Protecting Christianity

·        3 Jul 2012

·        National Post - (National Edition)

·        BY RUKMINI CALLIMACHI

·        The Associated Press

Ransacking of timbuktu by ‘divine order’

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DAKAR , SENEGAL • Muslim extremists razed tombs and attacked the gate of a 600-yearold Timbuktu mosque on Monday, triggering an international outcry over the destruction of the ancient Malian city.

The International Criminal Court has described the demolition of the city’s patrimony as a possible war crime, while UNESCO’S committee on world heritage was holding a special session this week to address the pillaging of the site, one of the few cultural sites in sub-saharan Africa that is listed by the agency.

The Islamic faction, known as Ansar Dine, or “Protectors of the Faith,” seized control of Timbuktu last week after ousting the Tuareg rebel faction that had invaded northern Mali alongside Ansar Dine’s soldiers three months ago. Over the weekend, fighters screaming “Allah Akbar” descended on the cemeteries holding the remains of Timbuktu’s Sufi saints, and systematically began destroying the six most famous tombs.

Reached by telephone in an undisclosed location in northern Mali, a spokesman for the faction said they do not recognize either the United Nations or the world court. “The only tribunal we recognize is the divine court of Sharia,” said Ansar Dine spokesman Oumar Ould Hamaha.

“The destruction is a divine order,” he said. “It’s our Prophet who said that each time that someone builds something on top of a grave, it needs to be pulled back to the ground. We need to do this so that future generations don’t get confused, and start venerating the saints as if they are God.”

Among the tombs they destroyed is that of Sidi Mahmoudou, a saint who died in 955, according to the UNESCO website. In addition, on Monday they set upon one of the doors of the Sidi Yahya, a mosque built about 1400. Local legend held that the gate leading to the cemetery would only open on the final day at the end of time.

Local radio host Kader Kalil said the members of Ansar Dine arrived at the mosque with shovels and pickaxes and yanked off the door, revealing a wall behind it. Mr. Kalil said that they explained they were doing so in order to disabuse people of the local legend and to teach them to put their whole faith in the Koran.

“Since my childhood, I have never seen the door on the western side of the mosque open. And I was born in 1947,” said Mr. Kader, a longtime resident of the city. “When we were children, we were told that the door would only open at the end of time. These religious people want to go to the source, to show us that this is not true ... Of course our population is not happy. The women, especially, are crying a lot.”

Shamil Jeppie, who heads the Tombouctou Manuscripts Project at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, says the destruction in Mali is analogous to the demolition of the Bamiyan Buddha in Afghanistan. The Wahabi interpretation of Islam that Ansar Dine — like the Taliban — espouses is a narrow version of the faith, and stands in contrast to what he says is the history of Islamic learning.

“Timbuktu was a centre of Islamic learning, a very significant centre — there is lots of internal and external evidence of this. But Ansar Dine is ignorant of this,” Mr. Jeppie said. “For them, there is only one book and it’s the Koran. All this other [Islamic] learning is inconsequential to them,” he said.

The UN cultural agency has called for an immediate halt to the destruction of the sacred tombs. Irina Bokova, who heads the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, reported in a statement issued Saturday that the centuries-old mausoleums of Sidi Mahmoud, Sidi Moctar and Alpha Moya had been destroyed. Meeting in St. Petersburg in Russia, UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee, last week placed the mausoleums on its list of sites in danger due to earlier attacks by the Islamists, said UNESCO spokesman Rony Amelan.

On Sunday during a stop in Senegal, Fatou Bensouda, prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, said the destruction of the city’s patrimony constitutes “a possible war crime,” according to private radio station RFM. And on Monday, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland condemned the destruction, telling reporters in Washington that the United States calls on all groups to enter into a ceasefire.

For years before the north of Mali became a base for an offshoot of al-Qaeda, Timbuktu was a must-see for backpackers and package tour groups. Much of the city thrived on tourism.

Scholars held out hope that the Islamists would not also attack the city’s 20,000-catalogued manuscripts, some dating as far back as the 12th century. Beyond the tombs, the manuscripts are considered to be the real treasure of the region and library owners have succeeded in spiriting some of the manuscripts out of the city, or else buried them in secure locations.

“We’re talking about generations and generations of culture being destroyed,” said New York-based Michael Covitt, chairman of the Malian Manuscript Foundation . “It’s an outrage for the entire world.”

_______________________________________________________________

Of course, these people are not acting in an Islamic way, they are no different than cultish sorts in Christianity who burn Bibles and wave placards saying God loves dead fags.  of course.  Except with Christianity, they tend not to get violent and death engaged killing as they go.  Oh, yes, maybe 500 years ago, but Christianity has evolved.  That, and the fact Christians exclude the extreme and embrace toleration versus these individuals who run amok with no regulation killing and destroying in the name of their religion.

Arab Spring is American Fall

What do you get when you elect a man with less foreign policy experience than my mailman, and he brings in his cabal who have equally no experience or a decidely leftist / marxist leaning to their ideological outlook.

What do you get?

Well - Glick makes it pretty obvious in her column -




America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent

By Caroline B. Glick


http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |

A year ago this week, on January 25, 2011, the ground began to crumble under then-Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak's feet. One year later, Mubarak and his sons are in prison, and standing trial. This week, the final vote tally from Egypt's parliamentary elections was published. The Islamist parties have won 72 percent of the seats in the lower house.

The photogenic, Western-looking youth from Tahrir Square the Western media were thrilled to dub the Facebook revolutionaries were disgraced at the polls and exposed as an insignificant social and political force.

As for the military junta, it has made its peace with the Muslim Brotherhood. The generals and the jihadists are negotiating a power-sharing agreement. According to details of the agreement that have made their way to the media, the generals will remain the West's go-to guys for foreign affairs. The Muslim Brotherhood (and its fellow jihadists in the Salafist al-Nour party) will control Egypt's internal affairs.

