All Muslims Are Not Terrorists, But All Terrorists Are Muslims

[Robert]

Yemen's tourist sector hit by al-Qaeda attacks
February 26, 2008 - 12:31PM

Middle East

Foreigners wander freely among the handsome stone and baked-brick houses of Sanaa's Old City, but elsewhere in Yemen al-Qaeda attacks have damaged a fledgling tourism industry already hurt by tribal kidnappings.

The government, which hopes tourism earnings can help offset flagging oil revenues, is struggling to shore up security by providing armed police escorts for travel to certain areas. It even plans a satellite system to track tourist vehicles.

Tourism Minister Nabil Hasan al-Faqih said the system should be working within two months. "This will help the tourism police and (local) governors," he said in an interview.

Yemen can ill afford any more shocks like last month's killing of two Belgian tourists and two Yemenis by gunmen in Hadramout, a southern province previously thought safe.

That shooting occurred only six months after a suicide car bomb killed eight Spanish tourists and two Yemenis in the troubled Marib region, 100 km (60 miles) east of Sanaa.

Yemen earned US$424 million (A$457 million) from 379,000 visitors last year, but Faqih said a 15 percent growth target set for 2008 would have to be lowered after the Hadramout killings.

Insecurity is bad news for the tourism sector and chances of foreign investment in the Middle East's poorest country, where infrastructure is ramshackle and quality hotels are few.

Yemen, where Osama bin Laden's family originated, is viewed in the West as a haven for militants and a "pipeline" for those bent on fighting US-led forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[Robert]

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared on Thursday that Iran was the world's "number one" power, as he launched a bitter new assault on domestic critics he accused of siding with the enemy.
"Everybody has understood that Iran is the number one power in the world," Ahmadinejad said in a speech to families who lost loved ones in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

"Today the name of Iran means a firm punch in the teeth of the powerful and it puts them in their place," he added in the address broadcast live on state television.

Ahmadinejad's comments come amid renewed Western efforts on the UN Security Council to agree a third package of sanctions against Tehran over its refusal to suspend sensitive nuclear activities.

They also came a day after former top nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani launched an unprecedented attack on Ahmadinejad's foreign policy, accusing him of using "coarse slogans and grandstanding".

"You can see how some people here... try to materialise the plans of the enemies and by showing that Iran is small and the enemy is big," added Ahmadinejad.

"These are the people who put the enemies of humanity in the place of God," said the deeply religious president.

He also told the families of the "martyrs" of the war that their loss was not in vain as the message of the Islamic revolution of 1979 that ousted the pro-US shah was spreading all over the world.

"Today the message of your revolution is being heard in South America, East Asia, in the heart of Europe and even in the United States itself," he said.

Ahmadinejad said he talked with people everywhere he travelled in the world and "it is like I am in district 17 in Tehran", referring to the low-income area in the south of the Iranian capital where he was giving his speech.

Ahmadinejad is due to travel to Iraq on Sunday in the first visit by a president of the Islamic republic to its western neighbour.

[Robert]

By PATRICK QUINN, Associated Press Writer
21 minutes ago



BAGHDAD - At least 24 people were killed and dozens were wounded Monday when two suicide car bombs exploded in different parts of Baghdad, police said.



Neither of the attacks took place in the areas of the sprawling city where Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was visiting.

Also Monday, the U.S. military reported finding a grave with 14 bodies, believed to be members of the Iraqi security forces executed by al-Qaida in Iraq.

In Baghdad's deadliest attack, a suicide car bomber killed at least 22 people and wounded 43 in central Baghdad's Bab al-Mudham neighborhood on the eastern bank of the Tigris. Associated Press Television News footage showed a 6.5-foot crater blown into the street by the explosion, which destroyed numerous cars and trucks and littered the area with shrapnel and debris.

[Robert]

Last update - 21:43 06/03/2008


Gunmen enter yeshiva dining hall, open fire

At least seven killed in terrorist attack at Jerusalem yeshiva

By Jonathan Lis, Yair Ettinger and Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondents



At least seven people were killed and seven others were wounded Thursday evening when terrorists infiltrated the Merkaz Harav yeshiva in the Kiryat Moshe neighborhood in Jerusalem, a senior police official said.

At least two terrorists infiltrated the yeshiva, possibly armed with explosive belts, and began firing in every direction.

Some reports suggested the terrorists were shot and killed, while other reports from the scene said the incident was ongoing and shots were still being fired.


A large number of police and emergency medical personnel had either arrived or were en route to the scene, with some 20-30 ambulances summoned.

[Robert]

Hamas hails 'heroic' Jerusalem attack
The Palestinian Hamas movement hailed a deadly attack on a Jewish religious school in Jerusalem on Thursday night as "heroic," without claiming responsibility for the strike that killed eight.

"This heroic attack in Jerusalem is a normal response to the crimes of the occupier and its murder of civilians," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said.

Another spokesman, Taher al-Nunu, blamed the attack on Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defence Minister Ehud Barak and the Israeli government.

"We have warned before about the responsibility of the escalation in Gaza and warned of Palestinian anger," Nunu said.

Hundreds of Palestinians poured into the streets of Gaza City as news of the attack at a west Jerusalem yeshiva spread, firing automatic rifles into the air in celebration.

Several more hundred people likewise celebrated in the northern town of Jabaliya, which has borne the brunt of deadly Israeli military strikes over the past eight days that have killed more than 130 Palestinians in Gaza amid a sharp escalation of violence in and around the impoverished territory.

[Robert]

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Hamas claimed responsibility on Friday for shooting eight students at a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem, the most lethal Palestinian attack on Israelis in two years and a blow to international efforts to revive peace talks.
The Islamists, who also claimed a suicide bombing a month ago, had vowed to hit back after an Israeli offensive on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip killed more than 120 people in recent days.

