World Terrorism: News, History and Research Of A Changing World #6 Disinformation, Inc.

Davey, I don't have a choice of killer for the spy, so I need to show more restraint on teasing you about it.

Go for it, I have had my pet projects over the years, can't say that I solved them, but still stop to read, Waco, Ruby Ridge, Flight 800, JFK and a couple others, as I do the spy.

It is like eating popcorn, there is room for one more piece, and there will be more pieces as long as you live.

Mailed the last one too soon.

Meant to say, "I keep looking for OBL in a floating Navy Brig".

Ducking and laughing, with you.

January 7, 2007 Anti-Terrorism News

(Iraq) 14 killed as violence continues in Iraq
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070107/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_070106222709

Iraqis fight for Baghdad; 2 U.S. GIs die
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070107/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_070106222714

(Iraq) US Detains 88 Suspects, Destroys Bomb-Making Facility
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,242247,00.html

Two Afghan children, two women killed in blast
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070107/wl_nm/afghan_violence_dc_2

Iran vows to hit back at any Israeli strike
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2007/January/middleeast_January61.xml&section=middleeast&col=

Israel denies plan to hit Iran enrichment plant with tactical nukes
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/810130.html
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2007/January/middleeast_January66.xml&section=middleeast&col=

(Israel) IDF arrests 4 Tanzim men, seizes 2 explosive belts in Nablus
raid
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/810377.html

Somali Islamists arrive in Yemen, officials say
http://za.today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2007-01-07T080223Z_01_WAN728936_RTRIDST_0_OZATP-SOMALIA-CONFLICT-YEMEN-20070107.XML

(Somalia) Former member of Islamic movement killed in Mogadishu
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070107/wl_afp/somaliaunrestethiopiamogadishu_070107082105

Bangladesh task force seize bomb materials, arrest 6 suspected Islamic
militants
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/01/07/asia/AS-GEN-Bangladesh-Bomb-Materials.php

(Pakistan) 2 killed per day in terror attacks in Pakistan last year
http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp?aid=346401&sid=SAS

Analysis: Islamic Terrorists using Google Map and GPS systems to
locate, track and monitor India's IT and call center outsourcing hubs -
Pakistan ISI provides logistics and guidance
http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/15046.asp

Londoner denies being 'Al-Qaeda banker'
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070107/wl_uk_afp/britainusqaedafinance_070107100749

(India) Troops raid Assam rebel hideouts after India massacre
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070107/wl_nm/india_rebels_assam_dc_2

(India) Army enforces curfew after bloodshed in India's northeast
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2007/January/subcontinent_January246.xml&section=subcontinent&col=

Related News:

Muslim to be Appointed US Representative to UN
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=118864

http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news/?fr=yalerts-keyword&c=&p=bomb+found+at+school&ei=utf-8

1. No bomb found after school threat Open this result in new window
Galesburg Register-Mail - Jan 06 9:51 PM
ALEDO - The Aledo Police Department is investigating a bomb threat made to Aledo High School. The incident occurred Friday afternoon, according to Aledo Police Chief Mike Sponsler.
Save

2. Bomb threat at East Bridgewater High School Open this result in new window
The Enterprise - Jan 06 11:14 PM
EAST BRIDGEWATER — Extra security measures were taken Friday at East Bridgewater High School after a bomb threat resulted in the arrest of two juveniles on unrelated drug charges.
Save

3. Briefcase at school was harmless — bomb squad Open this result in new window
The Des Moines Register - Jan 05 4:39 AM
An old briefcase at St. Theresa School became a false alarm Wednesday for the Des Moines Police Department Bomb Squad.
Save

4. No proof found of Marines' claim of Iraqis fleeing bomb scene Open this result in new window
Boston Globe - Jan 06 6:46 AM
U.S. criminal investigators found no evidence to support the claim of Marines charged in the deaths of unarmed Iraqi civilians that five were shot after trying to flee the scene of a roadside bombing that killed one Marine, a senior defense official said Saturday.
Save

5. Teen due in court for Bay View school bomb scares Open this result in new window
Green Bay Press-Gazette - Jan 05 2:14 AM
A 13-year-old Bay View Middle School student is expected to make his first juvenile court appearance Wednesday for a string of bomb scares against the Howard school in October and November.
Save

6. 2 teen girls charged in school bomb threat Open this result in new window
Roanoke Times - Jan 04 10:46 PM
A 14-year-old and a 16-year-old were arrested after a threatening message was found in a restroom. Botetourt County authorities on Thursday charged two James River High School students with making a bomb threat at the school. Sheriff Ronnie Sprinkle said the names of the students are not being released because they are juveniles. The students are girls, ages 14 and 16, and have been released ...
Save

7. School open after bomb threat discounted Open this result in new window
Newsday - Jan 04 10:08 AM
A day after a bomb threat message and a subsequent evacuation, the Meadow Elementary School in Baldwin was running on a normal schedule Thursday morning, police and a school official said.
Save

8. EVSC bomb caller found Open this result in new window
14 WFIE Evansville - Jan 04 4:55 PM
A 13-year-old student has reportedly confessed to phoning in a bomb threat at Glenwood Middle School.
Save

9. Bomb threat at West Salem High School Open this result in new window
Salem Statesman Journal - Jan 04 5:30 PM
Security will be tightened at West Salem High School Friday in response to a message found on a boys restroom wall this afternoon threatening to blow up the school.
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10. Bomb threat at Pahrump Valley High Open this result in new window
KVBC Las Vegas - Jan 06 1:45 AM
Police in Pahrump say they've thoroughly searched Pahrump Valley High School after a bomb threat was discovered. According to police, the note, which was written on a bathroom wall, was specific.
Save

New Lead Could Link al-Qaeda To Khobar Bombing (back)

January 5, 2007

by J.M. Berger Buried within the 244 pages of Gitmo detainee abuse investigation reports released by the FBI yesterday was a clue to one of the longstanding mysteries in the War on Terror -- did al Qaeda have a role in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing?

http://intelfiles.egoplex.com/gitmo-fd-302-training-camps.pdf

According to an FBI FD-302 interrogation record dated May 22, 2002, two FBI agents questioned a Gitmo detainee who had been identified by Saudi and Kuwaiti officials as a suspect in the Khobar bombing.

The detainee had been identified as a Khobar suspect by both Saudi and Kuwaiti intelligence as early as 1996. He was allowed to emigrate to the United States and was living in Buffalo , New York , at the time of the September 11 attacks.

Despite the fact the detainee was known to two U.S. allies as a suspected terrorist, the detainee was able to leave the United States three weeks after 9/11 -- a period when thousands of Muslim men living here had been rounded up and were being held without charge by U.S. officials.

The detainee was eventually apprehended in Afghanistan , the report said.

In June 1996, a truck bomb detonated at Khobar Towers , a U.S. military dormitory in Dhahran , Saudi Arabia . Nineteen Americans were killed in the attack, which is believed to have been the work of Saudi Hezbollah.

For years, rumors have persisted that al Qaeda played a role in the attack as well. The 9/11 Commission reported that Osama bin Laden received congratulatory phone calls on the day of the attack and suggested a link. During the 1990s, al Qaeda and Hezbollah collaborated in terrorist training and other matters. The relationship between Hezbollah and al Qaeda was brokered by Ali Mohamed, an Egyptian-American who worked as a trainer for al Qaeda.

The detainee, apparently a Saudi national, recounted a long history of close encounters with known al Qaeda networks, although he denied any involvement in terrorism. In 1989, the detainee -- then 16 years old -- stayed at the Bait Al-Ansar guesthouse in Peshawar , Pakistan . The house was owned and operated by Osama bin Laden. Al Qaeda was founded in or around this location at the same time.

The detainee received training at the nascent al Qaeda's Al-Sideek camp near Khost , Afghanistan . He claimed he was physically unable to complete the training due to obesity and asked to be sent home.

But in 1995, he traveled to Bosnia , where he served alongside al Qaeda-linked Muslim fighters. The detainee claimed he was merely the unit's cook, but he displayed knowledge of al Qaeda-linked charities and fighting units in Bosnia during the interview with FBI agents. The detainee subsequently traveled to Chechnya , another al Qaeda-linked hot-spot.

Over the years, the detainee frequently returned to Saudi Arabia , where he worked as a liaison between the Saudi government and foreign contractors based in the kingdom. But in 1996, he decided to travel to Tajikistan to fight with Muslim jihadists there.

While he was awaiting a flight to Tajikistan out of Kuwait , the Khobar bombing occurred, according to the detainee. The detainee said he was held by Kuwaiti intelligence for 10 days and released without charge. A few weeks later, the detainee returned to Saudi Arabia where he was again arrested on suspicion of involvement in the Khobar attack, according to the detainee.

Saudi officials have released little information concering their investigation of the Khobar attack. Then-FBI director Louis Freeh and others have complained that the Saudi government obstructed their own efforts to investigate the bombing.

The detainee said he was arrested, interrogated and released repeatedly after his return to Saudi Arabia , and his passport was revoked for several years. Finally, the detainee mamanged to leave the country through a special passport program for Saudis of Bahraini descent. Despite his history with Saudi and Kuwait authorities, he was able to obtain a visa from the U.S. embassy and moved to the United States .

He lived in Indiana for several months, making visits to Michigan and Buffalo , New York , during this time. Eventually, he moved to Buffalo where he lived until three weeks after September 11, 2001. After the attacks, he left the country -- apparently without incident -- and traveled to Afghanistan through Iran .

Another FD-302 included in the Gitmo release details the interrogation of an Egyptian prisoner who admitted that he was suspected in a 1995 attempt to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak during a trip to Ethiopia (though he did not admit actually having a role in the attack).

Source: http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_j_m__ber_070103_ new_lead_could_link_.htm

Muslim Pleads Guilty to Misleading Federal Officers (back)

January 5, 2007

A Rochester NY , grocer pleaded guilty Thursday to misleading FBI agents about his brother's intentions to leave the U.S. for Israel and become a suicide .

Mohamed Subeh, 43, admitted in U.S. District Court that he deceived federal agents when he denied seeing a letter from his brother that indicated he wanted to become a suicide . Prosecutors said Subeh destroyed the letter, but not before investigators had the opportunity to photocopy it and have it translated.

Subeh, a naturalized U.S. citizen, on April 4 will face a sentence ranging from probation to six months in prison.

Subeh's brother, Ismail Dorgham, 24, was stopped in 2003 at the Greater Rochester International Airport when he used cash to purchase a one-way ticket to Jordan and had no luggage in tow.

While he was questioned, an FBI counterterrorism agent found the note to Subeh _ written in Arabic _ in Dorham's possesion. The FBI translated a copy of the document a week later and concluded that Dorgham intended to become a suicide on behalf of a terrorist organization.

Dorgham is currently married and living with his wife and his 2 1/2-year-old son in Bethlehem , Subeh's lawyer, John Parrinello said.

Source: http://www.democratandchronicle.com

All taken in fun, I just hope more comes out of this than what we have seen. Wished we were FBI and CIA with all their info. LOL

Binny boy is dead Omar killed him. Laughing ;)

We have had some bad lighting and thunder tonight, probably snow tomorrow.

Italian Police Arrest 147 Muslims (back)

January 5, 2007

Police have arrested 147 people in raids on Muslim gathering places, including money transfer centers and call centers as part of anti- measures, but none of those arrested were suspected of , the Interior Ministry said on Friday.

The sweep was conducted on Tuesday and resulted in 453 expulsion orders of foreigners, said the ministry, whose forces include anti- police.

A similar operation was carried out in August at the height of holiday travel season in Italy . The summer raids on Muslim gathering places resulted in 40 arrests.

According to the ministry, the latest sweep turned up numerous irregularities at call centers, Internet points and money transfer businesses popular with Muslim immigrants.

