Welcome to Reality: Obama Threatened By Somali Islamists

The domestic media will run with anything resembling a threat from some crackpot white supremacists or old friends of Robert Byrd, but you see scant mention of terror threats such as this from any American media outlets.

They just don't want to believe it. Safely ensconced in their fantasy bubble, they want to cling to the magic unicorns.

Officials would say little about the potential terrorist threat attributed to al-Shabah, an Islamist group that emerged in a two-year-old struggle for power in Somalia and is classified as a foreign terrorist group by the US State Department.

Some Somalis living in the United States were recently reported to have returned home for training by the group, officials said.

"The FBI, the Department of Homeland Security (including the USSS) and the intelligence community are coordinating with other law enforcement authorities to investigate and analyse recently received information about a potential threat on inauguration day," Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said.

"Authorities at all levels are vigorously pursuing any lead relating to this threat information," Knocke said, adding Obama's transition team had been briefed.

Shocker: Islamists Take Credit for India Bombings

This obviously means their endorsement of Barack Obama can't be far off.

An unknown Islamist group said on Thursday it set off coordinated blasts that tore through a packed shopping area in a popular Indian tourist city this week, but police say they were still verifying the claim.

Eight bombs, many strapped to bicycles, killed 61 people and injured 216 people in the western city of Jaipur on Tuesday.

But police also said the attack bore some hallmarks of the Bangladeshi militant group Harkat-ul-Jihad al Islami (HuJI), and released a sketch of a man in his mid-2os seen near the scene of one bombing speaking Bengali, the main language of Bangladesh.

India has suffered a wave of bombings in recent years, with targets ranging from mosques and Hindu temples to trains. But it is unusual for any group to claim responsibility for attacks.

Islamist militant groups in Pakistan and Bangladesh intent on fanning hatred between Muslims and Hindus in India, and damaging a fragile peace process between New Delhi and Islamabad, are often blamed for bomb attacks in India.

Sensitive Muslims Don't Dig Satire

We noted yesterday the Danish art exhibit in Berlin shutting down due to threats from members of a certain religion.

Spiegel Online has more details today.

A Berlin gallery has closed an exhibition of satirical art by the controversial Danish group Surrend after receiving threats from a group of Muslims. The men were objecting to a picture of the Kaaba at Mecca under the title "Dumb Stone."

Eighteen months ago, the severed head of Muhammad was enough to get an opera temporarily cancelled (more...) in Berlin. This time around, it's an irreverent image of the Kaaba in Mecca that has caused an exhibition in the German capital to shut its doors.

But there is one major difference between the two incidents: Whereas the mere spectre of possible attacks was enough to get the Deutsche Oper to put the kibosh on a Mozart opera in 2006, Berlin's Galerie Nord closed its doors this week after a group of Muslims walked into the gallery and threatened staff with violence.

"It was a very explosive situation," Jan Egesborg, whose satirical art group Surrend created the Galerie Nord exhibition, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "We don't want to be part of the current Islamophobic tendency in Europe. We weren't trying to provoke Muslims."

Nothing like some PC twits groveling before their Islamic overlords. Whatever happened to calling the police or simply telling these punks to take a hike?

Caving in to these creatures just invites more self-censorship.

Peaceful Religious Man Admits to Plot to Behead Solider 'Like a Pig'

And here all this time I though Islamists were offended by pigs?

Briton admits plot to behead Muslim soldier

Of course, the headline is just a wee bit misleading, since it was one Muslim who planned to kill another.

A man has pleaded guilty to a plot to kidnap and behead a British Muslim soldier, a court was told on Tuesday.

Parviz Khan, a 37-year-old Briton, pleaded guilty earlier this month to a series of charges including the beheading plot which was thwarted by police and the MI5 security service a year ago.

Media had previously been barred from reporting Khan's plea until Tuesday, when a trial of two other men opened in the central English city of Leicester.

