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2004 News ContinuedOctober 10, 2004Saudi Charity Remains Open Despite OrderRIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - A charity that Washington accuses of helping finance terrorist activities was still open Thursday - the deadline that the government ordered for its operations to be dissolved - and an official said employees do not know when their last day of work will be. The official, who would not give his name, said the Riyadh-based al-Haramain Foundation has been notified of the government decision to close it, but a committee entrusted with setting a time for the closure had not decided when that day will come. ``Come here Saturday, come here Sunday and you will see employees reporting to work,'' the official said. ``The closure cannot happen with the push of a button.'' A Saudi official speaking late Wednesday said the foundation was as good as closed and any employees still be reporting to work are merely dealing with paperwork to end contracts of the staff and dissolve the foundation. Earlier this month, a Saudi official said the government had ordered the charity's closure and dissolution of operations by Oct. 15. The U.S. government, as part of its anti-terrorism strategy after the Sept. 11 attacks, has sought to cut off the sources of terrorists' financing. Al-Haramain came under scrutiny on suspicion of funding al-Qaida terror activities. Last month, the Bush administration designated al-Haramain as a group suspected of supporting terrorism through its Springfield, Mo., mosque and its main location in Ashland, Ore., saying the charity ``shows direct links between the U.S. branch and Osama bin Laden.'' Assets of the two properties have been frozen since February. The charity's branches in 10 countries, mostly in Africa and Asia, have been shut down for suspected ties to al-Qaida and other terror groups. Al-Haramain repeatedly has denied it funds terrorist activities. Interior Minister Prince Nayef said the decision was taken against al-Haramain as a ``correctional'' measure, and there was no evidence it was financing terrorism. ``Actually, this organization's administration and work is not well-organized,'' Nayef told reporters in Kuwait during a weekend visit. ``And that is why it was decided it could allow leaks ... that could harm the country.'' Asked if there was any evidence that money from the charity ended up in terrorists' hands, Nayef said: ``There might have been something against some individuals, but as far as material evidence, there was none.'' On Thursday, more than a dozen employees emerged from the cream-colored, glass-fronted building for prayers at a next-door mosque. Employees who have answered the telephone at the foundation in the last few days say staffers are being laid off. Notices on boards at the entrance of the building say: ``We're sorry we cannot accept donations.'' The action against al-Haramain is part of a clampdown the government began after the Sept. 11 attacks. The campaign gained momentum after the May 2003 attacks on residential compounds in Riyadh that killed 35 people. Last year, Saudi Arabia banned all private relief and charitable groups from sending money overseas until regulations were in place to ensure funds do not go to terrorist groups. Al-Haramain's previous activities included sending relief to Muslims in war-torn countries, including to Palestinians, Afghans and Bosnians. Zakat, or the giving of alms, is one of Islam's main tenets, and Muslims are encouraged to donate to the needy. 10/14/04 11:20 EDT
October 8, 2004Egypt Blasts Claimed by 3 Different GroupsBy RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI
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| AP Yusuf Islam, formerly Cat Stevens |
WASHINGTON (Sept. 22) - A London-to-Washington flight was diverted to Maine when it was discovered that passenger Yusuf Islam - formerly known as singer Cat Stevens - was on a government watch list and barred from entering the country.
United Airlines Flight 919 was en route to Dulles International Airport when the match was made Tuesday between a passenger and a name on the watch list, said Nico Melendez, a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration.
The plane was met by federal agents at Maine's Bangor International Airport around 3 p.m., Melendez said.
Homeland Security Department spokesman Dennis Murphy identified the passenger
as Islam. ''He was interviewed and denied admission to the United States on national
security grounds,'' Murphy said.
He said Islam would be put on the first available flight out of the country Wednesday.
Officials had no details about why the peace activist might be considered a risk to the United States. Islam had visited New York in May for a charity event and to promote a DVD of his 1976 MajiKat tour.
One official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Islam, 56, was identified by the Advanced Passenger Information System, which requires airlines to send passenger information to Customs and Border Protection's National Targeting Center. The Transportation Security Administration then was contacted and requested that the plane land at the nearest airport, that official said.
Melendez said Islam was questioned by FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.
Another federal official, who is in law enforcement and spoke anonymously because of agency policy, said that after the interview, Customs officials decided to deny Islam entry into the United States.
Flight 919 continued on to Dulles after Islam was removed from the flight.
Islam, who was born Stephen Georgiou, took Cat Stevens as a stage name and had a string of hits in the 1960s and '70s, including ''Wild World'' and ''Morning Has Broken.'' Last year he released two songs, including a re-recording of his '70s hit ''Peace Train,'' to express his opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
He abandoned his music career in the late 1970s and changed his name after being persuaded by orthodox Muslim teachers that his lifestyle was forbidden by Islamic law. He later became a teacher and an advocate for his religion, founding a Muslim school in London in 1983.
Islam founded Islamia Primary school in London in 1983. In 1998, it became
the first Muslim school in Britain to receive government support, on the same
basis as Christian and other sectarian schools.
A statement posted on a fan-supported Web site where his music is promoted said
Islam being on a watch list ''is certainly an error.''
''It's also a very sad state of affairs when a man best known as a peace loving pop star can be grouped into the same category Osama Bin Laden just because of his chosen faith,'' the statement said.
Islam drew some negative attention in the late 1980s when he supported the Ayatollah Khomeini's death sentence against Salman Rushdie, author of ''The Satanic Verses.'' Recently, though, Islam has criticized terrorist acts, including the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the school seizure in Beslan, Russia, earlier this month that left more than 300 dead, nearly half of them children.
In a statement on his Web site, he wrote, ''Crimes against innocent bystanders taken hostage in any circumstance have no foundation whatsoever in the life of Islam and the model example of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.''
After the Sept. 11 attacks, Islam issued a statement saying: ''No right thinking follower of Islam could possibly condone such an action: The Quran equates the murder of one innocent person with the murder of the whole of humanity.''
AP-NY-09-22-04 0439EDT
The UNSC in New York just passed a resolution (No1564) on Sudan, adopting the
US draft. This resolution got 11 votes and 4 abstentions. Here are few important
notes:
1. The ambassador of Algeria, representing the Arab League, Abdallah Baali, rejected
the resolution. It is to note that M Baali has also rejected the previous UN resolution
1556 on Sudan. This shows that the Arab League bloc, represented by Baali is attempting
to block all UN resolutions that could end up in interventions. Diplomatic sources
explained the reasons why. The Algerian representative also rejected UNSCR no
1559, voted two weeks ago, calling on Syria to withdraw from Lebanon.
2. The Russian ambassador called for the disarming of the Janjawid. An interesting
position showing the new Russian position regarding the Jihadist groups around
the world
3. More importantly, in the pro- al Qaida chat rooms, the vote and the discussions
were followed closely. After the vote took place, a Jihadi room leader said "this
is an attack against Islam. We must respond!" Which raises the Terror factor
in Sudan. The Jihadis will try to use religion, but the African factor is stronger
4. Today of the people of Darfur and Sudan has just won a battle
Dr Walid Phares
Professor, Middle East Studies
Senior Fellow, FDD
A popular North American amusement park is scheduled to host a "Great Muslim Adventure Day" this week in which the park will be open only to Muslims, drawing fire from various monitor groups, WorldNetDaily has learned.
The Muslim Youth Division of the Islamic Circle of North America and the Muslim American Society, two of the largest Muslim organizations in America, have arranged exclusive use of Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, N.J., for the entire day Friday.
The ICNA website boasts, "First Time Ever – All Day – Entire
Park Exclusively for Muslims!"
The event is designed to "provide entertainment for the entire family!"
says the site. Imam Zaid Shakir will lead the Friday afternoon prayers at 2 p.m.,
the comedy routine "Allah Made Me Funny" will show twice, Comedian Azhar
Usman will perform, and "Alhamdulillah, the entire park is reserved for Muslims
only!"
The organization expects more than 10,000 Muslims.
Debbie Nauser, vice president of public relations for the Six Flags theme park, confirmed the park would be open only for "Muslims and their friends."
Six Flags has previously hosted other event days, including an annual Passover theme in which the park is predominantly filled with Orthodox Jews, but the venue is still open to outsiders and seasonal ticket holders, and organizers of previous events have never claimed exclusivity of the park.
"The exclusionary nature of the event, which disallows anyone but Muslims from being present on the fairgrounds, raises questions about the legality of permitting only members of one faith in what is a public venue," said Beila Rabinowitz, director of Militant Islam Monitor.
"Militant Islam Monitor calls on the management of Six Flags amusement park to disallow this discrimination on its property. And MIM calls on the State of New Jersey to cancel this 'Muslims Only' event."
Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, said "it is scandalous that Six Flags – a publicly held corporation whose stock trades on the NYSE – allows such a restriction for access to its property. It's fine for a Muslim organization to sponsor a day at the theme park, it's quite another to proclaim it for Muslims only, as ICNA does. "
The ICNA has drawn much controversy to itself in recent years. WorldNetDaily attended a conference in Orlando, Fla., sponsored in part by the ICNA, which featured a main speaker who voiced empathy and support for suicide bombers, denied Muslims were involved in 9-11, characterized the war on terror as a conspiratorial Zionist plot designed to destroy Islam and Muslims, and blamed attacks on affirmative action on "the rise of the Jewish cracker."
Judicial Watch says the ICNA has ties to Hamas, and terrorism expert Steve Emerson stated: "The ICNA's hatred of the Jews is so fierce that it taunted them with a repetition of what Hitler did to them."
In his book, "American Jihad," Emerson writes: "The ICNA openly supports militant Islamic fundamentalist organizations, praises terror attacks, issues incendiary attacks on Western values and policies, and supports the imposition of Sharia [Islamic code of law]."
If you'd like to sound off on this issue, please take part in the WorldNetDaily poll.
http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=40438
*****
http://www.icnanj.org/sixflags/
Insha Allah, on September 17, 2004, the New Jersey theme park, Six Flags
Great Adventure, is set to be transformed as 'The Great Muslim Adventure Day',
an event organized by ICNA. This event is designed to provide entertainment for
the entire family! Alhamdulillah, the entire park is reserved for this event!
SECURITY
Guest safety is No. 1 priority. Therefore, everyone will be required to pass through
metal detectors and all bags will be inspected. Please leave inappropriate items
at home or in your car. Security will be strict both inside and outside the park.
H U R R Y!
Online and phone sales will stop soon! Tickets are selling fast! Order online
today or call us at 877-363-ICNA.
GUEST CONDUCT
Unruly behavior and profanity will not be tolerated and may also be cause for
ejection from the park without a refund. Modest dress code must be observed. Clothing
should be loose, non-provocative and cover neck to ankle for all aged 10 and older.
No swimming costumes are allowed.
Attention: Bazaar Vendors
Don't delay! Get your booth today!
For details, click here
Due to high demand, several new tickets locations are added. Click here for the full list...
Have you bought ticket to the largest Muslim gathering of North East?
Alhamdulillah, tickets are selling fast! Muslims have already bought tickets from
Connecticut Delaware Maryland Massachusetts Michigan New Jersey New York Ohio
Pennsylvania Virginia Washington DC
Buy your two-park discounted ticket today!
Imam Zaid Shakir will lead Jummah prayers at Six Flags Great Adventure at 2 pm, Insha Allah. Be there!
Last time, this event was attended by more than 10,000 Muslims, making it the largest Muslim gathering in the North East. Insha Allah, this year, this multi-ethnic event will bring Muslims together in fun environment and we will be able to teach our kids while they enjoy their day in the park.
