Islamburg makes video response to Christian Action Network

The organization, ‘Islamburg’ which the C.A.N. exposed as a Pakistani funded terrorist training camp with locations across America, made a video response to Martin Mawyer’s excellent and courageous film on their organization. As a courtesy to them, I allowed it to be posted as a video response on Vlad Tepes’s youtube channel. However, felt it was necessary to add a short introduction to their response although I did post their film intact other than that. First, the CAN film, and below, the Islamburg video response.

Below, is Islamburg’s response with my introduction:

Manchester terror suspects O.K.’d as security guards, Santa ditched over security concern

While members of an Islamist terror cell are given the green light to work as security guards, Father Christmas is prevented from delivering presents to children fearing he posed a security threat. Go ahead Britain, just jump already.

From The TimesOnLine, courtesy TROP
From The Sunday Times

December 13, 2009

Manchester terror suspects cleared to work as guards

Trafford Shopping centre, Manchester.
David Leppard

Ten members of a suspected Islamist terror cell, said by MI5 to be plotting to blow up a shopping centre and a nightclub in Manchester, had been granted permission by the Home Office to work as security guards in Britain.

The Pakistani students — who were never charged for lack of evidence — were arrested over an alleged plot to bomb Britain last Easter. Police believed they had conducted “hostile reconnaissance” of the Arndale and Trafford shopping centres and the Birdcage nightclub.

It has now emerged that in the months before the alleged plot, the men were given licences to work as security guards by the Security Industry Authority (SIA), a Home Office body that regulates the private security industry.

They all passed a vetting programme designed to bar criminals and undesirables from taking up sensitive security posts protecting airports, ports and Whitehall buildings from terrorist attack. When arrested, two of the students were working for a cargo firm which had access to secure areas at Manchester airport. Continue Reading →

London ‘Mega-mosque’ a clear political sign of Islamic primacy.

The fact that Ken Livingston is the main force behind this mosque should be enough to concern any true liberal.

If anyone who is reading this or watching this short clip has not already read the short book by Sam Solomon, The Mosque Exposed, it is very important that you do so, for a perspective on what this clip actually means. Even the producers of this clip at CBN do not seem to grasp the full import of it. Mosques are not, nor were they ever an analogue of a church or temple of any kind. They are a beach-head. A toe hold. They are a political and military incursion into an area with the express and exclusive purpose of establishing Islamic primacy and the use of Islamic sharia as the basis of jurisprudence, not just for Muslims but for all. This is not to say that Muslim prayers are not said in them, but the purpose is more political than religious from our frame of reference. From theirs, the distinction is meaningless.

Islamic law in Socialist Spain. This is critical.

This is central to the whole issue. So many people still think Islam is some form of Christianity or Judaism. You can bet this machinery exists here today in any nation over 3 or 4 percent Muslims. There are no Jewish or Christian ‘police’ who’s job it is, to beat or kill any members of their own communities who do not conform to the letter of religious law. This is one of the most important articles I have posted in many weeks I think. It speaks to the actual policy and machinery of Islam in the West.

Eeyore for Vlad.

By Martin Barillas on Speroforum and found on the inimitable Sheik Yer Mammi

Sources in Spain’s Ministry of Interior express growing concern over the rise of Islamic law, known as sharia to Muslims, and the increase of Muslim separatism. In Spanish mosques, groups are emerging which promote Islamic judges and policing that have a growing influence over Muslims living in Spain. While this has long been known in the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, and France, it has now been detected in rural areas of Catalonia and in towns such as Tarragona, Gironés and Segarra.

The mosques in question are almost uniformly in the control of Salafist jihadis. Such jihadis have espoused separatism and violent struggle with the West at least since the 1980s.

Muslim clerics in Catalonia, for example, call upon the faithful to not befriend native Catalonians nor belong to Catalonian civic organizations. The imams demand that Muslims buy only “halal” food (e.g. meat slaughtered according to Muslim ritual), and that they avoid banks since these ostensibly violate Muslim abhorrence of usury. Muslim parents are warned to not allow their daughters to use the gymnasiums in the schools nor on any account should they use swimming pools. Muslims are told to remove their daughters from school upon the first appearance of menstruation. Continue Reading →

France follows Swiss lead. No more praying in streets.

