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Hamas, judging by its rhetoric and suicide bombers, is not afraid of death. Judging by its policies, Hamas is also not afraid of causing the death or suffering of fellow Palestinians. And Hamas is definitely not afraid of killing Jews. What Hamas is afraid of, however, is losing power; losing control of the Gaza Strip, losing its base of Islamic fundamentalism in this little corner of the Middle East. And that fear - and the appreciation in Israel of the importance of power to Hamas - explains some of Israel's actions over the last few days in the Gaza Strip....

HONOLULU - It's not exactly anti-war mom Cindy Sheehan camped outside of George W. Bush's Crawford ranch. But as President-elect Barack Obama lingered at his Kailua vacation home later than usual this morning, about 10 protesters gathered near the security checkpoint down the street. It is the first time Obama has received anything but praise and cheers during his 12-day Hawaiian vacation, which ends on Thursday. Some of the demonstrators carried signs declaring "War is Terror" and "Free Palestine." Ann Wright, a retired Army colonel and member of Veterans for Peace, wore a T-shirt that read, "We will not be...

<p>ASHKELON, Israel - Banquet halls have canceled weddings, parents are holding makeshift day care centers in bomb shelters and motorists avoid driving during the day. As Hamas shells southern cities, hundreds of thousands of Israelis in rocket range are finding new ways of coping. "This is the situation and we have to deal with it," Linor Eliav, 31, said Wednesday, a day after getting married.</p>

Hamas flexed its muscles Tuesday night and fired two rockets into Beersheba as Defense Minister Ehud Barak asked for government approval to call up an additional 2,500 reservists ahead of a planned ground operation in the Gaza Strip. One of the Katyusha rockets struck a kindergarten in Beersheba, causing damage. Another rocket hit outside the city in an open field. The IDF bombed the launcher of the Grad-model rockets afterward, as well as the cell responsible. The army said it successfully hit its target. Defense officials had warned that Hamas had the ability to fire rockets into Beersheba - located...

Chaldean clergyman, Father Hani, and one of the five boys accompanying him on a visit to a minor seminar in the capital are still being held but negotiations are underway to free them. Released prisoners are said to be in good conditions. Baghdad (AsiaNews) – Four of five Christian boys abducted yesterday with Chaldean priest Fr Hani Abdel Ahad were released today in good physical conditions. Sources told AsiaNews that the 33-year-old priest and the fifth boy are still in the hands of the kidnappers. All six were on their way to the minor seminar in Suleikh, in one of...

CNA).- On the same day as Father Ragheed Ganni’s funeral, Muslim fundamentalists sent another message of hatred to Catholics, this time attacking two churches in Iraq. Fr. Ragheed, along with three deacons were killed just this past Sunday after they had finished celebrating Mass. According to the AINA news agency, two churches were attacked in the Baghdad district of Dora.  At St. John the Baptist’s in Hay Al-Athoriyeen, several security guards who protect the church were killed, and St. Jacob’s in Hay al Asya was vandalized and forcibly turned into a mosque.  St. Jacob’s had previously been attacked in October...

The Jerusalem Post reported on Monday that Israeli Defense Forces aircraft bombed suspected Hamas terror laboratories located at the Hamas-run Islamic University of Gaza (IUG). According to the article, IUG professors were using the labs to build explosives for the terrorist organization. A BBC report confirmed that the IUG science building was the target of the Israeli retaliatory strikes. Thus far unreported is that the IUG science and technology lab was financed and constructed with the assistance of the Dublin, Ohio-based Arab Student Aid International (ASAI). In fact, the IUG website has a page dedicated to ASAI’s ongoing contributions to...

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As Israel continues to bomb the Hamas in the Gaza section of Palestine , Muslims in London have taken to the streets in protest. They are of course calling for Israel to stop killing their terrorist brothers. Since Israel is continuing with their military operations, the Muslim protesters have turned to rioting.

Injured Palestinian girl: Hamas is the cause of all wars Hot Air A haunting clip from an outfit that specializes in them: Portrait of a human shield, her four-year-old sister one of 60 civilians killed...

Large Israeli forces - tanks, infantry, engineer corps, artillery, and more - are waiting just outside Gaza for the order to enter. It is felt that the great successes of the three-day air campaign have begun - or are soon to begin - yielding diminishing returns, and that a ground offensive will be necessary. The precise objectives of such an attack have not been publicized, however, other than the neutralization of rocket-launching sites. Strategic terror points, including mosques that shelter weapons and ammunition, will also be targeted. "We will reach places [in Gaza] that the Palestinians never expected," an unidentified...

