Radical Islam
5/1/2008 | Foreign Policy, Radical Islam, Terrorism, U.S. Military
"Hostile" Iran Sparks U.S. Attack Plan
CBS Evening News
(CBS) A second American aircraft carrier steamed into the Persian Gulf on Tuesday as the Pentagon ordered military commanders to develop new options for attacking Iran. CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports that the planning is being driven by what one officer called the "increasingly hostile role" Iran is playing in Iraq - smuggling weapons into Iraq for use against American troops. "What the Iranians are doing is killing American servicemen and -women inside Iraq," said Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.
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4/28/2008 | Foreign Policy, Radical Islam, Terrorism
Iran demands Russian nuclear shipment
Yahoo News
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran demanded Sunday that Azerbaijan deliver a Russian shipment of nuclear equipment blocked at its border with Iran for the past three weeks. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said in his weekly briefing that his country has asked the Azerbaijani ambassador in Iran to get his government "to deliver the shipment as soon as possible."
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4/25/2008 | Radical Islam
Face scans for air passengers to begin in UK this summer
The Guardian
A face recognition system will scan faces and match them to biometric chips on passports. Photograph: Image Source/Getty Airline passengers are to be screened with facial recognition technology rather than checks by passport officers, in an attempt to improve security and ease congestion, the Guardian can reveal. From summer, unmanned clearance gates will be phased in to scan passengers' faces and match the image to the record on the computer chip in their biometric passports. Border security officials believe the machines can do a better job than humans of screening passports and preventing identity fraud. The pilot project will be open to UK and EU citizens holding new biometric passports.
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4/23/2008 | Radical Islam, Terrorism
Al Qaeda chief slams Muslims for lack of support
Breitbart.Com
Al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri criticised Muslims for failing to support Islamist insurgencies in Iraq and elsewhere in a new audiotape posted Tuesday on the Internet. Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant also blasted Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas over their reported readiness to consider a peace deal with Israel. "I call upon the Muslim nation to fear Allah's question (at judgement day) about its failure to support its brothers of the Mujahedeen (holy Warriors), and (urge it) not to withhold men and money, which is the mainstay of a war," he said.
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4/22/2008 | Foreign Policy, Radical Islam
Rice says Carter was warned against meeting with Hamas
My Way News
KUWAIT CITY (AP) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday the Bush administration explicitly warned former President Jimmy Carter against meeting with members of Hamas, the Palestinian faction that controls the Gaza Strip and which is regarded by the U.S. as a terror group. Rice, attending a regional meeting on Iraq's security and future, contradicted Carter's assertions that he never got a clear signal from the State Department. Rice told reporters that the U.S. thought the visit could confuse the message that the U.S. will not deal with Hamas. "I just don't want there to be any confusion," Rice said. "The United States is not going to deal with Hamas and we had certainly told President Carter that we did not think meeting with Hamas was going to help" further a political settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.
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4/14/2008 | Anti-semitism, Foreign Policy, Israel, Radical Islam
Jimmy Carter Defends Meeting With Hamas
My Way News
WASHINGTON (AP) - Former President Carter said he feels "quite at ease" about meeting Hamas militants over the objections of Washington because the Palestinian group is essential to a future peace with Israel. Carter, interviewed Saturday for ABC News'"This Week," airing Sunday, also said he would oppose a U.S. Olympic boycott and hopes all countries will join in the Beijing games. He spoke from Katmandu, Nepal, where his team of observers from the Carter Center monitored an election that appeared likely to transform rule by royal dynasty into a democracy with former Maoist rebels in a strong position, judging by incomplete returns. Several State Department officials, including the secretary, Condoleezza Rice, criticized Carter's plans to talk in Syria this week with exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in the first public contact in two years between a prominent American figure and the group. Carter said he had not heard the objections directly, although a State Department spokesman said earlier that a senior official from the department had called the former president.
