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August 31, 2007
Russia: Devout Muslims Kill 4 Policemen, But Original Target was Children's Festival
A car bomb blast outside a state cultural center killed four policemen in Ingushetia's city of Nazran in Russia's North Caucasus region. The 2 kilo bomb, which went off at 7:15pm on August 31, was inside a Russian Lada car parked near the cultural center where a children's festival was to be held the next day.
The bomb went off when the police came to investigate, reports RIA Novosti, the state news agency. Local officials believe the car bomb was planned to go off on September 1, a children's holiday in Russia that celebrates the return to school.
The main suspects are devout Muslims agitating for the establishment of a Caliphate in the North Caucasus. Ingushetia and neighbouring Chechnya have long been a hotbed of Islamism.
In a separate incident on August 31, men in masks and armed with automatic weapons stopped and beat three transport police officers. The assailants robbed the officers of their weapons, money and mobile phones.
Posted by Jean de la Valette at 2:36 PM | Comments (0)
Russia: Devout Muslims Suspected in Massacre of Russian Teacher's Family
On August 30, a Russian family was massacred in Karabulak, a small town in the predominantly Muslim republic of Ingushetia, in what officials believe is a hate crime committed by devout Muslims whose main goal is to destabilize the North Caucasus region and establish an Islamic Caliphate.
The assailants broke into the house at about 11:30pm and shot Anatoli Draganchuk, and his two sons, Denis, 20, and Mikhail, 24. His wife, Vera, a teacher of Russian, managed to hide in the house and then escape. The whereabouts of the family's daughter is unknown.
Police officials, however, think the immediate cause of the grisly crime was in revenge for the killing in Nazran earlier in the day of suspected Ingush terrorist, 18 year old Islam Garakoev. The FSB said Garakoev was killed when he resisted detention by officers, and that explosives were found on him, as well as a loaded handgun. The FSB said Garakoev was a surviving member of a Muslim terror cell headed by Adam Nalgiev, which was responsible for many terror attacks against law-enforcement agencies in Ingushetia, but which for the most part was destroyed in June 2006.
Ingushetia is part of Russia's North Caucasus region, and it borders Chechnya and North Ossetia. Most of the terrorists who carried out the Beslan school massacre in September 2004 were devout Ingush Muslims.
In contrast to official reports, the Ingush site, www.ingushetiya.ru claims that Islam Garakoev was 17 years old, and that he was merely standing on the roadside near a makeshift marketplace helping his mother when Russian troops pulled up and shot him for no reason.
Yesterday's family massacre, however, bears close resemblance to other recent crimes committed by devout Muslims in Ingushetia. On the night of July 16 in the village of Orzhonikidzevskaya, a Russian teacher, Ludmila Terekhina, and her sons, 19 and 24 years old, were executed at point blank range.
The tragedy didn't end there, however. During the family's burial, a bomb went off injuring 11 people.
These Muslim terror attacks are just few of the many in the past six months. The situation in Ingushetia has deteriorated rapidly since January 1, and at the very end of July, Moscow sent 2,500 Interior Ministry troops to Ingushetia.
The Muslims targeting Russian teachers and their families is not coincidental, but part of their wider plans to ethnically cleanse the region of non-Muslims.
During a visit to Ingushetia last summer, Western Resistance witnessed the full virulency of the Islamic insurgency. Main roads often had to be mine-sweeped by Russian troops, and on one occasion we saw how devout Muslims had blown a mine in the road just an hour before we passed by.
The local population also seemed very aggressive and militant, and their sympathies with the violence of Islam and anti-Russian attitude were quite clear.
Posted by Jean de la Valette at 7:32 AM | Comments (0)
August 30, 2007
Sweden: Caving In To Muslim Cartoon Protests?
In late September 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published a series of 12 images of Mohammed. These had been invited by the newspaper as author Kare Bluitgen, who had written a book on the life of Mohammed, could find no illustrators who dared to represent the founder of Islam. He had approached three artists, but after an attack upon a lecturer at the Carsten Niebuhr Institute, Jyllands-Posten had invited artists to submit their images, and published the ones they considered the "best".
Initially there was some local antagonism to these cartoons in Denmark. Then in November Egypt and Turkey voiced their protests. By February, the protests against the cartoons had gone "global". It transpired that fanatical Palestinian preacher Abu Laban of the Waqfs mosque in Copenhagen had gone to the Middle East to drum up international anger. Assisted by his violent Lebanese-born sidekick Ahmed Akkiri (who once bit off part of a fellow student's ear). By the end of February, at least 30 (possibly 50) people had died in cartoon-related riots. Most of the victims were Christians, killed in Nigeria.
Now, the ugly specter of Islamic anger being stoked in response to images of Mohammed threatens to create another "cartoon crisis". The images have been created by Swedish artist Lars Vilks. This artist is better known as a 3D artist, creating in situ sculptures within landscape (see above). Vilks' latest venture are rather sketchy 2D images of Mohammed as a dog. The sketches were thought too risqué for several Swedish galleries, which refused to display them. However, on August 18 one Swedish newspaper called Nerikes Allehanda, which serves the locality of Örebro, published one of Vilks' images.
On Saturday August 25, a group of about 60 Muslims protested outside the offices of Nerikes Allehanda. On Monday, August 27, Iran summoned Gunilla von Bahr, a Swedish diplomat, to its foreign ministry to protest the cartoon's publication. In one of his mad anti-Semitic rants, president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed that the cartoon's publication was part of a "Zionist conspiracy". He said: "They do not want the Swedish government to be a friend of other nations. I strongly believe they are behind it (the cartoon). They thrive on conflict and war."
Ahmadinejad's mention of the cartoons came amid a diatribe against "Zionists", made at a news conference in Tehran. He said: "Zionists are people without any religion. They are lying about being Jewish because religion means brotherhood, friendship and respecting other divine religions. They are an organised minority who have infiltrated the world. They are not even a 10,000-strong organization. Anywhere they are found there is war. Anywhere where there is war they are behind it. If the world is calm, people, Europeans, Germans even, will uproot them."
Pakistan has now joined in with the condemnations. Its foreign ministry has today announced that it had summoned Sweden's charge d'affaires (Lennart Holst) to criticize "in the strongest terms, the publication of an offensive and blasphemous sketch of the Holy Prophet."
The UK Telegraph mentions that Vilks has attacked the "Zionists" by depicting on his website "a giant hook-nosed pig looming over hillside houses. The caption reads: 'Modern Jew sow (judesugga), swollen by capitalism, on her way to tear apart some peaceful villages'."
Such exercises in leftist anti-Semitism do nothing to bolster Vilks' case, but in a free society such images can be shown. For that reason, we are also showing two of the "cartoon dog" images. Vilks may be a sculptor and conceptual artist, but as a cartoonist, he has little talent. Paul Klee once described drawing as taking a line for a walk. In Vilks' case, the line appears to be suffering a schizophrenic episode, unsure of its direction.
The newspaper which published a solitary cartoon of Mohammed as a dog, Nerikes Allehanda, has published in the English language a defense of the "right to ridicule religion". This mentions that a Muslim newspaper called "Minaret", in conjunction with the group "Secular Muslims in Sweden" is planning to mount an exhibiton, featuring these pieces of art. According to this editorial, the cartoons published in Jyllands-Posten were "lousy". I have to say that these cartoons by Lars Vilks are - both in style in content - themselves "lousy".
The article concludes: "The right to freedom of religion and the right to blaspheme religions go together. They presuppose one another. What happens if a fundamentalist Muslim wants to express his faith through pictorial art? Quite clearly, it will be easy to persuade art galleries that the pictures are unsuitable, that they may lead to conflict. So the restriction of Lars Vilks' possibilities to express himself may also negatively affect Muslims’ right to express themselves."
Sweden's the Local states that Sweden has officially offered an apology to Pakistan for the publication which "hurt Muslim feelings".
Pakistan has issued a statement, which claims: "Regrettably, the tendency among some Europeans to mix the freedom of expression with an outright and deliberate insult to 1.3 billion Muslims in the world is on the rise." The statement asserted that Sweden "fully shared the views of the Muslim community" and said the publication was "unfortunate".
Anna Björkander, Sweden's foreign ministry spokesperson said that the assumption by Pakistan that Sweden as a whole was sorry was itself a "misunderstanding" but admitted that Lennart Holst had expressed to Miangul Akbar Zed at the Pakistan foreign ministry that he was sorry " if the publication had hurt Muslim feelings." She said Sweden protects freedom of expression in its constitution, but claimed that "Otherwise the Swedish government has no opinion on the matter."
For more information on this case, see Middle East Times, Reuters, Press TV and also Gates of Vienna. The latter website claimed on August 18 that Lars Vilks had received a letter threatening to cut his head off.
I hope that by showing these cartoons, we do not unnecessarily offend anyone.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 6:10 PM | Comments (2)
August 29, 2007
Islamism: James Ujaama & Abu Hamza - Part 3 of 3
This article by Adrian Morgan (Giraldus Cambrensis of Western Resistance) appeared earlier today in Family Security Matters and is reproduced with their permission.
Why Won't James Ujaama Testify Against Abu Hamza?
(Part Three of Three)
Terror Training in Bly Oregon
Earnest James Ujaama appears to have spent considerable time in London. He had returned to Seattle in late 1999, and according to his original indictment of August 28, 2002, Count One, Section E, in the fall of 1999 (clause a) he had told others that he was sponsored by unindicted coconspirator 1 (Abu Hamza) and had attended Al Qaeda training camps. Around October (b) he had gone to Bly Oregon where he and others engaged in firearms practice. In October and November (c), Ujaama discussed the need for extra training, to be able to attend Afghan training camps, "the commission of armed robberies, the building of underground bunkers to hide ammunition and weapons, the creation of poisonous materials for public consumption, and the firebombing of vehicles".
Around October 1999 (d), Ujaama had used a commercial copy center to fax a proposal to Hamza. In this fax, Ujaama compared the Bly terrain to that in Afghanistan, that the property in Bly could "store and conceal guns, bunkers, and ammunition" and he invited Hamza to stay at Bly as a safehouse. As a result of this fax, around November 26, 1999 (e) two individuals, sent as emissaries of Hamza, arrived in New York on an Air India flight and went from there to Bly via Seattle. From late November to December (f) Hamza's "emissaries" inspected the Dog Cry Ranch in Bly. They engaged with others in firearms training and watched a video on "improvised poisons".
