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2005 NewsAugust 23, 2005Pope Benedict XVI Message to Muslims in regards to Terrorism.From his meeting on 20 August with representatives from leading German Muslim organisations in Cologne, GermanyDear Muslim friends, I want to share my hopes and concerns with you at this particularly difficult time in our history. I am certain that I echo your own thoughts when I bemoan the spread of terrorism. Terrorist activity is continually recurring throughout the world, sowing death and destruction, and plunging many of our brothers and sisters into grief and despair. Terrorism of any kind is perverse and cruel. It shows contempt for life and undermines the foundations of civil society. Those who instigate these attacks evidently wish to poison our relations, making use of all means, including religion, to oppose our attempts to build a fair and peaceful life together. If we can all succeed in eliminating rancour from our hearts, in resisting intolerance and in opposing every manifestation of violence, we will turn back the wave of cruel fanaticism that endangers the lives of so many and hinders progress toward world peace. You guide and train Muslim believers in the Islamic faith. You, therefore, have a great responsibility for the formation of the younger generation. In particular, the message that every human life is sacred must be heeded and communicated. Should it ever cease to find an echo in people's hearts, the world would be exposed to the darkness of a new barbarism. How many pages of history record wars that have been waged, with both sides invoking the name of God, as if fighting and killing could be pleasing to Him? The recollection of these sad events should fill us with shame, for we know only too well the atrocities that have been committed in the name of religion. Today, interreligious dialogue between Christians and Muslims is a vital necessity, on which our future depends in large measure. I am profoundly convinced that we need to reaffirm the values of mutual respect, solidarity and peace. There is no room for apathy and disengagement, and even less for sectarianism. We must not yield to fear or pessimism. Rather, we must cultivate hope. As Christians and Muslims, we must face together the many challenges of our time. August 22, 2005Michael Graham was fired because of his comments against Islam. Read his article.WELL, THEY GOT ME...The First Amendment and I have been evicted from ABC Radio in Washington, DC. On July 25th, the Council on American-Islamic Relations demanded that I be “punished” for my on-air statements regarding Islam and its tragic connections to terrorism. Three days later, 630 WMAL and ABC Radio suspended me without pay for comments deemed “hate radio” by CAIR. CAIR immediately announced that my punishment was insufficient and demanded I be fired. ABC Radio and 630 WMAL have now complied. I have been fired for making the specific comments CAIR deemed “offensive,” and for refusing to retract those statements in a management-mandated, on-air apology. ABC Radio further demanded that I agree to perform what they described as “additional outreach efforts” to those people or groups who felt offended. I refused. And for that refusal, I have been fired. It appears that ABC Radio has caved to an organization that condemns talk radio hosts like me, but has never condemned Hamas, Hezbollah, and one that wouldn’t specifically condemn Al Qaeda for three months after 9/11. As a fan of talk radio, I find it absolutely outrageous that pressure from a special interest group like CAIR can result in the abandonment of free speech and open discourse on a talk radio show. As a conservative talk host whose job is to have an open, honest conversation each day with my listeners, I believe caving to this pressure is a disaster. I for one cannnot apologize for the truth and I cannot agree to some community-service style “outreach effort” to appease the opponents of free speech. If I had made a racist or bigoted comment -- which my regular listeners know goes against everything I believe in -- I would apologize immediately, and without coercion. When I have made inadvertent fact errors in the past, I apologized promptly and without hesitation. But we have now gone far beyond that, with demands that I apologize for the ideas my listeners and I believe in. It is not a coincidence that, after my suspension on July 28th, WMAL received more than 15,000 phone calls and emails protesting my removal from the airwaves. Why such a huge response? It wasn't about me; The listeners I spoke to said they felt betrayed by my suspension because the vast majority of them agree with me on the subject of Islam. By labeling my statements as unacceptable, these listeners felt that WMAL management was insulting them, too. I cannot speak for anyone else, but I care about the listeners of 630 WMAL. I respect them and I appreciate the amazing support they have given me. I could not dishonor their principled support for free speech by giving into these demands. I cannot join ABC Radio in bowing to CAIR’s wishes. And I will not apologize for my opinions or retract the truth. The whole point of the Michael Graham Show is what my listeners and I call the “natural truth,” those obvious facts about modern life that the p.c. police and mainstream media believe should never be discussed. That includes the tragic, but undeniable relationship between terrorism and Islam as it is constituted today. The conversations my listeners and I had on this subject were not offensive or bigoted in the least. In fact, Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR (who has appeared on my show several times) credited “criticism from talk radio” in part for the recent fatwa against terrorism issued by a group of US Muslim scholars. Ironically, it was issued the day before I was suspended. That’s the real tragedy here. The people who most need free speech and open dialogue on the issues facing Islam today are America's moderate Muslims. These are people of good will who have the difficult job ahead of reforming and rescuing their religion. They need all the help they can get. The decision to give CAIR what it wants—a group with well-publicized ties to terrorists and terror-related organizations--will make it harder for the reformers to successfully face Islam's challenges. Still worse, silencing people like me will make it easier for Islamist extremists to dismiss all sincere calls for reform as mere "bigotry." When CAIR is able to quell dissent and label every critic a "bigot," the chilling effect is felt far beyond ABC Radio and 630 WMAL. If anyone is owed an apology, it is the moderate, Muslim community who have been failed once again by the mainstream media. A VERY SPECIAL NOTE TO EVERYONE WHO EMAILED AND CALLED ON MY BEHALF: Again and again through this ordeal, as people pressured me to just give in, say what CAIR wanted to hear and get my job back, I thought of you. I cannot express how much your support meant to me. I don't know that I'm doing the right thing by fighting this fight. I only know that I believe it's the right thing, and I believe it with all my heart. Your support, your words of encouragement, your anger that the forces of p.c. fear have this much power--these all helped me do what I needed to do. Thank you. In the coming days, I hope I'll have some good news for you about how we can continue our conversation. So please stay tuned, please stop by here each day and check it. Trust me, this isn't the last you've heard from me. MICHAEL, ARE YOU *SURE* YOU'VE BEEN FIRED? I've had several people tell me that ABC Radio says I'm not really fired, that I have "chosen" not to go back to work. I don't know what to say to that except that I received a hand-delivered letter very late Friday announcing that I was "terminated immediately." If there is some other definition of that other than "you're fired," I am not familiar with it. August 20, 2005Concern Grows Over Prison Islam ConvertsBy DON THOMPSONUpdated: 2:19 p.m. ET Aug. 20, 2005 But prison officials across the nation say they so far have seen more potential for recruitment than real threats. Federal officials have arrested three men in Southern California since early July in a plot that allegedly targeted National Guard facilities, the Israeli Consulate in Los Angeles and several synagogues. Authorities said they believe the plan originated among a shadowy group known as Jamiyyat Ul Islam Is Saheeh inside California State Prison, Sacramento. Counterterrorism officials said the danger is not in the number of adherents to radical Islam but in the potential for small groups of dedicated believers to commit terrorist acts after they are released. They point to Jose Padilla, an American Muslim convert arrested in 2002 for allegedly planning a "dirty bomb" radiological attack after he left jail. "Nothing I have suggests there is a widespread Al Qaida recruitment movement within the prison system, but all you need is three or four to conduct an attack," said Gary Winuk, chief deputy director of the state Office of Homeland Security. Prison officials nationwide "are all sort of hearing the chatter" about efforts to recruit inmates to extremist ideologies, said Martin Horn, commissioner of the New York City Department of Corrections. He would not elaborate. However, prison officials in other states, including Pennsylvania and Ohio, where Muslim inmates helped spark an 11-day fatal riot in 1993, said they have seen no signs of recruiting. And Muslim leaders dispute the idea that prisons are producing Islamic militants. In a report last year, the U.S. Department of Justice's inspector general found that the federal Bureau of Prisons was doing inadequate background or ideology checks on its Muslim clerics. It found that inmates and religious volunteers had "ample opportunity ... to deliver inappropriate and extremist messages without supervision." Groups with domestic or foreign terrorism ties have been a prison phenomenon for decades, said Steven L. Pomerantz, a former FBI assistant director and counterterrorism chief. He said there was "no question ... we have a problem with militant Islam and its spread into the American prison system." The Southern California case arose after 25-year-old Levar Haley Washington and another man were arrested July 5 on suspicion of robbing gas stations. Police found jihadist literature and evidence of a target list when they searched Washington's Los Angeles apartment. Law enforcement officials suspect Washington was radicalized in prison before he was paroled Nov. 29. In California, chaplains' clerks or other inmates lead some religious ceremonies and sometimes preach an inflammatory version of Islam, said Lance Corcoran, executive vice president of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association. But he added, "I find most Muslim inmates to be very respectful, to be very easy to deal with." The California prison system has 30 full- and part-time Muslim chaplains, civil service employees who undergo background checks and must adhere to mainstream Islam, said Terry Thornton, spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Shakeel Syed, a contract chaplain for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, disagreed that prisons are turning out Islamic radicals. He joined representatives of Muslim groups Friday at a news conference in Los Angeles to say that chaplains can be part of the solution by steering inmates away from radical ideology. "Those of us who are on the front lines battling extremism are not being utilized by law enforcement," said Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. ___ Associated Press Writer Jeremiah Marquez contributed to this story from Los Angeles. August 19, 2005Attackers Fire Missiles at U.S. Navy ShipBy JAMAL HALABY, Associated Press Writer AMMAN, Jordan - Attackers fired at least three rockets from Jordan early Friday, with one narrowly missing a docked U.S. Navy ship and killing a Jordanian soldier. It was the most serious militant attack on the Navy since the USS Cole was bombed in 2000. Another rocket fell close to a nearby airport in neighboring Israel, officials said. Jordanian and Israeli authorities said militants fired three Katyusha rockets from a warehouse in the Jordanian Red Sea port of Aqaba. A group linked to al-Qaida claimed responsibility in an Internet statement. The statement purportedly from the Abdullah Azzam Brigades could not immediately be verified. The U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, based in Bahrain, said two American amphibious ships attached to the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit were docked in Aqaba, about 210 miles south of the capital, Amman, when the rockets were fired toward them. The vessels later sailed out of port as a result of the attacks, U.S. Navy spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Charlie Brown told The Associated Press in Bahrain. The Abdullah Azzam group was among several that claimed responsibility for previous attacks on Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, including the Oct. 7 car bombing of a hotel in the resort of Taba, which borders Israel, and the July 23 Sharm el-Sheik bombings that killed at least 64 people. "A group of our holy warriors ... targeted a gathering of American military ships docking in Aqaba port and also in Eilat port with three Katyusha rockets and the warriors returned safe to their headquarters," the statement said. The rockets were the most serious attempted attack on a U.S. military ship since the Cole bombing in October 2000, when suicide attackers detonated explosives on a small boat they brought alongside the destroyer as it refueled in Aden, Yemen. Seventeen U.S. sailors were killed. August 18, 2005Al-Qaida Leader in Saudi Arabia Killed
