Stewart Bell
National Post
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
TORONTO - Yusuf Islam, the British singer formerly known as Cat Stevens, was the guest of honour at a Toronto fundraising dinner hosted by an organization that has since been identified by the Canadian government as a "front" for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
In a videotape of the 1998 event obtained by the National Post, Mr. Islam describes Israel as a "so-called new society" created by a "so-called religion" and urges the audience to donate to the Jerusalem Fund for Human Services to "lessen the suffering of our brothers and sisters in Palestine and the Holy Land."
The Jerusalem Fund is one of four "fronts" named in a secret Privy Council Office memo that was sent to Jean Chretien, then prime minister, on May 23, 2000, discussing what it called groups that "have unsavoury links with terrorism.
"In a limited number of cases, fundraising in support of violent foreign struggles takes place in Canada through the cover of ethnic, religious or community-based associations and groups, lobbying and even criminal activity," the report says.
"Front groups operating in Canada include the Jerusalem Fund for Human Services (Hamas Front), the World Tamil Movement (Tamil Tigers Front), the Canadian Kurdish Information Network (Kurdistan Workers Party Front) and the Babbar Khalsa (a Sikh extremist front)."
Hamas, also known as the Islamic Resistance Movement, is responsible for most of the suicide bombings against Israelis. Canada has outlawed Hamas under federal anti-terrorism legislation, making it illegal to support the group.
Best known for his hit songs in the 1960s and '70s, when he was known as Cat Stevens, Mr. Islam, 56, a Muslim convert, made headlines last week when his flight from London to Washington was diverted to Maine because his name appeared on a U.S. watch list.
He was expelled from the United States for national security reasons. "Yusuf Islam was placed on the watch list because of activities that could be potentially related to terrorism," a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security told reporters.
The expulsion was criticized by Muslim groups, and Mr. Islam denies any ties to terrorism. "I never knowingly gave any terrorist group money," he said after being deported from Israel in 2000. "I've given to poor people and hospitals. I've helped to buy ambulances in the Holy Land. Obviously quite clear and supportable aims."
But on June 20, 1998, Mr. Islam gave the keynote address at a Jerusalem Fund fundraising dinner held in Toronto. The event was videotaped, and a copy was obtained by the SITE Institute, a U.S. terrorism research organization.
The video opens with a scene of Niagara Falls, overlayed with the Jerusalem Fund logo, which features the al-Aqsa Mosque and the maple leaf. It begins with an unidentified man explaining the activities of the Jerusalem Fund, which he describes as "helping the Muslims in Palestine" by financing hospitals, health clinics, families in need and orphans.
"Palestine is close to the heart of each and every Muslim. What the Muslims of Palestine have been doing for many years now has been that bright light shining, that hope ... that they are still believers that can raise the banner of jihad in the most difficult of circumstances."
Mr. Islam then begins a 45-minute speech in English in which he says it is "intolerable" for Muslims to "stand and watch" the situation in the Middle East. He describes Jerusalem as the centre of a land that is holy because of its connection to Allah.
"So this city which is blessed because of its religious nature. Therefore, what we see today is the result of the departure of religion from this area, of the uprooting of religion. So many of the people of the faith have been exiled from this region, moved on, to make way for what? Strangely and ironically, they moved on in the name of so-called religion, on behalf of ... the Jews.
"Of course, that would explain what is happening. Because the moment that religion and religious virtues disappear, there for sure follows trouble, tyranny, oppression," he says. "So what do we see then today? The concoction of a so-called new society based on an old society."
He says there could be "no redeemer except Allah. No political concept or construct or treaty or agent except the laws of Allah, which he instructed for this world. Jerusalem is that, the symbol of that. Out of the hands of the righteous then it falls into disrepute and blood.
"Jerusalem, al-Quds, it is a mirror reflecting the reality ... If it is dark, if it is bloody, then so too is the world. Today it reflects injustice of the secular man over the religious man. And how can the secular man be given the control and the sanctuary of the divine place of worship when he doesn't even respect what is holy? How? And how can those of faith allow that to happen? Therefore, peace will not return until we return to the Holy Land."
Cat Stevens - another muslim Jew-hater...
