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NEWARK — Two New Jersey men intent on killing American troops were arrested Saturday as they boarded flights to link up with a virulent jihadist group in Somalia, authorities said. The men, both North Jersey residents, were charged with conspiring to commit an act of international terrorism through a group tied to Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network, according to officials familiar with the details of the arrests. Mohamed Hamoud Alessa, 20, of North Bergen, and Carlos Eduardo Almonte, 26, of Elmwood Park were apprehended at John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens before they could board separate flights to...

A Muslim convert from Brooklyn who ran a website that posted threats against the creators of the television show "South Park" is expected to enter a federal guilty plea, his attorney said Wednesday. Jesse Curtis Morton, also known as Younus Abdullah Mohammad, was charged last year with communicating threats and has been in custody since he was arrested in Morocco in October. A plea agreement hearing in U.S. District Court in Alexandria has been scheduled for Thursday. Morton's lawyer, James Hundley, confirmed Morton will plead to three counts, including conspiracy and communicating threats. Each count will carry a maximum sentence...

A Muslim man who raped women to 'teach them a lesson' for being on the streets at night was jailed indefinitely today because of the danger he poses to women. Sunny Islam, 23, who comes from a strict Muslim family, dragged his terrified victims - including a 15-year-old - from the street at knifepoint, bound and assaulted them during a two-month reign of terror. Police fear that Islam may have attacked many more.

Israel’s National Security Council thinks that President Barack Obama is naïve in his attitude towards the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, which stated Sunday it can’t fathom the idea of recognizing Israel. Dr. Rashad Bayumi, the Brotherhood’s number two leader, said on Sunday, "No Muslim Brotherhood members will engage in any contact or normalization with Israel.” President Obama has asked the Muslim Brotherhood’s leading jurist, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, to mediate secret talks between the United States and the Taliban, according to The Hindu newspaper. The jurist previously has called for killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq and has vowed that Islam “will conquer Europe...

MK Zvulun Orlev (Bayit Yehudi) intends to introduce Knesset legislation that would limit the authority of the government to abrogate prison sentence of terrorists and use them as “bargaining chips” to realize a policy objective. Orlev said that the recent experience of Israel's release of over 1,000 terrorists in exchange for Gilad Shalit had convinced many MKs and ministers for the need for such a law. Orlev said that a large number of government officials, Knesset members and minister now regret releasing so many terrorists for Shalit, and believe that Israel could have secured the kidnapped soldier's release using other...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Several Muslim leaders have declined invitations to the mayor's annual year-end interfaith breakfast, saying they're upset at police department efforts to infiltrate mosques and spy on Muslim neighborhoods. The imams and activists said in a letter to Mayor Michael Bloomberg that they're disturbed at his response to a series of stories by The Associated Press detailing New York Police Department intelligence-gathering programs that monitored Muslim groups, businesses and houses of worship. Bloomberg has defended the NYPD, saying last week it doesn't take religion into account in its policing. Bloomberg spokesman Stu Loeser acknowledged Wednesday that about...

Gannett - Link only: http://www.tennessean.com/article/20111222/NEWS01/312220066/Army-changes-JROTC-policy-Ravenwood-Muslim-case?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

The true identity of the Islamic forces is revealing itself to the large audience of the Western world, like in a mystery movie. Who can now claim not to understand, not to know? As its first revolutionary sign, Tunisia has issued a democratic constitution draft envisaging a ban for whoever has contacts and establishes relations with Israel; after their long victorious struggle, the Libyan revolutionaries have announced, as a great result of that bloodshed, that sharia would be coming and polygamy would be reinstated; the reformist Morocco has ben the stage of another Islamist victory; in Yemen, El Qaeda is...

A state senator from Southern California was considering calling for a boycott of Lowe's stores after the home improvement chain pulled its advertising from a reality show about Muslim-Americans. Calling the retail giant's decision "un-American" and "naked religious bigotry," Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, told The Associated Press on Sunday that he would also consider legislative action if Lowe's doesn't apologize to Muslims and reinstate its ads. The senator sent a letter outlining his complaints to Lowe's Chief Executive Officer Robert A. Niblock. The retail giant stopped advertising on TLC's "All-American Muslim" after a group called the Florida Family Association complained...

