Category Archives: War on Western civilization

Fears Al Qaeda-linked scientist was planning nuclear attack on UK after MI5 learn he worked at top-secret British lab

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From the daily mail: h/t gar

  • MI5 investigate brilliant scientist’s links to world-famous Rutherford Appleton nuclear research centre
  • French Interior Minister claims ‘worst may have been avoided’ after brothers’ arrest
  • Uncanny parallel to Dan Brown novel as scientist hunting for ‘God particle’ is held over fears he planned to attack Britain
hicheurRaid scene: French police at the modest flat in Vienne where Adlene and Halim Hicheur were arrested on Thursday

A brilliant young nuclear scientist who was arrested in France last week over alleged links to Al Qaeda had worked for a top-secret British nuclear research centre.

Last night fears were growing that Dr Adlene Hicheur – who was a researcher for the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire for a year – could have been planning a nuclear attack in the UK.

The French government said yesterday that the arrest of Hicheur, 32, and his brother Dr Halim Hicheur, 25, could have averted a terrorist atrocity.

They were seized after an 18-month investigation by French anti-terrorist police hours before Adlene Hicheur was due to travel to the laboratory where he now works at, CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research near Geneva.

Halim Hicheur carries out research at similar high-security scientific institutions around Europe.

The brothers’ council flat was stormed at 6am last Thursday by eight masked officers from the elite Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence (CDII), the French equivalent of MI5, and 20 armed riot officers.

With almost no noise, a spearhead unit rushed up the concrete steps leading to the cramped flat in Vienne, South-East France. A battering ram was used to break the lock and the warning ‘Armed police!’ shouted.

Large-calibre machine pistols and other weapons were aimed at those inside the flat, including the brothers’ parents and siblings.

Secret agents had been monitoring the brothers’ movements, and all their phone calls, text messages and emails were being bugged ‘in real time and minute by minute’, according to a security source.

‘It was like we were sitting on their shoulders. We knew exactly what they were saying.’

HicheurMysteries of the universe: An aerial view of the Rutherford Appleton lab where Dr Hicheur worked

The source said that Adlene Hicheur had been ‘pinpointing nuclear targets’ but would not be more specific.

The scientists were being questioned last night at the maximum-security headquarters of the CDII on the outskirts of Paris while MI5 began trying to piece together their movements and contacts in Britain. Continue Reading →

Worthwhile lecture on strategy for the anti jihad.

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Here, at a conference in Malmo Sweden, a British fellow, ‘Alan Lake’ speaks some really important and interesting insights on how to deal with the issue of Islam in the west with our fellow citizens. He offers some things perhaps most of us know but quite a few we may not. Things ranging from not bothering to argue Koran or Islam with people. It is a loosing game and a waste of time.

On this I agree and for the reasons he states as well as for a few he does not. Once you begin to argue the rules of someones imaginary cosmology of which they are the wearer of the official funny hat, you have to lose even if you win. Robert Spencer is an excellent example of this. He knows Koran etc. Better than many imams. This will change no one’s mind who is Muslim, and precious few who are not, yet who imagine Islam to be another benign form of quaint or charming noble-savage sort of cultural practice.

To the Muslim, Spencer will remain a Jew, even though he is not, or at best a Kufar.

Once you agree to argue a cosmology based on magic and superstition with someone who is a purveyor of it, you lose. This applies to any non rational cosmology. So best left alone.

This is just one early point in this insightful and worthwhile lecture. Please do take the time to listen to it. I felt it was very helpful if for no other reason, he does warn against burning out, as well as many other important and interesting observations about this fight and its likely consequences.

Eeyore for Vlad.

