In some parts of the world it can be very dangerous to convert from Islam to Christianity, or any other faith. Sometimes Christians are killed by radical Muslims or sometimes by the state which sanctions death or prison. Somalia, like some other Muslim majority nations, clearly does not believe in religious freedom and the small Christian population faces an uphill struggle to survive. Therefore, it is essential to remember these martyrs because organizations like Al Qaeda would like to spread this tyranny to every nation. So why is it so dangerous to convert to Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, or any other religion, from Islam?
Firstly, it is essential to remember that religious freedom is denied to other faiths in other parts of the world. For example, religious freedom is severely restricted in Laos and Cambodia. However, religious restrictions in these two nations, and other similar type of nations, is based on political ideology and no single religion is favoured.
Yet when we focus on Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and other Muslim majority nations it is clear that religious freedom is denied because of Islam itself. These restrictions are multiple, and this applies to either radical Islamic organizations or because of state sanctioned Islamic Sharia Law.
For example in modern day Saudi Arabia the Islamic establishment will not allow one non-Muslim place of worship. Also, conversion from Islam is punishable by death and you are not openly allowed to read about Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, or any other non-Muslim faith in Saudi Arabia. These laws and restrictions in Saudi Arabia are based on the Koran, the Hadiths, and Islamic Sharia Law.
Even in more moderate nations like Egypt we see state sanctioned discrimination because the Coptic Christian community is treated unequally. This applies to the very basics of human life. For example a Coptic Christian male will suffer persecution if he wants to marry a Muslim female and in child custody cases involving a Muslim male or Christian female, the child or children will be given to the Muslim male. The reasons for this are simple, it is because Christians are deemed to be inferior to Muslims and this issue threatens all non-Muslims in Sharia Islamic based nations.
Turning back to Somalia it is now "open season" to kill Christian converts from Islam because radical Sunni Islam is on the march. Last year, for example, Sunni Muslim fanatics beheaded Mansuur Mohammed who was a Christian convert. He was beheaded in the most cruel and barbaric way and at the same time Muslims were celebrating by saying Allah Akbar (God is great).
You see, for rational people or people of compassion this act was barbaric and a crime against humanity. However, for the Muslims who did this they are following the Koran and the Hadiths and to these Islamic fanatics it is they who are following Islam to the full.
Therefore, Mansuur Mohammed had done nothing wrong in accordance to Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism, or any other religion. Yet in accordance with Islam, Mansuur Mohammed was an apostate and despite him caring for humanity, this meant nothing. Given this, Sunni Islamic fanatics held him down and beheaded him while they were praying to Allah.
The last moments of Mansuur Mohammed were full of pain and just like the followers of Osama Bin Laden, the brutal killers video taped this murder, just like so many people who have been killed by fanatics in Iraq. Therefore, just like the complete annihilation of Buddhism in Afghanistan in past history, these Islamic jihadists desire the same outcome.
Sahih Bukhari recorded the sayings of Mohammed and the Hadiths are very important to Muslims. In volume 4, Book 52, Number 260: Ali burnt some people and this news reached Ibn Abbas, who said, "Had I been in his place I would not have burnt them, as the Prophet said, 'Don't punish (anybody) with Allah's Punishment.' No doubt, I would have killed them, for the Prophet said, 'IF SOMEBODY (a Muslim) DISCARDS HIS RELIGION, KILL HIM,'"
Therefore, in the eyes of many Muslims, not all, it is moral and right to kill converts from Islam and in nations like Saudi Arabia this is enshrined fully within the codified law of Islamic Sharia Law. Even moderate branches of Islam face persecution, for example the Alevi's in Turkey and the Ahmadiyya in Pakistan are also victimized by conservative Islam.
Therefore, the martyrdom of Christians in Somalia continues and in recent times we have heard about the brutal killings of innocent Christians in Somalia. The list includes Mansuur Mohammed, David Abdulwahab Mohammed Ali, Prof. Da'ud Hassan Ali, Pastor Hussein Adan Ahmed, Faarah Ibraahim Adaaweh, Pastor Liibaan Ibraahim Hassan, Ahmadey Osman Nur, and Savid Ali Sheik Luqman Hussein.
