Author Archives: taffy

N. Carolina Man Appears to Be Top Editor of Al Qaeda Magazine, U.S. Officials Say

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FOXNEWS… A young North Carolina man who has moved to Yemen appears to be the editor-in-chief of a flashy new Al Qaeda magazine that features bomb-making instructions and an article by Usama bin Laden, U.S. officials said Monday.

Samir Khan, a 24-year-old American citizen who left the country last October, is believed to be the top editor of Inspire, a newly launched online magazine that seeks to recruit members of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula – the notorious terror group’s Yemeni branch that is linked to the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound U.S. flight last Christmas.

The 67-page online publication, written in colloquial English and launched last month, features flashy graphics and punchy headlines like “Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom,” as well an article on global warming said to be written by Bin Laden. Continue Reading →

Iran to file international complaint over deadly mosque blasts

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FOXNEWS… TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday Iran will file a complaint to international bodies over the deadly mosque bombing by an insurgent group he says the U.S. supports.

The twin suicide bombings of a mosque in southeast Iran killed 28 people Thursday night, in an attack claimed by the Jundallah insurgent group as revenge for the execution of its leader by Iranian authorities in June.

Ahmadinejad did not specify if the complaint would be specifically against the U.S., but he did tell state TV that America supported the bombings.

“If (President Barack) Obama is not aware of actions by American forces, we tell him that American troops based in Afghanistan and Pakistan support these actions,” he said referring to the bombings. “Yet, the American president sends a condolence message.”

Obama and other U.S. officials condemned the bombings.

Ahmadinejad also held Pakistan responsible for allegedly harboring terrorists, saying Islamabad “must be answerable.”

Iran accuses the United States and Britain of supporting Jundallah in effort to weaken the clerical leadership, a claim both countries deny.

Tory MP refuses to meet Muslim women wearing burkas

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Mail Online… A Conservative MP today declared he would refuse to meet Muslim women wearing full Islamic dress at his constituency surgery unless they lifted their face veil.

Phillip Hollobone made the comments after launching a Private Member’s Bill to ban women in the UK wearing the burka or niqab in public places.

It comes after France banned women wearing the full-face veil, making it an illegal offence.

But Muslim groups have condemned the Kettering MP and accused him of failing in his duty as a member of Parliament.

Mr Hollobone told the Independent: ‘I would ask her to remove her veil. If she said: “No”, I would take the view that she could see my face, I could not see hers, I am not able to satisfy myself she is who she says she is. I would invite her to communicate with me in a different way, probably in the form of a letter.’

He added that the majority of Muslim women wore dress allowing people to see their face and claimed wearing the burka or niqab was not a religious requirement.

‘It is not a necessity,’ he said.

‘I just take what I regard as a common sense view. If you want to engage in normal, daily, interactive dialogue with your fellow human beings, you can only really do this properly by seeing each other’s face.

‘Seventy-five per cent of the usual communication between two human beings is done with personal experience. God gave us faces to be expressive. It is not just the words we utter but whether we are smiling, sad, angry or frustrated. You don’t get any of that if your face is covered.’ Continue Reading →

From the editor of Inspire magazine.

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 There has been a lot of talk about the magazine Inspire. The one thing that some people are talking about is they can’t find it. Only makes sense for a rational person to want to see something before they comment on it.

So here is page one.

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Allah says: (And inspire the believers to fight) [al-Anfal: 65]. It is from this verse that we derive the name of our new magazine. The word used in the verse is “harid” which is commonly translated as incite. However, the word should properly be translated as inspire, motivate, or encourage. The word harid in Arabic carries none of the negative
connotations that the English word “incite” carries. To the contrary, it actually has the opposite meaning. The authoritative Arabic lexicon “Taj al-Arus” quotes the classical Arabic language scholar al-Zajjaj as saying that the verb hari? comes from the adjective harid, which means “a person or a being that
is perishing.” Therefore, he says that when you inspire someone towards something using the verb harid, you are saying that unless they do what you are inspiring them to do they would perish. So the word harid is an inspiration that saves a person and guides them towards what is good for them.

