In Brief: Man hanged in public in western Iran
Fri. 22 Jun 2007
Iran Focus
Tehran, Iran, Jun. 22 – A man was hanged in public in Khorramabad, western Iran, state media reported on Thursday.
The unnamed man was accused of murder, the state broadcasting corporation IRIB said.
<http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=11638>
YEMEN: MAN CLAIMS TO HEAD AL-QAEDA’S LOCAL BRANCH
http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Terrorism&loid=8.0.428312928&par=0
Sanaa, 22 June (AKI) – A man identifying himself as Abu Basir Nasir al-Wahishi – one of 28 terrorist suspects who in February 2006 fled a high security prison in Sanaa – has claimed in an audio message posted on Islamist internet forums that he is the leader of al-Qaeda’s branch in Yemen. The man who also uses the battlename Abu Hureira al-Sanaani, said his group’s full name is al-Qaeda of the Jihad in Yemen. Most of those involved in the 2006 jailbreak were re-arrested while those who successfully escaped are believed by Yemeni authorities to have sought refuge in Somalia or in Yemen’s remote southern Hadramawt province.
“I have been nominated leader of al-Qaeda in Yemen and I say no to any surrender to government forces. Ignorance and Islam can never blend together. Several tyrants have tried to insert ignorance in Islam but they have all failed,” the man said in the 20 minute-long recording.
“They want us to renege our beliefs and to repudiate some of our principles. But during this time when they have been waging their crusader war, the enemies are being defeated as is happening in Afghanistan at the hands of the mujahadeen,”
Yemen authorities have for some time suspected an al-Qaeda presence in the country blaming the terror network for a failed attempt to attack two oil plants last September.
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/188410.php
I hope some of the webhosts, DNS services, and administrators of Islamist forums who have received letters recently from Jawa supporters will take note: support violent jihad on your websites, go to jail.
Moez Garsallaoui and his wife, “Malika al-Aroud” had claimed they really didn’t know what was going on at the Islamist forum they ran. Right. There is nothing hidden on most of these Islamist forums. You can’t go through a single thread on most of them and not find some sort of support for Islamic terrorism. The “I didn’t know” or “I was just providing a place for others to speak” or “I was just posting what the ‘resistance’ claimed” defenses are insincere. These forums and those that manage them know exactly what they are doing: supporting terrorist activities.
If I understand the facts correctly, the websites in question were islam-minbar.net, minbar-islam.net, and varous iterations of that name. Some of those websites (for instance here) continue to operate. The link above carries the now standard not-responsible for content disclaimer, but has links–put up by the webmaster and not by forum members– to various al Qaeda produced videos and propaganda. Oh, and it’s hosted by a Canadian compnay, bravehost.com.
For more on the various websites connected to these two–and the jihadi fanzines that came after — just click around Internet Haganah for awhile.
You’ll note that the woman in the burqua, Malika, is Belgian by birth.
Switzerland’s Federal Criminal Court has handed down a guilty verdict on a couple accused of supporting radical Islamic organisations via internet sites.The Tunisian man was sentenced on Thursday to six months in prison plus an additional 18 months suspended for supporting criminal organisations and inciting violence. His Belgian wife was given a six:month suspended sentence for aiding and abetting him….
The accused stood trial in Bellinzona for allegedly letting groups linked to al:Qaeda use internet forums they had set up to exchange information….
The sites were allegedly set up to promote racially motivated crimes. They were also used to publicise claims of responsibility for attacks and threats against Western countries as well as broadcasting images of Islamist attacks and executions….
The 39:year:old man was alleged to have used the forums to suggest that two French journalists taken hostage in Iraq be exchanged for a ransom, killed or set free.
The 48:year:old woman allegedly told another correspondent to go and “fight the war in Iraq”.
What exactly were they doing at the website? Townhall:
Swiss media reported two years ago that the 2004 beheading of American engineer Paul M. Johnson, Jr. in Saudi Arabia was one of a number of executions aired on the sites.The Federal Prosecutor’s Office said a forum on one of the Web sites published letters claiming responsibility for a suicide bomb attack in Pakistan in July 2004.