By ABDULLAH AL-SHIHRI, Associated Press WriterRIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Al-Qaida's leader in Saudi Arabia was killed Thursday during clashes with police in the western city of Medina, the Interior Ministry said. Saleh Mohammed al-Aoofi was among six al-Qaida militants reported killed during
police raids on numerous locations in the holy city and the capital, Riyadh, security
officials told The Associated Press. Al-Aoofi was considered the top leader of Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden's network in this conservative Gulf country, which has been rocked by multiple terror attacks since 2003. He was among two of the kingdom's 26 most-wanted militants still at large. The other 24 on the list issued in December 2003 either have been captured or killed. It was not immediately clear whether the other militants killed Thursday were on a separate list of 36 suspects issued recently. Interior Ministry officials also said at least one militant was arrested in Riyadh and 10 were detained in Medina, 450 miles to the west, where the country's new monarch, King Abdullah, was meeting Islamic clerics and tribal leaders. Heavily armed police raided six al-Qaida hideouts in Medina near the mosque where Islam's Prophet Muhammad was buried before coming across a seventh, where al-Aoofi and two others were holed up, the Interior Ministry said. "They (the militants) opened fire heavily on the security forces and the pedestrians" before police returned fire, a ministry statement said. "Investigators were able to prove through verification procedures that one of the two killed is the wanted Saleh al-Aoofi." The identity of the other slain militant was not released, while the third was wounded and arrested. Al-Aoofi, a former prison guard, reportedly fought in Chechnya and traveled to Afghanistan to join al-Qaida shortly before the Sept. 11 attacks. There he met men who would later become his comrades in the Saudi terror network, according to Saudi newspaper reports. One was among the nine suicide attackers involved the May 12, 2003, car bombing of foreigners' housing compounds in Riyadh that killed 35 people. In Riyadh, police also raided an apartment in the northern al-Massef neighborhood at about 6 a.m. Thursday, sparking a shootout with militants holed up inside. "Security forces during the early morning stormed a number of places in Riyadh and Medina, where it is suspected some of those affiliated to the deviant group were hiding," ministry spokesman Mansour al-Turki said in a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency. Authorities here regularly refer to militants belonging to the Saudi branch of al-Qaida as the "deviant group." Another security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said four militants were killed in the Riyadh shootout, during which a hand grenade was thrown at the police but did not explode. The Interior Ministry statement said human remains found at the Riyadh site indicated that at least one suspect was blown apart in an explosion, the nature of which was not immediately clear. The nationalities of the militants killed in Riyadh and the third arrested here were not immediately clear. Police helicopters hovered over the Riyadh apartment as security forces sealed off the area, preventing pedestrians or vehicles from entering or leaving the scene. After the clashes ended, police entered the apartment and found weapons, explosives and various documents inside, the Interior Ministry said. Since May 2003, Islamic militants have carried out numerous suicide bombings and kidnappings and regularly battled security forces. The attacks, which have tended to target Westerners and housing complexes were Westerners live, have been blamed on al-Qaida and its allies. August 18, 2005Islam tops list of disliked concepts in Austria: PollSusanna Loof (AP)Vienna (Austria), Islam, nuclear energy and Eastern expansion of the European Union are the most disliked concepts in Austria, according to a poll released on Wednesday, which also found "foreigners" and "American way of life" unpopular. Islam evoked negative feelings among 77 per cent of 1,050 Austrians asked about their feelings toward certain concepts, the Linz-based polling institute IMAS said. The unpopularity of the religion had increased by 19 percentage points since 2001, when a similar poll was carried out. "That certainly is a reaction to recent events," said Andreas Kirchhofer, a senior manager at the institute. "Islam is perceived as a danger that has ties to terrorist acts. It would have been a miracle if people had not reacted." Nuclear energy evoked negative feelings among 74 percent of respondents. Austria has no nuclear energy plants in operation -- a plant completed in 1978 never was put in use following a referendum in which voters said no to a nuclear power programme. "Eastern expansion", a term that refers to the European Union's absorption of 10 mostly Eastern European countries in May 2004 and to plans to add other Eastern countries to the 25-member bloc, was disliked by 72 per cent of respondents, placing it third on the unpopular list. The term European Union recorded the largest increase -- 21 percentage points -- in unpopularity since 2001, with 58 per cent saying they found it negative. Other unpopular concepts included "foreigners," disliked by 67 per cent, and "American way of life," which was found negative by 61 per cent. The three most-liked concepts were "security" which won the approval of 86 per cent of respondents, closely followed by "homeland," which 85 per cent found positive and "order" with 79 per cent. The poll, carried out from July 19 to August 8 in face-to-face interviews, had a margin of error of almost 3 per cent. It was financed by the institute itself as part of its work to monitor societal trends. August 11, 2005Islam needs Reformation: RushdieFrom correspondents in LondonISLAM needs to go through a new Reformation to bring the faith into the modern era, novelist Salman Rushdie wrote in a British newspaper today. Rushdie said a broad-minded interpretation of the religion would lead to better relations with Western communities and lessen the alienation which led young British Muslims to become the alleged suicide bombers who killed 52 innocent people in London in July. Rushdie was forced into hiding after the former Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or religious edict, in February 1989, calling for his execution because of alleged blasphemy and apostasy in his novel The Satanic Verses. Rushdie, Indian-born into a Muslim family, had a $US2.8 million ($3.68 million) bounty placed on his head by a Tehran-based foundation. "What is needed is a move beyond tradition - nothing less than a reform movement to bring the core concepts of Islam into the modern age," Rushdie wrote in The Times. "A Muslim Reformation to combat not only the jihadi ideologues but also the dusty, stifling seminaries of the traditionalists, throwing open the windows of the closed communities to let in much-needed fresh air." Rushdie wrote that many Muslims in Britain lead lives apart from the rest of the community, and in such insular circles, "young men's alienations can easily deepen". The novelist said very few Muslims had been permitted to study the Koran as an historical document and it was "high time" believers could. "The insistence within Islam that the Koranic text is the infallible, uncreated word of God renders analytical scholarly discourse all but impossible. "Why would God be influenced by the socioeconomics of seventh-century Arabia, after all? "If, however, the Koran were seen as a historical document, then it would be legitimate to reinterpret it to suit the new conditions of successive new ages. "Laws made in the seventh century could finally give way to the needs of the 21st. The Islamic Reformation has to begin here, with an acceptance that all ideas, even sacred ones, must adapt to altered realities." The novelist's forthcoming tale, Shalimar the Clown, concerns a young Muslim boy who is guided by a radical mullah to become an Islamic terrorist. August 5, 2005U.K. Institutes New Deportation MeasuresBy ED JOHNSON, Associated Press WriterLONDON - Foreigners who preach hatred, sponsor violence or belong to extremist
groups could be deported from Britain under strict new measures that Prime Minister Blair said the government also would compile a list of Web sites, bookshops and centers that incite hatred and violence. British nationals involved with such organizations could face strict penalties. Foreign nationals could be deported, he said. "They come here and they play by our rules and our way of life," Blair said at his monthly news conference. "If they don't, they are going to have to go." The government would hold a one-month consultation on new grounds for excluding and deporting people from the United Kingdom, he said. Britain's ability to deport foreign nationals has been hampered by human rights legislation. As a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, Britain is not allowed to deport people to a country where they may face torture or death. The British government has been seeking assurances from several countries — including Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt — for suspects to be protected against inhumane treatment if deported. The government has already reached an agreement with Jordan. Britain was seeking assurances from about 10 countries, and Blair said he had constructive talks with leaders of Algeria and Lebanon on Thursday. The government was prepared to amend human rights legislation if legal challenges arose from the new deportation measures, he said. Blair said anyone linked with terrorism could be refused asylum, and the new measures make it easier for the government to strip extremists of dual citizenship. The government also was considering a request from police and security services to hold terror suspects for three months without charge. The current time limit is 14 days. A spokesman for Hizb ut Tahrir Britain, Imran Waheed, said Blair's comments were "most unjust," and the group would fight any ban through the courts. "Hizb ut Tahrir is a nonviolent political party," he said. "Our members are all for political expression, not for violence." Blair said the government will consult with Muslim leaders on how to close mosques "used as a center for fomenting extremism" and would draw up a list of foreign Islamic clerics "not suitable to preach who will be excluded from Britain." "We will establish, with the Muslim community, a commission to advise on how, consistent with people's complete freedom to worship in the way they want, and to follow their own religion and culture, there is better integration of those parts of the community presently inadequately integrated," Blair said. The prime minister dismissed a message from the al-Qaida terror network broadcast Thursday that linked the London bombings to Britain's involvement in the Iraq war. Terror attacks by four suspected suicide bombers on July 7 killed 56 people, including the four bombers. There were no casualties in bombings two weeks later on July 21 — attacks that also targeted three subways and a double-decker bus. Police have not established firm links between the London bombings and al-Qaida, or between the two sets of bombings. Police believe they have in custody the four attackers from July 21. One reportedly said the attacks were fueled by Britain's involvement in Iraq. In a message broadcast Thursday on the pan-Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera, al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri warned Britons and blamed Blair. "Blair has brought to you destruction in central London, and he will bring more of that, God willing," al-Zawahri said. He did not claim responsibility for the attacks. Blair said it was impossible to negotiate with al-Qaida leaders. "You only have to read the demands coming from al-Qaida to realize there is no compromise possible with these people," Blair said. August 4, 2005Video: al-Qaida Vows More Attacks Vs. WestBy MAAMOUN YOUSSEF, Associated Press Writer
CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri threatened more destruction in London, saying in a videotape broadcast Thursday that British Prime Minister Tony Blair would be to blame. Al-Zawahri also threatened the United States with tens of thousands of military dead if it does not withdraw its troops from Iraq immediately. The tape, aired on the pan-Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera, was delivered exactly one month after the July 7 bombings in London that killed 56 people, including four suicide attackers. "Blair has brought to you destruction in central London, and he will bring more of that, God willing," al-Zawahri said in the tape, referring to the July 7 and July 21 attacks on London's subways and buses. In London, Blair's Downing Street office declined to comment on the broadcast. Al-Zawahri, an Egyptian doctor who merged his militant faction with that of
