FBI and Islamists

FBI and Islamists? Outrageous? I'll let you in on a secret - The Israeli Mossad had a man inside the Syrian government. He was hanged unfortunately. It's called "humint."

 

Does it occur to Emerson that this is a way of understanding and infiltrating organizations, as well as a way to win hearts and minds?

 

FBI's Latest Outreach Outrage
by Steven Emerson
IPT News Service
November 7, 2007

Source

Much has been written about the U.S. government's current bout of schizophrenia in its outreach to the American Muslim community, specifically related to the Department of Justice. While federal prosecutors in Dallas have labeled several Islamist organizations as unindicted co-conspirators – describing them as front groups for Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood - in the terrorist financing trial against the Holy Land for Relief and Development (HLF), the FBI is meeting with the very same groups to hold outreach events and the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ is setting up booths at their conferences. 

As wrongheaded and shortsighted as these policies are, they do not hold a candle to a recent outreach event held by the FBI's Detroit field office at the end of last month. As reported in the Detroit Free Press (see: Detroit's FBI chief: Violence extremism cuts across religions), two top FBI officials from that office "spoke to about 50 Muslims inside the Islamic Organization of North America, or Tanzeem-e-Islami." The Free Press described the organization as merely "a Sunni mosque with a primarily Pakistani congregation" and tells us that the meeting was nothing more than "part of an effort by the FBI to reach out to Muslims and other communities."

While outreach to the Muslim community remains an important endeavor, officials at the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have become far less discerning in determining who the gatekeepers and spokesmen for the American Muslim community should be.

Take this recent meeting with Tanzeem-e-Islami, a group founded in Pakistan in 1975 and headed by a man named Dr. Israr Ahmad. The FBI might be unaware, but Ahmad is often credited with initiating the vicious rumor, spread throughout the Muslim world, that Israel was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. On the heels of the attacks, he sent faxes to various U.S. mosques and Islamic centers, stating:

The secret Israeli service Musad [sic] orchestrated these terrorist attacks ... [which] are a vital link in the chain of events that the Jews are undertaking to fulfill their dream of world domination.

It turns out that Dr. Ahmad is a rather prolific writer on such topics, and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories permeate his writing. Canada's National Post reported in 2006 that, according to Ahmad:

Islam's renaissance will begin in Pakistan … because the Arab world is living under subjugation. Only the Pakistan region "has the potential for standing up against the nefarious designs of the global power-brokers and to resist the rising tides of the Jewish/Zionist hegemony."

And that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Ahmad's opinions about Jews. Also reported in the National Post:

Another of his books repeats the Jewish conspiracy theories popular among neo-Nazis, claiming that Jews have "a deeply ingrained tendency to conspire and to maneuver things surreptitiously for their own gain."

The Jews exert a "wicked web of control and exploitation" through their ownership of banks, insurance companies and stock exchanges, he claims.

He compares Jews to parasites, calls the Holocaust "Divine punishment" and foresees the "total extermination" of Jews at the hands of Muslims.

Ahmad lives in Pakistan and didn't attend the meeting. But what's the best that can be said about the FBI, whose officials meet with members of a group founded by such a hate-filled man?

Ahmad's views are not limited to anti-Jewish rhetoric. He's also a leading advocate of Islamic supremacy and the revival of the Caliphate. A simple trip to the Islamic Organization of North America's website would have led the FBI to articles calling for this. Some of the links are now defunct (perhaps due to bad press from the National Post), but their content can be judged clearly by their titles. According to the National Post, the Tanzeem-e-Islami's "goal is to establish the system of social justice of the Caliphate [Islamic state] firstly in Pakistan and then in the whole world," and that Ahmad's "ideal state" would include the following three principles:

"(1) Sovereignty belongs to Almighty Allah alone; (2) No legislation can be done at any level that is totally or partially repugnant to Koran and Sunnah, and; (3) Full citizenship of the state is for the Muslims only."

And Dr. Ahmad is not shy about his objective. An official bio states:

For the last forty years or so, Dr. Israr Ahmad has been actively engaged not only in reviving the Qur'an-centered Islamic perennial philosophy and world-view but also reforming the society in a practical way with the ultimate objective of establishing a true Islamic State, or the System of Khilafah.

