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2004 News ContinuedApril 9, 2004
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| AP file Osama bin Laden, left, and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri appear in a video broadcast on Oct. 7, 2001, the day the U.S. launched the war in Afghanistan. |
WANA, Pakistan (March 18) - Pakistani troops believe they have surrounded al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri in an operation near the Afghan border, three senior Pakistani officials said Thursday.
The officials told The Associated Press that intelligence indicated the Egyptian-born al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden's top deputy, has been cornered in an operation. One intelligence official said captured fighters said al-Zawahri had been wounded.
The operation began Tuesday in South Waziristan with hundreds of troops and paramilitary rangers, who fired artillery and used helicopter gunships to attack dug-in al-Qaida fighters. Dozens of fighters were killed and 18 were captured, the intelligence official said.
''We have been receiving intelligence and information from our agents who are working in the tribal areas that al-Zawahri could be among the people hiding there,'' a military official said. ''All of our efforts are to capture him.''
An intelligence official and senior politician in President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's government both confirmed the account. All spoke on condition of anonymity.
The United States has offered a $25 million reward for information leading to al-Zawahri's capture.
Pakistani officials said they do not have any intelligence indicating that bin Laden is with al-Zawahri. In the past, intelligence officials have speculated that the two are traveling together, and bin Laden and al-Zawahri appeared together in video tapes released shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks.
In an interview with CNN, Musharraf said he had spoken with the commander of Pakistani troops in the region. He said the commander reported ''fierce resistance'' from a group of fighters entrenched in fort-like buildings and that there were indications that a senior figure was surrounded.
''He's reasonably sure there's a high-value target there,'' Musharraf said.
Musharraf said the area was being ''pounded'' by artillery.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a U.S. counterterrorism official said: ''It would appear that the Pakistanis have surrounded a very senior al-Qaida figure, but at this point we are not certain who it is.''
The Pakistani military has been pursuing 100 tribal leaders that authorities want to roll into their efforts to hunt al-Qaida in the Waziristan frontier. So far, about two-thirds have said they would provide information and turn over any Islamic militants in their territories, American defense officials said on condition of anonymity.
The others are facing destruction of their homes by the hands of Pakistani military, officials said.
The Pakistanis also are targeting Arabs and other foreigners who settled in the tribal regions shortly after the Afghan-Soviet war in the 1980s, the officials said. While some veterans of the war formed the nucleus of al-Qaida, others put down roots in Pakistan.
It is believed that some of these veterans are providing a support network for bin Laden and his followers in the region, officials said.
U.S. officials say they are watching to see if the Pakistani actions send militant fighters moving back to Afghanistan, where U.S. troops operate freely.
Hundreds of Pakistani troops have moved into three South Waziristan towns - Azam Warsak, Shin Warsak and Kaloosha - against entrenched positions.
''They are not coming out in spite of the fact that we pounded them with artillery,'' Musharraf told CNN.
Early morning calls from mosques warned residents in Azam Warsak, Shin Warsak and Kaloosha to leave the area, apparently to give the troops more room to operate.
''They asked locals, women and children, to move out, which many did. And then they shot upon the area, with ... helicopters also,'' Musharraf told CNN.
At least 41 people - including 15 soldiers and 26 suspected militants - were killed Tuesday in fighting in the area, and army spokesman Gen. Shaukat Sultan said there were an unknown number of casualties in continued action Thursday.
The military said Thursday that most of those killed were foreigners, but it did not give their nationalities and acknowledged that only two bodies had been recovered.
The two dead were believed to be a Chechen and someone of Middle Eastern origin, a military official said on condition of anonymity.
The news came the same day as Secretary of State Colin Powell announced in Islamabad that Washington was bestowing the status of ''major non-NATO ally'' on Pakistan and praised it for its help in the war on terror.
Musharraf, a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, promised Monday to rid the tribal areas of foreign terrorists.
Powell, who left the country hours before the announcement, also said he believed there was evidence that al-Qaida leader bin Laden is still alive and hiding in the rugged border area.
''No one has seen him, so how can one be sure?'' Powell told Geo TV. ''But he has certainly given evidence that he is alive and active. But we can't be sure.
''And if he is alive and active, and the evidence suggests that he is, and if he is in the area of the Pakistan-Afghan border, that's a very difficult area to find someone who doesn't want to be found.''
A spokesman for the U.S. military in Afghanistan told AP the force hoped Pakistani soldiers had indeed cornered al-Zawahri, but he had no new information on the whereabouts of either of the al-Qaida leaders.
''All the senior leaders of al-Qaida will be brought to justice,'' Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty said.
Hilferty said a U.S. operation begun March 7 on the Afghan side of the border was continuing, but he gave no details and said he had no information of any signs of militants fleeing from Pakistan.
About a dozen helicopters buzzed over Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, early Thursday, flying toward the operation zone about six miles to the west.
A convoy of army trucks carrying soldiers also passed Wana hours before the operation started. Later, mortar explosions were heard in the town.
Interior Ministry spokesman Abdur Rauf Chaudhry said extra troops were dispatched in anticipation of the new offensive.
He said ''a few'' paramilitary troops are missing from Tuesday's operation in Kaloosha, with rumors in the region that they may have been kidnapped by the suspected militants.
The raid has sparked outrage in the tribal region, which fiercely covets its autonomy and has resisted outside intervention for centuries.
In another part of the tribal region, North Waziristan, attackers launched a rocket and fired gunshots at a Pakistan army post before dawn Thursday, Sultan said. Two soldiers died and several were injured in the attack, an intelligence official told the AP on condition of anonymity.
The official also said assailants threw a hand grenade at an army truck heading to Miran Shah, North Waziristan's main town, and that several soldiers were injured. But Sultan denied the incident occurred.
03-18-04 15:12 EST
Southern Baptists are once again grieving over the loss of missionaries who have paid the ultimate cost of serving God in hostile lands. Five American missionaries were shot in Northern Iraq yesterday in a drive-by shooting near Mosul. Four of the group were killed, and the fifth, critically wounded.
The Southern Baptist missionaries, who were working on a water purification project, were reportedly traveling in one car when they were attacked. Two Germans working on another water supply project south of Bagdad were shot Tuesday, bringing the number of foreign civilians killed in drive-by shootings in Iraq to half a dozen within the same 24 hours.
PARIS (AP) - Officials are investigating threats issued by a radical Islamic group against France and its overseas interests, the Justice Ministry said Tuesday.
The shadowy group identified itself as the ``Servants of Allah the Powerful and Wise,'' the ministry said in a statement, adding that the group was unknown to French authorities.
Justice officials did not disclose the nature of the threats, but RTL radio reported that Le Parisien newspaper received a letter threatening Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin over France's plan to ban Islamic head scarves and other religious apparel in schools.
``The letter only mentioned the head scarf,'' Jacques Esperandieu, deputy editor of the Parisien, told RTL.
In February, an audiotape purportedly from Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant criticized France's decision to ban religious symbols from schools, legislation seen by many in the Arab world as anti-Muslim.
That recording, which was attributed to Ayman al-Zawahri, said: ``The decision of the French president to issue a law to prevent Muslim girls from covering their heads in schools is another example of the Crusader's malice, which Westerners have against Muslims.''
Al-Zawahri, an Egyptian-born physician, is thought to be with bin Laden in hiding somewhere along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The tape was aired Al-Arabiya, the Dubai-based Arab-language satellite channel.
In the past weeks, French authorities have received terror threats from another little-known group that calls itself AZF.
The group claims to have planted nine bombs along the country's rail network and has threatened to explode them unless it is paid millions of dollars.
Information from AZF led to the recovery Feb. 21 of an explosive device buried in the bed of a railway line near Limoges in central France.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks against the United States, France has arrested dozens of terror suspects.
Authorities dismantled a terror cell in 2002 with ties to Chechen rebels and al-Qaida that planned bomb or toxic gas attacks in France and Russia. Among the suspected targets was the Russian Embassy in Paris.