Transportation Information
Insha Allah, buses are being arranged by several communities. Alhamdulillah, busses will be allowed to enter Safari.
Click here for bus information
Park Schedule
Theme Park Open from Noon - 11 PM
Wild Safari Open from 12 noon - 5 PM (last car enters Safari at 4 PM)
Rides start opening at 3 PM after Jummah
Jummah Prayers at 2 PM
Two special Dolphin shows at 3 PM and 6 PM
Special show for kids at 5 PM
http://www.icnanj.org/sixflags/
WASHINGTON (AP) - The State Department said Wednesday that Saudi Arabia has engaged in ``particularly severe violations'' of religious freedom and for the first time included the kingdom on a list of countries that could be subject to sanctions.
A department report assessing the state of religious freedom worldwide said that in Saudi Arabia, freedom of religion does not exist and is not recognized or protected under the country's laws.
The report also said that those who do not adhere to the officially sanctioned strain of Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia can face ``severe repercussions'' at the hands of the religious police.
Under U.S. law, nations that engage in violations of religious freedom deemed ``particularly severe'' are designated by the State Department as ``countries of particular concern.''
Joining Saudi Arabia for the first time on the so-called ``CPC list'' were Eritrea and Vietnam. Countries redesignated as CPC countries were Burma, China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Sudan.
Since the State Department first began making evaluations on religious freedom, sanctions have not been applied against any country on the CPC list.
The U.S. Commission on International Freedom, an independent group that receives government funding and offers advice to the State Department, recommended last February that Saudi Arabia be declared a CPC country.
Such a designation does not necessarily require punitive measures but does mandate that the secretary of state engage the offending country on what steps it may take to increase religious tolerance.
Preeta D. Bansal, the commission chair, said in an interview that she welcomed the addition of Saudi Arabia to the U.S. government's ``list of the world most egregious violators of religious freedom.''
She said the commission has been advocating the inclusion of Saudi Arabia on the CPC list since legislation was approved in 1999 to evaluate the state of religious freedom around the world.
Bansal said the commission's stand was based not only on violations of religious freedom within Saudi Arabia's own borders ``but also its propagation and export of an ideology of religious hate and intolerance throughout the world.''
DUGNY, France (AP) - When 12-year-old Faten Ben Debaieb returned to school after summer vacation, she faced a painful choice: take off her head scarf or be expelled.
For France's Muslim community, a similar dilemma loomed 2,500 miles away in Iraq. There, kidnappers were threatening to kill their two French hostages unless France lifted the scarf ban. For the French Muslims, the question was whether to stand by their opposition to the newly instituted ban, or go along with it in solidarity with their government.
In the end, both went with the French flow: Faten shed her scarf, and the Muslim community sided with the government in resisting the kidnappers' demand. It was a defining moment in a long and bitter dispute.
Worried by the rise of an alienated minority in its midst, France has over the past decade sought to coax into existence an ``Islam of France'' compatible with French values and Muslim beliefs. The scarf ban is an important step in this effort, and the stakes are high. With an estimated 5 million adherents - almost a tenth of the population - Islam is France's second religion.
The meeting of minds between the French government and Muslim leaders over the hostages produced a rare chapter of solidarity. But Muslims remain bitter about the scarf ban, and it is sure to be challenged in court.
``It hurts. It makes me sad,'' Faten said. ``It bothers me to show my hair like that.''
But she dreams of becoming a doctor, and didn't want to sacrifice her education. So now she puts her scarf back on as soon as she leaves school.
Only 120 girls have defied the law since the school year got under way Sept. 2, according to Education Minister Francois Fillon. School authorities are quietly negotiating with them, officials said. On Friday, four girls at a school west of Paris who have refused to take off their scarves handed out bandannas to other pupils, a small group of whom held a sit-in in front of the school gates to support the girls, authorities said.
The insurgents holding Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot perhaps hoped to drive a wedge between France and its large Muslim community. But instead Muslim leaders lined up behind the government.
The question now is ``the fate of our countrymen, not a piece of cloth,'' said Lhaj Thami Breze, president of UOIF, the Union of Islamic Organizations of France.
``If there is a choice between liberating the hostages or abandoning the head scarf, I'll abandon the head scarf,'' he said in a telephone interview.
Three Muslim leaders - fondly dubbed ``The Three Musketeers'' by the media - traveled to Baghdad hoping to free the journalists. One of them represented the UOIF, which is considered a springboard for Muslim fundamentalism and therefore is viewed with mistrust by French officialdom. But it holds enormous sway among religious conservatives.
The UOIF ``wholly understood this was a crossroads and that they had to choose sides, and they did very clearly,'' said Olivier Roy, a leading expert on Islam.
But the head scarf wars aren't over. ``There will be other battles,'' said Antoine Sfeir, another Islam expert. Colleges and hospitals are bracing to be next in line for bans.
The UOIF is pressing for schools to allow bandannas, a discreet alternative to head scarves, and vowing to fight in court. The new law also bans Jewish skullcaps, Sikh turbans and large Christian crucifixes, but no one doubts its main target is Muslim head scarves.
Faten's mother, Mounira Ben Debaieb, hopes the French government will reward the Muslim community for its support in the hostage crisis by letting the girls wear bandannas at school and by being ``more tolerant toward the Muslim community.''
The day before school started in Dugny, a heavily immigrant suburb northeast of Paris, Faten's parents and her two brothers sat down with her to discuss what to do. They suggested a bandanna. It didn't work.
``The principal was at the door and he quickly called her name out. 'Faten, off with it. It's forbidden now,''' Faten's mother, Mounira Ben Debaieb, recounted.
The majority of Muslims, most from France's former North African colonies, have taken on French ways. But a conservative Islam flourishes in poor areas.
A confidential report released in June by education inspectors cited numerous cases of fundamentalism creeping into schools and classrooms, with some teachers, for example, unable to broach topics like the Holocaust or Darwinism.
Faten's mother believes officials are simply uncomfortable with France's large Muslim presence.
``In our age, it is shameful to have laws like that,'' she said. ``We are French Muslims.''
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian terror group linked to al-Qaida, purportedly claimed responsibility for Thursday's deadly car bomb attack outside the Australian Embassy in Indonesia, saying it was punishing Australia for supporting the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
The statement was posted on an Internet site known for carrying extremist Islamic content, but its authenticity could not immediately be verified.
``We decided to call Australia to account, which we consider one of the worst enemies of God, and God's religion of Islam,'' the statement said. ``Here we were able to call it to account today in Jakarta, where one of the mujahedeen (holy warriors) was able to execute a martyrdom operation with a car bomb in front of the embassy.''
The attack in Jakarta killed nine people and wounded 173 and came ahead of next month's general elections in Australia, whose conservative prime minister has angered many in the region for running on a pro-American, anti-terror platform.
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Colin Powell testified this morning to the Senate on the subject of Sudan. He declared that a lengthy study by the State Department has determined the Sudanese government is carrying out "genocide" against its black African population.
Powell cited a "consistent and widespread" pattern of human rights atrocities, including killing and rape. Thousands of Sudanese blacks have also been abducted into slavery.
Powell's testimony adds new energy to our rally this Sunday at the UN. Now more than ever, international leaders need to be pressured to act immediately to stop the genocide.
That's why we are mobilizing hundreds of people to come out to the UN at
2 p.m. on Sunday. We have buses coming in from upstate New York, Toronto, Washington,
and Philadelphia. Together, we are going to send a message to world leaders that
the time for action is now. People of conscience will not be silent.
I want to encourage you once again to come out to the rally on Sunday. Bring friends and family. And bring signs with you. Stand in solidarity with the Sudanese community.
Every day, our office is receiving new requests for buses, and we need to ramp up our efforts to attract media attention. You have already responded with remarkable enthusiasm, helping us raise over $6,500. Our coalition partners have provided several thousand more dollars to help with transportation and mobilization.
But as costs for the rally continue to mount, I am turning to you one last time with an emergency request to help us raise $1,200 by Sunday. If you haven't given already, please make a contribution now. If you have given, forward this message to friends and family. Together, we can send a message around the world that we will not sit by silently.
Thank you so much.
In Freedom,
Dr. Charles Jacobs
President, American Anti-Slavery Group
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| The article was provoked by reflections on the tragic Russian school siege |
A leading Saudi journalist has caused a stir by launching a scathing attack
on Muslim clerics who justify the killing of innocent civilians in the name of
jihad, or holy war.
In an editorial on the hostage crisis in Beslan, Abdelrahman al-Rashid, the managing
director of the satellite channel al-Arabiya, wrote: "It is a certain fact
that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally
painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims."
He laid the blame for Islamist violence around the world on radical Muslim clerics, whom he accused of hijacking what is essentially a peace-loving and tolerant faith.
Mr Rashid's article, which appeared on Saturday in al-Sharq al-Awsat, singled out the controversial and influential Egyptian cleric, Yousef al-Qaradawi, whose views are aired regularly on the Qatari satellite channel, al-Jazeera.
"A man of his advanced age incites young men to kill civilians, while his two daughters are studying under the protection of British security in the "infidel" United Kingdom," Mr Rashid wrote. The implication is that Mr Qaradawi is a hypocrite.
 An innocent and benevolent
religion... has been turned into a global message of hate and a universal war
cry Abdelrahman al-Rashid |
Mr Rashid's views are not new or unique. Several Arab writers have been calling on Arab societies to examine themselves and stop blaming external forces for their misfortunes.
But coming this time from a journalist as prominent as Mr Rashid they are likely to infuriate an Islamic public that is firmly convinced that that it is Muslims who are the victims of what many see as state-sponsored violence, whether it is in Chechnya, the occupied Palestinian territories, or in Algeria.
Mr Rashid's comments employ what has become a standard defence of the Muslim faith, namely, that the problem is not Islam itself, but a small number of Muslims.
That may very well be true as far as the number of Islamic militants go. But this analysis does not address the fact that radical clerics, like Mr Qaradawi, remain widely popular.
The problem of Islamist violence appears to go well beyond the views of a small, albeit influential, minority.
Other liberal critics of Arab societies go further than Mr Rashid.
They blame what they see as a predominantly literalist interpretation of Islamic tradition and the Koran.
They have also called for a radical reform of religious education and for curbing the power of the religious establishment across the Arab world.
ROSEMONT, Ill. (AP) - The largest annual gathering of American Muslims opened Friday amid a debate over how best to make their voices heard in the presidential election and build relations with other faiths.
More than 30,000 people were expected to attend the meeting, which is organized by the Islamic Society of North America, an umbrella association representing Muslim groups and mosques nationwide.
The conference is the third for the Islamic Society since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and organizers planned to address many of the problems that have plagued the community since the suicide hijackings.
Presentations will be made on defending Islam against prejudice, creating ties with leaders of other faiths and preserving Muslims' civil rights during the domestic war on terrorism.
However, a heavy emphasis will be made on encouraging Muslims to vote Nov. 2. Voter registration booths will be set up and American Muslims who have been elected to public office will discuss their campaigns.
As recently as the 2000 election, some Muslim immigrants debated whether their religion even allowed them to participate in democratic elections. American Muslim leaders say those questions are no longer being raised, and they are working for high voter turnout in their communities.
``We are this nation,'' said Kareem Irfan, chairman of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago.
Muslims have sizable populations in swing states such as Ohio, Michigan and Florida and hope this will help them gain visibility in the tight presidential race.
Already, they have been pleased with their representation at the Republican and Democratic conventions, according to Sayyid Syeed, secretary general of the Islamic Society. Muslims gave invocations or benedictions at both events.
