MUSLIM HATE IN MOSQUES

 

Palestinian gunmen ‘fortified’ Jenin mosque, dug tunnel underneath


Military releases footage of house of worship turned into outpost and weapons cache for members of terror groups, amid major operation in northern West Bank city


By EMANUEL FABIAN 4 July 2023
The Times of Israel


The Israel Defense Forces on Tuesday accused Palestinian gunmen in the West Bank city of Jenin of turning a mosque into a “fortified” hideout, complete with an underground tunnel and a cache of weapons.


Israeli forces gained control of the al-Ansari mosque on Monday afternoon, following a shootout with Palestinian gunmen in the area, during the course of a major counterterrorism operation against the Jenin refugee camp.


The IDF said it carried out a drone strike against the armed Palestinians outside the mosque and later managed to break in.


On the ground floor, troops found two tunnel openings that the army said were connected. Explosives, weapons, and other military equipment were found inside the holes and scattered across the mosque.


“All of this excavation work in the mosque has turned it into a fortified site,” said Lt. Col. “Mem,” the commander of the elite Egoz unit, who can only be identified by his rank and initial of his first name in Hebrew.


Footage released by the army showed dozens of sandbags and stones piled up across the ground floor of the mosque.


The Israel Defense Forces on Tuesday accused Palestinian gunmen in the West Bank city of Jenin of turning a mosque into a “fortified” hideout, complete with an underground tunnel and a cache of weapons.


Israeli forces gained control of the al-Ansari mosque on Monday afternoon, following a shootout with Palestinian gunmen in the area, during the course of a major counterterrorism operation against the Jenin refugee camp.


The IDF said it carried out a drone strike against the armed Palestinians outside the mosque and later managed to break in.


On the ground floor, troops found two tunnel openings that the army said were connected. Explosives, weapons, and other military equipment were found inside the holes and scattered across the mosque.


“All of this excavation work in the mosque has turned it into a fortified site,” said Lt. Col. “Mem,” the commander of the elite Egoz unit, who can only be identified by his rank and initial of his first name in Hebrew.


Footage released by the army showed dozens of sandbags and stones piled up across the ground floor of the mosque.


Mem said the fortification of the mosque and the tunnel digging likely took the gunmen a long time to carry out.


The equipment was seized, the weapons were destroyed, and the tunnel was rendered inoperable, the IDF said.


The military’s operation in Jenin was set to continue Tuesday following a mostly uneventful night that saw Palestinian gunmen choosing not to fight Israeli forces, potentially signaling an approaching end to the campaign, now in its second day.


Israel launched the major operation early Monday to crack down on what it says is a hotbed of terror in the city. A number of attacks on Israelis in recent years have been carried out by Palestinians from the area, and observers say the Palestinian Authority has little control on the ground.

The IDF’s operation has focused on a local wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group known as the Jenin Battalion, as well as other smaller armed groups in the city and refugee camp.


Over 1,000 IDF troops were involved in the campaign, which appeared to be the largest in the West Bank in some 20 years.


Palestinian health officials said Tuesday morning that ten people were killed and at least 100 others were wounded, including 20 listed in serious condition, during Israeli airstrikes and in clashes with Israeli forces the previous day.


All of the slain Palestinians were involved in the fighting, but there were some noncombatants among the wounded, according to the IDF.


The IDF said that since the early hours of Monday, troops had questioned over 120 Palestinian suspects. Some were released, while others were taken in for additional questioning.


The IDF believes there were some 300 Palestinian gunmen in the Jenin refugee camp. IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the military had intelligence on the identities of at least 160 armed Palestinians.


Some 3,000 Palestinians streamed out of the Jenin refugee camp on Monday night to escape the fighting, although the IDF said it had not ordered an evacuation and that there was no closure on Jenin.

The military operation began shortly after 1 a.m. on Monday with a series of airstrikes against multiple targets in the city, including a joint war room shared by various armed groups in the city.


Throughout the campaign, the IDF said, troops located and demolished weapon storage sites, explosives labs with hundreds of primed devices, war rooms used by Palestinian gunmen to observe Israeli forces, and other “terror infrastructure.”


Troops also clashed with armed Palestinians and carried out some 20 drone strikes against various targets in the refugee camp.


Internally, the military has referred to the operation by name, calling it “Bayit Vegan,” literally Home and Garden, a reference to Jenin’s biblical name, and the term has been used by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well. But the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit has insisted that the operation has no official name.


The military appeared to be downplaying the scale of the campaign by not giving it a name. Hagari, the spokesman, has called it a “brigade-level raid.”


For weeks, there was speculation about a major Israeli military operation in the West Bank, following a string of shooting attacks and intense resistance to IDF raids in Palestinian cities.


The northern West Bank, and especially the city of Jenin and its environs, has long been considered by the IDF as a hotbed of terrorism, highlighted by a string of attacks in early 2022, many of which were carried out by residents of the area.


According to the IDF, since last year, some 50 shooting attacks were carried out by residents of the area, and 19 wanted Palestinians escaped to Jenin to seek refuge there from Israeli forces.


Tensions between Israelis and Palestinians have been high across the West Bank for the past year and a half, with the military carrying out near-nightly raids, amid a series of deadly Palestinian terror attacks.


Since the beginning of this year, Palestinian attacks in Israel and the West Bank have killed 24 people.


According to a tally by The Times of Israel, 144 West Bank Palestinians have been killed during that time — most of them during clashes with security forces or while carrying out attacks, but some were uninvolved civilians and others were killed under unclear circumstances.


'Beheading' training being imparted to girl students in mosque, Video goes viral


By Arpit Birtharia
Dec 11 2021
English.newstracklive.com


Islamabad: Pakistan's brutal Blasphemy Law is being discussed all over the world these days. Recently, a Sri Lankan national was beaten to death in an alleged blasphemy case and then set on fire by fundamentalists. The Pak PM Imran Khan-led government was criticized all over the world for this. Meanwhile, a video has now surfaced from Pakistan that exposes Pakistan's violent, hardcore Islamic, and chaotic face in blasphemy. The video is said to be from the Red Mosque in Islamabad.


The viral video shows girl students being taught in the mosque how to behead a person if someone insults religion. In the background of the video, the slogan of radical Tehreek-e-Lubbek Pakistan (TLP) is also heard on the loudspeaker. This is the same slogan that supporters of the TLP were chanting while killing Sri Lankan factory manager Priantha Kumara in Sialkot and burning her body. Tell me, recently there was a peace agreement between the Government of Pakistan and the TLP. Before the agreement, the TLP had created a stir in Pakistan.


The video was shared by Pakistani journalist and social activist Gul Bukhari on Twitter. He has claimed that students of Lal Masjid in Islamabad are practicing beheading of a person accused of blasphemy. Pakistan's 'Successful Youth' project is progressing well. Hundreds of girls and women are seen in religious costumes in the video. In front of the girls, women are seen beheading an effigy with a sword.  'Kaamyaab Jawan' is a scheme of the Government of Pakistan, which is said to encourage education, employment, and engagement for the youth.


3 months ago, the Lal Masjid made headlines when Maulana Abdul Aziz hoisted the Taliban flag at the mosque and threatened the Pakistani army with consequences if the Taliban flag was removed. After which Imran Khan kneeled before the Maulana and allowed him to hoist the Taliban flag.


Muslim Rioters in Israel Burn 10 Synagogues, 112 Jewish Homes

 

Twenty-eight mosques were exposed as weapons caches. Similarly, 22 Muslim prayer houses were documented as being used to incite riots against Jews.

 

By TPS

May 21, 2021

 

At least 10 synagogues were attacked and burned in the past week of Muslim riots across the country while 28 mosques were exposed as weapons storage sites, the data show.

 

Data from the Central District of Fire and Rescue show that from last Tuesday, 10 synagogues and government institutions in the city of Lod in the center of the country have been set on fire. No mosques were attacked or burned.

 

The data also show that 28 mosques were exposed as weapons caches, where rocks and Molotov cocktails were prepared and stored.

 

Similarly, 22 Muslim prayer houses were documented as being used to incite riots against Jews.

 

112 Jewish homes have so far been burned in Muslim riots, compared to one house of an Arab family in Jaffa, which turned out to have been set on fire by Arabs.

 

No looted Arab homes have been reported so far, while 386 looted Jewish homes were documented.

 

A total of 673 Jewish homes were vandalized and 12 Arab homes were damaged.

 

849 Jewish-owned cars were set on fire, as opposed to 13 Arab-owned cars.

 

Conversely, Jews who used weapons in self-defense were arrested by the police, while so far, no Arabs were arrested for the use of firearms, despite the injuries of several Jews in shooting incidents.

 

Over 5,000 incidents of rock-throwing at Jews were recorded, as opposed to 41 such attacks on Arabs.

 

 

10 Afghan Taliban militants killed in their own bomb blast in eastern Wardak province

 

MAIDAN SHAR, Afghanistan, April 27, 2021 (Xinhua) -- At least 10 militants were killed as a bomb went off in the group's hideout in Day Mirdad district of the eastern Wardak province on Monday, said an army statement here on Tuesday.

 

"A bomb went off in a hideout of Taliban militants in Dadu khil village of Day Mirdad district on Monday evening and as a result 10 rebels including a group commander Mullah Mansoor were killed and several others injured," the statement said.

 

Taliban militants are yet to make comments.

 

A similar blast among Taliban militants inside a mosque in Pashton Zarghon district of the western Herat province killed and injured 20 militants on Sunday, provincial governor Sayed Wahid Qatali said. 

 

 

France cracks down on 76 mosques suspected of 'separatism'

 

Interior minister says any found to be ‘breeding grounds of terrorism’ will be shut

 

The Guardian

December 3, 2020

 

France’s interior minister has announced a crackdown on 76 mosques that the government suspects of “separatism” and encouraging extremism.

 

Gérald Darmanin said the mosques would be inspected and any found to be “breeding grounds of terrorism” would be shut.

 

The move is part of the French government’s ongoing campaign to combat Islamist extremism after a series of terrorist attacks – including the recent beheading of a teacher and the killing of three people in a church in Nice – but has led to accusations it is unjustly targeting the wider Muslim community.

 

The president, Emmanuel Macron, has strenuously denied that new legislation to reinforce secularism that he outlined at the beginning of October was targeting Muslims. He said the law, under which France would train imams and impose a wider ban on home schooling and controls on religious, sporting and cultural associations, was aimed at tackling radical “Islamist separatism”.

 

 

Opponents say the government is pandering to the country’s far right, and the law has prompted angry protests in Muslim countries and from commentators in Britain and the US who have accused the French authorities of intolerance.

 

On Wednesday Darmanin, who raised hackles by questioning why supermarkets had separate halal and kosher food aisles, said the swoop on the mosques was “a massive and unprecedented action against separatism”.

 

“In the coming days, these places of worship suspected of separatism will be inspected. Those that should be closed, will be,” he said.

 

According to an interior ministry document leaked to Le Figaro newspaper, the 76 targeted mosques include 18 of particular concern, eight of which are in the greater Paris area. Two of these, in the Seine-Saint-Denis banlieue, home to a large number of France’s north African community, have already been ordered to close and a third has been flagged up by the country’s security commission.

 

“Until now, the state has focused on radicalisation and terrorism. Now we’re also going to attack the breeding grounds of terrorism, where people create the intellectual and cultural space for secession and imposing their values,” Darmanin told Le Figaro.

 

France has the largest Muslim population in western Europe. It is illegal in France to draw up statistics based on race or religion, but the Islamic community is estimated to number about 6 million people.

 

Darmanin officially announced the dissolving of the high-profile Muslim organisation the Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF), which the government accuses of spreading Islamist propaganda. The CCIF accused the minister of having “given in to the calls of the far right”.

 

In October, after a Chechen terrorist beheaded the schoolteacher Samuel Paty, who had shown controversial caricatures from the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo to a class of pupils, Darmanin ordered the closing of a mosque in Pantin, north-east of Paris, for six months, accusing it of whipping up a campaign against the teacher.

 

At the time, William Bourdon, a lawyer who lodged an unsuccessful challenge to the closure order, said shutting the mosque was “a very serious error” that risked “marginalising thousands and thousands of worshippers”.

 

 

France Shuts Down Mosques and Schools Linked to Islamism in 15 Neighbourhoods

 

CHRIS TOMLINSON

17 Nov 2019

Breitbart

 

The French government has shut down mosques, schools, and associations linked to the spread of Islamist ideology in fifteen neighbourhoods across the country.

 

French Secretary of State for the Interior Laurent Nuñez announced the closure of 130 drinking establishments, 12 places of worship, three schools, and nine associations linked to radical Islamism on Friday, Le Parisien reports. 

 

“We fight against political Islamism that suggests that the law of God is superior to that of the Republic,” he told French media. He added that in his view political Islamism should not be conflated with the religion of Islam more generally.

 

While Nuñez noted that the closures occurred in fifteen different neighbourhoods, he did not identify which specific neighbourhoods were affected by the closures. The closures come as part of the National Plan for the Prevention of Radicalization (PNPR).

 

Earlier this year in April, French president Emmanuel Macron promised to tackle the issue of political Islam in the second part of his five-year term, saying, “Secularism is the possibility of believing in God or not believing in Him… of never imposing on society a religion or detracting from rules of the Republic to do this.”

 

“When we talk about secularism, we do not really speak of secularism, we talk about the communitarianism that has settled in some quarters, of a political Islam that wants to secede from our Republic,” he added.

 

Radical Islamic ideologies, such as Salafism, are rampant in Islamic intellectual circles in France, according to French-Tunisian Islam expert Hakim el Karoui of the Montaigne Institute, who produced a report for the French president last year. 

 

Mr el Karoui also highlighted the growth of foreign influence from countries like Turkey and Saudi Arabia, who he claimed fund mosques and imams who promote more fundamentalist and radical strains of the religion.

 

 

Uttar Pradesh: Imam amongst those arrested for hiding explosives inside mosque in Kushinagar, report suggests ‘something big’ was planned

 

OPINDIA STAFF

NOVEMBER 13, 2019

The blast had occurred on 11th November, Monday.

 

The Uttar Pradesh police have nabbed four persons including a Muslim cleric in connection with a blast at a mosque in Kushinagar in Uttar Pradesh. As per Jagran report, the explosives were procured in April 2019 itself. One Haji Kutubuddin had reportedly told the youth who had stored the explosive that ‘something big’ is being planned. The explosives reportedly weigh around 8-10 kgs.

 

As per Jagran report, role of Haji Kutubiddin’s grandson Ashfaq’s role is also being investigated. Ashfaq and his wife are working with in the health department of the Indian Army and are posted in Hyderabad. It is believed Ashfaq was in Kushinagar when the blast took place on Monday and he reached the spot and immediately cleaned it up. Agencies are also investigating whether the explosives reached the mosque via Ashfaq.

