Dialogue with Al-Qaeda?, EU Dhimmi Franco Frattini, Six Taliban Killed, AQ in Islamic Maghreb recruiting teenagers, Pakistani lawyers threaten w/ suicide bombing and NYT reporter freed in China

Some “experts on negotiation“, that Spanish Reuters edition qualifies as “cautious“, are asking why we don’t negotiate with Al-Qaeda (in Spanish), because “history shows that the extremist movements are better neutralised using negotiation and not force“.

Specially dedicated for them this video:

See how Hitler answered to negotiations?? This is what Annakin Skywalker, in Chapter II: The Attack of the Clones, before being Darth Vader, calls “aggresive negotiations“, so aggresive that in fact was WWII.

The article also states:

1. “There are also rational ingredients in Al-Qaeda, but it also attracts psycos” (Of course, every rational and normal human being is inclined to commit suicide bombing… ).
2. The negotiator, Jan Egeland, is a reknown anti-Israeli Norwegian, who claims having taken part in secret negotiations between Israel and PLO, Colombian “guerrilla leaders” (that is, FARC) and in Uganda (Lord’s Resistance Army: 20,000 children abducted to serve as soldiers or as sex toys, 12,000 killed directly by war, plus the non-accounted by desertification, illnesses…). All conflicts have been solutioned as you see.
3. “Al Qaeda is not an organization, it’s an idea“. You see? That’s why thinking is not good for your health, because ideas can kill you.
4. “Al Qaeda wants to restore the Muslim Global Caliphate“. How on earth can be restored something that has never existed before?

In the end they have to recognise that there are serious difficulties in negotiating with Al-Qaeda because of their goals (creating an Islamic Global Caliphate and convert everyone -including USA- to Islam) which of course is not very realistic and would imply that all the world’s Governments had to agree on the plan.

There is no place for another moonbat in this world…

Just this day AlQaeda has menaced Iraqi Sunnis…:

An al-Qaeda front group warns it will hunt down and kill Sunni Arab tribal leaders who cooperate with the U.S. and its Iraqi partners in the wake of the assassination of the leader of the revolt against the terror movement.

In a separate statement, the Islamic State of Iraq announced a new offensive during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting that began this week. The statement said the offensive was in honor of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of al-Qaeda in Iraq who was killed by a U.S. airstrike in June 2006.

But hey, just put a little flower power in your life … And let’s dialogue!!

New cartoon of Mohammed the Dog: VH writes Mo’s Days of Summer. Al Qaeda has offered a bounty of $100.000 to kill artist (in their words, to “slaughter him like a lamb“). Let’s dialogue….

Stop this world; I’m getting out of it (Groucho Marx).

“War cannot be avoided; it can only be postponed to the other’s advantage“. Niccolo Machiavelli (I’m not a fan of him, but he was really a bright guy).

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But there are other idiotic moonbats around. Take for example EU Dhimmi Vice-President Commissioner Franco Frattini, the one who, in the midst of the Mohammed’s cartoons’ furore, stated in an interview to Britain’s Daily Telegraph, that EU will be writing down a code of conduct which “would encourage the media to show “prudence” when covering religion“. And he added:

“The press will give the Muslim world the message: We are aware of the consequences of exercising the right of free expression,” he told the newspaper. “We can and we are ready to self-regulate that right.”

Afterwards, he repented:

Mr Frattini thinks I misconstrued what he said. He has issued a stern press release, putting his side of the story….

Eeh, no, he just blamed the journalist.

Well, now he doesn’t want you to use Internet to search for “dangerous words, like bomb, kill, genocide or terrorist“… h/t Ignacio and la Frase Progre.

Internet searches for bomb-making instructions should be blocked across the European Union, the bloc’s top security official said on Monday.

Internet providers should also prevent access to any site giving instructions on how to make a bomb, EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini said in an interview.

“I do intend to carry out a clear exploring exercise with the private sector … on how it is possible to use technology to prevent people from using or searching dangerous words like bomb, kill, genocide or terrorism,” Frattini told Reuters.

The EU executive is to make this proposal to member states early in November as part of a raft of anti-terrorism proposals.

So, if I search for “Armenian genocide” that means I want to make one myself. And if I search for “Islamic/Islamist terrorist” is that I am also one of them…. And searching for “Sex bomb” (remember the Tom Jones hit?) will also be forbidden.

Do they really think that someone who is in a terrorist cell doesn’t have any other preparation so he/she has to search in Internet how to do a bomb?

But it continues:

The Internet has taken on huge importance for militant groups, enabling them to share know-how and spread propaganda to a mass audience, as well as to link cell members.

Oh, yeah, and also it has a huge importance for anti-EU groups. Or more accurately to anti-this EU group, hasn’t it? So today we block terrorist and bomb and tomorrow we block information that we don’t want the people to know.

He is so damned politically correct that he does not use “terrorist” but “militant“…

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In France Rights groups slam plans for immigrant DNA tests h/t Hodja:

French rights groups and left-wing politicians Thursday slammed an amendment to a new immigration bill that would introduce DNA testing for would-be immigrants seeking to join their relatives in France.

The National Assembly’s legislative committee Wednesday approved an amendment that would offer long-term visa applicants the option of a DNA test to prove their family ties.

The amendment’s author Thierry Mariani, a deputy from President Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP party, says it aims to root out bogus visa requests, arguing that in parts of Africa up to 80 percent of identity papers submitted by applicants were fake.

He says the tests would be a voluntary way to speed up visa procedures for immigrants’ relatives.

But Socialist deputy George Pau-Langevin, the only black MP from mainland France, called the plans “unacceptable.” “This is a significant and unacceptable step in the violation of the right to a private family life, out of all proportion with the goal of fighting paperwork fraud,” she said. “Would we consider doing the same for French people?”

Right to a private family life??? This is just a measure whose aim is to prevent that people who do not belong to the same family, come to Europe claiming the right of reagroupment.

And what is more: the test is OPTIONAL. If you want, you do it and the process ends quicker. If you don’t, well, everthing is slower… Just your own decission, mate.

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Remember the South Koreans who were kept as hostages by the Talibans?

Afghan and US-led troops on Friday raided the hideout of a Taliban commander linked to the July abduction of 23 South Koreans, killing six militants, police said.

Taliban commander Abdullah Jan however escaped the raid in the southern province of Ghazni, provincial police chief Alishah Ahmadzai told AFP.

The US-led coalition confirmed there had been an operation in the province but said only that “several suspected militants” had been killed and one arrested.

“Abdullah Jan fled the raid but six of his associates were killed and an unknown number were detained by the coalition forces,” Ahmadzai told AFP.

The bodies of three of the dead were left at the site, he said.

The coalition said one person was detained in the operation in the Qarabagh district, the area where the South Korean aid workers were abducted on July 19.

Troops kill six Taliban linked to alleged SKorean abductor – Yahoo! News

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Some days ago I wrote that Al Qaeda had recruited teenagers for the suicide attacks and that they were educated to be like “little A-Zarqawis“. Well, over 50 have been recruited and trained by now:

The al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb between December and April recruited over 50 children aged under 16, the pan-Arab al-Hayat newspaper reported on Friday, quoting Algerian intelligence sources.
Police were alarmed that a 15-year-old suicide bomber carried out a deadly attack earlier this month in the Algerian port city of Dellys. The boy managed to pass unnoticed through security checks.
Radical imams have recruited to al-Qaeda around 15 under-16s from poor districts of the capital, Algiers, to join its fighters hiding in the mountains of Algeria, police said.
Police said the US-led war in Iraq was being used as pretext to radicalise youngsters in Algeria and persuade them to join militants. They said many had been given training in carrying out suicide attacks either in Iraq or in Algeria.
The al-Kalitius neighbourhood of the village ofBourama on the outskirts of southern Algiers is a particular ‘hotspot’ for Jihadi recruiters, according to police.
After being taken into the mountains, the youngsters have come into contact with Tunisian and Libyan militants and have been trained alongside them to carry out car and truck bomb attacks, police said.

Speaking of children abuse…. What outrage in the MSM and in NGO’s there is after knowing this?

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And seeing that the suicide attacks are feared, what do you think Pakistani lawyers plan to do if colleagues are tortured? Exactly…

Peshawar High Court Bar Association President Abdul Latif Afridi on Thursday warned intelligence agencies and the army to avoid torturing lawyers or “face suicide attacks by lawyers at forces’ headquarters”.
At an emergency meeting, the PHCBA passed a resolution denouncing a report that intelligence agencies arrested Advocate Ghulam Nabi on Thursday night and tortured him at a detention cell. Afridi said that if the army and spy agencies did not change their attitude towards lawyers and citizens, the people would “ban the entry of military and agencies personnel to bazaars and main roads”. He said the lawyers would charge secret agencies under sections 6 and 7 of the Anti Terrorism Act as “they tried to terrify the entire lawyers’ community by torturing a lawyer”. The lawyers later staged a protest outside the corps commander house in Peshawar.