The Islamic States of America?
By Daniel PipesFrontPageMagazine.com September 23, 2004
The hardest thing for Westerners to understand is not that a war with militant Islam is underway but that the nature of the enemy’s ultimate goal. That goal is to apply the Islamic law (the Shari‘a) globally. In U.S. terms, it intends to replace the Constitution with the Qur’an.
This aspiration is so remote and far-fetched to many non-Muslims, it elicits more guffaws than apprehension. Of course, that used to be the same reaction in Europe, and now it’s become widely accepted that, in Bernard Lewis’ words, “Europe will be Islamic by the end of the century.”
Because of the American skepticism about Islamist goals, I postponed publishing an article on this subject until immediately after 9/11, when I expected receptivity to the subject would be greater (it was published in November 2001as “The Danger Within: Militant Islam in America”). I argued there that the Muslim population in this country is not like any other group, for it includes within it a substantial body of people—many times more numerous than the agents of Osama bin Ladin—who share with the suicide hijackers a hatred of the United States and the desire, ultimately, to transform it into a nation living under the strictures of militant Islam.
The receptivity indeed was greater, but still the idea of an Islamist takeover remains unrecognized in establishment circles – the U.S. government, the old media, the universities, the mainline churches.
Therefore, reading “A rare look at secretive Brotherhood in America,” in the Chicago Tribune on Sept. 19 caused me to startle. It’s a long analysis that draws on an exclusive interview with Ahmed Elkadi, the Muslim Brotherhood leader in the United States during 1984-94, plus other interviews and documentation. In it, the authors (Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah, Sam Roe, and Laurie Cohen) warily but emphatically acknowledge the Islamists’ goal of turning the United States into an Islamic state.
Over the last 40 years, small groups of devout Muslim men have gathered in homes in U.S. cities to pray, memorize the Koran and discuss events of the day. But they also addressed their ultimate goal, one so controversial that it is a key reason they have operated in secrecy: to create Muslim states overseas and, they hope, someday in America as well. …
Brotherhood members emphasize that they follow the laws of the nations in which they operate. They stress that they do not believe in overthrowing the U.S. government, but rather that they want as many people as possible to convert to Islam so that one day—perhaps generations from now—a majority of Americans will support a society governed by Islamic law.
This Brotherhood approach is in keeping with my observation that the greater Islamist threat to the West is not violence – flattening buildings, bombing railroad stations and nightclubs, seizing theaters and schools – but the peaceful, legal growth of power through education, the law, the media, and the political system.
The Tribune article explains how, when recruiting new members, the organization does not reveal its identity but invites candidates to small prayer meetings where the prayer leaders focus on the primary goal of the Brotherhood, namely “setting up the rule of God upon the Earth” (i.e., achieving Islamic hegemony). Elkadi describes the organization’s strategic, long-term approach: “First you change the person, then the family, then the community, then the nation.”
His wife Iman is no less explicit; all who are associated with the Brotherhood, she says, have the same goal, which is “to educate everyone about Islam and to follow the teachings of Islam with the hope of establishing an Islamic state.”
In addition to Elkadi, the article features information from Mustafa Saied (about whose Muslim Brotherhood experiences the Wall Street Journal devoted a feature story in December 2003, without mentioning the organization’s Islamist goals). Saied, the Tribune informs us, says he found out that the U.S. Brotherhood had a plan for achieving Islamic rule in America: It would convert Americans to Islam and elect like-minded Muslims to political office. “They’re very smart. Everyone else is gullible,” Saied says. “If the Brotherhood puts up somebody for an election, Muslims would vote for him not knowing he was with the Brotherhood.”
Citing documents and interviews, the Tribune team notes that the secretive Brotherhood, in an effort to acquire more influence, went above ground in Illinois in 1993, incorporating itself as the Muslim American Society. The MAS, headquartered in Alexandria, Va. and claiming 53 chapters across the United States engages in a number of activities. These include summer camps, a large annual conference, websites, and the Islamic American University, a mainly correspondence school in suburban Detroit that trains teachers and imams.