Sadly the list will continue to grow and the aim of these Islamists is to turn Somalia into a one hundred percent Islamic nation. Not that this will help Somalia because just like in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the same Islamists will then desire to kill and persecute moderate Muslims or kill Muslim minorities, for example many Shia Muslims have been killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
I can hear both liberals and Islamic apologists complaining about this article and the implications of what is written. Yet you have one simple truth, and often the truth is very hard to find. However, if any Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, or Sikh, went to Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, or Somalia, and they openly tried to convert people then the consequences would be death.
The Christian martyrs of Somalia died because they loved humanity but all that is evil in humanity killed them because they want to crush religious freedom, liberty, justice, and all that is positive in this world. In modern day Iraq the minority Christian population is trying to survive massive persecution and violence because Islamists, just like in Somalia, desire to destroy and crush all minorities.
Therefore, the Christian martyrs of Somalia are a testimony of the evils of a religion which fears the freedom of religion and free thought. In modern day America and Japan where I reside, people have the freedom to follow any religion or no religion and Muslims are welcome in both nations. However, in modern day Saudi Arabia and Somalia, the sword of Islam is still being used against converts to Christianity, therefore, how much longer can the world remain silent?
KANO, Nigeria (AFP)--Radical Islamists torched a police headquarters, a church and a customs office, residents said Monday, as police put the death toll in weekend religious clashes in northern Nigeria at 65.
"Five policemen have been killed, one police station burnt and 60 Talibans killed," police Inspector-General Ogbonna Onovo told reporters, referring to an Islamist sect styled on Afghanistan's Taliban.
The latest violence struck the town of Gamboru-Ngala in Borno state, bordering Cameroon, local residents said.
One of the residents, Shafiu Mohammed, said a group belonging to a religious sect known as the Nigerian "Talibans" stormed the town around midnight and went on a rampage. He said the heavily armed militants set ablaze a customs office and slit the throat of an engineer working there.
The police chief told reporters in the capital Abuja that 65 people had been killed in police clashes in two other states with members of the Islamist sect inspired by Afghanistan's Taliban. The two sides had exchanged gunfire after a failed dawn attack Sunday on a police station in Bauchi state, with the death toll there at 39.
There were further clashes in Yobe state, Onovo told a news conference.
The Nigerian Taliban emerged in 2004 when it set up a base - dubbed Afghanistan - in Kanamma village in Yobe, on the border with Niger, from where it attacked police outposts and killed police officers. Its membership is mainly drawn from university dropouts.
The north of Nigeria is majority Muslim, although large Christian minorities have settled in the main towns, raising tensions between the two groups. Since 1999 and the return of a civilian regime to Nigeria's central government, 12 northern states have introduced Islamic Sharia law.
A U.S. court has sentenced an American al-Qaida member to life in prison for plotting to assassinate then-President George W. Bush in 2003.
A judge in the eastern U.S. state of Virginia had originally sentenced Ahmed Omar Abu Ali to a 30-year prison term. But a higher court ruled the punishment was too lenient and sent the case back for re-sentencing.
The U.S.-born Abu Ali was convicted in 2005 of involvement in an al-Qaida plot to kill Mr. Bush and carry out other terrorist acts. Prosecutors said the 28-year-old joined al-Qaida while studying in Saudi Arabia in 2002.
Saudi authorities detained Abu Ali in 2003 in a crackdown on militants and jailed him for 20 months before extraditing him to the United States.
U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee said Monday he increased Abu Ali's sentence to a life term because of his refusal to renounce terrorism and the risk he would pose to the public if released.
Abu Ali says Saudi authorities tortured him into confessing. Judge Lee, a jury and an appeals court all rejected the claim.
In a brief statement to the court Monday, Abu Ali said Judge Lee would have to appear one day before a divine tribunal. Abu Ali said that if the judge was comfortable with such a prospect, he could impose any sentence he desired....
WASHINGTON — A father, his two sons and four other men living in North Carolina are accused of military-style training at home and plotting "violent jihad" abroad, federal authorities said.
Officials said Monday the men were led by Daniel Patrick Boyd, a married 39-year-old who lived in an unassuming lakeside home in a rural area south of Raleigh, where he and his family walked their dog and operated a drywall business.
But court records indicate Boyd was a veteran of terrorist training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan who fought against the Soviet Union.