Continue Reading →

‘Man who killed UK troops in Afghanistan’ contacts BBC

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 BBCNEWS… A man who says he is the renegade Afghan soldier who killed three British troops in Helmand province in Afghanistan has contacted the BBC.

The man said he had been angry at the conduct of British troops and that he had acted alone. He said he joined the Taliban after the attack.

The three members of the Royal Gurkha Rifles died in a gun and rocket-propelled grenade attack on Tuesday.

The UK Ministry of Defence said it was aware of the man’s claims.

Since the three British soldiers – Major James Joshua Bowman, from Wiltshire, Lieutenant Neal Turkington, from Craigavon, and Corporal Arjun Purja Pun, from Nepal – died on Tuesday, the BBC has been trying to find out why they were killed. Continue Reading →

Dozens speak out against planned mosque near ground zero at NYC hearing on landmark status

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FOXNEWS…Dozens of opponents and some supporters of a mosque planned near ground zero attended a raucous hearing Tuesday about whether the building where the Muslim place of worship would be created warrants designation as a city landmark and should be protected from development.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio, who has sought an investigation into the funding of the mosque, was among the witnesses who testified in support of giving the building landmark status, which could complicate plans by Muslim groups to develop a community center and mosque there.

After noting the lower Manhattan building’s history and architectural significance, Lazio said it also warranted landmark designation because on Sept. 11, 2001, it was struck by airplane debris from the terror attacks against the nearby World Trade Center. That connection to the attacks, he said, made it “a place of deep historical significance and a reminder of just what happened on New York’s darkest day.”

Lazio has called on state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, his Democratic opponent in the governor’s race, to investigate the funding of the project. On Tuesday, he repeated that request and said the pace of the landmark designation process should be slowed to allow time to thoroughly investigate the matter.

Nearly 100 people attended the hearing at a college campus on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Fifty-six people testified at the hearing, which turned contentious at times, with some speakers drowned out by shouts from the audience and with one man escorted out by campus security.

“To deprive this building of landmark status is to allow for a citadel of Islamic supremacy to be erected in its place,” said Andrea Quinn, a freelance audio technician from Queens who said she had worked with people at the World Trade Center.

But Rafiq Kathwari, who described himself as a moderate Muslim, said the landmark discussion had been hijacked.

“This has been made by a very vocal minority into an issue of bigotry,” said Kathwari, as he held up his U.S. passport and was nearly drowned out by shouts from the crowd. “I’m standing in a hall in which I feel ashamed to be an American.” Continue Reading →

‘Make A Bomb In The Kitchen Of Your Mom’

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 ABCNEWS… The Al Qaeda affiliate based in Yemen has launched a new English-language web site that features statements from Osama Bin Laden, Ayman Zawahiri and Anwar Awlaki, the radical American-born imam linked to numerous U.S. terror plots, and gives instructions on how to make a homemade bomb.

Inspire” magazine, aimed at Westerners and published by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, includes such articles as “Make A Bomb In The Kitchen Of Your Mom,” written by someone called “The AQ Chef,” that gives step-by-step directions on how jihadis can make a bomb “from ingredients available in any kitchen in the world.” In addition to an interview with AQAP head Sheikh Abu Basir Nasir al-Wuhayshi, the magazine also republishes past statements by Bin Laden and Zawahiri, like an essay on climate change in which Bin Laden says that the earth is getting warmer because Al Qaeda has opened the gates of hell. A message from Awlaki praises accused underwear bomber Umar Abdulmutallab and accused Ft. Hood shooter Nidal Hasan, both of whom were reportedly in touch with Awlaki.

The magazine also quotes Noam Chomsky, David Letterman, and an email from failed Times Square car bomber Faisal Shahzad: “You would have to agree to the fact that there’s a force out there that’s fighting the West, and is defeating them.”

In an advice column called “What to Expect in Jihad – Part One, ” “Mukhtar” urges would-be jihadis to pack light when on the road, warns them not to become frustrated by language barriers, and notes that having a companion eases travel. “Having a friend makes a difference,” says a cheery yellow post-it note displayed next to a handful of bullets.

Canada Will Not Tolerate “Honour killings”

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Can’t wait for the Muslim organizations to claim this new law as anti Islamic

National Post…The federal government this afternoon affirmed its zero-tolerance stance against ‘honour killing,’ declaring such “barbaric cultural practices” as “heinous abuses” that have “no place in Canadian society.”

