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Rob Malley, a Middle East policy adviser to likely Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama, resigned after news surfaced that he had been meeting with Hamas -- something Obama pledged he himself would never do. Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said Saturday Malley called the Obama campaign on Friday to sever ties with the candidate after learning the Times of London was publishing a story about his contacts with the terrorist group. He told NBC News that his job "is to meet with all sorts of savory and unsavory people and report on what they say. I've never denied whom...

NEW YORK — Can it be true? That Islamic schools in the United States teach hatred towards American Christians and Jews? The Washington Post on Monday revealed that one such school outside Washington, D.C., uses textbooks teaching 11th graders that "the Day of Judgment can't come until Jesus Christ returns to Earth, breaks the cross and converts everyone to Islam, and until Muslims start attacking Jews." Other accredited Islamic schools in America have world maps on classroom walls that exclude Israel. Some such schools promote class discussions that portray Usama bin Laden as "simply the victim of … prejudice" against...

Situated within a dense forest at the foothills of the Catskill Mountains on the outskirts of Hancock, New York, Islamberg is not an ideal place for a summer vacation unless, of course, you are an exponent of the Jihad or a fan of Osama bin Laden. The 70 acre complex is surrounded with "No trespassing" signs; the rocky terrain is infested with rattlesnakes; and the woods are home to black bears, coyotes, wolves, and a few bobcats.

A great deal has been reported - and misreported - about the religious affiliation of Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama. He has been described in the media as both a Muslim and a Christian. His alleged Islamic affiliation derives from his middle name, Hussein, which certain sleazy pundits and bigots are quick to associate by innuendo with terrorism. In fact, Hussein is a popular Arab and Islamic name. It means "good," "proper" or "handsome." Just because there was once an Iraqi dictator with the same name doesn't mean that all Husseins are questionable. A great ally of the United...

A prominent member of al Qaeda was killed in fighting with U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, the group said in a statement posted on an Islamist website on Sunday. Abu Suleiman al-Otaibi, formerly one of the group's leaders in Iraq, was killed in a "fierce battle with the worshipers of the cross" in Paktia, it said without giving the date of the battle. Another al Qaeda member, identified as Abu Dejana al-Qahtani, also died in the fighting, it added. Afghan officials said they had no information on the report. But the government earlier said in a statement that "five opposition" fighters...

DHAKA, Bangladesh – Muslim villagers in Mymensingh district eager to rid the area of the Christian work of a local pastor have gang-raped his 13-year-old daughter. Pastor Motilal Das of United Bethany Church said that at around 3 a.m. on Friday (May 2) the villagers sexually assaulted his daughter, Elina Das, and left her unconscious in front of his house in an attempt to drive him and his Christian ministry out of Laksmipur village in Fulbaria sub-district, 120 kilometers (75 miles) north of the capital. Local residents have long been angry with him for his ministry and evangelism, he said,...

DEBKAfile’s military sources report: Hizballah’s advance on two key Lebanese locations Saturday, May 10 had immediate effect on the strategic balance between the Iran-backed Shiite group and Israel. Sidon in the south, Lebanon’s second largest city, which provides Hizballah with control of a continuous coastal strip from its southern Beirut district all the way to Tyre. The second point is on the northern slopes of the Hermon range. After Hizballah seizes control of this enclave and the Syrian 10th and 14th armored divisions step over the border into Lebanon, the two forces can join to form a strong military line...

The Lebanese army has defied the country's government and bowed to demands by pro-Iranian Hizbollah militants who brought the country to the brink of civil war. Senior officers refused to implement a decree from the prime minister, Fouad Siniora, who had ordered the dismantling of Hizbollah's telephone network and sacked an airport security chief sympathetic to the Shia militia. The government's plan provoked Hizbollah into sending its gunmen on to the streets of Beirut, sparking three days of intensive fighting that left half the capital in the militia's control. Hizbollah's move was denounced yesterday by Mr Siniora as a "coup",...