Source: [unknown url, from a newsletter]

After the Danish Cartoon Controversy (back)

January 5, 2007

by Pernille Ammitzbøll and Lorenzo Vidino

On February 5, 2006, at the height of the tension following the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten's publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, Muslim protesters torched Denmark's embassies in Beirut and Damascus. While many in the West looked on with bewilderment, protests spread across the Muslim world, and stores in Muslim areas removed Danish products from their shelves. Even as the cartoon crisis captured headlines around the world, most people outside Denmark remain unfamiliar with the forces propelling it. Like the Salman Rushdie affair before it and the furor over Pope Benedict XVI's remarks at Regensburg University after it, the cartoon controversy had less to do with genuine outrage over the depiction of Islam's prophet and more to do with the ambitions, first, of a small group of radical imams and, later, of jousting Middle Eastern powers. Now that the dust has settled, what is the legacy of the crisis, not only for Denmark but also for the Western world?

Background

Beginning in the late 1960s, a small Muslim population of Turks, Lebanese, and Somalis began to settle in Gellerup, a Western suburb of Aarhus , Denmark 's second largest city. Gellerup, known to most locals as 'the ghetto,' suffers not only lower income, poorer education rates, and a higher crime rate than the rest of the city but also physical isolation. Its high-rises, which 28,000 Gellerup residents call home, are surrounded by a thick ring of public green and large boulevards. Designed in 1968 to house blue-collar workers and students from the local university, within two decades, Gellerup had become the destination of thousands of foreign immigrants who had moved to Aarhus to work in the city's food industry. By the mid-1990s, few ethnic Danish residents remained in the development.

As immigrant isolation grew, few Danes, wrapped in the political correctness common across Scandinavia , were willing to talk publicly about the problems simmering among the population; officials and commentators labeled those who did as racists and 'Islamophobes.' By 2001, attitudes began to change. In November, the center-right Liberal Party ended more than seven decades of left-of-center Social Democratic rule. In order to cement a coalition, the Liberal leader Anders Fogh Rasmussen reached out to the People's Party, a nationalist party that had also made significant gains. The new conservative government introduced a series of measures affecting immigrants, ranging from cutting state benefits to raising the threshold required to obtain Danish citizenship. Such measures, especially in the wake of 9-11, triggered an intense public debate over the once taboo topics of immigration and integration.

While some politicians and commentators embraced an extreme tone, as when a People's Party spokesperson compared Muslims to cancer cells,[1] much of the debate was constructive. For the first time, newspapers began to report crimes committed by gangs of teenage immigrants and honor killings of young Danish Muslim women. Politicians detailed overrepresentation of immigrants in benefit abuse and criminal activities. For example, in 2004, Danish authorities pressed charges against five times as many second generation immigrants than against ethnic Danes. In Copenhagen , three in four minors arrested is of immigrant background.[2]

Journalists also began to focus attention on the activities of some of Denmark 's most radical imams. These clerics, for their part, did not hesitate to supply the media with headline-making statements. In 2004, one Copenhagen imam, for example, said in a televised interview that Danish women who do not wear the veil 'were asking for rape;' other clerics recommended that Denmark adopt the tribal concept of blood money.[3]

Enter Jyllands-Posten

At the forefront of Denmark 's new openness toward discussion of Muslim integration was Jyllands-Posten, the country's largest circulation newspaper. Conservative but respected for independent reporting, in 2005, Jyllands-Posten won the 'To Multiplicity, against Discrimination' award from the European Union for its positive coverage of successful cases of Muslim immigration in Denmark.[4] At the same time, though, the paper began to run a series of stories on radical imams in the Aarhus area with particular focus on two who had made Gellerup their headquarters.

The first to be the focus of Jyllands-Posten was Raed Hlayhel, a Lebanese graduate of the University of Medina in Saudi Arabia where he immersed himself in Wahhabism.[5] He moved to Denmark in 1999 after receiving a humanitarian visa to get medical care for his son but refused to learn Danish. Hlayhel established himself at Gellerup's small Grimhoejvej mosque and began to preach his strict and politicized interpretation of Islam, attracting a small following among the neighborhood's Arab population. His sermons repeatedly made Jyllands-Posten headlines, as he decreed that Muslim women should cover themselves from head to toe and will disqualify themselves from paradise if they wear perfume or go to the hairdresser.[6]

Hlayhel teamed up with 28-year-old imam Ahmed Akkari. Born in Lebanon, Akkari had grown up in Aalborg and made a name for himself when, at age 15, local papers portrayed him as a model immigrant and joined a campaign to prevent his family's deportation to Lebanon for illegal immigration.[7] After winning his battle with the government, Akkari attracted attention for other reasons. In 2001, a Danish court convicted Akkari of assault after he almost ripped off the ear of an 11-year-old boy who had accidentally removed Akkari's sister's veil; in another circumstance, he advocated kicking unveiled Muslim girls.[8]

Both Hlayhel and Akkari had an axe to grind with the Danish press and with Jyllands-Posten in particular. They saw an opportunity when Jyllands-Posten published twelve cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad.[9] Culture editor Flemming Rose explained that the idea of running such cartoons came to him 'in response to several incidents of self-censorship in Europe caused by widening fears and feelings of intimidation in dealing with issues related to Islam.'[10] In the aftermath of the assassination of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, ritually butchered in central Amsterdam by an Islamist who had been offended by van Gogh's movie Submission, Rose was disturbed by several episodes in which European artists and publishers refused to display art or perform plays that could expose them to similar threats. Having learned that a local author writing a book on Muhammad was having problems finding illustrators, Rose contacted forty illustrators and asked them to draw cartoons on the subject, curious to see what their responses would be. Only twelve cartoonists responded. Most of the cartoons were harmless, but a few were offensive and two depicted the Prophet negatively: one drew him with a bomb-shaped turban and another as an assassin.

Anger within the Danish Muslim community was high. Some Muslim readers sent letters to the newspaper denouncing the cartoons and organized peaceful protests to express their frustration. For Hlayhel, this was not enough. 'Muslims will never accept this kind of humiliation,' he admonished, 'The article has insulted every Muslim in the world. We demand an apology.'[11] Two days later, Hlayhel and Akkari contacted like-minded imams throughout the country and summoned them to Odense , halfway between Aarhus and Copenhagen.[12] Addressing the clerics with a 'you-are-either-with-me-or-against-Islam' rhetoric, Hlayhel said he would fight to obtain an apology and perhaps other concessions, not only from Jyllands-Posten but also from the Danish government.[13]

Hlayhel's attitude was likely shaped not only by strong religious convictions but also by personal ambition. He saw in the crisis the opportunity to enhance his own prestige within the Danish Muslim community.[14] He could leapfrog from being an imam at a small mosque in the suburbs of Denmark 's second largest city to being the de facto leader of Danish Muslims. Hlayhel's ultimatum put other imams in a dilemma: to play along and attract negative publicity or stand accused by a radical upstart of being insufficiently willing to defend Islam.

Enter Abu Laban

Ahmed Abu Laban, a 60-year-old Palestinian from Jaffa , who had become perhaps Denmark 's most famous imam, was a case in point. A frequent commentator on Danish television and in meetings with government officials, he had taken pains to label himself a moderate. But Abu Laban's past was marred by connections with terrorists. He had settled in Copenhagen in 1983 after being expelled from both Egypt and Kuwait for his involvement in the Muslim Brotherhood.[15] In Denmark, he became the right-hand man of Abu Talal al-Qassimy,[16] a top leader of the Egyptian terrorist group Gama'a Islamiya who had received asylum in Denmark after fighting in Afghanistan alongside Osama bin Laden and other future founders of Al-Qaeda. Many other Gama'a members subsequently passed through Copenhagen , including Al-Qaeda's number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri.[17] Abu Laban also worked as a translator and distributor of Al-Murabitoun, the Gama'a's official magazine, which was published out of Copenhagen and, at the time, glorified the killing of Western tourists in Egypt and urged the annihilation of Jews in Israel.[18]

Abu Laban understood that leaving the spotlight to others could cost him his position of leadership within the Muslim community. Despite mutual suspicions, Abu Laban and Hlayhel teamed up to create and lead the Committee for the Defense of the Honor of the Prophet consisting of twenty-seven Muslim organizations and mosques whose stated aim was to obtain an apology for the cartoons. The committee was less than met the eye, however; Abu Laban only invited imams to Odense known for their radical views. Many of the twenty-seven member organizations were either empty fronts or groups with no more than ten members.[19]

A few days later, Hlayhel issued a press release demanding an apology from Jyllands-Posten on behalf of the entire Muslim community. His call for an apology was a veiled threat. 'We are not threatening anybody,' said the Lebanese cleric, 'but when you see what happened in Holland and then still print the cartoons, that's quite stupid.'[20] Abu Laban and the other imams also contacted the media and voiced their indignation.

While the story was top news in Denmark , outside reaction was muted. On October 17, 2005, the Egyptian newspaper Al-Fajr published the cartoons to illustrate that the depictions were in poor taste[21] as did the widely read Indonesian news website Rakyat Merdeka.[22] Publication of the cartoons sparked not outrage, but only indifference.

Many moderate Danish Muslims sought to distance themselves from the committee's actions. On January 16, Jyllands-Posten ran a front page story with the statements of forty-nine Danish Muslims who wanted to express their disapproval of the actions of the imams and dispel the notion that the committee spoke on behalf of the Muslim community.[23]

For a few weeks, the radical imams continued to voice their protests while Jyllands-Posten defended its right to freedom of expression and satire. With their efforts going nowhere, the imams contacted the ambassadors to Denmark of various Muslim countries to seek their assistance in convincing the Danish government to force Jyllands-Posten to apologize. Eleven of the diplomats, led by Egypt 's ambassador Mona Omar Attia, sought a meeting with Danish prime minister Rasmussen to discuss the issue. Rasmussen refused. 'This is a matter of principle. I won't meet with them because it is so crystal clear what principles Danish democracy is built upon that there is no reason to do so,' the prime minister explained. 'As prime minister, I have no power whatsoever to limit the press—nor do I want such a power.'[24]

Internationalizing the Crisis

In response, the imams decided to escalate matters. Abu Laban called upon his connections throughout the Muslim world to 'internationalize this issue so that the Danish government would realize that the cartoons were not only insulting to Muslims in Denmark but also to Muslims worldwide.'[25]

Helped by the Muslim ambassadors, he put together two delegations of Danish Muslims who traveled to various Muslim countries to solicit support. The delegations met with, among others, Arab League secretary Amr Moussa, the grand imam of Al-Azhar University , Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, and influential Sunni scholar, Yusuf al-Qaradawi. The delegation showed each of these leaders the twelve cartoons published by Jyllands-Posten along with others which had never been published in any Danish publication.[26] The new cartoons were much more offensive than the original twelve: one was falsely alleged to depict the Prophet Muhammad with a pig face and another to show him having intercourse with a dog. When challenged with this fraud, the imams said that the new images had been sent to them via e-mail as threats and had been shown to their Middle Eastern hosts only to give them an idea of the widespread anti-Muslim sentiment in Denmark , a claim that cannot be verified. A booklet presented by the delegation contained several blatant untruths about the oppression of Muslims in Denmark, claiming Muslims do not have the legal right to build mosques and are subjected to pervasive racism.[27] Some of the imams also gave interviews to Arab media, reiterating their accusations and claiming that the Danish government was planning to censor the Qur'an.[28]

The imams' tour was successful. By the end of December, the cartoon controversy had become international. Middle Eastern regimes, trying to ride the wave of religious revival influencing their populations, rushed to condemn the cartoons and called for boycotts of Danish goods.[29] The Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Arab League held meetings on the matter.[30] The Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups used the controversy to prove their claim that the West hates Islam.[31] Many groups and organizations for different reasons opportunistically jumped on the 'I hate Denmark' bandwagon.