al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in He has been in hiding since the United States invaded Afghanistan in late 2001. In the latest videotape, al-Zawahri warned the United States it could expect significantly more casualties from its military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. "As for you, the Americans, what you have seen in New York and Washington, what losses that you see in Afghanistan and Iraq, despite the media blackout, is merely the losses of the initial clashes," he said, referring to the Sept. 11 attacks blamed on al-Qaida. "If you go on with the same policy of aggression against Muslims, you will see, with God's will, what will make you forget the horrible things in Vietnam and Afghanistan." He then addressed Americans, saying, "The truth that has been kept from you by (President) Bush, (Secretary of State Condoleezza) Rice and (Defense Secretary Donald H.) Rumsfeld is that there is no way out of Iraq without immediate withdrawal, and any delay on this means only more dead, more losses. "If you don't leave today, certainly you will leave tomorrow, and after tens of thousands of dead, and double that figure in disabled and wounded." Referring to the Western nations contributing troops to the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, he said: "As to the nations of the crusader alliance, we have offered you a truce if you leave the land of Islam. "Hasn't Sheik Osama bin Laden told you that you will not dream of security before there is security in Palestine and before all the infidel armies withdraw from the land of Muhammad?" al-Zawahri added. "Instead (of accepting the truce), you spilled blood like rivers in our countries and we exploded the volcanoes of wrath in your countries." He did not name any countries apart from Britain, but he appeared to be referring to the terror attacks in Madrid, Spain, last year that were linked to al-Qaida. "Our message is clear: you will not be safe until you withdraw from our land, stop stealing our oil and wealth and stop supporting the corrupt rulers," al-Zawahri said. The tape showed al-Zawahri positioned in front of a woven cloth that moved with the wind and showed the sunlight, indicating it appeared to be made outdoors. He was wearing a white robe and a black turban and emphatically wagged his finger at the camera while speaking. In June, Al-Jazeera broadcast a videotape of al-Zawahri disparaging the U.S. concept of reform in the Middle East and saying armed jihad was the only way to bring change in the Arab world. August 1, 2005Death of ex-rebel leader Garang stuns SudanBy Khaled Abdel-Aziz
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - John Garang, who led Sudan's southern rebels for two decades before making peace and joining the government he fought, has died in a helicopter crash, sparking riots and fears for the country's hard-won stability. A key figure in a January peace deal hailed as a rare success story for Africa,
Garang died over the weekend after the Ugandan presidential helicopter he was
traveling in went down in bad weather. Members of Garang's southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the government in Khartoum -- bitter enemies during the 21-year conflict -- both vowed to maintain the peace agreement Garang helped create. Just weeks before, he had come north to take the Sudanese vice-presidency amid a tumultuous popular welcome in Khartoum. But as news of his death was confirmed on Monday morning, thousands of his southern Sudanese supporters took to the streets of Khartoum in a different mood, wielding knives and bars, looting shops, starting fires and clashing with police. "They are beating anybody they see who looks like they are Arab," Swayd Abdullah, a student, told Reuters. There were reports of riots in the south too. Garang's death stunned the region, where Sudan's neighbors helped negotiate an end to the continent's longest civil war. "It's shocking -- the loss of a visionary leader," Kenya's Lt. Gen. Lazarus Sumbeiywo, who was the chief mediator in the Sudan peace talks, told Reuters. "My prayer is that the Sudanese will remain level-headed." CAN PEACE HOLD? Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir expressed confidence the power-sharing peace accord would remain intact. "We are confident that the peace agreement will proceed as it was planned," he said in a televised statement. At an SPLM news conference in Nairobi, members wept in grief. "Sudan has lost its loved son Dr. John Garang," deputy leader and immediate replacement Salva Kiir Mayardit said. "We want to assure everyone that the leadership and all cadres of the SPLM/SPLA (Sudan People's Liberation Army) will remain united and strive to faithfully implement the comprehensive peace agreement." SPLM leaders were heading to New Site in southern Sudan for a crisis meeting. Garang's body arrived there early on Monday afternoon, a Western diplomat with the SPLM said. Garang had left Uganda by helicopter late on Saturday to return to Sudan after talks with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. Various sources in Uganda and Sudan said it appeared his helicopter ran into bad weather, although there was also speculation it had run out of fuel. The helicopter came down near the remote, mountainous border region, with conflicting reports as to which side it fell on. Deng Alor, a member of the SPLM's leadership council, told Reuters from New Site 17 bodies -- a higher number than that given by the Sudanese presidency -- had been recovered. "We are not ruling out anything. We have asked Uganda's aviation authority to look at the flight recorder," he added. More than a million Sudanese came out to salute Garang when he was sworn in as first vice president on July 9 and signed with his old enemy al-Bashir a new interim constitution. SKILFUL POLITICIAN Many had hoped Garang would help achieve peace in Sudan's still ongoing conflict in Darfur in the west. And he was critical to the success of the north-south peace process. There was speculation SPLM leaders may fight over the succession despite their calls for unity on Monday. "What happens next is very, very interesting. In the worst case scenario, it's a south-south war. In the best case, we will see a democratic overhaul of the SPLM, which many people view currently as something of a dictatorship," said an experienced foreign Sudan observer well connected with the SPLM. The southern civil war started in 1983 when the Islamist Khartoum government tried to impose Islamic sharia law on the mainly Christian and animist south. Two million people died in the conflict, mainly through hunger and disease. Garang proved an adept politician as he allied himself with communists, courted U.S. Christian groups and juggled tribal rivalries to hold power even amid fierce infighting. Analysts say Garang kept control of the estimated 60,000-strong SPLA through a powerful personality and a determination to give southern Sudanese an equal voice. Others say his genial demeanor and academic credentials masked opportunism and ruthless treatment of potential rivals. Tributes poured in from around the region and beyond. South African President Thabo Mbeki urged all parties to respect peace "as a legacy to the work and commitment of Dr Garang." Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki echoed that, saying: "The consolidation of peace is the greatest honor the people of Sudan can bestow on the departed soul." And Washington, which had worked increasingly closely with Garang and pinned hopes on him to both cement a southern peace accord and end the Darfur conflict, also sent condolences. "It's a great loss. He was instrumental in bringing peace," a U.S. official, who asked not to be named, said. (Additional reporting by Opheera McDoom in London, Tom Perry and Amil Khan in Cairo; Daniel Wallis in Kampala; Katie Nguyen, Andrew Cawthorne, Bryson Hull and Wangui Kanina in Nairobi; Saul Hudson in Washington) July 31, 2005Islam to Be Basis for Iraq ConstitutionBy LEE KEATH, APCAIRO, Egypt (July 30) - The framers of Iraq's constitution appear likely to
enshrine Islam as the main basis of law in the country - a stronger role than
the United States had hoped for and one some Iraqis fear will mean a more fundamentalist
regime. Kuwait, for example, bans alcohol and only gave women the right to vote this year, in contrast to Egypt, where beer, wine and liquor are sold openly and women have been voting since the early 20th century. Yet most Gulf nations' constitutions state that Sharia is "a main source" of legislation, while Egypt takes the more definitive phrasing of "the source" - a fine distinction taking on major importance in Iraq. Former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat amended the constitution during the 1970s, changing the language from "a source" to "the source" to beef up his Islamic credentials rather than to start implementing Sharia. But in Iraq, some fear the Shiite Muslim leaders who want similar wording in Iraq's constitution hope to lay the groundwork for a more fundamentalist rule, at least in Shiite-dominated areas. Already, Shiite leaders in some southern cities have tried imposing Islamic-based rules, pressuring women to wear headscarves and forcing liquor stores and music shops to close. A draft of the constitution published last week in the government Al-Sabah newspaper put Islam as "the main basis" of law. But the constitutional committee - made up of Shiites, Kurds and some Sunnis - is still haggling over the language. Fouad Massoum, the Kurdish deputy head of the committee, said it will discuss the role of Islam in meetings Sunday. "We, in the Kurdish coalition, want Islam to be one of the sources of legislation," he said. Iraq's most prominent Shiite Muslim cleric, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, has said he wants to preserve a strong role for Islam in the document, but also shuns the direct rule by clerics seen in his country of birth, mainly Shiite Iran. Mouafak al-Rubaie, a national security adviser and a Shiite, met al-Sistani on Saturday and said the main concern of the Shiite religious leadership is to "preserve the Islamic identity of Iraq and its people, which means preserving a united Iraq and people as a state." When U.S. administrators ran Iraq, they insisted on language setting Islam as "a source" of legislation when an interim constitution was approved in March 2004. But the same Shiites who backed "the main source" last year now dominate, and American officials have less influence over a sovereign Iraqi government. Six Arab nations do not mention Sharia at all in their constitutions: Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Lebanon and Jordan. Lebanon, where the Christian population is large and the president is a Christian, is the sole Arab state not to set Islam as the national religion - in fact, the constitution does not use the words "Islam" or "Christianity" at all, a reflection of its 1975-1990 civil war between sectarian militias. Tunisia has taken one of the most liberal tracks in the Arab world, abolishing polygamy in 1956 and banning the headscarf in schools and other public establishments. Authorities regularly urge women to avoid the hijab, though more women have been donning scarves in past years. The one area where Islamic law is nearly universal is in personal status law - rules concerning marriage, divorce and inheritance. Sharia allows men to divorce their wives by proclamation and grants daughters half the inheritance that sons receive. In Syria and Libya, the constitutions are more concerned with laying out their nationalist ideologies - Libya's socialism and Syria's pan-Arabism - than with Islam. At the opposite extreme lie Iran and Saudi Arabia. Iran's constitution lays out its Islamic Republic headed by a supreme leader, supposed to be the country's most knowledgeable Muslim cleric. Saudi Arabia, home of Islam's most sacred shrines, states in the first article of its Basic Law that the Quran and the Prophet Muhammad's traditions are the nation's constitution, later saying, "Saudi society will be based on the principle of adherence to God's command." July 30, 2005Michael Graham taken off the air for candid comments about Islam.Radio talk-show host Michael Graham was suspended by station WMAL-AM yesterday for repeatedly describing Islam as a "terrorist organization" on his program. Graham has been ordered off the Washington station, without pay, for an indefinite period while the station investigates the comments that drew complaints from a Muslim group, the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Graham Suspension July 29, 2005Police: All 4 suspects in London attack caughtAuthorities say last of suspects in failed
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(CNSNews.com) - An American Islamic civil rights group is calling on a Washington, D.C. radio station to reprimand its talk show host for claiming "Islam is a terrorist organization."
