Stunner: Radical Islamist Groups Support Ground Zero Mosque, Call for Three-Day 'Week of Dialogue'

Not only that, but they're working toward another teachable moment for all those stupid Americans out there.

A coalition of Muslim groups called Monday for interfaith dialogue to combat religious intolerance and said they support the right to build a controversial Islamic center near ground zero.

"We stand for the constitutional right of Muslims, and Americans of all faiths, to build houses of worship anywhere in our nation as allowed by local laws and regulations," the Muslim leaders said in a statement delivered at the site of the proposed Islamic center in downtown Manhattan, to be called Park51.

They called for a "week of dialogue" on the weekend of Oct. 22-24, during which Muslims would conduct open houses at their places of worship to help ease tensions.

Huh? A week of dialogue all in one weekend? I'd say something about their poor math skills but that might result in hurt feelings and a fatwa from the folks who invented math or something.

"This might indeed be another teachable moment for America," said Mahdi Bray, executive director of a Washington, D.C.-based group called Muslim American Society Freedom.

The Muslim leaders spoke after a daylong summit meeting Sunday at a hotel near Kennedy Airport.

Groups participating in the summit included the Islamic Society of North America, the Islamic Circle of North America, the Muslim Alliance of North America and the Council on American Islamic Relations.

Naturally the AP fails to note the extensive support of radical Islam from these groups. Go here, here, here and here for just a taste of how nefarious these groups are. Don't expect the media to note any of these ties.

Tolerance: Muslim Activists Celebrate Ground Zero Mosque by Executing 10 Christian Missionaries

All you bigots and Islamophobes better just shut up about this if you know what's good for you.

A British medic who was among 10 aid workers killed by gunmen in an ambush in a remote area of northern Afghanistan was named today by sources as Dr Karen Woo.

The bodies of the Dr Woo, six Americans, a German and two Afghan interpreters were found yesterday next to three bullet-riddled four-wheel drive vehicles in Kuran Wa Munjan district of Badakhshan province.

They had all been shot, police chief General Agha Noor Kemtuz said.

The family of Dr Woo, from Stevenage, Hertfordshire, were too upset to comment today.

Dr Woo was returning to Kabul after working in an eye clinic in the Nuristan province when her convoy was attacked.

She had previously worked for private healthcare firm Bupa before she decided to do aid work in Afghanistan.

General Kemtuz added that a third Afghan man who was travelling with the group survived.

Local police said about 10 gunmen robbed the group and killed them one by one.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told reporters militants killed the foreigners because they were 'spying for the Americans' and 'preaching Christianity'.

Meanwhile, if you dare to criticize anyone for being so insensitive for building a mega-mosque at GFround Zero, well, the esteemed Mayor of New York is telling you to just shut up.

Chicago: Hotbed of Radical Islamists

What's going on in Chicago? They're got cabbies linked to al Qaida, men linked to the Mumbai massacre and now a report of a man arrested who wanted to blow up American soldiers.

Counterterrorism agents in Chicago say they secretly followed a 26-year-old man from the city's Near North Side for nearly two years as he plotted to become a global Jihadist and even dreamed of executing a suicide bomb attack on American soldiers.

After determining that Shaker Masri of the Streeterville neighborhood had airplane tickets to leave Chicago this morning to carry out his mission, federal authorities say they stopped Masri and arrested him.

One attack scenario was allegedly discussed by Masri when he saw several soldiers walking on a Chicago street. On a secretly-recorded undercover tape, Masri discussed blowing himself up next to a busload of American soldiers.

He was arrested Tuesday at 5:30 PM by federal agents who say they interrupted Masri's plan to destroy his computer prior to departing Chicago. He was ticketed on a Southwest Airlines flight, scheduled to leave Wednesday morning for Los Angeles, where he would then depart the country.

In a criminal complaint unsealed Wednesday morning in Chicago, Masri is accused of two federal counts: that he tried to provide material support to Al Qaeda and Somali Al Qaeda affiliate Al Shabab, and that he tried to provide material support in a concealed or disguised manner to fund the use of a WMD.

