Egyptian Army 'Suicides" Raise Specter of Persecution of Christians in Military
Evidence points to murder in soldiers' deaths.
By Our Middle East Correspondent
ISTANBUL, Turkey, December 11, 2015 (Morning Star News) – In a daze, Nataay Boushra made his way out of the morgue and into a hallway of the army hospital in Cairo, Egypt.
Lost in grief, he walked through the hallways of the medical facility; past nurses, past doctors and past groups of young soldiers talking to each other, but he noticed nothing. His son was dead.
Farhan Khan (centre), brother-in-law of San Bernardino shooting suspect Syed Farook, speaks at the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Anaheim, California on Dec 2, 2015. PHOTO: REUTERS
LOS ANGELES: California’s Muslim community expressed its horror on Wednesday at the mass shooting that killed at least 14 in San Bernardino, after a local Muslim man was widely identified as a suspect.
Syed Farook, a US citizen who worked for the town’s health department, is believed to have been killed in a shootout with police hours after opening fire inside a Christmas party at a local social services center.
The “tyranny of political correctness” is preventing a frank conversation about the role of Islam in extremism, Liberal backbencher Craig Kelly has said, as conservative members of the Coalition strengthen their rhetoric on anti-radicalisation.
Kelly was speaking to a motion put by LNP backbencher George Christensen, which called for action against radical Islam in Australia.
Saudi court sentences poet to death for renouncing Islam
Friends of Palestinian Ashraf Fayadh believe he is being punished for posting video showing religious police lashing a man in public
Ashraf Fayadh, right, with art historian Chris Dercon, outgoing director of Tate Modern, attend the opening of an exhibition in Jeddah curated by Ashraf Fayadh. Photograph: Ashraff Ayadh/Instagram
A Palestinian poet and leading member of Saudi Arabia’s nascent contemporary art scene has been sentenced to death for renouncing Islam.
A Saudi court on Tuesday ordered the execution of Ashraf Fayadh, who has curated art shows in Jeddah and at the Venice Biennale. The poet, who said he did not have legal representation, was given 30 days to appeal against the ruling.
Egyptian Mother of 2 Has Throat Slit by Family for Converting to Christianity
An Egyptian mother of two was brutally murdered by her Muslim family members after she married a Coptic Christian man, converted to Christianity and left her hometown, Egyptian news sites are reporting.According to Eshhad, an online clearinghouse for religious persecution violations in Egypt, Marwa Ahmed left her home and family in Tamiyyah, Faiyum at the age of 23, to marry a Coptic Christian man and convert to Christianity. The couple then moved to Alexandria where Ahmed gave birth to two children, a son and daughter.
Both Christians had received threats; one from Muslim family members, the other from Al Qaeda.
Taiz, in southwest Yemen. (Wikipedia)
ISTANBUL,Turkey (Morning Star News) – Two Christians in Yemen, both converts from Islam, have been ambushed and killed because of their faith, according to sources close to the victims.
In Taiz, a city with a pre-war population of 600,000 people in southwest Yemen, at least one member of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) ambushed a Christian man in the city and shot him 15 to 20 times in early September. A second Christian was shot once in his home on Oct. 2, sources said. The second victim may have been killed by a Muslim extremist group or by members of his own family, they said.
Involvement of foreign fighters in Paris attacks highlights evolving threat posed by jihadist returnees to Europe
Ludovico Carlino - IHS Jane's Intelligence Review
Police officers prepare cover protection outside a building in Saint-Denis, a northern suburb of Paris on 18 November 2015. Officials say seven people have been arrested in a raid on an apartment rented by suspects in last week's Paris attacks. Source: PA
Key Points
According to police statements on the investigation, at least five of the eight attackers had conducted militant training with the Islamic State in Syria. Abaaoud, a prominent Islamic State operative with long-established contacts in jihadist circles in Brussels, is suspected to have played a key role in masterminding, if not recruiting, all the attackers involved in the operation.
THE suspected mastermind behind the downing of a Russian plane in Egypt killing 224 people has been unmasked as the British Government said it is prepared to kill him.
Abu Osama al-Masri has been unmasked as the Russian plane bomb suspect
British intelligence chiefs believe the plane, which crashed in the Sinai peninsula, was brought down by a bomb planted by an offshoot of Islamic State (ISIS).
The Problem of Islam and the Islamic StateAn atheist and an Anglican offer bold solutions.
By the Editor
November 12, 2015 (Morning Star News) – Two remarkable pieces about Islamist violence were published last week in mainstream media – one answering the ambivalence thoughtful people feel on what to do about the Islamic State, and the other answering perplexity on what to do about Islam.
Authorities in Western countries who work so hard to prevent Radical Muslims from traveling to Syria and Iraq to wage jihad seem to have given insufficient attention to the possibility that those whom they have prevented from traveling may try to wage jihad at home. Now we see exactly that happening.