The American Embassy in Paris was the target of a foiled bomb plot in 2001. Franco-Algerian Djamel Beghal, a prime suspect in the plot, was arrested in the United Arab Emirates in July 2001 and handed over to French custody.
Shoe-bomber Richard Reid, a British convert to Islam, was aboard an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami in Dec. 2001 when he tried but failed to detonate explosives in his shoes.
03/16/04 14:55 EST
MADRID, Spain (AP) - More than 1,000 Muslims gathered at an ornate mosque Friday for the funeral of a Moroccan killed in the Madrid terror attacks, with many fearing a backlash against Islam if the bombings were carried out by al-Qaida.
The imam, or priest, denounced Thursday's bombings, which killed nearly 200 people and wounded about 1,400.
``This is a crime that not even animals would commit,'' the imam, Ali El Messery, told the crowd.
Friends of the dead Moroccan identified him only as Assad, saying he was 22 and had lived in Madrid for three years.
For seven centuries, Muslims from North Africa occupied Spain until the ``reconquest'' in 1492, building mosques - including one of the world's biggest, in Cordoba - and tolerating Judaism and other religions.
In the modern era, Spain has accepted many migrants, many of them Muslims.
``Spain has always treated us well,'' said Messery, standing behind Assad's black wooden coffin. ``We share blood and history with Spaniards. Let us be grateful to them.''
But some of those at the services for the slain Moroccan - one of at least 14 foreigners who died in the bombings - fear the attack may spawn intolerance.
Suspicion has fallen on al-Qaida and the Basque separatist group ETA. ``I don't know who committed yesterday's crime, but I do not want it to be al-Qaida,'' said Mustafa Bissad, a 38-year-old immigrant from Senegal who attended the funeral service.
03/12/04 17:17 EST
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - The Arabic newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi said Thursday it had received a claim of responsibility for the Madrid train bombings issued in the name of al-Qaida.
The five-page e-mail claim, signed by the shadowy Brigade of Abu Hafs al-Masri, was received at the paper's London offices. It said the brigade's ``death squad'' had penetrated ``one of the pillars of the crusade alliance, Spain.''
``This is part of settling old accounts with Spain, the crusader, and America's ally in its war against Islam,'' the claim said.
Referring to Spain's Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, the statement asked: ``Aznar, where is America? Who will protect you, Britain, Japan, Italy and others from us?''
The newspaper faxed the claim to The Associated Press office in Cairo.
The message referred to last year's attack on Italian paramilitary police serving in the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq.
``When we attacked the Italian troops in Nassiriyah and sent you and America's agents an ultimatum to withdraw from the anti-Islam alliance, you did not understand the the message. Now we have made it clear and hope that this time you will understand,'' the statement said.
``We, at the Abu Hafs brigades, have not felt sad for the so-called civilians,'' the statement in an apparent reference to the hundreds of casualties in Thursday's attacks in Madrid.
``Is it OK for you to kill our children, women, old people and youth in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Kashmir? And is it forbidden to us to kill yours?'' the claim asked.
03/11/04 15:53 EST
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - Condemned by the government for describing Sept. 11 as ``God's work,'' Australia's top Islamic leader said in an interview Tuesday he did not support the attack and accused rival Muslims of trying to discredit him.
Sheik Taj El Din Al Hilaly, the mufti of Australia since 1989, claimed the country's politicians were exploiting terror fears to garner votes ahead of a national election later this year. He said a group that adheres to the Wahhabi strand of Sunni Islam - the same followed by Osama bin Laden - wants him out of office.
Although small in number, the Wahhabis have gained followers in Australia's otherwise conservative community since the 1990s, he said. Hilaly said they are using funds from some Arab states to recruit young men at universities and youth centers.
He did not elaborate, but described them as ``hypocrites within the ranks of the community who feel that my presence causes harm.''
Hilaly played down the influence of Wahhabism in Australia, where 285,000 people, or 1.4 percent of the overall population of 20 million, is Muslim.
``We have a few small chicks here who haven't grown their feathers yet,'' Hilaly said. ``My job is to pluck them out before they get any bigger.''
Hilaly had been seen as a voice of religious tolerance, but that changed dramatically last month when he preached in Lebanon.
According to a translation from the Australian Embassy in Beirut, he told worshippers at one mosque: ``Don't be surprised if one day you hear the Muezzin calling for prayer and saying 'Allahu Akbar' (God is great) from the top of the White House. Sept. 11 is God's work against oppressors.''
While in Lebanon, he also met officials from the Hezbollah guerrilla group - which Australia and the United States list as a terrorist organization. He also reportedly voiced support for Palestinian suicide bombers.
The Australia government was a leading U.S. ally in the war on terror and has deployed troops both to Afghanistan and Iraq.
Against that backdrop, the Mufti's comments unleashed a barrage of condemnation. Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer denounced the remarks as ``stupid,'' ``appalling'' and ``provocative.'' Prime Minister John Howard also criticized Hilaly.
Officials with Australia's main Islamic organization say they are standing by Hilaly, who returned to Australia on Saturday.
Sitting at his desk at Sydney's largest mosque with the Australian flag draped behind him on Tuesday, Hilaly defended his position.
``I'm allowed to have freedom of speech like everyone else,'' said Hilaly, a 62-year-old Egyptian immigrant who became an Australian citizen more than two decades ago.
He was reluctant to speak at length on the controversy, but said he was against extremism. He chose his words carefully and said he didn't support the attack.
``I'm a man of peace. I hate extremists and violence and I've fought them and their rigid views for 45 years. They've tried to hurt me here as well as other countries,'' he said. ``Whoever supported Sept. 11 is ignorant of religion, because it is an act of terrorism to kill innocent people.''
Hilaly defended his support for Palestinian attacks against Israeli military targets and his meeting with Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah.
``I congratulated Hezbollah for succeeding militarily in causing Israel to withdraw from the south of Lebanon and politically, for its dialogue that resulted in the exchange of prisoners, allowing the Israeli soldiers to return to their families,'' he said.
He was referring to a January prisoner swap between Israel and the militant group.
Despite his attempts to distance himself from the controversy, calls for Hilaly's resignation continued unabated Tuesday.
``He is trying to distance himself and say he was misquoted,'' federal lawmaker Gary Hardgrave said in The Australian newspaper. ``But this is the approach of a recidivist.''
03/09/04 11:39 EST
WASHINGTON (AP) - Sen. Joseph Biden told Libyan parliamentarians during a visit to the North African nation that the Arab world should reject authoritarian rule and instead adopt democracy.
He called on Arab countries to take on the ``incredibly difficult challenge'' of ``empowering women, spreading knowledge and expanding freedom.''
Biden, a Delaware Democrat who is the ranking minority member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, delivered the speech Wednesday to the Libyan National Congress. A transcript of the speech was made available Friday by his Washington office.
Biden met earlier Wednesday with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi who has been Libya's undisputed leader for more than 30 years. He then spoke to the Congress about what he saw as the need to prevent ``the concentration of power into the hands of the few ... or the one.''
``Nothing about democracy is incompatible with Islam,'' Biden said, noting that decisions based on community discussions was a Muslim concept centuries ago.
``Please do not misunderstand me. I mean no disrespect. But the nations of the Arab world could be doing so much more to harness the enormous potential of their people,'' he said.
Arab countries should consider the example Spain, Biden said, pointing out that the country was part of a great Arab empire a thousand years ago.
``Why did you thrive then?'' he asked. ``It was not your armies alone. It was your ideas, your civilization, your culture, your openness. Why has this one small territory - then called Al Andalus, now called Spain - outpaced the rest of the Arab world combined today?''
``Don't take the answer from me,'' Biden said, citing a United Nations report on Arab human development, which recommended the granting of women's rights and an expansion of knowledge sharing and freedom as keys to a more prosperous future.
Biden's visit to Libya and the invitation for him to address the Congress was another example of the rapid development of U.S. relations with its one-time rival.
