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Is the Sahara Desert Greening due to climate change?
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So what has been the “stimulus” package for??
Daily Archives: 08/02/2009
US: Boyd’s neighbour recalls he told her “Muslims are very peaceful people”
An update on this story: Friends confused after neighbor’s terrorism charges – Local – The Sun News
Daniel Boyd was the son of a U.S. Marine decorated with four Purple Hearts. He was a devout Muslim who wore a beard that brushed his chest and robes that brushed his ankles.
Boyd spent his days hanging dry wall and chatted with neighbors about hunting and fishing; he made pilgrimages to holy sites in the Middle East and broke each day for noon prayers to God.
Daniel Boyd showed a pair of faces to the world. Now, friends and neighbors are trying to make sense of another: a terrorism suspect who believed so ardently in his faith that he believed it was calling him to kill himself and others. (Note: he was not trying to feed the poor, help the people in need…, no, he was called to kill himself and others).
(…)
By 1980, Boyd’s mother had remarried a kind and gentle Washington lawyer, William Saddler. Saddler, a Muslim, had a tremendous effect on Boyd, an all-American boy (who) latched onto Islam. By age 17, he had converted, leaving behind the Episcopal rituals of his early childhood. Sabrina, his high school sweetheart, followed his lead, converting just before their wedding. (I can’t understand this…).
(…)
The Boyds were, in some fashion, beloved in Willow Springs. Their Muslim faith, and the outward evidence of it, didn’t put off their neighbors.
(…)
But anyone who knows Boyd in the context of his faith agrees that he was extreme. Investigators say Boyd splintered from the mosque in Raleigh because of conflicting views. Jasmin Smajic, a 23-year-old Bosinian immigrant who befriended Boyd, said he often talked of jihad, a violent struggle to resist oppression in the name of Islam.
Lorie Sienkwicz, a neighbor, met the Boyds by chance shortly before they moved into the neighborhood. They began talking about faith.
She asked Daniel Boyd if he was feeling prejudice in America in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
“He said, ‘Yes, we are. Muslims are very peaceful people,’” Sienkwicz recalled.
That last thing is enourmously interesting: he was saying that “Muslims are very peaceful people,” while at the same time speaking of and making jihad wherever he could.
North Carolina terrorism allegations: How it went down – Morning Express – CNN.com Blogs
The small town of Willow Spring, North Carolina, where the men live, doesn’t seem like a place you’d expect to find terrorists. The Boyd family’s neighbors are shocked to hear about the charges. People describe Daniel Boyd as a quiet, family-oriented man.
One neighbor even said, “If he’s a terrorist, he’s the nicest terrorist I’ve ever met in my life.”
More information:
The eight suspect is thought to be in Pakistan, his last known residence, where he went to “engage in violent jihad“.
IBA did a special post about one of the suspects’ facebook page.
Tags Technorati: Alex Hoyd, US, Jihad, Jasmin Smajic, Lorie Sienkwicz, William Sadler, North Carolina, Jihadism, homegrown terrorism,
Morocco: two prominent magazines are blocked
Some days ago I posted about free press’ restrictions in Morocco. GVO reports about the blocking of two magazines TelQuel and Nichane, because they published two polls about Mohammed VI’s 10th anniversary as Moroccan King, even when the poll showed a very favourable result for him (nearly 90% considered that Mohammed Vi’s reign has being positive or very positive).
According to Achmed R.Benchemsi, the only reason for the measure was the poll itself, while the Interior Ministry, in a tiny press release considered that the magazines had “not respected enacted laws”, specially the article 77 of the press code.
Tags Technorati: Morocco, free press, press freedom, TelQuel, Nichouam, Mohammed VI.
Kenya: Somali radical Islamists are slipping easily into the country
Radical Islamists Slip Easily Into Kenya – NYTimes.com
A thin, dusty line is about the only thing separating Kenya, one of the Western world’s closest allies in Africa, from the Shabab, a radical Islamist militia that has taken over much of southern Somalia, beheading detractors, stoning adulterers and threatening to kill any Americans or Europeans who get in their way.In most places this line, the official international border, is not even marked, let alone protected. In the village of Hulugho, there is simply a tattered Kenyan flag and a cinderblock schoolhouse with chicken-wire windows. Then a meadow of thorn trees and donkey dung. Then Shabab country.