“France arrests man in IS-linked plot to attack naval base,”
PARIS (AFP) – Authorities in France have arrested a man with links to an Islamic State jihadist in Syria over a plot to attack military personnel at a major naval base, police and judicial sources said Tuesday.
Non-Muslim inmates in several of Britain's category A prisons are being forced to pay a 'protection tax' to radical Muslim prisoners out of fear of facing violence.
The 'tax', known as 'jizya', was found to be enforced by some Islamist extremist prisoners in four of Britain's largest prisons.
The shocking findings were uncovered by a team of government investigators, appointed by justice secretary Michael Gove last August to establish the threat posed by Islamic extremists in prisons.
Police complacency toward the kidnapping of Coptic Christians in Egypt has fostered a climate of impunity, according to a Christian persecution charity.
The phenomenon of kidnapping Coptic Christians for ransom has spread in Minya province, the latest of which occurred last week.
Egypt’s ultra-conservative Islamist Nour Party is receiving criticism after opting not to publish photos of female Coptic Christian candidates for the October 18-19 elections.
Youness Makhioun, the head of the Nour Party, stated in October 2014 that the party would only allow women to run if they wear a hijab, or Islamic head covering. The party would also force women to use roses on banners instead of the female’s face because their interpretation of Sharia law “mandates that the faces of Muslim women should not be shown or featured.” It appears they are now extending that to Christian women as well.
Policemen investigate the scene of a car bomb attack on the convoy of Egyptian public prosecutor Hisham Barakat near his house at Heliopolis district in Cairo, Egypt, in this June 29, 2015 file photo.
Reuters/Mohamed Abd El Ghany
right
CAIRO, As a special forces officer in the Egyptian Army, Hisham al-Ashmawy trained in the desert, learning camouflage and survival techniques and how to hunt the enemy in rough terrain. Now he has turned militant, and uses that training to another purpose: helping fellow jihadists fight Egypt’s government.
Ashmawy’s background makes him a potent figure among Islamist fighters, who President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi say pose an existential threat to Egypt. “Ashmawy is the most dangerous terrorist we face,” an Egyptian National Security official told Reuters. “He is the mastermind and executor.”
Mother of Saudi youth facing beheading urges Obama to intervene
Saudi youth Ali al-Nimr faces the death penalty for taking part in pro-reform protests (AFP Photo/)
London (AFP) - The mother of a youth facing beheading for taking part in protests in Saudi Arabia has pleaded with US President Barack Obama to "rescue my son" in an interview published by the British daily the Guardian Thursday.The sentence against Ali al-Nimr, a Shiite Muslim who was only 17 when he was arrested in February 2012, has drawn international condemnation over his young age and allegations that he was tortured into making a confession.
Radical killed by Britain in Syria was latest from Cardiff district
CARDIFF| BY ANGUS BERWICK
For the Muslim community in Reyaad Khan's neighborhood of Cardiff in Wales, this week's news he had been killed by Britain in a drone strike in Syria was just the latest in a series of shocks about radicals in their midst.
Three years ago, two brothers from the same area, Riverside, were jailed for plotting to bomb the London Stock Exchange as part of a campaign of al Qaeda-inspired attacks across the British capital in the run-up to Christmas.
Khan was the first Briton to feature in an ISIS propaganda video
Reyaad Khan is thought to have been killed after fellow ISIS fighters reported on Twitter that he had been killed in an air strike in Raqqa.
The 21-year-old's Twitter account, which he regularly updated with propaganda, has not posted anything since July 7, while an ISIS fighter declared that Abdu Dujana - his jihadi name - had been "martyred".
France train attack: Americans hailed as heroes, gunman 'had ties to Isil'
Attacker armed with Kalashnikov shouted "give me back my gun" as he was foiled by three Americans, including two off-duty servicemen - follow live updates
By Isabelle Fraser, David Lawler, Barney Henderson, Andrew Marszal, James Rothwell, and David Millward
This page will automatically update every 90 secondsOnOff
From left: Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos and British national Chris Norman hold their medals as they sit in a restaurant after a brief ceremony in the town of Arras, northern France Photo: Getty Images
A Brief Summary
The suspect in the attack on a high speed train travelling from Amsterdam to Paris has been identified as Ayoub El-Khazzani, a 26-year-old Moroccan national who was living in Spain until last year.
He emerged shirtless from a lavatory bearing an AK-47, a handgun, and a box-cutter knife. A French passenger then tried to tackle the gunman, resulting in several rounds being fired and one person being struck by a bullet.
Alek Skarlatos, an American solider recently returned from Afghanistan, then yelled "get him," at which point his friend Spencer Stone, a paramedic in the US Air Force, charged the gunman and was able to tackle him despite sustaining multiple injuries.
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