The body of a missing woman is believed to have been found in a suitcase more than 100 miles from her home, said police.

The remains of Banaz Mahmod Babakir Agha, from Mitcham, south London, were discovered during a search of a property in Birmingham more than three months after her disappearance.

Metropolitan Police officers combed an address in Alexandra Road, in the Handsworth area of the city, and recovered her body.

Scotland Yard would not confirm where the suitcase had been found and said they were not prepared to discuss it further.

Banaz, who was of Kurdish origin, vanished on January 23. She withdrew no money from her bank account following her disappearance, nor did she take a change of clothing or passport with her. The missing persons inquiry rapidly became a murder investigation.

Police said they believed Banaz's disappearance may be linked to a failed arranged marriage.

One line of inquiry was that she may have been murdered in an "honour killing".

A force spokeswoman said: "The body is believed to be that of Banaz Mahmod Babakir Agha, 20, who was last seen at 5.50pm on Monday January 23 in Cricket Green, Mitcham."

A 29-year-old man was charged previously in connection with the investigation and a further eight people arrested and bailed pending further inquiries.

The spokeswoman said two of those people had been rearrested and taken into custody at police stations in London.
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Permanent Link posted by J @ 7:33 pm 1 comments

THE Town Hall elections exploded into controversy this week as an extreme Muslim sect hijacked a public debate and the council and Special Branch launched a major probe into allegations of postal fraud.

About a dozen police swooped on the Brady Centre in Whitechapel on Tuesday night after it was taken over by the radical Islamist group al-Ghurabaa, which wants to rid Britain of democracy and which last year tried to briefly abduct MP George Galloway.

As officers dealt with the melee, one sect member, who had been shouting that only Allah had the right to make laws, threatened to beat up a press photographer.

The trouble flared just hours after Galloway's Respect party prepared to hand over a dossier of evidence of what they claim is suspicious manipulation of the postal vote system.

They say they have unearthed unusual patterns of address changes in the Tower Hamlets electoral register with one voter complaining his 'liberty has been lost'.

Under electoral law, it is legal to ask for a postal ballot form to be redirected to an address other than your own as long as it is completed in private by the voter.

However, Respect party officials have shown the Advertiser numerous examples of where dozens of postal ballot forms are being redirected to the same address.

Respect point out that most of the activity has been happening within the Bengali community.

Masud Ahmed, 31, contacted Respect after he received a letter from the council at his address in Mile End telling him postal votes for him and his wife were being sent to a house Ben Jonson Road, which is in a different ward of St Dunstan's and Stepney Green.

"I was told it was being sent to a flat in Solent House which I've never heard of," he said.

"The council are investigating, but I feel I've lost my liberty."

His sister and parents have also been unexpectedly told their ballot forms are being sent elsewhere.

Postal vote applications account for 12 per cent of the total electoral register with almost 5,000 arriving, many by hand, at the Town Hall in the last eight days before the registration deadline.

Wards that saw a surge in last minute applications included Limehouse, Shadwell and Bethnal Green South.

A Respect party official who handed his dossier to Special Branch yesterday (Wednesday), said: "Someone's trying to steal the election."

The council this week admitted that its systems had flagged up 'irregularities' over the Easter weekend.

A spokeswoman said: "We immediately launched a confidential postal vote probe with the police."

The council indicated in a statement to the Advertiser that the electoral law needed tightening.

Meanwhile, trouble at the Brady Centre hustings, which was attended by Galloway, Tower Hamlets council leader Michael Keith and other senior politicians, broke out about 30 minutes into the meeting.

As the council's deputy leader Abdus Shukur rose to speak, a group that had until then sat huddled, whispering to each other at the back of the main theatre room, leapt up and shouted: "Are you Muslim? Who are you to stand there?

"Allah is the one who legislates, not Man."

Several in the 100-plus audience squared up to them, shouting in a head-to-head face-off.