Other postings included a threat to kill Italian aid workers Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, who were abducted in Baghdad in September 2004. The two aid workers were later freed.
So, this piece of work encouraged the murder of Simona Pari and Simona Torretta? I’m also guessing the context in which they posted the Paul Johnson beheading murder snuff film was “hooray” not “disgusting barbarism”.While I’m glad these two were convicted, I’m close to rage learning that Moez Garsallaoui, a terror propagandist, was only given 18 months. Can you imagine giving Joseph Goebbels, the chief Nazi propagandist, 18 months?
Sayyafs who killed photojournalist slain in clashes
TROOPS from the Philippine Marines based in Basilan province killed in separate clashes two brothers believed with ties with the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf, the terror group tagged as responsible for the killing of a Mindanao-based photojournalist more than two years ago.
Colonel Ramiro Alivio, chief of the 1st Marine Brigade, said Thursday that brothers Itting and Omar Sailani were killed in the hinterland of Sumisip town that at one time served as haven of the Abu Sayyafs in Basilan province.
Alivio said Itting was killed Tuesday in a clash with troops from the Marine Battalion Landing Team-8 (MBLT-8) in Barangay Baiwas, Sumisip.
Alivio said Omar was killed Wednesday in a follow-up operation of the MBLT-8 near the site of the first armed clash in the same town.
He disclosed that the troops were dispatched to the area following information that unidentified gunmen were sighted in Sumisip hinterland.
“They went there to verify the information and in the process the firefight has taken place,” he said.
Sumisip had served as haven of Abu Sayyaf, which built a camp in Mount Punoh Mohajid. Military troops later overrun the camp following ground and air attacks.
The camp has served as detention center 54 people including schoolteachers, pupils and slain Claretian priest Fr. Roel Gallardo. The Abu Sayyaf seized them in Sumisip in March 2000.
Alivio said the troops are still in Sumisip pursuing the Sailani brothers’ companions since it was reported that they were seen together with 10 gunmen.
Two weeks ago, the Philippine government announcement that it is offering P6 million or at P3 million each cash reward to any informant or informants who could provide information that would lead to the arrest of the Sailani brothers.
The Sailani brothers allegedly killed Gene Boyd Lumawag, a photojournalist of the Davao-based Mindanao News and Information Cooperative Center (MindaNews), on November 12, 2004, in downtown Jolo, the capital of Sulu province.
The 26-year-old Lumawag was on his way to shoot the sunset from the Jolo pier when felled by a bullet fired from a caliber .45 pistol at the intersection of Marina and Serrantes streets in Jolo.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/122812
by Ezra HaLevi
(IsraelNN.com) The IDF continues to conduct counter-terror operations in Judea and Samaria – even against Fatah terrorists.
Two terrorists, one from Fatah’s Al-Aksa Brigades and the other from Islamic Jihad, shot at IDF soldiers in the Jenin-area village of Kafr Dan Tuesday night. The soldiers returned fire, killing the two terrorists, both armed with IDF standard-issue M-16 assault rifles.
Several other terrorists opened fire at the troops, and a bomb was thrown at the IDF force. No injuries were reported, however, and 15 wanted terrorists were arrested – three from Hamas and two from Fatah in Shechem; five in Kfar Jit, an area village; and five Hamas terrorists in Bethlehem and area villages.
Haaretz and other Israeli media have taken to referring to the Al-Aksa Brigades as “a violent offshoot of Fatah,” despite the fact that many of its members moonlight as officers in the PA police forces and receive salaries from Fatah.
IDF in Gush Katif Area
One IDF soldier was moderately wounded during an operation of the Givati Brigade in central Gaza Wednesday morning. The soldiers were targeted by sniper fire and anti-tank missiles while operating near the Kissufim Crossing, which leads to the destroyed Jewish communities of Gush Katif. They returned fire, hitting two terrorists, killing one. The wounded soldier was evacuated to Be’er Sheva’s Soroka Hospital.
The soldiers were targeted again by anti-tank missiles in a separate incident. They returned fire, hitting two more terrorists, who managed to flee the area.
