Free Republic

As the global war on terror approaches the start of its eighth year, the NYPD says it has never been more prepared - but also warns that the city can never let its guard down. In a two-part series, Daily News reporter Patrice O'Shaughnessy looks at the terror threat in New York - and around the world. Sunday's installment focuses on an NYPD undercover officer who dug deep into the potential terrorists in our midst. A young undercover city detective spent four years in the shadowy world of terrorist wanna-bes - taking part in jihadist discussions and training in parks...

Last December, more than 2 million Muslims from around the world converged on Saudi Arabia to participate in the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to the holy site of Mecca. The Hajjis spent a month performing religious rituals, mingling with Muslims from all walks of life, and, in some cases, taking part in communal chants of "Death to America" led by Islamic extremists. This was understandably unnerving to the 10,000 or so Americans who made the pilgrimage, not to mention those who didn't. Such behavior raised concerns that the Hajj is a breeding ground for anti-Western sentiment—or worse. Then again, the...

The journey to Mecca, formally known as the Hajj, is a dream for Muslims all over the world, who believe they should make the pilgrimage once during their lifetimes. Unfortunately, this dream is not always attainable -- so the Muslim Student Association decided to bring Mecca to Charlottesville.

BAGHDAD – Pilgrims traveling from Iraq to Mecca in the annual observance of the Hajj experienced a peaceful travel period this year with no reported violent incidents. At the conclusion of the Hajj travel period, more than 30,000 Iraqi pilgrims will have traveled to and from Mecca by air and ground. Iraqis traveled through six ports of entry during the annual pilgrimage from Dec. 11 through Jan. 7. The pilgrims traveled by air transportation from Baghdad, Irbil, Mosul and Basra while others moved by ground transportation from Safwan and Ara’r. In preparation for Hajj travel, the Mosul airport reopened after...

Saudi security forces have arrested al Qaeda members suspected of planning to carry out attacks during the current haj pilgrimage, Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television said on Friday. The television quoted an unnamed security official as saying the suspects aimed to cause "security confusion" during the pilgrimage, in which more than 2.5 million Muslims are taking part. They were arrested in various cities in the kingdom days before the start of the pilgrimage on Monday, the official was quoted as saying. The report did not say how many were being held.

Philosophy of Haj based on global government - Ahmadinejad Greetings, future dhimmis "If we would delete the ultimate objective of establishing a global system from the Haj rituals, the remainder would be deeds devoid of a soul." He said it. From IRNA (thanks to Sr. Soph): IRI President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said here Wednesday on Al-Adha Eid Day in Saudi Arabia philosophy of Haj can be defined merely through considering Islam's aim at establishment...

Pilgrims pack Mecca ahead of annual haj By Jonathan Wright Fri Dec 14, 10:11 AM ET MECCA, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - About 1 million Muslim pilgrims from across the world packed the mosque and streets around the Kaaba shrine in the holy city of Mecca for the last Friday prayers before the annual haj pilgrimage. Pilgrims trekked to the mosque hours in advance to reserve a space for their prayer mats as close as possible to the Kaaba, a cubic stone structure which Muslims regard as the centre of an ancestral monotheistic cult established by the prophet Ibrahim, known to...

While 2 million to 3 million Muslims made the pilgrimage to Mecca, known as Hajj, this week, more than 1,000 gathered Wednesday morning in Fort Wayne to wish the pilgrims well on their journey home. The prayer gathering, at Indiana Tech’s Schaefer Center gynasmium, marked Eid ul-Adha, an annual celebration of the end of Hajj. The event is one of the largest religious gatherings of the year for the region’s Muslims, according to Ayaz Malik, 50, of Fort Wayne. Members of the area’s three Muslim worship centers attend, he said, and many Muslims travel from about 50 miles outside of...