I do not like torture, but I also don’t like suicide bombings…

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NYT reported freed:

A Chinese journalist jailed while working for the New York Times has been released. Zhao Yan had been sentenced to three years in prison for fraud in August 2006. He was detained in 2004 on charges that included leaking state secrets. International human rights groups had severely criticised his imprisonment, saying the Communist Party was using secrecy laws to stifle news.

For a retrospective on Zhao Yan, see HRW:

July 2004
Zhao Yan writes a four-line note for the New York Times sketching out a reported conflict between President Hu Jintao and ex-President Jiang Zemin over senior military appointments.
September 7, 2004
The New York Times publishes an article predicting that former President Jiang Zemin will step down from his position of head of the military. A reference to political jockeying between Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao is included as background material in one of the final paragraphs of the article.

[…] October 5, 2005
The Washington Post reveals that Zhao’s case relies almost entirely on a copy of an internal New York Times memo obtained by the State Security Ministry, according to a confidential ministry document urging prosecutors to indict the researcher. It is unclear how the agents gained access to the memo, of which a copy is included in an inventory of evidence collected in the case. [Who gave that copy then? ]

But at the same time detains other two AFP reporters h/t Status of Chinese People:

The arrest of two Agence France-Presse reporters on 12 September is the latest in a string of cases of foreign journalists being obstructed in their work. They show that the less stringent regulations introduced in January are being applied erratically and only when less sensitive issues are involved. At least 32 foreign journalists have been detained or prevented by police from doing reports since January.

“The way the authorities have treated journalists from Agence France-Presse, the BBC World Service and other international news organisations in recent weeks do not bode well for the ability of the foreign media to work during the Olympic Games,” the press freedom organisation said.

“These are not unfortunate blunders,” Reporters Without Borders continued. “They are the result of a clear lack of goodwill on the part of the police, who refuse to let reporters travel and investigate freely. We call on the International Olympic Committee to intervene with the Chinese authorities to ensure that the rules introduced in January are finally respected.”

Just keep waiting…

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Sri Lanka kills Tamil tigers:

Sri Lankan soldiers killed 15 Tamil Tiger rebels in a clashes in the north and east of the island while six military personnel were also killed, the military said on Saturday.

The latest spike in violence in the country’s long-running civil war follows the launch of a new offensive by government forces to drive guerrillas of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) from the northwesterly Mannar area.

Just in case, Tamil Tigers are the “inventors” of suicide bombings. It’s said that Bin Laden copied them.

In 1987 the LTTE established the notorious Black Tigers, an elite unit of the LTTE responsible for conducting suicide attacks against political, economic and military targets,^[9] and launched its first suicide attack against a Sri Lanka Army camp, killing 40 soldiers, still its not conformed.

Of course, they are only “militants”…

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Other news:

1. Selling and drinking alcohol is still legal in Iraq, but since the rise of religious parties in this predominantly Muslim country, the trade has come under severe pressure. Aside from legal restrictions, many liquor shops have been bombed in the past four years. But the people still but it…
2. Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Austria for a three-day pilgrimage, saying Christianity was not just the legacy of Europe’s past but “the way to the future.”
3. Japanese Shinzo Abe’s resigned. The main reason of his decission is that the Liberal party’s candidate had different views about the way to conduct negotiations about the continuation of Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force’s refueling operations in the Indian Ocean in support of the Global War on Terrorism. The front-runner to become Japan’s next prime minister vowed Saturday to extend his nation’s support for U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan. Ruling party veteran Yasuo Fukuda also said he would take a softer line with North Korea over its past abduction of Japanese nationals, a row that has threatened to upset negotiations over the communist country’s nuclear weapons.
4. Putin, again: British and Norwegian jets intercepted Russian military aircraft Friday after they breached NATO airspace close to the U.K. and Finland, defense officials said. So far!!! Surprise, surprise: Putin does not rule out presenting himself to 2012’s elections. But this is not hurting his sucessor’s perspectives… No…
5. After I wrote these last days about the Deobandi sect in Britain and its overwhelming influence there, we have some fresh news about Tablighi Jamaat and their London’s mega-mosque: “The mega-mosque complex would become a flagship for Tablighi Jamaat’s mission to indoctrinate Muslims with a hatred of the West and the kuffar [non-Mulims].” But wasn’t the Mega-mosque cancelled? But there is more: Irfan al Alawi, international director of the Centre for Islamic Pluralism, says the missionary work of Tablighi Jamaat acts as “a recruitment agency for jihad” in Afghanistan, the occupied territories and Iraq. “They go around deprived areas of British towns and cities, knocking on doors and urging young Muslims to come to their gatherings,” he said.

Sent to Open Trackbacks by Dumb Ox.

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Another Christian tortured to death in Eritrea, AlQaeda kills Sunni leader, Saudi Arabia vs Syria, Algerian bomb (3rd in 1 week), ex-Jihad speaks against Al-Qaeda and other items

More and more keep dying in Eritrea. The deaths are going up. Eritrea is located south of Saudi Arabia, in North Africa. The people who are imprisioned there, are placed in train like karts, in the desert. The believers imprisioned there are dying of the heat, and starvation. More than 10% of the believers in the country are in jail. On 9-11 another Saint got her crown of Matyrdom, and the headline doesn’t show anywhere. Another imprisoned Christian in Eritrea has been martyred. Voice of the Martyrs’ Canada’s Bernie Daniels says, “Nigsti Haile, aged 33, was tortured to death by Eritrean authorities in the Wi’a Military Training center in Massawa.”

She died September 5 after refusing to sign a letter recanting her faith, according to a report from Open Doors USA. Haile, an active member of the Rhema church, was one of ten Christian women who were arrested at a church gathering in Keren eighteen months ago and who have been under severe pressure to deny Christ.

Arabs for Christ – Another Christian tortured to death in Eritrea

RIP.

How many newspapers are going to publish this??

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Al Qaeda group claims killing Iraqi Sunni leader and, instead of asking for justice to be done upone the killers, mourners vow revenge at sheik’s funeral.

Some 1,500 mourners called for revenge Friday as they buried the leader of the Sunni revolt against al-Qaida, who was assassinated by a bomb after meeting with President Bush earlier this month.

[…] “We will take our revenge,” the mourners chanted. “We will continue the march of Abu Risha.”

The sheik was buried one year to the day after he organized Sunni Arab clans into an alliance to drive al-Qaida in Iraq from sanctuaries in Anbar province where the terror movement had flourished since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, the second-highest ranking U.S. officer in Iraq, and several high-ranking government officials attended the funeral, including Iraq’s interior and defense ministers and National Security Adviser Mouwaffak al-Rubaie.

“We condemn the killing of Abu Risha, but this will not deter us from helping the people of Anbar — we will support them more than before,” al-Rubaie declared. “It is a national disaster and a great loss for the Iraqi people — Abu Risha was the only person to confront al-Qaida in Anbar.”

So, instead of confronting Al-Qaeda for a change and to really continue his march, they are going to take revenge.

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Oops, you know, Saudi Arabia is not very happy with Syria about the new US-hosted Israel-Palestine talks:

Saudi Arabia is showing increasing signs of displeasure as Palestinian-Israeli preparatory discussions on a US-hosted multinational peace conference in November meander on without apparent achievements.

According to Agence France Presse (AFP) Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal warned Wednesday, “If this conference does not tackle the key issues such as Jerusalem, the borders, the Palestinians and other issues that were clearly stated in the Arab peace initiative, then the conference will be pointless.”

With time running out for the establishment of a firm basis for the conference, a deepening crisis in relations between Syria and the Saudis is throwing a pall over the upcoming discussions and Lebanese presidential vote.

Frosty relations

Fraught Syrian-Saudi relations plumbed new lows this week with the announcement Tuesday that a scheduled visit by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Mouallem to Riyadh had been called off.

Al-Mouallem was scheduled to meet Saudi King Abdullah II and other Saudi officials during a visit designed to ease tensions between the two regional powers in the wake of a public falling out last month.

Ties between Syria and the Saudis have been troubled for some time, with the kingdom feeling that its role in seeking to reconcile Lebanese and Palestinian factions has been undermined by Damascus. [Could it be because Syria is not interested in having peace between its neighbours?? What is gaining Syria with this confrontation?].

Nadim Shehadi from the UK-based think tank Chatham House told ISN Security Watch , “There has been a break in Saudi-Syrian relations for two years, which were sort of restored during the Arab [League] summit in March when President Assad was invited to Riyadh.”

But what do you know? There is also Iran-Iraq question between them:

Both Syria and Saudi Arabia are deeply involved in Iraq, where the correspondence or dissonance between their interests are far from clear, despite Syria’s close relationship with Iran.

Asked if there are differences between the Saudis and Syrians over Iraq, a source close to the situation told ISN Security Watch on the condition of anonymity, “Probably, but it is harder to say because neither of them has very transparent policies […] To the extent that Syria has a relationship with Iran it creates a problem for Saudi Arabia, but it doesn’t seem that in Iraq Syria has been backing the same parties as Iran.”

[…] Saudi Arabia saw the July-August 2006 Lebanon war and subsequent Lebanese political meltdown as opportunities to expand its sphere of political and economic influence in Lebanon, pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into government reconstruction funds controlled by the rump anti-Syrian Fouad Siniora administration.