Link: Anti sharia confrence Sweden

NYC Terror Suspect’s Friend, Activist Group Urge Against Targeting Muslims

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ZAZI. Another misunderstood terrorist

ZAZI. Another misunderstood terrorist

 FOXNEWS…Members of the New York City Muslim community suggested Saturday they were being unfairly targeted in a terror plot probe, as a friend of the probe’s prime suspect said the scrutiny has put his “life on hold.”
Several people speaking Saturday afternoon at a news conference cautioned authorities against profiling Muslims in their probe of an alleged bomb plot with links to Al Qaeda.
The suspect, Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan immigrant who worked in Denver and New York City, is being held without bond in New York. The friend, Naiz Khan, befriended Zazi 10 years ago at a mosque.
Kahn let Zazi stay with him in New York City in the days leading up to what investigators say was a failed attempt last month to bomb sites as the city marked eight years since the Al Qaeda attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Kahn now is under 24-hour FBI surveillance.
“We are so, so nervous,” Khan told reporters at the news conference, organized by the nonprofit group DRUM in Queens, N.Y. “My life has been affected by this. I have no job. … I have put my life on hold.”
DRUM, which stands for Desis Rising Up and Moving, describes itself as a group representing South Asian immigrants of various generations in New York City.
DRUM, which stands for Desis Rising Up and Moving. Does this not have a ring of militancy to it?
Its executive director said that a wave of fear has gripped the Queens community since raids of several apartments and businesses were executed there last month as part of the investigation into the suspected bomb plot.
“People should not be profiled or characterized as terrorists because of religion,” Monami Maulik told reporters Saturday afternoon.
The fact that it is Muslims again and again who plot these attacks should have no influence on who is investigated. The fact that Islam calls for militant Jihad against the Infidel should be ignored at the peril of Americans in the interest of community cohesion.
However, prosecutors say they have evidence that Zazi and others — regardless of their religion –trained with Al Qaeda in Pakistan. Investigators still are hunting for additional players and expect to make more arrests. Officials say Zazi’s suspected accomplices are under surveillance and are no longer a threat because the plot was thoroughly disrupted
Zazi, 24, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of conspiring to detonate homemade explosives in the United States, and on Friday, Zazi’s father pleaded not guilty to a charge of lying to investigators.
Federal investigators have questioned two men whose photographs were shown to a Muslim religious leader along with a picture of Zazi. Adis Medunjanin, a 24-year-old Bosnian immigrant, reportedly met voluntarily with investigators for 14 hours, and Zarein Ahmedzay, a 24-year-old New York City cab driver, also was interviewed by the FBI.
Both men’s photos were among four shown to Ahmad Wais Afzali, an imam at a Queens mosque accused of tipping off Najibullah Zazi that New York Police Department detectives were searching for him.
Naiz Kahn has said he also has been questioned by the FBI, though his photo reportedly was not among those shown to the imam.
Zazi, who left New York earlier this year to take a job driving an airport shuttle in Denver, is the only person charged in an international terror investigation described by Attorney General Eric Holder as one of the most significant plots uncovered in this country since 9/11. Zazi, who’s being held without bond, has pleaded not guilty to conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction.
Prosecutors have said Zazi and others they have not identified received explosives training at an Al Qaeda camp in Pakistan. U.S. intelligence and senior administration officials have said they became aware of Zazi’s connection to a possible plot in late August. They said he was recruited and trained by Al Qaeda, and he had contact with a senior Al-Qaeda operative.

Anti Islam protest in Manchester, U.K.

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TIMESONLINE…Police have arrested 34 people amid tense scenes at an anti-Islamic demonstration in central Manchester.

The English Defence League (EDL), which opposes “radical Muslims” and Sharia Law, staged the protest, but the anti-far right group Unite Against Fascism (UAF) arranged a counter demonstration bringing both sides together in the city centre .

Twenty-five men were arrested on suspicion of public order offences, three for affray and three on suspicion of possessing an offensive weapon, one of whom was also arrested on suspicion of possessing drugs.

A further three men were held on suspicion of racially aggravated public order offences. Police confirmed one man has received a minor injury, but did not need to attend hospital.

Earlier a 39-year-old man, who was believed to be travelling to Manchester, was arrested in Birmingham on suspicion of distributing racially aggravated material and possessing cocaine.

A heavy police line , including officers in full riot gear and on horseback, separated the rival groups as an estimated 2,000 people gathered on both sides of Piccadilly Gardens, at the heart of the city’s shopping centre. Officers imposed a lockdown in the area in an effort to contain the protestors.

