Friday, July 6, 2007

Hardline approach

by Andrew Buncombe from The Independent

Two Indian brothers, Sabeel and Kaleef Ahmed, are at the centre of police investigations into the NHS terror plot tried to persuade their local Indian mosque to adopt a more "hard line" form of Islam, it emerged last night. Samiullah, who has just one name, said the brothers sought to introduce religious ideas from Saudi Arabia. Eventually, he said, the locals threatened to break the "arms and legs" of the brothers, and told them to stay away from the mosque. Their father continued to attend. The details about the brothers' actions as young adults emerged against a backdrop of disbelief and anguish that has rocked the country's booming technology capital, as the nation confronts the possibility that, for the first time, Indian Muslims may have been involved in an international terror plot.

G.I.’s Forge Sunni Tie in Bid to Squeeze Militants

by Michael R. Gordon from The New York Times

Imposing a severe version of Islamic law, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia installed its own clerics, established an Islamic court and banned the sale of cigarettes, which even this week were nowhere to be found in the humble shops in western Baquba to the consternation of patrolling Iraqi troops ... “They used religion as a ploy to get in and exploit people’s passions,” said one member of the Kit Carson scouts, who gave his name as Haidar. “They were Iraqis and other Arabs from Syria, Afghanistan, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. They started kicking people out of their houses and getting ransom from rich people. They would shoot people in front of their houses to scare the others.”

Three jailed for engaging in 'cyber jihad' for al-Qaida

by David Pallister from The Guardian

In May 2004 Younis Tsouli helped to distribute a video of the beheading by Zarqawi of an American contractor in Iraq, Nicholas Berg. It was downloaded half a million times in the first 24 hours. By hacking into unprotected web servers he was able to use a mechanism known as file transfer protocol to post large files and videos, including videos made by an al-Qaida affiliate group in Saudi Arabia responsible for attacking housing used by foreign staff. He was caught when two terrorist suspects were arrested in Bosnia and their mobile phones and email records led to the detention of more than 30 people in North America and Europe.

Questioning JI's way of thinking

by Nurrohman from The Jakarta Post

Jamaah Islamiyah (which means Islamic community) aims to establish a Pan Islamic State in Southeast Asia under Indonesia. Even when they are captured by police or stand trial, the attorneys defending them call themselves the Muslim Defender Team. So we actually, albeit indirectly, must acknowledge that some Muslim activists were involved in terrorist attacks in this country ... JI's way of thinking is close to Arab Wahhabi or the Salafi variant of Islam. The group emphasizes rituals and codes of conduct rather than the substance of Islam. Such a vision of Islam leads believers to think of the religion as an absolute truth, while other religions are false and there can be no meeting ground between a Muslim and a non-Muslim. Even among Muslims, this way of thinking causes disharmony and can lead to violence especially if combined with political ends. It's not suitable for Indonesian Muslims who believe that tolerance between all religious communities is important.

Editorial: Plight of expatriate Muslims

From The Daily Times, Pakistan

Recently, a British newspaper reported on the results of an undercover investigation by Britain’s Channel Four TV, revealing disturbing evidence of Islamic extremism at a number of Britain’s leading mosques and Muslim institutions. Secret video footage revealed Muslim preachers exhorting followers to prepare for jihad, to hit girls for not wearing the hijab, and to create a “state within a state”. Many of the preachers were linked to the Wahhabi strain of Islam practised in Saudi Arabia, which funds a number of Britain’s leading Islamic institutions.