Category Archives: Afghanistan

Canadian military denies paying Taliban for peace

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MacKay said. “I strongly suspect that this is more Taliban propaganda. Of course, they’re not bound by rules of engagement or simple things such as truth.”

Canadian soldiers walk through a village of Charbagh in Kandahar City, Afghanistan on Sunday Oct. 3, 2009. (CP / Bill Graveland)

Canadian soldiers walk through a village of Charbagh in Kandahar City, Afghanistan on Sunday Oct. 3, 2009. (CP / Bill Graveland)

 CTVNEWS…KANDAHAR — Both the Canadian Forces and the federal government strenuously denied any suggestion Friday that Canada ever paid off Taliban insurgents in order to prevent troops in Afghanistan from being attacked.

A report out of Kabul by news agency Agence France-Presse quoted unnamed Afghan and Western officials as saying the practice of paying insurgents not to attack was widespread among NATO coalition forces, including Canadian soldiers.

Not so, said Task Force Kandahar spokesperson Maj. Mario Couture.

“Canadians are not involved in any way, shape or form with payments to Taliban,” Couture said. “This is truly false.”

Defence Minister Peter MacKay, speaking in St. John’s, said it was the first he was hearing of the report and described it as likely “Taliban propaganda.”

“We have international obligations, we have conventions that we have to follow, but most importantly, we have to respect human rights,” MacKay said.

“This suggestion that we’re bribing the Taliban not to engage in military — or I would call them terrorist attacks — clearly isn’t working. We’ve had 131 casualties. So, that sad reality seems to put to a lie what the Taliban are saying.”

There are a number of different development initiatives in place in Afghanistan, and have been for years, that involve financial incentives and are designed to discourage lending support or succour to the Taliban.

Couture said Canadian soldiers do pay out sums of money to local Afghans in exchange for their weapons, while others are paid to do work on behalf of the coalition — building roads or helping with construction projects — to discourage Taliban involvement.

“We’re using work as a weapon against the Taliban,” Couture said. “It’s not money that we distribute… for no reason. This is hard-earned money.”

Friday’s report came on the heels of a British newspaper report that said Italian military and intelligence officials had handed over money to the Taliban in exchange for peace.

“I would rely on military officials on the ground to be aware if such a thing were happening,” MacKay said.

“I strongly suspect that this is more Taliban propaganda. Of course, they’re not bound by rules of engagement or simple things such as truth.”

Italy: Libyan bomber ‘prayed with us’ says Muslim leader

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After surviving the blast the bomber shouted “Help me, Help me” says witness

Milan, 12 October (AKI) – The Libyan who detonated a bomb at the ‘Santa Barbara’ military barracks on Monday, Mohammed Game, prayed at Milan’s Viale Jenner Mosque, said the head of the Islamic Institute in Milan. “He is a Libyan who hung out everywhere and who even prayed with us, just like thousands of others do, but we did not know him very well,” said the institute’s president Abdel Hamid Shaari in an interview with Adnkronos.

“He prayed and then he left. He wouldn’t stay around,” said Shaari. He added that Game was last seen at the mosque over 20 days ago, towards the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.

On Monday, an Italian soldier was injured after 35-year-old Game exploded a bomb hidden inside a toolbox at the entrance of the ‘Santa Barbara’ barracks (photo). The man is said to have entered the courtyard of the barracks on foot, where he was confronted by a military guard.

He then detonated the rudimentary explosives, which were reportedly made of solid nitrate.

The toolbox where the man hid the explosive device contained two more kilogrammes of explosives, and according to reports, it only partially detonated.

Authorities have said if the entire load had detonated, there would definitely have been deaths.

Early reports said the man shouted: “The army must leave Afghanistan!” which according to authorities is not true.

“After the blast, the man did say something, but according to witnesses his words were unintelligible as they were all in Arabic,” said public prosecutor Armando Spataro.

“He had a dark coloured jacket and his face was bloody. He shouted: Help me, Help me!” said a witness, Giovanni L, a sergeant major.

According to the witness, when Game was being taken to the hospital he “pointed a finger towards the sky, like a victory sign.”

Game, had been living in Italy for many years and lived with an Italian woman with whom they have three children. A train ticket from the southern city of Naples to Milan was found to be in his possession, although it is still unclear if and when he took the train and for which reason.