Protestors some masked or covering their faces with scarves, chanted and surged at police lines. There was also reports of coin throwing, while others carried placards.

EDL supporters waved Union Flags and chanted “we love our country”. The UAF responded by shouting “fascist scum off our streets” and playing music through loud speakers.

Assistant Chief Constable Garry Shewan said: “The presence of so many protesters in the city has proved a challenge and while many have turned out to protest peacefully the police reaction has been necessary in order to prevent the few hell-bent on violent confrontation.”

The crowds were later dispersed and led away separately under police guard, as small-scale skirmishes broke out.

This from Times comment section on this story;

Laura Roberts wrote:
Hardly a surprise. It’s the start of Rivers of Blood.

I abhor racism: and that means racism from ALL sides. If you continue to impose one incoming race’s laws and preferences on the indigenous people of a country, you are going to create massive turmoil, disruption, antagonism, anger, resentment and confusion.

I have lived around the world. I know of no other country that welcomes foreigners into it that hate it with a venom. I know of no other country that destroys it’s own culture, traditions, values and everything that makes it that particular country, as we do when we try to change it to suit incomers. I know of no other country embarrassed of it’s own flag, where any patriotism that on the one hand we are urged to celebrate is slammed as racism at other times.

When I have lived around the world, I rejoice in their cultures and their pride for their country, heritage and customs. I modify my behaviour to theirs and even when I have to cover my head, or take off my shoes, or have to be escorted because a lone woman out and about is not permitted I do so unquestioningly so, and I honour their rules.

I know of no other country on earth that diminishes it’s own culture and gives in to the demands of visitors and newcomers that we must adapt to them, rather than the other way round. They would not do the same in their country.

And so we have a growing anger, sometimes irrational and extreme, but mostly highly rational and deserved, and it will only get worse until the traditions and culture of Britain is restored and celebrated, just as other countries do with theirs.

Failure to do so will result in carnage.

Sharia law ‘highly misunderstood’ says Obama advisor Dalia Mogahed

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From The Telegraph U.K.

Miss Mogahed, adviser to President Obama, sits with Nazreen Nawaz of Hizb ut Tahir for a chit-chat on sharia law. “ The majority of women around the world associate gender justice or justice for women, with sharia compliance”, Mogahed asserts.

Barack Obama adviser says Sharia Law is misunderstood

President Barack Obama’s adviser on Muslim affairs, Dalia Mogahed, has provoked controversy by appearing on a British television show hosted by a member of an extremist group to talk about Sharia Law.

By Andrew Gilligan and Alex Spillius in Washington
Published: 8:00PM BST 08 Oct 2009

Miss Mogahed, appointed to the President’s Council on Faith-Based and Neighbourhood Partnerships, said the Western view of Sharia was “oversimplified” and the majority of women around the world associate it with “gender justice”.

The White House adviser made the remarks on a London-based TV discussion programme hosted by Ibtihal Bsis, a member of the extremist Hizb ut Tahrir party.

The group believes in the non-violent destruction of Western democracy and the creation of an Islamic state under Sharia Law across the world.

Miss Mogahed appeared alongside Hizb ut Tahrir’s national women’s officer, Nazreen Nawaz.

During the 45-minute discussion, on the Islam Channel programme Muslimah Dilemma earlier this week, the two members of the group made repeated attacks on secular “man-made law” and the West’s “lethal cocktail of liberty and capitalism”.

They called for Sharia Law to be “the source of legislation” and said that women should not be “permitted to hold a position of leadership in government”.

Miss Mogahed made no challenge to these demands and said that “promiscuity” and the “breakdown of traditional values” were what Muslims admired least about the West.

She said: “I think the reason so many women support Sharia is because they have a very different understanding of sharia than the common perception in Western media.

“The majority of women around the world associate gender justice, or justice for women, with sharia compliance.

“The portrayal of Sharia has been oversimplified in many cases.”

Sharia in its broadest sense is a religious code for living, which decrees such matters as fasting and dressing modestly. However, it has also been interpreted as requiring the separation of men and women.

It also includes the controversial “Hadd offences”, crimes with specific penalties set by the Koran and the sayings of the prophet Mohammed. These include death by stoning for adultery and homosexuality and the removal of a hand for theft.