In 2000, major Muslim organizations made their first collective endorsement of a presidential candidate, backing George W. Bush. However, many Muslim leaders said they came to regret that decision after Sept. 11.
They said the broad new powers the federal government gained through the USA Patriot Act have made all Muslims suspects. The Bush administration has defended the law as critical for national security.
On interfaith relations, Syeed said his organization has made gains, working with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the National Council of Churches, which represents mainline Protestant and Orthodox churches.
Syeed noted that many mosques have been so successful in reaching out to those of other faiths that non-Muslims sometimes outnumber Muslims at Friday prayers.
``We are proud that in this society, in spite of the fact there were tremendous provocations ... the dominant spirit has been the spirit of understanding,'' he said.
On the Net:
Islamic Society of North America: http://www.isna.net
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| AP Russian soldiers rescue a child from school in North Ossetia. |
BESLAN, Russia (Sept. 3) -- Commandos stormed a school Friday in southern Russia and battled separatist rebels holding hundreds of hostages, as crying children, some naked and covered in blood, fled through explosions and gunfire. More than 100 bodies were reportedly found in the gymnasium where hostages had been held.
The extent of the casualties was not immediately known. The militants, who
had been demanding independence for nearby Chechnya, had been keeping up to 1,500
hostages - mostly women and children - in the sweltering gymnasium for more than
two days.
Regional emergency officials said at least 100 people were killed. A cameraman
for the British network ITN reported seeing around 100 bodies in the gym. The
correspondent for Russia's Interfax news agency reported that there were dozens
of bodies in the school, including about 100 in the gym, and that some were killed
when the building's roof collapsed from an explosion before the main assault began.
Other casualties were reported when militants opened fire on hostages as they fled the building and in fighting that went on for several hours afterward. Russian forces killed 10 of the hostage-takers, Interfax reported. The regional health minister reported that 409 people were wounded, including at least 218 children.
Russian authorities took control of the school in the assault, which did not
appear to have been planned beforehand but may have been prompted when the hostage-takers
began shooting and setting off explosives.
About a dozen hostage-takers escaped, with the Interfax new agency reporting that
they split into three groups to blend in with the hostages and took refuge in
a home nearby. Tank fire was heard from the area of the house, Interfax said,
and gunfire rang out through the town for hours.
The White House branded the hostage-taking ''barbaric'' and ''despicable'' and said responsibility for dozens of lost lives rests with the terrorists. ''The United States stands side-by-side with Russia in our global fight against terrorism,'' spokesman Scott McClellan said.
President Bush was briefed on developments in Russia Friday morning before a re-election rally in Pennsylvania. He did not talk about the Russian terrorism during his speech.
Huge columns of smoke billowed from the school, where windows were shattered,
part of roof gone and another part charred. Commandos, residents and journalists
scurried around the building and soldiers climbed inside through a lower floor
window, all the glass missing.
People ran through the streets, the wounded carried off on stretchers. An Associated
Press reporter saw ambulances speeding by, the windows streaked with blood. Four
armed men in civilian clothes ran by, shouting, ''A militant ran this way.''
Soldiers and men in civilian clothes carried children - some naked, some clad only in underpants, some covered in blood - to a temporary hospital set up behind an armored personnel carrier. One child had a bandage on her head, others had bandaged limbs. Some women, newly freed from the school, fainted.
The children drank eagerly from bottles of water given to them once they reached safety. Many of the children were only partly clothed because of the stifling heat in the gymnasium where they had been held since the militants took the building on Wednesday morning. The hostage-takers had refused to let food or water into the school throughout the standoff.
''I am helping you,'' a man dressed in camouflage told a crying girl. Women gathered around, trying to soothe her, saying ''It's all right. It's all right.''
Associated Press Television News footage showed the bodies of four children and a woman, and the ITAR-Tass news agency reported at least seven people killed, including five militants.
A nurse spread clean sheets on stretchers, and told AP that Russian officials expected ''very many'' wounded.
The chaos erupted on the third day of the hostage standoff in Beslan, a town of 30,000 in North Ossetia, a republic near the wartorn region of Chechnya. North Ossetia's president, Alexander Dzasokhov, said the militants had demanded independence for the nearby wartorn region of Chechnya.
It began after militants had agreed to let Russia retrieve the bodies of people killed early in the raid. Explosions went off as the emergency personnel went to get the bodies at around 1 p.m., collapsing part of the roof of the building, and hostages took the noise as a signal to flee, officials said.
Militants opened fire on fleeing hostages and security forces returned fire. Once the hostage-takers sought to escape, Russian officials apparently made the decision to storm the building.
The militants had reportedly threatened to blow up the building if authorities tried to storm it, but all indications suggested the explosions began before the assault. Russian officials repeatedly said they were not planning to invade and had earlier won the release of 26 hostages through negotiations.
The hostage takers' identities were murky. Lev Dzugayev, a North Ossetian official, said the attackers might be from Chechnya or Ingushetia. Law enforcement sources in North Ossetia and Ingushetia, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the attackers were believed to include Chechens, Ingush, Russians and a North Ossetian suspected of participating in the Ingushetia violence.
Insurgents fought an earlier war for Chechen independence, a conflict that ended in stalemate. In the years since, the rebels and their sympathizers have increasingly taken to assaults and attacks outside the tiny republic.
Negotiators said the hostage-takers had repeatedly refused offers of food and water througout the standoff.
''They are very cruel people, we are facing a ruthless enemy,'' said Leonid Roshal, a pediatrician involved in the negotiations. ''I talked with them many times on my cell phone, but every time I ask to give food, water and medicine to the hostages they refuse my request.''
The school seizure came a day after a suspected Chechen suicide bomber blew herself up outside a Moscow subway station, killing nine people, and just over a week after 90 people died in two plane crashes that are suspected to have been blown up by bombers also linked to Chechnya.
In a 2002 theater raid in Moscow, Chechen rebels took about 800 hostages during a performance, a standoff that ended after a knockout gas was pumped into the building, debilitating the captors but causing almost all of the 129 hostage deaths.
There were conflicting reports of the number of hostages being held at the school. Officials had initially said about 350 - but some freed hostages among a small group freed Thursday put the number at about 1,500.
Women escaping the building were seen fainting and others, some covered in blood, were carried away on stretchers. After the escape, commandos assaulted the building.
On Thursday, the militants had freed about 26 hostages, all women and children.
President Vladimir Putin had said that everything possible would be done to end the ''horrible'' crisis and save the lives of the children.
BELSAN, Russia (Sept. 1) -- More than a dozen militants wearing suicide-bomb belts seized a southern Russian school in a region bordering Chechnya on Wednesday, taking hostage about 400 people - half of them children - and threatening to blow up the building if police storm it. As many as eight people have been reported killed, one of them a school parent.
Hours into the desperate standoff, security officials said they had made brief contact with the hostage-takers. Russian special forces wearing camouflage and carrying heavy-caliber machine guns surrounded Middle School No. 1. About 1,000 people, mostly parents, were massed the three-story building in the town of Belsen, demanding information and accusing the government of failing to protect their children.
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| AP Russian soldiers rescue a child from school in North Ossetia. |
Kazbek Dzantiyev, head of the North Ossetia region's Interior Ministry, said that the hostages have threatened ''for every destroyed fighter, they will kill 50 children and for every injured fighter - 20 (children),'' the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.
At one point, a girl wearing a floral print dress and a red bow in her hair fled the school, her hand held by a flak-jacketed soldier. An older woman followed them. Ruslan Ayamov, spokesman for North Ossetia's Interior Ministry told The Associated Press that 12 children and one adult managed to escape after hiding in the building's boiler room.
The attack was the latest blamed on secessionist Chechen rebels, coming a day after a suicide bomber killed nine people in Moscow and a week after near-simultaneous explosions blamed on terrorists caused two Russian planes to crash, killing all 90 people on board. The surge in violence was apparently timed around last Sunday's Chechen presidential election.
''In essence, war has been declared on us, where the enemy is unseen and there is no front,'' Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said.
President Vladimir Putin interrupted his working holiday Wednesday in the Black Sea resort of Sochi for a second time and returned to the capital. On arrival at the airport, he held an immediate meeting with the heads of Russia's Interior Ministry and Federal Security Service, the Interfax news agency said.
The standoff began after a ceremony marking the first day of the Russian school
year, when it was likely that many parents had accompanied their children. About
17 militants, men and women, stormed the three-story building and herded captives
into the gymnasium. They forced children to stand at the windows and warned they
would blow up the school if police intervened, said Alexei Polyansky, a police
spokesman for southern Russia.
''I was standing near the gates, music was playing, when I saw three armed people
running with guns. At first I though it was a joke when they fired in the air
and we fled,'' a teenager, Zarubek Tsumartov, said on Russian television.
Hours after the seizure, Regional Federal Security Service chief Valery Andreyev said on NTV television that negotiations with the hostage-takers ''are just, just beginning'' and that brief contact had not allowed authorities to evaluate the situation in Belsen, located 10 miles north of the regional capital of Vladikavkaz
The ITAR-Tass news agency, citing local hospitals, reported that seven people died of injuries in the hospital and one was killed at the site during the seizure.
But Regional Emergency Situations Minister Boris Dzgoyev told The Associated Press that two civilians were killed and nine hospitalized, and that two bodies were visible near the school. Interfax cited a health official as saying four people were killed, but the emergencies ministry later said the toll was two.
Dzgoyev said a girl was also lying near the building, presumably wounded, but
officials said the area could not be approached because it was coming under fire.
Fatima Khabalova, spokeswoman for the regional parliament, earlier said one of
the dead was a father who brought his child to the school and was shot when he
tried to resist the raiders. She also said at least nine people had been injured
in gunfire, including three teachers and two police officers.
Suspicion in both the school attack and the Moscow bombing fell on Chechen rebels or their sympathizers, but there was no evidence of any direct link. The attacks came around Chechnya's presidential elections, a Kremlin-backed vote aimed at undermining support for the insurgents by establishing a modicum of civil order in the war-shattered republic. The previous president, Akhmad Kadyrov, was killed with more than 20 others in a bombing May 9.
The militants inside the school released one hostage with a list of their demands, including the freedom of fighters detained over a series of attacks on police facilities in neighboring Ingushetia in June, ITAR-Tass reported.
They also seek talks with regional officials and a well-known pediatrician, Leonid Roshal, who aided hostages during the deadly seizure of a Moscow theater in 2002, news reports said.
Parents of the seized children recorded a videocassette appeal to Putin to fulfill the terrorists' demands, Khabalova said. The text of the appeal was not immediately available.
The violence was the latest to plague the government of Putin, who came to power vowing to crush the Chechen rebellion. Terrorism fears in Russia have risen markedly following the plane crashes and the suicide bombing outside a Moscow subway station Tuesday night. The blast by a female attacker tore through a busy area between the station and a department store, killing nine people and wounded more than 50.
Authorities said Tuesday that 10 people were killed, but Interfax reported Wednesday that Moscow health officials revised that, saying one man who died in a hospital was not a victim of the blast.
A militant Muslim web site published a statement claiming responsibility for the bombing on behalf of the ''Islambouli Brigades,'' a group that also claimed responsibility for the airliner crashes. The statements could not immediately be verified.
The statement said Tuesday's bombing was a blow against Putin, ''who slaughtered Muslims time and again.'' Putin has refused to negotiate with rebels in predominantly Muslim Chechnya who have fought Russian forces for most of the past decade, saying they must be wiped out.
09-01-04 1205 EDT
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Hamas militants claim responsibility for the attacks in the south, which injure nearly 100. Sharon vows to keep up 'fight against terror.'