And Tanzeem extremism is not an abstract threat. There are real time examples on North American soil. Just last month, the New York Times reported on an Islamic extremist in North Carolina, 21-year old Samir Khan, in an article titled, "An Internet Jihad Aims at U.S. Viewers." As reported in the Times, before hooking up with Tanzeem, Khan:

[m]irrored his teenage peers, from their slang to their baggy pants, until August 2001 when, at age 15, he said, he attended a weeklong summer camp at a mosque in Queens, which was sponsored by a fundamentalist but nonviolent group now known as the Islamic Organization of North America (IONA).

"They were teaching things about religion and brotherhood that captivated me," Mr. Khan said. He said he went back to school knowing "what I wanted to do with my life: be a firm Muslim, a strong Muslim, a practicing Muslim."

And now Khan is a leading jihadi webmaster. And Dr. Ahmad would be proud of Khan, as Ahmad himself came to the United States to spread his radical version of Islam, speaking at a conference sponsored by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) in 1995 – the same group that's listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the HLF Hamas fundraising trial, and whose 2007 convention in Illinois included a booth sponsored by the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.

At the 1995 conference, Ahmad reportedly told the audience, "The process of the revival of Islam in different parts of the world is real. A final showdown between the Muslim world and the non-Muslim world, which has been captured by the Jews, would soon take place. The Gulf War was just a rehearsal for the coming conflict." Ahmad said that all Muslims, including those in the room and the rest of the American Muslim community, should be ready for just such a battle.

Tanzeem-e-Islami member and student of Ahmad, Qayyum Abdul Jamal, was the "prayer leader" at the Al-Rahman Islamic Center and alleged spiritual leader of a 17-member cell that purchased three tons of ammonium nitrate to bomb several targets in Ontario including the parliament building in Ottawa, and the CN Tower and Canadian Security and Intelligence Service offices in Toronto. The arrests of Abdul Jamal and his followers were a part of a series of raids in Europe and North America – that began in Bosnia with the arrest of a two-man cell charged in a plot to attack the British embassy in Sarajevo – all connected to a worldwide Internet terrorism network with links to al Qaeda in Iraq, among other terrorist elements.

Tanzeem-e-Islami members have also partnered with the Muslim Brotherhood front group, the Muslim American Society (MAS), whose President was forced to resign in September from his appointment on the Virginia's Commission of Immigration, when his radical speeches were posted on the Internet. The groups issued a joint press release in 2004 discussing their "unity of purpose." As further evidence of their cooperation, recently, both groups became members of an outfit calling itself the Northern California Islamic Council.

Exacerbating this abject ignorance of some FBI officials are the remarks by Special Agent in Charge Andrew Arena to Tanzeem-e-Islami members describing the dangers of extremists in every religion. According to the Free Press, Arena told the assembled audience, "There are plenty of people out there in my faith, the Christian faith, who use these extremist views to support their thoughts on racial superiority, be it the Ku Klux Klan, the Nazis, Aryan Nation, all these people, these groups...they're all based on a religious view." So aside from providing an Islamic supremacist sect with more ammunition to justify its own anti-Western views, what exactly is Arena hoping to accomplish with his meeting?

Ironically, Agent Arena could not have been more oblivious to the nature of the group he was addressing. The same story states, "Arena said after the meeting that in `every religion, you have individuals who try to hijack the faith...the Muslim faith, the Jewish faith, the Christian faith.'" In case the examples of Ahmad's hatred and Islamic supremacy listed above are not enough to convince Agent Arena just who the hijackers in this scenario are, here are some more of Dr. Ahmad's religious stylings:

In an article titled, "Why Israel Is Unacceptable," Ahmad refers to Israel as a disease, asserting:

Pakistan was born nine months earlier than Israel. In my opinion this was not a coincidence. For, in accordance with a saying of the Prophet (SAW) - "Allah (SWT) has not created a disease without creating its cure" - Pakistan was created as an "antidote" to the state of Israel and will face up Israel in the final confrontation of Truth and falsehood.