 

According to the reports, the UP police had registered an FIR against seven persons. Among the four arrested is the Imam of the mosque, Maulana Azmuddin, while three others are absconding.

 

Vinod Kumar Mishra, SP (Kushinagar) said that the others arrested are Izhar, Aashiq and Javed, who are residents of the Bairagi Patti village. The Uttar Pradesh police are yet to ascertain the motive behind the blast that occurred at the mosque on Monday. 

 

According to the forensic reports, the explosion was caused by explosives stored in the mosque. Initially, it was believed that the blast was caused by an explosion in an inverter battery. However, it further investigation had revealed that it was not the case.

 

ATS Gorakhpur, intelligence agencies and Local Intelligence Unit (LIU) teams have joined the investigation. During interrogation, the cleric admitted that he and some other youths had kept the explosives in the mosque.

 

The blast took place in Bairagai Patti village here on Monday afternoon. The explosion was strong enough to rip apart doors and windows in the mosque.

 

 

Taliban Weapons Storage Discovered inside Mosque

 

Sunday October 20, 2019

 

Kabul (BNA) A weapons storage belonged to Taliban terrorist group have been discovered by Afghan security forces inside a mosque in southern Kandahar province.

 

The weapons storage include dozens kg explosive materials, heavy and light weapons, mines and bombs that have been discovered during a military operation conducted by Afghan security personnel.

 

Atal army corps in the south of the country by releasing a statement said, Afghan security forces after discovering the weapons and explosive materials reopened the mosque on prayers.

 

No one was arrested accused of the case so far.

 

According to another report, three Taliban fighters were killed during an air attack carried out by Afghan air forces in Maiwand district of Kandahar province.



Afghan forces bust Taliban Red Unit’s major sanctuary inside a mosque in Nangarhar

 

By Khaama Press / in Afghanistan / on Monday, 10 Jun 2019

 

The Afghan security forces busted one of the major sanctuaries of the Red Unit of Taliban in Nangarhar province.

 

The Afghan armed forces killed at least 30 Red Unit militants of Taliban during the operation.

 

The provincial authorities said the Taliban militants had established the sanctuary inside a mosque.

 

The Nangarhar governor’s office in a statement said the Red Unit of Taliban had established its sanctuary inside a mosque in Sherzad district.

 

The statement further added that the Afghan armed forces carefully conducted the operation to bust the sanctuary of the group considering the sacred place of mosque.

 

The statement also added that three Red Unit commanders of Taliban originally hailing from Pakistan were also among those killed.

 

The security forces also wounded 14 Red Unit militants of Taliban during the same operation.

 

Pictures released by provincial governor’s office reveal that the security forces confiscated a Saudi armed forces badge and a Pakistani certificate besides seizing weapons and munitions.

 

The anti-government armed militants including Taliban have not commented regarding the operation so far.

 

 

Radical Teachings Enter Mosques of Gov't Institutions


Dozens of mosques belonging to state-owned enterprises, ministries and government institutions have strong radical inclinations, a study has shown.


By : Sheany |

July 09, 2018

Jakarta Globe


Jakarta. Dozens of mosques belonging to state-owned enterprises, ministries and government institutions have strong radical inclinations, a study has shown, revealing a new urgency for the government to step up preventive efforts on its own turf.


The study by the Association of Islamic Boarding Schools and Society Development (P3M) and social organization Rumah Kebangsaan in 2017 listed 41 out of 100 mosques surveyed in Jakarta as radical.


P3M and Rumah Kebangsaan conducted the survey between Sept. 29 and Oct. 21 by analyzing hundreds of video and audio recordings taken by volunteers at 35 mosques in ministries, 28 in government institutions and 37 in state-owned enterprises.


Released on Sunday (08/07), the study found that radical narratives were spread especially during Friday sermons, and included hate speech, calls for the establishment of a caliphate, and a negative portrayal of other faiths.


Mosques at state-owned enterprises are especially vulnerable. According to the study, 21 of them have been infiltrated by radical groups.


"The high indication of radicalism at these mosques shows a lack of attention from the government, as they are structurally under its management," it said and advised that the Indonesian Mosques Council (DMI) should look into the findings to take appropriate measures.


P3M chairman Agus Muhammad said moderate Islamic preachers should deliver sermons at government mosques.


"If moderate Islamic preachers are not active, these mosques will be overwhelmed by hardliners," Agus said, as quoted by NU Online.


He added that preventive measures can also be undertaken by ordinary citizens, who should report indications of radicalism to relevant authorities.



Ottawa mosque loses charity status for promoting ‘hate and intolerance’


By Stewart Bell

National Online Journalist, Investigative 

Global News


The federal government has stripped one of Ottawa’s largest mosques of its charity status over “activities that promote hate and intolerance,” Global News has learned.


The Canada Revenue Agency took action against the Ottawa Islamic Centre and Assalam Mosque following audits that raised concerns about its roster of guest speakers.

“Many of the views expressed by the organization’s speakers are misogynistic, homophobic, racist and/or promote violence,” the CRA Charities Branch wrote in a letter sent to the mosque president.


The CRA was also concerned that “radicalized individuals” had attended the mosque, one of whom, Ashton Larmond, is now imprisoned for attempting to join the so-called Islamic State.


While the CRA said the mosque had not been directly implicated in their radicalization, it said there was a “possibility” they may have been influenced by parishioners or speakers.


The federal agency said the guest speaker issue had been repeatedly raised with the mosque but auditors found “no indication that the organization has implemented any due diligence procedures with respect to the vetting of its guest speakers.”

Mosque officials denied promoting intolerance and said the troubles dated back to more than five years ago when the organization was run by two hardline board members. The audit covered the years 2012 and 2013. Speakers are now pre-screened, they said.


“We were really shocked this happened to us,” Muhammad Haile, the mosque secretary and a member of its board of directors since 2014, told Global News. “We don’t tolerate any hate.”


The revocation took effect on July 14.


It means the mosque no longer benefits from the tax advantages enjoyed by government-registered charities.

 

Foremost, it cannot issue receipts allowing donors to claim their contributions as income tax deductions.


“It was devastating for us. It was like an earthquake. But what can we do?” said Ali Abdulle, the mosque treasurer, who called the CRA action “politically-motivated.”


The mosque can still operate as a non-profit organization, but the decision could serve as a warning to other charities that they cannot give a platform to those who have espoused bigotry.


Documents detailing the results of the government audits were obtained by Global News. They indicate the CRA was unable to determine exactly what the various speakers said while at the mosque.


But the CRA auditors reviewed the views that had been publicly expressed by a number of the speakers and found them to be at odds with the “public benefit” required of charities under federal tax law.


The CRA documents (available below) singled out Abu Usamah At-thahabi, Bilal Philips, Hakkeem Quick and Saed Rageah — all of whom had spoken at the Ottawa mosque one or more times.


According to the CRA, At-thahabi has called women deficient, said Christians and Jews were enemies, spoke about throwing homosexuals off a mountain and said those who left the Islamic faith should be killed.


Philips has been denied entry to several countries and has been described as “anti-Semitic, intolerant and contrary to integration,” the CRA wrote.


In a video described in the CRA documents, Philips said Islam was opposed to terrorism but “does not shrink from using violence to gain some of its ends, to establish itself in certain areas/to gain control of Muslim lands.”


Quick had “advocated for the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem to be liberated from the ‘filth’ of the Jews” and was condemned by the New Zealand Broadcasting Authority in 2004 for what was termed “hate speech” towards homosexuals, the CRA said.


Rageah runs a Toronto Islamic centre. The CRA quoted an Australian newspaper report that said he had been denied entry to the country and “displayed anti-Western and homophobic attitudes.”


“The CRA also has concerns with regard to Mr. Rageah’s relationship with the Al-Magrib Institute, and his role as founder and leader of the Journey of Faith conference, which has afforded individuals known for their extremist opinions, an opportunity to address thousands of gatherers in Toronto,” according to the documents.


Assalam mosque officials said the auditors had not alleged that any of the guest speakers had made hateful comments while at the mosque, only that they had made them elsewhere and had been invited to speak at the mosque.


“They’re saying the speech that they made was kind of intolerant and we’re saying no, they haven’t done anything while they were in the centre,” said Haile, a resident of Mississauga, Ont.


The auditors also alleged the Assalam mosque had provided resources to those not qualified to receive them, gave an “undue benefit” to one of its directors and failed to maintain proper books or file a tax return.



Mosque charity investigated for encouraging children into terrorism


29 Jun 2018

civilsociety.co.uk

The Charity Commission has frozen bank accounts at a mosque after an imam was convicted of six counts of encouraging terrorism in sermons and classes to children.


Trustees of the Fazal Ellahi Charitable Trust were also told that their charity must stop working with children.


The charity, which exists to advance Islam and teach Urdu, was removed from the Commission register in 2009 after it failed to engage with the regulator or submit accounts, but it continued to run a mosque in Birmingham.


The Commission stepped in last year after being made aware of offences committed by the Imam at the mosque operated by the charity. The offences resulted in a conviction of six counts of encouragement of terrorism and two counts of encouraging support for a proscribed organisation in relation to a series of sermons and classes for children he gave at the mosque.


“The Commission engaged with the charity in 2017 after being made aware of offences committed by the imam at the mosque operated by the charity,” the regulator said in a statement.

“The offences resulted in a conviction of six counts of encouragement of terrorism and two counts of encouraging support for a proscribed organisation in relation to a series of sermons and classes for children he gave at the mosque.”

The Commission said the inquiry will examine the following regulatory concerns:


•    The management and oversight of staff, use of the charity’s premises and safeguarding procedures by the trustees

•    Whether the trustees have properly exercised their legal duties and responsibilities under charity law in the administration of the charity

 

•    The financial management of the charity, particularly in regards to maintaining and preserving accounting records


•    Whether there has been misconduct and/or mismanagement by the trustees, including failure to comply with the charity’s own governing document



Premature blast in a mosque leaves 11 militants dead in Ghazni province


By KHAAMA PRESS - Mon May 07 2018


At least eleven militants were killed in a premature explosion triggered by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in southeastern Ghazni province of Afghanistan.


The 203rd Thunder Corps of the Afghan Military in the Southeast said the incident has taken place inside a mosque in the restive Andar district.


The source further added that an IED went off among the militants in Ismail Kabuli mosque in Andar district, leaving at least 11 militants dead.


In the meantime, the Thunder Corps says at least 24 Improvised Explosive Devices were discovered and defused during separate operations in Logar and Ghazni provinces.

The anti-government armed militant groups including Taliban militants have not commented regarding the report so far.


The anti-government armed militant groups frequently use explosives materials for the roadside bombings and car bombings to target the government staff and security personnel.

However, in majority of such incidents the ordinary civilians are targeted besides such bombings incur casualties to the security personnel and in some cases the Taliban militants themselves are killed or wounded.


A total of 10,453 civilian casualties – 3,438 people killed and 7,015 injured – were documented in the 2017 Annual Report released last month by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the UN Human Rights Office.


The report further added that the high number of casualties to the civilians were inflicted by suicide bombings and other attacks using improvised explosive devices (IEDs).



NYC Subway Jihadist Attended Terror-Linked Mosque


by EDWIN MORA

Breitbart.com
13 Dec 2017


The failed New York City subway bomber reportedly attended a terrorist-linked mosque in Brooklyn that was once funded by the Saudi government.


In an unsealed “confidential” report on counterterrorism issued by the NYPD’s intelligence unit, the agency designated five individuals linked to the Masjid Nur Al-Islam mosque attended by the NYC terrorist Akayed Ullah as “most dangerous.”


Bangladeshi law enforcement learned from Ullah’s relatives that the 27-year-old terrorist “had shown no sign of being interested in extremism before [moving] to US [sic] with his family in 2011,” reports the Dhaka Tribune.


In the criminal complaint filed against Ullah, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) acknowledged that the terrorist’s radicalization process began at least in 2014 when he came into contact with pro-Islamic State materials online.

In a Facebook post written before the attack, Ullah reportedly wrote a message proclaiming that U.S. President Donald Trump had “failed to protect” America.


Although Ullah was the only one seriously injured in the attack, another five people were also wounded.


“Fortunately for us, the bomb partially detonated,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told CNN. “He did detonate it, but it did not fully have the effect that he was hoping for.”


Dhaka’s Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit has been collecting information on Ullah through his wife and her parents since the attempted attack on Monday.


“We did not get any information to indicate that he was radicalized in Bangladesh,” determined Mohammad Saiful Islam, the deputy commissioner of CTTC. “We assume that he became radicalized in New York. We are trying to learn more.”

Bangladesh’s Foreign Ministry reportedly described the jihadist as a “homegrown U.S. terrorist” when the U.S. State Department asked for information.


Echoing other assessments, the Center for Security Policy (CSP) reports:


Ullah attended the Masjid Nur Al-Islam mosque, known to have many terrorist links and used to be funded by the Saudi Arabian government. Among the members, the son of a former imam at the mosque, Adnan Gulshair el-Shukrijumah, became a senior member of al Qaeda and another member, Abdul Rasheed, was convicted for plotting to blow up the United Nations (U.N.) building and the Holland Tunnel.


The Bangladeshi terrorist “was close to the mosque’s Imam and was often seen with him at afternoon prayers,” the New York Times (NYT) learned from a regular attendee identified only as Mohammad.


Early this month, News 12 Brooklyn reported that local Muslims have linked the mosque’s now former imam to corruption and embezzlement.


He “deceitfully” took control of the worshipping facility, known to serve the area’s Bangladeshi community, and shut it down, leaving congregants to pray outside while they attempt to find answers.


News 12 learned from the worshippers that the “former imam stepped down in August after an alleged embezzlement scandal, but not before he transferred ownership of the building to himself.”


The NYC jihadist is not the only member of his family to have attended a suspicious mosque.


CSP notes:


Ullah’s brother also reportedly attends a mosque with a history of terrorist associations. Ahsan Ullah was reportedly an attendee of Masjid al-Salam, the same mosque where the infamous blind sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman used to preach. Rahman is considered the mastermind behind the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Abdel Rahman died in February of this year.


Bangladeshi authorities believe Ullah’s radicalization process began after his father — freedom fighter Sanaullah Miah— succumbed to cancer in New York.


Citing Ullah’s acquaintances and relatives in Bangladesh, the Dhaka Tribune notes: “He started exhibiting an increased interest in religion after that. He told his family members to offer prayers regularly and put pressure on them to follow Salafism, an ultra-conservative branch within Sunni Islam.”


Many jihadist groups, including ISIS and al-Qaeda, subscribe to the Salafism Sunni ideology.


FBI officers reportedly kept a former imam at the Masjid Nur Al-Islam mosque under surveillance.


