Newt Gingrich makes general election predictions, Fox News via YouTube, May 29, 2016
Archive for May 29, 2016
Newt Gingrich makes general election predictions
May 29, 2016Analysis: Iran has supported the Taliban’s insurgency since late 2001
May 29, 2016Analysis: Iran has supported the Taliban’s insurgency since late 2001, Long War Journal, Thomas Joscelyn, May 29, 2016
Joint Task Force – Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO), which oversees the detention facility, deemed Khairkhwa a “high” risk to the U.S. and its allies, in part, because of his dealings with the Iranians. Despite JTF-GTMO’s assessment, and the DC court’s rejection of his habeas petition, Khairkhwa was transferred to Qatar in 2014. He was one of the five Taliban commanders exchanged for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.
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On May 21, an American drone strike ended Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour’s reign as the Taliban’s leader. As The Wall Street Journal first reported, US intelligence officials tracked Mansour to Iran, where he was visiting his family, and then targeted his car as he crossed back over the border into Pakistan. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Hossein Jaber Ansari, quickly denied this version of events, claiming that his country “welcomes any measure in line with bringing peace and stability to Afghanistan.”
However, Zabihullah Mujahid (the Taliban’s chief spokesman) has conceded that Mansour was indeed inside Iran. Dawn quotes Mujahid as saying the Taliban chief crossed the border because of “ongoing battle obligations,” adding that Mansour made multiple “unofficial trips” to Iran.
While many of the details concerning Mansour’s travels remain murky, his presence inside Iranian territory shortly before his death isn’t surprising. Iran has a long history of backing the Taliban’s insurgency against US and allied forces in Afghanistan. Indeed, the relationship between the two former foes is one of the most misunderstood and oft-overlooked aspects of the 9/11 wars.
Iran and the Taliban nearly went to war in 1998 after senior Taliban commanders slaughtered Iranian diplomats and other Shiites in Mazar-i-Sharif. But by late 2001, as the Americans prepared to topple the Taliban’s government, the situation changed dramatically. Outwardly, the Iranians acted as if they just wanted to help rebuild Afghanistan. Western diplomats have praised Iran for its role in the Dec. 2001 meetings in Bonn, Germany, where a post-Taliban government was established. But there is much more to this story. Just before the American-led invasion of Afghanistan two months earlier, the Iranians cut a secret deal with Mullah Omar’s representatives.
One of Omar’s most trusted lieutenants, Khairullah Khairkhwa, helped broker an agreement with the Iranians in Oct. 2001. We know this because Khairkhwa was captured in Pakistan in early 2002, transferred to Guantanamo and then told American officials all about it.
A district court in Washington, DC denied Khairkhwa’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus in 2011. The court found that Khairkhwa “repeatedly admitted” that after the 9/11 attacks “he served as a member of a Taliban envoy that met clandestinely with senior Iranian officials to discuss Iran’s offer to provide the Taliban with weapons and other military support in anticipation of imminent hostilities with U.S. coalition forces.” [SeeLWJ report, DC district court denies former Taliban governor’s habeas petition.]
According to the court, the Iranians told Khairkhwa and his Taliban delegation that they could provide shoulder-fired missiles (SAM-7’s) and “track all movements by the United States.” In addition, the Iranians “offered to open their border to Arabs entering Afghanistan.” Iran did just that, allowing some al Qaeda members and others to escape the American onslaught.
Joint Task Force – Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO), which oversees the detention facility, deemed Khairkhwa a “high” risk to the U.S. and its allies, in part, because of his dealings with the Iranians. Despite JTF-GTMO’s assessment, and the DC court’s rejection of his habeas petition, Khairkhwa was transferred to Qatar in 2014. He was one of the five Taliban commanders exchanged for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.
During the twelve years Khairkhwa was detained in Cuba, Iran continued to collude with the Taliban. The Defense, State and Treasury Departments have all documented the relationship.
In its “Annual Report on [the] Military Power of Iran,” which was delivered to Congress in 2012, the Department of Defense explained that Iran’s support for the Taliban was part of its “grand strategy” to challenge “US influence.” Although there was “historic enmity” between the two sides, the Pentagon said, support for the Taliban “complements Iran’s strategy of backing many groups to maximize its influence while also undermining US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) objectives by fomenting violence.”
“Since 2006,” the State Department noted in its Country Reports on Terrorism for 2012, “Iran has arranged arms shipments to select Taliban members, including small arms and associated ammunition, rocket propelled grenades, mortar rounds, 107mm rockets, and plastic explosives.” In 2012, the Iranians “shipped a large number of weapons to Kandahar, Afghanistan, aiming to increase its influence in this key province.”
Foggy Bottom added that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force (IRGC-QF) “trained Taliban elements on small unit tactics, small arms, explosives, and indirect fire weapons, such as mortars, artillery, and rockets.”
A series of Treasury Department terror designations illuminate the relationship between the IRGC-QF and the Taliban.
In August 2010, Treasury designated two IRGC-QF commanders as terrorists for providing “financial and material support to the Taliban.” A special unit in the IRGC-QF known as the Ansar Corps is responsible for orchestrating attacks in Afghanistan. Nearly two years later, in Mar. 2012, Treasury identified IRGC-QF General Gholamreza Baghbani as a narcotics trafficker. At the time, Baghbani was based in Zahedan, Iran, which is near the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan. From this strategically situated crossroads, Baghbani allegedly oversaw an operation that “moved weapons to the Taliban,” while smuggling “heroin precursor chemicals through the Iranian border” and facilitating “shipments of opium into Iran.” This guns-for-drugs scheme directly fueled the Taliban’s insurgency, according to Treasury.
