Free Republic

The head of the Federal Government's Muslim Advisory Group says Hezbollah is not a terrorist organisation and should be removed from a list of banned organisations. Dr Ameer Ali has also accused the Australian Government of having no independent policy on the Middle East, saying it follows the United States and Israel. He says Hezbollah should not be considered in the same league as Al Qaeda. Dr Ali says he is going to write to Mr Howard asking for the group to be removed from a list of banned terrorist organisations. "Hezbollah is not a terrorist organisation, it's not a...

ISRAEL today hacked into the television station of Hezbollah, emblazoning images on the screen showing pictures of corpses and claiming the Shiite militant group's leader Hassan Nasrallah was a liar. One of the images shown on Al-Manar television portrayed the body of a fighter lying face-down, wearing khaki trousers with a text beneath in Arabic reading: "This is the photograph of a body of a member of Hezbollah's special forces". "Nasrallah lies: it is not us that is hiding our losses," continued the text, which appeared during the evening news and stayed on the screen for several minutes. A photograph...

ISRAEL'S Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu today compared the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict in Lebanon to the Hollywood movie Alien. The 1979 science-fiction thriller starring Sigourney Weaver depicted "alien ferocious bodies that plant themselves in a host and lurch out, burst through the chest, and attack the person next to the host and in doing so, kills the host", Mr Netanyahu told Canadian broadcaster CTV from Tel Aviv. "Hezbollah is the alien body and Lebanon is the host," he said. "And the mother alien, if you will, producing these poisoned eggs, is Iran, with its way station to Syria." Israel would be the...

July 26, 2006 -- JERUSALEM - Israel claimed victory in Hezbollah's southern "capital" yesterday after a battle in Lebanon that uncovered Iranian-made weapons and electronic equipment and left 150 guerrillas dead. Israeli forces found "war rooms" equipped with Iranian surveillance and eavesdropping gear in Bint Jbail, the main Hezbollah stronghold just inside the border. "The town is completely controlled by us," an Israeli colonel said. Caches of weapons were also found in Bint Jbail, Israeli officials said. Mahmoud Komati, deputy chief of Hezbollah's political arm, refused to acknowledge the group was firing Iranian-made missiles into Israel. "We don't deny nor...

July 18, 2006 -- WASHINGTON - President Bush yesterday vented his frustration with the surging violence in the Mideast during a private chat with British Prime Minister Tony Blair that was picked up by an open microphone - insisting Syria should get Hezbollah to "stop doing this shit." It hit the fan during a luncheon photo op at the Group of 8 diplomatic summit in Russia as Bush and Blair candidly plotted strategy to halt the attacks. "I think Condi [Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice] is going to go [to the war zone] pretty soon," Bush said. "It will take...

SUSPECTED pro-Taliban militants beheaded two tribesmen in a remote part of Pakistan for allegedly working for US forces across the border in Afghanistan, officials said today. Gunmen captured one of the tribesmen, who had been supplying food to US troops in Afghanistan, and killed him in the town of Khar Qamar in the restive North Waziristan region on yesterday, a security official said. "They beheaded the man and fled in his vehicle," the official said on condition of anonymity. "He was well known as someone who supplied food to the Americans." Residents also found the headless body of a man...

PAKISTANI gunship helicopters destroyed a suspected militant compound in a restive tribal region bordering Afghanistan, killing a number of foreign insurgents, a military source said. The raid, conducted overnight on the basis of "confirmed intelligence", targeted a hideout in Nagar, six kilometres south of Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, the source said on condition of anonymity. Pakistani forces have carried out a series of operations against suspected militants in lawless North Waziristan over the past month and a half. The military said around 250 rebels and five soldiers have been killed. "A sting operation with the help of...

VIENNA, Austria -- European imams have pledged to work harder to prove that Islam is compatible with democracy and that the majority of Muslims living in the West support human rights, free speech and pluralism. More than 130 prayer leaders from across the continent, in a meeting sponsored by Austria as the current president of the European Union, agreed that Islamic theologians in Europe must do more to establish that their faith does not clash with Western values. The declaration published yesterday amounted to a catalog of homegrown moderate views that Western politicians have been urging Muslim leaders to draw...

At least 29 women and children were killed in a stampede after a religious gathering in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi today. Around 20,000 women were gathered with their children in Faizan-e-Madina mosque in the eastern district of the sprawling city to mark the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed, which falls on Tuesday. Local police official Zahid Hussain said the stampede occurred after a girl coming out of the mosque fell down. Witnesses said the child cried out, sparking panic among the women who tried to force their way out of the mosque. "All of a sudden there had...

(AgapePress) - A best-selling author who once had to escape from Afghanistan says America needs to evaluate seriously the meaning of free speech in light of wartime realities in the contemporary environment of Islamic terrorist aggression. Dr. Phyllis Chesler is a former college professor and the author of numerous books examining historical and contemporary culture, including About Men (1979); Women of the Wall: Claiming Sacred Ground at Judaism's Holy Site (2002); and The New Anti-Semitism: The Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It (2005). In addition to her teaching and writing, she has been a strong opponent of...