The Hajj: Terrorism Potential Abounds By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart Courtesy of Strategic Forecasting More than 2 million Muslims from around the world are expected to travel to Saudi Arabia to perform the Hajj, that annual pilgrimage to Mecca that runs this year Dec. 18-21. Because of the history of violence during the Hajj — some of it extreme — Saudi officials step up security during the period, and last week they concluded what they called the country’s largest-ever anti-terrorism security sweep — an operation that resulted in the arrest of more than 200 suspected al Qaeda militants. Riyadh...

Iranian hajj pilgrims shout "Death to Israel" and "Death to America" Shi'ite pilgrims in Mecca commit the Islamic sin of bid'a -- innovation -- by calling for the destruction of Israel and America at Islam's holiest site.

MECCA, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Performing the hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage more ancient than Islam itself, is complicated and confusing even for those well-versed in Islam — so it's particularly intimidating for someone who's hardly religious.As a secular journalist covering this central pillar of Islam, which began Monday, I am determined to go through the rites with an open mind.A major hurdle is learning what to do. Before leaving my hotel in Jiddah for the holy city of Mecca, I took the first required steps. I bathed and put on the special clothes of a woman performing hajj: a...

Bush warns against Syrian interference in Lebanon International Herald Tribune, France - Dec 13, 2007 Perhaps it was al Qaeda-type militants striking in payback for Hajj's role in the army's summer onslaught on fighters based in the Palestinian refugee camp ...

Excerpt - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday left Tehran for Saudi Arabia to perform the hajj, the first Iranian leader to take part in the annual Muslim pilgrimage in the history of the Islamic republic. An AFP photographer present at the airport reported that Ahmadinejad kissed the Koran and read verses from the holy Muslim book before departing. The website of state television said that Ahmadinejad's plane took off for the western Saudi city of Jeddah at around 08:30 am (0500 GMT). "On this journey, as well as carrying out the holy hajj pilgrimage, I will have meetings with officials,"...

MECCA, Saudi Arabia (AFP) - Hundreds of thousands of Muslims from around the world gathered in Saudi Arabia on Sunday, making final preparations for the annual hajj pilgrimage which is a central tenent of Islam. Saudi officials say that more than 1.6 million Muslims from abroad have assembled for the hajj, which begins on Monday, the eighth day of the month of Dhi al-Hajja under the lunar calendar. Hundreds of thousands of Saudi faithful as well as foreigners living in the desert kingdom are also expected to take part. All Muslims are required to make the hajj to Mecca, in...

A Special Bloody Islamic Terror WeekChildren Hurt in Pakistan BombingNew York Times, United States - Dec 10, 2007By DAVID ROHDE ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Dec. 10 — A suicide bomb attack on a military truck carrying schoolchildren outside a Pakistani Air Force base in ...http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/11/world/asia/11pakistan.html?ref=worldIslamists regroup in Somalia; at least 17 killedMSNBC - Dec 13, 2007Dec 11, 2007 Islamic Boimbing in Algeriahttp://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22245198/Toll in Algeria blast rises to 37Los Angeles TimesThe discovery brings the total killed in Tuesday's terrorist attacks to 37, according to Algeria's Interior Ministry. A group called Al Qaeda in the Islamic ... http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-algiers15dec15,1,1419073.story?coll=la-headlines -worldLos Angeles Times UN toll in...

Mideast: Mao Zedong's dictum that political power grows out of a barrel of a gun has been resurrected in Lebanon. The enemies of freedom and multicultural democracy have struck this besieged country again.The life expectancy of anti-Syrian journalists and political leaders in Lebanon is short, and if you dare to offend Damascus and its terrorist minions or pose a possible threat to its agenda, it's unlikely that you'll die in your sleep of old age. Since 2005, a string of car bombings and assassinations have killed eight prominent anti-Syrian figures. Brig. Gen. Francois Hajj was not overly political. He was...

MOSUL, Iraq, Nov. 30, 2007 – A long-awaited passenger terminal project here that had lagged behind schedule now is complete. Less than three months after Mustafa Yoldah left his company’s office in Turkey and came to Mosul with a new foreman and extra workers, the project was finished. For the first time in 15 years, the Mosul, Iraq, airport is ready for commercial flights, beginning with the mid-December Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Photo by Alda Ottley  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. “He made it happen,” said Alda Ottley, project engineer for this facility. The terminal is...