News of the Danish controversy spread throughout the Muslim world. The same cartoons that had not sparked reaction in October caused outrage three months later. At the end of January and the beginning of February, the West watched as the cartoon controversy peaked. In Denmark , a country where even top politicians normally go around on bicycles, security guards were assigned to various Jyllands-Posten editors, and bomb threats were called in almost daily to various newspapers. Danish websites were hacked, and Islamists posted on-line threats of attacks against the country.[32]

Various clerics issued fatwas calling for the death of the twelve cartoonists, and a Pakistani cleric even put a US$1 million bounty on their heads.[33] Several Muslim countries officially endorsed a boycott of Danish goods launched by religious organizations. Protesters from Gaza to Jakarta burned Danish flags and effigies of Rasmussen. That many used the controversy for local reasons was apparent. In Pakistan, where Islamists could not find buildings with Danish links, they attacked U.S. fast food restaurants.[34] In Libya, rioters did not attack Danish facilities but targeted the consulate of Italy, the country's former colonial power.[35] In Yemen, government forces falsely accused opposition journalist and free press advocate Hafez al-Bukari of accepting Danish money.[36] And in Afghanistan, the target was the U.S. air base at Bagram.[37]

Enter Naser Khader

Paradoxically, a year later, the consequences of the crisis have been largely positive for Denmark . There has been no terrorist attack against either Denmark or Danish interests abroad. The boycott of Danish goods caused only minor losses for some Danish companies but did not affect the country's general economy.[38] In some cases, the boycott backfired: Egypt saw a 30 percent drop in Scandinavian tourism, and Danish papers reported that the Egyptian tourism attaché in Denmark was flooded with phone calls and e-mails from Egyptian hotel owners begging him to bring back Danish tourists.[39] Danes also proved the imams' accusations of Danish racism wrong; there was not a single anti-Muslim attack in Denmark throughout the cartoon crisis.

The controversy catapulted the debate about Muslim integration into the top issue among all political parties in Denmark . Seldom is there a day without a newspaper editorial, university roundtable, or a television program discussing Muslim integration. Compared with the period before the crisis erupted, the debate is more sophisticated and nuanced. The Danes understand that the Muslim community is not a monolithic bloc but encompasses different religious traditions, ethnic backgrounds, and political opinions. The crisis has taught the Danes to distinguish between Muslims who believe their faith is compatible with a secular democracy and seek integration and those who promote Shari ‘a (Islamic law) and shun Danish society.

Rose wrote in an editorial that the country's radical imams have been marginalized and 'no longer speak for the Muslim community in Denmark because moderate Muslims have had the courage to speak out against them.'[40] Possibly the most positive consequence of the cartoon controversy is the emergence of a number of moderate Muslim leaders, who have confronted the imams and affirmed their pride in living in a society that gives them freedom of expression and religion. The best known among this group is a young Syrian-born Danish parliamentarian, Naser Khader.

Khader moved to Copenhagen in 1974 at the age of 11, rejoining his father who had found a job there as an unskilled worker.[41] Learning Danish, he received a Master's degree in political science in 1993 and launched a successful political career, first locally and then nationally, making integration a priority issue. For more than a decade, Khader had criticized the attitude of many Muslim immigrants who settle in Denmark without embracing its values. His 1996 book, Honor and Shame,[42] which denounced some aspects of Middle Eastern culture as backwards, led to a violent confrontation with Abu Laban; the two men have not spoken since. While Danish media had once characterized the dispute between Abu Laban and Khader as merely a rift within the Muslim community, they now recognize its significance to and consequence for Danish society.

At the height of the cartoon controversy, Khader founded the Democratic Muslim Network, an organization aimed at uniting moderate Danish Muslims. Membership in Khader's organization is dependent on endorsing a document called 'The Ten Commandments of Democracy,'[43] the first commandment of which is, 'We must all separate politics and religion, and we must never place religion above the laws of democracy.'[44]

Abu Laban has described Khader and his Muslim supporters as 'rats in a hole' and 'cowards' responsible for the troubles of all Muslims in Europe.[45] Then, in March 2006, French journalist Mohammed Sifaoui used a hidden camera to tape comments made by the Danish imams during what they thought was a break in an interview.[46] 'If he becomes minister for foreigners or integration,' said Akkari, 'wouldn't there be two guys sent over to blow up him and his ministry?' Because of the ensuing outrage, Akkari wrote an open letter to Khader, apologizing for what he called his bad joke.

While few Danes still tolerate fake moderates and their double talk, where do most Danish Muslims stand? Khader's organization has more than 15,000 non-Muslim supporters but only 1,100 Muslim members, making Muslims a minority in their own organization. Khader responds that membership does not mean much. He points to the People's Party, which has 3,000 members but which obtained 13 percent of the vote in the 2001 elections.[47]

Still support could be higher. Many Muslims support Khader's vision but are afraid to do so publicly. Several who have endorsed Khader's views have received threats. Others fear labeling by the radical imams. 'If you disagree with the imams you are accused of defending Jyllands-Posten, of being against Islam,' said Rabih Azad Ahmed, a Palestinian-born Gellerup resident active in various intercultural initiatives. 'Moderate Muslims are stuck in the middle.'[48]

The Security Services' Dilemma

While Danes sympathize with the moderate Muslims, the government must still address the radicalism of a segment of the community. No solution is without consequence. PET (Politiets Efterretningstjeneste), Danish domestic intelligence, knows well the goals of the radical imams but may fear alienating them. 'I could have raised hell here in Denmark ,' said Abu Laban in the aftermath of the cartoon controversy, 'I could have made the Muslims lash out.'[49] Concerned with the immediate goal of avoiding violence inside Denmark , PET still engages with Abu Laban and other radical imams and sometimes praises them. In a controversial interview given in March 2005, Hans Joergen Bonnichsen, the former PET head, accused the media of demonizing the imams whom he praised for their role in calming down the Muslim community during the crisis.[50]

PET's policy of short-term obsequiousness may have long-term repercussions. Radical imams use the authorities' endorsement to boost their own status within the Muslim community, portraying themselves as the only ones who can represent and defend it. At the same time, the imams manipulate the relationship, becoming necessary mediators in any contact between authorities and the Muslim community. When, for example, in June 2006, a small right-wing group organized a provocative anti-Muslim protest inside Gellerup, the police dispatched insufficient numbers and had to resort to the imams' help to stop the local Muslim youth from attacking the protesters. If keeping order within the Muslim community is subcontracted to the imams, the state relinquishes part of its authority on its own soil to the benefit of megalomaniacal imams disloyal to Denmark and its democracy.

There are other reasons to be skeptical about the security services' benign attitude toward radical imams. Tina Magaard, an expert in Islamic literature at the University of Aarhus, analyzed a sermon delivered by Hlayhel in the aftermath of the cartoon saga, in which, according to his Manichean vision of the world, he divided Danish society into good and bad.[51] If Jyllands-Posten, the Danish government, and the People's Party were evil for their roles in the cartoon controversy, PET and Arla, the Aarhus-based food industry giant that condemned the cartoons fearing economic repercussions against its businesses in the Middle East, are praised for solidarity with Muslims. Magaard believes that Hlayhel considers his own position in Denmark to be similar to that of Muhammad in Medina when the Prophet, having limited power at that stage, formed alliances with tribes of polytheists and Jews. PET and Arla, in Hlayhel's vision, are good Danish 'tribes' with whom a deal can be made for the greater good of Muslims. But Hlayhel's covenant, like Muhammad's, Magaard warns, is revocable: it will be valid only as long as it serves the Muslims' interest, and circumstances will change as the balance of power shifts.[52]

The Aftermath

It seems that power may be the imams' goal. Since the cartoon saga ended, Hlayhel has thrown his weight behind the construction of a large new mosque inside Gellerup, a project he had previously opposed. Wealthy Saudi businessmen have visited his mosque, attracted by his new notoriety. Since money for the construction of the mosque now comes from foreign sponsors supportive of his politics,[53] Hlayhel stands to benefit more and expand his influence at the expense of those more beholden to the local community. Those moderate and liberal Muslim organizations on the other hand that do not receive foreign largesse struggle to survive. Some receive funding from the city council but often at the expense of accusations of being government puppets.

Like the cartoon controversy, the Danish solution to the dual dilemma of how to empower moderate Muslims without tainting them and how to marginalize radicals without backlash will have repercussions beyond Denmark 's border. While some in Europe are watching, many others remain in a state of denial, handicapped by political correctness and self-destructive taboos.

Pernille Ammitzbøll is a journalist with Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten. Lorenzo Vidino is an analyst for the Investigative Project on Terrorism and author of Al-Qaeda in Europe : The New Battleground of International Jihad (Prometheus, 2005).

[1] Spiegel Online, Feb. 8, 2006.

[2] Author interviews with Danish member of parliament, Copenhagen , June 2006.

[3] The Copenhagen Post, Sept. 24, 2004; Berlingske Tidende ( Copenhagen ), June 3, 2005.

[4] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten ( Aarhus ), May 3, 2005.

[5] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, May 21, 2006.

[6] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, May 21, 2006.

[7] Ekstra Bladet ( Copenhagen ), Feb. 14, 2006.

[8] Ekstra Bladet, Feb. 15, 2006.

[9] Sept. 30, 2005.

[10] Flemming Rose, 'Why I Published Those Cartoons,' The Washington Post, Feb. 19, 2006.

[11] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, Oct. 9, 2005.

[12] Author interviews with Gellerup Muslim leaders, June 2006.

[13] Author interviews with Gellerup Muslim leaders, June 2006.

[14] Author interviews with Gellerup Muslim leaders, June 2006.

[15] Author interview with Naser Khader, Copenhagen , June 2006.

[16] Analysis of the June 26, 1995 searches of the Viale Jenner mosque, Direzione per le Investigazioni Generali e per le Operazioni Speciali (DIGOS), Sept. 15, 1997.

[17] The Guardian ( London ), Sept. 24, 2001.

[18] Evan F. Kohlmann, Al-Qaida's Jihad in Europe: The Afghan-Bosnian Network ( Oxford : Berg, 2004), pp. 26-7.

[19] Author interviews with Gellerup Muslim leaders, June 2006.

[20] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, Oct. 9, 2005.

[21] 'Muslim Cartoon Row Timeline,' BBC News, Feb. 19, 2006.

[22] The Washington Post, Feb. 16, 2006.

[23] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, Jan. 16, 2006.

[24] The Copenhagen Post, Oct. 25, 2005.

[25] IslamOnline, Nov. 18, 2005.

[26] The Washington Post, Feb. 16, 2006.

[27] Copy of the booklet is in the possession of the authors.

[28] See, for example, Ahmed Abu Laban, Al-Jazeera television ( Doha ) interview on DR1, Danish state television, Feb. 3, 2006.

[29] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, Jan. 31, 2006; Al-Jazeera, Jan. 29, 2006; BBC News, Jan. 31, 2006.

[30] H.E Prof Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary general, Organization of Islamic Conference, press release, Jeddah, Jan. 28, 2006; BBC News, Jan. 31, 2006.

[31] Olivier Guitta, 'The Cartoon Jihad,' The Weekly Standard, Feb. 20, 2006; The Telegraph ( London ), Mar. 2, 2006.

[32] BBC News, Feb. 8, 2006.

[33] USA Today, Feb. 17, 2006.

[34] BBC News, Feb. 15, 2006.

[35] CNN.com, Feb. 18, 2006.

[36] Yemen Times (Sana'a), Sept. 26, 2005.

[37] USA Today, Feb. 6, 2006.

[38] Author interviews with Danish member of parliament, Copenhagen , June 2006.

[39] Politiken ( Copenhagen ), Mar. 9, 2006.

[40] Rose, 'Why I Published Those Cartoons.'

[41] Author interview with Naser Khader, Copenhagen , June 2006; information available at Khader's website, khader.dk, accessed Sept. 5, 2006.

[42] Ære og Skam (Copenhagen: Borgen,1996).

[43] Naser Khader, 'The Ten Commandments of Democracy,' khader.dk, accessed Sept. 5, 2006.

[44] Ibid.

[45] The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 13, 2006.

[46] TV-DR1, Danish National Broadcasting Corp., Mar. 25, 2006.

[47] Author interview with Naser Khader, Copenhagen , June 2006.