By Laura King and Tami Zer, Special to The Times
BEERSHEBA, Israel — Shattering a nearly six-month lull in suicide bombings by Palestinian militants, two attackers blew themselves up Tuesday less than a minute apart aboard a pair of crowded buses in the southern desert city of Beersheba. At least 16 passengers were killed and nearly 100 were injured by the blasts, which scattered charred metal, glass shards and body parts across a palm-lined boulevard.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon convened his top advisors to weigh a response to the blasts, which came only hours after the Israeli leader told lawmakers in his restive Likud Party that he was determined to press ahead with an initiative to withdraw from the Gaza Strip.
"The fight against terror will continue with full strength," Sharon said as he headed into closed-door talks with Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and other senior security officials after the bombings.
Palestinian militant group Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was carried out to avenge Israel's assassination of the group's spiritual leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, more than five months ago and the killings of many of Hamas' other founding leaders.
"If Sharon and Mofaz think all of this will stop, they are living in a dream," Hamas said in a statement faxed to Western news organizations. "This is but one of a series of retaliations."
The attacks came just before 3 p.m., as shoppers were heading home from the main marketplace in Beersheba, a Negev desert city about 60 miles south of Tel Aviv that serves as a commercial hub for southern Israel.
Rescue workers, clutching stretchers to ferry the wounded, staggered through plumes of smoke, drenched by mist from fire hoses spraying the flames. Footage repeatedly broadcast on Israeli television showed rescuers freeing the limp, scorched body of a young woman from a twisted bus frame, her long black hair falling across her face.
The street was strewn with passengers' purchases — tomatoes and peppers, boxes of crackers, loaves of bread.
"I was driving Bus No. 12, and I could see Bus No. 6 to my left," said driver Yaakov Cohen, clad in a hospital gown and still spattered with blood. "Suddenly there was a huge boom from that bus. I drove about 10 yards to try to escape and opened the doors for my passengers, and then there was a boom on my own bus, a huge one."
Those out in the streets Tuesday included mothers and children shopping for school supplies for the start of classes today. A 3-year-old boy was reported to be among the dead, and more than a dozen children were injured.
Beersheba, a drab industrial city, has for decades been a prime settling-in spot for immigrants, and among the wounded were some new arrivals who cried out in panic, unable to communicate in Hebrew with rescue workers.
National Police Chief Moshe Karadi said that there had been no specific intelligence warnings of an attack in Beersheba but that security forces had been fielding dozens of alerts every day.
In an apparently unrelated incident, a would-be bomber was caught hours earlier at the Erez crossing from the Gaza Strip into Israel, where Palestinian workers often are forced to partially disrobe to show that they are not carrying explosives. The man was wearing a bomb belt made to resemble underwear, the Israeli army said.
It was the first suicide bombing in Israel since March 14, when two blasts shook the Mediterranean harbor of Ashdod, killing 10 port workers. Sharon's government credits the drop-off in attacks to the barrier Israel is building in the West Bank, for which it has drawn heavy international criticism.
The part of the barrier that will lie closest to Beersheba, the stretch that will separate the southern West Bank from Israel, has not yet been built, and Israeli officials said they believed it was no coincidence that the city was targeted.
"So this is an area where work on the fence hasn't started — and this is an area where the attacks occurred," said Israeli lawmaker Gideon Ezra. "We are at war, and we should remember this."
Israeli authorities said the attack originated in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, about 30 miles northeast of Beersheba, which has been the base for a particularly deadly Hamas cell. Israeli troops moved into Hebron late Tuesday, surrounding homes where they believed the bombers lived. Authorities placed Hebron under a curfew.
More than a dozen of the Hebron cell's members have been killed or arrested during the last 18 months, but the group — drawn largely from members of the same extended family — has been active as recently as this summer, when it planned, but did not manage to carry out, an attack on a Jerusalem cafe, Israeli security officials say.
A leaflet signed by Hamas and circulated in Hebron made a chilling reference to Beersheba's large immigrant population.
"This is a gift to the newcomers in our land," it said. "We say to you, 'This is your fate, so wait.' "
Palestinian Authority leaders denounced the bombings, but in line with the usual practice, their statements tried to draw attention to Palestinian deaths and suffering.
"We condemn all attacks on civilians, Palestinians or Israelis," chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said.
Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Korei said, "This attack does not serve the Palestinian cause."
Israeli officials said that unless the Palestinian leadership can stop the attacks, no return to comprehensive peace talks is possible.
"The Palestinians don't miss an opportunity to sabotage any chance for a process that could lead to peace," Israeli President Moshe Katsav said. "The Palestinians inflict disaster on Israeli families time and time again, but at the same time, they inflict disaster upon themselves."
Sharon's government, however, had resisted any renewal of negotiations with the Palestinians even during the relatively long lull preceding this attack.
The explosions took place less than a mile from Beersheba's Soroka Medical Center, the region's main hospital. Within moments of the blasts, its relatively small staff found itself inundated with maimed, screaming patients. Chaotic scenes ensued as gurney after gurney was wheeled in, creating a traffic jam in the corridors.
Vered Perez, a 38-year-old mother with blond hair and pink shoes, lay on a hospital bed, shaking, her eyes half-closed.
"I was driving right next to the bus, and I had all four of my kids in the car," she said. "Suddenly all the windows — mine and the bus — were blown out. I was terrified for the kids. But we're all OK, thank God."
Three of the nearly 100 injured in the blasts remain in critical condition and 15 in serious condition, hospital officials said late Tuesday.
Beersheba — rich in biblical associations and the traditional site of a trade by the patriarch Abraham of lambs for peace — has been the scene of several shooting attacks during the nearly 4-year-old Palestinian uprising. But this was the first suicide bombing to strike the city during the conflict.
In Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, residents almost make it a point of pride to quickly return to their routine after an attack. But in Beersheba, many seemed unable to process what had happened.
"I saw someone's hand, someone's hand, someone's hand on the ground," said Benny Eluz, 45, still trembling hours later. "I saw a woman with a big, gaping wound, and people were screaming from the bus, 'Please help me!' But I didn't know who to help first."
The buses were about 70 yards apart when they exploded at a junction near the city's main municipal plaza. They had originated at the city's central bus station, which was crowded with passengers, investigators said.
One passenger aboard Bus No. 6, Nissim Yaknin, told Israel Radio that he had been sitting next to a young man wearing a wig whom he believed later to have been the bomber. But Yaknin said he gave his seat to a woman burdened with packages and moved to the back of the bus. He suffered minor injuries.
The attack was certain to reignite debate over Sharon's plan to uproot 21 Jewish settlements in Gaza and four small ones in the northern West Bank.
Hard-liners in the prime minister's Likud Party argue that any pullout looks like a surrender to terrorism; the Israeli leftists who are Sharon's unlikely new allies say attacks like this one show the need for Israel to reduce its contact with Palestinians and withdraw to defensible borders. Palestinian officials have criticized the pullout plan for fear it would result in Israel unilaterally drawing the borders of their future state.
Israeli lawmaker Dalia Itzik of the Labor Party said, "Mr. Prime Minister, we'll be the ones, not your own party, who will help you get Israel out of the mud of Gaza."
Sharon's allies said he wanted to speed up the timetable for the withdrawal, setting it in motion by the end of the year. He is also trying to engineer early compensation payments for settlers who leave voluntarily.
Meeting Tuesday morning with lawmakers from his Likud faction, Sharon warned them not to try to undermine his effort. "The disengagement plan will be implemented — period," he said.
Hours after the Beersheba bombings, ultra-Orthodox volunteers clambered in and around the buses, searching for scraps of flesh to retrieve for Jewish burial.
"Be careful, please be careful!" one called out to onlookers. "You could be treading on the flesh of the victims."
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Times staff writer Laura King reported from Jerusalem and special correspondent
Tami Zer from Beersheba.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - All major al-Qaida-linked attacks except Sept. 11 cost less than $50,000 each to carry out, according to a new U.N. report circulated Thursday that indicated just how little money the terror network needs to mount operations.
The report - the first by a new team monitoring the implementation of U.N. sanctions against al-Qaida and the Taliban - said only the sophisticated attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon using hijacked aircraft ``required significant funding of over six figures.''
``Other al-Qaida terrorist operations have been far less expensive,'' said the report, directed to the U.N. Security Council.
For example, the report said the March attacks in the Spanish capital, Madrid, in which nearly 10 simultaneous bombs exploded on four commuter trains, cost $10,000 to carry out. The blasts killed 191 people, Spain's worst terror attack.
The November 2003 attacks in Istanbul, Turkey - four suicide truck bombings that killed 62 people - cost less than $40,000, the report found. And the twin truck bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998 are estimated to have cost less than a total $50,000. Those attacks killed 231 people, including 12 Americans.
The report said al-Qaida has changed over the last five years from an organization run by Osama bin Laden to a global network of groups that don't wait for orders but launch attacks against targets of their own choosing, using minimal resources and exploiting worldwide publicity ``to create an international sense of crisis.''
``There is no prospect of an early end to attacks from Al-Qaida associated terrorists,'' the monitoring team said. ``They will continue to attack targets in both Muslim and non-Muslim states, choosing them according to the resources they have available and the opportunities that occur. While they will look for ways to attack high profile targets, soft targets will be equally vulnerable.''
U.N. sanctions require all U.N. member states to impose a travel ban and arms embargo against a list of those linked to the Taliban or al-Qaida, currently 317 individuals and 112 groups, and to freeze any assets. Sanctions were first imposed on bin Laden's network in 1999.
The report said punitive measures to stop terror financing have had some effect and led to ``millions of dollars of assets'' being frozen.
``As a result of national and international action, al-Qaida's funding has decreased significantly. But so, too, has its need for money,'' the team said.
The number of people in training camps controlled by al-Qaida ``is now far less, and al-Qaida no longer pays the $10 million to $20 million annually that it gave to its Taliban hosts'' in Afghanistan before a U.S.-led force routed the government in late 2001, it said.
While some money for the al-Qaida attacks since 1998 may have come from ``the center,'' the report said ``much of it will have been collected locally, whether through crime or diverted from charitable donations.''
But the monitoring team said al-Qaida will still need to raise and move money, and not enough was being done to identify those involved and to crack down on terror-related transactions - especially those through informal channels.
The report said not a single country reported stopping an arms shipment or banning entry to any of the Taliban and al-Qaida members on the U.N. list.
It called for increased efforts to stop al-Qaida from obtaining large weapons systems and to restrict its ability to build non-conventional bombs designed to cause mass casualties.
``There is evidence that al-Qaida remains interested in acquiring the means to construct bombs that would disperse chemical, biological or radiological pollutant, and the threat to use such a device was repeated, albeit obliquely, in a communique from the Abu Hafs Brigade, an al-Qaida offshoot, on July 1, 2004,'' the report said.
``Al-Qaida related groups have tried at least twice to buy the basic ingredients for a dirty bomb and a good deal of the necessary technical knowledge is available on the Internet,'' it said. ``There is real need therefore to try to design effective measures against this threat.''
Overall, the monitoring team said, U.N. sanctions have had ``a limited impact,'' primarily because the Security Council has reacted to events ``while al-Qaida has shown great flexibility and adaptability in staying ahead of them.''
It cited al-Qaida's transformation from an office supporting Afghan fighters to its role initiating and sponsoring terrorism from an established base ``to its current manifestation as a loose network of affiliated underground groups with certain goals in common.''
