakemba where they decided to reinstate Sheik Alhilali as Australia's mufti, but only for the next three months. A spokesman for the imams, Dr Mohamad Abdalla, said the conference formed an executive board of 15 members which would consult with the wider Muslim community in Australia in order to form a Council...

Hill bill protects flying public By Audrey Hudson THE WASHINGTON TIMES March 24, 2007 House Republicans are pushing legislation to protect airline passengers from lawsuits for reporting suspicious behavior that might be linked to a terrorist attack. Rep. Steve Pearce, New Mexico Republican, introduced the Protecting Americans Fighting Terrorism Act of 2007 on Thursday, a week after a lawsuit was filed by a group of Muslim imams who were taken off a US Airways flight in November. It is "unconscionable" that those who report suspicious activity could be "terrorized in our own court system in our own country," Mr. Pearce...

Some imams' recent comments have been deemed offensive Islamic clerics in Australia are being encouraged to volunteer as firemen and lifeguards, to improve the image of the Muslim community. The request came from Tom Zreika, president of the influential Lebanese Muslim Association, in a report set to be discussed by clerics this weekend. Mr Zreika said Muslims had become as unpopular as communists once were. He also said that any imams who felt they could not comply with Australian law should leave the country. As head of the largest Islamic organisation in Australia, Mr Zreika's views hold a lot...