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Thirty-eight years ago today, on a blustery late afternoon in Dhaka, the commander of the Pakistani forces in East Pakistan, General Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi publicly surrendered to the Indian Army, represented by Lieutenant General Jagjit Singh Aurora. In that now famous picture of the surrender of December 16, 1971 at the Ramna Race Course, there is a man standing on the right, behind Niazi, with his head proudly up, gazing at something over the horizon. He was the man who had masterminded the public surrender. I first met General Jacob-Farj-Rafael Jacob (Jake to his friends) in November 2006, at...

SNIPPET: "The Bangladesh government has finally imposed proscription on the transnational Islamic religious-political organization Hizbut-Tahrir’s country chapter on Oct 22, for its anti-state, anti-government, anti-people and anti-democratic activities in the country." SNIPPET: "Despite the ban, the HT-B’ website which is still active and operational criticized the present government in these following words: "The oppressive Awami League government, agents of US-India-Britain banned Hizb ut-Tahrir due to the party’s stance on the side of the defence forces of the country and leading the work for re-establishing the Khilafah (Caliphate).""

"Muslim in Washington, DC: "I'm not scared to die! I will kill you! I will blow people up and the Metro!"" SNIPPET: ""Three blocks of Wisconsin Avenue Northwest were cleared of cars and pedestrians. Adjacent buildings and restaurants were evacuated..." "DC Security Scare Becomes Federal Case," by Bob Barnard for MyFoxDC, October 8 (thanks to Heidi): WASHINGTON, D.C. - A man who was arrested in a security scare in Northwest D.C. on Tuesday night threatened to blow up the Friendship Heights Metro station, according to a criminal complaint in the case. It was a chaotic scene Tuesday night in Friendship...

09/30/2009 10:46 BANGLADESH SNIPPET: "Christian convert from Islam and family threatened with death After Friday prayers a group of zealots attacked the house of William Gomes, a young Muslim who converted to Christianity and human rights activist. The police takes no steps to ensure his protection." SNIPPET: "Dhaka (AsiaNews) - William Gomes, a Catholic convert from Islam, is in mortal danger. For the past several days he has been the target of Muslim extremists who want to kill him because of his new faith."

Motive Sought for Slaying of Church Worker in Bangladesh Police, wife doubt student attackers’ story of cell phone theft. DHAKA, Bangladesh, September 24 (CDN) — Authorities are investigating possible motives for the vicious killing of a church worker by students at Dhaka University. A management student at the university and his friends are accused of torturing and killing Swapan Mondol, 35, on Sept. 12 in Suhrawardy Park, adjacent to the university. Mondol, a convert from Hinduism, was supervisor of youth mission for Free Christian Church of Bangladesh (FCCB). The primary suspect’s friends claim they came to his aid after Mondol...

Fanish, 20, was arrested last Saturday. His death was “judicial murder” according to human rights activist. The day before a Muslim mob attacked members of the dead man’s Christian community, setting fire to their church. Pakistani extremists are funded by Saudi “charities.” Some of these Saudi “charities” are also active here in the US… They operate schools, mosques, etc… [...]Persecution of Jews continue in Bangladesh because of spread of religious hatred, mostly by fanatic Muslim clergies, who term the Jews as ‘enemies of Islam’. They encourage elimination of Jewish population from the country. That is why, although there is Jewish...

A mob foiled a carjacking attempt of three criminals after beating a carjacker to death and injuring another critically in the capital's Pallabi on Monday night. The deceased was identified as Abdul Halim, 25, while the injured Muktar Hossain, 23, was undergoing treatment at Dhaka Medical College and Hospital (DMCH). Pallabi police said a gang of three criminals intercepted a private car and tried to push its driver out of the vehicle at gunpoint in Pallabi residential area at about 9:00pm. The criminals also shot the car driver when he tried to resist them from snatching the car. Hearing the...

CROMWELL, Conn. -- A Connecticut nuclear engineer is under investigation in a federal terrorism probe, but denies allegations he offered support to a militant Islamic Web site and said he's being targeted because he is Muslim. Syed R. Maswood, 41, confirmed that he is the unnamed Connecticut resident mentioned last week in a federal affidavit charging a British national with supporting terrorism. Federal agents raided Maswood's home March 17, seizing computer equipment and financial records, he said. Investigators discovered his e-mail address among files used to maintain a Web site that funneled money and equipment to terrorists, according to the...

