Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Three Held for Running Terror Websites

by Samir Al-Saadi from Arab News

Security forces have arrested three members of a deviant group responsible for running extremist and terrorist websites, the Interior Ministry announced yesterday ... The statement said, “Security forces arrested a national calling himself ‘Abu Aseed Al-Falouji’ who ran a highly organized site aimed at recruiting youths by using special effects to attract them.” ... When Al-Falouji was arrested, more than 40 gigabytes of video and print material was confiscated. Among the material were video footage and printed matter relating to terrorism and previous terrorist acts in the Kingdom. There was also footage of how the deviants collected and moved money, how to prepare and transport explosives in addition to how to rig cars with bombs and explosives.

Ex-CIA Official: Al-Qaida Fully Operational

from NewsMax.com

Wries Michael Scheuer, (22-year veteran with the CIA who created and served as the chief of the agency's Osama bin Laden unit at the Counterterrorist Center) the fact is that the al-Qaida forces we are fighting in those two countries are the group’s insurgent forces, not its "special forces," who he defines as those who attacked Washington and New York on 9/11. "As noted, those forces left Afghanistan before the U.S. Marines landed and have been planning new attacks since then in Pakistan’s border provinces, Saudi Arabia, Britain, and other secure locations in Europe, across the Muslim world, and perhaps even in the United States and Canada."

Suicide Attack Near Falluja Kills 18 in Commercial Area

by Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Khalid Al-Ansary from The New York Times

In the northern city of Mosul, police recovered four bodies scattered around the city. Clashes also erupted between gunmen and the Iraqi police. Two gunmen were killed, one a Saudi Arabian and the other an Iraqi, according to Brig. Saeed al-Jibouri, an Iraqi police official in Mosul. He said the dead Saudi gunman had documents in his pocket identifying his nationality.

The origins of Shiite Islam

from The Christian Science Monitor

The major Shiite holidays celebrate the now glorious defeats and martyrdoms of Imam Ali and Imam Hussein, Ali's son ... In Iraq and Iran, the holiday is marked by elaborate processions of men reenacting their own passion play, many of whom self-flagellate with chains to the beat of drums. Such expressions of piety are looked at with disgust by hard-line Sunnis like the clergy in Saudi Arabia, who view the veneration of Hussein and other members of the prophet's family as a violation of monotheism. This view has frequently led extremist groups like Al Qaeda to attack Shiites as heretics.

Jihad, Reconsidered

by Manal el-Jesri from Egypt Today

Diaa Rashwan, an analyst with Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies and one of the world’s top experts on jihad and political Islam, could not agree more. Like Habib, he cites Al-Jama’a’s reviews, which led to tens of thousands of former Al-Jama’a members and supporters embracing peaceful political participation. “Today, you can see members of Al-Jama’a arguing with Salafiyyin [Wahhabis] in mosques about making it easier for people to pray,” Rashwan says. The reviews, Rashwan believes, have protected Egypt from infiltration by groups such as Al-Qaeda, and he points out that Al-Jihad’s declarations need to be taken at face value. They could, he says, change the very core of jihadist Islam around the world.

Muslim South America

by Jonathan Schanzer from National Review

When I visited the tiny Al-Iman mosque on Paramaribo’s outskirts, I saw firsthand how militant Islam could be gaining a foothold. Some 20 Javanese Muslim congregants in the mosque were learning Arabic and Islamic law from a young Indonesian cleric who received his formal religious training in Saudi Arabia. Embassy officials acknowledged that this young cleric was likely trained by members of the puritanical and radical Wahhabi sect, though they said they didn’t know how many other Saudi-trained clerics there were in Suriname.

Survey Offers Stark Perspectives on Muslim-American Identity, Loyalty

by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos from Fox News

"There is a serious tension between the success of assimilation and the success of radical ideology," said Stephen Schwartz, a Muslim convert and author of Two Faces of Islam: The House of Sa'ud from Tradition to Terror. Schwartz said he believes the spread of radical Wahhabi Islam by Saudi Arabian migrants over the last two decades has created a hotbed of extremist activity, particularly after the Sept. 11 attacks. "The problem we have as Americans is that our openness and our freedom gave the radical ideologists the green light," Schwartz said

Security Outlook of Iran Under Ahmadinejad

by Bayram Sinkaya from the Journal of Turkish Weekly

The policy of exporting revolution raised concerns among neighboring Muslim countries including Turkey, Pakistan, Iraq etc. On the other hand, Islamic Revolution in 1979 was perceived as a “Shiite movement” above else, and raised concerns in Sunni movements and those countries like S. Arabia championing the Sunni/Wahhabi branch of Islam. Nevertheless these concerns did not lead to “severe”/military conflicts between Iran and the neighboring countries with the exception of Iraq.