Miss Mogahed admitted that even many Muslims associated Sharia with “maximum criminal punishments” and “laws that… to many people seem unequal to women,” but added: “Part of the reason that there is this perception of Sharia is because Sharia is not well understood and Islam as a faith is not well understood.”

The video of the broadcast has now been prominently posted on the front page of Hizb ut Tahrir’s website.

Miss Mogahed, who was born in Egypt and moved to America at the age of five, is the first veiled Muslim woman to serve in the White House. Her appointment was seen as a sign of the Obama administration’s determination to reach out to the Muslim world.

She is also the executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, a project which aims to scientifically sample public opinion in the Muslim world.

During this week’s broadcast, she described her White House role as “to convey… to the President and other public officials what it is Muslims want.”

Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America, said Miss Mogahed was “downplaying” Sharia Law.

“There is a reason sharia has got a bad name and it is how it has been exercised. Regrettably in the US there have been acts of injustice perpetrated against women that are driven by the Sharia-type mindset that women are objects not human beings,” she said.

She cited the example of Muzzammil Hassan, a Buffalo man who ran a cable channel aimed at countering Muslim stereotypes and was charged earlier this year with beheading his wife after she filed for divorce.

“Americans understand by example, it’s not as if we are an ignorant mass of people. Just as we don’t broad brush all Muslims, so should Dalia not downplay the serious nature of sharia law.”

Anti Islamic march meets Muslim and BBC opposition

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BBC shows it is still wanting to whitewash the truth of the unimpeded growth of Islam in British laws, courts, schools, politics and Muslim only areas of Britain. Not once does it recognize the growing number of people concerned with radical Islam in the country. All the BBC sees through it’s socialist lens are racists who have no business picking on the poor Muslim that  only wants Sharia in the courts and ham off the menu.

BBC…There are calls to ban two marches planned by a group of football fans called the Welsh Defence League.

 WHO IS CALLING FOR A BAN? Muslims or the BBC themselves?

They claim it is to protest against radical Islam and they are not racist but opponents accuse them of being a fascist organisation targeting Muslims.

Marches are planned in Swansea and Newport. Police say they are putting plans in place to avoid a repeat of violent clashes seen in Birmingham.

Football clubs across Wales have also condemned the group.

They were unhappy club logos were used to promote the cause.

Ninety people were arrested when protesters from the English and Welsh Defence League clashed with anti-fascist campaigners in Birmingham in September.

It is understood football fans from south Wales played their part in the demonstrations.

Now the Welsh Defence League is planning to take to the streets of Swansea and Newport in the coming weeks, an investigation by BBC Wales’ Dragon’s Eye programme has discovered.

They say they are against Muslim extremists and the introduction of Sharia law in Britain. MUSLIMS MARCHED THROUGH THE STREETS CALLING FOR SHARIA AND AN ISLAMIC CALIPHATE IN BRITAIN ALL UNDER THE PROTECTION OF THE LAW. NON MUSLIMS ARE NOT ALLOWED THIS SAME RIGHT.

One member called Mike said: “We’re not racist, because we’re standing up against Islam. I mean the police are terrified to upset Muslims, right, and the fact is that militant Islamists in this country, they’re on a jihad, a holy war against us, they want to kill us.”

The Welsh Defence League says Muslim and other ethnic minority groups can join but opponents say this is a smoke screen for their real views. Continue Reading →

Toronto 18 ringleader pleads guilty

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I think the sentences of other Toronto 18 members [time served and 2 more years in jail] has more to do with these admissions of guilt than say, actual remorse and shame for the crimes of wholesale slaughter they wished for the people of Toronto.

Zakaria Amara, 24, pleaded guilty Thursday to participating in a terrorist group and intending to cause an explosion for the benefit of a terrorist group. (Stringer/Reuters)

Zakaria Amara, 24, pleaded guilty Thursday to participating in a terrorist group and intending to cause an explosion for the benefit of a terrorist group. (Stringer/Reuters)

CBCNEWS…Zakaria Amara pleaded guilty Thursday to charges related to the Toronto 18 terrorist plot to set off three fertilizer bombs, two in Toronto and one at an unnamed Ontario military base.