Treasury wasn’t finished. In February 2014, three other IRGC-QF officials and one of their associates were designated for plotting terrorist acts in Afghanistan and also using “intelligence operations as tools of influence against” the Afghan government. Iran’s duplicitous scheme meant that the IRGC-QF was “currying favor” with some Afghan politicians while targeting other officials for assassination.
In the weeks immediately following 9/11, the Iranian regime and the Taliban met in the shadows. In the 14-plus years since, their relationship has become overt. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2012 that the Taliban has set up an office in Zahedan, which is also a well-known al Qaeda hub. Taliban officials have repeatedly and openly attended meetings in Tehran. And other sources confirm that Iran has often provided the Taliban with arms and training.
Contrary to what Ansari claims, the Iranians don’t want “peace and stability” in Afghanistan – at least not at the expense of achieving their other objectives. They want to force the US out and expand their influence. Given Iran’s enduring partnership with the Taliban, forged in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Mansour’s trips to Iran may have been “unofficial,” but they are definitely unsurprising.
Hatred with and without algorithms
May 29, 2016Hatred with and without algorithms, Israel Hayom, Judith Bergman, May 29, 2016
If you have ever found it profoundly disturbing that so much political debate centers on an online platform, Facebook, which was originally about social interaction, but has by now metamorphosed into a grotesque, many-headed monster that actively encourages (more about that later) and whips into a frenzy existing hatred against Israel and Jews, your intuition was correct. The latest journalistic experiment, in what can only be described as the dark underbelly of Facebook, confirms it.
While the fact that Facebook is rife with anti-Semitic hatred is not news to anyone with even a fleeting familiarity with the platform, the following is bound to disturb even the most hardened cynic.
A journalist from the British online newspaper Jewish News went undercover on Facebook, creating fake anti-Israel internet profiles in order to infiltrate the anti-Semitic hate groups that proliferate on the social platform. What he discovered were groups resembling “a lynch mob from the Middle Ages, its members winding each other up until the entire group is burning with an anger that is desperate for an outlet.” He mentions how one highly active group, “Israel is a War Criminal,” has more than 250,000 likes. Browsing its timeline regularly, he says, “is a horrifying and deeply disturbing influence. … It is a cesspit of vile and extreme political activism.”
What is of most concern, however, is not even the virtual cesspit of violent language and hatred, or the sewer-like fabricated memes created, Goebbels-style, merely to elicit the most primitive response against Israel and Jews. The most disturbing part in all this is that Facebook actively participates in the hate fest, egging the participants on until hate is everywhere: “As the website builds a profile of what you like and what you do not, it begins to form a unique bubble around your online existence … which means when I search for ‘Israel,’ I receive groups that are inherently pro-Israeli, but when ‘Mr. X’ does, he sees a completely different list. … The truly disturbing element of the search results is that they produce a list that is almost hermetically sealed in one direction. They give the appearance that the other side doesn’t exist.”
In other words, Facebook’s algorithms ensure that users only see more of what they have already liked and seen. Therefore, if you are an anti-Semitic or anti-Israel Facebook user, Facebook aims to please by showing you anti-Semitic or anti-Israel Facebook posts, even if you just put in ”Israel” in the search field. In this way, those Facebook users “learn” that their warped reality is “true,” repeatedly confirming their prejudices until the hatred has become all-pervasive.
The Jewish News journalist’s observation regarding Facebook’s algorithms aptly confirms what Shurat Hadin concluded in October, when the Israeli organization filed a lawsuit against Facebook: “Facebook actively assists the inciters to find people who are interested in acting on their hateful messages by offering friend, group and event suggestions and targeting advertising based on people’s online ‘likes’ and internet browsing history.”
In other words, Facebook actively works to create hate-filled, anti-Semitic echo chambers — a sobering and truly horrific thought that everyone ought to consider, whenever they enter the virtual meeting place.
The trouble with the online echo chambers is, of course, that they do not remain online. The incitement makes its way into the real world, where it may manifest itself in stabbings and murders in Israel and anti-Semitic hate crimes and terrorism elsewhere.
Let’s take a step back from the virtual world for a moment and contemplate whether we see the disturbing Facebook trend in real life as well. Echo chambers are not unique to the virtual world of social media. It is a growing phenomenon in real life, as well — a particular version of “reality” regarding Israel is promulgated, circulated and reinforced endlessly, until it becomes the only “truth.”
The United Nations is one such echo chamber, where the very language applied about Israel is coded in phrases that denote a reality that does not exist outside this disaster of an international organization. Nevertheless, most of the diplomats involved in the U.N., whether they agree with this language or not in private, uniformly employ it as if it were true, leading to the establishment of a false reality that has dire consequences on the decisions and votes made against Israel. One recent and striking example was the yearly vote on Israel in the World Health Organization, where the Jewish state was again denounced as the world’s only health violator. The absurdity of this decision is extreme, yet grown men and women, highly educated diplomats from supposedly civilized nations such as the U.K., France and Germany, supported the resolution. By doing this, they not only betrayed all logic and the justice they purport to support, but they clearly demonstrated that there exists in the U.N. an alternate reality similar to the alternate reality that Jew-haters inhabit online in the seedy underbelly of Facebook.
Western academia and university campuses represent another echo chamber where the established ”truths” abut Israel may not be challenged according to the reigning rules of political correctness, and where professors and social justice warriors reinforce each other’s deep-seated anti-Semitic prejudices in a way that creates an alternate reality similar to those mentioned above.