Some Paris neighbourhoods have been taken over Fridays with large numbers of Muslims clearly establishing Islamic primacy by taking over huge sections of streets by ‘praying’ in them in such a manner that no other traffic is possible. (videos below) thanks to Tundra and Gaia, we have a translation of a newspaper article on a proposed referendum to end this hostile and predatory practice.

Once again, we see that this is not a religious thing, but a political practice of primacy and total dominance. Below the videos please find the English translation of the letter to President Sarkozi. Remember, this can, will, and is happening now in Canada. It is only a matter of degree and time. The more time, the greater the degree.

Mr. President

This is an appeal for help from the citizens of the 18th arrondissement. For several years now, certain of our streets have been occupied by fundamentalists who come from all over the Parisian region to practice their cult activities.

The pavement for hundreds of metres is taken over, putting pedestrians in grave danger as they are obliged to walk in the street to get past the people “praying”.

Entire streets are roped off with cars and security barriers and no entry signs, preventing the inhabitants of the area from going out or returning to their homes, the shopkeepers from working, ordinary citizens from circulating normally.

Every protest or even a simple attempt to penetrate into the zones occupied by these fundamentalists risks being met by insults, threats and aggression and for some time now no one dares to protest, such is the fear installed in our area.

Are we no longer a secular Republic?  Isn’t occupation of the public highway by unauthorized cultural activities a public order offence?  Is preventing the free circulation of citizens in public areas, by means of threats or other means, normal in our city?  Why do we no longer have the right to enter or leave our homes?  Why do we have to live in a climate of fear?

Mr. Delanöe, the Mayor of Paris, knows perfectly about our situation, as does Mr. Vaillant Mayor of the 18ème et Mr. Gaudin Préfet de Police.  All of them have abandoned our streets to Islamic fundamentalists, they have abandoned their citizens who can no longer walk around their city because certain areas are out of bounds to non-muslims during prayer times.

Mr President, you have affirmed that in France there are no No-Go zones.  So what would you call these areas or the militant fundamentalists  who shut roads for their exclusive private use for a number of years now without the police intervening to re-establish public order?

Mr. President.  Do not abandon us also.  Stop this occupation of our streets by fundamentalists.

The inhabitants of the 18ème area of Paris.

We are not able to sign this document for fear of our lives and those of our families.

Security incident aboard AirTran Flight 297 suggests terror “Dry Run”

Canada Free Press…By Doug Hagmann  Thursday, December 3, 2009

On November 17, an incident took place aboard AirTran Flight 297 scheduled to fly from Atlanta Hartsfield Airport to Houston that the media does not want to cover and everyone from the airline to the TSA and other government agencies want to keep very quiet.  The reasons, I have been told, is fear of predatory lawsuits, negative publicity from accusations of religious profiling, and the obligatory subjugation to mindless mandatory Muslim sensitivity training that make a mockery of our American system of values. Interestingly, one airline official told me “we don’t want to become another flight 300,” which is a reference to a very similar scenario that took place aboard US Airways Flight 300 exactly three years ago.

I was first contacted about this incident two days after it happened by a passenger who was aboard AirTran Flight 297. Based on the allegations made by this passenger, we conducted additional research, interviews and investigation, all of which takes time to insure accuracy, and are now able to release our report of the incident that took place aboard that aircraft. Be prepared to be shocked, angered, and perhaps saddened by our national and corporate acquiescence to mafia-type tactics by Islamists who are engaged in a full frontal assault, and laughing about it.

Unsurprisingly, the facts we developed during the course of our investigation are inconsistent with those being reported in the media, despite the media having the responsibility to report the truth.

The incident

A group of thirteen men dressed in traditional Muslim attire were among 73 passengers who boarded AirTran Flight 297 on Tuesday, 17 November 2009, a routine flight scheduled to depart Atlanta Hartsfield Airport, gate C-16 at 4:43 PM ET to Houston Hobby Airport. Reports developed by this investigator found two witnesses who observed direct interaction among all of these Muslim men at the terminal.