This is bad news for women and for non-Muslims. Egypt's Coptic Christians have been under continuous attack by Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist supporters since Mubarak was deposed. Their churches, homes and businesses have been burned, looted and destroyed. Their wives and daughters have been raped. The military massacred them when they dared to protest their persecution.

As for women, their main claim to fame since Mubarak's overthrow has been their sexual victimization at the hands of soldiers who stripped female protesters and performed "virginity tests" on them. Out of nearly five hundred seats in parliament, only 10 will be filled by women.

The Western media are centering their attention on what the next Egyptian constitution will look like and whether it will guarantee rights for women and minorities. What they fail to recognize is that the Islamic fundamentalists now in charge of Egypt don't need a constitution to implement their tyranny. All they require is what they already have - a public awareness of their political power and their partnership with the military.

The same literalist approach that has prevented Western observers from reading the writing on the walls in terms of the Islamists' domestic empowerment has blinded them to the impact of Egypt's political transformation on the country's foreign policy posture. US officials forcefully proclaim that they will not abide by an Egyptian move to formally abrogate its peace treaty with Israel. What they fail to recognize is that whether or not the treaty is formally abrogated is irrelevant. The situation on the ground in which the new regime allows Sinai to be used as a launching ground for attacks against Israel, and as a highway for weapons and terror personnel to flow freely into Gaza, are clear signs that the peace with Israel is already dead - treaty or no treaty.

EGYPT'S TRANSFORMATION is not an isolated event. The disgraced former Yemen president Ali Abdullah Saleh arrived in the US this week. Yemen is supposed to elect his successor next month. The deteriorating security situation in that strategically vital land which borders the Arabian and Red Seas has decreased the likelihood that the election will take place as planned.

Yemen is falling apart at the seams. Al-Qaida forces have been advancing in the south. Last spring they took over Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan province. In recent weeks they captured Radda, a city 160 km. south of the capital of Sana.

Radda's capture underscored American fears that the political upheaval in Yemen will provide al- Qaida with a foothold near shipping routes through the Red Sea and so enable the group to spread its influence to neighboring Saudi Arabia.

Al-Qaida forces were also prominent in the NATO-backed Libyan opposition forces that with NATO's help overthrew Muammar Gaddafi in October. Although the situation on the ground is far from clear, it appears that radical Islamic political forces are intimidating their way into power in post-Gaddafi Libya.

Take for instance last weekend's riots in Benghazi. On Saturday protesters laid siege to the National Transitional Council offices in the city while Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, the head of the NTC, hid inside. In an attempt to quell the protesters' anger, Jalil fired six secular members of the NTC. He then appointed a council of religious leaders to investigate corruption charges and identify people with links to the Gaddafi regime.

In Bahrain, the Iranian-supported Shi'ite majority continues to mount political protests against the Sunni monarchy. Security forces killed two young Shi'ite protesters over the past week and a half, and opened fired at Shi'ites who sought to hold a protest march after attending the funeral of one of them.

As supporters of Bahrain's Shi'ites have maintained since the unrest spread to the kingdom last year, Bahrain's Shi'ites are not Iranian proxies. But then, until the US pulled its troops out of Iraq last month, neither were Iraq's Shi'ites. What happened immediately after the US pullout is another story completely.

Extolling Iraq's swift deterioration into an Iranian satrapy, last Wednesday, Brig.-Gen. Qassem Suleimani, the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps Jerusalem Brigade, bragged, "In reality, in south Lebanon and Iraq, the people are under the effect of the Islamic Republic's way of practice and thinking."

While Suleimani probably exaggerated the situation, there is no doubt that Iran's increased influence in Iraq is being felt around the region. Iraq has come to the aid of Iran's Syrian client Bashar Assad who is now embroiled in a civil war. The rise of Iran in Iraq holds dire implications for the Hashemite regime in Jordan which is currently hanging on by a thread, challenged from within and without by the rising force of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Much has been written since the fall of Mubarak about the impact on Israel of the misnamed Arab Spring. Events like September's mob assault on Israel's embassy in Cairo and the murderous cross-border attack on motorists traveling on the road to Eilat by terrorists operating out of Sinai give force to the assessment that Israel is more imperiled than ever by the revolutionary events engulfing the region.

But the truth is that while on balance Israel's regional posture has taken a hit, particularly from the overthrow of Mubarak and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists in Egypt, Israel is not the primary loser in the so-called Arab Spring.

Israel never had many assets in the Arab world to begin with. The Western-aligned autocracies were not Israel's allies. To the extent the likes of Mubarak and others have cooperated with Israel on various issues over the years, their cooperation was due not to any sense of comity with Jewish state. They worked with Israel because they believed it served their interests to do so. And at the same time Mubarak reined in the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas because they threatened him, he waged political war against Israel on every international stage and allowed anti-Semitic poison to be broadcast daily on his regime-controlled television stations.

Since Israel's stake in the Arab power game has always been limited, its losses as a consequence of the fall of anti-Israel secular dictatorships and their replacement by anti-Israel Islamist regimes have been marginal. The US, on the other hand, has seen its interests massively harmed. Indeed, the US is the greatest loser of the pan-Arab revolutions.

TO UNDERSTAND the depth and breadth of America's losses, consider that on January 25, 2011, most Arab states were US allies to a greater or lesser degree. Mubarak was a strategic ally. Saleh was willing to collaborate with the US in combating al- Qaida and other jihadist forces in his country.

Gaddafi was a neutered former enemy who had posed no threat to the US since 2004. Iraq was a protectorate. Jordan and Morocco were stable US clients.

