By Sue Reid

Victory was being celebrated yesterday in the leafy avenues and Victorian villas of Camberley.

In a triumph for local democracy, a plan to build a huge £3 million mosque with two 100ft minarets, which would have been visible from Sandhurst Royal Military Academy, was thrown out on Wednesday night by the town’s councillors.

A thousand people from the affluent Surrey town queued to get into the meeting, some waiting for hours from 9am to get in.

They waved placards declaring: ‘Camberley Says No’, ‘Hands Off Our Heritage’ and ‘We Want Justice.’ When the result was announced, just before 11pm, there were jubilant roars inside the public meeting – and from the crowds outside.

Protesters claimed the plan for the mosque in the heart of Camberley was an inflammatory act of provocation by the Muslim community, intended to show their cultural superiority.

In return, the mosque’s supporters accused them of being racist and hostile to the Islamic way of life.

Here was an extraordinary clash between Christians and Muslims in the heart of the Surrey commuter belt.

The mosque plan had been devised by a radical Islamic group which supports polygamy, the amputation of thieves’ hands, the veiling of women, and the killing of non-Muslims if they refuse to convert to Islam.

During a planning battle lasting months, 6,000 people signed a petition objecting to the new mosque, which was to be built on the site of a listed former church primary school where many locals had been educated.

Local Church leaders weighed in, saying the building would create antagonism for many years in a part of the country where only 2 per cent of the population are Muslim.

One vicar declared that the mosque proposal was a ’supremacist’ act; another warned it was a ‘political statement’ rather than a religious one by the Islamic community.

Of course, this was denied by local Muslims, but the battle soon spread.

Former Labour councillor Melanie Longden, who led the protesters, added: ‘Islam is a fundamentalist religion that removes the rights of women that have been fought for since the time of Emily Pankhurst.’

She was supported by a leading Islamic cleric, Oxford imam Dr Taj Hargey, who at Wednesday’s council meeting declared his opposition by saying: ‘This new mosque will not be in the interests of all Muslims, as it will allocate less than a fifth of the space to female worshippers. There is nothing in Islamic theology that legitimises a misogynist apartheid in the house of God.’

And in a pointed reference to Sandhurst, he added: ‘Places of worship vary greatly throughout the world of Islam, from Timbuktu to East Timor. There is no Islamic injunction that minarets are intrinsic to mosques. In fact, the first minarets were only constructed decades after the death of the

‘Their main purpose was to make possible the broadcast of the prayer call from an elevated spire. Today, modern sound technology has rendered this function superfluous. That’s why building twin minaret towers, so close to a renowned military college, is a provocation.’

The Camberley mosque was the idea of the town’s Bengali Welfare Association, which has run a mosque, the al-Kharafi Islamic Centre, in the disused Victorian school building since 1996.

Every Friday, 350 worshippers go there to pray. The centre is also used for lessons on the Koran for children, as well as talks on the Islamic faith.

The association’s leaders said the new mosque was a necessity, as the old school’s roof leaked and the building was so draughty that some parents refused to let their children attend.

But locals didn’t see it that way. They questioned why the mosque had to be so big, with minarets higher than the spire of the town’s parish church and taller than neighbouring Army buildings. They said the mosque and its huge dome would alter the skyline of Camberley and pose a security threat to the military academy, just 360ft away.

Others argued that it was a provocative move to proclaim Islam’s supremacy over Britain’s military.

The Army was initially – on security grounds – against its construction – although the Ministry of Defence agreed to withdraw its objections last month after mosque leaders said the minarets would be accessed only twice a year for maintenance.

However, Major-General Tim Cross, who lives in the area, said that the minarets and the mosque’s dome still posed a ’significant security threat’, particularly given that visitors to Sandhurst include the Royal Family.

The Queen regularly takes the passing out parade of young officers trained at the Academy, and Princes Harry and William both trained there.

Major-General Cross, who was second in command in the operation to rebuild Iraq after the toppling of Saddam Hussein, said: ‘Visitors self-evidently provide significant potential targets around the college building and elsewhere.’

Another local resident, Gill Mathews, an animal welfare officer, said she had been accused by Muslims of being a racist. ‘I don’t hate Muslims,’ she said. ‘I have no objection to a new mosque in Camberley, but not on this site or on such a huge scale.’

The locals’ anger grew in January when the council’s planning committee approved the mosque, despite a highly critical report from their own environment officers.

