Free Republic

The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) has completed training for 2,200 Transportation Safety Officers (TSOs) at the Los Angeles International Airport according to a press release found on the MPAC website. The MPAC release notes that the two-month training course informed officers of "the diversity of Muslims around the world from cultural dress to language to tenets. The four trainers taught the TSOs how to properly handle a Quran and discussed the different ways Muslim women and men choose to cover or dress. For example, the TSOs learned if a woman wears hijab and needs a secondary screening she should...

ROSEMONT, Ill. - American Muslim leaders ended their largest annual meeting with a rousing plea to thousands of community members that they vote in the presidential election. Muslims urgently want to register their political presence in this country as a step toward ending what many believe are excesses in the war on terror. "We have to demand justice," said Mahdi Bray, head of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, as the convention wound down Sunday night. "We have to stand up to this government and say, `What you're doing is wrong.'" The American Muslim Taskforce, an umbrella group for top...

Will radical Muslims sue you? © 2001 WorldNetDaily.com If anyone will improperly benefit from the terrorist attacks, it's the usual culprits – trial lawyers – and a new one: radical Islamicists. Lawyers and America's organized radical Muslims have developed a whole new litigation racket to clog the courts. First, there is Arab-American Congressman Darrell Issa, R-Calif. Issa plans to introduce legislation to allow Arabs and Muslims who are "victims of racial profiling" to file discrimination lawsuits and collect monetary damages, "if profiling is not done properly." This is ridiculous. Basically, Issa is telling law enforcement: Don't do your job at airports ...

The indictment of eight people on racketeering charges for allegedly financing and supporting homicide bombers in Israel is an important first step on a very long road. The indictment charges that Palestinian Islamic Jihad - which the United States has officially designated as a terrorist organization - has been deeply entrenched in the United States for more than two decades and that it has used American academic and fund-raising groups as fronts for operations that have been responsible for the deaths of more than 100 people, including Americans, in the Middle East, mostly in Israel. Thirty-six of the total have...

I've been away this week and only have a passing knowledge of the mosque issue. I do wonder if Obama is fasting during Ramadan. Has he been observed eating before sundown this weekend?

The Bush Administration has been diligent in conveying its friendliness toward Muslims and for this the president is to be commended. It would be both morally and strategically wrong to suggest that the war on terror is a war against all Muslims. But in seeking out American Muslims to praise and embrace, the president has been led into a hornet's nest because the most conspicuous Muslim American organizations - though not necessarily the most representative -- have intimate ties to Saudi money and are often only one step away from terrorists and their supporters. Questionable groups have obtained access to...

It is interesting to note that CAIR director Nihad Awad will soon be sharing center stage in a major conference with Mohammad Akram al-Adlouni, the probable author of the most damning documents made public during the Holy Land Foundation trial. The conference in Denmark, heavily populated with Muslim Brotherhood figures, is, according the program, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Nakbah or catastrophe, as they refer to the founding of the state of Israel. the old gang is getting together again, in the service of the Muslim Brotherhood and its armed wing, Hamas. It was al-Adlouni who penned the...

Last week, MPAC completed a quarterly training for Transportation Security Officers (TSO) with about 2,200 officers receiving training on cultural awareness about Islam and Muslims. This was an important achievement for MPAC and the Muslim American community in light of the recent airport security changes and because TSOs are responsible for screening passengers and luggage. MPAC President Salam Al-Marayati, MPAC Civic Outreach Coordinator, Saadia Khan and MPAC volunteers, Nisreen Malhis and Sireen Sawaf, conducted the trainings at Los Angeles International Airport for the past two months. They discussed the diversity of Muslims around the world from cultural dress to language...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The FBI has launched an inquiry into the dealings of an Orange County grocery store owner who is allegedly the U.S. leader of a little-known radical Islamic group that has been banned in parts of Europe and the Middle East, authorities said. Iyad Hilal, an Islamic author and philosopher, has lived in Orange County for more than a decade and hasn't drawn much attention to his writings or his role in the group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, which means Party of Liberation. The group has come under attack since the July 7 bombings in London where British Prime...

LOS ANGELES Immediately following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Jews and Muslims met and prayed together. Five years later, members of the two faiths are volunteering and teaching together. In coming months, hundreds of Jews and Muslims will take their respective faiths to Los Angeles area streets, working in teams to conduct college teach-ins and help the homeless, immigrants and the working poor. The project is a testament to the evolution of the interfaith movement here a fragile work-in-progress that took root after the terrorist attacks and has grown despite the pressures of war in Lebanon, violence in Iraq and...