As the passengers boarded the aircraft, two of the Muslim men took seats in first class, while the remaining eleven were seated throughout the remaining rows of the aircraft. Most had carrying-on bags that they stowed in the overhead compartments above their seats.

As the aircraft began to taxi to the runway, a female flight attendant was beginning to issue the normal passenger advisories over the PA system. Almost on cue at the time passengers were told to turn off all electronic devices, one of the Muslim men seated in the front of the plane began to use his cell phone in a manner that was described by a flight attendant and passenger “as deliberate and obvious.”  He was talking loudly in Arabic, nearly at the level of the flight attendant. Some reports suggest that this man actually called another Muslim passenger, although this has not been immediately confirmed. It is possible, however, as another passenger reported that a Muslim man seated toward the rear of the plane answered his cellular phone at the same time the man in the front began using his.

At this point, the flight attendant in the front of the plane approached the Muslim man using his telephone and instructed him to immediately turn it off. A second female flight attendant did the same at the rear of the aircraft. Concurrent with this cellular activity, two other Muslim men seated adjacent near the middle of the aircraft began operating what one passenger described as a palm type camcorder, ostensibly to view previously taken footage. It is possible, according to one flight attendant interviewed by this investigator, however, that the camcorder was being used for recording purposes. Whatever its use, a third flight attendant, aware of the incidents taking place in the front and rear of the aircraft, approached the two men for the purpose of securing the camcorder.  At least two passengers reported that the men became abusive to the flight attendant and initially refused to comply with her request.

It was at this time that most of the passengers began to notice the multiple incidents involving over a dozen men dressed in Islamic attire. Next, as if previously rehearsed, at least ten of the 13 Muslim men aboard the aircraft began to leave their seats at the same time. At least one passenger stated she observed one of the Muslim passengers using his cell phone to take photos of other passengers on the aircraft, while one other Muslim passenger sang loudly in Arabic. According to information provided to this investigator from one of the flight crew who was alerted to an onboard emergency, the aircraft was now being taxied back to the terminal. The TSA, FAA and FBI were notified. Continue Reading →

Men of hate.

From The Daily Mail U.K.

Face to face with the men of hate: The Muslim fanatics who attacked Baroness Warsi

By Sue Reid
Last updated at 9:19 AM on 02nd December 2009

With egg yolk dripping through her hair after being attacked by demonstrators, Britain’s most prominent Muslim woman politician took refuge in the sweetly named Memsaab Boutique in Luton. Baroness Warsi could have been forgiven for saying she would never put her well-heeled foot in the Bedfordshire town again.

Minutes earlier, as darkness fell on Monday evening, the Tory peer had been cornered by a group of finger-jabbing young Islamists who had pelted her with eggs, accusing her of causing Muslim deaths in Afghanistan.

The mob chanted: ‘Shame on you!’ and one protester yelled loudly: ‘This woman doesn’t represent us’.

Franken-mentary on Islam in Spain

I saw this short BBC clip that really pissed me off. They seemed to imply that Spain would be better off under another 700 years of brutal racist oppressive sharia law and Islamic rule. So I thought I would counter their post modernist BS with some facts. I really don’t see why the BBC should take people’s money by force and use it to lie to them about important things without at least we, the people, having the right to rebut.

Europe unites to deplore Swiss ban on minarets

TIMESONLINE…The Swiss and European establishment united today in deploring yesterday’s decision by Swiss voters to outlaw the construction of minarets but conservative leaders warned that the referendum showed genuine fear over Islam on the continent.

Swiss officials, media and business leaders voiced shame over a vote that they say will stigmatise the country’s 400,000 Muslims and stain Switzerland’s name in the Muslim world. In contrast, hard right leaders in France, Austria, Italy and the Netherlands hailed what they depicted as a triumph for the people against the elite.

Le Temps, Geneva’s establishment newspaper, said: “The vote was inspired by fear, fantasies and ignorance.” Damage to the country’s international standing would be spectacular, it said. “Vengeance [ aka fear], boycotts [ aka fantasy], retaliation [aka ignorance] … this clash with Islam could cost dearly.”