A leaked October 2005 draft report of the UN probe into the murder of al-Hariri fingered prominent Syrian officials with close ties to the Syrian president as involved in the murder plot.

According to the anonymous source, “Saudi Arabia was extremely close to the former Lebanese prime minister who was assassinated. They suspect a Syrian hand, if not more, in his assassination […] And I think that was a turning point in their relations with the Syrians.”

The fight for Islamic rule is back…

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After the two attacks which took place last week, another bomb attack in Algeria:

A bomb has exploded in front of a police compound in Algeria, killing three people and wounding five others, officials say.

The attack happened in the town of Zemmouri, about 50km (31 miles) east of the capital, Algiers.

It is the latest in a series of bombs attacks in Algeria that have killed more than 50 people in the past week.

The militant group calling itself Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb said it was responsible for the earlier blasts.

In the latest attack, the bomb was placed in a plastic bag at the entrance to the compound where police officers and their families live, Algeria’s security forces say.

They said two people had to have their legs amputated after the incident. [INCIDENT!!! You’re a bunch of stupid morons. Three people get killed and five others wounded, including the two which have had their two legs amputated and you call that an INCIDENT???  ]

So far no group has claimed the responsibility for the attack.

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Speaking against Al-Qaeda from Saudi Arabia:

Ahmad al Shayea today.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Ahmad al Shayea is the rarest of truck bombers — he survived his suicide mission in Iraq even though the blast from his bomb was strong enough to kill 12 bystanders.

Ahmad al Shayea survived his truck bomb attack, but not without scarring to his face and hands.

Al Shayea, who was disfigured during the attack, claims al Qaeda tricked him into becoming a bomber by asking him to deliver a tanker truck, which they had rigged with a bomb.

“They told me to take it to an address in Baghdad. As soon as I got there the truck exploded,” said the native of Saudi Arabia. He survived by jumping out of the truck.

Al Shayea renounced terrorism and returned to Saudi Arabia, where he works to convince would-be insurgents and terrorists to give up their deadly ways. [At least that is something…].

“I think God took me out of death to show others what can happen,” he told CNN. “If you join al Qaeda, they will use you, and maybe you will die.” 

 Hear why al Shayea turned his back on al Qaeda »

Al Qaeda propaganda videos glorify so-called foreign fighters in Iraq like al Shayea. It has recruited them from countries all across the Middle East.

Ahmad Al Shayea just after the bombing as he appeared in the Iraqi TV.

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Other news:

Alexander Pichushkin has confessed to killing at least 62 people, with the goal of marking all 64 squares on the chessboard. He has been charged with 49 murders, most committed over the course of five years in a sprawling park on the edge of Moscow. Pichushkin’s first victim was his school friend, whom he strangled and threw into a sewage pit in 1992 because he was “upset” by the friend’s refusal to kill people together with him, said Moscow Chief Prosecutor Yuri Syomin.

Even if the Muslims are challenging the Orthodox Church, Patriarc Alexei is worried about Russia being proselytised by Catholic Church.

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexei II has repeated his insistence that a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI (bio – news) should only take place after adequate preparation– and after the Vatican has complied with demands from the Moscow patriarchate to curb Catholic “proselytism” in the historically Orthodox countries of eastern Europe.

[…] Catholic officials have repeatedly denied such a goal. […] Catholic Church leaders explain that missionary workers aim not to convert Orthodox believers, but to attract the vast majority of Russian people who are not currently active in any church. But the Moscow patriarchate takes the stand that the Russian people are Orthodox, even if they do not attend any church servives.

So, instead of confronting the real danger, he is just quarrelling with other Christian denomination. Just work, Patriarc! If you believe your religion is the best, promote it, instead of groaning every year several times about it…

This is dedicated specially to blablablabla Chávez, than man…

Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino of Caracas has urged the Venezuelan government to show respect for critics of constitutional changes proposed by President Hugo Chavez.

Cardinal Urosa insisted that “no persons of groups should be disregarded or execrated simply because they disagree with the proposal.” He said that the proposed constitutional amendments deserve serious discussion, and encouraged a respectful hearing for all reasoned points of view.

In an implicit criticism of Chavez, who has charged that the country’s Catholic hierarchy is stirring up opposition to his government, the cardinal said that dissident political views should be heard without rousing “the ghosts of insurrection and destabilization.”

 Eat that Chávez, you, moonbat!

Remember the F1 scandal?

McLaren received a systematic flow of information from a spy within rivals Ferrari for nearly three months this year, the FIA has revealed.

Drivers Fernando Alonso and Pedro de la Rosa were aware of the information.

Hey, what a coincidence!!! Only the Spanish drivers were aware of the information. Why not the rest of them?? Oh, yeah, there’s Hamilton “I’m-calling-my-father-to-defend-me-from-Fernando-Alonso“…

Hmm, this does not smell very good to me…

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North Korea, Iraq’s PM Maliki vs H. Clinton, Rosa Regás on Chávez, Egypt, Greek fires were a terrorist attack?, Turkey, Afghanistan and "Modestly Yours" blog (+)

There has been 600 people killed or dissapeared in North Korea as a result of the floods. There are also thousands of hurt people.

Iraq’s PM Maliki vs. H. Clinton:

Hillary Clinton and Carl Levin are democrats but they don’t respect democracy. They speak about Iraq as if it were their property”, Malike said in a press conference. He added that both senators “have never lived controversies like the ones we are knowing in Iraq. When they speak, they don’t know what reconciliation means”.

Maliki reacted like that to some statements made by Carl Levin and Hillary Clinton -favourite of his party to the 2008’s presidential career in USA- who asked the Iraqi MPs to choose another person to leader a national unity government, after the extinction of the Iraqi coalition government.

He also critisized Bernard Kouchner, French FM, who visited Iraq some days ago, and whose visit was considered a success at first.

Bernard Kouchner had also advised him to resign. But he has said France is ready to make an apology about this:

Last week Mr Kouchner said the Iraqi government was “not functioning” and was quoted saying he had told the US that there was strong support in Iraq for Mr Maliki to resign and he “has got to be replaced“. 😯

In an interview with RTL radio on Monday, Mr Kouchner said: “I think that he [Mr Maliki] misunderstood, or that I was not clear enough that I was referring to comments I heard from Iraqis I talked to.” [Do you really think he was misunderstood???].

“If the prime minister wants me to apologise for having interfered so directly in Iraqi affairs, I’ll do it willingly,” he said.

Mr Kouchner visited Baghdad last week to promote France’s role in efforts to solve the Iraq crisis and mend relations with Washington damaged by France’s opposition to the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

So what do Iraqis think about the intervention? h/t Desde el Exilio.

America should finish what it started.

Spanish National Library’s President, old Rosa Regás, is now a fan of Chávez -well, err, not now, this is something which we have known in Spain for so long-:

Her article is compulsory. Her analysis is a panegyric to Chávez, with numbers very far from reality, which nowadays does not belong to the Venezuelan people as it never happened in the last 50 years, sunk in the most cruel misery, where a citizen dies each half an hour killed by gangs, with a record of being one of the most corrupt places in the world, no.170 these days, according to the Corruption Perception’s index. An expert regime in manouvring to sell lies, while at the same time it’s proclaiming himself the poors’ saviour.

[…] When Rosa Regás tells us “Why against Chávez?” with the conviction that she does it, with a bad tempered arrogance, it looks like, with Zapatero, the Spain of democracy and progress is menaced. I’m convinced that she does not wish this country to be reflected in Venezuela’s mirror.

I should say that depends on who was going to exert power… I really believe some of them, at least, think, that just as Franco was 40 years in power, they have a right (non-written one) to be another 40 years, whatever the means for that. I’m not saying even that all Socialists think that, not even that the majority of them think it, but some of them do -of course, they never say that publicly…-.

At the same moment, two world maps of 1482 have been stolen from the institution she is in charge. 😡 And she has presented her dimission because she “does not feel the new Minister of Culture, César Antonio Molina, trusts her“. 😈 These are good news, indeed…

In Egypt the dictatorship creeps each day to a more frightening stand h/t Desde El Exilio:

On Aug. 8, the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights reported that it had confirmed more than 500 cases of police abuse since 1993, including 167 deaths — three of which took place this year — that the group “strongly suspects were the result of torture and mistreatment.” The organization previously found that while Egypt‘s population nearly doubled during the first 25 years of Hosni Mubarak‘s regime, the number of prisons grew more than fourfold and that the number of detainees held for more than one year without charge or indictment grew to more than 20,000.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have corroborated chilling accounts of torture in Egyptian prisons. The independent daily Eldestour recently published two important facts: that the annual budget for internal security was $1.5 billion in 2006, more than the entire national budget for health care, and that the security police forces comprise 1.4 million officers, nearly four times the size of the Egyptian army. “Egypt has become a police state par excellence,” the paper’s editor noted.

For the people who uses bloglines, there is a new beta version for you to try.

More about Iranian Government’s savages, go and see the photos that Stephania has posted.

Al Fatah uses now the Lion King to attack Hamas. And Disney still says nothing about this.