Originally published as "Islam-o-Muslim and the Resilience of Terrorism in Bangladesh" Terrorism Monitor, (Jamestwon Foundation) Volume: 7 Issue: 22, July 27, 2009. I just published one article on the Islam-o-Muslim, an offshoot of Jama'at ul-Mujahedeen Bangladesh, and how and where outlawed groups are trying to revive terrorism in the country in the face of renewed counterterror efforts by government agencies.

Since 2003, Bangladeshi journalist and peace activist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury has been investigated by Bangladeshi authorities on charges of sedition, treason and insulting religious belief. Choudhury, 44, has spent years opposing Muslim extremism through his writings, especially the Weekly Blitz which he started in 2003. He has called for interfaith dialogue and for normalizing relations between Muslim countries and Israel. On Wednesday, Choudhury returns to court. He is accused of insulting Islam and harming the state's reputation abroad, charges which, when couched as "sedition," carry a possible death penalty.

Note: The following text is a quote: YOU ARE HERE: Home > Reports > Consular Affairs Bulletins > Report Warden Message: India Urgent Security Concerns CONSULAR AFFAIRS BULLETINS South / Central Asia - India 2 Jun 2009 U.S. Embassy New Delhi released the following warden Message on June 2: The United States Mission in India wishes to urgently remind all U.S. citizens resident in or traveling to India that there is a high threat from terrorism throughout India. As terror attacks are a serious and growing threat, U.S. citizens are urged to always practice good security, including maintaining a heightened...

Note: The following text is a quote: Monday, June 1, 2009 Muslim Villagers Beat Evangelists in Southeastern Bangladesh Nearly four months later, Christian worker still suffering nerve damage By Jeremy Reynalds Correspondent for ASSIST News Service FULGAZI, BANGLADESH (ANS) -- Nearly four months after Muslim villagers in a southeastern Bangladesh sub-district violently beat two evangelists for showing the “Jesus Film,” one of them is still receiving treatment for nerve damage to his hip. According to Compass Direct News, Christian Life Bangladesh (CLB) worker Edward Biswas, 32, was admitted to Alabakth Physiotherapy Centre on May 5. Dr. Mohammad Saifuddin Julfikar told...

It is very sad to hear but the statement "Indians are latest Global 'HATE' Targets" is 100% true.. In Australia, we face racism.. In USA, sort of it too.. In Srilanka, 'Tamils will be looking forward for a day'.. In Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanisthan, Talibans and most of the Pakis have venemous feleings about us. Recent Mumbai attacks is a clear example and apart from that the attack on Parliament, Bombings in the major cities like Hyderabad, etc., etc., China, is never a friend of India.. Palestines, Of course they will hate us too because of our diplomatic relations with...

In the past Muslims have rioted in Belgium, Denmark and France. So why not add Greece to that list? Hopefully those that support Muslim immigration will wake up before it is too late.

An Islamist group blending unorthodox religious practices with a belief that Muslims form a military caste dedicated to jihad is the latest in a series of Islamist militant groups to emerge as a security threat in Bangladesh. Thirty-one members of Hizb-ut Towhid (The Party of Monotheism - HuT) were arrested on April 18 in Kushtia district (100 kms from the capital of Dhaka) for planning to carry out terrorist attacks (Daily Star [Dhaka], April 19). Police seized jihadi books, leaflets, gunpowder and bomb-making materials from the group’s office, which is used for training its recruits. Although HuT is one of...

Dhaka, Bangladesh (AHN) - Some 3,000 chickens were culled after bird flu was detected at a poultry farm in the country's Southeastern Cox's Bazar district town on Sunday night. "On Sunday officials from the center informed us that bird flu virus was found in the samples," District Livestock Officer Dr Zaker Ullah was quoted by The Daily Star, a local newspaper, as saying. He also said they collected samples from the poultry farm on Saturday and sent them for testing to the Regional Livestock Research Centre in Feni. Poultry birds at other farms in the area are being examined to...

Police in Bangladesh have arrested 31 men suspected of plotting a terrorist attack, an officer said yesterday. Police chief Masudul Haque Nuruzzaman, from Kushtia district 100km (62 miles) west of the capital Dhaka, said the men were members of the Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir. “Among the 31 arrested was the group’s chief of the Kushtia district who trained and fought in Afghanistan,” said Nuruzzaman. “The arrests were made on Friday during a raid on a meeting. We have intelligence to suggest they were preparing an attack.” Jihadi books, leaflets, gunpowder and bomb-making materials were seized during the meeting, he said....