One year later, the elements of the US's alliance structure have either been destroyed or seriously weakened. US allies like Saudi Arabia, which have yet to be seriously threatened by the revolutionary violence, no longer trust the US. As the recently revealed nuclear cooperation between the Saudis and the Chinese makes clear, the Saudis are looking to other global powers to replace the US as their superpower protector.

Perhaps the most amazing aspect to the US's spectacular loss of influence and power in the Arab world is that most of its strategic collapse has been due to its own actions. In Egypt and Libya the US intervened prominently to bring down a US ally and a dictator who constituted no threat to its interests. Indeed, it went to war to bring Gaddafi down.

Moreover, the US acted to bring about their fall at the same time it knew that they would be replaced by forces inimical to American national security interests. In Egypt, it was clear that the Muslim Brotherhood would emerge as the strongest political force in the country. In Libya, it was clear at the outset of the NATO campaign against Gaddafi that al-Qaida was prominently represented in the antiregime coalition. And just as the Islamists won the Egyptian election, shortly after Gaddafi was overthrown, al-Qaida forces raised their flag over Benghazi's courthouse.

US actions from Yemen to Bahrain and beyond have followed a similar pattern.

In sharp contrast to his active interventionism against US-allied regimes, President Barack Obama has prominently refused to intervene in Syria, where the fate of a US foe hangs in the balance.

Obama has sat back as Turkey has fashioned a Syrian opposition dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Arab League has intervened in a manner that increases the prospect that Syria will descend into chaos in the event that the Assad regime is overthrown.

Obama continues to speak grandly about his vision for the Middle East and his dedication to America's regional allies. And his supporters in the media continue to applaud his great success in foreign policy. But outside of their echo chamber, he and the country he leads are looked upon with increasing contempt and disgust throughout the Arab world.

Obama's behavior since last January 25 has made clear to US friend and foe alike that under Obama, the US is more likely to attack you if you display weakness towards it than if you adopt a confrontational posture against it. As Assad survives to kill another day; as Iran expands its spheres of influence and gallops towards the nuclear bomb; as al- Qaida and its allies rise from the Gulf of Aden to the Suez Canal; and as Mubarak continues to be wheeled into the courtroom on a stretcher, the US's rapid fall from regional power is everywhere in evidence.












obama

The Arab Street [Hint: doesn't exist]

It is unfortunate that people like Mr. Fenton buy into this marginalization of bin Laden. Nearly three months after justice was brought to bin Laden , as Bush made clear – bring justice to him or him to justice – the evidence indicates Bin Laden was still involved in al qaida, was still involved in overall managerial control, much like a Bill Gates at Microsoft. While day to day control was handed off to underlings, Gates’ vision was still very much on the minds of all those who worked for Microsoft. The treasure trove of intelligence has shown us this much and more. Unfortunately, there are still people, like Mr Fenton, who live on another planet when it comes to this issue – opposed to Iraq and Afghanistan, see al qaida as a quaint little extremist group unrelated to the larger body. And they require all of us to believe this, to believe and accept, to place our lives and our future at risk in believing this foolishness. It would be enough for them to risk their own lives, their futures, their children, but they want everyone else to accept that risk – and I cannot, for the threat is far greater than Mr Fenton can understand.

In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood has slowly been exerting its influence and control.  In Lebanon, in Syria, in Yemen, in Tunisia, in Morocco, in Oman ... the tentacles of Al Qaida or the Muslim Brotherhood have spread, and what was once denied in Egypt, is now about to become part of the political system.  What may have started as a 'I would like some more freedom' is now a tool for extremism. 

The 'Arab Street' is really quite silly - the delusion many Westerners have about the Arabs, their political systems, and how and what the 'masses' think.  It is no wonder the Muslim Brotherhood or al qaida elements are alive and thriving.

Opinion: As the Arab Spring proves, Bin Laden had already lost

Tom Fenton, May 9, 2011

Global Post

By the time he was killed, bin Laden had already lost the battle for the hearts and minds of a new generation of Arabs.

LONDON – By the time Navy SEALs gunned down Osama bin Laden in his hideout in Abbottabad, America's public enemy No. 1 had already lost the battle for the hearts and minds of a new generation of Arabs.

Look at the signs and banners of the frustrated masses that kicked off the Arab uprising in the streets of Tunisia; the eager protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square who overturned Egypt's modern pharaoh; the resentful Shia who braved bullets in Bahrain; the angry crowds challenging the dictatorial government in Yemen; or the long-suffering Syrians who are so fed up with one-family rule that they are willing to face tanks in the streets.

Look closely at the videos and shaky mobile phone clips of these mass protests that have mobilized the Arab public.

Where are the pictures of bin Laden and the slogans of Al Qaeda? Absent.

What are these angry Arab citizens demanding? Certainly not a return to the Middle Ages or the establishment of a new Islamic caliphate. Their heroes are not Islamic fundamentalists like bin Laden, but people like themselves who have the guts to stand up to dictators. Young bloggers and Facebook activists are replacing bearded kill-joys as the new force in the Middle East.

Bin Laden had great ambitions when he built his organization two decades ago. Back in 1996, CBS News producer Randall Joyce and I began negotiations in London with a Saudi Arabian exile to arrange an interview with bin Laden in Afghanistan.

Our contact explained that bin Laden had a plan. First of all, he wanted to raise his profile in the international media. Then he wanted to provoke the United States into attacking a Muslim nation. He hoped that would cause the Muslim world to rise up against the United States. Bin Laden would lead the uprising and force America to stop supporting corrupt Arab governments, including the royal family of Saudi Arabia, which he especially hated.

Of course things didn't work out quite that way. After Sept. 11, the United States invaded not only one, but two Muslim nations, at huge cost to all parties. But the pan-Arab uprising against America never happened.