Hamas, the Hamas-affiliated Popular Resistance Committee and Islamic Jihad said that two of their members had been killed in fighting with IDF soldiers in the area and three wounded. They said undercover IDF soldiers had been operating in the village of Kurara and, when discovered, they were reinforced by six tanks, two Armored Personnel Carriers and a bulldozer.
Rock Attacks
Israeli motorists were targeted by Arab stone-throwers near Hawara, south of Shechem, and Dir Daboun, near Ramallah Tuesday evening. Neither attack caused injuries, but the cars in both were damaged.
http://www.magic-city-news.com/Michael_Devolin/Gaza_Another_of_Islam_s_Reality_Shows8192.shtml
| Gaza: Another of Islam’s Reality Shows By Michael Devolin Jun 20, 2007 – 8:26:25 AM |
Islam has no moderates. Islam represents only Muslims, which includes those who are transiting away from that congenital humanity they inherited through nascency-a humanity that, properly motivated, defies the insensate culture bequeathed them from the Koran-and those who have already protruded beyond that humanity, having made the journey to veridical Islam, which now includes the blood-for-blood reality show presently being played out in Gaza by Muslim terrorists belonging to Hamas and Fatah.
I remember that but a few days ago, the media were comparing Hamas and Fatah, describing Fatah as “secular” and “the more moderate” of the two. Fatah, in my opinion, is nothing more than a terrorist group driven by the lure of billions in “foreign aid” currencies, directed by a senior citizen terrorist who now adapts, as an imposed prerequisite to receiving these same billions, the cavil of statecraft. And now Abbas’ Fatah gunmen, in a public display of what has evolved as Islam’s peculiar avant-garde statecraft, are killing Hamas supporters in the streets. Where is the moderation in that? And how is this behaviour any different from that of Hamas’ gunmen who, not to be outdone, are killing Fatah gunmen in the streets? Islam has given a whole new meaning to the term “vicious circle.”
And please, can anyone enlighten me as to what is “secularism” in Gaza, because every time I watch TV news casts about either of these two Islamic killing fraternities, whether Hamas or Fatah, I see men with an AK47 in one hand and a Koran in the other? It seems to me that in the context of Gaza and the so-called Palestinians, both secularism and Islam are neither indicative nor portentous of any sort of denouement to the obsession these people seem to have with killing each other whenever they are not busy killing Israeli Jews. These people are ready to govern a “Palestinian state” contiguous to Israel? I don’t think so. Such a state, whether governed by Fatah or Hamas, would be, to borrow a phrase from Geoffrey Wheatcroft, “an absurdity, a noble failure, or something in between.”
And what relevance does secularism have within the bounds of the so-called Palestinian struggle anyway? After all, this is the same populace that voted in the Muslim zealots of Hamas and rejected “the more moderate” Fatah. What pertinence, therefore, has Fatah’s miasmic secularism in a religious setting as autocratic as Islam’s? None.
After all is said and done, whether within or without Gaza, the hemorrhaging of whatever frail unity previously existed between Fatah and Hamas is nothing more than the sectarian violence that follows Islam around the globe. Yesterday it was Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Somalia. Today it’s Gaza: another of Islam’s reality shows.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=28822
| Death to Rushdie, Again |
By Robert Spencer
FrontPageMagazine.com | June 20, 2007 The more things change, the more they stay the same: as the clamor for Salman Rushdie’s death grows in the Islamic world, it is hard to avoid a sense of déjà vu. For many, the Rushdie Affair of 1989, when Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini first issued the now-notorious fatwa calling for Rushdie to be murdered, was their introduction to the Islamic fanaticism that now dominates the daily headlines. But now that Rushdie appears in public with some frequency and doesn’t seem concerned about the death fatwa (even though it was reaffirmed by the Ayatollah Khamenei in 2005), the reaction in the Islamic world to his being named a Knight Bachelor by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II for “services to literature” may seem incongruous to Westerners. Could Muslims possibly still be angry with Salman Rushdie, after all these years? The answer that is coming from Islamic countries this week is an emphatic yes.