Of course, the MAS denies any intent to take over the country. One of its top officials, Shaker Elsayed, insists that MAS does not believe in creating an Islamic state in America but supports the establishment of Islamic governments in Muslim lands. The group’s goal in the United States, he says, “is to serve and develop the Muslim community and help Muslims to be the best citizens they can be of this country.” That includes preserving the Muslim identity, particularly among youths.
Notwithstanding this denial, the Tribune finds MAS goals to be clear enough:
Part of the Chicago chapter’s Web site is devoted to teens. It includes reading materials that say Muslims have a duty to help form Islamic governments worldwide and should be prepared to take up arms to do so. One passage states that “until the nations of the world have functionally Islamic governments, every individual who is careless or lazy in working for Islam is sinful.” Another one says that Western secularism and materialism are evil and that Muslims should “pursue this evil force to its own lands” and “invade its Western heartland.” [links added by me, DP]
In suburban Rosemont, Ill., several thousand people attended MAS’ annual conference in 2002 at the village’s convention center. One speaker said, “We may all feel emotionally attached to the goal of an Islamic state” in America, but it would have to wait because of the modest Muslim population. “We mustn’t cross hurdles we can’t jump yet.”
These revelations are particularly striking, coming as they do just days after a Washington Post article titled “In Search Of Friends Among The Foes,” which reports how some U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials believe the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence “offers an opportunity for political engagement that could help isolate violent jihadists.” Graham Fuller is quoted saying that “It is the preeminent movement in the Muslim world. It’s something we can work with.” Demonizing the Brotherhood, he warns, “would be foolhardy in the extreme.” Other analysts, such as Reuel Gerecht, Edward Djerejian, and Leslie Campbell, are quoted as being in agreement with this outlook.
But it is a deeply wrong and dangerous approach. Even if the Muslim Brotherhood is not specifically associated with violence in the United States (as it has been in other countries, including Egypt and Syria), it is deeply hostile to the United States and must be treated as one vital component of the enemy’s assault force.
Daniel Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is director of the Middle East Forum and author of Miniatures (Transaction Publishers).
"I'm being followed by a head-chopper..."
From Jihad Watch and AP:
WASHINGTON - A plane bound for Washington from London was diverted to Maine on Tuesday after passenger Yusuf Islam — formerly known as pop singer Cat Stevens — showed up on a U.S. watch list, federal officials said.
United Airlines Flight 919 had already taken off from London en route to Dulles International Airport when the match was made between the passenger and the watch list, said Nico Melendez, a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration.
The plane was met by federal agents at Maine's Bangor International Airport around 3 p.m., Melendez said.
Federal officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, identified the individual as Islam.
One official said Islam, 56, was identified by the Advanced Passenger Information System, which requires airlines to send passenger information to U.S. Customs and Border Protection's National Targeting Center. TSA was then contacted and requested that the plane land at the nearest airport, the official said.
"He was interviewed and denied admission to the United States on national security grounds," said Homeland Security spokesman Dennis Murphy. He said the man would be put on the first available flight out of the country Wednesday.
I have no idea why DHS would have denied him admission, but I do know a few things about Yusuf Islam.
• He publicly supported the Ayatollah Khomeini's death sentence for blasphemy against Salman Rushdie in 1989 ("The Qur'an makes it clear if someone defames the Prophet, then he must die"), although he has backtracked since then.• He was denied entry into Israel for donating thousands to the civilian-murdering terrorists of Hamas -- although now he denies this too.
In any case, it is clear that there is a great deal questionable about this preposterous counterculture casualty, and I am not in the least surprised that he showed up on the watch list.
Religion of head-choppers kill another infidel...(part two)
The holy warriors have slaughtered yet another helpless, bound hostage in the name of their god. What kind of god would that be you ask? Good question...
The new posting followed the passing of the militants’ 24-hour deadline for the release of all Iraqi women from U.S. custody, and after anguished relatives in the United States and Britain begged for the lives of Bigley, 62, and Hensley, who would have marked his 49th birthday Wednesday.
“The nation’s zealous sons slaughtered the second American hostage after the end of the deadline,” the statement said. It was signed with the pseudonym Abu Maysara al-Iraqi, the name usually used on statements from al-Zarqawi’s group. The brief statement did not give the name of the hostage killed. It promised video proof soon.