Bangladesh will be able to produce 50MW of electricity by using poultry and livestock manure within three years, experts told the New Nation. "We have nearly one lakh poultry industries. If we can use 10 per cent of the poultry industry it will help to produce 50MW electricity from poultry manure within three years," Dr MM Khan, General Secretary of Bangladesh Poultry Owners Association told the reporters yesterday during a field visit to one such Power Plant at Kashimpur in Gazipur. Mr Khan who is owner of Advance Animal Science Ltd (AAS) said that he was now producing 120 kilowatt...

Double bombing kills seven, one day before Indian PM visits Times Online - The ULFA, which has links to Islamic militants in neighbouring Bangladesh and has often staged attacks this time of year...

A China-based cyber spy network has hacked into government and private systems in 103 countries, including those of many Indian embassies and the Dalai Lama, an Internet research group said here Saturday. The Information Warfare Monitor (IWM), which carried out an extensive 10-month research on cyber spy activities emanating from China, said the hacked systems include the computers of Indian embassies and offices of the Dalai Lama.

NOTE: Photos included. PHOTO CAPTION: "Investigation: Faisal Mostafa, pictured in 2002, is facing allegations that his orphanage was in fact an arms factory and terrorist training camp" SNIPPET: "A British charity worker twice cleared of terror charges in this country is being hunted in Bangladesh after explosives were seized at an orphanage he founded. Security forces there claimed last night that the orphanage set up by Dr Faisal Mostafa, from Stockport, was in fact an arms factory and terrorist training camp. Mostafa ran Green Crescent, a charity that provided humanitarian aid to families in Bangladesh and Pakistan. Local security forces...

Note: The following text is a quote: https://www.osac.gov/Reports/report.cfm?contentID=99000 OU ARE HERE: Home > Reports > Consular Affairs Bulletins > Report Warden Message: Bangladesh School Security CONSULAR AFFAIRS BULLETINS South / Central Asia - Bangladesh 19 Mar 2009 Printer Friendly Email Article RELATED REPORTS 2 Mar 2009 TRAVEL ALERT: BANGLADESH 2 Mar 2009 WARDEN MESSAGE: BANGLADESH ANTI-MUTINY OPERATIONS CONTINUE 26 Feb 2009 WARDEN MESSAGE: BANGLADESH BORDER GUARD REVOLT UPDATE 25 Feb 2009 WARDEN MESSAGE: BANGLADESH GUNFIRE INCIDENT 29 Jan 2009 WARDEN MESSAGE: BANGLADESH BISHWA IJTEMA EVENT; POTENTIAL DISRUPTIONS U.S. Embassy Dhaka released the following Warden Message on March 19: The Dhaka...

Bangladesh women, children bear scars of acid attacks by Julie Clothier Julie Clothier Sun Mar 8, 4:30 am ET DHAKA (AFP) – At first glance, Bably Akter looks like any other nine-year-old Bangladeshi girl, dressed in a brightly coloured pink and turquoise skirt and top trimmed with silver sequins. A matching headband conceals her left ear, badly deformed and the only obvious sign she is the victim of an acid attack, a practice rampant in the impoverished country, used mainly in domestic disputes and against women and children. As her mother, Parul, recounts the story of how Bably's father put...

Congress saw the terror attack on Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore as irrefutable evidence Pakistan lapsing into a failed state and warned that unless the trends were arrested, the neighbouring country could fast become the Somalia of south Asia. Condemning the attack, the party on Tuesday said the international community should take note of the development. "It is now for everyone to see how to dismantle the terror structure in Pakistan," party spokesman Manish Tiwari said at a media briefing. Quoting former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright, he said Pakistan had become a "migraine" for the international community. He...

At least 10 people injured in grenade blast in Bangladesh Xinhua - ‎Feb 20, 2009‎JMB has been campaigning for introduction of Islamic rule in Bangladesh. They were responsible for conducting simultaneous bomb blasts in 63 district ...http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-02/20/content_10858918.htm   4 suspected Islamic militants held in Bangladesh eTaiwan Newshttp://www.etaiwannews.com/etn/news_content.php?id=872543&lang=eng_news   Handcuffed militant blasts grenade at media meethttp://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200902211051.htm   Bangladesh on Trial Global Politician - ‎Feb 22, 2009‎"When Mr. Choudhury was arrested five years ago, the party in power in Dhaka was supported by radical Islamists who view Mr. Choudhury's journalism as an ...http://globalpolitician.com/25452-bangladesh   Our Hero Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury attacked again:...