``By accepting responsibility for the past ... agreeing to abandon its weapons of mass destruction program ... and joining the war on terrorism ... your government is beginning to end Libya's political and economic isolation,'' he said.
03/05/04 20:56 EST
QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) - Armed men set off an explosion and opened fire on Shiite Muslim worshippers during a religious procession in southwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, killing at least 41 people and wounding more than 150 others, authorities said.
The attackers struck in Quetta on the Ashoura holiday - the holiest day in the Shiite calendar - just hours after a series of coordinated blasts in Iraq hit major Shiite Muslim shrines in Karbala and Baghdad, killing at least 143 people. There was no indication the attacks were connected.
The attacks in Quetta ignited rioting in the city. A Sunni Muslim mosque, a television network office and several shops were set afire, and an exchange of gunfire took place near the scene of the initial attack, police said.
Mohammed Wasim, a doctor at the Central Government Hospital in Quetta, said the facility had received 19 bodies. The Combined Military Hospital reported 22 bodies were brought in since the attack early Tuesday afternoon.
A senior intelligence official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that authorities had separated the remains of one of the suspected attackers, and there was evidence he may have blown himself up.
Qamar Zaman, an assistant police inspector in Quetta, said more than 150 people had been injured, some of them critically.
Government officials said the carnage was an effort by extremist groups to destabilize the country. President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has been a staunch ally of the U.S. war on terrorism, earning the ire of Islamic fundamentalists. He narrowly escaped two assassination attempts in December.
``Obviously, the purpose of this attack was to create unrest,'' Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told the AP. ``This is a very sad incident and we condemn it.''
Mayor Abdul Rahim Kakar told AP he had imposed an immediate curfew in the city of 1.2 million. He said troops and paramilitary forces had been deployed and were maintaining law and order.
``I was present near the procession when we first heard an explosion and then some people fired shots,'' he said. ``We still do not know what kind of explosion it was.''
No arrests have been made.
Meanwhile, two people - one Shiite and one Sunni - were killed and 40 other people wounded in a clash between Shiite and Sunni Muslims in Phalia, a town in Punjab province about 100 miles east of Islamabad, said local police official Nisar Ali Shah.
The shootout happened during a Shiite procession, and people from the two sides then set several houses on fire, Shah said.
In Quetta, gunshots continued to ring out in the city nearly an hour after the killings, said Khyzar Hayyat, another police official.
``The situation is very bad,'' he said.
Riaz Khan, Quetta's police chief, said a Sunni mosque was partially destroyed by fire. There also was an exchange of gunfire between Shiite Muslims and unidentified rivals, he said.
Ijaz Khan, a reporter for the private GEO television network, said six unidentified people entered the GEO office there and set it afire. The office was empty and no one was injured.
Last week, the network televised a talk show that allegedly aired offensive comments against Shiites.
Quetta was the site of one of the deadliest acts of sectarian violence in years in Pakistan. Attackers armed with machine-guns and grenades stormed a Shiite Muslim mosque there in July, killing 50 worshippers inside.
Police said a leading suspect in the July attack is the brother-in-law of al-Qaida terrorist Ramzi Yousef, convicted in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
Shiites are a substantial minority in Quetta. Sectarian violence runs strong in Quetta's Baluchistan province, where radical Islamic groups share power with more moderate Sunni parties.
Allama Hassan Turabi, a senior Pakistani Shiite leader, demanded that Musharraf - who has repeatedly vowed to defeat extremism in the Islamic country - sack government officials, including the interior minister, for failing to prevent Tuesday's attack.
``This is not the first attack against us. Our people are not safe at homes. They are not safe in mosques,'' he said by telephone from Karachi.
Security had been stepped up nationwide in anticipation of Muharram, a month of mourning when Shiite Muslims recall the seventh-century death of Hussein, grandson of Islam's prophet, Muhammad.
Shiites mark the occasion with religious processions, wearing black clothes as a sign of mourning and whipping themselves in a sign of penitence over Hussein's death.
Most of Pakistan's Sunni and Shiite Muslims live peacefully together, but small radical groups on both sides are responsible for frequent attacks. About 97 percent of Pakistan's population is Muslim, and Sunnis outnumber Shiites by a ratio of about 4-to-1.
03/02/04 11:09 EST
KARBALA, Iraq (AP) - Simultaneous explosions ripped through crowds of worshippers Tuesday at Shiite Muslim shrines in Baghdad and the city of Karbala, killing at least 143 people on the holiest day of the Shiite calendar, a U.S. official said. It was the bloodiest day since the end of major fighting.
The attacks, a combination of suicide bombers and planted explosives, came during the Shiite festival of Ashoura and coincided with a shooting attack on Shiite worshippers in Quetta, Pakistan that killed at least 29 people and wounded more than 150.
Tuesday was the climactic day of the 10-day Ashoura festival, which marks the killing of Shiite saint Imam Hussein in a 7th century battle. It is the most important period in the Shiite religious calendar and draws hundreds of thousands of pilgrims in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and other Shiite communities.
Three suicide bombers set off their explosives in and around Baghdad's Kazimiya shrine, killing 58 and wounding 200, U.S. Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt told reporters. In Karbala, at least one suicide attacker blew himself up and pre-set explosives detonated, killing 85 and wounding more than 100, he said.
A fourth suicide bomber whose explosives did not detonate was captured at Kazimiya, and four people were arrested in connection with the attack in Karbala, Kimmitt told reporters in Baghdad. Another bomb was found and defused Monday night in Najaf, the holiest Shiite city, police said.
Iraqi police also arrested four would-be suicide bombers in the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Tuesday. Two men - a Syrian and an Iraqi - were arrested after a car bomb was found outside the Seyed Ali al-Musawi Mosque. Later in the day, police arrested two women who were wearing explosives-laden belts as they marched in a procession to mark Ashoura.
The bombings produced a wave of Shiite outrage - much of it directed at U.S. troops in the Iraqi capital. U.S. soldiers who arrived at Kazimiya were attacked by angry crowds throwing stones and garbage, injuring two Americans.
``This is the work of Jews and American occupation forces,'' blared a loudspeaker outside the Kazimiya shrine. Inside, cleric Hassan Toaima told an angry crowd, ``We demand to know who did this so that we can avenge our martyrs.''
U.S. intelligence officials have long been concerned about the possibility of militant attacks during Ashoura. Last month, U.S. officials released what they said was a letter by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi outlining a strategy of spectacular attacks on Shiites, aimed at sparking a Sunni-Shiite civil war.
Iraq's Governing Council blamed the attacks on ``terrorists'' seeking to enflame sectarian divisions in the country.
In a show of unity, Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish council representatives appeared before journalists, calling on Iraqis to maintain calm ``in order to cheat our enemies of the chance to inflict evil on the nation.''
The council declared three days of mourning and was considering delaying the signing of an interim constitution, which had been planned for Thursday, U.S. coalition spokesman Dan Senor said.
Also Tuesday, insurgents threw a grenade into a U.S. Army Humvee as it drove down a Baghdad road, killing one 1st Armored Division soldier and wounding another. The death brings to 548 the number of U.S. service members who have died since the United States launched the Iraq war in March. Most have died since President Bush declared an end to active combat on May 1.
In Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, five large blasts went off shortly after 10 a.m. near the golden-domed shrine of Imam Hussein and another shrine. The explosions hurled bodies in all directions and sent crowds of pilgrims fleeing in panic.
Dead and wounded were loaded onto wooden carts normally used to ferry elderly pilgrims around holy sites. Bodies ripped apart by the force of the blasts lay on the streets.
At about the same time, three explosions went off inside and outside Baghdad's Kazimiya shrine, which contains the tombs of two other saints. Panicked men and women dressed in black fled, screaming and weeping, as ambulances raced to the scene.
Crowds of enraged survivors swarmed nearby hospitals, some blaming Americans for stirring up religious tensions by launching the war, others blaming al-Qaida or Sunni extremists.
Stone-throwing Iraqis attacked U.S. Army medics trying to help wounded at Kazimiya, driving the U.S. troops back into their high-walled compound then trying to storm the gates. Soldiers threw smoke grenades and fired shotguns into the air to drive away the mob.