Prosecutor Nigel Rumfitt told the jury Khan was "a man who has the most violent and extreme Islamist views", and at the centre of a Birmingham-based network gathering money and equipment to send to Pakistan for the use of "terrorists".

Why the quotes around the word terrorists?

He also wanted to get himself involved in acts of terrorism, Rumfitt said.

"He was enraged by the idea that there are Muslim soldiers in the British army," the prosecutor continued, adding that Khan had decided to kidnap such a soldier with the help of drug dealers operating in Birmingham.

Seems as if it doesn't take much to "enrage" these people.

"He would be taken to a lockup garage and there he would be murdered by having his head cut off like a pig. This atrocity would be filmed," Rumfitt said.

Such lovely people.

Tell It To The Islamists

Excuse me if I'm just a bit skeptical about this call for "peace" from Muslim "scholars" supposedly reaching out to Christians.

How about laying down your arms, acknowledging Israel, and stop killing people in the name of your religion?

Then maybe we can have some dialogue.

Unprecedented Muslim call for peace with Christians

More than 130 Muslim scholars from around the globe called on Thursday for peace and understanding between Islam and Christianity, saying "the very survival of the world itself is perhaps at stake".

In an unprecedented letter to Pope Benedict and other Christian leaders, 138 Muslim scholars said finding common ground between the world's biggest faiths was not simply a matter for polite dialogue between religious leaders.

"If Muslims and Christians are not at peace, the world cannot be at peace. With the terrible weaponry of the modern world; with Muslims and Christians intertwined everywhere as never before, no side can unilaterally win a conflict between more than half of the world's inhabitants," the scholars wrote.

"Our common future is at stake. The very survival of the world itself is perhaps at stake," they wrote, adding that Islam and Christianity already agreed that love of God and neighbour were the two most important commandments of their faiths.

Relations between Muslims and Christians have been strained as al Qaeda has struck around the world and as the United States and other Western countries intervened in Iraq and Afghanistan.

More like relations between Muslims and the civilized world have been strained,

Not just Christians. How about letting Israelis live in peace? Doesn't seem to be any mention of that.

Aref Ali Nayed, one of the signatories and a senior adviser to the Cambridge Interfaith Programme at Cambridge University in Britain, said the signatories represented the "99.9 percent of Muslims" who follow mainstream schools and oppose extremism.

"In Islam we have had a problem for some time now where the mainstream voices are drowned out by a minority that choose violence," he said.

Nayed said organisers of the letter had set up an ad hoc network among Muslim leaders that could lead to more cooperation in future.

"These people don't take their signatures lightly," he said. "We are trying to institutionalise this so we don't lose it."

The overture to Christians could be followed by similar letters addressed to Jews or secularists, he added.

We'll believe that when we see it.

Until then, control your own end and let us live in peace. We're not the ones blowing people up and chopping off heads.

Another Teacher Murdered by Islamists in Thailand

The religion of peace strikes again. Of course, it's down in the restive south.

Suspected separatist insurgents shot and killed a Buddhist teacher on Tuesday in Thailand's restive Muslim far south, police said.

Somchoke Chitkongsat, 59, a teacher at a government-run secondary school was shot while waiting for a bus to school in Yala provincial township, said police Lt. Veerakij Kaewnuanjing.

Somchoke teaches in nearby Pattani province but lived in Yala, which is 780 kilometers (480 miles) south of Bangkok, and traveled by bus to work everyday.

"Police believe that the insurgents knew that he waited for the bus at that point every morning, and shot him today," Veerakij said.

Witnesses told police that the gunman arrived on the back of motorcycle and shot Somchoke at close range, then sped away, Veerakij said.

More than 2,400 people have been killed in Thailand's Muslim-majority southernmost provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat, and the southern part of nearby Songkhla, since a long-simmering Islamic separatist insurgency flared up in January 2004

More at Jihad Watch.