As'ad AbuKahlil—a political science professor at California State University, Stanislaus—spoke last month at a day-long "teach-in" at the University of California, Berkeley titled, "Building Solidarity with the Arab Spring." It consisted of a number of "workshop sessions" at the Valley Life Sciences Building, followed by a "plenary session" at the Multicultural Center, and was co-sponsored by the Arab Resource Organizing Committee, the Berkeley Muslim Students Association PAC, the International Socialist Organization, and the Syrian American Council. AbuKhalil's workshop on "The U.S. and the Arab Uprising" was held in a tiny, hot, windowless room filled with students wearing hijabs and keffiyehs....

Israel is the biggest loser from the strong showing of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Egyptian parliamentary election, Hamed Bitawi, a top Hamas representative in the West Bank, said Saturday. Bitwai's comment came as Hamas expressed relief over the Muslim Brotherhood victory. The Muslim Brotherhood triumph in Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco elections comes on the eve of preparations for celebrations marking the 24th anniversary of Hamas's founding in the Gaza Strip. Hamas supporters said that the rise of their political allies to power in the Arab world was "the biggest birthday gift for Hamas" on the anniversary of its establishment....

When Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney announced last month that Walid Phares -- a Lebanese-American Christian, adjunct professor of jihadist global strategies at the National Defense University, and former Middle East studies professor at Florida Atlantic University -- would be a special adviser on the Middle East and North Africa, it elicited howls of fury from the usual suspects. Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) -- an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Hamas funding case and the chief Islamist organ in the U.S. -- sent a letter to the Romney campaign stating CAIR's...

"Don't expect me to take a pro-Israel view. I'm an Arab." So declared Gilbert Achcar—professor of development studies and international relations at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies—at the outset of his lecture last month at the University of California, Berkeley. Those in the audience hoping for scholarly objectivity were thus informed that Achcar's ethnicity trumped intellectual independence and that, despite evidence to the contrary (Nonie Darwish, the founder of Arabs for Israel, comes to mind, as do the majority of Israel's Arab citizenry), an Arab could not be pro-Israel. One had to give him credit...

Somewhere in the heavens above Amarillo, angry shouts rang out from the back of Southwest Airlines Flight 3683. “You’re all going to die,” a man dressed in black screamed at passengers Tuesday afternoon. “You’re all going to hell. Allahu Akbar,” translated as God is great in Arabic. Federal authorities arrested Ali Reza Shahsavari, 29, of Indialantic, Fla., onboard the Boeing 737 after pilots made an emergency landing at Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport at 3:30 p.m. He is being held in the Randall County jail on a federal charge of interfering with a flight crew. None of the 136 passengers...

A group of about 30 protesters broke into the Israeli Embassy in Cairo Friday and dumped hundreds of documents out of the windows after a day of demonstrations outside the building in which crowds swinging sledge hammers and using their bare hands tore apart the embassy's security wall. Hundreds of protesters converged on the embassy throughout the afternoon and into the night, tearing down large sections of the graffiti-covered security wall outside the 21-story building housing the embassy. Egyptian security forces made no attempt for hours to intervene. Just before midnight, a group of protesters reached a room on one...

Attitudes about Muslim-Western relations have become slightly more positive in the U.S., Britain, France, Germany and Russia compared with five years ago, though negative views between Muslim countries and the West persist on both sides, a Pew Research Center survey found. The survey, by Pew's Global Attitudes Project, found majorities of Muslims surveyed in five of six Muslim-dominant countries and the Palestinian territories described non-Muslim Westerners as selfish and greedy. In all of the six Western countries surveyed, less than 30 percent of non-Muslims said they consider Muslims respectful of women. Ten years after the Sept. 11 attacks, Muslims in...