[48] Author interview with Rabih Azad Ahmed, Aarhus , June 2006.

[49] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, May 12, 2006.

[50] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, Mar. 26, 2006.

[51] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, May 21, 2006.

[52] Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, May 21, 2006.

[53] Author interviews with Gellerup Muslim leaders, June 2006.

Source: http://www.meforum.org/article/1437

[this is the end of the article]

STRAIN

The apparent strains in Islam are opening a decade after Bosnia 's Muslims, Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs fought each other for control of the country and its heritage.

An opinion poll found 70 percent of Bosnian Muslims opposed Wahhabism, while 13 percent broadly supported it. Only 3 percent declared themselves followers.

The Islam traditional to Bosnia is moderate, shaped by long co-existence with other faiths and incorporating customs that predate the conversion to Islam of some Christian Slavs in the 15th century, when the Ottomans conquered the Balkans.

Many see this secular, European Islam now threatened by the Wahhabi form of Sunni Islam, which originates in an 18th century reform movement aiming to restore Islam to its pure form by purging it of foreign and corrupting influences or innovations.

Wahhabism was brought to Bosnia by fighters who came to support the outgunned Muslims during the 1992-95 war and missionaries who arrived later.

Most left Bosnia after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States , when strict checks by authorities closed down many of their charities.

No one knows how many local converts there are. The issue is kept in the spotlight by frequent media reports of young women running away from home to join Wahhabi communities and by sensational coverage of religion-related crimes.

In 2002, a 26-year-old man described by local media as a Wahhabi supporter killed three members of a Croat family on Christmas Eve, saying he was following instructions from God. This year, a young Wahhabi killed his mother because she refused to join him for morning prayers.

SHOOTING

The Wahhabi community disowned these incidents. But its self-proclaimed Bosnian-based leader Abu Hamza, who represents foreign former Islamic fighters who married Bosnian women and stayed in the country, is not apologizing for his religion.

Hamza said in October that Islamic practice in Bosnia was 'communist' and urged Muslims to return to 'genuine Islam.'

That same month, a mosque in northern Bosnia closed for days due to a dispute between Wahhabis and local Muslims over the way prayer was conducted. In November, a similar row in the Serbian Muslim town of Novi Pazar ended in a mosque shooting.

Bosnia 's Islamic leaders publicly condemned Hamza's call.

'The Islamic Community regulations rule here,' top Islamic cleric Mustafa effendi Ceric told a news conference. 'Those who cannot accept this did not have to come here and don't need to stay.'

Some analysts said the statement wasn't strong enough. They suspect Islamic leaders avoid the issue so as not to fan long-time accusations by Serb and Croat nationalists of a terrorist threat from radical Muslims in Bosnia .

They also do not want to alienate generous donor Saudi Arabia .

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/ 2006/12/29/AR2006122900325_pf.html

Just can't get enough LOL

Tycoon linked with Litvinenko ‘survived poisoning’
John Elliott and Jon Ungoed-Thomas
A RUSSIAN tycoon with shares in the Moscow newspaper that published the anti-government theories of poisoned former spy Alexander Litvinenko believes he survived a similar assassination attempt.
Alexander Lebedev, a former KGB operative and a banking billionaire, says he believes he was poisoned about eight months ago. His home was checked for radiation but no trace was found and he recovered.

In an interview in Tatler magazine, Lebedev says he lost 13lb after the suspected poisoning, but never found the source of any toxin. He believes his food may have been poisoned in a Moscow restaurant.

Lebedev bought a stake in the investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta last year. The newspaper published Litvinenko’s claims in 2001 that Russian security services were behind a series of apartment bombings in 1999 that were blamed on Chechen separatists.

The newspaper is one of the most independent in Moscow. Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered last October, was a regular columnist. Yuri Shchekochikhin, the paper’s former deputy editor-in-chief, died in July 2003 after a suspected poisoning.

Despite the risk of further attempts in his life, Lebedev is bullish about the need to confront the “layer of mafia corruption” in Russian government.

He does not oppose President Vladimir Putin, but wants judicial reforms to help prosecute corrupt officials and businessmen.

Lebedev owns 31% of Aeroflot, the Russian airline. According to Forbes magazine, he is the 194th richest person in the world with a net worth of about $3.5 billion. He is a close friend of Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader, and a member of the Russian parliament.

Lebedev has enjoyed a rapid rise to riches. In the 1980s he was working as a KGB spy at the Russian embassy in London, earning about £700. After he left government service, he worked as a banking consultant and later bought his own small bank, which thrived on his shrewd knowledge of the bonds and derivatives markets.

Yuri Felshtinsky, who co-wrote Blowing Up Russia, the book that investigated the 1999 apartment bombings, with Litvinenko, said he did not believe anyone at Novaya Gazeta had been specifically targeted over the book. He said it was more likely that assassination attempts were linked to other investigations, including those into government corruption.

Scotland Yard is still investigating the death of Litvinenko in November.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk:80/article/0,,2087-2534532,00.html

Islamic Assault on the First Amendment (back)

January 4, 2007

by Dr. Michael Engelberg

The AMERICAN CENTER for CIVIL JUSTICE

For additional information, please contact Michael Engelberg, MD at accj@optonline.net

The opinions stated below and the enclosed two articles are those of Dr. Michael Engelberg, executive Vice-president of the American Center for Civil Justice, who has advocated for victims of international terrorism for over a decade. These opinions are based on data researched, extensive discussions with counterterrorism experts and court submissions and findings. The reader is entitled to research the same public information and draw his own conclusions.

Islamic Assault on the First Amendment

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Nowhere in the Constitution does it state one must respect another person’s religion. The Constitution implies that one must respect another person’s right to practice their religion. Unfortunately religious leaders, educators, politicians, and journalists confuse this fundamental difference and Muslim leaders and organizations such as the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) have taken advantage of the ignorance of Americans. Muslim activists have succeeded in blurring this distinction. Through persistent intimidation, they demand that everyone respect Islam and silence anyone who criticizes Islam. They will continue to flex their muscles.

The Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), composed of 57 Muslim countries, effected this fundamental change in the United Nations. The OIC formulated a resolution that Islam be protected from 'defamation' even if factual. On April 12, 2005, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights passed a resolution by the vote of 31 to 16 that promotes 'respect for all religions and their value system' superceding 'respect for human rights'. Accordingly, accusing Islam of violating human rights is in itself an act of defamation of Islam.

This indoctrination is being drummed into the American psyche. For example, CAIR has demanded a Manhattan college to investigate how a paperback copy of the Quran from the campus library ended up in a public toilet and that the incident be treated as a possible hate crime even before any facts are known. This is part of a continued campaign to condition Americans that it is a crime to disrespect Islam and the Quran.

The world’s leading online search engine, Google, now considers the critique of Islam as ‘hate speech’ and have removed sites referencing such journalists and columnist as Michelle Malkin and Arlene Peck. Universities are nullifying invitations to speakers such as Daniel Pipes, Bridgette Gabriel, Nonie Darwish and Walid Shoebat, experts on Islamic culture and radical Islamic organizations for fear of Muslim protests and boycotts. In Congress, John Conyers, democratic representative from Michigan has sponsored the House Resolution 288, apparently seeking to criminalize criticism of Islam.

Muslim activists understand our Jeffersonian Constitution better than non-Muslim Americans. They display no compunction in defaming other beliefs and those who are members of other faiths. Muslim activists and representatives of Muslim organizations have deliberately falsified and distorted comments made by critics of Islam in order to discredit them as has been the case with Robert Spencer, an expert on Islam. Using the American judicial system, CAIR has sued individuals, i.e. Andy Whitehead for exposing their radical connections to Hamas without success, although costing thousands of dollars to him and his lawyers for his defense. CAIR threatened to sue Sharon Chadha, an investigative reporter, on grounds of 'harassment' for only requesting information linking financial support from the UAE and Saudi Arabia .

As ominous, is the precedence that has been set into motion. Muslims demand the right to practice their religion even though it infringes on someone else’s civil rights. It is now permissible to discriminate against a population when it offends the sensibilities of Muslims. In Minnesota , Muslims have the right as taxi cab drivers not to service individuals who are in possession of alcohol. When will it be considered a right for these drivers to deny blind passengers with seeing-eye dogs because their dogs are considered unclean, as is presently occurring in the United Kingdom ? And just this past week, it was reported that six imams were removed from a US Airways flight. By all accounts, the passengers and crew were vigilant and recognized problematic conduct that was perceived as a threat to their lives. The imams were asked to disembark. They were not singled out because they were Muslims but because their actions and behavior posed a security risk. Subsequently, they claimed they were 'harassed' and profiled for being Muslims, and summoned Muslims to boycott the airline. CAIR is demanding that Muslims be granted special civil rights protection. This flies in the face of common sense. Since the 9/11 carnage, all Americans are inconvenienced every day in office buildings, shopping malls, educational institutions, airports, etc. And now John Conyers wants to enact a law that gives preference to Muslims.

The second part of the First Amendment is just as meaningful. The Constitution endorses the right to congregate and disagree peaceably: no threatening, no incitement, no rioting, and no killing.

Currently, we are witnessing a breakdown of these Constitutional protections.

Individuals are physically threatened not for telling untruths but for exposing the inconvenient and uncomfortable truths about Islam: its history, culture, the Quran, its founders and leaders.

Political correctness has gone berserk. Americans are not permitted to find fault with Islam. We have to keep telling ourselves that like all religions, Islam must be a ‘religion of peace’. And it must be that only a few fanatics have hijacked the religion.

The cliché 'ignorance is bliss' amply applies to our leaders who fantasize what they would like Islam to be, not what it is. Our leaders will believe almost anything that is told to them that fosters this belief. And financial and political incentives can convince even the doubters. Deny history and ignore the obvious is a better alternative to state the facts and be harmed.

If Americans continue to be afraid to criticize anything related to Islam, and Americans surrender to Muslim empowerment, then we are all doomed to a life of censorship, propaganda, indoctrination and intimidation. And it is only one step away from Sharia laws of blasphemy and discrimination being enforced.

CALLING ALL ATTORNEYS!

U.S. citizens for the past thirty years have become victims of international Islamic terrorism. They have been empowered to use the civil courts to obtain a semblance of justice and to obtain judgments that become a form of economic sanctions against governments that support terrorism. This unconventional approach has been accepted as an effective method in fighting terrorism; it deprives terrorists of their financial resources and disrupts their capabilities.

Attorneys have been successful in obtaining billions of dollars in judgments on behalf of the families of victims and victims of Islamic terrorism, and hundreds of millions of dollars have been collected.

Today, attorneys are needed to represent individuals and defend and fight for Western values in a new Islamic form of terrorism, a cultural and legal jihad taking place in the United States . This is a matter of our survival and life as we know it.

Since 9/11, although our homeland security has improved, our politicians and academicians have undermined our ability to recognize Islam, a totalitarian belief system, as being antithesis to Western values. Radical Muslims have gained a foothold in Muslim communities and are erecting legal barriers that will prevent gathering of intelligence that will thwart another attack. Radical Islamic Organizations that masquerade as moderate civil rights organizations or Islamic ‘charities’ give support to Hamas, Hezballah, and Al Qaeda, movements the U.S. government considers criminal and subversive.

Government representatives and politicians have a duty to condemn demonstrations and financial support for Hezballah and Hamas. Our Congressmen are silent on this issue. One particular congressman is determined to enact laws that give special privileges to Muslims and prevent law enforcement agents from investigating Islamic communities that harbor terrorist and Islamic ‘charities’ and individuals that support Islamic terrorism.

Eighty percent of mosques in the United States are under Saudi Wahabi influence, an extreme form of Islam that supports bigotry against all non-muslims and encourages replacing the Constitution with Sharia law.

The Counsel for American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a radical Islamic organization with a proven association with Hamas, and Muslim activists have threatened and brought civil actions against 1) authors who have identified Muslims who have supported terrorist groups, 2) investigative reporters who have requested information exposing CAIR’s financial relationship to Saudi Arabia, UAE and other terrorist supporting organizations, and 3) talk-show hosts and columnist who are critical of Islam.