What has occurred instead, a decade later, is that long-suffering Arab populations themselves have decided to get rid of their corrupt autocrats, without any help from bin Laden. And American attempts to do the job for them in Afghanistan and Iraq have not been notably successful.

In all the discussions and second-guessing in the American and international media about the manner and meaning of the killing of bin Laden, this point should not be overlooked. Bin Laden and his relatively small band of fanatics succeeded in killing a large number of Americans, and a much larger number of Muslims, over the years. And it did incredible damage to America and its allies by sucking them into two wars, as well as the so-called war on terror. Americans hailed his death. But the unexpected Arab uprisings revealed he had become marginalized, almost irrelevant, on the Arab street.


























Islam

Death to anyone who opposes the law, and death to anyone who is upset at anyone being put to death over the law.

It IS NOT just a few.  It IS NOT just a few uneducated.  Coming apart at the seams.





Pakistan governor buried, clerics warn against grief





By Michael Georgy
Wed Jan 5, 1:47 pm ET
Reuters



.ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – A politician gunned down over his opposition to Pakistan's blasphemy laws was buried on Wednesday after a murder likely to cow further those pushing for a more liberal and secular vision of Pakistani society.

Five hundred Pakistani religious scholars said that anyone who expressed grief over the assassination of Salman Taseer, governor of Punjab province, could suffer the same fate.

Taseer, a liberal politician close to President Asif Ali Zardari, had championed the cause of a Christian woman sentenced to death under the blasphemy laws which critics say are used to target religious minorities, often to settle personal scores.

His killing in broad daylight at a shopping center in Islamabad Tuesday showed how difficult, and how dangerous, it would be to roll back a tide of religious conservatism which is growing in strength in the Muslim country of 170 million.

Taseer was killed by one of his guards, who said he was incensed by the politician's opposition to the blasphemy laws, in a parking lot at a block of shops popular with foreigners.

The scholars praised the "courage" and religious zeal of the killer, saying his action had made Muslims around the world proud. Pakistani officials said they were investigating whether the killing was part of a wider conspiracy.

The blasphemy laws have widespread support in a country that is more than 95 percent Muslim, and most politicians are loath to be seen as soft on the defense of Islam. Taseer, however, was an outspoken critic.

Thousands waved ruling Pakistan People's Party flags at Taseer's funeral at his official residence in the city of Lahore, which was attended by Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and other top government officials.

The Jamaat-e-Ahl-e-Sunnat Pakistan group of scholars making the veiled threat is from what is seen as a relatively moderate school of Islam in Pakistan. It is a vocal critic of militants violently opposed to the government and its ally Washington.

However, they have been leading protests in favor of the blasphemy law.

The hardline stand taken by them illustrates how difficult it can be for Washington, which sees Islamabad as indispensable in its war on militancy, to persuade Pakistani leaders to crack down harder on religious extremism.

"More than 500 scholars of the Jamaat-e-Ahl-e-Sunnat have advised Muslims not to offer the funeral prayers of Governor Punjab Salman Taseer nor try to lead the prayers," the group said in a statement.

"Also, there should be no expression of grief or sympathy on the death of the governor, as those who support blasphemy of the Prophet are themselves indulging in blasphemy."

Many people writing on social media have praised Taseer's assassination. When his accused killer, wearing a black hood, was brought to court in a police vehicle, some people screamed Allahu Akbar (God is greatest). Others threw rose petals.

The Jamaat-e-Islami, one of Pakistan's main Islamist parties, also said Taseer's assassination was justified.

"If the government had removed him from the governorship, there wouldn't have been the need for someone to shoot him," it said in a statement shortly before Taseer was buried in Lahore.

PRO-TALIBAN CLERIC CONDEMNS KILLING

Taseer's assassination was one of the most high-profile since former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was killed in 2007.

Though he had no day-to-day role in central government, his killing has deepened a political crisis in Pakistan, a nuclear-armed country and front-line state in the war in Afghanistan.

It came two days after a main partner in Gilani's coalition joined the opposition, leaving him without a parliamentary majority and struggling to save his government.

Taseer had defended a Christian mother, Aasia Bibi, sentenced to death in November in a case stemming from a village dispute. Saying she had been falsely accused, he had promised to seek a presidential pardon.

While Pakistan's religious parties do not win significant votes in elections, they have the capability to stir emotions and street protests.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik said the bodyguard who killed Taseer, identified as Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, confessed and had been arrested. He is a member of an elite police force.

After leaving the court, Qadri shouted: "In the service of the Prophet, death is acceptable." Taseer was shot 14 times from a distance of about six feet, said a spokesman for the hospital where he was treated.

However, in a sign of how confusing Pakistan's politics can be, pro-Taliban cleric Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi condemned the killing of Taseer, saying the law was man-made and not divine.

"It is the product of extremism and fanaticism which is damaging for an Islamic society," said Ashrafi. He said the clerics' association which he heads has 5,000 members.





 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Pakistan

The Extinction of the Christians in Iraq

One way or another, for one reason or one method over another - the result is the same.





Iraqi Christians put to the sword


Worship in Iraq is now more dangerous than under Saddam's dictatorship as Islamists bomb churches in a campaign of ethnic cleansing.


Adrian Blomfield
The Telegraph
12 Nov 2010


Unless told what to look for, the casual visitor to the once glamorous Baghdad thoroughfare that hugs the east bank of the Tigris would almost certainly pass them by. The Stars of David carved into the stonework of the low-slung buildings that line the alleyways of Abu Nuwas Street are little more than a curiosity these days – a memento of a civilisation lost to the pages of history.