This is not, however, limited to university education. In Britain, a schoolgirl from Wanstead High School was met with frenzied jubilation and won the regional final in a speaker’s competition, the Jack Petchey Speak Out” Challenge, after giving a virulent anti-Israel speech.The speech was a primitive variation of the most commonly spewed diatribes against Israel, yet she was applauded by the school’s teachers and pupils, as well as the local authorities, and rewarded accordingly.
Tis is the result of yet another echo chamber, which now exists in British primary education. The British National Union of Teachers, aptly named NUT, actively condones similar propaganda to that which is found on Facebook’s hate sites, in the U.N. and in academia, thus supporting from an early age the imbibing of British children with hatred toward Israel and furthering the dissemination of Palestinian propaganda. As an example of this, NUT recently supported a conference,“Nakba: Then and Now” in London, organized by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. At this conference, ex-NUT President Philippa Harvey, speaking on behalf of the union, described a new project called “Beyond the Wall,” which intends to engage U.K. schools in learning about schooling in conflict zones. The project intends to show films to the young Britons that illustrate “the daily struggles experienced by Palestinian children as they try to gain an education.” One hardly dares to imagine the kind of untruths and propaganda running rampant in those films.
Whereas it is important to fight the virtual cesspool of hatred, which serves as its own brainwasher and echo chamber, as it were, on Facebook, we must not lose sight of the fact that the exact same mechanisms at work on Facebook are very much at play in the way that anti-Semites and Israel haters operate in the real world. There they create their own nonvirtual echo chambers, which are equally or even more dangerous, because they have a much further reach than just the haters and trolls prowling the internet.
By surrounding themselves with like-minded haters and creating alternate realities and ways of speaking about those realities, in schools, on campus, in academic circles and among diplomats in the U.N., they ultimately become blind to any kind of objective facts, and they even lose the language needed for rational discourse about Israel. And they don’t even need computer algorithms to do it.
Christians Beheaded and Slaughtered on Easter – Muslim Persecution of Christians, March 2016
May 29, 2016Christians Beheaded and Slaughtered on Easter – Muslim Persecution of Christians, March 2016, Gatestone Institute, Raymond Ibrahim, May 29, 2016
♦ In Pakistan, a Muslim suicide bomber murdered 74 people — mostly Christians — and injured nearly 400 more, on Easter Sunday, March 27, 2016.
♦ The U.S. and British governments knew the exact location of many of the Nigerian Christian girls captured by Boko Haram, but failed to launch a rescue mission, according to Andrew Pocock, the former British high commissioner to Nigeria.
♦ In Uganda, Amina Napiya’s 13-year-old daughter was raped while fetching firewood near their home. The rapist told the girl, “this is the second warning to your mother for disgracing the faith of the Muslims.” Napiya, a 42-year-old widow, converted to Christianity in 2014.
♦ Approximately 700 Christian girls are kidnapped and forced into Islamic marriages every year in Pakistan.
On Easter Sunday in Pakistan, March 27, a suicide bombing took place near the children’s rides of a public park, where Christians were known to be celebrating the resurrection of their Lord. At least 74 people — mostly women and children — were killed and nearly 400 injured. “There was human flesh on the walls of our house,” a witness recalled.
“We claim responsibility for the attack on Christians as they were celebrating Easter,” said a group affiliated with the Taliban. In a media statement, the group’s spokesman said it had “deliberately targeted the Christian community.” “We had been waiting for this occasion,” he said.
Click here, here, here, here, and here, for more examples of lethal attacks, worldwide, on Christians celebrating their holidays who also “had been waiting for this occasion.” Even “the terror cell that struck in Brussels in March, killing 34 was planning to massacre worshippers at Easter church services across Europe, including Britain, intelligence chiefs believe, according to a report.
In Scotland, a Muslim man stabbed another Muslim man to death for wishing Christians a Happy Easter. Asad Shah had posted messages on Facebook that said “Good Friday and very happy Easter, especially to my beloved Christian nation” and “Let’s follow the real footstep of beloved holy Jesus Christ and get the real success in both worlds.” Police said a 32-year-old Muslim man was arrested in connection with Shah’s death, and confirmed that the attack was “religiously prejudiced.” Islamic law (Qur’an 5:52) forbids Muslims from participating in or congratulating non-Muslims for their religious holidays as doing so implicitly validates other religions.
A Muslim nanny in Russia beheaded a 4-year-old girl, Anastasia, whom she had been taking care of for the last three years. Gulchehra Bobokulova, a Chechen, went to a Moscow metro station and, for 20 minutes, waved the child’s severed head while screaming “Allahu Akbar” [“Allah is Greatest”]. After her arrest, she said the murder “was what Allah ordered.” In the months before the slaughter, Bobokulova was said to have become “more religious.” She began wearing a hijab, and telling her son to pray five times a day and live in accord with Sharia [Islamic law]. Authorities concluded that, as she is “insane,” she will not face a murder trial.
“ISIS carries out Good Friday crucifixion of Indian Catholic priest in Yemen after he was kidnapped three weeks ago in attack on old people’s home where four nuns were shot,” the Daily Mail reported. Father Thomas Uzhunnalil, a 56-year-old Indian Catholic priest, was seized by Muslim gunmen who attacked an old people’s home in Aden. According to the Archbishop of Vienna, Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, Uzhunnalil had been crucified. Most recently, a report appeared indicating that Fr. Thomas was likely still alive and “that talks between the Indian government and Yemeni rebels to ensure his release were continuing.”