The new cause of anger in Aghanistan: a ball with the Saudi flag. You know, the one with the Islamic declaration of faith?

A demonstration has been held in south- east Afghanistan accusing US troops of insulting Islam after they distributed footballs bearing the name of Allah.

The balls showed the Saudi Arabian flag which features the Koranic declaration of faith.

The US military said the idea had been to give something for Afghan children to enjoy and they did not realise it would cause offence.

Last news from Venezuela: now Chávez wants to move the country’s time zone to “offer a more equitable distribution of sunlight“. The socialism of XXIth century also distributes the sunlight in a more equitable way… This sounds like the Galizian Nationalist Party asking to change the time zone of Galizia as if Spain was the USA and had huge need of several time zones… 😈

A very interesting post: On “racial” profiling:

Islamism, Islamist militancy, and Islamist militant terrorism are very adept at converting people to Islam and to Islamist terrorism. And so not only do we need to worry about the usual suspects, so to speak, but also those who have been converted. Our obliviousness to this is exploited by Islamist terrorists, as can be seen by a number of the people involved in the plot by Britons to attack American and British trans-Atlantic flights from London. One was even a white (that is, British) pregnant woman, someone who would not register on anyone’s counter-terrorism radar.

[…] My suggestion is that while focusing on the usual suspected ethnicities or people of suspected ethnic origins (Arab, especially Saudi, and South Asian, especially Pakistani), we need to watch for suspicious behavior by any and all people. Besides, Islamist terrorism is not the only threat: some people are simply deranged and up to no good. We should, thus, be able to stop not only Islamist terrorist attacks but also attempts by anyone, for any reason, to conduct lethal attacks of any sort. And, who knows, maybe by cracking down on people who show an inordinate interest in information and data regarding our infrastructure, we might be able to help counterintelligence efforts as well. Preventing Iran, Russia, China, or any of the host of our enemies from getting intelligence will help The Republic.

Well, in my case, I do not think this is a problem of ethnicity nor do I consider this an ethnic problem. It’s an IDEOLOGICAL one: it’s based on an ideology that wants to rule the world, using a religion. I’m not going to discuss now if this is the religion in itself or it’s being used, but clearly not all Muslims are terrorists or want to rule the world. The problem, as I have said before, is that if the extremers are supported -as it’s happening in most of the West-, the people who are not, do not feel supported at all, in the end, that’s going to cause a surge in support for extremism in both sides.

And when I say Westerners are supporting several madnesses/extremisms, it’s because it’s true:

Academia’s fixation on cultural sensitivity is changing the debate around female genital mutilation, with a growing number of professors and women’s rights activists becoming hesitant to condemn the practice.

Where feminists rallied against the operation from the pages of Ms. magazine in the 1970s, today’s critics are infinitely more cautious, with most suggesting that the Western world butt out until Muslim African communities are ready to reconsider what they are doing to their daughters.

The shift in attitudes about the practice– which in the worst of cases involves the carving out of a woman’s clitoris and inner labia and can cause lifelong urinary tract infections, sterility and even death — comes at a time when high-profile victims of the operation such as writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali and model Waris Dirie, both Somalis, have launched very public campaigns against the practice.

To know more about this practice, click here. It’s a shame someone cannot or doesn’t comdemn that practice.

A reward is offered in Greece to capture the culprits of the fires which were provoked and which had already killed at least 60 people.

Fire in the countryside and smoke surrounding Athens.

Statue of Victory at Olympia surrounded by smoke.

Map of the fires.

More about the Greek fires by Paolo. Impressive the NASA’s satellite image of the fire he has posted. Last news are that there are two possibilities: the first being it was caused by organised criminality, the second being it was international terrorism to influence in Greek elections, in which the center-right’s margin has been slightly reduced these last weeks. So a prosecutor on Monday ordered an investigation into whether arson attacks could come under Greece’s anti-terrorism and organized crime laws. (CNN).

An update about the fires: From Infidels are Cool, I reach this post from a Greek blogger:

There were at least a couple of instances where the ones trapped called the TV and radio stations, got on the air, said their final goodbyes to their families, and then were burned alive. While the stations were doing their best to send aid, the fact that the emergency reponses are streched so thin made rescue efforts near impossible.

My grandmother’s village was completely burned down. It was one of the worse hit and there is nothing that remains. The local authorities say that it’s completely erased off the map.

[…] There is a video of two men setting one of the fires. That is now fishy since we now know that the fires were started remotely via cell phone bombs.

More here by Pastorius.

How affects Jewish self-criticism to the actual view of International affairs:

I have dealt with the problem of hyper-Jewish self-criticism repeatedly in the past, including issues concerning the Alvin Rosenfeld Controversy. Among other things, I emphasized the role of a kind of “prophetic” criticism that uses high rhetorical excess to “whip” the Jews/Israelis into the right path. When combined with a desire to “please” fellow, non-Jewish progressives by showing how “non-tribal” one is, this produces a lethal combination, documented by Rosenfeld, that makes some Jews willing to confess to anything (racism, apartheid, Nazism, the illegitimacy of the State). They do this not only to urge their fellow Jews to mend their ways, but also to pursue a kind of “therapeutic” dialogue where, if they are sufficiently magnanimous in accepting blame, then maybe their enemies, say, the Palestinians, might also respond by being a bit more self-critical.

Hmm, yes, I understand this very well. And I mean it. Well, the result is just the opposite: whatever the Israelis do in this direction, is not going to grant them anything but even more problems.

Read it all: another great post from Richard Landes.

Private clinics are profiting from abortions in Spain:

In response to the refusal by gynecologists of the public health care system of Andalusia to perform abortions, a considerable number of women are being sent to private clinics that have agreed to collaborate with the Council for Health Care.

I wrote some months ago about a platform whose objective is to send Aznar to the International Criminal Court because of “his support to the illegal Iraqi war”. Another platform, called “Aznar for ICC” is preparing a “hot autumn“, as United Left’s MP from Andalucia’s Autonomous Community Antonio Romero has said. He added:

Neither Aznar, nor Bush nor Tony Blair can go away without punishment after causing an illegal and immoral war, which has produced the death to 700.000 Iraqis, the majority of which were civil, more than 2 million of people in exile, the complete destruction of the country’s infraestructures, of its historical and cultural heritage and the absolute looting of its natural resources, specially, of oil”.

For you to consider the personality of this man: he was condemned some years ago, because in a strike, he beat, insulted and menaced an old man, owner of a little cafeteria, and one of the clients because he did not want to go on strike. He shouted at both: “fascist, son of a bitch, asshole”, after yelling at them “you’re going to shut whether you like it or not, or you’re going to shut por cojones“. You know, a peaceful, respectful and calm guy… But the best is what he said: “I only wanted to defend their rights -whether they liked it or not-, telling him how marvellous it was to close all the shops for Andalucia’s rights“.

Gül has been elected Turkish President. Oh, my!!! 😦 He was elected in the third round as was predicted some weeks ago. The Turkish military has spoken: Secularism is under attack:

“Nefarious plans to ruin Turkey’s secular and democratic nature emerge in different forms everyday,” Buyukanit said in his statement. “The military will, just as it has so far, keep its determination to guard social, democratic and secular Turkey.”

Russian man detained in Afghanistan carrying 500 kilos of explosives and, in a rapture of manliness, wearing a burqa. His two other companions were also wearing a women’s clothes. If they like so much being a woman, why they do not change their sex? Yes, I think that, for these chavinist male … individuals, that would be a good punishment. Imagine Bin Laden … 😈 There was a joke here some years ago: the worst fate for Bin Laden would be to catch him -US SEALs could be employed for that-, transport him to a clinic, change his sex and then set him loose in Saudi Arabia. Je. With an inside camera to see his reaction: “Hey, I’m Bin Laden”.

Gordon Brown will not allow a referendum about the EU Constitution, after he promised to do so. He faces 120 Labour MPs who have rebeled against him, although David considers that Brown will not allow it, “as he knows he can lose it“.

Read also this post by Angel: A planned Ar-abic-themed public school in Brooklyn has prompted polarized reactions. Critics warned Monday that students could be “indoctrinated” with radical Is-lamic beliefs and supporters called such statements “racist”.

Some weeks ago I discovered a very good blog called Modestly Yours, entirely written by women (where I discovered a book I would like to read…, when I have finished reading all I have to read now, but the title is promising: “Girls gone Mild. Young Women Reclaim Self-Respect and Find that it’s not Bad to be Good“). Well, just read about the “Sexy Crazy Cancer” movie:

The film itself actually looks quite interesting. As described on her website, the idea for the documentary came about in 2003 after the “31-year-old actress/photographer…was diagnosed with a rare and incurable cancer. Weeks later she began filming her story. Taking a seemingly tragic situation and turning it into a creative expression, Kris shares her inspirational story of survival with courage, strength, and lots of humor.”

As the author says, I don’t know how the sexy thing fits in there.

