Islamic University Of Gaza Official Calls For Islamic Conquest Of Spain And The Vatican

A mosque within the campus of the Islamic University of Gaza (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Dean of Koranic studies at the Islamic University of Gaza has given a TV interview in which he talks about hopes for the conquest of Andalusia (Spain) and for the capture of Rome. According to a MEMRI translation:

Following are excerpts from an interview with Dr. Subhi Al-Yaziji, dean of Koranic studies at the Islamic University of Gaza, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on May 25, 2012:

Subhi Al-Yaziji: The conquest of Andalusia is an old dream, something Muslims proudly hope for and will continue to hope for in the future.

[...]

We place our hopes in Allah and trust that the day will come when our triumph will not be restricted to Palestine. Our hopes go beyond that – to raise the banner of the Caliphate over the Vatican, the ‘Rome’ of today, in accordance with the hadith of the Prophet Muhammad: ‘Constantinople shall be conquered and then Rome.’

[...] “

The Boston Globe has profiled the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG), closely tied Hamas. According to the report:

Grand Mufti Of Bosnia Once Again Singles Out Kuwait For Praise

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Kuwaiti media is reporting that Mustafa Ceric, the Grand Mufti of Bosnia, has once again praised Kuwait for he calls the Kuwaiti role in supporting Bosnia and its people. According to a Kuwaiti news agency report:

SARAJEVO, Jan 27 (KUNA) — Head of the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina Dr. Mustafa Ceric praised the Kuwaiti role in supporting his country and people. Moralistic and financial aid provided by the Government of Kuwait have left good impact among Bosnian people, Ceric said in a meeting with the Kuwaiti Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mohammad Khalaf. He added that his discussions with the ambassador dealt with the Kuwaiti assistance, namely contributions to financing construction of the new Islamic headquarters in Sarajevo, which would manage affairs related to scholars and religious teaching. Ceric admired the deep relations between Kuwait and Bosnia and Herzegovina on different levels. For his part, the diplomat expressed gratitude for Ceric, due to his appreciation for the Kuwaiti efforts, noting that the Kuwait’s position on Bosnia and Herzegovina is based on its foreign policy in aiding nations, especially Muslim countries.

Belgium: Muslim executive ‘under control of foreign countries’

Belgium: Muslim executive ‘under control of foreign countries’Via HLN (Dutch):

“Belgian Muslim bodies are definitively under the control of foreign countries. The Muslim Executive will now be led only by people who will prioritze the interests of their land of origin over those of Belgian Muslims,” says the AMDB (Democaratic Alternative of Belgian Muslims), who say they unite ‘all components of the Muslim community’ in Belgium.

German Taliban Part Of Al-Qaida´s Euro-Plot | Jih@d

by Florian Flade

Yusuf O. from Berlin in terror propaganda tape (September 2009)

Two European Islamists have been charged in Berlin with being members of Al-Qaida. Yusuf O. of Berlin and Maqsood L. from Vienna have been trained in the terror camps of Waziristan and are allegedly part of an Al-Qaida plot to carry out attacks in Europe.

Berlin Islamist Yusuf O. traveled to Pakistan in May 2009 alongside his friend Fatih T. and joined the “Taifatul Mansourah” Group in Waziristan tribal area. Later the German Jihadi militants together with several other German Islamists who arrived in Pakistan in September 2009 founded a new group named “German Taliban Mujahidin” (DTM).

In a propaganda tape released just prior to the September 2009 German Parliamentary Elections the DTM threatened attacks in Germany. Spokesman in that video was 26 year-old Yusuf O. aka “Abu Ayyub al-Almani”.

According to the complaint filed by German prosecutors in November Yusuf O. left the DTM somewhere around May 2010 and joined Al-Qaida. During the training program he received, Yusuf O. met Maqsood L., a 22 year-old Austrian national of Afghan descent. The two befriended and were than choosen by Al-Qaida´s Chief of External Operational, Sheikh Younis al-Mauretani who was arrested in Pakistan back in September.

The Al-Qaida commander tasked Yusuf O. and Maqsood L. to return to Europe and recruit Islamists for terrorist attacks in European cities. Documents discovered by German counter-terrorism officials lead to the conclusion Al-Qaida wanted the German Islamists to carry out kidnappings and killings. Al-Mauretani´s plot involved assault attacks in which hostages would be killed in long standoff with police – the “Mumbai Style” of terrorist attacks.

In May 2011 Maqsood L. and Yusuf O. traveled to Budapest (Hungary) via Iran and Turkey. Yusuf O. made his journey to Austrian capital Vienna and arrived in the city carrying a audio tape recorded by Maqsood L.. He played the tape to Maqsood´s old friends, urging them to support the Jihad and join the terror network.

After Yusuf O. returned to Budapest he sent Maqsood L. to Berlin. Apparently Yusuf O. thought sending a foreigner instead of traveling himself would not alert the authorities. Yusuf O. was wrong. Maqsood´s task was recruit about a dozen of Yusuf´s friends from several radical mosques in the German capital. The Austrian Jihadi was able to rally supporters amongst Berlin´s Islamist community and collect about 1.000 EUROs in donations, before he was arrested on May 16.

With Launches In Balkans and Beyond, Al-Jazeera Building New Spheres Of Influence

Al-Jazeera is promoting itself as the Balkans only regional broadcaster

Mirna Sadikovic November 26, 2011

Until recently, the Al-Jazeera satellite television network had been best known to global audiences as a worldwide provider of news programming in Arabic and English.

But this month, the Qatar-based company went regional, launching a station broadcasting in local languages in the Balkans, with headquarters based in Bosnia-Herzegovina‘s capital Sarajevo. And its growth is set to continue, with similar channels planned for Turkey and East Africa.