The rest of March’s roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes, but is not limited to, the following:
Muslim Slaughter of Christians
Unknown Middle Eastern Nation: Islamic radicals killed four workers of a Christian organization that translates and publishes Bibles. Wycliffe Associates issued a statement saying that the attackers shot and destroyed all the equipment in the Bible translators’ office, but failed to note the name of the country where the attack occurred. Two workers were apparently killed by gunshots, while two others lay over the head translator and died while “deflecting bludgeoning blows from the radicals’ spent weapons,” They saved his life. Several other people were also injured in the raid. The organization explained that the remaining team has vowed to redouble their efforts to translate, publish and print the Gospel.
Bangladesh: Two attackers with sharp weapons killed 68-year-old Hossain Ali, who converted to Christianity from Islam in 1999. ISIS claimed responsibility for the murder of the apostate from Islam in a tweet:
“A security detachment from the soldiers of the Caliphate was able, by the grace of Allah the Almighty, to kill the apostate (Ali), who changed his religion and became a preacher for the polytheist Christianity.”
The statement added that the murder was “a lesson to others.” In recent months ISIS has claimed being behind a series of attacks on religious converts and minorities in Bangladesh.
Yemen: Four Muslim gunmen attacked an old people’s home in the port of Aden, killing at least 15 people, including four nuns who were Missionaries of Charity of Mother Teresa. Two of the nuns were from Rwanda, one from India, and one from Kenya. Another nun survived by hiding inside a refrigerator in a storeroom. The gunmen, who initially told the guard they were at the old people’s home to visit their mother, stormed into the home with rifles and opened fire. The dead included two Yemeni women working at the facility, eight elderly residents, and a guard. The motive of the gunmen was not known. After the attack, they fled.
Ivory Coast: A squad of boatmen shouting “Allahu Akbar!” — “Allah is Greatest!” — leapt onto a beach in the resort town of Grand Bassam and proceeded to round up and kill Christian tourists. By the time security forces killed the terrorists, 14 tourists and two special forces personnel were dead, “all of them presumably Christians,” noted the report. At some point, witnesses said the gunmen captured a pair of children, one five-years old. A gunman “with a long beard” threatened them. Both boys fell to their knees in prayer, and begged for their lives. The first boy knew an Islamic prayer by heart, so he was spared, but the five-year-old, a Christian, had no hope, and was shot dead. Images of the aftermath showed bodies strewn across the beach, several of them believed to be French tourists. Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, via social media, claimed responsibility for the attack. According to the report, “Ivory Coast is becoming a target for Islamic extremists who want to spread Islam around the globe. Previously confined to the desert regions of the Sahara, Muslims have recently started a campaign of aggressive, militant expansion into West and Central Africa. ”
Nigeria: According to a March report, since 2000, some 12,000 Christians have been slaughtered for their faith and 13,000 churches destroyed, and not just by the Muslim terrorist organization, Boko Haram: “Northern Muslim political and religious elite are also major actors of targeted violence towards the Christian minority.” From mid-February to mid-March alone, 500 Christian farmers were butchered by Muslim herdsmen.
Pakistan: A Muslim man shot dead a Christian boy and threatened to rape his sisters, after their mother rejected his advances in the town of Qayum. The Muslim suspect, 57-year-old Tahir Jutt, who had a “known long-term infatuation” with 42-year-old Shazia Tahir, tried to intervene in a family argument. Tahir rebuffed his offer to help. Later that day, he returned to the Tahir family home and started shooting at family members, killing 17-year-old Noel Tahir, and wounding several others, including the husband and wife. Although initially detained by police, Jutt was eventually set free, only to continue threatening and terrorizing the Christian family. According to a rights activist:
“This family are in desperate need for [sic] help, the perpetrator of violence has shown no remorse for the violence he meted out on this poor family and has increased their tension by stating he will repeat the violence if they dare to challenge him through the courts. Local police are being extremely slow and sluggish with this case, allowing Mr Jutt to exhort [sic] great pressure on the family who have already had to suffer the surprising ignominy of the murderer of their son being set free on bail.”
Muslim Attacks on Christian Churches
United States: Three Christian statues at St. Margaret Parish, a Catholic church in Massachusetts, were vandalized. Two statues had their hands severed and multiple sets of rosary beads removed and scattered on the ground. The third statue, located near the rectory and depicting the Virgin Mary, had its head severed and both hands removed. Although the identity of the vandals is unknown, Robert Spencer, an expert on Islam, correctly observes that
in light of the curious fact that the head and hands were severed, the perpetrators could have been Muslims acting upon this Qur’an verse: “When your Lord inspired to the angels, ‘I am with you, so strengthen those who have believed. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieved, so strike upon the necks and strike from them every fingertip.'” (Qur’an 8:12).
Turkey: Late one night, four Muslim men went to the Agape Church in the Black Sea region and began banging and kicking at the front door. The church caretaker and a few members of the congregation were inside but refused to open the door. After they noticed they were being videotaped by a security camera, the assailants destroyed it and fled. (Image of the men kicking the door appears here.) According to the church’s pastor, Pıçaklar,
“They attacked us knowing that they would get caught – they even looked at the security camera and smiled. Later they went to the police and turned themselves in, and today they were set free. So what should I do [in response] to these guys who drink until they get drunk, and when they get caught [attacking the church building], instead of fear and sadness, yell, ‘Allahuu Akbar!’? [“Allah is Greatest”]
Pastor Pıçaklar said the incident was not just a “kick the door and go. These guys wanted the door open and to go inside and hit someone or attack in some other way.”