Members of the Bengali community angrily jabbed fingers their way, yelling: "Get out of this country if you want Shariah law - just leave us."

Police arrived some 15 minutes later, but the group tried to flee. As officers tried to calm them down, their anger turned towards the press. An Advertiser photographer who was taking pictures of the melee was warned by sect members: "We'll beat you up. We hate you people."

Back inside, Omar Faruk, the chairman of the chaotic meeting, said: "Sometimes I'm ashamed to be a Muslim. Please let us have a calm debate."

But his plea went unheard and politicians traded insults at each other. At one point Cllr Shukur actually screamed at people.

In one other angry exchange, Respect's Cllr Oliur Rahman strode down from the audience and challenged Cllr Keith to "step outside".

"It was for a debate," Cllr Rahman clarified later.
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Permanent Link posted by J @ 6:25 pm 1 comments

Scotland Yard was today forced to issue a public appeal for help in tracking down protesters it filmed during a demonstration against satirical cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.

The Metropolitan police said they were still trying to trace three men who took part in the demonstration outside the Danish embassy on February 3.

During the protest, placards were paraded demanding the "massacre" of "those who insult Islam".

In the days following the demonstration, the police faced fierce criticism for not arresting demonstrators on the spot. They instead took video footage of the demonstration and said "arrests, if necessary, would be made at the appropriate time".

A Met spokesman said the men were "wanted in connection with serious public order offences which we believe may have been committed during the protest".
He defended the decision not make arrests at the time, saying officers policing the demonstration "had to weigh up" the effect their actions would have on the overall public order situation.

"We have already identified and charged a number of individuals in relation to the demonstration," he said.

At the time, police had said they did not want to inflame the situation.

A special squad, under the code name Operation Laverda, was set up by the Met's post-event investigation unit to review 60 hours of CCTV and footage and investigate 500 complaints from the public.

During the rally, some protesters held placards with slogans such as "Behead those who insult Islam" and "Europe will pay, the Fantastic 4 are on their way" - an apparent reference to the July 7 bombers who killed 52 people on London's transport network.

The only arrests made were those of two freedom of speech campaigners protesting in favour of the right to publish images of Muhammad.

The police's tactics sparked cross-party calls by MPs to pursue those responsible on the grounds that the threats were an incitement to murder.

Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland secretary, said the police should "bear down ... very heavily" on protesters acting in an "intolerable" way.

The shadow attorney general, Dominic Grieve, told GMTV it was "not a happy state of affairs" when demonstrators acting in such a way "don't end up under arrest before the demonstration is ended".

Six people have since been arrested in connection with the police investigation.

The London demonstration was one of a number of sometimes violent protests against the publication of images of the prophet - which is against Islamic tradition - in a number of European newspapers.
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Permanent Link posted by J @ 6:47 pm 3 comments

LANSING, Michigan - An Islamic rights group on Monday urged Michigan State University to discipline an engineering professor for disparaging Muslims in an e-mail he sent to the school's Muslim Students' Association.

Indrek Wichman, a mechanical engineering professor, sent an e-mail to the student group Feb. 28 - apparently in response to its protests of controversial Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist. The students had labeled the cartoons as hate speech, not free speech.

Wichman, 50, wrote that he was protesting their protest and said he was not offended by cartoons but rather Muslims who commit suicide bombings, behead civilians, attack public buildings, burn Christian churches, kill Catholic priests in Turkey, rape Scandinavian girls and riot in France.

Wichman referred to Muslims as "dissatisfied, aggressive, brutal, and uncivilized slave-trading Moslems" and the protests as "infantile" in the e-mail. "If you do not like the values of the West . . . you are free to leave. I hope for God's sake that most of you choose that option."

Wichman declined to comment when contacted Monday by The Associated Press.

Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Michigan State officials should publicly denounce Wichman's statements and conduct an investigation. The results of the probe should be made public, and Wichman should at least have a letter of reprimand placed in his file, Walid said.