Tawhid and Jihad — Arabic for “Monotheism and Holy War” — has claimed responsibility for killing at least seven hostages, including another American, Nicholas Berg, who was abducted in April. The group has also said it is behind a number of bombings and gun attacks.
Brave islamic scum just before they chop off the head of yet another infidel. Religion of peace my ass... 
Religion of head-choppers kill another infidel...
The brave muslims in Iraq have slaughtered another helpless hostage:
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A video posted Monday on a Web site showed the beheading of a man identified as American civil engineer Eugene Armstrong. The militant group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for the slaying and said another hostage — either an American or a Briton — would be killed in 24 hours.
The grisly decapitation was the latest killing in a particularly violent month in Iraq, with more than 300 people dead in insurgent attacks and U.S. military strikes over the past seven days. Earlier Monday, gunmen in Baghdad assassinated two clerics from a powerful Sunni Muslim group that has served as a mediator to release hostages.
The video of the beheading of the man believed to be Armstrong surfaced soon after the expiration of a 48-hour deadline set earlier by al-Zarqawi’s Tawhid and Jihad group for the beheading of the three civil engineers. The men — Armstrong, American Jack Hensley and Briton Kenneth Bigley — were abducted Thursday from their home in a wealthy Baghdad neighborhood.
A militant whose voice resembled al-Zarqawi, who has been linked to al-Qaida, read a statement in the video saying the next hostage would be killed in 24 hours unless all Muslim women prisoners are released from U.S. military jails.
“You, sister, rejoice. God’s soldiers are coming to get you out of your chains and restore your purity by returning you to your mother and father,” he said before grabbing the hostage, seated at his feet, and cutting his throat. ...
The 9-minute tape, posted on a Web site used by Islamic militants, showed a man seated on the floor, blindfolded and wearing an orange jumpsuit — similar to the orange uniform worn by prisoners at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — with his hands bound behind his back. Five militants dressed in black stood behind him, four of them armed with assault rifles, with a black Tawhid and Jihad banner on the wall.
The militant in the center read out a statement, as the hostage rocked back and forth and side to side where he sat. After finishing, the militant pulled a knife and cut his throat until the head was severed.
The victim gasped loudly as blood poured from his neck. His killer held up the head at one point, and placed it on top of the body.
“The fate of the first infidel was cutting off the head before your eyes and ears. You have a 24-hour opportunity. Abide by our demand in full and release all the Muslim women, otherwise the head of the other will follow this one,” the speaker said.
The Israel-hating Left
The Last Word: Risen and fallen angels - The Israel-hating Left
Bret Stephens, THE JERUSALEM POST
Sep. 9, 2004
A couple of months ago, the Associated Press published a series of pictures taken in the village of Kabatiya, near Jenin. They showed a Palestinian man being marched down a street by armed guards, then shot like a dog in the village square. Were the executioners Israeli? No. They were members of the Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the military wing of Fatah, Yasser Arafat's political movement.
The victim was 45-year-old Muhammed Daraghmeh, accused of molesting his two daughters and collaborating with Israel. Was the accusation true? Who knows. Had the charge been proved by some kind of normal judicial procedure? It had not. Instead, the crowd chanted "death, death," the gunmen obliged, and the crowd cheered. More astonishing was that the gunmen invited the foreign press to record the scene. They were pleased with themselves, not ashamed.
Now consider the plight of Palestinian homosexuals. In August 2002, Yossi Klein Halevi wrote a piece in The New Republic which told the story of "Tayseer," a 21-year-old Gazan homosexual, who was lured to a tryst in an orange grove near his refugee camp. The next day he was summoned to the Palestinian police and told his partner of the day before was an informant. If Tayseer wanted to avoid prison, he had to become an informant. Tayseer refused.
What happened next was this: Tayseer was arrested "and hung by his arms from the ceiling. A high-ranking officer he didn't know arranged for his release and then demanded sex as payback. Tayseer fled Gaza to Tulkarm on the West Bank, but there too he was eventually arrested. He was forced to stand in sewage water up to his neck.... During one interrogation, police stripped him and forced him to sit on a Coke bottle. Through the entire ordeal he was taunted by interrogators, jailers, and fellow prisoners for being a homosexual."