Authorities affiliated the former imam with Clement Rodney Hampton-El, or “Dr. Rashid,” later convicted in a terrorist plot to bomb landmarks across New York City.


U.S. authorities have charged Ullah with criminal possession of a weapon, supporting an act of terrorism, making a terroristic threat, providing material support to a terrorist group, and using of a weapon of mass destruction.



Gunmen perched on mosque open fire as Marawi burns


Ron Gagalac, ABS-CBN news

Posted at Aug 10 2017


MANILA - Terrorist snipers were captured on camera firing at state troops from atop a mosque in Marawi City Thursday, boosting reports that the extremists have been using the place of worship as camp.


ABS-CBN footage showed snipers from the Maute group perched on the mosque and opening fire on soldiers as plumes of dark smoke billowed in the background.


Gunshots can be heard clattering as security forces fired back.

Thousands of state troops have been battling Islamic State-linked terrorists Marawi since May 23. They have confined the crisis to less than a square kilometer within the lakeside town.

The fighting however intensified anew on Wednesday night as soldiers engaged the rebels in close quarter battle.


ABS-CBN night vision cameras captured the exchange of gunfire that lasted up to the late hours, during which fires broke out and thick smoke engulfed the city.


Military tanks were also seen moving around the old capitol under enemy fire.


As of Wednesday, the battle for Marawi has killed some 700 people, including 539 terrorists and 122 state troops.


In the last 10 days, authorities have recovered 3 cadavers, including that of a suspected terrorist and a member of the Philippine Marines.


"They are already in an advance state of decomposition.

 

They were transported to Iligan City to undergo post mortem examination," said Zia Alonto Adiong, spokesman of the Provincial Crisis Management Committee.


The military and 39 local officials on Thursday discussed reports that some wounded Maute fighters have already escaped from Marawi via Lake Lanao.


The officials also tackled reports that terrorist reinforcements have been trying to get inside Marawi or create a diversion by attacking other towns in Lanao del Sur.


Mestre mosque ordered to shut down


Frequented by three Kosovar jihadists in Rialto Bridge bomb plot


(ANSA) – Venice

April 7, 2017


A Mestre mosque frequented by three Kosovars allegedly planning to bomb Venice's Rialto Bridge has been given three days to close, sources said Friday.


The order was handed to the Bangladeshi clerics who run the mosque, informing them that its activity did not comply with its official use.


The Kosovar jihadists, who lived in central Venice, were arrested last month after a probe in which they were taped allegedly saying it would be easy to find paradise by bombing Venice "because of all the Christians here".



Guns and ammunition discovered in Xanthi (Greece) mosque

The imam has been arrested over illegal possession of the weapons

29 March 2017

Neoskosmos.com

Police seized guns and ammunition from a mosque in Xanthi on Tuesday, after authorities were tipped off reports ANA-MPA.

In the mosque located just over an hour-and-a-half away from the Turkish border in the village of Iliopetra, police found a .22 pistol, a .38 pistol with a silencer, and a Flobert hunting rifle along with thirty cartridges.


Following the raid all findings were sent to the Forensic Service's laboratories in Athens, and the imam was arrested for the possession of illegal weapons and to be questioned over the matter.


He was due to appear before a local prosecutor on Tuesday, reports Kathimerini.


With tensions currently running high between Greece and Turkey, the case has been brought to the attention of the Citizens' Protection Ministry and to senior government officials.


Visiting Imam At Montreal Mosque Preaches About Muslims Killing Jews


03/23/2017
The Daily Caller


As Parliament debates a motion that would condemn Islamophobia, a video has surfaced of a Jordanian imam in a Montreal mosque preaching about Muslims killing Jews.


Sheikh Muhammad bin Musa Al Nasr was the guest of honor at the Dar Al-Arqam Mosque on Dec. 23, 2016 when he gave the sermon.


Montreal police are investigating and may charge the leadership of the mosque with a hate crime.


In the video, the imam says in Arabic, “O Muslim, O servant of Allah, O Muslim, O servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.” The chant is well-known in the Muslim faith because it is an Islamic hadith — a series of phrases and reflections on the Muslim prophet Mohammad.


B’nai Brith Canada expressed outrage and wondered why a mosque located in the center of Canada’s second largest city would first invite such an inflammatory imam to speak in the first place and then post his hateful remarks to the internet. They are asking the Montreal Police to investigate the Mosque for hate crimes.


“This is inciting violence, and this is inciting radicalization,” said Harvey Levine, regional director of B’nai Brith in Quebec.

“This is the sort of activity that radicalizes individuals to commit violent actions. The result is what happened in London yesterday,” said Levine, referring to the terrorist attack in the U.K.. Speaking with The Daily Caller on Thursday, Levine said he finds it “unbelievable” that there “a proper vetting procedure” couldn’t have prevented the Jordanian imam from visiting Montreal and preaching violent hatred.


Levine is also critical of the “Islamophobia” motion in front of Parliament that could criminalize criticism of Islam. “It needs to be expanded to include all faith groups,” says Levine, adding that the legislation is not even necessary since religion is “already covered by the Canadian Charter of Rights.”


The mosque, located in the Montreal suburb of Saint-Michel, invited the imam to speak. The mosque’s leadership apparently took no issue with Al Nasr’s comments because they posted a video of his “sermon” on YouTube, where it has been viewed by thousands.


No one was responding to questions on Wednesday when CBC Montreal called for comment and the Montreal police confirmed it has received a complaint, but would not provide any more information.


The president of the Muslim Council of Montreal, Salam Elmenyawi, said he didn’t know why the imam was invited to speak to at the mosque and suggested the mosque’s leadership might apologize for the remarks about killing Jews.

He claimed he does not represent the Dar Al-Arqam Mosque but that his council does speak for 40 other such facilities.

This is not the first complaint that B’nai Brith has filed with local police in recent weeks. Levine said this is the second time in just 40 days that they have asked Montreal’s hate crime unit to investigate a city mosque.


He said the police still haven’t concluded their investigation into the first matter and have not filed any charges. Levine wonders what is taking the police so long.


“We are very disappointed that there has not been swifter action from the Montreal police. Every time we call, we are told that the investigation is ongoing. Levine told The Daily Caller. He says the leadership of the mosque should be held responsible for this kind of presentation and for posting it online “where everybody can see and where it can potentially radicalize some individuals.”



Illegal Muslim prayer hall blown up in Russia after police find explosives inside


30 Apr, 2016

Russian Today


Explosives found in an illegal Muslim prayer hall near the Russian city of Samara was eliminated right inside the building. Bomb disposal team deemed it too dangerous to take the explosives out.


The video of the controlled explosion shows a considerable part of the building being destroyed in the blast.


A police dog helped to find a cache with more than a kilogram of explosives of unknown origin. A bomb-disposal expert said extracting the explosives would be definitely unsafe and bomb technicians rolled in a water cannon, a source within Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) told RT.

The federal highway M5 passing right in front of the house was blocked in both directions and people were evacuated from all nearby buildings.


The house was used for gatherings of Salafis, followers of an ultra-conservative movement within Sunni Islam, and it was not registered with the regional Muslim community as an official house of worship.


Inside the house, the FSB’s special forces detained 53 young men, at least one of whom was promoting the Islamic State terror group online.


According to an FSB source, the arrests made at the illegal prayer hall triggered a series of house raids, which helped uncover more explosives, handguns, grenades and ammo.


The same source said other known members of that particular Salafi community are currently fighting in Syria for the jihadists.



Extremist literature common in many mosques and Islamic school libraries in Canada, study says


Jim Bronskill

The Canadian Press

August 22, 2016


OTTAWA — Many mosques and Islamic schools in Canada are placing young people at risk by espousing — or at least not condemning — extremist teachings, a new study says.


Co-authors Thomas Quiggin, a former intelligence analyst with the Privy Council Office and the RCMP, and Saied Shoaaib, a journalist originally from Egypt, base their findings on research conducted quietly in mosque libraries and Islamic schools.


The study says what worried them was not the presence of extremist literature, but that they found nothing but such writings in several libraries.


“Further research is required to determine the depth and breadth of this problem,” the study says.


The authors say openly available material and analysis of social media postings helped confirm their views that many Canadians, including leading politicians, are turning a blind eye to the dangers.


They argue the issue is too important to ignore, given that a number of young Canadians have become radicalized to violence.

Canadian Muslims with humanist and modernist outlooks are being drowned out by those with extreme views, the study says. “The struggle for the soul of Islam between Islamists and humanists goes on in Canada and the U.S., not just in the Middle East, Europe and South Asia.”


The Canadian Council of Imams did not immediately respond to a request for comment.


The Liberal government plans to announce details soon of its plans for a national office of counter-radicalization to carry out research and co-ordinate activities across Canada.

One year ago, the Senate defence and security committee issued a report saying some foreign-trained imams had been spreading extremist religious ideology and messages that are not in keeping with Canadian values, contributing to radicalization.


The committee has urged the government to explore imam training and certification in an effort help curb radicalization, one of 25 recommendations it made in the interim anti-terrorism report.


When the report was released, an Ottawa imam, Mohamad Jebara, raised questions about its key recommendation.


“Who is going to do the certifying?” asked Jebara. “Islam is so diverse, like many religions. So what sect or school of thought are you going to certify?


“It is extremely complex,” he said. “It’s like having certification for Christian clergy. The question is: Would the Catholics, Protestants, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons agree on requirements for certification? Obviously not.”


Targeting Muslim clergy exclusively could backfire, said Jebara, and result in further marginalizing Muslims.


The committee report called on the government to work with the provinces and Muslim communities to “investigate the options that are available for the training and certification of imams in Canada.”


The report was not supported by Liberal senators on the committee. It was denounced by the National Council of Canadian Muslims as stigmatizing and failing to offer effective solutions to the challenge of violent extremism.



10 militants blown up while making an IED inside a mosque in Ghazni


By KHAAMA PRESS - Thu Apr 21 2016


At least 10 militants were blown up by their own explosives as they were busy making an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in southeastern Ghazni province.


According to the security officials, the militants were busy making the IED inside a mosque in Andar district.


The officials further added that the explosives went off prematurely, leaving all 10 militants dead.


The anti-government armed militant groups have not commented regarding the report so far.


The Taliban insurgents and militants belonging to the other insurgent groups are frequently using Improvised Explosive Device (IED) as the weapon of their choice to target the security forces.


The IEDs are the main contributors to the casualties of the Afghan security forces but are also considered as a key factor in growing civilian casualties.


At least 600 civilians were killed and 1,343 others were wounded in the first quarter of 2016, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said in its latest report.


UNAMA further added that consistent with 2015 trends, ground engagements caused the highest number of total civilian casualties, followed by improvised explosive devices (IEDs), complex and suicide attacks, as well as targeted killings.


According to UNAMA, actions by Anti-Government Elements caused at least 60 per cent of casualties while Pro-Government Forces caused at least 19 per cent.



'Kill Ahmadis' leaflets found in UK mosque


By Sajid Iqbal and Noel Titheradge

BBC News

10 April 2016


Piles of the flyers, which say Ahmadis should face death if they refuse to convert to mainstream Islam, were displayed in Stockwell Green mosque.


The leaflet was authored by an ex-head of Khatme Nabuwwat, a group which lists the mosque as its "overseas office".

A mosque trustee said he had never seen the leaflets before and suggested they were fakes or left there maliciously.

Minority communities in Pakistan have become targets of sectarian violence, and some fear that could spread to the UK, encouraged by organisations like the Islamic missionary group Khatme Nabuwwat, and others.


Khatme Nabuwwat believes Ahmadis are apostates, commonly defined as people who have abandoned their religion.

Those who refuse to convert to mainstream Islam within three days should face a "capital sentence" - or death penalty, according to the leaflets.


The constitution of Pakistan bans members of the sect from referring to themselves as Muslims.


The leaflets, authored by Yusuf Ludhianvi and written in English, were found arranged in piles on a desk next to a shoe-rack, the usual place to display literature in mosques.


Documents from the Charity Commission show Khatme Nabuwwat lists Stockwell mosque in south London as its office, the BBC has also learned.


Four trustees of the charity listed in the documents manage the mosque, while two of the current owners of the mosque run centres affiliated to that group elsewhere in the UK.


The mosque is also listed as an "overseas office" on the group's website for Khatme Nabuwwat.


'Independent organisation'


Stockwell Green mosque was first accused of helping to promote acts of terror and hate in Pakistan in 2011.


At the time, mosque trustee Toaha Qureshi issued a vehement denial, saying the mosque's name had been "falsely used" on a website listed on hate literature advocating the murder of Ahmadis.


He said: "We are very angry and furious about that. We do not have any linkage with this organisation that is promoting hate."

Asked about this latest discovery of leaflets and alleged links between the mosque and Khatme Nabuwwat, Mr Qureshi said: "There is a link that we only need when we need some guidance or literature on that particular issue, then we seek advice from them.


"We have not published any pamphlet of that kind. This is nothing to do with our mosque. Someone might have put it there and taken from there with malicious intentions," he added.

Who are the Ahmadis?


A minority Islamic sect founded in 1889, Ahmadis believe their own founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who died in 1908, was a prophet.

 

This is anathema to most Muslims who believe the last prophet was Muhammad, who died in 632.


Most Ahmadi followers live in the Indian subcontinent.


Ahmadis have been the subject of sectarian attacks and persecution in Pakistan and elsewhere.

       
In 1974 the Pakistani government declared the sect non-Muslim.

Referring to sectarian attacks on Ahmadis in Pakistan, he added: "Whatever happened in Pakistan, that has got nothing to do with me or with the Stockwell mosque.


"What we are saying is Stockwell mosque is an independent organisation. It does not take a dictation by anybody else."


Khatme Nabuwwat has never been implicated in an attack but has been criticised for encouraging violence towards members of the sect.


"Khatme Nabuwwat do not inflict violence themselves, but they provide an enabling environment for a number of actors to do so," said Saroop Ijaz from Human Rights Watch.

"There are enough violent groups in Pakistan, enough radical population in Pakistan, that if accusation is made enough times and loudly enough - that is murder. Khatme Nabuwwat do this with the very clear desire of leading to that outcome."


'Enabling environment'


Dr James Caron, from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, said: "Khatme Nabuwwat is a one-issue outfit and that one issue is anti-Ahmadi sentiment.


"However, anti-Ahmadi sentiment is much larger than the Khatme Nabuwwat movement."


"That hate is spreading in the UK. We have seen incidents here and in different areas.


"There have been leaflets distributed in shops, certain hotels have openly announced they will not serve Ahmadis, different clerics inciting in their Friday sermons against Ahmadis."

He was caught up in the 2010 attack on an Ahmadi mosque while on business in the Pakistani city of Lahore when gunmen fired and threw grenades indiscriminately, killing 93 people.