NASHVILLE — A Muslim soldier from Fort Campbell has been approved as a conscientious objector to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but that status is on hold now that he’s been charged with possession of child pornography. Pfc. Naser Abdo, a 21-year-old infantry soldier, applied for the status last year after he decided Islamic standards would prohibit his service in the U.S. Army in any war. The Deputy Assistant Secretary, Army Review Boards Agency, recommended he be separated from the Army as a conscientious objector. But the discharge is delayed until the criminal charge is resolved.

JUSTICE. Finally. For a time, it looked as though this day would never come. It appeared that the brazen Aug. 2, 2007, shooting of journalist Chauncey Bailey in downtown Oakland would go the way of so many other unsolved murders in a city where it often seems no one is held accountable. Your Black Muslim Bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV was widely suspected of ordering Bailey killed to prevent the 57-year-old Oakland Post editor from publishing a story about the bakery's troubled finances. Yet Bey and accused accomplice Antoine Mackey were not charged with the killing until April 2009. For...

ELCA NEWS SERVICE May 27, 2011 9/11 anniversary time for awareness, healing, says ELCA presiding bishop 11-076-JB CHICAGO (ELCA) -- As the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States approaches, the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), invited members to reach out to ecumenical partners, as well as Muslim and Jewish partners, in planning commemorations. Hanson wrote in a May 24 letter that he prays members focus on "peace, justice and interfaith encounter." The presiding bishop's invitation was also accompanied by a series of resources for congregations...

CAIRO, May 7 (Reuters) - Five people were killed and more than 54 were wounded in a sectarian clash in Egypt on Saturday over a Christian woman who had allegedly converted to Islam, health officials said.

The Oakland police sergeant who led the investigation into the slaying of journalist Chauncey Bailey denied in court Tuesday that he had promised to protect the former leader of Your Black Muslim Bakery from criminal liability in the case. Sgt. Derwin Longmire's comments came as the trial of Yusuf Bey IV, 25, the one-time head of the self-described black empowerment group, and a former bakery member drew near a close. Alameda County prosecutor Melissa Krum referred to a conversation secretly recorded by police in 2007 in which Bey boasted to followers that his ties with Longmire were "the reason they...

CAIRO – Hundreds...have staged a protest in front of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo to demand the release of an Egyptian cleric imprisoned in the United States for plots to blow up New York City landmarks. Omar Abdel Rahman, also known as the blind sheik, is serving life in prison after a 1995 conviction for his advisory role in conspiracies to blow up the United Nations and several New York bridges and tunnels. ....Thursday, protesters near the heavily fortified embassy held banners reading "freedom for our sheik" and chanted slogans and held prayers. The protest leader was Abboud el-Zomor, who...

Jury in the Chauncey Bailey murder trial could see the hourlong clip as soon as Wednesday. OAKLAND -- Large portions of a secretly recorded police video on which former Your Black Muslim leader Yusuf Bey IV laughed about the 2007 killing of journalist Chauncey Bailey, threatened to kill a police officer and implicated himself in a kidnapping and torture case can be shown to jurors, a judge ruled Tuesday. The jury in Bey IV and co-defendant Antoine Mackey's triple murder trial could see the video as early as Wednesday, after other witnesses testify in the case. Judge Thomas Reardon, working...

JERUSALEM – An anti-tank missile fired from the Gaza Strip struck a school bus in southern Israel Thursday, wounding two people, one of them critically, and prompting fierce Israeli retaliation that killed five Palestinians. Israel unleashed airstrikes and tank fire against Hamas targets across the border. It was the heaviest assault on the coastal territory since a broad military offensive two years ago. Besides the dead, more than 30 Palestinians were wounded, said Palestinian health official Adham Abu Salmiya. He said one of the dead was a 50-year-old civilian who was sitting outside his home when he was struck by...

Just when it seemed as though the misuse of language and imagery associated with the Holocaust could get no worse, along came "Never Again for Anyone." A national speaking tour designed to coincide with International Holocaust Remembrance Day, "Never Again for Anyone" traveled the U.S. from January 25 through February 19, 2011, landing at the First Presbyterian Church in Oakland, California on February 17. The event was a benefit for the virulently anti-Israel organization, the Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA). The purpose of the tour was pernicious: to draw a connection between the Holocaust and the Arab-Israeli conflict, with Israelis cast as the new...