Kenya is widely seen as a frontline state against the Islamist extremism smoldering across the Horn of Africa. Few expect the Shabab to make good on its threats to march en masse across the border. But the creeping fear, the one that keeps the security staffs at Western embassies awake at night, is that the Shabab or its foreign jihadist allies will infiltrate Kenya and attack some of the tens of thousands of Westerners living in the country, possibly in a major strike like Al Qaeda did in 1998.
Last month, Western counterterrorism experts in Kenya sent out text messages warning expatriates to stay away from malls in Nairobi, Kenya’s usually laid-back capital, because of possible suicide attacks by the Shabab. A few weeks later, the group threatened to destroy Nairobi’s “tall, glass
buildings.”The Shabab has already penetrated refugee camps inside Kenya, according to camp elders, luring away dozens of young men with promises of paradise — and $300 each. It has carried out cross-border attacks, kidnapping an outspoken cleric in May from a refugee camp 50 miles inside Kenya. Last Wednesday, in one of its boldest cross-border moves yet, a squad of uniformed, heavily armed Shabab fighters stormed into a Kenyan school in a remote town, rounding up all the children and telling them to quit their classes and join the jihad.
Anyone remembers Odinga’s relation to Kenyan Jihad? Anyone remembers that Obama’s cousin is Prime Minister of Kenya? Anyone surprised at these news? Me, not.
Tags Technorati: Kenya, Obama, Islamism, Odinga, Horn of Africa, terrorism, Islamism, Al-Shabab, Al-Qaeda,
UK: Police hunting 40-year-old Bangladeshi for forcing marriage upon a 15-yr-old girl and allegedly assaulting her 12-yr-old sister
Absolutely terrible via: Islamization Watch: UK: Muslim girl, 15, ‘forced to marry illegal immigrant who then raped her and assaulted her little sister’
Police are hunting a suspected illegal immigrant accused of raping a 15-year-old schoolgirl who had been forced to marry him.
The Bangladeshi, in his 40s, is also wanted over claims that he sexually assaulted the girl’s 12-year-old sister.
He disappeared after the elder girl, now aged 17, contacted the Metropolitan Police on June 26 because she feared she was now being forced into a second marriage.
Specialist child abuse detectives based at Stratford were told that the girl, from an Asian family living in Bethnal Green in London’s East End, had been the subject of a forced marriage in April 2007 when she was 15.
Officers have arrested a 53-year-old woman, believed to be another family member, on suspicion of aiding and abetting rape and actual bodily harm. The arrest for assault is linked to an attack on a six-year-old boy.
Not only he forced girls into marriage and having sex with him. He is also a coward (not surprisingly): the moment he thought he was going to be arrested, he fled.
But I can’t understand that 53-year-old woman taking part in this. It’s outrageous. Absolutely outrageous.
Tags Technorati: UK, child marriage, forced marriage, Women in Islam, women’s rights, London,
Just a little note on Venezuela's press freedom
Or, well, I should have said lack of press freedom, specially after the last events. Not only there is a new worrying Press Law. 55% de country’s radios can be shut during next weeks.
Much more commercial radios are in danger of being closed than previously thought. 360, of a total number of 656, can be punished and shut by the new Hugo Chávez’s law.
Also, leaders from the opposition, who normally have gone into exile, opposition bloggers and Twitter (specially the hashtag #FreeMediaVe, which is a result, according to the “Bolivarian News Agency”, of the “media campaign from the far-right extremists” to “create terror” , although the Government has lost the battle in this social network, mainly because of the international audience it has) are being targeted. Alexis Marrero is being prosecuted by “inciting to kill Hugo Chávez, war propaganda and being against the presidency”, because (it’s widely supposed as they haven’t pointed out the real reasons for this prosecution) of his anti-Chávez blog (written in Spanish) and being a neighbourhood’s leader who has repeatedly demonstrated against Chávez.