"These charges hammer home the point that terrorists and their supporters are not confined to the remote regions of some far-away land but can grow and fester right here at home," U.S. Attorney George E.B. Holding said.
The seven men made their first court appearances in Raleigh on Monday, charged with providing material support to terrorism. If convicted, they could face life in prison.
The indictment said Boyd, a U.S. citizen, trained in Afghanistan and fought there between 1989 and 1992 before returning to the United States. Court documents charged that Boyd, also known as 'Saifullah,' encouraged others to engage in jihad.
Boyd's faith was so brash that, this year, he stopped attending worship services in the Raleigh area and instead began meeting for Friday prayers in his home.
"This is not an indictment of the entire Muslim community," Holding said. "These people had broken away because their local mosque did not follow their vision of being a good Muslim."
In 1991, Boyd and his brother were convicted of bank robbery in Pakistan — accused of carrying identification showing they belonged to the radical Afghan guerrilla group, Hezb-e-Islami, or Party of Islam.
They were each sentenced to have a foot and a hand cut off for the robbery, but the sentenced was later overturned.
The wives of the men told The Associated Press in an interview at the time they were glad the truth about their husbands had finally become known. The wives said the couples had U.S. roots but the United States was a country of "kafirs" — Arabic for heathens.
A concerted effort to start unprecedented talks between Taliban and British and American envoys was outlined yesterday in a significant change in tactics designed to bring about a breakthrough in the attritional, eight-year conflict in Afghanistan.
Senior ministers and commanders on the ground believe they have created the right conditions to open up a dialogue with "second-tier" local leaders now the Taliban have been forced back in a swath of Helmand province.
They are hoping that Britain's continuing military presence in Helmand, strengthened by the arrival of thousands of US troops, will encourage Taliban commanders to end the insurgency. There is even talk in London and Washington of a military "exit strategy".
Speaking at the end of the five-week Operation Panther's Claw in which hundreds of British troops were reported to have cleared insurgents from a vital region of Helmand province, Lieutenant-General Simon Mayall, deputy chief of defence staff, said: "It gives the Taliban 'second tier' room to reconnect with the government and this is absolutely at the heart of this operation."
The second tier of the insurgency are regarded as crucial because they control large numbers of Taliban fighters in Pashtun-dominated southern Afghanistan. The first tier of Taliban commanders – hardliners around Mullah Omar – could not be expected to start talks in the foreseeable future. The third tier – footsoldiers with no strong commitments – are not regarded as influential or significant players.
The change in tactics was revealed as the Ministry of Defence announced that two more British soldiers were killed in southern Afghanistan. One, from the Light Dragoons, was on patrol in Operation Panther's Claw; the other, a soldier from the Royal Artillery, was killed on foot patrol in Sangin. Ten soldiers have died in Operation Panther's Claw.
God bless the Christians in the middle east. This from World Net Daily:
JERUSALEM – Hundreds of Muslims over the weekend tried to set a local Egyptian Christian's home on fire after he announced he would turn the structure into a church, an Egyptian security source and local Christians told WND.
At least four Christian Copts and two Muslim policemen were wounded in the clashes that ensued this past Friday after about 500 local Muslims descended upon the small Christian village of Al-Hawasiliya, vowing to burn down the house.
Local Christians told WND the Muslim mob was provoked at local mosque services.
"The imams deliberately worked up the congregants against us," a local Christian told WND yesterday.
The Muslims accused the Christian home owner of attempting to build a church without the proper local permits. Islamic Shariah law, not explicitly accepted by the Egyptian government, forbids the construction of any new churches in a Muslim state. Existing churches are allowed to remain but cannot be expanded and cannot conduct public ceremonies or ring church bells.
Egyptian police eventually stepped in to stop the Muslim crowd, but not before they first set several nearby Christian farms on fire, a security source in Egypt told WND.
Reporting from Washington -- Bryant Neal Vinas' unlikely odyssey from Long Island, N.Y., to Al Qaeda's innermost circle of commanders in Pakistan was achieved without any help in the U.S. from the well-oiled "jihadist pipeline" that has guided so many militants from Europe and other countries -- a fact that is cause for concern, current and former U.S. counter-terrorism officials said.