``Al-Qaida wishes to promote the idea that Islam and the West are now at war, and that al-Qaida and its supporters are the true defenders of the faith,'' the monitoring group said. ``This message ... appeals to a widespread sense of resentment and helplessness in the face of the West's political and economic hegemony that many believe is intrinsically and determinedly inimical to their interests.''
``Al-Qaida's ability to strike the enemy and survive, despite the disparity in resources, taps into an ill articulated desire for revenge and gains both recruits and donations,'' it said.
The Vatican has offered to be a mediator
for the battle of Najaf, the holy city of the Shiite Muslims. It is a demonstrative
gesture, but one with a real objective: protecting the Christians
ROMA – In an August 22 interview with RAI, Italy’s state-owned radio, cardinal secretary of state Angelo Sodano renewed the Holy See’s offer to mediate a ceasefire in Najaf, the holy city of the Shiite Muslims in Iraq.
This offer had already been confirmed on August 17, in an official communication from the Vatican’s press office, but “on the condition that there really exists the willingness to accept peaceful means for the solution of the conflicts.”
In effect, public requests for Vatican mediation had been made until now only
by Moqtada al Sadr, the radical leader who in August ensconced himself with a
thousand of his guerillas in the mausoleum of Alì ibn Abi Talib, son-in-law
of the prophet Mohammed and the first imam of the Shiite Muslims: not by the legitimate
government of Baghdad, nor by the military commanders of the United States.
But the Vatican mistrusts al Sadr, and the constituents of the marjia, the assembly
of the most authoritative Shiite religious leaders of Najaf, mistrust him even
more.
On the other hand, the Vatican strives to present an image of itself as being super partes. And so there is also some interest in extending a hand to the armed factions rebelling against the legitimate government.
The principal motivation driving the Vatican to occupy this middle position is the protection of the Christian community in Iraq.
The terrorist attacks that struck five churches and communities in Baghdad and Mosul on August 1 produced great concern among Church leaders.
And this concern grew after the Iraqi minister for emigration, Pascale Icho Warda, herself a Christian, declared to the Arab newspaper “Asharq al-Awsat” on August 18 that about forty thousand Christians abandoned Iraq during the weeks following the attacks.
In Iraq, there are now 700,000 to 800,000 Christians. They belong to two different ethnic groups: the Assyrians, who make up the overwhelming majority, and the Armenians.
About 600,000 of them are Catholics. Of these, 8,000 are Armenian by ethnicity and by rite. All the others are Assyrians: 550,000 are of the Chaldean rite, 40,000 of the Syriac rite, and 4,000 of the Latin rite.
The Orthodox number about 150,000. Those of Assyrian ethnicity are either Nestorians of the ancient Church of Persia (100,000) or Syriac (40,000). The Armenians number about 10,000.
The historical territory of the Assyrian Christians of Iraq is in the north, around Mosul, the ancient capital of Assyria once called Nineveh.
In 1933 the Christians, who had fought on the side of the English before their withdrawal just two years earlier, fell victim to a massacre perpetrated by the Arab Sunni Muslims from the center of the country, with the support of the Kurds.
Under Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime the Christians enjoyed comparatively better treatment. But Saddam refused to recognize Assyrian ethnic identity, and forcibly assimilated them with the Arabs.
Today, with the new government, the Assyrians have regained their citizenship. In the census planned for October 12, 2004, the Iraqis will be able to attribute themselves to one of these five ethnicities: Arab, Kurd, Assyrian, Armenian, or Turkmen.
But he future of the Christian community in Iraq depends above all on the democratic stabilization of the country. Without this, they will continue to emigrate. For example, 80 percent of the Iraqis now living in the United States are Assyrian Christians.
And the outcome of the battle of Najaf will be decisive in determining the ordering of the new Iraq.
It is a battle, that of Najaf, that will decide the balance of power among the Shiite Muslims, the majority of the Iraqi population.
But there’s more. If al Sadr were defeated, if instead of the theocratic approach the “quietist” approach were to prevail, the approach of the grand ayatollah Sayyid Ali Husaini Sistani, if Sistani were recognized as the highest religious authority of the Shiite world, not only in Iraq but internationally, and if in neighboring Iran were to prevail the pragmatists who support the legitimate government and the SCIRI, the major Shiite Iraq political party, then prospects would be more encouraging for the Christians of Iraq as well.
And this would mean a victory for the political approach within the Vatican that aims at defeating Islamist terrorism through the development of democracy in Iraq and the Middle East. Even, when necessary, with the use of armed forces in “missions of peace.”
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The Middle East is undergoing ethnic cleansing — again. Does anybody care?
"What are the Muslims doing?" asked Brother Louis, a deacon at the Our Lady of Salvation, an Assyrian Catholic church in Baghdad minutes after it had been bombed. "Does this mean that they want us [Christians] out?"
Well, yes, it does. Our Lady of Salvation was just one of five churches attacked in a series of coordinated explosions in Baghdad and Mosul on Aug. 1, a Sunday, between 6 and 7 o'clock in the evening. In total, these car bombings killed 11 persons and injured 55. In addition, the police defused another two bombs.
The timing of the assault guaranteed a maximum number of casualties. August 1 is a holy day for some Iraqi Christian denominations and because Sunday is an ordinary workday in mostly Muslim Iraq, Sunday services take place in the evening.
The five bombings were by no means the first attacks targeting Iraq's Christian minority since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Others, according to the Barnabas Fund (an organization assisting persecuted Christian minorities), were bunched together at the end of 2003 and included a missile attack on a convent in Mosul; bombs placed (but defused) in two Christian schools in Baghdad and Mosul; a bomb explosion at a Baghdad church on Christmas Eve; and a bomb placed (but defused) at a monastery in Mosul.
In addition, Islamists have attacked the predominantly Christian owners of liquor, music, and fashion stores, as well as beauty salons, wanting them to close down their businesses. Christian women are threatened unless they cover their heads in the Islamic fashion. Random Christians have been assassinated.
These assaults have prompted Iraqi Christians, one of the oldest Christian bodies in the world, to leave their country in record numbers. An Iraqi deacon observed some months ago that "On a recent night the church had to spend more time on filling out baptismal forms needed for leaving the country than they did on the [worship] service. ... Our community is being decimated." Iraq's minister for displacement and migration, Pascale Icho Warda, estimates that 40,000 Christians left Iraq in the two weeks following the Aug. 1 bombings.
Whereas Christians make up just 3 percent of the country's population, their proportion of the refugee flow into Syria is estimated anywhere between 20 and 95 percent. Looking at the larger picture, one estimate finds that about 40 percent of the community has left since 1987, when the census found 1.4 million Iraqi Christians.
Although Muslim leaders uniformly condemned the attacks (Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani termed them "criminal actions," while the interim Iraqi government bravely declared that "This blow is going to unite Iraqis"), they almost certainly mark a milestone in the decline and possible disappearance of Iraqi Christianity.
This seems all the more likely because Christians, due mainly to Islamist persecution and lower birth rates, are disappearing from the Middle East as a whole.
At present rates, the Middle East's 11 million Christians will in a decade or two have lost their cultural vitality and political significance.
It bears noting that Christians are recapitulating the Jewish exodus of a few decades earlier. Jews in the Middle East numbered about a million in 1948 and today total (outside Israel) a mere 60,000.
In combination, these ethnic cleansings of two ancient religious minorities mark the end of an era. The multiplicity of Middle Eastern life, most memorably celebrated in Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet (1957-60), is being reduced to the flat monotony of a single religion and a handful of approved languages. The entire region, not just the affected minorities, is impoverished by this narrowing.
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| Getty Images Lt. General William G. Boykin |
WASHINGTON (Aug. 19) - A U.S. Army general violated Pentagon rules by failing to properly clear speeches in which he described the war on terror as a Christian battle against Satan and should be punished, according to an inspector general's report obtained by Reuters on Wednesday.
The Department of Defense's watchdog agency said Lt. Gen. William Boykin, a top-ranking intelligence officer, used official data in some of the 23 religious-oriented speeches he gave after January 2002 which should have been cleared.
Boykin touched off a firestorm last October after giving speeches while in uniform in which he referred to the war on terror as a battle with Satan and said America had been targeted "because we're a Christian nation." He said later he was not anti-Islam or any other religion.
Boykin was obliged to clear the speeches, given "the sensitive nature of his remarks concerning U.S. policy and the likelihood that he would be perceived by his audiences as a DOD spokesman based on his official position and his appearance in uniform," the report said.
Boykin, an evangelical Christian, violated other rules by failing to issue
a required disclaimer at the speeches that he was not representing official Pentagon
policy, it said.
He also failed to report his receipt of one travel payment exceeding $260 from
a non-government source, said the report, which was submitted to the Senate Armed
Services Committee.
The report said Boykin did make "good faith efforts" to consult legal advisers about his speaking activities and that should be considered when the Army Secretary assessed the seriousness of the violations.
"We recommend that the Acting Secretary of the Army take appropriate corrective action with respect to Lt. Gen. Boykin," the report said.
The investigation did not focus on whether the substance of Boykin's remarks was appropriate for a senior Pentagon official or whether it compromised his fitness for performing his duties.
A Pentagon spokeswoman had no comment on the report, or what type of punishment the general would face. "That report has not been released. At this point it would be inappropriate for me to comment," said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jane Campbell.
Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American Islamic Relations welcomed the report's findings but said they came too late to prevent damage to the image of the United States and the U.S. military in the Muslim world.
He said his group supported Boykin's right to free speech, but not his speeches while in uniform.
"He's free to have views on Islam that are objectionable. We don't like it, but he has that right, just not as a representative of the U.S. military," Hooper said.
Muslim groups and U.S. lawmakers condemned Boykin's comments when they were reported last fall and President Bush said the remarks "didn't reflect my opinion."
At the time, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld praised Boykin's "outstanding record" and refused to reprimand the general, who played a role in a 1993 clash with Somali warlords and the ill-fated hostage rescue attempt in Iran in 1980.
Since then, Muslim groups also raised questions about what role Boykin, deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence, may have played in creating U.S. military interrogation policy amid a scandal over the abuse of prisoners in Iraq.
Boykin issued a written apology last October to anyone offended by his remarks, but did not take any of them back.
08/18/04 23:06 ET
More information about something we have covered here for some time: the fact that jihadists are entering the US illegally through Mexico. From The Telegraph, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
President Bush has launched a drive to halt illegal immigration across America's porous southern border, amid growing fears that terrorists may be using Mexico as a base camp before heading to Arizona, Texas and California.
A string of alarming incidents has convinced Bush administration officials that lax immigration rules, designed to cope with the huge numbers of illegal entrants from Mexico, have become a significant loophole in the war on terror.Over the past month, border agents from Arizona and Texas have anonymously reported recent encounters with dozens of Arab men, who have made their way across the 2,000-mile Mexican border.
Patrol agents told one Arizona newspaper that 77 males "of Middle Eastern descent" were apprehended in June in two separate incidents. All were trekking through the Chiricahua mountains and are believed to have been part of a larger group of illegal immigrants. Many were released pending immigration hearings. According to Solomon Ortiz, the Congressman for Corpus Christi in Texas, similar incidents are "happening all over the place. It's very, very scary".
The two groups of Arab males were discovered by patrol guards from Willcox, Arizona. "These guys didn't speak Spanish," said one field agent, "and they were speaking to each other in Arabic. It's ridiculous that we don't take this more seriously. We're told not to say a thing to the media." A colleague told the paper: "All the men had brand-new clothing and the exact same cut of moustache." Local ranchers have also reported a rise in the sightings of large groups of young males.