"The guy sitting next to me - I can never forget him", he said. "He was wearing all white dress and it went red. There was another guy sitting with his little daughter, and he was trying to cover his daughter to save her and he was shot."


He added: "It's lucky that that kind of incident that happened in Lahore hasn't happened here yet but if it carries on like this, it's not very far."


'False prophet'


This all comes after the killing of Ahmadi shopkeeper Asad Shah, in Glasgow last month, which police claimed was "religiously prejudiced".


Tanveer Ahmed, 32, from Bradford, who is accused of his murder, said he killed Mr Shah because he disrespected Islam and falsely claimed to be a prophet.


While there is no suggestion Khatme Nabuwwat was involved in the killing, two videos on a video-hosting channel with the same name as the group described Mr Shah as a "false prophet" in 2014.


Mr Ahmed has made no plea, and is remanded in custody until his next court appearance.



Isis cell operating out of Winterthur mosque


18 Nov 2015


The Isis (Islamic State) jihadist group has been operating a cell from the city of Winterthur, northeast of Zurich, according to a Swiss war correspondent and expert on Syria.

Kurt Pelda, was who was named Swiss journalist of the year in 2014, told local newspaper Der Landbote the terrorist group established the cell around the An’Nur mosque in Winterthur’s Hegi neighbourhood.


“A man from Winterthur became radicalized in the last few months and recently travelled to Syria,” Pelda said.


“We do not know exactly what he has done in Syria but there is every indication it has to do with Isis.”


This follows reports of four other young people travelling from the city to Syria.


Pelda told Der Landbote he believes someone is masterminding the cell from the mosque, “let there be no doubt”.


He added: “There is a whole bunch of preachers and prayer leaders who actively meet in the mosque or outside with young people and trying to radicalize them.”


However, Atef Sahoun, president of the An’Nur Islamic Cultural Association, denied such activity was occurring.


“If we discover radical tendencies in one member then the particular person will be immediately excluded,” he told Der Landbote.

“We send them away, no matter who it is.”


Pelda, however, said he plans to publish research on the Isis activity in the coming days.


And Blerim Bunkaju, a Muslim and socialist party politician in Winterthur, said he heard a few months ago of several young Muslims becoming radicalized in the city, the Tages Anzeiger newspaper reported on Tuesday.   



Sydney mosque raided after Australia ‘terrorism-linked’ shooting by 15-year-old


Agence France-Presse

04 October, 2015


An Australian mosque reportedly visited by a 15-year-old boy before he shot dead a civilian police employee in an “act of terrorism” has been raided, police said on Sunday.


New South Wales state police said the mosque in the western Sydney suburb of Parramatta - close to the scene of the double shooting on Friday afternoon - was raided with the consent of religious leaders.


“NSW Police yesterday executed a warrant at a mosque in Parramatta,” police said in a statement Sunday.


“The warrant was undertaken by arrangement with leadership at the mosque who provided full assistance to police at all times.”


The 15-year-old gunman, who killed finance worker Curtis Cheng at close range outside the police force’s headquarters before he was shot dead by officers, visited the mosque before the shooting, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).


Investigators have yet to establish why the teenager -- who has no criminal history -- targeted 58-year-old Cheng, although Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said on Saturday the attack “appears to have been an act of terrorism”.


Police did not provide further details about the mosque raid. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that investigators were searching for the boy’s belongings but had left empty-handed.

Senior police sources told the ABC the teenager’s sister went missing on Thursday and boarded a Singapore Airlines flight to Istanbul, adding that she could be bound for Iraq or Syria.


Foreign Minister Julie Bishop would not comment on the report of the girl’s travels, but said Australian federal and state governments were in talks with Muslim communities after the boy was identified as being of Iraqi Kurdish background and born in Iran.


“Yesterday, Prime Minister Turnbull and (NSW) Premier Mike Baird had a long conversation with not only... relevant agencies but also leaders in the Muslim community,” Bishop told the ABC on Sunday.


“We’re certainly reaching out to the leaders of the Muslim community but working with the families at a grassroots local level.


“It’s the families that will be our frontline of defence against radicalised young people.”


Cheng’s wife Selina, son Alpha and daughter Zilvia said in a joint statement they were “deeply saddened and heartbroken” that the “most loved husband and father” was taken from them.


“My father was a kind, gentle, and loving person,” said the statement released by police on Sunday.


“He was humourous, generous of heart and always put the family first. He has set a tremendous example for us as a family.”

NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione Saturday described Cheng, who had worked for the force for 17 years, as a “gentleman in every sense” and “admired and respected by his colleagues”.



Mosques and Massacres


WILLIAM KILPATRICK

Crisis Magazine

JULY 28, 2015


On June 26, Saif Rezgui walked on to a beach in Tunisia and opened fire on German, British, and Irish sunbathers in front of the Imperial Marhaba resort hotel, killing 39 and wounding dozens more. If various world leaders are to be believed, the massacre had nothing to do with Islam. In response to the attack which left thirty British citizens dead, Prime Minister David Cameron said the terrorism “is not in the name of Islam. Islam is a religion of peace.” A day later, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott assured the world that “what’s being done by Daesh [the Islamic State] has nothing to do with God, it has nothing to do with religion.”


There was one notable exception to the usual nothing-to-do-with-Islam mantra. Immediately after the attack, Tunisia’s prime minister, Habib Essid, ordered the closing of 80 mosques.


Of course, the leader of a 98 percent Muslim country can’t be expected to understand Islam nearly as well as the leaders of Britain and Australia. Nevertheless, Essid’s action provides food for thought. Mosques, after all, do have something to do with Islam. “Some mosques continue to spread their propaganda and their venom to promote terrorism,” Essid reportedly said. “No mosque that does not conform to the law will be tolerated.”


According to a Reuters report, Rezgui was “a dedicated student from a stable family who enjoyed partying and practiced break dancing.” Until, that is, “he appeared to have come into contact with extremist preachers about six months ago.”


Where do you meet extremist preachers? In extremist mosques, of course—the same sort of places attended by the two terrorists who two months previously had killed 21 foreign tourists at the Bardo Museum in Tunis. According to Reuters, “the two Bardo gunmen were also radicalized in their local mosques by hardliners.”


Another indication that the beach massacre might have had something to do with Islam is that Rezgui only targeted foreigners. As he pursued the tourists, he shouted to Tunisians to “get out of the way.” Might that have had something to do with the fact that the Tunisians were likely to be Muslims and the tourists were likely not? One other confirmation of the religious motivation for the attack came from the Islamic State. A spokesman for IS praised the attack as an operation against a “bordello”—a reference to the immodest dress of the beachgoers. Apparently, cartoons of Muhammad are not the only thing that hardline Muslims consider as provocation sufficient to warrant murder.

Not all mosques are centers of extremist radicalization. On the other hand, it’s likely that the average Westerner grossly underestimates the percentage of radical mosques. Fr. Samir Khalil Samir, an Egyptian Jesuit who is also an expert on Islam, writes:


In many Muslim countries … the mosques are monitored by the police on Friday. There is a simple reason for this: many political decisions start from the mosque during the Friday khutba [sermon]. Historians of Islam know that many riots and revolutions were launched from the mosques and that jihad is often proclaimed during the khutba.


Not coincidentally, many of the Arab Spring demonstrations in 2011 were set in motion from mosques following Friday prayers. And again, it’s probably no coincidence that Rezgui scheduled his massacre for a Friday during the holy month of Ramadan.


It’s tempting to think that the mosque-mayhem connection is something that’s peculiar to Arab societies, but four separate studies of American mosques revealed that about eighty percent of them provide extremist literature and occasionally feature extremist preachers. While this doesn’t mean that every American mosque is a hotbed of terrorism, it does suggest cause for concern. For example, two very prominent American mosques which have long been thought to be of the moderate mainstream kind are now known to be connected with numerous terrorists, some of them of the high-profile variety. Major Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood jihadist, was mentored at the Dar Al-Hijra Mosque in Falls Church, Virginia. So were three of the 9/11 hijackers. And the person who was mentoring them was Anwar Al-Awlaki, who later became one of the chiefs of operations for Al-Qaeda in Yemen. Meanwhile, the Islamic Society of Boston has two mosques (one in Boston and one in Cambridge) which were attended by the Tsarnaev brothers and nearly a dozen other known terrorists, including the founder of Boston’s Islamic society, Abduraham Alamoudi, who is currently serving a twenty-three-year prison term for terror-related activities.


Christians assume that mosques, like churches, are simply places of prayer. Many of them are, but many mosques are also places of recruitment and radicalization—staging areas for jihad. Subsequent to the beach massacre, weapons caches were found in forty Tunisian mosques. As a popular Muslim poem puts it, “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets, and the faithful our soldiers.”


Not all Muslims think of mosques in this way, but as Prime Minister Essid understands, a not insignificant number do. He is not alone in this assessment. As Fr. Samir notes, Muslim governments have historically kept a close eye on mosque activities. Muslim leaders may give lip service to the notion that violence has nothing to do with Islam, but their actions tell a different story. Western leaders need to start paying attention.



Tunisia government says to close 80 mosques for inciting violence, after hotel attack


June 26, 2015


TUNIS (Reuters) - Tunisia plans within a week to close down 80 mosques that remain outside state control for inciting violence, as a countermeasure after the hotel attack that killed 39 people, Prime Minister Habib Essid said on Friday.

The announcement came after a gunman opened fire on a tourist resort hotel in Sousse city, south of the capital. Since its 2011 uprising to oust Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia has struggled to manage ultraconservative Islamist movements.


Youth trying to reach Syria got instructions from Montreal mosque, family members say


Ten young Quebec Muslims who were detained for allegedly trying to join jihadist groups in Syria received travel instructions, financing advice and moral support from individuals they met at a Montreal mosque, family members have alleged.


By: Allan Woods Quebec Bureau, Published on Sat May 30 2015

MONTREAL—Ten young Quebec Muslims who were detained for allegedly trying to join jihadist groups in Syria received precise travel instructions, financing advice and moral support from individuals they met at a Montreal mosque, family members have alleged to national security investigators.

A source with knowledge of the allegations told La Presse that family members said they received advice so that their travel plans did not appear suspicious. Those instructions allegedly included advice to book tickets on an Italy-bound flight with a stopover in Istanbul. During the layover they were to make their way to the Turkish-Syrian border.


The source said the youths were also advised to get credit cards so that they could book their plane tickets and take out cash advances. The students also allegedly discussed details of their travel plan on a password-protected Internet forum.

No charges have been laid in the case and all 10 youths were released from police custody.


But the latest allegations raise more questions about the Assahaba mosque, which is run by Adil Charkaoui, a Canadian citizen whom security services long suspected of being an Al Qaeda sleeper agent.


Of 21 individuals who have either gone missing, been charged with terrorist offences, or had their passports confiscated in the last six months, at least nine have been linked in some way to Charkaoui or his mosque.


Charkaoui did not respond to questions Friday about the latest allegations, which were not directed at him. But in comments made to the Star earlier this week, he denied any wrongdoing.

“There is a lot of ignorance and malice. When we have both of them together it becomes toxic,” he said. “It’s as if everything that happens related to radicalization in this country is because of a single person.”


Charkaoui was detained and then subjected to restrictive conditions under a federal security certificate that was sought in 2003. He was never charged, the case against him was dropped, and he is suing the federal government over his ordeal.


Of the 10 who were arrested May 15, eight were picked up at the Montreal airport and two were arrested at their homes. Six of them regularly attended the Assahaba mosque.

There were at least two couples. Not all of the 10 individuals knew each other, but some of them knew members of another group of seven teens who went missing and are believed to have fled to the Mideast in mid-January.


Those links are part of an intricate and tough-to-follow portrait of a sprawling Quebecois network made up of young people allegedly drawn to jihad — the opportunity to fight and die for their religious beliefs.


“When you say that everyone knows each other, you’re right, because the Muslim community is one in which the youth meet often at the mosque or at conferences,” said Mahad Jama, who knows several of Montreal’s alleged jihadist figures.


One of Jama’s acquaintances is Sami Elabi, a young man who grew up in the same Montreal suburb of Pierrefonds and has been fighting in Syria since 2013. Jama saw how Elabi’s family was ripped apart by his departure.


Another of Jama’s boyhood friends is Merouane Ghalmi, a former kickboxer whom police believed was on the verge of committing an undisclosed terrorist act when they intervened in February 2015. Ghalmi has now signed a peace bond that forces him to wear an electronic ankle bracelet and bars him from contacting anyone who is in Syria, and individuals connected to a terrorist group.


“For sure it’s shocking because it’s not everyone that leaves that impression,” Jama said of Ghalmi. “When I spoke to him about that he didn’t want to talk much about it.”


One of Ghalmi’s first acts upon returning from the courthouse after signing the peace bond on March 27 was to cut his social media ties to Mohamed Rifaat, a young man with a magnificent voice who was often called upon to sing the Muslim call to prayer.


Rifaat was among those who disappeared in mid-January.


“Did it surprise me? Yes it did. It’s like someone dies that you’ve just met,” said Ishaq Mustaqim, a Muslim convert who credited Islam for turning him away from a life of crime and preached that message in a 2013 social media initiative dubbed Mustaqim TV, to which Rifaat contributed.


“You don’t expect that the person is going to die. I’ve met others who say that it’s not true that he left and others who say that he left but it wasn’t for that. It’s tough to tell what the truth is, but it’s still surprising because it’s someone I knew.”

Radicalization and terrorism experts say there may be others on the periphery of the Quebec cases. Past experience shows that the social networks of terror suspects are often much larger than the list of people who may one day appear in a court room or the pages of a newspaper.

“In the case of the Toronto 18, eighteen were arrested and 11 were convicted, but the fact of the matter is there was a wider circle of about 40 people involved who didn’t reach the level of being prosecuted,” said Lorne Dawson, an expert on radicalization at the University of Waterloo who has conducted in-depth studies of Canadians who have become Islamic extremists.


Of particular interest is what police and researchers call the “facilitators” who may have no intention of carrying out a criminal act, but are considered essential to a flourishing criminal network, be it a case of terrorism or organized crime.

“They are key players in conveying information from one person to another and advising people,” said Dawson. “They often don’t fit with the legal definition of someone police can arrest, but when they do the network analysis, police realize that if these people didn’t exist the whole network wouldn’t happen.”


Bill C-51, the federal anti-terror bill with new laws against those who “promote terrorism,” is believed to go after such figures who “are leading young people to leave the country but themselves aren’t,” Dawson said.


Of the 21 known cases in the Montreal area since January, only two 18-year-olds who were arrested in April, El Mahdi Jamali and his girlfriend, Sabrine Djermane, are facing criminal terrorism charges.


But the others who have had their passports seized are still cause for concern.