His case, which became public last week, showed that a U.S. convert to Islam bent on waging holy war could -- without much difficulty -- rely largely on friends and acquaintances to find his own way into the shadowy terrorist networks.
Current and former intelligence officials said that although they were able to at least partly track Vinas, they fear that the informal network of militants in Pakistan that he tapped into is widespread and below the radar of U.S. intelligence gathering.
Juan Zarate, the former deputy national security advisor for combating terrorism in the Bush administration, said that the Vinas case illustrated how difficult it was to follow young men who become radicalized and make their way to militant camps in Pakistan, as well as Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia.
"I don't think the FBI or [CIA] would say that they've seen even a poorly organized or loose [U.S.] pipeline," Zarate said. "But I don't think anyone is fully confident that we have full visibility of all the potential pipelines or of radicalized individuals trying to make their way to fight."
"We're not worried about volume," Zarate added. "But all you need is a cell to inflict damage."
One former senior U.S. counter-terrorism official said Friday that American authorities were watching Vinas long before his arrest in Pakistan in November, possibly even before he bought a plane ticket taking him from the small village of Patchogue, N.Y., to Lahore, Pakistan.
The former official said U.S. and Pakistani authorities tried to monitor Vinas as he made his way from one contact to another and, ultimately, to an Afghan fighting unit and Al Qaeda's operational leadership.
"Clearly, we were watching him very carefully, doing our best to understand what he was doing and whether he was coming back to launch an attack of some sort," said the former official, who, like others quoted, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the ongoing investigation.
Vinas, 26, began cooperating with U.S. officials almost immediately after his arrest, providing what one current federal law enforcement official described as an astounding level of detail about Al Qaeda's top leadership and some of its foot soldiers.
"From the time that he was picked up until the present, we estimate that we have had at least a hundred meetings with him. We have shown him countless photos, we have shown him maps, brought him pictures. We've had sketch artists. We've done everything we can to try and paint as complete of a picture of who he met along the way, where he went, what he did and all of those things," the official said. "I think it's fair to say that he has been a gold mine, not just for the FBI but for the intelligence community in general."
Vinas also told authorities that most, if not all, of those who helped him along the way had no idea of his intentions -- a claim backed up through months of independent, intensive investigation, according to that official and others.
"From what we can tell . . . the contacts he made were his own. He was self-recruited; he was yearning to become a Muslim jihad fighter," the official said. "He made his own path."..
The dhimmitude of Europe continues. Thanks to Islam In Action for this:
Avon and Somerset Police is issuing head coverings to its female officers so they can enter mosques.
The force says the move will help its officers respect Muslim religious customs while carrying out their job.
The garments, designed to match the force's uniform, were designed in consultation with Muslim groups.
Imam Rashad Azami, of Bath, said: "This will go a long way in encouraging a trustful relationship between the police and the Muslim community."
Mr Azami, director of Bath Islamic Society, said: "The police have been working closely with the Muslim community in the area on many levels for the last few years." There are two versions of the head coverings, to match the black of a police officer's uniform and the blue of the Police Community Support Officer uniforms.
This is just pure insanity. In the video Obama makes the following statements:
"But having a public plan out there that also shows that maybe if you take some of the profit motive out, maybe if you are reducing some of the administrative costs, that you can get an even better deal, that's going to incentivize the private sector to do even better. And that's a good thing. That's a good thing."
What is wrong with doctors making money? For crying out loud they save lives! If a sports players can make millions just for entertaining what is wrong with doctors making money? Also this comment seems to say that if we take away the incentive of profit away from doctors they will do a better job. How in the world does that even make sense? If you take away profit from Doctors why would you want to become one?
Right now, doctors a lot of times are forced to make decisions based on the fee payment schedule that's out there. So if they're looking and you come in and you've got a bad sore throat or your child has a bad sore throat or has repeated sore throats, the doctor may look at the reimbursement system and say to himself, "You know what? I make a lot more money if I take this kid's tonsils out."
So in other words doctors are all the time preforming procedures that dont even need to be done to you just for money. This was a pure slam on doctors. If I was a doctor I would be ticked! Besides the comment just defies reality. For the simple reason you would go to one doctor who tells you to go to a surgeon to get your tonsils taken out. So that means 2 doctors are involved. So why would the first doctor refer you to the surgeon. He gets know profit from that. It just doesnt even make sense.