There is another very good blog post called: “The War on Vulgarity“. Thank God, someone is saying this loudly. Looks like it’s better to be vulgar and really there is no need. There are people who consider that to be manly (I must be tough), to speak out better the truth (that is, to be more sincere) or just because it sounds much more direct. For me, that is only foul language… 😈

Lastly, after the scandal surrounding Sarkozy about his lack of fitness, look at this cartoon. 😆

Looks like Sarkozy is menacing Iran: Either Iran suspends the uranium enrichment or will be bombed! Well, this is unexpected… Will be continued!

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Elections in Turkey

Today there are elections in Turkey, after some months of a very difficult situation, including the conflict between the Islamists and the secularists.

The role of religion here will be a key issue at the ballot box, and so will Turkey’s relations with the outside world, our correspondent adds.

Nationalist sentiment is running high, fed by bitter disappointment with the EU. Renewed fighting with separatist Kurds and talk of an incursion into northern Iraq will also influence the result, she says.

And it is right: the role of religion will be one of the key issues in the election. Acording to Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey and of a political phylosophy called kemalism (from his own name: Kemal), the Turkish republic should be laic, and as a result, any Islamic symbol was to be considered against the republic.

But things are changing and now h/t JW:

For 84 years, modern Turkey has been defined by a holy trinity — the army, the republic and its founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Each was linked inextricably to the others and all were beyond reproach.

But a deep transformation is under way in this nation of 73 million, and elections this Sunday may prove a watershed: liberal Turks, once supporters of the ruling secular elite and its main backer, the military, are turning their backs on them and pledging votes to religious politicians as well as a new array of independents.

They say that the rigid rules of the last century, which prohibit women from wearing Muslim head scarves in public buildings and forbid ethnic minorities to express their identities, need to be left behind.

Something to take into account is that this will be the first time when the elections to the Presidency will be held directly, not through Parliament. The Constitutional Tribunal accepted the reform, considered unconstitutional by both the Turkish President of the Republic and the opposition:

The move, a blow for the current president and the main opposition party, paves the way for Turkey to hold direct elections for the presidency.

Both the president and main opposition party had applied to the court to annul the reforms.

They had complained that the changes were adopted in haste and threatened the country’s stability.

The ruling AKP moved to introduce a direct presidential ballot to end the standoff caused when it tried to get its own candidate, Abdullah Gul, elected president through parliament.

For an approach to the change in the Turkish minds, read JW. An excerpt:

I can imagine the fury of a well-educated, secular Turk as he reads this article by the young Sabrina Tavernise. For it is so uncomprehending of Turkish history, and of all that it took to systematically constrain Islam so that the very possibility of some modicum of reasonableness, the very development of an educated secular class, the very class that Sabrina Tavernise and all other Westerners frequent and the only class with which they feel, quite rightly, fully comfortable, came about only because of Ataturk.

If Kemalism is on the ropes, it is not because the Kemalists have been too ruthless, but because they have not been nearly ruthless enough. They did not push, relentlessly, their program after the first few decades, and some of those who followed were content to pocket the benefits of Kemalism without systematically trying to change the minds of the masses — and the masses remained largely unaffected.

Since, in any society, the primitives will always and everywhere outweigh the others, it was important that those to whom, thanks to Kemalism, the freedom to think was granted, should never have taken those freedoms for granted. Now it may be too late. Make no mistake; there is a program by those who want more and more Islam. Its proponents are patient: look at the statements about waiting for the right moment by the sweet-reasonably sinister Mr. Gulen, waiting in his Washington-area exile, for the results of the election.

Jihad Watch: Fitzgerald: Turkey: Kemalism on the ropes

Il Corriere della Sera makes a very good summary of the situation:

ANKARA – Polls opened in Tirkey, where approx 42 millions have been called to vote to renew Parliament. The vote began at 7:00 a.m. (local time) in 32 provinces of the Oriental Anratolia. In the rest of the country, they have been opened one hour later. The party in the Government, the moderate Islamists of the Justice and Development party (Akp) can achieve an absolute majority in Parliament. The opposition is leadered by the Popular Republican Party (Chp) and the Party of the Nacionalist Movement (Mhp).
CAMPAIGN – The electoral campaign has been characterized by the confrontation between the laic establishment, which proclaims itself the heir of the Republic founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and the Islamist in the Government. The main opposition party has accused the Government’s President of being a menace to the lay character of modern Turkey, born from the disgregation of the Ottoman Empire. In the center of the political confrontation: the role of women in society: according to the critics of the Government, AKP is seeking to introduce laws according to the Islamic prescriptions.

There is another worrying thing to say about Turkey, related to the Turkish Government’s menace to invade Iraq to pursue the Kurdish terrorists of PKK. It seems Turkey has 140,000 soldiers along the border with Iraq, prompting fears of another incursion against Kurdish guerillas:

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari an ethnic Kurd himself, said his government was against any breach of Iraqi sovereignty.

He called for talks with Ankara to solve the issue.

Turkey accuses Kurdish separatists of staging attacks from inside Iraq. It has often warned Baghdad that it is prepared to take military action.

Turkey has not commented on the figure of 140,000 quoted by Mr Zebari. If the figure is accurate, Turkey would have nearly as many soldiers along its border with Iraq as the 155,000 troops which the US has in the country.

In Washington, White House spokesman Tony Snow said the US shared Turkey’s concerns but that it was “important, we think, to recognise the territorial sovereignty of Iraq”.

Mr Zebari said he understood Turkey’s “legitimate security concerns”, but said the best way to address them was by reviving the tripartite military and security commission, which involves Iraq, Turkey and the US.

I figure Turkey is wainting for the results of today’s elections. And after…

[About the Kurds, read this interesting post by Plateau. It is from an Iranian perspective but it’s interesting nevertheless].

Lastly, about the relationship between Turkey and the European Union, read here.

Oops, I forgot to link something: Is Turkey tolerant of non-Muslim religions?

The Turkish government has long failed to tackle deep-rooted discrimination against religious minorities – by refusing to guarantee their position in law or to crack down on intolerance from officials, the media and in school curricula. This has left religious minorities dangerously exposed, argues Otmar Oehring of the German Catholic charity Missio. For, as Dr Oehring observes in this personal commentary for Forum 18, hostility to religious minorities is stoked by widespread xenophobia. Following the brutal murder of three Protestants in Malatya in April, attacks on and threats against religious minorities have only increased. Official “protection” for religious minority leaders and places of worship seems designed as much to control as to protect them.

Looks like a not very good prospect to me.

Others blogging about this: Winds of Jihad.

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Miterrand let the Rwandan genocide happen because he feared Anglo-Saxon influence! -Clearstream investigation goes on

Well, that is what the declassified French documents say:

The former French president François Mitterrand supported the perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide despite clear warnings that mass killings of the Tutsi population were being orchestrated, according to declassified French documents.

The publication of the documents in today’s Le Monde for the first time confirms long-held suspicions against France. The previously secret diplomatic telegrams and government memos also suggest the late French president was obsessed with the danger of “Anglo-Saxon” influence gripping Rwanda. In three months from April 1994, at least a million Rwandans – mainly Tutsis – were systematically slaughtered in killings engineered by the Hutu regime to exterminate its ethnic rivals and repel the Uganda-trained Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).

Barcepundit (English edition)

So, again, happens the same: how many MSM have published this in bold letters?

What would have happened if any other country -specially any Anglo-Saxon one- would have made this?

Also there’s the role played by Chirac in Iraq h/t Extreme Centre.org, persuading Saddam that he should not give the concessions which could have saved his regime. Saddam was sure that both the French -mainly- and the Russians were going to save him in the last hour. [My translation, original in French. If you understand French you MUST read it]. An excerpt:

The reality was that Chirac stabbed in the back of his allies, it was a treason to Iraqi people and all their hopes of development which are a common ground on every people going out of a dictatorship, that encouragement of the anti-Western feeling that nourrishes the terrorism (of which it is a vain hope that it would be only anti-American because thay can be separated) and that shameful anaesthesia of the democratic option -called cynical tyrannophilia– which should be considered as the real legacy of Chirac to history.

But Chirac, whose inmunity ended on June, 17th, 2007, is not the only one having bad times lately: French magistrates probing an alleged dirty tricks campaign have searched offices once used by the ex-prime minister, Dominique de Villepin in connection with the Clearstream scandal:

Mr de Villepin faces claims that he encouraged the leaking of papers which falsely implicated Mr Sarkozy in a bribery scandal, sources say.

Mr de Villepin has strenuously denied any involvement in the affair.

He has demanded to be declared an “assisted witness” in the inquiry, a move which would enhance his legal rights and give his lawyers access to police files.

He has curtailed a holiday to monitor the search.

A separate six-hour search of his home was conducted in Paris on Thursday.

Chirac’s silence

The alleged scandal is known as the Clearstream affair, after the Luxembourg clearing house in which Mr Sarkozy and other figures were falsely accused of holding secret accounts into which bribes were paid.

He was French foreign minister at the time of the alleged plot, but went on to become prime minister. The claims against him suggest he was hoping to scupper Mr Sarkozy’s presidential ambitions.

Jacques Chirac’s lawyer says he will not work with investigators

Justice officials say some information key to the inquiry was allegedly retrieved from the laptop computer of a former military intelligence general.

