1. Pakistan court jails hate cleric for five years
(Before anyone gets the warm multicultural fuzzies, has anyone heard of a cleric being jailed for inciting hatred against Christians, atheists or Jews?)
A court in Pakistan has jailed a Muslim prayer leader for five years for inciting religious hatred.
Qari Abubaker was convicted in the city of Lahore of calling minority Shia Muslims “infidels”.
At least six other clerics have been jailed for similar offences in the past two months in Lahore, officials say.
2. Here is an interesting news clip from Denmark. The police explain that if it wasn’t for self titled, ‘ANTI-FA’, they would only need 2 cops to direct traffic at the For Freedom marches. The thuggish and fascist behaviour of the counter demonstrations have led to many arrests and high police costs.
Shocking images emerged today showing decapitated bodies strewn across blood-filled streets in Palmyra – victims of the Islamic State’s unrelenting savagery as they stormed the ancient city.
The terror group have now seized full control of the historic settlement, putting the world heritage site and its priceless 2,000-year-old artefacts at risk of destruction.
The jihadis have also captured the military air base, intelligence headquarters and its notorious prison, where hundreds of inmates have reportedly been liberated.
British-based monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), said ISIS now controlled half of all territory in the war-torn country.
No longer content with executing their prisoners with knives and guns, Islamic State militants have ratcheted up their savagery by blasting a man to death with a bazooka.
Shocking video emerged today showing the captive exploding into a ball of flames after being shot with a rocket-propelled grenade that is designed to take out tanks and aircraft.
Amid sickening whoops of joy and shouts of ‘Allah is greatest’, the barbaric jihadis continue to fire their rifles at the dead man as they move in and surround his body.
5. Turkish intelligence helped ship arms to Syrian Islamist rebel areas-court documents
ADANA, Turkey, May 21 (Reuters) – Turkey’s state intelligence agency helped deliver arms to parts of Syria under Islamist rebel control during late 2013 and early 2014, according to a prosecutor and court testimony from gendarmerie officers seen by Reuters.
The witness testimony contradicts Turkey’s denials that it sent arms to Syrian rebels and, by extension, contributed to the rise of Islamic State, now a major concern for the NATO member. […] “It is not possible to explain this process, which has become a total massacre of the law,” Alp Deger Tanriverdi, a lawyer representing both Takci and Sisman, told Reuters.
“Something that is a crime cannot possibly be a state secret.”
More than 30 gendarmerie officers involved in the Jan. 1 attempted search and the events of Jan. 19 also face charges such as military espionage and attempting to overthrow the government, according to an April 2015 Istanbul court document.
(This story might deserve a careful read and analysis. Perhaps more than one read through)
6. Gaddafi’s home town falls to Islamic State in anarchic Libya
SIRTE, Libya (Reuters) – Standing guard at his frontline post, Libyan soldier Mohammed Abu Shager can see where Islamic State militants are holed up with their heavy weaponry less than a kilometer away.
The militants have effectively taken over former dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s home city of Sirte as they exploit a civil war between two rival governments to expand in North Africa.
“Every night they open fire on us,” said Abu Shebar, who with comrades on Sirte’s western outskirts holds the last position of troops belonging to one of the two warring Libyan governments, the General National Congress, which controls the capital Tripoli and most of the west of the country.
7. Islamic State says in full control of Syria’s Palmyra after westward advance
BEIRUT (Reuters) – Islamic State fighters tightened their grip on the historic city of Palmyra in Syria, days after capturing a provincial capital in neighboring Iraq, suggesting the growing momentum of the group which a monitor says now holds half of Syrian territory.
The twin successes pile pressure not just on Damascus and Baghdad, but also throw doubt on U.S. strategy to rely almost exclusively on air strikes to defeat Islamic State.
Syrian army retreating from Palmyra
Thank you M., Ox AO., Maria J., Dan F., and many more and much more to come. Please check back in a few hours for an interview with the woman who organized the Draw anything you want event at Parliament hill which was cancelled yesterday.
Why is it assumed that moderate Muslims in Iraq, and elsewhere, are opposed to the destruction of civilisations that are not Islamic.
Isn’t thgere a possibility that Iraqi forces withdraw in the face of ISIS, becausre they wish the destruction of non-Islamic cultural objects, and are happy to see their destruction by ISIS, while still getting Western aid.
Any ideas?
I would put the attitudes of individual Muslims everywhere toward the destruction of non-Muslim historical artifacts on the part of the band between overjoyed and indifferent. Muslims take a utilitarian interest in kafir antiquities when there are kafir tourists around to make a buck from. The best you can hope for otherwise is that they are too lazy to bother speeding the ruination.
You raise a good point.
Daniel Greenfield: ISIS Targets City that Inspired Washington, D.C. for Destruction
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/isis-targets-city-that-inspired-washington-d-c-for-destruction/