Muslims Gaining Strength in America, Claims Cleric

Well, they've scared the daylights out of the media, the left, academia and pretty much anyone they harass and threaten with lawsuits, so this guy does have a point.

Muslims gaining strength in United States - cleric

RIYADH, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Muslims are steadily improving their position in U.S. society, contrary to the media image of a community besieged by suspicions of links to militants, a leading U.S. Muslim cleric said on Sunday.

Yahya Hendi, a prayer leader who teaches at Georgetown University, said the Sept. 11 attacks on U.S. cities in 2001 had spurred Americans to know more about Islam and Muslims to affirm their U.S. identity.

"I think the future is bright, because of our wisdom in dealing with the reality," Hendi, a Palestinian by birth, told a gathering of Saudi academics on a visit to Saudi Arabia.

Well, the reality is Hendi was spewing this nonsense in the land where 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were spawned. Yes, I would say Americans became much more aware of Islam after 9/11.

After all, we must know the enemy.

"There are serious efforts being made among the second and third generation to become part of the political establishment. The challenge we face is in the media and from some Christian extremists who don't want an Islamic presence in America."

What, you mean it's not the Jews???

Hendi said U.S. Muslims, whose number he put at 7 to 9 million, were working on "nationalising" Islam as part of the fabric of U.S. society, including cutting funding links to Muslim countries.

"Last year we elected the first Muslim to Congress and I expect that by 2015 there will be three or four as well as at least 30 mayors," he said, adding there were now 400 Muslim lawyers in the United States compared to nine before Sept. 11.

Yes, and every one of them seemingly is busy filing frivolus lawsuits.

The Sept. 11 attacks, when 19 Arab Muslims killed about 3,000 people in New York and Washington, led to strict security measures in the United States that some rights groups say often unfairly target Arabs and Muslims.

Hendi, who met President George W. Bush days after Sept. 11, 2001, said Muslims had thrown off a tendency to shun political action such as voting and running in elections because it was considered akin to surrendering to U.S. culture.

He said he did not feel there was general animosity towards Muslims in American society, and that he encouraged Muslims to join intelligence bodies like the CIA and FBI.

Wonderful.

Hendi travels in some elite circles, apparently.

Delusional Islamist: 'Our Religion is Friendly To Women'

Islam is so damn friendly, they will even murder you if you develop a relationship with an infidel.

Get this hag another glass of Kool-aid.

She is one of Morocco's most famous opposition figures, she's stood in the dock several times for her criticism of the royal family and she's a self-avowed feminist. In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, Islamist Nadia Yassine discusses her opposition to Morocco's monarchy and the situation for women.

SPIEGEL: So what would you do differently? What would a Muslim state based on your ideas look like?

Yassine: The Islam we want to revive is an Islam of dialogue. We are a political and social organization, but we are also a non-violent, spiritual movement. We believe the Koran conveys a universal message. We criticize the fact that Morocco is an authoritarian hereditary monarchy. Many in the West believe Arab societies must automatically be despotic, but that is not true. A Muslim model of government in accordance with our ideas is very much an example of grassroots democracy, if you like.

Read the rest.

Carnage in Gaza; Media Refuses to Call it Civil War

Maybe when nobody is left standing will they admit the obvious.

Bloody day in Gaza raises civil war fears

GAZA, June 12 (Reuters) - In what looked ever more like civil war, the forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas battled supporters of the Islamist prime minister across Gaza on Tuesday, the bloodiest day of factional fighting in months.

At least 27 people were killed and 70 wounded, hospital officials said, taking to 47 the number of dead in the coastal enclave since Saturday. Early on Tuesday, the Gaza homes of both Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas were fired on.

The largest force loyal to Abbas, who is favoured by Western powers, was ordered onto the streets to defeat what his secular Fatah group called a "bloody coup" by Hamas Islamists after Hamas gunmen stormed Fatah bases in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas later appeared to have control of one major Fatah base in the north and casualty data suggested it had the upper hand more widely. Fatah leaders threatened to quit a three-month-old unity government with Hamas if there was no immediate truce.