VILLA PARK – About 500 protesters from various groups demonstrated and chanted slogans against or in support of Councilwoman Deborah Pauly in front of Villa Park City Hall Tuesday evening. The large majority of protesters were Muslim supporters who organized in response to a speech by Pauly last month at a Yorba Linda rally. About 50 protesters showed up Tuesday night to support Pauly. The two groups faced off in the walkway in front of City Hall before the council meeting shouting at each other through bullhorns and brandishing signs with phrases such as, "I'm a Muslim not a terrorist,"...

Moustafa Bayoumi, associate professor of English at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, gave a lecture at the University of California, Berkeley's Center for Middle East Studies (CMES) last month titled, "How Does It Feel To Be a Problem: Why Arabs and Muslim Americans Are at the Heart of Today's Culture Wars." Bayoumi is the editor of How Does it Feel To Be a Problem: Being Young and Arab in America, a collection of biographical stories about young, Brooklyn-based Arab-Americans that the CMES website describes, among other things, as "a catalog of mistreatment and discrimination."Baymoui's narrative of Arab victimhood...

When he was in his residency, studying psychiatry at Walter Reed Army Medical Center from 2003 to 2009, Nidal Hasan gave a lecture in which he defended Osama bin Laden, justified suicide bombers and suggested that Muslim Americans in the military - like him - could be prone to fratricidal attacks against fellow troops. He was "a chronic poor performer," who often failed to show up for work and was often on probation. His program director considered him "very lazy" and "a religious fanatic." His superiors described the first draft of a presentation needed to complete his residency as "not...

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) -- The founder of a Muslim-oriented New York television station has been convicted of beheading his wife in 2009. Muzzammil "Mo" Hassan never denied that he killed Aasiyah Hassan inside the suburban Buffalo station the couple established to promote cultural understanding.

Domodedovo airport: Blast rocks Moscow's main airport breaking news Moscow's Domodedovo airport - the busiest in the Russian capital - has been rocked by an explosion. Interfax news agency reports at least 10 people have died and 20 more are injured.

Islamic protesters sparked fury today after they burned a model of a poppy and deliberately broke the silence at Armistice Day commemorations in central London. As millions of Britons fell silent to remember those who have died in war, members of a group called Muslims Against Crusades clashed with police during an 'emergency demonstration' in Kensington, west London. As the clock struck 11am, the Islamic protesters burned a model of a poppy and chanted 'British soldiers burn in hell'. They held banners which read 'Islam will dominate' and 'Our dead are in paradise, your dead are in hell'. The Muslims...

During an appearance on CNN’s Parker/Spitzer, Radical Muslim cleric Imam Anjem Choudary revealed a few unsettling details of Islamic extremists’ worldview, including the role of “moderate” Muslims in spreading Sharia law around the globe. Choudary says that spreading Sharia law is a “noble” goal as it represents a “superior way of life” compared to the “shackles of man-made law.” According to Choudary, violent terrorist attacks are a “peaceful” warning to countries like the United States and Israel, whom he claims are occupying Muslim lands. He also admits to encouraging Muslims in the United States to carry out these kinds of...

A Florida pastor's plan to burn the Quran on the anniversary of 9/11 is a breathtakingly dumb idea. It's bad for the country. As Gen. David Petraeus warned, this illiterate's stunt could incite violence against U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Pastor Terry Jones has argued that he enjoys a First Amendment right to burn the books. I'll buy that. Likewise an imam has the right to build a mosque where he will, but he ought not claim that putting an Islamic center near ground zero would help build bridges across religious lines. Jones explained his commitment to the pyrotechnics to ABC...