And he engages in more of his trademark, virulent anti-Semitism, writing:

It is a historical fact that Jews have always exploited their friends and allies to their own advantage.

Dr. Ahmad delves further into Nazi rhetoric, informing his readers that:

[t]he Jews have exploited the Protestants to accomplish most of their ill-conceived objectives, such as: the promotion of secularism and the establishment of interest-based banking system. The banking system was used as a bait to clutch the whole of Christian world into the jaws of interest-based lending and, thus, into perpetual debt.

And, unsurprisingly, he views the Arab-Israeli conflict through a, some may say, "hijacked" religious lens:

We need to understand that the conflict over Palestine is not between the Arabs and Israel, instead, it is between Muslims and Jews.

Lest FBI officials claim that the members of Tanzeem-e-Islami should not be held responsible for the hate-filled rantings of its leader, a Tanzeem-e-Islami publication calling for the restoration of the Islamic Caliphate titled, "Why Tanzeem-e-Islami ?" (published in Flushing NY in 1997), has a page for a signed "Oath of Allegiance For Joining Tanzeem-e-Islami" which includes a "pledge to Dr. Israr Ahmad, Ameer of Tanzeem-e-Islami."

It seems obvious that many government officials are hardly discerning when it comes to decisions regarding Muslim outreach and partnership programs. After all, headquarters-directed FBI outreach policies, of which this incident is symptomatic, require routine meetings and cooperation with members of Muslim Brotherhood front groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and ISNA. Even so, the Detroit field office's meeting with a Tanzeem-e-Islami chapter stands out as highly dubious, given its founders' unapologetic brand of anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism.

Meeting with organizations such as the Islamic Organization of North America accrues no benefits to the FBI and only serves to empower extremists such as Ahmad in his quest to spread his puritanical, hateful, and intolerant ideology. These FBI outreach policies imposed by headquarters are undermining our national security by reaching out to radicals in our midst.

 

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What little Johnnie learns about Jihad

" Oh Oh Oh. There is an infidel. See the infidel? He is evil. Run infidel run... We are all good Muslims... "

Jihad is a "good works" according to a US textbook.

 

He kids - Jihad is what happened on 9-11 2001. Do you think that was "good works?" Of course, it was an urban renewal project, right?

 

Ami Isseroff

 

BRAVE NEW SCHOOLS
Textbook: Islamic 'jihad' means doing good works
Also includes Muslims fighting 'to protect themselves from harm'

 

Posted: January 16, 2008
1:00 a.m. Eastern

 

By Bob Unruh
© 2008 WorldNetDaily.com

 

An Islamic "jihad" is an effort by Muslims to convince "others to take up worthy causes, such as funding medical research," according to a middle school textbook used in California and other states.

 

And even at its most violent, "jihad" simply is Muslims fighting "to protect themselves from those who would do them harm," says the "History Alive! The Medieval World and Beyond" book published by Teachers' Curriculum Institute.

 

But a parent whose child has been handed the text in a Sacramento district is accusing the publisher of a pro-Muslim bias to the point that Islamic theology has been incorporated into the public school teachings.

 

"It makes an attempt to seem like an egalitarian world history book, but on closer inspection you find that seven (not all are titled so) of the chapters deal with Islam or Muslim subjects," wrote the parent, whose name was being withheld, in a letter to WND.

 

Sacramento's students are being taught "jihad" is an effort to convince "others to take up worthy causes."

 

"The upsetting part is not only do they go into the history (which would be acceptable) but also the teaching of Islam," she said. "This book does not really go into Christianity or the teachings of Christ, nor does it address religious doctrine elsewhere to the degree it does Islam."

 

She said the book's one page referencing Jews "is only to convey that they were tortured by Crusaders to get them to convert to 'Christianity.' (It fails to mention that the biggest persecutors of Jews throughout history and still today are Arab Muslims). It gives four other one-liner references to the Jews being blamed for the plagues and problems in the land. It does not talk about the Jews as making a significant impact on the culture at large."

 

"How can the writers of this text get away with this?" she asked.

 

Bert Bower, founder of TCI, said not only did his company have experts review the book, but the state of California also reviewed it, and has approved it for use in public schools.

