Free Republic

European intelligence agencies are worried that European Muslims fighting in Syria will return to carry out terrorist attacks because of their contacts built with al-Qaida, the BBC reported on Wednesday. The UK, Ireland and France are the Western countries believed to have the most fighters in Syria, according to the report, which quotes EU anti-terror chief Gilles de Kerchove as saying that about 500 Muslims from Europe are fighting with the rebels. However, according to Soeren Kern, a senior fellow for the New York-based Gatestone Institute, and a longtime observer of Islam in Europe, more than 1,000 European Muslims are...

Autopsy Boston Bombing Suspect's Brain, Scientists Say Scientists are calling for an autopsy of one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects to see if he had brain damage. Though brain damage probably didn't play a role in the bombings, it may have contributed to other personality changes, researchers say. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, may have suffered from a type of brain damage caused by repeated impacts called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, researchers say. Scientists believe CTE can cause emotional instability and impulse control. Tsarneev was a boxer for most of his life, and family members and peers described dramatic personality...

(Newser) – The latest headline-getting theory from Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, the mother of the two Boston bombing suspects: She thinks the marathon attacks may have been staged. "That's what I want to know, because everybody's talking about it—that this is a show, that's what I want to know. That's what I want to understand," she says in an interview with CNN, adding that she thinks the blood shown in pictures of the aftermath is actually be paint. (According to Mediaite, she likened the whole thing to a "really big play.") "America took my kids away from me," she says. But...

Bombing suspect reportedly a fan of al-Qaida magazine and Alex Jones website Videos on the Internet and an online jihadist magazine may have played a part in the Boston Marathon bombings suspects’ self-radicalization, according to reports. New accounts say the brothers learned how to build a bomb from the online magazine, Inspire, which gave instructions on how to make them with a pressure cooker. Pressure cooker bombs, authorities say, were used in the attacks at the Boston Marathon. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving suspect, reportedly told investigators there was no foreign influence on him and his brother. But apparently the brothers...

Buried within the 844 pages of the bipartisan immigration bill -- amid historic shifts in policies such as a path to citizenship for 11 million unauthorized immigrants -- are pet provisions of the senators who crafted it. South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham wants more visas for the meat industry, a major employer in his state

In the aftermath of the Boston Marathon killing spree by foreign-born jihadists, see-no-evil bureaucrats in Washington are stubbornly defending America’s lax asylum policies. DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano told the Senate Tuesday that the screening process is rigorous, effective, and extensive. These people can’t handle the truth. Or tell it. The Tsarnaev brothers reportedly were granted asylum by “derivative” status through their parents. After entering on short-term tourist visas, the mother and father (an ethnic Chechen Muslim) won asylum and acquired U.S. citizenship. Next, younger son Dzhokhar obtained U.S. citizenship. Older son Tamerlan, whose naturalization application was pending, traveled freely between...

Boston Marathon bomber purchased fireworks from same company as Times Square bomber Faisal Shazad.

Islamist militants in Somalia have killed the widow of a Christian who was slain for his faith in December, leaving the couple’s five children orphaned, sources said. Islamic extremist Al Shabaab rebels shot 42-year-old Fartun Omar to death on April 13 in Buulodbarde, 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Beledweyne, according to Abdi Aziz Suleiman of Radio Shebelle in Beledweyne. The extremists had been searching for her for several months, as they knew that she was a secret Christian like her late husband, Mursal Isse Siad, sources said. Siad had been receiving death threats for leaving Islam. ... “A week before...

The Washington Post tried to turn the camera lens around on the violent Tsarnaev brothers. Their arrogant liberal assumption: the real question is what this says about us backwards Americans, not about the bombers. The headline in huge type was “Who do we think they are? The answer says a lot about who we are.”What we are, apparently, is a sad gathering of “Islamophobes,” because the story is a collection of quotes from Muslim activists and authors who tweeted “please don’t be a Muslim” and feared that Muslim assailants would spur Americans to practice “discrimination or retaliation or shame.” Even...

Why topless protesters will hound Islamic leaders (CNN) -- For the past five years now, we here at the international women's movement Femen have been waging an active campaign of resistance to the patriarchy in various corners of the world. We have been bringing the world the simple idea of women's liberation by means of sexual emancipation as expressed in highly visible acts of political protest. We believe that the enslavement of women began with the enslavement of their sexuality, so we therefore consider it legitimate to use their liberated sexuality as a symbol of women's worldwide liberation. We divide...