And Now, the Islamophobia Observatory Sat, May 10, 2008 at 6:08:43 pm PDT Who says Islamic nations aren’t coming up with ground-breaking, innovative research? The 57 nations of the Organization of the Islamic Conference are opening a new observatory! No, not that kind of observatory, silly. This kind: =============================================== Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu has stated that a project called the Islamophobia Observatory has been launched in order to eliminate the worldwide waves of fear of Islam. [Good luck with that. – ed.] Ihsanoglu cited the commonsensical intellectual reaction of the Danish public following cartoons published...

Two weeks after The Observer revealed the shocking story of Rand Abdel-Qader, 17, murdered because of her infatuation with a British solider in Basra, southern Iraq, her father is defiant. Sitting in the front garden of his well-kept home in the city's Al-Fursi district, he remains a free man, despite having stamped on, suffocated and then stabbed his student daughter to death. Abdel-Qader, 46, a government employee, was initially arrested but released after two hours. Astonishingly, he said, police congratulated him on what he had done. 'They are men and know what honour is,' he said. Rand, who was studying...

Two weeks ago, The Observer revealed how 17-year-old student Rand Abdel-Qader was beaten to death by her father after becoming infatuated with a British soldier in Basra. In this remarkable interview, Abdel-Qader Ali explains why he is unrepentant - and how police backed his actions. Afif Sarhan in Basra and Caroline Davies report * Afif Sarhan in Basra and Caroline Davies * The Observer, * Sunday May 11 2008 For Abdel-Qader Ali there is only one regret: that he did not kill his daughter at birth. 'If I had realised then what she would become, I would have killed her...

Anjem Choudary is famous for his "Killing of Non-Muslims is Legitimate" comment.

History textbooks being used by hundreds of thousands of public school students across the U.S. are blatantly promoting Islam, according to a new report by an independent organization that researches and reviews textbooks. WND has reported several times on issues involving the promotion of Islam in public school texts, including a recent situation in which California parents complained their children were being taught that "jihad" to Muslims means "doing good works. The new report is from the American Textbook Council, which was established in 1989 as an independent national research organization to review social studies textbooks and advance the quality...

Hundreds of ethnic Albanians in Pristina, Kosovo's capital, have protested against Serbia's plans to hold elections in Kosovo on Sunday. The protesters said the United Nations' interim Kosovo mission (Unmik) and the Kosovo government were responsible for failing to use their powers to prevent the elections from going ahead. During Friday's protest, the demonstrators dumped rubbish in front of the UN mission and government buildings. Albin Kurti, leader of the Self-determination Youth Movement, said the rubbish symbolised what the protesters thought of the Unmik and government decision to ignore the polls. The Serbian government, which staunchly opposes Kosovo's move, is...

What does the crisis in Lebanon teach us about Hezbollah? It teaches us the same lesson we learned from Hamas when it took Gaza: Islamic supremacist groups, despite their claims to the contrary, cannot be integrated into states or democratic political systems. We have heard for many years from an array of journalists, scholars, and pundits that Hamas and Hezbollah are complicated social movements that employ violence in the service of their political goals, and that they are therefore susceptible to diplomatic engagement. Such tropes about Hamas have become standard — that there should be a Fatah-Hamas unity government, that...

The sharia creeps in Canada are making noise again. The Religion of Perpetual Outrage strikes anew.

Students Test Public Reactions To Hijab Scarves By ELIZABETH DORAN   Senior Katie Yates, 18, left, and junior Hannah Fuller, 16, students at Manlius Pebble Hill High School in DeWitt, N.Y., wear hijab scarves in a grocery store as a part of an exercise in an 'Introduction to Islam' class. (Photo by Michelle Gabel)     DEWITT, N.Y. — Manlius Pebble Hill teacher Haleh Seraji explained to her students studying Islam about her personal decision not to wear the hijab, telling them she thinks it identifies her instantly as a Muslim woman and could subject her to harassment.Born in Iran,...