The European Union said there was an imminent risk of civil war if fighting went on, and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged support for Abbas's efforts "to restore law and order".

Haniyeh and Abbas both called for restraint and talks but, as each side accused the other of siding with their Israeli adversaries, there was little sign of fighters paying heed.

The head of an Egyptian delegation in Gaza that saw its latest truce shot down on Monday, urged civilians to rally on Wednesday morning to show support for a new ceasefire.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, an arch-foe of Hamas, said for the first time that "serious consideration" must be given to posting international peacekeepers in Gaza, from which Israel withdrew troops and Jewish settlers two years ago.

"If the Gaza Strip ultimately falls to Hamas, this will be of great regional significance," he said, but added Israel could not enter Gaza to fight Hamas to help Abbas's "pragmatists".

Breathtakingly disingenuous.

The Jerusalem Post is a bit clearer in its assessment.

Gaza on verge of becoming Hamastan

Court Upholds State's Ban On Head Scarves

In a ruling the über Left and Islamists will be sure to shriek about, a German court has upheld a ban on head scarves

A court this week upheld a German state's ban on teachers wearing the Muslim head scarf in public schools, rejecting a woman's appeal against a decision not to employ her.

North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state, is one of several regions that have introduced head scarf bans for teachers in recent years.

The 28-year-old plaintiff had argued that the state's law was discriminatory and violated her religious freedom.

However, the administrative court in Duesseldorf said regional law did not allow for religious statements that might infringe on the state's neutrality toward students and parents. Presiding judge Kurt Buechel argued that wearing a head scarf does to some extent constitute an expression of religious conviction.

Paki Minister Resigns Over Hug

It was immoral, you see. Ah, the joys of the Seventh Century.

Pakistan’s woman tourism minister tendered her resignation today after hardline Islamic clerics accused her of obscenity for hugging her instructor after a charity parachute jump.

Nilofar Bakhtiar, the Federal Minister for Tourism, was pictured wearing a brightly coloured jumpsuit and hugging her instructor after a tandem jump to raise money for child victims of the earthquake that struck Pakistan in October 2005.

The images provoked the wrath of clerics in Islamabad, who accused Ms Bakhtiar of posing in an obscene manner and violating the Islamic moral norms.

A religious court set up by the clerics at a radical mosque in Islamabad issued a fatwa, or religious edict, against Ms Bakhtiar when the photographs first appeared in local newspapers last month.

They urged the Government to punish her and fire her from the Cabinet. Ms Bakhtiar failed to win the support of Cabinet colleagues and the Government appeared to cave in to the demands of the militants.

Well, at least she gets to live.

For now.

As she announced her intention to resign today, Ms Bakhtiar complained of a campaign of intimidation against her.

She may want to consider relocation.

Her resignation was the latest blow to women politicians in Pakistan. Less than two months ago a Punjab provincial minister was shot dead by an Islamic cleric in the eastern city of Gujranwala because she was not wearing a veil.

Turks Rally Against Islamists

I wonder which media outlet will be the first to label them Islamophobes?

IZMIR, Turkey - Choking the highways and crammed onto ferries, hundreds of thousands of Turks streamed into this port city on Sunday in an enormous show of opposition to the pro-Islamic ruling party, increasing pressure on the government ahead of early elections.

Some 1.5 million protesters carried anti-government banners, red-and-white Turkish flags and pictures of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who founded the secular republic in 1923. Turkish flags hung from balconies and windows, as well as buses and fishing boats and yachts bobbing in Izmir's bay.

"I am here to defend my country," said Yuksel Uysal, a teacher. "I am here to defend Ataturk's revolution."

Throughout the morning, thousands were trying to reach Izmir and highways leading to the city were at a standstill. Municipal authorities said some 200,000 people sailed in on ferries.