The group also wants Wichman and other faculty to receive sensitivity training before the fall semester.

University spokesman Terry Denbow said the school would not publicly condemn Wichman's statements because they were private and did not represent the school in any way. But he added that Wichman has been advised to be careful in the future
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Permanent Link posted by J @ 6:51 pm 2 comments

Joe Van Holsbeeck, the 17 year old boy who died after being butchered with a knife by North African youths in Brussels Central Station last week, was buried today. Muslim immigrants distributed home baked bread during the funeral. Joe was savagely stabbed to death Wednesday a week ago when he refused to hand over his MP3 player to the North Africans. Immediately after the assassination the police inquired whether Joe had made any "racist remarks" whilst been mugged, but Joe and his family and friends were not racists. On the contrary.

Joe's parents opted for a memorial service instead of the traditional funeral Mass. The parish priest of the Catholic St. Elisabeth Church of the Brussels borough of Haren told Belgian radio this morning that the parents wanted to ensure that "immigrants would not feel excluded at the funeral service." The priest did not hand out the Holy Eucharist to the mourners, but the immigrant neighbours of the Van Holsbeeck family distributed home baked bread. This, the priest explained, was "a sign of fraternity" between Belgians and immigrants.

Joe's killers have not been caught yet. Some doubt whether they ever will. The North African youths who slaughtered a 16 year old black boy in a similar fashion last January, have not been found either. Yesterday Senator Jean-Marie Dedecker, a member of Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt's Liberal Party (VLD), wrote in an op-ed article in De Standaard, a major Brussels newspaper, that the Belgian police, when confronted with criminal immigrants, all too often "look the other way in order to avoid being accused of racism." Dedecker called Joe's murderers "thugs."
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Permanent Link posted by J @ 7:26 pm 0 comments

JAIL bosses are rebuilding toilets so Muslim inmates don't have to use them while facing Mecca.

Thousands of pounds of taxpayers money are being spent to ensure lags are not offended.

The Islamic religion prohibits Muslims from facing or turning their backs on the Kiblah - the direction of prayer - when they visit the lav.

Muslim lags claimed they have had to sit sideways on prison WCs.

But after pressure from faith leaders the Home Office has agreed to turn the existing toilets 90 degrees at HMP Brixton in London.

The Home Office refused to reveal the cost of the new facilities - part of an "on-going refurbishment".

One Muslim former inmate said: "The least the Prison Service can do is make sure people can practise their religion correctly in prison."

But a Brixton jail officer said: "If they didn't get locked up for committing crime they would not have this problem. Yet we have to sort out their loos. If we weren't paying for it as taxpayers I'd laugh my socks off."

Around a quarter of prisoners at the Category B jail are Muslims.

Labour MP Khalid Mahmood said: "As far as I understand this rule only applies in a place of worship."

Tory MP Ann Widdecombe said: "Some common sense needs to be applied"
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Permanent Link posted by J @ 6:19 pm 1 comments

Naples, ITALY: Algerian-born Chouimet Amirouce (C) is escorted in a car by Italian policemen, after being arrested in Naples, 19 April 2006. Amirouce is suspected of international terrorism. Anti-terrorism police arrested 12 people Wednesday in coordinated raids in France and Italy, as part of a probe into the financing of Islamic extremist groups.

Naples, ITALY: Algerian-born Bounoula Redouane (C) is escorted by two Italian policemen, after being arrested in Naples, 19 April 2006. Redouane is suspected of international terrorism. Anti-terrorism police arrested 12 people Wednesday in coordinated raids in France and Italy, as part of a probe into the financing of Islamic extremist groups.




Anti-terrorism police arrested 11 people in coordinated raids in France and Italy, as part of a probe into the financing of Islamic extremist groups. File picture shows French police taking part in a counter-terrorism exercise.

Terror raids in France and Italy

French and Italian police have arrested 11 people in a joint operation against groups suspected of helping fund Islamic terrorism.

