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

To: lorne who wrote (8471)	12/29/2004 2:04:10 PM
From: rrufff	Respond to of 32591

Amazing - we see more on whether we are "torturing" captured terrorists than this type of thing which seems to happen on a daily basis.

To: lorne who wrote (8471)	12/29/2004 7:47:10 PM
From: DeplorableIrredeemableRedneck	Respond to of 32591

Hate and fear and murder are a muslims tools

To: lorne who wrote (8471)	12/31/2004 11:50:17 AM
From: DeplorableIrredeemableRedneck	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 32591

Outlaw islam or suffer the consequences: Extremists warn Iraqis not to vote on Jan. 30 Baghdad — Three militant groups warned Iraqis against voting in Jan. 30 elections, saying Thursday that people participating in the "dirty farce" risked attack. All 700 employees of the electoral commission in Mosul reportedly resigned after being threatened. The warning came a day after insurgents in Mosul, which has seen increased violence in recent weeks, launched a highly coordinated assault on a U.S. military outpost. The United States said 25 insurgents were believed slain and one American soldier was killed in the battle, which involved strafing runs by U.S. warplanes. The United States, which has said the vote must go forward, has repeatedly sought to portray recent attacks that have killed dozens of people as the acts of a reeling insurgency, not the work of a force that is gathering strength. The radical Ansar al-Sunnah Army and two other insurgent groups issued a statement Thursday warning that democracy was un-Islamic. Democracy could lead to passing un-Islamic laws, such as permitting homosexual marriage, if the majority or people agreed to it, the statement said. "Democracy is a Greek word meaning the rule of the people, which means that the people do what they see fit," the statement said. "This concept is considered apostasy and defies the belief in one God — Muslims' doctrine." Ansar al-Sunnah earlier posted a manifesto on its Web site saying democracy amounts to idolizing human beings. Thursday's joint statement reiterated the threat that "anyone who accepts to take part in this dirty farce will not be safe." Insurgents have intensified their strikes against the security forces of Iraq's U.S.-installed interim government as part of a continuing campaign to disrupt the elections for a constitutional assembly. The statements by the Sunni Arab-dominated insurgent groups seemed aimed at countering Shiite leaders' claims that voting in the election is every Muslim's duty. Shiites, who make up 60 per cent of the population, hope to use the vote to power from minority Sunnis, who were favored under Saddam Hussein. Iraqis will elect a national assembly that is to write a new constitution. The Al-Jazeera satellite channel reported that all 700 workers for the electoral commission in Mosul resigned Thursday because they had been threatened and that Iraq's leading Sunni political party, the Iraqi Islamic Party, had withdrawn from the race. If true, the move will severely hamper efforts to prepare for the vote in Mosul, which has been too dangerous for most work to even begin though the vote is now only a month away. Farid Ayar, spokesman of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, could not confirm the Al-Jazeera report. "We have been trying to contact our people in Mosul to see if the report is accurate but we have not been able to reach them," Mr. Ayar told The Associated Press. Wednesday's attack in the northern city of Mosul exhibited a coordination rarely seen among Iraq's insurgents. The violence began with a massive truck bomb exploding just outside a U.S. checkpoint, followed by attacks by squads of 10-12 insurgents. A Stryker vehicle reinforcing the Americans was hit by a roadside bomb and a second car bomb. U.S. forces then called in airstrikes by F-18 and F-16 fighter jets, which launched three Maverick missiles and conducted several strafing runs. U.S. officials called the attack a sign of desperation ahead of the vote. "The fact of the matter is we're keeping the insurgents off balance and they're reeling backward. They're trying to come at us and we're giving it right back," spokesman Lt. Col. Paul Hastings said. "The terrorists are growing more desperate in their attempts to derail the elections and they're trying to put it all on the line and give it all they can." Still, Iraq's third-largest city has become more worrisome in the weeks since a U.S.-led invasion routed insurgents from their base in the Sunni-dominated city of Fallujah in mid-November. Across Iraq, dozens of insurgents, Iraqi civilians and security forces have been killed in attacks over the last 48 hours, and the guerrillas have shown new ingenuity to inflict large casualties. Fourteen U.S. soldiers died Dec. 21 when a suicide bomber walked into a mess tent in Mosul packed with soldiers having lunch. In all, 22 people were killed and dozens wounded in the blast. The Ansar al-Sunnah claimed responsibility. Late Tuesday, insurgents lured police into a house in Baghdad after issuing an anonymous tip and then detonated nearly a ton of explosives. Twenty-nine people were killed, including 22 civilians and seven police, and several surrounding houses were leveled. Mohammed Salah, a Cairo, Egypt-based expert on Islamic militancy, suggested that insurgents may be experimenting with new tactics to test the Americans after the guerrillas lost their stronghold in Fallujah, west of Baghdad. Up to now, their chief weapons have been roadside bombs and suicide attacks. "Since they are always pursued, they try to be creative," Mr. Salah said. "They have to be creative because they know repetitiveness is dangerous for them." There was no claim of responsibility for the latest Mosul attack, but it followed a Wednesday warning from Ansar al-Sunnah that Iraqis should stay away from U.S. and Iraqi military installations. theglobeandmail.com