Funny, but you never do see Tea Partiers being arrested for any of this stuff.

Who knows, maybe these guys are influenced by all the incendiary rhetoric heard from community leaders like Louis Farrakhan, Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers.

It's a good thing Obama has reached out the Muslimm community. Really seems to be paying dividends in his hometown.

Angry Indonesian Teabaggers Plot Against Obama

According to Michael Bloomberg, they're some homegrown nuts upset with the health care plan.

Indonesian police said today they had uncovered and foiled a plot to assassinate the president and other top officials, massacre foreigners in Mumbai-style attacks, declare an Islamic state, and possibly even kill Barack Obama.

The attackers planned to launch their assault during this year's Independence Day ceremony.

The ceremony, on August 17, will be attended by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the country's top dignitaries, national police chief General Bambang Hendarso Danuri told reporters.

The plot also included taking over hotels and killing foreigners, especially Americans, in violence that would have been reminiscent of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, he said.

Earlier, an expert on militants said that U.S. President Barack Obama, who is due to visit Indonesia in June, was one of several suspected targets of the militants.

Intelligence expert Mardigu Wowi Prasantyo, who is close to the police investigation, said books and documents found in the raids suggested the militants planned an attack on Obama, possibly during his visit to Indonesia.

'They did not say it, but this was evident in their books and documents, that the leader of America was their enemy and should be attacked whenever possible,' he told Reuters by phone.

The plot was revealed during interrogations of dozens of suspects arrested since a February raid on a terrorist training camp in the western province of Aceh, Danuri said.

'They were confident that all state officials and dignitaries would be there,' Danuri said. 'Killing all the state officials would have accelerated the transition from a democracy to a state controlled by Islamic Shariah law.'

I guess we can now consider Obama's Muslim outreach to be another one of his failures.

Radical Islamist to Appear at Democrat Convention 'Interfaith Service'

Well, since Jeremiah Wright was tossed under the bus several months ago, it's safe to say he won't be making any public appearances at the Democrat Convention.

But when the Democrats have a public interfaith service August 24, there will be at least one radical extremist in attendance.

For the first time at a Democratic National Convention, a public interfaith service of Christians, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists will help kick off the event at 2 p.m. Aug. 24 at the Wells Fargo Theater inside the Colorado Convention Center.

It’s not a huge surprise that a service of this nature would kick off the Denver event since DNCC chief executive Leah Daughtry is herself, a pastor and the Obama campaign has been preaching opening the convention to as broad a spectrum as possible.

“I am incredibly proud that these esteemed leaders from the faith community will be with us to celebrate this historic occasion and honor the diverse faith traditions inside the Democratic Party,” Daughtry said in a statement.

Keep that name Leah Daughtry in mind, as we'll get back to her.

Included in the service: Bishop Charles Blake, presiding prelate of the Church of God in Christ, Inc., and pastor of the West Angeles Church of God in Christ; Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America; social activity Sister Helen Prejean and Rabbi Tzvi Weinreb, executive vice president of the Orthodox Union.

That name Ingrid Mattson sure rang a bell.

The president of the Islamic Society of North America warned last night that American Jews who ally with right-wing Christians to oppose Muslim organizations are pursuing a high-risk strategy that could backfire.

Speaking at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, at an event sponsored by the school and four Muslim student organizations, Ingrid Mattson, a Canadian-born convert from Roman Catholicism who became the Islamic society's first woman president last year, said that many American Jews have an existential fear that Muslims are anti-Israel.

Such fear leads Jews to ally with Christian fundamentalists who are supportive of Israel and critical of Islam, she said.

"Right-wing Christians are very risky allies for American Jews," Mattson said, "because they [the Christians] are really anti-Semitic. They do not like Jews" and enter into the alliance on the basis of fundamentalist beliefs that it would be desirable for all Jews to return to Israel. She suggested that fundamentalist Christians might turn against Jews or that there could be backlash from ordinary Americans against Jewish and fundamentalist Christian supporters of Israel.

A perfect face to help lead an interfaith ceremony, no?