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said it received complaints Monday from Muslim listeners who heard WMAL's Michael Graham say "Islam is a terrorist organization," "Islam is at war with America," "The problem is not extremism. The problem is Islam," and "We are at war with a terrorist organization named Islam."
"Such hate-filled and inflammatory remarks only serve to encourage those who would turn bigoted views into violent or discriminatory actions against ordinary American Muslims," said CAIR Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper.
"Reasoned discussion on issues related to terrorism should be encouraged, but extremist anti-Muslim rhetoric harms our nation's image worldwide and serves as a recruiting tool for terrorists," said Hooper.
CAIR said it contacted WMAL program director Randall Bloomquist to complain about Graham's remarks but Bloomquist stood behind the talk show host. Bloomquist said while he would not tolerate the use of the "n-word" or anti-Semitic slurs, Graham's comments about Islam do not warrant disciplinary action.
Hooper called on American Muslims to contact the station and its advertisers to voice their concern about Graham's remarks.
CAIR challenged remarks made by Graham last year as well reportedly implying that Americans should take violent action against Muslims. "I don't wanna say we should kill 'em all (Muslims), but unless there's reform (within Islam), there aren't a lot of other solutions that work in the ground struggle for survival."
"Would you hire an Arab-Muslim group for a friend's daughter's Bat Mitzvah, I wouldn't, if you would you're a dope, that's not bigotry, that completely reasonable smart discrimination," Graham said last year.
Graham's remarks were highlighted in the announcement of CAIR's "Hate Hurts America" campaign designed to counter anti-Muslim hate on radio talk shows.
CAIR has also launched a nationwide television public service announcement called "Not in the Name of Islam," in which the group condemns terrorism and rejects those who carry out terrorist attacks.
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CAIRO, Egypt - A series of explosions, including four car bombs, struck luxury hotels in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik early Saturday, killing at least 45 people, witnesses and police said.
Saturday's explosions — the deadliest attack in Egypt in nearly a decade — shook windows more than five miles away. Smoke and fire rose from Naama Bay, a main strip of beach hotels in the desert city at the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula, which is also popular with European and Israeli tourists, witnesses said.
Dazed tourists milled about the darkened streets as Egyptian rescuers searched for dead and injured and ambulances sped away with victims.
"There seemed to be a lot of bodies strewn across the road" near one cafe, British policeman Chris Reynolds, visiting from Birmingham, England, told the BBC by telephone. "It was horrendous."
At least four car bombs were used in the 1:15 a.m. attack, said a security official in the operations control room in Cairo monitoring the crisis. One went off in the driveway of the Ghazala Garden hotel, a 176-room four-star resort on the main strip of hotels in Naama Bay, the governor of South Sinai province, Mustafa Afifi, said.
Another exploded in the Old Market, an area a few miles away, killing 17 people — believed to be Egyptians — sitting at a nearby outdoor coffee shop, the control room official said. Three minibuses were set ablaze, though it was not clear if they were carrying passengers, the official said.
Another blast went off near the Meridian Hotel, said a receptionist there who declined to identify himself.
Although many tourists could have been asleep when the explosions struck, the resort's sidewalk cafes, seafront restaurants and bazaars are usually packed with locals and tourists well into the late summer nights.
Security officials put the toll at 45 killed and around 200 wounded. The Interior Ministry put out a statement putting the toll at 31 people and 107 wounded.
The dead in the Sharm blasts included British, Russian, Dutch, Kuwaitis, Saudis, Qataris and Egyptians, a security official said. The officials, including the one in the control crisis, were speaking on condition of anonymity because they were giving information not yet included the official statement.
Amal Mustafa, 28, an Egyptian who was visiting Sharm with her family, told The Associated Press that she drove by the Ghazala Garden and it was "completely burned down, destroyed."
A London police officer, Charlie Ives, who was on vacation, told BBC Television that he was in a street cafe about 50 yards from where two explosions went off.
"It was mass hysteria really. We tried to calm people down," he said. He said the blast was so strong, "we were virtually thrown from the cafe."
Another British tourist, Fabio Basone, was in Naama Bay's Hard Rock Cafe when he heard a small explosion, then a larger one that sparked "mass panic with people running and screaming in all directions."
"We went outside on to the street where we were met with hundreds of people running and screaming in all directions," he told BBC. "I saw the front of a hotel had been blown away ... There were two bodies on the floor but I don't know if they were dead."
Scores of ambulances from cities in the northern Sinai and the Suez Canal cities of Suez and Ismailiya were headed to Sharm to help with casualties.
Khaled Sakran, a resident, said he saw one explosion from the Old Market. "I saw the saw the fire in the sky," he told The Associated Press. "Right after, I saw a light in the sky and heard another explosion, coming from Naama Bay."
"The blast shook my house, I can see the fire and lots of smoke," Akram al-Sherif, a Jordanian who was staying at a summer house less than a mile away, said.
In October 2004, a series of explosions hit several hotels in the Sinai resorts of Taba and Ras Shitan, about 100 miles northwest along the Gulf of Aqaba coast, killing 34 people. Egyptian authorities said that attack was linked to Israeli-Palestinian violence and launched a large wave of arrests in Sinai.
Thousands of tourists are drawn to Sharm for its sun and clear blue water. The area's coral reefs are famous among divers and snorkelers.
It also has been a meeting place where world leaders have tried to hammer out
a Mideast peace agreement. Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas met there in February and agreed
to a cease-fire.
Hosni Mubarak has a residence at a resort several miles outside Naama Bay and often spends weeks at a time there in the winter. But during the summer, he stays at a residence in the northern city of Alexandria.
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AP correspondents Sarah El Deeb, Paul Garwood Nadia Abou El-Magd and Salah Nasrawi in Cairo contributed to this report.
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LONDON - Explosions struck the London Underground and a bus at midday Thursday in a chilling but far less bloody replay of the suicide bombings that killed 56 people two weeks ago.
Only one person was reported injured in the nearly simultaneous lunch-hour blasts, police said, but they shocked and disrupted the capital and were hauntingly similar to the July 7 bombings by four attackers.
Police Commissioner Ian Blair said forensic evidence from Thursday's bombings could provide a "significant break" in the latest attacks.
"Clearly the intention must have been to kill," Ian Blair told a news conference. "You don't do this with any other intention."
He also said it was not clear if the two sets of attacks were connected.
Panicked and screaming commuters fled the three affected Underground stations, sometimes leaving behind their shoes. Firefighters and police with bomb-sniffing dogs sealed off nearby city blocks and evacuated rows of restaurants, pubs and offices.
Prime Minister Tony Blair appealed for calm.
"We can't minimize incidents such as this," he said at a joint news conference with the Australian prime minister at No. 10 Downing St. "They're done to scare people, to frighten them and make them worried."
He held an emergency Cabinet meeting afterward but said no decisions "of a policy nature" were made.
Ian Blair called the blasts "a very serious incident."
"We know that we have four explosions or attempts of explosions, and it is still pretty unclear as to what has happened," he said outside Scotland Yard.
"At the moment the casualty numbers appear to be very low ... the bombs appear to be smaller" than those detonated July 7, he said. He added later that not all the bombs went off.
An armed police unit entered University College hospital shortly after an injured person was carried in, Britain's Press Association reported.
Sky News TV reported that police were searching for a man with a blue shirt with wires protruding. Officers asked employees to look for a black or Asian male about 6-foot-2.
The attacks, which targeted trains near the Warren Street, Oval and Shepherd's Bush stations, did not shut down the subway system, only three of its lines. The double-decker bus had its windows blown out on Hackney Road in east London.
Witnesses told The Associated Press they did not hear a bang but smelled something similar to an electrical fire at the Warren Street station.
Police in chemical protection suits were at the Warren Street station, but no chemical agents were found.
Stagecoach, the company which operates the stricken bus, said the driver heard a bang and went upstairs, where he found the windows blown out. The company said the bus was structurally intact and there were no injuries.
The incidents paralleled the July 7 blasts, which involved explosions at three Underground stations simultaneously starting at 8:51 a.m., followed quickly by a bomb going off on a bus. Those bombings, during the morning rush hour, also occurred in the center of London, hitting the Underground from various directions.
Thursday's incidents, however, were more spread out.
Emergency teams were sent to all three stations after the incidents, which began at 12:38 p.m.
"People were panicking. But very fortunately the train was only 15 seconds from the station," witness Ivan McCracken told Sky news.
McCracken said another passenger at Warren Street told him he saw a backpack explode. The July 7 bombs were carried in backpacks, police said.
McCracken said he smelled smoke, and people were panicking and coming into his carriage. He said he spoke to an Italian man who was comforting a woman after the evacuation.
"He said that a man was carrying a rucksack and the rucksack suddenly exploded. It was a minor explosion but enough to blow open the rucksack," McCracken said. "The man then made an exclamation as if something had gone wrong. At that point everyone rushed from the carriage."
Losiane Mohellavi, 35, who was evacuated at Warren Street, said, "I was in the carriage and we smelled smoke — it was like something was burning. Everyone was panicked and people were screaming. We had to pull the alarm. I am still shaking."
The U.S. Embassy was closed to visitors about two hours after the blasts as a precaution, but embassy staff continued working, said spokeswoman Susan Domowitz.
The explosions came as Pakistani intelligence officials said authorities are seeking the former aide of a radical cleric in Britain in connection with the July 7 bombings.
The officials said British investigators asked Pakistani authorities to search for Haroon Rashid Aswat, who reportedly had been in close contact with the suicide bombers just before the July 7 attacks.
Aswat, 31, was of Indian origin and may not be in Pakistan, according to two intelligence officials in Islamabad and one in Lahore, all speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to the media and because of the sensitivity of the investigation.
Aswat reportedly was once an associate of Abu Hamza al-Masri, the radical imam who is awaiting trial in Britain on charges of incitement to murder. Al-Masri also is wanted in the United States on charges of trying to establish a terrorist training camp in Bly, Ore.; involvement in hostage-taking in Yemen; and funding terror training in Afghanistan.
Quoting unidentified intelligence sources, The Times of London said Aswat visited the hometowns of all four London bombers and selected their targets. It also reported there had been up to 20 phone calls between Aswat and two of the bombers in the days before the attacks.
Aswat's relatives in Batley, near the northern English town of Leeds, which was home to two of the July 7 suicide bombers, said they had not heard from him for many years.
"He has not lived at this house and we have not had contact with him for many years," said his father, Rashid, who asked for his family to be left in peace. "There is no story that we can provide."
Authorities are investigating whether the London bombing suspects, three of whom were of Pakistani origin and traveled to Pakistan last year, received training or other assistance from militants in that country.