Authors, columnists, and journalists whose writings and discussions are critical of Islam are being censored. They are not even allowed to cite passages from the Quran. Islamic organizations and Muslim activists are using a novel tactic to suppress this criticism. They have targeted Google and pressured the search engine to place these authors and their writings in the category of 'Hate Speech'. Sites referencing their names have been removed.

Muslims are demanding special treatment and accommodations in schools, offices, public facilities, private gyms and airports and are bringing legal actions for alleged discrimination and civil rights violations.

Universities throughout the United States propagate an anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian agenda. Professors and Imams, especially in the Middle Eastern Studies programs, believe it is their right to indoctrinate students. Rumors, unsubstantiated reports, fabrications, historical distortions and myths are being taught as facts. Students who are informed and question the veracity of the statements, and submit papers that provide evidence to the contrary are penalized through ad homonem attacks and lower grades. Although it is considered a right to burn the American flag, Universities have passed resolutions making it a crime to desecrate flags of Hamas and Hezballah.

Only through civil actions can this practice of intimidation and Islamization of America be forestalled. Attorneys must represent individuals and organizations who have been unfairly and fraudulently accused of hate speech, for abusive claims of violating civil rights and for not providing special accommodations.

Legal actions must be brought against Islamic Centers, Mosques, Islamic schools and community leaders that incite hatred against non-Muslims and Islamic ‘charities’ that raise funds for terrorist organizations.

Academic institutions must be held to a higher standard and civil actions must be brought against these institutions for promulgating a hostile environment, and discriminating against students. Attorneys must commit themselves to represent students who are harassed and penalized for correcting their teachers on inaccuracies and for being pro-Israel.

This proclamation is a call to all attorneys who recognize that America and its institutions are under attack physically, culturally and politically. It is time to defend those individual who have been falsely accused of discrimination and bigotry, put educational institutions on notice that they cannot claim that propaganda is an 'alternative truth', hold companies culpable for irresponsibly caving-in to bullying actions, and bankrupt those Islamic institutions that support terrorism.

Muslim radicals will continue to be emboldened to enact religious intolerance laws for Muslims only. It is imperative that the legal profession prevent the introduction of such legislation which will weaken America ’s capability to protect itself and its citizens.

Source: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp? ARTICLE_ID=52483 note para #6

New York Times hires former USSR leader
Remember a certain Mikhail Gorbachev, president of the Soviet Union? He’s back in the news, but this time to write about it. The New York Times Syndicate signed him on for a monthly column.
75 years old, and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, Gorbachev’s articles will probably focus on a range of international issues such as globalization, climate change, weapons of mass destruction and povery.

Gorbachev is already involved in newspapers in Russia, where he sponsored and backs up the Novaya Gazeta, a controversial paper that investigates corporate and political scandals.

Source: The Independent

Russia Accuses US of Illegally Imposing Sanctions on Its Military Firms
http://www.truthnews.net/daily/2006100452.htm

Leading Muslim Terrorists Educated at Britain 's Universities (back)

January 5, 2007

by Adrian Morgan

British Universities have long been centers of radicalism, usually of the brand of amateur socialism espoused by the Socialist Workers Party or its ugly sisters Militant and the Worker's Revolutionary Party. Pretending to understand Dialectical Marxism and Trotskyite 'permanent revolution', the leftist radicals infested, and still infest, campuses across Britain .

Since the 1970s, these activists have promoted the myth of Palestinian perpetual martyrdom, and portrayed Israel as a bogeyman. During the 1980s, they supported the women who camped rough outside RAF Greenham Common, a US-linked air base in Bedfordshire , Britain . Though ignored by most students, activists promoted an agenda of anti-Americanism and anti-semitism that has infected at least two generations of post-graduates.

Ultimately they contributed to British media's fawning over the notion of Palestinian, and by extension all Muslims', victimhood. Now grown up, the former student union activists are the first to hurl the term 'Islamophobe' at anyone who questions the spread of radical Islam. In such a climate, it has been easy for Islamic radicalism to flourish, and even to be welcomed on Britain 's campuses.

On September 26, 2005, Britain 's Social Affairs Unit published a report by Professor Anthony Glees and Chris Pope from Brunel University . This report, entitled 'When Students Turn To Terror', listed 24 universities where radicalism flourished, including Birmingham, Brunel, Durham, Leeds, Leeds Metropolitan, Luton, Leicester, Manchester Metropolitan, Newcastle, Nottingham, Reading, Swansea, and Wolverhampton.

Coming out while Britain was still reeling from the horrors of 7/7, when 52 people died on London Transport, Professor Glees' report galvanized the UK media. Already mosques and radical preachers had been named as contributing factors to the bombings of July 7, 2005. Universities had thitherto been ignored. Yet Britain 's campuses had long been the playgrounds of amateur radicals and Islamists.

Many leading Muslim terrorists have been educated at Britain 's universities. Azahari bin Husin, the senior bomb-maker from Jemaah Islamiyah who masterminded the Bali bombings of October 12, 2002 (killing 202 people) and October 1, 2005 (killing 20), studied at Reading University in the 1990s. He gained a doctorate in engineering before going off to join Al Qaeda in Afghanistan .

On February 26, 1993, Ramzi Yousef drove a truck carrying a 1,200 pound bomb laced with cyanide into the car park beneath the World Trade Center . The ensuing blast killed six and injured 1,000. Four years before he committed this atrocity, Yousef completed a degree in engineering at West Glamorgan Institute (now Swansea Institute of Higher Education).

Dr Rihab Rashid Taha al-Azawi, Saddam Hussein's 'Doctor Germ', responsible for his biological warfare programs, learned her trade in Britain . In 1984, she gained a PhD in plant toxins at the School of Biological Sciences at the University of East Anglia .

Individuals such as the above did not flaunt their Islamist credentials at college. Other individuals in British universities linked to terrorism have been allowed to lecture. One such person is 52-year old Bashir Musa Mohammed Nafi, (pictured) who is alleged to be a founder of the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Like Sami al-Arian, who formerly lectured at the University of South Florida , Bashir Musa Mohammed Nafi was, as recently as 2003, an occasional lecturer at Birkbeck College at the University of London . Here, he taught Islamic studies. In the 1990s, Nafi collaborated with al-Arian in Florida . Accused by the US of being the UK leader of PIJ, Nafi has denied the claims.

In 2004, Professor Anthony Glees claimed that academics in Britain 's universities were actively hampering attempts by security services to defend the nation against Islamist threats. He claimed that many academics were 'hostile to the idea of intervention in international affairs and have, since 1980, harbored strong suspicions of American motives.'

In July 2004, the Times reported that two UK universities, the University of Wales and the University of Loughborough , had given official approval to two Islamic colleges which supported both the Taliban and terror-group Hamas. The rector of the Markfield Institute of Higher Education is a member of the extremist party in Pakistan , the Jamaat-e-Islami, who was said to have praised the Taliban. Markfield was supported by Loughborough University and has been praised by the pro-Islamic Prince Charles.

The European Institute of Human Sciences in Llanybydder, West Wales, was validated by the University of Wales . It teaches Arabic courses inspired by Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Times claimed.

During the 1990s, a new phenomenon emerged on campuses and colleges in Britain - that of open radicals who loudly proclaimed their contempt for Western values, and unequivocally pronouncing their jihadist intentions.

Bizarrely, as Melanie Phillips reported in her book 'Londonistan', the department of MI5 which dealt with radical Islamism was closed in 1994, while they considered the issue of the IRA to be more important. With the cat put away, the rats come out to play, in full force. During this hiatus in surveillance, two groups came to the fore, both connected with the Syrian-born Islamist preacher Omar Bakri Mohammed.

Bakri had arrived in Britain in 1985 as an 'asylum-seeker', after he was deported from Saudi Arabia for belonging to a group classed as too 'extreme' even for the center of Wahhabism. This group was called 'Al-Muhajiroun', or 'the emigrants'. Bakri, a former member of the Muslim Brotherhood had founded this group in Saudi Arabia in 1983 as a front for Hizb ut-Tahrir, the 'revolutionary' Islamist group which is banned in most Middle Eastern countries.

When he arrived in Britain , Bakri founded the British branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir. In 1996, he also established Al-Muhajiroun in Britain . These two groups have the aim of establishing Britain as an Islamist state, and yearn for the restoration of the Caliphate, a system of Islamic central government. The last Caliphate, that of the Ottomans, was dissolved in 1924.

On Britain 's campuses, the two groups established their influence during the latter half of the 1990s, particularly after MI5 stopped treating Islam seriously. Hizb ut-Tahrir members regularly threatened to kill Peter Tatchell, a homosexual rights campaigner, and Al-Muhajiroun openly pronounced their hatred of Jews. In the fall of 2000, they hung posters at university campuses which proclaimed: 'The last hour will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and the Muslims kill the Jews.'

Threats and slogans aside, both groups had a more real danger inherent in their activities. The presence of Al-Muhajiroun on campuses in various universities led MI5 to set up a unit to monitor student Islamism at the dawn of the millennium. In early 2001, Russian authorities urged Britain to ban Al-Muhajiroun, as their intelligence showed that students from the London School of Economics had been recruited by the group to become terrorists in Chechnya .

In December 2000 Mohammed Bilal, a young British Muslim, who had been studying his 'A-levels' at a sixth form college in Birmingham, went to India. Bilal had links to Al-Muhajiroun. He blew himself up in a stolen car. This suicide attack at an army barracks in Kashmir killed six soldiers and three civilians.

In October 2001, Al-Muhajiroun claimed that three British Muslims were killed by a US rocket attack in Kabul , Afghanistan . The group claimed that 1,000 British Muslims had gone to Afghanistan since 9/11.

In November 2001, Hassan Butt of Al-Muhajiroun announced that five British Muslims had died in Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan . Butt said: 'They all died as martyrs fighting the so-called coalition against terrorism. They went out there to fight for the Taliban and were prepared to give their lives.'

On January 7, 2002, Butt told the BBC's Today program from his base in Lahore, Pakistan, that many of the British Muslims in Afghanistan would, upon their return, launch terror attacks which would 'strike at the heart' of Britain. Butt boasted of personally recruiting 200 people to fight the coalition.

Bakri cannily denounced Butt's claims, saying that Al-Muhajiroun did not support military actions. He also said that Butt was no longer a member of the group and was no longer its spokesman.

Bakri was lying. At a meeting in Sparkbrook in Birmingham , held less than a week after 9/11, Al Muhajiroun urged listeners to join the armed jihad against coalition troops. One speaker said that Muslims who supported the invasion of Afghanistan were to be urged not to do so. 'But if they do not listen, they are Kufr (unbelievers) too and so it is our duty to fight and even kill them.' Leaflets at the meetings proclaimed: 'The final hour will not come until the Muslims conquer the White House.'

In Derby , Bakri used to regularly visit Al-Muhajiroun members, who had a strong following in the town. In 2000, he told a meeting there that Muslims must send armies 'to fight the aggressors and occupiers and establish the Khilafah (Caliphate).' He issued a fatwa saying that 'the Israeli cancer in Palestine must be uprooted.'

While Al-Muhajiroun targeted students with an attempt to inspire them to jihad, the other group headed by Omar Bakri Mohammed was making inroads at universities and colleges throughout Britain . Hizb ut-Tahrir began to infiltrate student unions and Islamic societies, and its message was equally uncompromising.

Hizb ut-Tahrir's approach was similarly supportive of violence, and used intimidation to achieve its ends. Its most notable influence was to force Muslim women students to wear the hijab or Muslim headscarf. This item had been only used by the older generation of Muslim women until the 1990s. Before the campaigns from Hizb ut-Tahrir, the item had hardly been seen on a campus.

During this decade, while the British government downplayed the seriousness of Islamic radicalism as part of a global movement towards dominance, the behavior of Hizb ut-Tahrir should have raised alarm bells. Britain 's Channel 4 even made a documentary of Omar Bakri Mohammed, filmed over a year in and around his base in Tottenham, north London . Screened on April 8, 1997, this show, entitled 'Tottenham Ayatollah' portrayed Bakri as a clownish buffoon.