I would like people like Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Naomi Campbell and others who have endorsed Chávez in the past, to speak about these measures. It’s interesting to note that Lee Barnes, head of English racist and xenophobe BNP party, has already said that “Chávez is on target here”, as English MSM are not favourable to their slanders (specially those about “Zionist propaganda” (you can just read his blog…). Just to underline where freedom and liberty stand for some people: you’re free as long as you say the same things I want you to say.
By the way, Alexis Marrero was arrested by Chávez’s thugs some weeks ago.
US: Muslim leader condemns terrorism
An undate on this story. Question: Why this condemnation is considered as “news”? Muslim Leader Condemns Terrorism
Nayyar Imam, leader of the Islamic Association of Long Island, is angry. “We are really angry — this is the last thing that we need to happen to us.” What has angered him is that Bryant Neal “Ibrahim” Vinas, a convert to Islam and member of his mosque, has been charged with involvement in an attack on an American military base in Afghanistan and providing information about the New York City subway system to Al-Qaeda operatives.
Said Imam: “We definitely condemn this kind of action and if anyone in the mosque knew about this they would have been the first one to report it to the authorities.” He complained that “one bad apple is bringing a negative image to the whole community.” Muslims, Imam continued, “are Americans too and they are concerned about American security and American safety just as much as everyone else. We don’t want one bad apple to paint a false picture of the thousands and thousands of Muslims who live on Long Island.” According to Long Island’s Times Beacon Record Media, “the religious leader said Islamist extremism is universally frowned upon at the Selden mosque. ‘If it comes up in a discussion, it always comes in the negative sense.’” Said Vinas, “I keep an eye like a hawk on this place.”
From Imam’s account, one would get the impression that Vinas picked up his jihadist ideas on his own, and in opposition to the current of thinking that prevailed at his own mosque. This gibes with the assessment of an unnamed intelligence official quoted in the Los Angeles Times: “From what we can tell,” he explained, “the contacts he made were his own. He was self-recruited; he was yearning to become a Muslim jihad fighter. He made his own path.”
But why was “yearning to become a Muslim jihad fighter” in the first place, especially since, by Imam’s account, his mosque discouraged this sort of thing? The Los Angeles Times reported that “a former FBI counter-terrorism official said suspected extremists had been identified at the mosque.” (Who were those suspected extremists? So Vinas was not alone in the mosque, at least there was another one who was also an extremist….).
That raises the question of what exactly Nayyar Imam teaches against when he says that he speaks out against “extremism,” and what he considers to be “extremism” in general.
Friend describes al-Qaida terrorist’s life on LI
“I don’t really know what happened to him,” said Kuilan, who described Vinas as a sometimes lonely figure who in his early 20s began to act strangely. Kuilan provided several photographs of Vinas, and they were verified by Nayyar Imam, president of the Islamic Association. Newsday paid an associate of Kuilan for the photographs, which depict Vinas posing with friends on Long Island and on a vacation in Puerto Rico.
(…) A critical turn in Vinas’ life apparently came three or four years ago when Kuilan introduced him to Islam and encouraged him to go to the mosque. Vinas quickly became enthusiastic. At one point he disappeared for two or three weeks, underwent a conversion, and returned a devout follower of his new religion. He even walked around wearing a traditional skullcap, known as a kufi.
(…) Around 2006, Kuilan noticed Vinas was acting oddly. Vinas started talking about going to Pakistan to fight. He said he wanted to fight America. After people objected to his talk, he then stopped talking about fighting, and by the time he left was speaking more about religious study overseas, Kuilan said.
Kuilan has been arrested several times in the past seven years, all misdemeanors, including disorderly conduct and weapons and marijuana violations. In response to the charges, Kuilan said the weapon involved, a broken Taser, and the marijuana belonged to a friend. (How convenient…).
Tags Technorati: US, Islamism, terrorism, Bryant Neal “Ibrahim” Vinas, Islamic Association of Long Island, Selden mosque
UK: Choudary and supporters call for Queen of England’s prosecution
Islamization Watch: UK Islamic fanatics issue call to prosecute Queen
Islamic extremist Anjem Choudary and several of his supporters have publicly demanded the prosecution of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II over a charge that she sanctioned British troops to wipe out the civilian population in Afghanistan.In an Internet rant to fellow extremist Muslims, and reported by The Sun, they declared: “She is the one who applauds her sons and daughters to go out and massacre hundreds and thousands of innocent people. Shouldn’t she be tried for genocide and the extermination of a nation?”