“These aren’t wannabes who are just talking. They’ve gone from talking to walking, but they’ve been stopped from walking by the government,” said a former Canadian national security analyst, speaking on condition he not be identified.

A similar situation emerged in the summer of 2014 when Martin Couture-Rouleau, a 24-year-old Muslim convert from St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., was prevented from boarding a flight to Turkey. Officials took away his passport and the RCMP placed him on a list of about 90 other Canadians who posed a high risk of trying to leave the country for terrorist purposes.


Officers met Couture-Rouleau regularly and a local imam offered counselling. By early October, he told investigators he was committed to changing his ways and they believed him. Ten days later he fatally ran down Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent in a parking lot with his car.


“I don’t know what he said because he’s dead, but I’m assuming he said that if I can’t do what I want to do I’ll just go ahead and do it here, and that’s the fear,” the former national security analyst said.



IS Hides Heavy Weaponry at Religious Sites


They know that jets won’t shell mosques and churches, Iraqi official says


Basnews 
Sardar Sattar

5-1-2015

A member of the Nineveh Province council has revealed that Islamic State (IS) hides heavy weapons in mosques and churches in Mosul to avoid air strikes.


Hanin Ghado said in a press conference on 29th April that IS insurgents mostly settle in the densely populated areas of Mosul to hide themselves among civilians, and they use mosques and churches to store heavy weapons.


Ghado said, “They use the mosques and churches because they know that the coalition jets won’t shell holy locations.


“The insurgents move heavy weapons and conduct operations under the cover of night to stay out of sight of jets.”

Ghado also revealed, “Disputes among Mosul residents have increased because IS is forcing civilians to spy on each other.”


Since August 2014, international coalition jets have shelled IS positions and destroyed weapon caches regularly, as part of an international military campaign to degrade and defeat the jihadists.



7 militants blown up while making roadside bombs in a mosque in Ghazni


By GHANIZADA - Sun Mar 30 2014


At least seven militants were killed while making improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in eastern Ghazni province of Afghanistan.

The interior ministry following a statement said the incident took place inside a mosque in Deh Yak district on Saturday.


The statement by interior ministry further added that the explosion left seven militants dead and there were no other casualties.

Interior ministry condemned the anti-government militant groups for using religious places for conducting terrorist activities and said such activities show that the militant groups are acting against the principles of Islam.


The anti-government militant groups including the Taliban militants frequently use improvised explosive device (IED) as the weapon of their choice to target Afghan and coalition security forces, however innocent civilians are mostly targeted in such attacks.


The United Nations in its latest report earlier last month also said that the improvised explosive device (IEDs) planted by anti-government armed militant groups, were the major contributor to civilian casualties in Afghanistan.


UN in its report said the anti-government armed militant groups were responsible for 34 percent of all civilian casualties which were caused due to improvised explosive device (IEDs).


Khaama Press (KP)



Kenyan police find trove of evidence in Mombasa mosque raid


Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Hiiraan Online


Kenyan police have recovered a trove of documents and other evidence from Mombasa's Masjid Mussa, which they estimate will take two months or more to review, Kenya's The Standard reported Tuesday (February 4th).


Items recovered include an AK-47 rifle, machetes and other iron implements, jihadist flags, stun guns, hundreds of textbooks, maps, registers, pictures, information on alleged spies and "Muslim traitors", and terrorist training manuals.



One recovered document reportedly lists the names of militants across East Africa, with references as far as Burundi.




Police also found an audio recording calling for Muslim volunteers to carry out attacks on countries oppressing Somali Muslims, understood to mean countries contributing troops to the African Union Mission in Somalia, and they seized more than 200 compact-discs and memory cards with pictures of jihadist training camps in Somalia and Syria and audio instructions on light weapons use, combat and doctrine.




"We will need two months to go through these CDs and documents," said Mombasa County Police Commander Robert Kitur.





Also among the items recovered were three laptops, which have been sent to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) Cybercrime Unit for analysis.





Mombasa CID Commander Henry Ondiek defended the raid on Masjid Mussa, which some Muslim leaders decried as desecration of a holy site.


"If you look at the penal code and all other legal literature in Kenya, there is nowhere [that says] police are barred from entering a place where crimes like terrorism are being committed," he said. "We shall continue storming mosques and anywhere where serious crimes such as planning mass attacks on innocent people are being planned."



Injured go missing after explosion at Balochistan religious seminary


By Shahzad Baloch

Published: November 3, 2013

The Express Tribune


QUETTA, PAKISTAN:


An unregistered religious seminary was gutted as a result of an explosion that occured allegedly after explosive materials prematurely went off in the Eastern Bypass, an outskirt of Quetta valley, on Sunday morning.


Four rooms of the religious seminary and a nearby house were completely destroyed in the blast.


According to eyewitness accounts, three people injured in the blast were taken out by their companions before police reached the site. A search operation was launched to find the injured, but police could not locate them at any Quetta hospital.

Deputy Inspector General Police (DIG) Operations Mohammed Jaffar said some religious literature was recovered from the wreckage along with explosives material. He said those in the seminary were preparing explosives that went off prematurely.


Quetta is vulnerable to sectarian and militant attacks and recently two bombings killed more than a dozen people and injured over 50 others.


After the US drone strike that killed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Chief Hakimullah Mahsud, security has been beefed up in sensitive areas of Quetta that include the military cantonment, Chief Minister House, IG FC and Police Balochistan’s residences and provincial secretariat.



Rapid Rise of U.S. Mosques: Sign of What's To Come


SATURDAY, 17 MARCH 2012 06:27 MARSHALL FRANK

Right Side News


The number of mosques in the United States has increased 74 percent in ten years according to a study released by the Hartford Institute for Religious Research. In 2000, the U.S. reported 1209 places of worship for Muslims.  In 2010, that number has risen to 2106.  In 1990, the number stood at approximately 700. This, in a period of time when the radical Jihad side of Islam has established unwavering goals, in writing, that the United States is in their crosshairs for being conquered …from within.


"The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers." - Turkey's Islamist Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan


This 74 percent growth has occurred in the years following the deadliest warring attack on American soil in history, perpetrated by radical Islamists. Might point out, that those “radical” Islamists spent many months prior to the 9/11 attack posing as “moderates” in order to assimilate and evade suspicion. Look up: Taqiyya.


True, many of these mosques are only places of worship for peaceful Muslims. But it has been proven often enough, that some mosques are used as hotbeds for anti-American rhetoric, terrorist havens, diversionary funding to terror organizations and espousing hatred toward non-Muslims. Many serve as the war rooms for strategy planning in the covert political and terror war against the United States.


Mosques seem benign enough to most people who liken them to churches and synagogues. That’s what journalist Laura Mansfield thought in 2005, when she visited a mosque in the southern part of the nation in response to an open invitation by the Imam to local women to come and see how beautiful Islam truly is as a religion.


Ms. Mansfield arrived about one hour early. It should have been an innocuous experience. She was told by a Muslim man to come back later, but when she asked to stay, she was granted the opportunity to wait in the hall until the other women arrived.  During this time, she was able to overhear the Imam and other men speaking in Arabic, which she understood and spoke fluently. What she overheard was anti-American hate talk, discussing the pro-jihad movement and what to explain to the American women when they visited. When the ladies arrived, the rhetoric changed 180 degrees.

http://www.islamreview.com/articles/jihadsmalltown.shtml


Now, covert visits to mosques are off-limits for everyone, including law enforcement agencies, because our government tells us we should not single out Muslims. Federal law enforcement agencies have been ordered to omit references to Islam in their terror training.


I seriously doubt that the Christian or Jewish places of worship have exploded with those kinds of increases in the last twenty years. If the pattern holds true, there will be more than 4000 mosques in the U.S.by the year 2020, and 8000 by 2030.


The trend will follow what has happened in Europe. In a 2008 speech by Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders said:


“There are now thousands of mosques throughout Europe. With larger congregations than there are in churches. And in every European city there are plans to build super-mosques that will dwarf every church in the region. Clearly, the signal is: we rule.”


Islam is rapidly expanding throughout Europe. Population growth is expected to double in twenty years as Muslims procreate at a rate three to four times greater than indigenous Europeans. It’s simple math. As Mr. Wilders and other European dignitaries have said, the Muslims do not assimilate. They do not identify as Europeans, rather, as Muslims only, and their intent is to eventually dominate all of society.


France has over 750 no-go zones which are Muslim enclaves that French authorities dare not enter, thus leaving them all to self-government under Sharia, not French law. More from Mr. Wilders’ speech:


“Many European cities are already one-quarter Muslim: just take Amsterdam, Marseille and Malmoin, Sweden. In many cities the majority of the under-18 population is Muslim. Mohammed is the most popular name among boys in many cities. In some elementary schools in Amsterdam the farm can no longer be mentioned, because that would also mean mentioning the pig, and that would be an insult to Muslims. In once-tolerant Amsterdam, gays are beaten up almost exclusively by Muslims. Non-Muslim women routinely hear “whore, whore.” In France school teachers are advised to avoid authors deemed offensive to Muslims, including Voltaire and Diderot; the same is increasingly true of Darwin. The history of the Holocaust can in many cases no longer be taught because of Muslim sensitivity. In England Sharia courts are now officially part of the British legal system. Last week a man almost died after being beaten up by Muslims in Brussels, because he was drinking during the Ramadan. Jews are fleeing France in record numbers, on the run for the worst wave of anti-Semitism since World War II. I could go on forever with stories like this. Stories about Islamization.”

The plan that is slowly coming to fruition was concocted and implemented by the notorious Muslim Brotherhood, the most powerful and dangerous Islamist organization in the world. They are now ready to assume power in all the mid-east nations that have undergone “Arab Spring.” They are rooted in over eighty counties in the world, have unlimited financial resources and have spawned scores of organizations, violent and non-violent — including Hamas and al Qaeda —  to promote the global jihad. They also spawned more than thirty organizations in the United States with the expressed purpose of infiltrating our infrastructure. Included among those organizations are CAIR, the MSA, ISNA and the MAS.


The Muslim Brotherhood manifesto was discovered in 2004 during the Holy Land Foundation investigation by law enforcement authorities in a sub-basement of a home in Virginia, owned by a high level member of the Muslim Brotherhood. That manifesto is unambiguous in declaring that the intentions of the Brotherhood is to destroy the United States “from within,” specifically stating it will be accomplished by “their own hand.”  The entire text of the document is linked below…in Arabic and English.


They’ve also authored other covert documents, since discovered, which outlines the strategies and tactics they intend on using to accomplish their mission within a 100-year span. That includes the use of mass deception, to portray themselves as “moderate,” to infiltrate the government, schools, media, prisons and to use our constitutional protections of religion and free speech as tools for their operational maneuvers.


Interesting to note, that there are three top White House advisors now employed in the White House, several in the Department of Homeland Security and more in the Justice Department. That, plus a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin, who is closely aligned to the Muslim Sisterhood via her mother and the Brotherhood via her own brother.


Can’t get much higher than all that.


And, this is what we do know. One can only imagine what we don’t know.


We can see it all happening, yet we’re powerless to do anything other than exercise the right of free speech and use the power to vote. We certainly cannot rely on our government officials who only care about the short range; Get elected, get reelected.



Most U.S. Mosques Teach Violence


by Robert Spencer

Human Events

06/14/2011

Last week came new confirmation that mosques in the U.S. aren’t quite holding potluck suppers and teaching civic pieties. A new study has demonstrated that 80% of mosques right in this country are teaching jihad warfare and Islamic supremacism.


Researchers Mordechai Kedar and David Yerushalmi reported in the Summer 2011 issue of Middle East Quarterly about a new survey that found that “51% of mosques had texts that either advocated the use of violence in the pursuit of a Sharia-based political order or advocated violent jihad as a duty that should be of paramount importance to a Muslim.” Another 30% of mosques in the United States “had only texts that were moderately supportive of violence,” while only “19% had no violent texts at all.”


This yet again contradicts the universally held assumption that U.S. mosques are completely benign institutions, in all respects equivalent to churches and synagogues. As long ago as 1998, Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, a Sufi leader, visited 114 mosques in the United States. Then he gave testimony before a State Department open forum in January 1999 declaring that Islamic supremacists controlled most mosques in America.


“The most dangerous thing that is going on now in these mosques,” Kabbani said, “that has been sent upon these mosques around the United States—like churches they were established by different organizations and that is okay—but the problem with our communities is the extremist ideology. Because they are very active, they took over the mosques, and we can say that they took over more than 80% of the mosques that have been established in the U.S. And there are more than 3,000 mosques in the U.S. So it means that the methodology or ideology of extremists has been spread to 80% of the Muslim population, but not all of them agree with it.”


Terrorism expert Yehudit Barsky affirmed the same thing in 2005, saying that 80% of the mosques in this country “have been radicalized by Saudi money and influence.” The Center for Religious Freedom in 2005 found a massive distribution of hateful jihadist and Islamic supremacist material in mosques in this country. The Mapping Sharia Project’s 2008 study likewise found that upwards of 80% of mosques in America were preaching hatred of Jews and Christians and the necessity ultimately to impose Islamic rule.

And in June 2008, federal investigators found that the Islamic Saudi Academy in Virginia, despite promises to stop teaching such material, was still using books that advocated that apostates from Islam be executed and that it was permissible for Muslims to kill and seize the property of “polytheists.”

What is most arresting about these studies is their unanimity. Although each was conducted independently of the others, they all came to the same conclusion: that around three-quarters of mosques in this country are teaching what amounts to sedition. And yet the mainstream media has shown about as much interest in the new survey as they did in the others—that is, none at all.


Maybe they figure that it could be worse. After all, in recent years we have seen mosques used to preach hatred, to spread exhortations to terrorist activity, to house a bomb factory, to store weapons, to disseminate messages from Osama bin Laden, to demand that non-Muslims conform to Islamic dietary restrictions, to fire on American troops, to fire upon Indian troops and to train jihadists. But most of that took place outside the United States, so who cares? We know the mosques inside this country are different! And on what do we base this certainty? Why, nothing, nothing at all except for the bland and smiling assurances of Muslim leaders in this country that mosques are simply places of worship, no more, no less, and that anyone who thinks otherwise is a greasy Islamophobe.


It is time to be more realistic. At the very least, reporters all over the country should be asking pointed questions of local mosque leaders about the books they’re using and what they’re teaching in general. And they should call on them to give honest, verifiable answers.


It is more likely, however, that this study, like the others, will simply be ignored. But don’t let that happen. Call upon your elected officials and the media to take notice of this new survey. Our freedoms depend on it.


 
Dozens of 'incubators' for jihad found in U.S.


'More than 80% of mosques advocate or promote violence'


By Bob Unruh


Dozens of mosques around the United States have been identified in a new study as incubators for jihad against America, with more than 80 percent of those surveyed advocating violence.


