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Politics : WAR on Terror. Will it engulf the Entire Middle East? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (7935)	11/13/2004 9:07:20 PM
From: Scoobah	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 32591

It just ain't safe nowhere: Muslims arrested in Van Gogh murder belong to militant group By The Associated Press AMSTERDAM - Dutch authorities say 13 young Muslims arrested on terrorism charges in the Netherlands following the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh are members of a radical Islamic group with international links and a Syrian-born spiritual leader. Dutch intelligence calls the group the "Hofstad Netwerk," and a Justice Ministry official says 43-year-old Syrian Redouan al-Issar, the alleged spiritual leader, has disappeared without a trace. Van Gogh was ritually slaughtered on an Amsterdam street Nov. 2, apparently for criticizing Islam. His killing set off a wave of reprisals - attacks on more than 20 Islamic sites in the Netherlands, including a mosque gutted by fire early Saturday. Van Gogh's alleged killer, 26-year-old Mohammed Bouyeri, of Amsterdam, was arrested in a shootout with police minutes after the filmmaker died of gunshot wounds and a slit throat. Bouyeri had a will in his pocket saying he was prepared to die for Islamic jihad, or holy war. In the days that followed, the government has come under pressure to release details about Islamic radicals and terrorist recruiting in the Netherlands. In a letter and notes sent to parliament Thursday, Interior Minister Johan Remkes, who oversees the secret service, gave the clearest picture yet of the Dutch cell allegedly behind Van Gogh's murder. Remkes said the Hofstad Network, composed mostly of young Dutch Muslims of North African ancestry, has links to networks in Spain and Belgium; that several members of the group have traveled to Pakistan for training; and that its members were under the influence of al-Issar for many years. "The number of persons and networks in the Netherlands that thinks and acts in terms of actual violence is, in our opinion, limited," he wrote. "But the feeding ground from which they spring, is broader ... it's better to think in terms of thousands than hundreds," he said. Al-Issar went by several names, including "Abu Kaled," the Justice Ministry official said. The same name is used by Al Qaida fugitive Muhammad Bahaiah, a courier between Osama bin Laden and European cells. Al-Issar had sought asylum in Germany beginning in 1995, but has not been seen there since May 2004, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday. Remkes said the Dutch secret service realized in the Spring of 2003 that al-Issar was "a leading figure" who preached at fundamentalist gatherings at Bouyeri's Amsterdam home. Al-Issar "radiates charisma and exercises great influence on youth from this network," Remkes wrote. "Participants strengthened their radical Islamic ideas, and the subject of violent jihad is often discussed." Dick Leurdijk, an expert on Islamic fundamentalism at the Netherlands Institute of Foreign Relations Clingendael, said he had worried there would be an attack like the one that killed Van Gogh. "We cannot exclude these things happening in the Netherlands," he said. "We are certainly part of (the target of) this Jihad." Leurdijk said the Dutch cell has special links to Islamic groups in Spain, as well as a "common ideology" with Al-Qaida. Three Dutch members of the Hofstad group traveled to Portugal in June 2004 during the European soccer championship and were arrested and deported because authorities there feared they would carry out an attack, Remkes said in the letter. The Dutch secret service has been shadowing as many as 200 potential terrorists since the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, but Bouyeri wasn't among them. The Dutch cell began showing "conspiratorial behavior" in 2003 and a number of members traveled to Pakistan, probably for training, Remkes said. The Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad identified one as 19-year-old Jason W. - one of two terrorism suspects arrested in The Hague Wednesday after a standoff with police - as having twice gone to Pakistan for training. The newspaper cited a document leaked by the Dutch secret service. Remkes said members also received orders from "Abdeladim Akoudad, who was suspected by the Moroccan government of involvement in the attacks on Casablanca." Akoudad was arrested near Barcelona in October 2003 at Morocco's request for the Casablanca suicide bombings that killed 32 in May 2003. Spanish officials confirm links between him and at least one of the six suspects held in the Netherlands in Van Gogh's killing. Akoudad's arrest prompted the arrest of five suspects in the Netherlands on Oct. 19, 2003, including 18-year-old Samir Azzouz, identified as a key member of the Dutch cell. The group "was planning a violent attack in the Netherlands or Europe," Remkes said. Azzouz was found with bomb making materials but released for lack of evidence. He was arrested again in June 2004 and is now awaiting trial on terrorism charges in Rotterdam. Investigators found plans of a Dutch airport and nuclear reactor at his home. Azzouz is also being charged for attempted robbery with Ismail. B, who Dutch media said received bomb making training in Pakistan.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (7935)	11/14/2004 1:51:34 AM
From: Haim R. Branisteanu	Respond to of 32591