The documentary's approach was almost consciously misleading. In 1996, Bakri had tried to invite Osama bin Laden to Britain , to attend an 'Islamic Revival Rally'. Though the show supplied evidence of Bakri's preaching of hatred towards Jews, it was condemned by various Muslim groups. Makbool Javaid, chair of the Association of Muslim Lawyers, tried to prevent the broadcast going out.

There was nothing funny about Omar Bakri Mohammed. Before the documentary was shown, Bakri had addressed 200 students at the Newham College of Further Education, on Thursday, February 23, 1995. Bakri had a core group of supporters at this college in east London . The following day an African student, Ayotunde Obanubi, was stabbed in the arm at the college by a Hizb ut-Tahrir supporter. On Monday February 27, a group of several Hizb ut-Tahrir supporting students, led by Saeed Nur, again attacked Mr Obanubi. The Nigerian student was accused of 'insulting Islam'. The group was armed with hammers and knives. Struck on the head with a hammer and stabbed through the heart, Ayotunde Obanubi died on the steps of the college. Bakri's followers had claimed their first victim.

Source: http://www.speroforum.com/site/print.asp?idarticle=7339

The London School of Economics was Locus for Islamist Terror Recruitment (back)

January 6, 2007

by Adrian Morgan

The London School of Economics was a locus for Islamist terror recruitment yet universities are now rife with individuals who do not seek to share common values of liberty and democracy

In 1994, the Indian High Commissioner, L. M. Singhvi, claimed that Muslim students at British colleges and universities were being recruited by Islamist terror groups in India . The London School of Economics and the University of London 's School of Oriental and African Studies were claimed to be places where students were particularly susceptible to such recruitment.

After followers of Hizb ut-Tahrir murdered Ayotunde Obanubi on Monday February 27, 1995, at Newham College of Further Education, repercussions ensued. The National Union of Students banned the group from its meetings in the same year. In 1996, Omar Bakri Mohammed either resigned or was expelled from the British Hizb ut-Tahrir group which he had founded.

Hizb ut-Tahrir continued to campaign on campuses, intimidating Muslim women into wearing veils, but it was not allowed to speak publicly or hold meetings in student union buildings. With Bakri no longer an active member, the group promoted itself as a 'non-violent' organization, even though it remained virulently anti-semitic and opposed to democracy.

Bakri took his most violent and extremist members from Hizb ut-Tahrir and officially founded British Al-Muhajiroun in February 1996. Bakri took on the role of 'Emir' or 'spiritual leader', while his deputy was Anjem Choudary, a former lawyer.

The Institute for Counter-Terrorism last month reported on a recent conversation (in Arabic) between Bakri and the newspaper Asharq Alawsat. Here he said that Al Muhajiroun targeted more than 48 different universities in Britain , including Cambridge , Oxford , Durham , the LSE, Imperial College , Westminster University , and King's College. This figure is twice the amount claimed by Professor Anthony Glees in his 2005 study 'When Students Turn To Terror'.

The London School of Economics, according to a 2002 report, was certainly a locus for Islamist terror recruitment. In a report by UK intelligence, it was claimed that Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who had became a student at the LSE in 1992, went to Bosnia in 1993 and the following year became involved in Kashmiri terrorist groups, including Jaish-e-Mohammed. He was arrested in 1994 after a police shoot-out following the kidnapping of three British backpackers. He escaped from jail in 1999, and was captured by Pakistani police on February 12, 2002. Omar Sheikh was captured for his involvement in the kidnapping and beheading of US journalist Daniel Pearl, and given a death sentence on July 15, 2002.

Bizarrely, President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan states in his recent book 'In The Line Of Fire' that Omar Sheikh had been originally recruited by Britain 's international intelligence agency, MI6. Omar Sheikh admits to meeting Osama bin Laden twice, but claims his allegiance is more to Mullah Omar of the Taliban. Omar Sheikh is said to have financed the 9/11 terrorist, Mohammed Atta.

The 2002 intelligence report claims that another student from the LSE recruited for Jaish-e-Mohammed, and a third man who was arrested for involvement in the 2001 attack upon the Indian parliament (killing seven) actually lectured to Muslim students at the LSE in 1999.

An official at the LSE claimed: 'There was some activity in the mid-1990s. Together with the students' union we checked that only bona fide students were actually linked to the Islamic society.' In 2000, members of Al-Muhajiroun were physically expelled from a freshers' fair at the LSE after trying to recruit students.

Al-Muhajiroun declared that there was a 'covenant of security' between British Muslims and the UK , which meant that while Muslims were allowed to operate there would be no terrorist attacks on British soil. In 2005, the Sunday Times stated that more than a dozen Al-Muhajiroun members had gone on to become suicide bombers abroad. These included Asif Hanif, who had been one of two Britains involved in the April 2003 attack upon Mike's Bar on the Tel Aviv sea front, which killed three and wounded sixty.

In October 2004, Omar Bakri Mohammed announced that Al-Muhajiroun would be disbanding. In February 2005, he declared that the 'covenant of security' had ended. Four months later, 52 people died when four Muslims, two of whom had been university-educated, decided to enact 'jihad' in London .

Though Al-Muhajiroun was disbanded, it nonetheless continued under other names, with exactly the same membership. It became the Saviour Sect and Al Ghurabaa. These groups were still led by the 'Emir', Omar Bakri Mohammed. The Saviour Sect soon changed its name to become the Saved Sect.

Changing of names is a tactic also employed by Hizb ut-Tahrir in its recruitment drives, where its activists hide behind groups with innocuous titles - East London Youth Forum, the Debate Society, the Muslim Women's Cultural Forum, the Islamic Society, the One Nation Society, the Millennium Society, the Pakistan Society and the 1924 Committee.

After the July 7, 2005 bombings Tony Blair announced in August that he intended to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir. When Blair made this announcement, the Islamist group which professed 'non-violence' threatened to create riots. To this day Hizb ut-Tahrir has still not been banned in Britain .

The UK home secretary, John Reid, banned the former Al-Muhajiroun groups in July 2006. This ban has done nothing to stop Omar Bakri's followers, as in November 2005 the same core membership of Al-Muhajiroun had founded Ahlus Sunnah wal Jamaah, under the leadership of Anjem Choudary.

When Bakri fled to Lebanon in August 2005, he was banned from returning. For two decades he had controlled young Muslims, urging them to claim welfare benefits, to refuse to work and to never vote. But he continued to use the internet to inspire his followers.

In July 2005, it was reported by the National Union of Students that Al-Muhajiroun and Hizb ut-Tahrir members were still trying to recruit members from Scottish universities, using 'front' names to avoid detection. Imran Waheed, the head spokesperson of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain , said: 'We are an intellectual and political movement and we work in Glasgow , Dundee and Edinburgh . Universities should be a forum for debate and we are trying to overturn the NUS ban which we believe is completely unjustified.'

In October 2005, it was revealed that Hizb ut-Tahrir, under another name, was recruiting at University College London, London University 's School of Oriental Studies , Luton University and others. Capitalizing on the leftist students' love of the term 'Islamophobia' to stifle rational debate about Islamism, Hizb ut-Tahrir were operating under the title 'Stop Islamophobia'.

Anjem Choudary followed his 'Emir' to Lebanon , but was deported in November 2005. Unable to speak or recruit at British universities, Choudary was within a week addressing students at the historic Trinity College in Dublin , Ireland . Choudary said that because Ireland supported the US (with its planes refueling at Shannon Airport ), it was a potential target for terrorism.

On November 1, 2005 Ann Cryer, a Labour politician, MP for Keighley, claimed that one university in West Yorkshire was being targeted by members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, who were threatening students. She did not mention the name of the university, for fear it would affect enrollment, but it is believed to be the University of Bradford . She said: 'When I went to the university a few weeks ago I was told that Hizb ut-Tahrir has taken over the Islamic society and was preparing to take over the students union.'

On August 10, 2006, it was revealed that a massive plot, involving about twenty British Muslims, had been halted. This plot had involved a plan to smuggle liquid explosives onto several US-bound airlines. These were to be reassembled into bombs on board flights, in the manner first outlined by Ramzi Yousef in 1995, in his notorious 'Operation Bojinka'.

One of the suspects in this plot was 22-year old Waheed Zaman from Walthamstow, north-east London , who was head of the Islamic Society at London Metropolitan University . Zaman was later charged under Section 1 (1) of the Criminal Law Act 1977, as he had 'conspired with other persons to murder other persons'. In relation to this conspiracy he was charged under Section 5 (1) of the Terrorism Act 2006. - 'preparing to smuggle parts of improvised explosive devices on to aircraft and assemble and detonate them on board.'

Zaman was a member of the extremist group Tablighi Jamaat. The Sunday Telegraph visited the two portable cabins which served as London Metropolitan University 's Islamic Society, based on the campus at Hornsey Road, north London . Here, they found literature and audio cassettes from Omar Bakri Mohammed and Al-Muhajiroun. A newsletter found in the Islamic Society called freedom of speech 'undeniably one of the most central deviated forms of moral decline that non-believers have developed.'

The problem of radical Islam on British university campuses is entrenched, and any attempts to address the problem are met with whines of 'Islamophobia' from Muslims and leftists. Professor Anthony Glees received hostility from Muslims and others for his 2005 report. The vice-chancellor of his university, Steven Schwartz, wrote him a letter stating: 'I have been receiving some surprising letters from other v-cs (vice-chancellors) complaining about your report. Some complain about your research methods. Others seem to resent being lumped in with universities that might be inadvertent homes to people bent on terrorism. One v-c seems to think that I should (or could) shut you up.'

Glees runs the Brunel Center for Intelligence and Security Studies at Brunel University . As he himself admitted in his 2005 report, Brunel was not immune from the specter of jihadist recruitment. One individual who became targeted for recruitment at Brunel was Jawad Syed.

In his first year, Syed knew no-one but was befriended by Muslim students. Gradually, they encouraged him to isolate himself from other students, including Muslims. He said: 'They were very much anti-western with anti-western sentiments. And I clearly saw and experienced that they would use any means to achieve their aims, including violence.... Once they've established that basis of hatred they have you. And then you start working closely with them, under their political agenda, in achieving their greater aim.'

Jawad Syed is the protege of an imam who tries to 'deprogram' young Muslims who have been indoctrinated by radical Islamists. This man, Sheikh Musa Adami, has been chaplain of London Metropolitan University since 2002. Adami's group is called the Luqman Institute of Education and Development. Despite his concerns about Islamic extremism, Adami failed to recognize the extremist literature which proliferated in Waheed Zaman's Islamic Society, at his own university.

In November 2006, Adami's charity reported that Islamist activists were operating at Brunel University , Bedfordshire University , Sheffield Hallam University and Manchester Metropolitan University . The Luqman institute was deprogramming up to ten students from Brunel University .

The Sunday Times reported that at Sheffield Hallam University in 2006, the Islamic Society hosted a lecture by Sheikh Khalid Yasin. This US preacher is a convert from Christianity, who has said: 'There's no such thing as a Muslim having a non-Muslim friend.' Yasin interprets literally the injunction in the Koran (Sura 4:34) that men should be able to beat their wives.

The Muslim chaplain at London 's Goldsmith's College is Shakeel Begg, who is also the imam at Lewisham & Kent Mosque in Ladywell, south London . In late 2006, he gave a lecture to Muslim students at Kingston University . Here, he encouraged his audience to fight jihad. He said: 'You want to make jihad? Very good... Take some money and go to Palestine and fight, fight the terrorists, fight the Zionists.'

In October 2006, a lecture was held at Staffordshire University , entitled 'The true word of God - the Koran or the Bible.' The lecture was given by a former member of Al-Muhajiroun.