Judaism has a connection to Iraq that no other faith can match. The patriarch Abraham may well have been born there; the prophet Jonah reluctantly returned to foretell the destruction of Nineveh. Centuries later, the Bible tells us that the exiled Jewish people sat down by Babylon's rivers and wept for their homeland. Yet Jewish links to Iraq are far from ancient history.

In the 1920s, there were reckoned to have been 130,000 Jews in Baghdad, 40 per cent of the population. Today, after decades of persecution before and immediately after the creation of the state of Israel, there are no more than eight.

Iraqi Christians might not be able to boast such a heritage – though even if there is no way of proving their belief that the apostle Thomas brought the faith to Iraq in the first century AD, theirs is still one of the oldest Christian communities on earth. Yet after a series of attacks in the past month by Islamist extremists – whose creed is the parvenu of the monotheistic religions in the country – fears are mounting that Christianity in Iraq is doomed to follow Judaism into oblivion.

At the end of last month, in the most ferocious attack on the community yet, Islamist extremists linked to al-Qaeda burst into Baghdad's Our Lady of Salvation Church during evening mass and took the congregation hostage. The gunmen began executing clergymen and worshippers before tossing a grenade into a safe-room where 60 parishioners had huddled to hide. As Iraqi forces stormed the church, the assassins surrounded themselves with children and detonated explosives secreted in suicide vests.

By the time it was over, 52 Christians were dead. Blood smeared the walls of the church, body parts and scraps of seared flesh littered the pews. A policeman standing guard outside the church afterwards summed up the scene: "Blood, flesh and bones. You can't bear the smell."

A group calling itself the Islamic State of Iraq, a self-acknowledged front for al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility and issued a chilling warning, telling Christians it would "open upon them the doors of destruction and rivers of blood". Delivering on their promise, 11 car bombs aimed at Christian shops and homes in Baghdad exploded on Wednesday, killing another five members of the minority.

The US and British invasion of Iraq rid the country of Saddam Hussein and instituted a bloodily delivered democracy of sorts after decades of oppressive totalitarianism. And yesterday, eight months of political deadlock since elections in March were broken with a deal to form a new government. Nouri al-Maliki, a Shia, remains as prime minister, while Iyad Allawi, leader of the main Sunni faction al-Iraqiya, will lead a new council for national strategy.

The agreement may be taken by outsiders as a welcome sign of stability that ought to reassure Iraqi Christians, but it is a painful truth that they led a safer and more dignified existence under Saddam's brutal rule. However, in a sign of the coalition's fragility, the Iraqiya bloc last night walked out in protest before a vote on the presidency.

Earlier this week, Athanasius Dawood, the exiled archbishop of the Syriac Orthodox Church, one of the smaller Christian communities, gave a warning that the minority was facing extinction at the hands of a campaign of "pre-meditated ethnic cleansing". He said that the only hope of salvation for Iraq's Christians was if countries such as Britain gave them blanket political asylum.

Although most of the extremists attacking them are thought to be Sunni Arab, Christians are as fearful of the Shia-dominated government and the kind of rule they believe it will one day institute. Tellingly, Archbishop Dawood laid much of the blame for the Christians' plight on Mr Maliki's administration, calling it "weak, biased, if not extremist".

Statistics vary wildly, but according to the US State Department, there are between 550,000 and 800,000 Christians left in Iraq, compared with 1.4 million in 1987 when a census was taken. Those numbers may be an over-estimation, but it is generally agreed that the number has halved since Saddam's fall as members of the faith flee the pogroms. Iraqi Christians say they are in graver danger now than at any time in their history. As gruesome as last month's attack on the Our Lady of Salvation Church was, they have been living in terror since the first bombings of their places of worship in 2004.

In the northern city of Mosul, Christians have been routinely kidnapped and executed because of their faith. In the past two years, Islamist gunmen have frequently stopped young men and women on the street and asked for their identity cards. If they bore a Christian-sounding name, they were often shot dead where they stood.

To have any chance of survival, churches in Mosul have been forced to pay protection money to gangsters linked to al-Qaeda. Any doubts about the Islamists' ultimate intentions were laid to rest when a group calling itself the Secret Islamic Army delivered a letter to homes in the Christian enclaves of Dura, a district of Baghdad.

"To the Christian, we would like to inform you of the decision of the legal court of the Secret Islamic Army to notify you that this is your last and final threat," the letter read. "If you do not leave your home, your blood will be spilled. You and your family will be killed." With its chilling echoes of similar missives delivered to Tutsis during the Rwandan genocide, it is little wonder that Iraqi Christians fear extermination.

Some have fought back. Churches in parts of Kurdistan have formed militias to protect their congregations. "The only solution left for our people is to bear arms," Father Ayman Danna of the Church of St George in Bartella was quoted as saying. "We either live or die."

But the Church Guard, as the militia is known, has the benefit of being funded by a rich Christian in the Kurdish regional government. Christians elsewhere can find no such powerful patronage.

Iraq's Christians learnt the hard way that to survive they had to pledge unquestioning fealty to successive, Sunni-dominated governments. When British troops pulled out of Iraq in 1933, members of the Assyrian Church, now one of the smallest of Iraq's 12 Christian communities, began to agitate for independence. The army and Kurdish irregulars retaliated by massacring 3,000 of them. Ever since, Christians have known that their loyalty had to be beyond reproach, and under Saddam, they were largely left in peace to practise their faith.

Saddam espoused Ba'athism, an ideology founded by a Syrian Christian that promoted secularism while acknowledging the importance of Islam in Arabic culture. Christians were only represented at secondary levels in the army and government, with the notable exception of Tariq Aziz – born Michael Yuhanna – Saddam's former deputy prime minister. Despite the repression of the Saddam years, Christians believed that was preferable to a government dominated by the Shia majority whose leaders had close links with Iran.