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama said Wednesday that police acted "stupidly" in the arrest of prominent black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. and that despite racial progress blacks and Hispanics are still singled out unfairly for arrest.
"This still haunts us," Obama said.
Obama called Gates a friend, and said he doesn't know all the facts of the case. Nonetheless, Obama said, anyone would have been angry if treated the way Gates claims police in Cambridge, Mass., treated him. Gates claims he was arrested in his own home after showing ID to police who responded to a report of a possible burglary.
Police say Gates yelled at the officers and initially refused to show his ID. Gates allegedly yelled “this is what happens to a black man in America” and “you don’t know who you’re messing with” before he was arrested, and police said he was uncooperative.
"Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof he was in own home," Obama said during a prime-time news conference that otherwise focused on the health care debate.
"What I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there's a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately," Obama said. "That's just a fact."
The nation's first black president held himself up as testament to what he called the "incredible progress" minorities have achieved.
Here is video of what Obama had to say last night about the Cambridge police officers. Notice that Obama admits he doesn't know all the facts yet still calls the police stupid. He should have been sure to know all the facts before making accusations. I believe when everything comes out about this he is going to look very stupid. Here is the video:
Well Obama should have took a look at the police report because it sheds a bit of light on a few more details of what was going on inside the house. Have a look at the police report here. You will learn this details which either Obama didn't know or failed to mention.
The media later confronted the officer that made the arrest. They asked him if he would ever apologize for what happened the night of the arrest. He said no he never would. He seemed very confident that him and his fellow officers were in the right. Video of the officers comments below:
And to act like this officer is some kind of a racist is absurd especially since he tried to save black sport star Reggie Lewis when he collapsed on the court. Thanks to Debbie Schlussel for pointing this out.
Bottom line Obama should have known the whole story before commenting and calling the police stupid.
After A few months break... I cant take it anymore! I have to blog.. ha. Sometimes I just have to take a break from blogging at times reading all the news just makes my head spin! This world we live in is just insane!
Nazia Iqbal, a singer from Peshawar who is known as much for her beauty as her popular melodies, retired this week from singing and joined the Tablighi, a conservative religious preaching group.
She was just one of a group of singers to make the enforced transformation.
Wagma, another Pashtu-language woman singer, said that she had also received death threats and joined the group of preachers.
"In the initial stage, I joined the group under threat, but now I have realised that this is a noble way of life and I shall stick to it and shall never return to singing," she said.
The death knell for Peshawar's once vibrant cultural life is one more indication that the Taliban has infiltrated the gates of Peshawar, a strategic frontier city close to the border with Afghanistan.
Peshawar, the capital of the troubled North West Frontier Province (NWFP), is a staging post from where the US is attempting to embark on development projects to counter the "Talibanisation" of the region.
But its citizens are increasingly bitter that the federal government has left them at the mercy of the Taliban and fear that the provincial capital could become the "next Swat" which will fall under the sway of the militants.
In the Valley of Swat, a former tourist destination in NWFP, militants embedded in the local population have forced the Pakistani army to agree to a peace deal and to impose sharia, or religious, law.
The same symptoms of Talibanisation that first surfaced in Swat have now appeared in Peshawar.
An Islamic school in Northern Virginia with close ties to the Saudi government has revised its religious textbooks in an effort to end years of criticism that the school fosters hatred and intolerance.
While the Islamic Saudi Academy deleted some of the most contentious passages from the texts, copies provided to the Associated Press show that enough sensitive material remains to arm critics who claim the books show intolerance toward those who do not follow strict interpretations of Islam.
Astrid Riecken/The Washington Times Christine Brim is part of a group of critics who believe the textbooks at the Islamic Saudi Academy promote intolerance toward non-Muslims. The Northern Virginia school recently developed new Islamic studies textbooks in an effort to address the criticism.
The academy, which teaches nearly 900 students in grades kindergarten through 12th at its Alexandria campus, developed new Islamic studies textbooks for all grades after a 2008 congressional report called portions of the previous editions troubling. The school provided AP copies of the new textbooks, which revise language on hot-button issues such as requiring women to cover their heads and how Muslims should relate to people of other religions.