Access to universities is still fairly easy for those who are not registered students. On November 7, 2006, Dhiren Barot (pictured) was sentenced to a minimum of forty years' jail for his plots to commit terrorist atrocities in New York , Washington , Newark and Britain . Among his plans, the convert from Hinduism, had included a plan to create a 'dirty bomb' or 'radiological dispersion device. His plans involved the radioactive substance Americium-241 and, as revealed by the Metropolitan Police Press Bureau, they were not idle fantasies. They contained clear details (which have been blacked out for security purposes) based on scientific information. To gather data for his plans, Barot had used a forged pass to enter Brunel University .

Imperial College is a prestigious university in west London , with a good reputation for nuclear research. In November 2005, it introduced a ban on Muslim face-veils, as a security procedure. However, despite its vigilance, this university is not without risk. On December 27, 2006, it was revealed that investigators from Scotland Yard's Counterterrorism Command made an extensive inspection of the university's security. They focused particularly on the nuclear research facilities.

The university has its own nuclear reactor, and with inspectors from the Environment Agency and the Health Protection, Scotland Yard officers checked the nuclear facilities, and took stock of radioactive isotopes. They also did extensive inspection at Harefield Hospital , which has combined its research facilities with Imperial College .

The reason for the inspection has resulted from intelligence which suggests that Islamic extremists have targeted Imperial College .

Though the activities of Hizb ut-Tahrir seem to involve mentally 'preparing' students for the arrival of jihadist recruiters, in 2005, Mustafa Arif, president of Imperial College's student union, which is not affiliated to the National Union of Students, said of the group: 'The culture here would never have been to bar them. They were very small and died out about five years ago. They are nothing compared with some hotheads you read about. As a Muslim I find Hizb a nonsense. Physically they are harmless...'

With such attitudes abounding, it is perhaps no wonder that Imperial College has now been highlighted as a security risk.

Britain 's politicians and security services have not always been as vigilant as they should be in rooting out Islamist extremism from either communities or educational establishments. The leftists at Britain 's universities have not helped in the attempts to protect against terrorism.

In November 2006, when the Department of Education and Skills urged university lecturers were urged to inform police Special Branch of any Muslim students who appeared to be extremist, Muslims, student unions and universities condemned the suggestion.

Preachers such as Omar Bakri Mohammed are still influencing British Muslims to engage in jihad. From his base in Lebanon , Bakri uses the internet to preach on an almost nightly basis. He recently said about terrorist attacks upon Dublin 's Shannon Airport : 'Hit the target and hit it very hard, that issue should be understood.'

Bakri explained his position clearly in 2004, when he said: ''We don't make a distinction between civilians and non-civilians, innocents and non-innocents. Only between Muslims and unbelievers. And the life of an unbeliever has no value. It has no sanctity.'

The British authorities failed to act against radical preachers such as Bakri when they began their campaigns of indoctrination. Such negligence has ultimately led to homegrown suicide bombings and a climate of fear and tension.

Universities are for education. Because of Britain 's complacent climate of multicultural tolerance, universities are now rife with individuals who do not seek to share common values of liberty and democracy. It is ironic that in Britain 's establishments of education, there are so many politically naive activists who still need, more than anyone else, to be educated about the dangers of Muslim extremism.

Source: http://www.speroforum.com/site/print.asp?idarticle=7340

Tucson Mosque Connection (back)

January 5, 2007

Here's an Investor's Business Daily editorial about those six airport imams currently serving as CAIR's poster-clerics for prejudice, with some more interesting facts about their spokesman Omar Shahin: A Profiling In Courage.

Then there's the case of Muhammed al-Qudhaieen and Hamdan al-Shalawi, two Arizona college students removed from an America West flight after twice trying to open the cockpit. The FBI suspected it was a dry run for the 9/11 hijackings, according to the 9/11 Commission Report. One of the students had traveled to Afghanistan .

Another became a material witness in the 9/11 investigation. Even so, the pair filed racial-profiling suits against America West, now part of US Airways. Defending them was none other than the leader of the six imams kicked off the US Airways flight this week.

Turns out the students attended the Tucson , Ariz. , mosque of Sheikh Omar Shahin, a Jordan native. Shahin has been the protesters' public face, even returning to the US Airways ticket counter at the Minneapolis airport to scold agents before the cameras.

In an Arizona Republic interview after 9/11, he acknowledged once supporting Osama bin Laden through his mosque in Tucson . FBI investigators believe bin Laden set up a base in Tucson .

Hani Hanjour, who piloted the plane that hit the Pentagon, attended the Tucson mosque along with bin Laden's onetime personal secretary, according to the 9/11 Commission Report. Bin Laden's ex-logistics chief was president of the mosque before Shahin took over.

'These people don't continue to come back to Arizona because they like the sunshine or they like the state,' said FBI agent Kenneth Williams. 'Something was established there, and it's been there for a long time.' And Shahin appears to be in the middle of it.

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/Issues/2006-11-16/news/feature_print.html

Source: http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/Issues/2006-11-16/ news/feature_print.html

TERRORIST CONNECTIONS

Terror: Iran 's Chief Export (back)

January 5, 2007

by Steve Schippert

One might ask: 'Why should the average American bother reading yet another lengthy report on the threat posed by Iran ?' Or, more to the point: 'Why should I care? Why should I be concerned? Iran is in the Middle East and seems bent on Israel .'

The answer is because Iran ’s Hizballah has active terrorist cells in the United States . This, coupled with Iran ’s role as the Central Banker of International Terrorism, should compel the average American to take Iranian threats seriously – such as Ahmadinejad’s recent open Jihad ultimatum to Europe . Created by Iran ’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and responsible for (among other attacks) the bombing of the US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut which killed nearly 300, Hizballah’s presence in the United States is well documented. While Iran openly states that the ‘Zionist Regime’ should be 'wiped off the map' and pledges to do just that – as do Hamas and others – even Israel is referred to as the ‘Little Satan’ while America remains the ‘Great Satan.’

Putting The Iranian Terrorism Crisis First

The persistent threat from Iran is not the nuclear weapons it seeks to wield, but rather the nature of the regime that will be in possession of such destructive power – a threatening nature that is clearly indicated by the regimes and terrorist organizations the Iranian mullahs materially support throughout the world. Without consideration of Iran ’s internal brutal treatment of its own citizenry, it’s external dealings are indication enough of regime intent. This intent clearly signals that the specter nuclear weapons in the hands of the Central Bankers of Terrorism is certainly a greater potential danger than all of the Sunni and Shi’a Islamist terrorist groups it currently supports.

The root of the threat from Iran is clearly terrorism. Nuclear weapons – and their horrifying devastation – are but a weapon potentially wielded as part of that threat. And if the messianic fatalists in Iran , such as Ahmadinejad’s spiritual mentor, Ayatollah Mezba-Yazdi, gain control of the Council of Experts in the upcoming December elections, what materialistic rationality exists to appeal to among the unlikable but wealthy, powerful and preservationist mullahs may be lost altogether.

The Council of Experts has the power to remove and elect the Supreme Leader and may potentially replace Ayatollah Khameini with Mezba-Yazdi for the purposes of more rapidly ‘paving the way for the return of the Mahdi,’ or 12th Imam. The powerful messianic faithful believe that he will return when the world is plunged into chaos and bloodshed of unseen proportions.

Terrorism equipped with nuclear weapons must be seen as the ‘fast-food’ equivalent to ‘paving the way for the return of the Mahdi.’ To assume that Ahmadinejad, Yazdi and others in the Iranian regime would employ only their own Shi’a-faithful terrorists such as Hizballah and shun Sunni groups such as al-Qaeda is to ignore existing evidence to the contrary.

Iran ’s Somali ‘ Ore for Arms’ Uranium Deal

In newly exposed developments disturbing to the West, a United Nations report on arms proliferation into Somalia implicated Iran among six other Middle Eastern and African nations. The report details how Iran has been seeking to trade arms shipments to the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) in return for raw uranium ore in abundance in Islamist-controlled southern Somalia . In the UK ’s Telegraph reporting, it is unclear whether Iran has successfully extracted any shipments of uranium to date.

The report detailed three inbound Iranian arms shipments, one by plane in which the Shi’a theocracy supplied the Sunni ICU, an al-Qaeda branch, '1,000 machineguns, 45 surface-to-air missiles, M-79 rocket launchers and land mines.' This shipment was promised to be the first of many if the ICU agreed to exchange return shipments of its uranium ore. Presumably, the Iranians would send freighters by sea loaded with weapons and, after unloading them, the cargo holds would be filled with raw uranium ore bound for Iran for enrichment. Two Iranians were reported as being sent to the Somali town of Dhusa Mareb to negotiate the detail of the Arms for Ore deal.

Somalia : An Iran-al-Qaeda Convergence Zone

While Iran has been sending weapons shipments into Somalia for the ICU to wage war with, al-Qaeda been pouring hundreds of trained terrorists into Somalia to use those weapons and tighten the grip bin Laden’s ICU ‘franchise’ has on Somalia . The terrorists are sent from Pakistan via nearby Yemen , taking a relatively short boat trip from the Yemeni coastline to Somali ports.

With the Iranian efforts to extract Somali ore in exchange for arms and the al-Qaeda trafficking of trained terrorist fighters, it was no coincidence that among the ICU’s first objectives in taking Somalia was to seize and secure the coastal port cities and their port facilities.

The Telegraph report indicates that the first Iranian arms shipment - sorely needed by the lightly armed Islamists - was brought in by plane. That the UN report explicitly indicates the first shipment by plane suggests that subsequent shipments were by another means: by ship. If freighters are arriving in Somali ports, they are unlikely to leave empty. It is reasonable to conclude that Iran has received at least two freighter loads of unknown tons of uranium ore, material that the IAEA will have no accounting for in Iran ’s growing enrichment operations.

In the Somali Convergence Zone, Iran gets what it wants as does al-Qaeda. Iran gets nuclear material in a clandestine manner while al-Qaeda sends in hundreds of men to use the Iranian weapons and secure Somalia for both a future base of terrorist operations (Afghanistan II) as well as incrementally expand the reach of the desired Islamist Caliphate.

Iran ’s Nuclear Program Still A Clandestine Operation

Most importantly going forward is the little recognized factor that the once-secret Somali ore transfers would provide Iran untraceable uranium stores in amounts unknown to the IAEA. While the Iranian nuclear program was exposed in 2003, much of its extent and facilities remain outside the scope of observation. The still-clandestine nuclear program remains under direct military control, not within the ‘civilian’ Iranian nuclear agency.

With a store of uranium unknown to the IAEA, Iran could produce enriched uranium that would not need to be accounted for during IAEA inspections. This would give Iran in the future a plausible appearance of producing only what it needed to fuel reactors while creating weapons in parallel. Indeed, yesterday chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani suggested that Iran would welcome renewed IAEA inspections if the Security Council dropped its drive for sanctions and returned the Iranian dossier to the IAEA, a monitoring agency without an enforcement mechanism beyond reference to the Security Council.

What remains clear is the Iranian desire to still work beyond the observation range of the IAEA and outside the scope of the NPT, just as it did for decades prior to the 2003 exposure of its clandestine nuclear program. That clandestine nature continues to this day, with or without IAEA inspections.

Shi’a Iran ’s Support of Sunni Terrorists

The Iranian dealings in Somalia further indicate a willingness and track record of working with Sunni terrorists and, in particular, al-Qaeda. Just as some incorrectly held the belief that theologically driven al-Qaeda would never cooperate with a secular and thus apostate Saddam Hussein, it is becoming undeniably clearer that the Shi’a Islamists of Iran will cooperate and assist terrorists from the bitter rival Sunni sects of the Muslim faith just as readily.

The Islamic Courts Union in Somalia is an al-Qaeda ‘franchise’ organization tasked with expanding jihad in Africa and setting up a base from which to operate similar to Afghanistan prior to 2001.

The arms shipments to the ICU in Somalia are clear indications of Iranian support for terrorists that they disagree with theologically. Both sides in a cooperation of convenience and/or necessity, engaging a common enemy, shelve those differences. Unlike the American body politic, they have largely agreed to fight their battles among each other at a later time.