The report said the building was ‘dominant and incongruous’, involved the demolition of a locally significant listed Victorian school, and was out of keeping with the parkland setting of the conservation area.

In the council chamber, members of the Bengali Welfare Association threw their papers in the air and clasped hands with eight councillors who supported the planning application. Within days, the controversial decision was rescinded by Surrey Heath Borough Council on the grounds that the issue should have been considered only by the full council.

Meanwhile, close links between the Bengali Welfare Association and more extreme Islamic views have been uncovered by protesters.

A report in 2007 by the Policy Exchange, a Right-leaning think-tank on social affairs, found disturbing literature at the existing mosque in the old school. Books found there advocated Sharia law, polygamy and the repression of women.

Another book, entitled The Special Problems Of Females, published by the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Islamic Affairs, added of women: ‘It is incumbent on her that she keeps herself as much covered as possible; and, as ordained, she is to remain fearful of shamelessness so that she keeps her eyes down. . . she is not supposed to exploit her eyes.’

The Bengali Welfare Association website also makes it clear that it has links to other radical mosques and organisations which embrace Tablighi Jama’at, a conservative and dogmatic Islamic philosophy. Lecturers advocating this brand of Islam have visited the Camberley mosque and given talks to the worshippers.

Tablighi mosques across Europe are accused of being a springboard for terrorist activities and of advocating hostility towards other non-Islamic faiths. The biggest Tablighi mosque in Europe is in Dewsbury, Yorkshire, where the 7/7 bombers are known to have worshipped.

A plan by the Islamic group to build a mega-mosque near the Olympic Stadium in East London was only recently abandoned after thousands of local people protested about such a huge religious edifice in their area.

Meanwhile, the mosque in Camberley has been put on hold – for the time being. The Bengali Association says it may well appeal the decision.

As the celebrations continued last night, one local man said: ‘The idea of such a huge mosque has been totally counter-productive, in that it has frightened the very locals who were previously utterly relaxed about the mosque in the old school.’

Undated photo of the traitorous fucker

BUENA, N.J. (AP) — He was raised in New Jersey, where he was on the high school wrestling team and earned a black belt in karate. Nearly a decade later, Sharif Mobley is under arrest in Yemen, suspected of being an al-Qaida member and accused of killing a guard in an attempt to break out of a hospital.

While some acquaintances were startled by the news out of the Middle East on Thursday, a former classmate said that Mobley had strong religious views in high school, often trying to convert friends to Islam, and became increasingly radical, especially after they graduated in 2002.

Roman Castro, 25, who did a tour with the Army in Iraq, said the last time he saw Mobley, about four years ago, Mobley yelled, “Get the hell away from me, you Muslim killer!”

The FBI, the State Department and other authorities said they were trying to gather information about Mobley. But the allegations appeared to illustrate a phenomenon U.S. intelligence officials have warned about: American Muslims becoming radicalized and joining terrorist movements overseas.

Mobley, a 26-year-old natural-born U.S. citizen, was identified by Yemeni officials as a Somali-American. Mobley moved to Yemen about two years ago, supposedly to learn Arabic and study Islam, a former neighbor said.

Before that, Mobley worked for several contractors at three nuclear power plants in New Jersey from 2002 to 2008, PSEG Nuclear spokesman Joe Delmar said. Mobley carried supplies and did maintenance work at the plants on Artificial Island in Lower Alloways Creek, and worked at other plants in the region as well.

He satisfied federal background checks as recently as 2008, Delmar said, adding that the plant is cooperating with authorities.

Mike Drewniak, a spokesman for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, said that his office had been told that Mobley was always supervised, caused no problems and was not believed to have breached security at the plants.

Joe Szafran, a spokesman for Exelon Corp., which owns nuclear plants at three facilities in eastern Pennsylvania, referred all questions about whether Mobley worked there to the FBI. An FBI spokesman did not immediately return a call.

Also, Mohammed Albasha, spokesman for the Yemeni Embassy in Washington, said there was no immediate connection between Mobley’s activities or capture in Yemen and his work at the plants.

Mobley was arrested in Yemen in a roundup of suspected al-Qaida members this month and was being treated at a hospital in San’a when he got into a shootout with guards during an escape attempt, killing one and wounding another, said Mohammed Albasha, spokesman for the Yemeni Embassy in Washington.