30 December 2008 | 18:04 -> 21:05 | Source: B92, Beta, Tanjug KOSOVSKA MITROVICA -- After two Albanians stabbed a 16-year-old Serb with a knife in Kosovska Mitrovica this afternoon and incidents that ensued, the situation is now calm. Automatic gunfire was heard as an Albanian-owned store was set on fire near the bridge on the Ibar River which divides Kosovska Mitrovica into its northern, predominantly Serb, and southern, Albanian part. The victim, Nikola Božović, was taken to hospital with a 10-centimeter stab wound apparently in the lumbar area of his back. Doctor Traj�e Bogeski said that the boy was...

Lockerbie bombing remembered two decades on - Telegraph 21 Dec 2008 ... Relatives and friends of the 270 victims of the Lockerbie ... killed in the worst terrorist atrocity and the biggest mass murder in British legal history

MUMBAI - Ajmal Amir Kasab, the sole surviving member of the 10-man team of Pakistani gunmen that left hundreds dead or wounded after a bloody three day rampage in Mumbai, today blamed the mayhem on an "email mixup" that left him and his colleagues unaware that Barack Obama had won election as President of the United States. "What? Oh bloody hell, now you tell me," said Kasab, as he was led away in handcuffs by Indian security forces. Kasab, 21, apologized to Indian President Pratibha Patil, explaining that no one in his group had known about the recent U.S. election...

(IsraelNN.com) The verse in the Torah that was shot up by Mumbai terrorists reads: "The Almighty spoke to Moses after the death of Aaron's two sons…." It is from Leviticus [VaYikra], Chapter 16, Verse 1. The damaged Torah scroll was discovered when officials examined the Chabad House following the massacre of six Israelis by the Muslim terrorists who staged the mass slaughter at least 10 different places Wednesday night. They saw bullet holes in the Holy Ark where the scroll was kept and then examined it to see if it had been damaged. The verse refers to Nadav and Avihu,...

Iran poses the greatest foreign policy challenge to the new president with Tehran on course to produce a nuclear bomb in the first year of an Obama administration, an unprecedented coalition of top think tanks warned yesterday. Barack Obama must follow through on his promises of direct talks with Tehran and engage the Middle East region as a whole if he is to halt a looming crisis that could be revisited on the United States, the experts warned. “Diplomacy is not guaranteed to work: it is not,” Richard Hass, one of the authors said. “But the other options – military...

The Manmohan Singh government is weighing various options including a strike on Pakistan to dismantle its terror bases in response to the recent Mumbai terror attack. External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee today hinted about military option when he told a news channel, “As and when it takes place, people will come to know, it’s not publicised. Every sovereign country has the right to protect its territorial integrity and take appropriate action and when it feels necessary to take that appropriate action.” “What will be done, time will show and you will come to know,” Mukherjee earlier told reporters on the...

Islamic terrorists and their handlers have always claimed that their problem is with Zionists, not with Jews. The Neturey Karta sect (who dress and talk like hassidic Jews, but are no more than an aberrant abomination, a cruel mockery of what Judaism is) attack Zionism, while claiming that the world truly loves Jews as they embrace and kiss the putrid little maggot Ahmedinajad. It seems that most latent (and not so latent) subtle antisemites claim the supposed moral high ground of anti-Zionism as opposed to the obvious prejudice of antisemitim. I am a Jew, a devout Orthodox Jew, and I’m...

ANTI-TERROR police hope to participate in role-reversal sessions with Muslims in an attempt to ease concerns about the "harassment" of Scottish Asians travelling through Glasgow Airport. The away-days are designed to improve relations between police and the Muslim community and reach a common understanding about the need to question people at the airport. The move, based on a pilot scheme south of the Border called Operation Nicole, is among a raft of proposals that the country's head of anti-terrorism will put to aggrieved Muslims, who say they are continually harassed by repeated interrogations when they arrive in Scotland from Pakistan....

A hospital doctor at Mumbai's JJ Hospital, which received the bodies of six Jewish and Israeli hostages from the Chabad House terrorist siege, has cast doubt on a report claiming that signs of torture were apparent on the bodies of the victims. Dr. Gajanan Chawan, who saw the bodies, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday he did not believe the wounds he observed suggested the hostages had been tortured prior to their deaths. Asked if he saw any evidence of torture on the bodies, Chawan replied, "No, I don't think so." He added that the majority of the wounds he...

