Free Republic

Aina Gamzatova, a 46-year-old woman from Dagestan, has made it official. She wants to run against Russian President Vladimir Putin in the March 2018 election. Some see her campaign - irrespective of its results - as a way to boost the image of Muslim women in Russia and to attract attention to the needs of impoverished, overpopulated and multi-ethnic Dagestan. Her husband, Akhmad Abdulaev, is the Mufti of Dagestan, Russia's troubled province where a confrontation between fighters, clans and federal forces has killed thousands. She belongs to a Sufi order that has tens of thousands of followers and whose leader,...

A New Jersey Imam is to sit down with interfaith scholars and who will "retrain him" after two sermons in which he blamed Jewish people for Isis attacks and made anti-semitic remarks. In a report by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), sermons by Imam Aymen Elkasaby made at the Islamic Centre of New Jersey were translated from their original Arabic, prompting the response from the centre's president. During a sermon on 24 November, Elkasaby questioned the attack on a Sufi mosque in Egypt's Sinai province in which suspected Isis militants killed over 300 people. Elkasaby said it was...

Friday’s bloodthirsty attack on a mosque in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula during noontime prayers was a crime against all humanity. It wasn’t “just” an attack on Muslims. It was an attack on all of us who believe in civilization, tolerance and decency. At least 235 peaceful worshippers died, with more than 100 wounded. One is tempted to call it the work of beasts, but no creature in the animal kingdom behaves with such avid, calculated cruelty. Yet, the attack can be explained — though the explanation only makes it worse. Islamist fanatics struck with bombs and automatic weapons, slaughtering first the...

President Trump used the massacre at a mosque in Egypt to renew his calls for a travel ban and “wall” on Friday afternoon. “Will be calling the President of Egypt in a short while to discuss the tragic terrorist attack, with so much loss of life. We have to get TOUGHER AND SMARTER than ever before, and we will. Need the WALL, need the BAN! God bless the people of Egypt,” he tweeted. The White House said Trump would be speaking with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi at 3 p.m. Earlier in the day, Trump called the carnage, which left...

Terrorists have killed 235 people and injured over 100 others in a mosque attack in Sinai, Egypt. The militants opened fire on worshippers during Friday prayer. It is the deadliest attack on Egyptian civilians ever waged by Islamic extremists, according to the Associated Press.The terrorists have been wreaking havoc in the region for years, but no attack had reached this magnitude. The attack targeted a mosque frequented by Sufis, members of Islam’s mystical movement, in the north Sinai town of Bir al-Abd. Islamic militants, including the local affiliate of the Islamic State group, consider Sufis heretics because of their less...

 Gunmen attacked a packed mosque in Egypt's restive North Sinai province on Friday and set off a bomb, killing at least 155 people in one of the country's deadliest attacks in recent memory, state media reported. A bomb explosion ripped through the Al Rawda mosque roughly 40 kilometres west of the North Sinai capital of Al Arish before gunmen opened fire on the worshippers gathered for weekly Friday prayers, officials said. At least 120 others were injured in the attack...

At least 235 people have been killed in a bomb and gun attack on a mosque in Egypt's northern Sinai Peninsula, according to state media. The attack took place in the al-Rawda village, west of el-Arish, shortly after Friday prayers. Egyptian state media MENA provided the death toll, citing an official security source. It also said that 120 people were wounded in the attack. The silence in Sinai: Covering Egypt's 'war on terror' Local media reports said that attackers planted explosives and then opened fire on worshippers while the sermon was under way. Egypt has for years been battling an...

At least 155 people were killed and more than 120 wounded in a bombing and shooting attack against worshipers at a mosque in the northern Sinai after Friday prayers. Egypt's government has declared three days of mourning in response to the attack that struck the Al-Rawdah mosque in Bir al-Abed west of El-Arish. The attack was complex and involved bombs and shooting. Reuters reports that witnesses saw terrorists enter the mosque to kill worshipers during Friday prayers, when mosques see the largest attendance. The attack began around noon time. They also attempted to prevent rescue services from reaching the area.

At least 235 people were killed and another 109 injured in an attack on a Sufi mosque in Egypt's North Sinai region on Friday, Egyptian state-run media reported, in what appears to be the deadliest terror attack on Egyptian soil. After at least two explosions, gunmen who were waiting outside the mosque opened fire at worshipers as they fled Friday prayers, state-owned Ahram Online said. The attack targeted al Rawdah mosque, situated in the village of al Rawdah between Bir al-Abed and the city of al-Arish.