A lone gunman killed the young men on Thursday at the Merkaz Harav religious college. But the Israeli government said it would keep talking with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas's secular rival in the Israeli-occupied

[Robert]

Among the thousands of mourners who gathered outside the Mercaz Harav seminary yesterday to mourn the victims of Jerusalem's first terror attack in four years, Iman Muniyeh, an Arab resident of East Jerusalem, caught the attention of the police.

The 22-year-old had not intended to take part in the funeral procession, in which the bodies of eight students shot in the seminary library were removed from the building and transported to various cemeteries around the country. He was merely taking a walk, on a break from a nearby construction site, when he spotted a slip of paper on the ground —- he bent to pick it up and, before he was upright, two plainclothes police officers were moving in to question him.

The two were part of a huge police deployment throughout the city as the country braced itself for what local residents are already calling the “third intifada”. The Israeli Defence Forces sealed off the West Bank and Israeli police declared a “general state of alert”, as thousands attended funerals for the victims, aged 15 to 26.

“We aren't taking any chances, we are securing the city to ensure that all the citizens, Arab and Jew alike, feel our presence,” said one officer. They would not comment on why they had stopped Mr Muniyeh. He may have been stooping to pick up a stone, they suggested, or to pull out a firearm. He looked Arab, they concluded.

[Grover]

Originally Posted by Robert

Among the thousands of mourners who gathered outside the Mercaz Harav seminary yesterday to mourn the victims of Jerusalem's first terror attack in four years, Iman Muniyeh, an Arab resident of East Jerusalem, caught the attention of the police.

The 22-year-old had not intended to take part in the funeral procession, in which the bodies of eight students shot in the seminary library were removed from the building and transported to various cemeteries around the country. He was merely taking a walk, on a break from a nearby construction site, when he spotted a slip of paper on the ground —- he bent to pick it up and, before he was upright, two plainclothes police officers were moving in to question him.

The two were part of a huge police deployment throughout the city as the country braced itself for what local residents are already calling the “third intifada”. The Israeli Defence Forces sealed off the West Bank and Israeli police declared a “general state of alert”, as thousands attended funerals for the victims, aged 15 to 26.

“We aren't taking any chances, we are securing the city to ensure that all the citizens, Arab and Jew alike, feel our presence,” said one officer. They would not comment on why they had stopped Mr Muniyeh. He may have been stooping to pick up a stone, they suggested, or to pull out a firearm. He looked Arab, they concluded.

Robert - you now have a place for these cut and pastes...

[Robert]

Report: Libraries stock Islamic terror books
By Duncan Gardham
Last Updated: 1:54am BST 07/09/2007



Public libraries are stocking hundreds of Islamic books by advocates of "holy war", with many glorifying acts of terrorism, a new report claims.


Council taxpayers' money has been spent on the books, with one library stocking works by the convicted preachers Abu Hamza and Abdullah al-Faisal.





An investigation by a leading think-tank found extremist literature at six libraries, three in the London area, two in the Midlands and one in the North.

It raises fears that public libraries could inadvertently fuel the radicalisation of young Muslims.

The recent case of Dhiren Barot, who was jailed for 30 years for plotting a series of atrocities, showed that terrorists have used university libraries for research.

Patrick Mercer, the Conservative MP for Newark and the Government's new adviser on security issues, said: "I don't oppose free speech but the amount of this material is frightening.

"It has been bought with taxpayers' money and you have got to question the balance here.

"Much of the material has very extreme views and I wouldn't want an impressionable young person to come across it and think that these are the views of the majority of Muslims."


In the report, Hate on the State, published by the Centre for Social Cohesion think-tank, the authors warn that some libraries have become "saturated with extreme Islamist books".

"Many of these books stocked in the Islam section of libraries glorify acts of terrorism against followers of other religions, incite violence against anyone who rejects jihadist ideologies and endorse violence and discrimination against women," the report says.

"In a number of cases these books are not only on library shelves but are also given special prominence in displays.

"In the worst cases they are the tools of radicalisation and increase the risk of Islamic terrorism."

Tower Hamlets, one of the most heavily populated Muslim areas in the country, has eight libraries stocking dozens of books in English, Urdu, Bengali and Somali - including works by Hamza and al-Faisal.

Both were jailed for incitement to murder and their writings were found in the council flat used as a bomb factory by the failed July 21 suicide bombers.

Al-Faisal also influenced at least one of the July 7 bombers and was deported this year after finishing his seven-year sentence.

In a book entitled Natural Instincts, he writes: "The kafirs [non-believers] are the henchmen of the Shaitaan [devil]" adding later: "The only language the kafirs respect is jihad [holy war]."

Other authors on the shelves include Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the radical Muslim Brotherhood, and Sayyid Qutb, a major influence on Osama bin Laden.

Tower Hamlets has a total of 40 books by the two men which include calls for a revival of the principles of jihad.

The borough also has hundreds of books associated with Jamaat-e-Islami, the Pakistani Islamic political party founded by Abu Ala Maududi, who has called for a "universal revolution".

[Robert]

LAHORE, Pakistan - The spread of terrorism across Pakistan from its wild tribal regions to the cultural capital of Lahore on Tuesday adds to the pressure for a reconsideration of its U.S.-allied president's approach to countering al-Qaida and the Taliban as its new government prepares to take office.

After two deadly suicide bombings in its normally peaceful cultural capital, pressure grew for more dialogue with militants and less punitive military action that President Pervez Musharraf's opponents say have only fueled the violence.

At least 24 people died Tuesday and more than 200 were injured when bombers in explosives-laden vehicles devastated a police headquarters and a business near a house belonging to Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.