Last month, border patrol agents at McAllen airport, Texas, arrested a woman believed to be Pakistani, who was carrying a false South African passport. The woman, Farida Ahmed, is still being questioned by the FBI. She was travelling to New York, and admitted to having illegally crossed the Mexican border. She was still carrying a pair of wet jeans in her travel bag....
"My concern is, are we serious about terrorism?" said Sheriff Jernigan. "Or about homeland security? Because we're turning loose non-Mexicans by the thousands. Entering this country illegally is a crime, and we're turning our heads and ignoring it."
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| Bishop Vicken Aykazian, diocesan legate and ecumenical officer, leads a protest outside the Sudanese Embassy in Washington, D.C., on Friday, July 23, 2004. |
The Armenian Church is taking a leading role in pushing for action to end the genocide which is beginning in the Sudan.
Bishop Vicken Aykazian, legate and ecumenical officer of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern), led a protest outside the Sudanese Embassy in Washington D.C. on Friday, July 23, 2004. He was joined by religious leaders and supporters from the Armenian Assembly of America.
"My message was that genocide is not acceptable, especially in the beginning of the 21st century," said Bishop Aykazian, who led a prayer during the protest and also spoke for the group to various media outlets. "I told them I know what genocide means, because my people have suffered through genocide. So we ask the authorities and the people to come together to fight against the genocide."
Bishop Aykazian, who serves as secretary to the executive committee of the National Council of Churches (NCC), has talked about the issue with leaders of that ecumenical body and is one of the organization's leaders calling for international action to end the violence in the Sudan, where the Janjaweed -- a government-backed nomadic Arab tribe -- has raped, killed, and burnt the homes of black, non-Arab residents in the nation's Darfur region in attempt to get them to leave their lands, which the Arab government has promised to the mercenaries.
Those able to flee the Sudan have been pouring into neighboring Chad, where food, water, and shelter are growing scarce. American officials have unsuccessfully called on Sudan to allow humanitarian aid to flow into the Darfur area. The Bush administration has already pledged $300 million in aid.
With American pressure, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution at the end of July calling for sanctions against Sudan unless the violence ends. (Sudan was recently elected to a three-year term on the U.N. Human Rights Commission.)
The violence has already claimed an estimated 50,000 lives and displaced a million people. During the protest at the Sudanese Embassy, the group called not only for an end to the violence, but also for humanitarian aid and financial support for the displaced non-Arab victims.
Right now the activists are struggling on two fronts: to gather humanitarian assistance and to get the violence to be called genocide.
"According to the experts, it is genocide. It really bothers me when the authorities and the government do not use the word genocide, because it is genocide. We have to use the word genocide," Bishop Aykazian said. "We have no right to use the word 'massacres', because other nations used that word when talking about the Armenian Genocide, and that bothers us. So we have to use the word 'genocide'."
"Genocide goes beyond violence," Bishop Aykazian added. "It is not only killing human beings; it is killing the culture of a nation, of a minority, of a race. Genocide is the destruction of a group of people and the destruction of their history."
The NCC's executive board passed a resolution on Tuesday, May 18, 2004, urging member churches to push for cessation of the apparent attempt at ethnic cleansing in the Darfur region of western Sudan.
The first NCC resolution dealing with the Sudan was approved in 2002. This recent resolution "affirms and extends" the calls to action made in the earlier statement of the NCC Executive Board -- an 80-member body representing leaders from the NCC's 36 Protestant, Orthodox, and Anglican member churches.
The organization is also raising funds to send supplies of food and clothing to the refugees streaming out of Sudan and into neighboring Chad.
The Eastern Diocese will be raising funds through its local parishes to provide aid to the victims in the Sudan through the National Council of Churches.
"Today it is happening in the Sudan, and tomorrow it can happen in any part of the world. When you need help, you ask other people to help you. So make sure when others ask for help you don't just keep quiet because you don't want to put your hands into your pockets," he said. "As Armenians especially, we have no right to just keep quiet."
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) - A banner draped across a wall of a Damascus church commemorated a long-ago massacre in neighboring Iraq, but hundreds of worshippers praying below worried about more recent violence that is driving Iraqi Christians from their homeland.
``We offer these prayers for the souls of those who were killed in our brotherly Iraq,'' said a Syrian priest before reading the names of seven people killed Aug. 1 when suspected Islamic militants set off explosions at five churches in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul.
In addition to the seven dead, dozens were wounded in the first major assault on Iraq's Christian minority since Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled by a U.S.-led invasion in April 2003.
Even before the church bombings, Christians reporting harassment by Islamic fundamentalists had begun streaming out of Iraq, many to neighboring Syria. Syria's relaxed visa rules for Arabs and its geographical and cultural proximity to Iraq have attracted thousands of Iraqis, Muslim as well as Christian, seeking to escape chaos at home. A disproportionate number of the refugees, though, have been Christian.
The Iraqi Embassy in Damascus and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimate the number of Iraqis of all faiths in Syria at about 250,000. Some 12,000 of these have registered with the UNHCR - of which 20 percent are Christians. Yet Christians make up just 3 percent of Iraq's population of about 25 million. The major Christian groups include Chaldean-Assyrians and Armenians.
Benjamin Chamoun showed a reporter a handwritten death threat signed the ``Islamic Resistance Group'' he said he had received for working as a driver at a U.S. military base. He quit three months ago, but at first didn't consider leaving his homeland. Then came the church bombings.
``There is nothing worse than attacking churches,'' added Chamoun, who is a member of the Chaldean-Assyrian church, the major Christian sect in Iraq.
``We, as Christians, are not persecuted by Muslims. Our problem is with Muslim extremists,'' said the 35-year-old Chamoun as he sat in an apartment in the Jaramana area on the outskirts of Damascus. Jaramana has become an Iraqi Christian neighborhood.
Chamoun, who fled with his wife, two daughters and son, hopes to emigrate to Australia. If he doesn't get a visa, he said he will try to find a job in Syria and wait for the situation to improve back home.
Under Saddam, even in the later years when the Iraqi leader attempted to rally support by waving the Islamic banner, Christians were free to practice their religion and lived relatively peacefully among the Muslim majority. Some, like former Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, even rose to prominence.
History has seen other periods of sectarian tension and violence in Iraq. The Sunday Iraqis in Syria were praying for those killed in the church bombings fell a day after Martyrs Day, one of the most important days on the Chaldean-Assyrian calendar. It marks the 1933 massacre by the Iraqi government of Christians demanding more rights. Chaldean-Assyrians say some 3,000 people, including women and children, were killed in Simele, a town in northern Iraq.
``Aug. 7 will remain a symbol of honor for our people and their national identity,'' read a banner still hanging Aug. 8 during Sunday services at the Chaldean-Assyrian Abraham Church in Damascus.
Islamic extremism has been on the rise in Iraq in the chaos since Saddam's fall. Some trace this to the arrival of foreign Muslim militants drawn to Iraq by the chance to attack Americans.
Iraqi Christians in Syria speak of Muslim extremists back home forcing even Christian women to wear Islamic veils or having their liquor shops burned - Islam frowns on alcohol.
``Iraqis from all sections of the Iraqi society have been approaching our office,'' said Ajmal Khybari, senior officer at UNHCR office in Damascus. ``But in the past two or three months we have seen an increase of Iraqi Christians.''
In one sign of how many Iraqi Christians are in Syria, an Iraqi church leader traveled to Damascus to mark Martyrs Day.
``We are against the immigration of Christians,'' Archbishop Touma Iramia Gewargis, head of the Archbishopric of Ninewa and Duhuk in Iraq, said during his visit. ``We were against it in the past and are in the present and ``future. We want to protect our nation because we are first-class citizens in Iraq.''
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration endorsed an agreement between the United Nations and Sudan that requires the African government to create safe areas in its embattled Darfur region within 30 days so civilians can search for food and water.
``It's a good start,'' State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said Monday about the accord reached last week.
If Sudan and negotiators for rebels in the region convene for talks on Aug. 23, as proposed by President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, that ``will be something important to be factored'' into a U.N. decision on whether to punish Sudan, Ereli said.
The Security Council still intends to consider at the end of the month whether to impose sanctions on Sudan for attacks by Arab-led militia on black Sudanese in the country's sprawling, arid Darfur region, the spokesman said.
In an apparent easing of U.S. pressure on Sudan, Ereli said, ``Let's all work toward a resolution of this problem that does not require sanctions.''
Foreign ministers of the 22-member Arab League, meeting Sunday in Cairo, Egypt, at the request of Sudan, a member, rejected ``any threats of coercive military intervention in the region (to end the crisis) or imposing any sanctions on Sudan.''
The State Department, meanwhile, continued to hold off making a judgment on whether the deaths and displacements of tens of thousands of black Africans in Darfur amounted to ethnic cleansing or genocide. Congress and some humanitarian groups have accused Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir's government of genocide.
At the behest of Secretary of State Colin Powell, the U.N. Security Council on July 30 gave Sudan 30 days to control the militia and facilitate relief efforts or face sanctions.
Yielding to critics, the Bush administration removed the word ``sanctions'' from the resolution to make it say ``measures'' against Sudan would be considered in 30 days. Powell said the meaning was the same.
Asked about the Arab League's stand against sanctions, Ereli said Monday, ``We would all prefer that the government of Sudan voluntarily take the actions'' demanded by the United Nations.
``So let's work toward the goal of implementing what the resolution calls for so that the question of whether to pose sanctions doesn't need to present itself,'' the spokesman said.
On the Net:
Arab League: http://www.arableagueonline.org/arableague/index-en.jsp
In a report which might alternately be termed "stunning" or "terrifying",
United Nations weapons inspectors confirmed last week not merely that Saddam Hussein
had weapons of mass destruction, but that he smuggled them out of his country,
before, during and after the war.
Late last week, the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC)
briefed the Security Council on Saddam's lightning-fast dismantling of missile
and WMD sites before and during the war. UNMOVIC executive chairman Demetrius
Perricos detailed not only the export of thousands of tons of missile components,
nuclear reactor vessels and fermenters for chemical and biological warheads, but
also the discovery of many (but not most) of these items -- with UN inspection
tags still on them-- as far afield as Jordan, Turkey and even Holland.
Notably absent from that list is Iraq's western neighbor Syria, ruled by its own
Baath Party just like Saddam's and closed to even the thought of an UNMOVIC inspection.
Israeli intelligence has been reporting the large-scale smuggling of Saddam's
WMD program across the Syrian border since at least two months before the war.
Syria has long been the world's foremost state-sponsor of terrorism.
Perricos highlighted the proliferation danger to the Security Council, as well
he should: UNMOVIC has no idea where most of the WMD material is today, just that
it exists and it's gone; and anything in Syria is likely to be in Jerusalem or
New York tomorrow.
This is the biggest news story of 2004 so far. Yet you haven't heard about it,
have you? You probably haven't heard about Canada's Prime Minister Paul Martin
either -- a socialist and no friend of America.
Addressing a group of 700 university researchers and business leaders in Montreal
last month, Martin stated bluntly that terrorists have acquired WMDs from Saddam.
"The fact is that there is now, we know well, a proliferation of nuclear
weapons, and that many weapons that Saddam Huseein had, we don't know where they
are. [T]errorists have access to all of them," the Canadian premier warned.