A CARTOON depicting Prime Minister John Howard and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer as fornicating dingoes was a grotesque stunt by a tacky publication, Mr Downer said today. But the minister said the Indonesian paper which published the lurid cartoon had every right to do in a free society. The Islamic-leaning Rakyat Merdeka (People's Freedom) newspaper has run the cartoon on its front page amid Indonesia's continuing anger over Australia's giving visas to 42 West Papuan asylum seekers. The cartoon depicts the two dingoes having sex under a palm tree on an otherwise barren island signposted "Papua". Headlined "The adventure of...

A monitor of Christian persecution says two more Afghan believers have been jailed in the wake of the case of Abdul Rahman, a convert to Christianity who faced the death penalty under the nation's Shariah law. According to Compass Direct, two other Afghan Christians were jailed in the past few days. "Because of the sensitive situation, local sources requested that the location of the jailed converts be withheld," the organization said. Compass Direct also reports that this past weekend, one young Afghan convert to Christianity was severely beaten outside his home by a group of six men who eventually knocked...

AN IRAQI militant group which killed an Italian reporter in 2004 said it was watching foreign journalists but would only kill those it considers to be spies for its U.S.-led enemies. Al Jazeera television broadcast an interview overnight with a man it described as the spokesman of the Islamic Army in Iraq, who accused the United States of responsibility for the car bombs that have killed thousands of civilians since 2003. "The security bodies of the Islamic Army ... follow them constantly or at least keep watch and occasionally a journalist or another falls into their hands," said the man,...

PRIME Minister John Howard will personally protest to the Afghanistan Government over the prosecution of a man who faces possible execution for converting from Islam to Christianity. Mr Howard said those who would advocate such a course were no friends of Australia. Australian diplomats in Kabul have already expressed Australia's view to the Afghanistan Government. "I am going to personally protest again to the president of Afghanistan," he told Southern Cross radio. "This is appalling. When I saw the report about this I felt sick literally. "We are putting the lives of Australian soldiers on the line. This is outrageous....

The North Carolina Muslim who drove an SUV into a group of people at the University of North Carolina has written a letter to a local TV station saying Allah approves of such attacks. "Allah gives permission in the Quran for the followers of Allah to attack those who have raged war against them, with the expectation of eternal paradise in case of martyrdom and/or living one's life in obedience of all of Allah's commandments found throughout the Quran's 114 chapters," wrote Mohammed Taheri-azar in a two-page letter sent to a television reporter and anchor at WTVD-TV, an ABC affiliate...

CENTERVILLE, Va., Mar. 9 /Christian Wire Service/ -- John Marion, project director of Truth For Muslims, an evangelical Christian group, announced plans to reach more people in Texas with their message. "Christians in Texas have told us they like our message," said Marion from his Virginia office near Washington, DC. Marion continued, "We're meeting the challenge of Islam through evangelism, teaching, and public speaking. A lot of people in Texas have told us they believe in our message. We will mail our letters to Christians throughout the state." Literature published by Truth For Muslims, which has been mailed to 50,000...

POLICE are unfairly criticising the Muslim community for not doing enough to track down those responsible for retaliatory attacks following the Cronulla riot, community leader Keysar Trad said. Detective Superintendent Ken McKay yesterday released photos and footage of those involved in the riot at Sydney's Cronulla and the revenge attacks that followed, in the hope offenders will be caught. But he told ABC radio today there had been little response to a video showing a number of Middle Eastern men throwing projectiles at passing cars. "The members of the Middle Eastern community need to understand if they want live in...

SUSPECTED Islamic militants have beheaded a teacher in a lawless Pakistani tribal area bordering Afghanistan, officials said today. Said Badshah, 35, who ran a private school, failed to return home yesterday in Barwan village, near Wana, the main town in restive South Waziristan tribal agency, a local administration official said. His headless body was found in a remote area this evening, the official said on condition of anonymity. Officials suspect militants were behind Mr Badshah's murder as he had no known enemies in the area and he was the son of a pro-government tribal elder. Militants believed to be linked...

VISITING French President Jacques Chirac has praised Saudi reforms overnight, and urged respect between Islam and the West in a charm offensive that may win contracts from the world's biggest oil exporter. Addressing Saudi's consultative Shura council, which reformers hope will one day act as a parliament that balances the powers of the absolute monarchy, Mr Chirac said France could contribute to "spectacular development" in Saudi Arabia. "Saudi Arabia and France can unite efforts to foil those who, flaming the fire of fanaticism, incite an unfortunate 'clash of ignorance', described as a 'clash of civilisations'," said Mr Chirac, the first...

A court in Bangladesh has sentenced 21 Islamic militants to death for their involvement in 400 simultaneous blasts across Bangladesh last year. On August 17 last year, 400 bombs were detonated in Bangladesh, exploding in almost every city and town. It was a violent confirmation that Islamic militancy was thriving in the country, despite determined government denials. The outlawed militant group Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) claimed responsibility for the blasts. The JMB wants Bangladesh to be ruled by strict Islamic law. Twenty-one men, all aged between 20 and 25 have now been sentenced to death by hanging for their involvement...