India is home to 154 million Muslims, the third largest Muslim population in the world after Indonesia and Pakistan. Tolerable inter-communal relations are the sine qua non of Indian stability and ascendancy. India has more to lose from extremist Islam than arguably any other country in the world. The Mumbai terrorists announced themselves as the Deccan Mujahideen. The Deccan is a rugged plateau region in south-central India that Aurangzeb, the fierce Sunni emperor of the Mughals (India’s most historically significant Muslim dynasty) could never subdue and in fact died trying in 1707. The Islamic Mughals vanquished all of northern India,...

WASHINGTON: Sovereign nations have the right to protect themselves, US president-elect Barack Obama said on Monday, when asked if India could follow the same policy he advocated during his election campaign — of bombing terrorist camps in Pakistan if there was actionable evidence and Islamabad refused to act on it. Although Obama said he did not want to comment on the specific situation involving India and Pakistan, his tacit endorsement of New Delhi adopting the same policy was circumscribed by two caveats: first, let the investigators reach definite conclusions about the Mumbai carnage, and second, see if Pakistan will follow...

Link "Pakistan told Indian officials to look into all aspects, including an LTTE or Al-Qaeda connection. Pakistan also informed India that some of the terrorists appeared to be South Indians and looked like LTTE cadres. India investigated every angle," the official said. London's Pakistani High Commissioner in an interview told BBC over the weekend that some of the terrorists looked very much like South Indians. From Sir Lanka Ministry of Defence ....... A little known terror outfit "Deccan Mujahideen" has claimed responsibility for the attacks. Anti-terrorist operations are continuing as Indian security forces take on the formidable mission to...

HUNTSVILLE, ONT. — ARTICLE SNIPPET: "On Friday, Aug. 8, a vehicle pulled into the Pow Wow parking lot and discharged six men, all dressed in what the locals would call "city clothes" - including dark slacks and leather-soled dress shoes. Without bothering to check with the office, they went down to the beach and began taking photographs of each other, each time with Deerhurst - including the cupola that rides over the main building - in the background." ARTICLE SNIPPET: "These six English-speaking men appeared to be of Middle-Eastern origin. But what really set them apart was their complete unfamiliarity...

NEW DELHI, Dec 2 (Reuters) - India said on Tuesday it was not considering military action in response to Islamist militant attacks in Mumbai that killed at least 183 people.

The State of Israel completely withdrew from the Gaza Strip and relinquished all governing responsibility to the Palestinian Authority (PA) in August, 2005, while continuing financial aid. Since then, the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas conquered the Strip, and Palestinian terrorists in Gaza have launched more than 6,000 projectile attacks at Israeli soil, largely aimed at killing the civilian population residing in Israeli towns near the Strip. Shockingly, many in the international media, NGOs and international institutions such as the UN have greeted the illegal Palestinian attacks with forgiving silence. While whitewashing Palestinian crimes, they have fallen back on their traditional...

Around the world, people have reacted with horror to the vile atrocities in Mumbai. For three days, our TV screens transmitted images of carnage and chaos ... Despite the fact that Western citizens were caught up in the attacks, there is nevertheless a sense that this was nothing to do with us — a horrible event happening in a faraway place. Among commentators, moreover, there has been no small amount of confusion. Were these terrorists motivated by the grievance between Muslims and Hindus over Kashmir, or was this a broader attack by Al Qaeda? If British and American tourists were...

‘Kill Hell Boy’ From NICK PARKER Chief Foreign Correspondentin Mumbai Published: 01 Dec 2008 A FRENZIED lynch mob tried to kill sole surviving Mumbai terrorist Azam Kasav, dramatic new video footage revealed yesterday. Baby-faced Kasav, 21, was caught with another gunman after a Skoda they had hijacked was halted at a road block. Armed cops opened up on the car, killing Kasav’s comrade instantly. A passer-by captured the unfolding scene on video using his mobile. It shows cops suddenly realising blood-spattered Kasav – with a bullet-wound to his hand – had been playing dead. He is seen crouching in a...

In view of last week’s horrific events in Mumbai, in view of the siege of a Coptic Church by 20,000 Muslims in Egypt a few days earlier, one may ask what is it about these terrible events that they are usually perpetrated by those who allege theirs is the Religion of Peace?

When Oceania Cruises announced this weekend that pirates had attempted to approach its Nautica as it cruised through the Gulf of Aden, it heightened existing concerns about passenger and cruise ship safety in that dangerous part of the world. Nautica's captain, officers and crew successfully evaded the pirates yesterday, which is obviously the good news. No one was injured, and the ship is not even off schedule at this point. Still, increasing attacks by pirates on cargo vessels and oil tankers, not to mention this latest incident affecting a cruise ship, begs the question: If you're on a cruise ship...