 

He said the company tries to move history out from between the covers of a textbook and into students' minds, and that is how the book was developed.

 

"Keep in mind when looking at this particular book scholars from all over California (reviewed it)," he said. "We have our own scholars who created the program, California scholars look at the program and makes sure [it] is accurate."

 

(Story continues below)

 

 One of those experts who contributed to the text, according to the American Textbook Council, which released a scathing indictment of the project, is Ayad Al-Qazzaz.
"Al-Qazzaz is a Muslim apologist, a frequent speaker in Northern California school districts promoting Islam and Arab causes," the ATC review said. "Al-Qazzaz also co-wrote AWAIR's 'Arab World Notebook.' AWAIR stands for Arab World and Islamic Resources, an opaque, proselytizing 'non-profit organization' that conducts teacher workshops and sells supplementary materials to schools."

 

The textbook council, an independent national research group set up in 1989 to review history and social studies texts in public schools, quoted directly from the book to provide evidence of its bias.

 

The word jihad means "to strive." Jihad represents the human struggle to overcome difficulties and do things that would be pleasing to God. Muslims strive to respond positively to personal difficulties as well as worldly challenges. For instance, they might work to become better people, reform society, or correct injustice.

 

Jihad has always been an important Islamic concept. One hadith, or account of Muhammad, tells about the prophet's return from a battle. He declared that he and his men had carried out the "lesser jihad," the external struggle against oppression. The "greater jihad," he said, was the fight against evil within oneself. Examples of the greater jihad include working hard for a goal, giving up a bad habit, getting an education, or obeying your parents when you may not want to.

 

Another hadith says that Muslims should fulfill jihad with the heart, tongue, and hand. Muslims use the heart in their struggle to resist evil. The tongue may convince others to take up worthy causes, such as funding medical research. Hands may perform good works and correct wrongs.

 

Sometimes, however, jihad becomes a physical struggle. The Quran tells Muslims to fight to protect themselves from those who would do them harm or to right a terrible wrong. Early Muslims considered their efforts to protect their territory and extend their rule over other regions to be a form of jihad. However, the Quran forbade Muslims to force others to convert to Islam. So, non-Muslims who came under Muslim rule were allowed to practice their faiths."

 

The council, in describing the text as a book written by "dictation from Islamic sources," said such passages "should put speculation to rest about what California's seventh-grade students may learn about Islam. At the very least, the passages are incomplete. More precisely, they are dishonest."

 

Such passages fail to explain "the essentially religious nature of the subject," the council said. "It ignores any challenge to international security and western-style law. The treatment is lyrical and loaded, echoing the language recommended by Islamist consultants."

 

The Sacramento parent said she became suspicious because of the school's decision to send a copy of the book home with her son and he started describing how it would teach students to write in Arabic.

 

A review left her even more worried. "I was disturbed probably the greatest portion of this book is about Islam. It goes into the doctrine of Islam in detail," she said. "There are 35 chapters. Out of those, I counted at least seven [that focus] on Islam."

 

She said she looked at the publication's list of contributors, and found the name of Ayad Al-Qazzaz, whom she'd had herself for a class on Middle Eastern studies.

 

"That was a big flag for me," she said.

 

WND previously has reported on the influence of Islamic "consultants" on public school texts in the United States, as well as how other schools have included the "Five Pillars of Islam" among their required courses.

 

The parent said she just wanted people to know of the agenda being taught.

 

"After seeing Al-Qazzaz as one of the main contributors I began to put two and two together … about the extra book coming home only in this class and I questioned where this book's money source came from – I still do not know," she said.

 

"I am very troubled that in the name of tolerance and educating American children about the Muslim empire in history they get away with giving beginning Islamic teaching which may cause many to perhaps one day become Muslims," she said. "My son tells me that the students will even be using calligraphy to copy parts of the Quran in Arabic as an enrichment activity."

 

The ATC's second excerpt from the book dealt with the definition of sharia law.

 

"For example, the Quran tells women to 'not display their beauty.' For this reason, Muslim women usually wear different forms of modest dress. Most women cover their arms and legs. Many also wear scarves over the hair," the book said.