Before Ashoura, U.S.-led coalition officials said they were increasing security in Shiite areas. Polish troops patrol the Karbala region.
Kimmitt said that while U.S. troops usually set up an ``outer cordon'' around such high-security events, they stay far away from holy sites like shrines as mosques out of respect for the faithful.
However, Sheik Hamed Khafaf, a spokesman for Iraq's leading Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini, accused American soldiers of not doing enough to improve security.
The Kazimiya blasts went off inside the shrine's ornately tiled walls and outside in a square packed with street vendors catering to pilgrims. The courtyard inside was strewn with torn limbs and picnic baskets. The streets outside were littered by thousands of shoes and sandals belonging to worshippers who had been praying inside.
Hundreds of armed Shiite militiamen swarmed around the shrine, and a U.S. helicopter hovered overhead. Black mourning banners traditionally hung during Ashoura were in tatters. Posters of prominent Shiite clerics were stained with blood.
In the southern city Najaf, near Karbala, police on Monday night found and defused a bomb hidden near the shrine of Imam Ali, the most important Shiite saint, Iraqi Police Capt. Imad Hussein said.
The Najaf shrine was attacked on Aug. 29 by a massive car bomb that killed more than 85 people, including Shiite leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim.
In the letter released by the U.S. military last month, al-Zarqawi, an extremist believed linked to al-Qaida, wrote that stepped-up attacks were needed to disrupt the planned handover of power to the Iraqis on June 30.
Mouwafak al-Rubaie, a Shiite member of the Iraqi Governing Council, told CNN that Tuesday's attacks bore al-Zarqawi's fingerprints.
``This is a message from Zarqawi to the Iraqi people and we received the message. It is written in blood now,'' al-Rubaie said after visiting the Baghdad shrine.
Associated Press reporters Lourdes Navarro in Karbala and Sameer N. Yacoub and Sabah Jerges in Baghdad contributed to this report.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - Audiotapes purported to be from Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant aired on Arabic TV stations Tuesday, one taunting President Bush and threatening more attacks on the United States, the second criticizing France's decision to ban Islamic headscarves in schools.
Portions of separate audiotapes attributed to Ayman al-Zawahri were broadcast a few hours apart on Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera, competing pan-Arab satellite channels based in the Persian Gulf. Officials at both stations said they had aired only excerpts judged newsworthy. The two stations said they had received different tapes.
In Al-Jazeera's tape, the voice believed to be that of al-Zawahri challenged Bush's claim to have liberated Iraq and indicated al-Qaida is still running operations from Afghanistan.
``We remind Bush that situation is not stable in Afghanistan, or else how do we wage, with God's support and might, our attacks on your troops and agents. ... How do we send our messages that challenge you and reveal your lies,'' the tape said.
``We remind Bush that he didn't destroy two-thirds of Al-Qaida. On the contrary, thanks be to God, al-Qaida is still in the holy war battleground raising the banner of Islam in the face of the Zionist-Crusader campaign against the Islamic community,'' it added.
In his State of the Union address in January, Bush said ``nearly two-thirds'' of al-Qaida's known leaders had been captured or killed.
``Bush, fortify your targets, tighten your defense, intensify your security measures,'' the voice warned, ``because the fighting Islamic community - which sent you New York and Washington battalions - has decided to send you one battalion after the other, carrying death and seeking heaven.''
The audiotape aired by Dubai-based al-Arabiya also criticized France's decision to ban religious symbols in public buildings, including headscarves worn by Muslim women. The law is expected to go before the French Senate early next month, where little opposition exists.
``The decision of the French president to issue a law to prevent Muslim girls from covering their heads in schools is another example of the Crusader's envy, which Westerners have against Muslims,'' the voice said in Al-Arabiya's tape. ``This envy boils in their hearts and overflows in their chests and they pass it on to the generations.''
Both stations identified the voice on their tapes as that of al-Zawahri, and both said they had received the material on Tuesday. Officials at both stations spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Al-Arabiya official said his station's analysts believed the voice to be al-Zawahri's and that the station believed it was authentic primarily because of the source from which it received the tape, which he would not disclose. The Al-Jazeera official said only that his station had received the material over telephone lines and that al-Zawahri's voice was familiar to his staff.
The voice on both tapes sounded identical. The tone and rhetoric were familiar from previous videotapes and audiotapes also believed to be from al-Zawahri, though it was not possible to independently confirm the speaker's identity.
Al-Zawahri, an Egyptian-born physician, is thought to be in hiding along with bin Laden in the mountains somewhere along the rugged border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The tapes come at a time when Pakistani forces backed by helicopters were searching villages in a remote border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan where bin Laden and Taliban suspects are believed to be hiding. The fugitives were believed to have taken refuge among tribes.
The voice on Al-Arabiya's tape singled out Egypt's foremost religious leader, Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, the grand sheik of Al-Azhar, calling his support of the French decision ``a scandal.''
Tantawi issued an edict early this year asking Muslim women living in France to comply with French laws on religious symbols. His first remarks defending the ban were made Dec. 30, so the tape would have been made sometime after that.
The French decision has sparked protests across the Islamic world.
A French Foreign Ministry official, responding to the tape, reiterated Tuesday his country's position that the law is meant to protect the country's secular foundations and is not directed at Muslims or any particular religion.
Al-Qaida is blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States. Tapes by the group have focused on the wars with the Americans and their allies in Afghanistan and Iraq. France has strongly opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
The last time a videotape of al-Zawahri was released on Arab television was in September. It showed the bearded, turbaned cleric climbing down a craggy mountainside with bin Laden.
Associated Press Writer Nadia Abou El-Magd in Cairo contributed to this report.
02/24/04 08:21 EST
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - Saudi Arabia's foreign minister warned the United States on Thursday against pressing too hard for reforms in the kingdom, saying they were being enacted with ``deliberate speed'' to ensure their success.
Prince Saud al-Faisal also said he was skeptical about American efforts to promote democracy in the Arab world, pointing to the economic plight of Russians after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
``We would like to learn from you but we would like you not to impose things on us,'' the prince said in a speech at the European Policy Centre, during which he singled out the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, Rockwell Schnabel, in the audience several times.
``Even in your schools you prevent the use of the cane to teach students.''
Prince Saud said reforms were being enacted with ``deliberate speed,'' which he defined as ``speed that doesn't push you to irresponsible actions before people are ready to absorb them, nor delay to the extent that you kill'' the reforms.
``Gradual change may seem slow or less impressive to some,'' he said. ``But if reforms are to endure and be effective, they have to respond to the will of the people and maintain the unity of the nation.''
The prince also said he was hoping for more information from the Bush administration about recent reports it is preparing a ``Greater Middle East Initiative'' modeled on the 1975 ``Helsinki pact,'' which the West used to press for greater freedoms and human rights behind the Iron Curtain.
``The results on the Soviet Union we all know,'' Prince Saud said. ``It was broken up, it suffered economic deprivations, its people the unhappiest people for at least two decades.
``So if this is presented as a lure to the Arab countries, we really don't see much lure in the Helsinki accords.''
President Bush has proposed spending an additional $40 million on pro-democracy programs in the Middle East.
Prince Saud mentioned homegrown efforts already underway in Saudi Arabia toward modernization and limited reform, citing statistics showing there are more females than boys in Saudi high schools and the kingdom has nearly 1 million Internet connections.
The kingdom was severely criticized after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States because 15 of the 19 hijackers involved were Saudis. Critics charged that the country's conservative interpretation of Islam helped produce militants.
The government subsequently gave directives to mosque preachers, amended religious textbooks and promised local elections - a first for a country with no parliament.
Also Thursday, the U.S. Treasury Department moved to block the assets of the American branch of a large Saudi charity accused of diverting money to help bankroll al-Qaida's terrorist activities.
The affected Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation branch is listed as having mailing addresses in Ashland, Ore., and Springfield, Mo., according to the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control.