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4/10/2008 | Radical Islam, U.S. Military
All eyes on al-Sadr as Iraq violence swells
USA Today
BAGHDAD — As a young seminary student, his nickname was Mulla Atari, because he preferred video games to studying the Quran. Now, Muqtada al-Sadr is a radical cleric revered by millions of poor Shiites as a modern-day Robin Hood. He also may be the most powerful man in Iraq. The recent spike in violence here has shown that the enigmatic Shiite cleric and his Mahdi Army militia continue to have the muscle to plunge Iraq into warfare — and essentially reverse recent security gains made by the U.S. military that the Bush administration cites as a key sign of progress. Or as he did in August, al-Sadr can stop much of the bloodshed by ordering a cease-fire — and win some credit from the U.S. military for the resulting calm.
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4/4/2008 | Radical Islam
British Muslims 'planned to kill thousands by bringing down SEVEN transatlantic airliners in one go with liquid bombs'
The Daily Mail
A gang of British Muslims planned to blow up seven planes within hours in the biggest terrorist atrocity since 9/11, a court heard yesterday. Two thousand passengers would have died in the plot by eight fanatics working "in the name of Islam", the jury was told. It could have involved up to 18 suicide bombers. And they were almost ready to strike. The jets they targeted would all have been bound from Heathrow to cities in the U.S. and Canada, it was claimed.
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3/31/2008 | Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Speech, Radical Islam, Religious Persecution
Muslims more numerous than Catholics: Vatican
Reuters United Kingdom
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Islam has overtaken Roman Catholicism as the biggest single religious denomination in the world, the Vatican said on Sunday. Monsignor Vittorio Formenti, who compiled the Vatican's newly-released 2008 yearbook of statistics, said Muslims made up 19.2 percent of the world's population and Catholics 17.4 percent. "For the first time in history we are no longer at the top: the Muslims have overtaken us," Formenti told Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano in an interview, saying the data referred to 2006. He said that if all Christian groups were considered, including Orthodox churches, Anglicans and Protestants, then Christians made up 33 percent of the world's population -- or about 2 billion people. The Vatican recently put the number of Catholics in the world at 1.13 billion people. It did not provide a figure for Muslims, generally estimated at around 1.3 billion. Formenti said that while the number of Catholics as a proportion of the world's population was fairly stable, the percentage of Muslims was growing because of higher birth rates.
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3/24/2008 | Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Speech, Radical Islam, Religious Persecution
Muslim baptized by pope says life in danger
Reuters News Service
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - A Muslim author and critic of Islamic fundamentalism who was baptized a Catholic by Pope Benedict said on Sunday Islam is "physiologically violent" and he is now in great danger because of his conversion. "I realize what I am going up against but I will confront my fate with my head high, with my back straight and the interior strength of one who is certain about his faith," said Magdi Allam. In a surprise move on Saturday night, the pope baptized the 55-year-old, Egyptian-born Allam at an Easter eve service in St Peter's Basilica that was broadcast around the world. The conversion of Allam to Christianity -- he took the name "Christian" for his baptism -- was kept secret until the Vatican disclosed it in a statement less than an hour before it began. Writing in Sunday's edition of the leading Corriere della Sera, the newspaper of which he is a deputy director, Allam said: "... the root of evil is innate in an Islam that is physiologically violent and historically conflictual." Allam, who is a strong supporter of Israel and who an Israeli newspaper once called a "Muslim Zionist," has lived under police protection following threats against him, particularly after he criticized Iran's position on Israel. He said before converting he had continually asked himself why someone who had struggled for what he called "moderate Islam" was then "condemned to death in the name of Islam and on the basis of a Koranic legitimization." His conversion, which he called "the happiest day of my life," came just two days after al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden accused the pope of being part of a "new crusade" against Islam.