Last week, on the streets of Mumbai, we saw yet again the face of terror. We saw the face of deliberate destruction. We saw the face of maniacal evil. While the details of Mumbai's massacre are still being sorted out, this much we know. We know that the killers intentionally targeted Americans, Britons and Jews. We know that the terrorists deliberately attacked, among other sites, a hospital. And we know that the savages that shocked our consciences last week were inspired by the same wicked ideology that has inspired radical Islamists to kill innocents in the past, from New York...

Gujarat, Dec 02: Even as Pakistan’s alleged involvement in the Mumbai terror attacks is creating a lot of heat and dust between the two countries, the Coast Guard on Tuesday intercepted another Pak trawler 7 nautical miles off the Gujarat coast just a few days after the vessel carrying terrorists from Pakistan landed on the Mumbai coast. The vessel was intercepted by the Coast Guard at around 1.30 pm near Korai Creek in the vicinity of Sir Creek, the disputed narrow strip of water between India and Pakistan. The vessel named Al Rafeequi had 7 Pakistani nationals aged between 14...

In an exclusive interview to NDTV External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee has not ruled out the option of military strikes against terror camps in Pakistan. Mukherjee said that every country has the right to protect its territorial integrity and take appropriate action when necessary. He also said that it has become difficult to continue the peace process with Pakistan in this atmosphere. NDTV: Are we thinking about the military option at all? External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee: As and when it takes place, people will come to know, it's not publicized. NDTV: So, you are not ruling it out? External...

  Leopold hums back to lifeDecember 2, 2008   Text and photographs: Vaihayasi P Daniel Like always, every day of the year and nearly every hour of the day, the cafe is packed to capacity. And humming. Waiters in red T-shirts and black slacks tear around with trays laden with giant mugs of frothing, icy beer, fresh lime sodas and tall glasses of fresh fruit juice. Service is invariably prompt here. Young Indian patrons -- some students and some office-wallahs -- tuck into giant plates of steaming Chinese noodles and chicken. Hippie-looking tourists stray in for a slow, long...

PAKISTAN was bracing last night for a retaliatory airstrike by India against the sprawling headquarters of the al-Qa'ida-linked Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist organisation near Lahore. (snip) India's military chiefs were exerting strong pressure on the country's political leaders to give permission to attack the headquarters, an 80ha site at Muridke, close to the Punjab capital of Lahore, just across the border from India. The reports came as the Indian Government summoned the Pakistani high commissioner in New Delhi yesterday to demand "strong action" against the Pakistani militants who it says were responsible for last week's attacks on Mumbai. (snip) The heavily guarded...

Just as the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks have had a lasting effect on aircraft cockpit security, with reinforced doors separating pilots from passengers, the deadly terrorist attacks that started Wednesday at the Oberoi and Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotels here could leave an enduring imprint on the design and procedures of luxury hotels. With the death toll approaching 200, and with more bodies still being found at the Taj, the attacks have underlined the vulnerability of five-star hotels to determined attacks by determined gunmen armed with military assault rifles, as well as the attractiveness of such targets to terrorists....

One British man was murdered after his chat with the BBC. Andreas Liveras died from multiple gunshot wounds after he talked with the BBC from the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai. British tycoon Andreas Liveras was shot to death in the Taj Mahal Hotel shortly after he talked with the BBC and revealed his location. The Telegraph reported: Andreas Liveras, 73, was gunned down moments after he phoned the BBC from inside the Taj Mahal hotel to give an eyewitness account of the terrorist attacks. He was one of dozens of Britons either injured or taken hostage by Islamic extremists...

Andreas Liveras, 73, was gunned down moments after he phoned the BBC from inside the Taj Mahal hotel to give an eyewitness account of the terrorist attacks. He was one of dozens of Britons either injured or taken hostage by Islamic extremists during a series of co-ordinated raids on Western targets. Eyewitnesses said the terrorists, who indiscriminately gunned down anyone in their path and set fire to the Taj Mahal and the Oberoi hotels, specifically targeted British and American tourists when they began taking hostages. The killers demanded a list of the names and room numbers of all British and...

Cultural relativists insist it's improper to judge the way people in distant lands act, and Americans have no right to criticize the conduct of others because we are viewing things from our own limited perspective. They argue we have no business trying to impose our ideals and values in Southwest Asia or the Middle East. And then, an inescapable reality exposes how fatuous their pious theorizing is. Such a case occurred recently in Afghanistan when police arrested 10 Islamic militants involved in an attack in Kandahar. The victims of the attack were 15 women, most of them teens. Their "crime":...