I take note of these stories for two reasons. First, because Tayseer and Muhammed were victims not of the Israelis but of other Palestinians, and the context of their victimization was not the occupation but the style of rule established by the PLO from the moment it arrived in Gaza in 1994.
The second reason is that the abolition of capital punishment, and the promotion of gay rights, are two great causes of the "engaged" Left. A third great cause, of course, is Palestine. How is it that the three causes can travel together? How can the Left treat with veneration a movement that, in basic respects, is the antithesis of the very values it claims to champion? Conversely, how can it view with venomous hatred the one country in the Middle East that attempts to live by those values?
There are several plausible answers to this question, which fall into one of two categories: First, that whatever Israel's virtues or Palestine's vices, Israel's crimes against the Palestinians are such that they command the Left's attention above and beyond other international conflicts. Second, that there is something deeply wrong with the Left's moral and political vision.It will come as no surprise to readers that I subscribe to the second view. But let's try to do justice to the first.
There is, of course, the usual charge sheet: Occupation, settlement, land seizures, indiscriminate use of force, extrajudicial killing, house demolitions, and so on.Yet none of these accusations constitutes the real core of the Left's complaint about Israel. After all, Israel is not the only country denying an angry minority its state: the Sinhalese in Sri Lanka are doing the same to the Tamils. Nor is Israel the only country building a wall – Morocco built one in Western Sahara, which it illegally occupies, against the Polisario Front. Nor, certainly, has Israel been uniquely heavy-handed in its tactics: Whatever Sharon did in Jenin or Sabra and Shatilla, it's as nothing next to what Putin did in Grozny.
A more serious argument would begin by pointing out that however Israel treats its own citizens is not material to the question of how it treats Palestinians. France, too, was a liberal democracy in 1957, when General Aussaresses was torturing Algerian militants. Nor, to extend the analogy further, does the misrule of the Palestinian Authority necessarily delegitimize the cause it represents, any more than the actions of the FLN delegitimize the cause of Free Algeria.
Furthermore, one might say that precisely because Israel is a democracy, the standards the West applies to it must be higher than the standards the West applies to the Palestinians. Israelis, says Giancarlo Chevellard, the outgoing EU ambassador to Tel Aviv, "are one of us... We expect more from Israel than from Cambodia or Colombia."
Finally, it can be argued that Israel, on account of its superior power, is in a position to make political and territorial concessions whereas Palestinians are not. Thus, Israel's failure to make such concessions can only be attributed to greed – for land – or religious fanaticism – for The Land.
For the Left, then, what it boils down to is this: Israel is a country that could do better, morally speaking, but chooses not to. It could safely withdraw to the 1967 borders, but chooses not to. It could hold itself to the highest legal and ethical standards, but chooses not to. It could have peace at the cost of a little land, but chooses not to.
This, indeed, would seem to justify special opprobrium, if true. For true evil – the Satanic paradigm, the paradigm of God's fallen angel – is contingent on knowledge of good. Hutus in Rwanda and Arab militias in the Sudan may murder by the hundreds of thousands – but that is what Africans and Arabs do, isn't it? It may be dreadful, but it's not surprising.
As moral theories go, this is a defensible one: defensible in the way that judgments of guilt or innocence require a prior determination of mental and moral fitness. Did the defendant know he was committing a crime when he committed it? If the answer is yes – as it is assumed to be in the case of the Israelis – then the crime is damnable; if the answer is no – as it is assumed to be in the case of the Palestinians – then the crime is forgivable.
The problem here is that rendering a "yes" or "no" answer in the cases of Israel and Palestine is not simple. Take Israel: Can it really be said that Israel's conduct against the Palestinians is markedly worse than the conduct of other Western democracies at war? Furthermore, how does one go about determining whether Israel's alleged failure "to do better" is willful and malicious, or circumstantial and excusable?
Neither question is easy to answer. It is one thing to judge Israel's actions in light of relevant international legal covenants. But the strong case against Israel should not be proved normatively but comparatively: That is, not by the extent to which Israel departs from a given legal standard, but rather by how Israeli standards compare with the standards of Israel's Western peers. If, for example, France and the United States have employed a policy of targeted assassination against select enemies of state (as they have and do) then Israel must be held to that same standard (even if it continues to be held to a different standard vis-a-vis the Palestinians).