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3/20/2008 | Radical Islam
Bin Laden Slams EU Over Prophet Cartoons
Breitbart.Com
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Osama bin Laden, in a new audio message posted Wednesday, condemned the publication of drawings that he said insulted the Prophet Muhammad and warned Europeans of a "severe" reaction to come. The message, which appeared on a militant Web site that has carried al-Qaida statements in the past and bore the logo of the extremist group's media wing al-Sahab, showed a still image of bin Laden aiming with an assault rifle. "The response will be what you see and not what you hear and let our mothers bereave us if we do not make victorious our messenger of God," said a voice believed to be bin Laden's, without specifying what action would be taken. The five-minute message, bin Laden's first this year, made no mention of the fifth anniversary Wednesday of the U.S.-led invasion in Iraq. It came as the Muslim world marks the Prophet Muhammad's birthday Thursday and amid the reigniting of a two-year-old controversy over some Danish cartoons deemed by Muslims to be insulting. Islamic law generally opposes any depiction of the prophet, even favorable, for fear it could lead to idolatry. Bin Laden described the drawings as taking place in the framework of a "new Crusade" against Islam, in which he said the pope has played a "large and lengthy role." On Feb. 13, Danish newspapers republished a cartoon showing Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban to show their commitment to freedom of speech after police said they had uncovered a plot to kill the artist.
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2/27/2008 | Iran, Radical Islam
Rare criticism in Iran of Ahmadinejad rhetoric on Israel
AFP
TEHRAN (AFP) — A top Iranian cleric made a rare criticism of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's verbal attacks on Israel on Wednesday, saying a foreign policy of "coarse slogans" was not in the national interest. Hassan Rowhani, a former top nuclear negotiator who still holds several influential positions, said that Iran needed to show more flexibility and desire for dialogue in its dealings with the international community. "Does foreign policy mean expressing coarse slogans and grandstanding?" Rowhani asked in a speech to a foreign policy conference in Tehran. "This is not a foreign policy. We need to find an accommodating way to decrease the threats and assure the interests of the country." His comments came a week after the latest verbal attack on Israel by Ahmadinejad, who described the Jewish state as a "dirty microbe" and "savage animal" in a speech to a public rally. The president has already made calls for Israel to be wiped off the map and predicted it is doomed to disappear, provoking international uproar and sharpening tensions in Iran's nuclear standoff with the West. Rowhani warned starkly: "If the international community thinks that a country wants to play troublemaker and eliminate others, it will not let the country do this and will confront it. "We must act in such a way that the world understands that we are ready for more flexibility and more dialogue." Rowhani headed the relatively moderate nuclear negotiating team that served under former president Mohammad Khatami before Ahmadinejad took power in 2005.
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2/20/2008 | Radical Islam
Ahmadinejad: Israel filthy bacteria
The Jerusalem Post
In yet another verbal attack against Israel, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the Jewish state a "filthy bacteria" whose sole purpose was to oppress the other nations of the region. "The world powers established this filthy bacteria, the Zionist regime, which is lashing out at the nations in the region like a wild beast," the Iranian president told supporters at a rally in southern Iran. "[Israel] won support [from the other nations] which created it as a scarecrow, so as to keep the people of this area under control," Ahmadinejad said. Referring to the assassination of Hizbullah terror chief Imad Mughniyeh, the Iranian leader said that Israel "uses terror as a threat every day, and afterwards is happy and joyful."
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2/18/2008 | Radical Islam
Iran: 'Cancerous growth' Israel will soon disappear
The Jerusalem Post
"The cancerous growth Israel will soon disappear," Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps commander Muhammad Ali Jafari wrote to Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the FARS news agency reported Monday. In a letter of condolences following last week's assassination of Hizbullah terror chief Imad Mughniyeh, Jafari said: "I am convinced that with every passing day Hizbullah's might is increasing and in the near future, we will witness the disappearance of this cancerous growth Israel by means of the Hizbullah fighters' radiation [therapy]." In the letter, in which Jafari consoled Nasrallah over the death of the "martyr," he continued: "There's no doubt that the death of this loyal fighter will strengthen the resolve of all revolutionary Muslims and fighters in the struggle against the Zionist regime, particularly the resolve of those who fought by this martyr's side."