But wait, there's more.

As the first female convert head of one of the largest Muslim organisations in America Mattson's appointment as a woman and convert was deliberately calculated to put a modern and non threatening face to the Saudi backed da'wa goals of the organisation. By using her the poster girl of the Western educated female convert they are sending the message - you can be female, revert, and become influential in the Muslim movement. (Besides the obvious fact that an english speaking, North American born convert to Islam attacts more converts, Mattson is a poster girl for useful idioacy [sic] and was "groomed" by the former ISNA head Abdullah Idris, to take over the organisation in the hopes that her tokenism would garner more funding from wealthy Muslim women.)

Has anyone at the DNC even taken a minute to look into her background? If they did, they'd find this:

Though Dr. Ingrid Mattson appears moderate, she is insidious precisely because she maintains that facade while steadfastly refusing to criticize radical Islamists, claiming that there is no such thing as Wahhabism and that the term "Islamic terrorism" should not be used in the media. Most shocking of all, though, is how little concern she expressed about suicide bombings in an essay she wrote shortly after 9/11.

At a CNN-sponsored "town hall" forum in October 2001, Mattson — with a straight face — claimed that the radical, Saudi-sponsored form of Islam known as Wahhabism was akin to the Protestant movement in Christianity. Wahhabism "really was analogous to the European protestant reformation," she explained.

This wasn't an isolated use of the analogy. At a November 2003 roundtable sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies Conference, Mattson said the Wahhabist movement in Islam is "a very old struggle …between the more theologically austere Muslims who like Protestant Christianity believe that there should be no saints there should be no intervention between you and G-d."

Mattson takes a similar "see no evil" approach to the idea of Islamic terrorism. Mattson was one of several Muslim "scholars" quoted in a Washington Times article shortly after 9/11 who claimed that the media should not use the term "Islamic terrorism." Mattson took this stance despite the fact, as the Times paraphrased her, that "Islamic terrorists themselves use this term."

The reason Mattson is able to pass herself off as a moderate is probably because she clears the low bar set for most Muslims: the ability to explicitly condemn suicide bombings. But she hasn't done so for very long. In a remarkably revealing essay Mattson penned for Beliefnet.com in October 2001, she wrote that, until then, Palestinian suicide bombings "simply did not cross my mind as a priority among the many issues I felt needed to be addressed." She stated it as matter-of-factly and inconsequentially as someone who apologizes for forgetting to pick up the dry cleaning because it "simply did not cross my mind as a priority."

If the DNC indeed did a background check and still cleared her to speak, it says volumes about them, considering the ISNA was named as an unindicted terror co-conspirator in the Holy Land trial last year.

Now as for Ms. Daughtry, reader Errol alerted me to this recent item.

Rev. Jeremiah Wright in a skirt is Chief Executive Officer of this month’s Democratic National Convention in Denver.

While the media hounded Wright for his anti-American rants and while presidential hopeful Senator Barack Hussein Obama divorced him as his personal pastor, Obama’s head will be crowned by Leah Daughtry, who ardently believes in the same Marxist “Black Liberation Theology” preached by Wright.

Readers can step, figuratively into Daughtry’s Washington, DC church with the New York Times:

…”Behind her as she preached, a simple wooden cross hung on a brick wall, in the vaulted and sizable sanctuary of the church, which is headed by her father, Herbert Daughtry. A prison convert who served time in his early 20s for armed robbery and passing bad checks, Herbert Daughtry—whose father founded the church and whose grandfather and great-grandfather were also ministers—became the church’s pastor 50 years ago, and today Leah was delivering the sermon as part of an anniversary celebration.

Below the sanctuary, in the fellowship hall, a banner for slavery reparations proclaimed, “They Owe Us.” Fliers, recounted Herbert Daughtry’s arrest, a few weeks earlier, as he led marchers protesting the not-guilty verdict in the police killing of Sean bell, an unarmed black man. His ministry has always combined consuming spirituality with black liberation theology—the theology Jeremiah Wright invoked this spring to defend his controversial sermons—and zealous political activism. Leah holds these forces within her.”