U.S. officials worry that Yemen is becoming the next significant terrorist staging ground because of signs that lower-level al-Qaida operatives have been moving into the country from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.

The al-Qaida branch in Yemen was linked to the failed Christmas Day bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner. Also, Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood last year, had exchanged e-mails with an extremist cleric in Yemen.

In response to the threat, the Pentagon has proposed spending $150 million to help Yemen battle insurgents within its borders.

Somali-Americans have become a particular concern to American security officials. Young Somali-American men have been traveling from the U.S. to fight jihad in Somalia, raising fears they are receiving terror training and returning to the U.S. ready to launch attacks.

Americans are valuable to terrorist groups, in part because they can travel easily, without arousing much suspicion.

“The U.S. passport is the gold standard,” said Fred Burton, a former U.S. counterintelligence agent who is now a vice president at STRATFOR, a global intelligence company in Austin, Texas.

Mobley was among 11 al-Qaida suspects detained this month in a security sweep in San’a, the capital, officials said. He was taken to the hospital over the weekend after he complained of feeling ill. He snatched a gun from a security guard and shot him, then got into a shootout that ended with anti-police terrorism capturing him, authorities said.

In Yemen, killing a guard during an escape attempt could result in execution by a firing squad.

Mobley graduated from high school in 2002 in the rural southern New Jersey town of Buena, and afterward lived in Philadelphia and Newark, Del. Castro said that in the past few years, Mobley organized religious pilgrimages to the Middle East for other Muslims.

Mobley’s mother, Cynthia Mobley, told WMGM-TV in Atlantic City, N.J., that her son is “an excellent person who’s never been in trouble” and “a good Muslim.”

As his father, Charles Mobley, pulled out of the family’s driveway on the way to see a lawyer Thursday, he said: “I can tell you this: He’s no terrorist.”

Abdel-Hadi Shehata, imam of the Islamic Society of Delaware, said Mobley used to live one floor below him in an aging apartment complex in Newark and occasionally visited the society’s Newark mosque to pray. Shehata said Mobley, who had a wife and young daughter, moved to Yemen about two years ago.

“I think to learn Arabic or something like that … and to learn more about the religion Islam,” he said.

Shehata said Mobley never discussed politics or his religious views with him, but sometimes would ask his advice about how to pray and how to cleanse himself.

Marisa Porges, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said many Arabic language scholars travel to Yemen to study the language because the dialect there is so useful. She said there is a risk that even those who travel there to study can become radicalized.

“It’s often the case that their being there makes an individual more vulnerable to radicalization,” she said.

Umar Hassan-El, assistant imam at the Islamic Society of Delaware’s mosque in Wilmington, Del., said he roomed with Mobley during a 2004 pilgrimage to Mecca.

The worst Mobley did, Hassan-El said, was forget to pick up his clothes or interrupt discussions among older Muslims.

“He gave no indication that he would join a group that he’s alleged to be a part of right now,” said Hassan-El. “I never heard that boy ever talk about shooting anybody, killing anybody.”

As a teenager, Mobley studied martial arts at Yi’s Karate Institute in Sewell, N.J., earning his black belt after three years, according to the master of the dojo, Chom Sam Kim.

“He was very athletic, and had a good respect and attitude,” Kim said. Kim said he was surprised to hear the allegations against Mobley: “I never saw anything abnormal about him during the time he was here.”

Lyon, France – A 15-year-old French schoolboy sprayed a teacher with teargas after she described al-Qaeda as a “terrorist group”, she told reporters on Tuesday as prosecutors began their investigation.

“I had just explained that the attacks on September 11, 2001 were carried out by the terrorist organisation al-Qaeda, as is written in the text book,” said the history teacher, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“He stood up and declared that al-Qaeda is not terrorist and that neither is the Taliban,” she said, adding that the boy had then pulled out a spray can and doused her and a teaching assistant with teargas.

Neither victim was seriously hurt.

Al-Qaeda, a global organisation under the nominal leadership of Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden, boasted of carrying out the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

The attacks – in which hijacked airliners were crashed into the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania – killed just under 3 000 people, the vast majority of them American civilians.

Both staff members, who work in the small school in the central French village of Largentiere, made a criminal complaint against the boy, state prosecutors confirmed.