Amara, 24, has been alleged to be one of the ringleaders in the plot to recruit and train extremists to carry out the attacks, which never transpired. He is the fourth adult to admit guilt in the affair.

In a Brampton, Ont., courtroom, Amara pleaded guilty to two counts: knowingly participating in a terrorist group and intending to cause an explosion for the benefit of a terrorist group.

Justice Bruce Durno entered convictions against Amara on those counts before proceeding to sentencing. An agreed statement of facts is being read into the court record.

In all, 17 men and youths were arrested in the Toronto area in June 2006 and detained following an investigation by CSIS. An 18th person was arrested in August 2006.

The suspects faced charges including participating in a terrorist group, receiving training from a terrorist group, providing training and intending to cause an explosion that could cause serious bodily harm or death.

CN Tower among targets

The offences allegedly took place between March and June 2006 in Mississauga and a rural township near Orillia, Ont.

The Crown alleges that the group’s potential targets were the CN Tower, the Toronto Stock Exchange and the Toronto CSIS office.

Seven of the 18 people arrested have since had their charges dropped or stayed. Another six are in custody awaiting trial.

Last Friday, Ali Dirie was sentenced to seven years after pleading guilty to taking part in the homegrown terrorist group.

The 26-year-old’s sentence amounts to two years after time served is factored.

In September, Saad Gaya, 21, pleaded guilty to intending to cause an explosion for the benefit of a terrorist group and is to be sentenced next month.

Gaya and Saad Khalid were arrested while unloading bags labelled “ammonium nitrate” from a truck driven by an undercover police officer.

Khalid, 23, pleaded guilty in May and was handed a 14-year prison sentence. He was given seven years’ credit for pre-trial custody and can apply for parole after less than 2½ years.

Last year, a judge found Nishanthan Yogakrishnan, 21, guilty of participating in, and contributing to, a terrorist group.

Although 17 at the time of the offences, he was tried as a youth but received an adult sentence of 2½ years before being released in May in consideration of time served before trial.

Butt Bomb Bears Bitter Berries

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“This one scares the crap out of me” – Tundra Tabloids

“What a shitty situation” – Vlad Tepes

H/T AA

From Der Spiegel:

Airport Security Concerns

France Warns of New Terror Threat From ‘Body Bombs’

A German police officer armed with a submachine gun at Frankfurt Airport.

Zoom
AP

A German police officer armed with a submachine gun at Frankfurt Airport.

The French intelligence service has warned of a new terrorism threat from suicide bombers carrying in-body explosives that can’t be detected by standard airport screening. The method was used in a failed attempt to kill the Saudi anti-terrorism chief in August.

French anti-terrorism experts have warned that suicide bombers carrying explosives inside their bodies pose a new threat to air traffic, French newspaper Le Figaro reported on Monday.

Standard metal detectors at airports can’t detect in-body explosives and full X-ray screening would be needed to spot them — a costly measure that would entail health risks for frequent flyers. The fear is that terrorists could detonate explosives on board a pressurized plane, when only a small explosion would suffice to bring it down.

The method was first used in an al-Qaida attack on the Saudi anti-terrorism chief, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, in late August. The 23-year-old terrorist, Abdullah Hassan al-Asiri, got through security checks with explosives in his rectum and detonated them during a meeting with the prince. A mobile phone was used to trigger the bomb. The prince was only slightly injured because al-Asiri’s body absorbed most of the detonation and was ripped apart. Continue Reading →

Berlin police under siege

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One German police officer is leaving the force to take a position in Afghanistan because the odds of being killed are the same but the pay is much better in Afghanistan.

I do not know what is more frightening. The hordes of Muslims attacking German police for no typical motive, or the German intelligentsia insisting the answer is more social workers and understanding of the ‘root causes’. Watch this and send the link far and wide. This is civil war, and worse because the side of civilization refuses to admit it, or fight back and instead, wishes to spend more resources appeasing the enemy.

Link: Berlin Police under siege2

Special thanks to ‘Piggy’ for the translation, it was a joy to work with. One of the very best so far.

