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A senior Obama administration official confirmed to Fox News that members of the National Security Council staff met with a controversial Muslim scholar, but stressed that they were focused on his recent efforts to counter the Al Qaeda narrative. The official was responding to a report on Wednesday from The Investigative Project on Terrorism, which uncovered a statement on the website of Sheikh Abdullah Bin Bayyah claiming he met June 13 with Obama administration officials at the White House. Bin Bayyah is vice president of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, a group founded by Egyptian cleric Yusuf Qaradawi --...

Jerusalem (AsiaNews) - "Fr. FranÒ«ois Mourad's killing of is a sad occurrence and a blow to all the friars of the Custody of the Holy Land," said Fr Pizzaballa, Custos of the Holy Land, as he spoke with AsiaNews about the Syrian clergyman who died on Sunday in al-Ghassaniyah, a predominantly Christian village in Jisr al-Shughur District, Idlib province. His funeral was celebrated yesterday in the small village of Kanaieh, a few kilometres from where he was killed. Until yesterday, there were two versions of the murder, the first spoke about a stray bullet, the second of an actual attack...

On U.S. military intervention in Syria's civil war, where "both sides are slaughtering each other as they scream over an arbitrary red line 'Allahu akbar' ... I say let Allah sort it out." So said Sarah Palin to the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference. And, as is not infrequently the case, she nailed it. Hours later, Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times, at length, echoed Palin: "Those who are urging the US to get more deeply involved in the Syrian conflict now are living in the past." Four fundamental changes make it "no longer realistic, or even desirable, for the...

If you’re like me, you’ve gotten increasingly frustrated with the constant mention of “the rebels” in reports about Syria, without much context about who they are. It reminds me of some 1980s action movie in which generic “rebels” serve as some sort of MacGuffin for the hero to blow stuff up. Now that President Obama has decided to arm the rebels, it’s even more imperative that Americans have a good idea of the different rebel groups in Syria, which unfortunately are dominated by Islamists. Today, the Wall Street Journal reports: The move is an about-face by Mr. Obama, who last...

Islamist Michael Adebolajo butchered a British soldier in Woolwich in May. After the murder, a group of British Muslims drove by the memorial set up on the sidewalk in Woolwich and laughed at the beheading of Lee Rigby, the soldier who was knifed to death. Then they posted it online.

Viktor Kalashnikov is a Russian freelance journalist and a former KGB colonel. In the autumn of 2010, he and his wife Marina, a historian, were treated in a hospital in Germany for mercury poisoning in what they said had been an attempt on their lives by Russia’s FSB, the successor to the KGB. He is a distant relative of Mikhail Kalashnikov, the inventor of the AK-47. Kalashnikov and his wife have been publishing articles critical of the Kremlin since the 1990s. After living in Europe for several years they are now back in Moscow. A Russian Analyst’s View, Part One...

1. Turkey's political ideology Since the 1920s Turkey has been vigorously secular in its public sphere. Now protestors accuse Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of blurring the line between religion and state by trying to impose the Islamist values of his Justice and Development party (AKP) on society as a whole. Last month the government introduced a new law cracking down on alcohol, banning the sale of drink between 10pm and 6am and forcing restaurants near schools or mosques to be dry. The government has also tried to clamp down on kissing in public. Some have also perceived a state...

“This war, like all wars, must end. That’s what history advises . . .” — Barack Obama, May 23 Nice thought. But much as Obama would like to close his eyes, click his heels three times and declare the war on terror over, war is a two-way street. That’s what history advises: Two sides to fight it, two to end it. By surrender (World War II), by armistice (Korea and Vietnam) or when the enemy simply disappears from the field (the Cold War). Obama says enough is enough. He doesn’t want us on “a perpetual wartime footing.” Well, the Cold War lasted...

A curious idea of justice, have these Islamists. From The Australian: TWENTY people have received a two-year suspended prison sentence for their part in a deadly attack on the US embassy in Tunisia last year, their lawyer said. "They all got a two-year suspended sentence," said lawyer Anouar Ouled Ali. "We will see with their families if they want to appeal. If they want to, we will do it," he added. The verdict, which was not made public, came after only half a day, an unusually short trial in the north African country. Hundreds of angry Islamist protesters attacked the...

The BBC gives too much weight to pro-immigration voices and ‘almost totally ignores’ the negative social impact of multiculturalism, a new study has claimed. The corporation suffers from left wing ‘groupthink’ that prevents its journalists from challenging institutional bias and results in pro-immigration ‘propaganda’, according to the research published yesterday. It was also accused of ‘downplaying’ violence by Islamists while being happy to criticise Christianity and report on the activities of other violent extremists. The report, by independent think-tank The New Culture Forum, looked at coverage by BBC news and current affairs programmes since 1997.