02/19/04 11:29 EST
KARBALA, Iraq (AP) - The top U.S. administrator in Iraq suggested Monday he would block any interim constitution that would make Islam the chief source of law, as some members of the Iraqi Governing Council have sought.
L. Paul Bremer said the current draft of the constitution would make Islam the state religion of Iraq and ``a source of inspiration for the law'' - as opposed to the main source.
Many Iraqi women have expressed fears that the rights they hold under Iraq's longtime secular system would be rolled back in the interim constitution being written by U.S.-picked Iraqi leaders and their advisers, many of them Americans. U.S. lawmakers have urged the White House to prevent Islamic restrictions on Iraqi women.
Asked what would happen if Iraqi leaders wrote into the constitution that Islamic sharia law is the principal basis of the law, Bremer suggested he would wield his veto. ``Our position is clear. It can't be law until I sign it,'' he said.
Bremer must sign into law all measures passed by the 25-member council, including the interim constitution. Iraq's powerful Shiite clergy, however, has demanded the document be approved by an elected legislature. Under U.S. plans, a permanent constitution would not be drawn up and voted on until 2005.
Bremer used the inauguration ceremony at a women's center in the southern city of Karbala to argue for more than ``token'' women's representation in the transitional government due to take power June 30.
``I think it is very important that women be represented in all the political bodies,'' Bremer said.
``Women are the majority in this country, in this area probably a substantial majority,'' he said, referring to the Saddam Hussein's 1991 purges of Shiite Muslim men. Those killings left the holy city of Karbala and other Shiite cities dotted with mass graves and brimming with thousands of widows.
Bremer and an entourage of reporters flew from Baghdad into this Shiite holy city in a pair of U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopters. He toured a women's center renovated by U.S. and seized Iraqi funds, pausing to chat with women and girls who were sewing curtains and surfing the Internet.
In a speech to about 100 women - most dressed in flowing black abayas and some with tattooed chins - Bremer cited a 2003 United Nations report that found that productivity in Arab countries was being strangled because women had been kept out of the work force. Bremer suggested that women's participation did not run counter to Muslim values.
``Women who can read and write and understand mathematics are not prevented from being good mothers. Quite the opposite,'' Bremer told the gathering. ``No son is better off because his mother and sisters cannot read.''
Nawal Jabar, 44, whose husband was killed in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, said she joined the women's center to learn a trade.
``Either my mother or my brother has supported me from time to time since my husband died,'' Jabar said. ``It's a very bad situation. But I am hoping I can get a job here so that I can support my kids.''
Enshrining women's rights in a constitution could be difficult. U.S. observers have predicted liberal reforms introduced in the transitional law could well be rolled back in a future constitution. Bremer acknowledged that U.S. influence on an Iraqi constitution would fade after the June 30 handover.
``There will be a sovereign government here in June. The Iraqis then will then have responsibility for their own country,'' Bremer said. ``There's a real hunger for democracy in this country. It may not look like American democracy, but there's a real hunger for it and we're encouraging that.''
There are three women on the Governing Council.
Mohsen Abdel-Hamid, the current council president and a member of a committee drafting the interim constitution, has proposed making Islamic sharia law the ``principal basis'' of legislation.
The phrasing could have broad effects on secular Iraq. In particular, it would likely make moot much of Iraq's 1959 Law of Personal Status, which grants uniform rights to husband and wife to divorce and inheritance, and governs related issues like child support.
Under most interpretations of Islamic law, women's rights to seek divorce are strictly limited and they only receive half the inheritance of men. Islamic law also allows for polygamy and often permits marriage of girls at a younger age than secular law.
In December, the council passed a decision abolishing the 1959 law and allowing each of the main religious groups to apply its own tradition - including Islamic law. Many Iraqi women expressed alarm at the decision, and Bremer has not signed it into law.
Earlier this month, 45 members of the U.S. House of Representatives signed a letter to President Bush urging him to preserve women's rights.
``It would be a tragedy beyond words if Iraqi women lost the rights they had under Saddam Hussein, especially when the purpose of our mission in Iraq was to make life better for the Iraqi people,'' the letter read.
02/16/04 09:13 EST
EVERETT, Wash. (AP) - Long before his arrest, a National Guardsman suspected of trying to share military information with al-Qaida suggested that his allegiance to the United States was conditional.
It was one of many opinions Spc. Ryan G. Anderson made known through letters written to newspapers.
In a 1998 letter published by The Spokesman-Review newspaper in Spokane, he warned: ``Today I am a young soldier, sworn to protect and defend this country. But if tomorrow I find that this nation is no longer the one based upon the freedom I was taught to love, I'll have little choice but to go where I can live in freedom.''
Anderson, 26, was arrested Thursday and was being held at Fort Lewis. The tank crew member from the Guard's 81st Armor Brigade was taken into custody just days before he was to leave for duty in Iraq.
A Muslim convert, Anderson also complained in a November 2002 letter to the Herald of Everett about bigotry in the United States.
``In my three years as an observant Muslim, I've encountered nothing but kindness, patience, courtesy and understanding from them,'' he wrote. ``On the other hand, I have experienced bigotry, hatred and mindless rage from so-called `educated thinkers' here in the U.S.''
And in a 2001 letter to the Spokane newspaper, Anderson said he feared war in Afghanistan, because ``elements in our own society who would rob us of our individual liberties and freedoms can use the auspices of national security to steal them.''
Speaking on condition of anonymity, defense officials said Anderson signed on to extremist Internet chat rooms and tried to get in touch with al-Qaida operatives. It is unclear how the U.S. government got wind of his alleged offer to supply military information to the terrorists. It does not appear he transmitted any information to al-Qaida, authorities said.
Anderson grew up in this city 30 miles north of Seattle, graduating from Cascade High School in 1995. He then attended Washington State University, where he earned a degree in history in 2002. He began studying Islam in 1999, according to his most recent letter to the Herald in 2002.
The arrest is ``shocking, but it's not too shocking, knowing how Ryan is,'' said Nathan Knopp, a high school friend.
``He was always a paramilitary type of guy, really into military weaponry,'' Knopp told The Herald on Thursday. ``Ryan's kind of a weird type of guy who made up a lot of stories that seemed really far-fetched.''
Knopp, who is in the Navy, declined to talk about Anderson to The Associated Press Friday, saying the Navy asked him not to discuss the case.
But he showed an AP reporter and photographer a copy of his 1995 yearbook, where he said Anderson had drawn an elaborate sketch of a machine gun, and a Confederate flag, and wrote, ``Let's overthrow the government!'' He signed it R. ``Za Savierski'' Anderson.
No one answered a knock at Anderson's apartment door in Lynnwood, a Seattle suburb, on Friday. A newspaper with its front-page report on his arrest lay unopened on the doorstep.
It was not immediately clear if he had a lawyer.
His father, Bruce Anderson, issued a statement saying the family was stunned by the arrest but is confident the code of military justice will afford his son a fair trial.
Anderson is the second Muslim soldier with Fort Lewis connections to be accused of wrongdoing related to the war on terror. Capt. James Yee, 35, a former Fort Lewis chaplain, is accused of mishandling classified information from the U.S. prison for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Yee ministered to Muslim prisoners there.
Associated Press writer John J. Lumpkin contributed to this report from Washington, D.C.
02/14/04 08:07 EST
SEATTLE (AP) - A Seattle-raised Muslim convert was sentenced Friday to two years in prison for aiding the Taliban.
James Ujaama, 38, pleaded guilty last year, admitting he delivered computer equipment and a recruit to Taliban officials in Afghanistan.
With time already served behind bars, he could be free this summer.
``In the future, I will act more responsibly and make the right choices,'' the American-born Ujaama told U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein.
Ujaama was arrested in 2002 following an investigation into a Seattle mosque and was indicted on charges he conspired to set up a terrorist training camp in Bly, Ore. Those charges were later dropped.
He instead pleaded guilty to the aiding-terrorism charges and was offered a two-year sentence in exchange for his cooperation in terrorism investigations.