A youth court will be convened in the nearby town of Privas on March 16 to hear the case. – AFP

Source

By Douglas J. Hagmann

10 March 2010: A four-count count indictment issued against Colleen Renee LaRose, 46, formerly of 429 Main Street, Pennsburg, Pennsylvania was unsealed yesterday by federal authorities in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The indictment charges LaRose with one count each of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, conspiracy to kill in a foreign country, making false statements to a government official and attempted identity theft.  The indictment also references five other co-conspirators, including one who resides in the U.S., although none of the five were identified by name.

LaRose came to the attention of federal authorities in 2008, when she allegedly began using the internet to solicit financial and material support to wage Jihad, or holy Islamic war against the West. Using the internet pseudonyms “JihadJane” and “Fatima Rose,” LaRose posted on Islamic internet forums, YouTube and FaceBook in an attempt to befriend and rally like-minded Muslims to her cause. She expressed her desire to advance Islamic holy war and become a shahed, or martyr for Islam. Others living within and outside of the U.S. answered her calls, and she began to put her alleged murderous plans into action.

Her online activities abruptly stopped she was arrested by federal authorities in on October 15, 2009, on charges of transferring a stolen U.S. passport to a co-conspirator. Following her arrest, she was incarcerated at the Federal Detention Center (FDC) in Philadelphia where she currently remains.

The indictment released Tuesday offers only a limited glimpse into the activities and ambitions of Colleen LaRose. Her path to “Islamic jihad” is neither exclusive nor exceptional, despite her U.S. citizenship and decidedly Western appearance. In fact, the case of Colleen LaRose can be an example of an emerging breed of Islamic terrorists and a template illustrating the developing threat posed by an ideology motivated by hatred.

The road to jihad

Diminutive at 4’11” tall, with dark blond hair and green eyes, Colleen Renee LaRose most recently lived in a second-floor apartment at this four-unit brick apartment house in the town of Pennsburg, , a rural community located north of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She resided there with her cats and for a time with a boyfriend and his ill father after living in San Angelo, Texas for several years.

In Texas, she lived at 305 N. Schroeder Avenue, San Angelo, with her husband Rudolpho CAVAZOS until her divorce in 1998, although maintained that surname as well as other aliases and variations of her name. In 1997, she was convicted of a class B misdemeanor for passing a bad check. According to court records, an open warrant still exists for her in the state of Texas stemming from that case. She was also convicted of driving under the influence.

LaRose reportedly converted to Islam as a result of her relationship with a male companion. Over the last few years, she began to become active in Islamic forums and web sites, embracing the ideology while living a rather unremarkable life and blending with the landscape of suburban sprawl in America.

Information obtained exclusively by this investigator from a federal source involved in this investigation provided insight into LaRose’s path from an American suburbanite to alleged terrorist, as well as the ensuing investigation leading to her indictment.

In June 2008, LaRose posted an entry on the internet site YouTube under the pseudonym “JihadJane,” writing that she wanted to help the “suffering Muslim people.” Following the posting of the video and her statement, federal agents began and maintained surveillance of the video and postings, including LaRose’s writiings.

It was not until December 2008 that the posting by LaRose received a response by a co-conspirator in “a south Asian county” who expressed a desire to also wage jihad and become a martyr. It is relevant to note that the lapse between June and December 2008 was caused, in part, by self-proclaimed “cyber vigilantes” intent on “taking down” such postings to “fight against jihad.” Those activities also caused interruptions of proactive monitoring of the seditious activity by federal intelligence officials – an issue coincidently addressed in this article by this author.

From December 2008 through March 2009, LaRose communicated via the internet with other Muslim terrorists and supporters, arranging for financing, training and travel to advance Islamic jihad. One of the communications between LaRose and an unidentified co-conspirator referenced the plan for LaRose to marry the co-conspirator to secure his residency in a European country. Meanwhile, LaRose sought information from the Swedish Embassy, inquiring how to obtain permanent residency status in Sweden.

Also in March, LaRose reportedly received instructions to travel to Sweden for the alleged purpose of murdering an individual there. In a series of communications on March 22, 2009 between LaRose and a co-conspirator and Islamic terrorist identified as CC#3 in the indictment, CC#3 directed LaRose to murder an individual in Sweden, killing him “in a way that the whole Kufar [non-believer] world would get frightened.”

Based on a confirmation received by this author from a federal source, her mission was to murder Lars Vilks, an artist who drew a picture of the head of Muhammed on the body of a dog. That depiction of Muhammed angered Muslims throughout Europe, much like the Danish cartoon controversy. LaRose agreed to do so, writing “I will make this my goal till I achieve it or die trying,” according to the indictment.