Italian authorities said Game lived close to the barracks and that he slept at his apartment in Milan the night before the attack.

The injured Italian soldier was hit by shards of glass and received medical treatment at the scene of the attack which took place at 7.45 am local time.

Following the attack, Game was taken to the Fatebenefratelli hospital in Milan where he was reported to be in critical condition.

The Libyan man suffered severe injuries to his face and eyesight and his hand has been amputated, according to medical sources at Fatebenefratelli hospital.

The Muslim spin. US Troops Seek Protection Among Afghans

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Islamonline compares U.S. tactics to Hamas. They just don’t include the Hamas part.

CAIRO – US troops have shut two military outposts in northern Afghanistan following a deadly Taliban attack, in a move said to be part of a policy to reposition troops into populated areas, reported the Los Angeles Times on Saturday, October 10.

“We’ve been planning to realign our forces to better protect the (Afghan) population for months,” Army spokesman Maj. T.G. Taylor said.

“The closures are part of that realignment.”

The US evacuated troops from two outposts in the Kamdesh district of Nuristan province.

Military officials said departing US troops destroyed what was left of the outposts before their evacuation.

Washington says the closure is a pre-planned policy to “reposition” the US-led troops from remote regions into populated areas in Afghanistan.

Top US commander in Afghanistan Gen. Stanley McChrystal has said he is in favor of pulling troops from remote areas to concentrate efforts on securing urban areas.

The closure came a week after a deadly Taliban attack on the outposts, which left eight US troops and two Afghan soldiers dead.

The growing Taliban attacks have made 2009 the worst year for the US-led foreign troops since the 2001 US-led invasion.

Some 394 soldiers have died so far this year, 236 of them Americans, according to a tally of coalition deaths by the independent icasualties.org website.

More than 1,430 soldiers have died since 2001.

Taliban Flag

The Taliban claimed control of the Kamdesh district after the US troop withdrawal.

“This is another victory for Taliban,” spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said, reported The Times.

“This means they (US troops) are not coming back.”

The spokesman said that the Taliban have flown their flag over the US outposts.

“We have control of another district in eastern Afghanistan.”

The Taliban has launched a protracted guerrilla warfare against the US-led forces and the Kabul government of Hamid Karzai since the 2001 US invasion.

The Taliban has stressed that they are fighting to force the foreign troops out of Afghanistan, stressing that the Afghan group poses no threat to the West.

“We did not have any agenda to harm other countries including Europe nor we have such agenda today,” the Taliban said in a statement, marking the 8th anniversary of the US invasion.

“Still, if you want to turn the country of the proud and pious Afghans into a colony, then know that we have an unwavering determination and have braced for a prolonged war.”

Barack Obama: Taleban can be involved in Afghanistan future

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ATTACK PAKISTAN ENVOY OMARTIMESONLINE…President Obama is prepared to accept some Taleban involvement in Afghanistan’s political future and is unlikely to favour a large influx of new US troops being demanded by his ground commander, a senior official said tonight.

Mr Obama appears to have been swayed in recent days by arguments from some advisers, led by Vice-President Joe Biden, that the Taleban do not pose a direct threat to the US and that there should be greater focus on tackling al-Qaeda inside Pakistan.

The official, speaking anonymously to the press about Mr Obama’s internal discussions – a tactic that is causing dismay among some senior military officials – said the president’s final decision on his war strategy and troop levels is still at least two weeks away.

Yet if Mr Obama fails to dispatch at least a significant number of the 40,000 troops requested by General Stanley McChystal, he will have ignored the wishes of his own ground commander and will face fierce attacks from Republicans back home.

After two days of discussions on the critical role Pakistan must play if the US is to succeed in Afghanistan and the region, Mr Obama has been presented with conflicting arguments over whether Afghanistan would again become a safe haven for al-Qaeda if it fell to the Taleban.

Mr Biden has argued for months that with the cooperation of Pakistan, which in recent months has shown a far greater willingness to take on militants in the lawless border regions, al-Qaeda can be contained and even destroyed inside Afghanistan.