Scotland's first Muslim Police Association is being created in an attempt to encourage more Muslims to join and stay in the force. Strathclyde Police hopes the group will also help tackle Islamophobia and improve understanding of Islam. Pc Amar Shakoor, who was Scotland's first Muslim officer, said negativity had recently been directed towards the Muslim community. He said the association hoped to put Islam in a more positive light. "We want to highlight some of the positive things Islam can provide to the communities and not just the police services," he said. According to Pc Shakoor, since the 9/11 World...

British Muslims perform their traditional prayers By 2035, there will be about 1.96 million active Muslims in Britain, compared with 1.63 million church-going Christians, according to calculations by Christian Research, a think- tank. The figures are published in the latest in a series of reports entitled Religious Trends. The think-tank has warned that 4,000 churches could close by 2020 if congregations continue to shrink at current rates. According to the most recent figures from the Church of England, regular Sunday, weekly and monthly attendance each fell by one per cent in 2006. Fewer than a million people attend church...

Six translations of Qur'an 4:34: "Men are superior to women on account of the qualities with which God has gifted the one above the other, and on account of the outlay they make from their substance for them. Virtuous women are obedient, careful, during the husband's absence, because God has of them been careful. But chide those for whose refractoriness you have cause to fear; remove them into beds apart, and scourge them: but if they are obedient to you, then seek not occasion against them: verily, God is High, Great!" (Rodwell's version of the Koran, Quran, 4:34) "Men have...

The world is witnessing a terrible human rights crime in Gaza, where a million and a half human beings are being imprisoned with almost no access to the outside world. An entire population is being brutally punished. This gross mistreatment of the Palestinians in Gaza was escalated dramatically by Israel, with United States backing, after political candidates representing Hamas won a majority of seats in the Palestinian Authority parliament in 2006. The election was unanimously judged to be honest and fair by all international observers. Israel and the US refused to accept the right of Palestinians to form a unity...

Islamic militants in Pakistan's tribal areas, which border Afghanistan have issued a decree banning music from mobile phone ringtones and vehicles in tribal areas of the country. A spokesman for the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Maulana Faqir Mohammed said, the they would not allow commuters to play music in their cars or use musical ringtones on mobile phones. He warned that offenders would be punished according to Shariah laws. Maulana Faqir Mohammed has been an outlaw in the region due to his reported close contact with Taliban and al-Qaeda elements. He has however been disowned by the tribal elders, who in 2006...

The Bush administration's campaign to spread democracy in the Arab and Islamic world is in danger of imploding. The next administration will have to pick up the pieces. At a recent conference in Qatar on relations between the West and Islam, Afghan President Hamid Karzai spoke of a dichotomy in power and perception between the two cultures, a split that extremists have tried to provoke into a "clash of civilizations." Few are more familiar with that divide than Karzai, a former mujahedeen who fought the Soviets in the 1980s and pleaded unsuccessfully with the United States not to abandon Afghanistan...

Saying "I divorce thee" three times, as men in Muslim countries have been able to do for centuries when leaving their wives, is not enough if you're a resident of Maryland, the state's highest court ruled yesterday. Yesterday, the Court of Appeals rejected a Pakistani man's argument that his invocation of the Islamic talaq, under which a marriage is dissolved simply by the husband's say-so, allowed him to part with his wife of more than 20 years and deny her a share of his $2 million estate. The justices affirmed a lower court's decision overturning a divorce decree obtained in...

The leadership of the Germantown Masjid has refused to conduct funeral services for Howard Cain, the bank robber who killed Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski with a Chinese-made semi-automatic rifle. "No, we will not bury him at Germantown Masjid," said Tariq El Shabazz, managing director of the mosque. "We don't want one slight scintilla hinting that we condone his behavior."