A member of India's Hindu nationalist ruling party offered a $1.5 million bounty Sunday for anyone who beheads the lead actress and the director of a yet-to-be released Bollywood film that's sparked controversy for depicting a romance between a Hindu queen and Muslim ruler. Suraj Pal Amu, a Bharatiya Janata Party leader from the northern state of Haryana, offered the bounty against actress Deepika Padukone and filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali... The movie "Padmavati" is based on a 16th century Sufi epic poem, "Padmavat," a fictional account of a brave and beautiful Rajput queen who chose to kill herself rather than...

But unto you I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak; I will put upon you none other burden.(Revelation 2:24)And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write; These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges; I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s seat is: and thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you,...

The woman who took part in the ISIS-inspired San Bernardino massacre is linked to her native country's most notorious radical mosque, American officials believe. Sources have told Daily Mail Online that US officials handed over information to their Pakistani counterparts about links between Tashfeen Malik and the Red Mosque in Islamabad. The mosque is infamous for its links to violence and authorities in Pakistan are now considering taking action against its preacher, Maulana Abdul Aziz, after the disclosures by US officials. It is unclear currently how law enforcement and intelligence agencies in the US have connected Malik to the mosque.

Monday's protesters called 63-year-old Robert Doggart a terrorist. "Doggart is a terrorist, just like ISIS," a group of more than 80 American Muslims chanted outside federal court in Chattanooga. Doggart, who is white, pleaded not guilty at his Monday arraignment to one charge of solicitation to commit a civil rights violation. Authorities believe he spent months gathering weapons and plotting an assault on a small Muslim community self-named "Islamberg" just outside of Hancock, N.Y. Protesters traveled from Islamberg and from other states demanding that Doggart, a resident of Sequatchie County, Tenn., on Signal Mountain and a 2014 congressional candidate, be...

ISIS has reportedly placed improvised explosive devices (IEDs) around the ancient ruins of Palmyra, in Syria, after recently capturing the adjacent city of Tadmore. The jihadi group has released images of the destruction of two shrines near the site... Michael Danti, co-director of the Syrian Heritage Initiative at the American Schools of Oriental Research, which is monitoring cultural damage in Syria and Iraq, reports that the pattern of IED placement appears to be optimized for "filmed destruction." Multiple independent sources confirmed to Danti that following the IED placement, ISIS members traveled around Tadmor using megaphones to announce their action to...

A man who ran for Congress last year in East Tennessee has pleaded guilty to plotting an attack on a small Muslim enclave in New York. Federal agents began investigating Robert Doggart of Signal Mountain following a Facebook posting in which he claimed a community outside of Hancock, New York, was planning a terrorist attack and "must be utterly destroyed," according to the plea agreement entered last month.

The stabilization of Iraq has become wedged on a plateau, beyond which further improvement will be a slow process. According to incident metrics compiled by Olive Group, the average monthly number of insurgent attacks between January and June 2011 was 380.[1] The incident count in January was 376, indicating that incident levels remained roughly stable in the first half of 2011. One reason behind this stability is the ongoing virulence of northern and central Iraqi insurgents operating within Sunni Arab communities. Five predominately Sunni provinces and western Baghdad were responsible for an average of 68.5% of national incidents each month...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis, like Islam's Sufi mystic theologians and poets, "is trying to do good for the sake of the Good One, motivated by love and compassion," said the president of the Islamic Affairs Council of Maryland. Mohamad Bashar Arafat, a Syrian who has lived in the United States for more than 20 years, was visiting the Vatican and speaking to groups in Rome in early October as a guest of the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See as part of the U.S. State Department's international speakers program. In an interview with Catholic News Service, Arafat said...

Fire gutted one of the most revered Sufi Muslim shrines in the Indian part of the divided Kashmir region on Monday sparking clashes between police and angry Muslim protesters, witnesses said. Indian Kashmir has long been plagued by violence over a campaign by some of its mostly Muslim residents, helped by supporters in neighboring Pakistan, to break away from India. Indian authorities say rebel violence has recently fallen to its lowest level since the anti-India revolt broke out in 1989, but Monday's clashes will be a reminder of how volatile the region can be. At least six people were hurt...

My earlier prediction from September:Imam Rauf decided to pick a spot near Ground Zero so that there would be an outcry… and he’ll keep stringing this along until one day when he’ll do the “honorable” and “right thing”: announce that instead of an Islamic Community Center which promotes Interfaith Understanding, he’ll build an Interfaith Center devoted equally to all religions… and the crowds will cheer and people will actually be happy about an Interfaith Center… maybe for the first time ever...recent article from March 30:Two co-founders of the controversial plan to build an Islamic cultural center and mosque two blocks...

MULTAN, Pakistan – His accomplices brought carnage to a Sufi shrine, but the 14-year-old suicide bomber who was captured after his explosives failed to detonate was unrepentant. "Let me go, I want to be a martyr," he said as he was being led away, according to police officer Khalid Mahmood. "I want to send all you policemen to hell!"