One of the July 7 bombers, Shahzad Tanweer, 22, is suspected of visiting a madrassa linked with militants in Lahore which has become a focus of the inquiry.
According to a report in a Pakistani newspaper, Tanweer revered
Osama bin Laden. The English-language Dawn newspaper said Tanweer visited relatives
in November in a farming village near Faisalabad in eastern Pakistan. During his
stay, he was visited by another bombing suspect, Mohammed Sidique Khan, 30, Tanweer's
uncle told the newspaper.
Pakistan has pledged to curb religious extremism amid international concerns that Islamic schools, or madrassas, are promoting extremism.
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Associated Press reporters Thin Lei Win and Kate Bouey in London and Christopher Torchia in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
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Condoleezza Rice held a congratulatory round of meetings with officials of the new unified Sudanese government Thursday, but expressed outrage after security forces manhandled aides and reporters accompanying her.
"It makes me very angry to be sitting there with their president and have
this happen," she said. "They have no right to push and shove."
Rice made her remarks to reporters after she and her entourage board an airplane
to fly from the Sudanese capital to a refugee camp in the Darfour region.
After landing near the camp, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the Sudanese foreign minister had responded to Rice's demand for an apology by telephoning her aboard the plane to say he was sorry for what had happened in Khartoum.
"Diplomacy 101 says you don't rough your guests up," Rice senior adviser Jim Wilkinson had said earlier as he and reporters were facing off with guards at the ultra-high-security residence of Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir.
The guards elbowed Americans and tried to rip a tape away from a U.S. reporter. At another point, Rice's interpreter and some other aides accompanying her were blocked at a gate.
Ambassador Khidair Haroun Ahmed, head of the Sudanese mission in Washington, attempted to smooth over the situation on the spot. "Please accept our apologies," he told the reporters and aides. "This is not our policy."
But there was yet another scuffle moments later when a U.S. television reporter tried to ask el-Bashir a question about his involvement with alleged atrocities.
Guards grabbed the diminutive reporter and muscled her toward the rear of the room as State Department officials shouted at the guards to leave her alone.
Describing Rice's meeting with el-Bashir, Wilkinson said, "She was very direct about the skepticism of the international community about their ability to improve Darfour."
U.S. officials said Sudanese officials repeatedly asked Rice to lift sanctions, but that she gave them no promises.
The session at el-Bashir's residence capped a morning of meetings before a visit to the western Darfour providence, where the United States blames his government for recruiting and equipping militiamen to massacre rural villagers and burn their homes.
He denies government involvement, but the United States and international organizations say his military sent helicopter gunships to bomb small villages before raiders swept in with horses, guns and knives.
Rice's visit to the sprawling Abu Shouk refugee camp, the second-largest in the region, went more according to form.
After a bumpy and dusty ride from the airport, she was surrounded by children reaching for her hand and chanting: "Welcome, Welcome Condoleezza."
In the area she tourned, some of the 70,000 displaced Darfour villagers had tried to add cheer to the hot, sandy expanse by planting pink and magenta flowers outside the doorways of their plywood and canvass huts.
Prior to her meeting with el-Bashir, Rice had said the United States is making a difference to relieve a refugee crisis and that African peacekeeping troops are helping to stop atrocities.
"We are not where we were a year ago," Rice said Wednesday, ahead of her first trip to Sudan as secretary of state. "We are in a different circumstance and the United States has spent a great deal of money and a lot of diplomatic and other energy to try and bring this conflict to a conclusion."
War-induced hunger and disease have killed more than 180,000 people and driven more than 2 million from their homes in what Rice reaffirmed Wednesday was a case of genocide.
Sudan formed a new reconciliation government this month, following a peace agreement to end a 21-year-year civil war between the Muslim north and the mainly Christian and animist south that killed an estimated 2 million people.
El-Bashir remains in charge of the new government with former black African rebel leader John Garang installed as a new vice president. On Tuesday, Garang dissolved his guerrilla movement and dismissed all government officials in 10 former rebel-controlled southern states.
The United States has held the Arab-dominated former government at arm's length, operating an embassy without a full ambassador and listing Sudan, Africa's largest country, among the nations sponsoring terrorism.
In addition to short-term humanitarian needs, the United States and others are trying to prevent the temporary camps from becoming permanent fixtures in Darfur.
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(WASHINGTON, D.C., 7/18/05) – The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said today that it is working with leaders of the Colorado Muslim community to set up a meeting with Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) over his recent remarks suggesting support for bombing Mecca, Islam's holiest site. Tancredo made the remarks during an interview on the Pat Campbell Show in Florida last Thursday discussing what should be done in response to an attack on this country by “extremist fundamentalist Muslims.” Tancredo said one possible response would be to “take out their holy sites.” When Campbell asked if the congressman was “talking about bombing Mecca,” Tancredo replied, “Yeah.” To listen to an excerpt of the interview, go to: http://www.cairfl.org/audio/Tancredo_comments_071405.mp3 On Sunday, Tancredo released a statement saying he was just trying to figure out how the United States could deter future attacks. The statement said: "Among the many things we might do to prevent such an attack on America would be to lay out there as a possibility the destruction of these sites.”
“I do not advocate this,” said Tancredo in his statement. “Much more thought would need to be given to the potential ramifications of such a horrific response." SEE: “Tancredo Clarifies 'Ultimate Response'” http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_3934448,00.html
KARACHI (Reuters) - British-born of Pakistani descent, 19-year-old Hafeez ur-Rehman has formed strong views on suicide bombers while attending a madrassah, an Islamic religious school, in his father's old country.
appalled by the events in London on July 7, ur-Rehman says his fellow Britons of Pakistani descent who became suicide bombers in the city where his parents run a grocery store were "totally wrong."
But in the same breath, he argued that suicide bombers in Iraq were martyrs engaged in a "jihad," or holy war, and the London bombings were probably motivated by Britain's involvement in the Iraq conflict.
"Suicide attacks are real jihad. Nobody can see his mother and sister insulted," ur-Rehman, whose family, like many Britons of all faiths, demonstrated against the Iraq war, told Reuters at a madrassah in the central city of Multan.
What goes on in Pakistani madrassahs and the thinking they inspire is of critical interest to Western security agencies after the discovery that at least one of the London bombers, Shehzad Tanweer, visited several in Pakistan before the attacks.
There are thousands of madrassahs in Pakistan. They offer board and lodging to some 1.5 million children in a poor country where mainstream education is weak.
Some produce children able to recite the Koran by rote and schooled in the basics. Others aim higher, teaching students Islamic thought, logic, philosophy, Urdu, Arabic, Persian and English as well as mathematics, history and geography.
But President Pervez Musharraf, whose policy of madrassah reform had made limited headway despite millions of dollars of U.S. aid, said on Monday some madrassahs still breed extremism.
Madrassahs mushroomed and became recruiting grounds for jihadis in the 1980s when the West and Saudia Arabia poured millions of dollars into Pakistan to finance a war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
Today, the cause is Iraq, and Western powers are occupiers.
"NO TWO-MINUTE SILENCE FOR THEM"
A Pakistani professional of British origin, who requested anonymity as he belongs to a banned pan-Islamist organization, condemned the London attacks, before venting his anger over Iraq.
"A similar number die in Iraq daily, but nobody bothers. There is no two-minute silence for them. Don't they have names, don't they have lives?"
He termed suicide attacks in Iraq or
Israel "martyrdom operations" and said he attended Islamic meetings
in Britain where there was talk of sending fighters to
Chechnya and elsewhere.
But he said there had never been any talk of suicide attacks on London and raised a popular Islamist theory that the bombings were a British plot to cement support for the occupation of Iraq.
Abdus Samad, a 23-year-old Briton of Bangladeshi origin studying at the Jamia Binoria madrassah in Karachi, one of the more reputable schools of Islamic learning, rejected militancy completely, saying it only added to the problems of Muslims.
But asked for his views on al Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden, Samad, whose father runs a curry restaurant in England, was non-committal. "It depends how you see Osama bin Laden." Two Pakistani Americans studying at Binoria along with dozens of other foreigners from South East Asia, Africa, Europe and North America, expressed disgust at the London attacks and frustration that the concept of jihad, which can also mean non-violent struggle, was being abused.
"Suicide bombing is not a war tactic used for jihad...this is just being cowardly," said 21-year-old Farhan Mughal.
"I would never agree with it," said Afzal Shaikh, 20, adding that he'd never been taught anything to justify such acts.
But there is plenty of alarm in the West that Pakistan's madrassahs are churning out militants and that some are little more than fronts for local jihadi groups like Jaish-e-Mohammad (Army of Mohammad) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (Force of the Pure).
For years, Pakistan used such groups as covert tools of policy in Afghanistan and India, but it has failed to rein in their al Qaeda-inspired attempts to broaden the holy war since the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States in 2001.
Since siding with Washington after Sept. 11, Musharraf has had hundreds of al Qaeda suspects arrested, providing Western security agencies with some of their biggest breakthroughs.
But in the process, he and his Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz, have faced assassination attempts by suicide bombers, who have also struck in sectarian attacks on mosques in Pakistan.
In May, a group of leading clerics declared such attacks within Pakistan un-Islamic, but ducked the issue of whether they were legitimate in conflicts abroad.
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Davou Bulle, his wife, and their 10 children each climbed into the van, exhausted from another full day of work on their family’s farm. He started to pull away but was soon jarred to attention by the sound of gunshots hitting the tires. They were being ambushed because of his faith!
The Muslim attackers soon aimed their weapons at the driver, in hopes to first kill the Christian “infidel” then kill his entire family. In an attempt to protect his father, son Gyan lunged at the bullets to shield him, but the bullets found their way to their intended target, killing Davou. Gyan trying to help his father took 14 bullets during the ambush. Davou’s wife Mary was hit in the eye during the attack.
Mary was taken into surgery immediately. She lost one of her eyes as a result of the attack. Son Gyan was also operated on, removing all 14 bullets from his body. Miraculously he survived! Davou left behind a wife and 10 children.
More than 10,000 Christians have been killed since 1999 in Nigeria and nearly 1,000 homes and churches have been burned down by Muslim radicals-all because of their faith in Jesus Christ. VOM has opened up a center in Jos, Nigeria for the purpose of helping Christian widows who have lost their husbands at the hands of Muslim fanatics. This center will help these widows develop a trade in sewing or computers so they can support themselves and their children who were left behind.
If you are not currently receiving The Voice of the Martyrs monthly newsletter, please take this special opportunity to request your free subscription. Simply click on the link below to subscribe. This award-winning newsletter reveals the truth on today’s persecution of Christians, highlights some of the most courageous stories you will ever read, and gives practical ways you can be involved. Don’t let those like Mary suffer in silence. Subscribe to The Voice of the Martyrs monthly newsletter today.