On the second point – could Israel have done better on the peace front? – one may equally ask: Could Germany do better on the economic front? I mention Germany because it presents a case in which almost all economists and policy makers are agreed on what needs to be done (mainly, reducing high labor costs), but the actual doing of it is not so simple. Germany is a democracy; there are competing sectoral interests, some quite obstructionist; there is a delicate political balance; and it is not enough for the chancellor to give his orders and be done with it.
The same goes for Israel. If Israel's tougher critics are going to demand that it comport itself in a way that befits a democracy, then they must also accept that democratic outcomes will often be imperfect and not to their liking.
There is another logical difficulty with ascribing to Israel willful malice toward Palestinians, and the problem is this: Why hasn't Israel acted worse? Israel, say its critics, is the powerful party; therefore it is morally incumbent on it to make the bulk of concessions. But if Israel fails to make those concessions, and if it fails to make them precisely because it's greedy and fanatical, why has it not proceeded to the next steps? If you're capable of one Sabra and Shatilla, you're capable of dozens of them. It is difficult to square the image of a murderous Ariel Sharon with the fact that 2,500 Palestinians have been killed in four years of fighting, and not 25,000, or 250,000.
In other words, the only way Israel can credibly be alleged to have chosen not to do good when it could have done good is if it had gone on to commit the most heinous crimes, in the style of Nazi Germany. Satanic evil – chosen evil – is never half-hearted.
Now to the Palestinians. This column began by asking how a movement that is in so many respects violent and illiberal should have such an overwhelming claim on the sympathy of the pacifist and progressive Left. Part of the answer, of course, is that the pacifist and progressive Left often has a secret fondness for violence and illiberality – remember the Red Brigades and the Weathermen. Part of the answer, too, is that the Western media has tended to magnify Israeli violence and minimize Palestinian violence, leading to a generally distorted picture of events. But these are not the deepest reasons.
Rather, the Palestinian cause has benefited from a certain kind of mirror-imaging or inverse correlation. To the extent that Israel is seen as powerful, the Palestinians are seen as powerless. To the extent that Israel is seen to be guilty, the Palestinians are seen to be innocent. To the extent that Israel is seen as having deliberately chosen its course, the Palestinians are seen as having been stripped of the ability to choose. And to the extent that Israel is seen to represent a unique kind of evil – the evil of the fallen angel – the Palestinians represent a unique kind of good – the good of the lost little puppy.
It is easy to see that in this role the Palestinians perform a real function for their champions in the West: as the fetishized "other" and as receptacles for their compassion. Yet here too there are problems with the Left's vision. Does the Left really want to suggest that Palestinians are unfit to be judged by the same standards used to judge Israelis? And if the Palestinians are not quite "innocent" of such crimes as suicide bombing, can it still be said that they are innocents in a more general sense, as people who have been deprived of individual moral agency by the all-encompassing reality of Israeli occupation?
There is also the problem of whether the Left's vision of the Palestinians as emblems of powerlessness coincides with the Palestinians' vision of themselves. My impression is that it does not. On the contrary, I am repeatedly struck by how confident Palestinians are of ultimate and total victory over Israel. At a private conference last year in London, one Palestinian embassy official put it bluntly: "The '67 borders were your last hope," he said.
For the Israel-hating Left, Palestine has become a religious destination, not a political question; a world of fallen and risen angels, in which facts conform to molds and evidence yields to faith. At some point, however, it will become increasingly difficult to bridge the chasm between their faith and their values. If they're not careful, it is a chasm into which they will, eventually, fall.
bret@jpost.com
"And fight with them until there is no persecution, and religion should be only for Allah" Q.2:193
In the name of Allah!
In the name of Allah, Muslim terrorists in Russia stabbed babies to death, shot toddlers in the back, forced children to eat rose petals and drink their own urine, raped teenage girls, executed their teachers and blew themselves up in a crowded school gymnasium. Death toll: 338.
In the name of Allah, Muslim terrorists in Spain detonated bombs on four commuter trains during Madrid's rush hour. Death toll: 190.