Greece: The Church of All Saints in Kallithea, Athens region, was set on fire. The kitchen was completely destroyed, but thanks to the fire department’s quick response, the fire was contained. According to witnesses, “Arabic speakers” were behind the arson attack.
Dhimmitude (Non-Muslims’ Status of Inferiority in Islam)
Uganda: After several threats and attacks — including the rape of her 13-year-old daughter — a mother with her five children, who had left Islam for Christianity, fled their village. Amina Napiya, a 42-year-old widow, converted to Christianity in 2014, after her husband, Mohammed Dongo, died. She and her family remained secret believers until the beginning of 2016, when relatives discovered they were followers of Christ. Attacks started soon after: two motorcycles that had belonged to her late husband were stolen in January, apparently by Muslim relatives. They left an unsigned note:
“We have taken the motorcycles, and soon we are coming for your life if you continue embarrassing the religion of the family. You have become an embarrassment to the family as well as the Muslim family.”
A month later, Napiya’s daughter was raped while fetching firewood near their home. The rapist told the girl, “This is the second warning to your mother for disgracing the faith of the Muslims.”
Finally, Napiya received an anonymous text, saying, “We have warned you several times, and our warnings are falling on deaf ears. We are on the way coming for you and your children.” The Christian woman and her children fled and were last reported living in dire straits.
Separately in Uganda, a Muslim youth who converted to Christianity was attacked and ostracized by his family. After Mohammed Nsera graduated from high school last year, his Muslim family built a small house for him on their homestead. A week after he converted to Christianity, his Muslim family burned it down. According to the convert,
“I could not deny Christ when my father asked me whether I had joined Christianity. With a lot of joy I answered him affirmatively, with a yes. My uncle, who had a walking stick, hit me on my back, and my father tried to get hold of my shirt, but I managed to escape with a tattered shirt and a bleeding back.”
While recovering at the home of a Christian 13 miles away, he learned that his family had burned his house down. “I received reports that my parents, uncle and some other Muslims were looking for me. I have lost my entire valuables, especially my academic certificates.” He has since taken refuge in an undisclosed village more than 60 miles from his home.
Pakistan: A 30-year-old Christian mother of three who was kidnapped and forced into an Islamic marriage. When she escaped months later, she was returned to her abductor by her own family, in hopes that it will spare other family members from persecution and arrest. Fouzia Sadiq, whose entire family works as bonded laborers in Pattoki, was abducted last July by her Muslim landlord, Muhammed Nazir. He told her family to forget about her as she “was now his property.” With her family’s aid, the women eventually escaped back to them. Her abductor-husband sent the police after her. They threatened her family, and suggesting that they might seize and deliver her younger sister to Muhammad as a “consolation” gift. According to a human rights activist:
“This family has gone through a torturous decision making process. They have not wanted to deliver their daughter back but the threats on their family were so extreme, including potential blasphemy law allegations and kidnap charges against Paris the brother of Fouzia, that they felt there was no other way out.”
Fouzia is one of approximately 700 Christian girls who are kidnapped and forced into Islamic marriages every year in Pakistan.
Belgium: The council of Belgian imams rejected an initiative to pray for the souls of the victims of the Brussels terror attacks on the grounds that it is forbidden to pray for the souls of non-Muslims — “infidels.” The Koran states:
“It is not for the Prophet and those who have believed to ask forgiveness for the polytheists, even if they were relatives, after it has become clear to them that they are companions of Hellfire.” (9:113)
Instead, the Muslim scholars recommended the use of tawriya — using words that mean one thing to listeners and another thing from the speaker. One Muslim cleric said: We cannot pray over the souls of non-Muslims, but if we do this, we don’t have to call it a prayer. We can call it something else: ‘solidarity with the families of the victims.’ We can stand by them and support them.”
Another Muslim cleric suggested: “Since this was a general event, in which Muslims as well as non-Muslims [were hurt], we address all of the victims, and wish them peace, mercy, and health.”
Italy: According to Archbishop Matteo Maria Zuppi, recently appointed to head the archdiocese,
“I really think it’s time for a mosque in Bologna. Some people think otherwise but they are wrong. … I also wish Islamic celebrations to be welcomed in schools… We shouldn’t be carried away by hateful generalizations, like the comparison between Muslims and terrorists.”
However, according to the report,
“Zuppi’s reflections are far distant from those of his predecessors. Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, once warned the faithful to be wary of the West’s current integration project of Middle-Eastern, largely Muslim migrants. The late Cdl. Giacomo Biffi, archbishop of Bologna before Caffarra, was a respected theologian known for being ‘extremely politically incorrect,’ and some note that his prophecies about Europe either returning to Christianity or surrendering to Islam were prescient for Italy today….”
Zuppi also seems to overlook the historic fact that, whenever a region was conquered by Islam, one of the first signs of consolidation was the erection of a mosque on top of the sacred sites of the vanquished: the pagan Ka’ba temple in Saudi Arabia was converted into Islam’s holiest site, the mosque of Mecca; the Al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third holiest site, was built on top of the ruins of Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem; the Umayyad mosque in Damascus was built on top of the Church of St. John the Baptist; and the Hagia Sophia in Turkey was converted into a mosque upon the conquest of Constantinople.
Sudan: Pastor Ayoub Tilian, moderator of the Sudanese Church of Christ in the Khartoum area, was arrested at his office and taken to an unknown location. He was later released, but ordered to report daily for interrogation to the security officials of Sudan’s National Security and Intelligence Services, which is staffed by hardline Islamists. They are reportedly upset that he may have spoken about the Sudanese government’s persecution of Christians. Discussing this incident, an area source said, “Things are very difficult here in Sudan as time after time we hear that a church leader is arrested.”