On August 23, 2009, LaRose allegedly stole the passport from the male with whom she resided, removed the hard drive from her computer in an attempt to conceal her plans, and embarked on her journey to Europe. Later that month, she she traveled to Europe “with the intent to live and train with jihadists” and to “find and kill” Vilks. Within two weeks, she joined an online community hosted by Vilks and eventually moved into Vilks’ artist enclave in Sweden.

For the next few weeks, LaRose waited for final authorization from her terrorist contacts. On September 25, 2009, she reportedly received a communication stating that “The brothers are ready,” and a request that she send money to her contact in Somalia, reportedly a member of the al Shabaab terrorist organization. In a follow-up communication five days later, LaRose stated that she considered it “an honor and great pleasure to die or kill” for her terrorist contact, adding that “only death will stop me here that I am so close to the target,” according to the indictment.

LaRose never executed her plan to murder Vilks, and federal officials are not releasing additional information about the events that followed, citing the ongoing nature of this investigation and additional pending arrests. What is clear is that LaRose traveled back to the U.S. in the days that followed, and was arrested by federal officials in Philadelphia on October 15, 2009.

What is also clear is that LaRose is not the only American being motivated to Islamic jihad. The road to jihad is a busy one, and until the West understands and acts upon the peril we face, there will many others answering the call to jihad.

Sky News

Suspected Islamist militants have attacked the office of a British aid agency in Pakistan killing up to five people, say reports.

The militants stormed the World Vision agency in the Mansehra district, about 40 miles north of Islamabad, then opened fire.

“They opened fire and also exploded hand grenades,” a senior police officer said.

“We don’t know the exact number of casualties but initial reports suggest four to five people were killed.”

A World Vision official said up to five agency workers had been killed, most of them believed to be Pakistani.

Mansehra town has been the centre for relief efforts following an earthquake that killed 73,000 people in October 2005.

The area has been generally peaceful although there have been occasional violent incidents.

In 2008, gunmen attacked an office of the Plan International aid agency in Mansehra town, killing four members of staff.

Mansehra lies to the east of the Swat Valley, where the army has launched an offensive to clear the Pakistani Taliban from the area.

The offensive has raised fears that the militants might be pushed into Mansehra.

World Vision describes itself as “a Christian relief, development and advocacy organisation dedicated to working with children, families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice”.

Although “inspired” by Christian values, the aid group says it works with people of all faiths.

Lars Vilks cartoon

By Daily Mail Reporter

Seven Muslims were arrested in Ireland today over an alleged plot to assassinate a Swedish cartoonist who depicted the Prophet Mohammed with the body of a dog.

Al Qaeda put a $100,000 bounty on the head of cartoonist Lars Vilks after a newspaper published his cartoon in July 2007.

The controversy came less than a year after the furore surrounding the infamous cartoons in a Danish newspaper which sparked death threats against the editor and worldwide protests.

The four men and three women were detained after an investigation involving European security agencies and the United States’ CIA and FBI.

It is understood that some of those arrested hold Irish citizenship and a number are originally from the Middle East.

They were detained by police in Waterford and Cork in the south of the country for conspiracy to murder Mr Vilks.

The men and women arrested range in age from mid-20s to late 40s and can be held for up to seven days.

Mr Vilks, who lives in an isolated area of Sweden, was put under police protection after threats were made against his life.

When Al Qaeda put the bounty on the cartoonist’s head in 2007 it offered a 50 per cent bonus if Mr Vilks was ’slaughtered like a lamb’ by having his throat cut.

Another $50,000 was put on the life of Ulf Johansson, editor-in-chief of Nerikes Allehanda, the local newspaper which printed the cartoon.

The Swedish paper had orginally printed the cartoons after they had been banned from being put in display by art galleries for fear of causing offence.

The paper defended its publication of the cartoon, saying it was in defence of free speech.

‘This is unacceptable self-censorship,’ the newspaper wrote in an editorial referring to the reluctance by galleries to exhibit Vilks’s drawings.

Demonstrators outside the Danish Embassy in London to protest controversial cartoons caricaturing the Prophet Mohammed in 2006

‘The right to freedom of religion and the right to blaspheme religions go together,’ it wrote.

However those arrested are not believed to be members of the terrorist group.