See more on Daughtry at Conservative Punk.

Anyone familiar with New York knows full well about Herbert Daughtry, one of the angriest thugs the political scene has even witnessed in these parts. He makes Al Sharpton look like a nice guy in comparison.

The fact his Marxist daughter has such a prominent role at the DNC ought to set alarm bells ringing.

So here you have leading the Democrats: A radical Islamist and Jeremiah Wright in a skirt, who just happens to be the CEO of the Democrat Convention.

Lovely.

Thanks to LGF for the link!

Radical Islamist Gets 12 Years in California Bomb Plot

Who knows, somewhere in the next eight to ten years, maybe President Obama will issue a pardon for this
practitioner of Islam.

A member of a radical Islamic group accused of plotting to bomb Israeli and US military facilities in California was on Monday jailed for 12 years and seven months, justice officials said.

Gregory Patterson, 24, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to wage war on the United States and possession of a firearm for his role in the plot, which involved three co-conspirators who have also been caught.

Last month another plotter, Levar Washington, was sentenced to 22 years in prison after pleading guilty. Another member of the group, Kevin James, faces sentencing in early 2009, while a fourth man -- Hammad Samana -- was declared unfit to stand trial and is in psychiatric care.

According to prosecutors, the men were part of Jam'iyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh (JIS), which was founded by James in 1997 while he was in prison.

Justice officials said although there was no evidence of links to Al-Qaeda or other foreign Islamic groups, the accused men had adopted their cause.

Feminist Criticizes Islamists, Flees for Safety

Criticize radical Islamists and run for your life.

Anyone detect a trend here?

Author Taslima Nasreen is on the run

Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen has been on the run from extremist Muslims threatening to kill her ever since she started writing books that incensed religious hardliners.

Yesterday, Nasreen was being bundled from place to place in an all-enveloping black burqa as Indian authorities sought her a safe haven following violent Islamist protests calling for her expulsion.

Police in the West Bengal capital put her on a flight to Jaipur, but the local Rajasthan government there also told her to leave at dawn yesterday.

"She arrived here without informing us. Because of security reasons, the government has asked her to leave," Rajasthan's home minister Gulab Chand Kataria said.

The 45-year-old author declined to say where she was after leaving Rajasthan.

"I am mentally distressed. I am not well at all," Nasreen said.

Nasreen, who lives in self-imposed exile in India, was escorted by Rajasthan police to the state border, where police from neighbouring Haryana were to take over security arrangements, officials said.

Now the 45-year-old gynaecologist-turned author who describes herself as a humanist says all she wants to do is stay in India but has "no place to go."

"I have no place to go. India is my home, and I would like to keep living in this country till I die," she said. Media reports said New Delhi has extended her Indian visa, which was due to expire in February 2008.

The Hindu nationalist BJP has demanded a permanent visa for Nasreen, saying she should be allowed the freedom of speech enjoyed by those who make anti-Hindu remarks. Nasreen was being "treated like a football", senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha said.

In New Delhi, Muslim group, All India Milli Council, said all Muslim organisations would "vehemently protest" her stay as she has "hurt the sentiments of millions of Muslims in the country."

Such tolerance and respect for differing viewpoints.

More from the BBC.

Controversial Bangladeshi feminist writer Taslima Nasreen has been moved out of the western Indian city of Jaipur to an undisclosed destination.

Ms Nasreen had flown from Calcutta to Jaipur on Thursday after violent protests by Muslims.

But officials said she may be taken to the Indian capital, Delhi.

On Wednesday, police in Calcutta used tear gas and baton charges to control crowds calling for her Indian visa to be cancelled.

Rioters blocked roads and set cars alight. At least 43 people were hurt. More than 100 arrests were made.

Critics say she called for the Koran to be changed to give women greater rights, something she denies.

Hindustan Times account:

Complete anarchy prevailed across large parts of the city on Wednesday as angry mobs hurled brickbats and bottles and burnt over a dozen vehicles in protest against the developments in Nandigram, as well as the continued presence in the city of controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen.