Tagesanzeiger, the Zurich daily, said that the vote, staged on the initiative of the nationalist Swiss People’s Party (SVP), showed the country’s deep division between outward-looking modernisers and a traditionalist backlash. The 57 per cent approval of the minaret ban would “strengthen the international isolation of Switzerland even among western nations,” it said.

The Swiss Government, which opposed the vote, reassured members of the faith that “this is not a rejection of the Muslim community, religion or culture.” The Conference of Swiss Bishops also criticised the result, saying that it “heightens the problems of cohabitation between religions and cultures.”

Amnesty international and other rights organisations said that the change to the Swiss Constitution breached guarantees on religious freedom in the European Human Rights Convention. The Swiss Green party said that it may lodge a complaint at the Strasbourg court of Human Rights.

Swiss Muslims, who come mainly from the Balkans and Turkey, reacted with sorrow. “The most painful thing for us is not the ban on minarets, but the symbol sent by this vote,” said Farhad Afshar, leader of the Swiss Coordination of Islamic Organisations. “Muslims do not feel accepted as a religious community,” he said.

Anger was swift from more militant wings of the Muslim world. “This is the hatred of Swiss people against Muslim communities. They do not want to see a Muslim presence in their country and this intense dislike has made them intolerant,” said Maskuri Abdillah, the head of Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia’s biggest Muslim group. He urged Muslims not to take “revenge” for the decision.

Egypt’s Mufti Ali Gomaa denounced the ban on new minarets as an insult to all Muslims. “This proposal … is not considered just an attack on freedom of beliefs, but also an attempt to insult the feelings of the Muslim community in and outside Switzerland.”

Beyond Switzerland, the vote was criticised by centre and leftwing leaders. Bernard Kouchner, a leftist who is French Foreign Minister, said that he had been shocked. Switzerland should reverse the decision quickly, he said. “If you are not allowed to build minarets, that means that religion is being oppressed.” Can someone please show me an Muslim dominated country where religions other than Islam are not oppressed?

However spokesman for Mr Sarkozy’s centre-right Union for a Popular Majority, took a different line, saying that the vote showed the degree to which radical Islam was alarming Europe’s citizens. Xavier Bertrand, the party leader, said that he was “not sure that minarets are needed in order to practise Islam in France”.

In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrat (CDU) party reacted with similar caution. To criticise the Swiss ban would be counterproductive, said Wolfgang Bosbach a senior CDU MP. It reflected a fear of growing Islamisation “and this fear must be taken seriously,” he said.

France’s far right National Front welcomed the outcome, saying that the “elites should stop denying the aspirations and fears of the European people, who, without opposing religious freedom, reject ostentatious signs that political-religious Muslim groups want to impose.”

In Italy, the anti-immigrant Northern League, said: “Switzerland is sending us a clear signal: yes to bell towers, no to minarets.”

In Switzerland, Yvan Perrin, vice-president of the SVP, the largest party in the federal Parliament, said that the vote was a lesson to the elite. Swiss companies should not worry about suffering from a backlash from Muslim countries, he said. “If our companies continue to make good quality products, they have nothing to worry about.”

Swiss voters do not be conned. Vote to ban the minaret today

Today the decision to ban the construction of minarets is before the Swiss people. Of course there are massive guilt ridden well funded campaigns claiming that to ban the minaret is racist.

Lets be clear and rational here please just for a moment then we can all go back to being creatures driven by hyperbole and rhetoric.

A building is not a race. Banning a building and in this case only part of a building cannot possibly be considered racist. Now if you decided to ban say, bricks as a building material for no reason at all except you had a pathological hatred of bricks you could be accused of being ‘brickest’ I suppose and you may have some unions come down hard on  you. But a minaret is not a building, a building is not a race and of course the central point that everyone misses each and every time this comes up is, Islam is not a race.

Now I don’t actually think banning minarets is the right solution. I think banning Islam is. There is no reason to allow Islam to continue its steady march towards supremacy in western nations unopposed that I can see. Mosques indeed are not an equivalent of a temple, church, or synagogue. They are indeed a beach-head from which supremacy is taught and greater and greater separation of Muslims from the host population until you have two solitudes and eventually the most intolerant system, Islam with it’s sharia law, will win. Just ask a Kosovar or an Egyptian Copt.