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1/30/2008 | Radical Islam, Iran
Ahmadinejad tells West: Accept Israel's 'imminent collapse'
Haaretz.Com
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on the West Wednesday to acknowledge Israel's "imminent collapse." Speaking to a crowd on a visit to the southern port of Bushehr, where Iran's first light-water nuclear power plant is being built by Russia, Ahmadinejad further incited his listeners to "stop supporting the Zionists, as [their] regime reached its final stage." "Accept that the life of Zionists will sooner or later come to an end," the Iranian president said in a televised speech. He added, "What we have right now is the last chapter [of Israeli atrocities] which the Palestinians and regional nations will confront and eventually turn in Palestine's favor." Iran does not acknowledge Israel and Ahmadinejad has in the past sparked international outcry by referring to the systematic murder of six million Jews in World War II as a "myth" and calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map."
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1/22/2008 | Religious Persecution, Radical Islam, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion
Malaysia seizes Christian books
The Washington Times
Malaysian authorities confiscated Christian children's books, claiming the illustrations of prophets such as Moses and Abraham violate Islamic Shariah law. The independent news agency Malaysakini reported the Internal Security Ministry confiscated the literature from bookstores in two cities and one small town in mid-December. The Malaysian Embassy declined to comment on the news service's Jan. 11 report. The Rev. Hermen Shastri, general secretary of the Malaysian Council of Churches, confirmed the report and accused the government of persecuting Christians. "The officials have offended the sensitivities of Christians because their publications and depictions of their Biblical personalities have now become targets of unscrupulous Muslim officials bent on curtailing religious freedom in the country," Mr. Shastri said.
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1/14/2008 | Iran, Radical Islam
Bush Insists Iran Biggest Terror Sponsor
My Way News
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - President Bush gently nudged authoritarian Arab allies Sunday to satisfy frustrated desires for democracy in the Mideast and saved his harshest criticism for Iran, branding it "the world's leading state-sponsor of terror." Speaking in this Persian Gulf country, about 150 miles from the shores of Iran, Bush said Tehran threatens nations everywhere and that the United States was "rallying friends around the world to confront this danger before it is too late." The warning about Iran was much tougher than Bush's admonition about spreading democracy in the Middle East, which had been billed as the central theme of his speech.
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1/7/2008 | Freedom of Speech, Radical Islam
American Al Qaeda Leader To Bush: 'We Will Be Waiting For You'
ABC News
American Al Qaeda leader Adam Gadahn told his followers to welcome Bush "with bombs and traps" upon his upcoming visit to the Middle East this week. "The occupied territories are awaiting their first visit by the crusader Bush and the mujahideen are also waiting for him," said Gadahn, a California native and now an Al Qaeda spokesman. Gadahn is the star of the latest al Qaeda propaganda video to be posted online by the group's media wing, As Sahab. In his newest dramatic gesture, Gadahn tore up his U.S. passport in protest of the imprisonment of fellow al Qaeda followers Abu Zubaydah, John Walker Lindh and Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman. "I don't need it to travel anyway," he said afterwards. Gadahn made reference to November's Annapolis conference of Middle Eastern leaders, saying it was a gathering of Bush's "loyal puppets." He said the United States has been "unmistakably defeated" in Iraq in Afghanistan and has lost the battle for hearts and minds "in spectacular fashion."
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12/31/2007 | Radical Islam
New Questions Arise in Killing of Ex-Premier
The New York Times
LAHORE, Pakistan — New details of Benazir Bhutto’s final moments, including indications that her doctors felt pressured to conform to government accounts of her death, fueled the arguments over her assassination on Sunday and added to the pressure on Pakistan’s leaders to accept an international inquiry.
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12/27/2007 | Foreign Policy, Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Speech, Radical Islam
Who killed Benazir Bhutto? The main suspects
Times Online
The main suspects in Benazir Bhutto’s assassination are the Pakistani and foreign Islamist militants who saw her as a heretic and an American stooge and had repeatedly threatened to kill her. But fingers will also be pointed at Inter-Services Intelligence, the agency that has had close ties to the Islamists since the 1970s and has been used by successive Pakistani leaders to suppress political opposition.
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