School officials say the books are part of the school's effort to promote universal values of tolerance and kindness, and modernize some of the lessons.
They've had to make similar defenses before.
The school was founded in 1984 and largely stayed out of the spotlight until the Sept. 11 attacks, which focused attention on the Saudi educational system. In December 2001, two former academy students, Mohammed El-Yacoubi and Mohammed Osman Idris, were denied entry into Israel when authorities there found Mr. El-Yacoubi carrying what the FBI believed was a suicide note linked to a planned martyrdom operation in Israel.
In 2005, a former academy valedictorian, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, was convicted in federal court of joining al Qaeda while attending college in Saudi Arabia and plotting to assassinate then-President George W. Bush.
Last year, the school's then-director, Abdalla al-Shabnan, was convicted of failing to report a suspected case of child sex abuse.
Found this great question an answer with the founder of Farsi Christian News Network. You can read the whole thing here.
An interview with Saman kamvar, managing director of Farsi Christian News Network (FCNN) and Christian representative member of the Iranian Human rights activist committee.
In recent years the Islamic Republic of Iran has systematically and often through violent, repressive, and anti human rights methods treated the Christian resident of Iran, especially those who have newly embraced the Christian faith and are Farsi speaking.
Meanwhile, in view of the fact that Iran is named among the top three countries in the world accused of violating the human rights of its Christian population, the reactionary sensitivity of the government has increased in recent years. In the context of the recently committed acts of repression and persecution towards the Christians of Iran, discriminatory laws, systematic violation of human rights, and the recently proposed and approved by penal code by the Islamic Parliament, an interview was conducted with Saman Kamvar, who is the executive member of the Christians represented in the federation of human right activists.
1- There has been news of systematic repression of Christian citizens of Iran. When did these repressive activities begin?
First and foremost, I would like to thank you for the opportunity given to me, and I would like to, by the way of a brief introduction, tell you about the history of church in general, which is not so unrelated to your original question. From the outset and the founding of the Church of Jesus Christ, during the time of the disciples, until now, the true church through all the past centuries has been the subject of systematic persecution in the hands of the government of the time. In the early church, Christians were persecuted and murdered by the Roman Empire and countless Christians because of their faith in Jesus Christ were fed to lions and thus were made a spectacle and future deterrent for others in order to stop the rapid growth Christianity.
But, what was the result of all these persecutions? We see that the effect was actually the opposite and not only did it not stop the growth of the Church, but it helped change the course of history. Today, we divide our calendar on the basis of the birth of Christ. The Gospels declared this reality that as long as Christians are in this world there will be persecutions directed toward them.
Therefore, with this brief introduction, I would like to explain that after the victory of the Islamic revolution in 1979, and the form of government becoming a theocratic in nature, the church in Iran continued its divine mandate of evangelism and outreach to all Iranians until a few years later, the evangelical churches of Iran were targeted by the government and great repressive pressures were placed on the believers. In this context, the security intelligence apparatus of the Islamic Republic began assassinating several outstanding and well known leaders of the Church in Iran in a systematic fashion.
Evangelical Christians of Iran have given many martyrs to the cause of the Lord and the most outstanding example of such martyrdom is the arrest, conviction, and the execution of Martyr Rev. Soodmand in December of 1990 by the judiciary court of the Islamic Republic, which was carried out in the city of Mashhad, and his body buried in a shameful way in a abandoned ruin in the outskirts of the city.
After looking at this list of corrupt Obama appointees it makes one wonder if anyone in his administration isn't corrupt.
A District of Columbia employee and a technology consultant were charged with corruption counts Thursday after FBI agents raided the former office of the man tapped to be President Obama's chief information officer.
The White House said it was notified in advance of the search at the office of Vivek Kundra, who was formerly the D.C. technology officer. While the raid was happening at his old office, Kundra was giving a speech elsewhere on his new goals for government contracting.
Kundra was not a target of the investigation, a source told FOX News.
But Yusuf Acar, a city technology worker who worked under Kundra, was charged. He was ordered held without bond pending a hearing Tuesday. Prosecutors said $70,000 in cash was found during a search of Acar's home. Technology consultant Sushil Bansal was released but was ordered not to engage in overseas financial transactions. Bansal is due back in court on April 21.