Iran: A pastor and three other Christians, all of whom appear to be converts from Islam, were sentenced to serve one year in prison, and banned from holding or attending any church services for two years. They were arrested earlier during a picnic in Daniel-e Shoosh, in southern Iran. The plainclothes secret police came to them with guns drawn, threatening and beating some in the group. The report does not mention what the alleged crime is. Most likely, if this case is like other allegations against non-Muslims, they were sentenced under the pretense that they are a “security threat to the nation.”
US and UK: Despite all the widespread attention and international condemnation given to the kidnapping by Boko Haram of nearly 300 (mostly Christian) Nigerian girls — recall First Lady Michelle Obama holding a sign saying “bring back our girls” — the US and British governments knew exactly where many of the girls were, but failed to launch a rescue mission. According to Dr. Andrew Pocock, the former British high commissioner to Nigeria: “A couple of months after the kidnapping, fly-bys and an American eye in the sky spotted a group of up to 80 girls in a particular spot in the Sambisa forest, around a very large tree, called locally the Tree of Life, along with evidence of vehicular movement and a large encampment.” He said the girls were there for at least four weeks but authorities were “powerless” to act.
About this Series
While not all, or even most, Muslims are involved, persecution of Christians by Muslims is growing.
The report posits that such Muslim persecution is not random but rather systematic, and takes place in all languages, ethnicities, and locations.
5 Ways the Iranian Regime Is Crushing Dissent
May 29, 20165 Ways the Iranian Regime Is Crushing Dissent, Clarion Project, May 29, 2016
(Illustrative photo; Wikimedia Commons)
1. Iranian authorities arrested 30 young people (including one woman) at a private graduation party in a villa in Qazvin. In an unusual move, a special court was convened the next day where the defendants were sentenced to 99 lashes each and the punishment was carried out immediately.
In Karmon, another 23 people, including a famous artist, were arrested at a party in a park.
The Iranian authorities’ crack down on mixed parties – which often include alcohol and mixed dancing – is a response to a perceived “Westernization” of Iran’s strict Islamist culture imposed on the population after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Extremists fear that the nuclear deal forged by Iran’s “moderate” president, Hassan, Rouhani, will open Iran to unwanted influences.
2. The campaign against house parties follows a similar campaign against beauty salons, which recently saw police raid these establishments in search of (forbidden) male workers as well as those giving and receiving “Western” haircuts.
3. An Iranian court announced the arrest of eight people and charged them with making and broadcasting inappropriate music videos, according to Al-Hayat newspaper. The videos were broadcast on a satellite TV channel based outside of Iran that is considered to be anti-regime.
4. Seventeen Iranian miners who protested losing their jobs were given 30-100 lashes each for instigating the demonstration. The miners were also fined and given prison sentences.
The men worked at a gold mine in the Western Azerbaijan Province and were part of a group of 350 employees who were fired from their jobs, prompting a large demonstration at the time.
Of the 17, five received 100 lashes, another five received 50 lashes, and the remaining seven received 30 lashes for their part in the protests.
5. Last week, Iran chose as head of the Assembly of Experts Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati . Described as the most radical hard-line cleric in Iran, Jannati will have the power to select the Ayatollah Khamenei’s successor, among other influential responsibilites. A few choice quotes from Jannati include:
“You cried: ‘Death to the Shah,’ and indeed, he died. You cried: ‘Death to Israel,’ and it is now on its deathbed. You cry: ‘Death to America,’ and before long, Allah willing, the prayer for the dead will be recited over it.”
“‘Death to America’ [is] the first option on our table… This is the slogan of our entire people without exception. This is our number one slogan.”
DePaul Islamic chaplain has praised Anwar al-Awlaki and other jihad terrorists
May 29, 2016DePaul Islamic chaplain has praised Anwar al-Awlaki and other jihad terrorists, Jihad Watch,
Chaplain Abdul-Malik Ryan:
The Islamic revival is continuing. The evil nature of U.S. plans are clear to most Muslims, especially the youth and especially the active practicing Muslim youth living in the U.S. itself. They plot and plan, but Allaah is the Best of Planners. In fact, the popularity and understanding of the true message of Islam continues to grow in the Muslim world and the concept of re-establishing the Islamic State, or re-establishing the Khilafah is everywhere seen as much more realistic and likely than it was even 15 years ago.
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That this jihadi would have a job at DePaul or any American university shows what a radioactive wasteland of filth American academia has become. DePaul (and other universities) wouldn’t hesitate to employ a man who openly praises jihad terrorists, but they wouldn’t be caught dead hiring an outspoken foe of jihad terrorists.
Abdul-Malik Ryan is the Islamic chaplain of Chicago’s DePaul University and also serves as Assistant Director of Religious Diversity at the college’s Loop campus. He also goes by the alias “Abu Noor al-Irlandee” (“al-Irlandee” is Arabic for “the Irishman”). Ryan is not only an open supporter of Muslim terrorist groups such as ISIS and al-Qaeda, he has ties to traitor and convicted terrorist John Walker Lindh.
Meet Abdul-Malik Ryan
Abdul-Malik Ryan is an American of Irish descent who obtained his bachelor’s degree from DePaul and also attended Georgetown Law School. Prior to becoming DePaul’s Islamic chaplain, he worked as an attorney in the Cook County child protection system.