While he was at Bly (f), one of the "emissaries" claimed to be a "hit man" for Osama bin Laden. Ujaama returned to London in either December 1999 or January 2000 (h). Around February (i), the two emissaries stayed at Seattle where they expounded the teachings of Hamza, and one of them gave urban tactical training. In or around 2000 (j) Ujaama had worked on the Supporters of Shariah (SOS) website, spreading anti-Western messages.
There is more in the indictment, but it should be mentioned that the two "emissaries" sent by Abu Hamza to inspect the property at Bly were Haroon Rashid Aswat and Oussama Abdullah Kassir. Aswat was a UK national of Indian descent who had grown up in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. Oussama Kassir was the emissary who claimed to be a hit man for Osama bin Laden. A Swedish national of Lebanese origin, Kassir was the individual who allegedly provided "urban tactical training" in Seattle in February 2000. According to the indictment, between May and June 2002 (Count One, Section E, clause k) Kassir had contacted a cooperating witness to discuss the US government's investigation, and discussed whether to return to Seattle to "assess the situation". These two individuals were those who in December 1999 had been traveling in a vehicle owned by auto mechanic Semi Osman, who then resided at the Bly Ranch, when it was stopped by a police officer over a faulty brake light. Both Kassir and Aswat appeared to "lay low" after June 2002, aware that the US were investigating their trip to Oregon.
Despite deciding not to testify against Abu Hamza, to this end even fleeing to Belize in December 2006 to escape US authorities, James Ujaama has already pleaded guilty for his part in the above indictment. At no stage in his court appearances, nor in his now-broken plea agreement, has he contradicted these accusations originally made by the US authorities.
Haroon Rashid Aswat
Haroon Rashid Aswat certainly was closely connected with Abu Hamza. He had been photographed sitting in a taxi with his mentor. In early 2003 a young Muslim had been killed in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban. Upon his person had been the passport of Haroon Rashid Aswat, and according to some reports, such as one from National Public Radio it was widely assumed that he had died. In 2005, in the immediate aftermath of London's 7/7 bombings, Aswat's phone number had been found to have been contacted by members of the suicide team which carried out the July 7 attacks, stated the London Times of July 21, 2005.
The Times had initially reported that Aswat had been arrested in Sargodha, Pakistan. This was repeated by several other news sources. On July 28, 2005, the Times reported that Haroon Rashid Aswat had been apprehended in Lusaka in Zambia. US and UK antiterrorism officials traveled to Zambia to interview him. The Times repeated claims that he had called two of the London bombers at least 20 times from his cellular phone. According to CNN, US authorities had located Aswat in South Africa a month or so before 7/7, and while the British resisted demands to have Aswat apprehended there by the US, Aswat had "slipped away".
It appears that in Zambia there was disagreement between US and UK officials about which country should have custody of Aswat. British counter-terrorism officials denied that Aswat was suspected of causing the London bombings. Aswat was deported to London, and was immediately arrested upon his arrival and taken to the high-security Paddington Green police station, pending an extradition request from the US.
In August 2005, it was reported that US authorities unsealed an official charge (registered on June 21) against Aswat, naming him in the Bly terror camp plot. On August 8, 2005, the Times reported that Aswat was "baffled" by the US extradition order. On January 5, 2006, a British judge ruled that Aswat could be extradited to the US. Aswat has since fought extradition, claiming his human rights would be infringed in the US. The US has given assurances that Aswat will not face a military commission, and on November 30, 2006, the UK High Court ruled that his extradition can go ahead.
On July 24, 2005, three days after Aswat's arrest in Zambia, the Seattle Times reported that Seattle prosecutors had been blocked by the US Justice Department from bringing criminal charges against Aswat in 2002. Aswat had stayed for two months at the Dar-us-Salaam mosque in the city in the first part of 2000. It has been suggested by John Loftus, a former Justice Department prosecutor, that Aswat was employed by MI6 as an agent. Though this is not beyond the bounds of possibility, there were other reasons for delaying any official arrest warrant of Aswat before March 2004.
The US would have certainly known before 2005 that Aswat was alive, despite reports of his alleged "death" in Afghanistan. An international terrorism inquiry was underway, code-named "Operation Crevice" in Britain. Its members were associates of both Haroon Rashid Aswat and US citizen Mohammed Junaid Babar. The latter individual, like the other Crevice plotters, was a member of Al-Muhajiroun. He helped to set up a terror training camp in Malakand in Pakistan, which some of the Crevice plotters attended. At the end of March, 2004 individuals in Britain and one Canadian (Momin Khawaja) were arrested. Five of the Britons were convicted on April 30, 2007 of conspiring to cause explosions. Just before the arrest of these individuals, Haroon Rashid Aswat had met with Momin Khawaja and Junaid Babar in February, 2004 in London. The leader of the Operation Crevice plotters had met Mohammed Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer (two of the London bombers) on several occasions in early 2004.
Oussama Kassir
In November 2003, Oussama Kassir had been jailed for 10 months in Sweden for possessing illegal weapons at his Stockholm abode. On October 24, 2003, Judge Ann-Britt Jansson ruled there was insufficient evidence to charge him under the country's newly-introduced terror legislation. Kassir had earlier been jailed in Sweden in 1998 for threatening a policeman.
Kassir, of Lebanese origin, had arrived in Sweden in 1984, becoming a citizen in 1989. In 1991 he had been convicted of being part of a gang which smuggled 63 kilograms of hashish into Sweden, and also of illicit arms possession. For these crimes, he had received a six year jail sentence.
He was arrested on Sunday 11 December 2005 at Ruzyne airport in Prague, Czech Republic. This had happened as a result of a sealed indictment and an Interpol arrest warrant made in connection with this. He had been traveling from Stockholm to Beirut. Kassir was placed in custody at Pankrac prison in Prague.
On December 13, federal prosecutors announced that a "criminal complaint" had been unsealed at US District Court in Manhattan. The complaint alleged that Kassir had spent up to two months in Bly, and witnesses said he had trained others to use firearms, set up perimeter patrols at the ranch and that Kassir was"in possession of at least one compact disc about improving poisons." Kassir had been unhappy at the low turnout of trainees at Bly. Local authorities in Oregon have maintained that there was never more than a dozen people at any one time at the Dog Cry Ranch.
His wife Zeinab claimed shortly after his arrest that he was "mentally ill", and had sought psychiatric therapy on several occasions. She claimed that her husband could not stand being in prison, even though he had spent many years in jail for his previous crimes. There were doubts about extraditing Kassir to the US. An extradition treaty was made between the US and Czechoslovakia in the 1920s, state legal commenters McNabb Associates, but Czechoslovakia no longer exists since it was split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. In May 2006, the Czech Republic and the US signed an addendum on mutual legal assistance.
Kassir had his first extradition hearing on July 19, 2006 at Prague City Court. Kassir claimed: "I have never started a terrorist camp. I have never been to Oregon. I am not a terrorist." So far, Kassir has not been sent to the US.
Abu Hamza and Terror Camps
It was only after Ujaama's two-year jail term came to an end in April 2004 that the US publicly issued its own indictment against Abu Hamza on April 24, 2004. This indictment had been made on May 26, 2004. The complete 11-count indictment can be found at Findlaw.com. Hamza's first two counts refer to the kidnapping of 16 Western tourists in Yemen on December 1998, which led to the deaths of four hostages. Hamza had been arrested in 1999 after the Yemen kidnapping, but had not been charged.
The remaining eight counts refer to James Ujaama and his contacts. Counts Three to Six relate to the setting up of a terror camp in Bly, along with plotting to stockpile weaponry and sponsoring individuals to set up the camp. Counts Seven to Ten relate to providing material support and resources to terrorists and to a foreign terrorist organization (facilitating violent jihad in Afghanistan). These charges relate to activities carried out in the southern district of New York: Count Seven relates to sending people to New York to facilitate breaches of Title 18, Section 2339A of the United States Code. This included sending coconspirators (Ujaama and Feroz Abbasi) to Pakistan where the pair separately entered Afghanistan. Count Eleven refers to the breaching of Executive Order 13129, issued by Clinton on July 4, 1999, which banned the sending of goods services or funds to Afghanistan, as these could be used by Al Qaeda or the Taliban. This order had been extended at the time Hamza allegedly sent Ujaama to escort Abbasi to Afghanistan via Pakistan.
While Hamza was at Finsbury Park Mosque, since 1998 attempts had been made by trustees to bar him from accessing the mosque. When these incidents happened, he would lead his followers to engage in illegal obstruction of roads off St Thomas' Road where the mosque was situated. Sometimes his followers would occupy a road near Finsbury Park station, causing the 106 bus to be rerouted. I used to take this bus journey on frequent occasions between 1997 and 2002. I was surprised at the few police attending, and how no arrests were made, even though obstruction is a crime. While some individuals prayed in the road, more militant members stood on the sidewalk, scowling in an intimidating manner at passers by.
After the indictment was made Hamza was arrested and detained on May 27, 2004, in connection with the US extradition request. Despite this, Hamza was again officially arrested on August 26, 2004 under British terrorism laws. He was detained in Belmarsh prison, awaiting his trial which concluded on February 7, 2006. His leadership at Finsbury Park mosque was handed to his second-in-command, a man named Abu Abdullah. This man was of Turkish origin, who had been a soccer coach named Attila Ahmet before his conversion to radical Islam in 1998. Abu Abdullah took over the role of leadership of the Supporters of Shariah until September 1, when 14 people were arrested in London. Abu Abdullah was among those arrested.
The arrests led to revelations of plans in Britain to create training camps, involving Hamza and his followers. Some of these training camps had happened long before the alleged attempts to set up the training camp in Bly, Oregon. The raids in London coincided with raids upon a large Islamic school, set within 58 acres at Marks Cross, Crowborough, in East Sussex. This massive building, with more than a 100 rooms, had become the Jameah Islameah boys' school in September 2003, though by 2005 an inspection showed that only nine pupils were registered.
The building and its spacious grounds had been purchased by four individuals in 1993. Abu Hamza had visited the school five times during the 1990s, bringing with him his followers. They had camped in the grounds. Apparently Hamza had considered buying properties in Wales and Lancashire with the intention of creating terror training camps, before he had settled on the notion of using the ranch in Bly, Oregon. Hamza had also considered purchasing the Jameah Islameah school for use as a jihad training center.
Four of the individuals who had been arrested on September 1 had also been in Spain in April 2006 and been placed under police surveillance. Three of these individuals had earlier been under surveillance in 2005 when they were in Spain. These individuals were thought by authorities to have planned to set up a terror recruitment center in Granada province. Granada has rugged terrain not dissimilar to Afghanistan. The four individuals who were in Spain in April 2006 had also crossed into North Africa and were thought to have there met jihadists and attended extremist camps, stated Spain's Interior Ministry.