The computer files were said to support claims that Mr de Villepin initiated a meeting that led to Mr Sarkozy being falsely accused of receiving money in relation to a controversial defence contract – the sale of French frigates to Taiwan in 1991.

More in Financial Times:

Mr de Villepin, who was not at home at the time of the raid, on Thursday rejected the “unfounded accusations” against him and denied blackening the name of any politician in the Clearstream affair. He said he would vigorously defend himself.

The Elysée palace said it had no comment to make on a judicial matter.

The convoluted Clearstream affair paralysed the government for weeks last year as the three most senior ministers traded accusations through the media.

While in office, Mr de Villepin was questioned as a witness for 17 hours. Investigating magistrates also questioned Michèle Alliot-Marie, defence minister at the time, who employed Gen Rondot. Ms Alliot-Marie has since succeeded Mr Sarkozy as interior minister.

At the time the affair was widely seen as part of a far bigger power struggle between Mr de Villepin and Mr Sarkozy over who would become presidential candidate of the neo-Gaullist right and succeed Jacques Chirac as president.

More in International Herald Tribune:

The police raid was the first time the home of a former head of the French government has been searched and suggested that the three-year-old Clearstream affair may be entering a combustible stage. The case is a knot of secret investigations and allegations of impropriety involving the financial clearinghouse Clearstream in Luxembourg.

[…] One of the suspects, Jean-Louis Gergorin, a former vice president of the defense consortium EADS, said last year that he had given the list to a magistrate. According to excerpts of the Rondot files quoted by several newspapers, he had written on his computer that he was told “Gergorin received instructions from Dominique de Villepin, which were themselves formulated by the president of the republic, to destabilize Nicolas Sarkozy.”

Villepin, who testified in the case in December, is expected to be summoned for questioning by the end of the month, a judicial source said. If the two suspects cited in the recovered computer files confirm Rondot’s account in scheduled testimony on July 17 and 18, Villepin could face charges of “complicity in calumnious denunciation.”

The former prime minister has denied any wrongdoing. He issued a statement Thursday night saying he never “sought to investigate or compromise any political personality in the Clearstream affair.” Four people have been charged in the case so far.

Dominique de Villepin, after the searches: “I have lived some moments that, as you can imagine, they have not been agreeable, but I have to say that truth will prevail”.

De Villepin could face charges for this affair.

Related news:

1. Sarkozy is going to support Dominic Strauss-Kahn for the International Monetary Fund, after Rodrigo Rato’s departure.
2. Michélle Alliot-Marie wants to improve the knowledge of imams in France. She wants to create a French Islam… What???
3. French representatives are speaking with Russian ones about missile defence, after First Deputy Prime Minister Ivanov has menaced with installing new missile forces in Kaliningrad: This region, in other times called East Prussia, with capital in Königsberg, was German territory till the end of the WWII. It constitutes a very important site, strategically speaking, between Lithuania and Poland, in the middle of European Union.
4. France is one of the five or six countries, which are objetives of the Islamic terrorists. Roland Jacquard, President of the International Watchdog of terrorism. Video in French.
5. French Housing Minister, Christine Boutin, suggested last year Bush was behind Sept. 11 attacks. Asked in an interview last November, before she became minister, whether she thought Bush might be behind the attacks, Boutin says: “I think it is possible. I think it is possible.” Boutin backs her assertion by pointing to the large number of people who visit websites that challenge the official line over the September 11 strikes against U.S. cities. “I know that the websites that speak of this problem are websites that have the highest number of visits … And I tell myself that this expression of the masses and of the people cannot be without any truth.” Boutin’s office sought to play down the remarks, saying that later in the same interview she says: “I’m not telling you that I adhere to that position.”

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The massacre MSM do not speak about

I have been reading for days about something in blogs that NO MSM has even dare to publish. It is the massacre the inhabitants of an entire Iraqi village by Al Qaeda.

You can see it in Michael Yon page. Also friends Mike and Chaim have blogged about it. Go and read it. It is a complete shame that this is not even considered as little news.

Beheaded children, killed livestock -they even killed the donkeys-, smashed windows, rotten bodies…

Why this dead people is not interesting for the press?

Unhappily, it is because Al-Qaeda did it. It was not American, British, German,… that is, Western soldiers. But specially American soldiers did not do it.

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Muslim extremists forcibly turn Catholic church into mosque

Two other cases of catholic churchs vandalised and, just as the other one, no MSM mentions it.

According to the AINA news agency, two churches were attacked in the Baghdad district of Dora. At St. John the Baptist’s in Hay Al-Athoriyeen, several security guards who protect the church were killed, and St. Jacob’s in Hay al Asya was vandalized and forcibly turned into a mosque. St. Jacob’s had previously been attacked in October of 2004.

h/t American Papist.

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Abused boys rescued from Baghdad orphanage

 – Yahoo! News

U.S. soldiers helped rescue 24 abused and severely malnourished boys this month from a Baghdad orphanage, where they were found in conditions of appalling squalor, the U.S. military said on Wednesday.

Iraqi and U.S. soldiers were led to the Al-Hanan orphanage on June 10 by members of a neighborhood council and immediately took the children to hospital. The story was first reported by CBS News on Monday.

“The 24 boys, aged 3 to 15 years old, were found naked in a darkened room without any windows. Many of the children were tied to their beds and were too weak to stand once released,” the U.S. military said in a statement.

Pictures on Iraqi television showed a series of tiny, starved, naked figures. In one, a U.S. soldier attended a boy whose body was covered in sores.

Another child was tied to a cot and a third picture showed a group of boys lying face down on the floor, in pools of what appeared to be their own excrement.

“In a nearby locked room, the soldiers discovered a room full of food and clothing that could have been used to aid the children,” the statement said.

A spokeswoman for the government ministry responsible for the orphanage said that the building’s director had been arrested, together with several members of his staff.

Since leaving hospital, the boys have been moved to an orphanage for girls next door to where they were found.

This photo released by CBS News shows children in an orphanage in Baghdad, Iraq in June 2007. U.S. and Iraqi soldiers found 24 severely malnourished children in a Baghdad orphanage, some tied to their beds and too weak to stand, the U.S. military said Wednesday June 20, 2007. The U.S. military, which leaked the story and pictures of the orphanage to CBS News earlier this week, said they were all boys between the ages of 3 and 15. (AP Photo/CBS News).

This image from video released by CBS News, shows a child in an orphanage in Baghdad, Iraq in June 2007. U.S. and Iraqi soldiers found 24 severely malnourished children in a Baghdad orphanage, some tied to their beds and too weak to stand, the U.S. military said Wednesday June 20, 2007. The U.S. military, which leaked the story and pictures of the orphanage to CBS News earlier this week, said they were all boys between the ages of 3 and 15. (AP Photo/CBS News)

This image from video released by CBS News, shows children in an orphanage in Baghdad, Iraq in June 2007. U.S. and Iraqi soldiers found 24 severely malnourished children in a Baghdad orphanage, some tied to their beds and too weak to stand, the U.S. military said Wednesday June 20, 2007. The U.S. military, which leaked the story and pictures of the orphanage to CBS News earlier this week, said they were all boys between the ages of 3 and 15. (AP Photo/CBS News)

This photo released by CBS News shows food in a storeroom in an orphanage in Baghdad, Iraq in June 2007. U.S. and Iraqi soldiers found 24 severely malnourished children in a Baghdad orphanage, some tied to their beds and too weak to stand, the U.S. military said Wednesday June 20, 2007. The U.S. military, which leaked the story and pictures of the orphanage to CBS News earlier this week, said they were all boys between the ages of 3 and 15. (AP Photo/CBS News)

This is outrageous.

Technorati Tags: Iraq, USa, Child Abuse,

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Intelligence: China Supplying Terrorists In Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan

Power Line: Intelligence: China Supplying Terrorists In Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan

New intelligence reveals China is covertly supplying large quantities of small arms and weapons to insurgents in Iraq and the Taliban militia in Afghanistan, through Iran. Some arms were sent by aircraft directly from Chinese factories to Afghanistan and included large-caliber sniper rifles, millions of rounds of ammunition, rocket-propelled grenades and components for roadside bombs, as well as other small arms.
According to the officials, the Iranians, in buying the arms, asked Chinese state-run suppliers to expedite the transfers and to remove serial numbers to prevent tracing their origin. China, for its part, offered to transport the weapons in order to prevent the weapons from being interdicted.
U.S. Army specialists suspect the weapons were transferred within the past three months.
The Bush administration has been trying to hide or downplay the intelligence reports to protect its pro-business policies toward China, and to continue to claim that China is helping the United States in the war on terrorism. U.S. officials have openly criticized Iran for the arms transfers but so far there has been no mention that China is a main supplier.

If this is confirmed they are indeed dangerous news. But why it does not surprise me?… And then there are people who speaks openly about ending weapons’ embargo to China…

Sent to Open Trackbacks: to Dumb Ox, Pirate’s Cove, Woman Honor Thyself, Blue Star Chronicles, Nuke’s News and Views, Demediacratic Nation, The Amboy Times.