The following link has an audio interview from Radio New Zealand featuring a Kiwi convert named Abdullah to Islam. He is both candid and defensive. My comments on parts of the interview are set in the body of comment below. http://www.radionz.co.nz/nr/programmes/spiritualoutlook 26 August 2007

About This Blog This blog is owned and written by John F Burgess. Its purpose is to comment, knowledgeably, about Saudi Arabia, from an American perspective. It’s not about Saudi-bashing, nor is it an apologia for the country. Rather, it’s an effort to put that country into context..... » Read More All original content © 2004-07 Haj Increases Use of High Tech Interesting article in Saudi Gazette on the use of new inventions to improve conditions at Haj this year. The first involves seamless trousers that men will wear under the Ihram, the two-piece garment made of seamless material (usually...

Following an appeal from the Argentinean Attorney General, Interpol issued international extradition warrants for five senior Iranians and one senior Hezbollah operative. The charge was involvement in the suicide bombing attack of the Jewish community center building (AMIA) in Argentina in 1994. The men wanted by Argentina. Top row, left to right: Ali Akbar Heshemi Bahramie Rafsanjani, Ali Fallahijan, Ali Akbar Velayati, Mohsen Rezai. Bottom row, left to right: Imad Moughnieh, Mohsen Rabbani, Ahmad Reza Asghari, (also known as Mohsen Randjbaran), Ahmad Vahidi. Picture from the Argentinean Attorney General's Website. International extradition warrants were not issued by Interpol for Ali...

THE intelligence agencies are monitoring every Muslim who travels from Britain to Mecca on pilgrimage in a wider effort to piece together intelligence on suspected Al-Qaeda terrorist activity. A senior Whitehall official has disclosed that the operation targeting trips to the holy city in Saudi Arabia by more than 100,000 British Muslims is part of a trawl by MI5 and MI6 for information about movements of suspected terrorists. It follows evidence that British Islamic terrorists have visited the city before carrying out attacks in Britain and abroad. The importance of the intelligence operation was one of the reasons given by...

new information about the Reuters Photoshop scandal: Reuters fired a top photo editor for the Middle East during an internal investigation of two doctored photos from the Israel-Lebanon war that were published last summer. The editor was the second casualty of the photo manipulation controversy surrounding Reuters freelancer Adnan Hajj. Two of Hajj’s photographs showed obvious signs of digital alterations. Facing a storm of criticism last August, Reuters terminated its relationship with Hajj and pulled more than 900 of his photos from its archive. A Reuters spokesperson said Thursday that the company would not release the name of the editor...

LONDON (Reuters) - Reuters named a new chief photographer for the Middle East on Thursday and said it had tightened its editing procedures after the publication last year of two photographs that had been digitally altered. The measures were among several steps announced by David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief of the global news and information agency, following an internal investigation that he said had resulted in disciplinary action. The two photos, both of Israeli military action in Lebanon during the war there last August, were taken by a freelance photographer, Adnan Hajj. Reuters ended its relationship with Hajj following an initial inquiry...

JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia - Muslims circled the Kaaba, Islam's holiest site, for a final time Tuesday, bringing to a close what may have been the largest hajj pilgrimage ever. There were none of the deadly stampedes that have marred past pilgrimages. Hundreds of thousands of the faithful returned to Mecca from a holy site outside the city to perform the "farewell" circling of the Kaaba, a cube-shaped stone structure draped in black cloth that Muslim's around the world face during daily prayers. As they packed up to go, many then plunged into the nearby markets to buy mementos and gifts....

MORE than 1.5 million Muslims have arrived in Saudi Arabia for the annual hajj pilgrimage to Mecca which begins on Thursday. The official SPA news agency quoted the Hajj Commission as saying 1,526,603 people had arrived in the kingdom by yesterday to take part in this year's pilgrimage. As well as expected further arrivals from abroad, Saudis and other Muslims resident in the country will swell the number of the faithful undertaking the hajj to some two million. The Hajj Supreme Committee said 202 pilgrims have died since arriving in the kingdom, mainly the elderly or infirm and generally from...