It understood some have converted to the Muslim faith.The arrests were made at around 10am as officers conducted a number of raids.

Gardai said the operation was supported by members from National Support Services and the Republic’s anti-terrorist Special Detective Unit.

A Garda spokesman added: ‘Throughout the investigation An Garda Siochana has been working closely with law enforcement agencies in the United States and in a number of European countries.’

Iran summoned a Swedish diplomat to complain about publication of the cartoon, saying it was ‘an insult against the prophet’.

And Pakistan issued an angry statement over the sketch.

‘Regrettably, the tendency among some Europeans to mix the freedom of expression with an outright and deliberate insult to 1.3 billion Muslims in the world is on the rise,” the ministry said in the statement.

‘Such acts deeply undermine the efforts of those who seek to promote respect and understanding among religions and civilisations,’ it said.

By  Clare M. Lopez

The use of our democratic system and the rule of law by those whose intent is to destroy our civilization is a cynical tactic that Americans ought to be smart enough to see straight through.

Islamic jihadis are manipulating Western-style legal systems everywhere to their own benefit while we, the founders of those systems, are floundering in a morass of moral relativism, multicultural meaninglessness, and a deplorable amnesia about the genuine worth of our own heritage, traditions, and values.

The current case in point involves the three Navy SEALs who, as members of Seal Team 10, captured the Iraqi terrorist Ahmed Hashim Abed in September 2009. Abed is charged with directing the March 2004 ambush of four Blackwater security guards in the town of Fallujah in which the four were killed, and their bodies mutilated, burned, and hung from a bridge. Unbelievably, the three heroic Navy SEALs are now being court-martialed because Abed claims that at some point in the capture and interrogation process, they treated him a bit roughly; the charges against the SEALs also allege they made false statements about that treatment.

Aside from obvious confusion about the appropriate application of the Uniform Code of Military Justice on the part of Major General Charles T. Cleveland (the commander who signed off on the charges), the utter absurdity of the situation must have jihadis everywhere wondering gleefully just what are the criteria Americans are using these days for promotion to general. To be fair, it’s not just Maj. Gen. Cleveland — it’s the entire system of which he is just one deplorable example.

We, the inheritors of the liberal democratic system that makes our Republic a beacon of hope for the entire world, are allowing that system to be assaulted, corrupted, and suborned to the shrewdly calculated agenda of an international coalition of forces that do not believe in American exceptionalism, or liberal, pluralist, democracy under rule of man-made law.

The American Constitution gave us a system that protects the natural rights of citizens from abuse by government; those inalienable rights are the inheritance of all Americans. They were never intended to apply to barbarians, much less illegal enemy combatants, who are not American citizens, and who reject and seek to destroy civilized society wherever it may be found. Likewise, in terms of international law, the Geneva conventions and protocols were written to provide some minimum boundaries to the conduct of war. As such, they stipulate appropriate behavior and treatment of uniformed combatants, who are expected to operate under the military chain-of-command of a recognized nation state.

Terrorists like Ahmed Hashim Abed, who wear no uniform, whose allegiance is to no country, and who deliberately perpetrate horrific violence targeted specifically at civilian non-combatants, don’t qualify. He and others like him, such as Khalid Sheikh Muhammad and his 9/11 cohorts, merit the minimum of humane treatment — food, water, shelter, clothing, medical care, and protection from torture — but no more. They most certainly don’t merit the full panoply of the American legal system, including taxpayer-funded lawyers, trial by civilian jury, or the pre-trial discovery process.

From captured al-Qaeda documents, including its infamous and very detailed training manual, it is known that Islamic jihadis are trained to understand and manipulate the U.S. and other Western-style legal systems. Specifically, the al-Qaeda training manual instructs jihadis to claim abuse, mistreatment, and torture as soon as they are detained. Al-Qaeda, Taliban, and other Islamic jihadis have made an art form out of loud allegations of civilian deaths and U.S., NATO, and Coalition forces attacks against hospitals, mosques, schools, and villages — while illegally using those very installations from which to launch attacks of their own. They count on Western ignorance of Islamic law, which not only condones lying and deceit in time of war, but commands it. They can be fairly certain that most Westerners have never heard of taqiyya, the ‘defensive’ use of duplicity and dissimulation by Muslims that is enshrined in Shari’a (Islamic law).