Ryan converted to Islam in 1994 when he was a student at DePaul, initially joining the Nation of Islam, the radical black nationalist organization led by Louis Farrakhan; he would later become an Orthodox Muslim. According to my contacts, prior to his conversion, Ryan also served as the president of DePaul’s Communist club, though I haven’t turned up any evidence of this so far.
Some of Abdul-Malik Ryan’s radical left-wing beliefs are well-known: according to Breitbart’s Tom Ciccotta, he has cheered on the declining white majority in America, supports cop killers, and believes that it is immoral for the U.S. to refuse to accept Syrian refugees. However, at his blog Abu Noor al-Irlandee, he has openly expressed support for Muslim terrorists who kill Americans and Europeans.
Abdul-Malik Ryan’s Terrorist Problem
On his blog, Abdul-Malik Ryan refers to himself as an “unrepentant Fenian Islamist” and posts articles supportive of Islamic terrorism. In a deleted post from 2008, he praises Anwar al-Awlaki, the leader of al-Qaeda in Yemen. Al-Awlaki was the mastermind behind the 2009 Fort Hood massacre by Nidal Hasan and the attempted Christmas day bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 by “underwear bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.
Ryan writes:
…Shaykh al-Awlaki is one of those rare speakers that combines articulateness with being blunt and clear and fearless in his analysis. Most people who are articulate and can speak well use those skills in order to make less clear what they are actually saying or in order to speak to multiple audiences at once, or to create “plausible deniability” in the future if someone wants to come after them for what they “seem to be saying.” There may be reasons for all of this, but when someone speaks clear and directly (as Allaah (swt) says speak clearly and directly to the point Surah Ahzab Ayah 70) then it naturally appeals to people, even when people don’t agree with everything you say. This is why someone like Al Hajj Malik Shabazz became beloved even by people who did not agree with some of his message, because they knew where he stood, knew he was on their side, and loved how he spoke the truth. All of which makes Shaykh Anwar al-Awlaki and his thought a perfect topic for my “Alternative Visions” series!
Ryan also heaps praise on the “Mujahideen” (guerrilla terrorists) killing American soldiers in Iraq and affirms his support for establishing an “Islamic State”:
But despite all of that, the plans of the United States are not working. The Islamic revival is continuing. The evil nature of U.S. plans are clear to most Muslims, especially the youth and especially the active practicing Muslim youth living in the U.S. itself. They plot and plan, but Allaah is the Best of Planners. In fact, the popularity and understanding of the true message of Islam continues to grow in the Muslim world and the concept of re-establishing the Islamic State, or re-establishing the Khilafah is everywhere seen as much more realistic and likely than it was even 15 years ago. [Text bolded by me – ed.]
At the end of the post, Ryan states that there are only a “few minor areas” where he “perhaps disagree[s]” with al-Awlaki and prays that Allah “protect and preserve him and keep him free!” He also prays for the release of several other Muslim terrorists and captured enemy combatants, including John Walker Lindh, and advocates that Muslims use “mass civil disobedience” to resist Islamic terrorist groups from being designated as such by the U.S. government:
The next recommendation is that stories of corruption, immorality, etc. should be promoted about the “extremist” Muslims. This of course means, that if these Muslims, have not committed any crimes you simply make things up or take basic Islamic beliefs and actions and criminalize them.Shaykh al-Awlaki specifically cites what the govenrment did with Imam Jamil Al-Amin (May Allaah free him!) in this context. One can also look to examples like Shaykh Ali al-Timimi (May Allaah free him!), John Walker Lindh (May Allaah free him!), or Muhammad Salah (May Allaah free him!). The only notion of criminalizing any aid or support for a “designated terrorist” organization and then being able to designate whomever you wish as a terrorist organization is nothing less than the criminalization of being a Muslim and daring to support any cause not approved by the U.S. government. (I continue to believe that the only response to this that will be effective at the end of the day is to demonstrate the pure injustice of such laws by mass civil disobedience in which the Muslims in hundreds of thousands publicly and openly support these groups in ways which are clearly moral and right, daring the government to punish us for it. Until then, it will continue to pick off the truly strong among us, but those seen to be weak because they are not supported by the community). [Text bolded by me – ed.]
In another post from 2008, Abdul-Malik Ryan posts a “rebel nasheed” called “Ghurabaa.” A nasheed is a jihadist chant, and this particular one was written by the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood when he was in prison. It includes the lyrics “Let us make Jihad together” and “Do not bow your foreheads to anyone besides Allah”:
In another post, Ryan pays homage to Sayyid Qutb, a Wahabbist theologian, leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood and the spiritual father of al-Qaeda and ISIS:
May Allaah (swt) accept Sayyid Qutb as a martyr forgive him any mistakes, sins and shortcomings. May Allaah (swt) show his mercy to all the Muslims and to all of the oppressed during the blessed month of Ramadan. [Text bolded by me – ed.]
There is much more here.
Germany’s New “Integration Law”
May 29, 2016Germany’s New “Integration Law” Gatestone Institute, Soeren Kern, May 29, 2016
♦ The new law applies only to legitimate asylum seekers, not to the hundreds of thousands of economic migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East who have entered Germany illegally by posing as asylum seekers.
♦ Of the more than 1.1 million migrants who arrived in Germany in 2015, only 476,649 have applied for asylum. Many of the rest have gone underground and are sustaining themselves through petty crime and drug dealing.
♦ Nearly half (49%) of the migrants in Germany whose asylum applications were rejected during the past two years have not left the country, according to leaked government data.