 

Bower said Christianity is addressed in chapters 3, 6, 31 and 32 of the book, including descriptions of the Crusades, while the company's website shows an entire unit called, "The Rise of Islam," including chapters on the Arabian peninsula, "The Prophet Muhammad," "The Teachings of Islam," "Contributions of Muslims to World Civilizations," and "From the Crusades to the Rise of New Muslim Empires."

 

The recommendations included that "students learn about the beliefs and practices of Islam" and "learn about the life of Muhammad and the rise and expansion of Muslim rule."

 

Bower said the textbook is the answer to the demands in today's society for a "multicultural" education, and he said whenever some historical subjects are taught, there's always controversy. He cited the internment of Japanese people in the United States during World War II as an example.

 

His company's book, he said, "really gives students multiple perspectives."

 

But he also said he wasn't aware of any agenda held by any contributors to the book, including Al-Qazzaz. "I'll have to look into that," he said.

 

He said about one-third of California's districts use the book, and so do thousands of other districts across the country.

 

If a parent objects to the agenda in the book, he said, "it's up to them to make a decision, do they want to have the kids opt out of this part. It's their local decision to do so. But in this age isn't it important for us, for our students to know as much about as many different religions as possible?"

 

Others may agree that students need to know about the world in which they live, but the TCI book is not the right one to teach them.

 

According to a report from William J. Bennetta at the Textbook League, officials in Scottsdale, Ariz., tested the book, and ultimately rejected it after parents rallied to complain.

 

"Students who took a 7th-grade social students course … were subject to gross, prolonged indoctrination in Islam," he wrote.

 

"Much of the indoctrination was delivered in a corrupt school book titled 'History Alive! The Medieval World and Beyond,' produced by [TCI]," he said. "The writers of [the book], by relentlessly presenting Muslim religious tales and religious beliefs as matters of historical fact, have striven hard to induce students to embrace Islam."

 

He wrote that the indoctrination is "concentrated in chapters 8 and 9. This material consists overwhelmingly of Islamic religious propaganda. It includes blatant preaching as well as deceptive claims and extensive fraudulent narratives dealing with the beginnings of Islam, the life of Muhammad, and the inception of the Quran. These claims and narratives are disguised as accounts of history. They actually are restatements of Muslim fables and superstitions."

 

Bennetta also noted that the book exhibits contempt for Judaism and Christianity. "For example, In a passage in chapter 9, the TCI writers convey the lesson that a religious view held by Muslims is important, but views held by Jews and Christians are unworthy of consideration."

 

Even the level of scholarly work is deficient, he continued. "They teach, in chapter 9, that if someone encounters some antiquated hearsay and jots it down, the hearsay becomes 'written evidence' of historical happenings."

 

In an Internet posting about the Scottsdale use of the text, Janie White, a parent in the district, reported the book included "fake history" along with "Islamic religious proselytizing and indoctrination techniques."

 

Officials with the Sacramento school district declined to respond to WND requests for comment about the book and its use.

 

Al-Qazzaz, who teaches at Cal State-Sacramento, has explained in other Internet postings "greater jihad" is to become better Muslims and "lesser jihad" is to fight against Islam's enemies.

 

Source

 

Cross posted: Israel News  Middle East Analysis

Palestinian terrorists murder volunteer Carlos Chavez

Carlos Chavez: the Rachel Corrie nobody will talk about

16.01. 2008
http://www.zionism-israel.com/log/archives/00000479.html
Original content copyright by the author
Zionism & Israel Center http://zionism-israel.com

Today a man who came to work in peace, to help realize the dream of an egalitarian socialist society, or perhaps just to have a new experience, was murdered by Arab snipers. His death was hardly noticed, it seems.

A few years ago Rachel Corrie came to Israel to defend terrorists from "Zionist aggressors." She was killed by accident while trying to stop a bulldozer from destroying a building used for smuggling or terror attacks. Her death was trumpeted all over the world as an example of Zionist mentality. We know who she is and what she looked like and why she claimed to have come to Israel. We knew all about her views of the oppressive and evil Zionists.