The rant has left Members of Parliament livid with anger.
(…) Cops are currently investigating Choudary, 42 – who is on benefits and is a pal of hate preacher Omar Bakri – for demanding gays be stoned to death.
More in Winds Of Jihad By SheikYerMami and a little bit of humour by Anorak News » Blog Archive » Genocidal Queen: Make Anjem Choudary MBE
What Her Majesty should do is offer Choudary an MBE for services to free speech, journalism and the War on Terror.
Just go to any place where Shariah is enacted and see what happens if you say “prosecute the president”… 
Tags Technorati: UK, Anjem Choudary, Afghanistan, Islamism, Omar Bakri, Queen Elizabeth II
Eritrea: US warns the country against arming Al-Shabab
Two senior Obama administration officials have warned that Eritrea could face severe punishment if it does not halt its alleged arms shipments to an Islamist terrorist group in Somalia.
Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said last week that the Obama team is “deeply concerned and very frustrated” with Eritrea’s support for Al Shabaab fighters who are trying to overthrow the Somali government.
“It is unacceptable, and we will not tolerate it, nor will other members of the Security Council,” Ms Rice told the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee.
Via BrucePatrick23.
Islamists are not going to be really impressed by someone who tells them “we are not tolerating it”. They know Obama won’t do anything, as he doesn’t want to be considered a “warmonger” like Bush.
Tags Technorati: Eritrea, US, Al-Shabab, Al-Qaeda, Islamic terrorism, terrorism, Obama, Islamism, Susan Rice, United Nations, UNSC, Somalia
Pakistan: Christians killed in Muslim riots
An update on this story: The Associated Press: 6 Pakistani Christians die in riots with Muslims
Days of rioting between Christians and Muslims in eastern Pakistan following allegations that a Quran was defiled escalated Saturday, leaving six Christians dead, including a child, authorities said.
Members of a banned Muslim organization began torching Christian homes in the Punjabi city of Gorja on Thursday after accusing them of desecrating pages from Islam’s holy book, Federal Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti said.
“There is no truth in the allegation,” he told The Associated Press, adding that he had himself visited Gojra on Friday and asked police to provide protection to Christians who were facing threats.
He accused the police of ignoring his instructions and said hundreds of radical Muslims on Saturday burned more Christians homes and killed six, including four women and a child.
Television footage from the scene showed houses burning and streets strewn with debris and blackened furniture as mobs ran at each other. Local media also reported gunfights had broken out between Christian and Muslim communities and that rioters had blocked the local railway line.
Compass Direct reports that the toll of killed Christians has risen to 16.
Tags Technorati: Pakistan, religious persecution, blasphemy laws, Christianity, Christian persecution, Quran, Christian minority in Pakistan
Pakistan: Al-Qaeda follower and alleged responsible of Marriott bombing, captured*
Pakistan arrests member of al-Qaida-linked group believed responsible for suicide bombings
Police officials say authorities have arrested a member of an al-Qaida-linked group believed responsible for several suicide bombings, including one that targeted a bus of Pakistan’s spy agency.
A police official said Saturday that Rao Shakir was seized in a raid on the outskirts of the capital, Islamabad, late Friday. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.
Pakistan arrests suspect in Marriott hotel bombing | World | Reuters
Pakistani police have arrested an activist from an al Qaeda-linked militant group on suspicion of involvement in a suicide attack on Islamabad’s Marriott Hotel last year that killed 55 people, police said on Saturday.
The suspected, identified as Qari Shakir Rao, belonged to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), and was arrested on the outskirts of Islamabad this week.
Naeem Ahmed, a police spokesman, said Rao was also suspected of involvement in several other attacks.
More information about Lashkar-a-Jhangvi.
Information about the Marriot Bombings: Wikipedia, CNN.com, T&P.
*He is also possibly the murderer of Daniel Pearl.
Tags Technorati: Al-Qaeda, Pakistan, terrorism, Islamism, Marriott bombings, Rao Shakir, Islamabad, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