Around 40 people, most of them policemen, were injured before the army was called in to restore calm. More than 60 people have been arrested and night curfew clamped in the affected areas.

It started with a demonstration by a local group, the All India Minorities Forum (AIMF), which had been campaigning for some time against renewing Nasreen’s Indian visa. With around 70 per cent of the population in Nandigram comprising Muslims, the AIMF on Tuesday added the violence-hit region’s cause to its list.

The National Organization for Women was unavailable for comment.

Former Intifada NYC Principal: I'm the Victim

We figured she wouldn't go quietly.

Principal of Arabic School Says She Was Forced Out

Debbie Almontaser, who resigned under fire from her position as principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy, the city’s Arabic-themed school, spoke out publicly for the first time today since her case attracted headlines and protests from opposing sides. Ms. Almontaser, a Yemeni-American with an extensive record of educational and community work in Brooklyn, stepped down on Aug. 10 amid a controversy that erupted after she was quoted defending the use of the word “intifada” as a T-shirt slogan.

Ms. Almontaser released a prepared statement through her lawyer and later read the statement from the steps of City Hall in a news conference that started soon after 5 p.m. In the statement, she said that she was forced to participate in an interview with The New York Post, that the newspaper misrepresented her views and that city officials then threatened to shut down the academy if she did not resign.

Cry me a river.

She also blames Stop the Madrassa and Daniel Pipes.

Leading the attack was the “Stop the Madrassa Coalition” run by Daniel Pipes, who has made his career fostering hatred of Arabs and Muslims. The coalition conducted a smear campaign against me and the school that was ferocious. Members of the coalition stalked me wherever I went and verbally assaulted me with vicious anti-Arab and anti-Muslim comments. They suggested that, as an observant Muslim, I was disqualified from leading KGIA, even though the school is rigorously secular, and its namesake, Khalil Gibran, was a Lebanese Christian. To stir up anti-Arab prejudice, they constantly referred to me by my Arabic name, a name that I do not use professionally. They even created and circulated a YouTube clip depicting me as a radical Islamist.

Then the evil bloggers took over and she was history.

Previous items on Almontaser here.

H/T Hot Air.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

'We Are Making Fools of Ourselves in the Eyes of the World'
by Leon de Winter

Fear of fanatical Islamists prompted Ayaan Hirsi Ali to leave the Netherlands, her adopted home, and now she has been forced to return. Paying for her bodyguards in the United States is too expensive for the Dutch government -- what a disgrace.

Amsterdam - There are exactly five people that the Dutch government has to protect against death threats from radical Islamists.

This sort of protection is expensive. Society bears the costs because freedom of opinion, a cornerstone of our culture, is on the line. The extremists, for their part, are prepared to risk their own lives to kill those under government protection.

The costs of protection are completely disproportionate to the outcome: the continued existence of our values and norms.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the sixth person granted protection by the Dutch government. She began receiving threats when, as a Dutch citizen and member of the parliament, she spoke out critically against political Islam. After the so-called "passport scandal," when the Dutch minister of immigration and integration threatened to confiscate her passport after Ayaan had been accused of lying about her name and birth date when she first arrived in the Netherlands, she moved to the United States, which precipitated a sharp upswing in her career within only a few months. She wrote a bestseller and landed a job at the American Enterprise Institute. But as a Dutch citizen, Ayaan does not qualify for protection in the United States under US laws and regulations.

Contrary to what many in the Netherlands believe about the success of her autobiography, she is not wealthy. She could not pay for the kind of protection she needs out of her own pocket -- no matter how much she would like to do so. Besides, the Dutch government apparently failed to find the right US officials with whom they could have reached an agreement. Under a decision by Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Balin, the protection paid for by the Dutch government expired on Oct. 1. Ayaan returned to the Netherlands, because without protection she doesn't have a day left to live.

How much is her life worth, according to Minister Balin's budget?

When someone in the Justice Ministry leaked classified documents on Ayaan's protection to the newspaper NRC Handelsblad, it set off a media circus. Neither Ayaan nor anyone directly associated with her was behind all the attention she is currently attracting. She would have preferred to go on living quietly in the Netherlands, and she would have liked to quietly work out a solution with Hirsch Balin.