"Of the 100 mosques surveyed, 51 percent had texts on-site rated as severely advocating violence; 30 percent had texts rated as moderately advocating violence; and 19 percent had no violent texts at all," said the survey compiled by Mordechai Kedar and David Yerushalmi and published by the Middle East Quarterly.


"How's this for a wake-up call?" asked Frank Gaffney, chief of the Center for Security Policy in a commentary today in the Washington Times.


"America's most cherished civil liberties and the Constitution that enshrines them are enabling Muslim Brotherhood operatives and other Islamists who have the declared mission of destroying our freedoms and government 'from within … by [our] hands.' Specifically, our enemies are using our tolerance of religion to create an infrastructure of mosques here that incubate the Islamic holy war called jihad."


Among the findings in the study, "Shariah and Violence in American Mosques," by Kedar, an assistant professor at Bar Ilan University in Israel, and Yerushalmi, the general counsel for Center for Security Policy, were that:


Mosques identified as being more Shariah-adherent, that is, their imams wore beards, they segregated men from women and the like, were more likely "to feature violence-positive texts on-site."


In 84.5 percent of the mosques, the imam recommended studying violence-positive texts.


Of the 51 percent of the mosques with texts severely advocating violence, 100 percent were led by imams who recommended that worshippers study texts promoting violence.

Nearly three in five of the mosques invited guest imams known to promote violent jihad.


"Such findings strongly suggest that Shariah-adherence is a useful predictor of sympathy for – and, in some cases at least, action on behalf of – jihad, to include both the Islamists' violent or stealthy forms of warfare aimed at supplanting the U.S. Constitution and government," Gaffney said. "Indeed, the study confirms the anecdotal reports by Muslims themselves and earlier, less rigorous empirical studies of Saudi hate-filled literature permeating mosques in the United States."


He told WND that "this empirical study demonstrates that under the guise of religious freedom and our tolerance for it, newcomers to our country have built an infrastructure for our destruction."


He said the data reveals that "most mosques in the United States are actually engaged in – or at least supportive of – a totalitarian, seditious agenda they call Shariah. Its express purpose is undermining and ultimately forcibly replacing the U.S. government and its founding documents."

The survey dispatched people and asked them to "observe and record selected behaviors deemed to be Shariah-adherent" such as women wearing head coverings, gender segregation during prayers and enforcement of straight prayer lines.


The authors noted when U.S. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., held congressional hearings on the question of the danger of extremist violence, he was characterized as Joe McCarthy and the hearings were called a witch-hunt.


"Yet the larger dilemmas outlined by both the congressman and some of his witnesses remain: To what extent are American Muslims, native-born as well as naturalized, being radicalized by Islamists? And what steps can those who are sworn to the protection of American citizenry take that will uncover and disrupt the plots of those willing to take up arms against others for the sake of jihad?"


The goal then, was to determine empirically whether there is a correlation between observable measures of religious dedication to Shairah and the presence of violence-positive materials.

Among the violence-positive texts found was "Jihad in Islam" by Abul Ala Mawdudi, which instructs followers to employ force in pursuit of a Shariah-based order.


Another was by Sayyid Qutb, whose "Milestones" "serves as the political and ideological backbone of the current global jihad movement. He sanctioned violence against those who would stand in the way of Islam expansion.


The survey looked at 100 mosques around the U.S., with worshiper totals ranging from 10 or fewer to 1,700. They were found in Arizona, California, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Virginia.


"The study found a statistically significant association between the severity of violence-positive texts on mosque premises and Shariah-adherent behaviors. … Mosques that segregated men from women during prayer service were more likely to contain violence-positive materials."


Also, those mosques that displayed strict alignment of men's prayer lines "were more likely than their less observant counterparts to contain materials from both the moderate and severe categories."


"Whether a mosque's imam or lay leader wore a traditional beard was also predictive of whether the mosque would contain violence-positive materials on premises. Of the mosques led by traditionally bearded imams, 61 percent contained literature in the severe category."


"A disturbing 98 percent of mosques with severe texts included materials promoting financial support of terror. Those with only moderate-rated materials on site were not markedly different, with 97 percent providing such materials. These results stand in stark contrast to the mosques with no violence-positive materials on their premises where only 5 percent provided materials urging financial support of terror," the survey said.

 

 

Christian Leaders in Nigeria Call Bauchi Violence Premeditated

 

Numerous weapons and mercenaries point to plans awaiting a triggering incident, they say.

 

By Obed Minchakpu

ChristianNewsToday.com

 

TAFAWA BALEWA, Nigeria, – Christian leaders in Bauchi state said religious violence here sparked by a row over a billiards table on Jan. 27 bore signs that Muslim extremists were prepared for a large-scale slaughter of Christians.

 

Initially authorities said only 18 people were killed after sectarian violence erupted in the areas of Tafawa Balewa and Bogoro, where there are large Christian populations in predominantly Muslim Bauchi state in northern Nigeria.

 

Since then, estimates have ranged wildly from 25 to 96 people killed over a three-day period starting Jan. 27, with Christian leaders asserting that Muslim extremists used the billiards table incident as a pretext for unleashing attacks with a stockpile of weapons hidden in mosques.

 

As early as Feb. 1, Bauchi Commissioner of Police Mohammed Indabawa said at a press conference that 25 bodies had been recovered in a joint security operation in Tafawa Balewa and Bogoro, with 38 people arrested. Shortly thereafter, a local legislator in the Bauchi House of Assembly, Aminu Tukur, told journalists that 31 bodies had been recovered and were buried in the area.

 

Subsequently Luka Chongda, chairman of the Sayawa Development Association, a community Non-Governmental Organization in Tafawa Balewa, reportedly said 96 people had died in the violence. He cited data collated from affected areas in both Bogoro and Tafawa Balewa four days after the Jan. 27 incident.

 

Christian leaders in Tafawa Balewa told Compass that triggering incident – in which a Muslim was said to have burned a billiards table belonging to a Christian, prompting youths from Christian families to burn mosques and Muslim homes – led to the emergence of Muslim weapons caches and Islamist mercenaries. Islamists had made preparations for attacks in the areas with large Christian populations, the Christian leaders said, and were awaiting a pretext for carrying them out.

 

The Rev. Ibrahim Ezekiel of the Church of Christ in Nigeria (COCIN) in Tafawa Balewa told Compass that Muslims in Bauchi state have tried to eliminate the Christian communities in Tafawa Balewa and Bogoro since violence first erupted in 1991.

 

“The Muslims have been attacking us, and the government of Bauchi state knows this,” Ezekiel said. “Yet the government has given these Muslims the backing to attack us. They want to exterminate the Christian communities here, and that is the reason they are supporting the attacks on us.”

 

Ezekiel, pastor of a COCIN congregation in Maryam, a suburb of Tafawa Balewa, said that area Muslims “used a lot of weapons to attack our people” that were stockpiled in mosques. Apart from the use of guns and other weapons to attack Christians, Ezekiel said area Islamists brought in Muslim mercenaries.

 

“They brought in mercenaries to attack us,” he said. “They label Christians here as infidels who must be dealt with. The Muslims are the aggressors – they killed our people and burned their houses. Christians who were helpless had no choice than to fight back and defend their families.”

 

Armed Muslims as young as 15 years old shot Christians they encountered, Ezekiel said. Christian youths seeking revenge for the billiards table incident stoked the violence until security forces could contain them and their Muslim counterparts; the pastor said 47 Christians have been arrested, with 27 of them charged.

 

The violence that erupted in the only two local council areas with large Christian populations in Bauchi state led to significant property destruction that is as yet unknown in monetary terms. In addition, according to community leader Chongda, the violence displaced 800 families, with many of those yet to return.

 

Among Christians in Tafawa Balewa whose bodies have been recovered and buried are Pastor Bitrus Dangana of the Evangelical Church Winning All; Haruna Ayuba; Dima Apollos; Promise Isaac; Mama Likita Dadi; and Irimiya Mainama. Also killed were Christians identified only as Emmanuel in the Sabon Layi area of Tafawa Balewa; Godiya; and Gambo, a butcher in Maryam.

 

Abubakar Adamu, an official of the Red Cross Society in Bauchi, confirmed that the incident had displaced about 5,000 persons. The Red Cross was treating many of the wounded and burned, he said.

 

Ramat Kure of Maryam village told Compass that the violence in Tafawa Balewa was the fourth outbreak since 1991.

 

“The religious crisis in the area has remained unresolved because the Christian community is being oppressed by Muslims in the state,” he said. “The incessant religious conflicts in the area are as a result of deliberate policy of marginalization and persecution targeted at Christians by the Muslim political leaders in the state.”

 

Kure said he witnessed the killing of 10 Christians in Tafawa Balewa on Jan. 27.

 

Areas hit by the violence were Angwan Sarki village, Angwan Madaki, Arewa, Sabon Layi, and Bauchi-Dass Road. Muslims reportedly barricaded the Bauchi Dass Highway, pulling dozens of Christians from their vehicles and killing them.

 

Pastor Yunnana Yusuf of the COCIN Centre in Tafawa Balewa said he was in his home within the church compound on Jan. 27 when he heard shouting around the market square.

 

“I came out only to see people throwing stones at each other and, on inquiring, I was told that there was a fight going on between Muslims and Christians,” he told Compass. “In no time, I heard gunshots. As I came out, I saw one Alhaji Maigida and another Muslim by the name of Alhaji Maishayi, about a hundred meters away, distributing guns to some Muslims, and they began shooting. Instantly, I saw three Christians being shot. It was this that triggered the incident, and within a short time, the entire town and surrounding villages were attacked and razed by Muslim attackers.”

 

The dispute between the Muslim billiards player and the Christian pool table owner was reportedly settled by mediation of area elders on Jan. 26, but Muslims later burned the table, prompting Christian youths to burn 50 houses and five mosques, according to police commissioner Indabawa.

 

 

The Muslim Mosque: A State Within A State

 

from Vijay Kumar

Right Side News

Thursday, 22 July 2010

 

Islam's political documents and law call for the overthrow of our Constitution and our man-made laws, and therefore for the overthrow of our government, which by definition constitutes sedition and treason.

 

THE KABAH IN MECCA WAS NOT BUILT AS AN ISLAMIC MOSQUE. It was an ancient temple that had been shared by polytheists, Christians, Jews, and Hindus, honoring 360 different deities. In 630 A.D. the Kabah was captured by Islam in its military invasion and conquest of Mecca.

 

On the day of its capture, Mohammed delivered an address at the Kabah in military dress and helmet, according to Ayatullah Ja'far Subhani in his book, "The Message": 

 

"Bear in mind that every claim of privilege, whether that of blood or property is abolished . . . I reject all claims relating to life and property and all imaginary honors of the past, and declare them to be baseless . . . A Muslim is the brother of another Muslim and all the Muslims are brothers of one another and constitute one hand as against the non-Muslims. The blood of every one of them is equal to that of others and even the smallest among them can make a promise on behalf of others." -Mohammed

 

Mohammed's address at the Kabah overthrew the Meccan government and declared all of Islam, anywhere in the world, to be a political and military state against all non-Muslims, regardless of the non-Muslims' political, geographical, or national origins.

 

"If anyone desires a religion other than Islam (submission to Allah), never will it be accepted of him." -Koran 3:85

Although the rightful owners of the Kabah are the many religions that shared it before the Islamic military conquest of Mecca, according to Subhani the Kabah today is under the control of a hereditary regime going back to Mohammed: "currently the 12th Imam from the direct descent of the Prophet of Islam is the real protector, its custodian and guardian."

 

All Islamic mosques everywhere in the world are required to have a clear visible indication pointing in the direction of Mecca and the Kabah, where the international political and military state of Islam was founded. In most mosques there is a niche in the wall-the mihrab-that points toward the seat of Islamic power. Each mosque, like the Kabah, is governed by an Imam in compliance with the political documents of Islam.

 

Mosques and the Political Documents of Islam

 

The Koran is the supreme political document of Islam-its political manifesto and political constitution. It is the only constitution of the nation-state Saudi Arabia, which is the home of Mecca and the Kabah, where all mosques point, and is the birthplace of Islam.

 

The Koran is a totalitarian constitution. It demands submission by anyone within its jurisdiction. The Koran governs all mosques everywhere in the world.

 

As a political document, the Koran asserts that everyone in the world is within its jurisdiction. So far, Islam has not been able to enforce that totalitarian claim on the entire world, but has managed to do so through threat, infiltration, violence, terrorism, and coercion on roughly 20% of the world. It is engaged in a 1400-year-long Universal Jihad to dominate the rest of the world. All mosques are its outpost headquarters.

 

Central to the Koran's political mandates is prohibition of religious freedom and religious tolerance, along with denouncements of religions such as Christianity and Judaism.

 

"O ye who believe! take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors: They are but friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them (for friendship) is of them." -Koran 5:51

 

"Fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)" -Koran 9:5

 

All mosque leaders must be loyal to and supportive of these political and militaristic mandates.

 

The Koran as a political document also forbids separation of church and state. That is why every Islamic nation, where Islamic leaders have managed to gain power, is a theocracy, ruled by the Koran and Islamic Sharia law.

 

The Hadith (reported sayings and acts of Mohammed) and the Sira (the official biographies of Mohammed) are the other political documents that, along with the Koran, constitute the basis for Islam's Sharia law.

 

"There is only one law which ought to be followed, and that is the Sharia." -Syed Qutb

 

Sharia law is administered by Islamic Imams who interpret the law and hand down rulings in their sole discretion. Sharia law does not allow trial by jury. Sharia law also mandates a double standard of laws for Muslims (believers) and infidels (non-believers). Sharia law mandates a discriminatory tax, called jizya, on non-Islamic religions and nations:

 

"Fight those who believe not in Allah...until they pay the jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued." -Koran 9:29

 

Sharia law also mandates discrimination toward women, and forbids any criticism of Islam or its founder, stifling freedom of speech.

 

Sharia law also mandates that all men are slaves with no right to freedom of religion:

 

"Allah's right on His slaves is that they should worship Him (Alone) and should not worship any besides Him." -Mohammed, Sahih Bukhari 4:52:108, Narrated Mu'adh

 

Sharia law does not allow for separation of church and state. Sharia regards church and state as one inseparable entity governing every aspect of individual and social life, both spiritual and secular. That is why all Islamic nations are theocracies.

 

In short, Sharia law stands in direct opposition to the American Constitution and Bill of Rights. The implementation of Sharia law demands the overthrow of the American Constitution and our form of government and system of laws. Mosque leaders, in every nation in the world, are loyal to the Koran, the Hadith, the Sira, and consider them divine law, and therefore supreme over all manmade laws.

 

Other political and military documents of Islam include treaties of Mohammed, which are held in reverence by Islam as models of conduct in relations between nations.