Iran ’s Newly-Purchased Hamas Ally Against Israel

When it furthers their strategic objectives, Iran ’s support for Sunni terrorists can also be seen in its massive influx of money, arms and training to Hamas in the Gaza Strip. In order to gain influence among the Palestinians, Iran has sent over $120 million in cash to Hamas, supplied them with the same tank-killing rockets of Russian design that they supplied Hizballah, and serves as the primary source of the tons of explosives, thousands of machine guns and millions of rounds of ammunition in Gaza as Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence services has been warning of for months.

It was recently released by Israeli intelligence that, in July, two suicide bomb belts made of highly potent liquid explosives undetectable to scanners were discovered in the West Bank . One was in the possession of a would-be suicide bomber who was thwarted while wearing it on his intended mission. The other was found by the Palestinian police hidden in a PA Police headquarters building in Ramallah. The Popular Resistance Committees, an umbrella terrorist group comprised primarily of Hamas and former-Hamas terrorists, made the new never-before-seen explosive belts in the Gaza Strip and delivered them to the West Bank . The source of the new technology is almost certainly Iran, just as it is the source of Hamas’ other new weaponry, including but surely not limited to the Merkava killing anti-tank rockets used in the Popular Resistance Committees’ tunnel operation that resulted in the abduction of IDF Corporal Gilad Shalit. (See: Anatomy of An Attack: The Palestinian Tunnel Raid.)

Consider that in April, al-Qaeda issued a fatwa condemning the fellow-Sunni Hamas organization for drifting from strict adherence to the faith. Shi’a Iran , however, finds no ideological fault great enough to prevent their support. To them, Hamas provides their southern front against Israel , to coordinate with the Hizballah northern front in warfare against the 'Zionist Regime' and her Jews.

Regardless of the often-sharp differences among them, the Iranian terror masters cooperate with al-Qaeda, Hamas and other Sunni terrorist groups when it furthers their strategic aims. They share two common enemy states: Israel and America .

The above developments regarding Iran ’s involvement in Somalia , with al-Qaeda and with Hamas are but recent bullet points in a larger mosaic of the mullah regime supporting, expanding and exporting jihad.

Conclusion: Cooperation, Convenience, Convergence, and Confrontation

It should be considered soberly that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently delivered a very blunt Jihad ultimatum to Europe for its support of Israel . In no uncertain terms, Ahmadinejad declared, 'This is an ultimatum. Don’t complain tomorrow.' There is no misinterpreting such directness. Yet little credence appears to have been paid to the threat made openly by the world’s foremost state sponsor of international terrorism, spoken by a messianic president whose principal desire is the ‘usher in the return of the Mehdi.’ He openly threatened the spread of Jihad to European soil for supporting the ‘terrorist Zionist regime.’

Iran is engaged in efforts to wage warfare against Israel and non-Islamist Africans with a degree of perceived but false separation through their Hizballah proxies and even – clearly - al-Qaeda when it serves their purposes. To conclude that the Iranian terror-sponsoring regime would not and is not providing precisely the same level of support and cooperation against the American 'Great Satan' would be a miscalculation of tragic proportions.

Why should the average American care enough to understand? Because the Iranian facilitator and embodiment of terror, Hizballah, has cells active in the United States . To dismiss or treat lightly the Iranian threat because the regime is in the Middle East is to repeat the deadly error of dismissing al-Qaeda because bin Laden and company were running terrorist training camps in far away Afghanistan . And they will cooperate with one another when it supports their common aims of attacking and killing the enemy.

Ultimately, average Americans are that enemy. No different than the average Israelis killed by the rain of Hizballah rocket fire intentionally raining down on civilian populations for the effects of terror. No different than the average Americans smote from our midst by al-Qaeda on September 11, 2001. No different than the average Somali gunned down recently amongst a crowd fired upon by the ICU for protesting in the streets of Mogadishu .

To the Islamists, they are the enemy. And we are ‘they.’

Source: http://dangermanagement.typepad.com/danger_management/ 2006/12/from_threats_wa.html

Beauty Queen Links Saudi Ex-husband to bin Laden (back)

December 30, 2006

by Leila Salaverria

A former beauty title holder has asked the Bureau of Immigration to deport her estranged Saudi Arabian husband for involvement in a string of cases and for allegedly having ties to al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States .

Sabrina Artadi also accused Saudi businessman Fouzi Ali Bondagjy of failing to give financial support to their two children and of harassing them, thus making him an undesirable alien.

But in his reply to the BI, Bondagjy, through his lawyer, contested Artadi's claims and described allegations of his ties to Bin Laden as 'untrue, unfounded, self-serving, hearsay and most importantly, without basis.'

Bondagjy said all the allegations against him should not be entertained for being vague and hearsay. He said Artadi simply wanted to get money from him.

Artadi earlier filed a case before the immigration bureau to have Bondagy deported for failing to secure an alien employment permit from the Department of Labor and Employment. The BI initially ordered the Saudi national expelled from the country, but later amended its decision on appeal and fined him instead.

In her complaint to the BI, the 1988 Binibining Pilipinas-International said Bondagjy met with Bin Laden in the Philippines sometime in 1990.

Artadi said Bondagjy was involved with the Muslim World League, which she described as a Saudi charity organization being sued by the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks. She said the organization held office at the Heart Tower Building on Valero Street , Makati City.

'I was asked to host the dinner for the Muslim World League members in apartment 20b Twin Towers Condominium Philippines, sometime in 1990, and one of the guests was Bin Laden. Bondagjy would do recruitment jobs for Bin Laden in the Philippines,' she told the BI.

She added that the Muslim World League's assets and properties, including its Heart Tower office, had been confiscated by the United States treasury department for the organization's alleged involvement in terrorist activities.

Artadi said she was not allowed to be in the living room where Bin Laden and the other men were present. She stayed in the kitchen that time and only peeked through the glass window of the kitchen door.

Bondagjy, in his reply, said Artadi's statements linking him to Bin Laden were part of a larger scheme to discredit him and are 'clearly the ravings of a desperate woman.'

He added that Artadi's statements were never substantiated and should not be considered. He pointed out that if her claims were true, then she should be held liable for coddling a terrorist.

'Except for complainant's self-serving assertions, there were no documents or pertinent evidence attached to support her false allegations... Ironically, if complainant Artadi has seen Bin Laden (which to respondent is highly incredible and has no knowledge of) she should be investigated for harboring a terrorist,' Bondagjy said.

Artadi also said in her complaint that the Supreme Court had ruled that she and Bondagjy should have joint responsibility over the expenses of raising their children, but Bondagjy opposed her motion to execute the decision to get the required support for the children, especially for their education.

She said his refusal to extend financial support to his children violated the Anti-Violence Against Women and Children Act of 2004.

She said Bondagjy 'harassed and intimidated' her and her children, whom he allegedly tried to take without her consent, which he had to get based on the Supreme Court's ruling. He also forbade his children from making the sign of the cross or reciting the Lord's Prayer, she added.

Bondagjy, for his part, said he gave Artadi and her mother 70 percent of the stockholdings of Celebrity Travel Agency in trust for the children. He also said he gave her a condominium unit, a prawn farm, jewelry and credit cards, which he later discontinued. He added that he was a responsible husband and father.

Artadi, in her complaint, also cited Bondagjy's estafa case that arose after he failed to bring Filipino Muslims on a pilgrimage to Mecca despite the latter having paid the Saudi national's travel agency for the trip.

Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez reversed the decision to file the criminal charge of estafa against Bondagjy, but Artadi said the decision also noted that her estranged husband was still civilly liable.

Bondagjy said Gonzalez's resolution did not establish that Bondagjy had civil liabilities. He said the resolution was only stating the nature of criminal and civil liabilities.

He also said that if he had any civil liability at all, the matter was already laid to rest by the waiver and quitclaim executed by the groups that dealt with him to arrange the pilgrimage, and by the other pilgrims.

Artadi said her estranged husband was involved in a labor case and was ordered by the Supreme Court to pay over $27,000 in unpaid wages plus $2,700 in lawyers' fees to several Filipinos.

She added that Bondagjy was also charged with illegal recruitment, found guilty of illegal dismissal and ordered to pay $18,700 to several overseas Filipino workers, but the said damages had not been paid.

But Bondagjy said it was not him but a certain Ahmed Bondagjy who was involved in the labor case.

As for the second labor issue, he said he was never involved in 'illegal recruitment.'

Bondagjy said the case involved allegations of illegal dismissal related to contractual issues and that the BI had no jurisdiction to evaluate it.

He added that he had not been given the chance to refute the allegations of the complainants in the second labor case. He said the complainants had admitted to terminating their contracts prematurely and freed him from any claim.

Source: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/metro/view_ article.php?article_id=40781

Iranian official: If threatened, we will use nuclear weapons
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3348748,00.html

Iranian official: If threatened, we will use nuclear weapons

After countless declarations of peaceful intentions of nuclear plan, Iran's chief nuclear envoy confirms fears by saying if county is threatened, situation may change

Associated Press
Published: 01.05.07, 15:04
Iran's chief nuclear envoy Ali Larijani said on Friday that Iran is committed to the peaceful use of nuclear technology but warned the situation could change if his country is threatened.

"We oppose obtaining nuclear weapons and we will peacefully use nuclear technology under the framework of the Nonproliferation Treaty, but if we are threatened, the situation may change," He told a news conference after two days of talks in Beijing.
Rare Remark

Mubarak hints: We'll develop nukes / Roee Nahmias

During summit with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Egyptian president hints that if Iran attains nukes, Egypt will have to also in order to defend itself. Up until now Egypt has claimed its nuclear program was for energy purposes only
Full story

Iran's nuclear chief said his country has produced and stored 250 tons of the gas used as the feedstock for uranium enrichment, state-run television reported Friday.

Vice President Gholamreza Aghazadeh, who is also the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said Iran has kept the uranium hexaflouride gas, or UF-6, in underground tunnels at a nuclear facility in Isfahan to protect it from any possible attack.

"Today, we have produced more than 250 tons of UF-6. Should you visit Isfahan, you will see we have constructed tunnels that are almost unique in the world," State-run television quoted Aghazadeh as saying.

Larijani during press conference (Photo: Reuters)

While China has strong trade ties with oil-rich Iran, it is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, which voted unanimously to bar all countries from selling materials and technology to Iran that could contribute to its nuclear and missile programs.
It also froze the assets of 10 Iranian companies and 12 individuals related to those programs.

'Iran will stand up to coercion'

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday said international sanctions won't stop Iran from enriching uranium, vowing not to give into "Coercion," State-run television reported.
"Iran will stand up to coercion. ... All Iranians stand united to defend their nuclear rights," State-run TV quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

Iran has refused to comply with international demands that it suspend uranium enrichment. It also has condemned as "Invalid" And "Illegal" a UN Security Council resolution passed last month that imposes sanctions against the Islamic Republic for refusing to halt enrichment.

"Enemies have assumed that they can prevent the progress of the Iranian nation through psychological war and issuing resolutions, but they will be defeated," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying on state-run TV.

Reuters contributed to this report

http://www.albawaba.com/en/news/208147

Algeria: Main Islamist group rejects truce call

Posted: 06-01-2007 , 15:34 GMT

Bouteflika Algeria voteThe leader of Algeria's main armed opposition group, now linked to al-Qaeda, vowed Saturday to continue with its struggle and appealed to Osama bin Laden for instructions.

Abdelmalek Dourkdel, leader of the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, rejected an appeal for reconciliation by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to end the 14-year fight in Algeria. The group must continue its fight against "aggressors" who have erected "artificial borders" between Islamic states, Dourkdel said in a note on the group's Web site.

Addressing bin Laden, whom he called "our dear emir," Dourkdel said, "We are impatiently awaiting your instructions and directions for the next phase."

Dourkdel was one of the signatories to a statement in 2003 announcing the group's alliance with al-Qaeda.

© 2007 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)