The White House chief information officer is responsible for overseeing federal technology spending.
Tony Ward is the President’s nominee to head the Justice Department’s Civil Division. If you want to know how far we are past 9/11, there’s your answer: John Walker Lindh’s defense attorney is going to work for Justice. I’m not saying he wouldn’t do a perfectly competent job, It just seems like one of those things that might have stuck out, once upon a time.
Chicago (IL) - The Facebook group, Christians On Facebook, has become the latest target of attack for hackers who are posting pro-Islam messages. At 11:15am CDT today, the group's name was changed to "La ilaha illallahu Muhammadur Rasulullah", which means "There is no god but Allah; Muhammad is the messenger of Allah." Since then the name has changed no fewer than ten times.
The Christians on Facebook group itself has over 327,000 members from all variations of the Christian faith. This channel or group hack appears to have been designed to replace the fundamental tenants of Christianity with those of Islam.
At 11:58am, the name began changing repeatedly to variations of the following:
"La ilaha illallahu Muhammadur Rasulullah"
"La ilaha illallahu Muhammadur Rasulullah -- In ALLAH We Believe"
"La ilaha illallahu Muhammadur Rasulullah - There Is No God But ALLAH"
"There is No God but ALLAH; Muhammad is the messenger of Allah"
The attack appears to be ongoing as the group's image has been changed, and the group's Basic Info section has also been changed to carry several paragraphs which claim to report on the foundation of Islam, including the first principle declaration in two parts, and several passages relating to the deity Allah and his prophet/servant/apostle Muhammad.
Amsterdam escaped a terror attack Thursday. A telephone call to the police Wednesday night said that three men wanted to set off explosives in packed stores in Amsterdam-Zuidoost. The authorities cleared branches of IKIA, MediaMarkt and Perry Sport Thursday morning and other stores remained closed due to 'a threat'.
Only on Thursday evening was it clarified what the threat was. The telephone call was made from an apartment in Brussels, which was also searched.
Seven people were arrested in the Netherlands, including a family member of somebody involved in the attacks in Madrid on March 11, 2004, five years and a day ago. They are six men and one woman aged 19 to 64, Dutch of Moroccan background.
The police thinks that the direct threat is over with the arrests, but they are not excluding anything. The investigation is still ongoing and it is unclear when the shops will open again.
Apparently Amir Ali who I posted about here has died. I posted video of him on a Chicago tv show stating that Islam will rule the USA. Well according to this he is dead.
On November 14 he went for a heart scan and it was determined that he needed open-heart bypass surgery, which was successfully performed on the 16th. At 1 am on the morning of the 19th he was observed by the nurses to be sitting in his bed and reading. At 4 am, while he was sleeping, his heart slowed down and stopped. The doctors were unable to resuscitate him. He was buried in Chicago on the 20th, which was attended by one of the largest funeral gatherings ever held by Muslims in Chicago.
It appears that he passed away this past November.
Creeping Sharia has more info on Amir Ali and the organization he founded.
PAKISTAN terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) is an even bigger threat than Al-Qaeda, said US security experts.
And they say it could be targeting the US.
'We are and should be concerned about the threat LeT poses, given its global network,' Mr Juan Zarate, deputy national security adviser for counter-terrorism in the Bush administration, told the Chicago Tribune in an interview published on Sunday.
Intelligence agencies report that potentially many tens of thousands of Pakistanis have been trained in LeT's guerrilla camps in Pakistan.
And a small number are active in the US.
'It doesn't just reside in South Asia. It is an organisation that has potential reach all over the world, including the US,' Mr Zarate said.
Mr Bruce Riedel, chairman of the Obama administration's Pakistan-Afghanistan strategy review team, said he believed such a 'global jihadist syndicate' of disaffected young Pakistanis was the most likely mechanism for launching an attack on US soil.
Authorities said thousands of disaffected Westerners and Pakistanis in Britain and other 'visa waiver' countries in Europe travel frequently to Pakistan.
An unknown number of those have trained in LeT camps.
They can also enter the US with virtually no background check.
Evidence confiscated from computer-savvy young militants shows LeT interest in the Washington area, New York, California and Georgia, according to interviews and court testimony.