Those fears were given added impetus in 1991 when, at the encouragement of the United States in the aftermath of the Gulf war, the Shia rose up in revolt. One of their first acts was to attack and desecrate churches in Basra. Mr Maliki is a particular target of suspicion because he spent eight years in Iran during the 1990s. Tehran was also intimately involved in attempting to end the eight-month political impasse to create a coalition government.

With Shia rule set to continue, Iraqi Christians believe that not only will they receive no protection against Sunni extremists, but also that Iranian-style intolerance towards religious minorities will grow more entrenched. A number of Shia leaders with popular backing espouse a greater role for Islamic Sharia in daily life and many also support a return to Dhimmi status for Christians, an old Ottoman construct that limited the rights of minorities in return for protection. That would represent a regression from the Ba'athist constitution of 1970 which acknowledged the "legitimate rights of all minorities" and gave formal recognition to the five main Christian communities.

As persecution of Christians grows across the Middle East, and numbers dwindle ever faster, it is a supreme irony for many Iraqi Christians that one of the safest places for their faith in an ever more dangerous region is Ba'athist Syria. As a member of the minority Allawi strain of Shia Islam, Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, has recognised the need to protect other vulnerable faiths. As a result, Christian holidays are observed by the whole country and work does not start until 10am on Sundays to allow Christians to go to church.

Christians across the border in Iraq can only look wistfully at Syria – for all its imperfections – as a reminder of how things once were.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Iraq

Bible and Book Burning

Extremists exist everywhere, this does not mean very much.  I am surprised it has not appeared in any newspapers or on television and I have not seen any protests or demonstrations, but then again, I don't watch TV or read the paper, and wouldn't know a protest from a small gathering if I saw one.





Malawi Muslims burning Bibles

Reuters
October 6, 2010

LILONGWE, Malawi -- Muslims in southern Malawi have been burning Bibles to protest their distribution in Islamic schools by Gideon's International, a Muslim Association of Malawi official said yesterday.

The Bibles "annoyed some parents and other leaders, who have resorted to burning the holy books . . . in protest," said Sheik Imran Sharif.

He said the burning of bibles was carried out by a few Muslim fanatics, and the association has ordered them to stop.













 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Islam

Radical Islam at War with the US

It is good that all the cases are put into one short article.  We could spend hours tracking down these news cases.




At War with Radical Islam?

by Lori Averick
http://www.aish.com/


It's time to connect the dots.

The past year has seen a serious and alarming increase of violent extremist activities throughout the United States. Contrary to what some in the media would have you think, this clear and present danger is not coming from the radical "right" or the liberal "left." It is coming from Muslim terrorists whose activities are frightening and well-documented.

Authoritative Islam is a radical theo-political ideology that openly aims to kill Jews, Christians and other non-believers who do not convert or submit to Islam. This threat should be the primary concern of leaders and citizens alike. Unfortunately, we are living in a country where political correctness has trumped all security threats. Therefore, how can we aggressively fight our enemy, when some of us refuse to even identify them as such?

So the question that begs to be answered is: Is America at war with radical Islam and those who seek to carry out its doctrine?

To help answer that question, take a closer look at some of the recent jihadi activities that have been glossed over and labeled as isolated occurrences. Click on the hyperlinks to read more details about each story:

• October 2008 – Shirwa Ahmed, a 27-year-old born in Somalia, became the first American citizen suicide bomber. He left his home town in Minnesota to return to Somalia and commit jihad. FBI officials believe he was radicalized in Minnesota, one of 20 Somali men who disappeared from the state.

• May 2009 – Four Muslims in New York were arrested as they attempted to bomb two New York synagogues and shoot down military planes in New York State. Three of the four terrorists converted to Islam in a U.S. prison.

• June 2009 – A Muslim convert, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, gunned down two men outside an army recruitment office in Little Rock, Arkansas. One young soldier was killed. The terrorist said the shooting was in retaliation for the mistreatment of Muslims in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

• July 2009 – An organization called Hizbut-Tahrir, a politically extreme Islamist group that is banned in Russia and Germany for inciting violence and preaching anti-Semitism, held a recruitment conference at the Hilton in Oak Lawn Illinois. Hizbut-Tahir openly claims Sharia Law should replace the U.S. Constitution and aims to restore the Caliphate as it was during the Ottoman Empire in Turkey.

• July 2009 – Daniel Patrick Boyd, his two sons, and four other North Carolina men were arrested and accused of plotting "violent Jihad" through a series of terror attacks abroad. Also included in the charge sheet are claims that the group visited Israel in 2007 with the intent of waging "violent Jihad." They returned home, unsuccessful in their mission.

• September 2009 – An al-Qaeda terror cell was busted in New York. Najibullah Zazi, a 24 year old Afghan-born immigrant who drives a shuttle bus at the Denver airport, was arrested as part of this cell and charged with "conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction." This is the first operating al-Qaeda cell to be uncovered inside the U.S. since the 9-11 attacks.

• September 2009 – Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, a 19-year-old Jordanian illegally residing in the U.S., was arrested for attempting to use weapons of mass destruction. He parked an SUV he believed to be loaded with explosives in a parking lot outside the 60-story Fountain Place building in downtown Dallas. Smadi expressed his allegiance to Osama bin Laden and says he came to the U.S. to wage Jihad against America.

• October 2009 – Luqman Ameen Abdullah, the imam of Detroit's Mosque of Truth, was killed by FBI agents as they were trying to arrest him on charges of conspiracy, receipt of stolen goods, firearms offenses and more. According to the indictment, Abdullah was preaching "offensive jihad" in his mosque, and the establishment of a Sharia state (Islamic law) in North America.