So recognizing that banning the minaret is merely a totem for what ultimately will have to be done if Swiss and indeed Western civilization has any intention of continuing its fine heritage of freedoms (leftist continual introduction of irrational crypto-environmental regulations and behavioural restrictions not withstanding) then at least making sure that Swiss mosques are not able to dominate the landscape, the actual purpose of the minaret, is a fine start. So please dear people of Switzerland; you utterly failed to assist the people of Europe from saving themselves from the Nazis, and in fact, acted out of self interest to work with them by managing stolen wealth. Let’s see if you have at least a healthy amount of that self-preservation instinct left in you. This time, you can lead Europe to self determination and save civilization.

Vote to ban the minaret. Then later, you can ban Islam altogether.

Eeyore for Vladtepesblog

Radical Muslim books widely available, enjoy influence and popularity in Canada

From The National Post

Radical muslim books too easily available: report

Stewart Bell, National Post Published: Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Members of the Toronto 18, seen here in a courtroom sketch, were found with radical Muslim books that encouraged terrorism. Kagan McLeod/National Post Members of the Toronto 18, seen here in a courtroom sketch, were found with radical Muslim books that encouraged terrorism.

TORONTO — When police rounded up 18 terror suspects around Toronto in 2006, they found cash, detonators and videos that showed some of them yelling “God is Great” as they trained in the snow with guns.

Police also found copies of manifestos with titles such as The Book of Jihad, The Virtues of Jihad, Fundamental Concepts Regarding Al-Jihad and 39 Ways to Serve and Participate in Jihad.

Such reading materials now enjoy “influence and popularity” in Canada, says a secret government study that identifies the ideologues whose writings it says are promoting “violent jihad” among Canadians.

The report by the Integrated Threat Assessment Centre names Sayed Qutb, Abdullah Azzam and Ibn Taymiyah as the “key ideologues whose works have contributed to Islamist radicalization in Canada.”

All three are dead. Qutb was a controversial Egyptian executed in 1966. Azzam was Osama bin Laden’s sidekick, killed in a 1989 car bombing, and Taymiyah was a 12th century scholar from what is now Turkey.

“In the context of this assessment, radicalization is defined as the process by which an individual progresses to an Islamist extremist viewpoint where violence is a justifiable means to achieve ideological objectives,” the study says.

“One of the key radicalizing elements in this process is exposure to Islamist extremist messaging which promotes violent jihad. A relatively small number of Islamist extremist authors are the source of this type of messaging, which includes literature, speeches and statements.”

These materials “can be obtained from newspapers and other publications, public audio and video broadcasts, and extremist forums on the Internet,” the report says. It does not mention, however, that they can also be purchased from online booksellers and borrowed from libraries.

The Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa and Winnipeg public libraries list Qutb’s works in their catalogues, and his most radical books are posted in their entirety on a website for young Canadian Muslims.

“Syed Qutb’s books and Ibn Taymiyah’s doctrines are widely available in Canada, but more accessible on the Internet,” said the Canadian Muslim writer and activist Tarek Fatah, an opponent of Islamist extremism.

The “Toronto 18” group circulated extremist literature in electronic form. Some of the materials were found on a laptop seized during the arrest of Saad Gaya, whose sentencing begins today in Brampton. He has pleaded guilty to participating in a plot to detonate truck bombs in downtown Toronto.

The classified intelligence report, released under the Access to Information Act, is one of dozens of studies that analyze why some Canadians participate in al-Qaeda-inspired terrorist activities.

Previous studies have focused on the role of extremist fathers like Ahmed Khadr, spiritual mentors, the Internet and foreign paramilitary training camps but part of the answer was apparently on the bookshelf.

A common thread among the targets of counter-terrorism investigators was that they were consumers of extremist literature that portrays the West as the enemy and advocates violence as a duty.

“Radicalizing literature in the possession of individuals of interest to Canadian authorities indicates the ongoing influence and popularity of the works of Islamist extremist ideologues,” the report says.

The police search of the Ottawa home of terrorist Momin Khawaja in 2004 turned up not only military rifles, wooden ammunition crates and electronic detonator components but also copies of Taymiyah’s The Religious and Moral Doctrine of Jihad and Azzam’s Defence of the Muslim Lands and Join the Caravan.