Specifically, authorities were looking for information about London cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri, a suspected terrorist. Ujaama befriended him in London in the 1990s and ran al-Masri's Web site, which advocated holy war against the United States. Ujaama also admitted that at al-Masri's bidding, he escorted a man to a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan.
Al-Masri is wanted in Yemen for his alleged role in the 1998 kidnappings of 16 Western tourists, four of whom died in a shootout.
The judge said she was initially surprised by the light term called for in Ujaama's plea agreement. But she said she also had never seen a case where a defendant had agreed to provide such extensive cooperation.
Ujaama was born James Earnest Thompson in Denver. He converted to Islam in the early 1990s and became involved in the Dar-us-Salaam mosque in Seattle, whose members preached an extreme version of Islam.
He tried to travel to Afghanistan shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but was unable to cross the border from Pakistan.
02/13/04 15:18 EST
FORT LEWIS, Wash. (AP) - A National Guardsman was arrested Thursday and charged by the Army with trying to provide information to the al-Qaida terrorist network, a federal law enforcement official said.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press that Spc. Ryan G. Anderson was charged with ``aiding the enemy by wrongfully attempting to communicate and give intelligence to the al-Qaida terrorist network.''
It was not immediately known what information Anderson allegedly provided.
Anderson was being held at Fort Lewis, an Army base near Tacoma.
A message left with the Lt. Col. Stephen Barger at Fort Lewis was not immediately returned Thursday. Base spokesman Joe Hitt said he was not aware of the report, and messages left with Army officials at the Pentagon were not immediately returned.
Anderson, 26, is a tank crew member from the National Guard's 81st Armor Brigade, a 4,000-member unit set to depart for Iraq for a one-year deployment.
Washington State University spokeswoman Charleen Taylor said Anderson was a 2002 graduate with a degree in military history with an emphasis on the Middle East.
Anderson converted to Islam five years ago, the Everett Herald reported last week. He graduated from Everett's Cascade High School in 1995.
The brigade has been training at Fort Lewis since November. Eighty percent of the soldiers - 3,200 - are from Washington state, and 1,000 are from guard units in California and Minnesota.
It includes two tank battalions, a mechanized infantry battalion, engineers, support troops, artillery and an intelligence company.
The brigade's Iraqi mission is the biggest deployment for the Washington Army National Guard since World War II.
02/12/04 18:51 EST
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Even before its first broadcast, a satellite television station financed by the U.S. government and directed at Arab viewers is drawing fire in the Middle East as an American attempt to destroy Islamic values and brainwash the young.
Al-Hurra, or The Free One, is to start broadcasting Saturday. President Bush has promised the 24-hour news and entertainment station will ``cut through the hateful propaganda that fills the airwaves in the Muslim world.''
It is to debut with a one-on-one interview with Bush. White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan has said the interview allows Bush to tell of ``his commitment to spreading freedom and democracy in the Middle East.''
Washington's hope is that a fashionably produced Arab-language station will help stem anti-Americanism fueled by the war on terrorism, the occupation of Iraq and U.S. support for Israel.
It promises a balanced approach - a possibility critics dismiss - but the station has a long way to go to capture some Arab hearts and minds.
``The main goals of launching such a channel are to create drastic changes in our principles and doctrines,'' said Jamil Abu-Bakr, a spokesman for Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood movement. ``But the nature of Arab and Muslim societies and their rejection and hatred of American policies ... will ultimately limit the impact.''
Arab journalists also have criticized al-Hurra as unwanted or even dangerous propaganda.
Al-Osboa, a Cairo-based newspaper, criticized the Arab Broadcasting Union and Egypt's Ministry of Information for providing al-Hurra with satellite channels to beam ``its poison'' throughout the Mideast.
The U.S. government has tried reaching out directly to Arabs in other ways, most recently through the Arabic-language Radio Sawa and a slick Arabic-English magazine, ``hi,'' about American culture and life.
Radio Sawa - Sawa means Together in Arabic - began broadcasting shortly before Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was ousted in April. ``hi'' debuted in July in 14 Arab countries. Both also are accessible on the Internet.
Neither are smash hits, though many young Arabs say they enjoy Radio Sawa's Arabic and Western pop music even if they look elsewhere for news.
Rami G. Khouri, executive editor of Lebanon's The Daily Star, expects Al-Hurra to ``exacerbate the gap between Americans and Arabs, rather than close it.''
``Al-Hurra, like the U.S. government's Radio Sawa and 'hi' magazine before it, will be an entertaining, expensive, and irrelevant hoax. Where do they get this stuff from? Why do they keep insulting us like this?'' he wrote.
Philip Frayne, a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Cairo, defended the station.
``Al-Hurra will not be used simply as a vehicle for defending American policies, but rather will present a balanced perspective,'' Frayne said.
Al-Hurra is America's answer to the popular all-news Arab satellite networks it accuses of fanning anti-American sentiments, such as Al Jazeera. It will broadcast from Washington but have facilities in several capitals, including Baghdad, and a largely Arab staff.
Over the past decade, the Arab world has witnessed an explosion of satellite TV stations, both state-sponsored and private, resulting in a previously unheard of range of broadcast opinions. Al-Jazeera in particular has been lambasted by nearly every Arab regime for airing views of government opponents.
``These stations offer Arabic-language viewers a large choice of programs and viewpoints to watch,'' Frayne said. ``However, an American point of view is often missing, and accurate information about American society and policies is frequently absent from the airwaves.''
Al-Hurra also has some Arab defenders.
``Everyone is entitled to express his or her opinion. This is an open sky and nobody should be afraid of that,'' said Samiha Dahroug, head of Egypt's Nile News Channel.
But Dahroug added that Washington's image won't improve among Arabs until it changes its policies toward them.
``America is judged by how it conducts itself in the world,'' she said. ``The facts speak for themselves.''
02/12/04 11:34 EST
JERUSALEM (AP) -- A hawkish Israeli Cabinet minister has asked Christian missionaries to try to convert Islamic militants, an aide to the minister confirmed Sunday.
Tourism Minister Benny Elon made the suggestion during a meeting last Wednesday with visiting Christian leaders from Europe, said the spokesman, Sagiv Rotenberg.
Elon told the Christians that Israel would not accept any missionary attempts to convert Jews, but suggested that they turn their attention to Muslim militants in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.
"Go to mosques and bring the light to the Muslims. Remind all the Muslim killers that thou shall not kill. Make them good Christians and good people," Elon was quoted as saying in the Yediot Ahronot daily.
Rotenberg confirmed the minister's comments, but said that Elon was referring only to Muslims who instruct their faithful to kill.
Islamic militant groups based in the West Bank and Gaza have carried out dozens of suicide bombings during more than three years of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
PARIS (AP) - French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin urged lawmakers Tuesday to ban Islamic head scarves and other conspicuous religious apparel in public schools, saying France must set clear limits in the face of growing militancy.
The measure also bans Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses from public schools, but French authorities have made clear it is aimed at Muslim head coverings. There is growing concern that Muslims are not integrating into French society - a concern magnified by fears of a rise in Muslim fundamentalism.
``Silence on this subject would be an absence,'' Raffarin said as he opened three days of parliamentary debate on the bill, which some Muslims say is discriminatory.
``It is time for the republic to set clear, practical and operational limits.''
Raffarin made clear the proposed ban is a tool to help bring an increasingly militant Muslim population into the mainstream, and help tamp down a rise in Muslim fundamentalism.
``Certain religious signs ... are multiplying in our schools,'' he said, adding that such signs ``take on a political sense and cannot be considered a religious sign.
``I say with force, religion must not be a political project.''
However, he also addressed concerns the bill will stigmatize Muslims, saying it is not aimed ``at a population or a religion.''
Some Muslims call the bill discriminatory. It has prompted demonstrations by Muslims in France and around the world, with another planned in France for Saturday.