• October 2009 – Faleh Hassan Almaleki, an Iraqi man living in Arizona, ran down his daughter with his car because she had become "too westernized." She died as a result of her injuries. He was able to flee the country through Mexico and fly to London where he was denied entry and returned to Phoenix.

• November 2009 – Major Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire at Fort Hood Military installation in Texas, killing 13 and wounding 42. The U.S.-born Muslim of Palestinian descent shouted "Allahu Akbar" as he began shooting. Hasan had been the subject of terrorism probes, but Federal authorities dropped the inquiry after deciding that his communications to radical imams and al-Qaeda warranted no further action.

• November 2009 – Federal prosecutors seized five buildings including mosques, schools and a Manhattan skyscraper because of their alleged financial ties to Iran. Prosecutors claim that the Alavi Foundation, a Muslim organization that owns the buildings, is engaged in money-laundering – sending the cash back to Tehran.

• November 2009 – Federal authorities in Philadelphia announced charges against four men for their alleged participation in a two-year plot to funnel money and weapons to the terrorist group Hezbollah. Authorities say these men are linked to additional support networks in Brooklyn and the Bronx.

• December 2009 – Umar Faruk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian man educated in London, attempted to blow up a Northwest flight headed from Amsterdam to Detroit. He had explosives attached to his leg which he ignited toward the end of the flight. He was apprehended by passengers and crew after they heard what sounded like fireworks and saw his leg and the wall of the plane on fire. Abdulmutallab claimed that he was carrying out the act for al-Qaeda.

Waking Up

There is an abundance of evidence that suggests that America is indeed under attack and that Muslim terrorists have declared war on the U.S. Charles Jacobs, named by the Forward as one of America’s top 50 leaders, notes that "These are extraordinary times. We face daunting challenges for which there are no known answers. Chief among them are Islamic anti-Semitism and the global jihad that pose enormous, unanticipated threats to Jews around the world."

There are too few among us who are willing to connect the dots of these events and honestly acknowledge the gravity of our situation. Now is the time to band together and educate ourselves and our communities – before it is too late.

The methods of dealing with this threat must be elevated to a priority national debate. But in order to do so, the first step is that we must all -- in the words of renowned historian Bernard Lewis in the must-see documentary film on this issue, The Third Jihad -- “Wake up!”










War on terror

Canada - Why do you harbor extremist Islamo fascists?

And no, it is not a slight exaggeration, nor am I assuming- not for Canada at least.

In Canada, contrary to popular myth, their police, the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) do carry weapons.  However, their frequency of use would call into question whether the weapon would work when pulled due to cobwebs.  They do not need to use it as often as we do in the United States.

One very early morning during the summer when I was in England, I recall watching from the front living room window as a group of rugby or footballers stumbled, and shambled down the street, making very loud noises, fighting between each other, knocking over trash cans, and otherwise being a nuisance.  The police arrived in a van of sorts.  Two police officer climbed out of their vehicle and approached the players who were at the very least twice their size each.  The police officers broke them into groups, had them sit on the ground,and talked to them individually before putting 1 or 2 into the back of the vehicle - all without the use of a weapon or instruments of any sort.  The footballers simply did what they were told - all 12-14 of them.

That would not happen here.  Our police would call for back-up and would pull their weapopns if not at the least, place their hand on the weapon as a show.  When in England a police officer does use a weapon or even in Canada, when they use a weapon, it is serious, and not an over reaction.  Their police forces are usually very subdued, so an over reaction for them would be to act reasonably.




30 Oct 2009
National Post
BY KATHRYN BLAZE CARLSON


RCMP CAPTURE FUGITIVE

Windsor raid lands son of Imam slain by FBI




The fugitive son of an Imam shot dead by U.S. federal agents on Wednesday was arrested yesterday in downtown Windsor, while two other Canadians alleged to be part of the Imam’s extremist group are still at large.

Mujahid Carswell, 30, was arrested without incident by RCMP officers at about 1 p.m. yesterday after police blocked off a downtown street and surrounded a house with a tactical team.


Mr. Carswell, who faces U.S. charges of conspiracy to commit federal crimes based on his alleged membership in a radical Detroit-based fundamentalist Sunni group, was witnessed being whisked away in a prisoner transport van. He is in the custody of the Canada Border Services Agency on immigration violations.

Two other Windsor-based Canadians, Mohammad Palestine, 33, and Yassir Ali Khan, 30, have been charged with federal crimes but are not in custody.

According to a man named Hassan who worships at Windsor Mosque, Mr. Palestine and Mr. Ali Khan frequently attended daily prayers and services. “I recognized their pictures in news stories. I have seen both of them at the mosque here and there,” Mr. Hassan said. “They seemed like regular guys. The Muslim community here is shocked.”

Mr. Carswell is the eldest son of Luqman Ameen Abdullah, the Imam of Detroit’s Masjid Al-Haqq mosque and leader of the fundamentalist group. He was killed in an FBI raid on a warehouse in Dearborn, Mich. The raid, which led to the arrest of four suspects, was the culmination of a two-year undercover operation into the activities of a Muslim brotherhood called Ummah. The FBI says the group, which has cells across the United States, advocates violence to establish a separate Islamic state in America under the rulership of H. Rapp Brown, who was once a leader of the Black Panther Party and is now in prison for murder.

As detailed in a U.S. affidavit released on Wednesday, Mr. Carswell told an informant that he moved to Windsor and is living two blocks from the tunnel border crossing. “Carswell said he goes to a large [mosque] in Windsor and the people there are serious and organized,” the affidavit said. “Carswell said he trains approximately 60 children, ages 8 to 18, in martial arts at the mosque.”

When reached yesterday afternoon, the president of the Windsor Islamic Association, which runs the Windsor Mosque, said he was surprised by the allegations, but would not provide further comment.