A 2006 study by the Combating Terrorism Centre at West Point concluded that Azzam was among the modern authors most cited by Islamist terrorists. Qutb ranked number one. Taymiyah was the most commonly cited pre-modern author.

A 2007 paper by Carleton University’s Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies singled out the same trio as the foundation of al-Qaeda ideology.

In his writing, Azzam appealed to Muslims around the world to join the fight in Afghanistan, claiming that an hour spent fighting for Islam was worth more than 70 hours of prayer.

“He brought modern warfare to the concept of ‘global jihad’ and passed on his acquired skills to his many protégés, including UBL [bin Laden],” the government report says.

Of the three authors, Qutb is arguably the most influential. Qutb studied in the United States but returned to Egypt after two years and wrote disparagingly about Americans, decrying their freedom, racism and “animal-like” mixing of races. He also began advocating for the global dominance of Muslims.

“He sought to transform Islam into a political movement in order to create a new society based on ancient Koranic principles,” reads the intelligence report. “Qutb is also known for articulating the concept of ‘global jihad.'”

In Milestones, he wrote that those who resist the worldwide spread of Islam must be fought until they are either killed or submit.

“Sayed Qutb defined jihad as a call to unremitting warfare against the forces of unbelief in order to ‘open the nations for Islam,” Angela Gendron of Carleton University wrote in “Al Qaeda: Propaganda and Media Strategy.”

A report by the RCMP National Security Criminal Investigations Section calls Qutb “the ideological father” of al-Qaeda. “Qutb validated extreme violence in the cause of faith, so ‘Islamic terrorism’ could more accurately be called ‘Qutbian terrorism,’ the RCMP report says.

National Post

sb***@**********st.com

——


Islamist preacher inspired Hasan, other terrorists

From The Telegraph U.K.

Fort Hood shooting: radical Islamic preacher also inspired July 7 bombers

The Islamic preacher who gave email advice to Major Nidal Hasan, the gunman in the Fort Hood massacre, also inspired the July 7 bombers and a number of other British terrorists.

By Philip Sherwell and Duncan Gardham
Published: 6:30AM GMT 23 Nov 2009

Imam Anwar al-Awlaki

Imam Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen October 2008,

An Islamic preacher who gave email advice to Major Nidal Hasan, the gunman in the Fort Hood massacre that left 13 dead, also inspired the July 7 London bombers and a number of other British terrorists, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

Lectures by Anwar al-Awlaki were found in the Iqra bookshop in Leeds, where the July 7 bombers held meetings. His lectures were also found among the material seized from a jihadist recruiter, Aabid Hussain Khan, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, who groomed Britain’s youngest terrorist, schoolboy Hammaad Munshi, then 15.

Al-Awlaki , 38, a US citizen, fled from the country to live in Britain after it was disclosed that three of the September 11 hijackers had worshipped at two different mosques where he preached.

He moved to Yemen in 2004, where he was arrested and then went underground, but he has been invited to give video lectures, most recently at East London Mosque in January, and his videos are still on sale in Britain.

Major Hasan, an army psychiatrist, worshipped at a mosque in Virginia where al-Awlak was imam at the same time as two Sept 11 hijackers.

Hasan, 39, has been charged with 13 murders. He shouted “allahu akbar” (“God is great”) and shot dead unarmed soldiers awaiting vaccinations before or after deployment. He is lying in a military hospital bed, paralysed from the waist down, after civilian police officers shot him to end the rampage.

It has since emerged that US intelligence monitored email correspondence during the past two years between the officer and the imam.

Hasan asked advice on jihad and whether it was permissible to kill innocent people in a suicide attack.

Al-Awlaki’s most influential lecture, Constants on the Path to Jihad, is based on a 2005 book by Yousef al-Ayyiri, the founder of
al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia.

According to Evan Kohlmann, a US terrorism consultant, the sermon was “a ‘virtual bible’ for lone-wolf Muslim extremists”.

Earlier this year, al-Awlaki also published 44 Ways to Support Jihad, a practical point-by-point guide to pursuing or supporting holy war.