When the Rev. Karen Stokes was called to jury duty and found herself being screened for a long and complex trial involving a member of the former Your Black Muslim Bakery, her first thought was, "I can get out of this." When Alameda County Superior Court Judge Thomas Reardon said the trial would take about six weeks to complete, the calendar in Stokes' mind lit up. The trial schedule corresponded with Lent, the Christian season culminating on Easter. For Stokes, the pastor of Montclair Presbyterian Church, it was, in simple terms, her busy season. She listened as Reardon talked to...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) -- The Hamas government on Thursday executed two men accused of collaborating with Israel, signaling an escalation in the militant Palestinian group's method of controlling the Gaza Strip.

OAKLAND -- A member of the now-defunct Your Black Muslim Bakery could face up to life in prison after being convicted today of charges that he kidnapped a mother and daughter in East Oakland in 2007 and tortured the daughter so she would reveal the location of a drug dealer's cash. Richard Lewis, 26, took off his glasses, put his hands over his face and then shook his head as he was found guilty of three counts of kidnapping, two counts of carjacking and one count of torture in Alameda County Superior Court. Lewis faces a maximum sentence of life...

MOSCOW — Two female suicide bombers blew themselves up on Moscow's subway system as it was jam-packed with rush-hour passengers Monday, killing at least 37 people and wounding 102, officials said. The head of Russia's main security agency said preliminary investigation places the blame on rebels from the restive Caucasus region that includes Chechnya, where separatists have fought Russian forces since the mid-1990s. The first explosion took place just before 8 a.m. at the Lubyanka station in central Moscow. The station is underneath the building that houses the main offices of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the KGB's main...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A video made by three cousins from Hayward charged with an alleged anti-gay shooting with a BB rifle last month in San Francisco shows 11 other attacks in a single night, authorities said Friday. The men have been charged in San Francisco with a hate crime and assault for allegedly firing a BB rifle Feb. 26 at the face of a man they believed was gay. The man, who was walking on 16th Street near Guerrero Street, was not badly hurt and later identified the three suspects. The three were freed on $50,000 bail soon after their...

OAKLAND — The city's Police Department had an unwritten policy of avoiding confrontation with members of Your Black Muslim Bakery, a retired officer testified Thursday. That policy once included police retreating from the bakery's San Pablo Avenue complex despite reports of a woman being held there against her will, he said. Frank Gyson, who retired this year, said he did not recall when the incident took place. The bakery closed in August 2007 following the arrest of its leader, Yusuf Bey IV, and several of his followers on numerous felony charges, including kidnapping, torture and murder. "It wasn't a written...

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) -- A Danish newspaper on Friday apologized for offending Muslims by reprinting a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb-shaped turban, rekindling heated debate about the limits of freedom of speech. Danish daily Politiken said its apology was part of a settlement with a Saudi lawyer representing eight Muslim groups in the Middle East and Australia. It drew strong criticism among Danish media, which previously had stood united in rejecting calls to apologize for 12 Muhammad cartoons that sparked fierce protests in the Muslim world four years ago. Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen expressed surprise at...

OAKLAND — A jury Monday deadlocked on assault charges against three men who once were members of Your Black Muslim Bakery and acquitted a fourth, ending a two-week trial with no convictions. Jurors told Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Horner that they could not reach verdicts against Dahood Bey and Basheer Muhammad, who were accused of leading an attack Dec. 21, 2008, against a man who rented a room from Bey. Bey also was charged with torture. Ajuwon Muhammad, the third defendant, was acquitted on a robbery charge; jurors said they could not agree on an assault charge against him. The...

UC Irvine Police arrested 11 people Monday evening on suspicion of disrupting a speech that Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren was giving on U.S.-Israel relations. (Original story about the protest.) The protesters — 8 UCI students and 3 UC Riverside students — were cited for disrupting a public event. (UCI said last night that 12 people had been arrested.) Police have identified the students as: UC Irvine Joseph Tamim Haider Osama Ahmed Sabry Shabaik Mohemed Mohy Eldeen Abdelgany Ali Mohammad Sayeed Asaad Traina Mohammad Qureashi Aslam Akhtar Hakim Nasreddine Kebir UC Riverside Taher Herzallam Shaheen Waleed Nassar Khalid Bahgat Akari

A 47-year-old San Francisco man was convicted Tuesday of four misdemeanor counts related to a September incident in which he harassed members of a local mosque celebrating Ramadan, according to the district attorney's office. Gregory Tolbert, also known as Troy Adams, was found guilty of two misdemeanor counts of battery and two misdemeanor counts of interference with the exercise of civil rights for a Sept. 20 encounter with congregants of the Al-Sabeel mosque, the district attorney's office said. Tolbert reportedly showed up at a breakfast reception in Victoria Manalo Draves Park in the South of Market District, where members of...