Reflections on the treatment of non-believers by the three great monotheistic religions on their holy days. As Jews began their Hanukkah celebrations this week, commemorating the recovery of the Holy Land and the Temple from foreign invaders by Judas Maccabeus, and more than a billion Christians prepare for one of the holiest days of the church year, where the doors of Christian churches will be thrown open to anyone willing to hear the good news of Christ’s coming to earth as a human to redeem humanity, millions of Muslims are preparing for their own spiritual journey next week in the...

Damascus, 22 Dec. (AKI) - The largest Christmas tree in the Middle East was decorated and available to viewers as of Friday in Homs, central Syria. The so-called 'tree for peace' is 40 metres high and was decorated with figures recalling the birth of Jesus as well as decorations for Id al-Adha, which marks the culmination of the hajj (pilgrimage) rites at Mina, Saudi Arabia, near Mecca, but is celebrated by Muslims throughout the world. The tree cost 25,000 euros.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations has issued a (call for complaints) of discrimination on the part of airlines by Muslims who travel to Mecca this year: The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), citing what it called the "airport profiling" of six imams removed from a recent flight, yesterday said Muslims traveling this month to the holy site in Saudi Arabia need to be aware of their rights. "Given the increase in the number of complaints CAIR has received alleging airport profiling of American Muslims, we believe it is important that all those taking part in this year's hajj be aware...

IT'S bad enough that friends of Hezbollah terrorists could trick so many journalists with just a tall story and a rusty Lebanese ambulance. Worse is that some of those journalists seemed so eager to believe this ambulance was indeed wickedly blown up by an Israeli missile fired straight through the big red cross on its roof -- leaving not even a scorch mark. But worst is that even now that this hoax has been exposed, none of the countless writers and commentators who fell for it have admitted to passing on as fact the propaganda of terrorists. It is this...

The media war against Israel Early in the recent Lebanon war, the blogosphere revealed the fabrication of images by Reuters, whose reputation is now in shreds among those dwindling numbers in the western mainstream media who still acknowledge there is such a thing as the truth. Since then, the nature and scale of the various frauds perpetrated by the media during that war put those doctored Reuters pictures into the shade. The western media are no longer merely producing questionable professional practices in reporting a war. They are now active participants in it — and on the wrong side of...

International journalists discuss Lebanon war coverage; NYT bureau chief: Israel 'not interested in Lebanese deaths' A number of journalists claimed during a convention in Jerusalem Monday evening that Israel and the IDF were mostly to blame for the way the foreign media covered the Lebanon war. The panel of journalists, largely from the international media, convened to discuss their coverage of the war, at a conference arranged by the Media Line agency's Mideast Press Club. "Journalists' access to the battlefield is controlled exclusively by the IDF," said Simon McGregor-Wood, Chairman of the Foreign Press Association, and Bureau Chief of ABC...

Fauxtography Defender's Faux News Turns out that Greg Mitchell, the Editor & Publisher editor who has been attacking the blogosphere like a rabid ferret for pointing out the bogus news from the Middle East, has first-hand experience with staging news. (Hat tip: Confederate Yankee.) Since the press seems to be in full-disclosure mode these days, I want to finally come clean. Back when I worked for the Niagara Falls (N.Y.) Gazette (now the Niagara Gazette), our city editor asked me to find out what tourists thought about an amazing local event: Engineers had literally “turned off” the famous cataracts,...

All Your Fakes Are Belong to Us A jawa video spoof on Beirut Fauxtography.

BEFORE the American news media's collective shrug consigns the Reuters photo scandal to the nether world of shabby journalistic footnotes, one of this affair's wider implications is worth a moment's exploration. The incident began when Los Angeles-based blogger Charles Johnson and one of his readers detected a freelance photographer for the Reuters news agency manipulating pictures of the fighting in Lebanon. They, along with other online press monitors, soon turned up not only doctored images, but also numerous staged and falsely captioned pictures by various photographers — all designed to incite outrage against Israel. Reuters fired Adnan Hajj, the photojournalist...