“Constants spells out al-Qaeda’s home-grown terror strategy,” said Mr Kohlmann.

“Al-Awlaki didn’t just translate it, he applied its teachings for a Western audience. So when Ayyiri stated ‘jihad is everywhere’, al-Awlaki explained that meant jihad was in Europe too. This is a very clever individual who understands the power of the Internet to radicalise people. Had al-Awlaki not translated Constants, then most of the Western Muslims who were inspired by it would never have even heard of it.”

Al-Awlaki ‘s lectures were also found on a CD belonging to Mohammed Atif Siddique, 22, from Glasgow, an aspiring suicide bomber, who was found guilty of possessing bomb-making instructions.

Student visa numbers soar after new rules take effect

[kaltura-widget wid=”lygtaxh8ko” width=”410″ height=”364″ addpermission=”3″ editpermission=”3″ /]thanks Ethan for sending this in

 

BBC NEWS… The number of students entering the UK from India and Bangladesh has risen sharply since a new visa system began, the BBC has learned.

The UK Border Agency had said it believed the total number of students was “roughly the same” as last year.

But a Freedom of Information request revealed the numbers entering from those countries, thought to be hotspots for bogus students, has tripled.

The Home Office insists that the figures do not reflect a global trend.

‘Raise the bar’

The new points-based immigration system was introduced last year. It was designed to be tougher and more selective than the old one.

The then Home Secretary Jacqui Smith promised that the new system would “raise the bar” and lead to “fewer migrants coming to the UK from outside the EU”.

But earlier this month, immigration officers told BBC Radio 5 live they feared more bogus students are arriving in the UK under the new system, partly because of the large volume of arrivals which must be processed.

Officers said a significant number of those arriving on student visas had previously been denied entry to the UK, and they suspected that many had come here to work and not study.

One Heathrow-based whistleblower told the Donal MacIntyre programme that many so-called students could not speak English, and knew nothing about the courses they claimed to be studying.

He said many of these students came from the Indian subcontinent.

Sharp increase

Responding to the immigration officers’ concerns, Jeremy Oppenheim, who runs the points-based system at the UK Border Agency, said that the number of students coming into the UK this year was “roughly the same as last year”.

But figures subsequently obtained by the BBC under the Freedom of Information Act show there has been a sharp increase in the number of student visas granted in India and Bangladesh – two of the biggest centres for non-EU student visa applications.

Between June and August 2008 (before the new system for students came into force), the British High Commissions in Mumbai, New Delhi and Dhaka issued 6,771 student visas.

During the same period this year (under the new points-based immigration system), the three offices issued 19,950 visas.

The number of student visa applications rejected also rose from 3,997 to 6,261.

‘Flexible’

The government says it has cracked down on bogus colleges, and that the number of institutions able to bring students into the UK from outside the European Union has been halved since the introduction of the new points-based immigration system.

In a statement, Mr Oppenheim told the Donal MacIntyre programme: “The UK Border Agency has 74 visa-issuing posts worldwide, so three cities should not be taken as representative of a global trend.

“The points-based system is designed to be flexible,” he added.

“It enables us to regularly check and monitor all student applications and colleges to ensure that they meet the required standards, and take action where necessary.”

Four charged with terrorism offences following raids

Guardian… Officers from the North West Counter Terrorism Unit detained the men earlier this week

Four men were charged with terrorism offences following counter-terror raids, police said tonight.

Officers from the North West Counter Terrorism Unit detained the men earlier this week in what was described as a “low key operation”.

 Israr Malik, 21, of Bowdon Avenue, Fallowfield, is charged with intending to commit acts of terrorism, namely violent jihad, between June 2008 and November 17 this year.

 Matthew Newton, 27, of Rydal Walk, Stalybridge, Munir Farooqi, 52, of Victoria Terrace, Longsight, and Haris Farooqi, 26, of Stockport Road, Levenshulme, are accused of intending to assist others to commit acts of terrorism, namely violent jihad, between October 2008 and November 17 this year.

 All four are due to appear at City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London tomorrow.

 A 62-year-old man from Deane, Bolton, understood to be a Muslim cleric, was released without charge.