Reader’s links for May 31 – 2015

This post has all its contents in the comments. For the newest freshest videos and news stories of interest to the Counter-Jihad and the Geopolitics of Islam, please click comments and add to, or read what is posted there.

Some will be integrated into the day’s posts and others not. But this way we can keep a great news flow going without interfering with the conversations about the issues under the various essays and news items in the posts that will be presented throughout the day.

Thank you all for your informative and important contributions.

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

22 Replies to “Reader’s links for May 31 – 2015”

  1. Egypt court sentences TV presenter El-Beheiry to five years on charges of blasphemy

    In early April, Al-Azhar filed a complaint against the presenter’s controversial show on Islam

    An Egyptian misdemeanors court late Saturday sentenced TV presenter Islam El-Beheiry to five years in jail on charges of “blasphemy” over a controversial show he presents about Islam.

    The case was filed by lawyer Mohamed Abdel Salam.

    Previously broadcast on private TV channel Al-Qahera W Al-Nas, El-Beheiry’s show With Islam has tackled controversial issues such as punishment for apostasy, the debate on early marriage, and different interpretations of the Hadith, the sayings and teachings of Islam’s Prophet Muhammed.

    The ruling could be appealed in front of the Cairo Court of Appeal.

    In early April, Al-Azhar, the country’s leading Sunni Islam institute, filed an official complaint against El-Beheiry’s show with the Free Media Zone, the state department in charge of managing cable TV channel contracts.

    Effat Abdel-Azim, the head of the Free Media Zone, confirmed receiving the complaint, along with CDs allegedly showing that El-Beheiry had insulted the fundamentals of Islam.

    The presenter wrote on his Facebook page on 22 April that the programme had been suspended due to “disputes with the channel.”

    http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/131569/Egypt/Politics-/Egypt-court-sentences-TV-presenter-ElBeheiry-to-fi.aspx

  2. Islamic State – attack on a Shia militia camp in Nibai near Bagdad – intro in German – ( 8 min 08 )

  3. Report: Israeli weapons found in Saudi embassy in Yemen

    Iranian media reports capture of Saudi embassy in Sana’a along with documents of planned US base to protect Israel.

    Israeli made ammunition and weapons were part of a large cache of military material found in the Saudi embassy in Yemen’s capital Sana’a, according to a report on Saturday by the Iranian Fars News Agency.

    According to the report, rebel Houthi forces captured the embassy Saturday, chasing away some 40 guards at the complex. The Houthi rebels are backed by Iran and have been battling Saudi-backed government forces throughout Yemen for several months.

    In addition to the Israeli-made weapons, the report said that rebels had also uncovered documents detailing an American plan to build a military base on Mayyun Island, a Saudi-controlled island strategically positioned in the narrow entrance to the Red Sea between Yemen and the African continent. Fars said that the base would protect American interests in the region, namely Israel’s security.

    The Iranian report included that Riyadh had asked Israel for a supply of advanced weapons for use by, what the report called, “the terrorist organizations in Yemen who are loyal to the fugitive President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.”

    In April, Yemeni officials claimed that Saudi Arabia was using Israeli weapons in strikes against the Houthis. The Saudis organized a coalition of Arab nations in January to support the Yemen government militarily. The President was later forced to flee the country.

    http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4663183,00.html

  4. Just Like ISIS: Iraqi Shia Militiamen Burn Sunni Man Alive

    Iranian-backed Shia Islamist militiamen burned alive a Sunni man in Iraq, in a gruesome reenactment of sorts of ISIS’s own torching of a Jordanian pilot earlier this year.

    Members of the Imam Ali Brigade – one of a number of Shia jihadist groups which make up the al-Hashd al-Shaabi, or People’s Mobilization militia – filmed the incident on a camera phone.

    The original video, which is too graphic to show, shows several Shia fighters gloating at the camera, and accusing the man of being an ISIS supporter.

    The footage shows the man – with his arms and legs bound together in front of him – suspended over a large open flame, apparently still alive.

    The flames can be seen lapping at his bare back, in an agonizing form of torture.

    Unlike the ISIS video, however, it does not actually show him burning to death, and it is unclear what his final fate was.

    Al Arabiya news reported on the incident (original video, seen by Arutz Sheva, is too graphic to show):

    The People’s Mobilization militia was formed with direct Iranian support and coordination after Iraq’s national army collapsed in the face of ISIS’s offensive in Iraq.

    It is comprised almost entirely of Shia Muslims, who the Sunni jihadi ISIS has vowed to exterminate as heretics – and made good on that threat with countless terrorist attacks and sectarian executions.

    But the militias themselves have also been accused of widespread human rights violations and war crimes against Iraq’s Sunni Muslim minority, including summary executions, mass killings, torture, expulsions and looting.