Technorati Tags: China, Taliban, Afghanistan, Islamism, Iraq, Iran

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Turkey: "no incursion into Iraq"

As I posted some weeks ago, there are reports that point out to a Turkish incursion into Iraq. Turkey has just denied it:

Turkey has denied reports that its troops have launched a major incursion into northern Iraq, targeting Kurdish militants. News agencies quoting unnamed Turkish security officials say there’s been a “limited cross-border” military operation. A US State Department spokesman urged Ankara to be cautious. An estimated 4,000 rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, the PKK, are said to be hiding in Iraq. Turkey’s foreign minister Abdullah Gul described reports of a 50,000-strong invasion force “disinformation”. Meanwhile the new Frenc President, Nikolas Sarkozy plans to obstruct attempts by Turkey to join the European Union, saying the vast country does not belong in the bloc.

Turkey: “no incursion into Iraq”

But the incursion was first pointed out by Turkish officials:

Three Turkish security officials said troops crossed the border Wednesday. But they described the operation as just a “hot pursuit” raid that was limited in scope, and one said the soldiers left Iraqi territory by the end of the day.

The officials, all based in southeastern Turkey, spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.

Turkish authorities rarely acknowledge such military operations against the PKK, but the army has conducted brief raids across the border in the past.

Despite the dispute over whether an incursion happened, the reports were likely to heighten anxieties over whether Turkey is planning a large-scale invasion. The last such operation was in 1997 and involved 50,000 soldiers.

Turkish leaders have said they are considering an offensive, and have sent more troops and equipment to the frontier. But they hope the U.S. and Iraqi Kurds will stage their own crackdown on the separatists, who raid southeast Turkey after resting, training and resupplying in Iraq.

For a fair reasoning, read The Moor Next Door on this matter h/t The Belmont Club:

All this Kurdish fuddleduddle seems to me to be at the same time dangerous and insincere. Dangerous because it damages the stability of our allies (i.e. Turkey) and other already unstable states (i.e. Syria). Insincere because the United States is not a revolutionary power; it is a status quo power and only half supports revolutionary movements, and generally tries to preserve regional boundaries. The Kurds will not find a Kurdistan in America. They will find themselves offered up as tools for destabilizing Iran and then abandoned (as they were against Iraq in the 1970’s; and without remorse by the American Congress) to be locked up, butchered or worse. I call it fuddleduddle because I see no long term benefit to allowing the Kurds to let their friends blow themselves up in Turkish cities. The Kurdish region of Iraq is beneficial in the short term, but if it persists in being a launch pad for PKK attacks, I am forced to ask who is the more valuable ally, the Turks or the Kurds? In this respect, I see that the Iraqi Kurds express no concern for the national interests of their neighbors (even as those neighbors are the allies of their patrons), or of their supposed country men (the Arabs of Iraq to their south, for whom Kurds interviewed consistently express a mixture of contempt and indifference). What kind of ally can a Kurdistan really be?

Also from the above post from The Belmont Club:

There are rumors Turkey has made an armed incursion into Kurdistan and the news is well covered by Pajamas Media. Iraq’s neighbors do not seem to treat it as a state. The Syrians, Iranians and now the Turks feel free to cross its borders and attack it’s nominally sovereign territory with impunity; to attack Kurdish guerilla bases, snatch British sailors or attack American troops according to preference.

Ironically, neither Iraqi, British nor American troops are on any account allowed to cross the border the other way. No sir. That would constitute a breach of international law. That frustration with the limitations of international law or rules of engagement limiting counterinsurgency inevitably tempt commanders to indulge instead in war by proxy. And there we are with ethnic instability again.

This creates a situation pregnant with danger. Turkey, Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia are precisely the countries which diplomats hope will guarantee Iraq’s internal peace and security once America withdraws. But in absence of an exteranal guarantor, the nonexistence of a de facto Iraqi state will mean every part of its carcass will be up for grabs. If news of the Turkish incursion are true, the buzzards are already taking their first tentative pecks.

It is true that PKK is considered as a terrorist group even by USA. The problem here is that both Kurds [which does not mean every Kurd is a PKK admirer] and Turks are US allies. Which of them will US back? If they back the Kurds, they can lose Turk support in a more than delicate moment. And if they back the Turks, the Kurdish support can vanish into thin air, something also very delicate, considering that they are US coalition main allies throughout Iraq. And that Kurdish support can also be very important inside Iran, as there is also an important Kurdish community there, that is basically anti-Mullah and admirers of PKK.

Both solutions are not good, in fact they can be very wrong.

You can also read A Blog for All, Noisy Room.Net, Epaminondas, Outside the Beltway,.

UPDATED: Al-Qaeda Threat to Kurdish Converts:

“We are hunting those who have converted to Christianity or Zoroastrianism as we consider them renegades and God’s punishment must be implemented by killing them,” the Islamist terrorist group said in a statement released on the internet on April 22.

Related with Turkey: Sarkozy will not block Turkish accession to EU talks. Hmm, wasn’t Sarko the one who opposed so fiercely during electoral campaign to it? Yes, and that’s why Gallia Watch critisizes him, among other subjects, like EU constitution.

Also the Orthodox Patriarc Bartholomew I wants Turkey’s Christians to share the same rights as Muslims both in that country and in all Europe h/t Custos Fidei.

Etiquetas de del.icio.us: Turkey, PKK, terrorism, Kurdistan, Iraqi Kurdistan, USA, Iran

Etiquetas de Technorati: Turkey, PKK, terrorism, Kurdistan, Iraqi Kurdistan, USA, Iran

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In the case of the Britons’ kidnapping

about which I blogged yesterday, look who is being investigated. And just not to waste the time, also threatens women who do not wear the veil…

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Britons kidnapped by gunmen in Baghdad-News-World-Iraq-TimesOnline

 

Five Britons were abducted from a government building in Baghdad today in a brazen kidnapping by gunmen dressed in police uniforms.

The victims were four bodyguards and a British technology adviser working at the Finance Ministry for BearingPoint, a US consultancy firm.

This evening the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London confirmed that the five missing people were British and that diplomatic staff in Baghdad were urgently seeking their release.

“I can confirm that a group of five British nationals were abducted this morning at 0850 UK time, which is 1150 local time, in an incident at the Finance Ministry in central Baghdad,” a spokesman said. “Officials from the British embassy in Baghdad are in urgent contact with the Iraqi authorities to establish the facts and to try to secure a swift resolution.”

Source: Britons kidnapped by gunmen in Baghdad-News-World-Iraq-TimesOnline

Hope they are found quickly.

BBC considers that policemen are involved:

There are conflicting reports about exactly how Tuesday’s abduction took place.

‘Hired guns’ in Iraq

Witnesses said it was carried out by what appeared to be a police unit.

The street was sealed off at both ends and the kidnappers, in police camouflage uniforms, walked straight past guards at the finance ministry building on Palestine Street, the witnesses said.

A police source told the BBC that dozens of police vehicles were used in the operation.

The BBC’s Paul Wood in Baghdad says that if such reports are true, it could point to the involvement of a renegade police unit, possibly special commandos.

While it has been possible in the past for criminals or militants to hire police uniforms and vehicles, he says, the scale of this operation suggests real police involvement.

del.icio.us tags: Great Britain, Iraq, terrorism, Baghdad, UK

 

Technorati tags: Great Britain, Iraq, terrorism, Baghdad, UK

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Al Qaeda cells in Catalonia (UPDATED)

According to Spanish leftist newspaper El Periodico de Cataluña, AlQaeda is recruiting lots of youths in Catalonia:

A person in charge of the Brigade of Information of the National Body of Police (CNP) -the speaker in question is Rodrigo Gavilán- talked about “a constant dripping” of resident Muslim volunteers in Spain who give themselves to yihad international. “Yearly, the number of Spanish mujahidines oscillates between the 30 and 40 people who disappear in radical surroundings or who are detected in Iraq or in route towards countries with terrorist campings“, affirmed.

The person in charge of a foreign secret service alerted that “Catalonia is the place of origin of many of them, due to the influence that radical salafi circles have in that region“.

The preeminence of Catalonia over other Spanish regions was specially clear, as in the last two years in Vilanova, Santa Coloma, Barcelona and Girona, three important networks of recruitment and shipment from young people to Iraq has been dismantled. After Catalonia, the other seed plots of radical islamists in Spain are mainly Madrid, Ceuta and Melilla.

[…] Two methods of recruitment of voluntary young people have been detected. First one occurs in districts with great presence of Muslim immigrants. There, individuals pertaining to radical cells approach teenagers and young people with strong problems of marginalization and uprooting.

“”Salafis” means recruiters, some come from France and of Belgium, that works of traveling form moving by all Spain“, a person in charge of counterterrorism explains. The boarding can take place during religious classes in mosques and pray rooms, although also in cafeterias and in the middle of the street.

They are summoned in floors, in the back of butchers or similar places, wherever at midnight or at daybreak those recruiters chat with them on yihad.

The other route of recruitment takes place in Internet, where young that has been radicalized by themselves visit forums, chats and radical webs and are contacted there by pick up networks that first request an economic aid to them and later offer them the possibility of going to Iraq.