 

"Ye have indeed in the Messenger of Allah [Mohammed] a beautiful pattern (of conduct) for anyone whose hope is in Allah." -Koran 33:21

 

"War is deceit." -Mohammed, Sahih Bukhari 4:52:268, Narrated Abu Hurarira

 

In one treaty proposal, to Jaifer and Abd, Mohammed wrote:

 

"If you two accept Islam, your country will, as usual, remain with you. But if you refuse or object, it is a perishable thing." -Mohammed

 

In another, to the Chiefs of Aqaba, he wrote:

 

"It is better for you either to accept Islam or agree to pay Jizya and consent to remain obedient to Allah . . . If you do not accept these terms . . . I shall have to wage war (to bring peace and security)." -Mohammed

 

These same patterns and political mandates have been used over and over by Muslims since 610 A.D. to invade and conquer many civilizations and nations throughout the world, and to eradicate human rights and freedoms in those lands. Iran once was called Persia and was Zorastrian. Egypt was Christian. What was once a Hindu civilization was conquered and made into Pakistan, which is now part of the Axis of Jihad, along with Iran and Saudi Arabia. Afghanistan was Buddhist for thousands of years. Now its chief exports are heroin and Islamic terrorism.

 

"When We decide to destroy a population, We (first) send a definite order to those among them who are given the good things of this life and yet transgress; so that the word is proved true against them: then (it is) We destroy them utterly." -Koran 17:16

 

In every instance where Islam has conquered and "destroyed utterly" a nation or civilization, the key to the conquest was the establishment of mosques, which are political and military command and control centers for Islam, and which all point toward the seat of Islamic power: the Kabah.

 

Mosques and the Fallacy of the "Moderate Muslim"

 

The majority of Germans during World War II were not active members of the Nazi party, were not waging war, and were not involved in the holocaust. The leaders, though, were active members of the Nazi party, were waging war, and were involved in the holocaust.

 

The majority of Russians and eastern Europeans under the rule of the U.S.S.R. were not trying to spread Communism throughout the world, and were not threatening and waging war and revolution, but were going about their daily lives trying to survive. The leaders, though, were doing everything they could to spread Communism throughout the world, and were threatening and waging war and revolution.

 

Throughout history, since 610 A.D., the leaders of Islam have been waging Universal Jihad around the world for the purpose of Islamic totalitarian domination of the world. It has never mattered what percentage of the Muslim population was "peaceful" or "moderate." Peace and moderation are not relevant to the totalitarian mandates of Islam's political documents, and Islam's leaders always follow the totalitarian mandates of Universal Jihad contained in them.

There are post-Nazi democracies. There are post-Communist democracies. There are no post-Islamic democracies. Literal Islam, as contained in its political documents, is the consummate totalitarianism. Neither Nazism or Communism had a metaphysical factor, as does Islam. Islam uses its metaphysics as a wedge to drive in its totalitarian political doctrines.

 

Once Islam has established itself sufficiently in any nation, it seeks to overthrow any existing regime or constitution or law, and replace it with Islamic theocracy. Even the most "moderate" Muslim is bound to obey Islamic law, and so is bound to fight if ordered to fight:

 

"When you are called (by the Muslim ruler) for fighting, go forth immediately." -Hadith Sahih Bukhari 4:52:79:Narrated Ibn 'Abbas

 

All Islamic mosques have Islamic leaders (rulers) who can call Muslims for fighting, and as such are satellite headquarters for spreading Literal Islam's political doctrine of world domination and totalitarianism-no matter how many "moderate Muslims" they serve.

 

Mosques and the Worldwide Islamic State

 

Islam is a de facto political state wherever it exists anywhere in the world. The Koran is its constitution. The Kabah is its seat of power, still in the control of the regime that occupied it in 630 A.D. All Muslims in the world, regardless of nationality, are required to travel to the Kabah at least once in their lifetime and pay homage to it.

 

The fact that nations and international political institutions in the world do not recognize Islam as a de jure state is irrelevant. Mohammed himself declared it as a state, and Islam's own political documents declare it to be a state, and, ipso facto, it always is a state-within-a-state, governed by the Koran and Sharia law internally, anywhere that it has not yet gained full power and control.

 

"The Believers are but a single brotherhood." -Koran 49:10

"A Muslim has no nationality except his belief." -Syed Qutb

"Islam wishes to destroy all states and governments anywhere on the face of the earth which are opposed to the ideology and program of Islam regardless of the country or the nation which rules it. The purpose of Islam is to set up a State on the basis of its own ideology and program." - Syed Abul A'ala Maududi

 

Just as our Constitution of the United States binds and identifies us as a single political and legal union of non-contiguous states, territories, political groups, and people, so the Koran binds and identifies all Islamic nations and all Muslims as a single political and legal union of non-contiguous nations, territories, political groups and people, regardless of geographic boundaries, whose seat of power is the occupied Kabah. All Islamic Imams, in every mosque everywhere in the world, are bound to the Koran as supreme law.

 

As we have seen, Islamic law gives Islamic Imams the power to order Muslims to fighting. The German Max Weber, who had considerable influence on international law and politics, defined "state" as that entity that has a "monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory."

 

Islam declares that the Koran and Sharia law are divine, and, as such, are the only "legitimate" law in the world. In that way, Islam "self-legitimizes" its right to use physical force anywhere in the world, and the right of every Imam in every mosque in the world to call for physical force and violence at any time. This makes every Imam in every mosque a military leader.

 

Islam is a state by every definition and theory, and is a state hostile to and at war with the United States of America and its Constitution.

 

Mosques and Treason and Sedition Against the U.S.

 

Islam's political documents and law call for the overthrow of our Constitution and our man-made laws, and therefore for the overthrow of our government, which by definition constitutes sedition and treason. The Islamic documents call for the overthrow of our government-a protector of religious freedom and human rights-through violence:

 

"I was ordered to fight all men until they say 'there is no god but Allah.'" -Mohammed's farewell address, 632

 

"I have been ordered to fight with the people till they say, 'None has the right to be worshipped but Allah.'" -Hadith Sahih Bukhari 4:52:196 Narrated Abu Huraira

 

"He who fights so that Allah's Word (Islam) should be superior, then he fights in Allah's cause." -Hadith Sahih Bukhari 1:3:125 Narrated Abu Musa

 

"I asked the Prophet [Mohammed], 'What is the best deed?' He replied, 'To believe in Allah and to fight for His Cause.'" -Hadith Sahih Bukhari 3:46:694 Narrated Abu Dhar

 

"And fight them till there is no more affliction (i.e. no more worshiping of others along with Allah)". -Hadith Sahih Bukhari 6:60:40 Narrated Nafi'

 

"Soon shall We cast terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers." -Koran 3.151

 

"I am with you: give firmness to the Believers: I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them." -Koran 8:12

 

"Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into (the hearts of) the enemies, of Allah and your enemies, and others besides, whom ye may not know, but whom Allah doth know." -Koran 8:60

 

The Koran, as the constitution of Islam and Muslims, is diametrically opposite to the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights. According to Islam and Muslims, the Koran is divine law, uncorrupted and incorruptible, whereas the United States Constitution is man-made and is not infallible, and therefore is corrupt. The U.S. Constitution is the antithesis of the Koran; therefore Muslims have no obligation to obey it.

 

A mosque in the United States is a command and control center of a foreign political and military state that seeks the overthrow of our government, and an Imam in a mosque is a political and military representative of a foreign state that calls for the overthrow of the United States.

 

The laws of the United States provide specific criminal penalties for sedition and treason. These laws are not only applicable to those advocating and calling for the overthrow of our Constitution and our government; they are applicable to anyone who gives "aid or comfort" to such declared enemies of the United States, or who "organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons" so engaged. The terms "organizes" and "organize" extend to "the recruiting of new members, the forming of new units, and the regrouping or expansion of existing clubs, classes, and other units of such society, group, or assembly of persons."

 

Mosques are just such units.

 

Vijay Kumar is a Republican candidate for U.S. Congress from Tennessee's 5th District. A native of Hyderabad, India, Mr. Kumar lived in Iran during the 1979 Islamic Revolution, when he came to the United States. A naturalized American citizen, Mr. Kumar has lived in Nashville, Tennessee for 24 years. He has been married to his wife, Robin, a native of Bowling Green, Kentucky, for 27 years, and they have three children, two of whom are adopted.

 

 

Jihadi Tourism and the Closed Hamburg Mosque

 

By Tristana Moore / Berlin

August 10, 2010


Wedged between a fitness center and a restaurant, the mosque called Masjid Taiba is a small, unassuming building in the central quarter of Hamburg. In the late 1990s, the mosque's prayer rooms became a cauldron of terror — the place where Mohammed Atta and his "Hamburg Cell" henchmen congregated before the deadly 9/11 attacks. On Monday, Aug. 9, German police raided the mosque, confiscated dozens of computers and files and announced that because the spiritual home of several of the 9/11 hijackers had once again become a magnet for violent extremists, the mosque would be shut down.

 

"The Taiba mosque was the main meeting point for radical Islamic militants in Hamburg and had been supporting the international terrorist network for years," Manfred Murck, deputy director of Hamburg's intelligence service, tells TIME. "Young Muslim men were drawn to the mosque — they met there, prayed, chatted together, became radicalized and set up extremist groups." Murck adds that the men came from different backgrounds, ranging from Moroccans and German Islam converts to militants from the former Yugoslavia, Chechnya and the Middle East. They all had one thing in common — their commitment to jihad. "Some Muslims at the Taiba mosque had contacts with al-Qaeda," claims Murck.

 

Intelligence officials say the mosque had been under continuous surveillance since the 9/11 attacks. Back then, the mosque was known as al-Quds. Hijackers Mohammed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Ziad Jarrah and Ramzi Binalshibh — who according to U.S. officials was a key 9/11 facilitator and Atta's roommate — were all regulars at the prayer house in the run-up to the 2001 attacks.

 

In March 2009, the Taiba mosque again became a location of special interest to investigators when a group of 11 Hamburg jihadists, mostly German men with roots in the Middle East and the Caucasus, traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan to attend terrorist training camps. Officials say at least one man who lived in Hamburg, identified by the intelligence services as Shahab D., joined the militant Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IBU), which is believed to have close links with al-Qaeda. The Iranian-born man, in his mid-20s, appeared in a terrorist video in October 2009 under the name of Abu Askar; he urged other Muslims to join jihad and threatened attacks on Germany. Some members of the group ended up in Pakistani custody and were sent back to Germany, while other jihadists are still in Pakistani or U.S. custody.

 

Back at the Taiba mosque in Hamburg, intelligence officials say the men were treated as "heroes," and as other Islamic militants gathered at the mosque and tried to latch on to terrorist organizations in Afghanistan, a form of "jihad tourism" developed.

 

In the raids on Aug. 9, the Taiba German-Arab cultural association that ran the mosque was also banned by Hamburg's Interior Ministry, and the group's assets were seized, although no arrests were made in any of the day's raids. "We've closed the Taiba Mosque, as it was here that young men were converted into religious fanatics," Christoph Ahlhaus, Hamburg's Interior Minister, said in a statement. "Behind the scenes, an alleged cultural organization has shamelessly exploited the freedoms of our constitutional democracy to promote the cause of the 'holy war,' " he said, pointing out that the courses, sermons and seminars at the mosque "spread an ideology that was hostile to democracy" and sought to radicalize young Muslims. Ahlhaus insisted that Hamburg "must not serve as the incubator for Islamists willing to use violence."

 

The Taiba association could not be reached for comment about the police raids, but German media outlets have reported that in the past, the organization denied accusations of terrorist ties. According to the news magazine Focus, the group wrote in October 2009 that it was the "victim of a big media campaign, a bad secret-service plot and a concocted political farce."

 

As part of the police operation, investigators in the city searched four apartments and houses belonging to members of the Taiba association — again, no arrests were made. German security sources tell TIME that one of the apartments searched on Monday belonged to Mamoun Darkazanli, a German-Syrian suspected al-Qaeda supporter who used to run an import-export company in Hamburg and is wanted in Spain on terrorism charges. Darkazanli was arrested in Hamburg in 2004 on a Spanish warrant but released in 2005 after a ruling by Germany's federal constitutional court. German intelligence officials say he was one of the imams at the Taiba mosque and have described him as a "hate preacher." "Darkazanli encouraged young Muslim men to join the jihad with his emotional prayers," says Murck. So far German prosecutors haven't been able to find evidence that he supported al-Qaeda.

 

Now that the mosque has been closed, fears have been raised that members could regroup and gather in other mosques in Hamburg. A large harbor city with a thriving immigrant community, Hamburg has acted as a haven for Islamic extremists in the past, as New York, Washington and Pennsylvania learned to their horror nearly 10 years ago. A 2009 intelligence report from German Domestic intelligence estimated that there are 2,000 Islamists in the city, of whom 200 are bent on violence and 45 are jihadists with links to other violent Islamic extremists in Germany and abroad. With one of their alleged meeting points closed, the challenge for intelligence agencies now is to prevent new terrorist cells from forming within their dispersed ranks.

 

WASHINGTON -- The American government is demanding that Saudi Arabia account for its distribution of hate material to American mosques, as the State Department pressed Saudi officials for answers last week and as the Senate later this month plans to investigate the propagation of radical Wahhabism on American shores.

 

The flurry of activity comes months after a report from the Center for Religious Freedom discovered that dozens of mosques in major cities across the country, including New York, Washington, and Los Angeles, were distributing documents, bearing the seal of the government of Saudi Arabia, that incite Muslims to acts of violence and promote hatred of Jews and Christians.

 

A Washington-based group that is part of the human rights organization Freedom House, the Center for Religious Freedom also found during its yearlong study that the Saudi-produced materials describe democracy and America as un-Islamic. They instruct recent Muslim immigrants to consider Americans as enemies and the materials urge new arrivals to use their time here as preparation for jihad. The documents also promote the version of Islam officially embraced by Saudi government and several of the September 11, 2001, hijackers, Wahhabism, as the only authentic Islam.

 

In response to the Freedom House report and as part of the Saudi Arabia Accountability Act of 2005 sponsored by Senator Specter, a Republican of Pennsylvania, the Judiciary Committee - of which Senator Specter is chairman - will be holding hearings into the hate materials on October 25, a spokesman for the senator, William Reynolds, said yesterday.

 

The Accountability Act, introduced in June, says its purpose is "to halt Saudi support for institutions that fund, train, incite, encourage, or in any other way aid and abet terrorism, and to secure fully Saudi cooperation in the investigation of terrorist incidents." The legislation is highly critical of the House of Saud for its support of terrorist activity and cites the January Freedom House report as evidence of the kingdom's complicity in the spread of radical Islamist ideology. As part of the Accountability Act, Senator Specter has in the past held Judiciary Committee hearings into Saudi financing of terrorism and Saudi Arabia's role in injecting ideology into textbooks for Palestinian Arab schoolchildren.