Al-Jazeera Balkans (AJB), which debuted November 11, offers six hours of daily programming to all of the countries of the former Yugoslavia, promoting itself as the Balkans’ only “regional” broadcaster. (RFE/RL’s Balkans Service offers national and regional radio programming in Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia, in addition to national coverage in Kosovo and Macedonia.)

In style and content, AJB offers the same sleek production values and in-depth investigative programs as its parent company, and taps frequently into the vast network of far-flung field reporters that have become Al-Jazeera’s calling card.

‘The People Will Come As Well’

The Balkans, a virtual minefield of linguistic nuance and historical tensions, might have seemed a surprising choice for a glossy, far-sighted network like Al-Jazeera, which is owned by the oil-rich state of Qatar and has an operating budget in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

But Goran Milic, a respected Balkan broadcaster who serves as AJB’s chief editor, argues the region’s gradual integration into Europe makes it a sound business investment for its minders in Doha.

UN Envoy Warns Of Escalating Kosovo Tensions

DownloadNovember 30, 2011

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The head of the United Nations mission in Kosovo has warned that tensions in the ethnic Serb-dominated northern part of the territory are so high now that serious violence could erupt at any time.

UN Kosovo mission chief Farid Zarif spoke to the UN Security Council on November 29 — one day after clashes between ethnic Serbs and NATO-led peacekeepers left 30 NATO soldiers and some 100 Serbs injured.

The violence occurred as NATO sought to remove roadblocks set up by the Serbs.

The UN envoy described the northern part of Kosovo, where Serbs reject rule by Kosovo’s majority ethnic Albanians, as “extremely volatile.”

He said the “combined factors of frustration, fear, and mistrust could easily and quickly provide the spark that could ignite violence.”

The envoy said the heightened tensions were partly caused by the politics of elections in Serbia due next spring, as well as what he called the “current political dynamics” of the ethnic Albanian-dominated Kosovo government.

Wahhabist Militancy in Bosnia Profits from Local and International Inaction

Publication: Terrorism Monitor Volume: 9 Issue: 42

November 17, 2011 03:28 PM Age: 4 days

Category: Terrorism Monitor, Global Terrorism Analysis, Home Page, Featured, Europe

By: Nenad Pejic

Ali Pasha’s Mosque, constructed in Sarajevo during 1560-61

Though the United States once took the lead in international efforts to save the Muslims of Bosnia during the bitter conflict that struck that nation in the 1990s, it is now under attack by the Salafist/Wahhabist community that began to flourish there after foreign jihadists were allowed to settle in Bosnia after the conflict. The current Wahhabist perception of America has even found its way into song:

America and other adversaries should know
that now the Muslims
are one like the Taliban
listen, brothers,
believers of the world
with dynamite on their chest
lead the path to dzennet (heaven)

The above lyrics were written by Bilal Bosnic, a Wahhabi community leader from the city of Bihac in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) (radiosarajevo.ba, November 4). [1] Bosnic sings it at weddings and other kinds of social gatherings. How, then, did America become the enemy of radical Islam in the Balkans after undertaking two military interventions aimed at protecting Muslim civilians (Bosnia in 1994 and Kosovo in 1999)?

Many claim that Islamic extremism established itself among Bosnian Muslims thanks to the “inaction” of the West when the 1991 UN arms embargo left Muslims defenseless and when the West failed to secure UN protection zones in Srebrenica, Zepa and Gorazde during the war. The failure to protect these zones led to what some termed the first post-WWII genocide in Europe. This “inaction” gives a partial explanation but not a complete one. There is another “inaction” of local origin that contributed much more to the growing influence of Islamic extremists in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

There are countless examples of local authorities in Bosnia failing to act properly against Islamic extremism. The majority of these criminal cases have not been resolved and when the terrorists are identified the trials take years. There are some claims that “inaction” in Bosnia had its roots nearly 20 years ago when Bosnian authorities granted 50 passports to foreign mujahideen, most of whom were Salafist/Wahhabis (Oslobodjenje [Sarajevo], November 3). This “inaction” is not related to the police or court capacity or poor equipment, but rather to the ethnically divided BiH police and judiciary that has political sponsorship.

Separating religion and state in Bosnia | TransConflict

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With the role of religion having remained largely ignored in post-Dayton Bosnia-Herzegovina, there is a need to promote a process of secularization by upholding the separation of religion and state.

By Dusan Babic

Bosnia and Herzegovina (henceforth, ‘Bosnia’) is now more than ever burdened by the legacy of war and the contradictions of the Dayton Peace Agreement (DPA). Post-Dayton Bosnia is a unique country in many respects, particularly its complex, irrational and inefficient administrative structure. This can, in part, be attributed to the ethnic concept of governance which is – by all relevant parameters – a failed concept; yet one which is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. Whilst many obstructive elements – including the paternalism and hegemonism of neighbouring Croatia and Serbia – have been identified, the role of religion has remained entirely ignored.

European rights official attacks burka bans

Agence France-Presse July 20, 2011

Banning the burka and niqab in public places threatens to exclude women, not liberate them, a top European human rights official said Wednesday.

Photograph by: Gonzalo Fuentes, Reuters

STRASBOURG – Banning the burka and niqab in public places threatens to exclude women, not liberate them, a top European human rights official said Wednesday.

And letting a relatively minor problem become such a major issue was a “sad capitulation” to xenophobia, Council of Europe human rights commissioner Thomas Hammarberg added.

UK – Residents urged to report online terrorism to prevent radicalisation

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Surrey Police are urging residents to report online terrorist material in a bid to prevent radicalisation of vulnerable people.

The warning comes after Muslim converts Andrew ‘Isa’ Ibrahim and Nicky Reilly were convicted of terrorist offences in 2008 after being radicalised via the internet.