‘Lawfare’ is the term for offensive use of democratic legal systems by those whose intent is to destroy democracy. When frivolous lawsuits are brought against those who speak against Islamic jihad in an attempt to close down criticism of Islam altogether, that is lawfare. When the Organization of Islamic Conference sponsors a resolution that urges criminalization of any free speech that criticizes Islam, that is intended lawfare. When a Western government puts its own citizen on trial for “hate speech” against Islam, as is happening right now in the Netherlands with the courageous and very popular Freedom Party leader, Geert Wilders, that is lawfare.

And when the U.S. military sends three of our most elite warrior-patriots, our Navy SEALs, to courts martial because an enemy savage, who has committed unspeakable atrocities against American citizens, whined about a bloody lip or being punched in the stomach, that is not just lawfare, that is a perversion of anything remotely approaching genuine justice.

It’s not just that Western society has become overly litigious or enthralled to the lawyer class. We are losing sight of the distinction between civilized society and barbarism. We are forgetting who we are and who they are. Decades of progressive education and Middle East studies programs bought and paid for by Salafi-Wahhabi money have turned out generations of national leaders who can no longer distinguish, much less champion, the unique values of Western-style liberal, pluralist, tolerant democracy.

The agenda of post-modernist multiculturalism, to denigrate the heritage of Athens, Jerusalem, and Rome, is bearing fruit in the inability of Western elites to recognize and name good and evil. Political correctness, the cringing unwillingness to call Islamic jihad by its name, is corroding our military and debilitating our society as a whole. In the wake of the November 2009 armed assault at Ft. Hood, TX by Islamic jihadist Major Hasan Nidal, U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey Jr. publicly elevated “diversity in the military” as equivalent in value with maintenance of strong, cohesive armed forces free from the influence of Islamic jihad. With all due respect to the dead and injured at Ft. Hood, no, it is not.

Rule of law and our own democratic legal system are intended to draw a clear distinction between civilization and savagery. Those who trample and make a mockery of these laws, however cleverly, are not equivalent with those of us who cherish those laws and hold dear the system that makes them possible. Barbarians like Ahmed Hashim Abed aren’t worth a single penny of taxpayer money — much less the careers of three of our finest Navy SEALs.

Rule of law is not a suicide pact for Western civilization — unless we allow it to be.

Lagos, Nigeria (CNN) – The death toll from weekend violence in central Nigeria climbed to more than 200 Monday after members of a machete-wielding Muslim group attacked mostly Christian villages, officials said.

More than 200 were dead and 32 injured, according to Choji Gyang, a religious affairs adviser to the head of Plateau state, who said bodies were still being recovered. Sani Shehu, president of the non-governmental agency Civil Rights Congress, put the number of dead at about 485 people.

Twenty-six arrests had been made in connection with the violence, Gyang said.

Nigerian Vice President Goodluck Jonathan put security on high alert Sunday and began operations to capture the “roving bands of killers” who attacked the town of Dogo Nahauwa, just south of Jos.

The townsfolk are predominantly Berom, an ethnic group that mostly practices Christianity, said Manase Pampe, Red Cross spokesman for its Plateau state office. Reports of the attack described the assailants as members of the Muslim Hausa-Fulani ethnic group, Pampe and government spokesman Gregory Yenlong said.

The attackers stormed the town at 3 a.m. Sunday (9 p.m. Saturday ET) and remained there for 2.5 hours, Pampe said. Buildings were set afire and people were attacked with machetes, Yenlong said.

The violence resembled previous outbreaks of ethno-religious clashes in the west African nation.

The Plateau state attack prompted Jonathan to place the area and neighboring states on “red alert,” his office said in a news release. He directed security forces to “undertake strategic initiatives to confront and defeat these roving bands of killers,” the release said.

Jonathan, who was installed as acting head of state in February while President Umaru Yar’Adua recovers from illness, called for calm.

“He calls on all Nigerians to remain peaceful and law abiding, since violence only begets further violence,” the release said. “He also sympathizes with those who have lost relatives and friends in these attacks, asking the Almighty to grant them the fortitude to bear the loss.”

Hundreds fled the town as the violence raged Sunday. The Red Cross was caring for about 600 people at its camp in Boto in Bauchi state, said Alhaji Abubakar, the group’s spokesman in the state. Bauchi is just north of Plateau state.