The statement claimed: "At the beginning of April the suspects crossed through a land border in the north of Spain and left two days later in a commercial ferry towards north Africa. A short time later they returned to Spain by the same route and left Spain in the direction of France by a land frontier. They only used Spanish territory as a passageway. Interested foreign intelligence services were notified. There were four other men on the trip with them."
Abu Abdullah, Hamza's second-in-command, was charged with eight counts, including soliciting to murder (advocating murder of non-Muslims) and publishing a statement urging people to commit acts of terrorism. Others who were arrested with him were charged under Section 6 (1) of Britain's Terrorism Act 2006 with receiving training in terrorism. This related to two "terror camps" which were held in a wooded area near Lyndhurst in Hampshire. These took place from April 28 to May 1, 2006, and again on June 2 to June 4, 2006.
Shortly after the September 2006 arrests, one British newspaper claimed that in addition to the Jameah Islamiyah school, MI5 were scrutinizing five more British locations as possible terror training camps.
There are arguments that suggest that James Ujaama's decision not to testify against Abu Hamza could jeopardize Hamza's extradition to the US. Hamza's lawyers argue that testimony from Feroz Abbasi was gained via "torture" while he was detained at Guantanamo, and this could be used to block the extradition. Other arguments are that Hamza himself may be subjected to torture in the US - the same argument made by Haroon Rashid Aswat in his appeals against extradition. Only James Ujaama knows why he will not testify against Hamza. Hopefully his decision will not be of itself prevent Hamza from facing justice - not least justice for his involvement in the Yemeni kidnappings, which British law seems unable to achieve.
Postscript
Abu Abdullah was forcibly evicted by police from Finsbury Park Mosque in February 2005, and the locks were changed. A few days later, the BBC proclaimed that there was a "new start" for the mosque. One of the five named trustees of the "reformed" mosque is Mohammed Kassem Sawalha. This individual is a former Hamas operative, who was known in the West Bank as "Abu Abada".
Hamas is a Muslim Brotherhood operation, and it is no surprise that the mosque was taken back from the "extremists" by the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB). This organization was founded by a senior Muslim Brotherhood leader, Kemal al-Helbawy, in 1997. The BBC reported that the mosque takeover by MAB had been made with the support of the Metropolitan Police and the Charities Commission. A video accompanies the article. Azzam al-Tamimi, spokesman for the MAB, said: "MAB was approached by a combination of people - the old trustees, the police, the Home Office, MPs, and we were asked could we, if we had the opportunity, run this mosque."
It should be noted that Azzam al-Tamimi supports Muslim suicide bombings, when they involve Israelis. He said to the BBC in November 2004 that it would be a "noble cause" to be a suicide bomber against Israel, and said that he would do it "if I had the opportunity". If such Muslim Brotherhood extremists are regarded by British police, Home Office, members of parliament and its Charities Commission as "moderate", then it is no wonder that Britain is so riddled with Islamist fanaticism.
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Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 4:49 PM | Comments (0)
France: The Al-Durah Hoax Revisited
The demonization of the state of Israel and of the Jewish people is a continuous affair; the jihad is never-ending, and so is jihad propaganda. But the al-Durah hoax remains one of the ugliest, most consequential lies ever told about good, decent people. Joanna Chandler explains: A New Dreyfus Affair
On September 12, 2007, Philippe Karsenty of Paris will present his appeal of a judgment for defamation rendered in favor of Charles Enderlin, Jerusalem Bureau Chief for France 2, the television station responsible for airing the Mohamed Al Durah hoax which was adopted, at birth, as official informatiom in nearly every corner of the world. Karsenty, editor of Media-Ratings, www.m-r.fr, an internet service that monitors the French media, questioned Enderlin's veracity and challenged him to explain obvious defects and inconsistencies in the Al Durah story. Initially, the Israeli government had taken responsibility for the boy's death, but later concluded that it had reliable evidence that the case was a fraud. Daniel Seaman, Director of Israel's Government Press Office, openly calls the alleged "murder" of Al Durah a hoax. France 2 is holding 27 minutes of raw footage of the incident, which could resolve the controversy once and for all. But it refuses to release the tapes. The trial court, finding in favor of Enderlin, disregarded the evidence Karsenty presented. Instead, the judge relied on a two-year old letter from former French President, Jacques Chirac, that did not refer to the Al Durah incident at all, but simply complimented Enderlin as a journalist. Politics aside, the evidence stands on its own. Reminiscent of the Dreyfus Affair that occurred more than 100 years earlier, few have stepped forward to assist Karsenty in rebutting this lie - a lie with sufficient currency to defame every Jew alive in the world today.
Posted by Ruy Diaz at 2:34 PM | Comments (0)
August 28, 2007
Islamism: James Ujaama & Abu Hamza - Part 2 of 3
This article by Adrian Morgan (Giraldus Cambrensis of Western Resistance) appeared earlier today in Family Security Matters and is reproduced with their permission.
Why Won't James Ujaama Testify Against Abu Hamza?
(Part Two of Three)
The Finsbury Park Mosque is located at 7-11 St Thomas' Road in N4, north London. It lies along the 106 bus route, not far from Highbury Barn soccer stadium, home turf of the Arsenal team. The five storey building cost 8 million (nearly $16 million) to construct. Almost half of the construction costs were met by King Fahd of Sauid Arabia. The notion for constructing such a mosque had apparently been originally suggested by Prince Charles, a renowned supporter of all things Islamic. The mosque was officially opened in 1988. It was registered with the UK Charities Commission on August 16, 1988 as the North London Central Mosque (No: 299884).
The exact date at which Abu Hamza arrived at Finsbury Park Mosque has been disputed. He arrived either in late 1996 or in the following year. His arrival pushed the mosque into turmoil. Even during the 1980s Hamza had been reported to the police by several mosques for his bullying behavior. One of the trustees of Finsbury Park Mosque was Abdul Kadir Barkullah. He complained that he and others had reported assaults and extremist activities at the mosque on seven occasions. The police had done nothing to intervene.
Hamza was born in Alexandria, Egypt on April 15, 1958, as Mustafa Kamel Moustafa. He had entered the UK as a student in 1979, and in 1980 had married Valerie Traverso. He had worked as a bouncer and had divorced Traverso in 1984 after gaining official "leave to remain" in the UK. He married for a second time in Ooctober, 1984. The wedding to Nadjet Chaffe was a Muslim ceremony. Nadjet Kamel Mostafa now lives at his spacious home in Aldbourne Road in Shepherds Bush, west London, with Hamza's seven children. Hamza gained full British citizenship on April 28, 1986.
Between the start of his second marriage and his arrival at Finsbury Park Mosque, Hamza developed an interest in extreme radicalism. Sean O'Neill and Daniel McGrory, authors of The Suicide Factory maintain that shortly before his divorce from his first wife, she discovered he had a lover, and threatened to leave him. Traverso said: "He swore that he would never do it again. He was going to be religious, he was going to pray and ask for God's help." Traverso's divorce from her first husband did not take place until July 1982 so Hamza's first marriage, which led to his residency permit and ultimately his citizenship, was bigamous.
In 1987, while on a trip to Mecca to perform the Hajj pilgrimage, Hamza met Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, leader of the Afghan Mujahideen, and mentor to Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. In 1991, Hamza left to join the Afghan mujahideen in their fight with the Soviets. In 1995 he also traveled to Bosnia to join the mujahideen in the final stages of the war that ended in November 1995. In both countries, he came into contact with violent Islamists from across the Muslim world. Afghanistan had numerous Saudi, Uzbek, north African, Pakistani, Indonesian and Chechen nationals fighting with the local mujahideen (who would later become the Taliban).
In Bosnia, President Alija Izetbegovic had invited mujahideen to fight Serbs. The late president has been accused of being paid by Al Qaeda. Many Mujahideen who arrived in Bosnia at his invitation have remained and now cause problems for the indigenous moderate Muslims.
When Hamza had left Britain for Afghanistan, he still had both eyes and both hands. Upon his return both hands and one eye were missing. He boasted that he had lost these while heroically clearing mines in Afghanistan. It had long been rumored that he had been injured when a bomb he had been making had exploded. The rumor was confirmed in 2006 by Omar Nasiri, a Moroccan Islamist who became a spy for western intelligence.
At the Darunta training camp in Afghanistan, which was blown up by US forces on October 12, 2001, Nasiri attended a lesson in explosives manufacture. The tutor, Assad Allah, recounted how one former student had allowed his recipe for nitroglycerine to overheat. Instead of plunging the mixture into an adjacent sink full of ice, the student had carried it outside. It blew up, ripping off the student's hands and blinding him in one eye. When asked if the student survived, Assad Allah said: "Yes. He lives in London now, and preaches in the mosques. His name is Abu Hamza." Al Qaeda sent Nasiri to London, where he met Hamza. When he mentioned the nitroglycerine incident to Hamza, the preacher whispered: "Brother, please don't share that story with anyone."
Before using his band of Islamist thugs to take over as the imam at Finsbury Park Mosque, Hamza had been a preacher at a mosque in Luton, Bedfordshire. Luton had a strong contingent of Al-Muhajiroun, the Islamist group set up in 1996 by Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed. This group comprised the more radical members of British Hizb ut-Tahrir, which Bakri had founded in 1986. Bakri was a friend of Hamza, and there was a confluence of the membership of Al Muhajiroun and Hamza's group, the Supporters of Sharia. From late 1998, Al Muhajiroun ran a pipeline from London to Pakistan, where Islamists would travel up to the borderlands near Afghanistan, to become members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Before the events of 9/11, Bakri and Hamza were both treated by the UK media as comical figures, but the reality appears far different. Al Muhajiroun members went on to commit acts of terrorism outside of Britain, and two Al Muhajiroun associates - Mohammed Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer - were part of the four-man cell that carried out the 7/7 London Transport bombings of July 7, 2005, killing 52 people. Khan and Tanweer had visited the Finsbury Park Mosque to hear Hamza speak, as had another member of their cell called Jermaine Lindsay. Hussain Osman, Muktar Said Ibrahim and Yassin Omar, three of the four individuals who were convicted of trying to reproduce the 7/7 attacks exactly two weeks later, were known to have been regular attendees at the mosque.