NEW DELHI: The first signs of a Pakistani footprint is showing up in the bloody mutiny that shook Bangladesh this week. As mass graves continue to spew forth more bloody tales - 10 more bodies have been recovered, bringing the toll to 76 - what is emerging slowly is a larger design behind the apparently senseless killing over the past couple of days. The preliminary interrogation of some of the rebels has thrown up the name of Salauddin Qadeer Chowdhury, a well-known shipping magnate and reportedly very close to the Pakistan military-intelligence complex and the opposition BNP. According to sources...

Bangladesh's remote Chittagong Hill Tracts region faces a serious risk of prolonged famine and bubonic plague unless a ballooning rat population is brought under control, experts say. The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) began distributing three million dollars of emergency food supplies to some 120,000 people in the southeastern tribal area bordering India and Myanmar last May, after the rat population exploded. The rats -- some weighing as much as 1.5 kilogrammes (3.3 pounds) -- feed on bamboo forests in the hilly region. Dhaka University zoology professor Nurjahan Sarker recently visited the hill tracts and sounded the alarm over the...

Bangladesh uprising quashed after tanks roll into Dhaka A tank rumbles towards the Dhaka headquarters of the Bangladesh Rifles where the mutineers were holed up (Pavel Rahman/AP) Jeremy Page, South Asia Correspondent, and Fariha Karim in Dhaka Thousands of mutinous Bangladeshi border guards surrendered last night in the capital after two days of fighting that claimed at least 18 lives, but the rebellion appeared to be spreading to other parts of the country. Dozens of officers were unaccounted for after the paramilitary Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) occupying their headquarters in Dhaka lay down their arms. The head of the BDR, Major-General...

Pakistan on Sunday said it will examine the findings of its probe into 26/11 on Monday as the media in Pakistan reported that the government will file cases against five Pakistanis, including lone captured terrorist Ajmal Amir Kasab, for planning the Mumbai attacks. The interior ministry's report also states that the attacks were planned not in Pakistan or India but in a European country, Geo News channel quoted sources as saying. The conspirators kept in touch by using the internet, the sources said. The sources also said that cases would be filed against five Pakistanis, including Kasab, the lone attacker...

A poor farmer from northern Bangladesh was crowned the country's rat killing champion on Thursday with a final score of 39,650 dead rodents after a year-long hunt. Binoy Kumar Karmakar, 40, used traps, poison and flooding to kill his quarry, and collected their tails to prove his success rate and claim a prize from the government. Karmakar collected a 14-inch Sony colour television for winning the competition for 2008, which was part of a nationwide drive to stop food supplies being eaten up by rats. "During the year, our farmers killed around 25 million rats," agriculture department spokesman Abdul Halim...

(IsraelNN.com) A former senior official and newspaper editor from Bangladesh told a television audience last week that Adolph Hitler should have been more thorough when it came to the Jews. The TV host seconded the opinion. As reported by the editor and publisher of the Weekly Blitz, peace activist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, Mohammad Asafuddowlah said, "My soul bleeds when I recall the recent atrocities against the people of Gaza. And if I was a young man, I would have gone to Gaza with a weapon to exterminate Israel." It is not just Israel's extermination Asafuddowlah seeks, however. "Now I...

DHAKA, Bangladesh – Muslims in a village in western Bangladesh have forced two brothers to expel their parents from their home for converting to Christianity. Ishmael Sheikh, 70, and his wife Rahima Khatun, 55, were baptized on Nov. 9. By the end of the month, Sheikh told Compass, Muslim neighbors in Kathuly village, near Gangni town in Meherpur district, had compelled their two sons to expel them from their house. The ailing Sheikh told Compass that his two sons had come under tremendous pressure from neighbors in the village, which was entirely Muslim before the coupled received Christ. The neighbors...

More than 300 illegal migrants were feared to have drowned off India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal, police and officials said Monday. The migrants, Bangladeshi and Burmese nationals, went missing after they jumped from boats and tried to swim ashore. At least 99 people were rescued by the Indian Coast Guard and three men were able to swim ashore. Coast Guard officials, citing survivors, said the migrants had left some 45 days earlier for Thailand and Malaysia from Bangladesh, where they planned to work. According to survivors, there were a total of 412 people, mostly Bangladeshis...