Muslim conflict now hits China as 148 die in ethnic violence By Damien McElroy in Zhengzhou (Filed: 14/11/2004) A convoy of military lorries roared along the dirt track leading to a fertile valley of rice paddies and ridges of garlic shoots in central China. Green-uniformed soldiers equipped with razor-wire and cannons stared out blankly at Chinese police, who stood to attention as they passed through a checkpoint. They were heading for two neighbouring villages, Nanren and Weitang, which have co-existed peacefully for centuries - but where, earlier this month, martial law was abruptly declared after a row over a traffic accident escalated into pitched battles that left 148 people dead. The soldiers' mission was to prop up the facade of ethnic harmony, constructed by the country's Communist dictatorship over the past 55 years but dramatically undermined by the eruption of conflict between Hui Muslims and their Han Chinese neighbours. The troops sealed off the villages to prevent other militants coming to the aid of their fellow Muslims and stop the fighting spreading across China. At a checkpoint near the villages, a policeman boasted of his efforts to keep out "foreign" agitators and admitted that the situation was tense. "Our leaders are still holding talks between the two sides but there has been no resolution yet," he said. "Relations are very bitter. Too many people have died in a bad way." Just 10 days since China's worst outbreak of inter-communal violence in more than a decade, Communist Party officials fear that the unrest in Henan province - the birthplace of China's 4,000-year-old civilisation - is a worrying sign of trouble to come. The country's politburo security chief has made the rough 400-mile journey from Beijing, an unusual foray by a senior Communist official to such a poor outpost - a collection of ramshackle brick buildings, where dogs hunt for food in piles of rubbish strewn around the pot-holed streets. In the nearby provincial capital, Zhengzhou, a city of skyscrapers and more than two million advertising hoardings, officials are perplexed by the sudden detonation of violence in the hinterland. As he plucked at a designer-label cashmere sweater, a Hui Communist Party official said: "There were hundreds of people stopped on planes and buses, attempting to travel to Nanren before the army was deployed." The violence is a setback for the Chinese government's policy of permitting a modest Islamic revival among the Hui, one of the country's most moderate Muslim minorities. It was also a sign that underlying ethnic tensions across China's teeming territory are a continuing challenge to Beijing's rule. At stake is the imperative set out in the official government slogan, "The 56 ethnic groups are one family." The fighting broke out after a Han youth crashed his motorcycle into a Hui builder's tractor, tipping it over. The confrontation soon escalated into pitched battles between mobs armed with shovels and hammers. Molotov cocktails were launched across the river between Nanren and Weitang - the former predominantly Hui, the latter Han - and Huis from around the country flocked to assist their beleaguered brothers. A local imam said that one of his followers was found beheaded in rice paddy ditches, a Hui official told The Sunday Telegraph. "They share the same market, but the Hui people are insulted by the Han's behaviour," he said. "The Han stallholders try to sell them pork, pushing it in front of their faces all the time. Now the imam says the Han in Weitang are savages who mock our traditions by cutting our throats." By appearance there is nothing to distinguish the 10 million Hui from other Chinese: only their faith sets them apart. They are descendants of Muslims who traded along the Silk Road between Europe and Asia, and married local women. In Henan province they number 900,000 among a population of 95 million. Unlike China's other sizeable Muslim minority, the Uighurs of western Xinjiang, the Hui have never been involved in separatist violence. Now, however, they are becoming increasingly militant in asserting their Islamic identity - partly to prevent their assimilation into the rest of the population, 93 per cent of whom are Han. Yet many Han are critical of the Hui claim to a separate identity. "They are not a real minority," said Liu Yue, a portrait artist in Zhengzhou. "They don't have their own language, they don't have their own customs, all they do is refuse to eat pork. "Our government gives them too much favourable treatment. If a Hui is caught speeding, he'll just show his skull cap and the officer will let him off." At an Islamic centre in Zhengzhou, where writing on the wall is in both Arabic and Chinese script, passions were clearly aroused by the trouble between Nanren and Weitang. Perhaps ominously, the mosque leaders appear sympathetic to the insurgents in Iraq. The mosque's Ramadan letter declares: "In our Muslim world, our brothers are suffering a great disaster. "Their actions in self-defence have been judged to be extremist terrorism, but they are struggling in an imperialist war that is killing people and rotting modern civilisation." The defiant mood in Iraq is apparently shared by mosque elders, a foretaste of further problems ahead for the Chinese authorities. "If our brothers are being attacked," said one elder, Lao Mai, "it is a duty in our religion to join them in the fight." telegraph.co.uk 3 November 2004: Villages set ablaze as ethnic riots break out in China

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (7935)	11/14/2004 2:25:39 AM
From: Haim R. Branisteanu	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 32591

Details of tense meeting between Suha, PA leaders revealed Leaders warned her that if she did not sign papers to divide Arafat’s fortune, “Palestinians will never give (her) peace and quiet”. Eitan Rabin Although the tense relationship between Suha Arafat, wife of the late Palestinian leader, and PA leaders is a well-known fact, new details that have reached NRG Maariv reveal just how volatile the situation really is. A delegation of Palestinian leaders, including Abu Mazen, Abu Ala, Nabil Shaath and Rawhi Fath, arrived in Paris on Wednesday to visit their dying leader. Hours before their visit, Suha told al-Jazeera, almost hysterically, that their trip was "a conspiracy to bury her husband alive". Senior Palestinian officials spared no time and lashed out at the Palestinian First Lady. As soon as the delegation arrived in the French capital, an extremely tense meeting was held between Suha and Arafat’s chief financial advisor and confidante, Mohammad Rashid, and the Palestinian leaders. “The Palestinian people will never forgive you for what you are doing”, they told Suha. The Rais’s wife began crying and told them, after regaining her composure, that she could not return to live in Gaza with their daughter: “She has no future there”. Suha told the PA leaders that she was in need of financial security that would allow her to continue living on the same level she had been used to. “We will allow you to live on the same level”, one of the senior leaders told her, “But you must sign an agreement and reveal all of your husband’s bank accounts and investments, and enable the transfer of the funds that belong to the PA. Do not rob this money from the Palestinian people”. At some point, the leaders even warned her that if she would refuse to sign the papers, “The Palestinian people all over the world will never give you peace and quiet”. She then conferred with her lawyers and family members, after which she returned to the room and signed the papers. As first revealed by NRG Maariv, she received a considerable portion of Arafat’s fortune. According to Israeli intelligence sources, Arafat was worth almost a quarter of a billion dollars. He had many houses around the world and was heavily invested in US real estate projects. “Eventually the money was divided up”, one official noted. “Agreements were signed. The Palestinian leaders understood that in order to put their hands on the fortune and get rid of Suha, they would be better off paying her handsomely”. (2004-11-12 00:51:06.0) maarivintl.com .