At Finsbury Park Mosque, the congregation had become divided into two camps when Hamza arrived - those who mainly came from north Africa and those who were of Pakistani or Bangladeshi origins. Under Hamza, with his calls for armed jihad, moderate Muslims were driven away, and the congregation consisted of extremists from north Africa and the Indian subcontinent mixing with converts to radical Islam, many of whom were black. They shared Hamza's vision of an international war of jihad against the infidels. Richard Reid, the "shoebomber" who tried to blow up a plane bound from Paris to Miami on December 22, 2001 was a worshipper at the mosque. Sajid Badat, who knew Reid and wanted to commit his own "shoebombing", had visited the mosque during Hamza's rule. Badat, from Gloucester, was sentenced to 13 years' jail on April 26, 2005.
Among the extremists of north African origin were individuals such as Zacarias Moussaoui, the Moroccan/French terrorist who had been involved in the plot for the 9/11 attacks. Another was Kamel Bourgass from Algeria, who had stayed at the mosque and had used mosque facilities to reproduce his recipes for poisons. Killer of a British policeman, Bourgass had intended to plant toxins at the Heathrow Express rail link.
Three individuals from Algeria who are believed to have attended the mosque went on to become involved in the siege of the school in Beslan, in which 170 children died on September 1, 2004. Osman Larussi and Yacine Benalia died inside the school. Kamel Rabat Bouralha was suspected to have assisted Chechen terrorist Shamil Basayev in the planning of the Beslan massacre. He was arrested by Russian authorities shortly after the massacre. He had frequently visited the Finsbury Park mosque in 2000.
Nizar Trabelsi was a former footballer from Tunisia who frequented the mosque. On September 30, 2003 he was jailed at a Belgian court for 10 years. He had plotted to detonate a car bomb at Belgium's Kleine Brogel NATO air base, where US soldiers were ensconced. His arrest in 2001 had led to the recovery of a large cache of explosives hidden in a restaurant.
An associate of Trabelsi who also attended Finsbury Park Mosque was Djamel Beghal, who had been born in Algeria in 1965. He had a terror network of about 20 individuals in Europe and Canada, and is thought to have been Al Qaeda's operations manager in Europe. On March 15, 2005, he was sentenced in Paris to 10 years' jail for plotting to blow up the US Embassy in Paris.
Apparently Nizar Trabelsi had been the suicide bomber chosen to commit the attack. The prosecution had maintained that the plot was hatched in Afghanistan, where Beghal had attended Al Qaeda training camps in 2001. Beghal used the mosque to recruit for his group Takfir-wal-Hijra. Kamel Daoudi, who was sentenced to nine years for the embassy bomb plot, also frequented Finsbury Park Mosque.
Abu Doha, who was a frequent visitor to Finsbury Park Mosque, is the alias of Rachid Boukhalfa, (also known as Abou Doha, Amar Makhlulif, the "Doctor", Didier Ajuelos, Dr Haider or Rachid Kefflous). He is suspected of being the mastermind behind the Millennium bomb plot - where Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) had been targeted for attack on New Year's Eve, 1999. Abu Doha had been arrested at Heathrow airport in February 2001 on his way to Jeddah and has subsequently fought extradition requests from the United States. Doha is also suspected by Italian antiterrorist police of being linked with a plan to blow up Strasbourg Christmas Market and also Strasbourg Cathedral. His phone records showed he had been in contact with an al-Qaeda cell in Milan. He establisheds an Al Qaeda terror training camp, the Khalden, in Afghanistan.
Algerian-born Abu Doha was a senior member of the Al Qaeda-linked Algerian terror group GSPC (Groupe Salafiste pour Prédication et Combat or Salalfist Group for Preaching and Combat). In September 2006, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Bin Laden's deputy, announced that GSPC had officially joined Al Qaeda. After Abu Doha's arrest, another of his associates from Finsbury Park Mosque, Rabah Khadri, (aka "Toufik") took over his operations. Khadri was arrested in London in November 2002 and charged with plotting a bomb attack on the London Underground. He was extradited to France, where he had been convicted of the Strasbourg plot in 2000, on June 22, 2006.
Under Hamza, the mosque served as a center for international terrorism. On its premises, Islamists would undergo "terror training" involving Kalashnikov AK-47 rifles in the mosque's basement. The mosque had been used to provide false documentation both to terrorists entering the country and those leaving to commit jihad abroad, states one report. Hamza's reign came to an end at the mosque when it was raided on January 20, 2003. At the time Iqbal Sacranie, the head of the Muslim Council of Britain, was more concerned about whether the police took off their shoes in the raid, rather than what they found inside. He told the BBC: "One needs to be reassured as to what sort of clothing and footwear that was used."
Only after Hamza was convicted on February 7, 2006 of "soliciting murder" was it announced that police had found terror-related items hidden inside the mosque during the 2003 raid. These items included CS gas, three starting pistols which could be adapted to fire live rounds, a stun gun, knives, and chemical and nuclear protective suits. Hidden in the ceiling were dozens of forged documents, including fake UK passports.
Between July 1999 and November 2000, an Algerian Muslim named Reda Hassaine was paid by MI5 to "infiltrate" the mosque. He said: "I told them Abu Hamza was brainwashing people and sending them to terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, that he was preaching jihad and murder and that he was involved in the provision of false passports. I told them he was a chief terrorist. The MI5 officer told me Abu Hamza was harmless and that MI5 thought he was a clown."
During his trial testimony, Abu Hamza confirmed that MI5 did not view him as a threat to British interests. He affirmed that he had spoken to MI5 and police Special Branch on numerous occasions. He said: "They told me they are watching so many groups, there was no suggestion I was singled out. It was Londonistan, not because of me, because of Government policy." Later they warned him that he was "walking on a tightrope". He continued: "They said you have freedom of speech, you don't have to worry as long as we don't see blood on the street. They said until now there is no law against those who commit offenses outside England - resistance - but it will come."
It is a sad fact that until the Terrorism Act of 2000, which did not come into force until February 19, 2001, Britain allowed jihadists to legally plot murder and destruction abroad. At least 16 countries have been affected by terrorism exported from Britain. The December 1998 kidnapping in Yemen of 16 hostages, which Hamza appears to have arranged, cost the lives of four hostages. Andrew Thirsk was Australian. Margaret Whitehouse, Ruth Williams and Peter Rowe were all British citizens.
James Ujaama and "Londonistan"
It is not clear how long James Ujaama spent in "Londonistan". He first arrived in 1996, and took up Hamza's extreme form of Islam. As well as being closely linked with Abu Hamza, he was also associated with Abdullah el-Faisal, who was jailed on March 7, 2003 for soliciting murder.
According to federal officalsUjaama worked as the webmaster on the website for Abu Hamza's Islamist group, the "Supporters of Sharia" from around 2000 through 2001. In this, Ujaama was sometimes assisted by a young man from Croydon called Feroz Abbasi.
The original Supporters of Sharia (SOS) website has long since vanished, despite Hamza's followers posting announcements up until his 2004 arrest. Some of the original messages of hate and violence against Western nations have been archived. The United States is referred to in SOS documents as the "United Snakes of America". James Ujaama was no stranger to anti-American rhetoric. At the time of his arrest he had been running his own website called StopAmerica.org.
The SOS website carried Abu Hamza's statements, including calls for the overthrow of the Yemeni government.
In November 2000, according to US officials, Hamza asked a co-conspirator, a U.S. citizen, to escort another co-conspirator from London to a jihad training camp in Afghanistan operated by a "front-line commander." The two "co-conspirators" were James Ujaama, and Feroz Abassi, whom he escorted. The intention had been for the purposes of "arranging safehouses and lodging in Pakistan and safe passage and transport into Afghanistan." Abbasi, accompanied by Ujaama, set off for Afghanistan in December of 2000. Abbasi went on to train in the Khalden Al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan, which had been set up by another Finsbury Park Mosque regular, Abu Doha. Later Abassi would be captured by US forces while fighting with the Taliban, and spent time in Camp Delta at Guantanamo until his release in 2005.
The details of James Ujaama's times in London are sketchy. Despite this, Ujaama featured in a collection of videotapes which had been given by Hamza to Glen Jenvey, a "freelance" British counterintelligence specialist. He monitors Islamists' internet transactions, and has amassed videos of Al-Muhajiroun. Jenvey, posing as a jihadist, persuaded Abu Hamza to allow him access to videotapes, which he coppied. These were later passed on to the FBI. Among the collection, Ujaama was shown sitting next to Hamza, and two extracts are found on Jenvey's website. One of these can also be found on YouTube.
I have transcribed both speeches from these extracts, as they give a perspective of how Ujaama spoke when amongst his Islamist companions. They appear to have been made after March 2000, as the longer sample mentions Jamil Al-Amin who was arrested for murdering a police officer at this time.
Extract One
"That's what we said. We help cops. But I'm gonna tell you, we're not going to do that. We are holding this conference for the Muslim brothers and the Muslim sisters, who want to leave and get out of here, yeah? And we should be very careful, that we watch our tongues, and the slander of Muslims. The slander of Muslims. You mention Afghanistan. OK - I was in Afghanistan and I prayed next to a sincere believing Muslim inshallah because he lay down his [prayer] mat and he invited me to Islam, and we didn't even speak the same language. OK - we couldn't even speak the same language. And I hate - I hate it really bad when somebody says that something of a slander against my Muslim brothers, and that should go for even for my own self, I gotta watch out for, what I even say. So inshallah, we safeguard our tongues, from that which we haven't seen and that which we don't know about - that is my advice to you inshallah, all of us, inshallah."
Extract Two
"Because it is not long ago, that the evil Christians launched a Crusade against the Muslims, the Jews, and even other Christians. Today they are back, in Egypt, and Turkey, and Algeria, and Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, and even in the Islamic lands - the holy lands - of Mecca and Medina. Today, the crusade is against Islam. And they are led by the Jews, because they are misguided and they are astray. They have none to guide them, and so they are used in Israel's long awaited campaign against Islam and to dominate the world. And Rasool Allah says that disbelievers will never cease attacking you, until they turn you back from your religion.
So Sheikh Abdullah Azzam was killed in a car explosion by the Kufaar, for enjoying the ride. And leaving the Muslims in Pakistan to forbid the wrong.
Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman was framed by a paid informant of the Kufaar, and later sentenced by a JEW to life in prison. He is currently under heavy guard and in total isolation - this is no proper way for a Muslim sheikh to live out his life - without proper food or medicine or any provisions. Rarely does he even get any visitors. Sheikh Abu Talal al-Qasimy, the leader of mujahideen in Bosnia, from Egypt, was kidnapped and possibly handed over to the Egyptian government to be tortured and killed, like so many other sheikhs that come from Egypt, and make their way to a land of Jihad to forbid the wrong. Which Allah swt has commanded us all to do, in so many ayas (Koranic verses).