The suspects, who are mainly Algerian, were detained during raids near Naples, Milan and Marseille.

The suspects are thought to have links to the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat - an armed splinter organisation operating mainly in eastern Algeria.

They are also alleged to be involved in forgery and illegal immigration.

The Salafist group is known to have links to al-Qaeda.

Italy has been on a state of high alert since the beginning of the year.

During the Italian election campaign, Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu announced that the authorities had foiled two planned terrorist attacks, one on the underground in Milan and the other on a church in Bologna.
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Permanent Link posted by J @ 11:11 pm 4 comments

"When Foreigners Come to Islamic Countries... We Insist That They Respect Our Traditions"

"Something important happened recently in Australia that made us ask ourselves, Who are we and what is our attitude towards others?

"When foreigners come to Islamic countries to work, live, or visit, we insist that they respect our Islamic and Arab traditions. We also expect foreign workers in our countries to respect the customs of our religion, and sometimes we even go overboard and demand that their wives cover their heads with a veil, and demand that they not eat in public during the days of Ramadan, and refrain from eating pork, drinking wine, and the like… In all the Islamic countries, anyone accused of harming the sensibilities of the native residents is punished, deported, or imprison..."

"Must the Muslim Be Entitled to Have More Than One Wife in America, Russia, Europe, or China?"

"The Muslims have every right to impose Islamic values on their peoples and in their lands, as long as they constitute the majority. The problem is, what happens when the Muslims are not the majority, as in America, Europe, Australia, and some countries in Asia[?]... Can Muslims who immigrate abroad insist on applying the laws of Islamic shari'a to themselves and to others even where it is clear that they are a minority? Can they challenge the secular cultures common in the Western societies [with demands], or resist the will of these societies to separate religion and state? ...

"In a secular country, do Muslims have the right to build mosques, teach the Koran, or support the [Islamic] religious schools? Must the Muslim be entitled to have more than one wife in America, Russia, Europe, or China? Can they impose Koranic punishments in these [countries]?...

"In principle, this entire matter begins and ends with our views towards others, with the question of whether we think that others have rights or not, and with the question of whether Islam is a religion capable of coexisting in a secular society without being condescending towards others - particularly with regard to the civil laws in the Western democracies."

"It is Imperative That Our Muslim Brothers Living Abroad Share the Values of Those who Prefer Secularism"

"This brings us back to Australia. Last week, Australia's Conservative Prime Minister John Howard summoned to his office a large group of Muslim clerics from the Muslim community living in the continent, and presented them with an ultimatum. He said that Australia, which is fundamentally a land of immigrants, demands of everyone who resides in it... 'full allegiance' to the secular Australian constitution and not to any other law common in the countries whence the immigrants came...

"Just in case the words of the prime minister were not sufficiently clear, Treasurer Peter Costello added that the Muslim clerics must adhere to the secular laws, and that if they do not do so, they must leave Australia...

"The issue of 'live and let live' has turned into an existential issue [for Muslims living in non-Muslim countries]. In accordance with the current democratic values and with other values, the non-Muslim majority lives in systems based on separation of religion and state... Since it is not reasonable [to assume] that the situation will change... it is imperative that our Muslim brothers living abroad share the values of those who prefer secularism.

"Muslims living abroad cannot assume that they can impose their values - just as we do not permit Christians living among us to impose their values upon us..."
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Permanent Link posted by J @ 11:14 pm 2 comments

An Arab suicide bomber, detonated a large explosive at a Tel Aviv fast food stand in the Neveh Sha'anan neighborhood Monday afternoon, killing at least eight civilians.

At least 50 persons were wounded, with 15 sustaining moderate to severe injuries. The wounded have been evacuated to local hospitals, among them, Ichilov, Beilinson, Wolfson, and Tel Hashomer.

Of those seriously injured, at least five are reported to be in critical condition.