To: lorne who wrote (8471)	12/31/2004 8:06:06 PM
From: DeplorableIrredeemableRedneck	Respond to of 32591

A Wake-up Call : Almost all terrorists are Muslims.. Abdel Rahman al-Rashed* arabnews.com It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims. The hostage-takers of children in Beslan, North Ossetia, were Muslims. The other hostage-takers and subsequent murderers of the Nepalese chefs and workers in Iraq were also Muslims. Those involved in rape and murder in Darfur, Sudan, are Muslims, with other Muslims chosen to be their victims. Those responsible for the attacks on residential towers in Riyadh and Khobar were Muslims. The two women who crashed two airliners last week were also Muslims. Osama bin Laden is a Muslim. The majority of those who manned the suicide bombings against buses, vehicles, schools, houses and buildings, all over the world, were Muslim. What a pathetic record. What an abominable "achievement." Does all this tell us anything about ourselves, our societies and our culture? These images, when put together or taken separately, are shameful and degrading. But let us start with putting an end to a history of denial. Let us acknowledge their reality, instead of denying them and seeking to justify them with sound and fury signifying nothing. For it would be easy to cure ourselves if we realize the seriousness of our sickness. Self-cure starts with self-realization and confession. We should then run after our terrorist sons, in the full knowledge that they are the sour grapes of a deformed culture. Let us listen to Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the sheikh – the Qatar-based radical Egyptian cleric – and hear him recite his fatwa about the religious permissibility of killing civilian Americans in Iraq. Let us contemplate the incident of this religious sheikh allowing, nay even calling for, the murder of civilians. This ailing sheikh, in his last days, with two daughters studying in "infidel" Britain, soliciting children to kill innocent civilians. How could this sheikh face the mother of the youthful Nick Berg, who was slaughtered in Iraq because he wanted to build communication towers in that ravished country? How can we believe him when he tells us that Islam is the religion of mercy and peace while he is turning it into a religion of blood and slaughter? In a different era, we used to consider the extremists, with nationalist or leftist leanings, a menace and a source of corruption because of their adoption of violence as a means of discourse and their involvement in murder as an easy shortcut to their objectives. At that time, the mosque used to be a haven, and the voice of religion used to be that of peace and reconciliation. Religious sermons were warm behests for a moral order and an ethical life. Then came the neo-Muslims. An innocent and benevolent religion, whose verses prohibit the felling of trees in the absence of urgent necessity, that calls murder the most heinous of crimes, that says explicitly that if you kill one person you have killed humanity as a whole, has been turned into a global message of hate and a universal war cry. We can't call those who take schoolchildren as hostages our own. We cannot tolerate in our midst those who abduct journalists, murder civilians, explode buses; we cannot accept them as related to us, whatever the sufferings they claim to justify their criminal deeds. These are the people who have smeared Islam and stained its image. We cannot clear our names unless we own up to the shameful fact that terrorism has become an Islamic enterprise; an almost exclusive monopoly, implemented by Muslim men and women. We cannot redeem our extremist youths, who commit all these heinous crimes, without confronting the sheikhs who thought it ennobling to reinvent themselves as revolutionary ideologues, sending other people's sons and daughters to certain death, while sending their own children to European and American schools and colleges. *Abdel Rahman al-Rashed is general manager of Al-Arabiya news channel. This article first appeared in the London-based pan-Arabic newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat.

To: lorne who wrote (8471)	1/1/2005 12:57:31 PM
From: DeplorableIrredeemableRedneck	Respond to of 32591

US military aid role a first in Indonesia extract: Not everyone was so enthusiastic. "The Americans have to understand our culture here," said Hilmy Bakar Almascaty, vice-chairman of the Jakarta-based Islamic Defenders Front, which is mobilising relief efforts of its own. "If they are not sensitive to local issues then there will be problems. If American women come to Aceh, they must wear dilbab for example. There is Sharia law in Aceh and that is what is dictated." english.aljazeera.net There is gratitude for yah!