Sheikh Osama bin Laden was framed and forced into isolation, having to leave his own lands, his family, then used as a scapegoat to arrest many Muslims who speak out against Haram (the forbidden) in their lands. Sheikh Abu Hamza, arrested in the middle of the night during a police raid on his home. His family, harassed and oppressed, all because he chose to speak out against the evil rulers living in the Muslim lands and their helpers. Today the government has still not given him back his passport, and they refuse to hand over his personal belongings.
Now even Imam Jamil Al-Amin [former Black Panther H Rap Brown], he too has been pushed to the limit, jailed, convicted in the media, and charged with a crime (for) which they are seeking the death penalty. There is a pattern with all the attempts to assassinate, to rid the Islamic Ummah of its leaders. To silence our leaders. As you shall soon find out. Imam Jamil Al-Amin leads the largest Islamic community of Muslims who do not hide their religion in North America. They are encouraged to speak and learn about Jihad. They are encouraged to enjoy the life and forbid the wrong. They are encouraged to stop tyranny and evil. So what was his crime? His crime was that he was increasing the number of Masrians (?) who were giving him their pledge, pledging him as their leader in America. And this was seen as a threat to the Kufaar - his prior achievements, in turning drug dealers and thugs into proper Muslims, ready to die for Islam."
In the concluding part of this article, I will describe Hamza's attempts to set up terror training camps, both at Bly, Oregon, and other locations.
© 2003-2007 FamilySecurityMatters.org All Rights Reserved
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 11:01 PM | Comments (0)
Islamism: James Ujaama & Abu Hamza - Part 1 of 3
This article by Adrian Morgan (Giraldus Cambrensis of Western Resistance) appeared earlier in Family Security Matters and is reproduced with their permission.
Why Won't James Ujaama Testify Against Abu Hamza?
(Part One of Three)
Trials and Tribulations
On Monday August 13, 2007, 41-year old Earnest James Ujaama appeared at the US District Court in Manhattan. Four years before, on April 14, 2003, Ujaama had pleaded guilty to conspiring to give material support for terrorism. He had agreed to assist US prosecutors to pursue a case against the hook-handed British Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri and two other individuals.
In return for his cooperation, Ujaama had agreed to a two year jail term (including time already served in prison) and three years' of supervised release. That sentence was officially imposed on February 13, 2004 at Seattle, where Ujaama told US District Court Judge Barbara Jacobs Rothstein: "In the future, I will act more responsibly and make the right choices." Other charges against him had been dropped, and Ujaama was sentenced for a single charge of conspiracy to provide assistance to the Taliban. He was freed from jail on April 19, 2004, with credit for good behavior.
On December 18, 2006 however, James Ujaama had been found in Belize in Central America. He had been engaged in a "scuffle" with local police outside a mosque. He had entered the country illegally with a Mexican passport about ten days before his capture. With only three months remaining of his supervision order, James Ujaama had thrown away his hopes of freedom.
On February 1this year in Seattle, his home city, Ujaama was sentenced to two years' prison for violation of his supervised release. Before U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein, he admitted four charges - that he had made a false statement to his parole officer, he had not followed a federal officer's instructions, he possessed a Mexican passport in the name of "Jose Luis Ramirez Ramirez" and he had exited the United States on December 5, 2006. Ujaama told Barbara Rothstein: "I'm very, very sorry."
On Friday August 10, 2007, US District Judge Barbara Rothstein ruled that by fleeing to Belize, he had voided the terms of his plea agreement. She signed an order nullifying the 2003 plea deal, opening the way for him to face serious terrorism charges.
When Ujaama appeared before US Dictrict Judge John F. Keenan in Manhattan on Monday August 13, he pleaded guilty to three counts of terrorism involvement and one of fleeing the US to avoid giving testimony in terrorism cases. He admitted setting up a terror training camp in Bly, Oregon, in 1999, notifying Abu Hamza that he and others had begun to stockpile weapons and ammunition in the US. Ujaama also admitted that between June 2000 and December 19, 2001, he had attempted to raise funds for, and to provide assistance to, terrorists in Afghanistan.
Ujaama said that he had asked Hamza to send two of his associates to America to set up the training camp in Oregon. He told John F. Keenan that he had fled to Belize because he did not wish to testify against Abu Hamza al-Masri. Ujaama could face a total of 30 years' imprisonment. He will have to wait until December 12 to hear his sentencing order.
Abu Hamza is currently in Belmarsh prison in Britain, and has been fighting an 11-count US extradition request which had been issued against him on May 27, 2004. On February 7, 2006, Abu Hamza was sentenced to seven years' jail for soliciting murder. He had also been found guilty of possessing a terror manual - the Encyclopedia of Afghani Jihad. Hamza, imam at the Finsbury Park Mosque, had urged his followers to kill unbelievers: "Killing the kafir [non-Muslim] for any reason you can say is okay even if there is no reason for it" and "The first phase is called the Shawkat al-Nekaya, it is called the needle of bleeding the enemy. Like you imagine you have one small knife and you have a big animal in front of you . . . You have to stab him here and there until he bleeds to death . . . This is the first stage of jihad, destruction of the enemies of Allah.".
Under Britain's legal system, a prisoner with a fixed term jail sentence will generally spend half of that period incarcerated - unless the Home Secretary or a parole board intervenes. As Hamza had already been in custody prior to his conviction, he could be released next year. On January 1, 2007 the House of Lords rejected Hamza's appeal against his conviction for soliciting murder. In May, Hamza attended an extradition hearing, and his next hearing on this issue will be in October this year.
Eight of the eleven counts of the US extradition order against Hamza refer to his involvement with Ujaama and others in the setting up of a training camp at Dog Cry Ranch in Bly, a hamlet 50 miles east of Klamath Falls in Klamath County, Oregon. These counts also refer to the funding of terrorism.
The remaining counts deal with Hamza's involvement in a kidnapping situation in Yemen, initiated by Abu Hassan, founder of the Islamic Army of Aden-Abyan on December 28, 1998. 16 Western hostages had been taken, and four of these (including three Britons) had been killed in a botched rescue mission. From his home in West London, Hamza had spoken to Abu Hassan on a newly-purchased satellite phone an hour after the hostages had been taken, with Hassan referring to "ordered goods". Hamza had asked for the hostages to be taken care of. The conversation had been recorded by Britain's listening center, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), based in Cheltenham in Gloucestershire.
Under current British law, intercepted telephone conversations cannot be used in a court, but the FBI have maintained that these recorded conversations will feature in his prosecution. In April 2003 Yemeni officials had called for Hamza's extradition in connection with the kidnapping. Abu Hamza's son, Muhammad Mustapha Kamil (aka "Abu Antar") had arrived in Yemen on November 28,1998. In a confession, later retracted, he said Hamza had given him and another individual £3,000 ($6,000) to travel to Yemen to meet Abu al-Hussan, the leader of the Islamic Army of Aden-Abyan, whom the pair were expected to obey.
On August 9, 1999 in a court in Aden, Hamza's son (then aged 17) was convicted with seven other Britons of "Membership of an armed group and possession of weapons, explosives and unauthorised international communications devices, as well as starting to commit acts of sabotage against Yemeni and foreign interests in Aden." He received a three year jail term, and Abu Hamza's stepson Musin Ghailan (then aged 18) received a seven year sentence. At the close of the trial, the eight defendants cried out "Allahu Ackbar" (God is Great).
In an earlier trial in Zinjibar, southern Yemen, Abu al-Hassan and two accomplices were convicted of the kidnappings on May 5, 1999, with all three given a death sentence. One of these later had his death sentence commuted to an eight year jail term. The day after the death sentences were announced, Abu Hamza was quoted as saying that anyone who executed the convicted kidnappers would become a "legitimate target" (for killing).
The US extradition order against Abu Hamza features his alleged involvement in the Yemen kidnapping on three counts. In theory, if convicted, he could receive a death sentence. Britain opposes any extraditions to countries where an individual may receive such a punishment, unless an affidavit is made by the receiving country to not execute if convicted. Additionally, as phone tap evidence is not allowed in a UK court of law, the evidence against Hamza gained in this manner may be deemed unsustainable by defense lawyers. The US is prepared to waive calls for execution to have Hamza placed before a court. If convicted on all charges in the indictment, Hamza could receive 100 years in jail.
Under the terms of UK law, the US case for extradition is strongest on the eight counts for which Earnest James Ujaama had previously agreed to testify. There are now fears that Hamza could walk free when he is released from Belmarsh jail. However, extradition specialist Douglas McNabb believes that Ujaama's statements before US District Judge John F. Keenan have helped the US case. He said: "The U.S. has more information now that [it] can use to supplement the extradition requests."
James Ujaama had spent time at Abu Hamza's Finsbury Park Mosque in 1999. During his stay in Britain, he had also designed and maintained the website of Hamza's Islamist group, the "Supporters of Shariah." This website was used to promote anti-Western messages. Ujaama has a daughter by his Somali-born wife, and could be sentenced to up to three decades in prison, unable to see this daughter grow up. He has sacrificed his liberty because, as court transcripts attest, "Part of the reason I left the US was to avoid having to... give testimony in the criminal matters against Abu Hamza and others."
In April 2003, after Ujaama had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply goods and services to the Taliban, U.S. Attorney John McKay said: "By accepting responsibility for his actions and by agreeing to cooperate fully with the United States government, Earnest James Ujaama will assist this nation and other nations in the fight against terrorism."
Ujaama has said that he does not wish to testify against Abu Hamza. He has not been reported as giving specific reasons for this decision. His Seattle-based lawyer, Peter Offenbecher, told the Manhattan District Court that Ujaama "alone is the person who made the bad choices and he will accept the consequences". This does not answer the most obvious question - why should Ujaama, four years on from his plea agreement, break his promise and risk 30 years' jail?
A life of promise
Earnest James Ujaama, who went under the alias of "Bilal Ahmed", Abu Samayya, and Abdul Qaadir, was born Earnest James Thompson in Denver, Colorado, in 1966. His family moved to Seattle, Washington state, when he was five years old. He attended Ingraham High School in North Seattle. While still a student, Ujaama displayed entrepreneurial spirit, running a home-maintenance business. Aged 20, he worked with his younger brother Jon (Mustafa) in a business which sent its profits to children in Ethiopia. Later, the pair initiated a venture called Be Your Own Boss, No Drugs and Gangs. This attempted to encourage youth to avoid negative influences and set up their own businesses.