The tip of this terrorist sword was scarcely deflected on April 26th, when Jordanian
intelligence broke up an al Qaeda conspiracy to detonate a large chemical device
in the capital city of Amman. Directed by al Qaeda terrorist leader Abu al-Zarqawi
-- the same man who personally beheaded American Nicholas Berg in Iraq last month
-- the plotters sought to use a massive explosion to spread a "toxic cloud",
meant to wipe out the U.S. embassy, the Jordanian prime minister's office, the
Jordanian intelligence headquarters, and at least 20,000 civilians (by contrast,
only 3,000 died on 9/11). Over twenty tons of chemical weapons were seized from
the conspirators, who were just days away from carrying out their plot.
One wonders where CNN and USA Today think twenty tons of nerve gas and sarin came
from: Chemical Weapons-Mart? Yet their coverage, like most major media outlets,
mentioned not a word about Saddam's smuggled WMDs, which -- according to liberal
dogma -- "don't exist." Even though the UN says they do exist, now spread
around the world. It's not just the UN. Bill Clinton says they exist, even after
the war: in a July 2003 interview with Larry King, the ex-president uncharacteristically
defended George Bush, saying "it is incontestable that on the day I left
office, there [was]...a substantial amount of biological and chemical material
unaccounted for" in Iraq. Every intelligence agency in the world -- French,
British, German, Russian, Czech, you name it -- agreed before the war; Jordanian
intelligence can certainly confirm their opinion today.
So what's the deal? Why the relentless pretence that "Bush lied" when
even the UN and Bill Clinton say he didn't? Why the absolute silence about inconvenient"
parts of various UN reports, such as the discovery of chemical and biological
weapons plans, recipes and equipment; of bio-weapons agents in an Iraqi scientist's
house; of a prison lab for testing bio weapons on humans; of complexes for manufacturing
fuel for prohibited long-range missiles; of artillery rounds containing enough
sarin to kill thousands of people, of similar shells containing mustard gas, two
(but far from the only) of which were used in a terrorist attack against U.S.
forces just weeks ago?
America cannot afford the answer to this "why": that many on the left
consider George W. Bush's defeat more urgent than al Qaeda's, his political death
more essential than the possible physical death of millions of Americans. The
character of our foreign enemies has never been in doubt. The character of the
enemy within -- from Dan Rather to Michael Moore -- has never been clearer. And
the stakes are the highest they've ever been.
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Prime Minister Ayad Allawi on Saturday ordered the temporary closure of the television network Al-Jazeera's Baghdad bureau, the Arab world's primary source of news from Iraq, saying its extensive coverage of kidnappings has encouraged militants.
He said at a news conference that the network's office here would be shut for a month and that it would be allowed to reopen if the network addressed the government's concerns.
Al-Jazeera broadcasts to millions of Arab viewers from headquarters in Doha, Qatar. The Bush administration has long criticized its coverage as biased against the United States. The network has a large bureau here and is frequently cited by Western news organizations because it provides coverage from areas deemed too dangerous for Western reporters. It has broadcast videotapes provided by militant groups of hostages like Nicholas Berg, the American who was beheaded in Iraq in May, a practice the Iraqi government opposes.
Allawi has tried to bring order to the chaos of kidnappings, vigilantism and rebel militias that has befallen Iraq. "We will not allow Al-Jazeera or anyone else to disturb the security in the country," Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib said.
Allawi cited a videotape broadcast Saturday by the network that appeared to show an American being beheaded as an example of the coverage he opposed. But the tape turned out to be a hoax.
"I am worried about these people," he said. "I am not worried about whether Al-Jazeera will like it or not."
Allawi also announced Saturday that he had signed an amnesty intended to persuade militants to put down their weapons and join efforts to rebuild the country.
But the law pardons only minor criminals, not killers or terrorists, and appeared unlikely to dampen the violence, as some insurgent leaders called it "insignificant."
The Al-Jazeera network, on its Web site, called the closing unjustified and said the decision "is contrary to pledges made by the Iraqi government to start a new era of free speech and openness."
Allawi brushed off criticism that the closing boded badly for freedom of the news media in Iraq, saying that immediate concerns of security for Iraqis were much more important. He also said that he had asked an independent panel to evaluate the network's coverage of Iraq and that it had concluded the coverage advocated violence.
Some Iraqi journalists agreed with him. The network, "doesn't always give the truth," said Kareem al-Yousif, one of the owners of Radio Dijla, a new radio station in Baghdad. "It doesn't give the Iraqi people their right. It's not on their side."
It was not the first time the Baghdad bureau was closed. Saddam Hussein shut it in 2002 and in January, Iraq's Governing Council, now dissolved, closed it for what the council called inflammatory coverage.
The long-delayed amnesty, coupled with a tough emergency law passed last month, was supposed to help end the violence by coaxing nationalist guerrillas to the government's side.
The amnesty applies to minor crimes -- such as weapons possession, hiding intelligence about terror attacks or harboring terrorists -- and appears intended to persuade people with information to share it with police.
The amnesty forgives those who committed minor crimes between May 1, 2003, just after Saddam Hussein's regime fell, and Saturday, Allawi said.
"This amnesty is not for people . . . who have killed. Those people will be brought to justice, starting from Zarqawi down to the person in the street," Allawi said, referring to Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose followers have claimed responsibility for deadly suicide bombings.
Rape, kidnapping, looting and terror attacks also are excluded.
Iraqi officials earlier said the amnesty might extend to those who killed U.S. and other coalition troops. Later drafts ruled it out.
The amnesty was rejected immediately by militant Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose militia has been fighting coalition forces in the Shiite holy city of Najaf and elsewhere since Thursday.
"This is a trivial and insignificant statement," said al-Sadr aide Ahmed al-Shaibany. "Amnesties are for criminals, but resistance is legitimate and does not need an amnesty."
Saturday night, the network ran live scenes of Iraqi police in the Baghdad bureau with Al-Jazeera lawyers, explaining that they were trying to carry out orders.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Documents found by American troops at a terrorist camp in Iraq last year contained the name of a New York mosque imam now facing federal charges of plotting to obtain a shoulder-fired grenade launcher, law enforcement officials said Friday.
An entry in an address book found by the soldiers at an Ansar al-Islam camp last summer in northern Iraq referred to Yassin Aref as ``the commander'' and included his address and telephone number in Albany, N.Y., the officials said.
Although Aref had come to the FBI's attention before the address book's discovery, two law enforcement officials speaking on condition of anonymity said it was a strong indication that Ansar al-Islam - which the United States has linked to the al-Qaida network - had a presence in the United States. The officials insisted on anonymity because the information is not yet officially public.
Aref, 34, and Mohammed Hossain, 49, are charged with money laundering and attempting to conceal material support for a terror organization. They were arrested Thursday as part of an FBI sting operation using an informant who the Justice Department says led them to believe they were taking part in the purchase of an RPG-7 grenade launcher for the assassination of Pakistan's ambassador to the United Nations.
Both men were being held Friday pending a detention hearing Tuesday, when the Justice Department is expected to provide additional details in an attempt to persuade a judge to hold them without bond.
Deputy Attorney General James Comey said Thursday the hearing will provide ``an opportunity to say something about what we know about the background of one or both of these defendants.''
U.S. officials have said that Ansar al-Islam members are thought to be linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant whose network is blamed for attacks on U.S. forces and their allies in Iraq.
Supporters and families of the two arrested in Albany deny they have any connection with terror, contending that they came to the United States for freedom and opportunity. Aref was the imam at the storefront Masjid As-Salaam mosque; Hossain was one of the mosque's founders and owns a popular pizza parlor in Albany.
``It's totally wrong and totally false and totally a lie,'' Hossain's wife, Mossamat, said about the terrorist allegations.
Even before the discovery of Aref's name in Iraq, both he and Hossain apparently had come to the attention of the FBI.
Taped conversations between the two and the informant involved in the FBI weapons sting indicate that ``Hossain had himself been visited by the FBI twice and Aref had been visited by the FBI five times,'' according to an FBI court affidavit.
Aref also told the informant in a taped conversation that ``he believed his home, car and the mosque were being electronically monitored'' by law enforcement agents.
On the Net:
Justice Department: http://www.usdoj.gov
WASHINGTON (AP) - A third person separate from the two prisoners and documents previously disclosed provided information indicating al-Qaida was plotting to attack U.S. financial buildings, Bush administration officials said Wednesday in seeking to counter criticism their latest terror warning was overblown.
The White House described the information from the third person as ``another new stream of intelligence'' that supported its decision to issue the warning. It arrived days before the public alert, as officials were reviewing reams of recently obtained documents and photographs that showed surveillance of five buildings in New York, New Jersey and Washington carried out years earlier by al-Qaida.
``Old information isn't irrelevant information - particularly with this kind of enemy,'' Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said Wednesday in Nashville, Tenn.
The information corroborating al-Qaida's intentions to carry out attacks against U.S. financial buildings came from someone other than two recently captured suspects in Pakistan, said a senior Justice Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity. It was unclear whether the person was a prisoner or informant.
Information from those two suspects - a young militant familiar with computers and a man indicted for the U.S. embassy bombings in Africa in 1998 - had provided the bulk of the intelligence that led to Sunday's warnings.
The corroborating information did not specify targets in the United States or say when an attack might be planned, the official said. But it so closely tracked the other intelligence that U.S. financial buildings had already been under surveillance by al-Qaida that it contributed to the decision to issue the public warnings.
``Coupled with general threat reporting, coupled with other pieces of information, then all of the sudden you say to yourself, 'This is a time when we have to talk to America about the threat.' And that's exactly what we did,'' Ridge said.
A U.S. counterterrorism official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the surveillance information last week was married with ``very recent and current activity'' from al-Qaida, indicating the group's interest in attacking this year. This information, which includes debriefings and other means of gathering information, is causing the administration serious concern, the official said.
``A bunch of things came together at the same time,'' Frances Townsend, the White House Homeland Security adviser, said in an interview Wednesday with National Public Radio. She said the corroborating information came from ``a very sensitive ongoing investigation in another part of the world.''
The FBI is monitoring al-Qaida operatives and others associated with Islamic terror groups inside the United States, although these people have not been directly linked to the threat against financial buildings, the Justice Department official said. These people include financiers for Ansar al-Islam, a group linked to al-Qaida, the official said.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan declined to describe in detail what he called ``another new stream of intelligence,'' saying it might endanger continuing intelligence operations. He criticized as an ``irresponsible suggestion'' any criticism that the administration had issued a terror warning for political purposes.
``When you connect all these streams of intelligence, it paints an alarming picture,'' McClellan told reporters aboard Air Force One during a campaign flight to Iowa.
Ridge and other senior administration officials spent a second day Wednesday defending the warnings, which came on the heels of the Democratic National Convention and drew attention from the presidential campaign of nominee John Kerry.
``I categorically state that the none of the terror threats are politically motivated,'' Ridge said.
In New York, Treasury Secretary John Snow said suggestions that terror alerts were manipulated were ``pure, unadulterated nonsense.'' Snow toured the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and praised traders for their resilience in the face of such warnings.
Associated Press writers Katherine Pfleger Shrader in Washington, Matt Gouras in Nashville and Kendra Locke in New York contributed to this report.
BAGHDAD — In a wave of coordinated attacks aimed at Iraq's Christian
minority, a 
series
of bombs exploded Sunday outside five churches thronged with worshipers here and
in the northern city of Mosul, killing 11 people and injuring dozens more.
It was the first time in this nation's 15-month insurgency that Iraqi Christians were targeted, further fraying the country's delicate religious fabric and raising fears of increased sectarian conflict.
Attackers timed some of the blasts for maximum effect, during evening services that attracted hundreds of faithful. Bloodied and dazed, churchgoers spilled onto streets littered with shards of stained glass and splinters of wood as smoke billowed above them.