It's official: We're fighting . . . terrorists. You can also call them violent extremists if you like, but never use jihadist or mujahedeen or Islamo-fascist to describe our enemy. These words are deemed pejorative and offensive, according to a recent Bush administration memorandum to federal employees whose jobs involve explaining our ongoing war to the public. I didn't get the memo, but the headline on the Associated Press story caught my eye. Two years ago at the National Press Club I challenged the president to go on a communications offensive here at home to redefine the war. I argued...

On the inside back cover of books published by Gallup Press there is the following breathtaking statement: Gallup Press exists to educate and inform the people who govern, manage, teach and lead the world's six billion citizens. Each book meets Gallup's requirements of integrity, trust and independence and is based on a Gallup-approved science and research. Don't be distracted by the bad grammar. Focus instead on Gallup's "requirements of integrity, trust and independence." Thanks to a remarkable admission by a coauthor of Gallup's new bestseller Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think, we are now able to...

BAGHDAD — A former Kuwaiti detainee at the United States prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was one of the bombers in a string of deadly suicide attacks in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul last month, the American military said Wednesday. Meanwhile, the Iraqi foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, urged American and Iranian officials to return to talks about Iraqi security, but said he understood that it was a difficult moment for reconciliation between the countries. Cmdr. Scott Rye, a spokesman for the American military, identified one of the Mosul bombers as Abdullah Salim Ali al-Ajmi, a Kuwaiti man who...

The practice of political correctness may soon be tallying another casualty: the pig. Increasingly, as America and the rest of the Western world continue accommodating Muslim religious demands, pork food products are being singled out for removal from dining tables and pig-related trinkets banished from the desks of office workers. If this continues, good ol’ American food, such as barbeque replete with hot dogs and ribs and the typical American breakfast of eggs, bacon and sausage, might be seen as the equivalent of political poison. Could outright censorship of pig depictions in drawings, pig references in literary works and pig...

Our enemy says he is fighting jihad warfare to extend the Islamic faith; the basis of that claim rests on his exegesis of Quranic and Islamic Law injunctions. Irrespective of whether we or other Muslims accept or deny the legitimacy of his claim, if that is his stated doctrine, then that is the doctrine we must study and comprehend. That is the doctrine that will provide the indicators and warnings of future threats, that is the basis of our threat model. That fact that other Muslims do not engage in violent jihad bears no relevance to our problem set or...

TEHRAN: Iranian officials accused the US and Britain of having links to a group responsible for a mosque explosion last month that killed 14 people and injured more than 200, the official news agency reported on Thursday. Immediately after the April 12 blast in the southern city of Shiraz, Iranian officials said it was caused by a homemade bomb. The following day, the government changed the account and said it was caused by ammunition leftover from a recent military exhibition in the mosque. But Thursday's report by the official news agency IRNA again suggested the explosion was an attack, not...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iran is making allies in Latin America to counter Washington's traditional influence in the region and could use them to threaten U.S. security, a top U.S. diplomat said on Wednesday. "We are worried that in the event of a conflict with Iran, that it would attempt to use its presence in the region to conduct such activities against us," Thomas Shannon, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, told Reuters. Left-wing governments in Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia have all become allies of Iran in recent years, and other countries in Latin America have...

The recent parliamentary and presidential elections, Putin’s high popularity rating and an apparently smooth transition to his successor, Medvedev, should not deceive the observer into viewing them as indicators of the country’s absolute stability. While it is true that the rich have become even richer, and the emergent middle class has also benefited from the regime’s prosperity, the windfall of money is not merely of benefit to a comparatively small segment of Russian society – it continues to exercise its principal focus on a few regions and big cities. Provincial Russia continues to be mostly left behind. And there are...

For a wanted terrorist, al Qaeda's powerful deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, maintains an unusually high media profile, regularly releasing lengthy audio statements that are scrutinized carefully by his followers, as well as counterterrorism experts. Last December, Zawahiri invited supporters of the terrorist group to log on to several password-protected jihadist online forums and send questions to him, and his first set of answers presented another opportunity to analyze his words. But he also unwittingly provided a glimpse into some of the issues that al Qaeda supporters and sympathizers are thinking about these days. Experts at the U.S. Defense Department managed...