    Last week, the US criticized the highly sectarian name of an operation led by the militia to retake the city of Ramadi, which ISIS seized from Iraqi security forces.

    Although Baghdad has pledged to reign the Shia jihadists in, many Sunnis fear that offensive will be as much an act of revenge against them as an attempt to dislodge ISIS.
    http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/196072
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    video ( graphic )

  5. Iraq lost 2,300 Humvee armoured vehicles in Mosul: PM

    Iraqi security forces lost 2,300 Humvee armoured vehicles when the Islamic State jihadist group overran the northern city of Mosul, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Sunday.

    “In the collapse of Mosul, we lost a lot of weapons,” Abadi said in an interview with Iraqiya state TV. “We lost 2,300 Humvees in Mosul alone.”

    While the exact price of the vehicles varies depending on how they are armoured and equipped, it is clearly a hugely expensive loss that has boosted IS’ capabilities.

    Last year, the State Department approved a possible sale to Iraq of 1,000 Humvees with increased armour, machineguns, grenade launchers, other gear and support that was estimated to cost $579 million.

    Clashes began in Mosul, Iraq’s second city, late on June 9, 2014, and Iraqi forces lost it the following day to IS, which spearheaded an offensive that overran much of the country’s Sunni Arab heartland.

    The militants gained ample arms, ammunition and other equipment when multiple Iraqi divisions fell apart in the country’s north, abandoning gear and shedding uniforms in their haste to flee.

    IS has used captured Humvees, which were provided to Iraq by the United States, in subsequent fighting, rigging some with explosives for suicide bombings.

    Iraqi security forces backed by Shia militias have regained significant ground from IS in Diyala and Salaheddin provinces north of Baghdad.

    But that momentum was slashed in mid-May when IS overran Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, west of Baghdad, where Iraqi forces had held out against militants for more than a year.

    http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/131620/World/Region/Iraq-lost-,-Humvee-armoured-vehicles-in-Mosul-PM.aspx

  6. Between 2012 and 2014, the proportion of Britons identifying themselves as C of E or Anglican dropped from 21 per cent to 17 per cent – a fall of about 1.7 million people.
    Over the same period, the number of Muslims in Britain grew by nearly one million, according to a survey by the respected NatCen Social Research Institute.
    Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey warned last night that unless urgent action was taken, the Church was just ‘one generation away from extinction’.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3104110/CofE-crisis-loses-1-7m-followers-Islam-gains-900-000-Former-Archbishop-Lord-Carey-warns-Church-generation-extinction.html

  7. Iraqi assaults on ISIS stronghold leave 31 dead, mosque damaged, witnesses say (CNN, May 31, 2015)
    http://edition.cnn.com/2015/05/31/middleeast/iraq-falluja-offensive/index.html

    “Iraqi warplanes and artillery have bombarded Falluja, Iraq, and the surrounding villages for three days, two witnesses inside the ISIS-held city told CNN.

    Sunday marked the heaviest day of attacks, witnesses said, as warplanes bombed a local market area, the al-Dahi mosque, a building used as a warehouse and two other locations, killing at least 14 people and wounding 26 others.

    At least 31 people were killed and more than 82 wounded in the three days of ground and air assaults on Falluja, according to the two witnesses and a medical source in the city.

    The dead and wounded included women and children, the sources said.

    ISIS posted videos of what it said were warplanes flying over Falluja, along with footage of the damaged markets and still images of the damaged mosque and several hospitalized victims of the attacks. ISIS claims women and children are among the dead and wounded….”

  8. Blast Injures 4 in Nigerian City, Day After Attacks Kill 30 (abcnews, May 31, 2015)
    http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/blast-injures-nigeria-city-day-bomb-kills-16-31425774

    “A bomb wounded four people Sunday in a market in Maiduguri, a day after 30 people were killed in the northeastern Nigerian city by a suicide bomber and attackers firing rocket-propelled grenades.

    The Boko Haram militant group is suspected in the attacks which followed Friday’s inauguration of President Muhammadu Buhari, who said he is moving the headquarters for the Nigerian military’s fight against the extremists to Maiduguri from the capital of Abuja.

    Sunday’s blast came from explosives concealed in bags of charcoal at the Gamboru market, said trader Jafar Aminu.

    “The explosion did not kill anyone but injured four persons, including one whose arm was completely ripped off by the blast,” Aminu said.

    The market in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, has been hit by several attacks that have killed dozens of people in the past three years.

    Maiduguri is the birthplace of Boko Haram, which for nearly six years has led an Islamic uprising in northeastern Nigeria that has killed an estimated 13,000 people in a campaign of bombings, hit-and-run attacks and abductions…”