An eye-witness at the scene, Rafi Hayun, told Israel Radio that the terrorist was a female. He estimated that five persons, aside from the terrorist, were killed in the attack. That figure has since been confirmed by official sources. The identity of the terrorist has not been confirmed.

Police are investigating how the terrorist reached the Tel Aviv destination and whether any assistance was received by other terrorists still in the vicinity.

The Islamic Jihad terror group and the Al Aksa Brigades, the military wing of the Fatah party, have claimed responsibility for the attack. Fatah is the party of PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) leader Mahmoud Abbas, and his predecessor, PLO terrorist chieftain Yassir Arafat.

In 1993, Israel signed the Oslo Accords and ceded control of heavily populated Arab areas to the Palestinian Authority. When the accords were signed, the PLO and its largest component, Fatah, pledged in writing to refrain from carrying out terrorist attacks or from using violence of any kind against Israel.

The Al Aksa Brigades and the Islamic Jihad have been cooperating extensively to carry out terrorist attacks against Israel, especially since Hamas won a pivotal parliamentary election in the Palestinian Authority last January.

The fast food felafel stand, "Rosh Ha-Ir," in the vicinity of Tel Aviv's former central bus station, was the site of a terrorist attack three months ago. Thrity-two people were injured in that attack which was also carried out by the Islamic Jihad.

Following Monday's latest attack, Police Commissioner Moshe Karadi, put the nation on maximum alert, out of concern that the inauguration of the 17th Knesset, scheduled for 4:00 this afternoon will serve as a pretext for more attacks.

As of Monday afternoon, Israel's security apparatus was faced with the threat of 19 specific terrorist attacks, warning of an impending attack at a specific time and place. Eighty more general threats of attack have been reported to Israel's intelligence agencies.

Karadi noted that the police had no specific warning of the impending terrorist attack in Tel Aviv.

According to latest reports, a blue Mitsubishi, suspected of being the vehicle that transported the suicide bomber to his target in Tel Aviv, has been stopped by the IDF at the Ofir roadblock on Jerusalem-Tel Aviv Highway 443, near Ramallah in the Binyamin area. A number of persons in the car have been arrested and are being questioned by security agencies.
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Permanent Link posted by J @ 2:36 pm 4 comments

IRAN has formed battalions of suicide bombers to strike at British and American targets if the nation's nuclear sites are attacked. According to Iranian officials, 40,000 trained suicide bombers are ready for action.

The main force, named the Special Unit of Martyr Seekers in the Revolutionary Guards, was first seen last month when members marched in a military parade, dressed in olive-green uniforms with explosive packs around their waists and detonators held high.

Dr Hassan Abbasi, head of the Centre for Doctrinal Strategic Studies in the Revolutionary Guards, said in a speech that 29 western targets had been identified: "We are ready to attack American and British sensitive points if they attack Iran’s nuclear facilities." He added that some of them were "quite close" to the Iranian border in Iraq.

In a tape recording heard by The Sunday Times, Abbasi warned the would-be martyrs to "pay close attention to wily England" and vowed that "Britain’s demise is on our agenda".

At a recruiting station in Tehran recently, volunteers for the force had to show their birth certificates, give proof of their address and tick a box stating whether they would prefer to attack American targets in Iraq or Israeli targets.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned last Friday that Israel was heading towards "annihilation". He was speaking at a Tehran conference on Palestinian rights aimed at promoting Iran as a new Middle Eastern superpower.

According to western intelligence documents leaked to The Sunday Times, the Revolutionary Guards are in charge of a secret nuclear weapons programme designed to evade the scrutiny of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

One of the leaked reports, dating from February this year, confirms that President George W Bush is preparing to strike Iran. "If the problem is not resolved in some way, he intends to act before leaving office because it would be 'unfair' to leave the task of destroying Iran's nuclear facilities to a new president," the document says.