A Muslim think tank has found some UK Imams discriminate against women when enforcing Islamic Sharia law. Scholars at the Centre for Islamic Pluralism interviewed 90 Muslims in London, the West Midlands, Lancashire and West Yorkshire. They found some women did not get fair hearings in forced marriage, arranged marriage and domestic violence matters. It comes after an NHS doctor was freed in Bangladesh following claims she was being held there for a forced marriage. Sharia law governs every aspect of a Muslim's life, and Imams or scholars give out rulings on how to live by God's wishes. Some mosques...

MALUMGHAT, Bangladesh, December 8 (Compass Direct News) – The harassment that Bangladeshi converts from Islam face from Muslim neighbors in this southeastern area near Cox’s Bazar can take serious turns – as it did last month, when an attack by about a dozen Muslims left a Christian family with machete wounds. Confident that no police would side with Christian converts from Islam, the Muslims in Chakaria town, near Cox’s Bazar 380 kilometers (236 miles) southeast of the capital city of Dhaka, later filed false charges of assault against the wounded and limping Christians, family members said. The smallest of claims...

DHAKA (AFP) — Defeated Republican US presidential candidate Senator John McCain will visit Bangladesh early next month to talk with its leaders and politicians ahead of the country's key polls. The US embassy in Dhaka said Sunday Senator McCain, who lost to Democrat Barack Obama in the November 4 US presidential election, would be accompanied by two senior congressmen, Senator Joseph Lieberman and Senator Lindsey Graham during a broader regional trip.

President Iajuddin Ahmed and Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed yesterday congratulated Barack Obama, president-elect of the United States of America. In a message, the president said: “I would like to convey to you my warmest felicitation on your election as the president of the United States of America.” He expressed the hope that during Obama's tenure, bilateral relations would be further strengthened to mutual benefit of the two countries. The chief adviser in his message said: “I am delighted to learn that you have been elected next president of the United States of America. Let me take this opportunity to extend...

SALEM, Ore., Nov. 4, 2008 – The Oregon National Guard has established a partnership with one of the most populous -- and according to many at the State Department, one of the more strategically located -- countries in South Asia. A delegation from the Oregon National Guard meets with key civic and military leaders in Bangladesh to discuss a collaborative partnership between Oregon and the South Asian country. Bangladesh is the first official partner for Oregon in the State Department's "State Partnership Program", developed to foster alliances between the United States and foreign countries. U.S. Army photo   (Click photo...

Wives, daughters, girls are punished by having acid thrown on them, permanently disfiguring them. The government prohibits the sale of the corrosive liquids, but they are easily found on the market. The phenomenon is spreading. The victims now include children and adult males. Dhaka (AsiaNews) - Women in Bangladesh suffer marginalization. And the violence against them, at home and outside, continues to grow. Recently, a new weapon has been added: acid, which disfigures their faces and bodies. Parul's husband is 30 years old. In 2000, he disfigured her by throwing acid into her face, because her relatives had not paid...

How The West Was Won The rapid and unexpected decline of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq was officially recognized this week, when Maj. Gen. John Kelly, commanding the Marine Expeditionary Force, turned operational control of Anbar Province over to the Iraqi army and police. Anbar, a vast expanse of desert the size of North Carolina, had been the stronghold of the Sunni insurgency. For years, foreign fighters loyal to al-Qaida had sneaked across Iraq's northwestern border with Syria, into Anbar and down a "rat line" of safe houses in Haditha, Ramadi and Hit. From Fallujah, the arch terrorist Zarqawi...

IN GENERAL Tears of Jihad These figures area rough estimate of the death of non-Muslims by the political act of jihad.AfricaThomas Sowell [Thomas Sowell, Race and Culture, BasicBooks, 1994, p. 188] estimates that 11 million slaves were shipped across the Atlantic and 14 million were sent to the Islamic nations of North Africa and the Middle East. For every slave captured many others died. Estimates of this collateral damage vary. The renowned missionary David Livingstone estimated that for every slave who reached a plantation, five others were killed in the initial raid or died of illness and privation on the...