It is becoming increasingly obvious that the seven seas are dangerous. A resurgence in pirate activity off the coast of Somalia has been all over the news. It is important for your safety, that you be educated in the subtle signs of pirate infestation. As a service to you, we present: Top 10 clues your cruise ship has been taken over by pirates.

Heroes At The Taj Michael Pollack, 12.01.08, 07:40 PM EST After a terrifying day, one eyewitness thanks his saviors. My story begins innocuously, with a dinner reservation in a world-class hotel. It ends 12 hours later after the Indian army freed us. My point is not to sensationalize events. It is to express my gratitude and pay tribute to the staff of the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai, who sacrificed their lives so that we could survive. They, along with the Indian army, are the true heroes that emerged from this tragedy. My wife, Anjali, and I were married in...

MUMBAI - Ajmal Amir Kasab, the sole surviving member of the 10-man team of Pakistani gunmen that left hundreds dead or wounded after a bloody three day rampage in Mumbai, today blamed the mayhem on an "email mixup" that left him and his colleagues unaware that Barack Obama had won election as President of the United States. Continued

(IsraelNN.com) Less than a week after the deadly terrorist assault in Mumbai, a Chabad House elsewhere in India received a threatening note from Muslim fundamentalists. According to a report on Israel TV's Channel 1, the Chabad House in Pune, India, has received a letter threatening to "wipe out the Chabad House and the Jews and Israelis.... The CIA and Mossad will not be able to save you." Although hate mail sent to Jewish institutions is not unusual, the timing has led Israeli security services to recommend heightened alert levels and increased protective measures at the Pune outreach center. A representative...

As many signs point to LeT’s involvement in the Mumbai attacks, it should be noted that LeT terrorists are known to be operating inside the U.S. A number of LeT operatives trained in Pakistani terror camps have been arrested, tried, and convicted here at home, most notably those involved in the Northern Virginia jihad network. Other U.S. citizens have trained in LeT camps and been killed in operations, including Jibreel al-Amreekee, a 19-year-old convert to Islam from Atlanta killed in 1997 during a LeT attack on an Indian Army post. Attention, President-elect Obama: the Indian massacre has huge implications for...

On any ordinary day, Vishnu Datta Ram Zende used the public-address system at Mumbai’s largest railway station to direct busy hordes of travelers to their trains. But last Wednesday just before 10 p.m., when he heard a loud explosion and saw people running across the platform, he gripped his microphone and calmly directed a panicked crowd toward the safest exit. The station, Victoria Terminus, it turned out, was suddenly under attack, the beginning of a three-day siege by a handful of young, heavily armed gunmen. “Walk to the back and leave the station through Gate No. 1,” he chanted alternately...

A senior police official said that, in all, the names and numbers of five members of the Pakistani group's leadership were contained in a satellite phone left behind by the terrorists on a fishing vessel they hijacked then abandoned before reaching Mumbai. Records from the phone show calls had been made from it to these five men. Among them: Yusuf Muzammil, head of Lashkar-e-Taiba's terrorism operations against India. The senior Indian police official said he was identified as the mastermind of the attacks by the only terrorist captured alive, Ajmal Kasab, or Qasab. The police official said two of Mr....

GAUHATI, India (AP) — An Indian official says a bomb blast in a train has killed at least two people and wounded 30 in India's insurgency-hit northeast.

The “hostages” of Mumbai had not absorbed the lesson of 9/11. The captives that were taken, tortured disfigured and murdered in Mumbai were no less doomed than the passengers on the airliners on 9/11. They allowed themselves to be taken and abused by captors who did not want anything from them but to use them as instruments of terror. Only the brave passengers of flight 93 understood and acted on this. Let no westerner ever rationalize ignorance of this from this day forward... ......When (unless we wake up and do something, it is not a question of “if”) you are...

The cabinet decided on Sunday to authorize the release of 250 terrorist prisoners from Israel's jails, as a goodwill gesture to the Palestinian Authority (PA) ahead of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. In statements to the media, both the extra-parliamentary Women In Green organization and the Likud's Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership) faction linked the decision with the Mumbai Massacre perpetrated by Muslim terrorists last week. Women In Green said that the "criminal and murderous terror attack [in Mumbai] by Islamic terrorists against non-Muslims, Jews and non-Jews alike, should have made the government of Israel understand that time has come...