Alireza Jafarzadeh, a former spokesman for National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an opposition group, said a secret, parallel military programme was under way. According to sources inside Iran, the Revolutionary Guards were constructing underground sites that could be activated if Iran's known nuclear facilities were destroyed.

The NCRI is the political wing of the Mujaheddin-e-Khalq, which is deemed a terrorist organisation in Britain and America. However, much of its information is considered to be "absolutely credible" by western intelligence sources after Jafarzadeh revealed the existence of the Natanz plant in 2002.

Within the past year, 14 large and several smaller projects have been created, according to Jafarzadeh. Several are designed to be nuclear factories; others are for the storage of weapons, he claimed.
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Permanent Link posted by J @ 11:22 pm 3 comments

Plans for the first banking service for Muslims offered by a major High Street bank in Scotland were unveiled yesterday.

Lloyds TSB is launching a series of products compliant with Islamic Shariah law, which forbids followers of the religion from receiving or paying interest.

They are now on offer at 30 Lloyds TSB branches in England, but the bank's first in Scotland will begin in Glasgow at the end of this month.
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Permanent Link posted by J @ 11:16 am 2 comments

Israel is used to being singled out for unjust criticism and subjected to startling double standards by the United Nations, the European Union, much of the Western media and numerous academic bodies. But now FIFA - the supposedly nonpolitical organization that governs the world's most popular sport, soccer - is getting in on the act as well.

FIFA has condemned Israel for an air strike on an empty soccer field in the Gaza Strip that was used for training exercises by Islamic Jihad and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. This strike did not cause any injuries. But at the same time FIFA has refused to condemn a Palestinian rocket attack on an Israeli soccer field last week which did cause injuries.

As FIFA meets in the next few days to decide what action to take against Israel, the double standards involved could not be more obvious. Up to now FIFA, which sees itself as a purely sporting body, has gone out of its way to avoid politics, and has refrained from criticizing even the most appalling human-rights abuses connected to soccer players and stadiums.

NOT A WORD ABOUT SADDAM AND THE TALIBAN

When Saddam Hussein's son Uday had Iraqi soccer players tortured in 1997 after they failed to qualify for the 1998 FIFA World Cup Finals in France, FIFA remained silent. Uday, who was chairman of the Iraqi soccer association, had star players tortured again in 1998. And in 2000, following a quarterfinal defeat in the Asia Cup, three Iraqi players were whipped and beaten for three days by Uday's bodyguards. The torture took place at the Iraqi Olympic Committee headquarters, but FIFA said nothing.

Again, FIFA simply looked the other way while the Taliban used U.N.-funded soccer fields to slaughter and flog hundreds of innocent people who had supposedly violated sharia law in front of crowds of thousands chanting "God is great." (Afghan soccer coach Habib Ullahniazi said that as many as 30 people were executed in the middle of the field during the intermissions of a single soccer match at Kabul's Ghazi Stadium.)

FIFA equally failed to speak out when soccer stadiums in Argentina were turned into jails.

As for the Middle East, FIFA refused to criticize the decision to name a Palestinian soccer tournament after a suicide terrorist who murdered 31 people at a Passover celebration at the Park Hotel in Netanya in 2002. (At the tournament, organized under Yasser Arafat's auspices in 2003, the brother of the suicide bomber was given the honorary role of distributing the trophies to the winning team.)

FIFA also failed to condemn the suicide bomb at the Maxim restaurant in Haifa in October 2003 which injured three officials from the leading Israeli soccer team Maccabi Haifa.

ISRAEL IS DIFFERENT...

But then last week, FIFA finally found a target worthy of its outrage, and leapt into action. That target was Israel.

The international governing body for soccer condemned the Jewish state, and announced that it was considering possible action over the Israeli air strike last week on the Gaza soccer field that had been used for terrorist training exercises. The field, which had also reportedly served as a missile launching pad, was empty at the time; the strike itself came in response to the continuing barrage of Qassam rocket attacks directed at Israeli towns and villages.