In the name of Allah, Muslim terrorists in Bali blew up a beach resort with an electronically triggered bomb at one bar and a car bomb hidden in a van at another nightclub filled with young Western tourists on holiday. Death toll: 202.
In the name of Allah, Muslim terrorists in Pakistan kidnapped and beheaded American journalist Daniel Pearl.
In the name of Allah, Muslim terrorists in Saudi Arabia kidnapped and beheaded American engineer Paul Johnson.
In the name of Allah, Muslim terrorists in Iraq kidnapped and beheaded American independent contractor Nick Berg.
In the name of Allah, Muslim terrorists in Iraq kidnapped and executed Italian security guard Fabrizio Quattrocchi.
In the name of Allah, Muslim terrorists in the Philippines kidnapped and killed American missionary Martin Burnham.
In the name of Allah, Muslim terrorists in Israel engineered near-simultaneous suicide attacks on two buses, killing at least 15 people.
In the name of Allah, Muslim terrorists in Morocco waged suicide bombing attacks in Casablanca.
In the name of Allah, Muslim terrorists in Turkey bombed synagogues and the British consulate.
In the name of Allah, Muslim terrorists in America hijacked and incinerated four planes full of men, women and children, trapped pregnant women and firefighters in smoke-filled stairways, and forced office workers to leap 99 stories to their deaths after saying final prayers from the ledges of the World Trade Center on a peaceful September morning. Death toll: 3,000.
Osama bin Laden... would be elected leader in any Muslim country
Islamic Group: 9/11 'Was A Towering Day in History' By Vik Iyer, PA News
Islamic extremists in the UK today hailed the terrorists responsible for the September 11 terrorist atrocities on the third anniversary of the attack.
Anjem Choudary, of radical group Al-Muhajiroun, described Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the attack on the Twin Towers in New York, as a “Muslim brother” and claimed he would be elected leader in any Muslim country. (you know, he's probably right...)
Al-Muhajiroun, which vowed that one day the Islamic flag will fly in Downing Street, had planned to stage a conference in London this evening to mark the third anniversary of September 11 but it was called it off on police advice.
Instead Mr Choudary held a news conference in the capital to declare that there had been positive outcomes as a result of 9/11. He said the act had divided the world into two separate camps, Muslim and non-Muslim.
Of bin Laden, he said: “He is my fellow Muslim brother. We believe in the same God, we believe in the same messenger ... whether he is an oppressor or oppressed.“I do not believe he is an oppressor, he is on the right path.“
If you had an election in any Muslim country, he would win.”The group described 9/11 as a “towering day” in history and it also paid tribute to the “magnificent” 19 hijackers.Mr Choudary stressed that the hijackers were educated men from rich backgrounds.
He finished the press conference by saying: “Islam will rule over Britain.”
Almost all terrorists are Muslims
An extraordinary column in the pan-Arabic daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat by Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, the general manager of the Al-Arabiya news channel gives me hope that not all muslims are uncaring, death-loving hypocrites:
"It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists," he begins, "but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims."
"The hostage-takers of the children in Beslan were Muslims. The hostage-takers and murderers of the Nepalese chefs and workers in Iraq were also Muslims. . . . The majority of those who manned the suicide bombings against buses, vehicles, schools, houses, and buildings all over the world were Muslim. . . .
"What a pathetic record. What an abominable `achievement.' Does all this tell us anything about ourselves, our societies, and our culture?. . .
"We cannot tolerate in our midst those who abduct journalists, murder civilians, explode buses; we cannot accept them as related to us. . . . They are the people who have smeared Islam and stained its image. We cannot clear our names unless we own up to the shameful fact that terrorism has become an Islamic enterprise; an almost exclusive monopoly implemented by Muslim men and women.
"We cannot redeem our extremist youths, who commit all these heinous crimes, without confronting the sheiks who thought it ennobling to re-invent themselves as revolutionary ideologues, sending other people's sons and daughters to certain death, while sending their own children to European and American schools and colleges."
"When it is no longer astonishing to encounter such sentiments in the Muslim world, we will we know that the corner has been turned in the war against Islamist terror. "