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?

SOURCE

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.

SOURCE

Thanks to Jihad Watch

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.

SOURCE

Pure insanity my fellow Americans!

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.

SOURCE

Great video as always from Pat. Check out this other videos on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/patcondell




At about 4 minutes he begins discussing the burqa. I think what he is saying applies very much to this story.

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.

Thanks to Jihad Watch.

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.

Both carry the force's crest.

SOURCE