How much is her life worth, according to Minister Balin's budget? How does he calculate this? These are politically sensitive questions, questions that former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher never asked when it came to the life of Salman Rushdie, wherever he happened to be.

Dutch society has no choice in this case. Canceling Ayaan's protection would be the equivalent of a death sentence. She can lead a relatively quiet life in the United States, but not in the Netherlands. And because she is so well known in the Netherlands and practically lives the life of a prisoner, not even able to go out on the street, the most humane solution is to continue to provide her with protection in America.

When commenting about the fact that the Netherlands paid for Ayaan's protection in the United States, parliamentarian Sybrand van Haersma Buma of the Christian Democrats can't help but admit that "it was a transitional solution, one that cannot last indefinitely."

How many days will he give Ayaan? Another week to live? A month? And then it would be time for the butchers of fundamentalist Islam to move in?

Whether we think she is nice, kind or opportunist, we cannot afford anything happening to her. The Dutch government is making a problem out of something that shouldn't be one, something that only causes chaos and sorrow.

Both Hirsi Ali and Hirsch Balin can only lose. The winners are the extremists who laugh about our inability to offer this courageous woman quiet and safety. You see, it's too expensive. In fact, though, it makes you want to weep.

Translated from the Dutch by Verena Bardtholdt

Via der Spiegel International.

For the time being, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is living in a safe house.

And the free speech wonks of the Kooky Kult of Koslam/New Democrat Party are . . . silent.

Also at Atlas Shrugs.

Springtime in Islamberg

This is rather disturbing.

A radical Islamist compound flourishes in the Catskills. Via Power Line.

The complex serves to scare the bejeesus out of the local residents. "If you go there, you better wear body armor," a customer at the Circle E Diner in Hancock said. "They have armed guards and if they shoot you, nobody will find your body."

At Cousins, a watering hole in nearby Deposit, a barfly, who didn't wish to be identified, said: "The place is dangerous. You can hear gunfire up there. I can't understand why the FBI won't shut it down."

Islamberg is a branch of Muslims of the Americas Inc., a tax-exempt organization formed in 1980 by Pakistani cleric Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani, who refers to himself as "the sixth Sultan Ul Faqr," Gilani, has been directly linked by court documents to Jamaat ul-Fuqra or "community of the impoverished," an organization that seeks to "purify" Islam through violence.

Though primarily based in Lahore, Pakistan, Jamaat ul-Fuqra has operational headquarters in New York and openly recruits through various social service organizations in the U.S., including the prison system. Members live in hamaats or compounds, such as Islamberg, where they agree to abide by the laws of Jamaat ul-Fuqra, which are considered to be above local, state and federal authority. Additional hamaats have been established in Hyattsville, Maryland; Red House, Virginia; Falls Church, Virginia; Macon, Georgia; York, South Carolina; Dover, Tennessee; Buena Vista, Colorado; Talihina, Oklahoma; Tulane Country, California; Commerce, California; and Onalaska, Washington. Others are being built, including an expansive facility in Sherman, Pennsylvania.

Before becoming a citizen of Islamberg or any of the other Fuqra compounds, the recruits - - primarily inner city black men who became converts in prison - - are compelled to sign an oath that reads: "I shall always hear and obey, and whenever given the command, I shall readily fight for Allah's sake."

In the past, thousands of members of the U.S. branches of Jamaat ul-Fuqra traveled to Pakistan for paramilitary training, but encampments, such as Islamberg, are now capable of providing book-camp training so raw recruits are no longer required to travel abroad amidst the increased scrutiny of post 9/11.

Over the years, numerous members of Jamaat ul-Fuqra have been convicted in US courts of such crimes as conspiracy to commit murder, firebombing, gun smuggling, and workers' compensation fraud. Others remain leading suspects in criminal cases throughout the country, including ten unsolved assassinations and seventeen fire-bombings between 1979 and 1990.

Read the whole thing.