The government is taking gender-based violence “very seriously” and called on women’s groups and members of the immigrant community to do their part in tackling these “heinous abuses, said Rona Ambrose, Minister of Public Works and Government Services and Minister for Status of Women.

The minister’s announcement at a a press conference at the Punjabi Community Health Service Centre in Mississauga, Ont., was apparently prompted by this weekend’s release of a high-profile report focusing on the growing problem of the abuse of girls and women in Canada’s immigrant communities.

The report, released by the Frontier Centre on Public Policy, outlines 14 recommendations for the federal government — including criminal record checks for men coming to Canada, and mandatory orientation sessions for male sponsors and sponsored women regarding gender-equality in this country.
Ms. Ambrose said the government is already working some of the recommendations and is “looking at” others, including the launch of government-funded programs on local and national television that could be used to reiterate the consequences of abuse.

She also said the government is “looking at” adding ‘honour killing’ as a separate charge to the criminal code.

“If we have a different family dynamic at play, then we have to address that family dynamic,” Ms. Ambrose said, addressing media and about a dozen women and a few men from the community who gathered at the centre.

“Famous” bin Laden: teaching children our fear of terrorism is racist

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HERALDSUN… What an offensive corruption of our curriculum. Children are to be taught the fabled best of Islam and the imagined worst of Australia to blind us all to the real challenges Islam poses even to a country that’s peacefully integrated the many more Buddhists here:

EVERY Australian school student would be taught positive aspects about Islam and Muslims – and that Australia is a racist country – under a proposal by an education think tank.  
The plan is outlined in the Learning From One Another: Bringing Muslim Perspectives into Australian Schools booklet, published during the week by the Australian Curriculum Studies Association and the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Excellence in Islamic Studies.
It says there is a “degree of prejudice and ignorance about Islam and Muslims”, and Australian students must be taught to embrace difference and diversity.
The booklet refers to the al-Qai’da of Osama bin Laden as “a famous name” synonymous with the traditionalist movement in Islam. It makes no reference to terrorism.
It says “most texts used in Australian English classes still have a Western or European perspective”.

How impudent for a largely immigrant community, comprising a very small minority, to demand English classes now be taught more from their perspective rather than the communal perspective of the country to which most chose to come – a communal perspective that reflects the values and institutions that have made this country worth coming to in the first place. It is particularly offensive in that the host nation is demonised as racist while the very real and in some cases lethal challenges posed by the newcomers are glossed over.
This National Centre of Excellence for Islamic Studies document is the well-meaning – but dangerously foolish and deceptive – work of Dr Eeqbal Hassim, a former research fellow in Islamic Law at the University of Melbourne, and Jennet Cole-Adams, director of Curriculum Services at the Australian Curriculum Studies Association.
Most tellingly, it has only passing and vague references to Islamic terrorism, which is the key explanation for Australia’s alleged “racism” towards Muslims – something that might in many case might be more properly described as a natural caution, and one limited to Muslims here than to Buddhists or any other largely immigrant group that seems curiously immune to our “racism”. There is no mention at all of the Islamist killings of some 100 Australian in Bali, or of the Muslim terrorist plots in Australia itself, which have seen 20 people jailed.
Here is the document’s reference to Islamist terror groups, suggesting that Islamist terrorism is created by Western arrogance more than any sickness within Islam itself or Arabic cultures: Continue Reading →

Council forces schools to rearrange exams and cancel lessons to avoid offending Muslims during Ramadan

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Mail Online… A council has ordered schools to rearrange tests, cancel swimming lessons and stop sex education to avoid offending Muslims during the holy month of Ramadan.

All primary schools and secondary schools in Stoke-on-Trent have been issued with the guidance aimed at Muslim pupils who may still be fasting when the new term starts in September.

But critics dismissed the dictats as ‘over-zealous’ bureaucracy and said all pupils would be forced to miss out on activities as a result.

During Ramadan, all Muslims who have reached puberty are forbidden from eating food or drinking liquids between sunrise to sunset to encourage discipline and self-restraint.