In Azerbaijan, the coordinator of the Centre for the Protection of Freedom of Conscience and Religion (DEVAMM) in Azerbaijan, Ilqar Ibrahimoglu, said of Rushdie’s being knighted that “such measures can be the cause of the strengthening aggression of the West against Islam. They provoke Muslims. Muslims should be very careful, watchful and cold-blooded.” The reaction from Iran, meanwhile, was predictable. The newspaper Jomhuri Eslami sneered: “The question is what the old British crone sought by knighting Rushdie, to help him? Well, her act only shortens Rushdie’s pathetic life.” Mohammad Reza Bahonar, the first deputy speaker of the Iranian parliament, told the assembled delegates: “Salman Rushdie has turned into a hated corpse which cannot be resurrected by any action. The action by the British queen in knighting Salman Rushdie, the apostate, is an unwise one.” Not only unwise, but insignificant: “The British monarch lives under this illusion that Britain is still a 19th century superpower and that bestowing titles is something still deemed important.”
Yet it seemed important indeed to the Iranians. Mohammad Ali Hosseini, a spokesman for the foreign ministry, found in the knighthood evidence of a moral defect among the British: “Knighting one of the most hated figures in the Islamic world is a clear sign of Islamophobia among high-ranking British officials. Honouring a hated apostate will definitely put the British statesmen against the Islamic community and hurts their feeling once again.” And he saw the honoring of Rushdie as part of a larger conspiracy against Islam: “Insulting Islamic religious sanctities is not accidental but organised and is taking place with the support and direction of some Western countries.”
An Iranian jihadist group, the Organisation to Commemorate Martyrs of the Muslim World, offered $150,000 to anyone who finally killed Rushdie. Group leader Forouz Rajaefar said: “The British and the supporters of the anti-Islam Salman Rushdie could rest assured that the writer’s nightmare will not end until the moment of his death and we will bestow kisses on the hands of whomsoever is able to execute this apostate.”
The reaction from Pakistan was even more ominous. Protestors in Multan, Karachi and Lahore burned Rushdie and Queen Elizabeth in effigy, chanting “Death to Britain, death to Rushdie” and burning British flags also. Islamic leaders promised larger protests after Friday prayers this week. Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, the Pakistani religious affairs minister, declared before the Pakistani parliament: “This is an occasion for the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims to look at the seriousness of this decision. The West is accusing Muslims of extremism and terrorism. If someone exploded a bomb on his body he would be right to do so unless the British Government apologises and withdraws the ‘Sir’ title.” After receiving criticism for apparently justifying a suicide attack, Ijaz ul-Haq later modified this statement, saying: “If someone blows himself up, he will consider himself justified. How can we fight terrorism when those who commit blasphemy are rewarded by the West? We demand an apology by the British government. Their action has hurt the sentiments of 1.5 billion Muslims.”
Muslim leaders in Britain were just as unhappy. Abdul Bari, the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said that “many will interpret the knighthood as a final contemptuous parting gift from Tony Blair to the Muslim world….The insensitive decision to grant Rushdie a knighthood can therefore only do harm to the image of our country in the eyes of hundreds of millions of Muslims across the world.” Lord Ahmed, Britain’s only Muslim peer, also criticized the outgoing British prime minister: “It’s hypocrisy by Tony Blair who two weeks ago was talking about building bridges to mainstream Muslims, and then he’s honouring a man who has insulted the British public and been divisive in community relations.”
Thus Salman Rushdie once again indicates just how large is the gulf between the Islamic world and the post-Christian West in matters of freedom of speech and expression. Freedom of speech encompasses precisely the freedom to annoy, to ridicule, and to offend. If it doesn’t, it is hollow: inoffensive speech doesn’t need the protection of a constitutional amendment. The instant that any person or ideology is considered off-limits for critical examination and even ridicule, freedom of speech has been replaced by an ideological straitjacket. For years now, Islamic states and organizations around the world have painted Salman Rushdie as a symbol of evil as they have attempted to place Islam off limits not just for ridicule, but for any investigation into the elements of the religion that encourage violence against unbelievers, discrimination against women and religious minorities.