♦ “Regaining control of our borders is an existential issue for our culture and the survival of our society.” — Thilo Sarrazin, renowned German central banker and a former member of the Social Democrats.
After months of haggling, Germany’s coalition government has agreed on a new “Integration Law” aimed at regulating the rights and responsibilities of asylum seekers in Germany.
The main focus of the law is to encourage refugees to learn enough German to be able to find a job and help pay for their living expenses.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has hailed the new law as a “milestone,” and Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel says it represents a “true paradigm shift in Germany.”
Critics counter that the new law is a largely symbolic measure directed at reassuring German voters and blunting the rise of the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany party.
Details of the Integration Law were announced on May 25 after a two-day government summit in Schloss Meseberg, a castle north of Berlin. Based on the motto “Support and Demand” (Fördern und Fordern), the new law makes the government an active participant in the integration process. Key components of the law include:
- Integration Courses. Courses on German culture, society and values will be expanded from 60 hours to 100 hours. The number of available slots will be increased from 20,000 to 200,000 nationwide. The courses will be obligatory for all asylum seekers; those who refuse to attend will have their social welfare benefits cut.
- Language Courses. Asylum seekers will now be allowed to apply for language courses six weeks after arriving in Germany (compared to three months before) and regardless of whether their asylum applications have been processed. All refugees seeking permanent residency must be proficient in German.
- Work Programs. The government will create 100,000 low-wage jobs paying around one euro an hour. Refugees who refuse to work will have their benefits cut.
- Labor Laws. Existing labor laws will be relaxed to encourage German companies to hire refugees, even if better qualified German or EU citizens are available for an advertised position.
- Preventing Ghettoes. The new law will authorize regional governments to determine where refugees will live, either by allocating or banning them from certain areas, for the next three years. The objective is to prevent refugees from settling in migrant ghettoes.
- Permanent Residency. Refugees who are proficient in German and can provide for their own upkeep in Germany can apply for permanent residency after five years; those with exceptional German skills can do so after three years.
The law has been accompanied by the so-called Meseberger Declaration on Integration, a statement of principles summarizing the government’s new integration policy.
Addressing the proliferation of migrant sex crimes in Germany, the document states: “We will not accept assaults on women, children and others in need of protection, whether such attacks are directed against German citizens or against refugees.”
Critics say the new law, which must be approved by the German Parliament, which will debate the measure in July, is inadequate to deal with Germany’s integration problems.
For a start, the law applies only to legitimate asylum seekers, not to the hundreds of thousands of economic migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East who have entered Germany illegally by posing as asylum seekers.
Of the more than 1.1 million migrants who arrived in Germany in 2015, only 476,649 have applied for asylum, according to official statistics. Many of the rest have gone underground and are sustaining themselves through petty crime and drug dealing. The government has not said how it plans to “integrate” such migrants.
In addition, the government is already facing an acute shortage of instructors to teach the integration courses. It remains unclear where the government will find thousands of new instructors envisioned in the new law. Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière has admitted: “The bottleneck is not money but the lack of teachers.”
Also unclear is who will pay for implementing the new law. According to a recent estimate, the total cost of “integrating” refugees will reach 25 billion euros ($28 billion) in 2016 alone. Leaders of some of Germany’s 16 federal states are demanding that the central government assume responsibility for at least half this amount.
Moreover, some critics say the law lacks meaningful punitive measures. Although it does call for cutting welfare benefits to refugees who refuse to learn German, it does not threaten them with deportation. Of course, refugees fleeing warzones cannot be returned to their countries of origin, even if they refuse to learn German.
In any event, Germany is lenient when it comes to deportation. For example, nearly half (49%) of the migrants in Germany whose asylum applications were rejected during the past two years have not left the country, according to government data leaked to Die Welt.
Perhaps most importantly, the new law appears to be based on the assumption that the EU-Turkey migrant deal will hold. If Turkey reopens the floodgates to mass migration, and hundreds of thousands of additional migrants flow into Germany, integration efforts are likely to collapse.
Hans-Peter Uhl of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party to Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), said the new law does not go far enough: “Integration is good and important, but placing limits on the number of refugees would be much better.”
Stephan Mayer, also of the CSU, added: “Whoever refuses deportation should be sent to a detention center and deported within four days.”
Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel of the Social Democrats (SPD) says the Integration Law is actually the precursor to a full-fledged Immigration Law, a claim disputed by Angela Merkel. Gabriel — who has called for airlifting migrants directly from the Middle East to Germany — says he plans to introduce a draft immigration law this fall; critics of the measure say it would encourage yet more migration to Germany.
Thilo Sarrazin, a renowned German central banker and a former member of the Social Democrats (SPD), has been warning Germans for years about the consequences of mass migration. In 2010, he wrote the best-selling book, “Germany Does Away with Itself” (Deutschland schafft sich ab), which shattered Germany’s long-standing taboo on discussing the social changes transforming the country due to the presence millions of non-integrated Muslims.
In his latest book, “Wishful Thinking,” (Wunschdenken), Sarrazin accuses Merkel of “no longer being concerned about the interests of Germans and the future of their nation, the protection of their living environment (Lebensumfelds) and their cultural identity.” He concludes: “Regaining control of our borders is an existential issue for our culture and the survival of our society.”
Thilo Sarrazin (left), a renowned German central banker and a former member of the Social Democrats (SPD), accuses Chancellor Angela Merkel (right) of “no longer being concerned about the interests of Germans and the future of their nation, the protection of their living environment and their cultural identity.” Sarrazin concludes: “Regaining control of our borders is an existential issue for our culture and the survival of our society.”<?address>
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