Nearly a quarter of the National Assembly's lawmakers - or about 140 of 577 - signed up to comment on the bill. It is expected to go to a vote Feb. 10 and, if passed, take effect starting with the new school year in September.
The ban would not apply to students in private schools or to French schools in other countries.
Sanctions for refusing to remove conspicuous religious signs would range from a warning to temporary suspension from school to expulsion.
The ban is intended to be a vehicle for guaranteeing respect for France's secular foundations, which ensure a strict separation of church and state in the public domain.
Muslims who follow a strict interpretation of Islam consider the head scarf - which covers hair, ears and neck - obligatory for women.
France has the largest Muslim population in Western Europe - an estimated 5 million - and Islam is the second-most practiced religion in this mainly Roman Catholic country.
``To do nothing would be irresponsible,'' President Jacques Chirac told his Cabinet last week. ``It would be a fault.''
France has grappled for years with how to deal with young girls who defy school rules and refuse to take the head scarves off.
A presidential commission that studied the state of secularism for six months concluded that French values were under attack and a ban on head scarves was needed. Chirac ordered the government to proceed.
France has been challenged by girls who refuse to remove head scarves in class since 1989, when two Muslim girls in Creil, outside Paris, defied school rules banning such head coverings.
Most, but not all, public schools already have guidelines forbidding head coverings. However, schools have been left to decide themselves whether to take action against those flouting the rules. Scores of students since have been expelled.
Passage of the bill appears all but assured. Chirac's party holds 364 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, and a bill needs only 288 votes to pass.
02/03/04 14:56 EST
MINA, Saudi Arabia (AP) - Nearly 250 Muslim worshipers died in a hajj stampede Sunday during the annual stoning of Satan ritual in one of the deadliest tragedies at the notoriously perilous ceremony.
The stampede, during a peak event of the annual Muslim pilgrimage, or hajj, lasted about a half-hour, Saudi officials said. There were 244 dead and hundreds of other worshippers injured, some critically, Hajj Minister Iyad Madani said.
``All precautions were taken to prevent such an incident, but this is God's will. Caution isn't stronger than fate,'' Madani said.
Most of the victims were pilgrims from inside the Saudi kingdom and many were not authorized to participate, he said.
In an effort to control the crowd of about 2 million, Saudi authorities sets quotas for pilgrims from each country and required its citizens to register.
The devil-stoning is the most animated ritual of the annual pilgrimage and often the most dangerous. Many pilgrims frantically throw rocks, shout insults or hurl their shoes at the pillars - acts that are supposed to demonstrate their deep disdain for the devil. But clerics frown upon such action, saying it's un-Islamic.
Last year, 14 pilgrims were trampled to death during the ritual and 35 died in a 2001 stampede. In 1998, 180 pilgrims died.
The annual hajj, which began Thursday, climaxed Saturday as some 2 million Muslim pilgrims listened to Saudi Arabia's top cleric denounce terrorists, calling them an affront to Islam. However, he defended the kingdom's strict interpretation of the faith.
Sheik Abdul Aziz al-Sheik said in his sermon there were those who claim to be holy warriors, but were shedding Muslim blood and destabilizing the nation.
``Is it holy war to shed Muslim blood? Is it holy war to shed the blood of non-Muslims given sanctuary in Muslim lands? Is it holy war to destroy the possession of Muslims,'' he said, adding that their actions gave enemies an excuse to criticize Muslim nations.
A large number of the victims of suicide attacks in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iraq and elsewhere have been Muslims.
Al-Sheik, who is widely respected in the Arab world as the foremost cleric in the country considered the birthplace of Islam, spoke at Namira Mosque in a televised sermon watched by millions of Muslims in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.
The mosque is close to Mount Arafat, where the Prophet Muhammad delivered his last sermon in 632.
In speaking about terrorists who killed fellow Muslims, al-Sheik was clearly referring to the prophet's final sermon, which contained the line: ``Know that every Muslim is a Muslim's brother, and the Muslims are brethren. Fighting between them should be avoided.''
Al-Sheik also criticized the international community, accusing it of attacking Wahhabism, the strict interpretation of Islam that is applied in Saudi Arabia: ``This country is based on this religion and will remain steadfast on it.''
After the sleepless night of prayer following the sermon, pilgrims gathered pebbles to throw at the pillars. Each threw seven times, chanting ``bismillah'' (``In the name of God'') and ``Allahu Akbar'' ("God is Great'').
Calling America ``the greatest Satan,'' Egyptian pilgrim Youssef Omar threw pebbles at one pillar where someone scrawled ``USA.''
From there, some pilgrims took off to the nearby holy city Mecca to perform the main ``Tawaf,'' or the circling of the holy stone known as the Kaaba.
Security has been high during the hajj, with thousands of police guarding the roads and temporary camp city of Mina. Helicopters monitored the crowd from the air.
The stoning ritual also marked the first day of Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of the Sacrifice, celebrated at the hajj and around the Muslim world with the slaughtering of a camel, cow or sheep. Meat is eaten and distributed to the poor.
The hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca required of all able-bodied Muslims at least once in a lifetime, is taking place after a series of suicide bombings and police shootouts with suspected terrorists in Saudi Arabia.
The bombings killed 51 people last year, including many Saudis, other Arabs and eight Americans. Muslims also have died in terror attacks in Turkey, Iraq, Morocco and elsewhere.
02/01/04 08:28 EST
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - Saudi Arabia's top Muslim cleric has denounced the atmosphere of a recent international economic summit in the Red Sea port of Jiddah, saying the mingling of male and female business leaders was ``heretical and forbidden.''
Saudi Arabia forbids the interaction of men and women in public. Women must be covered head to toe, except for their faces and hands, when outside their homes.
A Saudi woman needs a male guardian - her father, brother, son or husband - to go to a government office or a restaurant. Saudi women are not allowed to drive, and they can be jailed for being in a vehicle with a man other than a guardian or a professional chauffeur.
``What we saw at that meeting of the mixing of men and women, and the women's appearance without their hijab (head scarf), which is ordered by God, is forbidden,'' Grand Mufti Sheik Abdul-Aziz bin Abdullah al-Sheik said in a statement released Tuesday.
He said he was troubled by photographs from the meeting published in newspapers Monday, saying the women's dress violated Islamic law. He also said he was worried about the moral state of Saudi Arabia.
``My pain is increased by such shameful behavior,'' he said. ``God curses the woman that imitates a man, whether in appearance, clothing or in the lifting of her voice. So how can she walk among them, mix with them, uncovered?''
The Jiddah economic summit was attended by economic officials and business leaders from around the Middle East, including Jordan's Queen Rania.
The Saudi government has traditionally refrained from challenging its religious establishment, which follows the conservative Wahhabi Islamic philosophy, for fear the clerics would call into question the state's religious credentials.
Terrorist bombings last year in Riyadh, in which 52 people died, rattled the royal family. The government has since cracked down, arresting hundreds of suspects, while public figures have called more vocally for political and social reform.
The kingdom is the birthplace of Islam and custodian of the faith's two holiest shrines, in Mecca and Medina.
01/22/04 13:06 EST
PARIS (AP) -- As France debates a plan to ban Islamic head scarves in public schools, the education minister said Tuesday that even some bandannas and beards should be barred from the classroom.
During a debate in parliament Tuesday, officials raised the question of Muslim girls who wear bandannas to cover their hair - an alternative to the traditional head scarf that some girls feel is easier to blend in to the crowd. Most Islamic headscarves are silky and larger than cotton print bandannas.
Education Minister Luc Ferry said that bandannas, in some cases, will fall under the ban, which is part of France's push to maintain the tradition of secularism in the classroom.
The bandanna "will be banned, if young girls present it as a religious sign," said Ferry, who was presenting the proposal to lawmakers.
Responding to a question, Ferry also said that beards would be banned, if they are worn for religious reasons, according to a report on France Info radio.
The planned law would ban "conspicuous" religious symbols from schools, from head scarves to Jewish yarmulkes or skull caps to large Christian crosses. One aspect of debate has focused on word choice - whether the phrasing should be changed to "visible" or "ostentatious."