"I was praying inside the church with all these people when all the windows shattered," said Father Rafael Kutaimi of an Assyrian Catholic church in Baghdad's Karada neighborhood, where a car packed with explosives blew up during the 6 p.m. service. At least a dozen worshipers were wounded.
"They came into a holy place," Kutaimi said of the attackers, as bystanders scurried away from U.S. armored vehicles that had rolled to the scene. "If they're against the Americans, let them kill the Americans. We're all Iraqis, innocent people. I don't know what their goal is."
Within an hour, four churches were hit in three neighborhoods in the Iraqi capital. The Iraqi Ministry of Health said early today that 11 people had died and 52 were injured.
In perhaps the deadliest of the attacks, twin blasts struck the Chaldean Patriarchate in southern Baghdad, killing a child and at least four other people as churchgoers began arriving for Mass around sunset. Witnesses said they saw two men pull up in separate cars, park them near the church, then casually walk away before the vehicles exploded, hurling debris as far as 100 yards.
The church served as a bomb shelter during last year's U.S. invasion, and local residents, Muslims and Christians alike, banded together to protect it from looters. "We have all lived here in peace for a long time," said Ali Abdulla, 28, who rushed from his house across the street to help the injured.
Around the same time as the Baghdad explosions, at least one car bomb went off outside a church in Mosul, incinerating a passing motorist and wounding four other people. The toll could have been higher if all the mortar shells in the car had detonated, police said.
It was not immediately clear if any of the bombings were suicide attacks. U.S. military officials here said the bombs seemed crudely made, casting doubt on whether fugitive militant leader Abu Musab Zarqawi had masterminded the plan.
Still, the organized assault punctured the sense of relative immunity that many of Iraq's 800,000 Christians had felt, not only during the bloodshed of the last year but stretching back to the reign of Saddam Hussein, who actively cultivated the support of religious minorities as a bulwark against the country's Shiite Muslim majority. Better educated than many Iraqis, Christians here have traditionally exercised an influence disproportionate to their small numbers. Former Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz, now in U.S. custody, is a Christian who was a powerful player in Hussein's inner circle.
Many Christian professionals and businesspeople have fled Iraq in the last 30 years for better economic opportunities and to escape periodic outbreaks of hostility against them. In the late 1980s, during a campaign against ethnic Kurds in northern Iraq, Hussein's forces destroyed scores of Christian villages, demolished ancient monasteries and churches, and forcibly moved Christians to Baghdad.
In addition to Sunday's bombings — which elicited a condemnation from the Vatican — recent weeks have seen a nationwide rise in attacks on liquor and record stores, whose owners are often Christians and whose wares are forbidden by strict Muslims.
Although some Christians predicted that more of them would want to flee Iraq, others pledged to stay, such as engineer Skender Melconian, 59, a leader among Armenian Christians. "This community has been in Baghdad since 1911," he said. "Now is the time for Iraqis to build their country out of the ashes. But there's a drive from some people to move us backward."
In March, four American Christian missionary workers were shot to death in Mosul, though it was unclear whether they were targeted because of their religion or because they were foreigners. Sunday's attack was the first coordinated assault aimed at Iraqi Christians.
An Armenian Christian church in the Karada neighborhood was the first to be targeted. It is a few blocks from the Assyrian Catholic church, which was hit about half an hour later, leaving a smoking crater.
Soon after the second bombing, officials with the U.S.-led multinational forces ordered Iraqi police to sweep other churches in the city. Officers found an unexploded device in one, which U.S. teams disabled.
The operation could not be mounted quickly enough to prevent two more explosions, one outside the Chaldean Patriarchate in the southern district of Dora and the other in New Baghdad, a working-class neighborhood to the east.
The apparent target was St. Elya's Chaldean Church, but an adjacent Shiite mosque, its minaret almost nuzzling the church's cross, bore the brunt of the blast. Onlookers said funerals were being held at both houses of worship when the car bomb detonated.
Maher Mahmoud Mohammed, 35, whose barbershop sits near the mosque and the church, was outside when the bomb exploded. He said the force of the blast knocked him down and punched out his shop's windows. He struggled to get up, then bolted, joining dozens of others who had poured out of the two religious buildings.
Minutes later, he sat in a hospital, the left half of his tank top scarlet from the blood that seeped from his cuts. His anger at those responsible was just as inflamed. "These are cowards and criminals," he said as victims in adjacent rooms screamed in pain. "They're not Muslims."
On a nearby gurney, the mosque's elderly spiritual leader, Sayyed Qassim, lay naked and blackened, his body smeared with salve, his quavering voice saying the name of Allah over and over.
His son rushed in, collapsing to the floor and clapping his hands to his face as he cried out, "Father! Father!" The holy man's followers crowded into the hospital, some of them sobbing.
At the scene of the blast, Nazhat Abd was outraged.
"What are they targeting? Churches and mosques are places to give prayers to God. It's the same. These terrorists don't differentiate between anybody anymore, between innocent and guilty, Christian and Muslim."
*
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Times staff writers Megan K. Stack, Edmund Sanders and Alissa J. Rubin contributed
to this story.
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - A university professor who was twice condemned to death for blasphemy walked out of prison on Saturday night, free after a two-year battle with hard-line judges and mass student demonstrations in his favor.
Hashem Aghajari emerged from Evin prison in north Tehran to a warm welcome by more than two dozen relatives and friends, his daughter Maryam Aghajari told The Associated Press.
``Finally, my dad is free,'' she said. The prominent reformist writer Emadeddin Baqi was among those who greeted her father.
Maryam said her father was released on bail of $122,500. The bond had to be posted because Aghajari had not served his full 3-year sentence. He has spent more than two years behind bars.
A professor at Tehran's Teachers Training University, Hashem Aghajari was prosecuted for a speech in June 2002 in which he urged people to question religious teachings, saying the words of clerics should not be considered sacred simply because they were part of history. He said people should not slavishly follow hard-line interpretations of Islam.
His comments enraged the clerical establishment. He was charged with blasphemy, insulting Islam and questioning clerical rule.
But when a court convicted him and condemned him to death, hundreds of thousands of students demonstrated in his support.
His case became a test case in the power struggle between reformists and hard-liners over the future of Iran, with liberals seeking greater freedom and conservatives defending Islamic orthodoxy. As the demonstrations grew, Iran's supreme leader instructed the courts to review Aghajari's trial.
At the end of a retrial, he was again condemned to death. President Mohammad Khatami spoke on his behalf, saying Aghajari had done more for Iran than the ``inexperienced'' judge who sentenced him.
Again the Supreme Court overturned his conviction. Finally, earlier this month, a court convicted Aghajari of the lesser charges of insulting sacred Islamic tenets. It sentenced him to three years' imprisonment with a further two years suspended.
The sentence deprived Aghajari of certain rights for five years, meaning he cannot work in the civil service or stand in elections.
During his trial, Aghajari defended the cause of democratic reform and denounced hard-line clerics whom he accused of suppress freedom in the name of Islam. He denied that he had insulted Islamic tenets.
In his testimony, Aghajari said he stood for ``an Islam that brings about freedom and is compatible with democracy and human rights.
``I have opposed interpretations that justify suppression and dictatorship in the name of Islam,'' he told the court.
He also said he had ``no hope'' of justice and repeatedly accused the presiding judge of bias.
Late last Thursday night, the United States Congress responded to the nearly 20,000 letters that you sent within a matter of hours to the U.S. Congress. Your efforts prodded them to pass a critical resolution urging the president to declare genocide in Sudan and take measures to end it now.
Activists "die-in" to protest the slaughter of thousands in Sudan (from darfurgenocide.org).
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| Activists "die-in" to protest the slaughter of thousands in Sudan (from darfurgenocide.org). |
As legislators debated the resolution, 1,200 people from the Sudan Campaign, a broad-based left-right coalition seeking peace and justice in Sudan (of which AASG is a member), converged on Washington, D.C. for a "die-in". A "die-in" is a visual reminder of those slaughtered: those gathered in D.C. fell motionless to the ground, representing the 1,000 people who die every week in Sudan.
This is the first time in U.S. history that the Congress has asked the president to utilize international law to stop genocide, and it stands in stark contrast to the tragic mishandling of the Rwanda crisis. It only happened because people like you demanded action--thank you!
Led by Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) in the Senate and Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ) in the House, both the House and Senate passed the joint House and Senate resolution on Sudan unanimously.
Refugees from the Darfur region of Sudan.
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| Refugees from the Darfur region of Sudan. |
Backers hoped this strong expression from Congress would pressure the UN and the international community to protect Black Africans from the ruthless government and its Janjaweed militia in a deliberate campaign to murder, rape, enslave, starve, and block aid to the millions of Blacks who live as second-class citizens in western Sudan.
Indeed, the resolution did trigger a stronger response from the international community. The British and Australians declared their willingness to send troops to the region and the European Union joined the U.S. to support a UN resolution placing sanctions on the Janjaweed and the government of Sudan.
However, we must continue to watch, protest, expose, and write to Russia, Pakistan, and China, who have declared their opposition to holding the criminals accountable. While the EU seems to be onboard, France must be watched like a fox in the hen-house because of their previous statements downplaying the strife in Sudan. They also have the tremendous potential to be bought off by French oil company Total, which owns the largest oil concessions in Sudan.
The Sudanese government, one of seven countries the U.S. State Department notes is a sponsor of terrorism, is now encouraging terrorists to defend Sudan from international intervention. Sudan and its terrorist allies would rather fight forces helping to free, feed, and assist the suffering Muslims in Darfur rather than trying to aid them.
Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) is arrested for civil disobedience at the Sudanese Embassy.
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| Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) is arrested for civil disobedience at the Sudanese Embassy. |
Our work is certainly not done. We encourage our members to support the daily civil disobedience action and protests occurring at the Sudanese Embassy in Washington, at the Sudanese Mission to the UN in New York, and in cities across the world. We also hope that you will join our Freedom Brigade and make our continuing efforts to end genocide possible. Contact the American Anti-Slavery Group at (617) 426-8161 for more information and let us continue keeping the pressure on.
GENEVA, July 28 (Reuters) Religious rights campaigners, buoyed by a UN call for an end to repression of minorities by majority religions, today urged the world body to tackle persecution of ''apostates'' in Muslim countries.
The move came as humanist groups hailed the UN's 2004 Human Development Report for declaring that ''individuals must be free not only to criticise the religion into which they are born, but to reject it for another or to remain without one.'' The campaigners' appeal -- in the form of a petition signed by nearly 90,000 people in 32 countries, including present and former Muslims -- was delivered to new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour.It said Muslim religious leaders and organisations should make a clear public call for reinterpretation of Islamic law ''so that Muslims who change their faith will not have to face intimidation, harassment, persecution or death as a result.'' The petition, launched by British-based Christian group The Barnabas Fund, called on the U.N. Human Rights Commission, governments and international bodies to speak out on the issue and raise it ''as a matter of urgency'' with Muslim groupings.
Fund advocacy manager Paul Cook -- who welcomed the UN report's ''very encouraging affirmation'' of the right to apostasy -- said his group's efforts to get dialogue going with Muslim bodies on the problem had so far met with silence.
IN BRIEF / MICHIGAN
Residents of Hamtramck rejected an effort to repeal an amendment to the city's noise ordinance, a victory for those in favor of allowing mosques to issue the call to prayer over loudspeakers. The vote was 1,462 to 1,200.
The City Council passed the noise ordinance in April after a mosque asked for permission to begin broadcasting the Arabic chants, traditionally issued five times a day. The ordinance regulates the volume and timing of the amplified calls.
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