LEEDS, England - New evidence suggests that last week's terror attacks were carried out by four suicide bombers of Pakistani origin who were videotaped by surveillance cameras arriving in London from this northern city just 20 minutes before the explosions, officials said Tuesday.
Police carried out raids on six homes in Leeds searching for explosives and computer files that would shed more light on what is believed to be the first suicide bombing in Western Europe. They arrested a man, identified by the British news agency Press Association as a relative of one of the suspected bombers.
A town councilor told The Associated Press that at least three of the presumed suicide bombers were British citizens of Pakistani ancestry.
One bomber was thought to be Shahzad Tanweer, a 22-year-old cricket-loving sports science graduate, and another was a teenager, Press Association reported.
Press Association said the men had driven a rental car to Luton, 30 miles north of London, and then boarded a commuter train to London's King's Cross station. Police closed Luton's train station and were searching a car they suspected was linked to the attacks.
Closed-circuit TV video showed all four men arriving at King's Cross by 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, about 20 minutes before the blasts began, Peter Clarke, head of the Metropolitan Police anti-terrorist branch, told a Scotland Yard news conference.
Two militant Islamic groups have claimed responsibility for the bombings, which killed at least 52 people on three subway trains and on a bus. Police had previously indicated there was no evidence of suicide bombings, suggesting instead that timers were used.
Although police stopped short of calling them suicide attacks, Clarke said "strong forensic and other evidence" suggests one of the suspects was killed in a subway bombing and property belonging to the three others was found at the location of the other blasts.
"The investigation quite early led us to have concerns about the movements and activities of four men, three of whom came from the West Yorkshire area. We are trying to establish their movements in the run-up to last week's attacks, and specifically to establish if they all died in the explosions," Clarke said.
The West Yorkshire region includes Leeds, and the homes of the three suspects from the city were among the six that were searched Tuesday.
Acting on six warrants, British soldiers blasted their way into an unoccupied, modest Leeds row house. Streets were cordoned off and about 500 people were evacuated. Hours earlier, police searched five homes elsewhere in the city.
Later Tuesday, police said a security alert was issued at Britain's House of Commons, but didn't say why. No evacuation had been ordered.
Mohammed Iqbal, a town councilor who represents the City-on-Hunslet section of Leeds, told AP that all of the homes raided in Leeds belong to "British citizens of Pakistani origin."
Three of the homes were in the neighborhood he represents, Iqbal said in a phone call with AP's office in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. He said he had just met with police about the investigation.
"This is not good for Muslims," Iqbal said. "We have businesses here. There will be a backlash."
Several officials, including Foreign Minister Jack Straw, have said the attacks bore the "hallmark" of al-Qaida, and one of the questions investigators are presumably trying to answer is whether the four suspects had outside help in planning the attacks.
Jeremy Shapiro, director of research at the center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution, said Europeans had been involved in suicide attacks in the Mideast, but he knew of no successful suicide bombings in Western Europe previously.
Pakistan's government has been a key ally in the war on terror, hunting down hundreds of al-Qaida suspects and turning them over to the United States. But as in most of the Islamic world, its citizens have been deeply opposed to British and American military action in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Police did not identify the four suspects believed to have been killed.
A senior security official, who has viewed the closed-circuit TV footage, told Press Association that the men were talking casually as they carried their bombs in backpacks at the King's Cross station.
Clarke said police had strong evidence that the man believed to have carried a bomb onto the subway train that exploded between the Aldgate and Liverpool Street stations died in the blast, and they were awaiting confirmation from the coroner.
One of the suspects had been reported missing by his family at 10 p.m. Thursday, and some of his property was found on the double-decker bus in which 13 died, Clarke said.
"We have now been able to establish that he was joined on his journey to London by three other men," he said.
Some witness accounts suggested the bus bomber may have blundered, blowing up the wrong target and accidentally killing himself. A witness who got off the crowded bus just before it exploded told AP he saw an agitated man in his 20s fiddling anxiously with something in his bag.
"This young guy kept diving into this bag or whatever he had in front of his feet, and it was like he was taking a couple of grapes off a bunch of grapes, both hands were in the bag," said Richard Jones, 61, of Bracknell, west of London.
"He must have done that at least every minute if not every 30 seconds," he said.
One theory suggested the attacker may have intended to leave his bomb on the subway but was unable to board because his coconspirators had already shut the system down.
Investigators also found personal documents bearing the names of two of the other men near seats on the Aldgate and Edgware lines. Police did not identify the men.
Leeds, about 185 miles north of London, has a population of about 715,000. About 15 percent of the residents are Muslim, and many come from a tight-knit Pakistani community, mostly from Mirpur, south of Islamabad in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. Other pockets of the community are mostly Arab, coming from a variety of countries including Syria and Saudi Arabia.
The military, including a bomb squad, carried out the controlled explosion at the row house at 11:30 a.m. so detectives could enter the home in Burley, a neighborhood where public signs in storefronts and even a Church of England community center are printed in English and Arabic.
No one was in the house at the time of the raid, police Inspector Miles Himsworth said. Detectives were scouring it for explosives and other items, possibly computers, he said.
Khalid Muneer, 28, a spokesman for the Hyde Park Mosque in Leeds, said the community was surprised by the raids and police claims that the bombers may have come from there.
"That connection would surprise us all, even shock the whole community. We still think it's too early to say," he told AP, adding that Muslims in the area were not opposed to Britain.
"I've seen no calls in this area for jihad against British or American forces. You will not get that sentiment expressed around this mosque."
Cordons kept bystanders about away from the house in Burley and police helped arrange prayers scheduled at a nearby mosque to be moved to other mosques nearby, Himsworth said.
Police said their painstaking investigation was moving ahead, and warned that the death toll would continue to rise. Fifty-six people remained hospitalized Tuesday.
Forensics experts have said it could take days or weeks to identify the bodies, many of which were blown apart and would have to be identified through dental records or DNA analysis. Investigators said late Tuesday that 11 bodies have been identified.
___
Associated Press reporters Beth Gardiner in London and Sadaqat Jan in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
A suspected Islamist went on trial yesterday for the murder of a Dutch filmmaker critical of Islam, in a case that has stoked religious and racial tension in the Netherlands.
Mohammed Bouyeri is accused of murdering Theo van Gogh as van Gogh cycled to work in Amsterdam on November 2 last year. A descendant of the brother of painter Vincent van Gogh, the filmmaker was known for his outspoken criticism of Islam.
The murder sparked a spate of attacks on mosques, religious schools and churches in a country once renowned for its tolerance, and raised questions about the integration of the almost 1 million Muslims living in the Netherlands.
Bouyeri, a Dutch-Moroccan born and raised in Amsterdam, is said to have shot and stabbed van Gogh, ignoring his pleas for mercy, before slashing his throat and leaving a letter pinned to his body with a knife.
The five-page letter, quoting the Koran, was addressed to Somali-born Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who wrote the script for van Gogh's film Submission. The film,
which accused Islam of condoning violence against women, outraged Muslims.AProsecutor Frits van Straelen told a pre-trial hearing in April that he would present evidence, including clothes, the murder weapon and ammunition, to show Bouyeri killed van Gogh.
The accused appeared at the April hearing but did not comment on the charges. He spent several months under psychiatric observation and has refused to co-operate with prosecutors and police.
Mr van Straelen also intends to present pictures found at Bouyeri's home that show executions, beheadings, hangings, throat cuttings, amputations and killings by stoning.
Prosecutors have said Bouyeri believed he was doing God's will and wanted to die a "martyr" at the hands of police. He was hurt in a gun battle with police before being arrested immediately after the murder.
It is also alleged that recorded conversations show that people in Bouyeri's circle knew of his plan to kill van Gogh.
- Reuters
LEEDS, England - Military officers blew open a house in northern England Tuesday in a search for explosives linked to last week's London bombings. As the investigation gathered pace, they also shut a train station outside London to deal with a car they said might be linked to the attacks.
Police said 500 people were evacuated from the area surrounding the controlled explosion an army bomb squad carried out in Leeds and the streets were cordoned off. Hours earlier, police had searched five homes elsewhere in Leeds, but there was no immediate word of any arrests.
The raids were the first reported in the massive investigation of the attacks that killed at least 52 people aboard three London Underground trains and a bus. They could mark an important step forward in the case.
In Luton, about 30 miles north of London, Bedfordshire Police closed the local train station at 2:45 p.m. to search a car which they said could be linked to the bombings. They said they would examine the vehicle in the station parking lot before taking it to a secure location.
Muslims represent 15 percent of the population of Luton, and clerics there have expressed concern about the activities of what they say are a small number of extremists.
In Leeds, military officers carried out a controlled explosion at 11:30 a.m. so detectives could enter a home in the Burley neighborhood to search for explosives, police said. Ministry of Defense spokesman Charles Morton said an army bomb squad had participated.
Police Inspector Miles Himsworth said no one was inside the house at the time of the raid. Detectives had not yet recovered anything from the building but were scouring it for explosives and other items, possibly including computers, he said.
"It's a very, very complicated investigation," he said. "It will be a very slow and very meticulous search in order that any evidence that is there can be gathered carefully."
Police helped make arrangements for prayers scheduled at a nearby mosque to be moved to other mosques in the area, Himsworth said.
Cordons kept bystanders about 100 yards away from the site in the rundown neighborhood of modest row houses.
Just a few miles away, police had earlier raided five homes. Britain's Press Association news agency reported another home was being searched in the town of Dewsbury, just south of Leeds, but police refused to comment on whether that raid was linked to the bombing investigation.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair declined to provide details about the raids, which began about 6:30 a.m.
"There have been a series of searches carried out in Yorkshire. Those searches are still going on. There's very little else I can say at the moment, but this activity is directly connected to the outrages on Thursday," Blair said in an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. radio.
Metropolitan Police described the raids as part of an "intelligence-led operation."
Several blocks around Colwyn Road in the modest Beeston neighborhood, where the early raids took place, were closed off by police tape and guarded by officers in fluorescent yellow jackets.
The neighborhood of row houses is home to white, black, Middle Eastern and south Asian communities. Some churches and gyms have signs in both English and Arabic.
A red Volkswagen car, marked off with police tape, had apparently attracted special attention, Press Association said.
A local man, Jack Allen, said two sisters lived in one of the houses being searched. "They were always quite friendly and said hello a couple of times," he said.
Allen said most residents of the area were of Indian ancestry.
The police chief expressed confidence that detectives would crack the case.