Amid the controversy over certain pictures from Lebanon, a longtime student of war photography asks, "I'm not sure if the craft I love is being murdered, committing suicide, or both." By David D. Perlmutter (August 18, 2006) -- The Israeli-Hezbollah war has left many dead bodies, ruined towns, and wobbling politicians in its wake, but the media historian of the future may also count as one more victim the profession of photojournalism. In twenty years of researching and teaching about the art and trade and doing photo-documentary work, I have never witnessed or heard of such a wave of attacks...

It's the story that the journalistic elite would rather just go away. In the aftermath of Reuters' admission that one of its photographers, Adnan Hajj, had manipulated two war images from Lebanon after bloggers smoked out his crude Photoshop alterations, and all 920 of his Reuters photos were pulled, evidence of far more troubling photo staging and media deception in the Middle East continues to pour in. Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs (littlegreenfootballs.com) calls it "fauxtography." Reuters on Sunday withdrew an image of smoke rising from burning buildings after an Israeli air strike on the suburbs of Beirut on...

The first Photoshop war Lebanon war's doctored photos could be harbinger of photojournalism crisis Gal Mor The photo of an apparently new Mickey Mouse doll, resting on a ruined street in the Lebanese town of Tyre following an Israeli Air Force attack, took me back to a British TV show called "Drop the Dead Monkey," which aired in Israel about 15 years ago. One of the journalists in Channel 4's satirical show used to hang around battle zones with a teddy bear in his trunk and place it at disaster zones a short time before cameras began shooting, in order...

Many of the mainstream media apologists have conceded – and they had little choice but to do so – that many of the photographs of the Israelis’ response to Hez b’Allah’s act of war, were staged. The evidence of staging and Photoshopping is too public. The media allowed itself to be used to defame Israel, stir up sympathy for Lebanon and halt the advance into Lebanon. But the concessions of wrongdoing stop short with digital alterations. Media spokesmen are still in denial about the biggest media fraud of all: the dramatic dead baby display at Qana. EUreferendum has not given...

When Reuters was forced to sever ties with free-lance photographer Adnan Hajj and remove more than 900 of his photos from its database earlier this month, long-whispered questions about the reliability of Arab stringers and freelancers came to the forefront. But while the widespread use of Arab locals in covering the Middle East raises many legitimate concerns, the Palestinian propaganda machine has enjoyed tremendous success over the years hoodwinking supposedly sophisticated Western journalists. And Hezbollah appears to have done the same over the past month. In short, almost nothing that is purported to happen in the Arab world can automatically...

Thanks to some intrepid digging from commenters Lancelot and Harris at EU Referendum, another video of the events at Qana has been found. This is one that I have never seen before and really shows what was going on that day. It is truly a must see for anyone that believes that the photos at Qana were staged. It completely debunks the "our photographers do not set up photos" and "the rescuers were not holding up the children for photos" claims. Believe it or not, it is a link from Wikipedia of all places. Here's the direct link to the...

Lebanese rescuer 'Green Helmet' injured A civil defense worker who has drawn controversy for holding up the bodies of children killed in Lebanon said Tuesday he was lightly injured fighting a weekend fire sparked by an Israeli bomb. Salam Daher, dubbed the Green Helmet for the color of his civil defense headgear, said he was hit by debris Sunday when a bomb or missile fell on a building while he was helping to battle a fire at a gas station in the port city of Tyre. "I fell over when the bomb hit, and I got some scratches from debris...

Ray Robison has yet another example of staged photojournalism from Lebanon, a car with verses from the Koran strategically placed for propaganda effect: Al-AP at it again with staged photos. Ray comments: Notice this car has a wall-hanging positioned on the door. An Arabic reader tells me this board has verses from the Koran on it. Because Islam does not allow for images of the Prophet Mohammed, Muslims use verses to adorn their homes the same way some Christians use paintings of Jesus. If you want to make the argument that this wall-hanging got where it is by chance, then...