Some younger children also choose to fast for all or part of the month.

To help them with this, Stoke-on-Trent City council advises schools not to schedule exams or hold parents’ meetings and social events after school.   

They are also directed to avoid swimming lessons because some parents and pupils consider the risk of swallowing water too great.

The papers even advise schools to cancel sex and relationship education because Muslims are expected to avoid sexual thoughts and relations while fasting.

Although the guidance was specifically drawn up to help Muslims, it will affect every pupil in the roughly 90 schools in the area.

According to the last official figures in 2001, just 3.2 per cent of the population of Stoke is Muslim. Continue Reading →

Incident with Qatar diplomat likely not shoe bomb: U.S. official

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So readers, what do you think will happen? I think this guy won’t even need to claim diplomatic immunity. All he will needs to say is he was merely responding to “Islamaphobic” attitude from the flight crew and that will be it.

National Post… A United Airlines domestic flight landed safely in Denver Wednesday after a disturbance on board by a passenger, but officials said the incident did not appear to be a serious security threat.

“It looks like the individual in question was perhaps smoking in the lavatory and might have made an unfortunate remark” once confronted by airline personnel, a U.S. official said.

United Flight 663, which originated from Washington’s Reagan National Airport, arrived at about 9 p.m. EDT after two F-16 fighter jets were scrambled to intercept the Boeing 757 aircraft, according to the North American Aerospace Defense Command which is responsible for safeguarding U.S. airspace.

ABC News, citing federal law enforcement officials, had reported earlier that U.S. air marshals subdued a Qatari man who authorities say tried to “light his shoes on fire” on the flight.

CNN said the man identified as a mid-level Qatari diplomat, when asked why he was in the toilet so long, “said something about lighting his shoe on fire.”

The plane was surrounded by security vehicles at Denver International Airport.

“Law enforcement and TSA have responded to the scene and the passenger is currently in custody,” the Transportation Security Administration said in a statement. “All steps are being taken to ensure the safety of the traveling public.”

There were 157 passengers aboard the plane and six crew members, according to United.

The latest aviation scare came amid heightened worries about attempts to attack the United States.

U.S. authorities have been on heightened alert after a Nigerian man, who had ties to an al Qaeda-affiliated group, tried to explode a bomb hidden in his underwear on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day last year.

In December 2001, Richard Reid, a self-admitted member of al Qaeda, was subdued on an trans-Atlantic flight diverted to Boston after attempting to detonate explosives hidden in his shoes.

Reid pleaded guilty to eight counts related to terrorism and was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole.

Kyrgyzstan keeps a tight grip on religion

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 BBC… Bolot, a young evangelical preacher in Kyrgyzstan, says he has already been arrested twice since setting up a new church.

He says he is the victim of a new law on religion, which critics say severely restricts religious freedoms and is forcing some groups underground.

Under the law, new religious groups have to have at least 200 members before they can register with the authorities and operate legally – previously the figure was 10.

Kyrgyzstan is just the latest Central Asian republic to have been accused of curtailing religious rights.

“In our church we don’t have official registration because we have only 25 people, and we are banned from trying to convert people. We have lots of problems with the government,” Bolot says.

He says the police have been several times to his church, which is based in a house in the capital, Bishkek. Bolot, which is not his real name, says he fears further such visits.

“They asked me to stop the church because it’s against the law. Of course, it’s not comfortable but we will keep going.”

There are now at least 50,000 evangelical Christians in Kyrgyzstan, Bolot says, the majority of them converts from Islam like himself – although the government disputes that figure.

He says the authorities passed the law because they want to prevent Muslims converting to Christianity.

He adds that the government also feels threatened by radical Muslim groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir, whose goal is to bring all Muslim countries together as a single state, ruled by Islamic law. Continue Reading →

‘Shoe bomb’ attempt on US plane

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BBC… A man has been detained after he tried to set fire to his shoes on a US flight, reports say.

The man was subdued on United flight 663 from Washington Reagan airport to Denver, ABC news reported.

While the presence of explosives has not been confirmed, reports are referring to the incident as a “shoe bomb attempt”.

AN ABC report identified the suspect as a Qatari diplomat stationed at the country’s Washington embassy.