Today's victim was a righteous victim. He was murdered while planting potato seeds on a communal farm insider Israel. Carlos Chavez was not a reactionary imperialist warmonger illegal settler messianic fanatic - just a man growing food in a communal farm. For whatever reasons, he was planting potato seeds, not seeds of hatred.

For idealistic or frivolous or random reasons, Carlos Chavez came here to help us and be with us, and he paid for it with his life. It is wrong perhaps to ape the path of exploitation of his death for incitement and demonification as Rachel Corrie's "supporters" did. Perhaps there should be no demonstrations about Carlos, and perhaps there should not be any plays about Carlos. Perhaps Carlos was just a fellow looking for an interesting way to spend a few months of his life. Perhaps that is not as praiseworthy as the ideal of helping terrorists. But at least, we should honor our friend who came in peace and died in our war.

 

More: Carlos Chavez: the Rachel Corrie nobody will talk about

 

Cross posted: Israel News  Middle East Analysis

Human rights in Iran

See also the HRW report on the crackdown on dissent in Iran: 

 

 "You Can Detain Anyone for Anything": Iran's Broadening Clampdown on Independent Activism

 

By the way, a report that Columbia professors were to apologize to Ahmadinejad  has been denied.

 

Ami Isseroff

A blind eye to barbarism
For three decades, Iran has systematically violated its citizens' basic human rights. Now it must be held accountable

Fariba Amini


January 13, 2008 4:00 PM |
Fifteen years ago, while visiting Iran, I went home to my parents' place in Bagh-eh Ferdos, a neighbourhood near Tajrish in northern Tehran, where we had lived up until we moved to the US. After the revolution, my parents had sold our house and had moved into an apartment on the same street. I had fond memories of Bagh-eh Ferdos, where I spent much of my youth in the nearby park sitting on the benches or just strolling in the park. The first thing I remember when I went back, walking in the same neighbourhood, was that people did not look happy, that their faces were gloomy.

We were outside the apartment and I, insufficiently aware of my surroundings, didn't have my hejab on right. A family member noticed and warned me. I guess I had not realised that in an Islamic Republic, you could be taken to jail and given lashes if you are not well covered. One day that summer a friend came over, shaken. She had just witnessed the shooting of a young woman in a telephone booth because she had defied the orders of a revolutionary guard. Later that day we learned that the young woman was taken to the hospital where she died of her wounds. I will never forget that incident in Tajrish square where my friends and I used to gather in cafes or just around the corner to mingle. It was a different ambience and a different time.

This has been the story of Iran since 1979, on and off, with violations of human rights fluctuating between bad, worse and terrible. It is written that all individuals are created equal to enjoy their basic rights when they are born. In Iran, often for no apparent reason, the authorities have rounded up people from their private homes, stopped them in public and taken them into custody, thus denying citizens their most basic individual rights. Whether it has involved young men and women holding hands in public, or those going to parties or gathering in public meetings, this was the norm in the years following the revolution.

In many instances, individuals have been subject to interrogation, arrest, torture and even murder for the way they thought, the way they expressed their opinions or just their mere appearances. Since the beginning of this year alone, at least 23 people have been executed. Three events stand out since the inception of the Islamic Republic: the execution of the Shah's close associates without any trial, the mass murder of 4,000 political prisoners in Evin prison and the 1998 serial murders of a number of prominent public figures. Today, to the dismay of most Iranians, this trend continues.

In 539 BC, the Achaemenid King Cyrus guaranteed freedom of religion and the absence of oppression for his subjects. Some scholars consider this to be the first declaration of human rights in history. The cylinder now lies in the British Museum, and a replica is kept at the UN. It is shocking to note that this guarantee has rarely been observed in Iran, and certainly not under the Islamic Republic.

Moreover, it is ironic that the government which was supposed to create heaven on Earth through equality, fairness and piety, has done the very opposite. There is something terribly wrong with a society in which individuals who harbour ideas and opinions going against the status quo are incarcerated, in which those who want justice in the eyes of the law are targeted in the harshest ways and in which a young doctor who goes to finish her medical internship in a rural area ends up being arrested for "bad behaviour" and, following her incarceration, ends up dead. There is something very disturbing when the founder of the Society to Defend Prisoners' Rights and a prominent journalist is taken to jail yet again and after suffering two heart attacks continues to be held in prison.