"Our track record is that there has scarcely been a terrorist outrage in London for which we have not found people responsible," Blair said in the BBC interview.
"This is much more difficult than Irish Republican (Army) terrorism, but it is still something the communities of Britain can defeat if they join together."
Progress was reported Tuesday in the process of identifying people who may have been directly responsible for one of the four explosions.
The Times said forensic pathologists have been concentrating on the remains of two bodies found in the mangled wreckage of the bus that was destroyed by a bomb blast Thursday. Three other bombs also exploded on subway trains in central London.
The report quoted an unidentified senior police source as saying: "There are two bodies which have to be examined in great detail because they appear to have been holding the bomb or sitting on top of it. One of those might turn out to be the bomber."
The Financial Times said progress has been made in identifying an individual suspected of being directly responsible for the bus explosion.
Quoting an unidentified European security official involved in the probe, the FT said: "I think we are going to see photographs of one or more suspects being posted within days."
The Metropolitan police refused to confirm either news report, saying that it has a policy of keeping quiet about its investigations to avoid tipping off potential suspects.
GLENEAGLES, Scotland (Reuters) - A series of apparent bomb attacks in London
threw the Group of Eight summit into crisis on Thursday, forcing Britain's
Tony Blair to leave the venue in Scotland to handle the emergency.
Blair, backed by all the leaders of the G8 industrialized nations and guest countries including China and India, vowed the summit would continue regardless and said he would return to the gathering at the Gleneagles hotel in the evening.
"It is particularly barbaric that this has happened on a day when people are meeting to try to help the problems of poverty in Africa, the long-term problems of climate change and the environment," the prime minister said.
Blair said the blasts -- on a number of buses and underground trains -- had probably been timed to coincide with the first full day of the summit, which he had intended as a landmark event to address global warming and African poverty.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw was rushing to Scotland to chair the meeting in Blair's absence, officials said. Environmental groups said they believed plans to issue a statement on climate change would be postponed for the day.
"Just as it is reasonably clear that this is a terrorist attack -- or a series of terrorist attacks -- it's also reasonably clear that this is designed, aimed, to coincide with the opening of the G8," Blair said.
The British prime minister later read out a joint statement on behalf of all the world leaders assembled in Scotland.
"We are united in our resolve to confront and defeat this terrorism," he said, flanked by all the G8 leaders.
The explosions came the day after London won the right to stage the 2012 Olympic Games, a victory widely seen as one of the high points of Blair's premiership.
London has long been identified as a prime target for Islamic militants, partly
because of Blair's staunch support for President Bush
and the Iraq war.
CLIMATE CHANGE OVERSHADOWED
The blasts completely overshadowed Thursday's main topic at the summit -- efforts to tackle global warming.
The leaders had been trying to finalize an agreement that could bring together the United States, other rich nations and major developing economies such as China and India.
Any deal is unlikely to satisfy environmentalists, who want all countries to sign up to binding targets on the carbon emissions that scientists say are causing the world to heat up.
Blair said he wanted to move beyond the binding Kyoto protocol, which the United States has refused to accept.
"There is no point going back over the Kyoto debate ... that's not what it's about," he said after talks with Bush earlier in the day.
"What it is about is seeing whether it will be possible in the future to bring people back into consensus together, not just America and Europe and Japan but also ... the emerging economies like China, like India," he said.
The U.S. has refused to accept any targets that could damage its economy and says there is no point in agreements that exclude big growing economies such as China and India.
Bush urged the world to focus instead on developing new clean technologies.
DUBAI (Reuters) - Jordanian authorities have arrested the spiritual mentor
of Iraq's al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al Jazeera television said.
The Arabic channel quoted its correspondent as saying authorities arrested Issam
Barqawi, better known as Sheikh Abu Mohammad al-Maqdisi, as the television was
broadcasting an interview with him.
Islamist and security sources have said the 43-year-old Muslim cleric -- who molded the militant Islamic views of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- was released on June 28 after a six-month detention at intelligence headquarters following his acquittal at a trial of Jordanian and Saudi sympathizers of al Qaeda.
He had been under close surveillance by authorities at his house near Zarqa, east of the capital, where fellow Jordanian Zarqawi was born.
CHICAGO -- A radical Egyptian cleric allegedly kidnapped from Italy by the CIA once provided the American spy agency with valuable information about Islamic militants in Albania, according to a published report.
The Chicago Tribune, citing the former second-ranking official of the Albanian intelligence service, reported in its Sunday editions that Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, was a valuable source of information in the mid-1990s to the CIA about the close-knit community of Islamic fundamentalists living in exile in Albania, a formerly communist country in the Balkans.
Astrit Nasufi, the former Albanian intelligence officer, told the newspaper that the imam had been considered a credible source of information.
Last month, an Italian judge ordered the arrests of 13 CIA officers on allegations they secretly transported the imam to Egypt from Italy as part of U.S. anti-terrorism efforts _ a rare public admonition by a close American ally. The warrant said the cleric was sent to Egypt and tortured.
Italian officials have said they had no prior knowledge of the Feb. 17, 2003, kidnapping of the 39-year-old cleric from a Milan street.
According to the Italian prosecutor's application for the 13 warrants for the CIA agents, when Abu Omar reached Cairo on a CIA-chartered aircraft, he was taken to Egypt's interior minister, the newspaper reported.
The document said that if the imam agreed to provide information to Egypt's intelligence service, Abu Omar "would have been set free and accompanied back to Italy," the Tribune reported.
The CIA has refused to comment on the case.
The newspaper said evidence gathered by Italian prosecutors "indicates that the abduction was a bold attempt to turn him (Omar) back into the informer he once was."
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Security forces killed al-Qaida's leader in Saudi Arabia,
who topped the nation's list of most-wanted militants, during a fierce gunbattle
Sunday, an Interior Ministry official said.
Younis Mohammed Ibrahim al-Hayari, a Moroccan, was killed during a dawn raid by
security forces on an area in the capital where suspected militants were hiding,
the official was quoted by the official Saudi Press Agency as saying.
Three other unidentified suspects were arrested, and weapons, ammunition, computers and documents were seized, he said.
The clashes took place in the Rawdah district, an upscale neighborhood in eastern Riyadh, Interior Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Mansour al-Turki said.
The unidentified official quoted by SPA said al-Hayari headed
Osama bin Laden
's al-Qaida network in the kingdom, which has been ravaged by terrorist attacks
during more than two years of violence.
"He (al-Hayari) was nominated by his peers, and following the death of those preceding him, to be the head of sedition and corruption in the land," the official said in the SPA report.
Al-Hayari topped a list issued Tuesday of 36 most-wanted militants sought for participation in previous terror attacks in the kingdom dating back to 2003. On Wednesday, Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef warned that more attacks were possible.
Al-Hayari was believed to have had close ties to Abdul Karim al-Majati, an al-Qaida leader killed in April 2005.
The Interior Ministry official said security forces conducted two simultaneous operations in eastern Riyadh to capture suspects and killed al-Hayari after a shoot-out, while arresting three other suspected militants who were not identified.
It said the first operation ended without incident and with two suspects surrendering. But in the second raid, militants launched a gun battle with troops and lobbed grenades before al-Hayari was killed and another extremist was arrested.
"The two operations have concluded, but we will continue to pursue all the terrorists," al-Turki said.
The report said six security force personnel were slightly wounded in the gun battles while weapons, munitions, communications equipment, computers and documents were seized at both scenes.
According to information released by Saudi authorities earlier this week, al-Hayari entered Saudi Arabia five years ago for the annual hajj pilgrimage season but remained in the country with his wife and young daughter.
Saudi officials said al-Hayari, 36, had regularly disguised himself to avoid capture and had been previously spotted in Riyadh.
This oil-rich kingdom has suffered a series of heavy terrorist attacks since May 2003 when suicide bombers attacked three housing estates for foreigners in the capital Riyadh. The kingdom then launched a wave of retaliatory raids against the militants, and issued a list of 26 most wanted in December 2003. Security forces have killed or captured 23 of the 26 figures on that list.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Taliban guerrillas killed nine village elders,
four policemen and two other civilians in a fresh wave of violence in southern
Afghanistan in which 13 guerrillas also died, officials said on Friday.
The killings were the latest in a stepped up campaign of militant attacks ahead
of Sept. 18 parliamentary elections, the next big step in Afghanistan's difficult
path to stability.
The nine elders were killed in the village of Lander in the central province of Uruzgan on Thursday night, a day after security forces killed seven guerrillas in an attack on a security post, Uruzgan governor Jan Mohammad Khan said.
He said the guerrillas released a 9-year-old boy to bring news of the killings and to offer to exchange the bodies of the elders and the guerrillas.
"They said the elders had been cooperating with the Americans," he said.
Early on Friday morning, guerrillas also attacked a security post in Charcheno district of Uruzgan, killing four policemen, he said, adding that five guerrillas were killed and one was captured in that incident.
In another insurgent attack on Thursday, two civilians were killed when rockets aimed at a district office landed northeast of the city of Khost, in the southeast, the province's deputy police chief, Mohammad Zaman, said.
In the southwestern province of Helmand, one Taliban fighter was killed and another captured after trying to attack a convoy of U.S. troops, provincial spokesman Haji Mohammad Khan said. He said no U.S. troops were hurt.
Taliban and allied militants have stepped up attacks since March, killing dozens of Afghan officials, members of the security forces and civilians, as well as 30 U.S. troops.
More than 400 guerrillas have also died, according to Afghan government figures.
They include 178 killed in a major offensive late last month on the borders or Uruzgan, Kandahar and Zabul provinces, which the government said showed the weakness of the Taliban threat.
On Tuesday, insurgents fighting U.S. forces in the eastern province of Kunar shot down a U.S. helicopter, killing all 16 special forces troops aboard, the biggest blow for the U.S. military in Afghanistan since they overthrew the Taliban in late 2001.
The violence has raised concerns for the elections, but organizers say preparations remain on track in spite of security worries that have hampered registration of voters in some insurgent-troubled southern districts.
Iran's president-elect was one of their captors in the late 1970s.
"I have no information," Bush said in an interview with foreign reporters ahead of a trip to Scotland next week. "But obviously his involvement raises many questions."
Afterward, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said that Bush was referring to reports suggesting Iranian president-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's involvement in the 1979 hostage crisis at the U.S. embassy in Tehran.
McClellan said the White House is taking the allegations seriously and "looking into them to better understand the facts."