He is also arguing that the Taleban pose no direct threat to the US and therefore no more troops should be dispatched there and that, even if large swathes of the country fall under Taleban control, they will not provide an already weakened al-Qaeda with safe havens, as they did before the September 11 attacks. Continue Reading →

Supplying heroin, murder and suicide brings them closer to Allah.

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Thursday, October 08, 2009
17 killed in fresh Afghan violence

KABUL: US and Afghan forces killed 17 Taliban and seized 50 tonnes of opium and 1.8 tonnes of heroin in a joint operation in Afghanistan Wednesday, the defence ministry said. In a five-hour operation that began at 11 a.m. the soldiers dropped from helicopters into Kajaki district of Helmand province, he said. “Seventeen Taliban were killed, three were arrested alive,” he said.

Would-be suicide bomber, two accomplices held

PESHAWAR: The police claimed to have arrested a suspected suicide bomber along with two accomplices from Kohat Road here Wednesday. Official sources said the police had received a tip-off that a teenage bomber from tribal area would take possession of his suicide vest somewhere in Badaber and later try to hit a target in Peshawar. The cops intercepted the suspected vehicle and arrested the would-be suicide bomber, Burhan, who is a teenager, and his two accomplices.

‘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 →

Calais migrants to get flight home and £1,900

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PD*28827568 Telegraph… As well as a guaranteed place on the plane worth around £500, many of those on board will receive the sum and a guarantee of retraining back in their homeland.

However, there will be nothing to prevent any of them travelling all the way back to France the moment they get to Afghanistan.

It is intended to be the first of many flights which will cost millions of pounds, split between France and Britain.

The aim is to reduce the number of migrants who are massing in Calais, which they use as a springboard to try and get to Britain, where they will claim asylum or disappear into the black economy.

The dramatic development followed last month’s clearing of “The Jungle”, a notorious Calais squatter camp which was filled with mainly young men from Afghanistan.

The French immigration minister hailed the raid as an important step in the battle to make the northern port ‘watertight’ to migrants, but was widely criticised after almost all those arrested were later released.

It now appears that a compromise has been reached with many of them who have agreed to accept the huge cash incentive to go home, even if only briefly. The sums involved are worth hundreds of times more in central Asia than in Britain or France.

The French pulled out of a similar deportation scheme a year ago, with First Lady Carla Bruni among those insisting that it was immoral to send Afghans back to their war-torn country.

But now such arguments appear to have been forgotten, with the first plane – believed to be being supplied by a British firm – taking off from London in the early hours, before stopping to pick up some 250 migrants in Paris. Continue Reading →

Billions in U.S. Aid Never Reached Pakistan Army

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FOX NEWS… ISLAMABAD, Pakistan —  The United States has long suspected that much of the billions of dollars it has sent Pakistan to battle militants has been diverted to the domestic economy and other causes, such as fighting India.

Now the scope and longevity of the misuse is becoming clear: Between 2002 and 2008, while Al Qaeda regrouped, only $500 million of the $6.6 billion in American aid actually made it to the Pakistani military, two army generals tell The Associated Press.

The account of the generals, who asked to remain anonymous because military rules forbid them from speaking publicly, was backed up by other retired and active generals, former bureaucrats and government ministers.

At the time of the siphoning, Pervez Musharraf, a Washington ally, served as both chief of staff and president, making it easier to divert money intended for the military to bolster his sagging image at home through economic subsidies.

“The army itself got very little,” said retired Gen. Mahmud Durrani, who was Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S. under Musharraf. “It went to things like subsidies, which is why everything looked hunky-dory. The military was financing the war on terror out of its own budget.” 

Generals and ministers say the diversion of the money hurt the military in very real ways:

—Helicopters critical to the battle in rugged border regions were not available. At one point in 2007, more than 200 soldiers were trapped by insurgents in the tribal regions without a helicopter lift to rescue them.

—The limited night vision equipment given to the army was taken away every three months for inventory and returned three weeks later.

—Equipment was broken, and training was lacking. It was not until 2007 that money was given to the Frontier Corps, the front-line force, for training.