Ferry said he believed a ban on "visible" religious symbols would go to far. As the proposal stands, discreet religious symbols - for example, a small star of David worn around the neck - would be permitted.
The discussion Tuesday at the National Assembly was a preview to issues that will be raised next month, when parliament begins official debate on whether the bill should become law.
Easy passage is expected and the law is to become applicable with the new school year in September.
President Jacques Chirac says the bill's goal is to protect France's secular underpinnings. However, it also is seen as a way to hold back the swell of Islamic fundamentalism in France's Muslim community - the largest in Western Europe.
Last weekend, protesters from Baghdad and Beirut to London and Stockholm, condemned the bill as an attack on religious freedom.
Police said up to 10,000 people marched peacefully in Paris, while several thousand others protested in a half-dozen cities around the country. In London, 2,400 people demonstrated near the French Embassy in the upscale Knightsbridge area. Waving placards, they chanted: "If this is democracy, we say 'No, merci!'"
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration advises Arab and other Muslim governments to educate their children in schools that teach more than Islamic doctrine, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday.
In some of these schools children are being taught to hate, thereby hurting peace efforts in the region and also not helping their own societies, Powell said.
``We have been talking not only to the Saudis but to other Middle Eastern leaders and Muslim leaders around the world, and made it clear to them that Islam is a great religion,'' Powell said in an interview with WPHT Radio in Philadelphia.
``But they also have to be educating their youngsters not just in the tenets of Islam and the Islamic religion, but they have to educate their youngsters for the demands of the 21st century,'' Powell said.
``They have got to give them skills. They have got to teach them to read and write,'' Powell said. ``They have got to teach them science and math and all the other things that are necessary for societies to be successful in the 21st century.''
Drawing a bead on some of the Islamic schools, Powell said ``if they are just going to take their young people and put them in these madrases, these schools that do nothing but indoctrinate them in the worst aspects of a religion, then they are shorting themselves, they are leaving themselves back as well as teaching hatred that will not help us bring peace to the region, and will not help their societies.''
Powell said the Bush administration had made it clear to Saudi Arabia that the 21st century is going to require changes in their society.
``But we do it as friends, and we don't do it to beat them up or lecture them,'' Powell said.
The United States needs Saudi Arabia, but ``there are certain policies they have that we are not happy with,'' he said.
``They have a different culture, a different society than ours - things they do that would not be acceptable to us,'' Powell said, without elaboration.
Belgium is now in the line to ban school pupils and civil servants from wearing hijab. The emotive demonstrations by about 15,000 Muslims across France on Saturday against its planned law to ban the wearing of hijab by girls in state schools has had apparently no effect on authorities in Belgium.
Inspired by France, two Belgian senators have drafted legislation
to ban the veil and other overt religious symbols from state schools.
The Islamic groups are outraged at the move. Belgium has nearly
350,000 Muslims mainly from North Africa and Turkey.
The Belgian Interior Minister Patrick Dewael was denounced for
declaring his support for the ban. He supports ban not only in
state schools but in all state institutions, including hospitals
and government offices.
"The Government should remain neutral…so there should be no visible use of religious symbols or veils for police officers, judges, clerks or teachers in public schools."
The minister was criticised by a few of his colleagues, but the two senators who have drafted the proposal have justified the plan. They said the ban was needed to combat Islamic sexism. "The veil amounts to oppression of the individual in the name of the religion," said senator Anne-Marie Lizin, a socialist.
The Bavarian Government supports her view. It has held that the ban was necessary because the scarf became "a symbol of fundamentalism and extremism". Overall, in Germany hijab is banned in seven out of 16 states.
The protests similar to being held in France are now expected in Belgium. Islamic groups have joined forces to condemn the move and the attempt to copy the French. But supporters of the ban argue that the veil is already banned in two Muslim countries, Tunisia and Turkey.
The movement in Europe for the bannning of hijab could cut across most countries there. In the UK, the possibilty is that the ban would not be considered. There is already a lot of resentment in the Muslim and Jew communities over the move to stop the sale of halal meat on the ground that this type of slaughter is very cruel and causes extreme pain to animals.
KHANEWAL, Pakistan: The body of a Christian pastor was found at the Khanewal Railway Station in Pakistan on Jan. 5. An autopsy revealed that the cause of death was gun shot wounds to the chest, according to the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA).
Family members say Rev. Mukhtar Masih, 50, left home at 3:00 that morning to take a train to Lahore. His dead body was found one hour later and none of his personal belongings taken.
The victim's son, Mr. Musa Mukhtar, reported that his father recently received death threats from local Muslim extremists and, in the past, some of these extremists asked police to ban speakers from his father's church.
On Jan. 6, Christians in Khanewal gathered to protest the pastor's murder, condemn the continued violence against Pakistan's religious minorities, and criticize the failure of law enforcement and judicial agencies to protect them.
During the protest, demonstrators carried Masih's body to the Office of the District Administrator of Kharampura demanding a police investigation. To date, no one has been arrested in connection with the murder.
Masih leaves behind a wife, son, and six daughters. Members of the APMA say they will continue to investigate the incident and forward their findings to local authorities.
At least 45 people have been killed and over 90 injured in terrorist attacks on Pakistani Christians since September 2001. The leaders of Pakistan's non-Muslim minority groups accuse the Government of Islamabad of maintaining conditions for violence by upholding a discriminatory system of "religious apartheid". Pakistan's Christian community is estimated to number 3.8 million people.
Today, CSI president, Rev. Hans Stuckelberger, responded to the death of Rev. Masih by urging Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to help end the cycle of violence against the country's Christians, and other non-Muslim minorities, by ordering increased security measures and by repealing all laws that discriminate on religious grounds.
Pakistan was created in 1947 as the first modern state to be founded on the basis of religion. It became an Islamic state based on discriminatory Shariah law.
Contact:
Stephen Crawford
CSI - USA
805-777-7107 (phone)
805-777-7508 (fax)
csi@csi-usa.org
Today beginning at 11.30am local time the Egyptian army subjected the Patmos Christian Centre to an hour long attack. Five hundred soldiers descended upon the centre, 30km to the east of Cairo, accompanied by two bulldozers. They blocked the entrance to the compound with a large pile of stones and rubble and then they destroyed seven metres of adjoining wall. Those working at the centre rushed out en masse to prevent the army from coming onto their property. Soldiers threw stones and bottles at the protestors. In the mêlée a bus ploughed into a crowd who were surrounding Bishop Botros who heads the centre. The Bishop was not among those injured, but one staff member, Kirilos Daoud, was killed. Seven people are currently in hospital, one in a critical condition. The police have tried to find the bus driver, but the army appear to have taken him away. Also injured was a nun who was beaten by soldiers.
This is the ninth attack on the centre in the past six and a half years. Soldiers from the local army unit are seeking to destroy the wall supposedly in order to conform to a new law passed on 25 January 2003 which requires all buildings to be at least 100 metres from the Cairo-Suez road. The wall stands 50 metres from the road and was built ten years ago in full accordance with the law at the time.
Workers at the centre point out that the local army barracks’ own walls also stand 50 metres from the road and no attempt has been made to demolish these. Similarly many other buildings in the area are much closer to the road, including some 15 mosques which stand only 5 – 10 metres from the road. Likewise no attempts have been made to demolish any of these buildings.
Church leaders say that the Minister of Defence, who has been opposed to the centre since 1997, ordered extreme and conservative Muslim officers from the local army unit to enforce the law on the Patmos Centre. They believe the repeated attacks are a result of anti-Christian prejudice amongst Muslim officers rather than a simple disagreement over building regulations. Other government representatives, including the President’s office and the Ministry of the Interior, have intervened positively in the past to protect the centre from intimidation and attacks by the military.
The Patmos Centre has been serving the local community in Egypt for fifteen years. The centre is providing care and support for mentally and physically handicapped children and orphans. The centre is legally registered with the Egyptian authorities. It receives between 500 – 1000 visitors every day.
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