Mr. Abdullah, the deceased leader, told an FBI informant that Mr. Palestine is “a soldier and a warrior” and stated that he and Mr. Palestine would do anything for each other, the complaint said. He has also allegedly provided financial support to Mr. Abdullah, according to the complaint.

The FBI said Mr. Abdullah was “advocating and encouraging his followers to commit violent acts against the United States,” and discussed bombing Washington and the 2006 Super Bowl in Detroit.

He also warned that “America must fall” and preached an “offensive jihad,” or holy war, according to the complaint.

Mr. Abdullah, also known as Christopher Thomas, and 10 others, including the two fugitives and Mr. Carswell, were named in the affidavit that alleges conspiracy to commit theft from interstate shipments, mail fraud to obtain the proceeds of arson, illegal possession and sale of firearms and tampering with motor vehicle identification numbers.

Once the investigation is complete, authorities will reportedly decide whether to seek a felony indictment on the charges.






 
 
 
 
 
 
 
terrorism

Iraq: Sunni and Shia together (still)

Baghdad has new security layer: street gates

May 23 09:51 AM US/Eastern
By HAMZA HENDAWI
Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD (AP) - Even as the Iraqis are removing some of the concrete blast walls that divide Baghdad, authorities have quietly installed about 100 metal gates near a major Shiite shrine—a clear sign of ongoing security concerns as bombings continue.

Perforated gates have been put up in the past three weeks in the heavily policed Kazimiyah district along streets and alleyways leading to the shrine of Imam Mousa al-Kazim, a much revered eighth-century Shiite saint. Security cameras are also being installed at the gates of the double-domed complex.

The street gates were put up following back-to-back suicide bombings near the shrine on April 24, which killed 71 people. It was the deadliest attack in Iraq in more than a year.

Ironically, the new security measures were taken despite the dramatic reduction in violence across Iraq over the past two years.

They serve as a reminder that the Iraq conflict is not over and that extremists remain able to carry out morale-sapping, spectacular attacks against Shiite targets only weeks before U.S. combat troops are due to leave Baghdad and other cities to outlying garrisons.

A series of bombings in Baghdad and the northern city of Kirkuk killed 66 people and wounded dozens on Wednesday and Thursday. One attack, in the north Baghdad Shiite district of Shula on Wednesday, killed at least 41. The attacks followed a spat of major bombings last month that left some 200 dead in Baghdad alone.

Residents of Kazimiyah, whose shrine attracts millions of Shiite pilgrims, are divided over the gates.

Some complain that they obstruct the flow of vehicles and pedestrians, creating long lines that offer militants a tempting target. Others praised them as an effective method to keep out potential bombers.

"The gates are not the solution," said resident Ali Habib, 31. "I am against the gates because they turned Kazimiyah into a prison. Does it have to be either explosions or gates? Cannot there be something in between?"

Brig. Gen. Dhafer Abed al-Mohammedawi, the Kazimiyah security chief, offers no apologies for the gates.

"Staging an attack in Kazimiyah is a big deal. It is the heart of Baghdad," he said. "You cannot bring a car bomb into Kazimiyah, but there were many soft points that the gates should take care of."

Kazimiyah, however, is an especially sensitive neighborhood. An attack that damages the shrine could re-ignite the kind of brutal violence that followed the bombing of another important Shiite mosque north of Baghdad in 2006.

The district also includes Shiite seminaries and is home to senior Shiite clerics. Tens of thousands of people flock to the area every day to shop at its busy gold and clothes markets. It also is renowned for its eateries and riverside cafes.

"The shrine itself is not the objective," al-Mohammedawi told The Associated Press. "The goal is to hit it so that the sectarian war resumes. Our goal is to protect the residents and visitors."

The brown, green and yellow gates vary in width from five to 15 yards and are guarded round the clock. Some are permanently shut. Others are opened to allow pedestrians or vehicles to pass after searches.

"It will be better if they replace the gates with advanced equipment to detect explosives and an efficient guard force," said Ghalib Jassim, an Oil Ministry employee and a longtime Kazimiyah resident.

Last month's bombing in Kazimiyah shows both the resilience of the extremists and a change in the pattern of attacks since the height of the violence in 2007.

Rather than frequent daily attacks, militants now appear to carry out spectacular bombings followed by periods of calm. The Wednesday bombing in Shula was the first major blast in the city since May 6, when 15 people were killed at a produce market in south Baghdad.

Al-Mohammedawi believes the explosives used in the April 24 Kazimiyah attack were smuggled into the area in small installments over a period of time.

He said reliable intelligence suggests that Shiite and Sunni militants are no longer capable of major attacks on their own and are pooling resources, setting aside their differences in the common interest of undermining the U.S.-backed government.

"It is a Satanic alliance. Its goal is to destabilize and hurt Iraq regardless of differences in ideology or creed," he said. U.S. military officials have suggested there was evidence of such cooperation, but offered no details.

Homeland: Veterans are threats to our security

Napolitano stands by 'extremism' report
By Audrey Hudson and Eli Lake
Thursday, April 16, 2009

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said she was briefed before the release of a controversial intelligence assessment and that she stands by the report sent to law enforcement that lists veterans as a terrorist risk to the U.S. and defines "rightwing extremism" as including groups opposed to abortion and immigration.

The outcry resulted in a demand from the head of the American Legion to meet with Ms. Napolitano, a request the DHS chief said she would honor next week when she returns to Washington from her current tour of the U.S.-Mexican border.

"The document on right-wing extremism sent last week by this department´s Office of Intelligence and Analysis is one in an ongoing series of assessments to provide situational awareness to state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies on the phenomenon and trends of violent radicalization in the United States," Ms. Napolitano said in a statement.


[To read the rest of the article, click on the title link above.]







Obama