Forty-eight people were treated at hospitals, national Red Cross spokesman Umar Maigari said. Red Cross officials had counted 30 bodies in one community, but were unable to continue their investigation, he said. Residents wanted to direct the attention to burying the dead, he said.

The most populous country in Africa, with a population of more than 150 million, Nigeria is almost evenly divided between Muslims and Christians.

With more than 78 million Muslims, it has the sixth-largest Islamic population in the world, according to a study last year by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

While some outbursts of violence are between Christians and Muslims, some disputes are also ethnic-based. The country is home to 250 to 400 ethnic groups, making it one of the most diverse African nations, according to the International Displacement Monitoring Centre.

Thousands were displaced in January when violence flared up in Jos, Shehu said in January. A local activist said 69 people had been killed and about 600 injured.

Also in January, at least 150 Muslims were killed during an attack on the town of Kuru Karama, south of Jos, Human Rights Watch reported. Community leaders from Jos and journalists told Human Rights Watch that they saw dozens of bodies lodged in wells or sewage pits. Most of the town’s homes were burned, the group said.

In November 2008, at least 700 Nigerians died in Christian-Muslim riots that followed a disputed local election, Human Rights Watch reported.

The White House on Friday announced a “summit on entrepreneurship” to build economic ties with the Islamic world, part of President Barack Obama’s outreach to Muslims.
The White House said it has invited participants from more than 40 countries over five continents for the April 26-27 conference in Washington.

“The summit will highlight the role entrepreneurship can play in addressing common challenges while building partnerships that will lead to greater opportunity abroad and at home,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

Obama first spoke of the entrepreneurship conference in his signature June 4 speech in Cairo to the Islamic world.

In the closely watched address, Obama said the United States was seeking a “new beginning” with the Islamic world to rebuild relations that had sharply deteriorated over the past decade.

Obama promised at the time that he would convene a “presidential summit on entrepreneurship” by the end of 2009.

He said that the meeting would “identify how we can deepen ties between business leaders, foundations and social entrepreneurs in the United States and Muslim communities around the world.”

Source

Yahoo News

CAIRO – Al-Qaida’s American-born spokesman on Sunday called on Muslims serving in the U.S. armed forces to emulate the Army major charged with killing 13 people in Fort Hood.

In a 25-minute video posted on militant Web sites, Adam Gadahn described Maj. Nidal Hasan as a pioneer who should serve as a role model for other Muslims, especially those serving Western militaries.

“Brother Nidal is the ideal role-model for every repentant Muslim in the armies of the unbelievers and apostate regimes,” he said.

Gadahn, also known as Azzam al-Amriki, was dressed in white robes and wearing a white turban as he called for attacks on what he described as “high-value targets.”

“You shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking that military bases are the only high-value targets in America and the West. On the contrary, there are countless other strategic places, institutions and installations which, by striking, the Muslim can do major damage,” he said, an assault rifle leaning up against a wall next to him.

Hasan has been charged in the Nov. 5 shooting that killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas. The 39-year-old Army psychiatrist remains paralyzed from the chest down after being shot by two civilian members of Fort Hood’s police force.

“Nidal Hasan is a pioneer, a trailblazer and a role-model who has opened a door, lit a path and shown the way forward for every Muslim who finds himself among the unbelievers,” Gadahn said.

Gadahn grew up on a goat farm in Riverside County, California, and converted to Islam at a mosque in nearby Orange County. He has been wanted by the FBI since 2004 and two years later was charged with treason. There is a $1 million reward for information leading to his arrest or conviction.

He has in the past posted videos and messages calling for the destruction of the West and for strikes against targets in the United States. His location is unknown, but he is believed to be somewhere along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In the latest video, Gadahn said those planning attacks did not need to use only firearms like Hasan, but could use other weapons. “As the blessed operations of September 11th showed, a little imagination and planning and a limited budget can turn almost anything into a deadly, effective and convenient weapon.”

Gadahn said fighters should target mass transportation systems in the West and also wreak havoc “by killing or capturing people in government, industry and the media.”

He recommended finding ways to shake “consumer confidence and stifle spending” and noted that even unsuccessful attacks, such as the failed attempt to bomb a U.S. airliner on Christmas day, can bring major cities to a halt.

“I am calling on every honest and vigilant Muslim in the countries of the Zionist-Crusader alliance in general and America, Britain and Israel in particular to prepare to play his due role in responding to and repelling the aggression of the enemies of Islam,” Gadahn said.