Michael Coren show with Kurt Westergaard and Lars Hedigaard

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First time on television in Canada, Kurt Westigaard, creator of the iconic ‘Moetoon’ bomb turban drawing associated with the riots of 2005 speaks. Along with Lars Hedigaard, creator and president of the International Free Press Society, this is an exciting and interesting hour of TV. Sadly, it is also a brave hour of TV. Salutations to Michael Coren for having the raw courage to have this guest as well as giving him a very fair interview. Once not so long ago, it took no courage to interview cartoonists. Now one has to have special security in place.

(As an aside, I made a mistake in the movie editor when I set up this clip so the tops of heads my seem chopped off. This was a technical error on my part and not some kind of prophesy or dark humour.)

Link: Michael Coren Kurt W

‘A grenade launcher in every house’

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Khadr says “basic weapons training, rocket launchers, grenade launchers and how to detonate explosives, were part of the “Muslim culture”

A 2005 file photo of Abdullah Khadr and his mother Maha Elsamnah Khadr

A 2005 file photo of Abdullah Khadr and his mother Maha Elsamnah Khadr

Toronto Star… An Ontario court heard this morning about how Abdullah Khadr, who is fighting extradition to the United States on terrorism charges, attended a training camp as a teenager where he learned to use a rocket launcher and detonate explosive material.

The 28-year-old member of the infamous Khadr family took the stand for the first time to testify in his own defence, recounting his years spent living in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Crown Howard Piafsky tried to link Khadr to his father, Ahmed Said Khadr, a reputed Canadian Al Qaeda financier and friend of Osama bin Laden. The patriarch moved his family overseas to Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he was involved in charitable projects.

Khadr, who admitted having a close relationship with his father before he was killed by Pakistani forces in 2003, denied any knowledge of his father’s ideologies. He also told Superior Court Justice Christopher Speyer that he had no knowledge about allegations that his father diverted funds from charitable projects toward Al Qaeda.

When testifying about a three-month camp he attended when he was about 13 or 14, Khadr explained that learning about basic weapons training, rocket launchers, grenade launchers and how to detonate explosives, were part of the “Muslim culture” and part of growing up in Afghanistan.

“Afghanistan is not Canada, it’s a country that’s been going through war,” said the Canadian-born Khadr, who grew up moving between Canada, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

“When you go fishing, you fish with a bomb, you don’t fish with a fishing rod.”

Learning how to use a grenade or rocket launcher is part of growing up there, he said, adding, “if you live in Afghanistan or Pakistan, a grenade launcher is in every house… It’s something everyone has.” Continue Reading →

Yemen the “New Big Magnet” for al Qaeda

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Saeed Sankar and others inside a court cage react as a state security court in San’a, Yemen handed down death sentences to six al Qaeda militants convicted for a number of deadly attacks on Western targets last year, on Monday, July 13, 2009

Saeed Sankar and others inside a court cage react as a state security court in San’a, Yemen handed down death sentences to six al Qaeda militants convicted for a number of deadly attacks on Western targets last year, on Monday, July 13, 2009

CBS News… Hundreds of hardcore Arab fighters loyal to al Qaeda have fled the Afghanistan-Pakistan region this year, heading mainly to Yemen to bolster an Islamist insurgency targeting oil-rich Saudi Arabia, according to Arab, Pakistani and Western officials who spoke to CBS News.

The implications of such a buildup in Yemen are profound not only for the stability of Saudi Arabia — the birthplace of Islam and home to the holiest of Islamic shrines — but for the world’s dependence upon a continued flow of petroleum from the largest known oil reserves.

For years, Western intelligence officials have believed that Osama bin Laden would eventually aim to destabilize Saudi Arabia, his own birth place. Bin Laden traveled to Afghanistan in the 1980s to join the U.S.-led and Saudi-supported “jihad” (or holy war) against the Soviet occupation. While Soviet troops withdrew in 1989, large numbers of Arab volunteer fighters remained in Afghanistan.

“The trend is very, very clear,” one Western diplomat based in Islamabad told CBS News on condition of anonymity. “There is no question about Arab members of al Qaeda increasingly seeking ways to travel to Yemen.