Ujaama produced three books, including one which was entitled: "The Young People's Guide To Starting a Business Without Selling Drugs". He worked as special assistant to the black Democrat Jesse Wineberry during his bid for position as Senator. Wineberry rewarded him by naming June 10, 1994 as "James Ujaama Day" in Washington state. He was also acknowledged by Senator Harry Reid, who gave him a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition", and a key to the City of Las Vegas.
His conversion to Islam followed the example of his younger brother Jon, who had converted in 1990 while in the military and had changed his name to Mustafa Ujaama. He adopted his brother's adopted surname. Mustafa claims that James Ujaama did not become a full convert until as late as 1996, though it probably happened earlier (why would James Ujaama Day happen in 1994?). Mustafa and James Ujaama became strongly involved with Dar-us-Salaam mosque at 2211 Union Street, Seattle. This had started its existence in the early 1990s as the Yasin mosque, based at a small shop-front in East Cherry Street.
The Dar-us-Salaam mosque - since closed down - prided itself on taking young black people with prostitution and drug habits to come to the mosque and "reform" themselves. Despite this, the mosque's leadership was not as upright as it claimed. Mustafa Ujaama stated: "The FBI had been on us since '95, when we hooked up with Imam Jamil [Al-Amin]." This individual was the former Black Panther H. Rap Brown. It is alleged that the Ujaamas' father had ties with the Black Panthers.
The mosque ensured that smoking and drinking was forbidden in the mosque vicinity, and drug dealers were removed. Anyone who infringed this code was dealt with by mosque vigilantes, who would beat up offenders. After James Ujaama first traveled to Britain in 1997, the mosque became more militant. In November 2002 a convert, formerly known as Andre Anderson, was arrested on federal firearms charges. Abdul-Raheem Al-Arshad Ali had been a mosque leader at Yasin Mosque, the precursor of the Dar-us-Salaam mosque.
In 1999, Ali been a guest at Abu Hamza's radical mosque in Finsbury Park, north London. Ali was accused of purchasing a handgun for Semi Osman, an individual with alleged Al Qaeda links who had also been a leader of the Dar-us-Salaam mosque. The gun had been purchased in September 1999, and had been found at Osman's home during a raid which took place in May 2002. Osman pleaded guilty to a charge of illegally possessing a gun with an obliterated serial number in January 2003, and served time in prison.
Semi Osman, a man of Lebanese origin who came from Sierra Leone and had served as a mechanic in the Navy Reserves, had lived in Bly, Oregon as well as Tacoma. He inhabited the 158-acre Dog Cry Ranch. It is almost certainly through this individual that Bly had been selected as a location for the terror training camp. In December 1999, Osman's car had been stopped for a faulty brake light, and in the car with him were two individuals. These had been staying at Bly as Semi Osman's guests. These two individuals had been Hamza's alleged "emissaries", sent out to view the property in Bly as a potential site for a training camp. They are Haroon Rashid Aswat and Oussama Kassir. Initially, these two were named as unindicted co-conspirators in James Ujaama's indictment, but they have since been served their own indictments and extradition orders.
In 2005, Osman appealed against a court decision to deny him SSOSA (Special Sex Offender Sentencing Alternative) sentence reduction, a Washington state provision that allows reduced sentences for sex offenders who undergo treatment . He had been convicted of three counts of sexual abuse of a 10-year old child, to whom he had been related, and ordered to serve 51 months' jail. He served time in Wala Wala penitentiary for this offense, and in January this year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) succeeded in gaining a deportation order. Osman had earlier claimed that as he was a citizen of no country, he could not be deported.
When Semi Osman had been arrested in May 2002 documents were found in his possession, which detailed how to poison water supplies. These documents, according to federal investigators, had been provided by Abu Hamza. Similar computer documentation on poisoning water supplies was found when James Ujaama was arrested on July 22, 2002. These had been retrieved from the Denver home of Ujaama's aunt, Robin Thompson. Ujaama's arrest had been made on the strength of a material witness warrant, issued in Virginia. Ujaama's mother Peggi Thompson, declared that her son was innocent.
James and Mustafa Ujaama had known that they were under suspicion, and three days before his arrest, James Ujaama had issued a statement in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, claiming innocence and proclaiming his status as a public-minded citizen. He wrote; "In the case of my brother and I, we fully understand that the government has taken an unfair hostile position toward us because of our culture, race, religion, lifestyle, political beliefs and our travels."
On Wednesday August 28, 2002, a Grand Jury in Seattle ordered an indictment of James Ujaama. The former entrepreneur was charged with conspiring to "provide material support and resources" to Al Qaeda, "using, carrying, possessing and discharging firearms during a crime of violence", in relation to the training camp in Bly Oregon. The full indictment can be found here.
In Part Two I will discuss how Hamza and Ujaama liaised with each other to set up the camp in Oregon, their mutual associates and their links with Afghanistan.
© 2003-2007 FamilySecurityMatters.org All Rights Reserved
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 10:41 PM | Comments (0)
August 25, 2007
Russia: Orthodox Church Tells Firebrand Muslim Cleric to Shut-up
Over the past six months it seems that with every few weeks tensions between leading Muslim and Russian Orthodox personalities continue to rise.
The latest event was last week when Father Andrei Kurayev, a professor at the Moscow Theological Academy and a popular writer and speaker, made the unusual public call upon Islamic leaders to rein in mufti Nafigullah Ashirov, co-chairman of Russia's Council of Muftis.
``Individuals of his sort like to threaten war and conflict,'' said Fr Andrei, speaking to Interfax news agency. ``They use threats and blackmail to make other people do what they want, or they will blow up the country. I would be happy if the Russian Muslim community could find a good reason to send Ashirov on a really long mission to some very secular state on the Arabian Peninsula in order that he might pursue his ideals over there.''
Kurayev was reacting to a letter signed earlier this month by a group of muftis, including Ashirov, which accused the Russian Orthodox Church of ``clericalizing'' Russian society. Since the collapse of communism, the Orthodox Church has gained greater influence in Russian society. One of its most controversial plans has been the proposal for pupils to study religion as a social sciences course.
The Russian constitution calls for separation of church and state, however. While the criticism about the overly close relation between the Orthodox Church and the Russian state is well-grounded, oddly enough there has been no criticism of Islam for its excessive influence in the public life of certain Russian republics and cities. During a tour of Chechnya last year, Western Resistance noted that Chechen children attending public schools were forced to follow and study Islamic traditions.
Yet, those same Russian `human' rights groups in Moscow, some funded by western foundations, that often criticize the Orthodox Church, never make any criticism of Islamic clericalism.
The Russian Orthodox Church has a deeper historical beef with Islam. First, the country was subjugated to Tatar overlords starting in the mid 13th century until the late 15th century. The Tatars converted to Islam in the early 14th century; hence, Russia moaned under Islamic rule for almost 200 years. The price was paid in constant raids, kidnapping of women and children, and paying tribute.
Second, the Russian Orthodox Church still mourns the destruction of the great Orthodox empire, the Byzantine Empire, by invading Islamic Turkish armies. Russia had been converted by Byzantine missionaries from Constantinople over a 1,000 years ago, and always saw that empire as the font of its civlization. As late as the end of the 18th century the Russian czars and czarinas had hopes of liberating Constantinople.
Father Andrei said that the muftis are ``very dishonest'' for their blaming the Russian Empire for supporting Christian missions among the Tatars, Russia's second largest nationality, most of whom are culturally `Muslim', though most tend to be non-religious. A large minority indeed are Christian.
``It looks as freedom of conscience was for them [Muslims] a right to own the minds of people they consider theirs,'' said Kurayev. ``They simply declare 20 million Russians to belong to their faith only because they belong to particular ethnic groups, though in fact the Tatars are a normal European nation and as such are very diverse.''
Interesting enough, Mufti Ashirov supports the Russian Islamic project --- a missionary project whose goal is to convert ethnic Russians to the Islamic cult.
Past tours of Russian `Muslim' republics carried out by Western Resistance have shown that most residents of these `traditional' Muslims lands do not care much for the Islamic cult. If given the freedom to choose most have little interest and desire to heed the teachings of a deranged and psychopathic 7th century Arabian warlord.
Instead of abolishing Islam once and for all, unfortunately, the regional governments of these `Muslim' republics are promoting its own state-controlled version of Islam, thinking that it can preempt the more `radical' strains that were imported from Saudi Arabia in the 1990s.
Any effort to bolster Islam in any form, however, will backfire. Many well-intentioned and otherwise good people who are searching for God will be misled toward a violent and hateful cult.
Posted by Jean de la Valette at 1:29 PM | Comments (0)
August 23, 2007
India: Islamists Oppress Woman Author
This article by Adrian Morgan (Giraldus Cambrensis of Western Resistance) appeared earlier today in Family Security Matters and is reproduced with their permission.
Taslima Nasreen - A Woman Of Moral Substance
Most Muslims are peaceful and law abiding individuals, but there is no escaping the violence and intolerance of some Muslims, when they think that their religion or its founder are criticized. We saw it en masse in 1989 when "moderate" Muslims called for the death of author Salman Rushdie, during the cartoon protests of early 2006, and after the Pope's Regensburg Address. Mohammed, founder of Islam, killed many of his opponents, setting a dangerous example for his followers.
In India during the cartoon protest one local politician, Yaqoob Qureshi of Uttar Pradesh state, offered a $12 million for anyone who beheaded one of the Danish cartoonists who had made images of Mohammed. After Qureshi had offered his bounty, Uttar Pradesh's Prinicipal Home Secretary, Alok Sinha said: "Mere announcement of this kind does not amount to a crime... he was simply expressing the common feeling of members of his community.
A senior imam also defended Qureshi. Sayeed Ahmed Bukhari is the senior cleric at Delhi's oldest mosque, the 17th century Jama Masjid. He claimed: "Every Muslim should have similar feelings." Imam Bukhari frequently has talks with India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh. Even though Yaqoob Qureshi was condemned by several leading Indian Muslims, he still remains in Uttar Pradesh's state parliament.
Last week on August 15, India celebrated its 60th anniversary of independence from Britain. A day earlier, Pakistan celebrated its independence. In 1947 both Pakistan under Mohammed Jinna and India under Pandit Nehru had secular constitutions. Jinna died after only 13 months in power, and soon his secular ideal was replaced by an Islamist constitution. India is still officially secular, but as the case of Yaqoob Qureshi demonstrates, Islamists appear in some cases to be above the law. One woman writer who is based in Kolkata (Calcutta) in West Bengal state knows just how far above the law some Indian Muslim leaders are.