The details on misuse of American aid come as Washington again promises Pakistan money. Legislation to triple general aid to Pakistan cleared Congress last week. The legislation also authorizes “such sums as are necessary” for military assistance to Pakistan, upon several conditions. The conditions include certification that Pakistan is cooperating in stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons, that Pakistan is making a sustained commitment to combating terrorist groups and that Pakistan security forces are not subverting the country’s political or judicial processes. Continue Reading →

Smuggled US Arms Flood Pak Tribal Belt

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American taxpayers are unwittingly arming the enemy.

SatellitePESHAWAR — Sophisticated US-made arms, either snatched from foreign troops in neighboring Afghanistan, or sold out by cash-strapped Afghan soldiers, have flooded the arms markets in Pakistan’s northern tribal belt and are in high demand too.

“We have various kinds of US-made arms, which we procure from Afghan arms smugglers,” an arms dealer from the town of Darra Adamkhel in Pakistan’s western frontier province (NWFP) told IslamOnline.net.
Darra Adamkhel, virtually the arms factory of the tribal areas, is also the hub of illegal shipments of weapons throughout the country and one of the biggest private arms’ markets in Asia.
Till a few years back, China-made weapons and their replicas undisputedly ruled the tribal arms markets.
But after the arrival of stolen US-made arms, the sale of Chinese weapons has reduced to a great extent.
“The (US-made) weapons, we procure, are usually stolen from the warehouses of the US troops,” the arms dealer said.
Not only stolen, the arms are also sold out by Afghan army soldiers who need money.
“A number of Afghan police personnel have sold their pistols to the arms smugglers, who later smuggle them into tribal arms markets.
“In southern and northeastern Afghanistan particularly, Afghan soldiers sell their weapons, provided by US, to the arms smugglers, and report to their high-ups that their weapons were snatched by Taliban,” the arms dealer added.
“Many of them have replaced their actual weapons by replicas made in Pakistani tribal arms market.” Continue Reading →

‘Behind the Veil’: from Canada’s Globe and Mail- a 6 part series on the women of Afghanistan

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Today Canada’s Globe and Mail introduced an in depth, six part series featuring the women of Afghanistan. Here is the first installment. Each Saturday for the next five consecutive weeks, vlad will be posting the Globe and Mail’s related mainline features, articles and interviews concluding October 24. For related videos and additional commentary and coverage, please go to the Globe and Mail”s ” Behind the Veil–An Intimate Journey Into The Lives Of Kandahar’s Women”.

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PART ONE

Jessica Leeder

Kandahar, Afghanistan — From Saturday’s Globe and Mail

Last updated on Saturday, Sep. 19, 2009 02:32PM ED

——–

“My dreams are gone.”

“It is already too late for me.”

“My life has been destroyed.”

At first, the words pouring from the mouth of the girl with jewel eyes hemmed in kohl sound like a typical teenage lament.

Her tone is plain and without melodrama – she believes what she says. And there are plenty of reasons she should.

In the span of about one year, the 15-year-old, named Sitara, has been yanked out of school, off a path that hinted at promise, and sold by her father for 700,000 Afghanis (about $15,000) into a marriage that, already, she has “nothing left for.”

“It seems like men take women as servants, so they can be abusive towards them,” she explained in a hushed on-camera interview conducted secretly in Kandahar while her husband was at work. “It’s not just the husband, there’s also the mother-in-law, sister-in-law and brother-in-law, and they all rule over me; … whenever I do something bad, anyone who gets angry with me beats me.”

Rather than poring over textbooks, Sitara has spent most of her sophomore year willing herself to feel love for the illiterate, middle-aged Kandahari who is now her husband, learning to look after his family’s livestock and reconfiguring her singed plans for the future into a form compatible with her new life as this wife.

“And even now, I don’t want my husband,” she said. “I come from a very open-minded family, but since I’ve come to this family, I feel that my life has been destroyed.” Continue Reading →

Sex abuse and silence exposed DND brass told of rape of boys by Afghan allies

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H/T Nick Vandergragt

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From The Ottawa Citizen:

Ottawa – Army staff and National Defence headquarters officials were told in 2007 that young boys had allegedly been sexually abused by Afghan security forces at a Canadian base in Afghanistan, but the concern at the time was that the incident might be reported in the news media, according to military records obtained by the Citizen.

In addition, last year Brig.-Gen. J.C. Collin, commander of Land Force Central Area, passed on to the senior army leadership the concerns raised by military police who said they had been told by their commanders not to interfere in incidents in which Afghan forces were having sex with children.