SNIPPET: "A new report called "The World's Muslims: Religion, Politics and Society" from the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life has found that the majority of the 38,000 Muslims surveyed in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa favor the implementation of sharia law, among other things. The report incorporates results from a two-stage survey: 15 sub-Saharan African countries with substantial Muslim populations were surveyed in 2008-2009; and 24 countries in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa were surveyed in 2011-2012. Those hoping for the development of peaceful democratic societies in Muslim-majority countries may be dismayed...

One of the consequences of abandoning a standard by which right and wrong can be judged is our increasing inability to mete out punishment that fits the crime. In fact, too often we weigh extenuating circumstances rather than guilty actions. In the case of the Boston bombers, observers search for reasons why the attacks occurred. But the failure to view the attackers as anything other than simply guilty and judge them accordingly, is similar to the U.S. government's attitude toward the Middle East, which often sees Israel as the major impediment to peace. There is little expectation that Israel's enemies...

Received via email. Sender says it was linked on twitter from the “hacktivist for good” the Jester aka @th3j35t3r: https://twitter.com/th3j35t3r Photo image of twitter conversation between 2nd bomber Jahar and his friend Troy Crossley. Troy says he heard Jahar out “poppen fireworks” and suggests he and Jahar go out and doing more. Twitter Conversation March 20, 2013: http://i.imgur.com/uP86MNz.jpg Then on March 26, 2013 a story from a Hanover, Massachusetts paper: Explosives cause concern in Hanover Mark Burridge Posted: 03/26/2013 10:20 AM Hanover fire and police departments seek the public’s help in identifying suspects or providing information in relation to two...

For the second time in just days, Associated Press has redefined a word for its reporters that adopts a politically correct position, this time pleasing Muslim activists with a decision to ban the use of “Islamist” as a synonym for “fighters” and/or “militants.” Politico’s Dylan Byers noted the change by AP was made “after much prodding from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.”

CAIR Claims Victory Over AP Stylebook’s Restrictions on Word 'Islamist' April 5, 2013 By Elizabeth Harrington (CNSNews.com) – The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) praised the Associated Press (AP) for revising its stylebook to forbid the use of the word “Islamist,” if it is used to describe Islamic militants or extremists. In a press release on Friday, CAIR said revising the term is a "step in the right direction,” and that they helped influence the AP’s decision. “Late last year, the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) approached AP about modifying the reference, which had been added to its influential...

Rather than focusing on the real issues here, the AP is doing everything in its power to avoid pointing out the relationship between radical Islamists and terrorism. Similar to the Benghazi terror attack, in which the media found every possible angle to focus on other than the link between Islamic extremists and the attacks. They pointed to Mitt Romney for his statements, they pointed to Newsweek’s ‘Muslim Rage’ cover, at the author, Ayaan Ali Hirsi, and they pointed it at an obscure film that was at that time unknown to the general public. The relationship between radical Islam and terrorism...

Following on the heels of the Tuesday decision by The Associated Press to discontinue use of the term "illegal immigrant," the news agency on Thursday revised its stylebook entry for another politically charged term.

The Western press and social media often seem to exercise two options for dealing with the Muslim population of the world: overt, unabashed Islamophobia or slightly subtler Islamophobia. As Georgetown University's John L Esposito writes in the foreword to Nathan Lean's The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Fear of Muslims, 9/11 and other terror attacks "have exacerbated the growth of Islamophobia exponentially" and resulted in a situation in which "Islam and the Middle East often dominate the negative headlines", thanks in part to the calculated machinations of "a number of journalists and scholars". Needless to say, the aftermath of...

A convicted Saudi felon who was sentenced to 28 years in prison after being convicted by a Colorado jury for imprisoning his housekeeper and holding her as a sex slave could soon be released from prison. Homaidan al-Turki, a Saudi citizen whose 2006 case made headlines and triggered national outrage when he was arrested for imprisoning and sexually abusing his maid in the basement of his Aurora home, has asked to be repatriated to Saudi Arabia under the terms of a bilateral treaty. If the Hickenlooper administration agrees to the request, al-Turki could return to Saudi Arabia after serving less...

When Obama said that he was going to get the folks who did this, he apparently meant jailing the filmmaker who made a Mohammed movie, not the Muslim killers of four Americans. With that job done, he went on yet another golfing vacation. And in Benghazi, the Islamist militia behind the attack is taking power in the city once again. After the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission last fall that left the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans dead, the Islamist militia widely accused of leading the assault all but disappeared amid a popular backlash.