[…] Once chosen, those young people are obliged to leave the studies and other occupations are offered to them. “The network offers them work in building companies owned by Moroccans“, added east police control. In those companies the indoctrination work continues. When the network considers that the young person is ready, manages its transfer to Iraq or, if she is a person specially enabled, to a field of training.

Those sources indicated that “one of the main routes by which it is sent to voluntary young people to Iraq they manage extremist cells Pakistanis that operate in Ceuta and Melilla“.

[…] Those transfers are financed thanks to the traffic of hashish coming from Morocco and to the obtained drug trafficking money with enterprise activities like the computer science construction, services and the forging of clothes and clocks.

The recruiters are salafist who have come from France or Belgium.

For example in 2005 one of the accused of March 11th bombings flee to Iraq using this method.

But there is more:

As the recruited ones in Spain lack military formation, knowledge of explosives or urban guerrilla, mainly “are sent for kamikaze actions“, or “are instructed” in military actions. “the danger, as both sources from the National Police and of the Civil Guard have pointed out – is that, once formed as terrorist in those fields or trained in combat in Iraq, the recruit is sent back to Europe to stay latent until the order arrives to them to activate“.

But the Catalan Interior Conseiller, Joan Saura (Socialist), known for having said that he is for the legalization of all the drugs, denies that Al Qaeda is operating so importantly in Catalonia. More here:

“I do not know of any Jihadist focus in Catalonia“. But he added that “the fight against Islamist terrorism is the most important concern in the Western world, and also here, and more since Al-Qaeda menaced Al-Andalus.

I hope he is not considering Catalonia outside of the Western world…

And of course, I hope that the fight against Islamism is not a concern but a priority.

Also we have to remember that back in 2003, 16 Islamists were detained accused of plotting to commit terrorist attacks with explosive and chemical devices. Place where they were staying? Catalonia. When Aznar announced it, leftist groups in the parliament mocked him, because the Islamists have washing powder branded “Dixan”. The terrorist commando was then, named Dixan. On 2007, 5 of them had been condemned to 13 years in prison each. The substances that they had, though they weren’t enough to make explosives, could be used to build explosive devices, combined with the right electronic devices, devices which they had. They weren´t condemned by possesing explosives but by only belonging to terrorist network and forging documents.

Meanwhile, the Prosecutor’s office confesses that the Islamist terrorism is the first concern with more than 56 detained Islamists [alleged ] in 2007.

Update: Catalan newspaper LA Vanguardia reports that while the lider of CiU (Catalan moderate nationalists) has blamed the Government of the Generalitat for this rise in the Catalan jihadis, the CiU’s candidate to Major of Barcelona has stated that he does not consider Islamism a priority and that the city’s major problems come from common delinquents. “ I am dedicating myself to Barcelona, not to problems of the rest of Spain“. Hmm,

Sent to Open Trackbacks to Blue Star Chronicles, Outside the Beltway, Stinkstein and A Blog for All.

[Este post en español aquí].

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Islamic bycicles: the new strategy of Iran

Well, our beloved Ahmadinejad said that in Iran, “women’s rights are more respected than men’s“. That is why they are now issuing an “Islamic bycicle” for women:

 

Iran will make “Islamic bycicles for women, thought to hide the feminine forms by a cabin which would cover half of the body.
“This project will promote the practice of sport by women”, said Elaheh Sofali, one of the women who are responsible of the project”, according to the Government’s newspaper.
Faezeh Hachémi, daughter of ax-Iranian President Rafsandjani, ex-responsible of the women’s Olympic sport, tried to develop cycling between women in the 90’s, but this decision did not have the hoped success because of the opposition of the conservative religious bodies.

Conservative? I guess the culprit is Aznar, again…

Kamangir has more about this, including this photo:
At the same time, the Iranian regime continues to crackdown on the feminist movement in Iran with no aid from feminists throughout the world.

 

Despite the constant harassment of its members, the Iranian feminist movement is growing and is alarming the government,” Reporters Without Borders said in a statement. “The Internet is now a battle-ground between these women, who are just demanding the same rights as men, and a regime that remains as rigid as ever.”The series of arrests are an indication that the small progress that had been made under the former reformist president Mohammad Khatami is now being rolled back by his successor, the hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, since he was elected in 2005.

The Iranian police are also ramping up their inspections of women to ensure they are adhering to the Islamic dress code. The annual spring offensive to make sure women are covering up enough has been particularly strict this year. And the government in Tehran is now drafting a law to limit female students to half the places in college, instead of the 65 percent they currently occupy.

At the same time, Iran can be as close as 12 months away to gaining the ability to produce the nuclear bomb.

Iran has also jailed an Iranian-American journalist who converted from Islam to Judaism and also a top blogger, who is accused of … being a spy!

But the most outstanding measure of idiocy in Iran is that they are also arresting DOGS!! (here). And they are also confiscating cars for carrying the dog inside h/t Gateway Pundit.

Norwegian-Iranian Mamand Mamandy had a brutal meeting with police after drinking two beers while on holiday in Iran. He was sentenced to 130 lashes. This is the result:Hmm, yes,

Lastly, men and women will be separated at hospitals. h/t Stefania.

Iranian health minister Kamran Bagheri Lamkarani has presented a reform under which men and women would be divided in public hospitals under a new moralization campaign which kicked off last month. Under the new provisions, women would be treated only by female doctors and nurses and male patients would only be in contact with medics of the same gender. This follows a rigid interpretation of Sharia law which forbids physical contact between men and women.A major problem with this change is the higher number of male medics compared to women, although 67 percent of medical students in Iran are today women. However, the ministry has said the change could be gradual.

Related news:
Iran and the US will be meeting on May 28th about Iraq. Of course, Iran is not going to negotiate: Khamenei has said that it is void and that they are going “to remind the Americans of their responsibilities“. Read also “Why is Iran so quiet?” and see the photo in the post, regarding the peaceful intentions of Iran. Flap’s blog has another view on the subject.
An interesting video of an Iranian military parade.
The crisis of the Afghan illegal immigrants and refugees in Iran and Pakistan continues: experts consider that the return of 3 million people to Afghanistan can be disastrous. I ask myself: while the most part are good people who fled from Soviet war first and then from Taliban rule, how many of them are Talibans who are “pushed” now into Afghanistan to fight the UN mission?

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Target: little girls’ school

Hmm, horrible and disgusting:

American soldiers discovered a girls school being built north of Baghdad had become an explosives-rigged “death trap,” the U.S. military said Thursday.
The plot at the Huda Girls’ school in Tarmiya was a “sophisticated and premeditated attempt to inflict massive casualties on our most innocent victims,” military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said.
The military suspects the plot was the work of al Qaeda, because of its nature and sophistication, Caldwell said in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
The plot was uncovered Saturday, when troopers in the Salaheddin province found detonating wire across the street from the school. They picked up the wire and followed its trail, which led to the school. Once inside, they found an explosive-filled propane tank buried beneath the floor. There were artillery shells built into the ceiling and floor, and another propane tank was found, the military said.
The wire was concealed with mortar and concrete, and the propane tanks had been covered with brick and hidden underneath the floor, according to a military statement. Soldiers were able to clear the building.
“It was truly just an incredibly ugly, dirty kind of vicious killing that would have gone on here,” Caldwell said.

Just disgusting. And then I imagine the MSM titles: US Army operation turns out in bloody outcome: nearly 200 girls killed. Puagggghhh!!

You can see the video here. Disgusting, very disgusting. And Spanish MSM -to the extent of my knowledge- have said nothing about this…

Anyway, Barcepundit has written in Spanish about it.

UPDATE: Al-Maliki, Iraqi PM, has ties with Iranian Revolutionary Guards!! At least that is what the Egyptian Government mantains h/t Clarity and Resolve.

________________________

En español: ¡¡no lo he encontrado!! Si alguien tiene el link por favor, lo deje en comentarios. Así que lo traduzco:

Los soldados americanos descubrieron que un colegio para niñas en construcción al norte de Baghdad había sido transformado en una trampa llena de eplosivos, según los militares EEUU.

La conjura del colegio para niñas de Huda en Tarmiya, era un “sofisticado y premeditado intento de inflingir bajas masivas en nuestras víctimas más inocentes“, dijo el portavoz militar General William Caldwell. Los militares sospechan que era un plan de Al-Qaeda, tanto por su naturaleza como por su sofisticación, añadió.

Todo fue descubierto cuando las tropas de la provincia de Salaheddin encontrarn cable detonante desde la calle hasta dentro del colegio.
Cogieron el cable y lo siguieron hasta el colegio. Ya dentro, encontraron un tanque lleno de propano enterrado en el suelo. Había varias piezas de artillería en el techo y en el suelo. Después fue encontrado otro tanque de propano. El cable había sido escondido con cemento y los tanques de propano habían sido cubiertos con ladrillos y escondidos debajo del suelo.

“Lo que se hubiera producido ahí era un increíble, horrendo y sucia manera de asesinato vicioso”, añadió Caldwell.

Y los medios en España no han dicho NADA… Barcepundit sí lo ha tratado.

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Technorati tags:
Iraq, MSM

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