Only a couple of days earlier, one of those Qassam rockets landed on a soccer field at the Karmiya kibbutz in southern Israel, causing light injuries to one person. Several other Israeli children and adults needed to be treated for shock. The attack was claimed by the Al-Quds brigades, an armed wing of Islamic Jihad. The soccer pitch is regularly used by children and it was only a matter of luck that there were not greater injuries. (Since Israel's withdrawal from Gaza last year, several members of the kibbutz, including a ten-month-old baby, have been wounded after their homes took direct hits from Qassams. Israelis elsewhere have died after being hit by these weapons.)

Individual Israelis, outraged by FIFA's blatantly one-sided decision, have been sending e-mails to FIFA asking why "they care more about the grass on an empty soccer pitch than the human lives saved by strikes on the Qassam launching pads."

ANTI-SEMITIC BANNERS AND CHANTS

They have also asked where FIFA is when anti-Semitic banners go up in European soccer stadiums, and there are chants from spectators about sending Jews to the gas? And where, they wonder, are the FIFA sanctions against the Arab or Asian countries that refuse to allow Israel to compete in Asia?

Other questions have been raised, too — why, for instance, FIFA has moved games from Israel because guest teams were afraid to come to Israel, but has never banned any other national teams from playing home games on account of local Islamic violence. Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey were allowed to continue playing matches at home.

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Permanent Link posted by J @ 9:26 pm 3 comments

HAMBURG - More than 50 Muslims who have returned to Germany from fighting in Iraq are under observation by German authorities two months ahead of the football World Cup, Focus news magazine reported.

Citing security forces in Berlin, Focus, in a report made available ahead of Monday's publication, said those in question had been identified by the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV).

The BfV did not want to confirm the report on Saturday.

Germany is imposing strict security at the June 9-July 9 World Cup which brings together 32 teams and is played in 12 cities.

The authorities have no direct terrorist threat against the tournament, but will take nothing for granted. The BfV rates Islamism a threat for internal German security.

Focus said that some 300 Muslims overall from Western Europe have fought in Iraq since 2003 against the US-led forces.
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Permanent Link posted by J @ 6:53 pm 0 comments

I have heard some people say that Western popular culture will destroy Islam. That is possible, but we need to remember that this is not a one-way street. What if the opposite happens? Sometimes the barbarians also influence the civilized people, and there is a disturbing amount of "understanding" for terrorists in Western movies and media these days. Creeps come crawling out of the woodwork, more or less cheering for the terrorists who are trying to bring society down. There are probably always people who are drawn to blood and mayhem. They would like to destroy the current political order, but are not capable of doing it themselves, so they end up as cheerleaders for those who are attempting to do so. Let's call them "terrorist groupies." I'm not just talking about the Oscar-nominated suicide bomber film Paradise Now. There are others examples of this mentality...
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Permanent Link posted by J @ 9:54 pm 1 comments

A man who shouted racist insults at Muslim worshippers outside a Cumbria mosque has been jailed for six months.

Bryan Cork shouted slurs including "proud to be British" and "go back to where you came from" outside Carlisle's Brook Street mosque.

He pleaded guilty to racially aggravated harassment on 30 November at the city's Crown Court on Tuesday.

Judge Paul Batty, QC, told Cork, of Thompson Street, Carlisle, that racism in any form would not be tolerated.
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Permanent Link posted by J @ 6:51 pm 5 comments

An al-Qaeda leader as important as overall terror chief Osama bin Laden and the group's Iraq leader Abu Musab Zarqawi will soon reveal himself in the Palestinian territories and orchestrate local and global jihad from the area, according to a pamphlet distributed in the Gaza Strip.

The pamphlet, signed by a group calling itself the Jaish al Jihad, or Army of Jihad, claimed to speak for al-Qaeda. It warned all non-Muslims and foreign embassies to vacate the Palestinian areas within one month.