 

Many of the details of the Judiciary Committee hearing later this month, Mr. Reynolds said, are still being arranged, including a final witness list. In the meantime, the committee expects testimony from the State Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Freedom House, and terrorism experts. The committee will press to determine whether the Saudi government has taken steps to stop the distribution of the materials, and will cull from witnesses recommendations to prevent their future dissemination, Mr. Reynolds said.

 

Also demanding answers about the hate materials is the State Department's undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, Karen Hughes. During a high-profile trip to the Middle East last week, Ms. Hughes said American representatives had addressed the propagation of Saudi hate material in America during private meetings with government officials.

 

In a State Department briefing held enroute to Ankara, Turkey, from Saudi Arabia last Tuesday, Ms. Hughes was asked why she had raised the issue that day during a public meeting with Saudi journalists, becoming the first American official to do so publicly. "We had been raising the issue privately," Ms. Hughes said, "and as part of raising difficult issues that we need to discuss, I felt it was appropriate." The undersecretary did not elaborate on the results of the private meetings, but the degree to which Saudi Arabia is making efforts to stop the propaganda will be a subject of the Senate hearings, Mr. Reynolds said.

 

Requests for comment from the Embassy of Saudi Arabia yesterday were not returned.

 

By Meghan Clyne

New York Sun

 

 

Senate to probe Saudis' jihad propaganda

Demands accountability for spreading 'hate' through U.S. mosques

 

Posted: October 6, 2005

WorldNetDaily.com

 

As the Senate prepares an investigation, the U.S. State Department is demanding Saudi Arabia account for its distribution of hate-filled, jihad propaganda through American mosques.

 

The developments are based on a yearlong study by a Washington human-rights group asserting the government of Saudi Arabia is disseminating propaganda through American mosques that teaches hatred of Jews and Christians and instructs Muslims that they are on a mission behind enemy lines in a land of unbelievers.

 

The 89-page report by Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom, "Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Fill American Mosques," concludes the Saudi government propaganda examined reflects a "totalitarian ideology of hatred that can incite to violence."

 

The report says the fact it is "being mainstreamed within our borders through the efforts of a foreign government, namely Saudi Arabia, demands our urgent attention."

 

In response to the report and the Saudi Arabia Accountability Act of 2005, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold hearings Oct. 25, the New York Sun reported.

 

The Accountability Act, introduced in June by Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., sharply criticizes the Saudi regime for its support of terrorist activity and, citing the Freedom House report, its part in spreading the radical Wahhabist ideology shared by Osama bin Laden and the 9-11 attackers.

 

The act's purpose is "to halt Saudi support for institutions that fund, train, incite, encourage, or in any other way aid and abet terrorism, and to secure fully Saudi cooperation in the investigation of terrorist incidents."

 

Specter has held Judiciary Committee hearings into Saudi financing of terrorism and Riyadh's role in injecting ideology into textbooks for Palestinian Arab schoolchildren, the Sun said.

 

The hearings this month likely will include testimony from the State Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Freedom House and terrorism experts, said William Reynolds, a spokesman for Specter.

 

The State Department's undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, Karen Hughes, also is demanding answers from the Saudis, the New York paper reported.

 

In a visit to Saudi Arabia last week, Hughes raised the issue in private meetings with government officials. She also referred to it publicly in a meeting with Saudi journalists.

 

"We had been raising the issue privately," Hughes explained, "and as part of raising difficult issues that we need to discuss, I felt it was appropriate."

 

Reynolds said the degree to which Saudi Arabia is making efforts to stop the propaganda will be a subject of the Senate hearings.

 

In March, 15 senators responded to the Freedom House report with a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice demanding the Bush administration take stronger action against Riyadh.

 

Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, were among the signers of the letter, which called for the U.S. to define its relationship Saudi Arabia more clearly.

 

Schumer stated: "It is a massive contradiction that a country we call an ally could be both so regressive in their own country and so brazen in its propagation of anti-American, anti-women, anti-Semitic books, publications, and practices. American security is undermined as the Saudi government exports these hateful commodities to millions beyond its borders, planting the seeds for new generations of terrorists and totalitarian Wahhabi leaders."

 

Collins said the report "raises some disturbing concerns about the spread of extremist materials in American mosques and Islamic centers."

 

"If we are going to win the war on terrorism, these types of actions cannot be tolerated," she said. "It is important that the Saudi Arabian government join us in this fight and stop supporting the spread of ideologies that promote hatred and intolerance around the world."

 

The Freedom House report cited samples of more than 200 books and other publications from American mosques used to educate its members that preach a "Nazi-like hatred for Jews" and "promote contempt for the United States because it is ruled by legislated civil law rather than by totalitarian Wahhabi-style Islamic law."

 

One highlighted document, distributed through the Saudi Arabian Embassy's Cultural Department in Washington, is a fatwa against the taking of American citizenship by Muslims and thereby "acquiescing to their infidelity and accepting all their erroneous ways."

 

 

Saudis have radicalized 80% of US mosques

 

Mainstream US Muslim organizations are heavily influenced by Saudi-funded extremists, according to Yehudit Barsky, an expert on terrorism at the American Jewish Committee.

 

Worse still, Barsky told The Jerusalem Post last week, these "extremist organizations continue to claim the mantle of leadership" over American Islam.

 

The power of the extremist Wahhabi form of Islam in the United States was created with generous Saudi financing of American Muslim communities over the past few decades. Over 80 percent of the mosques in the United States "have been radicalized by Saudi money and influence," Barsky said.

 

Before the 1970s, she explained, "Muslim immigrants who came to the United States would build a store-front mosque somewhere. Then, since the 1970s, the Saudis have been approaching these mosques and telling them it wasn't proper for the glory of Islam to build such small mosques."

For many Muslims, it seemed the Saudis were offering a free mosque. However, Barsky believes for each mosque they invested in, the Saudis sent along their own imam (teacher-cleric).

 

"These [immigrants] were not interested in this [Wahhabi] ideology, and suddenly they have a Saudi imam coming in and telling them they're not praying properly and not practicing Shari'a [Islamic law] properly." This Saudi strategy was being carried out "all over the world, from America to Bangladesh," with the Saudis investing $70-80 billion in the endeavor over three decades.

 

Barsky, who heads the AJC's Division on Middle East and International Terrorism and is the executive editor of Counterterrorism Watch, said this means that "the people now in control of teaching religion [to American Muslims] are extremists. Who teaches the mainstream moderate non-Saudi Islam that people used to have? It's in the homes, but there's no infrastructure. Eighty percent of the infrastructure is controlled by these extremists."

 

The same is true, Barsky said, of many of the mainstream Muslim organizations in America. Many of them are "pro-Saudi and pro-Muslim Brotherhood organizations."

 

As examples, she listed three important groups: the Islamic Society of North America, which "supports the Muslim Brotherhood and the Saudi regime;" the Islamic Circle of North America, which "is composed of members of Jamaat e-Islami, a Pakistani Islamic radical organization similar to the Muslim Brotherhood that helped to establish the Taliban;" and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), "founded in the 1980s by pro-Hamas activists."

 

The problem is most acute when it comes to interfaith relations. When advising colleagues on interfaith work with their Muslim counterparts, Barsky tells them "to proceed with caution, [since] some of the [extremist] organizations have concluded that interfaith dialogue is a good way to spread the ideology."

 

Indeed, despite instructions given in Saudi embassy literature - and available in many mosques throughout the country - which blast Jewish and Christian "corruption and immorality" and teach Muslims that "the only way to survive is to have no contact with the infidel Christians and Jews," these organizations reach out to Jews and Christians.

 

Barsky explained that interfaith dialogue gives such organizations a public legitimacy that their ideology would deny them if they expressed it outright.

 

"So there's a problem," Barsky concluded, "with knowing who these people are, who is really moderate. [These organizations] come to the Jewish community to talk about interfaith, while they still teach anti-Western and anti-Christian doctrines to their followers. Some of the leaders have even condoned suicide bombings in Israel and against American armed forces."

 

Her advice to American Jewish organizations who want to take part in interfaith activities: "Take time to learn who they are and what they're saying. It's more complicated than just respecting each other."

 

As for finding true moderates in the American Muslim community, Barsky said such organizations "have quite a way to go before they will have the level of organization" displayed by the extremist organizations. "So there's a moderate voice that hasn't been heard. But it's starting to be heard, and that's because of the anger over [organizations such as] CAIR claiming the mantle of leadership."

 

For example, organizations such as the Arizona-based American Islamic Forum for Democracy and the Washington-based Center for Islamic Pluralism are both new and "have gathered under their umbrella a number of moderate organizations."

 

As for combatting Islamic radicals in America, Barsky thinks Americans need to change the way they think about Wahhabi Islam.

 

"The United States has a hard time understanding the extremists' ideology. Americans don't like to interfere in the religion of other people. But the reality is that this isn't religion, but a politicized radical ideology. It's very dangerous," she warned, adding that the people who are being taught this ideology are prime targets for recruitment by terror organizations.

 

"If we don't understand that [these groups] are dangerous," she concluded simply, "we're going to suffer the consequences."

 

 

Norway: Muslim Violence May Curtail Oslo Mosque’s Funding

 

Tuesday 7 March 2006

We described the undignified brawling at the Markazi Jamaat Ahle Sunnat mosque in the district of Gronland, Oslo, at the Friday evening prayer meeting on March 03. In this fighting, the imam of the mainly Pakistani congregation, Malik Mohammad Raza, was attacked and injured. Knives and bats were used in the fighting, leading at least three people to be hospitalised.

 

Yesterday, we mentioned that police had taken five people into custody, in connection with the violence, which had also involved a local politician from the Labour party, Khalid Mahmood.

 

Mahmood claimed that he had been a victim in the attack, and had been injured, though police reported that there was no evidence to support his claim. The imam said that Khalid Mahmood had been one of the men who had attacked him.

Today, Aftenposten reports that the administrator of Oslo and Akershus County has warned that the financial aid which the mosque receives from the state may be curtailed.

The County Governor’s office made a statement on national television, saying that if illegal activities are linked to the mosque, it could lose its funding from Norwegian tax-payers.

 

Last year, the Markazi Jamaat Ahle Sunnat received the equivalent of $211,000 in state funding.

 

Aftenposten states that financial support to religious institutions is usually only withdrawn if human rights abuses can be demonstrated.

 

As we reported in November last year, Karita Bekkemellen, the Norwegian Equality Minister said that mosques in Norway which supported wife-beating, such as the World Islamic Mission in Gronland, Oslo, led by Syed Ikram Jilani, could have their funding withdrawn.

 

The fighting at the Markazi Jamaat Ahle Sunnat mosque, which has a congregation of at least 5,000 appears to be the result of squabbles between different factions within the mosque, struggling for control of the finances.

 

 

MONITOR THE MOSQUES

 

June 06, 2006


On June 2 and 3, Canadian law enforcement in Toronto arrested 17 Muslim men for planning terrorist attacks on Canadian targets. The leader of the group, Qayyum Abdul Jamal, 43, recruited young Muslim males by speaking at Al-Rahman Islamic Center for Islamic Education, a storefront mosque in Mississauga.

 

Law enforcement officials across the globe are searching for suspects connected to the Toronto 17; American law enforcement has already discovered at least two terrorism suspects who spoke with members of the Canadian terrorist cell.

In May 2004, London authorities arrested hook-handed, one-eyed imam Abu Hamza al-Masri. The United States immediately filed charges against al-Masri and asked that Britain expedite him for trial. Among other terrorist acts, the indictment charged al-Masri with attempting to set up a terrorist cell in Oregon. Al-Masri was also linked to terrorists Zacarias Moussaoui, who was involved in the Sept. 11 plot, and Richard Reid (a.k.a. Tariq Raja and Abdul Rahim), the shoebomber. Al-Masri was the imam of the Finsbury Park Mosque in London, where he used his pulpit to recruit terrorists and preach hate.


In September 2002, American law enforcement arrested six members of a larger terrorist cell in Buffalo, New York. All six were young Muslim men, and all six had attended terrorist training in Afghanistan. The leader of the group, Kamal Derwish, had recruited all six arrested members by speaking at his local mosque in Lackawanna. All six men pled guilty to terrorism charges.


Mohammed Atta, one of the Sept. 11 hijackers, used a mosque in Hamburg, Germany to network with potential recruits, including Ramzi Binalshibh, who would act as a coordinator for the attacks. Two of the potential Sept. 11 terrorists, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, hooked up with an imam at Rabat Mosque, Anwar Aulaqi; Aulaqi would later aid al-Hazmi and Mihdhar's replacement, Hani Hanjour, in relocating east as Sept. 11 approached.


Mosques across the globe have provided material aid to terrorist groups ranging from al-Qaeda to Islamic Jihad to Hezbollah to Hamas. Muslim terrorists use mosques as networking sites and often as recruitment centers for future terrorist comrades. There is no doubt that law enforcement should be heavily scrutinizing the membership and administration of mosques. Doing so before Sept. 11 could have prevented that catastrophe, just as scrutiny of a small, seemingly insignificant storefront mosque may have prevented major terrorist attacks in Canada. Muslim terrorists are, above all, religious. They will attend mosques, even if only to pray. Forget racial profiling -- monitoring mosques is simple common sense.


Leaders in the Muslim community don't seem to get it. "People are suspicious and there's anger," complains Aly Hindy, imam at the Toronto-based Salaheddin Islamic Center in Scarborough. "We are being targeted not because of what we've done, but because of who we are and what we believe in."


No doubt this is true to some extent. But that is the difference between prevention of crime and after-the-fact investigation of crime. For attempts to remain attempts, suspects must be stopped in the inchoate processes leading up to attacks. Prevention is undoubtedly the only option if civilized nations wish to preserve their citizenries from the sadistic barbarism of our enemies. Monitoring mosques is the simplest and most effective way of preventing terrorist attacks. Many imams are trustworthy; many mosques are clean. Nonetheless, law enforcement must pursue a strategy of "trust, but verify." Lives depend on it.


Ben Shapiro, 21, is a graduate of UCLA and a student at Harvard Law School. He is also the author of the recently published "Porn Generation: How Social Liberalism Is Corrupting Our Future" as well as the national best seller "Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth."

 

 

Musharraf bans sale of hate literature


NDTV Correspondent


Friday, January 12, 2007 (Islamabad):

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has directed security agencies to check the misuse of religious places in spreading hatred.


Musharraf ordered a complete ban on the sale of hate literature outside mosques and banned the use of loudspeakers in mosques other than for Azaan prayers.


Musharraf said that the menace of terrorism could be eliminated only by ensuring that the religious seminaries are not exploited for agitational activities.

 

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