A former Muslim Brotherhood terrorist claims a bizarre video released out of Egypt demonstrates the “demonic” spirit that has gripped the nation since its 2011 Islamic revolution. The video shows a wedding celebration in which a group of men in a frenzy tear apart a live chicken by hand, then scrabble over its pieces to eat its raw flesh. “The video is a glimpse into the dark and incomprehensible spirit that has possessed the souls of Egypt,” claims Walid Shoebat, a former Palestinian Liberation Organization operative who has since renounced his terrorist ways. “Lawlessness has abounded, excesses have gone unrestricted...

U.S. Mosques Mosques in the U.S. are gaining popularity. Of the 1,200 mosques currently operating in the U.S., nearly 80 percent have been built in the past 12 years. A large majority of mosques in the United States are led by Wahhabi clerics. Wahhabism is an extreme brand of Islam practiced dominantly in Saudi Arabia. According to Muslim estimates, up to 80 percent of mosques in the U.S. are owned, operated and led by Wahhabis. These radical mosques often promote the installation of Sharia law, an extreme ideology that considers ‘non-believers’ to be infidels. According to Wahhabis, Jihad or support...

Chiheb Esseghaier, the younger of two men charged in the al Qaeda train plot, is a Tunisian-born PhD student at a Université du Québec nanotechnology lab who was threatened with expulsion for his disruptive behaviour and strict religious views that alienated his colleagues.

The neighbors of the Chechnyan Muslim family whose sons were responsible for the Boston Marathon terror attack were stunned by the news and said that this nice Muslim family was known for its generosity and kindness. Many Americans often ask me the same question: What about the Muslim family next door who are really nice people? To this question my answer has always been: Some of the nicest people I know are Muslims, but that must never blind us from understanding the risk we are taking when we allow the building of hundreds of mosques financed by Saudi Arabia and...

Mahatma Gandhi is quoted in his book, Gandhi: The Power of Pacifism, by Catherine Clement, as follows: "While Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Parsees and Jews, along with several million adherents of an animistic religion, all coexisted in relative harmony, one religion that would not accept compromise stood out from the rest: Islam." Gandhi was referring to the experience during his lifetime in the Indian sub-continent, but the growth of Wahhabism and the current resurgence in Islamic triumphalism since Gandhi's death in January 1948 now poses an increasingly existential threat to the West, to Judeo-Christian civilization, as well as to Hindus, Buddhists,...

Everyone knows about the terrible backlash against America Muslims after 9-11, so it's understandable for Muslims to be worried about a post-Boston bombing backlash, right? What? There was no major backlash against Muslims in 2001 or thereafter? American Jews suffer far more religion-based attacks than Muslims every year? Then why did Andrea Mitchell today exclaim that Muslims were "understandably" very worried about a backlash? View the video here.

Thanks to the editors at http://www.answeringmuslims.com/ here are some of the commands from Allah to Muslims on how they must treat non-Muslims. Qur’an 3:32—Say: Obey Allah and the Apostle; but if they turn back, then surely Allah does not love the unbelievers. Qur’an 5:51—O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people. Qur’an 9:29—Fight those who believe not in Allah...

Spare me the lectures. This isn’t about our attitudes toward Muslims, it’s about their attitudes toward us. Every time there is a Muslim attack against Americans, here or abroad, it unleashes another session of sensitivity training. It started Friday night when the president told us not to judge groups of people, and when the television anchors asked in wide-eyed bewilderment what the possible motive for last week’s terrorist attack could be. Well, if they don’t know, they’re the only ones. Some will pretend otherwise, but they will only be pretending. We don’t need another interfaith service with a prayer by...

The House Committee on Homeland Security wrote DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano a letter on Saturday demanding answers on the Boston Marathon bombing. This was after Tamerlan Tsarnaev became the fifth person since 9-11 to participate in terrorist activities despite being under federal investigation. DHS Committee Chairman Rep. Mike McCaul told reporters Saturday that we are “probably looking at a terrorist cell” being involved in the Boston attack. ... Committee Chairman Rep. Mike McCaul said bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev appears to be the fifth person since 9/11 to participate in a terror attack, despite being under FBI investigation. McCaul, R-Texas, said...