Taslima Nasreen was born on August 25, 1962, in Mymensingh in what used to be East Pakistan (East Bengal). In 1971, after Islamists in West Pakistan demanded that Urdu become the national language, Bangla speakers in East Pakistan fought for independence. 3 million died in the creation of Bangladesh. Many of these were Hindus, brutalized by fanatics from the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami party. Taslima's father was a doctor, and she too became a physician.
From the age of 15, she had written poetry. Her first book of poems was published in 1986. On the strength of her second poetry book, published in 1989, she also became a newspaper writer, producing a regular column. In this, she wrote of the plight of women in Bangladesh, and brought her poetry to the public. She described an incident which had taken place in 1993, when a 21-year old woman's second marriage had been condemned by a local Muslim cleric. The imam urged villagers to bury the woman up to her waist, where they had stoned her to death.
Though brought up as a Muslim, Taslima was not fearful of criticizing abuses carried out in the name of religion, and this inevitably brought her into conflict with Muslim clerics. In 1992 she published a book, called "Nirbachito Kalam" (selected columns) a selection of her newspaper articles and poems. This book won an award in West Bengal, India. A small extract from the book can be found here. Her newspaper column attracted the animosity of religious figures from 1990 onwards, in particular a Muslim cleric called Zainal Abedin Babul, who in 1993 issued a fatwa against her. This fatwa was supported by other clerics. A $5,000 bounty was placed on her head.
The government in Bangladesh removed her passport, and warned her to stop writing. She was given an ultimatum. If she did not discontinue writing, she would lose her job at Dhaka Medical Hospital. She chose to give up her career as a doctor to continue writing.
In 1994, Zainal Abedin Babul filed a case against Taslima at Dhaka Magistrates Court for her book "Nirbachito Kalam", claiming she had "insulted Islam". Babul also succeeded in persuading the Bangladeshi authorities to take her to court. On June 4, 1994 the corrupt governing party of Bangladesh (led by Khaleda Zia) filed a case against her. It referred to an interview she had given to the Indian newspaper The Statesman on May 9 that year, about her fifth novel, entitled Llaja or "Shame". It was charged that Taslima had made insulting comments against Islam and the Koran, and she had committed blasphemy - even though Bangladesh had no laws against blasphemy.
The article in the Statesman had claimed that Taslima had said that the Koran should be revised to accommodate women's rights - even though she denied making such comments (she had said that Sharia law should be revised). Acting on the instructions of Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh National Party, the High Court ordered that Taslima should be arrested. Her novel called "Shame" was also banned by Zia's regime, as it described how Hindus had been subjected to Islamist abuse in Bangladesh. By June 4, 1999, when the High Court had ordered her arrest, mass demonstrations had been organized by Muslim clerics. Thousands of fanatics protested in Dhaka, demanded that she be hanged for blasphemy. Taslima fled the country, initially settling in Sweden. After she left, the Jamaat-e-Islami party's spokesman, Abdul Kader Mollah, warned that the government would "pay a heavy price" for allowing her to flee.
The manner in which her writing had invoked the wrath of Islamists who bayed for her blood, and had caused a corrupt government to bend the law to have her jailed, made Taslima an international cause celebre. In 1994, she was awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. On September 12, 1994 she gave an interview to the New Yorker, in which she said: "Why shouldn't I write about what I've seen? I'm a doctor, remember! Do you know what's it like to see a woman crying out in the delivery room when she gives birth to a girl, terrified that her husband will divorce her? To see the ruptured vaginas of women who've been raped? The six and seven year olds who have been violated by their fathers, brothers and uncles - by their own families? No, I will not keep quiet. I will continue to speak out about these women's wretched lives."
Taslima spent time in Sweden, and later in France, continuing to write books. Salman Rushdie wrote an open letter supporting her. He wrote: "You have spoken out about the oppression of women under Islam, and what you said needed saying. In the West, there are too many eloquent apologists working to convince people of the fiction that women are not discriminated against in Muslim countries or that, if they are, it has nothing to do with the religion."
In 1998, her mother grew sick with cancer, and Taslima returned to Bangladesh to care for her. She arrived in the country on September 14 on a flight from New York. Her mother, Idul Owara, who had been given months to live accompanied her on the flight. At the airport in Dhaka, Taslima was disguised in a burka. Passengers who had been on the plane had recognized her, and the following day, her presence was announced in a tabloid newspaper. The punitive demands from Islamists resurfaced, with the Jamaat-e-Islami party joining calls for the government to offer her no protection. The Islamic United Alliance, led by Shaikul Hadith Azizul Huq, demanded that Taslima be killed under Sharia law.
The court cases against her were revived. Dhaka Magistrate's court, honoring the claims of Zainal Abedin Babul, ordered that her property be confiscated. Taslima appeared in the High Court on Sunday, November 22, 1998, and was granted bail. On January 11, 1999, Taslima's mother died, aged 61 at her home village in Mymensingh district. Because she had raised an "infidel" for a daughter, Taslima's devout Muslim mother was buried with no-one from any mosque leading the funeral service. By this time, large crowds of fanatical Muslims were protesting on a regular basis, calling for her death.
Around this time, police had recovered a list of people targeted by the Islamist terror group Harkatul Jihad al-Islami. On January 18, 1999, this group had attacked the home of Bangladeshi poet Shamsur Rahman. The poet's wife was severely injured with an axe. This group, which had been founded in 1992, was not banned in Bangladesh until October 17, 2005. After news reached Taslima that 10 arrested militants from this terror group had a death list that named her as a target, she received at least three death threats by telephone at her family home in Mymensingh. She fled to Sweden on January 23, 1999, and later moved to France. She said after her escape: "I had no other alternative but to leave."
A leader of the Islami Oikya Jote party, A. R. M. Abdul Matin, said: "We still demand her death that will warn all murtads (infidels) that they cannot escape the gallows." His party joined a coalition with the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami, the Bangladesh Nationalist party and Jatiya party, to form the eighth government of Bangladesh in 2001. When this government ended its tenure last year, it had supported terrorism and attacks against minorities. The government had become so riddled with corruption that democracy has now been suspended in Bangladesh. The country is ruled by a "caretaker" commission.
In November 1999 while Taslima was on a trip to Kolkata in West Bengal state, it was announced that she wanted to seek asylum in India. The fanatacism that had plagued Taslima Nasreen in Bangladesh continued in India. In March 200, the head of the Islamic Reza Academy threatened that if she ever set foot in Mumbai (Bombay) she would be burned alive.
In April 2002, Taslima announced that she had officially requested asylum in India. She was granted leave to remain, but to this day she has not been granted asylum for fear of offending India's Muslim fanatics. She lived in Kolkata in West Bengal state, heart of the Bengali community with its cultural ties to Bangladesh (formerly East Bengal).
In October 2002, a court in Bangladesh ordered that Taslima should be jailed for one year for defaming Islam. The case had been brought in Gopalganj by a Muslim fanatic, Mohammed Dabiruddin, who runs a madrassa school. It is unlikely that Taslima Nasreen will ever return to Bangladesh.
In January 2004 at Friday prayers, the head of Kolkata's main mosque denounced Taslima in front of his congregation of 10,000 and issued a fatwa. Syed Noor-ur-Rehman Barkati of Tippu Sultan mosque said: "Her writings are against humanity and Islam...Her face can be blackened with ink, paint or tar. Or she can be garlanded with shoes." The cleric offered a reward of 20,000 rupees ($436) to anyone who would carry out the act. Taslima was placed under police protection, but Barkati was not prosecuted.
On Saturday June 10, 2006, Taslima Nasreen attended a conference in Kolkata, on the subject of the "Irrelevance of religion in the era of technology." It was reported that she had said: "As a eight-year-old child, I was warned by my mother that if I abused Allah I would be punished, but I did that and nothing happened to me." The reporting of the conference caused more vitriol to be issued from Muslim leaders. Hasan Ahmed Imran, general secretary of the Muslim Council of Bengal, suggested that se should leave India.
The alleged comments also caused the irascible imam to issue another fatwa against her, a fortnight after the conference. Syed Noor-ur-Rehman Barkati said to a local TV channel: "I've issued a fatwa against her. After the Jumma namaz [Friday prayers], I said if anyone blackens her face and drives her out of India, I will give him Rs 50,000.There was pressure on me to do something about it as the people were angry. She has no right to hurt Muslims' sentiments by saying anything against our Prophet. She is a Jewish spy and there should be a CBI probe into her funding." 50,000 rupees is the equivalent of $1,000.
Even though his comments had been recorded, the imam lied about making the statement when he heard that the Kolkata Commissioner of Police wanted to question him. Barkati said: "I have been misquoted. A fatwa cannot be issued verbally. It has to be put down in a written form. I have not issued such a decree."
In March 2007, a senior Muslim leader, Taqi Raza Khan of the All India Ibtehad Council, issued a severe fatwa against Taslima, threatening that she should be decapitated. Though this fatwa was condemned by some Muslim representatives, Khan boasted: "Anyone who opposes the Prophet does not deserve to live. There have been a number of e-mails and telephone calls congratulating me for the bold stance I have taken."
Khan offered an inducement of 500,000 rupees ($11,760) for anyone who would behead (sar qalam karna) the author. He claimed that he had the full support of the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board. The National Secular Society wrote a leltter of protest to the British High Commissioner in India.
On August 9, while attending a book launch in Hyderabad in Andra Pradesh state, Taslima was physically assaulted by Muslim fanatics. The meeting was held at the city's pres club to herald the launch of her latest novel - "Shodh" - in the local Telegu language. The meeting was gate-crashed by about 100 members of the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) party burst into the venue. Chairs were thrown and Taslima was slapped in the face. Among those who caused the disruption were three leaders of the MIM party, who had positions in the state assembly. They were arrested afterwards
Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi, head of the MIM party, declared his support for those who had tried to kill Taslima. He said: "We are Muslims first. And its our responsibility to test those who have said anything against Islam in which ever way possible," and also: "Muslims can tolerate anything but they can't tolerate blasphemy. The love for the Prophet is the core of our iman (belief)."
In Hyderabad, which has a population of 4 million, 40% are Muslim. The Public Union for Civil Liberties demanded that police take action against the Islamists who had invaded the Hyderabad press club. Even though Taslima had been the victim of the outrage, a charge of "anti-religious views" was made against her in Hyderabad.