Practising Muslims 'will outnumber Christians by 2035' Last Updated: 2:41AM BST 08/05/2008 Practising Muslims will outnumber worshipping Christians in Britain within 30 years, according to research published today. By 2035, there will be about 1.96 million active Muslims in Britain, compared with 1.63 million church-going Christians, according to calculations by Christian Research, a think- tank. The figures are published in the latest in a series of reports entitled Religious Trends. The think-tank has warned that 4,000 churches could close by 2020 if congregations continue to shrink at current rates. According to the most recent figures from the Church of England,...

Silvio Berlusconi's re-election as Italy's Prime Minister is more promising and more important for Italy and the United States, and for trans-Atlantic relations generally, than most commentators have admitted. Although the Bush Administration has just nine months left in office, significant progress is both possible and desirable in enhancing ties between America and Europe. President Bush's critics have been quick to assign him blame for weakened trans-Atlantic relations, particularly because of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. They argue that public opinion polls show European popular sentiments turning against the United States. They gloat that two of Bush's staunchest personal and...

Well, we did the TVO show and I doubt it was Must-See TV, even by the standards of Canadian public broadcasting. I succeeded in bouncing the Sock Puppets into agreeing to a face-to-face discussion, though it wasn't my finest hour or theirs. I believe the final words of the show were me saying, "Do you wanna go to dinner?", and Khurrum Awan yelling back, "No." We didn't go for dinner, but we did have a relatively pleasant conversation after the broadcast that I thought was much more productive than the show. Khurrum was a bit chippy but the two ladies,...

Gallup says only 7 percent of the world's Muslims are political radicals. Yet 36 percent think the 9/11 attacks were in some way justified.On the inside back cover of books published by Gallup Press there is the following breathtaking statement: Gallup Press exists to educate and inform the people who govern, manage, teach and lead the world's six billion citizens. Each book meets Gallup's requirements of integrity, trust and independence and is based on a Gallup-approved science and research. Don't be distracted by the bad grammar. Focus instead on Gallup's "requirements of integrity, trust and independence." Thanks to a remarkable...

A COUNCILLOR today called for more control over advertising posters in "culturally sensitive" areas of Birmingham. Coun Talib Hussain made his plea after a billboard on the corner of Sydenham Road and Golden Hillock Road, in predominantly Muslim Sparkbrook, was defaced. The hoarding, close to mosques in Anderton Road and Golden Hillock Road and visible to parents and children walking to Montgomery Primary School, promotes Matalan's new swimwear range and features three scantily-clad models. The models have been covered in thick white paint to conceal bare flesh. Coun Talib Hussain (Ind, Sparkbrook) criticised the vandalism but said it was a...

When some parents at Prairie View Middle School asked for a separate lunch table for their children during the Ramadan fast, Principal Joel Martin thought the request seemed reasonable. As long as the gathering of fasting students didn't disrupt and didn't cost the district anything, Martin had no qualm with offering the religious accommodation. » Click to enlarge image Ryan Vandewiel collected about 60 signatures on a petition at Prairie View School to have the administration set aside lunch tables for practicing Catholics during the Lenten season. (Carol Dorsett/SouthtownStar) If you go ... The Kirby School District 140 board will...

Iraqi security forces were the apparent target in last week's blast The Associated Press updated 1:35 p.m. ET, Wed., May. 7, 2008 SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The U.S. military confirmed Wednesday that a former Guantanamo detainee from Kuwait carried out a recent suicide attack in northern Iraq. A spokesman for U.S. military's Central Command told The Associated Press that Abdallah Salih al-Ajmi took part in an attack in Mosul. U.S. Navy Cmdr. Scott Rye said authorities don't know the motive for the attack, which was reported last week by Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television. Iraqi security forces were apparently targeted. The...