Fox is now showing the German TV video of Qana showing Green Helmet Guy posing a dead child Click here to watch the Fox News video Here is the original FR post Here is the original video on YouTube: Green Helmet the movie director [Germany's NDR busts him in the act]

The recent discovery that a Lebanese freelance photographer, Adnan Hajj, had manipulated pictures he took for Reuters has raised questions about the standards of photojournalism at a time of widespread digital photography. The case also increased pressure on news photo editors, who select and edit thousands of photographs under deadline pressure each day, to detect digital alterations. "The Soviets had to have a whole department to doctor pictures," said David Friend, an editor at Vanity Fair and a former director of photography for Life magazine. "Now all it takes is a swipe of a mouse, and the kid down the...

AP Circles the Wagons Around Green Helmet Guy It’s utterly surreal. The Associated Press does a full court press, supporting the man they now call Salam Daher with a multimedia presentation packed full of distortions and outright lies: A Grueling Task in Lebanon. Watch the AP presentation here: A Grueling Task in Lebanon

Kopel: Were front-page photos staged? Images from Qana raise issue of whether media were manipulated. If you see a news photograph of the war in Lebanon, shot from within Hezbollah territory, can you be confident the picture and caption are accurate? Unfortunately, the answer is no. Earlier this week, Reuters fired photographer Adnan Hajj and withdrew his portfolio of 920 pictures after Little Green Footballs, The Jawa Report, and many other weblogs provided evidence that Hajj had used digital editing and other techniques to fake numerous photos of the Lebanon war. On July 31, the News and Post ran the...

DAY 2 - THIS IS OUR 'TOP' POST UNTIL WE GET A RESPONSE FROM AP Page views since posting: 10,411 - First posted: 7.25 PM 10 August 2006. New post underneath this one. They hunt in packs, they film in packs and they lie in packs. And their bosses, sitting in their air-conditioned offices, thousands of miles from the action, back up their lies. And the liar-in-chief is Kathleen Carroll, senior vice president and executive editor for Associated Press. Unlike Reuters' who have at least admitted their photo-fraud and started their own internal investigation, Carroll's hastily-produced "rebuttal" of the staged...

At first everyone thought they were just blowing smoke, but the debunking of a Reuters photograph by a group of Web sites has launched a fiery online war in which bloggers have taken on the mainstream media. Bloggers, or writers on web logs, were the first to reveal that a Reuters photograph depicting plumes of black smoke rising over Beirut was doctored to enhance smoke above the city. The Web site www.LittleGreenFootballs.com is credited with first revealing the scandal, which has been dubbed Reutersgate, but the affair has spread far wider than the Reuters News Agency and into several of...

ATTENTION EDITORS - CAPTION CORRECTION FOR SJS01 - 05 WHICH WERE TRANSMITTED AT APPROXIMATELY 1725 GMT ON AUGUST 9, 2006. THE CAPTION INCORRECTLY STATES THE CAUSE OF DEATH. CORRECTED VERSIONS IMMEDIATELY FOLLOW THIS ADVISORY. WE ARE SORRY FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE CAUSED. REUTERS. A Palestinian man carries the body of three year-old Raja Abu Shaban, in Gaza August 9, 2006. The three-year-old girl who had been reported killed by an Israeli air strike in Gaza on Wednesday actually died of an accident, Palestinian medical workers said on Thursday. Workers at Gaza's Shifa hospital said on August 10, 2006 that the...

-Snip- As we said about the Reuters incident, media bias is a consensus, not a conspiracy. Consensus is what this apparent rash of unprofessional photography appears to be, which should remind U.S. policy-makers that active public diplomacy is indispensable as long as there are journalists who find war stories too good to check. -Snip-These new instances appear to be shoddy journalism, not propagandizing, and so their bias is inadvertent but nevertheless revealing. -Snip- Once the facts emerge in such cases, the full weight of the government's communications efforts should be made to ensure that the correct information is distributed broadly...