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Politics : The Truth About Islam -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DeplorableIrredeemableRedneck who wrote (9873)	9/8/2007 3:10:39 PM
From: FJB	Respond to of 20106

Deadly bomb rocks Algerian base At least 28 people have been killed and some 60 injured in a car bomb attack on an Algerian naval barracks in Dellys, 100km (62 miles) east of Algiers. The victims were coast guard officials, hospital officials said. They warned the number of the dead could rise. It comes just two days after a suicide bomber killed at least 19 people in Batna in a crowd awaiting a visit by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. After the latest attack, Mr Bouteflika insisted terrorism was "in retreat". Speaking on Algerian television, he said that by attacking innocent people the attackers had betrayed "their people, their country, their religion". Terrorism was in decline, he said, "despite the distressing and hurtful consequences of these operations that have targeted the Algerian people". No-one has admitted carrying out either of the attacks, but the BBC's North Africa correspondent, Richard Hamilton says the finger of suspicion points towards an organisation called al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. It was previously known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) but changed its name when it joined forces with al-Qaeda last year. The group said it was behind a double bombing in Algiers in April which killed 23 people. 'Islamic militants' Soon after the Batna incident, Mr Bouteflika said Islamic militants were behind that attack. He denounced them as "criminals", trying to disrupt his policy of national reconciliation, which is aimed at ending 15 years of fighting between the army and groups trying to set up an Islamic state. "Terrorist acts have absolutely nothing in common with the noble values of Islam," the official APS news agency quoted the president as saying. The vast majority of Algerians distance themselves from the extremists and after decades of war say they are tired of bloodshed, our correspondent says. Story from BBC NEWS: news.bbc.co.uk

To: DeplorableIrredeemableRedneck who wrote (9873)	9/8/2007 3:12:26 PM
From: DeplorableIrredeemableRedneck	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20106

Bin Laden video may signal new attacks Mark Trevelyan, Security Correspondent, Reuters Published: Saturday, September 08, 2007 canada.com LONDON (Reuters) - Abandoning his Kalashnikov and dyeing his beard from grey to black, Osama bin Laden presents a new image to the world in a video that makes no specific threats but may be a signal for new al Qaeda attacks. In a half-hour address released four days before the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States, bin Laden lurched between history lesson and sermon, urging Americans to ditch capitalist democracy and embrace Islam if they want to end the war in Iraq. Security analysts said the long-awaited video -- bin Laden's first for nearly three years -- disproved rumors of his death but was mainly significant for its style rather than its content. Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden speaks in a video released on a web site September 7, 2007. REUTERS/SITE Intelligence Group/Handout "He appeared without the military camouflage jacket he used to wear, without his favorite Kalashnikov which he captured from a Soviet general during the Afghan war," said Abdel Bari Atwan, London-based editor-in-chief of the Arabic newspaper al-Quds. By dyeing his hair and beard and wearing Arabic robes, bin Laden was trying to portray himself as a new, mature figure -- the spiritual leader of al Qaeda, Atwan said. Others said the makeover was bizarre. "It makes him, a man who claims he wants to be a martyr, look vain and ridiculous," said M.J. Gohel of the Asia-Pacific Foundation, a London think-tank. Despite the lack of dramatic content, analysts said they could not rule out the possibility that bin Laden's first appearance since the eve of the 2004 U.S. presidential election was a rallying cry for a new attack. "Because video tapes featuring bin Laden speaking to camera are so rare, the release of this particular tape could herald a major attack, though remarkably this message contains none of his usual open threats against the United States," Gohel said. Atwan, who has interviewed bin Laden, told Reuters: "Maybe this is a warning that an attack could happen soon...This is a sort of rallying video. Maybe there is a message to his followers: go ahead and do what you want to do." LONG SILENCE Bin Laden did not explain his long silence, which had prompted speculation he was too sick or too tightly holed up in a hiding place somewhere along the Pakistan-Afghan border to be able to make and smuggle out a message. Amr El-Choubaki, a Cairo-based expert on Islamist movements, said the call for the U.S. to convert to Islam was a sign he was not in a position to name more achievable objectives. "It's clear his influence within the al Qaeda organization... is now limited," he said. But Mohamed el-Sayed Said, deputy director of the Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo, said the video, despite the lack of specific warnings, was "much more threatening this time." "It's confident, it uses iconic language that suggests, 'I'm commissioned to wage an unending war against you, and the only way to get peace is to convert to Islam'," he said. "He's in a state of battle, a state of constant, unending war until he Islamises the world." The address contained no tactical gambit of the type attempted previously by bin Laden, when he tested the resolve of Western governments by offering them a "ceasefire" if they withdraw troops from Muslim countries. Instead he ranged across religion, history, domestic U.S. politics and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, throwing in climate change and even what appeared to be a reference to the current crisis over bad mortgage loans in the United States. Arab security analysts said bin Laden's attempt to restyle himself as civilian leader and ideologist underlined the evolution of al Qaeda from a centralized system to a loose, horizontal one in which operations are led by local commanders. "This is just a message to his followers and foes that he exists and that he is still the leader of al Qaeda," said Saudi analyst Fares bin Houzam. "I am 100 percent sure that this man has no power to plan (for al Qaeda). He is just giving signals to his followers around the world." (Additional reporting by Inal Ersan in Dubai and Aziz El-Kaissouni in Cairo) © Reuters 2007