The entire Rushdie Affair, both in 1989 and in its new phase, is a sobering and instructive reminder of the gulf between the perspectives of the West and the Islamic world, and of the latter’s determination to silence anyone they considered to have offended Islam. British and other Western leaders thus have a new opportunity in the controversy over Rushdie’s knighthood to explain that freedom of speech is part of a view of the dignity of the human person that is ultimately rooted in Judeo-Christian conceptions that are superior to the Islamic view of human beings as slaves as Allah. They could mount an ideological challenge to jihadism by pointing out that if submission to God and abhorrence of blasphemy are really worth anything, they are much more valuable if chosen freely, rather than being coerced. But they can only be chosen freely if the freedom not to choose them is also present.
In today’s multiculturalist fog, no Western leader dares speak this way. Those who value freedom should simply be grateful that Rushdie was knighted at all, and hope that in the firestorm that is now certain to come, the honor will not be rescinded.
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1104736
| ‘Sir’ title sought for Osama bin Laden |
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DPA |
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ISLAMABAD: A hardline Pakistani parliamentarian and head of a religious political party on Wednesday demanded title ‘Sir’ for Osama bin Laden, the leader of the Al Qaeda terrorist network, in retaliation to Britain awarding knighthood to author Salman Rushdie. “Muslims should confer the ‘sir’ title and all other awards on bin Laden and Mullah Omar in reply to Britain’s shameful decision to knight Rushdie,” Sami ul Haq, leader of the pro-Taliban Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, said in a statement, referring also to the leader of the Taliban. Such a move would not only go against the political grain of Britain, who joined in the international effort to drive the Taliban from power and Al Qaeda from their Afghan safe haven in 2001, but it would also break knighthood rules, under which foreigners may not be addressed as sir. Rushdie, 60, was given the recognition at birthday honours for Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II on Saturday, about two decades after his book “The Satanic Verses” sparked protests in Muslim countries, including Pakistan, in 1989. The novel also became the subject in the same year of a fatwa, a religious edict, by late Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomenei, who demanded Rushdie’s death. “Europe and Western nations are intentionally pushing Muslims towards extremism by awarding a nefarious person,” Haq said. The hardline leader, who is also a parliament member, called upon the Pakistani government to withdraw its support to the US-led war on terrorism. The honour for Rushdie triggered diplomatic tensions between Islamabad and London Tuesday as the Pakistani foreign office summoned Britain’s high commissioner to Islamabad, Robert Brinkley, to protest the award. Britain in return expressed deep concern over comments by a Pakistani minister that the honour could provoke radical Muslims to carry out suicide attacks. Brinkley had conveyed the “clear message” that, in Britain’s view,” nothing can justify suicide bomb attacks,” the Foreign Office in London said. Earlier, thousands of Pakistanis held protest rallies in various cities and burned British flags and effigies of Queen Elizabeth II. The supporters of a radical Islamic group in the eastern city of Lahore were planning Wednesday to stage a public hanging of an effigy of Rushdie, an Indian-born author who is under constant British police surveillance and has moved house more than 30 times in two decades of hiding. According to press reports, British police are reviewing his security after threats from Islamic extremists since his knighthood. |
Iran and Pakistan push for withdrawal of Rushdie knighthood
ANGER over a knighthood for author Salman Rushdie has escalated into a full-blown diplomatic row as Iran and Pakistan summoned Britain’s ambassadors to protest, drawing a retort from London.
Iran summoned the British envoy to Tehran, Geoffrey Adams, who was told by the Foreign Ministry’s director for Europe that the honour was a “provocative act”.
In Kuala Lumpur, supporters of Malaysia’s hardline Islamic party protested outside the British high commission yesterday against the award. Chanting “Destroy Salman Rushdie” and “Destroy Britain”, 30 members of the opposition Parti Islam se-Malaysia urged London to retract the honour or risk consequences.
In Pakistan, where both houses of parliament called on Britain to withdraw the knighthood, British high commissioner Robert Brinkley was summoned to the Foreign Ministry.
Islamic hardliners in the city of Lahore burned an effigy of the Queen, while one Iranian newspaper called her an “old crone”.
Britain in response said Mr Brinkley had passed on London’s “deep concern” at comments by Pakistan’s religious affairs minister, Ijaz-ul-Haq, that honouring Rushdie justified suicide attacks.