“Some have been arrested along this route,” said the official, who refused to name the countries in which arrests have taken place, or the number of people arrested.

A senior Pakistani official who spoke to CBS News confirmed that Arab militants linked to al Qaeda were heading to Yemen in growing numbers. The Pakistani official claimed the militants had traveled to Yemen via Iran, using remote locations along the southern Iranian coast to discretely board fishing vessels. Continue Reading →

Cartoon Convergence at Yale

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Written by: Diana West

Friday, October 02, 2009 8:53 AM

Somehow, and I do not know how, both Kurt Westergaard and Jytte Klausen ended up speaking at separate appearances at Yale yesterday, also the same day the alumni group, the Yale Committe for a Free Press, sent off a second letter to Yale protesting the censorship of all Mohammed imagery, including Westergaard’s cartoon, in Klausen’s Yale University Press book The Cartoons That Shook the World.

Not exactly a harmonic covergence, but a convergence nonetheless.

What follows are highights from some of the reports tracking these criss-crossing events.

I’m going to start with the good news — the excellent letter from Yale alumni that I did not write but happily signed:

Simply stated, Yale must not be the arbiter of what is “safe” to publish. Such censorship corrodes the intellectual freedom that is the foundation of the entire university community. It also violates Yale’s own explicit policy: “Above all, every member of the university has an obligation to permit free expression in the university. . . . Every official of the university . . . has a special obligation to foster free expression and to ensure that it is not obstructed.”

The core American value of a free press transcends political viewpoints. Indeed, Yale’s surrender to unknown potential belligerents drew strong objection from many quarters, including the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the PEN American Center. Also protesting Yale’s action was the National Coalition Against Censorship on behalf of many constituent groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Middle East Studies Association.

Even closer to home, Sarah Ruden, whose translation of Virgil’s Aeneid was published by Yale, announced that she will no longer allow Yale to bid on her future works. In her own words, “Yale Press, after breaking a crucial relationship of trust with an author’s mind and work, should be called a lickspittle of fanatics and forfeit any respect or consideration from other authors.”

In a world where light and truth are under siege, the entire Yale community has a vital stake in preserving a free press. Fortunately, it is not too late, and not too difficult, to reverse the mistake that was made here.

We formally request that the Yale Corporation direct the Press to reprint Professor Klausen’s book with the censored material restored. This will bring a fitting end to this controversy. Lest it be said that the Corporation has never before exercised such direct authority over the Press, we must recall that never before has the Press censored an author’s work prior to publication. Restoring the censored material will also allow Professor Klausen’s book work to serve as a tangible reminder that freedom of the press cannot be taken for granted.

Alack, no such stirring stuff coming from the current crop of Yalies.

Indeed, the opinions that dominate the public space at Yale on the related matter of Westergaard’s visit to Yale to speak and answer questions are either Islamic voices, which believe Westergaard should not have been invited, or dhimmi voices, which pay lip service to free speech and take a stand on not exercising it. The following  op-ed by senior Matthew Ellison, which ran in yesterday’s Yale Daily News, sums the latter mindset up:

Yale and its students have thus far stood as a paragon of restraint amid the chaos. Unfortunately, through this international brouhaha, restraint has been the exception, not the rule.

This begins with the cartoonists.

Tsk, tsk — no self-restraint, those political cartoonists. Don’t they know better than to, in Westergaard’s case, take note of and actually illustrate the repeatedly, openly, brazenly made connections between violence and Islam, as expressed by Islamic terrorists and Islamic authorities alike? (It’s not just Abu Qatada time again, it’s also Imam Qaradawi time, because he is a world- famous Islamic authority who preaches about Mohammed the jihad model — which Kurt’s cartoon, by the way, perfectly and accurately captures.) Back to the op-ed by the Yale senior. Continue Reading →

Video on Islam in Sweden, and the creation of ‘no go zones’

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This video underestimates the seriousness of the creation of ‘no go zones’ which it shows near the end, still its an interesting sign that more and more media is discussing the fairly rapid deconstruction of European civilization.

Thanks to jdamn for sending me this