Incident in Ankara marks seventh threat of violence in past four months. ISTANBUL, May 7 (Compass Direct News) – Three men, one of them armed with a gun and wearing gloves, threatened a Protestant church and its pastor in the Turkish capital city of Ankara yesterday. The culprits fled in a car before police could be summoned. The attempted attack marked the seventh incident in the past four months of threatened violence against Turkey’s tiny Protestant community, most of whom are former Muslims who converted to Christianity. Shortly before 6 p.m. Tuesday (May 6), three men drove up in a...

Saying "I divorce thee" three times, as men in Muslim countries have been able to do for centuries when leaving their wives, is not enough if you're a resident of Maryland, the state's highest court ruled yesterday. Yesterday, the Court of Appeals rejected a Pakistani man's argument that his invocation of the Islamic talaq, under which a marriage is dissolved simply by the husband's say-so, allowed him to part with his wife of more than 20 years and deny her a share of his $2 million estate. The justices affirmed a lower court's decision overturning a divorce decree obtained in...

Food riots and anti-US protests in Somalia are compounding the chaos in the long-suffering war zone in the Horn of Africa. Meanwhile, an Amnesty International Report released Tuesday alleged that Islamist militants, as well as US-backed Ethiopian and Somali government troops, are committing widespread atrocities against civilians in the capital, Mogadishu. And a recent US strike against what it says was an Al Qaeda leader in Somalia has sparked further protests. The Associated Press reports that Tuesday saw a second day of protests over rising food prices, with hundreds of youths burning tires, throwing stones, and blocking roads. Somalia is...

KHAR, Pakistan (AFP) — A Pakistani Taliban leader has warned local tribesmen to grow beards within the next two months in accordance with Islamic teachings or face harsh punishment, residents said Monday. The threat came amid an apparent increase in incidents of militants trying to enforce Islamic Sharia law in Pakistan's tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, where the new government is trying to make peace with hardliners. "Men must grow beards and stop shaving within the next two months," residents quoted senior Taliban commander Maulvi Faqir Mohammad as telling dozens of people at a mosque in Khar, the main town in...

I wrote recently about the war in Iraq and the larger war against radical Islam, eliciting a number of responses. Let me try and put this conflict in proper perspective. Understand, the current battle we are engaged in is much bigger that just Iraq. What happens in the next year will affect this country and how our kids and grandkids live throughout their lifetime, and beyond. Radical Islam has been attacking the West since the seventh century. They have been defeated in the past and decimated to the point of taking hundreds of years to recover. But they can never...

BRUSSELS , May 5: The President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, underlined here Monday that Islam is part and parcel of Europe and he also condemned the concept of clash of civilisations. "Islam today is part of Europe. It is important to understand this.One should not see Islam as outside Europe. We already have an important presence of Islam and Muslims among our citizens," Barroso told a press conference this afternoon after an informal dialogue between EU leaders and around twenty high-level representatives of Christianity, Judaism and Islam in Europe. "We can be a European citizen being a...

Metro charter school accused of teaching Islam   A Star Tribune newspaper column has prompted a state investigation into a charter school. A substitute teacher said a school in Inver Grove Heights is blurring the line of separation of church and state.Being a charter school Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, or TIZA, is supported by tax dollars. The teacher told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS the presence of religion she observed at the school took her by surprise.TIZA Executive Director Azad Zaman insisted the school follows with state and federal laws."TIZA does not endorse any religion," he said.However, TIZA Academy is sponsored by Islamic Relief...

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Obama's big disconnect By Salena Zito TRIBUNE-REVIEW For Barack Obama, closing the deal with Democrat voters has become like herding cats: He just can't get them all lined up and coordinated on his side. This nation has a history of looking closely at its candidates and taking their measure before they vote for them. It is a process that Obama shuns and rival Hillary Clinton thrives on -- and therein lies the problem for Democrats. Obama, who leads both in pledged delegates and in the popular vote, cannot close the gap with lunch-pail Democrats, older voters and (for lack of...