Focus should be on extremists' war against the West. By Omran Salman On Aug. 10, British police arrested 24 Muslim suspects in a plot to blow up 10 U.S.-bound jetliners over the Atlantic. If successful, the attack would have killed thousands of people. The terrorists were motivated by religious extremism. Rather than just condemn the plot and address the scourge of Islamic extremism, Muslim groups such as the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) and the Muslim American Society (MAS) sought to both legitimize terror and portray Muslims as victims. Do these organizations really...

Teresa Watanabe is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Like others in daily journalism, myself included, in the late 1990s she began writing actively about Islam in America.  A check in the Timesarchives shows that although almost no clips are available before 1998 in which the words “Watanabe” and “Muslim” appear together, from then on she accumulated 100 bylined stories dealing, at various levels of attention, with the faith of Muhammad. However, Watanabe has consistently shown herself to be an enabler of Islamist ideologues in their attempts to present themselves either as innocent throughout their careers in Southern California,...

(CNSNews.com) - "The keyboard equals Kalashnikov" is a popular new slogan among radical Islamic groups today, according to a recent report highlighting extremists' use of the Internet in spreading their message. The expression, a reworking of "the pen is mightier than the sword," refers to the computer keyboard and the Russian assault rifle more commonly known as the AK47, popular among radical and terrorist groups for many decades. Experts are voicing concerns that extremist messages on the web may contribute to radicalization, even among residents of the United States. Islamist groups have created a sophisticated online media network, complete with...

WASHINGTON - Three years after Muslim Americans overwhelmingly voted for George W Bush, democratic presidential candidates are courting these disenchanted voters in hopes of winning millions of backers in key states. "I want to earn the support of Muslims and Muslim leaders across the United States," Senator John Kerry, a Democrat from Massachusetts, told a major Muslim conference outside Los Angeles last weekend. "I very much hope for your support," Democratic front-runner and former Vermont governor, Howard Dean, told the same meeting, the Muslim Public Affairs Council annual convention. Dean, Kerry and Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich all called in from...

<p>The Muslim council posted this call for action on its Internet site, together with praise for Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, who has worked with Islamic groups in behalf of the Republican Party (see below - ST).</p>

Muslim leaders on Tuesday called Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger disrespectful and insulting for ignoring their request to meet about the war in Lebanon so he could explain his appearance at a rally supporting Israel that was attended by thousands. Schwarzenegger and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa spoke at the July 23 event in front of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles building on Wilshire Boulevard. On Aug. 6, two days after Muslim leaders held a news conference to complain that the mayor and governor had ignored several requests to talk, Villaraigosa met privately with 10 Muslim leaders and apologized for...

I will not apologize for the statements I made about the Muslim Public Affairs Council. Its bullying attempt to stifle free speech will not stand. On January 26, 2007, I appeared on Fox News Channel’s Hannity and Colmes program to discuss a January 8, 2007 meeting between the Attorney General of the United States and various Muslim and Arab groups, some of which have a long history of supporting terrorist groups and extremist ideologies.  In response to a question from Alan Colmes about the importance of “good relations” between Attorney General Gonzales and the Muslim community, I stated, “[b]ut when...

(Judicial Watch) — A new Homeland Security report compares terrorism to “ordinary crime” in metropolitan U.S. cities and omits the radical Islamic factor, instead finding “significant variability in the ideologies motivating terrorist attacks across decades.” This appears to be part of the Obama Administration’s Muslim outreach effort, which includes hiring a special Homeland Security adviser (Mohamed Elibiary) who supports a radical Islamist theologian and renowned jihadist ideologue. The Obama Justice Department also created a special Muslim Engagement Advisory Group to foster greater communication, collaboration and a new level of respect between law enforcement and Muslim and Arab-American communities. And, in...

NORTHRIDGE - The Muslim university student was listening to his biology professor when the lecture sharply digressed from evolution. "Don't talk to Muslims about religion," the California State University, Northridge, teacher reportedly said. "Because they turn to a different animal." The unidentified student reported the incident to CSUN's Muslim Student Association, which sent a letter to university President Jolene Koester, demanding that the teacher apologize and that the university conduct sensitivity training. "The school needs to provide a safe environment for our students' education," said Zabie Mansoory, Muslim association president. "It is a biology class, for God's sake. Religion shouldn't...

<p>KARACHI: Pakistani security forces along with help of US intelligence arrested Abu Yahya Mujahdeen Al- Adam, who is a close associate of Osama Bin Laden. Abu Yahya was arrested on Sunday from an area surrounding the super highway, on the outskirts of Karachi.</p>