Former hostages Chuck Scott, David Roeder, William J. Daugherty and Don A. Sharer told The Associated Press that after seeing Ahmadinejad on television, they have no doubt he was one of the hostage-takers. A fifth ex-hostage, Kevin Hermening, said he reached the same conclusion after looking at photos. A close aide to Ahmadinejad denied the president-elect took part in the seizure of the embassy or in holding Americans hostage.
The hostage-taking, which came in reprisal for Washington's refusal to surrender
ousted Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi for trial there, contributed substantially to
then-President Jimmy Carter's defeat by
Militant students seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran on Nov. 4, 1979, and held
52 Americans hostage for 444 days. The shah had fled Iran earlier that year after
he was overthrown by the Islamic Revolution.
Another former hostage, retired Air Force Col. Thomas E. Schaefer, said he doesn't recognize Ahmadinejad as one of his captors. Several former students among the hostage-takers also said they did not believe that Ahmadinejad had taken part in it.
Bush suggested these questions are not his primary concern since Ahmadinejad was elected. Instead, he said, he wants to ensure that Britain, France and Germany, who have been negotiating with Iran to stop its alleged nuclear ambitions, make absolutely clear to Ahmadinejad that a nuclear-armed Iran will not be tolerated.
"We've got a got a new man who's assumed power and he must hear a focused message," the president said. "That's where my attention is focused right now."
Several of the former hostages insisted they were certain that the president-elect was among their captors. Daugherty said it's further evidence that the State Department should stop defending Iran's immunity from lawsuits filed by the former hostages seeking reparations.
In April 2002, a federal judge threw out a lawsuit by the hostages seeking $33 billion in damages. The State Department intervened, arguing the lawsuit would violate the U.S.-Iranian agreements that freed the hostages and would damage U.S. credibility.
"This puts the Bush administration in an interesting position," Daugherty said. "You know how he said, `You're either for us or you're for the terrorists.' Well, now the leader of Iran is a terrorist."
Ahmadinejad was a member of the Office of Strengthening Unity, the student organization that planned the embassy takeover, but he was opposed to taking the U.S. Embassy, several of his associates said.
The aide, Meisan Rowhani, told the AP from Tehran that Ahmadinejad was asked during recent private meetings if he had a role in the hostage taking. Rowhani said he replied, "No. I believed that if we do that the world will swallow us."
Mohammad Ali Sayed Nejad, a longtime friend of the president-elect, said that in 1979, "Ahmadinejad had focused his fight against communism and Marxism and he was one of the opponents of seizing the U.S. Embassy. He was a constant opponent."
Rowhani, the aide to Ahmadinejad, said Ahmadinejad said during the recent meeting that he stopped opposing the embassy seizure after the revolution's leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, expressed support for it. But the president-elect said he never took part.
"Definitely he was not among the students who took part in the seizure," said Abbas Abdi, the leader of the hostage-takers. Abdi has since become a leading supporter of reform and sharply opposed Ahmadinejad. "He was not part of us. He played no role in the seizure, let alone being responsible for security" for the students.
Another of the hostage-takers, Bijan Adibi, said Ahmadinejad "was not involved. There was no one by that name among the students who took part in the U.S. Embassy seizure."
Some former hostages couldn't be sure about their captors. Former Marine embassy guard Paul Lewis of Sidney, Ill., said he thought Ahmadinejad looked vaguely familiar when he saw a picture of him on the news last week, but "my memories were more of the gun barrel, not the people behind it."
"I cannot postively identify the individual. When I was interrogated, I was blindfolded and shackled," said Alan Golancinski, one of the former hostages who is retired and now lives in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. "He does look familiar, but I have no way of postively identifying the individual," he said.
Daugherty, who worked for the
CIA
in Iran and now lives in Savannah, said a man he's convinced was Ahmadinejad was
among a group of ringleaders escorting a
Vatican
representative during a visit in the early days of the hostage crisis.
"It's impossible to forget a guy like that," Daugherty said. "Clearly the way he acted, the fact he gave orders, that he was older, most certainly he was one of the ringleaders."
Ahmadinejad, the hard-line mayor of Tehran, was declared winner Wednesday of Iran's presidential runoff election, defeating one of Iran's best-known statesmen, Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani. The stunning upset put conservatives firmly in control of all branches of power in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
In a first-person account on the British Broadcasting Corp. Web site, world affairs editor John Simpson said he, too, recognized Ahmadinejad, saying there was something "faintly familiar" about him. "I realised where I must have seen him: in the former American embassy in Tehran," Simpson wrote.
Scott, Roeder, Daugherty and Sharer said they have been exchanging e-mails since seeing Ahmadinejad emerge as a serious contender in Iran's elections.
"He was extremely cruel," said Sharer, of Bedford, Ind. "He's one of the hard-liners. So that tells you where their government's going to stand for the next four to five years."
A memory expert cautioned that people who discuss their recollections can influence one another in reinforcing false memories. Also, it's harder to identify from memory someone of a different race or ethnicity, said psychologist Elizabeth Loftus of the University of California, Irvine.
"Twenty-five years is an awfully long time," Loftus said. "Of course we can't say this is false, but these things can lead people down the path of having a false memory."
___
Associated Press writers Ali Akbar Dareini in Tehran, Russ Bynum in Savannah, Ga., Aaron Beard in Raleigh, N.C., Amanda Keim in Phoenix, Ariz., Deanna Wrenn in Indianapolis and Robert Imrie in Wausau, Wis., contributed to this report.
(CNSNews.com) - Two evangelical pastors in Australia convicted of vilifying Muslims say they will go to prison rather than obey a judge's order to apologize.
A tribunal judge in the state of Victoria on Wednesday instructed Danny Nalliah and Daniel Scot to apologize for their comments by publishing a prescribed statement in newspapers and on the website of Nalliah's ministry, Catch the Fire.
They would also have to promise never to repeat them -- or any other comments which would have the "same or similar effect" -- anywhere in Australia or on the Internet.
Failure to do so would make it "necessary for further orders to be made," said Judge Michael Higgins of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT), a body that operates like a normal court of law.
In a landmark ruling last December, Higgins found that the two had vilified Muslims at a seminar on Islam and in articles published in a newsletter and on the Internet.
He said Scot, a Pakistan-born pastor who addressed the seminar, had done so "in a way which is essentially hostile, demeaning and derogatory of all Muslim people, their god, Allah, the prophet Mohammed and in general Muslim religious beliefs and practices."
The offending statement included the view that the Koran promotes violence and killing; that Muslims lie; and that Muslims intend to take over Australia and declare it an Islamic state.
Higgins also found that an article by Nalliah in a Catch the Fire newsletter contained statements "likely to incite a feeling of hatred towards Muslims," including the claim that Muslim refugees were being granted visas to Australia while Christians who suffer persecution in Islamic nations were refused refugee visas.
Nalliah and Scot had argued that the intention was to help Christians understand Islam, based on references to the Koran and other Islamic texts.
The case against the pastors resulted from a complaint by the state's Islamic Council. It was the first of its kind to be brought under Victoria's controversial Racial and Religious Tolerance Act, which came into effect in early 2002.
Shortly after the order was handed down at the VCAT chambers in Melbourne Wednesday, Nalliah told Cybercast News Service that he and Scot would go to prison rather than comply.
"We have from the beginning said this law is a foul law. And it's under the law that the judge has brought the judgment," he said. "Complying with the judge's judgment makes it clear that we respect the law - but we don't respect the law."
Asked whether he really expected that such a stand could land them in prison, Nalliah said they were taking the position because they wanted to see the law abolished.
"But the repercussions, as I understand, could result in the judge saying 'you'll have to go into jail for a season because you rejected my judgment.' We are willing to face it if that's the case."
The two have appealed to the Supreme Court.
'Throttling free speech'
The case, which has taken more than 20 months to finalize, has drawn international attention.
At one point in 2003 the Australian Embassy in Washington was flooded with letters from concerned Americans, and was hard pressed to explain that the case was being heard by a court-like tribunal operating under a law passed by one state's Labor government, not Australia's federal government.
In Britain, opponents of a religious hatred bill currently under consideration have cited the Australian episode in their campaign against the legislation.
Although churches in Australia have been divided over the Catch the Fire case, an increasing number are backing a drive to have the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act repealed.
Bill Muehlenberg of the Australian Family Association, a leading campaigner against the law, called Wednesday's ruling a sinister turn in a supposedly democratic nation.
"It may not be people bursting into our churches with guns loaded, but the effect is the same," he said in reaction to Higgins' order.
"If a secular judge does not like what he hears, he can not only throttle free speech, but can hinder the public proclamation of the gospel as well."
Muehlenberg said Jesus had warned that his followers would be dragged before courts -- "but here we see it being done in the name of civilized virtues: tolerance and the like."
"To offer a Christian critique of other religious views and truth claims can now result in jail sentences. This is a likely outcome as the two pastors will not, on principle, make public apologies."
He predicted that the case would separate those who were serious about their faith from those who were not.
"This is real wheat versus the chaff type-stuff: who will stand up and be counted, and who will not?"
Jenny Stokes of Salt Shakers, a Christian ethical action group, said from Victoria that the judge's order constituted "a form of appeasement."
"The prohibition on speaking or conduct that would have the 'same or similar
effect' to the statements found by Judge Higgins to have breached the act and
vilified Muslims is very far-reaching -- especially since many of those statements
are from the Koran itself," she said.
'Subjective'
The Nalliah-Scot case is not the only one to have highlighted difficulties with the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act.
A convicted pedophile and self-described "witch" recently brought a case against prison authorities and the Salvation Army, complaining that a Christian course being offered to inmates at his penitentiary had vilified him by carrying derogatory references to witchcraft. The complaint is pending.
Earlier, another "witch" accused a Christian city councilor of vilifying her in a public statement he released voicing concern about satanist activity. The case ended up before the VCAT, but ended with a settlement that required the councilor to apologize publicly.
In a boost for those campaigning against the Victorian law, the premier of the neighboring state of New South Wales (NSW) - which is also under a Labor government - spoke out Monday against a lawmaker's attempt to pass similar legislation in NSW.
"Religious vilification laws are difficult because ... determining what is or is not a religious belief is difficult," Premier Bob Carr told state parliament. "It is subjective."
"Religious vilification laws can undermine the very freedom they seek to protect -- freedom of thought, conscience and belief," he said.
In a separate move, a federal lawmaker Monday introduced a private member's bill in Canberra that seeks to have Australia's federal parliament declare Victoria's religious hate law to be unnecessary.
Most opponents of the laws say that while they are well-intended, they are also superfluous as existing defamation and racial discrimination laws provide adequate protection.
Pointing to the Nalliah-Scot case outcome, Muehlenberg has also argued that secular judges are not competent to rule in complex theological disputes.
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