There are many societies where human life has no meaning, is worthless, where life is taken as easily as it is made. In 1948, the UN declaration of human rights was adopted by 58 nations. "The right to life, liberty and personal security recognised in Article 3, sets the base for all following political rights and civil liberties, including freedom from slavery, torture and arbitrary arrest, as well as the rights to a fair trial, free speech and free movement and privacy." Sixty years later, we are witness to many violations to this charter, to the wholesale abuse of human rights, in every part of this globe. Even the US is now condoning and practicing torture against prisoners of the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

Source

 

Cross posted: Israel News  Middle East Analysis

Report: almost half of foreign terrorists in Iraq from Saudi Arabia

This is from a Saudi newspaper, as reported in Al Hayat. Not "neocon Zionist" propaganda.  

'246 Saudis Slipped into Iraq in 2 Years.'       
Monday, 14 January 2008 
Saudi Gazette

 

 

JEDDAH - Data seized by US forces in Iraq reveal that 246 of 600 foreign militants smuggled into the country for so-called jihadist operation over the past two years were from Saudi Arabia, the Arabic daily Al-Hayat reported. The militants were reportedly smuggled across the Syrian border to join insurgents in Iraq fighting to establish the so-called "Islamic state of Iraq."

 

The report said most of the volunteers were recruited from their home countries through contacts in mosques and universities or at the workplace. Some were reportedly recruited in Makkah during the Haj or via the Internet.

The paper attributed the information to forms confiscated by the US army some time ago during military raids on militant sites in Iraq. The forms contained the full names of the recruits, telephone numbers of their relatives and friends who enlisted them, names of the persons in Syria who received them on arrival, and the names of those who helped smuggle them into Iraq.

 

Citing the confiscated documents, the paper said that as soon as the recruits arrived in Syria, their personal effects were taken away and labeled as "contributions."

 

The recruits were then asked to select the mission they wished to carry out in Iraq. They had only two options: to be "martyrs" - terrorist terminology for suicide bombers - or militants.

 

Most recruits from the Maghreb countries took the first option while a large number of those from the Arabian Peninsula opted for the second, the paper said.
 

Source

Cross posted: Israel News  Middle East Analysis

Bush: Iran- leading sponsor of world terror - threat to world security

Bush: Iran threat to world security     

 

George Bush, the US president, has described Iran as the "leading state sponsor of world terror" that must be confronted "before its too late".

 

Speaking in Abu Dhabi on the last day of his four-day tour of the Middle East, the US president accused Tehran of undermining peace in Lebanon, sending arms to the Taliban, defying the UN and destabilising the entire Middle East.

 

"Iran is today the world's leading state sponsor of terror. It sends hundreds of millions of dollars to extremists around the world while its own people face repression and economic hardship at home," Bush said on Sunday during a speech on the third stop of his tour of Arab allies in the Gulf.

 

"Iran's actions threaten the security of nations everywhere, so the United States is strengthening our long-standing security commitments with our friends in the Gulf and rallying friends around the world to confront this danger before it is too late."

 

Bush tried to appeal directly to Iranians saying they had a  right to live under a government "that listens to your wishes".

 

'Rich culture'

 

"To the people of Iran, you're rich in culture and talent. You have the right to live under a government that listens to your wishes, respects your talents and allows you to build better lives for your families," he said.

 

"Unfortunately your government denies you these opportunities and threatens the peace and stability of your neighbours."

 

The attack on Iran was accompanied by praise of "democratisation efforts" in the Gulf and he has begun his speech by calling on Palestinians to reject "extremists".

 

Although he did not mention Hamas by name, observers regarded his remarks referred to the the group currently in control of the Gaza Strip.

 

"This new era is being built with the understanding that power is a trust that must be exercised with the consent of the governed," Bush said during what was the keynote speech of his four-day tour of the Middle east in the opulent Emirates Palace hotel.

 

Source

 

Cross posted: Israel News  Middle East Analysis