Dhaka, Aug 24, 2008 / 09:54 pm (CNA).- Critics have charged a World Health Organization (WHO) initiative with providing the “menstrual regulation” abortion method in countries where abortion is otherwise illegal.Menstrual regulation, also known as "menstrual extraction," is used by women who missed their regular menstrual period and suspect that they are pregnant but cannot or do not want to wait for the results of a pregnancy test. If the woman is pregnant at the time the menstrual extraction is performed, an abortion results. The evidence of an abortion is either destroyed during the procedure or is easily disposed...

A Moderate Muslim in Danger of Extinction by Lori Lowenthal Marcus Shoaib Choudhury defies party line of hatred towards Israel and contempt for all religions other than Islam. He may be executed for those beliefs. There lives in Dhaka one of the elusive souls for whom most of the world, or at least most Western politicians, have been searching: a true Islam-loving moderate Muslim who believes in brotherhood among all religions and respect for all nations by all nations. Unfortunately, it is possible that this priceless and endangered species may soon become extinct. At least since September 11, 2001, world...

An Islamic parliamentarian in Bahrain has called for the expulsion of Bangladeshi immigrant workers after one of them was accused of a gruesome killing. "We need to expel all the Bangladeshi workers that are in our country," said Abdel Halim Murad of the hardline Salafi bloc according to a report in the local newspaper Akhbar al-Khalji. "We cannot tolerate the way in which these people continue to repeat crimes," he said. Murad said this during a political debate on Sunday after a Bahraini citizen was allegedly killed by a foreign worker from Bangladesh who worked as a mechanic. The victim...

NEW DELHI: With the role of illegal Bangladeshi migrants coming under the scanner in the wake of the Jaipur blasts, Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje has claimed that the Centre had suggested to it to put them in a "transit camp". She said the state government had written numerous letters to the Centre from time to time on the issue of deportation of Bangladeshi nationals who were finding their way into Rajasthan. "We wrote to them in June 2007 to say, look we need to do something about this. We got a reply back from them (Centre) saying, well why...

DHAKA, Bangladesh – Muslim villagers in Mymensingh district eager to rid the area of the Christian work of a local pastor have gang-raped his 13-year-old daughter. Pastor Motilal Das of United Bethany Church said that at around 3 a.m. on Friday (May 2) the villagers sexually assaulted his daughter, Elina Das, and left her unconscious in front of his house in an attempt to drive him and his Christian ministry out of Laksmipur village in Fulbaria sub-district, 120 kilometers (75 miles) north of the capital. Local residents have long been angry with him for his ministry and evangelism, he said,...

Archaeologists have found another ancient brick-built structure with floor and artefacts under the basement of the main temple at world heritage site Paharpur. Earlier, two brick-built structures of Gupta dynasty were found during an excavation, according to archaeologists of the Department of Archaeology. Dr Md Shafiqul Alam, director, Department of Archaeology, said the recently excavated structures were built in pre-Pal period. "Most probably the structure of temple was built by followers of Jain religion," Alam added. Nahid Sultana, custodian, Rabindra Kacharibari, Sirajganj and member of the excavation team, said the 2.1-metre width brick-built structure crossed the basement of the main...

Barack Obama wants us to think that he has a special sensitivity to injustice and that his entire life has been about combating it. Yet, in this one concrete situation he faced, he failed to act. The fact that not one of the dozens of other lawmakers failed speaks volumes. The fact that support was never contingent on ideology speaks volumes. I often wondered if his refusal to act was strategic, ignorant, or simple cowardice. No matter, the impact on Shoaib Choudhury was the same, as it would be on any freedom fighter. When speaking about this, I ask potential...

He fired the first salvo in 2003 and has been sticking his thumb in Islamist eyes ever since. Bangladeshi journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury describes himself as a "Muslim Zionist." He is unabashedly pro-US, pro-Israel, and anti-Islamist. More importantly, he remains all of that from within the Muslim world, which he refuses to leave. I have fielded any number of asylum requests for him, and he declined them all. "Retreat is not in my vocabulary," he says, for he believes that if he were to leave his country, his credibility would be gone, and Islamists would claim victory; a satisfaction...

NEW DELHI -- Every year in March, Bir Bahadur Singh goes to the local Sikh shrine and narrates the grim events of the long night six decades ago when 26 women in his family offered their necks to the sword for the sake of honor. At the time, sectarian riots were raging over the partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan, and the men of Singh's family decided it was better to kill the women than have them fall into the hands of Muslim mobs. "None of the women protested, nobody wept," Singh, 78, recalled as he stroked his...