FBI Director Robert Mueller also highlighted the concern in a recent speech, saying US authorities fear a Mumbai-style commando attack, and that such militants from 'less well-known terrorist groups...are merely an e-ticket away from the US'.
Fox News reports that at least one Somali-American who was attending the University of Minnesota student missing since last year is being probed by a federal grand jury. Three others are being probed and may face charges of materially aiding a terrorist organization.
The way the story reads, it sounds like all four were students at UM:
A woman who identified herself as a 20-year-old student at the University of Minnesota said she testified before the grand jury [yesterday] morning, after receiving a subpoena on Friday. A copy of the subpoena obtained by Fox News says, "You are hereby commanded to appear and testify before the Grand Jury of the United States District Court." The subpoena told her to appear at 9 a.m. local time.
She said FBI agents previously told her that she has "some important information" related to an ongoing FBI investigation. The woman told Fox News she knew four of the Minneapolis-area men who went missing late last year, but she said they were only "acquaintances" whom she knew from growing up in the area.
The woman said that during her four-hour testimony today she was asked about the missing men, who they hung out with before they left, and why they may have left. She said the FBI informed her that she was not a target of the investigation and did not face any charges.
It's also not clear whether the probe stops at the students, or whether or not they are looking for whoever is behind their recruitment into Somalia's al Qaeda affiliate.
You have got to be kidding me. In response to this the Taliban said there is no such thing as a "moderate" member of the Taliban. See here.
“5 percent of the Taliban is incorrigible, not susceptible to anything other than being defeated. Another 25 percent or so are not quite sure, in my view, the intensity of their commitment to the insurgency. And roughly 70 percent are involved because of the money, because of them being — getting paid.”
Robert Spencer does a good job of breaking this down and showing how ridiculous it is.
According to the vice president -- and don't ask where he came up with these precise numbers -- only 5% of the Taliban is "incorrigible" (i.e., are determined jihadis); 25% are on the fence, sort of; the other 70% are in it for the money (i.e., they are not serious about this whole Islam, jihad, and sharia jazz, but are "frustrated," "impoverished, "disaffected," etc., and so let's buy them off.)
Thus, according to the vice president of the U.S., 70% of the Taliban -- those guys responsible for spraying girls with acid, blowing up shrines, daily murdering infidels and apostates, fighting and dying in the name of sharia law -- are "moderate"; they only act that way because they're poor. So why not reach out to them? If only we give them lots of money, perhaps they'll go away -- only, of course, to regroup with better weapons, and come back to fight another day.
As Sudan Tribune writes, "an alliance of Sudanese Islamic jihadists and Darfur Arab militia groups pledged to carry out attacks against countries that are supporting the decisions of the International Criminal Court (ICC)" in retaliation to the last weeks indictment of Sudanese president, Omar al-Bashir, for the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur since 2003.
The alliance promised "world imperialists and CIA agents in US, UK, and France with another September 11 attack." The group also called for assassinations of the ICC chief prosecutor and Darfur rebel leaders.
The joint statement was signed by the Martyr Abu-Qiseissah Suicide Group, Ansar Al-Sunnah Al-Jihadiyah Group, the Group in Search of Martyrdom, the Martyr Ali Abdel-Fattah Brigade, and the Darfur Lions Brigade.
Earlier, high ranking officials from Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad visited Khartoum after the ICC arrest warrant was issued and expressed full support for president al-Bashir.
Ali Larijani, Iran's parliament speaker, said the ICC indictment is an "insult directed at Muslims."
Interestingly, over the last six years, while the Sudanese Arab government and their militias ravaged Darfur, killing more than 200,000 people and displacing over 2 million, hardly anybody in the Arab and Muslim world objected.
It did not matter that the victims in Darfur were Muslims.
Even though millions of innocent Muslims have been oppressed in Darfur since 2003, the fact that they are the victims of an Arab regime in Khartoum seems to prevent the Arab and Muslim public and governments from even acknowledging the suffering and humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur.
Up to this day, not one Arab or Muslim leader has publicly criticized Sudan's actions and atrocities in Darfur.
But now that president al-Bashir is charged for the war crimes and crimes against humanity, this is seen in Sudan and across the Middle East as yet another Western imperialist conspiracy which justifies calls for a global jihad against "crusaders, infidels, and Zionists."