The newly released records raise questions about a military investigation that earlier this year concluded that allegations about sexual abuse of Afghan children by members of the Afghan army and police were unfounded. The Canadian Forces National Investigation Service also stated that its thorough investigation concluded allegations of such incidents were never reported to Canadian military commanders. Continue Reading →

Does Pakistan assist the Taliban and Al Queda?

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H/T Gates of Vienna and CB

Pakistani journalist on Swedish TV

from Swedish TV news and an interview of a Pakistani writer and journalist, who’s been lauded as an expert on Islamist terror when he came to Sweden, this past week.

In this short interview he talks about the route the Swedes took when they came to Pakistan and he claim that it is a quite regular one, or the most important, for Islamist trying to hook up with the Taliban.

Symetrical respect?

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You have to be living in a cave in Afghanistan somewhere to not know what happens if you ‘disrespect’ or ‘desecrate’ a Muslim holy symbol by now and frankly, if you do live in that cave chances are good you actually caused the riots, arson, murder, and general destruction that result from the mere rumour of a desecration of a Koran or a cartoon or whatnot.

But what happens when Muslims publicly desecrate symbols of other people’s faiths?

Lets have a look….

Muslims stomping on head of Hindu Sacred Cow

Muslims stomping on head of Hindu Sacred Cow

Here, some Muslims in India show their multicultural tolerance and respect for the Hindu’s, by stomping on the head of a cow, a sacred animal to them. This also teaches us the profound empathy and kindness Muslims show to animals.

Below, we see the Muslim tolerance and appreciation for art, and antiquities as well as the sensitivities of other faiths.

Taliban blows the head off one of the ancient Bamiyan Buddha statues

Taliban blows the head off one of the ancient Bamiyan Buddha statues

Yeah yeah you have seen this before. It’s old news right? Well the point is, we, the non Muslims people of the world had better wake up and recognize that this and other events like it, are not isolated incidents by ‘extremist’ or ‘radical’ variants of Islam. This is in fact how Islam itself demands that evidence of other faiths be treated. More simply put, This is policy.

Evidence of blasting of Jewish artifacts from the Temple Mount

Evidence of blasting of Jewish artifacts from the Temple Mount

For the story on the above photo please visit WND. however this one is probably the least important example of the Islamic overt systematic actions to destroy any historical evidence of Jewish existence in the area of Israel whatsoever. There is plenty of footage online showing actual crushing machines with conveyor belts destroying whatever is dug up in Gaza that shows Jewish history as well as in the Muslim area near the Western Wall.

Muslims wage war on history itself if it in any way runs against how Mohamed specified the world has to be.

he sensitivities run deep. Archaeologists are cautioned not to talk about pre-Islamic finds outside scholarly literature. Few ancient treasures are on display, and no Christian or Jewish relics. A 4th or 5th century church in eastern Saudi Arabia has been fenced off ever since its accidental discovery 20 years ago and its exact whereabouts kept secret.

In the eyes of conservatives, the land where Islam was founded and the Prophet Muhammad was born must remain purely Muslim. Saudi Arabia bans public displays of crosses and churches, and whenever non-Islamic artifacts are excavated, the news must be kept low-key lest hard-liners destroy the finds.

“They should be left in the ground,” said Sheikh Mohammed al-Nujaimi, a well-known cleric, reflecting the views of many religious leaders. “Any ruins belonging to non-Muslims should not be touched. Leave them in place, the way they have been for thousands of years.”

In an interview, he said Christians and Jews might claim discoveries of relics, and that Muslims would be angered if ancient symbols of other religions went on show. “How can crosses be displayed when Islam doesn’t recognize that Christ was crucified?” said al-Nujaimi. “If we display them, it’s as if we recognize the crucifixion.”

As for Christians?

Another Church turned into public toilet.

Or set one on fire:

Perhaps the time to wake up from fantasies that if you are nice to all, all will be nice to you. Reality offers you this axiom.

The longer you wait to solve a problem, the more costly and unpleasant will be the fix until you wait so long there is no fix and the problem overwhelms you.

The time for a bloodless solution, a political one, may not have passed yet. But that political solution must happen right away.

Eeyore for Vlad.