On Saturday, August 11, protesters from a Muslim group called Dasgah-e-Jehad-Shaheed held a demonstration in Hyderabad. An effigy of Taslima was burned, and there were calls for the author to leave India.
Back in Kolkata her nemesis, Tippu Sultan mosque's senior imam, held a meeting with other Muslim leaders. Syed Noor-ur-Rehman Barkati issued another death fatwa on August 17. He declared: "Anybody eliminating her would be given 100,000 rupees [$2,458] and unlimited rewards if she does not leave the country immediately. She has insulted Islam and continued to create problem in this country. We are forced to issue such a warrant because the government is not making use of the constitutional provisions and driving her out of the country."
The imam gave Taslima one week in which to pack her bags and leave India, though another of the clerics who had consulted with Barkati claimed that she was allowed 15 days. Police protection for Taslima was increased.
As always, she remained defiant in the face of threats. She responded to the latest death fatwa, saying: "The books on women, I have been writing are not controversial rather they have been deliberately made to look like controversial by these fundamentalists. I write about the plight of women in our society. Don't you think that what I pen for the right of women is being strangulated?" She refused to go into hiding or to avoid public meetings.
"Why should I stop attending any public function? That is the platform to express my mind. And, one thing is sure that by disrupting public function the way they did recently or by issuing Fatwa against me they can not shun my voice. Their attempt to keep women subservient to their male counterparts would not succeed. I would keep my struggle against injustice alive."
Taslima is one brave woman. Salman Rushdie may have endured threats of death, but he did not live in Iran, whence his death fatwa was issued. She continues to write about the rights of women - especially those abused by religious bigots and violent partners. She has said: "I'm not against any religion. The people have a right to practise any religion they want. I speak on women's issues and advocate that men and women be treated equally. I speak for humanity. If in any religion women are discriminated against, I speak up."
Taslima Nasreen has a website, where readers can find out more about her. Most of her books are in the Bangla language. Most of them are banned in her native Bangladesh, but she has provided free downloads so that any Bangla-speaker can be able to rread her work.
The life of Taslima should be protected. If India fails to protect her and panders to its Muslim community by not punishing imams who incite hate, then Islamist bigotry and intolerance will have destroyed its secular ideals as surely as they have already destroyed those of Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Secularism should allow religious freedom for all its citizens - including those who criticize religion. Unfortunately, the government and police in India appear to allow Islamists to bully and destroy their secular ideals. This form of appeasement is pernicious - it erodes the constitution, and acts as a cancer in the body politic. No person in any society should be above the law. Bangladesh, which began with independent and secular ideals, has allowed Islamists to turn it into a failed state. Pakistan too is on the brink of being a failed state. India should assert its constitutional and secular values and imprison those who incite murder. If it fails to protect this brave woman from the outrageous threats of Muslim fanatics, then India will have embarked upon the same route that has destroyed the democracies of its neighbors, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Maybe the last words here should be those of Taslima. These are not empty words - they are as real as her life: "Come what may, I will continue my fight for equality and justice without any compromise until my death. Come what may, I will never be silenced."
If only more people in the world had such moral courage.
Adrian Morgan
© 2003-2007 FamilySecurityMatters.org All Rights Reserved
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 7:55 AM | Comments (1)
August 22, 2007
Dagestan: Jihad Got the Blues
The Republic of Dagestan, Russia's southernmost region and one plagued by the violence of Islamic jihad since 1999, has seen a slight improvement in its fortunes since since my last visit in 2005. As Moscow commits more firepower and resources the Islamic terrorists have been forced to retreat into their moutain strongholds. Assassinations and bombings of police officers continue, but on a lesser scale.
State-controlled Islam, however, is proliferating, with many more mosques appearing over the past two years with state support and control. While this version of Islam is under the watch of the Russian secret police, the FSB, anyone who takes the Koran seriously automatically comes in contact with its intolerance and call to violence against non-believers. In that sense, the government is only sowing the seeds for a future conflict.
Dagestan, home to about 30 different nationalities (none of which are `Dagestani' per se), is a critical border between Europe and Asia. Azerbaijan lies to the south, while Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Iran are across the Caspian Sea.
The main nationalities of Dagestan's 2.6 million inhabitants are Avars, Dargins, Lezgins, Laks, and Tabarsarans.
The good news, however, is that many locals in the cities have little devotion or interest in Islam, as I witnessed during a visit earlier this month to the republic.
On my flight from Moscow to Makhachkala, Dagestan's capital city, I sat next to a man who was Tabarsaran. I pumped him full of questions about life in the republic, and I was most taken by the way he spoke of Muslims.
``Those Muslims; they're crazy; making so much trouble!''
Now this is coming from a man who is `Muslim'; at least, that is what Russia's Council of Muftis considers him to be since he is from a `traditional' Muslim territory. This man was the owner of a construction company. He clearly had a modern view on life, and the insane and violent teachings of the 7th century Arabian warlord, Mohammed, are of no interest or use.
After a 2 hour flight from Moscow, my plane touched down in Makhachkala, and which coincided with the call to prayer bellowing from a mosque located 100 meters from the airport's reception area. There were several hundred people at the reception area waiting to meet loved-ones. Even though the call to prayer went out no one paid any attention to it. None felt the need to pray to the bloodthirsty Islamic deity, Allah. Only one man turned around clearly perplexed at the bizarre and diabolical sound emanating from the mosque.
While Russian military action in the Second Chechen War dealt a severe blow to Dagestan Islamic military units and their Chechen allies, police officers with whom I spoke say some Dagestan mountain villages maintain Islamic law, and are extremely hostile to state authorities. As long as they remain pent up deep in the mountains, however, Dagestan authorities do not engage them. The problem is that sometimes they come down to the cities to bomb and murder.
The rest of my time in Dagestan was spent with Muslims of all ages, but most were from the educated classes. While many spoke of a belief in ``God'', almost none had any apparent interest in Islam, except for its occasional cultural significance. All the men enjoyed drinking.
True, certainly not everyone is like this. Driving around Makhachkala and Derbent I got the impression that there is a strong underclass, brooding and bitter, that might find the violent teachings of the Warlord Mohammed to be appealing.
Part of this is due to the corrupt elite. The region has enormous economic potential, with large reserves of oil and gas, as well as opportunity to develop tourism and agriculture. Most of the region's wealth, however, is in the hands of a small number of clans, and they have little desire to share or develop their region.
Dagestan's second largest city, Derbent, which is also the oldest city in Russia, dates back 5,000 years. I'm still looking into this question, but I found literature saying that Christianity flourished in Derbent and most of Dagestan and Azerbaijan when these areas were part of the Caucasian Albanian state in the 4th and 5th centuries. Gregory the Illuminator, the man who brought Christianity to nearby Armenia, is said to be the one who brought Christianity to Caucasian Albania.
The Persians, however, were constantly meddling in Albania's affairs. Infused with the brutal ideology of Mohammed, the Arabs came to Dagestan at the end of the 7th century, and soon displaced the Persians as the regional hegemon. While Islam began its brutal policy of conversion in the cities, Christianity proved resilient in the small towns and villages. But by the 15th century, Islam had almost wiped out all vestiges of Christianity. All that remained of Christianity were small isolated Armenian merchant communities, such as the one in Derbent.
Today, all that remains of Derbent's Christian heritage is a ruined church in the citadel, and a 19th century Armenian church in the downtown. It's a museum, however. The locals show their contempt for the site by throwing their rubbish along the walls around it. (see photo)
Today, Dagestan's population is 94% `Muslim' and 6% Christian, these being the descendants of Russians who came to the republic over the course of 200-year rule by Moscow.
Derbent is also well-known as once being a centre for the so-called Mountain Jews. Some locals told me that until 1980 as much as 20,000 Jews lived there. With that in mind I figured a synagogue must be around somewhere. My search proved futile, however. No one knew of one, and I imagine that whatever Jewish house of prayer had previously existed had been torn down or reconverted for Muslim worship.
While I had been warned that the streets of Derbent were full of women wearing black from head to toe, I saw none of that during two days there. Perhaps the intense heat, 36 Celsius, kept them inside.
As my week-long trip drew to a close, I felt a bit uneasy. Clearly I had only touched the surface of this complex region. While I had the chance to chat, drink, and socialise with some very nice and educated men, I also felt the suspicious and unwelcoming stares of gruff, scruffy, and threatening men on the streets as we walked by.
As I left Dagestan I thought of my trip last year to Ingushetia. There, while dining with Ingush officials, one of them took me aside and said, ``You see all these people. They smile, they're nice to you; they pledge support to Moscow. But deep down inside they want independence, and they want to establish an Islamic Caliphate. Make no mistake. The Caliphate is coming to the North Caucasus. Maybe not this year, but in our lifetime.''
This is precisely why Moscow's policy of ''state Islam'' won't work. Any form of Islam will eventually lead to violence and hatred. That is the very essence of the ideology created by a violent and brutal man. The only way to guarantee society's peace and stability is to close down all the mosques and reveal Islam for the evil it is.
A Nuremberg-like trial would be most effective toward such a goal.
The fortress in Derbent
The Armenian Church in downtown Derbent, with garbage in front (it's now officially a museum only)
The Armenian Church in downtown Derbent, as seen from the fortress
Derbent as seen from fortress (Caspian Sea in background)
Pictures © the author.
Posted by Jean de la Valette at 7:56 AM | Comments (0)
August 21, 2007
UK: How To Lose The War On Islamist Terror
This article by Adrian Morgan (Giraldus Cambrensis of Western Resistance) appeared earlier today in Family Security Matters and is reproduced with their permission.
Gordon Brown's Britain - How To Lose The War On Terror
In January, I wrote about a documentary which was screened in Britain on January 15. This show, entitled "Undercover Mosque", was screened by Channel 4 on its "Dispatches" strand, and was produced by Hardcash Productions.
The one-hour documentary showed the results of a undercover journalist's secret videotaping over four months at the Green Lane Mosque in Birmingham, in the West Midlands. The documentary can be found on Hot Air, or on YouTube, with a transcript here. A downloadable QuickTime file (106 mb) can be found here.
The Green Lane Mosque (Masjid), situated at 20 Green Lane, Small Heath, Birmingham B9 5DB, is the headquarters of the Markazi Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith, a group controlling 41 mosques in Britain. The Markazi Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith has been officially registered as a UK charity (Number 272001) since January, 1976. At the time of writing, the charity has not filled in its financial returns for 2006 or 2007. It was revealed in a