FREMONT — Despite concerns that the Fort Hood shooting rampage would lead to a new backlash against American Muslims, optimism pervaded a Sunday gathering of hundreds of Bay Area members of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "There is hope for Americans who happen to be Muslim," said host and Fremont dentist Mohammad Rajabally, who said attitudes toward Muslims have improved but could fall back into misjudgment and hatred without persistent advocacy. The fundraising banquet for the Bay Area chapter of the nation's largest Muslim civil rights group carried a cheerful name — "A New Era of Hope" — but came...

In the wake of the horrific attack at the Fort Hood military base in Texas earlier this month, and the mounting evidence that the shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, was motivated by Islamist beliefs, the media has turned to Middle East studies "experts" for enlightenment. Instead, what the media, and, by extension, the American public, has received is the moral relativism and obfuscation that too often meets any effort to address Islamism or jihadism in an intellectually honest manner. Writing for the Washington Post's "On Faith" blog, John Esposito, professor and founding director of the Saudi-funded Prince Alwaleed bin Talal...

The Council on American-Islamic Relations sent out its usual roundup Tuesday of news stories alleging the mistreatment of Muslims in America. There was a story critical of the FBI harassment of Muslims in Queens, N.Y., in the wake of the arrest of a suspected terrorist. Another story concerned calls for an investigation into an FBI shooting that left Detroit Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah dead. There were also notices of CAIR banquets. There was no story about Noor Faleh Almaleki. Her father, Faleh Hassan Almaleki, has been arrested for running down his 20-year-old daughter, as well as the mother of her...

Oakland, Calif. (AP) -- Court documents claim a man charged in the murder of an Oakland journalist was also involved in the killing of his own brother. Yusuf Bey IV, former head of Your Black Muslim Bakery, has pleaded not guilty in the deaths of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey and two other men. Yusuf Bey IV's brother, Antar Bey, was killed in 2005. Alfonza Phillips is serving life in prison for that murder. In documents filed last week seeking to overturn Phillips' conviction, defense attorney Randi Covin says Yusuf Bey IV and two other men acted on their intent...

Explosions have hit two luxury hotels in the Indonesian capital Jakarta, say police reports. The country's Metro TV reported that one blast was heard and felt at the Ritz-Carlton and another hit the Marriott Hotel. At least three people were injured in the Marriott blast, the Associated Press quoted police as saying. One witness told Reuters some windows on the lowers floors of the Ritz-Carlton hotel had been shattered.

Suspected Muslim guerrillas detonated a bomb near a Roman Catholic cathedral in the southern Philippines on Sunday, killing at least five people and wounding 46. The bomb exploded outside the Immaculate Conception cathedral in Cotabato city as churchgoers were attending Mass. Two people were killed instantly in the attack and three others, including a militiaman, later died in hospitals, military officials said. Among the wounded were six soldiers and militiamen who were in an army van that passed by the cathedral when the device, fashioned from a mortar round, exploded, Cotabato city Mayor Muslimin Sema said. The improvised explosive, which...

Oakland, Calif. (AP) -- A former community-group leader accused of ordering the murder of three men, including a newspaper editor, was scheduled to be arraigned Friday. It'll be the third time Yusuf Bey IV will stand in front of a judge for the murder of Chauncey Bailey and two other men in 2007. Bailey was an editor for the Oakland Post and working on a story about the finances of Bey's Your Black Muslim Bakery when he was gunned down on the way to work.