“The British Government is very clear that nothing can justify suicide bomb attacks,” a Foreign Office spokesman said.
Rushdie is accused by some Muslims of blaspheming Islam in his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses, publication of which triggered an international furore.
He has been living since then under the shadow of a death sentence imposed by Iran’s late supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which has never been formally revoked.
Rushdie, who turned 60 this week, was put under police protection following the Satanic Verses flare-up.
His whereabouts are not known, but he is believed to divide his time between London and New York.
http://securitydilemmas.blogspot.com/2007/06/notes-from-israeli-prison.html
One of the most interesting parts of my recent fellowship in Israel was the visit to an Israeli maximum security prison (for security reasons, I can‘t say which one). I had never been inside a prison before, and wasn’t sure what to expect, with my only experience with one coming from television. Well, the prison was nothing like what I was expecting. The warden, an Israeli Arab, does not believe in rehabilitation and makes no effort to convert the prisoners, the vast majority of whom are convicted terrorists (“regular” criminals are housed in separate facilities from the “security” prisoners), to non-violence or pacifism. Instead, the prisoners are free to associate with whomever, read and watch on TV whatever they want. Materials that incite violence are forbidden, but that’s about the only limitation.
The prisoners live in cells of 8, which open into a yard where they can exercise and socialize with others. Each cell block holds, if I remember correctly (we weren’t allowed to make any notes) 120 prisoners, and 60 are allowed into the yard at one time (except on Friday, when everyone is allowed to attend a communal prayer session). The prisoners are allowed regular visits from their families, have little electric stoves and teak kettles in their cells, are allowed fresh fruits and vegetables, and have televisions with access to Arab TV channels, including al Jazeera and Saudi, Jordanian, and Egyptian channels. When the prisoners step out of line, they lose their privileges forever…to date, however, the warden stated that there hadn’t been more than a handful of serious problems.
From what I know of prisons in America (and again, what I know pretty much comes from TV and reading), if I’m going to be sent to a maximum security prison, I’ll take one in Israel, thank you very much.
And this points out what struck me the most from my visit: the differences in the way that Israel and the US treat those arrested in the struggle against global terrorism. Where the US detains its suspects in military prisons, often in solitary confinement, Israel puts those convicted of killing in Israelis in open prisons, where they have contact with the outside world and their families.
Israel is on the front-line in the war on terror in a way that the US is not. Yes, the US suffered the worst terror attack of all-time on 9/11, and there have been reports of a few attacks that have been broken up, like the recent plot against JFK airport or the plot to blow up numerous flights between the UK and the US. But Israel has been under near-constant attack since the signing of the Declaration of Principles in Oslo in 1993. Here’s a list of just the suicide attacks in that time period. And yet, Israel has responded much more soberly and carefully than has the US.
I have long gone back and forth on where I stand vis-a-vis the US response to 9/11. On one hand, I realize the threat that terrorism poses to a democratic polity. A state that cannot protect its people cannot function, and terrorism preys on that fact, seeking both to undermine the nature of its opponent as well as exploit its openness. The public must believe that the government is on top of the situation and doing what it can to preserve the peace; this is what explains so many of the visible, yet likely ineffective, security measures, like the restriction on liquids on planes (something that security-crazed El Al doesn’t bother with, mind you).
On the other hand, the civil libertarian in me believes that the threat has been overstated. I see the danger in undermining our freedoms with wiretappings or the suspension of habeas corpus for suspected terrorists.
If my trip to Israel did anything, it reinforced the latter of these beliefs. Terrorism is a threat to democratic states. But that threat can be managed. And it can be managed in a way that doesn’t undermine the very nature of our democracy. There is a price to paid for living in a democracy. Yes, our freedoms make it easier for terrorists to attack us so we must be vigilant. But the US has much to learn from Israel on how to balance the fight against terror with the need to preserve a normal, democratic life. In my next post, tomorrow or Friday, I’ll go into more detail on the Israeli response to terror. Israel isn’t perfect, but much of its response make a lot more sense than that of the US.
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