"Is there now among us a person like Saladin, like Sheik Osama bin Laden, like Abu Musab Zarqawi? The answer is yes. We have this man and he will appear with the help of Allah very soon on the land of Palestine," said the pamphlet, which was intercepted this week by the Palestinian General Intelligence after being circulated in southern Gaza.

The message continued: "We ask all foreigners who are not Muslims to leave our holy Islamic land. We will fight all those who do not believe that Allah is the one and only God. (We will fight) every government that will not apply the rules of Allah and Islam and that chooses to follow the rules of the West and the infidels that bring corruption to our lives and religion like prostitution, alcohol … and drugs."

The group threatened the Palestinian police and security services not to interrupt its planned activities, adding, "we will fight all the corrupted and unbelieving politicians. It will be a great war for the purity of the land of Islam and Palestine."
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Permanent Link posted by J @ 6:38 pm 0 comments

Following are excerpts from an interview with Iraqi cleric Sheikh Ahmad Al-Kubeisi, which aired on Dubai TV on February 24, 2006.

Sheikh Ahmad Al-Kubeisi: Brother, a Muslim has high moral standards, because he treats all prophets just as his prophet Muhammad. He treats them with the same respect. Despite these high moral standards, they curse and vilify us. We do not make a distinction between the divine messengers. Look how they curse Jesus and Moses, while our regard for them reaches unimaginable heights. Forget about the media and all that nonsense. We are a civilized nation, while they are a barbaric nation.

[...]

By Allah, throughout the Christian West, there is not a single person who glorifies Jesus as we do. Similarly, there is not a single Jew on the face of the earth who loves Moses as we do.

Interviewer: A Muslim is considered a heretic if he harms any of the prophets...

Sheikh Ahmad Al-Kubeisi: He is killed - even if he's only joking. If he tells a joke about Moses, even unintentionally, he is killed. This is an affront to religion. That's how a nation of high moral standards should be.

[...]

Forget about all the propaganda and the media - democracies and all that nonsense. They talk about democracy, but when Hamas won, they said: We do not accept this. You asked for democracy - this is democracy. Come off it!

[...]

Truth is clear, and falsehood is clear. From now on, no one can lie to people - human rights, democracies, and whatever... It's all nonsense... The truth lies with us, and so do human rights, mercy, and justice.
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Permanent Link posted by J @ 4:09 pm 2 comments

Sheik Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi: This international terrorism, we keep hearing about, which is led by America - we reject all these forms of terrorism. We accept only Jihad and resistance to restore the rights, the lands, and the holy places.

Some people call this terrorism. America, its allies, and its satellites want to present any type of resistance as terrorism. Our brothers in Palestine are the first among these "terrorists." They are defending their land, their honor, and their holy places, so how can they be terrorists? Divine laws, international laws, moral values, and even the laws of nature itself...

According to Allah's creation, when a foreign object enters the human body, Allah mobilizes a special army inside the body to expel these foreign objects. This is the nature of Allah's creation. So how can they be considered terrorists?

Sharon and his criminal gang are not considered terrorists, and [the Americans] display understanding to their positions, saying that they are defending themselves, while the Palestinian positions are not understood. They are the ones who are considered terrorists, and whoever supports them, defends them, or stands by them is considered a terrorist just like them.

I am a terrorist, and so are Dr. 'Amara, Sheik Kubeisi, and Dr. Al-Bashir. We are all terrorists, because we say they have a right to self defense, and because we permit these martyrdom-seeking operations, and call them "martyrdom-seeking" operations, and reject those who call them suicide operations, because they are anything but suicide. They have the right to defend themselves.

At times, a woman or child may be hurt. First of all, in Israeli society, even women are recruited to the army. Israeli society is militaristic to the core. Men and women are recruited, either to the regular army or as reservists. If children are hurt, they are hurt unintentionally. These are necessities of war.
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Permanent Link posted by J @ 1:43 pm 6 comments