The political turmoil displayed the growing secular-Islamic rift in this mainly Muslim country of 75 million that is vying for European Union membership and whose secular laws, enshrined in the constitution, are fiercely guarded by the judiciary and by the military.

Thousands of police were deployed, a day after a bomb at an Izmir market killed one person and injured 14 others. There was no claim of responsibility for the attack, nor evidence that it was linked to the demonstration. Izmir, on Turkey's Aegean coast, is a bastion of secularism, and Islamic parties fare poorly there.

The Growing Leftist-Islamist Convergence

A rather disturbing look in the New York Sun today on the increasing unity between the left and Islamists (via Captain's Quarters).

Over the past year, multiple international conferences have featured leaders of the anti-global left and Islamist groups working together. Go to any anti-war or anti-globalization demonstration in the West and chances are you will see the flags of Hezbollah and Hamas waved by people wearing Che Guevara T-shirts. And at some of these meetings, members of such radical Islamist groups as the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and Hezbollah have enjoyed starring roles.

The roster of Islamist-left alliances quietly grows every day: Massachusetts Institute of Technology linguistics professor Noam Chomsky praises Hamas and denounces America on Hezbollah's Al-Manar television. London Mayor Ken Livingstone invites a leading Islamist, Sheikh Yosef Al-Qaradawi, who is known for supporting suicide attacks, to visit his city. Iranian President Ahmadinejad calls for a world without America even as he plays host to a Tehran peace conference attended by American Mennonites, Quakers, Episcopalians, Methodists, and leaders of the National Council of Churches.

The left wonders why their patriotism, or lack theroef, is always in question.

When you align with our enemies, you become one yourself.

Feel the Islamist Love

Get a load of this guy in front. Reminds me of Islamic Rage Boy.

Via Jihad Watch.

(Telegraph photo)

Islamist/Communist Alliance

Counterterrorism Blog calls it strange, but is it really? Both ideologies are enemies of freedom, so an alliance seems natural.

Aussie Muslim Suggests Integration

Seething and fatwas are sure to follow after this.

Imams urged to be lifesavers and fireys

MUSLIM clerics will be encouraged to become surf lifesavers and volunteer firefighters as part of a push by one of the nation's most influential Islamic leaders for greater integration of his community into the mainstream.

In a report to be considered by imams at a meeting this weekend, Lebanese Muslim Association president Tom Zreika likens the unpopularity of Muslims to attitudes to communists, and urges spiritual leaders to improve the image of Islam in Australia.

Mr Zreika says in the report, commissioned by the powerful LMA, that Australians have "had enough of us".

Trust me, Tom, it isn't just the Australians. Are you listening, Dougie Hooper?

Mr Zreika blames the bad English-language skills of some imams for poor understanding and "bitterness" towards local Muslims.

"We have become the new communism, particularly in the West, and some people in our community are so repulsed by our actions, it is making life unbearable for us and our offspring," he says.

The document, obtained by The Australian and dated November last year to this month, says Islamic spiritual leaders should not "be fooled that this country belongs to Muslims at the exclusion of others".

Cleric Taj Din al-Hilali came under fire in January for attacking the West for being "oppressive" and saying immigrants had more right to live in Australia than the "descendants of convicts".

In the 16-page paper, titled "Australian Imams: The Way Forward", Mr Zreika recommends that imams should not "bring problems experienced overseas to Australia".

One of the report's 95 recommendations says imams should not be linked to any organistions of suspicion. Another says clerics must declare as income all gifts from officiating at weddings and funerals, as well as any other financial gift.

The Sydney-based lawyer accuses some imams of negligence in their incitement of hate against the West. "The last thing this society wants is angry men and women following radical but charismatic cults, like figures who promote breaches of the law and violence on the preposterous justification that they are simply acting in self-defence in a time of war," he says. "We are not at war, and we need some of our imams to stop being negligent."

Memo to Tom: Beef up security.